Chapter 1 - A Fateful Nightmare Night

My name is Glaze, and I’m blind. I don’t like to define myself by my “disability”, but I know it’s important to most ponies. I don’t ask for pity, I wouldn’t even understand it. I like to think that I simply live in a different world. Not a worse world, just… different. If anything, I give pity to the sighted; they’re always fighting. Unhappy. I can’t judge a book by its cover because the cover is invisible. Not that I wouldn’t want to try it… seeing I mean, but I worry I might start to think like them. For me, I don’t know what you look like… if you’re ugly or beautiful, I don’t even know what those words mean, really. I only know ponies from their voice, and mostly their ideas. I remember you from what makes you... you. I remember your ideas, and your beliefs, and how kind you were. I don’t care if you’re ugly, or short, or a zebra, or a dragon, or a mare, or a stallion, to be honest… I often can’t even tell. Sometimes that leads to issues, but none that aren’t humorous in retrospect.

While it’s not important to me, you might want to know what I look like. Naturally, I can’t look in a mirror, but the sighted have told me plenty of times what I look like. They tell me that I’m cute, with peach fur, and a brown mane with light tones mixed in like a glazed doughnut, which is probably where I got my name, if not that then my eyes which are glazed over and a dull gray. I’m a pegasus, but I don’t fly very high, because I often bump into things. I’m a mare so my voice is kind of light. As a filly, I didn’t have a cutie-mark, but later it was a doughnut. I’m told my wings are unique, and are styled like my mane, with light and dark patterns. I’m not sure if I’m forgetting anything, but I hope that helps the sighted ponies reading. If it’s not too much to ask, it would be nice if you tried to think of me for who I am, and not what I look like, but I know that’s hard for sighted ponies.

Formalities out of the way… I’d like to get started. Imagine a warm day in a small town called Ponyville. I remember walking past the marketplaces on my way to school, long ago, when there were just two princesses. Luna was on the moon, and Twilight was just a filly in Canterlot. The heat from the air on my skin was pleasant, like a comforting blanket coating my fur, but not so much that I would sweat. Cherilee wasn’t our teacher because she was in school with us! No, instead, we were taught by a sweet mare affectionately named Mrs. Pointwho always sounded happy to see us. Her voice wasn’t light like mine, it was smooth like a soft caramel, or a still pond. She always spoke clearly, and made sure it was loud enough for me to hear, since I couldn’t see the visuals. What I liked about her, was that she never spoke without thinking first.

After class everyday, I would talk to her while I waited for my parents to get out of work so I could walk home. Sometimes, I would think that she had left me, because between statements she was silent for so long. Of course she hadn’t, she was just thinking of what to say. She would toss words around in her head, and shape them until she was completely happy with the way that they would turn out. For this reason, when she spoke it was with such subtlety and beauty that it put most “intellectuals” to shame. She was always concise and clear, and wise beyond her years. Whenever I was sad I would go to her. I would tell her all the things that worried me, from suspicions of my future, to the mean words the kids had told me. She would always bring me back to Earth, tell me what was real, and what was fake. She would take my hoof, and guide me to the pond, and dip it in the water, telling me to feel it, and appreciate it. I’ll never forget what she told me one day whilst I was crying, the first time she brought me to that pond. She dipped my hoof in the water, and nearly hugged me, speaking while I felt her warmth.

“Glaze… I want you to feel this water. Let the bountiful tears of the Earth surround your hoof like a shield of ancient spirits, their whispers guiding you to truth. The words those ponies spoke… lies. The pressure you feel for your future? Lies. This: this water… the feeling as the slightest ripples cascade across your hoof, and accentuate a myriad of emotion, this… this feeling is real. This water is real. This wind is real. Don’t be distracted by what they tell you. If you’re ever uncertain-- your mind besieged by the conclave of soul-searching inquiries or barbaric atrocities of hatred… come here, and mingle amongst what is real. Feel the water on your hoof, and remember who you are. You’re Glaze, and you’re alive.”

Of course… I didn’t understand half of what she said, I was just a filly, but I got the gist. That last line was what really stuck with me. I was alive. No matter how hard things got, or how worried I was, I was alive. I’m alive now as hardship starts, and I will be alive as it overtakes me, and I will be alive when it ends. So long as I appreciate that, my own life, appreciate living, then I can handle anything. I told her I would do as asked, and remind myself when I was sad, and I did. Eventually: I didn’t come to her anymore, I simply went to the pond, stuck my hoof in the water, and felt the Earth, and remembered that I was alive.

