-The Boy in the Bubble, Paul Simon
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."
Marshall rolled his eyes in amused annoyance. "You know, I've never even SEEN a beehive on this island before now. I've seen bees, but no beeHIVES. What are the odds that the one tree you pick to show me exactly what applebucking looks like would have one in it?"
Twilight sighed and winced again as Marshall very carefully tweezed the stinger out of her cheek. He was being exceptionally careful not to squeeze the venom sac still attached to them, but this meant that it took entirely too long.
"Sadly, bees and I have an on again off again relationship. I suppose it serves me right for showing off. I still can't believe you LAUGHED at me."
"Hey, hey... it is ME we're talking about here. You had a beehive on your head. I challenge you not to have laughed had our situations been reversed. Also to be fair, I was laughing while I was trying to help you get it off. I didn't exactly come out of this unscathed."
"Two. You have exactly two bee stings, Marshall. That is the extent of your injuries. Unless you gave yourself a hernia from laughing so hard."
He chuckled again and fished a particularly nasty one out of the side of her neck. "You didn't follow my advice."
Twilight winced again. "Crabapples that smarts. How exactly is "stop, drop, and roll, Sparks" being helpful? I was being stung, not on fire. I'm just lucky I've built up a tolerance for bee stings."
Marshall held her jaw gently but firmly as he carefully hunted stingers out of her face and neck. The worst of the stings was one that had occured on her right eyelid, and that eye had swollen shut. Fortunely for her, Marshall had very deft hands. She couldn't imagine how difficult it would have been to remove them all herself.
Marshall carefully eased another stinger out of her cheek. "It's not really your fault, Twi. We're both getting antsy, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You've been very patient with the situation, these past few weeks."
She gave him a frustrated look. "I know we need to restrict magic use until we can be positive the MB has really lost us, but what makes it worse is that we actually HAVE things to do."
He nodded absently, attempting to work another nettling sting out from under her mane, but it kept slipping out of the tweezers. "If it's any consolation, we haven't seen a sign of it's ugly ass for three weeks, and there've been plenty of sky lights since then. I think we might be in the clear."
She winced when he finally pulled it free. "I'm trying very hard to be charitable towards bees, but I'm really starting to think they have it out for me."
"This happens a lot back home?" He teased dryly.
She sighed. "More often than I 'd like."
He blinked. "If it's happened more than once, you might want to rethink your strategy on... uh... life, actually."
She gave him the stink eye. Mostly because only one of them could be opened at the moment.
Marshall giggled. "It has happened more than once, hasn't it?"
She rolled her good eye skyward and sighed. "A beehive, once before. The other time was just a swarm."
He put down the tweezers, released her jaw and doubled over with laughter.
She sighed. "Just get it out of your system, you jerk."
"The BEES! Oh god the bees! I beat not one, not two, but three elder evils, but those fucking bees, they confound me at every turn!" He howled.
She scowled. "Hey, to be fair, the third evil was actually defeated by my brother and his fiance. You know, you could show a little compassion. I could develop a complex."
He degenerated into giggles again, falling on his back and kicking his legs feebly. "B... is the most dangerous.... letter...."
She cracked a little grin at this one, and at the sight of him twitching on the floor. "Well ok, just let me know when you decide to be rational again."
"Bee rational?"
She groaned. "Ugh... that's terrible."
"Terri-bee?"
"That doesn't even make sense! I swear, I think you and Pinkie Pie were seperated at birth!"
Marshall grimaced and sat up. "Ok, that's gross, anatomically impossible, and not terribly flattering to my mother. You apologize."
Twilight narrowed her eye at him, then sighed and looked skyward. "I'm sorry your son is a jerk, Mrs. Bailey."
He grinned. "That's better."
Twilight scowled. "There is just no fazing you, is there?"
Marshall gave her a beautific smile. "Twilight, one of these days you'll learn that the only way to win this game is not to play."
She sighed and settled down again, wincing, her expression miserable.
Marshall lost his grin and gave her a concerned look. "Shit, Twi... I'm sorry. I imagine that hurts like a motherfucker. Is there anything I can do to take your mind off it?"
She perked up immediately. "You could tell me why I spent three days designing a self-sustaining polarized thaumic field sensitive mage crystal. I mean, I have some idea of what you might use it for, considering your specifications, but..."
He grinned. "I suppose I set myself up for that one. Alright, alright. Let's-"
He was interrupted by an explosion of excited glee and the rapid clicking of hooves as Twilight galloped into the cleared out chamber they'd been calling the "workroom".
Shaking his head with a smile, Marshall stood and carefully stored all of the first aid implements.
"Nerd pony is best pony."
"MARSHALL! GET YOUR PRIMATE BUTT IN HERE AND SHOW ME!"
Chuckling to himself, he followed the excited mare into the workroom.
"Ok, so what we have here are three LVDTs... that's a linear variable differential transformer, that I ganked from a throttle load sensor. Your little crystal sits here..."
He gestured at the small faintly glowing stone set in a curious framework of salvaged aluminum and electrical parts.
"...and the LVDTs are set at three points to form our three axes, x, y, and z. Theoretically, when your crystal is pushed in a direction by an expanding or moving thauma-thingie-"
She rolled her eyes at this. "Charged thaumic field..."
"Right, that thing. When it is pushed, it will displace the core on one or more of these LVDTs, which will change the voltage potential from zero to a certain amount of millivolts, positive or negative, depending on the direction of displacement."
She nodded, her eyes flicking over the scribbled circuit diagram and various odds and ends he'd cobbled together.
"This voltage is changed into a signal with this synchronous detector and analog-to-digital converter circuit, that relates to this displacement. This signal is then run through our circuit here, which checks for errors and converts it to a discrete distance measurement. This is displayed as a numerical value which is presented on the screen here as a positive or negative number next to the appropriate axis indicator. LVDT core goes out, negative displacement, negative number. Core goes in, positive displacement, positive number."
She gasped, looking up at him. She began to pace furiously, thinking. Marshall grinned at her. He didn't figure he'd have to spell it out for her.
She muttered to herself as she paced. "Which corresponds to the cardinal directions and up and down! So it detects an expanding thaumic field, and gives the intensity and direction of the field fluctu- Marshall... you just made a thaumic field fluctuation detector!"
He cracked his neck and stretched. "I admit wrapping my brain around a magical quartz crystal kinda threw me for a loop, but I don't have to know how the little crystal thingie works to use it. You tell me it'll do what I asked for, and that's good enough for me."
She blushed a bit and pawed the ground. "Well... it was pretty simple really. Basic magecraft. I've built more complex crystals than this when I was still in school. Marshall, you built a functional detector out of junk!"
He shrugged and smirked at her. "This assumes it actually works, mind. The electronics are pretty simple... my Bachelors project was way more complex than this."
She shook her head in wonder. "Marshall, I had something like one of these in my basement. It was something on the order of ten times the size of this."
He scratched his head. "We're just lucky the Navy sprang for a modernization of all the cockpit electronics in these old birds back in the nineties. I don't think I could have pulled this off with nineteen-sixties era electronics. I yanked all the electronics I could out of the old bird when I left, I don't know what I thought I was going to build, I guess the packrat in me just couldn't bear to let anything go to waste. Now I'm glad I did. Still, it's got some limitations."
She frowned. "Like?"
