A beautiful day, that’s how most of these journeys into the land of Equestria usually start out. Through tales of friendship and harmony among the kind residents of ponyville, stories have been told and written down for future generations to hear. But then again, there are some things that must remain secret, for better reasons, of course. Such as this story that I’m trying to desperately write down with my mouth. Please excuse my grammar, slight errors, and whatever other problems you find, for I am not an expert in writing or ever claim to be. I’m just a simple earth pony, desperately wanting to explain the truth behind a rather, well, ghastly incident that occurred quite long ago. As for who I am, all I can say is that I’m a pony who just wants to do the right thing. I’m not afraid to tell this story, because I’ve had quite the amount of time to think this over, realizing that no matter how hard I think about it, there’s no erasing the past. But enough small talk, I think it’s time I explain just what the hay I’m talking about.
The day was much like today, starting with a shining sun rise curtesy of her majesty, Princess Celestia. I never did meet her, but wish I had. She’s truly a remarkable woman, kind, generous, and loyal to all she greets. Even him, who simply adored her presence. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Who I’m referring to is another earth pony, much like myself, yet had something quite a few of us had back then, raw determination. All his life, he was fascinated with how things in Equestria appeared, from its animals, to its vast lands of forests, mountains, and oceans. However, none of that was anything compared to the skills he witnessed from other ponies during their daily lives. He was seeing magic for the first time. That moment was when he realized his true calling in life, figuring out its secrets. But as you understand, an earth pony has no quality in anything magical. At least, that’s what he believed. True, their talents summoned through the use of a cutie mark indicated magical properties, but this pony didn’t believe that finding your talent was your true calling. Your true destiny to succeed. No, he wanted to know the secrets of why everything was the way they were in Equestria, from life, to magic, to the properties of each different kind of pony. As he believed, this would never appear as a cutie mark. Turns out his talent was actually in photography, spending days taking pictures of trees and plants to observe and study later. This would be fine, but this earth pony refused to fully accept what his calling was, so he decided to prove it, marking a different path. With the help of some colored inks, paste, and a flower containing the right kind of nectar, he completely altered his cutie mark, with strange results in the process. Whatever he made, created a permanent color coating that changed the camera cutie mark on his flank into a strange silver box, with the colors red, yellow, blue, and green marked on each corner end. That’s when the names started to spread in school. We called him Unmarkable, a symbol of refusal in your talent.
I couldn’t help but feel curious to why he would ever do such a thing. When I approached him, all he did was smile, not caring what the other children thought. I asked his name, to which he replied, Gaze Unmarkable. Couldn’t really explain why, but the harsh nickname made him feel good. Feel different from the others, accepting the mark of which he believed was forced upon. At that age, I considered Gaze to be one of a million, and still do to this day. Refusing what defined your talents and potential, to create a whole new path entirely. No one understood it, and never would. The next day, teacher said that Gaze was expelled, calling him a crazy filly heading down a path that none of us should dare travel. It was such a shame, because I really wanted to know more about him. No doubt his answers would be out of the ordinary, another trait that made him an outcast to the others. I just had to see him again, but unfortunately, I never did for quite a while. His parents were so ashamed of his mark that they forced him to go to a doctor to fix it. Gaze didn’t want his path to be altered in any way other than what he chose, so the second his parents turned around, he vanished. Poof, just like that, no goodbye, no nothing. Five years later, I was on a train to my new semester at boarding school when I overheard a few colts talk about this buzzard incident that happened in Manehatten. Apparently, a certain tan coated earth pony had performed a street performance near the town capital, dancing on two hooves, chanting the phrase “we are unmarkable inside, we rise, to fly!” His annoyance triggered the public guard authorities, to which this earth pony responded by pouring a strange liquid from a black jar onto the ground beneath him, summoning forth a gigantic dark gray tree, with gleaming leaves with a color combination of red, yellow, blue, and green. No pony could quite explain why he did it, or how exactly, considering they were all standing on a cement sidewalk in the blazing heat. I knew it was him, only he would do something out of the ordinary like that. But it only made me ask more questions. Why did he do it? What does Gaze hope to accomplish from an act like this? I wouldn’t understand until the end of my days in school, nearing graduation. Reports heard of strange marking painted onto trees, boulders, and even at the bottom of a lake. No pony could remove the paint, seeming impossible to even fade. Seeing the markings in a newspaper, I realized it was the same silver box, with those four colors marked in each corner. At that point, I wasn’t even shocked, but actually surprised. The fact he kept doing these strange tasks wherever he traveled then disappeared into thin air made him a public figure to quite the lot of ponies. Even reaching the halls of her majesty’s castle, who became as curious as I was to personally get to know this “Gaze Unmarkable.”