I
The brown colt stared down into the small pond in front of him. He was sitting on his haunches watching the little fish dart about under the glass-like surface of the pool. His flank was devoid of a cutie mark, indicating his young age. His silver mane, a mess. He was just your run of the mill citizen of Ponyville, and his name was Chroma Brush. He’d just entered Cheerilee’s class last year.
As he watched the fish dart about under the water, his face lit up. There had always been something about fishes, whether it was the way they acted or swam, that entranced him. Turning his head to the side, the colt looked down at the book he had been attempting to read. The reading had been assigned as homework and was due the next day. However, the colt just shook his head and turned back to the pond, ignoring his work.
The book was a very basic children’s tale, one he should have been able to read with ease. But actually reading it had proved next to impossible. He glanced at the book again and gave a frustrated moan, like the offending text was trying to annoy him on purpose.
Everypony in his class could read the books his teacher assigned. Everypony but him. Every time he’d look down at the page, the letters seemed to dance or change. Every rule about the Equestrian language made no sense to the little colt!
Cheerilee would explain the language one way, but the words on the page would appear completely different when he actually looked down. Reading had just become a huge pain in the flank, and at this point, the colt didn’t even bother with school work.
Giving the book one more disapproving look, the colt looked down into the pond to find that the fish he had been watching had disappeared.
“Now look at what you’ve done,” he angrily said to the book. “You made me lose track of my fish.”
___
“I just can’t figure out what he doesn’t understand!” Cheerilee said, with an exasperated sigh.
She looked down at the young colt’s papers. Slowly, she turned them around and pushed them towards his mother.
“When I talked to him in class, he knew every single answer! But here, I- he just didn’t write anything!” She said with an exasperated sigh.
The colt’s mother, an earth pony mare with a black mane and yellow coat, stared down at the papers. There was a large red “0” marked in the top right corner. The entire page was empty, save for the line at the top where his name was supposed to go. However, even that didn’t contain the correct information. All that was there was an intricate drawing of some constellations in the sky.
The mother looked up from the test towards the school teacher. “Is he just being lazy?”
Cheerilee shook her head. “I don’t know. All of his work is like this, not a single thing written, other than the occasional picture.” she pointed to the constellations.
____
The colt scoured through the lake, staring intently, waiting for something, anything to happen. Wishing he could find his fish, he disappointedly turned around and picked up the book which had been laying in the grass.
Carelessly stuffing it in his saddlebags, the colt began trudging back home, trying to forget the day’s events.
Today, during reading, Cheerilee had asked him to read a section from their novels, the same book sitting in his saddle bags, aloud.
_=__=_
“What?”
His classmates giggled.
“I asked if you would read the section out loud for us, dear.” replied the teacher, giving the young pony a smile.
Biting his lip, Brush looked down towards the page. The letters seemed to be in a completely random order, with no regard to any of the Equestrian they had been taught in the last year. He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping that magically, the words would arrange themselves into a readable order.
When he opened his eye, the letters had shifted around yet again.
“I- Um...”
He heard another giggle in the back of the class. He recognized the voice. “Diamond,” he muttered under his breath.
With new found determination, the colt looked down at the page. He could feel multiple pairs of eyes boring into him.
Squinting the colt slowly began reading “Daring Do was...” he trailed off as the words re-jumbled themselves before his eyes.
“...Uh...”
The colt was struck with a sudden idea. Smiling mischievously, he looked down at the page, and then back up at his teacher.
Putting on a serious face, Chroma opened his mouth and made a completely random selection of sounds. They were incomprehensible and completely random. Not from the book, let alone in Equestrian.
Once he had finished with the nonsense, the room stood in silence at what they had just witnessed.
From what everypony could gather, the colt had just sassed Ms.Cheerilee.
Then in unison, the class produced a resounding, “OOOO” their voices rising in pitch as they spoke.
Deciding to embrace the moment, the young pony stuck out his tongue and, plopped himself back into his chair.
