MONSTER
by Flying_Whimsy
Alula flew through the sky, zigzagging between the clouds coming from the factory at the side of Cloudsdale. She flew straight up, hearing the gasps of onlookers as she flew higher and faster than anypony else would dare. Alula smiled. She was the best pegasus to ever live, and everypony knew it. She flew higher still, pausing to look down at the tiny specs crawling through the city below. She started to laugh, but her joy turned to horror. Alula’s wings twisted and broke, feathers springing loose with the sound of each cracking bone. She plummeted straight down, accelerating as she fell, screaming, headfirst. She plunged past Cloudsdale, catching a glimpse of the horrified faces of the ponies as she fell past. The wind rushing past her ears howling louder than she thought possible, echoing her screams as the ground grew ever closer. She refused to close her eyes or look away as the ground filled her vision. The impact happened in an instant, and everything went black.
Alula fell again, snapping awake as she hit the floor next to her bed. Her mouth was dry and her throat raw from screaming. She thought back to her nightmare, and one word came to mind: again.
“Alula,” a voice called accompanied by a knock on her bedroom door, “are you alright in there?”
“I’m fine, Auntie.” Alula’s throat burned as she answered, “It was just that nightmare again.”
There was a long pause at the door. “Well, breakfast is ready, so hurry up or you won’t have time to eat before school.” Footsteps echoed in the hall as Auntie walked away and went downstairs.
Alula sat on the floor, clutching her pillow. She looked back at her wings, and they looked just as broken and disjointed as they had in her dream. They always looked that way, ever since the accident when she was almost a year old. And just as she had every morning in the seven years since then, Alula cried. She buried her face in her pillow and wailed until her strength left her.
Eventually, Alula’s sobs tapered off. She raised herself up and staggered towards her dresser. She brushed her wisteria mane and smoothed her vanilla coat: both colors common to members of the proud Cloudrider family. Alula often thought of her family in Cloudsdale when she got ready in the morning, particularly while she bound her wings. Her wings were stuck in their twisted and broken position, and the sight of them was uncomfortable for pegasus, earth pony, and unicorn alike; so, Alula wrapped them as tight as she could, forcing them into their rest position against her body. The pain was excruciating, and even after several years it still brought tears to her eyes. Although to be honest, she wasn’t sure if it was the pain or the memory of her parents that brought the tears.
Alula’s parents had been so proud of their bright, talented daughter. From the time she was born, they told her of the great line of fliers to which she belonged, of all the great things she would accomplish with her bright mind and her beautiful wings. She was exceptionally brilliant from the day she was born, and her parents forgot that even the smartest child still needs supervision. One day, as an early gift for her first birthday, they took her on a tour of the cloud factory that would later appear in her nightmares, but Alula wandered off and got caught in one of the machines. The gears twisted and turned, chewing her wings to tatters. The smell of her own blood was the last thing Alula would ever recall before passing out from the pain. Thanks to some quick action by the workers at the factory, Alula was spared having her body pulled into the machine, but her wings were beyond repair. The best medical minds in Cloudsdale were all in agreement: Alula would never fly again.
Alula’s parents changed after that. They couldn’t stand to look at their disfigured daughter, a monument to their hubris and carelessness. After only a couple months and just after Alula had started binding her wings, they sent her away, down to Ponyville to live with some earth pony cousins. Her parents said it was for her safety, that they were worried she would fall off the city and to her death because she could no longer fly. They promised to keep in touch with her, and to their credit they tried their best. However, when news came that Alula was soon to have a baby brother, she knew the letters would stop coming. She was right. Her parents no longer needed her, and she was glad: she never had to worry about seeing the guilt or the heartbreak on their faces whenever they saw her wings.
Alula pulled the last knot tight, drawing her wings the last inch until they were closed at her sides. She was grateful that she had to tie the knots with her mouth, that way she had something to bite down on to keep from crying out. Just once, she wished it wouldn’t hurt so much. She wished putting her wings in the binding didn’t make them bleed by the time she unwrapped them. She wished she could look at her wings and not see how they matched the potential they promised: a promise as broken as they were. Alula looked in the mirror, wiping away the last of her tears. She stared and waited as the redness faded from her bright blue eyes. Thankfully, she still had her intelligence. With that, she could still do something in this world.
Finally composed and ready for the day, Alula ventured downstairs to have what would most likely be a breakfast with her Auntie. As usual, her Uncle had already left for the day to work on one of the farms near Ponyville, and after Alula left Auntie would likely join him. Though not particularly affluent, Auntie and Uncle worked hard and had a nice house just big enough for themselves and Alula. From the beginning, Alula’s relatives hadn’t quite known what to make of their new charge. They did and still do try to relate to the sad little pegasus that has been forced upon them. She was obviously smarter than them, and she cared little for the tedious fieldwork that they engaged in. So Auntie and Uncle did the only thing they could think of: they sent her off to school during the day and made sure she had plenty of books to read at home.
Even now, as she sat there eating in an awkward silence with Auntie at the table, Alula couldn’t resent their inability to relate to her. She was, after all, a broken pegasus. She didn’t have the strength or farming instincts of an earth pony. She knew they tried, though; whenever she woke up screaming, Auntie was always there on the other side of the door, asking if she was okay. Auntie had opened the door once after Alula had apparently screamed so loud that even the neighbors came running. It was about a year after she had come to Ponyville, and nopony other than the town doctor had seen her wings unbound. Auntie saw Alula’s wings for the first time that day, and the sight of them, paired with Alula’s tear-stained face, had stopped her dead in her tracks. Alula saw the horror on Auntie’s face, and she screamed at Auntie that day, telling her to get out; and ever since then, Auntie couldn’t bring herself to do more than wait in the hall. In the years following, Alula learned to feel comforted by Auntie’s presence in the hallway. Auntie could never find the right words; but that she cared enough to always be ready should Alula call for her was comforting in its own way.
