My earliest memory I have was when I was three or four. All I remember is hearing yelling and screaming through our bedroom walls as my older sister held me to her chest. She was just a few years older than me, so I think she was seven or eight, I can’t remember. But as she held me she would hum a lullaby to me. She did so quietly so we wouldn’t draw the attention of our parents, and it calmed me down.
She was strong, a survivor, my shield from their abuse. She taught me how to cope with it, so I could survive like she could. She had me focus on things to forget about the troubles at home, like dancing. I really loved to dance; I put my all into it, convinced it was my special talent. But I never got my cutie mark.
I was seen as a failure for being a late bloomer. It drove my father to start drinking. Each night grew worse and worse, and my sister’s humming wasn’t enough to drown out the loud crashes of furniture and random items being thrown at our mother for defending me.
She broke.
She began to see things his way and their collective attention turned to us. She saw us as the reason she was in a terrible marriage. She took her frustrations out on us, screaming that we ruined her life and it was our entire fault. She wished we had never been born. Then they saw how close we were together, and sought to tear us apart. They made up stories, telling us how horrible the other was behind our backs, trying to convince us that we should hate each other as much as they hated us.
It didn’t work. My sister remained strong and steadfast, taking the verbal abuse and watching silently as his rage was taken out on the things around him. I cowered behind her, crying and trying not to be seen. I wasn’t strong, not on my own. I depended on my sister to protect me.
Seeing as they failed to drive us apart, they began drinking heavier. Then one night… one night they burst into our room, grabbed by sister, and dragged her away as she kicked and screamed. I wanted to do something, to make them stop, but I was frozen in fear. I remember locking eyes with my sister as she was pulled around the corner into the hall and the door was slammed closed.
I heard more yelling, but it was one sided. I had no idea what was going on but I was so scared. I hid under the bed, clutching a stuffed animal close for some semblance of comfort, but there was none. I waited, laying there with tears streaming from my eyes for what felt like hours. Eventually, just as the sun was starting to rise, my door opened softly.
I poked my head carefully out and saw my sister, she was safe! I crawled out and went up to her to see if she was alright, but she didn’t respond. We sat on my bed and she held me close, she was shaking and tears were falling onto my head. She was crying silently, and I felt my heart break. I heard her trying to hum her lullaby, just like she always did, but she couldn’t. Whatever they did, it broke her.
She set me down after a while and returned to her bed. I didn’t want her to go, but as I stepped forward with a hoof outstretched, my hoof felt something warm and wet. I held up my hoof in the morning light, and it was covered in blood. I looked over to my sister, and her flanks were bleeding. But not her flanks, it was from under her tail… her private part. I stared on in horror, he had done that, and she didn’t cry out. Not once, I would have heard.
She was never the same after that. She grew quiet, distant, and cold even as the cruelty focused on her. I sobbed every night as she lay in bed, staring at the wall, waiting for him to barge into our room and drag her away without a word. Her eyes grew hollow; the spark of my sister had died. I needed to do something, anything, so I stole a flute from the music room at school.
I practiced away from home as much as I could, every day. I was determined to help my sister, to make her feel better. She guarded and protected me from day one, and I wanted to return the favor. I may not be able to stop them, but I can make her feel better. I can make her happy even if it’s just for a second, and it would be worth it.
Finally I was ready. I wanted to show her in the place I’d been practicing, but she wasn’t responding, just staring at the wall as she always did. I could hear our parents downstairs arguing over something as I closed the door. I knew the flute was quite loud but I hoped if I played softly they wouldn’t hear over the sound of their arguing.
I sat on my bed facing my sister and began to play, just like I practiced. It was the lullaby she had always hummed to comfort me over the years, and now it was going to comfort her. Her ears twitched as I played, then she rolled over to look at me for the first time in a long time, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. I was so happy, my sister was happy and it encouraged me to keep going.
I began to dance around the room as I played, much to her enjoyment. I suddenly felt a tingle on my flank, and when I passed in front of the mirror, I saw it, my cutie mark! A flute, with several notes dancing in a circle around it. I looked back at my sister in glee, and she was truly happy. I couldn’t remember the last time she smiled like that.
We were interrupted by our door getting slammed off its hinges, and he stood in the doorway with his bloodshot eyes glaring at me. I was sure my heart skipped a beat as my blood ran cold. His attention was diverted from me when my sister screamed at him in a rage. I watched as years of suppressed anger and rage exploded from her as she threw herself at him.
He took the punches, reflexes slow from the drink, but he remained standing. He bellowed at her and raised his hoof. I watched in shocked horror as he kept raising it, each time redder than the last as the smack of hoof on flesh echoed in my room, nearly drowning out his blind rage. And when he turned his sight on me, I knew I was going to die.
Instinct kicked in and pumped me full of adrenaline. There was only one escape, and it was through him. I still held the flute in my magic, and without much thought I threw it like a spear at him. He yelled in pain and anger as it struck his eye, while I ran under him through the door. I spared a glance to my sister, her eyes were swollen closed and several teeth were shattered, blood pooling out of her mouth and soaking into the carpet.
And then I was gone. I ran as far and as fast as I could. My breath was ragged and my mouth was full of foam, my muscles screamed in pain but still I ran. I remember running into something, then blacking out. I came to in a strange bed in a strange room, with a stranger watching me from the other side. He introduced himself and asked what was wrong. His eyes were so kind, like my sister’s.
I was a sobbing mess as I told this stranger everything. I laid out my heart as he sat there and listened patiently. As I finished he stood and came up to me, and hugged me tightly. He explained that I had bumped into him, and he promised to protect me, and he told me a bit about himself. After hearing his story, I knew he would protect me. I stayed by his side since then, and became a performer in his act as we traveled the world together, eventually gained a few more members, fellow outcasts like ourselves. They became my new family, and while I was the weakest, I would not hesitate to protect them. I won’t let them down, not like how I let down my sister.
I suppose it’s time to come clean then… isn’t it? My name isn’t Pipp… it’s Phoebe. My fur is a light green and my mane white with green highlights. I had been dying my fur and hair to hide from anypony who might recognize me, so I could avoid any confrontation with my parents.
And you, my new friend, you aren’t going to leave me either, are you?