Author's Note
Seriously, if you've not read the description, please be aware this was for a writing event where a group of friends specifically wrote stupid, disrespectful, non-serious sequels to things.
You have been warned.
In Hidden Green
Did I ever tell you about polished glass?
It hangs in antique frame of brass
It hangs on my sister’s bathroom wall
It hangs, silent sentinel, over all
Did I ever tell you about polished glass?
Visions and nightmares I’ve amassed
Did you know that glass is tinted green?
You can see it from angles, beyond the sheen
You can see it if you avoid your face
My body tensed, my muscles braced
Did I ever tell you about the things I’ve seen?
In polished glass, in hidden green?
Did I ever tell you about my fraying mind?
My eyes to rot, my wish to be blind
I’d bargain anything to make it cease
The vision to stop, my soul finds peace
And in my half-formed dreams, steeped in black…
Sweetie Belle’s quill came to a stop at the end of the line, and she chewed on her bottom lip. She’d been working on this poem for a while now. Miss Cheerilee had set them an assignment to write out, and then recite a poem to the class.
But really, it had been a relatively fortuitous accident.
Sweetie had been working on this since the beginning of her parent’s latest trip.
Normally, they didn’t go anywhere for very long, but this time it was different. This time it was an emergency. Sweetie Belle and Rarity had grown up on those stories of their mum and dad growing up in the frigid, frozen cityscape of Baltimare. It was a place of paradox, impossible to stand still on the permanent layers of compacted ice underhoof, and yet everyone seemingly collectively stood motionless in time. A whole city untouched by the inexorable march into the future.
They’d had to get out of there, by the end. Even ponies like her parents that seemed so quaint to the denizens of Ponyville, even for them it was too much. Sweetie Belle could certainly relate, feeling trapped in a place that felt like it was slowly killing you, but that the whole world insisted you were right at home in.
She glanced in her vanity mirror, and saw through the crack in her doorway, the light of the bathroom spilling out into the hall.
But the neverending winter didn’t give up it’s prey easily, and once Hondo and Cookie had heard about great aunt Crystal, and the fall she’d had, they’d felt compelled to go back and help her return to health.
Never mind anything else, of course. Never mind that the stupid old bat was some basically anonymous, impossibly distant relative that Sweetie was confident had never even been mentioned until the day her parents insisted they needed to go out to visit her. Never mind that cousin Dunston, or mum’s sister Bubbles could have dealt with this, given they actually still lived there.
Never mind that it could be weeks, or more, before she was well enough for them to return. Never mind their insistence that Sweetie loved it at Rarity’s! That it would be like a little holiday for her, never mind Rarity herself saying how much she loved it when her little sister came to visit.
Never mind they could have stayed put and left the stupid old bat to deal with her fall herself. If she was clumsy enough to fall maybe she fucking deserved to deal with the consequences instead of forcing Sweetie to have to return to this prison, maybe-
The door opened, and Rarity poked her head through.
“Sweetie Belle? You’re still awake?” she asked, looking over at her sister with concern.
“Yeah uh… sorry Rarity I just…” Sweetie fumbled, “I just forgot to do my homework for tomorrow.”
It wasn’t technically a lie.
“Forgot? Or put off?” Rarity asked, her mock severeness quickly giving way to a knowing smile. She trotted into the room and sat on Sweetie’s bed, “Ponies always talk about school being the best days of your life. Well, between you and me, I think those ponies forgot about homework. Is it anything I can help you with?”
“Oh I don’t think so… just a poetry assignment, not sure it would be your kinda thing.”
Rarity titled her head for a moment, before clearing her throat, and clearly reciting:
“Hyacinth, thyme, first seen colours of the maker’s palette,
Arable, I let my hooves sink and memories of ice,
Hardness, to shatter and slip beneath, finally leaves me,
Arid landscape melts as the ice there never could,
Meadows give more than possible for their fickle likenesses,
Optics from pictures books never tell you the scents,
Now the knowledge is overwhelming in its beauty,
Kiln of my heart finally gifted with a fire the polar wastes would snuff,
Eternally I should wait here, and bloom like the meadow.”
“Woah…” Sweetie replied after a moment’s contemplation, “Who wrote that? It sounds like one of Boulle’s, or maybe Burroughs?”
“You flatter me dear, I wrote that,” Rarity said, coming over to look at Sweetie’s poem, “When we finally moved from Baltimare, I was so happy to get out of that frozen hellhole. And Ponyville was so green, I had to write it down.”
