Meaning Behind the Shield
I live with a monster.
But it hadn’t started like that.
Life had been good, for a time. I had my mom, Twilight Velvet, and dad, Night Light. I got everything I asked for. All the treats and toys I could ever want. It was fun, I was happy.
Then my fifth birthday arrived.
Mom and dad had planned a small party for me that day. We were going to eat cake, and I would get tons of wrapped gifts. In my excitement on waking up, I galloped down the hall and accidentally bumped into an old urn. It had slipped off its pedestal and shattered on the floors of the hallway.
I hadn’t meant to do that, but it had happened and I was readying to apologize to my parents when they got there.
But they didn’t come.
The monster did.
It was pitch black like the tar in my adventure books. A multitude of red eyes covered its pony-shaped body as shadowy tendrils whipped around its head.
I was scared. I didn’t know what the monster was, but I wanted my dad because he would protect me. So, I cried out for him, screaming it as loud as I could, desperation in my voice.
Then it hurt me.
A quick slap across the face. I had been so shocked at the time that I had stopped. It had been the first time I’d ever felt pain like that. It was nothing like the typical foalhood bruises and scrapes I was used to.
When I’d finally quieted down, the monster left. I slunk downstairs and sat at the table in stunned silence. My parents arrived shortly after. Dad panicked when he saw the red welt on my face and asked how I’d gotten hurt.
I told him about the monster and my dad had been horrified. But mom told me that the monster was natural, that it always showed up when foals did bad things.
And that it was my fault the monster appeared.
We celebrated my birthday then. The cake had been bitter, the gifts dull. I know that I should enjoy these things, but all I could focus on was the fear inside me and the desperate hope that the monster would never show itself again.
I would be a good colt, so I never gave it a reason to come back.
But I did see it again.
And it only got more frequent as I got older.
Whenever I got bad grades in school, it appeared. Whenever I messed up my chores, it appeared. Whenever I was too loud, it appeared. And so it would go as the monster became bigger, stronger, and scarier with every encounter I had with it.
It used to only be the size of my parents, but soon its head scraped against the ceiling along with the many racks of horns that grew from its head. Its eyes multiplied in number, all the better to catch me when I misbehaved. Its frame grew until it could barely contain itself within the walls of my home.
I had learned to know when it was coming. A cold dread would cause my body to shake in place. I would hear its every step, a loud thump, thump as it approached. Readying to punish me for my misdeeds. To hurt me.
Until one day it stopped.
When I turned eight, the monster disappeared. Paranoia would not allow me to relax, for one day it could return. I obeyed every rule, did everything I was asked, until, after several months, my baby sister was born.
Twilight Sparkle.
She was everything to me from the first day I saw her. My baby sister. I looked after her, took care of her, and protected her from harm. Everything a big brother should do. I loved how joyful she was, a bundle of sunshine in the muggy swamp of my fearful anticipation.
My fears soon became justified as the monster came back.
It was a magic surge. Perfectly normal for a three year old unicorn. We'd been playing in her room, book forts erected to protect the Rulers of Book and Shield. But a burst of magic caused it all to go flying across the room.
I’d hugged her close when she cried about how sorry she was and I’d told her it was fine.
She’d done nothing wrong.
Thump, thump, down the hall. I knew that sound.
The monster was coming.
Holding Twilight tightly, I turned in horror to witness it slink into the room, bigger than it had ever been before. Now a mismatch of ferocious beasts all biting at the chance to punish my sister.
It was going to hurt Twilight.
Before I’d even thought about it, I’d already made the decision. I told the monster it was my fault. I’d caused the damage.
The welts on my side permanently scarred me that day.
As would the others in the coming years.
But the shield on my flanks that appeared afterwards guaranteed I would always look at my injuries with pride.
Eventually, the monster got to Twilight. I had been sixteen at the time. She was crying in bed, trying to sleep so the monster wouldn’t come back, but unable to out of fear. I couldn’t even describe the hurt I’d felt seeing the red welt on her face.
I climbed into bed with her and held her in my hooves, soothingly telling her that she would be fine.
When the monster inevitably came, its shadow loomed over us. It demanded I move. I refused and pulled my sister closer to me, using my body as a shield to keep her safe from the thing that wished her harm.
It stood over us for a time before, finally, it left.
“Goodbye, mom,” I called out.
After several hours of holding her close, Twilight and I both fell asleep. Twilight safe, but I was as scared of the monster as the first day it had appeared.
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...OH SHIT
...This kinda reminds me of the 'thing' that my mom made up to scare my brother and sis into behaving. Great fic! 10/10!
Very interesting concept.
Mm.
Can someone explain this to me? I can’t wrap my head around this
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I think much of it is intended to be left up to interpretation, but what isn't is that his mother is related to the monster. In fact, I consider them to be one in the same, and Shining does too. I interperet the monster's appearance to be Shining Armor's interpretation of his mother's rage, with her becomming a terrible monster in Shining's eyes, even though she, in reality, did not change form. Instead, it was easier to imagine her as a monster than his mother.
Damn !!!
This shit slaps hard. Almost as hard as the monster.
