sweetie in a well

Today we find a despondent Sweetie Belle in a place where she wants to be: the bottom of a well.

The well is as deep as Canterlot Castle is tall. It is made of blue brick, it is round and narrow, and crucially, there is no water in it so rather than floating, Sweetie is sprawled on the bottom of a well, her face scrunched up into a frown.

A distant noise breaks the quiet, and she looks up to find, way off in the distance, a single pony head peering down at her. A call follows soon after, and she can only barely make out her name.

“Go away!” she calls out. “I’m drowning myself!”

Another call. Indistinguishable.

“I can’t hear you! I’m too far down the well,” Sweetie Belle whines, her squeaky annoyance echoing inside her dry prison. “Go away!”

The pony disappears. Then when it comes back ten minutes later, a single white paper cup is strung down towards her, the miles-long string delicately sewn onto the base of the cup. Down and down it goes until—plop!—right onto Sweetie’s scowling nose.

“And why, pray tell, are you drowning yourself?” asks Rarity’s muffled voice.

Sweetie picks up the cup-phone. “Because I’m depressed,” she replies. “Now go away!”

“Depressed? Sweetie Belle, you’re twelve. What on earth could you be depres—” Rarity stops talking, which is just as well as Sweetie was about to tell her off. When she comes back a moment later, her tone is decidedly more sympathetic, if a bit manufactured. “I’m very sorry you’re sad, darling. What’s the matter?”

“Everything,” Sweetie replies. The sky in the distance is too gray, Apple Bloom hurt her feelings yesterday, Diamond Tiara called her a loser, Scootaloo is away with family, the drawing she’d been working on looks ugly, and more importantly, there is no water in this well for her to drown herself in.

“…What is ‘everything’ exactly?”

“Everything!” Sweetie squeaks, her forelegs slamming down on the well. All these big stupid feelings inside her are ballooning up and up, choking her heart and her brain and her soul, until all she can feel is that everything is awful and everything is too much.

Tears sting at her eyes.

“Oh, darling,” comes Rarity’s voice, real concern bleeding through. “Don’t cry.”

“I want to cry!” Sweetie yells.

“So your tears fill the well? That would take such a long time.”

Sweetie sticks out her tongue. She’s not sure Rarity can see it, but that’s fine because she doesn’t really care anyway.

A second head appears in the distance. And a second cup-phone is not delicately lowered into the well, but violently thrown, plonking on Sweetie’s head.

She picks it up. This cup is blue.

“Sweetie, there’s WAY cooler ways to die than drowning yourself in a well,” Rainbow Dash says.

“Rainbow Dash!” the first cup squeaks.

“What! It’s true.”

“No, it is not—What? Oh, but—” A pause, and when the cup speaks again, it’s not Rarity’s voice coming through, but Twilight’s.

“Hi Sweetie. I’m sorry you’re feeling sad.”

“I want to drown myself in a well,” Sweetie replies. “But everyone keeps talking to me!”

“Right.”

“And I don’t have any water, either!”

“Would you like some water in your well?”

She nods, and just when she wonders if Twilight can even see it, cold water starts flowing, sticking to the sides of the well and carefully filling up the bottom, slowly but surely cocooning her until she’s floating just a bit.

“Is that better?” Twilight asks.

“There’s too little water,” Sweetie points out. “I can’t drown in here!”

“Give it time!” Rainbow replies, just as a third phone-cup is strung down. This one is lavender.

“Darling, is the water cold? It—Twilight! This is freezing! Forget drowning, she’s going to die of hypothermia. Sweetie? Do you want me to warm the water?”

Sweetie thinks this over. Drowning in cold water sounds sadder than drowning in warm water, but…

“Yes, please,” she manages, and as the water heats up, comforting and cozy, tears sting at her eyes anew. A sniffle escapes her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, dear. Oh! I know exactly what this needs. I’ll be right back.”

Quiet stills the well. None of the cups squawk at her. She is left there with her big feelings and rising warm water, and when enough time passes by that no one speaks, she feels words burning at her throat.

She grabs the lavender cup.

“Diamond Tiara said I’m a loser,” she sniffles. “Am I a loser?”

“What!” the white cup gasps. Sweetie can almost see the wings flapping way off in the distance. “You are SO cool, Sweetie. In fact, you’re so cool, I wish we could ditch Rarity and swap her with you!”

Sweetie feels what might be a giggle in the back of her throat, but she stubbornly pushes it down. Giggling is definitely not conducive to drowning.

“You are not a loser, Sweetie,” Twilight replies gently but firmly. Sweetie likes Twilight a lot. She spends a lot of time in Carousel Boutique, and she likes to help with homework, and always sneaks out an extra cookie for Sweetie after dinner. “You are a very smart little filly, and the best student I’ve ever had. No student of mine is a loser.”

“Diamond Tiara was your student once,” Sweetie points out.

“…Well, putting to the side that ‘was’ is a key word here, Diamond Tiara is not a loser but she IS a product of a very dysfunctional family dynamic and upbringing that—”

“Diamond Tiara is the QUEEN of loserville,” Rainbow interrupts. “Listen, I’ve looked up the definition of loser in my dictionary, and her picture? Right there. Real big.”

“You? Own a dictionary?” Twilight sounds so skeptical, Sweetie can’t stop that stupid giggle. “Since when?”

Sweetie notices the well is pretty full now. She must be halfway up. But now she’s floating. Ugh!

“I’m ba~ack!” Rarity’s voice fills the well, and moments after, bath salts and violets rain down, filling up the well with a pleasant sandalwood aroma that Sweetie sneezes at thrice. “There. Isn’t that better?”

“I’m trying to drown,” Sweetie grumbles, “not do a spa day!”

The water has lifted Sweetie up enough she can see Rarity’s frown as she peers down at her. She’s still using her cup-phone to talk. “It’s so you have a beautiful death! You want to look refreshed and hydrated for whatever comes next. Don’t you feel nice?”

Truth be told, Sweetie does feel nice. Her big emotions are still there, her fears and anxieties and death wishes upon Diamond Tiara, but as she floats further and further up, drowning no longer seems so appealing.

Maybe…

“I’m all the way up,” Sweetie mutters when she’s, indeed, floated all the way up. “I’m not at the bottom of the well anymore.”

“Well, well, well, so you are,” Rarity murmurs, her warm eyes matching her gesture as she brushes her little sister’s cheek. Twilight’s and Rainbow are standing a little ways away, fighting with untangling a big mess of fairy lights. “The girls told me what Diamond Tiara said.”

Rarity goes blurry all of a sudden. Must be the well water getting into Sweetie’s eyes.

“Rarity,” Sweetie sniffles, “you don’t think I’m a loser, right?”

“I think you’re brilliant,” Rarity replied simply. No frills, no exclamation, no theatrical declaration. Factual, as true as the sky is blue, the sun is yellow, and a filly’s inflatable pool can feel like a very deep well when she’s had an awful, long day. “I think you are one of the coolest fillies this town has ever seen, and I would stake my entire career on this being true.”

Sweetie rubs her eyes. “Promise?”

“You have my word. Now, you relax right there while I go fetch you some music and a good book for Twilight to read to us, all right?”

Sweetie manages a smile. “Okay.”

Tonight we find a sad Sweetie Belle in a place where she wants to be: floating inside a well.

The well is not that deep and not that large. It is made of blue inflatable plastic, it’s just the right size for her to float around a bit, and crucially, it is filled with warm water, sweet smelling scents, and violet petals.

Sweetie had wanted to drown in this well.

Instead, she’s just floating, and you know? Floating’s just fine for now.