April 2
I was a little bit grumpy when I woke up 'cause I'd just started my first estrus, and that one was always the worst. It was easy to forget in the winter time how it felt having all the hormones competing in my body, and it always seemed like during the first heat they were hardest to ignore. After that I got used to the feelings, and it was a lot easier. Plus the spring moult followed right after the first estrus, and that wasn't something to look forward to, either. Already my wings felt itchy just thinking about it.
I wonder if it would be better if we cycled all year long like human women do. That way it would be a nice regular thing and we wouldn't have to get used to it and then spend six months not thinking about it.
Since I was right next to Aric, I just nestled my head into his chest and let his scent fill my nostrils, and that helped ease my tension a little bit. But I knew I was probably going to be a little bit touchy for the rest of the day, then I'd be okay.
It was kind of like pain—when you're used to it, it's easy to ignore, but when it first comes on it's all you can think about.
He reached around in his sleep and put his arm across my back so I nestled in just a little bit closer and closed my eyes and took long, deep breaths to relax, which worked pretty well.
When he finally woke up, he said that he couldn't believe that we'd had sex in Winston last night right in the driveway and he hoped that the neighbors hadn't been looking out their windows, or any of his housemates either. I didn't think that they would have seen much, because our breath made the windows foggy pretty quick.
Aric noticed that I was a little tense and asked me if I was mad that he'd had to finish his movie last night, so I told him that I was in estrus and he didn't know what that meant, and I had to explain it to him. He wanted to know if that meant that I was going to be a nympho for the next week. I didn't know what that was, so he had to tell me, and then I said that yes, that would be the case; I'd just let myself be mounted by any man I saw who was receptive to my advances, because being in heat made me only able to think of one thing, and he actually believed that, especially 'cause I slid up against him when I said it.
I didn't tell him I was making it up until after.
When I got up and looked outside there was snow falling. Snow! Spring had started almost two weeks ago, so there was no reason for it, and it just annoyed me that it was coming down. I had to fight the urge to fly up there and try to stop the clouds that were being bad. I'd actually pushed open his bedroom window and had my hooves on the sill before Aric asked me what I was doing, and that gave me a moment to think about how silly I was being.
He said that the weather in Michigan was like that, and he'd seen it snow into late April and as early as September which struck me as very disorderly, and it was really amazing that humans could plant enough crops to feed themselves if the weather was that undependable. A snowstorm two weeks after Winter Wrap-Up would wipe out a lot of the earth pony's hard work, and if it ever happened in Equestria, we'd all be out of a job or worse. Nopony would put up with that kind of performance.
We went to breakfast together at Nina's and I had an omelet, and while we were eating we talked about what we wanted to do for the day. I figured that I probably wasn't going to have too many whole days free for the rest of the year, so we'd ought to enjoy this one together, and he said that since I'd thought his road trip up north had sounded like so much fun maybe we could have a little short road trip together.
We drove out to South Haven, which is a town on the shore of Lake Michigan, and parked on the beach which didn't have anybody else there because of the weather. There was a long jetty with a big red lighthouse at the end of it, and a long bridge that led out to the lighthouse. Aric said that was so that back in the old days the lighthouse keepers could get out to it in bad weather, but now the walkway had been removed to keep people from walking up there and getting hurt. But the bottom part was okay to walk on, so we went out to the light dodging the occasional breaker that came over the edge. I could have flown up and avoided them all easily, but it was more fun to dance around on my hooves like he was doing.
He said that in the summer the beach would be full of people, and he also said that on clear nights you could see airplanes taking off and landing from the airport in Chicago. He wasn't sure how high off the ground they were when you could see them, but that some days there was a definite line of them.
I flew off the jetty and circled around the harbor entrance for a while, thinking back on how much different Los Angeles had been from South Haven. And I also wondered if it would be possible for me to fly across to Chicago: it would be quicker than taking the train, and I was pretty sure that if he could see airplanes from the beach it was within my range. I'd have to look at a map and figure it out.
I would have liked to fly around longer, but I could tell Aric was getting cold standing out on the jetty with no cover from the wind, and I was getting a bit chilly myself, so I landed and we walked back to shore together.
We ate lunch at a small restaurant near the river that ran through town, and there weren't too many people in there. A couple of men gave me and Aric hard looks, and I thought they were going to say something or maybe do something so I kept my ears on them until they got up and left.
