The tracks running into the building were not evenly spaced, both sets were closer to the left side of the building than the right. When I drove inside I could see why. From the left wall all the way to about two thirds of the way across was one large room. The ceiling was two stories high, plenty of space for an engine to drive into the building. The track up against the wall had a large dug out pit, allowing a pony to get under the engine if they had to work on it. I pulled my truck forward, keeping closer to the rail that had no pit. I didn't want to accidentally get my truck, or the trailer, stuck again.
After I parked, I got out and took a look around. While the left two-thirds of the building was open, the remaining part was divided into two areas, a larger closed off section and a smaller open one. The closed off section looked to be two separate rooms. An interior wall ran from the back of the workshop, three-fourths of the way to the front where I had pulled in. Another interior wall connected it with the main wall forming an enclosed area that I suspected was divided into at least two rooms since there were two doors on the longer wall. The first was around the middle of the room while the second was near the far back of the shop.
The remaining section was an open area, filled with various tools and other equipment that looked a good deal more modern than anything I had seen since arriving here. My best guess placed them somewhere around early to mid 1900s human tech level. There were drill presses, lathes, welding tools, a wide variety of hand tools - or was that hoof tools - two large workbenches and everything else one would expect to find in a workshop. There was also a staircase against the far right wall that ran up to second floor level. At the top of the staircase was a door leading into the closed off area.
The whole workshop was quite was well lit, far better than I'd expect from kerosene lamps. I glanced upward up and saw electric lighting, or at least what I suspected was electric lighting, running across the ceiling. In addition to the lights was a massive set of beams running the length of the shop. There were two large hoists, big enough that they looked like they could lift up a train, one on each beam.
"This place is impressive," I said looking out across the room. "Big though, you work here alone?"
"Not usually, I've got a part timer named Brick Wall who comes in when I need to do some heavy lifting. I had a pair of unicorns, husband and wife working for me but they moved north a month ago. Right now I don't have a ton of work coming in so I haven't looked for any new workers. I may even end up closing the shop and moving north, it depends on how some of my side projects go."
Golden Dawn gave me a tour of the first floor the shop and showed me all of her equipment. When we got over to the two doors, she opened the middle one, it was a storage room filled with metal, spare parts and many other things. Then she skipped the door on the end and headed for the staircase in the front of the building. The whole thing was an awesome sight, it definitely stood out against the western theme the rest of the town had going on. One thing did confuse me though.
"Golden, the lights, the lathe and the drills and the all the rest of the machines... do they all run on electricity?"
Golden Dawn stopped at a large metal box attached to the wall under the staircase. It looked like a very large breaker box.
"Yep, I was just going to get to that," she said.
She walked up to the box and opened a panel, exposing a row of eight massive emeralds colored gems, each as large as my first. The gems had a very slight glow to them that I almost didn't notice in the brightly lit room. There were three more identical panels on the box, for a total of 32 gems in all.
"Are these gem batteries, like you were talking about before?"
"Yep, this is how ponies do electricity on the go, or in backwater towns that don't have their own power grid yet," she said with a laugh.
"There are four main kinds of gems, rubies which have a huge capacity but can't take a high load, sapphires, which can handle very high load but can't hold much magic, emeralds, which are middle of the ground for both capacity and load and finally diamonds which have both the best capacity and can handle the highest load."
"Why don't you just use diamonds for everything then?" I asked.
"Cost, a single enchantment grade diamond of this size would run as much as this entire bank of emeralds," Golden Dawn said, pointing at the panel she had open.
She closed up the panel and lead me up the stairs to the second floor. It was actually a small one bedroom apartment. Golden Dawn explained that she had originally lived right there in the shop, but she moved out a few years ago, wanting a bigger place. The unicorn family that had been working for her lived there for a while, Golden Dawn let them use it as part of their pay. Eventually though, the wife had gotten pregnant. They decided that they wanted to move to a bigger town and get a house of their own.
She hadn’t had any luck finding any other ponies to rent out the place too. Unless you were working in the shop, living there didn't make much sense as there were nicer, quieter places available. We sat around for a while in the apartment's living room and talked about the day's activities.
Mid-sentance, Golden Dawn let out a cute little yawn. I took the time to glance out the window. I hadn’t realized how late it was, the sun had long since dropped below the horizon and the surrounding was lit only by moonlight. I figured I should probably get going, I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I went to speak up but Golden Dawn beat me to it.
"So I've been thinking," Golden Dawn said. "Since nopony is living here right now and you don't have a place to stay, why don't I let you crash here?"
Inwardly, I sighed. I certainly appreciated the offer but my stubborn brain kept insisting that the truck was more than adequate, I didn’t want to mooch anymore.
"You don't have to do that, I can just sleep in my truck." I said.
"Oh come on Hail Storm, just do it. It's not like I'm living here right now and nopony wants to rent an apartment in a factory, the only reason there's still furniture and a bed in here is cause sometimes when I get stuck working late and don't want to fly home, I crash here myself. If I didn't do that I would have torn it down for more storage space."
"I just hate being a freeloader, I can't pay for anything and it sucks." I said with a frown.
"Well get a job then, we'll check out the town tomorrow, I'm sure you can find something you can do."
"I need to figure out what I'm going to do now that I have my truck back. I need to try to get home, the way I understand it, getting to your capital is my best chance of that. What was it called again?"
"Canterlot," Golden Dawn said. I managed to resist smacking myself in the face. "You could buy a train ticket, they aren't that expensive, unless you're taking the Express."
