Blade

“Class dismissed!” beamed the lovely school teacher, Cheerilee.

At this, all of the precious little fillies and colts got out of their desks and made their merry little ways out the door and toward their warm and loving homes.

Smiles spread on their juvenile faces, careless and blooming with innocence and joy. Every one of the delightful little children were as happy as can be as they went home to see their mothers and fathers, all who loved them so very much.

All of the pure-bred pagasi children spread their tiny wings and flew toward their homes that were built into the clouds; all such good flyers at an early age.

Everything had been wonderful in the schoolhouse just as it had been the whole day.

Cheerilee slung on her saddlebag and started out the door when she looked back at the one student who hadn’t left yet.

“Scootaloo.” She called. “You can’t stay in the schoolhouse. You have to go home, sweetie.”

The orange filly timidly looked up at her teacher from her desk and slowly left her seat. She didn’t look up from the ground while she made it to the door.

“I’m sorry Ms. Cheerilee.” She gloomed.

“It’s alright, dear.” Cheerilee forgave instantly. “I just can’t have you here without an adult, alright?”

“But I don’t want to go home.” Scootaloo reasoned.

“Well, that’s just silly.” Cheerilee grinned.

Before Scootaloo could respond, her teacher walked away. Her head sunk. She really didn’t want to go home. She hated it there. However, it was cold and her plan to stay in the schoolhouse had been thwarted. She signed sadly as she started walking in the opposite direction all the other foals took.

Scootaloo didn’t make it more than about forty feet before she heard somebody calling.

“Hey!”

Oh no.

Scootaloo’s stomach sank. She had hoped that she would be spared that day, but she didn’t wait long enough. She started to think that they waited for her. They did, actually. It was their job anyway. Somebody had to bully the class freak.

“Where are you going, Scootaspew?” tittered the shouting filly.

Scootaloo turned around, hoping that she could be brave.

“Please leave me alone today, Diamond Tiara.” She begged.

The pink foal trotted up to the orange misfit with her friend and stopped for a second.

“Hrmmmm….” She mulled, looking up at the sky with her hoof quizzically on her chin.

An idea appeared to have popped into her upper-class head.

“Oh! How about we just don’t do that?”

Her silver partner giggled as if she had just heard something clever.

Scootaloo turned around, pouting, and continued down the path. Again, she didn’t make it far before a snowball hit her in the back of the head. It startled her, so she leaped a little and let out a small yelp. She didn’t own a scarf, so the ice melted on her back and became incredibly cold water droplets.

Both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon let out cackles while Scootaloo started to shake from the cold.

Anger rose up inside of the pegasus. She whirled around and shouted.

“Stop it!”

Diamond Tiara looked at her silver friend in surprise.

“Oh. Well, you said stop, so I guess we will, right?”

Immediately after this, she threw another snowball directly into Scootaloo’s face, knocking her back several steps.

It shouldn’t have, but that particular snowball had hurt quite a bit. Although her cheeks were already somewhat

numb from the cold, they stung bitterly.

A chorus of cruel laughs arose from her bullies. She wanted to get them back too much. Scootaloo reached down grabbing a pile of snow and tossed it in the pink filly’s direction. It disintegrated almost instantly, as it wasn’t packed. Seeing this feeble attempt at revenge only made the laughs louder.

“Stop laughing at me!” Scootaloo tried yelling again.

“We can’t!” Diamond Tiara snickered noisily. “How can we not laugh at a freak like you?”

It was only a word. ‘Freak’ was only a word. Her father had always said that words can’t hurt. She wanted so badly to believe him. Her father had to be right. It was all that kept her going. But Scootaloo was weak. She wanted to fight back. She didn’t want there to be called a freak in the first place.

“I’m not a freak!” was the best response she could shout back.

“What!?” Diamond Tiara yelled, now rolling on the floor. “You can’t even fly! You’ve got crippled wings, Cripple!”

She called cripple several more times then, as if that was the freak's name. Scootaloo sunk her head in despair. Why did she have to be born with those wings. She didn't ask for it. Nobody does, for that matter. So what gave Diamond Tiara the right to laugh and laugh at her while she had to deal with what she had been already dealt? Maybe god was in on the joke. Maybe there wasn't a god. She hoped there was.

Diamond Tiara wouldn't stop laughing. Silver Spoon wasn’t laughing as hard, but she was trying to.

Scootaloo had heard her father tell her once that sometimes it was best to just walk away. She thought about him hard. Thinking about him made her determined. Maybe it was some magical force, she didn’t know, but what mattered was that she had turned around and started to just walk away.

Diamond Tiara looked up and saw her victim escaping. She realized something horrible. Somebody was ignoring her. Her laughter ceased.

That was something she hated. If there was one thing Diamond Tiara hated more than anything, it was to be ignored, especially by a freak. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Hey! Where are you going, freak cripple!?” She yelled.

“Home!” Scootaloo called over her shoulder. “Maybe you should go there too!”

Diamond Tiara didn’t take shit from anybody. That freak was talking back. How dare she? How fucking dare that little shit talk back to her? Diamond Tiara looked to the side of her. She saw a rock. Taking another dollop of snow, she packed it around the rock, and threw it as hard as she could at the back of the freak’s head.

