Nee Hill, a builder, earth pony, suddenly learns she is quite different from everypony else when her cutie mark disappears.
Nee Hill, a builder, earth pony, wakes one day to find that her cutie mark is gone. Unfortunately the entire town learns about it at the same time. Between suspicion and prejudice, Nee takes to the road in escape and during her subsequent travels meets a variety of characters who help her to understand who she really is.
She didn’t notice right away. When she got up on the morning of her first builder competition, she immediately dawned her blue plaid tool skirt, which covered and protected her red flanks and thighs. She carefully loaded her wagon with the tools that didn’t fit into her skirt and left her home for the competition.
All of her hometown of Arrojar had turned out for the event. The food sellers and merchants had set up their colorful canopies. Visitors from nearby Klugetown jostled and haggled in the crowd. Nee arrived in confident strides to her contest building site. The smiling mayor mounted a platform that stood above the mingling crowd. “Commence!” he shouted, and Nee’s world dropped away. She loved being in “the zone,” seeing the whole building structure rise up in her mind. Random and meaningless pieces joining together to become something new and magnificent. Time disappeared.
In what seemed like mere moments to Nee, the happy mayor shouted again to end the competition. The sun had already started to drop from the sky.
After the judges inspected the builder’s work, a winner’s list was passed to the Mayor who began by reading out the third place winner.
“Ms. Nee Hill!”
Nee smiled slightly. She removed her tool skirt, folded it into her wagon, and proceeded to the stage. To keep from being nervous as she moved to the stage, she focused on the mayor’s face. He looked back at her. He appeared . . . concerned? Nee realized the crowd had fallen silent and that every pony was looking at her in a curious fashion.
“What’s going on?” Nee whispered to the Mayor when she reached him.
“You’re cutie mark,” the Mayor gasped, “it’s gone.”
---
“But it can’t just be gone!” Nee shouted for the thirtieth time as she sat in the ward.
“I’m sorry,” said Doctor Kuongoza, for the thirtieth time. He adjusted the purple tie beneath his lab coat, “you must remain calm.”
“But it can’t just be gone!”
“I’m sorry, but there is no trace of it.”
“But it can’t just . . .”
“Ms. Nee Hill,” Doctor Kuongoza said firmly, “you don’t have a cutie mark. Why you don’t have a cutie mark, I don’t know. There is no sign of injury or disease, and even if there was, there is no known injury or disease that would result in the loss of one’s cutie mark. Getting one, yes. Having multiple ones, yes. Losing one, no.”
“What about magic?” Nee asked.
“Ms. Hill, speaking as a unicorn and a doctor I can tell you, sometimes things simply happen, and we don’t know why. The challenge for you is to discover what you will do next.”
---
Nee awoke the next morning from a troubled sleep and realized that she was late. She may no longer have a cutie mark, but she did still have a job, and they were counting on her.
However, when Nee got to her work site, more than a few of her colleagues were standing around talking quietly. When she approached, they stopped. Her boss, Cara, a great blue and white pegasus, came up to her.
“Ah,” Cara began awkwardly twisting a wing, “Nee. Nice work at the competition.”
“What’s wrong,” asked Nee.
“Well, it’s your illness, isn’t it,” said Cara.
“But I’m not sick,” said Nee.
“What did the doctor say,” asked Cara gently.
“Nothing,” she said. “He said he doesn’t know what caused it.”
“So, then, it could be an illness?” said Cara.
“And contagious!” shouted a pony in the back.
“No,” said Nee, stunned, “I’m not sick.”
“Nee,” began Cara, in a rehearsed tone, but still twisting her wing, “I am responsible for the safety of the ponies on this work site, and until we know what caused this,” Nee felt tears beginning to come, “we need to be conservative.”
Nee felt herself losing control, and then growing embarrassed at losing control. She left at a gallop, her orange and white tail fluttering behind her.
---
When she arrived at her home, she noticed some pony had painted a large orange ‘X’ on her door. She looked up and down the street as if to see who had done it.
