It was a calm summer afternoon when Nope, Sunshine and Blue Pine got together for a picnic in the local park. As they started chatting, Blue Pine brought up a topic that had been bothering Nope for a while now.
"So... how come you don't have a cutie mark? I mean, you're like, fifteen now, right?"
Nope shifted around uncomfortably on the picnic blanket. Cutie marks were tied to a pony's destiny, so it had only seemed obvious that, given her lifestyle, she hadn't gotten one yet. But she was getting past the age where people expected one, and she was starting to stand out.
"I... guess I should really get on with that," she said, reluctantly. "But, honestly, at this point, I'm not sure what to do about it."
"You know," Sunshine said, "there are three ponies specialising in that in Ponyville."
Nope gave her a hesitant nod. "I heard. Twilight told me about them a couple of times. But I don't know if even those three would be able to untangle the mess I'm in."
"Cutie Mark Crusader Pinions?" Sunshine replied with a huge grin on her face.
"Heck nope," the other girl responded. "You know I could just jump into any of these portals and get it over with, right?"
Blue Pine shook his head. "Or you could figure out what you're actually good at?"
Nope blinked. Huh. The colt had a point. Then she remembered her Evil Mirror Counterpart and grumbled. "I don't want that as a cutie mark."
"Want what?" Blue Pine asked.
Nope groaned. "Look, I've seen a potential future me, who, um, made a bit of a mess—"
"But of course you have," Blue Pine said, shaking his head.
"—and I've seen her cutie mark. And I know what it means." She slumped down on the blanket. "And I don't want it."
"Is it something you're actually good at?" Sunshine asked.
"Given the fact I got a lifetime of experience with it, I'm guessing 'yes'?" Nope grumbled from her prone position.
Sunshine sighed softly. "It's portals, isn't it?"
"Give the mare a medal; she figured it out," Nope mumbled.
"So... you know what would actually get you there?" Blue Pine asked.
"The spell she taught me," Nope responded. "The, uh, future me. A spell to block all portals around me, passively, constantly, until I specifically dispell it. Her cutie mark didn't mean portal creation... it was portal control. She told me the technical specifics, but I've never actually managed to do it, and, well, then I realised that if I actually manage to do that spell, which I got from her, I'd probably get her cutie mark. It just seems like I'd be copying her special talent, rather than finding my own, you know?"
"And what if that's the mark you're supposed to get anyway?" Blue Pine asked.
Nope sat upright and grabbed herself another sandwich from the picnic basket. "Well, yea," she said between bites. "That's exactly my dilemma."
"That, and the fact you don't want it," Sunshine pointed out.
"She was an evil overlord! Of course I don't want it!" She looked at the happy smiling sun on her friend's flank. "I'm kind of jealous at that... everything just happened so naturally, for you."
"Uh. Yea," Sunshine said, looking at her own mark with some measure of bafflement. "I'm... honestly not sure how that even happened."
Nope raised an eyebrow. "Wait. You weren't expecting to get a mark?"
Sunshine shrank down a bit at her friend's baffled stare. "...not really?"
"Are you a changeling or something?"
Sunshine gave a quick fearful glance at her boyfriend, and then looked down. "Or something," she mumbled.
"Wait... you're not a real pony?" Blue Pine asked, visible confused.
"Oh, I'm real, all right. Kind of didn't expect to be, but, the cutie mark proves it," Sunshine said. "I just wasn't always a pony." She turned to Nope, and sighed. "When you were six, you had never heard of me. When you were seven, I'd been your best friend your entire life. Of course, you never noticed that."
Nope blinked. It was a statement that was hard to disprove, of course.
"You've always had this mess following you around," Sunshine continued. "But, think about it. Before you were seven, it was a lot worse. You literally couldn't trip over a toy in your own house without falling into some portal. You had singing creatures, magical mirrors, nomes, fraggles, and breezies showing up pretty much all the time! And what do you have now?"
Nope nodded. "I don't remember that much from when I was that little, but... I guess it got less bad? Nowadays it's mostly just the occasional portal."
"Exactly. There you were, overflowing barrel of Destiny... and there I was, something not quite existing, on the edge of potential and reality. And you were lonely."
Nope stared at her friend in shock. "Are you saying I created you?"
Sunshine shook her head. "No, no. I remember existing before that, but, not quite all there. Just, lying in wait, looking for something to feed on. And then I found you, actively pushing away the stuff I needed to exist—potential existence itself. So, then I was here."
"So... less of a parasite, more of a scavenger?" Nope asked.
Sunshine giggled. "Dear, I couldn't take destiny from you if I tried. It's like trying to drink from a hose."
Nope got up and paced around the grass. "This is a lot to take in, you know. You've just... always been there."
Blue Pine shook his mane in a dismissive gesture. "Imagine how I feel." He turned to Sunshine. "What about your parents, though? I've met them!"
"They... seem to fade in and out of existence as needed," Sunshine said, sounding somewhat uncertain herself. "They're more like, illusions, and not destiny-eaters like me. I dunno. I never actively created them. They're just... part of being a normal pony, so they appeared alongside me. I haven't seen them much since I got my cutie mark; I expect they'll vanish completely as I get older." She stared at the ground. "I'm sorry."
