August 31
I woke up when that airplane took off again, and I stayed awake when Chrissie got in the shower and left in her car.
I was kinda eager to go but at the same time I didn't want to leave so I just stayed in bed and dozed a little bit while I waited for Peggy to wake up.
When she did, she wished me a good morning and then went off to take her shower and I went downstairs to make breakfast again but there wasn't any pancake mix left 'cause I'd used up the last of it. And there weren't any boxes of unshelled eggs, so it would have been really hard for me to make omelets especially since I didn't know where the knives were kept.
There was cereal, though, and so I poured each of us a bowl but I left the milk out of Peggy's 'cause if the cereal sat in it too long it got soggy.
She came downstairs before too long and she made coffee and we ate breakfast and then we went upstairs and made sure that I had everything in my saddlebags including my new pilot's hat, and then we brought them down with me so that I'd be ready when Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn arrived.
I saw the newspaper that had my picture on top of a pile in the recycling bin and I asked her if I could have that, too, and she said I could and wondered why I wanted it. I said I thought it would be funny to show Mister Salvatore if he hadn't seen it yet.
We'd just put that in my saddlebags, too, when John came downstairs, rubbing his eyes and he went right into the kitchen and came back out with a cup of coffee and he looked more awake. He said that both of us were too chipper for this early in the morning.
He said how much fun it had had to have me visit and he said that if I wanted to come out to Colorado for Thanksgiving they'd be happy to have me. He said that he'd even make me a tofurky, which was something that I'd never heard of. And Peggy said that there was usually snow up in the mountains and we could go snowboarding on real mountains if I came.
So we talked in the living room until I saw Mister Salvatore stop in front of the house in his Dodge Ram, and I hugged Peggy and John and I said that I was looking forward to school starting again.
I sat in the middle of the back again, between their bags, and once we left the airport behind we passed by another military base and then we were out in the prairie. There were a few houses and farms here and there but mostly it was just prairie land as far as I could see.
I think if I couldn't have flown I would have really liked it. When I looked out the back window I could still see the mountains off in the distance, but it was mostly open and just the perfect place for a pony who had to stay on the ground.
Mister Salvatore slowed down when we go to a town called Punkin Center and he said that he wasn't sure if the people who founded the town couldn't spell, if it was a joke on travelers, or if it was named for something else. There wasn't much of anything there, so there wasn't anybody to ask.
We went across railroad tracks just before we got to Aroya, and then our road ended and we turned onto the 40-287 Road, which went more south and also ran alongside the railroad tracks.
After we'd been driving for almost two hours, Mister Salvatore said that we'd take a little break up ahead to stretch our legs. And I looked through the windshield and didn't see anything up ahead but he had his GPS so I thought it knew that something was coming up.
When he slowed down, though, all I could see ahead of me was a few run-down looking buildings and I didn't see anything that looked like a restaurant or a rest area or a gas station. And instead of going to them he stopped along the side of the road and I looked around but all I could see besides the buildings was a trailer with big water jugs and an arvey with its nose missing and then I saw the green sign by the side of the road that said this town was called Wild Horse.
Miss Cherilyn just glared at him, but I hopped out of the truck and stood by the sign so that Mister Salvatore could take my picture, and he finally convinced Miss Cherilyn to get out, too.
There wasn't anywhere to eat and there were big semitrucks zipping by—one of them saw us at the sign and honked at us—and so once he'd taken a picture with her and me and had her take a picture with me and him, we got back in the Ram and drove on.
We stopped a little while further down the road in a town called Kit Carson, who Mister Salvatore said was a famous cowboy. I asked if he'd built the town, and Mister Salvatore said that he didn't think so.
It was a big enough town that it had a restaurant called the Kit Carson Trading Post Restaurant and we got some strange looks when we came in. We picked a table kind of in the back and Mister Salvatore sat right next to me.
When the waitress came she said that it was kind of strange to see me there because the creek right behind the restaurant was called the Wild Horse Creek. I asked if there were wild horses in it and she said that they used to run alongside it, which is how it got its name but that that was a long time ago.