Sweetie looked up at her older sister, squinting down at the words she’d written. Her fur was so soft, her perfume so sweet, it was the only thing in this whole place that still felt like a semblance of home. She leant against Rarity for a moment, and closed her eyes.
“Let me take a look at this darling, you go and clean your teeth and get ready for bed,”
The illusion of peace melted away and Sweetie felt cold.
“I uh… I already cleaned them.”
“I’ve been awake as long as you darling, and I’ve not heard you in the hall once, you most certainly haven’t already cleaned them,” those white hooves that, only moments ago, had felt so comforting, ushered Sweetie from her seat and towards the door, “Go on dearie, we’ll have this sorted in a moment and you can go to sleep,”
Sweetie didn’t even have the time to consider formulating a rebuttal, an excuse, anything to stop her from having to go into that bathroom, before she was out in the hallway. It would have been pitch black, were it not for the soft, pink light filtering from her bedroom behind her.
And, of course, that from the bathroom.
But there was no softness to it, it was harsh. The sound of a buzzing bulb throwing lights to bounce on clinical white tiles, no warmth or love or equinity, found her even here. She moved like a mare on death row, shuffling on autopilot until finally, almost with no conscious thought, the bathroom door clicked shut behind her.
Sweetie’s breath quickened, and she flared her horn. Her toothbrush levitated and was loaded with toothpaste. She quickly rinsed it under the sink, but she knew it was not going to last. The foam would build in her mouth, it would fall down her chin and stain her coat, Rarity would notice, Rarity would ask her what had happened.
“Darling, I know that during this time of your life, the mirror can seem like your worst enemy. But I promise you, everyone has gone through the same thing, I certainly did. I know you don’t always like what you see, but you are an absolutely beautiful young mare, okay? There’s nothing in that mirror that can hurt you. And there’s certainly no such thing as monsters.”
“Okay Rarity… I guess you must be right.”
Rarity wouldn’t get it.
Rarity wouldn’t realise that this was no pubescent tang of self-conscious fear.
Sweetie was dealing with a monster.
Because back when this had started, she would simply see variations on herself. She would see herself move, see herself bleed from the eyes, see her teeth fall out. One time, towards the end, the thing in the mirror wearing her hide had lashed out at her as she cleaned a hair off the mirror, but had thankfully bounced away, reflected from the glass prison.
It could have almost been comical, except for the look it gave her. It hated her.
Sweetie felt it was time, and moved closer to the sink.
When she moved into Rarity’s, for the long haul this time, her mother had spoken of consistency. How that, while Auntie Crystal’s fall was tragic, this would at least mean she knew where she’d be for the next few weeks, instead of moving back and forth between two houses.
Sweetie might have pointed out that she could have had that consistency if her mum and dad just travelled less, and treated her less like a payload to be handed off.
But, in a way, Cookie had been right.
Sweetie’s existence had inarguably gotten more consistent.
She spat her toothpaste into the bowl, and held there for a moment. There was only way out of this, and she knew it. She had to ignore it, not let it affect her.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Cookie’s predictions about consistency had been one of the most insightful things the mare had ever said, because Sweetie didn’t see a different thing in the mirror everyday anymore. Just like everyone else, now Sweetie saw the same thing every morning.
Only instead of her own visage, Sweetie saw something… else.
She tried to be strong, but the urge, paradoxical in how she hated it, was too overpowering. Somehow simultaneously against her own will, and giving in to temptation, Sweetie looked up into polished glass.
It was only for a second, but the sight that met her was still enough to nearly make her vomit. It looked nothing like she did. It looked nothing like any pony she’d ever seen. Two mouths, four eyes, dark, uneven hair, teeth, wet red flesh.
She washed her mouth out and bolted from the room, trying to catch her breath.
Rarity hummed gently from Sweetie’s bedroom. It remained the only thing close to home. Maybe tonight could be the night that Sweetie could tell her sister, maybe tonight was the night she’d be believed. And if her sister thought she was insane, then maybe she was, but maybe, just as likely, Rarityr might get rid of that mirror?
Sweetie swallowed, and walked into the room.
“Ah there you are darling, I really love your poem,” Rarity offered, “Are you going to be reading this out to the class?”
“That was what Miss Cheerilee said,” replied Sweetie Belle, “Rarity I wanted to-”
“Sweetie,” Her sister interjected, gently, but firmly in equal measure. She walked over to the bed and patted a space for the younger unicorn to come join her, “Darling, I think you’re a great writer, a lot better than myself, that’s for sure. And, while I’d never want to stifle your creative output… you don’t need me telling you how cruel ponies can be when they’re this age. I just… I don’t want you to go out there and bare your soul, you know? Maybe… the poem is better unfinished? It certainly adds a certain aesthetic je ne sais quoi. I just… maybe the more intense poems are best saved for those who’ll appreciate them, like me? Because this is wonderful writing, and I don’t want you to end up resenting it,”
“Did… did ponies at school make fun of you for your poem, Rarity?” Sweetie asked, mouth dry.
