It was a beautiful morning in Canterlot. Sunbeams hit the towers of gold and ivory, giving off a bright gleam that made the city look like a beacon on the mountain. The rivers and waterfalls sparkled as well, giving the area a more magical aura than it already had. And the air smelled fresh and flowery, with the mixed aroma of lilac, rose petals, and lilies. A few ponies were out and about on the cobblestone streets, taking in the cool morning air.
In the yard of one particular home, a family of unicorns was watching as the father of the family was coaching the youngest son in magic lessons. Or at least trying to, as there was a distinct lack glowing from the little colt's horn.
The light blue colt had his attention focused on an acorn laid on a platter several feet away. He glared intensely at it, his mind bidding it to float. Beads of sweat were seeping out from under his bushy cornflower blue mane, and his face was getting redder and redder as he mustered as much energy as he could into his horn. His head pounded, and gritted teeth quickly formed into holding his breath.
His father--with a coat matching his son's mane and a two-toned purple mane--noted the colt's sudden change in color. "Breathe."
The foal didn't listen, as he was too focused on the acorn. The stallion growled again, "Breathe."
The colt still held his breath, even though he was feeling like he was going to explode from all the pressure within him, whether from any magic that might be within him, or just holding his breath. His red face turned purple.
Alarmed, his father levitated him and shouted, "For the love of Celestia, Party Favor! Breathe!"
Little Party Favor took a deep breath, and panted as his face returned to it's normal color. Blinking, he scrutinized the acorn from where he floated, and then turned to his father, saying, "I think I moved it."
Party's older brother started chortling at that statement, rolling on the picnic blanket set out. Upon seeing Party glaring at him, he merely mocked, "It's the wind, you dunce! Your horn didn't even spark!"
He was promptly punched on the shoulder by their sister. "Kazam, be nice! At least he's trying."
Kazam merely turned to her and raised an eyebrow. "Please, Silk Shimmer. At his age, I was lifting Dad."
Their mother, Merry Maykin, a mare with with a snow white coat, a raven black mane, and bright blue eyes, looked up from her book and clicked her tongue as she shook her head. "Kazam, different foals learn at different paces. Be patient with Party Favor, he's not going to be a master overnight."
The royal blue teenaged colt scoffed once again, and his ivory-coated sister smacked him once again, prompting Merry to separate them with her magic, shaking her head. She looked up at her husband, Quasar Rune, who still held their youngest in his magic. "Put him down now, Rune."
Rune did so, and Party instantly galloped to the acorn, poking it gingerly. Then he tried to channel his magic once again, imagining the acorn levitating under his influence. He glared at the acorn, gritting his teeth and focusing intensely on the seed. However, it wasn't long before he yelped and clutched his head, moaning about a headache. Almost instantly, his mother and sister galloped over to comfort him.
Rune stroked his beard. "I believe that's enough for today, Party Favor. I don't want you hurting yourself."
Party looked up at him with a pout. "But I wanna lift the acorn!"
Rune levitated the acorn and put it in a sack hanging from his neck. "We'll try again tomorrow." He smiled. "Don't worry, not even I lifted the acorn on my first day. Keep at it, and perhaps you'll be as good as magic as I am."
Kazam still laid on the blanket and rolled his eyes. "The Great Mage Party Favor. Sounds laughable if you ask me."
Later that day, Quasar Rune had gone to work, off to teach pupils for summer classes at the magic academy. Meanwhile, Merry Maykin was gathering the supplies she needed for her next magic show. Unfortunately, with three foals that often got into her stuff, things were bound to get lost in the house. And she always needed to decide who stole what.
She caught her only daughter pulling the handkerchiefs out of every nook and cranny in her room. The filly, surrounded by cloths of all colors, stared at her guiltily with her big blue eyes, and was trying to hide her face behind her azure-and-lavender mane. Merry blinked at the sight, and shook her head.
"I see that you want to emulate me, correct?"
Silk Shimmer nodded.
Merry chuckled. "Well, next time, you should ask me, and we'll work on it together. As of now, I expect to see all the handkerchiefs picked up and put back in my suitcase. Got that?"
Silk nodded, and levitated one handkerchief to start her cleanup. With a nod, Merry moved on to the next foal.
