Annabelle's first day of school

Big looming gates of doom, a great beast ready to devour her whole. That's how she saw the gates of Red Ridge High. Her soul clenched and she felt she would burst from the pressure welling in her chest from fear. Her anxiety mounting at the sight of the great brick and iron gates, she thought of her family. How her adoptive mother and savior Rose had reassured her before she had left Sanctuary for the first time in years.
                                            ~~~

"What do you mean you don't want to go, Annabelle?" Thorny Rose stopped packing the purple rolling suitcase and stared at her young ward, brushing her black and white mane out of her eyes. Annabelle had already donned her lovely white traveling dress, the one with the blue sash around the waist that accentuated her lovely figure. Rose tried not to grin at the effort Annabelle had put in her perfectly curled main to make it cover her cheeks where some of her stitching showed. "I thought you wanted to be a great designer one day."
Annabelle frowned and looked at the floor pawing her right hoof on the wood floor. She could feel the tightness in her stitching along her cheek where it came to the corner of her mouth. "I do want to become a designer but can't I do that from home? Can't you teach me?"
Rose smiled, her blue eyes twinkling. "Now, Annabelle, I'm not good at making dresses, not like you. I can't teach you what they can."
"But it'll be like the last time. They'll know, they'll find out what I am--" She cut off feeling her throat constrict. Tears began welling under her button eyes, the shades of summer skies.
Rose came to her and placed Annabelle in a warm hug, running a hoof over the blonde orange curls. Annabelle began to cry into her foster mothers light pink fur. Rocking the filly, Rose cooed, "Oh, my sweet little doll, don't worry. There's nothing to fear."
"I'm a freak!" Annabelle sobbed.
"No you're not!" Rose snapped. She grabbed Annabelle's chin in her hoof, the fur on the chin nearly matching the shade of Rose's fur, the top half of Annabelle's face was a twilight purple. Rose knew that if she looked at the rest of Annabelle's body, it was a huge patchwork of purple yellow and pink fur, only held together with black stitching. But the part of Annabelle that Rose saw were her eyes, her lovely blue button eyes. She spoke softly to those eyes. "You're a normal pony with an amazing talent. Your body doesn't define you. Its who you are inside. If you promise to be brave and try to make new friends, I promise to be there when you need me."
Annabelle let out a shaky sigh and held on tight to Rose. "I promise... Mom."

                                       ~~~

"I promise." Annabelle took a deep breath, steeling herself, and stepped through the gates.


  Through the veil of her bonnet, Annabelle observed the other students preparing for the school year, some were totting suitcases to their dorms, others were playing with a large rubber ball on the lawn while a few others watched. It was only the first day, so there weren't that many students on campus yet. She stayed somewhat back from the other students, making sure to keep them within observation range near the in-campus forest. She had propped her rolling suitcase on a bench and had sat down to watch the game from afar.
Through out the game she noticed the group of ponies playing were mostly colts, and most of those watching were fillies. How fascinating. Having been Barn schooled most of her life with Rose, she only ever saw the ponies of her village, there weren't many foals. As she thought of home and how much she missed it already a small bird landed on the arm of the bench, chirping at her.
She held her breath looking at the bird, it was a brilliant blue with yellow tipped wings. It was so stunning in color she had to create something with these colors! She started speaking softly to the bird, "Hello there, I won't hurt you. Give me a moment, I just want to draw you."
She reached carefully into her bag and pulled out some pencils and her sketch pad and began capturing the bird on paper. Annabelle became so wrapped in what she was doing she didn't notice that some of the fillies on the lawn had noticed her and had begun talking.
"Hi, there! What are you doing?"
Annabelle nearly bit the pencil in half. Somepony had come up while she wasn't paying attention. Her head whipped around as the bird flew away. There, smiling at her, was a pink pegasus not three feet from her! Annabelle froze trying to think of what to do, everything was a blank.
The pink pegasus just smiled, her red glasses perched on her nose. Her lime green mane swaying softly in the wind.
Be Brave, Be brave...
Annabelle swallowed back her fear and murmured, "I-I'm drawing."
"Can I see?" The pegasus looked down at Annabelle's pad expectantly.
"Um... Alright." She turned the sketch pad so the pink pony could see the colored sketch of the bird.
"Wow its so pretty!" The pegasus gasped smiling even wider.
"Thank you." Annabelle was having trouble forming words, they felt wooden as they tumbled out of her mouth.
"My name's Angel Note," The pegasus declared "What's your name?"
"Uh... I'm Annabelle Ragdoll." Annabelle bit her lip and began to put the sketch book away.
"Wow, that's a nice name!" Angel smiled. "Can I ask you something? Where did you get that dress?"
"Oh I uh, I made it."
"Wow!!! You're kidding! It's so pretty!" Angel's shocked face knocked Annabelle out of her wooden state, she giggled a little.
"No, it's not anything it's just my simple walking dress," Annabelle smiled at Angel thinking to herself: Maybe this isn't such a bad place to be.
Angel sat next to Annabelle on the bench and they began to talk about dresses, and Annabelle soon discovered that it was also Angel's first time at Red Ridge as well, they were even the same age! She also plans to be in the drama club and like Annabelle, was pretty far from her home.
Could we be... friends?


