//------------------------------// // Prologue - Bud // Story: Gilded Lily // by Cosmic Cowboy //------------------------------// It was finally here. Graduation day at Ponyville Elementary. Six years of sweaty classrooms, tears of boredom, and blood from paper cuts culminating in one ceremony, which also happened to involve a lot of sweat and tears. Luckily, this year there were only two paper cuts in the class. Ever since its dedication some years after the founding of the town itself, Ponyville’s only schoolhouse had one mission: to help each young student discover his or her calling in life, and to teach them to magnify their talent into something truly special. To gently guide today’s fillies and colts so they could become tomorrow’s master chefs, virtuoso violinists, or whatever it was they were meant to be. In Miss Honeydew’s experience, the students guided themselves for the most part. Once they found their Cutie Mark, it was all downhill from there. Most didn’t need any academic schooling beyond the elementary level. After all, why would a colt who got a sunflower cutie mark while gardening ever need to learn algebra? Once the students discovered their special talents, Miss Honeydew’s job was largely over. Her entire curriculum was designed to speed students toward their discovery, and it gave ample time for the late bloomers to catch up. It was a system that had worked flawlessly for almost fifty years. The graduation program reflected that idea. Since each class was relatively small, there was time before the Mayor’s little commencement address for the teacher to give a short list of accomplishments for each graduating student, detailing some of the most memorable triumphs of their school career, and optimistic predictions of what their lives might have in store. The central piece of the highlight, of course, was the student’s Cutie Mark story. For the first time in the school’s history, that was going to be a problem.   The doors of the schoolhouse burst open on beaten hinges, releasing dozens of stampeding ponies. The doorway was attended by an aging unicorn mare who raised a hoof and called out to the running foals and the parents who had been waiting to take them home. “Don’t forget the ceremony tonight at the amphitheater! It starts at seven! Be early and try to look your best!” Miss Honeydew gave a small smile as she lowered her foreleg. This was both the best and worst day of the year, in her opinion. She was proud of her students for everything they had accomplished over their time under her tutelage, of course, and excited to see what they would do with the rest of their lives. But the thought that her time in their lives was over dampened her smile a little. Most of these young ponies would stay in Ponyville, but of those that moved on, only her favorites ever kept in touch. Miss Honeydew’s smile grew a little wider as she looked out over the crowd of happy families in the schoolyard and recognized more and more faces. She was going on her third generation’s worth of teaching, and so she had once known most of these parents as students themselves. There was Whisker Biscuit, picking up his daughter Bon Bon. He caught Miss Honeydew’s eye and waved fondly, beaming. Take away that ridiculous mustache and shrink him down a foot or so, and there he was again: a gangly colt trying so hard to become an archer like his father. But Miss Honeydew had picked up a knack over the years for seeing things in her students that hadn’t yet crossed their young minds. His love for baking was as clear as day to her from his second year in her school, but he didn’t recognize it until the end of the sixth. Bon Bon found hers much earlier; her talent followed her father’s, though leaning more toward candy than pastries. A few yards away from him was Joint Redheart, who had become a marriage counselor of all things. Miss Honeydew was especially proud of her. It was an exceptional experience when she earned her Cutie Mark. She watched as the mare nuzzled her daughter, who also had a rather memorable Cutie Mark discovery a few years earlier. A hollow look briefly crossed her features and she chuckled weakly as she remembered the incident. Not all memories were especially happy ones. Several such recollections came to mind as she met the eyes of the shapely, chocolate-brown mare stalking across the schoolyard toward her. Her smile grew just a little strained. “Head Turner, what a pleasure to see you!” Miss Honeydew began, cordial as ever. Head Turner wasn’t as friendly. “What’s this I hear about the ceremony being changed? Why in Equestria would you skip the Cutie Mark stories?” Honeydew’s smile soured slightly more into what could only be described as a polite grimace. She had known this was coming. “Miss Turner, this school prides itself on equal treatment and sensitivity toward its