The as-of-yet sunless morning was cool and shivery. Twilight had been awoken by some insistent nuzzling, followed by much begging and pleading to watch the sunrise. Radiance missed his mother—the little guy actually looked quite sad—and watching her sun rise meant a lot to him. How could Twilight say no? Upon exiting her castle, with Spike and Radiance in tow, she had discovered quite a few new additions in the form of guards. Many, many guards.
Now outside, now almost—but not quite awake, Twilight was pleased with the fact that she had a chance to spend a little alone time with Radiance. Out of the three, he was the most enigmatic and unknown. What little she knew of him was a mixed bag. He was an enthusiastic hugger, to the point of being a bit violent because he didn’t know his own strength. Like Nuance, he was a gleaming white colour, but Twilight had trouble telling what colour made his white. Nuance was a pale shade of blue, hence his name, a shade of nuance.
Out of the three, Radiance was the only one that acted like a little adult trapped in a foal’s body, a condition that Twilight was all too familiar with, seeing it almost every day in some of her own fantastic students. The little earth pony colt was yet another tiny adult in a long parade of such foals, and she wondered how frustrated Radiance must get when adults or foals didn’t give him the seriousness he demanded.
“Miss Sparkle—”
“Please, just call me Twilight.”
“Miss Sparkle,” Radiance continued, undaunted. “I can hear the sun rising when it happens.”
That was peculiar, but it was also true. Radiance wasn’t lying to her. Twilight studied him, trying to attune her magic senses to him, and she wished that Sumac was here. Maybe there would be a little study later, if the opportunity presented itself. “Well, Radiance… there is a little filly in the Crystal Empire that can see the colours of magic. She’s blind, otherwise. Magic causes synesthesia and we don’t understand everything just yet.”
“I know what that word means… synesthesia.” The colt sat down in the grass, enjoying himself, while Twilight and Spike exchanged a glance with one another.
Flitting about in the cool, delightful air of the pre-dawn, Fluttershy approached, humming to herself, and appearing to be enjoying the morning. Twilight waved, which Fluttershy returned. The sunny yellow pegasus was sunshine before the sun rose, somehow bringing her own light with her to push back the darkness, but it wasn’t a light seen by the eye.
No, it was a light one experienced, that one felt, and the warmth it cast radiated upon the soul. Fluttershy was a creature of fantastic beauty and grace, and one of the ponies that had been summoned to help when Dim had finally come home in his deplorable, broken condition. Like everything else she encountered, Fluttershy had touched him, leaving him vulnerable. Fluttershy had a knack for taking broken, shattered creatures and making them better.
Twilight wondered what strange magic Fluttershy possessed, and she knew that if she allowed the ink to flow, she would understand. But the ink did not flow, and Twilight kept it suppressed, at least for now, because she enjoyed the mystery that was Fluttershy. There was no point in reading ahead and spoiling the mystery of the wonderful book that was her friend.
“Hiyas, Flutters,” Spike said, sounding sleepy.
“Oh, hello Spike… what are you doing up at this hour, you poor dear? Baby dragons need their sleep.” Wings flapping, her hooves just inches above the grass, Fluttershy cast a guilt-inducing gaze upon Twilight. “Good morning, Twilight. Out to watch the sunrise?”
“Yeah… I was just watching the Royal Brood and little Radiance here wanted to watch his mother’s sun rise up. Say… are you busy today, Fluttershy? I could use a little help—”
“I think I left my stove on, excuse me.”
The most peculiar thing happened; Fluttershy was gone. Just gone. There was a teeny, tiny boom, the faintest of sounds. There was an apologetic rattle that moved through the town, disturbed that it might have bothered somepony at this early hour. It was a polite sound, and Twilight had borne witness to it. It was, perhaps, the strangest sound she had ever experienced. The sound was so faint, so quiet, so gentle, that the birds hadn’t even stopped singing, trilling while awaiting the dawn.
“I think we just witnessed the sonic flutterboom,” Spike remarked, and he flopped over into the grass to lay upon his back.
