//------------------------------//
// Introducing Glimmer, Part 1 
// Story: Norrath, Earth, Equestria. A Construct's Journey 
// by Nimnul 
//------------------------------//

	"I'm going to introduce you to some other ponies I know," Twilight explained, dragging Starlight Glimmer along. "You already know Rarity, and her cutie mark only indirectly has anything to do with her business."

"Fine." Starlight Glimmer didn't seem convinced. She hadn't been particularly eager to meet new ponies once she'd agreed to become a friendship student, which would, of course, get in the way of learning all there was to learn about it.

They'd hardly made it out of the castle when they ran into Ditzy, who generally went about her day at a measured pace, compared to other pegasi. "Hey, Ditzy, do you have a few minutes?"

The mailmare glanced at the sky, then took a quick peek into her saddlebags. Apparently satisfied, she smiled. "Sure. Got time." 

Popular opinion might have painted Ditzy as a bit clumsy, but she was conscientous about the job. She probably wouldn't have said yes if she'd been pressed for time to complete her round.

"Excellent! This is Starlight Glimmer, a new friend of mine."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Starlight stated without much feeling. 

"Nice to m-meet you!   I'm Ditzy Do."

"You like your job, right?" Always a good idea to start off on a positive note, Twilight figured.

As expected, Ditzy managed to smile even more brightly. "Yes!  I love connecting ... keeping ponies in touch.  Communication keeps ... keeps the wheels turning. Society, you know."

Life certainly would be harder without reliable means of communication at a distance. Not every pony had access to magical solutions, not to mentions other species with less magic. Well worth taking pride in, Twilight felt. "You're absolutely right. Still, it doesn't really have anything to do with your cutie mark, does it?"

She had to admit a bit of personal curiosity on that front as well. She'd always thought the mark in question was memorable in its vagueness.

"There's ... room for interpretation," Ditzy enunciated each syllable carefully. "Some less kind ... than others." She shrugged and kept smiling with equanimity. 

"But you wouldn't say that being a mailmare is your destiny, would you?" Twilight shuddered to remember the events leading up to her ascension. 

Ditzy appeared puzzled. "I'm a mailpony.  Things don't ... they don't go anywhere unless ponies  write a destination on it.  Not my job to ... think about it harder."

"Humor me?" Twilight pleaded. She didn't want to appear as though she were mocking the pegasus, or wasn't prepared to take her view seriously.

"Hm." Ditzy closed her eyes. "Thinking about it."

Starlight Glimmer frowned at Twilight in impatience. Twilight gestured for her to remain quiet, for now.

Eventually, Ditzy shrugged. "Destiny is ... very, very big.   Ponies are very, very small.   Destiny doesn't care what ... what I do with my life.  Sure.   Maybe there's a plan.    Maybe there's a pegasus in the plan.  But I think ... any pegasus.  Not Ditzy Do.   Destiny is too big to care ... about who we are. Only how we slot into the plan."

Haltingly, she continued.  "Used to be ... a mopey filly.  Life was so unfair.  I was a blank flank ... bad eye, sp-speech therapy. Ponies I knew were ... I knew were growing up really unpleasant, they got cutie marks.   They had all the luck."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Young ponies could be incredibly thoughtless and unpleasant, it was true. 

"I guess ... I decided, you know, it's not so bad.  If life, destiny ... whatever, if they were fair  ... If it was f-fair right now, I'd have to think th-that, think that we, we deserve all this.  When bad things happen ... when they happen to good ponies."

"Can't make me think that," she concluded with a shrug.

"I see." Twilight nodded. "Thanks for sharing your thoughts."

"No problem." Ditzy giggled. "Time to get back to work." Without further comment, she took off.

"You know, she didn't actually say what the bubbles are for," Starlight Glimmer pointed out.

Twilight shrugged. It was a fair point. "I guess she didn't. Maybe it's for taking comfort in the realization that ponies are as fleeting as soap bubbles against the larger time spans the world moves in."

"How is that comforting at all?" 

"If you don't believe in a greater meaning for yourself, your own actions become more meaningful? I feel like I'm in a bad position to judge her stance." Considering how little she knew about the tree of harmony, and how old Celestia was, it was easy to fall into thinking that she did play part in some grand design, and not just in Celestia's best effort to protect her little ponies.

