Julien awoke slowly. Without an alarm to wake him up he gradually becomes aware of my yellow form inches away from his face, smirking.
“What are you...” He stops his sentence short. His normally subdued growl now the breathy boyish voice of Shining.
“You been ponyfied.” I say, rolling away and getting up. “Which is interesting, that you got Shining Armor, at least you’ll have magic.” I comment, fetching a drink for him as he continues to lay there in a stupefied trance.
“This is where you try and walk, and freak out a bit.” I instruct helpfully.
He looks up to me with sorrow in his eyes.
“I’m white. Like really, really white. I’m going to get stained so easy.” He complains.
I smack myself on the forehead with my hoof.
“Shush, you. Get up.”
He stands up much quicker than I had when I was changed, and within short order we have him trotting and cantering around.
“It helps that I've been watching how you do it for the past two days.” He says cheerily.
“Yeah, one big problem though, how do we pack up and drive the car now?” I ask, worried.
Julien stops and sits down on a pillow to think. Within a few moments he is staring at a nearby empty soda can, focusing with a vengeance.
I don’t want to make him explode or something, so I leave him alone, packing what I can into the bags and doing my best to take apart the tent.
“Got it!” I hear Shining er-- Julien call from the other side of our campsite.
He has beads of sweat running down his forehead as the empty can floats in front of him.
“Very cool, hey can you fetch me that blanket over there?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, sure.” He says, still focusing on the can as the blanket folds itself into a neat square and lands on my back. I stare at him incredulously until he sort of looks over to me as though remembering something.
“Did I just...”
“Yeah, you’re really trying too hard.” I scold him as I continue to pack.
By the time I've got most of the things packed, Julien has figured out how to use his magic roughly as hands, folding up the tent and its poles back into the original package. He looks exhausted though.
“You okay?” I ask him as I drag the tent package to the car.
“This stuff really tires me out. I mean, I feel like I just ran a marathon,” he pants.
“Shining is better at making shields in the show, maybe that’d be easier.” I suggest.
A moment later, Julien walks up to me with a small cloud of floating shields the size of playing cards.
“This is so cool!” He says exuberantly.
“I’m sure, think you can still drive?” I ask.
“I can’t do the steering wheel and the shields at the same time. Too much concentration required.” He says as the shields all vanish in a pop except for two.
“But I can do gas and brake.”
“That will have to do.” I say bravely. At least, this is my version of bravery.
It is around 9 when we finally depart, having packed everything up into the car and assured we left no trash behind.
As we make our slow way out of the campground, the gatekeeper looks at me, standing on my hind legs in the drivers seat, with an expression akin to terror. From his point of view, we are taking over the world.
Julien and I wave in a friendly manner before we make our way out of the campsite and back onto the main road.
Having to call out our speed every few moments to keep us on the speed limit is confusing but eventually we get into the swing of things and Julien is the one staring out the window. He can hold the gas at a specific angle without much effort so I imagine it gets pretty boring, what with me holding the wheel on course and paying attention to the signs.
“Are we taking 80 all the way there or are we going to jump down to 70?” Julien finally breaks the silence.
I glance over, he has managed to get my phone out and is manipulating it with his magic aura. So unfair.
“80 goes through Nebraska and is the most direct route, and 70 is more southern, cutting through Kansas.” He continues.
“Well...” I ponder the options for a bit, last time I was in either of those states I was a child, though my memories of Kansas are more accepting and modern than Nebraska.
“We don’t have to decide until we get to Cheyenne” He reminds me, and the quiet of the drive resumes.
Now that we've passed the salt lake desert, the landscape becomes mountainous and hilly. The sun hangs almost perfectly above us as the car eats up the miles.
We already had to refill in salt lake city, before we made camp. I have to wonder if it is safe for Julien to use magic to pump gas. Maybe a brony attendant will be forthcoming.
After my terrible experience on my first day of being a pony, I had been enraged at people in general. Lately its less anger and more a sort of frustration. I feel I can hardly be angry at them for their fear of the unknown, without being just as cold as they are.
The twisting road keeps me from thinking too hard as we carefully time our acceleration and steering to make it down the freeway.
We stop for a much needed break on the side of the road four hours in, Julien simply not using his magic to give his new powers a chance to recuperate, and me laying down in the back seat to give my haunches a rest since I had to rear up to see out of the windshield properly.
After resting for almost an hour we resume our tedious drive, with renewed energy. Unfortunately we are a little overzealous on the gas when coming down into Laramie, going a bit faster than we really should. The flashing lights in our rearview mirror confirm that sneaking suspicion, as we pull over and realize that neither of us look like our drivers license photos.
“I wonder if the ‘I have a different haircut’ approach would work here?” Julien says darkly.
“Hey, maybe he won’t notice.” I say, tapping my hooves together in front of me.
Thank goodness I’m not supposed to be the element of honesty.