I thought it would be fun to see wild horses and Mister Salvatore thought it would be fun to take a picture of me in Wild Horse Creek and Miss Cherilyn though that if we kept stopping every time Mister Salvatore wanted to we'd never get to Wichita.
He said that getting there was half the fun, so it ought to take half as long as being there. And he promised that we'd get there an hour sooner than she expected, and she said that crossing into a new time zone didn't magically make another hour appear. And then after our drinks came she remembered that since we were going east, we were going to lose an hour, not get another one.
He said sometimes she thought too much about the little details.
I had a salad and a slice of cherry pie, which was very good. The waitress said that the pies were homemade, and that there were also peanut butter cookies that were homemade and very good and she gave me one to try and I shared it and Mister Salvatore liked it so much that he bought a whole box of them for the road.
Once we were done eating, we went out behind the restaurant and I flew down alongside the creek—it had a big, wide bed, but there was hardly any water in it at all—and Mister Salvatore took my picture and then he wanted to take another one of me looking wild, so I used my hooves to mess up my mane some and stuck some leaves and branches in it, and he took a picture of that.
Before I could take the leaves and sticks back out, a bird landed on me and pecked at the stick, then flew off again. And Mister Salvatore got a picture of that, too. I didn't think it was a good picture 'cause I was kind of cross-eyed trying to look up at the bird but he insisted that it was the best picture ever and Miss Cherilyn agreed.
Then we got back in the pickup and went back out onto the road and after a while of it being almost all plains as far as I could see I started to get a little bored, and wondered if I could crawl out the back window and ride in the open bed of the truck. Maybe if I was holding on to a rope, I could fly along behind it like a kite, although I wouldn't be able to go too high because the rope would probably hit wires.
There was just a little blue sign to tell us that we were in Kansas and nothing on the other side of the sign was any different than it had been, and I dozed until we stopped at a gas station so that Mister Salvatore could put gas in the truck. Me and Miss Cherilyn went inside and walked around a little and used the bathroom and when we got back to the truck Miss Cherilyn asked him if he wanted her to drive for a little bit but he said that he'd be fine.
We got on the 70 Highway and we could go a little bit faster, plus it was more interesting since there were lots of other cars going the same way so I could look at them for longer. We passed a house on wheels, which was pretty amazing. Mister Salvatore said that they built them in factories and then took them where they were going with trucks, and that some people really liked that because you could buy one and have it delivered in a couple of weeks rather than waiting months or years to have one built.
We had to slow down at WaKeeney because they were fixing the road, and then traffic almost completely stopped for a while. There were helpful orange signs that told us which lane we had to pick, and most people obeyed them but there were some who rushed ahead and cut the line and after five or six had gone by, one of the semi-trucks that had gotten in the correct lane went back over to the wrong one and he just stayed there, blocking everybody else. Mister Salvatore laughed as cars started to line up behind him wanting to get by but they couldn't.
Once we got up to the front of the line traffic speeded up again, and I watched out the window at all the different machines that worked on the road. Some of them I'd seen other places like the big scoop tractors, but a lot of the other ones I'd never seen before. There was a tractor with a spinning broom on the front of it that was making a really big dust cloud.
After we got out of the construction, it took a few miles for the traffic to all find its place again, and then we were back up to speed.
We stopped for dinner in Salina, and Mister Salvatore wanted to go to the Rib Crib but Miss Cherilyn said that I wouldn't like it at all. And she said that there was a sushi restaurant that I might like.
I did want to eat there but I thought we ought to go where Mister Salvatore wanted because he'd been driving all day and so he deserved to eat what he wanted. Then Miss Cherilyn suggested that we could go to the sushi restaurant and he could eat ribs by himself and she'd even let him drive the truck over there so he'd feel more manly and just to come back and get us when he was done eating.
He agreed to that pretty quickly, and it was nice for us, too. I had a seaweed salad, smoked salmon nigiri and a hamachi sashimi, and we also each had one mojito and then green tea. And we took our time with dinner and sipping our tea until Mister Salvatore finally came in to get us. He was really cheerful, so he must have had a good dinner.
