sea's mother

The girl wasn't as social when she was young. When there were other foals at the palace (Which was often) she would play with them if they invited her, but rarely seek it. She had questions, though- she always had questions, for other kids and for adults, and she would ask them like any other foal and then ask all the follow up questions, and then walk away. And, like such things, there came the day that she asked me (Perhaps, after having asked other people) about her.

"The other foals have moms." She asked. "Why don't I?"

I had known the question would come, for me or for her dad (Who was always worried about her health, and so I had to give her weekly checks) and that I'd need to have a good answer for such an important question. As such, I told her:

"She went away." I said as gently as I could, "It was before you were born. Do you want to know about her?"

Francesca was curious, even if it wasn't evident at first sight. She was thorough in her questions and thorough in contemplating the answers-- she had once asked me a question and then, a year later, asked the follow up question. I knew it was a topic that'd mater to her, so I had answered it in a way that I hoped would make her feel invited to ask more. At the time, she still had some color in her eyes, and she'd make eye contact. She looked at me with those big, red eyes of hers, and didn't ask anything else. I had brought her into this world, delivered, breastfed her and saved her life half a dozen times on the way back home, but in that moment I had, I still don't, any idea of what she was thinking.

It's the only time in her life she touched the subject. She grew up into a more and more social and curious mare, and she never again showed concern about the subject, even when me or Victor brought it up. She would reply politely if she had to, but only that. I'm... not even sure she ever knew Skin's name. I never saw her stop to look at the portrait when her eyes still were good enough.

 

She (We called her Shark Skin, because rubbing her the wrong way was losing that hoof) was a plain- what you'd call an earth pony and had such a foul mouth, one was afraid she'd make you sick if she bit. And bite she did- her greatest claim to fame at the time was how known she was in every bar in town. Skin was also banned from all clinics in the city but mine, due to trying to pick fights with the doctors, having nothing to pay with, or both. Most of her money went into booze at the time

 

Still... I think there was kindness in her, somewhere- and perhaps she knew I knew it, and withheld her bite with me. Or perhaps she was desperate not to lose the last medic who'd fix her up. I don't know. We were friends of a sort, and I'd sometimes go drinking with her and sometimes she'd teach me some magic.

 

The day it started, I was stitching up a cut in her neck. The skin was knitting herself (A spell I could never convince her to teach me; She said other witches would eat her alive if she did) but I had to get it close enough for it to do so. I felt her go rigid and put a hoof on her head to keep her still, but it wasn't enough because, before I could stop her, she was standing on the window with the needle hanging off and the thread rolling behind her on the floor. Victor was passing by surrounded by bodyguards, and she was staring at him.

 

"Really?" I asked. "Him?"

 

Because Victor was bad, at the time, you have no idea how bad. People who questioned him would suddenly find themselves working at keeping the sewer fires burning, whether they were commoners or his employees or bureaucrats, and the questioners were many: People were starving in the streets at the time. This was before Sledge, but if they had met at the time, Sledge would've felt respect, and a competitive streak, for Victor.

 

"What about?" She asked back, "Is that the Noble? He's handsome"

 

"You've never seen him?"

 

"Not up close."

 

"Keep it that way."

 

The glint I saw in her eye told me she was down bad, but I pulled her back to me with a spell and finished stitching. She was lost in thought the entire time, and I thought that was that.

 

Two weeks later she was the talk of town: For the first time, Victor had a girl and there was hope (And dread) for a successor. I didn't believe it could be her at first, but every description matched. And, in a mater of days, I had a job offer. I'd be the royal physician. I told the guard, thinking it was a joke, that I'd only accept it if Victor was willing to sponsor me to continue studies in medicine during my practice at the castle. The guard had said Victor had offered to negotiate the terms of my contract personally, and that he would escort me.

 

I wasn't a medic to scoff at by that point, but Victor agreed to allow me not to just read his texts on medicine, but to set, besides a royal grant, a stipend to be spent on seeking and acquiring medical texts. Nothing but the best for the royal family.

 

Do you know what it's like to hear someone who you've only ever known to be cruel and petty say 'Family' with such tenderness? To say that word at all? It doesn't mater.

