A Study in Blue

“Mr. Collar?”

A single auburn eye opened and sought out the source of the beckoning question.  A cyan unicorn mare whose auburn mane was tied back in a tight bun was looking expectantly at the only figure sitting the small waiting area.  The ivory stallion rose slowly to his feet, mindful of the weight he was putting on his left foreleg.

His movements were stiff, even after all of this time.  According to the doctors upon his release from their care, they would remain stiff for the rest of his life.  Understandable, given how little of his limb had been salvageable, given the extent of the burns.  Tendons and ligaments had been moved around to compensate for their missing compatriots, at the expense of the range of motion he had once enjoyed.  At least he could walk at all.

A bleached cape fluttered around the leg as he walked towards the mare.  Occasionally, the mangled flesh was visible as the fabric billowed.  The stallion noticed that the mare's eyes didn't leave his own face as she stepped aside to allow him into her office.  She was a professional, and comported herself as such.  Not that he would have held it against her if her gaze had been drawn.  Most looked.  The majority had the courtesy to pretend that they hadn't.

White Collar's eye passed over the contents of the office as he stepped through the door.

A bookshelf was built into the wall to his left.  Most of the titles were illegible from this distance, but he could at least identify the telltale plastic bindings of dissertations and studies.  The rest of the leather-bound volumes were labeled with a typeface that tended to be reserved for reference materials.  Meant to simply convey the title and author, and not draw the eye of a perspective leisure reader.

A few of the books looked to have been recently read, their spines not lined up perfectly with their brethren.  Either the mare frequently reread them to keep up her craft, or she had done some specific research for his case in preparation for their premiere session.  In either case, it showed that she genuinely cared for her patients.

His gaze slid to the far wall of the office, directly in front of him, and the assorted certifications that hung above a maroon sofa.  Two bachelors, a masters, and a doctoral degree.  Along with a license for operating a practice in the Trottingham area.  Credentials.  Typical for the workplace of any skilled practitioner.

Her desk dominated the right side of the room.  Mahogany, and functional, though not simplistic in its construction.  Designed to show success, while not being overly flamboyant.  Several photos were arranged on the surface.  White Collar noted that the pictures faced outward, into the rest of the room.  They would not be visible if the cyan mare were seated at the desk, but they were angled perfectly to be clearly seen from the massive leather-backed chair near the couch.  This 'Doctor Summer Breeze' apparently spent more time consulting with her patients than sitting at her own desk.

“Have a seat on the couch, Mr. Collar,” the mare directed sweetly as she closed the door, “make yourself comfortable.”

White Collar didn't respond verbally, merely approaching the sofa in silence.  He noted the schools on the various diplomas, now that he was close enough to make them out.  He then mounted the low cushions sofa, wincing slightly as his leg protested the movement.  As another consequence of the severe injury affecting his limb, he could not quite tuck it under his chest as he would have liked to.  Instead, he leaned slightly on his right side, the leg sticking out awkwardly under the cape.

The cyan mare moved to the nearby chair and sat her haunches down upon it.  A notepad and quill became enveloped in a golden haze, matching the glow emanating from her horn.  The quill dipped a couple of times into an inkwell before settling to hover above the pad of paper.  She took a deep breath and released it slowly, favoring the stallion with a soft smile.

“Have you ever done this sort of thing before?” she inquired politely.

Her words were...soothing.  Melodic.  If she had not achieved favorable marks in her pursuit of psychology, White Collar imagined that the mare would have found ample employment as a singer somewhere.

“You know I haven't,” he answered, nodding his head in the direction of what he presumed was his medical file sitting upon her desk.

“I only know what's been documented,” Summer Breeze correctly gently, “if you've spoken with a friend 'off the record', it wouldn't be in the file.

“Have you spoken with a friend about what happened?”

Copper Top regarded her with his uncovered eye, “are you talking about last week, or what happened last year?”

“Whichever you'd rather talk about first.”

The white stallion looked at her with a narrowed eye.  He hated ponies who were evasive with their speech.  Obfuscating.  Dancing around the issue did nothing to resolve the problem, “I'm not here because of what happened in some valley on the frontier.”

“Aren't you?”

White Collar seethed inwardly for a brief moment, but kept back the outburst he would have preferred to make, “I'm here because I lost control.  I made a mistake.  I admit that.  I've already apologized, and I'm covering the cost of his treatment.

“It's over.”

