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// 0. Prologue 
// Story: The Cutie Mark Bureau 
// by Sea Gnash 
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~✩~ Chapter 0 ~✩~



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~✩~ Prologue ~✩~



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A pony's eighteenth birthday. That special day used to be a day every young pony looked forward to. It would be a step towards adulthood, towards more freedom from parental demands. However, for many ponies, that date stood as a mark of shame and dread. It was a date on the calendar that would confirm just how unlucky a pony was, even if its effects seemed to be catching more and more ponies with each mounting decade.

Knowing she wasn't alone didn't give Melody Veil any sense of comfort as she sat in front of the floor mirror standing in the corner of her bedroom. If anything, she felt like bucking the object that gave her a constant reminder of just how blank her flank truly was. It didn't help that the day she had ahead of her, as the center of attention, only made that empty field of light pink fur that much more conspicuous. With a frustrated groan, she pressed her face into the carpet and hid behind her hooves.

“Melody, your breakfast is ready for consumption,” chimed a voice in a noticeably mechanical tone without a hint of emotion.

Melody glanced up from her wallowing, spotting a face outlined in green on the screen inset into her wall next to the room's door. Sighing, she sat back up on her flank and used a hoof to push some of the wandering strands of yellow hair back into place with the rest of her mane. Her parents had enough money for a companion AI, but they couldn't spend the little extra to get one that sounded like an actual pony?

She shook her head and rose to her hooves. “Thanks, Ferris, I'll be down in a minute.”

“Understood. Happy birthday,” said Ferris before the screen holding his face turned black once more.

Melody stepped over to her window and placed both of her front hooves on the sill. She couldn't see far into the city despite her family's apartment sitting near the top of the building, all the others just like it blocking her view. Luckily, that didn't stop her from having a clear line of sight to the central park down below. As one of the few remaining patches of green within the expansive city's limits, it helped her calm the brewing storm in her head. It reminded her of the few chances she had gotten to visit the countryside as a filly, and how much it always blew her mind to think that Ponyville was once considered the countryside itself. Then again, there was also a time where there wasn't a colony on the moon.

She set her chin down between her hooves and closed her eyes. There was also once a time where ponies didn't need help getting their cutie mark through some sort of magic injection. What kind of process even was it she would be put through in the coming days? Was it going to hurt?

Melody growled and gripped the sides of her head. “Why couldn't I have been like my friends and just got mine on my own? Even if it was as late as last year like Twister, I'd have been fine with it!”

With one last sigh, she set her hooves back onto the floor and started for her door. “I just hope my cutie mark isn't something lame. If it's made me wait this long for it to appear, it better be worth it.”

She pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall, taking a deep breath to calm herself down and instead getting a nose full of the scent of pancakes. The smell of her birthday breakfast put a reluctant smile on her face. “Okay, maybe I can at least try to enjoy my birthday. I'll think about my cutie mark later.”