> Star's Log > by dracone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Star Log hummed a jaunty tune as she traced a simple map, one that was clearly decades old. Star Log was eight years old, and she was already drawing up maps of the surrounding area. Of course, she would have been lost if it hadn’t been for her little sister, Daring Do. Daring was only five years old and overly adventurous; the filly had followed Star into the wilderness near Melody Brook. Star had lost track of their progress; she knew which direction town was but not which way that was. Daring had managed to find a hidden place in the forest, and the two had managed to navigate the area. Star had found an old recording book and decided to look through it. Her cutie mark was a night-themed chart and book with a star fountain pen and wave quill; it would be a waste not to check this sort of thing. It had been two weeks since she had gotten her mark, and the talent was proving marginally useful. She still didn’t know which way was west, though, she knew that was the direction of the town. She knew the sunset in the west, but if they waited that long their parents would be distraught. She caught a flash of light from the corner of her eye; she quickly closed the book that she had been tracing in and scooped all the materials on the table into her bag along with the book itself; she would look them over in detail later. Daring scurried in a few seconds later with a look of excitement on her face; she showed Star Log an old rose compass. It looked like it was in excellent condition, and very functional. Star wanted to just take the compass and follow it out but decided against it, she didn’t want to ruin her little sister’s joy, and instead decided to say something that would show her sister some encouragement, and if Daring got them lost for a few hours, she would make a comment about Daring doing her best and request the compass so she could navigate them out of the wilderness. “Alright, Daring,” said Star, “we need to go west to get home; it’s marked by the letter that looks like to v’s lined up end to end; it’s actually called double-U, though. Think you can lead the way out?” Daring giggled a bit before looking down at the compass for a moment before looking straight up and turning a bit to the right and walking in the direction that Star Log could have sworn was north; she really was turned around more than she thought. “Daring, what was that flash I saw?” It was almost time for her to start her first day of school, so their parents had gotten Daring her first backpack. Daring went everywhere with it; it was practically a miracle the thing hadn’t been torn as she followed Star through the forest. Daring stopped for a moment and put the compass in the pocket of her shorts before taking her backpack off and opening it to reveal an old magic light lantern; she turned its wheel quickly to the right and then left, and it gave off a flash that was easily mistakable for that of the acquisition a cutie mark. Daring thought about something for a moment before handing it to Star, who accepted with a few words of gratitude. Daring then resealed her bag and threw it back on herself before reaching into her pocket and checking the compass before once again leading the way. About a half hour later, they were out of the forest and much closer to the town than Star had anticipated. “Well,” said Star, “aren’t you the clever little navigator,” she then ruffled her little sister’s mane. “We should go on more adventures together.” There was a flash of light, and Star took a quick look at the lantern before looking over to see her sister checking her own flank and grinning with excitement; Daring had pulled up her shorts to reveal a rose compass similar to the one she had used to guide them out of the forest. > After the Party > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daring had actually spent the bulk of her cute-ceañera actively avoiding ponies, despite being mostly familiar with the rest of the town. During this avoidance period, she was adorably stuffing her face with gingersnaps, her favorite of all snacks. Star Log watched from a bit of a distance with her favorite toy, the green star that was always smiling; she had named Astro. She spotted “Grammy” sneak up on Daring and handed Daring an orange cat plush doll, which the filly promptly hugged close and giggled in delight over. It was a tradition of the mare all the foals affectionately called “Grammy” to give ponies a plush doll on their cute-ceañera. She was an elderly earth pony mare, and had been around in the town for as long as anypony could remember; that was a fading blue color; she often offset this by wearing complementary colors to her coat. Today she was in an ocean blue dress that had red and green trimming. Nopony knew what her cutie mark was; she always had it hidden beneath her attire. After everypony had left and their parents had gone to do things in their workspaces, with their dad making a comment about writing a song about the two of them getting their cutie marks on his way to the space he used as an office. Star Log approached her sister and said, “So, what are you going to name your little companion?” She wanted to avoid assigning a gender to the toy, part of the fun of them was seeing what the gender the owner assigned the toy along with the name; most of the foals typically assigned the toys a one-word name. “Gingersnap,” said Daring with glee, “she kinda has the same color as gingersnaps.” Star Log playfully rolled her eyes, which her sister didn’t notice. Daring Do loved gingersnaps, to the point she would actually risk getting into trouble to snag some freshly baked ones. She would hopefully grow out of that, but it wasn’t all that likely. Star Log was the same way with chocolate star cookies; despite their name, they were more rounded treats with what looked like a big chocolate chip sticking out of the middle. At one point, she had tried to make them actually star-shaped; that experiment had gotten the kitchen so messy she had spent a full hour cleaning everything up without any breaks. Daring wasn’t all too social; that would probably hurt her in school. Star would have to see about making her little sister a bit more sociable; that might be a bit more tricky than she thought. Star absolutely adored challenging herself, and so did Daring, but the ways the two sought to push themselves were very different. Star Log wanted to see her sister in a more social environment, even if it was with just a single friend. She was always going to try finding ways to help her little sister, even if said sister insisted she didn’t need any of that. The two were an interesting contrast; Star was only outgoing when it came to social things but was pretty much dedicated to just learning new things and reading most of the time; Daring was generally more outgoing but had a tendency to steer clear of social interactions for some reason. Daring was more interested in finding new things than meeting new ponies, and the only exception to her no interaction rule was her family, especially Star Log. Star Log had some ideas of what to do, but they could take a while to implement properly. But for now, she had a little sister that had just had the party celebrating the getting of her cutie mark to deal with. No matter what, she knew she could