Melody's daughter walked through the castle corridor, trying to imagine a pony that could help Seamus get over his problem. He did have a problem, he was receding form the outside world and he was become more and more antisocial. He was becoming more and more rude and inconsiderate; the mere thought of physical contact to him was repulsive, if not taboo. He was becoming hateful and his thoughts were being clouded by darker, far more disturbed enigmas she couldn't understand.

She walked towards the south wing, where this supposed unicorn was. She wondered what his problem was, that he would turn to such a career. Maybe he just had the mindset. She hoped he was a reasonable colt, her mother had described him as a caring pony, but she had doubts. She saw a guard ahead and recognized the taller one, the one who had worked with Silver before…

She walked past and put the thought out of her head. This wasn't the time to ponder the tragedies of the past. It was how to make Seamus's future better. If not, he might carry on this road and become the one thing she dreaded most, a being as powerful as an alicorn, yet filled with hate to the point that he would see his power misused to do things that would destroy the ponies and all that he should hold dear.

That thought only made her more determined to pick correctly. This was the pony that Seamus would be spending most of his days with. She knew that Seamus was brought up in a very tight, conservative environment, so a more free spirited, liberal pony would help to round out that little flaw. Another thing that she didn't know how to react to was how Seamus had never had a father. He had never even once mentioned him to her and when she had asked he had told her he had never been there. He simply disappeared one night.

She also knew that Seamus was without a doubt the most artistic pony she knew, but he had no interest in music, so a pony who maybe knew an instrument would be good. Then again, these where foals, maybe young adults she was dealing with, she doubted that one would be all that educated. She finally saw the monumentally large staircase and cantered down it.

The unicorn was standing at the entrance in a formal, yet very tattered suit. He wore a straw hat that looked southern. She tried to think of who had dressed this colt. He either had no sense of what matched, or had no idea how to dress formally. He smiled at her and she saw that he was missing one fang. He tried to look charming, but he was falling far short of that goal. He had an earth-tone mane and his coat was red-orange. He had had a long line of ponies behind him.

Some were the most unattractive ponies the royal had ever seen. Some were tall and some short. Most were either unicorns or pegasi, although there were a few earth ponies, most were one of the two. There actually was a hippogriff towards the back, looking around in wonder at the entrance hall. She smiled, ponies were usually awed by the opulent splendor her mother put into the front wing.

The unicorn colt cleared his throat to get her attention.

"Howdy." He greeted her. "And your name might be?" He asked in a deep voiced southern drawl.

"Amethyst Amore, pleased to make your acquaintance." She greeted far more formally.

"There ain't no need to be formal, now. Say, what did that devil-mare say 'bout me before I arrived? Su'tin awful? Call me a slave trader? Ah'll have you know that I rescue these children from war-zones and find'em good homes, ah do. None a 'that nonsense about slaves." He defended.

The mare relaxed at that, at least he had a heart. "That's good to know. I was trying to find a colt, unless a mare will be just as appropriate." She began, but was interrupted.

"Look, I know your lookin for a very specific pony her and ah understand, but each one 'a these foals are their own pony, and there ain't nothin that'll change that. Ah'll do mah best, but I can't promise an exact match."

Amethyst nodded and tried to think straight. This pony was nice… but his grammar and speech left a lot to be desired. His slow, droning way of speaking made him seem even less intelligent than the way he dressed.

"Anyway…" She continued. "I was looking for a pony with a nice attitude, understanding, a bit of a free bird, but is also sophisticated and intelligent. I need this pony to be smart, clever and be able to really think. It would help if they were a colt, but I'll take a mare."

He nodded and thought. "Ah have a pony for ya. A colt, but he's a little… well… strange. Boy's shy an' don't like to talk much. He trusted me enough to tell me his story one time an'… well… Ah didn't sleep right for a week. He's got a bad past, he does. This boy's parents… the mother was awful and the father offed himself… the rest ah don't wanna tell you unless you're really interested."

She looked at the old colt with renewed interest. "Why?"

"It's…er… a little scary." He pursed his lips and looked behind him. "Anypony seen Sky?"

The crowd murmured to themselves and came up blank. After a few long minutes of mumbles and shrugs, the hippogriff in the far back raised his claw. The crowd parted around the creature as it stepped closer. The pony-falcon towered over Amethyst and its cold eyes regarded her with relative malevolence. The creature cleared it's throat and spoke.

"Sky is in the gardens." Was all it said, then it walked to the back of the room and stood there.

"That boy, always wandering off. No wonder what happened to him happened. Can't even done think straight. I'll meet you later once I've found the foal. Where?"

She pieced together what he had said and answered. "Um, the tower on the north side of the palace. I'm not interested in anypony else, just bring this pony."

The colt nodded. "Ah'll meet ya there."

Amethyst charged into the turret suite and looked at Seamus, who was still sitting on his bed, reading a book. He scowled at her and buried his face in the dusty old tome. She levitated it over to her and he let out an annoyed growl.

