//------------------------------//
// Chapter 60: Heritage 
// Story: Marshmallow Dreams 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

"What the hell?!" Jordan cried out and immediately covered her mouth. That was low-level cussing, but it was still cussing, and we were watching a young filly. 

I quickly shut the television off, and Drizzle practically squawked in protest. 

"Hey! The movie wasn't over!" Drizzle complained as she flapped her wings. 

I gently stood up. "Your mom said not to let you watch anything scary or disturbing."

"Seriously, W-T-F!" Jordan exclaimed again. "How could a story about bunnies get so dark so quickly?! I'm going to have nightmares from watching that!"

I frowned at her. "It said it was based on a book. Isn't reading your thing? Shouldn't you have known and warned me?"

Jordan shook her head. "There are a lot of books. I haven't read them all! I never heard of Watership Down before today. I saw the description and thought it was just an old cartoon about cute little bunnies. How was I supposed to know it was going to involve all that! I'll read it later."

That caught me off guard. "You are going to read the book after seeing that?"

"Well, yeah," Jordan replied as if it was obvious. "It seems like it is a famous book, and famous books are famous for a reason. Seeing that cartoon caught me off guard, but now that I know what to expect, I won't get so upset when the book undoubtedly does something worse."

What a strange little unicorn. "Whatever makes you happy, I guess."

"Watching the movie will make me happy," Drizzle interjected. "I'm brave like Mama and Auntie Sunset! I won't get scared."

Jordan flicked her ears and looked at the pint-sized pegasus. "Phobia says that if you think you are brave and you never get scared, then you aren't brave; you are just too stupid to register the danger. Auntie Sunset says that when something scary is going on, she pees on herself, and she's not ashamed to admit it."

Drizzle gasped and flapped her wings some more. "Auntie Sunset is brave! She saved me from bad people when I was a baby."

Jordan nodded. "I heard about that. That was brave, but she was also terrified the entire time. When I was your age, I got into a terrifying and dangerous situation where I could have died, and I almost got my best friend killed more than once because I locked up and froze not once but twice because I was so scared. I don't think I would now, but that's just because Tempest has trained all of us not to do that, not because I won't still be scared."

"And your mom said not to let you see anything scary," I concluded. 

Drizzle pouted. "You're no fun."

Honestly, I felt left out. I didn't have a story of bad people trying to get me like these two did. In comparison to theirs, I felt like my life was pretty dull. I felt like I was unfairly privileged. Sure, I had started with a rough life, but it hadn't been dangerous like their experiences had been. The only danger I was ever in was the danger I put myself in by being a crappy flier. The danger and excitement didn't feel like they matched up.

Drizzle huffed and flopped over on her back. "So, what are we going to do for fun instead?"

"You were supposed to practice your reading," Jordan suggested because of course Jordan would. "We can do that."

"That's not fun," Drizzle whined. "Can we dump a bucket of water on Rebecca? I like it when she's wet."

I held up a wing. "Fun as that might sound, I don't think we should get into a habit of abusing me for entertainment. Practicing your reading sounds like a great plan."

Yep, I had the responsible adult foalsitter thing down—no letting her terrorize me for laughs. 

Drizzle pouted some more. "Okay. I still think you're more fun when you're all wet."

I wasn't going to comment on that. "Where are your books?" 

She rolled over, so she was no longer on her back, but she was still laying down flat with her legs and wings spread-eagle. "In my room."

Jordan hopped to her hooves. "Great! Let's go look at what you have, pick something out, and get to reading because reading is the greatest adventure!"

I did everything I could not to laugh. That was corny, even for me. Still, she was about to be in her element, and she was enthusiastic about it. It felt good watching someone loving something so much they had no problem saying corny lines out loud. That was enough to make me smile—even if saying reading is the greatest adventure wasn't one of the funniest things I had heard today. Was I easily amused? Maybe, but there wasn't anything wrong with that or anything wrong with someone getting corny over something they were passionate about. 

"Lead the way, Drizz," I said, still smiling. 

She groaned and slinked off the couch to the floor, stood up, and trotted off with me and Jordan following. We went down a hall, and Drizzle stopped briefly to let Wrinkles out of the bathroom, and the puppy promptly got right in her face and started licking. I didn't think Wrinkles was that conductive to reading, but he at least got the filly to perk up and start giggling. 

