Chapter 24: Peaches and Sparks
I GOT THE JOB at Turtlewood. I wrote a cover letter explaining my connections to their pony customer base, and in the interview I went into it a little more. The assistant manager who interviewed me was excited about it all, nodding a lot, and I was hired before I knew it. It was an especially nice surprise that he was willing to work around my schedule at the garden store, even though I was brand new. Because of the weekly meet-ups, he gave me Thursdays as often as possible.
Before long, though, I was able to get a regular schedule at the garden store too. I just told Vanessa I was okay not going back to full time in the winter, if in exchange I could get three solid days a week. So she put me on Monday/Tuesday/Saturday, and I did Turtlewood on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and things got stable fast. It felt like my life was healthy again for the first time since I was engaged.
Peach and I moved out of our studio apartment and got a one bedroom in the same building. After explaining our situation to the manager, he agreed to void Peach’s lease so that he could collect more money from us. It was so obvious, looking back, that was what we needed, but when you get caught up in the drama of your life, it can seem like every problem needs a solution related to whatever caused it in the first place. But that just isn’t true: Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself what you’re happy about and what you’re not and let one thing decouple from another.
Barrett and Seaswell helped us move again, and this time George and Skelter stopped in for a while. Long enough to root us on, chat a little, and help haul a couple big items. But earth ponies just aren’t much good at carrying boxes, so they moved on with their day. Barrett asked me the state of things between me and Peach, and I felt only a little silly when I told him that she was my best friend.
He looked down as if into his own private world for a moment, then shook his head with a smile. “Not in love anymore?”
Since I’d told the story of the spell to the whole Friends of Equestria group, there hadn’t been any point withholding it from my own friends. “Not like when I was enchanted. I still really like her… but now we’re going to support each others’ love lives instead of being a couple.” It had been Peach’s idea to put it that way. In a way, she said, it’s actually better for us this way: even though we’re not playing games with each other, we still get to be on the same team.
“You think that’ll work? What if you find a girl and she learns you’re living with a girl pony?”
“We’ll be upfront about it. We’re best friends and roomies, but that doesn’t mean either of us couldn’t move out if we found someone special.”
“Just imagine what it’d look like if she was a woman, though! No one wants to date someone who’s living with his ex.”
That had occurred to us, but we’d agreed to swing with it. “We’ve got a great story to tell, though! Besides, this close to the Big Apple, who’s gonna judge us for saving on rent?”
“Guess you’ve got a point. Still, don’t be surprised if you find yourself striking out.”
“Honestly, Barrett, it’s okay if I don’t find a girlfriend. I feel like my life’s on the move, and that’s better than things have been.”
“Glad to hear it. And hey, I guess this way, you can be sure any girl you do keep feels good about ponies.”
I smiled. “That’s how I figured it, too. I think from here on, that’s gonna be a must.”
He chuckled and rubbed his fist in my side.
The group at Turtlewood kept hammering out its philosophy. They made fliers and press kits. They picked candidates to endorse in the midterms. They assembled testimonials from and about the hundred and fifty or so humans who’d been to Equestria, and mine was usually prominent. Once my story got out, I was contacted for interviews by a few different news outlets. I did them all, either by phone or in person. They never asked for as much detail as the Friends of Equestria did, but the interviewers all seemed fascinated. I took the chance to ask them what they thought of a potential open borders policy, and they mostly said it was certainly worth working toward. I gave them our literature and suggested they interview Uncle Clyde and Red Rover.
I didn’t get to actually attend most of the meetings, since I had to work the counter, but I stopped in now and then, and some of the Friends always checked in with me afterward to keep me informed. I managed to sell a lot of smoothies and ice teas; as summer turned to fall, I pushed a bunch of hot drinks on the ponies, and peppermint cocoa was the one that took off. A thirty-something guy joined the group and took to showing speeches on his tablet computer that were made before Congress on Equestrian affairs. Once, they got a grainy black and white video of the Equestrian Oversight Committee meeting in Trottingham to discuss issues related to potential human immigrants; that drew a huge crowd and had the Friends talking for quite a while.
Peach kept blogging, and I wrote a few posts of my own now and then. Mostly to give the human perspective on things that were special about ponies—her Equestrian readers seemed to find that really amusing.
Eventually Meg and I started talking again, and as easy as anything, we decided to go on a date. I visited her in Springfield and she showed me her favorite restaurant. We had a nice enough time, but there wasn’t really enough energy to keep a good conversation going. On the plus side, we agreed just as easily that there hadn’t been a spark, and we’d both learned a little about what we needed in a relationship.
When I talked it over later with Peach, we decided that I really did need some of what Cindy’d had to offer, despite what I’d written on her blog while I was Cadanced up. Now that my work schedule was stable and my social life was turning into something more solid than a few scattered friendships, I was coming to realize that I needed stabilizing influences. Cindy might have been a little too stabilizing, but Peach was the opposite. That was also the night I confessed to Peach that I’d come one button click away from proposing marriage. She was amazed and laughed nervously for the rest of the night, but she told me she wasn’t really surprised—she’d come pretty close to popping the question while under the spell, too.
Another night, we had a long conversation about her fantasies. I’d made green coconut soup, so we opened the window and set up a little table next to it so we could enjoy the invigorating breeze while we ate, pretending we were on a balcony. I asked her if she thought any of the ponies in the regular Turtlewood crowd were attractive. She thought about it, but told me that when push came to shove, she’d probably end up going out with another man, not a stallion.
“How come?” I asked.
“’Cause you guys are really neat!” she said.
She confessed to being a xenophile. Coming to Earth had been scary at first, but had helped her realize that she relished the wild and unknown. She wanted a boyfriend from another world—someone so different from herself she’d never run out of things to discover. I pointed out that she’d been attracted to George, and she nodded a bunch and said that George, too, had been exotic and different—not only an earth pony, but a non-Equestrian, and a traveler by trade. It made sense.
“So,” I asked, “if you could have any boyfriend in the world… what do you think he’d be like?”
“You’re assuming I’m straight!” she teased.
“I know you’re straight. You told me so that one time.”
“Oh yeah. Well… that’s a great question.” She propped herself on the table, head in front of the window. “He’d be from someplace I’d never heard of. We’d talk about going there someday. And he’d have all these interests that baffled me until I started to learn them, bit by bit. And he’d be baffled by all my interests! Our dates would just be big question marks rolled up in a ball for the first six months until we started to delve in.”
I laughed. “Well, but for starters, is he a pony or a human?”
She thought about it. “Probably a dragon!”
“What? Seriously?”
“That way I could be scared of him! But then he’d show me how gentle he is and that he’d never ever eat me, and I could be amazed by all the different things about his body and learn all kinds of weird things about dragon culture and it’d be so much fun!”
“I never knew you had a thing for dragons!”
“I didn’t until now! I just made that up!”
“So… you just developed a thing for dragons over the last twenty seconds?”
She shrugged. “I guess! If you asked me again, I might give you a different answer.”
“Your fantasy boyfriend changes every time you think about him?”
“Maybe. Let’s try!”
So we tried. I asked her again, who’s your ideal boyfriend? And she really did give me a different answer. Over and over. Her ideal boyfriend would be a colt she’d met at the regional fair once, impressing grown-ups with his magical juggling, who’d peered into the water with her after dark, after which they’d spent an hour telling each other what they saw in it. He’d be that colt, all grown up; or he’d be a logger in the Undiscovered West, carving livable land from the wilderness so that Peach could spend her days building a village there. He’d be a Native Hawaiian surfer with hair like a pony’s mane, hungry for sex in all the unlikeliest places. He’d be Fancy Pants, on the run from the law and forced to discover the joys of the countryside. He’d be George Harrison. He’d be the late, great George Harrison, restored to life. He’d be a futurist at Apple, with a hoverboard and countless gadgets, eager to talk Peach into being early adopters for all the newest cyberware. He’d be a zebra with a deep singing voice, a nomadic grazer on a quest to chart all the watersheds in the world. He’d be Sunburst, all the more fecund in his magical studies for her insightful encouragement, pushing the limits of the possible. He’d be Barack Obama. He’d be a trader with ties to Griffonstone and Yakyakistan. He’d be a talking pterodactyl, magically resurrected from a Cretacious that never was. He’d be a hydroponics engineer living with her in an artificial biosphere. He’d be Master Splinter. He’d be Daring Do’s brother. He’d be Discord. He’d be a Wonderbolt. He’d be me.
