Foxfire's Tail (Re-Written)

A re-write of the original Foxfire's Tail
Written by Dragonborne Fox and XxEpsillonxX

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be different? To see the looks on ponies you pass by as they stare in fear or in plain disgust? Well, this is a tale about a certain pony who has had a certain experience with that type of life. But how did she come to all this?

Well, her family name has had a very infamous history from the very start. Nopony knows how their family was started, but tales of fear and terror run rampant through their very name. They were a very special type of pony, but why you may ask? Well, in certain terms, they were never given names until they achieved their cutie marks. But not just that, they were different for what happened to them. When they got their marks, they changed shape and obtained different personalities. Some had happy go lucky moods, while others had a more violent change.

Where this story of woe begins is with our very special and very sad tale of the pony named Foxfire Flowerfeather.

~~~

Our tale begins on the fateful day of the young filly’s life. It seemed like any other day as she trotted en route to a large building in the center of a small village. Many other fillies and colts were headed there as well, but their eyes gleamed with malicious intent. Why, you may ask? Well, to tell the truth, this filly was in fact quite different from the others.

She stood out, a light beige coat and streaked mane of dark yellow, brown, and red. She lacked a cutie mark. The other fillies and colts looked very much identical to one another; the sole differences being gender, mane style, and eye color. They were grey in coat and mane, but this filly had bright, cheerful colors around her.

Even her eyes were much brighter than their nearly dark voids; they were like glimmering sapphires.

Their cutie marks were all the same; all other flanks within miles around shared the same old, boring dirt mound. The houses were also made of dirt, but hers was made out of wood.

One bland filly walked up to the bright, cheery pony in town and stopped her in her tracks. “You’re stupid because you don’t farm.” She hissed, eyes narrowing low.

The cheery filly retorted, “Well, you’re stupid because you don’t appreciate anything different. I’ve been here since I was around a month old; I don’t understand why you do this.”

“Lies. Nothing’s ever different.” The bland filly cut back. “You need to farm like everypony else!”

“Since when was I one for the norm? You all do the same thing and it’s just...boring.” The bright filly said before trotting to the big dirt building in town. The bland filly just scowled in irritation as the cheery pony walked on.

The cheery filly met with the eyes of a few colts that got to the large building before she did.

“Well, look. If it isn’t our favorite bitch who doesn’t have an earth pony father.” Sneered one colt.

“Unicorns need to die off.” Said another.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help being different.” The cheery filly answered as if looking for some kind of approval from these colts.

“You use bathwater, and we don’t.” Spoke a third.

“No wonder you’re all the same. That explains a lot, actually.” The cheery filly scoffed, blinking a few times.

“Bathwater is overrated.” Replied the third one.

“Why don’t you just leave this place. Everything would be so much better if you were just gone.” The first colt snorted.

“Yeah, save us the trouble of having to look at your stupid kind all the damn time.” Added the second colt.

All four began trotting inside, the colts making bad remarks the whole trip.

The cheery filly was used to most of this by now. The school ponies always teased or bullied her. She would go for help, but the teachers didn’t even bother to assist her.

“Okay class, turn to page two-twenty in your textbooks and we shall begin our next lesson.” The teacher announced blandly.

Everyday was the usual day, from being picked on, to having notes being passed around the classroom that told lies and rumors about her and sometimes the bullies did get violent on a few occassions.

“How does that feel, blank flank?” One of the colts hissed as he punched the cheery filly in her stomach, knocking her into the ground. She moaned in pain as she writhed a little on the ground. Everypony had always laughed at her and teased her for being so different. Nopony ever did realize how much pain she had felt, but they wouldn’t have cared anyway.

“Look at her! She’s crying like she always does.” Stated one of the bland fillies.

“Quit being a baby and toughen up, freak!” Yelled one of the colts.

This was the norm for most days and this usually wasn’t the worst of what they would do sometimes. Other days, the foals would get much more extreme. They brought shovels to school and repeatedly bludgeoned her with them. But what could the young filly do? She was no sort of fighter and nopony else had stepped up to help her.

