//------------------------------//
// The Open Road 
// Story: The Building of Nee Hill 
// by TeddyG 
//------------------------------//

    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.