My Little World

by CrackedInkWell

8: In the Cottage Time Forgot

Celestia raised the sun by the time the airship had reached the city limits of Baltimare. Below them was a city that, to the untrained eye, reminded Lauren of places like New York or Boston. However, if she focused hard enough, she could make out the details that have certain elements of the Baltimore she knows. From a few key buildings near the sea to the star-shaped fortress and even a section of town where she could see dragons roaming about, she knew instantly that this was the place.

“We’ll be landing shortly.” Lauren looked behind her to Tempest who spoke to her as she came on the observation deck. “Probably within half an hour or so.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

The captain of the airship walked up next to the creator. “If it’s not improper, I was hoping to get an answer out of you.”

“Regarding what?”

“Well… I mean that out of all the places in Equestria, you could ask to be taken to – why here? It just seems odd that a guest of the Royal Princesses, a creature that nopony has ever seen before asks to be taken to this place. As far as I know, there’s nothing much here except for the dragon community.”

‘Huh… so this world is taking a page from the IDW comics.’ Lauren thought. “Well, to answer your question, I’m rather curious about something.”

Tempest raised an eyebrow. “Concerning…?”

“Well… you see where I come from, when a team and I were trying to figure out what Equestria was going to look like, I put a subtle nod to my hometown. If this place is the Equestria that I know… then I want to test out something.”

"Test out what?"

“In my head… when I came up with my original character; I had an idea that perhaps the girls had grown up here a long time ago. And maybe… If I’m right, Celestia and Luna’s chil- eh, foalhood home, might still be here.”

The ship’s captain’s eyes flew open wide. “The Princesses foalhood… But that must be impossible. Those two are over a thousand years old at least. Even if they did grow up here, I highly doubt that their home would have survived all these years.”

“That’s what I want to test out. If I’m this world’s creator, then perhaps there is a place here that would confirm something that was purely in my head.”

“You’re speaking as if you’re not convinced this world is real.”

“Oh, it’s obvious that it is… I just don’t know if this is the Equestria I know.”

Tempest didn’t respond to that cryptic statement. Instead, she told her that she was going to go down to assist with the landing.

---

Like Ponyville, the ponies’ curiosity came to them in droves. Literally. Behind the quasi-royal procession, herds of ponies came from every direction with the guard holding them back. They had been going through the streets for about an hour now, and Alice was complaining.

“My feet hurt.” She told her mother who was holding her hand.

“Do you want me to carry you?”

“Here,” Twilight said, slowing down to be beside them. “If it helps, you can ride on my back.”

This surprised Lauren. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to carry so much weight.”

“Pfft!” Twilight waved a dismissive hoof. “Please, since becoming an alicorn, that means that I also gained Earth pony strength. Having to carry her shouldn’t be that difficult.”

“Well if you say so.” Lauren picked Alice up. “Now don’t pull on her mane or ears, Alice, ponies don’t like it when you do that. And don’t try to kick them too. It’s rude.”

Her daughter looked at her with disappointment but let out a groaning “Okay…” before she was lowered down onto Twilight’s back before they continued.

Spike flew up to them. “So… the Princesses were asking me to ask you… where exactly are we going? You never really said since we’ve landed.”

“Hopefully someplace familiar.” She said. “In my head, there’s a house here that’s been overlooked by time. Someplace tucked away.”

“So how would we know to find it?”

“Simple.” Lauren smiled. “By getting lost.”

Both Spike and Twilight tilted their heads in confusion. “Lost?” they asked in unison.

“Well if you want to find something that isn’t easily found you have to get lost first, otherwise everyone would know where to find it.”

“Yeah, but how do you know if we’re getting near?”

Lauren realized that Spike did have a point. She hadn’t thought of it that far. To her imagination, there’s a particular house that’s neatly tucked away among the skyscrapers and modern buildings. A place was so hidden that one wouldn’t see it off the bat unless-

“Mommy! Mommy!” Alice called out, pointing.

“Not right now, I’m thinking.”

“But mom!”

“In a moment hon.”

