13 After Ice Moon
I was the last one to wake up, 'cause I was still really tired after crossing over and the train ride and everything else, and then I felt bad for being the last pony to wake up. The sun was already up and we should have been in the air to greet it.
The first thing I really noticed was how quiet it was. I'd gotten so used to the sounds of cars going by that I'd just stopped noticing them at all, but now that they were gone, it was strange to not hear them.
And the air outside was different. It smelled a little bit fresher, but that could have been the sea breeze blowing in and mixing with the smoke from chimneys.
Using the toilet was strange, too. I'd managed okay yesterday but now that I'd had a night to sleep I think that my brain forgot that it was back in Equestria again and I didn't have to use a human-style toilet any more. And it was odd how practically everywhere I turned things weren't the same anymore. The walls looked kind of naked without having the little electricity slots that you could plug things into, and almost every human room I'd been in had had a computer or a television or both and there weren't any of those, either.
When we were all ready to fly, I opened my saddlebags and looked for my flight gear and I started to get worried when I couldn't find it, before I remembered that I didn't need it anymore. I could go wherever I wanted without wearing it and nopony could stop me, and that was actually kind of intimidating. Maybe just because I was used to having to think about other airplanes and helicopters and anything else that might be in the sky that I'd have to watch out for.
It was going to take some getting used to.
We went down the hall and they had an outside balcony for pegasuses to take off and land, or for other ponies who just wanted to be outside and kind of in the air, and when I was right at the edge I was a little bit nervous, just 'cause I thought that everypony else was gonna fly rings around me, but to my surprise when I took to the air I was actually flying faster than anypony else, even though I'd been gone for so long, and I realized that I'd built up a lot of strength while I had been on Earth, 'cause my flight magic hadn't worked as well.
As we climbed into the sky I kept looking down at my foreleg for my pilot's watch to tell me how high I was, and my sister finally noticed and asked me what I was doing, so I told my family about the rules that I'd had to follow, and how if I had been leaving from the college or my apartment I usually wasn't allowed to go over a thousand feet until I crossed over the 131 Highway or got past the airport to the east, and I wasn't allowed to fly through clouds, either, because there could be an airplane inside them that I didn't know about.
So I didn't really get to do much looking around at first because I was explaining everything to them and then when I did get a look at the ground it was really disorienting because there wasn't a grid of roads or wide paths that the electricity wires followed, and there were no towers sticking up with their blinking lights and I felt like I was completely lost without them, and I actually circled back around to make sure that I could still see the inn off in the distance, and that took me a moment to find.
It was really strange to have grown so used to Earth landmarks that I was almost helpless without them now, and I hoped that it was only temporary and my old flight instincts would start working again after I'd been back for a few days, 'cause otherwise I was gonna be a danger on the weather team when the summertime came around. They wouldn't let me go out to sea at all, because they'd be afraid I'd get lost. Maybe I could pretend that everything was all right, but if I did, there was a good chance that I'd die in the first big feral storm that we had, and then everypony would be searching for me and the storm might go on unchecked while they were searching.
Flying while you were disoriented wasn't a very good idea.
But for now I had my family with me and so long as I followed along with them, I'd be safe. I felt kind of like a filly again, though, when just making a short flight from one house to the next seemed like a hundred-mile trip.
We flew around for a while and then we found a nice fluffy cloud that was just drifting along and my sister landed on top of it, so the rest of us followed and I landed a little bit off to the side and it was strange the way it felt, more substantial than a feral cloud and more responsive to me, and I rolled around in the cloud-fluff and made myself a little depression in it and then I took one of the tufts off the edge and bounced it around in my hooves and started working with it and at first I was a bit clumsy 'cause it didn't behave like an Earth-cloud at all but then I figured it out and it was really weird. It felt like I was moving something inside me that hadn't been moved in a really long time and it knew what it had to do but it couldn't quite remember how to do it.
It was almost like if I'd slept badly on one of my wings and it had gone to sleep, and everything was numb and stiff and not working quite right but then after a little bit of stretching and flapping it started to work like it was supposed to again and then an hour later it was really hard to exactly remember how it had felt or when it had changed from being wrong to being normal.
I batted the little cloud-tuft away from me and let it drift off even though I knew it wasn't gonna last too long on its own, and then I stuck my muzzle in the cloud and felt it pushing back against me a little bit.
Then I hopped back up to where everypony else was and looked out over the landscape. It was pretty far away and kind of hazy, but you could see the ocean and even though you couldn't see any of the buildings at all, I could sort of make out where Chonamare harbor was and I felt a longing in my heart for it.
