//------------------------------// // Ch.11 A Breeze through Ponyville // Story: A Stress Free Environment // by SimpleDude //------------------------------// Josh's eyelids slowly parted while he regained control of his body from a deep slumber. He awoke expecting the blinding light of day to invade his eyes, but his eyes were met with darkness. Josh blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing right. To his relief, he discovered a clock once his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “I guess I just woke early. I wonder if Andromeda is up.” Josh got up and started to walk around. He noticed that the only sounds that could be heard was his footsteps and the occasional gust of wind pressing against the side of the house. Josh didn't take comfort in the eeriness of the howling wind. He always thought it was foreboding and unnatural. Josh stopped walking and stood in complete silence to think. ‘I almost forgot I had my phone. I hate it when I forget things.’ Josh reached into his deep pocket and was relieved when his hand brushed against the sturdy, plastic case that covered his phone. Josh grabbed his phone and whipped it out his pocket as if it was a Texas six shooter and he was in a gun duel with the most wanted criminal in the West. ‘Let's turn on some tunes.’ Music helped Josh think and it gave him comfort. If there was a huge paper to write for school, any homework, or if he just wanted something to listen to, he would turn on some music. Homework; that was something Josh wasn't missing, but upon consideration, he shivered at the thot never doing homework again. Not because he liked homework, but because it was unnatural to not have any, almost as unnatural as being stuck on an alien planet populated by talking ponies. Upon turning his phone on, Josh’s eyes were caught by the photo app. His heart skipped a beat. All thoughts of music completely abandoned him and were replaced with thoughts of home. He hovered a finger over the app to open it, but paused. He took a deep breath to compose himself, then pressed the tip of his finger to the screen and plopped back onto the couch. The screen instantly flickered and displayed a large group of small square photos that contained a precious memory in each square. One of the more recent photos showed a small group of close friends smiling for the camera. This image sparked a hope in the heart of Josh. A hope that his camera roll wouldn't become a museum of an untouchable place by finding his way home. Josh scrolled down a little more to see some other pictures. One in particular etched a smile onto his face. There was a child, no older than seven, nervously riding a white and red bike. ‘I'm glad my cousin liked my old bike, even if he did crash right after I took this picture.’ Josh shook his head as a tear rolled down his cheek, all the while keeping his small but joyful smile. He kept scrolling and paused on a picture of him and his family at his birthday party. ‘I'll get back to all of you. Just you wait and see.’ The screen went black and Josh slipped his phone back into his pocket, the mood for music in him temporarily subsided. He sighed and got up from the couch again. Josh took a good look around the house and didn't find anything interesting or out of the ordinary, but there was no Andromeda to be found. The only place he had left to look was her room. ‘I guess I better go see if she is still asleep.’ Josh walked up to Andromeda's room and stood in front of the door thinking. ‘I don't want to wake her up. That would be quite inconsiderate of me. I wonder though…’, Josh leaned up against the door and listened for a few seconds. He heard the rise and fall of Andromeda’s breath. ‘I guess that little incident really war her out yesterday.’ When Josh finished his thought he smelled something. It wasn't a horrible smell, but one you wouldn't want to linger around for too long. He looked around for the source, but detected nothing that could be the cause. ‘What is that?’ Josh leaned his head down and squatted to look on the floor for any trash, but there wasn’t any. The smell got stronger. ‘Wait a second.’ Josh lifted his arm up and took a good whiff. ‘Yep. That's what spending a few days in the same clothes without washing will do to ya. I need a shower.’ Josh shook his head. He was sure the rest of him was in need of some soap and water too. ‘I'm glad Andromeda has a shower, or else I'd be in trouble.’ He figured his clothes needed washing too and took a good look around for a washing machine, but ended up disappointed. ‘I knew it was a long shot, but you never know…’ He decided just to air his clothes out while he took a shower. Josh took a good look at the bathroom. The walls were sky blue with a few cloud patterns spread out. They reminded him of a child's room. The floor was made up of small white tiles that were slightly rough to the touch. A medium sized mirror was hung on the wall above a sink. There were a few cabinets that Josh left alone and a towel rack to the left of the sink. There was a bathtub about a pony and a half in length, and about the width of a pony. Two bottles of soap were placed at the end of the tub. One for hair/main and one for body/coat. The size of the tub was all around decent for Josh, but he sighed when he spotted the shower nozzle. The nozzle was below his neck and he couldn't adjust its position, so it was stuck at one angle. He would have to squat to the bottom of the tub to wash his hair. He also noticed the shower didn't have a curtain, but a sliding door instead. The door was completely transparent. In the end of his investigation he just decided to suck it up. ‘I've seen worse.’ Thoughts ran through Josh’s mind like the water running down his chest. Both of which were flowing like a river. ‘This has been one heck of an adventure so far and I've only been here for a few days.’ Josh went over every detail of the events that had transpired through the duration of his little “get-away trip” and reminisced on a few certain details. ‘That was weird when I first met Andromeda. Heh, I think she was just as surprised as I was when we met. She did say that there were basically no humans in Equestria before me and- wait. If we just met, then how did she know what I was?’ Josh’s heart skipped a beat at the revelation. ‘Does that mean she knows something about humans? Well, I mean, gah. It's probably Pony mythology or something. I highly doubt she would keep anything from me. There's no way she would, right? Oh well, I'll just talk to her about that later.’ Josh went back to skimming over everything else that had happened until he thought about the events of the previous day surfaced. ‘Oh yeah, I need to apologize to that one unicorn who likes kites today, but first I need to find out who she is. I guess I'll ask around town, but since it's so early, there probably won't be many out. Oh well, I'm sure there is somebody I can ask.’ Josh put his slightly better smelling clothes on and headed outside after he finished his shower. He didn't want to leave Andromeda hanging like he did last time, so he found a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote a note describing what his plans were for the day and that he would try to not take too long. It was still dark outside, but it wasn't as cold as one would expect. However, there were gusts of wind every half a minute or so that would go right through Josh’s clothes which give him a chill. He usually liked colder weather, but the wind chill was almost too much for him to handle. ‘Where to start.’ Josh wondered around Ponyville in search of someone, but most residence were still asleep since it was still dark outside. It was as if the night had snatched up every citizen of Ponyville. Josh wasn't about to give up, so he kept searching around the motionless town. Time wasn't wasted because he was learning his way around at probably the best time. There was no hassle or anything distracting. Just Josh, Ponyville, and the snow on the ground. The market in the town square reminded Josh of the medieval ages. Stands were positioned on the side of the street to attract business from the ponies that would be walking by. Most of the stands were empty, likely to not be filled until the sun rose and warmed things up a bit. Josh came to the conclusion that Ponyville was a nice little town. He hadn't had much time to interact with the residents, but he was sure they would be nice if he got to know them. Josh was beginning to doubt there was even one soul besides himself was awake. All the sudden there were loud explosions and flashes of light that filled the sky, which were in the direction of Twilight’s castle. Josh almost lost his balance out of surprise. ‘That sounded like fireworks! Why the heck would someone be lighting the town up like it’s Fourth of July this early?’ Josh started walking to the source of the loud explosion. It wasn't much longer before there was another large flash of light followed by a loud bang. The explosion lit up the street Josh was walking on and the buildings around him. ‘Yep, those had to be fireworks.’ The fireworks left long trails of smoke, which made it easy for Josh to track where they came from. The first few fireworks that were shot off were also the last, but that didn't stop Josh from finding the origin of the noisy explosives. He could see Twilight's castle from where he was standing. It wasn't close, but there was an obvious path that led to it. A little to the side of the path was a trailer which the trailing smoke was lingering around. When Josh got close to the wagon, he could make out a feminine voice coming from the other side of it. “No no no. That was the wrong mixture. Never mix the red and the blue Trixie. You had one job. One. And what do you do? You mess everything up.” Josh thought there might be two ponies, but when he looked under the cart, he could make out a pair of hoofs laying on the ground belonging to a sitting pony. He guessed that there was another in the cart, or this one was talking to herself. ‘I hope it's the first possibility and not the second. I've dealt with enough craziness in these past few days to cover the rest of my life. I don't need anymore.’ Josh walked around the back of the wagon to get a good look at the pony on the other side and to see what she was doing setting off fireworks so early in the mourning. The pony's back was turned toward Josh while she continued to work on firework mixtures. She hadn't noticed Josh was behind her. Josh decided to speak up and get the mares attention. “So, the fireworks aren't working out too well for ya today?” To Josh’s surprise, she responded quite frankly. “Yeah, I guess I'm having a stroke of bad luck. First, I get attack by this thing in the middle of the street wanting to know how to get home or something, then Starlight, my best friend, is all upset about the same creature that hurt her, but she didn't specify how. Then one of my wagon axles cracked, and to top it off, I messed up a simple firework recipe that sent some of my firework supply flying away, which not to mention may have awoken some groggy ponies up that are probably not too happy about that and-” Trixie halted mid-sentence when she realized she was not alone. Her ears flattened against her head before slowly turning around to see who she was venting to. Josh was feeling really bad about scaring this Pony and hurting her friend, Starlight, but at least he found out what he set out to do on the snowy morning. Mission success? Not quite. He still had to keep Trixie from freaking out again, which was already starting to happen. “Please stay calm. I wasn't trying to attack you earlier, and I'm really sorry about that, and I'm sorry about hurting Starlight. That's actually part of the reason I'm out here talking to you right now. Just give me a chance to explain.” Josh put his hands up and stepped back a few feet in an effort to calm down the frantic unicorn. She slowly closed her mouth, but kept her strong gaze cast on Josh. “You better explain fast or I will call the guard on you.” The mares eyes had fire in them. “...and then I held something that was really important to Starlight hostage and made her teleport me outside. I know it sounds bad, because it is, and I want to make it up to her, and you. So, I'm sorry.” Josh held his head a bit lower than he had before. He was truly sincere about his apology and hoped it would be accepted. Trixie was no longer scared, but perplexed. “Listen, Trixie usually turns a pony down if they needed help, but Starlight is Trixie’s friend, and you remind Trixie of- somepony else Trixie is close to; and since you want to make up for your mistakes, Trixie’s going to need your help with a few things later, but for right now, you should be focused on apologizing to Starlight.” Trixie finished and looked to Josh expectantly. “That's what my goal for today was. To  apologize to Starlight. I was going to start off by learning her name, which now I know, and try to figure out how to make it up to her.” Trixie gained a confident look before responding to Josh. “You need to give her something that would mean a lot. Something that says, “I'm truly sorry for what I did.” It also needs to have a note so she knows who it's from. Either that, or you give it to her yourself, but I suggest apologizing in person because it would be more sincere.” Josh knew what he needed to do now. Get Starlight an awesome kite. He just had no idea how he was going to do that. “So, what are you, some kind of monkey?” Trixie looked quizzically to Josh. “Uh, not quite.” ‘This is going to be interesting.’ Josh smiled nervously while he thought to himself.