handle anything that came up with her sister. *********************************** Star Log wasn’t ready for this, at all. She thought she was, but she wasn’t; the sight had caused her to quickly rush behind a corner to calm herself down. Daring Do, her darling baby sister, was currently in a state of being a bastion of cuteness, of the highest order, it would seem. Daring had always been pretty adorable munching on her favorite snack, gingersnaps, but now the five-year-old filly was elevated to new heights of cuteness with the addition of her new favorite toy, ironically named Gingersnap, and was doing every unintentionally cute things a filly her age was known for. Star Log had nearly suffered a heart attack just seeing the sight; their mother was actually in the same room now but didn’t seem to be affected to the extent of Star. That all changed when their mother, the pegasus known as Astra Showers, rounded the corner and slumped down next to Star and said, “I thought I could handle it; I did so well last time this happened.” “Mom,” said Star, “are you okay?” “I will be in a moment, my little navigator,” said her mother, “mommy just wasn’t expecting your little sister to have such an intense wave of cuteness with her new toy.” “What’s Daring doing now,” came her Father’s slightly melodic voice with a hint of gruffness from his workstation, followed by a quick snicker of amusement at his unintentional joke. One thing could be said about her father, Keen Tone, and that was he could be pretty oblivious to some things. Ever since Daring had gotten her mark, he had been spending almost all his time in the room he had commandeered as his workplace; he claimed to be working on a song to celebrate the getting the cutie marks of both Star and Daring, a piece he wouldn’t let anypony see for some reason. “Eating her favorite snack with her new toy,” said her mother, “but for some reason, the cuteness she’s exuding is making anypony who sees it feel like they’re having an onset of heart trouble.” “Is she making a show of feeding the toy the snack she’s munching on,” inquired her father’s voice. “Yes,” said Star, “we’re at a loss of what to do.” “Just do what you did with Star Log,” said her father from the room as he continued his work. “Luring her to the study with a new book so I can do what I did last time isn’t going to work with Daring,” said Astra. Star Log wanted to feel annoyed at how her parents had played her with that ploy, but she didn’t want to get into that can of worms at the moment. Then she was struck with an idea, “Daring is overly adventurous; she wants to go out on an adventure of some kind,” said Star Log, “if we make a map leading somewhere and slip it to her during the refill portion of her snack then we can ‘help’ her with her prep work and have some say in what she has packed for the treasure hunt.” > Star and Daring Hunt for "Treasure" > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daring was in the most adorable pout the entire hike; the two were following a map that Star Log had “copied” toward a prize that supposedly hadn’t been found. That’s not why her little sister was in a notably sour mood the entire hike; she was in a sour mood because she had been forced to leave her new favorite toy behind. They had managed to convince Daring that Gingersnap might get torn on the trip, a tactic they quickly turned to when Daring showed little regard for the fact Gingersnap might get more than a bit dirty. In truth, the map was something Star had concocted on her own with a few suggestions from their mother. Their mother, who wanted the fillies out of the house for a bit while she ran some of her experiments; some of the experiments that were run by Astra Showers were potentially dangerous for fillies; their father was fine because he had already gone a bit overboard in warding his workspaces to keep Astra’s weather out of his personal space. The “treasure” was just a bunch of random stuff in an old wooden crate that had been done up to look like a chest of some kind, a bit of work by some of Star’s good friends from school. Timber Art was always good with woodwork, and it showed as his cutie mark, while his twin sister Ingot Plate was accomplished at metalwork. The two had discovered their talents on a visit to Canterlot two years prior; Star Log had missed out due to a rather nasty bug that had her laid up in bed for almost a full week; she had been looking forward to seeing what Canterlot was like. Due to budgetary constraints, the school wouldn’t be able to make a trip like that again for another year or two from the present; by that time, Star would probably have already graduated from school. The map led them all around the town for almost a full hour before finally stopping at a big rock on the far left edge of the forest. The journey itself had intentionally gotten the girls dirty and torn their clothes in a few places; a miscalculation had almost given Star a scar on her right shoulder. The negligibly dangerous route was enough to convince Daring that leaving Gingersnap behind had been a good call, especially with the three times her backpack had gotten caught, only one of which had been planned by Star. “Well, here we are,” said Star Log when they finally reached the destination; looking at the place told her that whoever had planted the ‘treasure’ had done an excellent job of making it look like the whole thing had been buried ages ago, she just hoped what was inside corroborated that impression. Daring dug out a set of multi-sectioned self-assembly shovels and put one together before she wondered around the rock a bit, then started digging on the right side closer to the forest, which struck Star as odd because she had been informed it would be on the left closest to town. Regardless, she followed Daring’s lead. About a half hour later, they had dug up an old strongbox, which curiously had something that looked like Princess Celestia’s mark on it next to a white crescent moon she recognized but didn’t want to voice out just yet. Daring then dragged the lockbox out in front of the rock and went to where Star had been told the treasure was and started digging; fifteen minutes later, Daring pulled up a treasure chest from a play or movie. “Something you want to tell me,” inquired Daring. “Caught me,” said Star, “I worked with some friends to create this treasure hunt for you, that ‘prize’ you just unearthed, the one you pulled up before it wasn’t planned.” “I thought it was a bit odd when you started drawing up a map of the surrounding area,” said Daring, “you kind of made the layout a mishmash of different eras; that’s not like you.” Great, Star just got called out on the ploy by her baby sister on something so basic she should have noticed it before things got this far. “Well, that was a success and a bust,” came Ingot’s voice as she and her brother emerged from the nearby woods; the twins were both earth ponies and around the same age as Star Log. Daring hadn’t noticed the approach of the siblings and quickly went into her non-conversational mode. “Come on,” said Star, “let’s get these back to our place, and then we can see about trying to open them. Daring and Ingot will handle carrying the strongbox, and I’ll handle carrying the chest with Timber.” Without a word, after that, the two teams lifted the items in question and started hauling them off.