"Yes, about that ..." Starlight Glimmer glowered. "I'm surprised you didn't correct her."

"Correct her? How?" Seemed petty to start an argument in the street about something as abstract as that.

Starlight Glimmer grimaced. "I feel like we've established pretty well that it's specifically you and your friends who're required for the best possible outcome. There's no back-up plan, no 'destiny just slots some other pony in.' The big plan is real, and it's the only good one. I mean, you're always jumping at what your map says, you must believe in some grand design, right?"

Twilight paused, considered the idea, and decided that she'd probably have a panic attack about it in the future. The notion just ascribed too much importance to her specifically. "Well ... you could argue that if destiny, or Harmony or whatever, cared about ponies individually, there would have been some alternate design. Maybe some of the timelines we saw will work out alright in the longer term." She shrugged, feeling helpless. "And the problems the map sends us to solve aren't the only problems around. I expect it is arbitrary to some degree. There are more questions than answers. You heard Ditzy. Keep putting proper addresses on your mail. Don't trust that it'll arrive without you doing your part."

"Fine. I guess even a pony who thought everything was predestined would practice due diligence so they wouldn't get run over by a cart." 

"Anyway, the point was, Ditzy has a good life without sparing much thought for her cutie mark, or those of other ponies. It's perfectly possible for a pony to be good at a job that's not related to their cutie mark, as long as they enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with teaching ponies that their life isn't controlled by their mark." She offered Starlight a smile. "No reason to toss out all your ideas."

"Well, thanks, I guess."





They found Lyra sitting on a park bench, playing her lyre. Despite the beautiful weather, the music carried on the breeze seemed somber. The musical unicorn wore a look of concentration, but every so often she spared a smile for a passing pony. She greeted Twilight with a minute nod, but played the piece to its conclusion.

Twilight found the melancholy mood unwelcome. "Something wrong, Lyra?"

"Not at all." Lyra responded with a smile which seemed less enthusiastic than her usual grin. "Guess I've got myself a bit nostalgic from playing this one, though. Cobbled it together to something my mom used to sing. Well, once I was any good at playing, anyway."

"That's sweet, but it sounds like a sad song." She waved a hoof towards her new student. "That's Starlight Glimmer, by the way."

"I guess it is," Lyra agreed. "It's about a myth – a mare who stole the power of winter. Like winter, she never dies for good. Eventually she reemerges from the northernmost glaciers, but the world has moved on, and nopony trusts her, because cold magic is death magic." She chuckled. "But the children always come to like her, so she stays attached and helps out whoever needs it, until the cycle repeats."

"They prefer fire magic up north," Lyra added, as though for clarification.

"Sounds like a cultural bias. There's nothing inherently evil about cold magic. Maybe the origin of the tale has a windigo connection?" Twilight wondered whether that tale might be found in one of her books.

"Or the windigo stories are the reason for the cultural bias," Starlight Glimmer pointed out, reasonably.

"I don't know," Lyra stated candidly. "Never really learned the language, so I like the song more for the fillyhood nostalgia, not the content." She shook her head. "Mom would always end up singing something somber like that when I was upset. After I grew up, she told me that you've got to convince ponies that it's alright to be sad, first. If you're not made to feel silly or ashamed for crying over a broken toy or not being invited to a birthday party, you'll handle yourself better as a grown-up, when you run into something to really cry about, you know?" Chuckling, she added, "I dunno, maybe it worked a little bit."

That sort of approach had probably also had some use in dealing with Bon Bon, Twilight strongly suspected. A lot of ponies could get pretty eager to cheer up a sad friend immediately, unwilling to settle for a period of companionable sadness, which in itself could be a powerful show of friendship. Twilight was pretty fortunate to have Rarity on hoof whenever she felt down. Rarity was always good for validating a pony's emotions. The fashionista could seem overly dramatic at times, but by the same token, she was unlikely to belittle others for feeling strongly about seeming trifles.

"I-I think that makes sense." Starlight Glimmer looked to the ground, but her voice had sounded momentarily rough with emotion.

