This is a story about a very silly filly by the name of Glitter Bomb. She didn’t know that she was silly– that came much later. But she knew she was a filly, and a good one at that! Mommy said so. And she said so a lot, which must have meant that she was a very good filly.

Being a filly and what it meant wasn’t something that Glitter thought about a lot. She knew that she was shorter than everypony else, and usually had to ask the taller ponies – adults, mommy called them – for help to get things out of reach. She had an idea that being a filly meant she was different from the other strange-looking little ponies called ‘colts.’ Whatever the actual difference was though, it didn't concern Glitter too much. She didn’t get to spend a lot of time around them anyway. Mommy was often busy with her work and so was Glitter. Daddy had gone off to do something called ‘war,’ which sounded very scary to Glitter and made mommy very sad whenever it was brought up. One day, a mare in a pretty green uniform came by to tell them both that daddy was ‘missed in action.’ For Glitter, it just meant she got to spend more time with mommy.

Mommy sometimes cried about being daddy missing. Glitter was sad too, even if she didn’t quite understand.

So Glitter got to go with her mommy to work a lot. The place where mommy worked was big and underground, and had a lot of things that Glitter was told not to touch. It also had a name that Glitter found hard to pronounce. So, she and mommy took to calling it Marigold in private.

But Marigold wasn’t a fun place to be for a filly. Mommy always had to ask other ponies to watch over Glitter while she was off doing ‘science.’ Sometimes that meant that Glitter got to play with Gestalt and Mosaic! They were fun ponies to play with, ‘cause they did cool things like finishing each other’s sentences. They also asked Glitter what she saw in splotches of ink. They taught Glitter the word purple, and told her that was the colour of her coat. Glitter was very happy to learn that.

But the green unicorn twins were often busy. That meant Glitter had to be watched by somepony else on occasion. Sometimes she found herself in the office of a very lonely mare named Twilight Sparkle. Miss Twilight was very nice, and her coat was the same color as Glitter’s! The older unicorn had a voice that danced musically in a way that reminded Glitter of the silly robots that sometimes floated around outside. Miss Twilight often had books for Glitter to read too. But… she always looked sad when Glitter had to go home with mommy for some reason. So Glitter didn’t enjoy spending time with Miss Twilight as she did Gestalt and Mosaic!

But one day, both Gestalt and Mosaic were in Canterlot with Miss Twilight. Finding a foalsitter had been hard for mommy at Marigold.

“Isn’t there anyone who can watch Glitter today?” Mommy asked, trotting through the crosswalks of the place.

“Why don’t you see if Trixie can watch her today?” one of the stallions replied, giving Glitter a happy smile and a wave.

Mommy didn’t look happy at that. Still, she lifted Glitter onto her back and trotted toward the back of Marigold. It was dark back there. That scared Glitter quite a bit! She wasn’t sure that mommy was picking the best pony to play with if she liked to stay in the dark.

“Miss Trixie?” Mommy called, flipping on the room’s lightswitch. “I-I’m sorry to bother you, but I… couldn’t get a foalsitter again and… well, Mr. Arclight said to ask if you could watch my daughter for the day. This is Glitter Bomb.”

A silver-maned unicorn with a coat that reminded Glitter of the sky stirred in the corner of a couch. As she moved, she knocked several bottles off of the arms of the sofa. As the yucky bottles rolled on the floor, Glitter crinkled up her nose at the smell of the liquid dripping out.

“Yeah… whatever…” The mare said in a voice that sounded like honey poured over a gravel path. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t wander off and drink something that’ll turn her into a tulip.”

Mommy didn’t seem to think it was funny, but she laughed anyway and thanked miss Trixie. When Mommy left, she gave Glitter a big hug and told her to be good. Glitter thought this was silly. She was always good! And purple! That made her doubly good!

Miss Trixie sat up and looked at Glitter with pink and purple eyes. They were very pretty, but she also looked tired in a way that scared Glitter for some reason that she couldn’t explain.

“All right, little monster,” she said, fixing Glitter with a frown. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Play with me?” Glitter asked, giving miss Trixie her biggest smile.

Glitter didn’t like being called a monster. She wasn’t one! She was a good filly! But miss Trixie looked tired and Glitter wondered if maybe that wasn’t making her a little cranky.

