Honor.
It is a rare chance that anyone is gifted with high honors. To have your parents trust you with watching the home? This is an honor. To have your employer promote you to assistant? This is an honor. To have the royalty of the kingdom personally knight you and mark you a trusted member of the court? This is an honor. There is very few honors that could possibly overshadow the honor of knighting. But there is one... There is one honor that makes a knighting look like the bronze medal at the Equestria Games. An honor that would make a lesser pony be reduced to mere ashes at just the offer.
The tremendous, omnipotent, cosmic honor of being dubbed a Cutie Mark Crusader. That honor alone has only been able to be held by four ponies with the pure strength of will to handle the blaze that was the initiation. But, this honor can be amplified. Blasphemy, perhaps. Though the honor can be greater when you add a first along with the title...
"Ya' wanna be a Cutie Mark Crusader?" Apple Bloom looked down baffled by the implication she was being fed.
Within the safety of their impregnable fortress, Cutie Mark HQ, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom looked out of their main window to the small creature that came waving a white flag. At the foot of their mighty tree was a young colt, Pipsqueak, holding a flag in his mouth and wavering it from one side to the other. "M's! Ah m'nn'm me m'a M'dd'e M'rk Mooma'mer!" Pipsqueak called back to the trio, the flagpole in his mouth making his words far from understandable.
The three pulled back into their sanctuary, preparing to deduce this code. "...Any ya'll understood what 'e said?" Apple Bloom whispered.
"I think he said something about being a moody moo maimer..." Scootaloo guessed.
"Really? Thought he said somethin' 'bout his ma makin' moles..." Apple Bloom added as well.
"No! He said he wanted to be A Cutie Mark Crusader," said Sweetie Belle. When Scootaloo and Apple Bloom gave Sweetie Belle a strange look, she shrugged, "My sister talks with cloths in her mouth all the time."
"Well... Even still... He said he wanted ta' join us before he was wavin' that flag. But... Why?" Apple Bloom posed another question to the think tank.
The gears started to whirl between the three. A spy sent by Diamond Tiara? No, too cliche. A changeling in disguise trying to get to their close ones? No, changelings aren't that stupid. An infiltrator sent by the boys in class? No; why would boys want to see what girls were doing?
"You notice that all our ideas go right to spies?" Scootaloo asked.
"If I didn' know better, I'd call that there spy talk. But we got more importan' things to figure out..." Apple Bloom went back to thinking, tapping a hoof against her head.
As they thought, Sweetie Belle fell upon a revolutionary idea. It was so brilliant... So complex... So outlandish... It had to be true. She sprang to her hooves and looked out the window to see Pipsqueak; who had put his flag down and was just seeming to be checking himself over a bit. "Pip!" She called.
Pipsqueak sprang to attention and hit his head with his front hoof in a hurried salute, trying not to show a tear go down his face as the quick hit brought a shock of pain to him. "Yes?"
"...Did you want to join because you don't have a cutie mark?"
By Celestia's crown... Pipsqueak, Apple Bloom, and even Scootaloo looked at Sweetie Belle as if she had come upon some great revelation. The groups needn't exchange any more words as the green sloped walkway leading up to the clubhouse fell to the floor, welcoming Pipsqueak to his final steps towards the fortress.
Pipsqueak stood at the doorway, greeted by the three fillies garbed in dark red capes tied around their necks and draped over their backs. With each step he took into the sacred Cutie Mark Crusader Head Quarters, he saw Scootaloo thump a hoof against the a pair of drums alternately. For whatever reason, the young pegasi's playing seemed a bit halted at times as she received odd, controlling looks from Apple Bloom on the other side of the room. Regardless, Pipsqueak moved on until he stopped in the near middle of the room. With a final thump of the drums from Scootaloo, she withdrew, looking a bit dejected as if she wanted to do something. Finally, Sweetie Belle began to speak from behind a podium before Pipsqueak.
"We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect Pipsqueak to join us as a sis--" Sweetie Belle suddenly came to a halt and looked down to Scootaloo, who only gave her an embarrassed look in return. "--Join us as a... b-brother?" Sweetie Belle said with a slight hold on her words before seeming to find a better set, "Friend--Skip a few lines... And a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader!"
"Your first duty is to revise the oath..." Scootaloo groaned before letting Sweetie Belle continue.
"You are solemnly sworn in, here this day, in witness of your fellow..." Sweetie Belle paused a moment, considering if she had to reword the next part.
As if picking up on that, and seeing that this was awkward enough, Apple Bloom grabbed one of their spare capes and put it on Pipsqueak in a hurry. "Congrats!" She gave Pipsqueak a quick swat to the back before returning to her friends.
Pipsqueak studied his new duds for a moment, a red tint stretching across his face. "So... Ah'm a Crusade'ah now?"
"Yes indeedy!" Sweetie Belle chimed in a sweet, joyful tone.
"Not only that..." Scootaloo suddenly realized something as she zipped over to Pipsqueak and draped one of her front legs around his neck. "You're our first boy member!"
"Really!?" Pipsqueak gasped with a great joy himself. With a hurried look, he checked his flank, though frowned soon after. "No Cutie Mark yet..."
"By Joe, I think he's got it!" Scootaloo nudged the colt once as the two other crusaders started to laugh.
A knighting by royalty is a great honor... But the honor of being a Cutie Mark Crusader is much greater.
Because there is no greater honor than to have loyal friends... Loyal friends that hopefully will help fend off parents saying that they're excluding ponies from their club. But, loyal friends all the same.
