September 7
I woke up with the train stopped in Waterloo, which was in Indiana.
After I'd taken a shower, I sat down on my bed and read more of the Bible, 'cause I wanted to finish Daniel before I got back to Kalamazoo. So I read about how King Nebuchadnezzar was having a dream and he asked his wise men to tell him what it was and what it meant and none of them could which made him angry and he wanted to kill them. But then Daniel found out and God told Daniel what King Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed, and so Daniel told the king, and the king was amazed by it.
I wondered if Princess Luna would have been able to get into his dream, if he let her. Then she maybe could have told him what it meant before he even woke up. Or God could have told him directly.
So the king appointed Daniel as an adviser and gave him three assistants. Then he built a golden image and said that everyone had to bow down to it whenever they heard music, or else they would be thrown in a furnace. But Daniel's assistants didn't want to, because they knew that God didn't want them bowing down to idols, and when King Nebuchadnezzar found out he was angry and said that he was going to throw them in a furnace.
They said that he could, because God would protect them, but if not they would still not submit, so he had them thrown in a furnace and they were unharmed and King Nebuchadnezzar was so amazed that he made them nobles.
Nebuchadnezzar had another dream about cutting down a tree, and Daniel told him that the dream meant that he was going to be cast down as king until he renounced his sins, and then King Nebuchadnezzar was driven away until he was forgiven, then he was let back in.
Later, King Belshazzar who was his son was having a feast and all of a sudden a hand appeared and began writing things on the wall, and Belshazzar didn't know what they meant so he asked all his wise men and they didn't know either. Until finally the Queen told him that Daniel would know, so he sent for Daniel, who told him that the words meant that God had measured him and found him wanting and was going to end his reign, because he hadn't followed God's rules like he should have. And that night he was killed, and Darius became king.
All the other nobles didn't like Daniel so they conspired against him and got King Darius to make a rule that nobody could pray or else they would be thrown in with lions, and then they told him that Daniel still was, and the King was sad but he had made a rule and couldn't change it. So he put Daniel in with the lions and the next morning Daniel was unharmed and told the king that God had sent an angel to protect him.
The king was mad at the other nobles, so he threw them and their families in with the lions, which was mean. I think if he had just thrown them in that would have been enough.
Daniel then talked about visions he'd had when Belshazzar was king, about four beasts that he had seen that meant that the four beasts were four kings and a fourth kingdom and that God would bring them down and their power would be given to the Israelites.
And then he had another vision of a ram and a goat with one horn, which I guess was a unicorn goat. And it defeated the ram, and Gabriel told Daniel that it was meant to symbolize a powerful king who would conquer everything in his path and nobody will be able to stop him, and that vision worried Daniel.
Then Daniel prayed and when he did Gabriel came back and told him that there were going to be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens and they would start when Jerusalem was rebuilt and when they ended it would be destroyed again and it was very confusing what the sevens were, especially since Gabriel said that in the middle of one of the sevens there would be an end to sacrifice and I tried to figure out if you were supposed to add the sevens all together, and if you were why not just say 483?
And then he talked about kings who would come and destroy and then be destroyed, and Gabriel said that the end times would happen for a time, times and half a time, which didn't make any sense at all. Then he said that it would be 1290 and 1335 days and that didn't make much sense either. Pastor Liz had said that the Old Testament had happened thousands of years ago, and that was a lot longer.
So that was a very confusing way to end and I didn't know quite what to make of it. I thought that I would have to ask Liz what it meant. Sometimes ponies use numbers for code, so maybe that's what it was and I just wasn't smart enough to figure it out.
I packed everything up when the train stopped in Elkhart, because we'd be getting off at the next station. And then I just looked out the window at the farmland going by. It wasn't as pretty as Pennsylvania and West Virginia had been, but it was familiar to me.
Mister Salvatore knocked on my door to make sure that I was ready to go, and then I went downstairs and waited, and pretty soon he and Miss Cherilyn came downstairs with all their bags.
So I said that I had been thinking about maybe flying home because I knew that I could fly the distance from South Bend to Kalamazoo and it would give me a chance to stretch out my wings and relax, and he said that I could. He said that he was going to miss me for the drive home, but if I wanted to end the trip by flying back home I could. And then even before I asked he said that he'd be happy to take my saddlebags so that I didn't have to carry them.
