Childhood's End

by Cold in Gardez

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, Mystery, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 7619

A young colt gets his cutie mark in a dream. If only he could remember what it was about.

It's every young filly and colt's dream -- the moment they get their cutie mark. It is the instant they leave childhood behind.

For Firecracker, getting his cutie mark was a dream come true. Literally: he woke up, and there it was.

Now if only he could remember what his dream was about.

Published 2016-09-29 13:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-09-29 13:30:01 UTC

Childhood's End

Firecracker woke from the best dream of his life just as the first rays of the morning sun filled his bedroom with a warm rose glow.

His parents would be by soon to wake him for school. But for now he lay beneath the sheets, staring up at the ceiling. The memory of the dream burned like a fuse in his brain. His blood sang with adrenaline. Sweat soaked his mane and coat, and his wings trembled, the primaries vibrating like strings.

He remembered flying, and fear, and joy. Something like victory swelled his heart, and…

And…

And that was it. Even as he struggled to hold the dream in his mind’s eye, it evaporated like snowflakes in the desert. The last scraps drifted away, sliding out of his grasp, until all he had left were pale shadows of thought, and soon the morning sun washed those away as well.

Weird. He leaned his head back on the pillow, wondering if it was worth closing his eyes, or if he should just get up and—

“Firecracker!” Honeysuckle stuck her head through the door. Half her mane was still in curlers, and she struggled with them as she spoke. “Breakfast is almost ready. Bring your sister down.”

That settled it, then. He waved a hoof in acknowledgement and rolled out of bed, shook his wings, then spent a minute nipping a few errant feathers back into position. When everything felt right, he half-trotted, half-flew down the hallway to his sister’s room.

Mireille was still sound asleep in her nest-bed. It wasn’t a real nest, of course – what appeared to be twigs and branches were rolled foam in the shape of a large, gentle bowl. Their parents had bought it to replace her crib, and she’d fallen in love with it at first sight. Soon she’d be too big for it, and Firecracker supposed they’d need to find a big-filly version, or she’d have to graduate to a real bed.

“Mir.” He nosed the center of his adopted sister’s back between her wings. “Wake up. Breakfast.”

She grumbled something and scooted away, pulling the sheets around her like a cocoon. Only her beak and the fuzzy brown tip of her lion’s tail remained.

“Up.”

Her head shook beneath the blanket. “Nooo.”

He climbed up into the nest, straddling her swaddled form with his legs. “Tickle.”

That woke her up. Her limbs and wings struggled beneath the sheets, and she tried to spin in place, but he had her effectively pinned. “No, no! No tickle!”

“Here comes the tickle monster!” He lifted one hoof and slowly pressed it into the sheets, about where he guessed her belly was. “Tickle tickle tickle!”

He must’ve been on target, because as soon as his hoof touched something soft and began wriggling, she exploded with squawking, shrieking laughter. She thrashed beneath the sheets, slowly loosening them until at last her talons had room to emerge and swipe at his leg.

Mistake! Firecracker batted her hand away and dove in with his lips, blowing a fierce raspberry on her exposed belly just below the line between her feathers and fur. Her shrieks became howls, and she tugged at his mane in a vain effort to escape.

Finally, he relented and stood, pulling away the last of the sheets with his teeth and revealing a panting, disheveled griffon cub. Mireille scowled up at him and snapped her beak.

“Meanie!”

“That’s me,” he said. “Now, breakfast?”

She grunted and squirmed out from beneath him, which Firecracker took to be her surrender. He hopped out of the nest and was halfway to the door when her sudden shout stopped him.

“Mark!”

“Huh?” He stopped and turned back to her.

Mireille was leaning on the edge of the nest, her eyes wide, pointing at him with a talon. “Cutie mark!”

Puzzled, he twisted and glanced at his flank. She knew what cutie marks were, of course, but she also knew well and good that he didn’t have one—

He froze. An ice water shock poured down his back. His hind legs buckled, and he half-slumped to the ground. There, standing proudly on his russet-red coat, was the image of a book superimposed upon a white heart.

He stared at it, lost to the world. It wasn’t until Mireille trundled over and touched his mark that the spell broke.

His shouts were loud enough to draw both their parents, to see what all the fuss was about.

“Oh, my little colt! All grown up!” Honeysuckle gave him another squeeze and dug her muzzle into his mane again.

It was at least the fifth time his mother had said those same words in the past two minutes, and he still hadn’t escaped her embrace. Something warm and wet tickled his ear, and he flicked away her tears.

Mireille wasn’t old enough to understand all the intricacies of cutie marks and obtaining them, but Firecracker’s joy and their parents’ pride were overwhelming and contagious, and so she zipped around the room in a ball of wings and fur and claws and giddy excitement, squawking “Cutie mark!” at the top of her lungs every time she collided with a wall or somepony’s legs.

