In Which the Cutie Mark Crusaders Are No Longer Blank Flanks
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The Earth Pony that Couldn't and Other Cautionary Tales

In Which the Cutie Mark Crusaders Are No Longer Blank Flanks

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.

…

Much to the Cutie Mark Crusaders' delight, in spite of Golden Oaks Library being completely destroyed by the evil magic-eating Lord Tirek during his anime-esque battle with Princess Twilight Sparkle, they were still able to continue their weekly Twilight Time sessions with the youngest (and potentially most powerful) Alicorn in her new home in the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle, which they privately thought was a really stupid name but dared not say it out loud for fear that Twilight would take offense and stop hanging out with them anymore, which would totally ruin their street cred, which did not actually exist.

"So, what are we going to work on today, Twilight?" Scootaloo asked after they'd come in one day after school, giving her backpack to Twilight's brother/son/assistant/unpaid intern/slave dragon Spike.

"Are you finally gonna show me how to make that potion which can turn apples into other kinds of apples? It'll make it a lot easier to harvest zap apples if we didn't haveta wait a whole year fer new ones to grow!" Apple Bloom asked hopefully.

"And I think I've almost managed to master the 'Come-to-Life' spell without the inanimate object I enchant trying to kill me in a homicidal rage!" Sweetie Belle squeaked happily.

Twilight laughed as she sat down at the round table in her new castle's library—which was bigger and even more stocked full of books than her old one had been—with her young disciples. "Perhaps later, girls. Right now we have something more important to discuss. The Mayor came to me earlier this week begging me to have a talk with you about some of your most recent Crusader escapades."

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "What, again? She's just blowing things out of proportion."

"Girls, in the last month you've caused almost five million bits in damage to the town trying to get your Cutie Marks. The Mayor's had to take out a sixty-seventh loan to pay for repairs and the town is getting dangerously close to bankruptcy," Twilight said sternly.

Sweetie Belle frowned in concern. "We've really caused that much damage?"

"How much is five million? It can't be that high, it just has a 'five' in it," Apple Bloom said.

"Yes, a five followed by six zeroes," Twilight said.

"Then it's really not a big deal! Zero is nothing, so six zeroes must be a lot of it!" Apple Bloom said unconcernedly.

Twilight stared at her blankly. "…What are your math grades again?"

"Looking at numbers makes mah head hurt," Apple Bloom admitted.

"Psh, so what if we nearly destroyed the town a few times?" Scootaloo said flippantly. "It's not like you and the others haven't caused a ton of property damage too. Exactly how many of those fifty-seven loans are because of us, and how many are because of you?"

Twilight fidgeted awkwardly. "Yes, well, we're not talking about me or my friends, we're talking about you. Your attempts to get your Cutie Marks are getting more and more out of hand, and if you don't tone things down a bit someone—most likely you—could get really badly hurt!"

"Come on, we haven't done anything that dangerous," Scootaloo said dismissively.

"Yesterday you built a nuclear bomb and nearly set it off in the schoolyard!" Twilight said.

"We defused it," Scootaloo said.

"Didn't get any Nuclear-Bomb-Making or Nuclear-Bomb-Defusing Cutie Marks, though," Apple Bloom lamented.

"And the day before that, you broke into Tartarus and nearly released all the inmates!" Twilight said.

"We totally would've made good Tartarus Wardens!" Scootaloo insisted.

"I don't know, some of those monsters were really scary…" Sweetie Belle admitted.

"And the day before that, you asked Discord to turn you into draconequii so you could use chaos magic to give yourselves Cutie Marks! Do you have any idea how stupid that was?!" Twilight demanded.

"No," Apple Bloom said honestly.

"I still don't understand why he seemed so terrified he screamed and ran," Scootaloo grumbled.

"Girls, look, at the rate you're going you're going to kill yourselves and maybe a lot of other ponies! Are Cutie Marks really worth all that?" Twilight asked.

"Well, yeah, duh," Scootaloo said.

Apple Bloom nodded. "If we don't get Cutie Marks we'll be Blank Flanks forever!"

"And would that really be such a horrible fate?" Twilight asked.

They all stared at her in disbelief. "Of course it would be!" Sweetie Belle said. "Aside from the constant social ostracizing and stigma due to lacking a Cutie Mark at an advanced age, we need Cutie Marks to know what we're supposed to do with our lives! Without them, we'll never be able to get work in specialized fields and will be relegated to doing back-breaking menial labor for the rest of our lives like a common mule or donkeys! I don't want to be a mule or donkey, I'm too cute for that!"

"Sweetie Belle, that's racist!...but perfectly accurate, especially the cute part," Twilight admitted. "And I see you've been studying your vocabulary again, 'ostracizing' and 'stigma' are both very big words for a filly your age."

"Thanks!" Sweetie said happily.

