The Withering Roseby ixzoChaptersBirthIntroductionsThe Withering RoseDisintegrationCursedThe Canterlot ExperimentsBanishmentBirthBirth Birth is something that happens everyday, almost constantly, it used to at least. In some little town of no importance in the middle of nowhere (although not too far from Canterlot) another birth was occurring, the parents weren't anypony special and it seemed as though this would just be another meaningless beginning. I was beginning that day, although my beginning would ultimately be the end of all else... for now though, nothing important. The moment I was born something wasn't right, my mother was a pegasus with a yellow body and a long, green mane, my father was a unicorn; white body and blue mane. I was a unicorn like my father but the colour of my body was light grey while my mane was a darker shade of grey, the only real colour my appearance had was my purple eyes. The immediate question was how I could possibly be related to both my parents despite looking nothing like either of them, supposedly a doctor attempted to explain why this could be, perhaps an ancestor was drastically different in colour, another explanation that would actually turn out to be true was the connection between cutie marks and appearance. Cutie marks have always been somewhat understudied I guess, there have always been strange questions that have never truly been answered despite how important cutie marks are to ponies. In my case, the cutie mark and the destiny I would gain later in life would be connected heavily to grey. At the time of my birth, none of this information was proven and because of this uncertainty a divide had already been created between me and my father. The early years of my life are obviously somewhat fuzzy, I don't have a perfect memory, I do know of some details though. My father was often busy and even when he wasn't, he didn't pay much attention to me. My mother on the other hoof, was kind, caring and gentle... She was also a coward. The unloving creature I called a father would do plenty of work at his job and work even harder at home to treat his family like unimportant garbage, it started with negligence and became worse from there, he didn't leave us for whatever reason, I guess he was old fashioned or stubborn perhaps, either way, can't ask him now. My mother did what she could, I suppose. I certainly wouldn't have survived without her, I have mixed feelings on her now but when I was young I know I loved my mother more than anything else in Equestria. Despite being so young I still have memories of what kind of things would happen around me, my mother feeding me, keeping me warm, my father avoiding me and a lot of mostly one-sided arguments. These routines would continue into the later years of my foalhood, I grew up a little and became more capable of thinking and even speaking, my home was simple and very appropriate for raising a filly so young, colourful walls, cosy furniture, all of that stuff, you'd even be fooled into thinking it was a nice place to live if you saw it while my father was away. We had a beautiful garden full of pretty flowers, my mother cared about that garden a lot, it was the perfect place for a young filly to sit on her own, happy to be comfortable in the grass, resting near the flowers. My mother would sit with me when I was very young but as I grew older I found myself spending more time there by myself, away from the view of others. The greatest moments I had back then were the ones I spent with my mother or by myself, life was only peaceful without him around. Eventually I became old enough to attend school, this would be the first time I had interacted with anypony my own age, it was also an opportunity to be away from the hostility of my father. The day before my first day of school was a time in which I felt much happier than I would on my actual first day there. IntroductionsIntroductions I remember being excited about the idea of school, I was old enough to be allowed outside and to meet others. On the first day it was clear that I had expected something better than what I would find myself in. Introductions are pretty simple for most young ponies, I was one of the exceptions I guess. Apparently my family was well known by the local community, as a result of my parents'... issues, the others in my class were warned by their parents to stay away from the filly with a 'bad home'. They weren't wrong about that but when I was so young, all I wanted to know was why nopony seemed to want to speak to me like they did so many others. I remember trying a couple of times to get to know my classmates, my attempts never went well and after the first day I naturally became the quiet one, always sitting by myself, spending my time daydreaming. My teacher was kind enough, she didn't treat me differently than anypony else but it didn't make up for my lack of friends. Being so young, the classes weren't exactly the most challenging, most of the time I sat around drawing. I'm not going to claim to be some kind of brilliant artist but it was something to do and I remember enjoying it. After the first day of school I came home feeling rather unenthusiastic and it was clear to my mother that school hadn't gone the way I had expected it to, that night she spent more time with me than usual, she told me stories, made sure I was comfortable and helped me get to sleep peacefully. I loved my mother. Time went by and not much of interest happened, we learned a little maths, spelling, history... stuff like that. I remember enjoying geography the most at that age, something about these interesting and unique places I'd never visited or even heard of before fascinated me, I still remember learning about various maps of Equestria and beyond, I had recently been told stories of the Crystal Empire by my mother, when I asked my teacher where it would be on the map she seemed surprised I have even heard of it. My simple question had sparked interest and discussion in the class, others wanted to know what the Crystal Empire was and why it was no longer on the map, some even asked me questions. It was brief and wouldn't last long but it was the first time I had felt like I was part of a group, like I belonged in the class. It didn't take long for everything to go back to normal, well... mostly normal. There was one filly that continued talking to me after that day, her name was Vivianis, a unicorn who had a light green coat and a darker green mane, her eyes were blue and she even had a cutie mark. She was one of the first in our class to get their cutie mark and hers was some kind of dark green gem or crystal. Apparently she was especially interested in what I had asked the day before because some of her family actually lived in the Crystal Empire when it was still around, a great-grandparent or something like that. It had taken a while but I had finally made my first friend, somepony I was truly happy to be around. We spent the afternoon drawing various things we liked together, mostly flowers and gemstones. Having a friend made school so much more bearable, maybe even... fun. From that day onward we would always work together on group activities, we ate lunch together, talked all the time. I guess this was what I wanted from school since the beginning. My mother noticed that I was in a much better mood that night and I told her all about my new friend, looking back on it, she was definitely relieved to hear I had somepony my own age to spend time with. The next day at school there was a group assignment to present something to the rest of the class; we would need to work in pairs to decide on something we were both passionate about to give a small speech on the subject. Vivi and I worked together on this assignment of course, our subject was on the Crystal Empire and we began our work enthusiastically. Over the next week we read all kinds of books but there wasn't a whole lot of information about the topic, we found some useful stuff in the library but we had to ask our parents about all the information we couldn't find ourselves. The Crystal Empire was and honestly still is pretty interesting to me, the flugelhorn seemed to be a pretty weird instrument and their culture had plenty of unique elements that would make for an fun presentation. As a filly I found the story of King Sombra to be one of the most interesting aspects of the Crystal Empire, back then I couldn't understand the idea of a ruler who seemingly didn't care for their subjects, choosing power over friendship. Nowadays it seems I have more in common with Sombra than a 'kind' ruler like Celestia... I wonder what young me would think about that. When it finally came time to deliver our presentations everypony was pretty excited to talk about the subjects that we were fascinated by. I remember a pair that gave a speech on the history of Hearth's Warming, another on some old story about the 'Mare in the Moon' and even a presentation on rock farming... I never really understood that one. When it was finally time to give our own presentation, we stood in front of the entire class, I was a little nervous but I could tell Vivi was much more reluctant to speak than I was. Vivianis had gone out of her way to speak to the filly nopony wanted to be friends with, after all she had done for me, I was inspired to help her out this time. I began the presentation, giving a little background information about the Crystal Empire, I continued on my own for a minute or so until Vivi was able to gather her confidence and joined in. The presentation went well, everypony