I'd never given much thought to how I would die. Actually, scratch that, I totally knew the most picturesque way I wanted to die. When the time finally came for me to leave this world - after living a long, purposeful life married to the perfect stallion while raising our three children named Starry, Sunshine, and Glinda - I would be a very old age, lying on a bed surrounded by the flowers given by my family and admirers, everyone saying how it was a pleasure to know me.
I suppose dying in the place of someone I love is a good way to go, too.
I stared up in to the bright green eyes of my captor as she smiled and laughed menacingly back down at me. I knew that if I had never gone to live in the dreaded Ponyville I would not even be here in the first place. It's all your fault, Ponyville! Not my hottie dreamboat of a boyfriend. Never! He would never knowingly put me in harms way. So it must be Ponyville's fault.
I braced for the impact, anticipating my subsequent doom.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ponyville: a town of few inhabitants defined mostly by their rustic charm. It is a far cry from the elegance of Canterlot, where my mom and I are from. I wouldn't have set foot in the town in the first place if not for her, not that I blame her. I understand that she needed to go away for a while, take a little vacation for herself. We've been moving around for so long - to escape the capture of the Secret Equestrian Guard that has been chasing after my mom, apparently - that it will be good for her to have some place more permanent to live. And if the nice doctors could help with her constant barking, I would be most appreciative.
So while she went away, I decided to live with my father in Ponyville. He's the police chief there, Police Chief Joe Sprinkles. For such a seemingly small town, he's seen a lot of action, emphasis on seen. He's hardly had to do anything thanks to the town celebrities "The Elements of Harmony", but they're not that important. Not to my story, anyway.
Who am I, you ask? My name is Vanilla Twilight, not to be confused with the famous Twilight Sparkle, and my appearance is as normal and bland as my name suggests. My coat is white, not a misty snowy white, but the color white you paint your ceiling so that it doesn't distract from the more interesting colors. My mane is a similarly dull color, the color of oatmeal with brown sugar, as my mom says. I'm not much of a fan of describing my hair in terms of food, personally. The only part of me that I like is my cutie mark, an image of an open book. I'm not sure what it means exactly, but I guess it shows that I like books, which I do. Especially romance novels! I adore getting sucked in to a novel, believing that there is a chance that I could be as beautiful and adored as the women in these novels, that I could be loved by a wonderful stallion of my own...
But who am I kidding? I'm just normal old Vanilla Twilight, "Nilla" to ponies who don't understand that I don't like that nickname. I figured that I might get to experience something new by moving to Ponyville, at least by starting at a new school. Maybe I would make some new friends, or just some friends in general. By moving around so often, I've never had a chance to fully establish a relationship with anyone, or even begin a friendship for that matter. Whenever I try to make friends, people usually just yawn and turn away. I assured myself that this time would be different!
The nice doctors gave me a ride to the train station in Canterlot where I would begin my new life in Ponyville.
I glanced one last time at my mom and said, "Goodbye, Mom! I will miss you!"
"Aarf!" she replied.
That made me tear up. "I promise, Mom! I promise I'll write to you!"
I grabbed my bags and a donut, something to remind me of my former life in Canterlot. At least the life I had in Canterlot for the few weeks we had lived there since moving from Phillydelphia. I waved a final goodbye to my mom and soon the train was on its way.
When I finally arrived in Ponyville after spending my time on the train reading my favorite novel, Fluttering Heights, I glanced out the window to see my new town. Of course, it was raining. It was a gloomy, overcast day with pink clouds covering the sky. Somehow it was also nighttime, even though I had left Canterlot in the morning and the train ride didn't last longer than an hour. I didn't question it, though. This was a completely new town, a new lifestyle, so who was I to question its weather patterns? As I stepped of the train, I truly got a look at Ponyville. Everything from the hills to the houses were covered in various colors of checker patterns, some of the homes even hanging upside down. The roads were flooded with soap, and as I walked to the train station to greet my dad, it suddenly became morning once again. I knew that Ponyville wasn't going to be pleasant to live in.
My dad stood inside the train station, wearing his police vest and hat. If this meant he was on duty, then maybe something was wrong with Ponyville.
"Hi, Dad," I said, vacant expression upon my face.
"Hey there, Vills!" he said, walking over to me and giving me an awkward hug. Only my dad ever calls me "Vills", even though I've told him that I don't like this nickname either. How difficult is it to just say "Hello, Vanilla Twilight" every time?
He led me over to his little police cart and threw in my bags. I held on to my donut. "Is this weather normal for Ponyville?" I asked.
