Valentine

Solidly tied to robust oakwood crosses, the two fillies were getting ready to spend the night in the cold and gloomy room of the Governess; physical abuses were commonplace  at Pretty Clouds boarding school, and the next day, they would probably have a go at the whole set of ill treatments possible there. Cramps were already biting their limbs, and the cold combined with their uncomfortable position seemed to have stopped time around them.

Both Misty and Valentine looked miserable; their coats were ruffled and stained with red in some places; their manes were full of all sorts of various debris, absolute packs of knots which were impossible to untangle and would probably have to be shaven the next day.

"Y-you b-bitch !" sobbed Valentine. "To think I thought you were my friend and you SCREWED EVERYTHING !!"

Misty didn't reply; she thought about the whole scene over and over, trying to understand what exactly had happened, to find some kind of hookline to hold on to. Valentine hurled abuse at her, in the grip of a terrible sorrow tinged with rage, but the violet filly didn't manage to believe it all; Valentine was her friend, of course. They had spent their childhood together in this boarding school; she, the shy and withdrawn filly the bigger ones took pleasure in threatening, had found a comrade who liked her for who she was, and the two of them had stood against the hardships of the boarding school life; as for Valentine, she had stopped being afraid of the dark and suffering from the solitude thanks to Misty's presence. Their relationship had lasted this way for long years.

Then, several weeks ago, Valentine had met this stallion, thus breaking a good load of the school's rules; she had told Mistly right away, with the excited tone a young filly can have after discovering love, and she had not stopped telling her about all of their secret meetings ever since. Misty had turned out to be very fond of any little detail, and though the thought of seeing Valentine succumb to the natural cycle of a filly's life sometimes made her heart sink, she felt genuinely happy for her friend, and wished all the best of luck for her.

But that night, she had met the stallion who made Valentine's head spin. Misty had a retch everytime she used this expression; years of shared life and joys that alternated with all sorts of sorrows and immediately follwed by comfort, all of this was faltering, ready to collapse and only maintained still by the grey area that stood in the middle of what had happened in the garden.

Her best friend was in love with a stallion who didn't exist... or who could as well have been hiding, and have a black coat on his whole body and a white coat on his legs, or possess the power to merge in his environment... that would have explained his presence in the garden, in spite of all the risks.

"...Valentine?", she ventured, before swallowing with great difficulty. She would have paid a fortune not to have to clear the doubts away, and to go on hoping Valentine was totally sane in her mind and that it was her, Misty, who didn't understand it all. "Tell me about him. I beg you, Valentine, you know I didn't want to..."

"Do you want to steal him for me, now ?", Valentine hiccuped with rage. "Wasn't it enough for you to make him run away? You... you slut !"

Leaving the insult aside, Misty went on. "We had a pact, Valentine. Can you remember it? Nobody steals the other's partner. How did you meet him?"

"Go to hell ! I don't know if I can trust you anymore."

Misty felt as if she had just been slapped on the muzzle. She remained still and mute for a few seconds, as if hit. "What did you... just say ?", she asked, detaching every word from the other.

"You can go to...", Valentine began; she understood only too late that she had excited Misty's rage, and that the violet filly's reactions were now unpredictable.

"WHAT ? We've been knowing each other for years, and you dare claiming that you're questioning our mutual trust?!", she yelled, pulling on her ties as she were trying to break them. "You're going to throw me away like a used up sock, and let everything down for this... ghost ? You've got a serious issue, Valentine ! Now, stop your whining business at once and ANSWER ME !"

Valentine calmed down on the spot. She had never seen her friend in this state, and it frightened her a lot. "Mi... Misty?"

"HIS NAME ! HIS HOMELAND ! HIS COAT'S COLOUR ! HURRY !", screamed the violet filly, panting.

"He's w-white, he has a gold-coloured mane, he's a unicorn from Canterlot, and his name is... He..."

Misty got her head back up. "What's his name ? Valentine, answer me, I beg you!"

Valentine seemed to seek the name; she searched for it for a long time. Much too long a time for a simple name.

Misty's saw her vision become all blurry.

In the common bedroom, all the fillies were lying down, and nobody could sleep. A fight between the school's walls was a phenomenon rare enough to leave its mark on the minds, and nobody ignored the links that bonded Misty and Valentine. Everyone brooded over the scene and the last days in silence, still searching for answers; and the rare attempts to discuss about it all fell flat.

