She took it from me. And he helped.

Six days after being admitted into Farrington General, I didn’t entirely care that Iron had come by my hospital room to try and pull nonexistent rank in order to get me to apologize like I was the only stallion to blame.

I didn’t mind being confined to as cheap a hospital room as I could probably no longer afford. My white walls were a prison, but I preferred them to the insanity that was happening outside.

I didn’t care that, between my eye, my shoulder, and my wing, every waking moment was full of some throb, ache, or pain. My doctor, a tall, brown stallion, had used the word lucky to describe my condition. That part made me laugh. I was lucky that the damage done to me was mostly reparable.

Mostly.

He promised me that, in time, I would regain eyesight in my left eye. I’d also be able to walk normally, once my shoulder joint healed. The one thing he was silent on, however, the one injury he didn’t want to talk about, despite four separate reconstructive surgeries...

The one injury I cared about was left a mystery.

One of my surgeons had enough fortitude to be frank with me, but despite telling me about “bone fragments” and “destroyed ligaments,” the best thing he could offer was that I’d get to keep my wing, and there was a chance I’d be able to fly.

I had a chance. And that was only if they held off on administering healing potions, since the accelerated healing would cause my wing joint to set incorrectly. So my best bet was to endure a long, painful, “natural” healing process.

And Iron had the gall to trot into my room with his holier-than-me attitude?

I couldn’t care less if he thought he was smart by insulting my marriage. That score would be settled later. For now, sheer spite motivated me to get out of the hospital. He wanted to play father to my children and husband to my wife, and then all because he thought I was the only one to blame in that household, and act like it was my fault?

A nurse interrupted my seething by waltzing into my room in her usual bubbly, inane manner. My vision blanked white when she turned the light on. Her dim, fuzzy outline blurred as I hardened my glare at her general location.

To add insult to injury, she cooed at me. “It’s no fun laying in the dark! If you sit up and smile, I’ll let you choose your flavor of pudding!”

All I wanted was peace, quiet, and dark to rest in, not to have rewards held over me like I was ten. I snarled, “Close your eyes and open your mouth, and I’ll let you choose a flavor.”

The nurse’s smile only grew. “If you were healthy enough for that, you wouldn’t be here still.”

Damn hospital bitch and her damn hospital bitch logic.

Thankfully, after that little exchange, she left me alone with my tray. As much as I wanted to fling it at the back of her head, my shoulder wasn’t up to the task yet. Besides, food meant healing, and healing meant leaving. I forced the calories down.

After my dinner sentence had been served, the nurse visited again to collect my tray. She held out a peace offering—a green bowl of cream-colored goop. Without breaking my glare at her, I took the bowl, tried not to scream in agony as I swung my shoulder to the right, and I dropped it into where I guessed the trash can was. After that, I brought up my other hoof, pointed it at the door, and commanded, “Out!”

I reveled at her sad little frown as she left. At least she remembered Thursday of last week, when I had fainted trying to turn off my own lights; on her way out, she flicked the switch down.

Then I was alone. Comet had been good about visiting me every day, but since Iron had been here, I assumed she was with Hailey and Moonshine tonight. With my wife out of the equation, I resigned myself to a night alone—barring another random visitor.

Last Wednesday afternoon, less than ten hours after the duel, Sergeant Justice had come by to collect my old lieutenant’s armor. She’d tried to start a conversation with me, which I refused—I had barely been conscious, and the pain had been torture enough without having to endure the drunken ramblings of an alcoholic widow.

Thursday morning, I received a pleasant visit from a few members of Air Control—my old squad. They were, apparently, some of the only guards with their heads still on straight. Even though I had to assure Ace that no, it wasn’t worth it for him to murder the griffin for me, they at least understood the real problem in my situation.

On Friday, the secretary once again started a fight between Comet and me by sending some flowers. It was unfortunate; Memo was adorable in her own way, but no matter how many ways I not-so-subtly spelled it out for her, she had a not-very-subtle crush on me. I thought it was cute, but Comet thought I was stupid enough to rend my household over it.

After Comet had stormed off over a dozen daffodils, I discovered that something was amiss. I’d made the mistake of trying to read the Farrington Times; two paragraphs in, I needed to stab something. That was the first time I opened the plastic bin with all the possessions I had on me when I had first stumbled into the hospital.

