Reborn

by Pensive


Chapter 16 - "Why, hello!"

'You know something that quite satisfying? Karma whacking someone in the face. Not me, of course, but someone else. Especially if it's in a comedic way.'

During our chase, Mark ended tripping and sliding crossed the concert sidewalk. Luckily mare nearby, who happened to be a nurse, came to help. She was currently checking over Mark as I silently grabbed the bag of bits back to my saddlebags. By the time I was done, the mare was too.

"So, like your friend here has some pretty bad scratches which should be treated as soon as possible," she said ever so matter of factly, "where are your parents?"

She was looking at me now with a questioning look. I haven't had too much interaction with ponies, but I can tell she was concerned. The same way I did that one weird cotton candy selling stallion.

"Oh, our mom was busy with something that came up, so my brother and I were just going out to enjoy ourselves."

I must have said something odd because her eyebrow raised suspiciously, "Oh really? Aren't you two a bit young?"

Are we? Not knowing much about the culture here, I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a response, but not knowing much about it would be a problem. Maybe the library isn't a bad idea.

"Oh, well, even so, we're fine, uh, miss...?"

"Red Heart, and fine, you say?" she indicated towards Mark.

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks a bit, "Well, fine, whenever my brother isn't up to his antics."

Red Heart sighed, "Well, either way, it'd be best if we cleaned those scathes. I'm actually heading to a friend's house right now. She has some stuff to help clean you up."

I could tell she didn't quite believe me, and her wording suggested that she was telling us to come rather than offering. I felt a little offended she didn't believe me and told us to go with her like we're little kids. Well, we are, but not really.

Either way, going along was the better Idea to make sure nothing happens to Mark. I trust the guards Luna said were shadowing us.

"Well, if you say so, Miss Heart."

"Oh, no need for such formality, just call me Redheart, everypony I know does."

"Alright, Miss Redheart."

Redheart offered to help Mark, but he said he was fine. I could tell he was in a bit of pain, ' but hey, if he didn't want help, who was I to say he did? Really, he's the older one of us, shouldn't he be more mature?'

As we began going, we only made it a few turns before the awkward silence set in. It affected Redheart more than it did us.

"So, do you two know where you live?" questioned Redheart.

"Hmm? Oh, no, we're not from town." I answered a bit in surprise as I was lost in thought.

"You from out of town as well?" she asked in surprise.

"Yep, our ship docked earlier today. What about you?"

"I'm from Ponyville. I'm here to visit a friend/old colleague. Do you know where you're going to meet with your parents later or where you're staying? I'd imagine after a long trip you'd check-in at a hotel first."

Redheart's questioning was plainly obvious where she was going, but I decided to play along out of boredom.

"Well, no, but I'd imagine she'll be back at the ship."

"I'm sorry?" asked Redheart with suspicion.

"Well, our mother is probably back at the ship right now or elsewhere in the city working on some business."

"Oh, what I mean is what do you mean 'back at the ship'? Ships usually depart switch out crews and depart as soon as all the passengers are out." she said matter of factly.

"Oh, I see the miscommunication. You see, it's a complicated situation be effectively we own the ship."

"Your parents own a ship?"

"Uhh, maybe? As I said, it's complicated. I'd have to look for a law book because of the situation."

"Your parents did actually buy the ship, right?"

"I dunno, I'd have to ask."

"Ah, I see."

The silence descended upon us as Redheart thought upon my answer. Mark just listened in. Redheart, who was plainly deep in thought by the expression on her face, came up with another question.

"So, you two are out and just exploring? Just wondering? Do you two have anything on you in case something happens? A book?"

I rolled my eyes, pulling the large bag of bits out of my saddlebag, "She gave us some bits. We were planning to go out together, but she got caught up in some business."

I gave the bag to Redheart, who looked in the bag with a gasp, "W-what!"

"Something wrong?"

