Once upon a time, I believed that Chrysalis could love me as the mother in stories loves her children. I think that little sentiment wore off quite quickly.
I was not Rainbow Dash as I had been named by the hospital staff, full of pity after watching her ignoring my presence no matter how much I cried. I was Rainbow Blaze and the weapon she needed to get back at my father.
From my earliest memory, I was not allowed to simply be a girl. I wasn't allowed to wear dresses that I wouldn't and simply being curious warranted a beating. Showing any emotion also ended up with the same fate, because she was afraid that a smile and the dimples that ensued would give away my identity.
It was never "I love you." It was only "You!"
Once I did try to run away, but the beating I received after being caught was nothing compared to the kind of watch she would put me under. The shutters locked, the doors bolted in high places that I could not possibly reach, and I was locked in a room with neither food nor drink. On the second day, I decided that it was good to die, and resigned myself to said fate until she came in. I had no strength to resist nor the will as she poured medicine down my throat or fed me spoons of porridge.
The worst beating was when she found out I liked a boy. For three years, I kept a diary, writing in the dead of night, pouring whatever feeling I still had left onto the pages.
One day, I'll walk down the aisle, with or without father, and I would see Soarin standing at the altar, waiting for me. I would no longer wear clothes that hide who I am, and my hair would flow past my ears. I wouldn't have to look like a boy after all that was done.
But those were only dreams.
The moment she found out, she tore into the diary and scattered the pages across the room. I would have to clean them after it. Then she tore into me, demanding the name.
I laughed as she berated me for not knowing what was good for me, for it was her motives all along and I was only a defenseless child with nowhere else to go.
My silence infuriated her more, and then she started taking her anger out on me. Every blow she struck landed on the part of me determined to keep my secret.
I never wrote Soarin's name into the diary again. I did, however, carve it onto my heart. Something to keep me from falling and never rising again.
That very next day, my father sent word for me to return to Canterlot. And then I remembered - that would have been my sixteenth birthday.