> Admission of Gilt
>  by Brass Polish
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 Gilt Eyes' Initiation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Pinkie Pie was bouncing all over Ponyville shouting excitedly.
“Block party by the old Gooseberry’s place and you’re all invited!”
“The old Gooseberry’s house?”
“Yeah! They sold it! There’s a new family moving in!”
Pinkie Pie’s welcome to Ponyville parties were always fun, but sometimes they weren’t fun for the newcomers. You might recall Twilight’s mood when she walked into the Library for the first time expecting peace and quiet and ended up hunched over a sink for several minutes slurping water from the faucet to get rid of the taste of hot sauce. And we all know what Cranky Doodle Donkey thought of Pinkie’s welcome wagon. Most of these parties end with the newcomers trying to figure out what the flying fish just happened, but the family of unicorns moving into the Gooseberry’s old house were delighted to enter the town and find a block party in their honour. Pinkie Pie introduced Mr and Mrs Gold to the Royal Taskforce, and when Applejack told Apple Bloom that their young colt didn’t have a cutie mark, she was almost as excited as Pinkie Pie.

Mrs Gold told Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle that her son was shy, but when the young unicorn came out of the house, his eager yellow eyes showed no sign of shyness.
“Hi! I’m Gilt Eyes,” he smiled.
“I’m Apple Bloom.”
“I’m Sweetie Belle.”
“And I’m Scootaloo.”
“We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”
Gilt Eyes was delighted. “A club for ponies with no cutie marks? Can I join?”
“You bet!” smiled Apple Bloom.
“We can take you to our headquarters right now if you want,” said Scootaloo.
“Thanks! That’d be great.”

In no time, Gilt Eyes was standing in the middle of the clubhouse, and after Scootaloo was done banging on the drums, Sweetie Belle took the podium.
“Please rise for the revised initiation speech.”
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Gilt Eyes were all upstanding, and Sweetie Belle cleared her throat.
“Welcome to the club.”
She raised an eyebrow and looked down the rest of the scroll. There was nothing else written there.
“That’s it?” she asked Scootaloo.
“Yeah. It’s shorter, isn’t it?”
“It’s too short,” frowned Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo banged her head on the drums. “First it’s too long, now it’s too short. Why don’t you try writing one?”
“Fine. I will,” replied Sweetie Belle before remembering Gilt Eyes was waiting for his cape. “Congratulations Gilt Eyes. You are now an official member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

When Sweetie Belle gave Gilt Eyes his cape and he put it on, Apple Bloom could swear she saw a tear in his eye.
“I wish there were more ponies like you in Walton on the Neighs,” he said, marvelling at his cape.
Apple Bloom had a hunch. “You had a bully problem in your old home, didn’t you?”
“Not just me,” Gilt Eyes was still smiling, but he sounded solemn. “My best friend Bronze Medal and I had to deal with the exact opposite of this club. In Walton on the Neighs, all the little ponies who got their cutie marks have their own club. No blank flanks allowed. For the longest time, me and Bronze had all kinds of tricks played on us. Now he’s on his own.”
“You know,” said Apple Bloom, “Bronze Medal can join up. My cousin Babs Seed from out of town is a member. She runs the Manehattan branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle liked this idea. “We could make Bronze Medal the head of our Walton on the Neighs branch.”
“Hmm. He’d be the only one in school,” said Gilt Eyes, “but I’m going to be visiting him once a month. We could do our club activities together.”

So Gilt Eyes and his new friends went back to the block party to write a letter to Bronze Medal. Then they were about to dive into the fresh mound of cakes Pinkie Pie had just brought when Gilt Eyes had his first encounter with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
“Oh, no. Not another one,” Diamond Tiara groaned in a snobby manner. “This problem’s getting serious, Silver Spoon.”
“You gotta stop recruiting,” sneered Silver Spoon. “You’re polluting Ponyville with your blankness.”
Their laughter was interrupted by a loud splat. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were surprised.
“You can levitate things?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, I figured it out a little while ago,” smirked Gilt Eyes, admiring his handiwork.
Silver Spoon brushed the chocolate icing off her glasses and gave Gilt Eyes a look of absolute hatred.
“What? You’re Silver Spoon, aren’t you? Who doesn’t like a spoonful of cake?” laughed Gilt Eyes.