My wallet and my knife’s shoulder harness had been the only things inside. Then I remembered where my knife was, or specifically, who I had left it in.

I’d torn my shoulder open by throwing the bin against the wall. When the doctor came and magicked some new thread through the wound, the pain made it easy to block out his stern talking-to. It made everything clearer, brighter, and sharper.

She had stolen my knife, and Iron had helped her. They could both go to Hell.

Thursday morning, nine whole days after the fight, my doctor came by to take off my eye bandage. The world was fuzzy and bright when I looked through my left eye, but even as I sat there, outlines began to get clearer and clearer.

My shoulder joint had also finally healed enough where it was a simple matter of applying a topical mist and changing bandages. I could do that on my own, at home.

I already felt better than I had in days, but I still had to ask, “What about my wing?”

My doctor used a sharp wooden stick to prod the tip of my wing that stuck out from its bright pink cast. I twitched involuntarily at the prick, and my doctor spat out his stick. “You’ve got good circulation, and our surgeons did their best to rebuild the entire socket...” He shook his head. “It’s still too early to talk about function, but we’re not going to have to talk about prosthetics, either.”

That brand of “good news” came as a hollow emptiness in the pit of my stomach. Although I didn’t fly as much as I used to, it was still an incredibly... final thing, to have the sky taken away like that.

All because I stood up for someone who was in the same situation.

Either way, my health was improving to the point where I just needed rest and recuperation, not medical supervision. I asked about being discharged, and my doctor hesitantly admitted that, if I took it easy, I could leave that evening.

Things looked better from a personal standpoint, too. When Comet came to visit, she informed me that Iron was tending to his own damn business that evening because the kids were over at a friend’s slumber party. When I told her the news about my discharge, she leaped at me in a soft, tight hug. Even though I only could return it with one forearm, it was one of those raw, passionate embraces that reminded me of our younger days—before she got attacked.

She remembered it, too, and she nuzzled my cheek before going in for a kiss. I returned it, but before things went any farther, I pulled away. Rubbing the small of her back, I reasoned, “Not here, in a hospital. But, uh, later?”

She got down from the side of the bed, but gave me a sideways nod and a look that said, “We’ll see.”

After filling out all the discharge paperwork—apparently, I was out of the Guard, but my medical benefits were still paying for almost everything—we picked a few things up from the first-floor pharmacy. I put the shoulder brace on and immediately, walking on four limbs became bearable.

I thought of taking one of the painkillers, but knowing their street value, I decided I’d rather hang on to them. I resented even having to think about breaking the law, but at the same time, I had no idea how firmly I had been removed from the Guard. Nearly eleven years of good service should have counted for something in a sane world, but I knew enough to prepare for the worst. At any rate, my family couldn’t eat my morals.

Comet and I walked to the entrance lobby together; she had thought to bring her saddlebags, so I could walk without having to carry anything in an awkward manner. I didn’t know if she knew how grateful I was for that, but it wasn’t exactly something I knew how to say, either. “Thank you for carrying my painkillers and paperwork that weigh all of a half pound?”

She’d think I looked down on her.

When we got to the lobby, I turned to the sound of Comet’s sharp inhalation. Then, I noticed what she was looking at.

That thing had just walked through the sliding entrance doors.

Iron’s wild animal saw me, too; I felt myself returning its glare with a snarl. I truly, truly hoped things wouldn’t come to a hospital lobby fight when I had almost been discharged. Then again, I wasn’t the one in control of that; if Comet were afraid, I’d have to do something.

My wife nudged me. “Come on, Star. Can we just go?” Her request was small and pleading, and I felt a welling of pity for her.

I patted her forearm, then relented. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Comet and I walked towards the entrance and the confused, stationary beast. As we got closer, a small panic rose in my gut; apparently, my body remembered being broken.

However, I wasn’t going to let fear show or slow me down. I kept my eyes locked on the griffin, fully expecting a cheap shot; by the time I could smell its usual stale cave dirt, my heart was pounding.

Luckily, we passed it without incident.

