June 13
It was chilly and overcast when I woke up, and I could feel the oncoming rain in the air. Aric was cuddled against me, and since he was naked and coatless he was probably pretty cold, so I stretched my wing out over him to help keep him warm.
One thing that Winston wasn't very good at was keeping the wind at bay, and even though there wasn't all that much, I could feel little gusts blowing through the edges of the tailgate and the rusty holes in the sides.
He shifted around in his sleep and tucked his head into my neck and I kissed him on the forehead and closed my eyes again and slept a bit longer, until I felt him shift around and try to pull me tighter against him, which didn't really work with my wing stretched out. And I woke him up when I tucked it back in, even though I didn't mean to.
It was a little bit strange to try and stay all the way under the covers, and he kept having to pull them up when I got too enthusiastic, but we made it work and afterwards he said it was good practice for when we were further up north, where it would be even colder even though it was almost summer.
He said that humans had had to adapt to cold climates and could have sex while mostly dressed. He said that was how humans has survived the last ice age.
I told him that I thought it made more sense to have a nice coat all the time, and get furrier in the winter to keep off the cold.
Aric got dressed while still under the covers and then opened the tailgate to let us out, then after he'd watered a tree he started to build a fire so that we could have breakfast, which was the same oatmeal and coffee as yesterday.
After he was satisfied that the fire was out, we got in the cab and continued our trip, which started with some backtracking, since we were as far north as we could get on this peninsula. Once we got to Northport, though, he took a different route that followed along the shore of the bay.
We drove through Traverse City, which he said was an important city up north, and was famous for its cherries. It was the biggest city we'd gone through since Holland, and it was kind of weird to be in that much traffic all of a sudden when there had been barely any before.
He stopped at the bottom of the bay, and we got out of Winston and he took me to a little park that had a miniature train that we could ride on. The man selling the tickets for it seemed confused that I wanted to ride on the train, too, but Aric convinced him that it was okay, and we got seats right in the front.
It was really fun to ride, and it smelled a lot nicer than the big trains that I'd been on, plus it had a proper steam whistle instead of an annoying horn. When I closed my eyes, it was just like riding a train back home, and I was glad that he'd thought to stop so that we could ride on it.
The train just went in a big loop, so when the trip was over, we were back where we'd started, so we walked back to Winston and continued on our journey.
Once we'd gone around the base of the bay and back up the other side, I saw a skyscratcher in the distance and asked Aric what it was. He said that it was the Turtle Creek Casino, which was a place where you could play card games and win or lose money.
I asked if we could go there, and he sighed and then said that if I just took my money and threw it on a fire it would at least keep me warm, but then he turned around in a parking lot and made me promise no matter what to not spend more than twenty dollars.
The inside was full of bright light and noises and it was kind of overwhelming, and I didn't know how any of the games worked. I had traded some money for plastic tokens that were used in the casino, and Aric said that the best way to spend it all was to try each game once and then move on.
So first I tried blackjack, and I lost, and then I tried craps and I lost that too, and then I tried a slot machine and it took my token and didn't give me anything. I went to another table and played a game of Texas hold-em, and I had to bet so many times that I was down to only one token.
He said that I should keep that as a souvenir, but I thought I might as well lose it on another game, so I went over to a roulette table, and Aric started to explain the rules to me, but before he could they called for bets, and I put the token down on my birthday.
The man spun the wheel and the little ball landed on my number and I got a big pile of tokens and I asked Aric what I should do now, and he told me to never play roulette again.
The man who spun the wheel was kind of sad to see me leave (Aric said that they were hoping I'd bet again and lose all the money I'd just won), and we went and changed all my tokens back into money except for the one I'd bet on the table because I thought he was right about keeping it. Maybe I could have a hole drilled in it and keep it as a necklace.
When we were out in the parking lot, Aric told me about the odds on the wheel, and how bad a single number bet was, and it made a lot of sense, even though he was wrong about the odds of winning—they were worse than he thought. But I didn't care; I'd come out of the casino with more money than I went in with, and from what he said that was a rarity.
We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Torch Lake Cafe, and I had a cheese quesadilla and sweet potato wedges. Aric had a BLT, which is bacon lettuce and tomato, and he let me have a bite of his sandwich.
