It was a peaceful day in Trottingham; warm and sunny with a gentle breeze that brought every pony in town outside from their homes and onto the streets. The stone roads and green lawns spread across the town beautifully, with individual gardens on each colourful house’s lawn. The many pretty flowers in each garden filled the air with peaceful aromas. The large road stretched from both ends of the town from east to west with houses on either side of the street, and a glamorous view of Canterlot Castle in the vast, distant, western horizon where the sun would rise every morning. In the center of town there was a roundabout in the road, with a tall statue on a pedestal of the Equestrian Princess who ruled in the western castle, Princess Celestia.
Ponies all over town were greeting each other with smiles and expressing ‘good mornings’. Indeed a friendly place, and not too large or too small. Just big enough that everypony in town knew each other by name. There was one young filly in town who just recently turned the age of seven, who seemed to collect the most attention from the other ponies: A white unicorn with a soft golden mane, dazzling blue eyes and a bright smiling attitude they all knew too well.
The white filly trotted happily along the street, greeting every pony she passed along the way with a big open-mouth smile. By the way she was jogging as such with a pair of saddlebags resting over her back; it appeared as though she was on a mission. Galloping closer to her destination, she reached a booth of fruits in the market where a pony was perched behind it, crouching down beneath the stand, seemingly searching for something.
“Good morning, Hearth!” The young filly beamed with a tall posture and huge smile. The pony behind the booth paused her search and quickly lifted her head where the filly could see her. A green coloured mare with a light red mane and eyes the colour of blueberry. Her cutie mark was a pair of cherries, which was easily picked up with her passion for gardening and marketing tasty fruit. The name ‘Hearth’ wasn’t her real name, but everypony tended to call her that jokingly because of her Christmasy colours, which she accepted respectably.
“Altruise, good morning!” The green mare greeted the small familiar white unicorn. “Oh! Your package is right here, darling.” She exclaimed, reaching beneath the booth and picked up a basket of multiple fruits with her teeth at the handle, and reached it over to the seven-year-old. Altruise leaned up and got a hold of the basket in her jaw, and once the green mare released the basket, it thumped into the ground from the weight. The basket was about half the size of the young filly, so her attempts to lift the heavy basket seemed rather amusing, or in a better word, cute. Altruise reached into her left saddlebag and pulled out a glass piggy bank, holding it up to the merchant behind the booth.
“I’ve been saving for a week for this!” Altruise beamed as Hearth plucked the cork from the bottom of the piggy bank, and started shaking out the coins onto the counter. They made a tapping sound with each coin dropping to the wooden countertop. The mare counted out the coins and happily put the filly’s change back into the piggy bank.
“This was quite generous of you, I’m sure they will love it.” Hearth smiled warmly at the filly, handing the piggy bank back to her. “You have yourself an excellent day! Tell your mom and dad I said hello.”
“I will, Hearth. You have a good day too!” With that, the filly put her piggy bank back into her left saddlebag, then grasped the basket of fruit with her teeth by the handle, and began dragging it backwards along the stone ground with her. Hearth watched her leave the booth, giggling at the filly dragging the basket that was much too heavy for her to lift.
Dragging the basket through town, other Trottingham ponies watched the filly and adored her cute motives. She was always on the run, always looking for a pony to brighten their day. Her kind nature told the story of her cutie mark as it was: A solid outline of a silver heart with golden sparkles. Whenever she had a package being dragged around in town like this, it was never for herself. She always had somepony on her mind she wanted to give something to.
Altruise made her way to a yellow house and dragged the basket of fruit down the entrance path to their door. She released the handle of the basket and knocked her right forehoof against the door, and sat waiting patiently with a big smile and an excited swaying tail. Moments later, the door gracefully swung open, and in the door was a blue mare and a red stallion, with a purple baby foal crawling around in the background living room of the house.
“Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Chili!” Altruise greeted happily.
