The train shook as the puller-stallions at the front started to tug at the cars. We all shifted in our seats as we started to move, the car we sat within ghostly quiet. Glacie was sitting on my right, twiddling her hooves and looking out the window at the slowly passing concrete and manicured shrubs. Nuke sat across from me in a gray and brown slump, blue eyes clouded with sleep and a half snore rumbling in his throat. I felt the suspicious eyes of Neo boring through my fur and into my head.
I sighed and sunk back into my seat, and pulled the satchel I had brought into my lap and rested my arms across it. The generously sized compartment echoed all of the breathing and short snorts and the kicking of our back hooves in the spacious amount of leg room. Glancing sideways out the window, I saw the long grass of a field pulling slowly into view. I heard the heavy and angry hoofbeats of the pullers in front drumming rhythmically against the earth, and the hissing of the metal against itself as we plowed onward. Glacie sighed audibly, and then flopped over to lay against me. Irritated, I almost pushed her away, but decided against it; as a hugger, she gets very physical with her friends.
The door to the compartment slid open with a click, the glass panels clattering into the slot of the walls. A mare stood before us, a small smile on her face. This was the pony who had fetched us a little over an hour ago. She had earned the chagrin of Neo almost immediately when she stepped on his short-trimmed tail upon entering.
Glacie sat up and stretched, and scooted over to the other side of our bench.
"Morning, everypony! Sorry to wake you up; I know you arrived to Ponyville late last night." her voice was clear and to the point, a bit too cheery for anybody but an Equestrian-native. As she stepped in, the door shut behind her. She sheepishly wiggled in to sit between Glacie and I, her purple fur shimmering in the passing light.
I noticed she had large wings like me, spending a bit more of the space available on the bench. Then I in turn noticed the horn emerging from her purple and pink bangs. An Alicorn? I've heard of Alicorns not being royals before, but just to have one seem so utterly normal rubbed me odd. She was very pretty and fluid, almost doll-like. She seemed… perfect. I suddenly got this self-conscious pit in my stomach as the lithe mare smoothed her shiny lavender fur.
"Ahem, anyway… I'm Twilight Sparkle, your Ambassador for Equestria." she said, taking a quick look at all four of us. "I've been instructed by Princess Celestia to… 'get to know you'. For… sentimental purposes."
Nuke and I exchanged a 'what-does-that-mean' look, and then returned our gazes to our new car-mate.
"So you need to know how we got our Cutie Marks?"
"Yes. I'll take notes, and then I'll sketch your Cutie Marks out on the end of your section." Twilight sat there awkwardly with a faint smile on her face as she nodded, trying to infect the rest of the room with friendliness. "So… who wants to go first? The trip is pretty long, so we have some time." Just like magic, she had a notepad and a quill floating in front of her, poised to take notes. I knew she seemed like the note-taking type.
Silence stayed, it's hooks dug deep into the train's car.
"I'll go."
Glacie chirped from the other side of the purple Alicorn, peeking over with her straw-gold and brown mane flicking gently in her face. She crossed her back legs and tucked her wings back behind her to try and gain some room. With a deep and steadying breath, she began.
"I'm Glacie Tundra, born and raised in Starling Bay. I'm a pegasus, obviously. " the quill scratched against the surface of the paper. It must have been some form of shorthoof, because it took note extremely fast.
"After flight school, Ginger and I decided to take studies and try to get a major in Tontaro; sort of like what Canterlot is to you." Glacie stated. Twilight nodded, and checked her notes quickly before letting her continue.
"We studies geography for a while, under Great Gray. We le-"
"Great Gray taught a geography class?" Twilight's quill stopped moving. She looked back and forth between Glacie and I with widened eyes. "If I had known about that I'd have-"
"Ahem." Neo cleared his throat impatiently, and tapped his hoof to the floor. "Business first, Sparkle."
Twilight shook her mane embarrassedly, her ears slicking back as she grinned. "Hehe, sorry. Gray's just the best geographer that ever lived. You're lucky that you got to study under him." Glacie and I smiled a bit, the warm fuzzy feeling called bashfulness buzzing up into our throats. Twilight waved her hoof in a circle as her quill became poised. "Continue, please."
Glacie giggled, and said, "Under Great Gray, we both earned a major in geography. Ginger also majored in cartography and writing. Needless to say, I didn't want to be left behind. They're always doing classes in Atmosphere City; again, our equivalent of Cloudsdale. Our weather factory was low on workers for winter, so I was stuck in the Flurry sector during the first month or so."