The blue mare frowned harder. Glitter didn’t think it was possible to do that and she worried that Miss Trixie’s face might even get stuck that way.

“Ugh, fine. We suppose we can… play,” she said, getting up off of the couch. Her pale purple magic lifted up all the stinky bottles and dropped them in a bin. “Though, can you play by yourself for a few minutes while Trixie goes and washes up a moment?”

Glitter nodded.

“Yeah! I made sure to bring some toys so I can play um… quietly! Mommy says that good fillies play quietly when they’re being watched by ponies who aren’t mommy!” she said, shaking her tail. Out fell her favourite dinosaur! “I’ll play with Mr. Chompers!”

Miss Trixie took on a smile that Glitter didn’t have a word for at the time. Wistful would be the word she’d use later. But right then she was just happy to make the blue mare smile.

So Glitter played with Mr. Chompers! They had a great many adventures running around in Miss Trixie’s room! It turned out that Miss Trixie had a whole apartment to explore and play in! Parts of it were kind of messy, so Glitter and Mr. Chompers stayed away from there, spending most of the time in the living room.

But dinosaurs don’t know many games, and soon she got bored of playing hopscotch with Mr. Chompers. He always cheated and won! So Glitter began to explore the room as Miss Trixie took her time in the shower.

That’s when Glitter stumbled upon a hidden treasure! Mr. Chompers jumped across the room from the back of the couch, ending up hiding behind a treasure chest. Glitter had to stretch her magic really hard to reach him, but in doing so, she accidentally opened the chest.

Glitter looked around. She knew she should just close the lid! Good fillies would close the lid and not snoop!

But Glitter couldn’t help it. She was still a good filly, but she was also a very curious one! And the chest was full of so many wonderful things!

A hat and cape with stars and moons on it! Magic wands! Flowers! A top hat made of felt! Glitter lifted the hat and cape out of the chest and put them on! With these she could be a magician! The Great Glitter!

She was so excited about being Equestria’s best magician that she didn’t notice Miss Trixie had come back. Glitter’s ears drooped as she realised she’d been caught.

She opened her mouth to apologize, but stopped when she saw that Miss Trixie was crying. So Glitter started crying, worrying that she’d done something terribly bad! She didn’t want to be a bad filly!

“You really are a little monster, aren’t you?” Miss Trixie hissed, wiping tears from her purple eyes.

That made Glitter cry harder. She didn’t want to be a monster! No one else had called her a monster before! Monsters were bad! She never wanted to be as bad as a monster!

But Miss Trixie came over and gently wrapped her hooves around Glitter’s barrel and pulled her close.

“Shh… shh… it’s okay, little monster. You just made Trixie… remember some things about herself that she doesn’t like to think about.”

Her voice was softer now, her rocky voice becoming more silky.Miss Trixie lifted up Glitter’s chin, and wiped away the tears from her cheeks.

“So… why are you wearing that hat and cape?” Miss Trixie asked, looking at Glitter like Mommy did after the young filly had made another one of her macaroni noodle art projects.

“Oh!” Glitter replied excitedly. “I am gonna be the Great Glitter Bomb! The bestest magician in Equestria!” she said, striking a pose. Or she tried to, only to have the hat slide down over her eyes.

Glitter struggled to lift up the brim of the star-studded hat as miss Trixie laughed brightly. It was a pretty laugh, Glitter thought. Like the sound the stars probably made when they danced. If stars could.

“Well, I think first we need to work on that name,” Trixie said, lifting the hat off of Glitter’s head. “Hmm… something with more pop!”

“You mean great isn’t good enough?” Glitter asked.

Miss Trixie shook her head.

“No. We need something better than that!” she said, tapping a hoof to her chin. “How about the Glamorous Glitter Bomb?”

Glitter wasn’t sure what that meant, but glamorous sounded really nice!

“I could be glamorous, I guess?” Glitter replied, happy to make Miss Trixie smile.

So Miss Trixie and Glitter became fast friends! Miss Trixie taught Glitter all sorts of fun little spells. Spells for sparkles. Spells for glitter and lights. Spells to make it look like she was sneaking Mr. Chompers into Miss Trixie’s felt hat! Glitter got really good at that one. One day, she even pulled Mr. Bear, her stuffed ursa major toy, out instead of Mr. Chompers. Miss Trixie said she was very impressed, at least from the other side of the couch until Mr. Bear went back to his home in Glitter’s tail.