“Those ponies who say school is the best time of your life seem to forget a lot, if you ask me. I just mean, maybe some things are best left unsaid, unless it’s with a pony you really trust.”
“I…” Sweetie Belle looked up at her sister’s kind, smiling expression, slowly turning to concern.
“Are you alright darling, is there something you want to talk to me about?”
Maybe Rarity was right.
“N… no, no I’m fine Rarity.”
Three seconds.
Head in her pillow, Sweetie had the mantra of three seconds running through her mind.
It took only three seconds, after entering her room, for Sweetie to drop her bags and slump on her bed, groaning. Silent magical light filled her room as Sweetie’s horn lit, and a sheet of paper levitated in front of her.
In no less than 2000 words, write an essay on the biology and different adaptions of the plant species pongo pygmaeus and hylobates pileatus, paying particular attention to the way both have adapted to their relevant climate and use leylines to advantageously use magic.
She scowled, she’d always thought Miss Cheerilee’s assignments were more fun when she was younger. Laxer standards were all the rage back then, when it was things like ‘write a story about a magical adventure’, and Sweetie could get away with writing a very clear Frankenstein ripoff, except have the beast fall off a ferris wheel rather than get mobbed by frightened villagers.
In her heart though, she knew the real reason that she was so loathe to come back into this room. The poem sat on her desk, unfinished. Everyone had seemed to like it well enough at school, but Sweetie had taken her sister’s advice and not given a final line… mostly, there had been a slightly weird moment at the end where she’d…anyway, it didn’t matter.
Rumble had said that the final note of being incomplete added a sorrowful note. And the rest of the class had been surprised that Rumble knew what the word ‘sorrowful’ meant.
Lies, you don’t agree with Rumble.
Liar, you want the poem to end, that’s all you wanted since you started writing it.
You know that’s never how you wanted the piece to finish, you wanted to at least capture some of the feeling of seeing that thing in the mirror.
All her thoughts overwhelmed her, she just wanted shut of them.
Liar, you wanted to tell Rarity about the monster in the mirror.
LIAR, YOU DON’T TRUST YOU OWN SISTER.
A crack rang out suddenly, her horn burned, and Sweetie looked up to find her vanity mirror had a spiderweb of cracks running through it. Between each was a new facade, allowing a million faces to stare back at her. One thought stayed in her mind, why couldn’t she have had a magic flare-up like that in the bathroom, when it might have done some good and broken the one piece of polished glass she wanted to destroy?
Useless.
The door flew open as Rarity stumbled, in, looking startled. Maybe Sweetie hadn’t realised quite how loud that flare-up had been?
“Oh, darling, thank goodness you’re okay!”
No reply left Sweetie as Rarity swaddled her in a hug. Knowing the truth of the matter, it would be hard to reassure Rarity that she was, indeed, okay. Even so, the hug was at least nice.
It felt like home.
“Okay dearie, not to worry, we all get magical flares at your age. I’ll see to this, you go and hop in the shower.”
What?
“B…but, I don’t need a shower!” Sweetie spluttered, still managing to cringe slightly at how juvenile she sounded. A child having a tantrum over the insistence of an unwanted bath.
“Darling, there could be glass. I really don’t want you to fall asleep later with a shard in your hair and have it cut you in the night,”
“No, there’s nothing! Look there’s nothing!”
“Sweetie!” Rarity exclaimed in that tone, confirming that any chance to debate this situation had very much reached its conclusion, “I know it’s a pain, but I’m not going to let you potentially poke your eye out on a bit of glass that’s found its way into your mane. Now I’ll clean up here, and you go get a shower. Wash your hair carefully, okay?”
Sweetie looked desperately at Rarity for a moment, but her gaze was like steel, unwavering and certainly not to be changed by the complaining of a teenager.
She got up from the bed and trudged into the hall, biting back tears.
The bathroom was stark. The bathroom was white, endlessly so. The bathroom felt like death.
The bathroom had always felt like this, ever since she moved back.
Because Cookie had been right about consistency.
Did it make Sweetie a monster to say she’d never wanted to be like her mother?
She trotted closer to the shower, knowing that she’d have to pass the mirror on her way there.
