//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9 
// Story: Just Dropping In 
// by Gunsmith 
//------------------------------//

	I can feel my left ear twitch in the direction of a sound I hear in front of me. It's a whirring sound, one that I have certainly heard before, but can't quite place. I open an eye to see what it is. I see a sideways tortoise hovering in the air in front of me; a helicopter-like contraption creates the whirring sound I am hearing. No, wait, the tortoise, who I recognize as Tank, is not sideways, I am. I open both eyes all the way and lean up to a sitting position on the fluffy white couch.

I blink a few times, trying to get my eyes to feel more awake and focused. I look over at Tank, who now hovers eye-level with me to my right, and smile. "Hey, Tank," I whisper. I turn away from the hovering reptile and look down to the floor in front of the couch. I lean forward and place my front hooves on the ground, wheelbarrow-ing forward a few steps before letting my back hooves make contact with the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut and stretch out as many muscles as I can at once. I feel my wings unfold from my sides and flare outward and upward as I do so. I relax and open my eyes, smiling a little with an overall feeling of contentment.

Tank whirs over to hover beside me. I watch him for a moment. He begins to blink...slowly. It takes about five seconds before his eyes return to being fully open. My smile turns to a grin at thinking of the irony of one of the slowest creatures in this world being the pet of one of the fastest ponies to exist. Speaking of said pony... I trot towards the staircase and begin heading down to the kitchen floor.

It seems fairly quiet in Rainbow Dash's house this morning. I step down the last of the stairs and into the kitchen, and find that the room is empty. It shows no sign of an attempt at cooking or even eating. I trot over to the door leading outside and nudge it open, walking out. Tank follows me out, quietly whirring to my back. I feel a small gust of chilly wind as I exit Rainbow's house. I look around, squinting in the bright morning sun, and don't see her. A glance to the sky and a peek around the sides of her house show no sign of her, either. I wonder what time it is? I raise a hoof to my forehead and glance towards the sun. It seems to hang a little lower than what I usually see in the sky. I'm guessing it's around 10 A.M., being that I normally seem to wake up around 11 A.M. I trot back through the door, making sure Tank comes in behind me.

Dash must not be up yet...

What to do? A bubbling noise in my stomach provides a good answer. I trot over to the small, white icebox that sits in the corner of the kitchen. I lift the lid. Inside are a few apples, mainly red ones, and a pretty good supply of carrots. I decide to even out the inventory a little a grab a carrot in my mouth. I turn around, letting the icebox lid shut. I see Tank hovering nearly directly in front of my face, and I go a little cross-eyed. I set the carrot down on a nearby counter.

"Oh, you probably want food, don't you? Feel like a carrot?" I ask Tank the tortoise in a low voice, nearly a whisper. He slowly tilts his head downward, then back up. I tilt my head over to the carrot lying on the cloud counter. "You can have that one if you want." He hovers down to the counter top and sets down atop it, his rotor blades ceasing their spinning. He begins to lean in and take a slow bite of the orange vegetable. I smile, pleased, and return to the icebox, grabbing another carrot for myself.

I sit down at the table, biting down on the carrot in my mouth. It splits into three parts, two of which fall onto the soft table. I munch on the carrot third for a short while, then lean down and grab another third of carrot to eat. A warm glow of light streams in through the windows in the kitchen as I eat my breakfast. After finishing the carrot, an idea works its way into my thoughts. I stand up and trot over to the row of cabinets on the wall, propping myself atop the counters and opening one. I actually get the correct cabinet this time, and pull out a plate, gripped in my teeth. I use my head to close the cabinet door, which seems to melt back into the rest of the cloud making up the room when it shuts. 

I set the plate on the counter next to Tank, who is about two bites into his carrot. I smile at how ridiculously slow he does everything. I take a few steps over to the icebox, opening it a third time. I pluck out a carrot first, the best-looking one I see; of course, they all look identically cartoon-ish, so, yeah. I back-trot to the plate on the counter, having a little difficulty spotting the white plate against the equally white cloud surface, and drop the bright root onto it. I move back to the icebox, this time grabbing one of the apples by the stem, and place it, too, on the plate. I push the icebox lid closed with a hoof and trot back to the plate.

"I'll be right back, going to go get Rainbow up, alright?" I ask Tank. Talking to pets is a habit picked up when growing up in a house having a few cats and dogs; I cringe a little at the memory of some past pets, which led to thoughts of my past life, which was leading somewhere I didn't feel like going right now, so I force myself to focus on the tortoise. He begins to turn in my direction, tilting his head up, then back down. I nod back to him and lean down, clamping my teeth down on the rim of the plate, careful to keep it level as I lift my head back up.

