Snowflakes & High Stakes
I - Tattoo or Cutie Mark? - I
I was a sleeper. A sleeper is a person that appreciates sleeping and cannot function without at least seven hours of sleep per twenty-four hour period. But I could only guess the definition of a “sleeper”, since I called myself one. I liked my sleep, and since it was my birthday today, I planned on sleeping until at least nine o’ clock in the morning. But someone wasn’t going to allow me to do that, and it made me very unhappy. And that someone? That someone was my twin brother.
My eyes snapped open when I felt Ben start to shake my shoulder violently. He stopped when he noticed that I was awake, and I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “Who dareth to disturbith mah slumber?” I growled in a horrible medieval tongue.
Ben only sighed and stepped back as I sat up. I rubbed my face as the reminants of the dream I had right before I woke up echoed in my head. “Five score, divided by four…” I groaned, seeing as that was the only part of the dream I could remember.
“I had the weirdest dream this morning,” I told him as I climbed out of bed, revealing that I was dressed in only a sky-blue tank top and navy blue pajama pants covered in heart-shaped owls and white and red snowflakes. My feet were bare, and the light purple nail-polish was visible on my toenails. “Anyway, why did you wake me up, Ben?”
“We were supposed to dunk one-another in the snow on the anniversary of our birthdays, sis’. Now we can’t because its five minutes after yours,” he gestured to the clock on my side-table. I blinked and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes as I took in the blue numbers on my digital clock. 8:50 AM.
I was born at 8:45 AM.
“Crap,” I moaned. “At least I won’t have to do it to you, then,” I told him, turning to face him. He towered over my five foot seven with a total height of six foot one. I doubted I would even be able to knock him into the snow, even though I was strong enough to heft a sixty-pound bale of straw into a horse paddock.
Ben watched me as I went about my room, gathering up the clothes I’d be wearing on my special day. Or our special day. Ben was already dressed, meaning that he had already showered. I picked up a pair of slightly baggy jeans along with a bright turquoise belt to help hold it up, a plain pastel violet t-shirt, and white socks. After I had gathered everything, I disappeared into the bathroom for a quick shower.
I had to say that I was blessed. I had a mom and dad that loved me very much. I had a warm and safe roof over my head, and two siblings, my twin, Ben, and my little sister, Silvia. She was eight years old. I had almost everything I could have wished for, and I lived on a farm. The house I lived in was a strong log home with rock accents, and it was always warm thanks to the large fireplace in the living room. I was thankful for my family and my home, so I was as happy as could be.
As I washed myself with warm water running down over me, I continued to think. But all thoughts stopped when I spotted something on my left hip. My heart froze and stopped beating when I focused on it and saw that it was a tattoo. But it was like a cutie mark from a TV show me and my brother like to watch once and a while with Silvia. It was a picture of a shooting star, and it was so detailed looking that, for a second, I hoped it wasn’t a wash-offable tattoo. I was a big fan of Cloudchaser – I had a plush of her that was sitting up on my bed amongst my messed up sheets – but I never expected a tattoo of her cutie mark.
Finishing my shower, while wondering how I could have possibly got that tattoo (had Mom and Dad pranked me?), I prepared myself for the day. Getting dressed in the clothes I had brought with me into the bathroom, I went and blow-dried my hair. Usually I left it up in a towel, but today I wanted it to be dry and I did not have to go and do it later. Dad was going to have his camera, and I didn’t want to be caught in any pictures with a towel on my head wrapped up like a middle-eastern turban.
Once my chocolate brown hair was dry, I took my hairbrush to it and didn’t stop brushing until I felt no resistance. Then, I braided it into a short braid that barely brushed the top of my shoulder blades. Simple diamond studs went into the double piercings in both of my ears, and I opted to war a simple chain necklace with a star pendant. I might not have cared much about what I wore day-to-day, but this was a special day. I wanted to look good in those pictures that Dad would take of me with his special Canon camera. I was turning a quarter of a century old, after all.
Exiting the bathroom, I walked down the hall and descended the oaken staircase into the open room below. I felt the heat from the fire as soon as I made it to the bottom, and followed it into the living room where Ben and Dad were watching TV with Silvia. I glanced at what they were watching and saw it was an episode of Mayday on the Discovery Channel. It was a fascinating show, but it had made me wary of planes.
I peeked into the kitchen and sniffed loudly for a dramatic effect. Mom chucked from where she was standing before the stove. I walked into the room and stood beside Mom in order to see what she had made for brunch. I licked my lips when I saw the bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and mini quiches. I couldn’t wait to dish up with a tall glass of chocolate milk.
“Good morning, Mom,” I greeted as she took off her oven mitts and grabbed two of the bowls containing breakfast. Followed her example, I also grabbed two bowls and followed her into the living room. We set the bowls on the coffee table in front of the main couch, and I went back to the kitchen to get five small plates, knives, and forks. Once I was back in the living room I set the cutlery down on the coffee table and sat down on the couch next to my sister.
We ate breakfast, and when we were done, the presents were brought out. I blushed when I saw how many presents they had gotten for me. I didn’t ask for much, and still my family insisted in spoiling me. True, I had only gotten four presents, but it still felt like too much. Ben got four presents as well, and from the looks of it, he couldn’t wait to see what he was going to get. I rolled my eyes silently, seeing that he hadn’t changed much since he was a boy when it came to presents.
When my first present was placed into my hands, I only stared at it. But after some encouragement, I slowly took off the wrapping and took in the box that was revealed. A small smile appeared on my face as I took in the new Photoshop program. I needed it since my last program had stopped working a few months ago. It had kept me from creating detailed pictures of Cloudchaser or Thunderlane or Rainbow Dash. Yeah, I was a pegasister – and I loved the Pegasus Tribe. Didn’t quite know why.