Alula finished her breakfast, kissed Auntie on the cheek, and left for school. It was another typical morning for her, a bittersweet routine of pain and silence. If Alula turned around, she knew she would see Auntie watching her from the windows at the front of the house. Maybe one of these days Auntie would find the words to break the silence. In the meantime, though, she sure did make some great pancakes.
If school could be summed up in one word for Alula, it would be ‘boring.’ Miss Cherilee was a great teacher: she was nice, pretty, and smart. But Alula was gifted, and she’d been ahead of Cherilee’s lessons before she’d even come to Ponyville. If asked, Alula would say she went to school so she could meet fillies her own age. She hadn’t really made any friends yet, but she did at least manage to get out there and socialize. She’d had fun chatting with the fillies at Diamond Tiara’s cute-ceañera the year before, even if she didn’t really care for Diamond Tiara herself. In fact, Alula had even given the spoiled little pony a Hearts and Hooves Day card a few weeks ago just for the sake of being nice. She figured if she could be friendly with the meanest pony in class, she could probably get along with anypony. Still, Alula couldn’t socialize as much during class, so while the class went over lessons she usually occupied herself with reading books she’d bring from home; Miss Cherilee never seemed to mind so long as Alula paid enough attention to have an answer when called upon. So while her school days were boring, they were at least pleasant. Alula would never admit it to anyone, but the real reason she went to school was because she couldn’t think of anything better to do.
Alula had one problem at school, and it was really a problem she had in general: her wings. Whenever she tried to make friends with another filly, they inevitably asked about her wings. Alula didn’t like to talk about it, and she quickly became defensive when pressed about them. Her first day in class she’d nearly picked a fight with somepony who’d innocently asked about what happened to her. Her wings made her socially awkward and it constantly annoyed her that she was so difficult to approach. Sometimes she’d wonder if she was nice to Diamond Tiara more because the filly seemed to be just as difficult to get along with as she was, but those thoughts tended to vanish as soon as Diamond Tiara said something mean, which happened pretty much every time that filly said anything. Alula knew she had a lot of work ahead of her if she was ever going to be able to make a friend.
On a typical day, much like today, Alula would spend most of her time at school paying just enough attention in class to make it seem like she cared, and after school she would try to find some way to approach Scootaloo. Alula wanted nothing more than to be friends with the orange pegasus filly: Scootaloo was easily the coolest filly in class, and to top it off it didn’t seem like she could fly, either. Alula had seen Scootaloo zipping around on her scooter, so she knew those orange wings worked to some degree; but she’d never seen Scootaloo fly. Alula didn’t quite know what she expected from being friends with Scootaloo, seeing as they had little in common, but she hoped that maybe, finally, somepony else could understand what she was going through. Alula just knew that she and Scootaloo could be friends.
What had hampered Alula’s efforts, however, were Scootaloo’s friends: the flightless filly had made friends with a unicorn and an earth pony. Just the thought of trying to talk to Scootaloo with those witnesses around was enough to still Alula’s tongue; so, she was always trying to find a way to talk to Scootaloo when nopony else was around to listen in. She’d thought about approaching the Cutie Mark Crusaders while they were out and about, but given how negatively she’d reacted to other ponies’ questions about her wings; she didn’t want to accidentally snap at them and ruin whatever chances she had at being friends. They seemed so nice, too, and they were always out having so much fun. If Alula could make friends with Scootaloo, she knew she could probably get along with the rest of her little band.
Today, Alula finally had the chance she was waiting for: the Rainbow Dash fan club was meeting shortly after school, and she and Scootaloo were going to be walking there at the same time. In trying to find ways to talk to Scootaloo, Alula happened upon the club and was instantly in awe of the rainbow mare. Rainbow Dash was everything that Alula could never be: fast, confident, popular, and the best young flier in all of Equestria. She loved that the club was full of all sorts of different ponies from around the town: it made her feel like part of a community for the first time. Scootaloo had been running several of the meetings and always showed up early, so Alula knew this was probably going to be the best chance she’d have to talk with the purple-maned non-flier.
As the bell rang, signifying the end of the day, Alula gathered her courage and followed Scootaloo out of the schoolhouse, only to see Scootaloo speed off on her scooter. Not to be deterred, Alula ran after her, hoping to at least make it to the clubhouse before any other ponies got there. Her lungs and her legs burning from the effort, Alula kept telling herself that she only needed a couple minutes: just long enough to say “You’re not alone. I can’t fly, either.” She was ready to collapse as she reached the clubhouse door, leaning heavily against the door as she pushed it open. To her disappointment, the clubhouse was already halfway full of various ponies, all of them wearing rainbow dash shirts or fake rainbow manes. With a sigh, Alula put on her own rainbow mane and stayed near the back, waiting for the rest of the club members to show up.
Today’s meeting was a discussion about which of Rainbow Dash’s tricks was the best. With the general consensus that the Sonic Rainboom was Dash’s greatest feat, the discussion quickly shifted its focus to Rainbow’s second best trick. Alula was torn between the time Rainbow Dash used a Sonic Rainboom to demolish one of the Apple family barns and the Buccaneer Blaze, a move so amazing if you looked directly at it your jaw would involuntarily drop. Alula was quick to join the discussion, and she didn’t envy Scootaloo’s job of trying to moderate what quickly turned into a shouting match. Even though the group hadn’t managed to agree on anything by the end of the meeting, they did agree that Rainbow Dash was awesome: and that’s all that really mattered at the end of one of their meetings.
Alula stayed after the end of the meeting to help tidy up, and as she pushed a broom around the floor she realized that she was all alone with Scootaloo. Dropping the broom, she made her way over to Scootaloo’s podium as casually as she could manage.
