"What the hay is it?
Sunny squinted from the underbrush, gently nudging a giant leaf off her head to allow her to lean forward, cautiously poking her muzzle out from the shade. In the early morning sun, a form only half a head smaller than Sunny herself poked at a riverbank. It vaguely resembled an animal she had seen once in a storybook, a brown furred creature with stumpy clawed legs, a doggish nose at the end of a toothed muzzle, and short round ears, but she hesitated to call it 'furred'. Its coat swam with galaxies seemingly suspended inside it, like it was less of an animal and more of a purple tinted animal-shaped portal into deep space. But in the way it moved, and the wind unsettled its coat, she could tell it was alive, and searching in the river for some sort of food.
Sunny crawled backwards into the bush, shrinking her head back into her forehaunches as she gulped in worry. She nudged the air beside her, whispering with a focus intent on the creature that now sniffed and growled at a passing insect.
"We'll need to go around it. We don't know if it's dangerous, or- Izzy!"
Her entire coat practically leaped off her skin as she turned to the absence of pony behind her, swinging her focus back to the creature at a familiar giggle from its direction.
Izzy was sitting in front of the creature, which plodded down onto its short tail to mimic her. Izzy cocked her head, and so did the creature, and before long it was curled contently at her side as she brushed a hoof through its fur.
Sunny approached with her own tail between her legs, a worried hiss fizzing out as fear became curiosity. The creature resting against Izzy opened its eyes and stared up at her as she approached, and she noticed for the first time the brilliant yellow eyes with blood red pupils, an unnaturally captivating watch staring right through her. Even still, on its forehead under its ears, a white star was emblazoned, more minimalist than the dazzlingly realistic stars that swarmed inside it by the millions. These stars drew Sunny's focus again, but she forced herself to meet its gaze and approach respectfully.
The creature snorted and nuzzled against Izzy's side again, and Sunny took the opportunity to kneel at its side and reach cautiously for its warm pelt.
"What... How did you..." Sunny began.
Izzy shrugged exaggeratedly while keeping her forelegs frozen in place to let the creature rest. "We get bears occasionally back home. I've never seen one like this, though! Look at its fur! Are those real?"
Sunny felt individual furs growing on the... bear, the name came back to her now, but they all seemed to project the same illusion of solar systems living and dying inside it- Even as she watched, several stars flashed and faded out, and several more banged into existence to replace their fallen brethren.
Sunny was immediately on her sketchbook, outlining the round and pudgy form best she could, guestimation filling in the spots Izzy's petting removed from her line of sights.
"It's like... A picture showing on its entire body, that the fur doesn't disrupt. It's so weird."
"Like a cutie mark?" Izzy unwrapped her tail from her flank to look down at her crochet heart. Even as her muscles and skin would stretch or compress, the cutie mark remained steadfastly stubborn.
"Yeah... Yeah, exactly like that! We may be onto something, Izzy!" Sunny breathlessly answered, holding her head in her hands.
Izzy let out a cautiously quiet cheer. "Reuiniting the tribes and discovering a new species of cutie isn't bad for one road trip, is it?"
Sunny's excitement subsided, and she laughed calmly. "Well, hold your tongue for now. We're still working on part one."
She returned her hoof to the bear's fur, more confidently now, stroking along the path of comets and asteroids as they filled the night sky.
---*---
"Can you... shoot lasers?"
"No, no magic Sunny!"
Sunny scribbled notes frantically, seemingly thoughts that came to her rather than Izzy's responses. "But think about it, you've got to have some magic! Ancient Equestria's scientists taught us our marks are magically bound to us, right?"
"I definitely don't remember that teaching."
Sunny finally stopped, glancing up. "What were you taught about cutie marks?"
She glanced back at her flank. "Well, unicorns teach about it differently depending on where they live."
"Don't they all live in the woods?"
"There's more than one woods, Sunny. And really, as long as it's somewhere they think nobody will find them, they're happy to live anywhere. I've heard stories about some even living underground. We've got all sorts of horror stories about where other ponies live and what they do."
"Well, what do they say about Earth Ponies?" Sunny put on her best winning smile as Izzy recalled.
"They say... you live in a village that's only found when you're not looking for it, and you think cutie marks are a curse, and you throw little unicorn kids into fireplaces."
They stared at each other for a while before breaking into giggles, Sunny tucking her sketchpad back into her bag diligently.
"They say that one has historical basis, but I don't buy it. There's not much history to find in the woods. The only structure for miles we didn't build was this old crystal treehouse."
This definitely piqued Sunny's interest. "Like, made of crystal? Who made it?"
"It was just here when we settled. And of course, there's a dozen horror stories about it too, that it's haunted by changelings and all kinds of cool stuff."
"You make a lot of horror stories."
"Why do you think we hide from everyone?"
---*---
"Izzy, did you mention changelings yesterday? You've heard of them?"
Izzy looked down the rocky hill, reaching out for Sunny and lifting her until she could get a foothold, then continuing the climb up. "Not much! Just the vague idea of shapeshifting buggies. We've got all sorts of stories about other species."
Sunny risked the precarious teetering of their foothold to snatch out her sketchpad. "Other species! Yes, it feels like I'm the only one back home who reads about old Equestria! Nobody else seems to care about gryphons, or hippogriffs, or zebras, or kelpies, but I've got notes on all of them! Did you know about the lost seventeen years of Hippogriff history none of my books cover?"
Izzy grinned happily, quickly jumping to another rock as her own broke. "I would love love love to hear about it!"
---*---
"What do you think the Pegasi will be like?"
