Opening the door to his new room, Gale sighed. Well, this bed can’t be worse than that motel in Kentucky . . . Walking inside, he looked around at the room he’d been given until further notice. . . . It’s not the worst I’ve stayed in, by far.
The layout of everything in the room, save for the bookshelves, reminded Gale of the road trips he went on as a kid. “Well, motel room motif aside, I guess it’ll do.” Moving to a bookshelf, he looked over the extensive selection. “I wonder if there’s anything here I’d even like . . . Let’s see...” Taking a quick look at the different volumes, Gale realized that he didn’t care.
Walking to a window on the right of the bed, Gale looked out and observed Ponyville in the evening hours. Staring out the window at the farmer’s market, Gale watched as the ponies began packing up their stalls and heading home for the evening. Leaning onto the windowsill, he started looking for the town hall. Huh, Twilight said you can’t miss it. After not even a minute of searching, he saw the building towards the center of town, looming over the others. Yep, definitely can’t miss that.
Gale continued staring out the window, taking note of all the little businesses the town had to offer. “So a bakery, quill shop-” So, pencils aren’t a thing? ”-that sells sofas-” Well, okay then . . . “-a dentist’s office, a thrift store, and a hardware store.” Huh, why am I surprised by that one?
Cutting his own monologue short, Gale sat back down on the bed and grabbed a set of pajamas. As he changed clothes for bed, he couldn’t help but notice the size of his sleeping accommodations. Man, pony beds are freakin’ small . . . Once dressed, he strolled over to the lightswitch on the wall. With the lights off, he made his way back to the bed and laid down. Once laying down, he fell asleep quickly.
As he awoke to the sounds of rain the next morning, Gale groaned, stretched, and grimaced. His back letting him know just how uncomfortable the bed was. That’s gonna do a number on my spine.
Getting up from the bed, he shuffled, with the speed of a tortoise, over to his bags and began looking through them for something to wear. Grabbing a random T-shirt and another pair of jeans, Gale set about getting dressed as Spike knocked on the door.
“I’m getting dressed. Who’s there?” he asked, while removing the last of his clothes.
Spike, unaware of human taboos, opened the door to find Gale standing next to the bed in only his boxers. This, of course, caused Gale to jump in surprise.
“Hey man! Don’t you know not to open the door on someone? Christ! I don’t have any freakin’ clothes on!”
Startled by his outburst, Spike quickly backpedaled into the hallway and closed the door, all the while spouting apologies of ‘I didn’t know, I’m sorry. Really sorry.’ Gale quickly threw on his jeans and went to the door.
Opening the door, he looked out into the hallway and said. “Hey, look, I didn’t mean to shout. You caught me by surprise is all.” Chuckling even before he said it, Gale continued. “Besides, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t expect a kid like you to know anything about that.”
“I’m not a goat, though."
“What?” Gale asked, blinking. It took him a few moments to realize what he meant. “Nevermind. Anyways, tell Twilight I’ll be down in a few minutes. I need to finish getting dressed.” With that over, Gale pulled himself back into the room and closed the door.
Man, I bet Jess'd think that little guy is a riot.
Walking back towards the bed, he made a quick grab for a duffle bag and brought it up next to him as he sat down. Gale searched the bag for a minute before he produced his mp3 player. How the hell . . . You know what? I’m not even gonna bother asking. Setting the device on the bed, he went back to rummaging for another few minutes before he found what he was actually looking for.
Wonder if I’ll ever have the strength to kick this garbage . . . he mused, slipping some pills into his pocket and tossing the bottle back, before throwing on his shirt and making his way down into the kitchen.
Still rather groggy from his poor sleep, Gale practically failed to notice the three ponies that were already mingling in the library. Instead, he headed straight for the kitchen to look for something to put water in. Unbeknownst to him, the ponies in the living room were all here early trying to get a glimpse of the figure they’d seen later in the afternoon on the previous day.
Walking into the kitchen proper, Gale immediately started searching the bottom cabinets to try and find a glass of any sort. While looking, he couldn’t help but to hear an exchanging of words.