We went south on the 135 Highway until we got to Wichita, which was the first big city I'd seen since we left Colorado Springs. Then we drove through town until we got to the Marriott hotel, and we had rooms on the very top floor.
It was strange to be so tired after I hadn't done anything but sit almost all day long, but I was. I was kind of sore, too, so I filled up the bathtub and soaked in it for a while and that loosened up my muscles. Then I sat crosswise on the bed so that I could look out the window and preened my wings and looked around outside.
There was a strange figure-eight of highway that pointed to the hotel, and then I could see to the east the end of a small runway, but I saw airplanes taking off not very far to the south of me and I wasn't sure why there would be two airports that close together. And when I checked my watch for what the nearest airport was it didn't point me at either, which was even stranger.
I couldn't think of any reason why there would be so many airports that close to me, until I found a visitor's guide that the hotel had put in my room and I found out that there was an Air Force base and also Cessna and Beechcraft which built small airplanes and also an airplane research facility and I started to get excited because I bet I was going to get to visit an airplane factory.
It was a little lonely being in a hotel room all by myself and the bed was too big for just me, so I took some of the blankets and put them on the chair and slept on that instead.
Another wonderful chapter! Loved the part about the picture at wild horse creek. Off topic I wonder how sliver glow would react to some scary movies such as del toros pans labyrinth. Just wondering now that Halloween has passed.
Macho Man Salvatore...
Doesn't have a nice ring to it though...
7692073
Maybe his first name is Randy.
You're breaking my heart here.
Every so often I notice small grammatical errors (usually incorrectly conjugated verbs) and wonder if I should point them out or just chalk it up to the fact that English is not Silver's native language.
7692155
Maybe.
Needs "and."
Missing space.
As well-traveled as she is at this point, I'd like to hear the SG version of I've Been Everywhere. Does anyone know if there's a brony parody of the song with horse puns for all the places listed?
I love how Salvatore is always trying to find a pony/horse reference of some kind to pose Silver with. It's funny, but it's also pretty obvious he really likes her.
Also I've made the drive from Ft Collins to Kansas City a few times. Once you hit the 70, it doesn't take long to get hit with absolute "kill me now" boredom.
needs a space after the comma
7692158 Yeah, it makes me want to snuggle her.
7692163 I think The Admiral likes having that excuse. It's a fun game, guessing which is accidental and which are intentional.
I'm waiting for her to knock on Mister Salvatore and / or Miss Cherilyn's door and say she can't sleep and ask if she can share a bed with one of them. Could you say no?
hahaha when kids play
Highway to the Dangerzone playing in the background...
7692066 It will be Christmas by the time it's Halloween. You know what I mean! I wonder how she'll react to anyone dressed as a pony or wearing a Princess Celestia wig.
It's so nice to see how he's gone from professionally protective to genuinely caring. The little pegasus has found her way into the gruff FBI agent's heart.
This whole dialogue is beautiful; I chuckled all the way through. Specially the thing with the time zones.
Did he get to yell at somebody?
Alright, great chapter. Has a real road movie feel to it... not much actually happening, but a joy to read for the dialogue and character interaction/development.
*melts*
Kansas, where self drive cars will sell like hot cakes, the ultimate in Cruise Control?
Did Mr Salvatore throw a couple darts to get started, look in the place name list for all the horse and movie names, or did he collar the kid down in the supercomputer and give him the problem to solve in return for a collection of Silver holiday photos for the kids MLP collection?
Although it was 1st said about something else, the interstate highways are where you can look farther & see less than anywhere else in the world.
For those who have never done it. Driving on the interstate highways in cites or beltways around them is brutal. You've got as many as a dozen lanes & every one goes somewhere different. Everyone is going 70+ mph & is in the wrong lane so they've got to shift lanes NOW or they'll miss their exit. When we took road trips, one of us kids would navigate (Mom was hopeless at it. It's kind of weird, 1st time you know you're better at something than a grownup) & Dad would just drive (this was 50 years ago. No GPS or 411). Every mile or so, cars are merging or leaving, it's a mess.
