//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: The Living Cutie Mark // Story: Icon // by ReifuTD //------------------------------// The air was fresh, the plants of this valley just so bright. Munching on them they were juicy and tasteful. Icon and I was summoned to a small house at the base of the mountain. Waiting there was a family. A couple and their son living in a well crafted wood house. The kind of house that I would like to live out a quiet retirement someday. If I ever felt like retiring, *I smirk. The father, an earth pony had a set of playing tiles on his flank. Three of them from left to right, A row of green diamonds, Black spiral and round red stamp. He had a cream coat and a light blue mane. The stallion was named Zen Game The mother, a pegasus had twirling set of water spouts. Her coat light blue with a sky and cloud mane. Her name was Whirl Spouts. The son was well. When I met him, he had no Cutie Mark. Him, and his parents said he had a Cutie Mark. But they insist the thing had ran away. This was what we were doing here. The CMSS sent us to investigate. The colt had a tan coat with a yellow mane. He was named Panwood. These ponies were part of the Solitaire family and the Solitaires looked at us gravely. “We are here to talk about your son,” Icon said to the family. “Yes,” Zen Game answers. Whirl Spouts was making tea on the stove. She looked tired and stressed. “You said your son’s Cutie Mark appeared but then disappeared,” Icon said chewing on the end of his pencil. He wasn’t going to use it. I been trying to get him to stop smoking. It’s a neat trick to roll and light your own cigarettes with only your mouth. But is still wasn’t healthy. For him, me and the baby growing in me. “It comes and goes as if it’s alive,” Zen Game continued, "It haunts us like a ghost." “A living Cutie Mark!” I chimed in, “I would love to take a picture of a moving Cutie Mark. Wait, I can only take photos. What’s the point if I can’t take video.” I started to ponder, “I think I have a rapid fire setting.” “Do you have any idea where this missing Cutie Mark is?” Icon asked. “Oh it’s not missing,” Panwood answers with a nervous smile, “My Cutie Mark is right here.” The colt that wasn’t yet a stallion points at his shadow. Panwood’s parents respond by rolling their eyes and blushing at their son's foolishness. Icon responds with a curious raise of the eye. He quickly glances around the room. Then holds his hoof up to the lowering sun and tilts his head. “Do you have room and board for us tonight?” Icon asks. “There is an inn in the cattle town five to ten minute trot down the road.” Whirl Spouts answers. That’s three to four miles at trot speed. For those of you that are not equine, I’ve also been told that for some creatures a mile is pretty far to walk. Ponies are range creatures built to cover many miles over a day. So yeah this distance is nothing to us and why what Icon is about to say sounds a little imposing to some. “No, we should stay here tonight,” Icon told her. “Are you sure,” Whirl Spouts gives a nervous look to Zen Game. “I need to study the subject,” Icon remarks, “I can’t do that miles away.” “Well we do have a guest room for family,” Zen Game sighs. “We promise we be decent,” I hugged my hubby around the neck and with a big smile across my mouth kiss him on the cheek. The sliding door of the family guest room makes a cracking sucking pressure equalization sound as it open. Whirl Spouts coughs as the stale air hits her lungs. “As you see we haven’t used this in a while,” The pegasus gives a nervous smile. The room had a layer of dust over it. I swipe my hoof across the dresser and inspected the gray fuzz that collected on the under hoof. This caused Whirl Spouts to blush even more as she felt embarrassed that strangers saw that she allowed the room to reach such a state. It didn’t help that Icon started hitting the dusty mattress with his hoof stirring the room in a smoky haze. “I could take that outside and smack that out for you,” The pegasus mare suggests. “Na, its okay just put some clean sheets over it,” Icon replied giving a sideways glance at me to see if I objected to this. I didn’t make a response. Whirl Spouts nods her head and left to get some sheets. We didn’t use the bed. We were use to standing when we slept since we often traveled along the planes and did this under the stars. Beside sleeping like this was more restful since ponies aren’t build for sleeping on their sides waking up every thirty minutes or so to turn around to keep the pressure off our ribs or in my case baby belly all be it as small as it was at the moment. It was the sense of a living presence that awoke me. Most likely another part of being a creature who evolved out in the openness of the plains. I saw the shadow move across the floor sticking out in the moon light. The shadow was of a horse figure. I instinctively look for the window to see nothing standing in front of it. “Icon!” I shouted in a loud whisper. “Umm,” Icon awakes knocking the blue hat back away from his eyes. He instantly spots the shadow pony walk across the floor. He smiles, “Ah it’s true.” “Why do you never tell me what you are planning,” I glare. “Why do you never plan?” Icon smirks back at me. I sigh because this was true. Icon had kept his saddle bag on