Unfortunately for Gilt Eyes, his parents found out he’d thrown cake at those two fillies and ordered him to go into the house. He was unable to enjoy the rest of the party, but his parents allowed Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to accompany him in his room.
“This is great,” he said. “The horseshoe’s on the other hoof now.”
“What horseshoe?” asked Sweetie Belle, looking with confusion at Gilt Eye’s horseshoe-free hooves.
They ignored her.
“How’d I do?” asked Gilt Eyes. “I probably could have been more subtle, but I can work on that.”
“What are you talking about?” Scootaloo asked. “We don’t go around pranking ponies who have their cutie marks.”
Gilt Eyes gave his head a bit of a shake. “You don’t?”
“No. We formed this club to explore as many possibilities as we can,” said Apple Bloom.
“We’re trying to find our own special talents so we can earn our cutie marks,” said Sweetie Belle. “We’re not like that club you told us about.”
“Oh.”

“But what are you going to do when you get your cutie marks?” asked Gilt Eyes. “Leave the club?”
None of them answered. They hadn’t really thought that far ahead. For the longest time, they’d been planning activity after activity. They never considered a sort of decommission system.
“I guess…” Apple Bloom considered, “that if one of us earns a cutie mark, they could stay in the club and guide the other members in the right direction.”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement.
“Well, alright,” said Gilt Eyes. “So what kind of things do you do?”
“We were planning on having a marathon across Ponyville tomorrow after school,” said Scootaloo.
“Oh. Well that sounds fun,” Gilt Eyes smiled again.
“So you’re up for it?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, I’m in,” said Gilt Eyes enthusiastically.
And the four of them hoof-bumped.

The next day at school, Cheerilee was passing around a book for her students to read aloud. They were on page 28 of The Canterlot Derby. This was where Scootaloo got the idea to have a marathon through Ponyville. Button Mash was asked to read the first paragraph. Before he was halfway done, Gilt Eyes noticed that he didn’t have a cutie mark either.
“Psst,” he whispered to Sweetie Belle, “Is he a member?”
“Button Mash? No. He’s not interested in joining,” Sweetie Belle whispered back.
“Why not?”
Cheerilee caught sight of Gilt Eyes talking while Button Mash was reading.
“Thank you, Button,” she said. “Gilt Eyes?”
Gilt Eyes jumped.
“You can pick up where Button Mash left off,” said Cheerilee.
As expected, Gilt Eyes had lost his place. The class chuckled, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon the loudest in the class.

Gilt Eyes had to read on to page 30 before Cheerilee was satisfied.
“You next please, Diamond Tiara.”
Diamond Tiara took longer to start reading than Gilt Eyes did.
“Um, Miss Cheerilee,” she said, “Is there something wrong with this book?”
“I don’t think so,” Cheerilee replied. She took a look. “No, it looks alright to me. Just start there, please. ‘The seven mile mark…’.”
But when she set the book down in front of Diamond Tiara, she still seemed to have trouble reading it. The class began to chuckle again. Apple Bloom, curious about what Diamond Tiara was struggling with, asked if she could try to read the page. Cheerilee passed the book to her, but Silver Spoon shouted out before she could start.
“Hey! Gilt Eyes’ horn’s glowing! What are you doing?”
“Just picking up my pencil,” said Gilt Eyes, his pencil hovering next to him.

