Chapters Birth
Birth is something that happens everyday, almost constantly, it used to at least.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Introductions
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.
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'.
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.
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.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.
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.
We spent the afternoon drawing various things we liked together, mostly flowers and gemstones.
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.
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.
When it finally came time to deliver our presentations everypony was pretty excited to talk about the subjects that we were fascinated by.
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.
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.I felt great...
If it wasn't clear enough already, this moment definitely made it obvious to me.
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.
Sometimes I think about the nature of cutie marks, what way around does it work?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I placed the pot on a small table, the flower was a beautiful rose, so colourful and delicate.
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.
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.
By Thursday evening the flower was completely grey, it looked lifeless and weak.
Disintegration
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vivi suddenly moved the mouse away from me, clearly frightened for its safety, but it was already too late for the poor creature.
It was exactly what had happened to the rose, only faster this time.
I'll never forget how she looked at me, I'd never see her happy again.
I rushed frantically through the streets, I was barely looking where I was going and my mind was in absolute chaos.
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?
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.
He called me cursed.
I turned to my father, sadness replaced by pure anger.
I let go once there was no body left to hold on to.
Killing my father had given me my cutie mark and had started the death of Equestria itself.
Cursed
I remember waking up in a cold and hostile room, it was a cell for criminals.
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.
Sometimes I'd hear ponies talking in another room, usually panicking and trying to figure out what to do with me.
The first thing they tried was having somepony place a flower into the room, they asked me to touch the flower.
Eventually they gave up on the flower idea, they started bringing in unicorns to take a look at me.
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.
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.
A royal guard brought some strange device resembling a magic dispersion ring, but it was different in colour and design.
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 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.
I sat close to the princess as we traveled, she had tried to comfort me by wrapping her wing around me.
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.
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.
I lied in the large, soft bed and attempted to rest my eyes.
Everything should be fine now, it will be okay, the princess will look after me.
The Canterlot Experiments
The Canterlot Experiments
It'd been a few weeks and I'd finally gotten used to living somewhere so large, beautiful and often times crowded.
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.
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.
Every day passed by with no progress and it was clear to see that the lack of a solution was frustrating all involved.
More time passed and eventually it had been over a month since I was brought to Canterlot.
Two months in and everypony was beginning to abandon any hope of fixing me.
The discovery of my headaches changed everything for the worse, the experiments became more frequent and the methods more desperate.
After four months had passed, something terrifying happened... the ring stopped working.
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.
I froze too, realising that the only thing that had worked until now had suddenly become useless.
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.
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.
Everypony breathed a sigh of relief as it became clear that it was safe once again.
More months passed and so many more experiments failed, every day it seemed Celestia was becoming less hopeful, less kind and more distant.
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.
Celestia had a paranoid look in her eyes all the time.
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.
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.
She had been crying, here eyes were bloodshot and her magical mane seemed lifeless.
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 had been abandoned again, and as I screamed in fear, my vision became darker until I could see no more.
Banishment
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 heard shuffling behind me, turning around revealed another cage and a strange creature contained within it.
It looked upon a small filly, alone and afraid, with disinterest it its eyes, Tartarus was not a place for the empathetic or kind.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The death of Tirek made something clear to me, a feeling that I had whenever something was killed by my power. Pure energy.
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.
The time had finally come, after so many years spent underground I had finally gathered enough magical energy to break out of Tartarus.
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.