“What a dreary morning, am I right Berry?” Gale heard a pony ask another, presumably one of the three he’d seen while walking to the kitchen.
“Oh, yeah. This is doing wonders for my mane.” He could almost feel the sarcasm of her words.
”Say, are you mares looking for a book too? I’ve been waiting around for half an hour and haven’t seen Twilight.” Another pony, Gale assumed this was Berry, responded before a third voice joined in.
“Really? I thought we were here to check out that thi-” Gale couldn’t make out the rest of their sentence as it was muffled. A few seconds later, and Berry started again, although much quieter.
“Lucky! You can’t just say things like that! It’s rude.”
Lucky, as Gale now knew her, responded “What the hay, Berry?! Okay, I shouldn’t have said that but you didn’t have to hoof me in the shoulder for it!"
“Look, Lucky-” the first voice spoke up. “-I get that you didn’t mean anything, but you really need to what what you say around ponies.” Gale could almost feel Lucky wince as she was rebuked by her friend, but once the other pony continued, her voice softened. “One of these days your mouth is going to get you into trouble, and neither me nor Berry will be able to get you out.”
With that said, Lucky sighed, “I guess you’re right. Sorry, Charged.” She said, genuine sadness apparent with her words.
Figuring he shouldn't be listening in on their conversation, Gale opened up one of the cabinets above the sink and found a glass to use. Why didn’t I open this one first?
After grabbing a glass and getting some water, Gale fished the pills from his pocket. It’s a good thing these aren’t they type that break apart easily. He quickly downed them with a gulp of water and left his glass in the sink.
As he walked back towards the door, Gale decided to see if Twilight needed anything. Once he opened the door, however, he saw Twilight walking down the last steps into the main room. Before she could say anything, the three mares bombarded her with questions. Deciding not to get involved, he leaned back against the doorframe and quietly watched as she went about answering the trio of ponies.
“Lucky, Berry, Charged, what are you three doing here so early?” She inquired. “Spike may have unlocked the door, but the library isn’t technically open for another hour or so.”
Looking from his place in the doorway, Gale observed as Twilight talked with the trio. While watching, he was able to discern which pony went with each voice, as well as which of them was in charge.
So, Lucky’s the, what color is that? Mauve? Yeah. Mauve pony and I assume the one with the tattoo, can you call that a tattoo? Fruit tattoo is Berry. Looks like Charged is the Tan one then.
As he absorbed all this, Twilight put a few things together as spoke with the three. “So, you’re looking for the etymology of the word cooper?” She asked, pointing a hoof at Berry.
“Yeah, I was hoping to find some history on it, and them in general.”
With a nod of agreement, Twilight continued. “And you’re here looking for something about-” Twilight had to pause for a moment before continuing, “-Something about stripping techniques?”
The other two burst into laughter at their friend’s expense, all the while Charged was getting more and more agitated.
“Ugh, why does everypony think I mean that!” She yelled. “I’m an electrician. My cutiemark’s a light bulb for Celestia’s sake!” Her outburst causing the others to stop their laughter.
At this point, Gale couldn’t help but chuckle, and soon found himself the center of the trio’s attention.
“Oh, um … Hi?”
“Um, hello.”
“Uh, what are you?”
The last one, Lucky, received a whack on the head from Berry for her comment before Charged started apologizing for her.
“We’re very sorry. Lately she’s just lost her filter and she doesn’t always think before she speaks.”
You know, if I didn’t know this was the exact reaction I would get from these ponies, I’d have been tempted to let that pink one, what was her name? Let her throw me that party she wanted.
Whatever reaction they were expecting, it wasn’t for Gale to completely ignore Lucky’s comment. Instead of commenting on it however, he looked over to Charged
“So, electrician huh? Would that make you a linemare?”
Slightly confused by his question, she responded. “Um, I guess so. Why?”
I'm going to hell for this . . . Gale’s smirk should have given Charged a hint, but she didn’t notice. “So, you’re always climbing up poles for work then?”
The instant that sank in, everyone in the room, save for Charged and Spike, who just walked in from the kitchen, erupted in laughter. Yup, definitely going to hell.
