It was a bright sunny day in Ponyville, the birds were flying behind Fluttershy, who was leading them to a place where they could find lots of food for their young ones. Ponies were conversing in the central market of town, Lyra was playing her Lyre for her very special somepony, BonBon. Pinkie Pie was hopping around singing a song, while Rainbow Dash was snoozing on a white, fluffy cloud. Princess Twilight Sparkle was with her assistant, Spike the dragon, taking notes on about everything going on. Rarity was in her boutique designing her latest creation. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were up to their usual shenanigans, "Cutie Mark Crusaders Traffic Officers!" they shouted running into the street with stop signs in mouth, but alas, there was no traffic in Ponyville on such a nice day where you could walk. Even the cab puller ponies had the day off because of the weather.
But what else happened in this seemingly perfect town? What happened that nopony talked about? The drug dealers, the gang violence, the Pony trafficking? That is where this story lies, not in the friendly part of Ponyville that everypony knows and is comfortable with, but in the unspoken of places.
Now are sights fall on a small house on the corner of Ponyville, there is a nice little garden in the front with many different colors of flowers. At the base of the green wooden door was a welcome mat that said "Welcome Darling" on it. There was currently a sign on the door that said, "Do not Disturb, Session in Progress". Suddenly the door swung open and out walked a stallion.
The door was then closed from the inside and the sign on the door removed. Darky then stooped down to pick up the bits the stallion had dropped for her. "Only 8 bits?" she thought to herself, "I told him 10 at the least! Especially after that special treat at the end!" She was a light lavender colored Pegasus. Her mane was black with a single yellow streak through it. Her eyes were a deep pool of Magenta and her cutie mark was a broken heart. Her tail matched her mane. She wore two earnings, one gold and one silver.
She did this as a profession, so she was used to it. Weather or not she enjoyed doing the work, she couldn't say. She walked to her bathroom and grabbed a pill bottle out of the medicine cabinet. She had taken this pill dozens of times, so it didn't phase her anymore like it did the first time she took it, so many years ago. She popped a pill into her mouth and swallowed. She looked at herself in the mirror, her mane was a mess, and she had some dried drool on her face and a hickie on her neck. She couldn't tell if she was disgusted, or disappointed in herself. The doorbell rang and she expected it was her job calling again.
Darky looked up at the clock, "of course," she thought to herself, five minutes early. She guessed some stallions just couldn't get keep their urges under control. She opened the door only to be surprised at the sight of a good friend and his daughter. "Sh-Show Stopper, what are you doing here?" she leaned in closer "And with Crystal!?"
"Trust me Darky, the last thing I would ever come to you for is your services. No offense." Said the tall blue unicorn stallion as he entered. "I just came to..."
"Ew dad! Wrong choice of words!" Said the light blue unicorn filly covering her eyes, trying to hide from the mental image.
"Sorry, I just wandered over here to tell you something. It's about a job." Said the stallion cleaning his purple-rimmed glasses for no apparent reason.
"But you just said you didn't need 'my services'. What gives?" Darky blurted out angrily.
"Not that kind of job." said Show Stopper looking around. "I'm going to be directing a new play that I wrote in a couple of months, it's an interesting plot if you ask me."
"DAD!" Shouted Crystal facehoofing.
"Right, sorry. But I would like you to play a part in it." Said the over sized stallion picking up a vase with his magic and inspecting it. Then there was a knocking at the door. "Let me take of this." Show Stopper then went up to the door and looked into the peep hole. "Oh, this guy isn't anything to look at. No wonder he resorted to you, no offense."
"Is there someone in there?" asked the stallion from outside.
"No just the hooker." said Show Stopper imitating the voice of a very old mare. At that the stallion outside shivered in shock a little bit.
"Stop that!" Darky said rushing past Show Stopper to open the door. "I am so sorry. They were just leaving, good ol' friends of mine." With this Darky started pushing Show Stopper and Crystal out the door.
As Darky was closing the door and putting up her "Do not Disturb" sign Show Stopper, turned and said, "Just think of it Darky, you, the stage, the lights, and no more of this..." and Show Stopper pointed to the other stallion.
"Hey!" shouted the other stallion as Darky slammed the door.
"Also," Show Stopper shouted, "Crystal needs a foalsitter on Saturday!"
"Okay" Darky replied through the mail slot.
