"Letter, Your--"
"Silver's fine, Ambassador is also alright, but I haven't earned any royal addressing yet." Silver smiled at the messenger and accepted the hovering letter into his own magic. "Thank you very much."
"Quite welcome, sir. Have a nice day!"
Silver closed the door lightly and trotted over to his desk with the letter. It had the familiar purple seal of a lavender princess he knew well and fondly. He gave it a gentle sniff and shook his head at himself. Twilight didn't wear much in the way of perfume or really carried much in the way of a scent to begin, certainly not much to leave a powerful impression on her magically-scribed stationary.
He broke the seal and pulled out the letter, his eyes already starting to sweep across the page in eager consumption of the words.
Salutations, Ambassador Silver Watch,
Did I read correctly? Do I address a fellow ascended? That's amazing! Did you see Celestia in that place? I can still remember it so clearly, as if it had occurred just yesterday. As a human, do you feel dizzy or disoriented? I can only imagine your sense of displacement may have been even greater than my own. My wings were new, but I at least grew up with the idea of what wings were and how they basically functioned. Are you alright?
Sorry, I don't mean to come across as quite so... worrisome, but if you need a friendly face to confide in, well, we're already used to exchanging missives like this. You can talk to me. I've been where you are, royalty without a purpose, or even a castle. It's alright to feel a little overwhelmed right now, but you're anything but alone. In fact, give the word and I'll schedule some time in Canterlot and we can go over this personally. That's what friends are for, right?
Respectfully,
Princess Twilight SparklePS: Jake wouldn't stop laughing when I told him about it. What's so funny to a human that another human should reach this level of progress? I admit I may never understand him entirely...
Silver carefully folded the letter back up and let out a little sigh, a smile on his snout. Twilight was a good friend, but perhaps that was how she became the Princess of Friendship. Were they still true friends? He could still remember when they were more than friends, but that was a disturbing and violent world. Twilight had initiated him with a blaze of arcane fury, destroying him without even knowing he was in danger. He shook his head quickly. This world was better, for all its quirks.
He wasn't sure he could take her up on that offer without making things awkward, however. He pulled out a piece of paper and got to writing with a quill that danced in his magic, making his words manifest across the sheet in neat little scrawlings. He smiled a little at that. He'd always had poor handwriting, but apparently hornwriting was a different skill and one he seemed to manage well enough.
Hello Princess Twilight,
Do we have to use honorifics and such in letters? We are friends, as you wrote. I can be Silver if you can be Twilight. I think I'm alright. It may be hard to imagine, but I've had a strong dream of this happening, and I feel more like I've returned home than I've turned into something strange. A curious question, however. Could you tell me how best to preen my feathers? Asking the servants to take care of it for me is extremely embarrassing. It's a very personal thing, like asking somepony to wipe my mouth for me, brushing my teeth or bathing me. Any help would be appreciated. As for visiting, don't worry about it. I'm not too worried.
You have your job and I have mine. I have, oh, that's right. I'm not accepting the title of prince until I've earned it properly. When I'm offered the title by an eager royalty, then, and only then, will I take that step. Until then, I'm a human in a pony world and I won't claim to be entitled just because I have some extra bodyparts. I'm glad to hear Jake is doing alright. Tell him to laugh it up, but I plan to take this seriously.
A Friend,
Silver
Silver folded the letter carefully before setting it into an envelope and sealing that. He'd send it off towards Twilight shortly. He spread his new wings wide and stretched them, feeling the muscles within play off one another. They were wings, ultimately, like the leathery ones he once had, and yet... not, in so many ways. He grunted softly with sudden annoyance. He wouldn't let them be alien on his back. He nudged open the window in his office and with a sudden jump, he was outside, then he was rising.
His wings beat powerfully and carried him higher with every stroke, carrying him higher and higher in slow circles around the castle as he looked out over Canterlot as a whole, taking in the glorious vista of the city Celestia had built for her kingdom. It glittered like a jewel beneath him and he smiled. Equestria was worth serving, and worth being a part of.
"Hey!"
