My World, Our Life

by CEverw00d

Ch 5. The Passing Days

Ch 5. The Passing Days

The days resumed and each day was fun. The children grew used to Star’s presence and began to act like she was a normal occurrence. They still had fun with her though.

Two weeks passed, it was a Saturday morning and we were eating breakfast, a breakfast prepared by Star herself. It was eggy-in-a-basket with apple slices and milk. As we ate and conversed about what we might do this weekend, she had paused and began looking down, away from me and seemed lost in thought. It was something on her mind, something, I could tell, that she’d wanted to talk to me about for some time. I had a guess, but waited for her to ask about it.

She looked up at me, a serious expression, but in a gentle and curious tone, she started, “Charlie?”

“Yes?” I responded, putting my food down and paying full attention.

“I’ve been wondering…about the day we met.”

“What about it?”

“You mentioned Equestria…before I ever said anything about it. How did you know I came from Equestria?”

I paused. I tried to think of the best way I could explain it, but my mind was rushing, somewhat panicked. I replied as best I could, “I know about it because…well…those cartoons….I’ve showed you.”

“What do you mean?”

I rubbed my head, “It’s kind of hard to explain, it would be better if I showed you. It may be confusing, but I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Showed me?”

“Wait here, I’ll get my laptop.”

I got my laptop and went to a video site that I’d used dozens of times to show her other cartoon shows, she rolled her eyes, thinking I was going to show her something else. Then I loaded up the first episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. She was now paying full attention. All she had to see was Twilight sparkle before she was shocked and confused. The way this unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, the way she was drawn looked exactly like how Stardust looked in person. She continued watching, her eyes completely entranced and her mouth agape. With every new pony that was introduced, her eyes flickered. They were all drawn in a similar style, just like how Stardust looked.

These were the first ponies she’d seen that looked similar to her, and they were….cartoons?

The first episode ended and her shock hadn’t quite worn off. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Star?”

Without looking away, she whispered out, “Another…”

“What?”

“Another…episode….I want to see another.”

I loaded the second episode, then the third, then fourth. After each episode ended, we loaded up the next episode and watched it without any words beyond, “Another.”

We watched the entire first season, back-to-back episodes, non-stop. It concerned me, but I knew I should just continue and let her watch until she was satisfied. We didn’t stop to eat; she never moved from her chair; it was as if she’d forgotten all about reality while she watched it.

At the end of the first season, she finally looked away from the monitor and closed her mouth. She thought for a moment, then looked over to me, then down again.

I reached over and stroked her mane. She jumped a bit and looked up at me, but didn’t struggle. I spoke softly, “Star? Are you alright?”

She mumbled out, “Y-yeah. I just…am I…a cartoon?”

I shook my head, “No way. You’re as real as can be.”

“But those ponies! Twilight, and Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, and Applejack, and the others, they’re all cartoons! And they’re all like me!”

“But they aren’t you. YOU’RE you. And you exist, which means you’re not a cartoon. You’re here, which means Equestria must really be real. Whether the Equestria on that screen is real or not, or whether it’s the same one, we don’t know. You came from a world called Equestria, that means Equestria exists. Did you ever hear of any places called Canterlot or Ponyville?”

“I never heard of Ponyville, but there was a Canterlot. There was a Princess Celestia, a Princess Luna…ah!” Her eyes widened, “There was also one night, it was the night of the Summer Sun Celebration, and the sun didn’t come up! The night lasted a long, long time, nobody in the village knew what was wrong! I remember all that! The sun did come up eventually, and I remember hearing rumors about some ponies who had saved the Princess, how they got a stained-glass window in their honor. It must be the same one!”

“See? If you remember all that, then it must be real. It must even be the same one. I don’t know how it wound up as a cartoon here.”

“Maybe magic?”

“Makes the most sense to me.”

She giggled a bit. I was glad this didn’t turn out so badly, learning about the world she came from. She smiled a little bit, then her stomach let out a loud growl. She giggled more and said sheepishly, “Charlie? I’m hungry.”