"Again, lack of money. More than that, if I take a train, I'd have to leave my truck here. I've got too much stuff in the trailer to just abandon it. But Dusty said the capital was half way across the country. Even if the trailer hitch wasn't broken, I can't drive that far with no way to buy food," I said, slumping my shoulders.
"I could lend you some bits," Golden Dawn said, thoughtfully.
"Thanks but I'd never be able to pay you back, I already owe you my life, I don't want to add to that debt. Maybe I should try to find some work, even if it takes a little longer. If I can find something to do for a few days I can earn some food money. An extra couple of days aren't going to do me any more damage," I said. Since I've already lost my job by now. ran through my brain, but I kept it to myself.
“Job it is then, I’m sure we can find you some kind of short term work,” Golden Dawn said.
"On that note, would I even be allowed to work? I don't have any identification and I'm not a citizen."
"Why would you need identification to work? If you think you can do a job, you just apply for it."
I briefly talked about the pages and pages of paperwork I had to go through when I started my last job. Health insurance, 401k, tax information, bank information for my pay checks, compliance training, drug checks, background checks, references and a billion other things.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but humans are insane," she said.
"You aren't wrong," I said with a laugh.
Golden Dawn wasn't sure what kind of work was available but she ran through some of the smaller jobs that she had seen. I could see she was getting tired but she trucked on until she exhausted her list of ideas. It gave me a good idea of what I’d be looking at in the morning.
"I need to call it a night, I'll be back here tomorrow morning and we can figure out what to do next. I'd also like to get a look at your truck if you don't mind. Maybe we can fix that trailer hitch.”
"That would be great! Of course if you do, I'm going to find some way to pay you back, one way or another," I said. I waved goodbye as she got up to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She headed back down to the shop and closed up the side doors then took off. Meanwhile. I looked around the apartment. There was a small combination kitchen and dining / living room, a modest sized bedroom and a bathroom. All in all it wasn't much smaller than the apartment I had been living back in the states. I headed downstairs, dug my suitcase out of the truck, grabbed the bottle of painkillers from the glove box and went back upstairs.
I considered myself extremely lucky that pony bathrooms were extremely similar to human bathrooms, the only real differences were that the toilet was lower to the ground, had a foot pedal for flushing and was a fair bit larger. That and both the bathroom at Dusty's and this one lacked a shower, instead they had bathtubs. I didn’t have a chance to use the one at Dusty’s but nothing was stopping me now. I don't know how the water came out hot but it did and it was amazing. Normally I'd prefer a shower but after eight days without any real chance to clean myself, I was willing to settle for the bath and be happy with it.
I soaked in the water for way longer than necessary, then climbed out and let the tub drain, only to fill it up again. It was only after I got out the second time that I realized I didn't have a towel, nor was there one in the mostly empty apartment. I ended up sacrificing one of my spare t-shirts to dry off as best as I could, then hung it to dry. I also did my best to clean the positively filthy clothes I had been wearing since I wound up in Equestria. I actually considered burning them but they represented 1/5th of Equestria’s supply of human clothing so I decided against it. Instead I looked around, wondering if Golden Dawn had one of those old-timey washboards, before realizing that since she didn't wear anything it was unlikely she'd have one. Certainly not in an apartment she barely used.
After that I stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed which fortunately had sheets. Like the one at Dusty's it was a bit short but very wide and extremely comfortable. I quickly fell asleep.
Golden Dawn arrived very early the next morning. I was a late sleeper and had always considered mornings the worst part of the day so I was still sound asleep when she knocked on the apartment door. Still groggy, the noise confused me at first. I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but it persisted. When I was finally awake enough to realize that the knocking wasn't going to stop until I got out of bed and did something about it, I pulled myself up, threw on some pants, stumbled into the living room and opened the door, all while nursing yet another headache.
"Ehhhhh?" I mumbled still half asleep.
"I brought coffee," Golden Dawn said, holding a paper bag in her mouth.
I almost hugged her right then and there. "Oh thank god, ponies have coffee."
I waited for her to put down the bag and deliver the divine liquid unto my mouth, but she walked past me over to the small kerosene stove in the corner of the kitchen and fired it up. Inside the bag was a old fashioned stove-top percolator and a tin can full of coffee grounds. She filled the percolator up with water, opened a tin can and added the grounds and set it on the stove.
"Ahhh! Ponies need to invent Dunkin' Donuts or something, this is taking too long," I complained several minutes later.
Golden Dawn gave me brief look of confusion before turning back to the stove, she made an adjustment to the heat and then sat down next to me.
After several more agonizing minutes, the coffee was finally ready. I filled my mug, added some cream and sugar and took a sip. It was the first thing I had consumed here that wasn't amazing, it just tasted like regular homemade coffee, good home made coffee, but not the best. Even though it wasn't super amazingly awesome, it was still coffee and I was still glad to have it. As an added bonus, in my experience caffeine plus painkillers made an excellent combination for fighting headaches. I pulled out the small pill bottle I had grabbed from the truck, popped two pills from my dwindling supply and got ready to head downstairs.
Golden Dawn was already downstairs looking at the trailer, I wandered over to watch what she was doing. She spent some time looking at the broken hookup, and the hitch on the truck. Then she walked over to a work bench and pulled out some paper and a pencil, she went back and forth to the truck and trailer a few times taking measurements. She seemed to alternate between using her mouth or a hoof to write with the pencil. Both gave far better results than my own handwriting.