Apple Bloom began reading.
“The seven mile mark had drink tables set up on either side…”
Diamond Tiara snatched the book back and looked at it. Immediately, she looked like she was in way over her head. Silver Spoon could swear she saw Gilt Eyes’ horn light up again and was just about to say so when suddenly, everything went out of focus.
“Maybe you need glasses,” she heard Gilt Eyes say. “Try these.”
“I don’t need glasses!” protested Diamond Tiara as Gilt Eyes magiced Silver Spoon’s glasses towards her face.
Scootaloo was grinning at Silver Spoon. She was sitting still as a statue. She looked like she was scared to move a muscle even slightly.
“Gilt Eyes, kindly give Silver Spoon her glasses back,” Cheerilee said sternly. “She gets dizzy without them.”
Silver Spoon sighed deeply when her glasses were put back on her.
Diamond Tiara still had no luck. Twist offered to lend her glasses to Diamond Tiara since her vision wasn’t completely ruined without them, but Diamond Tiara refused them and gave up on trying to read. She claimed that what she was seeing on the page was written with weird symbols, but to everyone else in the class, they looked perfectly legible.

After school that day, Scootaloo was riding her scooter across Ponyville setting up marker flags for their marathon route. As she passed Sugarcube Corner, she suddenly found she had a passenger.
“Hi, Scootaloo!”
Scootaloo stopped in surprise at Pinkie Pie riding on the back of her scooter.
“What are those flags for?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Is there a race going on?”
“Uh, actually it’s a marathon,” Scootaloo replied.
“I never knew about this,” said Pinkie Pie.
“Well, it’s kinda something the Cutie Mark Crusaders are doing,” explained Scootaloo. “Um, do we need permission from the Royal Taskforce to do this?”
“I don’t think so,” said Pinkie Pie, “But just in case you do…” She got off the scooter and cleared her throat. “I, Pinkie Pie, fourth member of Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce, hereby give the Cutie Mark Crusaders permission to have a marathon in Ponyville.”
“Thanks, Pinkie Pie,” said Scootaloo, starting to scoot away.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Pinkie Pie pulled Scootaloo back, “you can’t ride that scooter. That’s cheating.”
“I’m not gonna ride it during the marathon,” insisted Scootaloo.
Pinkie Pie cleared her throat again. “I, Pinkie Pie, fourth member of Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce, hereby confiscate your scooter until such a time as the marathon has come to a conclusion. Furthermore, I shall set up the rest of the route as I am not taking part in the marathon.”
She grinned, obviously loving how important she sounded.
“Do you think you could write an initiation speech for us?” asked Scootaloo.

Later, Scootaloo went back to the clubhouse where the starting point was.
“That was fast,” said Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo told them that Pinkie Pie was setting up the rest of the route and that she would send them the signal to start the marathon soon. So Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Gilt Eyes got ready, looking over the apple trees for the signal. Then, after several minutes, a cloud of confetti shot up in the distance, and they were off.
> 2 Silver Spoon's Glasses
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Silver Spoon had been in Sugarcube Corner when Scootaloo met up with Pinkie Pie, and now that she knew the Cutie Mark Crusaders were having a marathon, she couldn’t resist the urge to play a trick on Gilt Eyes. She was still suspicious of him, as well as bitter about getting cake dropped on her at the block party. So she got an extra-large milkshake and waited behind the bakery watching for the racers. Soon, she heard running. Scootaloo came pelting around the corner, Apple Bloom right behind her. Silver Spoon sipped her milkshake, aimed her straw at the path, and waited for Gilt Eyes. To her delight, he was running alongside Sweetie Belle.

Splash!

Sweetie Belle didn’t notice as Gilt Eyes stumbled and fell over drenched in chocolate milk.
“How do you like that?!” cackled Silver Spoon from her hiding place.
But in an instant, she stopped laughing. Something caught her eyes.
“Hey! You’re not a blank flank!”
Gilt Eyes looked horrified. He looked at his flank. There, visible beneath a coat of chocolate milk, was an image of a gold hand mirror.
“Oh. Uh…” he smiled nervously at Silver Spoon as she walked closer to him. “Look at that. I just got my cutie mark.”
Silver Spoon was still smirking. She was looking at the puddle of chocolate milk under Gilt Eyes. There was some red liquid in there that was the same colour as his coat.
Silver Spoon started laughing again. “Why in Equestria would you want to be a blank flank?! Do you want ponies thinking you’re a nopony your whole life?”
Gilt Eyes face twisted with anger. Silver Spoon started running along the marathon path.
“Hey! Blank flanks! Gilt Eyes has a cutie-!”

