Chapter 1
A Love Letter
By Butterscotch Cream
The gazette smacked the kitchen table with an irritated snap.
“The homosexuals are pushing that ‘social rights’ legislation again!"
Whisperwind looked at his agitated wife from behind his own set of newspapers and sipped his coffee, his eyes beset with a somber but sympathetic gaze as he waited for her to finish. Jewel didn’t say anything for a few moments, though she didn’t necessarily need to. Her creamy features were etched with an exasperated expression that spoke volumes, and was only amplified by the raspberry bangs darkening her eyes. Soon enough, though, the words simmering in her mind bubbled to the surface.
“The Princesses have done nothing but straddle fences and pander to these... these political machines of coltcuddlers, fillyfoolers and whatever else is out there. They’ve outright refused to use their authority to enforce morality!” The unicorn’s chair interrupted with a screech as she shoved it over the linoleum to stand. “It sickens me. It’s bad enough they let ponies worship them. It’s a wonder the Providences haven’t cursed us yet. By the mercies...”
Jewel cut off her tirade with a resentful huff as she marched to the sink and redirected her emotional energies into cleaning, though her tightened lips attested the ongoing torrent of internal commentary they held back. The kitchen lit with amber magic as plates and cups took to the air from around the room and began obediently convening at the sink to be washed. Whisperwind looked up just in time to rescue his unfinished coffee from the congregation and dragged it back to its coaster by the handle, a hapless victim of his wife’s indiscriminate fervor. While calmer, however, the coal-gray stallion’s furrowed brow made it clear he was just as bothered.
“The Providences are in control. They allowed the Princesses to rule and in the end it’s the Providences’ will that takes precedence.” The pegasus sighed and lifted the newspaper again, though his voice got quieter as it belied the weariness he felt himself. “We just need to keep praying... and keep faith, despite the world around us.”
The encouragement wasn’t entirely lost on Jewel and the mare’s features relaxed slightly, though the mechanical work of dish-washing probably aided in diffusing her tension. She let out a less forceful sigh and brought another plate under the faucet to scrub mindlessly. “It’s... just so... disheartening. I’m almost afraid if the legislation reaches the royal courts they’ll rule in favor of it, and there won’t be anything we can do at that point. And to think that... the more they win the more Stagelight feels justified in...”
She bit her lip for a few restrained moments as her emotions fell back into turmoil, then resumed scrubbing the dishes with freshly pained ferocity. Whisperwind just looked down and let the newspaper sag against the table. His mind was too busy finishing his wife’s thought to read it by then anyway. The stallion tried to shake the thoughts from his head and tossed the gazette to the side.
“We’ll deal with that storm if and when it rises, Jewel. In the meantime, have you seen Dawn this morning?”
The water from the faucet cut off, leaving a brief sense of awkward silence before Jewel turned around again and placed the last dish on the drying rack.
“No, I think he’s still in bed. Why do you ask?”
Whisperwind glanced up at Jewel only to let his eyes fall to his mug again.
“Oh, I was going to offer help with his sky-painting this evening. He mentioned he’d been having trouble coming up with designs lately...” He took another sip of coffee and swished it pointlessly in his mouth before swallowing, almost as if it were purely to fill the time with something other than the disquiet he was struggling to repress. Jewel cast him a knowingly concerned glance and pulled a scrunchie out of her mane, sighing as she shook her head to let the locks of hair swing freely around her neck.
“I keep telling him he ought to request sunrise or noon shifts to give him some variety, and to get more sleep. He stays up all hours wearing himself out and his work gets monotonous - it’s no wonder he’s having trouble. I worry he’s going to run himself aground one of these days.” Jewel walked over and leaned down to give Whisperwind a kiss, which succeeded in bringing a smile to his face. The two nickered and nuzzled for several savored seconds, then softly separated as Jewel pulled away to hang her purse around her neck. “I need to go run some errands before it gets any later. I have music students all this afternoon, and I need to start dinner beforehoof so it isn’t late. Do you think you two will be back by six?”
“We ought to be, or at least around then,” Whisperwind replied after finishing off his coffee. He got up from the table and planted another smiled kiss on her cheek as she hurried her way to the front door. “Thank you dearheart.”
“I’ll see you this evening. Let Dawn Runner sleep in if he is sleeping - he probably needs it!”
The front door closed with a rush of air and left Whisperwind standing there with a happy smirk. After a few moments he turned back into the kitchen, grabbed the kettle and trundled over to the sink. He still needed his second cup of coffee before his day really began. As he held the kettle under the faucet, he took the moment to admire the sunbeams streaming through the kitchen window to warm his dark gray coat. Somehow the dawn gave even the most mundane scenes a touch of beauty.
He yawned a bit and set the kettle on the stove with a soft clatter, shaking out his hind legs one after the other to loosen up the joints as he flicked the burner to low, then headed back into the den with a sigh to wait for the water to heat. He was about to settle down on the couch when he noticed a messily folded stack of papers sitting on the sill of the front window. They hadn’t been there the day before - had one of his wife’s students left homework?
Whisperwind made his way over and carefully unfolded the pages with a hoof, his pale blue eyes narrowing in confusion as they traced the first lines. No... he recognized that writing, as jagged as it was. The more he read the more his expression shifted to bewildered disbelief. His eyes flitted faster and faster over the words till they frantically tore through the paragraphs down the first page and the next. Suddenly they came to a jarring halt and froze, staring, as if the words somehow transfixed him.
Very, very slowly, he sank to his haunches beside the window, never moving his eyes from that point on the page. Despair began creasing his grayed features, making them drawn and somehow faded as his slackened jaw quivered, unconsciously echoing the unspoken words. Eventually, though, his eyes were seized by a morose curiosity and began slowly advancing through the text once more.