She caught sight of a purple unicorn filly playing in the yard across the street. When the filly looked up and met Nee’s eyes, she stood and started to walk toward her own house.
“Excuse me,” Nee said. “Your name is, ‘Huir’, isn’t it?” The filly kept walking toward her front door.
“Huir, I need your help.” Huir stopped.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Huir said, not looking up.
“Why not,” asked Nee, shocked. “Who told you not to talk to me?”
“The ponies from the city. They painted the ‘X’ on your door. They said not to talk to you. They said it wasn’t safe.”
“I am not sick,” said Nee, through clenched teeth.
“They didn’t say you were sick.” Nee straightened up. “They said you were cursed.” And with that Huir went inside.
Every muscle of Nee’s face was limp, every nerve silent. She turned back to the large orange ‘X’ on her door and felt the hot blood flow to her face. She spun around and delivered a back kick to the door cracking the wood. She put on her tool skirt, hooked up her wagon, and ran.
As Nee walked she thought about everything that had happened and become angrier. She had left Arrojar by the northern desert road, and the heat of the sun rolled across her back, setting her ears to ringing. She stopped and took off her tool skirt, put it in the wagon and took a drink from her water barrel. She drained it, and its emptiness made her even angrier.
---
“Cutie mark trouble, eh?” came a round clear voice from her left. She turned to see two unicorns wearing identical straw hats, wearing matching blue and white striped vests. One had a mustache.
“Well,” began Nee. “That’s about right.”
“Disappeared, did it?” asked the clean-shaven one.
“Well, yes,” said Nee, a little surprised. “It was a hammer,” she added sullenly.
“Well, a disappearing cutie mark,” said the mustached one, “we faced challenges like that before, haven’t we Flim.” Nee perked up.
“Oh, yes we have,” said Flim. “Remember up in Baltimare, Flam?”
“and Canterlot,” returned Flim
“and even Dodge City,” they said, building their sentences together.
“You’re able to give ponies their cutie marks back?” asked Nee already envisioning her return to Arrojar and her old life.
“Well, first, we have to know what we are dealing with,” said Flim, measuring her left thigh.
“Did it fade away or disappear?” asked Flam, measuring her right.
“Disappeared,” said Nee. And then upon reflection, “well, one day, it just wasn’t there.”
“Well, I think we’ve got just the thing,” said Flam
“But let’s ensure we get it right,” said Flim. His horn glowed green, and within a great picture frame on their cart appeared a hammer.
“Did it look like this?” asked Flam. The two vested ponies rotated the image, making changes as Nee called them out until the image looked just like her missing cutie mark, the right color, size and shape.
“Celestia,” began Flim as he floated the cutie mark image out of the frame, splitting it into mirror images which then floated toward Nee’s thighs, “has granted us special abilities to help other ponies.”
“But,” continued Flam, “we must compensate Celestia for the use of these abilities. And an operation like this will cost us around 8,000 bits.”
“8,000!” cried Nee, her heart falling.
“The question is how much of our burden can you help us to pay?” asked Flim.
The idea of returning to Arrojar evaporated from Nee’s mind. “I only have 600.”
“Oh,” began Flam, “Sorry if we got your hopes up.” He turned and went back toward the cart.
“Well,” Flim said, still holding the images in the air.
“Don’t you dare,” called Flam to his partner. “We are still paying off the last three!”
“I’m sorry,” said Nee looking quizzically at Flim.
A gentle smile crossed his face. “You said, 600?”
“Yes,” Nee responded.
“Okay,” he said, “for 600. It’s a deal.”
“Ahhh!” cried out Flam kicking the wagon in frustration. “Every time! This is ridiculous! We’ll starve.”
“Now, brother, the deal is done, no backing out now, ponies would never trust us again.”
“Fine,” said Flam darkly.
“We should see the money first,” said Flim quietly to Nee.
