A Story of Love (Among Others)

by TheMareWhoSaysNi

A Walk with Love and Death

After my birthday, I called my dad and I told him I was going to spend a few days with my family in Cloudsdale. And so, he decided he would prepare a big dinner with the siblings, in order to celebrate my twenty-two years-old since they hadn't seen me for at least five years. It could sound strange that I hadn't seen any of them for so many time but they all had their schedules and own life, with kids and family of their own. Also, I always had a good excuse not to return home for Hearth Warming's Eve or other celebrations.

I really thought a return to the roots would have do me much good. But it wasn't the case. First, because I had forgotten how much that trip was exhausted. There were no direct trains from Canterlot to Cloudsdale (our railway service is old and antiquated since us Equestrian are a car nation). So I first had to take a train to Rainbow Falls, where my parents had their honeymoon and is the place at the origins of my name, to catch a bus going to Galloping Gorge and then, finally, another bus to Cloudsdale.

My family is living downtown and so it was easy to get from the bus station to there only by walking. When I arrived, I immediately went to bed and slept twelve hours in a row. But it wasn't the only problem. Since I was living in Canterlot I had taken habits that were completely different of the ones that were to be found in this part of the country. I was feeling as if I had been in feodal Japan and sold to a geisha house or something of the kind. And, since I had broken my phone, I couldn't get any call from Pinkie or Coloratura, or Cheese Sandwich or Rarity and let's not talk about Soarin. So, I spent a lot of time playing music though I was supposed to be on a break from the recording session of our album. When I wasn't playing music, I went to the DVDs stores but found their variety to be much scarce. My father was busy, as always, and we couldn't see each other that much. To think he had been the one insisting for me to come home.

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I was on my bedroom's balcony. Before I left for Canterlot, I had bought a few bonzais, the only plants I didn't let die. Needless to say that my father hadn't taken care of them at all. They were half-died and I wasn't sure I could ever get them back to health. As I was trying to save them by tearing off the dead leaves and watering them, I could see my siblings and their families arriving all at the same time.

"Rainbow Dash!!" They're here! Come on!" my father called from the kitchen.

No, he hadn't cooked anything. He had called a caterer, of course. My father had always been the kind who wanted everyone around him to do whatever he wanted us to do for him, no matter whether you were very busy or not.

"Yep, coming over!" I replied, tearing off the ultimate leaves and small branches.

"Rainbow Dash Elizabeth!! You'd better hurry up! They're all here for you!!"

Yeah, this was the awful truth. My second name, that second name we all have, though we don't even have a surname, well it was Elizabeth. My father always used it when I was to get scolded or was about to be. It was chosen by my mother because there were many important women through History and in literature that bore that name. She used to say it was the name of a strong-willed self-confident person, what she always wanted me to be.

I left the balcony, threw the leaves in my trashcan and wiped my hands on my dress. When I arrived in the hall, everyone was already here. The whole family.

So, now it's time to tell you what's the story behind my strange family, who's who and what has been my path before I arrived in the wonderful city of Canterlot. Let's go. I'd better warn you, it's not always very happy...

As I already highlighted a few times, my siblings actually are my half-siblings. And though we don't have the same mother or even father, they all regard me as their real sister.

I was born the daughter of a motorcycle champion, Windy Whistles and a gynecologist for rich people, Bow Hothoof. I adored my mother. She was bold, confident, a real rolemodel. She taught me about old movies, about classic music, about extreme sports and knitting (I know it sounds strange but I'm pretty good at knitting). Mommy, daddy and I lived very happy for a long while. I have only very happy memories from my childhood though my father was already very much taken by his work. I had to precise that he is famous in his medical specialization, he even wrote books which are bestsellers and went to television to talk about STDs and delivery. Mom was pretty busy as well, practicing and participating at races but she often took me with her. Thanks to her, as a little girl, I went to famous circuits all around the world.

But then, my mother died. It was very sudden, we barely had time to prepare ourselves to the probability of her going away forever that she was already passed out. She died from a violent leukemia. It took only six months to the disease to kill her. Have you ever watched someone sinking more and more everyday? I must have been only eight years-old when she died but I still remember everything very clearly. That memory remains painful, even nowadays, more than ten years after it happened. I guess this is why it's so difficult for me to cope with loss.

When my mother died, my dad became even busier. He kept on taking new patients, on doing researches, on appearing in the public sphere. Meanwhile, at an age where little girls are still little girls, I had to grow up quickly and do a lot of things on my own, things I should never have done so early in my life.

But, much to my surprise, two years later, he met another woman, Firefly. She was already a mother of four children and like my dad, her husband had passed out from a cancer. He met her in his office. She consulted him for her second eldest daughter, who had got pregnant at the young age of sixteen and wanted to keep the baby. They quickly fell in love and six months later they got married. Thus, suddenly I inheritated not only of a substitute mother but also of four siblings. Firefly was very much like my own mom. She was brash and highly regarding a high self-confidence and was a former champion of horse races now a commenter for radio. I really liked her. Since I was younger than any of her own children, she took me under her wing and taught me how rollerskating and snowboarding, she also encouraged me to play guitar in addition to cello and to try show jumping. Show jumping quickly became my thing and I wanted to be a professional too.

That was until Firefly died too. Not by riding a horse. Her car had been smashed by a drunken road hog, on the road back home. This was how my father suddenly became the guardian of five children.

Now that second death was a hard blow to my self-esteem. All of a sudden, my father forbade me to do anything he considered "dangerous". No more rollerskating, no more show jumping. He started to drink and sleep around, neglecting us five. My siblings, much older and united made the most of it to do anything they wanted to do. Nobody looked after me anymore. Nobody cared about what I could be doing, as long as it didn't include accidents that could injure me or worse.