Cheerilee slowly shook her head. “I’ll be seeing you after class, Chroma.”
__=__=__
The colt gave a nervous giggle at the memory. That was the most fun he had had all day. Of course, the after-school “chat” with his teacher had totally ruined that. Cheerilee had given him the evil eye, that weird stare that only teachers could do to scare students.
In all honesty though, the young pony hadn’t meant any harm. He was only having fun. Everypony said that school was supposed to be fun, so why couldn’t he have any?
The young colt sighed as he arrived at his door. Lifting a hoof, he opened it up and slowly made his way inside.
“I’m home!” he announced as he trudged through the door.
Kicking the door closed behind him, the colt made his way towards the kitchen for his usual afternoon snack. Walking in, he made his way over to the icebox and started taking out ingredients for a sandwich. He froze when,he spotted his mother sitting at the table with a slight frown on her face.
“How was school today?” she asked.
The colt froze as he heard her tone of voice. It was the “You’re in trouble, but I’m hiding it from you” voice. His mother always used it when he had done something wrong.
He closed the ice box and turned around. Putting on his best puppy dog eyes, he looked at his mother. “It was good, momma.”
“Was it? Did you do any work?”
“Yeah, we read a section out of our books today!”
His mother’s eyes widened and her face took on “caught ya!” look.
“Really? I talked to Ms.Cheerilee today. She said that reading was a bit rough.”
Chroma giggled nervously. “Yeah? I didn’t notice!”
His mother rolled her eyes. “Come on, stop playing dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Chroma immediately dropped the puppy dog eyes and looked toward the ground. “I’m sorry.”
His mom sternly looked down at him. “Saying you’re sorry to me doesn’t help. You have to apologize to your teacher.”
Looking up, he cheekily smiled. “Sorry, Ms.Cheerilee.”
His mother shook her head again, “I’m not joking.”
“Okay.”
Quickly, Chroma turned around and began trotting away.
“Hey! Come back here! I’m not done with you, young man!” shouted his mother.
Groaning the young pony turned around. “Yes?” he exasperatedly asked.
“I also talked to her about your grades...”
A pit formed in Brush’s stomach. His grades must have been horrible considering the fact that he never even bothered to do the work. All the reading and writing it required made him hate school work. It was always, write an essay about how this happened in this time period. Or write ten sentences about how this effects that in chemistry. But out of all the subjects, he dreaded Equestrian the most.
The mother looked in her son’s eyes. She could see how much he feared disappointing her. But the fact that he did nothing but draw and stare at fish and other animals all day had already disappointed his mother. Combined with the horrifyingly bad grades he was getting made her completely unhappy with the way her son was acting.
“You know, you have zeros in every subject other than astronomy. You have a 12% in astronomy.”
The colt averted his eyes, trying to look anywhere but at his mother.
“Chroma, If this keeps up, I’m going to have to send you to Canterlot for extra help with academics.”
The young pony’s eyes snapped back to his mother’s. “But, Momma, I don’t want to go away! I want to stay here with you! Besides, with dad gone how are you going to take care of yourself.”
“Don’t bring him into this! I’m doing this because I’m concerned for you!”
Brush desperately looked around the room as if something there could help him dislodge his mother’s harsh stare.
“Mom! Please, don’t send me to that university! I swear I’ll do better, I will really!”
Chrome’s mother just rolled her eyes again. “You said that last year too! Chroma, you can’t keep doing this!”
The colt bit his lip and shook his head. How could he have forgotten about the threat his mother had made? Although, at this point, he was starting to think of it more as a promise than a threat. With the stern tone of her voice, Chroma had no idea how to react. Soon, he found his fear overwhelming his other thoughts.
Slowly, he looked down and sighed. Turning around, Chroma made his way to his room, ignoring his mother’s attempts to get his attention. Moving towards his desk, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper and carefully began drawing.