“Of course,” said Nee, not wanting to cause any more trouble with Flam. She lifted a brown cloth sack with her bits in it with her teeth, and Flam floated it away to their cart.
“Brother,” said Flim, “let us to work.”
“Fine,” said Flam, and then in a more professional tone to Nee, “please hold still, and you will feel some pressure and heat.” The unicorns took up posts to either side of her where she couldn't see what they were doing, but she certainly felt heat and flinched at a stinging sensation.
“You must not move,” said Flam in an irritated voice.
To Nee, the process seemed to take forever. She focused on the building southern storm clouds until finally, she felt bandages being gently applied to both sides. Then she felt her tool skirt being laid into place across back from her withers to her thighs. When the unicorns finally stepped away she had been covered.
“But can I see them?” asked Nee.
“Look up there,” said Flim pointing with his head toward the storm coming from the South.
“And there,” said Flam, tossing his head toward the sun.
“Two worst things you can do is to expose your new cutie mark to either rain,” began Flim.
“Or sun,” Flam continued. “You were lucky to have the tool skirt. Better than just bandages.”
“The sun could fade it,” began Flim.
“The rain could take it,” ended Flam. “You need to keep the area dry and covered for at least 24 hours.”
“I will,” she said, beaming at them. “And thank you.”
“Not at all my dear, it was our pleasure,” said Flim.
And she turned and started back to Arrojar at a gallop.
---
That was, of course, a big mistake, Nee concluded. She ran right into the storm. At first, she hoped to miss it, then hoped that the rain would not become too bad, then hoped to find some sort of shelter from the downpour so that her cutie marks would not be “taken”.
In the flashes of lightning, she could see some rock formations rising from the earth. If she could find some shelter there, she might be able to keep the bandages dry enough.
As she grew closer to the outcropping, the ground turned from wet mud to hard stone covered with puddles of fresh rain. She saw a crevice in a lightning flash and headed toward it. As she approached, from the direction of the crevice itself, a great gust of wind hit her. She instinctively turned her face away, and the gust rolled down her side and lifted off the tool skirt and tore away the bandage. Nee looked back and, illuminated by a great burst of lightning, saw no healing cutie mark. There was nothing, absolutely nothing.
---
Nee sat by that great outcrop of rock for days. She baked in the sun, froze in the night, and only moved to find some dry rabbit grass to eat or get a drink from the rock’s cistern. Her ribs began to show, her hair began to thin, and her mane and tail became tangled and knotted.
“You look a little old to be a yearling,” said a voice from a passerby on the road.
Nee turned, giving the old, scraggly looking speaker her darkest stare. “My cutie mark disappeared,” she said, guessing at the origin of his comment.
“Hee, hey, hey,” the scraggly pony laughed. “Never heard that one before.” Nee ignored him. “Ponies always bringing me their cutie mark problems, but never that one before. That’s new.”
The scraggly pony was walking slowly west on the road. He was a large white pony with great black splotches. His mane was unkempt and he was missing a few teeth, though he still smiled brightly.
“Why?” Nee asked standing and moving to the road to walk with him.
“What’s your name filly?”
“Nee, Nee Hill,” she said, with a little sternness. She didn’t like being called a filly.
“Nice to meet you, Nee.” he returned. “I am Ali Quid, at your service. Most ponies call me Ali.”
“Humph,” Nee muttered, “So why do ponies ask you about their cutie mark problems.”
“Have you not seen mine?” he asked surprised.
Nee looked back at his thigh. “You don’t have one!” she screamed, her eyes widening and she looked back into his face. Now, he really looked amused.
“Of course I have one. Everyone has one. How could your not having a cutie mark be ‘new’ if I didn’t have one?”
Nee looked back, again. She really didn’t see it at first, and maybe wouldn’t have picked it out if it weren’t for the fact that all pony cutie marks appeared in virtually the same place. Ali’s cutie mark blended with the large splotches of black on his white body. She wasn’t sure exactly what it could be and didn’t feel like figuring it out.
“It’s a black hole,” she finally stated.