Her downtrodden expression made Gale realize he’d crossed a line. “I’m sorry, really, I am. But you left yourself open for that.”
“No, it’s okay.” Charged said, looking to Gale with a soft smile. With that said, she walked over to him. “To be honest, I’m just glad somepony knows what I do for a living.”
Gale let out a small chuckle, shook his head, and replied. “Well, I don’t know if any ‘pony’ will know, but to my kind? It’s pretty well understood.”
As he said this, Charged’s mind came back to that fact that she was talking to somepony who was a complete unknown to herself.
“Well, I can’t say much about somepony I don’t know.-” She smiled and stuck out a hoof. “- My name’s Charged Up, although I figure you already know that.” After shaking his hand, she continued. “These two,-” , waving her hoof over towards her friends. “- are Berry Dreams, and Lucky Star. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, who are you?”
Finally pushing himself off the wall, he replied. “Well, my first name’s Gale and my last name’s not important right now.” Glancing back to the others, he continued. “As to your earlier question,-” he said with a nod to Lucky. “The simplest answer is that I’m a human. That isn’t the best answer, but a better explanation could take hours.” A sudden crack of thunder drew their attention outside, where the rain started to pick up. "Huh, I guess you three have time then." With that said, he moved to the end of the couch closest to a window, and sat down.
The other three followed suit and soon they were all gathered around the sitting space. “Gale, can I ask you a question?” Charged asked, looking rather nervous.
You just did. Gale thought before responding. “Sure, what is it?”
Charged shifted on the couch, unsure how to proceed. “Well, I was wondering if you’d be willing to tell us a little about you. Maybe, what it’s like, you know, living somewhere other than here?”
A number of emotions flashed across Gale’s face coinciding with the thought. ”Well, I’d rather not talk about myself for now, but I can give you some background on us humans in general.”
Three looked at each other before Charged responded “Well, if it’s not too big of an issue, it would be kind of neat to learn about another species.”
“Nah, it’s no trouble at all.” he said with a nod towards the outside where the rain continued to pour down. “So, since we have some time, do you girls want everything I know or the abridged version?”
The trio of ponies looked amongst themselves before Twilight walked back over. “Trust me on this, girls, you want the abridged version.” The group nodded in unison so Gale began.
“I’ll only say this once, though, our history is anything but pleasant at times. I have no problem telling it, if you still want to know. Just know that I warned you.
Alright, our history goes back incredibly far, so I'll just start about the time we actually started counting years. It’s 2014 back home, so a lot of shit’s happened. The first couple hundred years are kinda fuzzy, as far as I know anyways, folks started out in an area between two of the major continents, a sort of desert-oasis, originally they were hunters/gatherers.
For the longest time, they’d been used to hunting down animals, which aren’t actually sentient like you guys are, so we hunted them for food. Still do to some extent, depending on your locale. Anyways, life started out there and a few other places, areas like what would become Great Britain, or rather, just Britain.
That’s a small-ish island far to the north west of Egypt. There are a couple of places along the northern coast of Europe . . . it’s a large land mass directly east of Britain. There’s also a little known about some peoples from the land that I was raised in, but I don’t remember all these anymore, just highlights.” He said, taking a break to drink and make sure he still had their attention.
“So, many different people, all over the place. Some of the first non-natives to land on my home country are believed to be from that northern area of Europe, though no one knows for sure. The most well known explorer was the supposed first man to reach an island to the south of my country’s mainland. History celebrates him, I don’t. There’s a lot of things that get brushed aside when teaching history to kids . . . it’s kind of disturbing actually
Anyways, he and others from a nation known as Spain ‘conquered’ the regions I now know as Mexico and Florida, I think parts of Georgia and a bit of Alabama too. Oh, um, we subdivided our land since people wanted to live in their own nations, rather than as a big country. I don’t know much about the rest of the world at this point so I’m afraid I’ll have to skip a bunch of it. What I do know is that there was a plague that killed millions, countries from Europe would practice slavery, yeah, not many of us are happy about that. So, my nation formed when a group of smaller nations banded together to break away from the country that had been ruling them. See, Britain is across an ocean and they were getting fed up about having no say in any of the laws they had to abide by.”
