March 5 [Boyne Mountain]
March 5
I kind of didn't want to get up because the bed was so comfortable and big. It was like having a cloud all to myself. But I couldn't spend all day in bed, so I got up and pulled the window shades open.
The sky was just starting to get light, but all the downhill runs I could see were brightly lit so that you could use the hill at night and not crash into anybody or anything. It was probably light enough that they could have been turned off, although I'd noticed from my morning flights around Kalamazoo that it had to get pretty bright before they'd get turned off, and sometimes during the day if there was a storm they'd be turned on.
The bathroom was much nicer than any of the ones at college. There were fluffy white towels for us, and little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo and conditioner. It wasn't really enough for me, but it was a nice thought.
I wanted to stay quiet and not wake up Peggy too early—not before the sun rose, anyway—so I explored around the room and found that there was a Bible in the bedstand, so I started reading Numbers, since I hadn't been doing a very good job of reading it.
Everybody started getting ready for a trip to the promised land, which is probably where the Garden of Eden is. Moses took a census, which is where people are counted, and then they started talking about the rules for their trip and getting ready for it. When they finally got into the desert, God gave them manna to eat, but they got tired of eating it every day and wanted some meat. He was mad that He was doing everything for them, so he gave them so much meat that they got tired of it, and then He sent down a plague as well.
Before I could find out what happened after that, Peggy woke up. Her telephone can play her a song to wake up with. It starts off quiet and then gets a bit louder—my ears turned as soon as it started, and I was looking her way when she reached out and fumbled for her telephone, then knocked it off the table by mistake. I didn't mind so much; it was playing Renegades and I like that song.
She got all the way awake while she was finding it, and she sat up in bed and stretched out then grabbed some clean underwear out of her bag and went into the bathroom.
Peggy came out of the bathroom in just her clean underwear. Instead of the lacy bras she normally likes to wear, she had a big black one that squished down her boobs which she said was called a sports bra. It didn't look comfortable to me, but she said it was important to keep them under control while she was snowboarding.
She put on the rest of her clothes and then we went to get some breakfast. The restaurant at the resort was a lot nicer than the one at Bittersweet had been.
We'd decided to try the magnets first and see how they worked on actual snow. Peggy fastened my boots (which were labeled inside so that I'd know which one went on which hoof) then she put on her snowpants and jacket and got our snowboards and my helmet and then we headed to the slopes.
All the slopes had names, and the chairlifts did as well. Humans like to name everything. If we did that with clouds, we'd be so busy naming them none of them would ever make it into the sky.
Since we weren't sure how things were going to work out with my snowboard, we started off on something that was pretty easy, but kind of long. It was called Hilda's Hideaway, and it curved down the side of the hill so it was never too steep. Peggy said that there probably wouldn't be all that many people there yet, and she was right: the chairlift was virtually abandoned.
When we got to the top and got off the lift, it took me a little bit to set my hooves right. There were little alignment notches in the metal plates to make sure that I got in the right place on the board—and the makers had fiddled with the placement a bit before I was happy with their location. My hooves kept sticking in the wrong place, and it was tricky to pull them loose again. The magnet would hold on and then suddenly let go. It was like walking in thick muck.
But I got it figured out, and then we slowly started down the hill, with Peggy at my side. She let me set the course. I went pretty much straight down for this first attempt, just to make sure that everything stayed where it ought to.
It was easier for her to take off her snowboard and go over to the chairlift without it, but I had trouble getting mine off, and then it occurred to me that I could just fly with it on. It was really weird; I never thought about how much I move my legs when I'm flying, but I was really aware of it when the snowboard was attached, since it held my legs in a somewhat immobile position.
We made a dozen more trips down the hill before I had pretty good confidence in the snowboard. Peggy did a lot of work with her legs, which didn't work out as well for me—I used my wings to help navigate it. The big difference was that she was crosswise to the board, while I was facing along it.
