//------------------------------//
// Sweetie Belle 
// Story: Another Brick in the Wall 
// by MrTitchThomas 
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Posed sweetly above the well-manufactured clouds that churned from Cloudsdale was the heavy hum of monotony, which swallowed up the sunlight and created a flare of dullness. A shock of clanging school bell shattered the picture of stillness and serenity into a swift dance of descent that pierced through the half-heart clouds down towards the green splash of Ponyville’s grassy knolls - then toward the neat walls of Ponyville Elementary. The melodic song of stiff-optimism that capered amongst the scrubbed windows betrayed a sad defiance-of-reality when reflected amongst the dreadfully similar bricks of the small bosom of foal-education. Inside the building wore the costume of class, 6 rows of 6 desks spread evenly in the centre of the room surrounded by bright posters – trophies to the able nature of education it is possible to achieve here. At the very front of the standard-lit classroom sat in a clumsy-grace a marsh-mellow pony – Sweetie Belle, her mane well-quaffed and her eyes dazzling, if only half-open.

Although the focus of the rest of the class was today upon math, or more specifically measuring land; Sweetie Belle was instead engrossed in her own writing. Pencil scratched furiously against paper as mouth swerved about guiding aching thought into childish handwriting. ‘‘What’s this Sweetie Belle?’’, the young pony was interrupted by the plump post-young-adult figure of her teacher – Miss Cheerilee. “Mysterious scribbling?” rows behind Sweetie Belle rang whispers, “A secret code perhaps?” the whisperings grew louder and more interested.

‘How useless for a teacher to ask questions’ thought Sweetie Belle; she broke uniform from her desk and pushed her paper into a perilous position, hanging off the edge of the smart polished wood from which it was born.

Miss Cheerilee’s pretty face skimmed across the paper she snatched from Sweetie Belle and, as she read on, a hollow smirk surfaced amongst her pursed-lips and her eyes lightened. “Poems no less”, and the class chorused tinned-laughter as Miss Cheerilee reaffirmed her position at the front of the class. She spoke again, more severely “Young lady, the focus of today’s class is upon: what is an acre?” as she spoke the last words she rapped her hoof on the chalkboard, emphasising her point with a dead thump and a scatter of dust and chalk. “Shall we continue?” there was no waiting for an answer, “an acre is the area of a rectangle whose length is…”

“I don’t want to learn about acres, Miss Cheerilee”, the tidy and childish voice of Sweetie Belle was betrayed by the angry broken squeak that sharpened her ‘don’t’. The class has already been quiet, but still it seemed to hush.

Miss Cheerilee cocked a stare at Sweetie Belle; she was nowhere near as affronted by the obnoxious nature of Sweetie Belle’s rare questioning as the rest of the class. There was no need to expose the stupidity of the small filly’s doubts about the curriculum, she would allow Sweetie Belle’s rebel-moment; she knew Sweetie Belle’s weakness and instead asked “So you reckon yourself a poet young filly?” Miss Cheerilee opened the piece of paper she had confiscated from Sweetie Belle previously and performed aloud, as if telling a dirty joke:

“Sitting in class, pain in the ass. This poem is a joke, so why don’t you laugh?
The walls are so clean they’re dirty. All fillies are dead before they are thirty”

She had expected the young filly to be upset at her words unceremonious bearing; but instead Sweetie Belle had not moved from her graceful slump the whole time and her face, if not defiant, than at least was insubmissive. However, the class had burst into the imprinted mocking-laughter that she had expected, and swung for, and so Miss Cheerilee was satisfied, and continued with her pre-arranged and well-rehearsed ‘discussion’ on acres. Sweetie Belle’s rebellion was dead and the wheel of foal-education continued undisturbed. 

“You’ve got a bit of drool on your chin”. Class had ended and all the students had been shepherded outside to play. The outside was more honest than the to-scale allusion of the school. The tall trees dwarfed the young ponies and, whereas in school all the foals stared uniform in the same direction, outside they had split into separate factions and cliques.  The particular clique that Sweetie Belle was in consisted of three fillies, and the filly whose distinctly southern voice had playfully chided her was her new closest-friend: Applebloom. Sweetie Belle patted on her damp chin and proceeded to wipe away the pool of drool that had settled there; this caused Applebloom to smile and Scootaloo, the other friend in the clique, orange with a boyish purple mane, to laugh.

