The smile freezes on her face, and quickly droops to a sheepish smile, and a blush upon her muzzle. She's probably embarrassed about asking if I had a coltfriend, instead of a girlfriend.
As for me, I honestly don't know how to feel about that whole thing. Of course, there may be a little irritation from the coltfriend comment, but that was a slip of the tongue. Maybe a little bit of depression as I have never had a girlfriend, and then a little bit of neutrality at the mention of my family.
All-in-all, I have no idea how to react, so I don a look of confusion and sit down onto my rump. I move my lips side to side as I try to think of an answer, and my ears flick towards small sounds. Finally, I take in a breath to give my answer, "Well, no, I've never had a girlfriend or coltfriend of any kind throughout my life." I put an emphasis on the coltfriend bit just to tease her. "As for my human family, I haven't talked to any of them for at least a year; we've had…different opinions throughout life."
While at first she looks intrigued at what I've said, she gets a kind of queasy look on her face as she thinks about something else. Finally, she lowers her head, looking a bit down (Haha! Get it?! Because she uh, well never mind). "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," She sighs, then recollecting herself, "I suppose it would be only fair if I answer the same question. I didn't have any coltfriend or girlfriend as you so pleasantly reminded me. As for my family, I'm mostly on friendly terms with them." Oh, as I so pleasantly reminded you? My tail twitches in a slight increase of irritation. Who's the one who even started that line of conversation?
However, my current train of thought is derailed and replaced by her next question. "I know that it may sound a little strange, but do you recall anything of our original parents?"
As per usual, there's only a quick flash, but I see, in my mind, a picture of a filly Celestia, with a golden tiara many sizes too big upon her head. She's smiling, and in the background I see a white-coated and red-maned alicorn grinning gently at Tia's antics, while she holds a younger version of me in her forelegs. Of course, I, being the younger one, am wailing a bit at the unfairness that my older sister gets to wear the crown and I do not.
And then, just as quickly as it came, the image is gone. I blink a few times, and realize that almost no time has passed, and my sister's lips are still barely moving from her query. I hold up a front hoof in an attempt to keep her from talking too much more. "Whoa sister, slow down! Let me answer a few of those."
She opens her mouth to reply, but then stops herself, smiling a bit. I smile back and continue, "First, probably a good thing neither of us ever had girlfriends, right? Also probably a good thing you're still on pretty good terms with your family, just in case we ever need help. And for the last question, all I remember is a picture of our possible mother when we were young."
However, I don't leave her any time to respond. "Now, I have a subject we sorely need to talk about; the past twenty-five years. I'll admit, I actually tried to forget about them, but the truth of the matter is, we cannot." Phew! I can't believe I would deprive myself of so much oxygen from talking so much!
She smiles and chuckles a bit, then proceeding to say, "I didn't know that ponies could speak that long without stopping for air." Oh, so my accidental self-suffocation is funny? Well, yeah, I guess it kind of is. "More seriously, what exactly do you want to know? Keep in mind that I have a few events that I'm reluctant to talk about, despite you having the 'I'm your long lost little sister' card."
Well, that's understandable, and I'm not one of those idiots who think they have the right to pry into your every memory. Sure there have been a few select incidents with those dreams for the past few nights, but that was on accident. "Well, I guess the most logical thing would be to tell each other about what's been happening in our lives for the past two and a half decades, particularly that incident with pink. I kind of want to know what happened there."
Her eyes widen in surprise, but she quickly recovers to reply, "So it was really you." Better believe biii-snitch (phew that was close)! "Helios said something about you having a power over dreams, but I didn't give it much attention at the time, considering it was just a dream." Well, they sorta kind of aren't just dreams anymore. Some mismatch of different creature has kind of turned them into nightmares for me to clean up.
However, she's not done talking, as she cuts me off like an ass hole driver. "As for the pink incident, what can I say? I missed being a princess," she finishes with a smirk.
I can see she's trying to make light of that little situation, and she's doing a pretty good job at it. However, I can tell something's bothering her; call it newfound sisterly intuition. "Hey, I can tell that things are bothering you more than you're letting on. Plus, I'm your long-lost little sister, and we share things that bother us, don't we?"
My attempt at humor with the long-lost little sister card fails, as she droops her head and her ears in defeat. "I'm sorry. I'm just not too used to speak about that problem. There was only one that I trusted enough before you," she says, exhaling a bit of breath. "Though you are right, there is something that bothers me about the whole thing now that I think about it. Everypo-everyone at school was oddly cruel about it. I mean it happened when I was in first grade for goodness sake! Does it make sense for them to hammer it down until I was done with high school?"
