After my transformation, I had picked up walking as a pony relatively quickly. The big reason behind this is because as a pony, I was walking everywhere. There was no hopping my car or riding a bike or taking a train, at least not for getting around Canterlot. However, now that I had embraced my new body to the fullest, my wings were on track to replace hooves as my primary method of locomotion. As my fear of heights had vanished, I quickly found that I was in love with the sky. How much of this was pegasus instinct versus the sheer freedom that flight brought, I wasn't sure. Now I knew why most pegasi tended to fly around everywhere rather than walk unless they were in mixed groups of ponies. Our bodies were built to fly and they knew it.
At first, I figured I would be limited to only a little bit of flying around a day. In my mind, the act of flight had to be immensely tiring, it involved lifting my not inconsiderable weight on a pair of roughly four foot wings. Pegasus ponies were lighter than similarly sized earth ponies and unicorns, I was a just barely on the heavy side at 385 pounds but that far exceeded any lift I should have been able to generate. I had assumed flying around all the time would be like sprinting everywhere as a human, immensely tiring. Instead, if anything it actually took less effort to fly unless I was going all out.
It had to have something to do with how pegasus flight was powered by magic, I could think of no other explanation that would allow me to zip around for hours at a time without wearing myself out. And zip around I did, forwards, backwards, up down, left right. No bird on Earth had as much skyward mobility as I now found myself possessing. The only thing that even came close was maybe a hummingbird. Like them, I could even hover in place. Except unlike hummingbirds, who had to beat their wings up to 50 times a second I could get by with a few lazy flaps once every second or so.
On top of my new found freedom of movement came the speed. After making very good progress on Monday through Wednesday's sessions with Bulk Biceps, he told me that Thursday would be my last day with him. That morning we headed to the outskirts of the city to an open field that a nearby school used for sports. It was large enough that I had plenty of room to push myself as hard as I possibly could.
Bulk Biceps brought some equipment to measure my performance. After he set it up, I flew a number of laps around the field at various speeds and then did a few flybys at my fastest possible speed. On my best run I topped out at 165 miles per hour, over twice as fast as my typical highway driving speed. This was actually on the lower end for most pegasus ponies, but Bulk Biceps was confident that with practice I could easily hit 200 in a few months.
While I could only keep my top speed for about a minute, more impressive was what I could do at what pegasi called their cruising speed. The speed that they could keep up anywhere from an hour to a whole day, depending on their abilities. I was able to do just under an hour of laps at 90 mph before I started getting tired. Just like my top speed, Bulk Biceps stated that would also improve over time, though he couldn't say how much. Maximum endurance was often related to a ponies talent.
For example, Wonderbolts, who generally had talents in high speed precision flying, typically, though not always, had endurance on the lower end but excelled at bursts of very high speed. On the other hand a mail pony might top out at 200 mph but they could fly at their cruise speed while carrying a heavy load for most of a day without getting too tired, allowing them to cover a huge amount of ground. I still didn't have a cutie mark, so I had no idea how that would ultimately affect my flying.
After we finished, Bulk Biceps packed up his equipment and headed back into Canterlot. I decided that I'd spend the rest of the day flying around for the joy of it. I found myself in Ponyville when I realized I was getting hungry. I stopped in the open market and picked up some apples from a friendly earth pony mare wearing a cowboy hat. After making quick work of them, I was about to fly back to Canterlot when I spotted a building that looked like it was made out of various confectioneries. I was still kinda hungry and the cupcake on the sign outside looked delicious so I trotted towards the entrance.
"So it's been like that all morning?" I heard a pony ask. Her voice sounded familiar.
"Yeppers. Itchy nose followed by flappy ear. And that means I'm going to see a friend from far away," I heard a different pony say. "The weird thing my ear flaps the farther away the friend is from and this started hours ago. Whoever is coming to visit must be from super duper far away."
The second voice also sounded familiar and as I stepped inside, I saw Rainbow Dash standing at the counter talking to Pinkie Pie who was restocking some cupcakes. I had met each pony only once, unless you counted the time Rainbow carried my unconscious human body to Canterlot and both of them had been before my transformation, so I expected re-introductions were in order.
"Hey, it stopped!" Pinkie said, looking up.
I didn't make it another step before Pinked noticed me.
"Hail Storm!" A moment later I was being ambushed by a pink blur. Pinkie gave me a great big hug before I knew what was happening.
"Wait, how did you know it was me?" I asked in confusion.
"Not many other adult pegasus ponies walking around without a cutie mark," Rainbow Dash said as she walked over.
"You knew about this?" I asked, using a wing to gesture at my body.
"Of course, We're both friends with Twilight, she's been keeping us up-to-date on your condition."
"Oh, that makes sense," I said nodded in understanding.
"What brings you to here?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Cupcakes obviously," Pinkie said happily as let go of me and bounced back to the counter. She rummaged around for a moment behind the glass before finally selecting two different cupcakes and pulled them out.
"Actually yeah, well if you mean this store anyway, I saw the sign and a cupcake seemed like a great idea."
"Two cupcakes you mean, these are for you," Pinkie said.
I hadn't had a chance to look at what was available, but something told me to just trust her judgement when it came to cupcake selection.
"Just one will be fine," I said.
"But we're having a buy one get one free sale for all inter-dimensional travelers today."
I sighed, pulled out my money and paid.
The first was a simple chocolate cupcake, which suited me just fine. Chocolate was my go-to pick when I had a selection to choose from and whoever had made this cupcake knew what they were doing. It tasted even better than the one Pinkie had jammed in my mouth the first time I met her. Though, I suppose that could have been from my now enhanced sense of taste. The second cupcake looked to be vanilla but there were bits of something in the frosting. I took a bite and my eyes lit up.
"Pinkie, are there bacon bits in this frosting?" I asked staring at the pink pony in wonder.
"Yep! We had a griffon place a special order for maple bacon cupcakes yesterday. There were just enough left overs for one more cupcake. I had a feeling I'd find a customer who wanted it."
"It's so good," I said. A tear came to my eye as I devoured the last of the cupcake.
"So, what I really meant is what brought you to Ponyville." Rainbow Dash asked as I licked the last bit of frosting from my hoof.
"Nothing really, I was flying around and I got hungry so I landed looking for food." I said.
"Flying? Now that is a surprise. The last time Twilight talked about you, she said you were having some difficulty with your wings."
"It was... more of a mental block," I said, pawing at the floor. "I uh, well to be honest, I had a thing with heights. As in they and I didn't mix."
I had kind of expected Rainbow Dash to laugh, how could a real pegasus even comprehend a fear of heights. Instead she gave me a look of understanding.
"So what changed, how did you overcome it?"
"That doesn't seem strange to you?" I asked. "Especially now that I'm a pegasus."
"Nah, someday we'll have to introduce you to our friend Fluttershy. She was born a pegasus and she doesn't like heights. Everypony is afraid of something, you just gotta learn to deal with it in your own way."
"Well, thanks for not laughing, I kind of figured most pegasi would think a pegasus being afraid of heights would be ridiculous." I said. "I wish I could give some heroic tale of my overcoming my fear but honestly I don't have one. The healing spells Cadance and her team had used to repair the damage to my body were sapping my strength. When they finally finished their repair work and faded away, it was like someone had lit a fire under me. Cadance had told me it was coming but I was not prepared for how much energy a pegasus body has, I thought I was back to normal last week. I was overcome by the need to move, and running just wasn't cutting it. I knew I had to get off the ground."
