New Endings, Old Starts

by David Silver

126 - Mount Aris Station

Comforting appeared in a burst of pixels. She didn't have to, but making it different felt nice, and none of the creatures there seemed upset by it, though a few were surprised. She waved at them with a smile and things settled almost instantly. She wasn't some terrible monster.

There was a problem, she realized. "How do I recognize them?" She had no idea what they looked like... at all.

But, an idea! She pulled out a sign wider than she was that read 'Silversteam's family!' with a few hearts and smiles on it. "This'll get their attention." She held it up and waggled it about as she waited for the right time, hoping whoever was coming would spot her.

The hippogriffs passing by her looked curiously at her sign, but largely just let her be, at least until one came up to her, wings flapping. "Hi... You know sis?"

Sis? "Are you related to her?" Comforting waved the sign at the boy hippogriff. "Hi! She sent me to meet her family here."

"Neat!" He landed in front of her and offered a hand. "I'm Terramar! I thought she'd be here herself. Is she alright?"

Comforting accepted the hand with her own, casually forgetting the sign, which was polite enough to forget itself. "I'm Comforting. Nice to meet you. She's fine, just busy doing student stuff. Are there any other hippogriffs or anyone else we should be meeting?"

"Just me." He looked Comforting over curiously. "Nice to meet you too... Will you be upset if I ask what you are?"

"No." Such a common question, really. "Chaos Spirit, like Discord. Nice, promise. You didn't come from the train?" He had flown in from outside the station entirely. "I thought you would be?"

"Why would I?" He pointed back the way he had come in from. "This is where I live." He pointed at the train. "I'd use that to go somewhere. I was supposed to meet Silverstream and take her home for her break. I... Well, it's good to hear she's being serious about her studies, but now I don't know what to do..."

Comforting pondered that problem. "Are they expecting you back right away?"

"Yep." But he could see she was scheming something. "What are you thinking?"

"Well! I could bring you to Ponyville, if you want? They're having this spring solstice party and I could ask if you could come too."

"Ooo! That sounds fun." He clapped giddily. "But I should tell my parents before I vanish on them. That'd be super Silverstream of me to do."

Comforting didn't know Silverstream as a verb, but that made enough sense. "Go ahead. You said it's not far?"

"Nope! Be right back." Terramar lifted on his wings and zipped off to make sure people knew where he was planning to go.

Comforting whistled a little video game track she remembered as she rocked in place, waiting impatiently for his return. Fortunately, it didn't take too long. "Already?"

"I told my dad, and he can tell my mom, so we're all good!" He gestured to the station. "We getting on a train?"

"Nope!" She reached for him and he allowed her to get a grip, yanking him into a hug and obscuring his vision just long enough for them to be in front of a cave's mouth. "Now, wait here. I'll go make sure it's alright that you're here. We don't want to surprise anyone." She could still remember Maud's ire at appearing in her cave when she didn't know who was doing the popping. "One moment." She vanished with a puff.

She appeared with a fresh puff beside the table with the cake. Several ponies made a surprised sound. Trixie and Maud were not shocked. Trixie even looked pleased. "You're fast! Trixie thought you'd be much later, or even not coming. Everything taken care of?"

Mudbriar inclined his head at the sudden Comforting. "Trixie mentioned you assisted with the cake."

"That's me! Maud." She twirled towards the owner of that cave. "I came with Terramar, a hippogriff, brother of Silverstream. Can he come too?"

Maud rubbed at her cheek. "I did say you could bring your plus one."

Mudbriar raised a hoof. "I'm her plus one."

Starlight looked between the Trixie and Sunburst, as if not entirely sure.

Trixie rolled her eyes. "I invited myself, Starlight. If anything, you are Trixie's plus one."

"Okay!" Terramar wasn't her plus one in any romantic way, but it meant she could bring him. "Be right back." She ran instead of teleporting, emerging from the cave. "This way!" She waved him in excitedly and led him right back through the tunnels to the bright center chamber. "Meet Terramar!"

Terramar waved at the collection of ponies. "Hello! Wow..." He turned slowly in place, taking in the decorations. "I've never seen this holiday before. Spring Solstice?"

"Technically." Mud Briar leaned in. "It's spring equinox, but the name of spring solstice stuck."

With an extravagant flourish, Trixie motioned to the cake. "We have a cake that I made for the event. Want a slice?"

"Ooo!" Terramar grabbed a plate and offered it to Trixie, wings hovering him excitedly. "Yes, please!"

Sunburst closed with Comforting. "Wow. I've never been this close to a draconequus that it did not scare me would turn me inside out if I said the wrong thing before."

Comforting waved that away. "I'm not like that, promise. Hello! Sunburst, right?"

"Yes." He leaned in, snuffing at Comforting curiously. "And you are Comforting. Nice to meet you. I have a thousand questions, but I don't want to be rude."

"You're not being rude." Comforting casually lifted up and landed right on his back, petting the back of his neck like the good pony he was. "Ask away."

"O-oh! Um..." He colored, not used to being mounted like that so casually. "I heard you were a pony, originally. That must have been quite a difficult transition."

"It was!" She flopped across his back, using him as a pillow. "But I did get used to it. Being this is kind of fun." She wagged her long griffon tail above her with her joy. "And I like it. Not that being a pony was bad. I don't regret pony time, or this time."

"That's good to hear." He went to the cake and began cutting out a slice with his magic. "I also heard you helped with the cake."

"Mom's been showing me the tricks of cooking well." She knew some tricks from her human time, but who could say no to some Fluttershy tips? "Did it come out well?"