Out in the street, it took a concentrated effort to avoid breathing a sigh of relief; Comet’s silence made me think she was facing a similar fight. When we were a block away, I broke the silence: “What the hell is it even doing at a hospital?”

“Iron’s got her reading to the Miner’s Phage victims.”

That came as a shock, and I remembered seven years ago, when the news first hit. The miners beneath Mount Farrington had hit a pocket of high-pressure gas; three of them died in the resulting explosion. That would’ve been bad enough, but the gas leaked out into the Mining and Artisan Districts. The only ones who seemed to be affected by it were newborn foals, and the so-named “Miner’s Phage” was an apparently lifelong condition.

Which was something of an ironic term; seven years ago, there had been thirty of them. Now there were six.

I wanted to crack a joke about those kids being through enough as it was, or wondering if Iron’s pet could even read. However, I remembered those days of hoping and praying that one-year-old Hailey wasn’t affected by it. So all I could do was respond with a quiet, “Is that so?”

Comet dipped back and walked around to my left side; I was slightly confused, then she rested her head on my good shoulder. I unfurled my good wing and hugged her with it.

We kept walking like that, which wasn’t entirely as awkward a position as it would seem. As soon as we reached our home’s gate, Comet chuckled. “You need a shower.”

I rubbed her shoulder with my wing and replied, “I might need an extra set of hooves in there.” Which, unfortunately, was true; my wing’s cast wasn’t waterproof, and it was awkward to get the cover on it by myself.

Comet took my fun little joke to the next level. After she opened the gate for me and caught back up with me, she leaned into my ear and whispered a suggestion that made my face grow hot.

“O-okay...” I turned to her, not sure where that had come from. However, I wasn’t going to complain, either.

We went inside, and without much ado, we made our way to the master bathroom. There, despite everything that had happened to me in the past ten days, despite my uncertain future, despite my pain, injuries, and the physical limits they created for me...

It was a good evening.

Tuesday morning, a mere five mornings since Starfall had come back home, I sat across the table from him and wanted to laugh bitterly at myself. It had been stupid for me to think that, since he was home more often, things would change between us. It had been fun, but equally stupid, to think that being more affectionate would get him to open up more.

If anything, now, he was more distant, more withdrawn than before. Oh, Starfall would talk, if I asked him a question, but that was purely out of politeness, and I had to start the conversation. I hated that. We always ate breakfast together, after the kids were at school and he’d woken up after his night shift. Now that we were sleeping on the same schedule, he was up earlier than usual, but we were eating in the same, deep silence.

I told myself that it wasn't that he was a bad stallion. Sure, I knew he had a violent streak in him—the same way I knew he could be a crass, mean asshole sometimes. However, he kept himself in check around me and our children, and he was generally good at romance. Some days, I didn’t even know what I had to complain about; for a husband, he was faithful—despite inappropriate jokes to the contrary—reliable, and often, he was kind.

But then there were mornings like now, where he would be perfectly content to ignore me except to ask me simple, meaningless things like, “Pass the butter?”

I slid the dish across the table, and he thanked me. I watched him spread butter over his toast, completely tuning out my existence, and it bothered me to watch him do exactly what I was thinking about. I didn't say anything to complain, though. That was how things were with him. He wasn't cold enough to hate, he just wasn't warm enough to love. It was like he strategically did the bare minimum to call himself a husband.

Several of my friends had asked me about our relationship over the years, and the question always seemed to be, “If you’re not happy, why do you stay with him?”

The clock on our wall read six twenty-three, and there was my answer. Hailey and Moonshine would be awake soon. It sounded insane, but it was almost like Starfall took all the love he was supposed to give me—actual, deep, emotional love—and instead, he gave it to our two children. However crazy it seemed, it almost fit; if it were true, I wasn't even jealous of them. If I was the cost of Starfall being a good father, then I was happy to pay it.

Even then, I worried something had broken in him when he got hospitalized for picking a fight with that griffin. Part of me hoped it was the painkillers he had been prescribed; part of me rationalized he was supposed to be under bed rest, not being up and about like he was.

But then there was the part of me that saw the growing rift between him and our children.

That terrified me, but it turned to cold fury when I realized that if I let myself cry over it, he'd come over to me, wrap his good limbs around me, and ask “What's wrong” in an attempt to comfort me.