Subsequently, and as always, conversation turned towards ‘Cutie marks’, and ideas for the three friends on how to discover what they would be labelled as for the rest of their lives. As per usual, it was the largest pony – Applebloom – who led first: “I think we need to re-visit Cutie-Mark Crusaders in journalism. We’ve learnt our lesson in terms of behaving and who and what we write about and now we can move on and progress”. The friendly southern charm of the filly’s voice was betrayed by the motivational manner in which she emphasised certain buzzwords for her friends attention: ‘re-visit’ and ‘progress’,  both perfect reflections of Applejack’s conservative ambition manifesting itself into Applebloom also.

The confidence Applebloom spoke with was adult far apart from the childish occupation of the words themselves. Such was enough to send Sweetie Belle’s head bobbing in enthusiast agreement; and Scootaloo, ever the contrarian, to object: “I’m not wasting my time with namby-pamby words again! Why can’t we do something exciting? Why can’t we be…” the brash filly struggled, “CUTIE MARK STUNT-PONIES, YAY!” Scootaloo bellowed her preposition for lack of self-belief but still this was enough for Sweetie Belle again to bob her head in enthusiastic approval once more, her smile even more athirst.

“How, by Celestia’s Sun, do you intend we try stunting here in Ponyville?” Applebloom spoke readily, closing in on the measured circle the three fillies had previously made to face Scootaloo.

“I’ll…” the jejune purple mane stiffened aloof Scootaloo’s head as she leapt over her southern-filly contest, her Lilliputian wings beat vigorously as she breathed painfully “fly us to the top of a cloud and -”. The rest of what was sure to be Scootaloo’s illustrious plan was cut short by the fillies wet thump to the ground as her wings failed her. Sweetie Belle thought thoughts to herself as her friends continued to argue.

The cold playground air inflamed a pain in Sweetie’s throat that had been bugging her recently. The pain, and the fact that Sweetie couldn’t prevent it, made her thoughts more drastic and more coherent. She thought heavily upon the companionship she was agreed to with her two best friends in the whole world: Applebloom and Scootaloo. She thought about how much different she was to her friends. She remembered her sister Rarity’s surprise when she had told her that she had tagged herself to Applebloom, after Diamond Tiara’s Cuteceanera. Rarity and Applejack’s allegiance, although mutually affectionate, had always been founded upon a lot of patience on both pony’s parts; and also most crucially the shared label of ‘one sixth of: ‘The Elements of Harmony’’. However, the ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ were anything but renowned for their patience. And, as far as Sweetie Belle could imagine, she and Applebloom were not important to anybody who they were not meant to be important to. Another virtue that Rarity and Applejack shared was their enterprising natures. However, whereas Applebloom was full of ideas and the desire to lead; Sweetie Belle did not think she was very enterprising if she was honest with herself. She didn’t enjoy learning new skills, or adapting her skills, like Applebloom did. Instead she just wanted to use the skills she already had, in a manner she enjoyed, to a deadline she was comfortable with. ‘How absolutely bucking useless’, Sweetie Belle scolded her inner self-appraisal. Use, and uselessness, led Sweetie Belle to consider what tied her to her oldest friend, to the silly extent that fillies can have ‘old’ friends, Scootaloo. If she was thinking cynically, the reason she and Scootaloo had been paired together was because of their similar lack of a Cutie Mark, rather than any shared personal traits. Scootaloo was passionately anti-compassion; whereas Sweetie Belle considered herself, in all honesty, reliant on the kindness of her peers and that of strangers. That being said, Sweetie Belle thought that what she and Scootaloo did share was a passion for ‘different’. Applebloom was always focused on going back to what they had tried before and perfecting it; she and Scootaloo however were empiri-aholics, desperate for the taste of everything imaginable for fear of being left out, or left in the dark about something new or amazing that might change everything. Another similarity that Sweetie Belle knew she and Scootaloo shared was their respective needs in terms of heroes.  Granted her hero, Rarity, was far different than Scootaloo’s hero, Rainbow Dash; still… Sweetie Belle did not like that she found herself drawing more in common with her friend Scootaloo rather than her friend Applebloom.

“At least we know what Sweetie Belle’s special talent is definitely going to be”. Sweetie Belle was suddenly born into her conversation with her friends again with the sound of her name being spoken.

“Yeah Sweetie Belle, I don’t know why you’re bothered with the crusading we’re doing” Applebloom made a gesture towards Scootaloo and then to herself, “when you’ve already got your special talent”. Sweetie Belle blinked lazily; she knew what her friends were hinting at, but she liked to hear them say it.

