Author's Note

This story will include element of mystery and slice of life, being written in a first person perspective, with main protagonist(s) being "Original Character(s)"

Sty. No. I: A sheltered life

Today is going to be a good day.

The morning Sun illuminates the room causing my sleepy brain to wake up slowly. I haven’t quite opened my eyes yet but I imagine it’ll be the same as usual, the light comes in through the window, reflecting on the mirror, and lights up the whole room, like it always does. Even the birds are chirping from my left side, filling the once quiet room with ambient peaceful noise, making me want to sleep even more.

Usually, I might just do that, but not today.

I throw the blanket off my top half and stretch my forelegs, giving the world the widest yawn causing the bird at the window to fly off, landing at the branch further away from the window still but continuing to chirp happily. They know I won’t butter them but sometimes, my yawning can get a tad too loud for them it seems. And it’s probably for the better.

“Good Morning, world!” I exclaim happily, who doesn’t love a good waking up after a great night's sleep, especially on a special day such as today? I glanced around, taking in the scenery of the room I have.

It’s not the biggest room, that goes to the living room, but it’s more than pleasantly big enough for me. The cabinet on my left, opposite my study table, is filled with various clothing I might like to wear sometimes. However, in most cases, they’re more hassle than comfortable, I have to admit, but it’s good to have various options than none anyway.

Anyhow, I got a bit distracted there, I shake my head and look at my dressing desk next to it, with all the pictures that I have collected throughout the years, at this point I should probably get a bigger mirror, seeing how many pictures I took. Spoiler alert, I take a lot of pictures, especially with her. It always put a smile on my face to see us so happy and vibrant in those pictures.

I get up from my bed after the introspection and throw the blanket upward… before it lands back down on me. in hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that to myself.

I quickly toss the blanket aside, and sheepishly dust myself as I stand on the bed and recompose. My eyes land on the calendar next to the mirror, to make sure I didn’t just make an awkward mistake of thinking it’s a different day than it is.

Nope! Today is definitely the day, my smiles widen as I jump off the bed and step closer to the calendar in front of me.

Today is my 18th cake day.

I walk over to the study desk, right below the window, grab my tablet and a satchel, quickly shove it in the bag, and run back over to look at myself in the mirror.

Clean yellow mane, check! Clean blue coat, check! No red eyes around my prismatic red pupils, check! Morning breath… yuck, will do that in a bit. Everything else seems fine to me!

Then I run out of my room to get the morning breath out of my mouth.

After I did my two minutes of brushing my teeth, I runs to the stair and jump onto the rail right along its side.

“Good morning, Miss Violet!” I sing out, sliding down the stair guard rail, successfully landing on all four this time, a good sign I’d say. The sounds of the stove running tell me exactly where she is, I turn toward the room at the end of the hall beyond the staircase and I run over to peek into the kitchen.

The first thing I sense is the smell wafting through the air of a pancake cooked on a frying pan. The sizzling sound of the butter evaporating makes my stomach growls loudly, causing me to jump and land awkwardly on my back at the doorframe.

The mare cooking chuckles as she turns over and looks “You’ll have to wait a little bit longer before we get to eat, honey, I didn’t expect you to wake up this early!” She says, smiling at me vibrantly. Her purple eyes look like a marble and her green mane is tied back so it doesn’t get all the food gunk all over herself. Her light blue coat, despite being less pristine than what’s on the mirror, is still pretty vibrant, I’d say.

“But mom! It smells so good!” I whine out, “Can’t you give me the one you already finished cooking first?”

She chuckles and shakes her head, “I’m sorry but no. Can’t. Do. you’ll have to wait for me to cook the rest first, it’ll be worth the wait, I promise.”

I hug my forelegs and make a short “hmph!” Sounds… before undo that to trot over to sit at the dining table, and return to said pose.

The five minutes drag on as I stare at the clock, the tick-tocking sounds louder than the grizzling of the pancake. The time seems to slow down as Miss Violet brings the plates of pancakes over, the smell of cooked dough, sugary syrup, and melted butter basically makes me drool my mouth out.

As soon as the plate is down and I see my mom open her mouth, I immediately dive in. Nothing else matters to me. It feels like it’s only been 5 seconds but all the food is already cleaned off my plate and in my stomach already.

“Wow… you ARE hungry… Don’t forget to drink the water, buttercup!” She says, slipping me a glass of apple juice before placing her own plate and glass opposite my seat and sitting down to eat herself… slowly, from my perspective at least.

