Day 5
Thorsday January 14
I woke up to Amber scream and a door slam. I was out of our room door and into the hall within a second and rammed into her and we both fell to the floor. She told me she walked in on Blueberry… doing what colts his age do.
I laughed a bit and helped her back to our room and we waited for the bathroom door to open and then the children’s room door room door to close before we dared enter the bathroom. It was as clean as it ever was so at least he is tidy when he… releases. How unfortunate for him to be walked in on by his mother!
We went and talked a bit about the day's plans and decided that the weather was going to be nice enough to go for a trot, finally. We were all a bit unexercised so we all bundled up a bit and checked the temperature and it was cold, but not as bitter as before so Amber, Blueberry, and me went for a trot while the foals stayed to watch children’s TV shows about sea humans that went on simple adventures.
We trotted down the block and downtown and said hello to passing humans in English and they smiled at us but weren’t too sure about us because we were still the new ponies in town, and on the planet! We didn’t stop to talk as we reached the bridge and galloped across it and then crossed the road and went down a path that took us along the river. I wanted to try to run across the river but knew all I’d do is slip and fall since I didn’t have any shoes on or skates to skate with.
We cantered and went into a full gallop several times and stopped to taste the winter grasses on the side of the road once and they weren’t very good but it was something in our bellies since we didn’t have breakfast yet. We came across a camping park but it was empty because who would go camping in winter?
Further down the trail was still paved but there wasn’t anything of note besides another bridge that spanned the river and had more cars going over it and then we decided to gallop for a while and when Amber was tired we stopped and turned back and galloped all the way back to the bridge we had first crossed and walked in place to keep our muscles warm while Amber caught up. She wasn’t as fit as we were, but she’s a unicorn worth her weight in gold and she did her best to act tough and hide her exhaustion.
We walked back briskly and made it home and then stripped and our clothes were heavy with our sweat and we couldn’t get to the shower fast enough! We started the water cold and rinsed the lather off before we turned it to a luke warm and washed each other and then helped each other dry. The foals took their turn next because they liked to bathe and play in the water and there was a never ending supply since the river was so close so we let them.
We groomed each other and it felt nice to have a freshly brushed mane and Amber braided some of my forelocks and it looked cute and then we helped the foals get ready for the day, too.
We ate breakfast and the foals said they heard us having sex last night and wondered if we were going to have a foal before we left earth and we told them that it wasn’t that easy and explained about estrus and how the mare would have to go through that and have to have sex at the right time to get pregnant, then it took another year for the baby to be born so there wasn’t going to be a baby born by our family on earth and Lilli said that she still wanted us to try.
I guess she’s old enough for sex but not old enough to understand it, which makes me wonder when she’ll find a colt to mate with and if she’ll fall in love with him or if it’ll be a passing fling. I have a couple foals out in Equestria that I know but because their mothers and I never fell in love we moved on since it was just mating season, after all. We’re still good friends and I write them often, but now that I’m on earth I will have to send a photograph and letter to them all and tell them about how my herd is doing and maybe when I get back we can all have a party together!
Humans are, so far, more restrained in their affections and I don’t think they have any more than one partner for life but I’ll have to research that on my own time since we have such a full schedule now!
Melody came over at nine in the morning and we told her in English about meeting new friends and teaching Equestrian and all our studying and she was impressed with how well we’d spoken, even though a lot of the words were still broken English and we had to explain better about teaching Equestrian in our home a couple times and then she understood and said she’d like to join a lesson and we invited her to the one this evening after supper and she said she’d come with a friend.
We spent the next couple hours practicing and she was very proud of how fast we were learning and we told her that ponies learned language quickly and English was similar to Minotaurian in a way and that was taught in some schools that were closer to their lands but we all knew some of it because they shared words with Equestrian.
She asked if we were going to teach that too but we didn’t know enough to converse with even a child minotaur and we said hello in Minotaurian and she laughed because she’d never heard a horse moo and we shrugged because it wasn’t something we were planning on doing anyway, teaching that language. So, we finished our class and asked her about some unwritten rules among humans like what is inappropriate to say or places to go.
She told us bad words were not okay, usually, and as long as we didn’t go into the wrong bathroom or go in the streets we should be fine, but then Lilli asked how sex was taboo and Melody blushed and didn’t want to talk about that because she wasn’t comfortable with it and we scolded Lilli and told her to not ask about taboo questions anymore.
