The Only Mark That Matters

Starlight Glimmer carefully inspected her jail cell. It was plain and gray, without even a window. She looked up, trying to get her eyes on the anticornium ring on her horn. The warden had warned her against trying to melt it off, claiming it was far sturdier than the last one, and booby-trapped against tampering to boot.

She sauntered over to the bars and peered at the REF officer assigned to guard her cell. She looked at his cutie mark and scoffed.

“Hmm. Hoofcuff cutie marks? I guess you really had no choice but to become a prison guard, huh?”

“The prisoner will be quiet,” he flatly stated.

“Not that you can’t be content with that, of course! Sure, some ponies may get cutie marks that lead them to become wealthy entrepreneurs, or brilliant scientists, or beloved sports stars, but so what? Your cutie mark has you guarding this dingy little cell, so you must be right where you belong."

“The prisoner will shut up.”

She leaned closer and grinned smugly. “Us prisoners may come and go from this place, but you were given a life sentence here, weren’t you? Not by a judge or jury, but by a little tuft of color on your butt.”

The guard put a hoof on his baton. “I will shut you up, I swear.”

Starlight, undeterred, put her face in between the bars. “What if I told you it didn’t have to be that way?”

Radish entered Light’s store. Splash Page was showing Light a new issue of a comic. Light smiled at Radish.

“Hey, Splash, check it out- a real-life superhero.”

“Aw, it was nothing, Fan.”

“He took that Glimmer bitch down!” she proudly told Splash Page. “That’s something not even the Pastelles could handle!”

“Well, I… yeah. You’re right. I’m amazing.”

“Congrats, Radish,” said Splash Page.

“Hey, Spash, can I talk to you?” Radish asked.

“Uh, sure?”

Radish took Splash Page outside. “Hey, about that letter I gave you…”

“What letter?”

“The one for Light? I gave it to you after I was convicted? Please, don’t give it to her now. Just throw it away.”

“Oh, okay. You got it.”

“You lost it, didn’t you?”

“I resent that. And yes.”

A small group of prisoners clustered around Starlight Glimmer in her detention center’s exercise yard.

“You really removed a princess’s cutie mark?” a green earth mare asked.

“Oh, sure. It came right off.”

“So why didn’t you put it on yourself?” asked a skeptical pegasus. “Wouldn’t you have gotten her princess powers?”

Starlight smiled condescendingly. “Oh, you still don’t understand. Unmarking isn’t about getting powers, it’s about empowering yourself. Anypony could develop any skills they wanted, if it weren’t for cutie marks forcing them to specialize.”

She turned to a unicorn mare in the group. “You there- I bet you only ended up here because of your cutie mark, didn’t you?”

The unicorn looked down. “My cutie mark is a cogwheel. I thought it was leading me to become a great inventor. I even invented this device that would improve the flavor of water. I secretly installed it in my town’s water supply as a nice surprise for founders’ day. But when townsponies got addicted to the water and fought over it, the constable blamed me!”

“In a world without cutie marks, you wouldn’t have been forced into that situation. You’d be out there,” Starlight said, gesturing to the sky over the prison’s walls, ”doing whatever you want.”

“So what?” asked the pegasus with a sneer. “Things are the way they are. The world will never be like that.”

“Oh, yes it can be. I got close once,” said Starlight. “I can make that world happen, with the right kind of help.”

“Shh. A guard is listening,” said the unicorn.

Starlight glanced over her shoulder. The guard who had been outside her cell was now standing by the nearby wall, pretending not to listen in on the group’s conversation. Starlight smiled.

“It’s okay. Let him. My teachings are for everypony who wishes to hear them.”

Radish entered Celestia’s office and saluted her.

“You asked to see me, ma’am?”

“Radish, how are you feeling? Still no ill effects from the change?”

“No, ma’am. I feel a little slow, maybe, but I’ve been slower. If I lost some kind of talent with my cutie mark, I haven’t discovered what it was yet. I don’t seem to have gotten terrible at anything in particular.”

“Then, perhaps we can put that to the test.”

“Ma’am?”

