The Withering Rose

Birth

Birth is something that happens everyday, almost constantly, it used to at least.
In some little town of no importance in the middle of nowhere (although not too far from Canterlot) another birth was occurring, the parents weren't anypony special and it seemed as though this would just be another meaningless beginning.

I was beginning that day, although my beginning would ultimately be the end of all else... for now though, nothing important.

The moment I was born something wasn't right, my mother was a pegasus with a yellow body and a long, green mane, my father was a unicorn; white body and blue mane.
I was a unicorn like my father but the colour of my body was light grey while my mane was a darker shade of grey, the only real colour my appearance had was my purple eyes.

The immediate question was how I could possibly be related to both my parents despite looking nothing like either of them, supposedly a doctor attempted to explain why this could be, perhaps an ancestor was drastically different in colour, another explanation that would actually turn out to be true was the connection between cutie marks and appearance.

Cutie marks have always been somewhat understudied I guess, there have always been strange questions that have never truly been answered despite how important cutie marks are to ponies.
In my case, the cutie mark and the destiny I would gain later in life would be connected heavily to grey.

At the time of my birth, none of this information was proven and because of this uncertainty a divide had already been created between me and my father.

The early years of my life are obviously somewhat fuzzy, I don't have a perfect memory, I do know of some details though.
My father was often busy and even when he wasn't, he didn't pay much attention to me.
My mother on the other hoof, was kind, caring and gentle...
She was also a coward.

The unloving creature I called a father would do plenty of work at his job and work even harder at home to treat his family like unimportant garbage, it started with negligence and became worse from there, he didn't leave us for whatever reason, I guess he was old fashioned or stubborn perhaps, either way, can't ask him now.

My mother did what she could, I suppose.
I certainly wouldn't have survived without her, I have mixed feelings on her now but when I was young I know I loved my mother more than anything else in Equestria.

Despite being so young I still have memories of what kind of things would happen around me, my mother feeding me, keeping me warm, my father avoiding me and a lot of mostly one-sided arguments.

These routines would continue into the later years of my foalhood, I grew up a little and became more capable of thinking and even speaking, my home was simple and very appropriate for raising a filly so young, colourful walls, cosy furniture, all of that stuff, you'd even be fooled into thinking it was a nice place to live if you saw it while my father was away.

We had a beautiful garden full of pretty flowers, my mother cared about that garden a lot, it was the perfect place for a young filly to sit on her own, happy to be comfortable in the grass, resting near the flowers. My mother would sit with me when I was very young but as I grew older I found myself spending more time there by myself, away from the view of others.

The greatest moments I had back then were the ones I spent with my mother or by myself, life was only peaceful without him around.

Eventually I became old enough to attend school, this would be the first time I had interacted with anypony my own age, it was also an opportunity to be away from the hostility of my father.

The day before my first day of school was a time in which I felt much happier than I would on my actual first day there.