Spectera Shine yawned lightly as she got up, she looked around confused for a moment when she saw she wasn't in her usual room, but then she remembered she wasn't in that awful place anymore. Finally, no more crazy ponies, no more medication, and no more nurses trying to force her to accept that her mark was about creating illusions, she never felt so happy in her life, her happiness spend through her body as she happy trotted around the room.
Shine stopped in front of a mirror looking at herself, she blinked slowly it's been a while since she's seen herself like this... her happiness faded as she remembered why and her reflection went back to the way it's always been, she walked downstairs to see her new caretaker was in the kitchen, Twilight was it? She looked at her closely, even though she was covered in scales she still had a cutie mark, the double tails was a bit confusing, and so was the three horns, but besides that she looked pony-ish.
Shine walked into the kitchen to join Twi she sat down and saw all the neat paper stacks behind Twi from the loos of it they were all blank, she sighed as Twi looked up at her, “Good morning I hope that...”
Shine sighed deeply, “Let's just cut this nice talk I know you want to ask me questions about my life, I thought you would read my file for that.”
Twi chuckled nervously as she tucked away a large file, “Well yes but I want to hear the story from your point of view.”
Shine looked at the breakfast Spike served her, she might as well get it over with, “Back in the past my tribe used to live in this grand city, they said it was more beautiful then the stars themselves, there was this shaman in our city, he was more of a fortune teller though. One day he said that darkness would strike the city and everyone should leave before it happened, of course not everypony believed him, after all the city stayed safe for years and they thought they were well protected.”
Shine munched on her food as Twi quickly wrote down everything, her quill going quickly from ink pot to paper and was moved on the paper so fast Shine thought it would burst into flames if Twi wrote any quicker. “Okay done then what happened?”
Shine looked at Twi's eager face, “Well some ponies took his warning to heart and left with him, they traveled as far as their hooves could carry them, after some time one of the scoots said that our home was gone.”
“By gone do you mean destroyed?”
Shine looked at her food for a moment, “I'm not really sure what the scoot meant this all happened nearly 1,000 years ago, so some details of the story has been lost over the years, what I do know is that the cause of the darkness and our home being lost to us came from a unicorn, and what was left of the ponies who survived made a new home and became a tribe of ponies, in fact my village is a lot like Ponyville, both were founded by earth ponies.”
Twi levitated more blank pages to her as the written ones went into a different pile, “And then what?”
Shine looked to the side, “Then I was born.” Twi looked at her confused, and Shine continued, “When you grow up on the story of an evil unicorn who took away this grand utopia and forced you to move away to live in a small village or face his darkness then you would be weary of unicorns too, so when I was born everypony thought I was a monster, simply because I was born a unicorn.”
Shine levitated a hand mirror towards herself and she stared at her reflection, “I bet you know how it feels to be judged based on what you were born as.”
Twi levitated some papers down slowly, “Well I sort of do.”
Shine looked at her, “And that wasn't the end of my sorrow, one day when I was a filly I was playing in the forest not that far from my village when an earth pony walked passed me, he looked very lost like he didn't know where to go, and he was covered in ash.
So I took pity on him, walked up to him and asked, are you lost sir? He turned to look at me, then he looked around as if expecting to see somepony else, then he looked at me again and said, you can see me? As a child I thought he was playing some sort of game, I simply giggled and said, of course I can you seem lost do you need help? He went on his knees in front of me saying, yes I'm lost I don't know where to go please help me!”
Shine poked the table waiting for Twi to finish writing what she said before moving on, “So I said I would help, I asked him for a name and if he remembered where he was going, he said his name was Timber and he was looking for his family, So we both searched the forest until he stopped and said he found them, I looked ahead to where he was looking but saw nopony, I was going to tell him to lay down and rest because he was clearly seeing things.
But what happened next shocked me, after thanking me for helping him he ran ahead and vanished into thin air, I slowly walked back to my home wondering how he did that, but one pony stopped me and asked, who were you talking to? I said, Timber I helped him find his family somehow, and the pony said he saw me just standing there in the forest talking to thin air.” Shine grabbed a glass with her magic and poured herself some water, she took a quick sip before placing the glass down.