seemed to enjoy it and the teacher was impressed by how much information we were able to gather on such a niche topic. It felt great... I felt great... If it wasn't clear enough already, this moment definitely made it obvious to me. Vivianis and I were best friends and I never wanted that to change. The Withering RoseThe Withering Rose Cutie marks are certainly a topic of great interest, it's strange to think that this naturally occurring part of what makes a pony who they are can be so unpredictable... chaotic even. Most cutie marks aren't anything too weird of course, it's something that shows what you're good at or what your 'special ability' is. My mother's cutie mark was some kind of blue flower because she was great at gardening and my father's cutie mark was some kind of construction equipment because he had a unique spell that allowed him to assemble and disassemble things quickly, certainly useful for various jobs involving construction or demolition. Sometimes I think about the nature of cutie marks, what way around does it work? The question has never had a clear answer, some believed that the cutie mark determines your special talent while others believed that your talent determines the cutie mark. Did my mother have a gardening cutie mark because she became good at gardening or was she good at gardening because she happened to get a gardening cutie mark? There have been many examples of cutie marks activating strange effects throughout the years that make it pretty clear to me that it's the cutie mark that determines what you can do rather than the other way around, my cutie mark being the most notable example. A cutie mark that gives a pony 'bad luck', another that somehow gave a pony the ability to turn anything they touched into cotton candy just by thinking of it, these weird outliers were rare and would completely baffle cutie mark researchers. There was once a unicorn that had a cutie mark resembling the silhouettes of three ponies; one was a foal, the second was an adult and the third was elderly. For the longest time nopony had a clue what her cutie mark was meant to represent at all. The answer became clear once she had reached her eighth birthday and somehow resembled a pony in their twenties. The cutie mark gave her the strange effect of aging faster while using magic, every time she performed any magic at all she'd suddenly start aging significantly faster than normal. Unfortunately the amount of research that could be conducted on this cutie mark was limited due to her sadly short lifespan. This incident changed cutie mark research forever, it happened over a hundred years ago but the effects it had on the field would not be forgotten for as long as cutie mark research would exist. A new system was created for the classification of cutie marks, they were sorted into three different types; 'natural', 'unnatural' and 'antinatural'. A natural cutie mark is just your average cutie mark, one that represents their special talent, my mother's cutie mark would be an example of a natural cutie mark. An unnatural cutie mark is one that has a specific effect or power that can't be described as a 'talent', being able to juggle is a talent, being able to cast a unique spell is a 'power', as such my father's cutie mark would be an example of an unnatural cutie mark. Finally, an antinatural cutie mark is one that actively causes harm to the pony or their surroundings, the magical age acceleration cutie mark would be an example of an antinatural cutie mark... and so would mine. It all started as just another average morning, I had woken up slightly later than I probably should've but still early enough for being late to school not to be likely, I had plenty of time to get there, just less than usual. I walked downstairs from my room into the kitchen, my mother had already made breakfast for me, I don't remember what it was but it was probably good, my mother may not have had a cooking cutie mark but she was still very talented when it came to making food. Walking to school that day had been the same as always, I met Vivi on the way and we got there on time with no problems. It was a Monday, the day of the week when 'home projects' were set, usually to be completed by the end of the school week, this week's assignment was as simple as usual, we were told to choose something at home that we 'take care of' and bring it to school for a presentation on what it is, how we take care of it and why it's important to us. I wasn't really sure what counted as something that I could 'take care of' at first, when I got home that day I told my mother all about the assignment, hoping that she could help me come up with something that I could talk about at the end of the week. My mother's idea seemed simple and obvious, our garden was full of beautiful and fragile flowers, colourful little living things that would die quickly if not taken care of correctly. After that conversation with my mother I had decided on what I was going to do, I chose a flower from the garden, me and my mother placed it into a small pot and I brought it up to my bedroom. I placed the pot on a small table, the flower was a beautiful rose, so colourful and delicate. I went to sleep that night, relieved to have solved my problem so quickly and also excited to look after this flower personally for the week. On Tuesday I had woken up ready for school, I checked up on the rose immediately before leaving and everything seemed perfectly fine, I prepared to leave and watered the flower before starting my walk to school that day. Every morning that week I would check the health of my new flower, on Wednesday morning it still seemed fine, I went to school and got through classes just fine, the issues began when I got home that day. Something was wrong with the flower but it didn't seem too bad at first, one of the leaves was looking... less green than before, like it was losing its colour or something. The next morning it had gotten worse, the leaf was turning completely grey for some totally unknown reason, I wasn't sure what was happening, there's no way I was taking care of it wrong, I did exactly what mother had told me to do... I didn't tell her about the rose, I needed to take care of the rose myself, maybe giving it some extra water or more sunlight would help. By Thursday evening the flower was completely grey, it looked lifeless and weak. Not knowing what I could possibly do to fix whatever had gone wrong, I went to sleep and hoped that somehow things would be better the next morning. DisintegrationDisintegration It was Friday morning, I had to present my flower to the class today and it was almost completely dead... but that wouldn't be the worst thing to happen that day. The journey to school that morning had been mostly uninteresting, nothing special happened, I had hidden the wilting flower in my saddle bag, I guess I was embarrassed about Vivi seeing how badly I had taken care of the rose. We arrived at school, spent a little time outside and before I knew it, it was time for the first class to start. Everypony walked into class, sat down at their desks and prepared for the presentation, I remember a few of the items that my classmates had brought to present that day; favourite books, family heirlooms and even a couple of them had brought flowers too. I dreaded taking my flower out of the bag but I had to do it eventually... I reached in, found the rose and placed it onto my desk. On the way to school it had completely died and crumbled to dust. I felt bad that I had failed the assignment but at the time I believed that at least the worst thing that could happen would be a disappointed lecture from the teacher on taking better care of my belongings. Vivianis had told me all about what she was bringing to school for the presentation; her pet mouse. It made sense, a pet is something you need to take care of consistently, they're something you can feel connected to emotionally and it was even small enough to be suitable for a short presentation. The first few presentations went well enough although I don't remember the details of most of them. The one that I would no doubt remember for the rest of my life was Vivi's presentation. She began by introducing the mouse and talking all about how much hard work can go into caring for a pet. The presentation was to end with Vivianis walking around the classroom to let everypony pet the mouse, it should've been a happy moment for the class. Eventually she reached my desk and held the adorable little thing out for me to pet, I carefully moved my hoof forwards and touched the mouse's back. The moment I began petting, the mouse seemed to flinch. I pet the mouse once, it was fine. I pet the mouse a second time and its white fur darkened slightly. The third time I pet the mouse, it began turning grey and quickly collapsed onto its side. Vivi suddenly moved the mouse away from me, clearly frightened for its safety, but it was already too late for the poor creature. She watched in horror as the mouse's life drained from it, it's fur turned dark grey and after only a few seconds its skin began to crack. It was exactly what had happened to the rose, only faster this time. The mouse squeaked and suddenly disintegrated completely, leaving behind a pile of dust and blood, covering her hooves in the remains of what was once a living creature. I'll never forget how she looked at me, I'd never see her happy again. I panicked and sprinted out of the classroom, there was something wrong with me and I had no idea what to do. Home. I needed to get home and find mother. I