Silver brought himself to a sudden halt, narrowly avoiding barreling into a passing pegasus. "Sorry."
"Who taught you to fly?" The pegasus mare scowled at him. "You didn't signal or anything."
Signal? Had his dream skipped over an important detail? "I'm sorry, really I am. I didn't mean to cause any trouble, but nopony told me about any signals."
She blinked with wide eyes. "You don't know?! You'll get yourself or somepony else hurt if you fly around a place like Canterlot without knowing the rules of the sky." She tilted her head left and right. "Are you a late bloomer? A pony your age should really know this."
Silver gave a sheepish smile. "I could only start to fly very recently."
Her expression of rage softened to sympathy. "Oh! There I go sticking my hoof in my mouth. You poor thing, but congratulations!" She spread her hooves wide. "Welcome to the air! You'll want to enlist in a flight school before taking to it in a city though. You might get away with that in a small town, but this many ponies in this small a space means you follow the rules or two ponies or more end up splattering into each other and making a mess."
School? Silver thought of a young Rainbow Dash. "What school do you recommend?"
She opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes tracked upwards. She noticed his horn. "O-oh! Um... Princess Celestia's School for Talented Pegasi, I bet for you."
Celestia had a school for pegasi? "Pretend you didn't see that. If I was just any pegasus, where would I go?"
She tilted her head a little. "But you're... alright, suit yourself. Hmm, there's a nice school just over there." She thrust a hoof down towards the city. "They give the basics and don't stress about being the fastest or the best, just keeping the air safe. Perfect for most fliers."
That sounded perfect. "Sounds lovely. I have too many balls in the air to even consider trying to become an expert flyer. Thank you very much." He bowed mid-air and pivoted towards that school. There was no time like the present, so he launched himself down towards the city. Mindful of the pegasus' words, he scanned left and right carefully as he went, looking for others he may crash into and reached the safety of the ground without creating an incident.
He trotted down the street, thankful that many of the ponies around him seemed blissfully unaware of his hybrid status. He would earn his... did pegasi have flying licenses? He walked through the open door into 'Spread Wings' and was determined to find out.
What? Silver Watch knows nothing of your fancy so called traffic laws.
Reminded me of the story of Twilight Velvet in Five Score universe and their 520th pegasus air police squadron...
Hmm, wonder if there are 'airways' designed for pegasi residents in Canterlot, ones that avoid the streets, which might explain the lack of pegasi in Canterlot onscreen.
Spread Wings in Canterlot, Pegasus Air in Las Pegasus, and Higher for Hire in Baltimora?
i don't know why there would be a bunch of fancy laws, there is so much to go threw in the air, its not like we have fancy laws for walking other than stay out of the rode and use the side walks and signals and stuff
Anonymous Pegasus is anonymous!
"too many balls in the air", huh? That can be arranged....
Keep going! ;)
7217954
And there are laws for planes, and driving. I find it funny that no one has told Silver that he needs a license to fly...
I have a license to kill, and Silver was given one posthumously.
7217996 never said he needed a license to fly, its as natural as walking for them and i would assume that a chariot would need a licence but not to fly like regular.
Like always a good chapter. Is Twilight Sparkle going to be just a distant friend? Does she know about Silver's ability to blend and create spells so easily? Now that he has ascended does this amplify his abilities? I know that amount of magic he has to use has been increased but can he go past the level 4 magnitude like he did in his older body? Can he do his old tricks that he did when he was a alicorn? I know I have a lot of questions butt can he still do that partial transformation of becoming part human in his Alicorn form?
Keep up the good work you're doing and I hope to see more chapters.
Dragonfox
7217954 A crash into someone on the footpath doesn't nose dive you 100ft into the ground. Silver will have some small issues with wings from all sorts of different angles.
7218225
With his new alicorn body, I wonder if he'll try those old spells that would knock him out when he was just a plain unicorn? And since he's good at weaving spells, would that make him the Prince of Creativity? I mean, it sounds pretty good and that describes his talent fairly well.