“The judge disagrees,” Summer Breeze pointed out.  She had made a few notations as the stallion had spoken, “he has some concerns that it could happen again.”

“I didn't realize I was the first pony to ever get in a fight in all of Equestria's history,” White Collar stated dryly.

The therapist smiled sadly, “I'm afraid it's far more complicated than that, Mr. Collar.  Have you been following the news recently, regarding returning soldiers from the Frontier?”

“Can't say that I have, no,” he admitted.  What was happening in the rest of Equestria had not held much interest for him.  He didn't even follow what was going on in the rest of Trottingham.

“Yours was not an isolated incident,” Summer Breeze informed her patient frankly, setting the paper and quill down momentarily, “in fact, there have been fourteen instances of sudden and violent brawls in the Trottingham area alone in the last three months.  Nopony has been seriously hurt though.  Not yet.

“What these fights all have in common is that they all involve at least one pony who recently returned from a tour on the Frontier where they saw significant action,” the mare went on, “it's a trend that has the mental health community concerned.  It has been nearly a thousand years since Equestria had a major war.  Whatever techniques ponies used to deal with the stress brought on by combat has been lost to time.  We didn't even suspect it was something we would need to address.

“Reality has proved otherwise.”

“So, what?  I'm an experiment?”

“The subject of yet-untested treatment and counseling protocols, yes,” the mare admitted with a nod of her head and a wan smile, “so I would appreciate all the cooperation you're willing to give me.  This isn't just about you, but your fellow returning soldiers; and helping them to avoid incidents like yours.”

White Collar frowned, looking away momentarily.  Admittedly, he had not known all of that.  He'd not really entertained the notion that his was a common issue.  He hadn't believed that he was the only pony to be dealing 'poorly' with his past experiences, but he hadn't thought that such incidents were actually quite so...prevalent.

He'd assumed that other ponies had a better handle on themselves than he did.

“What did you want to know?”

The pad and quill were glowing once more as they wafted into the air before the mare, “tell me about the fight.  Specifically, what lead up to it?”

White Collar kept his head low as he walked stiffly down the street.  Why couldn't everything just be delivered to his door?  Food, sure.  Mail, of course.  Clothes?  Apparently not.  At least, not custom tailored cowls that were intended to conceal the horrific scarring that covered the left side of his face.  It seemed that in order to make certain such a specialized article of clothing fit, the tailor needed to actually take measurements of his head and face.

Who knew?

Losing half of your field of vision was disorienting.  Suddenly there was this void that had never existed before.  His depth perception was completely gone.  There was also the matter of his self-consciousness.

The doctor who had treated him had suggested the cape and cowl when White Collar had voiced concerns about the looks of his scars.  Of course, in retrospect, the amount of attention the garments drew was nearly as much as the injuries themselves.  Though the expressions of nearby ponies were those of curiosity, as opposed to revulsion.  So, that was a plus.

Though, once again, there was the matter of the impaired peripheral vision...

Something, or rather, somepony collided with White Collar.  It wasn't that hard of a hit, and in a perfect world the white coated stallion would have needed to do little more than stumble to the side in order to remain on his hooves.  However, not all of his legs were as receptive to sudden shifts in position as they had once been.  Thus, the hit was actually enough to send him to the cobblestone road with a grunt.

He whipped his head around and glared in the direction of the offender.  A mud colored earth pony stallion carrying a crate on his back looked down at him, his face showing an expression of mild concern.

“You alright, chap?” his gravely voice asked.

White Collar felt himself tense as he looked up at the larger brown form that seemed to be hovering over him.  His heart quickened, and in some distant corner of his mind he heard the faint sounds of screams and the crisp ring of steel striking steel.  He closed his eye tightly and pushed the sounds back into that shadowed hollow of his memory.

He was a long way from that place.

“Yeah,” White Collar mumbled as he set about getting his legs back under him, “just, give me a little space...” he didn't like somepony being that close to him when he was on the ground like this.  Vulnerable.  Defenseless.  A figure poised above him...

He wasn't there anymore, the white pony reminded himself once again, more fiercely this time.

“Let me help you up,” the other stallion offered, extending a hoof.

Despite himself, White Collar recoiled from the limb.  In his mind, for the briefest of instants, it was no longer a hoof.  It was a claw-tipped paw, and there was a spear clutched in its grasp.  For just...a single, little, moment...