A little further north, he turned off into another park which was called Fisherman's Island State Park, and drove all the way to the very end of the road there and then parked Winston and we went for a walk on the beach.
There was a little piece of land he said was called Fisherman's Island, and depending on what the water level was, it was either an island or not.
The water was deep enough that it was an island, but only barely. He took off his shoes and rolled up the bottom of his pants, while I just splashed through the shallows, and we crossed onto the island. There was a lot of land back home that was underwater or not depending on the tides, but he said that on the Great Lakes there wasn't enough tide to make a difference, it was a matter of rainfall and summer temperatures and ice cover in the wintertime, and he told me that the lake levels were up because a couple winters back there had been almost complete ice coverage which made the water not evaporate.
I told him I was familiar with climate science.
Even if I hadn't been, it was obvious that this land had been above water recently, because there were bushes growing out of the shallow water, and they didn't look like they were too happy about being submerged. I suppose Aquamarine would have known better.
When we were at the very end of the island, Aric asked if I wanted to be bad, and I asked him what he meant, and he said that he'd always wanted to have sex outside in broad daylight somewhere and this was the perfect place to do it because there probably wasn't anybody else for miles around. Then he laughed when I looked up right after he said that, and said I must be the only pegasus in a hundred miles or more—he didn't think that Michigan was a destination for most ponies, and he was probably right, although I thought that they didn't know what they were missing.
We went back into the bushes a little bit and found a nice clear spot and even though it was his idea he was a bit reluctant to take off all his clothes, until I told him that if he really wanted to do it he had to do it all the way.
Afterwards, we lay on our backs and looked up at the clouds for a while and said what they looked like, and I bet him that he wouldn't stay naked until we'd gotten back to the mainland.
He did, but he cheated and led me around the other side of the island, and he had me fly ahead and make sure that there wasn't anyone on the beach.
I suppose that still counted, though.
I don't think he'd planned to spend so much time at Fisherman's Island. It was nearly dinnertime when we got back to Winston, and we didn't come across anyplace to eat until we got to Charlevoix. We stopped at Subway for food, which was like Jimmy John's, but not as good.
He told me when we were back in the truck that he'd planned to stay at Wilderness State Park for the night, but now he wasn't sure that we'd make it there unless we skipped the Tunnel of Trees and there was no sense in going up north without visiting that.
I said that I was sorry I'd wanted to stop at the casino, and he told me that I shouldn't be sorry; he'd never seen anyone win at roulette on a single-number bet or walk out with more than they went in with and that was totally worth it. He told me as long as I didn't go into another, I would have beat the system, and that was something to be proud of.
We did make it to the tunnel of trees while it was still light out, and I could see why it had been named that. The road went through trees that completely overhung it sometimes, and other times it was open and you could see Lake Michigan off to the left, and once the sun started to get low and paint the sky in reds and oranges it was even more beautiful and I could see why it was a place that we just had to visit.
He stopped at the very south end of Wilderness State Park so that we could watch the sunset, and then when we got back in Winston he apologized for having to use his telephone map to find the campground, but said that it was late and he didn't want to spend half the night blundering around in the dark. And even though I'd thought we were pretty close, since we'd already crossed into the park, it was quite a while before we got to the campground.
Like the Leelanau State Park, it was practically deserted, and we had our pick of spots. He found one that was pretty close to the lake, close enough that I could hear the waves crashing on the beach, and once Winston was settled for the night we went down to the water and he pointed out all the different lights in the lake. One of them was a freighter, and as we watched it slowly plodded its way east. There were also some red lights that he said were navigation buoys, and off in the distance a long string of light which he said were the Mackinac Bridge which we'd be driving over tomorrow.
snort
For some reason, when I read that, this is what came to mind... Mis-spent youth, probably.
I suspect that comma was meant to be a period. Should I bring a pegasus with me if I ever visit a casino? Equestrian magic might mean ponies are naturally lucky.
I would normally leave this sort of thing to KingMoriarty, but I appear to have arrived early.
One question: this is a sequel/side story of something?
Because anything that comes to me as the same universe is Project Sunflower....
I wonder if the people at the casino let SG get away with one spin of the wheel.