“So we finally came around to me, huh?” I asked.
“Sorry. You’d better ask again.”
“What if I don’t? Will you be pining for me all night?”
“I’ll be pining for you until someone asks me again! Until then, I’m stuck like this!”
“Peach, you are so silly.”
She was teetering around a sea of pillows on the floor by now. “I’m only silly when you get me that way.”
“So it’s my fault?”
She stood up. “Is being silly a fault?”
I sighed and held out a hand for her. She put her hoof in it. “You and your graspy hands.”
I leaned close and nuzzled her with my hair. “Being silly isn’t a fault when it’s you.”
She looked at me. “Pepper, you’re so cool. Do you know that? You’re so cool.”
“Hey Peach,” I said. “Who’s your ideal boyfriend?”
She blinked and paused. “I’m glad you asked…”
She was able to move on. With so many possibilities, how could she not be? Still, it was a relief once I was really convinced that Peach was okay not being my girlfriend. I was one of those exotic humans, sure, but ultimately I felt like she deserved someone more interesting than me. I was good at rolling with her humor, but she needed something deeper… and I needed something in a relationship closer to ‘familiar’ than ‘exotic’. Peach had become familiar to me over the months, but she still had this huge wondrous side I couldn’t fully appreciate, and while I couldn’t say I didn’t want to explore it, I felt like it deserved a better explorer than me. If I’d stayed with her, I might have found myself sliding on the loose flagstone of her dreams… and I needed bedrock. So I kept looking.
After months of intermittent pressure, Second Sight finally talked Peach into interviewing at her lab, which was run by Columbia University. I remember Peach being nervous that morning, sitting in funny places and going over hypothetical interview questions to herself aloud. She drank coffee but skipped breakfast.
“I didn’t think you were gonna be so worked up about this,” I observed.
“Neither did I! I wasn’t really thinking about it like a job interview until last night. I was thinking of it more like, they want to talk to me and maybe I’ll think about letting them recruit me. But Pepper, what if it’s a great job and I’m just not qualified for it? What if they think I’m not qualified ‘cause I don’t remember enough about electronics or materials science or integrated circuit architecture?”
“Are you even going to be working with integrated circuits at Nevis?”
“I don’t know! Probably not. But that’s what I work with now, so if I don’t even know about that, how can I impress them?”
I batted her tie. “By dressing for success, I guess. I find it amusing that you’re wearing a tie and collar, but no suit.”
“Well that’s how you dress!” she replied, rearing up and letting it dangle. “Wearing a tie says, ‘I’m here for a job interview!’”
“You know, women don’t usually wear ties, even when they go to interviews. With humans, ties are just for men.”
“Yeah, I know. I figured that out. But with ponies, both sexes wear ‘em.”
“I wonder why that is.”
“Maybe they’re just funnier that way?” She magically pulled her tie tight. “Actually, they’re pretty funny either way. What’s the point of a tie?”
“Well, I’m thinking since you don’t usually wear anything to work, a tie is as close as you can get to naked and still make it clear you’re serious.”
“I am serious today! I didn’t realize how much I want this job to work out.”
“It seemed like you were really nervous about the idea.”
She peered plaintively. “Well, imagine someone wanted to hire you just so they could test everything about you. Imagine that your job was being a professional test subject.”
I tried to, but it was hard to imagine anyone caring that much about me. Maybe if I lived among ponies who’d never met a human before? I imagined them poking and prodding and sticking things into me all day, then being given a bag of bits. I could put up with that for a day or two, sure. Maybe for a week or a month. But I couldn’t think of something like that being a career.
“I think I see what you mean. It’s demeaning.”
“That might be the word for it. It’s like it makes me into just a person who does telekinetic magic. Like that’s all I am. I mean, I don’t mind showing off what I can do, but I’m not so sure about it being what I do all day, five days a week.”
“Yeah, I get what you mean. So why are you suddenly interested in the job?”
Her tail bristled. “Because this way I get to be a part of furthering science! Second Sight convinced me that it’s really important right now for unicorns like us to help, because when advanced cultures collide, that can mean huge advances in understanding, and there’s maybe never been a bigger collision of civilizations than ours! This is a really big time in history, Pepper.”
“Maybe so, but the thing is, I’ve been hearing that my whole life. From my perspective, it’s always been a really big time in history, and it seems like it’s always getting bigger.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Peach. “First Cadance, then Luna, then the return of Discord, then the Crystal Empire and Twilight and Starlight… and then the God-Tremor and Earth and humanity, whose imaginations contain our world… but maybe this is what it seems like to everyone, no matter when they’re born. Maybe every moment in history is big compared to everything that’s come before, but small compared to what’s coming.”
“Well, it’s been a long time since we had a world war,” I pointed out.
“Good for you! Is this a historically peaceful time in human history?”
“Well, no, I don’t think so, but I think we are safer and healthier in general than we used to be.”
“Well there you go. If we’re not making history with villains and wars, we’re making history with discovery and peace. History is cumulative. And it builds.”
“But you’re still gonna give your time and magic to Nevis Labs, even if this moment is history is nothing special?”
“It’s always special,” said Peach. “And that’s why I’m going to give this interview my best.”
“You should show them that grain of rice you made with King Friday the Thirteenth.”
“Can I? They might like that.”
“I think if you just tell them everything you’re telling me, you’ll impress them.”
“I hope so. Second Sight says she gets to help determine the direction of research, so she’s really a team member and not just a subject. So that could be a step up from where I am now. Then again, she’s trained in academic writing.”
“And you’re just a blogger.”
“Yeah! What do I know from academic?”
“I bet you could learn.”
She looked hopefully at me. “You think so?”
“Sure. You learned blogging really fast, and now you’ve got ten thousand readers. You’re a prodigy.”
“I think I just have so many readers ‘cause there aren’t a lot of ponies on Earth yet, and they’re all curious.”
“Well, then you’re a genius for finding markets. Maybe you’ll have amazing ideas for what kind of things to research.”
She drew her neck up. “I hope so! But I’ll need your help if I’m gonna learn academic research.”
“You think it’s something I know?”
“No, but you’re good at helping me learn things. I like reading books with you. And you’re good at explaining!”
I was flattered. “I guess maybe I’ve got perspective. I know how to look at things like I’m an outsider. Even after four years here in the Tri-State, I still feel like an outsider.”
“Even now that you have Turtlewood and the Friends?”
She had a point. “I guess I’m starting to feel at home.”
“Careful!” she warned, getting her face close to mine. “You don’t want to lose your perspective.”
“I don’t think I will,” I reassured her. “You’re always giving me more.”
She gave me a little kiss on the nose. I walked her to the bus stop.
She wound up getting the job. They were impressed by her enthusiasm and the questions she asked, and by her skill at fine magical engraving. She gave notice at ThuneTec, who weren’t all that upset to see her leave, since the marginal benefit they got from her had been declining the more she’d helped them answer their R&D questions. A couple of her coworkers threw her a small going-away party, and I got to go and meet them. It was kind of odd, meeting people I knew my friend probably wouldn’t be seeing again.
They put Peach to work working with very small devices. First they tested to see how finely she could control things—how small a switch she could flip, how small a capacitor she could discharge—and then they worked with her to design a regimen for trying to improve her abilities. Peach told me cheerfully one evening, “They’re paying me to exercise!” She found herself sent to work with faculty and grad students from other departments, such as kinesiology and biochem, and she told me excitedly about those trips before embarking on them, then told me all about how they’d gone in the evenings.
The funny thing was, when I called my mom up to describe all this to her, she said that to her, it sounded almost like we were already married. That threw me for a loop. So, buoyed by that, I told her all about my trip to Equestria, and how there was a time I nearly had asked Peach to marry me. Mom was pretty amazed, but it turned out she was actually okay with the idea of me winding up with a pony. “Well, Mom,” I said, “Peach is my best friend and she’s going to stay that way, but it’s great to know you feel that way.”
“Just in case,” she told me knowingly.
“Just in case,” I agreed.