"So why are you wearing a veil? Isn't it hard to see?" Angel turned her head as if to look up into the bottom of the veil.
Annabelle's ears pinned, she stammered a bit, "N-n-no, I um, I've worn them all my life it's not hard to see at all."
"Why? I can't see your face very well but I can tell you're really pretty, why don't you take it off?"
"Um, well I don't like taking it off." Annabelle started to suck on the straw of the Juice box Rose had stored in her suitcase.
"Oh, why's that?" Angel took a sip of the juice box that Annabelle had offered to her earlier.
"Well..." Annabelle was stuck, she couldn't tell the truth, and she wasn't a very good lair. She looked at her new friend and tried to think of something, anything, to say.
Then, like a screech from Tartarus, somepony from the lawn yelled. "Look out!!"
As the rubber ball came hurtling towards the girls at break-neck speed, Annabelle had flashbacks of when she was a younger filly, rocks being tossed at her from frightened ponies, of pitchforks and flames. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She was vaguely aware that Angel had flown upward above the bench to avoid the ball and she could hear her friend yelling at her to move. Everything happened so fast, Annabelle had no time to move.
A great big blue blur moved in between Annabelle and the ball at the very last second as she closed her eyes for impact.
Poink!
Did the ball hit her? She didn't feel any pain, or impact. What was that sound then?
From close in front of her she heard a male voice yell harshly. "Damnit, Butterhooves! You almost hit these fillies!"
Somepony must've deflected the ball she realized.
Annabelle slowly opened her eyes, standing just in front of her was a cobalt blue unicorn colt, his white mane spiked and tipped blue and tied in a pony tail at the end of his mane. He wore an old torn up vest and dog tags around his neck. He was so tall. As he turned his striking eyes to Annabelle she felt frozen all over again. "Are you alright?"
"Uh, I'm.." Terrified.
The colt just grinned at her as she sat transfixed, unable to say anything. "Let's take a look under that veil, to make sure you're not hurt and maybe give your hero a little kiss for saving you."
Annabelle felt the edge of her veil being pulled and noticed he had activated a levitating magic. He was going to pull up her veil! She couldn't let that happen!
"NO!" She screamed. Panicked, Annabelle pulled away from the magic and jumped from the bench. She ran at full gallop past the lawn to the right side of the Campus where her dorm was. She didn't see faces or ponies, she just saw escape. In her mind she knew she would be safe in her assigned room, behind a locked door. She slammed open the front door to the 4th and last dorm on the row and opened the first room. Slamming the door shut she sat against it, gasping for breath.
Slowly the empty room came into focus. The bare but sturdy wooden bed, a night stand, a simple desk, and a dresser. She suddenly realized she had been in such a panicked frenzie she had left her bag, her sketch book, everything she owned back on the bench.
The one she just ran from... Like a fool. Oh what must they think of me now? Annabelle, you really put your hoof into it this time...
She curled up behind the door and wept. Thinking how her new friend must think she's crazy now, not to mention the shocked look on that colt's face, he must think her mad too.
The next thing she knew, there was a knocking on the door, she must have fallen asleep because out of the window that faced the front of the dorm house, the sun was low in the sky.
From the other side of the door she heard Angel's muffled voice. "Annabelle? Are you in there?"
Annabelle just stared at the door, she was too shocked to respond.
"Annabelle, I don't know why you're upset, but I'm sorry. I brought your things. Please come out."
She hesitated, what could she say to Angel? Annabelle stood rubbing her eyes then placed her veil back into position. She opened the door, there stood Angel who looked slightly forelorn. When she saw Annabelle, Angel brightened embracing Annabelle in a warm hug. "Oh thank goodness! I almost thought you ran away!"
Annabelle stared at her friend. "How did you know this was my dorm room?"
"Well..." Angel backed away smiling slyly. "Student dorms are not public record but, we happen to know someone who doesn't mind breaking into the records room to see where you were."
"We do?" Annabelle was stumped, Angel was the only person she knew on campus.
Angel's grin widened. "Go look out your window."
Curious Annabelle went to her window, then looked down. The blue colt from earlier was there! She opened the window and stuck her head out."You helped Angel?"
He grinned leaning on a tall apple tree that grows just outside her dorm. "You were a damsel in distress, I couldn't help myself. Are you feeling better now, fair maiden?"
Annabelle felt her cheeks heat as she laughed. "Yes, good sir, thank you."
He seemed to sober slightly as he straightened from the tree coming closer to the window. "I also wanted to apologize. I didn't mean to offend you earlier. I, Platinum Firefly, am truly sorry."
"Oh, no, I should be apologizing to you. I shouldn't have screamed at you and ran. I'm sorry for that. And, I thank you for stopping that ball." She smiled though she knew he could barely see it.
He grinned. "No problem at all."
Annabelle thought for a moment and grinned. "Close your eyes."
Platinum looked confused. "Why?"
"Just do it."
He looked skeptical but obliged. Annabelle pulled up her veil just enough to uncover her muzzle. She then leaned out the window and kissed Platinum on his cheek. The veil was pulled back into place before his eyes opened. They grew round in surprise before he grinned, a soft blush dusting his cheeks. He lifted a hoof to the cheek she had kissed and winked at her.
"Good evening, Miss Annabelle." With a smooth turn of his tall frame he trotted off towards the colt dorms.
Annabelle watched him go for a moment, then she turned back into the room closing the window. She found Angel grinning at her, Annabelle blushed when she said. "I saw that."
They both began to laugh.
I will be brave mom, I promise.