When the kitchen clock struck the half-hour, I felt like I couldn't take the silence anymore. Starfall’d been home for a week, but he had said nothing about money. Between the two of us, we didn’t have any income. Other than the severance benefits from the post office that had dried up eight years ago, Starfall had always taken care of things with his job in the Guard.

Last Tuesday, when a tired-looking Iron came to look after the kids, I’d asked them how their talk had gone. He’d shaken his head and, in not so few words, he told me that he still needed to talk with Starfall. Given how, over the past few weeks, Star had only mentioned Iron in passive, hateful barbs, I was concerned. I sincerely hoped that he would put his family before his friendship troubles with Iron, but again, I hadn’t heard anything about it.

I took a huff of a deep breath and started the conversation. “It’s six-thirty.”

“On the eighteenth,” he flatly agreed.

His indifference drove me to push back: “So, what's happening with you and the Guard?”

Starfall took a bite of his toast and chewed it with a glare. “I don't know. Why don't you ask Iron?”

“I did. He says he wants to talk to you when you’ve...” I realized that it probably wasn’t the best thing to quote Iron directly about where Starfall’s head was stuck. “When you’re ready to talk to him.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

I tapped a hoof on the table, then let out an angry sigh. “So, what then? Are we going to board up the house and fight off debtors? Eat the furniture? I mean, we've got savings, but—”

He glared at me with what I thought was anger, but I supposed that was what passed for sincerity from him. “When I can, I will get a job.”

Him and his simple plans. My wing sockets prickled, which I hoped didn’t mean it was going to be a bad day, but I ignored them to press, “And when's that going to be? For that matter, where are you going to get a job that pays like the Guard?”

Starfall ran a frustrated hoof back through his stubbly stripe of a mane. “I don't know, all right? Is that what you want to hear?” He raised his voice, and I had to fight from flinching. “How I'm the lazy, good-for-nothing bastard stallion that you married because I'm sitting around the house all day when I should be out looking for work?”

I shook my head at his stupid accusations. “You need to rest. Just because you’re out of the hospital doesn’t mean you’re healed yet.”

He shrugged, wide-eyed. “Then what do you want me to do about work?”

“Talk to Iron,” I said bluntly. “He’s your friend, and he—”

“He threw that away the moment he let his sudden griffin fetish get in the way of our ‘friendship.’” He made little air quotes with his hooves to punctuate the sentence.

I stared down at the streak of jam that was left on my empty plate. Iron was my friend, too, even if he had waited until after Starfall’s fight to admit to me that he had been dating a griffin. At the same time, that was misguided thoughtfulness on Iron’s part, not malice, and I hated hearing Star talk about him like that. “What’s it to you, who he decides to date?”

“A functional memory?” Starfall shrugged maliciously.

Back on this again... I sighed. “Star, if she were two feet taller, brown, missing an eye, and male, then maybe you’d have a leg to stand on.”

“It’s the principle of the matter.”

“Principle?” I asked. “Eight years ago, a unicorn broke three of your ribs; is Iron banned from dating that race?”

Starfall shook his head. “It’s different and you know it.”

“How?!”

He slammed a hoof on the table, and my plate jumped. “Because that didn’t leave me a broken cripple!”

I gasped, and he sat there, slack-jawed, like he didn’t believe what he had just said, either.

But he had.

It felt like a slap in the face, and tears stung. I blinked them back. I couldn’t believe it.

It’d been ten years since my injury. Every time he assured me he didn't think that, every time he helped me get past the memory of flying and how I'd never feel it again, every time he helped me cope... I shook my head slowly. They hadn't all been a lie, they couldn’t have been.

Still, in a sickening twist, it all made sense. That was why he was distant with me. That was why he loved the kids more. Because they were able-bodied, with their whole futures in front of them. Me? I just disgusted him by being broken. Crippled.

I felt betrayed. Tears, frustrated and hot, started falling. Starfall didn’t walk over to try and comfort me, and I was glad. Now that I knew why, I didn’t want him to touch me.

Across the table, Starfall let out an angry sigh. I felt hollow. His silence had already said more than enough, but still, I had to know. “Is that... Is that really what you think I am?”

