Bravest Face

by DoctorBraino

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Sex, Anthro, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Other, Original Character
Length: 4930

A widower and his young son face life without the one they loved most on the dangerous Equestrian Frontier.

The year is 1975.

Trimble is a developing settlement on the Equestrian Frontier. The little community on edge of life is home to a population of 300 ponies, among them a grieving father and his young colt. Three years have come and gone since Michelotto's wife passed away. Since then, he has managed to keep his life from falling apart at the seams. He has given up being a miserable alcoholic in favor of raising his son with tender care. The whiskey in the dining room liqueur cabinet has not been touched in over six months. Its doors remain unlocked and unprotected, a sobering reminder of where the struggling father has come from; a dark place he no longer wishes to return to. Every time he feels the urge to sit down with a bottle and drown his misery, his five-year-old colt Machiavelli is never far from his mind, a little glimmer of light in the dreary shadow of his life.

The nuclear power plant where Michelotto works lies just beyond the fields of the town; its lone cooling tower looming over the settlement, a sentinel watching over its denizens with a two-edged sword. It was built on the banks of the Sunflower River before Trimble landed on the edge of Equestria's map, the spawn of an age of atomic romance and a thirst for expansion. Perhaps it's not unusual, then, that it earned the name 'The Guardian of the Equestrian Frontier.'

Others know it as 'Trimble Nuclear Generating Station No. 1.'

A select handful know it as 'The Beast.'

It is a nickname most deserving of its experimental reactor core; which has been kept a closely guarded secret.

Until now.

This week, Trimble's population rose to 301. Now every pony is in danger.

Published 2013-11-12 18:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-16 19:24:34 UTC

Prelude

Michelotto shuddered from his slumber at the sound of the alarm. The pulsing tone drove him from the recesses of his mind and pulled him into the morning light. He reached over and hit the alarm with a disciplined hand, ending its tirade with a well placed crack. Taking a deep breath and holding it, the earth pony put his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes, blinking and squinting to adjust to the sun pouring through the blinds across the room. He sighed and sat up slowly, scooting himself against his headboard.

He turned his trunk carefully, anchoring his legs to the bed by spreading them wide and locked. A few vertebrae popped quietly. He stopped at a stubborn one, not quite wanting to relieve itself, but needing the release before Michelotto would go any further. He rested his right arm on the headboard and twisted his torso harder, finally gasping as the vertebrae let out a crack and loosened fully. He slouched slightly and rubbed his face again and slowly drew the covers off himself, greeted by a cool breath of air.

A hand touched his thigh. He grabbed it softly and rubbed it with both hands, massaging its knuckles with his thumbs, pressing in and moving them in circles against each other. He kneaded his fingers into the soft, fleshy palm and slowly released, feeling its warmth lingering on his hands. He stroked the arm it belonged to with a firm, reassuring pressure, then rose to his feet and stretched.

"Did you sleep OK?" Michelotto asked, directing the question to nothing in particular. The words hung in the air and dissipated, absorbed into the silence. The stallion walked over the window and reached for the string holding the blinds partially open and gave it a strong pull. The small metal slats flew upward and stuck, drenching the room in the fullness of the morning's light. The covers of the bed writhed and twisted, as if they were some nocturnal animal that would rather stay up all night and sleep all day.

Knowing his son, this was a normal morning.

The mass under the sheets let out a muffled groan. "Da-d!" it cried. "I don't wanna get up!"

"What's that, Mr. Night-Owl?" Michelotto smirked, removing his flannel nightwear and replacing it with a pair of dungarees. "I can't hear you through all those sheets!"

"I said I don't wanna get up!" the voice whined again. Putting on a shirt and socks, Michelotto stumbled over to the bed and jumped onto the mattress. He landed on all fours and shook the bed as much as he could. The tremors rocked the bed frame and knocked the nightstand over, sending the alarm clock and lamp to the floor with a crash.

"What's that?!" He mock-shouted. "I can't hear you through this earthquake!" He shook the bed more, trying his best to get the lumps under the sheets to move.

"Aaah! Dad!" the lump cried. "I said I don't wanna get up!"

The sheets reared and flew off the bed, revealing the small colt beneath. A flash of orange and cream lunged at the tremor-inducing monster and flung his arms around its neck, wrestling it fiercely.