I thought it was time for something a bit more challenging, and Peggy did too, so we took some of the side paths that went off the main course. Some of them were shortcuts along the inside of the arc, and others took us to a different trail. Peggy took the lead and I followed her, doing my best to mimic what she was doing with her board.
As the day went on, it started to get more and more crowded. Each time we got to the top of the hill, I could see that there were more cars in the parking lot, and there started to be lines for the chair lifts. I could have flown back up to the top of the hill on my own, but it wouldn't have been nice to leave Peggy behind like that.
My tummy was growling by the time we finally came in for lunch. The whole lodge was packed with strangers, so I stayed close to Peggy.
A lot of them—especially children—came over and wanted to talk to me, so it took a long time to get our lunch. While we were eating, we were mostly left alone, but there was one little boy in a blue snowsuit that was almost the same color as my coat came over and started petting me before his mother could grab him and pull him away.
Before we went back outside, Peggy put a new memory card and a new battery in the GoPro, and while she was doing that we looked over the trail map (which was probably more for my benefit than hers) and decided that we'd try Mister Moll, and when I was confident with that, we'd take the Black Diamond Rush cutoff.
There were also little areas called terrain parks where we could do tricks. I wanted to try them, but Peggy said that that would be for tomorrow; today it was more important to make sure I had all the basics down so I wouldn't get hurt. I knew she was right, but it's frustrating sometimes to want to do something and have to wait until you have more experience.
But she was looking out for me, and that was important.
We'd talk on the lift about techniques and she'd tell me about other places she'd snowboarded. It was kind of a weird conversation, because we'd have part of it then reach the top of the lift and focus on snowboarding down, and then pick up where we left off when we were in line for another ride to the top of the hill.
I learned that there were a lot of good places to snowboard near Colorado Springs, which is her home when she's not in college. She said that one of her favorites was Monarch Mountain, and the most fun trail on it was called Mirkwood Bowl, which started right at the continental divide and went down the mountain from there.
She said that was also where she'd broken her wrist in a nasty fall, and she'd had to sit out the rest of the season while it was healing, which had been really frustrating, and that was why she wore wrist-guards now.
We ate a kind of late dinner, and then after that, we went back to the trails until the hill closed for the night. I was really sore—but in a good way—and my coat and tail were loaded with snow. Some of my mane had escaped the same fate because of the GoPro helmet, but along my neck it was stiff with ice.
It was uncomfortable walking back to our room in my boots, but I didn't want to let Peggy take them off because that would be more stuff she had to carry.
As soon as we got into the room, I turned on the faucet to the mini-hot tub. I planned to soak in it until all my muscles relaxed.
She said that sounded like a good idea, so she helped me take my hoof boots and helmet off, and then she used the coffee maker to make hot water while I carried the gear over to the desk.
I wasn't sure what she wanted the hot water for; the tub had plenty of it coming out of the faucet, but she said that it wasn't a good idea to drink hot water right out of the faucet. She didn't know why, but her grandmother had told her that.
She had little envelopes full of powder that turned into hot chocolate, and she added a bunch of Kahlua to it, which she said made the hot chocolate better.
It certainly added a nice kick to it, which was good: most of the snow in my coat had melted while I was waiting for the tub to fill, and I was actually feeling a bit chilled, despite the heat in the room. The hot chocolate warmed me right up, and Peggy made us both a second glass.
I got in the tub first and asked her if she was going to get in as well. She said that she had to put on her swimsuit, and started digging through her bag.
I asked her why she needed it; she didn't wear it in the shower, and I didn't understand how this was different.
She stopped rummaging through her bag and finished her hot chocolate then poured herself another. I hadn't had much of my second one yet, because I didn't want to drop it in the tub by mistake and there wasn't a good place to set it.
When she'd finished, she said that I was probably right and it would save her from having to deal with a wet bathing suit.
