Chapter 36

After a few minutes of silence, Stokes opens the door to check on my bloody nose, which I'd forgotten about. Thankfully it had stopped bleeding a while ago, and I didn't get blood on anypony.

"So how are you?" He asks, painfully slow. He does everything he can to keep his wings out of my sight, like even looking at another pegasus is painful.

"I'm.. going to be fine. You, uh, don't have to act any different, Stokes. I've lived with this my whole life, I don't.. I reacted really badly but I promise nothing is any more wrong than it has ever been."

"Oh, I, uh, well, you… I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner." He says.

"I, I was trying to hide it.. it's awful.. embarrassing." I say. Pilot and Discord sit up around me. "You know how Cloudsdale is, don't you? My family.. we didn't get off light, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. And on behalf of the rest of our kind, I'm super sorry for their terrible behavior! It's not fair, and it's not.. it's not decent." Stokes says. I shake my head.

"No, no, no, I'm not mad, I just.. wish thing had turned out different." He makes a face that makes me think he disagrees but doesn't know how to say it. "But I don't want anypony to act any differently around me, nothing has really changed at all! I just.. reacted badly." I smile, a tiny tired thing that's not meant to fool anypony.

"Okay… well, Forgery and Iron told me to tell you that they've got dinner ready, if you want to come down." He says, trying to smile back.

"Y-yeah. Is everypony staying over for dinner?"

"Looks like, if you're okay with that."

"Nopony should make accommodations for me because I overreacted. Let's go." I wobbily get off the bed, and trip, almost face-first into my dresser, but Discord catches me. He lifts me away from the dresser, setting me down closer to the door.

"You've, eh, had enough face plants for a while, don't you think?" He tries to joke. I can't help but giggle, though in trying to contain it it becomes a little snort.

"Uhuh-aha, uh, yeah. Um, you want to stay for dinner? Is that okay?"

"I don't need to eat but if you'd like me to stick around, I can. I have basically no responsibilities." He smiles at first but that soon deteriorates into a questionable scowl.

"Well, then, let's go. I think the room capacity has been reached." Stokes jokes, leading the way out of my notably tiny room. Everyone trots downstairs, except Discord, who seems to edge down like he's cliff climbing. I don't dare to ask, lest I say something else entirely.

Forgery and Iron Casting are pulling the kitchen table together, putting the leaf in to make it longer, setting placemats and things out. This might be the first time we've had the whole crew eat dinner, and now we'll have a plus Discord. It looks and smells like dinner is spaghetti with red sauce, a favorite of mine.

Iron is very purposefully levitating everything herself, making it so that nopony, probably me specifically, can assist. Pilot, Stokes, Mercury, and Hot Flash all move to take a seat as Iron pulls up a couple of chairs and Forgery moves the pot with the spaghetti to the table. I sit down eventually as well, and Discord hovers in the corner. Soon the table is light conversation, ponies passing the scoop around, the butter and the bread, the cheese to sprinkle, etc. I keep looking over to Discord, to find him staring hard at me.

I keep looking back to my plate, only for my eyes to flirt up to the corner where he's standing, to meet his eyes squarely on mine and then repeat.

Oh gods, how did this happen? Where did the care come from? Did it spawn from respect for him? Is it the tiredness in his eyes that seems so similar to mine? Is it the strange lure of his eyes, yellow where white should be, red where no other color could fit? I don't understand; isn't there normally a cause to this? An event, an interaction?

What have I done with him? Our strange first meeting, a weirder second that lead to him nearly dying, I found him sick on the streets trying to get to Fluttershy's, then took him myself there, and engaged in a tiny adventure to make him well again. Isn't it normally the reverse? In romantic stories, that is, isn't it the stallion that usually has to run around and save mares, and then, I don't know marry them or whatever? But they usually have a love interest in those mares before they go running off to save them, and I am neither a prince, a stallion, or sure of where these feelings came from.

I shovel the spaghetti into my mouth, grateful. It's delicious, savory and sweet in the way that only red sauce is, but it doesn't serve to distract me for long. My thoughts, and eyes, keep returning to Discord.

