Mirrors, Truths, And Tea-Parties

Thursday was spent in bed. I’m not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, considering it was still only the first week of school and I had already taken my first absence. That definitely wouldn’t look good to the teachers. At least I could say nopony got sick because of me. I wouldn’t have to worry about taking notes, too; that was a plus.

However, there was a problem with taking sick days, too: there was nothing to do. Sure, I could always pick up a book, but I don’t really like to read very much; I think that’s because I have a hard time focusing on all of the words.

I turned my eyes and head towards the large tower of comic books in my closet. There’d probably be something for me to read in there.

I levitated a comic out from underneath the stack. It was an issue of The Power Ponies: the one where The Maneiac tries to use a giant hairdryer to do…something to the entire world—I forgot. I liked that issue. With it raised up to my face, I opened it to the first page and began to read. While it was a good issue, I already knew what would happen—I had already read it a billion times before, as I had done with the rest of my collection—so I quickly grew bored of it. I set the comic down on the bedside table, next to my alarm clock, and fell backwards onto my mattress.

For a while, I just stared up at the ceiling; it was just as plain as usual—nothing new—nothing interesting. After rolling over onto my barrel, I buried my face into a pillow, and, a minute or so later, I groaned and kicked at the bedsheets with my hind legs, creating ripples and folds in the fabric and down comforter.

Having had given up on entertaining myself by reading, I turned to writing, remembering that I hadn’t written a letter to Snips for at least two weeks. With my magic, I grabbed a quill, an inkwell, and a couple a sheet of paper from my desk. After dipping the quill’s tip in ink and flattening the sheet in midair, I brought its tip to the white surface and began to write.

Hey, Snips.

I think a black cat’s been stalking me. School just started on Monday and I’ve already managed to humiliate myself in front my entire thaumaturgy class, injure my hoof—it’s nothing serious. Don’t worry about it—get concerns from my teachers, fall asleep in somepony else’s house, and get a cold.

On a more positive note, I’ve also made a new friend. Her name’s Tornado Bolt. She’s Lyra and Bon-Bon’s daughter, apparently. I think you’d like her a lot. She’s pretty cool. At the very least, she’s got ambition; she wants to be a storm-chaser when she grows up.

Remember Dinky? I’m not sure why, but she’s been acting really strange the last couple of days. She’s been raising her hoof a lot more during class, correcting teachers, and she even shouted (something about her mom not being stupid). She’s also been giving me weird looks during lunch for whatever reason.

Oh; right; I forgot to mention that! Tornado, Dinky, and I get together for lunch underneath the big maple tree on the school grounds, now. Apparently, Dinky is close friends with Tornado Bolt—“Besties,” Tori said.

Enough about me, though. How’re you? What’s going on in the big city?

Your friend forever, Snails.

P.S.: Sorry I haven’t written in a while.

Without anything else in mind, I sat there for a good ten to twenty minutes reading over what I had written, searching for subjects to add upon and mistakes to fix. Satisfied with my work, I left the letter on my bedside table to dry, removed any excess ink from my quill and dispensed it back into the inkwell, then returned the inkwell and quill to their cabinets. I then laid my head back down on a pillow and sighed.

Now I really didn’t have anything to do—nothing to write, nothing to read—so I decided to stare at the ceiling for a few more hours. During that time, I had fallen into some kind of trance, which had only been interrupted by the sounds of knocking on wood from downstairs, followed by the squeaking of a door-hinge and two muffled voices. I heard the door shut, some more muffled talking, and then the creaking of floorboards—the stairs.

My bedroom door opened. Tornado Bolt was standing underneath the doorframe, wearing a pumpkin-colored scarf and a brown saddlebag with brass-looking, lyre-shaped clasps. She waved.

“…Huh?” I shook my head. “Oh; hey, Tori. What’s up?”

Tori stepped over to the bed. “Nothing much. Mister Turner gave us some homework today. It’s math.” Oh great. She dropped her saddlebag to the floor, reached inside, and gave me a rolled up piece of paper. “So, feel any better?”

I scratched my nose, causing a small amount of snot to leak out and coat my hoof. “Th-thanks…and…yeah, I’m a little better—still sick, though.”

“Well, at least it’s progress.”

“I guess.”

A moment of silence passed between us.

Tornado looked around the room before asking, “So…do you want me to stay or should I go let you get some rest?”

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet, but ever since Snips moved to Manehattan to apprentice to be a mane-stylist like his dad, I haven’t really had anyone to talk with face-to-face. It was nice to have somepony to do that with again. I’m also an only-foal, and even though Mom loves me—I love her, too—we don’t do very much together, so it gets kind of lonely at home sometimes, especially when I’m sick.

It was an easy choice. “Uh…s-stay, please,” I said.

