Ebony’s parents had married when they were young and in love.

By the time Ebony – known as Hazel Blaze back then – was born, it became apparent to both her mother and father that whatever had sparked between them had been short-lived, and they now regarded each other with a mutual tolerance, both too prideful to admit their fault and separate.

‘Raising a child shouldn’t be too difficult’, they thought to themselves.

‘There’s plenty of work to be done around Little Plains Drop; the crops need tending, the buildings need renovating each year… Plenty to keep a young earth pony occupied’.

Ebony’s mother’s grandfather had been a unicorn.

“…”

Little Plains Drop had exactly two unicorns in their populace; one was a doctor and the other was somepony from distant Baltimare who may or may not have been on the run from the mafia.

They were respectful of the doctor and the Baltimare unicorn kept to himself, so was tolerated, but even so…

Little Plains Drop was near the boundary that separated Equestria from the Badlands, so the environment was harsh; only earth ponies with their natural talent for cultivating could etch out a living, especially when the weather couldn’t be tamed by pegasi either, not when they were so close to the boundary.

What use was a unicorn filly?

Her parents were disappointed that she had been born with a horn instead of inheriting their earth pony resilience, so it was fairly frequent for them to just get somepony to watch her while they went out to do their own things. They worked on the fields and did odd jobs around the settlement before returning home. Sometimes one of them brought something to amuse young Ebony.

Her curiosity wouldn’t last long and she would soon start crying for attention.

“… I… can help…”

As she got older, Ebony started to yearn for the attention and affection she had seen other parents heap on their children. She quickly made the connection that this praise came when the child accomplished something like a labour that was physically demanding. Ebony ran back to her parents, shrilly announcing that she wanted to help them with work.

The smiles they had given her made her heart soar, but she was too young to realize that they were false smiles given out of amusement rather than pride. To her parents, Ebony might as well have just said that she was going to be an alicorn; it was impossible. After all, there were foals younger than Ebony who were fitter.

But none of them could be bothered to explain to Ebony that she simply wasn’t built for manual labour; it was much easier to just have her do it, realize she couldn’t, and leave it at that.

So that’s what they did.

Ebony’s father took her to the fields, hitched her up to a plough, and told her to dig out a dozen furrows before he got back.

Ebony couldn’t even manage one.

As her father unhitched the harnesses, she had cried and sniffled while blubbering that she tried and tried, but couldn’t do it.

Her father took her whimpers with an impassive nod and grunt, like he knew she would fail, that she wasn’t strong enough.

“Some… There must be something… I-I…”

Ebony was more desperate than ever to prove that she was no different from the other children and decided that if magic was a unicorn’s strength, then she’d figure out how to help using what she had rather than trying to use what she didn’t have.

She went to the doctor, who told her bluntly that while she had magical potential, she lacked the finesse and control to use it for healing, teleporting, or anything else that could have helped Little Plains Drop.

He said that, with practise, she might get teleporting down, but she was already trudging back home, salty tears spilling down her cheeks and plip-plopping against the dry and cracked earth.

Years passed and her attempts at catching up with the rest of her more able-bodied classmates were met with failure after failure, each one hitting harder than the next, especially when her classmates all started finding their special talents, and their cutie marks signalled their approach to adulthood.

With her lacklustre physical prowess, Ebony truly felt like she was stuck in time, unable to age and unable to do anything worthwhile. Even her control over telekinesis was met with nothing more than a half-hearted compliment and a limp pat on her head from her father.

“I want… Please, I have to be useful somehow. Y-you… Mom, dad… you say you don’t care that I can’t do anything, but I can see you’re disappointed. Tell me… Say something! You’re always ignoring me. Please…”

Every birthday she had, it just reminded her of how… stuck she was.

Everypony was doing something to help Little Plains Drop survive and she was just a burden – a useless, magical burden that couldn’t even use magic for Faust’s sake. She desperately wanted to talk to somepony, but nopony could understand her, and she tried! She went to the doctor again, but he was no help, and she went to the unicorn from Baltimare, but he hissed at her to ‘get on’ and stop annoying him.

The earth ponies couldn’t understand and her parents…

Faust, her parents wanted nothing to do with her!

The more useless she felt, the angrier she got. The angrier she got, the more she’d lash out. Ironically, that had been just the thing to get her parent’s attention.

Suffice to say, she didn’t like it one bit.

When she was sixteen, she had muttered a curse beneath her breath when her mother told her to clean the fireplace. Her mother faltered, told her to repeat herself, ‘young lady’, and from there, Ebony exploded.

