March 26
We met Mister Barrow and Miss Parker in the hotel restaurant and ate breakfast, and they said that there were all sorts of museums and shops and restaurants that we could go to. Well, Gusty's ears perked at the word 'shops,' and she said that she wanted to go shopping.
That wasn't my idea of a fun day, really, but then yesterday she'd gone up to the top of the Willis Tower and ridden on the sailing boat with all of us, and so it was only fair that we let her do something that she'd really like. At least, that's how I saw it, so I didn't object.
We packed up all our bags and the bellhop put them into the back of a silver van, but we were going to hoof it through town.
It was a bit chilly, especially because there was a wind. Mister Barrow told us that Chicago was called the Windy City because of that. And the place where we were going was called the magnificent mile because of all the stores.
We were in a part of Chicago called 'the loop,' which was the very heart of the town. To our east was all public parks and museums and galleries and such and then a little bit further in where we were were the shops that Gusty wanted to see so much.
She didn't really have a plan; she just went into any shop that caught her eye and we followed. We went into clothes stores and shoe stores (that only sold human shoes) and jewelry stores and little galleries and antique shops. She even pressed her nose against the glass of restaurants as we went by, perhaps hoping that she would find something besides food there.
And even though I didn't find shopping all that enjoyable, when I thought of it more as a series of art galleries, it was pretty nice. A lot of the people working in the stores were super-friendly, and would answer our questions about what we saw for sale.
Then we went into a little store that sold stuff from Equestria, and that was really weird. A lot of it was really junky stuff: you could tell it hadn't been made by a proper craftsmare, but was cobbled together by an apprentice who was just learning the trade. And then there was also a bunch of stuff which was supposedly antique but was really just worn-out.
Most of the stuff was human-made, though, and they called that 'Equestrian-themed.' One thing they had that I kind of liked was a little hoop that they called a 'dream catcher,' and it had several pegasus feathers hanging from it. Small ones that weren't big enough to be used for quills, and some that had been clipped short probably because the vane had been broken.
I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my feathers when I moulted. Back in Equestria, we kept them and turned them in where they were cleaned and sorted and then sold to quillmakers, but here on Earth I hadn't seen anybody using a quill. So I took a card from the counter that had the shop's telephone number; I could call them and ask.
Even though there wasn't anything in the shop that was really worth buying, all the people there were interested in us, and asked us questions about Equestria and things on the wall and it was kind of funny how wrong they were about some stuff.
We probably could have stayed there for the rest of the day answering questions, but we wanted to move on to different stores, so we left the store after about ten minutes and went on to the next shop.
We had a nice lunch at a little restaurant called Pastoral, and then we continued our shopping until it was time for Gusty to go to the train station.
Everybody hugged and said their goodbyes. Gusty promised that she'd come to Chicago some weekend to hang out with Cayenne, and she reminded us again that we all should come and see the play that she was in. Then there was a lot of hugging and nuzzling before she finally got into the taxi with Mister Barrow. He was going to stay at the train station, because he'd be meeting the rest of us there in a couple of hours.
Cayenne took us to the park, and we walked all the way down to the waterfront. She pointed out some of the sights to us, and a sculpture called Cloud Gate that she thought I'd like. It was a big bean-shaped mirror that reflected the sky and the buildings, which was really clever.
Then she said that we could take an L-train and see some more of the city quicker than we could walk, so we rode it for two laps—first looking out one side and then the other. Then we had to walk to the train station, because the L didn't go there (Cayenne said that we could, but we'd have to change trains a few times).
Mister Barrow was there and so were Cayenne's human helpers, who introduced themselves as Miss Blaise and Mister Garvin. For the first time on the trip, we were outnumbered by our human helpers, which was actually kind of nice because it meant that we didn't have to carry any of our bags.
Aquamarine and I both said that we'd keep in touch with Cayenne, and find a weekend to visit her, maybe when the weather got a bit warmer and there were flowers in all the flower gardens in the park.
