//------------------------------// // February 28 [makerspace] // Story: Silver Glow's Journal // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------//  February 28 I was pretty sore when I woke up, from all the exercise I'd gotten yesterday. I was pretty sure I'd pulled a wing muscle: a couple of times I'd tried too hard to stay on the snowboard when I probably ought to have just let it go. There were two schools of thought on how to deal with this: either work it out, or relax and let it heal up. So I stretched out my wings as best I could and picked up my flight vest and went up for a quick trip. Nothing intense—I wasn't that foalish—just an easy, lazy trip to work the muscles some. When I landed, I took a trot around the block to limber up my legs as well. A lot of pegasuses don't really like being on the ground all that much and haven't got a lot of endurance when they're on their hooves. It's kind of a point of pride, but shortsighted. You have to exercise the whole body, not just your favorite parts. (Speaking of exercising favorite parts, I was hoping Aric didn't have plans for after Durach.) My wing was stiffening up when I got back to my dorm room. I stowed away my flight gear and headed into the shower just as Peggy was waking up. Once my coat and hair was all rinsed out, I made the water as hot as I could, and held my sore wing under it to relax the muscle. It was almost as good as a hot tub; I was so relaxed I was almost falling asleep on my hooves when there was a polite knock on the stall door. I opened it up and Peggy was on the other side, a towel draped over her shoulder and a basket full of shower stuff in her hand. She wanted to know if I was going to be in there all day. I told her I'd considered it, but she was welcome to have her turn. She must have seen me wince as I folded in my wing, because she stepped into the shower and set her little basket down and asked if I was all right. So I told her about my sore muscle, and she squatted down and started to knead her hands into the muscle. At first I tensed up and she stopped, but I told her to keep on going, and pretty soon I could feel some more tension leaving the muscle. I sighed happily when she was done and nuzzled her side, then left the stall so she could take her shower. I didn't want to, but I knew she wouldn't want me to stay. Once we were both fully groomed and dressed, we went to breakfast together. They had omelets again, and I got one made just the way I liked it. When we were all sitting at the table and eating our breakfast, Christine suddenly pulled her arms into her short sleeves until just her hands were sticking out. She shouted 'T-Rex breakfast,' and slammed her face into her bowl, sending cereal everywhere. I have the strangest friends. We did laundry next. All the washing machines were already full of damp clothes, so Peggy took them out and set them on the table. I asked why she didn't just put them in the dryer, and she said it was because there were some things that couldn't be dried in a dryer, that was one reason; plus, if she put them in the dryer that would reward the lazy person who had abandoned their clothes. Rather than go back upstairs, we just stayed in the laundry room and talked. Peggy sat on top of one of the washing machines, so I took the other. She wanted to know if I wanted to go snowboarding again, maybe at a better place, and I said that I'd like that. I told her it would be better if the board would stay attached to my hooves like hers did, and she told me that there weren't any boots or bindings for ponies that she was aware of. Then her face lit up and she said that she bet someone could make them, and we needed to go up and see Rebekka, because Rebekka knew a bunch of makers. Makers, it turns out, are craftspeople. She did know some and knew that they would be at their makerspace (which is where they work) on the weekend, so once our laundry was done and we'd had lunch, Peggy drove Rebekka and me over to a run-down looking brick building. Inside, though, it was clean but cluttered. I'd visited earth pony workshops that were much the same, although the makers had more machines. Projects were scattered all over worktables, and when we came in there was a cluster of people watching a pair of round machines with knives on one end and balloons on the other scuttle around the floor. I didn't want to interrupt them, so we went over and watched as the two machines fumbled around and one of them finally popped the balloon on the other. There was a lot of cheering for the machine that had won, and then they noticed me and all of a sudden everyone wanted to meet me, which was intimidating, coming all at once, and then they all wanted to show me their projects, and everyone wanted to be first, so it was really confusing. Finally, Rebekka calmed them down and Peggy explained why we'd come. They got to talking among themselves; pretty soon they were taking notes and one of them got out a dressmaker's tape that was made of metal and rolled up into a little storage container all on its own, and he used that to measure my hooves and pasterns and fetlocks. They put their heads down and one of them started sketching while two others unfolded their computers and started interneting. A brown-manedhaired girl named Karen showed us around, while the boys kind of came and went as they were working. I didn't get most of their names; there were a lot of them. Every now and then one of them would pipe up and ask me a question, like how much did I weigh and if I could produce downforce with my wings as well as lift. (Downforce was kind of counterintuitive, since it's the opposite of flying, but if you angle them just right you can do it. We learned how in flight training because griffons and rocs try to grab pegasuses alive and if you make yourself hard to carry, they'll drop you.) After about an hour of work and a tour of the shop, they came up with a couple of ideas that they thought would work, and they said that they needed to do some more research and figure out how much it was going to cost. Peggy gave them her number and mine, and they said that they'd call tomorrow when they knew for sure. I was surprised that it was dinnertime when we got back to campus. We'd spent a lot more time than I thought at the makerspace, although it was neat to see how humans built things. Even with all their machines like the threedee printer they had, there was still a traditional forge for metalwork, and lots of little hand-held tools. I think an earth pony craftsmare would really have liked to spend time in their makerspace. There were lots of unfinished projects that could give her an idea how things went together. After dinner was over, both Peggy and I had to put our shoulders into the traces; neither of us had done any of our homework yet. I got done with mine fairly quick—I didn't have a whole lot that I needed to do—and then I helped her out with her calculus. She paid me back by helping to make my bed. The bottom sheet has an elastic band around it, which holds it in place nicely, but makes it really hard to stretch it over the bed. I'll get three corners fastened and then when I'm trying to pull the fourth into position, one of the others comes off. With her long arms to hold the head in place, though, I was able to get the foot tucked in nicely, and bounced up onto the bed happily before putting the top sheet and the blankets back on. I read and wrote on Facebook for a little while before going to sleep. Aquamarine had figured out how to add photographs of her plants, as well as a few of her campus. It was weird; the parts that I'd seen when we dropped her off were very urban, but most of the outside pictures she had posted were of open fields, and there were lots from inside a greenhouse. I didn't have all that many pictures of myself. Nothing that I could put on Facebook, and that kind of bothered me a little bit.