Halfway through September, I realized that I still hadn’t taken Peach to the orchard we’d seen from the bus, and peach season was ending. We’d put it off mostly because the trip out there was a hassle without a car, but I didn’t want her to have to wait for next summer. So, since it had been Laurie’s idea in the first place, I called her up and asked whether she and Jack would like to go along, and by the way, would they mind driving? She thought it was funny, and since they were both up for the fresh air, we made official plans for Sunday. Peach was so excited when I told her that she pranced up onto my shoulders, making me fall down into the sofa, then climbed into my lap!
“You’re gonna take me for peaches!” she declared, lightly hoofbumping my nose.
“I know. I just said.”
“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten. I’m all excited!”
“You’re practically rampant,” I remarked, remembering a book of heraldic terms she’d discovered not long ago.
“No I’m not! I’m sejant. I’m sejant in your lap!” She leapt to the floor and reared up, flailing three legs for the brief moment she was able to stand on only one. “This is rampant! Raar!” Falling to all fours, she raised one forehoof. “Now I’m passant!” She alternated dropping each forehoof and lifting the other, singsonging: “I’m so passant on my four legs.”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘passive’?” I asked, thinking she was anything but.
“Nope! It means ‘striding’ or ‘walking’!” She walked stiltedly over to me, using only one leg at a time.
I laughed. “Are you going to be like this all the way through ‘til Sunday?”
“I wasn’t going to, but now I’m gonna have to ‘cause that sounds like a challenge.”
“You’re going to get tired and fall asleep aaaalll over the floor,” I teased her.
“Nope! Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah, you will. You’ll have legs and hooves sprawling everywhere. You’ll be a mash-up of all those heraldic attitudes at once.”
“Nope! I’m gonna drink all the coffee and stay awake the whole time and never stop being excited.”
Peach had actually gotten a little too comfortable with coffee until I told her how it seemed to change her behavior, and then she’d moderated herself. “If you drink all the coffee, I’ll fall asleep!”
“You work at a coffee place!”
“Not for long, if you drink all the coffee.”
“I didn’t mean in the whole world!”
“The way you’re acting? Could’ve fooled me.”
She kissed me on the cheek and went on being silly and excited. I’d actually come to adore it when she got like that. It was better than her being angsty, and she respected my right to privacy enough that I could just go into the bedroom if I felt the need to get away from her antics. When she did tire out that night, though, she fell asleep sprawling on the floor in a mixed-up heraldic pose, just to spite… herself, I guess? She always had a unique sense of humor.
Peach told me, when we were up and away in the morning, that there was an ‘Equestrian breeze’ that day. She had a sweater on, but with this warm, aromatic breeze buffeting us from far away, she didn’t really need it. I admitted that it was exceptionally warm for September. “Inspiringly warm” was how Peach put it.
When she mentioned it to Jack, he told us about a two-day trip he’d taken once, kayaking along the Merrimack River. The breeze, he told us, had transported them both literally and figuratively, and today’s breeze reminded him of that heady time. Peach stuck her head out the window as we pulled onto the turnpike. She sang all she could remember of the Simon and Garfunkel song “America” just so she could get to the final line: “Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike! They’ve aall come to look fooor Ameerica!”
“Pretty sure you’ve found it,” said Jack.
We pulled into Pleasantview Orchard a few songs later and started to spot the signs of farming—beginning with actual signs like “LAST WEEKEND FOR PEACHES!” and “PUMPKINS COMING OCT. 1”. The road was lined with non-fruiting trees and paved with bright gravel. A couple baskets of eggplants, cabbages, peppers and greens were set to either side of the large, wooden front door. We parked where the signs told us and went inside.
There were a fair number of people there. Peach was the only pony, and that brought her plenty of attention. She didn’t seem to mind, though. All the kids in the shoproom turned their attention to her, and one five-year-old girl waddled over to get a closer look.
“Hi!” Peach said to her.
The girl was surprised and shied back, eyes bugging in fascination.
“Aubrey, come here!” called her mother.
“Is that a pony?” asked the girl’s brother.
“Yes, that’s a pony, from Equestria,” we heard the mother explain. “We should treat her with respect.”
“I love respect,” Peach murmured to us. “But I wouldn’t mind if the kids wanted to come and climb on me and stuff, either.”
“Oh, you’ll get sick of it soon enough,” said Jack. “You haven’t been on Earth long enough.”
Peach frowned. “Well, maybe if I do, I’ll know it’s time to leave.”
“You know,” said Laurie, “you can go over and say hi to them if you want.”
This gave Peach a little dilemma, but she did approach the family. It was a mom, dad, and three little kids, and Peach said it was okay if they wanted to feel her ears or hair or whatever. The mom was worried about Peach getting hurt from careless fingers or words, but dad crouched down and watched his kids run their hands over Peach’s pelt.
“Can I touch your horn?” asked the older girl.
“Well, that’s the sort of thing you have to ask,” said Peach, “so I’m glad you did. A unicorn’s horn is kind of private, even though it’s out in the open. But yes, you can touch it for a moment.”
As the girl did, I remembered when I’d touched her horn for a lot longer than that, in the days and nights following Radio City. It had made me so excited at the time, like I was breaking down a huge wall to reveal an undiscovered country. I no longer had any particular desire to touch Peach’s horn, and the fact that I had felt weird.
“You shouldn’t touch someone’s cutie mark without permission, either,” Peach told one of the kids.
“Sorry,” she said, drawing her hand back.
“Really, you shouldn’t touch any part of someone without permission,” said Laurie.
“Well, yeah, but especially the horn and cutie marks,” Peach replied. “And wings, if it’s a pegasus.”
“Do you want to ask permission, Avery?” said Dad.
The child smiled. “Can I touch your cutie mark?”
“May I,” corrected Dad.
“May I touch your cutie mark?”
“Sure,” said Peach.
So the child did. “What is it?”
“Is it buildings?” asked the brother.
“It’s a couple of towers, connected with a spark of magic, or maybe electricity.”
“Are you an electrician?” asked Mom.
“Kind of. I work with electrical components, but I never made anything fancier than a lamp. These days I’m involved in magical research.”
“Wow, that’s really something,” said the young dad. “What kind of research?”
“Well, right now we’re testing whether physical or mental exercise have an effect on a unicorn’s telekinetic precision. There’s four of us in the test pool, plus a couple unicorns without telekinesis doing similar tests. So far it looks like the answer’s yes, and the performance curve looks a lot like it does for a human surgeon.”
The dad stood up. “What sort of applications are you working toward?”
“Working with anti-matter! They’ve got a facility out on Long Island that makes it, and they’re looking into how it interacts with magic!”
“That sounds pretty dangerous,” said Mom. “Are you going to be working with it yourself?”
“Maybe! But only once they know it’s safe.”
“I don’t know how they could ever know that before you do it!” said Mom. “But good luck.”
The kids finished petting Peach, and the family said goodbye and moved on to get seats for an educational presentation at the barn. We went to the main counter, which was festooned with red bags and baskets and a sign informing us that if you pick it, you’ve bought it.
“Hello!” said the lady there. “Here for apples, grapes or peaches?”
“Peaches,” said Peach, standing tall.
“I should have known. It’s the last day of the year for pick-your-own peaches, so there’s been a lot of folks coming through. The next wagon is at eleven to take you out to the late season varietals, or you can walk if you prefer.”
“What do you say?” I asked.
“We’ll take the wagon,” decided Peach. “Do you get a discount if your name has ‘Peach’ in it?”
“No,” said the clerk, “but it does get you an extra smile.”
As we waited for the wagon outside, Laurie asked Peach about her cutie mark, having overheard the conversation with the family. Peach told her what she’d once told me, and they moved from there to the nature of magic. It seemed like a good day to discuss that kind of thing. Peach expounded on her theory about how magic is what connects the contents of our imaginations to reality. Soon we were all speculating on what exactly magic was, its relationship to science, and what, if anything, its limits were.
The wagon rolled up, pulled by a handsome pair of draft horses. Peach stared at them as they trotted, apparently mindlessly, up to the bales of hay set out for waiting, and stopped at the driver’s slight tug. “You guys are perfect at what you do, aren’t you?” she murmured to them. But they didn’t respond.
The driver directed everyone to disembark and told them where to go to ring up their purchases. “All aboard!” he went on. “You all have your bags or baskets? We’re bound for the peach rows!”
