Unlike What We Remember

The Night Guard’s barracks, in a cave dug into the side of the mountain, had several things inside that would be unnoticeable in the low light to most ponies. The Thestrals that called it home kept various things there to mark which bunk was theirs to the others. The dim light coming from the Unicorn who was searching around it was unnoticed by most of the sleeping ponies there. Only one was awake to see it illuminate the photograph hanging above her bunk.

“You’re up early, Midnight,” the Unicorn said quietly.

“So are you, Aster. I thought you’d finally gotten used to our sleep cycle.”

“I still like seeing the sunset. What are you doing up so early?”

Midnight didn’t reply right away. Instead, she looked at the photo above her bunk, showing the two of them as fillies, plus a colt. The grey Unicorn was holding a mug of cocoa with two marshmallows floating in it, the rising steam visible even to the camera. The white Pegasus was shaking a present, unaware of the charcoal Thestral sneaking up behind him with a sprig of mistletoe in her teeth. It was the first Hearth’s Warming Eve that the Pegasus had been allowed to spend with them. “It’s his birthday today,” she said. “Nineteen years old.”

Aster just looked at the photo. “You shouldn’t still be hung up on him,” she said. “It’s been, what, four years since he disappeared? It isn’t healthy.”

“I can’t give up on Skipper. He wouldn’t have given up on either of us, if it were the other way.”

“Does it really matter? For all we know, he died in a shallow grave.”

“Don’t, Aster. Please, just don’t. I can’t give up on him. Not now. Not like this.” She closed her eyes and turned away from her friend. Aster started desperately casting around for a topic, not wanting to see her oldest friend in such a state, but couldn’t find one. She left her friend to her reminisce and headed outside to see the last of the sunset.

Unwittingly, she found herself reminiscing as well. Cloud Skipper was a Guard brat like the two of them. They’d been inseparable throughout their foalhood, along with his sister Florence. How two Thestrals had given birth to a Pegasus would be a mystery for the ages, since neither side was willing to admit to having anything less than pure blood. Still, even the purest bloodlines had some cross-breeding, or else died out due to incest, Aster thought.

Even so, they’d done their best to raise him despite the fact that he usually slept differently. He’d spent most of his time with Aster and Midnight, though he got along fine with his actual sister. Being almost the same age, Skipper only being a day younger than Florence on a technicality, they’d intended to wait for the youngest to turn seventeen before they all signed up together.

That had been the plan, but a few weeks after his fifteenth birthday, Skipper had disappeared. He hadn’t left anything behind that could be used to track him down: no note, no apology, not even a feather. They’d asked around about his whereabouts, putting a missing pony report as far out as they could, but by the time the others had come of age to join the Guard, they’d had to give up on looking for him.

None of them even knew why he’d gone. It was possible that he’d gotten fed up with life at home, though he’d never said anything to that effect. He could have found out he was adopted and left without waiting for an explanation, looking for his real parents. He could have been foalnapped, in which case he was probably dead already if he’d been gone for four years. Aster didn’t want to think about who could have foalnapped a Guard brat, but it seemed like the most likely answer to her. Without any clues to go on, though, Skipper had simply faded away.

She shook her head as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. It didn’t help her or anypony else to be thinking about him. She only got one night off a month, and she wasn’t going to let the past get in the way of enjoying it.

Midnight Blossom and Florence had managed to get the same time off for once, and they headed out into Canterlot together. None of them really had any idea where to start, so Aster eventually suggested Joe’s. It was a neutral location, so they wouldn’t get anything for being Guards or for the two Thestrals, and despite advertising as a donut store, it also had the best coffee in Canterlot. Nopony really knew why, but it wasn’t worth arguing when the coffee was that good.

There weren’t many ponies in the shop when the group arrived. Most of them were sitting separately, though there was a group of three Pegasi sitting together at one table. Two of them had manes that covered their eyes, though they were just as capable of seeing as the other, turning to see the newcomers immediately. “Hey, you see that?” the yellow one asked the grey and brown. “Looks like somepony took a bath in bleach!” He pointed at Florence, who turned as they all started laughing.

As her wings started to flare up, Aster pushed down on her left wing. “It’s not worth it. Besides, they’ll stop if you just ignore them.” With some effort, Florence turned away, returning to the counter with her friends. As predicted, seeing no fun in poking a rock, the group of Pegasi returned to their own conversation.

The group had just finished ordering when the bell over the door rang again. The pony who had come through didn’t walk up to the counter right away. He looked around, as though unsure of why he’d come in. As he was about to turn and leave, the straw-yellow Pegasus called out to him. “Hey, whitey! Are bleach baths in this year, or somethin’?”

The group laughed, and he turned around to face them all. Joe looked over as he set down three donuts and three coffees. “Something disturbs me about him,” he told the group. “Now, I know you’re Guard, and you’re probably off-duty, so it ain’t your place to get involved...”

“What’s the matter? Is there somethin’ on my face, whitey?”

“...but I think our friend here should stop talking soon. That silence doesn’t mean consent.”

“...Is that...? No. It can’t be...”

“Dogs bark to intimidate their opponents, make them run away without a fight. But only the small ones bark a lot, you’ll find. The quiet ones are the ones you have to look out for...”

“If you’re lookin’ for trouble, just keep lookin’ at me like that. What? Do you even speak CE? What are you even doin’ here if ya don’t?”

“...because they know they can bite if they have to.”

“I can’t see his Cutie Mark from here...”

The straw-coloured Pegasus got off his chair and stood in front of ‘Whitey’. “Hey, fellas, looks like this guy’s got a death wish. Ready to oblige?” As the other two stood up, along with Aster looking to stop a fight, all Tartarus broke loose as soon as the first punch was thrown.

