One Last Mission

Twenty-nine years ago

Aery, Grand Pegasus Enclave

“It’s time to go to bed, Rhapsody,” Mom said, wrapping me up in her wings and carrying me away from the empty kitchen cabinet.

“But I’m still hungry!” I whined back, trying to squirm my way out of her grasp. “I want more!”

It was hard to count the amount of times we had that exact same interaction as a foal. The fault of having little to no money, and therefore little to no food to go along with it. What counted as a meal for us was not always enough, even for my younger, smaller self. It seemed so normal to me back then, before meeting Ironsight’s family and knowing just how much we should have had. Beforehoof, however, the idea that a stomach could be full was pure fiction.

It’s ironic, looking back on it.

Mom and dad always stayed up late, and to younger me it seemed solely for the purpose of keeping me out of the kitchen. Our meals were so light, and being hungry all the time was terrible. It wasn’t uncommon for me to try and sneak into the kitchen, grab an extra bite of something, and then inevitably get caught because hoofsteps are loud and I was not yet able to fly. Before mom left, she and dad saw it as amusing. That might have just been them trying to hide their own sorrow from not being able to feed their own daughter.

“Being hungry is normal, sweetie,” mom lied. It’s what she always said, and my seven year old brain ate it up as if it was fact. “If you eat too much, your stomach will bulge and you will never be able to fly.”

“But I want to eat and fly!” I replied, whining even more. “It’s not fair!”

“It’s not forever. Just until you are older,” dad said, flapping up next to my mom. I… I think he was kinder then, less despicable. It’s hard to separate the two after all these years, especially when the only way I could conjure up his face was with it drunk, mad, or madly horny. “Once you are able to fly and have your cutie mark, you’ll be able to eat all you want. Just got to wait a few years.”

A few years isn’t much to an adult, perhaps, but to a foal? That was the equivalent of a teenager asking about whiskey and being told ‘wait until you are eighteen’. All it did was make me groan.

“That sounds so far away,” I groaned as we entered my rather empty room. At the time, all I had was a bed for furniture. A dresser, or a bedframe for the cloudbed? Having that would imply money, and we didn’t have that, “and I’m not tired.”

My words were betrayed by how heavy my eyes were.

“Of course you’re not,” my dad said as I was set down in bed. He pulled the single, thin blanket we had over me. It barely kept me warm on the coldest nights, “but a good night’s sleep is important to growing up big and strong.”

I pouted. My mom shook her head, giggling at my behavior. That just made me pout even more, seeing how little they were taking me seriously. Looking back on it now, I feel rather embarrassed by it.

“I’m really not that sleepy,” I told them. “Besides, I’m too hungry to sleep.”

Both mom and dad winced at my bluntness, my younger self unable to fully grasp the melancholy my words caused in them both. Mom wrapped a wing around me again, nuzzling my muzzle in a show of love. There was something wet on her face, but it was too dark for me to see it.

“If I sing you a song, will you go to sleep?” she asked.

I nodded my head. Mom had a really good singing voice, that much had always been true. Any chance to listen to her sing was worth it, no matter how hungry I was.

“Okay,” I said, only a small dose of reluctance in my voice, “but I’m not sleepy!”

She snorted in amusement, but gave me a nod. That was enough to fool me into thinking she had finally believed me. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, on the wing stroking my withers comfortably. Dad sat on the end, watching us both with a drunken smile. I forced my eyes to stay open in an effort to back up my words.

Then, she sang an all too familiar song.

Hush now little one, there’s no need to fear
For in all your dreams, I will be there
To break down all the bad, and hold you so close
To guard you from nightmares, and take them as my own.

Let me hold your tears, I promise it’s fine
Lean on me all you need, I’ll bring you the light
From dreams to waking world, I’ll be by your side
Your mother is with you, don’t fear the urge to cry.

By the time she finished, my eyes had grown too heavy to keep open. I wasn’t asleep just yet, but I was moments away being there. With a kiss on my forehead, she and dad got up and quietly made their way out of my room. The door closed, leaving me in darkness thicker than any blanket.

“Harmony,” one of them said from outside the door. I was too sleepy and just dumb enough to not realize Harmony was my mom. “I know you want her to be happy, but is it really a good idea?”

“I… I know it's terrible. I know how this might end up for me,” Harmony replied, “but they are offering good pay. It will only be for a few months, enough to make her eighth birthday something special.”

“And what if it goes wrong? What if the Enclave finds out?”

As my consciousness drifted into the incomprehensible world of dreams, my dad got his answer.

“I don’t care. You and Rhapsody are all I have, and I don’t want her to be hungry anymore.”

“Get away. Get away. Have to get away.”

Those were the only thoughts going through my mind as I rushed mindlessly through Shorelock. All I needed to do was get away. The farther I was from the prison, the farther I was from her. Didn’t matter where I ended up, whether it was the ocean floor or miles out in the desert. As long as I was away from Harmony – away from mom – everything was okay.

All the while, her face was superimposed on my thoughts. Every attempt I made to think of something or somecreature else, she was there, like some ghost watching my every moment. The sounds of pegasi singing ‘happy birthday’, screams of terror and rage, dad’s insistence that I was to blame for his wife being arrested filled my ears. It didn’t go away. No matter how much I wanted it to go away it didn’t and it only seemed like her face got clearer and clearer over time and…

It was only a matter of time before my legs stopped working, and the all-encompassing panic became all I was. I was only grateful that it happened in an empty street, with nocreature nearby to notice me. There was enough sense in me to lay down on my side; that way, if my legs gave out, I was less likely to land head first on the stone street. My brain was already in a tailspin as it was, unable to free itself from Rhapsody’s memories. Her foalhood, specifically.