When he reached the bottom of the paper, the stallion laid a reluctant hoof on the page and dragged it wearily to the side to begin reading the next as tears began to trickle down his muzzle. Another page finished, and another, and another... By the end of the stack he was trembling and his breaths came in soft, shallow spasms. There were only a few paragraphs on that last page, but the finality of them dragged his heart even lower into despair.
“Yours truly, Dawn Runner”
At first, Whisperwind just sat there as air shivered through his lungs, doing nothing. His body felt stiff and rigid, but inside his emotions were building in a roiling, twisted mass as they grappled with one another for supremacy. Agony, grief, rage, love: they were all there, and as the letter reverberated a maddening cacophony of lines in his mind, it drove the storming emotions to a merciless virulence.
"No!"
Torment burst through Whisperwind's restraint as he swiped at the letter with his hooves and scattered the pages across the sill. His face was twisted into a panting snarl of fury laced with anguish. The notes scratched out in front of him settled the unshakable reality on his heart like a yolk. He did not want this to be real! If only the writing would change... He would give anything to change it. Anything. But nothing would.
"No..."
His anger was gradually crushed as heartache tightened its grip around his core and silent, breathless sobs began to arrest his chest. For several moments he simply sat there staring despondently at the window, his tear-blurred silhouette outlined in its reflection by the sunlight flooding the room behind him. When his sobs had subsided enough to take a few shuddered breaths, he scooped the crumpled pages into a pile and clutched them to his chest, tenderly rocking them like a foal.
For him, they were all that remained of something precious.
* * * * * * *
The house was still dark this early in the morning, even if the wee hours were only “morning” by technicality. Moonlight filtered through the windows of the den and scattered over the floor, mostly undisturbed save the occasional rustle of the cherry tree outside. The air held an uncanny stillness, as if the night itself was silently waiting. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cold. There were no night birds chirping, no creaks or cracks that often accompany houses in the night. Everything was simply... quiet.
A dim, pallid shape stole across the floor, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding shadows. It paused a moment by some lumpy saddlebags settled against the wall - barely a moonlit silhouette themselves - then drifted into the cool silver light pouring through the bay window to reveal the form of a smallish pegasus colt. He stood there by the extended sill staring up at the moon for a few reverent moments and then hung his head, his nose almost touching the polished bleach-wood.
Dawn Runner had planned everything, and so far everything had gone without a hitch. It had all been fairly simple and easy till now. He had known it would be. Everything was ready. Well, everything except... one last thing he had been putting off. Part of him knew it should have been done earlier, maybe even first, but every time it came to mind he shook the thought away and focused on some other preparation. Packing, food, money... anything.
But there were no other preparations, no other distractions, and despite being last he knew it was the single most important thing that needed to be done. And it was the only thing he hadn’t been able to plan. Dawn Runner pulled his head up as a soft, quavered sigh swept through his chest. If he thought too much about it he’d start crying again and wouldn’t get anywhere. Worse, it would hold him up - and time was short, now.
The colt gathered his resolve with a soft gulp and walked back into the shadows to his saddlebags, a muffled rustle disturbing the silence as he rummaged through them. It only took a few moments to grab the paper sheets and pen. He knew exactly where they were. They had been intended for this very task. Another dry swallow seized his throat as he carried them back over to the window, laying them on the sill like a desk. The moon was bright enough at the moment, and he couldn't afford to turn on a light. It would have to do.
He stood there, staring at the pages for several long seconds before finally settling into a sitting position, his eyes still fixed on the blank pages as though trying to read unwritten words. After what felt like ages he shook his head, picked up the pen and leaned over the pages to begin.
“I don’t exactly know how I’m going to write this to you. I can’t know. I just know I need to write it. I have to give you some kind of explanation, even though I know you may not even finish this. Maybe you will - I could be wrong. I guess you might. I hope you will. I pray you will.
“When you start reading this, the only thing you’ll know is that... I’m gone. Part of me wants to tell you that I’ve always cared about you, and just leave it at that, but I can’t. Please, if any part of you is willing to listen, bear with me through what I have to say here. I want you to see things through my eyes, and maybe then when I tell you in this letter I love you, you’ll understand why, and how.
“You’ve always raised me and my siblings to be loving and caring. You’ve raised us being loving and caring, and you’ve always meant it. When I was a tiny foal Mom told me, and I quote, ‘You have an amazing capacity for love.’ I’ve never forgotten that. It ingrained itself into my memory and it has always been something that I cherished. I’m not perfect, and there've been many times where I didn’t feel I deserved to have that said about me at all. Even so, most people have points in their lives when they feel they experienced or discovered something that defined them, and that was mine. It’s something that I’ve clung to, and while a part of me feels broken now, it’s still something I hold onto, even as I write this.
“You've felt I've been really distant over the last few years, especially recently, and that's true. It's hard for me to tell you how much I treasure what you've given me as I've grown up as I look at how we've grown apart. I guess I feel like it would be hard for you to believe. What you know of me now is that I’m a grown colt who struggles at everything he does, gets frustrated with you at times and for the most part keeps himself sequestered away. I don't think you realize just how much your joking comments and many efforts to get me to spend more time with the family really pulled at my heart. There are reasons for all of that, but I’m not quite prepared to get to that part of the letter yet.
“Despite what our relationship has become, despite my frustrations and yours, I don't love you any less. I might seem distant, but I'm not. You’re all still very close to me, and I want to show that love to you. I can trace back the many times I’ve been upset or frustrated with you to one core cause, however unrelated it may seem. There has been an undercurrent in my heart that has put us at odds many times. A... pain. And I've realized what I need to do to show you the love I feel. The saddest part of this story is that, it ends, at least for me.
