//------------------------------// // From Love to Humiliation (And More) // Story: Sharp and Flat (First Attempt At Writing) // by thisnameisironic //------------------------------// Treble awoke in his room back in Trottingham. It was pitch black outside, a full moon shining behind thin clouds. He had a weird feeling in his gut, but he ignored it. He got up and walked out of his bedroom and into his sister’s room. “Deb?” he called out. “Can I sleep with you? I had a bad dream.” He walked over toward his sister’s bed, but she wasn’t there. Instead, pulling off the covers, he found a note. Go back to bed, it said. All of the sudden, there was a shriek coming from downstairs. He called for her as he ran to the stairway. And that’s when he saw it. His muscles froze up at the sight in front of him. There was a white pony in a business suit at the bottom of the stairs. He had tentacles coming out of his back that seemed to be made out of pure darkness. Ironically, the tentacles were still visible in the darkness. The tentacles were wrapped around Deb as the eerily familiar pony finally looked up toward Treble. That’s when the scariest part of this ever-returning nightmare was revealed: the lack of a face. He looked back at Deb and continued to choke her with his tentacles of darkness until she disappeared. Just like that, gone. The business suited pony looked again at Treble. The young colt ran toward his room and tried to open his bedroom door. It wouldn’t open. He was trapped. The nightmarish pony, better known as Slendermane, climbed the last step and approached Treble. He said something unintelligible, but Treble knew immediately what it meant: he would regret ever witnessing what happened to his sister. Slendermane’s tentacles grew larger, and lashed them toward the colt. Suddenly… ______________________________________________________________________________ BZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZT! Treble awoke from his nightmare, startled by the loud alarm his mom had set for him. It was 7 in the morning now and breakfast started in a half hour. Sighing, he got out of bed. His mane was a mess, and he knew Deb would kill him if she saw it. Reluctantly, he spit in his hoof and dragged it through his mane. That should be good enough, he thought as he walked out the door with his shades on. Treble tried to move through the hallways as quietly yet as quickly as possible. He hated other ponies. All throughout growing up, he had been made fun of and tortured by other fillies and colts. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come home bruised and/or humiliated. He still had a stuffed animal friend at his age? What a lowlife! Still doesn’t have his cutie mark? Blank flank! Don’t sit by the outcast that sits alone at the lunch table, you’ll turn into a stupidhead! It was this type of bullying that made him so asocial. He couldn’t trust anyone that wasn’t his family or Mr. Fangs. He made it to the lobby of the dormitory to find that some older colts and fillies were already there. Out of panic, he dashed out the door without looking at any of them, much to the others’ confusion. He didn’t care what the others thought of him at this point. Everypony would look at him the same way: the weird colt that talked to a stuffed dragon. It could be worse: he could’ve had a roommate like Deb was mentioning the possibility of. ______________________________________________________________________________ Fiddling around with the key around his neck, an important question stood in his mind: Where was the commons again? He started to panic. He didn’t even have a map of the campus, he’s just supposed to know where to go. “Calm down, Treble,” he said to himself, trying to keep calm. “Just look for a building that looks like a commons…” What was a commons, again? Fifteen minutes later, he eventually found out. After running all across campus trying to search for the commons, it was in a place he should have thought about before: smack dab in the center of the campus. One long facehoof later, he entered. Expecting to see his BSBFF in line or at one of the tables eating, he was disappointed to find no such face. He went in line after finally willing himself to and waited as the line slowly progressed. That’s when he jumped at a small tap on his shoulder. Turning around to think it was his sister, what he got instead was a little bit better. The problem with this was that he became even shyer just looking at her. She was a unicorn, like his sister but only his age. She had a white coat like his, and her mane and tail both were colors that mixed like what he found when he opened Trix(ie) yogurt; A perfect mix of lavender and light bubblegum colors which weren’t blended but still perfect. Her emerald eyes marked good intention and, though he knew it would be rude, couldn’t help but get trapped in the beauty that was in front of him. He wanted to know who this filly was, but he didn’t dare risk opening his mouth. (And we can all guess who this is.) Meanwhile, outside of daydream land, Treble’s mouth was ajar and he was stuck in a trance. “Hello?” the filly’s voice squeaked. Treble immediately broke out of his trance with that one word, realizing he was probably making a fool of himself yet again. “I’m trying to ask you, what’s for breakfast?” the filly continued. “Oh, um…” Treble was embarrassed at this point. Good going, Treble. You stayed in dream land for too long and now you look like a dork, he told himself. Trying to rub off the humiliation, he took a deep breath and fought against his shyness to tell her. “Alfalfa, hay bacon, and apple juice…” “What? I couldn’t hear you.” “Alfalfa, hay bacon, and apple juice.” “Huh? I’m sorry, but can you speak louder?” “Alfalfa, hay bacon, and apple juice!!” That’s when Treble noticed that he was getting looks from everypony in the room. He looked around and realized that he may have overstayed his welcome. Even though he was getting his food next, he ran out of the line. The filly was shouting back at him. “Come back! You’re next in line!” Treble ignored her and bolted out of the building, trying to hold back