My eyes cross as I watch the two items on the plate, making sure they don't fall off as I make my way to the staircase. I bump my right foreleg on the low table and nearly trip. I slow down a little, eventually reaching the stairs. Climbing the cloud staircase seems to take forever. It seems like I take an hour just to reach the second floor's entrance without spilling the contents of the platter. I climb a bit faster once I reach the next segment of stairs, and reach the entrance to Rainbow Dash's room without dropping the food. I move my focus away from the food, which I figure is basically free and clear, to Dash's bedroom. 

A quick scan shows that the room remains the same overall. The dresser still has a scarf and a sock hanging out of it, the rainbow colors of both items contrasting the plain white of the cloud furniture. The bedside table to the right of the bed still holds a stack of books, though a few now lay on the ground in front of the table in a smaller pile. The other bedside table still holds the picture of the six pony friends, and a new Daring Do book atop it. And, finally, there is a pony-sized lump under the covers of the bed in the middle of the room.

I silently plod over to the left of the bed; it isn't hard to be silent, clouds seem to absorb hoofsteps pretty well. As I approach the side of the bed, plate of morsels still gripped in my teeth, I see the rest of the lump.

Rainbow Dash lies under the covers of the bed. They are pulled up to her shoulders. She seems to be sleeping on her side or stomach, I can't tell. Her arms are tucked beneath a pillow, on top of which her head rests; it's like she's resting her head on her arms, but the pillow is sandwiched in-between. Her left ear, which is exposed, sits halfway flat against her head. Dash snores quietly, her mouth opening to take in air, and then narrowing to let it out with a vocal sigh.

God, right in the d'awww. Despite the feeling that I'm being a little weird, I stand next to the bed and just watch her sleep for a minute. I can't help it, it's so damned cute. My mouth is starting to feel odd from my teeth being half-bared for an extended period of time. Damn. I wish that I could just watch her sleep longer, but I know I can't. I lean in towards the bed, setting the plate down on an open area of bed in front of her face. I release the plate from my jaws, pulling my head back. I realize that I haven't been breathing, and inhale quietly. 

Hmm. How should I wake her up? She continues to lightly snore. So god damned cute. If I tap her or something, she might react and judo-chop me or something. It's probably best to just talk to her until she wakes up. I remember my mom doing that for me...not now. I push the thought away and focus back on Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow Dash," I whisper. She snores back in response.

"Rainbow Dash," I repeat, this time feeling my vocal cords vibrate a little. My voice sounds quiet and deep in the near-silent room. She makes a little groaning noise, then resumes snoring softly.

"Rainbow Dash, wake up." My voice is clearly audible to my ears, now, and still holds a lower tone. Her snoring changes to breathing. I can see her head move a little, and then she opens her eyes a crack. I can see her large, black pupils shrink down a little at the change in light, from the blackness behind eyelids to the morning's light. Rainbow's magenta irises seem to increase in size as her pupils get smaller. Her eyes open a little more, and she glances down towards her bed. She sees the plate that lies there, containing an apple and a carrot. I can see her eyebrows raise a little in question, then she glances upward, to me standing beside her bed. Dash's eyes open all the way in recognition, her magenta eyes seeming to reflect some of the light in the room.

"Hey there," I say, smiling. "Happy Hearth's Warming Eve?" I half-say, half-question, glancing down at the plate of food in front of her and grinning.

She snorts a little. "Thanks, Ferrum. Happy Hearth's Warming Eve." Rainbow Dash pushes herself up a little, propping herself up against the headboard of the bed. She grabs the plate with a hoof and moves it onto her still-covered lap; I am tempted to ask how that is even possible, but know there won't be any explanation for how ponies pick up things with their hooves. I feel your pain, Dr. Whooves.

"Yep," I reply. "I wasn't sure if you liked carrots or not, so I grabbed an apple, too. Never seen you eat a carrot, so..."

"Nah, I like carrots. Not as much as apples, but they're still pretty good," she says, biting into the carrot afterward.

Unsure of what to do with myself, and knowing watching her eat would probably look creepy, I continue the conversation. "So, yeah, Tank woke me up this morning. He's probably still working on a carrot downstairs..."

Dash swallows her bite of carrot. "Sorry 'bout that. He gets up pretty early, might've been bored. He'll wake me up sometimes, too." She leans down and steals another bite of carrot, basically finishing the vegetable.

I half-close my eyes and put out a foreleg. "Nah, it's no big deal. I used to have cats, and they were a lot worse about waking you up." Rainbow chuckles in agreement before moving on to take a bite of apple. Must be pretty hungry this morning. I stand quietly, looking around the room at nothing in particular. My eyes fall onto the stack of books opposite me. I raise my right foreleg and motion towards the stack. "How many of those have you read?"