"Oh yeah, I know that one, the instinct to fly for a pegasus can be pretty powerful. Our bodies know what they were made for," Rainbow Dash said knowingly.
"Well, the next thing I knew I was hundreds of feet up in the air. I ended up flying up to a cloud and landing on it. Seeing everything from up there, the tiny ponies down on the ground thousands of feet below, the sky stretching out before me, it was breathtaking! Something just clicked inside me and my fear died right there. Anyway, I think I'm addicted now, I finished my PT today and I've been flying all afternoon."
"That's awesome dude, keep it up!" Rainbow Dash said happily.
"I will, it's such a rush, I can't get enough of it. I only wish Golden Dawn had been here to see me take off," I said somewhat sadly.
"Flying is good like that, being in the air has this incredible feeling of freedom that I just don't get while I'm on the ground. Sometimes when I'm up there, I feel bad for earth ponies and unicorns." Rainbow Dash said.
"No offense Pinkie," she added, looking at Pinkie Pie.
"None taken Dashie," Pinkie said with a smile. "I get a feeling like that when I pull off a perfect party for somepony."
Pinkie turned to me, "speaking of which. Twilight said I couldn't throw you one when you were sick. You're better now, so expect one when you least expect it."
"Huh?" I asked.
"A party, you need a few, maybe I can combine them..." Pinkie said as she whipped out a notepad and pencil out of nowhere and started to write down what looked like fake gibberish math equations on the paper.
"Don't even try to figure her out," Rainbow Dash said as she noticed my mystified expression. "You said you wished Golden Dawn could have been there, where is she?"
Golden Dawn hadn't exactly sworn me to secrecy about her plans but I figured it was better to not go into specifics.
"She's back in Hoofston, she had to head back down there. She runs a workshop, doing work on steam trains and other things. Anyway, she went there to close down her business. She planning on moving up north to work on a project."
"What kind of project?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to say, I don't think it's a secret or anything but I don't think it's public knowledge yet."
"Fair enough, what about you, you mentioned being done with therapy. I know Twilight had said figuring out how to get you home would take a while, any plans while you wait?"
"Well, when I stumbled into Equestria, a bunch of my stuff came with me, if I can reproduce some of it, I'm thinking about opening a store to sell it. It would be similar to work I did back on Earth."
"Is it food?" Pinkie asked as she continued to fill a page with nonsensical numbers.
I laughed at that.
"Nope, in any case, I don't think human food would sell here very well. To be honest, everything I've had here that both ponies and humans eat, well the Equestrian versions have blown away anything I've had back on Earth. Besides I'm not much of a cook, unless we're talking about grilling up a steak or making some bbq, neither of which I think would sell well here." I said with a smirk.
"Well, you could always sell it to griffons and thestrals," Rainbow Dash said, "but that's a pretty small segment of the population."
"So what are you planning on making?" Pinkie asked, finally finished with whatever it was that she had been doing.
"Something called a firearm or a gun. It's uh, well it's a projectile weapon, kinda like a bow or crossbow but more advanced. Humans use them as weapons but also for hunting and recreational activities like target shooting."
Rainbow Dash perked up at my mention of target shooting.
"What kind of target shooting?" she asked.
"Well, there's lots of kinds. Silhouette shooting, 3-gun, cowboy action shooting, trap, skeet, bowling pin shooting, long range shooting, and more," I said listing as many different shooting sports as I could think off of the top of my head.
"Oh, I don't know what any of those are," Rainbow said. "is it like archery where you shoot at a target with a bullseye on it?"
"Kind of, let's grab a seat and I'll explain."
Rainbow Dash and I sat down at one of the small tables, ordered some drinks and for the next hour or so I prattled on about guns, sport shooting and anything else related that I could think of. Pinkie Pie continued to go about her work in the bakery, listening in from time to time but Rainbow seemed much more interested. I realized that although I knew of many of these sports I wasn't familiar enough with all the ins and outs of their rules to accurately describe all of them, but I did the best I could. When I rarely had time to go to a range, I mostly just did some plinking. Still I had enough knowledge to get the general idea across.
"Wow, those all sound kind of cool. I used to do archery back before I joined the Junior Speedsters. Sometimes I regret not keeping up on it." Rainbow Dash said.
"Well once I figure out where I'm going to set up shop, I'll have to invite you over for a demonstration. That is if it's okay for me to actually do this. I don't know anything about the legalities of making these things."
"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked.
"Well, for one, I have no idea what you need to do to start a business in Equestria."
"You make something, and you start selling it," Pinkie said, bouncing over to refill our drinks.
"You don't have to like get a license or something?" I asked.
"What like, permission to sell cupcakes? That sounds silly." Pinkie said giggling.
"It does, but what if you made terrible cupcakes with shoddy ingredients that made ponies sick?"
"Why would you want to do that?" Pinkie asked, looking horrified.
"I wouldn't but what if somepony did."
"Well, they wouldn't stay in business very long then, who would want to buy cupcakes that made you sick?"
"I suppose so, but what about weapons. They're a little more serious than cupcakes. There's all sorts of laws about what kinds of guns you can sell and to whom you can sell them to."
"Like what?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, there's a federal background check, it's illegal for criminals to buy guns."
Rainbow Dash snorted in laughter spewing some of her drink on the table.
"Wait, wait, you've got these guns, and you don't want criminals to get them, so the solution was to make it illegal for criminals to buy them? Criminals don't follow the law! That's why they're criminals!"
"I said it was a law, I didn't say how effective it was. It does stop them sometimes, but the truth is most criminals get their guns illegally. The idea behind it is to try to keep somepony from buying a weapon that they could cause problems with if they had ill intentions."
"I kind of see what you're getting at, but it seems like the only foolproof way to know a pony wasn't going to misuse a weapon would be to read their mind, and that's super duper illegal, at least without their consent," Pinkie said. "Anyway, if you really want to know, I suppose you could check with Mayor Mare, if she didn't know, she could at least point you in the right direction."
"I might have to do that," I said. "There's more beyond just legal questions. If I did open a shop, don't think that Canterlot would work very well. It's far too crowded for my tastes and I couldn't demo the guns in the middle of the city. I'd like to get a decent sized chunk of land," I said while finishing off my soda.
"How much land are you talking about?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"That's kind of a hard question. While I could get by with a small shop and do all my testing out in the woods somewhere, I think it would be pretty beneficial to setup a range right on my own property. It would be good for when I need to do any testing but on top of that it would give me room to actually introduce ponies to shooting. Since firearms are virtually unknown, being able to do that is pretty important. If that's the case, well, maybe 10-20 acres, maybe more depending on the price of land. Also preferably not in a high population area, guns are loud and I don't want to disturb my neighbors."
"You're absolutely correct about Canterlot, no way you're going to find that amount of land in the city unless you're insanely wealthy. Even finding space for cloud homes above Canterlot are getting hard to do."
"I probably would have been better off in Hoofston, middle of nowhere like that, land is gotta be dirt cheap."
"Not much cheaper than here in Ponyville, in fact the only places I can think of that are getting costly are the really big cities, Canterlot, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Fillydelphia and a few others," Pinkie said as she swung by to refill our drinks. "I remember Rarity was looking into opening a second shop in either Canterlot or Manehattan and mentioned the huge difference in price for renting a small one room store compared to what she paid for her whole boutique here in Ponyville."
