> The Pains Of A Pink Pony
>  by LuminousRabbit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Shards of the Rainbow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkamena never saw the sonic rainboom. It was a simple reason, really, but one that changed her life forever. 

Instead of outside, in the bleak, weary cloudgloom of her parents' rock farm, she was wedged in between two boulders, twirling the knife around in her hooves, scowling at it, like it was the reason for all her woes. 
The little crack between the boulders was her favourite place to retreat to when the pain of living became too much, her parents too harsh, and her sisters too grey. The cool, smooth rock was soothing, it provided somewhat of a respite from the heavy scratchy bags that she used to carry the rocks from one field to the next. 

There was no wind that day, an unusual occurance on the wind-swept hills she lived on. Her father had complained about it, saying How can we find the rocks and harvest them with no wind to blow the topsoil away?! 
But Pinkamena was glad. Her mother constantly chastised her when her mane was blown into disarray by the wind, though Pinkamena could do nothing to stop it, and roughly brushed through the knots in her wild pink mane, causing it to stay deadly straight. 

Her mother had hit her again this morning, and Pinkamena had fled to her boulders in order to hide the angry red mark from her sisters, not that it would make any difference if they saw. Pinkamena Diane was beaten on a daily basis. Her parents always managed to find something wrong with her, something that she had done incorrectly. 
And however much she tried to be perfect, her sisters always became the subjects of her parents' nepotism, not her. And so, eventually, Pinkamena had stopped trying. 

She embraced the pain, used it to strengthen her, and after a time, she found that she did not care about anything. Once or twice, she had tried to run away, but her father always caught up with her before she reached the borders of their enormous land. Pinkamena looked around casually, making sure there was nopony in sight. She didn't want her hiding place found out about, not by anypony. 

A breeze picked up, quite a strong one, and Pinkamena hunched down against the rocks. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the feel of cold air on her fur vanished, and the whistling noise silenced. 
This, readers, was the sound of the sonic rainboom. But Pinkamena never looked up, and instead of overwhelming joy, all she felt was a deafining hopelessness that echoed and resonated throughout the land. Pinkamena Diane would never become Pinkie, and she would never know what life may have awaited her in Ponyville. 

Or would she...? 

Pinkamena raised the knife slightly. It was a small number, but serrated in a way that would be useful for cutting meat, though ponies knew no such cusine. 
If she adjusted her vision, the knife would go out of focus, and the scars, new and old, that covered her forelegs were plain to see. Given years, these may have faded, but the constant reopening of the wounds provided a good supplement to make them more permanant. 
If she had indeed seen the rainboom, Pinkamena would have stopped cutting herself, and the scars would have faded over time. But alas, it was not to be so. 

The pink filly brought the knife down, deep into her skin. It was horribly painful, but all reaction she showed was a sharp intake of breath. Sweat beads ran down her face, being absorbed by the pink fur. She drew the knife up the length of her foreleg, deep and hard. The blood flowed, deeper than sunset, and the hungry, angry voice inside Pinkamena silenced. But it would be back. It always returned. 

'Pinkamena,' came the cry of her father, 'Pinkamena, come here! We have rocks to harvest!! Are you shirking your duties, daughter?!' 
Pinkamena quickly sucked away as much blood as she could from her wound, and emerged from the rock. 'No, father,' she said, 'I was seeing if there were any rocks over here we could harvest.' 

Her father's face, now in view beside the one dead tree on their land, contorted in anger and frustration. 'Are you lame!? We harvested that field last week! What use are you if you cannot tell field from field, rock from rock?' 

Sobbing now, from pain and fear, Pinkamena approached her father. 'I'm sorry, I should have known,' she cried. 
But instead of showing pity, her father only became more angry. 'Stop your whining, useless wretch!' he said, and hit her again. Pinkamena gasped as she hit the ground, and the wind was hit out if her. She lay there like a beached whale, gasping for air. 

