Chapter 1
Celestia’s early morning gift began pouring like honey over the sleeping denizens of Ponyville, the symphony of Luna’s nocturnal players ceding control of the aural landscape to a more upbeat movement carried on the wings of waking songbirds.
Already awake and seeing to the tasks which fate and happenstance had assigned them, a great many bakers, farmers, and other craftsponies paid little mind to the beauty of the sun’s divine blessing. To these ponies, it was no burden to rise before the divine sun-bearer, satisfied as they were in using their talents to the utmost.
Within a few hours, ponies all across Equestria would be busying themselves in similar fashion, with few notable exceptions, all bearing a mark that boldly proclaimed to everypony, “This is my talent!”.
To be certain, this was nothing more or less than the quintessential day in Ponyville. And, barring any unforeseen bunny stampedes or royal visits, nothing noteworthy would pass before Luna’s return beyond the beauty of a peaceful day-to-day life.
As the morning loudly proclaimed itself, lancing away the remaining threads of night’s blanket, one particular young pony found himself wishing, as he had more and more often of late, that Princess Twilight and her friends had failed in their task to stop an everlasting night. Oh, Almond Brittle objectively knew that eternal night wouldn’t have been a good thing, but he’d been finding it more and more difficult to find any peace that wasn’t hoof-delivered by the moon goddess.
Already large enough to blend in with the larger ponies of Ponyville with his long legs, expressively intelligent hazel eyes, and deep chestnut coat, Almond Brittle was nonetheless missing a single critical component borne by every pony that had reached maturity.
Almond Brittle still hadn’t found his special talent.
Dealing with the merciless teasing as well as could be expected of a colt of his age, Almond took any opportunity he had to isolate himself from everypony else. Even though his parents had passed on several years before, Almond was old enough to take care of himself and had even held several jobs across Ponyville in misguided attempts to discover where his talents might lie.
Nearly all of these positions had been extremely temporary as his employers found strange or insulting reasons to (politely) tell him he might be happier in another job. The reality was that many ponies couldn’t understand how any pony could have gone so long without figuring out what was, to anyone that had a cutie mark, something he should have long since earned.
While the younger ponies were often punished for teasing others for their lack of cutie marks, the same rules didn’t apply to older ponies. If Princess Celestia had ever conceived of the possibility that Almond Brittle represented, it’s quite likely that she would have endorsed laws to prevent the sort of grief that tormented him in the form of the ceaseless bullying that he’d suffered his entire life.
From the moment he’d learned about cutie marks, Almond had tried everything he could imagine to ascertain what his hidden talent might be. After several years of painfully growing disappointment and the useless, well-meaning advice offered by his peers, Almond simply gave up. Why, he wondered, should he continue to work so hard to figure out his special talent when even TRYING to find it resulted in more malicious teasing?
Which brings us to this fine day in Ponyville.
“Hey everypony, it’s Bare Brittle!” an unpleasantly familiar voice called out to Almond as he trotted through town.
“Yeah...good one, Fleet!” Almond called back as he continued on his way, trying to laugh off the nickname he’d never been able to shake.
Catching up to Almond, Fleet threw a hoof over Almond’s shoulder like an old friend and condescendingly continued, “Aww, don’t be like that, Blanky. I just wanted to tell you that my dad’s going to be breaking ground on a new rock farm today, just around the edge of Everfree. Since nobody else will hire you, why not give rock-breaking a try?”
His eyes lighting up at the offer despite the callousness of its delivery, Almond eagerly replied, “Yeah! That would be great, Fleet. You...sure your dad won’t mind the blank flank?”
Pushing off of Almond, Fleet leaned against a nearby food stall and flashed a winning smile.
“Nah, he’s desperate to compete with the Pies and we can’t get enough workers. Doesn’t take much talent to swing a hammer for an earth pony like you and if you’re just going to kill yourself anyway, why not make a few bits first?”
Despite shouldering the burden of his pristine flank his entire life, Almond was hurt every time he heard such things. That particular jab hurt more than any in recent memory, in part because it was something Almond had been seriously considering. Fleet may just have been one of over a dozen different ponies that loved to hurl insults at him, but Almond had been blessed with the misfortune of having a flawless memory for every hurtful remark and this wasn’t the first time somepony had suggested suicide.
“N-no, I’m...sure I’ll find my talent. I’ve never tried working on a rock farm so maybe this is the ticket,” Almond lied, trying to force himself to continue sounding upbeat.
“Yeah right, Blanks. If you believe that, I figure I should tell you that I’ve got a bridge for sale--great location, just south of Manehattan,” Fleet jabbed as he donned a pair of sunglasses, adding, “Just follow the road up past the forest and you can’t miss it. Tank and Barrow should already be there.”
As Fleet trotted away to the friendly, shouted greetings of nearly everypony he passed, Almond simply turned and made his way home in silence. Those were both names he hadn’t been looking forward to hearing, being among the worst of his tormentors--along with Fleet himself.
“This is...the last thing I’m going to try,” Almond muttered to himself as he quickly got ready to head to newest likely disappointment, throwing on a fake smile of enthusiasm as he made his way to the new rock farm.
Almond tried to remain hopeful that this job would help him discover his talent, but had stockpiled enough manticore poison to guarantee that he wouldn’t have to bear any further sadness if his desire was left wanting.
Making his way down the road, Almond’s hoofbeats echoed back to strike his ears as the remembered taunts that had been his truest companions. The voices ran together into a choking miasma that roared through his mind with the fury of an unbound tornado. Almond was moments from a complete breakdown when a voice shook him from his dark reverie.
“Oh great, we tell Fleet to get somepony reliable and he sends us THIS no-talent,” shouted a well-built black colt.
