Vlyka had been walking for what had to be a few hours now, wandering the streets and trying to be inconspicuous and out of the way. She’d gotten horrendously lost and doubted she could find her way back to school anytime soon, but by now she didn’t care: she was away from that awful place, and out where nopony knew her or cared to bother her. She could be alone with her thoughts all she wanted, free to stew on whatever she felt appropriate. Of course, for a while that had only been obsessing over everything wrong with her. Her body was freakish, her mind was freakish, her attitude was freakish…Moon was right to pick on her, she was a mess of a pony, barely worth being called a pony even. He didn’t know about her issues with seeing colors yet, but that only further proved his point that she was a complete and utter freak. Everything that could go wrong with a pony seemed to go wrong with her.
Vlyka groaned and looked up at the sky, her foul mood too much for even her to handle any longer. It was a dingy autumn afternoon…or evening, maybe, she wasn’t sure the exact hour since she’d never bothered looking for a clock in her aimless stroll around town. There were thick clouds hanging over most of the sky, brought in by out of town pegasi teams delivering them for the upcoming rains just before winter. For a moment she smiled a bit, appreciating the slightly overcast daylight as it started to wind down, but then she the memory of how those clouds had come into the sky made her tear her eyes away, sighing. Magic, flying…all Vlyka had was some extra strength, that was nothing compared to the skills Crystal had, and she was only eleven! When she was as old as their dad, what crazy feats of magic would Crys be capable of?! And Vlyka would still be here, the same miserable filly with no skills, no friends, no care for anything in her life…
Fortune finally struck Vlyka as she passed a street corner and saw a familiar sight not far down the road: the old dog park she’d stumbled on a year and a half ago. This had been where she’d first realized that she had a close connection to dogs, a place she came so often to just watch happy dogs and happy dog owners play and laugh. After she’d learned she could understand dogs, she’d come here to listen in on the joyful thoughts and exclamations of those lovable canines as they frolicked and played with their owners. It was hilarious to listen to some of them, believing they were in charge despite clearly living under the pony’s rules, while others were well trained and excited to have playtime with their favorite owners in the entire world. It was a pure kind of joy and love that touched Vlyka’s heart…right up until somepony had invited her to join them. She’d been spotted sitting at the fence one too many times, started getting recognized by some regular park goers, who every time they saw her began to invite her to join them for some playtime. But Vlyka had shaken her head, or just straight up left, every single time. At first it had been discomfort causing it, not wanting to associate with strangers in a strange situation, too terrified of what they’d think of her, and the strain had led her to flee to the comfort of her home to just be alone for a bit. After that it had just turned into habit, a feeling of shame at watching but never joining and never feeling right to walk over, until she got too ashamed to even go and watch anymore, abandoning the park and the glee it had brought her.
Vlyka glanced up a nearby street to her right, already seeing the path back to her house in her mind’s eye. But she didn’t want to go home right now: dad was going to be furious at her, ditching school like that. She had the chance to get through her education faster than most other ponies, learn how to take care of herself, and here she was throwing it away to wander the streets alone at nine years old. Celestia help her, she was insane. She banged her head against the bars of the dog park’s fence, growling at her own stupidity as just how bad an idea this was began to sink in. Of course she wanted to go home at some point, and certainly waiting longer was only going to make her dad angrier and angrier with her, meaning each passing second was more and more incentive to stay far away from him. Seeing her dad mad at her was going to be an entirely new experience, an entirely terrifying experience she really didn’t want to ever have…
Vlyka sighed dejectedly and found her way to the park’s gate, wandering inside to look around. The gate wasn’t locked, but the place was entirely abandoned: barely anypony came here after autumn started to move into town. She had never been inside the park, so now that she was alone Vlyka took a little bit into the nooks and crannies of the park she had long observed from a distance. It was a little anticlimactic for her hopes, but at least it kept her mind off her school strife for a few minutes.
The little filly sat down with her back against a large tree in the center of the park. She took a second to just breathe, glancing up at the brilliant fall leaves. She loved to look at the fall leaves even through her freakish vision, tritanomalous, her doctor had said, something wrong with the blue sensitive cones in her eyes. It muted the vibrancy of greens, even the coat of her beloved adoptive sister, but the colors of the autumn leaves were relatively undisturbed and she could enjoy them just like a normal pony would. It was a fleeting pleasure, especially today when she already was painfully aware of how broken and pathetic a pony she was.
