Live A Life, or Forge It

Where was I, in my narration ?

I've told you about what happened some time ago, when I was pulled unwillingly in Equestria, hosted by the Apple Family, that saw me as a foal (like I seemed).

Since I didn't like it, and wanted to reclaim the estate of my parents before my brothers could, I tried to escape: the first attemps were at no avail, while the fouth one with a cultured filly, name's Silver Spoon, was successfull, but that still didn't carried me at home straight away: I needed to wait the help of Twilight Sparkle, a powerful unicorn.

But I changed my mind when a portal randomly appaeared, and revealed me that, on Earth, only suffering and oblivion awaited me, while in Equestria, a better life was awaiting me, and I was going ot be rembered.

Ah, and after discovering that the Fate was in fact a toddler playing with toys. That's how he decided the future of every living thing.

I told you about what the Great Ferryman, great son of a extra dimensional bitch, did to me in front of my refusal to come back to Earth...

Oh, right, what happened five years later.

I was taking a forced nap in my own bedroom, built some time before by the combined forces of Big Macintosh, Applebloom and Applejack.

The bedroom wasn't much different than the one I had at home: it was basically the same size, 9X9 square meters; on the top of my bed, shelves and on the left side, the clothes drawer. Another bed was on the left side of the drawer.

Clearly, since I hadn't revealed anything  to the others yet, the room was decorated like a child's, but, apart from some moments where I felt weird doing some things in such an ambient, such as thinking about my future in a serious way and such, it was fine.

I was loosening up, after some “hard work”, and I thought that nothing was going to be wrong.

That is, until my oldest brother named Franco was chosen by the Eternal Toddler and sent to Equestria for carry out the orders I chose to disobey five years before, when my soul said that if I accepted the “offer” of the Great Ferryman, I was going to live a short life, and get lost in the fogs of time even faster.

Now, from my small bed, I was looking at the closed window and only saw that, slowly, the window seemed to lose consistency, and started to tremble like water moved by the wind.

It didn't took me much to understand that a portal was going to be opened again... but for who ?

I was quite curious about that, so I watched closely what was going on: the blinds started to shatter, and get  replaced by the blue light that was a common feature of the inter dimensional portals.

What I saw in the  portal disturbed me: the bulky silhouette of Franco, my older brother.

From there, he said:

“Venicio, my dear brother, our feud hasn't ended yet... come back, and die fighting, or go with me, and serve me as a slave”

I answered back:

“Brother, this is my world. You are not welcome on my world AT. ALL. Soldiers, ring your bell: today we will fight our past, and reclaim what is ours.”

Franco chuckled:

“Oh, the small bed wetter, incapable of fighting somebody wants to fight ? What a cute scene !”

I hissed back:

“I am capable of attacking, and stopping you: the scars on your chest caused by my porcelain knife confirm it. “

He stepped in the room and said arrogantly

“Situational. Your might is no match for me now.”

“Clearly, Franco: if you attack me right now, you won't sweat. But won't get any glory by it too: where is the difficult in killing a defenseless child like I am ?"

“You are not a child. You are a weakling in his true body”

“You have not changed since my disappearance: you still believe that I am weak, regardless of the fact that I broke your ribs twice during the year before I disappeared, and the fact that I almost strangled Diana, our sister, countless times. Before, I would simply resort to the plain old balls kick.”

“But you are not capable of that anymore now.” Franco pulled off a knife “You have ten seconds for come with me, otherwise, you will die”

Knowing that I had no hope of holding him back for long, nor I wished to come back on Earth, I screamed for help, since I knew that Applejack or Applebloom will be more than capable of stopping Franco.

But Franco didn't knew what was coming, and did an evil laugh.

Applebloom was reading a book downstairs when she heard Venicio's yell coming from his room:

“Help ! Somebody is attacking me  !”

Since she knew what happened some years ago, and wanted to avoid repeating the same cycle, Applebloom springed on her legs and ran in the room... but what she saw in the room would have surprised anypony, even one who's prepared for anything.

In place of the window, there was a pulsing blue light that lighted up the whole room like if the window was open and the Sun had blue light instead of yellow.

But it was clear that Venicio wasn't concerned by that: instead, near Venicio's crib, a bipedal, bulky figure similar to a minotaur without horns was there.

Said figure was looming over a scared Venicio, who, while he ran around frantically, saying that one of his brothers had come, and wanted to kill him.

Problem was, Applebloom had no idea about what to do in front of that: the assaulter seemed quite slow, and seemed unaware of  her arrival, but, at the same time, he was armed, and Applebloom wasn't sure of begin capable of stopping the aggressor.

