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// Setting the Stage: The Adventure Begins 
// Story: New Beginnings: Bluebelle 
// by Bloobweez 
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The one thing college will always have over school is that you got to pick when your classes were, and generally if you were smart you could avoid having to go to class five days a week. Now that you were a filly, however, you had to wake up at eight in the morning every day so that you could be in class come nine thirty. That is, unless it was a day in which dad and Night Hook had work... making the weather happen... You know, that thing that happens every day. In which case you got woken up around six by Night coming to drop off Star since the two of you were in the same class. It was very rare for her to not immediately jump onto your bed and wake you up, and today was no different.

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" she chanted while hopping on your bed, you replying with a groan and some muttered words that would probably earn you a bar of soap in your mouth had Mom been present. As the hopping continued, you pulled the blanket down just enough to uncover your one eye and instantly your view was blocked by the smiling lavender filly, "Hi Blue!"

"... Sup," you sleepily managed to get out before trying to pull the blanket back over your head. Your attempt was thwarted, however, when Star grabbed the blanket from you and flew up with it, completely exposing you. "AHH! The light, it buuuuuuurns!" you cried out in agony, some of it faked some of it you just not wanting to be awake this early. 

"Come oooonnnn why aren't you ever awake when I come over!" Star whined, still holding the blanket out of reach of your clutching hooves. 

"Because the sun is evil!" you exclaimed as you curled up on the barren bed. Almost on cue, Star's strength seemed to give out as she dropped down onto the bed, inadvertently covering herself in the pink blanket. 

Instantly recovering she poked her head out of the mess of blanket and filly, "What, you can't say that, you'll make Celestia cry!" Oh right, you seem to have a habit of forgetting that this place has a literal sun god, and even worse it's actually an actual being.

As you sat up to pull the blanket back over yourself, you replied, "Eh, Luna's best princess anyway." 

"WHAT! You're just saying that because she's blue too!" 

Now that you had your blanket, you once again consumed yourself in the darkness underneath of it, "Aaaaaand she has a cooler mane. It's all stars and stuff. Better than a pastel rainbow."

You waited several moments for Star's reply, and eventually you got what you wished for as she scuttled under the covers with you and poked her face right up against yours, "You've met Princesses Celestia and Luna!?" 

Your first response was letting out a yelp, and then after you processed the information, "... How did you get under here so quick?"

Butting her head against yours, Star Light pursued the question, "Come on, did you meet them or not?" 

It took you a minute to come up with a lie since you couldn't just go ahead and tell Star that you saw them in a TV show from before you were born, but finally you came up with "Uhhh, no, I just saw them once on a poster for a play."

Seeing the disappointment in Star's eyes made you feel kind of bad for upsetting the poor filly, so finally you decided to get up and looked down at her, "Did you already get a bath before coming here?" She shook her head negatively, still a bit down, and so you had to offer, "... Do you want to get a bath together?" 

The very next instant you were tackled onto the ground, your ears being filled with "Yes yes yes!" and immediately after that she grabbed you by your tail and trotted out to the kitchen, dragging you along the floor. 

You could smell the coffee before you spotted the orange coat of Mom from your position on the ground but once you did you had to raise a hoof, "Hey mom, uhhh, Star wants a bath before school too." 

Finally releasing your tail, Star piped up, "Yeah, Blue and I can have bath time together!" 

Mom chuckled as she tilted her head to finally see you eye to eye without the table blocking your views any longer, "Well I see she's woken you up for me, so I guess I have to return the favor."

"Yay!" Star exclaimed before hugging you and causing the two of you to roll along the floor. 

"Shhhh, not everyone is awake this early Star," Mom chimed in as she made her way past the two of you and to the bathroom. 

"Oh, sorry Mrs. Belle." 

Mom had a chuckle as she continued on and you groaned, "Just because my name is Bluebelle doesn't mean her last name is Belle."

Star looked at you confusingly, "Last name?" 

"... Family name," Damn pony naming conventions. 

"Is this more of your Earth story stuff?" 

"Yeeeeah..." You had given up any chance of being firmly rooted in Equestrian culture for several years, and so whenever you introduced something to ponies that had no idea what the thing you were talking about was, you just said you were writing stories of a fictional land called Earth, and luckily it worked. 

"When am I going to get to reeeaaaaad it?" Star pleaded. 

"Maybe when I actually finish it," or y'know, actually write it. 

Getting off of you with a huff, Star started making her way to the bathroom, "That's what you always say!" 

"Well I don't want to show it to anypony unfinished!" you replied as you followed her.

When the two of you entered the bathroom, you found the full tub waiting along with a towel on the floor, the same rubber duck from your first days in Equestria floating in the water, and Mom looking at you two expectantly, "Well, come on, enough cleaning the floor with your manes and into the water you two." 

"Hey, it was Star's faul-" you were quickly cut off by the other filly cannon balling into the tub and you getting a face full of water. Probably a good thing Mom always put the towel down before either of you could get in the tub. At least the water was warm. 

Fluttering up as high as your weak wing muscles could get you, you made your way over the tub and gently settled down in the water, "I swear, any day now and you two are gonna be flying all across Equestria." 

You dunked your head down under the water and raised it back up to the sight of the rubber duck being squeaked in your face by Star, which you returned with a deadpan look, "I think first I'm going to have to be able to fly across the living room without landing on my face." 