Driving between cities is the easiest driving there is. Everyone is going the same direction at the same speed. The exits are 10-20 miles apart, no merging cars & a long time to change lanes if needed. In High School the Driver's Ed class spent a lot of time on the Interstate because it was so simple
7692457
Pretty sure
mostall of the run-on sentences are intentional, though.7692575 Oh, that's a neat idea, and it would make perfect sense giving the way this world is. :)
Mojitos at a Japanese restaurant? I don't think I've even seen that before.
Are you a Pony? Are you lonely? Is the bed too big and empty? Call 1-800-.SNU-GGLE and our specially trained human Snuggle-Buddies™ will come to chase those blues away! Our Snuggle-Buddies™ are experts in petting, preening, cuddling and snuggling. Ask about our Massage and Tummy Rub Package!
Even Princess Luna says, "My nights are never cold and lonely again thanks to Snuggle-Buddies™. Prompt, professional and well-versed in the arts of the snuggle."
Snuggle-Buddies™ for all your snuggling needs.
Call now!
Are you sure he didn't tell her to close her eyes for a minute before getting out while he used spray paint to cross out Horse and put Pony on it? Followed by him telling Miss Cherilyn it was already there, she must have missed seeing it at first.
I'm confused. I'm about to read this, but how does a story with nearly 300 chapters have only 500,000 words?
7694317
Each chapter is only a few thousand words long.
Mister Salvatore's got jokes.
Oh my god, derpsilver
Salvatore and Cherilyn are right.
7692541
Kind of related:
skunksoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/missiletruck.jpg
7693089
The best sushi near where I live comes from a Chinese takeout place. Go figure...
7693662
I'd, um, like to apply for a position. My mom says I give the best huggles, and snuggles are closely related. Also, ponies.
Road construction...there is no escape from it.
7692066
That would be a picture I would love to see.
Hmm, that's a good question. I think she probably wouldn't particularly like scary movies, but it could still be fun to watch with a friend. As long as it was something that she could get into and not ask too many questions about. Maybe Cube, since it has math in it.
7692073
Oh, I don't know about that. Say it a couple of times and it starts to grow on you.
7692155
Heh, no. His first name is Salvatore.
7692158
<hug>
7692163
In general, if it's incorrectly conjugated, has a wrong ending on it, or isn't quite the right word for the situation, that's just Silver. If it's outright misspelled, that's my mistake.
7692189
Corrections made; thank you!
I'm not aware of one but that would be an interesting song for someone who could channel Johnny Cash.
7692333
Since he's not really one for hugs and cuddling, he has to show his love in different, more manly ways.
SR26 in Indiana between Kokomo and Lafayette is kind of like that, but at least it's only about 45 minutes before it's over, and there are farms to alleviate the boredom. When I was looking at that on the map I was thinking how seeing a building would be exciting.
There's a reason why Amtrak goes through Kansas at night.
7692438
Correction made; thank you!
7692457
I bet if I called for a show of hands for people who didn't want to snuggle Silver, I'd see no hands.
7692482
Her snuggled up on
papa bear'sMister Salvatore's chest would be so adorable. Of course he wouldn't be able to say no.7692541
See, I know the motivation. When we were on a road trip in Kentucky, we just had to stop by the road sign that said McCracken County and pose with it for a picture. Also we had to go to Possum Trot, because how could you not?
Somebody needs to try this with Scootaloo. I bet she could glide just fine when towed behind another pony.
7692575
Why do engineers confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because OCT 31 = DEC 25.
Probably would depend on how good the costume was. If they've got the flowing mane down, she'd be pretty impressed. Also, because I can never pass by the opportunity to post this picture,
s1.hostingkartinok.com/uploads/images/2013/01/9ecbbd28693ba74e2201362c7647580f.png
7692580
He wouldn't be doing it if he didn't really love ponies deep down. He might try to hide it a little bit, but he does love them.
No, but he got to eat every kind of BBQ his heart desired which is almost as good.
Thanks!
7692581
You're darn right they would. There's places near where I live where I'd love to have a self-driving car, and Michigan isn't nearly as boring as Kansas.