Berry spoke up as he took another drink, “I don’t blame them. I can’t imagine living under the complete rule of another group of people. The princesses are very open about their policies, but from the way you describe it, this country wasn’t?”
“Open about it or not, it’s that they were being ruled by a group that had never set foot on the land that they called home. They rebelled, all thirteen original ‘states’ and formed a new nation. Things went well for awhile, they moved further west, more states were formed, peoples spread out and things were going okay. About the time the country had claimed half of the area, they started fighting with each other. ‘History’ teaches kids that it was because one side was against slavery while the other flourished because of it and, while that is disgustingly true, it’s not everything. A good deal was just internal politics. Some states getting upset about how they were getting treated. The group on the southern half of the nation separated from the north and they fought over it. It wasn’t pretty.
Moving on. ‘We’ claimed complete control of the land we now call home, save for a few small areas and one chunk we bought later. Things were going okay, there was legally no slavery, but it was not a good time to be a member of the race that we had at one point considered ‘slaves’ that racism never really went away, 200 years later it’s still there . . .
So, in about 1910, I believe, a war started between many of the European nations when one of the leaders of one was assassinated by someone from another. It was a mess of alliances that dragged a whole lot of countries into the fray. It wasn’t pretty. Oh, it did help our development of ways to fly though. Mostly wooden and cloth, people were building airplanes powered by gasoline engines, that’s a different discussion entirely. The war was fought, it was hell for the soldier.”
Gale pause yet again to take a drink. “Geeze, I didn’t realize that even an abridged version of human history was this long of a story. Alright, so the first ‘World War’ had been fought. It was referred to at the time as ‘The War To End All Wars.’ They were wrong. The treaties that ended the first world war ended up screwing a few countries pretty badly. It completely tanked the economy of at least one of them, Germany.
The German government in the 1930 and 40’s deserves a special place in hell for the things that were done. The leader was highly racist against another group, and when he formed his political party, we referred to them as Nazis, though even now the word is rarely used since it’s considered terrible to mention them. It kind of sucks for the few survivors that are still around. No one seems to notice them anymore.
Anyways, this leader was really racist and sometimes hid, sometimes blatantly, passed laws against a group of people known as Jews. For someone to be Jewish, it’s how they’re typically referred, not an insult, in Germany at the time was tough. They lost their jobs, homes, possessions, they were forced into camps-.”
He stopped to get andother drink, and wipe his eyes. “Sorry, it’s it’s just that this is hard to admit we let happen at any point. Those bastards deserved every bit of what they got. The easiest to explain, and least terrifying, maybe, the event known as The Holocaust is this: An incredibly high number of peoples from the Jewish faith lost their lives in horrendous ways. There were also prisoners of war, politics enemies, and people who were even suspected of being Jewish were taken away.
Sadly, it took a whole different even for my country to even join in the war. One of the other nations, Japan, attacked a military base of our with no warning. They destroyed the place. Killed hundreds . . . what was left of our military in the area then went after them for it. We pushed them almost all the way back to their home before we did something even the man who ordered it regrets. Okay, so what Germany did to a lot of people was bad, I’m not gonna say this wasn’t as bad because it was definitely was, but in different ways. My people detonated two bombs, over two different cities, each on a different day. All it took was one bomb to level each city it went off in. We did that twice, as a final sort of ‘fuck you’ to their leaders, I guess.”
Gale stopped again as he saw the horrified faces of the ponies in front of him, even Twilight was put off by some of this, though she’d heard it before.
“I never said it was pretty, but it’s our history . . . that essentially ended the Japanese war effort and they surrendered. Germany, however, had basically run over most of the nations on the land near it. One of the few left was actually Britain. Perks of being an island, I guess. Let it be said that I have nothing but respect for the British peoples who lived during the 1940’s.
The nation just kept on moving, almost ignoring the nightly air raids that were slowly destroying the cities. A large number of pilots decided against joining our military, and joined Britain's so they could fly in the war effort. Midway through 1944 My country, along with Britain and I believe what was left of the French, launched a massive invasion in order to take the fight back to the Germans. That invasion was very, very bloody, but successful. They took back the land and started pushing from the west. Meanwhile, Germany’s ruler made what one could call the biggest mistake of his life. He sent his armies to attack the nation to the east of him. Russia.
