[Translated from Filipino.]
“Little Sun! Come home! It’s time now!” a mare hollered. “Your mother would kill you if you’re late again!”
“But Inday,” a young filly complained, splashing water with a seapony that wore a necklace similar to hers. “We’re having so much fun here!”
Before the seapony splashed back, another one began to call for her. “Moro Surigao! It’s getting late! You don’t want to get a punishment again, would you?” the pony warned.
Both foals sighed. “I’m coming.” The seapony looked over to his land friend and waved a flipper. “See ya, Sunny!”
“You too, Suri.” The filly began to walk back, sands clinging to her hooves. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure!” Suri replied, albeit distant-sounding as the elder seapony had already swum with him towards the city.
The mare merely bit the filly’s ear once she was close and dragged her to a floating shack made from wood. The filly simply bit her lip before she got splashed by cold water. The mare, her auntie, frowned before she lit up her horn and dried Sun out. Little Sun rolled her eyes.
“You know, being a princess of the Pearl Tribe, you will be called to rule this part of the Philippines once your father passes away,” her auntie began. “So you need to learn about everything you need to know.”
“I already know everything I need to know, Inday,” she deadpanned. “I’m just a filly! Let me play or something.”
The shack was silent before they went inland towards the houses that would think that Spaniards returned from the past to take over the Philippines, but it was merely the ponies who lived there. They had based their designs on the previous versions of all the houses they could find within Old Manila and the surrounding provinces. As they passed by, Little Sun bowed in respect as other ponies bowed down to respect her as they lit torches and start up old working electricity motors. It was little comforting and also making Little Sun feel like a queen.
“Sunny, go home. I’m going to check on your cousins, okay?” she instructed her.
Little Sun nodded. “See ya, Inday!”
She took her left hoof and held it to her forehead before both ponies took separate ways. Little Sun hurried over to a mansion while Inday rushed to a house. Entering the hall, she immediately found her mother and immediately began to tell about her necklace.
“Mom, mom! Look at my necklace! It was Surigao’s idea!” Little Sun boasted. “She told me that it’s an agimat necklace made from clamshells and a pearl!”
“Really? Oh, that really suits you! I do hope that your dad doesn’t think of that as a gift from the North Waters,” her mom joked.
At the same moment, Sun’s father arrived and noticed the necklace his daughter was wearing. “You remind me of my friend back before all of this,” he suddenly piped up.
“Oh!” she hopped to her father, made the same gesture that she did to Inday, then looked up with curious puppy eyes. “Can you tell me about it again? Please?”
The roosters crowed, and that meant that everypony was awake. From the farmers who lived outskirts to tend to their fields and serve as their first protection of defense in the case, their friends from the mountains decided to raid them, to the fisherponies who would establish morning trade with the seaponies for fish and vegetables. As the little tribe cheerily woke up, Little Sun woke up after the fifth crow and immediately flopped back to the bed. Her mother also had a similar reaction, but her father managed to wake them both with a metal spoon and the smell of coffee. Once all three of the ruling family sat within a small long table along with the other servants of theirs, Little Sun started the prayer.
It was rather a good breakfast, and Little Sun managed to eat a fifth of the prepared food. Everybody laughed as she attempted to reach some pandesals, only to fall to a bowl of fish sauce. Little Sun wasn’t at all bothered since she liked the sauce, and she really wanted the laughs of the household, including the builders who were trying to maintain the particular house up.
Once breakfast was made, and the table was cleaned up, Little Sun’s father spoke up.
“So, Sunny,” he began. “I was thinking of visiting the other tribes of the 7,107 islands. Want to come? You can have one companion too.”
Immediately her thoughts wandered over to her friend, a rather cute bully over to the local school but shook it off when she remembered about meeting Moro Suri. “Can my companion be Surigao?” she asked.
“The seapony? Well… that’s gonna be complicated, but I’ll try to find a way.” He looked over to a random wall. “Hmm… have the seaponies learned how to walk with water spheres, as the Fire of the South told us?”
“I dunno, I think Suri’s still a little… young for it,” she guessed. “But, dad, I kinda promised that I’ll meet with Suri…”
“Oh, and that means that she’ll come along! Don’t want to mess with a seapony’s trust, y’know!” he began.
“Oh no,” his husband mumbled.
Sun’s eyes widened, and she lowered her ears to block her father’s rambling.
“You see, when I was young, I had a friend who had a seapony friend, and you two know that we really have trust in each for each other and things go down to the fire…”
When it was time to leave, Little Sun tried to find Moro Surigao over the bayside until she felt something cold and wet. She looked back and gasped dramatically that her father merely chuckled.
“What?” Suri asked. “You don’t like it?”
“I like it!” Sun began to walk around the water sphere where Suri was. “How did you do this? Did the Fire of the South told you about it? How about the Goddess of the East? How did you do this?”
“Oh, it’s… well… common knowledge,” Suri mumbled. “Though none of us are allowed to use it until we’re… eighteen.”
“Happy birthday!” Sun glomped the seapony, making the water sphere temporarily broke up. “Oh, sorry!”
She immediately moved out of the seapony’s boundaries and shook the water off the water that was in her fur. The water sphere reformed, and Surigao spun in confusion.
“That’s okay. Didn’t know I can do that, to be honest,” Suri retorted, accepting her apology. “Where you going?”
Sun was silent for a moment. “Want to come with me and go to the islands?” she invited.
Suri’s eyes widened, nodding. “Does that mean we can visit where they said the eight-title boxing man lives?”
“Davao, right?” Sun guessed. Suri shrugged. “I think we’re gonna find out then.”
Suri looked towards the direction where her father was and flipped. “Oh! Do you mind if I helped with your flagship?”
Sun looked over to their royal boat and blinked. It was a simple canoe that had a roof and a big flag of the Old Philippines and their tribe flag. The flag was similar to the Old Philippine flag, only without the stars and the sun being a beautiful orange with one yellow ray out of eight. Behind the sun was a circle that was said to represent a pearl, like, their tribe is called Pearl Tribe.
Sun facehooved. “Stop with the puns, please,” she joked. “But sure! I mean, if you really want. I don’t want my best best best friend to just… keep ‘helping,’ you know.”
“Trust me,” she swam close to the edge of the bubble and patted her on the back with a hoof. “Besides, my family’s one of the best entertainers in the sea!”
Little Sun nodded, having seen one of their practices that spectacularly failed before she interrupted them.
“Except for the time that you interrupted our practice,” Suri remembered. “My flipper hurt that time.”
“Yeah… sorry about that.”
Little Sun has never been seasick. She wasn’t even supposed to get seasick for a short distance, yet she was getting sick. She threw up in a bucket and then went to check on her friend on the port sid—
“Are you pushing the boat using your back?”