“Oh! Altruise!” The blue mare beamed.
“Well, well. What a surprise!” The red stallion exclaimed. The two ponies then peered down at the fruit basket.
“What’s all this?” Mrs. Chili questioned in awe, pointing a hoof down at the large basket. Altruise grasped the basket handle with her teeth and pushed it toward them, and she sat back down on the doorstep with her well-known joyful smile looking up at them.
“I wanted to congratulate you on your new foal!” Altruise exclaimed, expressing herself joyfully with eyes as bright as the clear blue sky. “I saved up to buy this basket of fruit for you for the occasion.”
“Oh my, Altruise thank you, but you really didn’t have to do this for us.” Mrs. Chili was overwhelmed. This was far more than she’d expect from any pony, let alone a young filly. However, this wasn’t an uncommon gesture from this particular pony.
“Of course I did.” Altruise insisted, pushing the basket closer to the new parents. She looked back up at the couple and perked her ears with a smile. “Please enjoy.”
“Oh, we most certainly will. Thank you very much.” Mrs. Chili finally accepted, picking the basket up by the handle with her teeth. Mr. Chili chuckled and patted Altruise on the head in a friendly gesture.
“You sure are one of a kind, Altruise. Thanks for thinking of us.” He exclaimed happily.
“Hehe… Well have a good day!” Altruise bid them a fare well and started skipping off their property.
“We certainly will. You too.” The stallion saw her off their yard and closed the door behind them as Altruise made her way back onto the street, trotting westward. Skipping along, she looked over the distant horizon at Canterlot. The excited grin on her face suddenly turned plastic, as if the view of the castle bothered her.
“Well… Just two more days before I’m back in school.” Altruise murmured to herself in the attempt to try and at least sound excited. Shaking off her view of the castle, she trotted onward with a renewed bright smile, turning to her left approaching a teal house. On the front yard working outside on the lawn was a mare working in the garden planting flowers, and a stallion which was trimming the trees while flying near the higher branches with his full pegasi wings.
The mare was a cyan coloured unicorn with a golden mane and sparkling blue eyes. Her cutie mark resembled a heart-shape cut out of the center of a golden sparkle-shape star, vaguely similar to Altruise’s cutie mark. She was a gifted unicorn with a talent of particularly strong healing magic.
The pegasus stallion had a white coat with a dark red mane. He had a dark shade of green eyes, and his cutie mark resembled that of a shield and sword crossing through it. Nopony could really tell the exact tale on how he received his cutie mark, but as far as the stories Altruise has heard from the stallion himself, he was once a warrior at Canterlot protecting the castle, but he stepped down from his guardian position when he met the cyan mare and moved to Trottingham with her to start a new and more peaceful life.
“Hi Mom, hi Dad!” Altruise greeted these two ponies, trotting onto the yard with graceful bounding hooves.
“Hello, sweetie.” Altruise’s mother turned to the filly with perked ears, “Did Mr. and Mrs. Chili like their gift?”
“Oh yes.” The filly nodded, swishing her tail through the air excitedly.
“That was sure generous of you.” Her father pointed out proudly, flying down to the filly from up in the tree and landing next to her. “You should really save up to buy something for yourself though.”
“Money doesn’t buy happiness. Giving creates it.” Altruise exclaimed, repeating one of the lessons her father has taught her several times before.
The stallion just shook his head in a proud manner and chuckled, patting her on the back. “That’s my girl.”
The unicorn mother planted the last of her flowers into her garden and turned to trot toward her daughter. “It’s passed noon, you must be hungry!” She presumed with a beaming smile.
“Starving.” Altruise replied quickly, swaying her tail back and forth.
“Well alright then.” Her mother giggled, “Why don’t we all go inside and have some lunch?”
Altruise nodded and skipped ahead toward the house. “I’m so hungry I could eat whole watermelon.” Using her front hooves she swung the door open and trotted inside. A pleasant aroma filled the entrance of the home, lifting her snout into the air as she licked her lips, closing her eyes to absorb as much of the scent as she could through her nostrils. “…Or whatever that is that I’m smelling.”