“Hee, hey, hey,” Ali laughed again shaking his rough black mane. “That’s new as well. Never had any pony say they saw that before.”
Nee looked back at the cutie mark again as they began to walk. “ What do you mean?”
“I mean, that’s my cutie mark. Ponies always see something different.”
“Different? But what is it supposed to be?”
“That’s the whole point. It isn’t SUPPOSED to be anything, but it certainly CAN be anything.”
Nee looked again. She could see how it could be viewed differently; a flower, a bear, even a house, but to Nee, it still looked like a black, empty hole.
“What ponies see when they look at my cutie mark is more about themselves than it is me.”
Nee, looked back at him. “Ponies see what they want to see?”
“No. Ponies see what they expect to see,” he said simply.
“I didn’t expect to see an empty hole,” said Nee, sitting down with some frustration as Ali continued his slow pace up the road on his own.
“No, but you did,” he replied simply.
Nee watched him move further up the road. “So, is that your special talent. Black holes?”
Ali turned his head back but kept walking. “Cutie marks are on the outside, not on the inside. You’re the one seeing black holes.”
Nee jumped to her hoofs again instantly wanted to kick something. “Have you ever actually helped any pony with a cutie mark problem!” she yelled after him.
Ali Quid stopped, and turned back to look at her over his right flank. “Nope,” he said. “I’ve yet to meet a pony who actually had a cutie mark problem.” He turned back and continued walking.
The next day, Nee filled her water barrel, gathered her tool skirt and wagon and began to walk on the road heading west. There was not much else to do.
She walked for days upon days. The desert gave way to hills, the sagebrush to green grass Then came birch and pine. Nee found more to eat, and, even better, more to drink. Her walking became brisker, she even spoke to other ponies she met along the road, but she always kept walking, and always kept her tool skirt on.
As she walked she sometimes thought of building, and what if felt like to build and the kind of wonderful things she could build. Late one night, while in such a rumination, her gaze came upon a silvery clearing a stone’s throw from the road. She hiked the short distance to it and found an opening in the wood flooded by the full moon’s light. The light poured in through an opening in the ash trees to the south. To the north, a great stand of bamboo had started to crowd its way in. She discovered a sparkling stream of sweet water and berries and grasses to eat. She unpacked her wagon and, when the sun rose, she began to build again.
She started each day with the rising sun and escaped into her dreamy world of building. She saw the wood reshaping and coming together, bringing a new structure into the world. When the sun went down she stopped work and ate all she could, for she would forget to eat during the day, and drink all she could, for she forgot this as well, and then she would fall asleep, exhausted.
Before the moon could change its phase from full to new, she had built a house for herself. The structure had the shape of a great wing, the tip stretching off toward the South. The roof sat high to let in the light and the view of the ocean. She had crafted it with the living bamboo, woven and worked together. For the interior framing, she used square-set timbering made from cypress and cedar so that the smell would calm and relax her. She had included ventings and windows so her tools would stay dry, but a healthy air-flow would continue to circulate.
Nee stepped back and admired her work. She thought it lovely, and so well blended with the surrounding wood that it looked as if it had grown there from a strange seed. She felt, every inch, a builder again, and cutie mark or no, a builder she was.
Making up her mind, she once again packed up her wagon and loaded her tool skirt and took to the open road. At the first crossroad she came to, whereas before she would look to avoid towns and communities, this time she turned toward them.
She approached the town of Atarashi from above, coming down from the Sea of Clouds with a grand view of the South Luna Ocean. More and more ponies appeared on the road as she grew closer. Most seemed to be in a hurry; yet, they remained surprisingly civil, saying hello, or good day, even as they rushed passed.
Although Atarashi was not a large town, it did have a town center and many beautiful buildings. They were all made with red brick. And not just plain bricks, but bricks cast in the form of faces and plants and animals, many of which had begun to crumble from the weather.
“What kind of thing is this?” asked a short grey pony with blue spots on her rump and a typewriter as a cutie mark. She had come up to Nee from behind.
