Why My Mane Glows

Well, let’s see if I can remember everything, but if I don’t, that’s why there’s sequels, right?

Anyway, I was an adolescent foal at the time of the incident. I didn’t even have my cutie mark yet. I remember being teased about that… I still hate those bullies… but forget it… I was on a field trip to the Rainbow Factory with my flight school, headed by Mr. Lightwing. As his name implies, he wasn’t the best at flying, so I’m assuming that’s why he took teaching as his job. A white coat and light grey mane and tail gave him the impression of being able to be blown away with a single wing-flap. Frosty blue eyes completed this sense of weightlessness. But whatever, I’m getting off track.

So we were at the Rainbow Factory, looking at the vats of individual spectra. I was at the back of the group, walking with my best friend, Crimson Flash. A pegasus like me, he had a dullish red coat that looked like bloody rust, and orange eyes. Purple and bright red streaked through his mane and tale. He already had his cutie mark, a many-rayed star surrounded by a purple swirl. I don’t know where he was from, other than he had no family when he showed up in Cloudsdale, starving and homeless, so my family took him in.

Once again, I’m diverging…must be getting nostalgic…

So here I was, minding my own business, listening intently to what Mr. Lightwing was saying (hey, I’m telling the story, I can exaggerate what I want), as we passed the vat of purple spectra.

“OOOOOHHH! Look at that!” yelled Crimson Flash, as he surged forward to get a better look at where the individual spectra were merging to make a rainbow.

As he passed me, he brushed against my wing, pushing me a little to the side. I teetered on the edge of the purple spectra vat. I didn’t regain my balance in time. I fell in, spectra flowing into my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, and soaking into my skin. It tasted kinda like jalapeño hot sauce. I struggled to hold my breath, not wanting to know what would happen if I swallowed any spectra. Anyway, Mr. Lightwing turned around, the memorized lecture on rainbows on his lips, when he realized I wasn’t there. (Crimson told me what happened after I fell in)

Stunned for a moment, he looked around aimlessly until he noticed a splash of purple spectra on the deck from when I had fallen in.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no…” he said. He ran over to the vat, knocking into a unicorn inspector from Canterlot.

“Hey, watch it! You almost hit my clipboard!” she snarled, almost dropping a clipboard with more pages than it was intended to hold. She noticed the panicked look on Mr. Lightwing’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“One of my students just fell into the spectra!” he said pathetically, looking into the swirling, purple tub.

“WHAT!?” the inspector said. (I actually heard her say that even though I was in the spectra) “ARE YOU KIDDING!?”

“Noooooooo…” Mr. Lightwing wailed.

“We gotta get him out of there!” screamed the unicorn inspector. She started shooting off beams of magic in a panic, without any thought for what spells she was using. One of these hit the vat I was in, and I started to feel my hair being pulled and twisted about. My eyes felt like someone was pushing on them with a fiery brand. My nose…well…let’s just say it hurt. My ears too. My mouth and throat felt like it just swallowed the hottest imaginable pepper ever. My skin felt like it was being ripped and pulled apart. These pains intensified almost to an unbearable degree, until the inspector finally had enough sense to use a levitation spell and pull me out. When I finally opened my eyes, after wiping my face with a wing to get all the gooey spectra off, all I saw was astonished, blank, dumbfounded, and you-name-it faces.

“Y-y-your hair… i-it’s glowing…” said Crimson, stunned by what he saw.

“What?” I said. I used my wingtip to grab a bit of my hair. He was right. It was glowing a bright, neon purple.

“Whoa…this is crazy…” I said. My mane and tail were originally a jet black, like my coat, but now they were purple.

When I got home my mom freaked out.

“Black Light, what the hell happened to you!?” she said with a horrified look on her face.

“I…um…fell into a vat of spectra…”

“Oh. My. Gosh. You WHAT!?”

“Well they said I’d be fine…just…now my mane and tail glow purple…”

“OF COURSE THEY DO!” she sobbed. “Are you alright?”

“Yes…I think…”

“Well I’m going to have to talk with Mr. Lightwing…and the Rainbow Factory CEOs…this is outrageous…my son…fell into a freaking vat of SPECTRA! We might need to take you to the doctor…just to make sure there’s no…ANYTHING!”

I could tell she was about to blow up, so I asked her if she made any cucumber salad (funny thing about me…I love eating cukes almost to excessiveness). She looked deep into my eyes, and said, half sadly, “At least now there’s some color coordination among you.” I was notorious in my family for wearing a lime-green, orange, and navy-blue sweater to our Hearth’s Warming Eve celebrations.

I trotted over to the mirror we had over one of the cabinets in the kitchen, and gasped. I stared hungrily at my reflection, stunned by what had happened.

My eyes.

What happened to my eyes?

My mom used to call them my little ink-spills, on account of them being so black.

But now, now they were purple. A vivid, luminescent purple that matched my new mane.

Little did I know that this was only the start of a long string of issues I had to deal with, all being able to be tracked back to why my mane glows.

Later that night something else happened that definitely deserves attention. My dad, working the night shift, was home late. I usually stayed up until he got home, lying in bed and defying my mom’s orders to fall asleep. When he got home my dad always made hot cocoa, and when I would come tumbling down the stairs, he would hand me a cup and we would sit and just, relax… This time was a bit different. Being in the snow department, my dad was a lot later than usual, as he had to prepare for some early autumn snow falls. When he walked through the door he must have stumbled from sheer exhaustion, as I heard him crash heavily to the ground.