Pouting, Alice did the unpredictable and instantly got off of Twilight to start running off. However, before she could make a few steps, she was picked up off the ground by the Princess of Friendship. She kicked and waved her fists about being lifted in the air as well as letting out some screams.

This caught the attention of Celestia and Luna. “What is the meaning of this?” Luna asked.

“Mom! Look!” Alice pointed to a part of the street where two towering buildings stood right next to each other.

“Look at what?” Spike questioned. “There’s nothing there but a couple of buildings. Not even enough room for an alley.”

“Leaf!” Alice pointed. “Look! Leaf!”

At first, Lauren was about to grab her daughter’s hand as she didn’t know what she was talking about. That was until she glanced at her daughter’s direction and noticed something. A detail that if she had blinked or turned her head away, she would have missed it. But the more she looked at it, the more she realized that something was off. There was indeed a leaf and a stem that peeked out between the tight space of the buildings. However, what made her pause was how high off the ground it was. It was probably about to where Celestia was, and she noted that the plant was too far away from any other nearby.

“Twilight, put her down,” she said, “I think Alice might be onto something here.”

Once Alice had her feet touch the ground, she went running off towards the two buildings, and, much to their surprise, she disappeared right in between the cracks. It sends the entourage running, trying to figure out what just happened. But as they got close, they realized that what they were looking at, was an optical illusion. Up close, the two buildings were not wedged together at all, rather, one of the walls was angled to a way where one could slip right through between them. It was a secret entrance to an alleyway hidden in plain sight.

Alice was there, her hand running over the ivy that was growing on the walls, and at her feet, there was no longer concrete, but dirt.

“Was this always here?” Spike asked what was on their minds.

Celestia stepped into the entrance and looked down from it. “Call me crazy, but is it me, or does this seem a little familiar?”

Luna stuck her head in. “You’re not alone. It’s as if… we have been here before.”

After giving their guards a command to stay at the entrance, the sisters, Twilight, her assistant, and the two humans walked down the narrow space between the two buildings. It was like walking in the middle of a canyon where they stepped over wild grass and ivy that had grown very tall. Twilight took the front in which she used her magic to brush the plants aside to let them through the thicket. It was clear that whatever this place was, it had gone completely unnoticed by the rest of the city.

Then, after a few minutes of passing through the jungle of grass and weeds, they came to a very shaded but open space. What they found was so surreal, that it made them stop where they were. Inside a tight square were towers of concrete, steel, and glass reaching up to the sky to the point where they could only see a small bit of it, there was a cottage. Inside the shade of the surrounding skyscrapers, where one expected that hardly anything would grow, there was a tree that had a simple swing, bushes, grass – all green – and encompassed inside a simple log fence. There was a vegetable garden in one corner and a patch of flowers in the other. And in the very middle of all this, was a home that looked like something out of Ponyville. What walls with wooden beams noticeably stuck out, a thatched roof, and what was the most amazing of all, there were wisps of smoke coming out of the chimney.

It was clear that this tiny cottage in the middle of the city wasn’t unoccupied.

“Is… that…?” Luna rubbed her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“It can’t be,” Celestia said in amazement.

“Princesses?” Twilight asked, “What is it? What is this place?”

“I think we found it,” Lauren answered, picking Alice up. “Twilight, I think this is their foalhood home.”

Both Twilight and her assistant’s jaws slammed on the ground.

“I can’t believe it’s still here!” Celestia said. “It still… all of it. Even the swing.”

“But… how?” Luna inquired. “How can any of this still be here, after all these centuries?”

“Can we go in?” Alice asked.

Upon hearing that, Celestia blinked and turned to the Creator. “This is of your own doing, isn’t it?”

“Kind of…?” Lauren said. “I had this idea in my head for a while since I was asked where you two came from. And for whatever reason, this is what I thought about. Now that I can see it, this is indeed the final nail in the coffin that I really am in Equestria.”

“Mom?” Alice asked again, “Can we go in?”