When she found Kazam in the yard, she jumped in fright at what he was attempting to do with her doves and their cat. From what she could tell, he was just knocking them together, with a spark emitting from each hit. The doves cried with each hit, and the cat screeched. Unwilling to see the animals in pain, she overpowered Kazam's magic with her own, and took them from him. Almost instantly, the dark-haired teenaged colt turned to glare at her with the violet eyes he inherited from his father.
"Mom!"
"Don't you 'Mom' me!" Merry snapped. "What were you doing to the animals?"
Kazam scoffed. "I was testing a fusion spell."
Merry blinked, and then facehoofed. "Kazam, haven't we told you how dangerous those spells are? You could have killed our pets in your attempts, or worse, turned them into a pain-ridden mess that doesn't look remotely like either! Either way, I don't want you risking any lives in practicing your magic!"
"Geez, Mom, you're overreacting, I know what I'm doing."
"I'm not overreacting! Now quit it with the fusions!" Merry took a deep breath, and then exhaled gently. "Now... where's your brother? I think he might have stolen my balloons."
As if on cue, Party Favor came floating by, hanging from an inflated balloon with his mouth, with his hooves a couple of feet away from the ground. As he passed his mother, he waved to her cheerily.
Merry stared for a moment, and then started giggling. Though she wanted to be ticked with him for stealing her balloons, she couldn't help but be charmed by Party Favor's strange behavior. Given that breath alone couldn't make a balloon float and they didn't have any helium tanks, she wondered how he was doing it. It was almost as if he was using magic to make the balloon float, though his horn was clearly not glowing.
Of course, the moment was interrupted when Kazam used his horn to pop Party Favor's balloon, making the younger colt land on the grass with a thud. Party's eyes were wide with terror, and he looked like he was about to cry. He clung to his mother's leg, and buried his face in it.
Merry glared at her older son. "Kazam, that wasn't nice!"
Kazam scoffed. "He was wide open! Besides, he stole those balloons, didn't he? It thought it was a fitting punishment."
Merry groaned. "I'm the mother here, I decide what the fitting punishment is. And scaring him like that is not it. Now... just... go to your room."
Kazam snorted, and tore some grass and dirt from the ground with his magic, and threw it at his little brother. "No wonder his name's Party Favor--you obviously favor your youngest over your oldest." With that, he trotted off.
Merry sighed and shook her head. Then she turned to Party Favor, and asked, "May I have my balloons back? I need them for my show."
Party wiped his eyes and nodded. He hopped away from his mother's leg, and then started running. "They're this way, Mama! I was trying to make balloon swords like that clown, but the balloons are too round."
Merry followed him. "Party, that's because you have the wrong kind of balloon. Say, how were you floating?"
"Uh... I just blew... and it started floating... why?"
"Oh, nothing." She chuckled to herself. If Party Favor could make balloons float without using helium or his horn, then perhaps lifting that acorn for his magic lessons would be a cinch for him.
The next day came, and Party Favor still couldn't lift the acorn. The family shrugged it off, since this was normal.
The next week came, and the acorn didn't even budge under any magical influence. Though Quasar Rune could clearly see Party's intense focus, it concerned him that there wasn't even a spark emitting from his horn.
The next month came. Still no spark, still no movement of the acorn, and Party Favor continued to get headaches. Rune and Merry grew increasingly worried about those headaches, especially since the colt took every opportunity to lift something with magic, which only ended with nothing happening. Meanwhile, Kazam was practicing advanced fusion magic with the cat--which they had to ground him for every time, though it never stuck for long. And Silk Shimmer had just earned her cutie mark with her talent in stage magic.
A year passed. Kazam and Silk Shimmer still excelled, while the spark still didn't come from Party Favor's horn. Not even magic classes were any help for the colt, and each attempt at trying magic ended in a headache and tears for him. Each passing day had been nothing but frustration, and Rune and Merry's feelings that something wasn't right grew and grew.
Finally, after he had a terrible migraine, they took him to the doctor.
A couple of magical sweeps were made on his body, giving him a strange, tingly feeling as he was scanned from his head to his hooves twice. He didn't quite understand why his whole body needed to be scanned--wasn't his horn the thing that wasn't working? Party Favor was getting a minor headache just thinking about his horn, and he hoped that the doctor would fix it so Kazam would stop picking on him about it.
