It was a sunny day. Birds chirped. Bees buzzed.
'Good for the bees, good for the birds, good for the sun', a certain shy girl thought as she stared down at the pristine lake behind her cottage. At herself. 'Not good for me,' she thought.
She could still hear her stepfather's words from last night when she had went to visit him, all to get this blanket that was the last thing she had of her mother. Her beautiful mother. She sighed. She was not beautiful. Not to anyone. Certainly not to her stepdad.
She continued to stare at herself in the lake. She sighed again. Why was she so ugly?
Her limbs were gangly and long.
She had medium breasts.
Her hair wasn't shiny enough.
She wasn't athletic like Rainbow, or strong like Applejack.
She wasn't gorgeous like Rarity, or smart like Twilight.
And she certainly wasn't careless or loopy like Pinkie.
It seemed- no- it was a sad fact that everyone else had something but her.
"Why do you do that?" her dad had asked last night as she showed up at her door in a skirt and a tight shirt. Harsh stubble adorned cheek bones that could cut down trees, and not in a good way. Similarly, they belonged to a man that could cut down dreams. And everybody always thought experience was good...
"Do what?" she asked, preparing herself for the torrential onslaught that would no doubt come from such a basic question.
"Don't act like you don't know young lady." he said sternly. Steely grey eyes bared down upon her, ripping at her like fangs. And a barely visible spark was in his eyes, fueling an incurable madness. The madness that came with abuse.
"But I don't." Fluttershy mumbled. She may have been putting on a somewhat brave face, but behind her stoic expression sat a cracking interior. Glass eyes looked at what she had once thought was her maker with trepidation and long implanted fear. She was simply just a doll, and she knew it, for so many people had said so all her life.
"She's such a doll."
"Her beauty is simply unbelievable."
"Such a pretty face. Really is too bad it was wasted on a living failure."
"Speak up." her dad commanded. Solid words came from his cavern of a mouth. Ghastly breath wafed out and attacked her senses. The stench reminded her of her life long enemy. Alcohol.
"I said, I don't know what you're talking about." Fluttershy said a little louder, her eyes slowly sailing up to meet her father's stormy pupils. A scowl tossed her confidence overboard, and she prepared herself for a hurricane.
"Oh Fluttershy." her dad scoffed. "How do you not?" he asked. "You were the mistake of the family." he said. Eyes like lasers bored into her soul, and the heartless machine was at it again. Readying his tools, he prepared to drill into her soft spots once again. Only this time, thank Celestia it was only verbally.
Fluttershy averted her eyes. She'd heard this all before. Every word sent her pain, gift wrapped in custom condescending articulate paper.
Staring at the pond, in present day, Fluttershy thought about it some more; she forced herself to revive the memories. Maybe there was a clue as to why she wasn't beautiful somewhere in there. Just maybe.
But the water stayed the same. And glass eyes looked blankly back at her, chastising without words, tearing her apart from the inside.
He continued his artful tirade. With any luck her tears would be used to make the paint, nothing more, nothing less. "We've had this discussion before." he said, his disappointment crawling into her soul and squeezing it until she couldn't breath. A chiding tone didn't help, making her feel disobedient even though he was in the wrong.
She sighed, too weak and obedient to scream, too strong and scarred to do unto him as he'd done to her.
Undoubtedly growing tired of her tangible inner turmoil, he slapped her.
"I just came here for the blanket!" Fluttershy cried. Her glass eyes had cracked, and now liquid was running down her cheeks. It was cool, and only served to contrast the stifled heat in her soul, rising every second.
"I understand young lady, but do not come to get something from my house with that attitude!" he shouted, eyes blazing. "And certainly not in that dreadful attire." Judgement screamed from within his glare, and she could see a frightened and ugly creature in his pupils.
Upon closer inspection, she realized it was her own reflection. Holding back a large sob, she blinked to stop the waterfall.
The truth was she did know what he was implying. They'd had this discussion she didn't know how many times before.
But it always ended the same. And in the most grotesque way possible, she always did lay down and take it.
Be good Fluttershy. Don't show off anything. You have nothing to show off Fluttershy. Be a good daughter...
Rainbow used to say that Cloud Duster wasn't a good stepdad in any universe.
But Rainbow wasn't there that day.
It was just her and Stepdad.
She looked into the pond again. It was so peaceful. Just like he was after he hit her. He always said that their problems were at peace after he had properly dealt with the problem. The problem was always Fluttershy. The solution was always a beating.
He said his name was Cloud Duster. Rainbow said his name should've been Dream Buster.