Eventually she finished and flagged me over. She showed me the sheet of paper where she had drawn up a replacement for the broken parts. She went over her design and how the hitch worked, checking to make sure it matched what I had expected. In truth, I had followed the instructions and only attached a trailer once before, it sounded right but the manual was currently sitting in the truck's glove box, unreadable so I had no way of checking. She made a few notes at the bottom of the page based on my feedback.
Then she got to work. She trotted over to a storage area and pulled out some bars of metal; balancing them on her back she slowly walked over to one of the machines in the shop. I was about to go sit down in the truck when she called over to me, "where do you think you're going?" she asked.
"Just getting out of your way," I said pointing over at the truck.
"Nah, you can help," she said smiling.
I shook my head, "I've got experience in a shop, but human tools and pony tools aren't exactly the same. Plus I don't know anything about fixing a trailer I'd just be in the way."
"I can show you, this isn't too complicated, think of it as a learning experience."
I shrugged and walked over. For the next hour she went through safety rules, which were more or less the same as in a human shop, basic operation of the machinery and then finally the plans she had written up. She treated it like she was teaching a class and did a few live demonstrations with her tools, even on the things that I thought were obvious. I didn't try to stop her though, watching her use tools with hooves was fascinating. I caught myself staring in wonder a few times unable to fully comprehend her magic touch.
The really interesting bits were when she had to do something that I thought would required the fine manipulation that only fingers could provide. If she could get even the tip of her hoof on something, it was enough for the magical grip to do its thing. If that didn't work, in went a wing. If anything, she could actually do more than I could with fingers alone.
When she finished with the demonstrations, we got to work on repairing the hitch. The trailer had a metal bar that extended out the front of it, at the end was a tongue that slipped over the trailer ball. The bar had bent and the tongue was also dented up, having likely struck a rock when the trailer was rolling forward. The safety chains were supposed to keep the trailer from coming loose, but they had snapped. Golden Dawn said she wasn't sure but the chain looked a bit small for it's application.
"I bought it used and cheap, maybe it had the wrong size chains on it?" I said with a shrug. I had no way to find out now.
Golden Dawn said that she had some chain in the back, all we'd have to do is replace the bent up bar and the tongue which is what she had sketched a design of. I was a little worried, since this was going to be pulling my trailer, but she insisted her replacement would work just as well. After that we got to work, surprisingly, she had me do a good portion of it. I messed up a few times trying to get used to the equipment. Not only was it horribly outdated compared to what I usually worked with, the controls were also different. Still, most of the differences were not as big as you'd expect for a race of equines. It was just enough that it threw me off and I made a few stupid mistakes.
It was actually a little embarrassing, since I knew they were silly slip-ups. I felt like it was my first day working in a shop all over again, still Golden was extremely patient and by the end I was starting to get the hang of using the milling machine that we were using. We had just finished the replacement tongue when my stomach let out a loud growl.
"Sound's like somepony is hungry," she said as she placed her pencil down.
"I've been meaning to ask, what's with the somepony thing?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, anytime you use an indefinite pronoun where I expect it to be one or body, you use the word pony, Somepony, anypony, everypony."
"As opposed to?" Golden asked.
"You know, instead of somepony, someone or somebody."
"You just said 'instead of somepony, somepony or somepony,'" she said scrunching her face up in confusion.
"No, I said, someone or somebody," I said, shaking my head.
"You did it again."
"Someone," I said.
"Somepony," she replied with a shrug.
"What the hell? Some... one," I said deliberately separating the two words.
"Some...one? Like the number? That sounds a bit odd, especially the way you drew it out like that." Golden Dawn said.
"Well it's suppose to be one as in a single individual, kind of like some... body, both are functionally equivalent to your 'somepony' word, but apparently I can't say them anymore, at least not as a singular word."
"Maybe it's a side effect of whatever magic is making you speak Equestrian."
"That's really strange, even more so because I hear me say someone and you hear me say somepony. How does that even work?"
She shrugged in response, "You'd have to ask a unicorn."
A thought dawned on me.
"Golden, I'm going to say a word and I want you to say back to me what I've said."
"Okay?" she looked a bit confused.
"Someone."
"Somepony," Golden responded.
"Storm," I said.
"Storm."
"Hal."
"Hail." Well, that was it. If my theory was correct that explained things a bit.
"Harold Storm."
"I... can't pronounce that first word," Golden Dawn said.
"That's my name, like my actual name. Hal is just a nickname. For reasons I don't understand you appear to hear the word Hal as the word hail. I'm not sure what's causing that but I'm guessing whatever switched my language around doesn't translate names which is why my real name sounds like gibberish to you. If I'm right then maybe my original language is locked away somehow, and only partially accessible. It's the only reason I could think of that would explain why I can still understand my name but you can't."
About that time my stomach growled again. Golden Dawn asked if I wanted to break for breakfast. I still felt bad about leaching food off of someone I had just met but there wasn't much I could do about it so I nodded.
"Do humans like pancakes?" she asked.
I nodded enthusiastically. We headed out and she closed up the shop. It was a bit of a walk but we ended up at a large wooden building. The sign over the door said "The Smokey Griddle" and the smells coming from inside made my mouth water. By the time we got there I was regretting not having driven but with no additional fuel I didn't want to waste what I had left.
The place was pretty busy but also had plenty of seating so we didn't have to wait. Eventually a vibrant blue unicorn walked over to take our order.