He's an old-fashioned guy, so you know that he was looking at actual paper maps and tracing his finger along the routes they'd take to find the perfect places for photo ops, and when Miss Cherilyn asked him what he was doing he just said something vague about trying to figure out what the best route was.
7692739
It depends on where you are, really. But that is true for much of it. Some glorious scenery from some interestates, though.
It's also sometimes the most boring driving there is. Driving to Trotcon has a lot of Ohio farmland in it and that gets quite tedious after a while. Driving to Bronycon is the same, but I go through the boring farmland first, so when I'm starting to get tired of the driving it gets more interesting.
You lucky devil. I started out on a six-lane artery road during rush hour. That was brutal.
7692741
It's a challenge when I'm writing something else, because I have to remind myself not to use them.
7692928
Well, I've seen at Bronycon some really good costumes, from fursuits to humanized versions of whoever (Red has a really good Prince Solaris costume). In this 'verse, I'm not sure that major costume makers would actually carry pony costumes just for fear of being perceived as racist, but creative people would no doubt come up with something.
Actually, that brings up an important question--would it be racist to have a pony costume?
chasingfireflies.scene7.com/is/image/ChasingFireflies/49570_main?$P_Main$
Would something like this offend Silver Glow?
7693089
It's legit on their menu.
Related: my Google history is full of searches for restaurants in towns I've never even been to.
7693662
I'm signing up.
7694068
"I swear it was like that all along."
7694521
7695074
Silver can't help being adorable.
7696065
They'd have a waiting list for applicants within about five seconds of going online, no matter how many open positions they had.
7699411
Well, at least here in Michigan we get a nice break from it during the winter
7735850
"There are two seasons in the midwest, winter and road repair."
7735906
Yup. Orange cones or orange snowplow trucks. Right now we're in the transitional stage where they can't decide if they should plow the roads or fix them, so they're doing neither.
7740177 And gosh does it grow old
7828155
You guys at least have better highways than we do.
7693662
Something Meghan can do if her plans for going to Equestria fall through.
8014230
Oh, wow. Yeah, that would be brilliant.
'we got back in the Ram and drove on.'
8139508
Correction made; thank you!
OMG she is so adorable!
8229176
7735057
Of course not, Balefire Bombs werne't nukes. Also they wern't built by ponies. Those were Zebra weapons, Pony megaspells were more like the GDI super weapons from Command and Conquer.
"We found Sudoku puzzles work well to keep them from flying off. Also installing a monitor showing Top Gun on a never ending loop."
And yet there is still always talk of retiring the A-10's. Always from people who have never had their asses saved by a well timed BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT! Seriously, that is the most badass plane we have that EVERYONE loves and so many owe their lives to. Except the Air Force upper brass that just see it as a waste of money that could be going to their precious f-35's. That can't do what the Warthog can.
And then RD shows off a Rainboom, and every upper brass craps themselves in either fear or excitement at the realization that these ponies can go super sonic.
Peggy's just used to the whole noisy aircraft over head thing.
Eh, I'm sure they expected to have the pictures cropped.
Well, no reporters were there to see you fly to the peak. If you want to make headlines, gotta make sure people see pony being epic.
Smart Pone knowing how to get not-lost. Fun story, afew weeks ago my roommate had to do this. Tried taking a shortcut home from work, ended up calling me asking me to find where he was and how to get back..
Stupid censorship. Pony should complain it's violating her culture to do that!
Well, on the plus side, NORAD is 100% secure from invasion by pegasi. Out of luck for unicorns and earth ponies.
"Space internet"
Whoooo! pony mission control FTW!
Keep using the things because they are still worth using. Sometimes you just get a design right. Other times you create a fraken-horror of an engine room that Congress refuses to not keep in service for it's promised 50 years, even if it spends more time in the shipyard then at sea.
So, does she mean all the ponies from her village, or the whole village itself?
Wait... all in good shape? But... But.... this is the freaking AIR FORCE! LIES!
Yup, gossip travels at the speed of 'dude, did you hear!?' Even faster for pony related gossip.
Easy for pony to get out of the way of other planes at least.
Pegasus 1 has begin take off gallop!
