Nestled in the far western portion of the Unknown West, Radourmeire’s Rest was a small but proud town. The heart of Potok province, it was the last stop of the Western Express, the train that came from points east; it was also the first stop of the Seacoach, the stagecoach that took travelers farther west to the seaside towns like Megan’s Shoreline or Saltwater Reach. As such, the town was an important hub in the daily life of the Unknown West and while it didn’t have the aura (or size, for that matter) of such big towns as Canterlot, Manehattan or Ponyville, it was still critical to the region.
Light shone in the window and stabbed at the eyes of a young unicorn as she awoke. Beat yawned and stretched, ready for another day, such as it was. Clambering out of bed, she quickly made the bed up via a spell, vaguely remembering the dream she had the night before; chances were, it was a memory of her grandfather telling her a story about her ancestor, Blazing Lance, the Great Master of the Western Keep and one of Queen Faust’s most valiant knights. There had been so many stories about him over the years and so many that she’d read, that she was sure by the time she was six, her grandfather had probably exhausted telling her all the known ones and had likely made up more than a few out of whole cloth for her entertainment.
She walked over to the desk, looking at the picture of the old stallion, who had gone off to join his wife in the Great Pasture over a decade ago. Step Forward had been the sheriff in his time, and his wife Treasured Path had been the mayor, part of a family well-respected that had been here in this part of Equestria since even before it was technically part of Equestria. She missed them both, both her grandfather’s tall tales and her grandmother’s geranium sugar cookies.
“Miss you, Grandpop, Grandma,” she said fondly to them before taking her brush in magical grasp and heading to the mirror. Her cornflower-and-cerulean mane needed a quick run through with the comb before she tied it into her familiar docktail, then added her favorite scarf to the mix before finally slipping on her glasses. The third part she was annoyed about, because she’d already broken two other pairs this week and it was hard enough to get replacements as it was.
Finally, she headed out the door of her bedroom, and no sooner than she’d taken the first step out, a small white rabbit came bounding to her feet. “Oxford! There you are, you little pest!”
Oxford just looked up at her with his soulful dark eyes, and that look that basically said, I’m cute, you’ll forgive me.
She picked him up and hugged him, surely enough doing so. She’d had Oxford ever since she was a filly and he was certainly a rarity; very few domestic rabbits lived as long as he did or were even as remotely spry as he was. She’d heard stories about a similar rabbit out in Ponyville (or was it Sunhillow?) but chances were, the rabbit wasn’t as much of a nuisance or as creatively troublemaking as Oxford was.
“So, did you get into the—”
“Beat, honey, we need to talk about how Oxford got into the carrot bin again!” a voice railed as she came downstairs. It was her mother, Marketplace, who, along with Beat’s father Well Stocked, were the town grocers. “I thought you said you were going to keep him out of the grocery store!”
“Mom, I have no idea how this little pest keeps getting past the magical wards and stuff!” she insisted. “I keep laying them down and he just finds a way in!”
“Well, fortunately for him I’m expecting a new shipment of carrots from Ponyville tomorrow. Celestia knows Oxford’s eaten all our local supply!” Marketplace went over to the stove and grabbed a spatula with her wings, easily flipping a small stack of pancakes onto a plate. “Breakfast is ready, honey,” she said. “You might want to hurry up and eat, since your father’ll need you to help him open early. I can’t do it because I have a meeting with the town Ladies’ Club in an hour.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Beat stated telekinetically grabbing the plate as she sat down at the kitchen table. As always, Oxford managed to climb up on the table and demand his due; fortunately, he wasn’t a fan of pancakes. So instead, Beat let her pet rabbit nibble away at one of her radish-and-beet sausages, which was okay, as she wasn’t a huge fan of those anyway.
“Isn’t your friend Rocketfuel supposed to be back from Canterlot sometime soon?” Marketplace asked.
