I do not own MLP.
"This is me speaking"
'I'm thinking.....I'm thinking'
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Moondancer

"But Mom, it's been hours."

" I said no!"

About 3 hours ago, Patrick woke the both of us by nearly breaking down our front door. It seems that he went straight for his experiment room; a reinforced room filled with magic items and spell books, and locked the door behind him. While it's common for him to spend some time in there, he has never spent this much time right after a gather night before and never before telling us first.

" *Sigh* Honey, please listen." I said, getting Spirit's attention. "Whatever your fathers doing in there needs all his concentration or he wouldn't have locked the door, and it could be dangerous to you and me. So we just have to be patient in till he comes out. Ok?"

"Ok Mom." Spirit said, her ears and head dropping in sadness. She then let out a yawn, and brought a hoof to her mouth.

'Poor dear. She must be so tired.'

"Why don't you go back to bed. Your Father will explain in the morning."

"Ok." She said, a defeated look on her face. "Love you Mom."

"Love you too sweetie."

As she closed her door, I sat in a chair and grabbed a book. While I didn't say this to Spirit, something has me worried. Patrick has always been a little odd, but I mostly contributed that to him being a different species and the fact he's an undead creature. But something he found last night got him in such a panic that he either didn't have time to tell us or was so preoccupied that he forgot to.

'I don't know which is more worrying.'

I looked at the door one last time before getting into my book; 'Myths and legends from the time's of Starswarl'.
'I hope Patrick's alright in there.'

Patrick

"Good lord." I said, wiping the nonexistent sweet from my brow, causing my hood to fall back.

It had taken me five hours and half a ton of magic, but I got her completely healed without resorting to Lich magic. Though her creaked skull wasn't the only thing that needed healing. Cuts, bruises, broken nose, and internal bleeding had all been healed, but a few of those worried me. The hoof shaped bruise covering the nose was bad, although that just could have been from getting into a fight.

'But with the scale of the injury to her head, she couldn't have been in the forest for long. So just what was she doing near the Everfree, in the rain, at nearly 2 in the morning.'

Though the condemning factor was her wings. As a Lich, I had the power to magically scan a beings body. The magic works to show what a 'normal' body should be and compares it to the being scanned. And the scan told me that the way her wings were growing showed evidence that they had been broken and incorrectly set. As they are now, while she might be able to glide or use her wings as propulsion, she'll never fly. And here's the kicker; as she is now, healing her is impossible

Her muscles, tendons, bones and joints have grown to be this way, most likely from a really young age. In order for her to be treated, my magic would have to physically tear the bones out, fix them, and then regrow everything around them. And even though I can almost remove the pain entirely, her malnourished and young body would most likely give out before the operation is finished. Killing her or having me resort to Lich zombie or soul magic, and I don't have the medical supplies or blood to perform an operation manually.

" *Sigh* Explaining this to the girls is going to be a pain in the ass."

I turned to look at her. The Filly was sleeping on the table, with half her body wrapped in bandages. While I get newspapers from all over Equestria, thanks to Moondancer, and while abuse did happen, this level of purposeful injury was new to me. At least for Equestria standards. If she was human, it still could have been much worse.

'No, don't think like that. Special Victims Unit shouldn't colour my expectations when it comes to situations like this.'

I walked over to the door and unlocked it. Walking out, I caught Moondancers attention.

She put her book down and ran over to me, and pulled me down into a hug.

"I was so worried about you." She pulled away and looked into my nonexistenting eyes. "What's wrong?"

'How can she always tell?' "Well....."

five minutes later

"I....I can't..." she said, her hoof covering her mouth.

"I know."

We sat at the kitchen table, facing each other. Being human, hearing stories about abused children were shocking but was not that surprising. But Ponies weren't used to hearing such stories.

I grabbed her hoofs in my hands, causing her to look into my eyes (sockets).

"It's going to be ok." I said, trying to be as reassuring as possible. "But I'm going to need your help with this." I stopped and looked at my experiment room. "She won't trust me and Spirit will only freak her. You're going to have to consul her and prepare her."

"Alright." she said, nodding her head and a fire lighting in her eyes. "I'll help anyway I can."

"Thank you. I'll undo the sleeping spell after you move her to the bedroom. Then I'll explain the situation to Spirit."

She nodded. Moondancer opened the door with her magic, and a moment later the young filly floated out. Moon got up and walked to our bedroom. After she shut the door, I released the sleeping spell.

'Despite the spell being released, she probably won't get up for a while.'

I walked to Spirit's door and opened it. Walking over to her, I shook her lightly.

"Spirit?"

"Omm.." she slowly moaned and opened her eyes. "Dad?"

