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// Nightmares: Trouble on the Pony Express 
// Story: New Beginnings: Bluebelle 
// by Bloobweez 
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Tuesday night, you had asked Star Light to be, how she put it, study buddies. Which means that since then you'd had three mornings and two evenings staring at homemade learning references in bright pastel colors and subjected to listening to countless songs and other mnemonic devices. So, you know, like you were in kindergarten again. For the second, wait no third, time. And god fucking damnit, while you felt like you were being treated even younger than you were as a horse, it was fucking working. You honestly weren't sure if you could be upset with how it was going and that ultimately made you more upset, like dying to the Hellkite Dragon in Dark Souls. Yeah, sure, that was a pretty cheap death but at the same time, you'd seen it earlier and there were all of those scorch marks on the bridge.

Fast forward to now, where you were honest to god wishing you were a mudhorse as Star clutched your hind hooves, trying to keep you from leaving. 

"But- but we need to study! We could study together all weekend!" You didn't care how good she was at teaching, you've never done school before on the weekends and you weren't about to start now. It didn't help that your parents were actually on your side on this matter, after all they were the ones taking you away for the weekend. 

"I'm sorry, Star, but I have to go on this camping trip. Miss Fish wants to spend some time with me since she couldn't make the birthday party." Looking back at her, she almost looked like she was on the verge of tears. She wasn't, thankfully, but it still looked a bit close for comfort. "Listen, I'll be home Sunday night and if I'm back before my bedtime, maybe we can do some studying then."

While that might be enough for most people, it wasn't enough for Star and so she had to push for more. "And have a slumber party?" Oh jeez, you weren't sure you could handle that. Having to study on a weekend AND have a sleepover? 

Deciding to bet against the odds you put on your best half smile and nodded, "Yeah, sure. I can ask Mom and Dad about it, but we probably won't know until Sunday night." 

That half a promise to see about asking for permission seemed more than enough for her as that frown quite literally turned upside down and your legs were freed as she started hopping around the hallway, "Slumber party, slumber party, slumber party!" You glanced down both ends of the hallway, wondering just how many others were seeing this but it seemed to just be the two of you. 

"Well, anyway, I had better get packed so I guess I'll see you Monday." 

"Or Sunday!" 

"Yeah! Or Sunday..." You slowly backed up towards your door, watching her display as she went back to chanting slumber party, and once you bumped into the door you quickly spun around and opened it, blurting out "Okay bye!"

Once the door was closed you could still hear the chanting on some level and briefly wondered just how long she would be there. You figured she should hopefully be done by the time you actually left and turned around, half expecting Dad to surprise you again but instead found him plainly visible moving from the kitchen to the living room, carrying a couple of brown paper bags in his muzzle. 

"Hey Mom, hey Dad, I'm home from school," you called as you made your way to the living room. Turning the corner you were met with the living room in a rather different state than what it usually was. Three larger than usual saddlebags lay at one end of the floor, each with a sleeping mat unrolled between the bags and yourself. The three sleeping mats themselves were covered with all sorts of necessities one might need for camping, including such things as a fire striker, rope, tarps, and tent poles.

"Oh, wow. We're going all out this weekend huh?"

"Yupperee," replied Dad as he divvied out the bags to each mat.

"I'm surprised we aren't going to be doing any fishing while we're there."

"Nope, that's what Flying Fish does, it's how she got her cutiemark y'know," Mom piped in as she looked between the two books in her hooves in front of her, ultimately focused in on which one she's going to bring. At least that strange cutiemark of a floundering fish finally makes sense.

"Is there anything I can do to help with packing?"

After finally deciding who he wanted to get each lunch, Dad made his way back over to you, "No no no, it's fine sweetie, we've got it all covered. Why don't you grab a snack and by the time you're done we should be all ready to go."

"Wait, we're leaving already?"