him. He now took out a stone from it using his mouth. He drops it and the thing sparks. The stone being connected to Zebra magic cause some powder Icon had placed around the room to ignite in a bright glow. All the shadowy places in the room had disappeared in light but one. The horse shape shadow on the floor. It didn’t stay there long and the thing shrieked and runs out of the room. We chased after it. Zen Game and Whirl Spouts stick their heads out of their room as we chased the shadow to their son's room. In retrospect no surprise there. The shadow crept up Panwood’s leg. It then reached his flank and for a quick moment the thing looked like a normal Cutie Mark. The thing moved across his belly. “No!” Panwood demands to his Cutie Mark in a commanding tone. The shadow lowers its head and slinks back to where it belonged. Panwood turned around looking at his flank. The black horse figure somehow put its self on both sides now. Icon might have been able to explain why better. I don’t have the foggiest idea. I would have expected two shadow ponies running around but it was just the one. Oh, well then you have it fog thoughts. He he, ”Now we talk,” Icon smiles at Panwood then turning to his parents. Soon we again sat across from the Solitaire family at the same table we were talking at when we first came. Whirl Spouts yawns and starts cooking coffee on the stove. Panwood spotted his Cutie Mark trying to sneak away his stare making the thing stop. “Now first of all let’s start with the obvious,” Icon remarks with a smile. “Panwood have you messed with any magical artifacts or maybe a unicorn cast a spell on you?” Panwood shook his head, “No, and there’s only one unicorn in the area. A mile from here deeper in the woods.” “Contact with any strange plants or water your parents didn’t have contact with?” Icon suggests, “Do you know what Poison Joke looks like? It's a bluish flower.” “Well I don’t think I seen Poison Joke but there is this spring I found not long after my Cutie Mark appeared.” “Take me to it,” Icon demanded. We waited until morning to head out side. I was eager to see where this adventure goes but I wasn’t going to walk around in the middle of the night. Not that ponies didn’t have good night vision we do. But night vision isn’t in color. So, the sun rose and Panwood lead us out into the woods. Icon was behind him, then me, Whirl Spouts and Zen Game The spring looked like water. Completely normal and mundane water at least to me. Icon taps me on the shoulder and speaks in my ear. “Yep, magic spring,” He said to me. “How do you know?” I asked him. Icon points at mushrooms around the pool. “Those things only grow around magic waters.” I poked the mushroom with my hoof. “Oh they are edible,” Panwood remarks with a smile. I give the foal a dubious look. Then I look back at Icon. “What now-!” I asked as he started drinking the water. Everypony stood there for a moment staring at Icon waiting for the stallion to kill over or something. What happened was rather anticlimactic. His Cutie Marks become star shaped pieces of paper that fall to the ground. “Neat,” Icon grabs the paper stars and put them in his saddle bag. “So this makes the objects of Cutie Marks into the real thing?” I noted. “Yes,” Icon answers. “Ooo! What happens if my Cutie Mark becomes real!” I jump in and drinks some water. As I did so Icon gives a look of shock and rolls his eyes. There was a loud thunk as something heavy hit the ground by my rear. I turn to see my Cutie Marks were gone. At my hindhooves was a large gold heart. “What happened to my other hearts?” I asked. “They are there,” Zen Game points at a pair of reddish pink heart shaped seeds. “Seeds?” I scratched my head. “That's what hearts are,” Icon remarks, “When consumed they stop a creature form conceiving.” “Oh, then you can make all the love you want,” I smiled. “They are extinct now or was,” Icon adds, “I’m going to have to call this pond in so it can be quarantined.” He points at Whirl Spouts, “Imagine the chaos that would happen if she accidently drinks this water. This pool is a dangerous weapon.” Whirl Spouts makes a sad look and turns to Zen Game. “He’s right what if it corrupts our well water and I drink it. It would kill us all.” I push forward the chunk of gold to the Solitaire family. “Would this buy your land?” Zen Game gives a nervous swallow. “What about you’re Cutie Mark?” I replied with a shrug. “It’s illegal to sell gold produced from magic like that,” Icon adds, “For all we know the spell wares off and the gold disappears. I’m sure the CMSS will pay you just fine for this land’s usage. After three days our Cutie Marks returned and the objects we summoned disappeared. We drank the water again and our Cutie Marks disappeared again summoning new objects. So the Solitaire family sold us their land. We capped off the spring with a well, Rented it out to magical researchers and expanded the original home to make lodging for the researchers there. A section of the house was reserved for us but the two of us were always traveling so we only ever come back to the house a few times a year. I decided to plant my heart seeds in a garden even though I knew they would disappear. The next time we came back to the house, A rather large an abnormal Silphuim plant grew in the place I planted my seeds.