“By now, your minds are running trying to guess and perhaps brace yourselves for what I’m going to tell you. You might even be hoping the words just don’t show up on the page, and that as you continue reading, it will turn out to be something else entirely that comes up. Something... fixable. For your sakes, I’d like it to be, but as much as it tears at me I know better than to try and fix something that I’ve always known. And, I do mean always. This is no revelation to me, it’s just been a quiet secret, something I’ve kept locked away in my heart, always knowing but.. simply letting it lie there, and sometimes trying to forget.
“You don’t want to read it, and you can probably tell by my scribbles that I’m trembling right now trying to bring myself to write it. I'm shivering with cold and my wings aren't keeping me warm, but it isn't the room that's cold, it's just me. I hope by the time I’m finished, this letter is still legible. I'm just going to say what I have to say and explain after. You can throw this letter on the ground, you can stomp on it, you can curl up on the couch and cry on it. I understand and I expect it. All I beg of you is that once you’re composed again please, please come back. Come back and finish reading.
“I’m writing this to tell you that I’m a coltcuddler, and I always have been. I know the emotions that are flooding you right now. Fear, regret, anger, shame, concern, despair... pain. So much pain. It isn’t that you simply believe it isn’t proper, or that you have some unfounded, ingrained social convictions. You believe it's morally wrong, a sin, and I know every single reason why. I know every theological and sociological reason you hold against it. I know every argument or phrase you could possibly bring up. And believe me, they have all been haunting my mind for the last many years.
“But aside from all of that, I know your most basic reason for being upset. It isn’t simply that I violated something you felt was right. What you fear is much more threatening: you feel like I just told you I’m throwing my soul away. You believe that I'm ‘in rebellion,’ and even worse... that my soul may perish when I die. Right now I don't doubt you want nothing more than to try and grab me by the tail to drag me away from the fatal precipice of a terrifyingly permanent mistake. You aren’t concerned about yourselves, you're concerned about me. You love me, and you always have.”
Dawn Runner paused a moment, blinking away tears that were welling in his eyes and tried to clear his head with a sigh. Memories flooded his mind: happy, painful, agitating... it was difficult to sort them all out. He sniffled once and set his jaw, then went back to work.
“There are times I don’t want to understand this situation so well. It would be so much easier if I didn’t know what you were going through... but I do. I’ve seen you go through it before with my brother. Back then, I didn't fully understand what was going on when my brother came out to you, and you weren’t very quick to tell me either. We always had a tight-knit family. That day one of the strands holding us together snapped, painfully. Your evolution of emotions was a roller-coaster of despair and helplessness, but Stagelight jumped the hoops for you, or maybe he was pushed through. Either way, he loved you and wanted to do what was right. He went through ex-cuddler programs, counseling, accountability groups... he even joined the Equestrian Guard, and it seemed to 'work.'
“You were overjoyed when Stagelight told you he had 'gotten over it.' You felt like there had been a victory, a triumph, and you had your son back. I remember Mom’s beaming smile at me as she cried happily on the phone. That was when the full extent of the situation was delicately explained to me. And... then everything was dashed again when someone at his college got access to his computer and found ‘stallion images.’ Stagelight hadn’t gotten over it, and instead he was overcome with shame. He had tried, failed and succumbed to it. It broke your hearts apart again and then some. Mom would begin to cry whenever he was mentioned and it took years for her to talk about him without a strain in her voice, for her to lose that reticent, distant gaze when we talked about our family. For three years she wrote to him every single day: short, pleading notes that she hoped would reach him. The effect was equally clear on you, Dad.
“Shortly after I actually found out what was going on, I became an avid opponent of coltcuddlers. I sought out ways to shoot down their arguments in debate. I was on war against it. I told a friend once that it was one of the most heinous traps a pony could ever fall into because of how it dragged you in like a tar pit. I guess it’s ironic then that the more I researched it and the more I looked for ways to squelch out their logic and show them just how wrong they were, the more I found I had more questions than I did answers. The answers that I did find didn’t measure up to the questions. It was also around that time I started realizing a few things about myself. And, if I'm honest... I think part of my fire against homosexuality was my way of struggling against what I was feeling.
“I've never had a desire to seek out mares. Before I even knew what sex was I found myself attracted to stallions. I didn’t know why, but they attracted me. They felt safer, stronger... protective. When I saw old movies or cartoons that involved romance, I almost never associated myself with the hero or the stallion. Robin Hoof didn’t inspire me to go out and save maidens in distress; it made me dream of how wonderful it would be to have some stallion come save me. I'd always notice colts that were strong, handsome, friendly or had charming smiles. I found myself thinking about them and wanting to make good friends, wanting to impress them. I wanted them to like me. I could tell a ‘beautiful’ filly when I saw one, but that simply didn't interest me.
"When colts were presented as dumb or gruff dopes that could never understand mares, I always felt a little pang of resentment. I thought that anyone could understand anyone else so long as they had the heart and desire to. On the other hoof, it bothered me when guys would talk about girls because I felt like they were treating the girls no better than objects. To me, girls were great friends. I could talk with them and identify easily with them and, from everything I gathered, they with me. I didn't want to be a filly - I was content as a colt - but emotionally they always felt closer.