It made Twilight wonder about the adults in Starlight's childhood, who might have been expected to cushion the blow of separation from her friend and taught her how to cope with it. Timeline-warping supervillainy probably didn't 'just happen'.

"Music does ponies good, no matter the mood they're in." Lyra shrugged. "And it's relaxing for me to play."

"Well, it is your cutie mark," Twilight took the opening. "But you're not making a living with it, are you?"

Lyra's expression turned sly. "Hey, if you want to tip, go ahead. I got a busking license, it's above board."

"I thought that's more of a big city thing. Have any of these local cops ever asked to see your paperwork?" Starlight seemed glad for the change of topic.

"I've had some pedantic ponies in my life." Lyra grinned at Twilight.

Starlight Glimmer seemed amused by the remark, but didn't comment on it further. "So what do you do? Anything music-related?"

"I'm a loafer. I loaf, professionally." Lyra made a show of leaning back lazily.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "She and her better half own the local candy store." Although compared to a lot of the locals, Lyra didn't have much of a workload.

"My better half, huh? I'm wounded!" She giggled at the teasing. "Yeah, that's Bonny's cutie mark. She rules the kitchen, I sometimes help with sales. It's pretty great."

"You ever consider trying to make a name for yourself with your music?" Twilight thought that Lyra wasn't especially close to Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, who took their respective kinds of music quite seriously.

"No way! Classical music is a dog eat dog world, making more money off my lyre would not be worth the stress." Lyra shook her head with emphasis. "Sit down with Octavia sometime and ask about stress. Not for me. I'll stay right here and take it slow and easy. I got a small gig every so often just for the fun of it, but that's all I need. I'm done worrying about measuring up."

At Starlight's confused look, Lyra elaborated. "My parents are loaded and a pony from my old peer group is now a princess. My life's pretty modest compared to that. If my parents had been more demanding you'd have to look for my self-esteem with very precise instruments, but I lucked out on that front, so I got over it."

The description hurt, but it was unfortunately natural for ponies to compare themselves to their parents and to others they'd grown up with to gauge their own success, and sometimes, self-worth. Although if Lyra's mother really had grown up in some speck of a village on the frozen tundra, it was probably grounds for Lyra to feel like she compared favorably, anyway.

"There's nothing wrong with keeping it simple," Starlight insisted. "Comparing yourself to others just leads to misery, anyway."

"Preach it!" Lyra nodded with a smirk. "Ambition's for suckers."

Twilight uncomfortably recalled part of Starlight's odd mantra. 'To excel is to fail.' Still, if a pony chose a quieter life, there was nothing wrong with that. She remembered Lyra as a bright mare with a near total lack of motivation to apply herself.

"How did you manage your entrance exam as a filly, anyway?" Young unicorns were usually expected to fail at some point. Nopony had expected Twilight to actually hatch the dragon egg, either. The question was generally whether or not one accepted failure with humility.

"Obviously, I didn't hatch the egg," Lyra joked. "I set fire to the hay it was sitting on. Didn't go over super well with the faculty, but my mom was very proud. Every unicorn should be able to start a fire, after all."

Well, how the parents reacted to their child's failure was probably also important to know.  "So what's your relation with your cutie mark anyway?"

Lyra appeared particularly puzzled by the question. She checked her flank. "Well, it certainly helps ponies remember my name, huh? Unless they think it's a harp. Rookie mistake." She pointed an accusatory hoof at Twilight. "You're just asking that because my mom's a foreigner! Trying to see if she set me up with any weird notions about it, huh?" 

Before Twilight could respond, Lyra raised her hooves in a dramatic gesture. "And the spirits of earth and sky bless this one with a gift for the lyre! Dun dun DUN!"

Ponies were staring. This didn't seem to cause Lyra any particular embarrassment, but Twilight felt herself shifting uncomfortably, feeling awkward on the unicorn's behalf. "Well, maybe. We've had cutie marks on the mind."

"We're a little old to be thinking really hard about cutie marks, aren't we?" Lyra chuckled. "Shouldn't you be talking to the crusaders? Isn't that their thing now? Or still?"

Lyra could be a little incurious about things outside her immediate areas of interest, Twilight found, but she didn't think her old friend had never formed deeper thoughts about it. "They can be a little overly enthusiastic," she hedged. 