"Thesaurus," Scootaloo grumbled, rolling her eyes.

"Chicken," Apple Bloom teased, earning a glare from the orange Pegasus.

"But girls, you have plenty of time before you have to worry about that," Twilight said. "Can't you just be patient and get your Marks in your own time by working on something you already know you're good at instead of constantly trying incredibly dangerous and high-risk things that might get you killed which you have no aptitude for whatsoever?"

"No, because that's boring and we don't have the patience for that," Scootaloo said. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement. "And besides, if we die, maybe we'll get our Cutie Marks in that!"

"Ooh, great idea, Scoots! Ah wonder what a Cutie Mark fer dyin' would look like?" Apple Bloom wondered.

"Maybe a skull? Or a tombstone? Or a corpse?" Sweetie Belle suggested a little too eagerly.

Twilight facehooved. "All right, maybe I need to try another tactic." Her horn lit up with sparkly magic, and a book slid off one of her many shelves and floated over to the table. It was a big, brown, thick book with a picture of a cute Earth Pony filly looking longingly up at the sky on the front and the words The Earth Pony That Couldn't and other cautionary tales written above it in gilded letters.

"What's that?" Apple Bloom asked.

"It's a book, duh," Scootaloo said.

"Ah know that, ah'm not illiterate, no matter what some ponies—or mah grades-might say," the Earth Pony said tersely.

"This book is full of stories and cautionary tales with moral lessons in them. You know, like all those books of fables I'm sure your par—er, older relatives or family members have read to you before bed?" Twilight amended quickly, reminding herself that at least one of the three fillies before her had no parents.

Sweetie Belle perked up. "Ooh, I love those stories! Mom still reads stuff from Sisters Grimm to me sometimes!"

"The original or the heavily watered-down and annotated version insisted upon by high-minded moral guardians?" Twilight asked.

Sweetie Belle blinked. "There's more than one?"

"Applejack still reads old farmin' tales and legends to me sometimes," Apple Bloom said fondly.

"Psh, I'm way too old for that kiddie stuff anymore," Scootaloo lied.

"Ah don't think ah've ever heard of that book of stories before, and we've got loads of 'em back home," Apple Bloom said.

"This is a relatively new one. There are some stories in here which I'm hoping might help you realize you might be going about this all wrong and maybe convince you to dial things back a bit," Twilight said.

"Yeah, like that'll ever happen," Scootaloo scoffed.

"We'll see," Twilight said cryptically, cracking open the book and flipping through the pages. "Let's start with the title story, shall we?"

"Sure thing!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah, all right, though it sounds like a bit of an odd name fer a story ta me," Apple Bloom said.

"Ugh, if we have to," Scootaloo grumbled.

The Earth Pony That Couldn't

Once upon a time, there was an Earth Pony named Sky Dreamer. She was a happy filly and a diligent worker, who spent many long hours each day in blissful toil on her master's guava plantation, and rarely needed to be beaten or whipped for failing to meet her quota.

The Crusaders frowned. "Wait…master?" Scootaloo asked.

"Beaten or whipped?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Guavas?!" Apple Bloom cried in disgust, missing the point.

"What, was she a slave or something?" asked a confused Sweetie Belle.

"Oh yes, very much so," Twilight said.

"But there's no slavery in Equestria!" Sweetie Belle protested.

"But of course there is," Twilight said, surprised. Honestly, what was Cheerilee teaching these fillies? It was clear she'd need to arrange another 'talk' about her lesson plan. "How else do you explain how the Apples are able to keep talking, thinking cows and sheep and other creatures on their farm and exploit them without recompense? Or how Rainbow Dash was able to sell Fluttershy for a book and it be considered a fair trade? Or how I'm able to get away with making Spike do such hard labor at a young age? Or why nobody puts up much of a fuss about so many donkeys and mules being put to work in the sugar mines for the rest of their days?"

"That's…huh. That's actually a good point," Scootaloo admitted.

"And besides, if slavery wasn't legal, then what would all those ponies who get Cutie Marks in being slaves or slavers do with themselves? As ponies who want Cutie Marks as badly as you three do, I'm sure you can understand just how awful it might be to have a Mark but then be unable to do what you've earned it for," Twilight reasoned.

Sweetie Belle nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, that would be pretty awful. Those poor things! I'm glad we're able to find things for them to do."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure I want a Cutie Mark for being a slave," Scootaloo said. Sweetie Belle looked at her in horror. Scootaloo's eyes bulged. "Wait, what am I saying? A Mark is a Mark! Even if it means being a slave for the rest of my life, at least I'll have my Cutie Mark!"

"Ah can't believe she farms guavas! Guavas are disgusting, almost as bad as oranges or carrots!" Apple Bloom sneered, apparently having missed the entire discussion.

Smiling gently, Twilight continued.

