Chapter 1

Depending on parents, ponies normally make their first friend in the first few months of their life. This is the pony you grow up with, the one that’s always by your side. Some ponies even have more than one of these friends, but not all ponies.

In some families the children are secluded, either because the parents, mother or father, are scared. They might think that introducing new ponies to their little bundle of joy would somehow hurt it. There, however, tends to be a reason for this isolation, either the pony is bedridden and possibly infectious, but will pass, or the parents want to instill their version of right and wrong so it won’t be tainted by another filly from a different family. Both will lead to the inevitable of their child making lifelong friendships, but there’s a third, rarer, option.

What if the entire family has absolutely no intention of letting their child make any friends? One that values family ties to the nth degree and doesn’t even let the child know what a friend is. No obvious rhyme or reason.

That’s my family, but what I’d find out in the later days is that their life style wasn’t exactly a choice.

My name is Crystal Agate. I’m from an upper class family, who are entirely white furred for some reason, the only way you can tell us apart is by our eye color or size. I have green eyes, my sister, Cross has blue eyes and my mother, Sterile, has purple eyes, and we are a small family of doctors.

Now by doctors I mean best in the world. Mom is the head surgeon at Canterlot hospital. She’s in charge of ten of the best surgeons in the world, which makes her the best of the best, and is the only pony ever to perform a successful brain surgery on a unicorn filly.

My sister is a pediatrician and I adored her. Remember when I talked about my family refusing to make friends? Well that wasn’t entirely true. Cross was my best friend, or best sister friend, I like to call her BSBFF or Big Sister Best Friends Forever. It’s cheesy, I know, but for some reason that makes it more personal, and she truly deserves that title.  I’d wake up to her around twelve everyday of first six years of life, just before she went to work, to her, sitting at my bedside. She’d carry me to breakfast (before I could walk), feed me, change me, in the early years, and all around love me. I’m even the reason Cross got her cutie mark!

My mother did love me, but with her job she had to get up early, like three in the morning early to oversee the hospital’s patients, being head surgeon meant more than performing surgery, and would never see me in the morning. Sometimes I went to bed before she got home. Sometimes I slept in her bed until she moved me to my own, but normally Cross took care of me.

What I did for the six hours after Cross left was read. I sat in my bed, comfy and cozy, and read all the medical books I could get my hooves on. Although that didn’t start until I was three, before that I learned basic math, anatomy and science. Oh, for reference, I started reading when I was two and spent half a year learning the basics and finishing everything before my birth month. It wasn’t that hard considering Cross didn’t start learning medicine until she was four.

When Cross did get home, she’d take me outside and teach me exercise techniques, which could have been summed up with “Ponies need to run around,” and a lot of tag, hide and seek and tree climbing. Those were the times where I was happiest. Whenever I’m with Cross I was happy. Oh, and when she had days off from work, Cross would climb into bed with me and read for me! I know it’s a small thing, especially if what I was reading was a complex medical textbook or diagram, but it really meant a lot to me. She’d always explain words that confused me, even in the slightest, and had the voice of an angel, and no matter how many questions I asked, she’d answer them.

She was amazing.

But my amazing just wasn’t normal for other ponies. To them sisters fought, they loved each other, but fought over the stupidest of things. To them, the role Cross played in my early life was more akin to a mother, although without the advanced medical textbooks, and I guess they’re right.

Cross wasn’t a sister to me, she was in fact a second mother, one that took care of me when my real mother wasn’t around. Which was most of the time. But when Mom did show up, it was a special treat, better than the cherry orange swirl lollipops Cross brought back from her work.

If I woke up to a pair of purple eyes, I would have to restrain myself from lunging at her. To me, Mom was god, and you never lunge at god, even if it was just for a hug. She’d come into my room, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, and slowly lifted me out of bed. We’d talk about her day, she’d tell me about the funny ponies she works for and I’d talk about my studies, sometimes she’d quiz me and others were short visits, but everytime I saw her she had a gift.