She took off the rest of her clothes and came over to the hot tub, then turned a little knob that made jets of water start shooting out of the walls of the tub. I'd wondered what the little circles in the walls were for.
She got in across from me and stretched out with her arms on the side of the tub, her drink in one hand. When she saw that I didn't have mine, she got out of the tub and brought it over, setting it beside the tub where she could reach it for me.
We sat and talked and drank hot chocolate with Kahlua until we were both completely relaxed and the bottle was almost gone. I dried off clumsily; between the alcohol and exhaustion, I was staggering on my hooves, and I finally decided that it was too much bother to dry off all the way and crawled into bed still pretty wet. I knew I'd be paying for it in the morning; my coat was going to be all clumped up, but I was too tired to care.
Peggy must have felt the same way; she got into her bed without putting on her normal sleeping clothes.
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Saturdays are for sleeping in.
7175319 Sigh... wish I could have slept in... zzzz-huh! Oh, great chapter, Admiral Sir!
<-- Salute.
hot chocolate with Kahlua is great
When it's snowing, spiked hot chocolate is whats best in life. Whiskey and cider is not so bad either...
Hopefully the magnets are in the board. Some of the ski resorts I have been to have metal grates to get the snow off of shoes and it kinda would be hilarious to see a pegasus stuck to them. The grates have cleats on them so sliding the shoes would be out and Silver would have to overpower the magnets.
I also think skiing would be easier for a pony since the skies are separated allowing the legs to naturally spaced. The two legs per ski would have fantastic individual control like a snowboard but the speed and manuverability of skies.
7175393 I've seen places with snow "skates" you can rent that are like very short, chubby skis, One of those for each hoof might be perfect!
I'm guessing that's a typo.
the only use i have ever found for green Chartruese is to put it in hot chocolate, and its freaking yummy.
Peggys grandmother has to be British, building codes in England then had it so that fresh drinking water came cold from the municipal supply and the homes had hot water heaters in the attic, unfortunately these were shoddy set-ups in most cases with many homes hot water having rats drowned inside, as such the government told everyone "Never drink hot water from the faucet" the building code also stipulated that cold and hot water taps had to have separate faucets, In other country's this wasn't as prevalent a problem, even today after the hot water system has been entirely revamped British people almost never drink hot water from the tap and in the case of mixer taps will run the cold water for a little while before drinking.
7175545 I was told growing up in the US that in some old houses you weren't supposed to drink hot water from the tap because it sometimes still ran through lead pipes, since it wasn't drinking water. I don't recall where I heard that, though, so it could be an urban legend. But certainly a believable one since some houses still had lead-based paint in my early childhood.
7175571
Also possible but if a house was old enough to have lead piping for hot water you would think they would have the same for the cold water, I cant imagine the piping from the hot water heater being different deliberately from the water direct from the municipal system to the tap unless the local government changed those pipes and the homes owner didn't want to.
(Why Britain uses separate hot and cold taps, (By Tom Scott)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA
Further research on the EPA web sight says that hot water fixtures may have larger amount of lead because of the additional corrosive effects of hot water on solder.
lol Cute chapter.^^
7175602 Presumably because you realized the danger and replaced the drinking water ones? But regardless, even if it wasn't ever true, it's something I heard growing up, so presumably Peggy's grandmother might have heard it too. Not like old people are automatically immune to baseless rumor.
I've actually been to Boyne Mountain. The runs are great, but the hotel is a bit pricey.
7175319 Damn straight. I slept 11 hours today!
...it was a long week.
Nothing like relaxing at the end of a long day.
7172380
Yeah, that's what I think too. Loads of versatility, tonnes of arrogance, plenty of ego...
...but little to no actual power behind her spells. Twilight can use her magic to smash in a locked door, but Trixie can't - she has to pick the lock instead.
(I also think that's why she can't teleport - that spell requires power).
I think there's a typo here, but I'm not 100% sure whether it's in "my" or "mine".
