My Cutie Mark Got It Wrong

by Ink Spill

Chapter 1: The Canterlot Library

I remember the day I earned my cutie mark clearly, I was still in school and was working as a volunteer at the library. I spent most days simply shelving books but soon found I had a talent for helping ponies find books they’d like. When ponies came in looking for nothing in particular I could always tell immediately what genre of book they’d like and bring them a book of that type. Over my school years I kept doing this and one day I brought a book to somepony who had informed me that they were only there to get a book for a report, they detested reading, but along with the book for their report I also brought them a classic adventure novel, the pony showed up a few days later and thanked me because they had loved the book and asked for something else similar. It was that day that my cutie mark appeared, my flank from that day forth displayed a number of books from different genres. I guess I didn’t get my mark in any way special, it was pretty conventional, but there was something about my talent that was very unique, but I didn’t know that at the time I got it.

I was a grown stallion now and I’d been working in the Canterlot Public Library for a number of years. It was a prestigious possession, head librarian of the largest public library in Equestria. It was the summer, and the library wasn’t too busy, it was calm, and I had plenty of free time and even when somepony needed help it didn’t take me too long, this was an ideal job, but it was not a job I planned to have for much longer.

I was organizing the history section; somepony had gone and messed it up. Before I could finish somepony came up to me.

“Hello Tailor, do you have time to help me find a book?”

“Hmm,” I turned around to see Lilly, a mare who was a regular visitor of the library, “of course I can, just give me one moment,” I took a few moments to finish sorting the shelf and gave Lilly my full attention, “so, what kind of book are you looking for today?”

“Well I was hoping the library might have something by Star Treasure that I haven’t read already.”

“The fantasy writer? We have all of her books, let me show you.”

I lead Lilly over to the fantasy section shelf that had Star Treasure’s books on it, she intently read the names off the book’s spines, “So are there any you haven’t read?”

“Yeah,” Lilly took a book from the shelf, “this one.”

I looked at the title The Canterlot Cavern Adventure. It wasn’t the most ingenious name ever, but I'd heard the book had been well received.

Lilly checked out the book and we said goodbye.

I went back to organizing shelves.

***

I was back at my apartment; it had been a long day.

I was alone with my thoughts, and couldn’t help but think about that I was not happy. Everypony always says that doing what their cutie mark tells them works out fine, that they’re happy with what they’re doing. But not me; sure I liked volunteering at the school library, but as an actual job I despised it, it was time consuming and lonely as almost nopony else worked at the library.

And then I thought to myself what I thought to myself every night, My cutie mark got it wrong.

I was getting tired of it, sure I was talented as a librarian but I couldn’t accept that as my ultimate destiny. It wasn’t just that I disliked the job, my whole talent felt wrong; it felt like I was meant to be doing something else.

That was it, I had finally made up my mind, I was going to quit my job tomorrow and go look for my destiny somewhere else.

Whatever my destiny was I was convinced it was not for me to work in a library.

But destiny seemed to have different plans.

***

That morning I went to see Princess Celestia to inform her that I would be leaving the library, which she owned of course. I had only met the princess twice before, once when getting hired and another time when I requested some vacation time, and was no less nervous this time, maybe even more nervous.

It took a while to get in, security was tighter than usual and I had to talk to a large number of guards. Eventually I managed to get into the throne room. Princess Celestia was there and so was Princess Luna, who managed to make me more nervous, she had been there the second time I had met Princess Celestia, she seemed nice but something about her seemed to make me more nervous, maybe it was just that there were multiple royals in front of me.

"Good morning Tailor," Princess Celestia smiled at me, it helped me feel more comfortable

"Good morning Princess," I bowed, "oh, sorry... princesses," I had almost forgotten to acknowledge Luna, she glared at me slightly, but then smiled in a forgiving way . It seemed like both the princesses were in a relatively good mode today.

"So why did you request to see us on such short notice?" Celestia asked

"Um, well Princess, you see, I'd like to leave my position as head librarian as soon as possible," I was a little worried, I wasn't sure how she'd respond.

Celestia quietly spoke, "Oh dear."

That did not inspire confidence.

"Oh dear?"

"Well, obviously, you can't just leave that easily," Luna cut in.

"Why not?" My question came out a bit ruder than I meant it to.

"Well," Celestia explained, "we can't just close the library, you can't leave until we find a replacement for your position."

That didn't sound too bad, "How long should that take?"

"The last time we had to find a replacement it took two years," Luna informed me.

Two years? That was crazy, I really had to leave that library. I didn't say so of course, "Okay then, I'll begin looking for a replacement," I hung my head in defeat, that was it.

I politely said goodbye to the princesses, and left for my home.

I knew I couldn't wait two years, I had to find somepony to take my job.

What if I couldn't find somepony? After some thought I decided that if I couldn't find a replacement within a month I was just going to leave.

I had to leave.

Author's Note:

This is my first MLP: FIM based story so I’m not too sure how it will turn out, hopefully well. Also I’m going to let a lot of this story form “organically” so I won’t have the entire story planned ahead of time so there may be a few things that don’t go anywhere (though I’ll try to avoid that or remove parts like that if it happens) and there may be some large gaps between chapter releases due to having to come up with the story as I go and not knowing ahead of time what I want specifically in each chapter. I fairly like my concept for this and I hope you do too.
Thanks for reading.

Comments

[Totallyrandomdude]

MOAR!

[Ink Spill]

There should be more soon, I'm already working on chapter 2. Thanks for reading my story btw.

[furry4life874]

[IDontWantWoBeOnThisSite]

Seems good. Can't wait to read the next chapter.
But for now, I'm going to bed.. Staying up until 2:00a.m. reading fanfiction can't be good for somepony.
But yeah... Nice