No, Sweetie had never wanted to be like Cookie when she grew up. She loved her mother dearly, but she had never found her inspiring. It was a sorry thing to admit really, so she’d never voiced it aloud.
It wasn’t always worth sharing everything, unless it was a pony you really trusted.
But Rarity, that was a pony that Sweetie wanted to be like. Ever since she was young, the hero worship that could only be offered by a younger sibling to their elder, blinded by love and amazement. Sweetie wanted to be like her, walk like her, talk like her, too.
The mirror was next to her now, she stopped. She couldn’t stop herself.
But Sweetie felt like the sort of mare she wanted to be when she was fully grown would listen to a panicked teenager, shaking in a cold bathroom, telling the one pony she wanted to trust about the monsters in the mirror.
Sweetie looked to the side, as she had done every time she had been in this bathroom since coming back. And, like every time, her eyes came to focus on the monster.
Cookie had been right about continuity, but Cookie wasn’t the sort of mare Sweetie wanted to be when she grew up. She wanted to be like Rarity. And she had to believe Rarity wouldn’t preach continuity. Rarity was a free-thinker, a designer. Rarity was thinking about the things that came next, not everything that had happened before.
Sweetie had seen this monster every time she walked into the bathroom, and every time she’d kept it to herself, for fear of not being believed again.
But Rarity was the sort of mare Sweetie wanted to be when she was older, and Sweetie would never disbelieve someone going through this.
Maybe Cookie wasn’t so right about continuity.
There was only one way to find out.
“RARITY!” Sweetie screamed, and she kept screaming her sister’s name until the older mare came barreling into the bathroom.
“Sweetie Belle?!” Rarity gasped, “Darling what’s wrong?!”
“Please… please just look in the mirror,” Sweetie gasped, pointing a shuddering hoof at polished glass, pleading and screaming internally, that maybe, just maybe, she was already a little like the mare she wanted to be.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one who could see it.
“Darling… I… what’s wrong with the mirror? I can only see us?”
And for a moment, Sweetie cursed herself for not heeding her mother’s lesson, for not remembering the continuity. Because for a split second she believed that maybe, just maybe, there was nothing to see after all.
She was soon relieved of such notions. The monster was there as it always had been, its sickening visage, or was it visages? The wet, red, moist flesh, the bared teeth, too many eyes and too many mouths.
“Darling, I know at this age, the mirror can be scary, but you’re a beautiful-”
“YOU DON’T GET IT!” Sweetie shrieked, pushing her sister away. She tried not to look at how Rarity looked heartbroken, how the older unicorn reached out in hopes of embracing her little sister once more. Because Rarity was the sort of mare Sweetie wanted to be, and she’d never abandon a terrified younger sibling.
But even so…
“Darling, please, come here, let me show you, there’s nothing scary about it.”
And Sweetie knew that Rarity was telling the truth, she really didn’t think there was anything to be frightened of. Just like she hadn’t last time. Sweetie could always trust her big sister to be honest with her.
Even when it made her lie.
Even when she could never, ever understand.
But maybe, just maybe…
“If you can’t see it…” Sweetie babbled through her tears, trying to stop her heart from wrenching in two at the sight of Rarity’s obvious pain and distress, “Then I’ll show it to you.”
And with that, Sweetie bolted from the bathroom and ran into her bedroom, making sure to lock the door behind her.
“Many apples in the fields,
Orange, despite the fact that they’re apples, not oranges,
Not all are orange, most are red,
Know that because I’ve worked the fields a lot,”
Sweetie twiddled with her pencils and tried to stave off the boredom. She wanted to support her friend, but Applebloom would be the first to admit she was not a gifted poet. A cursory look over to Miss Cheerilee revealed that even their teacher was struggling to pay attention.
“Every apple is delicious,
Least most are delicious,
Often, some get taken by bad weather,
Very sad when that happens,
Even so, most are fine, which is good,
So very happy to harvest a lot of apples,
Me and Applejack go out there most days,
Even now, I sorta see her as more than what she is,
Love doesn’t seem like a good enough word for it,
Omniscience is a word I heard in the library,
Now it reminds me of Applejack,
Similar to how parents seem to know everything about you.”
Sweetie cocked her head up, the last few lines hooking her in. She wanted to comment on it, but her friend was already hurrying back to her seat. Twist held her hoof up and desperately tried to ask a question about the poem.
“Ooh, ooh,” she grunted while squirming in her seat and trying to get the teacher to notice her, “Ah, ahhhhhhh”
However, Miss Cheerilee stood up and congratulated Apple Bloom on her poem, and didn’t make her come back to answer whatever burning question or analysis Twist had. Seemed at least that while fraying, the teacher’s attention didn’t fade completely.