“I think so. I’m pretty sure the coronation of Princess Sunset was a couple of weeks ago and Rocky was going to spend some extra time there doing research for the newspaper, so she should be back soon.” One of Beat’s two best friends, Rocketfuel was both the town mailmare as well as the publisher of the Radourmeire Register, the weekly town newspaper. As a result, she was also the unintended focal point of much of the town’s gossip about affairs in parts beyond, much to that thestral’s dismay.
“Good. She should have the mail as well. Looking forward to the results of the Academy Exam?”
There was a silent pause from Beat as she suddenly remembered that. “Uh, no, not really. Whatever happens, happens, right?”
“I’m sure everything will be fine, dear,” Marketplace assured her daughter. “You’re the best mage in town, honey!”
Except I’m not a mage, not really, Beat mused silently. Wolfing down the last of her pancakes and finishing up the remainder of her carrot juice before Oxford thought to try to drink any of it. Done, she gave Oxford a stern look and said, “You stay out of trouble, okay?”
The rabbit gave her a bored look, as if to say Don’t count on it.
Giving him a pat on the head, she then carried the dish to the sink and kissed her mother on the cheek, pausing only to say, “Okay, off to the store!” before rushing out the door, for another day of Adventures in Grocery™.
After leaving the house, she walked down the plain cobblestone streets, past the train station and stagecoach stop, waving to those up this early, getting ready for the busy day. Finally, she walked by the statue in the center of the town, an image of a giant bronze mouse on upright feet placed atop a large marble plinth. The plinth had a simple engraving that said REMEMBER and nothing else.
As she paused to look at it, she always wondered why and what it was here for. Supposedly it was the likeness of Radourmeire, the strange creature that her ancestor Blazing Lance had befriended, but the history books didn’t have anything about giant mice that walked around like Abyssinians. Heck, there was more information on the Megan and most ponies still weren’t sure that she existed, so how could a mysterious creature like this one be around?
It made her wonder, as always, what her ancestor was like. She knew practically everything recorded about him: that he had once been married to a mage named Jade Lily, who had betrayed the Crown and her master Starswirl the Bearded before vanishing into parts unknown; that he had married Latch Hook, who was said to be the most beautiful mare of her age, and they had foals who had continued Blazing Lance’s lineage of brave knighthood. Her family line was filled with them: Vambrace the Valorous, Bluestreak the Bold, Saffron the Strong, and so on and so forth. Even centuries later, her family still had connections to protecting the land and its ponies; her older brother Sturdy Steel was a member of the Guard stationed with the Friendship Guard in Ponyville.
“Oh, look, it’s the nerd!” a grating voice called out and Beat rolled her eyes. Once again, it was time to deal with the idiocy.
Beat looked up and faced the speaker, a bright white unicorn with a four-tone mane that was dyed and styled to look as though the wearer was imitating Princess Celestia. The mare’s lime green eyes practically radiated arrogance and contempt, and her cutie mark, a simple sun, flashed with virtual sunlight thanks to a cosmetic spell that had been placed on it. Next to her were two other ponies the same age, equally as vapid and cliquish. Beat had bothered to remember the name of the main goon; she’d never bothered to learn those of the hangers-on.
Her tone dripping with annoyance, Beat muttered, “Oh, it’s you, Aurora Star. What brings you here aside from being the usual pain that you are?”
“You should be lucky that I even bother to grace you with my presence, nerd!” Aurora crowed. “As for what I’m doing, I’m showing off around town, as is my right and duty as Radourmeire’s Rest’s fashionplate and model! Now get out of here, you’re ruining the shot!” As if to make it clear, one of the two goons, who Beat had mentally labeled Left Goon held a camera, while Right Goon seemed to do something with her forelegs as if trying to coax the sun to come out just a little more.
Beat sighed. “I think you’re forgetting something, Aurora. One, we’re not in school anymore – haven’t been for years – so your schoolyard insults are not only pointless but also show how immature you are. Two, the fact that you need to keep picking on me even after we graduated years ago shows that you have some deep-seated insecurities that you seriously need addressing. And do you remember what number three is?”
“As if I need to bother!”