"Ugh...why was I born like this," she growled, leaning back against the tree. She shifted with a little more anger than she had intended and slammed her skull into the tree trunk behind her rather hard. She yelped in pain and rubbed the sore spot as she growled irritably up at the tree, only to sigh in frustration as she turned her hatred back inwards, where it belonged. "What a waste of space..."
"You too?” came a voice from somewhere nearby. Vlyka’s ears shot to attention, swiveling to try and catch another sample of that sound. She started to look around her, worried that somepony had seen her. Instantly she was aware of how her defects, as well as her age, made her extremely vulnerable, and in her mental state she was certainly no match for anything they might do to her given the opportunity.
A moment later her guard dropped, as the bushes parted to reveal a ragged looking dog looking pitifully back at her. He came a little closer to Vlyka, sitting a respectful distance from her with his deep brown eyes downcast, disappearing in the thick mess of dark fur that hung in large clumps from his forehead. Vlyka recognized the breed as some kind of terrier, standing about 2 feet tall, just a hair taller than Vlyka herself. She hadn't really had experience reading emotions on this type of dog, but even without the obvious tone in the voice only she could hear thanks to her talent, Vlyka could read the dog was sad about something. Maybe even depressed and self-defeating, just like her right now. “How long were you there?” Vlyka asked, really not sure what else to say.
"Here? Part of the day I guess," the dog whimpered, his tone a little strange in Vlyka's ear. Dogs thought and spoke differently than ponies did, so Vlyka had learned, making it occasionally difficult for Vlyka to fully understand their meaning. If only she’d had the courage to work on it, develop her understanding so it wouldn't be so hard...if only she’d have gotten her cutie mark already and none of this would be happening…except she already knew that was false. Moon found everything he could wrong with her and used it to torment her, it wasn’t just because she was cutie markless. All it would have done was moved his torment to something different, probably doubling down on her height and her fangs.
Desperate to pull herself away from the noise in her brain, Vlyka took a closer look at the dog before her. “Where’s your owner?” she asked, spotting a bright yellow collar on his neck. It was the only thing that set this pup apart from being a complete stray.
“I don’t know,” the dog replied. “I haven’t seen her in weeks.” Vlyka blinked in shock at the mention of “weeks” as the dog continued. “Everyone around has been scary, rushing at me if they see me. I’ve been hiding, looking, finding what I can to eat. I miss her…why did she leave me?"
Without thinking, Vlyka stood up and approached the dog, reaching up and giving it a tight squeeze, hugging it just like she hugged Crys on occasion. “They abandoned you, didn’t they?” she sighed. “You’ve been out here a while, your poor coat…”
“I think so,” the dog replied. “She wasn’t places I thought they’d be…we came here a lot, I hoped she’d come by. I miss her…”
“What’s your name?” Vlyka asked, slightly raising a hoof to pat the dog as he came lowered his head for her.
“Kenzie,” he replied, gently batting Vlyka’s head with his muzzle. It was a sweet gesture on his part, trying to foster a little love between them, and Vlyka sorely appreciated having somepony…well, somebody, to show her some affection today. But her mind was racing: the name Kenzie was familiar, as was this dog…she’d seen this before, tried to commit something about it to memory…what was it? “You want to play?” he asked her.
“I’m sorry Kenzie, I really don’t…” said Vlyka, leaning back against the tree. “I’m really not in the mood to do anything…”
“What’s wrong? Can I help?”
Vlyka scoffed for a moment, but sighed and looked at Kenzie with a slightly more critical look. Regardless of species, this was a friendly ear, a creature who cared enough to listen to her strife. Nopony was around to see her talk, nopony would hear her besides Kenzie, and he could tell nopony anything she told him, and she didn't have to burden Crystal or her father with anything else; her poor adoptive family could stop having to help such a broken pony, at least for one stupid thing. “Can you just listen to me? For a bit, I…I need to get something off my chest.”
“I don’t see anything,” Kenzie replied, glancing at Vlyka’s chest as he spoke. The moment was endearing enough that Vlyka snickered, almost burst out into unrestrained laughter at Kenzie’s innocent mistake.
“That’s a pony expression,” she explained, a giggle sneaking out when she just couldn't help herself. “It means I have a lot of thoughts bothering me, and I need to tell somepony or it’s going to haunt me.”
“Oh, I think I get it,” said Kenzie. “Well, I’ll listen alright. What’s wrong?”