That's less than $40?
Had she tried again and won they might wonder if she was cheating by
using weird un-earthly Magic.
Like a unicorn.
Casinos will be looking through the rules now as baning certain classes from cerain games, or how to apply for unicorn resistant games etc. Theyve lost once, they dont want to lose again.
We got a Code Ethel. I repeat, we have a Code Ethel.
They didn't build all those fancy casinos with the money people took home.
I wish the show would have an episode in Las Pegasus.
I imagine that it's a huge tourist trap with shows and gambling.
(A hard sell for a kid's show, but the Jetsons did it over 50 years ago.)
We saw unicorn magic deactivatacaters at the Equestrian Olympics.
I imagine that unicorns would be banned from Earth casinos until some of those were imported.
7482401 Project Sunflower is set in the future so... No.
7482401 No, it's original. (As original as pony-on-Earth can be, but still.)
Sign at a Las Pegasus Casino:
"Sever Penalty for Unicorns Caught Cheating"
Twilight: "You left off an 'E'.
Casino Employee: "No we didn't."
I feel sorry for Silver Glow, she didn't like Subway. Personally I do not like Jimmy John's as I get horrible indigestion whenever I have eaten there. Plus their selection seems poor to me.
I'll bet that once the casino handed over her winnings, Silver did the calculation in her head and realised that they weren't paying the true odds. Even when you win, you still lose.
She'd probably do better betting on horse racing.
7481189
schleichfahrt means silent running for submarines
7480936
i only know the stick-on sheets.
but Silver got the apartment because she wanted to look out of all these windows and not just cover them with curtains
damn Silver is smart ^^ i hope she doesn't import this idea to Equestria.
As long as they don't see a single green light across the lake. That'd be WAY to meta.
Big tides can be really fascinating. The amount of land that appear and disappear every day is impressive when you visit places like the bay of Fundy or the Mont-St-Michel's bay.
7482401 The answer is... Maybe?
Celestia Sleeps In
or
Onto the Pony Planet
Maybe.
Right now Aric and our lovely pegasus are doing a grand tour of places mentioned or seen in those 2 fics. They MIGHT be a few years after the timeline of those fics or they may be unrelated. Author Man to my knowledge hasn't confirmed one way or the other.
I personally hope that they are related.
If Winston breaks down in Grand Rapids and has a mechanic named Dale look at his truck then it'd be alternate universe.
Needs a space after the comma.
7478386 I don;t think it was that they were colorblind to it per say. I think it was more akin to pattern blindness. It's not that their eyes don't see it, so much as their brain just doesn't really process or distinguish it.
Then again maybe you're right and it's just that it was seen so infrequently outside of water and sky, that they never cared to have a word for it.
I am not entirely certain how well we really know the answer.
7482792 Admiral Biscuit stated a few times that while both universes shares common points, they aren't the same.
For exemple, Earth was discovered by Twilligth, North Fox isn't a famous place with a monument, Dale and Lyra never met (if the former even exist) and so on. It is not a continuity nor an alternate universe, just an use of the same headcannons for two different stories.
Shh! Don't tell Twilight!
img05.deviantart.net/4e79/i/2015/178/4/d/quesadilla_by_atteez-d8yzqll.png
7482478
Turns out that there is going to be an episode set in Las Pegasus this season. It's a Cutie Map episode involving AJ, Fluttershy, and the Flim Flam brothers.
Aww, look at these two, making love on the beach. It seems like only yesterday she was trying to get him to show her his dick.
...and I nearly wrote that "get her to show him her dick", which would have made for a rather different story.
I have a feeling her precise wording might have been just a little more snarky.
Good advice, she probably used enough luck to last 3 lifetimes.
Sex on the beach do-dot-do-doo~
Sex on the beach do-dot-do-doo~
[youtube=http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CUCmr9YfGv0]
7481114
Well let's see if this works...
EDIT:
Hey it worked!
I see what happened, initially when I would use a reply link from a different chapter and click on it in the "Preview" I would get a "Request destination not found" error, however once the comment is posted the comment link starts working.
Sorry for taking up peoples time with this but I just had to figure it out.
EDIT: Curiously any response comments listed at the top of the linked comment disappear.