"Well, I dunno." Lyra idly plucked a few strings. "I think of it as self-maintenance. Doing stuff with your cutie mark is a way to keep yourself steady. Anypony can learn and enjoy the lyre, it just happens to do more for me, you know?"

Ponies ideally experienced a certain degree of contentment when exercising their special talent, so that wasn't an uncommon stance. A lot of ponies might not actually couch it in those inward-focused terms, but Lyra was more sensitive than average to the fact that a pony had to look after their own well-being, mentally as well. "I suppose that's a good way to look at it."

Starlight Glimmer rubbed her chin. "Members of other species can find particular things that help them relax and feel confident, too. Activities that really resonate with them. They don't seem to need cutie marks to remind them."

Lyra had nodded along. "Sure, I agree. My dad always told me that most folks aren't really different from ponies. They think in the same tracks, allowing for differences in cultural upbringing." She grinned again. "But I imagine if you're a minotaur or gryphon with a stressful life, it's a little easier to lose track of what keeps you sane. It happens to ponies, and we got the helpful reminder on our flank, heh."

"There are a lot of talents that other species couldn't get," Twilight reminded them. Magic, of course, but she hadn't heard of non-ponies communicating with animals the way Fluttershy did, either. 

"Well, obviously." Starlight Glimmer rolled her eyes. "But I doubt there's a minotaur out there who can't find anything to take pride in and enjoy, just because he can't do weather magic."

Twilight wasn't sure the conversation was going in the right direction, for the sake of Starlight's rehabilitation. At least she seemed to accept the idea that it was alright to feel a measure of pride in one of your abilities or skills. That hadn't been a given.

"I expect there's an environmental factor, too," Lyra added. "Up north you get ponies with cutie marks for skinning, tanning hides, things related to hunting. Stuff that'd be extremely unusual around here. Cutie marks come from inside of you, so I think it's rare for a pony to get a cutie mark society frowns at, since you can't help but be shaped by the place you grow up in." She grinned. "That could mean, of course, that the Cutie Mark Crusader's obsession warped them so much that they ended up getting cutie marks about cutie marks."

"Hm. That might not account for every cutie mark out there, but it's pretty okay for a street musician." It was a decent enough idea, since it factored in how early and how heavily a growing pony was influenced by her experiences in her part of society. It also accounted for families with similar marks among most members, chief example being the Apples.

"Oh, fightin' words." Lyra giggled. "I was gonna play a bit more, unless there was something else?" She smiled towards Starlight. "Hope to see you around!"

"Probably." Starlight nodded before shooting a questioning glance at Twilight.

Twilight was glad to see Starlight interact naturally with ponies, her new student still tended to let guilt get to her. "See you around."

"You might hear me, first," Lyra commented before starting to play something a little more lively than the previous piece.

Eventually, Starlight spoke up as they walked away. "Funny, I can't decide whether she would have fit into my town. Some of the opinions, sure, but I guess she didn't have the alienation that brought most of them into town."

Lyra wasn't immune to the sort of self-doubt that would leave a pony vulnerable to fringe ideologies, but Twilight didn't think it had ever been about Lyra's cutie mark. "If you hadn't had the enforced job rotation, she might have gotten along with it," Twilight offered diplomatically. "She's open to the idea of taking the pressure off, of not having to excel at your cutie mark job. You identified a real problem some ponies have, otherwise I don't think those ponies in your town would have found the sense of community to stay after you left."

Twilight shrugged before quoting, "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a mare does not keep pace with her companions, perhaps it is because she hears a different drummer. Let her step to the music which she hears, however measured or far away."

"I just picked a different beat for everyone to march to," Starlight commented. "I'm glad they've got each other, at least."

"Hmm, certainly." Twilight tried to imagine Lyra as a resident of Starlight's town. She only managed to make it up to the dreadful indoctrination room before imagining Berry Punch smiling around the handle of the hammer she'd used to break off changeling horns, or Bon Bon's blandly pleasant smile as she'd informed Twilight how very lucky she had been to be under Celestia's protection after the incident with the Want-It Need-It spell. Not to mention her mother.

"It's probably for the best that you never ran into Lyra while you were still brainwashing ponies."