Not dismayed with your failure to react, Star squeaked the duck a couple more times, "Oh hush, if you just keep at it you'll finally get the hang of it, just look at Star!" As if to rub in the fact that you still had issues with flying, Star lifted herself above the tub with a giddy grin on her face before dropping and causing another big splash, this time combined with her laughter.

"See? In no time you'll both be a couple of parasprites and I'll have to offer you food to get you back onto the ground. Speaking of, what does everyone want for breakfast?" 

In unison both you and Star shouted, "Pancakes!" 

Smiling to herself, mom turned her back and made her way out, "All right then, my little parasprites, pancakes coming up! Just make sure you two don't spend all morning playing and actually clean yourselves up." Turning your attention back to the other filly in the tub with you, you saw her slowly approaching you with only the top half of her head poking out of the water. 

Oh God, she's doing the shark routine, not again... "H-Hey Star, you wanna... Actually get cleaned up for once? Then we can get pancakes sooner!" As you saw her continuing to 'swim' at you, you knew there was no hope. Backing up away from her, you found yourself at the edge of the tub and in prime pouncing position, and so Star did what she always did and made a loud rawring sound as she pounced you, causing another large splash of water.  As you raised yourself from the splash, again with a deadpan face, you wondered if your face would actually freeze like this.

"Did you have any dreams last night?" Star said completely ignoring her being a shark a second ago. 

As you grabbed the bottle of mane shampoo and began lathering up your own mane, you replied, "I don't think so, if I did I certainly didn't remember them." 

With a smirk, Star filled your face with her pastel yellow tail, "Maybe because your Princess Luna isn't as good as Celestia." 

With a sigh you stopped working on your own mane and began lathering the other filly's tail, "Listen, Luna has a lot of responsibilities. Celestia is responsible for just a single star, whereas Luna has to keep track of all of the rest of them." 

Judging by the look on her face, you definitely gave her some food for thought before she changed the topic back, "Yeah well I had a dream last night. Mommy got me a pet dragon and I named him Fossils!" 

Finishing up with her tail you went back to your mane only to have her put her mane in your face next, and with a sigh of defeat you once again put your own mane on hold in order to wash Star's, "Well, how'd you fit a whole dragon in your apartment?" 

"Pfft, it wasn't a whole dragon silly filly! It was a baby dragon!" 

"Wait, are baby dragons common pets?" 

"Well noooooo but it was a dream so I got a baby dragon pet!" 

Finishing up her mane you finally were able to go back to your own, "Sounds fun. Did you do your homework last night?" 

She grabbed the bottle of fur shampoo and held it out to you, "Yup! And no you can't copy off of me again!" 

You paused for a moment and decided to continue lathering up your own mane, not taking the bottle, "Well fine then, I guess you'll just need to clean yourself up." You could see the internal debate in Star's eyes as she looked at you with disbelief, shock even, before finally she settled on a pout and started washing herself in silence. "Yeah yeah, go ahead and pout, if you aren't scratching my back then I ain't gonna scratch yours." 

Her "Hmmph!" made you laugh to yourself a bit as you went about cleaning yourself up and within no time the two of you were all dried up and entering the kitchen.

Almost literally smacking you in the face as you entered through the doorway was the rich smell of pancakes and damn oh damn, if one thing could motivate you to actually fly more than, y'know, actually fucking flying, it was mutha. fuckin. pancakes. You lifted yourself up in the air and darted for a chair, hoping to land on it... Well, A for effort I guess.

As you looked up from your spot on the floor, you saw Mom staring down at you with a sigh, "You do know that you just got out of the tub, right?" You cracked an awkward smile before your rear end submitted to gravity and toppled over your head and landed with you on your stomach facing the cabinets. Before you could regain your balance and stand up on your own, you felt Mom grab you by the back of your neck with her mouth and then set you down at the table, where Star had already taken her seat and started digging in. 

Reaching for the fork, you found your hoof stopped by Mom's and turning to look at her, she had her super serious mom face on. "Bluebelle. No more rough housing or you're going back into the bath." You nodded silently, fucking parents. Once your hoof is freed you finally grab the fork and begin chomping down, the buttery and syrupy cakes filling you with all them feel good feelings. As you continued munching, you suddenly found your mouth being wiped with a napkin by Mom, sighing to herself, "No, seriously Blue, you literally just got out of the tub before coming to breakfast." 

This elicited a giggle from Star as you fussed, "I can just wash my face up afterwards, Mom..." 

"Uh huh, suuure you can... So how did you sleep?" 

Fussing some more so that you could speak without a napkin being shoved in your mouth, "A lot better than I'm currently eating, apparently." 

"Well that isn't too high of an accomplishment, now is it?" After deciding it's too much effort to both talk and eat at the same time, you resumed eating in silence and took pauses whenever Mom decided to pat your face with her napkin.

Breakfast ended with Star finishing before you because she didn't have a mare make her stop after each mouthful to wipe her mouth for nonexistent syrup, and from there all that was left was for you to finally do your homework. Surprisingly, the homework was actually some level of difficult as a filly, but that was more due to you working to understand the hoof based alphabet more than any issues with the conceptual parts of the content. Star was happy to help, especially with the math homework, while Mom cleaned up the kitchen and started making lunch for the two of you. By the time it was nine, however, you had finished your homework even if you couldn't quite grasp the difference between what would be a T and a X still, and the two of you were off to school with your backpacks and lunches packed.