Eventually Windlass picked her up and set her on his back to cool down. Mireille’s talons gripped their father’s mane tight, and her little chest worked like a bellows. Her fierce beak, which was actually much softer and more pliable than it seemed, gaped at everypony in an endless smile.

“You’re smothering him, Honey,” Windlass said, but he was beaming too. “Let him speak.”

“Cutie mark!” Mireille added.

“Oh, you’re right.” Honeysuckle gave him another squeeze, hard enough to force the breath from his lungs, then set him down. “Breakfast is getting cool, too. You can tell us all about it downstairs!”

They repaired to the kitchen, where cooling bowls of oatmeal were laid out on the table for Firecracker and his sister. He squirmed away from Honeysuckle, who was already reaching for him again, and hopped up on the seat. Across the table, Mireille scrambled up her higher, claw-marked chair, grabbed a spoon, and attacked her oatmeal like she’d hunted it down herself.

“Now, then,” Windlass said. He floated a bottle of milk out of the icebox over to the table, and poured them both a generous cup. “We heard the shouting, but what happened?”

“How did you get it?” Honeysuckle asked. She sat to his left and leaned over the table. There were still a few curlers hiding in her mane, apparently forgotten in the excitement.

Firecracker licked a smear of oatmeal off his muzzle. “I went to get Mireille and—”

“Cutie mark!” Mireille slapped the table, rattling the plates.

“—and she didn’t want to get up so I had to tickle her a bit, and then she got up and that’s when we noticed it!” He paused to recall the moment, and frowned.

Wasn’t there supposed to be a bright light when you got your cutie mark? When Grasshopper got her cutie mark at recess a few weeks ago, her whole body glowed and sparks went everywhere and then she had that butterfly on her flank. Everypony on the playground saw it and started cheering.

He glanced back at his mark. Yep, still there. He scratched at it with the tip of his hoof, half-expecting it to flake away like paint, but the individual strands in his coat glistened perfectly with their new colors, all the way down to his skin. It was as real as any cutie mark he’d ever seen.

“I don’t think I got it with her, though,” he said. “I think… I think I got it before, in a dream.”

That got them. His parents stared at him, then at each other, then back at him.

“A dream?” Honeysuckle asked. “Is that even possible?”

Windlass scratched his chin with his hoof. “It’s magic. Supposedly you can get a cutie mark from just about anything, if it’s part of what makes you special.”

His parents turned him him again. Specifically, to his cutie mark, the book-and-heart mark that had unexpectedly arrived to shape the rest of his life.

“So, what was the dream about?” Honeysuckle said.

“Well, I was…” Firecracker closed his eyes, straining to grasp at the memory. His wings fluttered as something like flying crossed his mind. “And then…”

He opened his eyes. His parents were leaning forward over the table toward him. Even Mireille had fallen silent, apparently grasping the importance of the moment.

“You know, uh…” He scratched the back of his neck. “I really don’t remember.”

That had put a damper on their celebration, but only just. After a moment of silence his parents started to chuckle, then guffaw, and finally laugh so hard they tipped out of their chairs. That got Mireille laughing, and eventually Firecracker couldn’t help but see the humor in it himself, and he smiled as well.

But still. Even as his mother wrapped him up in another hug, his mind returned to that forgotten dream. It was less than an hour old, but nothing remained except the faint impression of the wind tugging at his wings, and his mane blowing behind him. That and his new cutie mark, of course.

“Well, it must’ve been some dream,” Windlass said. “I’m sure you’ll remember it, though. Or just dream it again.”

“Oh, we’ll have to start planning your cutecenera!” Honeysuckle gave him another squeeze, forcing a squeak from her son. Sometimes he wondered if she was part boa constrictor.

Firecracker struggled to escape, only succeeding when Windlass helped pry him free. “School, Honey. They have to go to school.”

“Of course, of course.” Honeysuckle wiped her cheeks dry with the back of her fetlock. “I’m sorry, I’m just so…” Her hoof started to reach toward Firecracker again.

“School!” Firecracker slipped under the table, emerging beside Mireille. He plucked the griffon cub from her chair and deposited her on his back. Her talons found his mane, latching on with a grip that no force in Equestria could loosen. “It’s okay, Mom. We can do all that when I get back.”

“Don’t forget your lunches!” Windlass’s horn glowed, and a pair of brown bag lunches floated over to them.

Firecracker snagged them both with his teeth and dropped them in his saddlebags, which he slung on his back behind Mireille. Then, before his mother could change her mind and capture him again, he darted out the front door and into the streets of Ponyville, with Mireille squealing all the way.

He flew for the first few blocks, both to stretch out his wings and to make sure Honeysuckle couldn’t pursue. The rooftops zipped by, close enough to touch, and the cool air felt good in his feathers. Nothing like an early flight to wake you up.

The center of town approached, and Firecracker banked in a wide circle to come in for a landing. His hooves skittered on the slick cobblestones, still wet from the morning mist, and he tucked his wings at his side. Mireille’s grip in his mane tightened for a moment, drawing his head back. Someday, in the hopefully-not-too-distant-future, she’d either learn to hold things more gently, or simply learn to fly herself.

