//------------------------------// // Beginnings // Story: Blackscale // by Leviathan //------------------------------// I was, at one point, just a practitioner of orphanhood. I was something nothing wanted. I was left at an orphanarium in a large, industrialized city when I was still too young to even form a coherent thought. My parents had been incapable of caring for me, for whatever reason. I never learned much about them, nor did I make an effort to. It matters not why one is placed into adversity, but rather how they survive it. Or so I thought. The home itself was in disrepair. It had stains and cracks along the walls, bearing the burden of time poorly. The entire building reeked of urine and blood, and had sights that supported the stenches. The building had two floors, first floor consisting of a small reception, a tattered nursery, and an understocked cafeteria. The second housed the living quarters of the foals inhabiting the impoverished institute. The adults who tended to the orphanage were lazy, simply staying there to earn a bit of money and leave. They didn’t truly care about any of the colts and fillies who filled their halls. So, for the most part, we were unsupervised. It was not always a pleasant arrangement, as you can imagine. Placing damaged children of varying ages in one frail environment created a good amount of chaos. Nobody there really had friends. Some formed ‘gangs’ of sorts, and other things along those lines, but with the way our orphanage ran it was better not to get attached to others. It was practically a rule. There were a few adults who cared, actually, but they tended to care a little too much. There were a few caretakers that walked off with a foal or two sometimes. Those who left the premises we these adults weren’t usually seen again. We all knew better than to think that they had been saved. We had lived in that Tartarus-forsaken pit long enough to know we weren’t that fortunate. In fact, one of the games we had invented involved us guessing what happened to those who were taken. Most theories involved a decent amount of impropriety. The orphan base mostly consisted of pegasi and earth-ponies. The part of town I resided in didn’t house many unicorns. It was a seedy part of the city, and unicorns were, generally, reviled. They were seen as pompous and arrogant, too proud for their own good. It was rare to see a unicorn here, and even rarer still to see them breathing. Being a unicorn was basically the equivalent of being branded a heretic. I grew up ostracized by my peers, but I survived. That was all I did there, really. I wasn’t a survivor, but a drifter, floating along a murky path. That was the true atrocity. It wasn’t that we all lived without family and friends, but that we had no drive, no real purpose to subsist. Worse yet, none of us even realized it. We were so caught up in trying to live we forgot why we were even bothering to the attempt. I lived in that place for thirteen years before I fled. I had been trying to escape something I did there, something disgusting done in the name of “survival.” I don’t regret what I did, but neither can I change it. Still, I won’t forget it anytime soon. It started off like any other day, I rose at dawn, along with the rest of that hopeless rabble, dreading what life was going to do to me next. Someone had overturned my knapsack during the night, pouring out everything I had claim to in the world. Everything I owned consisted of a dusty old spell tome I had scavenged, an apple that looked rather suspicious, and a tattered blanket. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. The act itself wasn’t new; I experienced much worse in the past. I was lucky that the perpetrators hadn’t gotten physical; violence escalated quickly around here. I didn’t seek out revenge, or even try to find out who did it. I just collected my stuff and shoved it under my shared bunk. I quickly made for the ground floor. Breakfast was being served at this point and, unless I arrived there swiftly, the meager store of food would be depleted. Some of the newer additions were resting on their cots, too lost in their dreams to worry about starving. With time, they would learn how things operated around here. By the time I made it to the mess hall all the food was gone. I had been too slow. Hunger gnawed at me upon seeing the few who had managed to get the precious edibles. I had not found much to eat the previous two days, so it would be fair to assume that I was bit dazed. I wasn’t willing to go another day without food, though. I let my gaze fall over the room, scanning for an easy mark. It had to be somepony who wouldn’t notice if something went missing off their tray. I spotted it in the form of a large, clumsy earth-pony. One who went by the name of Ginger Snap. She was one of the older foals at the orphanage, about two years older than me. She survived by bullying some of the younger fillies and taking their stuff. Her most prominent traits were her size, lack of intelligence, and cruelty. Bound for success, she was. It was likely that if she survived this place she would end up a thug or highwaymare. There was food piled high on her tray. I’m sure a lot of it came from other ponies. There was no way that the cafeteria would give that much food out otherwise. Or maybe they would. It wasn’t like they cared. One delicacy made itself very well known to me. An average, completely intact pear. Good fruit was a rare find. I crept up beside Ginger Snap, who was too busy heckling the some poor fool who stepped on her tail. I was always a relatively good sneak- I had to be. I wasn’t big like some of the other foals, nor was I particularly skilled at scavenging. I mainly had to rely on stealing to survive in this place. My demure size contributed to that. I reached a hoof out, grabbed the pear in the cuff of my knee, and made a quick retreat, leaving Ginger Snap and her hapless victim. I thought I was in the clear, seeing as how Ginger Snap hadn’t noticed me make off with her food. I didn’t account for the colt she was bullying, though. “Hey! That blue unicorn took your food!” The colt’s voice was nervous and scared, but loud. His hoof was pointing towards me. He managed to slip away as Ginger turned her head. I had forgotten that others here actually wanted to survive as well. Ginger Snap pivoted on her back hoof to face the general direction he had pointed towards. I tried to blend in with the rest of the ponies around me, but the bright azure of my coat made it difficult. Insanely difficult. It took no time at all for Ginger Snap to notice me. “Hey, unicorn! Get over here!” Ginger