//------------------------------// // Help Me, I'm Weird // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Well after dusk, when everyone else had gone to bed, Starlight sat on the couch in the living room, the sound of the shower filling her ears. She had a book and was skimming it leisurely. While she could have joined her friends in the bedroom pile, she wasn't tired, couldn't read in the dark, and Nyala had a point that it was warm at Kinmari. So she sat and read, turning through a book about dragons she had rented from the library. It was hard to tell whether and how much of it was fiction, when she had lived through so much stranger things herself. She read it half for entertainment, half to prepare herself in the event that she ever met a dragon, and with at least a flicker of curiosity that she might find something resembling Aegis and learn more about it... but it didn't seem likely. A telekinetic aura reached through the door from outside, unlocked it and swung it open, letting Jamjars in. Starlight questioned the utility of that lock. "Hi," Jamjars greeted, locking the door again behind her as if she expected no one to think of doing the same. She glanced around. "Is everyone sleeping?" Starlight turned a page. "Yes," she said. "There are leftovers if you're hungry." Jamjars nodded, lowering her voice. "I might be. But I had a good dinner." "Okay." Starlight kept reading. Jamjars watched, expecting her to say something, and eventually frowned. "You're not going to ask how my day went, are you?" "Do you want me to?" Starlight pretended to keep concentrating, even though her train of thought was thoroughly broken. "Oh, it's all the same to me." Jamjars straightened her mane. "It wouldn't be my loss if you miss out on anything interesting I have to say." "You're rude." Starlight brushed her off, continuing to stare at the book. Jamjars' jaw went slack, and she stared for a moment... and then huffed. "Fine. If you really want to know, I was making friends with the students." "Were you?" Starlight replied, using the tone of a father reading a newspaper. "Okay, now who's being rude?" Jamjars growled. "I'm trying to tell you that I have a plan to cheer everyone up, especially Shinespark, and you're invited to help!" Starlight blinked, actually surprised, looking up from the book. "You do?" "I do, and you are." Jamjars put on a self-satisfied smile. "Please ask me to tell it? I said please..." Starlight squinted. "You make even being polite sound haughty." Jamjars squinted more intensely back. "It's a force of habit. Comes from having siblings. Leave me alone. Please... deal with it and show some interest?" Pondering the possibility that Jamjars actually didn't know how to be polite, Starlight shrugged. "Okay. Tell me what you're doing." "There!" Jamjars looked pleased with herself again. "So there are a lot of students. They're pretty strong, and they live on an island, so they know a lot about boats. So I thought, why don't we ask them to fix Shinespark's ship?" Starlight bit her lip. "You know the engine is destroyed and they probably know nothing about northern harmony, right?" Jamjars appraised her, then nodded. "Maybe they don't. But do you think everyone would feel better about having a flying ship that's a piece of garbage and is depressing to look at, or a water ship that doesn't have holes in the deck, a missing railing, half the outer hull gone, scratches on everything and a permanently infused scent of reeking stallion?" The filly... actually had a point. "I guess there's a lot they could do to clean it up," Starlight admitted. "So you asked them for help?" "Of course I did." Jamjars ran a hoof through her mane. "And they thought I was cute and awkward and couldn't resist trying to make me happy. I found some friends of yours in house Laughter who even wanted to help organize things." "Huh." Starlight blinked, setting her book completely aside. "So it's not just a dream. What do you need me for, then?" Jamjars' face clouded, looking like she was trying too hard to pretend she hadn't just taken a massive insult. "You had better promise not to laugh, or tell anyone else." Starlight stared at her, then lowered her gaze. "In case you didn't notice, I don't really laugh a lot." Jamjars blinked and stared back. "That's sad. Too bad we can't trade places. It sounds like it would benefit both of us." She shrugged, and didn't start talking again, looking like something was caught on her tongue. "They..." Starlight waited patiently. "They think I'm all cute," Jamjars blurted, ears pressing back. "Oh, look, the filly's blushing and embarrassed, she must not know how to handle the attention, that's so precious, let's go along with her, she's cute and I want to make her happy! That's what most of them were like." Her shoulders stiffened. "Now, I have no problem leading from the bottom. It's a very effective tactic. But the problem is that I wasn't putting on an act and I'm not some clueless foal who's never been the center of attention before. I was embarrassed because... because there were so many... you know..." She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, forced a smile, and bowed very politely