Then we hugged and went down to the platform and got on our train. This time instead of sitting in our own seats, we found a set of four that had a table between them, kind of like a restaurant table, and we sat there, with me and Aquamarine on one side, and Mister Barrow and Miss Parker on the other.
Since we were reversing our route from before, I kind of knew what to expect from it. The huge expanse of city that just stretched on forever was still hard to wrap my head around, especially since it extended in three directions from the train station: we'd seen a lot of the south side of it when we came in on the train (and now we were seeing it again), and then we'd left on our trip to the north, and returned from the west. I think if they could have built the city out into the lake, they would have done that, too.
Like before, we went slowly when we were still in the city. There were a lot of tracks and a lot of other trains, and our engineer probably had to be careful not to run into any of them.
I hadn't thought about it before, but when we jolted over a crossover, the train hadn't stopped for anybody to set the switch. I asked Mister Barrow about it, and he said that the switches were controlled remotely, so that they just had to put the train's route into a computer and then it would set the course for the train. Then he started to explain how you could stack trains and Miss Parker punched his arm and told him that we really didn't need to know that.
But I did want to know: I'd seen trains that carried long boxes that stacked on top of each other, and if they could do that than maybe they could put trains on top of each other if they were both going to the same place.
Mister Barrow laughed and said that wasn't what he meant; he said that there were signal lights that said whether a train could go or not, and that stacking routes meant that the train dispatcher could set a route for one train, and then one for the next train, and the switches would stay set for the first train until it passed, then they would change for the second train.
When we were finally out of the city, the train sped up, and I knew that it wouldn't be that much longer before I was home again.
We watched the scenery out the windows and talked about how much fun we'd had on the trip. I wanted to know what other ponies had done for their vacations. Miss Parker said that most of them had gone on trips like we had. Some had gone by airplane instead of train, because there were a few ponies who wanted to go to very specific places.
I thought about how much Gusty had loved California and Los Angeles and wondered why she'd gone by train, but then I remembered how much she hated the Space Needle and Willis Tower, and thought that maybe she was afraid of being in an airplane, too.
When we were getting close to Kalamazoo, Aquamarine helped me strap on my saddlebags so that I'd be ready to get off the train, and then I hugged her and kissed her and said that we should hang out some weekend because Michigan State and Kalamazoo College weren't that far away by train. And I hugged Mister Barrow and Miss Parker, too, and then it was time to get off the train.
I waved at it until it was gone, and when I turned around to go inside the building Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn were both there, and I hugged them too.
It was sad to leave the train station behind. I already missed being with other ponies, and thought that maybe it would have been better if we'd done things on our own or with just our usual human handlers, because then the trip wouldn't end with our little traveling band being torn apart.
But at the same time, it was nice to be going back to a familiar place. I missed all my friends and I even missed the familiarity of my dorm room, and even the bathroom.
They took me to Taco Bell for a late dinner, and I gave them a brief summary of my trip. I said that I wanted to go see an airplane factory, and that maybe I could do that if I went on the train out to see Peggy, and Mister Salvatore said that he could arrange for that. He told me that he could get me into a Boeing factory, too, which was where they made big airplanes like the one I'd flown on before.
Miss Cherilyn reminded him that there was a museum in Kalamazoo that had old airplanes, and I thought that would be a fun place to go on a weekend. Since it was inside, maybe it would be best to go soon before the weather was too nice outside to want to spend the day inside.
Then I told them how Gusty wanted us to come and see her play, and how Cayenne wanted us to come visit her in Chicago, and how Aquamarine and I wanted to spend some time together on a weekend, too, and Mister Salvatore said that that all sounded like a fine idea, and all we needed to do was decide when and how we were going to get there, and they could take care of the arrangements from that point on.
I kind of felt like royalty when he said that. But I wanted to figure out some stuff on my own, too: it was nice to have them there to help, but you can't learn to fly unless you actually go out and do it for yourself.