Izzy threw some more kindling onto their fire, stumbling into a sit as she did. The fire shed light on the broken walls of Canterlot around them, the ghosts of the city whispering as they sat among the abandoned ruins, miles above the ground level and still nowhere close to the spotlights of the city high above at the precipice of the peak.
"I think they'll be super cool. I've always wanted a friend who could fly, ever since I was a filly." Sunny admitted, looking up and noting with idle curiosity how few of the stars were visible this close to the city; she had expected far opposite.
"If you trust them, I guess there's no way all of our stories are true. I'll bet there are all sorts of historians up there that could tell you about where Kirin came fr- Do you hear that?" Izzy perked her ears up.
Both of them listened intently to the embers until Sunny realized what she was drawing attention to; subtle, fuzzy voices inside the building they were seated next to.
It didn't take long to find a withered hole in the wall, revealing the overgrown inside, confirming their suspicions that it had once been a restaurant. The majority of the interior had been largely removed, but a sign hung over a desk built into the wall with three horseshoes painted on, the same symbol they had seen over restaurants that had stayed open longer than this one. And lying on top of the desk, a neatly sealed plastic carton of cupcakes and a tiny black screened device with wires ending in plastic caps snaking out of it waited for them.
Izzy immediately went for the cupcakes, emblazoned with a proud black symbol depicting two wings around a stylized slice of cake, but Sunny went for the noise emitting device, lifting one of the wires to her ear curiously. She could definitely hear it now, but while she could describe it as a form of music, she couldn't explain it past that if she tried. She was thankful Izzy could experience the weird sensations it sent down her spine with her.
"She's got a really nice voice, but what are those instruments?" Izzy pondered. "Some weird drums? Strings coated in soda?"
Sunny looked back up at the city looming above and the gratuitous lights proudly illuminating the shining star of Equestria. "I think we're in for a lot of culture shock, Izzy.".
---*---
"Yeah, those were mine." Zipp casually explained away.
Sunny wasn't satisfied. "Why did you leave it on?"
The four of them were gathered around a campfire back on the slopes of Zephyr Heights, waiting out the patrols Pipp had warned might be sent after them as far as Canterlot, although never further.
"Oh, it was nothing." Pipp delicately replied, preening a feather. "She just greatly enjoys taking her sister's MP3 player on promise she'd return it, then running down to Canterlot and just leaving it there."
"I had a reason!" Zipp protested. "All I knew at the time was that strange ponies from other lands might be coming for us, and I didn't know when or what their intentions were. But I knew they'd pass through Canterlot, so I tried to keep retreating down there to see if I could intercept them. But then I decided to leave a diplomacy gift, just in case I wasn't there! Diplomacy! I practiced it!" She stuck her tongue out at her sister crudely. "I was hoping the radio on that thing would be playing news or something to give them a clue of our culture, but of course the first pegasus they ever heard was your singing."
"I am an amazing singer, thank you very much..."
Their din faded to white noise as Sunny opened her saddlebag, fiddling with the outline of the metal ornament inside, feeling the ridges of its sculpted feathers and flipping through her memory, trying to recall a single Element who had a pair of flaunted wings as a cutie mark.
---*---
Pipp shook her hoof in annoyance as she stepped on a twig. "Fuck."
Izzy whipped around on her in surprise, slack jawed. "How did you do that with your mouth?"
"That's what she said." Zipp finished.
"What who said?"
The two sisters glanced at each other with cocked eyebrows before Zipp slowly grinned.
"Hey Izzy, ever heard of Bofa?"
---*---
"This is what you did all day?"
"No! I sang and performed and slept in too!"
Cell reception was dying the further away from Zephyr Heights they got. At it's dying throes, Pipp had obliged Izzy's questions about what exactly she did for a living. They were currently watching her old Fortnite streams.
"Why would they just watch you play a game instead of play it themselves?" Izzy asked curiously.
Pipp scoffed. "They don't watch it for the game, they watch it for the me. They want to see how I play, and what I talk about."
"And they give you money for that?"
Pipp pointed to her webcam, week-old-Pipp gushing over a donation given. "All the time!"
"For talking about a game they like."
"Oh, there are so many ways to monetize off that."
Izzy hummed curiously, tilting her head.
"Got any rhythm games?"
Pipp tapped on one of her FNF modding streams.
---*---
Sunny's friends slept tightly on the grass around her, the lights of naturally growing crystals reflecting off their closed eyes. In the sturdy branch of a drooping tree near the ground, Sunny herself flipped through her sketchbook. She was happy to see it was filled almost entirely with notes and sketches, on Kirin and Pegasi and Crystals and Music and Technology and Folklore.
She was disappointed to find no appearance of the winged symbol besides a sketch of the symbol on the cupcakes carton, minus the cake slice. Clearly it was an important art piece to the Pegasi; but beyond that, she hadn't a clue what historical significance it had. She had always imagined the secrets of magic and history to be lying just out of her reach, but as it turned out, nobody had any idea of what had happened to the world in the years since the Guardians of Harmony died.
Then she caught it, something she had missed at first; the Star, Twilight's mark. She had nearly gone giddy when she saw it in Zephyr Heights, but she had seen it somewhere else, hadn't she?
She flipped to the beginning of her book, one of the first days of her journey with Izzy. The bear. She counted the points of the star on its forehead, realizing with a slowly growing confusion that the two stars were one and the same. It meant far more than Twilight; she had only been a bearer.
Sunny looked out into the woods, no closer to the truth but feeling strangely comfotted.