With me laying on the ground, those memories were the only thing I could focus on outside of my breath. Breathing that left my mouth dry from how fast I was breathing in… then out.

In and out.

In and out.

Just keep breathing. In and out… until I found that light.

Ironsight…

I slowly chewed on the school lunch I had, though really it wasn’t a lot. The school provided it, but my mom and dad had drilled into my head that eating too much was a bad thing. Maybe it's autism, turning what they had really meant into something destructive, but it doesn’t matter. Where other students happily down the expected amounts of the tasteless, cloud grown food, I barely made a dent; where other students happily chatted about one thing or another, I sat alone because… I’m not sure. Something about my parents giving me bad blood, an idea my tiny, odd mind couldn’t comprehend.

Either way, none of them hung out with me. Well, almost none of them did. One colt, probably not clued into the news hanging out with me was wrong, sat down next to me that day. He looked at me, concerned.

“Hiyya.”

“Huh?” I said, turning to look at him.

I think foal me nearly had a heart attack at the sight of a small, gray colt. Though, with how high his voice was at the time and the pink mane, I initially thought he was a filly. The fact he was there, next to me, was kind of scary given nopony ever sat with me. I moved away from him on the bench a bit, out of distrust more than anything.

“I’m Ironsight Bullseye,” he cheerily, stretching a foreleg out to me. I looked at it, and then at the colt it was attached. I saw others do it, but had no idea what it meant. “What’s your name?”

“O-o-oh! Um, S-S-Singing Rh-Rh-Rhapsody,” I said, barely above a whisper. This was one of the first times I had really interacted with anypony outside my family or the teachers, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ironsight, pulled his foreleg back, still smiling, and shook both it and his head. “Nuh uh. Not good enough.”

“Huh?” I asked, tilting my head.

“My daddy said, ‘a future soldier of the Enclave must be strong and confi… confi…’,”

“Confident?”

“Yes, confident! A future soldier of the Enclave must be strong and confident.” Ironsight slid closer to me on the bench, and I slid away from him again. His eyes stared at me intently. “You said your name with no confident. Do it again, this time better.”

“I… I don’t understand,” I replied.

“It’s simple. Just speak louder,” he said. “Tell me who you are again, but this time do it strong and confident.”

I swallowed nervously, but was too scared of the colt to know what would happen if I said no. “I’m, um, I’m Singing Rhapsody.”

“Louder!”

“But I did.”

“No, you're still not confident.” Ironsight got even closer to me. “Louder.”

“I-I’m Singing Rhapsody.”

“Almost there. Louder!”

“I’m Singing Rhapsody!”

To say the two of us were earning some stares after it all was an understatement. My eyes darted to one table, seeing every filly and colt there staring at me, and then at another to see the same thing. Everypony was watching me, and I felt my heart rate increase for a moment as I realized all eyes were on me. Having that much attention on me was new, and I had no idea how to feel about it.

Then, all of a sudden, Ironsight started jumping up and down on the bench.

“You did it! I knew you could do it,” he said, before darting at me and giving me a tight hug with both his wings and his hooves. “You're quiet and shy, so I didn’t know if you were really a pegasus or not. Now I know you are.”

“Wh-what are you saying? Of course I’m a pegasus,” I said, pouting. “I got hooves and wings. All pegasi have hooves and wings.”

“Not true,” Ironsight replied, bapping the air with a hoof as he separated the hug. “Some pegasi aren’t real pegasi. Daddy told me some are actually earth ponies and unicorns in disguise, and some of my friends say those ponies try to throw you to the surface.”

My foal brain grabbed onto that and shivered. Every foal was told the same story about the surface, about how it was unlivable and nothing was down there. Some even said you would melt into a puddle because it was really, really hot. The idea of earth ponies and unicorns disguising themselves so they could do that to you was terrifying.

“I-Is that true?” I asked, leaning forward. No longer did Ironsight seem weird and scary. Instead, I was registering him as the smartest foal in the room.

He confidently nodded at me. “My daddy is on the high council; he is never wrong,”

“Your dad is on the high council?” I asked, eyes wide. Ironsight nodded again. “That’s so cool!”

“I guess. Would be cooler if he was home more often,” he said. What little his eyes had dimmed at talking about his father quickly lit back up again, grabbing my hoof in his wing. “Wait, that gives me an idea. I should invite you for a playdate!”

Somehow, my eyes managed to get even wider. “A-A playdate? With me?”

“You’ve never been invited to a playdate?” Ironsight asked.

“I’ve heard some of the others in my class talk about it, but I don’t know what it is,” I explained. “I’ve tried to ask but they just ignore me and tell me off. They say I’m dangerous to be around.”

“Wow, meanies. No, more than just meanies, they are idiots,” he said. I let out a gasp at hearing such language out of him. At that age, calling anypony an idiot was about as bad as calling them a cunt. “You got that confident thing, so you can’t be dangerous. No unicorn or earth pony in disguise would be as confident as you just were.”

