Jaxler was in the meeting hall in his favorite seat, with a few barrels of booze to his side. He had already finished one, and was having a relatively good time. He was still very lucid, and starting to enjoy himself. He had spent far too long today at the craftspony’s workshop and finally had some time to relax.
Fauchard made his way into the dinning hall. He looked around for the black furred pegasus that Glaive had told him of. Glaive had tried to do this individual a kindness while he was imprisoned, but his work seemed to have failed. Fauchard had not spoken to this Jaxler Blackflutes before, but at his son’s request had decided to speak with him.
After a short time looking he found the stallion partially obscured by a barrel of strong drink. Fauchard approached and said, “Hello Jaxler, Would you mind if I join you?”
Jaxler was surprised to be approached by somepony he didn’t know, much less be called by name. “Oh, I don’t mind. Drinking is always more fun with company, but do you mind me asking how you know my name. You also look a
lot like somepony I know.”
Fauchard takes his seat across from Jaxler, “My name is Fauchard, my son, Glaive, visited you in prison daily. He has told me a bit about you, and I thought we could talk. That is all.”
Jaxler shrugged, the story Fauchard told made sense, but the idea of somepony’s father going out of their way to talk with a friend of their sons seemed odd.“Ah, that makes sense. So, is there anything you want to talk about?”
Fauchard looks to the barrel of booze next to Jaxler, and then back to him. "My son is concerned about you. He had hoped that you would give up, or at least cut back on the drink after being released. He took a personal risk...doing what he did for you, and yet the same day you were released you got drunk out of your mind again. Now he feels like it was all for nothing. You have a great potential Jaxler, yet you waste it like this. Why?"
Jaxler looked visibly stressed by the question and his tone was more depressed now with a hint of anger. He was just starting to enjoy himself and now this. “Sir, I’ve been through a lot of shit in my life. Your son’s plan was doomed from the beginning, and I would have told him so, given he asked. I would love more than anything to be able to stop drinking this medicine, but if this was simply an addiction I would have stopped pickling my liver more than a decade ago.”
Fauchard acquired a pint of ale to drink himself, and takes a sip. “I understand, however, I don’t think Glaive did, but I understand that you must have something you want to forget, and that that is why you drink. I understand how such a thing can ruin, even the strongest pony’s, life. But, Glaive tells me you have been in Dawnpick for what, ten years? Whatever it was that happened, is not it time to put it all in the past? Is it not time to move on?”
Jaxler sighed and gazed at Fauchard. “I don’t know you or your son well enough to tell you why, I’m this way or what makes me depressed, but I don’t want to forget anything, and I sure as hell have moved on.”
Fauchard shakes his head and then says, “Jaxler listen to what you are saying. You are contradicting yourself. First you say that you would love to quit drinking your ‘medicine’ but that it is more than an addiction, but now you say that you have moved on from whatever it was that drove you to drink in the first place. Which one is it Jaxler?”
Jaxler gave Fauchard a nasty look before responding. “Have you ever had a scar? Cause’ I have lots of em’ and the Huge one over my kidney isn’t anywhere near the worst.”
Fauchard looks to the scar along his left front leg, remembering his first real fight for his life, in which he earned it. He then quietly thinks back to remember the other, much worse, events of that same day.. “I have a few, but my worst ones are not things I can show.” says the old unicorn solemnly.
Jaxler sighed. “Ya’ know, some scars can be disfiguring?”
Fauchard nods, “Yes.”
“Then please stop harassing me over my drinking problem.”
“All scars fade with time, Jaxler. They might not go away entirely, but they do fade. It is a shame to see you waste yourself like this. Do you not care about the ponies of this town? Do you not want to be able to help them? To protect them?”
Fauchard was doing an effective job of probing Jaxler where he was most sensitive. “I would love nothing more than to protect them. Don’t you dare imply that I don’t.”
Fauchard’s expression and tone grows serious, “Then what happens if one day when you are completely wasted, we are ambushed by Rainbow Coalition soldiers, or Diomedian bandits, or Badger Ponies, or another dragon, or gods forbid, something even worse, and you can’t get up to protect anypony because you drank too much bucking moonshine?”
Jaxler was mad now. “Then... I spose’... Everypony dies.... and I put a bolt in my forehead.” Jaxler then gave Fauchard another nasty look. “Why the hell can’t you stop asking me questions? You're starting to get way too damn annoying.”
Fauchard stands, looking as imposing as he could manage, deciding that what Jaxler needed was a harsher teacher, "I'm trying to help you, fool! Whatever your past was, it doesn't excuse this kind of carrying on. You are a soldier, bucking act like one. Grow a gods damned spine, Jaxler, you don't need this filth." Fauchard knocks Jaxler's mug to the floor. "You
can be better than this.”
