Blade

The books weren’t all the same, but they felt that way. Despite the covers of each being unique, it didn’t matter to her. The words on the pages were just a jumbled combination of letters if you didn’t look hard enough, and she had to make it that way to concentrate. It was her job anyway, bookbinding. Twilight Sparkle was a book binder.

Everyday she’d bind a few dozen books and then send them off to the depository where they’d be sorted, bought, whatever. Sometimes she would bind several copies of the same book and send them to a publisher, but that wasn’t very common.

She didn’t have a boss, but she wasn’t in charge of her job either. She would get requests and orders from previous contacts and that was how she knew what her workload was. Thankfully, the requests never stopped coming. She was always working.

It didn’t pay much either, but it kept her hanging on for god knew how long. She always wondered what her salary would have been if she had passed that stupid exam. Wait, were Celestia’s students paid at all? Was the prestige of being her student enough? It was silly now that she thought about it, a student being paid. Though she guessed she might have been given a penthouse or something of that il-

“Twily?”

Oh no. Not him.

“Twily, are you here?”

Twilight Sparkle stopped her thread and needle’s endless loop to stare at the wall ahead of her. She heard his voice, but she didn’t look. She didn’t dare look.

Shining Armor grew closer to her. “How are you doing today, sis?”

She said enough by continuing to stare at the wall with her empty gaze.

Shining frowned and raised his hoof to his sister, but she batted it away. “Don’t… touch me.” She finally replied.

Shining complied and put his hoof back to the ground slowly. Then, he looked away as well. “Why don’t you look at me anymore, Twily?”

He knew why. He knew what the worst thing about looking at him was.

A few moments of silence dwindled, but where shattered by Shining’s voice. “I just wanted to say hi to my little sister! Why can’t I just come by and say hello to my little sister, Twilight?”

Her voice was low and automatic. She always said the same thing. “I’m really busy today, Shining. I’ve got a lot of work to do and I hardly have time for visitors.”

“The Summer Sun Celebration is coming up. Will you have time for that?” He asked frustrated, already knowing the answer.

“I don’t have time for parties, Shining. It’s imperative that I finish my workload as efficiently as possible.” She said, still refusing to look at him.

The room fell silent once more. The stallion frowned and turned back toward the exit, and Twilight could have resumed and just gone back to her numbing, simple work if he hadn’t stopped in the doorway.

“When did you stop loving everything?” He asked.

Twilight raised her head again. She appeared rather annoyed this time. “What is this supposed to be, Shining?”

“I remember the Summer Sun Celebration when you were six.” He stopped himself. His eyebrows drooped and he shifted his eyes to the side to reconsider what he had just said. “No.”

He walked back up to her and pointed. “No, you weren’t there. All I can remember is a little purple filly. I know she can’t be you because of the look she had on her face when that sun came up.”

She didn’t have time for this. There was no time for remembering. Things had to be done. That’s how it always was; completion then re-evaluation. That was the Twilight method. “Shining, if there’s a point to thi-“ She was jerked away. That wasn’t part of the method.

Shining was her big brother, of course he was stronger. Her bookbinder’s twigs were no match against his royal guarding toned pythons. He forced her body away from the desk and aimed her chest at his. Both his hooves were around her torso though, and he still couldn’t control her eyes.

“Look at me, Twily! Look at your big brother for god sake!” He growled, shaking her.

“Let go of me!” LET GO OF ME!”

“Why can’t I see her again, huh? Why won’t you let me see that she’s still there!?”

Twilight tried to buck his shins, but they were much too far out of reach. Her struggling was pointless. She’d get a glimpse of him eventually.

“LET. GO. OF. ME!!!” She squirmed.

“I want to see that filly, Twilight!” He very nearly shouted. “Why won’t you just give me a glimpse of that wide-eyed little kid who believed there was wonder and joy in everything!? What happened to her? Where did the sense of adventure go? What made you lose your magic, Twilight!?”

She was so focused on pushing away that she had forgotten her horn. Shining couldn’t have dodged it even if he’d seen it coming. The book she had been binding was bound with his face, sending him flat onto the floor. Twilight scrambled to her hooves and picked the book back up, heaving from the struggle.

She saw him. She knew she shouldn’t have. And that was when she cracked. It wasn’t fair. Why did it have to be this way? She crumbled to her knees and began to cry. On his lapel was a brand new badge. She knew it would be there, but she couldn’t deny its existence now. She’d seen it.

There was always a new badge. Ever since he got accepted into the academy, there was always a new one every time. It wasn’t enough that he was the captain of the entire royal guard was it? He just had to be the best; the envy of the whole royal force. It wasn’t enough that the monarch of the entire country entrusted her life to him was it? It wasn’t enough that he had always succeeded more than his sister was it? It wasn’t enough that he never even tried to do any of these things was it?

No.

He just had to be who he was. He just had to torture her. He just had to keep raising the bar and reminding her that no matter what she did, she’d always be…nobody.

A nobody to her idol and hero, a nobody to her peers, a nobody to her parents, a nobody to…everyone.

That’s what a kiss-less virgin bookbinder was. A nobody. And that’s who she was. A kiss-less virgin bookbinding loner with no friends. And there she sobbed. On the floor of her cheap, lame, drab apartment, like a child.

Shining picked himself up and saw his sister. He reached out for her one last time. “Twily, please.”

She lashed out at his hoof, startling him into reeling it back in. “DON’T TOUCH ME! I SAID DON’T TOUCH ME, SHINING!” she wailed in anger.

Shining stood and stared, shattered by the sight in front of him. His sister bawling on the floor, with nothing he could do.

A ray of light flickered in his vision, and he turned to see that mounted on the wall was something that he hadn’t seen in some very long time.

It was a frame with an acceptance letter in it; the one Twilight had received the week before she’d taken the entrance exam. Under her name, the document was altered. He remembered the document reading “failed” in red ink below, but it had been scribbled out and taped over by a picture of the princess.