When I was young, I learned what different faces meant.
A mouth turned upward meant I had done good.
A mouth turned down meant bad.
Low eyebrows meant strong.
High eyebrows meant weakness.
High eyebrows and upward mouth meant happiness.
High eyebrows and downward mouth meant sadness.
Low eyebrows and upward mouth meant confidence.
Low eyebrows and downward mouth meant anger.
I reveled in the rare and fleeting occasion that I would see any of these.
The expression I knew best of all was
a flat mouth
neither up nor down
and level eyebrows
neither high nor low.
The dull, smoldering gaze of disappointment.
I am five years old, but they tell me I am different from the other fillies my age.
I remember every moment of my life, from birth to the current moment, and this is apparently unusual.
I am also different from most other ponies.
I can fly even though I have no wings, and I can do magic even though I have no horn. And this is obviously unusual.
Nana, the mare who runs our foster home, calls me Page, perhaps because my coat and mane are pure white, or perhaps because I have no past and no other name. Nothing is known about me, so I am a blank page in their notebook, an answer looking for a question.
I never talk to anypony about my life before the foster home
because I generally assume that nopony really wants to hear it.
But as I grow older, they ask me more and more questions.
Where did you live?
Who were your parents?
What did they look like?
Why would they abandon you?
I know the answers to their prompts, but I feign ignorance. I know exactly where I lived, who my parents were and why they abandoned me. But when their inquiries are met with an "I don't know", their response is always the same.
"You were so young. I guess you wouldn't remember."
They are wrong, but I don't bother to correct them. I don't care what the truth is.
I just wish they'd stop asking me.