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// Post Christmas to January 2016 
// Story: Perils of a Merpony: A Ponies after People Tale 
// by kitten_girl86 
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Of course, it wasn't long before Griz was biting at the nails to share all the knowledge she had gathered while at Alexandria. Immediately after Christmas, she had begun transforming one of the smaller offices (the first one from the kitchenette) into a new library; dumping the old books from shelves and moving the shelves into the new space. She left one small desk, chair and lamp for private study but every other inch of the walls was now covered in a mix of different bookshelf-styles.

Then, when the library was ready, she called everypony to emergency meeting in the lounge; even Alejandro attended out of pure curiosity. Griz began almost immediately, pulling out her old saddlebags. Kathryn kept thinking that they were too small to contain all the knowledge they had requested and began to wonder if Griz had put it all on USB memory sticks and that's what she was about to hand/hoof out. But when Griz opened the saddlebags, Kathryn, sitting at Griz's right-claw side, saw the swirling mass of magic within the bag, she knew that some seriously advanced unicorn had done some gumbo jumbo to the bag so it could carry so much more. 

Griz then gripped the bag at the open and spoke very clearly into it. "Dr Jamie's medical," books and scrolls of various sizes flew out of the bag's top, grew to their proper sizes and all floated down into very neat stacks and piles next to the pony in question. Kathryn counted at least 12 books and probably double that in scrolls. Dr Jamie flipped only a few pages of the nearest book and his face broke into a huge grin.

Griz repeated the process with "Jazz's weather management", "Kathryn's farming", "Sarah's underwater research", and finishing with "Everything else"; the last pile, of generic pony information like Equestrian history and geography and such, a pile of about 8 more books, formed up on the kitchenette's table. 

When all of the books and scrolls were removed from the bag, the swirl of magic was gone and somehow Kathryn knew it was gone forever. "They helped me make exact copies of everything you guys asked for so these are ours to keep. When you're done reading them privately, you can either keep them for yourselves or add them to the new public library. That pile on the table will start the library," Griz said as she pulled out a few USB memory sticks; far more than what Kathryn had scavenged for her. "These are the digital copies of all the books and scrolls, so just in case anything happens to the books. They also contain other records of the human world they asked us to keep in reserve. They will all go in a vault in the basement for safe keeping."

The ponies all agreed to keep the extra data safe for those at Alexandra; it was the least they could do for all their help at getting the research they needed. It wasn't long before ponies gathered up their piles and headed for more private reading locations. Li, having only picked up a single book from the library pile about unicorn spells & placed said book on her back, used her magic to carry a large portion of Dr Jamie's pile so they'd only have to make one trip. Being earlier in the day, Midnight Iris simply took her two books about bat ponies and headed for bed, intending to read hers later. It took all three merponies to help Sarah carry her pile back to Bermareda Circle's Surface Ship so they could start reading.

Kathryn looked at the first book of her pile. 'Earth Pony Farming 101'. Griz followed her gaze and gave a chuckle. "When we were about to start making copies, that was the first one; got about half way through before I realized I could not read it.... all strange swirly characters and stuff. Thankfully they recognized the books were all in Equish, the Equestrian's written language! They added a quick translation spell to the copying and started again." Griz took up her own three books on griffons (history, anatomy -which she fully intended to give to Dr Jamie when finished- and general knowledge) and headed to her own room. 

Kathryn proceeded to dump her pile into one of the garden wagons they kept nearby for refilling the wood pile and towed it to her RV. But she only transferred the pile from the wagon to her kitchenette table before taking the wagon over to the small forest and she began gathering more fallen branches, using her powerful hooves to break/split up anything too big for the wagon. She was gnawing at the bit (no pun intended) to get reading her books but she had noticed the wood pile in the common room was really low so she'd get that done first.


An hour later, Kathryn had collected enough fallen branches for the pile and brought it back inside. Li was in the common room, reading her single book of unicorn magic; she gracefully got up and started helping Kathryn to split the branches more and stack them neatly in the wood box. When the two mares finished, Kathryn left the wagon where she found it and trotted back to her RV to finally begin her reading.


Dinner would have been forgotten had it not been for Iris's awareness of time of day. The bat pony woke in the evening to find everyone still reading their new books & scrolls. She simply rolled her eyes and started making a large veggie casserole from a cookbook that once belonged to Kathryn's mom. When she called everyone to the table, she ordered them all to leave their books in their rooms. "No books at the table. You can share what you've learned so far but no reading while eating. Don't want to risk any damage to the books or scrolls," she had said, pointing a hoof at the couch where Li had already left her own book. A small pile had grown as each creature arrived for the meal.

Kathryn, having been between books at the time, carried nothing with her and she expressed appreciation to the bat pony for her thoughtfulness at using one of Kathryn's mom's recipes. Besides the sweet carrots Kathryn made at Christmas, they didn't really use the cookbooks Kathryn had collected from her food-loving family. It was a really nice change of pace to all that salvaged food. She did miss having meat like turkey and chicken.... smelling it when Griz or Iris would barbecue would only bring back memories & a wave of nausea instead of hunger & delight. They did make veggie meats at times but the expiry dates were creeping up, soon none of them would be safe to eat anymore and they didn't know how to make more.
Maybe one of my farming books or one of the library books can give us an insight to that,  Kathryn thought as she doled out another helping. Maybe there's something we can add to meat that will let us ponies eat it. Kathryn put that on the top of her priority list and then turned her attention to what Dr Jamie was saying.