rushed frantically through the streets, I was barely looking where I was going and my mind was in absolute chaos. The rest of the town had noticed that something was wrong and many had decided to follow after me to figure out what was going on. I saw my house just ahead of me, my mother was in the front garden, watering some flowers when she noticed me running towards her. My mother stopped everything she was doing and reached out towards me, I ran into her hooves, wanting nothing more than to be safe with her, I wrapped my hooves around my mother, shut my eyes tightly and cried desperately. I felt her place a hoof around me and hold me gently, the next thing I felt was my mother's skin slowly crack and crumble. One moment I was holding my mother, the next I was holding nothing but ashes and dust. Her blood covered me and as I noticed something was wrong I opened my eyes to find that she was gone. The town had gathered around us, watching in silence as a small blood-covered filly stared at her mother's disintegrated corpse in complete horror and confusion. Nopony knew what to do, how could they? I couldn't believe what was happening, I just sat there and hoped that none of this was real, that she was okay. At some point my father had joined the crowd surrounding our home. He was the first to step towards me but he had no love to give and no intention of trying to help me. The cold-hearted monster that had hated me from the day I was born stared at the horrifying scene that had captured the attention of the entire town and screamed at the crying filly in front of him. He called me cursed. He said I was a monster. He said I was evil. He declared that I should never have been born. I turned to my father, sadness replaced by pure anger. I stood up and lunged at him, grabbing him and holding on with all the strength I could muster. He screamed and crumbled. He died before I even had the chance to think about what I was doing. I let go once there was no body left to hold on to. I felt a powerful energy fill me as I was lifted into the air and my eyes began to glow blindingly white. The power diminished and I fell to the ground, unconscious. Killing my father had given me my cutie mark and had started the death of Equestria itself. Nothing would be the same after that day. CursedCursed I remember waking up in a cold and hostile room, it was a cell for criminals. The town had resorted to locking me away in fear of what I had done the day before. I sat on my own, not really thinking about anything and feeling kind of... numb. Every now and again one of the town's guards would carefully walk into the room, they'd check on me, see what I was up to and slide food into the cell. I don't know how long I was in that cold place all alone, it could've been days, weeks, or maybe just a few hours. Time felt strange to me, everything was blurry and it was hard to focus on my surroundings. Sometimes I'd hear ponies talking in another room, usually panicking and trying to figure out what to do with me. After a while they started... experimenting on me, for lack of a better term. The first thing they tried was having somepony place a flower into the room, they asked me to touch the flower. I did, the weak little daisy quickly died and crumbled to dust, like everything else I had touched recently. As days passed, more flowers were placed into the room, each one dying faster than the one before it. Eventually they gave up on the flower idea, they started bringing in unicorns to take a look at me. I have no idea what kinds of spells they were using on me. Maybe they were trying to 'cure' me, maybe they were trying to disable my 'ability'... whatever they were hoping to achieve, it didn't work. I overheard them talking again at some point, they were in communication with Canterlot, hoping to request some assistance, powerful unicorns to help fix whatever was wrong with me or maybe even stronger guards... in case I tried killing anypony else. After a while it became clear that their request for help had finally reached Canterlot, somepony was coming to help. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, young me would never have expected to see the princess of Equestria so close. Princess Celestia had traveled all the way from Canterlot to help the poor little filly that had been deemed by the town to be cursed and beyond help. She looked at me with genuine care in her eyes, it was the first time I'd seen somepony look at me kindly in what felt like an eternity. She told me that she was here to help, that everything would be okay. A royal guard brought some strange device resembling a magic dispersion ring, but it was different in colour and design. It was explained to me as a cutie mark dampening ring, it was designed by the most powerful unicorns in Equestria to disable the effects of any cutie mark. The ring was placed onto my horn and another flower was placed in front of me, I reached out to the plant and to my surprise, nothing happened at all. The flower was still perfectly healthy, the ring had actually worked after all. The princess had sat with me to talk about what would happen next, I was to be taken to Canterlot castle, the ring would keep myself and everypony else safe while she and other unicorns in the city worked together to find a permanent solution to my dangerous ability. For the first time I had felt a little hope... something other than despair. Princess Celestia walked by my side as we left the building and through town. I tried not to pay attention to the other ponies, standing and staring at me from a distance. We reached a carriage and stepped into it. It was the last time I would ever set hoof in the town I grew up in. I sat close to the princess as we traveled, she had tried to comfort me by wrapping her wing around me. It took a while but we finally arrived at the castle and I was introduced to my new home. An unbelievably large place with beautifully clean walls and bright red carpets. I now truly believed that I had been saved, the princess was the only pony I could rely on and she was going to help me in any way she could. I felt safe. There was a brief tour around the most important places in the castle and eventually I was shown where I would be sleeping from now on. It had been a long day and I was more than ready to finally sleep comfortably after everything that I had been through. I remember watching the sun set that evening, the warmth of the sun somehow felt different during that moment. I lied in the large, soft bed and attempted to rest my eyes. Despite all of the great things that had happened that day, despite how much my life had improved since I had lost my mother... I had trouble sleeping that night. Everything should be fine now, it will be okay, the princess will look after me. Regardless of how many times I repeated these thoughts to myself, I couldn't forget all that had occurred back home. I was hopeful, but that didn't mean I wasn't concerned about the future. The Canterlot ExperimentsThe Canterlot Experiments It'd been a few weeks and I'd finally gotten used to living somewhere so large, beautiful and often times crowded. I knew where everything I needed would be and how to get there by myself, the only thing I hadn't gotten used to were the experiments. Despite the dampening ring disabling my cutie mark's power, the search for a permanent solution to the problem continued and was being worked on almost every day. Powerful unicorns were called to Canterlot castle constantly to work with Celestia to figure out how my cutie mark worked and if there was some way they could make it less dangerous. I'm not going to pretend that I understand all of the advanced spells that they tried using on me, what I do know is that none of them were working. They tried to change the nature of my cutie mark, create potions to permanently nullify it and at some point they even tried to remove my cutie mark entirely. Apparently removing a cutie mark isn't possible, or if it is, nopony in Canterlot had discovered a spell that could do it yet. Every day passed by with no progress and it was clear to see that the lack of a solution was frustrating all involved. I tried to spend as much time with Celestia as possible, she had become like family to me and I hated to think that I may have been causing her stress. More time passed and eventually it had been over a month since I was brought to Canterlot. Something worrying started around that time, I had been getting headaches, multiple times a day. I was eating fine, drinking plenty and there shouldn't have been any problems at all with my health... I didn't tell anypony what was happening, they had enough to worry about as it was. Two months in and everypony was beginning to abandon any hope of fixing me. The headaches got worse, they were migraines now and Celestia had noticed something was wrong with me. It was too painful to hide from her at that point. The discovery of my headaches changed everything for the worse, the experiments became more frequent and the methods more desperate. Ancient spells that nopony other than Celestia had ever heard of were brought back to modern times in hope that something could be done to help me. None of it worked. After four months had passed, something terrifying happened... the ring stopped working. It turns out that the ring itself only functioned because of the magic from a rare and mystical tree found in Griffonstone. The bark of the tree could reduce the power of any cutie mark entirely, the problem was that my cutie mark killed any organic material. The magic in