Snap screamed. I quickened my pace and broke out into a gallop, rushing towards the stairwell that led to the dormitory. If I could reach it I could find someplace to hide. I didn’t have to turn around to know that Ginger Snap was chasing me, I could hear her heavy footsteps pounding against the ground. She was not quite as quiet as me. The other orphans backed out of her way; the last thing they wanted to do was get involved. Ginger Snap was much bigger than me, and being an earth-pony, much quicker. So I rushed up the stairwell as fast I could. I was frightened, and due to that became clumsy. It was inevitable that I would slip up. I ended up tumbling down the the stairs after a slip of the hoof, landing at the feet of my pursuer. All I could do was look up into her angry green eyes and hope I got off easy. Sadly, today was not destined to be my day. She picked me up by throat and pressed me against a wall, keeping me pinned under her massive weight. I tried to breathe, but her leg was firm against my throat. Her arm was a rod of steel due to years of practice with her victims. She leaned in close to me, putrid breath burning my eyes. The look she gave me was sadistic and venomous. I could see I wouldn’t be getting off easily. I would be punished. And quite severely if the look that graced her pupils was any indication. “Dirty little mutt! You took my food! I’m gonna make you pay for that you little twerp.” Ginger Snap’s features were contorted into pure rage. A faint glare blinded me for a moment. I moved my eyes downwards trying to locate the source of the light. That’s when I saw it. Right under her right hoof was a small knife. It was thin, rusty, and bent, but it was still a weapon. I struggled in vain against her much larger form. I was small for my age, and she was big for hers, brute force just wouldn’t cut it. That didn’t stop me from kicking out and struggling, though. I was scared, more frightened then I had ever been in the entirety of my pathetic little life. There I was, backed into a corner by somebody who I believed would, no doubt, kill me without a second thought. She raised the small razor, lifting it closer towards my face. she brought it up to my cheek and pressed down softly, applying a bit a pressure. She was probably trying to draw blood, maybe to scare me a little before she killed me. It was difficult considering the rust accumulated on the blade. “I’m gettin’ real sick of unicorns like you.” She had a malicious look in her eyes, one that didn’t bode well for me. “You think you’re so much better than us, don’t you? Just because you have fancy magic you think that allows you to do anything?” The corners of her mouth were twisted down in a deep frown. “Well, guess what?” Her rancorous demeanor and gruesome expression were enough to decide that I didn’t want to guess. I struggled harder, kicking against the larger mare’s stomach with all my might. I didn’t really expect anything, nor did anything happen. I just ended up annoying her. I appeared to be very good at that. She glared at me, hate practically seeping out as drool. “I’m not gonna deal with anymore.” She flicked the razor across my cheek, leaving a jagged trail of blood in her wake. It flowed over my face, the coppery smell quickly invading my nostrils and overpowering my brain. I tried to back up, but I was already pressed up against a wall and only managed to give my torturer more room to throttle me. She leaned in even closer, mouth pressed to my ear. Her breath burned. “I think I’ll start with your pretty little horn. I bet it would bring a nice price.” As she spoke she let the razor glide towards the crown of my head. I panicked. I thrashed around, harder than I had before. I tried to cry out, but all I could choke out was throaty groan. Even if I had managed to call out, nopony would have come. The others in this place have long since given up on morality. I felt the blade against my horn now, being prepared to saw through it. I could just imagine how agonizing and tortuous it would be with such a raw blade slowly scraping across the resdential artery. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see what would happen next. I thought back on my short life, on what I had done, what I had not done. I found the results of my contemplation brought me an empty feeling. Not the empty feeling that accompanied hunger, or the empty feeling that accompanied depression. No, this was a new torture to me. I felt as if I was nothing, just a useless wretch surviving the world. I was living for no reason. I was living for no reason. What I saw wasn’t anything to take pride in, just something to laugh at. I had just realized I had no goal, no drive, no purpose, no anything. And I felt horrible. My entire life had been wasted, a pointless time-slot. I had never done, nor tried to do, anything. I had been fine just surviving without reason, without motive. It was revolting to think about. And here was this mare standing over me, somepony just like me. A mare just as useless as me, who’s only goal was to cause pain and live. She was trash, something that should be thrown out. So was I, so was every single foal in that desolate orphanage. I could change that about myself, though. I could find something to cling to, a reason to survive. Philosophy, art, magic, love, friendship... they had no survival value; rather they gave value to survival. I could find conviction within one of those things, perhaps. Right then I craved a reason to live, not because living was enjoyable to me, but because it would be something that I owned. Nothing would ever be able to take my purpose from me. My hypothetical purpose. A jolt of energy ran through me. It warmed my body, sending a pleasant heat from my core to my extremities. A force began to build up in my horn before it was released. The pressure on my throat released and I sunk to the ground. I heard an anguished cry, and it hadn’t come from me. That was nice. I opened my eyes quickly, trying to find the source of the shout. They instantly locked onto Ginger Snap, who was laying a few feet away, sprawled against the floor in a splay of limbs. The knife she had threatened me with was stuck in her chest, handle pointing out at an odd angle. Her eyes were glazed over, empty like the void. I stared at the corpse for a moment, terror and confusion holding me in a tight embrace. It was obvious that it had been something I had done that killed her. I was paralyzed as I realized the implications of that. I had killed her. I could be arrested. So, I did the first thing that came to mind. I did what anyone who lived on instinct would’ve done. I ran.