By the time we were done eating the snow had stopped, but as we drove back to Kalamazoo we caught up with the tail end of the storm, and it was snowy all the way back. We had to slow down and go around a red truck with flashing yellow lights that was helping a car that had fallen into the ditch, and after that Aric drove a little bit slower. He said that weather like this was when the roads got really dangerous, because at first they were warm enough to melt the snow when it landed, but then they cooled down and it formed ice that was called black ice because it was invisible, and you wouldn't know that you were on it until it was too late.
When we went by Meijer I asked Aric if we could stop so that I could buy some supplies, and he said that we could.
Shopping with Aric was a lot different than shopping with Peggy. He was more impatient and hurried the cart along the aisle and I had to trot to keep up until he finally noticed that I was lagging behind him and slowed down his pace a little bit. Even so, I had the idea that he didn't really like to look around at all the things in the store and would rather be in and out as quickly as he could.
Then when we got to the checkout we had to sort everything in the cart into his things and my things, and put a little bar that was next to the conveyor belt between them so that the saleswoman would know what was his and what was mine.
It was lucky that the top was still on the truck, because it kept the back dry and out of the weather. He had to arrange everything carefully since there was so much open space it could slide around and then it might get damaged.
We stopped at his house first so that he could unload all his things and then we went to campus and he helped bring all the stuff I'd bought up to my room. Peggy was surprised to see us; she said that she thought maybe we'd eloped, 'cause I hadn't left her a note saying what I was doing, and I stuck my tongue out at her and told her that we'd gone on a little road trip together.
I thought that we would probably go back to his house, but he said that since we were here and it was almost dinnertime, we might as well go to Saga together (which is what some people call the dining hall) so we did, and we sat with Peggy and Christine and Sean and Joe.
Everybody except Joe wanted to play cards, so after dinner we went back to our room, and Aric moved his truck to where it could be parked overnight, then came back to the room with us.
There were five of us which was too many to play euchre so Christine sat out the first round. Since we had our door open and were being social, more people showed up, and pretty soon Ruth and Rebekka had joined in, and then there was enough for two games because you can play euchre with three, although it's more advanced. But when they were there with us there was a little more interest in socializing than actually playing the game and Peggy decided to give up her spot and let Christine take it, so then it was boys against girls.
After we finished the first game we played a second and it got pretty intense towards the end. Christine and I were on a losing streak: whatever card got turned up was about the worst possible trump suit for us, and the boys had eight points while we didn't have any. Christine said that we had to get serious because we did not want to get skunked, and then we wound up losing the next hand, too. Sean said that she shouldn't have turned down the bower on the first hand, and that's why she was losing, and she told him that if we lost this hand he was going to suffer the consequences with her but then the next deal came up in our favor, and we took one trick, then Christine laid down her hand to show that she had both bowers which meant that we won, so even though we ultimately lost the game we didn't wind up skunked.
I was curious what the penalty for being skunked was because nobody had ever told me, and Sean asked Christine if they should tell me, but before they decided Rebekka said that if you were skunked in euchre you had to streak the quad right then and there, which meant to run from the chapel to the road and back naked. Ruth said that since I normally streaked the quad every day, I'd have to do it wearing pants.
We played a couple more games before it got late, although none of them were as tense as that second game. After that everyone drifted off, and finally Aric said that he ought to be going, too because he doubted that Peggy would want him to spend the night, so I grabbed my flight gear and went with him. I thought we'd be going to Winston, but he said that since he'd had a couple of drinks he shouldn't, and we wound up walking all the way back to his house.
I believe you mean "Author's Lazy Memorial Day".
Shhh . . . nobody tell her about humanity's long and intimate history with the dual terrors of drought and famine, or how many people starved to death as a result.
You left out a space there.
7262652
Yeah, a bit. Holidays count as weekends.
7262697
Correction made, thank you!
You never fully realise how dependent you are on some comodity until you loose it...
I don't know about you in Michigan, but here we had winter-like weather till mid-may (even some snow one morning...), with a few days with a more Summer-like weather in-beetween.
Silver, you naughty minx!
Silver Glow clearly needs to get a driver's license.
they
Also, very much enjoyed that subtle riff on the classic clopfic plot of 'estrus means mindless sex fever'.
I don't so much think streaking can be a thing anymore. They give jail time for that shit nowadays.
7261097
Their entire race is still in the pre-stone age mindset and we're genetically engineered to be child-like in intelligence at best, normally. They're also dedicated herbivores, and don't tend to think much beyond what they'll need to do the next day; they eat bark from Sequoia sized trees and live in those same trees. Their population is also kept artificially low by their creators, who send out monster attacks whenever a Hork-Bajiir colony begins to get large enough to be dangerous to itself.
