Colour Splash

Colour Splash was trotting through the marketplace and felt eyes on her, watching. She knew the feeling well, everyone stared at her. It was her wings. Most ponies down on the ground were earth ponies, but for some reason she had been born with wings and those around her hated her wings. It also did not help that she had a bright white coat and rainbow mane, features that painfully stood out among the dull browns and greys of the other ponies that inhabited the land. Her parents were dull grey earth ponies, one with a brown mane, and one with a pitch black mane. The chances of her being born a rainbow-maned, bright white winged pony were nigh on impossible. As a small filly, her mane had brought her joy, being the only colourful thing in her bleak surroundings of dying trees, dirt and dull, brownish-grey ponies. Only as she grew older did she realise the horrible burden such joy came with. She never flew, that would just make things worse. She did everything the earth pony way, in the hope that they would one day see her as an earth pony. They never would, and she had no idea how much worse it would get.

A few days later Colour Splash was to start school. She thought maybe she could make some friends not yet prejudiced by the experiences older ponies had once had. She smiled. Hope was returning to her. The morning of her first day at school had Colour Splash smiling for the first time in years, and it felt good. She saw all the other fillies ahead of her, smiling with their parents, until one of the parents turned their heads and a look of horror spread onto their face. They leaned over to the other ponies and the whispering began. The smile was instantly wiped off Colour Splash's face and as she looked behind her for her parents, all she saw was their tails, trailing behind them as they walked away. With a grim look on her face, she walked into the schoolhouse and sat down at the only desk in the middle of the classroom. This was followed by the sounds of desks moving away from her. She looked around to see everypony looking at her with a mixture of distaste and fear. She instead focussed on the lesson, unable to even look the teacher in the eye.

After a few moons of being at school, everypony else had their cutie marks. Unsurprisingly, most of them were ploughs, yokes or horseshoes, symbolising each foal's connection to the earth. Colour Splash, however, was still a blank flank. This was disappointing to her but not unexpected. She didn't fit in. There was no place for her here and having no cutie mark just solidified that belief, not only in herself, but also in every other filly or colt that saw her. That was just the spark required for the bullying to start. At first it was just things like being pushed to the back of queues and not being included in anything, but names once uttered under breaths were soon called out across the schoolyard. The adult ponies tended to turn a blind eye to this behaviour as the pegasus was not considered 'one of them', and so little Colour Splash became very desensitised to names and bullying. She never smiled now. She didn't frown either. A straight line of grim resignation was permanently engraved on her face. She never stretched or even moved her wings. As far as she was concerned, they did not and should not exist.

One day, the bullying went too far. The ringleader of the naughtier colts decided to start pulling her mane and flight feathers. One by one the other foals began the same process until one of them actually plucked out one of her feathers. This sent a wave of pain down Colour Splash's body and she cried out in fear and pain. She looked back and saw one of her feathers, long and pearly white, falling slowly to the ground. The other foals stopped for a second, also watching the feather.

Finally, it touched the ground.

Colour Splash turned around and spoke for the first time in many, many moons.

'…how dare you…' she said, quiet as a mouse. Then she raised her head.

'HOW DARE YOU!' she bellowed. This frightened a great number of the foals, who were now backing away in fear of this, normally quiet, filly.

'DO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH EVERYTHING? THE ADULTS MIGHT NOT CARE BUT I SURE DO!' something in Colour Splash had snapped. She no longer cared about even her own safety, because they had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to her that doing nothing odd and acting like an earth pony would no longer keep her from harm.

She spread her wings now, displaying them clearly. The missing feather had made no serious impact to the wings symmetry or use, but she was mad. They had pushed her too far.

'I HAVE WINGS! THE FACT THAT I EVEN TRIED TO ACT LIKE YOU NORMAL PONIES SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN AS A GREAT HONOUR! YOU FEEL YOU ARE BETTER THAN ME? YOU THINK YOU CAN DO NO WRONG? WRONG! FALSE! NOT CORRECT!' she screamed, following the galloping foals, who were screaming in fear. Colour Splash took to the skies, faltered, then fell to earth. Her wings were so underused that they were incapable of flight. So she sat on the dirt, and cried.

It just so happened that a pegasus colt about her age named Dasher had been sent to clear the skies in that area when the he heard the crying filly. He looked down and his jaw hit the cloud to see a PEGASUS filly on the ground! He flew down and trotted up to her to see what had happened.

'Uhh…you okay?' he asked, unsure of how to comfort the poor filly. Colour Splash looked up to see the light blue colt looking at her with slight confusion.

'W-Why would a-anypony want to k-know?' she sobbed, 'N-nopony c-cares about m-me.'

'Well, I was curious as to why there's a pegasus filly sitting in the dirt and crying her eyes out! You do know this is earth pony territory, right?' Dasher said, looking around nervously.

'P-pega-what?' replied Colour Splash, rubbing her eyes and standing up.

'Pegasus, you know, what you and I are…'he turned sideways, showing off his wings.

'You have them too?!' Colour Splash was shocked. 'I thought I was the only one!'

'Were you born here? How can you not know about pegasi?' asked Dasher, equally shocked.

Colour Splash looked down and muttered something incomprehensible.

'What?' asked Dasher.

'I said I WAS born here.' She repeated, almost silently.

'Huh?' Dasher was confused.

Colour Splash took a deep breath and finally said clearly;

'I WAS born here.' she stated, looking Dasher square in the eye.

A few moments passed before he said anything.

'Please tell me you're kidding.'

She shook her head.

'Can you even fly?'

Again, she shook her head.

'Wow. Okay, I'm gonna go get a cloud and you're gonna sit on it and then we're gonna go to Cloudsdale.'

She paused, then said a single word.

'Okay.'

He smiled and flew up, grabbed a cloud, pulled it down and sat on it.

'Climb on,' he offered, extending a hoof. 'You'll be fine. I'm Dasher, by the way.'

'I'm Colour Splash.' She told him, taking his hoof and scrambling up the cloud.

'That's a pretty name.' Dasher said. Colour Splash giggled.

'What?' asked Dasher.

'I'm happy. I feel like I'll never be sad again.' Said Colour Splash, smiling.

Dasher grinned back. He flew around to the back of the cloud and pushed it up into the sky and towards Cloudsdale.

As they travelled, they chatted, and Colour Splash made her very first friendship.

By the time Colour Splash and Dasher arrived at Cloudsdale, they had already become firm friends and had agreed that Colour Splash would stay with Dasher while in Cloudsdale.

'Wow, look at this place! It's HUGE!' Colour Splash was fascinated by everything she saw. The pillars, the cloud market, and, most amazingly, more ponies like her! Everything was designed for ponies like her! Clothes with extra holes for the wings and wider entrances for the extra width! She felt like she was in heaven. All the pegasi had bright colours so she fitted in rather nicely. The pair trotted along the main street, looking at all the Cloud Market stalls.

'I have to show you the stadium, Splashie!' remarked Dasher as they passed a stall selling various Equestria Games pins.