The sky was blue that day. Or maybe it was gray. Anyways, I could feel the grass brush my hooves as I trotted. Wait, this happened downtown so it was gravel I was trotting on. Or was I sitting at a bench. God I hate doing this. I don’t remember what the day was like or what I was doing. Does anypony? No. I don’t care if they do. I was just doing something and somepony pulled on my tail. It was a kid doing it. It asked me why I was wearing a tail. I told it that I just had a tail. It pulled my tail off. I hate when people pull my tail off. I got very mad at the kid. I kicked it as hard as I could. I was arrested. The kid wasn’t arrested. The twerp got to keep my tail. He stole it and I got arrested for trying to take it back.
The cops who arrested me questioned me. I told them truth, but they didn’t believe me. Of course they don’t. No one believes me. They tell me things I know aren’t true and call me insane for telling them the truth. I was taught to tell the truth. Why am I always punished for doing what people say? I hate people. These people in particular I hate. They keep cussing even though I tell them not to. Ponies don’t cuss. Wait, maybe I’m going too fast. Ms. Mark Hoof always told me I needed to pace myself. I probably missed some things.
I did. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Lyra, but people call me... actually I’d prefer not to say. I get angry when I hear the name people call me, especially the kind of people who tell me false things. Nice people call me Lyra anyways, because they care about my feelings and I’m writing this for those people. Anyways, I’m a pony, but many people say I’m a human. Even my mom told me to call my front hooves “hands” and my back hooves “feet”. I watched a show called My Little Pony and when I saw mares like me on there, I knew I was a pony with hooves. I got a tail one day. In the show, they were born with their tails, but I’m not a magical pony, so I had to buy one and put it on. It’s still a tail I just have, but I don’t wear it. It’s just on me. I feel like I’m still going fast. I normally wouldn’t care what people think of my writing. I do it all the time, but never for people. I should be more descriptive then. Sorry. I’m also told I write intensely. Mark Hoof said it’s because I use a lot of periods. I never got what she meant, but I tried it her way. I always lost track, so she said I could do it my way.
Anyways. I was talking about my tail earlier. I have a story for that. I got home from school some day. My mom was out, but she left pizza money. She left $40 instead of $20. The bills were stuck together, so she probably didn’t notice. I got pizza and went to some store that was very dark. Hot Shop I think the name was. They had a tails section. I got one that matched my mane. I wore it to school the next day and a boy pulled it off. I hit him for it. I was sent to the principals office. I told him I did it, because I thought he grabbed my dress. The boy really got in trouble for it. I should have been honest. Ponies tell the truth. I hid my tail under my clothes after that. I don’t know why. People always seemed to notice it most.
I tried acting like I believe what they said after that. I still wore the tail. They thought I was crazy. I was back then for pretending I was human. Sometimes, guys would be into me, but they didn’t believe I was a pony. They liked “crazy chicks” like me as they always seemed to put it. One guy forced me to drink some wine, even though I prefer cider, and I passed out. He kept me for I don’t know how long. He trapped me in some room without windows. He said he’d make me live like a pony. He fed me hay and rode on my back, always naked when he did. I think he confused me for a horse. I think he was the crazy one. He did things to my body that I don’t want to go into. One day, the cops came and arrested him for kidnapping me. They got some people to examine me and made me live with my mother when they were done.
She had started working from home since I had disappeared. Her employer said they’d be moving their company, but they never did. They probably just didn’t like her around the office. I didn’t care for her much either. She always yelled at me to take off my tail before I went out. She never called me Lyra. She wouldn’t let me watch My Little Pony. She made me lay on my bed and pointed to my body parts, making me tell her what they were called. I said hooves, muzzle, mane, tail, flank, and she always hit me for “being wrong”. She hadn’t changed since I was a filly. She always thought I was wrong.
I think this is where that story I tried doing at beginning starts. So you know I hit a kid for pulling off my tail and I was arrested. I got an “insanity plea”. I insisted I wasn’t insane to my lawyer, but he said the alternative was in prison and it’d be like that guy who kidnapped me, especially the things he did to my body. I didn’t want to be hurt like that.
I was put into a mental hospital. I was surrounded by crazy people in there. I guess the “sane” people think that I needed to be with my own kind. Some people worked there. Some were nice, but others were pretty mean. Sometimes, teachers were brought in and they taught us stuff. I think they might have been there to give us entertainment or maybe as a half-flank attempt to cure us.
That’s where I met Mark Hoof. She was the nicest teacher I had. She taught us how to write stories and she even said she’d get some published to show the “sane” people that we were relatable. She always liked my stories. She was a fan of My Little Pony too and sometimes visited just to watch episodes with me. She tutored me on being a writer. I struggle to do everything like she taught, but I still liked her. She called me Lyra even though she knew what most people called me. One day, she even kissed me. She always hated that I brought it up, but I think it’s because I was too scared to say I liked it. She probably thought she was like my former captor. I wished I told her back then.
She wasn’t perfect though. She did lie to me like most others did, but she always did it because she cared about my feelings. She didn’t do it because she thought she knew the truth or because she wanted to abandon trying to make friends with me. Ponies love friendship after all. It was amazing to get a true friend for the first time in a long while. I always liked her too because she never told me I wasn’t a pony. She even let me call her by a pony name, because I think she acts so much like a pony. She even got me a new tail in the exact color I asked for.
