The awakening

I grew up in a surgeon’s family, and if you’ve ever met my father, it would’ve been obvious to you.

He always wore his doctors suit as if to say to all ponykind "Look at me! I save lives for a living!". It got to a pont when I couldn't recognize my dad without his outfit. When he was taking his clothes off he was not just a bare naked pony. He was a complete stranger to me!

I liked my mom more. When her husband was busy being a fashion star that he was, my mom was working as a nurse, in a way you'd expect it - always on her hooves, everywhere but home. Ponies were afraid of taking her job, thinking it’s too tiring. And their intuition got it right as paying griffons to do it instead would’ve cost twice as much.

To say mom's job was just tiring would’ve been similar to throwing sand in her eyes. But that’s okay. Thanks to her huge eye sockets that she had, she would’ve not even noticed.

I rarely was allowed to play outside or disturb my parents when they worked. Instead of toys, I had nothing but books to play with. Mainly about anatomy, biology and diseases. Having only them to end my misery, I started to actually like reading. But I never was corageous enough to get caught with a book in a public place.

If I had, everypony in school would've started picking at me for being a nerd. I don't like when they do that. Choosing someone weak to unleash their inner hate on. That's so selfish and wrong.

I don't like ponies in general so I developed strong love for plants instead. Pachira aquatica was my only real friend. I named her Cicilia and together we spent most of our time. I watered her by all myself. My parents was never allowed to get their grabby hooves on this plant.

Seeing me happy about having a friend, my dad decided to ruin things for me. I’m not sure if the skeleton of a life-sized pony can be called a toy but it was one to my father’s standards alright. So one night he just barged in and put it in my room. Trying to sleep was hard with that thing standing there. Its presence was more than enough to make me very upset.

But that was a miniscule event compare to what else happened the morning after. I woke up with, not just a skeleton by my side, but two whole new gifts to discover. An hourglass, if I am correct. Or a sand watch. My cutiemark goes under different names.

The easiest explanation for getting it can be that I broke time. Whatever the real cause was, my dad wasn't so happy once he found out.

I remember going to the kitchen and waving my butt at my humming carefree father as if to tease the bull. And, yes, that worked way too well.

Not noticing me but definitely noticing something else instead, he jumped off his chair and rushed to his library. If not for my good reflexes, he would have crushed me with his massive rump that I bet never left my mom disappointed.

Before I thought of reading to be nice and calm, but my dad has proven me wrong. He turned simple reading into an intence hunt. A hunt to find a creature, whose presence is told to shine your way through the dawn of the uncertain night. A hunt to the most wanted beast there is. Knowledge!

Okay, that sounds dumb, but it won’t come close to whatever my dad was rambling. He was glancing through those pages like an animal, trying to set them on fire with a stare. And that look been almost as if he was trying to swallow a big pill and it wasn’t that much successful.

When he finally found the answer, he signed with relief. Books hold all of them. And according to some, you get a clock for two possible reasons. It’s either you make clocks for a living or something else. Actually, I never thought of my cutiemark that much. It's because no matter how hard I tried to get the answer, my dad always kept himself shut about this. To make things worse, he even set those books on fire. Not with a stare this time around.

I still think that whoever was throwing cutiemarks at ponies with a magick-shmagick wand made a mistake with mine and got himself fired for that. My dad laughed when he heard this guess of mine. He then bought me an Ice-cream and suggested forgetting it all, which is of cource being easier said than done, but with my mouth full of sweet thing, I quickly lost all interest in proving my point.

He also talked with my mom about this. ButI am afraid this story has only made her feel worse about herself. Luckily for me, I wasn’t told. Dad made sure to keep me away from her by introducing to me what he does for a living. And once I got a chance to see how he performs his surgeries, I should admit, I got very excited.

I began spending time with him as his little helper, holding a scalpel in my mouth, ready to give it to him at any moment he asks. And although that was a plastic scalpel, safety comes first, my dad liked making me think that I’m genuinely helping.