I drink the AJ slowly and place the glass down, looking at my mom with a wild smile. She seems to notice it… but deliberately pretend she doesn’t see it as she slowly enjoys her meal.

Another few minutes went by as I… subconsciously vibrate, making the chair below me slowly move forward, I elicits an ow as my chest hit the table, breaking the intentional silence.

“Is there something you want to say~?” the older mare asks with a smirk. It probably doesn’t help that my face looks like it’ll implode at any second now.

And so I answer, “Ohmygod,it’smycakeday!Canyoubelieveit’smycakedayalready,I’msoexcited!Canyoupleaseeatfaster,Imeanifyou’reokaywithitobviously,Idon’twantyoutochokeaftera-“

Her chuckles break my quick answer as I close back my mouth. Blush slowly forms on my face, I pout and look to the side in sheer embarrassment.

“Oh, honey, of course, I do remeber!” She says as she lifts up a gift box. I squeeze as I take it in my grasp and immediately rip it open. A small orb with the number 18 inside.

I pull out my tablet and place it on the table, put the ball on its screen, and lightly push the ball down. Miss Violet continues eating her breakfast as she and I watch the orb sinks into the screen, as soon as the whole thing goes down, there’s a notification at the top right of the screen saying ‘18/18 unlocked’

I jump up and spin in the air with my wings, “Finally! There’s so much I can do no-“ I checked my device and see that the only unlock it did is a bar and a big rollercoaster, there are still at least a dozen more locked from the option.

I exclaim “W-but It says 18/18 unlocked! Why are there still things not unlocked!” I turn the screen over so Miss Violet can see, as she too quirks her eyebrow, tilting her head before answering “I have no idea, that’s the last one I was supposed to give you.”

I look at her, surprised by her answer or lack thereof. As I look at the screen sadly, my ears flatten backward.

Miss Vi gets up and walks over to hug me, as she pats me on my head gently. “There there, I know I might not be able to help but let’s just ignore that for now, shouldn’t we? It is your birthday after all!”

I wipe my eyes, gee I didn’t even notice I was crying, as I look up at her, nodding slowly “Y-you are right, even if there’s a lot of things that I don’t understand, we can figure it out later….” I pause for a moment, “I’m kind of tempted to explore the new theme park, the last one was back on my 16th cake day and it is kind of getting boring for me.” I answer sheepishly knowing that the 4D theatre is her favorite of all the rides they had so far.

She chuckles as she says “Yeah, the 4D theatre is my all-time favorite” -nailed it- “but I wouldn’t mind figuring a new one!” She lightly nudges my foreleg, “Why not try it today?” She takes a step back after letting go of the hug.

I sniffle for a moment before getting up, “Y-yeah, let’s go.” I then slowly walk toward the front door and waits there as Miss Violet follows after she finishes putting the plates in the sink. She combs her mane with her wing before saying “Go ahead, you’re 18 now, you don’t have to ask for my permission.”

I nod, smiling “Duly noted!”

I then open the door to the empty void.

I look around for a moment, glancing at the tablet occasionally while Miss Vi follows me. The nothingness of the white void makes it feel like it's smaller from the echo but it basically stretches in all directions forever, one could get lost in it if not for the wooden door at the center of the void.

"Okay, let's do this!" I tap on the button as lines and shapes slowly form in front of me, beside me, under me. All around me.

The once flat surface is slowly paved in stone with grass on both sides. The white void above turns vibrant blue as a few clouds form in the skies, casting shadows down on the gray path and the grassland. In front of me, structures slowly erect from the ground, and various common color splashes into view, forming what looks like various rides in an amusement park in front of me.

It takes only a few seconds before the previously white void is replaced by the grassland during a summer day with a massive park at the center of it, right in front of the wooden door I called home.

"Wow, it’s bigger than I expected! Do you think you'll be able to take all the rides?" Miss Vi asks as she looks in awe at the structure in front of her, "I hope we don't have to freeze time, like last time, do we?" she adds.

"Well... last time I did ride most of them three times, I promise we won't have to do that again," I say as I step through the front gate of the building.

"So, where should we start? The rollercoaster? The whirlpool?" she asks.

I point at the carousel to the right of us, “Let’s start off slow today. I don’t want to lose my breakfast immediately!” I excuse myself as I lead the way to the spinning ride.

And then my cake day has officially begun.