“Oh, hi,” Scootaloo said as she looked up from her notes for the meeting. “I thought everypony else had already left. What’s up?”
“Um, err,” Alula stammered and trailed off for a bit.
Scootaloo gave Alula a skeptical look before saying “Okay. Is there something you want-“
“I can’t fly.” Alula blurted out, cutting Scootaloo off. Before Scootaloo could respond she continued on, the words coming out in a rush. “I can’t fly and you can’t fly and I was just wondering what it was like for you not being able to fly and all because it’s kind of lonely for me and I was just hoping we could talk about it a bit if that’s okay with you but if not it’s fine I’ll just go away and not bother you again.” Alula took a deep breath and laughed nervously. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous because I’ve never talked to anyone about it before.”
"Oh, is that all?” Scootaloo put her notes away under the podium and started walking towards the door. “It’s not really that big of a deal, I guess. I haven’t really thought about it. My parents keep telling me that I’ll fly like a normal pegasus sooner or later, so I don’t really worry about it. It’s not like I’ll never be able to fly. Besides, I’m way more interested in getting my cutie mark, aren’t you?”
Listening to Scootaloo, Alula could feel her heart sinking. “I don’t think you understand. I can’t fly. Like, I’ll never be able to fly.”
“Wow, that sucks.” Scootaloo said quickly and turned to leave, but she stopped and took a moment to really look at Alula. Alula’d seen that look before, and she knew Scootaloo was just now realizing Alula’s wings were wrapped, that Alula was not kidding when she said ‘never.’ Alula slumped down to the floor and Scootaloo was quick to say something else. “I’m sorry, I didn’t really realize- Um, well, what…” Scootaloo trailed off this time, leaving an uncomfortable silence between the two fillies.
Alula could feel tears starting to form and she saw Scootaloo’s eyes widen in concern.
“Look, I wish I knew what to say.” Scootaloo fidgeted a bit. “What happened to you? I mean, are you sure you can never fly?”
“Yes, I’m sure that I’ll never fly.” Alula fought to keep the edge out of her voice. “I was in an accident as a filly and my wings were broken. I-I just wanted somepony to talk to about it.”
“I’m glad you want to talk to somepony, but I don’t think I’m the best choice. Have you tried talking to your parents?”
“I CAN’T!” Alula shouted involuntarily. She looked down, afraid her anger would show on her face. She took a deep breath and said, quietly, “They abandoned me.”
“Wow, I… Just, wow.” Scootaloo fidgeted again, her discomfort painfully obvious to Alula.
Alula started to cry quietly, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for having gotten her hopes up. This was supposed to be different, Scootaloo was supposed to be different. It isn’t fair.
Scootaloo did the only thing she could think of: she sat next to Alula and placed a hoof on the crying filly’s shoulder. However uncomfortable she was, she could see that Alula was suffering. Scootaloo forced herself to start talking again, hoping she could find something that would make Alula feel better.
“I’m sorry. I really am. The closest I could imagine would be if someone told me I could never get my cutie mark. I don’t even know what I would do then.” Scootaloo bent down, giving Alula a reassuring smile as she made eye contact.
In that moment, Alula knew that Scootaloo would never understand, that nopony would ever understand. Something hardened in her heart. Alula felt angry, and she felt humiliated. How could I do this to myself? Hoping somepony like her would understand.
“I’m a fool for thinking you could understand.” Alula’s voice grew cold and she drew away from Scootaloo. “The only thing you can think about is your precious little cutie mark. You don’t know what you would do if you never got one. Don’t make me laugh.” Alula stood defiantly before Scootaloo.
“I’m sorry,” Scootaloo was the one crying now. “I’m so sorry. I want to be your friend; I want to understand. If I don’t understand, talk to me until I do.”
“You want to understand, do you? Take a look at this and see how much you want to understand!” Alula savagely grabbed at the bandages wrapping her wings, impatiently ripping at the knots and fabric with her teeth until the binding burst and her wings flipped out. Her wings, bloody from being so tightly bound, splattered blood on the wood floor around her as they unfurled.
Scootaloo recoiled in horror at the sight of Alula’s broken, disfigured wings. As the bloody bandages fell to the floor, Scootaloo’s fear got the better of her and she let out a piercing scream. The orange filly ran out the door, crying and screaming as she went.
Alula stood for a few minutes, shaking from either rage or fear or both. Finally, she shook the last tears from her eyes and gathered up her bloody wraps and bandages. She rewrapped her wings, nearly passing out from the pain. The wraps were stained with blood, and she briefly worried about explaining her appearance to Auntie when she returned home. She put the thought aside and focused on cleaning up the mess she’d made. She washed the floor of the clubhouse, scrubbing hard and fast before her blood had a chance to stain the wood. Satisfied that not a trace was left, she went home.
Alula returned home to find Auntie ready with dinner just for her. Uncle was still working the field, so Auntie had come home and prepared a meal especially for Alula. Alula didn’t say a word, wouldn’t even make eye contact as she silently passed by the meal and went straight to her room. She knew Auntie could see the blood stains on her wrapped wings, and she was grateful the mare didn’t say a word. Alula always washed her own bandages, so Auntie never knew that her wings bled every day. When Alula first started wrapping her wings, she also developed a potion to heal the wounds the wraps caused, so every night she went to sleep knowing they would be healed in time for her to wrap them again.
Alula didn’t go to school the next day. Instead, she stayed in her room and read a book about blimps. She made several small blimps, and spent that evening getting them flying at different altitudes in circles around her room.