"Yup! Celestia can't keep the sun up forever, y'know," he said, giving you a nuzzle on the top of your head before moving past to the hallway closet. Looking back in the living room you saw Mom set one book down on the mat and the other away... And then an instant later swapped them and fluttered above the congested floor to begin packing the bags. Despite six years of being a filly, you still hadn't gotten used to other people doing everything around the house for you, on some level it made you feel kind of useless. Not wanting to be in the way, you made your way to the kitchen, grabbed an apple, and sat at the table just biting into it. Having some time to yourself was nice, but you couldn't shake that feeling, and to be honest you weren't exactly looking forward to seeing Cotton again.

The only real good thing about Cotton was that he was another person from Earth that had woken up here on Equestria as a foal, so at the very least you had someone to confide in about the day to day dealings of trying to not out yourself. On the other hand, he was... Well, let's just say the two of you would have never been friends on Earth, even before he tried to make you his girlfriend while you were both still in diapers... Eugh. Hopefully he'd gotten better since the last birthday party he'd attended, he was getting a bit too close for comfort then and you could only assume he was still striking out with any actual ponies he knew. At least you'd be sleeping in tents presumably, so you could just say you didn't want to sleep away from Mom and Dad if he was still super creepy.

Between eating and getting caught up in your thoughts, you'd managed to kill enough time for Mom and Dad to get the bags all packed together and upon entering the living room again saw that it had been restored to its nice and clean status, the bags now sitting on both Mom and Dad's flanks with the sleeping mats rolled up and on their backs, and just your back which seemed only slightly larger than your school saddlebag sitting on the floor. 

"We only packed what you'd need, so if you've got anything else you want to bring, you'd better go get it before we leave," Dad said as he double checked the strap of his saddlebag. 

Shaking your head negatively, you trotted on over to your bags and set them on your flank, "Nope, I'm ready to go now." They both smiled down at you and you found yourself smiling right back at them, sure you might have to deal with Cotton again, but it had been forever since you'd been camping. You could even remember the exact weekend, it was after you had gotten accepted into college.

Your dad had decided to reward you by taking you and some friends out to a local forest and after spending all day Friday hiking out you had found the perfect campsite along a stream. After setting up camp the four of you were so tired you didn't even bother with making a fire or roasting any marshmallows, opting to instead go right to bed. The next morning you and dad woke up at the crack of dawn and got some fishing done so when the other two woke up breakfast was ready. Much of the day was dedicated to just hanging out, collecting firewood for that night, some more fishing. That night was actually the night dad showed you how to start a fire just by rubbing sticks together... You weren't too sure you'd be able to do that with hooves...

You let out a sigh of despair as you thought back to then. You sometimes wondered what you would say to your parents if you had a chance to before all of this happened. What they had been doing ever since you left. Had they given up hope of ever seeing you again? Had you? If you were given the chance to go back home, right at this instant, to go back to being a college student, be able to see your family and friends again, would you? Could you do that to your new family? Dare you say, your new friends? Every day you spent here it got harder and harder to make that decision. And yet every so often, the same questions would come filling your mind. Perhaps, would you have been better off if you had somehow experienced infantile amnesia and lost your... you?

Trying to put those thoughts behind you, you found that your gaze had drifted to the floor and upon looking back up found your new parents, your new Mom and Dad, looking down at with worry all over their faces. It ultimately didn't help your own mood, but you had a role to play for the time being. 

These two had been nothing but loving of you ever since you arrived here, and so you put on a smile and piped up, "So, let's get going, we don't wanna be late!" It didn't completely eliminate the worry in their faces, but the relief was clear. There was no reason to bog them down with your inner conflicts, especially not right before a family vacation of sorts, so when they didn't immediately start moving you started a trot to the door and called out, "Last one outside is a rotten egg!" That seemed to work as you quickly heard Dad start galloping after you and so the race was on.

