//------------------------------//
// I 
// Story: "Why can't you!" 
// by Corvo 
//------------------------------//


I




The brown colt stared down into the small pond in front of him. He was sitting on his haunches watching the little fish dart about under the glass-like surface of the pool. His flank was devoid of a cutie mark, indicating his young age. His silver mane, a mess.  He was just your run of the mill citizen of Ponyville, and his name was Chroma Brush. He’d just entered Cheerilee’s class last year.

As he watched the fish dart about under the water, his face lit up. There had always been something about fishes, whether it was the way they acted or swam, that entranced him. Turning his head to the side, the colt looked down at the book he had been attempting to read. The reading had been assigned as homework and was due the next day. However, the colt just shook his head and turned back to the pond, ignoring his work.

The book was a very basic children’s tale, one he should have been able to read with ease. But actually reading it had proved next to impossible. He glanced at the book again and gave a frustrated moan, like the offending text was trying to annoy him on purpose. 

Everypony in his class could read the books his teacher assigned. Everypony but him. Every time he’d look down at the page, the letters seemed to dance or change. Every rule about the Equestrian language made no sense to the little colt! 

Cheerilee would explain the language one way, but the words on the page would appear completely different when he actually looked down. Reading had just become a huge pain in the flank, and at this point, the colt didn’t even bother with school work. 

Giving the book one more disapproving look, the colt looked down into the pond to find that the fish he had been watching had disappeared. 

“Now look at what you’ve done,” he angrily said to the book. “You made me lose track of my fish.” 


___


“I just can’t figure out what he doesn’t understand!” Cheerilee said, with an exasperated sigh. 

She looked down at the young colt’s papers. Slowly, she turned them around and pushed them towards his mother. 

“When I talked to him in class, he knew every single answer! But here, I- he just didn’t write anything!” She said with an exasperated sigh. 

The colt’s mother, an earth pony mare with a black mane and yellow coat, stared down at the papers. There was a large red “0” marked in the top right corner. The entire page was empty, save for the line at the top where his name was supposed to go. However, even that didn’t contain the correct information. All that was there was an intricate drawing of some constellations in the sky. 

The mother looked up from the test towards the school teacher. “Is he just being lazy?”
Cheerilee shook her head. “I don’t know. All of his work is like this, not a single thing written, other than the occasional picture.” she pointed to the constellations.


____


The colt scoured through the lake, staring intently, waiting for something, anything to happen. Wishing he could find his fish, he disappointedly turned around and picked up the book which had been laying in the grass. 

Carelessly stuffing it in his saddlebags, the colt began trudging back home, trying to forget the day’s events. 

Today, during reading, Cheerilee had asked him to read a section from their novels, the same book sitting in his saddle bags, aloud. 


_=__=_


“What?” 

His classmates giggled. 

“I asked if you would read the section out loud for us, dear.” replied the teacher, giving the young pony a smile. 

Biting his lip, Brush looked down towards the page. The letters seemed to be in a completely random order, with no regard to any of the Equestrian they had been taught in the last year. He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping that magically, the words would arrange themselves into a readable order. 

When he opened his eye, the letters had shifted around yet again. 

“I- Um...” 

He heard another giggle in the back of the class. He recognized the voice. “Diamond,” he muttered under his breath. 

With new found determination, the colt looked down at the page. He could feel multiple pairs of eyes boring into him. 

Squinting the colt slowly began reading “Daring Do was...” he trailed off as the words re-jumbled themselves before his eyes. 

“...Uh...” 

The colt was struck with a sudden idea. Smiling mischievously, he looked down at the page, and then back up at his teacher. 

Putting on a serious face, Chroma opened his mouth and made a completely random selection of sounds. They were incomprehensible and completely random. Not from the book, let alone in Equestrian. 

Once he had finished with the nonsense, the room stood in silence at what they had just witnessed. 

From what everypony could gather, the colt had just sassed Ms.Cheerilee. 

Then in unison, the class produced a resounding, “OOOO” their voices rising in pitch as they spoke. 

Deciding to embrace the moment, the young pony stuck out his tongue and, plopped himself back into his chair. 

Cheerilee slowly shook her head. “I’ll be seeing you after class, Chroma.” 


__=__=__


The colt gave a nervous giggle at the memory. That was the most fun he had had all day. Of course, the after-school “chat” with his teacher had totally ruined that. Cheerilee had given him the evil eye, that weird stare that only teachers could do to scare students. 

In all honesty though, the young pony hadn’t meant any harm. He was only having fun. Everypony said that school was supposed to be fun, so why couldn’t he have any? 

The young colt sighed as he arrived at his door. Lifting a hoof, he opened it up and slowly made his way inside. 

“I’m home!” he announced as he trudged through the door. 