After it was all done, the doctor wrote some things down on his clipboard, a grim expression on his face. Telling Party Favor to stay put, he trotted out with his parents to talk to them privately. However, instead of sitting still on the examination table, he hopped off and put his ear to the door, to hear what the doctor had to say.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rune, from what I picked up with my spell, he has quite the impressive pool of magic stored within him. I dare say, with that much, he could be a fantastic mage that could rival the top students of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns," the doctor chuckled.
"Does that mean there's something wrong with his horn?" Merry asked.
Party Favor's eyes widened in shock, and he looked up at his horn. Gingerly touching it, he wondered what was wrong. So, he pressed his head against the door, hoping to hear the answer. Unfortunately, he seemed to have missed a chunk of it.
"...and that specific concentration of those minerals in his horn is enough to disrupt the flow of magic and damage the channels. You said that he suffers from headaches when his tries to use magic, correct?"
There was a pause before Party Favor heard his father say, "...yes."
Another moment of silence, and the doctor spoke again. "That's a result of the magic being backed up. The more magic is backed up, the worse the headache, and should he back up too much magic, it'll implode, and you'll lose him."
"Is there any operation that could fix his horn? Any spells to make it normal?" Merry asked.
The doctor sighed. "No, there isn't. The best we could do is remove the horn entirely, but I have a feeling you don't want that. Just be thankful the minerals only block magic, and and aren't hazardous to his health as long as he doesn't attempt to use magic. I recommend that you stop all magic lessons, and not allow him to try anymore. It's too risky. In the meantime, he needs to have some medication to ease his headaches and keep his magic from hurting him."
A loud stomp was heard, and Rune yelled, "You mean that my son has the capacity to perform wondrous feats of magic, and yet he can't use his horn?! How is he supposed to fit in with all the other unicorns when he can't even make a spark?! He's already tormented enough by his brother as it is!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rune, but getting angry won't solve anything. I suggest you try to find an alternative outlet for your son's magic. Whatever his special talent may be, that would be his outlet."
Rune snorted. "How do I know he won't grow up to be without a cutie mark?"
Party Favor backed away from the door, and the words were garbled once again. He hopped back onto the examination table, and hung his head. He gingerly touched his horn, his eyes growing misty. Whatever the doctor said, the message was clear: his horn was pretty much broken on the inside.
He looked at the papers on the other table, and shook his head. No! He was a unicorn, and he could use his magic. That doctor was just confused. So, he concentrated on the papers, hoping to get them to levitate.
That same familiar sensation came into his head. First came the dull ache that permeated his forehead. It was something he could stand, nothing he could cry about. From what he heard, this was supposed to be normal when casting a spell.
However, the dull ache soon morphed into a burning sensation, as if the blood in his head was boiling. The boiling soon felt like his head was on fire, and his vision began to blur. Still, he kept his focus on the papers, trying to ignore the heat that was now lighting his brain aflame.
Added to the burning was a pounding, as if somepony was playing his skull like a drum. And as his head pounded, his heart began to race, his face heated up, and sweat was forming on his brow. Still, he kept concentrating on making the papers levitate, urging himself to prove that doctor wrong. If every famous pony he heard about broke through their limits, why couldn't he?
The papers still didn't float, so Party Favor concentrated even harder, despite the feeling of his brain being torn apart. He still stared at the papers, silently screaming at them to float, so that he'd prove himself not a broken unicorn. Even so, his vision grew blurrier and blurrier, until he couldn't tell what was what anymore.
The burning was joined by a sharp buzzing, as if wasps had been unleashed into his head and were mercilessly stinging every inch of his brain. A shrill whistle rang in his head, joining the pounding drums and the wasps, and it felt like his brain was being ripped to shreds. His grunts turned into screams, and tears wet his face even more than the sweat did. He fell to the floor with a thud, and he heard the door open and the muffled shouts of his parents and the doctor as they scooped him up.
And then... he was numb.
That night, Party Favor was sitting in his bed, with a ice pack on his head. He numbly stared at his blankets, and had been doing so for a while. His mother had told him he was supposed to rest, but he couldn't sleep. All he could think about was how the doctor had practically said that he was a broken unicorn.
