Please don’t be too late! Please don’t be too late!
Sunny tripped over her own hooves on her way down the cave path. After a clumsy stumble forward, she came to a stop at the edge of the tide pool, just sort of getting an impromptu bath.
“Um, hi?” she asked, her words exactly as steady as her steps.
Across the pool, Sandbar looked mesmerized by whatever he was seeing.
Sunny braced herself for his reaction. This was the moment of truth. Just what was he looking at?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sandbar suddenly erupted, motioning with a hoof for yesterday’s Sunny to slow down.
He, too, was just getting used to the one-day delay. She’d really been frantic, hadn’t she? What would that even look like to him?
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he cooed to what must have been her distraught image. “I don’t think a changeling would have reacted like that, and those pictures are really impressive, too. I believe you.”
He offered a cute little smile and adopted what Sunny assumed was an intentionally relaxed posture. “Sunny Starscout, right? I’m sorry, I… I was scared. I didn’t want to upset you like this.”
Sunny breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh… Thank you, Sandbar. “
Delay. Right. Good thing he was taking a deep breath and she could keep going.
“I’m so happy you believed me yesterday,” she clarified. He’d need the context.
Sandbar stood up straight, probably steeling himself for what was to come.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sunny. Is it okay if I call you Sunny? My name is Sandbar. Just Sandbar. I live near the beach outside this cave, in Summertide Bay. I have a small apartment attached to my family’s house. Needed a little space, you know?”
Sunny sat down. He clearly had a lot to say. She’d have to ask about his hometown. After all, Maritime Bay was right around the corner. If there was another town so close, there’s no way she would never have heard of it.
Note to self: add that new piece of potential evidence for ‘alternate universe’ in my notebook.
“Changelings, well, they’re these mean pony-like bug creatures who impersonate ponies. I hear Canterlot dealt with most of them, but there’s still a few of them out in the wild making problems.”
Sandbar paced back and forth as he talked, and his cutie mark caught Sunny’s eye. Three turtles. She’d never seen a mark like that. Another question for the notebook.
“A few months ago, one of my aunts had a run-in with a suitor who turned out to be a changeling, and my dad had to get the guard involved. I think that’s why I was so worried.”
Canterlot? Pony-impersonating bugs? Every answer raised even more questions.
“I have a few questions I’d like to ask, too. That… that little flippy box with the photos. I’ve never seen one like that. What’s that? It’s smaller than any camera I’ve ever seen, and yet you can just… store photos in there? How’s that work?”
Huh? Had he never seen a cellphone? Wherever Summertide Bay was, it had to be very, very remote.
“Also…” Sandbar paused for a moment, flicking his head to the side to clear a wayward strand of mane out of his eyes while nervously tapping his seashell necklace. “I’m sorry if this is a touchy subject. It’s just… I’ve never seen somepony like you.”
Sunny tilted her head in confusion.
Sandbar scraped at the cave floor with a forehoof.
“Y-your Cutie Mark. It’s only on one side, isn’t it? What’s up with that?”
A couple of days went on. They continued to meet in the mornings. As it turned out, Sandbar was just as curious as she was about this whole phenomenon. On his side, the tide was glowy, rather than glittery. He said it came every day at sunset.
That first day, he’d been trying to take a shortcut home after surfing, he’d accidentally fallen into that cave through the hole in the roof while distracted by the glowing tide.
They were getting used to dealing with the delay. They’d make sure to remind each other of their questions from the previous day. They were careful to allow each other to speak before the tide pool drained for the day.
Sandbar insisted Summertide Bay was just around the corner. He insisted even harder that he’d never heard of Maretime Bay. He and Sunny were still figuring that part out.
She explained about her ‘little flippy picture box’. That seemed to confuse him more than anything. Wherever he was, they had no concept of a portable phone. He said phones stood on the tables of rich ponies and you called other houses with buttons or dials, not on a pocket device.
Everypony he’d met had cutie marks on both flanks once they got theirs. Wherever he was, it had to be a very different place.
Were there different kinds of earth ponies and she didn’t know? After all, if there could be three tribes, why not more? How exciting!
They discussed a few of her theories.
There were too many differences for them to be alternate universe selves.
He knew things she didn’t, things that held up to serious amounts of scrutiny, so he couldn’t be a figment of her imagination.
Also, it had to be the same world, since he also knew about Twilight Sparkle. “Isn’t she that new alicorn?” he’d said. “News travel pretty slowly here. I’ll let you know if I hear more.”