7483478 The link for an answer only appear if the answer is on the same page. Same with the name of the author of the original comment you are answering.
7477530
missed one
Technology is defined as skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods and services (wikipedia). So using this, I'd be willing to classify spells as technology. Especially considering I've started replicating analog electronics in my magic head canon. And this gets into headcanon a bit but just because we don't see a technology doesn't mean they don't have it. And they might have analogous technologies instead of exactly what we have. So they might not have jet engines, but they might use telekinetic enchantments to cause thrust.
Adorable.
7482910 Yay clarifications! Thanks
Also booo for killing the mystery.
7482573 "So the penalty isn't for cheating... it's for getting caught?"
7473357 Hawaii, yes.
We also have temperate rainforests in the mainland [notably California and Alaska].
There's a small amusement park near where I live with one of those.
7483391 You have to paste the share link, then delete the "http://youtu.be/" part after the video link tool pastes it into the comment for it to work.
("In Soviet Russia, pony cuddles you.")
*Silver comes out with a big bag slung over her back.*
"I told you not to spend---"
"I didn't. In unrelated news, did you know humans are bad at statistics?"
Sex on the beach, you frisky pegasus, you. Google Earth is going to have one hell of a scavenger find one of these days.
7484959
So did the town I grew up in!
Ah, I loved that thing, but got to ride on it so little.
7482329
7482340
I've got a few cars that fit into that category. The song is practically a word-for-word description of my first car, a 1977 Olds I bought for $200 from the original owner (who got rid of it because it wasn't safe to drive any more).
The frame wasn't bent, at least.
7482390
Correction made, thank you!
Sure. Any pony with the right cutie mark would be a good choice, actually.
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/4/4d/Comic_issue_13_UEM1.png
7482392
I have made the correction, thank you!
7482401
No; as others have said, it's in its own universe. It builds on some of my headcanon in other stories (CSI/OPP) and of course there are undoubtedly influences from other HiE/PoEs, but it's not a sequel or side story to anything.
7482405
How much she won would depend on what chip she put down . . . I think they wouldn't kick her out right away, unless other casinos had reported that ponies were suspiciously lucky (and she lost every other game she played).
7482416
I could see that being an issue in the future. Imagine a whole bunch of unicorns, all playing roulette, and all betting on different numbers. Probably the glow of magic on the ball would give the game away.
Poker, on the other hand . . . if they're holding the cards up with their fields anyway, who's going to notice some cheating? Until everyone at the table has four or more aces.
The poker game in the first few pages of this comic is a good example (PDF link)
7482459
And yet, you ask anyone, and they won big at the casino last time they went
7482478
I would hope so. Inb4 Rarity is a gambling addict.
I would think that there would be lots of places on Earth where they'd have to wear them, just like there are places that Silver Glow isn't allowed to fly.
7482500
I hope I've still got one or two original ideas in this.
At least we've come a long way from the early days of HiEs.
7482573
I wonder if unicorn horns grow back? They file them, so they must grow some. Still, that would be a pretty good deterrent.
(They could have the same sign at a brothel, too!)
7482625
I love Jimmy John's. If I ever have enough money to buy a franchise (unlikely), I'm going to have a pneumatic sandwich-tube installed between it and my house, and a special red phone for orders to go in the tube. And it will be a wonderful thing, because I'll never tell any of the employees where the tube goes.
7482630
From what I've heard, Roulette is pretty fair, except for the house numbers. If you bet wisely, you can lose money very slowly at Roulette.
Although that opens a whole new can of worms, 'cause if she can talk to the horses even just a little, that might give one of them an edge.
7482639
Ah. No, it wasn't silent; it was a diesel wrecker. The only way it could have been louder would have been if I took off the exhaust, or held down the horn
That's all I've ever seen, too. I've thought about doing it, but honestly I don't care if the neighbors happen to look through the windows, so. . . .
She'll leave them open except when Meghan is over, and she'll try to get Meghan to understand that it's okay for them to be open.
Silver Glow's gonna bring Quidditch and Roulette back to Equestria.
7482647
?
I'm missing the reference (which would be really funny if it's a reference to one of my own stories).
7482782
Fun to watch; from what I've heard, not so much fun to sail in. The currents are nasty. Even a Toyota truck can't hold its own against them.