"Ra-awr!" Michelotto roared. "You're going to wake up, whether you like it or not!" he growled, reaching his arms around the wee beast and ripped it from his neck. The colt squealed and tried to wriggle free. The stallion threw the colt to the end of the large bed, where he tried to stand through the shaking. "I'm gonna pancake you!" the stallion hissed, clapping has together for emphasis. He flattened himself and rolled across the mattress. The colt squealed again and leapt as the stallion's bulk closed fast toward him. The stallion roared and toppled over the bed, falling to the floor with a catastrophic 'thud'. "Oh, you got me!" he snorted. He shook and shook, fighting his inevitable demise. The colt leapt of the bed and landed next to the wounded monster.

Michelotto writhed as his son tickled him ferociously, fighting and laughing until he was on the verge of tears. Finally, his son stopped and delivered the 'killing' blow; a single hug was enough to subdue the father until both were quiet, laying on the bedroom floor. Michelotto stroked his son's orange mane and returned the hug, burying his face in his son's shoulder.

"I love you, Machiavelli," he said, whispering.

"I love you too, dad." the colt replied. He sighed and nuzzled his father's chest.

Silence followed for several minutes.

Finally Michelotto broke the embrace. "So are you ready for your first day of school?" he asked, looking into his son's eyes. Machiavelli hid his face and whined.

"No! I don't wanna go to school!" He laughed and his dad bumped him in the butt with his knee playfully. "I wanna stay here at home, with you! And I wanna hang out with Nikolai at the park and go chasing butterflies and stay at home all day!"

Michelotto laughed. "Son, you can't! You're five years old now. I have to go to work at the power plant, and I can't always take you there with me."

"You did that one time!" Machiavelli protested.

"That's because I asked Nikolai's dad, my boss, if I could and he said 'yes'! But kiddo," he stood up and put his son on the bed. "We're doing a big maintenance project soon and I won't be allowed to take you there while we do it. I'm sorry." He opened the dresser and withdrew a light blue shirt and put it on. It read Casual Fridays Live for ME! He began putting on his shoes when his son stopped him.

"Uh, dad?"

"Yeah?" He replied half-present, checking his hair in the dresser mirror.

"It's Monday."

Michelotto looked at his shirt in the mirror, then stepped back and took it off, noticing the text. "So it is!" he said, putting on a white t-shirt. "Now c'mon, get dressed! You got a big day ahead of you!"

"Aww, but dad!"

"What, son?" Michelotto sighed. Machiavelli bounded off the bed and blocked his dad's escape.

"I go with you so I can go fishing!" The father's face twisted in confusion at his son's odd request.

"Huh?" he asked, still wondering what had prompted his son's interest in fish. He brushed past the colt and made his way down the stairs.

"You said you go to work and then you go fishing all day with Nikolai's dad and Mr. Samson and all you other work buddies!" The colt chased after him down the stairs. "So I thought you could take me fishing, too!" Michelotto paused and then shook his head in realization.

"No, son, I said we go 'fission' all day!" he waved his hand in the air. "Not fishing!"

"Same thing!" Machiavelli retorted.

"No, they're totally different! One gives Trimble power, the other gets me a couple bucks at the bait shop!"

"How does fishing give the town power?" the colt wondered. Michelotto put his face in his palm and sighed.

"Look, son," he said, "we'll go out to breakfast at Dice's, OK?" His son's eyes lit up.

"Can I get the French toast again?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes, Machiavelli, you can get whatever you want."

"Even the pancakes that come with the coloring book?" he bounced up and down.

"Yes," the father sighed.

"Oh boy!" The colt started out the door.

"BUT!" Michelotto stopped him. "First you have to get dressed and get your school things together-"

"But dad!"

"No buts, mister!" Michelotto wagged his finger. "Unless by 'but' you mean 'butt' as in 'butt upstairs and get dressed, now'!"

Machiavelli groaned and trudged up the stairs. Michelotto rolled his eyes and grabbed his car keys from the door-side table, from the bowl his wife had made him the day she discovered she was pregnant with Machiavelli.

How they wished she was here.

Dice's Diner

The colt kicked his legs back and forth beneath the diner seat, struggling to fit the next bite of pancakes in to his mouth. The thick, syrup-covered pastries taunted his senses as they refused to be consumed; they just sat there, laughing at him as he stuffed their comrade into his mouth with little avail, eventually giving up and returning the disk to its place atop the others on the plate.