"Maybe I should look in Ponyville then. It seems like a nice town and I like how it's still close to Canterlot, I don't want to get too far just in case Twilight finds a way to open a portal back to Earth."
"Would you go back immediately if she did?" Rainbow asked.
"Of cou..." I began to say. It was the automatic reply and I only caught myself halfway into saying it before I stopped. Had she asked me in the first few weeks of arriving in Equestria, I wouldn't have stopped myself, but things were different now. I had been in Equestria for over two months now, back on Earth I was probably already declared missing, maybe even dead. My job would be gone too, even if the position was still open, there is no way that I'd get it back without an explanation of where I had been. Somehow I don't think my old boss would accept 'trapped in a magical pony dimension' as a valid excuse.
I ruffled my wings as I thought about the other issues of returning back to Earth. I'd never be able to go back as a pony, would Twilight actually be able to restore my original form? She said it would be possible, if she could ever find my universe. More importantly though, would I want her to? I had spent the last few weeks getting used to being a pony and going back to human... well it some ways it seemed almost like a step backwards. I was stronger, faster and had far more endurance as a pegasus than I'd ever had as a human. Not to mention flying, that was something I'd never get back as a human.
On the other hand, I had family back on Earth. Sure I didn't get along with my mother, but that didn't mean I couldn't try to offer her an olive branch. Then there were friendships that I had let decay. If I stopped ignoring everyone, maybe I could rekindle those. Then there were the everyday things. Internet, TV, video games. They didn't seem as important as they used to, but I did miss them. There was more I could do back on Earth, especially if I pushed myself to, I just had to remember to not try to be an island, resisting forming ties with anypony... or anyone else. My time in Equestria had taught me that well.
Finally, I had to face the thing I'd put off thinking about for a while now. I had built friendships here in Equestria over the last two months. Saying goodbye to the ponies I met in Hoofston hadn't been easy but that would pale in comparison to having to say goodbye to Golden Dawn. I had spent more time with her than any other pony, hell, I'd spent more time with Golden Dawn than any other human in the last few years. Her interest in me only complicated things.
"Equestria to Hail Storm, come in Hail Storm," Rainbow Dash said as I sat there, deep in thought.
"Sorry, I... I don't... I just don't know. Maybe not immediately, but I guess it depends if it was a single chance to get home or I could get home anytime. I miss Earth and I miss some parts of my life there, but... Equestria is so... amazing. I have friends here now, and it would be tough to leave it and them all behind if it meant never coming back."
What I stopped short of saying was that I wouldn't go back. I wasn't ready to say that. Earth was still home and I didn't want to abandon it forever so quickly.
The conversation turned lighter as we talked of less serious things. Eventually Rainbow Dash had to excuse herself, she was on the Ponyville weather team and there was some storm clouds leaking from the Everfree Forest that she had to bust up as they crossed into the town's borders. It was getting somewhat late and I was eager to get some more flying in before the day was done which the trip back to the castle would more than satisfy. I said my goodbyes to both Rainbow and Pinkie and took off.
I took the scenic route on the way back to Canterlot. Then again when you can fly wherever you want, everything is the scenic route. My wings were starting to ache as the castle came into sight. I was making my descent when a thought crossed my mind. Thinking about friendships that I had made in Equestria, I was long overdue to give Kitchen Sink a visit. Getting out to Ponyville and running into Rainbow and Pinkie had made me realize how quiet things had been since Golden Dawn had taken off. My afternoons and and evenings had been almost devoid of pony contact. Sure I saw Twilight or Cadance and Shining Armor every once in awhile but for the most part they were busy running the country. Now that my work with Bulk Biceps was done, if I didn't make an effort to go out, I'd be spending the every day until Golden Dawn got back barred in a room with nopony to talk to.
I began to bank towards Canterlot town, only stopping when I realized with a bit of embarrassment that I was in no state to go visit anypony. I was drenched in sweat from my long flight and a quick sniff informed me that I was in dire need of a shower. Instead I landed as originally planned, trotted into the castle and quickly made my way to my room. Half an hour later, after taking some time to clean up, I headed back out of the castle.
Kitchen Sink had given me his address before we parted way, I swung by the truck and dug around until I found the paper he had written it down on. I slipped the paper into my saddlebags and trotted into town. I spent about twenty minutes wandering around the only parts of Canterlot that I really knew where the route to the hospital, the market and shopping district and Restaurant Row.
At first glance it didn't look it but Canterlot was actually huge. Due to the terrain, the only part of it that you could really see from Ponyville was the castle itself. When you actually got a look at it from the air however, you saw an entirely different picture. When you combined the castle grounds, the upper and lower portions of the city, the whole thing it covered just over 50 square miles with the bulk of it wrapping partially around the base of the mountain. From what I've been told, Canterlot was the second most densely populated place in Equestria holding just over half a million ponies. Only Manehattan was higher, with nearly two million ponies in an area not much larger.
Wandering around trying to find Kitchen Sink's street randomly was not going to work. I didn't even know if it was in Upper or Lower Canterlot. Instead I really only had one choice. Ask somepony for directions. Fortunately that was fairly easy, I just walked up to a random pony and asked. The first pony I talked to didn't know exactly where the street I was but he did know that it was in Upper Canterlot. That narrowed things down considerably. Eventually I found another pony who pointed me to the lower east section. Each time I talked to a new pony, I narrowed down the search area. I found that most ponies were of the friendly sort and each one I asked seemed genuinely happy to help as best as they could. In fact my searching stopped at pony number eight who not only knew exactly where the street was, but lived only a few streets over so she volunteered to show me exactly where it was.
On arriving at Purple Dart Lane, I thanked the unicorn for her help and then began to look for number 172. The houses here weren't weren't the largest or most opulent in the city, but they did look to be fairly high end. Elegant stone structures topped with slate roofs and generously sized yards, at least for the compactness of the city. Finally, I arrived at my destination, a large white house that looked just a little run down compared to the rest of the area. I trotted up to the door and gave it a knock.
When nopony answered, I tried again two more times. I was never one for patience and I began to hover back and forth unsure if I should wait around or come back another time. It had been nearly three minutes with no answer, and at that point I was almost sure Kitchen Sink wasn't home. Finally I gave up and had just taken off when my ears swiveled backwards catching the sound of the door opening behind me.
"Hello?" Kitchen Sink asked, sticking his head out of the door before spotting me.
I dropped back down and folded my wings up and turned to face him.
"Oh, you are home. Good to see you again Kitchen Sink."
He gave me a once over, a look of confusion spreading across his face. With that he stepped completely out of the house and closed the door behind him. The trench coat was missing but he was still wearing those same overstuffed saddlebags that he had on when we had first met. If anything they looked like he had packed a few more things into them.
"Do... I know you?" he asked.
"Do you know me?" I asked with mock outrage. "Do you know me? Oh come on. You'd think an adult pegasus with no cutie mark would be something you'd remember." I said with a huff.
He looked at me again, I saw his eyes turn towards my backside and then they bugged out a bit. It was a somewhat common reaction, but I had gotten to ignoring it. If I ever got one, it would be interesting but until then I wasn't going to fret over it. A pony born in Equestria might be self conscious about a missing their mark so late in life, but as a former human, I was more interested if it was possible for me to get one than in actually having one.
"I'm... I'm... sorry?" Kitchen Sink looked confused beyond belief. I felt a twinge of guilt, for all I knew, to a pony that might have been like calling him out for forgetting I was missing a limb.
"It's only been like two months and you'd think you'd remember the pony that saved your life," I said shaking my head in disgust.