Glacie's eyes suddenly lit, and a smile graced her face. "That's when I discovered I loved spreading snow. See, to make it snow, you have to chill the air and keep it moving so it doesn't get warm. You also have to distribute the snow evenly across the tops of clouds; this is the difficult part. Because we have to keep moving and the clouds are as white as the snow, it's hard to tell how much is spread across them. I have exceptional eyesight, so whenever snowstorms are due, they call me for all the extra work. That's how I got my Cutie Mark."
She breifly stood and gestured at her flank, where a cobalt snowflake twirled against the slate gray-blue of the rest of her coat. Glacie flicked her tail proudly, and sat contentedly back into her seat. Twilight's quill gave a final dot, and the notepad turned a new page. The Alicorn looked up and around the three that had yet to tell their tales.
"Who's next?"
Neo and Nuke eyed each other with a bored grin. Pointing a hoof at me, Nuke leaned forward and sleazed, "Ladies first, Miss Scribble."
Twilight turned expectantly toward me, quill and notes floating up near my face. She blinked, and tried to give me a calming smile. Shooting an acid glare at my unicorn-stallion-friend, I sighed and turned back to our escort.
"Like Glacie, I was born and raised in Starling Bay. And also, like she said, after graduating flight school we decided to earn a major in Tontaro. I loved being in Great Gray's class. While Glacie stayed only long enough to learn geography, I didn't want to leave."
I looked at my hooves, and gently rubbed them together as I tried to bring myself back to that time. "I saw he also taught cartography- map making, for those of you who don't know. I started taking that class as well, and that's when things got even better."
I felt my wings shake, as if gripped by a strong and turbulent wind. I could practically smell the cool autumn air of that first day. "Great Gray would take our class out to fly over the moorlands to practice mapping. We could only land on the clouds to stop and begin mapping. Drawing landscapes, scaling everything, things like that."
"I thought you majored in writing too." Twilight commented.
I held my tongue's backlash. "I'm getting to that." I half-hissed. Calming myself down, I continued, "When we were done with mapping out the bits of land, Gray had us write down descriptions of plants and wildlife. Gray said he noticed I had a certain skill with words. After passing the cartography class, Gray put me in his writing class. I'm not going to lie, it was just his off block, so nobody else was there."
"I won so many contests because of his coaching. One of my short story books is due to be published soon. That's how I got my Cutie Mark."
I now felt a little better. When I looked up to find Twilight staring at me intently, I felt my ears go back. "Uh, what?"
The quill gestured at my flank. I had neglected to lift my wing; which was so long it covered my Cutie Mark. I held it up, and Twilight peered at it before telling the quill to sketch what she saw: a quill feather fading from sky to pale blue, a line of purple and aqua trailing in a swirl behind it.
I quickly shut my wing down like a clamp. I then looked slyly over at Nuke. He went from neutral to shrinking back into his seat like I did.
Twilight looked up as her quill finished sketching my butt-tattoo, as my mom affectionately called them. That permanent faint smile lingered across her face as she then turned toward the two stallions on the other side of the room.
"Nuke, since you volunteered me, I will so graciously volunteer you." I purr smoothly, and lean against my satchel.
The unicorn pooched out one of his lips, then regained his composure. "Fine, but it's not as fancy as you two's." Cracking his neck, he settled back down and sighed. "Nyaright."
"Same and same, raised in Starling Bay like everybody in here. I didn't study as hard as these two did, and I obviously didn't go to flight school. I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Go to a school and get a major, open a business… I just didn't know what."
Nuke crossed his hooves. "I was living with my brother; after Ginger went to get her geography major, I couldn't hold up the apartment. Every day, I cleaned the house, did dishes, cooked most of the food. But what my brother did to let me off was fight. Not real fighting, fighting in video games. Deadly Kick-Punch, Hero's Call, Brass Gear Liquid, Road Fighter 2, he was all for those kinds of games. I sucked at them though. Even though it was just a game, it really bit at my thoughts, like I couldn't stop thinking, 'If he beats me at a game, how can I be successful at life?'"
His gray face was wrinkled in a scowl, and he had his muscles clenched. "I know it sounds stupid, but it was my motivation, and it did work pretty well. I wanted to conquer this little obstacle before I went and tackled the real world like my friends were doing. I went to a little place in central Starling called 'Insomniac Game Bar'. I practiced for hours during the day, when I could slip away at least. With the help of some seasoned veterans that showed there regularly, I sharpened my game until I was ready."