However, there was one thing Sky Dreamer wanted to do more than anything else in the world. She wanted to fly. Not because she wanted to be free or anything, she lacked the imagination or desire for that, she just thought it might be fun, and would make it easier for her to harvest guavas and make her master happy.

"Hey, just like you, Scoots!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Okay, now I'm interested," Scootaloo said, perking up.

"Guavas," Apple Bloom snarled.

This was, of course, a bit of a problem since she didn't have any wings. However, her parents, overseers, and all the heroes in her favorite stories and fables had taught her that all you need to do to succeed is believe in yourself and there's nothing you can't do. Granted, they were referring more to completing her work quota on time, but the principle was surely the same.

The three fillies nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Cheerilee says that all the time," Sweetie Belle agreed.

"So does Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo added fondly.

"And Applejack and Granny Smith," Apple Bloom said, eager to see where this was going, the title of the story and the nature of its protagonist's fruit of choice forgotten for the moment.

So, one day, when nobody was looking, she climbed to the top of the tallest building on the plantation, closed her eyes, and jumped off the roof, believing with all her heart that she would fly.

She hit the ground hard enough to break every bone in her body and snap her neck. One of her ribs punctured her lungs and she bled out and died in horrible pain long before anyone realized she was not at her designated workspace and came looking for her, her last sight that of the beautiful blue sky she'd wanted so badly to fly in.

The three fillies stared at Twilight blankly. "Wait, what?!" Sweetie Belle cried.

"The hay kind of ending is that?!" Scootaloo yelled.

"What…what just happened?! Why did she fall?!" Apple Bloom demanded.

"…Because she didn't have wings, and gravity kicked in. What did you think would happen?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

"But…but in stories like this, the main character is supposed to magically be able to fly, or be saved at the last minute, or something like that!" Scootaloo protested.

"Yes, but this story isn't like those stories," Twilight explained. "It's supposed to teach a different kind of lesson. Girls, if any of you were to jump off a building with nothing but the belief that you would fly to support you, what do you think would happen?"

They thought about this for a moment. "…We'd…uh…fall?" Sweetie Belle suggested uncertainly.

Twilight nodded. "Correct."

"What about me?" Scootaloo asked.

"No, you'd fall too, Scootaloo. We both know the doctors have said that you'll never ever be able to fly no matter what, and nothing will ever be able to change that," Twilight said, causing Scootaloo to sag in her seat, ears folding against her head as she started sniffling. "Which brings us to the main lesson of this story, girls: believing in yourself is all well and good, but if you don't actually have the ability to back it up then you'll never get anywhere. As a very wise sorceress once said, if you believe in yourself, and follow your star, and listen to your heart, you'll always lose to the ponies who actually work to get to where they are in life."

"That's not a very nice moral," Sweetie Belle said unhappily.

"Not all morals are nice or family-friendly, despite what moral guardians want you to think," Twilight said. "If Sky Dreamer had been smarter—and not a slave—she could have fulfilled her dream by building a flying machine or getting an airship or balloon license. Instead, because she was stupid—and a slave—she put all her faith in herself, and with nothing concrete to support that faith, she died. Just like how if you three keep trying to get Cutie Marks in things you're blatantly not suited for with nothing but your belief that you'll be fine or succeed, eventually you'll fail very, very badly and seriously hurt yourself or others."

As the trio mulled this over uncertainly, Twilight turned the pages of the book to another story. "Here's another story I think you'll find worth thinking about…"

The Pegasus Magician

Once upon a time, there was a Pegasus named Mystic Breeze. Ever since she was a little girl and a magician performed at her birthday, she fell in love with magic. While she quickly showed an aptitude for and excelled at stage magic—enough to get her Cutie Mark in it—it was not enough for her, and she decided she wanted to learn true magic, like the great wizards and archmagi of old.

"Sounds a lot like you, Twilight," Sweetie Belle commented.

Twilight smiled ruefully. "Yes, well…"

She eventually applied to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns in hopes that by attending, she could get the education she needed to become a truly great magician, like many of her favorite heroes, such as Star Swirl the Bearded, Morgana le Frey, and Turquoise the Turquoise. Unfortunately, her application was rejected because she was a Pegasus and not a Unicorn, so couldn't attend.

"What? That's horrible! Why wouldn't they let her attend?!" Apple Bloom demanded.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "…Because she's a Pegasus and not a Unicorn, and it's a school for Unicorns, and she'd be physically incapable of learning anything useful there because she didn't have a horn?"

"Oh," Apple Bloom said.

"Still smacks of segregation to me," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah, why aren't there Schools for Gifted Pegasi and Earth Ponies?" Scootaloo asked.

"There are," Twilight said.

"Oh," Scootaloo said, mollified.