I stood up on my hind hooves and hugged him and he told me to be careful and make sure that I had my portable telephone with me so I could call him if I needed him.
We got off the train and there was a little black car called a Yaris there for us and Mister Salvatore said that when he got back to the field office he was going to make sure whoever had ordered the car for him got to do all pony-related paperwork for the next year.
It was bigger on the inside than it had looked, although some of the luggage had to sit beside me in the back seat.
He said that we could go out to breakfast first, so that I wouldn't be flying on a completely empty stomach, and so we stopped at a Burger King and I had oatmeal and shared a Cinnabon with Miss Cherilyn. Mister Salvatore asked if I wanted a paper crown but I said it would fall off when I was flying and he said that was a good point.
Miss Cherilyn helped me get dressed in my flight gear, and I called the South Bend airport to tell them that I was flying and they told me to stay under a thousand feet until I was across the Michigan state line. I said that I would—I wasn't exactly sure where that was, but I thought that once I got closer to it I probably would start to see some familiar towns and then I would know. And if I climbed late, that was okay.
I set my pilot's watch to show me directions to the Kalamazoo Airport, and I hugged both of them before I took off. When I was in the air, I made one circle around the parking lot and they waved at me and I waved back.
I found a road pretty quickly that was going the way I wanted to, so I followed it along. It went past a university that had a big stadium, and then past some shopping malls, and then it ended but there was another diagonal road that I could see, so I angled my course a little bit more that way, even though it wasn't quite on a straight bearing to Kalamazoo. It was pretty close, and it was easier than looking at my watch every few minutes to see if I was still flying on the best path.
Up ahead I saw a little town and a big industrial building that looked familiar and I realized that I was almost over Granger, so I turned more to the east and dropped down some and flew over Sunny Haven. It was still kinda early and I guess nudists don't get up much earlier than anybody else, 'cause there wasn't anybody by the pool and there was only one older man I saw walking across the lawn and he wasn't looking my direction but I didn't think he was anybody I'd met before, so I turned north and flew on.
I knew that the industrial building that I could still see off to my left was right at the border, so once I'd not only flown north of it, but one more road just to make absolutely sure, I called the airplane directors in South Bend and told them that I was north of the border and north of Granger and asked if I could climb and they said that I could.
I took my time on the way back, and I even landed once when I was near a town called Marcellus. I didn't have to but I wanted to, and so I wouldn't waste too much energy I made a long shallow glide down.
I sat on the edge of a cornfield and relaxed for about an hour and then I took off again.
When I got close to the 131 Highway, I called the Kalamazoo airplane directors so that they would know where I was, and then started descending so that I'd be under a thousand feet when I crossed it because that made things easier for them.
I flew straight to my house and when I went inside I found that my saddlebags were already on my futon and there was a little paper crown on top of them, too. And the other gifts I'd gotten which didn't fit like the books and the pictures were all neatly set beside that, too.
I sent Meghan a telephone telegram to let her know that I was back at my apartment, and then I had a snack of hay. There was no way I was going to finish what was left before it was time to move back into the dorm, so hopefully Peggy wouldn't mind if I had some of a hay bale in our room. I should have asked her when I was in Colorado.
I got out of my flight gear and took a shower, and I should have put all the things on the futon away but instead i sat in the papasan and fell asleep.
It was thundering when I woke up and I put on my flight gear as quickly as I could and my weather radio too and went off the balcony and I was trying to call Mel as I climbed and by the time he finally answered my radio calls the thunder had stopped, and there hadn't been any rain at all. And he said that there was nothing to worry about on the radar but he was glad that he had me back.
So I felt a little bit foalish that I'd rushed off for nothing. I should have tried to call Mel first.
On my way back I checked to make sure that the bird feeder at Aric's house was full, and it was. And I flew back home and put everything away and I was surprised to find that there was some food in my electric icebox that I didn't remember being there and also there was a bag of cooking supplies and I realized that Meghan had probably brought it over before 'cause she'd wanted to make dinner for me.
And then I thought she'd probably be surprised if I made it instead so I looked at what she had and thought she probably meant to make a pasta casserole and I thought I could remember how to do it.