I almost suggested that we could fly there and still be back tonight in time for classes, and if I trusted my wings more I would have, but it was probably a good forty miles away. So it was better to stay here for now. But I was gonna go back next weekend, even if that meant I had to work extra hard to catch up on all the work I'd missed while I was in Kalamazoo.
Since we were sitting, it was a little bit easier to talk, and so I told them how on a good day I could fly a little ways out of Kalamazoo and then when I was high enough I could see the shore there, too.
And I said how I'd seen both of the big oceans on Earth, the Atlantic and the Pacific, and I'd also seen three of the five Great Lakes which surrounded Michigan, and about the ships that were so big that they could have held our whole village and the harbor on top of them and probably had room left over for another village, too. I said that if they imagined Canterlot Castle sailing through our harbor entrance that wasn't even close to what it had looked like when one of those ships went by.
After we'd rested a little bit, we got up off of our cloud and flew back down to the inn, and we were all kind of hungry, so instead of bathing first, we went right down to the dining room and had breakfast and they had a breakfast barley stew that was pretty good and filling, and we also got a small plate of fish to share.
I told my sister how on Earth the fish came in cans so you didn't have to eat them right away and you could take them with you when you were flying and snack on them then, and they were a little bit too salty but that was nice if you were going to be sweating a lot.
After we'd gotten done eating, mom decided that we were gonna go to the spa and get properly pampered and groomed and I said that I didn't really need that but she said that my coat was hardly groomed and my wings looked like I hadn't preened them in months and that wasn't true at all and it was just 'cause I'd been spending so much time traveling and hadn't really had time to do them right, but she put her hoof down and said that we were going, and it was going to be nice to soak in the hot tub, so we flew through town to the spa, and she insisted on paying for me, too, even though I had my own account at the spa.
I looked around the room but there wasn't anypony I knew from college in the spa today, which was kind of disappointing. But the spa ponies remembered me and they all hugged and nuzzled me and said that they'd missed me and were glad that I was back, and then Bubblecup said that I smelled a little bit different now and she didn't mean it in a mean way. I guess that I still had some of Earth stuck in my coat.
We relaxed in the hot tub for a while, and then we got dried off and stretched out on the benches and let the spa ponies preen us. I didn't think that they did as good a job as Meghan could do, 'cause they used preening brushes and Meghan could do it with her fingers and really feel to make sure that every feather was in its proper place.
But I got a better hooficure than anybody on Earth had ever given me. Sweet Sparkle was really good and she made sure that my hooves were trimmed and filed just right and at first it was a little bit weird when I got off the bench but by the time we were walking back out of the spa, it started to feel right, and some of the little aches in my legs that I'd just gotten used to faded away.
We went to the market to find something to eat for lunch, and we got a loaf of bread and some honey (which was kind of expensive since it was the winter, and the bees were dormant) and a little wheel of cheese and then there was a baker there who had cookies that looked really good so we got a half-dozen of them, too. And we could have flown up to a cloud again and eaten there but I kind of wanted to stay on the ground and just watch ponies go by and get a feel for the market again, 'cause it wasn't anything like human stores.
My family couldn't stay all day, 'cause they had to go back to Chonamare, so after we got done eating lunch we went to college and up to my dorm room, and I opened up the boxes and it was kind of like Hearth's Warming.
It didn't take me too long to find the photo albums and I got them out and we all sat on my bed and I went through them and showed them the pictures of all my friends and some of the things that I'd done. My sister thought that it was really strange that humans weren't very colorful and she said that they kind of all looked the same, and I think that it was kind of overwhelming for them to see so many things all at once, and if I'd explained everything in every picture it would have taken forever.
The one they liked best was a picture of me and the tornado team as we took off looking for tornadoes. I didn't know who had taken the picture; it must have been one of the tornado humans, but it caught us just as we were taking flight, and the whole sky was full of angry, dark clouds, and Merry May and Flanking Line were already in the air with the rest of us all clustered on the road, mostly looking at the sky, and Paradise was adjusting the straps on Skydancer’s equipment package.
She thought that we were crazy to fly in weather like that with all the equipment we were wearing, and so I got to point to the picture and say what each piece was for, although I wasn't sure what went into the instrument packages that Prism Glider and Skydancer had on, but I did know that it could talk to the ground and also measure what the weather was like.
It was kind of funny to look at, though, cause we were all wearing bright vests and had blinking lights and radios and I had my camelback on and my pilot's watch and it looked almost like we were pack mules with wings.