After the disaster in the exam room, he was at the doctor's for longer. He couldn't remember much, but at least he wasn't that hurt. Even so, he wondered why they didn't just saw off his horn. He was a little glad they didn't, since the thought of losing a body part was terrifying. Still, the doctor did say that it was useless, so what did it matter?
He made a motion to grab a balloon from the packet on his nightstand, hoping making a balloon sword would take his mind off his horn. That was when noticed his sister at his bedside. He turned his head slightly, just enough to look at her face. With a slow blink, he said, "Hi, Silk Shimmer."
"Hi, Party Favor," Silk replied. Not looking him in the eyes, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
Party Favor resumed staring at his blankets. "...my head feels funny."
Silk then looked at his horn. "Mom says your horn's not working."
Party Favor was silent. He nearly rolled his eyes, because duh, he knew that.
Silk crawled onto the bed, and rocked back and forth. "So does that mean you'll live like an earth pony? You know, get down and dirty and plant stuff and whatnot? And use your hooves and mouth for everything? What do you think your special talent would be since your horn is useless?"
Party took the pillow from behind his back and slammed it onto Silk's head. "My horn's not useless! I could stab you with it if I wanted to."
Silk took the pillow off her head, scowling at him. "You didn't have to hit me. And you'll get in trouble for stabbing."
Party crossed his front legs and looked away. "So what? Dad already hates me for not being a real unicorn."
"That's not true. He still loves you lots."
Party's eyes started to water. "No he doesn't. He got mad because something's wrong with my horn, and it's unfixable. He even thinks I won't ever earn my cutie mark! And what good is a blank flank pony?" He leaned forward and grabbed the pillow, and then buried his face in it.
Silk blinked, and then tapped her chin. "Well... we'll just have to prove him wrong."
"Are we going to ask Celestia to give me powers?"
"No... it just means we'll have to find a talent that doesn't need magic!"
Party Favor looked up. "The other foals will still laugh at me."
"They won't be laughing if you have an awesome special talent that doesn't need any fancy magic!"
Party stared at her for a moment, and then slammed his face into the pillow again. "Dad will still hate me."
Silk Shimmer sighed. "Okay... if you just want to be sad in your room... I won't stop you. Still... I came in here to give you a big hug, and I better do it before I forget." With that, she jumped forward and caught him in a tight squeeze, and then kissed his cheek. Then she smiled at him, hopped off the bed, and trotted out of the room.
Party Favor gave a sad smile back, but it soon faded as he dreaded life before him.
Party Favor's teacher was informed about the horn, and thus had him study in the corner while his classmates participated in the group magic activity. It was impossible for him to read while the other foals were cheering and laughing over many of the magical tricks that they performed, and every time he looked up, there was a burst of magic or something floating that made him think of his limitation. Even worse was when he caught one of the other foals eyeing him, and whispering to a partner.
He attempted to bury his nose in the book, hoping the others would stop whispering about him. It was bad enough that Kazam picked on him; he didn't need his classmates joining in the torment. He continued to hear the whispers, which to him were loud and clear, and pierced his heart with every word.
"Why is Party Favor in this class? He can't even use magic!"
"I hear his horn's broken."
"He's just an earth pony with a horn!"
"Boy, I'd hate to be as magicless as him."
"He's no Party Favor... he's a Pouty Frowner!"
He bit his lip and took deep breaths. It would be humiliating should he be caught crying at school, and he didn't want the crybaby insult plastered onto him. Pouty Frowner was bad enough.
"See, Party Favor, you need to have magic for this game... and you don't have it, so..."
He could see that those smiles Ruby Glimmer and her friends held were forced. They were stretched out too wide, and one could hardly call it natural. They were even kind of creepy; Party Favor felt that that was the intent, so that he may be driven away. However, there was no way he was going to let himself be left out of a game.
"I can balance the ball on my horn!" he argued. "I can play the game without magic!"
"But can you keep it from exploding?" Ruby said, narrowing her eyes. "The point of the game is to keep it from exploding."
"I could, uh... bounce it away before it explodes."
Ruby's friends bore wicked grins, and then nudged her, one of them saying, "Come on, Ruby... we can't have his magiclessness get in the way of some fun! Not to mention Nova and Meteor Shower will get him when he's alone... again. Party Favor needs our friendship!"