He didn’t seem fazed by the presence of a pony on the wagon, but a few of the other riders acted a little weird. Since Peach lay on one of the bales instead of sitting up, she took up twice as much room as anyone else, which earned her a stare from an old lady. About halfway to our destination, a mischievous little boy sneaked around behind our bale and pulled Peach’s tail. She sat up with a squeal and called “Hey!” after him, but he scampered away. She told us she’d thought of hoisting him up by his pants, but thought that might cause trouble, and besides, her levitation was better for small weights, anyway.
On our way out, a nice old lady apologized to Peach for the fact it had happened. “Oh, thanks. Is he your grandson?”
“No, I don’t know him,” said the lady. “But his behavior was inappropriate, and I thought someone ought to apologize to you.”
The idea of apologizing for a stranger was a funny one, and it provided more conversational grist for us after we’d been given instructions for picking peaches. “Is that actually worth anything?” speculated Jack. “Apologizing for something that’s not your fault?”
“It can demonstrate awareness of the issue,” answered Laurie.
“Like it’s so insightful to know that pulling on someone’s tail is a jerky thing to do?”
“I actually appreciated the apology,” said Peach. “It’s just good to know you’re not alone sometimes.”
I understood more or less how she felt. Going to Equestria had given me a sense of what it’s like to be the only one of my species for miles around, and working with the Friends had helped me sift through those thoughts. I hadn’t been there nearly as long as Peach had been here, of course, and I’d had at least her to guide me the whole time, so my experience hadn’t been as challenging as hers by a longshot, but it still stuck with me. It’s one thing to be the only white guy in the room, or the only American in the room… but being the only one who’s made like you, the only one of your species, feels different. There’s a weight to it that goes beyond classifications that people give each other or decide to care about. It feels like a piece of nature’s abandoned you. But as I’d said to Peach many times, I was glad I’d taken the extra day to visit her hometown. I might never have the chance again.
A chipper little woman in a wrap over a tank top explained to us about the varieties of trees we’d find in each row, and the difference between white and yellow peaches. The white ones, she explained, were sweeter, with a more floral flavor, while the yellows were more robust.
“Wow,” said Peach. “That’s not how it is in Equestria.”
The guide was taken aback for a couple seconds, but then got deeply curious. “How is it different there?”
“We don’t have white peaches that I know of. We’ve got yellow and red. And the red ones are really intense, with this… red flavor.”
“Is that actually red flesh, not just the peel?”
“Yep! Mostly red, anyway. More pinkish. They’ve got those near where I grew up.”
“There is such a thing as a red-fleshed peach on Earth, but it’s rare. Once we bought a lug of Indian Blood Peaches. Those were something! The insides make it look like it’s coated in jelly, just under the skin… but it’s firm! They actually make good jam.”
“The ones I’m thinking of are extra juicy,” said Peach. “You can drink the juice straight with egg toast and it’s really filling. Kind of pricey, though.”
“Have you ever had papaya?” asked the guide. “Is the taste of your red peaches anything like that?”
The two of them had a good geek-out session over peaches until someone else had a question for the guide and she had to pull herself away. Peach trotted back and grinned up at us.
“Having fun?” I asked.
“Yep. I want to try one.”
We’d been instructed to take only one bite out here, to sample our fruit—they didn’t want us eating the merchandise before we could pay for it. “I guess you’ve got to choose which kind it’ll be.”
“I’m leaning toward the Summer Pearl,” said Laurie.
“I want a clingstone,” said Peach. “They’re juicier.” She started walking toward a nearby row, as if drawn by destiny.
“I think she said most of the late season peaches are freestones,” Laurie pointed out. Peach left her behind and approached a row of trees, peering at their fruit. She shook her head and walked to the next row. I noticed people watching her.
“There’s the White Heaths,” said Jack, pointing. “She said those were clingstones.”
“Better for canning,” said Peach. “And I don’t want to try white flesh yet. I want yellow so I can compare it to home.” She kept walking and peering.
I looked around too. A tree with leaves so friendly it looked almost made up caught my eye. All the peaches on it had the same beautiful red blush on one side. “What about those?” I asked.
Peach turned and teetered on three hooves for a moment. She licked her lips. She went toward the tree.
Thanks to decades of cultivation, the trees were short enough a tall person could just about reach the highest fruit on the very top. Peach wasn’t tall, but she had otherworldly magic working for her, so she sat down and plucked the very highest fruit off that tree. I glanced at the sign—Starn, it said. Peach tumbled the peach she’d chosen around in her blue aura, whetting her appetite. She took a bite. There was a small eruption of applause from the people who’d been watching her quest, surprising both of us.
“Mmf!” she said, looking around in surprise with juice dripping down her throat.
I laughed. “How is it?”
She didn’t answer right away, choosing to chew for a while before she swallowed. “It’s good. It’s really… it’s complex. Not as knock-em-down euphoric as an Equestrian peach. But there’s more going on.”
“Do you like it better?”
Her ears quivered. “I wish I could try another bite.”
“Go on,” encouraged the guide in the wrap and tank top. “Take another bite.” Some of the watchers laughed.
Peach had another big bite, which she mulled ponderously. “I like your peaches,” she finally decided. “This one is really ripe.”
“Well, it’s been waiting all season for you to find it,” said the guide.
Peach tumbled it some more before sticking it in her basket. “This is gonna be really fun when we get home. I’m gonna make so many things with these peaches. Okay, let’s get a bunch of kinds!” She marched off seemingly at random, plucking fruit as she went.
I followed her at a distance, filling my basket according to my own instincts. Eventually, we wound up together. She asked me if I could get a peach free that was stuck so tightly between branches her magic couldn’t pry it out. I did, and thought about asking her to pluck one that was out of my reach, but I didn’t actually care about individual peaches. Other than her.
“You know,” she said, “this is really putting me in a frame of mind.”
“What kind of frame?”
“The kind of frame where you think about everything. Laurie was asking about my cutie mark earlier, after that guy with the kids asked if I was an electrician. I told her it’s probably about how I try to connect things. Like I’m connecting Earth with Equestria by blogging, and just by being here.”
‘That sounds right to me. Why, are you rethinking it?”
I could still see juice stains down her front when she stretched up to see the peaches she was plucking. “Maybe a little. ‘Cause it’s an electric spark between two towers. You know why a spark happens?”
“Because of electric potential?”
“Yeah! One tower has a lot of extra electrons lying around and the other not so much, and the electrons are so excited about finding a new home that they forge a path right across the air, where there’s not a ton of atoms for them to hitch onto. They go wandering in the wilderness, but the spark means they’ve found their way.”
I wondered whether she really thought electrons got excited. “It feels to me like you’ve found your way,” I observed.
“Yeah. I think I’m the spark, and you were a big waystation on my path. You let me spark through you, Pepper. And it could be the gap is just between my world and yours, like I thought.”
I could see her point. “Your world with all its extra magic, and ours that needs some.”
“Right. But then I got thinking about magic. If it’s what connects what’s in our souls to reality, does that mean you humans aren’t connected to your reality? Does the fact you don’t have any magic mean you’re just drifting around with no connection between your inner lives and your outer ones?”
I stroked her mane slowly. “That doesn’t feel right.”
“No, it doesn’t! My sister and a few of the folks at home thought that might be how it was here, but when I got settled in, I realized it wasn’t that dreary at all! You do connect your visions and desires to the world. You do it by making them true! And when the world isn’t the right way for that, you invent something new to make it that way.”
“So maybe magic isn’t the only way to make that connection.”
She was excited. “Maybe magic doesn’t make that connection happen at all! Maybe magic is what happens when you make the connection!”
I tried to get my head around that. “So why don’t we humans make magic happen when we invent things?”
“You do! That’s what technology is! It’s a kind of magic. I go to work and I see all the cool things they’ve got at the lab, and I think to myself, ‘Wow, I’m surrounded by magic.’ We unicorns… we’re really good at connecting our inner selves to the outside world. That’s how our magic happens. For animals, they don’t need to make any kind of connection. It’s automatic. Their inner and outer selves are the same. But for ponies like me, with complex inner lives, we need something to bridge the gap. Because you only get a spark if there’s a gap! So we need a horn to do it with, and magic is what happens when we do it. Maybe. I haven’t thought it all the way through.”