Unfortunately, not everypony knew how to do that. There was a colt in my class who was picked on even more than I was. I, at least had some pity thrown my way, but he didn’t. His name was Quantum Shift. He was shy as a colt, but I could tell he was smart. He was particularly nice to me, and sometimes we even talked. At first, I had no idea why they made fun of him, or what they meant when they called him a “femboy”. Naturally, I had no idea what separates a mare and a stallion besides from their biology. It wasn’t until he told me his woes that I found out they actually looked different, and that he apparently looked like a filly, even though he wasn’t. Mrs. Point didn’t know about it, because he never told her. He was too shy to speak up about it, and he told me he didn’t want to cause “trouble”. I thought he was being ridiculous, but I wasn’t going to go against his wishes and tell her for him. No, instead he lived each day with judgement. At recess, none of the colts would play with him, and told him to play with the fillies, who of course, also didn’t want to play with him. I played with him instead, and that’s where I learned most about him. At first I offered hide and seek, which I thought was hilarious, but he didn’t seem to get the joke, or at least didn’t want to laugh at it. Eventually, we decided on checkers.

As you might imagine, playing checkers blind was difficult, but I was good at it. I don’t know why I took such a liking to it, I think it was the satisfying sound of the plastic against the wooden board when a piece jumped, or the neat sound they made when pieces rubbed together. In short: I began to imagine the board in my head, and make a mental image of where the pieces were. Obviously, that’s not exactly how it works, since I had no reference with which to make a mental image, but that’s the simplified version that sighted ponies understand the best. In reality, it was arranged in my head like a math problem. Each spot on the board had a coordinate, and there was a small number of coordinates in the grand scheme of things. So, mathematically in my head, I created an array of each coordinate, and assigned a 0 to each place without a piece, a 1 to each place with my piece, and a 2 to each place with their piece. Then, I arranged the array in a way that places connected to the correct other places, and simply called out coordinates, and changed the numbers accordingly. When there was no longer a 2 on the array, I knew I had won, or when there was no longer a 1, I knew I had lost.

I like to imagine the shock in a sighted ponies mind hearing two ponies playing checkers by calling out series of letters and numbers. Eventually, with some help, Quantum learned to do it too, and then we didn’t even need a board! That really confused ponies. We didn’t realize kings were a thing until Mrs. Point told us, and we vouched to simply put a little subscript beneath a piece’s number if it was a king. Every day at recess, me and Quantum would sit on our favorite bench, and begin calling out coordinates, with no board, and play games of checkers! He was a very smart pony, I knew that by how quickly he learned, and the way he talked about magic. He loved magic so much! I never really understood it, and he struggled to describe it without visuals to me, but eventually he started to get the point across. He compared spells to language, in quite a genius way.

He told it to me like this: Magic was like a friendly pony who liked to help. A spell then, was like a question. To levitate something was to ask Magic politely to pick it up, and to fire a blast was to ask them to kick something. As you got better at casting spells, it was like learning to talk more persuasively. The better you could ask him, the more effort he would put into doing it, and the better he would do it for you. Of course, immediately after he told me this, I looked into myself and tried to ask him to do some things too, and after a little effort I told him it wasn’t working, and he laughed.

“Only unicorns can do it, silly.”

“Wait, then why are you so interested in it?”

“What do you mean?”

“If only unicorns can do it, why do you care so much? Aren’t unicorns those ponies with weird things growing out of their heads?”

“...Glaze, I am a unicorn.”

“You have a horn?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Oh! Can I feel it?”

Of course, I didn’t know that was a weird question, and was oblivious to the strange stares I had gotten. He did let me feel it though, it was hard and almost vibrated with energy, starting with a wide base and coming to a rounded point. He must’ve been a real smooth-talker, because I could feel he already had a pretty close relationship with Magic.

So many good memories we had together… which is why it’s a shame what happened on Nightmare Night. Believe it or not, I did dress up on Nightmare Night. I know I couldn’t see it, but I understood that others could, and if I’m being honest, I even thought they wouldn’t be able to tell it was me! It was a silly thought, especially considering I didn’t like masks, because they made it harder to breathe, which I quite like doing. I would walk down the streets with my parents, getting as much candy as I could, and every time I heard a voice, I’d ask what they were. They’d say that pony is a monster, and that one is a princess, and that one is a giant doughnut! My imagination went wild, and I imagined giant edible ponies and terrifying creatures acting like foals!