Nodding at the remark, a nearly identical sable pony added, “No kidding, Barrow.”
“Hey Barrow,” Almond numbly called out to the twins, shaking off the remaining shreds of angry, roiling darkness that still threatened to drive him to the ground in overwhelming sadness.
“This’ll be a waste of time, but whatever. Grab a hammer from over there and see if you can start breaking a few of the smaller rocks over there,” the larger pony Tank said.
“No problem!” Almond called out, his tone hiding the dread that had come to dwell at the core of his being if he found that breaking rocks wasn’t his talent.
“If you can’t at least crush that pile before Fleet gets here, you’re fired. Oh, and don’t break the hammer or you’re paying to replace it,” Tank threatened as he and his twin brother set about crushing rocks like seasoned professionals.
Almond wasn’t weak by any stretch of the imagination, but he was reasonably certain from the first moment he brought the hammer down that he had no talent for breaking rocks. What DID strike him as odd, however, was that something felt...different than in his previous attempts to discover his talent.
Even though he’d tried several manual labor positions in the past, Almond found something soothing about swinging the hammer. Each time the shining steel was brought into its powerfully arcing descent, Almond felt a peculiar satisfaction that defied all description. Losing himself in the work, hours passed in the blink of an eye.
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Some time later...
“What the-? They haven’t even started!” Fleet cursed as he approached the farm site, his eyes already scanning for his friends and the blank flank he’d hired earlier.
“Fleet!” Almond’s voice suddenly called out from across a field as the brown pony approached at a full gallop toward Fleet.
Somewhat confused by the nearly ecstatic look worn by the chestnut-colored colt, Fleet pulled off his sunglasses and answered, “Brittle. Where are Tank and Barrow?”
Completely covered in dirt and grime yet unable to contain his excitement, Almond dashed up behind Fleet and started urging him toward one of the largest rocks in the field. “Over here! You need to see this! I...think I finally found my true talent, Fleet!”
Suddenly lighting up as though seeing Almond as a peer for the first time in his entire life, Fleet answered back with a genuine smile, “Really?! That’s great Almond! See, that right there is all the reason we would have needed to start a rock farm in Ponyville!”
Nearly hopping with excitement, Almond led Fleet across the field to a massive chunk of granite. As they made their way across the rock-strewn ground, Fleet had a sudden realization that bothered him.
“Hey, Almond?” Fleet began, his tone even.
“Yeah? Come on, hurry!” Almond answered as though speaking more quickly would somehow quicken Fleet’s pace.
Taking a deep breath, Fleet actually cantered ahead of Almond and then turned to make eye contact before solemnly stating, “I’m sorry...for everything. Even if I wasn’t the only one...I shouldn’t have picked on you. I really hope Tank and Barrow didn’t give you too much trouble.”
Almond stopped in his tracks and looked at Fleet, his smile never vanishing. “Once they saw my cutie mark and I really got to work, they weren’t any trouble at all. And don’t worry about the rest, Fleet. Sure, it was pretty sour luck that it took this long to get my cutie mark, but if you hadn’t offered me this job, I’d have...well--it doesn’t matter now.”
Fleet nodded reluctantly, still not entirely at peace with himself as some of the more disturbing memories of the things he’d done and said to Almond came back.
As the pair drew nearer to the large slab of granite, Fleet turned back and listened intently to Almond’s description of how everything happened.
Still nearly bouncing in excited glee, Almond happily related the story. “So, they sent me to break this pile of rocks down and it is just NOT going well at all, right? It was like I just couldn’t figure out the right technique. No matter how hard I seemed to swing the hammer, I just couldn’t get the hang out of it. So then Barrow comes over and tells me that you were going to be here soon and I’d probably be fired if I couldn’t handle one tiny pile of rocks in the time they gave me.”
As Fleet continued to lead the way, he actually scratched his head as he saw Almond’s hammer near the large piece of solid granite.
“Hey, Almond...this was all supposed to be granite right? Did you guys stumble onto some cinnabar or feldspar? And where the heck did they have you working? The north field? I’ll tan their hides…” Fleet mumbled, his voice trailing off once he stepped beyond the edge of the large, unworked piece of stone.
“Oh! I should show you my cutie mark,” Almond nearly shouted, drawing Fleet’s attention back to the former blank flank.
As Almond managed to clear away the dust and grime from his flank, Fleet took an uncertain step back, his eyes going wide in shock. Fleet turned back around to confront what Almond had wanted to show him as well, now dumbstruck as the sight assailed him.
Almond picked up his hammer and took a few steps forward. “Everyone always said the same thing, you know? That once I found my special talent, I’d just know it--it would just feel right. That’s exactly how it happened, Fleet.”
Fleet swallowed hard, reluctant to even blink as he stammered out a response. “Almond, t-this is...you know that you can-”
The hammer descended, ending the conversation as Almond demonstrated what fate had given him--what his cutie mark represented.
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As Almond cantered back into Ponyville, happily tossing his hammer into the air and catching it, he was met with looks of pleased surprise that he’d finally gotten his cutie mark, quickly followed by looks of abject horror as everypony processed what they were seeing.
Emblazoned on Almond’s flank was the image of a hammer that appeared to be crushing a vaguely pony-shaped skull. His cutie mark, coupled with the large rock hammer he so casually carried with him could indicate only one explanation as to what had transpired at Ponyville’s new rock farm that day.
“You...uh...okay, Almond?” a passerby asked with a look of concern.
“I’ve never been better! I finally know my special talent and exactly how to use it. Can anypony really begrudge me the opportunity to do the work that fate set out for me to do?” Almond answered lightly, an exceedingly calm smile on his face.
Almond trotted on, not waiting for an answer to his rhetorical question. After all, he still had nine or ten ex-classmates that needed to see his special talent.