The next day, it was back to her normal schedule. She woke up screaming, with Auntie hovering in the hallway longer than usual. When Alula went to school, Scootaloo’s friends whispered to each other when they saw her. Alula wondered what Scootaloo had told them, what they thought of her. Scootaloo would tear up whenever she made eye contact with Alula, and Alula could only look away quickly. She wanted to apologize to the orange filly; to say how much she wanted to be friends. But the shame of what she had done haunted her.
That night, while putting the healing ointment on her cracked and bloody wings, Alula was overcome with self-loathing. All she could see when she closed her eyes was Scootaloo’s sobbing, terrified face. She knew she should have apologized, and she quickly grew angry and frustrated at herself. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I just wanted her to understand. She wanted to scream in frustration, but she stayed quiet to avoid another awkward moment with Auntie. She wanted to break something, to lash out, but made herself sit perfectly still. There was no point to breaking anything. After all, she was already broken. That’s when she realized what she could do. She grabbed her craft knife, the one she had used to cut materials for her miniature blimps, and held it in her teeth. She had a feeling that she shouldn’t do this, that this was a path she should not venture down. Her mind wandered to her Auntie and her Uncle, how they would come running if she called for them. All she had to do was open her mouth and the knife would fall and they would come. No. She pressed the knife to her shoulder, and dragged it along for about an inch. It was a small cut, but it hurt in a way that was different from her wings. Suddenly afraid as the blood slowly dripped from the wound, she dropped the knife. She was horrified at what she had just done to herself. She quickly treated the wound with the same mixture she used for her wings. The next morning, after her screaming subsided from the nightmares and after she cried herself to exhaustion, she checked the wound on her shoulder. It was gone, and she silently promised herself that she would never do it again.
Several weeks passed, and Alula had finally managed to move on from her incident with Scootaloo. Things were a little tense sometimes, especially at the Rainbow Dash fan club meetings, but it didn’t bother Alula too much. To her surprise, Scootaloo and her friends hadn’t told anypony about what happened, much to Alula’s relief. She’d seen how mean Diamond Tiara and some of the other fillies could be, and giving them that kind of ammunition was guaranteed to end badly. Alula was still saddened by the incident, though, and it made her give up on making friends with fillies her own age. She didn’t think they were mature enough to understand or relate to her, so she stopped trying.
Alula had just left the library with a new book on healing potions and ointments, her goal to improve the solution she treated her wings with, when Rainbow Dash flew by overhead scattering fliers. Alula still idolized the rainbow haired mare, and she was secretly delighted to be even this close to her. Alula ran over to read the nearest of the notices. It was a summons for all the pegasi in Ponyville to meet that night at the library. Delighted, Alula turned around and headed back to the great tree in the center of town that pulled double duty as the town library and Twilight Sparkle’s house. Alula liked Twilight a lot, so any excuse to hang around her place for a day was always welcome. Twilight was always interested in what Alula was studying and always had a book or five to recommend. She walked in, explained to Twilight that she was going to wait for the meeting, and hunkered down in a corner to read over her new potion book until other pegasi started to show up.
Alula tried to keep her mind on her book, but she couldn’t help but wonder what the meeting was about. It made her happy to know she was still considered part of the pegasus community in Ponyville despite her crippled wings. Secretly, she hoped there would be some sort of disaster or something that only she could solve; something where she could prove she was still a worthwhile pegasus. Her mind kept wandering so much that by the time the meeting started she had only made it halfway through her book.
Whatever hopes Alula had were soon dashed as they watched the film on Cloudsdale’s role in raincloud production and the need for water from towns like Ponyville. She shouldn’t have been surprised that a meeting of pegasi would involve a task that required flying, though she was still a bit disappointed that it wasn’t something she could obviously help with. She was also feeling a bit uneasy at the film’s mention of the cloud factory in Cloudsdale; even though it was just an informational cartoon; the suggestion of that place was enough to make her wings throb painfully. As Rainbow Dash detailed their training goals, Alula started to get excited even though she knew she couldn’t participate directly. She was smart; she could find a way to help Rainbow Dash reach the one thousand wing power mark. As Rainbow Dash ended the meeting insisting that every pegasus was essential, Alula felt proud of her wings for the first time since her accident.
The next morning, Alula woke up screaming, this time under her bed. Somehow, she’d slept through falling out of her bed and had managed to wriggle her way underneath it. Her first moments of consciousness, thinking she was trapped in a box, were actually more terrifying than her dream had been. Her momentary fear was enhanced by the fact that with her wings unbound, she’d actually managed to get stuck under the bed. She struggled for a few moments until she heard Auntie’s vigilant knock at the door.
“Alula, are you okay in there? I could barely hear you screaming this morning.” Again, Auntie hovered awkwardly, not daring to intrude on Alula again.
Alula struggled desperately to see if she could extricate herself from under the bed. When everything failed to budge, she sighed and called out “Actually, I could use some help. Could you come in here, please?”
“Are you sure it’s okay to come in?” Alula could just picture her Auntie shifting uncertainly on her hooves. “I don’t want to intrude.”
Grunting with the effort of trying to move, Alula called out again, “Yup, it’s fine. Faster would be better.”
Alula heard the door open and listened as Auntie tentatively entered the room. After another pause, Auntie cried out, “where are you?!”
“Down here!” Alula tried to wave a hoof out from under the edge of the bed. “I’m stuck.”
“Oh my goodness!” Auntie exclaimed with more alarm than Alula thought necessary. “How on earth did you get stuck under that bed?”
“I’d like to know that one myself.” Alula chuckled from below. “Do you think you could lift up the part of the bed closest to the door and we can discuss this after I get out?”
“Oh, yes, sorry.” Alula craned her neck to see Auntie shakily stick her front hooves under the edge of the bedframe. “Okay, here goes.” With a grunt of effort, the bed lifted high at one end; Alula quickly slid out from underneath it. She got up on all four hooves and helped Auntie lower the bed back down with a gentle thud.