“At least let’s see who’s living here.” Twilight was the first to advance onto the cottage that was lost to time, the others followed after. Walking over the fence and into the front yard, Celestia and Luna could sense something powerful. Only, it wasn’t sinister nor oppressive. Rather, they sense strong magic that, in a way, feel as if they’ve come home for the first time. Twilight, all the while, walked across the grass up to the wooden, ancient door where there was a simple knocker on it. Using her magic, she knocked on it three times.

For a moment, nothing happened until there were the sounds of hoofsteps that were coming to the front door. It opened up to an old, gray-maned mare with wrinkles like an oak tree and eyes clouded. “What is it?” the ancient mare asked, “I’m already paid through Thursday.”

“Hello.” Celestia said, “Forgive us to come unannounced.”

The mare looked about. “Who’s the tall one that’s talking?”

This caught everyone off guard. “Well, I am,” Celestia answered, “how did you know that I’m-”

“I’m blind, not stupid.” The mare retorts. “Your voice is coming from above me. I didn’t hear your wings, so that doesn’t make you a Pegasus. Nor are you any magic either because magic tends to make a sound. So that narrows it down to you being really tall. So, I’ll ask again, who are ya?”

The ponies, dragon, and humans introduced themselves. The closest thing Lauren could accurately describe herself and her child to the blind pony was that they were aliens.

“Again, forgive us for the intrusion,” Celestia told her, “but believe it or not, we used to live here once. Is it alright to have us come in for a minute?”

The blind mare hummed in thought, then she pointed to Alice. “You. You like pie?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pumpkin pie?”

“Ice-cream. I-I like with ice-cream.”

“You got good taste.” She turned around but left the door ajar. “Don’t just stand there, come in and watch your heads. I don’t know how tall the ceilings are, but I think you’ll end up bumping your heads at one point.”

So pushing through the door, they entered a living room where there was a hearth, two armchairs, and a couch. They walked over a hardwood floor with a rug in the middle and overhead was a dusty black candelabra that didn’t have any candles. But what got their attention, however, was the pictures on the walls. There were three oil paintings on the walls, covered in centuries of dirt and cobwebs, which showed the same scene at different times of the day. However, it wasn’t so much what the paintings depicted, but rather the three ponies that were featured in them. Celestia and Luna, both when they were fillies. And the Fausticorn.

The paintings must have been a study because they showed the same location: a shady tree on top of a hill, looking down to a landscape of valleys, forests, and streams. But each painting depicted a different time – early morning, noon, and night. In the painting showing the dawn, all three ponies had their backs turned against the viewer towards the rising sun. It showed a filly Celestia with her horn aglow, hunched over as if dealing with a very difficult spell. The Fausticorn in the middle was patting her back and expressing words of encouragement. While the filly Luna was leaping in the air as if to cheer her sister on that she could do it. In the next painting, the two sisters were playing with a ball made out of twine in the bright sun while the older alicorn laid back against a tree, looking on as they played while levitating a scroll and a quill. In the final painting, where the stars were out and a full moon in the corner, it showed the siblings asleep, propping up against their mother underneath the tree while she read to them what was on the scroll.

“Where did you get these paintings Miss…?” Twilight ventured to ask but realized that she didn’t catch the name of the blind mare.

“Culinary.” The old mare answered from the kitchen. “And I don’t know where they came from. They were in the house long before I moved in.”

“So do you live here all by yourself?” Luna ventured to ask, taking a closer look at the evening painting.

“I was until all of you came in.” Spike tried and failed to suppress a giggle. “I’m a retired chef, lost her eyesight long ago; and now I’m playing host to three princesses, a short dragon, and two creatures from Celestia-knows-where.”

“Why is that an expression?” Celestia muttered but returned to her curiosity by looking closely at the morning painting. “You know, these paintings are pretty valuable. So if someone who can’t see has them, why have them?”

“Oh, I can’t take them down, even if I wanted to,” Culinary said, the sound of plates being laid out was heard. “In fact, nopony can. You could try to pry them off the walls all you want, they won’t budge. This house is pretty stubborn, but it’s practically the safest home in the world.”