Melody told us that she had our surprise ready and gave us a book that was from Equestria and was blank and she told us that Princess Twilight Sparkle had given us the book and said that anything we wrote in it would be sent right to her and anything she wrote will be sent to this one and there was no limit to what we could ask or anything!
We were very excited and when we opened the book the first page was written in English and it said something about how we were the pride of Equestria and that over the next year she looked forward to learning all she could from us about earth and that she was proud of us and was planning a visit in the summer and looked forward to meeting our new friends.
We spent some time writing in the book in Equestrian in turns while we talked with Melody about hockey and other sports and she only knew about hockey and was very animated about it. She told us places to shop and said she could take us all in her esyouvee and we were anxious to go so she called our helpers and they said it was okay to go and we got ready and left right away.
There was a person on the street we’d seen a couple times that held a camera box on his shoulder and recorded us leaving again and I think he was with the news again so we waved hello and when we approached him he ran to a van and hid in it. Humans can be weird sometimes, I guess.
We sat comfortably and watched the city go by and it was so much more alive than it seemed from downtown! There were cars and esyouvees and trucks that are like cars with wagons on the back! There were more people on the Washington street than we’d seen in the whole of downtown and that was just odd since downtown was always the most popular place to be on our world with the best shops and places to be but there was more away from downtown happening here.
We turned and watched more life pass us by than we’d seen in the last few days and finally stopped at a sports shop and when we went in we were shouted at because they didn’t know we were smart ponies and then we talked to them and the whole place stopped and they watched us while we started looking around and then one of the clerks came to help us and we told them we loved to play hockey back home and that got a lot of them excited and before we knew it everyone was talking about hockey and showing us where the hockey stuff was and sizing us for boots and skates.
They didn’t fit perfectly but the skates worked fine with some padding to make up for the extra foot part we don’t have and we bought them with our credit cards and made a lot of friends who told us the best places to play hockey at and we moved quickly to the esyouvee and Melody said she would take us to the next place and drop us off but we’d need to have our helpers or a taxi take us home.
We were at a skating rink that was a lot like home and when we went in we went to the bleachers and started to change into our skates and the people on the ice stopped to watch us and when we started to skate they were pleased to see our skill. I was always on the ice breaking teams during Winter Wrap Up and the foals weren’t too bad but couldn’t stand on their rear legs and pirouette like Amber and I could… we were just showing off but we got applause when we were done with our little show and then we went and got our sticks and a puck and started to practice our routine and everyone wanted to play a game of hockey with us so Amber, Blueberry and I said yes while the foals spent some time skating with human children.
We were way better than most of them because they didn’t think that four hooves on the ice would make up for being tall and having two legs but we showed them and were far more agile than they thought we’d be. We played for fun and made a few friends that helped us learn some of the rules of human hockey and fighting was okay they said so Amber got a devious grin and asked us to play to one more point and then she kept using mer magic to push and pull our skates from under us to make us fall and when she scored the last point she still went and side checked a player from the other team into the wall.
When we were done we were a little winded but it wasn’t heavy exercise to us while the people were sitting and resting and they said they were going to find out if we could join their team for an exhibition game and they all gave us their phone numbers but it was too much so we gave them our Facebook and invited them to our class tonight.
Amber made a good point that we didn’t have space in our home and we needed to postpone until we got a larger space but I asked if we could have it at the rink but they said no. We needed a place to go that was larger and had proper seating so we talked with the people that were around us while we took off our skates and they understood Blueberry the best and he set up a meeting at the local advanced school since he worked there.
We thanked him and got a ride back to our home and went to take showers while Blueberry told our friends on Facebook that we were meeting somewhere else to study and teach tonight. We took a quick shower and groomed again and decided we’d need to work a schedule so we didn’t have to spend so much time grooming and showering and we could have more fun.
Lunch was quick and we had eggs and oats again, but this time we had a lot to replace the energy we’d burnt through the day and we took time to watch TV and relax with some cans of fruit. They aren’t too bad once you get past the metallic taste!