The full context of what he said passed over my head like a home run. I didn’t understand why this colt was as excitable as he was, or what had made him talk to me. Though, just the fact he was talking to me when nopony else was would have made me really happy. I wanted something to label it as, my mind working for whatever best described him. It took some time, but eventually I found them.

“Ironsight, you're a friend,” I said. My comment turned his thoughts away from whatever foalish anger he had towards the other foals around us and back to me. He tilted his head, neither smiling or frowning at me, and my ears fell slightly in nervousness. “D-Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s just… you think I’m a friend?” he asked.

“Do you not have one?” I asked back.

His head fell instantly, wings and ears slumping slightly. “No. Some of the colts say they do, and my mommy and daddy invite them over for playdates, but I don’t like them. I think they’re forcing me to hang out with them, instead of letting me make friends myself.”

“So they are kind of like the unicorns and pegasi,” I replied. He got even sadder after I mentioned that, and it was starting to make me angry. My strange little mind didn’t understand why it made me angry, but I knew I wanted to stop it. “Well they are idiots too. Big, dumb idiots!”

Ironsight raised his head, watching my anger. It seemed to inspire him in some way, most likely viewing it as that same confidence his dad told him about. He wasn’t the brightest of foals, but watching as his sorrow turned to pure joy, it made me happy in a way I can’t describe. He nodded, matching my fire with a fire of his own.

“Yeah! Big, dumb, stupid idiots,” he replied.

“So, friends?” I asked. While the question held no fear, my hoof shook violently as I held it out.

“Friends,” Ironsight replied, baring the outstretched hoof no mind and deciding to barrel into me instead, hugging me tightly. We stayed like that for a time, both smiling, probably still being watched and laughed at by the other foals around us, but not caring. Ironsight pulled away first, his eyes looking at my barely-touched soup on the table. “You should eat that.”

“I am,” I told him. “I’m just being careful not to eat too much. I don’t want to get too fat to fly.”

“The soup won’t make you fat, silly,” he said. “Not unless you have one the size of the school. That bowl is fine.”

I looked at the soup, and then at him. “You are sure?”

He gave me a nod, and my eyes went back to the soup. His words did seem to make sense, and they didn’t contradict what mom and dad said. After a bit of hesitation, I practically threw my head down into the bowl, devouring it as if I was a wild animal. Ironsight jumped back in fright, shielding his face with one wing so that the broth didn’t hit his face. He only lowered it only when I had completely drained my bowl of everything in it, the biggest of grins on my face.

“It's so good!” I said, not caring how my face was now caked in broth and vegetables. “I’d be fine if I had seconds, right?”

The longer I thought about the day Ironsight and I met, the more the world came back into view. Harmony was no longer the main image in my mind, my ears filled with the sound of more pleasant, joyful memories. Even knowing that a lot of what he told me might have been lies, it was impossible to hate him. Ironsight is part of what gave me hope during those horrible years after my mom was exiled, giving hope where there otherwise was none. Even now, when I’d never see or hear from him again, he managed to see me from myself.

As my head cleared enough to think, and the panic flowed into the back for later use, I considered what that meant. I dug into one saddlebag and pulled out the radio he had given me, the one I was supposed to contact him with. That day was the start of my third week on the surface. If I hadn’t been unconscious, and had radioed in last week, then we would possibly be talking right now. I’d try to explain my name change, the horn I was growing… and then he’d probably turn his own radio off, maybe thinking Willow had dragged me to the Goddess and had me transformed.

There was no avoiding this outcome. Even if I didn’t tell him my name was no longer Rhapsody, when the mission was over our contact would be permanently cut. I just found a way to bring that about far sooner than wanted.

“What do you think he’s doing up there, now that you and Sapphire are down here?”

It was a decent question, and allowed me to further distract my mind from the thought that my mom was here in Shorelock. There was no sure way of knowing, but I could guess pretty easily.

When Calamity had been exiled he and a majority of the council freaked out, fearing his words would spark some form of rebellious spirit in the ranks and file or younger. That was what led to the development of the M.A.M., which Lucky Shot got word of through what I can only assume is another Equalist contact within the Enclave. That was stolen, and I was promptly tossed down to the surface as a scapegoat to clean up this mess and draw fire away from the council itself. With that knowledge, Sapphire Storm vanishing with at least a few dozen troops would only further fracture what little unity was left inside my old home.

The chance of guessing exactly what they’d do in response was unknown, but with how things were looking? I could see ponies being killed or arrested to instill a sense of fear and authority. Whether it worked or not depended on how amicable the masses still were, and we have Operation Cauterize in the current day to gauge that.

So many pegasi lost, because a small group of powerful, frightened stallions and mares couldn’t accept things weren’t working.

It wasn’t a happy thought, but along with Ironsight it helped further with not thinking about Harmony. The next came when I looked up at the sky, clear and blue as always, silent. My wings twitched in a way they hadn’t in a very long time. The urge, no, the instinctual need to fly hit me for the first time since becoming Danse Macabre. Spreading my wings out, feeling the ocean breeze against my feathers, I found the last thing I needed to truly wipe her face from my mind.

Even if it wouldn’t only be temporary.

With a single flap I shot up, leaving Shorelock behind me. My eyes stayed forward, focused on that endless blue above me, the world’s top my end goal. I thought I couldn’t; no matter how good of a flier I was, the air would grow too thin and the world too cold for me to pierce the vale. Yet to see how high my wings could take me, to ride that line between living and another visit with Vigil.