"Well, why are there separate schools instead of just one big school for gifted ponies?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Because even in that school they'd still have to have segregated classes because there are just some things certain tribes of ponies can't learn how to do," Twilight pointed out.

"Oh. Right," Sweetie Belle said.

Mystic Breeze was certainly talented and intelligent enough to get into the School for Gifted Pegasi, but that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to learn magic, real magic, but was denied this chance due to an accident of birth.

So, rather than simply accepting her fate and moving on with her life, she became obsessed with finding a way to learn how to do magic. She bought and borrowed and outright stole all sorts of spellbooks, seeking out ones which were more and more esoteric and taboo in nature the more desperate she grew to achieve her goal, especially since the majority of the ones she found were geared towards Unicorns anyway and so were of little use to her.

Eventually, she found what she needed in a lost and forgotten library in a cursed and forbidden city. It would give her what she wanted, but at a price. At that point, however, she was so desperate she was willing to pay any price.

Apple Bloom fidgeted. "Ah'm not sure Ah like where this story is going…"

"Hey Twilight, where exactly was this library? Maybe we can go there to figure out how to get our Cutie Marks!...or help me fly!" Scootaloo said, completely missing the point.

"I-I don't know, Scoots…this doesn't sound like a place we should be going to…" Sweetie Belle said nervously.

"Oh come on, how bad could 'any price' be?" Scootaloo scoffed.

After she collected the necessary artifacts for the spell, she burned her parents alive, used the ashes to paint a dark sigil on the ground, then tortured her little sister—whom she loved more than anything else in the world—to death, ate her flesh, painted herself with her blood, and then sacrificed her soul to the dread Grogar the Necromancer, Master of Bells and Lord of Tambleon, who granted her the power of his dark magic.

Sweetie Belle squealed in horror and hid under her chair. Apple Bloom went very pale. "Okay, I guess that's pretty high…" Scootaloo said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose we might be able to haggle him down a bit? Or maybe trade somepony else's soul, like Diamond Tiara's? You know, somepony nopony would miss?"

Everyone stared at her in disbelief. "Really, Scootaloo? Really?!" Apple Bloom asked in disbelief.

"Hey, just because it's illegal and forbidden dark magic of the vilest sort doesn't mean we should rule it out completely!" Scootaloo said.

Twilight facehooved.

Driven mad with power, Mystic Breeze raised an army of the damned and marched on Canterlot, intending to burn the School for Gifted Unicorns to the ground and then chop off the horn of every Unicorn in Equestria so only she would have the power of magic. Princess Celestia rallied her forces and met her in open battle, the two dueling with incredibly powerful spells of such magnitude that the land around them was left barren and lifeless and broken for centuries afterward. It was a hard won-fight, but Celestia eventually prevailed over the dark sorceress, incinerating her legions of undead and leaving her broken and powerless. The fell Pegasus refused to recant or recognize her sins even then, however, so Celestia had no choice but to banish her to the Sun, where the great flames which light our world continue to burn her to this day, the necromantic power Grogar gave her so great that her body is constantly regenerating even as it is torn apart by the fires, denying her the sweet embrace of death.

She got what she wanted and became a magician of legendary power and infamy. She badly wished she hadn't.

"So, what moral can we learn from this story?" Twilight asked.

"To never ever use dark magic to get what we want?" Apple Bloom asked nervously.

"That Princess Celestia can be really scary sometimes?" Sweetie Belle suggested weakly.

"That all the stories in this book are stupid and saying to never try and reach beyond your place in life or something bad will happen?" Scootaloo said with a glower.

"All good morals…except for yours, Scootaloo. I don't like your tone, young filly," she scolded.

"What? It's true!" Scootaloo protested. "Sky Dreamer wanted to fly and fell to her death. Mystic Breeze wanted to learn magic and got banished to the Sun. This book is saying don't shoot for your dreams or you'll die horribly or something. It's another one of those dumb 'know your place' stories."

"They didn't suffer because they tried to reach beyond their station, but because of how they went about it," Twilight argued. "Sky Dreamer tried to fly by jumping off a building. Mystic Breeze wanted to learn magic even though she was already perfectly good at the kind of magic she already knew how to do. The fact of the matter is, wanting something badly enough doesn't necessarily mean you can actually get it. There are some things in life that a pony can never accomplish no matter how hard they try. It's all well and good to constantly try and push your limits, but eventually you have to recognize that there's a point where you can't go any farther without there being serious consequences to yourself or the people around you."

"Like…when Applejack tried to take care of Applebuck Season all by herself?" Apple Bloom realized.

"Or that one time Rarity tried to make three hundred and sixty five completely unique and original dresses for Sapphire Shores—one for each day of the year—then had to make another three hundred and sixty five dresses each for every member of Sapphire Shores' entourage, had a mental breakdown, and needed to be locked up in the asylum for a month or two because she thought she was a cat?" Sweetie Belle recalled.