I kept picking fruit. “What about pegasus ponies? Don’t they have magic?”
“Yeah… and it doesn’t make noise or sparks or anything. Same with earth ponies. So maybe I’m on the wrong track. But I still want to find out what the theorists think! Maybe there’s two things we’re calling ‘magic.’ There’s the sparkly show you get when you use a horn or a scroll or a magic item, and that’s one. And the other is whatever makes it possible to realize your desires in the first place. Whatever lets a pegasus stand on a cloud or an earth pony make plants grow or a dragon breathe fire… or really, for that matter, whatever lets us think ‘I want to do this’ and have our muscles move to make it happen! Maybe whenever we choose to move our bodies at all, that’s the second kind of magic.”
“But there’s a neural impulse that travels down from the brain along the nerves to whatever muscle we move. Are you saying neurology is magic?”
“Maybe not the impulses, but whatever sparks them in the first place.”
“You don’t think they’re a natural function of the brain?”
“I think we might be talking past each other. But that’s okay. I might be talking past myself, too.”
We talked past each other for a while longer, but it felt a lot like talking to each other. Then we caught up with Jack and Laurie and made sure all our baskets were full.
“You two have a good time?” asked Jack.
“Yeah. I got to think through a lot,” replied Peach.
“Thinking? What, no smoochie?”
“Jack!” scolded Laurie.
“No smoochie,” I said. “But I think it’s better this way.”
We went back and waited for the wagon trip back to the storeroom. Laurie suggested that we come back for the corn maze in October, and Peach was all excited to learn they had a corn maze. Then we started talking about Halloween traditions, and Peach decided she wanted to carve a bunch of jack-o-lanterns. I pointed out it was silly to have jack-o-lanterns when you live in an apartment, but Jack offered to take them and display them, which made Peach happy.
We sang along to the radio as Jack drove us back. Afterwards, we visited with the two of them long enough to make peach salad and a fresh smoothie. Peach showed off her ability to tell apart slices from different kinds of peaches while blindfolded. I didn’t ask why Laurie owned a blindfold.
For the next week we ate peaches every day. Peach soup with mint and basil, peach drinks, peach cake with blackberries and blueberries. We brought some to the coffeeshop to share, which was technically against the rules but my boss didn’t care. Peach had me tell all the ponies there about Halloween. We planned a big Halloween party, which wound up being a barrel of fun, and half a dozen Friends of Equestria joined us on our eventual trip through the corn maze. Peach kept doing heraldic poses the whole time. “Look! I’m passant through the maze!”
I tried carving a jack-o-lantern of a pony’s face. I hadn’t carved pumpkins since I was a teen, though, so it ended up looking more like a goblin. Peach carved a dragon’s head, and one of George Harrison the Beatle, and one of her Aunt Iggles, and one of a female goblin to keep mine company.
In November, she started occasionally carpooling with Second Sight out to Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, Long Island, where they had an antimatter facility. She’d been cleared for preliminary experiments, and it was time to get her situated with the equipment they’d be using. In January, she started actually working with freshly created antimatter—only ever for a minuscule split second. Every time she went out, I was nervous for the whole day that there’d be an explosion and she wouldn’t come back. Or even that, somehow, mixing magic with antimatter would destroy the world. It wasn’t a rational fear, really, since they’d done their research to make sure that wouldn’t happen, but I couldn’t help it. I figured for those who knew it was happening, it must have felt a lot like when the first nuclear bombs were tested, and no one knew for sure the chain reaction wouldn’t fuse the entire atmosphere and blow up the planet.
But Peach always came back from Brookhaven, generally excited and eager to share. She gushed about what they were discovering, and we struggled through essays and books together in order to learn more about her subject—the possible formation of stable exotic atoms.
Peach lay on the futon and read aloud, unconsciously doing a ‘science’ voice. “‘In reality, they annihilate because particles will always “try” to have the lowest rest mass possible while preserving quantum numbers. This, of course, is not actually a reason why they do what they do—it’s a way we can justify it, given certain mathematical and physical observations. It’s a way that we could theoretically predict they would annihilate, had we never observed it taking place.’ Pepper, do you get what he’s saying?”
I was folding laundry. “Not really. Do you?”
She tilted her head in thought. “I think it’s saying that particles don’t think about our rules when they do what they do. They have their own rules, and we make rules to try to make sense of it.”
“Do they really have rules, though? Or do they just do what they do?”
“Good point. Maybe particles are anarchists.”
“It seems like you’re always personifying subatomic particles,” I pointed out. “But they’re not people.”
“Well, you guys personified your horses, and I bet you don’t regret that now.”
She had me there.
I got an e-mail from Grigorius the Unrelenting, who’d apparently forgotten the name of Peach’s blog, but took the time to work it out later, and decided to write when he made a day trip to Foal’s Paradise, the closest internet hub to his home on Foal Mountain. He said he’d caught halfway up on the blog and was glad to see we were doing well. He also asked if I could do some research for him about how humans make nickel foil, since there wasn’t enough detail on the internet. I wrote back agreeing to it, and later wound up mailing him a couple of books. We became pen pals of the old-fashioned letter kind. From then on, whenever anyone had a speculation or argument about dragons, I was able to say, “Well, I’ve got a dragon pen pal—I can just ask him!”
George and Skelter eventually broke up, as most of their friends privately expected they would. George was stoic about it, while Skelter was all nerves for a few days before starting to calm down. At our meetings, George started to talk about leaving town. “I’ve given a good couple years to the folks on this side of the portal, and it may be time I set my eyes on my own native side again.”
“Anywhere in particular?” asked Kellydell.
“Well, I’m thinking of crossing the old pond again. The one on our side, I mean. It’s funny, really, that both worlds have their own ‘pond’, and in between there’s the ‘portal’. But I haven’t seen the old country in a while, and I could use the grounding. Could visit Dream Valley and stroll through the ruins of Paradise Estate. That’d put the color back in my soul, no question.”
“That sounds fun,” said Seaswell. “We should take another trip, Kelly!”
“We should. But are you coming back, George?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry, Kell. If it feels like there’s cause enough to draw me back to the city that never sleeps, I’ll heed that call. And I doubt I’ll want to go a lifetime without seeing you and your fine husband again.”
“I hope not!” said Seaswell, placing a hoof gently against George’s side. “We’d miss you.”
Then, one Friday afternoon, he showed up at my door, apologizing for the unexpected visit. I invited him in, but told him Peach was at work and wouldn’t be home for a while yet.
“Well, Sergeant, the truth is, I knew she’d be out. I came looking for a little wisdom, and I thought you might be able to provide.”
“What is it?”
He cocked his head in an unexpectedly boyish—well, coltish—way. “Do you suppose she might have room in her heart for me again? Now that we’re both unattached?”
It was the most obvious reason for him to have wanted to see me, but I was still surprised. I had to think it over. But I knew Peach did want companionship again, and she did still think about George from time to time. “She might. It’s definitely worth a try.”
He asked me what she was looking for in a relationship these days. We chatted a while, and he excused himself before Peach got home. When she did, I broached the subject, and she got nervous.
“I could go on a date with him, sure.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well…” She looked at me. “What if he sweeps me off my hooves and convinces me to go away with him? Then you’ll be left alone.”
I grinned. “Do you really think that’s a possibility?”
She nodded a bunch. “It could happen.”
Now I had to take it seriously. “Well, I’d be left in the lurch, I guess. I’m not sure what I’d do. I might have to move back to Trenton after all, or see if anyone in the Friends has a place I could stay, or wants to be a new roommate.”
She looked sad and hopeful at once.
“But that’s fine. I’d be fine, Peach. If you want to go traveling with George… if that’s what would make you happy…”
Her eyes welled up and she came over so I could rest my hand in her mane.
“…Then that’s what you should do.”
“I wouldn’t just disappear in the night. I’d tell you, I promise.”
“Good. I’d want to say goodbye.”
We stayed like that for a while, me stooped with my hand in her brown hair, her sitting and thinking thoughts a world away.
They went on one date. It was at a nice restaurant on Staten Island with a rooftop terrace. Peach said they could see New Jersey over the Arthur Kill. She said the dinner was fantastic and the service was friendly. She said they watched a lot of people from that rooftop, and did a lot of talking.