“It’s always been like this hasn’t it? Us toeing the line between life and death since the day we were born?”

I smirked, finding such a dark truth exhilarating. In some ways it only compounded Hearty’s claims of me having Wartime Stress Disorder, but I didn’t care. To ride that line of my own free will, it was one of the best feelings in the world. The higher I climbed, the less air there was, I felt my body push until that limit was reached. The fact the thin air felt like less than a burden, or that the cold didn’t bother me, never hit me.

Yet those oddities couldn’t stop pony limitation. In time I reached that apex, wings tired and lungs begging me to turn back. Accepting defeat, I stopped flying upwards and instead splayed myself out as if laying on the ground. Despite being significantly higher than the cloud barrier, I was not high enough to make the blue coloration of the sky disappear. No pegasi alive or dead was capable of that.

Not that the sight wasn’t worth it. The sky stretching on for eternity, the ground below splitting in half between land in the sea. I saw where Shorelock ended, paving the way for seemingly endless amounts of desert only broken up by a single, solitary farm at the base of the river we had followed here. I saw how the ocean stretched beyond pony sight, leaving me to wonder briefly if Zebrica or otherwise still lied beyond, out of view.

Were those good descriptions? I don’t know. The beauty of such a sight can’t be put into words or a picture. It’s something you have to experience.

Long ago, during the golden years of Equestria, my actions would have been normal. No cloud barrier was around to hide the sky from the surface and the surface from the sky. In those two centuries between the end of the world and the parting of the cloud barrier, I was one of very few to ever see this.

“We took so much from them,” I whispered.

“We did,” my inner selves said.

“Why?” I asked.

“You know the answer already, don’t you?” they replied.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t an answer, it was an excuse. That’s all the Enclave is.”

“Yet you still care about Ironsight, the soldiers, the civilians.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I lived there for so long. I can hate who I was, what I represented, but the pegasi? I can’t blame them, not with what we’ve been taught.”

…

“So you don’t know why?”

Exhaling, I tilted my body down toward the ground, starting my descent. Their question wasn’t worth answering; my silence said everything that I would need to. All I knew was that I felt… not ready, but capable of dealing with what was down below. There was no avoiding Harmony, not without abandoning everycreature. Not only did that go against my need to satisfy the mission Hash gave me, but the damage it would do to Gemmy…

Rhapsody abandoned one pair of foals to a life without a mother. I wasn’t going to make that same mistake.

At first I checked where I had left them, at the Shorelock Prison main gate. None of them were there anymore. It meant they were likely looking for me, or had gone with Harmony. Three-Eleven didn’t know where she lived, so I ended up stuck having to ask around. Several minutes of that and a lot of walking around town later, and there I was, in front of Harmony’s house.

My mom’s house.

It looked normal, unassuming, and rather quant. Nothing about it should have scared me, and yet there was a shake in my legs. This place was home to one of the ponies responsible for destroying my foalhood, and now I had to go up to that door, knock on it, and make conversation with her. It would be nice to stay out in the street, where she wasn’t, but that was a bit too foalish for even filly Rhapsody to be okay with.

With short, slow steps, I made my way up to the front door, and raised one of my hooves. It stayed there, frozen, attempting to disobey my command to knock on it. Now that it wasn’t on the ground, the shaking had increased tenfold. With enough will, and closed eyes, I managed to rest on the door I wished for it to knock on, and then…

Knock… knock

Two was all I was able to muster, allowing the hoof to rest on the front door for sometime. A few seconds later, it jostled as somepony on the opposite side touched it. I placed that hoof on the ground with the rest, and subconsciously took a step back. A piece of me pleaded that it was one of my companions, but of course it wasn’t. The first thing my eyes met were those same blue eyes that had caused me to run away in the first place. Nearly did the exact same thing, only Gemini and my own stubbornness stopping me.

“Hi,” I said, quietly. All the strength I had disappeared before the eyes of the mare before me.

“H-Hi, Danse,” Harmony replied. She briefly looked back inside at something, and then to me. “I’m sorry. Didn’t know you changed your name.”

“Too late for apologies.”

“I-It’s… okay,” I lied. The two of us stood there, silent for what felt like hours. I was too scared to say anything; not sure why Harmony wasn’t saying anything. “Can I come in?”

She smiled far too easily as she moved to the side. “Of course. Everycreature else is already inside,”

“I know. Stop talking.”

“Okay, got it.”

Walking up to her, with all of Rhapsody’s foalish spite being voiced in the back of my head, felt like an eternity. Every muscle in my body tensed as I reached her side, keeping my eyes on her. Didn’t even make it all the way in before the two of us started staring at each other. It made Harmony uncomfortable, ears going flat, the lines on her face visibly shifting as her smile strained.

“You’ve changed a lot. Hardly recognized you back at the prison,” Harmony said with the tiniest hint of joy, her voice wobbling from emotion. She was barely holding back tears of happiness in her eyes. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you again.”

“Really? You're trying to guilt trip me now?”

I didn’t say anything that time, instead breathing harshly out of my nose and walking completely into her house. For all the spite currently running through me, I was at least able to appreciate how well she had kept it. The furniture was nice too, basic as it all was with only a few items that were clearly from wartime. I’d assume the second floor was no different from the first.