I sprinted down the stairs to help him, my mom already asleep, tired of waiting up for my dad. The lights were all out, and I found my dad sprawled on the floor near the open door with the glittering light of my mane.

“Dad, are you alright?” I asked in a panic.

“I don’t know Blacky… my knee really hurts…” he said, his face looking grotesque and twisted with pain. “Your mother called me at work earlier and told me the story of what happened at the rainbow factory…”

“Yeah but are you alright?” I asked again, concerned for him.

“I think I might be able to stand…” he said, but when he tried, he just collapsed onto the floor again. “I guess not.” He said, the pain evident now in his voice. “Go get your mother…”

I obeyed, and ran upstairs to wake my mom. When I shook her a few times and explained what happened, she jumped out of her bed and galloped past me. I followed, and saw her leaning over my dad. Crimson soon appeared at my side, woken up by all the noise, and together we watched as my mom tried to coax my dad into standing up. He couldn’t. His knee just gave out every time.

“Blacky, I need you to run and get the doctor…” my dad said hoarsely. He must have been in intense pain.

“Ok, I’ll be right back…” I said, before sprinting out the door. I heard my dad call for Crimson to help my mom lift him onto the couch. I flew down the street, took a few turns, turned sharply past a late-night diner, and ended up at the hospital.

“Is there a doctor that can come with me right now?!” I yelled, crashing through the doors into the spotlessly clean lobby.

“Yes, deary, what’s the problem?” said a nurse, pushing a cart with medical supplies past me. She gave my mane an odd look, but said nothing about it.

“My-dad-fell-and-broke-his-knee-and-he-can’t-stand-up!” I said in a rush, eager to be getting back to my dad with the help he so desperately needed.

“Ok deary, I’ll send Dr. Grey Patch with you. Just hold on a sec deary…” She walked down a hall, and soon reappeared without her cart but with Dr. Grey Patch. A tall unicorn with a dark, grey-green coat, black hair, and yellow eyes that had a pair of glasses on them, he looked like he could fix my dad up in no time at all. His eyes focused on my glowing mane for a second, and I could almost see the gears turning behind those bright yellow eyes as to how I got my mane to give off that purple light. But soon a reassuring look appeared his face, and he asked me what happened. I told him the whole story, and then he suddenly whipped around and trotted down the hall he just came from. He came back in almost a minute with his medical saddlebags, and asked me where I lived.

“Follow me…” I said, glad to finally be getting help to my dad.

We galloped/flew back the way I had come, and were soon back at my house. My father was lying on the couch, groaning and favoring his rear-left knee.

“Ok, I’m not going to lie, this might hurt a bit…” said Dr. Grey Patch. Soon he had my dad’s knee in a splint, and gave him a swig of medicine that was supposed to take the pain away. My dad was soon sleeping fretfully on the couch.

“Keep him lying down for a day or so, and I’ll come back to do a checkup…” said Dr. Grey Patch. He turned to leave, but he stopped and glanced at my mane again. His gaze traveled down my body, looking for any other anomalies. Eventually he looked at my flank, and gave a start of surprise. I followed his gaze. Imprinted on my side was a purple three-pronged flame, which shimmered as I moved.

“Hmm…looks like someone just found their special talent…” he said, before looking at my mane again and walking out the door to my mom’s sincere profession of thanks. It took her a while to realize what Dr. Grey Patch had said, and when she did, she looked to my flank, and let out a positive shriek of joy.

“OH BLACK LIGHT! YOU GOT YOU’RE CUTIE MARK!” she screamed.

“Yeah…I guess I did!”

“Oh my gosh!! If only your father was awake!!”

“Well he soon will be if we don’t keep it down…” said Crimson dryly.

That was a late night for me. My mom insisted that I go to bed and celebrate tomorrow after we got over the initial excitement of my cutie mark. I stayed up until dawn, laying on my bed and thinking what my special talent was. Looking back, the only conclusion I can come up with is that my talent is to give light to those who don’t have it, since my mane and tail glow even in the blackest of night.

School the next day was hell.

Pink Paint, the local bully-in-chief, thought my new mane and tail were absolutely hilarious.

“Hey, hey guys! Look! It’s glow butt! Hey there, glow butt! Ya sit in anything…nasty…lately? Huh?” He sniggered in the hall between classes.

“Pink, stop it…” I said, not wanting to be the center of attention, again… Pink was the one who had unrelentingly teased me about being a blank flank. But of course, it was just my luck that when I got my cutie mark, something else shows up to bring embarrassment.

“Why? Why should I? Give me a reason, and I might think about it… or forget it, really. I just don’t care.” Pink Paint said. If it came down to a fight, I knew he would win. I was on the small side, not really able to put any weight behind punches. And Crimson, well he was no better. He, to be blunt, looked like a girl. His frame was slim. He couldn’t fight any better than me.

“Well, you’re a jerk…” I started to say, but a hoof slammed against my shoulder and pushed me up against the wall.

“I said a good reason…” he said, glaring down into my eyes. At that moment the bell rang, saving me from being further humiliated by this idiot. Pink dropped his hooves off my shoulders, and backed away slowly.

“You’d better watch yourself, now, Black Light… you don’t want to… shall we say get hurt…” he said before turning to enter class.

And thus the pattern for my life was set for a year.