They dropped me off at the dorm, and I went upstairs to my room and unpacked my bags and just sat down on the bed and kind of reflected on the past week and then I read some of my Bible 'cause I was really really behind on doing that. I read through Deuteronomy, where God told Moses the rules the people were supposed to follow and then Moses told them. From what I'd read before, I didn't think that the people would be all that good at following the rules. Then Moses died in the end, and Joshua took his place.
The next book was about Joshua, who had taken the place of Moses. He was going to lead the people into Canaan, and first he told them what to do and told them to make sure that they followed the rules, and then he sent spies into Jericho and they stayed with a prostitute who promised to help them if they kept her family safe, and they said that they would.
I stopped reading there because I wasn't sure how I should feel about her. She recognized that God had promised the Isrealites the land, and they would have had it already if they weren't so bad at following rules, but at the same time she was lying and betraying her tribe, and they'd been there first.
I really needed to talk to Liz about what I'd read so far, and I would just have to admit that I hadn't read as much as I should have. She was really nice; she wouldn't be mad at me.
I was getting kind of lonely, since none of my friends were back from Spring Break yet. I flew out to Aric's house, but Winston wasn't in the driveway and the house was all dark, so he wasn't back from his trip yet. Then I flew back to campus and thought I'd check on my other friends.
I went to DeWaters first 'cause it was the closest, and Meghan was back but nobody else was yet. She was really happy to see me and invited me in, and we sat on her bed and talked about how our vacations had been.
We talked until it was kind of late, and I really didn't want to leave and go back to my lonely dorm room, but she said that I could spend the night with her if I wanted to. So she went into the bathroom to put on her night clothes and that reminded me of Gusty and how she didn't want to be without clothes.
I told Meghan about that after she got dressed, and she laughed and said that Gusty had gone native.
I asked her if it bothered her that I wasn't wearing clothes, and she said that she didn't mind because it was a pony thing, but sometimes it was a little weird.
I said that if it bothered her and she had an extra shirt I could put it on, and she laughed and said that a shirt wouldn't cover anything important. I said that it would cover my wings, and those were pretty important; they were about the most important part of me. I’d rather lose a leg or an eye than my wings.
Her face got red and she said that wasn't what she meant; my veejay would still be out where anybody could see it.
I told her if it really bothered her I could find something to wear. Aric had underwear called boxers that had a slit for his penis to go through and if I wore them backwards my tail could fit through there, and it wouldn't be all that uncomfortable, but Meghan said it was okay, she was just being silly.
She changed the subject and told me that tomorrow was Easter Sunday, and she wanted to know if I was going to go to church, since it was a special day. There were going to be services at Stetson Chapel, and Liz was going to be preaching.
I said I hadn't known, but I would like to go. I could learn more about God, and afterward I could have Liz answer some of my questions.
She told me a little bit about Easter, and it was sort of hard to follow, but I think I got the idea. Liz would surely talk about it more tomorrow. And she said that it was traditional for people to wear really nice clothes to church, but she supposed that it would be all right if I went naked, and I stuck my tongue out at her and told her I had a nice dress back in my dorm room and I'd wear it. I knew that there were formal occasions where clothes were required.
When we finally got in bed together, she was a little bit squirmy but eventually we got settled into a nice position where she was on her side holding me against her. We sat like that for a little bit and then sort out of nowhere she said that it was a little hot with the two of us together in bed like this and would I mind if she took off her shirt.
It was okay with me, although I thought it sort of strange that she'd made such a big deal about putting it on in the bathroom where I couldn't see if she was going to take it off again. And it didn't seem like it was all that much cooler after she took off her shirt, either.
It's a crazy story, really. What must her life have been like? Did she prosper? Was she desperate? Did she feel that they had betrayed her first, or had she chosen her path freely? Did she truly reject the evil of Jericho or was she choosing the winning side?
Joshua will be a bit hard on her, I think. It's a violent book, and one I could talk about a lot. Tho I think she'll get a kick out of the Gibeonites.
I wonder if that kiss was on the cheek? If nuzzling is acceptable the whole cheek kissing thing must be as well.