Well, at least per the meme, she did in fact 'do a barrel roll' so good for her.
Yeah,they are so going to be trying to get some pegasi to come work with them. Maybe a joint forces task force or something. They are just too useful to not want at least one flock around for.
Yup, C-130 can stop insanely short for it's mass.
Yay, more pony badges for being best first contact pegasus!
Poorly built buttons #ponyproblems Just give the poor dear an old school trackball and big, red, raised button like the REAL 'Missile Command' had,
Well, if ponies were defending, you'd have access to the Orbital Friendship Canon strikes.
Yay for tech advancements. Cyber pony has better tech then big airplane.
'Silver-Sense!'"My Silver-Sense is saying you want to give me belly wubs!"
Pony is getting smarter about double checking claims she thinks don't sound right.
Go Go Pony Math Nerd! Showing those silly not math using humans.
7735744
Unless they are from Australia, in that case, we can assume they'll be just fine.
More like why you would smuggle that wretched piss water American's try to call beer.
Silver, stop being so peppy and happy and perky this early in the morning, it can't be healthy.
Don't worry Peggy, I'm sure the new Ponylords will have something useful for you to do to serve them in the new regime.
So, is 'The White Rock' green? Or, any color but white?
Well, Peggy, yes climbing s slow, but jumping back off is REALLY fast.
Hey, flying up on top of the rocks would just be motivation for those humans climbing it to get up there faster.
"Cave" and 'Enjoy" do not go together where pegasi are concerned. Now, if you had a Batpony, the hard part would be getting her to leave the cave. "And from that day, it was renamed 'Cave of the Skreeeee!'"
Peggy continues to be best Pony-Bud!
Flying solves so many issues. "We can't strap her in right!" "Meh, she can just fly away if she falls out."
She has gotten so used to her own personal battering ram. And Mr. Salvatore loves being that for her.
From above has to be a very odd angle for pony to see herself from.
Pony is best Scrabble Troll! "It's a word in my native language and you can't prove otherwise." Where's Meghan when you need her?
Ah Coors, gotta give the pony a nice big tankard o' moose urine. (If you don't get the reference, why the hell have you not read Order of the Stick!?)
D'awwwww good pony snuggle buddy!
7735840
Unlikely, she seems hard to offend. Other ponies.. RD would think it was awesome and just showed how awesome she was, Fluttershy would be mortified at the thought of others caring enough about her to dress up as her, Luna and Tia have likely dealt with it more then enough to just roll with it. etc... Also, we've already seen Pinkie has full body suits of her friends she can wear anyway.
Silver is learning that once you pour the milk on the cereal, it starts a countdown to mushyness.
She's binding so well with her pony protector. "Hey! Did you see this? I was at a place that had a bunch of topless people." And all the fun pictures she enjoys taking of silly human names for things.
Plus, always sweet to see the little ways it makes clear he's got her back and will protect that precious cinnamon roll. Instantly catching the vibe of the place and making sure to keep himself between her and the rest of the place.
Mmmmmmm, peanut butter cookies......
Wild Pony, beware of the fercoious wild pony, she will chase you down for snuggles!
Yes, I agree, that picture would be the bestest thing ever.
All the yes Silver, climb out and sail behind the truck! Also, more proof of Pony's feline nature, letting them get bored does not end well.
Ha, take that lane cutting assholes! I like that semi driver. Stupid trafic slow downs. Worst, and stupidest one I've ever been in, was for about 3 exits along the NJ turnpike. Stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic, and when I get to the front to see the issue? A dump truck full of sand/dirt had over turned.... on the other side of the road. Nothing was on our side, no dirt, no debris, no anything to slow anything down, it was all on the far side. But people all had to slow down to look at it.
So, some downsides to being with a pony, not a big one for BBQ joints. Also, epic burn Mrs. Cherilyn.
Pony is all kinds of surrounded by airports right now.
Smart pony is too smart to be surprised, but still adorable and happy so totally worth it!
And d'awwwwww pony nest!
9130669
My favorite pony megaspells are the ones where Princess Celestia channels the sun to wipe out her opponents.