“Was… was that what... that was?” Twilight stammered, confused. Faint magic lingered in the air, causing Twilight’s senses to tingle. For a moment, she zoned out and allowed herself to become attuned to the perplexing disturbances left behind in the aether, thaumaturgical turbulence. Just as she was about to discern more about what Fluttershy had left behind, a quiet voice broke her concentration.
“Nopony likes Nuance.”
Blinking, forcing her mind to clear, Twilight brought her focus together and stared at Radiance, who appeared sad and wise while he sat in the grass. It was strange, there was a hint of Zecora about him, and something about his demeanour reminded her of some mystical guru. Deep furrows of concentration wrinkled Twilight’s brow while she studied the budding earth pony mystic, and she felt the ink welling up within her.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Twilight made the ink go away.
“You know,” Spike began, “you aren’t exactly nice to Nuance either, Rad.”
“He makes Corbie cry,” Radiance replied, sounding a bit miffed.
“Yeah”—Spike nodded, agreeing with the colt—“but when you beat up Nuance, you make Corbie cry.” While he was speaking, Radiance’s ears drooped, and Spike glanced over in Twilight’s general direction. “Why are you so awful to your brother?”
“He needs to be punished.” Radiance focused his attention on the east, where the sun would rise. “He gets away with everything because he’s so sad all the time and I hate how he is never punished enough.”
Twilight saw Spike glance at her once more.
“Blah blah blah, Nuance is sad, blah blah blah. When I get punished, I actually get punished. When Nuance gets punished, my mothers and my father keep bringing up how sad and awful he is, and he never gets the punishment he deserves. Even when he set Corbie on fire… they just… talked about… how sad he is… when… when…” the little colt was gasping now and sounded on the verge of panic. “He should have been beaten! It’s not fair!”
Rolling over in the grass, Spike got to his feet, then waddled over to where Radiance sat. He sat down beside the colt, wrapped one forearm over the colt’s withers, and Twilight watched the pair while jotting down a few mental notes. Perhaps this visit was more than just a bit of foalsitting… perhaps this situation was being exploited. Perhaps somepony who was outside of the situation, somepony objective, could sort this out.
Twilight Sparkle redirected all of her mental ponypower into planning and development.
Nuance had not come out of his room for breakfast and refused to come out at all. Twilight wasn’t too worried, he was no doubt having a bit of a hard time adjusting. Or maybe he wasn’t a morning pony. Seville seemed extra-troubled about the whole thing, but had remained tight-lipped about it, saying nothing.
Approaching Nuance’s door, Twilight slowed down and wondered about how to best approach this. He was fragile, insecure, and had a raging inferiority complex. She had dealt with some of her own students who had much the same issue, though perhaps not to the degree of Nuance. The little colt was repulsive, almost as much as Blueblood had been in his salad days, though Blueblood had been acting.
“Nuance?” Twilight stood just outside his door, and used her most gentle voice, which was basically her impression of how her own mother spoke.
“Go away, peasant!”
Ears twitching, Twilight analysed the response. Fear, panic, a good bit of phlegm. He was crying in there, and being extra-antagonistic to drive others away. Something had to be very wrong. She stood there, her face now inches from the door, and she closed her eyes so she could collect her thoughts better. She ignored the siren’s cry of her ink-sense, and focused entirely upon her Twilight-sense.
Her Twilight-sense reminded her that Pinkie Pie was a precog, and attuned to everything. Pinkie Pie had said nothing, nothing at all, and in hindsight, had been subdued, looking down at the table while offering no suggestions as to Nuance’s condition. Conclusion? Pinkie Pie knew something, but was hiding it. Why? Seville knew something too, now that she thought about it, but neither seemed to be too keen on spilling the beans.
Why?
“Nuance, I’m coming in,” Twilight said, offering fair warning.
“STAY OUT, PEASANT!”
Twilight paused, her magic pressing upon the door, but she did not open it. “What do you think gives you the right to speak to me like that?”
“YOU’RE NOT EVEN A REAL ALICORN!”