I didn't have it done when she came over, but it was in the oven and I was pretty sure I'd done it right.
Well, she was surprised and a little bit disappointed because she'd wanted to make it with me, but we sat on the futon and I started telling her about my vacation while we drank some of the wine she'd brought and she liked that, too.
I'd just finished telling her about the tornado when the timer beeped and she got up and took it out of the oven so it could cool some.
She said that she'd gotten the movies that I'd sent her, and that the one of the tornado was already on YouTube and it had gone viral which sounded bad but she said it was good. She said that it already had ten million views, which was a lot.
We talked about my trip until it was dark outside, and then she folded down the futon and turned off the lights and said that she had another surprise for me. She said that since I was curious about what Brazilian waxing was she had gotten it done then she said that I was going to have to undress her to find out what it was.
I said that I wasn't sure that I'd be able to see it with the lights off and she said that she was confident I'd notice.
I had a little bit of trouble with her bra and she had to help me, and I still couldn't figure it out until I took her panties off and she was right, it was pretty obvious. So that was really different but I liked it. I asked her if that meant she wasn't a furry anymore, and she wanted to know how I'd gotten that idea, so I said that Christine had told me that she was a furry and she said that being a furry didn't have anything to do with body hair but was a term for people who liked sapient animals or ponies like me.
So then I said that maybe that made me a smoothy and she thought that was really funny.
Even though we'd gone to bed a little bit early, we didn't get to sleep until it was pretty late, 'cause we had a lot of missed time to make up for.
Someday, it feels like Silver Glow's journal, or The Bible abridged.
You know, with less joke and more cute pony perspective...
Wow, it must have been a very dense breeze to be drinkable.
while we drank some of the wind she'd brought and she liked that, too.
Wine?
Absolutely adorable.
Yeah, most ancient kings weren't exactly known for being super nice. And I'm not just talking about humans, either. Sombra.
If she's a smoothy, then she must be Meghan's favorite flavor.
"Smoothy" now I'm just thinking of a random encounter in which you find a ghoul getting picked on because he/she prefers smoothskins.
You don't want to be in the back seat of a black Yaris.
All this talk about the bible but no mention of Touchdown Jesus?
Remember the show's pilot in Season 1? Ponies have their own weird prophecies. I've said it before & I'll say it again. Ponies probably don't have the same problems with the Bible that people do. All the weird miracles are the sort of stuff that they are used to. They could read the same stuff in the newspapers & not just the tabloids, either
7710708
Sense? What fun is there in making sense?
-Another God
I endorse Mr Salvatores requirement of paperwork for teh Yaris. I especially endorse it if said paperwork had to be handled and completed, Inside said Yaris. Thereeby removing it from operatinal consideration in the meantime.
Look, in the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane, is it.. Oh, Horseapples.
Poor Daniel. Only 1335.
This confirms my theory that the FBI agents consider Pony Duty a punishment.
They'd rather be out busting bad guys than 'horse wrangling'.
7710934 But the punishment wasn't horse supervision, it was horse paperwork.
They make the cutest/strangest family.
I'm pretty sure we already had that conversation with Meghan, but okay.
conquer
everything
Nooooooooo!
Wear the crown, Silver!
Ha!
Meghan missed out on another nude cooking session with her marefriend.
Silver is best smoothie.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/4156489-today-41st-anniversary-wreck-edmund-fitzgerald
Pictured: Silver Glow
draxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/berry-smoothie-10092792-medium.jpg
I wonder, when Silver reads up to Revelations and comes across the verse about the great locusts with wings that sounded like a thousand horses, I wonder what she would think of that...
Here's what I think...
i.ytimg.com/vi/-HD2QIMgSTQ/maxresdefault.jpg
She's not the only one.
And now it's a fact: pegasuses love themselves some bare skin for rubbin' on. I bet Silver even does the cat thing where she walks back and forth past you, rubbing against you each time.
You know, that is a video that I want to watch, heh... ech....
7710326
Don't forget all the poetry and math.