“Radish, during your tenure as a guard, you’ve shown great skill at securing buildings- Luna’s tower for the wedding, the main tower for the coronation, and Twilight’s castle. You show a lot of thoroughness and creativity in finding a place’s weak spots.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She leaned forward and smiled. “And it hasn’t escaped me that your cutie mark depicted you, well… getting past a royal’s defenses. Penetrating a sensitive area. Hitting a weak spot.”

Radish’s face turned bright red and he looked away. “Ma’am!”

“I am saying that site security could be your special talent. Your cutie mark just depicted it in a very unusual way.”

Radish sighed. “I’ve had that thought, too ma'am. But why depict it that way? Why wouldn’t I just get a cutie mark of a castle, or a shield, or something anypony could understand?”

“I don’t know. But now that you no longer have your mark, perhaps we can confirm that’s what it meant, by seeing if you’ve become bad at it. Thus, I have a new assignment for you.”

“Ma’am?”

“The mission that Admiral Sunset Rider gave you as cover, I’d like you to carry out for real. Go to Fort Curly, evaluate it, and prepare a report on renovating it. If your ability to secure a building has changed for the worse, then we should be able to tell based on the quality of your report.”

“But… what if I’ve really become incompetent in that regard? What would I do around here? I… I can’t go back to tourist duty.”

Celestia put a hoof to her chin. “Hmm, well, Prince Blueblood is currently staying here. He could always use more guards to keep him out of trouble.”

Radish raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to motivate me with fear, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

“I’ll head out.”

Radish stood in the courtyard of Fort Curly, gazing around at the fort. Like the admiral had told him, the installation was long abandoned and dilapidated. Its buildings were adobe and its outer wall was a palisade of upright logs, sharpened to a point at their tops.

Okay. Gotta make this place impregnable. Let’s see…

He looked at the buildings. There were barracks, offices, storage buildings, and other miscellaneous structures.

First step is to replace the buildings. They need to be sturdier. What if they were metal?

No, that’s stupid. If this place was attacked by dragons, metal buildings would become ovens. What if we coated them in fireproof crystal?

No, that’s stupid. Dragons eat crystals. What if we camouflaged the fort, made it invisible from the sky?

No, that’s stupid. A fort needs to be visible and imposing, so Equestria’s enemies know we’re here. What if we put a big moat around the fort?

No, that’s stupid. This is an arid region. We’d have to schedule enough rainfall to keep it filled, and the cost would skyrocket.

Forget all that. Start inward and work outwards. We should rebuild the lookout tower taller, stronger, and add a… add a…

Radish looked around again. He frowned.

Radish stood nervously in front of Celestia’s desk. His report on Fort Curly was sitting on the desktop between them.

“Well, ma’am? How did I do?”

“Major, your report was… it was…”

He winced. “Don’t spare my feelings, princess.”

“It was conventional. It provided solid advice about fortifying the base, but it lacked your trademark creativity. It was, to be frank, a report Shining Armor could have written.”

Radish’s heart sank. He hung his head.

“Forgive me. I was… overwhelmed. I couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t prioritize.”

“It’s okay, Radish. Look on the bright side- we may have just figured out your special talent.”

“After I’ve lost it, though…” He took a deep breath. “Ma’am, if protecting you means retaking my cutie mark-”

“There are many roles a guard may take around here. We’ll find something for you.”

“Please don’t make me babysit Blueblood.”

Celestia smiled. “Radish, what would you like to do around here?”

“I think I’d like to take up shield training.”

“Oh?”

“Those big tower shields, the little bucklers, and everything in-between. If I can’t protect Equestria with my mind, then I can at least protect it with my body. I’ll stand between you and villains like Glimmer, pushing back everything they throw at you.”

“Hmm. Very well. But Radish, don’t give up on your mind just yet. Equestria was built on ideas, and I think you still have many fine ideas to give.”

Starlight Glimmer leaned back in her jail cot, staring at her ceiling. She heard a tapping on her cell’s bars, and got up to check it out. Her guard- the same from before- was standing close to the bars, looking her in the eyes.

“I brought you something,” he said.

He placed a candy bar onto her door’s food slot. It was a fancy kind, not found in detention centers.

“Why?” asked Starlight.

“I want to hear more.”