//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 - Red Washed Tears 
// Story: Aurora: The End of Beginnings. 
// by WinterLune 
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Aurora: The End of Beginnings
Chapter 7
Red Washed Tears


Color, one of the many things in life that I enjoyed thus far, though, of this moment I could say otherwise. The drawing that had been in my bag at the start of my memory that was originally black and white was now also in full vibrant color as well, of course the problem with this was the fact that even though I figured the drawing was my own I had never once remembered drawing it let alone coloring it. Yet now of all times the drawing was now in color even though I never touched it before hoof.

What had changed to make this happen? Honestly I wasn’t sure I couldn’t think of anything that could have made this happen so suddenly. I figured it best to put it aside for the moment; on the desk in front of me next to another sheet of paper.

Though it would seem that the pony sitting next to me had taken notice of the drawing I set aside wasn’t going to let me forget about it as easily, as they had just leaned over to get a better look at it.

“I’m surprised that you don’t have a cutie mark for drawing because that has to be one of the most realistic drawings I’ve ever seen!” they exclaimed, if I remember what Cheerilee had said this ponies name was Sweetie Belle.

I nodded with a pencil held in one of my hooves poking at the empty sheet of paper in front of me, “Yeah, though I’m actually starting to wonder about that drawing myself.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, for starters I don’t remember drawing it at all. And secondly, I also don’t remember it being in color until just a short moment ago.” I poked at the drawing and around the colored area around that strange blank spot in the middle of the paper.

Sweetie Belle looked at it for a good while before saying, “You know it could be enchanted right?”

Enchanted? The thought had never once passed into my mind, though it could possibly explain how the colors suddenly came to be, that is of course if I knew what the word –enchanted- meant. I figured it best to ask an older pony what that meant later today.

“By the way, I wasn’t sure if I should ask you this on your first day at school but if your int-“ Sweetie Belle was saying before she got cut off by Cheerilee telling the class that it was time to go outside to play something called –Dodge Ball-. “Well, I guess I can always ask you later.”

Dodge Ball, as explained to me by Sweetie Belle on the way outside was a game were you run, jump, and dodge oncoming balls that are being thrown at you by the opposing team of players whist at the same time collecting those same balls to hit the players on the other team. Every player that gets hit by a ball or goes out of the boundaries of the field goes to stand next to Cheerilee and if one of your teammates catches a ball the player closest to Cheerilee gets to go back into the field for more. Use of magic was prohibited for fairness as well as the extra rule of no throwing anything other than a ball or hitting another pony in the face with the ball, Cheerilee also mentioned something about if you get hit by a ball but it’s caught before it hits the ground that your still in the game.

Sounded like a rather hectic game if you asked me, I even got mental images from when I was smacking that ball I can found in the closet back at Derpys; I rubbed my nose subconsciously remembering the number of times that ball hit me on the nose.

Cheerilee selected two team captains; those being a pony named Scootaloo a solid orange Pegasus with purple hair and no cutie mark and the other being named Silver Spoon a silver colored pony with also silver hair, she also had a cutie mark of a silver spoon and wore glasses; rather quaint if you asked me.

The two team captains selected from the other ponies from the school’s class; some of the memorable names of the classmates being the following;

Apple Bloom - a normal pony whose colors are brackish yellow with red hair along with an over sized bow as a hair accessory along with no cutie mark to speak of.  They were placed on Scootaloos’ team along with Sweetie Belle.

Snips – a short and rather chubby looking unicorn whose colors are a light blueish green with dark orange hair, they also had a pair of scissors as a cutie mark; again this was rather quaint, I was starting to see a pattern between a ponies name and their cutie mark, but anyway both Snips and Snails were placed on Silver Spoons team.

Featherweight – another short pony, though this one was a Pegasus, they were also rather scrawny looking much like Snips just a ton shorter and has brown hair color and a cream coat as well as a single feather as a cutie mark. They were put onto Scootaloos team.

Twist – a pony wearing glasses, their body color was cream with red hair they also had two peppermint canes as a cutie mark. They ended up on Silver Spoons team.

The last pony whose name I could remember was named Diamond Tiara, a normal pony to speak of, though I could say they were of the higher class in this community rather easily. They were bright pink in color and had hair that was both purple and white with the topping of a tiara, “Figures.” I thought to myself, nothing could have said “I’m extremely self absorbed” than being named Diamond Tiara, wearing a tiara and even having a tiara as a cutie mark. They got picked to be on Silver Spoons team.

And lastly, of course, I was chosen to be on Scootaloos' team.

“Just a heads up but you’re most likely going to be the center of all attention being the new classmate and all so expect most of the balls to be thrown at you from the start.” Scootaloo warned me as we took our select places on the field, Scootaloo was most likely going to be right about that myself being new and all; just a part of sports after all, pick on the new pony and hope they don’t have a good throwing hoof.