Drizzle's room was done in a stereotypical pink. It had two low-hanging hammocks and a small bed, all three filled to the brim with stuffed animals. There had to be over a hundred stuffed animals in this room, and I wondered how she managed to sleep in her bed with the number of stuffed animals she was sharing it with. I didn't even see a pillow on her bed—it looked like she just used a pile of stuffed animals for one. I hoped she didn't drool in her sleep, something I was very guilty of doing. There were a few posters on the walls with the names of ponies posted on them—Rainbow Dash, Sapphire Skies, Sunrise Storm, Lightning Bolt, Spitfire, The Wonderbolts, and one of her mom in flight team uniform. The ones for her mom, Sapphire Skies, Lightning Bolt, and Rainbow Dash all looked like they were personally autographed. It was pretty clear Drizzle idolized fast pegasi. It wasn't that uncommon. I had even briefly had a Rainbow Dash poster when we moved into a house for the first time, even though that was before I started flying and when I would realize I would never come close to measuring up.

I also noticed a few drawings on the walls, which seemed to be mainly her and her mom. There was also one that looked like it was just Chinese calligraphy, but not knowing any Chinese, I had no idea what it said. The room was neat and without clutter. Drizzle seemed like one of the rare foals who didn't need to be told to clean her room, which didn't surprise me. Lántiān struck me as a parent who ran a tight ship and would instill a need for cleanliness in her daughter. There was a circular fuzzy green throw rug in the middle of the room, a closed closet, a toy bin labeled toy bin, and two small bookcases—one of which was filled with books, and the other looked to be filled with a bunch of odd knick-knacks. The knick-knacks consisted of snow globes and various little figurines that didn't count as toys. 

Jordan walked over to the bookshelf and started looking it over. "Okay, let's see what we have here. Hmm… you got a lot of books about traditional Chinese stories, and a bunch of books I am pretty sure are translations from Mandarin."

Drizzle climbed on her bed and was joined by Wrinkles a moment later. "Yeah, Mama likes to read those to me. Do you have something different to read?"

I laid an ear back. "Do you not like these books?"

Drizzle's ears sagged. "I do… it's just that… it's a me and Mama's thing. She likes telling me all about China and stuff."

I smiled. "Alright, I'm sure Jordan can figure out something else to read."

Jordan blinked. "Um… I guess I can. Give me a minute to fetch my pad. I can see if I can find something online." The young unicorn then stepped out of the room.

While she was doing that, I stepped over to the bed. "You sure have a lot of stuffed animals."

Drizzle looked around and giggled. "Maybe."

"Do you have a favorite one?" I asked as I sat down next to the bed. 

She nodded and reached around with her head to grab one close to the pile I assumed she used for a pillow. My eyes widened as I recognized it. It was a very stuffed stegosaurus in Sunset Blessing's colors. Drizzle set it down in front of herself and hugged it.

"Is that supposed to be your auntie?" I asked, remembering the term the foals called her by.

"No!" Drizzle yelped and pointed a wing at her toy. "This is Supersaurus! Sometimes I have bad dreams that a big purple dinosaur is coming to get me, but Supersaurus comes and chases the bad dinosaur away."

"I see," I said with a knowing nod. I was guessing that Miss Seapony was doing it and using the toy dinosaur for a stand-in. Why color it like Sunset Blessing, though? Why was the nightmare a purple dinosaur? 

"There used to be a TV show about a big purple dinosaur," I said. "It was for kids, kids even younger than you. Is that the dinosaur you are afraid of?"

Drizzle gripped her toy closer to her. "No. I saw that TV show. That's just Barney. I don't like Barney, but Barney isn't the big scary dinosaur. The big scary dinosaur is really tall, and has three giant horns, and it wears a baseball cap."

"A baseball cap?" I asked in confusion. That was an odd detail. 

Drizzled nodded. "Yeah. I used to have a stuffed animal of it, or at least, Mama said I did. She says she put it in a can and burned it."

"Oh… what a… perfectly normal reaction to a stuffed animal," I said slowly. I spotted a stuffed animal sitting in one of the hammocks. "Isn't that a purple dinosaur in a baseball cap?"