Beat rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, I suppose it must be so hard learning to count beyond one – I really don’t know how you mastered it,” she drolled. “Anyway, number three is that if you’re wasting your time talking to me, then you really have nothing better to do with your life. Also, I should point out that your goon is an idiot. The sun is not going to come out any faster just because you want to get that perfect shot. Oh, and while you’re at it, you might want to tell your other goon that holding a camera upside down is only going to ruin the shot.”
Aurora took a few seconds to process the insult before she snarled. “Well, I never!”
“I really, really doubt that,” Beat commented as she left her would-be verbal assailant’s location. She had better things to do than to be held hostage to some idiot’s inflated opinions of herself.
But as she left, she heard Aurora call out, “And that’s why you’ll always be a useless nerd! At least your brother and sister made something of themselves – and so will I, when I leave this town! What will you ever do? After all, you’re just a useless dreamer, your head stuck in the clouds or in those stupid books of yours!”
Beat just shrugged it off; she wasn’t going to let her daily dose of Aurora Annoyance get to her. She’d been putting up with it for years, and it was clear that Aurora wasn’t ever going to learn.
As she approached the general store her parents owned, she noticed her father sweeping the front of the steps. “Hey there, sunshine!” Well Stocked called to her, adjusting his glasses. “How’s the town mage doing?”
“Pop, I’m not a mage,” Beat reminded him.
“Well, not officially, but I’m sure you’ll pass the test this year!” he said affably.
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “So, where do I start?”
“Actually, before you do anything, there’s a note in your office from Mr. Hospitality. He left it in the drop box last night. Something about another infestation.” The older earth stallion shuddered. “I have no idea how you do what you do, honey.”
Beat blew a strand of mane out of her eyes. “I try. Anyway, let me go take a look and see what it’s about.”
“Sure thing. Oh, also your friend Bram came by and wanted to know if you were still on for lunch today. I told her that wasn’t an issue.”
“I hope not; these things with Mr. Hospitality take forever to finish!” Beat told him as she went into the building and climbed the stairs towards her office.
The office itself wasn’t anything big; the building had been reconditioned and at one time, it had been a two-story house, so said office wasn’t much bigger than her bedroom. But it was the fact that her name was on the door, along with an unusual sign: TROUBLESHOOTER. That was the part that bothered her: without a Guild license, the highest thing she could ever accomplish was Troubleshooter, which was an unofficial designation. It meant she could deal with local problems in town and cast a certain range of spells, but anything beyond that range required an official Guild license and membership in the quasi-military governmental organization.
She set aside her concerns for the moment and looked for the note her father had mentioned; if Hospitality had come by to drop off a note, that meant that he had issues again, and that meant that she could deal with it for him. It was a messy job, but it paid well enough. Sure enough, she found the note and read it, seeing the standard pay contract.
She bounced downstairs. “Pop, I’m off to the hotel,” she told him. “If it takes long enough, I’ll head to Bram’s place for lunch, and then I’ll come back. Think you can handle things without me?”
Well laughed. “I’m not that old, honey. ‘Sides, if worst comes to, I can ask Paintpot next door if he’ll give me a helping hoof; he’s always glad to.”
“Okay, well, wish me luck!”
The Top Shelf, the only hotel in town, was by no means a five-star hotel (or four or three, for that matter) but it was as good as it got, and so was always busy, as it often was patronized by ponies that either missed the eastbound train or the westbound stagecoach. In any case, that meant that whenever there were problems at the Top Shelf, they needed to be taken care of immediately, whether said problem was a new coat of paint, some extra training for the lone bellhop who always seemed as though he was lazier than anything…
…or in this case, an infestation of burnbrite ants. Somehow, for the third time since the Winter, they’d managed to get past her wards and into the town proper again, and last time they did, they’d caused significant fire damage to both the bank and Farmer Wheatstalk’s Flour Mill and Public Notary. Needless to say, it was going to be a problem if the Top Shelf ended up being burnt to cinders.
