//------------------------------// // Prelude // Story: Dissonance // by Harmony Muse //------------------------------// 7:30pm October 12,  1005 Anno Celestii Outskirts of Ponyville, Muse Residence “I’d like to thank all of you for agreeing to come back and listen.” Harmony leaned back in her chair, her gaze moving warmly over each of her friends. “You have no idea how much this means to me.” “Muse,” Sketch began. “You were there for me when I came out to my family. There when I discovered myself.” “Exactly, and I am grateful you trusted me to be there.” “Harmony…” Sketch facehoofed, already tired of their back and forth. “Sorry! Sorry. Anyway, this is going to be a very long story, so make yourselves comfortable.”  Harmony Muse looked up to notice her friends had already done so. “Alright, it all begins when I was very young.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- August,  978 Anno Celestii PS238 Elementary School, Baltimare It was a kindergarten class much like any other. Children chatting away, laughing and playing. All waiting to see their teacher for the first time. I was there in the first row, all smiles and innocence and without a care in the world. Little did I know what awaited me that day. An older unicorn came in and introduced herself as our teacher. She looked so gentle and nurturing. “Hello, my little Ponies! I’m Miss Extra Credit, and we’re going to have so much fun together.   But first I’d like to go down the rows and I want each of you to tell me your name and what you want to be when you grow up. How does that sound?” “Yaaaaaay!” was the cry that game up from the class. It seemed like such a light hearted time. I watched as she went through the front row. My class mates wanting to be princesses or Royal Guard/Firemen/Applebuckers. Finally she got to me. “I want to be a mommy!” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of the ponies in the room cringed in sympathy as Muse told her story. Sketch even laid her sketchbook down and rested a supportive hoof on Harmony’s withers. “Getting the mortifying embarrassment out of the way early, eh, Harmony?” Joystick commented from behind her Ponystation Portable. The humor in her words failed to mask the compassion in her voice. “It gets better, Stick.” Harmony hung her head. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The entire class burst out laughing. I felt so mortified, so crushed. I wanted to crawl under my desk. I wanted to run away. What I did was start crying my eyes out. The teacher quieted the class and gave me one of her smiles. One I would later know to be one she gave to the foal who sat in the corner eating paste. “Anthem, dear foal, you know that only fillies can grow up to be mommies, right?”   I looked up at her through eyes still blurred from tears. I hung my head and squeaked out a barely audible, “Yeah...” My dream crushed, I tried to forget about it. Colts were colts and fillies were fillies, as Celestia made us. And that was that, or so I thought. That didn’t stop me from biting back tears every time I saw one of the fillies playing with her Carrot Patch Foals dolls. Eventually though I grew out of it. At least that’s what I told myself. I threw myself into schoolwork and was a very studious little colt. Made the honor roll every year. My mom used to proudly display every award and trophy I made at school at our home. She’d kept fawning on me about how I was her “Perfect Little Colt.” She meant well of course, so I never had the heart to tell her how badly her words had stung. I suppose I should talk about my family. My mother was my major source of support in my life. Her name was…Well, I can’t remember anymore. She was always just ‘Mom’ to me.  She was so kind, so gentle, and so quick to praise every achievement of mine. My father. His name I remember very well: Quicktime March. Sorry, “Captain Quicktime March, Celestia’s Royal Guard”.  He was never ‘Dad’ to me, always that man whom I was never good enough for. I would bring a 98% test score home, I’d be grounded because it wasn’t 100%. I’d try out for hoofball and make the first string, he’d say any son of -his- wouldn’t settle for less than Most Valuable Pony. As you can tell, he didn’t approve of his son not being an athlete, not being big and tough like he was. So I ended up forced to join every sports team I could when I was growing up. I played hoofball and hated it. Still I gave it my best because I wanted at least some kind of approval on my father’s part, but it was never enough. As bad as this may sound, this was only part of it.  As I grew and puberty started to take its course, I went from disliking what I saw in the mirror to active loathing. I hated what I was. I hated being different. I would cry myself to sleep every night asking Princess Celestia why this had happened to me. My youth wasn’t all bad though. It was in my early teens that I met Sketch in the library. We quickly became best friends. We spent so much time together, leaned on each other, even came out to each other. I wouldn’t be lying if I said that if it wasn’t for you, Sketch, I’d have killed myself multiple times over. It was also at this tender age that I discovered my true passion in life: music. I really shined in choir practice. I even got my cutie mark at a high point in a solo performance in front of the entire school!  It was my conductor’s baton. I cried tears of joy over it. It demonstrated that music, what I loved more than anything in life, was my true destiny. Mom stood up and cheered. The Captain on the other hand.  Well, he stood up and left without saying a word. Mom followed after him, and afraid of what his exit meant, I  thought it prudent to delay going home. I shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have. When I got there , he was waiting for me. Alone.   “Your mother isn’t here, colt. She doesn’t have the stomach to see what must be done.” I bristled  at such a tone. He’d always criticized me in the past, but to say a word against Mom?   I knew he had to be furious. It was then I noticed the thick clippers on the table next to him, as well as the  fur dye. “Yet again you shame me with such failure.” “But, father?” “Be silent! I am making this simple so that even you couldn’t mess it up. You can either dye your coat and be rid of that farce, or I can shave off your entire coat.” “But it’s my cutie mark, don’t you see?  Music is my destiny!” “NOT ANOTHER WORD!” He bellowed! “No son of mine will be some colt cuddling artist!  You’re a March, and you will not humiliate me again!” He did it, Discord damn him. He shaved off my entire coat - mane and all. The whole time he didn’t say a word. He just looked at me with...disappointment? Yes, disappointment would be the right word. A loud click and the buzzing clippers were like parasprites with metal teeth that would bite into my hide. A nip here, a nip there. Each time I winced. Each shudder made him seem even more determined. I did all that I could to keep from bucking. I bit my lip as my tail pulled firmly between my legs and my ears laid back like a frightened puppy. It was only after he was done that he finally spoke. “Better a disgraced Blank-Flank than some colt-cuddler doing filly’s work.” His voice was cold and final. He left me there alone, bawling into my hooves, surrounded by loose tufts of blue that used to be my coat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ “Muse, hate to tell it like it is, but your old stallion’s a real plot.” Grumpy snarled. “Doing that to your own foal’s a special kind of cruel.” Harmony slumped in her chair. “Yeah, well. For every bit of horror he committed on me that night, what I almost did to myself was worse.” She uttered sadly. “Wait, you?” Joystick said in shock. “Exactly. I climbed to the top of the TransEquestria Tower ironically enough.  Not having feathers meant I couldn’t fly.  I mentally apologized to Mother, and to Princess Celestia, and jumped off the side hoping at least my ending would have been quick.”