7482792
7482910 is correct; and this is an official confirmation that they are not the same. Although, in a way, this is a spiritual successor to CSI/OPP.
7482839
Correction made; thank you!
7482863
That's a possibility; there's certainly a bit of understanding that goes into how we perceive the world and process what it means. I've heard of isolated people in the jungle not knowing that things look smaller when they're far away.
I've also heard that domestic dogs will look where people are pointing. Wolves don't.
7482922
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/28/990276/large.jpg
7482935
Ain't love grand?
Now I want to write a HiE wish-fulfillment fic where our hapless second-person narrator goes to Futa-Equestria and is not cool with it at all.
7483032
Just a bit more snarky.
7483369
That happened to my former girlfriend. They had a Monte Carlo night (which is gambling, not cars), and I was trying to explain how the games worked, and she put down a single-number bet and won. Then she asked me what to do next, and I told her to never play Roulette again.
Also, related:
(headphone warning)
7483391
7483478
?
They should be there in the published comment, but you have to click on the green text to get them. Sometimes it just gives the number on a multi-chapter fic.
7493282 I think the green ligths were referencing the magic glow caused by the teleportation spell in CSI.
Very nasty tide for walker too, it is often faster then most human can run, not even couting the fact that the ground isn't exactly suited for a swift escape...
7483992
That's a fair point. I tend to use technology as referring only to things which can be built, but of course that's a rather narrow definition. I can think of some things that it might be possible to build, or that we know in theory, but we haven't yet got the skills to manufacture (space elevators, for example).
And I think to laymen, that term works pretty well. In a case like this, though, with magic on one side, and manufacturing on the other, there won't necessarily be an obvious sign as to which culture is more advanced. We humans might be able to genetically modify things, but we can't turn a frog into an orange.
7484147
7484799
Silly, the penalty is always for getting caught.
7484922
Ah, thank you.
7484959
Oddly, I can't remember ever riding one. I've ridden slightly small-scale steam at amusement parks, but never that small-scale.
There are some privately-owned railroads that are that scale, as well. One of them is somewhere in Michigan, but I don't know exactly where.
7485092
("In Soviet Russia, pony cuddles you.")
"I won a car--now you have to teach me how to drive."
7487456
They don't seem to let you zoom in enough to see people. Probably by design. (although you can on Street View)
Okay, has everyone but me lived in a town with a quarter-scale railroad? 'Cause the only one I've ever seen in action was in Traverse City, and I never got to ride on it.
7493383 Well, the city I grew up in didn't, but one of the suburb had a museum with a full scale train and a miniature one. And a streetcar too..,
We somehow went there a lot when I was a kid
Well what do ya know! Silver won at roulette and got to keep a souvenir! She is one lucky pegasus.
7493342
I was thinking that was probably it, too, but I'm pretty sure I described the bubble as magenta, becuase that seems to be the color they usually are.
Besides tides, people don't appreciate how fast water can move. Floodwaters rise fast, and can easily float away a car . . . or a person on foot.
Man. The town I grew up in had a sugar factory and a pickle factory and not a whole lot else. Although there was a railroad that ran right behind my house, which was nice.
7496455
7493342 The single green light across the water sounds like the iconic imagery from The Great Gatsby.
This is actually really easy to do. I've done it fairly often, myself. My best friend's family liked to go to casinos as a sort of recreational thing, about once a week. And once I was old enough, they started inviting me to come along. Now, of course I knew that that was a great way to lose money. So I would go along, drink free coffee and soda, hang out with my friend, and watch him lose money (or occasionally win-- even saw him hit a jackpot on a slot machine once).
But a lot of casinos offer special incentives on some days, something like ten dollars in credit for the slot machines. Usually it's to encourage people to show up on slower days, I think. So those were the days we went, because why not? And there's really no downside to signing up, other than having to keep track of that casino's member card. Just spend the ten bucks, and whatever you win is yours to keep. And sometimes they'll be running casino-wide events that anyone gambling has a chance to win, whether you're using your own money or not, and once I won one of those.
Trivially easy to do, but of course there's not really much of a point, as far as making money goes. You'll make more at a minimum wage job.