Six Truths From Discord

Fluttershy
Was born in a box of razor wire.

It was a metal box,
Rusty
As long as she'd known it
The wire
Twisting and mingling through its bars like vines.
But she was a small filly
And there was room for her, then.

Her mother
Would come every day to whisper to her
Bring her food, and water, and
Sometimes
Hold her hoof through the bars
And Fluttershy was happy
Because she knew nothing else.

But years went by
And she grew bigger
And sometimes her father would come
And sometimes her brother would come
And she would wonder
"Why am I
The only one in the box?"

And as the years passed
And she grew older
And she became a mare
(Beautiful, maybe)
There was less and less room in the box
And the razor wire
Drew closer and closer
And she had to sit very
Very still
In the center
Staring at the blades.

And her mother
Her father and her brother
Still came around
And she tried to put on
A happy smile
For them
But the question
The ever-present question
Rattled around her skull
Echoing
Getting louder and louder.

And she kept growing
Growing and growing
Until there was no more room
And the razor wire
Dug into her skin
(Beautiful, maybe)
And with every beat of her heart
Every breath
Every twitch
The steel bit deeper
Until it scored her bones.

And her mother
Still asked to hold her hoof sometimes
But Fluttershy couldn't bear the pain
And eventually her mother gave up
And stopped coming
And Fluttershy kept growing
And the razor wire kept cutting ribbons out of her.

And Fluttershy realized then,
As blood mixed with rust
And her heartbeat grew slower
And her vision grew blurry
That it was not a box.
She had been born into a cage.

And I watched her
Slowly,
Slowly,
So slowly,
Bleed to death.

She was,
Of course,
Not the only one in a box.
All of ponykind is
If you think about it.

But hers
Seemed tighter
Than most
And I loved her
So much
And now I can finally
See the bars
The metal
The blades
Closing in

On me.