“You’re bucking awesome singing voice!” The class bell sounded again as Sweetie Belle smirked idiotically and the class ambled into their tiny school again; filly first, then colt (small victory for young females and buxom teacher alike). 

Later; and Sweetie Belle had left school, waved goodbye to Applebloom and Scootaloo until tomorrow, and trotted eagerly to her sister Rarity’s boutique and Sweetie Belle’s residence for the night. Sweetie Belle considered sleep-overs at her sister’s a rare treat, and was too occupied with her own beaming to notice the surprise on her darling sister’s face when she had opened the door.

“Oh hello there Sweetie Belle”, Rarity smiled and hugged her sister awkwardly, because Sweetie Belle was shaking in excitement.

“You remembered our sleep-over!?” Sweetie Belle half-asked, half-congratulated her sister.

“But of course I did dear” Rarity reprimanded, “A good sister does not forget when her sister visits”.

“Well I’ve been looking forward to our visit all week!” Sweetie Belle changed her childish idiosyncrasy to copy her sister’s. What followed was much deliberation of phatic between the two, at which Sweetie Belle nearly wet herself and at which Rarity looked down at her sister bored, but smiling politely; Rarity told Sweetie Belle that she had some work to finish, and for Sweetie Belle to go upstairs and unpack her spare clothes and, ‘toiletries’. 

Sweetie Belle crept downstairs slowly. She had finished unpacking her things, which lay scattered amongst the side of a bed that had not yet been made out for her, or else had been dumped into a spotless sink which kneeled below a large blameless mirror; and decided now that she wanted to watch her sister working when she thought she was alone. ‘Ponies are different when they’re alone’, Sweetie Belle had noticed this. She approached unnoticed to the ajar door of her sister’s work room and peeked through to see her sister hard at work on a dazzling selection of bright and beautiful dresses. Sweetie Belle drank in the scene: her sister smiling effortlessly, her mane alive and beautiful, her eyes bare and electric, and her singing a catchy tune carelessly. Sweetie Belle saw and Sweetie Belle heard, sighing and sharing in the picture of harmony. After a very short while; Sweetie Belle danced, naturally, up the staircase to her sister’s room; she nearly fell over, overwhelmed as she was by her sister’s doings and beings. Sweetie Belle collapsed onto her sister’s bed, finding comforting what to most other ponies would most likely be an uncomfortable position: just about resting on the edge of the bed with the rest of her small, comely form hung in easy halcyon not reaching the busy-carpet floor.

Outside: a strangling dark night had snuck up upon a daytime Sweetie Belle couldn’t quite remember; and to look outside was a struggle between what was there for the day and what was gone for the night. A punk exodus oozed from the neat picture of Carousal Boutique, just slightly out of reach for young Sweetie Belle trapped inside her sister’s very beautiful room. Sweetie Belle was in veracious awe of her sister’s very beautiful room. It was the perfect arrangement only greater; it was perfections sweeter sister: originality. Each separate thing in the room was a separate vibrant city crowded with life and memories and a promise of good things being set in motion. The desk was an exact mess of notes and scribbling, or brave pairings of striking fabrics layered onto or below each other. A narrow bookcase stood nearest to a closed purple-painted door, and was heavily splendid with a brawny gang of dense and intelligent-looking books with alluring titles; or else lovingly decorated with picture after picture of a few or a half-dozen or sometimes just one of a gaggle of colourful pony-friends in different carefree still-dances, caught all at once in perfect memory forever medallion to Rarity’s amazing life. The bed was overly-grand but curved into perfect polished non-moderate-moderation as part of the snug coterie- only when considered next to the other parts of the room; else, the copious amount of pillows and negative colours, or the never-ending assortment of frills and doodads would seem uncomfortable. As it so happened, Sweetie Belle was very comfortable lying where she was at the head of this outstanding room. Even with her head rested as it was, with her whole world flung inverse and blood pooling into her small head Sweetie Belle was stricken by the largest and most bewitching item of the room – the speckless and slightly haunting oak-wood wardrobe, which loomed thickly over Sweetie Belle, blowing chills through her soul and planting goosebumps on the small of her small neck.

