Sideralis watched as Stout sliced up bananas and dropped them into his softened, soggy bowl of granola. There was juice on the table, something from a fruit called papaya. He wasn’t sure if he liked it yet, but he would drink it to be polite. Mustang was eating her granola—he had trouble looking her in the eye after his dream last night.

He couldn’t even bear to think about it. He needed a distraction, he needed something to take his mind off of the horror. He needed to know more about the world around him. He needed…

“Stout, you said that you were powered by love… but I also know that you run on alcohol and food,” Sideralis said as Stout finished slicing the banana.

“All those things are true.” Stout slid the bowl of granola over, being careful to make certain that the milk did not slosh. “Alcohol provides an immediate energy boost that helps to power various arcano tech devices I have. So does food. As for the changeling based technology I have, it is based on love. If I sustain injury, my healing is determined by how much love is present. If my bio-steel bones are damaged, their rates of regrowth are determined by how much love is present. My skin, my subdermal biomesh armor, my synthetic muscles, all of those regenerate based on how fast I can produce royal jelly in a special gland based on changeling physiology. Love causes the gland to secrete chemicals. It’s complicated and to be honest, I don’t understand all of it.”

“I don’t even want to understand it,” Mustang said, speaking with her mouth full. Milk dribbled down her chin and she waved her spoon around. “I just know that technology makes me awesome. I once punched a bug so hard that it exploded into bits that could only be measured in centimetres. Twilight Sparkle as my witness, I punched a bug into oblivion.”

“I suppose it was necessary.” Sideralis slumped down beside the table and began to lap up milk from his bowl of soggy, softened granola, glancing at Mustang across the table.

“Well, at the time, some changeling infector was trying to forcibly inject some poor rank and file with parasitic eggs. We were pinned down, surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of bugs on all sides, fighting in the outskirts of Manehattan. We were trying to sabotage a breeding pit and egg production facility. It’s a really horrible place, let me tell you… they take ponies that don’t generate much love, the duds you see, the ones that don’t contribute much to the Unity Web, and they inject them full of special changeling eggs.” Mustang paused and licked her lips before she continued, “These eggs devour a pony from the inside. They hatch into special combat drones, really nasty pieces of work, and they have a special hunger for pony flesh, you know, the meat from which they hatch. Every day who knows how many ponies die as they are tossed into breeding pits. Queen Mariposa just keeps growing new ponies. She grows them in vats… I’ve seen the vats.”

Sideralis’ tongue dipped into his bowl and he continued lapping, even though he felt disgusted. He was still hungry, but his appetite threatened to pack its bags and leave.

“So anyway, this rank and file is about to be injected full of parasitic eggs and she’s screaming and freaking out and Twilight Sparkle is busy killing a bunch of bugs and we’re surrounded on all sides and so I go over and I punch this changeling… I mean I really punched it, I put all of my strength behind it and this bug just explodes into a cloud of jam.”

Sucking up a thin slice of banana, Sideralis chewed it a few times before trying to swallow it. He felt his stomach lurch, but he ignored it.

“After that, I got serious about killing. I picked up a steel girder from a nearby ruined building, it was about ten feet long and weighed about four hundred pounds or so. I stood up on my hind legs, gripped this thing in my forelegs, and I used it like a club, smacking and pounding any changeling that came in reach. I was a mare with a big fucking hammer and all my problems around me looked like a bunch of nails.”

“Mom will wash your mouth out with soap if you keep swearing,” Stout warned.

“Mjölna sees what I’m doing and so she decides to join me, she grabs her own steel girder and suddenly, it’s like were playing a game. We cut a bloody path through the changelings, I don’t even know how many, but we’re burning up our power supplies like mad. Twilight takes this opportunity to plant the charges to destroy the breeding pit and the pipeline that is feeding it and then she makes the call to get out of there… as we were leaving, the place exploded. There was a big mushroom cloud and we left behind a massive smoking crater.”

Lifting his head, Sideralis looked at Mustang. “Does this make you happy?”

Mustang nodded, her head bobbing. “Yeah, yeah it does… moments like that one, when I am smacking down bugs with a steel girder, moments like that make my whole sucky life feel worth it. Everything I’ve endured, all the suffering, all the changes done to my body, it’s all worth it when I can finally just let go and do what I was made to do. I was made to replace an army.” Mustang waved at the apartment around her. “Here, I’m just sitting around, bored, with nothing to do. But on the battlefield… on the battlefield I can make a difference.”