Tornado smiled and sat down by the bedside. “Alright. So, what’ve you been up to?”

“Uh…sleeping, reading comics…umm…eating…yeah.”

“Sounds boring.”

I nodded. “Yeah…. There’s not very much to do around here.”

“What about the dress?”

“Huh? Oh…uh…”—my gaze fell to the bed as my hoof trailed up and down my left cannon—“I haven’t tried it on yet.” My ears drooped. “…Sorry…,” I mumbled.

“Hey”—I glanced back up at her—“it’s no biggie. If anything, it gives us something to do, right?” Beaming, she clopped her hooves up against each other in rapid succession, and let out a high-pitched, “Eeeeee! This is gonna be so much fun!”

“H-huh?”

She coughed into her hoof and grinned sheepishly. “If you’re okay with it, that is. You’re okay with it, right?”

What was she talking about? Why did she make that noise and why did she become so excited all of a sudden? “…Uh…with what?”

“Well, I was hoping that maybe you could show me how it looks on you sometime.”

“It?”

“The dress.”

“…Oh. U-uh…maybe?” I hesitated. In my head, I had a scene of me, in the dress, staring into my still-broken mirror whilst standing next to Tori as she frankly noted how ugly I looked.

“Aw, c’mon; it’ll be fun! I think you’d look nice in it. And even if you don’t, at least we’ll have something to talk about later; right?”

“…I…guess….” I blinked. “Wait…do you really think it’d look good on me?”

“Mhmm! That’s one of the reasons I decided to give it to you, actually.”

“Uh…well…uh…alright then.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Sure, I guess.”

She jumped up and down. “Eeeee!”

I stared at her.

“Well, what are you waiting for? C’mon!” she said.

After sparking my horn and pulling the dress out from underneath the bedframe, I pushed my sheets away and crawled off of the mattress, my hooves making small taps as they made contact with the floor. As I stepped over towards the broken mirror, Tori’s grin widened; it widened a lot.

My face reddened. “U-uh…could you—” I made a circular motion in the air.

“Oh; right. Sorry!” She twirled around to look at a window.

In that moment, my mouth felt incredibly dry—I can only compare it to a desert, really. My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel the veins in my head pulsating. My front legs felt a little uneasy, too; my barrel, arhythmical in its motions, was swaying back and forth. I’m not sure if that was because of the injury or not, though. I mean, it didn’t hurt all that much anymore but—ugh…I got off track again; sorry.

I swallowed. I was really going to do this. I, Snailsquirm—a colt—was really going to do this.

This was so surreal.

With my eyes squeezed shut as I pulled the blue article of clothing over my head, I gently pushed each of my forelegs through the sleeves. I then pulled the hemline down my form to drape down near my hind legs.

I just stood there for a minute, my eyes closed, just wondering what I was doing with my life.

I felt something hard grab my shoulder. “Huh?!” I jumped and my eyes snapped open to focus upon the image in the mirror.

During the time that I had been trancing, Tornado had turned around and laid her hoof on me. She was smiling. She had a kind of sparkle in her eye; it was weird.

I took a deep breath and stared at myself. There I was—an awkward, tall, lankly, mustard-hued abomination in a flowery (excuse the pun), blue dress. Strangely, though, I didn’t feel that compulsion to punch something. Instead, there was a pleasant tingly sensation in my stomach—it’s hard to describe.

“Turns out I was right,” she said. “You look cute, Snails.”

“Huh?” I blushed. Did she really think that? Was I really…cute? No; that doesn’t make sense.

“With a little touchup, you might even be able to pass. I mean, you’d look like a tomcolt, but you’d pass.”

“…Pass…?” What was that supposed to mean?

“You look almost like a filly, Snails,” she clarified.

I blinked. After a moment, my head began to spin. My flank hit the floor. I closed my eyes and raised my hooves up to my temples. Somehow, years and years of suppressed dreams were coming back to me. Ones of me telling Ma, ones of me telling Snips, ones of me telling myself, ones of me going to school with a smile, ones of me reading comic books on lazy summer afternoons with my friends…ones of me being normal…ones of me being myself for once in my life.

“…Snails?”

Something clicked for me in that instant. I’m not sure why, but it all made sense now. The drawings, the crying, the glass smashing, the jealousy, the dress—it all made sense. I let my hooves drop back down as I turned to look at Tori.

“…Tori?” I asked. “How do I pass?”

“Well…your mane could use some work…and your posture…and your voice…maybe a little makeup.” She tilted her head at me.

“Why?”

I turned my head back to the mirror and raised my hoof to the hard, broken glass, taking a good, long look at my reflection. “…I wanna be a filly.”

For what felt like an hour, we just sat there, neither of us saying anything to the other, just staring at my reflection as if it were the only thing in the room.

Then Tori hugged me.

I cried.