1; Losing hope, and searching for freedom.
There was darkness, warmth, and a growing noise. Then there was light, somepony in white, and the noise was his own, at first. More noise joined in, though, and he didn’t understand what it meant.
"What’s wrong with his eyes?” a female voice asked, a hint of worry. He would come to find out this was his mother, but he was far too young to know that today.
“Well… I wouldn’t say WRONG, really… He seems to have heterochromia, which just means they’re different colors. It’s a bit unusual, but… it shouldn’t cause him any problems in the long run,” the stallion in white, the doctor who delivered him, offered.
“Yes, the aqua and pink do look rather dashing against his coat…” his mother said, the worry gone.
She was allowed to hold him, and the worry returned. “Doctor?” she called, “His eyes, again… not the color, but… the direction. Directions,” she corrected herself.
The stallion in white leaned in, taking another look at the eyes of the foal. “Could just be a little bit cross… but let’s get him back here in a few weeks, and get a better look at things, just in case. Alright?”
The female was worried still, her heart raced next to the foals head, pounding, pounding, pounding away, but she agreed to come back, and tried to calm herself.
She did, in fact, take him back to the Doctor, though he remembers none of it. It was discovered that he had Strabismus. The doctor did what he could, but any attempts at correction failed.
The next thing he remembered, the colt was walking, his legs shook with every step. He was encouraged to continue, fell to the floor, and encouraged again. When he finally spoke…
“No.” His first word. His parents were dismayed at the lingering sound as it hung in the air.
“Is… is that alright? It just seems so… negative…” his mother questioned with worry.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s his first word, I doubt he has any idea what it means. Isn’t that right, Koukatsu?” his father reassured her, and asked the colt facetiously, though he was a bit disturbed by it as well.
A short time later, they began sending him to school. He watched the other foals, and tried to join in on the things they did. He seemed to enjoy himself, but the colt really knew better. He was already too smart for his own good.
There’s no STRUCTURE, they ignore the RULES to games… These foals are simple, and chaotic… As the thoughts twisted around in his mind, he saw something. Somepony had brought a toy. That’s… the MegAlicorn from the Mighty Morphin’ Pony Rangers? That’s AWESOME! The hypocrisy of the two trains of thought would not dawn on the colt for many years.
He grabbed the toy from its place, and played with it. The colt made silly robot noises, and ‘pew pew’ sounds for laser beams, attacking a monster that nopony else could see. Another colt made his way over, and decided he wanted to play with the same toy, despite that fact that it was presently in use.
“No,” he told the newcomer, as the colt attempted to take it without a word.
The newcomer scrunched his face, and started yelling. “Give it, give it!” he wailed.
A few moments passed by, and finally, he handed over the toy with a sigh, finding the banshee wails of the other colt more annoying than the toy was fun. He wandered through his days having what fun he could, though the antics of the other colts and fillies did not always amuse him.
In time, they all began to grow and mature in their own ways. It was interesting to watch as the changes occurred, day to day, week to week, watching everypony grow over months at a time, especially at home. His mother and father had announced that he would soon have a sister, and it seemed she was very nearly here.
As time went on, his sister came into existence, and the other colts and fillies of his class were seemingly more disciplined. It was easier for him to find friends among his aging peers, even if it did still require some patience. It came as quite a shock the first time somepony came in with their new cutiemark, almost as shocking as when he'd gone home to find his new sister was there waiting. Once he fully understood how one received it, though, the surprise was gone, and he was simply left with the desire to find his, but no idea how to get it... Though the mystery of pony creation and birth was still out of his reach.
Among his friends, he was still distant. A small number of ponies even started to bully him a bit. Taunting him for his different colored eyes, for the fact that they didn’t look in the same direction. "What does that have to do with anything?" he would respond, "The colors of my eyes doesn’t change the colors I see in the world… and the alignment doesn’t mean much. I’m used to looking in two directions now, so who cares?" But they teased all the same, and a small flame of hatred was kindled in his heart.
It wasn't just the school foals, either. As his sister grew, she seemed to have almost immediate disdain for her brother, causing him to deal with the teasing at home as well. It really didn't help that she got her cutiemark before she was even old enough to go to school, but it made perfect sense when he saw what it was. His parents were always doting on the filly. To put it simply, they thought she had a better chance in the real world than he did, and they showed it. Whether they knew it or not, he did not know, but it was an infuriating realization.
So he moved through his youth, walking on eggshells, simply wanting to be left alone. He would rather be alone than be picked on, and picking a fight with the fools who teased and taunted him simply wasn’t worth the time or energy. Likewise, it was easier to get by at home by keeping to himself. Let them spoil her, he would think to himself, I'll come out strong, struggling, EARNING my place in the world...