Lying face downward on her bed, Whistle Wishes was the only one who didn't try to understand; she was aware that they had not enough hints to do so, and beside making vain speculations, her comrades would not manage to get any solid fact out of that.

Misty's words haunted her mind : "Nobody has ever wanted you", "nobody has ever written to you".  Whistle Wishes lowered her gaze; what did she know about it, eh, had she ever checked her mail ? And of course she would end up meeting someone. She just needed time, that was all.

Valentine wasn't there anymore to crystallize her hatred, her envy and her resentment, and it got on her nerves; she feared that she could develop some harmful ideas. Whistle Wishes seeked someone else to hate, and had to face the facts : there was nobody left in the boarding school who hadn't been hated be her. The antisocial filly had already had to face this exact situation : it was hatred shortage. Since there was no one around to hate, she would have to hate herself, and draw the inexhaustible resources of hatred she held within from her own person.

While she was hating herself with passion, pushing her hatred to such incredible extents that it caused her to make small grimaces of disgust and other moanings, a sentence came to her mind at the same time her gaze met the locked drawer of Valentine's sideboard. Nobody has ever written to you, eh ?

"Hey girls...", she simpered with a little sly tone about her voice that her roommates knew well. "How about having a look at our dear frog eater's passionate mail ?"

"Hmmm... tired."

"Don't feel like it."

"Leave her alone, it's not funny."

Those bitches, thought Whistle Wishes, who realized she really, really wanted to have a loveletter in her hooves. "Come on, it's the ideal occasion, she's not here !", she went on with a diabolical chuckle.

"Go to bed, Wishes..."

She jumped on the floor. "Who said this ?!"

The culprit did not gave themselves up.

Mad with fury, Whistle Wishes rushed towards where the extravagant suposedly were, seized a filly by the scruff of the neck, the latter letting out small frightened shrieks, and spat to her face : "You're going to help me opening that drawer or I'll beat your ugly face up with my hooves, got that ?"

Her interlocutor saw that she wasn't joking and quickly nodded. The next moment, they were searching Valentine's piece of furniture for a key.

After having found nothing for a few instants, Whistle Wishes lost patience, and tried to force the lock without success; it was certainly protected with unicorn magic. However, nothing could stop the blue unicorn. "Draw back."

An electric blue light invaded the room while Whistle Wishes's horn played its role of magic catalyst and gave birth to ever growing spacing forces within the drawer.

A draught arose in the room and the temperature went down a bit while the unicorn showed her powers, her forehead soaked with a dazzling sparkle and her mane lifted by some invisible force; her magic was one of her rare qualities, and she held on to it as best as she chould, often training on the sly in order not to loose that talent. Around her, the fillies who had chickened out were watching the show in awe, while the drawer made creaking noises which were growing louder and louder.

Then it exploded, flooding its papers on the floor; Whistle Wishes fell on her hooves, exhausted and sweating but proud to have done it; the drawer that would resist her wasn't born yet !

"C'mon, read us one !", one of her comrades enjoined her.

A wide smile on her face, Whistle Wishes grabbed an enveloppe, took its content out, and looked surprised; she threw it away and tried with another one, without success either.

"What are you doing, Whistle Wishes ? C'mon, hurry up!"

But the blue unicorn's eyes went quickly from a letter to another, and she seemed to understand less and less. "What is this... bloody mess?!", she yelled.

Stamped letters, covered in passionate kissing traces, and paper wavy in spots where tears had flooded; letters neatly sorted out according to their dates, locked up in this drawer as if nobody else should read them; except that there was nothing written down on the paper. All of the envelops contained blank sheets.

Whistle Wishes stood up straight abruptly and rummaged with a lot of gesticulation in Valentine's papers. She found a corrected dictation test, perfect, as usual. The writing on it was the same as the one used to write down the address on the letters.

Then, attracted here by the mess, the Governess appeared. She saw at once the blank papers spread out on the ground, Whistle Wishes who was emptying Valentine's drawers with a terrible vigor that seemed to be more like panick. The blue filly had watched the Governess for a moment when she entered the room, then had resumed her frenetic rummaging, and the old mare, when taking out her stick, finally decided to wonder if the issue wasn't exceeding the mere stupidity of a handful of fillies going through their puberty.