My name is Icon Starsketcher. It’s ironic how names and Cutie Marks work out. Because of this from a young age I knew or I thought I knew what my Cutie Mark was going to be. At least within a reasonable idea.
My father was named Shooting Stars and his name was his Cutie Mark. He had an obsession with meteor showers. He knew when all the meteor showers happen and would take me out to watch them.
I myself loved looking at the constellations, would spend a lot of these times out in the field with an astrology text book. I would use it to find constellations and draw them in my sketch book.
The accident happened around the age one gets their Cutie Mark. Me and my father were watching the sky that night, The meteors arcing across the sky. When to our shock, two of the streaks of light crash into the earth not far from us.
The image that whizzed by me before the bang reminded me of my father’s Cutie Mark. In retrospect perhaps it was fate. Our images seem to haunt us if we look hard enough.
“Starsketcher!” My father’s voice knocked me out of my daze.
“Let’s check it out!” My farther starts running across the field.
“Wait up!” I shouted chasing after him.
We soon came to the edge of a smoking crater. A bright orange glow from the center of the crater pierced the night air. The heat of the ground came up through my hooves.
“Stay here,” My father orders.
“But dad!” I protested, I felt like shaking my feet to cool them off from the heat.
My father slid down the steaming soil. From there he slowly approached the glowing stone. The thing was making a creaking groaning sound.
I started to fallow by father down the hill. That's when I heard the pop. Then something hard hit me.
I don’t know when, but I managed to get to my feet. My ears were ringing and my right eye felt like it was on fire.
My mind was in too much of shock to cry. My body was in some kind of echoing numbness. As through the smoke and red in my vision, I saw the body of my father laying there on the ground covered in his own blood.
My next memory was of me waking up in a hospital bed. The doctors told me that I had lost my right eye. They had covered the empty socket in bandages. That by now had to be changed. It took me a few days to gather the courage to look at it in the mirror.
It took my mother to tell me my father was dead. Her name was Venus Glow, An orange mare with a red mane. A yellow green streak was in her mane. Her Cutie Mark was of a fireball wrapped in five green thorny vines looking like a claw grabbing.
Later she would be arrested for treason and executed. I’m still haunted by the image of her swinging from that rope. Even more so by the words she said to me in that interview I made with her. But that’s another story.
My mother met my father well planet gazing. She was also an expert of night blooming flowers. She didn’t go night gazing as much as my father did but when she traveled out with us she would always point out the sweet smelling moon blooming flowers.
After my mother told me about my father, I became ill for quite a long time and it slowed my rate of recovery.
Before my accident, I could draw. I still could draw, but not as good as I could before I lost my eye and now with the one eye I felt motion sick bobbing my head around. Worst looking up at the deepness if the night sky with no visual references to keep my mind from whirling.
Regardless it’s hard to draw constellations with one eye. Or perhaps I was trying to find an excuse to forget about the starry skies. My fate was changed and I was lost.
A day near the end of my recovery, One of the interns left an anatomy text book on the table. There were pictures of ponies with labels on all the parts. What struck me was the Cutie Mark of the blank looking sketch of a pony. It was a star.
Now I’ve seen this depiction of a Cutie Mark before but this was the first time I looked at it and it made me think of my father’s star Cutie Mark.
“Little colt, may I have my book back?” A brick colored mare with a spring green mane spoke to me in a kind tone. She reminded me a little of my mother but her first impression was much nicer them my mother's.
“Do you know why the Cutie Mark is a star?” I asked the mare.
“What?” The mare replied with a blush.
“Most text books whenever they show a nameless, faceless pony it's Cutie Mark is a star." I pointed out.
“Umm… You know I don’t know,” The mare replied, “Maybe stars are a common symbol found in Cutie Marks.”
This talk of Cutie Marks made me check out the mare’s flank. She had a green box with a bush in front of it for a Cutie Mark.
“That’s a cute Cutie Mark but I'm not sure what that has to do with becoming a doctor?” I noted.
“I’m training to be a concierge doctor,” The mare answers.
Being a foal I looked at her confused.
The mare sighs, “It means I’m going to become a doctor that sees ponies at their homes instead of them going to a hospital.”
“Oh I understand,” I nodded my head.