7218244 i guess but you would assume that with all the space there is in the sky, you could not be stupid enough to crash into some one, i mean the difference between the air and ground is that there are 3 dimensions to move on. after that it appears like celestias government is limited so no qualification would be needed flying,
i mean like do we go to school to walk? and why a school dedicated to it? its all natural, maybe a school to do it more effectively? but that is something you can't learn in text books, i mean like we don't go to school ride a bike and there is not much you can learn about it from school,
i understand that you need it to drive and to fly an airplane but thats only because its a complicated machine, maybe it would be more likely that flying school is a month at most but more is weird. and would you not learn the rules of the sky from your parents. their are rules to riding a bike but not complicated like putting your hand up to signal that your stopping or to the left/ right to signal the direction.
7218277 you are a pegasus born to not pegasus parents
7218323 you have a point
still, no one in my family rides bikes, fish or go kayaking and i tough my self, granted i don't agree with a fishing license because its just a way for the government to steal our money. but it is a good idea to have a school for it i guess. can't wait to see what you do next, are you at a convention.
7218277
I would argue magic+wing based flight is at least as complicated as driving a car, probably closer to flying a jet helicopter. The complicated part of the machines give designers and mechanics plenty of work, but make things simpler for the driver. Pushing a gas pedal is simpler than the motions needed to put one foot in front of the other in a repeating loop that has to adjust for terrain.
The thing that would get you out of needing serious rules and teaching is if pegasi were quite slow and noisy, so that you would always see one coming and have plenty of time to evade. As is, they can be quite fast, can come at you from far more directions than walkers/drivers, and could easily have painful accidents if one changes direction suddenly and didn't see the other flyer coming.
It's not the complexity of cars that makes driving lessons and rules necessary, it's the risk of crashing into one another.
As for learning from your parents: not every pegasus has pegasus parents
7218386 i did not know that birds had a year of education in flight school, you need to remember that the simpler part of flying and magic is natural to there race and when he got that body he got those natural impulses which is why he did not need walking lessons. the most he needed help with was magic but who could blame him, it was a entire other muscle while in the dream he was tough to fly but did not know whove simbles, who could blame him tho since he went to areas with no flying race most of the time and the rest of the time he was being a terrorist so no time to use these fancy signals. after all its just more muscles, not like pegusis go to school to learn how to fly, all the ones there already know how to do it. thy just learn how to do it more effectively but silver already knows how to fly, just not about rules.
Who is happy that rainbow dash is now a wonder bolt
I think you meant 'an eager populace'.
7218456 i think what he means is that he needs to marry into it because he was talking previously about it and that he might marry with carrot to get her dad to stop and to be considered royalty
7218460 'By an eager royalty' is incorrect grammar either way. For your correction to make sense, that would be 'by an eager royal' but considering his main thing was the whole gripe about public opinion, 'populace' or 'population' or maybe even 'an eager crowd' would work.
7217954
For safety
do I see some Twilight time or will the school handle preening?
He'd sent it off - He'd send it off
*****
Perhaps Night Watch would be willing to help with the preening? Her wings aren't the same but they're close enough that they can learn together without too much social awkwardness. Samantha could research the most efficient methods and schedules as well.
Interesting concept for flying in busy skies but it makes sense that a system would have to be set in place to avoid accidents.
7218786 Typo fixed! Yay for a shorter day! I hope my updates while at the con weren't too bad.
7219076 They were shorter? They didn't seem to be. It must have been all the story that you managed to pack into each chapter.
7221087 he did not rip it as you said, he did what he did with the wieghts
7221089 At most, in chapter 27, he weakly lifted a small ingot of metal, which he threw against a wall and left a dent. I say again that is not the equivalent of ripping apart welded metal (that's presuming that the description of the helmet "exploding" was figurative and not literal).
7221093 he did not mean to throw it the preasur mad it fly
7221101
Demonstrably untrue. The word used in chapter 27 is "thrown":
There is no next button. Must be a typo. DAVID. Fix it.