An entire minute passed, and I almost gave up on getting an answer. Finally, his tongue popped as he opened his mouth, and he answered in a low voice. “It’s not that you’re... like you are, it’s just... you just accept it.”

For a moment, I felt sorry for him. He had been keeping that bottled up for almost ten years? I couldn’t imagine what that would be like, and for something so...

My pity dried up when I realized just what his words meant: He was upset because I could cope with my disability? “Is that... you’re jealous that I’m not miserable like you?”

“Miserable—”

“Don’t even!” It was all I could do to keep from shouting. A decade’s resentment mixed with all my marital worries, and the whole thing fueled me to speak faster and faster. “Because, just because I don’t sit around moping all day, I’m weak? Just because one of us is coping with what happened, that means I’m just accepting it?” My voice turned to steel. “I think about what happened every day. My joints still hurt every day. Every time I look up at the sky, every time I see one of our kids flying, or even a bird, every time I have that nightmare...” I shuddered. “Every day hurts. Every day, I deal with it. But you, you have the gall to sit there and call me a cripple?” I scoffed. “Fuck you!”

I shouted the last two words, and they echoed around the kitchen for a while. Starfall blinked a few times; even with his half-closed left one, his eyes were wider than I’d seen in a long time. His shock quickly turned to a frown, and then he asked, too calmly, “How am I supposed to know this if you don’t show it?”

“How can I not feel like this?” I asked, more incredulous than angry.

His frown became a scowl and he stood up. “So, I’m a mind reader, but you always bitch at me for ‘keeping things bottled up?’”

“You...” I stood up to match him. This was not my fault. I pointed a hoof at him and shouted again, “Don’t turn this on me!”

He glared at me, which turned to a full-body shudder. He didn’t say anything; instead, he just grunted angrily, turned, and started walking out of the kitchen. I stood there watching him, disgusted, before I realized what was happening. We weren’t done yet. I followed him out into the hallway. “Starfall!”

He was already at the end of the hall. I couldn’t do anything but watch as he grabbed his wallet, threw the front door open, stepped outside, and quickly swung it closed behind him.

The doorknob’s gentle click shook me to my senses about as abruptly as slamming the door would have. With our fight over, the house boomed with silence—I perked an ear and, miraculously, the kids seemed to have slept through our shouting match. At least, I hoped they did.

I thought about running after Starfall, but without any idea where he was going, it might be hard to find him before... a public shouting match? I glanced up at the ceiling and shook my head. Hailey and Moonshine needed their breakfast.

I turned around to head back to the kitchen and sighed. I’d always thought that he just needed to show his emotions, and that was the biggest problem we faced.

Now, more than ever, I had even less of an idea what the future held in store for us.

I barely kept from slamming my door behind me. If the kids were still asleep after Comet’s ranting, I didn’t want to be the one to wake them up. Still, it took a decent amount of willpower to keep from taking my frustration out on something.

Our elderly neighbor was out, tending to her lawn. She greeted me with a cheery, “Good morning!”

After I returned her greeting back, I immediately apologized for making her flinch. That drove my hooves forward, as I decided it would be best to be somewhere I didn’t have a personal stake in. I started walking, randomly, without any real destination in mind.

Ten minutes into my trek, all of my legs were weary and trembling. A more rational mind would have noted that this was my first time leaving the house since I returned from the hospital under order of bed rest. Then again, that “rationality” was weakness; crippled as I was, I just needed to slow down.

Either way, I needed to get out of that house. I appreciated her efforts, but five days of Comet attempting to dote on me like I was an invalid, five days of responding, “I can do it...”

It wore thin.

After I took my walking speed to a more leisurely pace, I started to feel better, physically. At the very least, my wing joint no longer screamed in piercing agony at every waking moment; now, it was just reduced to a sharp, throbbing ache.

It didn’t matter. No matter how far along in the healing process I was, I hated being unable to fly—whether temporarily or permanently. Granted I only ever flew during early-morning calisthenics, but I hated that Iron’s little social experiment had taken even that away from me.