So here she was, crawling amongst the dank, humid labyrinth of pipes that made up the bowels of the hotel’s boiler room, looking for the extradimensional pests. Generally, very little was known about burnbrite ants, other than despite the name, they weren’t really ants; that according to a news report from last year they’d slipped into the native dimension as a result of something tied to the freakish Winter that had been caused by Princess Celestia; and that because Radourmeire’s Rest had the misfortune of sitting on a leyline intersection, it was drawing the burnbrite ants like honey would real ones.
Normally, this would be a job for the local Guild office to deal with, but this being the Unknown West, the nearest Guild office was over in Los Pegasus, about four hundred miles to the southeast. Fortunately for the town, burnbrite ants had been declared a low-level problem, and so could be passed down to the Troubleshooter level, which meant that it was a steady paycheck for Beat…
…much to her chagrin.
After a few seconds, she crawled out from underneath a huge rusty pipe, her coat caked in dirt, oil and grime to the point that it was hard to tell what her coat color was. Her mane was caked in grease and Celestia-knew-what, and if she hadn’t taken the time to cast a clearsight spell on her glasses, they’d probably be just as much a mess as she was.
I swear I’m going to need a shower, then a bath and then a sterilization spell regime, and then I can start getting clean! she mentally groaned.
She heard skittering behind her and on instinct, fired a spell behind a nearby pipe. She then heard the telltale sound of her ice spell freezing something then after a few seconds reached behind the pipe, grabbing something and pulling it forward. It was an ant, frozen solid by an ice spell…if ants were typically the same size as a housecat, had twelve legs and were from another dimension.
“Ugh, just looking at this thing gives me the creeps,” she said to herself, shuddering. Either way, she needed to get rid of it. Setting the frozen creature on the ground, she then cast a magic circle around it. Subcircles within the larger design spun and magical motes danced around the barycenter, while glyphs glowed with an occulting effect. Finally, the circle disappeared, and with it the creature.
She wiped her brow. That should be the last of them, she thought, before she started to hear increasing knocking on the other side of the room.
Hearing that, she groaned to nopony in particular, “Of course I would miss one behind the main boiler.”
Immediately afterwards the boiler began to shudder and glow a deep red, which suddenly grew brighter. A second later the steel cannister cracked in two, great gouts of steam erupting from the hole as a flaming red creature, identical to the frozen one appeared, only this one was closer to her in size than a cat.
“Great,” she grunted. “Found the queen.”
Clawing its way out of the shattered boiler, the beast let out a roar that sounded very much akin to the shrieking metal that had been torn apart just a few seconds prior.
“I don’t suppose there’s going to be a peaceable way around this, is there?” she asked the burnbrite queen ant. In response, the beast spat out a blast of acidic spit at her. Beat dodged, but not entirely in time; her glasses were hit and she threw them off quickly. Within seconds, the bile projectile had reduced her glasses to nothing but melted glass and metal.
The unicorn fumed. “THOSE WERE MY THIRD PAIR THIS MONTH!” she snarled as she charged her horn up and let loose a counterattack.
Hospitality, an older unicorn stallion, his nose crinkling from the unearthly reek coming from the muck-and-ichor covered pony in front of him, reluctantly handed over a bag. “150 bits, as we agreed. Plus a little extra for your damaged glasses, so it’s ₿200 even.”
“Thanks, Mr. Hospitality,” Beat replied with a clearly faked smile. “I cast a double ward spell this time, so hopefully you shouldn’t have any more issues with burnbrite ants, but I strongly suggest you invest in a new boiler and heater system. Whatever magic you had on it clearly drew them there.”
“The salesponies that sold it to me – Flim and Flam were their names, if I recall correctly – said it was the newest advancement in comfort magic from Inari.”
“I think you got ripped off; those boilers are already rusting to pieces. The queen ant ripped through the main boiler like it was paper.”
That was not what Hospitality wanted to hear. “Great. Another useless expense. Well, we already agreed to this one, and I can’t take back the extra. So please, take your pay and leave my establishment,” he stated, his tone that of a stallion who didn’t want to cause a scene that could attract further attention.
