Rose sighed as she watched her four year old foal running in the park playing with a couple other children. Sadly it didn’t last long though as the parents didn’t trust her since she always hid behind her cloak and didn’t let their own children play with her baby for long. It wasn’t fair that her little girl was treated like that when it was all Rose’s fault, but the mother had no idea what to do. She was out of her league no matter how she looked at it since her little girl was a pegasus…a genius pegasus, but a pegasus all the same.
She loved her baby no matter who the father was, the small light blue filly with a purple mane streaked with silver with silver eyes was her life. Yet, her baby wasn’t happy here since Rose was shunned making it hard to find a school or a pegasus to help teach the little filly. No matter how many books she read on the race of pony, it was all practical knowledge and no real way on how to teach them how to fly. It was frustrating seeing her baby crying because all the other foals were making fun of her not only for having a freak for a mother, but because she couldn’t fly.
Sighing Rose held her hooves up for a hug as her daughter came barreling into them crying after all the other children excluded her from their games. At first it looked like they were having fun playing tag until a few more foals came to play and talked to the group of children. Rose wanted to yell at them for making her daughter cry, but had already learned that it didn’t do any good and could make things worse.
“Momma…why do they all hate me?” Summer Rose asked as she snuggled in her mother’s hooves.
“Shhh baby, they don’t hate you….they just don’t understand.” Rose said softly, “Come on, let’s go meet up with Auntie Trixie and get some ice cream. Doesn’t ice cream sound good?”
“Yay ice cream!” Summer cried out as she pulled away from Rose and began hopping around the older mare. Rose couldn’t help giggling at her daughter’s antics as ice cream had always brought the young filly’s mood up, yet it shouldn’t have to. Summer should never have to feel the hurt that the little girl feels because of Rose, and the mother had wondered more than once if the filly wouldn’t be better off with another family.
Rose shook her head as she thought that, no matter how many times she debated that she couldn’t do it. Sure they didn’t have a lot of money since they book store was failing and Rose believed herself to be a freak, but they had one thing that couldn’t be guaranteed with another family…love.
Rose and Trixie both loved the little filly with all their hearts and gave the foal everything they could, but the one thing they couldn’t. They personally couldn’t teach the pegasus what they needed to, especially fly, and they knew that she needed to start learning. They had been talking a little about packing what little they had and moving to a new town…but they didn’t know what town would be the best choice. Of course Trixie had a suggestion and kept arguing the points in favor for the town, but Rose wasn’t too sure about it.
Rose knew what Trixie had gone through when she went to Ponyville all those years ago and knew how hard it was for her sister to even suggest it. She knew Trixie would go where she did, including a place that would likely shun Trixie the way Rose herself was shunned here.
Then there was the other problem with Ponyville, something Rose herself knew yet could not remember. After finding Nomad’s journal, most likely left by Dancer, they learned that yes Trixie and Rose was related and whose family they belonged to. A little searching of Nomad’s room also turned up documents that were reports from a spy in the Canterlot court showing the things Nomad told them was likely true. That Celestia didn’t care for Rose much less their family. What parent would send their child away and not visit them much? What family hid the fact that their daughter had a twin out there somewhere and didn’t bother looking. If that wasn’t enough, it was also true that Rose’s so called friends turned their backs on her to suck up to royalty and those friends lived in Ponyville.
Yes, Rose now knew that she was really Twilight Sparkle…yet she didn’t feel like she was. She was the freak of Fillydelphia and Trixie’s twin sister…not a trophy student to some stuck up princess and a punching bag to her so called friends.
Despite knowing how hard it would be for Trixie, as well as for herself if found out, the showmare still insisted that they try going there. Trixie had admitted that while she had bad luck there, it was the nicest town she had ever been to in her travels. The town usually didn’t judge others and likely wouldn’t judge Rose if she insisted on keeping her cloak, which she would. She didn’t want to be stared at like the freak she was.
Trixie did have two very good points about Ponyville, if she was right about them not judging her because of her cloak then her little girl would be accepted. The second point in favor of Ponyville is that it had the best flier in all of Equestria next to the Wonderbolts and there were many who claimed she was even better than the highly decorated team of fliers.
“Again?” A voice asked shocking Rose as she looked up to find Trixie keeping pace with Rose, Summer between them. A quick look at Trixie’s eyes made it clear that the mare knew what had happened.
“Yeah…again.” Rose sighed in defeat, hanging her head a little. “It’s all my fault.”
“No it isn’t mama!” Summer cried out nuzzling Rose. “It’s not fault your hurting.”
“It’s my fault you’re hurting.” Rose sighed before catching herself.
“Wait! You know what we’re talking about?” Rose asked, shaking her head in shock. She should have known trying to keep it short and simple and not hinting to the problem wasn’t enough to hide it from her genius of a daughter. Rose had no doubt that if Summer was born a unicorn that she would have surpassed Trixie and Rose’s power combined.
“I’m four mama, not stupid.” Summer sighed as she rolled her eyes.
“Let’s get some ice cream and we’ll talk about this later.” Trixie suggested, hiding a smile and holding back a giggle at the excited looks on both mother and daughter’s faces. It was hard to see it on Rose’s face hidden in the shadows of her hood…but the widening and hungry look of her eyes pretty much told Trixie all she needed to know.
***
Five years was a long time to go without seeing your daughter, especially when you lost another daughter years prior to that. It seemed like she couldn’t do anything right when it came to her children…yet Twilight Velvet carried on. It wasn’t and easier losing Twilight Sparkle as it was losing Midnight Sparkle, but at least she had hope that her little girl was okay.