Jaxler looked Fauchard right in the eye and laughed. If there was one thing Jaxler loved, it was enraging ponies he didn’t like. “Please, be quiet you senile bastard.” Jaxler couldn’t wait to see Fauchard’s reaction and even smiled in anticipation.
Fauchard looks down at Jaxler who is still seated smirking, “You are a coward Jaxler. You admit you have a problem, but instead of rising to face it like a stallion, you cower like a foal. I pity you. Have you not one speck of honor or pride left, in your miserable old husk?” says Fauchard with a look that one might give a small injured animal.
Jaxler still smiled. If his age didn’t enrage him, then assaulting his honor might. “Yeah, at least I’m a self-made man. I didn’t suck off my father’s achievements and waltz around being given handouts and opportunities because I knew somepony famous. I actually have to work, like a grown stallion.”
Fauchard chuckles, "
You? A self-made stallion? You are nothing more than a self-made disaster without the backbone to even
try and fix yourself. I worked my whole life to get to where I was before I retired, and my father's connections didn't get me one free handout as I climbed my way up the ranks from the very bottom. I earned every position I was ever given. While you couldn't even hack it as a city guard."
Jaxler smiled even wider. He knew exactly how to piss Fauchard off. “Your daughter is a stupid, mindless bastard, whose cruelty and disposition are despicable. How you could allow her to be so vile is beyond my comprehension. And how Glaive turned out so well, with such a rotten parent, is beyond me.”
Fauchard is momentarily stunned that a pony, even one as honorless as Jaxler, would dare to just insult his daughter like that in front of him. He glares at the scoundrel and says, "Take. Back. What, you said about my daughter, or gods help me, you will wake up in the hospital if you wake up at all."
Clearly this pony had no idea of Jaxler’s reputation for being tough as nails. “I never lie, and I’d be a coward if I took it back.” Jaxler then smiled ear to ear, almost waiting to be struck by the pony.
“I did warn you.” Fauchard's horn pluses white with powerful magic, as Jaxler feels a tightening around his throat, followed a powerful pull on his neck yanking his entire body toward the barrel of booze next to the two ponies.
Jaxler was surprised to feel his neck being constricted, but he kept his cool and appeared as if he didn’t even feel the life being choked out of him. The pony was able to fight the force of magic, and picked up the barrel he was being dragged towards and threw it at Fauchard.
Fauchard sidesteps the thrown barrel, while releasing the magical grip on the pony's throat. He flips the table that they had been sitting at and sends it magically flying toward Jaxler trying to pin the black hearted pegasus to the wall.
Jaxler flew directly up upon seeing that the table was being flung at him. The pegasus couldn’t completely dodge the projectile, which managed to hit his lower body, which dropped the pony to the ground.
Fauchard seeing his foe sprawled out on the ground, but still determined to teach the fool a lesson about insulting the Regshetbeth family, raises his left fore-hoof and aims to stomp downward onto Jaxler’s right fore-leg with just sufficient force to shatter the bone.
Jaxler sees a strike coming, but doesn’t try to dodge. The strike shatters his leg and makes a hideous cracking noise, but Jaxler ignored the pain, and threw his left foreleg toward his opponent's head.
Jaxler jumping up so quickly after having his leg broken surprised the old unicorn, and his reflexes not being what they used to, Jaxler’s hoof makes contact. Fauchard manages to roll with the blow a bit and avoids the worst of it, though one of his teeth felt a bit loose, and he would have a bruise there the next day. Fauchard then throws a right hook towards Jaxler.
Jaxler actually tried to dodge this time, and effectively rolled from being on his back to being his belly, but still failed to dodge the hit and instead took the strike to his back, before getting back on all
four of his legs.
As Jaxler pulls himself back up Fauchard takes a step back, “Stand down and I won’t hurt you any worse than you already are.”
“You know, I have a
high pain tolerance.” Jaxler had to change the way this fight was going. He couldn’t just back down like a coward, and wasn’t about to go down without a fight, but he his leg was near useless. So, he hovered a few inches off the ground. Jaxler then flew as fast as he could toward the older stallion while cocking his hoof back in preparation for a strike.
As Jaxler flew forward the unicorn moved sideways to Jaxler’s left trying to get out of the way. Fauchard’s horn was aglow, and Jaxler felt his wings pressed into his side as if a great weight were placed on them.
Jaxler felt his wings get shut as he collided with the ground. After being stunned for a few moments Jaxler got back on his hooves, while trying not to put any weight on his right foreleg. “Come at me!”
Fauchard lets out an exasperated sigh, as he magics Jaxler’s good front leg out from under him, but releasing his wings to do so.
Jaxler hit his head on the ground as his leg got took from underneath him, but the pony fought the magic and repositioned his leg back on to its original position. the stallion then forced himself back up. “Are you too afraid to actually come at me instead of zapping my leg, you saturated jerk off.”