Blue Pine hugged her. "Hey... it's a lot to take in. But I imagine it can't have been that easy for you, either."
Sunshine tilted her head. "Well. Yes, and no. I'm kind of immune to all the weirdness surrounding Nope... so it's certainly a lot harder for her than for me."
Nope squinted at her. "Stop that, Sunny," she said. "I know you." She glanced around uncertainly. "Well. Not as well as I thought, I guess, but, still. I know this bothers you."
"Well, why do you think I told you?" Sunshine said, sagging into her boyfriend's embrace. "I've been trying to bring this up for years. I just never... found a good time." She looked up at Blue Pine. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
Blue Pine smiled. "Hey. You are my special somepony," he said. "I just didn't realise quite how special."
Sunshine looked down morosely. "Yea, except I'm special in the sense of «Come gather around this cage, mares and gentlecolts, and witness the Mare Who Was Never Born!»"
Blue Pine planted a kiss on the top of her head. "You look mighty fine for someone who was never born."
He looked up at Nope. "Anyway, huge revelations aside, you kind of derailed the topic."
Sunshine blinked, and the two of then suddenly looked back at Nope, and her conspicuously blank flank.
Nope glared at him. "Oh, come on!"
"Way I see it," Blue Pine said, "You're not afraid of getting a cutie mark in portal control. I mean, you hate not being in control of your life."
"So what are you saying?" Nope grumbled.
"I'm saying you do want a cutie mark in portal control," he continued. "You just don't want the cutie mark of the version of you who made such a collossal mess of her life."
"Okay, so how does that help me?"
"That's easy," Blue Pine responded. "You already cheated. I'm betting it took her years of research to develop that spell, after she messed up so badly." He smirked. "You can have it before you mess up."
Nope stared at him. "What?!"
"Think about it. She never wanted that mess, did she? That's why she taught you that spell. She gave you an easy way out. Using that spell won't make you become like her; it'll prevent it."
"Agh!" Nope shouted, making some other ponies in the park give her worried looks. "I can't believe I didn't..."
She scanned around the park, daring the world to give her a portal. And, sure enough, a tiny purple swirl opened up in front of her. Through the haze she could see a breezie making its way towards her.
"Very well," she said, glaring at the portal while her horn started lighting up. "Let's end this, then. Let's take full control of my life."
The breezie, who was of the rather Godmotherly-looking kind, looked at her with an expression of dread on her tiny face. "Uh... is this a bad time?" she asked in a squeaky voice.
"Oh, look," Nope said, a mean grin appearing on her face. "Somebody finally asks!"
The breezie rushed back towards the portal. "I-can-see-you're-in-the-middle-of-something-I-can-come-back-later!"
Nope took a deep breath, and her horn blasted out some sort of ripple around her, erasing the portal from existence mere moments after the little creature had managed to get back through.
She sighed, and gave a satisfied smile in the direction where the portal vanished. "No," she said, matter-of-factly, "you can't."
She blinked, and noticed Sunshine and Blue Pine staring at her. She opened her mouth to talk, and suddenly realised they weren't looking at her face.
Her eyes widened, and she looked at her flank.
She had a cutie mark.
And it was not the green swirling portal that had adorned the sides of her 'evil' mirror self.
She looked back at Sunshine. "This is..."
"Not what you expected?" Sunshine asked, grinning.
Nope turned back to examine the wisp of blue smoke on her flank. To anyone else, it would just be a generic magic-looking thing, but she recognised the specific aftereffect of the disappearance of a class five, gravitic, one-way, void monster populated portal.
She smiled at Sunshine. "...nice. This is nice."
Suddenly she felt really dizzy, and swayed on her feet.
Sunshine quickly got up and supported her. "Dispell it, Nope! It's still active!"
Nope squeezed her eyes shut. "Aw, heck." A small spark from her horn once again sent a ripple through the area around her. She sagged to the ground. "I forgot about that part."
Sunshine lightly patted her on the head. "She had to work hard on that spell, filly," she said. "Casting it is one thing, but, keeping it up indefinitely? I don't think you're quite there yet."
Nope nodded. "At least I should be able to dispell any portal now." She nodded at her flank. "I mean, that one is one of the worst."
Sunshine gave the cutie mark a thoughtful look. "Ohh," she said. "Now I know where I've seen that before."
"Oh?" Nope asked. Suddenly she realised, and facehoofed. "Oh. It's..."
"...what it looked like after you were dragged into the portal where you met your older mirror self."
Nope nodded. "I guess that's fitting."
"Well, congratulations," Blue Pine voiced in. He exchanged a glance with Sunshine. "Hey, you know what this calls for?"
Nope got up just a little too fast to protest, lost her balance, and faceplanted before Sunshine had a chance to grab her. "Heck nope!" her muffled protest came from somewhere inside the tall grass.
"Heck yep!" Sunshine said as she helped her out of her awkward position. "A party!"