7221109 well what else would you call it? he did not throw it, what happened as it said was that he charged his magic and let all of it out at once, hence, instead of lifting the ingot, it was thrown arose the room, as he said it was
7221109
i always took this as if he let all the magic lose which is why it was shoved/ thrown
7221237 I'd call it "thrown," as opposed to "the pressure made it fly," as you labeled it. You also say "instead of lifting it" despite the sentence I quoted flat-out saying it was "lifted a precious inch."
Insofar as "charging his magic" goes, you make it sound like he was concentrating it all into a single burst and then unleashing it, when the chapter doesn't describe anything of the sort:
This is clearly him already expending effort, rather than compressing it and "letting it out all at once" as you say.
7221249 The previous two sentences don't suggest this. He was already "grabbing and tugging" at the ingot, and so he increased the amount of effort he was expending. He used all of his effort to lift and throw it, rather than exerting some sort of burst.
7221256 i guess but when was he told to throw it agenst the wall? if i was using a machien to lift something and could not lift it so i used much more power... would it not get throw?
7221275 The point is that he was increasing the effort he put in incrementally. There was no instance of it being "charged" and then "let out" all at once. He simply exerted more and more force on it, until he could throw it. The idea of any sort of explosive burst of power is simply not supported by what's in the source material.
7221285
and not trying to say it was charged but that he let a lot of energy out at once, despite what i have said previously. lets just wait and see what david says about it.
7221292 Not letting it out "too quickly" means that he was letting it out, just at a controlled pace. Hence, he wasn't letting it out "at once."
7221304 fact of the fatter is that he was not sopsed to throw it, going back to the helmate i think that h used his raw power
7221307 And I maintain that managing to lift and toss a heavy object is not the equivalent to suddenly manifesting metal-ripping strength.
7221310 you need to remember that he is only a 4 in raw powerat the time going back to it, what if he did not rip the metal persay but burst the weld
7221321 Leaving aside that the scale used to calculate power isn't defined (at least not very well), the fact remains that he tore apart welded metal, which represents a level of strength not previously displayed.
7221338 remember how he tried to clear the clouds so he condeced them with his magic, what if he expanded it? or he caused heat there while doing it, that being said, how do you think he did it since he did do something
7221352 You're making stuff up again. It simply says that, with a "sudden seizure of his field," he "built an intense pressure" around the welded joint. Presuming that he's using "seizure" to mean that he grabbed it - and there's no reason to presume otherwise - it seems straightforward that he's simply ripping the welded joint open via pure strength. Which doesn't fit what we've seen him do up until then.
7221362 im not "makeing stuff up" as you say, im pointing out that when he was younger and was trying to get into the weather school, he used his magic to try and condence a cloud into liquid so what if he expanded it, that being said what he did was cannon to the story, maybe he just got stronger, after all it has not been shown with any magic training so he could have been doing some
7221372 You are, in fact, making stuff up by presuming that that's what he was doing with regards to undoing the welded joint on the helmet, when the story gives absolutely no indication of that. Inventing explanations that have zero indications of being present in the incident in question can only be referred to as "making stuff up."
It isn't enough to say that there's something could conceivably have happened; you need affirmative evidence that it did happen in the manner you're positing. This is the most basic level of engaging in a debate.
7221375 im trying to create a logical reason for how he did it because from your stand point, he could not do it because he has never demonstrate this before so im trying to use things he has done as demonstrations for him doing it, when his body was younger and right before he got his mark... one of the spells he used was one that would make pressure to put a hole in paper or wood so maybe he used the same idea but stronger
7221383 I can understand trying to reconcile what's there via what's already been established, but you can't do that by introducing elements that the story doesn't (either explicitly or implicitly) state are present at that point. Again, it's not enough to talk about how it "could" have happened; you need to focus on what we're told actually did happen.
Unfortunately, that might mean that you'll end up with some instances where what's there simply can't be adequately explained, which is what I believe this scene is (and while that can be unpleasant in how it breaks immersion, that goes with the metaphorical terrtory; even the show has instances of this). Yes, there might be ways that it could have been rationalized, but that's immaterial now, because it wasn't.