the bark was still effective but after being in direct contact with me for so long, it began to fail and eventually disintegrated like everything else. It happened during another experiment, Celestia and a group of unicorns were in the room with me when suddenly the ring cracked and fell apart. The moment it happened they all stopped what they were doing and froze in fear. The next few minutes were chaotic as every unicorn in the room rushed for the exit to get as much distance from me as possible. I froze too, realising that the only thing that had worked until now had suddenly become useless. Even Celestia had backed away from me cautiously, I looked to her, fear and dread in my eyes, hoping that she could do something. She stared back with a face that gave no comfort and showed no sign of confidence. The effect began almost immediately, a few potted plants around the room quickly began to wilt and die, I wasn't even touching them this time, just being close to me was enough to kill them. Celestia recovered from her shock and told me to stay where I was and that she was going to find another cutie mark dampening ring. A few minutes of uncertainty passed while I waited for her to return, Celestia walked back into the room holding another ring in her magic. The ring floated towards me, it was carefully levitated onto my horn and the magic took effect. Celestia brought one of the researchers back into the room and instructed them to move another potted plant towards me to test if the ring was working. The unicorn levitated one that was decorating the hallway into the room and it landed at my hooves. A few moments passed, the plant was healthy. The researcher asked me to touch the plant, I did, the plant remained healthy. Everypony breathed a sigh of relief as it became clear that it was safe once again. That day we learnt that the rings would only last up to four months, the real problem was that there were only three other cutie mark dampening rings in Canterlot. More months passed and so many more experiments failed, every day it seemed Celestia was becoming less hopeful, less kind and more distant. I'd seen her discussing secrets with the cutie mark researchers, hidden meetings I was never invited to. Whatever they were talking about, it couldn't be good. Eventually we had reached the final cutie mark dampening ring in Canterlot and Celestia had ordered for the collection of more rings from other major cities around Equestria. Not long after, every ring from every city in the land had been gathered in Canterlot, there were five of them and it became clear this temporary solution would not work for much longer. My cutie mark continued to grow in strength, every ring broke faster than the last. The first lasted four months, the third lasted three and the fifth crumbled after only two. Celestia had a paranoid look in her eyes all the time. I tried to be with her, I wanted to help her but she was always busy... Another ring failed and now I was wearing the eighth one, there were only two left in all of Equestria and the only way to make more would be to hunt down an extremely rare tree in another land. That night I had been lying in my bed, too stressed to fall asleep, it seemed as though it would be another horrendous night. I had taken some more medication for my headaches and I was attempting to relax when I heard the door of my room open and somepony enter. The glowing of Celestia's magic made it clear who had entered my room, I sat up in my bed and turned to face her, something was wrong. It wasn't the caring and kind Celestia I knew, a hopeless and despair-filled pony looked into my eyes from the doorway. She had been crying, here eyes were bloodshot and her magical mane seemed lifeless. I'll never forget the words that she said to me that night. "I am truly sorry, my little pony... but I must keep Equestria safe... even if it means I cannot save you." Celestia's magic took effect quickly as a bubble of magic surrounded me, it was like a powerful shield that was slowing closing around me. I cried for her help, I had never been so desperate in my life. As the bubble continued to grow smaller, it was clear that she was not listening to me. I had been abandoned again, and as I screamed in fear, my vision became darker until I could see no more. I blacked out. BanishmentBanishment Young, scared, alone, and waking up on a cold, hard floor once again. After everything that had happened, all that I'd been through... Celestia had thrown me into another cell, I had trusted her and now she had revealed herself to be no different from the ones who had confined me in my home town to keep everypony else safe from me. The only difference was that this time I would be trapped in a much larger and more intimidating prison... Tartarus. I found myself lying in a cage, cavernous walls surrounded me and I felt truly hopeless. I remember waking up in this frightening place and looking at my surroundings, it was clear that I was abandoned, nopony was coming to save me. I heard shuffling behind me, turning around revealed another cage and a strange creature contained within it. A weak and old-looking creature standing on four hooves although it clearly was not a pony. I didn't know what I was looking at then but I'd come to know it as a 'centaur'. It looked upon a small filly, alone and afraid, with disinterest it its eyes, Tartarus was not a place for the empathetic or kind. I suppose I was just another unimportant pony taking up space. I attempted to communicate with the creature and received little in terms of responses. After a while it began interacting with me more frequently, neither of us were going anywhere anytime soon, it gave us a lot of time to become familiar with each other. His name was Tirek and I learnt plenty about his hatred of Equestria and the ponies living there. It became clear to me that Celestia's plan had been to trap me far from the rest of the world, far enough to hopefully contain my deadly magic, her cowardice would be her downfall, if she had simply killed me instead, perhaps Equestria would have been saved. It was hard to keep track of time in a place such as Tartarus, minutes felt like days and days felt like weeks. I know now how long I had actually spent in that place, I just prefer not to think about it. Tirek might have been pure evil but when you only have one other individual for company you eventually stop caring about what crimes they may or may not have committed. Sometimes we discussed what we would do when we escaped, he seemed to think that it was inevitable while I was less hopeful. Tartarus had the power to contain all kinds of magic that could be used by prisoners, it was a form of magic dampening like no other. Of course, no power if infinite, the dampening rings had a limit and so did even Tartarus itself, it would just take a long time. Years passed, I became older, taller and more powerful. As I grew, so did my cutie mark's effect, at some point I had noticed Tirek's health deteriorate, cracks forming in his grey skin as his energy declined. The poor fool noticed what was happening and demanded that I stop using my powers on him, he didn't believe me when I told him I couldn't. He yelled, screamed and eventually even begged for his life, it took months for the illness to overwhelm the creature and before I knew it, my only cellmate was reduced to a pile of crimson blood and dark-grey ash on the floor of his cage. I can't say I felt bad for him, the creature wasn't exactly a hero to say the least, it was the first time I had felt fine with the death of another living creature. I'd be bored on my own but it wasn't worth getting upset about. It was also the first time that a living creature had been affected by my powers without being in direct contact with me, the strength of this cursed cutie mark was still increasing and so was the range of its effects. The death of Tirek made something clear to me, a feeling that I had whenever something was killed by my power. Pure energy. I had felt it before but it had never been this intense, I didn't know it at the time but I would come to learn that the creatures affected by my power did not just crumble into nothingness, their magic and powers could be transferred to myself. When Tirek died, I had gained a truly unique and powerful source of magic. More years passed, the range grew even larger, I could tell when I heard creatures contained in other parts of Tartarus out of my view die one by one, their energy and magic being absorbed into me. Eventually I began feeling the energy of creatures that were so far away that I could not even hear them suffer from the illness I had infected them with. Everything in Tartarus was dead at this point, the range must have finally reached outside of this prison. My power had finally reached Equestria once more, even after sealing me away in this place, they were not safe. The time had finally come, after so many years spent underground I had finally gathered enough magical energy to break out of Tartarus. The cage wasn't able to contain me anymore and there was nothing left in this place to stop me from leaving. The bars were destroyed easily and I calmly walked down the jagged stone steps. Eventually I found my way out and stepped into a new Equestria, it was something that I had not seen since I was a filly and it was nothing like how I remembered it being. Equestria was dying, I had known this for a while now. I held my head high and exited Tartarus, I was finally free... and I had somepony I needed to visit, somepony I hadn't seen in a long time.