Come to think I hadn’t thrown anything all that hard yet; any of the experience with balls came from smacking a ball back and forth from the wall to me and then back again. Before I could think of anything else about balls Cheerilee singled the start of the game, all the ponies on both teams rushed for the center line to get picks on the first balls to throw at each other while I myself lagged behind figuring it a better idea to wait for a few balls to be thrown before acting.

As for the first thrown ball, Scootaloo managed to get to the center line first followed closely by Diamond Tiara, the first ball was thrown at Snips whom had been lagging behind because of his small form; it hit him only seconds after on their side. The second ball to be thrown was by Diamond Tiara and, as thought by Scootaloo, was thrown directly at me though was quickly intercepted by Applebloom.

“Can’t be having you out of th’ game so soon now can I?” Applebloom said with a slight smirk at me. I nodded in answer.

The game picked up quite a bit after that, both opposing teams loosing and gaining their members as their team members caught and threw balls at each other, as such Diamond Tiara was back in the game as well and had surprisingly diminished a good quadrant of my team members. Though to say that I had been helping my team win wouldn’t be saying much, I had mostly been staying at the side lines not really paying much attention to what was going on. You could just say I was day dreaming rather than playing.

I hadn’t been paying much attention at all; most of my team was standing next to Cheerilee now, the remaining members being myself, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and another pony whose name escaped me. Or at least I hadn’t been paying attention to the game until I felt a sharp smack on my nose that snapped my head back from the force, I hadn’t even noticed Sweetie Belle catch the ball behind me.

After I regained my composer I still felt the pain from my nose so I put one of my hooves up to it to examine the damage then removed my hoof from it soon after because I felt something warm on it from touching my nose, I took a quick glance at my hoof; it was stained red.

Something about what was on my hoof angered me so greatly to the point that my right eye flared up to a burning point. Who ever had thrown that ball was going to pay dearly for what they just did.

I picked up the ball closest to me and without even looking at the ponies on the other team I had managed to aim it directly at Diamond Tiara. However the force at which I had thrown the ball was something I could never had accounted for as for the very second I let the ball loose from my grip it went flying faster than I could follow, shortly after all I could hear were screams of pain.

The ball I had thrown had hit its mark, only the outcome was something far worse then I wanted to happen. The force of the ball had connected and broke Diamond Tiaras left leg.

What I had done was something that I didn’t want to happen, something that I would be blamed for and most likely punished dearly for doing whether by Cheerilee, Derpy, or even diamond Tiaras parents. “No.” I thought, I wasn’t going to let myself be punished for something I didn’t mean to do. So I did the one thing I could think of doing at the time, I ran. Where I would go I didn’t know but I do know that they would most likely come looking for me, I needed to think of some place that they wouldn’t bother looking.

Derpys house was out of the question, it was most likely the place they would first think to look for me in as was hiding in town there were too many ponies there that would most likely point me out to whomever was looking for me. The only other place I could think of was the forest I first came out of, though the fact being was that I would rather not go back into it any time soon even if to hide for a while.

After I figured I was out of range of the school and any pony pursuers I gathered my thoughts to figure out a good place to hide, the forest was out, as was home and the town; I looked up to see the cloudy sky then remembered back to when I first meet Rainbow Dash at Twilights saying she was late for something then zoomed off out the window and into the sky. “The sky would be a good place to hide.” I thought to myself, “The problem is that I don’t really know how to fly at all.” Unfortunately I was right about the not being able to fly, though be that as it may it never hurts to try. I also remember my first go at using my wings, I did get myself off the ground rather easily but I didn’t have enough room at the time.

Those thoughts aside the sky was by best bet, they didn’t know I couldn’t fly at the time or that I most likely could if I tried hard enough. Thusly I unfurled my wings for the second time in my life and flapped; needless to say I was right about needing more room as the speed of my uprising was faster than I had expected, that is until I hit the apex of my climb into the sky from my single flap of my wings and started falling back to the ground.

I gave my wings another strong flap and found myself climbing into the sky once more, guess it takes more than one flap of a pair of wings to fly. Though to say I was having an easy time would be buttering up a pony, I wasn’t used to not having my hooves on the ground let alone being in the sky, about twenty feet off the ground, so frankly just being up here was a bit nerve racking; that and my nose was still bleeding.

I only managed to get above the clouds before vertigo kicked in and I started to fall back down out of slight panic of being so high up the large clouds beneath me seemed to have another idea in mind as for when I fell into it it was more like falling onto it, for some reason I wasn’t falling through the cloud in fact it was holding my weight like I was nothing at all.

Strange as it may be for a Pegasus standing on a cloud for the first time or for a pony who knows next to nothing about their own race of pony I didn’t question what was going on between me and this cloud I landed face first into, in fact this was perfect for me the one place I figured I could hide as long as I felt like I needed to hide for. A place for a young Pegasus whom nobody knew could fly.

If anything I knew it was best for me to be here for a while; I quickly poked my head farther inside the cloud to find it surprisingly hollow, I climbed inside it and made myself comfortable. Aside being scared, somewhat tired from playing, and having no idea what I would do next after hiding I did the next thing any tired and scared pony my age would do.

I cried myself to sleep.