Cutie Marks and Broken Wings
I stared up at the ceiling. It was grey. As usual. Tiny cracks were littered throughout, with more showing up every day. One of them had gotten big enough to leak when it rained, and I was thankful that it wasn’t over my bed.
Though it wasn’t like my bed needed any help with being uncomfortable. I would probably sleep just as well on the floor, though Father got mad when I did so.
Father got mad when I did anything really.
“Everything has a proper place,” he liked to say, “and yours, little one, is in here.” And so “in here” is where I stayed. With a hard bed and a leaky ceiling and the same old toys, forever.
Everything also had a proper time. There was a proper time to go to bed, and it was not until Father said so. There was a proper time to eat, and it was not until Father said so. There was a proper time to play, and it was not until Father said so. Not a moment sooner, and not a moment more.
As I stared up at the ceiling for what must have been the millionth time, I realized that there was much I didn’t know about Father. Why did he not have wings, and what was that pointy thing on his head? I didn’t have a pointy thing on my forehead, but he did. Is that why he was out there, and why I was in here? And most curious, I thought, was why he had a strange picture on his flanks. Two bottles with strange liquids in them were always there on his flanks, though he tried to cover them up with what he called his “lab coat”.
He did not encourage the asking of questions, but one day I asked what the pictures were for, and why I did not have them. His response was “If all goes as I hope, then you may never need to know.” Not the most helpful answer, but it made me think that maybe these were bad things, and that he was keeping them from us. Saving us from whatever those pictures might do.
Though I couldn’t help but wonder what could have been pictured on my flanks. Maybe some of my old toys, like a dirty winged pony or a dark cloud. Maybe the one light that was hung in the center of my room, obviously dim, but just bright enough to shine on what was most important.
I sat up and looked around the room for more things I could imagine on my flanks. Besides my small box of toys and the toilet (which I did not want to picture anywhere but where it currently was, in the corner of my room), I couldn’t think of anything else. It felt silly to put Father there, or even his white coat. I stretched my wings and slid off my bed.
I froze for a second, then stretched my wings back out.
I hadn’t properly used them in quite some time, as Father got mad when I flew around the room. Though now I didn’t care as much about what he thought, the years of being told not to fly left my wings unable to carry my weight. When I try, I could only ever get a few hooves off the ground.
But as I stared at my outstretched wings, I realized that they were perfect. I didn’t know what the pictures meant, but something deep down told me that my wings belonged there.
I gave them a few tentative flaps, feeling a bit of lift, but not lifting off the ground at all. I looked around the room, and walked up to the door. Glancing out the small window set into it, I noticed a distinct lack of Father. Good.
I gave a few more flaps, rising a bit off the ground. Just as I felt one hoof rise up, I lost all balance and toppled over. Usually, this is where I’d stop. I’d tried, and I had failed, and that was that. Time to get back into bed and wait.
But for some reason, I didn’t stop. I had to fly.
And so I got back up off the ground and tried again. I beat my wings with all the strength they had in them, but it wasn’t enough, and I fell.
Then I tried again. And again. And again. Each time I felt like I was doing a little bit better, though each fall left me more bruised than the last. But I didn’t even notice. I needed to get completely off the ground. I needed to fly, just once.
Over and over, I got up, I flapped, and I fell.
It felt like hours had passed, though it was more than likely just a few minutes, but at last, I finally did it. With a few beats of my battered wings, I got off the ground… and then stayed there. I opened eyes I hadn’t realized I had closed, and looked down at the ground. Ground that I was not touching. Not with hooves, or wings, or even my tail. I was flying.
With a quick glance to my sides, I noticed the constant, almost instinctual rhythm. Up. Down. Up. Down. It was almost mesmerizing.
The door burst open with a loud “Bang!” and I quickly snapped back to a rather furious-looking Father.
I faltered, and tried to correct it, but I think I just made things worse. I veered to my left and crashed violently into the nearest wall. A sharp pain shot through my wing and up my back, and I opened my mouth to scream, but only managed a small squeak.
I fell, and Father rushed to my side. “What is wrong with you, child? I instructed you never to fly, you know that!” Despite his harsh tone, he checked me over, and when he pressed lightly on my left wing, I properly screamed. “It’s broken. Do you see what flying has done to you, child?”
I would have responded, but I was distracted. Not by the pain, as bad as it might have been, but on a light emanating from further down. And when the light subsided, I saw my broken wing on my flank.
Father noticed this, too. “Ooh, now that is interesting.” He got up and started walking away, but then turned around and trotted back. Back and forth, back and forth. “I must document this. After twenty years, I would have thought that ponies couldn’t get cutie marks in captivity, but you—” he stopped talking to himself and pointed at me, “—have proven me wrong.” Back to pacing. “This certainly needs to be tested further. Ah! But I seem to be getting ahead of myself. I still need to decide what to do with the completed test subject.”
“F-Father?” I interrupted quietly. “I am still in… a lot of p-pain. Can you—”
He turned back to face me, “Why, that’s a brilliant idea! I will return you to your family! I certainly don’t have any need for you, and they must still wonder what happened to that little filly all those years ago.”
I was confused. “My family?” What’s a family?
He seemed as excited as I was confused. “Yes! Your family, your mom and pop. Now, here, let me patch you up, then we’ll be heading out as soon as I finish documenting all of this. I’m close to a breakthrough here, I just know it!” He left for a moment, then returned with a box full of bandages and bottles.
As he fixed me up, I had to still my beating heart. Out? I’m going outside my room? I looked at my broken wing, and then to the pictures on my flanks. With just a bit of pain, I had gained freedom. And, as he left me once again to “document all of this”, I did what I had learned to do best in here; I let my mind wander, and imagined what such a thing was like.