He gestured. "We've got no way other than a physical log to record data on, and I didn't figure we could afford to sit here and watch it all day. Basically what happens is, when it detects a displacement, it freezes the display at the highest recorded value in a given axis. So that means if there are multiple... er, field fluctuations before we get a chance to record it, we'll miss some data."
She sighed. "I suppose that's unavoidable."
He scowled. "Well it wouldn't be if I hadn't fried all the damn memory... can't get printed circuit boards made to order anymore, so I jumper wired the shit out of one of the more simple boards and hoped for the best. The first try didn't... work out so well. Trying to solder in a DIP without a proper solder station is not fucking fun. Originally I was going to install functionality that would store several readings and include a button that would run through all of the stored values, but... well, it turned out that without the right tools I just wasn't able to pull that off. Anyway, the other problem is these LVDTS are DAMN sensitive to vibration as well."
She frowned. "How sensitive are we talking?"
He frowned. "I would suggest walking around on tiptoes around the sensor, if you had toes, and if you have to enter or leave the workroom, don't slam the door. As it is... I built the display with an extra long cable connecting it to the sensor so we can have the display out here, and the sensor in there, isolated from where we move around a lot."
He showed her the cobbled together display box, which was part anunciator panel, and part grid coordinate display. The only part of the device which was actually completely enclosed.
"These are the axis indicators, and this here is the reset button, which will reset the display. If the LVDTs reset to neutral when the crystal stops being stimulated, this should be zero. If, after you reset the display, this value is NOT zero, then you have a calibration error, and any data you grabbed might be invalid."
He scowled. "But, it fucking better be zero. I spent three hours last night recalibrating those fucking things to within plus or minus point oh oh five millivolts."
She grinned. "So THAT'S how the screwdriver ended up stuck in the table this morning!"
"Twilight, the school of thought where I come from, calibration usually involves hitting it with a hammer. I don't take no guff from no fucking piece of shit electronics."
She rolled her eyes. "You are the terror of inanimate objects the worlds over." She said dryly.
"Anyway, I took apart a crank emergency radio from the kit for the battery and... well, the crank. With your "make shit work like there's a fucking poltergeist going to town on it spell"-"
She shook her head. "You mean the Come to Life spell? How hard is this stuff to remember, when you can remember electrical theory and the like?"
He grinned. "It isn't. I just like making up a new name for it everytime I talk about it because you get so worked up about it."
She face-hooved. "I should have seen that coming."
He nodded sagely. "Aye, ya shoulda."
"Anyway, the battery has got enough juice, fully charged, to run the detector for around sixteen hours or so. With the Unseen Servant spell-"
She glared at him, but didn't say anything. He continued, grinning.
"You're learning! You can keep the battery fully charged without one of us, probably me, cranking like a madman for hours on end. The sensor detects an event, and the indicator will buzz. We take a reading, reset the display, and that's all she wrote."
She grinned, turning the display over and over in her hooves examining it. "So where's the on button? Let's try it out!"
He froze. He turned to the hastily scribbled circuit diagram in consternation, then lowered his head and sighed.
She frowned. "What?"
"Uh... well shit. I knew I forgot something. I guess if you want it on or off, you just connect or disconnect the battery."
Twilight stared at him for several blinks, then erupted into giggles.
He took this with a vaguely offended air. "Everybody's a critic."
She took one look at his expression and burst out laughing, collapsing to the floor in helpless mirth.
Marshall crossed his arms and shook his head. "I swear, I build the first pony/human hybridized piece of technology and you lose your shit over one of the little bells and whistles that goes missing."
She rolled over onto her back, tears streaming down her cheeks. "HA HA HA! Bells... and... Marshall! It's the... ON switch! It's like... the FIRST thing you put on a device! That's not a bell or a whistle!"
"I suppose I deserve this for the bee comments." He said with utmost dignity.
Twilight finally managed to stifle herself back to a reasonable volume. "Sorry... it's just the look on your face... I swear it was like you were just about to take your first lick of an ice cream cone and the whole thing just plopped out onto the ground."
He looked at her seriously. "Twilight, at this stage if I had an ice cream cone, and I dropped it on the ground, I wouldn't even hesitate. You do not want to know what I would be willing to do for a klondike bar, right now."
She stopped laughing, considered this for a moment, then nodded solemnly. She didn't know what a klondike bar was, but it was probably ice cream, and thus she could understand the gist of it.
"Yeah... me too."
They both sighed at the same time, then immediately went about getting the device ready for a series of tests.
Marshall poured brine into the shallow pan, sweat dripping off of his forehead as the heat rose from the wide, thin piece of steel. Twilight stepped in next, telekinetically using a makeshift saltscraper to rake the salt crystals formed from the previous batch of brine as the water boiled away. While she scraped the salt into the bags they had for collection he added wood to the fire and stepped back to the beach with the now empty bucket, filling it with salt water.
"So I think our tests last night pretty conclusively proved two things." She said, scraping away. She had her mane tied back so that the constant perspiration of the hot, sweaty work didn't drip into her eyes.
Marshall came back with the bucket full and set it down, unscrewing a canteen and taking series of deep gulping swallows. Water dripped from his beard and mustache. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and considered her curiously.
"Yeah?"
Twilight finished scraping the salt pan clean, then stepped back, waiting for more crystals to form as the new brine added to the pan reached boiling temperature. Losing water from perspiring in the jungle heat was bad, but a more insidious and just as dangerous, albeit slower death, was the depletion of the body's salt levels.
Too much salt was bad for you, sure. Too little, and you could end up with cramps, dizziness, electrolyte disturbance, neurological problems, even death.
She set about cleaning the salt caked onto the rake's scraping end into the salt bags before absently taking a swig of water from Marshall's proffered canteen.
"One, we've proven that your detector is a success, and is, incidentally, considerably more sensitive and accurate than any Equestrian device of the same type, so... kudos."
Marshall gave her a brief bow, then shrugged. "What's number two?"
She set the canteen down and turned to him. "The MB might still be actively wandering around out there, but it hasn't found us. If the testing last night didn't tip it off, the water fight afterwards should have."
Marshall scowled. "I still think teleportation and creating doors for cover is fucking cheating."
Twilight smirked. "Oh my, is someone still butt-hurt about losing last night? If you can't stand the heat, don't bring opposable thumbs to a magic fight."
"That is NOT how the saying goes." He grumbled pettily.
She paused, considering. "Wow, you really ARE butt-hurt. I like that word, "butt-hurt". It has a nice ring to it. Very descriptive. You know what it describes? Eight to six, my lead."
He sighed. "Yeah, really glad I taught you that fucking word."
She grinned. "Annnyway, in conclusion, I'd say it's time to discuss the mountain trip."
He took a deep breath, let it out, picked up the rake, and switched jobs with her. Leaning on the salt rake, he stared moodily at the steam rising from the salt pan, considering his approach.
"I gotta be honest, Twi. I've been up there, and while I wouldn't classify it as a tough climb in and of itself, there are factors that make it pretty dangerous. This isn't even taking into account how we're going to get you up and down the damn thing."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I told you I had a plan."
He cocked his head slightly, acknowledging her point. "Ok, you've got a plan. That's great. It still doesn't change the fact that this isn't a simple day trip, Sparks. After what happened the last time, I'm not so sure an overnight is such a good idea."
She looked at him seriously. "If you had to make the trip by yourself, could you pull it off in a day?"