Kicking the door closed behind him, the colt made his way towards the kitchen for his usual afternoon snack. Walking in, he made his way over to the icebox and started taking out ingredients for a sandwich. He froze when,he spotted his mother sitting at the table with a slight frown on her face. 

“How was school today?” she asked. 

The colt froze as he heard her tone of voice. It was the “You’re in trouble, but I’m hiding it from you” voice. His mother always used it when he had done something wrong. 

He closed the ice box and turned around. Putting on his best puppy dog eyes, he looked at his mother. “It was good, momma.” 

“Was it? Did you do any work?” 

“Yeah, we read a section out of our books today!” 

His mother’s eyes widened and her face took on “caught ya!” look. 

“Really? I talked to Ms.Cheerilee today. She said that reading was a bit rough.” 

Chroma giggled nervously. “Yeah? I didn’t notice!” 

His mother rolled her eyes. “Come on, stop playing dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” 

Chroma immediately dropped the puppy dog eyes and looked toward the ground. “I’m sorry.” 

His mom sternly looked down at him. “Saying you’re sorry to me doesn’t help. You have to apologize to your teacher.” 

Looking up, he cheekily smiled. “Sorry, Ms.Cheerilee.” 

His mother shook her head again, “I’m not joking.”

“Okay.” 

Quickly, Chroma turned around and began trotting away. 

“Hey! Come back here! I’m not done with you, young man!” shouted his mother. 

Groaning the young pony turned around. “Yes?” he exasperatedly asked. 

“I also talked to her about your grades...” 

A pit formed in Brush’s stomach. His grades must have been horrible considering the fact that he never even bothered to do the work. All the reading and writing it required made him hate school work. It was always, write an essay about how this happened in this time period. Or write ten sentences about how this effects that in chemistry. But out of all the subjects, he dreaded Equestrian the most. 

The mother looked in her son’s eyes. She could see how much he feared disappointing her. But the fact that he did nothing but draw and stare at fish and other animals all day had already disappointed his mother. Combined with the horrifyingly bad grades he was getting made her completely unhappy with the way her son was acting. 

“You know, you have zeros in every subject other than astronomy. You have a 12% in astronomy.” 

The colt averted his eyes, trying to look anywhere but at his mother. 

“Chroma, If this keeps up, I’m going to have to send you to Canterlot for extra help with academics.” 

The young pony’s eyes snapped back to his mother’s. “But,  Momma, I don’t want to go away! I want to stay here with you! Besides, with dad gone how are you going to take care of yourself.”

“Don’t bring him into this! I’m doing this because I’m concerned for you!” 

Brush desperately looked around the room as if something there could help him dislodge his mother’s harsh stare. 

“Mom! Please, don’t send me to that university! I swear I’ll do better, I will really!”

Chrome’s mother just rolled her eyes again. “You said that last year too! Chroma, you can’t keep doing this!” 

The colt bit his lip and shook his head. How could he have forgotten about the threat his mother had made? Although, at this point, he was starting to think of it more as a promise than a threat. With the stern tone of her voice, Chroma had no idea how to react. Soon, he found his fear overwhelming his other thoughts. 

Slowly, he looked down and sighed. Turning around, Chroma made his way to his room, ignoring his mother’s attempts to get his attention. Moving towards his desk, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper and carefully began drawing. 

He always drew. It didn’t matter if he was sad, happy, angry... Drawing was the only way he could really, and truly express himself. Words did him no justice, and the intricate, complex ongoings of the young colt’s mind would never be effectively conveyed through anything other than drawings. 

As he drew, he lost track of time. What felt like only minutes was actually hours. Finally, after hours of making his picture, he simply fell asleep at his desk. 

Some time later, his mother came in to check on him. When she found him asleep on his desk, she simply sighed and picked him up, moving him to his bed, not three feet away. 

She quickly tucked Chroma in, gave him a kiss on the head, and trotted back to his desk to turn off the lamp, when she spotted his drawing. 

Though she was disappointed at his grades, and at times his careless attitude, she was always proud of his drawings. 

“A new one...” she mumbled. 

Slowly, she picked up the slightly worn piece of paper. The picture was of the pond he spent most of his off days at. On the far bank sat a brown colt with a silvery mane. He was looking into the water with a look of glee plastered all over his face. On the opposite side of the bank was the same colt, however, his head was drooping. He too was staring into the water, but next to him was an open book. The most prominent feature though, were the tears falling from his face into the water. 

She sighed looking at the picture. She then folded it and grabbed it with her mouth. Turning around, she made her way out of the bedroom, turning off his lights, and gently closing the door as she left. 

Yawning, she sauntered over to her bed and reopened her son’s picture. She stared at the picture for a few moments before placing it on her bedside table. Closing her eyes, she drifted off. 


___=__=___