Kylie was always there for me. Through the worst of times we always managed to build each other back up. We always knew what to say. Now... I'm just a familiar face. 

Before the numbness, it was a flurry of mixed emotions she decided to ignore. She swallowed her emotions, wiped away her tears, felt her heart go cold and slumped with numb acceptance as she exited the  Rose's room without another word to face Kylie.

Because her reaction was the only one that mattered.

She knew her father would be ecstatic, maybe Issac would congratulate her since he knew so little of her attitude towards cutie marks. The kids at school might leave her alone, finally, but in the end it all came down to how Kylie accepted it, if she did at all. 

"Jet I'm sorry darling, but you need to close your door!"

"But here she comes! Summer!"

Summer blinked in surprise at Jet's excited voice. She didn't feel particularly excited. She didn't feel much of anything at all. 

The little multicolored colt scurried over to her from his partially opened door and smiled wider than she had ever seen in the time they had known each other. 

"You got your cutiemark! Just like Rose said you would!" He exclaimed, though even through his excitement his voice was still hushed shyly. Summer didn't fully process his words before Dr. Iris, the mare who before had been chastising him, came forward as well with a similarly excited expression. 

"Oh, Summer! It fits you swimmingly!"

"Thanks..." Summer mumbled, not really seeing the navy maned mare. 

"I wonder what it could mean! We must show your father and friends immediately! Come come!" Dr. Iris trotted off merrily and waved for her to follow down the hall but Summer followed at her own slower pace. Jet wilted slightly as she passed him with dark eyes but followed closed behind her, devoted but worried. 

When they reached the lobby, Kylie was the first of the four ponies to halt conversation and look over, and Summer's stomach dropped. The white unicorn trotted forward with a role of her eyes and exasperated sigh.

"Summer! There you are. We've been waiting for over ten minutes! What were you and Rose-" The violet maned filly's heartbeat thickened as Kylie noticed her mark. "talking... about..." 

The other ponies looked at her in confusion before noticing as well, and their predictable reactions played out just as Summer thought. Her father's face broke into a proud and watery smile. Isaac trotted forward and congratulated her while his own father congratulated hers with a punch on the arm and a hearty laugh. 

However she only heard all these things. She couldn't take her attention away from the only friend that really mattered. The one staring at her with a surprised face, just as frozen as she was.

Summer knew Kylie. She was shy and quiet, and plain and submissive. But there was so much they shared that made her the most important. She was her first friend in Ponyville. She was her confidant and place of silent comfort. She enjoyed artistry and nerdy board games and had a world of colorful imagination just beneath her tempered surface. Sometimes they had conflicting taste and differing activities, but they shared the most important thing in the world between friends. 

Values. 

They knew what was more important when a situation called for it. 

And Summer saw it click within her, the right reaction. 

And boy was it unexpected. 

Summer didn't know what happened. One second she was standing there, gloomily accepting congratulations and the next she was enveloped in the tightest hug she had ever experienced, from whom she believed was the least capable of giving, with the most high pitched squeal of absolute glee being rung right into her ear as they spun around.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee! You finally got it! I'm so happy! And look at it! It totally suits you! What is it! Tell me tell me now!" When Kylie finally put her down she was still reeling from the reaction and wobbly replied. 

"Wr... writing..?"

"Writing?! Of course! How could we have been so stupid! Of course it's writing! Just look at it!" Summer, in her confused state, looked down at her cutiemark for the first time and her eyes widened at what she saw. 

A composition notebook with a pencil laid across. It was so simple... yet so telling. But also... so untelling? Writing could mean so many things!

"Woah thanks for the expansive talent, cutiemark. Writing could mean anything!" Kylie's eyes sparkled and she laughed as Summer's grumpiness clawed it's way back to the surface. 

"That's the best part! Now I want all the details on the way back! Leave NOTHING out!"

"I'm leaving things out. In spite of your stupid smiling face."

~o0o~

"Cutiemark life" was only slightly different from "normal life" as "cutiemark life" involved less harassment. 

