Chapter Text

The Story of A Wayward Filly: Prologue

Summer of 20×6

it was early in the morning. Violette and her roommate Dispatch both live in a single family home. Dispatch was making the usual breakfast while Violette is writing something on her computer

I'm 26 and a half years old and currently sitting in a recliner and writing a whole short story while my roommate is making breakfast. For the first time in my life, i feel free. I finally feel free for once. People, mainly humans, have noticed my significant weight gain a few months after the "Albuquerque Incident", usually with that concerned look on their faces. Something about my weight gain that the outsiders don't know is proof that I am FED!! and no longer STARVING!! in a desert fortress, waiting for a bell to ring. But even then the smell of vinegar sometimes triggers a panic attack so bad that my ears start to twitch and knock my glasses off (lol).

Speaking about vinegar, it takes me back to my high school days in the dry and hot heat of New Mexico to the obsidian walls of St. Dymphna’s Academy, and to the girl I used to be—sixteen years old, terrifyingly fast, and drowning in a world that smelled entirely of sulfur, incense, and an inexplicable, never-ending supply of sauerkraut (it was driving me CRAZY)

Day 1: The static in the walls

October 12th. Albuquerque, New Mexico (back when Violette was 16 years old)

If you stood up with your tiptoes in the West Dormitory, more specifically on the third bed to the left which belonged to a girl named Sarah who cried to sleep most of the time, you can see it. Just three blocks away like a neon emerald in the dusty twilight: the sign for the world famous Albuquerque Holiday Inn. It was a whole fucking joke. Over there, I imagined, people didn't sleep on mattresses that felt like wet wool. They probably even have those fluffy towels I heard rumors about. But my story didn't take place there. I was stuck in the perimeter of St. Dymphna’s, wearing a woolen skirt that was taped down to my thighs to keep my tail from betraying my mood, and a starched white veil pinned so tight against my skull that my ears were screaming for release.

I was snapped back to earth when one of the nuns, Sister Beatrice, thwacked me with a wooden ruler. "Posture, Miss Harley" she hissed to me. "You stand like a beast waiting for the gate to drop."

I hated when i was told to correct my posture. I forced my heels into the stone floor, fighting the anatomy of my own legs. The metal plates on the soles of my shoes made a sharp clack that echoed too loudly in the silence of the chapel. I wanted to run away. I wished I could break out of the school and jump over the 12 foot fence (and maybe have some donuts). But even then I couldn't move. Just 10 minutes into the prayer, I heard sounds. Not sure where it came from but I could tell, it hurt, a lot, and it sounded like my father.

└─── °∘❉∘° ───┘

The oak doors opened, and there he came. Father Phillip Richter. To the regular human students, he was your typical intimidating headmaster who assigned penance with a little too much enthusiasm and spoke English with a strange accent. But to me, he was the reason why i have a white streak in my hair and a jawline that could cut glass (because he's my dad, duh). Also he's pretty much why i am also a horse girl, because he is a centaur. He was also the only person on earth who knew why I had to buy my shoes from a farrier, though neither of us had ever said the words out loud.

He ascended the pulpit, his black cassock swallowing the light around him. The buzzing in my ears ramped up, turning from a hum into a high-pitched whine. I felt the pressure. I felt my tail spasm against the restraint. I tried to force myself forward trying to not look like a horse girl about to shy at a plastic bag blowing in the wind.

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth," Father Phillip intoned, his voice bouncing off the stone walls. "But the righteous are as bold as a lion"

"easy for you to say" i thought to myself, gripping the wooden pews until my knuckles turned white. "you aren't wearing a corset designed to flatten your ribcage"

At St. Dymphna's, the homilies were never about comfort; they were about control. He ranted about the "Gluttony of the Spirit" and the dangers of unbridled motion. At one point, I swear he looked directly at me, his pale eyes piercing right through my veil, and condemned the "spiritual equivalent of running with scissors."

"A bit on the nose", i thought

All of a sudden, my stomach gave a large growl. I haven't eaten anything since lunch, which had been (you guessed it) a big, cold, vinegar soaked bowl of sauerkraut, and it was the third time this week. Looking back right now, from the comfort of my recliner and with a plate of actual toast on my hand, the school was starving us on purpose. A hungry animal is a weak animal. But in that moment, the hunger mixed with the sounds in my head and created something terrifying.

The stained glass window behind the altar created something. The colors melted together. The image of St. Dymphna fleeing her own father began to warp. The angels behind her didn't look like angels anymore. They looked like…weasels? (Author note: it didn't look like weasels but for comedic effect I said it looked like them)

I blinked, trying to clear the hallucination. The "Influence" spiked, a sudden scream of ozone in my brain.

"Violette?" whispered Sarah, the girl next to me.

I tried to answer, but my tongue felt like lead. The last thing that happened before I suddently blacked out was Father Phillip stopping mid sentence. He didn't rush from the altar to help me. He didn't look concerned. He just stood there, watching me fall, like a scientist watching a lab rat finally hit the right button

└─── °∘❉∘° ───┘

After a few hours (it seemed like that), I woke up to the smell of rubbing alcohol and the powdery latex smell of medical gloves. My head hurt so bad, and it was throbbing to the rhythm of the blinking fluorescent lights. I was at the infirmary, strapped to a cot that was about six inches too short for my legs.

I cracked one eye open. Standing next to me were Sister Jude, the school nurse and Father Phillip. Father Phillip wasn't looking at me, he was looking at a clipboard, tapping his pen against the paper in an agitated staccato (oh I hate it when I'm right). My ears twitched violently at the sound, but the leather strap across my forehead prevented me from turning around.

"I-i-i saw weasels" I croaked. "My throat felt like i'd swallowed a handful of the desert outside."

Sister Jude gasped, crossing herself. "Delirium. The heat has boiled her senses."

"It is not the heat" Father Phillip replied back, his voice lowering down to that low, vibrating gesture that made my teeth ache.

"Sister Agatha, would you mind leaving us alone for a while. I need to discuss…private things with my daughter"

To be continued…

Present Day:

OH FAHCK I HATE MY FUCKING FATHER I WANT TO FUCKING KILL HIM WHEREVER HE IS ARUGHHHH >:(

wait he's prolly rotting in jail or smth uhh