My dad just laughed. "No, it isn't, thank Celestia! Apparently some chaotic being is running rampant through the town. Oh, and for the moment, we're the Chaos Capital of the world!"
My eyes widened. "That's awful! Shouldn't you be doing something?"
"Not me! I got orders from Celestia herself to not intervene whatsoever. It's all up to the Elements of Harmony." He whistled as we started stumbling around the slippery streets to my new home. For a moment, we walked past the center of town, and I thought I could hear evil laughter in the distance. I knew from that moment on that Ponyville was not going to be an ordinary town.
After walking past and ignoring various scenes of chaotic destruction and interference, my father and I arrived at his little cottage. I had apparently visited once when I was a tiny foal, but it was so long ago that everything about his house was completely new. New to me, at least. Everything inside his house was ancient: the chairs, the food, the dust...it looked like it hadn't had a proper cleaning in ages. Or any cleaning ever, that is. And there was a lingering smell that disturbed me, the smell of something I couldn't quite put my nose on...
"Here we are, home sweet home!" my father said. "Don't worry about a thing, I have your room all ready!"
"You do?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"Sure do! Follow me."
We stumbled up a flight of stairs, stepping over rotting pizza boxes and moldy magazines. At the top of the stairs, there was a door that was so violent a shade of pink that I actually had to rub my eyes after staring at it. Inside, the room was a slightly less bright shade of pink, although it was hard to really tell since it was covered wall-to-wall with posters of puppies, kittens, and other sickeningly cute things. The sheets of the bed were fluffy and pink, and here I discovered the source of the mysterious smell. It was the overwhelming scent of sugar, as if someone had bottled sugar and then sprayed it so much that it replaced what air had originally existed. Since I was a teenage mare, clearly all of this stuff was way too foal-ish for me. I couldn't tell this to my dad, though. He's too fragile.
"It's...nice," I said.
"I knew you would like it! Now, I'll give you a chance to unwind and unpack. But make sure you're up bright and early for school tomorrow! That is, if morning actually comes at its usual time..." he said with a smile as it suddenly became night again.
He shut the door and I just sat on my bed and cried. Why was my life so awful? Why did my father have to give me a room that is so pink and not plain like any other room I've ever had? Clearly he didn't understand me. Nobody had ever understood me.
~ ~ ~ ~
After a long night of it being night and then not being night, a sparkly pink flash swept across the town and put everything back to normal. Apparently the Elements of Harmony had done their duty, so I would have to go to school the next day. I woke up with the actual rise of the sun and put a brush through my mane. My mane has so many tangles that the task is generally pointless, but it has become a necessary ritual regardless. I quickly ate a bowl of what I hoped to be cereal and then set off to find the school. Although it had been floating at the time, the schoolhouse was on our way from the station to my father's house so he had pointed it out earlier.
I finally arrived after a long walk of looking down whenever ponies on the road smiled at me, and then I entered the schoolhouse. Inside, yet another pink object was inside, a pony who I assumed to be the teacher.
"Oh, hello there!" she said with a voice that was far too cheerful for me. "You must be Vanilla Twilight! My name's Cheerilee and I will be your new teacher."
I looked around at my fellow classmates. Most of them seemed a lot younger than me and some didn't even have their cutie marks. "Um, hello. Am I in the right class?"
"Of course, you are! There's only one classroom here in Ponyville, but don't you worry! We have a fine young stallion who is around your age so you won't be the oldest!" she explained, still smiling. It made me want to vomit. Then she gestured to the stallion in question and my heart nearly stopped.
Sitting in a desk on the far side of the room was the dreamiest stallion I had ever laid eyes on. His coat was white like mine, yet it was so much more brilliant. It seemed to reflect both the softness of the snow and the cold perfection of marble at the same time. His mane was a luscious color of chocolate brown and it made me want to run my hooves through it. Strangest of all, however, were his eyes. They were the brightest color of green I had ever seen, almost as if they were glowing like radioactive waste. They were stunningly beautiful. He was stunningly beautiful.
I just nodded at Cheerilee and happily sat down next to him, feeling the most emotion I had in weeks. As I sat down, he glared at me with a brooding stare and then turned away. Clearly he was amazing. And so mysterious! Maybe Ponyville wouldn't be so bad after all!
"My name is Marble Sparkle. You should stay away from me, though. I'm far too dangerous," he said in a deep voice that was smoother than a foal's bottom. See what I mean? Total dreamboat.
If he was dangerous, at least that would be something more interesting than anything I'd ever experienced. More interesting than my whole existence, quite frankly. But what did he mean by that? I contemplated all of the possibilities while Cheerile taught, completely ignoring her whole lecture, but falling more deeply in love with this stranger with every passing second.