“The name’s Green House,” The mare told me.
“Icon,” I answered then double taked at Green House’s flank, “Really shock that didn’t end up being something abstract like healing herbs instead of something literal like a green house. Heck why do names seem to have an effect on Cutie Marks.”
“Yeah, it’s strange how names and Cutie Marks work out,” Green House smiles, “But I’m not an Eikonpsychologist.”
“Eikonpsychologist?” I asked.
“Someone who tries to understand Cutie Marks buy trying to understand the ponies who have them,” Green House answers, “My grandmother was an Eikonpsychologist. It was never my thing. There are books on the subject if you are interested in it?”
“I suppose,” I smiled back at the mare.
The next day Green House wheeled me down to the hospital’s library. I also had a spanking new eye patch that made me look like a pirate so I was in a very cheerful mood that day.
“Why are you taking me down here?” I asked the mare.
“I did a little looking up and I found out about that illustration you were looking at,” Green House smiles.
“What is it?” I asked curious.
“Wait here a minute,” Green House left me in front of the librarian. By librarian I mean one of the longtime resident nurses who was heavy set, butchy looking and a scowl on her face.
After a little over a quiet minute of this goblin mare looking at me, Green House came back with a book. She gave me the book and I looked at the cover.
It read “Auto Eikon Nomicon”. The cover had the golden image of a lion’s head shaped like a sprocket or gear. Below that a name, “Leo Victorious”.
“Who’s he?” I pointed at the name.
“Leo Victorious is the greatest earth pony philosopher ever known,” Green House said proudly. “He invented plans for machines before their time. Painted great art works. Figured how equine anatomy works when no pony knew anything. He helped usher in the great renaissance.”
Green House opened the book for me and continued to talk. “He personally illustrated many Cutie Marks.”
Put randomly between two pages about a half a dozen monochrome illustrations of Cutie Marks. Next to them were writings in a font I did not understand, but under that was a writing I did understand. This was a translated diction for the Cutie Marks with included the name of the pony who had it and possible meanings of said Cutie Mark.
“I never thought about drawing Cutie Marks,” I said cheerfully with a smile on my face. I still couldn't look up at the sky but my motion sickness was starting to go away.
“The “Auto Eikon Nomacon,” is said what was to inspire the Cutie Mark Registry,” Green House points out.
“Cutie Mark Registry?” I asked.
“It's a record of all the Cutie Marks in Equestria. Well technically they are divided by towns and or counties,” Green House told me before turning to the troll at the front desk. “Miss Balm Thorn, could you take out the registry?”
Without changing expression Miss Balm slams a thick tome on the table. Green House gave me the book.
The inside had rows and rows of photographs of flanks of ponies and the Cutie Marks on them. Every once in a while there was a brake with a word. These words was related to a shape or object in the Cutie Mark. Example, of Cloud, Heart, Lighting, Star. I noted there where many stars. Next to each photo a name of the pony the Cutie Mark belonged to.
“Can I check this out?” I asked the goblin looking Balm Thorn. I wanted to try my hoof in drawing Cutie Marks.
Over the next few days as I recovered I continued to go to the library. I came across the magical yet vague prophet Maresayer journals on Cutie Pox’s and how Cutie Pox made ponies compulsively play out actions.
I came across another book that talked about the beginnings of Eikonpsychology written by Ego Joy witch theorized that Cutie Marks had effects on ponies that had them. Every action a pony makes is related to their Cutie Mark. What they liked, hated, virtues, flaws. All guided by their Cutie Mark.
He theorized that names give young ponies something to react too. Names are the first thing that makes a pony special. The second being a Cutie Mark which was better than a name. As somepony grows up they might like or dislike something because it’s related to their names. But until their Cutie Mark flares up they are unbound by their magic. Of course these were just theories.
It happened after that I found another book by Leo Victorious. This book was of sketches of his machines. I seen his anatomy text books but I never seen his mechanical ones before now.
It was like seeing two sides of the same coin. Biological and mechanical, his Cutie Mark made complete sense now. This was the moment I truely understood Eikonpsychology.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash and I looked at my flank. There was a star, Not just a star but a sketch of a star drawn with a blue pencil with one half shaded.