Alone, sitting in the darkness, writing by candlelight, I reflect on what has happened in the last few days. The world was turned upside-down, it felt, and I had no way of figuring out anything.
I wrote out my life story, stained in ink, every mistake I’d ever made, but in not one scenario did I ever see “mare”.
That’s what I’ve spent my night so far doing, as well as listening to a singular album on repeat. Again and again, somehow not having tired of it quite yet. It came out years ago, but I heard it once, a couple days ago, and it struck me deeply. Maybe I should’ve come out years ago, too… too bad I didn’t know anything.
But of course, while I have an idea on what I’ve become, I didn’t know how I got there. I try to look at my neigh-unintelligible wingwriting, every little side thought I had pops into the scroll at the dumbest of moments.
Great I’m a drummer, great, I don’t like Classical… but that has nothing to do with my current scenario, close to nothing at all.
I tried writing out every single note I could remember that told me who I was as a pony… but I wrote down “headbands” and went on a tirade about people not liking cute things when I was a filly. Then I realized that was an early sign. So I talked about that, then I talked about crossdressers…?
I sigh. It’s a mess. The entire scroll is a mess.
Was there a way to start from the beginning?
Did I want to write my old name out in plain ink? The old name I hated?
I shake my head. I’d figured something out at least, this development shouldn’t have been a new one. But it was. But what did that mean?
Did it mean I was faking being a mare? Did I want to take the “easy way out”?
But that felt impossible, when I learned about this thing, when I put in the album for the first time, it felt right. How would I fake myself into believing that?
But there was a way I could…
Stop it.
I think that to myself, as the album starts the next track.
I can’t just let my brain run rampant. It is prone to doing such a thing, but I must stop it before it spirals too out of control.
I take a deep breath and begin again.
It all started on the day of my actual birth…
…And I already screwed up.
It all started in the day of my actual birth...
Crossing it out helps make me feel a little better.
I continue writing, putting as much of my AD/HD addled brain on focus as I could.
I write out the simple things that should’ve been signs, spending a bit on it, piecing together the little parts, to slowly reach a whole. I end up with a bullet point list of all the things that should’ve screamed mare far before a few weeks ago.
I read the list, then reread it, then compulsively read it again, and again, until I feel I’ve squeezed every single drop of blood from the stone.
- Wore headbands in Kindergarten
- Liked the cute things
- Had no issues with being marelike
- Chose the mare avatars
- More attracted to the mare’s clothing
- Never believed being taught that stallions and mares had to be a certain way
I cross out that last one. That one feels off.
The album cycles to another song, and I turn back to look at the player. It’s my favorite song on the album. One that partially helped me discover my feelings. I think.
The song screams directly into the dead space that occupies my room. Expletives, stating that the singer was so busy trying to be a stallion she murdered all semblance of mare within her.
I look back at the sheet, and slowly circle the last bullet point.
I believed that stallions and mares had to be a certain way once.
I was taught it… I grew out of it. But still, I was taught it, and just like the singer on this album, I let it inform my decisions, and I pushed all ‘mare’ aside.
I start tapping my hoof along with the drumbeat, my brain kicking partially back into overdrive.
If my realization is perhaps related to that, then I don’t have a problem.
How could I fake it if I didn’t want to even fake it in the first place?
The song ends right about then, it not being a very long song, and the next track starts playing. I take a sigh of relief and review my list.
Did it matter what all the signs were? Did I have to know them?
The logical part of the brain says yes, the rest, no.
I have to know these things, but sometimes there’s no shame in not knowing.
So, I think to myself. What is that story of mine?
I start writing it out.
When I was a young colt filly, I went to school.
I wore headbands, and eventually took them out for being too marelike, I never thought marelike was an insult. I hid my best self from the world. I was told that stallions were one way, and mares were another.
The words sunk in, I became harsh, biting, traits which only went away when I learned that being different, having AD/HD, was all fine. When I learned that weird was a-ok.
I got my cutie mark, drumsticks, at a talent show. I found solace in music, the words reaching me in ways I never thought possible.
I found an album.
An album that said that being marelike was not only okay, that there were ponies who knew it mean something more. That they were, too, in fact mares, or stallions, even, the other way around. I am one of those...
There wasn’t much to it, but there didn’t have to be. I articulated my thoughts best in short bursts. I push the ink pen down a little harder for the next words.
…And my name is Reinn.
Author's Note
So nervous for this one… it’s a little different from what I usually write, but I hope it goes over well.
But while you’re here, if you like this story, I have a Discord server now, if you want to join, feel free to invite people from other fandoms, too.
And slurs will be deleted on sight if I see one in the comments