He thought about this for a moment, then nodded. "The best route up the mountain is pretty close, and it doesn't turn into anything more than a rough hike 'til about a third of the way up. The rough spot's in the middle, but it's really rough. There are... things nesting up there. It's not a climb I would have attempted if I knew what it was like about half way through. By that time, I just kinda powered through the rest. Bear in mind that you've seen the kind of shit I'll put up with when my dander is up. I still have a couple of scars from it."
She sighed at this. "Still, all of that aside, if you only had to worry about getting yourself up there, could you do it?"
He frowned. "Sure."
He closed his eyes, then let out a sigh and frowned, crossing his arms. "You might as well out with it Sparks, because unless this is a doozy of a plan, I don't see how we're going to pull this off. I CAN'T carry you up there on my back, not that far, and not safely. I'm in pretty good shape, best shape of my life actually, but that is a HELL of a lot of weight to carry up a mountainside, no offense."
She smirked. "None taken."
He continued. "There'd be no way we could fight effectively if we're tethered together like that. If we got attacked by something up there, we'd be screwed."
"Marshall, it's ok. I've got a spell JUST for occasions like this."
He frowned. "Unless it turns your asshole into a jet engine, I don't see-"
She shook her head mock seriously and looked him sincerely in the eyes. "Marshall, I would never cast a spell that turned you into an inanimate object without your consent."
Marshall gave her a confused look. "What are you-" His expression cleared. "Oh... oh wow, I walked right into that one. Zing."
She smiled happily. "Nine to six. Anyway, I don't have a spell that does that, but I DO have one that's appropriate, if you will allow me to demonstrate."
He made an overly elaborate gesture with one hand that she found vaguely fascinating (even after six weeks, human body language was still so alien) and lifted his chin imperiously. "Proceed."
She took a deep breath, let it out, and closed her eyes. Magical energy gathered and formed around her horn, bathing her face in a soft purple glow. A gentle wind swirled about her, and twisting bands of light began to hide her from view as the energies involved slowly lifted her from the ground.
Marshall raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms over top the salt rake, and adopted a stony neutral expression. Secretly, he was a little nervous, having never seen such an obviously extreme example of magical energy being manipulated. Whatever she was up to, it was definitely BIG.
The concussive blast of the spell's completion actually blew him off of his feet, but only because he wasn't expecting it at all. He landed on his back, tangled up with the rake, and somehow managed to give himself one of those nauseating taps to the nuts that reminded you just how vulnerable they were. Cursing, he tossed the rake aside and sat up, wincing.
He opened his eyes.
Stared for several seconds.
Blinked.
"W-Well?" Twilight asked, panting slightly. It really was an exhausting spell. Although... she wasn't sure, but she didn't feel QUITE as tapped out as she had the last time she'd cast it. That was interesting, but hardly surprising.
She had grown a lot since then.
Marshall continued staring at her for a few more seconds, then he smirked.
"Well shit. We have successfully achieved a cuteness singularity. The inclusion of girly-ass butterfly wings is causing the weight of your cute to collapse in on itself."
Twilight rolled her eyes, testing the wings out for the first time. She was curious as to exactly how the spell pulled off what it was pulling off. The wings were the spell matrix, actualized as a physical construct, but they were so thin and delicate as to be nearly useless.
After a thorough examination of the matrix, she realized it was actually a cunning workaround of the "Telekinetic Load: Drain Runaway principle". The principle stated that the more spell matrix actualized thaumic energy an object had, the harder it was to lift, telekinetically.
Since telekinesis caused an actualization of thaumic energy in a field around both the object AND the pony casting the spell, as evidenced by the slight glow around the horn, this meant that the energy requirements necessary to telekinetically lift one's self made it economically unfeasible as a mode of travel.
As they applied a telekinetic spell matrix around themselves, the amount of actualized thaumic potential generated as waste energy by their horn would increase, causing the telekinesis spell matrix to require more energy, thus causing more waste energy from the horn to keep up, and so on. The power requirements would eventually level off, of course, as the amount of waste energy generated couldn't exceed a certain fixed amount, and that meant that while it was possible, it was too prohibitively expensive, energy wise, for even a pony like Twilight or one of the Princesses to use in anything but a strict emergency, when teleportation wasn't an option. Which of course didn't prevent every unicorn ever born from trying it at least once.
It was still pretty darn cool as a party trick.
What this spell did was cunningly get around this, by attaching a physical construct as a discrete and seperate object, and using it as a focus point for a very complex weaving of pre-determined thought triggered telekinetic commands. The pony didn't even need to know how to fly, they just had to think about where they wanted to go, and the spell matrix executed the appropriate telekinetic commands for them.
Absolutely genius, but ridiculously complex, which made it awfully power intensive. She doubted more than one in ten unicorns could attempt it.
"Goddamn it, I can actually feel my penis inverting."
She blinked, startled out of her reverie, then stared at him flatly. "Gross. Marshall, you're reaching."
Marshall shook his head. "Can you blame me? I can't think! I am suffocating under inconceivable D'AW pressure. Subjective time is slowing down to a stand still as I approach your girly event horizon."
She smirked at this, nerdy jokes were probably hitting below the belt, but... well, dang it, she liked a good science joke.
"You realize that all you're doing is giving me more science stuff to pester you about, right?"
"Sparks, you are absolutely insatiable, you realize that, right?"
She grinned happily. "When it comes to what you've got, Marshall, I can never get enough."
He blinked, opened his mouth, then closed it.
She continued on, blissfully unaware that he was now giving her an odd expression.
"It's so exciting! Everytime I think I've plumbed the depths of it, you whip out something completely unexpected and surprise me all over again!"
He leveled a flat stare at her, raising an eyebrow. "You gotta be doing that on purpose."
She frowned quizzically at him. "Doing what on purpose?"
He chuckled and shook his head, standing up and brushing himself off. "Nevermind, Twi. It's too easy."
She frowned. "I'm not easy. It's just that you're so hard-"
He smirked and shook his head, letting out a chuckle. "Oh man, you-"
"Damn it, Marshall, do you know how frustrated you make me when you pull this?!"
Marshall stared at her intently for several seconds, then said flatly. "Bullshit, you're yanking my crank."
She rolled her eyes. "Obviously. I'm not exactly experienced, Marshall, but I know what a double entendre is. I was just trying to see how long I could mess with your head."
He shook his head. "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is your dick ass purple companion being a fucktard."
She fluttered closer and batted her eyelashes at him. "You say the sweetest things, Marshall."
He edged a bit to one side, obviously a bit weirded out at this byplay. She landed and fixed him with a serious expression.
"So?"
He raised an eyebrow. "So what?"
"So are we going to climb this mountain or what? I mean, I could just... fly up there myself-"
He glared at her. "After the ass-reaming you gave me about doing stupid reckless shit together or not at all? That shit works both ways, marefriend."
She blushed. Truthfully, it was gratifying to see he was taking her words seriously. That actually warmed her heart a bit. Not that she thought he was going to go back on his word, but...
"I'm sorry, you're right. We'll climb it together."
He sighed. "I'M going to climb the fucking mountain. You're going to fly, apparently."
She clapped her front hooves together gleefully and fluttered off towards the basecamp singing something vaguely triumphant, and not particularly complimentary to him. Marshall could almost swear he heard some form of accompaniment to her singing.
He glared in that direction, then tied the two salt bags they'd collected to the end of the rake and put the fire out with what was left of the salt water. Propping the rake over his right shoulder, and carrying the bucket, he set off after the victorious mare, left with the unsettling feeling that she had somehow manipulated him into something.
