A Song
Edited by Stally, who is a talented writer.
Also, thanks for the the people who took their time to give me opinions, especially from my main group, Author Support.
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Her sister had a beautiful heart.
Yet despite how beautiful it was, it was not enough to hide the selfishness that was hidden within.
It had been the last straw.
All the times that she had been abandoned, all the times that she had been scolded, it was all wearing away at her facade. It was the one that she used in public, the one that showed with her friends, with her teacher, with anypony except for her sister.
Her sister always apologized after each time, but it wasn't enough. It always left lingering doubt that somehow, she wasn't worthy of living anymore. That she wasn't fabulous enough, wasn't classy enough, wasn't good enough. Wasn't good enough to deserve living.
To her, her sister was her mother. Approval was everything. It was why she tried, after failing so many times before, to help her sister. Why she tried to make her sister happy. The reason that she lived.
There had been many times where she had bravely dared to hope, but that hope that was torn asunder and desecrated in the end.
During the Sisterhooves Social, she had tried especially hard. It was the perfect opportunity after all. She got up to cook breakfast, even for their parents, who never appeared to care about them, and were constantly on vacation. When her sister finally awoke to find what had occurred, her efforts were quickly set aside to be burned and trashed at a later date. Not that it deterred her from her quest. Later she would confront her friends and her sister to temporarily ease the pain of her heart. It was like a drug, twisting purity into something else, if but to give pleasure only for a moment. Reality was denied in favor of a dream.
Then she found out. Deception echoed through her mind, all while she pretended to be happy, as her sister gave her what she wanted. She wasn't good enough for her sister to tell her outright. As she laughed, inwardly her tears had already drowned her, squeezing out the drops of friendship that had ever existed to begin with, diluting her being into oblivion. That night she spent silently sobbing into her bed. It seemed as nothing she did would ever please her sister.
Later, she would be writing as a Gabby Gums. Finally, she found her sister genuinely happy as a result of something she had done. She was happy too. When she finally found herself backed into a corner, needing more fuel for the paper, she wrote an article about her sister. Imagine her shock when her sister found out the masterminds behind the article, and subsequently engaged in countless, recurring bouts of screaming. Her sister had liked the previous gossip, so she would be forgiven. Should've been forgiven. Yet she was cast out, having to apologize. The betrayal had shaken her to the very core. She began to question.
Had it been worth it? Was her sister worth it?
All the times that she had been left alone to fend for herself cast the dark shadow of doubt. Her sister was generous, as her Element mandated, but it was never to her. It always to one of her sister's friends. Every time her sister went out, whether to the spa, or on some mission that she could not fathom in the slightest, she was left alone, left alone and afraid.
If her sister did take her out, her sister always played her out for an advantage. She learned to play along. If she didn't, her sister would always beat her at home. Magically of course, since her sister was intelligent enough to avoid leaving a mark. The cries went unnoticed through the thick, soundproof walls that created the cage that was the Carousel Boutique.
Was the pain worth it? Was anything worth this?
Yet she continued. To be told to abandon her entire life like this, to discover that it was a lie, was too much for her to handle. She would not deny it. The cancer was left to fester and grow, sapping away at her energy, as she tried harder and harder to stop the increasingly common shouting and beatings.
Slowly but surely, she began to change. The fear and need turned into hard anger as they deposited over her heart, turning it to stone. It was the doubt that eroded the fear and the need that made the formation possible. Her sister never noticed. It wasn't important enough to her sister, didn't warrant a beating.
If it wasn't worth it, than what is?
And as the questions continued to add up, so did the rate of erosion. The questions constructively interfered into a force that was nigh unstoppable. Under the pressure, her heart grew harder and harder until it was like diamond. The pain no longer caused her the same crippling pain that it had once. It couldn't pierce the shell that had slowly begun to form.
She brooded over the questions for a while, too paralyzed to do anything. Every day, she took more abuse, and her shell, while hard, was also brittle. Hairline fractures, too small to detect, covered the entirety of the construct.
To her friends, she seemed colder than usual. She laughed less, smiled less, never had the energy for crusading. They worried, but couldn’t, wouldn't, bring themselves to pry beyond the surface. Instinctively, it scared them, told them that they were unable to handle what they would find.
When she was home, it was worse. Her sister was increasingly put off by her attitude. Every night, it was one more sip of wine. A beating that lasted a little longer. Shouting became the norm of the boutique. The number of fractures increased slowly but surely. Where the fractures met, they grew a little larger. Fractures led to questions and questions led to fractures.
Is it even worth living?
The questions inched closer and closer to strangling her. Only the magic of friendship held that at bay. Anything but home was a welcome distraction. In this state of not quite being a shell, she was content to ignore the parasite that was growing inside of her, eating away at the thin barrier than was already beginning to crumble.
A few days later, she had been scolded by her sister for it. She didn’t understand. Her sister beat her anyway, screaming all the while that she was an ungrateful little filly, hurting Twilight like that. No one hurt her sister’s friends. Not even if they didn’t mean to. No tears of remorse would come, nothing to give her a brief reprieve of forgiveness. Through the night, the silent sobs went unheard.
What was the harm in that question? Since when was water thicker than blood?
When she was allowed with her friends again, after being grounded for what seemed to be an eternity, they could see that something was different. Not that she tried to be different. It had always contented her to be the one that warranted the least attention. It was always one of Scootaloo’s stunts or Applebloom’s little outbursts that got them into trouble. She knew better, having had experience living under her sister, who had the attention for detail that others lacked. An unhealthy obsession almost, one that made her life more miserable than it otherwise would have been. She had always wondered what it was that drove her sister to such lengths to make things perfect. Her teacher, Cherilee had once stated that nothing was perfect after all, a paradox that had earned her many beatings from her sister once she asked about it. After that experience, she had been too afraid to bring the subject up again.