before Starlight. "Please teach me how to be a stick in the mud about romance like you so I'm not constantly distracted by daydreaming and pretty manes while I'm trying to get ponies to do what I want." Starlight blinked hard. "There! I said it." Jamjars' voice was strained and whimsical. "Look at me, talking about how not in control of myself I am! I bet you've been dying to hear that, rival. Probably in your daydreams, themselves." She wore a greatly chagrinned look. "Please accept this as tribute and teach me your self-denying yet occasionally useful ways." "...That's the strangest thing anyone's ever asked me," Starlight replied. "You want me to teach you how to... not care about romance?" "Yes." Jamjars nodded stiffly. "I do." Starlight had no clue how to answer that. "I understand if this is overwhelming," Jamjars patronized. "You probably never expected me to admit defeat in-" "Does this mean instead of wanting me to look at your posters with you, you want me to... do something opposite of that?" Starlight tilted her head. "How do I teach you not to do something?" Jamjars shrugged hard. "I don't know. You're the one who manages to resist the appeal. If I knew how to do it, I'd do it myself." She gave Starlight an intense look. "I'm at your mercy, here. Please?" Starlight sighed and got to her hooves. "First off, I don't care about being better than you. I don't enjoy being the best, alright?" Jamjars shrugged. "You've never had to compete with siblings for limited resources by being more worthy of notice and able to put them in their places." "No, I haven't," Starlight replied, "and so I have no reason to care." Jamjars grimaced. "Well, you also apparently have no reason to care about the potential exciting love lives of everyone around you, so there. How do you not care?" "Because I don't have a reason to?" Starlight frowned. "Fine..." Jamjars sighed, pulling off her satchel. "I'm getting out a poster. Please tell me what's so don't-care worthy about it." Starlight watched as the filly pulled out a large paper, neither giving permission nor refusing. Eventually, Jamjars spread out the poster she had stolen from the Spirit hideout so many months ago, Melia and Sirena singing together with their tails intertwined in a spiral. "It's two mares singing," Starlight said, looking at it. "We met them in person. There's nothing not special about it. There's just nothing special about it either." "Mhmm." Jamjars gave the poster a dubious look. "And you see their manes? How much work and effort went into them?" Starlight nodded. "They probably hired a stylist." "But how does that answer satisfy you!?" Jamjars blanched. "Here, imagine this: they're at a concert together, backstage with fifteen minutes to showtime. They've seen their stylists, they're all pretty. And then suddenly, the bow in Sirena's mane comes undone, and no one's around to fix it but Melia, who still has to finish her make-up! And Melia isn't a stylist, but she cares so much about Sirena that she tries to fix it-" "Stop," Starlight sighed, closing Jamjars' mouth with a hoof. Eventually, she lowered it, letting the filly speak again. "And then Sirena returns the favor by trying to finish her make-up at the same time..." Jamjars deflated. "How do you not get inspired to daydream like that?" Starlight shrugged. "Why would I do it in the first place?" "Because you're bored and live on your own in the same room on an enclosed boat for months and in a tiny house for years before that and have nothing better to do than figure out every way there is of using your imagination to entertain yourself?" Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "What did you even do for fun since we left Ironridge?" Starlight winced. Jamjars sighed. "Sorry I brought it up. You really need to enjoy yourself more." "And you're talking about wanting to enjoy yourself less." Starlight stared at the poster. "How many normal ponies do you think look at this and start daydreaming about them doing each other's make-up? I don't think this is a problem most ponies have..." Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Well, congratulations, you're the paragon of normalcy this weird filly happens to be asking how not to be weird. Can you help me or not?" "I'm sorry," Starlight apologized. "I don't even get why you like looking at these in the first place, let alone have a magic recipe for being less interested." "Because it's fun to imagine?" Jamjars slumped. "Well, it was worth a shot. I guess you tried." Starlight bit her lip. "Well, if you're trying to be less weird, you could always work on some other area you do have control over. I don't know how to change what you like, but maybe if you changed how you acted you'd feel different and that would help." "There's that Jamjars, so weird and..." Jamjars winced. "Right. Whatever. I asked for advice first. What do you counsel I subject myself to, oh great and fearless leader?" "For one, you could learn to have a normal conversation," Starlight suggested. "One where you're not always telling everyone what you want them to say? It's like you want to talk to a sock puppet with our faces instead of us. A conversation where you