The first gift she ever gave me was just another cherry orange swirl, but after I turned three, and passed one of her quizzes on anatomy, she gave me a book. Not a medical textbook or medical weekly, but a fictional book, one by the famous author, King Stephen, called Starter of Fires. A horror book reserved for adult readers, but Mom gave it to me when I was three.

And I loved it.

None of the horror stuff scared me. A single article in Medical Weekly has more fright than that entire book, being eaten alive by insects, from inside your body? Now that’s scary.

I kept that book for almost two years, reading it, re reading it, even having Cross read it. I think I read it a total of ten times before that day, and still could read it again.

This lifestyle went on for five and a half years, me never leaving leaving the house or two acres of land we had. One time I got curious and took a single step outside the gate, but stopped and ran back. It was too unfamiliar, like an infant cooking for themselves.

About three months before I started school, Cross and Mom met me in the living room, something that never happened, and talked about Cross adding something to my daily schedule. For those last three months I learned how to sleep in class. It might sound delinquent to you, but Mom made a point to tell me not to make friends or interact with anyone. She said I was only going to school to fulfil legal obligations, that I already knew everything they’d cover in class. Cross told me that school was a joke, but she amended Mom’s words, that I should try to make friends, that it’d help me in the future, but I didn’t listen. In my eyes, god’s word meant more than Mom’s.

My first day of school was terrifying, mostly because it was the first time I ever left the house. I was late because I refused to go. I had climbed the tree in our front yard as high as I could, clutching onto the trunk.

The first step I took outside felt just like the first time, wrong, and I kept running back to the tree, but eventually Mom got mad, but before she could do anything, Cross literally bit me and dragged me to school. I had to wear a coat to cover the wound. There was no blood, and it healed in less than a day, but that was the first time Cross had physically hurt me.

Mom and Cross were right about school. It was a joke. I got good at sleeping in class during my training, and went to bed later than any of the other fillies, knowing that I’d get more sleep.

Even on days where the teacher tested us I finished in twenty minutes, at most, and fell right asleep, or left if I could. That only happened once though.

During recess I sat under a tree, or in a tree, and read my medical textbook. At first ponies wandered over, curious about me, and tried to be friendly, but I put a stop to it just like Mom said, and eventually isolated myself in a cocoon of secrecy, no one reaching out to me and me reaching out to no one.

Near the end of my first year Cross ran away from home. I remember the night like the back of my hoof. Cross yelled at Mom, using words that I’d never heard before, dark, angry words. They never left me, but Cross did.

Cross left the house with an earth shattering bang, never to be seen again, never even saying goodbye to me. I was forced to stare blankly at the wall as I watched my BSBFF walk the whole two acres. She didn’t even look back. When Mom walked into my room, I saw that one of her eyes were blackened. She hurt Mom? I stared in disbelief as she sat on my bed and wrapped a hoof around my back. She hurt God. I touched it, just like as the book described it, and then cried into her chest.

“Cross won’t be living with us anymore,” She said rubbing my back.

Mom ended up reading me Starters of Fire before I went to bed. She also kissed my forehead for the first time. I went to sleep with a smile on my face that night.

Life went on without her, month after month went by. I turned six without her, started my second year of school without her, and finished memorizing every bone, muscle, organ and difference in each of the three races without her.

The hardest thing I had to do without her was cooking. I could boil water and make cereal, but when it came to making sandwiches, picking the right ingredients, even finding good recipes, I was at a lost. Mom told me to keep Cross’s disappearance a secret so I couldn’t even ask anyone for help. I’m actually surprised no one called the police when they saw a six year old filly shopping for things other than candy.

Four months into my second year of school I had been sitting in my tree. Mom was home on sick leave (she’d caught a cold and decided that she didn't want to suck it up today) when I saw a giant white mare walk up the walkway.

I took a closer look to find it was none other than Princess Celestia.