The Father Who Must Be Killed
The Father Who Must Be Killed
The Stepchild stands in a little white dress, years older from the day she got her cutie mark. Too old for the job, The Stepchild is a flower girl and she walks down the aisle with pain stabbing her heart. She is barely dressed for the occasion, in the shortest white gown imaginable. It is ripped and stained. She watches as her Mother takes steps forward, one hoof in front of the other. She is a real bride with flowers in her mane and a blush on her cheeks.
"Isn't it beautiful, Babs?" the mare asks quietly, a smile on her face. The Stepchild is silent.
A unicorn stallion with a bright green mane and a light blue body walks forward. He is the newest addition to the apple family, dressed in a dashing black and white suit. It fits perfectly, and he is just so charming.
When he passes her, he smiles. She feels that something in his gaze is dark. She doesn't like the way the wrinkles around his eyes move. She doesn't like his green mane and the way every hair is exactly in place. She feels complete resentment and stares back blankly. She feels like she represents half of her conception, she feels like she is a little marker that her Father once lived. She represents embarrassment and failure.
This is the day her Father is replaced.
"You are being reckless!" The Stepfather shouts, putting his hoof down on the dinner table. The Stepchild had only been out with some of her friends, drinking cider and running through the streets of the little rural town her family helped to occupy. It was harmless foal's fun. She stares at him without saying a word.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" The Stepfather asks. He takes another bite of his meal, stabbing his fork into greens and bringing them to his mouth. The end of the fork glints with the light of green unicorn magic, something The Stepchild and her real Father could never know. Of course her Mother had to marry a pretentious little unicorn. The stepchild stares.
"Say something!" The Stepfather urges, chewing exactly three times before swallowing. He has rituals. He stabs his food in the exact center and then chews exactly three times. Every meal is the same. The Stepchild stares at his jaw, crunching and grinding things up into a pulp. She thinks it is fastidious, pretentious, and disgusting.
"The way you chew your food rips through my senses," she growls, glaring at him. He raises a light blue hoof pointing up the stairs, calmly. Her real Father always talked things out with The Stepchild, and never sent her to her room. Tears fill the Stepchild's eyes, and she looks to her Mother with a desperate plea for help escaping her lips as a whine.
"Please, Babs," her Mother says meekly. The Stepchild knows she'll be in her room for days. The Stepchild looks at The Stepfather, picking away at his meal. He is lean and she could easily fight him, not to mention his personality is weak and sensitive. His only might is his legal right to ground her down.
This is the day she begins to truly hate her Stepfather.
She knows her Mother truly loves the pathetic unicorn stallion. She sees how they are always together, and she sees the way he rules her life. She sees that he has control over the entire household by means of his horn and his demeanor. She finds solace by sneaking out of the house late at night and wandering through the apple orchards her Mother owns.
The Stepchild pretends to be asleep on a summer night, and soon hears the familiar creaking of a bed. Every night when she hears the sound she knows that her Mother no longer loves her father. She climbs quietly down the stairs and sneaks out the back screen door. It is hot outside, and the air is thick with humidity. She is soon wet with sweat and covered in little bug bites. They buzz in her ears, crawl up her legs, and feed off her smell.
The Stepchild does not mind the itching sensation or the hot weather as she walks among the apple trees in her orchard. It is nearly black outside, save for a crescent moon. She can feel rotten fruit beneath her hooves and treasures the squishy sensation. It reminds her of a happy, peaceful childhood. Nowadays she feels unhappy most of the time. Her friends are shallow and The Stepfather is dictating her every move with his compulsive organization and straight-laced views.
She sits below an apple tree, and looks up at it's dark green leaves. A rotten fruit falls next to her, and a fly lands on it. It begins to feast eagerly. She leans her head on the trunk of the tree, the hard surface holding her up. Tears fall from her eyes quickly and she lets out an audible moan. She cannot hold it in any longer. The beads of sweat on her face roll into her tears and her mane, already frizzy from humidity, becomes further tangled by rubbing against the tree. She shakes uncontrollably, with anger and mourning.
"Why Papa..." she begs the sky, "Why did you have to leave me here with them? This stallion has replaced you in Mama's heart and now she probably doesn't even love you! But I love you! Why did you have to die?"
This is the day The Stepchild makes a decision.
If one should enter the house where these three live, you'll find a knife in a drawer. The drawer resides within a little chest. For a while the chest was on display. It contains pressed flowers, pictures of The Stepchild's real Father, fabric from his favorite shirt... and, of course, the knife. This particular knife has a history.
It is a carving knife with a curved blade and a little pointed tip. The handle of it is thick, and many meals were born using the knife; family meals were Mother, Father, and Child sat together and ate together. When his daughter was just a child, this knife had been used to slit the Father's wrists.
The Stepchild holds the knife in one hoof and examines it. It's thin and must cut accurately. She looks up at the ceiling, as if she can see into her Stepfather's room, and reassures herself that her Mother is gone for the evening. They live in the middle of nowhere, and no one will hear his screams.
She runs to his room, hoof before hoof. She thrusts the door open with force, and The Stepfather bolts upright in bed. His green mane is a mess.
"Babs!" he shouts, startled. She approaches and holds the knife up to him.
"You... you think you can always tell me what to do. You think you can always be in charge. I'm almost an adult now. Soon I will be a mare. You act like you're in charge of my entire life, and your rituals are controlling my Mother. There was never law against me before, you son of a bitch, but there's law against me now!"
The Stepchild screams, lifts the knife, and slams it in his arms.
"BABS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" The Stepfather writhes in agony. She slams it in his legs, she slashes it across his face, and she holds the knife against his neck. The Stepfather weeps, shudders, and howls to no one. No one can hear him but The Stepchild.
"I am going to kill you," she reassures him.
The Stepfather whimpers, and his tears take a new shape. He isn't just crying because of physical pain, but it is emotional. He has been betrayed. He takes the hoof of the almost-mare just barely, the one without a knife. He is shaking, and so is The Stepchild. he looks into her eyes.
"I always tried to be a good Father to you..." he gasps for air, "I never wanted you to be out of control! Please, Babs, I'm so sorry! I never meant to replace your Father and I never wanted to hurt you! PLEASE, DON'T KILL ME!"
He sobs, and with every shake she can feel more blood seeping from his wounds. The Stepchild, shaking, cuts into his neck. Blood gushes, warming the bedsheets.
"I'm so sorry...sorry..." he moans, choking, and then is dead. The Stepchild, desperately afraid, leaps out the window and into the orchard again. She runs, the handle of the blade in her mouth.
"Why are lives so short?" she thinks, looking at the sky. It is a New Moon now. There is no one left in her life, she thinks, to warn her. There is no one to touch her. After her Mother discovers the body she wont miss her.
The Stepchild sees an owl in a tree, a rare and beautiful sight. It flies off into the night. It is alone. She stands for many minutes, then raises the knife to her neck in a slow and deliberate fashion. She is off to meet her Papa once more.
"If motherless birds fly high..." The Stepchild weeps, "So shall I."
This is the day The Stepchild dies.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading. I tried to keep it as ambiguous as the song it was intended to pay homage to. I hope you enjoyed it, in a morbid way.