She screamed about how they never supported her.

She yowled about how they never spoke to her.

She cried about how alone she felt.

Her mother didn’t understand Ebony’s ‘unnecessary rage’; she had never struck Ebony, she didn’t have a drinking problem, and she provided for Ebony.

“So in what way am I abusive?”

That had set off more screaming.

A little while after that, her father walked in after spending a few hours fooling around with a fellow farmer’s daughter.

It was ‘fine’ though; Ebony’s mother fooled around with the local blacksmith and they both knew and accepted each other’s affairs because they couldn’t get worked up enough to try anything in bed.

Her father blinked in bewilderment at the shouting match happening in the home and stepped in asking what in the world was going on.

Her mother told him and he took his wife’s side.

“We haven’t done anything even remotely abusive to you.”

… It was fuzzy after that. Ebony had been so worked up that all she remembered was that the shouting went on for a while and that the most vivid part of the memory was her storming out of the house with tears blinding her and ugly sobs making her choke.

She had to get out of there; Little Plains Drop – her own home was making her physically ill.

“I-I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here anymore. It’s too much. I can’t stand being useless here…”

Ebony ran for what had felt like hours and by the time she had collapsed to the ground, her muscles were screaming and her lungs felt as if they were aflame. Her mind had slowed to a point where she could think clearly again, but even though guilt and shame washed over her as she thought back to her actions, there was no doubt in her mind that she was not going back willingly.

The fact that nopony had come after her spoke volumes; Ebony was ‘just a unicorn’, so there was no way she could have outrun her parents if they were really determined to go after her.

Hell, they probably thought it was just a phase and that she’d come back sooner or later, red-faced and apologetic.

… No. No way was she going back.

Ebony had swiped her tears away and stood on shaking legs, making her way underneath the moonlit skies and towards the closest settlement.

Little Plains Drop was isolated like that; didn’t even have their own train station, just a winding dirt path for caravans and for when the traders went out.

Ebony had never made the trip, least of all by herself.

“When I find my true talent, I’ll… then it’ll show you that I’m not useless.”

The trip was arduous and long, especially when the sun had come up and started beating down on her.

She made it, somehow.

Oatwicker was almost a replica of Little Plains Drop, but had a train station and their main produce was a type of edible cactus that thrived in hot and arid conditions. Her mother had brought some in once and it turned out Ebony had an allergic reaction to the juices which resulted in some irritating burns.

She shook the memory from her head and made her way to the train station, only realizing when she got there that she was lacking in bits or any form of currency.

Ebony spent several minutes pacing the platform trying to figure out what she was going to do when she was approached by a twenty-something stallion with an extravagant mane of loud colours. He was obviously from an urban city; his mannerisms and unusual attire screamed it.

He introduced himself as ‘Bright Bulb’ and Ebony returned his hoofshake, mostly because she was inexplicably drawn to the new and unfamiliar clothes he wore.

He had asked if there was a problem and if he could help. She was out of options, so she told him, innocent hope flaring in her chest as she described her predicament, being mindful to be polite and sincere.

He told her that he could pay her a handsome amount if she helped him and his two friends with something…

Still naïve at her age, she asked for clarification.

“…”

Bright Bulb had mistaken her for being older and Ebony didn’t correct him or his two friends. They might have rescinded the offer. Ebony could not stand the thought of crawling back home and she was determined to make something of herself.

So she accepted.

It was… not as bad as she had feared it would be.

The pain had been brief and their touches – even if they made her wince – had been gentle. It was a little weird having them watch as they waited for their turn, but she managed to tune it out and keep her focus on an invisible spot on a wall, even though her concentration often broke by a particularly hard push or a sudden spike of sensation.

When it was over, Bright Bulb gave her, as he promised, a ‘handsome’ amount of bits. One of his friends – the oldest, probably nearing his thirties – looked at Ebony strangely and with some concern, as if just now realizing that perhaps she hadn’t been as old she allowed them to believe.

She didn’t hang around long enough for him to piece it together; the instant she had washed herself off in a restroom, she hopped on a train to Canterlot.

“It’s… I have to do this, Empress. You took me in as your Right Hoof, your loyal follower, and I… I have to repay that, I have to show you that I can be strong enough to protect you. I’m… I don’t want to be a burden anymore. I have to belong somewhere.”