From her perspective, she waved a weightless hoof at the handle of the wardrobe which was a good 4 lengths apart from her; and motioned the pretence of opening the stately doors. Before she was quite finished, she had begun walking towards the wardrobe having vacated her perch nestled in her sister’s now quite overly-warm bed.  The doors of the wardrobe neatly slid open and Sweetie Belle held them leaving its belly half-naked. A sea of Raritys stood to attention before her, each one an honest promise of the days of laughter and months of beauty just waiting; that could be guaranteed by the thread after thread of effortless design and loving devotion. All before their worthy abandonment forsake of an even greater post-future; even more beauty! Sweetie Belle loved all of them, and ran through them with her hoof picking groups at random and hugging them tightly; before throwing them behind her and creating motley: of dazzling party dresses, and classy party gowns, on top of the bed. The awesome sight caused her to shiver and giggle and dash and jump into the pile; she rolled around in the clothes sponging up the smells of allure and artistry, she writhed around feeding the electricity she could feel deep within her head and all about her soul and kept feeding it until she was it, she was Rarity, and a lifetime of good hopes and happy pasts and an engaging present bore into her skull and embosomed the tiny bruised Sweetie Belle before.

Back from it all, and all into nothing. Then Sweetie Belle heard the thudding of hooves coming up the stairs and a wave of dread came upon her. She had to leave quickly and race back into darkness and solidarity. The door wasn’t an option, but there was still the window. Sweetie Belle went over to it and started to squeeze through it; without much conviction however, she did not think she would actually fit. Just then the door handle turned and Sweetie Belle jumped, first in her head, but then literally through the window. Thinking she was already falling, and without the strength or will to pull her back into her sister; Sweetie Belle relaxed and started to plunge into the darkness and down to ground below. It was not as clean a fall as she could have wanted however. Her back-left hoof smacked painfully into the rim of the window and her front hooves collapsed under the full weight of her small body, which left a sharp burning sensation at the bottom of them, and two cuts; one rather small, but the other rather deep and painful; on her. Nevertheless; she was outside and breathed in the brilliant cold night’s air, and invigorating smell of pure open that had not been cleansed by perfumes or dead-comforts. The sound of her sister’s terrified voice calling hysterically through her escape window sprang her back into a panic and she dashed off into the open, away with and from the calls of “Sweetie Belle! Are you hurt?! Sweetie Belle!” 

The sky was the exact mirror opposite to the mysterious conspiracy of Ponyville below. It was alive with tiny lights and a whirling breeze like an anticipative audience before a bloody play. Sound silence, like the consolidation offered in a disconsolate eulogy; like that spoken at a child’s funeral; like that found in between the inbetween of an argument, essence of potential. All the smells of Ponyville were asleep, or else hidden in rotten logs or exhausted puddles on the wayside avoiding the small intruder trotting in absent-minded haste towards nowhere in particular.

Ponyville’s community of homes and shops were all solid in closed eyes and bolted doors. Not in the sense that they were asleep, but rather they were in the motion of blinking, frozen in the split-second between the vivacity of day before and of day promised; secluded snugly from the long loneliness of Luna’s night. Either that, or the homes and shops were forcing their eyes shut, in the pretence of blinking, frigid in terror at the brash solidarity of night.

Sweetie Belle was very happy and alive caught trespassing in hours that were elsewise shunned by others. Time was hers and hers alone, these hours belonged to nobody but herself. She didn’t fear the dark and she never had. She felt she wore the night very well, much like Rarity wore day very well. She walked hurriedly in a monotonous circle around Ponyville’s landmarks: first past ‘Sugar Cube Corner’ (taking special care to avoid ‘The Carousal Boutique’), then all the way to Fluttershy’s cottage where she and her friends had slept over one time; circling around the cottage, Sweetie Belle would head back into Ponyville and past Twilight’s library, and far up a heavy hill all the way to ‘Sweet Apple Acres’, where Sweetie Belle would pause momentarily at the fences and peer at the large house and the barn wondering what her friend Applebloom might be dreaming about; before turning a full 180 degrees and heading back into Ponyville to start her marathon-sprint all over again. Awake now at night, unlike she was before in day, Sweetie Belle was both unnerved and thrilled by mishaps of her mind as she struggled to see through the colourless night. Frequently she would see shooting stars, or at least streaks of brilliant light in the sky; only before actually looking up and realising that they weren’t actually quite there. Or else, she would see crows in trees which she would stare at as she walked past, only before looking again and again realising it was not as she had perceived. What was more, Sweetie Belle would often hear her name being shrieked far behind here; which would cause to startle and gallop as fast as she could away from the noise, before stopping out of breath again realising that it was all probably in her head. This continued like a bad headache throughout the whole night, and finally Sweetie Belle stopped, exhausted, near Twilight’s library; night’s party now far away into the horizon and still retreating, ushering in a freezing and damp dawn.