At first, Nee was concerned but quickly realized she was referring to her tool skirt.
“Oh,” she said, with some relief. “I call it a tool skirt,” and then having nothing else to say added, “it holds my tools.”
“Never see anything like it. And these tools,” and then the grey pony seemed to sense she had gotten carried away. “Ki,” she introduced herself, “I’m Ki Kai. I run the local paper,” she said nodding at the building in the center of the town.
“Pleased to meet you, I’m Nee Hill. I’m new, I’m not from around here. Just came in, walking, today. Walking.” She decided it would be best to stop talking.
“May I have a closer, look at this?” asked Ki, “putting her nose almost right up against some of the tools.
Nee understood, that she had been wearing the tool skirt this whole time, understood that no pony here knew she had no cutie marks, and understood that here was a member of the press who would like nothing more than an unusual story. Of all the ponies to reveal herself to, if she did it to her, there was no going back.
“Of course, you can,” Nee said with all the warmth and friendship she could muster, and with a flourish, whipped the skirt from her back and laid it out before Ki.
Ki was mesmerized by the contents of the tool skirt. She asked about each device and pocket. Nee made no attempt to hid the fact that she had no cutie mark, but Ki’s eyes never left the skirt. But Ki’s weren’t the only eyes in town and the scene of the tool skirt examination did not go unnoticed.
Ponies began to gather. Ponies began to talk. Ponies began to make Nee feel very uncomfortable. At last, one spoke directly to her.
“I’m sorry for my rudeness,” said a pony with a short blue tail at last, “but I was hoping to learn why you don’t have a cutie mark. You seem, old enough,” she clearly wasn’t trying to be rude but was clearly failing not to be. Even Ki now looked up and had taken notice.
“Strange,” Ki said.
“Yes,” said Nee politely, “I don’t have a cutie mark, but I am a builder.”
“How do you know that?” asked another pony.
“Maybe you have a greater hidden talent,” said another.
“No,” said Nee confidently. “I am a builder. I enjoy building.” Then, to ensure she could not go back added, “I had a cutie mark once. One with a hammer. It disappeared.”
“What?!” some pony cried out.
“Is such a thing possible?” said another.
“Is she sick?” said a third, and Nee took that to be her cue. She excused herself from Ki who now had out a glowing green quill and was madly writing, collected up her took skirt which she folded and put in the wagon so that, her lack of a cutie mark would not be hidden, and headed back to out of town to her home in the hills.
The town ponies didn’t follower her very far, maybe thinking better of it. The walk back gave her time to think through the whole scenario over and over. But it wasn’t like when she left Arrojar. She knew what she was, a builder; and if they didn’t see that, that was their problem. She arrived back at her home, the sweeping front welcomed her, the cypress and cedar calmed her and she felt okay and proud of who she was.
---
“Sweet Celestia!” shouted a voice waking Nee from a nap. “This is amazing.” It was Ki, the reporter had apparently followed her home and then invaded her private space.
“Come for a story about the pony who lost her cutie mark,” said Nee without as much sarcasm as she would have liked.
“Oh, of course,” said Ki without shame, “But this,” she said looking about Nee’s house, “This is the real story. Did you build this?”
“Yes,” said Nee with some confusion. “How is my house ‘the story.’”
“Our homes are regularly damaged in mudslides because we don’t build with the land like you do. All our homes are made of brick which crumbles and weakens with age, but you’ve built your roof will living bamboo! We need you,” Ki concluded.
“Well, I seem to have difficulty finding employment,” said Nee, “and I don’t think a positive press story is going to change any of that.”
“Employment? Don’t you worry about that--I’ll hire you.”
“I’m a builder, not a reporter.”
“Obviously. You’re not clever enough to be a reporter. But you are a fantastic builder. And I happen to also be the mayor, and I would like you to be on my civic planning team.”
“Even without a cutie mark?”
“I’m not offering you a job based on your looks. You have what we need.”