“Easy, Mir.” After a moment her talon’s relaxed, and he was able to walk down the street toward the school without his head bent halfway over his own shoulders.

If he expected anything different from Ponyville, now that he had his cutie mark, he was disappointed. No pony passing by remarked on his new mark, no mobs stormed out of the shops to congratulate him. He glanced back to make sure his saddlebags weren’t covering anything up, but no. His mark was there, plain as day.

It would be different at school, though. He was pretty sure of that. That’s where he’d be mobbed by his friends, and it would be just like with his parents, except with hopefully less hugging and more cheering. It would be just like with Grasshopper and—

“Hey, Firecracker!” A high, musical voice interrupted his musing. “Wait up!”

He turned to see three teenage fillies trotting across the square. Sweetie Belle was in the lead, a few years older and a few inches taller than him. The other Cutie Mark Crusaders, as they were still known around the schoolyard even years after getting their marks, followed just steps behind. Apple Bloom huffed beneath the weight of an entire distillery balanced on her back, almost certainly a tool for the after-school alchemy studies she was always going on about.

Scootaloo, of course, only had eyes for Mireille. She zipped past Sweetie Belle, her wings buzzing so fast they were a blur, skidded to a hopping stop beside him, and leaned leaned forward to bump the tip of Mireille’s beak with her muzzle.

“Mireille!” She grinned a wolf’s grin at the griffon. “Who’s a good cub?”

“Mireille is!” his sister squeaked.

“That’s right!” Scootaloo ruffled the cub’s crest with a wingtip, then turned to Firecracker. “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”

“Oh, not much.” He twisted his body, enough to make sure his flank was angled toward the girls. Any moment now they would notice, and—

“Cutie mark!” Mireille shouted.

“That’s us!” Scootaloo reached out with her wings to snag Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, the latter of whom wobbled precariously under the weight of the still on her back. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Forever!”

“Cutie mark!” Mireille said again, this time pointing at Firecracker’s flank.

The Crusaders all froze. As one, they leaned forward to peer at the mark on Firecracker’s coat.

Firecracker held his breath. He’d expected more than this silence. There was supposed to be cheering and congratulations. With every second, his hopes began to wither in his chest.

He needn’t have worried, it turned out.

“AAAAAAHHHH!!! Firecracker! You got your mark!”

“Eeeeeeee! You did it!”

“Wooooooo! Way ta go, colt!”

“Kreeeeee!!!” That was from Mireille, who was either caught up in the excitement or terrified by the screaming. It was hard to tell. Also, her talons had found Firecracker’s mane again and were well on their way to tearing half his hair out by the roots. Around them, the market had come to a momentary stop as pedestrians and shopkeepers stared at the screaming fillies.

“When did you get that?” Sweetie Belle asked. She shoved Scootaloo to the side to get a better look at the mark.

“Last night, I—”

“What does it mean?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Well, uh.” He paused for a moment to tug at Mireille’s talons without effect. “Well, it’s a book with a heart, and…”

He paused. The three Crusaders stepped around in front of him, apparently satisfied with examining his new cutie mark. Even Mirielle relaxed her grip, and hopped off with a flap of her wings to stand between Scootaloo’s front legs and stare at him.

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” he finished.

“Whadya mean, you’re not sure?” Apple Bloom squinted at him. “What were you doing when you got it?”

“Sleeping, I think? I mean, I was dreaming.”

“Ooh, dreaming! That’s cool.” Scootaloo sat and pulled Mirielle into her lap. “Dreaming about what?”

“Um…” Firecracker closed his eyes. For a moment something flashed through his mind, a memory of a memory, like the sound of a shadow, but just as quickly it was gone, leaving him with only an unsettling sense of loss. “I, uh, don’t remember.”

“What? At all?”

Firecracker shrugged. “Wish I did. I had a great dream, and I guess I woke up with it.”

“You guess?” Scootaloo said. She stood and set Mireille back on his back, then stalked cat-like around him in a tight circle. “That’s lame. How are you supposed to know what makes you special, then?”

Ouch. Firecracker tried to hide his wince, but the girls must’ve picked up on it regardless. Apple Bloom scowled at Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle poked her in the chest with a hoof.

“That’s not fair, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said. “He just needs help.”

“Help?” Firecracker asked.

“Help. Help!” Sweetie gasped. “We can help him! I mean, you. We can help you!”

“What do you mean, help?”

“That’s what we do,” Apple Bloom said. She started to sit, stopped when the equipment balanced on her back tilted, and apparently decided to remain standing. “We help fillies and colts get their marks.”

“I already have a mark, though.”

“Yeah, well, we can help you learn its meaning,” Scootaloo said. Her grin was back, now. “It’ll be awesome!”

“And fun!” Sweetie said.

“An’, you know, it’ll be good for Firecracker, too,” Apple Bloom added.