There was banter a few rooms over, so I decided to make my way down the immediate hallway, passing the dining room, and into the living room. Everyone was there, enjoying themselves without a care in the world. A load of tension I didn’t know I was carrying disappeared, especially when my eyes caught Gemmy laughing her head off to some joke I had missed. Seeing she was okay, it gave me the faintest of hopes that being in here was not going to be horrible.

“Hey Danse,” Hearty said with a casual wave of his hoof. He and Falke had found room on a couch – extremely well maintained despite its age – one of his hooves around Falke. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, but the two had grown pretty close over the past few days. “Nice to see you found your way here. Thought I was going to have to drag you here by the tail.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, ignoring the snarkiness of his comment. I trotted over to Gemmy, deciding to stand next to her since she had the only other available chair. “You okay sweetie?”

“Completely fine. Your mom isn’t as much of a raider as you said she was,” Gemmy answered. I tried to smile, but nervousness at my daughter’s safety made it next to impossible. “She was very sad when you left.”

“I’ve gathered that things between you two were tense when she was exiled,” Falke said. He looked like he was ready for the couch to absorb him with how he was lounging in it.

“Tense is a bit of an understatement,” I said, my ears swerving as I heard clops from the hallway, “but I can tell you some other time.”

At almost the same time he nodded, Harmony entered the room… with a little filly spirit right before her. My eyes went wide at the sight of them, Gemmy merely tilting her head in wondering where they had come from. I knew that filly’s face as well as I did my way around an MEW. It had haunted me for years when I was a filly, not just because of what happened to her, but because of what it led to…

Thud!

A colt’s scream ripped through the air of the café Ironsight’s family had temporarily taken over for my eight birthday party, both him and myself immediately looking in its direction. The entire room had gone deadly silent save for the hurried hooves and loud wails of one foal, running to their mom and dad. Some of the other foals were laughing, thinking that he might have just been scared of some dark cupboard or surface horror story, but I knew that was wrong. As young and naïve as I was, I knew there was a difference between when the parents went silent and when they didn’t.

It was confirmed as I saw one mare rush to the side of a table not too far away from us. Ironsight and I looked at each other, and rushed over in foalish curiosity. An adult moved to intercept and save us from just the slightest bit more trauma; he only succeeded in getting a wing in front of Ironsight. My little hooves kept marching, wondering what scary thing had happened. Maybe it was a unicorn, or an earth pony, or some horrifying melted abomination that was also from the surface.

That’s… not the case though. I think everycreature can get a pretty good idea of exactly what it was that greeted my face when I finally reached the now weeping mare.

It was a filly, one of the many both my and Ironsight’s family had invited in an attempt to make this the best birthday possible. Her eyes no longer held the spark of life, and a smile hidden under a mouthful of strange, colorful foam. She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t stand up and give a ‘got you’ to try and validate the horrible joke before me, because there was no punchline. There was nothing to laugh about.

There was a dead body before me, and while I didn’t know she was dead the lifeless stare and foam-filled mouth was terrifying on its own.

I screamed and ran to mom and dad, who in turn ran to me. Only one of them made it to me, the former stopping mid-way in realization of exactly what had killed them. I didn’t care, I just ran into my dads hooves, quickly being shielded by his wings in an attempt to protect me from damage already done. Even as I hugged him, shaking terribly from fright, the filly’s face had been plastered at the front of my mind.

“D-d-da–da-d-dad,”I managed to say, my muzzle barely functioning. “What is… wh-wha-what is…”

“It’s okay Rhapsody, it’s okay,” he said, before saying words he would never say to me again for as long as I knew him. “I’m here to protect you. You are going to be alright.”

That rainbow foam, a telltale sign of a Cloud Nine overdose, was not there. The filly was the same one that died back then, however, save for the horrifying way her body lurched and deformed. It almost reminded me of how I had met Stardust, or how DH’s body had tried to act without the wendigo holding her together.

She turned to look at me, and the strange way her body acted suddenly stopped. Without a single word, she started backing away, and then ran off. I had barely lifted my hoof off the ground, having desired to go after her, before my attention was brought back to the reason I was in this house to begin with.

“Glad to see everycreature is finally here!” Harmony said, completely oblivious to everything I had just witnessed. “Obviously make yourselves at home. I’m not sure what your doing for Hash, outside of it involving the Hurricane, but after traveling all the way here you all deserve a chance to rest up.”

“Think we already got ahead of you on that, ma’am,” Falke joked, somehow managing to sink even further into the couch than he already was.

“Yeah, the chair is really comfy,” Gemmy replied, trying to mimic the griffon. It didn’t really work. “Thanks for letting us stay here, Miss Harmony.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” she replied. “Anything for the creatures responsible for keeping my little Rhapsody safe.”

It was impossible to tell what was more painful, her calling me Rhapsody or her acting like she cared. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. I’m not eight anymore, mom.”

Her smile faltered for just a second, her eyelids falling slightly as she thought about that. I hadn’t meant for it to be, but my words ended up doing more than just passively reminding her why she was down here. It had been… how many years since she had last seen me? Twenty-eight? To be reminded about all the time she had lost with me, her fault or not, was cruel. Couldn’t call her out on it either, especially when I had done no different to Rainy and Clear mere weeks ago.

