New Moon

by Xirdus

The Day Before Birthday

Anno 9 Regni Imperator Osiris XIII
Sunday, 31st of March

Jason was a typical earth pony. He had light yellow coat and dark brown mane – very common colors in his province. Like many other earth ponies there, he was a farmer. His family had an average-sized plot of land where they almost exclusively grow corn – the most popular plant in the world. Jason has four siblings – pretty average, but rather on the lower bound. He would have six siblings, but his would-be-second-oldest brother died at birth, and his two years younger sister passed away at the age of 3. Neither of those is a rare occurrence – things like that happen a lot in these lands. This is why ponies tend to have five to ten foals in the first place. But having big family is problematic too – the food is very limited, after all. Typical homestead with the little land surrounding it can only give limited crops – totally insufficient for twelve-pony family, and barely sufficient for seven-pony family like Jason's. Jason was lucky that he has no more siblings. But this is the only thing he was lucky with.

The most obvious sign of his unluckiness was lack of cutie mark. He was thirteen years old and still hadn't found his special talent. But this wasn't that big deal – roughly one in three or four adult ponies lacked cutie mark. But he was unlucky enough to be the only one without cutie mark in his family (even his younger sister had one – and she was just eight!). That, of course, made him less important in his parents' eyes than the rest of the herd. He always was the least loved child, ever since his birth (his name is the best evidence – just what kind of name is Jason? It's so boring and dumb and and... ugh[1]). The reason is that, he was an unexpected foal. Not that they didn't want any foal at that time – it's been little different kind of unexpected. When his mother was pregnant with him, his parents were expecting not a son, but a daughter. You see, even without any hi-tech machines, ponies have their ways to know the gender of foal to be born, and they always work. So how the mistake? Well, it wasn't a mistake at all. It's just, they gender-checked not him, but his twin sister. As weird as it might sound, even though ponies can predict foal's gender with absolute precision, they can't detect multiple pregnancies. So Jason's birth was complete surprise. A rather unpleasant surprise (remember, low food supply). The fact that they already had two sons (three if you count the born-dead one) didn't help.

Ponies tend to have beautiful and very original names. It's nearly impossible (or maybe impossible, period) to meet two ponies with the same name. Even throughout generations, reuse of names rarely occurs. Names are important part of pony culture. They are unique, even more unique than the appearance and cutie marks – and it is often name that defines personality. I don't know what kind of sorcery that is, but it really works that way. So the worst thing that parents can do to their children is giving them a bad name. Splendid Crops and Blooming Flower knew this well, and so with each foal in sight, they spent a lot of time thinking of names. And I really mean it – if you added up all the hours spent contemplating over different ideas for their first foal, you would get over nine full weeks – and with each next new member of family, the total was getting even bigger.

When the time had come for their fourth foal (third if you don't count the born-dead one), and when they found out it will be their first daughter, the thing got even more serious than usual. First, they made a giant list of all the names they came up with. In two months, they had written up 130 different names, all of them genuinely good. When they finally decided it's enough, they proceeded to step two. They took all the names and grouped them in pairs. Then, they reconsidered each of them in those pairs, picking the better name and crossing the worse one out. When they were done with all the names, they made new pairs from the ones left on the list and repeated the process. After five iterations of this algorithm (which took them four and a half months to do, including two week stagnancy caused by terribly hard to resolve three-way choice that emerged at the end of round 2), they had their final four: Dream Spark, Rose Petal, Light Heart and Lauren Faust. They decided that they will wait with final decision until their daughter shows herself. And three months later, she did. She was a lovely foal with beautiful crimson red mane and cream-colored, almost white coat. It took six seconds for the parents to choose the name – Rose Petal, of course. And with this, they marked her destiny – a life full of beauty and love, but also delicate and very fragile.

When they were done with Rose, they looked at the other foal. Even within first minute after being born, it already managed to annoy its parents like they were never before. First, it was their third son (or even fourth, depending on how you look at it). Second, it was a total surprise – and they didn't like surprises. They were prepared to raise one more foal – but not two newborns at once! Third, they had no name for him, and they needed to make up one for him, fast. So they did – they gave him the first name that came to mind. Jason. Short, simple, with no real meaning – this was his destiny.

* ~ * ~ *

DONG... DONG... DONG... DONG... DONG... DONG...

The clock tower nearby announced the hour no. 6. For Jason (and most other farmers) it meant the end of work for the day. All that was left to do was go home, make dinner and... Well, nothing really. There was very little to do on farms besides work. Some evenings, he was literally doing nothing. Other times, he avoided doing literally nothing by going to bed early. This day, he had yet to decide which approach he'll take.

Upon entering home, the first thing he noticed (or rather, the first thing that noticed him) was exceptionally happy Rose. Happiness was an emotion he rarely felt. If at all. He couldn't remember the last time he was happy. His life was just so incredibly mundane.

“Hey Jason, you remember what tomorrow is!?” Rose asked in an extremely high-pitched voice, obviously excited about something. You could almost see excitement dripping from all over her body. But whatever this was about, Jason had no clue what it might be.

“Um... No?” he responded.