Beat reached out to grab the bag, but a small droplet from the ichor that covered her fell to the ground and sizzled on the carpet. She gave him a sheepish glance and instead used a spell to teleport it out of his hooves and back towards her office.
“Go, please,” Hospitality said, clearly reaching the limit of whatever civility he had.
“Have a good one!” Beat said, clearly not meaning it as she left the hotel, as occasional spatters of the ichor fell to the ground, staining the carpet as it did. Likely, it was going to ruin it and possibly even burn through the material.
As she departed the hotel, she took a quick peek at the town’s central clock tower. 11:30. Took way longer than I wanted. Well, if I can make it home, I’ll take a quick shower, grab my spare glasses and head to—
Her words cut off as she walked headlong into a tree. “Owwwww,” she grumbled, rubbing her nose.
“You okay?” a passerby asked.
“I’m fine,” she grunted, clearly not. “I just need to get home before I feel any more terminal damage to my dignity.”
“Looks like it was a lucky thing Ah went t’ the bank, sugarcube.” Beat looked up from her malaise to see a friendly hoof – literally, a dusty pink hoof being held out to her by a pegasus with a flaming red mane and sympathetic deep green eyes. It was Beat’s best friend, Bramble Rose.
“Heya, Bram, you always know how to show up right when I need saving,” Beat said morosely.
Bramble looked at the grime-crusted pony up and down. “Rough job?”
“The worst. Sometimes I wonder if the pay’s worth it, but then I realize that it’s the only way I get to do what my cutie mark is telling me, so I’ll take it. As it is, I broke another pair of glasses thanks to those bugs.”
“Well, tell ya what: y’ can take a shower at mah place, and while that’s goin’ on, Ah’ll head t’ yers and get your spare glasses. That work?”
“Great! Let’s just get out of here before Aurora sees me. Already dealt with her idiocy this morning and don’t really want to deal with it again.”
Bramble laughed. “Oh, sugarcube, c’mon! That mare’s dumber than a diamond dog at a jewelry show! She’s th’ way she is ‘cause she knows she ain’t ever gettin’ outta this one-parasprite town, no matter how much she thinks she’s th’ next up-an’-coming fashion designer. Hell, she doesn’t even know who Rarity is!”
“Bram, the only reason I know who Rarity is, is because you’re addicted to fashion magazines,” Beat replied, feeling much better now that she had some backup.
“Yeah, but Ah’m not th’ one claimin’ to be the town prettymare, am Ah?”
“You have a point,” Beat conceded.
“Well, let’s get ya t’ mah place, get some shower therapy fer ya an’ we can talk a little more,” Bramble insisted.
“Thanks, Bram, really.”
“Hey, Ah always got yer back like y’ got mine.”
A half-hour later, a now-clean Beat sat across the kitchen table from Bramble, who was setting down a platter of her famous cheese-and-clover pizza.
Beat adjusted her glasses; they were ugly, utilitarian and something she hated wearing, but they would have to do until the pony that ran the Glasses & Trashcans store came back from his vacation. “So, you hear anything from Rocky?”
“Yeah, she left Canterlot yesterday and is flying back instead of taking the train, because she said she has something important.” Bramble thought about it for a second and said, “Now that Ah think about it, arentcha s’pposed to get the results from yer Academy exam?”
“Yeah,” Beat said glumly before biting into a slice of the pie.
“C’mon, don’t tell me yer worried, are ya? Y’ll pass, no sweat! Ya were th’ smartest filly in school!”
“Yeah, so smart that I’ve failed the Academy test every year since I’ve taken it and this is the last year I can before I’m permanently disqualified! And if I fail, what’s left for me, Bram? Stuck running my parents’ general store and serving as the town pest control, because we’re unlucky enough to be on a leyline that pulls things from other dimensions? I can’t even be a schoolteacher or the town librarian, because those jobs are already filled, so I’m stuck in perpetual nothing!”
“Ah think yer beatin’ yerself up over nothin’, sugarcube,” Bramble told her.