“I shouldn’t be keeping you from your friends like this,” Sandbar said one morning. “We don’t even know where each of us is. For all we know, we might never be able to meet.”
“I don’t mind,” Sunny answered. “Truth be told… I didn’t have a lot going on before I found, well, all of this. And you, especially you. I don’t know what it’s like over there, but I’ve been kind of alone since… well… anyway. I don’t want to give up until you and I can determine what’s going on.
Finally, one morning, Sunny worked up the courage. She was going to admit to Sandbar she was trying to find unicorns and pegasi. She’d been afraid to bring it up, afraid he would judge her for it like everypony else. It needed to come out. Maybe he’d heard something. Maybe he knew something. Maybe he’d seen something.
Before she could figure out how she’d ask, he stormed into the cave wearing some blue saddlebags and brandishing a big old book full of worn pages.
He excitedly muffled her name and half of a frantic sentence through a mouthful of book before realizing the futility of that and setting it down.
Thanks to very bold lettering, Sunny was able to make out the tome’s title.
Lesser-Known Magical Phenomena and Theory of Equestrian Thaumic Events
Yeesh, heavy title. How’d Sandbar even find that? He didn’t seem like the bookish type. Just how much time had he spent digging answers?
“Sunny! I-I-I found something at the library! I think, no, I know what’s going on.”
11127229
Just be aware that given the history of questions they ask, I'm relatively certain Starlight Nova posts those things without reading the stories.
I'm sort of surprised they haven't figured out yet that the time difference between them is far more extreme than they think it is. I would've thought one of them would've mentioned something that'd clue in the other by now. I guess they've been focusing more on their personal heres and nows too much to give much opportunity for that up to now.
11129058
Admittedly, it is a bit of a plot convenience that they haven't figured it out, but also: It's easy to zero in on details and take something in the big picture for granted. With the big delay in communication, they're essentially sending video messages back and forth, so smaller details tend to be neglected in favor of trying to get broad ideas across first.
One could also assume they're too distracted by the 'Where' and the 'How' to realize the 'When'.
They'll catch on soon enough.
11128937
It takes more effort for me to look into a person's background and the posts they tend to make than to assume positive intent and respond nicely. I'm being quite genuine when I ask what they feel a crackship is and how Time and Tide misses the definition of it. If it was a drive-by comment, so be it, nothing is lost on my part. That said, your concern is appreciated.
PRETTY FUCKIN DOPE CAN'T WAIT FOR MORE
11129260
I'm very pleased to have apparently caused this level of hype! Stay tuned for more!
Enjoying the story thus far.
One minor pedantic (and pointless, as this is fan-fic, so almost everything goes ) nitpick I could put out there is from what we see in the movie 'true' modern smartphones (and other 2010s and onward tech?) appear to be a pegasi only thing, with earth pony tech more reflecting the 1980s to early 2000s (cathode ray tube TVs, per the whole mob sequence, and the tape deck seen in the Izzy in the lighthouse sequence)... That'd give a range on Sunny's phone between dumb brick (going at the early end) and 128x128 pixel potato-vision (Nokia 6610 or similar, circa 2002) for something low to mid-markety, or maybe some PDA-phone hybrid (like the Nokia 9200 series? circa 2001) at the high end, which would do for showing photos (640x200 pixel-ish resolution) but as a fold out thing wouldn't really fit the described smartphone...
11129610
You know, I had considered that exact point, but had figured that with the technological marvels we see Canterlogic put out for defense over the course of only a few days, I was willing to stretch a little to keep the plot on track.
I hadn't, however, considered the possibility of an early PDA device. Thanks the idea!
I think I'm going to go back and swap that smartphone to a flip phone.
I am definitely enjoying this story so far but I definitely want more interaction between Sunny and Sandbar. The tide pool idea is very neat concept and it definitely adds to the tension of not being able to communicate properly. Keep it up!
11130218
Thank you! I'm looking forward to everypony getting to read the rest of what I've cooked up.
You can definitely expect the two of them to interact some more.
aww, it's nice to see the two settle into getting to know each other! the existence of phones in G5 would definitely throw me for a loop, too. though i wonder why Sunny would be so nervous about Sandbar judging her, when he's clearly from a completely different culture that's used to other tribes and species being around. unless somehow Sandbar managed to only mention changelings, and that in a negative light? i guess that might make him seem like he's from a place not too different from xenophobic Maretime Bay!
cute moment, can just picture it!
11240286
Yeah I wondered that too, until I figured just now that the time on Sandbar's end must be between season 2 and 6, after the Canterlot invasion but before the big Changeling reformation. It makes sense that way.