“Cutie mark!” from Mireille.

Nine times out of ten, Firecracker would have rejected such an offer from the Crusaders – any sane pony would have, given their track record. Every day they had some new zany scheme, the majority of which ended in either destruction or copious amounts of pine sap.

But maybe getting his cutie mark had provoked some other change in his thinking. Or, as his mother said so many times that morning, her little colt was finally growing up. Regardless of the reason, the instinctive fear that he usually held for the Crusader’s plans was absent, or if not absent, then merely a shadow of its former self. Instead a gradual excitement built in his heart, not particularly in the hopes of discovering his cutie mark’s origin, but for the idea of hanging out with Scootaloo and her dangerous smiles, or Sweetie Belle’s lyrical voice, or the solid frame and powerful muscles hiding beneath Apple Bloom’s unassuming yellow coat.

So rather than running away as he should have, Firecracker smiled. His eyes were locked on something far away, something imagined, and he said, “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”

“Woo!” Scootaloo pumped a hoof in the air. “Cutie Mark Crusaders, Cutie Mark Meaning, uh… finders?”

Sweetie Belle frowned. “Cutie Mark Meaning Investigators?”

“How about, ‘Cutie Mark Detectives?’” Firecracker said.

The Crusaders huddled, whispering to each other. Occasionally Scootaloo’s voice, more excitable than the others, pierced the general hubbub of the market with words like “radical” or “awesome.” Finally they stopped and spun to face him.

“Cutie Mark Detectives it is!” Apple Bloom grinned at him. “This is going to be great!”

It would be great, something whispered in Firecracker’s mind. It didn’t even matter if they found anything, that wasn’t really the point. He opened his mouth to thank them.

Before he could get a word in edgewise, Scootaloo jumped into the air. Her wings beat madly, blasting him with wind, and she shouted, “Cutie Mark Detectives, go!”

With that the trio spun and galloped (or flew) off into the market, leaving only a slowly settling cloud of dust.

Firecracker stood still, with Mireille still on his back. The griffon cooed quietly.

He waited some more.

Sure enough, only a minute later, the Crusaders returned. They hemmed and hawed and coughed, and only eventually returned his gaze.

“So, uh, actually we have to go to school first. But then detectives?”

Firecracker grinned. “Sounds good.”

They walked together to the schoolhouse, while Firecracker told them about his day.

The reaction at the schoolhouse to Firecracker’s new cutie mark was more subdued than the one he’d received from the Crusaders, but then, just about anything would be. Fillies and colts mobbed him and bombarded him with questions about the mark, which he fended off gamely, and by the time ten minutes had passed Firecracker found himself suddenly on the other side of an invisible divide running through the student body. On one half, the half he’d dwelled in until that morning, were the unmarked foals, still his friends but now separated by something more substantial than the mark on his flank. They were, for a lack of a better word, immature, and though many were his own age or even older, he could not help but see them as unfinished products. Filled with potential but not yet perfected.

And then there was the other half of the student body, the one he’d viewed with wary suspicion just yesterday. The marked colts and fillies, whose path in life seemed more secure. Narrower, perhaps, because destiny had given them a clear goal and stamped it for all the world to see on their bodies, but with that refinement came purpose. The colts and fillies with cutie marks seemed more like young adults than foals. They had passed into adolescence, and now so had he.

He wondered, as he dropped her off with the pre-school class, how Mireille would fit into that scheme when she was his age. Griffons had no cutie marks, and whatever rituals they used to mark the passage from childhood were absent in Ponyville. Mireille would grow up more like a filly than a young griffoness.

Firecracker turned that realization over in his mind, gnawing at it like a broken feather. He watched her bounce into the playpen with the earth pony foals, who could take her roughhousing with ease, and begin wrestling with them. A few of the sturdier pegasi joined in, but the unicorns all kept a safe distance.

He watched her for a few more minutes. Finally, the bell rang, and he turned to his class.

The Crusaders met him outside his house after school. Mireille wasn’t old enough to tag along with the Crusaders, much to Scootaloo’s disappointment, and the little griffon was due for a nap anyway. They waited while he took her inside.

Honeysuckle was waiting in the kitchen when he arrived. She had cloth samples and greeting cards and lists of ponies spread out on the table, all signs of a significant party in its planning stages. Honestly, Firecracker half expected Pinkie Pie to be plotting with her.

“Hey mom.” He stood on his hind legs to give her cheek a nuzzle, then ducked away before she could wrap him in a hug.

“Sorry, gotta run!” he continued. “Gonna go play with the Crusaders.”

Honeysuckle’s smile faded, and she arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Uh, yeah.” He coughed quietly. “They’re, uh, helping me with my cutie mark.”

“Hm.” The look Honeysuckle gave him was inscrutable. The moment stretched out, and finally she sighed quietly.

“Oh, my little birdie.” She trotted over and wrapped him in a hug, and he was too perplexed to try to escape. “All grown up! You can go with them, but don’t let them talk you into anything you don’t want to do.”