I also kind of wonder if she thinks of Aric more as a FWB she likes or as a boyfriend proper. It's hard cause we don't have their convos, only her writing, which is also the cool part of the whole story.
And I am PUMPED for Silver Glow the Pegasus Goes to Church on Easter
Once the pegasi are able to introduce widespread weather control to Earth, I predict a rise in nudism.
A lot of feels in this chapter. Friendships made. Stories told. Oy, I'm tired.
And then when she gets back to Equestria, she'll find a shop containing third rate chinese knockoffs and worn out gadgets as an "Earth Themed Store" :D
Interested to see religious reactions to a pony from a land ruled by a god-empress.
At my school, the Christian organization and the Atheist organization teamed up for charity. The Christians solicited their churches for donations, and the Atheists agreed to attend a service at the top-donating church.
Somewhat related, I think it's interesting how many comments on this story are about college life in general, rather than the pony subject matter.
Oi, Meghan, just no.
Yikes.
I read that Alaska has the most nudist colonies. Apparently, space is more important than climate.
Church, Meghan? Is that why you're still too scared to go full-on college lesbos with a horse? Cause you're still dancing around it while Silver's been banging Aric for a month now.
Who do these human helpers work for? Department of Education? State?
Defense?
7239501
It must be State.
7239243
I love it, that's great.
7239422 She's been trying, she gave a few signal, Silver just didn't pick it up.
Silver is lazy!
This filly reads through Deuteronomy and a chunk of Joshua in a single sitting and then feels guilty that she's not reading enough. English isn't even her native language. What kind of crazy death-march reading program did she grow up with?
7239501 The recently-created Bureau of Intercontinual Trade, Tourism, and Defense?
No, wait. Let's make it a Department. Then the acronym will be DITTD, which sounds like "ditty".
7239501
Department of Pone.
7239787 actually considering how silver is, she caught on at the very beginning. She just doesn't think too much of it and if most likely waiting for the girl to make a move.
I'm still waiting for the drama of a live triangle, though
7239882 Considering this seems to be set in the future of the show, I'd say the program was part of Twilight's education reforms.
7240013
To the employees annoyance, they're constantly confused with The Department of Pwn. The angry phone calls from Baby Boomers upset at the lack of manners displayed by most gamers drives them up the wall, and working the phones is considered unofficial punishment duty for agents that do a poor job helping the ponies.
7239422
I gave that comment a thumbs up just for the amount of giggle it incited in me.
The bit with physics student pony makes me want to see a side story with the a human on the Equestria side.
*NGE joke about thermo dynamics*
I can understand how Silver feels. It does feel a little lonely returning from a trip and then getting back into the normal routine. I've been there.
I hadn't really considered that. "Tribe" to a pony means a sub-species, while "tribe" to a human is more of a combination of extended family and governmental unit. That's going to lead to some translation issues.
Mr. Barrow lied. Chicago is called the Windy City because none of the politicians ever shut up.
Oddly enough, airplanes don't trigger my acrophobia. I think it's because it's an enclosed space and not open-air. I'm also starting to wonder if my fear of heights is actually just a form of agoraphobia, since big, open spaces in general make me very uncomfortable.
7241626 Real agoraphobia?
KInda rare.
7240063 Wasn't it clearly stated at some point that Silver didn't pick it up and someone had to explain thing for her?
7239422 Deps on which denomination of Christianity the church is a part of. Since it has a female preacher it'll either be one of the Protestant Churches or part of the Anglican Church.
I'm not up to date with Protestant Church stances on Same-Sex relationships, but the Anglican Church is okay so long as there is love (not lust). This is built upon the concept that God is love, and if there is love, then why should we oppose it?
We already saw how distressed Silver was during her first plane trip. Now, imagine how stressful Gusty's was.
Alas, the time of vacation has come nearly to a close. It's time for the group to depart and go their own ways.
Huh. My dad works for Boeing in their Everett plant. If you wanted some 'research material' for that chapter, I'm sure I could come up with some.