"Just cut it with a knife, son." Michelotto said, stifling a laugh. "You can't fit the whole thing in like that."

"I'll get it" Machiavelli smirked, looking down at his plate. He took the fork in his hand again and dug at the pancake with its side, trying to free a piece for himself. He could almost hear the pastry screaming as it was messily dismembered, spilling syrup all over the plate. "I'll show you, pancake!" the colt muttered to himself.

"What was that?" the stallion asked, looking up from his plate of hash browns.

"Nothing-" the colt replied through a mouthful of syrup and food.

"Chew with your mouth closed, son."

The colt swallowed hard, gasping.

"What did I just tell you, kiddo?"

"You said to chew with my mouth closed." Machiavelli drank nearly half his glass of milk as soon as he was done heaving.

"Well I meant chew."

"I did!"

"You practically choked yourself on half that pancake!"

"I'm OK," the colt squeaked. "Besides, these things gotta go!" he started into the other half. Michelotto returned to his plate. He took a moment to savor the fried, salty crunch of the hash browns before getting an idea. He looked up to see Machiavelli struggling with the last of the pancakes. The milk was gone.

"So, son, you asked me earlier about fission." He leaned forward.

"No I didn't" the colt exhaled through his napkin.

"Yes, you did," Michelotto rebuked. "You asked me how fission could power a whole town."

"How does fishing power the whole town?" the colt interjected, as if changing the topic.

"Uh well, son-"

"Do the fish swim in a big hamster ball?"

Michelotto paused.

"Do you want me to tell you or do you want to keep guessing?"

"OK" Machiavelli sighed.

"OK! So! Everything's made of these little things called atoms - kind of like when you draw a circle in the dirt and put a bunch of marbles in it?"

"Yeah. Nikolai plays with them when he comes over sometimes."

"Atoms are like those circles. They fit together really tightly and make pretty much everything."

"Even me?" the colt perked up.

"Yes! And there's lots of different atoms, too! And atoms are made of a bunch of smaller particles - we call 'em subatomic particles. Those subatomic particles are the marbles, OK? Sometimes..." he paused, trying to think of where to go next. Explaining fundamental nuclear physics to a five-year-old was difficult. So difficult, in fact, that it may as well have been explaining fundamental nuclear physics to a five year old. He pressed forward, realizing it wouldn't matter if it made sense or not. After all, Machiavelli was barely beginning kindergarten later that day.

"Imagine you have three kinds of marbles; you got your plainsies, we'll call those 'protons'. Then you got your commies, you know, those clay ones? Those are your electrons. Imagine if you have a bunch of them on the outside-" he drew a circle on the table, "and that's your playing circle right there. And then-" he pulled a steel marble from his pocket, "you've got your steelies." The marble glinted in the morning sun, sporting a thin, wavy line running about the entire surface. "These babies are your neutrons. Now, if you get the same number of steelies and plainsies inside and the same number of commies on the outside, you got an atom. Sometimes, you get lots and lots of plainsies and steelies inside, so there's tons of marbles inside this circle," he swung his hands about in the air, mimicking grand gestures. "When you do that, the marbles are packed together, and they make the circle really heavy. They're just about ready to burst out of that circle! Then -" he tapped the steelie on the table. "You get one of these steelies wandering out there by its lonesome, so you take it like this-" he made a fist with his hand, tucking his thumb beneath the rest of his fingers. He set the marble in the impression of his thumb knuckle and pointed it towards Machiavelli.

"Uh, dad?" the colt tried to interject.

"And you use it as a shooter! The shooter goes in and boom! The marbles scatter everywhere and you're left with two smaller circles."

"Dad?"

"And a bunch of these steelies go flying everywhere and land in other circles, and then you get two small circles, and it goes on and on and on. We call that a chain reaction. And every time a circle, or atom, flies apart, we call that fission. And when you get a chain reaction going, it makes a bunch of heat that just goes all over the place. You keep the marbles in water, and when they fission and get all heated up like that, the water turns into steam, and it turns these big fans connected to motors that make electricity, and they light up all of Trimble!" He gasped, bright-eyed. Several of the other restaurant patrons turned, looking at the source of the commotion.

Machiavelli stared at his father with a neutral expression, mouth hanging open.

"It's cool, right?!" he laughed.

"Uh..." the colt stared. It was clear he had only understood a portion of Michelotto's analogy.