...why would you even have a swimsuit with you on a ski trip?
Related: I see the nudist conversion of humanity has begun.
Question about the resort lights - does this place groom with the lights on or was there snowmaking the night before? Lots of places turn the lights off while the groomers are out, many even make snow with the lights off.
Will we get to see snowmaking in action?
So... in what position is Silver on the snowboard?
Zooming face-first down the hill seems a bit dangerous, and she'd have about as good a time zooming through a thicket of saplings as a human on skis would.
Thwippitty-thwappity-whappity-thwap-
"THE PAAAAAAAIIIIIINNN!"
Edit- Good for Peggy! She's surmounted that pesky nudity apprehension. Another character in one of your stories had a much more difficult time transcending that bothersome bit of social programming.
7175545
7175571
Many years ago a plumber friend of mine said that you should never drink from domestic hot water services as they typically don't get much hotter than about 60C, which is a prime temperature for bacteria to breed. If you need hot water you should start by boiling cold water.
7175545
Almost, the immersion heater (combination insulated hot water tank and heater) would usually be in a cupboard upstairs next to the bathroom. What was in the roof was a cold water tank fitted to act as a buffer against low water pressure, because it was thought that the entire street turning the taps on at the same time for bath night could overwhelm the supply. This cold water tank had no lid on it, because it was cheaper just to tell everyone it wasn't safe to drink. This also meant that you can't have mixer taps, because that would cause the diseased hot water to contaminate the cold water supply, potentially for the entire street.
Most homes have had this replaced with radiator heating and a combination boiler, so the twin tank setup is less and less common nowadays. Still, nothing preventing slum landlords renting homes with both it and a mixer tap! Live in one of those and you'll be pebbledashing the toilet four days out of five.
7172309
so why is no one giving her a run down about it ? or is it on the list of "don't tell ponys how bad we were/are"
shouldn't here be a "which was probably more for my benefit than her" ?
anyway, good chapter. nice how Peggy is warming up more to Silver (damn what a stupid pun)
7175480
I thought I had a cocktail recipe for you but it turns out it calls for green creme de menthe rather than green chartruese.
7175616
I think the Internet provides plenty of evidence that young people aren't immune to baseless rumor, either.
7175319 Yes they are! And yet I keep doing activities that require me to wake at ungodly hours on Saturday and/or Sunday.
Why indeed! It basically is the same water, but instead of being heated by a small cofee maker, it was heated by a central storage water heater.
'Sides if the plumbing was so bad the water getting out of it wasn't sanitary, you wouldn't bath in it either.
7175319 Normally I'd agree with you, but working nights and weekends makes that hard! At least SG is here to put a smile on my face!
Oooh, house keeping in NOT going to be happy in the morning!
Will Silver Glow wake up with a pony-sized hangover?
Basics today. Tomorrow, Silver gets to explore what wings and a snowboard can really do together. Hopefully the experience she got in flying on the board will keep her from hurting herself. Months of the protagonist in traction isn't going to be enjoyable for anyone involved.
Poor Peggy, having to deal with an inquisitive pegasus first thing in the morning.
7176449 You're right they could do that artificially, but why would they want to? Did it just occur to Luna this would be an awesome form of artistic expression? Why every 28/30 days then?
I don't really think you have all the answers to this, I just wonder about it.
Next time on The Adventures of Silver Glow: will our intrepid heroine make it down the dark side of the trick slopes, or will the mountain claim its first injured pony? Don't miss the exciting conclusion tomorrow! (Or later today, depending on when I'm posting this.)
I wonder if Silver understands how much action she'll get if she comes back in a cast. After all, movies also tell me that the more cast worn by an injured skier, the more play they get.
7175781
For hot tub, naturally! Every ski resort has them, right? That's what movies also tell me.
Here's a wild guess about the hot-water thing: In the US at least, the recommended maximum temperature for water heaters is 120 degrees F., to prevent people being scalded. On the other hand, the minimum temperature to keep bacteria from growing in food is around 140 degrees. The difference of 20 degrees might allow some bacteria to grow in the water.