Party Favor smiled, and started bouncing in place. Finally, after being avoided by most of the other foals and bullied by the two Ruby's friend mentioned, there was a chance of him playing a game. He could prove himself just as good as those who could use magic. He was so excited he could burst!
Ruby rubbed the back of her head. "Duskie, he can't play the game without magic!"
"Don't be silly!" Duskie said. "Of course he can play! And you know what?" She levitated the little ball, and tapped it with her horn to make it flash many colors. "He starts!"
Party Favor's face fell as the ball flew toward him, and he already regretted even asking. In a panic, he instinctively caught it with his mouth. Unfortunately, that was enough to set off the explosion of green foam on his face, and the smoke surrounded him for a brief moment.
Blinded and coughing, he found that his eyes couldn't open, and that his face felt sticky. There was a terrible taste in his mouth, and the first thing he did was try to spit it out and wipe his tongue with his hooves. His ears drooped as he heard Duskie giggle.
"This is what happens when you don't play the game with magic," she said. "Sorry, Pouty Frowner, but we don't play with earth ponies with horns."
The bunch of foals giggled, and they trotted off, talking about how proud they were to have made an example of him. Party Favor still sat there, his eyes practically glued shut, and trying so hard not to cry.
Coming home from school one day, Party Favor walked into the front room, with the fancy chairs and sofas and coffee table sparkling and erect, the floors shining, and not a single spot to be found. His person presented the opposite of the room, with mud in his mane and several lollipops stuck on his barrel. He was so filthy, he felt too ashamed to even try to sit on one of the chairs.
He still wobbled from the "magic demonstration" that the two local bullies used on him again, rubbing his face into that one fact that he was sick of hearing. Their grating laughter still rang in his ears, and the taste of dirt-covered lollipop was still in his mouth.
And he prayed that Kazam would not round the corner and pounce at the chance to nab him to fuse him with something, under the guise of "helping". Quite frankly, Party Favor did not see the appeal in this fusion stuff, and Kazam's stories of vampires and werewolves scared him.
He hung up his saddlebag on the rack, then trotted off to the bathroom, in order to wash himself off. Tearing off the lollipops was not going to be fun, but it was necessary, and he was going to need lots of shampoo to get the mud out of his mane.
As he sat on a stool and grabbed one of the lollipop sticks with both hooves, he heard triumphant laughter outside. Curious, he hopped off the stool and pushed it to the window, and hopped back on to see what was going on.
Outside in the backyard was his father and brother, with the latter being congratulated on an impressive display of blue fire magic. Quasar Rune was outwardly boasting about his oldest son being "destined for greatness" and "alicorn material". Kazam stood proudly, letting the wind catch his wavy, dark mane under the glowing violet beacon that was his horn.
Party Favor spat in disgust, thinking of the day before when that brother of his popped the balloon he was inflating and made bats fly out of it, terrifying the smaller colt. "You should see the way he bullies me. He thinks it's funny to scare me!"
He stared at his father, and sighed. He couldn't remember the last time he was praised like Kazam was, and he knew full well that it wasn't going to happen, unless there was some miracle that cured his horn problem. But, he still remembered quite clearly what the doctor had said.
It was then he remembered that the doctor never said he was "magicless" like the other foals claimed; rather, there was a lot of raw power within him, just blocked by whatever was in his horn that automatically canceled it. He wondered that if his horn worked, he could beat his brother in a fight.
Try to find an alternative outlet for your son's magic. Whatever his special talent may be, that would be his outlet.
He hadn't quite understood what that meant before--but if he were to guess now, it meant that there was another way for him to use magic besides a horn. But what was this other way? His hooves?
He looked at his hooves, remembering the lesson about magic the other day. He recalled something about unicorns' main channel being their horns, pegasi their wings, and earth ponies their hooves. And since everypony was calling him an earth pony with a horn...
...then perhaps his talent lay with his hooves.
He sat down, and scratched his chin. He was going to have to find what it was that made him special and unique, and by golly, he was going to blow them away with it. And he was going to prove that he didn't need a horn to do it.
But first, he needed to clean up. He grabbed a lollipop, and yanked it off his coat.
"YOWCH!"
"How in Equestria did our son shatter all the windows of the school?!" Merry Maykin exclaimed.
