I walked through the Everfree forest, careful not to make too much noise that I wake the timberwolves. Growing up on the edge of the forest did help me pick up things I needed to stay alive.
My hooves ached. I had been looking for a place to stay all day but in the town I just visited no pony wanted to listen to my equality speech, let alone offers a place to sleep.
I had been travelling to every town in Equestria, telling them all the downsides to cutie marks and why they should give them up, but no pony had any reason to listen to me. They all were content with their cutie marks, even the stallion in Appleloosa who had a unlucky horseshoe for a cutie mark. He was a rodeo clown but in a way I had a feeling that wasn't his first choice.
Branches snapped under my hooves and I swore under my breath. The timberwolves were going to wake up any second because of this ruckus and then I was dead meat.
I picked up the pace a little. Last stop ponyville. It's where that horrible princess lives, with her pretty castle and her no equality rules. The self-centred brat. Back in my village she had ruined our happy community and gave them all their cutie marks back. Equality is the only way that no one values ones self over another pony or views one pony over another.
I started to hear steps behind me. But it wasn't just from one creature but three. I turned around expecting three adult timberwolves behind me but there was no pony there.
I heard some more rustling behind me but when I turned around this time I saw three pairs of eyes.
"Your'e not going anywhere," the three drowned in unison before I was pushed over, trapped in a net and knocked out by a white hoof.
I struggled against the wooden chair I had been tied to. I had woken up in a dark room, alone and cold, with only a small light hanging from the ceiling.
I heard a few locks opening to my right. I turned just as a door burst open. Princess Twilight strolled in, perfectly at ease, as three small shapes, wrapped in cloaks, followed her. The three walked into the darkest part of the room, which my chair faced. I could only see the gleams of their eyes through the darkness but I instantly recognized the eyes to belong to: Princess Twilight Sparkle and the three shapes that I saw in the woods.
"Mmmmff," I struggled as I noticed the cloth wrapped around my mouth so I couldn't speak. Then Twilight turned to me to speak...
"Starlight Glimmer," she started as I tried to get as comfortable as I could get in this seat ( which is really hard ) and waited for the friendship speech that I knew I had coming, "I have been asked to reform you as Princess Celestia has been noticing you causing a few problems in Equestria."
That earned a rolling of my eyes. Celestia was so stupid. She couldn't see how good taking away cutie marks were.
"I know that you won't listen to me so I have casted a non-magic spell on your horn so you can't teleport out or harm anyone. I am going to prove my case that when every pony is the same no pony is happy," Twilight stopped and led the other three ponies over, "you girls have fun and you can take the cloth away when you like!" she called as she got out the door, stealing one last triumphant glance at me before leaving.
"Hello, Starlight Glimmer," said one of the shapes, it had the voice of a female pony but she could not tell its age.
"MMMFFF," my desperate attempts to scream were stopped by the cloth, "MMMMMFFFFFFF."
"Starlight, we advise you don't struggle," advised another, while the last one walked behind me, "S, untie her mouth so she can give us her point of view," and with that the pony behind me undid the cloth.
"Excuse me!" I yelled, angry at these ponies behavior, first knocking me out, then taking away my magic and now tying me up and wrapping a cloth around my mouth. The icing on the cake was that they started to tell me what to do. "Don't you tell me what to do!"
"Oh, she's perfect!" exclaimed the first one, before regaining her composure, "you don't know what it's like having no cutie mark."
"Yes, you don't know that it's awful without one," sighed number three, but when she saw my surprised face she smirked, "yes, we know what you did."
"I figured that," I spat back, "did Princess Twilight tell you all the lies about it and how "mean and horrible Starlight Glimmer is"," I mimicked Twilight for the last couple of words.
"But you don't know what it's like!" Number three yelled harshly, her anger obvious," you keep saying that equality is good and if we are the same and have no cutie marks we will be happy, but did you stop to think about the consequences of such a thing."
Number two carried on from her," so ya'll see that if Celestia were to have her cutie mark gone she wouldn't be able to raise and lower the sun, and if you took Princess Luna's cutie mark she would not be able to raise the moon. Think about that, if normal ponies couldn't do their jobs correctly than what would be the other consequences," the pony smirked.
"Yes girls," number one continued, " you see Starlight Glimmer, you only looked at the pros of you plan, not the cons," she was correct, I thought a little inconvenience didn't matter but obviously my plan was going to have a few serious implications that I hadn't seen coming. But I couldn't say any of that out loud, so I decided to shut up.
"But how do you girls know what it's like without a cutie mark?" I asked confused.
"Because we live like this every day," number one said as she creeped out of the shadows. She was a filly. A green eyed, pink and purple haired, unicorn filly. Number one showed her flank and I was surprised to see it blank, empty of a cutie mark. She had a white coat so she was obviously the one who had knocked me out.
"Who are you?" I exclaimed, very confused.
"My name is Sweetie Bell, this is Apple Bloom-" she pointed to number two as she said it who was a red maned, golden coated , earth pony, blank flank filly, "- this is Scootaloo-" she pointed to number three, who was a magenta maned, orange coated pegasus, who was also cutie markless,"- and we are the Cutie Mark Crusaders, destined to help other ponies, as well as ourselves, achieve their cutie marks!"
Oh great, I was going to be told how horrible cutie mark-less ness is so horrible. Uh!
The three started to walk around her silently while glaring at her, "you see it might've been different where you're from but here we earn our cutie marks at this age," Scootaloo stated, frowning at her, "so you don't understand how hard life is for us. We get shunned by our classmates for not being up to speed and having our cutie marks, our family aren't much better as they, meaning well, encourage us to get our cutie marks, so 'blank flanks' like us are looked down upon. We have tried to get them but nothing works to give us our cutie marks. Now we see that you have been wasting the potential of your cutie mark we start to feel angry. You are taking for granted the very thing that we have been willing to wish for. It just makes me so angry."
The other two agree as they stare at me sadly.
"But you three should see that if there were no cutie marks no one would tease you for not having a cutie mark as they wouldn't either," I brought up.
"Looking at it, would it really be so good if everyone lost their magic so ' we could all be friends'," Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes after mimicking me," and who would be the one who used their magic to take away the cutie marks, you?"
"Of course me, I am the only pony who knows the spell," I argued, careful to not offend anyone.
"Why you, wouldn't keeping your cutie mark be against everything you stand for. Anyway your cutie mark removing spell can be taught to others."
"But, but," I struggled to create a valid argument, "but what about equality."
"There never can be true equality, some pony always needs to be on top or the whole land will fall apart," Sweetie reasoned.