A few weeks after the bullying began, he was forced to give up his free time during the weekends, to attend a 'special flight school for Pegasi', though it seemed more like something to get him out from under the rest of the families hooves. He learned quickly, and managed to outpace the rest of the Pegasi in his class. A number of them were impressed, and even tried to befriend him, but he was already shut off from the rest of them, unwilling to risk the teasing and bullying he already had to endure at school and home. Why open up, only to be turned on?
He kept to his studies, and practicing his flying, spending minimal time at home, and what time he did spend there he spent mostly alone. He always placed first at the flight school. Being the fastest flyer in the little school was an excellent way to avoid everypony, after all. When the flight lessons did finally end, he'd managed set a number of records at the flight school.
Once he was back to doing just his regular schooling, everypony moved on, the bullies slowly losing interest in him. His classmates became further developed, their personalities more uniquely defined, more and more of them getting their cutiemarks. As they grew, everypony grew distant, avoiding the quiet pony with the weird eyes.
The few ponies he had made friends with were the last to drift away, and he was lost, adrift at sea. He floated through the rest of the school days, thinking he was fine. It didn’t matter if he had anypony, or what the others called him when he was the only pony in class without a cutiemark. Nor did it matter what they called him when he was the only pony in his age group without one, either. He was his own pony. All his blank flank meant in his own eyes was that, whatever it was meant to be, his destiny was great, and such greatness REFUSED to be found in such a podunk, one horse town like Gilbit.
Still, even his own parents were becoming upset that he didn't have a cutiemark.
"Why can't you just find what you want to do with your life?" his mother would ask.
"You should open up more, spend more time going around town, find what you should be doing for the rest of your life," his father would tell him.
Finally, he graduated from school. It took years, but felt like lifetimes. His once loving parents didn’t go to the graduation event. Their advice had become nagging, and turned to shame in the end. They were ashamed to be the parents of the only blank flank to be graduating, even if he the first in the entire history of the school to do so.
Once he was finally free of that dungeon-like institution, he kept himself busy, doing odd jobs for bits, and saving as many of those bits as he could. He was going to need them to escape the town he’d known all his life, and be free of the wretches that haunted him.
As he toiled and saved his bits, he put up with everything his parents and sister piled on. All the gripes about how embarrassed they were, having a son who had no cutiemark. All the praise for his sister, and her cutiemark, nevermind that it was a cloud raining bits. Nevermind that she was fulfilling her destiny by having everything handed to her, and having everypony spoil her. The once small flame of hatred that burned in his heart had grown, and the raging flame that now filled his chest kept him strong enough, and healthy enough, to keep raking in the bits.
All those other things, those distractions from his work, they didn’t matter. He kept toiling away, the dream of leaving this all behind fast approaching.
2; Getting out of dodge... er... Gilbit.
He rose early, some would say, to leave before light broke. In truth, he had never lain down. He sat up and waited, packed all through the night. When it felt like dawn would be upon them, he set out, his saddlebags filled with his life savings. He stole silently through the house and out the door, completely unobserved. Nopony would be up this early, and he'd counted on that. As he trotted away, he smiled to himself, pleased that everything had worked out.
Once he'd covered a good distance, and felt he could make noise without rousing the neighborhood, he shouted to the moon, howling "I FINALLY DID IT!". The wind whipped through his mane as he broke into a full gallop, "I'M FINALLY FREE!" It had taken far too long, but he was finally off on his own. He slowed his pace, gave his wings a stretch, and took to the sky. It felt good to know he didn't have to deal with the negativity he'd been getting anymore, to be outside the range of his fathers reproach, free of his sisters taunts and teases, and far beyond the nagging complaints of his mother.
"Now that I'm finally out..." he muttered to himself, landing on a cloud, "...where should I go first?" He thought on it for a while, and finally withdrew a bit from his bags. "Heads, east. Tails, west," he said to nopony, flipping the shiny golden bit high into the air. He followed it down, all the way to the ground, and watched it as it bounced and flipped, until it came to a solid stop in the dew laden grass. "West it is!" he said with cheer, taking a single step to the west, stopping only to pick up the bit.
So began his journey, with a single, cool, confident step. Each hoofprint that was left in his wake, a marker to show how far he'd come, in life, and towards his next destination.
The sun was unforgiving in the desert, but he made do. As it had started to peak out at him, he'd taken what cloud cover he could, and dragged some along, like a makeshift umbrella. The sand was warming beneath his hooves, and having lived his whole life in the desert, he knew it would get to a burning temperature soon. Still, until it did, it was best to save his energy. Once he had to take flight, there would be no telling if he'd be able to rest his wings before sundown.
By the time he did leave the burning sands of the desert, the sun was high in the sky. His little cloud was gone now, having lost its watery goodness to the heat inch by inch, until it was no more. So he flew, unbroken by the searing heat. There was little in the dunes of western Mareizona, the occasional cactus, some small critters... Nothing worth visiting if you weren't just passing through.
