The 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.

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