But when Applebloom saw that the creature was, effectively, swinging the knife towards Venicio, and that Venicio seemed incapable of  fighting back, Applebloom was filled with anger: how did a past enemy of her brother dared to step in Apple's house ?

Said aggressor was so coward to attack Venicio while he was trapped in a body of a foal ?

How ? How ?

Applebloom charged, and rammed one of the legs of Venicio's brother: the aggressor fall down, and exclaimed:

“Brutta cavalla di merda !"

When Venicio saw that his brother lost focus on him, and saw that the hand with the knife was reachable by him, Venicio jumped, bit the hand causing the knife to fall and took said knife in his mouth.

“Bene, ora chi ride, brutto bastardo ?”

Venicio's brother said:

“Vorrei tanto staccarti la testa e cagarti in gola, Venicio, ma sembra che la tua famigliola di cavalli froci ti protegga. Non cantare vittoria, però: io, Ernico e Diana vogliamo farti visita, e non sarà un' esperienza piacevole per te !”

Venicio angrily answered:

“Voi tre teste di minchia potete tranquillamente continuare a divorarvi per spartirvi l' eredità dei nostri genitori: per quanto mi riguarda, potete farmi anche lustrarmi il culo, a me non non mi interessa”

Franco gazed angrly towards Venicio and spit on him, before entering in the blue light and disappeared.

When, finally, the blue light wasn't there anymore, Applebloom went near Venicio, and asked:

“Venicio, my dear brother, who was that ? What did he want ?”

He answered:

“Meum 'frater' erat: is a domi ferre cupiebat, aut morte nigra expectabat me”

“It was my 'brother': he wanted to take me back home, or else a black death awaited me”

Applebloom guessed that Venicio used the conditional because her help saved his life: smiling, Applebloom hugged Venicio and said that, no matter what, she was going to be on his side.

Venicio smirked, and murmured: “Ii redeant... et caritam non habeant” (They will return... and they won't have mercy)

Interrupting them, a crying filly crawled out from under the bed near the drawer, sweating and shaking with fear, blubbering: “I-i-i-i-is he g-g-g-gone? Is it o-o-over?"

And this was the first attempt by Fate and my brothers to kill me in a long time.

Oh, I forgot to talk about what happened in the span of time between the night that I decided to stay and the  attack, and why there was a filly there, my bad.

We fix this right now.

Now, I don't know if you wish to know my experiences in the Apple family, but, since I love to talk about my past, I will do it anyway.

First, I will talk about the step that allowed to me to get understood by everybody: I learned to speak in English/Equestrian.

Until then, I could only understand what the ponies where saying, but, if they weren't cultivated, I could not answer back to them, and that frustrated me to no end.

Since I was incapable of writing too, my only way to learn the language was to listen carefully what was being said, and read many books: while the last one wasn't very easy to pull off, since the speakers weren't usually fond of speaking slow, the last one, thanks to the fact that I was more than capable of reading, was basically my third main activity, behind drawing and playing.

Slowly , I started to try to mumble sensed words in English, each time improving my pronunciation, (it should be noted, I never went past an English with a strong Tuscan accent); eventually, I started saying understandable phrases; although the results were often a broken speech grammar-wise.

By the time I was eight months old, I was almost capable of saying something... but I refused to talk in Equestrian for now: If I did all the normal things that a baby does in a weird way, why not do something like “From Baby Talking to Perfect Speech”, since I was perfectly capable of doing so ? All I needed was just a bit of time for get used to the structure of the language, and all was going to be perfectly fine.

The day that I decided to start to talk was a rather odd choice...

After a big breakfast and a fast check of Venicio's conditions, Applejack was reading the agenda that contained her schedule for the day:

9:30 a.m. : List the paraphernalia for the cultivation, and fix or buy new tools

11:00 a.m. : If possible, start planting some wheat in the fallow field of the last year, and vice versa, otherwise, start to fix the broken tools.

2:00 p.m. : After lunch, take the laundry from the dry cleaner.

3:30 p.m. : Resume the work done before lunch.

5:00 p.m: Carry Venicio to the microippotrician

Applejack sighed at the sight of the last part of the list: it was going to be a looong half an hour in the doctor's office, considering what happened the last time that Venicio was in contact with a white coat;  it was when he was found bleeding in the sink: the air was tense that time, and, considered the pain that he should have experienced and the inability of fully understand that the pain was related only, and only to the ramming of the mirror; Venicio surely now had at least some doubts in coming in contact with the doctors again.

But the check up was needed.

After thinking about that, Applejack saw what time it was and decided to get to work.