Tia does have a good point with that, and it is highly unusual for children in the first grade to act like that. Discord may have had something to do with it to target her at an early age. I refrain from mentioning this, as it may make her a little angry, and we need for her to keep a cool head.
I hear the ding of the oven as the hopefully delicious soufflés signify their completion. Good, this could help with her guilty look, because whenever I feel down, I find that eating helps me a bit with perking up; of course, that's one of the quickest ways to getting fat, but who cares?
I let a small grin bloom on my snout (which still feels a bit weird to call it mine), and begin walking towards the oven to grab the soufflés. "Well, let's discuss things over a nice meal, shall we?" I reach into the oven and bite down onto the dish.
~~~~~~~~~~
As it turns out, grabbing a dish that's still in the oven with your mouth is a really bad idea. When I touched the dish with my lips, I had jerked my head upwards, onto one of the red-hot cooking bars in the oven. This then started a small fire on my snout, but we were able to put it out in a few seconds. As a result, most of the fur on my snout was burnt off, and there were angry red marks on it as well.
On the bright side, my lips weren't damaged too badly, and the rest of my mouth was completely fine. What the hell was I thinking? Grabbing a dish in the oven with your mouth? Great, now I'll never live this down, and I can already see she's trying not to laugh at my bad luck.
Of course, then she did laugh in my face, but that's not the point; she at least tried to hold it in. After bandaging it the best we could with our limited control of magic, we sat down and ate the damned soufflés, even though I had the burns to get past. It struck me as odd that we had trouble applying the bandages, when earlier I had been able to pick up several objects and hold them there. I theorized that this may have been because it was accidental and instinctual, but I digress.
After we finished eating breakfast and talking, we just sort of drifted over to our computers for a couple hours and did our own thing. After those two hours though, Tia suggested that we go do sibling-building activities. This included painting each other's hooves, and practicing with our grooming…
Oh, who the hell am I kidding? About thirty minutes later, we getting into intense matches of everything from Civilization 7, and even into her non-favored genre; first-person shooters such as Halo and Destiny. The hours flew by, and before we knew it, the sun was beginning to go down.
After completing another puzzle of Portal 4 (It still irks me that they seemed to skip making a third one), I finally set down my controller and shut off the Xbox. "Well, that was a rather interesting day, wasn't it?" Before all of that, it had felt like having a stranger in my house, but now she felt just like a sister.
She gives me a grin and chuckles. "It was, although you do seem to have a lot of single-player games. I'm not judging you or anything, it just stuck out." Darn, she did notice that. I guess I'll have to explain that bit to her.
"Yeah, it's mostly because I've been a loner for most of my life. Even out on the internet, I didn't interact much with others." I turn away as a few painful memories come back to me of my high school years; watching as others walked away in big groups, laughing while I stood there in the background.
"Oh," she sighs, "I have a good idea of what you went through. Internet was my only escape..." Ah, another one of those that didn't enjoy much of the physical contact. "I wonder, did you meet my friend Michael while you both were going to school? It would make things easier if you weren't total strangers."
I chuckle and rub the back of my head with a hoof. "Well, I'm not actually even from Iowa. I used to live a couple states away in Colorado. I just moved here because of the climate." Well, it was also so I could find a place rather far away from my parents, and because I just felt something pulling me to this specific area.
She gives the pony equivalent of a shrug. "Oh well, I don't think he would have any trouble meeting you if you wish to do so, once I clear the whole 'I turned back into a pony princess' part with him."
Instead of replying, I just give her a simple nod and begin to walk to the Kitchen to prepare supper. As I flip through the multitude of cook books, I realize that I've never asked her what she wants for a meal. I trot back into the living room to look for her, and see aforementioned pony standing next to a window and staring directly into the setting sun.
I walk slowly over to her. "Hey Tia, I was just wondering what you would want for supper tonight." That's odd, she seems to be a little despondent.
However, as soon as I reach out a hoof to touch her shoulder, she shakes her head. "I'm afraid tha-" Whatever she was going to say is cut off by the ringing of her phone. There's a brief flash of worry across her face, and then she mumbles something like, "Wonder what happened," as she levitates her phone over to her. Unfortunately, the phone is touch-screen and her voice has changed too much for it to recognize her.
Perhaps some other family member calling? No! She's my sister now! You can't have her. Letting a bit of suspicion leak into my voice, I ask, "Who was that? A family member?"
She winces, "No, worse; Michael."
Uh-oh, that was her friend, right? Well, no! She's still mine! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Of course, that'd be a bad idea to actually say that aloud, so I instead reply with. "That's your one friend, right? What are you going do?"
The worry comes back onto her face, and doesn't leave this time. "I'm going to see if I can contact him on Steam."