Genuine grief managed to creep into me, despite my spite for the mare. I actually felt bad about that.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “That… that was wrong of me.”

“It’s okay Danse,” Harmony replied. “I understand.”

That time, her words did actually work on me. My head fell, eyes looking towards the carpet below us.

“So, I think some more thorough introductions are in order. After all I don’t know any of you,” mom said, distracting herself. She placed a wing to her chest. “I’ll go first, since I technically already started that earlier. Musical Harmony, dashite and retired Shattered Moon. Can’t tell any of you about my time with them for obvious reasons.”

“Completely understandable,” Falke replied.

Hearty decided to be the first to introduce themselves, no longer lounging and instead leaning forward. “Open Heart. Met Danse a few weeks ago under bad circumstances. About the same time I met Gemmy too.”

“Oh, right. I forgot that I met you and mom at the same time,” Gemmy said, chuckling awkwardly.

Harmony, however, was far more interested in what the young mare had said. She looked at me, the surprise in her eyes making me smile nervously.

“Mom?” she asked.

“That’s… an even more recent development,” I explained. I held a wing out above Gemmy, looking at her just to make sure she was okay with me touching her at the moment. She nodded, and I laid a wing on her back in a show of love and support. “Mom, this is Shining Gemini. I ‘officially’ adopted her a few weeks ago. No papers to show but… I don’t think ponies do that down here.”

“Adopted? So you mean this mare is…” Harmony’s eyes had grown so wide they seemed ready to pop right out of her head. “I have a granddaughter. I’m a grandmother!”

Water started to well up in her eyes, a hoof going to her muzzle as her brain quickly figured out I wasn’t the only family she had here. Then she looked at me, a smile both joyful and sad at the same time quickly spreading to each corner of her lips. A wordless ‘thank you’ from one generation to another, and as a mother myself it was hard to not share the sentiment. Something about being recognized in a maternal sense felt wonderful, a small boost of confidence after so many hits to both it and my ego.

“I, um… I can call you grandma then, right?” Gemmy asked, looking to me rather than to the grandmother in question.

“Of course Gemini,” Harmony said, but I knew they weren’t the one they were asking the okay from. I gave my daughter a nod; no matter what Harmony had done, she deserved that much of a kindness. “Oh Luna, I can’t believe it. I thought I’d never get the chance to know but… but you're right here before me. Oh this is the best day of my life.”

She was so wrapped up in her emotions, that she didn’t even think to ask before rushing to Gemini. My daughter tensed up as she was unwantedly wrapped in forelegs and wings, picked up off the couch, and was then squeezed as tight as possible. Once again Gemini looked to me, this time not for approval but for help.

“Mom, let go,” I said, coming off more as a request, worried and anxious but kind. When she ignored me, I made my way over to forcibly pry my mom off her. “I said let go!”

A single, forceful push was all I needed with Harmony’s age. The older mare would have likely fallen on her back, maybe even broken something, if Falke hadn’t jumped off the couch to catch her. Instead of thanking the griffon, however, she instead looked to me in shock, as if how I acted was some grand betrayal.

I didn’t care, Gemini was more important than she ever was.

While my adopted daughter had not been comfortable hugging her grandmother, she had instantly wrapped her hooves around me as soon as she was free. Her breathing was fast, her forelimbs shocking as she held onto me like a lifeline. Instead of hugging back, I merely shielded her with my wings, humming the very same lullaby that Harmony had sung for me years ago. Her breathing instantly started to return to normal.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” I told her.

“It was so fast,” Gemini responded. “I didn't think she was going to…”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It’s not your fault.”

With Gemini still hugging me, I turned my attention to Harmony. Falke had helped her back onto her hooves, muttering thanks to him. She turned to me with a glare, likely about to scold me for possibly getting her hurt, only to stop herself. While my wings kept Gemini’s body out of her eyesight, she didn’t need to see anything to know where they were. Dad and her had done the same for me when I was younger, before they became the horrible ponies I knew them as. Her anger quickly faded into nothing, being replaced by melancholy and pain.

“That’s right. Stand there and think about what you’ve done. It’s all you deserve.”

Rhapsody’s spite would have made me wince, but I was in a similarly foul mood after what Harmony had done. I bit back a protective growl as I stared at my mother, adopting the glare she had attempted to throw at me.

“I’m only going to say this once: do not touch my daughter!” I said. “Understand?”

She flinched at my tone, eyes watering up. “I… I just wanted to hug my granddaughter. What is so wrong with that?”

“Miss Harmony, I understand where you are coming,” Falke told her, placing one of his wings around her withers. “I’m a grandparent too, but everycreature has their boundaries. Gemmy is no different.”

“What… what do you mean?” She asked.

“Not my place to tell you about it,” Hearty replied, having hopped off the couch. He looked at me, just to make sure I was okay with him giving even a generalized summary of my daughter’s mental health. I trusted the doctor, and nodded, “but Gemmy has severe PTSD concerning events in her life from before we met her. She doesn’t take physical contact from anypony but Danse well.”

It instantly clicked what she had done wrong, and the regret on her face was obvious. Confident she wouldn’t make the same mistake again, I lowered my wings from around Gemmy. She shuffled around till Harmony was barely able to see her face, her body pressed close to my own. With that done I stared my mother down, and she instantly understood what it was I wanted her to do.

