Hi everypony! My name is Young Gun. I live in ponyville with my dad. Yeah, I'm sure you're wondering, "Where's your mom? Why aren't you living with her too?" Well, my mother isn't really in the picture (ironic, huh?), but I'll get to that later. I'm not really sure how to say how old I am. It's really difficult to tell anypony, because of the strange illness that I was born with. I've been to numerous doctors in futile attempts to figure out what is wrong with me, so I just do the best I can to cope with the illness. Although my sociability skills aren't the best, I do have a few friends, but they only know me either at night or during the day. My illness, you ask, is that by day I'm a full grown colt, but at night I become a filly.
Like I said, it's a strange illness, and none of the doctors I've been to know how to help me, or why this occurs. So, since I have no other choice, I do my best to work around it. It's not easy though. My dad's hated me since I was born, even though I've tried to explain to him on countless occasions that it wasn't my fault. It's not my fault that I'm like this. I've told him so many times that I'd love to be normal like him, but he still blames me for what happened.
The thing is, the reason why my mom isn't in the picture is because she died when I was born. According to my dad, I was born around midday about 12 years ago. It was supposed to be a normal delivery. After all, I was supposed to be a normal colt. The only problem was, since it was daytime, I began turning into a full grown colt as I was being born, and no normal mother was built to deliver a full grown colt. It's not natural, nor has it ever been heard of. Within 20 seconds of my birth, my mom was pronounced dead, and my dad just about lost his mind.
After my birth, and my mom's death, my dad lost whatever control he was rumored to have before. I've never known him to be happy, or even smile. When I think of my dad, I think of him drunk as ever, laying on the couch with assorted empty cans of cider scattered all over the floor and all over him. It's a good thing that, on top of everything else, I have no sense of smell, otherwise I probably would've suffocated long ago from the stench. It was even harder to live with him when I was going to school. Most days, he would make me wear a sign around my neck when I walked to school that read I'M A FREAK! HIDE YO KIDS! It was probably the most embarrassing thing about school, aside from the first day.
Since school is only held during the day, and Cheerilee was too busy to give me private schooling, I was forced to go to school with a classfull of fillies during the day. As soon as I walked in the classroom on my first day, I knew I wasn't going to belong. I stood at the front of the class, not sure what to do. I started sweating, my legs started shaking, as every filly in that class stared at me, wondering what was wrong with me. One of them raised a hoof to ask Cheerilee a question, and I felt a brief moment of relief as everypony's attention turned to them.
"Umm, Ms. Cheerilee, are you going to introduce us to the colt in the back there? Is he a student teacher?"
And just as quickly as the eyes looked away from me, they returned. I'm sure I was beet red at this point. I looked over at Cheerilee with a look that, hopefully, translated to, "Please don't introduce me. I'm very clearly uncomfortable up here. Can I just go sit down?" Unfortunately, that's not what happened...
"No, Young Gun here is going to be a student here alongside all of you." Cheerilee giggled.
I honestly felt like walking up to the nearest filly, giving them a plank of wood, and telling them to beat me as hard as they could. I knew what they were all thinking. "Why is this fully grown colt going to school with us? Is he stupid or something?" I tried my best not to look at anypony as I sulked back to the back of the room and took the last available desk. I sat down, laid my head down on the desk, stared at the wall and hoped nopony was looking at me. It was working for a little while, until I felt a tap on my shoulder.
The mare next to me looked over to me and gave me a note. A little confused, I looked over at her as if to ask what it was. She looked over, rolled her eyes and giggled while pantomiming unfolding the note. Just for the sake of keeping her from thinking I was stupid, like everypony else probably did, I unfolded the note just like she motioned. It was a short note, but after reading it, I didn't feel as alone as I did when I walked in the door.
It read: "It's ok. I know what it's like to not fit in. If you want, you're welcome to be friends with me. It seems like we're both oddballs here anyway. My name's Dinky, by the way. I hope we can me friends :)"
I looked back over at her as she gave me a hopeful smile and for the first time I noticed that her eyes weren't exactly aligned with each other. Was that why she called herself an "oddball" in the note? Was that why she said nopony really accepted her? If so, that's pretty messed up.
I figured that if she really knew a similar life to mine then we'd get along pretty well, so I looked back at her, returned her smile and nodded. She looked overjoyed and almost fell out of her desk from excitement. For the rest of the time until recess we just kept passing notes back and forth while trying to pay attention to the lessons.
Once we got outside for recess, we both headed over to a bench and sat down to talk. She looked so excited to talk to me, like I was the most interesting pony in Equestria. She asked me questions about myself, like how old I was, why I was in school with them if I was fully grown, and stuff like that, and she seemed really confused when I answered her.
"Well, I was born about 12 years ago, if you can believe that..." She gave me a really confused look, but I had expected as much. I continued on before she could ask me about my age again. "...and the reason I'm in school with you guys right now, even though I'm a fully grown colt, is because I have a strange illness that-" she cut me off.
"I understand. No need to explain. You're pretty cool though. I haven't seen anything wrong with you."
"Well, it's not really that kind of illness..."
"Still, I think you're pretty cool. You wanna come over to my house for a slumber party? I'm sure my mom wouldn't have a problem with it."
A siren immediately started sounding in my head. If I stayed the night at her house, she'd see why I was in school with her. As soon as she'd see me as a filly, she'd freak out and ostracize me like everypony else. I had to make up some kind of excuse.
"Gee... I'd love to, but..." come on, what do normal ponies use as an excuse to get out of something "... my dad doesn't let me go out after dark. He's convinced that I'm going to go wandering around in town and get myself in trouble. Sorry."
Her face dropped. Any little ounce of excitement that was there before had vanished. That was probably the most heartbreaking part of it all. I almost reconsidered and told her that I would meet her at her house around sundown, but that little thought in the back of my head reminded me why I couldn't do that. I tried to reassure her the best I could.
"But I can hang out with you until sundown every day, if you like. I could use a friend to spend my free time with." I said with a smile, hoping she would feel better.
Her face lit right back up. "Ok!" she said as a big smile stretched across her face.
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
"That's the bell. We'd better get back inside. We'll talk more after school, ok?" she said heading towards the door.
"Sure! Can't wait!" I said as we made our way back into the building.