Twilight looked at him confusedly. "I thought you were a strategist. What does this have to do with strategy?" The quill paused midair.
Nuke shushed her by lowering his hooves. "I learned to strategize because I knew my brother, and the players he hung around with online. He, and every one of his buddies, played dirty. They knew everything that I didn't, and exploited spots that were hidden because I died to early to explore the place myself. I had to put myself in his head in order to win."
I noticed the cocky blue shine in his eyes as he opened them, and punched his front hooves together. "And that's what I did. I demolished them!" he exclaimed. "I found I had a talent for getting inside other people's heads. I guess that's how I got mine: I psyched my brother out at video games."
The quill sketched his Cutie Mark on the bottom of the information scrawled about him: a circle slashed with an x, all over the natural patch of brown own his flank.
Twilight, seemingly getting a little bored of the storytelling, yawned. One of her wings nearly slapped me across the head, and it took all I had not to return the blow. Nuke held back a sputtering laugh, and Neo let out what sounded like a horn getting stabbed by a moose. Twilight smoothed the hair she had ruffled down nervously, a sheepish smile on her face. I flicked my head away, irritated, and petted it back into place. Glacie meanwhile, was fooling around with her ear, flicking it boredly.
Twilight tried to regain her composure by fluttering her quill back and forth in the air. "Uh, okay then. We're almost done except for… erm… what's was your name again?"
"I'm Neo Retro." the pegasus scoffed, and gave the Alicorn a stern look. Twilight recalibrated her quill and pressed it to the paper.
"I was born in Atmosphere City, unlike everybody else here. I never really fit in well, and I stayed indoors. This was also because my navy coat attracted more heat, and I hate bright sunlight and heat. When I was just a foal, it was pretty good. My family still thought I was cute and tolerated any trouble may have caused around the house."
Neo chuckled, and gritted his teeth. "That all changed when I went from foal to colt. They started pestering me, talking behind my back. You may think I'm being extreme, and I guess I am to some degree. But being a growing colt all alone in a good sized family… it'll do things to you. Not to mention, I was running out of things to do inside. I couldn't do much anymore, as I was losing room to move around in with my wings growing. One day, I uh…. I broke a huge cabinet of china…"
The pegasus rubbed his shoulder awkwardly. "My dad flipped and told me… told me I was adopted. I sort of figured it out beforehand, but… the fact that they'd hide something like that from me that long just drove me out." He gritted his teeth. "I just up and left. I flew (Very badly) down into Starling Bay. I started from the ground up with my life."
Before he could start again, Glacie and I exchanged a glance and applauded Neo breifly. Twilight looked confusedly at us, and went back to her notes.
Neo grinned. "Anyway, I was wandering around for two weeks before it occurred to me to find a job. I started washing dishes, raking, whatever jobs needed doing. It was easier to me because of the shadow of the floating city covered my new town, making it cooler outside. The work was hard, but after I got my apartment, I figured I deserved a little treat. I bought an old gaming system… unfortunately I couldn't use it with my hooves."
"I found a solid job at a place that scrapped and melted metal components. With some help from all the other workers, I recalibrated it to fit my… anatomy. That's how I earned my mark. But I didn't stop there! In the process, I saw so may different weapons that looked cool. I started to study them more and more, eventually getting down to the bare bones of war history. I know every battle, every scuffle, what started it and what soldier ended it. All because of me trying to recalibrate a videogame."
Nuke nudged him with a bony elbow. "And we met at a gaming tournament. It was beautiful; I found my new room-mate."
"And he introduced me to Ginger. So we're all a dysfunctional little family." Neo said victoriously.
The quill quickly sketched the Cutie Mark, a rectangular gray controller with red and black buttons.
Twilight's quill vanished away into her plumage, and she sat up to stretch her wings. Her lavender fur glittered as she stepped through the door after opening it with her horn. Before leaving completely, she stuck turned her head back in.
"Thanks, you guys! I'll send this to Celestia immediately. We'll arrive in Canterlot in about two hours." and she whipped out, cutting the door with a loud bang.
Neo melted in his seat, one leg stretching out over Nuke, who pushed It onto the floor immediately. "Thank Celestia and Gray. I thought she'd never leave."
"Yeah, and she can't control her wing boners very well."