I step a bit backwards so as to get out of her way as she quickly trots over to her lap top. That's rather odd; I haven't seen her this worried before. Okay, well, I have only technically known her again for about two days, but that doesn't matter. Realizing she may not be in the mood to decide what to eat, I leave her alone and head back to the Kitchen to prepare something simple, saying to her as I pass, "Well, let me know if anything changes."
She hears me, but just doesn’t respond, muttering under her breath as she notices a message from a few seconds ago. "I just hope it isn't as bad I imagine it to be."
I leave her to her thoughts and recede back into my lair, namely the Kitchen, and prepare a simple meal of grilled cheese sandwiches. Ha! I hope she isn't lactose intolerant. After a few more minutes of preparing, such as buttering the bread and cutting the cheese (Ha!), I put the sandwiches on the skillet just in time to hear her call my name (BOW CHICKA BOW WOW! Tucker, I fucking swear, if you say that one more time…).
"Luna! Come here quickly!" I blink in surprise; her voice was filled with both excitement and worry, so this either means she somehow found another pony, or she forgot where the bathroom was.
Either way, I walk casually into my living room. "Yes? What's wrong?" Of course, I do it with a relaxed tone to see if I can irritate her at all.
Of course, my endeavor is unsuccessful as she replies, "My friend found strange tattoos that appeared on both his sisters' thighs yesterday. Apparently today their eyes and hair started to change color. Even better, his own hair started to grow longer and change color too. Sound familiar?"
I have several ways I'd like to answer that query. First, what the hell was he doing, looking at his sisters' thighs? Second! Uh, well, I don't really have another answer. But anyways! "Are you going to go to them?"
She nods her head in confirmation. "Yes. They'll need help, and more importantly, answers. Well, my friend at least, his sisters are more likely to have a lot of fun." She stops and thinks for a moment before snickering. "Though, I wonder why a Cutie Mark hasn't appeared on him. Everypony else seemed to have one of those."
Yeah, well we can worry about that later. Right now I gotta focus on finishing cooking those sandwiches, and also to keep my mind from thinking about how I'm going to be all alone again once she leaves. I've already decided to stay behind back here at my apartment; last time I went out, it didn't go too well. "Well, can you at least stay for supper? I was thinking it'd be easier for us to get to his house by going one at a time."
I don't wait for her answer and immediately head into the Kitchen to finish the sandwiches. Suddenly, I realize that there's no pain whatsoever coming from underneath the bandages. Using my magic, I forego all risks and just rip them off. Strangely, my nose is completely healed and the fur almost grown back in; must be some type of earth pony trait.
My sister, being the slightly lovable oblivious idiot that she is, doesn’t notice this and goes ahead and gives her answer from earlier. "Yes, I told him that I'll eat with my friend before going. The darker it is outside, the less people will notice that it's a pony that's driving the car."
I roll my eyes and chuckle at that. She's pretty good at making jokes! Right? That was joke, wasn't it? Oh, I guess not, judging by the still serious look on her face. "Well, it might be a bit difficult to drive a car as a full-fledged pony," I say, as though it should've been sort of, maybe just a little, probably obvious.
She sighs and gives me a downcast look. "You're probably right... But I can't leave it here or it will attract the police interest sooner or later. I prefer to be sure that it won't cause us problems later on." She does have a good point about that…damn it. "Besides, I would most likely get lost in town without my GPS."
Oh yeah, that's right, she's not a native to this land. "Well, that is a good point. Hold on a sec'." I sit down onto my haunches and bring a hoof to my chin to think. "Well, it could be possible if you use your magic a little bit, but then you'll be pretty tired by the time you get there."
She just shrugs, and says, "I'm supposed to be able to move the Sun, so a car should be easy enough. Should I get too tired, I can most likely find a place without too much light to take a break. After all, darkness is your best ally when you want to hide, don't you agree?"
Yes, darkness is your best ally to hide…when you're a nocturnal predator chasing down prey through a thick forest. Thankfully, most humans aren't nocturnal, and those that are don't have as sharp of senses as other predators. "That sounds like it could work to me." I don't mention it, but it truly does bother me that she's leaving, and that we somehow decided that we should go separately. What kind of idiots are we?
I take the two sandwiches and place them onto two separate plates for my sister and I. Unfortunately, the sandwiches are a little burnt, due to distractions, but we'll deal with it. "However, you may want to exercise incredible caution, even at night. There's no telling what could happen."
"I know," she sighs, " But still, it's the best option to reach my friend, hopefully before the more obvious pony features appear. Besides, I doubt that I'm very stealthy regardless of the time of day." She points to her white coat and pink mane. I notice a few pastel colors coming in at the base; she's regaining her powers as well.