Unlike Midnight who was kidnapped not long after being born, Twilight had ran away on her own feeling like she had nothing to tie her back to Canterlot and Ponyville. Velvet prayed that her little girl would come home on her own, but she wasn’t naïve to believe that it would happen. Instead she had spent most of the money she had saved paying for ponies who made a living out of tracking any pony down. Year after year she was only met with more and more disappointment.
Even though she spent so much money though, burning through almost three quarters of their life savings, they still had enough to have the library rebuilt when it was destroyed by Tirek. Thankfully the girls and princesses were able to stop the creature with the help of Discord before he could cause too much trouble. The library now stood over where the tree once was, a three story building with the first two floors filled with books and the last one living quarters for her Night Light and herself as well as a couple guest rooms. It wasn’t as big as their home in Canterlot, but both Night Light and Velvet had enough of the capital and retired to Ponyville to tale care of her daughters home and await her return.
Yawning Velvet climbed down the steps to open up for the day, stopping momentarily when she felt a shiver travel down her back. Unlike most ponies who believed such an occurrence meant trouble, the unicorn believed it meant something good was going to happen soon. She admitted she was backward this way, yet every time she experienced it something really extraordinary had happened to her.
“Please let it be my little girl.” Velvet whispered in a soft prayer, hoping beyond hope that she would finally be reunited with her baby.
***
It had been a week since they decided to pack everything up after their visit to the ice cream parlor. They were going to head to Ponyville and hope for the best since they couldn’t bear to see little Summer mistreated by her peers any longer. They didn’t have much since they sold all the books along with the shop to a pony that Gordon Ponsey had introduced them to. Rose was finishing packing up the few things that was theirs into a trailer that Trixie had bought with a little of their money.
Trixie had told her that the trailer was a lot like her old one, only smaller having just enough room for a single small bed and their few meager possessions. Because of this they agreed to try and fit in the trailer together if the weather turned bad, but otherwise they would be camping under the stars during their travel. They had debated leaving even more behind and taking a train, but the trailer was used and very cheap while the train tickets would cost three times as much. Even the cost of supplies still didn’t come close to matching what the tickets would cost. Of course there was also the fact that if Ponyville wasn’t as inviting as Trixie assured her, they could just move on.
Watching Summer play with a ball Rose couldn’t help wondering if maybe they shouldn’t contact her parents. Both Trixie and her had decided against it for different reasons. For Trixie it was the fact she was forced to grow up living a lie by a verbally abusive stallion. Rose still didn’t understand how Trixie hated him so much after learning the truth yet still say she had a spot in her heart from him. She had claimed that while there was a lot of bad, he was still her father for so long and there were some happy memories. He was there for her when her real parents just gave up on her.
For Rose, her differences were similar yet different. As far as they could make out from the reports about what happened in Canterlot, her parents didn’t care enough to look for her. And to make that even worse, her parents left Canterlot so if Rose did go back home they wouldn’t even be there. Of course she knew where they were, but if it wasn’t for the reports she would never had known it. Still, she wished she could remember them and not just have reports to go by when it came to them. It would be nice to be able to give Summer some grandparents, but there was no use in trying if they were going to be uncaring as they seemed to be.
“Almost done?” Trixie asked as she came into the small store, the door unlocked even though the closed sign was hanging up. They would be leaving soon, locking up and sticking the key back through the mail slot since the new owner had a copy.
The look on Trixie’s face told Rose that her sister had been visiting the graveyard again. True both of them hated Nomad, but Trixie had viewed him as a father for so long she just couldn’t turn off the feelings she had for him. The stallion was a right bastard, but Trixie had said they had some happy times. Rose didn’t like it, but she would have went with Trixie to support her if she knew that was where the showmare was going to go.
“I would have kept you company if you told me where you were going.” Rose said softly as she trotted up to Trixie to nuzzle her.
“I’m okay, besides, I needed to do it alone. I hate him so much…but I can’t just get rid of the good memories.” Trixie sighed, avoiding looking straight at Rose.
“You shouldn’t have to…he was a big part of your life no matter if he was your real father or not.” Rose said softly, a part of her not believing it in the least. Trixie shouldn’t be tore up over a monster like Nomad who ripped their family apart for such selfish reasons.
“I know how you really feel about him, sis.” Trixie replied sadly, “And I don’t blame you. I want to hate him unconditionally, but my heart still hasn’t gotten the memo. Let’s…just head out if your ready, I want to be as far from this place before we stop as we can.”
“Sure…but I do have one question.” Rose said, holding back a giggle. “Are you going back to, ‘The Great and Powerful Trrrrrrriixxiieeeee’ as we travel.”
“Hardy har har.” Trixie mocked as she bopped Rose over the head. She had stopped that when she found out the truth about her parents and swore never to go back to being a showmare. She hated the thought of being anything like her supposed mother while at one time she wanted to be just like her. Of course it took awhile to get over talking like she once did, but she wanted to stop as it was a reminder of what she once was as well as a mother who apparently never loved her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Rose sighed as Trixie nuzzled her.
“It’s okay, let’s get going.” Trixie said, “Come on short stuff, make sure you have your doll.”
“Coming Auntie!” Summer cried out leaving her ball and rushing back into the store, returning with a stuffed Wonderbolt doll a few minutes later. The pair of unicorns couldn’t hold back their smiles at the enthusiastic attitude of the pegasus filly.