“Ha! Tagged your shadow! You’re it!” Baby Northstar laughed and ran off, with Baby Countdown in hot pursuit. He was steadily gaining, and the tight, unexpected turns that Baby Northstar tried using to throw him off weren’t working like she’d hoped: the earth pony had the advantage there. Baby Northstar realized the only thing left to do would be to use her advantage, so the pegasus flapped her wings and took off.
When Baby Countdown saw this, he called out, “I can still tag your shadow, Northstar, and that’s all that matters!”
Baby Northstar reflected and found he was right. She also found that the higher she went into the late morning sky, the smaller her shadow became, and the harder it would be for him to tag it. She went up.
Baby Countdown slowed to a trot in frustration when he saw what was happening. His brow wrinkled in thought. Now what? He looked up into the sky again and could see Baby Northstar flying along slowly, not used to being up so high. It was like she was just managing to stay aloft . . .
An idea sprung into his head, and he cantered off after Baby Northstar again. “Hey, Northstar!” he called up to her. “New game! It’s ‘Freeze-shadow-tag!’ If I tag your shadow, you have to stop moving! Okay?”
“Okay!” she responded without thinking. Baby Countdown sprinted toward her shadow before her mind had a chance to catch up. After a bit of maneuvering and almost falling into a stream, he triumphantly jumped on her shadow. “Tagged your shadow! You’re frozen and it!” he called.
Baby Northstar, according to the rules of the
new game, promptly stopped moving, and then promptly started moving downwards.
She had not fallen far at all before, startled, she began flying again,
and flew down and landed next to a chuckling Baby Countdown.
“You!” She reached out and playfully tugged his
blue-and-white-striped bandanna. “That was sneaky!”
“Not as sneaky as making your shadow the size of
a lily pad,” he responded. “And besides, you could have said no.”
Baby Northstar laughed. “Where’d you come up with that idea, anyway?” she asked as they began to follow the stream to the nearby pond for a break.
“I know a lot about flight,” he said with some pride. “I talk to birds about it a lot.”
“But just because you know about something doesn’t mean you can do it,” she answered a bit competitively.
His gaze fell slightly. “Yeah, I know.”
Baby Northstar saw her mistake and tried changing the subject a bit. “When did you get to be so fast?” She sputtered her s’s a bit due to her first tooth, of which she was very proud, because that meant she was growing up.
Baby Countdown laughed once. “Ha! There’s not a girl here that I can’t outrun!”
“Uh, oh,” Baby Northstar giggled. “You’re talking like you’re in front of boys again.”
Baby Countdown’s brow furrowed again. “They
pick on me for hanging out with you ‘cause you’re a girl.”
“Then why do you hang out with me?”
“’Cause you’re the only one who likes the kind of
stuff I do. You like the sky and flying and exploring and playing and stuff.”
“What about Whirly-Twirl? He likes that flying-kind-of-stuff
too.”
“Yeah, but he always hangs out with Racer, and all they do is play with those car things. Only Whirly makes his cars fly.”
Baby Northstar chuckled. “Well, I’m sorry I’m a girl, Countdown, almost as sorry as I am that you’re a boy. Because,” she lightly swatted his face with her lavender tail, “I outran you just yesterday!” And with that she took off at a gallop toward the pond, just ten yards away now.
“Hey!” Baby Countdown began running after her, but she managed to reach the pond before him. “False start!”
Baby Northstar just laughed and didn’t argue. Instead, the soft pink pegasus with a north-south compass rose and the north star on her flank took a drink from the cold, clear pond and then layed down for a short rest beside it.
The dark pink earth pony tossed his deep blue forelock out of the way and also took a drink. Like Baby Northstar, he was breathing hard from playing so long, and the in-and-out movement of his sides made the rocket on his flank look like it was launching. When he too layed down, he saw movement deep in the water. He looked closer, and after a minute was able to make out the forms of two baby sea ponies, Sun Shower and Ripple, playing underwater. He watched them for a while before breaking the silence.
“You think that’s what it’s like?”
“What?” Baby Northstar blinked.
“Being in space.” Baby Countdown motioned with his head toward the sea ponies, and Baby Northstar started watching them too. “Being able to move anywhere, up or down, left or right, around and around with no ground and no ceiling, and with so little effort? Look, all they do is flick their tails and they go spiralling up. They move a fin and they turn to the side. How different do you think it is from flying and having to work so much to stay aloft? Or would you have to stay aloft in space?”
“You’d have to stay aloft,” Baby Northstar said. “Otherwise how would you keep from falling?”
Baby Countdown didn’t seem to hear her; instead, he was absorbed with the sea ponies’ underwater dance. “I wonder what it’s like . . .” he trailed off. Suddenly, he looked right at Baby Northstar and said determinedly, “I’m gonna be the first Astropony in Ponyland. That means ‘Star Pony,’ you know.”