Hours later, he was began to tire. The sun was no longer overhead, but rather trying to blind him, as if to spite his journey. Even still, he continued on. Soon, he would need somewhere to stop and rest, though he'd hoped for a small town somewhere. The desert temperatures changed radically from day to night, and he had no intention of becoming a frozen treat of any kind.
He saw nothing as he went, until long after the sun was gone, and the moon lit the sky. It was full tonight, and he basked in it as he went, refusing to stop in the cold. Gotta keep the blood pumping, gotta keep goin', and he did, right until he finally found a town, late into the night. It was a small town, just inside Mareizona, not far from the Caballifornia border, called Lake Hooveasu City. He was glad to be this far, especially since it was right off Lake Hooveasu.
He landed, his wings tired and achy from a long flight. After all, he'd come a long way in his journey. He was fast, but he could stand to improve his wing stamina. I'm gonna have to work on that, he thought, as he trotted into town to look for a hotel, or some similar place to rest, though he wouldn't mind a bite to eat, either. He looked about, and saw a sign with food on it, so he headed that way. If anypony knew a place to sleep, he felt it likely somepony in a restaurant would. He trotted through the door, and up to the bar, taking a seat at the counter.
The barkeep approached, leaned on the counter, and looked him right in the eye. "What'll ye have, stranger?"
He turned to the stallion, "I'm open to suggestions on the first round, Mister," he said with a grin. "I'm also lookin' for a place to rest up for a couple hours before I get back on my way. Know of any?"
The barkeep nodded, pulled out a glass, and started to pour something into it. "Name's Larry. I got a spare room up above, if'n you can pay. It ain't purdy, but it's quiet 'n' outta the way."
"Koukatsu, but you can call me Kou. That sounds like just what I need, Larry, thanks," was all he said in reply. He downed the drink, dropped some bits for the room, and grabbed the key he was offered. He went up straight away, to secure his bags in the room.
As the door shut behind him, he pocketed the key, and slowly scanned around. Finally, he smiled, started flapping, and took to the rafters. He took off his bags, and balanced them on a rafter, behind a beam. He flew back down, and looked to where he'd just been, making sure his was satisfied with the hiding place. He nodded to his handiwork, and trotted out of the room, back down to the bar.
"One last thing, Larry. Which way to the lake?"
Larry grunted, and pointed to the northwest. Kou gave the old barkeep a nod, and headed toward the lake.
He found it just a bit outside of town, and smiled as he took it in. Before him, a big beautiful lake, almost perfectly white in the early light of the moon. He'd seen water, sure, but never like this. It's absolutely beautiful... he thought, taking it in. He grinned, and went from standing to breakneck flight, crashing into the rippling surface of the lake like cannon fire.
By the time he surfaced, the drops of water that had been sent into the sky had fallen, and rejoined the lake. He floated there on his back, staring up at the stars with a big dopy grin on his face. What a day... It took a long time, but I've made the first stop. The first chance to rest in freedom, and enjoy the rest of my life.
A short while later, he swam to shore, shook off some water, and took to the sky to finish drying out before he headed back to the town. Nopony was out after dark, or so the barren streets told him in the darkness. So he made his way back to the run-down little inn he was staying at in silence. He gave Larry a little nod, and headed straight up the stairs without a word. He pulled the key out, and with a small chik, he was in his temporary home once more.
After a quick flight to the rafters, to be assured of his cargo's safety, he sat up on the soft, albeit worn, bed, and began to preen his wings. "Just because I'm on my own, doesn't mean I should lack basic hygiene..." he muttered to nopony as he went. He listened to the wind slowly come to life in the night, and smiled as he went.
When he'd finished his preening, he decided to trot down for a bite. Larry was still behind the bar.
"What's good eats around here, Larry?" he asked casually.
"Well, I've been told I can cook up a decent hayburger," the old stallion responded.
"I'll have one then, if you'd be so kind," Koukatsu offered with a smile, placing a hooffull of bits on the bar, "And a shot of Fireball, if you have it."
Larry tossed a hayburger on a grill behind the bar, and wandered away to poor the requested drink while it cooked. He slid the drink over from the end, and Koukatsu downed it quickly.
"Whew, that is good stuff, Larry. Keep 'em coming, my friend."
And so the night went on. For hours, Larry and Koukatsu gabbed like foals, and drank all through the conversation. They talked about the drinks, and about food. They pondered the reason behind all things. They even mused over the abilities of Alicorns, and how Unicorn magic came to be. Eventually though, Koukatsu decided enough was enough.
"Well, it's been fun Larry, but it's about time I turned in."
Larry gave a nod, and Koukatsu headed up to his room. He laid out on the bed, and thought about where he was headed. This was not a place to stop in, so he'd be on the road again soon enough. He wondered what was out further west. He imagined the cities, and the ponies... and as he did, he drifted off to sleep.