He always drew. It didn’t matter if he was sad, happy, angry... Drawing was the only way he could really, and truly express himself. Words did him no justice, and the intricate, complex ongoings of the young colt’s mind would never be effectively conveyed through anything other than drawings.
As he drew, he lost track of time. What felt like only minutes was actually hours. Finally, after hours of making his picture, he simply fell asleep at his desk.
Some time later, his mother came in to check on him. When she found him asleep on his desk, she simply sighed and picked him up, moving him to his bed, not three feet away.
She quickly tucked Chroma in, gave him a kiss on the head, and trotted back to his desk to turn off the lamp, when she spotted his drawing.
Though she was disappointed at his grades, and at times his careless attitude, she was always proud of his drawings.
“A new one...” she mumbled.
Slowly, she picked up the slightly worn piece of paper. The picture was of the pond he spent most of his off days at. On the far bank sat a brown colt with a silvery mane. He was looking into the water with a look of glee plastered all over his face. On the opposite side of the bank was the same colt, however, his head was drooping. He too was staring into the water, but next to him was an open book. The most prominent feature though, were the tears falling from his face into the water.
She sighed looking at the picture. She then folded it and grabbed it with her mouth. Turning around, she made her way out of the bedroom, turning off his lights, and gently closing the door as she left.
Yawning, she sauntered over to her bed and reopened her son’s picture. She stared at the picture for a few moments before placing it on her bedside table. Closing her eyes, she drifted off.
___=__=___
Author's Note
So. What do you think? Leave it in the comments below! I love your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions.
:D
-Corvo
II
Chroma Brush stared with an open mouth as a pony behind a street vendor at her stand slowly ground mango and cherry shaved ice together. Taking a ball of the white powder, she began packing it onto a stick, then dipping and pouring flavoring onto it.
Scooping up the dessert, she put it into stands on her cart, and placed them into the magically cooled cart to stay cool.
In all honestly, Chroma didn’t care much for the popsicle itself; he had never been a fan of food that could give him brain freeze. Rather, he was interested in the way the colors of the two flavors blended. The fact that they swirled and created unique designs on each shaved ice cone was cool, to say the least.
Chroma, smiling to himself, turned and opened up his saddle bags. Pulling out a blank paper, and some paints, he sat down on his haunches in the middle of the town’s square. Opening up a red, yellow, and brown bottle of paint, he dipped the tip of his hoof into the red. placing a drop in the middle of the page, he slowly began dragging his hoof around the page in circular motions. He waited a few moments, and allowed the paint to set. Then he repeated the process with the yellow paint.
Anypony walking by could see what he was painting. It was one of the popsicles from the vendor across the street. Within the course of fifteen minutes, a small group of other ponies, had gathered around him as he painted.
They all oohed and ahhed at the picture as it took shape. Soon, he had even attracted the popsicle maker’s attention.
“Say, did you paint that?” she asked with a smile.
Chroma looked up from his drying picture and saw who was talking to him before sheepishly smiling. Holding up his paint covered hooves, he nodded.
The popsicle maker looked from the picture to the colt sitting in front of it. “D’you want to trade?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll give you a popsicle, any flavor you want, and you give me that picture to put on my stand.”
Brush looked down at his picture, then shrugged. He may not like popsicles that much, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like them at all. Plus if he said yes, people would look at his picture! Wouldn’t that be great?
“Yeah!”
__=__=__
Dreamily, Chroma sat down at the park, lemon popsicle in hoof. He closed his eyes and thought back on his day...
He had ditched school completely since it was pretty obvious he was going to that dumb school in Canterlot. He knew there was no way to get his grades up in time for the end of the year. So, the colt had put out a last ditch effort to have a bit of fun.
So far, it had been going great. This morning, he had dumped out his school things and replaced them with things like art supplies, a couple bits, a small lunch, and his little rucksack of nice things. He had played at the pond, catching and watching fish. Afterwards, he’d drawn a picture and, amazingly, had gotten free food for it!
The colt continued sucking on the popsicle when a purple mare, the town librarian, interrupted him.