"When did my life become a fuckin' children's cartoon?"
Twilight had settled down to a comfortable position, and had been reading for about an hour, finally having pushed through the last section of Battlefield Expedient Medicine. Marshall had spent the early evening fieldstripping and maintaining one of the many M4 carbines which had been in the C-130's cargohold. Having completed this, he was currently whittling a piece of driftwood they'd found on the beach to pass the time.
She finished the book and closed it, resting her forehooves on it and sighing. The fire let out a merry pop as some knot of moisture was found by the hungry flames. Marshall carefully teased another shaving stroke down whatever he was working on, letting the shaving drop into a small basket set aside for the purpose. It would later be used for tinder. Nothing was wasted, if they could help it.
She floated the book back onto the shelf and took up her journal, considering her words carefully. After several false starts in her head, she finally settled on a comfortable beginning to her tale.
There was really only one beginning that could have worked.
Dear Princess Celestia...
She grinned to herself, words flowing onto the page, the act of putting her thoughts on paper to what was, at this point, a largely theoretical future royal reader was such a boost to her morale that she could scarcely believe it. Before she'd realized it, she'd put at least four pages in tight, tiny script onto the pages. She paused for a moment and looked up at Marshall's back, prepared to thank him again for the journal, but he was so intent on what he was doing that she decided not to bother him.
Instead she smiled softly at him and closed the journal, stowing it under her pillow reverently. Having done this, she picked up the 5-250 Demolitions manual, opened it, and began a more thorough delving into the world of human military demolitions.
She'd already finished her read through the Battlefield Expedient Medicine training manual, and had even tested herself by answering all of the quizzes contained at the end of each module. She would have liked to practice some of what she had learned, but Marshall wasn't having any of that. At worst though, she figured all she had to do was wait a while. Marshall would do something dumb and hurt himself eventually, it was about as inevitable as rainfall on this dang island.
The Demolitions manual interested her because it was an insight into the military mindset that she didn't really have, even though her brother was in the Guard. What impressed her the most was the tone of the manual. It seemed to stress safety and using exactly the amount of force necessary to accomplish the task at hand; no more, no less. She'd always pictured military action as being nothing more than leveling as much force to bear as possible, as quickly as possible. The Demolitions manual called that notion into question.
She loved having her preconceived notions challenged.
Still, it was late, and eventually, by mutual agreement, the two of them went to bed early.
They would have a long day tomorrow.
"Five fifty parachute cord is some of the most badass stuff on the planet. Thirty percent stretch before it snaps, can sustain loads of up to five hundred and fifty pounds, no problem, with a weight of around two hundred and twenty five feet per pound, you just DO not get better bang for your buck, pound for pound. I admit, I might be biased here, because it's all I have, but Twilight... if I was cordage, I'd want five fifty to have my rope babies."
She rolled her eyes and smirked, checklist hovering in front of her along with her pen. "That is a very odd fetish to have, Marshall."
He continued coiling the parachute cord and chuckled.
"Oh come on, Sparks. You're not into a little rope play?"
She shook her head and muttered. "No, that's more AJ's schtick."
Marshall ignored this statement, not quite sure what to make of it.
He carefully stowed the now expertly bundled coil onto his belt with a black carabiners clip salvaged from his flight harness. He'd just finished inspecting it for frays or other indications that it wouldn't be a good idea to use. Having found none, he nodded to Twilight and she happily marked off the last box on her checklist. She looked it over again to make sure she hadn't missed anything.
Marshall straightened to an overblown military posture, smirked, and started to open his mouth.
"Nein." She said warningly without looking up.
Marshall blinked, cut off at the pass, then scuffed his boot childishly against the floor.
"Spielverderber." He grumbled.
She ignored him and stowed the checklist away, happily. "Ok, Marshall. We're all set. I pumped enough energy into this wing spell to keep it up all night, and now I'm actively maintaining it. I can probably keep it up for a another day, maybe day and a half, without strain, so we're good where that's concerned."
He frowned. "How much does it limit you, tactically? Like, what if you had to throw around a bunch of other magic?"
She frowned, thoughtfully. "I'll have to limit myself to simple telekinesis, maybe a weak shield. Nothing too flashy. Don't get me wrong, it IS a draining spell, but I can handle it."
He nodded consideringly, then reached over her and picked up his booney hat from the table. Putting it on, frowned, cracked his neck, then put on his pack and picked up his newly maintained and zero'ed replacement carbine.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road."
The journey to the base of the mountain was everything that their trip to the barrier's edge had not been. Namely, it was short, routine, and not full of large animals and predators out to kill them. Which was not to say that they didn't run into any difficulties. Just that those hazards they encountered, they were able to veer around with relative ease. The journey took them over a river running through a gorge, which Marshall was able to cut around in relatively short order while Twilight marveled at the unlikely natural beauty of it.
It was hard, sometimes, to stay angry at her situation. There were sights here that rivaled even the most amazing vistas on Equestria.
Within short order they reached the crumbling base of the mountain. Like most jungle edifaces, it was mostly covered with any sort of vegitation that could find purchase, up to and including trees and the like growing out the side of the mountain and arching upwards towards the sun's rays.
They stopped for a moment, considering the climb.
It looked a lot more intimidating close up.
Twilight looked at Marshall worriedly. "Are you sure about this? That looks... really dangerous."
Marshall, who had been chewing on a piece of salted meat he had cooked on a stick, wiped his mouth and stared at her levelly.
"It's a bit late for backing out now, ain't it?"
She frowned. "I don't know, Marshall. There is an awful lot that can go wrong."
He shrugged. "Sure. Bear in mind that I climbed it by myself, albeit a couple years ago. That was crazy. With you to watch my back, and your magic as a back up, this is merely ill-advised. We've worked up the crazy to stupid scale!"
She nodded thoughtfully, rubbing a hoof on her chin. "Yes, I can see it now. The Venn Diagram of Crazy and Stupid..."
She grinned at him. "One bubble is crazy, one bubble is stupid, and their intersection is Marshall Bailey." She said dryly.
He gave her a mock hurt look. "Twilight, you wound me through statistical analysis. That's informative AND painful."
They both chuckled at this.
He sighed, stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, then snugged his gloves on. "Well, sooner we get this done, sooner we can head back. Try and keep up, Sparklefly!"
With this, he started a mad dash over the cracked and broken ground, skipping from one shattered boulder to another. For a moment she was intensely annoyed with him. It was reckless, and dangerous, but almost immediately her annoyance turned to outright awe.
It wasn't often that she actually caught glimpse of Marshall in motion like this. He was naturally cautious in the jungle and took a long time considering where he was putting his feet, for good reason. Here he was leaping and bounding along, scrambling up trees and pulling himself up using little more than momentum and every limb he could bring to bear, and he was doing it with at least thirty pounds of gear on his back.
It was... well, for lack of a better word, beautiful. Humans had a major advantage in their bipedal stance and high center of gravity in that while they were much more prone to falling, they also had a much better developed sense of kinesthesia. In addition to this, they had the ability to change direction much more quickly than any pony possibly could except perhaps the more agile pegasi, and in directions even a pegasus would find difficult to match without flying. Thus, obstacles which a pony would have to approach carefully lest they hurt themselves, he flowed around effortlessly, or seemingly so.