Later that day,  Applejack was tired: after listing the paraphernalia for the agriculture that she owned, she saw that a plow lacked of the blade; another plow had the wood completely ruined by the woodworms, who left only few very thin stick as prove that the Apples had a plow, and not just a unattached blade resting in the scraps; and the sickle was rusted and not sharp, Applejack stood almost all the time into fixing that things: she received some offers of help by the little sister, thought she refused to get help by Applebloom, since Applejack feared that the filly could get hurt, by planting a nail in her hoof, or get her tail cut by a badly-handled sickle.

Applejack, after doing the repairings all alone, almost regret that choice, since it was quite tired now.

Then the orange pony glanced to the clock and saw that it wasn't time to relax since she had to carry Venicio to the doctor... in theory.

Practically, since Big Macintosh seemed still full of energy even after the work on the fields, she was going to ask him such a favor in hopes that the red stallion was going to accept the request.

And so it was: as soon as Big Macintosh got off his field hat, an old straw hat, Applejack said:

“Brother... can you ask to you a favor ?”

“Eeyup ?”

“In ten minutes Venicio has an appointment with the doctor. Now, I know that the task was in theory mine, but I feel too tired to do it... could you please do it for me ?”

Big Machintosh moved his head in a negative way, and said:

“Nope”, and went away.

Applejack sighed and hoped that she wouldn't get broke down by Venicio's behavior: she hopped down the coach, went upstairs, and entered in Applebloom's room, sure that he was in it, playing or drawing something.

When the orange pony entered in the room where Venicio was, she saw him watching an open book: he seemed reading said book, and quite concentrated.

Applejack thought that Venicio was trying to mimic Applebloom in her behaviors, like how Applebloom did few years before with Applejack.

The farmer pony didn't think too hard about that though, poked gently Venicio, and said:

“Venicio... hop on my back: I am carrying you to the doctor”, expecting to see him throw a tantrum or something.

But he didn't: instead, he started to giggle madly and jumped on the back of the orange pony, saying:

“Molto bene!”

That done, Applejack said goodbye to Applebloom, saying their destination. Her sister nodded, then, for some reason, she blinked towards Venicio, and Venicio answered back with another wink.

Well, yes, I think it was a rare sight, seeing a foal not only not fussing about going to the doctor, but also coming with “pleasure” but I think that, by that point, Applejack didn't consider me a “totally normal” foal anymore.

Well, at least, to some degree, since she kept the same security measures usually adopted only with true foals.

Anyway, back on topic: When Applejack and I arrived in the waiting room of the office, I saw around me the nervous or outright crying faces of the other foals and fillies waiting for their turn, and the parents pointing at me, likely telling them to stay nice and calm like me: said scene seemed similar to me to the times when I was a kid and was due to an almost weekly tour of the clinics of my town due my weak immunitary system and the fights with my brothers... When I was carried in the waiting room of the clinic, even at the time, I didn't generally fret much about was awaiting me on the other side of the door, since I knew what was going to happen, and my passivity was, generally, admired.

Naturally, no one apart from the family medic and my family, knew the truth behind my passivity.

Anyway, name after name, the waiting room started to empty, sending in nervous patients and releasing said little patients either calmer than before, or in the middle of a meltdown of biblical proportions.

After a while, my name was called  and I and Applejack entered in the room:  I saw in front of me a unicorn stallion with green fur and red hair, a pair of round glasses that gave him an air of professionalism. A small mustache completed the sight.

He rotated himself, and said with a very nasal and yet respect-inspiring  voice:

“So, here is Venicio, the newest addition the Apple family... let's get started, shall we ?”, then he  levitated me with the magic: somehow, as soon he lifted me, I felt necessary say something to him, whatever it was, even the silliest things, but I wanted to say something before the end.

But for then I kept my mouth shut.

The doctor started to check my ears: he mechanically said to me to stand still. I obeyed indirectly, because I was concentrated on thinking about what to say.

Then the doctor took the stethoscope, and checked my heartbeats: I didn't react oddly at the feeling of the cold metal on my chest: I just moved a bit, pretending not to like it, but without any sound coming from my mouth.

Then the medic passed to measures and weight: still nothing from me.

Finally, the doctor grinned, and extracted a syringe, and, by that point, I somehow reacted: I jumped away from the doctor levitating menacingly the syringe for the blood sample, and, finally, I chose to say:

“Vhat ae you tryingh to do, docctor ?"

He answered: “I need part of your blood, so I can see if there problems in you. Basically, what I did before, but much more painful and entertaning for me”

Somehow, the last part made me laugh: such a behavior would be considered, at best, an attempt to refuge in audacity and, at worse, outright sadism.

But I knew he was joking, so I let him saying that, and take part of my blood without protesting.

When we left the office, Applejack was more surprised than anything else: until then, my mouth never articulated any word in Equestrian. Now I had said something, even if it was with a weird accent.