Gilt Eyes’ horn shone like a lighthouse for a second, and then Silver Spoon stopped shouting and running. Something was wrong with her glasses. They seemed to be showing her the mirror image of what she was seeing.
“Hey, what did you do to my glasses?!” she demanded.
She looked back at Gilt Eyes, and she immediately felt dizzy. The very familiar Sugarcube Corner looked like a completely new place to her. She spotted Gilt Eyes running away, but she looked the wrong way when she tried to follow him. By the time she had looked the other way, Gilt Eyes was nowhere in sight.
“Why is everything mirrored?” she groaned, feeling off balance. She thought for a second. “The hand mirror! He can flip things! He must’ve flipped the words on that book to confuse Diamond Tiara!”
She looked around even though her head was spinning.
“Anyone around?!” she called.
Unluckily for her, there were no ponies about. She wanted to go to the Library and ask Twilight to fix her glasses. But she couldn’t see properly, and she didn’t want to get sick by taking her glasses off and walking around town. She decided she would try and navigate her own way to Twilight’s place. At least until she came across somepony who could help her get there.

Gilt Eyes was running faster than he had done when he was running in the marathon. He was heading for home at top speed hoping that nopony would see his cutie mark.
I gotta cover it up! he was thinking as he zoomed towards his house. If everyone finds out I have a cutie mark… or WORSE, if Bronze Medal finds out…!
Eventually, he was in his bedroom painting his flank to match his coat.
“Gilt Eyes?” his mother called from the other side of his closed door. “How are you?”
“Uh, fine, Mom!” replied Gilt Eyes. “I’m not staying long. Me and my friends are having a race!”
“What, right now?” joked his mom.
“Y- uh, no,” said Gilt Eyes hastily. “Um, in a bit. I’m in a hurry. That pony who gave us that block party’s setting up flags. I gotta get to the apple farm before she starts the race.”
Now that he’d covered his cutie mark, he opened his door and ran past his mother.
“Don’t tire yourself out before the race!” she called.

Meanwhile, Silver Spoon was zigzagging all over the place. She was sure she was getting close to the Library, but she started having doubts when she heard the sound of rushing water. She turned her head to the left.
“Whoa! I almost fell in,” she groaned.
She found herself by the river in the park. And to her annoyance, there was still nopony around.

The reason Silver Spoon couldn’t find anyone was because everypony who was out and about learned about the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ marathon set up by Pinkie Pie and wanted to go to the finish line to see who would win. The three fillies, who were completely unaware that they were down one contestant, were now nearing the finish line. Their competitive spirits lifted when they heard cheering. The turnout wasn’t big, but the Crusaders were still excited.
“Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are neck and neck!” came Pinkie Pie’s voice. “This could be a tie, folks! Here they come! Who’s it gonna be?! Apple Bloom or Scootaloo?! They’re almost there! And it’s… it’s Apple Bloom! Scootaloo is second! And here comes Sweetie Belle! Still going at it even though she’s last! And she’s across! Hang on a minute! I forgot about Gilt Eyes for a second! Is he coming?! He must be very far behind! I can’t see him! He’s nowhere in sight. He…”

Pinkie Pie went on and on for a while. Apple Bloom’s disappointment at not getting a cutie mark for marathon running was soon replaced by concern for Gilt Eyes.
“Can I have my scooter back, Pinkie Pie?” asked Scootaloo. “I could go find Gilt Eyes.”
Pinkie Pie looked from side to side. “Have you learned to fly yet?”
“What? Why?”
“Because your scooter got shot into the sky.”
“What?!”
“My party canon got plugged up so I used your scooter to unclog it,” explained Pinkie Pie. “And POOF! Shot up with the confetti. So, I guess we’re walking. Unless there’s a pegasus here who’d like to fly over the track for us.”
But the only other pegasus there was Featherweight and he wasn’t someone a pony goes to for quick flying.