"You didn't taste it?" He offered the slice on a plate up, floating in his magic towards Comforting. "Take this one then."

She pierced it with a fork, carving out a bit for proper chewing. "Mmm! You can... taste the love that Trixie and I put into it." She cheerfully took a new chomp. "You're friends with her, right?"

"We both love stage magic." When the conversation shifted to something he was familiar with, Sunburst's face lit up and his mood improved. "She's very talented at it."

"She is!" cried Comforting in enthusiastic agreement. "I want to see one of her shows."

"Not today," cautioned Trixie. "Trixie is enjoying a holiday off. She will send you a card the next time she's doing one though."

Terramar was chatting animatedly at Maud and Mud Briar, proving to be the life of that interaction. Fortunately, they seemed to be alright with it, and he was agreeable with their stilted social approach. "You're a couple? Neat!"

"Technically, I'm one pony. But I am her boyfriend."

"I am his girlfriend," Maud agreed sedately. "I enjoy studying rocks. He is a stick fan. Do you have an interest?"

"I love seeing the differences between land and sea." He moved his hands up and down between the two. "Though today is a land day."

Mud Briar turned to point at a strange stick with flowers pasted to it. "Today is not a stick day."

Maud inclined her head at the stick. "You don't like it?"

"It's not a flowering stick." He grasped it and revealed the shoddy job that had been done in gluing the flowers onto it. "So, technically, it's not the right kind of stick. I should have gotten one."

Maud curled a hoof to her chin. "Trixie did her best."

"It wasn't good enough." Mud oofed as Maud elbowed him sharply in the side. "I'm certain she tried..."

Terramar was joyfully oblivious to any friction. "What's a real flowering stick like? Do you have one?!"

"Unfortunately, I do not. Starlight and Trixie said they would bring one." Mud Briar shook his head with the poor news. "Maybe next year. I'll take on that responsibility."

Comforting sat up on Sunburst's back. "My turn for an awkward question! Are you and Starlight friends, 'friends', or 'friends'?" She waggled her brows with meaning on the last, biggest, version of the word.

Sunburst went red. "Oh! Um... Friends?"

Starlight grabbed Comforting in her magic. "Do not make him explode." She put Comforting to her own feet. "I'm not in any relationship like that, if you're asking. We're friends, nothing more, but that's more than enough. Friends for life! That's a big deal."

"It is," she agreed with a smile. "A very precious thing. Sorry, wasn't trying to say it wasn't. I should act my age." She was a filly. Getting all nosey about romances was past her age. "This is a fun party though! Thanks for letting me be part of it."

"No problem." Starlight sat with a little smile directed at Comforting. "Since you brought it up... You only rarely strike me as an... actual filly. Sorry if that's an off thing to bring up... But how old are you, actually?"

Sunburst rubbed at his cheek. "She was a filly before she became a chaos spirit, and that wasn't that long ago. How could she be anything but filly aged?"

"It's complicated." Starlight rolled her eyes slowly. "But I've been here and talked to her. I've learned things! What do you say?"

Comforting considered that. How much did she trust Starlight with that sort of information? "Well..." Was it worth keeping a secret? "I don't want ponies to look at me differently."

Starlight shorted into a smirk. "Right... Comforting, hate to bring this up, but you're a chaos spirit. Ponies already look at you differently."

Sunburst laughed awkwardly. "She's not... wrong. Not in any bad way! You seem very nice, but you're still a chaos spirit, a draconequus." He waved over comforting. "You even have the dragon and pony parts, as the name implies."

"Right..." Comforting swayed front and back, considering. "Right... Okay! Okay... Starlight?" Starlight perked at her name. "You've been a good counselor so far. Ever hear of the idea of a past life?"

Starlight sat up on her haunches. "That thing where a pony says they were something before they were a pony?"

Comforting pointed at herself. "I was something before I was a chaos spirit. And I was something a step before that, and maybe before that, but I don't remember before that."

"I can... confirm before chaos spirit. I can't argue that step..." She was slow in her speech, musing as she went. "What was this step before the pony I met?"

Sunburst listened intently with ears up and alert, completely engrossed in the conversation.

"I was a biped, like this." She waved at herself. "But without much fur except on the head and a few other spots." She didn't go into detail on that. "And I lived a long life and I died. Then... Harmony, now Amity, worked through Celestia to snatch me from the nothing I was headed towards, and I became Comforting."

"You're still Comforting," noted Starlight. "No matter what's happened so far, you didn't stop being Comforting."

"Thanks." Comforting hopped up to land a peck of a kiss on Starlight's cheek. "But I am an adult and a child and a pony and a chaos spirit all tangled up in one confused but loving package."

Sunburst's eyes widened with the story. "You met Celestia? Um, I did before... She's amazing! Is she... Do you... talk to her?"

"No... but I get the feeling she and her sister are coming up soon."

But that was another chapter.

Author's Note:

Damn you, Comforting, and your fourth wall breaking powers.

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Comments

[Cyana Flame]

[Emtu]

draconeques

draconequus

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

11589423
Remember, Comforting was once an adult human. Or at least that's the rumor. She has memories from then if nothing else.

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

Comforting acts like she's filly aged.

[redmar]

You said it's not fair?

I think it should be far not fair.

[David Silver]

11590348
What a Silverstream thing to do!

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

11589910

Ha! Excellent points.

[Twinkie Sprinkle]

Comforting finding Silverstream being used as a verb to be surprising was my favorite line.

It's cute in a unique way to see Comforting interacting with so many individuals in such a short time.

[Poparakelis]

"No... but I get the feeling she and her sister are coming up soon."

Finally