“Thanks, Auntie.” Alula smiled. Auntie stared at her. Alarmed, Alula looked herself over; she wasn’t bleeding or anything, but she did look the most out of sorts she had ever looked when getting up in the morning. Her mane was a fluffy mess, her coat was disheveled, and her wings looked even worse than usual from being wedged in such a tight space. Actually, on closer inspection she could see that she was bleeding a little from a few spots on her wings. Before she could react Auntie embraced her in the tightest hug she’d ever had. Behind Auntie, she could see herself reflected in the mirror.
Alula had gotten used to how she looked in the mornings over the years; so used to it, in fact, that she was totally desensitized to what she must look like to other ponies. Now, with a moment to truly reflect on her reflection, she scared herself more than a little. Her eyes were wide open with dark circles around them and the whites were almost entire red. Her mane was a tangled, frightful mess that shot off in multiple directions. Her coat, ruffled as it was, looked more like a patchwork doll than anything else. And her wings. Oh, her wings. She hadn’t realized it, but they’d grown a bit more of the last few years. They stood on her back, twisted, gnarled things with a little blood dripping down from the patches where the feathers wouldn’t grow back. She looked like something out of a nightmare. How long had she been waking up looking like this? How many hours had she spent over the years taming that monster? How long had she been crying?
“Shh, it’s okay.” Auntie held on tightly. “We’ll get you cleaned up in no time.” Auntie released her death grip and sat Alula down on the edge of her bed. “How ‘bout I brush your mane?”
Alula was so stunned she couldn’t think of a response. Auntie grabbed Alula’s hairbrush from atop the dresser and, still holding it in her mouth, proceeded to work through the massive tangle on Alula’s head. Auntie was far gentler with the brush than Alula was, but it seemed to take considerably longer. At one point Alula became aware that Auntie was humming softly, and she started to feel a bit tingly inside. Once her mane was finished, Auntie brushed out her tail and helped smooth her coat. Auntie produced a cloth from somewhere and wiped at Alula’s face for a bit. She stood Alula up and walked her over to the mirror. Save for her unbound wings, Alula looked pretty. Her mane and coat were smoothed out, her face looked normal and happy, and somehow, Auntie had even snuck a pretty red bow into hair by her ear when she wasn’t paying attention.
“Now where’s the medicine for your wings?” Auntie looked around, but couldn’t tell one bottle from another in the multitude of potions and other mixtures Alula had been working on. Without saying a word, Alula pulled open a dresser drawer and drew out a small, unmarked vial. Auntie took hold of the bottle and gently applied the healing elixir to the entirety of Alula’s wings. The elixir made her wings shimmer in the morning light, and for a brief moment Alula believed they were normal again. When Auntie was finished Alula replaced the bottle back in the drawer and drew out a clean set of wrapping for her wings.
Auntie shook her head, “No I don’t think you should wrap them today. They need time to heal.”
“But I can’t go out with them looking like this.” Alula protested quietly, but with an edge to her voice. She remembered Scootaloo’s screams and shuddered.
“It’s okay; I think I have something that will work.” Auntie vanished downstairs. Alula passed the time looking in the mirror. She didn’t look all that different from how she normally prepared herself in the mornings, but somehow, she felt different.
It doesn’t hurt. The thought was like a lightning bolt, hitting her fast and hard. Auntie had been gentle, the first time anypony had been gentle since Alula’s accident. It always hurt when Alula got ready in the morning; Alula was never gentle with herself. Her wings always hurt, too, once they were bundled. Thinking back on it, there was never a time that Alula wasn’t in pain since that day at the factory. And more often than not she had caused that pain. Alula started to shake violently. She didn’t know what was happening, and she was afraid.
Auntie came back up to see Alula curled up in a ball on her bed, trembling. “Shh, now it’s gonna be fine honey.” Auntie dropped a bundle of cloth and hugged Alula again until she stopped shaking. “There, see, all better now.” Auntie picked up the cloth bundle she had brought from downstairs and draped it around Alula. She spoke as she adjusted some ties and fastened a row of silver buttons running along Alula’s right side: “I had Rarity make this after I saw you without your wings bound, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to give it to you; I didn’t want you to feel like you had to hide your wings more than you already were. I hope you like this shade of blue; I wanted it to match your eyes. Come on; let’s take a look at you in front of the big mirror downstairs.”
Auntie walked Alula downstairs to a full length mirror, and Alula was amazed at what she saw. Auntie had put her in a blue dress, the exact same blue as her eyes, with silver trim and a dark blue band around her waist. Short blue sleeves highlighted her forelegs and a blue skirt ran down her hind legs. A row of silver buttons ran along her right side from the high collar down to where the skirt flared out at her flank. The best part, though, were the wings. Perfectly covering her twisted, broken wings were fabrics slips the same silver as the trim on the rest of the dress. Alula had no idea how they worked, but they looked perfectly symmetrical and managed to make her wings look like they had a normal shape at any angle she could see them at in the mirror. Looking at her reflection, it was the first time she’d felt like a beautiful little filly.
“It’s perfect!” Alula cried out as she spun around, gazing at her reflection.
“You look perfect.” Auntie was trying hard not to cry. “Rarity said that if you liked it, she could make some more for you.”
“Really?!” Alula turned and frowned at Auntie. “But we can’t, her dresses cost a fortune.”
“Whatever the cost, it’s worth it if you don’t have to bind your wings anymore.” Auntie started crying in earnest and she hugged Alula again. “I just can stand to see you hurting yourself anymore. I want you to be happy.”
Alula wondered, then, if Auntie hadn’t stayed outside her bedroom each morning. If Auntie hadn’t listened to her scream and cry into her pillow each morning. If Auntie hadn’t listened to her cry in pain and frustration as she ripped the tangles from her mane. If Auntie hadn’t heard her curse her wings as she fought the agonizing pain it took to bind them at her side. What must that have been like to hear each and every day? What must it have taken to wait to be invited inside that room filled with nothing but pain? Was it possible that Auntie understood her pain?