"Don't worry about it!" The stallion waved a dismissive hand. "You'll understand when your older. They'll probably teach it to you in elementary school!"

"No, that's not the problem, dad-"

"Hey! I bet you could come to the plant's visitor's center after we have the maintenance project finished! They got all sorts of cool displays and models, and they even have a big model of the power plant! I could have Nikola's dad teach you some more-"

"DAD!" Machiavelli blurted. Michelotto paused, wide-eyed for a moment.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Where'd you get my steelie?" the colt asked, pointing to the marble in his father's hand.

"Oh," the stallion muttered. "I uh..."

"Did you take that from my marble bag in the toy chest?"

"Uh... yes." Michelotto handed the marble over and returned to his hash browns. They were cold.

Machiavelli laughed and threw the marble into his father's water glass. Water splashed across the table and onto his glasses. Michelotto gasped and tore them from his face. The glass fell over and emptied the rest of the water onto the table and into his lap.

"Son!" he hissed. "why'd you go and do that? Now you got water everywhere!" He wiped the glasses on his sleeve and put them back on his face. Machiavelli giggled.

"Well that's what you get for getting into my toy box without asking!" he said snidely.

"I'm sorry , OK!" Michelotto shivered. The marble rolled across the table and into his son's lap. "But I'm your dad! I can get into your stuff if I want to!"

"No you can't!"

"Oh, so I can't get into your marble bag, but you can just dig through my clothes whenever you want to play dress up, is that it?" he laughed. Anger was not in his voice.

"That's not the point-"

"The point is under your hat, mister!" with that, Michelotto tipped his son's water glass, spilling water all over Machiavelli's lap. The colt stared, then began to tear up. "Aww, man," the father started, "I think we both wet ourselves!" He stood up, revealing a trail of water that ran from his crotch down to his boot, obviously the byproduct of the thrown marble earlier.

Machiavelli wiped his tears and laughed. He stood up and pointed at his father's pants.

"Aren't you a little old to be needing diapers?" he giggled.

"This is nothing!" Michelotto boasted, arms akimbo. "You should see your grandpa after he's back from the bar! You'd need some waders for that old coot!" The other patrons stared. One of them spoke up.

"Mickey, you goof! I thought they shipped your dad off to a home years ago!"

The father turned to face the voice.

"Jack!" he cried.

A cyan stallion, the source of the voice, smiled and reached out a hand. Michelotto outstretched his to return the gesture, only to be met with a revulsion from the former.

"Ugh!" the newcomer gagged. "Looks like you should be there with him!" he smiled, then swept his friend into a tight embrace.

"Jack, it's been so long!" Michelotto laughed, hugging back.

"How have you been, man! I haven't seen you since you moved out of Steelwood!"

"Oh, yeah, I've been working up at the new plant these last couple of years." He stepped back.

"Oh, of course!" Jack reeled. "Corporate moved you out here, that's right!"

"Eeyup."

"I see your little bundle of joy turned into quite the troublemaker, there!" The white stallion pointed to Machiavelli. "How are you doing there, sport?"

"Dad was telling me how fishing-" the elder elbowed his son, "er, fission, works! I think I get it."

"Hey , all right!"

"Oh, oh! And it's my first day of kindergarten today!" the colt bounced. Michelotto cocked an eyebrow and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, now he's excited!" he droned.

"Hey, all right!" the blue stallion punched the colt's shoulder in a playful manner. "My kid Howe's first day too! Maybe you two can hang out sometime!"

"Maybe-" the colt backed behind his father.

"Sure, it'll be great!" Jack said, enthralled. "Hey, how's that wife of yours, Matilda? How's she been?" he asked innocently.

Michelotto paused for a moment and looked at the ground. The bustle and noise of the diner seemed to pause with him. Several diners turned to the newcomer.

"Mickey, you all right?" he tried to meet his friend's stare. "Everything OK with you and your old high school sweetheart?"

"She's, uh..."

"You didn't get divorced, did you?"

"No Jack." Michelotto cut him off. "No, she..." he sighed, then took a deep breath.

"Jack, Matilda is dead. Don't you remember?"

"Oh!" Jack gasped. Michelotto looked up, a bit more sullen than he had been before. "Oh, geez, Mickey, I'm so sorry! I totally forgot, I swear!"

"Jack, you were there for crying out loud!