This just drove Kitchen Sink into a deeper state of confusion.
"I remember it clearly, I heard some timbers creaking and then before either of us knew what was going there was a crack as the rotten support fell to pieces. Not a moment later rocks started pouring down as the roof collapsed on itself," I said.
"What? You're talking about when I was in the Sliver Stone Mines with that human... Hail Storm... How do you know about that?" Kitchen Sink asked.
He obviously had no idea it was me, of course why would he. I obviously looked completely different as a pegasus, the only thing that had more or less remained the same was my voice but it had been a while and Kitchen Sink hadn't known me that long, for him to remember it without me pointing it out and then make the jump to my transformation was a bit too much to expect.
"Oh, so close. You're almost there," I said with a smile.
"What?" he asked.
"It's me Kitchen Sink. I'm Hail Storm."
"Hail Storm is a human, you're a pegasus. A crazy pegasus..." Kitchen Sink, narrowing his eyes. His look told me that he thought I was a complete loon.
"Okay, think back. Remember the enchanted necklaces we wore into the mine? Remember how it was making me sick and you noticed it left something like a burn on my chest?"
"I... I didn't tell anypony about that," Kitchen Sink said, his eyes growing wide.
"Well you remember my story, of how I got to Equestria. I'm not even from this universe. Magic and my old body just didn't mix. It was making me sick, not just your amulet, all magic, even the background magic of Equestria. It was slowly killing me. This was the solution," I said gesturing at my body with a wing.
"What?" he asked, still looking confused.
"Hail Storm was a human, he's not anymore," I said. "Listen to my voice, it's about the only thing that didn't change."
"But... but... how?" Kitchen Sink asked as he stared at me.
"You got time for the whole story or you want me to summarize it?" I asked.
"Uh, well I'm not doing anything right now, I was thinking about going to get dinner though."
"Great, have you been to the Stumbling Unicorn before?" Golden Dawn had pointed it out at one point. We were supposed to go we never made it.
"The tavern down in Lower Canterlot over near Donut Joe's'?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"That's the one."
"Plenty of times."
"Is it any good?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said with a nod.
"Good, I've been wanting to try it out. I'll share my tale over some drinks," I said with a grin.
"I guess that works," Kitchen Sink responded.
"So let me get this straight, you were on your deathbed when Princess Twilight came galloping in just in the nick of time and her solution was to turn you into a pony?" Kitchen Sink asked.
I took a swig of my beer before replying. "That's pretty much the gist of it. Damn mirror nearly killed me too, but once the transformation was complete, Cadance and her team were able to use some crazy powerful healing magic on me. I've spent the last couple of weeks recovering and getting used to my new body."
"And now you're stuck here?"
"Sort of, last I talked to Twilight, she's still searching for a way to figure out how to send me home, but it isn't going to be quick. It could take years. Thankfully I'm not in any danger of dying while I wait anymore."
"What about that cute pegasus you were hanging around with, uh... Golden Dawn I think it was?"
"Yep that is her, she had to go back to Hoofston, but hopefully she should be back in Canterlot soon," I said with a sigh. I missed her and I had a lot to talk about with that mare.
"So what have been doing these last few weeks then?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"Well I spent a few weeks in physical therapy. I had to learn how to walk again, not to mention how to fly. Turns out having your species changed doesn't magically make you able to use your new body."
"Oh yeah, I can only imagine the difference, especially since you were a biped."
"Apart from that, I've been working on something which might interest you. Since I'm going to be stuck here for quite possibly a very long time, I figure I should find some way to occupy my time. Back on Earth I had some experience working for a guy that built custom rifles. I'm going to try my hoof at designing and building guns."
"Now that is interesting, if you're successful I might need to buy one off of you."
"I'm confident that I can replicate the guns I've got with me, but there is one thing that is going to be a bit of a problem. The ammunition is going to be the tough part. I'm not a chemist, I have no idea how to make smokeless powder. I need to find a pony who knows about that sort of thing."
"I know a pony who might," Kitchen Sink said.
"You do?" I said leaning in a bit closer.
"I buy all my dynamite from a pony named Short Fuse. She runs a small store that sells two things. Dynamite and fireworks. She came highly recommended when I was looking for a supplier. I even heard that Princess Celestia uses her fireworks for all events at Canterlot Castle. If you want a pony who knows chemical explosives she's your mare."
"That sounds exactly like the kind of pony I need to talk to. Where can I find her?"
"You know where Ponyville is?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"Yeah, I just flew in from there."
"She's based out of a building a little over an hour's trot north of there. It's about two and a half hours west of here, near at the edge of the easternmost part of the White Tail Woods. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere which is good..."
"Because explosions are loud?" I said with a grin as I finished Kitchen Sink's sentence. He nodded. "Hmm, I wonder if she wouldn't mind a noisy neighbor?"
"What do you mean?" Kitchen Sink asked.
I downed the rest of my drink and then looked at Kitchen Sink. "I'm going to have to set up shop somewhere, and as you found out, guns are loud. I'm going to have to do a lot of testing which means I'll need both land and distance from anypony that might not mind if I'm making a lot of noise."
I picked at another celery stick, scooping up a blob of blue cheese. Pony food, for the most part, was excellent, but celery sticks and bleu cheese without buffalo wings was just a recipe for depression. I'd have to see if I could get my hooves on some, even if I had to kill the chickens myself. As we waited for the main course to be delivered I laid out my my plans to Kitchen Sink. My drawings were more or less complete, it was time for me to start the real work.
Over the last week I had been working on an overall plan. The first order of business was going to be finding a place to call my own. Lots of ponies seemed to live at their place of business and that seemed perfectly fine to me. After I secured a building, the next thing I would do is unpack all of my stuff. Getting the reloading equipment setup was my first priority. It would give me a chance getting used to working with tools in my new body and at the same time I could take an inventory of what I had ended up in Equestria with me.
The next step would be to start buying my own Equestrian made equipment. I knew I had a decent set of hand tools from my dad's place but no where near what I'd need to start up a gunsmithing business. Once I had a decent set of tools, I could work on modifying my existing guns. A trigger with a bit of a lip would make it easier to fire with hooves and a modified grip for the revolver would make it easier to hold. Apart from that, I didn't really want to touch them. Any major modifications would be saved for when I was ready to build my first gun.
"I think I'm going to pay Short Fuse a visit tomorrow," I said as we were both wrapping up with our dinner. "Do you want to come with?"
"It just so happens that tomorrow is the only day I am free. After that, I am heading out of Canterlot on another job," Kitchen Sink said with a happy grin. "Meet up at my house tomorrow morning?"
"That works."
Kitchen Sink headed back home and I returned to the castle. I had to stop by my truck and dig around in the trailer for a while to get everything that I needed for the next day.
The only downside to traveling with Kitchen Sink was that I couldn't fly there the fast way, instead I had to settle for a slow hover as Kitchen Sink trotted along. Still, it gave me time to catch up with the unicorn. The previous night he had spent nearly the entire time asking me questions about my journey to Canterlot and transformation. Now it was my turn to find out what he had been up to.
The work he had done for Jade Circlet had been quite a boon for the adventurous pony. Because of the information we had gathered Kitchen Sink was able to file a very detailed report with the Canterlot Guard. The guard dispatched some ponies who were based out of a town not too far from Hoofston to check out the hive. It was quickly deemed abandoned and Jade Circlet was given the go-ahead to reopen the Silver Stone mines. She had been so pleased with the speed at which Kitchen Sink had taken care of her problem that she was spreading the word of his efficiency to many other wealthy ponies who had problems of their own.