Weeks later, I began to adore his game of naming the organs that he was pulling out from a pony, similar to how a magician would’ve done the same with a bunny in his hat. He even tried joggling once but I’m afraid telling this has some chance of ending my father’s career for good.

But I guess I just did.

Oh no! If only I was able to actually go back in time to prevent this instead of having a stupid cutiemark that makes me look like I can.

After kindergarten, I went to Canterlot’s royal school. It was the time when I finally started playing dirty. And the game went like this: if somepony approached me, I'd hide my real thoughts somewhere and appear, maybe, just a little nicer.

This trick is very effective and I use it up to this day. I took it from my dad as for ponies like us feeling the emotion is a little red cross, he explained. We had to find some ways to cope with others when things get emotional and so we did.

Then he taught me how to smile when you don't want to, how to laugh when your lungs are not feeling this way. I keep thanking him for that. All in life comes through a lot of sacrifices and feeling no pity for ponies is a reward for a job well done. For every faked emotion you show through your lifeless corpse.

You stay sane...

To impress my dad, I went even further with that, almost as if the pupil has outdone the teacher. Similar to how Twilight would’ve won against Celestia, Little filly has won against her dad. I was no longer a pony who began feeling no love or compassion for others behind the welcoming facade.

I also began using that for my own gain.

Yes. I knew very well by then that if you don't get caught then that's not a crime. The trick itself has helped me to hide that greatly. Otherwise, ponies would’ve started to judge me for who I am and this is something I don’t like.

Thanks to my little trick I was soon noticed and taken under Celestia’s wing to pursue my educational goals. I got so good in it that I've managed to find some friends along the way. The “ones you get once and then stuck with forever” kind of friends.

Thankfully it didn’t last long. When I got a bachelor’s degree in Canterlot's healthcare medical facility, my so-called "friendship" was already becoming hard to bare.

As an act of retaliation, I changed my name, without even telling my goner of a father about it. It’s simple. One fateful night I just put all my belongins into a sack, including Cicilia, and left Canterlot without any warnings.

It’s like you said, dad. This way we stay sane.

Being a high ranking student who, so happens, had just graduated, the sky was my limit. And since I moved to Ponyville the next day, I quickly crossed out all ponies who knew me from before. That’s because for them it was no longer Minuette but Colgate, the name my mother wanted to give me since the day I came to life.

It's my gift to you. Sleep well, mom. Sleep well forever...

Damn it. I shouldn't bring this up...

So anyway, it took me a while to learn the basics but once I did, I finally began practicing. I wasn’t panicing during my first day as a real dentist. I hardly even felt that way in my whole life to be honest. And I still can remember the moment this realisation hit me. That was when I was taking my last biology class, as well as my friends.

It was the day when some teacher required us to operate on a dead frog. That sounded simple enough but for some reason, as I began glancing around, I noticed that other students failed before even making the first cut. Some even tried their best to hold themselves, as if not to vomit.

It gets you nowhere unless you are meant to take this job, I figured.

And after I did, I was immediately kicked out of school. Not for Celestia to be rude, but to reassign me to a more fitting place. There I revealed my full potential of being an intern in a local hospital. By that time it was simular to getting a golden ticket to apply to any medical facility you craved for.

It’s been a while since that happened. And now all ponies in Poniville know me as a dentist. I work five days a week, except for the weekends, which I spend mostly by sleeping at home, getting some rest from checking on those mouths. It's not bad teeth that I'm tired of. it's bad breath.

Nothing much has changed ever since as without a doubt my professional life became inescapable. And even if I tried to make one, it would’ve been worthless because one pony will get me from anywhere.

That’s how I imagine my own death. Being hit by one thousand party canons while she sings...

If you will live in Ponyville, you’ll learn that quickly. It’s quite hard to trot around when there’s a threat of meeting one pony who causes real pain in my… Rump. And no matter how much I try holding my anger, with Pinkie Pie, it's difficult. This imbecile will never grow up or at very least try acting like a grown up.