"Yet again, a good point." I take a bite out of my sandwich, then taking advantage of my enlarged mouth, I shove half of the remaining sandwich in. I don't care if it's narcissistic, but damn, I'm a good cook.
I glance out the window and chew my food, thinking of something new. Once I swallow (BOW- Not right now Tucker, now's not a good time.), I say, "It may be a good idea to leave right as the sun's setting; that'll make it a lot harder for people to see you clearly." Looking out the window a bit more, I realize she only has a few minutes left before then; she should probably leave now.
She, also very unlike the princess she's supposed to be, quickly wolfs down most of her sandwich. "You're right. There's just one thing left that we need to talk about before I leave; it would be best if we had a sure way to be able to contact each other."
"Well, my phone should be fine for usage, but yours may be a bit of a problem as it's touch-screen. Unless you've found some way to work around that?" I ask hopefully. Seriously, if she can't at least answer calls, then we may be in a spot of trouble.
She takes another bite from her sandwich before replying, "Well, I do have a pencil especially for that usage, although, I normally use it for games. Besides, I didn't want to answer for obvious reasons." She pauses another moment to take a bite of her dwindling food. "I'll bring my computer with me, so we should be able to stay in contact much more easily with it. Actually, I was wondering how much control you had on your Dream Walking ability. It could be useful if you don't hear from me later tonight."
Well damn, how did I not think of this? I'm supposed to be the brains here! Well, of course no offense to you sister. "I like that idea! I'll see what I can do tonight, and you could give me an update as well if you reach his house before morning." Or at least, I hope she can find it.
"Well, you should have news in less than an hour." She reaches out with her hooves to begin packing her lap top, when she stops, backs away a little bit, and begins to use her magic. Wow, I'll admit I've had trouble using my magic in fine-control, but she's just rubbing it in! She makes it look so easy!
Masking my small bit of jealousy as well as I can, I watch as she finishes packing up her lap top. When she finishes, she looks around the room to see if there was anything else she had missed. Upon seeing that she all she had brought was her lap top, she walked over to the door, and I followed her. "Well Tia, I guess this is good-bye again for a little while. I hope to see you soon."
She stands there for a few moments, seemingly undecided about something. That's when she surprises me by turning and enveloping me in comfortable embrace. "I hope to see you soon too, sister."
Damn it, now I'm getting all emotional! I can feel some tears coming to my eyes as I hug her back. "Please do stay safe," I say, as she lets go of me.
"Don't worry. You managed to hold your own against several armed men while you barely knew what you were doing. There should be enough blunt objects around to defend myself," she says, giving me a wink. I decide not to tell her that I got incredibly lucky.
"Still, be careful if you run into them," I say with a bit of an authoritative voice. I back away from her, retreating into my apartment a little bit. "I guess I'll see you in hopefully just a couple of hours." I never was good at farewells. Stupid things made my life awkward.
She opens her mouth to say something, but then closes it and just nods at me instead. "I will be, see you soon." For some reason her assurances don't comfort me very much, but I may be overreacting. She tries to wave at me while walking away, but the lack of a hoof on the ground causes her to fall over. "Eh, that on doesn't count." It takes all of my will power not to burst out in laughter.
"Of course not," I say with a smile, "Just remember not to fall over this time."
She got back up onto her hooves and smiled, waving without moving this time. "I'll try." After she puts her hoof down, she hesitates for a moment, then turns and leaves the hallway, entering the elevator and going to the ground floor.
I close my apartment door and stand there for a few seconds, the smile slowly sliding off of my face. Well, what do I do now? It's like the will to do anything at all has left me completely, which is odd because I usually love being left alone.
After what seemed like a few minutes but what was really only a few seconds, I move from where I'm standing and move to my bedroom window and look out onto the parking lot.
I chuckle a little bit; she really should be more careful, as I can easily see her from here, trying to sneak from car to car. Fortunately, I don't think that anybody else sees her, as she reaches her car with no interruptions.
She quickly opens the driver side door, jumps in, and closes it. I can see the car rocking (Don't you even think about saying it…) as she gets into a more comfortable position. Eventually, the car starts up, slowly leaves the parking lot, and drives off to the south.
I let out a sigh and turn away from the window, walking back into my apartment with no idea of what to do. Looking at the clock, I realize that while the sun has gone down, it's still pretty early in the evening. Well, what I consider to be pretty early.
I decide to start with cleaning the Kitchen from our recent meal. Walking into the Kitchen, I see that there's barely even a mess in the first place. All in all, it takes me about three minutes to rinse and stick the dishes in the dishwasher.