Goodness golly gracious, isn't he, like, a million years older than me? What am I doing crushing on someone like that? And honestly, really, where did this come from? I'm so confused, so conflicted. I mean, last time.. No, no, head in the present, Copper.

"Copper!" Somepony yells, breaking me from my internal thoughts.

"Discord!" I instinctively yell. When everypony looks at me funny, I follow up "... needs to try this! It'd be a real shame if, if he didn't, I was just lost in thought that.. it seemed a shame.." I shrink under everypony's eyes.

"You know she's right. Discord, you've come over and made a mess so many times that you're practically the naughty nephew- and you've never stayed like this before. You really ought to join in." Iron says, as she levitates some spaghetti onto a plate especially for him.

"Oh, but I don't-"

"Too bad." Iron says with a sense of complete control and finality. "Here's your fork, dear." She floats a fork over to him without looking, a smug expression on her face.

"A.. alright." He says, then forks a tiny bit of spaghetti into his mouth. He tries not to react wildly but his wide eyes and high eyebrows show that he's never had anything like this. I wonder… if I didn't have to eat, would I? Maybe not. He's probably never had 'normal' food before.. He doesn't say anything but the grateful look on his face says it all.

"So, Copper." Iron says, returning to me.

"Y-yes?"

"I was going to ask if there was anything you wanted us to do, as a group. I think we all understand if you don't want to talk about yourself and whatever your past is like, but I also think we should know if things we do or say hurts you." Ponies around the table nod. Suddenly the attention is back on me.

"Oh, well, if I'm honest with you guys, I really just overreacted today. I feel bad that I broke down like a child like that, that you all had to see me acting so.. silly. I was mostly just shocked that he figured it out, and.. that was it. If you guys did or said anything that upset me I think I would have said something by now, if it really upset me all that much. You guys are great, and have never done anything to hurt me. I was.. I was really happily surprised you all jumped to my aid, actually.. "

"And what of Echo? I don't know him well but, um, he well..." Stokes comments. "He kind of literally ran out on you."

"Yeah, he threw his 'kindness' around like you insulted him or something." Pilot adds.

"Wow, really?" Mercury asks, "I mean he left angry but I thought it was at Armageddon."

"Yes and no. I said I don't expect everypony, or anypony, really, to understand. I think.. he was told or interpreted a wrong version of what happened and got mad about the wrong thing, basically. He was definitely angry at Armageddon, though. I wish he wasn't.."

"What do you mean you wish he wasn't? That guy shoved your face in the dirt! He gave you a bloody nose, Copper!" Pilot says angrily.

"Y-yes, he, he did." I put the back of my hoof up to my nose, checking. It's sore but I don't think it's bleeding again. "By our laws.. I'm basically without rights. I'm a broken pegasus." I shrug, trying to make it sound like nothing.

"Yeah, and I don't quite understand that either… how are you… I mean… I don't want to impose, Copper.." Pilot says, unsure. It bothers me to see her like that.

"Well, my parents are pegasi. Their parents are pegasi. Their parents are all pegasi too. But somewhere in the long list of pegasi… somepony isn't. An ancestor of mine must have had a child with an earth pony or a unicorn, and while the genetics remained submissive for a long time, they surfaced in me. So I am pretty much ninety-nine percent pegasus decsent but it's that one percent that shows on me. I am a pegasus.. but I have mixed leylines, mixed magics. I'm mostly pegasus but not enough. By old law and definition I am broken." I explain, trying not to sink, trying not to cry. Put on a teacher's face, Copper, you can do it.

"So… so what's wrong with that, aside from.. potential infidelity amongst your ancestors?" Pilot continues. I worry about how to phrase that, but Stokes pipes up.

"In the old days, lineage was everything. Who did what and who beget who and all that. So much so that to break from what became sacred warrior lineage was sacrilege. It was considered as high a crime as unlawful murder. To have a foal with birth defects, whether because of pegasus infidelity or natural causes, meant the line was tainted. The entire family could have been put to death, way back when.

Thank the gods we're not so bad now, but the old prejudice remains. You have a 'broken' kid, your family is broken and you're not welcome here. That's the mentality. At least in Cloudsdale." Stokes says bitterly.

"S-so..?"