She never told me what they talked about. And though they parted on good terms, they never went out again.
George left town the week after. We had a little shindig for him that started at Turtlewood and went down Madison to a cozy bar. The man in the Friends with the creased face played a little guitar. We sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and got pretty drunk. Someone put George’s namesake’s album All Things Must Pass playing on their phone, and he nodded approvingly. He promised to send a postcard every now and then.
The next fall, Kellydell took Seaswell to Ireland. They planned their trip for months in advance; it was a popular chatting topic for the Friends before meetings. Ireland was clearly Earth’s equivalent of Kellydell’s homeland of Greenisle: what would have been its inspiration if it had ever actually appeared in the show. It’s funny how things like that exist. Seaswell became excited to see what the ‘real’ version of Greenisle was like, and Kellydell caught his passion. They spent two weeks in the nation she called her ‘homeland by proxy.’ Most of the people they met thought they were adorable, and some cajoled them to stay, visas be damned. They saw the National Gallery and the Book of Kells in Dublin and Shop Street in Galway. Seaswell flew his wife over remote tiny islands and up the Cliffs of Moher. They went all the way to Blarney so Seaswell could kiss the Blarney Stone, but at the last minute, he decided he didn’t want to, stirring up a drama that he and Kellydell laughed over later. Kissing that stone makes a person eloquent, they say, and he realized he didn’t want to change.
That winter, I finally left the garden store. The Friends of Equestria had incorporated as a non-profit, and they hired me on for the days I wasn’t at Turtlewood. Working for them involved a lot of writing, facilitating communication and attending (or sometimes running) meetings. There were still interviews now and then, plus the occasional rally or protest on behalf of advancing interworld relations. Laurie was proud of me. Bit by bit, the window of what was normal for me changed.
That spring I got a scroll in the mail, stuffed in a packing tube and tied with a slender ribbon. I unrolled it and read the heading: “On the Dis-Entanglement of Pseudo-Requited Love: An Inter-Species Case Study. By Pink Coil, Royal Mage Emeritus to the Crystal Empire, in consultation with Mage Counsel Sunburst. Dedicated fondly to Princess Cadance, long may she improve.”
It was the monograph about us Pink Coil had promised! The thing was written in dense, specialized language and turned out to be twenty pages long when we got it typed up. He referred to Peach and me as ‘CE’ and ‘HH’, for ‘Capricious Etcher’ and ‘Hapless Human’, respectively. Even through the magical jargon, we could still recognize our story. “The Princess expressed great remorse and a desire to restore the initial relation between the relevant judgment matrices”—that was our favorite line. We had it framed on our wall. I never did figure out how a lock of my hair helped Pink Coil get the package properly addressed, but that’s magic for you.
In June of 2020, I met a girl called Mikah. She was a paralegal with a penchant for plaid shirts and competitive cycling. Like me, she was interested in ponies, despite never having watched Friendship is Magic when it was on the air. She was a big fan of Life in Equestria with Starlight Glimmer, though. (By that time, Twilight Sparkle was devoting more time to matters of state and Starlight had taken over as host.) I introduced her to the Friends of Equestria and we hit it off faster than a road rider jetting down a long straightaway. Within four months of dating, we were talking about kids, houses and marriage.
She liked Peach. That was important, of course, and she knew that. Peach and I were still living together, and Mikah was sympathetic to where it would leave Peach if I moved out. I remember a lunch we had together one weekend after a vigorous ride through Elizabeth’s North End. (The bicycle manufacturers were making pony models by then, so Peach had bought one, and I’d gotten my old Specialized back from my mom’s garage.) We’d found a greasy little place run by Portuguese folks selling American food, so we got soup and salad and slurped and crunched while Mikah grilled Peach on why she’d come here two and half years ago, and what she’d learned.
“Well, I came here to find out who I was and what my world was,” she said. The angst this topic used to give her was long gone. “I thought of Earth and its people as my creators, and I wanted to know what was in their heads when they made us. I knew it wasn’t like the normal creator/creation relationship, since we were a whole world in itself, with history and details they never thought of, but it still seemed like I could never understand myself fully unless I came to this place. I thought of it as the Motherland.”
“That’s cool,” said Mikah. “So did you wind up knowing yourself better?”
“Sure!” said Peach, flicking her tail. “It took a while and it wasn’t easy, but I worked it out eventually. I realized that it’s not so simple to ask ‘Why am I what I am?’ It’s just like when you ask why an animal does what it does. There’s the evolutionary explanation—like how an antelope pronks to show that it’s healthy and the mountain lion or whatever chasing it shouldn’t bother—and then there’s the internal explanation—the antelope’s own reason for jumping. Does it know the message it’s sending to the mountain lion, or does it pronk just ‘cause it feels nervous and that’s what it does when it’s nervous? We don’t know.” She took a bite of her potato soup. “Just like that, there’s two different explanations for why anything in FiMland happens. There’s the human explanation, which is about what the thing means to humans and why you might have put it in your children’s fantasy world. But then there’s the local explanation, which is just what we would’ve told ourselves if we never learned about you. Why are there unicorns? Because humans thought horses were cool but not cool enough, and they had to embellish. But also because a long time ago, some earth pony went on some epic quest, got a horn, and transformed the nature of their species. There’s two reasons at least for everything.”
“Two at least?”
“Maybe more. Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll open a portal to some other world of weird-looking beings who also say they invented ponies and Equestria. And they’ve got a 3-D holoshow that proves it, and even though their culture and society are totally different from Earth, their show is exactly identical to Friendship is Magic. If it can happen once, it can happen again, right?”
“Wicked,” said Mikah. “Gotta soak that in.”
“So once I realized that, I realized there might not be any end to the answers for a question like, “Why are we what we are?” We’re like this because of this reason, and that reason, and maybe a bunch more. And each answer you get adds to the whole shebang, but it’s never over. There’s no end to explanation. There’s just an end to what you can understand in terms of the world you know.”
“So do you have a handle on that yet?” I interjected. “Why did human beings conceive of ponies?”
She sipped her orange soda. “I think you know.”
“Maybe I could guess, but I want to hear what you think.”
“Me too,” added Mikah.
Peach’s forehooves plopped onto the table. “Because you’re afraid of how violent you are. That’s basically why, isn’t it? You’re obsessed with your own violence, your weapons, your history full of wars. You feel like you ought to be more peaceful. So you invent magical creatures, fantasy creatures that are more peaceful. Ponies. Breezies. Classic unicorns. Dryads and nymphs and earth spirits and benevolent aliens! All just to underscore how violent and evil humans are, compared to all these other creatures that put you to shame.” She banged the table. “But who says you should be more peaceful? Who says the way humans are isn’t the way thinking beings are just going to normally be, just because they’re thinking beings? I’ll tell you who says that. You do. You say that, because all those peaceful creatures? You invented them. And the fact you invented them, and you compare yourselves to them? That shows you do care about being more peaceful. And there’s no one, not even us, who can say for sure that you’re behind the curve.”
“Why not even you?” asked Mikah. “When’s the last time ponies had a real war?”
“We don’t do wars,” said Peach. “Not the way you do. So yeah, we’ve got that over you. But maybe we’re a fluke! Maybe everything about our history and personality is just really, really lucky that way. We don’t know what’s normal. We’ve only got two worlds to look at.”
“But when you don’t know much,” Mikah protested, “you use the information you’ve got. And of our two worlds, yours is more peaceful than ours by far! Shouldn’t we be concerned about that?”
“Nah,” said Peach. “Of course it was gonna be that way. You invented us for your kids, to teach them good values. Of course you were gonna invent a race of people who don’t wage war. So in terms of figuring out how common war is? The fact we ponies don’t do it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“But we didn’t invent you,” pressed Mikah.
Peach shrugged with a coy smile. “Might as well have.”