"Bathe, do something with your mane, and get ready to be polite. I'm getting another colt and you are going to be spending most of your days with him, so make a good first impression."

He looked at her and his eyes narrowed. "Why do you do this to me? I don't need a friend; I need you to get your mother to lift this magic ban on me."

"I may be her daughter, but she still has control over me. I can't totally disobey her. Now go in that washroom and shower."

He looked at her and said the one syllable that she hated more than any other word. "No."

She levitated him and walked over to the trap-door to the extravagant washroom. He kicked and struggled, but she threw him into the washroom and locked the door from the outside.

"Shower and brush your mane, then I'll let you out." She said and looked at the room before her. It was a mess, books and papers were strewn from one end of the suite to the other and the bed was a mass of tangled blankets and pillows.

She decided where she wanted everything to be, and with an experienced flash of magic, she put everything in its place. With the room now spotless, she smiled and went to look at the dresser. It was where Seamus kept a thing that he would always deny having. He had a sketchpad full of every pony and everything in the castle. It had so many sketches of Silver it put any other devoted artist to shame. He drew everypony, from Amethyst to Jakben, he had drawn them all. Though he didn't acknowledge it, he drew Silver so much it worried the royal mare. That sort of obsession wasn't healthy.

She looked in the bottom drawer and under it, he kept everything he tried to keep secret there, from the small piece of cork that Silver had once popped off a wine bottle to his paints, he kept all his prized possessions there. She felt bad about rifling through his private things, but she was concerned for his mental health, and this was one of the few ways she could make sure he wasn't getting worse.

A sudden knock at the chamber and she hastily put the drawer back. She drew in a sharp breath as the door opened and the most feminine colt she's ever seen walked in, his long silver-blue mane blowing lightly in the breeze. The colt was a pale-sky blue and his eyes were electric navy, but the emotion in them didn't match the intense color. The mood given off by the eyes was shy, nervous with touches of cautious curiosity. It reminded her of a foal, so did his build. It was reminiscent to the long-legged, sleek structure of Seamus, but his posture was bowed, he walked low to the ground, almost to be as un-intrusive as possible.

His mare-ish facial structure made her wonder whether it was a colt or not, and so did the rose tucked behind his ear and soft, caring voice he spoke with. His face looked totally reflective of his mood, laid back and understanding, calm and empathetic.

She reeled as he smiled at her. The colt was smaller than her and Seamus, standing up he would be a forehead shorter than the alicorn. The softness behind the movement made her reconsider this, she needed a colt that would discipline Seamus, not talk to him with this gentle expression and tell him it was okay. She was still confused as to why a colt had a rose tucked behind his ear, making him even more mare-ish.

She shook her head and tried to fathom why she had chosen this colt. Of all the colts, she disliked this one the most. He was a total pansy. She could tell form the way he walked and how he looked at her.

"Pleased to meet you." She held out her hoof.

He gave her a smile and took her hoof. "Sky." He said softly.

She shook her head. She didn't like him, but she was going to leave this to Seamus. The alicorn knocked at the washroom door and she unlatched the lock. He walked out into the room and looked at the two, confusion plain on his face.

"Who is she?" He asked; she gave him a look.

"This is a he, and I want you to meet him." She scolded. "I'm going to leave and you two are going to get acquainted. I'll be back."

She got up and shut the door without another word. The two sat in a tense, awkward silence for a moment. Seamus stared intently at the sky-blue pegasaus, who was doing his best to avoid his gaze. The two didn't talk for at least seven minutes, but just stood there, one trying to think of what to say and the other waiting for the other to say something. After ten long minutes of simmering silence, Seamus broke the mile-thick ice.

"Hi, my name's Seamus." He said.

The pegasi smiled and held out his hoof, still not looking directly at the alicorn.

"Sky. "He answered quietly.

Seamus was dumbfounded by the strange guest, as much as he wanted to take his hoof and shake it, some other part of him held him back. Sky held his hoof up for another moment, then his smile faded and he put it down.

"So... this is your room?" Sky asked, trying to get Seamus to say something.

"Yeah." Seamus looked at the other colt in annoyance at the obvious question "That's the washroom over there and the tower across form here is Melody's. Stay away from her and you'll be fine." He spoke sullenly towards the end, then recovered some level of stoicism and pulled a totally straight face. "Amethyst wants you to be my friend, so I guess we should get used to each other."

He walked over to the other side of the room and looks back at the visitor. He rolled his eyes and tried to imagine why she had chosen this colt of all colts. This colt was a spineless coward; there was no point in even keeping him around. Despite that, he couldn't be rude to the guest.

"Sky." He tested the name. It conjured images of sunsets and springtime.

He shook his head in annoyance. He'd just met the pony and now he was already thinking about how his name affected the context of his mind's eye. The alicorn shook his head once more, making his long mane whip about. Maybe Amethyst was right, maybe he was lonely. After another moment of thinking, he chuckled and removed the thought from his mind.