We have some places where you'll trees growing in straight rows here too, but that's because they're planted and grown for harvest.
7176437
you also need to protect the trachea and lungs, not just the mouth. i'm a bit more worried about inhaling powders than actual damage to the mouth. Minimizing would be hard, it can accumulate almost immediately depending on the process (grinding for example).
i'm not sure if it's worth the risk with things like tetanus.
7173973
7174001
I don't know that an analog E6B will be faster than an electronic one; the advantage is that it doesn't use power, so you don't have to worry that it'll fail you at the worst possible time. Punching in the fuel usage like on a calculator is going to be faster, easier, and more accurate than trying to line up the rate arrow to the groundspeed, taking the time from the inside scale, then moving the rate arrow to the fuel burn rate and reading your fuel usage on the outside scale. You give the electronic one the groundspeed and the fuel burn rate, and it'll spit the answer out without having to do slide movements (which are sources of error and take time).
The fuel consumption methods that I know uses: time = distance/rate; and fuel consumption = time × fuel burn rate. The E6B is just a slightly specialized slide rule to do this a hair bit faster. For example, take the following problem:
150 nautical mile trip in a Cessna 172P in calm winds, at 4000' altitude and standard temp. I like to use a 2300 rpm throttle setting.
From the POH, I get a true airspeed of 102 knots, and a fuel consumption rate of 6.6 gph
Using the E6B (I have the same ASA one you showed in your picture): 88.4 minutes travel time, 9.72(ish) gallons
Using a Pickett N-500-ES slide rule (because that's the first one in my collection I picked up): 88.2 minutes, 9.71 gallons
Using Excel ("exact" answer): 83.23529 minutes, and 9.705882 gallons.
The reason you need to add a fudge factor isn't because the E6B is all that inaccurate, it's because those true airspeed and fuel consumption numbers are suspect (they are by the manufacturer and therefore optimistic, for a brand new airplane--about 35 years old at this point). If there's a more accurate way to do it, I'd like to know; but it's not simply the E6B that's the problem. Now, I didn't do groundspeed calculations using the wind side, and maybe that's Georg's point, but even there I think the error in reading scales is going to be swamped by the fact that winds aloft forecasts are only to the nearest 10 degrees and are mostly witchcraft and fond dreams.
As far as the accuracy of a slide rule in general, they're pretty reliable to within 3 significant figures. Even the E6B, which is a pretty cheap and relatively inaccurate scale compared to the engineer-grade Pickett, still gets you pretty close in the third significant figure in the example problem above. Again, this is swamped by the fact that practical problems usually contain feeder information that's simply not that accurate. A steel W-section, for example, has fairly wide fabrication tolerances, so the published values for cross-sectional area and moment of inertia are really not much better than three significant figures themselves. Scientific measurements usually aren't that much better, either.
Where slide rules start to get really inaccurate are problems that contain lots of slide moves, lots of numbers on the right (9) side of the scale, or uses the Log-Log scales which get really inaccurate quickly. I suspect that the example problem you talked about (15 million with an error of 0.94%) has some of those features.
7176393 It also helped put people to work during the great depression.
7176624 You will be.
7176393, I think that we misunderstood each other. I stated that unauthorized manipulation with weather may be classified as terorirism... by the Earth government. Our world does have harmony, as well as Equis, though harmony in each of worlds is diffirent. Ponies may have understanding of harmony of their world, which allows them to manipulate it, but neither ponies or humans understand Harmony of Earth. We (humans) do not understand it fully and we put as much effort as we can to maintain status-quo in this area since we feel pretty comfortable in current situation. Ponies, however, can manipulate their world without losing comfortability but they do not understand our world. Ponies manipulating Earth would be like java programmists trying to do something on completly new engine they see first time. This doesn't look bad, but what happens when instead of error you get programm working incorrectly?