Twilight nodded. "Or like all the times Rainbow Dash has needed to be hospitalized because of an impossible stunt she failed trying to impress the Wonderbolts." Scootaloo scowled at that. "The truth is life isn't always fair, and sometimes you just have to accept it and try to make the best of what you've got. Mystic Dreams didn't get that, and so she became an insane warlock who will burn in the Sun for all eternity, something we all could learn from." She started turning the pages again. "I've got one last story here I think you'll find interesting…let's see…"

The Unicorn Farmer

"Oh boy, I wonder how horribly this story's going to end up," Scootaloo grumbled. "Maybe she's going to farm over some sort of cursed ancient burial ground, or be killed by her own crops, or her neighbors will murder her because she's doing it wrong or something."

"Shh!" Sweetie Belle hissed.

"What? Unicorns can't farm! That's ridiculous! Everyone knows Earth Ponies are the only ponies that can farm!" Apple Bloom said indignantly. "Ah can't wait to see how badly things turn out fer this one fer reaching beyond her place or trying to break her limits or whatever!"

"You might be surprised, actually," Twilight said.

Once upon a time, there was a Unicorn named Golden Wheat. She lived in a small farming village out in the middle of nowhere, and was one of the very few non-Earth Ponies in the community. Even her parents were Earth Ponies! As such, she often felt somewhat out of place and was frequently bullied and ostracized by her peers and relatives, who made fun of her for having a horn and claimed she was 'cheating' whenever she tried to use magic to help out on the farm instead of using 'good honest hard work,' even though she was often able to collect far higher yields than even the most seasoned farmers through her telekinetic powers than they did using tried-and-true 'traditional' methods.

"Ha, serves her right!" Apple Bloom said scornfully.

"Apple Bloom, that's really mean," Sweetie Belle said.

"Unicorn magic has no place on a farm," Apple Bloom snorted.

"Hasn't Twilight used her magic to help out on the farm a bunch of times?" Scootaloo pointed out. "Like when Applejack tried to do Applebuck Season all by herself, or when the Flim-Flams nearly ran you out of business?"

"That's completely different," Apple Bloom said.

"How?" Scootaloo asked.
"Because it is!" Apple Bloom snapped.

"But if using her magic was able to bring in a higher yield of crops, wouldn't it be good for her to do it that way since bringing in a strong harvest is more important than sticking to a tradition that will bring in a weaker harvest?" Sweetie Belle said.

"No!" Apple Bloom yelled.

"Why not?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Because that's how it's always been done!" Apple Bloom said.

"Except when it hasn't," Scootaloo said.

"Exactly!" Apple Bloom said. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle sighed. Twilight rolled her eyes and continued.

Golden Wheat was hurt by the cruel remarks of her peers and family, but instead of leaving town and going to a place where they had more Unicorns as was sometimes not-so-subtly implied, she was determined to make things work and prove that her way of farming was just as viable as those used by everyone else, if not more so. Farming was in her blood, and she wasn't ready to give up on it just yet.

"Farming's in her blood, huh? Sounds kind of like you and your family, Apple Bloom," Scootaloo said.

"Nuh-uh. Ah'm not a Unicorn," Apple Bloom said proudly.

"You know, I'm starting to get a little insulted here," Sweetie Belle said, miffed.

"Apple Bloom, don't you have some Unicorns in your family? Aren't they allowed to use magic on their farms?" Scootaloo asked.

"No. Well, maybe," Apple Bloom admitted, having never really thought about it. "But so long as they don't do it on mah farm, I guess what they do far away from here is their own business." Scootaloo rolled her eyes and Sweetie Belle huffed.

So, like a good Unicorn, she studied.

"Lame!" Scootaloo shouted.

Twilight fixed her with a baleful glare. "Don't you ever call studying lame again or I swear they will never find the soul."

Scootaloo blinked. "…D-don't you mean body?"

"I know what I said."

Scootaloo swallowed and was silent.

She read everything she could find about farming in the town's—admittedly rather small—library. She subscribed to all the top agricultural magazines. She even interviewed all of the town's oldest and most experienced farmers to understand their techniques. And after a while, she came to a conclusion:

The current ways of farming, while traditional and having been in use for centuries, were woefully inefficient and outdated.

"BLASPHEMY! STRING 'ER UP!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"You know, I can actually see where she's coming from, I mean, is harvesting apples by having maybe two or three ponies kick all the trees in an orchard really the best way to go about-" Sweetie Belle started, until Apple Bloom fixed her with a baleful glare. "I'll shut up now."

"Don't worry, the townsponies will start to string her up any minute now once she tells them their entire way of life is obsolete and in need of change, if the last two stories are anything to go by," Scootaloo said.