I trot back into my living room and practically jump back onto my leather couch, absolutely bored and frustrated with nothing to do. Eventually, I decide to kill some time and people by playing my new Destiny game.
However, I just can't seem o get into it. I play for several hours and get a bit farther in the campaign (They make those story modes long as hell now!), but I just can't get my mind off of my sister, worrying for her safety. I mean, she could've gotten into an accident, been seen by those black armored people from earlier, or any number of hazards that I can think of!
I catch myself starting to hyperventilate. It's okay Luna, calm down. You may or may not just be overreacting. My self-encouragement doesn't seem to help too much, but it keeps me from freaking out.
I pause the game when I come to another realization; when did I come to care so much for another stranger? I mean, I know earlier it felt just like having a great sibling that I could along with greatly, but I was never that way with other people, not even the friend I'd had since first grade.
Was I really so longing for relationship that I'd drop my shell for somebody I hadn't even remembered for twenty-five years? Oh well, that doesn't matter at this point. Even if I can not quite consider her a sibling just yet, I can definitely consider her a friend, and someone who's in the same boat as me.
I pause the game and look at the time, see it to be just a little bit past nine. I guess I might as well look around on the internet for more possible ponies. To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't seen more on people-turned-pony on the net. I save and quit at the point where I am and stretch, not unlike a cat.
After I sigh in relief from the satisfying chain of pops along my back, I casually walk over to my computer chair and hop in, stopping myself in front of the monitor. I quickly open up a browser, and begin my search.
~~~~~~~~~~
I guess the first thing that tips me off would be the fact I'm floating above my body, which has its blue-furred face pressing into the desk. Aw, aren't I so adorable? Hm, is that narcissistic? Oh well.
I suppose this means that I should look for Tia's dream stream now, seeing as how I probably won't get any more searching done tonight. As soon as I start looking through the sky for Tia's stream, I spy something odd instead.
It's another dream stream, and definitely a pony's because of the bluish color, but it's altered a bit, kind of like how Shadow's had been when he had the Discord Nightmare. But instead of odd little pieces of junk, this seems almost…saturated in lightning.
I follow where it's going, and fortunately for me, it appears to go into some random house near the mall in town, so no crazy, high-speed flight across America. I will myself up closer to the stream, and I swear I can hear faint echoes of a scream coming from it. I steel my resolve and prepare to jump in, when I'm yanked high-speed (son of a bitch) back into my own body.
My head snaps up as what sounds like a grenade comes from next door. I groggily shake the sleep from my eyes and look at the time on the digital clock across the room; about a quarter of two in the morning. Who the hell decided it would be a good time to set off explosives in an apartment at two in the morning?!
I grumpily hop off of the seat I miraculously didn't fall out of and march to the apartment door. At this point, I don't care who sees me, because whoever interrupted my sleep and rescue of that pony will have to pay the consequences!
I get to my door and open it, not slamming it open, but not super cautiously either. I look around the hallway for evidence of explosive; nothing. I smell the air for evidence of explosives; nothing. Although, there is a scent of something I can't place, familiar, but not familiar enough.
I swing my head left to right to check for others in the hallway, and upon seeing none, I come completely out of my apartment for a more thorough examination. As I walk past Fiona's door, I hear hushed voices, too quiet for me to hear.
I connect the dots in my head, finally coming to a conclusion; it must be those friends of hers! Those loud obnoxious bronies that I can hear through my walls whenever they come over to her apartment. I growl quietly and walk back to my room grumbling. If they want to get in trouble for being loud troublemakers then so be it. Besides, I don't want to expose myself quite yet, and especially not to two bronies who would freak out at the sight of me.
I use my magic to quietly close my door (unlike some other people) and go back to my computer. As I sit down, I yawn wide enough that it actually pops my jaw. I guess I should go sleep in an actual bed this time. I move the mouse to my computer to wake it up so I could shut it down for the night. However, as I'm going through each tab and closing it, I notice another message from that Berry Frost person.
Look We are the Meta, my name is North Wind and I’m Strawberry’s friend. She got captured by some crazy German soldier mercenary… thing. If you really are in our camp, please find a way to contact me. Add me on Skype or whatever program you use, please answer. Skype name : PeterMartineau1
I read through the message several times, finally getting the gist of it; a pony has been kidnapped, and possibly by those black-armored soldiers from yesterday. The sparks of irritation I felt grow until I am sitting at my desk in quiet fury.
I quickly open up my Skype and type in his contact name. It was pretty easy to find him, as his was only one of two there. To start the conversation, I type in the best ice-breaking greeting I can think of.
We are the Meta: Hello?