“Snowcone!”
 
It was late afternoon as Snowcone‘s mother called outside of her door, not even two hours since she’d gotten home from school. All she wanted to do was be alone and decompress from the stressful day she had, but it was clear she wouldn’t get to do that as Twilight Sparkle barged in without even knocking.
 
“Snowcone Syrup! We need to talk about your grades!”
 
There it was.
 
For some reason grades were a perfect reason to throw boundaries to the wind. It had been this way since even Aurora was a little filly.
 
Snowcone simply shoved the pillow harder over her head. Her eyes and teeth clenched so hard it almost made her ache. She could feel chills running through her body as red hot anger began to build up. Snowcone slowly peeked out from the pillow and spit her words out like venom.
 
“Mom please. I do not want to do this right now!”
 
Her voice shook, she was clearly trying to be polite about it but it sounded more like she was constipated.
 
“That’s what you said yesterday!” Twilight sighed deeply, but softened her voice just a little. “You’re falling behind, Snowy. I love you and want you to succeed. But this-“ she held up several papers with big red “F”s on them, “-we need to talk about this. Now. Sit up and tell me what’s been going on.”
 
‘Come on Snowcone-’ she thought to herself ‘-the least you could do is talk to her.’
 
Little things like this were the most Snowcone could do to help herself, she wasn’t a professional after all. Twilight wasn’t either and she knew that if she tried to talk about it, she’d be bombarded with hours and hours of “find a book with your symptoms in it.”
 
So she sat up.
 
Her expression was the same sad clown mask that it always was, glassy and lifeless.
 
“What classes are these for again? I probably just don’t get it, or I’m bored in the class or something. I can just do some extra credit can’t I?”
 
“Extra credit won’t fix it at this point, Snowy. You have to make up all this work you missed to pass! Math, social studies, science, Equish…” Twilight flipped through the stack of papers frantically, then put it down beside her.
 
“Your teachers are there to help you, sweetie. If you don’t understand it, you have to take the initiative to ask for help. Even if you’re bored. But you haven’t even tried.”
 
Snowcone didn’t even look up at the papers or her mother, staring off into the distance.
 
The lecture quite literally went in through one ear and went out the other.
 
That was until…well,
 
You haven’t even tried.
 
That phrase rung over and over in her ears. Twilight apparently caught onto this because she leaned in to put a hoof on her daughter’s shoulder.
 
Snowcone smacked it away and grabbed her stack of papers.
 
“I DON’T TRY?!”
 
She rushed out into the living room past her other mother and shoved her tests right into the garbage disposal.
 
“I’ll show you don’t try!”
 
She turned it on.
 
“Snowcone Berrytwist Syrup!” Her mother scolded, chasing after her. “You know that’s not what I meant!”
 
She quickly shut the garbage disposal off and used her magic to pull out what was left of the shreds.
 
“Now you’re going to have to get new copies of these from your teachers and do it all over!“ Her expression hardened into a stern glare. “No trips to the mall until your grades are up. By Gaia, it’s not even safe with all those strangers you talk to!”
 
This made things a thousand times worse of course!
 
Snow tried to scold her mother back but was very quickly interrupted with her decree.
 
She sat there silent for a few moments with her jaw dropped. Her face began to flush and tears welled up in her eyes but Snow stood her ground.
 
“I’m not doing a thing! Not a single thing! You can’t take away my one thing that makes me happy and expect me to do what you want!”
 
Her voice was shrill and desperate. She felt like her pleas were falling on deaf ears.
 
Her other mother did nothing to help her as she spoke up with the same awful, stern tone.
 
“Listen to your mom, Snowcone. You’re grounded.”
 
Snowcone’s head whipped around like a hydra.
 
“You’re on her side?! You’d think one dictator would have been enough for you to learn!”
 
She hissed out, not realizing in that moment how deep this would sting. Right now, though, she didn’t care.
 
Snowcone would happily lock herself in her room so that’s where she went.