She turns over to look at the stack, then leans over to look at the floor on the other side of the bed. Rainbow Dash motions with her own foreleg towards the bedside table nearest me, at the book upon it, and swallows before saying, "That's my fifth one so far. I just started reading these a few months ago. Twilight's letting me borrow as many as I want from the library...it's a pretty good series."

I glance back at the pile of mainly Daring Do books. "Seems like it," I agree. I note the more technical books in the stack again. "Did Twilight give you those ones on flying and stuff?"

Rainbow frowns a little. "Yeah, said I could have 'em as long as I didn't lose 'em or anything."

I smile. "I'm guessing you've never read them, and don't plan to?" I inquire, a playful hint in my voice.

She looks a bit embarrassed. "Heh, yeah. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess?" I say, grinning.

She smiles back. "What, did you want to read them?"

"No, didn't plan on it," I reply. "I'm not that much of an egghead." I continue to grin playfully.

She feigns deep thought for a moment. "Yeah, you are," she says, also grinning. I snort in response, and she returns to eating the apple. Dash soon finishes her apple, leaving her core on the plate.

"I got it," I tell her, and grab the plate filled with an apple core and a carrot's remnants on it in my mouth. I see the faintest tinge of pink reach her cheeks, and she smiles. I step back from the side of the bed, trotting a little towards the entrance to the staircase. She kicks off the remaining covers and hops out of her bed, then begins to trot to where I stand. I begin making my way down the stairs, still trying to be careful not to tip the plate.

In the kitchen, I trot over to the trash can and tilt the plate in, placing the empty plate in the indentation in the cloud counters that is a sink. I turn back to Rainbow Dash.

"Well, we went to Cloudsdale yesterday. Feel like seeing Ponyville today, before we go to Sugarcube Corner tonight?" she asks me.

I spread my black wings out, then let them fall back to my sides. They don't feel tired anymore, and stretching them sounds like an excellent idea. Plus, I really do want to see Ponyville. "That sounds awesome. Ready to go?" 

"Actually, it's probably gonna be pretty cold down there on the ground. I'm going to grab a scarf. Want one?" replies Rainbow.

I think back to her color choice for scarves. "Uhh...I'll be alright."

"Okay, be right back," she says, before galloping off up the stairs. I can hear some faint rustling fairly high above me, then the thunka-thunka-thunka-thunka of Dash returning down the stairs. She appears at foot of the stairs, clothed in only a multicolored scarf that is wrapped around her neck. It obviously suits her. I am tempted to make a comment about the amount of time exactly she was gone in reference to a meme, but stifle myself. "Now I'm ready," says Rainbow Dash.

I smile and push open the door, waiting for her to exit her house before letting it swing shut. We walk over to the edge of her cloud residence. I peer down. There sits Ponyville, covered in a blanket of white snow and polka-dotted by many multicolored ponies. 

"Watch this," I hear Rainbow Dash say at my side. A second later, I am watching Rainbow Dash jump off of the cloud, wings tucked in at her sides. A part of me panics for a moment, but I remember that Dash is no amateur. I watch as her cyan blue form falls, farther and farther, closer and closer to the earth. I can feel myself starting to wince as the dot that is Rainbow gets extremely close to the ground. When she seems like she's about to hit the ground, I see her wings flare out, and she glides over top of a lot of Ponyville before circling back and landing on the outskirts, directly below her cloud home.

Well, fuck. I stare downwards at the light blue dot amidst the white snow. I've lost it if I'm going to do this. I am fairly sure I've already lost my mind anyways, or at least have the right to do so. I'm a pony, for Christ's sake. Well...Geronimo! I push off with my hind legs and tuck my wings in tightly to my sides, angling forward as I leap off of the cloud.

My mind screams that this is a bad idea as I begin falling. The wind roars past my face, and even as I squint I'm blinking away tears. The ground is racing towards my outstretched forelegs as I dive to what the intelligent part of my brain assumes to be its doom. As I get closer and closer to the ground where Ponyville lies, I can start to see more detail. I can see the hoofprints in the roads, created by the multitude of ponies that reside in the town. Some pegasi fly around, but there are mainly grounded ponies amongst the streets. I see that a couple of ponies are watching me free fall.