And you could see the front corner of the van we'd ridden in, too, and I told them that it was kind of big for a human car but there were lots of ones that were bigger than it, too, like buses which I said was like a train car that could drive itself around—I couldn't think of a better way to describe it.
My sister didn't believe me when I told her that we'd gotten to ride in one that had a sink in it and one faucet that coffee came out of, and I wished that there had been a picture of it in the album.
I knew when I got back home we were gonna spend a lot more time together going through the photo albums, but there wasn't really enough time to study and explain all the pictures now, and they wanted to get back before sundown, so we all hugged and nuzzled and then they flew off for home and left me alone.
I was getting too good at saying goodbye.
And it was kind of lonely with nopony else in my dorm room but it was also kind of a relief, because sometimes it was good to just spend time with yourself and your thoughts. So I watched ponies out the window for a little bit and then I lit a lamp and got out my journal because it was time to wrap it up. I was back in Equestria and my year on Earth was over, and now it was time to move on.
I was writing in my journal when my roommate came back. She's an earth pony called Denim Blue, and she's kind of my opposite, 'cause she'd got a white coat and blue mane but she's very nice and she's studying math, too, so we can study together.
She was a little mad at me for not coming to see her yesterday when I'd first gotten in and she said she'd been waiting when the deliverypony had brought the boxes, and I told her that I was sorry but I'd been with my family and she said that it was okay. And then she said that we had a lot of catching up to do and that was gonna be fun. I had lots of things to tell her about Earth and she had lots of things to tell me about the person who she'd been sharing a room with and she admitted that it was sort of strange to have a pony again and not a person anymore.
Denim said that she’d gotten used to having to look up at her roommate, and I laughed and I said that I had, too.
Her name had been Julia and she was also studying math, and Denim said that she hadn't really been all that well-prepared for Equestrian math and I told her that humans used completely different symbols and drew some of them out for her and she said that they looked familiar.
And then she got a picture of all of them together for Nightmare Night, and Denim had a gold mask on and Julia was wearing a plaid shirt stuffed with straw, ‘cause she was a scarecrow. And she had dark hair like Peggy, and stormy grey eyes.
And we had a lot of other things to talk about, but we also both needed a little bit of time to ourselves to sort things out in our heads, so after we went to dinner (and I spent more time talking than eating) we came back to our room and I sat down at my desk and wrote a poem and I read it for Denim and she really liked it.
The Wayward Pony
The wayward pony
Finds herself home
Her travels finished
At least for now.
Like a ship, returning to port
Cutting its prow into the familiar harbor
As it returns to its slip
And the sails are struck.
There is sadness in endings
In journeys finished
In places and friends
Left behind.
But it is tempered with the joy
Of family
Of old friends, and
Familiar places.
The seas change a ship
They bend its planks
Twist its keel
Stretch its rigging.
The ship that left port
Is not the same as the ship which returns.
And this is also true
Of the traveller.
Every friend we make
Takes a little piece of our heart
And gives us a piece back
To replace it.
I copied that over to a new piece of paper, and I wrote a little letter to Conrad to go with it, and I put it in an envelope so that I could mail it to him tomorrow, and then I spent the rest of the evening finishing my journal.
It felt kind of strange that my last goodbye would be to my journal.
Should I say "Is that it?"
It feels strange to us too, Silver.
8002724
One more chapter.
I was gonna say, one more push and it'll be over the one million words mark!
Days without entries from Silver's journal are going to take some getting used to!
8002741 After all this, I have the highest of expectations. I bought a whole new box of tissues for the last chapter and I intend to use them all. Please don't disappoint me.
Is this it or will we get some epilogue journal entries?
8002724 still has "INCOMPLETE"
Interesting.^^ Is this the finale for this great fic?
8002753
This.
See you, Silver. Vaya con huevos. But not goodbye. Never goodbye. I think the best way to say it is: http://dai.ly/x2czv1t?start=67 (because it's my favorite version of the song and for some reason it's not on youtube.)
I know this isn't the last chapter, but part of me simply can't believe it's over.
It's like a friend is dying; it's had its ups and downs, but it feels like its always been here.
And these damn pegasi keep leaving rainclouds over my face!
Biscuit the promised meeting with Celestia isn't here and Twilight is a LAME SUBSTITUTE!
...
The ending of this story is effecting my real life...
I, like so many others, can't believe what this little pony means to us.
You've taken nothing and made it something...
Thank you.