Yellow had thrown a punch, but didn’t even see Whitey move to block it. Having his hoof suddenly held in place was disconcerting to him, and even moreso when he was spun around by that hoof, landing on his back. He tried to pull himself upright, but Whitey turned around and bucked him in the back of the head hard enough to flip him onto his front, dazing him.

Grey and Brown tried to charge him from behind, but Whitey used his wings to flip over them, pulling on Grey’s mane as he did to bring the other Pegasus down as well. Brown reached into his coat for something as Whitey grabbed Grey’s forehooves and threw him down the café, knocking over a table. As he turned to face the last standing opponent, Brown pulled out a switchblade and flicked it out, waving it menacingly.

Whitey wasn’t fazed, immediately catching the knife and tugging hard, knocking Brown to the ground. The knife went under Whitey’s wing as he picked up Brown, slamming his head against a table. He pulled the knife out again, shouting “Todome!” as he brought it down on Brown’s right hoof. He’d been aiming for the neck, but Yellow had stood up enough to push Whitey aside.

Brown immediately began screaming like a filly, making it impossible to hear what Whitey said to Yellow before picking up a chair. Though the violence had previously stunned her, Aster finally jumped into action, using her magic to destroy the chair before Whitey could potentially kill Yellow with it. Growling, he turned around to face the Guards, and for an instant his Cutie Mark was finally visible: a rainbow bridging two clouds.

There was no doubt about it. Cloud Skipper had returned.

Before Aster could process the fact that an old friend had suddenly returned and was now able and willing to kill somepony for poking fun at him, he’d roared like a wild animal and charged, getting into her face before she could cast a spell. She pulled back quickly, and he missed biting her horn by a hair’s breadth. She raised both her forelegs to push back, which Skipper blocked as expected, but it gave her enough time to throw a quick and dirty magical shove to get him out of her face.

He landed on his hooves and threw himself at her again, but this time his charge was stopped by Florence tackling him from the side. He rolled with the tackle and came down on top, though she quickly pushed him off. He tried to use his wings to push himself back down, but was thrown aside by another shove from Aster’s magic. Snarling like a rabid dog, he charged her down again, rolling to the side as he predicted her attempt to grab him out of the air. Her magical grip imploded on itself, breaking her focus for just long enough for him to take another shot at her horn, this time stopped by Midnight’s cautious approach.

To stop her from tackling him as Florence had, he turned fully to intercept her, rearing up on his hind legs and slamming her into the ground face-first. As Aster charged up a spell, he turned and dived at her, knocking her over before she could cast it and trying to bite at her horn again--

“Brother, stop that this instant!”

The outburst had come from Florence, who was standing up and staring at Skipper with a stern expression. He suddenly froze, turning around to face her. His expression had changed from the uncontrolled rage that it had held before, returning more to the curiosity and questioning that it had had when he first entered the café. He stared at Florence for a while, and she stared back, their expressions unchanging until Aster finally picked up a table and flung it with her magic at the base of Skipper’s neck.

Unable to move out of the way in time, Skipper immediately fell unconscious. With the fight over, the continuing screams of the brown Pegasus from before became exacerbated when Yellow tried to pull the knife out of his hoof. This only made it start bleeding faster, and Yellow and Grey quickly took him out of the café, leaving a trail of blood and the knife behind. Joe’s head poked up from over the counter. “Are you going to file a report on this?” His voice was surprisingly even, but he was clearly forcing himself not to stammer. “I mean, you aren’t on duty...”

Aster sighed, looking at Midnight still pulling herself up, Florence dusting herself off, Skipper out cold and the trail of blood leading out the door. “I’m afraid I don’t really have a choice. Even though I’m off duty, I still have to make this arrest. Can’t let a pony like this on the streets... Who knows what he’d have done if we weren’t here.” She focused her magic to pick him up, placing his body over her back like a set of saddlebags. At first she grunted slightly under the weight, but waved off the two Thestrals moving in to help her and walked out the door herself.

Florence and Midnight could only stare at one another, dumbfounded by the reappearance of their foalhood friend and the unstoppable rage he’d flown into. “Brother... What happened to you?” the white pony whispered, staring at Luna’s moon as though she expected it to answer.

“Why would you do something like this?” Midnight asked, almost echoing Florence. “Don’t you remember your own friends...?”

~~

Official Report: Royal Dungeon, Cell 21B, Last Seed 17, Nadir

Guard on Duty: Kabenori

Aster Helix and Midnight Blossom of the Night Guard, along with Florence of the Day Guard, arrived at approximately midnight, carrying an unconscious pony that they had arrested.

Physical description of detainee is as follows:

Race: Pegasus

Mane/Tail: Blonde with gold streaks

Coat: White

Eyes: Light blue (not seen right away)

Cutie Mark: Rainbow bridging two clouds (meaning uncertain)

Detainee woke up shortly after the other Guards left. At first, he reacted strongly, panicking loudly and making proclamations. These proclamations appeared to be meaningless, but writer believes that he was speaking Neighponese.

Further exclamations are written below, with approximate translations.

Spoken: 大丈夫。これは。。。別の場所。

(It’s okay. This is... somewhere else.)

Detainee looked at writer shortly after this, maintaining eye contact for about a minute before he turned away and lay on the cell bunk.

Spoken: 待てるなら、もう一度逃げる。

(If I can wait, I can escape again.)

Detainee continued speaking to himself, but too quietly for writer to hear. The only part that could be made out is as follows:

Spoken: 決して戻らない。絶対に戻らない。

(I’m never going back there.)

Writer believes that detainee should be kept under close observation at all times, and given no opportunity whatsoever to escape. Full psychological profiling, including memory spells, may also be recommended.

Private Kabenori

かべのり一等兵