“Hey, what are you doing outside of school? Is it a holiday?” She asked.
Chroma’s eyes snapped open. ‘Darn! Why does she care? Nopony else said anything, so why is she bugging me!?’
“Umm...Yeah! It is.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh really? Well then where are all the other fillies and colts?”
“Sick.” His response was more a question than a statement.
Twilight’s expression went from questioning to skeptical. “They’re all sick? All at the same time?”
“Yep.”
“Do you know how improbable that is?! I could explain it to you, but I doubt you’d understand the calculus, but that’s not the point! If they are all sick, why aren’t you? Are they all so sick they’re bedridden?”
Chroma rolled his eyes. He ditched school because he didn’t want to get lectured. This was worse than math class with Cheerilee! Not only was the unicorn questioning him on stuff he didn’t know, she was yelling at him at the same time.
Growing tired of the dumb game, Croma Brush stood up, and walked away, completely ignoring Twilight.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Ms.Cheerilee’s going to hear about this!”
Chroma froze. Turning around, he ran and dived at the mare’s feet, popsicle still in his mouth. “NOO!”
Twilight backed up a few steps and stumbled backward. “Ahh! What?!”
“Pleasepleaseplease don’t tell her! Miss Cheerilee’ll go to my mom and then my mom will get mad and send me away to that school today instead of next week! I’ll never see my fish or pond again!”
Twilight looked down at the brown colt. “Whoa, OK, Calm down and say that a bit slower.”
Chroma got to his hooves and looked around; the park was empty. “I-Just please, don’t tell her! I-Oh! I know! I’ll give you my popsicle.”
Twilight eyed the colt. “Right...uuummm...I have to go,”
The purple mare scampered off in the opposite direction. The same direction the school house was in. But Chroma Brush was blissfully unaware of Twilight’s intentions. The brown and silver colt simply sighed. The encounter had completely killed his mood, and his perfect day had become sour.
He looked down at his half eaten popsicle and saw it was starting to melt. After a moment of staring, it fell of the stick and splattered on the ground.
“Oh come on!” he shouted angrily.
Muttering to himself, the colt walked over to a trash can and threw his stick into it. The pony, still muttering, decided to visit the small pond in order to calm down. It’d be a nice way to end his last day here.
______
Chroma’s mother sighed as Cheerilee explained how her son had decided to skip class today.
“So he didn’t even show up?” she asked the teacher.
“No, Twilight walked in after class and explained the situation to me. I thought he was home sick. Where do you think he could be?”
His mother got to her hooves and began walking to the door. “I know exactly where he is. In a lot of trouble.”
______
His tongue hung out of the side of his mouth as he waited to pounce on his “prey”. An unsuspecting frog, crouched on a lily pad in the water.
The colt’s lips turned upwards in a small grin. He pounced, splashing into the water. His failed attempt at capturing the frog landed him upside down, soaking his mane and coat. Quickly, he scrambled to his hooves and looked around. No frog.
“Aww, so close! You win this round, Mr.Frog! But I’m going to get you one day!” he shouted to his nemesis.
The colt had been attempting to capture that one frog for quite the while. They had always played like this, Chroma attempting to trap the frog, and the frog getting away. Their relationship was one of tough love. To Chroma anyways, the frog just thought he was, as Fluttershy once quoted from her friend, “loco in the coco.”
The frog watched from behind some weeds as Chroma, flounced out of the water, and shook himself dry. The amphibian, then croaked in what he considered a taunting fashion, and jumped into the water.
Chroma, hearing the croak, giggled, but didn’t pursue it. He was much too tired to go another round with his green friend. Rather, he elected to stretch and sit at the bank of the small pond in order to watch the marine life.
About a half hour of simply staring down at the fish, algae, and other aquatic plants he was snapped out of his trance by the voice of his mother.
“Chroma Brush! Get your flank over here right now!”
The pony’s eyes widened in fear.
“She told on me!” he whispered to himself.