Uh. Firecracker squirmed in his mother’s grip. For some reason – and he could not have explained it for the life of him – the conversation had suddenly become very awkward. Something important just happened, some important threshold crossed, but he had no idea what it was.

“Um… Okay?” He stumbled free as she released him and returned to the table. The silence returned, and not knowing what else to do, he ducked his head. “I’ll, uh, okay.”

She smiled at him and turned back to her cards. Perplexed, he trotted out the door to greet the Crusaders.

“Hey kiddo,” Scootaloo bumped his shoulder with hers. “Bout time, slowpoke.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“Well,” Apple Bloom said. “We were thinking—”

“I was thinking,” Scootaloo interjected.

“We were thinking that, since your cutie mark is a book and all, we should talk to the expert!”

Firecracker frowned. “You mean, like, a book-binder?”

“No! The princess!” Scootaloo hopped in place, her wings keeping her aloft at the peak of her arc. “The book princess!”

“I think she’s technically the Princess of Friendship,” Apple Bloom said. She grabbed Scootaloo’s tail in her teeth and tugged the pegasus back to earth.

“Yeah, but, come on. Books, right? Right, Firecracker?” Scootaloo bumped him with her shoulder again.

“She does like books,” he said.

“I know! She’s perfect! C’mon!” With that Scootaloo hopped into the air again, and without waiting to see if the rest were behind her, vanished in a blast of dust toward the crystal castle looming over the east side of town.

“Well, I guess we should follow her,” Sweetie Belle said. “You don’t mind walking with us ground bound ponies, Firecracker?”

“Heh, nah. Always—” His voice cracked, and he blushed before trying again. “Always glad to walk.”

Scootaloo was sprawled on her back beside the castle entrance. She was watching the clouds, and when they approached she hopped to her feet, shook off the dust, and scowled at them.

“Slow! You are so slow!”

“Or, just tossing this out here, you’re impatient?” Apple Bloom offered. She sauntered past the pegasus into the castle and its cavernous crystal halls.

The Ponyville Castle of Friendship and Harmony, as it was officially known, or simply The Crystal Thing, as most residents of the town called it, was divided into multiple spheres. There was the public sphere, which included Princess Twilight Sparkle’s throne room, administrative offices, records department, and other official-sounding offices that kept the kingdom’s friendships running smoothly. Then there was the private sphere, which housed the princess’s personal quarters, the kitchens and indoor pool and ice rink.

The rest of the castle was given over to the Ponyville Public Library. As the princess still considered herself the Ponyville librarian, this was where she spent most of her time, and it was of absolutely no surprise to Firecracker that they found her there, basking on a cushion in a pool of sunlight, a book hovering in front of her, bobbing in time with her breath.

Libraries were supposed to be quiet places, as numerous signs posted on the shelves and walls reminded visitors. This message was apparently lost on the Crusaders, who bolted across the room toward the princess, their hooves ringing on the crystal floor like a flock of bells.

“Princess! Princess Twilight!” Apple Bloom said.

“Cutie Mark emergency!” Sweetie Belle followed.

“We need your help!” Scootaloo finished. The three of them skidded to a stop in front of her, bouncing with excitement, their tails lashing at the air.

For Firecracker, like most residents of Ponyville, Princess Twilight was beloved, known, and respected. But he was not in the circle of ponies who considered themselves close to the princess, not like the Crusaders, and so he walked his way across the library, and he waited to speak until the princess noticed him.

Twilight Sparkle put her book down and gave them a smile. If there was an admonishment coming for breaching the library’s peace, it didn’t show on her face.

“Hello, girls! And… Firecracker, right?” She stood and smiled at him. “What is your, ahem, emergency?”

“Princess!” Scootaloo bounded forward, then back, like a dog waiting for a thrown ball. “Firecracker got his cutie mark!”

“Oh?” Twilight leaned forward to inspect him, and for the first time Firecracker realized just how big she was. Larger than most stallions, and nearly as tall as Apple Bloom’s brother. It took all his willpower not to shrink away.

“Well, look at that!” she continued. A huge grin broke out on her face. “And it’s a book! A book! Oh, Firecracker, if only you were ten years older.” She finished with a chuckle.

The Crusaders laughed at that, and he did too, though he wasn’t sure why. What difference did ten years make? Before he could ask, though, Twilight was speaking again.

“So, how did you get it?”

“I got it in a dream last night, I think. But I don’t remember the dream. So, uh…”

“That’s why we need your help, Princess!” Sweetie Belle said.

“Use your magic on him!” Scootaloo said. “Zap him in the head!”

Perhaps this was what his mother was warning him about? Firecracker took a half-step away from Twilight.

“Now, girls, I don’t think ‘zapping him in the head’ is necessary. As it so happens, I have some even more powerful magic I can use!”