“I'm fine!” he snapped, for more aggressively than he had intended to.  He winced again, though not from pain, “sorry,” he added, “just...back off a little.  Please.”

The brown pony grimaced, “whatever,” he lowered the outstretched hoof and took two steps back, more mindful of the ponies walking by.  He bent his head down and picked up the cigar that had tumbled from his lips when he'd collided with the cowled pony.  Noticing that it was no longer lit after its impromptu meeting with the stone street, the brown stallion fished out a match from a low slung satchel at his side.  He drew it roughly along the stones, scraping away the red coating and allowing the phosphorous beneath to meet with the surrounding air and spark to life in a small, brilliant, burst of yellow fire.

Copper Top hadn't seen the majority of the other pony's movements.  His focus was on watching his injured leg to make certain that it was positioned correctly to support his weight as he got up.  So he didn't notice the match, or the cigar.  He heard only the sound of the small flame erupting to life, and then saw the brief flash of light just in the corner of his vision.

Then he was back in that Celestia-banished valley.  He was awash in the blood of a young gray mare who he'd only moments earlier dragged to her feet in an effort to vacate the kill-zone of the ambush that had been sprung; only for her to be instantly cut down by a flurry of arrows.

The falcon feather fletched bards hadn't left him unscathed either.  One had found its place in his left flank, causing his hind leg to buckle out from under him.  White Collar cried out in pain as he proceeded to try and drag himself towards the distant woodline, and the cover it would provide from the enemy's archers.  Around him were scores of other screaming ponies.  Though with every volley of deadly shafts, fewer and fewer cries remained.

Then he'd noticed the flare in the corner of his eye.  It had drawn his attention from the frightfully distant forest towards the rocky mountainside where the archers had concealed themselves before springing their trap.  Fires appeared.  First a few, then dozens, and then a hundred more.  Grey blankets were being thrown back, revealing that what had first seemed to be common boulders were in fact bails of hay.  Hay drenched with oil.

All of which were now being set ablaze.

Then they began to roll down the mountainside.

White Collar frantically pawed at the ground as he tried to scrambled out of the way of one of the bails that was rolling directly towards him.  He wasn't going to make it.

He held up his left hoof up protectively and screamed...

The ivory stallion was still screaming when he found himself standing over a battered and bloody brown mass.

A broken crate lay nearby, its contents spilling out onto the street.  A ring of ponies looked on in stunned silence, none daring to approach the panting stallion that they had just witnessed beat another pony into unconsciousness.  Many wore expressions of disgust mixed with their terror.  A few foals were whimpering as they clung to their parents.

White Collar's cowl had come off during the fight, and now lay on the ground nearby.  Flecks of the brown stallion's blood splattered across it.

He stopped screaming, tears in his eye.  He felt his whole body trembling.  His left leg ached terribly.

Now the scene finally registered.  It wasn't a diamond dog he was standing over.  It was a pony.  He wasn't in the valley.  He was on a market street.

“I...I'm...” the words caught in his throat.  He wanted to apologize.  He wanted to tend to the innocent that he'd hurt.  He wanted to.

But he didn't.

Instead, White Collar had merely taken a step back, laid down, and curled up into a quietly sobbing mass.  He didn't move when the guards showed up a minute later, alerted to the fight by a mare who'd kept enough wits about her to go for help instead of simply looking on dumbly as a pony was beaten within an inch of his life.  He didn't resist when they collected him.  He didn't...do anything really.  He was listless for most of the next two days while he was arraigned and held until the trial could begin.

It was White Collar's elder brother, Black Tie, who acquired an attorney; having heard about the incident from a bystander later that day.  It was the first time the two of them had seen each other in months, despite both being Trottingham residents.

“If it hadn't been for Black Tie,” White Collar concluded, “I would probably be awaiting Reformation, and not in counseling.”

“It's a good thing too,” Summer Breeze added, making a few final notes about his recounting, “this isn't the sort of thing a Reform Spell can fix, I'm afraid.  It's not a problem with the pony's core behavior.  It's a...malady.  An injury.

“It needs to be healed.”

“...How do you heal a memory?”  White Collar asked softly.  Talking about what had happened, both with the brown stallion and on the Frontier, had stirred some...unpleasant sensations within him.

“That's the trick isn't it?  I don't know.  None of us do,” Summer Breeze admitted, “we haven't seen this sort of thing in centuries, like I said.  We're not even sure what to call it!  I think the two biggest contenders are: 'Traumatic Stress Disorder' and 'Post-Wartime Aggression Syndrome', though 'Veteran's Fatigue' was popular for a time...”