Some part of my brain begins coaching me. Closer...closer...wait for it...now! I force my wings open around seventy-five feet above the street level. I can feel a parachute-like effect hit my body, my organs all smacking the bottom of me as I level out. I find that I am flying, gliding at an amazing speed, perfectly level about thirty feet over Ponyville. The houses, streets, and ponies rush by in a blur of motion. I remember that I need to return to Rainbow Dash, and tilt my wings to perform a wide half-circle. I continue to glide on my own momentum until I see where she stands in the snow, waving up at me. I tilt my wings forward, slowing me down almost instantly, and lower myself to the ground, settling with a thud.

I can see Rainbow's lips moving, but I can't hear anything. My heart pounds hard in my ears. I feel tingly all over, and pumped up with energy. I realize I'm breathing pretty fast, and slow myself down. The pounding begins to lessen.

"What?" I ask.

"I said, that was radical! You totally nailed that dive. You shoulda seen the looks on some pony's faces!" she replies energetically.

I chuckle, grinning and somewhat out of breath. "Thanks. Yours looked pretty crazy from up at your house. I wish I could've been down here to see it, it looked awesome."

"Felt pretty awesome, too," she replies. "I don't like falling, but that stuff is fun!"

"Definitely," I agree. "Alright, so...where are we?" I look around and see that we are on the outskirts of Ponyville. Only one house sits secluded on a trail that branches off of the bridge leading into the town. I recognize the house. "Is this Fluttershy's house?"

She seems a bit taken aback that I know this, but then must remember the biggest factor of who I am. "Oh, yeah, this is her place. She lives out here because she likes the peace and quiet, and the animals and stuff."

"Ah, alright."

"You'll get to meet her tonight at the Hearth's Warming Eve party-thing. Come on, let's go into town. Watch your step by the way, we don't have shoes on."

She begins trotting towards the bridge. I follow, listening as our combined hooves make a mess of clip's and clop's. A train of thought begins rolling in my head. I'll get to meet the rest of the Mane Six tonight, in fact. I smile to myself. Every brony ever's dream will come true for me, I think, admittedly a little greedily. Could I be greedy just because I had died in a fiery explosion that undoubtedly wiped out Earth? No, I could not, I scold myself. I notice that more and more houses are appearing as we enter Ponyville. All of them have a Nordic stylization to them, most made mainly of wooden support beams and paneling. A few other ponies pass Rainbow and I as we trot along, some idly looking around, others chatting with each other.

The amount of ponies is steadily increasing the further we head into town. I'm lucky Rainbow Dash is an easy pony to spot. As I look around, still trotting forward, I see ponies going about all kinds of business. There are ponies sweeping outside their homes, ponies moving through alleyways between houses, ponies putting scarves and even some hats on their foals, ponies everywhere. I return my attention to following Dash. I notice that a passersby will say hello to Rainbow Dash every so often, to which she'll return a nod and a smile in their direction or say hello back.

It seems by now that we've reached the town's center. There are ponies all over the place. There are virtually no houses in this area, all of them replaced by shops, surrounding the large town hall at the center. I see restaurants with ponies eating outside; I note two familiar ponies sitting at a table outside one place. One, who is a sea-green unicorn, is sitting like a human might on a chair while the other, a pale yellow one, frowns at her and talks to her. Shops fill the area, too. I glance over a few and notice one purely made of stone; outside it hangs a hammer-and-anvil symbol, and I make a quick note of its location. I continue to glance around the various shops and markets in the area, and I spot Big Macintosh helping a pair of customers at the Apple family's stand in the town center. The pair of customers also look familiar. One I instantly recognize as Derpy, and the other is a brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie mark. I'm tempted to go ask the brown one a few questions, mainly based on how to pick up things as ponies do, but I can hear Rainbow Dash talking.

"Ferrum!"

"Huh?" I reply, turning to her.

She smiles and laughs a little. Rainbow turns and points a foreleg towards a building, one that is very colorful and appears to be a bakery, judging by the pastries and other baked goods sitting in its windows. "That's Sugarcube Corner, where we'll be going tonight," she half-shouts over the bustling of the crowd. "Oh, and Pinkie Pie lives there, if you didn't know."

I nod, and she trots off, changing direction. It seems the town is set up so that there are four main roads, all of them intersecting in the middle of town. She has turned right, and I follow her onto the new road. The noise of area eventually lowers as we move away from the main intersection. Dash stops again and points at a building we are nearby. "The pink and purple place is Carousel Boutique. Rarity lives there, and sells the dresses and stuff she makes out of it."

"Alright," I reply, already knowing most of that, but enjoying the tour anyways. It's nice to actually see where these places are located in relation to the rest of Ponyville. Plus, I get to hang out with Rainbow Dash; can't get any better than that.