"Good morning Morning Glory." Golden Dawn said to a blue unicorn who trotted up to take our order.
"Morning," I added, eyeing the floating notepad. I could spend a year in Equestria and still be amazed by that.
"Good morning to you as well," the unicorn said. She gave me an extra long look over.
Golden Dawn must have noticed, because the next thing I knew she was introducing me.
"This is my friend Hail Storm, he's saying in Hoofston for a while," Golden Dawn said.
"Hello Hail Storm, a pleasure to meet you. I can't say I've ever seen one of your kind before, what do you call yourself?" she asked.
"I'm a human."
"Fascinating, I've never heard of a human before. Anyway I hope you are enjoying your stay in our quiet little town. Do you two know what you want?"
Golden smiled brightly, "pancakes, lots and lots of pancakes."
"So the super stack? Buttermilk or something different this time?" Morning Glory asked.
"Yep! Oh, and buttermilk works." Golden said. "Actually, I'll take chocolate chips in mine this time."
"And for you Hail Storm?" Morning Glory asked.
"Um, I'll just have buttermilk, no chocolate chips." I almost asked for a side of bacon before I caught myself.
Ten minutes later, Morning Glory walked over carrying two gigantic plates, each piled high with the largest pancakes I'd ever seen. There must have been ten of them in each stack. As I buttered up the mountain of pancakes, I briefly wondered if the buttermilk came from talking cows. I decided I didn't want to know. Golden Dawn drenched her pancakes in a river of syrup, then passed me the bottle. I put a slight dab on my finger and gave it a taste. There was none of the cloying artificial flavor I associated with the stuff most restaurants served. Golden Dawn asked what I was doing and I explained that I was checking to see if it was real or fake maple syrup. After another minute of explaining what I was talking about, I was delighted to find out that Equestria only had real maple syrup. Golden Dawn had never even heard of the imitation stuff. High fructose corn syrup was equally non-existent. Maybe I would take my time getting back to Earth.
"If it doesn't come from a maple tree, how could it be maple syrup?" she asked.
"It can't!" I said.
The pancakes were amazing, I keep saying that about most of the Equestrian food that I had tried so far but it didn't make it any less true. Words alone cannot describe how good these pancakes were, instead I will settle for an hypothetical situation. If at that point in time, someone had walked in and put a plate of bacon next to me, I would have ignored it just to make room for more pancakes, that's how good these were. But as good as they were, in the end, I just couldn't finish the whole stack. These things were at least twice the size of the a normal pancake and there was ten of them. That was like twenty regular pancakes, maybe more. I made it through eight of them before my bloated stomach would take no more.
I looked over at Golden Dawn who was polishing the syrup off the bottom of her plate. All my life I had been a big eater, in college none of my friends came even close to packing away as much food as I could when we went out to all you can eat places. True I had slowed down as I got older but I still thought of myself as being able to hold my own. Then again I had never gotten into an eating competition with a horse before. I looked at her empty plate and felt strangely inadequate.
When the bill came up, Golden paid then looked at me and must have suspected that I felt awkward about it because after handing the Morning Glory a few golden coins she turned to me and said, "I know you don't like having to rely on somepony else but you need to not worry about it. There was no way you could plan for a situation like this, and there's no shame in accepting some help until you get back on your hooves."
"That's not it at all," I said.
"Then what?" Golden asked.
"None of my friends have ever been able to out-eat me before."
She looked at me then at my box of leftovers and bust out laughing.
As I lumbered out the door, my poor abused stomach began to groan. I wasn't sure why but it seemed after every meal I had eaten since waking up in Hoofston, I felt sick afterwards, this time though, I was pretty sure it was due to my overindulgence. I began to think about what was next; not next in the sense of what I was about to do, but instead what I needed to do to get home. I knew that Golden had talked about me getting a job, making some money would go a long way towards increasing my self sufficiency. But just making some some cash, or bits as it were wasn't going to be sufficient, it was time to go over the plan that had been formulating in the back of my head.
I went over all the details that I knew about my situation so far.
I was on another planet. Somehow I had lost the ability to speak, understand, read or write English. All the ponies that I had talked to so far agreed that it was very likely that I had been pulled here through some form of magic. Everypony, er… everyone also agreed that I needed to find a unicorn specializing in magic at the very least, just to get more information. My best bet was to head to the capital and seek an audience with one of the alicorn princesses who lived there. Canterlot was the name of the capital, and I knew it was north of here, quite a ways away. With Golden Dawn's help, I was able to recover both my truck and my trailer, and they were both in working order, but I had neither fuel, food nor money. I was completely reliant on Golden Dawn and so was stuck in Hoofston for the time being.
Going over the details made some new questions bubble to the surface. Was this planet in the same galaxy? Was it even in the same universe? Could magic fix my language issues? Since I had no way of telling them where it was, could ponies even find a way back to Earth for me? Should I abandon my truck and just take a train to Canterlot? I had told Golden no to that very thing last night, but part of me wanted to get a little more information before I made a firm decision. The rest of the questions, I couldn't answer, but I thought Golden Dawn could help with at least the last one.
"So, Golden, I think I mentioned this last night, I've been trying to come up with a plan on what I need to do to get back home, but before I can do that I need some more information."
"I'd be happy to answer as many questions as I can," she said as we walked down the street.
"I'll start with an easy one. To speak with Princess Celestia, I need to get to Canterlot, what's the fastest way there?"
"For some place that far away, by rail or maybe wing depending on the pony."
