Band of Five Attributes (Re-Written)

The next morning, Nurse Redheart escorted the stallion home. Accompanying them was a royal guard, the same one who had reported finding the wreck of a pony in the Everfree Forest a month or so ago. Some ponies who were out and about would stare at the odd trio for maybe a moment, perhaps two, before going about their business.

During the whole trip, Tenmei said nothing. Not one word escaped his lips in so much as a whisper. When he entered the house, he was met with Kaguya’s forelegs wrapping around him in a tight hug, pulling him close to her. He heard her sob softly.

“We...we thought…” She trailed off, her body shaking as she held him close. Tenmei couldn’t recall the last time he had seen or heard Kaguya cry like this, but she was sad now. The elder mare, usually calm or angry, was crying; shaken up. “We thought you’d die…” She murmured, still embracing the stallion.

01 trotted to the two, then sat down next to both and he hugged them as well. “It was...horrific. We all feared the worst had happened…” He murmured. “And...it nearly did.” He added with a soft sigh.

Tenmei shifted a bit. He knew full well what the elder stallion spoke of. Even so, he said nothing about it.

“At least...at least you’ve pulled through.” 01 sighed, a tear streaking his cheek as he finished speaking.

Tenmei still didn’t speak. He did, however, nod in response.

The trio broke the group hug, and Kaguya wiped her remaining tears away with a hoof. Her face was red, though it clearly wasn’t from her anger. 01 did much the same with a hoof of his own. Both noticed, only now, that the young stallion hadn’t said anything since he came back.

“Are...are you alright?” Kaguya asked, blinking as Tenmei looked up at her.

“Yeah, just...haven’t been feeling like talking lately…” The stallion answered, ears flat on his skull.

Rekka and Koto were trotting along towards Twilight’s house, the great big treehouse on the west side of town. Between them, not uttering a single word, was Tenmei, who currently had no discernable emotion present on his face. Not too far behind were Nagare and Yuuki, the latter of whom was airborne, but flying low. The lack of words from the stallion with glasses didn’t slip by so easily with his other friends, and they were going to find a way to address the matter.

Once they reached the treehouse, Rekka stopped before the door and began to knock on it with his hoof. Yuuki let her hooves touch the ground, and she and the others eyed the sight patiently.

After a bit, the door opened, and Spike was behind it. “Hey.” He said. “What’re you guys doing here?”

“Tenmei’s...well, we’re all starting to think he’s going mute, and we don’t know why. Can we see Twilight?” Rekka asked, sighing afterwards.

“Mute?” Spike asked, a brow arched.

“Ergo, he’s kinda not talking much. Said he didn’t feel like it.” Koto translated, glancing at Tenmei. “It’s...not like him.”

“I’d say don’t pry too much. Maybe he’s just not comfy talking today. His throat could be sore.” Spike proposed, pointing a claw at the brown-maned pony of the lot.

Koto blinked. Spike could have raised a valid point. “Is your throat hurting?” She asked.

Tenmei shook his head. “I feel fine.” He said quickly.

“There went that theory.” Yuuki dryly remarked, ears twitching as she spoke.

“So...uh, yeah. Could you get Twilight, please?” Rekka reiterated, looking at Spike as he said this.

“Come right in. Just don’t make a ruckus or anything like that. Fluttershy’s...well, she doesn’t quite know you guys yet.” Spike warned, running back inside on his two little legs and allowing the group to follow. Nagare closed the door once everyone else was settled in the library, which had doubled as an impromptu living room.

Near a small round table was Twilight Sparkle, who was very much occupied chatting with a butter yellow pegasus mare with a long, flowing pink mane that swirled at the end, and eyes of teal. Her cutie mark, three teal-bodied, pink-winged butterflies, sat perfectly on her flank in a manner which would very much reflect their delicate flight patterns.

The two mares noticed the five who just waltzed right in, and the pegasus gave a startled “Eep!” and cowered behind her forelegs and mane. At this display, the group of five went silent and wide-eyed for a moment before remembering that, as Spike said, she simply didn’t know them right yet. They shared a collective, calm sigh at that fact.

Twilight seemed to have grimaced as she saw the ponies. Spike went up to her and tugged her foreleg to divert her attention towards him.

“They said Tenmei’s falling quiet lately.” Spike said quickly. “I suggested he had a sore throat, but he actually proved otherwise.”

Twilight nodded, then looked to the pony with glasses. “Are you okay?” She asked.

“I am. I just don’t feel like talking.” Tenmei replied, subtle bitter tones resonating in his voice, though he certainly didn’t look bitter. He didn’t have narrowed eyes, flattened ears, or even a tail between his hind legs, so to speak. (As a matter of fact, his tail was still growing back.)

“Uh-huh,” Twilight replied with a slow, almost weary nod. She turned to the pegasus mare. “It’s alright, Fluttershy. These ponies are good ponies.” She said.

Fluttershy removed her face from her forelegs and mane, looking at the purple unicorn with worry in her eyes. “R-Really?” She asked.

Twilight nodded. “Though, they can get a bit rowdy sometimes. Personally, I blame fatigue on that one.” She remarked, chuckling lightly at the loud thought.

Nagare raised a hoof to object to that remark, and his mouth worked up and down, but he could not form words. He set his hoof down in short order.

“And a side of roughhousing.” The unicorn added, grinning lightly.

Fluttershy nodded, then turned to face the five ponies. The five spread out a bit so she could see their individual features without the lot being bunched up together. She found that, much to her shock, at least three of the five cutie marks were weapons. Rekka’s cutie mark she found a little confusing, and Yuuki’s looked like a simple toy. An odd-looking toy, but a toy nonetheless.