 

The first time I saw Skin again she was smiling. Joyfully smiling. She said she'd told Victor to get me as a thanks for all the help I'd given her and, if you'd seen that smile -and the way they smiled at each other- you could've believed love conquered all.

 

And then you could hear their arguments, and believe the idea was ridiculous. Both Victor and her were terribly willfull people at the time, terribly spirited, egotistical, dangerous people who had found their match in each other. And after the arguments, they'd hate themselves and each other for how much they loved each other. It was terrible: Furniture would be smashed, anyone caught in the vicinity was liable to be fired out of spite,even guards, after a while, would quietly shuffle away the moment they started fighting. And then it'd pass, and they'd be smiling at each other with that warmth again.

 

But things started changing over time. Victor... smoothed out. All the constant friction with someone the wouldn't dare hurt (Because they knew the other would kill him if they tried) was somehow smoothing both out, making them better people. For a few months I, and many other people who worked at the palace, thought it might happen. That it might be true, they were each other's missing half, and they made each other a better person just by the sheer force of their love. Victor was listening to his advisers and, for the first and not last time in his life, agreed to meet lower classes to discuss their issues. Skin drank less and less and would, more and more often, accept the apologies of the people who slighted her and drop the issue. Once I even heard *her* apologize. I still remember her expression when she did.

 

And then she got pregnant.

 

I didn't have time to notice- she told me herself. One night, she broke into my room and told me to go with her. That she felt like a bird trapped in a cellar, she couldn't stand this place a moment longer, she had to get out, the child was ill and she had to fix it, she was asphyxiating in this palace. I asked her what was wrong, but she just kept saying we had to get out. I couldn't let a pregnant mare, and a friend, walk out into the night, so I agreed to get out. We boarded a ship filled with... I don't know what it was, other than a witch's workshop, it was filled with equipment she never answered any questions about what it was or what she was using it for. She had bought the ship and crew, and we spent the next several months drifting between cities, with her researching day and night in her laboratory in the lower decks.

 

Then, one night, she told me she'd failed. I could tell something was wrong at that time, but had no words for it: The child was ill in a way that didn't come from any sickness, it was just... Malformed at a more foundational level than I, or any other medic I've ever known, would know how to describe. The very shape of it was wrong, in the same way some children are born missing a limb or allergic to some foods or anemic. Every magic ritual she knew to fix wrong pregnancies was too much as well, would kill such a weak babe in the womb if she tried it. She had spent months trying to find a way to fix her child, to make her stronger, but hadn't found any. And Skin, who I'd never seen express love for anyone before Victor, was crying because she couldn't figure a way, as a witch or as a mother, to save her daughter.

 

Francesca -Sea- was born a week later, while we were docked. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, and she came out the wrong way, and even after fixing that she wouldn't cry, only wheeze. We held her all night because we were afraid she'd die. Because we knew she would, and wanted to give her what few hours we could in this world, but somehow she was still alive come morning, and Skin slid out of the bed to, I believed, find something to eat.

 

She came back moments later and told me the ship was mine now. She'd paid the crew their wages and told them to get me back to Landly.

 

"But what about you?" I asked her, feeling Francesca move in my grasp, maybe responding to her mother's voice. And her eyes were a red so intense, back then, you don't have an idea. "What about her? You haven't even given her a name."

 

"There's things I want to do." Said Skin, looking down to the foal I held. "Places I want to go, but she's too weak to come with me. Take her to Victor."

 

I asked if she was sure, and the look she gave me- I remembered, in that instant, who I was talking to. She looked at me with murder in her eyes for having dared question her, daring me to do it again. And for fuck's sake, I stared the same murder right back at her, daring to try touching the only person who'd shown kindness to her after having hurt everyone else, who'd delivered her child to the world, and who now held them in her arms.

 

That day was the last I ever saw her. Victor was never the same- with his wife had gone a part of him that never came back, for better or for worse. Francesca nearly died several times in the way back, and must've been nursed by every single mare in that ship at least once, and didn't have the strength to cry until several weeks after having come back. But you see her now, and you can see who she's become.