Fauchard keeps his eyes focused on the pegasus, and allows the insult to pass over him without reaction. "I have no desire to kill you, and you certainly are not a match for me. This fight is over now, you have paid enough for you words. Go see Panacea for your leg and we can forget this happened. Be grateful I am giving you another chance. It is more than I would give to most."
Jaxler wasn’t going to just back down. He never backed down, and now some old geezer said he wasn’t a match for him. Jaxler sighed, when he noticed his crossbow laying a few feet to his side. Apparently it got flung there when the table was flipped. So, Jaxler started to fly toward his weapon.
Fauchard changes his magic once again as Jaxler’s crossbow begins to slide across the floor under a chair and table while wrapped in a pale glow, but Fauchard makes no other actions to stop the pony.
Jaxler was mad; nopony dared touch his weapon without his consent. Jaxler looked back at Fauchard, the pony was visibly pissed out of his mind. The pony then flew top speed at Fauchard, in an attempt slam into the pony and bring him to the ground.
Fauchard had expected the pony to follow the crossbow not fly toward him, he knew he didn’t have time to dodge so he instead braced for impact. The two ponies collided, hard, and tumbled together. Hooves began to fly as the two ponies tumbled together, both taking a number of hard hits, before they stop rolling with Fauchard on top.
Jaxler was now pinned by the old coot, which now had a sizable black eye, which by all means fitted the jackass. “Please get off, I’m 100% straight, and your making me feel uncomfortable, else I’ll have give you another black eye.”
Fauchard had no idea how the pony could still be joking after the beating he had just taken, a part of him wished he’d had a stallion like Jaxler working under him back east, all those years ago. Fauchard stood up and walked away, his back to Jaxler, he spits on the ground, his saliva mixed with a bit of blood, “Go see the Doctor soon if you want to walk on that leg again.” are his only parting words as he makes his way toward the door.
Jaxler got back up. “You're a horrible father and your daughter is sadistic!”
Fauchard turns back to Jaxler righteous fury in his eyes, "And you are an honorless coward, who is too afraid to face himself! And if I'm wrong you will drop this pointless fight and deal with your bucking problems! Or you can keep running from them like a foal and try and hit me again! It is your call, but there will be nopony to blame but yourself, if that is the path you choose to follow."
“If I’m an honorless coward then why don’t you just strike me down?”
"Because Glaive thinks you can be more than that, and I agree with him! You are wasting your potential Jaxler, and it is one of the greatest wastes of pony life I have ever seen. You could be one of the greats if you just stallioned up and dealt with your shit, instead of wallowing in it like a pig."
“I can’t fix myself, and if the gods won’t be kind enough to smite me then please STRIKE ME DOWN!”
Fauchard shakes his head, "You can fix yourself if you want to Jaxler. Ten years, maybe more, you've boozed yourself to near death every night! If you want it better then by the gods try. I can't help you if you won't try and help yourself."
“Do you realize that if I stop drinking, I will get so depressed that I will actively seek my own demise?”
“I’m not saying stop all at once, just reduce it, bit by bit, until you don’t need it anymore. Face whatever horrors you past holds, deal with them, and let them go. You have friends here don’t you? Flux, Glaive, and that Granite colt, if they are really your friends, they will want to help you. Let them help you!”
“If I stop drinking, I die, if I keep drinking I die, and if I fix myself, I’m still going to die before my time.”
"The pony I see before me is as good as dead already. He kills himself each and every night. But if you fix yourself, then Jaxler the pony can live again. All ponies die one day, it's what we do with the time we are given that matters, and we must strive to make those lives worthwhile, not waste them."
“Leave me NOW BEFORE I BUCKING KILL YOU!”
"If you will not help yourself, then what good are you to Dawnpick, Jaxler? If you won't even try, then you are
worthless! Face your fears, overcome them and live as a noble warrior of Dawnpick, or die as you live now, a miserable wretch of a pony, and a blight on this town. Those are your only two options. CHOOSE!" Fauchard stomps a hoof on the ground with the last word.
“I can’t fix myself.”
“You can if you want to.” Fauchard turns to walk out again, confident his point had been drilled in deep enough, and that what Jaxler needed now was time to think about it on his own. Content with his victory today he adds, “It has been a pleasant chat Jaxler. Think about what I said. If you want to talk again...You know where to find me.”
“Go to hell.”
Fauchard stops only to right the table he knocked over and to leave a few gold bits on the table as an apology for the mess before exiting through the main door.
Jaxler shrugged as the pony left. Looks like Fauchard gave up, and Jaxler had won. The pony limped over to his where his crossbow was and slung it over his back. He then looked at his hoof, which probably needed surgery. Jaxler sighed, if he couldn’t go drinking, maybe some pain killers from panacea would do the trick.
Author
Topic: Dawnpick (My Little Fortress) (Read 225466 times)