Drizzle followed my gaze then laughed. "That isn't the bad dino. That is Steggi, the baseball stegosaurus! My mama said that the baseball team in Denver gave him to me, and they had a big news conference and everything where they took pictures with me and introduced Steggi to everybody! I have pictures, and mama has a video."

That made me grin. "That was nice of them."

Drizzle nodded some more. "They still send us tickets every year for every game. Mama will take us down to Atlanta once a year to watch one, but I think she sells all the other tickets. Most of the games are far away. They have a special kids day every year, and Mama drew advertisements for it this year. She says it is her first big commission. You wanna see?"

"Maybe later. After you read," I answered. "So, did you win a contest or something?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. You have to ask Mama. What's a commission? Mama said it was a big commission, but didn't tell me what a commission was."

I thought of how to explain it. "For artists, it means someone paid your mom to draw something for them. I guess in this case, they are asking her to draw things for posters and fliers and things like that. Those posters and fliers and stuff help get people interested in kids day, so more people show up."

"Mama is the best artist ever! So they'll love it!" Drizzle exclaimed. 

That was a slightly insensitive thing to say to an art student, but Drizzle was little and didn't know any better. Lántiān was probably a better artist than me anyway, and I was studying to be an architect, not a graphic designer, so there was no need to feel offended. Anyway, kids should think their parents are the best at everything… at least until they became teens and suddenly started thinking the opposite.

Jordan returned, tablet floating in her magic. "Okay, I have looked up second and third-grade reading level books and cross-referenced with Chinese authors. I think I have a few options."

Drizzle started pouting again. "I wanted American books, not Chinese ones."

I frowned. "Are you sure? I know you said these books here were a you and your mom thing, but I didn't think you meant all Chinese books."

"Chinese stuff is okay with Mama, not the rest of the time," Drizzle said with a humph.

I considered her. "You don't really consider yourself Chinese, do you?"

She laid flat on the bed. "I don't remember anything about China. This is home. China is nice to hear about when Mama talks about it because it makes her happy, but…."

"But you don't really care," I concluded. 

She looked ready to cry. "Don't tell Mama. It will make her sad. I don't want Mama to be sad."

I looked at Jordan, and Jordan shrugged to indicate she didn't know what to do. She then went back to searching on her tablet—probably trying to change her searches not to include Chinese authors. That left me with a sad filly to cheer up. Thanks for the help, Jordan. You are really helpful. 

I put a wing over Drizzle's dejected form. "I get it. Your mom tries hard to get you interested in where you came from. You know it is important to your mom, so you listen to her reading Chinese stories and teaching you Chinese words. You do those things, but you are mainly doing it to please her, am I right?"

Drizzle just sat silent, not responding. I sighed before continuing. 

"I'm guessing it was a big deal when you asked to change your name. Were you afraid and took a long time to do it?" I asked.

"Yeah," Drizzle said quietly. 

I rubbed her back with my wing. "But she let you do it."

"I could tell she wasn't happy about it. She still messes it up," Drizzle mumbled. 

"She might not have been happy about it, but she let it happen, and she did that because she cares about you," I said quietly. "She doesn't want you to be unhappy. She loves you more than anything. You can talk to her about how you don't feel connected with China."

"There's nothing wrong with not feeling a strong tie to your heritage," Jordan interrupted. "Rosetta made us all do this big family history research thing because Rosetta is really big on heritage. My parents, when they were still human, had very different heritages. My mom was African American, and my dad was Irish and English. I found out that one of my super-great grandparents on my dad's side was a slaveholder back in the Civil War, and one of my mom's super-great grandparents might have been a slave on that property, and that made conversations in the house super-awkward for a few days after we found out."

I laid my ears flat. "It is super-awkward just hearing about it, and I'm not sure telling us that is helping."

Jordan flattened her ears. "Sorry. They got over it after Phobia fussed at them and said everybody has evil people they wish they weren't related to in their family history… and proceeded to start naming off some super bad people that each of the Elements of Harmony had way back in their family trees. Did you know that Rarity had a—"

"Jordan, not helping!" I hissed. 