Even the ones who never did really tease her were helpless, unable to even aid her in some small way. There were times when she just told herself to deal with it, but on many days she had spent crying back at her home, with her mom and dad trying to comfort her.

On many occasions, the family thought about moving out and were always prevented on two accounts: One, interracial families were often murdered and their foals, depending on their race, would be given to bad foster homes and two, they never had the money.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Her mom reassured her.

“Don’t worry. Things will turn out in the end.” Said her dad with a sad smile.

But in truth, they knew that it would never get better. They had hoped a long time ago that everything would turn out okay in the end, but nothing ever seemed to have changed for the better. The violence of the classmates--no, the village as a whole eventually rose to an intolerable level one day.

The bright filly was sitting in the back of class as always. She’d done her work and was looking at her dirt desk. She looked up and saw another pony walk into the room. He was looking right at her.

“I’m sad to say that your family has been killed in a fire. Therefore, you are now my child.” He said, trying very hard not to snicker.

But the filly saw the look in his dead eyes, the way they gleamed with ill intent. Tears began welling up, her body began trembling.

Her face contorted into a scowl worthy of a noble and blood was rushing through her veins.

“What?” She asked, growling as that word flew out of her mouth. The other foals looked at her and now noticed that something was very much different about the classroom misfit. Even the air around her radiated something not normal with her.

She rose onto her hind hooves, hitting the desk with her front ones. The other fillies gasped as her eyes began flickering very much like fire.

“Hey...what’s wrong with you, f-freak?” One of the colts uttered. Nopony seemed to have any idea that something disastrous was about to unfold before their very eyes.

“What?” She heaved again, her ears turning black as night and riddled with matching fur.

“She’s a true freak of nature!!” Shouted a bland filly accusingly, pointing a hoof at the bright foal in the back of class.

“Me...a freak? Of nature?” The bright foal laughed, a sad smile plastered onto her face as her body grew to that of an adult pony without warning. A horn was now on her forehead: mostly grey with some black on top. Fire of blue began dancing around its frame. “You want to know who the real freaks of nature are?”

The classroom was deathly silent when she spoke those words. They watched as black fur began sprouting on her legs like weeds.

“It’s all of you! You want nothing more than for me, a filly whose family isn’t like yours, than to be a farmer’s slave?” She continued, her horn crackling even brighter now.

“What...what is this thing?” One of the colts asked, a look of terror on his face.

“Calm down, at once!” Cried the guest stallion, stomping his hoof in anger.

“I ain’t spreading my hind legs for you, pervert. Nor am I having your disgusting children!” The filly laughed, her mane becoming one color and one color only: a dark scarlet brown, a few tints away from the color of blood. No longer was this the bright young filly the bullies selected as their daily target.

This was their impending doom given form. “Now.” She silently murmured. “Let’s see how you all like it!” She screamed at the top of her lungs as feathered wings decorated with light grey and black feathers spread from her back.

“An….an alicorn?! I-impossible…!” Cried one filly as she bounded out the room in a frenzy.

Soon the whole class was in a panicked uproar as they pushed and shoved each other, trying to get out as fast as they could. The morphing foal’s beige coat was replaced by crimson fur with a grey underbelly. Her tail was long, red, and bushy; ending in a grey tip. Her hooves, though masked, were grey in color, and adorning her flanks was a strange mask.

The entire building--and, indeed, the rest of the small village--was lit ablaze in a vivid blue flare, the dirt falling apart and making impromptu gravesites as the fire ravaged on. The villagers hurried out, but not all of them escaped the fiery blaze as it scorched and burned those who weren’t fast enough. Screams of pain, fear and terror echoed into the night, and the villagers who did escape had vanished the next day. The fire raged on for some time until Pegasus ponies brought rainclouds to douse it out.

One mare was tasked with finding out what it was that caused the blaze to begin with.

All she was able to find was a black feather and a series of hoofprints leading away from the burnt plantation. The only other thing the mare was able to find were two crosses in a pile of ashes, held together with ropes. When she looked closely at it, she noticed that there were carvings in it. It read: The only ponies that had ever cared for me.

It was cryptic, yet sad. Looking out into the distance, she could’ve sworn she heard shrieks of pain echoing in the charred landscape.