The Last Mark

by Idyll

Stolen Personality

Today started off quiet.

Again, I didn’t enjoy last night, but love burdened me to take the necessary measures. I could’ve done nothing, enjoyed the ostensible love my daughter still had for me, and waited for the day she got caught committing something major. A lovely talking point for Celestia to use against me. Or perhaps she’d blackmail me with a lighter sentence for my daughter.

Though I know it’ll take a while before she accepts her old life back, I couldn’t let day one of her sobriety be characterized by sloth.

I knocked on our door. “Cozy, darling? Can I come in?”

After no response, I entered.

My daughter’s head lay mopey on our desk, left cheek smushed into a thick pancake. On the other side, she held a red crayon between her lips. There were seven lines drawn across a piece of printer paper, dividing it into cuboids (I assume she intended for squares), and another piece was torn into cards with different drawings. Two appeared to be a stick insect of Princess. Eight looked resembled a trident with a thick handle. Half of them looked like lollipops.

"Have you been drawing, honey?” I asked, tilting my head to meet her sideways gaze. “It looks very well done, but how about next time you use your whole neck when you draw? I heard that makes the longer lines a lot smoother.”

She shifted her eyes towards me and sighed through her nose. Not very talkative today.

I also took a look at my little accident; a piece of her coat got ripped off when I replaced her cutie mark with a mathematically perfect equal sign. She was unconscious so I doubt she felt pain, but before she woke up I patched it with two heart-sharped bandages. Hair is difficult to heal.

And despite me removing the latest enchantment on her bow and regifting it to my new old daughter, Cozy would ignore it existed.

But below her flank, I noticed her feathers, or lack thereof. A few of her secondaries were missing. I don’t remember that from my spell. A hunch brought me to the bin, and there they were, tips covered red. Four of them.

“Oh babe, please don’t tell me you’ve been plucking your feathers over this.” I placed a leg over her arched back.

“I was preening…” Cozy said, not very convincingly, even if she did have her… thigh’s temptations. Running out of truthful euphemisms, Starlight.

“Okay,” I said. “But please don’t hurt yourself. It hurts me to see you like this, but… one day you’ll understand. I promise.” I pecked her cheek.

“Why don’t we go to the park?” I suggested. “It’ll clear up your mind. Hm?”

She didn’t respond, so I shook her upper back gently. “Pretty please? For Mommy’s sake?”

Cozy stretched her wings and flapped a few times, a relief to my eyes, but then dropped her pair dead. “Can’t we stay at home?” she asked.

I excavated her onto my back, said, “You don’t have to exercise too much. It’ll only be a quick stroll,” and teleported. On the other side, we arrived—a hoof’s length away from Party Favor.

“Starlight! Cozy!” he greeted. “Fancy bumping into you two again!” But then he took a look at my daughter and laid down his smile. The cloudy sky hid most of Cozy’s coat desaturation from my spell—a temporary side effect, I’m sure. Still, he held a concerned furrow.

“Gosh,” he continued. “Did the weather get you down?”

I answered, because I knew Cozy wouldn’t, “She’s been drained by the start of a new school year and all that. I thought a midday walk would soothe the soul a bit.”

Party faintly smiled at my response and nodded. “Yeah, school can be tough. I stopped paying attention once I got my cutie mark and realized my special talent. Couldn’t be happier, except for right now.”

He passed my daughter a ‘get well soon’ balloon and prompted the string onto her hooves; wingpits, tips; and muzzle. Didn’t work.

“I’ll teleport it home,” I said and did. “But we better get going.”

Party waved goodbye and attended to his paying foal clientele.

Practically no one was playing at the playground today, besides maybe three of those wannabe pigeons from two days ago. The last time this happened, we took advantage of the situation. I’d push her on the swings, and she’d fly off and surprise me from behind. Now her legs lay lifelessly to my side. She never needed a mark to have fun before. Why does she need one now?

What am I saying? Culture caused this. Society was structured as mark-ocracy. A bit of education can mend that, and I can start by showing her how to have fun again.

I propped my daughter on a low branch of the same tree she climbed the day before. She laid down and started up at the covered sky. Surely a few missing feathers didn’t ruin her ability to fly.

I lifted her up onto her legs. She tried to sit down but I didn’t let her: I’d pull her tail back up. Eventually, she stood without assistance. Progress…

“Very good, dear.” I knew repairing her psyche wouldn’t be easy. That rook stole more than my daughter’s vivid colors. The tendrils of egotism had latched onto her mind and took away parts of her personality. But I caught the problem early.

My daughter threw her jelly legs over the nearest branch, where she also rested her chin. Her wings' flutter brought her altitude to a climb. The brain was repairing itself. I’ll recall this event for months after as she could be happy again. However long that takes, I’ll be there.

I thought I’d encourage her, so I pulled her tail up over the branch. She looked at me. I don’t know why, but my gesture—from my heart—made her snap.

She groaned and yelled, bucked the tree’s trunk, and fueled by her tantrum, she shouted, “Enough! I’ve had it with your stupid philosophy! I want my cutie mark back, now!”

I looked around to make nocreature heard. There were no cameras, no Party Favor, and no creatures—except those three pegasi, who appeared at the base of my leg.

I looked at Cozy with begging eyes. I can’t handle public embarrassment. “Come on, dear. Let’s not cause a commotion—”

“No!” she shouted and hovered. “I want my cutie—”

I placed a hoof on her mouth. “Are you sure you wouldn’t settle for an ice cream? It’ll make Mommy really sad if you—” She bit me; I winced.

As I cursed Celestia’s name, my daughter hovered down to the foal trio.

“Do you want to know what she did to me?” she asked, met by head tilts and a nod. My horn charged as I grabbed her right before she undid her bandage. I don’t know if those foals would’ve known what a rook-shaped patch of skin indicates, but I couldn’t risk it. If they did, Celestia would have all the evidence she’d need to lock me up.

Equestria wasn’t ready for that stage of my plan.

In our house, once I regained my composure, a porcelain plate shattered on my head. My shield spell stopped her second attempt. The plate, halfway through the bubble, fell to the floor; Cozy pulled her leg out, leaving a hole. She grabbed a sharp piece from the floor and flailed it through said hole.

A drop of blood traveled past my ear. I felt the bump forming under the skin of my scalp and winced.

Cozy demanded to know, “Where’d you hide my cutie mark?!”

“It’s gone,” I responded in a tone that was hopefully stern, probably pathetic. “I destroyed it—poof! Disappeared! Because you can’t control yourself, and you’ve proven me right. Now stop being a—brat! And go to your room!”

She paused and inspected the curls of my brow, the dilation of my pupils, and my twitching. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

I don’t know how she knew, especially without her repertoire of traits from her dark triad. A mark was supposed to embody difference, and the average pony would’ve have been able to tell, but Cozy could. Or maybe I was too heartbroken to lie convincingly. She never raised her voice at me before, and today she hurt me physically, intentionally on the head. Yes. My anger started to show.

My horn held every object still. From the sofa and bed to each spec of dust, all were still and blue. Cozy could only jiggle her muscles against her bones, before I sent her to our bedroom closet and locked the door, as well as freeze every object inside. I pinned the spell to the doorknob, so it’ll stay in effect even when I’m asleep, just in case she uses a shirt to make an upside-down tie to… break me.

I need to lie down.

Comments

[Wild Stallion]

Cozy could only giggle her muscles against her bones, before I sent her to our bedroom closet and locked the door, as well as freeze every object inside.

Giggle?