Russians are the craziest motherfuckers I think I’ve ever seen. They can withstand damn near anything. They lost ground, yes, but the fight for them turned at one city. The German army spent I think even months trying to take it from the Russians, but they never gave in.the people who lived there survived on practically nothing so that the soldiers could fight. The Russian army was a brutal one though, they would send out one group of soldiers with all the weapons and gear, when those died, they sent out more to pick up where they left off. There’s even a story floating around that officers were shot and killed if they attempted to retreat.”
Grabbing for another drink, he realized he ran out. Getting up to refill it he said, as he walked away. “Again, I never said the history of my people was a nice one. Some of us are just that crazy and things go way off from what one would think. Hell, we once banned all alcohol in my country. People just made it themselves, and ran it illegally to sellers. When they repealed the ban, those runners started a sport for high speed driving. Nascar’s still popular today, though it bares little resemblance to what it once was . . . “
Sitting back down, Gale took a drink and looked at the group, who were talking to Twilight and trying to see if she had heard all of this, or if I was lying just to mess with them. When she told them he wasn’t lying, they all turned to look at him in unison, looks of fear evident across their faces.
“I warned you, and you could have asked me to stop at any point. Besides, there’s still maybe 70 years to cover . . . but phew, does a lot happen. Not too much fighting, and definitely not on the scale as the two World Wars. And, yes, the one with Germany was the second, thankfully. So, Russia beat Germany back to their land, as we pushed from the west. When our armies converged on the capitol, their piece of shit leader committed suicide as we took the city so that he didn’t have to face defeat. Okay, even I’ll admit that was a bit dark to say.
Anyways, shortly after started a period known as ‘The Cold War’ Though, they say cold because there was never any actual fighting. During that time, my people figured out how to make our planes fly much farther, using jets and even rockets in some cases, heh, there’s one design that for the longest time, held the record for fastest plane at over three times the speed of sound.”
He had to stop and chuckle for a second as their jaws simultaneously hit the floor. “Huh, I take it that’s a big achievement?”
Lucky was actually the first to respond. “‘Big achievement?’ You’re telling us that your people have traveled over three times the speed of sound!?”
“Um, it’s 767 of your miles per hour, right?” Twilight asked, knowing where he’s going with this.
“Yep, and it appears our miles are the same length so that’s gotta be what your speed is, but it doesn’t seem like it . . .eh, either way it’s fast. That design is over 40 years old. We’ve since given up our need for aerial speed, as far as companies tell us anyways,and moved onto land speed, but that’s a different discussion. What I was getting to though is, that if you think that’s ludicrous how about this: my nation has managed to put a man on our moon. 6 times if I recall correctly.”
“But, but why the hay would anyone want to go to the moon!?”
Don’t they have a moon princess or something . . .? “Instead of asking ‘why’, we asked ‘why not?’ We’re a very scientific people at times.and anything beyond our atmosphere is very interesting to a lot of folks, I used to be into astronomy for awhile, but I’ve probably forgotten it all by now. You want to know the best/worst/funniest part of it all?”
The three leaned in, almost expecting him to say it was a joke.
“We actually know more about the farthest reaches of space than we do the depths of my world’s deepest oceans.”
Once again, the trio were left in shock. “How can somepony not know their own planet, but be content to learn about the stars?”
“Good question, but here are two things: I am not a pony, none of my kind are, and believe it or not, it’s actually easier for us to explore space. It’s apparently a lot easier to keep a capsule pressurized in space then to keep one depressurized at the bottom of an ocean.” I ought to see about recording this some time, this whole spiel is getting annoying to repeat and I’ve only had to twice!
Twilight saved him the trouble of finishing his tale by adding. “From what he told me, there was a big ‘race’ between his country and Russia about who could get to space first. Humans seem to really thrive technologically during times of war or general competition.
Man, you ought to see the shit people come up with running the Baja 1000 . . .