"How far exactly are we talking about?"
"Off the top of my head, I'd say about 1500 miles as the pegasus flies, but rail and road are less direct, it would be higher than that, a train ride to Canterlot on the Express takes a little over two and a half days but, as I mentioned, the tickets are very expensive. A normal train takes about five days and a half days."
"Almost three days for the Express?” I did a quick calculation in my head. “Didn't you say there were trains that did 100 miles per hour?" I asked.
"Well yeah, but that's on flat ground with no turns and it's not like you can run a train without stops. There's fuel and water, water being the big one. Most trains now-a-days pull tender cars with extra fuel and water but even then they're only going 100-150 miles between stops. All in all an express run that length will average between 30 and 35 miles per hour over the course of a day when you throw in the stops. The biggest difference between the Express and a regular train is the regular train does a lot more passenger stops and cargo transfers which means the average speed is much lower. The Express only stops for fuel and water."
"Oh wow, I didn't realize that. You said for something that far away, what beats a train in the short distance?"
"Wing, by a long shot," she said.
"Really? But didn't you just tell me that in a short distance run with ideal terrain, a train could do 100 mph?"
"Yeah, what's your point?"
I thought back the the day before when Blue Skies had taken off and had to fly back to town.
"How fast can a pegasus fly exactly?"
"That's not an easy to answer question as it varies from pegasus to pegasus. I was on the low side of average when I was back in school, my best speed was 200 mph."
I almost tripped over myself in shock.
"200 miles per hour?"
"Bear in mind that's my speed in a sprint, I can't keep that up for more than a minute or two."
"That's still insane, and you said you were slow?"
"There's a exclusive squadron in the Equestrian military called the Wonderbolts, they do trick flying, races and high speed demonstrations. To even make it into Wonderbolt training, you have to be able to hit 550 and hold that for at least 2 minutes. Their current captain, Spitfire, not only can hit 725 miles per hour, but she can keep that speed for almost twenty minutes."
I stopped walking at that point, Golden noticed a moment later and turned around to face me.
"725 mph is getting pretty close to the speed of sound," I said.
"That's nothing though, about two years ago, I went on a trip to Cloudsdale, the largest pegasus city in Equestria, to watch the annual Best Young Flyer Competition. There was an accident and one of the competitors started to fall. A mare named Rainbow Dash flew after the falling pony so fast she made a sonic rainboom."
"What is a sonic rainboom?" I asked while moving out of the way as a group of ponies tried to pass us.
"She flew fast enough that she not only broke the sound barrier but made a rainbow while doing it, creating an explosive wave of light that covered the whole city. She's the only pony in recorded history that has been able to pull one off, before her it was only theoretical."
"You're making that up."
"No! I saw it with my own eyes."
"Ponies can fly faster than sound? That can't be physically possible."
"I swear to Celestia I'm telling the truth. Look you already pointed out that these wings are far too small for me to fly," Golden said extending her wings. "But I have no problem carrying myself and you at the same time. Like carrying capacity, maximum speed isn't solely tied to our bodies. Physical strength is only a small part of the equation, strength of will and magical ability are far more important."
I closed my eyes to think for a moment, what Golden Dawn was telling me flew in the face of logic and physics.
"You're telling me this Rainbow Dash was able to fly faster than sound, because she wanted to?"
"That's a big part of it, but not the only part. Rainbow as interviewed after the competition, she's been dreaming of getting into the Wonderbolts since she was a little filly and she's been practicing for it just as long. Flying the way she can isn't based on one single factor. There is definitely a physical part, but it isn't a one to one relationship. For example if she can fly ten times faster than me it doesn't mean she's ten times stronger."
The street was getting pretty crowded and we were still somewhat blocking traffic so we decided to resume walking towards Golden's shop.
"So a combination between physical prowess, willpower and magic?"
"And even that might not be enough. Rainbow talked about how she had practiced her routine for months and never was quite able to get the sonic rainboom until that day. She kept trying though because she had done one as a filly so she knew she could."
"So what made that day different, was it because she was competing?"
Golden Dawn chuckled, "no, Rainbow later admitted that she was so nervous that she had messed up most of her routine. Rainbow thinks the real reason she was finally able to pull of a sonic rainboom was because of her friend Rarity. Rarity was the pony that was falling. In the middle of Rainbow's routine she heard Rarity scream out, turned around and went after her. Pegasus flight is powered by magic and as Princess Celestia is fond of saying, friendship is magic. Rainbow's friendship gave her the necessary magical boost to break the sound barrier and save her friend."
Friendship is magic? I'd seen some strange things since I got here but I had a hard time believing that a concept like friendship could give someone the ability pull off impossible feats. I wasn't saying that Golden Dawn was lying, maybe the actual events happened the way she had described but who can say if the reasons were accurate. Maybe this Rainbow Dash had been using pony enhancing drugs or something.
"This has all been very fascinating, but I think we've gotten a little off topic, back to getting to Canterlot, what are my chances of getting to the capital quicker than a regular train but without the expense of the Express?" I asked as we headed out the door.
"Could you drive your truck? You can get to Canterlot on roads, it's maybe a bit longer than a rail trip but I have no idea what kind of range you get on that thing. My guess is you are looking at at least 1750 miles."
"That's out then, I have no way of refueling it once my current supply is gone."
"How far can it go?"