“Then let’s eat.”

We ate a late supper and moved ourselves to the bed where we started watching season two of MLP:FIM. She was curious about the characters and wanted to know more. We watched it until we were both tired and fell asleep, then resumed watching on Sunday morning. I showed her the Wikipedia pages for MLP:FIM where she read up on them and learned more about the background characters. She learned all that she could about them without straying into the darker depths of the fandom. It was nothing less than fun.

---

---

The days flew by one after another. We went to school together, enjoyed our time together, and before we knew it, the school year was over.

Over the course of the summer, Stardust practiced creating new spells and reading many more books. She’d perfected the teleportation spell, as well as one for transformation. She mainly learned this spell so that she could disguise herself as me and go to the library freely. She’d practiced levitating pens to the point where she could rapidly type on the keyboard with them effortlessly. She primarily enjoyed exploring Wikipedia, going from article to article, subject to subject, learning all kinds of new things about Earth and its human history. She explored the ideas of religion and the various sciences, finding herself in a difficult position. Science made sense, but nothing about her magic made much sense. She learned a lot and only continued to learn and grow.

Physically she’d gotten bigger. Taller, longer, but she was still not a full-grown pony. She also did not have her cutie mark. This was to be expected as she didn’t have many opportunities to explore other possible talents.

While she practiced her magic, I searched for any new developments on any new information about her brother. She told me his name and his appearance, a red unicorn called Blaze Hart. Most of my searches ended up with finding various Original Character ponies designed by other people with no legitimate clues to his whereabouts. We started to think that maybe he wasn’t even on Earth. We still didn’t know how Star got to Earth either. There were so many questions that were gradually forgotten to the passing time. We enjoyed the now, and the now was us together.

---

---

Summer, too, came to an end, and with the coming of fall, brought a new set of children and the introduction of Stardust all over again. Sometimes children from the previous year would come visit her during recess and lunch breaks. The children adored her, and she enjoyed them.

It was now winter break. I had two weeks off and I had a one-week reservation for vacation time up near a skiing resort. I normally didn’t go because I was comfortable in my apartment, but with Star here, I wanted her to enjoy her vacation in the snow.

We spent the first week of vacation getting ready. We needed to buy winter jackets that would fit Star and keep her warm, she also needed to practice taking the form of someone other than me. She would go with me with the disguise of one of my previous students, a little blonde girl named Gwendolyn. We also looked for a way to get to the mountain and found we’d have to take a bus to another town and then another bus up the mountain to the resort.

---

---

The time came and we were excited. There wasn’t much to do on either bus ride, but we had each other, and kept ourselves entertained. Ironically, we ended up talking about My Little Pony, discussing who our favorite ponies were. I liked Rarity and Twilight, she liked Applebloom and Twilight.

We eventually made our way to the resort and checked in. Once in the room Star flopped on the bed and changed back to her normal self. She was exhausted since she had to keep her disguise up for most of the day, yet she was still excited to go playing in the snow. I told her to eat some food and rest, then we would build a snowman later.

So we did. We ate, made a snowman, then quickly erupted into a snowball fight. There weren’t many people around, so she started using magic to chuck snow at me. I was completely outmatched, but it was fun.

At night we laid in our bed. It was softer and larger than the one in the apartment, yet Star insisted that she preferred the one at the apartment. Despite the larger bed, she still drew up against me and fell asleep. I couldn’t help but heave a slight chuckle at this and hold her tightly as I, too, fell asleep.

The next day we ate food in the resort cafeteria, a larger variety and more tasty than what we had at the apartment. Star pouted because she wasn’t allowed to cook our food. I joked about letting her cook some ramen cups for us. Later, we spent the day going skiing. We were both terrible at it and were afraid to go fast on skis. We both fell, over and over again. We resorted to sledding instead, which she enjoyed much more. It was another fun and exhausting day that ended with us retreating back to our room. However, this time, we did not stay in our room.