“I mean, as much as I think Aurora’s a bully that needs to grow up…she’s right,” Beat moaned. “My brother, Sturdy Steel? He’s an ensign with the Friendship Guard. His last letter says that he’s probably going to be picked to be a coronet soon. And my sister, Dancefloor? She’s making some serious waves in Manehattan and she even says that she’s planning to record some wubs – whatever that means – with a mare named Gracenote. And before you ask, no, I have no idea who that is either. Even my parents are doing what they were meant to do, which is run our family shop.”
“Trust me, sugarcube, Ah think this year’s the year. Ah have faith in ya.”
“That’s more faith than I have in me,” Beat sighed.
There was a knock at the door and before Bramble could get up to answer, a blur of dark gray and bright orange flowed into the room, quickly coalescing into a dark-coated thestral with a curly flame-orange mane and bright blue eyes currently covered by goggles. She quickly grabbed a slice. “Oh, Luna, that hits the spot! Bram, your pizza’s the best in town, you know that?”
Bramble laughed. “We don’t have a pizzeria here, so mah pizza’s the only one in town.” She gestured to an empty chair. “Take a load off an’ have ‘nother slice!”
“Thanks!” Rocketfuel chirped as she sat down, pausing only long enough to remove her saddlebags before she grabbed a second slice of pizza, nearly downing the thing in one bite. “Wow, I am hungry – flying all the way from Canterlot makes me hungrier than a bugbear! And believe me, with the news I’ve got to tell, there’s no way I’m going to miss your pizza, Bram!”
“Shucks, sugarcube, ‘t’aint nothin’.”
Beat did some quick calculations in her head. “Rocky, if you just flew here from Canterlot…wow, that’s gotta be a record or something! You really should try out for the military – I’d bet you’d be the fastest mare alive!”
Rocketfuel waved it off. “Naah, I may be fast but I’m not the military type. Besides, can’t be the best newsmare and mailmare in town if I’m in uniform, right? But anyway, wait until I tell you gals what went on in Canterlot – it’s going to completely floor you all!”
Several minutes went by as the batpony went over everything she’d seen and heard during her week in Canterlot and when she was done with the tale, both of her friends looked at her as though she’d lost her mind.
“Wait – are you trying to tell me that Princess Celestia isn’t the princess anymore?” Beat asked, trying to pick her jaw up off the floor.
“An’ Princess – Ah mean, Queen Luna – executed ol’ Queen Chrysalis?” Bramble added, equally floored.
Rocketfuel nodded. “Yup. I know that it seems – well, weird and all, but it’s true, all of it! It’s why I stayed a couple extra weeks instead of just a day – that much stuff went down and I had to record it all for the newspaper! Anyway, Princess Celestia abdicated in favor of her sister and Luna, instead of becoming princess regnal, took over as queen! And apparently around the same time they finally managed to capture Queen Chrysalis, who was the one behind all the unrest against the Crown over the past few weeks, well, Queen Luna – still going to be hard to get used to saying that! – did what she felt she had to do.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Beat said, with Bramble merely nodding; while their town had been mercifully changeling free, they had heard that some of the other towns had suffered changeling incursions, especially during the Winter.
“Wow, and to think that you went just to cover Princess Sunset’s coronation. How did that go, anyway?”
“Well, I told you about the whole fracas that occurred during it, but the weirdest part were the humans – apparently Princess Sunset doesn’t live in another country, she lives in another dimension where the dominant species are humans!”
Beat’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait – did you say humans? Like the Megan?”
“I guess? I really don’t know much about history or stuff, you know that. But anyway, I got some pictures of the humans with my camera, and they look like…well, I’m not sure how to really describe them, but anyway, regardless… real live humans! And I guess Princess Sunset trusts them, because they were there with her, so….” She shrugged. “But that’s trivial in comparison to the news I’m going to have to drop for the town!”
“Yeah, no kiddin’, sugarcube,” Bramble agreed. “Ah can just imagine when some o’ the folk ‘round these parts start readin’ it. You know Ol’ Apple Dumplin’s gonna freak like no t’morrow.”
