//------------------------------// // Ponyville // Story: My name is Fake Mark // by Skarsnik //------------------------------// It’s a gamble, but it’s easy to convince a mare to wear nice jewelry like a tiara for her own wedding. It’s also probably my worst and best idea. Maintaining an identity for,  like, few weeks is easy, but here I’m talking about one year, at least. The mare is probably gullible enough to marry a stallion who’d show her enough interest on a short time, but, well, you have to account for her family and mentor. And considering she’s probably a virgin, I’ll need to take it slow. It’ll be challenging, but the pay is enough for me to retire. If you want to attract the attention of a mare, it’s easy: be caring, confident and a bit cocky. It works nearly every time. But it’s not the way to go on something deep like a wedding. I need to construct a real life, and some flaws in my personality. Usually, I go for something fake with no deep background, but I’m dealing with Princess Celestia’s student and the little sister of the Captain of the Royal Guard. My fake life needs to be very solid. The best way to do it? Stole a real life. I found a pegasus that looked like me, remove him, and paid the right pony to make him assitant manager of the weather in Ponyville. I also needed a reason to be in this town with a subpar job that doesn’t raise lot of questions. Sound easy? Not really. I had to kill “my” parents in an accident and said I wanted to move on to clear my mind. That meant more time between their funeral and my moving into Ponyville. A lot of ponies have the misconception that deceiving others like that is an art. Not really, it’s a science. First, you need a lot of preparation and planning. Not that I could really plan the next two years, but between studying your target, coming up with a plan, finding the right ponies for some jobs and practicing being another... it’s a lot of work. So no, it’s not “rush into it and improvise”. So when I finally moved into Ponyville, I’d already had the next few months planned. First, getting used to my “job”, and socialising with the right ponies before having the target interested in me. A complication suddenly appeared in the form of the mare delivering my mail. I was only here for two days, yet something was already stressing. “Do I know you?” the gray pegasus mare with a blonde mane and a weird eyes defect was asking me. I could really say yes to her, but that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Firstly, I didn’t remember the cutie mark I had when I’d met her, and she came with something I’m not ready for: a foal. I know this because it’s mine. Don’t get any ideas (or maybe, yes). She was one of my first missions when I was a teenager. She’s from a rich family with a weird tradition concerning who inherits what. I think it was her brother who paid my boss (at this time) to make her become pregnant, revoking her right to touch something because it was outside a marriage. So I put on my biggest smile, used what I had been taught to coerce her into having sex with me, and with the help of some magic, it was a guaranteed pregnancy. “I’m new to town. I used to live in Cloudsdale.” I’m in trouble because it happened in Cloudsdale, but if she’s the mail pony, she probably hears every rumour in a small town like this, and I don’t want ponies questioning my entire backstory. She took and shook the hoof I had offered to her. “Oh, I’m from Cloudsdale too! Perhaps we met here?” I grabbed the mail she gave me. “Yes, maybe. Thanks for the mail, have a nice day!” I say dismissively. Luckily for me, she took off to deliver to her next address. The next day I would need to ask a friend to see whether her foal looks like me. It could really be a major drawback. One one hoof, I’m not a fan of removing somepony that isn’t part of the plan; on the other, I’m talking about a lot of money and probably a coup that will stay in the memory of every criminal.