This snowball went faster than the other ones and collided with Scootaloo’s skull.

*WUNK*

Scootaloo fell.

The first seconds or so were in slow motion. She fell to the ground and noticed the many details of it before her face made contact with the hard surface. The *wunk* had been very loud to her, though not sure what it was, and the back of her head felt like it was sweating heavily. Then, a sheet of white hot pain flared up all throughout her miniscule cranium as the pain became realized. She let out a high pitched shriek.

As quickly as she could, she grabbed the back of her head and applied the hardest pressure her tiny might could manage. More uncontrollable cries of pain escaped while her hooves leisurely became covered with blood.

Scootaloo rolled back and forth, writhing in awful, awful agony. Diamond Tiara picked herself up, still furious, and stormed over to the freak that ignored her.

Silver Spoon had hardly noticed what had happened. She saw her friend throw the rock, but couldn’t believe it. Why would anybody do that? Her thoughts raced as her friend was going to Scootaloo. For a second, she looked like she was going to help.

Diamond Tiara was huffing with anger.

“Don’t you ignore me, freak!” She shouted at the huddled filly she had injured. At this, she stood on her hind legs and kicked Scootaloo as hard as she could.

Scootaloo jarred and let out a weak, sharp squeal.

She lifted her leg again.

“Don’t!”

*KLOC*

“You ever!”

*KLOC*

“FUCKING!!”

*PUNT*

“IGNORE ME!!!!!”

*KICK*

“YOU”

*WHAP*

“FUCKING”

*KICK*

“FREEEEEAAAKKKKKKkk!!!!!!!!”

*KICK* *KICK* *KICK*

Scootaloo lay on her side, a tooth or two in somewhere in her mouth it shouldn’t have been, many cuts all over her and black bruises already developing. Everything was a sort of numb. She couldn’t really feel it, but she had this swollen horrible repeating pulse that was all over. She couldn’t even scream anymore. It was hard enough to breath.

Diamond Tiara was panting like she had just run a hundred miles. Saliva was gathering around her lips, some of it coming out when she respired. Tufts of her mane had gotten out of place from the forceful, spastic movements done so quickly and her tiara was crooked. She loomed over what she had just corrected. The freak learned its lesson, she knew.

Turning back around, she saw her friend’s face had gone pale. All blood had drained from her mug, just staring back

at her friend, mortified.

Diamond Tiara knew what she had done. She had lost her composure. She shaped herself back up as best she could and got back on all fours.

“C’mon, Spoon. Let’s go home.”

Silver Spoon’s mouth trembled open. She tried to respond.

“Uh-y-..-ah-I…”

Diamond Tiara hurried away from the mess she made and past her friend.

“I said let’s go.”

Silver Spoon turned around without hesitation and followed behind her friend from a fair distance. The two went into the fog and out of sight. Scootaloo was now alone.

A buzzing filled her gut. It spread out and made it to her head. The rush engulfed her eyes with the stuff she saw on TV screens sometimes when the stations were off the air. Then she blacked out.

When she woke up, it was late. Thankfully, it had only just started to snow and she was only powdered with it. At least she didn’t freeze to death while she was under.

She tried to lift her shoulder, but she was instantly met with unbearable pain. She let out a scream. She knew straightaway that her whole body would feel just as bad all the way home.

She started crying softly, knowing that staying on the ground all night wasn’t an option.

Scootaloo put on hoof on the ground. It throbbed with the rest of her body, like she was feeling every drop of blood expand her veins and stress the abused muscle. The pain was horrible.

It took her several minutes to get on all of her fours without falling back down and giving up. Her chest was infinitely heavier than it was supposed to be, and it hurt when she breathed. One of her eyes was so swollen that she could hardly see through it.

Taking one painful and seemingly endless step at a time, Scootaloo took a full hour and a half to make it home.

As she approached the building, she looked up and saw that the lights were still on. It was only a little bit further, so she tried moving faster, quickly realizing that it did no good and only made the aching worse.

Reaching the doorstep, she mustered all of her remaining strength to ring the doorbell. After hearing a few muffled hoofsteps shuffling toward the door, it opened. Standing in the doorway was a tall mare with bags under her eyes and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, clearly very tired.

The tall mare looked down.

“Oh, hey. Look who showed up.” She scorned.

Scootaloo looked down to avoid her gaze.

“Hi, Mrs. Powell.” She replied shamefully.

“Get in here, kid. Do you have any idea how damn late it is?”

“No.” Scootaloo admitted, ashamed.

“Looks like you got in another fight, huh?” Mrs. Powell examined. “When are you gonna grow up, loser?” She scolded.

“I’m sorry.” Scootaloo whimpered.

“No breakfast tomorrow. Maybe that’ll teach you.”

Mrs. Powell stepped aside and let Scootaloo limp in. Afterward, she slammed it closed and shut off the porch lights.

The only thing keeping the outside slightly alight was the dilapidated neon sign at the start of the driveway; reading “Ponyville County Orphanage”.