students. This–” “Sensitivity!” Head Turner exploded. “You call denying my son due recognition for his talent ‘sensitivity’? I have family visiting all the way from Gallopfrey just to hear all about his accomplishments, and now you tell us none of it will be mentioned! Sensitivity my plot!” “Miss Turner, please!” Honeydew looked around at the foals mingling with their parents. “This year we have… special circumstances, that necessitate changing the program. Just this time. Next year we’ll go back to the normal program.” Head Turner hmphed. “Small comforts. I only have one son, you know.” “Miss Turner. If we went ahead with the usual program this year, it wouldn’t be fair to all the students involved.” Honeydew’s gaze turned to a mother and her filly walking away in the direction of town, the first to leave. As always. Head Turner tilted her head, giving a disgusted sneer. “Oh don’t tell me this really is all about that little blank-flank.” Miss Honeydew slowly turned back to face her old, troublemaking student. “Yes, Miss Turner. It is. And the unfortunate girl has gone through enough without having to go through this. The ceremony will go on as currently outlined, and all the students will be given fair treatment, as they should. Goodbye, Miss Turner.” With one last purse of her lips and flash of her eyes, Head Turner turned sharply and trotted over to drag her light-brown son away from a small circle of friends. Miss Honeydew regarded her exit coolly, then went about the familiar business of seeing off her students at the end of a school day. When they were all gone, she went back into her classroom and sat down at her desk to go over the program for the event one last time. She had been faced with a difficult problem, but Miss Honeydew was rather proud of the solution she had come up with. Over the past week, she had given the students a sheet of awards that they could nominate each other for. These awards would take the place of the usual accomplishment stories. As far as Miss Honeydew could see, there was no other way around it that wouldn’t leave poor Lily out. Miss Honeydew couldn’t help feeling like she had failed the filly somehow. As usual, the last few Cutie Mark discoveries had come about two years before, and the curriculum had shifted to give the students real-world training and experience that would help them make the most of the talents they had found. But for the first time in Ponyville Elementary’s history, the system, which she had largely perfected over her long career, had failed, and a part of her blamed herself. Miss Honeydew knew the fault didn’t rightly belong with her, or anypony for that matter. Some foals took longer than others, of course, and that depended almost entirely on the talent in question. Some Cutie Marks were flashy and impressive, and came after hard work and diligent practice. Many others were subtle and ambiguous, and seemed to appear on their own time, even if that meant the timing didn’t make sense to anypony. It wasn’t uncommon for these sorts of talents to have little real-world application, and they often ended up as little more than hobbies, though she would never dare to say that to her students. Lily’s case was entirely different. Though the answers her family had gotten back from experts told them that this wasn’t unprecedented and it was pointless to hope for something that would never come, hope they did. But recently even that hope had faded, and now it was time to face facts. In reality, a Cutie Mark was nothing more than a pattern of colored fur. There was nothing intrinsically magical about it, nothing special about it after it appeared. It was a symptom of talent, not a cause. Not having a mark didn’t mean there was no special talent. That was something she had told Lily in private over and over, when the filly came back from the playground crying. In fact, you could say having no Cutie Mark gave a pony a unique sort of freedom. You could make anything and everything your special talent. But no matter how much rationalization she might give to console a disappointed foal, Miss Honeydew knew that Lily was missing out on something irreplaceable. It was an incomparable moment in a pony’s life when the epiphany of discovering your passion was gloriously heralded by a flash and a mark to commemorate it forever. Equestrian culture was built around Cutie Marks, and no matter the lack of any real disadvantage, a pony without one would never really fit in. Miss Honeydew shook her head to clear her thoughts, and got back down to refining the program. For the moment, her only concern was what she could do now to make her students’ lives easier, which right now meant altering the graduation ceremony to include each and every one of them equally. Because for the first time in its varied history, Ponyville Elementary had an albino student.