"With an empty trailer, I was getting about 15 miles per gallon on the highway, with the trailer full it would be less, but I don't know how much less. Plus unless we're talking about a paved highway, it's going to be even less because I can't drive as fast. The tank holds 32 gallons and it's at the 3/4 mark so that means I've got about 24 gallons left in the tank. I've got another 10 gallons in the back, giving me 34 gallons. Under perfectly ideal circumstances, I could drive a little over 500 miles."
"15 miles per a gallon of fuel is incredible, given the size of that thing. Some of the steam trains I work on use over 100 gallons of water per mile! And you need about a pound of coal for every 6 pounds of water."
"Wow, and I thought the truck was a gas guzzler. See the thing is, that truck is anything but efficient. It's designed for towing or carrying a heavy load. Many cars, like the one I usually drive, are smaller and far more economical. My car gets almost 40 miles to the gallon on the highway. Of course it has a much smaller tank so the range per tank is about the same."
Golden Dawn gave a whistle, clearly impressed. "I would love to look at the engine in your truck," she said.
"That's fine with me, it's the least I can do after all the help you've given me. We just have to figure out a good time for you to do it."
When we returned to the shop, we resumed work on the trailer. The last two feet of the bar where the tongue had been attached was badly bent, she cut it off completely and fetched a similar sized bar from her storage area. She then cut off a segment of the bar, attached the new tongue it to the end of it and then bolted the whole thing onto the trailer.
"I'd like to replace that whole bar but just the end is fine for now," Golden said.
We tested the new trailer hitch and everything worked perfectly. I was pretty impressed, hoof made measurements, comparatively primitive tools, yet it worked on the first try. She didn't even have a working part to copy, she figured out how the thing went together without any explanation from me and then designed the replacement. She clearly knew what she was doing.
While Golden cleaned up, I went over the new information I had learned. I didn't want to admit it, but it looked like my best bet of getting to Canterlot was train. I'd need to get money for a ticket, that meant finding work to do. I had no issue with that, though I also had no real idea what kind of jobs would be available, or what I could do for money. I was going to have to learn a bit about the pony economy. Golden Dawn had said Express tickets were expensive compared to a regular train. How expensive? I had no idea. The only thing I had picked up so far is the ponies currency was based on a coin called a 'bit'. I had no idea what the relative purchasing power of a bit was. How long would it take me to earn enough bits to travel to Canterlot? That could be a day, a week or even a month. I had no idea.
The real issue though, was that if I was taking a train I'd have to leave my truck in Hoofston. I wasn't prepared to abandon it though. That meant even if I found a pony that could help me get home, I'd then have to convince them to come all the way back to Hoofston with me so I could get it. Or I'd have to find a way to transport the truck up to Canterlot. I suppose I could try to get it on a train but I didn't know if that was even possible and I imagined it would cost quite a bit more.
It was getting close to lunchtime when Golden walked over with a question.
"I had plans on going out to lunch with some friends today, did you want to join us? After that maybe we can try to find you some work."
"Sure that sounds good to me."
Once again the town was a bustle of activity. As we headed downtown to meet up with Golden's friends I noticed something that I thought was unusual. There were far more mares than stallions walking around town. At first I thought maybe the stallions were just off working somewhere, but it had been the same at the Smokey Griddle and when we were walking around town the previous day as well. I asked Golden about it and she told me that this was normal. The ratio of mares to stallions across Equestria was between 3:1 and 5:1 depending on what part of the country you were in. I told her humans basically at a 1:1 ratio, which she thought that was a little strange. According to her the only place in Equestria that had anything approaching a 1:1 ratio was the capital city and that was because the Royal Guard were headquartered there and they were mostly a male organization and made up a significant portion of the city's population. Even that was slowly changing though as in the last year, the Royal Guard had been taking on more recruits and more mares had been enlisting.
We met up with Blue Skies and a few other of Golden's friends for a picnic lunch. There was a white earth pony mare with a red and white striped mane and tail. She had a candy cane cutie mark and her name matched the image. Book Worm was a dull yellow unicorn with an equally dull blue mane. Her cutie mark wasn't quite as literal as Candy Cane's it was just a stack of books with no worm present. The last of the ponies was a red pegasus stallion with dark green hair. His cutie mark nearly matched Blue Skies' except that the sun was partially hidden by a cloud and not quite as happy looking. His name was Fair Weather, and he was introduced as Blue Skies' brother.
He was the first stallion I met that seemed to be about my age, though in all honesty I found it difficult to tell with ponies. He kept eyeing me and then eyeing Golden Dawn, who was sitting right up against me. It was almost as if he was jealous, which I found bizarre. Still, in conversation he seemed nice enough. He and Blue Skies worked on the weather team together, a subject that I found fairly fascinating. Imagine being able to move clouds around at will and create rain. They all seemed interested in knowing who I was and where I came from. After some prodding from the group, I ended up giving an abridged version of the events of the last week and my desire to return home. They wished me luck on my quest and let me know that if there was anything they could do to help, I only had to ask. When I mentioned that I was going to travel to Canterlot to try to get help from Princess Celestia, Book Worm spoke up.
"I take it neither of you saw today's paper?" Book Worm asked looking back and forth between me and Golden Dawn.
"No, I haven't read it yet," Golden said, I shook my head no.
"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have left the capital to take a vacation. They've turned the country over to Princess Twilight and Princess Cadance until they get back. The article didn't have specifics on how long they'd be gone or where they'd be, but it seemed like it would be at least a month." Book Worm said.
I turned to Golden, frowning at the news.