I married Mikah in September of 2021. George Harrison showed up at our wedding, not uninvited but unexpected. He regaled us and the other guests with strange stories of a race of bee people called the Bumbles, then left in the night. We never saw him again, but we still get postcards from him now and then, so there’s still time. (Peach never told me his original name—he made her swear not to tell—but maybe he’ll tell me himself someday.) Grig was there too, cashing in vacation time. He roasted weiners and marshmallows for us outside our reception hall. Uncle Clyde and Red Rover were our honored guests. Barrett was my best man, and Mikah’s best friend was her maid of honor, but we wanted a spot in the wedding party for Peach, so we decided to make up a position for her: Fruit Bearer. She walked down the aisle magically passing out apricots and strawberries and peaches to everyone, wearing a Carmen Miranda hat. Meanwhile, her best friend Clear Airways divebombed the crowd with party streamers. At the reception, Peach regaled everyone for hours with stories about me, even while Mikah and I danced for the crowd.
Laurie and Jack never got married, but they seem to like it that way. They’re still together in Elizabeth. Seaswell and Kellydell are still together, too. They have their differences and doubts, but it seems like they found a way to stay in love without magical booster shots. Mikah gave birth last March to our second beautiful child, Daniel George Pfeffer. Our daughter Apricot—Abby for short—will be three this fall.
Peach is still looking for love. Despite having plenty of relationships here on Earth, none of them have worked out for her yet. She’s had a good cry about it once or twice, but for the most part, she’s still optimistic. Sometimes Second Sight jokes that the two of them are both married to their work, but Peach says she wouldn’t mind having someone besides a blog to be married to. But Second Sight says (with a certain authority) that Peach is less upset about still being single than she pretends to be. Her blog is huge, and Brookhaven is starting to make noise about applications for what they call ‘amiable positronium’, but which most people call “ponyponium’. Particles and antiparticles, orbiting without mutual annihilation—if they can do it, why can’t we? Peach was part of the team of unicorns whose magic and dedication made it possible.
And of course, last winter they finally wrapped up negotiations and opened Equestria to human visitors. There’ve been some incidents so far, and a pathway to naturalization is still in the future, but things are looking bright, thanks in no small measure to the Friends of Equestria. Just before Daniel was born, I was able to go back to Witherton and get reacquianted with Peach’s folks. This time, Aunt Iggles invited me to read an Earth poem, so I went with Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” It wasn’t until I was tipsy at the end of the night that I sang them the Mr. Ed theme song.
Peach still dreams of someday discovering another world where Earth is a place drawn from their imaginations, and humanity are considered magical creatures. And maybe another world beyond that, and another beyond that—an endless chain of fiction makers whose works of fiction coincide with levels of reality. I hope for her sake that it eventually happens, but as for me? If I could move my family to Equestria someday, that would be paradise enough.
Then again, if just anyone could relocate to Equestria, the Garden State would be half empty within a year. So I’ll content myself with the fact that Equestria and Earth are growing closer all the time.
Oh, and last month, I got to meet Princess Luna! She came to one of our meetings and bought a donut. Not even kidding.
It’s true, pony should pony pony. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t too, from time to time.
Here we are at the end, at long last! This chapter is being posted one day before the finale of Season 6, which means I'm just under the wire for the deadline I implicitly gave myself when I began this story thirty-two months ago. Tomorrow, "The Pony Who Lived Upstairs" goes from being speculative future fiction to alternate history, since it's unlikely either the Glen Troll or the God-Tremor will make an appearance in the season finale. I wanted to finish the story before that transition happened. 
I never expected this story would take so long to write, or that it would go in the directions it did, or that there would be so many chapters, or that the entire work would be 180,000 words--the length of a moderately thick novel. To my surprise, this is the longest single work I've ever written. But I like what it ended it up being. I didn't know how it would all end until I got right up to the ending, but I had a growing sense of how things might turn out that got more solid chapter by chapter.
I'd like to hear what you think of the final chapter and of the whole story! But if you'd like a final question to discuss, here it is: If another world were magically discovered in which humans were fictional creatures, one of whose stories (a TV show or the like) were coincidentally identical to portions of our reality... what would such a world be like?
By the way, there are actually various kinds of women’s ties, but Ron isn’t aware of that. 
If you're wondering why it took so long for me to write this final chapter, it's because just as I got set to wrap things up, I was bitten by a writer's bug for another fandom--last year's hit indie computer RPG Undertale. I fell in love with this game some time ago and wrote a playful little scene about one of its endings... and in late August, the fever suddenly hit me to write scenes to come before and after it, and then to extend it into a novel-length piece, and before I knew it I had twenty-four chapters of that written. There's a lot of overlap between pony fandom and Undertale fandom, so if you think you might like a retro-style "best parts" RPG that sends up its own genre while simultaneously telling a deep and touching story, I urge you to try it. And if you're already familiar with Undertale and you like my pony stories, I urge you to check out my Undertale story on fanfiction dot net. It's called "Alphys and the Queen" and I'm posting one chapter a week. Reviews there don't have to be actual reviews--I just want comments to see how people like it!
I don't think I have any more pony stories in me, though I have a few notes and ideas left over which I'll probably share in blog posts. At one point, I was thinking of writing a story about a royal psychiatrist for Celestia and Luna, whose ancestors treated their ancestors... but the urge is no longer there. I wrote half a novel for NaNoWriMo 2011 about a meerkat who visits Equestria and falls in love--I doubt I'll ever finish it, but maybe I'll share it here. I'm no longer playing ponies online, which I did happily for over four years. I'm still watching the show, but my interest in My Little Pony has finally faded. Once I'm done with the story I mentioned above, it'll be time for me to return to more 'serious' works of fantasy.
So that's "The Pony Who Lived Upstairs"! Maybe she'll continue to live upstairs in some of your secret brain chambers. 
I know Peach will always have a place in mine.
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For some reason I didn't get any notification of two of the latest three chapters.
I will not change my up vote for the reason that the story over all is good but I will stand with one of my past votes in that the story lost it's way a few chapters back peach and pepper should have stayed to gather.
the ending was interesting I can say that much.
This story was still amazing, don't get me wrong, but I expected Human-Pony romance for more than a few chapters, also not under a mind altering spell. To be honest, I almost left this story after it was pretty evident that the main character had a bit of xenophobia, but I needed to know the end. A tad disappointing, but as I said, it was still a nice story.
I am extremely satisfied with this story. Well done, great job, etc.
Peach is a very sympathetic pony -- so much so for me, that I would volunteer to be her human if she existed for real. I enjoyed this story greatly and appreciate your writing.
I only recently started reading this story, and imagine my surprise and delight and sorrow to find the last chapter posted within days of me doing so.
Even so, I really feel like this is the sort of story I'd gush about. It's all the little details, the way you made Peach seem cute and adorable and naturally so. Or the way the Twilight's show abuses various transition effects because they're ponies and they're just fooling around.
It's just wonderful, really.
I'm sorry to hear you've lost interest in FiM though. Hope you don't disappear completely.
Really liked this story. It's been interestingly philosophical without getting bogged down in the philosophy. It's been clever and funny and sweet. I'm not quite sure what I expected to happen when they got the love spell put on them, but this was a pretty satisfying way to end the story.
Did we ever find out what was the reason for George's name not being a pony one? Or was it nothing beyond him liking the Beatles?
They do!
Hey, sounds like Peach is making that possible...
7148880 I read the first nine Xanth novels as a kid, and a few others here and there. They were really cool at that age--I wonder if I'd still find them so!
7151349 And no one's ever heard of the Quiet League because they advertise only in newspapers, in a tiny part of the Sports section, in tiny type that no one ever notices. Until Fluttershy became famous for buckball and started drawing attention to her other 'sport'.
7154600 Thanks--that's a nice compliment! Skelter leans over the edge of your bathtub to reach for your floating pony toys. "I wanna play!!" Then she falls in.
(Stands in ovation) Thanks for this awesome story. A clear 8 out of 10 from me.
7154413 Heehee, Spike doing post-production made me lol.
Aw, all the other dimensions you colonize are gonna learn how to use transition effects and splash screens! They'll be standing there so cutely and sadly as you abandon them, wondering what went wrong!
As for the rat codes? Yeah, I used to play on NIMHmuck.
You can say "Treat everything with respect, up to and including people," but that doesn't tell us how much respect everything requires. You wouldn't send your hammer to an empowerment seminar. Are the animals Fluttershy befriends entitled to free public education?