If Silver Glow is into aircraft, is she also interested in spaceflight? Because you can't tour Kansas's aircraft manufacturing industry and miss out on the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. I haven't been back for a few years, but to my knowledge they have the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow and remains the permanent home of America's two most exciting spacecraft -- Liberty Bell 7 and Odyssey (the command module from the Apollo 13 mission.) And they might let a very exciting type of tourist, like, say, an alien pony from another universe in the back rooms, where the parachute from Apollo 11 and the Space Shuttle Flight Simulator for the space camp kids are kept, away from public view. I have it on good authority that VIPs get such tours
How's that for a KS tourist destination, Ms. Government Agent?
7240013 Department Of Offworld Ponies, or DOOP. I'm sure that acronym's never been used...
Mr. Barrow? Ms. Parker? Was that intentional or just an interesting accident?
7257300
I'm assuming that you caught on to their first names, and it wasn't an accident.
7239024
The pragmatic part of me thinks that she probably saw the writing on the wall (so to speak) and chose what she hoped was the safest path.
Cheek kissing is totally socially acceptable among the ponies.
It's rough, isn't it?
7239046
Hmm, it's more a state of mind than weather, IMHO. Sure, it's not as fun when it's raining, but there are plenty of nice days.
7239064
7239107
And probably all the customers will be well-off ponies who don't know any better.
7239243
A pony religion--if there even was such a thing--would be totally different than anything humans would ever come up with. Having a Princess sit on the throne for over a thousand years changes a lot.
7239359
I think it's more attitudes of the people there that matters. Space is important, sure, but pretty much any state can support a small resort or ten without any crowding. But in some places people are a lot more prudish than in others. Heck, Michigan's got the second-longest coastline in the US (only behind Alaska) and we haven't got one official nude beach in the whole state.
7239422
Best comment.
7239501
Probably state.
7239791
She's just appreciating the finer things in life.
7239882
Looking at it the other way, though, she's the Bible for seven or eight weeks and has only made it six chapters in.
One of my English professors in college assigned two hundred pages of reading the first day. I dropped that class.
7240581
Has such a story been written? I don't mean in this universe, but one where a human exchange student goes to an Equestrian college. I can't think of any.
7240899
It's always a mix of sadness and joy--it's nice to be in a familiar place, but it's sad to be away from the fun of the trip.
7240981
It does. The pony group divisions would be pony, tribe, herd, band, family, and individual, with of course other divisions as appropriate. They're using 'tribe' much like we'd use 'ethnicity.'
7241483
Except when they get tossed in jail
7241626
I'm not sure if they do for me or not. I have several other reasons I don't particularly like being in them--pretty much the whole experience from one end to the other, really. So I just avoid them whenever possible. I normally want a window seat, though, so I can see out, at least on daytime flights.
7241969
Christine told her early on that Meghan was a furry and probably wanted to have sex with her. That was after they shared the hot tub.
7242581
It varies by the denomination. The woman that Liz is modeled after is actually a pastor who has performed gay marriages, and once preached a sermon about same sex marriage and racism.
The Methodists currently forbid it, but my dad (retired minister) says that they're going to bring it up at the next national conference and decide if it's okay. In the north, a Methodist minister can probably get away with performing a same-sex marriage as long as nobody complains to the conference. If my dad does one, they'll strip him of his official rank, but there isn't anything else they can do to punish him or stop him; they can't even take away his right to issue marriage certificates.
7243092
She probably spent the whole flight huddled up in terror between her minders, and when her exchange program is over, she'll be taking a train or be driven back to the exchange building.
7243503
That could be handy! I'm considering having her go there over the summer for a day or two. I'm sure Boeing would be just as interested at seeing her as she is at seeing airplanes under construction, and imagine what you could learn by putting a pegasus in a wind tunnel.
7244596
Not as much as she is into normal flight, but she'd be interested in seeing the tiny capsules strapped on gigantic rockets that we used to send men to the moon. She'd be more interested from an anthropological perspective: how humans figured out flight even though they couldn't fly themselves. And then how far we took it.
7245636
Just don't let Zapp get anywhere near it.
