The Tale of Horologium

by H0rologium

Chapter 1

I was born and raised just west of a small town called Ponyville, raised by my Aunt and Uncle. They were nice to me, but they didn’t have the love for me that my parents would have had. I barely knew my parents, and all that my Aunt would say is that I had appeared one day, a small and helpless unicorn, in their living room. My uncle worked selling fresh fruits and vegetables picked from our garden out back. We had enough bits to get by, but that wasn’t my problem.

School was my problem. Not that I wasn’t a bad student or anything, but I had a special case that got me into a lot of bullying. You see, I didn’t get my cutie mark at the normal age. My Aunt just thought I hadn’t found my talent yet, but my Uncle seemed to get nervous once I turned ten. I was able to pass my classes, no thanks to my teacher, Sunny Hills. She mostly looked the other way when it came to bullying, unless it affected our grades.

After a bit it became obvious she wasn’t loving her job of teaching. I have no idea what her destiny was, because she headed for Canterlot seeking fortune a couple of days before I graduated school. The new teacher I had for those last two days was a great improvement. Cheerilee helped me solve most of my bullying problems, and ace the test! I hope she is still as happy as she was then.

Lets fast-forward a couple of years, I'd rather not think of those. At this point in time, I was old enough to be sent off to live on my own. But still without cutie mark, I wasn’t accepted into any apprenticeships. The masters didn’t want me to leave them, if I had gotten my mark after they hired me that would just be a big waste of time. Especially if my talent was in something completely different from their trade.

I did have one friend who lived right on the edge of Ponyville. He was one of those pegasi who excelled at everything athletic, but was rather short of a full haystack if you know what I mean. His...lack of education led to us meeting, though, so I guess not a total loss? His name was Dareasus, and interesting name along with mine, since we had no last names. He had been found and put into the orphanage at infancy, so nopony knew who his parents were.

He had helped me with the bullying problem, and I helped him with his homework. He grew in mental ability, and I was able to return to my house each day without being beaten up. He got his cutie mark early, however. A silver cloud, overlaid with a golden wrench. He got it while helping me take care of another bully, using a device he had built to scare the daylights out of the colt. He went on to work at Cloudsdayle, and whenever we were able to talk, he talked about his search for his parents, who no-doubted lived there. But I’m getting off-course here, that seems to happen a lot.

Due to my quiet, shy exterior, I was quickly forgotten in Ponyville. So, one day, I packed up my books, bought some seeds from my Uncle, and set off to wherever. I ended up living off a small path near the Smoky Mountains, nopony noticing my absence. Not even the vendors I had befriended ever could remember who I was. Heck, I visited my Uncle and Aunt a few months ago and even they didn't recognize me. This, this 'invisibility', is my curse.

Using my books, and my magic, I was able to construct a comfortable little cabin. I used the seeds, and made a small garden to live off of. There, I spent a while, living off of the food I grew and the books I read. I did occasionally go into the surrounding villages, but I would always wear something to cover my bare flank, and I never went back to Ponyville. At least, not for a while.

One day, my whole life changed for the worst. Actually, correction, it was a night, and I had though it had been for the best. I’ll explain. One night, I stayed up a little later reading one of my books about magic. I was trying to learn a basic levitation spell, but was failing horribly. I used to blame it on the rain, but the truth was I simply wasn’t understanding some aspect about it.

Did I forget the rain? It was raining really hard that night, and in fact at one point I went out to make sure my garden hadn’t flooded. As I did so, I noticed that my tomatoes had been trampled by some strange creature. The tracks it would’ve left had been washed away from the rain, but I could tell it had been headed off down back the small trail next to my house.

I was quite frightened, thinking it was a Diamond Dog or some creature from the Evergreen Forest, but my eye caught something my illumination spell had uncovered. There was a small clay embankment right below my garden, and there it was. The unmistakable print of a hoof. Somepony was caught in this horrible storm!