White Collar shook his head and snorted, “naming it is the big concern?” he intoned dourly.

“No,” the therapist stated firmly, “treating it is the biggest concern.  However, we need to be able to identify it too.  To be able to say to ponies, 'look, this is a real thing; and the ponies who have it need our help, not Reformation'.

“And as far as treatment...” the mare sighed, “I'm afraid that we don't really have one.  Not yet,” she amended, “I want you to keep that in mind if we switch tracks suddenly between sessions.  I'm afraid the closest to this that I've dealt with is phobia cases; but I know that's not what this is.

“You're not afraid of ponies standing over you, or of fire.  They just trigger traumatic memories.  They make you anxious, and for a very justified reason.

“My concern,” Summer Breeze continued, “is that you are thinking about those memories too much...”

“I don't think about them at all,” the ivory pony insisted vehemently.

“Oh?  Then what do you think about?”  she asked, sounding genuinely interested.  White Collar was silent, averting his eyes.  The therapist pressed the issue, “who do you talk with frequently?  How do you spend your time?  Hobbies?  Work?”

Silence.

“You see my concern,” Summer Breeze pointed out, “I think, that with nothing to occupy you, you don't have a means to...distract yourself—you're mind—from those memories.  So they fester.  Grow.  Consume you.”

“You're getting rather dramatic there, Doc...” the ivory stallion said dryly.

“Perhaps.  In any case, I want you to find a way to occupy yourself more.  I don't care how.

“I noticed in your file that you ran a private investigation business before you were conscripted.  Perhaps take on a case or two?”

White Collar leveled a sour glare at the mare.  She merely regarded him pleasantly, though he saw the quill jerk over the pad momentarily as she noted his expression.

“I'll think about it.”

“Please do, Mr. Collar.”

She glanced up at the clock above the door, “I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today.  Same time next week?”

* * *

Insightful and Scrupulous Private Investigations

I.S.P.I.

“I think it's cute,” a voice from the past echoed in the cowled stallion's mind as he stared at the large window pane that dominated the front of a small brick building.  It might be easily overlooked, nestled among the much larger structures to either side.  It was significantly narrower than most of other business on the street, and could understandably be mistaken for merely being a part of one of its neighbors.  The only thing that set it apart was the writing on the frosted glass.

“Acronyms that sound like words are memorable!  And we want ponies to remember our business!”

White Collar had thought it ridiculous at the time.  It hadn't even been spelled correctly.  Granted, synonyms for 'investigations' that began with the letter 'Y' were rather rare.  Yet, to his chagrin, the idea had borne fruit.  They had been far from the only private investigation service in the city, or even the largest, but they had still acquired and maintained a lucrative client base for years.

Once upon a time, anyway.  They'd closed when White Collar's conscription notice arrived.  Hard to run a PI business when the only PI isn't there anymore.

His salary in the military had been enough to maintain the payments on the building at least.  It hadn't covered much else, but that was alright.  As long as they were able to tread water until his service was up, that was all that they had needed.  Then he would come back and they could pick up where things had left off.

The best laid plans of mice and ponies...

White Collar pushed the door open and slipped inside.  He'd been back for nine months, and this room looked exactly like it had when he'd left nearly three years.  A little dustier perhaps.  Sheets were draped over a couch, coffee table, and a desk.  A few nick-knacks and a stack of old magazines served as visible mounds beneath their alabaster coverings.  His eyes lingered on the desk for a brief moment, and his chest tightened.  Again.

A closed door was set into the wall beside the desk.  'White Collar, PI' was embossed upon the wooden surface in brass letters.  His old office lay beyond, where he interviewed clients in private during cases.  He knew that sheets still protected the furnishings in there as well.  He'd gone into his old office his first day back, briefly.  The intention had been to carry on with the initial plan that they'd agreed upon for his return: getting right back into the old routine.

That ambition had been short lived though.  He'd made it as far as gripping the sheet over his desk in his mouth before his eye fell to a small protrusion on the desk.  He'd known what it was even through the sheet.  A picture frame.  One that contained a photo of a very special pony.

The sheet had fallen from his lips then, and he'd left the office.  The door had remained closed ever since.  Three year old plans suddenly seemed...pointless.