She and her husband were meeting the teacher in regards to Party Favor. It was no exaggeration that all glass in the classroom was broken and strewn about on the floor, with the janitor sweeping it up. Said janitor was grumbling about an earache, and kept muttering about how those poor foals had it worse. He kept shooting glances at the colt with the sheepish grin, and shaking his head.
The teacher sighed, rubbing her ear. "He auditioned for the school choir."
"Oh, boy, you guys!" Party said, rubbing his hooves. "You're going to love my bean-broccoli-chili pepper surprise!"
His parents, brother, and sister all sat on the table in front of him, with the girls feigning smiles, his father quirking an eyebrow, and Kazam sneering, "I won't be surprised if it makes me sick, since your dirty hooves touched it."
Party Favor stuck his tongue out at him. He washed his hooves!
Silk Shimmer started sniffing the air. "Uh, Party Favor? Shouldn't you be tending to the food?"
Party's eyes went wide. "Well, I, uh..."
The stove behind him erupted into flames, and everypony screamed. Immediately, Quasar Rune leapt forward to cast a spell to suffocate the flames, while Merry lead the kids out.
When the family visited the art museum, he figured that if he couldn't be a singer or a cook, perhaps he could have a talent in art. So, when they had got home, he had pulled out the old paint and a bunch of papers, in an attempt to create a masterpiece.
He spent hours painting the taped together canvas in the living room, putting as many splashes of color in his artwork as he could. And while the painting actually turned out well...
"Party Favor! Why is there paint all over the furniture?!"
A couple of months of trying to find his "alternative magic outlet" later, Party Favor was once again a discouraged colt.
His class was having a picnic just outside the city, and on a part of the mountain that let them have a beautiful view of the valley. And once again, his classmates refused to sit with the broken unicorn. So, he resigned himself to just playing with the uninflated balloons that his mother gave him.
Sitting under a tree, having filled himself with a jelly sandwich and carrots, he wondered if his talent really was supposed to be one involving magic like the rest of his family. If so, then his horn was ensuring that he'd be a blank flank for the rest of his life. He wondered what he did to deserve such a fate, and wished for the opportunity to prove himself.
He merely breathed in a balloon, exhaling and inhaling to make it inflate and deflate. Of course, his peace was quickly dashed when one of the other colts trotted up to him and popped the balloon. The noise made him jump and scream, and the other colt ran away laughing. Party Favor tried throwing a dirt clod at him, but it didn't get very far.
He groaned, and took another balloon from his small bag. But before he could blow in it, he heard a cry from a family's picnic blanket not too far away. He turned to see a mother trying to comfort her wailing filly, who seemed to have dropped her ice cream.
Feeling sorry for the filly, Party Favor looked at the balloon in his hoof, and then got an idea. He inflated it to a long snake-like form, and then started to twist at it. It was something that he had only done a few times before, and it was always a simple sword he made. However, this time, it seemed his hooves were quickly making work of the balloon. He inflated a couple more, and added to the balloon, twisting and turning every bit with his hooves.
Finally, he finished the little balloon model, and carried it over to the crying filly and her mother. Once there, he cleared his throat to get their attention, and presented them with a balloon flower.
The tearful filly blinked, and reached for the flower. She wiped her eyes, and then giggled as she bounced the balloon flower in her hooves.
Party Favor giggled back, and noted the filly's horn. "Careful, don't put it near your horn, or it'll pop."
The mother chuckled and said to her daughter, "That was nice of this colt. What do you say, Twinkle?"
Twinkle turned to Party and said, "Tank you."
Party grinned. "Glad I could help!" With that, he turned and merrily trotted back to his spot under the tree. His spirits were high, and he felt like he could sprout wings and soar into the sky. Seeing that little filly smile was... exciting. Like, making a pony smile made him smile, and somehow, he wanted to do more of it. With a squeal, he galloped the rest of the way to his spot, grabbed his bag of balloons, and set off to do his next project.
Seeing how bored his classmates were, his thoughts immediately jumped to making a trampoline, and so began the pattern of inflating balloons, twisting and turning them into whatever shape he desired, and tying them to each other for a bigger product. He paused when he remembered that grass often popped balloons, so he galloped to the picnic site, swiped the large blanket from the others, and dragged it back to where he was building the trampoline.
