The market of Ponydale was calm today as Night Flight strolled past stalls up to the baker, trying to ignore the whispers and accusing stares she commonly drew in public by day.
"Can I help you?" Asked the baker in a decidedly unhelpful tone.
"One whole wheat." She stated, putting down the bits and swiping the bread the baker put forward into her grocery bag.
Some things never got easier. Even with the death of her hated husband, Night Flight was still the pariah of Ponydale. At least by daylight. Because hypocrisy can apparently only flourish by moonlight. They all publicly reviled her and her late husband. He and Night Flight's fate had intertwined that Heartswarming Eve when he had forcibly smooched her under the mistletoe. She should have seen the warning signs and better avoided him, but she failed. And instead of sympathy, all who heard about what he did to her dismissed her. She was a pegasus, she should have flown away. So if she didn't, she must have agreed to it. Bitter at the abandonment, she acted out. She thought that if she could enjoy congress with other colts, it'd heal the mental scars if her first time. But all it did was earn her a reputation even her partners spoke about disdainfully. Once she burned her bridges and lost all respect, there was only Midnight Mistletoe who promised to take her in and be her husband. She thought he had mended his ways. She was so wrong.
She left the baker behind and checked her list when she noticed someponies from the corner of her eye. Cantering towards the scene she had spotted at the common green, Night Flight bit down on the ear of an earth pony filly playing with a unicorn and began to drag her away.
"I told you I don't want you hanging around her anymore!" She stated to her daughter, Stranger Danger, who was half frozen in panic as her mother dragged her off.
More than a year ago, before her father died of the pox, Stranger Danger had followed the filly she had been playing with, her friend Thistleglow, on an adventure. There was a valley several miles from Ponydale, once a city named Paradise, now buried under the lava and ash of a nearby volcano. Thistleglow had heard stories the ponies who lived there at the time of the eruption had been perfectly preserved, and she had hoped to make amateur plaster casts of their remains. It was the sort of scary adventure teenage ponies went on on a dare. So she had snuck out with her and some other foals to go to Paradise, only to discover there were eldritch horrors there, far more dangerous than petrified corpses. If her mother and some of the other villagers hadn't come to rescue them... Her mother had forbidden her from being around Thistleglow ever since.
"Mom? No, I was just-"
"You were supposed to be attending with that itinerant preacher. I paid a lot of money so you could be tutored privately and join a convent. Is this how you repay him for the time he puts into making something out of you?" Night Flight scolded her.
"I don't wanna go to a convent." Stranger Danger denied.
"Do you want to end up like your mother? Is that it? You go to him right now and apologize for wasting his valuable time and maybe he won't cancel you studies."
"If only..." Stranger Danger shuffled her hoof through the dirt, looking downcast.
"What was that?" Night Flight questioned in a tone that brook no more rebellious behaviour.
"I don't wanna see him! I hate him!" Her daughter shot back, taking Night Flight by surprise and embarrassing her in front of the town for the heretical words of her progeny. This was more damning that the many rumours and accusations, which usually were true.
"You shut your mouth, you ungrateful filly." Night Flight snarled through clenched teeth. "Holy Roller is your ticket to a life lived in devotion to study and meditation. A meal ticket like him does not come by here often. He helped you in getting your cutie mark, for stars sake!"
"I wish I had never gotten my cutie mark! I wish he had never come to Ponydale! I wish you'd listened to me! I wish you were DEAD instead of daddy!" Stranger Danger blurted out with tears in her eyes before turning tail and running off to someplace her mother wouldn't find her.
* * *
"I'm afraid my hypothesis is correct. Stranger Danger, you are definitely carrying a foal." Said the village healer.
"No..." Was all the filly could utter.
"Thank you, doctor. I think me and my daughter need to talk. We'll consult you if we need further guidance." Night Flight smiled as she coaxed her filly into leaving the room.
The hedge mage shook her head, knowing that when her mother brought her in, Stranger Danger was in deep trouble.
"Who was it?" Night Flight insisted once the two of them were home. They hadn't spoken the entire way.
"...the preacher." Stranger Danger said with almost a whisper.
A loud smack resounded across the room.
"Don't lie to me, Stranger Danger. Who was it that made you pregnant?"
Stranger Danger was silent for a while, considering if she could tell the truth.
"It was the itinerant pr-" Another smack across the cheek, and now tears came pouring from Stranger Danger's eyes.
"It was Two Flute."
Her mother was pacing across the room, silent for a moment.
"How could you? Your best friend's special somepony!" Night Flight shouted at her.
"Says the whore who makes money off of every cheating husband in Ponydale!" Stranger Danger retorted angrily.
Night Flight raised her hoof again to strike her, but stopped. The defiant stare of her daughter unnerved her. She wondered if despite pushing Stranger Danger the opposite direction, she had been a poor role model.
"I'm sorry." Night Flight apologized as she brushed her striking hoof, as if to wipe away to taint of physical abuse. She of all ponies should know not to do that. "I'm so sorry, Stranger Danger. But I tried so hard to make sure you wouldn't turn out like me. I failed at that."
"You never listen to me!" Stranger Danger continued, now that she had her mother vulnerable.
"I-I don't want you to become like I am!" Night Flight sniffled. "You're my child. You deserve better than share the same fate."
Stranger Danger looked back at her flank at the mention of fate. Her cutie mark, a closed door under a stone archway was displayed proudly on her rear, but she felt bitterly ashamed of it. Her mother thought it meant she should be locked away in some convent like a monastic pony, forsaking love and friendship, believing it would spare her from an unhappy marriage, years of abuse, and prostituting herself for bits. She'd wish she could lock herself away to keep her celibacy now. What happened behind closed doors could be frightfully unpleasant.
"We'll see Two Flute's parents. Despite all this, he's always been an honourable pony. He will make this right."
Stranger Danger cringed. If mother talked to Two Flute and his parents, the truth was going to come out. And her mother did not like the truth.
* * *
Stranger Danger found Thistleglow waiting at their usual meeting place in the common.
"Did you get my note?" She asked the midwife's daughter.
"You stole my boyfriend!" Thistleglow accused her.
Thistleglow and Stranger Danger had suffered through those frightening days together over a year ago. One of their friends died because Thistleglow wasn't as good a healer as her mother. She lost her coltfriend, who was angry at her for getting them all into great danger. She had found solace in the hooves of Two Flute, who was there with them. And now Stranger Danger was stealing the colt who helped her through her awful time?
"No I didn't." Stranger Danger denied.
"You and you mother were at Two Flute's house two days ago to say he knocked you up, and now you come asking me to steal abortificent herbs for you? You're a liar and a floozy like your mother!"
Stranger Danger glared at Thistleglow, who backed away from her angry expression.
"I did not do it with your coltfriend, Thistle! That's something I told my mother because she wouldn't accept the truth."
Thistleglow, however, regained her defiance.
"Then that makes a liar still! A liar who claims that she slept with my coltfriend. I don't know what's worse." She pulled a herb pouch out of her saddlebag and tossed it on the ground before Stranger Danger's hooves, where it spilled open. "Here, take your stupid herbs. I hope they make you barren, you two-timing skank."
Stranger Danger watched her leave, knowing she had lost her best friend. She quietly gathered up the herbs in the pouch and returned home.
Author's Note
This story is based on a role playing session I was part of, with some expanded backgrounds for the characters featured in it. I would say it wasn't quite as dark and horrific as the themes this story deals with, but thinking back to the final boss encounter, I know that'd be a lie.