Sweetie Belle stood chilled, struggling to balance herself against her exhausted legs and now against a curious new intruder burning a hole into the previously imprinted spiralling show of Ponyville empty and raucous-silent; hers previously. Loitering calculatedly amongst the waking daylight of Ponyville was a tired schoolmaster: Cheerilee; looking somewhat carefree-anxious, singing an aged song that resonated youth in its lyrics, with fast-paced rhythm and nonchalant pitch. Normally, Sweetie Belle would avoid adults much like she would a lonely child (for they were somewhat similar); they were too condescending, too interested, or else too uninterested with anything even half-unimportant and fun. However, she was too tired to care about much, and the long walk had made her lonely. Besides, Cheerilee’s song was so alluring it was inadvertently beckoning, with every perfect note and sweet chime that it had drove Sweetie Belle to interruption.    So she breathed in the air which tasted of ambition, threw her eyes open so as they may breathe in daylight, called fair-warning: “Hey Miss Cheerilee!” and bounced towards her early-morning cohort.

Cheerilee’s response was one of honest shock, and a charming nod of curiosity towards Sweetie Belle, which she took to mean that she would be with her shortly. Cheerilee finished her song, booming out the last of the lyrics in dramatic gusto in a personal performance for Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle went to interject, thinking that Cheerilee had at last finished her song, but Cheerilee raised her hoof in feigned annoyance and hummed again the last of her song in a slow and haunting tone, before looking back at Sweetie Belle again expectantly.

“I really like your voice”, it was meant to be a loud cheer or appraisal, but Sweetie Belle was too tired to shout and what came out instead was what sounded like a mature sarcasm, which she liked. But she meant the compliment, and reiterated it by saying “who’s that song about? He must be pretty special.” 

Sweetie Belle was embarrassed to see Cheerilee laugh at this. “Yeah, I guess if a song mentions love it’s going to sound like a song about lovers for a filly so young”, Cheerilee too sounded quite sarcastic so Sweetie Belle assumed that she too was too tired to direct any emotion into her words and took it as pre-affirmed that everything was now going to be spoken sarcastically, whether or not sarcasm was ever intended.

“But all the words were about lovers though weren’t they? Wouldn’t that be a song about lovers if you had one though Cheerilee? It’s only not a song about a lover because you haven’t got one and you’re singing it”.

“It’s a song about love, and I am singing it, and for me this love is far away from lovers and much closer instead to alone”.

Sweetie Belle puzzled over this briefly before asking “You’re not lonely, are you Miss Cheerilee?”.

“Maybe”, Cheerilee said sadly, “but what is more is that is that I’m not certain, which makes me ever so much more lonely. Maybe is ever so lonely, without the company of certainty and lacking real maturity. Don’t ever think of maybe Sweetie Belle, there’s a fine lesson for you”. Sweetie Belle met this with an awkward silence, feeling now her teacher had trumped her by saying something much cleverer than she could counter-muster or even scoff at convincingly.

“It’s sad that someone so pretty should care. You’re not truly lonely, you’re just wearing it, I've seen the way Applebloom’s big brother Big Mac stares at you; and all the boys in class say you’re the prettiest mare in Ponyville, and -”

“-and I wouldn't be interested in boys at school would I?” Cheerilee interrupted the marshmallow filly indignantly, Sweetie Belle blushed, and Cheerilee continued “All colts chase this image of this beautiful and invincible mare; and then they are terrified when they finally see one for real”, Cheerilee swallowed hard, “another life lesson for you there”.

Rushing through the leaves on tress above Ponyville was the pre-early commute of busy life. Wind chattered with branch and leaf grumbled, in a state of distress of at the lack of movement as it hastened to start a new day. Everything else was stiff, like the seconds before the pistol to signal the start of the race, everything else except the two ponies, mare and filly, who shook together outside Twilight’s library; shaking with cold and aching with tiredness. “I'm sick of all the life lessons I'm learning, surely life isn't that long to warrant such study?”

“Life can be very long if you’re doing it wrong Sweetie Belle” Cheerilee answered. “Cherish these early days, it’s so much different after”.

“I'm sure it is, but at least after I can choose things” Sweetie Belle fidgeted in the cold.

Cheerilee smiled and said “what do you want to be when you’re older then Sweetie Belle?”

Sweetie Belle spluttered and searched desperately for a snarky or clever response, finding nothing that wasn't horribly cliché (for example, saying she would like to be ‘happy’ when she was older), she instead settled on the truth, “I’d like to be a singer” she glanced up from the dirt to steal into Cheerilee’s eyes, “everyone says it’s certain to be my Cutie Mark and I'm quite good at it, and I enjoy doing it; and Rarity always tells me to never settle for anything I'm not completely in love with, though I don’t know if she was talking about the future or something else.”