The best part is that every time some cool stunt happens in Top Gun, the aircraft the pegasi are on gets a 20% performance boost.
Warthogs are the shit. Their guns sound stupid (but never say that near a Warthog) and they’re kind of slow and kind of ugly and really, really good at making problems simply disappear.
Even if it’s not supersonic (which I don’t think it is), the Rainboom has more than enough insane physical properties . . . given the episode where Rainbow rainnuked AJ’s barn, RD can be a directed energy weapon.
Exactly!
Well, of course the #freethenipple protesters did. For better or worse, no newspaper in the US can publish that. I am curious if they could get away with it in their online editions, though, especially in places in the US where it is legal (such as NYC).
...
Just did some checking; New York Times online does have uncensored videos on that topic. Obviously I can’t link them here.
Guarantee that after word got out, some enterprising reported went up to the top of Pike’s Peak in the hopes that she would try it again.
Back when I drove wrecker, one of our new drivers radioed in that he was at the impound lot and needed directions back to the shop. The dispatcher said something along the lines of ‘You mean, where you picked up the wrecker half a hour ago?’
That guy didn’t last too long.
I’m honestly not sure that would get too far with the newspaper (although they might publish the editorial). And just imagine that before the photo went in the paper, there were probably several people clustered around it, examining it, wondering if those were pony nipples and whether or not they could actually show them.
At least she isn’t required to wear pants while on earth.
Maud just shows up one day, not through the front door, but from the back side. “Smelled coffee, wanted a cup.”
Space internet doesn’t use tubes.
How could they not let her? PR gold, a pegasus at a console. That can go in recruitment pamphlets both on Earth and in Equestria.
I was just watching a video about a anti-helicopter tank platform that was supposed to keep up with Abrams and Bradly tanks (it couldn’t) and shoot down anti-tank helicopters (it couldn’t do that, either, although apparently it was good at shooting latrines). After a few billion sunk into the project, all the units became targets for better weapons.
All the ponies and probably all the houses, too, if they clustered them tightly together.
Compared to the general US population, though--people that she’s used to seeing in her everyday life--even the least-fit USAF personnel are far fitter than Joe and Jane Average.
Wait until the gossip machine is so finely-tuned that it knows what will happen before it does.
While she hasn’t got the speed of any real aircraft--certainly not on Earth--she can do directional changes faster than any aircraft and probably most helicopters.
If she’d spent more time with flight sims, she could have even done callouts.
“Wings out, brakes off, beginning takeoff trot, beginning canter, beginning gallop, V1, rotate, positive rate, gear up. . . .” The air force would have loved that.
Ponies surely have acrobatics that no sane person would ever consider in a fixed-wing aircraft. Plus some of it is probably completely mundane to them, like landing in a tree.
One of those things where the more the brass thinks about it, the more new ideas they come up with. Treaties presumably prevent them being used directly as weapons (no pegasus gun platforms), but for all sorts of rescue work, or inspection work (can check over the top side of an aircraft without having to get out ladders and manlifts)--many potential things that pegasi could do very well.
There’s got to be some good seat belts in those things for their quick stops. And I bet the landing gear is super robust.
She’s going to have so many awards and honors by the time she gets back to Equestria . . . it’d probably take her an hour to just list them all off.
Trackballs are probably hoof-friendly (as long as they’re large; the one I have, not so much). And everything’s better with a big red button.
And the mountain-shattering epicness of pissed-off Twilight Sparkle.
“They’re burning books, princess. Go destroy them.”
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If you’ve never read Quantum Castaways, put that one on your RiL--it’s incomplete and probably never will be finished, but it’s good.
There’s one part--which I’m going to edit a bit so it’s not as spoilery--with a human (Marshall) reacting to Twilight going full beast mode:
It’s true. Although the equipment on the plane is theoretically better able to withstand damage than her watch or portable radios.
Everybody wants to do that--she doesn’t need Silver Sense to know that.
Pony has learned that just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.
A lot of games, like Monopoly, have good strategies based on odds, and I’m willing to bet that someone who’s familiar with statistics and probability can probably figure out a good strategy after only reading the rules.