She said his name should've been Blood Luster.
She said it was meant to be Big Bluster.
Fluttershy always had said that his name was Cloud Buster and that was all it should ever be. But only because even when he wasn't there, she was afraid of what he might do if he found out.
And the cowardly pieces of porcelain on the floor agreed with the shy little girl.
"Don't show off anything." he had said that day. There was a menace in his soul, and his walk was crooked. His heart was even more cracked than his daily routine.
And then Fluttershy mumbled something. She didn't mean to, but of course she did. She could've stayed quiet, but of course she was a grown woman.
"You have nothing to show off!" He had shouted, pounding on the ground with his old atrophic foot. She found an acute amount of satisfaction in that his outside was starting to match his insides.
She had nodded, not wanting to get anther beating like she had gotten when she was a little girl. The teachers in Kindergarten would try to get her to tell them about the marks on her back, but the one time she did tell them, he'd covered it up. And when they got home that night, he beat her twice as hard.
"You're daddy's ugly little girl."
And that night after she'd told the people who were supposed to be her rocks, they might as well have fallen into the churning ocean that was her life. Because as a punishment, not only was she given pain, but she was also given supposed 'pleasure.'
She had turned away, her eyes glistening with tears. That was her first mistake. She had a mere glimpse of the grass, glittering on the ground, even though it was being stepped on. She wished she could relate. She wished she had the ability to shine while being stepped on. Perhaps that's why there are no pretty doormats.
He whipped her back around, whispering scary lies in her ear. Threats that would make her sleep with all the lights on in her house that night. Angel wouldn't like it.
But even though he said a bunch of scary things, they were just things he said. She could disregard them because it was obvious that they weren't true. Nonetheless, like with everything else he said, she valued it. It wasn't just paranoia, oh no, it was a survival instinct. Just watching for him. Every night.
He never came, Fluttershy thought as she looked at herself, enraptured by the thing that stared back at her.
She never went to Rainbow about it again after that one time when Rainbow had told her to tell them the truth. That was the double abuse night.
"Why don't you realize that you are nothing!" he yelled on the front porch, probably wishing he had a lawnmower.
She shook, paralyzed and staring at him in the eyes for fear of being threatened again. She couldn't take this anymore. Her maker, her stepfather, whatever this thing was. She couldn't take it.
"Take your eyes off me, you don't deserve to look at me!" he yelled, and slapped her again. Oh, but it was the other way around. Everybody but Fluttershy and the beast that stood before her could advocate for that.
But, burdened by trauma, and weighed down by fright, she looked at the ground.
"You know what?" he yelled. "You want the blanket? Come and get it." he said grinning maliciously as Fluttershy took a step toward the door. Electric eyes stared at her lustfully, and if she didn't know any better, she'd say she saw him licking his chops.
He was the wolf of the family. Her mother was the poor black sheep that had fallen for him.
Him. He didn't even deserve to be referred to as a person. This carnivore of many wools. A travesty upon her clean family tree. An infection in her hereditary body.
Him. Anger bubbled up in Fluttershy like one of her friend Zecora's delicious stews. Except this feeling didn't taste good. It tasted bitter. It tasted like all those nights she spent crying. It felt like every time she ever thought about hitting him back just as hard.
He didn't deserve to be her dad. He didn't deserve to be referred to as a person. This Beast, this twisted maker of sorts, this emotionless, hopelessly broken machine.
He wasn't a him, he was a thing. He wasn't a even a thing in her sights. An 'it' seemed like a more aproppriate term.
A vile, repulsive, evil it, that had somehow ended up as her father.
She didn't know how, but after all these years, she had finally finished taking it's grotesque crap. She didn't know where this strength came from, but it came charging in like a rainbow during a storm. She wasn't a porcelain doll. At that moment, if anything, she was a warrior.
It happened fast. So fast she didn't even think once about how she was spewing out all the things that she had wanted to say for Celestia knows how long. Words, big and small, they tumbled from her lips like a broken gumball machine. Inronically, with every spoken sentiment, she was fixing herself.
And it felt good. Good to see the look on it's face.
She stared at the face in the pond.
So how come she didn't feel better?
Her face scrunched up like a bulldog's.
How come she was still ugly?
She had started to yell at him. She had let loose all of the anger, and the fear that she could never say when she had been living under his roof. But she had said it. And she was no longer under his roof, and in return no longer trapped under his monstrous thumb.