“Singing?” Sweetie Belle was angry to see Cheerilee had a mocking smile plastered on her face. “I'm sorry Sweetie Belle but I thought you were smarter than that, I thought you knew the ugly face of reality. I've never even heard you sing once!” Cheerilee was shouting now, blaring away the look of upset that Sweetie Belle was aiming at her. Cheerilee paused, “maybe I'm wrong. Sing for me now.”

Sweetie Belle looked at her bemusedly “I- I'm not confident singing in front of people at any request”

“Well then there’s no hope then, I was -” 

Sweetie Belle interrupted Cheerilee with the first song that came into her head: the Cutie Mark Crusaders theme song. She sang now loud and confident, she was not as on-pitch as was when she sang to herself, but the sounds that came from her now sounded more real and alive than any she had sang before. “- NOT UNTIL WE GET OUR CUTIE MARKS!” She finished. 

Cheerilee shuddered as if had not been paying attention at all and said “excellent, fabulous, well-practiced, charming…” Sweetie Belle beamed bashfully, “everything I sounded like when I was your age” Cheerilee finished her sentence; she looked glum. “Go home now Sweetie Belle, you’ve no business being out here so early. I’ll be sure to tell your sister of your early morning strolls, it’s dangerous to be out here alone, car could hit you, or you could run into Timberwolves.”

“Rarity knows I'm out Cheerilee” Sweetie Belle spoke calmly

“It’s Miss Cheerilee, I'm your teacher and you’ll do me the service of addressing me with respect; especially considering I've done you the service of babysitting you this past hour”.

Sweetie Belle glowered and sulked away annoyed, “bloody loner”.

A seemingly long but forgetful while later Sweetie Belle stood outside the place where she had started her night. All the lights were on and so she knew that Rarity was still awake. She had trouble swallowing her shame at having worried her sister so much, so much that she still had not slept since the escape. Sweetie Belle transcended the threshold from the certain uncertainty of night; to the uncertain certainty deep with the blinding beacon of light from the Carousal Boutique. 

The door was ajar and she pushed through begrudgingly to see Rarity, cool and appropriately tired, waiting for her. “Sweetie Belle, darling, you’re back, oh I was so worried!” Sweetie Belle made to answer her sisters’ greeting but she interrupted her, “you absolute monster, you look awful and ugly tired. We must talk about your antics, don’t think we won’t, I’m not Mom and Dad, and you can’t get away with your stupid sulks into the night with me” Sweetie Belle stood stone-silence against her sisters’ berating. “Go up to bed now and sleep, you must be exhausted. I’ll be working all day so we’ll talk later this afternoon when I'm finished. I might’ve invited you to aid me, but, in your current state I doubt you’ll be up to anything”, Rarity spoke pointedly hoping to upset Sweetie Belle as if you evoke some remorse or upset from her. Sweetie Belle however just rolled her eyes and turned away angrily; she knew that these consequences were only a false punishment for her actions, Rarity never allowed her to help.

Sweetie Belle slumped slowly up the stairs to the bathroom and looked dead in the eye at the dirty and exhausted looking pony that stared back at her. She laughed brutishly, and entertained herself by pulling a succession of different ugly faces and mocking the false persona she gave each one. She continued with this until at last she went too far and faced someone too ugly and pathetic, so she felt disgusted. She stopped and turned a magicians’ hand to her hair and out of it all appeared a handsome quaff, soft with Savoir faire. Abracadabra, a pretty pony, prettier than she could ever have imagined. 

Sweetie Belle dozed off to sleep. Not wholly content with life, but then again mature enough now to know that it was fine for her not to be. She had a rare thing at least, an identity: this being that she was a great singer; not great enough, of course not because she was real, but good enough to be noticed. She was not wholly useful, but she must not allow herself now to be obstructive. She was creative, and so must work to produce upon that creativity productive ends, very similar in a way to how Cheerilee must exist. She thought now of whether she would make a happy teacher, the idea was not wholly awful. Only, how could she ever learn to love working to a strict curriculum; or learn to love keeping foals in a place where they don’t even want to be, or worse still, punish them when they misbehave? Sober thoughts meant for an easy sleep, and for this Sweetie Belle was grateful. All the hard stuff would come in time, and if they didn't, who really cares?