"I know, I know! I'm sorry, I can't believe I forgot-"

"It's, it's OK, really-"

"No! No, it's not OK! Sweet Celestia, Mickey!" he took a step back. "How could I forget that?

"I wish I could forget, every day." Michelotto stepped toward the door, opening it. His voice grew stern. "Come, Machiavelli."

"But dad-"

"To the car, son!" he ordered. Machiavelli wandered to the door and waved to Jack, then turned and made his way to the hotrod parked in the dirt lot in front of Dice's.

"Look, Jack-" the widower took a step towards the door. "I gotta drop him off at school. I'll see you some other time." He turned to leave.

"Wait, Mickey!"

Michelotto closed the door and made his way to the car.

Jack opened the door and shouted after him.

"I was going to say I'll see you at the plant!"

Michelotto gave him a dismissive wave.

"All- all right, then!" Jack closed the door and sighed.

He sat down at his booth and continued whittling at his now lukewarm soufflé.

The Razor's Edge

The whine of the car's breaks fractured the silence between the two ponies. Michelotto gripped the steering wheel tightly; the hardened leather squelching beneath his fingers as he wrung at it with a preoccupied fervor. His fiery passion for science and educating his son was now replaced with memories he was doing his best to ignore, unearthed by the pony he thought he had left in Steelwood. Machiavelli slung his arm out the passenger window, leaning his cheek on it and staring at the chip-sealed pavement below. He ran his fingers across the hot rod's bright-red surface, tracing over patches of white metal that didn't match the rest of the vehicle. Neither of them spoke. Silence hung in the air and meshed with the masculine hum of the engine.

Machiavelli was the first to speak.

"Dad?" he asked meekly. Michelotto remained silent for handful of moments. The light turned green.

"What is it, son?" the car rolled through the intersection.

"Who was that guy back at the diner?" he spoke, looking over at his father. Michelotto's grip tightened again, then slowly loosened. He squinted against the sunlight, which was now piercing through his mirrored aviators, causing him to slow the car subconsciously, if only by a hair. The memories continued to stir within him, now turning his thoughts to the cyan-colored, pink-haired stallion from the diner. All the things he remembered about the one he called Jack.

"Jack is an old friend of mine," he sighed, taking one hand off the wheel. "He and I met during our sophomore year at Canterlot High School. We took all our classes together, so we started studying and hanging out together. We worked all summer together mowing lawns so we could buy this car." The car slowed and rounded a corner, winding down Emerald Road.

"So he was like me and Nikolai?" the colt perked up. The car swung to the left and slowly grew louder, marching up the steep hill on Oak Grove. It rolled to a stop at the intersection, next to the gas station. The brakes whined again.

"Yes, I suppose so," the father said. "He introduced your mother and I during our senior year."

"He got you and Mom together?"

The car roared through the intersection and flew down the road, vaulting across the bridge spanning the Sunflower River.

"That's one way to put it," Michelotto smirked. "I wouldn't say he did it on purpose. He was dating your mother at the time, but I guess she saw something in me that he just didn't have." He puffed his chest out.

"What was it?" Machiavelli scooted to the edge of his seat and leaned forward, resting his head on the dashboard.

The hot rod's engine filled the air for a few minutes. He shifted in his seat and adjusted the crotch of his pants, which had become uncomfortably tight as he reminisced for a moment. He smirked to himself.

"I'll tell you when you're older." He squinted and blinked quickly, clearing his head. "Jack was pretty sore about it for a couple of weeks. He got over it after he cut this car's brake lines one day." He patted the dashboard.

"What happened?"

"I drifted around a corner because I couldn't slow down and got t-boned by a semi that was coming off the highway," he shivered. "Put me in the hospital for a while. The doctors didn't think I would last the first night. They put me under and kept me like that for a few operations and some of the recovery time. When I woke up, your mother was the first pony I saw. She had been coming every day after school to check on me, bringing me things like flowers, or chocolate." he smiled. "She even brought a photo of my car and the truck after they were moved off the road."

"Really?" Machiavelli asked, "This car?"

"Did you know that your half of the car is actually made from parts of that same truck?" the father laughed.

"You never told me about the accident," the colt pointed out.

"Didn't I? That's where I got those scars on my cheeks." He scratched his mutton chops and dug one finger in, pointing to the reddened flesh beneath his fur. His son stared wide-eyed.

"Is that why you have sideburns?"

