//------------------------------// // Please Talk // Story: The Last Mark // by Idyll //------------------------------// Cozy got her cutie mark: a rook-shaped stain on her coral. A ‘wonderful cutie mark,’ a parent said. An oxymoron. I thought there’d be more time, enough for me to find a compromise, a cure, a prophylactic, palliative, or a way to soften the blow. No. That was wishful thinking and my own fault. I told myself I’d prepare properly once one of Cozy’s classmates got theirs but… I forgot my daughter was extraordinary. She was the first, and now that’ll be recorded on their class’ yearbook page. Behind her desk sat the principal, Spectacle Showcase: a tangerine-coated blonde unicorn, around the age of my dad, who told me what had transpired. Cozy had approached a filly, belonging to her study group, after the latter believed a colt had stolen her lunch and said, “But isn’t your father a policepony? They’re supposed to be brave and strong and fight for what’s right, and that colt stole your lunch! How many more lunches will he have to steal before somepony stands up to him?” Then she went to the colt and said, “That filly is twisting the truth to make you look like the villain! I bet she deliberately dumped her lunch on your plate to frame you!” Can you guess who stole the filly’s lunch and planted it on the colt’s plate when neither were looking? Cozy’s excuse, announced to the entire room, “I’m sorry. Stupid ol’ me got a bit confused with all these different sides and I didn’t know which friend to believe… I know the teachers are real stressed out from the new term, so I thought I’d fix it myself. Can you ever forgive me?” Her eyes hid behind her foreleg’s knee, and she started to cry. Spectacle pulled a tissue from a box, hovered it over, and held it for Cozy to blow her nose. What was more confusing was the colt and filly forgave her, hugged her even, and normally that’s great but… coming from a trick of her mark, it felt wrong. My heart wanted to believe her story full of holes, but a scrupulous voice in my head discussed with my monologue potential futures. I couldn’t silence myself. “And you okay, Ms. Glimmer?” Spectacle asked. I snapped out of my trance and looked around at an empty office, with only me, Cozy, and the principle. “I’m so sorry,” I said, collecting Cozy (she hovered along). “This is just—so unlike her!” I glared at my daughter; she looked down. “Yeah. It shocked me a bit too,” Spectacle said, turning to Cozy. “You’re the only one of your classmates that offers to help the teachers carry your class's test papers to the staff room. I really do hope you’ve learned your lesson, young mare.” Cozy nodded slowly. Noticing my dismal expression, Spectacle turned to me and said, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure this'll be the only incident on her record.” A major incident. She paused and continued, “I know how you feel. I raised a filly myself too, you know. One day they’re charming your friends wearing an old, oversized magician's cape, holding a magic show on a cardboard stage you helped them cut out. A few years later, you discovered they’ve been kicked out of school months ago… And you only discovered that from a poster out of town… Never calls you, and apparently does street shows everyplace but here… Just like her father…” I caught a blurry glance of an azure unicorn, wearing a purple star-spangled robe and a wizard’s hat, on her desk, before Spectacle shifted the photo towards her. “Okay then…” I said, nudging Cozy to leave. “I’ll be sure to give Cozy a proper talking to once we get home. Bye.” A lifeless muffled “Bye” back reached us once we were already through the halls. Outside, I couldn’t control myself, especially once I realized I left home without a cloth for my vandalism. I pulled Cozy and teleported. Cozy swirled towards our sofa, dizzy. I snapped closed the windows and doors and shuttered them. Head turned back towards Cozy, I asked her, “Why did you do it?” She flew an inch above my height and responded, “I already told you. I thought—” “The actual reason.” We stared at each other. She looked away. “How was it that I knew you’d be mad at me over this.” “Cozy, you caused a fight between your classmates.” “That’s not what this is about,” Cozy responded. “You’re upset because I got my cutie mark, aren’t you?” “I…” “All those other parents seemed happy. Even those friends of mine forgave me, and they stopped fighting when I started to glow, and they saw my rook. But you’re disappointed in me. I can’t control my cutie mark, Mom.” I walked towards our bedroom. Cozy continued, “I had hoped over time you’d stopping caring, like how you stopped wearing those dark clothes, but I guess it’s my fault for thinking that.” “I’m… sorry. Mommy needs a nap. Please don’t bother me, dear.” I closed the door and trapped myself in our bedroom. Inside, I opened a window to invite a breeze, keeping a safety and privacy spell as I burrowed myself under my duvet. Time passed. By the end, I wasn’t sure if I slept or not. That voice from earlier infected my imagination and played the same sequence of thoughts, of a lonely future, over and over again, and I felt dread for my only Princess. There were no variations between sessions; therefore, no memories formed, so I couldn’t tell if hours had passed and if so, how many between my laying there and the knock at my door. I unlocked the door telekinetically. “You can come in.” Cozy carried to my bedside table a plate of carbonara and a cupcake (must’ve been from Sugar Belle since we didn’t have frosting). The steam from the meal touched my muzzle, and now my appetite returned. I couldn’t be bothered with utensils right now; I grabbed pieces of hot spaghetti with my aura and flew it inside my mouth as if I were paralyzed from the neck down. Cozy offered to spoon-feed me with a fork. I rejected her, but I did say, “Thank you for the meal, sweetie,” and told her she can still sleep in our room. I wouldn’t do otherwise to her. She undid her bow and laid it over the chairdrobe. She grabbed a towel hanging from a hook behind our door and left. The gears of my head started to turn, and my sloppy aura grab turned into a light-blue fork made of magical construct. It twisted through the spaghetti, and though the deliciousness did help smooth my mind a bit, my eyes, immune to dread’s petrification, kept going back to Cozy’s bow—her pair of bunny ears, me and Dad calls them. There’s no special origin for it; I bought it at the store for a single bit back when she was a suckling. But it wore many enchantments: one that made it fireproof, one that made it difficult to tear, and one that made it repair itself. Yes, it held them well and had the capacity for more. I stopped eating—Cozy’s meal made me feel as useless of a chef as an ex-friend made me feel of a mage—and listened. Running water. Cozy was having a shower. My daughter always forgives her mother.