Ben opened his first present with relish, and wrapping paper went flying. When he was done destroying the wrapping paper, he held up a new Xbox video game. It was based off the Transformers franchise and all that stuff. Ben might have been a brony, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like other things.
As we opened the other presents, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift back to the fact that I had Cloudchaser’s cutie mark on my hips. I had seen that there was an exact replica of the mark on my right hip as well. I was totally wierded out by it, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it. I was afraid that it would ruin my (our) birthday.
In the end, our twenty-fifth birthday awarded me the Photoshop program, a new electronic drawing pad, an iTunes card for fifty bucks-worth of iTunes stuff, and a Thunderlane plush. He was my second favourite pony, and I sometimes wrote Cloudchaser x Thunderlane shipping because of it. My fanfictions got okay attention, but since it’s been, like, five years since the show ended, not many people my age were still up for reading My Little Pony stuff. Or anything MLP, for that matter. Ben got the video game, a new sweater, a soccer ball, and a new Stetson. His old one had been blown off during a time were we had to round up a couple of our fainting goats when they escaped. A few hours later, I saw it being eaten by Ben’s horse.
I hugged the life out of my new Thunderlane plush before I went and helped clean up the wrapping paper. Once that was done, we disappeared downstairs to watch the final episode of the fifth season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with Silvia.
~~~~
Ben took the disk out of the case and put it into the Blu-Ray machine. I shifted uncomfortably and Silvia mimicked me. We all knew that the final episode of the cute children’s show wasn’t very pretty. Princess Celestia and Discord had to battle a pit-spawn from Tartarus – on a volcano. The pit-spawn was freaking ugly to the point of being almost down-right scary. It made me uncomfortable that millions of little kids saw that. It was something I wasn’t even sure Silvia was allowed to see, though Mom and Dad didn’t seem to notice.
We sat down on the couch with Silvia sitting between us, and I pressed the ‘play’ button on the Blu-Ray remote. The episode played. I winced every time someone got hurt in the episode, while mentally gaping at how much violence was in it. I quickly shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind as Princess Celestia was kicked into the crater of the volcano – which was filled half-way with lava like all stereotypical cartoon volcanoes were. I couldn’t help the tear that came to my eye, and I glanced over at my brother as Discord’s I-broke-the-forth-wall announcement went on in the background. I could see that his eyes were slightly misted, showing he was just as upset as I was. But there wasn’t a single peep from Silvia.
The episode went on as Twilight was destroyed, and the rest of the Mane Six were taken out. Applejack ran off to her farm and Rainbow Dash flew up to take on the spirit of chaos in the sky…
…and then the episode ended.
Both Ben and I leapt from the couch with a cry of outrage, startling Silvia, who uttered a small “Meep!”
“That’s not right!” Ben exclaimed, looking ready to run up to the TV and destroy it, as if it would somehow affect the creators of the show. “They left a part out!”
My reaction had been more out of reflex at first, but I quickly realized that he was right. They did leave a part out. Cloudchaser was supposed to charge after Discord once he had taken out Rainbow Dash, and she, along with Thunderlane and most of the other pegasi of Ponyville, was supposed to create a tornado – like the one in “Hurricane Fluttershy” – which would suck the dragonequus away for a bit, in orderto allow Ponyville to recover for a few moments.
“It was supposed to show Braeburn walking towards Ponyville as that was all going on! He was going to see his cousin, Applejack. Then he was going to run into Discord at the edge of town after he freed himself from a tornado!” I was shocked. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go! He took a deep breath and continued before I could stop him. “And then he would have tried to stop Discord, but was killed because of it!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said as I stomped over to him, taking my chance to speak before he could continue to rant. “Braeburn? Are you serious, Ben? You got it all wrong! Cloudchaser was supposed to lead the pegasi of Ponyville against Discord in order to stall him. They* created a tornado that distracted him so that Ponyville could take a breather. Then he came back and killed her.”
Silvia looked at both of us with wide eyes, and I realized I was glaring up at my brother. “Guys…?” she said quietly. “That didn’t happen.”
We both froze and looked down at her with wide eyes. Something was going on, something that was happening to me and Ben. So I grabbed his arm and unceremoniously dragged him down the hall and into the storage room where the hot water tank was stored. Once there, I closed the door behind us, turned on the light (which was just a bare light bulb), and whirled to face him.
The two of us simply stared at each other for several minutes before Ben spoke. “What the heck is this all about, Mikaela?” he demanded.
I glanced down before looking up to meet his eyes again. “I don’t know, Benjamin,” I said, using his full name. “What was going on out in front of the television? Why did we argue over the differences to the missing scene of the episode?”
He scratched his head quizzically. “I dunno,” he admitted.
My heart began to race. I had a cutie mark on each of my hips. I had never really thought about the missing scene of the episode before today. What was going on? Was the same thing happening to Ben?
Only one way to find out.
Quickly, and without thinking, I undid my belt and pulled the waist of my pants down just enough to show my left hip, and nothing else. I watched as Ben’s eyes widened when he saw the cutie mark before he mirrored me. I couldn’t help but choke on my own spit when he proved my theory true. In the dim light of the storage room, I saw the picture of a cutie mark on Ben’s hip as well. But his was of an apple.
He had…Braeburn’s cutie mark…
Author's Note
Well, I had to get this chapter just right. Anyway, I hope you like this story - and please, don't just do a "thumb-down" if you found this chapter boring. It'll get more exciting as it goes on. :) Again, hope you liked. It'll get better, I promise!
And: Check out the story that started all this! It's called "Five Score, Divided by Four" by TwistedSpectrum. As you can see, I tried to rhyme the title of this story like Twisted's, but it doesn't sound as cool...or maybe it does. I'm not you, after all. X3
