//------------------------------//
// OH GOD... Wait.  Is... Is Twilight Leaving? 
// Story: DON'T CALL ME CUTE 
// by Flutterpriest 
//------------------------------//

You lay in bed, staring at your bedroom door. You don’t know how many minutes have passed since you’ve laid down. Thirty Minutes? Three hours?

All you know is that your body hurts. Your face hurts. Your soul hurts. Your resolve hurts.

You pull a hand out of the covers and look at the way the fingers bend, move, flex in various positions. This is… almost all of who you are. You’re closer now to being back to human than ever before. 

But if being yourself means being bullied… and.

You raise your hand to the bruise on your eye. The pain sends a prickling sensation through your skin like thumbtacks burrowing in your skin.

Is this being yourself.

There’s two gentle knocks on the door to your bedroom, and her voice calls through the door.

“Anon?” calls the gentle, calming tone of Twilight. “I saved a plate of dinner for you.”

“Thank you,” you call to the door.

“Can I come in?” she asks.

You pause, unsure how to reply. It would be futile to try and never let your black eye be seen. A part of you is just worried that she’ll think it’s all your fault that you got the black eye. And in some ways, it is your fault. You did it to yourself.

Deep in the pit of your gut, you feel the impulse to runaway.

“Yeah,” you call to her. 

The door creaks open, and as Twilight steps in, she turns on your bedroom light and immediately notices the black eye. Twilight crosses the bedroom in an instant. She reaches out a hoof to examine it, but pauses. She opens her mouth to say something, but pauses.

“What happened?” she asked. 

“Bullies,” you said calmly. “They grabbed me after school… want to tell me that I was dangerous… different.” Twilight shook her head and with a flash of light, had a frozen bag of peas she placed on Anon’s eye. 

You take a deep breath and try to figure out how to go from here.

“Things are going to be alright. I’ll just have to figure out how to handle a few bullies, and life will be fine. Really.” 


Twilight opens her mouth as she sits beside you on the bed, but isn’t sure what to say, instead, she looks down to your hands. She takes one of your hand in her hooves and turns them over.

“I’m… sorry, Anon. I should have seen this coming,” Twilight says quietly. “I could have prevented this.”

“What?” you say, sitting up to look at her. “Why? You wouldn’t have known that Ponyville has some extremely racist families. You couldn’t have protected me from this.”

Twilight rose to her hooves and looked out of your bedroom window for a moment before speaking. 

“As a princess of Equestria, it’s my job to not just protect the ponies I care about… but to take care of the land of Equestria as a whole. When I volunteered to be your guardian, it was because I wanted to build the experience of being a new type of guardian. Except, with training wheels. You’re an adult. You can make your own decisions. I thought that means I would be the chance to be a…” She pauses for a moment, her head hanging low as she sits back on your bed. “A practice mom, I guess. But instead, I just keep learning more and more about how I don’t make good decisions. I don’t protect you well enough. And… well, that I may not be the right guardian for you, Anon.”

“Wait, Twilight,” you say.

“Just think about it overnight. I suppose it’s up to you. Do you want to go back to being a pony? Stay a satyr? And… well. Would you like a new guardian?”

“Twilight, none of that is necessary, really,” you say. “So I got beat up at school. It happens to all kids. Don’t beat yourself down or blame yourself for a mistake you didn’t make." Twilight smiles warily.

“Just…” she says, her voice wavering. “Think about it. Think about it seriously. This was my fault. And I want to make it better, if you’ll let me.”

Twilight raises off the bed and heads to your bedroom door.

“Or, well. Even if you want me to. I’m.” Twilight tries to say something then looks at the light, then to you once more. “I’m just so sorry this happened, Anon.”

And she closes the door silently behind her.