White Collar unfastened the clasp of his cape and hung the garment upon the coat rack near the door.  It draped along side two similar capes, one black and one blue.  You never knew what the occasion would call for, after all.

The stallion made his way up the nearby stairs.  They took him to the small apartment that existed over the office.  It didn't contain much.  A decently sized bedroom, a kitchen, a closet.  Meager accommodations perhaps by some standards.  'Efficient' had been his word to describe them.  'Intimate' had been hers.

As...cozy, as the apartment had been when he'd left, these days it felt too large somehow.  The second seat at the table in the kitchen seemed superfluous.  The closet appeared almost empty with only his few sets of clothing hanging within.  The bed, once only just wide enough to sleep a pair of snuggling ponies, now made him feel like he was a foal sleeping in an 'adult-sized' bed.

He still slept on the right side.  'His' side.  He'd tried sleeping in the middle those first couple of nights.  It had felt...wrong.  Like those few nights when she'd been away for one reason or another.  Back then, those nights had been unbearable.  He'd counted the minutes until she'd return.

She wasn't going to return this time though.  But, White Collar had found that if he just stuck to his side of the bed, he could pretend.  For a few minutes, just long enough for him to fall asleep, she wasn't gone anymore.  She was simply late to bed.  Staying at her desk, finishing up an invoice, or filing away a closed case.  In a couple minutes, she'd be coming upstairs, and he'd feel the mattress shift as she climbed in and cuddled up to him.  Her feathery wing would drape over his side...

For a fleeting moment...she was there.

And when he woke up the next morning, he would forget why she wasn't.  'Oh,' he would say to himself, 'she must be making breakfast.'

Then everything would come crashing back to reality like a dropped piano, and another day would resume its tedious march into oblivion.

Maybe Summer Breeze had been right, the ivory stallion supposed as he removed his cowl.  A distraction might do him some good.  He didn't like what he felt whenever thoughts of the past wandered through his idle mind.  It was all tightness and dread and regret.

Unfortunately, so much of what he had once done to pass the time accomplished only the exact opposite of what the therapist desired for him.  His job served only to remind him of what he'd lost.  His friends, the ones who were still alive anyway, only brought back memories of the valley.  His family...

His father was dead.  His mother was...somewhere—Bullgaria?  Or was she in Moscow by now?  And his brother, Black Tie, was three years further along with his own life than he had been when White Collar had gone off to the Frontier.  Black Tie had been single and still studying at the university when White Collar had left.  Now he was working, married, and a father to boot.  A stallion like that had too many obligations for White Collar to impose yet another on him.  The chemist had better things to do than foal-sit his younger brother.

So, since anything to do with his old life was out of the question, that left only something new.  What that was, he had no idea.  Yet.  Perhaps a walk through downtown Trottingham would permit something to catch his fancy.  As long as he managed to keep himself more collected this time...A second incident, on the hooves of the first, was unlikely to be quite as favorably received as the first had been.

White Collar laid the cowl on the nightstand and crawled onto the right side of the mattress.  He turned his head and glanced behind him at the empty pillow.

“This is a big step for us,” the sandy-hued pegasus mare grinned as a pair of unicorns floated the bed up the narrow stairs towards their apartment.

White Collar glanced back at her and quirked an eyebrow, “this?  It's a bed.  I think we've taken quite a few 'big' steps already, don't you?  Like, you know, buying a house together?  Among other things...”

“Pfft,” the mare waved away, “lot's of ponies have lived in this place before.  But that's a whole new bed!  We'll be the first ponies to ever sleep in it through a whole night!” she proclaimed in a tone that suggested she either did not realize the two delivery ponies were within earshot, or that she didn't care.  The pegasus leaned in close to him and batted her eyelashes, “we'll also be the first to do...other things in it...”

White Collar feigned considering her point, eying the two unicorns with an appraising eye, “I'm not so sure,” he stated, rubbing his chin in mock speculation, “those two looked pretty familiar with one another; and it did take them a bit longer than it should have to travel six blocks from 'Beds and Paper'...”

For a moment, the mare's jaw went slack and her eyes wide as she looked up at the unicorns as they vanished into the apartment, “you mean they-” her words halted abruptly as she caught his coy smile, suggesting that his supposition had been made in jest, “oh, you are horrible!”

“And you, my dearest Meadow Lark, married me...”

White Collar lay his head down and closed his eye.

“Goodnight, Love...”