She laughs a little and turns around, fully facing me. "We gotta go back that way, now..." I move to the side and she passes, and I follow behind her. We head back to the town center, make our way through the mess of ponies shopping, eating, and selling their goods and services, and continue to the main road opposite the one we were just on. This time, we walk to what seems to be the very end of the road, which ends in some sort of cul-de-sac. A large tree takes up most of the area; I recognize this to be--

"That's Twilight's place. Princess Celestia put her in charge of the library, so she lives there, too. Only an egghead could like books enough to pretty much live in them," Rainbow says, finishing my thought. I chuckle in agreement; I enjoy books, but that many is just a little ridiculous. And informative books like those Twilight seems to love so much are nothing at all like Tom Clancy novels; more like my old Physics textbooks.

Dash turns to me, half-smiling. "We got one more place I'd like to show you, but it will be easier to get there if we fly. Cool with you?" she asks.

I nod. "Cool with me," I reply, opening my wings a little to show I'm ready. She lifts off into the air, waiting for me to follow. I jump off the ground and beat my wings, hovering up to her level. Then, she begins flying at a fairly slow pace. I take the opportunity of traveling at a low rate to look around below me as we fly over Ponyville. Many of the houses look the same, and there are hundreds, even thousands of these Nordic style wooden houses, spread in circles around the town's center. Some other landmarks stick out in between the small houses. I see the hospital sitting near the outskirts of the town. I can see the school, too; despite being Monday, it seems devoid of activity, likely due to the holiday. I even see what appears to be a bowling alley in the town, judging by he bowling ball and pins sitting atop it in sign form. I also see what looks to be a warehouse, made of brick. It catches my eye because of how it seems to stick out in the generally country-town look that Ponyville gives off; I decide to investigate it later.

I turn my head forward again. Rainbow Dash continues to fly towards what I now see is the mass of farmland outside Ponyville. The dirt that would hold thousands of pounds worth of crops are currently covered in smooth white snow. A forest of deciduous trees sit bare, save for the icicles that appear on some of their branches. It makes them sparkle with the afternoon sun. At the top of a good sized hill, overlooking the tree farm and all of Ponyville, is a red barn/house combination. It is massive, as most farmhouses are. Smaller red structures sit to one side of the large barn; they seem to be coops and pens. Rainbow stops moving, hovering just outside of where the huge property begins, and looks over her shoulder at me.

"And that," she says, aiming a hoof in the direction of the farmhouse, "is Sweet Apple Acres. My friend Applejack lives there, with the rest of the Apple family. Her Granny Smith pretty much founded Ponyville."

"Wow...this place is massive," I reply, in awe of how large the farm actually is. "So just Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Applebloom farm and maintain all this, every year?" I ask; the farmland in Ohio could get extensive, but this place is just enormous. And they don't even use modern farming equipment...

"Yeah, pretty much. Me and my other friends will help them out sometimes, but they do most of the work, bucking apples and stuff," Dash explains.

"Just...wow. Are they the only farm in Ponyville?"

"Mm-hmm," she says, nodding. "They mainly take care of the apple trees, but yeah, they own all this." Rainbow Dash pauses, staring back out over the farm again. She turns back to me a moment later. "Well, that's pretty much Ponyville. Or at least, where I go. I usually just hang out at my friends' places, or out here at the farm. I go into the town square for food and stuff, but not really anywhere else."

"Well, I guess when you're a pegasus, you can go anywhere you want any time, so that makes sense," I conclude aloud. Why see the rest of Ponyville when you can see the world? After a pause, I say, "Thanks for the tour of Ponyville. It was nice. I like seeing it this time of year." I smile appreciatively.

Rainbow laughs a little. "No problem. Figured you might have wanted to look around before you came here tonight, anyways."

I think of the time and of our planned dinner, and glance up into the sky. The sun is sitting somewhat low in the sky, but the color of the sky has not changed as of yet, still retaining its light blue hue. Time seems to have passed pretty fast since I dove off of Dash's cloud home. "What time are you supposed to meet your friends, anyways?" I ask.

She also looks up into the sky, appearing to also be estimating the time, as I am. My guess is that it's around four or five P.M. as of now. "Uhh...I think Twilight told me to be there close to sunset. We have a little time before we need to go, I think."

I frown a little in thought, wondering what to do to pass the time. "What if we walk there, from here? Trot, I mean." I shake my head a little, remembering that I need to use pony terminology. 

Rainbow Dash gives a slight smirk at my slip-up and shrugs. "Sure, why not?" She begins lowering herself to the ground outside Sweet Apple Acres, dropping a few feet at a time. I follow suit, my landing causing some powdery snow to billow out from under my hooves. I turn my head and smile at her, starting to trot back into the town. She matches my pace, trotting to my right.