There was a knock at the door. Three heads turned and looked. It happened again, a soft rapping, a gentle touch. It was Stout who moved to answer the door and Mustang’s ears pinned back. Mustang raised a foreleg and there was an ominous hum as she pointed it at the door. Sideralis realised that Mustang was still armed and primed for combat, she had never been turned off, and she was taking precautions to protect him. He hoped that the pony at the door was not hostile.

Stout opened the door and Sideralis saw a silvery white pegasus. Thunderclap. Sideralis’ eyes narrowed, he wasn’t sure he liked Thunderclap. Mustang’s foreleg dropped down beside her with a soft hum.

“Good morning,” the general said in a soft voice that was quite different than the voice he had spoken with during the execution. “I wanted to speak with you… I’m going to be very busy later, and I apologise for stopping by at such an early hour.”

“Stay,” Sideralis replied, lifting his head from his bowl of granola.

“You want to talk about something, obviously. Make yourself comfortable. Be respectful,” Stout said to Thunderclap. “Care for some coffee or tea?”

“No thank you.” Thunderclap gave Stout a soft smile as he sat down at the dining table near Sideralis. “You look so much like Luna—”

“Princess Luna.” Mustang’s voice was a low growl.

Thunderclap raised an eyebrow and looked at Mustang. Stout cleared her throat, glanced at her sister, and then looked at the general. Sideralis returned to lapping up milk and slurping in soggy granola from his cereal bowl.

“Don’t mind her, she’s still has royal guard protocols activated.” Stout gave her sister another glance.

Thunderclap smiled, a soft, gentle smile. “You look so much like your mother. I was her general… but I was also so much more. I was Princess Luna’s most trusted advisor, her friend, and in our most private moments, I was her lover.”

“Woah, woah, woah… you don’t get to do that to Sid, you don’t get to walk into my home and just say, ‘hey, I fucked your mother!’ and get away with it!” Stout’s lip curled back from her teeth.

“He was bound to hear it sometime, probably from some other source, I wanted him to hear it from me… look, I didn’t come here to cause trouble, I came to establish some kind of rapport… Princess Luna asked me to be here.” Thunderclap’s ears perked forwards and he glanced at Stout and Sideralis both.

Sideralis watched and waited, saying nothing.

“I know that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression… you saw me when I was at my worst… it bothers me that we met under those circumstances. I so wanted us to meet during a happier moment, but life just didn’t allow that.” Thunderclap slumped down, one wing extended, and he rubbed his muzzle.

“Why are you here?” Mustang asked around a mouthful of granola.

“Princess Luna asked me to be here to give Sideralis advice if he needs it,” Thunderclap replied, squirming a bit and looking uncomfortable.

“Wait… waitaminute… you… you’re here to give Sideralis fatherly advice if he needs it.” Stout leaned over the table. “Admit it, Princess Luna wants you to look after her colt.”

“Yes.” Thunderclap’s head dropped and he looked down at the table. “This is very difficult for me, I ask that you be respectful. There are so few ponies that my Luna trusts. She asked me to look after Sideralis… a foal not even my own…” Thunderclap’s words trailed off into a low, pained moan.

Sideralis chewed his granola and swallowed it in tiny amounts.

“You know, I can respect that,” Mustang said as she relaxed her guard, “it takes some pretty big fucking balls to look after a foal not your own… I can’t imagine how hard all of this is for you, not being able to save or protect Princess Luna from what is happening to her.”

“Hmm.” Stout looked at the stallion, one of her ears twitching, and she could not help but notice that Thunderclap was on the verge of tears. The gruff general who had so callously executed traitors the day before was gone, replaced by a seeming stranger.

“Princess Luna and I talked about having a foal together… through a surrogate of course. We had to hide our relationship to avoid scandal. I am one of the few ponies that Princess Luna trusts with the secrets of her heart… I miss her so much, these past twenty years have been hard… I’m so afraid that I’m going to die of old age and never get a chance to see her again.” Thunderclap slumped over the table. “I’ve held it all together for her… I’ve worked to keep Twilight safe and in power. I’ve brought ruin to Twilight’s enemies. Princess Luna made me swear to hold the Empire together… I was to be its guardian… I’ve had to do terrible things to keep my promise.”