"You know what father?" she raised her head and screamed. It was her turn to ask the questions. He could use what little brain he had after all his smoking and whiskey to answer her questions. It was her turn. Of course, she was just talking to an ignorant beast, but she might as well. It was her time now.
He was taken aback by his fragile little whipping post yelling at him. A stony face dissolved into a state of partial shock as he took in his little doll, his semi-daughter, what used to be his responsibility. What was now a warrior, his equal in knowledge, his broken creation.
"Maybe I wouldn't be ugly if you didn't make me that way!" Fluttershy dared to say, screaming out all the things that scarred her previously porcelain insides.
He stared, opening his mouth to speak. When he had nothing, he tried to pull her inside the house, so as not to make a scene. But she was done. She was so done. In fact, she had finished with this monster long ago, but pardon her for taking a bit to confront it.
She wrenched free of it's poisonous grasp. It was getting older, it's bones were getting more brittle, and so she could take it if she wanted to get revenge. But she didn't. She wasn't like that. She was a person, not an it. She was a woman, not a beast.
"Every single day you beat me!" she yelled. The tears were starting to fall in a slow succession. Like the last bit of water falling out the drain, her sobs fell victim to a decrescendo. Accordingly, her lips were chapped.
"When things weren't going your way, you blamed me!" The tears were coming faster now. Not because she was scared for herself, but because she was scared for the deformed old man before her. Once she was done, everybody would know just the beast he was. What would he do?
"Here let's all beat Fluttershy because she's an ugly pushover! It's not like she's my daughter! It's not like she has feelings! It's not like the damage I inflict on my motherfucking daughter is going to scare her! Make her so she can't do anything!"
The tears were a raging river. Rushing out of her eyes, blurring her vision, they confiscated her senses and made her privy to a new sensation. A wild and primal anger that swept her away.
She couldn't see the it from behind her blurred eyes, but the thing she once called daddy was crying. Or at least that was what she thought. She would have thought a beast like that only ingested alcohol, and cried the disgusting liquid as well.
"In fact," she said, nose running, eyes dry, "why don't we make her socially awkward for the rest of her life! Make her think to be afraid of everyone because everyone could hit her!"
Because everyone could hit her like it did.
It wiped it's eyes.
"Or maybe," Fluttershy said, dropping her voice to a long held back aggressive whisper, "we can make it so she's afraid that if she ever finds someone who could possible love her, they would wake up one day and change their mind because she's not pretty enough!" By the end of the sentence Fluttershy was shouting. Shaking like a leaf in a storm of her own making, Fluttershy couldn't help but go on.
"Why don't we make her horrible, and why don't we beat our wife, and tell her she's ugly, and then ruin her daughter's life once we're done with her! Huh?" She stamped a strong foot on the ground.
One foot in front of the other. Only way to keep going even with all that's occurred.
"I'm sorry." the it mumbled.
"Well it's too little too late!", Fluttershy yelled, boiling over, bawling her eyes out once again.
She most certainly was not delicate.
"You ruined my life!" Fluttershy said, yelling to the creature that was supposed to be her dad.
Well, what was supposed to be her life.
"You were supposed to love me, support me, and care about me! But you did none of that!"
All it did was hate, drag down, and separate itself from her.
Her it reached out to take her hand, but she slapped it away.
"In fact", she said continuing, "it's about 15 years too late!"
"I'm sorry" the it mumbled.
You would have thought the stupid thing was broken. Saying the same damned thing over and over again.
"Just bring me the Celestia Dammed blanket!" Fluttershy shouted, wiping her eyes, looking up to find that the whole neighborhood had their porch lights on and were staring.
After that, the it went to get the blanket, said a quiet apology, and asked if she could ever forgive it.
To that, she asked a simple question, "Did you forgive me after all the things I did wrong?"
It looked up, meeting her eyes with the tenderest gaze, and answered, "Yes, after I fixed the problem."
15 years of beatings flashed back before her eyes. When she was the problem. And when beating was the solution. Her eyes flashed.
"No." she said, and slammed the door with an alarming speed. She heard it slam on it's hand.
It cursed.
She ran.
And drove away.
She would never see it again.
Ever again.
Looking back at her reflection, she realized something. The blanket she was sitting on was hers. The rest of her recovered life was hers.
She was no longer daddy's little girl. It was a beautiful day. She wasn't his, and she wasn't a doll, cursed to be ugly.
She was a girl. Actually, she was a damned warrior for dealing with that. And she took one more look at herself, and then left.
And do you perhaps know why?
Because she finally believed that she wasn't the problem. She was, and had always been, the solution...