7257816
Oh, I hate flying, too. It just has nothing to do with my fear of heights. Even the bureaucracy and security theater weren't that bad (certainly not fun, though), but the real kicker came during a landing as the cabin was changing pressure. Something in my sinuses wasn't cooperating and began putting pressure on my dental nerve endings. I've had a kidney stone before, but this was the most agonizing experience of my life. Afterwards, I could taste blood, and my sinuses have never been quite the same since.
This line is glorious.
7239024 She does end up with her name in the genealogy of Jesus, which is a pretty good deal, in the end, I think.
Joshua is a real hero; he lead the Isrælis on a genocidal campaign. If it breathed, they killed it.
7257777
¿Did one measure all of the coastlines with rulers of the same length? Coastlines are fractal; so now, as the length of a ruler decreases toward 0, the measured of coastlines approaches ∞.
7435827
ah, but if that's how you want to talk, then I propose a standard of measurement where we look at the length of a ruler required for an arbitrary amount, say 1M kilometres.
a longer coastline wouldn't need as small a ruler to gain such a number. and so, you can still quantify how long a coastline is, without having to measure it to perfect infinite length.
7243503
Oh god, not Everett! Anything but Everett! (I'm *mostly* kidding haha. I work for Boeing at the Huntsville Design Center and anytime work gets offered from Everett there's a rush by everyone to see if they can get onto another program before they get moved to Everett's work. KC-46 Tanker, 777, etc.)
(yes, the comment's a bit late, but I finally escaped Tanker and am waiting for the nightmares to stop now. Your comment was a perfect excuse to work out some trauma haha. forgive me!)
7873414
My brother's been in flight testing for smaller companies ever since he got out of college, and he said that their department usually all gets laid off whenever an aircraft design is finished, and they move on to the next manufacturer who's ready for flight testing.
Heh, no worries. I'm a month behind on the comments, maybe more . . . so you can just point to me and say I was your inspiration, y'know?
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Really? Huh. I don't remember noticing that when I got to the New Testament, although I sort of skimmed over the geneaology bit.
7435827
I would assume so. I don't know that for a fact, but since they do give a length in hundreds or thousands of miles, I presume that they aren't using an infinitesimally small ruler, or else anybody who has any coastline can brag that they have an infinitely long coastline.
7733564
I'd assume that there's some accepted method of measuring a coastline to a reasonable amount of exactness, and honestly, it's probably a bit of an estimation. Maybe now with satellite imagery, they're more exact, but I can't really see what the purpose of measuring every little zig and zag on the coastline would be. And then you'd get into questions like at a river's mouth, where does the coastline end and the riverbank start, and so on.
7888526
Actually no:
Professor Mandelbrot noticed that different Encyclopædias had different values for the length of the smale coastline. This observation lead to Fractals. Here is the seminal paper he wrote about coastlines:
¿How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
CoastLineParadox
An article about the paper:
¿How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
So this was written the day of The Crystalling? Why's there no mention of Flurry Heart?
8074307
So this was written the day of The Crystalling? Why's there no mention of Flurry Heart?
In story time, that was years ago, and anyways, the dates don't line up--Earth and Equestria have a different calendar. Later on in the story, Silver Glow admits that she doesn't even know when her birthday is for sure.
8074307
Yeah. This story is set about 10 years after first contact & that was several years after the show. Figure that FH is probably a teenager.
And now passed where the commentary stopped, sadly. Still means bit more detail to note. Few things from before that.
The whole getting her some instruments to measure stuff as she flies never seems to have taken off, guess any number of reasons that could fall through. Did at least follow up on becoming a stormwatcher.
I am so glad this story does not take place in Chicago, just because all the time all I'd be doing is referencing Dresden Files. Like with the comment about the Field Museum and it's fossil collection. Because YAY Sue! Best Zombie T-Rex!
Cayenne.. I love Cayenne, and all I can think of when it brings up what she's here to study is this.
schlockmercenary.com/strip/1711/0/schlock20050216.jpg?v=1443894894418
Also, silly Pegapony, in LA and just spending all day at the beach. Then again, she had fun that is what matters. And the agent watching her got a paid beach vacation day. Truly being a pony herder has many, many perks.