I know it's going to sound crazy... But from this moment, I turned almost completely mute. I wasn't talking in school, I wasn't talking at home, I only played cello until my wrist hurt. I started to neglect my appearance, never brushing my hair and wearing worn old clothes. There was no one to buy me new things, anyway. So, of course, in Junior High School, the others started to mock me a lot. They stole my bag, threw it in the mud or in trashcans. I was called a fright, a butch, a dirty orphan. And I never defended myself. Since no one cared about me it meant I wasn't worth of any interest so what was the point?

Warned by the school board, my father decided to send me to a public school instead. These count among the worst years of my life. No one talked to me and when they did, it was to make fun of me. I never cried in front of them and that infuriated them so they tried everything to make me give up. When I had good grades, I was called a cheater - they had decided that I was stupid. I had been scorned, stolen, beaten. They especially hated that I was very good in sports and music. After each classes, I had a good beating by the book.

Then one day, a girl more sadistic than the others pushed me from the roof of our school. I made a four-stores fall and got my bottom bones broken along with my right leg. It had been trigger of my family's realization there was something wrong about us, especially since I had to make a long stay at the hospital and been obliged to circulate with a wheelchair for a whole semester. During that time, everything went back to place at home. My father regained control over my younger siblings, since the other ones were already independent. I had classes at home until I could go back to school.

When I came back, the others couldn't recognize me. I had seen a psychiatrist that had helped me a lot reconnecting with my lost self-confidence. At that age, teenagers are often very silly and can't hardly learn their life lessons. My former bullies, even the girl who pushed me from the roof tried to harass me again. Except now I fought back. I had started thai-boxing and Tae Kwon Do, I wasn't hiding my real nature anymore. Surely they grew tired of hearing me say how awesome I was and how I was the best and how I didn't care about what they were thinking about me, but they stopped bullying me. Now they were scared of me and whenever I took one talking behind my back, they would run away before I could catch them.

In High School, things were pretty the same. I multiplied extracurricular activities: cello, guitar, thai-boxing, Tae Kwon Do of course, but also ballroom dancing (I especially like Jive and Quickstep), swimming, soccer, singing and creative writing. I knew I wanted to become an athlete or a musician, preferably a rockstar but playing cello in an orchestra was fine with me as well.

By the end of High School, I was watching a TV show where my father was supposed to speak when I saw a report about the Canterlot Academy of Music. I immediately knew that was where I wanted to go. My father had his own idea. He wanted me to do a medical school, just like him and one of my sisters, who was a medical examiner (yeah, I know, it's not the stuff dreams are made of). All my life I have heard about contraception, breast cancer, STDs, abortion, periods, delivery and honestly, I didn't want to keep on hearing that for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something that I loved, that made me happy, after I had so much frustration in my life.

He finally accepted when I made him the infamous promise. I was going to study at the CAM but if I couldn't get a contract, whatever the kind, by the end of my studies, I had to come back in Cloudsdale and do medical school. He even swore I could choose the specialization and that I didn't have to be a gynecologist/obstetrician. But I'm glad I had a contract. I definitely can't picture me in medical school.

Now let me introduce my siblings. At last. My older sister's name is Surprise. Because her mother wasn't expecting her to be born so soon. Her character is pretty close to Pinkie's, liking party and cakes a lot. Actually, she's a baker. She was already in High School when Firefly died and so she settled with the boy that is now her husband when I was rather young. She has a baby girl whose name is Wild Fire.

Then, there was Spitfire. She was the one who got pregnant at sixteen. Her daughter is rather older than her cousins and is called Scootaloo. I played a lot with her when I was home, acting a bit like her big sister. She's as brash and daring as her own mother. Now Spitfire isn't married, she's too independent for that. Her job and Scootaloo take too much of her time, anyway. Oh, she's the one who's a medical examiner. I guess she works with dead people because she's too domineering with living people.

Wind Waker is the only boy of the family. His position as a male allowed him to do whatever nonsense he wanted to do. Everything my father thought was too dangerous or inappropriate for me was alright as long as he was concerned. He wasn't very nice with me when I was in my depressed state and my father had always to pick him at the police station for stealing or fighting. He's the kind who thinks women are best in a kitchen or raising children. Too bad for him he was born in a family full of strong-tempered girls who don't take sh*t from anyone. He doesn't have a real job, only doing short-term contracts, often in bars or restaurants, sometimes as a carpenter. Despite him being a real macho, he is married with a former stripper. They have a boy, Pipsqueak, the cutest little boy of the world.

Last but not least, slightly older than me, there is Misty Fly. For a long while, she hated me. I had to share my bedroom with her and she was always mean to me because Firefly was treating me like I were her real daughter. We never really got along. Everybody think she's the prettiest of the family. She was very popular at school when I was bullied and used to just ignore me, even when I became boasty and self-confident. But as she grew up, her attitude towards me changed and now everything was rather cordial though never warm. Misty Fly also has a daughter, a very young baby called Sunshine Morning, that she had with her boss, the manager of a luxury mall.

And I hadn't seen anyone since I had been in Canterlot. I had calls, messages, a few Skype conversations but nothing else. They didn't know anything about my life in Canterlot and only knew I was recording a CD with my best friends playing piano and flute. I wondered if there was going to be any change.

Author's Note:

Stay tuned, more is coming very, very, very soon!

Comments

[Aether Spark]

Aww... Her only brother is a jerk...