Canterlot was a bustling metropolis compared to Little Plains Drop; the buildings were so high, the ponies so fancy and sparkling; Ebony’s eyes were drawn to the diverse and embellished clothing as soon as she stepped off the train and onto the platform, a satchel full of bits jingling at her side.

Unfortunately, Ebony stood out like a sore hoof; her lack of clothing and accent – even though it wasn’t that strong – made the elite of Canterlot label her as another simpleton from the countryside.

The first pony she asked for directions sniffed at her and made a scathing insult towards Appleloosa, wrongly believing that was where she was from.

The rest of the day went pretty much the same way.

Ebony tried looking for work, – there were plenty of non-physical jobs at a place like Canterlot, surely? – but didn’t have a resume or any form of identification. The places she went to didn’t like that and she was sneered out of any establishment she went to, her mood falling deeper and deeper into the pits with each pony that turned her away.

Eventually, when she saw that the sun was beginning to set, Ebony trudged into a café to rest her aching hooves. She had never had coffee before, but ordered one anyway to appear more mature than she actually was. It turned out to be a poor decision because she spat it out on the first sip and blushed beet-red when she tossed it away, much to the amusement of the other patrons.

She sighed as she sat alone at a table and buried her face into her forelegs.

“I’ve always felt like I never belonged anywhere. Not in Little Plains Drop… not in Oatwicker… not even in Canterlot, not really. I felt happier there than anywhere else, but it… it was never enough. If it wasn’t for…”

She contemplated leaving for another city when fortune smiled on her.

A stallion who carried himself with an air of importance and sophistication entered the café, the compressed form of a suit draped across his back. He seated himself at a table near Ebony and magically lifted the suit so he could spread it out, and clucked his tongue at the tear in one of the sleeves.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye, feeling an odd pull when he took out a small sewing kit and started on the tear, his magic precise and controlled but ultimately useless when the delicacy of threading the needle proved to be too much.

He was getting upset, but maintaining his cool composure. Ebony watched the crease in his brow – the only visible sign of his frustration – get deeper and deeper with each failed attempt at the needle before she could contain herself no longer.

She approached him and offered to help.

Naturally, he was wary of her, but not so wary that he refused the help, and hoofed over the kit and suit while allowing her to sit. To break the tension, Ebony awkwardly joked about how he had been carrying a sewing kit around, deeming it odd all things considered.

He pointed out his cutie mark – a purple comb crossed with silver scissors – and remarked on how it always paid to be prepared when conversing with Canterlot’s nobility, especially for somepony like him who placed importance on aesthetics.

He missed the sarcasm in Ebony’s remark, but that was fine; it wasn’t a particularly good attempt at breaking the ice anyway.

Ebony didn’t know what possessed her to try and fix his suit, but now that she had offered to help, it would be rude to suddenly take it back, wouldn’t it? Even so, she didn’t know how she was going to thread this needle or fix the tear in the suit – her control over magic was abysmal, so she had to use her hooves, but if this stallion couldn’t do it with magic, then how would she-

Ebony threaded it on the first try.

She sewed up the tear in a slight daze and it came out perfect.

The stallion was pleasantly surprised, but his grateful words were covered by the café patrons suddenly clapping politely and cheering.
Ebony blinked and looked down where a silver needle with black thread looping through the head appeared in a flash of white light on her flank.

It had been the happiest moment of her life at that point in time.

She laughed, smiled so hard her face hurt, and was only partially aware of what she was saying when the stallion introduced himself as Dusk, a scion of a noble house. He said something about letting everypony know of her talents, but all she could think about was how she was going to rub this in her parents’ faces.

So what if it wasn’t a talent that was very useful out in the plains? So what if it wasn’t oriented around physical labour?

She had discovered her talent in a little over a day away from that town, and any regrets she had about leaving were swept away by a wave of exuberance and pride.

Things were finally looking up for her and her parents were going to know of it.

“Empress, I… I feel strange. Where am I? What is this?”

A few days later, after Ebony had gotten a pretty good gig working as an assistant to Hoity Toity, Canterlot received news that a swarm of changelings had taken everyone in Little Plains Drop.

There were no survivors.

Ebony should have been upset over the loss of her parents, but even though she was to a degree, deep inside she knew that her dismay was because nopony would see how far she had come and how wrong they had been.

Light.

Air.

Warmth.

“Huagh! Ack! Huagh… huagh…”

“Welcome back to the waking world, Captain.”

Author's Notes:

Note 1: This chapter isn't here to try and make you feel sorry for Ebony, but to provide backstory. Whether you feel more sympathetic to her or not is up to you.