“What do you mean?” Lauren asked.

“I mean this house is indestructible. You could set fire to it; pull it out from the ground; or damage whatever furniture isn’t glued to the floor, walls, or ceiling; but no matter what you do, you can’t do anything. Say, do any of you recall that Terik incident? He came right through the city tearing everything up. But when he got to my house? He couldn’t do a thing! He couldn’t rip it out of the ground, burn it, or use whatever magic he had – this house wouldn’t budge. I’ll tell ya, it’s pretty stubborn.”

Culinary returned to the living room, carrying plates of pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream on her back. After going around to serve the plates, she got to the royal sisters. “So, you two say that you both once lived here?”

“It’s strange to think, but this is the house we grew up in. With being a princess of over a thousand years, I’ve completely forgotten about this place. But now… it just brings back memories. Like I remember that down there,” she pointed to a short hallway, “The one on the left was our room, and on the other side was Mother’s. This room was her favorite place to work, especially during the winter when there was a cozy fire going on. This room used to have piles of scrolls of making stories – sometimes a dozen at the same time.”

Luna blinked, turning to Lauren she asked: “So is this why you wanted to have us come here? Back to our old home?”

While Alice sat down and took her place to eat on the couch, Lauren took up her plate. “It’s complicated, but to make it all short, I want to know with absolute certainty that the Equestria we’re in, is the same one that I had somewhat pictured it in my head. Although other writers could come up with new places and characters, there are a few things that remain untouched by never telling anyone. Take, for example, Baltimare’s best-kept secret, your foalhood home. Untouched by time or the writing staff. Now I know that this place is the same Equestria that I know.” She leaned up against a wall, taking a little bite of the ice cream. “Of course, the only thing I haven’t figured out now is what to do.”

“You’re joking, right?” Culinary questioned. “An alien from another world has come here, and besides coming here unannounced in my home to eat pumpkin pie and ice cream, she has no clue what to do?” She shook her head. “Sweet Luna, you’d think that aliens would have been a little bit smarter than this.”

“What do you mean by that?” Luna questioned, almost offended.

“I’m just saying, that if I go to a different planet, and the locals there have no clue who I am, why I’m there, and what I want, staying quiet about it is just going to grow fear and resentment the longer I stay. If I were the alien, the least I could do is hold some press conference or whatever, just so I could at least say hello. Get to know the visitor that decided to come by just a little.”

The room went completely quiet for a moment. “Actually…” Spike said at last. “That’s not a bad idea. With all those ponies that have been following us, it would be reasonable to at least tell them your intentions as well as a bit of yourself. If we’re going to go around Equestria, the last thing we want to encounter is an angry mob.”

‘…. I never thought of that.’ Lauren silently admitted to herself. She knew that Culinary and Spike were right. She and Alice are the first actual humans in Equestria that, to every intelligent creature here, are aliens to them. For all she knows, she could very well be spreading fear without knowing it. Especially when she’s walking around next to royalty all the time, they could come up with wild ideas as to what’s going on. Would they somehow see her and her daughter as a threat?

“You know what?” Lauren knelt to the blind pony. “You’re actually right. I don’t just want to see this world, but I want to get to know it personally. But I haven’t given this world the time to get to know me a little. It is the smart thing to do.”

Culinary smiled. “Good, you're learning. But before you go anywhere, would any of you care to stay for a little while to get to know all of you? Being in a forgotten part of the city, I don’t get neighbors that often.”

Lauren looked over to the Princesses. “We would be honored."

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Now this is a wonderful thought. I quite like the idea that the little cottage that the sisters grew up in proved just as long-lived as they, in it's own quietly stubborn way.

[Hazey Logic]

I wonder how long until Lauren gets the idea to narrate herself into Fausticornification.

[I love my little pony2]

Hey ever wonder if the goddam world tries to screw over people at any moment this is the oppisite

[Green121]

This story is a pleasant surprise so far and an improvement to its prequel. Nice to see the comics used as some source material for the story.