"Sorry, but if you think about it, we are all related if you go back far enough. So that means we are all related to every serial killer there ever was. Hitler is on our family tree somewhere, Hitler."

I didn't know how, but Jordan was somehow making this progressively worse. I didn't know what form of worse could come next after Hitler, but I wasn't going to find out. 

I slapped my face with a wing. "Jordan… just… go to the other room for a few minutes, so I don't have to think about how Hitler is like my hundredth and fourth cousin ninety-seventh removed or whatever."

Jordan flattened her ears, having picked up that she might have taken this conversation in the entirely wrong direction. She nodded to me and silently walked out of the room. I'd need to say something to her later to perk her up, but Drizzle was my immediate concern. 

I looked back at Drizzle, who still looked miserable. "Now, let's talk about this reasonably. Have you ever thought about why teaching you about your heritage is so important to your mom?"

Drizzle shook her head and waited for me to tell her. 

"Your mom, like me, and every pony from Earth who is over fourteen, was born human," I said gently. "For many ponies, they left all that history of where they came from behind after they transformed. Becoming a pony was like a reset on all that to them, but not every pony felt that way. Your mom still feels a big connection to everything that led up to her, and that is a good thing. Our histories don't begin with the creation of ponies on Earth, it has a lot of history that came before, human history, and that is our history too."

"But we learn about history in school," Drizzle said. 

"You learn about a part of history at school," I corrected. "I'm guessing they teach you about American history. It is good for you to learn that because you are making that history part of your story too. It is the history of the nation you live in and the culture you want to make yourself a part of; it is important to know, but you have a whole different set of history that was yours up until six years ago, and they probably don't teach you much about it in school. Your Chinese heritage is part of who you are and will always be part of your story. If you are learning just the history they teach you in school; you aren't learning the whole story."

"So… it's like a school thing?" Drizzle asked in confusion. 

"Not completely," I replied, unsure how to explain it. "She doesn't want you to forget where you come from because she feels like she is losing part of what connects you to her. Chinese history is a bigger part of her because she spent more than half her life in China. Your grandma, when she was still alive on Earth, spent a lot of time teaching her about that history…."

I had a sudden revelation about Lántiān at that moment. It felt like it should have been obvious, but I never claimed to be the smartest pony. I beckoned Drizzle to come off the bed and sit next to me on the floor. She did as promoted and waited for me to continue. 

"As I was just saying, back when your mom was still human, your grandma spent a lot of time teaching her about the history and culture of China. That was a special time for your mom. That was before there were ponies or Dreamwardens and everything in the world felt like it was safe and made sense. It was a time when your mom was really happy and a time before her relationship with your grandma got complicated. Her best memories from growing up were being taught Chinese history by your grandma. She wants to share that same bond and experience with you."

I brought my face down close to hers so I could look her in the eyes. "It isn't just bad guys hurting you that she is afraid of either. She is also scared of drifting away from you like she did with your grandma. She's afraid that if you don't care about where you come from, you'll stop caring about her, and it will just be like her and your grandma all over again. She loves you more than anything. You are the most important person in the world to her, and she doesn't want that to happen."

"Rebecca Riddle."

I jerked my head up and saw Lántiān standing at the doorway to the room, her expression blank. She was back early. 

I jumped to my hooves. "I'm sorry, I didn't originally intend to get into this conversation. We were just going to help Drizzle with her reading and—"

Lántiān raised a wing to cut me off. "I am not angry, but I think you should wait in the other room while I speak to my daughter. She may have questions about what you discussed, and it is better that she asks me. Please, wait in the other room, and I will come to speak with you shortly before seeing to it you are paid."

She stepped inside and stepped to the side so I could exit. I started walking out and looked back at Drizzle, who seemed nervous. 

"Hey, remember, your mom loves you no matter what, and nothing you could do can ever change that. Listen to her, and don't be afraid to be honest with her. She wants you to be honest with her." Or at least, I hoped she did. It was hard to read Lántiān.

Drizzle seemed to perk up a little and smiled as she nodded to me. "I'll remember."

Walking past Lántiān and her scrutinizing gaze was enough to make me nervous. I hoped I hadn't made things worse by getting involved with something I had no business getting involved with. She didn't say anything while I exited, and she gently shut the door behind me once I was out.