Baby Northstar couldn’t help giggling. “You? And how do you plan to do that, Countdown? You can’t fly. You don’t even have unicorn magic!”
Baby Countdown gave her a look that suggested he’d been pondering that very question for a long time. “I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll find a way to get wings or some magic powers.”
Baby Northstar gave a little shrug. “I dunno. But come on, it’s lunchtime and I’m hungry. Let’s go back.”
“Yeah, Buttercup promised to have some lunch ready for us when we got back,” Baby Countdown replied. They stood up to leave, and Baby Countdown gave the pond one last look. I want to be a Star Pony. How do I get to be a Star Pony? I have to go to a star. And how do I get to a star? He looked up. I have to get to the top of the sky somehow.
He trotted after Baby Northstar.
As the two young ponies approached Paradise Estate, they were concluding the conversation they’d started on the way back. “But it must be so cool to have unicorn powers! Don’t you ever wish you had them?” Baby Countdown was asking. “I mean, think about it. You could get wherever you wanted to instantly!”
“I can get where I’m going just fine,” Baby Northstar responded simply. “You get there any faster, you miss the world going by.”
Baby Countdown snorted. “Walking everywhere is boring. But okay, what about the other powers? Like Gusty. If I could make wind blow, I’d spend all day flying my kites!”
“Yeah, some powers would be cool,” Baby Northstar agreed, “like Ribbon’s dreamwalking!”
“Yeah! I didn’t even think about that one!”
The two entered the kitchen and as promised, Buttercup had lunch ready. The unicorn saw them and smiled. “I made your favorite—clover soup!” she said brightly. “But you’ll have to let me know if I made it right—I accidentally poured too much honey in, so then I had to add more clover and then I had to add more water and it was just getting messy.”
Buttercup poured them each a bowl and sat waiting expectantly for the food report. She was a white unicorn with soft green hair and a black streak in her mane. A golden-yellow buttercup blossom displayed prominently on her flank. She and Lemon Drop were the primary caretakers of Baby Countdown, and often watched out for Baby Northstar too, just because the babies were always together. She was a good pony and always tried hard to make them happy. But the one thing that Baby Countdown had noticed was that Buttercup wasn’t exactly the most graceful pony in Ponyland, nor the most adept at winking.
The two babies looked at each other and then started to carefully eat the hot soup. It was a bit on the sweet side, but to their surprise it was still pretty good. Baby Countdown said he liked it, Baby Northstar agreed, and Buttercup looked relieved.
After they chatted a bit about menial things like, “How was your day?” and “What did you do?” Baby Countdown suddenly asked, “Buttercup, how far away is the sky?”
Buttercup blinked. “What?”
“The sky,” Baby Countdown persisted. “How far away is it?” Baby Northstar gave him a puzzled look which matched Buttercup’s.
“I . . . I really don’t know,” Buttercup admitted. “Maybe someone like Galaxy or Paradise or Wind Whistler will be able to tell you.”
Baby Countdown pondered a moment. “Okay, thanks!”
he said brightly. He then resumed eating his soup as if nothing out of
the ordinary had happened, while Buttercup and Baby Northstar turned their
puzzled looks to each other.
Right after lunch, Baby Countdown ran off to go find Paradise. Baby Northstar followed.
“Why do you want to know how far away the sky is?” she asked.
“I just do,” he answered. “Now, let’s see. Paradise is probably over at the library. Long hike. You coming?” He turned in the direction of the library and headed off, then slowly stopped after a few minutes and seemed to focus on something far away as his eyes slowly lit up.
Baby Northstar, beside him, tried to see what he was looking at. “What? What do you see?”
“Mount Rainbow,” he answered softly, reverently, excitedly. It was the highest hill in Dream Valley, its top lost somewhere in the white puffy clouds that dotted the sky. “That’s how I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Baby Northstar demanded as Baby Countdown started cantering towards it. “Countdown, what’s going on in that empty head of yours?”
“Don’t you see?” Baby Countdown asked without slowing down. “To get to the stars, I need to get up high enough. How else can I do it except by climbing a mountain? It makes perfect sense!”
“No, Countdown! We’ll get in trouble if we go that far away from Paradise Estate!”
“Ah, we’ll be back before anyone knows we’re gone.” And then Baby Countdown asked her the words that almost always get baby ponies into trouble: “Besides, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Not being one to turn down adventure, Baby
Northstar followed, hesitantly at first, and then more and more quickly
as Baby Countdown’s enthusiasm caught her.
A few hours later, Buttercup started wondering why the babies hadn’t come in for their afternoon snack. Sure, they’d come in late before when they’d been playing too hard and had forgotten the time, but never this late. She decided to go ask Paradise if she knew where they were going after they talked to her.
