(Alright, so I know I've been gone a while and I still haven't updated TIF yet, but I thought I'd try starting a new story to get my mind flowing a bit. Most of Chapter Six is done, I just need to add some more to the end because I don't feel like it's quite long enough yet. Also, this chapter is more to gauge your interest. If no one likes it, I won't continue. Good? Alright, enough stalling, onto the story…

~Fortune)

Chapter One

He stared blankly into the silvery surface of the mirror, willing the smile to appear. Every day it got harder but he couldn't afford to let his friends see him like this. He took in a deep breath. Staring at his reflection, he acknowledged the lack of emotion in his emerald eyes. Wishing the light into his dull features was the easy part. The hard part was expelling the feeling of nothingness in his soul.

Giving up on the mask for now, he turned to freshen himself up. His quills were in disarray and his cobalt fur was slightly ruffled and matted – all the signs of disturbed rest. Looks like a splash of water in the face wasn't going to cut it today…

Setting his focus to the shower and the bath behind him, he suppressed the shiver that threatened to creep down his spine when he thought about filling the bath with water. He grimaced; too much water. The shower would be quicker and he had the plus of not having to submerge his body in his most hated thing.

He opened the shower door and glided into the vertical cuboid of glass. Twisting the knob on the shower to turn on the water, he ran his peach hand under the stream to test the temperature. Scalding hot; that's just how he liked it. One of the few things he could feel, he supposed. He felt the water run down his back. He sighed in relief. After letting the water soak into his fur, he reached for the sweet-smelling shampoo sitting in the rack on the wall. He turned the bottle over in his hands and read the label: orange and apple. He squeezed some of the shampoo on to his hands and, trying to ignore the stinging of the cuts he had almost forgotten about, began to run his hands through his quills. The feeling was soothing and he closed his eyes in content, a subtle but genuine smile beginning to emerge on his muzzle. Once he had lathered up the rest of his fur, he gradually began to wash away the sudsy bubbles.

He turned off the shower, reached for the fleecy, bright blue towel on the towel stand and began to dry off his fur. When he was pleased with the dryness of his pelt, he threw the towel back on the stand and made for the bathroom door. On days like this, he was glad to have a bathroom all to himself branching off of his room.

His bedroom wasn't too special. The walls were painted in a navy blue hue. The floorboards were blanketed in a dark grey carpet – he found the carpet useful for when he was leaving or entering his room late at night through the window as it reduced the sound of his footfalls to mere mumbles. Unfortunately, he had been having a lot more trouble with sleep recently. He never really was a heavy sleeper anyway, being on alert for attack at all times helped with that, but recently he was really struggling to get some shut-eye. Speaking of which, his bed with its wooden frame sat in the centre of the room against the far wall – one of the only four pieces of furniture in his room. The other three consisted of a beaten up, oak wood desk with a chair to match that had seen some years of ware and a single, full body mirror.

He dove into one of the three drawers on his desk to grab a fresh pair of white gloves and into another one for some new cotton socks. The third drawer, being the only one with a keyhole, was left undisturbed. He sat on the chair beside the desk to pull on his socks before then putting on his gloves. The gloves were soft on the inside, the perfect cushion to his scars, old and new. As he adjusted the gloves, he couldn't stop his eyes from drifting to land upon the locked drawer. There they lingered, longer than he would have liked, before he forcibly tore his gaze away from the desk entirely.

He set his sights to the side of his bed where his dirty and worn sneakers sat. He frowned. That wouldn't do! He swiped them up and entered the bathroom again to clean them up a tiny bit. He glanced around the room, looking for something he could use to wipe them down. Finding nothing, he resorted to using the filthy towel he had put in the washing basket the day prior. Cringing at the dark crimson stains on the otherwise blue towel, he turned on the tap and began to clean up his shoes. Once he was done, he dropped the ruined towel back into the washing basket and slipped on his now shinier shoes. He took a moment to admire the deep red shoes with the white straps secured with scratched, golden metal buckles in all of their scuffed up glory.

As he re-entered his room, heading for the bedroom door, he paused to glance at himself in the mirror. He looked infinitely brighter and much neater than he had been before. His fur was glossier and he noticed that he hadn't even had to force the liveliness into his emerald eyes today. His blue ears were perked up and his quills were relaxed. A smile, a real smile, landed on his muzzle as he made for the door.

Perhaps today would be the day that things started changing for the better.