Not that Harmony needed to be threatened into an apology, she probably would have done it anyway. The pieces of Rhapsody that spited her, not to mention the mistake that led to the apology in the first place, made me not care.

“I’m sorry Gemmy. I should have asked if you were okay with it,” she said. My daughter peaked her out just a little more, allowing her to look at my mother with one eye. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I promise to be better in the future.”

Gemmy looked at my forelegs and wrapped one of her hooves around my own. “Don’t touch me, and I forgive you. Okay?”

“Never again,” Harmony said. Her gaze then shifted back to me, and suddenly every bit of fight left my body. She was giving me that disappointed mother look. “Now, Danse, no matter what your reason was…”

“Oh fuck.”

“I don’t think I need to remind you that throwing the elderly to the ground is frowned upon.”

I averted my eyes, looking down at the floor in shame. “R-R-Right. Sorry mom, won’t do it again.”

“Good.” With a clap of her hooves, all disappointment vanished from her face. In its place was joy, and it was impossible to notice how her eyes did not trail to Gemmy. “Now I’m going to go ahead and get some dinner cooking. Am fine doing it myself, but if anycreature is interested in helping…”

“Well, as the only griffon here, I think it would be best to make sure you have something for me,” Falke said. My mom gave him a cheerful nod. “Oh, Falke Rotfeather by the way. I’m a business partner of your daughter.”

“Mercenary?” Harmony asked. All Falke had to do was grin for her to know the answer, holding a talon out to her. The two shook hooves, a shared look of respect and understanding between them out of seemingly nowhere. “Pleasure to meet you. I already had something in mind, but with someone no doubt as traveled as you I’d love to try something unique.”

“Well how about you show me your kitchen then. We can work from there,” the griffon replied.

Everything after that proved to be uneventful. Harmony and Falke put together some form of seafood dish – making me aware of how much said sealife had become important to the area culturally – and there was no further arguing. Stories were traded between each other, laughs were had, and the entire time I stayed silent. It was clear to me that my mom had changed so everyone else talking with her didn’t upset me, but I wasn’t going to ruin the mood by opening my mouth.

The hate didn’t leave, and how could it? Ten years of Tartarus with a father who hated me, left me to starve, and hurt me. So much of the trauma in my life was connected to her, and seeing her as the pony she truly was didn’t change any of that. It just made me angrier, but I wanted her to be that monster; I wanted her to be okay killing that foal; I wanted her to be hateable. Anything to make it justified.

Yet every moment my eyes looked at Musical Harmony, my mother, I saw a mare and not a monster. It probably would have left me feeling sick at myself, but it was clear that I wasn’t the only pony who had wanted that over the truth. The spirit of the filly was there, her form distorting in wrath at the mere sight of my mom. It only ever seemed to stabilize when she saw me.

It was happening a lot actually, now that I think about it. Since fusing with DH the majority of the spirits who saw me seemed rather terrified for some reason.

The sun fell below the horizon, and we all decided to go off and do our own things. Harmony insisted we had the upstairs bedrooms for the night, both hers and the guest one, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Gemmy and I took the former, Hearty and Falke had the latter, and mom was apparently going to just sleep on the couch. Where everypony else was off trying to do something or another, I found myself trying to turn in earlier.

It didn’t work.

I found myself lying there in bed, staring at the white ceiling, for what felt like a small eternity. I was too awake. My mom had returned to dominating my mind, though nowhere near as bad as it was earlier in the day, and knowing it was her bed I was lying in left me uncomfortable. There was still that part of me waiting for the reveal that how she was acting was all some elaborate ruse, and my brain refused to shut off until that threat was dealt with in one way or another. I wasn’t about to act on that.

The only thing to pull my eyes away from the ceiling was the sound of the door opening. Gemmy stepped inside, smiling joyfully at the sight of me at first before something caused it to fade away into concern. I didn’t realize it beforehoof, but my face had set itself into a frown subconsciously.

“Is everything okay mom?” she asked.

“Y-yes, I’m fine,” I said. The lie was horrible, the way Gemmy’s ears flopped against her head making it clear how little she believed me. “Have a good evening?”

“Kind of. Your mom is nice, but I take back what I said about her not being like a raider,” Gemmy replied. I sat up as a shiver passed through her body. “She does things without thinking, just like one.”

“Her hug is still making you nervous?” I asked. My daughter nodded. “That’s not a raider thing, sweetie. It’s her maternal side showing up. Though I do agree that it wasn’t right.”

She tilted her head. “Maternal?”

“Feeling like a mom, or a grandmom and my mom’s case,” I explained. Explaining mare things to Gemini always hurt, knowing her horrible experience with sex, but I knew it had to be done. “When a mare cares for their foal, protects them from bad ponies or creatures, feeds them when they are still really young, or teaches them things. Those are all examples of maternal love.”

Gemmy ingested it all, trying to sort through what she did and didn’t understand as she trotted over to bed. I scooched over so that she didn’t have to go all the way around and waited patiently. She looked down at herself, one of her hooves brushing against her teats before wince and freezing up in panic. My frown stayed, but it took on a tone that was more melancholic at Gemini’s reaction.

“I think there is something wrong with it,” she replied.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She quickly looked to the door, her magic lighting up and gripping the handle. She closed it, and then turned to me.

“M-mom, I told you that I’ve had foals, right?” she asked.