Luckily you had enough of a lead on him so you were able to get out the door first, and in the deepest depths of your mind you noted that Star had indeed finally left, but while in the hallway Dad started to catch up and past you. Deciding you couldn't win a physical match against him, you instead went for the brains over brawn approach and merely grabbed onto his tail and fluttered your wings to keep from hitting the ground. It took a moment for him to notice the extra weight, but when he did he grinned back at you and started leaping his way around, causing you to fly both up and down, until finally you saw the goal line in sight. At this point you realized the failure in your planning, if he's faster than you and in front of you there's no way you can overtake him. With the door of the building getting closer and closer, your window to not be a rotten egg became smaller and smaller, until finally you had an idea. Channeling your inner-Nathan Drake, you pulled yourself up his tail, over the sleeping mat, and along Dad's back until finally you were right behind his neck. Getting closer still, you made your way around so that you were in front of his neck and at the last possible moment you pushed yourself off and glided through the double doors, proving for now and forever that you are indeed not a rotten egg.

And then you tumbled across the sidewalk as you crash landed and tried to make the world stop spinning. Trying to focus your eyes, you saw about twenty different 'phantoms' of Dad approach you and sit down in front of you. 

As the twenty became ten which became five and so on, they all reached forward and gave you a boop on the snout, "You may have won, but that just makes Mom the rotten egg." ... Right, shit. But at least you were still first! You even tried to voice this fact, but all that came out was some gurgling noises. 

Once Dad was finally a single figure and no longer multiple phantoms of himself, he leaned in close putting one eye to your vision and looked inside your own eyes for a moment before smiling, "Eeeeh, you'll be fine."

You shook your head out, trying to reset horse.exe and finally blinked yourself back to alertness. "Aha, I was first!" 

You received a pat on the head from Dad who reassured you, "You were indeed first, but I'm still not a rotten egg," and then followed it up with sticking his tongue out at you. Not one to be one upped, you stuck yours back at him and so began a great contest of who could make the silliest looking face. 

Said competition of titans was interrupted once Mom finally exited the building, "I swear, I can't leave you two alone for a minute. You didn't even bother trying to close the door to our apartment." 

You were quick to call out that it was "Dad's fault!" but she continued, "Now if you two are done fooling around, we need to catch our train."

With the party reassembled and any downer topics removed from the front of your mind, your trio carried on to the train station and caught the southbound rail towards Baltimare. Getting on board went without a hitch and with minutes to spare you were all seated and ready to go. That was when realtalk started...

"Bluebelle, what's wrong?" asked Dad, and turning your gaze from out the window to your parents, you saw they had the worried looks on their faces again. 

Adopting your most innocent looking poker face, you glanced between them, "What do you mean? We're gonna go see Aunt Fishie!" 

They both shared a look of 'not accepting this shit' before turning back to you, this time Mom speaking up, "Whatever it is, you can tell us. We'll understand." 

You sorely doubted that and doubled down, "I don't know what you're talking about." 

Dad reached out with his wing and wrapped it around you before pulling you close to him, "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But we both saw you back in the apartment, and we want to be able to help you Bluebelle." God damn it, they weren't going to let up. You tried flipping through your Cliff Notes version of soap opera plot lines but it was failing you, and looking between the two you were starting to seriously consider telling them. Just opening up right then and there, that you weren't actually six years old, in fact you were closer to thirty six years old. That you may very well be older than them. You bit your tongue to try and prevent it from spilling the beans, to maintain the illusion that you were in fact their daughter and not a human who had woken up in their bed one day. 

As you felt your will failing, Mom cut you off, "We'll let it go for now, Bluebelle, but please... Whenever you're ready to talk, we'll both be here to listen." She topped it off with a reassuring smile and looking at Dad you could see that this probably wasn't a spur of the moment thing. It took you a moment to swallow the words you were so close to belting out and followed it up with a nod before turning your gaze back out the window to watch the train move along, and yet you could still feel them looking down at you. 

Swallowing again, you turned back to look at the two and put on perhaps the weakest smile you had since waking up as a foal, even if you didn't mean to, "Thanks... I will..." You know, as soon as you came up with a lie that works. For the meantime, it was train time.