Kitchen Sink had been inundated with problems that needed to be looked into. Many were fairly mundane but a select few promised to be of the adventurous variety. In fact the very next day he was heading north, up to a placed called the Crystal Empire to help a pony search for a magical relic that had been lost during the reign of some pony named King Sombra.
Kitchen Sink was trying to explain the story of King Sombra to me when we finally arrived at Short Fuse's building. I landed and we trotted up to the door. Attached to the brick wall was a large sign, on it were the store hours, and the words "NO OPEN FLAMES PAST THIS POINT." in large red lettering next to the heavy iron door. Tacked on under the metal sign was a smaller paper one taped to it that read "THAT INCLUDES MAGICAL SPARKS!"
Kitchen Sink opened the door, setting off a small bell attached to the doorframe. We trotted inside and I began to look around. We were in a room that only occupied a fraction of the total building. It was divided into two parts by a chest high separator running from the door almost all the way to the other side of the room. On the smaller side of the store the shelves were packed with crates of dynamite. The larger portion of the store was entirely dedicated to fireworks. As I looked up and down the aisles I saw virtually everything I would expect to see in a fireworks store back on Earth. Mortar tubes, roman candles, sparklers, those funny little rockets on sticks, this place had it all.
There was a small counter at the far end of the room, behind the counter was a door that presumably lead to the rest of the building. I didn't see any pony at the counter but as I began to walk over the door opened up and out walked a smokey white earth pony. Unlike her coat, her cutie mark was bursting with color, quite literally since it appeared to be a firework, mid explosion. She saw me and gave me a friendly smile.
"Good morning, how can I help you?" she asked.
"Hello Short Fuse," Kitchen Sink said, stepping forward.
I was a bit surprised that the earth pony standing before us was Short Fuse. I had expected her to be a unicorn. I figured magic would make working with explosives easier.
"I recognize you... Kitchen Sink was it? You bought some dynamite a while back."
"Yep, that was me," Kitchen Sink said with a nod.
"Back for more?" she asked.
"I haven't had a chance to use the first set, still it's better to have and not need than not have and need."
"Pity, nothing quite like a good bang," she said with a gleeful laugh. "I would have already told you this but don't forget to leave it in the original packaging until you are ready to use it. The boxes are enchanted to keep the dynamite stable. You wouldn't want it to go off unexpectedly."
"I have, but thanks for the reminder." Kitchen Sink said. "But dynamite isn't what we came to talk to you about. This is my friend Hail Storm. He's wondering if you could take a look at something for him."
"Hi, good to meet you," I said, extending a hoof.
She shook my hoof and asked, "What can I do for you?"
"I've heard that you are the mare to talk to about chemical explosives."
"That is my area of expertise, strictly speaking I'm a chemist it just so happens that I happen to like explosions and the two jive quite well," she said with a smile.
"I've got a sample of, well it's an explosive, I'm not quite sure what is made from I was wondering if you can take a look at."
She tilted her head a bit, "That's a bit of an unusual request, what exactly is this stuff?"
"I could tell you it's a variant of smokeless powder but I don't think that will mean anything to you. It's um, well it's similar to spark powder, except that it burns cleaner and with much less smoke, hence the name. Thing is it's not from around here, nor am I. I have a limited quantity of the powder with me, but eventually I will need more of it and I don't have any way to get more. I'm hoping I can find somepony to help me replicate it. Or at least come up with something that matches it's burn characteristics."
"Interesting, what exactly do you use this powder for?" Short Fuse asked.
"Ah, as a propellant... of sorts."
"I'm going to need a bit more information than that. No offence, but for all I know I help you figure this stuff out and suddenly I find out that you're my newest competitor." Short Fuse said.
I considered Short Fuse's request. I didn't want to straight up give away my plans but without her help, I'd have to fall back on using gunpowder, spark powder to ponies. In a pinch it would work but gunpowder is far less powerful than modern smokeless powders and quite messy. If I ever wanted to design a modern semi-automatic or even automatic weapon gunpowder was going to cause issues.
"I understand where you are coming from but I have my own interests to protect. How about a deal. I am willing to give you a demonstration on what I use this powder for, and of course I will give you a sample. If you are able to reproduce it, or something comparable, then I will purchase all the powder I need from you and only you without seeking alternate sources for a period of 1 year... provided you are able to meet my requirements and the price is fair."
"How much of this stuff will you be needing?" Short Fuse asked.
"That entirely depends on how well my business does."
"What are you selling?" Short Fuse asked.
"Firearms."
"Never heard of them." Short Fuse said.
"A fair point, they don't really exist in Equestria. I'd be building and selling the first ones."
"I don't know, how do you know there's even a market for these... firearms?" Short Fuse asked. "What exactly is a firearm?"
"Primarily, a weapon, specifically a projectile weapon. But it can also be used for sport, target shooting for one," I said.
"Now I'm interested. A weapon that uses something similar to spark powder? I take it you aren't just throwing a jar of it. A stick of dynamite would work better in that situation in any case. Maybe aimed fireworks, packed with charge of spark powder? I tried to convince a friend I have in the guard that they'd be a great replacement for catapults, but I never had any luck."
Now this had promise. She clearly had an understanding of projectile weaponry.
"Your friend should have listened to you. What you are describing is basically a primitive rocket. Correctly used, they would vastly outstrip what you could do with a catapult," I said.
"Primitive? This would have been far more advanced than anything the Guard has access to." Short Fuse said with a hint of annoyance.
"Sorry, I meant no offense. Look, I said I'm not from around here, well it's a long story, but where I'm from, we've got stuff that would instantly obsolete any of the non magical weapons your Guard uses."
"So you say, but I've not seen anything yet." Short Fuse said.
"If I might interject here, I've seen Hail Storm's firearms in action, they are impressive. Hail, why not this. Demo your gun first, you are asking Short Fuse for a good deal."
"Fair enough," I said with a sigh. "If that works with you?" I asked looking at Short Fuse.
"That's fair. Where are you going to give this demonstration?"
"It would have to be outside somewhere. I can just shoot the gun at some trees or something, as long as there's nothing behind my target."
"Gun?" Short Fuse asked.
"Another word for firearm."
"I've got some leftover junk behind the building from when we were doing some work, maybe you can use your gun on something from the pile."
"Sure... oh damn I just realized something."
"What is it?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"My earmuffs aren't going to fit anymore and neither are my safety glasses. I guess you can do that silence spell for the noise though."
"I've got ear protection and glasses, though you probably wouldn't need the ear protection, you're a pegasus. Unless this firearm is insanely loud."
"I'm not sure exactly. At least 140 -160 decibels maybe louder."
"You'll be fine, but I can grab some if you want it," Short Fuse said. "I've got to go into the back and let my assistant know I'll be stepping outside anyway."
"Sure thing."
"I'll be right back," she said before heading back through the door.
A few minutes later she came back carrying three pairs of goggles hanging from her neck as well as three necklaces. She gave one set to Kitchen Sink, one to me and kept the last set for herself.
"How do these work?" I asked looking at the necklace.
"Magical sound dampener. They reduce any sound above a 100 decibels down to safe levels. 120 decibels is pretty much the maximum a pony can handle before possible hearing damage for non pegasi. Your ears should be good till around 185 decibels but there's no harm in having extra protection."