compliment yourself less and don't keep trying to make everyone sound like they're beneath you?" Jamjars considered this with a heavy frown. "Alright. Fine. Let's try it. How was... your day?" She almost stumbled over the small talk, but Starlight nodded, ready and waiting. "I went to the space building with Valey, Shinespark and Nyala. Cleaned up a mess they made. They talked about science and using ether as rocket fuel and other things that don't really matter. Then we saw a gravity machine that let ponies fly like Shinespark. I got to try it. It was fun." Jamjars stared at her, looking almost tempted to play the fool and pretend not to know how to make small talk. "Rocket fuel? What's ether?" "A thing they have here," Starlight answered. "I don't know much about it." If Jamjars wanted to use ether as rocket fuel herself, she was welcome to ask a scientist, but Starlight's charity had a limit at spending more time discussing harmony science than she already had that day. "Hmm," Jamjars hummed. "It sounds interesting. I spent my day learning who's who around here and getting in good with the ponies it's good to get in good with." "And?" Starlight didn't say of course you did, but she definitely thought it. "Oh, there's a lot of tension between the houses. Friendly rivalries." Jamjars brushed her ears with a hoof. "Nasty enough to make them dislike each other without burning down the island. A perfect level of heat. But none of them think I'd have anything to do with things like that, so they have no problems letting me be in good with all of them. But don't worry. I want them working well together to help me for this boat project, so I won't light any fires." Starlight repressed another snarky response. "Thanks." Jamjars looked pleased with herself. "So I lurked around Laughter first. Because you already know them, and because they seem like the sorest out of the bunch. I smell history with them. But I heard all about Gazelle in the archives, got on good terms with a professor, met Ebb and Flow... Flow has issues. Don't tell her I said that." "You heard about Gazelle, huh?" Starlight's ears fell. She was doing better since that night, maybe because she had been religiously avoiding her horn, but it was still deeply uncomfortable to think about the way she had treated him... "Oh, everything." Jamjars showed off her mane. "Did you hear he came back last night?" Starlight blinked. "He did?" "He did." Jamjars kicked back on the sofa. "They found him in the morning sleeping on a pile of books in the archive. Carted him straight back to the hospital. No one knows how he snuck in. How quaint, right?" "Right..." Starlight sighed, wishing there was a way Gazelle could find peace. She had done what she could, returning the moon glass containing his sister, but it clearly wasn't enough. "Well, whatever." Jamjars shrugged. "They also offered to put me up, by the way. With my own private room and everything. I figured I wouldn't give you a headache by disappearing all night, but we should be responsible and ask permission and have a sleepover sometime, just the two of us. You busy tomorrow?" Starlight glanced at the bedroom door, thinking of her pile of friends on the other side. "You wanted a private room so you could invite me for a sleepover?" "It's a token of friendship. Don't sweat the details." Starlight squinted at her. "...Why, though? If you told me this yesterday, I'd think you were trying to trap me into looking at your posters." "No ulterior motive." Jamjars gave her a look that suggested she definitely had no motives whatsoever. "This is just what friends do." Her suspicions only raised, Starlight slowly nodded. "Well... maybe I'll come tomorrow." "Perfect!" Jamjars purred. "Oh, it'll be fun, trust me. We'll have nothing important to do and can spend the night in a completely unremarkable fashion and it'll be great." "Right..." Starlight got to her hooves. "But right now, I'm getting tired. I'm going to bed." After a moment of thought, she added, "You're probably welcome to join us." Jamjars reddened only slightly. "Now you're just trying to bait me because of what I talked about earlier, aren't you? Come on, tell me you can't crawl in there and have at least one thought about them nuzzling in their sleep?" Starlight shrugged. "Maple doesn't want to be in a relationship, and Amber and Felicity do it so much it isn't that special." Jamjars briefly grimaced. "I don't like Felicity." "Less than everyone else?" "Har har," Jamjars sighed. "Yes. She reminds me of my mother." "...Oh." Starlight looked away. It wasn't even that bad of a comparison... "Well, I think her intentions are good." "Oh, so were my mother's." Jamjars waved a hoof. "She just had too much neediness and not enough competence to back them up. Watch out for that one, Starlight. She'll act all nice and friendly, be polite and helpful when she can, and the moment you need her she'll fail to come through." "Thanks for the warning," Starlight sighed, wondering if she was really less likely to be able to count on Felicity than any of her other friends. Just because Kinmari was safer didn't mean she wasn't still the strongest of the group... "I'm going to bed."