“If it’s alright with you,” Alula said, her voice quivering slightly, “If it’s alright with you, do you think you could help me get ready tomorrow morning, too?”
“I’ll always help you.”
Alula left the house later that morning happier than she’d ever been. She skipped along the road towards the fields Rainbow Dash had setup for training. She didn’t hurt. Her wings didn’t ache with every step she made or every breath she took. She wanted to share this feeling with other ponies. She thought of Scootaloo and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders. Maybe now she could bear to face her. Maybe now she could make that step to open up to other ponies. If her Auntie could relate to her, then maybe some of the other fillies could as well.
Alula reached the fields to see Rainbow Dash walking along, watching the other pegasi training. Alula pranced up to her, beaming with pride.
“Rainbow Dash! Hi!” Alula had to try hard to keep from jumping up and down. “I’m here to help you break the wind speed record.”
“Uh, thanks kid, but this is for pegasi only.” Dash turned her back on the little vanilla filly. “Hey Blossomforth, let’s see some hustle on this lap!”
Not to be deterred, Alula ran after her rainbow idol. “Wait! I am too a pegasus pony. Check your list, my name is Alula Cloudrider.”
Rainbow Dash looked over list, “Sorry little girl, but I don’t have any Cloudriders on my list. You look cute in your little pegasus outfit, but we’ve got important work to do.”
“Your list is wrong. Look at my wings, I am a pegasus.” Alula stood with pride in front of Rainbow Dash. “You will not ignore me.”
“That’s enough!” Rainbow Dash yelled loud enough that everypony on the field stopped and stared. “I’ve never heard of you and your wings are obviously fake. If you were a real pegasus your wings would have moved at least a little bit. I’ve been watching and they haven’t budged at all. Flap your wings a bit and prove me wrong.”
“They don’t move because I can’t fly.” Alula was filled with a sense of dread. She knew everypony there was listening; they had all stopped to watch the exchange between her and Rainbow Dash. This was her one chance to walk away… Alula was not going to be ignored by the pegasus who was everything she ever wanted to be.
“Well, if you can’t fly what good are you? I need wing power right now and if you can’t contribute go bother someone else.” Rainbow Dash took an aggressive step towards Alula, and Alula reflexively stepped back. “No guts at all, eh? Take your stuffed little wings and go bother somepony else.”
“They aren’t STUFFED!” Alula screamed at the top of her voice. She grabbed onto her left wing with mouth and yanked as hard as she could. The sound of tearing fabric accompanied the stunned gasps of the pegasi onlookers. Alula threw the wing covering to the ground at Dash’s hooves. Alula’s next question came out as barely more than a whisper: “does that look stuffed to you?”
Rainbow Dash stood dumbfounded, staring at Alula’s disfigured wing. The wing looked even more grotesque next to Alula’s cute little dress and the bright red bow in her hair. Rainbow Dash finally collected herself enough to say something, but even then all she could mutter was “monster.”
“I’m no monster; I am a pegasus.” Alula turned and met the eyes of each of the ponies in the field. “I swear that I will find a way to make you recognize me. I will not be denied!” With that, Alula picked up the wing cover she’d torn off and galloped off towards town.
Alula slowed to a trot once she was out of sight of the practice fields. She fought back tears. She felt like a fool, and she wondered how she could ever show her face around town again. She didn’t even know where all that anger came from. It frightened her, to be that mad. She felt like she could do anything when she was that mad. And then she remembered what she had done to her dress.
I can’t go home with it torn like this. How on earth do I explain that to Auntie? Alula started crying. She couldn’t go home, so her only choice was to find somepony who could fix it. Even though she’d grown up in Ponyville, she still didn’t know most of the ponies who lived there. I guess I’ll just have to go to Rarity’s Boutique.
Alula walked through town, lost in her thoughts; she was completely oblivious to the fact that she out in public with one of her wicked wings showing. Well, she was oblivious of it until she came face to face with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon just outside Rarity’s shop. Alula recoiled when she realized the rich pink filly could see her wing, and even more quickly realized what a terrible mistake that had been. Diamond Tiara’s face lit with a twisted delight.
“Well look what we have here. If it isn’t the book-loving pegasus from school. And what’s this, her wings aren’t bandaged?” Diamond Tiara’s voice was full of mock concern.
“Nope, they don’t look bandaged to me at all.” Silver Spoon sneered at Alula. “In fact, they don’t look like they’re damaged at all.”
“You’re right, Silver Spoon.” Diamond Tiara leaned in close, and Alula was more than a little afraid of what was coming. “Those wings look fine, for a monster.”
“Yeah, a scary monster.”
“What a shame that beautiful dress had to be wasted on a monster like her.” Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon walked away, laughing viciously.
Alula’s head drooped in shame, and she couldn’t stop crying. The rest of the day passed in a tear-filled blur. Rarity fixed Alula’s dress, and the little filly went home. Auntie and Uncle were both at work, so there was no one to comfort her. The pain came back worse than before, especially in her wings. She hid in her bed, trying to drive out the voices. She heard Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, laughing. She heard Rainbow Dash, berating. She heard Scootaloo, screaming. She heard her parents, denying. All the voices were there, in her head, all of them talking at once. They grew louder and louder, until she screamed from it and then they were all silent. Finally, she heard her Auntie’s voice, humming gently.