One day though, I was kicked out of the hospital. They couldn’t afford to keep me there. I got Mark Hoof’s number, but I lost it before I got enough money to use a phone. I lived on the street near that hospital. Many of the people who were there I knew from the hospital. It was pretty much the same, but worse. There were no “sane” people around to help us and we slept on the sidewalk and usually ate what we could find in trash cans or what “sane” people gave us.
Mark Hoof found me though and let me live with her. She had a lot of money, especially compared to my mom. I was finally able to live in a house without my mom or my captor. Mark Hoof even started to date me. I never dated anypony before, but she eased me in. I love her so much. She even takes me out and lets me wear my tail. When some kid tries to take it, she scolds them and takes it back for me. She still doesn’t always tell the truth to me, but she always does it for me and to keep my feelings from being hurt. She’ll even look this over with me when I’m done with it. She already published a lot of those stories that she got at the hospital, but she wanted to publish mine as a short story. She’s still a big fan of My Little Pony too, so we still bond over that.
I know I gushed over her, but maybe I should show you how great through some stories. Well, she took me to a My Little Pony convention once. There were so many people there dressed like ponies and she showed me that many people pretended to ponies sometimes. She even ordered me a shirt of her own pony form hugging me. She wanted to see a lot of musicians there and meet some. I liked their music a lot and I never realized, but she listened to these people a lot at home too. I liked one song one of them did, which I felt I really related to called “Good Girl”. One musician there did a cover of it, which was probably my favorite part of that day. She recorded the performance for me. We ended the day by drinking lots of cider.
There is also this story which she doesn’t like, but I always do. She came home one day and seemed to be acting strange. I asked how she was and she gave me the same answer she always did, but she was lying. I wondered if something happened to her that day, but she didn’t say. That night. I was in bed and had to go use the bathroom. She was already in there, so I tried to wait, but it sounded like something was wrong. I opened the bathroom door and she was crying while sitting on the toilet. She saw me and turned away. I asked her, “Did I do something wrong?” I was never sure if I ever hurt her feelings, so maybe she’s been holding this in.
“No. You didn’t.” She was very choked up. She could barely speak through her tears. “I did something very wrong though and I need to tell you, but please don’t be mad.”
I was very curious at this point. She never did anything that bad. “Tell me.”
She wiped away some tears and cleared her throat. “I was in my office today and... I was a little stressed out, because of what you did yesterday.”
I didn’t remember what I did. She said I had gotten very drunk and accidentally pulled off my tail. I apparently freaked out very bad and hit her at one point. I didn’t know I did it and I would have done everything to make it up to her if I knew.
Anyways, she continued. “I told my secretary what happened and he said I was in an abusive relationship, and... I believed him for a bit. He talked me into a lunch date with him and I did it. I was so relieved when I did, because I was finally on a date with someone who was... well what others would call sane. After that, we had sex in the bathroom and... when it was over, I sat in my office and it just hit me what I did to you. I took the rest of the day off and went to the park where I read the first story you wrote for me. I realized I first fell in love with you, because I thought I could fix you and make you think you were a human, but I had stayed when I realized that I couldn’t ‘fix’ you and I shouldn’t try. You just need support and love. You need someone to keep you out of trouble out of trouble and talk to you like you aren’t constantly holding a knife to their throat. I f***ed up. I love you so much. I love you, because you are a pony, not because I want to make you a human.”
She finished her long speech. She hadn’t looked up, but I hadn’t responded since she finished. She tilted her head up and saw I was crying silently too. I just hugged her as tight as I could. I don’t know if I was crying, because I was hurt or happy. I never heard her ever say anything to me that would have hurt me even though it was true. Maybe I was hurt and happy. I just couldn’t pull away from her until my back started to hurt from bending over.
She started trusting me more after that and telling the truth more often. One day, she even told me I could go get groceries on my own. She was nervous, but she still really wanted me to do it. I trotted out to the car, but I just sat there. I missed her already and was so scared. I didn’t want to go out and have a kid pull on my tail when she wasn’t around. I’d probably hit them and get arrested again. Even if I didn’t, what would I do? Let the kid keep it and tell her I got my tail stolen. I didn’t want to disappoint her. She already noticed though and came out to the car. I tested up again. “I’m a disappointment.” I couldn’t help but say it.
She put her hand on my back. She hugged me and held me as close as she could. “It’s ok. You tried. How about you drive me with you and I’ll be in the back of the store in case you get in trouble?”
I nodded and did just that. I got all the groceries by myself. One kid grabbed at my tail, but I moved it out of the way and just kept going. When I was done, she told me so much that she was proud of me and really happy to help me. I was kind of embarrassed by all the praise, but at the same time, I was crying an hour earlier, because I couldn’t pull out of the driveway.
I spent that day just giddy the whole time. I’m embarrassed to say, but I even made love to her that night. I was always drunk when I did it in the past, but that night I did it sober and loved it. I think I better end this here though. She might not want readers to hear about our sex. I hope she likes this story. Since she’ll be reading this, I just have to tell her that I love her more than anything in the world.