"I'd like to take a fuel tanker over to the hospital, get the MRI running via generator and get some more scans of each of the tribes & Griz. The diagrams in the books are poor quality, which i suspect is because they were originally hoof-drawn and not because of bad copying." Kathryn saw Griz slump in relief as she knew Dr Jamie wasn't blaming her for the bad information. "I'd also like to bring the merponies. From what I've gone through, I've only found one scroll about them and there's no diagrams at all."

Meanwhile, Jazz was speaking with Li. "I'd like to get my hooves on some fabric and maybe a sewing machine. Apparently pegasi will tend to collect their own feathers from preening and fill their pillows & mattresses with them. A lot cleaner than animal feathers and this way, they're not being thrown out.... we are trying to reduce our waste after all! I plan to share this idea with Patrick too. I figure his feathers would be better suited for them underwater and then they'll have feather filled mattresses down there too!" "What if we installed zippers to one hem? That way, you can add new feathers at any time and not have to open & resew it every time," Li suggested. Jazz's face lit up with excitement at the idea. Both mares agreed to go salvaging at the fabric stores in the morning. Jazz poked Kathryn in the ribs to get her attention. Jazz knew that Kathryn had sewing experience and she could help them pick out the good stuff for what she had in mind. "Wanna go fabric shopping tomorrow?" Kathryn stared at her for a few minutes. "Sure, sounds fun." 





Alejandro had stayed on at Campus City to celebrate the new year of 2016 with the other ponies, merponies and griffon. 

At that morning's breakfast, Kathryn had been wondering if they should still be celebrating the old new years or create a new one on May 23rd. Everyone, including the merponies who had come for the day, was in attendance to hear her concern. Jazz was all for doing both but Iris pointed out that would make things like their journal and acclimatizing returnees more complicated. "Let's keep the human one and simply have a day of reflection on May 23rd instead," Iris proposed. A vote was called and it was unanimous.

Being a warm day, Kathryn & Dr Jamie took Raea for a nice long walk around the north park path while the merponies & Alejandro took over the aquatic center, former in the big warm pool and the latter in another Jacuzzi ice bath. Griz had taken a crossbow & quiver and said she was going hunting. Li and Jazz kept themselves busy with the animal barn and checking on the crops again, sensing Dr Jamie's desire for some time alone with Kathryn.

Despite her limited ability to read social cues, Kathryn did feel something for Dr Jamie and she didn't feel like it was forced. She cared for him like she did all the other creatures in the colony; even Alejandro was a dear friend to her. She noticed that ever since turning pony, friendships had come a lot easier to her than when she was human. Early on, she had suspected it was the herd mentality of horses that made the change.... but now she felt like it was more. Like she was changing herself. Dr Jamie was a delightful conversationalist and they discovered similar pre-Event hobbies like writing stories, Yu Gi Oh trading card game, and artistic pursuits like sewing (Kathyrn) and carpentry (Jamie). 

Raea's side had completely healed from her buck attack some time ago and all the fur had grown back beautifully. She barely walked with any limp and you'd never be able to tell she had gone through something so traumatic as that, seeing her lope ahead of the two Earth ponies, sniffing trees and barking at squirrels; her big goofy grin as she looked back to the two ponies, tongue sticking out the side. She scooped up a good sized stick in her mouth and ferried it back to Jamie. He chuckled, took the other end of the branch in his own mouth, swung back his head and tossed the stick really far, letting his mouth open at just the right time. Raea bolted after the stick like it was her most prized possession, sliding in the leaf litter of the path; having no park rangers to care for the area, the path had already become a little covered over with dirt, dust and few leaves that blew over. 

But Kathryn knew that if she hurried over to Raea now, had the dog roll onto her side, and she used a hoof to brush back the fur, she'd be able to see the scar of the trauma. Physical scars will heal. It's the mental ones you have to worry about. Something she remembered from her high school years came flooding back; something a counselor had told her once after she had been bullied. Surround yourself with your friends; put your thoughts and feelings into words. Don't keep it bottled in, no matter how scared you are of them.  That counselor had helped her more than she knew at the time. (After leaving that session, Kathryn had gone to the school's cafeteria, sought out her friends, told them what happened and they helped distract her with another YuGiOh game.)

Kathryn waited until Jamie had tossed the stick for Raea again and then encouraged him to take a seat on a park bench near by. They sat, face to face, legs curled up beneath their bellies; Kathryn's heart rate increased to the point she was surprised he could not hear it. "Jamie," she said, dropping the doctor part for now. "I really like you." He jerked his head back in surprise, a little blush creeping on his pure white face fur. Her own pale fur showed a blush far brighter and he knew how hard this was for her. He had studied mental health conditions in school, like every other medical student, but didn't put much emphasis on studying them as he intended to be a trauma doctor rather than a psychiatrist. He knew Autism when he saw it and he did see it in her as she avoided eye contact as usual, preferring to look at his snout. 

But he also felt the genuineness of the statement; he felt the honesty and knew. He leaned his head forward until his lips nearly touched her ears. "I like you too, Kathryn." To hear him say those words (and to not use the teasing nickname) made her blush all the more and her eyes went to pinpricks in surprise. Then her rapid heart rate settled and they nuzzled each other. It was all purely instinct but it felt natural and it felt right. Then suddenly, Jamie's snout found Kathryn's in a full on kiss. It was as if sparks and fireworks flew all around them. Love is a magic, said the wind as it blew through the trees.