8002741 That's right. Only 424 word to go!
One thing she doesn't mention, but I'd bet after a year on Earth her accent has changed & her friends think she talks weird. I'd also bet that if the Humans weren't vegetarians (maybe part of the selection process?) they got to Jonesing for meat so bad Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett. IDK how common nonequines are in EQ in your universe but Diamond Dogs are probably carnivores, Dragons & (most likely) Griffons are omnivores, & Minotaurs may be omnivores (The original Greek legend was an anthrophage). They would have meat, plus some pet stores. Estee's story Naked Lunch goes into this problem. But the smell of cooking meat would utterly gross out Ponies. Sounds like they'd have Sushi bars in EQ but that is NOT a completely adequate substitute
One of the hugest differences would be no I-phones in EQ & no spontaneous musical numbers on Earth (outside of musicals)
That poem was beautiful
I feel like I should have more to say, but it just won't come to me.
Meghan might be a bit offended if she heard that.
das racist
It just hit me that it's over.
Edit: and that letter to Conrad is the last one she'll get to write to him - I hope he gets to read it.
8002962
I can't remember which cartoon (Rocko's Modern Life?) had a character ask how everyone knew the words and were singing without rehearsing.
For a human to experience that would truly be magical.
That was a beautifully subtle way of pointing out the difference in food production technology and how it affected availability and variety between the worlds. Food in Equestria would likely be superb, but available only in season and in more limited quantity.
If Equestria starts canning fish though, let's all agree to never tell them about Surströmming.
Wow, I will really be missing the daily dose of Silver Glow. A new chapter was a nice start in the morning for the past year.
She really is obsessed with weather, isn't she?
8003073
I seem to remember an episode on the old Candid Camera show where they set up a diner so that everyone would start singing. People freaked big time
Silver Glow! You forgot to give your family the camel backs you brought all the way from Earth for them! Bad pony! No cookie!
Well... Okay... Maybe just one cookie...
need a space after the comma
This phrasing could probably do with some corrections.
it was
And so,
the end is near,
and we face,
the final curtain.
So sad to be so close to the end, and I fear the final chapter will be sadder still. I hope the letter makes it.
Very beautiful, I'll remember this.
goodbye Silver Glow it was vary nice to get to know you.
For some reason, I had a problem (I don't even know why) with the whole Silver/Aric/Meghan thing, until I read the poem you posted in this entry. It kinda opened my eyes to what was happening and now I'm ok with it.
It's going to be a sad day for the last entry.
Now I want to read a Silver Glow's Journal story from a human going to Equestria perspective.
Well, thank you for what has been a wonderful ride. I started reading this almost exactly from the beginning and never missed a day thereafter. Everyone else has said how they will miss Silver Glow's words everyday and I can but agree with them. This story will be cherished for a long time by everyone else who comes across it, but it won't be the same as reading it one day at a time and holding off reading it til the next day when you're up too late and it is posted around midnight.
I even enjoyed all the people's comments and discussions resulting from this monumental project--- all but a million words and it'll probably hit it tomorrow. Silver Glow kinda reflects how I feel about no longer reading about her adventures on Earth her adjustment back to Equestria mirrors mine adjusting to no longer reading her thoughts while drinking my morning coffee.
I wonder how you will do, Admiral, no longer channeling Silver's thoughts and feelings and looking at Earth with a new set of eyes. I loved the poetry and the final poem. Thanks again.
I think I need a sequel.
Tacticool is going to become a fashion trend among pegasi, i tell you!
maybe the camo pattern camelbags are going to be a thing, because they make a nice contrast to the bright fur color most of them have.
Also whats up with the word count ? thanks god its still incomplet !
8003766
We all do, and its not like the chapters lack material for sequels.
Did we ever get to hear about her Cutie Mark story?
I'm not normally so fidgety, but knowing what's coming, I keep refreshing every minute or so.
I really liked that ending. I migth've liked it better with the poem as an addedum after the signature, but it wouldn't be like Silver to do so.
It's vrry fitting to end with a poem, she and Conrad did bring quite a few of us back to reading and writting poetry.
And I really think it is your best poem so fat, if only for how meaningfull it was.
I have big expectations for her letter to Conrad, please do not disapoint
8002731
8002747
Yup, the one final chapter.
8002753
It's really weird to not be writing them.
8002755
I imagine that you were not disappointed?
8002758
The journal is now complete (as I'm sure you know); however, I don't think we've left Silver Glow's world behind for good just yet.
8002828
This was supposed to be the last chapter, but there's one final bit of wrapup that needed to be done.
8002855
I always say Vaya con queso
...was that Patrick Stewart I saw? And Neil DeGrasse Tyson?
8002879
<hugs>
Curse those pegasi and their rain clouds.