Taking another drink, Gale added “Yeah, so ‘space race’ in the 50’s, the ‘civil rights’ movement, along with a war in a place called Korea, there was a war in Vietnam, but no one likes to talk about it . . .” he said, with a visible noticeable shiver.
“It was a massive clusterffuck, pardon my French, after that the world saw the wall between the eastern and western sides of the city of Berlin get destroyed. And, yes, I do mean a literal wall. Russia believed in one style of government, we believe in a different one, in the indecision over what to do with the German capital, they split it right down the center.”
He said, taking a quick glance out the window before continuing. Yep, still raining.
“Moving on . . . Reagan screwed our economy . . . um, oh, a group of guys in Seattle started an entire musical movement with one record. That helped spawn bands like Rage Against The Machine, yeah, they’re exactly what you’d think. Some good stuff though.” he said, noting that they’d started to look less afraid. Well, at least they're sort of understanding it . . . I think.
“Would you believe me if I said that people actually got so concerned about what might happen when the world hit the year 2,000 that governments had started plans just in case . . .?” he asked, pausing to let everything set in.
“Oh, Y2K, the hilarious times you caused. Early 2000's saw the product from some of the mishaps we’d made back in the 80s. One of the biggest being a terror attack on one of my people’s biggest city. A group of radicals who believe strongly that their religion is the only one, that’s something I am not talking about by the way.
So, they hijacked three of our airplanes, which are quite large now, able to hold hundreds if not a thousand or so people on them. They took control of these three and ran two into a building that was used as an international trade center, the World Trade Center, actually. The third flight though, my heart goes out to the souls who acted how they did.
The passengers took the plane back in time to prevent it from hitting an important military outpost, but in the process it crashed. There we no survivors, to my knowledge anyways.” he continued, briefly thinking. Flight 93 . . .You will be remembered. “That kickstarted another way, actually this was in and around Iraq . . . or well, the middle east at large. Lots of things went wrong in that area, and still were going wrong last I knew.
That war was so unpopular, people used media to rebel, music was made, sites were created for people to meet, things like that, by 2010 everything seemed to settle into a pattern that I think it’s gonna hold at for awhile. It looks, or it did last I knew anyways, like my country was staying in that area as a military presence to try and keep the peace, but I have a feeling it’s not gonna last for too long. Peace is beautiful, but fleeting, I suppose."
Taking a final drink, he set the glass down and turned back to the trio. “So, that’s an abridged version of my knowledge of human history. Sorry that it’s a little dark, but I’m not one to sugarcoat things.”
The group slowly made it’s way back to the shelves on the west side of the library, and started talking about something Gale couldn’t quite make out. “I think our new friends are scared of me and my kind, Twilight. We’re not bad, really, but history shows only the negatives it seems. And, I even probably left out a few things I shouldn’t have . . . Polio vaccinations for one, the massive leaps in health care for that matter, or even the fact that our lifespan has gone from roughly 35 during the earliest years of mankind, to nearly 85 now, on average. There are people out there that were born in the 1800’s. Not many more though.”
“Well, I’ll admit I was rather shocked by it all, and I’ve seen some the worst of what our history has to offer. I’ll see if I can talk to them about it.” she said,
“Thanks. I think I’m just gonna sit here for awhile.” he said, turning his head to the window as Twilight walked towards the group.
“It’s just . . . how can somepony be proud of any of that?” Lucky ased, barely keeping her voice down.
Charged facehoofed, before replying “I don’t know how you got that impression, Lucky, he seemed pretty upset about a good deal of it to me.”
“Are you kidding me, Charged? He was practically gloating about some of that.”
At this point, Berry stepped in “Lucky, did you ever think that maybe he doesn’t mean for it to come off that way?”
"The hay are you talking about, Berry?”
“Well, if I was a unicorn, like Twilight over there,’ she said,nodding towards the mare in question “and I was talking about how to turn a bird into an orange, would you be scared of that?”
“Well . . . I, I don’t know . . . What does that have to do with this though?”
Charged cut back in with “Everything, Lucky. It has everything to do with this. You really need to realize that ponies can and will have different views about things than you.”