“The only ‘crush’ I’ve ever had on a filly wasn’t even a crush. I liked her personality and as far as I understood, that was a crush. I had no physical attraction to her or desire to show her any affection beyond normal friendship, hugging barely entered my mind and kissing didn't even occur to me. I didn't find the way she trotted alluring, or the way she wore her tail pretty. I didn't think her colors were especially entrancing. None of the stuff I heard other older colts talk about when it came to mares. You might remember her - a unicorn named Starshine. As I recall, she wasn’t even all that wild about me, even a little awkward and uncomfortable with my excited announcement of... well, having a crush. Even early on I regretted declaring such feelings when I realized I had only done it because I thought it was considered ‘proper’ and ‘cute.’
“Thankfully we were barely past foalhood and into adolescence, so it blew over as a case of kid-love. But, as the years passed and I grew older it didn’t prevent you, Dad, from trying to hint me in the direction of mares. I eventually put a stop to that through some well-placed exasperation and lack of responsiveness to your jabs, jokes and nudges, but you still didn’t stop worrying about me and that aspect of my life. There was even one point where you sent me to the youth counselor who told me that I was coming to an age where it was natural and normal for me to start ‘noticing fillies,’ and certain ‘aspects’ about them.
“I felt none of it. What’s more, I had no desire to. I was... blank. Anything I did feel was more just revulsion at the idea of doing anything intimate with a filly. It felt strange and... would you believe it? Unnatural. I politely sat through the session but found that, as always, remaining neutral was the best response. The strong push for me to be interested in fillies had at least wisened me to the fact that it was a bad idea to outright resist, even if the general rules on sexuality weren't really clear to me then. So, I passively assured him of the only thing I knew: he didn’t have to worry about me. I simply didn’t have the desire to seek out mares at that time.
"It was a simple, honest answer - and one I’ve given more than once in similar discussions with you. Only now as I look back do I realize how much that answer perplexed him. He sat behind his desk with a furrowed brow, tapping his hoof on the wood in an absent-minded fidget as he questioned me further, trying to find out why. When all I gave him were more neutral responses, he simply made a few more urging points and then ushered me out of his office.
“I guess that sort of ties into the next memory that brought this reality home to me, and ironically it came from within our own spiritual group, and on one of the "youth out-reach" trips led by that same counselor. It was a summer construction trip, where the team went out into the country to help fix the homes of other ponies. You might remember it: I had just gotten my cutie mark the week before and I was anxious to show it off to everyone. One of the stallion high-schoolers there was a real ham - he loved joking around and being a clown, and all in all he was a pretty nice guy. He was in the mares’ bedroom of the cabin we were staying in chatting with a few of the fillies on the team. I was in the next room, alone - everyone else had gone out to the pool since it was one of our ‘days off.’
“He called me into the room for a minute, and I had no reason not to go, so I got up and trotted in. The moment I entered, he swept me into a romantic hug and discretely placed a hoof over my muzzle while kissing the other side of it to make it look like we were kissing. I heard a camera go off just before I struggled to pull myself away and saw the mares giggling and laughing off to the side. The one who’d taken the picture said she was just going to stow the picture away for her ‘guilty pleasures,' and not to worry about her showing it to anyone.
“At the time, I couldn't do much. I was shocked, for a lot of reasons. Shocked, and scared. I leaned back against the cabin wall and just started to cry. Of course, being the guy he was, the stallion was immediately remorseful and I could tell he regretted doing it, though I think in part he was worried I might tell on him. He and the girls spent a few moments trying to reassure me that it was nothing big and just a joke, but eventually the stallion felt so ashamed he just made yet another apology and absconded downstairs.
"I had slumped down to the floor by that point and had mostly collected myself, but the girls were still talking with me and telling me they would destroy the picture. I tried to tell them it was okay, that I was just overreacting and I wasn’t prepared for it, that they didn't have to destroy the picture. But it was really a cover. They thought I had been upset at being treated like that and I couldn't let them think anything else. The real reason I was crying? Because I felt so terribly guilty for liking it. I felt guilty and confused for wanting the kiss to be real. The stallion was undeniably handsome, and I found myself dreaming about him doing it again, and loving me - I even wanted the picture. I felt like kicking myself for having 'ruined it' by breaking down.
“But I couldn’t tell anyone that. I could never tell anyone that. I knew enough to keep quiet. I had a newborn guilt over the fact that it was a stallion, but nothing deep-rooted. Any guilt over that was nothing more than an inkling from all the pressure I'd received towards mares. I was still in the dark about sexuality. I didn't even know how fillies worked that way, and I wasn't interested in knowing. In fact, I didn't even know 'coltcuddler' or 'homosexual' were words let alone something a pony could be. I just knew that anything intimate was wrong; I didn't think the gender really made that big of a difference.
“It wouldn't be for a few years after that I would really discover what was going on with Stagelight. That's when I started realizing how much you disliked homosexuality and I began sinking into my cloud of denial. I fought against it and it was easy for a little while. Everything was clearly set in my mind. I had a clear demarcation between right and wrong and seemed simple enough to follow. For me, the solution to feeling something I shouldn't and not feeling something I should, was to not feel anything at all. At least, as much as I was able.
"Mares weren’t even a temptation - they still repulsed me when it came to intimacy, but guys? I’d catch myself sneaking glances handsome colts or admiring stallions when I saw them working. I still felt drawn to stallions. I also felt deep pangs of guilt for the thoughts even approaching intimacy that entered my mind. To me, even kisses were intimate. I battled it off with streams of shame-ridden prayers at night. I knew the consequences if I did something wrong in that area: it meant my soul might not be saved. It was a 'serious sin.' Somehow, though, I still hadn't made the connection between myself and the ponies you all called 'homosexuals.'