The 'ear language' smart idea, though wondering if she didn't invent it on the spot given the others were lost. Also adorable.
Silly pony handlers getting all "maybe you should discuss sex out n the open like this.' and trying to tastefully get them to realize some things aren't really appropriate in public without offending them.
Peggy really is best Pony-Friend. D'awwwwwww
It is also really awesome just how out of their way the humans go to let the ponies see and do whatever they want to. Way more then you'd think any other exchange student program would. Gotta make a good impression on the literal Sun Goddess. And I'm sure the humans in Equestria also get the same treatment as well, just because Pony.
I also loved the bit about Gusty trying to help Silver feel better about no plans, with a slight bit of tribalism herself. Let Silver see how it feels being on the other end of casual 'oh X race is like Y' while not being meant as an insult at all. And something that does really fit Silver. She's not much of a planner beyond some overall goals. She's very, very much a 'live in the moment' type pony that just sees where things go and flies along for the ride.
Then the talk about how sexy clothes can be, that sent me off thinking about how much it matches The Apprentice Adapt series, a whole planet where no on is allowed to were clothes except the upper elite. By this point, no one considered naked as sexy,but being allowed to wear clothes, even if only doing so in private, is so decadent and alluring.
Those badges get ponies through any line. Its also adorable how she keeps focusing on showing the wallet, rather then what is inside of it.
Cayenne, even for a race that has no nudity taboo's and always walks around showing what they've got... she's an exhibitionist. Hoping someone looks up at her while she's sitting on a glass floor.
Speaking off, hopefully her handlers get a nice, LONG vacation after she leaves. They have to be the hardest working, most hectic pair of agents in the whole department.
Also love that while they are willing to do everything for Silver, to the point of her feeling like royalty, she wants to be able to do stuff on her own as well.
Silly silly Meghan, you don't need excuses to be naked with the pony. And Pony is clearly not taking the hints that you want a bit more either. Really do need to learn to be more direct about it.
She said 'all us pegasus were shown a movie' about the dangers of electrical lines. But she's the only pegasus in the program more or less. Or was this not just those in the program, but an ALL pegasi thing just in case they ever go over to Earth?
Also love her so pony mindset that a class full of people she doens't know, just means she gets to make new friends.
Silly Doctor Sir, trolling the pony by asking her think she failed the class already. I do kind of like him, this was just Silver being far too literal again. Also like how she always keeps that full title for him. Though, did find it really really odd she never actually mentioned WHAT class this was.
Last note, odd how she gave this long bit about where she's from not having a name,and just being a cloud outpost, and all this other stuff, when any other time after this it's just simply made that she's from Chronamare.
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As I recall, I did a bit of looking on that and couldn't think of anything that would be terribly useful for her to carry that wouldn't be all encumbering. I suppose there are some gauges that might be useful, and I think if she'd spent some time working with a NOAA weather station, that's something that they would have had her do.
It's also possible that Mister Salvatore was shooting down some requests (and Silver probably doesn't know anything about them). Likely both scientific requests that he didn't think she should do, and possibly some commercial requests (like maybe having her carry a banner advertising Jimmy Johns or something like that).
Some of those monster bones that Silver Glow mentioned getting dug up every now and then. One of my friends actually works at the Field Museum. I'm not sure exactly what she does.
Party girl Cayenne is best pony.
Not all ponies like looking at buildings or visiting museums and so on. Plus, she's an ocean pegasus, which makes the beach that much more appealing to her.
And yeah, some of the pony wranglers have a great job. But then there's Cayenne's helpers. . . .
That was actually a nod to Misunderstandings, where two of the ponies used ear language. I think it would be a thing.
