The Withering Rose

Cursed

I remember waking up in a cold and hostile room, it was a cell for criminals.
The town had resorted to locking me away in fear of what I had done the day before. I sat on my own, not really thinking about anything and feeling kind of... numb.

Every now and again one of the town's guards would carefully walk into the room, they'd check on me, see what I was up to and slide food into the cell.
I don't know how long I was in that cold place all alone, it could've been days, weeks, or maybe just a few hours. Time felt strange to me, everything was blurry and it was hard to focus on my surroundings.

Sometimes I'd hear ponies talking in another room, usually panicking and trying to figure out what to do with me.
After a while they started... experimenting on me, for lack of a better term.

The first thing they tried was having somepony place a flower into the room, they asked me to touch the flower.
I did, the weak little daisy quickly died and crumbled to dust, like everything else I had touched recently.
As days passed, more flowers were placed into the room, each one dying faster than the one before it.

Eventually they gave up on the flower idea, they started bringing in unicorns to take a look at me.
I have no idea what kinds of spells they were using on me.
Maybe they were trying to 'cure' me, maybe they were trying to disable my 'ability'... whatever they were hoping to achieve, it didn't work.

I overheard them talking again at some point, they were in communication with Canterlot, hoping to request some assistance, powerful unicorns to help fix whatever was wrong with me or maybe even stronger guards... in case I tried killing anypony else.

After a while it became clear that their request for help had finally reached Canterlot, somepony was coming to help.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, young me would never have expected to see the princess of Equestria so close.
Princess Celestia had traveled all the way from Canterlot to help the poor little filly that had been deemed by the town to be cursed and beyond help.

She looked at me with genuine care in her eyes, it was the first time I'd seen somepony look at me kindly in what felt like an eternity.
She told me that she was here to help, that everything would be okay.

A royal guard brought some strange device resembling a magic dispersion ring, but it was different in colour and design.
It was explained to me as a cutie mark dampening ring, it was designed by the most powerful unicorns in Equestria to disable the effects of any cutie mark.

The ring was placed onto my horn and another flower was placed in front of me, I reached out to the plant and to my surprise, nothing happened at all.
The flower was still perfectly healthy, the ring had actually worked after all.

The princess had sat with me to talk about what would happen next, I was to be taken to Canterlot castle, the ring would keep myself and everypony else safe while she and other unicorns in the city worked together to find a permanent solution to my dangerous ability.

For the first time I had felt a little hope... something other than despair.

Princess Celestia walked by my side as we left the building and through town. I tried not to pay attention to the other ponies, standing and staring at me from a distance.
We reached a carriage and stepped into it.
It was the last time I would ever set hoof in the town I grew up in.

I sat close to the princess as we traveled, she had tried to comfort me by wrapping her wing around me.
It took a while but we finally arrived at the castle and I was introduced to my new home.
An unbelievably large place with beautifully clean walls and bright red carpets.

I now truly believed that I had been saved, the princess was the only pony I could rely on and she was going to help me in any way she could.
I felt safe.

There was a brief tour around the most important places in the castle and eventually I was shown where I would be sleeping from now on.
It had been a long day and I was more than ready to finally sleep comfortably after everything that I had been through.
I remember watching the sun set that evening, the warmth of the sun somehow felt different during that moment.

I lied in the large, soft bed and attempted to rest my eyes.
Despite all of the great things that had happened that day, despite how much my life had improved since I had lost my mother... I had trouble sleeping that night.

Everything should be fine now, it will be okay, the princess will look after me.
Regardless of how many times I repeated these thoughts to myself, I couldn't forget all that had occurred back home.
I was hopeful, but that didn't mean I wasn't concerned about the future.