"Day" 23, Week 12, Almost 3 years later.

"Give it back Luke, you fag!" yelled some yellow pony.

Luke looked around. He hadn't taken anything from the other pony, simply picked up a ball to play with; what was he talking about?

"I'll tell Cheerilee!" He had made his point. Luke threw the ball to Dandelion Shimmer and sulked.

Nopony wanted to be his friend. Luke was "unique." He lacked a left ear and had scars down his cheek. His foster parents wouldn't tell him of their origin, but they were always drunk anyway. Regardless, Luke never made any friends at the preschool. Rather, he was singled out by the bullies because of his distinctiveness. It was pretty depressing, but he guessed that's how life went. He caught the train going home. Manehattan sucked. You could go anywhere in the city and hide wherever you liked, but due to the overcrowding; there was always somepony to laugh at your ugly face. Life just wasn't fair. Today, Luke decided to go to the pier and look at the reflections of his sorrows. He boarded a subway and sulked.

He found himself staring at one of many homeless, scarred, lonely ponies that were on the train; and came to the realization that he wasn't really alone. There was at least one pony that had had a rougher life. Although, that consoled him minimally, he was still depressed.

The train doors opened and he disembarked. His foster parents were gunna be hella pissed; but this was pretty much a weekly occurrence at this point. After staring at the murky polluted water for several minutes, a slightly older colt approached him; wondering what was wrong. Fearing ridicule, Luke started to walk away, but the colt stopped him.

At this point, risk evaluation took hold and Luke began running through possible outcomes. They weren't pretty. Worst case scenario, this stranger wanted him dead. That wasn't terribly unlikely, because nopony liked a blank-flank scar-faced loser. Word spread fast at the preschool. Luke thought his face might look even less appealing after this ordeal ended. If only he had just swallowed his emotions and caught the Red Line to go home, none of this shit would have even happened.

But the colt reached out a hoof. Tentatively, Luke shook it. "Hi, I'm Tender Hoof! What's your name, and why are you so depressed?" Asked the colt. His name was evidently a glaring misnomer. For a colt that was obviously less than 5 years of age, he had a grip of iron.

"My name is Luke Mooncliff. What do you want?" Luke queried.

"Just to know what's wrong. You seemed upset. Are you okay?" Tender responded.

Luke finally made the connection. This pony wasn't like the others. He didn't care that Luke was a scar-faced loser. He was genuinely concerned for his feelings. He had made a friend.

Author's Note

Don't worry, this ain't some gay story in which Luke and Tender fall in love, I promise. It's all heterosexual from what I can see of the future at present. It's going to be more action-based in the future, but I needed Luke to have a friend/group of friends in order to advance the plot and timescale further. Next chapter will be yet more years into the future, and will be entirely different, I promise. And does anyone like the subtle things I've included? Like the foreshadowing and "Purple Heart" which is a military award for wounded soldiers?