“That's when I started preaching against homosexuals myself, even though I was young, and I wasn't afraid to go to battle over it. At least until the questions I started asking in an effort to prove my cause started turning on me. I sought answers I never found, and when I turned to others, what I did find were excuses. Excuses, accusingly raised brows, reprimands and dismissals, a heated war where even questioning what was considered right was paramount to sympathizing with the enemy and grounds for suspicion or at least being labeled ‘rebellious.’ I learned very quickly and very hard that questions were not tolerated. The excuses? ‘This has always been understood to be true. Who are you to challenge centuries of wisdom?’ Except I wasn't trying to challenge it, not then. The most constructive replies referred me to commentaries and treatises that all just said the same things over and over again, and nothing that actually solved the questions that had begun to build up. That's when doubt first started gnawing at my mind, and when I started actually putting two and two together with what had been going on inside myself.
"In many ways, it was like discovering I had a terminal disease, but worse. I was taught by lesson and by simple exposure to conversation that being a coltcuddler was a soul-damning 'practice,' something horrible and even criminal. When I was old enough to know it was wrong, but too young to recognize what was happening to me, I saw it just as people see some rare, terrible sickness: 'It's a bad thing, and it'll never happen to me.' I knew there were laws against it in some states, and I had heard of ponies being lynched for it by then. It was only later I learned that lynching usually involved killing. I heard brief, hushed stories about stallions raping other stallions, or 'sodomizing' them on news reports which were quickly (if belatedly) muted, and excerpts of conversations about Stagelight, and all of the sin he was falling into and its consequences. This all reaffirmed to me that it was something bad, something awful.
"As I grew older and became aware of my own tendencies, though, I realized I was 'infected.' My basest desires revolved around - no, were founded on something that would curse my soul for eternity. They weren't just periodic thoughts that would sneak into my mind; my very instincts drew me to colts, and I couldn't feel anything for mares. I tried to feel something for mares but they still repulsed me and felt entirely against my grain. It was the way my mind worked! I hadn't trained myself that way. I hadn't pursued or 'practiced' it. It was just there. It wasn't just a part of me, it was me. I couldn't get rid of it. And it... was one of the most frightening things I've ever felt.
"Up until then, I could handle death because I thought my soul was safe. I wasn't worried about it, it didn't bother me. Death would come when it was time, and I would simply live life. But after that revelation I was seized with a constant, harrowing fear. I didn't want to die and have my soul be punished forever. Death didn't represent peace to me anymore - it represented pain. It was a portal into torment for what I was. I thought maybe, maybe I was still safe despite myself. Maybe when I died, I would be safe. Maybe. Always maybe. I didn't want to find out.
"Fear began to lace everything. I was afraid of long trips, I was afraid of machinery, I was afraid of heavy sports, I was afraid of vehicles, I was afraid of storms, I was afraid of getting sick, sometimes I was even afraid of flying! And I never showed it, because I was afraid you'd get curious. I guess that means I feared you more than death itself, in a way.
“I fell into turmoil. It was overshadowed by many things, but there it was at the core. Fear, doubt, guilt... that undercurrent of pain I told you of: it all estranged me from you more and more. I loved you, so very dearly, but I felt alien to you. I felt like you were hostile to me because I knew what you would feel about me if you were aware. I knew how much it'd hurt you, and how much you would hurt me. Despite my doubts, I still wanted to cling to the hope that I was safe. I didn't want to doubt what was right or wrong, and my heart became one big battleground between the side of me that realized what I was, and the side of me that wanted to believe I could drive it out of myself.”
Once again Dawn Runner pulled back, ears tucked underneath his mane, but this time he simply stared at the page. Trembles ran through his body as he fought the tension and anxiety building inside. He had to keep writing. He had to finish.
“We fought many times and our arguments would escalate each other. I was distracted through school. I couldn’t focus. The brilliant mind Mom has always been so convinced I have failed in math, failed in many areas, even my talent. And I felt... I felt broken. I felt corrupt. I have asked myself so many times why I didn’t grow up like other colts, why I never developed feelings for mares. I was even jealous of bisexual ponies - at least they could lead normal lives like everyone else. If I were bisexual, I could have settled down with a marefriend and pretended none of this horrible debate in me ever existed. Why did something that felt so innate to me have to be something that would break your hearts again? Why did it have to be something so dire? Why did it have to be me?
“I’m not sure which irony is greater. The irony that my awareness of how much you were against coltcuddlers correlated almost directly with how much I saw it in myself, or the irony that my own search to prove being a coltcuddler was wrong ultimately led to my own terrifying self-discovery. Either way, it carried me down into a painful silence that just grew deeper as your vehemence against homosexuality increased. But, all of that in itself led to another, even greater irony.
“Our days the last many years, ever since Stagelight, have been littered with conversations about coltcuddlers whenever something happened to trigger the topic. At the dinner table I'd sit there and force myself to placidly stick food in my mouth and chew as if nothing were wrong while you repeated the latest bit of propaganda or discouraging news about how homosexuals were battling something in the courts. Even when we had company over, you weren't shy talking about how coltcuddlers were 'attacking' marriage and how homosexuals in general were morally aberrant, sinful ponies who used every underhooved political trick to get their way.
"You had signed up for political newsletters with the latest info on the 'homosexual movement' so we would know which companies and stores to boycott if they supported coltcuddlers in even the smallest ways. I remember one year at our Heart's Warming open house party, you proudly announced that we had bought our tree from a different store because the one we usually went to had put out a stand at a pride parade, and began encouraging everyone to avoid shopping there. I guess the saddest part was, the thing that even triggered the topic was a discussion on gift-shopping. Very frequently, it didn't take much.