Griffins. I spat on the side of the road, to the dismay of a passer-by. I glared, and she walked past with a pompous, upturned nose of disgust. Aren’t they supposed to be dying or something? School had been more than a decade ago, and their filthy culture hadn’t interested me back then, either. When I heard that my “average” grades set me on course for a job in the weather factory, I’d started looking outside of Cloudsdale for my future prospects.

It had seemed so easy back then: Go to a place with a low pegasus population, then be in demand based solely on your ability to fly. Never mind why so few pegasi lived in Farrington, what was the worst that could happen?

I chuckled, bitterly, and then I recalled hearing about how there were only a sparse number of small tribes of those beasts remaining. I shook the pointless fact out of my head. Comet had been the one who was interested in Equestrian territories and boundaries. Comet had been the one with parents who could afford blowing two months’ worth of rent on a pointless exam. She took her “National Certified Flyer’s Licence” exam and passed; she had job prospects outside the Cloudsdale weather factory.

And look how well that worked out for her, I thought blackly. Not even ten months after she got that damn license, she ignored a landmark and flew straight through griffin territory. Apparently, it was a crime punishable by death. I remembered how it had taken her weeks just to get the strength to walk again. As I looked at the prospect of only being grounded for a few months, I wondered just how “merciful” that monster had been to spare her “life.”

But no, griffins were only single-minded, grotesquely violent freaks when provoked. We had no reason to fear them. Almost everyone I talked to in the Guard agreed: if there were any sort of organized aerial assault from a race of killing machines, Farrington would suffer heavy losses before the end of it. True, Celestia—or her sister, now—could come to our defense, but how many good stallions, mares, and foals would die before that intervention?

I wasn’t content to sit idly and wait for that to happen. Comet had always berated me for training with my knife as extensively as I had, but even ten years of that hadn’t been enough. After seeing the limits of close-range combat, I figured that a knife was too limited a weapon: Not only did it get me into too close of quarters with a griffin, but stabbing them only seemed to make them more violent.

Plus, I didn’t have my knife anymore. It had been stolen from me.

I took a quick glance at the street around me; I had wandered into the Market District, and was two blocks away from the Market Square. I chuckled at that coincidence, though it wasn’t all that far from my home to begin with. It reminded me of that night, and how next time I fought a griffin, I’d need a better weapon.

But again—I remembered Iron’s pompous crap he spun to the newspaper—we’re moving into a new era of foreign relations for Farrington. I scoffed at that, just like I had scoffed at the kindling he sent me on Saturday in lieu of our usual social gathering. Luckily, Comet had been out; without my knife or unicorn powers, my wrath at his stupid, neat handwriting was limited to a fire in the sink.

Besides, I already knew I was effectively fired from the Guard. He’d dress it up in his usual manner, but that was the cold, hard truth. When it came between his friend and his new fetish, he could apparently throw me away after two months.

That... stung, I had to admit. Ironically, it wasn’t even because he was dating a griffin; that was just who he was. I always used to joke that he needed to find a girlfriend; given how strenuously he took dating, the small part of me that actually wanted to repair things between us wished that he was single again.

Repair things, I repeated the phrase in my mind like it contained some sort of profound knowledge. Whether it was true or not, I had told Comet how pathetic I thought she acted, and she turned it around to make it look like I had a problem. If not bending down and taking everything that life shoved in me was a “problem,” then I didn’t want to be “normal.”

Hell, Comet’s tirade about how much she hated her condition just proved I was right. She had problems that she was just trying to ignore. Her fake strength was built on lies and self-delusion, and I hated how shallow that was.

If I had known she would’ve turned out like that, I would have left her to “cope” on her own, while she was still in the hospital. Ten years later, it was too late; now, I was trapped in our marriage because I had been stupid enough to father a couple of—

I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized where that train of thought led, where I was at. A dusty blue mare had been following too close behind me, and she headbutted my flank before bitching, “Watch where you’re going!”

Through clenched teeth, I lashed back. “Eat. It.”

She turned her head up at me with a “humph,” but didn’t make a bigger scene out of her mistake. After she slinked away, I took the opportunity to regain my bearings. Thanks to the clock in the intersection I was near, I was able to tell that it was exactly seven sixteen in the morning when I realized how bad a father I was.

