I sat in the waiting room nervously. Serenity had given me a number, 17, and had told me to wait.

I was tapping my hoof very quickly, something I tended to do when I was nervous. But I had to keep stopping because some of the other ponies would start to glare at me after a few minutes of incessant tapping.

“Number 16 you can come in now,” Serenity poked out of her office door. A pegasus got up and headed in.

I was next, and was now even more nervous. I was, I believed, about to learn what I was supposed to do with my life; Serenity’s personal take on the theory of universal predictability had seemed very sound, and I was convinced she could help me.

But when I thought about it I wasn’t sure how I was going to describe my problem, all I had to say was that my talent didn’t seem to “fit” me. That wasn’t very specific, and, honestly, I didn’t think I could really explain it any better than that. The more I thought about this the less sure I became of what my problem really was; maybe it was just working at the library that didn’t fit, not my whole talent… No, even my talent of helping ponies find books they’d like seemed like it didn’t fit me, it still felt like my cutie mark got it wrong somehow; it felt like I’d gotten my cutie mark too soon, before I could find what I was really meant to do, what me real talent was.

I guess what I hoped to hear from Serenity was what I was really meant to do, or at the least, confirmation that I had gotten the wrong talent, that at least would make feel a little more confident and more sure of my feelings.

“Number 17.”

I snapped out of my thoughts.

“Mm, yes,” I nodded and walked over to the office door, and paused.

“Come in,” Serenity said.

I entered.

I was about to learn what I was meant to do.

***

After telling Serenity a little bit about myself, and making a terrible, but admirable, attempt at explaining my problem, we began to see what we could do about my problem.

“So basically you have a problem of some sort with your cutie mark right?”

I nodded.

“Well then, let’s begin,” Destiny closed her eyes and her horn began to glow.

She began to cast a spell; light flooded over me. I had to assume it was a very power spell from how hard Serenity was concentrating on casting it.

After a while the light slowly got less and less bright and seemed to recede.

Soon the light was entirely gone.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I asked optimistically.

“You seem to have a talent for helping ponies find books, and that’s all I can see, the only profession that would suit you is working in a library.”

I was stunned, not only was Serenity not giving me a solution, she wasn’t even confirming that something, anything, was wrong.

“But, I already told you I worked at a library, and I didn’t fit in.”

“I know you did, that’s why I’m confused,” serenity was looking over some notes she had written down, “from what I found you should have fit in at the Canterlot Library… I have no idea why you didn’t.”

“You don’t have any ideas at all?”

“None that are even remotely possible.”

“I see… do you have any ideas that are not, strictly speaking, possible?”

“Maybe one… You could literally have the wrong cutie mark; maybe helping ponies find books is not your best talent… But nopony in history has ever received a cutie mark that didn’t in some way co-relate to their talent.”

“Mm.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be more help.”

I stood up, “No It’s my fault for getting my hopes up,” I was very annoyed and slammed the door shut behind me.

I left the office building.

I was alone in Las Pegasus with no money, no direction, and no sense of self.

***

I found myself shelving things again, but at least they weren’t books.

Working in a market place in Las Pegasus wasn’t too bad, it was a fair bit tedious, and surprisingly busy, but it paid well and didn’t take too much effort.

Though, even though the pay was okay it was only really enough to keep me alive, and there wasn’t a lot to set aside to help pay for getting back to Canterlot.

I had officially given up, I had gone through a lot and Serenity had been my last hope; I had no idea what I could do about my problem now.

The more I thought about the problem the more I thought it was I who was at fault; maybe finding books for ponies really was my talent and there was just something wrong with me.

I didn’t really want to accept that, but the more I thought about it the more I became sure of it. There must be something wrong with me, and I was just going to have to live with that.

Since I had lost any hope for resolving my problem I had decided to head back to Canterlot and try to get my job back.

But what about Lilly? It was her job now; it wouldn’t really be fair for me to just show up and take it from her. Ugh, this was not going to be easy. Maybe I’d have to get a new job in Canterlot. I shrugged; I’d see what would be happen when I got there.

I stopped thinking so hard and focused on stacking apples, when somepony came up to me.

“Tailor?”

“Winter Breeze?”

I had turned around to see Winter Breeze, a pegasus I’d gone to school with a few years before I transferred schools. We’d once been good friends, and had managed to stay in contact throughout our school years, but once we grew up we had kind of lost touch.

“Tailor, it’s great to see you, it’s been far too long.”

“Yeah it has… so, what are you doing in Las Pegasus?”

“I was about to ask you that,” Winter looked at me with fake annoyance, “but I guess you beat me to the question; I actually work in the local library.”

“…Library?”

Winter nodded.

Winter shuffled her wings about a bit, and I caught a glimpse of her cutie mark, her flank displayed a number of books from different genres; identical to mine in everyway.

“Tailor…? Is something wrong?”

Author's Note

For the sake of the story I am assuming that in the world of MLP: FIM no two ponies have the exact same cutie mark and that when it happens in the show it is simply due to a limit of cutie marks the staff had on hand. So I am assuming that naturally no two ponies have the same mark, they can be similar but not exactly the same, because that would wreck the whole idea of everpony being "unique" which would sort of go against what the whole point of cutie marks. The point of them being to show that each pony is unique.
Okay, please be aware of that for the sake of this story.
Thanks for reading.