Short Fuse took us behind her building where there was a large field bordered by dense woods. There was a pile of scrap wood, empty paint cans and other assorted junk pushed up against the building.
"Anything you want to use as a target in here is fine." she said, nodding to the pile.
I looked it over. I could just shoot at some plywood but it wasn't very exciting. Instead I opted for the paint cans. It would be interesting to see if I could hit them, I hadn't used a gun as a pony yet and I only had the revolver with me. As I still didn't have the whole balancing things on my back without dropping them yet, Kitchen Sink levitated five cans out of the pile. We headed for the edge of Short Fuse's property.
Just before the treeline ran a small fence, marking the boundary of the Short Fuse's land and the start of White Tail Woods. The relatively flat property gave way to dips and bumps covered in a thick layer of trees surrounded dense undergrowth. I walked along the fence until I to an area that had a moss and fern covered mound of earth about thirty yards into the woods. I positioned the paint cans on the fence so that any stray shots would impact into the dirt.
"Just to be clear, there's nothing but trees behind this right?" I asked Short Fuse. I couldn't see any trails, indication of pony hikers, or other signs of life, but I didn't want to make any assumptions.
"Nothing but trees for miles," she answered.
First I put my goggles on with Short Fuse and Kitchen Sink following suit. Then I opened my saddlebag and pulled out the revolver. After verifying that it was clear, I reached back in and pulled out a box of ammo. Using my wing, I opened the cylinder and loaded six rounds.
"For reasons I can get into if you really want to know, I am not sure how good of a shot I'm going to be. I've never shot a gun like this before."
Short Fuse looked at me curiously and gave a bit of a nod.
I still hadn't mastered standing on my rear hooves so instead I sat down on my butt, holding the revolver in my two front hooves. Not feeling confident about shooting double action, I carefully pulled the hammer back until I heard a click. I centered the sights over the largest of the cans which was about 20 yards away. Reaching the trigger with my hoof was possible but difficult, instead I opted to do what Golden Dawn had done, using my wing. I reached into the guard and gently applied pressure to the trigger until it clicked and the hammer dropped. There was a loud bang and the paint can spun sideways before falling off the fence.
"What? All I heard was a bang, I didn't see anything," Short Fuse said, looking confused. "Is it some sort of magic?"
"Nope."
"Do it again."
"Alright," I said with a shrug as I lined up a second shot. Luck was with me, or perhaps it was my highly improved vision, a moment later another paint can was down.
"I saw you put six small round things into that device, is that what it is shooting?" Short Fuse asked.
"Sort of," I said with a nod.
"Does that mean you have four shots left?" Short Fuse asked.
"Yep."
"Can I try it?" she asked.
"It isn't exactly designed for hooves but I'm willing to let you try, we just have to be very careful. I'm going to unload the gun first and you can try operating it while it is empty. Then I'll load a round."
I pulled out the two empty pieces of brass and the four unfired ones, placing them back in the box.
"Alright, come here and let me show you how it works," I said, beckoning Short Fuse over.
I quickly ran through shooting safety rules, feeling a bit guilty that I had not done so before I started the demonstration. I had not originally planned on making this a shooting session, which in retrospect was a bad idea on my part. If I wanted to make a business out of this, I wanted ponies to want to pick up shooting. Short Fuse could very well be one of my first customers.
Short Fuse took the revolver from me, after looking it over she held it up like I had showed her and attempted to pull the trigger. Fortunately her hooves were a bit smaller than mine. She was just able to contact the trigger blade with the very tip of her hoof which was all she needed for that magical pony gripping force to allow her to successfully dry-fire the gun. She practiced the movement a few more times before she gave the go ahead for being read to try it with a live round.
"Just... don't aim up. Bullets can travel quite a distance and that hill we're using as a backstop isn't very high," I said.
I showed her how to open the cylinder and loaded a single round. I spun the cylinder into position and then closed it up. A moment later she took her shot, and a third can joined it's fallen brethren on the ground.
"Oh wow. Just wow. Now you said this thing isn't magic, so you're going to have to tell me it works. If you do, you've got yourself a deal. Well, almost. If you're going to be making these things, I want one. Throw one in for free and I won't charge you for the research I put into your smokeless powder, you'll only have to pay for the product."
"Just to be clear, this isn't the only style of gun." I said as I took the revolver back from the excited pony. "Also the ones I'm going to make aren't going to be exactly like this, at least not at first. I'll be making something called a rifle first. It's a bit larger than this one, meant for two hand... er hooves but will be shooting the same ammunition."
"So you're going to be making a few different varieties?" Short Fuse asked.
"Eventually."
"How about this, I'll wait till you get some variety and claim my free gun after I get to see a some different styles in action."
"Deal," I said shaking Short Fuse's hoof. I had plans for a shotgun, two rifles and a revolver. I didn't really mind which one Short Fuse chose.
"This is obviously not part of the deal, but I'd really like to know where this thing came from, it's clearly not made for ponies, where did you get it?"
"From my home country. For now, let's just say that I'm from very, very far away and leave it at that. I don't mind sharing my story, but it's a long one." I said.
"Fair enough, let's save it for another time. For now I want to know how this works," Short Fuse said.
"Do you have a bench I can use?" I asked. "I've can show you an assembled cartridge out here but I've got the individual components in a box, I'd rather not take it out outside, I don't want to lose anything."
"Yeah, let's head inside, we can use a workbench."
Short Fuse took us in a back door that opened up into a hallway. There was a strong smell of chemicals as we passed one of the rooms before she lead us into a workshop area. Standing behind one of the tables was a dark blue unicorn carefully packing up some fireworks into a box.
"Hey Sparks, we're going to be in the test room," Short Fuse said. The unicorn nodded in acknowledgement.
"That was my assistant, Dazzling Sparks," she explained to us as we headed across the room. We arrived at another door that was heavily reinforced. There was a sign on it that said "Open Flame Permitted Beyond this Point Only." I felt an odd twinge of energy as I walked through the door.
"That sensation you just felt is an active enchantment on the room. In the off chance that any sort of spark or fire makes it out of this room, that enchantment will put it out," Short Fuse said, apparently reading my mind.
We headed over to an empty table and I rummaged around in my saddlebags for a moment before pulling out a small wooden box. I also pulled out the box of .44 magnum ammo that I had been shooting earlier.
"This is a cartridge or round. Different guns can shoot different size cartridges. This one is a .44 magnum." I hoofed the round to Short Fuse so she could look at it more closely. When she was done she put it down on table.
I opened the wooden box and took out two small sealed glass vials, a 240 grain bullet and an empty .44 magnum brass case. As I went through each item I described them and their function to Short Fuse.
"These are the components of a cartridge. This brass cylinder is the case, it holds the cartridge together. This is the projectile, it's known as a bullet."
In the first glass vial was a primer. Primers kind of look like those super tiny hearing aid button batteries, except one side is smooth metal while the other is open. The primer is sensitive to pressure and a hard enough strike will cause it to go off.
"This is the primer. Primers have a compound in them that is very sensitive. When the primer is struck by the firing pin it ignites, providing the flame that will set off the powder. The powder is in this second vial," I said moving to the next tube. "This is 23 grains of one type of smokeless powder. It is the minimum load for this weight bullet in this cartridge with this specific powder."
"It isn't spark powder?" Short Fuse asked.
"Nope. It's similar, but it burns cleaner and faster."
"Hmm okay. What do you mean, minimum load?" Short Fuse asked.