Golden Wheat considered telling the townsponies their entire way of life was obsolete and in need of change, but decided against it, since they'd probably string her up.

"Oh, come on!"

So, after weighing the odds and giving it careful consideration, she left town.

"Good riddance!" Apple Bloom said.

Nobody really cared that much, and more than a few were glad to see the back of her.

"As well they should be!" Apple Bloom said.

Time passed, and eventually they forgot all about her…

Until one day she returned, and everything was changed forever.

"Dang it!" Apple Bloom cursed.

"Let me guess, she underwent some dark ritual to become an Earth Pony then came back and destroyed the town with an army of plant zombies or something?" Scootaloo asked sarcastically.

"Don't be silly, Scoots, Button Mash says plants and zombies are natural enemies!" Sweetie Belle said.

"No, she didn't undergo any dark rituals," Twilight assured them.

"Then what?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Golden Wheat had gone off to school to better educate herself and figure out how she could apply her magic and intellect to agriculture. After extensive study and experimentation, she was able to devise a slew of new farming techniques which would improve crop yield and diversity by fifty percent with no noticeable negative effects on the environment, and invented several machines which could increase productivity by almost a hundred and fifty to two hundred percent, doing the work of a whole team of Earth Ponies in less than half the time!

"Oh, come on! Even fer a fairy tale this is too much!" Apple Bloom protested. "Ain't no way some fancy Unicorn contraption could ever outperform a good strong Earth Pony farmer!"

"…Um…actually…didn't the Flim-Flam Bros.' machine make more barrels of cider than you, your family, or your friends did even working together?" Scootaloo asked.

"And it was terrible!" Apple Bloom said.

"Well, yeah, but only because they turned off the quality control to try and keep up. Before that, the cider tasted just as good, if not even better, than the cider your family usually makes, didn't it?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Apple Bloom hesitated. "Well, now-"

"Yeah, so if the brothers had pitched a slightly better offer and your grandmother hadn't been so stubborn or prideful, you might have entered an incredibly successful business venture that could've kept Sweet Apple Acres from constantly being teetering on the verge of bankruptcy," Scootaloo said.

Apple Bloom glared at them hatefully. "The two of you are dead to me." She perked up. "And besides, you said yourself they had to turn off the quality control just to keep up. A whole bunch of Earth Ponies working together can do much better than a machine can!"

"Well, yeah, but…you didn't have a whole bunch of Earth Ponies. You also had some Pegasi, Unicorns, and even a dragon helping you," Sweetie Belled pointed out.

Apple Bloom's mouth opened and closed several times. "Th-that's…well, we…oh, shut up."

With the proceeds from her innovations, Golden Wheat became fantastically wealthy and was able to purchase all the farmland from her hometown and use it to further test her new agricultural techniques and machines so that she could continue to spread her brilliant ideas across Equestria. Profits and food production skyrocketed, far beyond anything the town had ever seen before. The ponies that'd shunned and mistreated her all her life were forced to swallow their pride and concede they had been wrong about her and accept new jobs laboring on the land that had once been theirs but was no longer. She harbored no grudge for their making her childhood miserable and magnanimously provided them with new housing after demolishing their old homes to make room for her shiny new facilities and paid them above minimum wage instead of kicking them out completely and using significantly cheaper migrant labor or slaves like she'd considered numerous times.

And they all lived happily ever after, though Golden Wheat was a bit happier than they were.

"Well, I'm glad that ended well!" Sweetie Belle said. "For the most part, anyway."

"Yeah, considering the last two…" Scootaloo agreed.

"Boo! That story sucked!" Apple Bloom jeered. "The author's probably a tribalist Unicorn or something who don't know a lick about farming! There's no other possible explanation for how the Unicorn got a happy ending but the Earth Pony and Pegasus didn't!"

"Actually, Apple Bloom, that's wrong for several reasons. First of all, I've only read you three out of dozens of stories, and expecting most of them to have bad endings or tribalist slants just because the ones I've shown you featuring an Earth Pony and Pegasus ended badly while the one with the Unicorn did not doesn't necessarily mean that every story featuring members of those tribes ends the same way. Additionally, every story in this book is true, relatively recent, and were put together by a griffon author," Twilight said.

"Whoa, really?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Wow, I didn't know griffons could write!" Scootaloo said.

"But that can't be! There's no way some book-learning Unicorn could buy up a whole farming town and just, just remake it like that and make it do better than the ponies who've been working that land for generations ever could!" Apple Bloom protested. "Why haven't ah heard anything about that?"

"Do you actually read the newspapers?" Twilight asked. "Or the agricultural journals? They've been talking about Golden Wheat's agricultural revolution for months!"