Twilight had no way of knowing of course, but if she thought THAT was amazing, she would have been absolutely blown away by a real master of the art of parkour.
She fluttered along behind him, marveling at the show of atheletic prowess. He really seemed to be enjoying himself as well, and she found that his mood was more than a little infectious.
They lost themselves in it, advancing steadily up the mountainside. Before too long, the climb became far too vertical for Marshall to continue at the pace he had been keeping, and things slowed down.
Then they started to work together, her directing him to hand holds and occasionally helping out with a telekinetic boost, while simultaneously giving him good anchor spots to use his paracord with for safety. All in all, it ended up being a pretty entertaining experience for both of them. As they ascended, the air gradually got cooler, and before too long, they found themselves on the edge of the cloudy parts of the climb.
Which was when she got an idea.
"Twilight, I really don't know about this."
"Do it."
"Sparks-"
"Just do it, you wimp! We tested it on that rock, and it worked just fine."
"Yes, but rocks lack important things. Like pain receptors. And testicles."
"Marshall, just trust me, ok? I swear this will work."
He let out a sigh, then nodded. "Ok, cast the fuckin' spell. For the record, if I die, or end up with anything less than the number of chromosomes that I had when I started, I'm going to be very put out with you."
"Duly noted." She said dryly, then cast her spell on him.
He winced, eyes shut, felt himself over, then frowned. He opened his eyes. "Did you cast it?"
"Yes, you big wuss."
He frowned. "I don't... feel any different."
She hovered closer and gave him a critical once over. Her horn glowed weakly. "The spell matrix is intact, and it appears to be functioning properly. Go ahead and try it out."
He gave her a skeptical look.
She sighed and grabbed his sleeve with her teeth, then jerked him off balance before he could protest.
He fell. "TwiligFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
He didn't fall far, before he bounced ever so gently off of the cloud she'd aimed him at.
"-UUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuh?"
He sat up, bounced a little.
She fluttered closer, a smug look on her face. "Well?"
He rolled over onto his hands and knees and stood up, shakily. He took a couple of test steps.
"Weird. It's like... walking on a waterbed. Full of corn starch."
She circled him. "Interesting. Your body's complete lack of a potential thaumic field appears to make you more power efficient where magic is concerned, not less."
He grinned. "Told you, about as magical as a...."
He trailed off, his eyes widening. He took several steps, climbing upwards a bit, to look out over the sea of gently rolling clouds he stood on.
"Oh Sparks... this is..."
She fluttered closer and watched him with a pleased grin on her face. The childlike wonder and awe on his face were the best reward she could think of. She felt good, to have been able to do this for him.
He started to laugh, and spread his arms out, turning to look at the view.
Twilight smirked. "I take it you like this, then?"
"Twilight, I can say with absolute certainty that I have never been involved in something that has a higher awesome factor than this. So... it'll work on all my stuff, too?"
She nodded. "The spell affects anything in contact with your body when I cast it on you. Normally it lasts around twenty four hours, but since I put a little too much "umph" into it, as I wasn't sure what the power requirements would be for you, it'll probably last closer to twenty eight, maybe thirty. To be safe, I'd be on the ground before twenty four is up."
He nodded. "Twilight, this is gonna take hours off our time. Good thinking, genius."
She blushed and lowered her head demurely. "Well... I didn't think of it back at basecamp, but when I saw how close these clouds were, it just... came to me."
He patted her back, then began surveying the cloudy route up. "Hmm... still a bit of a climb."
She grinned. "That's the beauty part, they're still clouds. With... a little... judicious spell work..."
She used her gentle breeze spell in a surgical fashion, and blew him about a thirty degree ramp upwards. He walked along, and she teased the clouds into shapes that he could more easily navigate. He shook his head, grinning.
"That is just too goddamn cool."
She gave him a teasing look. "Cheating aside, sometimes magic is pretty darn awesome, huh?"
He snorted. "Oh, it's STILL cheating, Twilight, but as my first co-pilot used to say, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
They were mostly silent after that. Marshall was too busy playing the looky loo, and she was too busy enjoying watching him enjoy himself. All in all, it turned what would have been a hard, very stressful and dangerous journey upward into what amounted to a pleasure stroll.
It was nice.
The clouds terminated about fifty feet from the summit of the mountain, and at that point, they stopped to rest and take a bite to eat. Marshall sat with his legs dangling over the clouds, eating something murder related off of a stick, and she dug into a salad of various bits of vegetation they'd determined weren't poisonous to her, seasoned with a bit of sea salt.
Of the two of them, she tended to need the higher salt intake, since her normal diet didn't have much, and he got a lot of his salt intake from the meat that he ate.
Marshall amused himself by teasing the clouds near him into comical shapes with the stick. His innate sense of proportion and years honing his whittling skill seemed to help with this. Before long he had what appeared to be an eight inch tall buxom human female lounging in the clouds.
She grinned evilly. "Practicing your yoga, huh?"
"Naw, yoga practice is done in privacy, Sparks. I've never been much of an exhibitionist. I'm just doodling."
She chuckled at this and stood, stretching. Another application of the cloud walking spell had enabled her to stop fluttering and flapping about. She was going through her magical reserves at a higher rate than was probably wise, but with the time they'd saved on the trip up with this detour, she figured it would probably be ok.
"So, shall we move on?"
He dropped the stick and stood, rubbing out the doodle with his boot. Picking up his pack and rifle, he turned towards her.
Then he stopped, and narrowed his eyes.
She frowned. "What is it?"
His eyes widened. "Sparks, look-"
Instinct and reactions honed by countless hours of danger were pretty much all that saved her from losing her head from atop her shoulders. She flattened herself against the clouds as something... immense rushed overhead with a snapping sound. She got the impression of a gigantic set of wings and gnashing needle sharp jaws passing within inches of her face, and then whatever it was was past, shrieking a cry of defiance as it banked for another pass.
She bolted, the thing hot on her hooves. Taking off across the cloudscape, she leapt from the clouds just as the thing caught up and snapped at her again, this time taking a few stray hairs from her tail. She fluttered away, downward, the... whatever it was in hot pursuit, then disappeared under the clouds.
"TWILIGHT!" Marshall called, desperately trying to get a bead on her position. He cursed himself for forgetting about those things, but the cloudwalk had completely driven them out of his head.
He'd forgotten how territorial they were.
Twilight couldn't get a really good look at the thing as she was currently fleeing for her life, but she got the impression that it wasn't as she first assumed, a dragon. What it was was some kind of cross between a reptile and a bird, like a lot of the critters that inhabited this island. A twenty foot wing span, and a narrow, long snout with many sharp, needle-like teeth snapped at her hooves as she twisted and juked and dived and just generally did everything she could think of to get away. Slamming with all four hooves against the side of the mound of clouds, she pushed underneath the thing and felt a sharp sting as one of those tiny, flailing clawed feet scratched her rump.
It did not seem deterred, turning with obvious aerobatic agility and continuing the chase.
Marshall could hear Twilight and that... whatever the fuck it was screaming somewhere below him, and the doppler effect told him that she was still moving at a pretty good clip.
"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck FUCK, fuck fuck fuck!" He cursed under his breath, considering. With the two of them below the clouds, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help, and that thing was faster, bigger, and just plain meaner than she was. He surveyed the cloud cover around him, spotted a hornlike shape in the clouds near him and blinked.