Her parents followed behind, entering the house after her. They closed the door behind them, watching the filly skip off into the kitchen with interest to see what was on the menu. Altruise peered up over the stove finding a pot of freshly simmering vegetable soup, and the additional spices sang to her sniffer with grace.
“Oh my, this smells good…” The unicorn inhaled deeply through her nose above the pot of soup, breathing in the scented steam with fervor. With a thrilling bound, she trotted to the kitchen table just a few feet over and sat down patiently waiting for her parents to sit at the table with her.
Her father was the first to seat himself at the table, and her mother approached the stove. Using her unicorn magic, a magical cyan aura surrounded the scoop in the pot of soup. A cupboard magically opened up, and three hovering empty bowls floated over to her from within the cupboard of dishes. “I did something a little different with the recipe this time with the spices you got me for my birthday, Altruise.” She said as she scooped some of the soup up from the contents of the pot with the same levitation spell, and poured some steaming vegetables into each bowl, and then levitated the three bowls over to the table as she followed along and sat in her seat.
Altruise was the first to taste the soup, putting her lip to the rim of the bowl and tipped it to the side to slurp the broth into her awaiting mouth. “Mmmh…” The warm broth and vegetables poured over her tongue that soothed her mind. She let the bowl tip back right-side up and she lifted her head to chew the vegetables in her mouth, swallowing the contents that felt like a gentle hug from the inside out once it hit her empty stomach.
“It turn out okay?” The mother anxiously questioned the filly, who quickly nodded back to her with a gasp for air.
“Wow, Mom.” Altruise exclaimed, licking her lips clean of broth. “This has to be the best soup you’ve ever made.” She tipped her bowl back and drank some more gumbo.
Her mother gave a warm smile. “I’m glad you like it. I’ll have to make this again then.”
The pegasus father was slurping some soup himself while holding the bowl closer to his mouth with his front hooves, nodding his head in agreement. “Mmmhm!” He managed as he swallowed the warm broth. He put the bowl down and glanced over at his daughter. “Altruise, you must be excited.”
“Excited?” Altruise perked her ears and lifted her head curiously, “About what?”
“School, ya silly filly.” Her father snickered, “Just two more days!”
“Oh. Heh… Yeah.” Altruise stuttered in response, which didn’t sound too thrilling of a reaction. “Right.”
“Is something the matter, dear?” Her mother questioned her stuttering, “You should be thrilled to get to go back to school. Wouldn’t it be splendid to finally be able to use unicorn magic?”
“Well, I am excited to go.” Altruise tried to explain herself, “But the thing is, what if I don’t do well? I mean, you remember Magic Kindergarten?” She groaned to herself at the thought and planted her face into her hoof.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of that you weren’t able to use magic at that age.” Her father reassured her, “Magic isn’t something you learn over night.”
“You’re not a unicorn, Dad. You wouldn’t understand.” Altruise sighed and sipped some more soup.
“I mean just look: They may have learned some magic, but you received something else before any of the other students did.”
Altruise nodded with a sigh, looking at the heart on her flank. “Yeah.” She looked back up at her father, trying to ease her thoughts on school. “I think I might just be nervous, is all.”
“Oh honey, you’ll do just fine.” The cyan unicorn waved her hoof like it was no big deal, holding her bowl of soup with her magic aura near her mouth. “It took me until I was half-way through Kindergarten to actually cast my first spell. Did you know that the very first time I used magic, I gave my Kindergarten teacher a wicked hilarious hair-do?” She tipped back giggling, “The look on that stallion’s face was priceless!” She leaned forward, taking a sip of her soup. “Total accident, I swear.”
“Right honey.” The pegasus chuckled.