“We’ve all had to compromise our values because of this war,” Stout said, her demeanour now one of gentle comfort. “None of will come away from this unscathed.”

“Princess Luna, as sick as she was… she gave me orders… she sent me away… she made me give her a promise that I didn’t know if I could keep… said she would geld me if I failed her and allowed the Empire to fall to ruin.” Thunderclap closed his eyes and rested his head upon the table.

“I have learned that my mother has impossibly high expectations from those she loves and trusts,” Sideralis said after swallowing his well chewed food. “I learned that last night, actually.”

“I had nightmares all night… I cannot help but wonder if Princess Luna was the cause… I worried that when I came here, you would think I was a monster, that you would hate me, that you would send me away, and that I would fail in my duties because of how you saw me yesterday… Sideralis, you… you have to believe me when I tell you, I am not that kind of pony… at least, I wasn’t… I’ve had to… I’ve been forced to… the things I had to do to keep Twilight in power for the past twenty years… her rule has teetered on the edge… I have had to do every despicable thing you could imagine to protect her… and now, I fear she hates me.” Thunderclap closed his eyes and heaved a sad sigh.

“She’s pretty angry all right,” Stout said, shaking her head. “You put her in a bad spot, making her pull that lever. She’s going to have her feathers ruffled for a long time.”

“So, by extension, it is safe to assume that you would do anything to protect Prince Sideralis and keep him in power.” Mustang pushed away her empty bowl and gave the pegasus across the table a flinty one eyed stare.

Thunderclap opened his eyes. “Princess Luna holds me accountable for his well being, I have no say in the matter. How could I refuse her?”

“So… you’re not so different than we are,” Mustang said, a lopsided scowl appearing on her muzzle.

“I don’t understand.” Thunderclap tilted his head to one side.

“Nevermind.” Mustang looked at Sideralis and watched as milk dribbled from his chin. “It is my opinion that you would be wise to trust him. I understand that you are probably upset after what happened yesterday, but sending him away or refusing to deal with him would only hurt Princess Luna’s, and, by extension, Princess Celestia’s plans. One simply does not cast aside a powerful, loyal resource.”

Sideralis blinked, feeling confused. “Mustang… um…”

“My royal guard protocols extend to a library of directives to keep you safe, secure, happy, and protected. These directives include looking after resources, offering helpful advice, and protecting those who are of a direct benefit to you. General Thunderclap and the pegasus Thunderclap are two very different ponies. It is my advice that you get to know the pegasus known as Thunderclap for private engagements and that you keep General Thunderclap close as an advisor for public engagements.”

“Stout?” Sideralis looked over at the mare who had been his companion since waking up.

Stout gave a slow nod.

“Very well then,” Sideralis said, lifting his head. He smacked his lips and looked at Thunderclap. “Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, I suppose… but I have a request…”

“Yes?” Thunderclap turned and looked Sideralis in the eye.

“Try not to kill more ponies, if it can be helped. I’ll admit, I don’t know very much about politics and my knowledge of what is going on is limited, but we’re supposed to save ponies. We need them so they can go home once this is over.”

“Yes, of course.” Thunderclap bowed his head.

“And you need to talk to Twilight, but I would give her a few days to cool off… maybe try telling her the truth… reveal to her what has really been going on and all of the things you have had to do. Just be honest with her. If you would like, I’ll even join you.” Sideralis thought about his therapy sessions. “Hiding a problem never makes it better.”

“Thank you, so very much for giving me a chance.” Thunderclap let out a sigh of relief.

“Stay with us for a while, spend some time with Sid. He could always use a new friend.” Stout smiled at the older pegasus and tried to be inviting.

“Sorry, but I really must be going. I have to keep the empire from crashing into the dirt.” Thunderclap rose, standing up, and he gave his wings a stretch. “Prince Sideralis, I understand the awkwardness in the situation, but Princess Luna wants me to be a father figure for you. Anything I can do for you, I will. I am not a perfect pony.”

“But you are a loyal pony,” Mustang said, glancing at Sideralis, “and that goes a long way.”

“When you have more time, come and talk to me.” Sideralis, worried about his mother’s task for him, was glad to have somepony to go to for advice, if he needed it.

Author's Notes:

And here, we see some different sides. Make of them what you will.