Redheart spurted for a couple of moments before she was able to stammer together a response, "T-these are platinum bits!"

Redheart half-whispered/yelled that last part out, but what I didn't expect was for Mark to join the conversation, "What!?"

Redheart and Mark now looked absolutely stunned. And I didn't know why.

"Uhm, am I missing something?"

Redheart stared. She just stood and stared. Mark took up the mantle of speaking out, "Star, did you ever read that economy book I gave you?"

Ah, that book. A book I ignored because... Reasons.

"Uhm, as much as Im embarrassed to say... no?"

Now Redheart looked confused. Mark just sighed disappointedly.

"Sorry, Miss Redheart, you must be a bit confused right now. Star, my sister, said we docked earlier today, but she didn't know that we were not from Equestria. She doesn't know Equestrian currency. She would have if she actually read the book I gave her."

Redheart's Brain was in the middle of a reboot. And a slow one at that. So I decided to ask Mark questions now.

"So, if I did read that book, I would be surprised why?"

"Well, you see, in Equestria, the currency is bits. More specifically, copper, silver, gold, and platinum. Platinum is worth 10 gold, and one gold is worth 10 silver going all the way down from sliver."

"And that means what exactly? As far as Im concerned, Im one platinum bit is worth a single apple."

Marked blinked and came up to whisper to me, "One copper bit is equivalent to about a one-dollar bill."

"WHAT!"


I was now at Redheart's friend's house. I sat on a couch across from Mark. His scratches were cleaned, and luckily, a bit of magic from Redheart's Unicorn friend, Scarlet Breeze, had Mark as good as new. My saddlebags, now with an equivalent of eighty thousand dollars in it, was kept on me. It was thought best to keep quiet about it. Besides, what the hell was Luna thinking. Did she expect us to just overpay on every single purchase?

I heard Redheart come back to us with a sigh as she finished up talking with her friends.

"Well, that's done. I'm done here, but I'll be in town until tomorrow. I don't suppose you two want to spend the rest of the time with me?"

Personally, I didn't care. I need to talk with Luna later, too as well.

"Well, actually, I was hoping to go to a library? We're not from Equestria, and I wanted to see what they have." Mark spoke.

"Well, I don't mind; what about you, Star?"

"I don't mine either," I said with a dead tone.

"Well, we can get going in a minute. I've got to go use the fillies room first, though; I'll be back in a minute," Redheart replied.

I called out to her before she left, "We'll be waiting outside if you don't mind."

"Oh, of course, just don't wander off without me."

Mark threw me a questioning look, to which I motioned to follow me. We reached the front door to Scarlet's luxurious apartment and opened it out to a hallway. I made sure to close the door when we got out. Mark gave me a questioning look, but I held up a hoof to wait.

I looked around a bit before mustering the courage to speak out, "Uhm, Guards?"

"How can I help, ma'am?"

A thestral stallion materialized out of my very shadow. It goes without saying I jumped a bit, and I chuckled a bit nervously. The thestral had a much sleeker armor than the other thestrals I remember.

"O-oh, if I knew you were gonna appear like that... Well, that's that, I guess. Are you the only guard?"

"No, actually," a new voice came from behind, a pony coming out of a shadow in the wall, "there are four of us. And no, we're not all in your shadows, just any shadow around. And no, we do not invade your privacy whenever you go to the bathroom or the like."

I didn't even ask the second question. But that got me the blush as I looked at the new thestral mare, "Since when can thestrals do that?!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, that's classified information."

'Classified eh, well we'll see about that.'

"And here I thought when Eclipse said that Mark and I were royalty, we'd get access to such information."

"Actually no, technically, while you can be considered royalty, you don't get anything until your officially recognized by the royal family and is publicly announced." the matter-of-fact tone and nonchalant tone. Now Im getting confused. Luckily Mark took up the questioning for me.

"The royal family," Mark rubbed a hoof under his muzzle, "I know that we're, you know, but wouldn't we have to be part of the royal bloodline or something?"