We spent time watching the TV shows for children and decided that they were the most fun we’d seen so far so besides the weather channels we’d watch those. We took a cat nap and rested until it was almost suppertime and passed on eating in favor of eating out with our new friends that were going to pick us up and take us to the school across town.
Jim and Mark showed up and introduced themselves in English and we did the same in Equestrian and they laughed and were excited to learn some of our language and helped us into their truck. The wagon part was cold and slippery, the air was bitterly cold again, but it was nice to look out the sides and see the city passing us, even if the cars smelled really bad when they made exhaust. We got to the school and it was actually a university! A school the size of some Equestrian towns… I’m awed every day I’m here, it seems.
We were led into a building and it was full of people that wanted to learn Equestrian! Well, not full, that’d be overwhelming, but the halls on the way to the lecture hall was full and the hall itself was humongous! Every member of my herd across Equestria could room in the lecture hall and have space left over.
We were led to the front and Amber took a marker, which is like a quill that’s full of ink, but bigger? She took it in her magic and that was when the class went silent and people quietly ushered into the room and to seats like a good class should. We started by telling them our names in English and then since Amber and Blueberry were the best at English so far they started explaining the best they could our letters and she drew them on the white blackboard with the marker and the people were rapt with attention!
They took photographs and took notes of everything she said and did and even started copying our noises when she went over the lettering. It’s a really different way to write, compared to English, but one person said it was similar to three written languages from the eastern side of their world.
They had to explain to us that the world wasn’t really flat or divided and it was a loud couple of minutes while they practically held a senate discussion before I started singing the Equestrian National Anthem with the children and then the room fell silent again as Amber joined in. Our melody and harmonics were right where they were supposed to be for the song, but when we were done some people were crying because we sounded so beautiful singing.
I never thought it was that great of a song, but it was enough to start the class formally and we began teaching greetings and how to write them. We noticed our helpers in the class standing in the back by the door and they were practicing the words but not the writing part so we were very proud of ourselves.
I finished the class by teaching them the words for friend and how there are eight ways to say it in Equestrian, but humans can only make the sounds for five of them without sounding too off but there was one man who was able to say all eight and we asked to see him after the class. We said our goodbyes to the whole class and wished them well until the next time we could get together and Amber cast a couple spells to wow the people before they left and we talked with the man, Travis, about studying advanced lessons with us.
He understood enough and said yes and that he’d need to schedule it around his job, unless we could pay him. We knew well enough that he was talking about pay because money is universal, but we couldn’t pay him offering free classes and he said he’d fix that easy. We took his number and Facebook and eemale and when he was leaving he stopped to talk with Written Letter who was just outside the door the whole time and then they talked their way out of the building while we talked with our helpers.
They weren’t mad we started a class without going through the channels, but weren’t pleased either. They said they’d take care of getting us a better classroom and organizing it better and that we’d have to get paid to do this, otherwise it wouldn’t be very capitalist of us. I don’t know why they thought that was funny since capitalism usually only worked for the pony with the biggest mouth and smallest heart and that didn’t have many friends at all.
We said goodbye to Mark and Jim and took a ride in the esyouvee with our helpers to a restaurant we hadn’t been to yet named Taco Bell that served a lot of food wrapped in flour shells and we got several items from the menu and took them all to go back home with. We thanked our helpers and when we ate our food it was almost all good, but there was a wrap called a super burrito that had meat in it and it was tasty, but we didn’t want diarrhea so we didn’t eat it all, just a bite each to see.
We went to our own beds after a while and had to crack the window because we were all farting a lot and we decided that even though the food was good, we weren’t going to eat Taco Bell often because it was too cold to have open windows.
We did talk a little about the weather, too. We don’t know why it’s so cold or why we’d be sent here to start our journey to the new world because it’s consistently colder here than any place back home, so we are going to have to figure out when it’s going to be warmer and then plan some social events with our friends.
Oh yeah, I wrote in the book from Princess Twilight and she replied right away. I told her about teaching Equestrian to humans and she was excited to know how they took to it and was pleased to know they are fast learners. It was like having a Stratonet talk with a Princess, only through a magic book. I still can’t get used to all this, but once I do then I’ll be able to call myself and my family locals!
Queef ya tomorrow. Princess Twilight Sparkle didn’t think that was very funny when I said that to her, maybe I should ask what it means.