Her stupidity doesn’t end here. No, with Pinkie it goes far and beyond like never before! It’s thanks to her stupid birthday parties my old friends from Canterlot found me. It’s her who made me go to Moondancer in a first place. If it wasn’t her again, Twilight would've never talked to me, and together we would’ve happily continued ignoring each other forever.

There are plenty of reasons to hate her, and those reasons are just. My anger keeps building up every time I hear her singing. And to make it worse, this idiot keeps adding my name to each of her songs.

I have a question to ask. How come this party pony never had a toothache before? Doesn’t matter. Once she has, I’ll make sure to take care of it and perform a surgery that she will find, maybe, just a little difficult to recover from. If she’ll ever recover. This is something I will not guarantee.

Those thoughts, along with others, make me look like I’m cruel, heartless. That’s correct. But despite how much cruelty I developed over the years; I will never do something like this, even though I'm the one who is hurt the most.

Suddenly my thoughts were all cut off by an irritating gurgle. Is there another pony hurt as much as I am? It turns out there was.

It was a quiet moan, similar to a little animal dying. That’s what I heard from her as I hit myself with a hoof to regain my focus and come back to my senses.

“Oh no! Did I blackout? I’m so sorry, Twinkie!” I quickly faked a gasp.

With a twitch of my nose that never lies, I quickly realized. The room already had a distinctive smell of medicine. So much that it felt like the air itself has a taste of anesthesia. But that’s hardly a reason why I was spacing out, to begin with.

Seeing them being helpless as they are fully in my control. Oh yes. This is something I will never get tired of.

For a moment I stood near Twinkleshine, enjoying myself before figuring out the cause of her displeasure, to put it that way.

It didn't take long for me to quickly realize. Lost in thought, I forgot to check on how her gums were doing. Turned out they were not doing so well and that resulted in some… well... unwanted results.

No reason to worry here. There’s nothing in this world that a dentist like me won’t be able to fix.

“I’ll quickly get it all out, okay? Hold still...”

With a quick shot of my horn, I slowly put a sucking device inside her numb mouth. It began doing what it’s only good at - clearing the drops of dark blood that poor Twinkleshine had nowhere to put in her mouth.

She either kept swallowing her own blood all this time or tried spitting it out, which, congratulations, has led to her moan in the first place. Both the mystery and her problem were solved in no time, except her gestures were saying it for herself.

She’s a little upset.

Or is she? Since Twinkleshine is drugged, I’m not sure. I can't read her gestures, aside from how violently her jaw shakes.

Is it supposed to?

“Oh? Twinkie, what is it with you today?”

Now that's starting to get obvious. Twinkleshine is scared of me. Who knew she would’ve reacted that way?

I looked deeply into her eyes, scanning her in and out better than any X-ray machine ever would. Then I gently landed my hoof on her forehead while still keeping my eyes locked on hers. That was enough to have an effect on her.

“Twinkie… I know that the feeling you feel now is not very nice but... I promise that you will be okay.”

I calmly noted and pat her gently. I need her to relax for a moment. If she shakes like that in her seat while I’m working, there’ll be far more damaged teeth in her set.

I leaned myself closer to a shaking mare and hit her shoulder.

“Shush, brave pony… I know you too well to think you are scared.”

To my suprise, after a small pause, she shook her head with a lit of a warrior in her wet eyes before turning them right away.

I didn't expect her to be conscious. I might’ve pushed this drugged mare too hard. I almost... hurt her.

“Twinkie… It’s okay to be scared of such things.”

She tried to respond but muffled rambling was all I’ve managed to make of it.

It’s not her fault. With her gums being swollen to an extent of her voice getting lost in them, she’ll hardly have any success at making herself clear for the next six hours.

She starts to annoy me. The more she behaves like that, the longer it’ll take me to finish my job.

Without any other option left to try, that brings me to my special kind of spells. I use them on my patients when they seem to get on my nerve, and now this seems to be exactly the case. It’s always a choice whether you want to be a part of it or not. But in the end, you don’t have a right to choose. It’s whether you play nice, Twinkleshine, or get what you deserve.

