A Glimpse Through Blind Eyes
I awoke at dawn, as I always did, the ray of sunshine poking my face with just enough warmth to rouse me. I opened my eyes to the same lack of sight I'd gotten used to. It was the same every morning. The same wretched condition for which there was no cure. The same handicap that defined my limits. The same eternal nightmare that enclosed me within its jaws, incarcerating me in the space I called Hell. It didn't upset me nearly as much as it used to, but it still disheartened me. I felt my light smile fall away, a more somber expression taking its place.
I stood up, stretching out my legs before taking my thirty steps down to the common, and another twenty into the kitchen, where I was met with silence and the scent of freshly baked breakfast. A slight hint of cinnamon tickled my nose, drawing water from the wells in my mouth. I couldn't help but verbalize my approval of the scent. But then another smell hit my nose, no, two scents. One was mildly unpleasant, like fresh exercise-induced sweat, while the other bore the sweetness of various tea blends. I greeted the ponies that I'd grown to associate the scents with, "Good morning, Fluttershy. Good morning, Rainbow Dash."
"Morning!" Rainbow chirped. Fluttershy offered a much softer greeting. Rainbow continued, "Thought I'd make it up to you for the whole first day incident... I swear I'll show you the best time around Ponyville you could have!"
Her enthusiasm felt more vivid than the dreams I'd had just yesterday. But I remembered making plans to spend the day with Fluttershy again. "My idea of a good time is a rainy day by a fire with a book," I retorted, turning to face the more athletic pegasus. I trotted over to the table, sitting in my usual spot on the northern side. The warm smell of cinnamon filled my nose, drenching my mouth in preparation for an incredibly tasty breakfast.
"Um... Forgive me for asking, but... How do you read?" Rainbow asked hesitantly. I could tell she was still nervous asking questions about my blindness. I inwardly winced, reassessing just how much damage I could have done with my previous explosion.
Gingerly, I answered, "Bridle. I'll explain in a moment." As if on cue, my stomach made its presence known to the world with a seismic rumble that even the untrained hoof could feel through the ground.
Breakfast was eaten in silence, the only sounds being the faint clink of silver-plated copper forks on ceramic plates, and the closely following sounds of chewing. Rainbow's hoof shook but didn't tap, and Fluttershy's wings twitched and readjusted.
Afterwards, we walked out into the common and sat down on the small couch. "Spike! Bring down a dual-print and a Bridle copy of Daring Do!" I hollered towards the stairs. I heard his footsteps above me begin moving.
When he finally came down, I thanked him for his help and sent him back to whatever it was he was doing before. I flipped the books open to the first page, where the story began. On the right, Bridle only. On the left, their letters were printed over the embossed dots that I read with. I ran my hoof over the familiar palpable dots, smiling lightly.
Rainbow piped up, "Why's the one on the right blank?"
"Touch the pages. Run your hoof along them like your eyes scroll across words," I said, doing so on the copy that they could read.
I heard the light sound of both of them running their hooves over the pages. I listened closely to each tick of their hooves running over the dots I knew as letters. "Those dots are my letters. You're reading Bridle."
"Huh? What's that?" Rainbow asked, probably without thinking.
"Bridle is a written language for the blind that uses palpable dots impressed in the page rather than ink letters printed onto the page. Take a grid three tall by two wide, and that's the setup for the alphabet. The letter at the very bottom left corner of the page you're on is a 'D', which in Bridle is top row and middle-right," I ranted in response. I could feel the curiosity begin to permeate the room. The page turned, but I knew they couldn't read it.
"This is insane," Rainbow whispered to herself. "A blind bookworm."
Silence filled the room, becoming the solvent in a solution of two parts quiet and one part awe. I drank it in, enjoying the deafening silence. Every second of it was like a warm and comfortable nap in the Royal Gardens. All I felt was their presence. All I heard was the light ticks of their reading. To me, that was bliss. That was my comfort to my blindness.
"Um... Twilight...?" Fluttershy whispered softly after a while.
"Yes, Fluttershy?" I asked.
"Could you... um... Teach me Bridle?"
I pulled back a little bit in surprise. Never had I met anyone my age who knew or wanted to learn Bridle, much less learn from me. But here I was, sitting in a room with the sweetest mare I'd ever met, being asked if I'd teach her. My heart raced with my mind as I tried to find a response to her request.