8002881
Don't let Twilight hear that; she'll get medieval on your butt.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/69/b9/d4/69b9d45082b5644aae427958e2fc8cfb.jpg
8002915
You're welcome! It's been a fun ride, hasn't it?
8002962
It probably has, at least a little bit. And for a while, she might forget and say things in English, which would also confuse her friends.
Or at least red meat . . . fish would have been available. Probably when they get back, their digestive systems aren't going to be quite up to the task at first. And I bet that some of them became vegetarian and stayed that way.
In Equestria, about as common as in the show, which is to say, rare but not unknown. Diamond Dogs are, dragons, it's hard to say--they eat gems and that may be their main source of nutrition, or else the gems might just be a supplement. I would lean towards dragons being meat-eaters, but I think it could really go either way. Griffons are definitely carnivores or somewhat omnivores (I doubt that they normally eat many veggies at all), Minotaurs are probably vegetarian (since they're half bovine).
It's probably going to depend on the pony. IRL horses don't like the smell of dead animals, since they know that that attracts predators; however, I don't know how they feel about cooking meat. I could see a pony getting used to it . . . there are very likely ponies who cook for griffons, etc., and I don't think that they'd all be opposed to the idea. Silver Glow was never really bothered too much by cooking meat when she was on Earth.
The spontaneous singing (even if it isn't as flashy and choreographed as in the show) would freak people out, I bet.
8003025
Thanks!
Sometimes there aren't words, so here:
img09.deviantart.net/e693/i/2012/033/f/4/pinkie_and_rarity_by_mahaugher-d4oh1tz.png
8003033
Yeah, she would. Although it's not her fault; it's been a long, stressful couple of days for Silver Glow.
Although when you think about it, there's really not all that much color variety in humans, compared to ponies.
<hugs>
He did.
8003042
You're welcome!
Unfortunately. . . .
8003073
I can't remember which fic it was (maybe Anthropology?) but they were heartsongs, and a pony just started singing when the mood was right.
8003076
Yeah, although the ponies are probably somewhat better at storing food because of magic, but they don't have industrial farming, or that good a transport network, either. If you live far inland and you want fresh seafood, you'd best buy a train ticket to the coast.
I think that they'd love it. Also:
2b9sqw2iiqxr36ntqa1exnal-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/lutefisk_hotline_olsen_fish-co.jpg
8003103
8003118
Of course she is--it's what she was born for. To feel the wind under her wings and the rain lashing at her face, to fly out over the raging ocean and shove those feral storms back away from Equestria . . .
8003189
Improv Anywhere has done it. If you haven't seen any of their work, here you go:
8003342
Fear not, she'll give them to them before too long.
8003504
8003528
<hugs>
It does.
8003576
Goodbye for now . . . she's out there still, patrolling a distant shore.
8003689
I'm curious why, if you don't mind sharing.
I'm afraid so.
8003694
I may do that yet, although it certainly won't be a daily. :derpytonge2: That way lies madness, for me at least.
8003715
Yeah, I think that latecomers kind of got a very different reading experience. I know a ways back there were some people who were kind of frustrated (in a good way) because they had to wait to find out how something turned out, and of course newcomers won't have to do that. And I'll admit, I didn't always know what she was going to get up to the next day, or the day after.
Oh, man, the comments have been the most amazing thing ever. This is the fourth-most commented on story on FimFic, and we've all discussed pretty much everything, haven't we?
Well, now that we're two weeks out, it's still weird. I think about her a lot--what she might be doing, and I can see her standing on the rocks, looking out over the ocean with Chonamare at her back, or gliding over the sea, riding thermals and maybe resting on a cloud every now and then.
You're quite welcome!
8003766
I think I need a sequel.
8003914
And don't forget about the high-viz vests. Actually, and this is true, you haven't seen the last of pegasi carrying equipment. I've got another story idea involving that.
8004999
No, she never put that in her journal.
8005946
I did think about that, but you're right--that's not how she would have done it.
That is legit the most amazing thing about this story, it really is.
Thank you!
Conrad did get the letter.
8005236
<hugs>
8044148
I certainly imagined some things around those lines, but between how busy I am and the fact I have no experience with that level of worldbuilding, I wouldn't want to attempt it.
8079839
It's a crazy idea, that's for sure. Setting it on Earth is easier, because most of the worldbuilding is already done, and you only have to contrast (without fully explaining) how it works for ponies. I think it's doable, though--maybe not as a daily--as long as you've got a really good idea of what you're gonna do with each chapter.
It might be easier to do what I'd originally intended, and have each chapter focus on one specific aspect of difference between the worlds. I'm not sure how well that would actually work from a narrative standpoint, though.