"Oh no. No no Marshall James Bailey, that is fucking crazy." He muttered to himself.
Twilight gave a panicked scream below him somewhere and he heard, from here, the clash of the things jaws.
He scowled, set his jaw, took a deep breath, then unclipped the rope from his belt and got to work.
Twilight wound through and around the twisted shapes of clouds, trying desperately to avoid the angry creature chasing her. It was faster than her, and she was eating through the spells energy at a terrifying rate just trying to stay ahead of the damn thing. If she didn't think of something soon...
Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of something that stopped the breath in her lungs and nearly got her killed.
Marshall swung out into the sky, with a harsh yell (GERONIMO!!!) of terror and defiance, then jerked back against the cloud, slammed both boots into the side of it, tensed his legs beneath him, and pushed off again, releasing tension on the rope as he did so. He dropped another ten feet or so, and swung back again, and repeated the process, performing what, to her stunned gaze, looked like nothing so much as a semi-controlled fall.
"Is he bucking NUTS!?" She howled, then ducked under another vigorous snap of jaws and darted in the opposite direction.
It had been a long time since Marshall had practiced rappelling, and he'd never done it without the proper equipment. To be safe, well, safer, he tied the end of the paracord around his left leg and into his harness. The first drop was jarring, and without his gloves, he'd likely have no goddamn skin left on his hands. It got a little smoother once he regained the knack of it, and within short order he'd dropped to about where the little aerial dance was taking place.
Then he ran out of rope, and the stop was... a little unpleasant, to say the least.
"FUCK, my balls!" He groaned, as the rope slid up his thigh and settled in a very unpleasant location. He groaned and struggled, dangling about three feet from the bottom of the clouds and spinning very slowly at the end of his rope.
Literally.
Cursing to himself, he wrapped his right arm up in the rope, dug it under his forearm painfully, then brought the rifle up to his shoulder and tried to stabilize himself for a shot.
Twilight couldn't spare much thought to Marshall's plight at the moment, seeing as she was otherwise engaged, and so, the first few cracking pops caught her completely by surprise. She turned her head as she twisted aside, and caught a glimpse of the crazy pilot dangling at the end of a rope, taking shots with that rifle of his.
"What was I thinking, of course he's bucking crazy." She muttered to herself.
The thing was fast, he couldn't stabilize himself, and every shot was making him sway and spin very slowly, in such a way that he had to twist to keep the damn thing in the sights. As it stood, he was tossing rounds its way, and the damn thing hadn't even noticed, it just kept chasing poor Twilight like a cat chasing a mouse.
He had gone through the better part of a magazine, his teeth grit together in concentration and frustration. He forced himself to calm down.
"Come on you mother-" Crack! Crack! Crack!
There were an awful lot of vectors to consider, and they were running out of time.
It would be a miracle if he pulled off these shots.
A puff of red marked the entrance of one of the fast moving projectiles as it popped a hole in its right wing just as his magazine ran dry.
Praise Jesus.
It squawked, wobbled in midflight, then looked in his direction. He could see the murderous intent in those beady little eyes from here.
"Aw hell." He muttered, letting the rifle hang from its sling as he began scrabbling with the rope.
It began its charge.
It had stopped chasing her, and that was good.
It was now going after Marshall.
That was bad.
The thing had a small hole in its right wing, but the paper thin tissue hadn't given the round much time to tumble or fragment, and thus it was just a very small bloody hole that didn't seem to be giving it much to worry about.
Twilight tried to grip its tiny feet telekinetically, slow it down, anything, to stop that charge.
It just kept coming. She screamed his name.
"MARSHALL!!"
Then stopped, staring incredulously. "I do not believe this." She said flatly.
Marshall had literally seconds to react, and so reacted in a manner that was probably not the best thought out action he could have taken.
Which only made it more awesome when it actually worked. Reaching up, he dug his fists into the cloudstuff above him. With a snarl and a grunting strain of effort, he convulsively lifted his entire body flat against the bottom of the clouds with upper body strength and terror alone. The thing snapped viciously at his boot heels as he did so, and with another cry of defiance and terror, he jackknifed downward, slamming both boots into the delicate juncture of the critter's right wing and neck, slamming every once of strength and bit of weight he could bring to bear on that one point.
He felt something important pop and crackle under his feet. The thing gave a shriek of agony.
He gave a yell of triumph that quickly dwindled into a squeak of pain as he brutally slammed back down on the end of the rope and it mashed his nuts again.
He spun wildly.
The thing tried to stabilize itself, but with one wing effectively dislocated at the shoulder joint it had lost all control. Wobbling desperately it slammed into the side of the mountain with bone crunching force, then wailed weakly as it pinwheeled with ever increasing momentum downwards.
The very final sounding "THUMP" and the end of its wails marked its unfortunate passing.
Marshall pointed at it. "HA! How you like THAT shit, you pony poaching rat bastard?! Don't get comfortable you son of a bitch, you just volunteered to be dinner!"
Twilight fluttered up to him and stared down at the thing, every nerve and muscle jumping and twitching from adrenaline and slowly dwindling fear.
He looked over at her, wincing. "Hey Sparks, you ok?"
She looked at him for a moment, then grimaced. "Yes... I... Marshall, you-"
"Uh uh." He shook his head. "Technically we were doing this together, so you can't get mad at me in this case. Please don't yell at me." He winced, and turned a little green.
"My balls are already retracting into my abdomen as it is. I'll be lucky if I don't have to go through puberty again."
She shook her head, and gave him a little smile. "I suppose it would be kind of rude for me to yell at you when you probably just saved my life."
He grinned at her, and sighed. "Oh boy. That was way more painful than I'd-"
She fluttered closer and hugged him gently. He froze, then patted her back, just behind her wings.
"Thank you, Marshall." She said gently. "That was very brave."
"Partners, Twilight. I do listen, from time to time. I got your back."
He wheezed a bit, then looked skyward. "Look, the gratitude is nice and all, but do you think I could get some help getting back up there? This thing is giving me an atomic wedgie LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE!"
She giggled. "Well, you did say you wanted to have its rope babies."
He groaned. "Very funny Sparklebutt, now help me up."
She complied.
"Wow." Twilight said quietly.
Marshall spread his arms out wide, turned his face to the sky and yelled out.
"DRAGO!"
He stopped, grinned to himself, then caught Twilight staring at him and smirked. "What?"
She shook her head. "You know, that would probably be funnier if I actually understood the references."
He patted her head. "It's funny where it counts, Twi. Funny where it counts."
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Right, so this is it, huh? Highest point on the island?"
He nodded. "Unless you can somehow get us up to those higher clouds up there, yeah."
She shook her head regretfully. "I'd like to, but they're really high up and in pretty much direct sunlight, and that's something you want to avoid with the wings spell."
He nodded. "So there's your answer."
She spun slowly, taking in the view. The island was huge, and from here she could see vastly different environments butted almost comically up against one another. A jungle that turned into plains, then into some kind of forest. A very distant swamp, it looked like, or maybe some kind of lagoon it looked to be on the coast, and the angle was poor to be absolutely sure.
To the left, she could see the desert environment Marshall had mentioned, a flat, cracked, desolate looking place. She grabbed the binoculars from Marshall's belt and surveyed it, looking for the crash site.
He looked down at her, bemused, and shook his head, obviously aware of her search. "You can barely see it from here, Twi. Even with the binoculars. Might not be able to at all. It was half buried, last time I saw it.