"Most powders have a minimum or starting load. For the powder to work properly you should not go below them, there's also a maximum load."
"What happens if you go above the maximum load?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"It would be bad." I said flatly.
"What do you mean, bad?" Kitchen Sink asked.
"Try to imagine a very loud bang and fragments of the gun exploding at you at supersonic speeds."
"All right, that's bad." Kitchen Sink said.
"Truthfully that's a worst case scenario, the more powder you use the more pressure is generated and the faster the bullet goes, up to a point. Guns and the cartridges themselves are designed for specific pressures. If you exceed them, you might just destroy the brass, but you could damage the gun, possibly catastrophically."
"You're right, this is similar to spark powder! Out in the open it just burns really fast but put some in a sealed container and set it off, and you've got yourself a bomb. It's not nearly as powerful as dynamite but it will still do some damage," Short Fuse said.
"Well then this should make sense to you. The brass is sealed on one end so when the powder goes off, all that force has to go somewhere. It pushes on the bullet..."
"Which is then pushed out the open end of the gun." Short Fuse said excitedly. "It's like a shooting a mortar off except the propellant stays in the gun and isn't part of the firework. It's so obvious!"
"Frankly I'm surprised you ponies have gunpowder and have never used it to make anything like this before," I said.
"Gunpowder?" Short Fuse asked.
"Oh sorry, spark powder, it's called gunpowder or black powder where I'm from. For the most part we don't use it anymore it's dirtier, corrosive and not as powerful as smokeless powders."
"You mentioned that there is more than one kind of smokeless powder?" Short Fuse asked.
"There are dozens, if not hundreds, I only have two kinds with me though. Some are meant for pistol rounds, like this .44 magnum other for rifle rounds. I know that different powders have different burn rates. Pistol powders usually burn faster than rifle powders. I know that the size of each grain of powder can affect its burn rate, I have no idea if the different powders are made of completely different chemicals or are just different sizes."
"It occurs to me that you're going to need me to analyze not just one substance," Short Fuse said with a bit of an evil grin. "You have two types of powder and will need to make primers as well."
"This is true, the first gun I wanted to design will be using a pistol powder, but I will need a rifle powder eventually. I also have a lot of primers but I'll run out eventually."
In fact I had found out last night that I had an insane number of primers. Primers are really really small, they come in boxes of 1000, each box has 10 packs, each with 100 primers. The entire box is only a little bigger than a can of soda. There are 10 boxes in a case. For reasons completely unknown to me, my dad had left me 20 cases of primers. 10 of the large rifle primers for the .30-06 and 10 of the large pistol primers for use in .44 magnum. That was 100,000 primers for each cartridge. Either my dad had been a secret doomsday prepper or he must have cleaned out a shop. Maybe some local gun store was going out of business and he bought out their inventory. I'd never know.
"Throw in a second gun and I'll look at the those too," Short Fuse said.
"Done." It was worth it. I had no idea how much setting up a shop was going to cost me so any deals that didn't require me to draw from my limited supply of bits were good ones in my opinion.
"Just be careful with the primers, they are designed to be easy to set off. If you hit one with a hammer, it's going to go bang."
"I work with nitroglycerin, I am quite familiar with unstable chemicals."
"Fair enough." I said. I went back into my saddlebags and pulled out another wooden box. "Inside this is a large glass tube with 700 grains of powder. There are 7000 grains in 1 pound so that's 1/10th of a pound. If you need more, I can get you more, but I do have a limited supply."
I also gave Short Fuse 1 pack of primers.
"Is there anything else I need to know?" Short Fuse asked.
"Not that I can think of, but I've got a question or two for you."
"Sure thing," she said.
"Who owns all the land around here?"
"I own the shop and the five acre plot it sits on. White Tail Woods is owned by the crown. The rest of the land is too but technically this is part of Ponyville, we're on the outskirts of the town's borders, so it's managed by the town. Why?"
"How are you with neighbors?"
Short Fuse harrumphed. "About five years ago a pony tried to start up a farm across the road. He spent the first six months sending noise complaints to Mayor Mare before she got fed up and told him that he moved next to me knowing I made and tested fireworks and dynamite on location and that he could either live with it or move. He chose to move."
"Well what if your neighbor didn't mind the noise and might be making some of his own?" I asked with a smile.
"You mean you?" she asked.
"I've got to set up shop somewhere, preferably away from town so I have enough room to built a shooting range where I can test my stuff. If the land is for sale, this might make a good location, especially if I'm buying powder from you."
"I'm sure you can come to an arrangement with Mayor Mare. Honestly I wouldn't mind some neighbors if they could put up with the noise."
"I'll have to talk to her. One question, I see you've got electricity here in the shop, I didn't see any power lines, are you running of gem batteries?"
"I have a back up, but no, there are power lines they are just buried."
Kitchen Sink nodded. "There's a hydroelectric dam near the base of Canterlot mountain that supplies the entire region with power. We keep all our lines buried around here, less of an eyesore. If you need power it shouldn't be a problem to get you hooked up."
"Well that's good to hear."
Short Fuse gave me directions to Ponyville's town hall so that I could talk to the mayor about buying some land. The downside to buying land in the middle of nowhere was that there was no building on the property. Kitchen Sink insisted that would not be a major issue. Unless I wanted something super fancy, I could get a building built in a couple of months. I had never looked into construction times back on Earth but that seemed kind of quick. Either way, I was in no real rush. Short Fuse would need some time to create a smokeless powder substitute, I had enough ammunition and powder from my dad's supplies that I could easily test any prototypes but I didn't want to start selling anything until I at least had a plan for making all of the components here in Equestria.
Finding the town hall was actually fairly simple, it was not only the tallest building in town, but it was smack dab in the middle. I spotted the large round building from the air before I even got close to the center of town.
I landed a fair distance from it, if I was going to be starting up a business in Ponyville, even if it was on the extreme outskirts, I wanted to get a better feel for the town.
I received and returned a number of warm hellos as I trotted deeper into the small town. Like Hoofston, Ponyville seemed to have a lot of earth ponies, but it wasn't nearly as monolithic. Ponyville was larger than Hoofston, that much I was positive about. The outskirts seemed to be mostly residential areas, as I moved closer to town center, I saw more and more businesses.
I trotted around for awhile until I found myself in the open market I had visited the day before. The pony with the apples wasn't there, which bummed me out a little. They had been delicious and I wouldn't have minded picking up a few more. Instead I picked up a bag of carrots from a earth pony mare who introduced herself as Golden Harvest. Her cutie mark was carrot, I figured if her destiny was carrots, they ought to be good. I wasn't disappointed.
As I munched on the carrots, I turned down a random street and followed it, keeping an eye open for either Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie. Rows of neat little cottages eventually broke into a small field where a large round building sat apart from the rest. It wasn't the town hall building but it was still quite fancy looking. There was white unicorn trotting up to the door, floating a large bag next to her. It took me a moment to realize that it was Rarity, one of Twilight's friends that I had met at the castle back when I was in my human body.
"Rarity!" I called out as I trotted towards her. She turned at the sound of her name.
"It's me, Hail Storm." I said as I closed the distance.
"Hail Storm? Oh, yes, Twilight's human turned pony. How are you doing?" she asked.
"Great, I think." I said.
"What brings you to my boutique today?" she asked.
"Your boutique?" I asked.
"This is the Carousel Boutique," she said, nodding at the building. "It's where I practice my art, crafting some of the finest dresses in Equestria."