Vlyka decided to give Kenzie another big hug, squeezing him tightly, before she sat down with her back to the tree trunk and took a deep, slow breath. Then Vlyka opened up with two minutes of two rambling sentences, her mind scrambling to find words to express her pain with Moon, her strain in school, her hatred of her own body, and the fear of hurting her family with anything. But as she mentioned her family her mind turned on her again, giving her a terrifying image of Crystal and her father staring down at her, furious. "I miss them, and I can’t go back. My dad’s going to be so mad at me for leaving, he’s going to hate me and throw me out because I threw away the life he gave me just because Crystal’s mom would have wanted me to have it…Crystal's going to hate me for not talking to her about this, but she’s already trying so hard to study and learn and grow up and take care of me that I can’t put that on her…I’m so broken, and pathetic…I’m a wreck, I don’t know if my life is worth anything to anypony…why would anypony want me? What can I do?”
As the weight of her emotions crushed her, Vlyka collapsed, too drained to move her body even the slightest as she stared blankly into the nearby bushes. She wanted to cry, but didn’t seem to have tears left. All she felt was an uncomfortable numbness affecting her entire body, every emotion and sense feeling restricted to the point it pained her. But as her chest heaved, Kenzie moved closer to her and started licking her cheek. She didn’t move, didn’t react for the first few licks, but something about a dog’s kiss made her smile, a tiny little spark of light emerging in her heart. “You can be with me,” Kenzie said simply. “I’d want you around. You’re fun, you understand me. I think you’re special, amazing.”
“Heh…dogs and unconditional love…you know,” Vlyka grunted as she sat upright, Kenzie moving to sit next to her. He leaned on her ever so slightly, tipping the little filly slightly against her will…but right now she could tolerate it. “I heard a lot of that from the other dogs here, even if they thought they were the leader. You all love your ponies…and I love that about you. You guys make sense, you admire ponies you know, ponies you don’t know you want to like. If only ponies were that easy to understand…” Vlyka sniffled, before reaching up and squeezing Kenzie again. He only responded by licking her cheek again, causing the filly to giggle, wiping his slobber off her cheek. But she was smiling now, feeling more at ease than she’d felt in months, and all thanks to a few moments with this dog. If only she could think of why he was so familiar, she wanted to help him…
“I want to help him!” she gasped. She remembered she’d used that phrase before, which sparked a memory of seeing this dog in a picture somewhere, somewhere sad she thought he needed help. Something with the name “Kenzington”. Now she remembered! “Kenzie, your owner didn’t abandon you! She’s looking for you! I saw a poster asking ponies to look out for you weeks ago, you were missing! She wants you back!”
Almost instantly Kenzie was on his paws, tail wagging a mile a minute. “Mom wants me back?! Where is she? She wasn’t home when I looked for her.”
“I…agh, come on…” Vlyka grumbled, tapping a hoof to her temple as she tried to think. The “missing” poster was still there in her memory, but it had been a while since she’d focused on that information and chunks of it were missing. “The poster, it mentioned a move, I bet that’s why you couldn’t find her at home. But where …”
Vlyka glanced around the park as she thought, realizing that a dog park would be a good place for posting missing dog posters, around a place dog lovers convened, and sure enough she was right. Over on a lamppost not too far from where they were sitting, a lone piece of paper flapped in the light wind. Vlyka hurried over and slammed a hoof down over the flapping edge to get a clear view, a smile breaking out on her face when she realized it was exactly what she remembered. “This is it Kenzie, your mom put these up all over town to find you. Too bad you can’t read them, or you’d have found her yourself."
For a second Vlyka winced, worried at how rude she had just been, but Kenzie seemed amused by what she'd said. Before she got sucked into her fear at how her actions looked, she scanned the poster until she found the line she was looking for, the address to return Kenzie to if he were found. “Hmm…I think I know that street name. And if dad’s house is over there…” Vlyka took a moment to try and figure out where she was, tried to recall maps of town she’d seen once or twice before, and marked where she thought she was trying to go. “I think I’ve got it. Come on Kenzie, stay with me. I’m gonna get you home. And don’t!” she cried, as Kenzie came right up to her side, batting her to the left as he snuggled up against her. “Don’t push me,” she chuckled, “you big lump! I need to walk too!”
Vlyka and Kenzie hurried down the street, Vlyka deep in her thoughts as she tried to focus on her location and route. She didn’t want to make a mistake, she knew that both Kenzie and his owner would feel much, much better to be reunited as soon as possible, and getting horrifically lost in the city wasn’t going to help a speedy reunion. She ignored everypony around her, every sight and sound besides street signs; they didn’t matter. Vlyka had her mission to complete, she would see it through, disregarding herself just like her big sis did for her all the time. As she trotted purposefully towards her goal however, just two blocks behind her, she just barely missed hearing her name frantically being called by several familiar voices.