A loud noise broke her out of her train of thought. What she found was Scootaloo poised over a shocked Applebloom. Scootaloo was holding a sharp stick, and was poised with it raised. Images rushed through head, and suddenly she felt as if thousands of sharp needles had pierced her. Vision blurred, and she fell unconscious. All she could see was her sister getting ready to beat her again.
When she awoke, it was to the glaring harshness of the hospital lights. Blinking her eyes, she could see that her friends were sleeping by. A soft smile tried to form on her lips, but it still hurt too much. It was a touching gesture, one that she was grateful for, but couldn’t quite grasp. Her sister had always berated her for incurring the exorbitant hospital fees. What would her sister say when finding out that she had been hospitalized for fainting. It wouldn’t just mean more beatings, it would mean getting grounded for her entire life.
Then the door creaked open. She peered toward it, hoping wistfully that it wouldn’t be her sister. Yet there her sister was, shining like the diamonds that her sister always liked best, pure and pristine. To her surprise, her sister hadn’t yelled at her yet. Maybe her sister would be kind for once. Astonishingly, her sister didn’t do anything. Even more, her sister actually showed some kind of worry. It lifted her up, giving her hope that she hadn’t felt in so long. So happy she was, that she did not notice the slight grimace on her sister’s face when her sister spoke the kind words.
She was almost smiling again when the two siblings arrived home. The home was a prison. And when they entered, her sister locked the door quietly behind her. The almost lyrical note of the resulting click, a result of years of polish and dedication that her sister showed, alerted her that something was wrong. Her latent talent with singing meant that her hearing was good. It was almost required so that she knew she was in tune with the song. So when she heard the cold sliding of the stick, the fractures started to cut into the fragile soul.
By the time her sister was done, she could barely move a muscle. Every fiber of her being was sore with the weight of disappointment. Slow rhythmic beating reminded her of how useless she was, and her head slowly began to bob with the beat. Her tears, dripping onto the sleek wood, added to the melody. Unbidden from her lips came the humming of a song. All at once, the beautiful work of art was lost, her sister’s scream of anger cutting through like a knife. The singing lark fell silent.
When she showed up in school the next day, her friends were all over her, knowing that they had to do something before it was too late. But the chattering grated on her nerves. She didn’t deserve their concerns. The feelings that she had bottled up came roaring out, smothering her friends in her frustrations and anger.
Tears
She heard the cold tears of her friends. What had she done?
She was a monster. Her sister had been right all along. She wasn’t worth anything at all.
What did she do right?
She barely had any friends. She couldn’t cook. She couldn’t use magic. She didn’t have a cutie mark. She couldn’t even be a good sis. Nothing she did ever went right. The only thing she could do was hurt. She was just another parasite, a changeling, leaching the love that she did not deserve out of her teacher, out of her friends, out of her sister. The question wasn’t Was it worth living?
Did she deserve living?
Steady hoofsteps indicated that she was running. She didn’t know where, but the animal instinct led her home. Home was where her sister was busy filling out the many orders that the high class ponies had. Every occasion warranted a new ensemble. It was safe to say that her sister was in the zone, humming with the rhythm of the sewing machine. A single, stray drumbeat from the door opening, broke the harmony.
She stared in shock as her sister appeared. Not only had she made her friends cry, but she had wasted her sister’s time as well. She truly was a monster. The fractures turned into cracks that dangerously hurt her essence. Shouting, rough and harsh, made the shell break into tiny pieces, all of which embedded into her. This time, she snapped for real, a primal part of her raging against the injustice that her sister had put her up to.
Raw untamed magic, screaming to be used flooded out of her horn, filling the room with a soft glow. The sun helped hide the energy, and what would normally have been caught and controlled. Her sister’s coat was ruined of course, having been rustled by the physical aspects of the magic. She stared at her sister, limp against the walls of what was the perfect establishment. The walls were no longer painted perfectly, with just the right thickness, as the magic had gouged at the paint. Flakes of paint ruined the floor, now dusty. She stared in shock.
At first incredulous, she denied that it was happening, that she had ruined her sister’s handiwork so easily. The truth hit her with cold, unrelenting force that drove the breath out of her lungs. The soft patter of tears started the song again. Words, like sweet honey, flowed from her lips, slowly.
Hush now quiet now.
It was surprisingly dark in the Carousel Boutique, as the outburst had lasted a long time. She gazed at the various fabrics strewn across the floor, something which her sister would have never allowed. Slowly, she trotted to her room, the one that her sister had so kindly let her use.
It’s time to lay your sleepy head.
The storm outside provided another instrument to the song. A brief flash of lightning revealed the chair that she used when doing her homework. She stared at it angrily, for it reminded her of when she was still naive and innocent, unknowingly sapping the energy from those who had the heart to like her.
Hush now quiet now.
Loaded with emotion, the words are forced from within her, diaphragms pushing up her deepest and best tones. She stood on the chair, looking at the world in new light. It was illuminating, illustrating what she had destroyed because of her existence. It repulsed her, that she had done so. Not knowing was no excuse for what she had done. There was no way that she would be able to redeem herself, not while living among those who she could only cause pain to.
It’s time to go to bed.
Thunder punctuated the last word of the song, and the song came to an end.