“Like Charged said, different views. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m completely okay with some of what he said, but I get that it’s how his kind view things.
“Well, I’m glad two of you girls understand things, even if only just.”
“Oh, hey, Twilight, when did you get here?”
“I live here . . . “ she deadpanned, before continuing “Anyways, Berry’s right. I had a talk with him the other day about they build things to do what we can with magic, and that seemed to unnerve him a bit.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” he called out, startling the group.
“Eh, hehe, sorry.”
“Whatever.” he said, turning back to the window, humming to the tune of a song that only he knew. And with the early dawn, moving right along . . .
Turning back to the group, Twilight started again “So, how about we get you those books you were looking for?”
The group looked amongst themselves, before the all answered.
Berry was first to say anything “Sure, I think I’ll look around for a bit.
Followed by Charged “Maybe later.”
And finally, Lucky “Um, I think I forgot something across town. . . . I’ll see you guys later.” Lucky said, as she opened the door and sprinted out into the rain.
One of these days she’s gonna get herself into something neither of us can get her out of. Berry thought, before turning to Charged “So, ‘later’?”
“Yes, ‘later’.” she said, starting back towards the couch where Gale was sitting, still gazing out into the rain.
And in your waiting hands I will land. . . Gale thought, though he’d unconsciously started mumbling the words by the time Charged walked over.
“Um, hey, Gale? Look, I’m sorry about earlier. It’s just. . . it's a bit of a shock to the system is all.”
“Yeah? You’re telling me.” he said, still staring out the window. “Your friend out there, I don’t think she realized how hard it’s raining.”
Whatever reply Charged was expecting, that wasn’t it. After a second, she heaved a sigh and said “Yeah, she’s . . . I don’t know. Sometimes I think that filly’s just plain lost her filter."
“Eh, I guess I can’t really hold it against her. Hell, I knew plenty of people like that back home.” Sometimes I wish I didn’t. Finally turning back inside, he added “It stings a bit, that she thinks I’d enjoyed any of that, but . . . I can’t change her mind so why bother?”
All Charged could do was just stand there for a moment. Wow, this stalli- what do I call male humans? He’s clearly had a rough time, maybe even before he got here.
“Some things never change, I guess.” Gale said, as he grabbed his glass, stood up, and headed for the kitchen.
“Well, you’re probably right there.” she said, as she went to follow him “Hey, what was that you were saying when I got over here?”
“Hmm? I said something?’
“Yeah, something about ‘waiting hands’?”
Gale paused for a second, and put his glass in the sink before answering “Huh, must’ve started mumbling that . . . it’s part of a song I know.”
“Who’s it by?”
“Considering it’s from my home, I doubt you would know.” At this point, I won’t be surprised if there’re pony versions of famous bands. . .
“Well, I may not know, but I kind of want to.” She said, walking next to him “I mean, I’m kind of curious about the type of music another species would be into.”
“Well, I was gonna see about going outside for a bit, but apparently that’s a bust.” he said, waving his arm towards the window which revealed that it was still, in fact, raining. “Hmm, I think I’m gonna go and sort through my stuff, actually get it all organized. Feel free to come up in maybe five minutes. Berry and Twilight too, if you guys want.” he said, shouting the last part over his shoulder. With that said, Charged headed back to Berry and Twilight, while Gale went up to move a few boxes and bags, then sort through everything.
While those two were talking, Twilight went to help Berry find the book she’d been looking for. Once they were far enough away, however, Twilight stopped to ask “So, what was with Lucky? I’ve never seen her act like that.”
Berry took a moment before she responded “Ugh, I don’t know. She’s been a bit off as of late,” before she could finish, however, Charged walked over to them “So, what are you two up to?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Oh, well, . . . I wanted to apologize for earlier. I know I should have had a better reaction to all that, and I wanted to see how he was doing. Especially after Lucky . . . Berry, what the hay has gotten into her lately?”
Berry shook her head before responding “I don’t know. Like I was just telling Twilight, she’s seemed a bit off lately.”
“Weird. Anyways, I was gonna go up and help Gale sort through his stuff, he said you two were welcome as well.”