BirthBirth Birth is something that happens everyday, almost constantly, it used to at least. In some little town of no importance in the middle of nowhere (although not too far from Canterlot) another birth was occurring, the parents weren't anypony special and it seemed as though this would just be another meaningless beginning. I was beginning that day, although my beginning would ultimately be the end of all else... for now though, nothing important. The moment I was born something wasn't right, my mother was a pegasus with a yellow body and a long, green mane, my father was a unicorn; white body and blue mane. I was a unicorn like my father but the colour of my body was light grey while my mane was a darker shade of grey, the only real colour my appearance had was my purple eyes. The immediate question was how I could possibly be related to both my parents despite looking nothing like either of them, supposedly a doctor attempted to explain why this could be, perhaps an ancestor was drastically different in colour, another explanation that would actually turn out to be true was the connection between cutie marks and appearance. Cutie marks have always been somewhat understudied I guess, there have always been strange questions that have never truly been answered despite how important cutie marks are to ponies. In my case, the cutie mark and the destiny I would gain later in life would be connected heavily to grey. At the time of my birth, none of this information was proven and because of this uncertainty a divide had already been created between me and my father. The early years of my life are obviously somewhat fuzzy, I don't have a perfect memory, I do know of some details though. My father was often busy and even when he wasn't, he didn't pay much attention to me. My mother on the other hoof, was kind, caring and gentle... She was also a coward. The unloving creature I called a father would do plenty of work at his job and work even harder at home to treat his family like unimportant garbage, it started with negligence and became worse from there, he didn't leave us for whatever reason, I guess he was old fashioned or stubborn perhaps, either way, can't ask him now. My mother did what she could, I suppose. I certainly wouldn't have survived without her, I have mixed feelings on her now but when I was young I know I loved my mother more than anything else in Equestria. Despite being so young I still have memories of what kind of things would happen around me, my mother feeding me, keeping me warm, my father avoiding me and a lot of mostly one-sided arguments. These routines would continue into the later years of my foalhood, I grew up a little and became more capable of thinking and even speaking, my home was simple and very appropriate for raising a filly so young, colourful walls, cosy furniture, all of that stuff, you'd even be fooled into thinking it was a nice place to live if you saw it while my father was away. We had a beautiful garden full of pretty flowers, my mother cared about that garden a lot, it was the perfect place for a young filly to sit on her own, happy to be comfortable in the grass, resting near the flowers. My mother would sit with me when I was very young but as I grew older I found myself spending more time there by myself, away from the view of others. The greatest moments I had back then were the ones I spent with my mother or by myself, life was only peaceful without him around. Eventually I became old enough to attend school, this would be the first time I had interacted with anypony my own age, it was also an opportunity to be away from the hostility of my father. The day before my first day of school was a time in which I felt much happier than I would on my actual first day there.
IntroductionsIntroductions I remember being excited about the idea of school, I was old enough to be allowed outside and to meet others. On the first day it was clear that I had expected something better than what I would find myself in. Introductions are pretty simple for most young ponies, I was one of the exceptions I guess. Apparently my family was well known by the local community, as a result of my parents'... issues, the others in my class were warned by their parents to stay away from the filly with a 'bad home'. They weren't wrong about that but when I was so young, all I wanted to know was why nopony seemed to want to speak to me like they did so many others. I remember trying a couple of times to get to know my classmates, my attempts never went well and after the first day I naturally became the quiet one, always sitting by myself, spending my time daydreaming. My teacher was kind enough, she didn't treat me differently than anypony else but it didn't make up for my lack of friends. Being so young, the classes weren't exactly the most challenging, most of the time I sat around drawing. I'm not going to claim to be some kind of brilliant artist but it was something to do and I remember enjoying it. After the first day of school I came home feeling rather unenthusiastic and it was clear to my mother that school hadn't gone the way I had expected it to, that night she spent more time with me than usual, she told me stories, made sure I was comfortable and helped me get to sleep peacefully. I loved my mother. Time went by and not much of interest happened, we learned a little maths, spelling, history... stuff like that. I remember enjoying geography the most at that age, something about these interesting and unique places I'd never visited or even heard of before fascinated me, I still remember learning about various maps of Equestria and beyond, I had recently been told stories of the Crystal Empire by my mother, when I asked my teacher where it would be on the map she seemed surprised I have even heard of it. My simple question had sparked interest and discussion in the class, others wanted to know what the Crystal Empire was and why it was no longer on the map, some even asked me questions. It was brief and wouldn't last long but it was the first time I had felt like I was part of a group, like I belonged in the class. It didn't take long for everything to go back to normal, well... mostly normal. There was one filly that continued talking to me after that day, her name was Vivianis, a unicorn who had a light green coat and a darker green mane, her eyes were blue and she even had a cutie mark. She was one of the first in our class to get their cutie mark and hers was some kind of dark green gem or crystal. Apparently she was especially interested in what I had asked the day before because some of her family actually lived in the Crystal Empire when it was still around, a great-grandparent or something like that. It had taken a while but I had finally made my first friend, somepony I was truly happy to be around. We spent the afternoon drawing various things we liked together, mostly flowers and gemstones. Having a friend made school so much more bearable, maybe even... fun. From that day onward we would always work together on group activities, we ate lunch together, talked all the time. I guess this was what I wanted from school since the beginning. My mother noticed that I was in a much better mood that night and I told her all about my new friend, looking back on it, she was definitely relieved to hear I had somepony my own age to spend time with. The next day at school there was a group assignment to present something to the rest of the class; we would need to work in pairs to decide on something we were both passionate about to give a small speech on the subject. Vivi and I worked together on this assignment of course, our subject was on the Crystal Empire and we began our work enthusiastically. Over the next week we read all kinds of books but there wasn't a whole lot of information about the topic, we found some useful stuff in the library but we had to ask our parents about all the information we couldn't find ourselves. The Crystal Empire was and honestly still is pretty interesting to me, the flugelhorn seemed to be a pretty weird instrument and their culture had plenty of unique elements that would make for an fun presentation. As a filly I found the story of King Sombra to be one of the most interesting aspects of the Crystal Empire, back then I couldn't understand the idea of a ruler who seemingly didn't care for their subjects, choosing power over friendship. Nowadays it seems I have more in common with Sombra than a 'kind' ruler like Celestia... I wonder what young me would think about that. When it finally came time to deliver our presentations everypony was pretty excited to talk about the subjects that we were fascinated by. I remember a pair that gave a speech on the history of Hearth's Warming, another on some old story about the 'Mare in the Moon' and even a presentation on rock farming... I never really understood that one. When it was finally time to give our own presentation, we stood in front of the entire class, I was a little nervous but I could tell Vivi was much more reluctant to speak than I was. Vivianis had gone out of her way to speak to the filly nopony wanted to be friends with, after all she had done for me, I was inspired to help her out this time. I began the presentation, giving a little background information about the Crystal Empire, I continued on my own for a minute or so until Vivi was able to gather her confidence and joined in. The presentation went well, everypony seemed to enjoy it and the teacher was impressed by how much information we were able to gather on such a niche topic. It felt great... I felt great... If it wasn't clear enough already, this moment definitely made it obvious to me. Vivianis and I were best friends and I never wanted that to change.