“Yeah, it kinda looked something like this.” The mare’s horn illuminated, and with a puff of static magic sparkles atop the pegasus’ head, his mane was suddenly all tangled and curly, like he had just got out of bed the morning after a shower before he slept. With a mouth-full of soup, Altruise started laughing hysterically at her father’s bed head, trying to contain the broth sealed behind her lips without spitting any from her laughter.
“What?” The pegasus looked at the other two ponies unsure what was going on at first, “What’s so funn—Oh! Ohh no you didn’t.” He threw his hooves onto his head, brushing his messy mane.
Altruise swallowed her soup to speak. “Oh yes she did!” She laughed, tipping back in her chair, pointing a hoof at him with intense giggles. The stallion continued brushing his mane with his hooves to get the tangles out.
“Oh, Mom?” Altruise peered over to the cyan mare, “Is it okay if I hang out with Mila after lunch? A group of her friends are going to be there, and she wanted me to come too.”
“Oh that’s fine.” Her mother replied smiling, “Will you be back for supper?”
“Yeah, I think it’s just for a few hours, so I’ll be home for then.” Altruise exclaimed, sipping some more of her soup, “She wanted to get together with all of her friends one last time before summer break was over.”
“Sounds like fun!” The cyan mare encouraged the idea, “What sorts of things do they plan on doing?”
Altruise shrugged, “I don’t know, probably play some games.” She tipped her bowl back and drank the last of her vegetable soup, wiping her lips dry with the side of her hoof. “Thank you for the lunch, Mom. That was really good.”
“Of course! I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Altruise smiled and trotted away from the table, “Well I think I’ll go then. I’ll be back later.”
“Well alright, enjoy your afternoon.” Her mother encouraged.
Her father snickered as the filly skipped by, “Have fun.”
“I will, thanks!” That said, she opened the door to the house and trotted outside, closing it behind her. From there she skipped off their property and back onto the stone road and turned to the west, her friend’s home just a block away. During her walk, she kept glancing up at the castle in the horizon. Though she was excited, there was this nervous feeling that she just couldn’t seem to shake off.
* * * * *
Altruise approached the entrance of a blue home with multiple flowers on either side of the sidewalk to the doorway. She trotted up to the entrance and with her right forehoof she knocked at the door and sat patiently waiting. Moments later, the door opened and a pink unicorn filly with white hair—who was roughly Altruise’s age—was in the opening of the house.
“Hey Altruise!” The pink filly beamed, swinging the door open wider, “Come on in!”
“Thanks Mila!” Altruise smiled and entered her friend’s home, closing the door gently behind her.
“The other girls are in the living room.” Mila exclaimed, skipping further into the house with Altruise following along. When they got around the corner in the hall, entering the living room, Altruise saw five other fillies all roughly the same age as herself and Mila. One green, another purple, a couple of them were different shades of red, and last but not least a white one.
At first, Altruise was excited to meet Mila’s group of friends, until she made the sudden realization, every single one of them was a unicorn. That wouldn’t bother her so much if they weren’t all using levitation magic on crafts.
“Er, hi.” Altruise managed to say in a squeak. She suddenly felt a great deal of pressure. The first thing crossing her mind was being laughed at if the other girls found out she couldn’t do magic.
“Oh, another white unicorn!” The white filly in the group glanced over to the newcomer, “You must be Altruise! Mila has told us about you.”
“Sh-she has?” Altruise tried to stop thinking about what was bothering her and to try act normal. “Ahem—well, I certainly hope nopony has heard anything silly!”
“Silly?” The white filly chuckled, “Oh heavens no! Come sit. We’re making dresses out of construction paper and fabric for our pony dolls.” She lifted her doll into the air with her magic to show off her precious dress design.
“That looks… Pretty good.” Altruise blinked, impressed with the white filly’s work of art.