That was something impossible to forget. Bile tried to climb up into my mouth just like it had when she had told me that over a week ago. The thought of being impregnated against my will, forced to go through with it because raiders either don’t know what abortion is or don’t care about you enough. Even writing that down now makes me sick to my stomach, but I think I understood where Gemini was coming from.

“You didn’t feel any love for them, did you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No,” she answered. “You feel it, my mom loved me, but I didn’t love them. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s perfectly understandable,” I told her. She looked at me, confused at my response. “Gemmy, I choose to welcome you into my family, and I just have the two foals I did before meeting you. You were forced to have those foals against your will; the lack of maternal feeling towards them makes sense.”

Gemmy stared off, digesting my answer as best as she could. Seeing the conflict and confusion in her eyes as she mindlessly looked at nothing, it told me everything going on in her head. She wanted to understand, she wanted to learn, but her own experiences (or lack of it) sent her in circles.

In time, she hung her head, eyes wet as she came to her conclusion. “I don’t get it. I love you and my first mom, and I know you love me but… I don’t get it.”

I smiled at her sympathetically. “That’s fine. It might just mean being a mother isn’t for you.”

“And that is okay?”

“Completely. Believe it or not I felt that way for a long time.” Gemmy’s ears twitched, her interest piqued. “I went through some things similar to you, at your age. Got hurt badly by a really mean pony, and the idea of having foals felt wrong.”

“What changed?” my daughter asked.

“I met somepony,” I explained. “A really nice stallion, one who I instantly fell in love with named Iron Anchor. He loved me back, and we spent a lot of my years in the clouds together. At some point I realized that I wanted to start a family, to be better than my mom and dad were to me.”

An image of a newly born Rainy Day came to my mind. Warmth filled my heart as I remembered what it felt like, holding her for the first time. Clear was no different, though she certainly cried a lot more. Yet whether they wailed their little heart out or not, knowing that I held newborn life in my hooves made me feel something that I had never felt before. An overwhelming urge to protect, care, comfort, and teach.

Did a good job at it all too, but then I slipped up. My idiotic brain left the Enclave, not realizing I already had a mission at home, and a duty to Rainy and Clear. I abandoned them, just like my mom did to me. All I hoped was that Anchor didn’t turn into the same monster my dad had become.

“Is it the same for me?” Gemmy asked, pulling my mind from dark places.

I didn't need to think of an answer. It came to me as quickly as lightning.

“No, Gemmy. The reason I wanted to adopt you is very, very different,” I said. A forehoof went to my heart, and I closed my eyes to better listen to it beat. “When you told me about what those slavers did to you, I saw myself. When I saw how you grew in just a week with Open Heart, Willow, and myself, I was empowered by the strength you held.”

My eyes opened, locking on my daughter’s own yellow orbs in the process.

“Every step you’ve taken, no matter how big or small, has made me feel like I was watching my own foal grow before my eyes. You make me stronger, Gemmu, happier too, just like Rainy, Clear, and Anchor. You felt like those I cared about most back in the clouds, so I decided that I wanted you to be exactly what they were to me: family.”

As soon as I finished talking, a pit in my body started to fill with fear. What I had just said was the truth, unfiltered and unbelievably raw. My eyes looked away in terror at possible rejection. Did anything I say even make sense with what Gemmy knows? The worst possible response hit my mind, making my heart pound far too fast for comfort.

Only to be calmed when I felt Gemmy lean against me, one of her forelegs around me. Still a little scared, my eyes turned to my adopted daughter to try and gauge her expression. All I saw was a wide smile and closed eyes, her head resting on my wings. That was all I needed. I kissed the tip of her horn, earning a small giggle from her.

“I love you, Shining Gemini,” I told her.

“Love you too mom,” she said back. “Thanks for adopting me.”

“It’s only been a week, sweetie,” I reminded her, snorting in amusement.

“I know,” she replied, “but that’s all I need.”

I stayed with her after that, talking with her little by little before she slowly started to drift off to sleep. Any attempts from her to say she wasn’t tired were undercut by either a yawn or her eyes growing just a little heavier. In time, she was completely out, one hoof on my own as we both laid in bed together. I tried going to sleep with her, but it wasn’t happening. My brain was still too active. Eventually I gave up on sleeping at all, carefully getting out of bed to not disturb her before quietly flying to the door.

As I opened it, I briefly turned back to Gemini. The sight of her sleeping peacefully filled me with the same warmth that filled my heart when Rainy and Clear were born. The blood she had didn’t matter, same for her lack of wings and the horn on her head. She was my filly, my family, and somehow I was certain Anchor would have welcomed her with open wings.

“We got lucky, didn’t we?” my inner selves asked. “Sure, Open Heart can be a bitch, Gemini isn’t a fighter yet, and Willow is no longer with us, but I can’t think of anypony else I’d rather being going through this all with.”

“By ‘this all’ do you mean becoming an alicorn or helping Amaryllis?” I questioned back, smiling widely.

“Come on now Danse,” they replied. “I think we both know that answer to that.”

“I know, just testing you,” I said, quietly giggling into a wing. I maneuvered my way through the open door flank-first, just so that my eyes didn’t have to leave my daughter for a little bit longer. “She really needs a therapist after all this. There is only so much I can help her with.”
“Yep. We know that ourselves, don’t we?”