Daring had actually spent the bulk of her cute-ceañera actively avoiding ponies, despite being mostly familiar with the rest of the town. During this avoidance period, she was adorably stuffing her face with gingersnaps, her favorite of all snacks. Star Log watched from a bit of a distance with her favorite toy, the green star that was always smiling; she had named Astro.
She spotted “Grammy” sneak up on Daring and handed Daring an orange cat plush doll, which the filly promptly hugged close and giggled in delight over. It was a tradition of the mare all the foals affectionately called “Grammy” to give ponies a plush doll on their cute-ceañera. She was an elderly earth pony mare, and had been around in the town for as long as anypony could remember; that was a fading blue color; she often offset this by wearing complementary colors to her coat. Today she was in an ocean blue dress that had red and green trimming. Nopony knew what her cutie mark was; she always had it hidden beneath her attire.
After everypony had left and their parents had gone to do things in their workspaces, with their dad making a comment about writing a song about the two of them getting their cutie marks on his way to the space he used as an office. Star Log approached her sister and said, “So, what are you going to name your little companion?” She wanted to avoid assigning a gender to the toy, part of the fun of them was seeing what the gender the owner assigned the toy along with the name; most of the foals typically assigned the toys a one-word name.
“Gingersnap,” said Daring with glee, “she kinda has the same color as gingersnaps.”
Star Log playfully rolled her eyes, which her sister didn’t notice. Daring Do loved gingersnaps, to the point she would actually risk getting into trouble to snag some freshly baked ones. She would hopefully grow out of that, but it wasn’t all that likely. Star Log was the same way with chocolate star cookies; despite their name, they were more rounded treats with what looked like a big chocolate chip sticking out of the middle. At one point, she had tried to make them actually star-shaped; that experiment had gotten the kitchen so messy she had spent a full hour cleaning everything up without any breaks.
Daring wasn’t all too social; that would probably hurt her in school. Star would have to see about making her little sister a bit more sociable; that might be a bit more tricky than she thought. Star absolutely adored challenging herself, and so did Daring, but the ways the two sought to push themselves were very different.
Star Log wanted to see her sister in a more social environment, even if it was with just a single friend. She was always going to try finding ways to help her little sister, even if said sister insisted she didn’t need any of that. The two were an interesting contrast; Star was only outgoing when it came to social things but was pretty much dedicated to just learning new things and reading most of the time; Daring was generally more outgoing but had a tendency to steer clear of social interactions for some reason. Daring was more interested in finding new things than meeting new ponies, and the only exception to her no interaction rule was her family, especially Star Log.
Star Log had some ideas of what to do, but they could take a while to implement properly. But for now, she had a little sister that had just had the party celebrating the getting of her cutie mark to deal with. No matter what, she knew she could handle anything that came up with her sister.
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Star Log wasn’t ready for this, at all. She thought she was, but she wasn’t; the sight had caused her to quickly rush behind a corner to calm herself down. Daring Do, her darling baby sister, was currently in a state of being a bastion of cuteness, of the highest order, it would seem. Daring had always been pretty adorable munching on her favorite snack, gingersnaps, but now the five-year-old filly was elevated to new heights of cuteness with the addition of her new favorite toy, ironically named Gingersnap, and was doing every unintentionally cute things a filly her age was known for. Star Log had nearly suffered a heart attack just seeing the sight; their mother was actually in the same room now but didn’t seem to be affected to the extent of Star.
That all changed when their mother, the pegasus known as Astra Showers, rounded the corner and slumped down next to Star and said, “I thought I could handle it; I did so well last time this happened.”
“Mom,” said Star, “are you okay?”
“I will be in a moment, my little navigator,” said her mother, “mommy just wasn’t expecting your little sister to have such an intense wave of cuteness with her new toy.”
“What’s Daring doing now,” came her Father’s slightly melodic voice with a hint of gruffness from his workstation, followed by a quick snicker of amusement at his unintentional joke. One thing could be said about her father, Keen Tone, and that was he could be pretty oblivious to some things. Ever since Daring had gotten her mark, he had been spending almost all his time in the room he had commandeered as his workplace; he claimed to be working on a song to celebrate the getting the cutie marks of both Star and Daring, a piece he wouldn’t let anypony see for some reason.
“Eating her favorite snack with her new toy,” said her mother, “but for some reason, the cuteness she’s exuding is making anypony who sees it feel like they’re having an onset of heart trouble.”
“Is she making a show of feeding the toy the snack she’s munching on,” inquired her father’s voice.
“Yes,” said Star, “we’re at a loss of what to do.”
“Just do what you did with Star Log,” said her father from the room as he continued his work.
“Luring her to the study with a new book so I can do what I did last time isn’t going to work with Daring,” said Astra.
Star Log wanted to feel annoyed at how her parents had played her with that ploy, but she didn’t want to get into that can of worms at the moment. Then she was struck with an idea, “Daring is overly adventurous; she wants to go out on an adventure of some kind,” said Star Log, “if we make a map leading somewhere and slip it to her during the refill portion of her snack then we can ‘help’ her with her prep work and have some say in what she has packed for the treasure hunt.”