On that fateful Nightmare Night, I had decided that I was going to be an Ursa Major, and strike fear into everypony I came across! I’m told now, that I just had a blanket wrapped around me with a star pattern, and some cheap bear ears, but at the time I was convinced I was a giant ethereal bear. More significant though, this Nightmare Night, I wasn’t going to be with my parents. It was a safe town after all, and I convinced them to let Quantum walk me around instead. It’s not that I didn’t like my parents, or wanted to get away from them, it just sounded like a fun new experience. I followed the knock on our door, and my parents and I greeted Quantum at the door. My dad seemed confused, and told me he thought my friend was a colt, and I said he was. There was a weird silence, before everyone started talking again, and we were let out. He was reluctant to hold my hoof, telling me that was normally an affectionate thing, but I told him it’s the only way I would feel safe, and so he eventually agreed, and I think he even grew to like it. I asked him how he knew It was me who answered the door, when he decided to quell my active imagination, and tell me what I really looked like. I wasn’t disappointed, in fact, I started laughing real hard. I asked him what he was supposed to be then, and he said he was a hydra! Well… if a hydra was a unicorn with two badly painted boxes taped to his shoulders.

At first, it went well. He took me down some routes I’d never been down, and we got plenty of candy in our bags. Eventually though, we were stopped by three fillies from school. They seemed friendly at first, and told us about a party at an old treehouse in the forest. They said there was mountains of candy, and a lot of ponies there! He seemed skeptical, since those same ponies were mean to him in the past, but eventually they managed to dispel his worries and convince him. I was optimistic, as their voices sounded nice, and after a while we went up a pair of hard wooden steps through the forest. He began to ask a lot of questions when we were there, as he couldn’t hear anypony inside, but they promised him that they were just inside, and urged us to come inside. Even I got an inkling of suspicion, a strange feeling in my intuition, but he went in, so I did too.

The next moments felt… strange. Slow, evil, disconnected. There was two other fillies waiting inside, but there was no party. The door shut behind him, and I heard some struggling, before ponies started yelling. I went to walk over and help him, thinking he hurt himself on something, but a pony pushed me over, and told me to stay out of it. No pony had ever touched me like that… and I was so shocked I just laid there, and listened. I heard Quantum yelling, as they told him all sorts of mean things. They called him awful words I wish not repeat, and I heard all sorts of bangs and profanities. He begged them to stop, and I heard him cry as their laughs almost drowned it out. They were hurting him… and doing something else awful, but I didn’t know what. Eventually, they said they were bored with him, and as he sobbed on the floor I heard them left. I waited a full five minutes to be sure before I stood up onto my hooves and walked over to him, feeling for him on the floor. He stopped crying eventually, and stood too, before telling me he was taking me home. I tried to hold his hoof, not knowing what had just happened, and agreeing I should go home, but he wouldn’t let me.

He shook his hoof away, and refused to talk to me anymore, and I had to follow the noise of his hoof-steps all the way home. I didn’t say anything to my parents because I didn’t know what to say about it. I figured I could ask him about it on Monday, but I was wrong. When I approached him at recess, he told me to go away, and wouldn’t talk to me. I even got so desperate, I choked on my own words, and began to call out an opening checkers move, but he told me the game was stupid, and left. I was heartbroken… I didn’t understand why my friend was being mean to me. He didn’t talk to me during class… and ignored me after school. He did the same the next day, and the next. On the fourth day, I didn’t go to school, I went to the pond. I put my hoof in the water, and tried to remind myself that I was alive… but this hurt too much. Sure, the water was real, I was alive… but our friendship was real too, and now it was gone. I thought it was my fault somehow, maybe it was. As Mrs. Point found me at the pond, she put a hoof on my shoulder, and asked me what was wrong, why I wasn’t in school. I told her what I could, that Quantum was my friend, and now he wouldn’t talk to me. I told her the water didn’t help, and almost mimicking his behavior, I rejected her hug. I began to walk back towards the school, leaving her alone at the pond. I don’t think she followed me right away, I didn’t hear her anyways.

For the first time in a while I shed a tear, and began to cry. For better or worse, I had lost my first friend, and I didn’t even know if it was my fault. The array was all zeroes, friend.