“Friends, this is Altruise!” Mila finally began introducing one another, “Altruise, these are my friends from out of town: We don’t get to see each other too often. The green one there is Jill, the purple one’s Violet. The two red ones are twins, Cherry and Blossom. And the white one there is Rarity. She is particularly from Ponyville; the others are all from Canterlot.”
“Nice to meet you.” Altruise exclaimed.
“Nice to meet you too.” The girls all replied, almost simultaneously.
Mila trotted over to her friends and sat down on the carpet, levitating a doll of her own and some fabric to piece together. Altruise slowly followed behind, and sat down with the rest of the girls. She looked down at the crafts on the carpet and gulped nervously, and figured that perhaps she would be able to get around her obvious lack of magic ability by simply not mentioning it, and she lifted a doll with her left hoof. She picked up some fabric with her right and looked at the two to think about what she could do to make them piece together.
“I don’t do a lot of crafts at home.” Altruise factually explained, using her hooves to attach the fabric to the doll. She picked up some ribbon as well and tried tying a bow to the top of her poorly constructed dress. The other ponies watched her putting her craft together, and she kept glancing up at them every few moments, getting cautious if they were staring at her because she wasn’t using her horn or not.
“You know, it’s like, ten times easier to tie a bow with magic.” Jill blurted, using her unicorn magic to tie the bow on Altruise’s doll for her.
Altruise felt a lump in her throat from her nervousness and swallowed, “Ahem—Yeah. Right.”
“Hey! Altruise has a cutie mark!” Violet exclaimed aloud, bringing up several gasps in the room from the other ponies, excluding Mila who obviously already knew about it. The rest of the fillies in the room were all blank flanks.
“Oh, yeah.” Altruise put her doll on the floor, peering down at the heart on her flank, “I just got it a few weeks ago.”
“How’d you get it so early?” Cherry questioned, pouncing in her seat.
“What does it mean?” Blossom added abruptly, tilting her head.
“Yeah, what kind of talent does a heart represent?” Jill was also now trying to get information out of her.
Altruise smiled with her common joyful expression, happy to tell them about it. She sat up straight and began her explanation. “Well, a heart, as everypony knows, represents love. You see, when I—”
“—Love?” Cherry interrupted, “Love isn’t a talent. Is it?” She peered over at her twin sister, directing her question at her.
Blossom shrugged. “I’unno. I thought it was just an emotion.”
“Well, I—Sure it’s a talent.” Altruise tried covering her story after the sudden built pressure from the abrupt question. “Well, perhaps not necessarily your regular ability talent, per say. It’s just… something I really love to share. Nothing brings a smile to another pony than simple kindness. And nothing makes me happier than to see another pony happy. I got my cutie mark realizing that I can make any frown disappear with just a little bit of cheer.”
The other fillies all blinked silently. Altruise’s ears lowered, thinking her story may have sounded pathetic.
“Sssoooooooo… Your talent is making ponies smile?” Violet tried to figure her explanation out.
“Yea—well, sorta, I… It’s hard to explain.” Altruise sighed, frustrated at her lack of understanding it herself. “Love is more than just an emotion. Not very many ponies quite see it that way though.” She smiled warmly, “It’s something bigger, something every pony needs. Every pony needs to smile, so that’s what I do.”
“You smile?” Jill raised a brow, “That’s your talent?”
“No!—I mean I can make other ponies smile.” Altruise rolled her eyes, then peered back at her new friends. “My cutie mark may not seem all that exciting, and perhaps it’s just because I can’t explain it right. Love is very complicated to understand, even for me. But I’m proud of this cutie mark, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”
More silence and blinking eyes.
“Well, Altruise. Do you want to know what I think of your cutie mark?” Rarity spoke up from in the group, “I think it’s a beautiful thing, you should feel completely blessed. You are totally right, love is a hard feeling to explain, but it is an essential part of life.”
Altruise’s ears perked and she smiled, “Thank you, Rarity.”
“I can’t say that I quite understand it myself.” Jill confessed, “But I know it plays an important role in everypony.”