7710402
Pegasuses bottle weather conditions, sit it on a shelf for a little bit, and then sell it.
vinesse.com/default/assets/Image/Slatwall/product/default/24569.jpg
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vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/7/70/The_Crystal_Ponies_in_despair_S3E01.png
cdn.ohsheglows.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/butternutsquashsmoothie-1070b.jpg
7710539
Or a new pony fetish where they give themselves full-body Brazilians . . . .
7710597
There are probably worse places to be (unless that's a reference I don't know).
7710630
Can you see Him from the air?
EDIT: should have looked that up sooner. You probably could, depending on which way the library faces.
7710708
Well, that's one of the reasons it's going to have a different impact on them, to be sure. A lot of the miracles are probably something that a unicorn could do, which makes some of them less mystical. God stopped the sun? Celestia can do that, too. A great flood? Heck, that might be a pegasus military tactic. Fluttershy could probably also get into the lion's den and come out with a new best friend. So yeah, none of that is particularly raising any questions for Silver Glow.
7710872
Which is why we have the duck-billed platypus.
7710898
You know one of the other agents in the office had fun getting that for him. "Sorry, boss, it was the only car that Enterprise had left. Nothing I could do about it."
7710898
7710934
They wouldn't want the actual front-line troops (so to speak) to not want the job. The second tier support, some of them might have been 'laterally promoted' to pony duty, but they'd be the guys that Silver would never see.
7711088
And that has to be the worst kind of paperwork ever. Especially if you're Cayenne's helpers.
I think you're probably right. Maybe Silver or Meghan forgot.
7711446
Corrections made; thank you!
7711546
And those are the best cooking sessions.
Isn't she?
7711650
Last major sinking on the Great Lakes. Hard to believe it's been that long. Interestingly, the Arthur M. Anderson is still in service on the lakes.
duluthshippingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/20130413_8332.jpg
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7724037
Don't forget about the four horsemen, too.
static.tumblr.com/fdd85a2db509099475194379d4ad61c0/pu5folp/FOvnos3x6/tumblr_static_3owj78hvnuecs0sw8wck0gso8.png
Something like this, I'm sure
You know, that helicopter does look kind of like a locust.
7728491
"Stop rubbing my leg, Silver."
"Sorry, can't stop."
7749213
Wouldn't that be some amazing footage? Really, any storm footage Silver's got would be freaking epic.
7750206
Some of those two-parters really pushed the envelope on how dark you can get in a Y-rated kids' show.
7750215 That was a typo report (back car).
7750683
Oh, gotcha. Fixed!
It's not like they'd miss a couple cobs.
8341930
Exactly!
If she wasn't such an honest pony, she could be living off the land for free. Snag snacks from fields, get free fish out of the river.
Now I'm imagining her 'finding' one of those big round hay bales and trying to roll it back to campus.
Is Meghan's channel monetized? With those kind of viewcounts, she could be making some sweet side money. I can see the headlines now... "filly fooler found financially firm from filming fantastic flying films".
Pony cams could be a new trend. Watch a real life grooming session! Nature walks and plant talks with Aquamarine! Experience the joys of high energy particle physics from a unicorn's perspective! And, of course, the extreme aerial Pegasports channel!
... and because humans are humans, PornyHub.
10331808
I’m assuming yes, it is, and just footage of Silver Glow has paid for her college and some other stuff, too.
Oh, totally. The first pony to figure that out on her own would make a mint, no question. Or partners up with a human who can navigate the techy stuff that the pony might not be good at, and also say what people want to see.
Heck, the tornado ponies could make a fortune.
There is a scene early in the story where some people are taking, um, tail-shots of Silver. Who doesn’t notice (and probably wouldn’t care if she did).
That’s also mentioned, sorta, in an upcoming story:
I would assume they get up later, because they don't have to worry about picking out clothes.
Does it look like a bitch?
I said, does the town called Marcellus look like a bitch!?
Silly pony ❤
11223565
I just looked up what it was named for; they decided to name their town after Emperor Flavius Marcellus (they should have kept the Flavius in the town name).
She kinda is a smoothy, though. I could see that being a term for ponies who love humans.
11135575
They certainly could; not having to pick out clothes saves some time. Or for that matter, dry all the way off after a morning shower (or at all in the summertime).
I don't know why it never crossed my mind that the term "going viral" probably came from the word virus.
11699593
I would assume that's the origin, although I also don't know if that's an actual fact.