It was Saturday morning, when Darky got out of bed. She looked at her clock to see it was a quarter of 11:00. "Damn it!" she thought out loud, "I've got to be ready for Crystal in fifteen minutes!" She scrambled to make her house presentable, picking up trash, scrubbing the floors, vacuuming, dusting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Then she had the harder task of making herself presentable. She eventually had to take three showers, brush her teeth twice, and put on five layers of deodorant just to look and smell decent.
Then she was about to eat her breakfast of a soft boiled egg when her doorbell rang. She quickly put her breakfast back into the fridge and went to the door. She opened it and in walked the two big blue unicorns. Even though Crystal was still a filly, she was pretty much the same size as Darky. "Hello there" Darky said.
"Hi Miss Darky!" Crystal said cheerily. Crystal had really become a more open pony after hanging out with a bunch of different foal sitters, especially Darky.
"Hi Crystal, how are you?" said Darking tilting her head.
"I'm good."
"Enough with the chit-chat." Said Show Stopper, "Now Crystal needs to meet me at the Theater at Two, she'll need lunch and I hope that you can escort her to the theater because I don't want her wandering about on her own."
"What you don't trust me?" Crystal complained.
"No, I just don't want you to get hurt, that's all." then the tall blue stallion lowered his head and kissed his daughter on the to of the head. "Now you go have fun with Miss Darky, and no hacking into her network this time." he turned his head toward Darky, "Sorry about that by the way."
"No big deal. The company gave me a full refund and a little extra for it anyways." she giggled at the memory of calling the company pretending she didn't know why her network wasn't working. "Plus I made a little extra off that repairpony, if you know what I me-" she then remembered Crystal's presence.
"Now then," Said Show Stopper turning, "I'll be off then. And don't forget, two o'clock, sharp!" Show Stopper turned and trotted away.
Crystal had been on her computer, it was one o'clock, Darky was watching television. "Darky?" Crystal piped up.
"Yes?" she replied turning off the TV sensing urgency in Crystal's voice.
"Are you gonna take the job with my dad?"
"W-well I hadn't thought about that. I don't think so, my destiny is...well you know."
"So my dad's destiny was to stay with the theater, but he's done so much more, he became one of the highest ranking knights in the Triple Crown. He is a war hero. Didn't you ever ask how he earned all those medals?"
"Um...not really."
"He was voted 'least likely to get married' in high school, but he married my mom. They obviously loved each other cause they had me."
"Well..."
"You don't have to do what life tells you. Destiny is just a fancy word for 'suggestion' if you ask me."
"I don't know, I mean I'm marked for my destiny."
"Hey, history has proven you can only be marked for greatness."
"Like who" asked Darky confused.
"Harry Trotter."
"He's fiction."
"No he isn't." Crystal said with a calm face. "I've met him, in Canterlot. Yellow unicorn, blue mane, glasses, scar, everything."
"Well kid you have a good poker-face I'll give you that" Darky said reclining. But Crystal's stare just got more intense before it penetrated Darky's silence. "Besides, that's one thing. Who else?"
"Princess Twilight Sparkle." said Crystal.
"Well you got me there. But the answer is still 'no'."
There was a long pause before the clock tower rung once, signaling half of the hour had passed. "Well, at least talk to my dad, okay?" Crystal said with tears forming in her eyes.
At that moment Darky realized all the teasing Crystal must go through because of her connection to Darky, along with the whole tech geek thing. "Okay...I'll talk to him." Darky said defeated.
"Then let's go!" Crystal said grabbing Darky with her magic and pulling her off of the sofa.
When Crystal arrived at the theater with Darky, there was a lot of bustle going on around them. Ponies running left and right, bars flying in and out of view, ropes and wires littering the stage. The one thing Darky noticed is that the cutie marks of the ponies were not necessarily specific to the job they were performing. Then she spotted Show Stopper under a golden light, and she noticed something different about him...HALF OF HIS CUTIE MARK WAS GONE!?
She frantically ran up to him, gasping for breath, pointing at his flank. "What? Oh the cutie mark. Don't worry it's just CMM, or Cutie Mark Makeup. Here let me show you. Mathilde, bring me a sample of C42 and N51 please." Then in came a pink pony with two boxes. "Thank you Mathilde. Now, normal makeup like this 'N51' doesn't cover a cutie mark, because of its magical properties." he then demonstrated on his other flank, and sure enough, the cutie mark showed as if nothing was on it. "But CMM is magical itself, developed in the Triple Crown by yours truly, does cover it." He then finished putting it on his first flank and then on his second.
"See?" said Crystal, "Your Cutie Mark doesn't matter."
"So what do you say Darky?" Said Show Stopper, the light shining down on him from above. "Do you want to change your life for the better?"