By the river, Silver Spoon had resorted to taking her glasses off. But she quickly found everything she was seeing nauseating. She hadn’t gotten far from the river before she felt really sick. At the same time, Gilt Eyes was on the other side of the river stopping to catch his breath.
“My friends must’ve got to the finish line by now,” he said to himself. “I’ll just tell them I got exhausted.”
He looked at the river and frowned sorely.
“I hope they don’t believe Spoony when she tells them I have my cutie mark,” he moaned. “I wish I didn’t have that stupid thing.”
He looked around. Silver Spoon was obscured by the bridge walls. When Gilt Eyes didn’t see anyone, he stepped to the riverbank and looked at his reflection.
“What use is the power to mirror images anyway?”
He concentrated, his horn lit up, and the image in the water’s surface changed. But Gilt Eyes’ spell didn’t have the desired effect.
“What? Where’d my reflection go?”
Gilt Eyes didn’t realize that his magic had sent his reflection to the other side of the river.

By now Silver Spoon was hunched over the edge of the bridge on the verge of throwing up. She’d dropped her glasses on the bank. Gilt Eyes still didn’t notice her because he was trying to figure out why he’d made his reflection disappear instead of flip. Something else he didn’t see was a scooter falling out of the sky. Gilt Eyes was about to cast his spell again to see what would happen when he heard a big splash.
“What was that?”
He walked quickly to his side of the bridge and looked at the water. He saw Silver Spoon’s reflection trying not to vomit. But to him, it looked like Silver Spoon was in the water unable to breathe.
“She fell in!” he cried.
He dived into the river. He hit his hooves on the metal scooter that was sitting beneath Silver Spoon’s reflection. As he resurfaced, he realised that Silver Spoon was on the bridge. But he couldn’t paddle with his injured hooves and he started sinking.
“Help me!” he cried, swallowing a bit of water.
Silver Spoon had stopped gagging and saw the blurry image of Gilt Eyes trashing about it the river. She started calling for help too, as she didn’t think she could help Gilt Eyes with her bad vision. Fortunately, Pinkie Pie and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were nearby. When Pinkie Pie ran up to the bridge and saw what was happening, she jumped into the river. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle watched and in seconds, Pinkie leapt back out of the water acting uncannily like a dolphin (she was even squeaking like one). She had Gilt Eyes by the tail and Scootaloo’s scooter by the right handle.

“You OK, Gilt Eyes?” asked Apple Bloom when the young colt was back on solid ground.
Gilt Eyes spat out some water. “Yeah, I’m fine. I hit my hooves on the scooter though.”
Sweetie Belle’s eyes were wide open. “Look!”
The water from the river had washed the paint off Gilt Eyes’ flank. The gold hand mirror was there for all to see.
“Wow! When did you get that?!” exclaimed Apple Bloom.
Silver Spoon’s voice boomed from the bridge. “He’s had that the whole time he’s been here! He can mirror things! He zapped my glasses and now I’m all sick!”
Gilt Eyes buried his face in his pained hooves. “It’s true. I know what my special talent is.”
“You can mirror things? What does that mean?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Look at the water,” Gilt Eyes told her.

Sweetie Belle couldn’t see a thing on the surface of the water until she looked across the river.
“This is weird!” she said.
Pinkie Pie was ecstatic. She zipped across the bridge, nearly knocking Silver Spoon over as she stumbled nauseously towards Gilt Eyes, and ran to where Sweetie Belle’s reflection was.
“Can you see me, Sweetie Belle?!”
Sweetie Belle laughed as Pinkie Pie’s reflection made faces at her.
“I cast my spell on it, and now the reflections are on opposite sides,” Gilt Eyes explained gloomily. “Watch this.”
A flash of light from his horn later, Sweetie Belle and Pinkie Pie had their own reflections at their hooves.