“Yeah, and her daughter Apple Splash is just as bad,” Beat agreed. “Maybe you should talk about this with Sheriff Stonehoof and Mayor Burgomaster. I’m sure it’s important information.”
Rocketfuel patted her saddlebag. “I have some letters for them from the Crown offices that I need to deliver after I’m done here,” she explained. “Probably really important ones, too.” Then a grin came over her face. “Oh, and that’s not the only one I’ve got that’s important.” She reached in and grabbed a letter, pausing to look at the address before handing it to Beat.
“Looks like th’ moment of truth’s here,” Bramble said.
Beat held the letter in her hooves, not sure how to react. She was primed for disappointment after so long, but what if she succeeded? Would it be okay to just this once allow herself a chance to be happy?”
“C’mon, Beat! The suspense is killing me!” Rocketfuel told her.
The unicorn took a deep breath, as if to steady herself for the future, whatever it portended. Meanwhile, her two best friends continued to watch her, leaning forward in their seats in anticipation.
Finally, with her magic, Beat tore the envelope open, withdrawing the letter within and bringing it up to read.
“Dear Miss Beatrix,” she began. “We regret to inform you that….”
Evening came and she sat on the roof of her home, needing to be alone. She was still processing all the information that Rocket had told her about while attempting to cheer her up – although most of it would be in the newspaper by tomorrow morning – but the truth was, she was devastated, to put it mildly. Her life’s work, her hope of hopes, completely dashed.
She recalled the letter that she’d read. She had failed the practical exam by ten points. Ten measly points. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t – every year she’d taken the test, and every year she’d been failed for some technicality, whether it was being off on the written portion by fifteen points, or off on the practical portion. She’d appealed each year, but in vain; the threshold for appeals was five points or less and she wasn’t within that margin.
So now, here she was, playing her guitar, because it was the only thing she had left. Music ran in her family and though she wasn’t as good at it as her sister was – Dancefloor was the one with the musical cutie mark, after all. Even still, it brought her comfort, especially now. And currently, she played a particularly dark tune. The song had been in the family for years, and was likely composed by Blazing Lance himself, as he was reputedly a hobbyist musician himself. Dancefloor had heard the song herself and declared it “unfit for wubs” but did admit that it was an important song for the family.
So, tears streaming down her cheeks, Beat continued to play “Blazing’s Blues,” the title she gave it, as the song had never had a title originally. Her hoofs went across the strings, drawing F#, G, F#, G, A, C, D, A, in repetition. A simple, droning tune, but probably what she needed at the moment.
She heard the flutter of wings behind her, then felt the embrace of feathers. “Oh, honey, I am so, so sorry,” Marketplace told her daughter. “I know this was so important to you. I can’t imagine how you feel right now.”
“Thanks, Mom. Does Pop know?”
She nodded. “He wants to take the train to Canterlot tomorrow and put in your appeal himself. He even said he’ll argue with the Archmagus herself if need be and he’ll make Princess Twilight listen.”
“Uh, Princess Twilight hasn’t been the archmagus for a couple of years now. It’s a mare named Raspberry Beryl,” Beat explained. “Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not within the margin of error, so I can’t appeal. And because this is my fifth failure, I can’t take the test anymore.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I wish I knew what to say that could make it better.”
“I wish I knew too, Mom.”
The thoughts still plagued her mind as she got ready for bed. As she passed by her mirror, she couldn’t help but look at her cutie mark, flush against her azure coat, and wonder how it all went so wrong. A simple gray circle symbolizing the moon, with three yellow and one pink star, clearly one of the magical-type ones. But apparently in the end, it meant mediocrity. She was smart, but again, just not smart enough to qualify for an academy. It basically was the story of her life: more advanced than her peers, but not enough to be considered gifted. The highest run-of-the-mill, as one pony described her as.
But run of the mill was, in the end, just that. And now that she looked at herself in the mirror, she had to truly wonder if her only purpose in life was just to be the perpetual butt of Aurora’s jokes.
As she crawled into bed, she wasn’t sure what the answer to that would be, either.