The Withering RoseThe Withering Rose Cutie marks are certainly a topic of great interest, it's strange to think that this naturally occurring part of what makes a pony who they are can be so unpredictable... chaotic even. Most cutie marks aren't anything too weird of course, it's something that shows what you're good at or what your 'special ability' is. My mother's cutie mark was some kind of blue flower because she was great at gardening and my father's cutie mark was some kind of construction equipment because he had a unique spell that allowed him to assemble and disassemble things quickly, certainly useful for various jobs involving construction or demolition. Sometimes I think about the nature of cutie marks, what way around does it work? The question has never had a clear answer, some believed that the cutie mark determines your special talent while others believed that your talent determines the cutie mark. Did my mother have a gardening cutie mark because she became good at gardening or was she good at gardening because she happened to get a gardening cutie mark? There have been many examples of cutie marks activating strange effects throughout the years that make it pretty clear to me that it's the cutie mark that determines what you can do rather than the other way around, my cutie mark being the most notable example. A cutie mark that gives a pony 'bad luck', another that somehow gave a pony the ability to turn anything they touched into cotton candy just by thinking of it, these weird outliers were rare and would completely baffle cutie mark researchers. There was once a unicorn that had a cutie mark resembling the silhouettes of three ponies; one was a foal, the second was an adult and the third was elderly. For the longest time nopony had a clue what her cutie mark was meant to represent at all. The answer became clear once she had reached her eighth birthday and somehow resembled a pony in their twenties. The cutie mark gave her the strange effect of aging faster while using magic, every time she performed any magic at all she'd suddenly start aging significantly faster than normal. Unfortunately the amount of research that could be conducted on this cutie mark was limited due to her sadly short lifespan. This incident changed cutie mark research forever, it happened over a hundred years ago but the effects it had on the field would not be forgotten for as long as cutie mark research would exist. A new system was created for the classification of cutie marks, they were sorted into three different types; 'natural', 'unnatural' and 'antinatural'. A natural cutie mark is just your average cutie mark, one that represents their special talent, my mother's cutie mark would be an example of a natural cutie mark. An unnatural cutie mark is one that has a specific effect or power that can't be described as a 'talent', being able to juggle is a talent, being able to cast a unique spell is a 'power', as such my father's cutie mark would be an example of an unnatural cutie mark. Finally, an antinatural cutie mark is one that actively causes harm to the pony or their surroundings, the magical age acceleration cutie mark would be an example of an antinatural cutie mark... and so would mine. It all started as just another average morning, I had woken up slightly later than I probably should've but still early enough for being late to school not to be likely, I had plenty of time to get there, just less than usual. I walked downstairs from my room into the kitchen, my mother had already made breakfast for me, I don't remember what it was but it was probably good, my mother may not have had a cooking cutie mark but she was still very talented when it came to making food. Walking to school that day had been the same as always, I met Vivi on the way and we got there on time with no problems. It was a Monday, the day of the week when 'home projects' were set, usually to be completed by the end of the school week, this week's assignment was as simple as usual, we were told to choose something at home that we 'take care of' and bring it to school for a presentation on what it is, how we take care of it and why it's important to us. I wasn't really sure what counted as something that I could 'take care of' at first, when I got home that day I told my mother all about the assignment, hoping that she could help me come up with something that I could talk about at the end of the week. My mother's idea seemed simple and obvious, our garden was full of beautiful and fragile flowers, colourful little living things that would die quickly if not taken care of correctly. After that conversation with my mother I had decided on what I was going to do, I chose a flower from the garden, me and my mother placed it into a small pot and I brought it up to my bedroom. I placed the pot on a small table, the flower was a beautiful rose, so colourful and delicate. I went to sleep that night, relieved to have solved my problem so quickly and also excited to look after this flower personally for the week. On Tuesday I had woken up ready for school, I checked up on the rose immediately before leaving and everything seemed perfectly fine, I prepared to leave and watered the flower before starting my walk to school that day. Every morning that week I would check the health of my new flower, on Wednesday morning it still seemed fine, I went to school and got through classes just fine, the issues began when I got home that day. Something was wrong with the flower but it didn't seem too bad at first, one of the leaves was looking... less green than before, like it was losing its colour or something. The next morning it had gotten worse, the leaf was turning completely grey for some totally unknown reason, I wasn't sure what was happening, there's no way I was taking care of it wrong, I did exactly what mother had told me to do... I didn't tell her about the rose, I needed to take care of the rose myself, maybe giving it some extra water or more sunlight would help. By Thursday evening the flower was completely grey, it looked lifeless and weak. Not knowing what I could possibly do to fix whatever had gone wrong, I went to sleep and hoped that somehow things would be better the next morning.
DisintegrationDisintegration It was Friday morning, I had to present my flower to the class today and it was almost completely dead... but that wouldn't be the worst thing to happen that day. The journey to school that morning had been mostly uninteresting, nothing special happened, I had hidden the wilting flower in my saddle bag, I guess I was embarrassed about Vivi seeing how badly I had taken care of the rose. We arrived at school, spent a little time outside and before I knew it, it was time for the first class to start. Everypony walked into class, sat down at their desks and prepared for the presentation, I remember a few of the items that my classmates had brought to present that day; favourite books, family heirlooms and even a couple of them had brought flowers too. I dreaded taking my flower out of the bag but I had to do it eventually... I reached in, found the rose and placed it onto my desk. On the way to school it had completely died and crumbled to dust. I felt bad that I had failed the assignment but at the time I believed that at least the worst thing that could happen would be a disappointed lecture from the teacher on taking better care of my belongings. Vivianis had told me all about what she was bringing to school for the presentation; her pet mouse. It made sense, a pet is something you need to take care of consistently, they're something you can feel connected to emotionally and it was even small enough to be suitable for a short presentation. The first few presentations went well enough although I don't remember the details of most of them. The one that I would no doubt remember for the rest of my life was Vivi's presentation. She began by introducing the mouse and talking all about how much hard work can go into caring for a pet. The presentation was to end with Vivianis walking around the classroom to let everypony pet the mouse, it should've been a happy moment for the class. Eventually she reached my desk and held the adorable little thing out for me to pet, I carefully moved my hoof forwards and touched the mouse's back. The moment I began petting, the mouse seemed to flinch. I pet the mouse once, it was fine. I pet the mouse a second time and its white fur darkened slightly. The third time I pet the mouse, it began turning grey and quickly collapsed onto its side. Vivi suddenly moved the mouse away from me, clearly frightened for its safety, but it was already too late for the poor creature. She watched in horror as the mouse's life drained from it, it's fur turned dark grey and after only a few seconds its skin began to crack. It was exactly what had happened to the rose, only faster this time. The mouse squeaked and suddenly disintegrated completely, leaving behind a pile of dust and blood, covering her hooves in the remains of what was once a living creature. I'll never forget how she looked at me, I'd never see her happy again. I panicked and sprinted out of the classroom, there was something wrong with me and I had no idea what to do. Home. I needed to get home and find mother. I rushed frantically through the streets, I was barely looking where I was going and my mind was in absolute chaos. The rest of the town had noticed that something was wrong and many had decided to follow after me to figure out what was going on. I saw my house just ahead of me, my mother was in the front garden, watering some flowers when she noticed me running towards her. My mother stopped everything she was doing and reached out towards me, I ran into her hooves, wanting nothing more than to be safe with her, I wrapped my hooves around my mother, shut my eyes tightly and cried desperately. I felt her place a hoof around me and hold me gently, the next thing I felt was my mother's skin slowly crack and crumble. One moment I was holding my mother, the next I was holding nothing but ashes and dust. Her blood covered me and as I noticed something was wrong I opened my eyes to find that she was gone. The town had gathered around us, watching in silence as a small blood-covered filly stared at her mother's disintegrated corpse in complete horror and confusion. Nopony knew what to do, how could they? I couldn't believe what was happening, I just sat there and hoped that none of this was real, that she was okay. At some point my father had joined the crowd surrounding our home. He was the first to step towards me but he had no love to give and no intention of trying to help me. The cold-hearted monster that had hated me from the day I was born stared at the horrifying scene that had captured the attention of the entire town and screamed at the crying filly in front of him. He called me cursed. He said I was a monster. He said I was evil. He declared that I should never have been born. I turned to my father, sadness replaced by pure anger. I stood up and lunged at him, grabbing him and holding on with all the strength I could muster. He screamed and crumbled. He died before I even had the chance to think about what I was doing. I let go once there was no body left to hold on to. I felt a powerful energy fill me as I was lifted into the air and my eyes began to glow blindingly white. The power diminished and I fell to the ground, unconscious. Killing my father had given me my cutie mark and had started the death of Equestria itself. Nothing would be the same after that day.