The Crusader’s gasp of indrawn breath answered her. They stood on the tips of their hooves, leaning forward, faces agleam with excitement. For his part, Firecracker eyed the tall windows and wondered how easily he could break through them.

“That’s right,” Twilight continued. “The magic of research! Quick, to the reference section!” She trotted away, presumably toward the library’s vast store of encyclopedias.

The Crusaders deflated like day-old party balloons. Scootaloo, in particular, seemed put out.

“Ugh,” she said. “Research? That’s so lame. You girls wanna leave?”

Apple Bloom swatted her shoulder. “This ain’t about excitement, filly. It’s about helping Firecracker.”

“Yeah.” Sweetie Belle trotted after the princess. “I bet she’ll figure this out in no time!”

Twilight Sparkle had several books laid out on a table when they arrived. She summoned a set of crystal stools for them, and they hopped up to see what she had found.

“Now,” Twilight said, “Getting a cutie mark in a dream isn’t unheard of. It’s not common, of course, but ever since Princess Luna returned it has started occurring with more frequency. So, in that sense, there’s nothing unusual about it.”

“But I can’t remember it.”

Twilight nodded. “Most ponies forget most dreams. Because they’re a product of our sub-conscious, they don’t leave as powerful an imprint in our minds. It’s quite natural, and probably for the best, that we don’t remember them.”

“Sooo…” Sweetie Belle frowned. “He’ll never know what his cutie mark means?”

“Ah.” Twilight patted the stack of books beside her. “That’s what these are for!”

Either Twilight was the fastest researcher in the world (which was possible, Firecracker allowed) or this was a topic that had come up in the past. Either way, after only a few minutes of perusal she had a stack of books and a page of notes ready to go, all on the topic of cutie marks. The Crusaders fidgeted and climbed onto the table, peering down at the books as she worked. Firecracker stayed in his seat like a good colt.

“Now then.” Twilight lifted her notes and cleared her throat. “Your cutie mark is a book, which is fantastic, by the way. More ponies should have books for cutie marks. Books represent knowledge or insight, and they are most common among unicorn ponies. They are equally represented among colts and fillies.

“The book is superimposed over a white heart, which is important. The superimposition, that is, not the color. Color doesn’t matter much in cutie marks.”

“Why not?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Cutie marks usually complement the color of their owner’s coat. A red colt can’t have a red cutie mark, for instance.”

They mumbled their agreement. Firecracker peered at his mark, then at the marks on the Crusader’s flanks. Theirs were all the same color, he noted.

“Hearts, of course, indicate love, or more rarely loyalty,” Twilight went on. “They appear equally in all three tribes, but are much more heavily represented among fillies. Only five percent of heart marks appear on colts.”

Scootaloo grinned at him. “Special.”

“All ponies are special,” Twilight said. “But that brings us to the critical point, I think. The book in your mark, Firecracker, is not a normal book.”

He blinked. As one, he and the Crusaders all turned to peer at his cutie mark.

It was… well, it was a book. Tan cover and backboard, laid open to about its center, with pages equally falling to the reader’s left and right. There was nothing written in it that he could see, but any letters would be thinner than the hairs in his coat.

“It… it isn’t? It looks normal. Are you sure?”

Twilight smiled. “I’m something of an expert on books, as it happens. Look in the center, where the pages come together.”

They turned back to his flank. For a moment, Firecracker wondered if Twilight was just playing a joke on them, but then he saw it too.

“Oh, the binding! It has rings.”

The others chorused in agreement, and Twilight smiled. “That’s right. It’s not a book so much as a, hm… a scrapbook or album. It’s designed for ponies for ponies to put things into. You create it and read it.”

“Ah.” That sounded very profound, but still missing something important. “So, what’s it mean?”

“I don’t know!” Twilight said with much more enthusiasm than Firecracker ever could have mustered for such a sentence. “But it’s a start, isn’t it? Knowledge and love, and some special twist that we don’t have the context to understand yet.”

“Um, I guess?” It was progress, at least. Firecracker had to admit that. “So, what now?”

“If I were you? I’d keep dreaming. Maybe it’ll come back.”

“But I might just forget it again.”

Twilight nodded. “You might. Or maybe not. You can try keeping a journal of your dreams. If you write them down as soon as you wake up, it doesn’t matter if you forget them later because you’ll still have your journal.”

“Can’t we just ask Princess Luna for help?” Sweetie Belle said.

“Yeah! I bet she could just zap him in the head!” Scootaloo seemed very excited by the idea.

“Girls, we can’t just run to the princesses every time we have a crisis,” Twilight said. “They can’t solve all our problems for us.”

“Er, didn’t you solve our problems, though? And aren’t you a princess?” Sweetie Belle said.

A moment passed before Twilight answered. She gave Sweetie Belle a one-sided smile that seemed thin and fragile.

“The real princesses, girls. Not me.”

Firecracker couldn’t let that stand. He hopped onto the table with a clatter, and all four sets of eyes suddenly turned to him.