It was not without the others noticing, including the annoyed teacher. "Party Favor, what do you think you're doing?"
Party Favor paused in his construction, and simply answered, "Building a trampoline."
The teacher raised an eyebrow at his project. "Out of balloons? Listen, I don't think balloons can support the weight of--"
Party finished the trampoline, and then began to bounce on it. Much to the surprise of the rest of the class, it was holding the weight pretty well, and the bouncing was not causing any sort of damage. In fact, it really was working like a real trampoline.
Party savored the gapes of the teacher and the rest of the foals. "Come on!" Boing! "Give it--" Boing! "--a try!" Boing!
The teacher still gaped as the other foals climbed on, and started to bounce along with him. The balloons still held the weight of the foals, and all were cheering and laughing and hollering. They seemed to forget about Party Favor's horn, and several foals soon found themselves staring at Party Favor's flank, which flashed before revealing a picture of a balloon animal surrounded by confetti.
"...and that's how I earned my cutie mark!" Party Favor exclaimed.
His family sat in front of him, blinking. His father had a stony face, his mother tilted her head curiously, and Kazam and Silk Shimmer glanced at each other for a brief moment. It was silent, as the family was still soaking in Party's story.
Silk Shimmer was the first to speak. "Wow! I didn't know that you could do that with balloons!"
Kazam rolled his eyes. "Lame..."
Merry Maykin tapped her mouth. "Well... it's certainly... interesting."
Quasar Rune sighed. "Not what I expected. Not what I expected at all..."
Though Party Favor still held his grin, though he was happy to have earned his cutie mark, and though he had proved he didn't need unicorn magic for his special talent, there was still a faint uneasiness within him. The only one who seemed sincere was his sister, Kazam was mean as usual, and his parents...
They seemed disappointed.
He shifted on his hooves. "I... I know you're still not happy about my horn... still, aren't you happy that I got my cutie mark? 'Specially since I thought I'd be a blank flank forever..."
"Oh--oh, of course we are, sweetie!" Merry said, drawing him close. "We... we just need to let it sink in. It's just such a big surprise!"
"He made a trampoline out of balloons!" Silk exclaimed as she joined in the hug. "I think that's awesome!"
Kazam scoffed as he stood up. "Such a limited talent, if you ask me. Come on, his talent is balloon modeling? What use does that have in Canterlot? Pfft, or anywhere in Equestria? Shame that my baby brother is destined to become a washed-up clown and be a smear on my name."
"Kazam, don't be so rude!" Merry hissed. "Party Favor earned his mark in a unique way, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did more amazing things with his balloons. I'm curious to see what the future holds for him." She looked up at her husband. "Don't you agree, dear?"
Quasar Rune held that same stony stare for a moment, before standing up and leaving the room. With a sneer towards Party Favor, Kazam followed him.
Merry sighed and shook her head. She released Party Favor, and asked, "Do you mind showing us what else you can do with those balloons?"
Silk hopped up and down. "Can you make me a balloon dove for my magic show tomorrow, so that when I pop it, a real dove will appear?" She winked at him. "I'll credit you."
Party Favor smiled, pulled out a white balloon, and inflated it.
Author's Note
So, season five has begun, and I've written a story on one of those ponies from the premiere. Specifically, the blue unicorn with the mad balloon skillz. He's my favorite out of those four ponies, because he's cute.
So, some of you may be wondering why I wrote him as pretty much being disabled. Well, when watching the episode, I noticed that he never uses his horn for any magic whatsoever, even when it would be more convenient. After all, the equal marks didn't completely remove unicorn magic--just reduced it to basic levitation. Just look at Sugar Belle in the muffins scene.
Instead, he uses his mouth to hold the cloak to wipe Starlight's fake cutie mark away, and when he got his cutie mark back, he pulls a Pinkie Pie/Cheese Sandwich type of thing with the most epic balloon art in animation! Using his own two front hooves. No glowing of the horn.
I found it kind of bizarre for a clearly important (for the episode) unicorn not to use magic at some point, so I ended up developing a headcanon that he couldn't use his horn, and he has party pony powers to compensate.
And of course, I throw him somewhere he clearly doesn't belong. 
Hey, look, I created siblings for a canon character again... 
Kazam is especially nice, eh? 
Nevertheless, I hope this turned out well.