"There were a few favorite talking points, though, which were often saved for when we were invited over to the homes of family friends where you could share your misery with sympathetic ears. The first was my brother. I can see Mom's delicately pained expression as she begins talking about Stagelight like a prodigal poster-child, how he was wayward and running away from the truth, and how much she hoped someday he would 'let go of his sin' and return to you. Over the intervening years it had become a personal testimony of pain, a badge of how stalwart you were in the face of adversity.
"The next was how coltcuddling and fillyfooling were once listed as mental illness, but that homosexuals had politically pressured the psychiatric groups into removing them. Then you would move on to how the coltcuddler 'agenda' was to undermine social standards and destroy 'family values' so that they could force their position whether or not 'the people' wanted it. You liked that phrase, 'the people.' It was almost a motto that you rallied yourselves around or a frill around your neck to make yourself feel larger. Any progress made by homosexuals was a coercion of power against 'the will of the people.' Any judge who ruled in their favor was ignoring what 'the people' wanted. I guess in some ways it made you feel better to think that most agreed with you, and this was all being done in defiance of the grand majority.
"These conversations weren't limited to the private spheres, though. Sometimes you even brought it up with chatty strangers at the market, discussing how coltcuddlers were 'forcing their perversion on others and into schools,' and trying to get themselves 'legitimized' by the media. One night at home, Mom bemoaned the fact that movies and shows always portrayed coltcuddlers as 'the wise ones,' and how awful it was that the media was trying to 'make wickedness acceptable to society.' Quite often, when someone who acted like a coltcuddler or a fillyfooler in your estimation came on the television, you'd make a disgusted snort and change the channel, and usually accompanied by similar comments.
"Yet another occasional topic came up whenever there was a report of some coltcuddler or fillyfooler being killed or committing suicide. You might briefly mention it was 'a shame,' but without missing a beat you'd move on to grimly add that 'the coltcuddler movement will just try to turn it into a martyr.' There were some meager scraps of sympathy to be had, but you were so deeply entrenched in your position that you wouldn't even dare look past its walls long enough to recognize your own numbness and see the callouses that were growing on your hearts. You couldn't allow yourselves to feel too much pity because that was too close to sympathy, so you always dressed it up as a political springboard. Sympathy meant you might be wrong."
Words were now rushing out of Dawn as a stifled muse found its voice in his writing, though his stomach churned with every sentence he completed. The paper was peppered with small rips where the pressure of his pen had torn, and the pain in every heart-wrung letter echoed in his darkened eyes as it flew past.
"It got worse when the legal battles over marriage rights began. Your zeal doubled over and everything revolved around that moral battlefield. The radio during the day was almost constantly tuned to some conservative station that regurgitated a never-ending stream of anti-homosexual propaganda, and there I witnessed some of the ugliest examples of social manipulation I've ever seen.
"The radio hosts went on and on about how terrible it would be if our kids saw two stallions kissing in a grocery store. The coltcuddlers were trying to take away our rights as voters by playing the system. They wanted to force their 'lifestyle' on us and pry their way into schools to 'program' our foals that same-sex marriage between stallions and mares was okay, that being homosexual was okay. Almost every ad and campaign was strewn with some form of 'save the children!' Marriage was a sacred institution, something to be defended and not have "stolen away" or "redefined" by ponies who wanted to corrupt it for their own perversion. Coltcuddlers already had 'enough rights,' and they simply wanted to take away our freedoms and force their will on us. They didn't want a fair fight, they wanted to subvert the choice of parents by going through the courts. Statistics were run off about how unhealthy homosexual relationships were, how many engaged in pedophilia and 'other forms of sexual perversion.'
"It was an epic war between good and evil, filled with redundant slogans and taglines crafted to make people feel threatened by homosexuals without ever actually telling them what there was to be threatened by. The campaigns wanted a knee-jerk reaction to beat away the same-sex enemy. And of course... there I was with my family at the front lines. There was no part of your lives or mine that it did not touch.
"I'm sure you remember the ice cream shop you loved to buy from because they were financially supporting the 'battle.' You would buy me desserts there all the time, and even now you still buy from them to show your support. You kept parroting almost every line of political script you heard, sending me petitions to sign and giving me 'voting guides' that blacklisted any politician who supported or identified as coltcuddler as 'against family values,' 'anti-family' or any number of other damning buzzwords. Almost any reason to see coltcuddlers as a subversive enemy was a good reason.
"I told you that all of this led to a greater irony. Up till that point, my battle against my own homosexuality was a painful one. I felt horrible for being a coltcuddler, for being something so dark and sinful. I feared my own moral depravity, and I feared the fact that part of me didn't think it was wrong. I really did feel like I was struggling against a disease, and my conscience was a charred battlefield of emotions and arguments. But all of your fury and fire started to burn away a shroud.
"I began to realize that you weren't just talking about some nebulous, distant group of people. You were talking about me. You were saying and believing all of those things, about me. You were protecting children from me. Every targeted accusation against homosexual was being levied against me. Me, your son - the little foal you raised and taught to fly. The one you made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for growing up. The one who used to make play-huts out of the tallgrass in our back yard. The colt that loved to catch tree frogs and lizards off the windows to keep as pets. The one who emptied out his meager bank account every Heart's Warming so he could see you happy. The one who had spent days and nights with a heart twisted in pain and fear over the heartbreak you would feel if you found out. I loved you! And you were saying all of those things about me!
Dawn Runner broke off and brought his wing around to muffle a few huffed, sharp breaths, closing his eyes as he struggled to fight the sobs that caught in his throat. Every gasp of air shuddered through his chest, and when he opened his eyes again he stared blankly into the darkness for a few motionless moments before turning back to the pages.
