It's funny, really. But I still remember the day I got my cutie mark. It was sunny, a rather nice day outside our family's flat in Canterlot. I was walking around town with my friend Emerald, an Earth pony who lived in my building. While we were walking, Emerald decided to start a game of tag.
"You're it Terra!" she yelled and began running down the street. Several well-dressed ponies sneered and turned up their noses at us as we ran by. Emerald pulled far ahead of me, I was never a fast runner. We ran around back of the boutiques and shops. She turned around to make a face at me, and then it happened. Emerald tripped and fell down into a construction hole that the city was building for a new sewer.
"TERRA!" she screamed as she fell, down. Oh, no! I thought. There were no other ponies around, and the worker ponies had gone on break.
"I'M COMING!!" I yelled as a raced furiously toward the hole. I was in a panic, and as a filly unicorn, my magic wasn't strong enough yet to save her, or so I thought. I had my eyes shut tight, I was concentrating on how to save Emerald. Suddenly, when I was sure she had hit the bottom of the hole, I heard a noise. It was rock, crumbling and cracking. I opened my eyes and screamed. There was Emerald, sitting perfectly unharmed on a diamond shaped mass of rock levitated in the air. The rock was surrounded by a green-yellow glow of magic, and I thought there was some other unicorn behind me doing this. But then, Emerald said,
"Wow, Terra! how did you do that??"
And I realized I was doing this. I was levitating a huge mass of rock without any magic instruction whatsoever. I stood there gaping, as Emerald jumped off the rock onto the ground. I couldn't concentrate anymore, and the rock crashed to the ground, smashing into a million pieces.
"I-I did this?" I gasped.
"Yeah, you didn't notice? Ohmygosh! Terra! your cutie mark!"
I glanced curiously at my flank and saw my cutie mark. It was the Earth. What does this have to do with rocks? I thought. But that was only the beginning of my curiosity and confusion.
*************Years Later************
I glanced at myself in the mirror. Most ponies in Canterlot are simple colors. Pink and White, or Black and Grey. Not me, as a grown mare, I was an earthy green with a long blue mane. my Earth cutie mark only made me stand out more, because I didn't know what I was supposed to do here. Canterlot ponies don't believe in physical labor as much as they do money and status. All of my friends had cutie marks involving money or fashion. I just wanted to be normal. Since that day back when I was a filly, my magic ability had improved tremendously, but with rocks. Well, not just rocks, but the Earth in general. I could levitate huge masses of rock and throw them hundreds of yards away easily. I could make plants grown and keep Canterlot looking beautiful. I could even make mountain ranges grow and surround the city... not that I'd ever tried. Except for all my strange Earth abilities, my magic was only average. I couldn't teleport, I could only cast spells any normal unicorn could cast, and I would be terrible in a magic duel, unless I wanted to crush my opponent with rocks or tie them up with vines. My talents were utterly useless in a city like Canterlot. Everypony was high class, the thought of dirt was appalling, even to my friends. So it was because of my situation that I was confused as ever about what I could do here. I knew my talent involved the Earth, but I was the only pony in town with these talents, which made me feel even stranger. Luckily, I had my best friends to occupy me.
I stared at my reflection a little longer. When I decided I'd had enough deep thoughts for the day I met Emerald and our friend Golden Throat at the café down the street for some tea. I needed some time away from my mind.
Later that day, Golden Throat and I were walking down by the park.
"How's your show going?" I asked her. Golden was an amazing singer, the best in Canterlot.
"Amazing!!" she replied. "I already sold out my next show. But I saved tickets for you and everypony."
"Great!" I told her.
To be honest, Golden was my idol. She had found her talent at an early age and had been making the best of it ever since. In fact, besides the fact that my family had money and was considered "elite", ponies in Canterlot held me at a high standard for being friends with her. Now her shows at the Canterlot playhouse were selling out almost right away. She always saved tickets for us though, in the VIP section of the balcony. Her latest show would be tonight, and despite all the ponies coming to watch her, Golden was hardly nervous. That was just the kind of pony she was, strong, sophisticated, and confident.
Just then, on the other side of the park, I heard a scream. Some young ponies came running towards Golden and I.
"HELP!!" yelled one of them, a grey colt with a white mane.
"What's the matter?" Golden asked.
"It's a monster!" the colt said, panting. "It's like made of rocks or something. We were playing in the field and this thing came across the border from somewhere!"
"We better check this out huh, Terra?" Golden winked at me "I think it might have been their imaginations."
we trotted across the field where the ponies had been playing. There wasn't anything unusual, and certainly no monster.
"Looks like you were right, Golden." I said. "But I'll check the border just in case."
"Ok. I better go get ready for my show and-" she was cut off.