"So what do I do now?" I asked looking for advice on how to handle this potential setback.
Golden Dawn scratched her head before replying, "I don't think this should change your plans, it sounds like a setback but it might not be. Twilight was Princess Celestia's personal student before she ascended. If she can't help you, she may know how to get in contact with Princess Celestia or Princess Luna who almost certainly will know what to do."
We said goodbye to Golden Dawn's friends, then headed to the center of town, it was time for me to look for a job.
The first thing Golden suggested was to simply look for help wanted signs. Even though most of those would generally be for longer term work, there was always a chance I could find something that could be done in a few days or a week. We began to walk down main street, looking for signs. None of the restaurants had anything posted nor did the barber shop or the saloon, but I finally spotted a sign outside of Tumbleweed's General Store. I opened the door and heard the jingle of a small bell as I walked inside.
"Just a minute, I'm just putting away some inventory," I heard a gruff voice call out from the back room.
While I was waiting I decided to look around the shop; it was pretty small by modern standards, with almost all of the merchandise behind the front counter. The counter had a glass case full of candy and other sweets, behind it were rows of preserved food in tin cans and mason jars. The next row had bathroom and cleaning supplies, I spotted some towels and remembered that I needed to get one.
"Hey Golden, I hate to impose but I took a bath yesterday and had to use one of my few spare shirts to dry off, any chance I can either borrow a towel, or the money to buy one?"
"Not a problem, actually while we're here why don't you look around and see if you need anything, then we can get it all at once."
The next row had cast iron pans, utensils and other cookware. I thought it was strange that so many pony created items looked exactly like their human counterparts, even when hooves would be less than ideal for the shape that they were. Wouldn't a fork that wrapped around a hoof make more sense than a normal handle? The only thing that seemed more pony friendly was the rarity of round doorknobs. Most doors either used latches or lever shaped knob.
The few rows had nothing of interest until I got to the end. That one had various hand tools, again looking like their human counterparts, nails, screws, nuts and bolts and what looked like mining equipment, pick axes, helmets, lanterns shovels and lastly a box of dynamite. I did a double take at that. Over the counter explosives was something you didn't see every day.
About that time an older looking light brown earth pony with a disheveled grey mane and matching beard poked his head from the back room.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Good afternoon," I said extending my hand as he walked into the room. He took my hand and shook it firmly.
"My name is Hal Storm and I saw your help wanted sign, are you still looking for help?" I asked.
"Eeyup, I'm going to be expanding the store soon and when I do I need to completely re-inventory my entire stock along with ordering enough to take advantage of the new shelf space. I'm going to need clerk to work the counter while I'm busy with the inventory, if you do well, the position could be permanent as the larger shop will need more attention than I can give alone. You any good with numbers?
I had done pretty well in calculus in high-school, but that's probably not what he meant. It also sounded like this pony was looking for a long term commitment and I didn't want to stick around in Hoofston that long. I decided to answer his questions and then figure out what exactly he was looking for.
"Yes sir."
"You worked in a shop before?"
"Yes I have."
He asked me a few more questions and it seemed like I had the job but then he brought up the start date. It turned out that the expansion work wasn't due to start till the end of the month and the earliest he could have me start was the week before. Then I mentioned that I wasn't sure how long I was going to be in town and he said, as I figured, he was hoping to find someone who could work on a more permanent basis. He told me that if I changed my mind and decided to stay in Hoofston, to come talk to him, I thanked him and then started to walk about before Golden reminded me that I wanted to pick up a towel.
I ended up purchasing a towel, some other basic supplies and high quality cast iron pan. I had always wanted one and I figured if I ever did get back to earth it would make a nice souvenir. All told, I now owed Golden Dawn 3 bits, probably more than that since she had been paying for my meals but this was the first transaction where I found out the total. At least the day's transactions had given me some idea of the purchasing power of a bit.
We spent the next few hours roaming the town but it was the same story everywhere. The ponies that had job openings were all looking for longer term commitments than I would be around, or at least than I hoped I would be around. There were a handful of short term jobs available but I was laughably under-qualified for them. Many of them relied on the skills that I as a human just didn't possess. Blue Skies and her brother were looking for an extra pegasus to help with an upcoming storm. There was a local taxi service that needed a pony to pull a wagon. Another location was looking for a unicorn to recharge some gems.
The next day Golden had to work so I headed into town on my own. I spent the whole day going from store to store, but it was always the same old story. By the end of the day I still hadn't found anything and was quickly running out of town. On the third day Golden Dawn joined me in the afternoon after she was finished up with her own work. She met up with me while I was heading for the post office. I had heard from another pony that they were looking for help. I talked to the manager there to find out that one of their mail carriers was out on extended leave and they needed some someone to cover the shift. It sounded like I had a decent chance until she went over the route that I would have to cover. Not only would it include half the town but I'd also need to make deliveries to the surrounding farms. The only way I'd be able to cover the distance she was talking about while also carrying the mail would be to use my truck and I'd be out of fuel in a few days if I did that.
One thing had come out of the conversation though, until then I hadn't even know there were farms outside the town, the climate seemed kind of dry, but I guess when you can control the weather that isn't a huge deal. I asked Golden about it and she said that it was a combination of pegasus weather control and earth pony skill; apparently they were excellent farmers who excelled at growing crops in nearly any environment. Then she suggested we heading out to the farms to look for manual labor. Farms always had some extra work that needed to be done and at this point I was willing to try anything so I agreed and off we went.
