Blank Flank
By Andrew Esquivel
All my life I've keep it hidden. All my life I've been ashamed. My life, a sham.
Many years ago, I became something I'm not. Or at least no longer am. Everyone gets one they say. Everyone has it. But mine...mine is different. Its sick. Its madness. I...I should never have gotten it. Not like this. So I cover it. I hide it. Conceal it from the world. My mark is a mark of shame. A condement of sin. All for something that should have never been done. To this day I spit the same story over and over again. Every pony believes it. All the lies. The embarrassment. They don't accept me now, but if they knew, it would be worse. Exile - perhaps that's what would come of it. My mark - it stays hidden, and it always shale. One day I will find a way to remove it. A way to banish this curse once and for all. But until then, I am known simply as "Blank flank".
Every day it's the same routine. Wake up, paint over my mark with the same color as my skin, and wear my cape. Whatever I can do to cover it up really. I can't let anyone know what is really there. As far as any pony knows, there was nothing there to begin with, and that's the way I plan to keep it. I...I don't even know if I should dare write down what accounted for this burden. If I should even tell the tale. But one day, when I'm gone, people will need to know. They need to know the truth. What happened that day changed the world. What happened that day was never forgotten. In every book in every store, every library, every fairytale, there's me. tTe only problem is, nobody knows it. I can't bring myself to tell the reasons for what and why I did it. Perhaps it was a moment of weakness. Perhaps maybe I was cursed. A hex maybe. whatever it was, it was told around the world. By day's end, there wasn't a single pony left who didn't know of this terrible secret of mine. What's worse is that I was not caught. Another took the blame. Legend has it that it was found that Luna, the royal princess herself was to blame, and that her sister, Princess Celestia banished her to the moon for it. A sentence that was to be held for a thousand years. Lord knows it should have been me up there. I can barely live with the guilt, if you could even call it "living". No one knows why her sister was suspected. All they knew is that once it was done, the world went back to the way it was. All of them. Living in blissful ignorance, as the true cause of this disaster still roams the land.
The elements of harmony. Such a wonderful piece of work. It's said that they were created long before even Celestia was even born. Some even believe that it was made when at the very instant the universe was created. However, they carry a terrible secret. Something that only 3 ponies in all of Equestria know. Luna, Celestia, and I. How I came to find this, is what started this war. The elements of harmony exist in 6 forms. Only 5 can been seen, while the 6th remains elusive. All of them element must stay together. If they are separated, things of unimaginable proportions will happen. I found this out the hard way. The elements are what keep the universe in balance. It's what keeps everything in check. If even a single element is lost, the universe just stops. It breaks down, it doesn't work, it just...malfunctions. I didn't know what I was doing. I was young and stupid. I can remember is so clearly, like as if it had just happened yesterday.
I was in the castle. On a tour with the rest of my class. This was back in my school days as a young pony. We were passing through the corridors as I noticed a room with a slightly open door. Everyone knew it as the chambers of mystery. It was called this because only Princess Celestia and Luna were ever allowed in it. But I was a curious young lad. The question of what lied in that room got the best of me. So I split up for the rest of the group. The door was made of impenetrable material, and more locks than you could count. I took advantage of the fact that the door was left open. As I walked into the room, I saw 5 glimmering stones. Each more beautiful than the last. I walked closer and closer until I could almost taste the magic. It was like as if they were calling me. Something I couldn't resist, no matter how much I tried. I held them in my hooves. They felt...amazing. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew what they were. They were the elements of harmony. We had learned about them in our studies in class. I was told there was 6, but I only saw 5. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, my horn started to glow. At the time I couldn't tell why, but pony magic doesn't happen for no reason. It grew brighter, and brighter until something appeared in front of me. It was the 6th element. The last element of harmony. The element of magic. It attracted to me like wood on a tree. It held me. It wouldn't let me go. So I kept it. Fearing that my teacher would soon find that I was no longer with the group, I fled. I ran back home as quick as I could and hid in my room. For days I sat there, trying to understand just what it does. Only there was a problem. The nights grew longer, and the days grew shorter. This trend happened for several weeks until the sun and the moon finally just stopped. No matter how hard the royal sisters tried, they could not move the sun. The moon rained over the sky, and night time became what made up the whole day.
In my conquest to understand more about the elements of harmony, I found that removing the element of magic would cause the cycle of day and night to cease. And furthermore, I knew that if I was caught with the element, I would surely be persecuted. So I put it back. But not in the room where it belonged. I set it down on Princess Luna's bed, as the door to the room of elements was closed. I figured, who better to set the moon down with the element than that of Luna herself? It was a grave decision. Once the element was found in her room, Celestia immediately placed the blame onto her sister. Luna tried to defend herself, but there was nothing she could do. She was sent to the moon, and deemed a monster by her own people. No one knew why Celestia blamed her sister, but I did.
There was yet another problem however. When studying the element of magic, I developed a close bond with it. Before the incident, I never had any friends. To me, when the element was near me, it felt like I had at least one. It loved me. It consumed me, and soon, it became me. My mark. Everyone gets one. And at that time, is when I got mine. My mark was the 6th element of harmony. The most elusive of them all. And now everyone could see it on my flank. I knew they would figure out it was I who stole the element from the castle if they saw it, and after seeing what the punishment for such a crime was, I couldn't let anyone know. So I cover it. I hide it so that no one will ever know.