This is why I think magical interaction with Earth should be forbidden by the UN, at least. Since no research has been done (as far as we know), we don't know what might happen if some random pegasus will decide to play with weather. Even a simple action may be a huge problem for a region, even if action performer didn't want it to have consequenses like this.
That would be a kind of sad ending if Earth decided to tear off all connections with Equestria after accidental use of climatic weaponry.
7175374
Yes, it is.
7175389
Never tried whiskey and cider. I'm dubious--me and bourbon definitely have a love/hate relationship.
7175393
That detail got added, thanks!
That's not a bad idea, really. Skiing ponies are canon; although I think he only had two skis. Finding skis that short might be an issue, though. Maybe next winter she'll get some.
7175453
You are guessing correctly! It's fixed now, thanks!
7175480
I don't even know what that is. . . .
7175545 7175571 7175956 7175988 7176206 7176956
Hot Water:
I don't know the reasoning behind it, but I heard it both from my mother and grandmother (both Americans). I'd guess the bacteria is the most likely, but even that seems like a stretch--the water is supposed to be treated before it gets to the house, and unless there are leaks in the system or it's backflowing, there wouldn't be ways for it to get into the water (and why wouldn't it also be in the cold water?). Lead seems unlikely; AFAIK all the supply pipes in a house are made out of the same stuff. Also Flint had a big problem with lead in their supply pipes and they're running cold (and unfortunately, as it turned out, improperly-treated) water through the pipes.
EDIT: although if the EPA says it's can be a problem, than they're probably right.
7175613
7175618
Not me; I had to visit via internet research and YouTube videos.
Honestly, just from the picture of the room it looked expensive. I took some liberties with the rooms, by the way. It's a mashup of multiple hotel rooms I've been in before.
7175645
I think I got seven and a half Friday night. Which is, sadly, an hour or two more than normal.
7175658
Exactly! I wish I had a hot tub. Preferably with a pegasus.
7175694
Yeah, Twilight's not only got versatility, but she's got brute force versatility. Trixie probably knows a lot of spells, but they're not very powerful ones.
A friend and I were discussing how unicorns learn spells, and of course we now know that there are some unicorns who are familiar with spells but can't cast them--I wonder if Trixie knew--or knew of--all the spells she used when she had the Amulet, but couldn't cast any of them because she completely lacked the power? That is, did she get the amulet and then learn new spells, or did she know the spells first but the amulet let her cast them?
7175704
It was 'mine' and it's fixed now.
Thanks!
7176134
One of the reasons I try to avoid Facebook. I just get so tired of debunking the stupid rumors.
7175781
Boyne Mountain has a waterpark, swimming pool, hot tubs, spa. . . .
Slowly but surely.
7175859
I don't know; they do however light the slopes when people are using them after nightfall. I watched a couple of YouTube videos including one of snowboarders running down a trail, and the slope lights were on.
What you've seen so far, and maybe a bit more later if I can figure out how to work it in.
7175900
She is face-first, and she's avoiding thickets. Pegasi know not to fly through trees unless they're really careful.
All of the actual trails/slopes at Boyne Mountain are tree-free.
It's a lot easier in a private hot tub when you've been drinking and you're with one friend of the same gender than it is to just wander around in a town full of ponies totally clothing-free.
7176063
It hasn't really occurred to anybody yet. And yes, they'd probably try to cover up some of the bad stuff, not even thinking that the ponies also might have had a few dark chapters in their history.
7176206
I've taken a temporary hiatus from my second job, so now I'm only working fifty hours a week or so but have Saturday and Sunday off. If it wasn't for play rehearsal, I'd have all sorts of free time!
7176340
Well, the good news is that Boyne Mountain allows pets in their rooms, so I suppose they've had to deal with that kind of thing before. Although I don't suppose that'll make them any happier.