Rose groaned aloud, then almost screamed in his face:

“IT'S-YOUR-BIRTH-DAYYYY!” For bonus effect, she was standing just before him and was leaning forward so hard that they were almost touching with noses. It must have looked comical, especially since Jason was countering his sister's movements by leaning back, to which she responded by leaning forward even more.

“Oh. Right. My birthday.” he said after a moment, in perfectly calm voice. For him, birthday was just another day. For some reason beyond his understanding, it was different for his siblings. They were always looking forward to it. Maybe it was related to their parents' attitude. His brothers and sisters always got some birthday present. Usually some sweet treat like a cupcake – the only cupcake they had in the whole year. But for him, the only present was day off work, and even that wasn't every year. The worst was, Rose always got something cool the very same day. But fortunately, she was a good pony, and good sister. If she had something sweet, she shared it with him. He never insisted on it – he knew it wasn't meant for him. But Rose always seemed very happy that she could share her presents with Jason, and he liked making her happy. She was the only pony in the world who was ever kind to him. She was the best sister.

Jason continued:

“...And since it's my birthday, that of course means it's your birthday, too. And guessing how cheerful you are, something special must be prepared for it.”

“Yep, you're right!” she said that while she spun around on her heels, eyes closed, front hooves high in the air. When she landed, she shot eyes wide open, plastered a wicked grin on face and announced in sing-song voice:

“We're going to the city tomorrow!”

“Ah, well. Have fun.”

It took Rose a second or two to realize the meaning of his words.

“Nonononono! You got it wrong. We are going! You too!” She hopped closer to him. How it was possible, we will never know.

“Huh?” Jason asked. It was so abstract concept to him that he was getting anything for birthday that he was sure his sister was mistaken about something.

“Well, it's your birthday too, right?”

“Yes, but... What did Ma and Pa say about this?”

Rose put on an expression of uneasiness, accompanied by obligatory hooves crossing.

“Well... I haven't exactly asked them if you're going too, yet... but come on! Why wouldn't they take you with us?”

Jason could think about a hundred of reasons, actually, but he kept them to himself. Their chat had ended anyway, since this very moment their mom announced the dinner is ready. And so, they went dining.

* ~ * ~ *

“No. You will not go anywhere tomorrow.” Crops was never the one to discuss with. Jason knew it well (in fact, the best from all ponies), so he decided to just fold. But Rose wasn't gifted with good common sense, so she was still trying her best at the argument. He tried to calm down everypony, but to no avail.

“Rose, really... I don't want to go to the city that much anyway...”

“But, why?” She seemed to completely ignore Jason. So did their father, for that matter. “It's not everyday that he has birthday! It should be special for him! Especially that he never before got anything special for this very special day!”

“I said no! How do you imagine this? With us three away, there is so much more work to do on farm that we can't let anyone else go with us! Fields won't plow themselves!”

Jason tried to say something, but he couldn't be heard by anypony.

“Then I'm not going too!” She quickly rose from her chair and hit the table with both hooves simultaneously. Like it would have any effect on her father...

“Well then! You don't go! And you will have no other present this year! Me and your mother will go alone! And you, Rose, will have extra chores tomorrow! To your room! Now!”

Rose slowly exited the room, not looking at anyone while she walked by. Jason wanted to go after her, but he was stopped by his mother:

“No, Jason. You will go when you finish your meal.”

At this point he completely lost his appetite, but what could he do? He forced himself to eat the remaining corn, then left the table and went to Rose's bedroom. He found her there crying in corner. He slowly approached her and embraced in hug.

“It's okay Rose, no need for tears.” But she just sobbed harder.

“I just wanted you to have a real birthday... A special one...”

“And I really appreciate that. You are the best sister ever.”

“Thank you Jason...” They remained in each other's hooves for a while, until Rose's cries stopped completely.

“You know, I was really looking forward to seeing the city...”

“Don't worry, you will go there one day, eventually. I'm sure of it.”

“Thanks.” A somewhat big yawn escaped her muzzle.

“I guess it's time for sleep, Rose. We have a lot of work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Goodnight Jason.”

“Goodnight.” And so, Jason went to his own room. He quickly prepared for sleep and climbed on bed. The sleep had come to him in a matter of minutes. He didn't know it yet, but it would be the most important dream of his life.

Author's Note:

[1] I mean no offense to any Jasons – it's just that in pony world, names are usually meaningful and related to their lives, like Pinkie Pie, Carrot Cake or Lightning Dust. Jason is very cool name in human world, really – it just doesn't work for ponies, that's all.

Comments

[Jphyper]

Okay, what was the point of the prologue? You have us form a connection to Luisa, a nice, strong, well-developed character, but then you just throw her away. I was looking forward to seeing her story, but then "poof", she's gone, and we get Jason the doormat instead.

[Xirdus]

2713500

Well, the point was to introduce the reader to the world. And don't worry, there will be enough nice, strong, likeable characters in the following chapters (I have ideas for at least a dozen right now). Jason isn't going to be sissy anymore, either

[Jphyper]

2713541 My respose was going to be that you should do it without her in there, but then I realized that would turn it into an info dump, which is worse. You wrote the prologue too well. You gave too much character development to a throwaway character.