The humming stopped, and in the silence she could hear her Auntie whisper “Monster.” And then all of the other voices came back, louder than before. All of them saying the same thing: “Monster. Monster. Monster. Monster. Monster…”
The next morning, Alula woke up screaming. She couldn’t remember the nightmare, but she felt like it was different this time, worse somehow. Auntie knocked, and Alula let her enter. Auntie hummed as she groomed away the monster in Alula’s mirror, as she covered the monstrous wings on Alula’s back. But no matter how pretty Auntie made her, the eyes that looked back from the mirror were always those of a monster.
When she got to school, Alula found that word of her incident at the practice field had spread through town. Everypony knew what was said to her and what she’d done in response. It seemed like they were trying to be nice to her. Scootaloo smiled and waved at her, and even Diamond Tiara’s vicious nature seemed subdued. When anypony spoke to her, she heard two voices. She heard what the pony said, but she also heard that same pony whispering quietly the chant she’d heard in her room the night before. “Monster. Monster. Monster. Monster…”
If everypony wanted a monster, Alula’d give them a monster. Over the next few days, she became cold and unresponsive as she put all of her effort into coming up with a plan that would show them all what a real monster was. She stopped talking to everypony, even stopped getting out of bed in the morning. She still woke up screaming, but that was all anypony would hear from her for the rest of the day. Auntie, desperate to help Alula, took the little filly to the hospital.
It was at the hospital that Alula got the idea. It was a wicked, impossible idea. With this idea she would make everypony see her for what she truly was. She asked to go home, and it was the first time she had spoken a word in over a week. The hospital workers were overjoyed, and Auntie held her and cried for half an hour. Alula’s stay in the hospital was not kind to her: without Auntie to tame her wild appearance she came home looking like a patchwork nightmare with her spottily roughed up coat and mane that went off in every direction possible. She had lost a lot of weight from not eating while she’d spent days doing nothing but screaming. Her throat was so raw she could spit out blood, and her eyes were so bloodshot they’d turned red, surrounded by the darkest circles anypony had ever seen. Thinking that her home environment might be better for her, the hospital allowed her to go home so long as the doctors still had access to her. All Alula wanted was access to her books and her potion mixtures. There was lots of work to be done.
Once she returned home, Alula hit the books harder than she ever had before. The doctors all saw it as a major improvement, especially when they realized she was working on healing elixirs. Thinking she was trying to fix her broken wings, they let her do as she pleased. To test her solutions she started cutting herself: her torso, her legs, her wings, and her face; it didn’t matter what so long as it bled and she could test her ointments on the injury.
Auntie called the doctors back, but they all wrote it off as Alula’s way to cope with what happened to her wings. The doctors told Auntie that someday, Alula would realize that no matter what potion or elixir she made, it would never be enough to fix those gnarled, disgusting wings. When that day came, Alula would finally be ready to move on with her life. Auntie was afraid for her little pegasus; she’d long since come to view Alula as her daughter, and it tortured her to see Alula suffer so. Auntie had also started to fear Alula: it started while the filly was in the hospital during the days of unending screaming. The doctors had told Auntie she wasn’t allowed to visit, but she came just the same. She would sit outside of Alula’s room and listen to her scream. When Alula finally came home, she would sometimes wander the house, chanting the word “monster” over and over and over again. Given the dramatic change in Alula’s appearance, Auntie was left wondering what could have happened to her precious little child.
Alula knew what happened, of course, but she told nopony. The ponies thought her a monster, and she’d seen how they treated monsters. Beaten, banished, and turned to stone; she'd never give them the chance. Thankfully, what she had planned would get her freedom. And finally, one day not long after her release from the hospital, she completed the last of her potions.
The following night, Alula stole Twilight Sparkle’s hot air balloon and drifted up through the clouds. Rainbow Dash’s house was quiet, the rainbow mare fast asleep within. Alula snuck in through the bedroom window, carrying with her a black bag filled with medical equipment. No sounds were heard from within the house, and nopony passing buy could guess at what was taking place inside. An hour later, Alula boarded the balloon and drifted off into the darkness.
The next morning Auntie was more disturbed by the silence coming from Alula’s room than anything else. She knocked several times, but after again receiving no response, she entered the room. Auntie would never admit to it, but she’d often snuck into Alula’s room after the little filly had gone to school. Auntie marveled at the things Alula created after reading all those books; from small green houses to beautiful pieces of art, and most recently, to a set of tiny blimps, Auntie loved seeing the things Alula created. Today, though, she feared what Alula had been up to. The filly was nowhere to be found, but along one wall were numerous medical drawings of pegasi wings and various recipes for healing compounds and sedatives. Auntie knew that she was nowhere near as smart as Alula, but she was smart enough to figure out what her daughter was up to. And so, rushing outside, Auntie looked in the one place she’d never had to look for Alula since she’d come to Ponyville.
Auntie looked to the sky.
Alula soared high above Ponyville in the morning light. It was everything she thought it would be and more: the freedom, the speed, the power. She glided between clouds on large, pale blue wings. They were perfect. The strength of Rainbow Dash’s wings was beyond anything Alula had thought possible. Even on her little filly body, Dash’s great wings worked every bit as well as they had for the rainbow mare. She thought of trying for a Sonic Rainboom, but she wanted to wait and see what the other pegasi thought of Rainbow Dash, now saddled with Alula’s old, broken little filly wings. Would they call her a monster? Would they weep? Yes, she would wait until after they knew Dash was broken. Then Alula would swoop in from high in the sky and dazzle them all with her newfound skill. Alula was now the best young flier in Equestria, just like she always wanted.
Alula glided a little lower so she could watch Rainbow Dash’s house as she circled it high in the sky like a vulture. An hour passed, and not so much as a peep was heard from inside. Another hour, and still nothing. Alula started to wonder if she accidentally used too much sedative on the sleeping blue pony, but quickly dismissed the thought. Her operation had been flawless. Finally, a visitor came to call on the absent Dash, but still no answer from within the house.