"Oh, I didn't know. I was actually just exploring the town a bit when I saw you. I figured I'd say hello. I ran into Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie the other day at Sugarcube Corner, you're the only one of Twilight's friends that I hadn't seen since ending up like this," I said gesturing at myself with a wing.
"Well, do come in for a few minutes and we can catch up," she said as her horn lit up and the door swung open, ringing a small bell.
We trotted inside and I tried not to gawk at the grandiose interior. I knew absolutely nothing about pony fashion, but judging from the view, I was sure Rarity's store was on the high end side of things. I chuckled to myself thinking about her offer to make me some clothes, I probably would have ended up with a suit that cost more than my entire wardrobe back on Earth.
Directly across the room from the entrance was a small platform partially surrounded by three large golden framed mirrors. This area was flanked on both sides with pony mannequins, each wearing a different, and expensive looking dress. Off to the side were what appeared to be changing rooms. Since the vast majority of the population wore nothing all the time, I didn't really understand the need for those, but there they were.
Rarity set down her bag and I gaped when I noticed it was packed to the brim with what looked like blue precious stones. Rarity must have caught me staring because she cleared her throat and spoke up.
"Ah yes, I just got back from picking up some sapphires for a special order. Let me put those away and then we can catch up."
She floated the bag into a back room and then returned. She led me into another room that a set of couches and we took a seat. I filled her in on what had been going in since I had been turned into a pony. She let out a squeal of delight when I accidentally mentioned the whole Golden Dawn thing.
"Oh, how romantic, a relationship with a mysterious alien from the stars," she said excitedly.
"I haven't even talked to Golden Dawn yet!" I said, blushing fiercely.
"Well, when you do you simply must let me know. I suppose I can't make you human clothing anymore, but if you ever need a proper suit for a night of fine dining and high culture in Canterlot, come and see me."
I quickly changed topics and brought up my plans to buy some land in Ponyville and set up a shop.
"That's kind of the real reason I'm here, I was exploring the town to get a feel for it, but I need to go see the Mayor to figure out some legal bits."
"Oh, well I better not keep you too long, you'll likely have to setup an appointment. I..."
My ears swiveled towards the sound of the door bell jingling.
"It sounds like I might have a customer, let me go check I'll be right back," Rarity said.
She trotted out and I heard some voices speak up. One of them was Rarity's but the rest I didn't recognize. I couldn't quite catch what they were saying but I heard at least three new voices, all talking excitedly. A moment later Rarity came back into the room.
"Hail Storm," she said with a quiet hiss. "I need to get you out of here."
"Is something the matter?" I asked. Her calm demeanor had evaporated into a look of mild panic.
"It's my younger sister, Sweetie Belle. She and her two friends just arrived. I'm probably overreacting, but well, those three are completely obsessed with getting their cutie marks. They have a club for it and they cause no end of trouble. I'm afraid if they notice your... blank flank as it were, well you might get drafted into their shenanigans. Forcibly."
"They're just a few kids right?" I asked.
"Do you really want to get followed around constantly by a bunch of hyperactive preteen fillies?"
"I see your point. What do I do. That's the only exit," I said nodding at the door. "Unless that staircase leads somewhere."
I heard hoofsteps heading towards the door.
"Up the stairs!" Rarity almost shouted.
We reached the top and I jumped into the next room just as the door at the bottom opened up.
"Rarity, are you talking to somepony?" I heard a younger sounding pony ask.
"Uh, no no, Sweetie Belle. Just getting something, I'll be down in a minute," Rarity said before she closed the door and followed me in.
"Where do I go now?" I asked in a hushed whisper. "Is there another staircase down?"
"No, that's the only one," Rarity said.
"Well, then why did you tell me to go up the stairs?"
"I panicked!"
She took another look at me and then smiled.
"Quick, over here," she said, leading me to a very large window. It was already lit up with her magic touch and starting to open.
"Out the window," she said.
"We're on the second floor," I said.
"You're a pegasus!"
"Oh... yeah."
"Just get going! We'll talk more later."
"Well, this has been... strange," I said.
And with that, I jumped out of Rarity's bedroom window. I spread my wings and glided down, landing about a hundred feet or so from the boutique. I turned around and saw Rarity closing up the window and gave her an awkward wave goodbye.
"I guess I better go see the mayor now," I said to myself, still not quite believing what had just happened.
It was a quick trot from Rarity's store to the town hall. Once inside I found myself in a line of ponies. I waited my turn until a pegasus pony called me over.
"Hello, I'm Quill Pen, how can I help you?" she asked.
"Hi, I'm Hail Storm. I'm thinking about moving to Ponyville."
"Oh! Well, let me extend a welcome. Are you planning to move into an existing location or did you want to settle on some new land?"
"New land. Specifically I was looking for something on the outskirts of town. Maybe over near Short Fuse's fireworks store," I said.
"I'm familiar with that area," Quill Pen said with a friendly smile. "All that land is managed by the town, and there are some plots available for purchase, but you're going to have to talk to Mayor Mare for more information."
"Can I see her today?" I asked
Quill Pen pulled out a notebook and skimmed through it.
"Unfortunately, her schedule is pretty booked right now. I can schedule something for you but it won't be until late next week. Is that okay?"
"I'm not in any rush, that would be fine."
"Great! How does next Friday at 3:00 PM sound?" Quill Pen asked.
"Works for me," I said.
"Hail Storm right?" she asked as she picked up a pencil and started writing something in the notebook.
"Yep."
She finished with the notebook and put it down.
"You're all set, was there anything else?"
"I'm thinking about starting up a business, once I figure out the property situation. Is there any sort of paperwork I'd have to fill out or anything?" I asked.
"I don't think so, but that's not really an area I'm familiar with. You can ask the mayor for more information when you meet with her," Quill Pen said.
"That works," I said. "Thanks for your time."
"No problem, have a wonderful day," she said.
With nothing left to do on Ponyville, I flew back to Canterlot. It was strange to think about setting down roots in Equestria. It was only a little over a month ago when I had been heading to Canterlot in effort to get back to Earth. With that path closed off, at least for the time being, what else was I going to do? This was just another stumbling block in my life, and I wasn't going to treat it any differently.
My thoughts turned to when Rick had sold his store. I hadn't expected to lose my job and it was a major financial hurdle. I had a choice back then as well. The first few places that had actually gotten back to me, would have provided me with enough money to live, but I would have been forced to drop out of college due to scheduling conflicts. Instead, I hung on until I finally found something that let me keep taking classes.
Taking that security guard job had felt like choosing the least bad option from a bundle of crap choices. This felt different though. It was unexpected, but it felt like opportunity. A new path, an uncertain one for sure, but an exciting one. Someday, I might make it back to Earth, but while I was here, I wanted to make the most of my life.
I could have given up when Twilight told me I wasn't getting home anytime soon. She had already told me I could stay at the castle as long as I wanted. I could have hung around there moping around until she figured out how to send me back to Earth. Which, for all i knew, could take the rest of my life. That wasn't good enough for me though. If I was going to be stuck in Equestria, something I truly had no control over, I still wanted to do something productive with my time. Being turned into a pony might have given me some new interests, flight chief among them, but I still had my old ones.
Golden Dawn's idea had sparked something inside of me. I was in a position I would have never been in on Earth. With the money I had from the changeling treasure I had acquired, I could start something here, taking an activity I already enjoyed and building it up into something I could support myself on. Sure, there was risk, but that held true of anything worthwhile.