“Sweetie Belle, are you ready?”
She got up to her hooves, and made her way to the front of the class. Normally she would be nervous. She could sing in front of a whole concert hall of ponies, but something about reading a poem made her feel like her legs were jelly.
But recently, she’d found that things had been put into some perspective. What harm could reading a poem do her, with the things she’d seen in polished glass?
She began to read, and found the time passed quickly.
And then she got to the end, and she agreed with Rarity. She agreed she should just leave the poem unfinished.
And yet.
“And in my half-formed dreams, steeped in black…
…I can finally…”
She trailed off. Whatever thought had inspired the addition died out as soon as it had come to life.
“Uh… yep. That’s it.”
The class applauded, ponies started to offer their analyses, but Sweetie didn’t pay them much attention.
She found her eyes were drawn to the bathroom at the back of the classroom. Just through the open door, she could see the glint of a mirror.
Sweetie had finally finished her poem.
It seemed funny that she had ever struggled, really. When discussing literature with Miss Cheerilee, the teacher had once told her an old adage that an infinite amount of mindless beasts hitting words on typewriters would eventually produce the most beautiful novel in the world.
When she’d sat down to do what she needed to, the words had come to her so suddenly, so without ceremony. That she wondered whether she might be mindless too.
That’s all it was really. Words on a page, colour from paints, pictures in a mirror.
The poem though, wasn’t what was taking up her attention.
She didn’t need to go back and look in the mirror, that would have simply allowed Rarity to come in and comfort her.
Comfort wasn’t what Sweetie wanted. Sweetie wanted Rarity to see, to really behold what she did, every time she went in that bathroom.
She didn’t need to go back and look because that thing was burned into her memory. So she painted, and painted, and painted. It was one of her favourite hobbies. She’d never told anyone mind, some things you only share with ponies you really, really trust. Tonight, Sweetie hoped to break continuity and make someone else see, least then, there might be someone else she could fully trust.
She wasn’t the best artist in the world, but she was good enough. And her memory was more than good enough.
It all allowed her to represent it on the page. The pallid flesh, uneven hair. The silent moment of sound stolen by the limitations of the image, multiple mouths open, wet red flesh, slick with moisture that Sweetie didn’t want to consider.
And when she was done, even though her hooves had started to bleed from clutching her paintbrush so tightly, even though the image she had created made her want to vomit, Sweetie managed one of the first, genuine smiles in a long time.
She signed the painting in red ink at the bottom. Something about the act made this feel more normal, made her feel more in control. She then grabbed her painting and poem in a telekinetic grip, and stood to leave her room.
The journey past the bathroom was brief, she didn’t need to go in and check her representation was accurate. She knew full well it was.
Downstairs, in the living room, Rarity was sat, absentmindedly stirring a cup of tea. For a moment, Sweetie didn’t want to burden her sister with the knowledge. But, at the same time, she quite simply couldn’t bear it alone anymore.
“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity exclaimed when their eyes met, and Rarity rushed across the room to meet her.
It was kind, it was honest.
Suddenly, Sweetie felt quite wobbly, and she fell to the ground, only for her big sister to catch her.
Rarity’s fur was soft, her perfume sweet, her hooves gentle as she stroked Sweetie Belle’s mane.
It was one of the few remaining things that felt like home.
“You… you finished your poem?” Rarity asked, and then Sweetie heard her mutter as she saw the other piece of paper.
As she saw Sweetie’s painting.
“I had to show you,” Sweetie muttered under her breath, as something almost like sleep began to fog her mind.
“What is…” Rarity trailed off. Sweetie could almost hear her panic as her eyes scanned the painting.
From the outside of Carousel Boutique, disturbing the still air of Ponyville, the sound of screaming could be heard...
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Did I ever tell you about polished glass?
It hangs in antique frame of brass
It hangs on my sister’s bathroom wall
It hangs, silent sentinel, over all
Did I ever tell you about polished glass?
Visions and nightmares I’ve amassed
Did you know that glass is tinted green?
You can see it from angles, beyond the sheen
You can see it if you avoid your face
My body tensed, my muscles braced
Did I ever tell you about the things I’ve seen?
In polished glass, in hidden green?
Did I ever tell you about my fraying mind?
My eyes to rot, my wish to be blind
I’d bargain anything to make it cease
The vision to stop, my soul finds peace
And in my half-formed dreams, steeped in black
I can finally get the monke off my back.