“In this part of the Everfree there are giant spiders.”
“Are they poisonous, mate?”
“Um, no.”
“Right, we’ll be fine. Cuppa?”
It’s still very strange to me that when you enter the US from Canada, they ask if you’ve got any guns. Like, who would try to smuggle guns into the US from Canada?
Best bird-pone is always ready to face the new day.
Teach them how to snowboard, and how to wheeled snowboard.
The White Rock is white, which does make it appear quite different from the other red rocks.
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That’s true, it is.
She could stand at the top and shout motivational things at them!
Yeah, that was not the best thinking on anybody’s part, really. And you’re totally right, batponies would love the cave tour. Wouldn’t care about the lights being off, either.
That’s certainly one advantage she has . . . although for some rides, that’s probably not good enough, since there’s still lots of possibility for injury to her or others if she comes loose from the ride. In this case, though. . . .
I suppose in some ways that’s a disadvantage of having the Feds accompanying you around; you sometimes get to take the lazy solution. Still, as long as that power isn’t abused....
I know, right? I bet if there are ponies in Chonamare with cameras, she’s got lots of pictures of her belly, though.
Fun fact, we sometimes get into fights with Scrabble when I’m home. My mom sometimes accidentally makes foreign words in languages she knows, and I know a bunch of the two-letter words (from playing online) but have no idea what they mean. She doesn’t think it’s fair to use a word if I don’t know what it is, but my counterargument is that the rules of scrabble don’t say that you have to define the word, just that it’s got to be in the dictionary.
Dude, if you had any idea how long my RiL was, both online and IRL . . . at rough count, there are about 500 paperbacks on the shelves in my bedroom, and that’s less than a quarter of my collection of actual, physical books.
Yeah, I think that most of them wouldn’t care--I don’t think that they have the sensitivity to cultural awareness that a lot of us Westerners do (and possibly other people, too, but I don’t know for sure).
Pinkie Pie’s Fluttershy bodysuit was hilarious, especially Fluttershy’s reaction to it.
The real question is whether a pony would prefer her cereal mushier or crunchier.
Mr. Salvatore is the best. And he’s probably still a bit grumpy that he got to miss the topless protest, although he did get to go on his Jeep adventure.
And of course she loves posing by silly signs for their benefit.
And let’s be honest, he was probably hoping just a little bit that somebody would try something and he could go into Papa Bear mode.
So good!
She will! There is no escaping.
That’s one that they could hang proudly in the restaurant.
I really think that would be a lot of fun for her, just for the novelty. Sort of like parasailing, really--just give her a nice long rope and let her fly along behind the truck. Best to try that somewhere that there aren’t power lines, of course.
That’s something I’ve seen big rigs do more than once. Usually pisses off the cars right behind them, but so far I haven’t seen anyone stupid enough to try and fight the truck for the lane.
On my way back from Bronycon, I got to sit through a two-hour delay (that’s when I wrote most of Fence Post, actually), which was caused by a dump truck that fell over and spilled a load of hot asphalt onto the slow lane. Apparently that was quite a mess for them to clean up . . . by the time I got to the site of the accident, they had the asphalt picked up and the dump truck back on its wheels.
That’s true, and for most ponies that aren’t pegasi, even fish places are out. I bet most of the handlers on road trips wind up with a more vegetarian diet than they’d anticipated.
She knows him so well.
She really is. It’s kind of amazing, actually, looking at it on Google Maps. I have to imagine coordinating all those flights from the different airports must be a challenge.
Pony nests are the best.
Hmmm. I googled for Marriotts in Wichita, but I'm not sure which one they're in. I can't identify the figure eight highway.
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It’s this one:
9100 E Corporate Hills Dr, Wichita, KS 67207
Right at the end of the Beech airport runway (more or less).
It’s not a complete figure-eight, maybe a figure-six would have been more accurate.
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That’s one thing that the humans need to get used to when they’re planning hotel rooms and stuff—most ponies don’t like sleeping alone.
11223963
I'll offer my services as a pony sleeper. I'll volunteer if I have to.