One day, those spells got Glitter her cutie mark. Miss Trixie and mommy cried a lot that day. Glitter never forgot how happy Miss Trixie was for her, and how she kept saying “Don’t be like me, Glitter. Never become a washed up has-been like me!” over and over and over again.

Glitter didn’t understand what that meant, but she was glad to hear that mommy and Miss Trixie were proud of her.

But not every day with Miss Trixie was fun. Sometimes, Miss Trixie got angry with Glitter. During those times, she was no longer the Glamorous Glitter Bomb. Then, she was just ‘the little monster.’ It always hurt a lot to hear. Sometimes it was because she was maybe a little bad. Like the time she accidentally broke a vase. But other times it was for reasons that Glitter didn’t understand.

And it made Glitter worry that maybe, deep down, she really was a monster.

Then one day some very, very bad things happened. All the ponies outside were scared. And then, the ground shook. Glitter hid underneath Miss Trixie’s bed as the loud booming sounds made parts of the ceiling fall in. She heard ponies screaming. Ponies crying. Ponies making noises that were too scary for words. Then, nothing.

The nothing scared Glitter the most.

Pretty soon she wasn’t feeling very well. She was dizzy and sick to her tummy. So Glitter walked out to try to find Miss Trixie or Mommy. Instead, she found something scary. A great, big, blue monster wriggling and swirling in the pretty potion that was in the vats that lay below the catwalks. Glitter screamed when the blue pony-monster looked at her.

“Oh Glitter, it’s you! Don’t be afraid!” the monster said in Miss Trixie’s voice. And Miss Twilight’s voice. And Misses Gestalt and Mosaic’s voices.

That made Glitter even more scared. She started to cry.

“Shh, shh… it’s okay, little monster. We’re gonna make everything better. Trixie… no… The Goddess knows best!”

“Th-the Goddess?” Glitter asked, trying to figure out what that new word meant.

“Yes, Glitter, the Goddess. We need a more glamorous name now. Just Trixie surely wouldn’t do!”

The last clear memory Glitter had was crying as she was picked up by the Goddess’ magic, and pulled into the potion.

Then she was a lot bigger! And she could hear all sorts of ponies! And her tummy didn’t hurt at all!

But the Goddess wasn’t nice. Not at all. She always yelled. Always complained that Glitter thought too loud. Always threatened to give the annoying parts of Glitter to Lacunae. That made Glitter really sad. It was hard for her to show how sad she felt when her body wasn’t under her control, though. And sometimes the Goddess made Glitter do bad things. Mean things to other ponies. Glitter cried on the inside for days and days every time. And every time the Goddess caught her crying, she’d send more of her to stay with Lacunae.

Glitter liked Lacunae, even though Lacunae was always sad. But she always got jealous that Lacunae got to think and do what she wanted.

That Lacunae didn’t have to be a monster.

Glitter’s body did a lot of bad, mean things, and she had to watch all of it. Hear all of it. Feel and smell and taste all of it. That made her very sad as the memories of what the Goddess had her do churned and oozed and bubbled through her mind. They all made her very scared, and very, very sad. They made her worry that maybe she really was a monster after all. Over and over and over again she remembered the bad things. She wished and wished that she could change the moving pictures in her head. She wished so hard that she could, just for a little while, remember mommy instead.

Then she heard a voice. A voice she remembered from the time after the Goddess went away and she couldn’t hear the others any more.

“No. What I must do is get out of here. I’m opening my eyes. Now!” the voice said.

Glitter thought this was a good idea. She was getting very sad about remembering how right Miss Trixie was to call her a monster. When she would open her eyes, there would be things to do, so she didn’t have to remember the past. And there’d be friendly faces, so she wasn’t alone among all the frightened, crying and bloody ones...

Author's Notes:

So, I swear I love my characters. Glitter Bomb has been near and dear to my heart for some time. Everyone asks who my favourite character is in Speak, and... honestly it's Glitter. She's... so happy and so kind and hiding so much hurt. I love her and want to give her snack cakes and pet her head and tell her it's ok a lot.