I turned around to see a giant monster which looked as if it was an giant constructed completely out of rocks. It picked up Golden like she was a leaf. "TERRA! I COULD USE A LITTLE HELP HERE!!" She yelled. "USE YOUR POWERS AND CRUSH THIS THING!" the monster seemed a little offended at this, and growled. It was a very low, deep, sound like an earthquake. I concentrated, hard. It wasn't hard at all to summon vines from the ground and tie the monsters two legs the size of tree trunks together. It stared at me, clearly annoyed, and flung Golden casually over to the side. Golden was a unicorn pony, just like me, so she caught herself with levitation and lowered herself carefully to the ground. I barley noticed this though, because I was summoning a rock about the size of a train car out of the cliff across the border. It took quite a bit of effort, even from me. I was getting a migraine from all this, but still I managed to craft it out of the cliff without causing an avalanche. I took the rock, glowing with my usual green-yellow aura, and flung it straight into the monster, knocking it to the ground. Then, using just a bit more power, I made the rock as well as the monster explode into a large pile of gravel.
"Phew!" I gasped. I ran over to see if Golden was alright.
"Sheesh Terra, I knew you were good, but I didn't know you were THAT good!" Golden told me as she dusted herself off.
"Me? No way! Like a talent like mine would even be useful here."
"Well, you just saved me! What WAS that thing anyway?" she asked me.
"I have no idea, but I'll find out. You go get ready for your show!"
"See you in a few hours!" Golden called as she walked away.
*********
"And it was MADE out of rocks?" Emerald gasped. "It sounds like this monster was just for you or something."
"You think so?" I levitated another book off the shelf at the Canterlot library. "That's pretty weird. Emerald are you helping me look or just eating my food?" she chomped on another one of the apples I had snuck into the library before sarcastically flipping a page of the book she was looking at.
"Terra, I don't think this thing is going to be in any books. Maybe somepony made it as a prank."
"But the colt told us they had seen it come across the Canterlot border. I'm gonna keep looking."
much later, Emerald asked "Hey, is this the thing you were talking about?" she held up a book. Inside, the was a detailed picture of the monster I had seen in the park.
"Yes! this is it!"
"Well, what is it? I didn't read it, you know."
I read the passage below the picture.
"Over five hundred years ago, Equestria was invaded by a vast army of rock warriors. Although they harmed most cities, Canterlot was damaged the most severely. This was because the city was a safe place to set up an attack on the castle. Although this army was defeated by Princess Celestia and the royal guard, terrible earthquakes have plagued Canterlot every hundred years. Legend has it that after resting within the Earth peacefully for many years, the army will rise again. Legend also states that the lost princess of Equestria will be revealed as she defeats the army with her incredible power over the element of Earth."
"Terra. That unicorn has to be YOU!" said Emerald.
"No! that doesn't make any sense. This is just a legend!"
"Come ON. Just like Nightmare Moon, and all the other problems that happen around here? Did that monster you saw look like a legend?"
"Well, no. But why can't the princesses deal with it? Why do I have to?"
"The princesses are in Saddle Arabia this month. There's no one here."
"This can't be me. I'm not good enough to defeat a whole army alone!"
"Look, Terra. I know you're scared, I would be to. But honestly, who else in Canterlot can do what you do? It might have seemed scary to defeat that monster, but there's more coming. And you are the only one who can stop them."
Tiny patterns, the shape of diamonds engraved into the ground under my hooves, and the earth began to crumble. Focus. One large piece of rock and six other smaller rocks began to levitate from the ground. I hopped onto the big one. Let's see if this works I concentrated hard, and opened my eyes. I was a good fifty feet above the forest floor, standing stable on top of the big rock. The other six were circling around me. With surprisingly little force, I threw them, one by one. All six landed exactly on target while leaving a three foot crater in the ground. Why was that so easy? I wondered. What was going on? Once I managed to get myself down, I tried other things. I bet I can't do any of this, it's too hard. I thought. But it wasn't. I created earthquakes (small of course), Raised small cliffs and hills out the ground and pushed them back into the earth. I grew trees and plants in record time. I even created a few vines and tied up a tree nearby. The good thing was, after all of this, I was exhausted. I even had to sit down for a few minutes. Just then, my friend Money Bags dashed up to me.
"Terra-what happened here?" he asked, surveying the damage.
"Nothing. What's going on?"
"Golden's concert is starting in twenty minutes and other ponies have been begging for your seat in the VIP section. Emerald sent me to get you, but everypony else is already waiting."
"Oh gosh, is it six already? We'd better go, or Golden will kill me!"
I started walking to the playhouse with Money Bags. He was actually pretty cute, with a pale grey coat and a dark mane, cut short. It was the newest style for the higher class ponies.
"Why were you out in the woods?" he said, sounding generally intrigued.
"Practice, I guess. You never know when plants could come in handy." I replied, though I was stressed beyond compare.
I had sprinted out to the woods in a panic. Emerald informed me that the Earth Army would return very soon, as this was the 500th year of it's imprisonment. My guess was that the army would try to invade while the princesses were busy, which they were. What scared me the most about that legend was that some all-powerful unicorn was going to stand up and defeat the entire army. All alone. Why did I have to do this? There was no doubt in my mind now that that unicorn was me. And that only made me feel worse. Sure, I was pretty powerful. I could do things with rocks and plants nopony else could do. I had a strange cutie mark of the Earth itself. This was my destiny. And there was nothing I dreaded more. I had never felt so afraid. But I dragged myself to Golden's concert anyway, which turned out to be a huge mistake.