That stung a bit. Twilight bit her lip and choked back an angry response while she thought about the conversation with Radiance earlier. Nuance didn’t need punishment, he needed therapy, which he was getting, but it was darn near impossible to help somepony that didn’t want to help themselves. She wasn’t his parent, but at the moment, she was his guardian, his foalsitter. So, it was time to go in, gangbusters style, a full on breach and clear with a potentially angry unicorn foal on the other side of the door.
Upon entering the room, the first thing Twilight noticed was the smell. Urine, with a coppery twang. With growing alarm, she looked around, saw the yellowed bedding, and then saw Nuance trying to hide in the corner behind a wardrobe. There was blood splatters all over the floor and the little colt was smeared a horrifying shade of ruddy scarlet. Twilight fought to keep from going into crisis mode, and she kept her senses sharp.
Mindful of where she stepped, she began to cross the room while Nuance gave her a hate-filled, baleful stare. His eyes were bloodshot, his barrel rose and fell while he panted, and blood continued to trickle down from both nostrils. Any resentment Twilight felt from his earlier cutting jibe melted into an uncomfortable, unpleasant pity. In the back of her mind, she felt a growing sense of concern that Radiance thought his brother needed to be punished, even when the situation suggested that Nuance was punishing himself.
The sting of tears made Twilight’s eyes blur, and she lowered her head so she wouldn’t tower over the cowering, sobbing colt. “Hey, little guy, are you going to let me help you?”
“NO!” Reaching out with one almost-dainty little blood-stained hoof, Nuance took a swipe at Twilight, forcing her to pull her head back. “Go away,” he whined, his aggression fizzling out.
“Suddenly, a lot of things make sense,” Twilight whispered, and she sat down on the floor, no longer caring about what she might be sitting on. She allowed her ears to fall into a more submissive position, and as big as she was, Twilight somehow no longer looked threatening at all. It was a posture she had spent much time practicing, copying the mannerisms of her mentor.
“I hate you.” Nuance breathed out the words. “I hate you all. I hate all of you. I hate you now because you know… and I hate my mothers most of all.”
Lowering her head a bit more, she asked, “Why do you hate your mothers?”
“Because!” Nuance’s voice became a whiny screech. “They make the servants clean the bedding! Everypony knows! Everypony laughs at me! I can feel them looking at me! Laughing! And those two big dummies did this to me! I hate them! I HATE YOU!” The colt’s heavy breathing caused his nosebleed to go from a trickle back to gushing once more. “I HATE ALL OF YOU SO MUCH!” When the little unicorn foal shouted, blood flecked his lips and even more red spiderwebs manifested in his eyes as the pressure inside of his head increased.
Sighing, Twilight conjured a towel, her heart heavy, and pulled Nuance close to her, ignoring his struggles. When he bit her, savaging her flesh, she let him. He was too weak to do much harm and it didn’t hurt much… not as much as everything else at the moment. Using her magic, she tugged his head free and wrapped the towel around his muzzle, trying to stop the geyser of blood. He kicked and thrashed, fighting her, resisting her, and when she overpowered him, Twilight resented herself just a little bit for doing so, knowing it would only make things worse.
Nuance’s physical weakness made sense now, if he was having extreme nosebleeds like this one, and Twilight wondered if he was perpetually low on blood, or recovering from bloodloss. She needed to do some study so she could understand everything. It might also contribute to his weak magic, and Twilight had to fight to keep her mind focused. Scooping up Nuance, she held him close, ignoring his thrashing.
“I’m going to clean you up,” Twilight whispered to the colt she held, “and then when I am done, I am going to leave you with Spike, because I think the two of you get along well, and then I’m going to come and clean all of this up so you won’t feel embarrassed. Okay? Does that sound okay to you?”
Nuance didn’t say anything, but he did go still. It wasn’t exactly consent, not in the way that Twilight desired, but it would have to do for now. She wanted to give Nuance some feeling of control in this awful, horrible situation, that he at least had some say in how he was treated, some measure of comfort and reassurance. She had never really experienced anything quite like this, and the way forward wasn’t clear at all.
For Twilight, this might very well be her toughest friendship lesson yet.