//------------------------------//
// Alone 
// Story: AlwaysDressesInStyle's Ponyville CiderFest '23 Interactive App Stories 
// by AlwaysDressesInStyle 
//------------------------------//

Hook: Leaving home is scary.  Is it worth it?



Story #236
Title: Alone
Keyword: Shy
Characters: Sweetie Swirl
Hero/Villain





Sweetie Swirl hasn’t left her house in three days.  She sits alone, staring out the window at the late winter landscape.  The snow is melting, the pegasi have seen to that.  Her daffodils are already poking through the ground.  She’s not an earth pony and has no magic over plants, but she’s come to an understanding with her daffodils: she doesn’t touch them, and they come up beautiful every year.  She resists the urge to go outside and nibble on one – that would break the unspoken agreement with the plants.

Sweetie sighs and contemplates how that’s the story of her life.  She lets others do their thing, and hopes they choose to include her. They rarely do.

Sweetie doesn’t approach ponies often, preferring to let them come to her.  She tries to make herself enticing enough to want to be friends with, without actually taking the initiative of putting herself out there. It’s not that she doesn’t have a few friends, though perhaps it would be more correct to say she has acquaintances. Mostly the ponies who just don’t seem to fit in anywhere they go.  She knows her brain processes things differently from everypony else, which is a drawback in a herd species.  She tends to be the odd one out even among those closest to her, the dissenting opinion.

She’s genuinely nice, and she often wonders if other ponies don’t trust that.  They see somepony like that as any number of fictional characters who act nice until the plot twist reveals they were the villain all along.

There’s a book series she’s fond of.  It’s meant for fillies and colts, but it has a message of friendship, love, and tolerance. It radiates hope, even in the bleakest of times.  She likes it because it’s cute and she loves the message.  Despite that, she thinks there’s something broken inside her, because she just doesn’t get it.  She tries so hard to be nice and as inoffensive as possible.  She’s about as intimidating as a kitten.  No, scratch that.  Sweetie Swirl is less intimidating than that – kittens have sharp, pointy things called claws.

Part of her problem is she’s shy.  But that doesn’t explain all of it.  She knows she’s doing something wrong.  But what? On the rare occasions she actually takes the initiative she gets blown off, or she feels like an unwanted third wheel.

Sweetie Swirl hasn’t left her house in three days.  It’s been three days since her last contact with another equine.  She knows it’s nice outside today because she can see fillies and colts playing outside.  They’re not wearing scarves or boots, and they’re having a grand old time.  She confirms that when she opens her door and grabs her mail.  She debates going for a walk and at least enjoying the weather and getting some exercise.

She just doesn’t want to be alone anymore.  She knows she’s not going to find friends just sitting there.  She wishes she knew where to go.

She shuffles through the mail: bill, junk mail, bill, flyer for Trotter’s Cider Bar.  The last item piques her interest.





[CHOICE]

>Go to Trotter’s and socialize with ponies. (hero)

>It’s scary out there.  Stay inside where you know it’s safe. (villain)