"Yup. These windows shattered and part of the truck's grill came through my window and smashed me in the face. I almost didn't live on the ride to the hospital. But I guess there were a couple of miracles that first night because I got through it in one piece." He was quiet for a moment, reflecting on his accident. "Mostly." With each whir of a passing car he felt the memories surfacing bit by bit. He rubbed his eyes and sighed, adjusting his sunglasses.

"Then what happened?" the colt asked eagerly.

"Jack felt really bad about it. He met me at your grandpa's after I recovered, and he somehow got his hands on the rest of my car and some of the truck. He and I worked on this car for a few months, putting together what we could. We went to the scrap yard for what we couldn't, and we used pieces of the truck's body to make the skin for that side of the car. That's why parts of that side aren't the same color as the rest."

"Oh." Machiavelli reached out and traced the patches of uneven, discolored metal again. "Cool!"

"Well, after that, your mother and I got married, and after we graduated, Jack and I went to Canterlot University. I got a scholarship to study in the new nuclear energy program that was just starting up. After doing that for a couple of years we graduated and got placed in the Ministry of Energy's new Steelwood plant. We worked there together for about ten years, and then your mother gave birth to you."

"All because Jack introduced you to mom?" the colt wondered.

"More or less."

"Wow."

The car rolled to a stop on Triumph Road.

"I worked at that plant for two more years, and then your mother died." He fell silent. Machiavelli said nothing.

Silence filled the air again. The car continued on its way.

"How did she die, dad?" the colt asked quietly.

Michelotto sighed. The rows of houses that had lined the street slowly morphed into fields and thinly spread farm houses.

"She had just put you down for a nap when she collapsed on your bedroom floor. Jack and his wife were there with us, having lunch. He called the ambulance, but it was too late for anything to be done when the ambulance arrived. The coroner examined her body for signs of a heart condition; cancers, poisoning, everything. In the end he could only say that her heart simply stopped beating."

"Like a heart attack?"

"Not exactly." The car sped up a bit. the passing trees and fence lines swept by quickly. "Sometimes, your heart just gives up. The coroner said it was called 'sudden cardiac death.' Your grandpa told me that our hearts are only given a certain number of beats for one lifetime. And when they run out, that's it. It simply stops."

"That doesn't make sense," the cold sniffed.

"I know it doesn't. I took the next half year off of work, and spent time trying to find answers, but I never did. Some things in life will never add up. We have to learn to live with them, though."

The car slowed and turned left onto Friendship Road. A handful of houses dotted the road leading up to the Elementary.

"After that, I requested a transfer to the Trimble plant that was being constructed back then. I didn't tell Jack, though. I needed to get away from Steelwood. I needed some time alone, and Trimble was the perfect place. Jack wouldn't have understood, which is why I told him 'corporate' moved me out here, and that's the last I saw of him until now." He paused, thinking."I didn't know he had a son though. He never talked about anyone named 'Howe' either."

"Maybe Howe's adopted?"

"Maybe."

The car turned into the Trimble Elementary School parking lot and fell in line behind the other cars.

"Now look, son," he turned to Machiavelli. "I know you don't want to go to school, but trust me when I say it's important. If you keep your chin up, you might even make some friends." Machiavelli put his head down, then looked out the window. He sat up suddenly, then waved.

"Hey, look! There's Nikolai!"

"I know, son. Listen, just stick with him and try to get along with the others. Who knows, maybe you'll learn how fun it can be?"

"Like when you met Jack?"

"Exactly. Now get on out there and make some friends. I've got to run to the plant, but I'll be here to pick you up when school gets out, OK? We'll go to Dice's again and have lunch."

"OK, dad!" The colt opened the door.

"And son?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you." the stallion leaned over and kissed his son on the cheek. The colt reached his arms around his father's neck and hugged him tightly. Michelotto rubbed his son's back and kissed him again.

"I love you too dad."

"And I want you to remember something."

"What's that?"

"I'll always be here for you when you need me."

The colt kissed his father on the cheek, then jumped out of the car, shut the door and skipped over to his friend, sitting by himself on a bench in front of the school. Nikolai looked up and smiled.

Michelotto watched as the two ran to the playground. He turned and gave the car a little gas, easing it forward and out of the parking lot. Turning onto the road again, he continued past the fields of corn and cattle, in the direction of the cooling tower in the distance.