“Now fix my glasses!” demanded Silver Spoon. “I can’t take it anymore!”
Gilt Eyes gave Silver Spoon a dirty look, but he did as she wanted.
“That’s better,” she said, happy to be able to see again.
“So why did you cover up your cutie mark?” asked Scootaloo.
Gilt Eyes sighed as Silver Spoon gave him a snide look and walked away.
“I really hate ponies who get their cutie marks,” he said. “They turn into jerks.”
“Hey!” shouted Pinkie Pie.
“Well, they grow up eventually,” said Gilt Eyes hastily. “You’re OK, Pinkie Pie. But I mean foals. All the ones with cutie marks in my old school were jerks, and now I have to put up with Spoony here and her snobby friend.”
Close by, Featherweight was looking offended.
“They’re not all bad, Gilt Eyes,” Apple Bloom insisted. “Featherweight here is alright. So is Twist. And Snips and Snails… well they may be kinda dumb, but they’re not jerks.”
Gilt Eyes looked moodier still. “I still wish I never got my cutie mark. If my friend, Bronze Medal finds out, he’ll hate me as much as we hated all our classmates in Walton on the Neighs.”
“Look, Gilt Eyes,” said Pinkie Pie, who had swum from the other side of the river and drenched everyone when she shook herself dry, “you shouldn’t cover up your talents. You should embrace them.”
“But my talent’s useless,” groaned Gilt Eyes. “Who wants to see a flipped image?”
“You’ll find a way to make use of it when you’re older,” Pinkie Pie smiled reassuringly. “You could get a job in photography or entertainment.”

Gilt Eyes’ mood was not improved, especially not when Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo told him that they didn’t want him in their club anymore.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t want to be friends anymore,” Apple Bloom said quickly.
“It’s just that you had your cutie mark before you joined us,” said Scootaloo. “Our club is for helping foals with no marks, and you never needed help getting yours.”
Gilt Eyes understood, but he was still glum.
“Hey, is one of you Gilt Eyes?!” came a voice.
Derpy came trotting up to them carrying her mailbags.
“I’m Gilt Eyes.”
“Your mom told me I might find you if I follow the flags,” said Derpy.
Sweetie Belle noticed that Derpy had a flag stuck to one of her hooves.
“I have a letter for you,” Derpy handed Gilt Eyes an envelope she had tucked under her wing.
“Hey, it’s from Bronze Medal!” said Gilt Eyes when he saw the return address.
He opened the envelope and took out the letter.

“Dear Gilt Eyes,

I’m glad to hear you found a group of blank flanks to make friends with. I know you asked me to start a group like that here in Walton on the Neighs, but I don’t think I can.”

“That’s all he wrote,” said Gilt Eyes after reading the letter out loud. “I knew it. He’s afraid of starting a club for blank flanks when he’s the only one in town.”
Pinkie Pie was grinning. “Look at the back.”
Gilt Eyes turned the paper over and gaped. Bronze Medal had written his letter on the back of a photograph of himself. But he wasn’t quite how Gilt Eyes remembered him. Plastered on his flank was a shiny trophy. And written on the bottom of the photograph were the words “Please don’t hate me.”
Gilt Eyes didn’t feel hatred at all. He felt pride and delight.
“This must mean the others aren’t picking on him anymore!” he beamed.
Then he looked at Featherweight.
“Have you got your camera?” he asked.
“Oh, you’re going to send him a picture of your cutie mark?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Yep,” smiled Gilt Eyes.
But the first shot Featherweight took didn’t turn out right. Diamond Tiara had turned up and thrown a jam donut at Gilt Eyes from the other side of the river.