Having worked in the past with some girls of about that age (i.e., high school juniors/seniors or young college age) there are at least some who will discuss whatever with no thoughts of who might be listening . . . once they start talking about sex and stuff they sort of tune out whatever else is going on around them. Plus, it's probably exacerbated by the fact that they're normally at college (which tends to be more open about that kind of thing) along with coming from a culture which has very different taboos than we do.
Obviously, there's some stuff that they're not going to get to do, no matter how much they might want to--nobody's going to let Cayenne inside a functioning nuclear power plant, for example. At least noone with any sense. But yeah, they are getting kind of the full tourist treatment sometimes, and there are certainly things that the helpers are facilitating for them which would be difficult if not impossible for college students to manage on their own.
This is almost certainly reciprocal; humans in Equestria likely get to see pretty much whatever they want and go wherever they want (again, within reason).
Yeah, Silver isn't the best at planning things. Certainly not to the level of detail as her pony friends, anyways. But I think that probably is a tribal thing, and probably partially stems from pegasi not typically having permanent things. Their houses are easily moved somewhere else and sometimes get torn apart by the wind; when they don't like it where they are it's easy for them to migrate, etc. That would probably be somewhat magnified by the fact that Silver lives above a rural fishing village where a lot of what goes on in town is at the mercy of the ocean, so things happen when they happen.
There's also scholarly discussion of that and how it's more sexy to see a woman wearing something rather than nothing at all. I don't know how much culture plays into that, but I think that if we were a nudist culture and had been for a while, there would be some rules about wearing clothes and there almost certainly would be significance attached to that (both good and bad, I'd think). I'm not much of a judge of fashion so I can't think of a good comparative example off the top of my head, but maybe it would be like the kind of reactions someone might get to wearing an actual fur coat these days.
She probably hasn't really realized that Mister Salvatore has a special badge that basically says "I do what I want." And that he's willing to use it when the need arises.
There was one story I wrote where Berry Punch got tossed in jail for doing a pressed ham on Mayor Mare's window. Even in a nude culture, there's usually rules against . . . well, let's say 'showing off.' And honestly, it's probably not something Cayenne would do back in Canterlot, but here on Earth she's figured out that it gets people all worked up, which makes it more fun.
Oh, yeah, those poor bastards.
If they have a draft system (like the NFL, let's say), probably handlers that get a pony like Cayenne get first pick next year.
She's a strong independent mare who doesn't need The Man to tell her what to do! (Or something like that.)
I honestly think that getting treated like royalty would suck after a while. It's nice sometimes, but not forever.
Poor conflicted Meghan. This early, she's probably not sure exactly what she wants, which really doesn't help her in the 'mixed signals' department.
That would have been shown to every pegasus who visits Earth. The last thing that you want is some pegasi trying to perch on an electrical wire--even if it doesn't hurt them, they're likely heavy enough to break the wire (I'm honestly not sure how strong electrical wires are, but it's probably better to be safe than sorry).
It's mentioned a couple of times in the story that there are tourists that get short-term visas to visit, and some of them are pegasi, and some of them are allowed to fly some places, although not with the freedom Silver Glow's got.
That's very important to ponies.
Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee is best professor.
He wasn't actually trolling her; he didn't think that she was in the right class. What kind of pony knows advanced math?
She did mention what class it was, although not the first time she took it--it was Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos [that's what she specifically called it once]. IIRC, that's an actual class at K, with that name. The lecture series I watched to learn what that was was called Chaos, Fractals and Dynamical Systems.
The cluster of cloudhomes where she and the other pegasi live doesn't actually have a name. She said at one point that the groundponies jokingly called it 'North Chonamare.' It's possible (besides the obvious 'slightly careless writing by the author') that as she's adapted to life on Earth and how people name things that she's just settled on calling it Chonamare because that's easier.
A somewhat similar anecdote--I used to live in Franklin, MI, which is a suburb of Detroit. One of dozens that if you're not from the area, you've probably never heard of. I'd usually tell people that I lived in Metro Detroit, because that was much simpler and they thought of the right area pretty quickly. That's also handy if you're embarrassed by where you live, since Metro Detroit covers both affluent places like Birmingham and stholes like Hamtramck.