The Night Her Course Began

by Nex

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Tragedy, Sad, Original Character
Length: 1249

An orphaned pony, unhappy with her life, finds a talent that's unlike any other. It's not a pleasant story. It's not meant to be.

A long time ago, or maybe in the future, I'm not too sure about which is which, a pony with no name became an orphan due to an accident so gruesome that it should not be described. Her life was simple, until she discovers her talent, changing the way her life works forever. Simply put, this fanfic provides the illusion of a happy story in a few paragraphs. Make what you will of that sentence.

Published 2014-10-23 04:30:08 UTC
Last updated 2014-10-23 04:30:08 UTC

Introductory Pilot

I suppose you, the reader, are like many others. You open up a fiction, expecting something happy, or meaningful, or original. This is none of that, it's merely a telling of an event that never happened by some fat mingy slob before his computer. Fanatical, if you will. Of course, this story isn't very happy to start with, isn't happy to end with, and is merely confusing in the middle. That's how stories are meant to go.

Life began in the happy technicolor world of Equestria, in the eastern part of Ponyville, where colourful horses flourished their talents around, gladly content with their lives. Somewhere along one of the many streets, on a gingerbread house amongst many others, there lived a filly unicorn named Violet, after the colour of her mane. You see, when she was born, her parents were not sure on a fitting name and died in a very tragic accident on the way home.

Just to clarify, so that everyone knows what came next and why. Ponies typically discover talents later in life. In a normal happy world, parents would magically sense what the name of their offspring should be, a fitting name that either explains their talent or helps make sense of it, such as Raindrop. Not all parents choose to deal with this, and they give their child more creative names like Sweetbloom. The name always hints to their talent. Some ponies tend to never find their talents, and do menial labour as a result. But in extraordinarily rare cases, such as this, ponies are never given a name at birth. There is nobody who could predict her talent, so Ponyville officials chose the most fitting name from what they saw of the newborn orphan. This process took weeks and had hundreds of names thrown out, especially those that imply a talent. These ponies typically have the hardest time when it comes to discovery near the age where they flourish in skill.

Now since there is almost nothing left that needs to be explained about Violet, let's go through a normal day for her. Life was simple for Violet, as the town helped her out with basic needs, like food or supplies, but she was never liked in school. She was the constant result of bullying by other ponies, such as Silver Spoon, who was vile and brash in her taunting. Not a day went by without Violet being pushed around, laughed at, or humiliated publicly. There was no reason for the cesspool of hatred directed towards her, her grades showed brilliance, but it was never about her intelligence. Maybe it was just the cruelty of children. That's not to say that the parents of the other fillies and colts weren't called, but even so, nothing changed.

After such a day, the filly went home to typically sit down in an empty room and think about nothing. She had other things to entertain her, but it was her favourite pastime. At times, she hummed extraordinarily long notes, flowing from one to another in a simple way, and memorizing them for later. She could hum a song for hours on end, singing it over and over again without stopping. Sometimes the filly tapped the ground, to be a form of percussion to back up her lonely hum. It was never told to anypony else.

One day, Violet had an unbearably long class, only made worse with the fact that it was dark outside the entire day. I should mention that typically the Princesses of the Sun and the Moon, whose natural talent composed of the ability to control day and night, did not have days where the time of day was wrong. In fact, only two days in a year did the night happen in the day, as a reminder of the miracle that is the darkness. Many ponies could die if the darkness became endless, but with proper scheduling, the ponies enjoyed what they typically missed. Anyway, where was I...? Oh. That's right.

Violet had an unbearably long class, as the night outside seemed to make everything stand still. The clock ticked with everlasting pauses, and Violet's coursework consisted of her researching about the history of some pointless thing that happened years ago in a place so far away, the name eludes me. Note that research typically meant that she'd make it up, as even though she had supplies, the books in the library were constantly missing and only when she required them. It was something about griffons, a history subject typically glossed over in grade school, only expanding in postsecondary studies. Violet was once again ridiculed at in the middle of class, while the teacher was away, for not having her cutie mark, which seems to be an utterly ridiculous thing to make fun of someone for. Even so, Violet's mind had enough, and she felt like she wanted to go home and do nothing for the rest of her life.

After class, Violet sulked home in the unusual rainy night. It became what can be described as murky and wet, the only comfort being the lamps lighting up the clouds above, making the rain sparkle as it poured down. It was depressing to look at for some, but not for Violet; she adored this weather. Behind her was a mysterious figure of her size, following her just as slowly. Violet passed another pony near her house, a white unicorn holding up a black umbrella over her head, before she realized that she was being followed.

The young filly sped up, and the mysterious figure ran towards her. It caught up to her, spun her around and then hoofed her in the eye. The pain in her eye was unbearable, and she felt as her skin slowly expanded, bruised from the hit. In what can only be described as a survival mechanism, she noticed that time began to slow down. Her thoughts noticed far more than what was there before.

"This hurts." she thought, soon realizing how obvious it sounded. Her thoughts typically were quick and simple in nature, rarely forming sentences even close to a dozen words. She thought more than she spoke.

Looking around, the rain started to sound deeper, the leaves blew slower, and the pain ceased in a longer time. The lights were grey, turning leisurely to their usual orange hue, while everything seemed to become a standstill. Maybe the unicorn, who was walking away didn't notice, or maybe she didn't care. Either way, the pony that hit Violet was gone, and there was nothing that she could do. Her face became wet, maybe from her tears or maybe from the rain, no pony could ever tell. After this now miserable day, she entered her home, and did what she loved best while she waited for the pain to go away. It seemed slow as well.

Author's Note

So far, I'm making it up as I go along. I thought of an idea like this a few days ago in IRC, and over the last hour, I wrote this. Maybe it's decent. Probably not. The last time I tried to write a fanfiction was in grade 7, over half a dozen years ago, and from what I remember, it was cringe-worthingly bad.
To be honest, I don't /need/ to make it a pony story. It can do fine on its own, I thought "might as well make this a fanfic while I'm at it".