Apple Bloom paused. "Well, uh…we tend to use those more fer toilet paper than actual reading…"

Hiding a shiver of disgust at this and the urge to lecture the Apple family on proper book care, Twilight continued. "That aside, it wouldn't surprise me if your sister never mentioned it to you because she doesn't want you to worry—or refuses to believe-that your inheritance and livelihood might very soon be rendered completely obsolete and be bought out from under you in the name of progress, especially if your farm keeps failing to make ends meet due to bad business practices and rigid adherence to outdated traditions. She's one of my best friends, but even I have to admit she's rather stubborn and prideful like that," Twilight said.

"Yeah, that sounds like Applejack," Scootaloo agreed.

"No it doesn't!" Apple Bloom protested.

"What about Applebuck Season-" Sweetie Belle started.

"Enough about Applebuck Season!" Apple Bloom snapped.

"There's also that one time she up and ran away from home to work on that cherry orchard because she didn't want to admit to everyone that she'd failed to win the big prize money at that rodeo competition," Scootaloo added.

"Yeah, that was dumb of her," Sweetie Belle agreed.
"That…that's…" Apple Bloom sagged. "Oh, sis…"

While Apple Bloom grappled with the sudden realization that her way of life might not be as secure as she thought it was, Twilight continued. "Now, girls, what's the moral of this story?"

"That Earth Ponies are stupid and Unicorns are the best tribe?" Scootaloo asked sarcastically.

"No!" Twilight cried, aghast. She paused. "Well…okay, that's partially true-"

"What?!" the Crusaders cried, Apple Bloom loudest of all.

"Well girls, let's be honest here," Twilight said. "There are spells that can give any pony wings or the ability to walk on clouds and control the weather like Pegasi, or grow plants or become as strong as an Earth Pony. Not every Unicorn is capable of casting these spells, granted, but a higher percentage of the population than you might expect has the potential to learn at least a few of them, not just ponies like me whose special talent is magic. There's a reason—beyond bias, I suppose-why most surveys indicate that a majority of Pegasi and Earth Ponies have at one point in their lives wished they were Unicorns, whereas a smaller percentage of Unicorns have wished they could be Pegasi and almost none wished they could be Earth Ponies. And of course, everypony has at some point wished to be an Alicorn, but that goes without saying."

"Then why did you just say it?" Sweetie Belle asked, secretly thrilled at the knowledge that she would always in some way be superior to her friends despite possibly not being as intelligent as them.

"The regrettable but inherent and inescapable inequality of power among our tribes aside," Twilight continued. "That's not the lesson to learn here. You see, being a Unicorn ultimately had nothing to do with Golden Wheat's success. She could have been an Earth Pony or Pegasus and still gone to the same school, come to the same conclusions, and come up with the same or similar revolutions in agriculture. The reason she succeeded was because she was willing to recognize that just because things had always been done a certain way didn't mean it necessarily had to be the best or only way to do it, and set out to find an alternative solution. And she did. And that is something you three need to learn how to do as well."

"What are you talking about, Twilight? We try new things all the time!" Scootaloo protested.

"Yeah, on a nearly daily basis!" Apple Bloom agreed.

"Well…no, not really," Twilight said. "Yes, you're trying new things all the time…but you're always going about them the same exact way. You get it into your heads to try something to get a Cutie Mark, fail, then immediately give up on it and try something else. And that's not right."

"It's not?" all three asked.

"No. While some ponies—like some of my friends, for example-get their Cutie Marks the first time they do the thing that happens to be the thing they're meant to do, that's not how it is for most ponies. Remember, the six of us have a special magical destiny and a mystical bond of friendship. Most other ponies that want a Cutie Mark in something don't just try something once and give it up if it doesn't work out. They keep trying until they either get so good at it they earn their Mark, or realize it's not for them and try something else. Hasn't there been anything you three tried to get your Marks in that you really wanted to do, but when you didn't get it right away gave up and immediately moved on to something different?"

The Crusaders considered this for a moment. "Well…I guess there've been a couple of things…" Sweetie Belle admitted.

"Then why don't you give a few of those another try?" Twilight suggested. "Maybe some things that aren't likely to kill you or everyone in town, thing you already know you might have some proficiency in…like, say, building things, potion brewing, stunts, dancing, engineering, singing, magic…?"

They thought about this for a long while. And finally, Scootaloo said, "Nah."

"Nah?!" Twilight asked incredulously.

"Yeah, that sounds way too boring. If we failed once, we're probably not gonna succeed the next time. After all, isn't insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?" Sweetie Belle said.

"But that's already what you're doing, more or less!" Twilight protested.

"And besides, if we were going to get our Cutie Mark in something we're already good at, Ah'd think we'd have them by now since we're so good at them," Apple Bloom said.

Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement. "Which means we need to keep trying lots of new things! Bigger, brighter, more challenging things! Things we never even imagined before! Maybe we should look up that cursed library Twilight mentioned after all, maybe the problem is we aren't trying something big enough!"