But just as I was about to answer, Rainbow piped up as well, "Count me in too."
I felt my eyes widen as I stared at them. Disbelief quickly flooded my mind, followed by doubt in my ability to teach, immediately proceeded by anxiety and fear of my own track record of impatience. Internally, audio of situations of me losing my temper played like broken vinyl records. Hundreds of mental gramophones blasted my voice roaring in, and I say this with absolute hatred for the expression, blind rage, followed by Fluttershy crying.
"I don't know... I'm not the most patient po–"
"Pleeeeaase?" Fluttershy begged softly, no doubt putting on some endearing expression to guilt me into it.
I hesitated, "Fine. I'll teach you."
"Yay!" my gentle pegasus friend squealed. She bounced off the couch, fluttering softly in the air. I could feel the smile suffocating me with its girth. Even Rainbow was out-shined by Fluttershy's joy. But something felt a bit strange about Rainbow's excitement. Perhaps it was that I felt her hooves twiddling in her lap, or maybe it was that her head swiveled to track Fluttershy. I thought I heard their hooves brush once or twice when they read.
I'm reading into this too much, I told myself.
--
An hour passed, and Fluttershy had to leave to go take care of her animals, which I had yet to meet. Meanwhile, Rainbow decided to stay and read, which honestly confused me. But as soon as I gave her the dual-print copy of Daring Do, she took to it like flight. I listened to her entranced, steady breath and her hooves over each dot of Bridle.
"When you read... Um... How do you see what the words show?" she asked from seemingly nowhere.
It caught me off guard, but I recovered quickly, "If it has something to do with color, I ignore it, and find other details I know something by. Like if a book describes the dawn, I ignore the 'rosy fingers' part and recognize the warmth of the morning sun."
"Makes sense. But what about things that can't be observed any other way? Like if you came across a description of a rainbow?"
"Then I completely ignore it."
An awkward silence enveloped the room. I could feel the tension in the room pressing firmly against me like a taut blanket. She twiddled her hooves in her lap, seemingly unsure of what to say.
"Twi'..." she murmured, quieter than Fluttershy. "You any good at just... listening?"
I turned to glare at her. I made a sarcastically huge smile and waved my hoof before my sightless eyes as an answer.
"R-right... What I mean is... I kinda need to get something off my chest, but everyone else will try to give advice or something... Rarity loves to gossip too much, Pinkie is... Pinkie, and AJ's point of view would not be helpful."
I waited in silence, making a quick motion for her to continue.
"I've known Flutters for years... Hell, we sat next to each other for our entire flight-school. She's my best friend. But..." she continued, pausing with a sigh. "I'm not sure if her being my best friend is enough for me... I think I've fallen in love with her..."
I stayed silent as she asked, containing the surprise I felt.
"And the worst part is, I have no idea what to do with these feelings."
To be honest, I was actually quite touched that Rainbow would confide such a personal secret in me. It made me feel warm, and though I did feel a slight twinge of guilt, I knew that I was not at fault. We both loved the same mare. That didn't make us enemies, but it did make our friendship slightly more awkward.
"Look... I know that me telling you this isn't fair at all. I've seen how you two are around each other, and it's so cute that it makes me gag. I'm not saying I'm going to like my decision, but I feel like it's the better one. If you like her, she's yours," she sighed. With venom, she added, "But I swear on my dream of becoming a Wonderbolt that if you hurt her, I will not hesitate to hurt you. Don't make me regret letting you take the first shot."
--
Thursday rolled around without further incident, everything having returned to normal after my talk with Dash. The sunlight was still warm, the sky still blue according to everypony else, and the grass was still soft. Ponies kept going about their lives as time marched on. I had adjusted and learned the streets of Ponyville much sooner than I had thought myself capable of, needing only a few distinct landmarks to navigate by. The noisy market just west of the center of town, The Teapot two hundred meters east of Sugarcube Corner, Sugar Cube Corner three-hundred meters north-by-northwest of my home, Carousel Boutique five-hundred meters south of my home, and Ponyville Park one-hundred meters east of Carousel Boutique.
But there were other thoughts in my mind as I prepared myself for the evening at The Teapot. Second thoughts and doubts riddled my mind like a minefield with strong gusts of icy fear and self-depreciation blowing me every-which-way in my own head. Rainbow's venomous words still echoed in my head, even though she had backed down for me just the moment before.