"Yeah. Listen honey.....I need to talk to you. Can you meet me outside by the maple tree?"

"Ok Daddy." I turned to leave when she called to me. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have ice cream for breakfast?"

'Moondancer would kill me if she found out.'

"No Spirit." A sad look grow on her face

"Oh."

"WE can have it for breakfast."

A large smile appeared as she jumped out of bed and ran past me.

'She's got bigger problems right now anyway.'

Moondancer

A 20 minutes had passed before the filly began to toss and turn. As she started to awaken, she caught sight of me. Startled, she jumped, and pressed her back against the wall. She brought her hoof to her chest, and that's when she noticed the bandages. She looked herself over once, then turned attention back to me.

"Who are you?" She asked. She looked around the bedroom. Luckily we had no family pictures in the bedroom. "Where am I?"

"You're in my house. My husband found you when he was out gathering herbs on the edge of the Everfree. You had terrible injuries, but my husband has powerful magic. Fixing you took time but he got you healed.....mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Yes. Some bruises and cuts weren't healed, but you're in no danger."

She looked down, trying not to meet my eyes. I let a smile grow as I pressed her for information.

"My names Moondancer. What's your name?"

"Scootaloo."

"That's a pretty name. How are you feeling?"

"Sore...and thirsty. Can I have a glass of water?"

"Sure you can. I'll be right back."

I walked out and got her the water. As I walked back, I found her standing on my bed, facing out the window. A look of horror on her face.

'Oh no!'

I ran over and looked out. Sure enough, there was Patrick and Spirit, sitting under the large Maple tree.....both eating from a tub of chocolate ice cream.

The filly turned to me, the same look staying on her face. "Th...they'er..."

"I know." I said, closing my eyes.

"W...What are they?"

"That....would be my husband and my daughter."

I looked down at the filly, some of her terror had been replaced by confusion.

A cocky smile appeared on my face. "You know.....you should go meet them. " The filly's face contorted, as if the mire thought put a bad taste in her mouth. "I mean, he did save you. If it weren't for him, you'd still be in the Everfree."

My horn light up in its reddish/pink glow as I picked up Scootaloo and placed her on my back.

"I'll let my husband explain."

Patrick

I had explained the situation to Spirit and now we were just shotin the shit.

"And that's how Dad found out how many Irish Car-Bomb shots is too many."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that talk Mom had with you about 'too much information'?"

I was about to respond when I caught Moondancer walking towards us.

"Hello Patrick. good morning Spirit."

"Morning." "Morning Mom."

"I see you choose a healthy breakfast to get your energy for today." again I was interrupted before I could get a word in. "cause you're going to need it for the long day ahead of you."

Her horn lit up, and up from her back, hidden from our sight, was the filly I rescued. Spirit and I turned to look at each other, a shocked look on her face.

Now I know that Spirit had been hoping to meet other ponies one day. But I guess she as nervous or shy, cause she did one thing before she ran into the house.

She shouted at Moondancer "Dad tempted me with ice cream! I love you mom!" then she turned to the filly "and It's very nice to meet you!"

After she slammed the door, a silence hung over us. I stared at the door and said "You sold your own father up the river to save your own skin." I took a bite of the ice cream "I taught you well Spirit."

I put the tub down as I focused my attention on the filly. She recoiled at my stare, her ears down and a scared look on her face. I could even see tears starting to form.

'Now there's a look I haven't seen in while.'

"Hello there." I said, crossing my legs "My names Patrick. It's good to meet you."

Author's Note

Cut. And that's it for today, hoped you guys liked it. Now there were some questions that some people and a pseudo editor had that I'm going answer.

Firstly, The reason Spirit isn't shaped like half human/pony hybrids are in other Fanfics. and here's the best why I found to explain it:

If a pony is the colour blue and a human is red then a hybrid would purple, right? But because being undead is more like a state of being, Patrick colour isn't red, but a shape of black. So Spirit's colour isn't purple but a dark blue colour, an altered pony.

Secondly, the scanning spell. Quote from my friend (in a condescending voice): "I thought that Patrick didn't want to use Lich magic on ponies and didn't when he fixed Scootaloo, but you wrote that he scanned her with Lich magic. Why?"

Again with paint. If scanning with Lich magic is like getting kids finger paint on the outside of your car, then using Lich magic to fix/heal/corrupt a pony is like a can of boat paint exploding IN your car. It leaves behind a much more permanent affect on the target.

side note = My grandfather painted his house in boat paint and after 35 years only, he only repainted it two years ago, and even then it was only because he didn't like the look of it when it faded. It worked out great.

Anyway. Hope you guys liked and I'll see you in the next chapter. Peace.