Her father kicked her while she was down, saying 'Get up, you worthless foal, and come harvest the rocks!!' 

'N-no,' she coughed, dragging herself to a shakey stand. Scrapes covered her legs and otherwise blank flank. 
'What? What did you say to me?' 

'I... I-' she coughed, stumbling as she finally stood up as tall as she could, but regaining balance quickly. 'I said no. NO! I won't harvest any more rocks! You have worked me too hard for too long! I WILL NEVER TOUCH A ROCK AGAIN FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE!' she shouted, anger boiling up inside her. She could hear the voice in her head, stronger now that she was letting the anger surface. 'I HAVE BEEN GIVEN NO FREEDOM MY ENTIRE LIFE! YOU'VE HURT ME, I'VE NEVER HAD A DAY OF FUN! I QUIT!!!' she yelled, her voice almost competing with that of the Royal Canterlot variety. 'I QUIT!', she repeated, stomping her hoof on the hard ground. 

Her father's eyes widened and flashed, pupils dilated, his brow scowled deeper than the pink pony had ever seen, contorting into an ugly façade. 
'What did you say to me?' he asked softly. Then his voice got louder, 'You say we have given you nothing?! What about the roof over your head, the food you eat? Where does that come from, brat?! You are an insufferable wretch who has brought this family nothing but heartache and misery! But yet we tolerate you! This is how you repay us?! If you quit, then you are a trespasser upon this land, and I will destroy you!!!!'

He grabbed her roughly by the mane and dragged her into the large grey barn. Then he threw her down to the rough dirt floor, and kicked her, again and again and again. 
Spots began to form on the edge of Pinkamena's vision, and she felt herself fading away. She didn't know how long it lasted, but by her standards it was a long, painful time. The pain was so, so great, it blocked out everything else. 

And then.... It faded. Am I dead? Pinkamena wondered. 

She slowly opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor of the barn, several sharp rocks digging into her sides. Rocks. That word brought her back to reality. There was her father, inspecting the knife that had fallen from her hoof. 

She scrambled across and snatched it away from his gaze. The knife was hers, the only possession she owned. Her father would not take that from her. 
'Where did you get this?' he asked sharply. 'Come on, out with it!' 
Pinkamena opened her mouth, and tasted the blood. She spat it out, and a tooth went with it. 'I don't remember,' she choked. 

And it was true. Pinkamena had accquired that knife so long ago, she didn't remeber where it had come from. But her father didn't believe her. 
'Liar,' he spat, 'You know what I think? I think you are a theif. I cannot believe I ever let such scum live here. You are a stupid pony, you know that?!' 

And that, readers, is when the pink pony snapped. 

She wasn't stupid. She knew she wasn't stupid. Pinkamena Diane Pie had withstood many an insult, but her parents had never called her stupid before, simply because it wasn't true in the slightest. 
She jumped upon her father, slashing out with the knife. He was knocked onto his back as she hacked her way into his chest. Blood covered them both. 
'I. AM. NOT. STUPID!!!' she screamed. He was dead, but she didn't care. She dug her way deeper and deeper into his flesh, his chest. She met the ribcage, and it would not yeild. In anger and frustration, in livid fury, she got up. With a crack and a crunch and powerful legs, the legs of an Earth pony that wasn't holding back, Pinkamena stomped her way through, puncturing both lungs, these lungs that no longer drew breath. 

She could feel it, her ancestry, the spirits of the first Earth ponies behind her as tore out his ribs, his lungs, searching for her prize. Finally she found it: Her father's heart. 

Tearing out the veins and arteries that connected it to the rest of his body, she threw the knife aside and held the heart in both hooves. The blood made it glisten in the light, and the way she held it was a feeling of ultimate satisfaction. The voice in her head, the one that constantly spoke to her, was now silent, satisfied. 

And so, she took the heart, the knife, and a bag of her father's bits, and left the rock farm forever.