CursedCursed I remember waking up in a cold and hostile room, it was a cell for criminals. The town had resorted to locking me away in fear of what I had done the day before. I sat on my own, not really thinking about anything and feeling kind of... numb. Every now and again one of the town's guards would carefully walk into the room, they'd check on me, see what I was up to and slide food into the cell. I don't know how long I was in that cold place all alone, it could've been days, weeks, or maybe just a few hours. Time felt strange to me, everything was blurry and it was hard to focus on my surroundings. Sometimes I'd hear ponies talking in another room, usually panicking and trying to figure out what to do with me. After a while they started... experimenting on me, for lack of a better term. The first thing they tried was having somepony place a flower into the room, they asked me to touch the flower. I did, the weak little daisy quickly died and crumbled to dust, like everything else I had touched recently. As days passed, more flowers were placed into the room, each one dying faster than the one before it. Eventually they gave up on the flower idea, they started bringing in unicorns to take a look at me. I have no idea what kinds of spells they were using on me. Maybe they were trying to 'cure' me, maybe they were trying to disable my 'ability'... whatever they were hoping to achieve, it didn't work. I overheard them talking again at some point, they were in communication with Canterlot, hoping to request some assistance, powerful unicorns to help fix whatever was wrong with me or maybe even stronger guards... in case I tried killing anypony else. After a while it became clear that their request for help had finally reached Canterlot, somepony was coming to help. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, young me would never have expected to see the princess of Equestria so close. Princess Celestia had traveled all the way from Canterlot to help the poor little filly that had been deemed by the town to be cursed and beyond help. She looked at me with genuine care in her eyes, it was the first time I'd seen somepony look at me kindly in what felt like an eternity. She told me that she was here to help, that everything would be okay. A royal guard brought some strange device resembling a magic dispersion ring, but it was different in colour and design. It was explained to me as a cutie mark dampening ring, it was designed by the most powerful unicorns in Equestria to disable the effects of any cutie mark. The ring was placed onto my horn and another flower was placed in front of me, I reached out to the plant and to my surprise, nothing happened at all. The flower was still perfectly healthy, the ring had actually worked after all. The princess had sat with me to talk about what would happen next, I was to be taken to Canterlot castle, the ring would keep myself and everypony else safe while she and other unicorns in the city worked together to find a permanent solution to my dangerous ability. For the first time I had felt a little hope... something other than despair. Princess Celestia walked by my side as we left the building and through town. I tried not to pay attention to the other ponies, standing and staring at me from a distance. We reached a carriage and stepped into it. It was the last time I would ever set hoof in the town I grew up in. I sat close to the princess as we traveled, she had tried to comfort me by wrapping her wing around me. It took a while but we finally arrived at the castle and I was introduced to my new home. An unbelievably large place with beautifully clean walls and bright red carpets. I now truly believed that I had been saved, the princess was the only pony I could rely on and she was going to help me in any way she could. I felt safe. There was a brief tour around the most important places in the castle and eventually I was shown where I would be sleeping from now on. It had been a long day and I was more than ready to finally sleep comfortably after everything that I had been through. I remember watching the sun set that evening, the warmth of the sun somehow felt different during that moment. I lied in the large, soft bed and attempted to rest my eyes. Despite all of the great things that had happened that day, despite how much my life had improved since I had lost my mother... I had trouble sleeping that night. Everything should be fine now, it will be okay, the princess will look after me. Regardless of how many times I repeated these thoughts to myself, I couldn't forget all that had occurred back home. I was hopeful, but that didn't mean I wasn't concerned about the future.