With a wide smile, I carried on. Not to mention it can’t be seen behind the protective mask that I'm wearing. I can’t help but smile. Seeing that Miss Twinkleshine is getting calmer only means that my spell is starting to work.

It’s good that I decided to use it on her. Otherwise, she would burst into tears in my room and beg for her silencer, similar to a pathetic crybaby that she sadly is.

Very soon I saw her eyes closing and her nose began snorting similar to a little pig. Chest stopped jumping. Her heart rate has normalized. If not for the green magic aura still somewhat flying around her head, nobody wouldn’t have even guessed that I forced her to take a nap.

Seeing her like this has sparkled in me some curiosity. I will regret if I won’t take a closer look. That's only fair as Twinkleshine was quite hard to handle and I guess I’ll punish her for that.

After I shoot her with a horn my second time, she spread her legs without even realizing it, revealing something that I find very attractive. And, of course, no resistance followed from her.

My eyes quickly blinked with joy when I saw it. She was dry down there. Like a desert.

My belly suddenly started to feel funny as it all tightened. I just felt a tickling sensation somewhere in my nostrils right before my nose got me busted again. They can think of me what they want at this point. My biggest flaw is that I sneeze when I’m aroused.

Enough of that, I concluded. I really should get back to work here before doing something stupid. And the fact it’s her wisdom tooth only makes me want to end her suffering. These are known for inflicting a lot of pain after all. Ponies before us survived thanks to having them, but since we’ve evolved to consume more tender food, the need for bone cutters dropped by itself very quickly.

With dental pliers I slowly started pulling the tooth out and, lucky me; it broke into several pieces right before getting out of Twinkie’s gum.

“Hey! We got it out, Twinkie! Now, let’s tie the gap an-”

I cheered in my fashion before shutting my mouth realizing that I’m talking to myself. After everything I’ve done to her; I still tried to appear nice to a napping mare, almost if I wanted that for some reason.

I haven’t paid much attention to my mistake as minutes later I began packing up my things before I knew it, making sure that everything is in place. It will be a question of time before I wrap it all up, set Miss Twinkleshine free from my spell and give her a friendly advice or two about recovering from those extra doses of anesthesia that I gave her.

After shutting the door behind a noticeably confused Twinkleshine I was making my way to the bathroom. Once I got there, I hit the showers. However I quickly changed my mind. It's too hot for my flanks. I will brush my teeth and wait for water to cool down a bit.

I stood near a bathroom sink, waving my hoof from side to side under the stream of warm water. I’m feeling too excited for some reason as the way it gets cut by my hoof is just... nice. Well then, this is going straight to the list! I have it hanging on my fridge to remind me of my weak sides.

Talking about the things I hate, they won't fit on one list I'm afraid. But to sum it up, I hate noises, parties, birthdays and, for lack of a better word, ponies. The last one sums it up perfectly.

And Pinkie is the one who I should thank for that.

It’s been roughly three years since one incident. Moondancer was after celebrating her birthday and wanted me to come. That’s why she sent me an invitation to make it formal. And instead of her usual “BE THERE” written on it, this one had clearly more words, like she was actually trying to welcome me this time.

“Well, good for her, I'm seeing some progress,” I said to myself while scanning the streets for the nearest dumpster bin.

But that was before Pinkie noticed me passing through. With being, well, an idiot, she’s made a scene by cheering for me in public and attracting as much attention as she can get with this. She was so loud about my invitation that I found myself packing up for a trip moments after; just to shut her up. Obviously.

Pinkie decided to stick with me to help with packing up my things, which I sure can’t do all by myself. Not that she hasn’t helped me enough already, it was obvious this degenerate was making sure I won’t run away or, can’t believe I am saying that, break my… Pinkie promise.... This sentence alone makes me want to vomit, considering how much I hate dumb word play.