7176378
Pony-sized hangovers: small and adorable.
7176405
I should ask my dad about that sometime. He got the firsthand experience in college after shattering his femur in a tobogganing accident.
7176520
Nothing like trying to explain bras to a pony.
7176612
I don't have all the answers to it.
All I know is that they use 'moon' as an expression for a period of time, and it would make sense if there was some sort of change in the moon to mark the days. If the ponies were continuing a natural system that had gotten broken, they'd probably want to continue with the same sort of patterns the moon used to make; if the whole system was built from scratch, it could be completely arbritrary and take any form they wanted it to.
I don't even know why they have seasons. They don't have to.
7176661
That trope's in comic books, too. Nothing sexier than being in a body cast, amirite?
Boyne Mountain actually does. I researched that.
7177016
Very true. Some of that could be accounted for in the process (a water jet or a vacuum on the grinding machine) but it wouldn't be entirely unavoidable.
At least there's a vaccine for tetanus.
Actually, imagine earth ponies working in a biolab. That's a frightening thought.
7177129
Yeah, I don't know if it'd be faster, either. One drawback to calculators is you can't 'see' all of the calculation, so if you make a mistake you might not know it right away. I run into that sometimes when I'm doing deposits at work--I fat finger one number, and I can't easily check back to make sure that I got them all right, so I usually add up everything two or three times and make sure I get the same result each time. With the E6B, you can 'see' all the numbers you're using right in front of you, if it works like I think it does, anyhow.
Probably experience is a big factor, too. I would think that someone who uses them all the time is probably going to be able to get a good result faster than someone who rarely uses it.
And there is an advantage, in my mind, to a tool that will keep working after a power failure. I guess if nothing else, it's a good backup so long as you know how to use it properly. And, of course, before the modern electronic instruments, I've got to imagine it was pretty cutting-edge.
7177167
That's true, and I think that was part of the point of the CCC.
7177678
Oh, yeah. I'd say that's reasonable. A single cloud here and there isn't a big deal (for the sake of this story), but if a team of rogue pegasi were to start creating tornadoes at random or something, absolutely terrorism. Likewise with unicorns using spells against unwilling people (terrorism, assault . . . I suppose it would depend on what the spell did).
For the sake of this story, small things don't have an effect (Silver taking a single cloud, for example) but there are certainly rules in place about large groups of pegasi playing with the weather. That's not really covered in the story, but it's not okay for a group of pegasus tourists to fly up and see what they can do with the clouds.
That's actually something that would have to be hashed out in detail before inter-world exchanges could take place at any significant level. What ponies could and could not do on Earth, and what people can and cannot do in Equestria.
It might also be the basis of a good story, though. Or even the negotiating process.
Heck, I'd be interested in reading a good legal drama (something like a Grisham book) where a judge has to decide a case like that where there is no legal precedent.
The strength of Magnetic fields fall off by the 3rd power.
"Ponies!" Rainbow Dash flew in, interrupting them as they dragged a rather grizzly-looking storm cloud across the sky.
Fluffy Clouds and Clear Skies stared as their flustered captain hovered, twitching, in front of them, "Um..." Fluffy Clouds began.
"What's the matter, Dash?" Clear Skies completed, starting to look a little concerned.
Rainbow Dash gasped, pressing a hoof to her chest whilst she reigned in her breathing, "It's.." She inhaled sharply, "-- Don't take David."
"David?" Flitter asked, casting a glance to the cloud floating between herself, and Fluffy Clouds, "This isn't David."
"... it's... not?"
"No," Clear Skies patted the storm cloud, "This one's Michael."
"... then where did--" Rainbow Dash was cut off as a sea of identical storm clouds rolled in over the horizon, sped along by Cloud Chaser and her assistant, "Celestia, dammit." She swore and sped off, bursting through the nearest of the clouds and checking it for labels.
"Um, guys," Fluffy Clouds chirped, "I thought Michael was the other one?"