11235849
It’s an allegory for child abuse
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The Monster is Twilight Velvet his mother.
hits too close to home.. heh... heh
I think you want "screaming"?
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An error? There is no error. There never was an error.
(Thank you for the catch, fixed it)
Well dang. I'll just give you my hat.
Not sure if it's just me, but I'd really like to see a world play out with this underpinning it.
Kind of reminds me of that game where you play as a baby with a teddy bear and it's this big overgrown shadow creature hunting you down because it wants to hurt you.
well. wonder what happens when Celestia finds out.
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among the sleep if you were wondering the name of it
Horrifying…
That his mother could be so awful that that is how he sees her. To be traumatized like that; and scarred. Hang your head in shame Velvet; you’re unworthy of your title.
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One asked how Celestia would feel about matters here... About what you'd expect I suspect
.........................
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
Twilight Velvet's ears twitched at the sound of the Princess's soft tone, and turning, she began to smile, then ears flattening to her skull, she took a step back at the expression on the diarchs face, and in that moment, the mare learned how cold the world was when the sun denied you its warmth. For a moment Velvet's horn flared to life, seeking something, anything, to protect herself, delving to the deepest for IT, the spell every unicorn knew as from birth as easily as a foal knew to seek its mothers side, a means of self preservation... and with a mere narrowing of a micrometer of her eyelids, Celestia dispelled her attempts.
"Do you know who said that? Somepony, perhaps, who would forgive your transgressions mare, if you sought such. I... am not so awash in kindness and mercy. But what I do have are healing spells and ol' Bertha."
Before Velvet could inquire as to who Bertha was, Celestia's horn flared and after a brief flash a rust covered ship anchor fell to floor with a clank, and hefting the improvised weapon to rest it across her withers, Celestia began to step forward.
And as she walked, she began so sing
...........................
Meanwhile across town, Cadence looked up as a screech of utter terror echoed across Canterlot.
"What was that?"
"I believe that was your coltfriends mother screaming in fear your Highness."
Nodding, Cadence returned to her paperwork.
"Oh. Good."
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This shit is far too common and people should be a lot less forgiving for it.
This was a pretty effective depiction of domestic abuse. I've seen this sort of story before, so I figured out from the start that Twilight Velvet was the monster, but this was still well told.
I needed to think about this one for a bit. Rather unwisely, that was over lunch.
"X's parents were actually abusive" is a tough sell for me with many of the Mane Six's families. With Twilight's, there's some textual support. She had to develop that anxiety and perfectionism somehow, to say nothing of how the Crown of the Sibling Supreme had her and Shining literally competing for their parents' affection. But this still doesn't quite mesh for me. I think the biggest issue is that Shining actually got his cutie mark this way. What do they tell the neighbors? What does he tell his classmates or his teacher? That's incriminating evidence right on his backside, to say nothing of the welts in a society without a nudity taboo.
This might have been able to justify itself with more available words, but as is, I can't believe Velvet escaped Protective Services. Still, best of luck in the judging.
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I would presume they'd claim he saved Twilight from some sort of accident. She'd had a magic surge and knocked something big and heavy off a shelf and Shining was the one around to see it and cast a shield spell over her
and oof
and oof, love the ambiguity here. in the magical world of ponies, for all we know this could be a real phenomenon and not Shining's disassociation between his loving mother and the monster who hurts him, but this type of thinking, and saying such a horrible thing to a foal, would make Twilight Velvet just as much the true monster even if it were a separate entity
and yes, that ambiguity again! the monster acquiring more horrifying traits as time goes on and Shining sees it as this growing and awful thing that smothers away the carefreeness that he had as the little colt at the beginning of the story, great metaphorical stuff
and oof, filling in the reason for why the monster was absent for that specific amount of time...
augh, such a cute moment to make what is coming all the worse
and oof! giving Shining's cutie mark a deeper and darker meaning is a great touch, and augh. that theme of older siblings doing all they can to protect their younger ones from their parents is always so heartbreaking to see
and augh, love these paragraphs! they're what the story's impact rests on and you knocked it out of the park in managing the tension and the timing of the reveal. i can't think of a word to remove or add without lessening it somehow. and the "body as a shield" to call back Shining's cutie mark and the story's themes really makes it pop
i've been very lucky to not have firsthand experience of parental abuse growing up, but growing up has been having more and more people in my life who i care about and love who do have such a background, and all this rings so true with the struggles they've shared with me. i love how well this story delivers its core idea that is sadly universal enough as a concept to translate into all sorts of settings. (this could easily be origfic, with the shield cutie mark theme being the most difficult to translate, but not impossible!)
excellent work here, Otter.
Hello! Have a review. A troubling, dark alternative look at Shiny's colthood. Impressive that it avoids feeling exploitative, though FOME's comment does ring true. Have a like anyway, and well done on the honourable mention!
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Sadly, some countries don't even have dedicated CPS-like bodies. It's not out of the question that this AU of Equestria is just a shell of what we know from canon, or that Equestria is just so peaceful overall that CPS was never established, leaving abusers like Velvet run free.
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