“How...how did you get those cutie marks? I-If you don’t mind me asking…” Fluttershy murmured, blinking as she further inspected the cutie marks.

“I’d give a demonstration, but today’s simply not the day.” Rekka replied quickly. The heads of the other four ponies who were visiting nodded in unison.

“I showed my skill with swords to a few troublesome stallions a month or so ago. ‘Offense is the best defense,’ so they say.” Nagare remarked calmly, a small smile on his muzzle as he remembered that event. “Hopefully, they won’t bother me and Yuuki again.” He added nonchalantly, an image of Spitfire chewing out that lot of morons playing out in his mind.

“That sounds worrying.” Twilight commented with a sigh.

“It does, but it was taken care of with no injuries whatsoever.” Nagare replied, calm as ever. “Flight captain probably reminded them all night long of how...dense they were.”

“Did you face the captain’s ire too?” Twilight asked, brow arched.

“No, though we did tell her our side of the story.” Nagare replied, eyes closed in a serene look.

Fluttershy looked over Koto’s cutie mark for the third time. “N-No offense, but I haven’t seen any unicorn with a cutie mark like that…” She murmured.

“None taken.” Koto replied, smiling faintly. “I keep seeing a minty green mare with a lyre for her cutie mark. She’s been playing the lyre a lot lately, from what I’ve seen of her. It sounded really pretty.”

Yuuki spread her wings a bit before she closed them again, sighing softly as the feathers lay neatly against her sides. Her dark purple feathers looked a bit messy, but otherwise as they should. She shot a glance at Tenmei, who had sat on his rump to clean his glasses.

The mare rose a hoof and gently poked the stallion in the shoulder with it. He shot a glance at her, putting his glasses back on afterwards. Yuuki then gestured with her hoof in Fluttershy’s direction, causing the stallion to look at the aforementioned yellow pegasus. “She’s looking at ya, Tenmei.” Yuuki pointed out quickly.

“I-I hope you don’t mind me asking this,” Fluttershy started, her voice nearly a whisper, “but why are you going mute?”

Tenmei’s ears immediately fell flat on his skull. He pursed his lips together, unsure of how to respond to that question. He shifted his forelegs nervously, gulping hard.

“I have some books that could explain why he’s going mute.” Twilight interjected, causing Fluttershy and Tenmei’s friends to glance at her. Her horn lit up in purple, and some books flew off the shelves to her. They practically circled her as she seemed to read their contents faster than any have seen before.

Eventually, she found the one she was searching for, signaling this with a quick “Aha! I found it!” before putting all other books back on the shelves. She held the book before her, wide open like the others before they returned to their proper place, and she was sifting through the pages with ease.

“What’s the book saying?” Rekka inquired, brow arched as he watched the purple unicorn sift through the pages as she searched through its contents.

“Give me a minute,” Twilight replied, not once looking away from the book until she stopped sifting through the pages. “Okay, I found the page I was looking for...let’s see...temporary or permanent muteness in a pony can be caused by several factors, ranging from simple sore throats--which we already ruled out--to extensive, psychological trauma.” She said, pausing for a moment before continuing, “I’m not quite sure what could be causing his muteness, but at least it’s not full-on muteness, so we do have a plus on that part.”

“So…” Yuuki started, mentally piecing Twilight’s words together in her head, “his muteness is temporary?”

“From what I can divulge, it’s either that or selective muteness--that is, he only talks when needed.” Twilight replied with a nod, still reading the book as if engrossed in it. “There are still several possible factors we need to take into account, though. Do any of you know what made him silent for the most part?”

“Well, from what I heard,” Nagare started, rolling his eyes and sighing as if bored, “he had four surgeries in the course of a month after royal guards found him near-dead in the Everfree Forest. He was already surrounded by timberwolves to boot when they got there.”

Twilight pried her head from the book, and she looked at the green pegasus with widening eyes. “Oh my Celestia! Are you serious?!” She asked, blinking a few times.

“Yes. I wish I lied. When we first saw him in that bed, he was wrapped nearly head to hoof in bandages.” Nagare answered, nodding as he spoke.

“And he had five blood bags and four IV bags attached to him. Nurse Redheart said he suffered too much blood loss during the first surgery, and that his temperature was much too low for comfort.” Rekka added, shaking just a little bit at the thought.

“That...sounds a lot like psychological, and physical, trauma to me.” Twilight stated, eyelids slanting in worry.

“We kept thinking he wouldn’t pull through. Kaguya broke down a few times at the mere thought of it.” Koto stated, ears flat on her skull now.

“As in...broke down crying?” Twilight inquired. Koto merely nodded quickly. “I never knew it was that serious. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She added quickly.

“Well, you never asked.” Nagare jabbed back with another sigh, “That, and since we have a small dragon and a pegasus who just barely knows of our very existence, I was starting to figure the two were better off not knowing about it, but that’s just me.”

“Anyway, this is starting to sound more and more like he’d been traumatized to me.” Twilight sighed, then she continued, “It’ll be very hard to get him to speak about it if that’s the case.”

“You’ve no idea how many times we asked him about it since Kaguya noticed. He just tenses up and won’t answer.” Yuuki sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head as if defeated.

“Could...could you tell me what happened? For them?” Fluttershy asked, putting a hoof on the silent stallion’s shoulder as if to reassure him.

“It’s...it’s that I won’t tell you,” Tenmei spoke at last, his voice as shaken as he appeared, “it’s that I can’t tell you.”