For her. 

Kylie was still tripped and whispered about, but that didn't last very long. 

Three weeks after Summer discovered her talent, a sickness started spreading through the class in Ponyville. Summer was spared, which Kylie commented on saying "I bet you scared the sick away." Summer didn't find it amusing. Kylie and Isaac were not, however, and each took a day off to nurse the disease away. The next day, however, Isaac was late and Kylie was still sick, but on time despite the headache. 

It started out average, the foals either ignoring or staring at Summer and Kylie. But Kylie got dizzy when she got up from her seat and walked right into one of the other students desks, falling on the ground and taking everything on it with her. Summer was up in a heartbeat to help her up and pick up everything that dropped, but before she could get to her the filly who was sitting there blew her top and yelled in annoyance.

"Oh come on! Clumsy blank flank, you got ink all over my Foal Free Press Report!" Kylie pushed herself up off the floor, rubbing her head weakly when the foal pushed her back on the ground, an angered look on her face. The filly's around them started yelling in encouragement and the colts on the other side of the room watched with bored expressions, a few interested, but overall non reactive. 

Summer flew to her side and helped her up, the unicorn looking sick and weak. 

"I shouldn't have come to school today..." Summer's eyed slowly hardened as the filly's and colts around them did nothing to help, the replacement teacher at the front of the room not making a move to quiet them, assuming this would resolve itself. 

"No..." Summer felt her insides grow hot and her horn crackle. "What shouldn't be, is you being treated this way..." She gently placed Kylie on the wall before turning around and stomping her front hooves into the wooden floor, leaving an indent of violet veins which disappeared into cracks in the wood. All the ponies in the class took a step back in fear of the suddenly very loud, very bright and very angry unicorn who's true powers were unfolding in her outrage. "HOW DARE YOU! All of you! Treating a filly who's only difference from the rest of you being a lack of a cutiemark! What happened to the magic of friendship of which an entire school has been dedicated to! Of which a princess has been assigned to spread! A princess who's origins of LEARNING the magic of friendship began in THIS VERY TOWN! What happened to common decency and friendliness! Ever since I first stepped in this town the only ponies I seem to be getting it from is everypony who's not a little bratty FOAL! You should all be ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES FOR YOUR ACTS OF SELFISH AND TOXIC AMUSEMENT!" 

Violet lightning danced around the little filly's translucent eyes and pulsating horn. The substitute teacher started yelling for the students to leave the room immediately but the door shrunk to a size that only a mouse could get through. The windows shattered one by one and glass flew outward instead of onto the students who's desks shook and rattled, moving away from the furious filly and towards the corners of the room. 

The substitute gathered all the children together and put them behind him, shaking as Summer started taking steps toward him. 

"None of you understand what it's like to be rejected for just existing at your own pace. I have a few ideas on how to make you taste that kind of life!" Summer's horn crackled even further and the foals cutiemarks started fading away one by one. The foals started crying as they saw them go but Summer didn't laugh, she took no amusement in this. She only felt anger, it was all she could think about. 

Until, someone touched her shoulder. 

Her head snapped over her left shoulder to see who would be stupid enough to touch her in this state. Low and behold, of course it was Kylie. 

"Summer stop it! They're not worth the effort!" Summer stared, wielding a powerful flame fueled by years of buried wrath burning up everything but itself within her. Kylie's words poured over her like a slow bucket of water, putting it out only slightly. 

"Please..." The final nail in the coffin to containing her anger was set with that plea, and while Summer's sanity returned her magic slowly faded from crackling lighting to a slight glow to a dim, burnt out glimmer. The door grew back to it's normal size and the students cutiemarks all returned. The substitute hurried them all out the door, most of them fleeing as though for their lives with cries of terror and pleas for their parents.

Summer felt the burning within her turn to a sizzle and suddenly her body locked up, numbed and pulsated all at the same time. She fell, the last thing she would remember being Kylie, calling out her name and a few other shadowy figures coming to look down at her.

Then... darkness.