She frowned, continuing her sweep. "Right."
Then she wavered back and forth and slumped, and Marshall caught her and the binos before she went over. "You ok?"
She groaned. "Oh wow... it's way more intense up here. I wish we had the detector, I'm not sure, but I think..."
He frowned. "Well, I hate the be the bearer of bad news, Twi... but nothing stands out as different to me."
She sighed. "It was worth a shot, I guess. I wish we hadn't expended all this effort for nothing."
He nodded unhappily.
She looked up at him. "Do you think we could at least wait and see if we can tell where the sky lights land?"
He frowned. "How much time you got left on your wing thingie?"
She considered. "That attack cost a lot of energy, but... I think it's got another few hours or so."
He nodded. "Ok. I suppose we can take a break."
So they did. Marshall pointed out a large boulder that he'd painstakingly carved some words into on his last trip up. It read:
"Marshall James Bailey, 2014 AD?"
To amuse herself, and to pass the time. Twilight carved her own little message immediately underneath it with a little help from Marshall:
"Twilight Sparkle 1001 CA?"
Shortly after that, they were treated to the alien flash of soundless blue lightning. Marshall whistled at the sight.
"That is fucking something, ain't it?"
She "hmmed" in response, pointing the binoculars in the direction of the strikes. They seemed to be slamming out into the middle of that desert wasteland, but she couldn't make out any details.
Wait...
She gasped. "Marshall, there's something out there! Something I can make out!"
He frowned. "What? Are you sure?"
She passed the binos up to him and continued looking in that direction, straining to see.
"You can't see it without the binos, but... I'm not sure if it was there the whole time and we missed it until the lightning called attention to it, or if the lightning is bringing it but I think-"
He gasped. "Holy shit! Twilight, I... I think that's a building!"
She yanked the binos from him telekinetically, incidentally dragging him down by the strap, and looked through again. The sky lights ceased, but she could still make it out.
"You're right! That is definitely a structure of some kind!" She said excitedly.
He managed to duck his head out from the strap and sat back. "I'll be damned. You were right after all."
"You know what we have to do now, right?!" She said excitedly.
He frowned, looked off in the distance, and nodded. "Yeah. That's gonna be... interesting."
She nodded vigorously, practically dancing in place. "We're really going to have to plan this. Marshall! This could be IT! This could be the break we've been looking for!"
Then she actually did dance in place, a clopping little victory dance. It was at this point that Marshall learned that Twilight could not dance worth a goddamn.
Not even a little goddamn.
He grinned at her jittery, seizure like, uncoordinated, tongue out victory dance and started laughing, then picked her up with a squeak and started spinning wildly, laughing like a loon as he danced his own little victory jig.
Caught up in the moment, she wiggled and climbed up until she was seated with her hindlegs on his shoulders and raised her forehooves to the sky. He stabilized her with hands on her rear legs and continued his shuffle, spinning wildly from time to time.
"DRAGO!" She shouted wildly, laughing.
"DRAGO!" He yelled out in return, laughing himself.
As it turned out, flying pony poaching rat bastard tasted a lot like chicken. At least, according to Marshall's palate.
A/N: If you are confused about what they were shouting at the top of the mountain, think Rocky IV. Anyway, here you go, another chapter completed. With that done, allow me to introduce the second Quantum Castaways Omake Theater, also written by my good friend Nugar.
Enjoy!
What If? Possibility One, by Nugar
Stardate Log whenthefuckever: I should have kept better track of my
time here if I wanted to keep an truly accurate journal. In
hindsight, waiting five years give or take to keep a record was not a
good idea. Not that this is likely to be found by anyone able to read
it, unless another poor bastard from Earth gets dropped in here after
my inevitable demise. Be my luck the aliens or whatever running this
place will pick a marine, since Navy didn’t work out, and, being
unable to read, he’ll use this journal for bumwad.
Man I miss TP.
Enh, I officially declare this day my five year anniversary. I will
set five murderturkeys on fire today to celebrate.
Year 5, Feb 12th: Since the seasons never change, I declared the
anniversary of my arrival here was Jan 1st. Saw some kind of giant
bear tangle with the rootscraper herd today. In other news, bear
patties for supper.
Year 5, April 1st: I’d like to assume this is coincidence, but since I
know for a fact that the universe actually IS fucking with me,
probably not. Picked up a companion today. First critter since I’ve
been here that didn’t either ignore me or try to eat me. Some kind of
small domesticated horse, or maybe a pony. Obviously owned by
someone, wore a harness collar around his neck and seemed only mildly
skittish of my presence. He’d managed to get his collar tangled up in
one of my traps but seemed well on his way to getting free by the time
I arrived. He’s red in color, but has a weird tattoo or brand of a
green apple on his ass. Strong, too. We ran into some murderturkeys
on the way back and he kicked one through the canopy. He followed me
back to camp with only a little prompting and seems okay with some
star fruit I had. He’s staring at the sky right now as I write this
by lamplight. Poor guy looks as lost as I feel. I figure he’ll be
gone tomorrow, because an april fool’s joke seems right in line with
the shit this island pulls.
Year 5, April 2nd: Pony is still here. Pony is definitely not a
normal pony. Shied away when I tried to take his collar thing off,
but when I tried coaxing him, he simply TURNED HIS FRONT LEG
AROUND, REACHED UP, TOOK OFF HIS COLLAR, AND HUNG IT
ON THE WALL. Horse legs do not bend that way. This morning, he
briefly reared up on his hind legs and used both front hooves to take
it off the wall and put it back on. This fucking island, man. I don’t even
know anymore.
Lacking any other ideas, and since I’ve got the nagging feeling that
trying to corral him or tie him up somewhere will lead to shenanigans
at my expense, I’ve shown him the general area. He’s definitely
smarter than a regular horse. Caught him nodding or shaking his head
at me a few times, and he nodded when I asked him if he understood me.
Just kind of stared blankly at me when I started quoting Monty Python
lines at him, so I don’t know how much he really understands. Maybe
he’s some sort of future genetically engineered superhorse? We’ve got
dinosaurs, why not future horsies?
Year 5, April 3rd: Went out with the pony to gather more star fruit
today. Decided to name him Wendleton P Turkeythumper. He expressed
his displeasure by showing me a trick, where he casually kicked the
trunk of a star fruit tree and made a shitload of ripe fruit nail me
in the head. All of them were perfectly ripe, too. Weird shit. I
tried explaining that the P stood for Percival. He didn’t buy it.
Name issue is up in the air for now.
Year 5, April 5th: Finally settled on the name of Apple. When I said
it, he kind of gives me this look, like, ‘Finally, you stupid
bastard.’. Very deliberately looks at the green apple on his ass,
then gave me that look again. I feel sort of stupid.
Year 5, April 6th: Woke up and found that Apple was rebuilding part
of my palisade wall. By himself. He had my E-tool in his mouth and
was using it to dig out new post holes. He’d already dragged up three
new trees. They appeared to have been torn out of the ground by their
roots. I admit, it took me a while to figure out how he did it, at
least until I saw him casually pick one up and prop it on another to
begin chopping off the root ball with the sharp edge of the e tool.
Took him about three strokes. And then he chopped out the top,
sharpened it to a point, and jammed it down in one of the holes he’d
made using some weird combination of both front legs and his head and
neck. I’m pretty sure that violates the laws of physics somewhere,
because he doesn’t look like he weighs more than three or four hundred
pounds, and he handled that tree like it was a nerf bat. Somehow, I’m
reminded of him bucking the murderturkey into orbit. Definitely glad
he’s friendly.