“Yeah… Without love, we’re all just…” Blossom scratched her head with her right forehoof, trying to figure out how she would be able to finish that sentence.
“Empty.” Cherry finished Blossom’s sentence with a word that she felt was appropriate. Blossom looked over to her and nodded. The other ponies all looked back and forth at each other, nodding in agreement to their statements.
“Any pony without love is like… A unicorn without its magic.” Violet exclaimed, and noticed right then when Mila looked at her with a cut-it expression. Violet looked at her and shrugged. “What?”
Altruise’s ears slowly lowered, and she looked down at her cutie mark. She glanced back up at the group, trying not to make that last comment from Violet a big deal, as she knew it was unintentional, but it caught her off guard. “I-I um.” She stuttered, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything further.
“Was it something I said?” Violet asked, acknowledging Altruise’s hurt expression. “I didn’t mean anything bad—”
“—I know.” Altruise interrupted, and sighed, slouching lower to the floor.
Mila leaned in closer to Violet to whisper. “She doesn’t know how to use magic.” She said very quietly, though obviously not quiet enough, as everypony else heard it. The other ponies all jumped, and Altruise let out a little whimper as she slouched even lower into the floor, with her ears to her sides, embarrassed.
“Huh?” Jill was blinking from what didn’t seem to make sense to her, “You got your cutie mark already, but you don’t even know how to use magic yet?”
“Usually unicorns learn magic first.” Cherry exclaimed abruptly.
“Yeah, and normally by the time they’re five.” Blossom added to Cherry’s statement.
“I learned my first spell when I was four.” Violet exclaimed proudly.
“I-I um…” Altruise just couldn’t speak. The humility was just too much. She suddenly felt like a younger, helpless foal.
“Girls…” Mila tried shushing the others, as she knew the subject was very sensitive to Altruise. The room went silent, all eyes on the unicorn of no magic. Moments passed, and Altruise limply stood up.
“I-I’m um… I’m gonna… I forgot to uh… I-I…” She stuttered, and with a fluttered sigh, she walked away from the group, “I gotta go.”
“Altruise, come on, wait.” Mila stood up and trotted over and around her friend, standing in front of the hurt unicorn eye to eye. “I’m sure they didn’t mean anything offensive out of this conversation.”
“A unicorn without magic at the age of seven.” Altruise’s eyes were half-open, with a hint of tears beginning to form. “Do you remember me struggling in Magic Kindergarten?” She whispered to Mila so the others wouldn’t hear her. “Everypony laughed at me…”
“Altruise, that doesn’t matter.” Mila tried to ease her humiliation, “You’re unique in your own way. That’s what you told me when you got your cutie mark and I was all jealous…” She tried to hint a little chuckle to lighten the conversation.
Altruise sighed, “It’s a miracle they didn’t bump me back into Magic Kindergarten this year.”
“Hey, at least you get to move up into my class with me again this year.” Mila smiled.
“Yeah…” Altruise looked to the side, feeling warmth from that comment. “You’ve always been a good friend and supportive to me.”
“Altruise, we didn’t mean to make a fuss out of this.” Rarity tried to join in and cheer her up as well. “Come back and sit with us. Let’s talk about something else.”
“I only have two days before school…” Altruise realized to herself with sudden gasps in her breathe, disregarding Rarity’s suggestion. “W-what am I going to do? How will I get through classes?”
“Don’t worry so much about it.” Mila put a hoof on her shoulder, “It’ll work itself out. Now let’s go sit with the girls and make some crafts.”
With a long sigh, Altruise tried to calm herself. “Yeah…” She nodded plastically, and they went back to the other fillies to carry on with their doll dress designing. She could never figure out why her magic was so late. Needless to say, she has practiced; a lot. But the unicorn could never even make a spark. Though it was difficult, she put the thought aside, and tried to enjoy the rest of her afternoon with her new friends.
* * * * *