Alula watched as the visitor left, and felt some of her hopes leave as well. Was this what she really wanted? Of course. Then why did she feel so empty? She struggled to find an answer, but the answer came when she saw a flock of pegasi sweep through, clearing out the clouds that still lingered from the other day’s rainstorm. They would all still see her as a monster, even though it was Rainbow Dash that was now the disfigured pony. She would have to fix that.
The afternoon grew late, and Auntie still hadn’t seen a sign of her daughter. She asked every passing pegasus if they’d seen Alula, but each and every one seemed both surprised and a little bit ashamed at the mention of her daughter’s name. Auntie tried pressing some of the pegasi about what had happened, but it took the rest of the day to get a straight answer out of anypony. In the end it was Diamond Tiara that told Auntie about what happened to Alula on the day Rainbow Dash started her training camp. Panicked, Auntie ran in circles, not knowing what to do with the new information. She finally settled back down to wait like she had before. All she could do now was wait, and hope that Alula would find her way back home before she did anything unforgivable. At the same time, though, she couldn’t shake the memory of Alula’s screams in the hospital, and she had a little tiny hope that Alula was out there right now, punishing the ponies that had driven her to the breaking point.
Night fell once more, and Alula set to work. This time there was no hesitation as there had been when she took Rainbow Dash’s wings. She knew exactly what she needed to do and how to get it done. Without Rainbow Dash’s wings, it wouldn’t have been possible in one night; as it was, it would take every bit of speed and skill she could muster. That night, Alula paid a visit to every pegasus in town, save one: Scootaloo. Scootaloo had tried to be friends, and Alula wasn’t about to forget that. Scootaloo was no monster, and never would be. Alula passed swiftly through the night like a vengeful spirit; no one saw or heard her, but they would all feel her presence soon enough. Her macabre medical rounds done, Alula perched on a cloud above Ponyville and waited for the inevitable screams.
The first scream at dawn awoke Auntie. She had fallen asleep on the ground outside her house, waiting for Alula to return. When she first heard the distant scream she thought that maybe it had all been a bad dream and Alula would be back in her bedroom. But then she heard another scream, and another: a rising chorus of misery and pain the likes of which she’d never conceived. All of Ponyville was awakened by it. The majority of the screams came from the homes of the pegasi above, the few at ground level came from pegasi that had houses in town. Auntie saw a pegasus stumble out of a house down the street, and she saw the wings, every bit as twisted and gnarled as Alula’s had been. Auntie knew now that she had guessed right: that her daughter had turned every pegasus in town into the monster they thought her to be. At that moment, she heard a terrible noise from up in the sky and looked up just in time to see a crimson red streak fly over Ponyville, drowning out the screams of the damned with a sonic boom.
Alula stormed through the air above Ponyville, cutting a dark red slash across the pale blue sky. She was relishing the cries of the pegasi. She reveled in their tears as they wept. She watched in amusement as some of the earth ponies and unicorns started to ferry the mutilated pegasi down from their homes, knowing it would be the last time any of them would live in the sky.
Alula saved the best for last: Rainbow Dash. She knew the pegasus couldn’t stay hidden in her house any longer. And as she flew towards the rainbow ponies floating home, she was rewarded with the site of Rainbow Dash outside. Dash stood tall and proud at the top of her house, Alula’s broken wings glimmered in the morning sun on her back. Dash’s gaze was steely and defiant, even broken she managed to look like a hero. Rainbow Dash looked at Alula, her expression softened as their eyes met. With a quick nod, Rainbow Dash leapt off the top of her home, plummeting headfirst towards Ponyville.
Alula cried out and raced after the falling blue pony. Alula flew as hard as she could, and for a brief moment she thought she might be able to catch her fallen idol. It was a moment that was too brief, however, and Alula watched in horror as Rainbow Dash smashed into a grassy embankment near town hall. Alula, so intent on catching Dash, had only a split second to open her wings and avoid repeating her idol’s landing. The strain on the wings and on Alula’s little filly frame was incredible. As it was, she still smashed into the ground, skidding and tumbling into a tree with a loud crash.
Alula stood up on three legs, the fourth broken and hanging limp. Dash’s wings had saved her, but only just. It was a testament to the strength of the fallen blue pony that Alula had survived at all, a fact all too obvious to the filly. Alula limped towards the broken and bloody Rainbow Dash. It was grueling work just to stay conscious, let alone move. After what seemed like an eternity of pain, Alula reached the blood soaked patch of grass. She sat wearily, the blood staining her hooves. Alula let out a terrible wail.
Auntie reached Alula just as the latter started crying. Auntie gazed down upon her daughter. The filly hunched over, crying. Her pretty blue dress was in tatters, its color barely visible under layer after layer of blood and dirt. One of Alula’s forelegs stuck out at an odd angle, and her pale blue wings hung off kilter, occasionally twitching. Alula’s eyes were blood red, her mane a tangled mess. Auntie knew she was looking at a monster, but she also saw every fear the other ponies had put into her daughter. Broken and bleeding, her daughter still looked as beautiful as she had the day Auntie first gave her that dress, as the day Auntie’d first seen her unbound wings, as the day when Alula first came to Ponyville.
“Mommy!” Alula cried out hysterically as she looked at Auntie. Auntie’s heart leapt to hear the name. “Mommy, this isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want this blood on my hooves! I wanted to show them that they were the monsters. Was I wrong? Am I the monster afterall?!”
Auntie sat down and hugged her daughter tight; the hug would hurt, but she could think of nothing else her daughter needed more at the moment. “No dear, you weren’t the monster. You are my beautiful little filly.”
“All I wanted was to be one of them.” Alula pounded the ground with her broken hoof. “I didn’t want to fly above her, not really. All I ever wanted was to fly with Rainbow Dash, to fly with them all.”