He was, he realized, the smallest, youngest, and least accomplished pony in the library. Of them all, his words carried the least weight. His pronouncements were forgettable. Even his parents had trouble taking him seriously.

He swallowed his doubts. “I think you’re a real princess, Miss Twilight. You helped me when I needed it. And maybe they would have too, but we’ll never know, because you’re the only princess Ponyville has, and I think that makes you the best.”

Her smile changed as he spoke. It expanded, though it remained small, until her cheeks and eyes smiled as well. She placed her forelegs on the table and stood, towering over him again, then leaned down to place a chaste kiss on his forehead.

“Such a sweet colt you are, Firecracker. Don’t let anypony say otherwise. And a book! You’re luckier than you know.”

He blushed and ducked his head. His forehead burned where her lips had touched, and the room felt a hundred degrees warmer. His wings fanned at his sides to cool him off.

“Aww, you’re embarrassing him.” Scootaloo leaned close, wearing a smile borrowed from a jaguar. “He’s blushing!”

“Am not! My coat’s always red!”

The others laughed at that, and ribbed him all the way home. It was good-natured, if a little humiliating.

He found he didn’t mind.

Firecracker dreamed that night.

He was flying in a storm. Clouds the size of mountains rumbled and churned behind him, pursuing him. They sent high tendrils reaching across the sky above him, faint cirrus clouds that thickened and knotted liked coiled ropes. They boiled and wept and whispered to him in windy voices.

There was no land beneath him, only darkness and more clouds. Flashes of lightning revealed an endless, storm-tossed sea.

He fled from the storm, and it caught him and cast him into the waters, and then he was flying again because this was a dream, and in dreams the laws of cause and effect had no writ. Over and over, he fled and was captured, never understanding, never grasping that this torment was of his own mind’s design.

Into this nightmare came another. A high-pitched wail broke through the roaring wind, and in a lightning bolt’s moment he saw a dark form silhouetted against the mad ocean. It was a griffon cub, too young to fly, but there she was flailing in the wind. The storm twisted her wings and spun her around, and she fell toward the waves.

“Mireille!” He screamed and dove after her. His wings beat like a hummingbird’s, but the storm bent all its power against him. He beat harder, fighting the wind, pummeling it with his wings, until just yards away from the ocean he wrapped his legs around his sister, and together they plunged into the darkness.

Firecracker stood in a dark room before a table. Upon it was a book, open to its center, with a tan cover and backboard. Three metal rings rose from the binding, and rather than pages he saw that the book had sleeves. He stepped toward the table and raised a hoof—

Firecracker’s pencil slowed, then stopped. He frowned down at the dream journal, where bits and pieces of memory were recorded in his sloppy mouthwriting. The dream, so vivid when he had woken minutes ago, now was faded. He could barely remember the storm and his sister, and as for the book, try as he might, it was already gone.

He sighed and tossed the pencil on his desk. Maybe if he wrote the dream backwards next time, he could remember its end.

The gray light of early dawn crept into his room, but it was a Saturday, and his mother wouldn’t be rousing him for school. He could go back to sleep if he wanted.

The bed was soft and cool, perfect for a pegasus. Inside the mattress was a small cloud, kept in a magic prison, that ensured he was always sleeping with a little piece of the sky.

Sometimes, when he had a cold or a nightmare, he slept in his parents’ bed, squeezed between an earth pony and a unicorn. It shouldn’t have been comfortable for him, but on those nights he somehow slept easier.

He hadn’t done that in a while, he realized. He probably never would again. Someday, years ago, he had slept in his parents’ bed for the last time, and he hadn’t even realized it.

Firecracker stared at the ceiling for a while. Then he got up to go play with his sister.

She always woke early on weekends, for some reason.

The Ponyville Public Park was a popular spot for fillies and colts when they weren’t in school. Mireille loved the tall grasses she could practice stalking through, unaware that her twitching tail gave away her position like a shark’s dorsal fin.

Firecracker sat in a small depression in the grass, watching as Mireille drew closer. He was supposed to run if he saw her, but he found it was more fun to act surprised and let her pounce him, especially during her first stalk of the day. Later, when the sun had burned away the morning mist, he would be harder to catch.

So, he waited, watching. The brown tuft on the tip of her tail flagged back and forth as she approached, pausing whenever a twig snapped beneath her paws. He couldn’t smell her – she had circled around downwind, just like he taught.

A few feet away, her tail suddenly lowered. He could imagine her crouching close to the ground, preparing to spring. His muscles coiled in preparation.

“Rawr!” The curtain of grass burst apart as she pounced, her beak wide and her talons extended for him.

Even expecting it, his heart still skipped a beat at the sudden explosion of violence, and he couldn’t help but jump. She slammed into his side, her beak gnawing at the nape of his spine and her talons clawing at his flesh.

It tickled a bit. He suppressed the urge to laugh and rolled onto his side, kissing at her crest and wings with his hooves.

“Help! Help! She’s got me!” he cried. “Noooooooooooo....”