A soft knock on the door interrupted my mental tangent lines. I felt the light shockwaves in my hooves from my room, where I was pacing back and forth like the nervous wreck I was. I could have sworn I leapt out of surprise, having lost track of the tick-tocks of my wall clock. It surprised me that it was already time to head over to the teashop. As soon as I shook myself from my surprise and nerves, I turned and walked downstairs to meet Fluttershy. The gentle wooden clopping of my hooves on the wooden floor of the library calmed me some, keeping me semi-attatched to reality, where my fears weren't.
"Ready?" she asked warmly, no doubt smiling brightly.
I concentrated on the poems I had for the occasion, smiling as I remembered both. "Yeah," I replied, "I'm ready."
As soon as the familiar warmth of her proximity hit me, we departed, taking to the streets with friendly chatter. On the way she told me about how Angel had been taking an interest in a girl-bunny that had been hanging around her cottage, and that she didn't have any poems to share this week around. I smiled, reassuring her that it was fine. Moments of relative silence gave me ample opportunities to just enjoy her presence, which I could feel less than an inch from me. As we crunched on against the dirt roads of Ponyville, I felt my heart racing in anticipation. I could feel every hoofstep of hers, which were strangely lighter than usual.
We arrived in good time, stepping into the familiar atmosphere of The Teapot, where several poets had already taken seats and ordered drinks. Some softly whispered their poems to themselves to calm their nerves, while others sipped at their drinks. I felt the angelic pegasus mare beside me nod to the barista for tea. We sat down at a table on the left side of the room facing the stage. As the calm before the storm, all I had left to do was wait.
But that was the hardest part. Beneath my coat I was covered in goosebumps. The lavender tea that the pegasus mare had ordered did nothing to calm me, but I sipped away at it as though maybe that sip would finally calm me some. My hooves twitched and my legs shook with last-second doubts. Basic hormonal responses to my distress built up like mountains, though there was no resolution to it, like a song that ended on a minor chord that left its audience silently humming the resolving chord that wasn't there.
Each passing moment was like another pin stabbed into my flesh, tiny enough to not draw blood, but just enough to hurt like hell. Each breath of air came in frigid cold, frosting over my lungs, and left blazing hot, near scalding my throat. I hardly noticed how warm my face felt. It was only when I started to taste the iron in my blood that I noticed. Though I wasn't bleeding, I could taste every drop of blood in my face. From what I'd read in books, I'd have been red as a tomato.
By the time I was called, I was a nervous wreck beneath my calm demeanor. I stood up, my legs feeling like melting lead beneath me, being both heavy and unstable. I walked almost shakily onstage.
"I wrote this a few nights ago, after reliving a none-too-proud moment of my life. With that, I present Blind."
I took a deep breath of cool air.
"I am blind
Unable to see
But that hasn't stopped
The world from showing me
There is beauty in sound
Such breathtaking wind
I may not see at all
But I know when you grin
I can smell the world
All the greens and blues
And I can feel
All of you
I live in the dark
A shadow over me
and yet I know the world
Without having to see."
After the applause died down, I continued, "However, this is the one I truly wish to share. The pony it's about and for is here in among you, and she knows who she is. So here's Touch."
"Feel my heart in your hooves. Feel it beat in steady rhythm. Learn its secrets by touch. As such, you'll learn more than you can with your eyes. Your sight lies to you, and make things appear to be that aren't. So come near and feel my heart. Touch it again, as you have before, but this time open the door you left closed. Explore the possibilities. Learn my heart by touch."
The crowd of unseen ponies broke into thunderous applause, creating enough movement in the ground for me to 'see' everypony's exact location. I could feel a couple in the corner, the mare wiping a tear from her eye. But it wasn't what I could feel that almost made me break down. It was what I didn't.
Fluttershy. I couldn't feel her presence anywhere in the room, no matter how hard I tried. The lack of the pony I had written my heart onto the page for was devastating. My heart sank like an iron brick, a depressing chill rushing up my spine. But then warmth followed. Familiar warmth from all directions enveloped me in a feathery soft embrace. My smile returned, realizing that she'd flown up to the stage, and was now hugging me very warmly. I wrapped my hooves around her, holding her as closely as I could, desiring only to never let go. And just when I thought I couldn't have been happier, I felt her unbelievably soft lips press against my cheek.