Year 5, April 10th: Got the palisade walls extended into a kind of
defense in depth layered wall concept. Looks like it ought to keep
out anything up to an elephant, or a charging rootscraper. Also got
some star fruit trees moved to nearby, where they’re more convenient,
all at the initiative and planning of my new friend. I’ve taken to
calling him Big Apple, which he seems to appreciate, though I always
seem to have something fall out of the sky and bonk my head if I mix
it up and call him New York with a bad accent. He always seems to
stamp a hoof or something right before I get beaned, but I’m still not
sure what he’s doing. Some sort of ricochet? Will investigate.
Year 5, April 12th: Challenged him to a makeshift game of basketball
to test his reflexes and, well, ‘hoof-eye’ coordination. Lost.
Year 5, April 13th: Challenged him to a makeshift game of horseshoes.
I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea.
Year 5, April 14th: Challenged him to a makeshift game of darts,
trying to see what kind of fine motor control he has with those lips.
Lost again.
Year 5, April 15th: Challenged him to a game of rock paper scissors.
Won every game since he’s incapable of throwing anything but rock,
hahah. Score one for homo sapiens.
Year 5, April 20th: Luck almost ran out today. Got snared by some
sort of giant carnivorous plant with long, sticky tendrils that curled
around my leg and tried to drag me into its mouth. Thought I was dead
meat when Apple ran off instead of helping, but felt like a heel for
thinking bad of him when he came back a few minutes later with a
boulder that had to weigh close to a ton somehow balanced on his back.
He spun and bucked it into the plant’s ‘mouth’, which both plugged it
and kind of squished the shit out of it. Big Apple is best pony.
Year 5, May 2nd: Challenged him to a game of chess. Disturbing thing
is, he already knew the rules. Won though. He took my gloating with
this kind of long suffering patience that makes me wonder what his
home life was like. I bet it’s interesting.
Year 5, June 12th: Big Apple is definitely the best thing to have
happened to me here. He’s a great listener. I find myself feeling a
lot less lonely after sitting down and telling him about things. It’s
like a cross between a really great dog and a best friend. The dog
knows how to sit there and just listen, but the friend actually
understands. I’ve told him things I didn’t think I’d tell anyone.
He’s a real bro.
Year 5, June 23rd: Raining like hell. Challenged him to a few games
of checkers to kill time. 2 to 1, me. Go human, go human.
Marshal closed the book, using the pen as a bookmark, and stowed it
carefully in his pack before putting it away. He hadn’t seen a rat
yet, but didn’t want to leave it vulnerable to any other odd little
gnawing critters. Stretching hugely, he walked over to the door,
where Big Apple sat placidly, chewing on a stalk of grass. Rain was
still coming down in torrents, reducing visibility to almost nothing.
Still, there were occasional flashes of light, accompanied by peals of
thunder. No blue lightning tonight, thank god. He didn’t want to see
another plant monster.
“Man, it’s raining like hell, though. Gonna be even more humid tomorrow.”
“Eeyup,” Big Apple said calmly.
Marshal blinked, then turned to the red pony sitting beside him.
“Did you just say… ‘yup’?”
“Eeyup,” the red pony replied.
“You can talk?” the human offered hesitantly.
“Eeyup.”
“More than just ‘eeyup’?”
“Eeyup.”
Marshal got a the feeling that the universe was fucking with him. Again.
“Okay, then say something besides ‘eeyup’.”
“Eeenope.”
Marshal was positive, now, that the pony had a smug look on his face.
He wasn’t going to let this smug ass superpony draw him into a word
game.
“Okay, then, let’s talk. And none of that yep nope shit.”
Big Apple paused to clear his throat, then spoke in his very best
imitation of a cultured manehatten accent. “Why certainly, Marshall.
My name is Macintosh Apple, but everypony just calls me Big Macintosh
or Big Mac. What would you like to converse about?”
Dimly, Marshal was aware that he’d fallen on his ass rather heavily.
It took a moment before he was capable of rational thought, and longer
before his own speech was returned to him. During that time, the pony
sat there, looking rather smug.
“W-what, how, how in the fuck…. You didn’t tell me you could talk!”
“You never asked,” he replied placidly.
“I did ask!” Marshal all but exploded. “When you started fixing the
fence yourself, and nodding when I asked if you could understand what
I was saying, I did ask! It’s a surprisingly reasonable assumption
when faced with a horse that knows how to do carpentry!”
Big Macintosh shrugged. “Never said I couldn’t.”
Marshal sputtered for a few more moments. Finally, feeling drained
and almost helpless, he just had one question.
“…why?”
Big Mac shrugged again. “At first, ah jest didn’t know what to say.
Ah’m not a pony of many words, ah’m afraid. You probably would have
been better off with mah sister or her friends if you wanted to talk.
And then you started showing me around, and ah’ve always thought you
learn the most when you keep your mouth shut and your ears open.” He
paused, chewing thoughtfully on his stalk of grass, as if he was
hunting for the right words.
Marshal fidgeted, but managed to remain quiet. He’d talked enough,
it was the big red pony’s turn.
Finally, Big Mac nodded thoughtfully to himself as he got his
thoughts in order. “As ah said, words ain’t mah strong point. You
talked to me, ah listened, it worked out.” He smiled a little, eyes
crinkling up. “And as ah got to know you, ah realized you reminded me
a lot of one of mah sister’s friends. She’s quick to talk, but rarely
says anything she means. You gotta pay attention to catch it. And…
she’s a joker. You’re a joker. Ah know one when ah see one. So, ah
figured I’d play along, jest for a while.”
“…You’ve kept quiet all this time, letting me ramble on and on,
guessing names, talking shit, everything… just so you could speak up
when I’d never expect it?” Marshal asked incredulously.
Big Macintosh shrugged and moved his grass from one side of his mouth
to the other as he turned to stare out at the rain again.
“That’s… this is huge…” Marshal muttered, rubbing at his face with
the palm of one hand. “Jesus. I don’t even… Jesus. This is…” He
shook his head. “You got me. You really got me. Damn, man. Err,
horse.”
“Pony,” Big Macintosh rumbled quietly. “Ah’m an earth pony.”
“Sorry, pony.” Marshal shook his head again, his tone of incredulous
disbelieve changing to one of wonder. “Damn. You got me so good…
All this time, you were able to talk, and then you just… If I were to
live a million years, I’d never be able to top that.”
Big Macintosh just sat there with the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.
“Eeyup.”
Omake to the omake:
The silence grew awkward, at least for Marshall. There’s some things
you might do as a joke, like acting really silly when you’re by
yourself, that you wouldn’t do in front of anyone, even if you like to
play the fool. And one of those times was really weighing on his
mind.
“So, um, Big Macintosh?” the human said hesitantly.
Big Mac flicked an ear and swiveled them both, indicating he was listening.
“About that time I tried to get you to wear my copilot’s panties-”
“Marshall,” the red pony cut him off sternly.
"I was just joking around, I mean, really, I-"
"MARSHALL," Big Mac interrupted again, finally silencing the
babbling human. “It’s time you learned something ah’ve known for
quite a while. Some things, you jest don’t talk about. It never happened.”
“Eee… ee-yup,” Marshall agreed.