“I was just a child so the pony wrote it off as me talking to an imaginary friend since I didn't have any real friends and sent me home, that night I laid in my bed wide awake, I knew what I saw. The next morning I asked Early Bird to ask the birds if they know of any other ponies around here, she told me that a family of woodcutters used to live near here but they all died in a forest fire, when I asked who was the father she answered, Timber and I got my cute mark when I realized what I just did.”
Twi looked at Shine with surprise, “So let me get this straight, you got your cutie mark the moment when you realized you saw and talked to a ghost?”
Shine chuckled lightly, “Well I got more information about what he looked like and that sealed the deal but basically yes that's how I got my cutie mark, it was like I was cursed from birth.”
Twi looked confused again, “I know why you being a unicorn was seen as a bad thing but why was...”
“Because after word got out I helped a spirit the rest of them wouldn't leave me alone! I mean it was bad enough I was a unicorn now I had a talent to make my life even more miserable? Sure it feels nice to help spirits cross over but nopony else could see them and it got worse with age, when I was a filly they thought I was making imaginary friends, as an adult they thought I was crazy!” Shine shouted before taking deep breaths to calm down.
“The only thing helping me sleep at night is this thing.” She levitated a necklace out of the room she was in and showed it to Twilight, the necklace looked like something the princess' would wear with it's thick gold bands and giant gemstone in the center.
“What is it?” Twi asked looking at it and trying not to drool.
“It blocks my special talent, without it the spirits would be bothering me 24/7, they don't understand the concept of sleep.” Shine said putting it on.
“And the hospital let you keep that?”
Shine chuckled lightly, “I told them that it's a family heirloom, which wasn't a complete lie, my great grandmother owned this necklace I just changed the gemstone in the center.” She pulled a picture out of the back of the gemstone's base with her magic, “See here she is wearing it.” Twi took the picture with her own magic and looked it over, she saw a regal looking earth pony wearing the necklace but something seemed off about her appearance.
“She looks like a princess was she royalty?”
Shine laughed, “Oh I wish, no her husband just thought of her as his beautiful princess and bought her that necklace as a anniversary gift.” Shine took back the picture and put it back where it belonged.
“She looks a bit different from a normal earth pony.”
Shine chuckled, “Yeah she dressed up for the picture, wanted to look as regal as a princess.” Twi's eye twitched slightly, Shine just lied to her!
Twi took some deep breaths as she realized she wasn't entitled to all of Shine's secrets, but still something was really weird with her, beyond the dull colors and limp hairstyle, her eyes were different they almost looked crystallized. Her story was strange as well, something about her city being gone sounded like it vanished rather then destroyed, even the way the sunlight hit her body seemed off, like her fur wasn't absorbing the sunlight.
Twi's eyes narrowed slightly, she had an idea but it was almost cruel what she's about to do, “You know what Shine after hearing your story I decided to let you go.”
Shine looked at her confused, “What do you mean?”
“You've been locked up long enough, you should go and live out your own life.” Twi looked at the reflection in a glass as she watched Shine slowly smile then her body glowed with light, Twi span around in shook.
Twi's eyes couldn't believe what Shine just turned into her colors were brighter, her hairstyle was neater, and she looked completely different! Shine looked at herself, she gasped as she slowly faded back to normal, “Whoa, how did you do that?”
Twi asked as Shine growled at her, “You tricked me on purpose, your worse then those nurses!” Twi held up her claws, “Alright I admit I did trick you on purpose, but I knew there was something odd about you and I was right, your not a normal unicorn!”
Shine simply got off the cushion, “Well now you know my deepest secret congratulations!” Twi flinched slightly at her tone, “I'm sorry I shouldn't have tricked you but I knew you weren't going to just tell me that your... what do they call you?”
Shine grumbled, “Of all the different species books of course she wouldn't have the one book she needs to tell what I am.” Shine teleported in an old book, “This is what I am.”
Twi read the cover, “History of the Crystal Empire.”