The Canterlot ExperimentsThe Canterlot Experiments It'd been a few weeks and I'd finally gotten used to living somewhere so large, beautiful and often times crowded. I knew where everything I needed would be and how to get there by myself, the only thing I hadn't gotten used to were the experiments. Despite the dampening ring disabling my cutie mark's power, the search for a permanent solution to the problem continued and was being worked on almost every day. Powerful unicorns were called to Canterlot castle constantly to work with Celestia to figure out how my cutie mark worked and if there was some way they could make it less dangerous. I'm not going to pretend that I understand all of the advanced spells that they tried using on me, what I do know is that none of them were working. They tried to change the nature of my cutie mark, create potions to permanently nullify it and at some point they even tried to remove my cutie mark entirely. Apparently removing a cutie mark isn't possible, or if it is, nopony in Canterlot had discovered a spell that could do it yet. Every day passed by with no progress and it was clear to see that the lack of a solution was frustrating all involved. I tried to spend as much time with Celestia as possible, she had become like family to me and I hated to think that I may have been causing her stress. More time passed and eventually it had been over a month since I was brought to Canterlot. Something worrying started around that time, I had been getting headaches, multiple times a day. I was eating fine, drinking plenty and there shouldn't have been any problems at all with my health... I didn't tell anypony what was happening, they had enough to worry about as it was. Two months in and everypony was beginning to abandon any hope of fixing me. The headaches got worse, they were migraines now and Celestia had noticed something was wrong with me. It was too painful to hide from her at that point. The discovery of my headaches changed everything for the worse, the experiments became more frequent and the methods more desperate. Ancient spells that nopony other than Celestia had ever heard of were brought back to modern times in hope that something could be done to help me. None of it worked. After four months had passed, something terrifying happened... the ring stopped working. It turns out that the ring itself only functioned because of the magic from a rare and mystical tree found in Griffonstone. The bark of the tree could reduce the power of any cutie mark entirely, the problem was that my cutie mark killed any organic material. The magic in the bark was still effective but after being in direct contact with me for so long, it began to fail and eventually disintegrated like everything else. It happened during another experiment, Celestia and a group of unicorns were in the room with me when suddenly the ring cracked and fell apart. The moment it happened they all stopped what they were doing and froze in fear. The next few minutes were chaotic as every unicorn in the room rushed for the exit to get as much distance from me as possible. I froze too, realising that the only thing that had worked until now had suddenly become useless. Even Celestia had backed away from me cautiously, I looked to her, fear and dread in my eyes, hoping that she could do something. She stared back with a face that gave no comfort and showed no sign of confidence. The effect began almost immediately, a few potted plants around the room quickly began to wilt and die, I wasn't even touching them this time, just being close to me was enough to kill them. Celestia recovered from her shock and told me to stay where I was and that she was going to find another cutie mark dampening ring. A few minutes of uncertainty passed while I waited for her to return, Celestia walked back into the room holding another ring in her magic. The ring floated towards me, it was carefully levitated onto my horn and the magic took effect. Celestia brought one of the researchers back into the room and instructed them to move another potted plant towards me to test if the ring was working. The unicorn levitated one that was decorating the hallway into the room and it landed at my hooves. A few moments passed, the plant was healthy. The researcher asked me to touch the plant, I did, the plant remained healthy. Everypony breathed a sigh of relief as it became clear that it was safe once again. That day we learnt that the rings would only last up to four months, the real problem was that there were only three other cutie mark dampening rings in Canterlot. More months passed and so many more experiments failed, every day it seemed Celestia was becoming less hopeful, less kind and more distant. I'd seen her discussing secrets with the cutie mark researchers, hidden meetings I was never invited to. Whatever they were talking about, it couldn't be good. Eventually we had reached the final cutie mark dampening ring in Canterlot and Celestia had ordered for the collection of more rings from other major cities around Equestria. Not long after, every ring from every city in the land had been gathered in Canterlot, there were five of them and it became clear this temporary solution would not work for much longer. My cutie mark continued to grow in strength, every ring broke faster than the last. The first lasted four months, the third lasted three and the fifth crumbled after only two. Celestia had a paranoid look in her eyes all the time. I tried to be with her, I wanted to help her but she was always busy... Another ring failed and now I was wearing the eighth one, there were only two left in all of Equestria and the only way to make more would be to hunt down an extremely rare tree in another land. That night I had been lying in my bed, too stressed to fall asleep, it seemed as though it would be another horrendous night. I had taken some more medication for my headaches and I was attempting to relax when I heard the door of my room open and somepony enter. The glowing of Celestia's magic made it clear who had entered my room, I sat up in my bed and turned to face her, something was wrong. It wasn't the caring and kind Celestia I knew, a hopeless and despair-filled pony looked into my eyes from the doorway. She had been crying, here eyes were bloodshot and her magical mane seemed lifeless. I'll never forget the words that she said to me that night. "I am truly sorry, my little pony... but I must keep Equestria safe... even if it means I cannot save you." Celestia's magic took effect quickly as a bubble of magic surrounded me, it was like a powerful shield that was slowing closing around me. I cried for her help, I had never been so desperate in my life. As the bubble continued to grow smaller, it was clear that she was not listening to me. I had been abandoned again, and as I screamed in fear, my vision became darker until I could see no more. I blacked out.
BanishmentBanishment Young, scared, alone, and waking up on a cold, hard floor once again. After everything that had happened, all that I'd been through... Celestia had thrown me into another cell, I had trusted her and now she had revealed herself to be no different from the ones who had confined me in my home town to keep everypony else safe from me. The only difference was that this time I would be trapped in a much larger and more intimidating prison... Tartarus. I found myself lying in a cage, cavernous walls surrounded me and I felt truly hopeless. I remember waking up in this frightening place and looking at my surroundings, it was clear that I was abandoned, nopony was coming to save me. I heard shuffling behind me, turning around revealed another cage and a strange creature contained within it. A weak and old-looking creature standing on four hooves although it clearly was not a pony. I didn't know what I was looking at then but I'd come to know it as a 'centaur'. It looked upon a small filly, alone and afraid, with disinterest it its eyes, Tartarus was not a place for the empathetic or kind. I suppose I was just another unimportant pony taking up space. I attempted to communicate with the creature and received little in terms of responses. After a while it began interacting with me more frequently, neither of us were going anywhere anytime soon, it gave us a lot of time to become familiar with each other. His name was Tirek and I learnt plenty about his hatred of Equestria and the ponies living there. It became clear to me that Celestia's plan had been to trap me far from the rest of the world, far enough to hopefully contain my deadly magic, her cowardice would be her downfall, if she had simply killed me instead, perhaps Equestria would have been saved. It was hard to keep track of time in a place such as Tartarus, minutes felt like days and days felt like weeks. I know now how long I had actually spent in that place, I just prefer not to think about it. Tirek might have been pure evil but when you only have one other individual for company you eventually stop caring about what crimes they may or may not have committed. Sometimes we discussed what we would do when we escaped, he seemed to think that it was inevitable while I was less hopeful. Tartarus had the power to contain all kinds of magic that could be used by prisoners, it was a form of magic dampening like no other. Of course, no power if infinite, the dampening rings had a limit and so did even Tartarus itself, it would just take a long time. Years passed, I became older, taller and more powerful. As I grew, so did my cutie mark's effect, at some point I had noticed Tirek's health deteriorate, cracks forming in his grey skin as his energy declined. The poor fool noticed what was happening and demanded that I stop using my powers on him, he didn't believe me when I told him I couldn't. He yelled, screamed and eventually even begged for his life, it took months for the illness to overwhelm the creature and before I knew it, my only cellmate was reduced to a pile of crimson blood and dark-grey ash on the floor of his cage. I can't say I felt bad for him, the creature wasn't exactly a hero to say the least, it was the first time I had felt fine with the death of another living creature. I'd be bored on my own but it wasn't worth getting upset about. It was also the first time that a living creature had been affected by my powers without being in direct contact with me, the strength of this cursed cutie mark was still increasing and so was the range of its effects. The death of Tirek made something clear to me, a feeling that I had whenever something was killed by my power. Pure energy. I had felt it before but it had never been this intense, I didn't know it at the time but I would come to learn that the creatures affected by my power did not just crumble into nothingness, their magic and powers could be transferred to myself. When Tirek died, I had gained a truly unique and powerful source of magic. More years passed, the range grew even larger, I could tell when I heard creatures contained in other parts of Tartarus out of my view die one by one, their energy and magic being absorbed into me. Eventually I began feeling the energy of creatures that were so far away that I could not even hear them suffer from the illness I had infected them with. Everything in Tartarus was dead at this point, the range must have finally reached outside of this prison. My power had finally reached Equestria once more, even after sealing me away in this place, they were not safe. The time had finally come, after so many years spent underground I had finally gathered enough magical energy to break out of Tartarus. The cage wasn't able to contain me anymore and there was nothing left in this place to stop me from leaving. The bars were destroyed easily and I calmly walked down the jagged stone steps. Eventually I found my way out and stepped into a new Equestria, it was something that I had not seen since I was a filly and it was nothing like how I remembered it being. Equestria was dying, I had known this for a while now. I held my head high and exited Tartarus, I was finally free... and I had somepony I needed to visit, somepony I hadn't seen in a long time.