That pink imbecile kept her eyes locked on me until my train got finally lost off her sight. During that day I wanted to smash her smiley face. Anything goes if ithis teaches her a lesson. She is too stupid and naive for her age to realize ponies are not her toys who she can play dumb games with.

Though a shall admit that I was no better. If only I knew what is about to come, I’d pay more attention to the alarming details.

And here is the first one. I remember standing there along with Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts on that day, confronting no other but Twilight Sparkle to join us and suffer the presence of Moondancer together. Twilight, however, decided to decline our offer and ran away, leaving us there standing like three idiots. If I had an opportunity to somehow switch places with her, I would’ve done it right away.

Does she know some tricks that I don’t? Whatever Twilight said, she got away from us too quickly. After seeing her escaping and throwing a bunch of slurs for her sake, nothing else was left for us to do but to show up on this party of one and except for the worst to come.

Once we’ve arrived, the scene was terrible and I mean it, as Moondancer was happy and excited to see all three of us. We assumed at first that she really wanted to see her friends for once, which was, simply put, not making any sense. And yet, soon enough it became clear that, if anything, she wanted her precious Twilight to come first.

Once she started to notice the absence of her only friend, I could've sworn I saw joy in those eyes fading until nothing of it was left. Oh, sorry. I meant nothing but tears was left. It was hard to enjoy this as her big ugly eyebrows were blocking most of the sight. Nevertheless, it was funny watching her cry her first time, let alone confirming my guesses that one stupid egghead had a crush on another.

For a second, my backup, my alliance, all stood there in silence too. Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts had also no courage to deliver bad news to her. But, oh well. She knew them already.

I pulled some minimal efforts to cheer that lowlife up but they were pathetic. I certainly could've done better than that. And with that the party was over, without having any single reason left to celebrate her birthday.

The next day I woke up with a feeling in my gut that I should check on Moondancer before returning back to Ponyville. I spent too much time in Canterlot against my will. I’ll at least make sure she’s fine. And after that, I’ll get back home and break one pony a nose.

When I arrived at her apartment, something was already off. I found her presents, the punch and decorations in the same place they were left. It’s strange that only one night has passed and her place already looked abandoned.

I didn’t knock at her door and shut it open by casting a spell. Knowing Moondancer; she hardly would’ve opened it, even if I‘ve asked. I only wanted to ensure she’s there and then go home.

And she was there, alright.

From room to room I searched for her, only to be met with bald walls and furniture just lying around. But when it came to looking into the bathroom, I quickly found her. And I didn’t feel a single shiver going down my spine as I was confronted with what my own eyes have seen.

It’s common knowledge that when you leave something being exposed to air, even for a little while, it begins to dry up. Moondancer’s eyes, which by now looked close to a pair of marble balls, were not an exception to that rule. That was the main reason why checking her pulse wasn’t necessary since death was written all over her face.

Didn’t she know that cutting herself sideways would've done it much quicker for her? I thought we were together in that biology class when we learned this. Cutting that frog felt like a long race between me and her. Yet, very soon she barfed all over herself so that she was no longer a match to me.

Ever since we haven’t met a single time. I completely forgot how she looks like. So instead of a pony, I thought of her being something close to a lifeless walking statue. Not that much of a difference. If something sad happened to her, she would have stood there, having no care about the world.

But it turns out I was wrong. Even the shadiest ponies are not immune to those feelings. Luckily I’m not one of them.

And what birthday present was Twilight about to give her anyway, a dildo?

…

Huh?

I felt something strange on the backs of my jaws. After I spat the water out, I noticed it had a dark shade of red, almost similar to Twinkleshine’s but way worse. This is a very worrying sign if you are a dentist who knows a thing or two.

By the looks of it, my gums are bleeding. Or I got so carried away with my blast from the past that I somehow managed to brush my teeth harder than intended.

It’s either this or that. I simply rubbed my eyes, preparing for going to bed. Bath time is surely as well to be dismissed by now. Recalling those events made my head so heavy that it’s only rational to deal with all of my problems tomorrow...