Slowly, I started walking again, this time with a destination in mind. Between fatigue and failure, it was at a much slower, weaker pace than I had started out on my mid-morning walk. I wanted to go home, ironically, but now, I wasn’t sure if I could just yet.

In the soft morning light, the Market Square was a much calmer place than my memories would indicate. I entered from the southeast and headed to the central fountain. Five feet from the stone fixture, I looked down at the ground and remembered how this had all begun—me, standing over a griffin, the one who would later ruin large portions of my life.

With a sad shake of my head, I stepped through the area she had occupied three years ago. I walked over to the fountain’s basin, glad that despite the recent drought, it still had water in it. The bottom was white plaster and the sun wasn’t directly overhead, so I could see my reflection fairly easily. I had let my mane get shaggier than usual, and I looked... gaunt was the word that came to mind. I’d like to meet the pony who could gain weight over two appetite-less weeks, though.

My left eye had a distinctive cut running from my cheek and up to my eyebrow. It was easy to forget I had that injury, since it didn’t hurt and I didn’t see myself very often. It was deep enough where it would probably leave a scar, and while my macho mind thought that was “cool,” I wondered what it would look like to Hailey and Moonshine.

Did I frighten them?

After being discharged from the hospital, I had been in constant pain and exhaustion from my wing. Hailey entertained herself by drawing a few smiley faced flowers on the cast, and neither of them seemed different, but I could remember putting on a tough face for my dad, back when things had been hard.

I remembered, five years ago when I’d brought Hailey up to visit, I’d asked my dad how he had found the time and money for himself on top of being a parent.

He had smiled and asked, “For me?”

That had resonated with me when, for the first time, I realized I couldn’t remember him having much in the way of hobbies. Ever since then, I had vowed to try and live up to his example, to put my children first. But looking at myself, how I was beaten and broken, I had to ask who I put first.

A few moments’ of deliberation from their perspective showed me that I was a selfish stallion. I took a night shift in the Guard because I didn’t want to deal with the emptiness I felt towards my wife. I had Comet keep the kids away from the hospital for my benefit, so they wouldn’t see me broken and battered.

When I had two talons pressed to my neck, it wasn’t just the pain that caused me to goad her to “finish it.” I would literally rather die than look weak to them.

Forget selfish, was I really that petty?

I punched at my reflection, which was a lot farther down in the basin than I thought; before I knew it, my nose slammed into the bottom of the fountain while I mounted the side. The shock made me inhale, which was a mistake to do underwater; one flap of my good wing later, and I was sitting on my ass by the fountain, coughing and sputtering.

My nose smelled like copper and my eyes burned, but for the first time, it felt like my mind was clear.

I thought about Comet: Why did she need to suffer for her pain to be real to me? That was cruel, and worse, just because I couldn’t accept that she was happy... Now she was probably going to have to help out with some sort of part-time job. I knew it was partly because of her handicap, but I still meant every word of the promise I made to protect and provide for her.

Celestia only knew I had caused her enough hardship by dragging her along with me to Farrington in the first place. She didn’t need to suffer through a job on top of everything else that I had done to her.

With a deep, bloody inhale, I stood up. I needed some sort of towel, or bandage, for my nose. I had my wallet, so I could get something from the nearby pharmacy, but that just reminded me about my money troubles. I decided to head over there anyway, then I could figure out where my morning would take me.

After a few steps away from the Market Square, I thought about Iron. As much as I needed him to be as selfish and petty as I was, that probably wasn’t the case. I accused him of playing favorites and putting the job first, but really, he was trying to be a friend despite what his job forced him to do. I just made that hard for him.

Worse, he’d had a much rougher childhood than me—it was hard to remember he was an orphan sometimes—and now that he was finally coming around to the idea of romance...

I shook my head. I didn’t understand what sort of kinks he was into, but with Comet’s injuries requiring certain positions and prohibiting others, I knew something about how fleeting the notion of “traditional” romance was. If he wanted to date a griffin, I could try to accept it—though I’d prefer he’d try it with one that hadn’t stabbed me.

Then again, that had been my fault too. I smiled bitterly as I remembered that my problems with her were over, for now; since I was out of the Guard and the hospital, our paths wouldn’t need to cross anymore.