It was me who answered Mark's question, "Actually, Mark, if you think back, Luna said she and her sister would be our Aunts, if we decided we wanted to."

'Well, looks like, after today, there's going to be a lot of talking. Actually, wait, no, I remember Luna vaguely saying something that our questions, at least the ones she can't answer right now, would be answered at Canterlot. Guess it would be best to wait until then.'

"Well, unfortunately, I still have questions, but they'll have to wait for another time; Redheart should be out in a few moments. If you plan to keep your secrecy, I recommend you all...-"

The guards we're already gone. They just sank back into a random shadow in the hallway. 'Well, that's a convenient skill to just appear and disappear...'

Mark looked at me, and I only shrugged at his questioning expression. This was not the time nor place to discuss our more...
Secretive stuff, as we still have guards shadowing us.

"So, Mark, your the bookworm that kept reading the books Mythic had. Tell me about Equestria before I find myself in even more embarrassing situations." He raised his eyebrows in response.

"And why, oh why dear sister of mine, would I rob you of the valuable experience of learning it yourself?"

"Because oh so dear brother of mine, you wouldn't want your dear sister getting swoon by a strange accident because of a miscommunication, would you?" I was surprised when that relatively weak argument got a blush from him.

"O-on second thought, I think you need a biology book on ponies."

I cocked my head a few degrees, "Uhm... Why?"

Mark did a nervous look around before he came to whisper in my ear, "For ponies, specifically fillies at the age of 13-15, essentially it's a type of puberty for ponies."

My face flushed. Being told I'd face second puberty in a few years was... Well, horseapples, as ponies say.

Mark backed up a bit, slightly looking away, "And now you see," then he came back to whisper to me again, "I'm not sure what age ponies get a sex-ed, but you actually might wanna ask Redheart, she is a nurse after all."

My flushed face had broken the steak of me, keeping a calm expression when I panicked inside. I tried to hide it within my mane as I backed a bit, "S-suddenly, the library with books on the subject seems like an excellent idea."

"What's a good idea?"

"eeep!" My surprised jump caught Redheart in surprise as I accidentally bumped into her from behind. Still flustered, my hooves fell back to the floor as I hid my blush. Mark came in for the save as he answered.

"Oh, Miss Redheart, your finally back. We were just talking about how it was a good idea for Star to read about Equestria. We're, and by that, I mean she, is unaware of Equestrian culture."

"Oh, I suppose your right," Redheart turned an eye to me, "but don't worry about any mistakes. Ponies are usually very forgiving."

I only nodded in response, letting Mark take over the conversation so I could focus on something else.

"Well, with that said, are you ready? I've wanted to get to the library since we got here!"

As flustered as I was, that comment got a snort out of me, "You'd fall asleep before we even get inside the library if you were able to fall asleep on a hay bale while standing."

An unimpressed face answered my muffled giggles, "You do realize it was an act to get you to drop your guard, right? I may be up mostly at night, but with the amount of time I've been unconsss-I mean unawake... Wait, that doesn't make sense either. With the amount of time I've been asleep for boringly long hours, my sleeping cycle is bound to change."

I frowned at the poor attempt my brother made to say something other than unconscious while making it believable. Done and said, there was nothing I could do to remedy the situation but play along.

"Yes, I suppose the journey was quite tiring for you, but that's your own fault. If you weren't so... eccentric."

"Hey! You can't say moving around doing flashy stuff with magic wasn't cool!"

' If by flashy you mean dangerous, experimental magic, then yes, I suppose it's quite flashy.'

"Perhaps, but the result is still your own fault," I sighed and feigned an exasperated tone, "oh, whatever shall I do with you troublesome brother of mine?"

Mark decided to join in with his own tone.

"Oh dear sister of mine, thine eyes deceive thee," mark made sure he added his own slightly offended tone, "before thyself lay not but a fair knight."