It was later in the evening, dark out, and Star had gotten out of the bed where we were watching more cartoons on my laptop. She made her way for the door as I called to her, “Star, what’s wrong?”

She looked over to me, her eyes were wider, but she seemed…absent-minded, like she was in a trance. She moaned out, “I…have to go…..outside. I feel…..strange….”

With that, and without any disguise or invisibility, she used her magic to turn the handle and exit the room. I quickly put on my heavy jacket and pants and went out after her, bringing the heavy clothing she’d left behind.

Out in the snow, she was moving slowly through the snow. I caught up quickly, but didn’t force her to come back with me. She didn’t seem fazed by the cold or the snow and merely proceeded out behind the resort and into the woods. I was cautious about being out in a dark forest at night, yet that didn’t seem to faze her either.

We kept moving until we came to a clearing in the forest. In the clearing there was a very large, slanted, jagged rock that pointed skyward. Star proceeded towards it and scaled it to the top, about 8 feet above the rest of the snow. She then directed her head skyward and gazed at the stars. I also looked up.

The sky was perfectly clear, no clouds from yesterday, no pollution from city lights, just all the stars glimmering in the heavens above. Then there came a light. It was coming from Stardust. It looked over to her and there, on her flank, appeared her cutie mark. It looked like a four-pronged light-purple spiral that got thicker as it got closer to the center, it also had 8 dark-teal diamonds, 2 by the tip of each prong. At first I was confused, what kind of talent was that, and why now? Then it occurred to me and I looked heaven-ward again. Her cutie mark looked like a spiral galaxy. Then, her special talent was a galaxy?

I thought about it. Celestia’s was the sun, Luna’s was the moon. They were both powerful and capable of moving large heavenly bodies. I guess it was possible for Stardust’s to be something similar, but moving a whole galaxy seemed…impossible.

As she gazed at the stars, her horn began to glow, and as if in response to her, the stars began to glow brighter as well, and flickered. Some stars that were harder to see became more visible. It was a spectacular sight, far more majestic than any photograph than I had ever seen. I was dumbstruck until Stardust spoke, “Come up here Charlie, I want you to see something.”

Her voice sounded a little different, more mature. There wasn’t much emotion in her tone, perhaps some happiness.

I scaled the rock and stood by her side. She spoke again, “Look. Do you see it? The little green star far to the upper-right.”

I looked and looked, but there were so many stars it was hard. I finally spotted it. It was glowing a little brighter than the rest and gently flickering.

She smiled, “That little green star is Equestria. Faaar, faaaar away.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She replied, “I can just….feel it. I can feel many things. Like little voices in my heart, each one telling me, ‘Here I am! Hello!’ It’s a warm feeling.”

“What else can you feel?”

“I can feel the many stars and planets, the nebulae, everything.”

“Even on Earth?”

“Mhm. I can feel every single person on Earth. I don’t know them, or anything about them. I just know where they are.”

“Then, do you know where your brother is?”

“Yes. He’s far away from here, but he truly is on Earth. He’s across the ocean to the west.”

“Hawaii?”

She chuckled, “No Charlie, farther.”

“Japan, then?”

“Hmm…yes…I think that’s the place.”

“Then….we really found him.”

“Yes we did.” As she said this, she closed her eyes and her horn ceased glowing, the stars with it. Her backside fell on her rump, eyes still closed, just breathing for a moment. Slowly, she opened her eyes again and looked at me. She smiled, “Hey Charlie.”

I nervously chuckled, “Hey Star.”

She looked back up at the stars, her eyes half-closed, she sounded tired as she said, “They’re so pretty…”

“Yes they are.”

“Charlie, I’m cold.”

“Hang on.” I wrapped her jacket around her and picked her up, cradling her in my arms. She fell asleep with a calm smile on her face.

I took her back to the room and set her gently on the bed. I wrapped my arms around her and fell asleep by her side. We finally found him.