"But…but girls, that's…that's…! Don't you remember the morals of the first two stories? How there are things that sometimes we just can't do no matter how hard we want them, and if we keep trying we might hurt ourselves? How simply believing something will work without anything to support it doesn't necessarily mean that it will?" Twilight protested.

"Nah, that sounds like quitter talk to me, and we aren't quitters!" Scootaloo said.

"Every time you fail to get a Cutie Mark, you give up on that thing and try something else, then give up on that too!" Twilight shouted.

"Semantics," Scootaloo said dismissively.

"Didn't you three learn anything from these stories?!" Twilight demanded, brandishing the storybook in exasperation.

"Slavery is apparently legal and acceptable in our society and Earth Ponies can't fly?" Apple Bloom said.

"Pegasi can't do magic without performing some sort of horrific sacrifice to dark gods and Princess Celestia is capable of coming up with some seriously nasty punishments?" Scootaloo said.

"Unicorns are the most powerful tribe of ponies save the Alicorns and traditionalist Earth Pony farms are doomed to be phased out of existence by modern agricultural advances if they don't accept change?" Sweetie Belle said.

"Ah'm still not so sure about that last bit," Apple Bloom said stubbornly.

Twilight's eye twitched and a few hairs sprung up from her mane. She closed her eyes, stretched her right forehoof out from her chest, and inhaled and exhaled a few times. Finally, she said, "Well, I wish I could say a part of me hadn't thought this might happen, but that would be a lie. Fortunately, I have a backup plan. Girls, what would you say if I told you that I could use my royal authority to ensure those backsides of yours will never be blank again, and that I could do it right now?"

The trio instantly perked up at this. "You mean you could have given us Cutie Marks this whole time?!" Scootaloo demanded.

"And we could have just skipped those boring and family-unfriendly stories?!" Apple Bloom yelled.

"How could you, Twilight? We trusted you!" Sweetie Belle cried, hurt.

"I didn't bring it up before because it's not exactly the best of ideas. While I can guarantee your flanks will never be bare before if we go through with it, there's a bit of a price-" Twilight started.

"Give us our Cutie Marks! Give us our Cutie Marks! Give us out Cutie Marks!" Sweetie Belle insisted shrilly.

Twilight frowned. "Don't you want to know exactly what I'm proposing is or what the price is? It's kind of hefty, and what I'd be giving you aren't exactly-"

"We don't care! Give us our Cutie Marks!" Scootaloo ordered, not really considering it wasn't a good idea to demand anything of someone superior to her in just about every conceivable way.

"Yeah, we want them NOW!" Apple Bloom hollered.

Twilight sighed and shrugged. "All right, but don't say I didn't warn you."

The citizens of Ponyville paused in their everyday activities when they heard three screams of agony echoing from the crystalline Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle looming over the town. There was a pause, and then there were three more screams. The townsponies waited to see if anything else was going to happen. When no more screams issued forth from the castle, they shrugged and went back to whatever they were already doing.

"All done!" Twilight said as she telekinetically lowered the three branding irons into the waiting tub of water, causing a cloud of steam to rise up. "There you go, girls," she said to the sobbing Crusaders, who now each had a smoking blackened scar on both flanks resembling Twilight's Cutie Mark with a chain wrapped around it. "Just as I promised. Now none of you will ever be called a Blank Flank again! Of course, you are now my property and will be my slaves for the rest of your natural lives, but you said yourself that you didn't care about the price so I'm going to assume you knew what you were getting into and were willing to accept the consequences." She grinned toothily. "Are you happy, girls?

The girls sniffed, exchanging red-eyed glances…and then Scootaloo said, "Heck yeah!"

"What," Twilight said flatly.

"We aren't Blank Flanks anymore! Now Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon can never make fun of us for not having Cutie Marks ever again!" Apple Bloom said excitedly.

"What's to stop them from making fun of you for other stuff?" Spike, who was standing nearby, asked.

The Crusaders paused. "We did not think of that," Sweetie Belle admitted.

"Yes, that seems to be a recurring problem for you three," Twilight grumbled. "Anyway, now that you're my slaves forever, I have a whole list of work I need to get done, and will leave Spike in charge of overseeing your new duties while I go take care of Princess-y stuff. Spike, I leave everything in your capable claws." She levitated an extremely thick scroll which, if fully opened, would no doubt comically unfurl all over the ground and completely cover the floor of this room and several others nearby, before trotting out.

Spike gave the Crusaders the sharp-toothed grin of a much-abused dog that suddenly finds himself holding the other end of the leash for a change, causing the Crusaders to consider for the first time that they might have been a bit too hasty. "Okay, maggots, welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives…"

Author's Note

If you're wondering how I come up with this shit, I don't know either. My mind goes to straaaaange places sometimes.