"The only thing standing between me and your missiles of propaganda, was a paper-thin veil of ignorance that could tear at any time. I began to hear you talk about homosexuals, how they wanted to destroy families and ruin our society, and my mind would whisper back, 'I'm not like that. That isn't me. No, that isn't me. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to do that. That isn't me...' I’ve come to realize that Silence has been my greatest friend.
"I began to understand that 'destroying families' many times meant, simply being a coltcuddler, just as Stagelight had 'hurt' our family by being a coltcuddler. You saw him as the source of the problem, and you would see me the same way. All because of one thing that I had never asked for, that I hadn't tried to become, something I often didn't want to be, just something I was... all of those disparaging, awful accusations would be aimed at me. It was then I really understood that I was hiding in a war where you had unwittingly made yourselves my hunters. You've always taught me to love even my enemies. I never realized, growing up, you were teaching me to love you.
“I had a coltfriend once. You actually met him when he came to visit, and you can probably guess who it was. He’s the only stallion I’ve ever been intimate with, and then he left me. I had spent two years in a relationship with him hoping for something life-long, and I had it ripped away. My life shattered, my grades and my performance plummeted, but I took it with a straight face and reined in my emotions till I could cry myself to sleep at night. I couldn't tell you what had happened, why I was failing. I had myself tested for a learning disability to try and fix things, but it didn't work.
“I couldn’t risk you asking questions. I knew the consequences from having seen them before with Stagelight. But it wouldn't be like the time Stagelight came out to you. I had been tempered in your own furnaces of passion, and driven to the realization that you were fighting an enemy that didn't exist. Your own war had convinced me that I wasn't necessarily wrong to be a coltcuddler. I would refuse to put myself through any form of therapy or counseling, and that kind of ‘rebellion’ would have only one result: I would be stuck on the street with nothing but my wings and my already failed life, a life stunted by dangerous secrets and fear.
“You would pray at the dinner table that I would be made miserable in my ‘sin’ so that I would turn away from it, that my life would be a failure until I stopped, just as I heard you pray for my brother many, many times before. You saw it as tough love, a ‘hedge of thorns’ to guide the wayward home. You would... ‘pray for the prodigal son,’ hoping, dreaming that he would come back in repentance.
“Others would call you terrible parents without knowing you, but I know better. You sent Stagelight money and supplies when he needed it more than once when he was off on his own. Despite your prayers that he would be miserable, you went out of your way to help him whenever you could. You still called him son and loved him as such. You never disowned him and you never had the desire to. You didn’t act as though he was dead, or reject him. You just wanted him back, and safe. You even invited him back home for the holidays many years, to the point of paying his fare when he couldn't afford it. After calls he'd make on rare occasion I'd see the tears in your eyes. I know you love Stagelight and I know you love me. I also know why you do what you do.
“The first reason is that you would rather we have miserable lives than go to what you think waits for us: the death of our souls. You would rather that we burn our hooves than die in the fire. You honestly felt that was the best for him and you cried over it. You wanted anything so you could feel your son was safe again. It’s so odd, the things that desperate love will do and say. If only it were as easy as loving your son and letting him be who he is, without worrying about his eternal fate... life hasn’t been that simple for you. Or for me.
“The second reason is misery. You felt like you were watching your son commit spiritual suicide and there was nothing you could do to stop him. I’m sure you now feel the same things about me. Your passion is just a fortress of zeal you've built around your broken hearts, and you try to overwrite the agony by taking comfort in holding fast to what you believe to be the ‘right thing.’ It's the only good thing you can see in all of that pain.
"And now you have me to add onto all of that. I know you think l deceived you by never telling you about this, by not allowing you to ‘help’ me, just as you felt about Stagelight. There were a few points where you really were afraid I was a coltcuddler and I purposefully evaded it till the notion faded. From there I worked hard to build trust with you again. I let you go on believing I just wasn’t ready for a marefriend. I allowed you to draw your own conclusions on a lot of things. But I always, always avoided lying, even if my life so far has ended up a lie in itself anyway.
"You aren’t terrible - you’re the family who taught me what real love is. You aren’t perfect, and you've done a lot of things I think were wrong. Still, I'll never forget the things you've done right. I know the kind of heartbreak you’re feeling from what I’ve written. You have no idea how well I know it. Images of what you'll do when you find this have been repeating in my mind like some... awful, unborn premonition. And there's a large part of me that still never wants it to come to light. It tore me apart and it's tearing me apart now. I felt like a traitor in my own home, with my own family. A family I loved and cared for dearly and wanted to see happy.
"You were so beautifully close so many times; we've always been a close family and you've tried to stay close to me. But, I've kept distant. Both for your sakes and for mine. I can't help but think about the times when you asked why I didn't always eat dinner with the family, and if I didn't like eating with you. No, I loved eating with you, playing games with you, sharing with you, laughing with you, being with you... But I hated every moment I had to think about what it would be like if you knew. Every Heart’s Warming, every holiday, every birthday, every vacation, sometimes just every day - everything that tied us close together as a family - it’s all become a reminder of what I won’t have in the future with you. Everything was tainted by the haunting awareness that it would be gone. I can't think of how to describe it... it's like seeing the things going on around me as if they're already memories of a distant past.
