Several days passed before Silverstream received a response back from her family. To her surprise, the usual letter came accompanied with a decently sized package wrapped in brown wrapping paper. She almost tore into the package the moment she brought it back to her room, but showed some self control by opening the letter first, assuming it might give a clue to the package’s contents. She recognized her dad’s writing style right away as she began to read through the letter.
The first half was the usual bits about how proud her parents were about how her studies were going, how they and Terramar were doing back on Mount Aris and Seaquestria respectively, and anything interesting that had happened back home since her last letter. While she enjoyed reading about how her family were doing back home, the second half of the letter was what really drew her attention.
What were you like as a baby, huh? Well, I remember fondly how you were just as easily excitable and curious back then as you are now, always getting into stuff no matter how much we tried to stop you. Bathing you was almost a daily thing with how many times you ended up making a mess of yourself, not that your mom and I minded one bit.
After Terramar was born, we were both surprised how quickly you took to the role of big sister to your new baby brother. The days where you got into trouble quickly grew fewer and farther between, almost like you were in a rush to grow up now. I’ll admit we were actually a little worried at first, afraid that rushing through your childhood like you were might cause issues later in life, a worry that only grew after we moved to Seaquestria. What happened that day was something that no child should have to experience, and you became listless for many weeks afterwards. Your only small reprieve seemed to be when you helped care for Terramar, seemingly forgetting everything that happened while you were focused on losing after your little brother.
That might explain why you’re so good with kids to this day, and we were beyond relieved when you seemed to return to your usual smiling self. Thankfully we managed to take a few photo albums with us to Seaquestria on that day, so your mother suggested sending you one if were still feeling a bit nostalgic about your childhood. Let us know if it helps, and we eagerly awaiting hearing back from you soon.
Love, Dad, Mom, and Terramar.
Setting the letter aside, Silverstream began to tear into the package with her talons, though with very little of the previous excitement she had shown prior to finishing the letter. As the brown paper fell away, she focused on the photo album now in her hands for a few moments before setting it down on her desk and flipping it open.
The first few pages were filled with photos of her Mom and Dad smiling on Mount Aris, likely before she was even born. Her suspicion was confirmed when several photos later showed her parents smiling with a newly hatched egg nestled between them. As she turned the page, her eyes widened as she saw that the next two pages were filled with nothing but photos of her. She flipped through the more pages just to be sure, and indeed she saw that the next six pages or so were also filled with nothing but photos of her.
Photos of her taking her first steps, of her learning how to fly, many photos of her being covered in food or mud while smiling at the camera, the epitome of carefree. It was like a record of her entire childhood now lay at her fingertips.
That same nagging feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach as she looked through more and more photos of her childhood. The more this feeling appeared, the closer and closer she felt she got to figuring out what it meant, and now it felt like the answer was almost within her grasp. It almost felt like… like…
“Silverstream?”
Silverstream nearly jumped out of her skin as something touched her shoulder. With a loud shriek, Silverstream whipped around to face the sudden intruder, startling them as well in the process. “O—Ocellus?”
“S-Sorry!’ Ocellus apologized once she had managed to get over her brief fear. “I… I knocked on your door several times and you didn’t answer, and it was unlocked so I figured I’d check see if you were in here…” Walking up to the desk, Ocellus glanced down at the album still open on the desk. “Are these your baby pictures?”
Blushing, Silverstream quickly slammed the album shut. “M—Maybe! Not that I was looking at them or anything like that!”
“Aww, don’t be embarrassed, Silverstream,” Ocellus replied with a warm smile. “I wish I had baby photos to look over like you do, but… well, cameras weren’t really a thing in the hive back then and even if they were…” Ocellus looked away as she became silent.
A pang of guilt hit Silverstream like a bag of rocks. Here she was reminiscing about her childhood, when Ocellus didn’t even have a childhood she could look back at fondly. “Do… Do you wanna look through them with me?”
Ocellus looked at Silverstream with a mix of surprise and joy. “Wha… Really? You’re sure?”
Nodding, Silverstream opened the album back up as the pair began to scroll through the photos. Time seemed to fly by as the pair awed over how cute Silverstream was and giggled at the silly antics the hippogriff had somehow managed to get herself into.
“Hey… Ocellus?” Silverstream suddenly said, interrupting their bonding moment.
“Hmm? Yeah?”
“Do you ever…” SIlverstream wondered why she was even thinking of asking such a silly question, but she had to know. “Do you ever wish you could… go back? Just… be a baby again and experience your childhood again? Just forget about all the worries about being grown up like school and stuff and just… be cared for and loved again?”
Ocellus was quiet for a moment as she contemplated an answer. “… Sometimes. I’m happy how my life is now, but somedays I do imagine what it would be like to just go back and just spend a day having an actual childhood. I’m sure it would be nice.”
“Yeah… I bet it would be…” Silverstream replied, growing silent as she returned her attention to the photo album. Despite the fun she was having going through the photos with Ocellus, that same feeling that had been plaguing her for days now still remained.
***
Later that night, as Silverstream lay awake staring up at the ceiling of her dorm room, she finally figured it out. Like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, it suddenly dawned on her with crystal clear clarity what this strange feeling was.
She… was jealous. Jealous of all the love and attention she had seen the foals at the daycare getting from all the staff. Jealous of how they didn’t have to worry about stuff like school, or homework, or even about needing to go to the bathroom, all their needs and wants were taken care of by others so they could live their lives without a care in the world. The image of the one foal sucking from a bottle as one pony sang them to sleep especially had burned itself into her mind, making her long to be in that position herself.
But that was silly! She was a grown up! She had friends and a family who gave her all the love and attention she could ever want! So why then did a part of her still ache for the unique love of a caregiver caring for a foal, a special kind of love that she knew she could never receive?
Rolling over onto her side, Silverstream glanced down at her hand, spreading her talons wide to look at them individually. Over the last few days, Silverstream had awoken to find one of her talons in her mouth, having apparently started sucking on it at some point in the night. Sucking her talon had been an almost unconscious thing when she had been a child, a habit she had broken as she had gotten older and hadn’t even thought about in years.
And yet…
Raising her hand up to her face, she popped one of her talons into her mouth and began to suck on it like she had when she was a child. At first she had felt incredibly silly, thinking about how it must look if anyone ever saw her doing something so childish and infantile as sucking her thumb. And yet she persisted, a strange feeling of calm coming over her as she focused only on sucking on the talon in her mouth.
Before long, the feeling of tiredness began to wash over her as all the worries and concerns raging around in her head became quieter and quieter, until all she knew was serenity and peacefulness. As Silverstream drifted off to sleep, she never once stopped sucking on her talon.