“Raaa!!” Mireille jumped up, bounced on his belly, then turned and bolted into the grass. Within a moment she was gone, off to stalk again.

Firecracker waited until she got some distance, then rolled back upright. He dusted himself off, and was settling in to wait when a loud thump broke the silence. He turned to see Scootaloo standing a few feet away, her mane and tail still wind-tossed from flight.

He cleared his throat. “Did you, uh, see any of that?”

Her only answer was a grin.

Shoot. His wings fluttered, and he busied himself with pretending to preen an errant feather deep on their underside.

“Hey, I think it’s cute. And neat.” She stepped over and sat beside him, close enough that their feathers rubbed against each other. “Everypony should have an older sister. Or a brother, I guess.”

“She loves playing hide-and-seek,” he said, finally lifting his head. “But a lot of ponies won’t let her play with their foals. You know, cuz…”

“Yeah, I know.” Scootaloo’s ear flicked, and they both turned to see a tall, tufted tail bobbing toward them through the grass. “It’ll get better when she’s older, though.”

“You think?”

Scootaloo nodded. “And if she doesn’t, well, she’ll always have you.”

He smiled. “True. Hey, try to act surprised when she jumps on you, okay?”

“Of course.”

A moment later, Mireille burst upon them again. She seemed momentarily surprised by the sight of two prey, but her wings flared, and she steered at the last moment into Scootaloo. The teen fell with a convincing shriek, and then Mireille darted away again.

Scootaloo pushed herself back up. “That was kinda fun.”

“Yeah. And it makes her happy.”

Scootaloo gave him a look he couldn’t quite place. “That means a lot to you, doesn’t it? You really love her, like she’s your sister.”

“She is my sister.” There was an edge in his voice he couldn’t quite conceal.

Scootaloo held up a hoof. “Hey, I get it. Believe me, I get it.”

Firecracker’s hackles calmed, and he look away. Of course she got it – of all the ponies in Ponyville, Scootaloo would get it. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry.” A feathertip brushed his shoulder. “I think it’s really awesome what your parents did. For her.”

He nodded silently. His eyes scanned the grasses for the telltale tuft.

After a moment, she spoke again. “Did you ever wonder, I mean, you know… I mean, you’re a pegasus, and your parents are an earth pony and unicorn...”

His ear flicked. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard whispered before.

Scootaloo must’ve read his indifference as anger. She coughed before continuing. “Sorry, I shouldn’t, I… nevermind.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He even meant it, mostly.

She nodded, and her ears perked back up. “Any luck with the dream thing?”

“A little, I think.”

Firecracker dreamed again that night.

He stood in a dark room before a table. There was a book on it, open to its center, with a tan cover and backboard. He stared at it for a while, never moving, studying it.

The pages were blank, as always. But they weren’t important. What mattered was the book itself – he’d seen it before. He’d even touched it.

It was waiting for him.

It was dark when Firecracker woke.

The rest of the house was asleep as he made his way downstairs. He flew, so his hoofsteps wouldn’t wake his parents or sister.

There was a bookshelf in the family room. He hovered before it, near the highest shelf, searching. In the dim light all colors were the same, but after a few minutes he found the spine he was looking for.

Firecracker pulled the photo album out and opened it on the couch. The center was filled with pictures of the four of them, Mireille little more than a ball of fuzz and wings.

He turned back a page, and there were only three ponies. He was much younger in them, unmarked of course, with wings too small for flight.

He turned back several more pages, and grew younger each time. There he was, the same age as Mireille, sitting before a cake with four candles on it. In another photo, half the cake was was smeared on his muzzle and chest and legs.

He turned back another page, then another. He turned back to the beginning. There were his parents, looking younger themselves, holding a tiny colt with his coat and mane. About a year old, he guessed.

He turned back the first page. There were no more photos; instead the inside cover was given over to a family tree. Names extended up the trunk and branches, each with a tiny icon: an oak leaf for earth ponies and a diamond for unicorns, following the old heraldic tradition. At the very bottom, below his parents’ names, was the only feather icon on the page.

He closed the album and sat with it for a while. Outside, a dim light began to encroach from the eastern horizon.

Eventually, he heard the quiet thump of heavy hooves drawing closer.

“Firecracker?” Honeysuckle gave a little start when she saw him in the couch. “Birdie, is everything alri—” She froze when she saw the album, and her gaze flicked to his cutie mark.

They were both silent. Firecracker sat still as a rock. Honeysuckle’s ears flapped like flags in the wind.

“Firecracker…” She stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “Birdie, if there’s anything you ever want to talk to us about, you know you can, right? We don’t, ah… I mean, your father and I…”

He got to his hooves and walked over. She froze, the muscles beneath her coat locked.

She was worried, he realized. How silly. He jumped up onto his hind legs, and wrapped his forelegs around her neck.

“I love you, mom,” he whispered.

Then he went to wake his father, and do the same to him.