"So when I was born my parents, for one, could not stay in Cloudsdale because I can't walk on clouds, secondly because nopony would let them stay. They were no longer allowed to work in weather at Cloudsdale and there's a discriminatory label on each of their records that makes it hard for them to get jobs in weather anywhere… and weather is their talent, both of them. So we lived on the ground, they had low income, unsatisfactory jobs, and me. A foal who.. whose existence kept them on the ground and out of the sky where they belonged. Whose existence meant that somewhere in either of their families there was a betrayal of the highest order. Whether they were unfaithful to their mate or lied about identities and race on official records, somepony did something forbidden that resulted in me. Our whole family, both sides, are disgraced. All honors awarded were stripped from our names… all titles too. I, as an individual, have done nothing but exist, but the mere fact that I exist as I am shows that our family is disloyal and dishonorable, the two highest sins a pegasus can make, and suddenly our whole lineage is that. I am the mark of cain."

There is a terrible silence. Nopony seems to know what to say.

"Copper, that's terrible…" Pilot says.

"I guess…" I mumble. It's.. It's just how things are.

"You guess?" Discord cries out. "That, that trash is the center of your identity and that's all you've got to say?" He blinks rapidly. I never expected such reactions from him.. I try not to blush furiously at the thought that he might, he maybe, cares about me.

"I mean, I don't like it, but, yeah, that's how it is." Everypony is quiet again. I look down at my pasta. I can feel everypony looking at me. I don't know what they're thinking. Slowly they all start eating again, silent, unspeaking. I sit back, thinking. I try to focus on dinner. But I can't. I feel sick, like everything's upturned because of me. I feel my lips trembling and I bite down on them, trying to stave off what I know is coming.

"I, I'm sorry. I can't, I.. I don't think I can eat anymore." I say, ashamed.

"Alright. You've had a stressful day, however we interpret it. You go rest; we'll clean up." Forgery says, his face soft. I allow myself this weakness, and simply nod, trying to move as quietly as I can away from the table. I force myself not to run up the stairs; to not betray myself any further. I softly close the door, then lay down on the floor beside the bed. I check my face, and find that I'd already started crying. Gods know when it started.

I try to hush my sobs, try to keep it to myself, and I think for the most part I succeed. Dinner is quiet below, like they're walking on eggshells even when I'm not there. Stars above, have I ruined everything?

I don't know how much time has passed but everything is interrupted when suddenly he's there, filling the room. I don't hear him enter, don't feel his various feet on the floor, don't see a flash of light, but he's there, lying in front of me, eyes like butter, soft and warm. He doesn't say anything. I find myself incapable of speech; if I talk I'll say all the wrong things, I know it.

He just looks at me with those soft sad eyes and I wonder if mine look that way to him. If my eyes look special to him at all.

I shake my head, break the eye contact. Of course not, Copper. You're nothing special; it's only a sense of debt that's got him here. If you hadn't have saved him you'd be nothing to him now. I feel the tears roll harder over my cheeks, but I ignore them. It's not important, I'm not important, go away, please.

I am shocked when the comforter from my bed drops over me, covering me in it's downy warmth. I uncover my head, and look to Discord, who is settling down on the other side of the room again.

"I'll be here if you need me." Is all he says, so quietly, so softly that I almost don't hear it properly. His gentle eyes assure me he'll stay, and though I retreat under the cover, I do feel better. I don't deserve this.. but gosh he makes me feel better. But something nags me..

"Why?" I ask softly, voice gratingly breaking the silence.

"Why what?"

"Why are you staying with me?" Part of me hopes he'll say something that reciprocates my own feelings, part of me hopes he'll say it's only a debt to be paid.. I don't know which is more likely and I know I deserve neither. It's quiet for a bit.

"I want to. A thousand or so years in stone, you get lonely even if you don't know that's what you're feeling. I think you've had a whole lifetime of lonely, and I don't think that's right. I don't know how to fix it but… I'm here if you need me."

With that, I sigh. He cares, he cares! But that'll make it a lot harder to abstain from acting on my own feelings in the long run. Even the hope that this kindness could turn to romance is dangerous.

But it's a hope that makes things a little bit easier too.