"But trouble I see is soon to come, knights fight and die not for glory and gold when the true treasure of them all waits for them to return home."

"Oh but I must go, for it is my talent too. I cannon say I will return, I doth not know if I shall ever have the treasure of family again, but as the queen commands, I shall obey."

As the skit came to a close, I stared at Mark. He started back—poker face to poker face.

Redheart snickered playfully, "While that was enjoyable, shouldn't we get moving?"

My eye twitched, and the internal giggling vanished. But I did not move an inch to Redheart's question. Instead, I stared into Mark's bright eyes, mutually agreeing. Our silent conversation over, we slowly, agonizingly slowly twisted our heads to stare at Redheart.

Her smirt of our little play turned to a nervous smile, "Uhm, is something wrong?"

I stared dead center of her eyes as she eyes me warily as her ears slowly folded back, "No cookie for you."

"Wha..?!"

I surprised my self at the dead tone as I said that, but it made Redheart's reaction all the better as her face stared dumbly, unable to comprehend what just happened.

Mark fell. With a mad laugh and Redheart's dumbfounded face, I too gave in, falling to the floor in a fit of giggles.


POV: Mark

Redheart was just silently walking behind us as we walked the streets. Star decided to ignore Redheart's repeated question of what happened, so I did the same. Besides, seeing her going from tense to dumbfounded was like she saw someone just casually break the laws of physics.

I was sticking to myself when we came around the corner to the massive public library. 'Wow, I expected it to be a huge building, but a huge grand entrance alicorn statues on its the side with a big fountain in front of the building too?'

I squeed in delight see the other multicolored ponies walking around. Sure we passed big quite a few ponies, but this was the first significant concentration of them. Most of them seemed to be young adults with saddlebags like the one Star possessed.

Star and I smiled as we walked into the masses, observing all the other groups of ponies pleasantly smiling and chatting.

We soon came upon the stairs crossing through the statues and into the library. Finally inside, the doorframe, that was slightly hidden in the shadows, a pair of massive doors came into view on each side of us. 'Well, that's one way to make a grand entrance.'

Smiling the air of a library, I looked forward and saw the reception desk in the middle of the room. The room was symmetrical, with two hallways behind the desk and stairs closer to us spanning up to the second floor.

Walking up to the sizeable half-circle desk in the room, I saw two stallions helping out some people and another mare at the desk's furthest end who was busy filling out some forms of some kind. We walked to her as she smiled.

"Why, hello! Welcome to Baltimare Public Libary; how can I help?"

"Hello," I replied, "are there any books on magic?"

The violet pegasus smiled sweetly down to me from her desk as she responded while pointing off with a hoof, "Why yes, we do. It'll be at the back of the library that way, ranging from basic to advanced magic. The more dangerous ones are locked away in the basement, so don't worry about anything going wrong."

"Thanks, Miss...?"

"Amethyst Swirl."

"Yes, thank you, Miss Swirl, my sister here is looking for..." I paused, unsure whether to just say it aloud or not but decided to work out a passable lie I was making earlier, "ehm, actually, I don't know. I'll let you ask; I'm gonna go, meet you back here in say, half an hour?"

I lied to give Star some privacy, asking so that nobody has to question why a foal was asking about, ehm, growing pains. She nodded, agreeing as I turned around to Redheart, who was watching from behind.

"Cmon, Redheart, wanna see a cool spell I learned awhile ago?" I began to nudge her to follow as I walked off insistently.

She tried to stall a bit, "Are you she you wanna split-"

"Oh, Star will be fiinee. She can handle herself." I winked at Star as I pulled Redheart.

Redheart asked Star if she'd be fine, to which she nodded again. With a bit of hesitation, Redheart came to catch up to me, already turning into the corridor, taking one look at Star, who was blushing a bit talking to the reception. I turned, walking onward as Redheart accompanied me with a small canter.