Shimmer: Prologue

PROLOGUE:

 

“I can raise the sun!” Celestia lifted a yellow marble with her magic.

“I can raise the moon!” Luna lifted a navy blue marble with her magic.

“Uh! Uh!” Shimmer tried to pick up her marble and failed.

“The sun will beat the moon!” Celestia cried, bringing her marble closer to Luna’s.

“Nuh-uh! The moon will beat the sun!” Luna said defensively, clinking her marble against Tia’s.

Shimmer looked down at her plain marble sadly.

“Come on moon!” Trickles of sweat went down Luna’s forehead.

“Go sun!” Celestia was sweating, too.

Shimmer got an idea. She scooped her marble up with her hooves, and cried, “You’re both wrong. My marble and I will beat both of you!”

Celestia dropped her marble. “Shim-mer!” she complained. “I was beating Luna! Why did you have to interrupt us?”

“Nuh-uh! The moon was beating the sun!” Luna said.

Shimmer watched sadly as her sisters continued to play without her. Like always.

“Tia! Lu Lu! Shimmer! Lunch!” the sisters' mother called. Tia and Lu Lu bustled past Shimmer, leaving her on her back, outside, alone.

Shimmer got up and slowly walked inside. Celestia and Luna ran into her.

“Shim-mer!” Luna said. “Get out of our way! Why are you always so mean to us?”

“Yeah,” Celestia exclaimed. “You’re always in our way.”

Shimmer watched, heartbroken, as her sisters ran out to play without her.

---

“Blank flank! Blank flank! Shimmer has a blank flank!”

Shimmer covered her ears and closed her eyes.

“Blank flank! Blank flank! Shimmer has a blank flank!” The taunting continued.

Every year Shimmer dreaded school. And every year it came. She was already in 5th grade- why was she still a blank flank?

“Blank flank!”

The worst part was even Tia and Lu Lu were laughing along. Not a big surprise, but still…

“Shimmer has a blank flank!”

“Enough!” Mrs. Flower Power cried, although even she looked amused. “We were all a blank flank once.”

Everypony stopped laughing. They knew better than to mess with Mrs. Power.

“Everypony take out your journals and flip to the next blank page. Try to find as many good things about yourself as you can and write them down.”

Everypony listened. At the end of class when Mrs. Power went around to see what everypony wrote, Shimmer had nothing.

“Shimmer! Why don’t you have anything?” Mrs. Power asked.

“There’s nothing good about me,” Shimmer replied.

“Yes there is,” Mrs. Power told her.

“Like what?” Shimmer asked.

“Umm, well…”

“See? Nothing! I'm not a good pony at all!”

So when the class did a poster saying good things about themselves, there was nothing about Shimmer.

Shimmer cried all the way home.

 
 

---

“Welcome home girls!” the sisters’ mother said excitedly. “You have a sister!”
 

Shimmer froze. A new sister?

“A sister! How exciting!” Celestia and Luna exclaimed together. They gave each other a hug and ran to see the baby. Slowly and carefully, Shimmer followed.

 

The baby laughed as Shimmer drew closer. All of a sudden, Shimmer sneezed. And sneezed again. And again. And again. 

“Oh dear,” Candy Cane, the girls’ mother said softly. She called a doctor.

“Hmm…” the doctor said, looking Shimmer over carefully. “It seems she is severely allergic to the baby’s horseshoes.”

Candy gasped. Everypony knew that baby fillies had to wear the horseshoes to keep their hooves straight.

Shimmer fled outside, crying. Celestia and Luna ran after her, but Shimmer was out of sight. For hundreds of years to come, the family would be apart.