Dead On My Hooves

by Lemonshrike Catworthy

First published

I've lost something precious.

Something precious to me has been stolen.
Perhaps something even more precious can fix me.

Precious

View Online

I’m dead.
A husk.
It’s not his fault.
It’s mine.
I said no.
But he didn’t stop.
It’s my fault.

I’m a mare. I’ve been told I’m a wonderful one. Ambitious, confident...
And broken.

If my friends ever knew, they’d fawn over me and never let me go.
Only one of them is allowed to do that.

I was flying happily through cerulean skies, only a few clouds that instead of marring the beauty, added to it. I’ve never been one to think or be introspective, but I was contemplating life at that time. I’d been pushing myself harder and harder, getting stronger, better. I can do a rainboom on take-off, now. My feet leave the ground and a prismatic spray surrounds me. She loves my rainbooms. Then he crashed into me. A unicorn. My murderer.

He with the honeyed words and a strangely feminine beauty hanging around his masculine frame. I’m a lesbian, so even if I don’t like stallions normally, this one attracted me with his dark grey coat and light pink mane. Not my heart, no. But my body. Even so, I didn’t want to go with him. My heart and therefore body belonged to another, even if she didn’t know it. I was still innocent, a virgin mare. Was.

When I turned my back, his hoof connected with my skull, and the world went dark.

I woke up elsewhere. I know now it was under a shack hidden deep in the Everfree Forest, but at the time, it was just a dark room with rough stone underhoof and packed dirt for the walls. It wasn’t pleasant. But that didn’t matter, I was chained up. Then he came back in. And he looked angry. I saw him coming at me, and his horn turned me around. He pinned me to the ground with his magic. I screamed. I cried. I fought.

I yelled at him to stop.

He didn’t.

And I lost something precious to me.

I don’t remember how I escaped.

But I didn’t leave my home for a week.

I spent that week crying.

She came looking for me, but I turned her away.

I couldn’t let her see the bruises.

The blood.

The shame.

And then I went to her castle. The purple crystal that matched the coat of the owner. And she knew something was wrong. She knew something had happened before that, but I’m sure me knocking on the door of our shared castle instead of crashing through a window had some effect. I couldn’t let her know. She could never know. She wouldn’t think I was weak. She’d say I’m strong for surviving it.

And.

She’d kill him.

She’d kill him and resurrect him and ship him off to Celestia, who would no doubt banish him and imprison him in the place she banished him too.

I wanted that, I wanted it so badly.

But then ponies would know my secret, my shame.

I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a foal.

That would have been impossible to hide. Especially from the Wonderbolts. And Twilight. My Twilight. The mare I fell in love with.

I’m dead, dead on my hooves. My mind is blank. My body violated. She’ll find out eventually, she always does.

I tell one pony.

I tell Twilight.

I tell her of how I was enjoying my day before he stole me, he stole my precious gift. I told her I was thinking of a mare at that time. One I loved. I saw her eyes dim a little as she asked who. I looked away. I blushed. I told her. She blinked. And then she danced in joy, she held me close as I cried into her, crying the week away. I make her Pinkie Promise she won’t tell anyone about this without my permission. She does so instantly. Someway, somehow, by telling her I loved her I made her this happy. I don’t know how. No. I didn’t know how.

Then she told me that she loved me.

She loved me!

It’s been a long time since I felt this happy. Joyous. Elated. She wraps me in a hug again and doesn’t let go. She tells me that no matter what, I’ll never feel this way again. I believe her. I fall asleep in her hooves as she does the same in mine. Hours later, we wake up. She asks me if we can find this evil stallion and do something to him. I beg her not to even as she pleads that we do. We reach a compromise. We can tell our friends in twelve months. But for the moment?

A private trial by Celestia herself.

Only she needs to know.

Paperwork can be hidden, after all, and the Royal Dungeons extend deep under Equestria.

He never told me his name, so we have to identify him by sight. I’d know him anywhere. We haven’t told Celestia yet, we want to find him before we bother the Elder Princess of our nation. Then I see him. I remember my way to the shack. He’s dragging another mare. Twilight rushes to write an emergency letter to Celestia, teleporting it directly to the Solar Diarch. I ram into the stallion at full speed. I recognise the mare. It’s Derpy. As clumsy as she can be, I love her to bits. Platonically, of course. My romantic love involves a lot more purple. I hold him down while Twilight wakes Derpy and moves her away. Then a massive ray of pure sunlight lances through the trees, and Celestia is there. The stallion is whisked away by the sun itself. Twi and I take Derpy back to her house and her filly. She thanks us. I head back to the castle with my purple pony Princess. We lie down in the library, curled up around each other. I smile at her and thank her from the bottom of my heart. I catch her lips in a kiss.

I’m alive now.