Unlike the town where only a small portion of the stores were actually looking for help every single farm we checked needed extra hooves but the problem that I had run into a few times before kept cropping up. Virtually all the work done on a farm was geared towards earth ponies and their insane levels of strength and endurance. One of them needed help bringing in the harvest of apples, but the barrels he was filling were so heavy I had trouble moving them empty. Another needed help plowing his fields, but I couldn't pull a plow and it wasn't like I could hook up a pair of horses and guide them, these ponies were the horses!
I think one of the ponies felt bad for me when she went out of her way trying to find something I could do. Eventually she gave me a sad look and said that if I couldn't find anything else, she could always use help gathering eggs from her chickens and splitting firewood, which I could do. It wouldn't pay much but it was better than nothing. I promised to return to her the next day if I found nothing else. After we left Golden pointed out that the pay wouldn't be worth the effort. The little money that pony could offer wouldn't leave me with enough to save up for a train ticket after food expenses.
We got back to town late that evening, I was still jobless and the painkillers I had taken earlier that afternoon had worn off hours ago. I knew Dusty had said to go back and see him if my headache had persisted but I didn't think it was worth it. He didn't know any more about me medically than I did so I figured, what was the point? I had never been one to have multi-day headaches and deep down I suspected something was wrong but I did my best to ignore it. The last few days had left me pretty bitter, reminding me of the painfully long and mostly unsuccessful job hunting back on Earth all over again. I think Golden Dawn could tell I was in a bad mood because her next suggestion lifted my spirits considerably.
"Blue Skies said she would be heading to the saloon tonight, you want to go there and get some drinks?"
"I would love to drink my problems away... er I mean go get drinks with you." I said with a laugh. Normally I wasn't that much of a drinker, I had to be in the right mood for it, but today had certainly gotten me there.
It might have been the alcohol, but after a number of drinks, I decided the best part about the saloon was it had a set of those old-timey swinging saloon doors. I had never gotten to walk through one of those before, it was awesome!
Who am I kidding? The best part of the saloon was the alcohol! I thought to myself.
I had expected a pretty limited selection but ponies apparently liked their alcohol. Which they drank in large quantities. I wasn't sure, but I think the alcohol content was also a fair bit higher than what I was used to on Earth.
"This place is so retro," I babbled between sips of the best damn hard cider I had the pleasure of drinking. "I dunno if I can use retro for something this old though? Can you be retro 1800s?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Golden said with a smile.
"I mean look at it, you've got group of cowboys over in the corner playing poker," I pointed over at one of the other tables. "Complete with hats. You've got the old fashioned bar, the staircase up to the 2nd floor that overlooks the open seating. You've got the classic swinging doors, you've even got the upright piano." I said staring at the pony sitting on the piano stool. "How is he playing that with hooves?"
Before either pony could answer my question, I started up again.
"The only difference is the horses aren't tied up outside!" I said bursting out with laughter.
"Alright, I think you might have had enough," Blue Skies said rolling her eyes.
"No you've had enough," I shouted, trying to take Blue Skies' mug. She slapped my hand away with her hoof.
"Oww, conflounded... conflounder... con... hooves, raaaah!"
"Seriously Hail, do humans have issues with alcohol? You're only on your second cider," Golden Dawn asked with a hint of concern.
"It's not my fault," I said giddily. "All your pony cups are huge!"
"See this," I held up my cider, "this is a small! It's got to be at least 32 ounces. And these shot glasses," I said pointing to the three empties in front of me, "they're at what, five ounces? Six? Huge!"
I spent the next few minutes trying to convince them to let me at least finish my cider. After that things got a bit fuzzy. I remember talking about my college days, when I first started and actually had friends on campus. That was back when I still went out drinking with friends. They were good times, while they lasted. Even though I hadn't known these ponies very long, that night felt like old times. It was... fun, something that I hadn't really experienced in a while.
Eventually I stopped talking long enough to let Golden and Blue Skies do their own talking. I listened for a while , nursing my cider as the two chatted. Eventually though I slipped back into rambling mode. It was just something I did when I drank a lot. I was a very talkative drunk.
"You're cute!" I said out of nowhere, staring almost but not quite half way between Golden Dawn and Blue Skies.
"I think he's looking at you Golden," Blue Skies said.
"Excuse me?" Golden Dawn said, her face reddening slightly.
"I said, you're cute..." I paused as my brain struggled to form words. "I think Fair Weather thinks you're cute," I said waggling my eyebrows, "but like cute cute not cute cute."
Now Golden Dawn just looked confused. Before she could speak up, I turned to Blue Skies. "You're cute too. In fact, you're all cute," I said waving my hand in the general direction of the two ponies. "Really though, all you ponies, you're all freaking adorable, you know that right? Whole damn race of pretty little ponies. Are you sure I woke up from my crash? Maybe I did suffer brain damage? I feel like I'm living in a eight year old girl's imagination. I'm waiting for a bunch of fairies to pop out of nowhere and offer me a magic spell to get home."
Both ponies just stared at me, unsure of what to make of my drunken rambling. Silence hung in the air as I tried to think of a way to explain what I was talking about. Then it was interrupted by a nasty growl coming from outside. The doors to the saloon swung open and in walked a... thing, I wasn't sure what it was but it stood at least as tall as I was but it was bulkier and mangier. As it walked past and stomped over to the bar, I also noticed it was quite a bit smellier. It was flanked by two of the meanest looking ponies I had ever seen.