That was one problem solved, at the very least.

I rolled my eyes at how effective a solution that was. At the same time, there wasn’t much more I could do about it; with a one-shouldered shrug, I kept walking to the pharmacy.

Once there, the bell above the door announced my presence to the beige cashier to the right. From the look of him, I had disturbed his personal time. He looked up at me, snickered, and then returned to his magazine; apparently, I wasn’t worth much more of his attention.

Anger slowly filled up the space in my mind that my self-loathing had hollowed out. I bristled all the way to the first aid aisle, picked up some gauze, and returned to the cashier. On the way, I passed a strategically placed dairy cooler; then, I remembered we were almost out of milk. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that milk would solve my problems with Comet, but still, it would be one less thing for her to worry about.

I didn’t have any saddlebags, so I had to cradle the milk and gauze in my still-hurting right arm. Walking was getting to be tiring, and the cashier kept smiling at me, and as I placed my items on the counter, I vowed that if he didn’t wipe that smile off his face, he was going to get very intimately acquainted with his rolled-up magazine.

He punched a few buttons on the cash register, but then he snarked, “Love the pink.”

I narrowed my glare at him. “What?”

He tapped himself on his right shoulder, and I instantly remembered my cast. They had changed it three times during my hospital stay, but each time, “I don’t care” had resulted in it being kept the same color.

I also remembered that Hailey liked the pink, and my anger turned righteous. If this stallion was going to mock me over something my children enjoyed, then he could shove his laughter straight up his ass.

“Do you have any kids?” I asked coolly. Somehow, I was calm enough to realize how it wouldn’t do me any good to snap at him without a proper foundation.

In response, the cashier held out a small, folding picture frame in front of me. A mare about Comet’s age smiled back at me from the left side; on the right side, there was a pair of girls, probably ages six and eight. I nodded slowly at the pictures, and the cashier put them back down.

After seeing the three ponies he was working to support, I felt a bond of empathy with him. At any rate, I could look past his laughing at my cast; he was probably snarky like that with everyone.

I paid for my items and left the pharmacy feeling much more serene than when I had entered... or in a long time, for that matter. I didn’t have a clear sense of direction on any of my problems except for one:

I wanted to love my children.

After that, everything seemed like it would fall in place. I needed to be the best father possible, which included things like swallowing my own pride.

Before I started the trip back home, I opened my pack of gauze, balled it up, and shoved it up my nostrils. I was still wet from the fountain, but at that point, I was less dreading Comet’s reaction to my departure and more worried about us in the long-term.

The milk carton didn’t have a good grip to bite on, so I cradled its cold, waxy bulk in my right forearm. Two blocks later, my arm was numb. I wanted to switch, but I still wasn’t strong enough to walk three-legged on my right leg yet. By the time I got to my front gate, my head was spinning and I was starting to see spots.

Back inside, I smiled and nodded back at Moonshine’s greeting, trying not to faint in the process. Pride was one thing, terrifying the kids was another. Hailey kept quiet, but that was because she was too polite to speak through her mouthful of oatmeal.

Comet was over at the sink, washing dishes. I dragged myself over to her, then set the milk on the counter. Her eye turned to it, then up at me, then it widened in shock. “Where did you go?” she whispered.

“I, uh, fell... in the Market Square fountain.”

Her eyebrow raised, and our children laughed. Then, she shook her head and turned back to the dishes; I could tell she was still bothered by our fight that morning. My chest felt heavy when I remembered I was, too.

I leaned in for a quick kiss on her cheek, which she accepted but didn’t return. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. It was tricky to put the proper meaning into a whisper, but I didn’t know if the kids knew we had fought. If they didn’t, they didn’t need that discovery in their morning.

Comet turned to look me in the eyes after I said it, then she nuzzled my cheek to accept my apology. “Me too.”

I smiled back at her before going over to the table to be with Hailey and Moonshine. They were fighting over an orange, so I took a paring knife out of our drawer, then cut the fruit down the middle. That solved that dispute, and as I sat there, trying not to pant, I knew that I had two very good reasons to work on my relationship with my wife.

For the first time, I realized I was the broken one who needed to get over my wounds.