Oh, also, they're on a planet without any intelligent life beyond the Hork-Bajiir and their creators, and their creators are isolationists and like to pretend they don't exist by hiding in a chasm full of monsters.
7263094 The feminists were in the process of exterminating the Mifflin Streak during my time at Penn State, and that was over twenty years ago.
7262683
Just have her look up the wikipedia entry on "Wendigos" and let her connect the dots.
7262977
correction made, thank you!
That is seriously one of my least favorite plot devices. An sudden orgy with the pizza delivery man is more creative.
Heh. I meant to comment on the unseasonable weather yesterday, but it slipped my mind. Poor Silver cannot even fathom this... though it's interesting that she didn't consider the impact of latitude and lake-effect snow. I guess she doesn't have a good sense of where Kalamazoo is relative to the poles, and it's not like she's in her most analyticial frame of mind at the moment.
In any case, a very cute date, even with the grumbling onlookers.
I got sidetracked by a story from Arad.
Also was going to ask a mind bindingly stupid question but then coffee.
I can see why Silver is frustrated. Hopefully she can have some help from Aric to relieve her of her condition.
Hopefully I can find a nice girl whose down for a road trip. I will however be going to Petosky sometime this week to check out an old Jeep CJ.
Ah, lazy Saturdays.
Heh, nice dig at that commonly used trope. Personally, I mind more "creative" solutions...
In before someone records that and submits it Youtube.
The way Miss Silver Glow write about clouds, it seems that Equestrian Clouds are at least sentient, if not fully sapient. ¿Is this true?
7263458
It was a bit of an odd year for us--not so much snow in the actual wintertime (more in Kalamazoo than where I live, of course), but then a couple of rather late snowfalls. Sort of strange to have a nearly snow-less February but then several snowstorms in April.
7263773
That can happen. Fun fact: if you look through the Bronycon pictures taken at Quills and Sofas, odds are that if you see Arad working on a laptop, he's working on the very story which distracted you.
7265309
When has Aric not been willing to help?
Always wanted a CJ just for fun. Not as a daily driver; they're terrible for speeds about about 40, but lots of fun to just cruise around in. I once gave one of the other mechanics at Firestone a ride in a customer's CJ-5 (I had to test drive it anyway) just becuase he'd never ridden in a Jeep before.
BTW, since this reply is coming a bit late . . . did you get the Jeep?
7281161
I can't even tell you how much I hate that trope. Real horses do go into estrus, of course . . . but they're picky. I read about a mare in a feral herd who didn't like the lead stallion at all, so when she was in heat, she'd sneak off, get knocked up by the stallion she did like, and then come back and rejoin her herd.
7439179
No, they aren't; she's just anthropomorphizing them (or I suppose whatever the Equestrian equivalent would be . . . equipomorphizing?). Basically the same way that people think of their cars as having personalities or whatever.
7477061
No, no. That's the wrong language entirely. Anthropos is Greek, you see. The horsey equivalent would be hippomorphizing.
8015370
I do think of the wrong animal with the word hippo (as, I suppose, would be expected).
But you make a good point--I should try to remember that for the future.
8019298 Just remember that "hippopotamus" means "river horse." It'll stay with you then.
8031379
When I think of river horses, I think of kelpies.
theequinest.com/images/kelpie-2.jpg
Although now that I think about it, hippos will fk you up, too.
8041847 Mind
Blown.
8031379
A similarly hilarious thing I bring up with regard to rhinoplasties: "rhino" is "nose" and "ceros" is "horn". The animal's name is their most notable feature in an ancient language.
10975723
To be honest, that probably is the most notable feature.
It Occurs To Me
Is sticking your tongue out at someone the pony equivalent of giving them "the finger"?
11224205
I think it would depend on circumstance, but it certainly could be.
Chekov's Pants
11305889
She never did streak the quad wearing pants. That was a missed opportunity.
And speaking of which, Silver Glow probably set the campus record (if there was such a thing) for most frequent streaking the quad.
11306150
as you're so fond of saying "pony problems"
11554634
Right? Nobody else on campus quite gets it
I briefly considered the posibility of using a rangefinder to see, then remembered that they function by shining an IR laser at something and measuring how long it takes to bounce back, and the feds get really pissed when you shine a laser of any type at any aircraft.
11679441
You might be okay with IR since I don't think it'd have any effect on the pilots or the plane . . . but I might be wrong. It is probably wise to not do anything which could affect commercial aviation, since the feds really do care about that.
Just recently I saw a clip of a police helicopter getting green lasered and calling in the ground troops to solve the problem.
In case you didn't look up the law (I just did), the federal penalty is up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Not worth the risk.