[4-06-25 A.L.]
Dear Journal,
Well as my luck may have it, today's my birthday. I'm officially a teenager and I... absolutely hate today! Why? Oh it could begin with the fact that I...kinda...had to go through a rite of passage this morning. As soon as I woke up, I was immediately rushed out of the house and spent the next hour and a half on a dinky little airship with nothing to eat. While that normally wouldn't upset me, today it did! I was looking forward to my special birthday breakfast before school (which I ditched today)! Anyways oh how it got worse from there. Apparently this particular rite of passage is one that will forever haunt me. See in our tribe, when a colt or filly turns the oddly specific age of 13, both genders have to go through what is called the “first blood”. It sounds gross, I know but stay with me here. It's not as bad as you think….it's somehow worse. See for girls, this just means that they...check to see if the filly has had her first moon blood cycle. I know. Why do I know about such things about fillies? Because I live with 2 of them (and only one of them goes through it every month) whereas it's a different situation for when they first start estrus. Faust’s mane I know too much about girls! Anyways they check by...well going down when she's laying on a padded mat and they...check to make sure her hymen is still intact, her uterus is shedding properly and that her hips are properly aligned. This was all told to me by my best friend, Dagger. She explained that in a few weeks they're gonna take her to the village and perform the first half of the ritual (which is what I explained) there. As it is in 3 weeks time it’ll be Dagger’s 13th birthday too. Now for colts it's….far more painful. Err...at least the first half is. See they took me to the village and told me to undress in a clothed separated part of a longhouse.
Then with me completely naked (which I don't normally mind, but for the fact that I was not the only thirteen-year-old colt doing this today, I felt shy!) They marched us to the shaman’s teepii and one by one they….Faust I can't write it! Okay…...okay I think...I’m good. Ok so as I was saying, the shaman went down the line of 6 of us and he...cut off our foreskins. I'm still in pain hours later! Not only was that painful, but also embarrassing! We then had to present our now completely smooth (albeit still bleeding) penile heads to the chief and shaman. With a special healing balm, eshkan (or in Equestrian, Ice Chisel) instructed us to grab a weapon of our choice and head to the center of the village. Thankfully this part I had been prepared for. This part is the only part that both colts and fillies have to participate in. The earning of our marks. No not our cutie-marks. Most of us already had that. No, I mean our official ink marks that officially declare us as adults. It was horrible! It didn't help that all the boys were still in pain in our nether regions, but apparently half of the girls were also in pain as well (apparently for three of them, the process of the first half of their ritual was rather uncomfortable and they too felt slight pain in their nethers). So here we were. 12 colts and fillies paired off in what was essentially...a large , non-lethal battle royale.
Amazingly, all of us came out alive! Badly bruised and injured, but alive! I still have a black eye and my left back hoof still hurts like Tartarus. Yet, I now sport the mark of the bear in which I was named for on my chest. A large bear’s paw is now permanently etched into my chest (which also burns).
Anyways, aside from the trauma that was this morning and afternoon today was...still awkward. Only after I got home did things really make me feel like I wanted the terra around me to swallow me up and spit out my skeleton! Two words: Surprise Party. I swear Jamie! I didn't think my sister could pull it off in such a short timespan! I should have known. Damn sister, always planning ahead. When I stepped in the door, all the lights in the house (okay on the first floor of our penthouse) were on and...my entire class and even a few ponies I knew from the other 8th grade classes, were in my living room shouting “Happy Birthday, Bear Claw!” There was even a banner with my face on it! Okay, I admit the party part was kinda fun, but I was exhausted from earlier and just wanted to rest! Now of course I was grateful and partied hard (as well as I could for a school night that is). You won't believe this, but my dear, sweet, conniving 26 year old sister managed to invite my crush to my birthday party/congratulatory party. To say I was mortified would be an understatement. Okay, gotta go now. I'm exhausted and am ready to re-apply that balm onto my privates and go to bed!
Yours Truly,
Bear Claw (age 13)
P.S.: Stuff I got for my birthday
*A new radio
*A Captain Marevel bed sheet set
*A new stationary
*Immortal Combat XI for my ZBox Two
*Some clothes
*A new poncho (courtesy of my nookomis)
*A shark tooth necklace (from my niece)
*Some new records (from my dad and mom)
*A new quiver (from my crush! I was honestly surprised by that one)
*Bits (various ponies gave me a total of about $200 bits)