"I'm tired." Seamus lied, he was, but not enough to justify going to bed.

Just then he realized that there was only one bed and two of them. This thought struck him as strange, then inconvenient, and finally his emotions settled on annoying. He looked back at the pegasaus, who was now twirling the rose between his hooves to busy himself. There was something in the way he moved, something in the way he held himself that made him seem... attractive to him.

He shook his head again, disciplining himself. That was ridiculous to even contemplate thinking about. Why would he be attracted this awkward, backward colt. Maybe it was the way he spoke, so softly that one could scarcely believe he was even saying anything. Or perhaps the way he walked and the way his mare-ish face caught the light.

'Do I look like that?' He asked himself, and then he rolled his eyes in denial, of course not.

He leapt up onto the bed and tucked himself comfortably under the covers. He wasn't in the mood to meet a stranger try to figure out why this stranger was strangely attractive. He fell asleep almost immediately, leaving Sky to ponder what he had done wrong. He scuffed a hoof and went over to the washroom, trying again to think of what he had done wrong. Maybe it was the rose.

He'd thought it had looked… nice. He knew that everypony looked at him strangely when he did things like that, but he didn't care. He liked it and how it made him look, that was enough reason to ignore them. He was called a lot of things for his looks, mostly strange things, made up names. But the ones that cut the deepest were the ones that he knew were true, though he would scarcely admit.

The one that had taken it too far once, that was what gave the ponies shivers when he told them his story. The one that took her insults too far and had crossed that line where one's decency is stripped away and you're true colors show, that line where one is broken and put back together, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. She had tackled him over that line and closed the door, locked it and took what she wanted. She had wanted proof of the insults, and though he begged her to stop, she kept hitting him until he had said it.

She had made him scream and had done unspeakable things to him that he didn't want to remember, but the marks she had left were seared into the back of his wrist. Literally, she took a brand, heated it, dragged him up in front of the entire town that had assembled just to see this, tied him to a post and branded him, there in front of everypony. The brand was an old Northern punishment for the sin of bisexuality.

He had never actually done anything with or even been attracted to another colt, but the bright red kerchief he kept tied around his left wrist reminded him always. He hated that kerchief, it was a constant symbol of what he was pinned as… but some part of his brain said.

'If it is so wrong, what drove them to think you were? There was obviously some reason she had done it. Maybe I am…'

He shook his head. He closed the door to the washroom and began to run water into the sink. He splashed ice water in his face to shake his thoughts away, but they persisted. Sky looked at his reflection and immediately felt hate for it. That was the face of a colt that had disappointed his mother so much and led her to believe the… untrue? That had led her to drag him into the middle of the town square and publicly brand him. He hated that reflection and began to think of why Seamus had been so put off by him.

Maybe it was because of the rose, or the kerchief, or his mane, or his face, or his body, or his eyes… he began to pick out every flaw he could about himself, every part of him that he loathed. Every part of him was a mare's save for the obvious. Of course he couldn't be tall and broad shouldered like his father, he had to have the tiny frame of his mother and her huge electric-navy eyes.

He drained the sink and sighed, taking off his kerchief to see his brand for the six-hundredth time. It was a fanciful B with another G burnt underneath it. It was old lettering and each had been agonizing. The spot had eventually healed and the coat had grown over it, but the fur was black and charred even though it had been two years. He looked at it like it was the one thing he hated most in the world, one of his two marks. The other was the tattoo his father had given him after the branding.

The 'Pulverum Neuterus' was spelled in painful runes in between his legs, negating all feeling in his nether. He's forgotten the place, so he didn't think about it often, but now it was just another reminder of what he was dubbed. A freak and an outcast due to a conclusion everypony had jumped to because of his appearance. He hated his family for everything they had done to him. How disappointed his parents had been to even have him, a colt, let alone that they both thought of him as…

Sky couldn't even think the word. He hated the insult, it was burnt into the fabric of his memory in the voices of a thousand mocking ponies, spitting on him while he marched through a crowd to school the day after the branding. He lost track of time while he sat there and thought and hours past in a blur.

Finally, snapping out of his self-loathing, he opened the door to find that he was actually very tired and the trip over to the palace had been very tiring. The sun had long since set and the stars were out. He looked at the bed and Seamus sleeping peacefully, his wings spread wide and his small chest rising and falling rhythmically. He had to admit, there was something… peaceful about him sleeping. Almost... beautiful. Sky shook his head to clear his mind of the thought. Maybe his mother was right.

He rejected the thought and crawled into bed on the opposite side of the mattress. He looked at the alicorn. The longer he stared the more handsome he became, the soft moonlight glancing off his silky black mane and gently sloping facial structure. The longer he stared… the more he liked Seamus. He thought about this and… the more he did… the more sure he was that… this was his friend. Maybe he could be more…

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