“Baby Countdown and Baby Northstar? No, I haven’t seen them all day,” Paradise told her. Buttercup thanked her and went in search of the two other candidates, Galaxy and Wind Whistler.
Neither of them had seen the babies either, and it was the same with Lemon Drop. Now even more time had passed without any sight of them, so they decided to play it safe and soon had gathered a small group of ponies to go look for the babies right away. More than likely they are just off playing somewhere, Buttercup explained, but I want to be sure.
“Where were they last headed?” Buttons asked.
“Baby Countdown was going to find Paradise to ask
her something,” Buttercup replied.
“Ask me what?” Paradise asked.
“How far away the sky is.”
“How far away the sky is?” repeated a quiet voice. Everyone turned to look at the soft-spoken Night Glider. The blue pony was decorated with stars and planets, and she shook her white mane. “That’s a rather odd question. Do you know what he meant by that?”
“I have no idea,” Buttercup replied, feeling a bit too loud after hearing Night Glider speak.
“Well, let’s start looking,” Buttons encouraged. They went off in pairs in different directions.
Buttercup was with Skydancer, and the yellow pegasus did an aerial recon every now and then. At one point when they were walking along, Skydancer mused, “You know, when I want to know how far away something is, it’s usually because I want to travel there.”
“Everyone knows Baby Countdown wants to fly,” Buttercup said. “Now, I’m no flier, but I thought that the sky was something you traveled in, not to.”
“But he can’t fly, so he might feel that it’s a destination
to get to. And this is just a guess, but if I was an earth pony and I wanted
to travel to the sky . . .” Skydancer stopped and looked toward Mount Rainbow.
Baby Countdown resolutely climbed over a large fallen log and continued up the mountainside. Baby Northstar landed beside him from her flight over the log. “How much longer are we gonna go, Countdown? It’s getting late. We’re missing our snack!”
“We’re gonna go until we reach the top,” Baby Countdown replied. He looked down. They were maybe a quarter of the way up the mountain, probably a bit less, and the clouds didn’t look any closer, but the view below was spectacular. Dream Valley sat nestled in the emerald green hills as sparkling water wound like a silver ribbon through it and the Rainbow arched upward from it in a brilliant display of every color imaginable.
Baby Northstar sighed, the adventure getting a bit old to her, and kept going.
After a while she stared out towards Dream Valley. “You see that?”
“See what?” He looked, and gradually saw a yellow dot and a white dot getting closer and closer. The two babies waited, and eventually the dots became ponies, and the ponies became Skydancer and Buttercup.
The two adults came up to the babies and nuzzled them in relief. “Thank the Rainbow you’re all right!” Buttercup exclaimed. “What in the world are you doing up here? You shouldn’t be this far away!”
Baby Northstar shot an I-told-you-so look at Baby Countdown. He quietly said, “I—I wanted to climb up to the sky and be the first Astropony.” He looked at the unicorn and pegasus, who exchanged a quick look. “Am I in trouble?”
Buttercup laughed. “You should be, but I’m too relieved to know you’re all right to be mad at you. Come on, let’s head back. Your afternoon snack has been ready . . . well, all afternoon.”
Skydancer looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Buttercup, why don’t you wink back and tell everyone that they can stop looking? I’ll get these two down and meet you at the Estate.”
Buttercup looked puzzled. “Are you sure, Skydancer?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She smiled. “Go on, I’ll be there soon. And be sure to wink in upright this time,” she said mischieviously.
Buttercup blushed slightly, concentrated (harder than most other unicorns had to), and a small burst of light came from her horn. She opened her eyes expectantly, found that her winking hadn’t worked, stomped her hoof in frustration, and tried again. This time she disappeared. Skydancer grinned sympathetically and looked back at the two babies. “Well, shall we go?”
“Okay,” Baby Countdown sighed, and started retracing his steps.
“Not that way,” Skydancer said. She looked at Baby Northstar. “It’s not that far in a straight flight. You think you can make it?”
“Yeah, I can make it. But I don’t want to go alone.”
“You won’t be alone. I’ll be right there with you,” Skydancer looked right at Baby Countdown, “with Baby Countdown.”
At his uncomprehending stare, she elaborated. “I’ll carry you. It’s much quicker that way. Besides, if you went to all this trouble just to reach the sky, it seems to me that you should get there, no?”
Baby Countdown’s face broke out into a huge grin as he ran over to Skydancer and got up on her back by stepping up on a rock. He held her mane tightly in his teeth as she beckoned to Baby Northstar and then began galloping to get up enough speed. Finally, they were airborne.
And Baby Countdown realized that he had done what very few earth ponies had ever done before: he had touched the sky.
***