his tears of humiliation. ______________________________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle was looking back from where the colt went out of the building. (Who didn’t see Sweetie Belle coming? If you recognized the appearance of a dictionary by the details, then congrats! You are rightfully a brony! If not, then why are you here?) “He reminded me of Fluttershy a little bit,” she responded. She was here at the music camp to try and get her cutie mark in singing. She liked it a lot and tried to convince the rest of her trio of Crusaders to come. Unfortunately, neither of them were able to. Applebloom was going to be busy gathering apples for her sister and brother while Rainbow Dash was taking Scootaloo to a Wonderbolts performance. Even after that, Scootaloo would probably stay with her theoretical big sister anyway. Sweetie got her food and sat a table alone. She couldn’t find any other fillies or colts her age that were blank flanks. In fact, the colt that left actually was a blank flank! She should write to her fellow Crusaders to tell them about the achievement. The colt gave off a certain feel to her though. A feel that, if she told Rarity about, would cause her sister to endlessly annoy her about the topic. She liked him. ______________________________________________________________________________ Despite his stomach growling time and time again, Treble skipped breakfast and looked for a building called Starswirl Hall. He was supposed to meet with the rest of the choir campers around his age there, and of course, got hopelessly lost. Desperate for help, Treble walked into a nearby dome-shaped building. The dome was much larger than what he had expected from the outside. Everywhere, books of all genres and sizes lined up the shelves. He thought that this was observatory at first, but the overabundance of scrolls, tomes, atlases, and textbooks proved that this was a library. The words of a purple winged unicorn checking in several books from during the school year set the mood. “Hi, there! What book are you here for? I’ve got horrors, comedies, tragedies, adventures, romance…” “I’m actually here for directions…” the colt interrupted. “Oh. Okay, what can I help you with then?” said the promising alicorn. The colt thought hard about the question. It was a simple question. All he had to do was ask where Starswirl Hall is. But even his simplest questions came out awkward, and he didn’t need that. He already had enough humiliation for the day. “Where…is Starswirl HaOH MY FAUST IS THAT A DRAGON?!” He dashed to where the alicorn’s assistant was and looked in marvel. He couldn’t believe it. A real dragon! It was just like Mr. Fangs, only real! He hugged the dragon and, sure enough, he was covered in scales. The dragon gave a smirk to the purple princess, to which she gave him an annoyed look. Treble finally let go. “I’m sorry, I just have never seen a real dragon before!” “You wouldn’t be the first to say that,” exclaimed the alicorn, looking as if she was reminiscing of distant memories. To make a long story short, Treble lost track of time and, when finally focused back on why he really entered, was able to get directions. The colt dashed to hurry off to Starswirl Hall before he was late. “Twilight, he doesn’t exactly seem shy like Vinyl said he would be when he came in here,” said a bewildered assistant. All the most recently coronated princess could do was smile. ______________________________________________________________________________ Treble made his way to Starswirl Hall, only to find a group of colts and fillies already waiting outside. Great, he thought. The humiliation’s going to come back. Taking a nervous breath, he walked over to the crowd. He attempted to ignore the familiar filly he saw at breakfast and sat on a bench in front of the building. “Hey,” said the filly as she approached. Treble tried to ignore her, but couldn’t help but look toward her. There she was, in all her lavender-bubblegum-maned, emerald-eyed glory. “You’re a blank flank too?” This filly’s a blank flank?! And surely enough, staring at her rump (which he thought was rather nice…he tried to snap out of staring at it for too long), was the lack of a cutie mark. That made Treble a little bit more comfortable. “Yeah, I am…” he simply replied, still being cautious not to ruin his chances with the mystery filly. “I’m Sweetie Belle! I’m in a group called the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We’re on a quest to find out where we are, and we’ll never stop the journey until we finally get our cutie marks!” Treble was a bit taken back by the random rhyming. Was that supposed to be intentional? He was intrigued, however, about this Cutie Mark Crusader thing. He was about to say something when a familiar pink pony literally bounced over to the building. “Ooh! This is going to be so fun! Teaching music to colts and fillies alike! It would be a shame if the author decided to skip my teaching!” Then Pinkie turned to what appeared to be nothing and squinted at some sort of invisible figure. “I’m talking to you, thisnameisironic!” she said in a suddenly serious tone. Pinkie then went back to her usual gleeful self and hummed as she bounced into the building. Treble gave a look of confusion, one that Sweetie Belle noticed. “It’s difficult to say this with a straight face, but you’ll get used to her.” The colt responded. “Huh?” “We both come from Ponyville. Pinkie is best friends with Twilight, so she was able to convince Princess Celestia to let her become a counselor here.” “Twilight?” the colt asked. That’s when he remembered. On the way out, he thought he heard the dragon he met refer to the librarian by that name. Pinkie was friends with a princess? Sweetie Belle was tugging on Treble’s hoof. He spaces out a lot, doesn’t he? she thought. “Come on! We’re going to be late!” Treble snapped himself back into reality and allowed himself to be dragged in by Sweetie Belle. He was surprisingly okay with this. Maybe I should tell this to my sister, he thought, making sure not to speak out loud. Because you know what? At least this isn’t completely bad.