“Many times I've yearned to go back to being a foal, or at least the way things were then. As a foal I never had to worry about any of this. I was blissfully ignorant of sex, of romance, of any intimacy beyond simply loving those around me. There have been times I'd have rather died as that little colt. I felt like life would have been easier that way, for all of us. I’d have never wrestled with a ‘right or wrong’ question that held my soul in the balance, or struggled with trying to convince myself that I ought to love mares, and wondering why I didn’t. And for you - it’s one thing to lose someone you love dearly but know his soul is safe. It’s a far more frightening thing when you don’t know the outcome or fear the worst. At least if I had died then you would have felt I was safe in the arms of peace. I find it strangely ironic that despite our now opposing sides, the fear that has gripped me all these years is now the very same fear that claws at you.
“I’m sure there are many things you’re regretting, thinking of all kinds of things you might have ‘done differently’ to avoid this. You don’t want to hear about ‘what I am’ or ‘what I’ve become’ or 'what you've taught me,' because none of those things are something you want to think about anymore. I imagine hearing those words just makes you feel sick, and you probably hold yourselves responsible for 'this' in many ways. You feel a weight of guilt that you didn't keep me from this, especially since you likely saw me as your ‘second chance’ after Stagelight. I know it also it twists your heart in knots for me to say I love you, and that in itself stabs at my own. It's stomach-turning to realize that things I want to say out of love have become something so agonizing for you to hear.
"I've spent my time a hermit, literally locking myself away and letting my life pass by for your sakes, often wrestling away that same crippling fear for my soul, a fear of you, and a deep, strangling guilt. You have no idea how much I've kept silent on and how much emotion I've locked away so it would never be seen. It wasn't just that I was afraid of you. I was even more afraid of hurting you. In some ways I guess I’ve been holding myself away, trying to maintain that past innocence of worry when I was a foal for all our sakes, but I've learned it doesn't work that way. I have to move on from the past because my future is calling, and it’s a call I’ve been ignoring for much too long.
“From this point, I expect you'll ensconce yourselves even more in fighting homosexuality, no matter what I say here. While I might desperately hope otherwise, you already have the fortress to expand the battlements on. You would say the answer to my fear and struggle is to give up my ‘sin,’ and tell me that any refusal on my part is a rejection of the truth. You’ll continue taking refuge in your ‘faithfulness’ to the position you hold, using it to bolster yourselves as you always have, and issue nothing but ultimatums that deny any possibility that your position might be wrong. I’m not going to try and convince you, because I know you're the only ones who can convince yourselves.
"I think it’s obvious now why my chapter in your lives needs to end. As much as I love you, I can’t spend my life battling a non-existent foe and I’m not willing to spend it living a lie any longer. I want to be able to laugh and smile again. I want to be able to feel joy, unspoiled. I want to love people with all my heart, and not with a heart chained with pain and guilt. I can’t stay locked up in a room, imprisoned by fear, where Silence is my best of friends. It’s time for me to live what life I have left.
“You will not find me. Please don’t look for me. I'm saving you the trouble of many painful arguments and this will be easier for you if you simply accept it as it is. I will not go to counseling. I will not go to ex-cuddler groups. I am not going to entertain the idea that I am anything other than what I am, anymore. You can believe it, or you can call it a lie, but this is what I have always been, and I have no reason to believe that will change.
“The thing I've come to terms with, in all of this time, is that you break your own hearts here, as much as that hurts me to see. I can't take responsibility for your own refusal to listen to any reasons I might give. I can't spend my life trying to carry a weight you bring on yourselves. But, despite what I think you'll do... there's also what I hope you'll do. This letter is my show of love to you, because I believe that however painful the truth may be, ultimately, the truth is the only thing that gives you the chance to be truly happy. It’s my hope someday that you take what I’ve told you to heart and open yourselves to listen. Hope springs eternal.
Yours truly,
Dawn Runner"
The colt dropped his pen as he finished, and a few sharp sobs seized his chest. It was if the pen had been the reins to a harness restraining his emotions, and now they ran unfettered like the tears splattering the bottom of the page, leaving a signature of smudged ink and tear-stains. The colt tried to muster what control he had left and pulled himself upright, wiping his face with his wings so he could busy himself with putting the pages in order. But tears kept running down his powder-blue coat, and the more he struggled with the pages the heavier his sobs became. Finally he ran his hoof over the stack in a haphazard swipe and slumped forward into his wings, his quiet, muffled voice the only sound in the room.
Behind him, the first faint rays of sunrise were peeking through the dew-fogged windows across the den. There was no warmth yet, but the golden hues held a silent promise.
Eventually Dawn Runner quieted, but he still sat unmoving for a long while before slowly pulling himself to his hooves. Though his lungs heaved periodically, it was much softer and less frequent than before. He wiped a foreleg over his face to clear the tears clinging to his eyelashes and gazed at the sloppily folded pages and sloppier writing hiding behind their edges. It was done. It was finally done. And... it was time to go.
He turned away and walked over to the saddlebags that sat waiting for him against the wall, sniffling as he nosed his way into them and swallowing back the last of his emotion into submission. As he crept into the hallway, the dimly lit shape of a family photo caught his eye from the wall. The smiling, time-frozen figures appeared almost ghostly in the dim morning light, and for a moment he was stolen away, imagining their loving expressions to be a wordless blessing in some distant, perfect world. His eyes lingered there, saying their silent goodbyes till he slowly tore their gaze away and kept walking. When he opened the front door, a cool breeze rushed up to him and danced over his body. Somehow, the moist chill didn't bother him... It was strangely comforting, beckoning Dawn Runner to take his first step. The hint of a bittersweet smile tugged his lips and one last straggling tear coursed its way down his cheek.
“May everyone... find hope...”
As the door closed with a whispered click only the faintest flutter of wings echoed beyond it, and then the house fell silent. There were no creaks, no morning birds, no shuffled footsteps.
Everything was simply... quiet.