7154737 Interesting conspiracy theory about Cadance wanting them to kiss! And, interesting... non-conspiracy theory? about the newspapers not being controlled by a giant puppetmaster. Also, interesting theory about magic. But if magic is when things happen more often than you'd calculate from chance, that implies you have a reliable model for making such calculations... a model without magic. And making such a model must mean determining what is and is not magic in the first place!
7154773 Arcane energies are making us fall in love? ...That's so romantic! (I'm glad you found the enchantment adorable.)
7154839 Makes sense! Well put.
7154864 Pepper is Ron! Noam is his older brother. Aw, nope, the 'no shoes, no shirt' thing is just some people's excuse for turning out magical creatures they don't understand. (It was made illegal in New Jersey and many other states in 2019.) Put shoes and shirts on breezies, and even they become comprehensible.
7181258
You should write literature for the Friends of Equestria!
I figure words like "boink" and "boff" and "diddle" are commonplace among naughty adult Equestrians.
It's interesting you predicted that one of them would still be in love after the spell was removed, because I didn't even know that would happen until I actually wrote the scene! So, well done!
7181375 Fair enough. But even though Ron didn't recognize it at the time, there was something deeper underlying his reluctance to commit to Peach.
7181491 You're welcome. I yes, I agree--the train pulling out of the Crystal Empire would have worked as an ending for the story. I originally planned only to summarize what happened in Witherton and write only one more chapter. But I wound up wanting to lead up to Ron's future in a bit more detail.
7181498 I understand how it feels weird--you're right, Ron was the initiator, and now he's the one who wants off now that the magical glam show has been removed. That's because he didn't really know what he wanted in a relationship, and, to be fair, neither did Peach. If they'd progressed without Cadance's spell, they probably would have gotten as far as making out, and then Ron would have gotten cold feet and they would have re-examined things. But that wouldn't have been as fun!
I'm not saying that interspecies relationships wouldn't work out if we had talking animals or magical creatures around. I'm sure lots of them would work out just fine. I used to find it amusing to imagine being stranded in the world of Strawberry Shortcake and striking up a relationship with the only adult around: her horse, Honey Pie. I just decided to make my main character normal in that respect, in contrast to Peach's analytic xenophilia.
7181501 That's a good point. Aside from which... different strokes for different folks! You can find people attracted to just about any theoretical kind of person or creature.
7186687 Certainly wasn't trying to say that folks should stick to their own kind. I was honestly just trying to write the characters in that scene--I didn't know how lifting the spell would turn out until I actually wrote it. I can certainly see Ron's feelings being disappointing. As I wrote in another comment, I feel like he would have turned back on his own if they had gotten physical of their own accord. That isn't to say plenty of humans wouldn't be happy with a pony spouse or partner. Just not, as it turns out, this guy I chose to write. I like the way you put that--that I've been 'choreographing' the readers' interest in their relationship. Guilty! But their relationship did serve a grander purpose in the end, even if they didn't end up together.
7187526 Thanks for the compliments. :) I enjoyed writing the dialogue and interactions a lot. And yeah... I didn't even have a Romance tag when I started writing in the spring of 2014, but when a romance developed, what could I do? Not all romances have to work out.
7199815 That's a very good point. If love magic isn't good for helping one partner love another's body type, what is it good for? I think there may well have been some situations in Cadance's past where the love nudges she gave ponies were helpful, but I understand your uncomfortable feelings about that, since I share them. For that matter, it's arguable that Cadance didn't do the wrong thing here. Yes, she had to spring for the expense of bringing a man to Equestria to fix it, but maybe it was her way of having an excuse to invite what she saw as a worthy human to visit? I'm not actually sure, even now. Certainly Ron's visit seemed to help him and others, since it gave him a strong reason to join the Friends of Equestria. But probably Cadance was just following her instincts.
In any case, I was really tempted, after you made this comment, to change the course of the story or at least suggest this kind of treatment for Ron. It was a possibility I hadn't thought of. But in the end it didn't feel quite right.
Maybe the third chapter of my "Combinatorics Project" story had something to do with that. 
7222340 7222845 Thanks, you guys. Looks like there isn't really sufficient interest, and I don't really have any great ideas for a prequel, even if writing a Celestia/Obama scene would be fun, so I think I'll be abstaining.
...Except for this bit.
Luna squinted at the besuited form before her. "Is he another human?" she asked her sister furtively.
"Looks like one," she replied, covering their speech with her wing.
"I had thought their leader was a duck!" said Luna. "Did that man not tell us the Americans have a lame duck president?"
"They did," said Celestia. "It seemed so progressive. I was wondering whether his lameness was the result of office, or whether he was elected in spite of it."
"You know, I can hear you," said the big-eared man. "You know 'lame duck president' is just an expression, right?"
Both sisters stood leaning against each other, wings raised, smiling tremendously. "Of course we do!" said Luna.
"Let us talk business!" said Celestia, her exaggerated smile not breaking.
7250770 That's a very good point! I enjoyed your list of examples of secret shady things in Equestria. Even regarding what we do see front and center, there are examples of blatant prejudice ("There are no good changelings"), merchants who deliberately gouge prices for the needy ("Putting Your Hoof Down"), racketeers (Flim and Flam), unscrupulous fame-seekers (Suri Polomane) and so forth. I think the setting has gotten a lot less innocent over the course of the seasons, actually--I can't think of any examples of shadiness from Season 1. I guess that's what happens when the creator leaves and the writers and showrunner let their hair down.
7250913
Actually, that's a funny thing--I didn't want to add another Who Framed Roger Rabbit kind of issue to the mix, so despite all the talk I included about fictionality and the differences between ponies and humans, I made sure never to mention the fact that the show was a cartoon. I talked about how it's simpler and how it's for children and how it's ostensibly innocent, but the entire story doesn't include the words 'cartoon' or 'animation' once. Still this angle would have been cute and disturbing!
Yeah, this one would have riled up Peach nicely!
A for Twilight's martini... well, she was trying to pour herself something in a martini glass. No doubt it resembles a martini, but I imagine if we could actually magically ask Twilight what she was drinking, she'd tell us some cutesy name for the cocktail, maybe with a pun, and it wouldn't actually be alcoholic. I'm guessing Lauren Faust would give a similar answer.
7339624 7339726
I'm happy with either subject!
The question of what is real is addressed in the early discussions between Peach and Ron, in which both are still confused about what the odd relationship between the worlds means for Peach's integrity. The meaning of life question is present in the form of Ron being unsure what to do with his life, what his cutie mark would be if he had one, and what direction he should take. If I had to describe what this story is about, though, I would just say "It's about a guy in New Jersey who learns that a pony has moved into an apartment upstairs, and who decides to go meet her." The rest kind of flows from that. 
7340123 It's possible detailing Ron's time in Witherton was a miststep. I orginally was going to just summarize it. Ultijmately, the ponies there are mostly rather generic, yes, because Peach is the most interesting person from her hometown. (With the possible exception of her Aunt Iggles.)
7340387
Great question. I imagine it would have gone kind of similiarly for him, yes. They wouldn't have been afraid of him, but they would have been confused by this earth pony who's worldlier than any of them and talks funny and doesn't seem to know his natural place. Chances are they would have warmed up soon enough. It might be like how some white Americans are fine with Africans who happen to be visiting, but not so fine with their own African-American neighbors.
And the fact that Ron could read the poetry book was indeed a mistake. Good catch!
7340784
Thanks! It's tempting to try that, but I think if I were a site administrator, I would frown on publishing both a story and the larger story it was taken from.
7390725 I'm not much for writing sex scenes. For me, the fact it's happened is what matters. Although I did enjoy writing the half-remembered highlights from Ron's foggy, magic-addled brain.
7392085 ...Glad I could help?
7489424 I appreciate the feedback. I feel like the romance tag did do its duty--there was romance, as well as the nebulous hints of it before it happened--but it's good to know what aspects of my work have disappointed people.
7489499 Maybe he will get that embassy job eventually, at this rate!
Glad you thought so! Canada is sort of inherently humorous, kind of the way ponies are. Since DHX Media is in Vancouver, the spell brought Celestia to Canada... and since it specified a 'head of state', it brought her to Johnston instead of Trudeau, who, as prime minister, is technically the 'head of government'.
7491766 7489329 7660798 Yeah, I don't know why so many people are reporting not getting automatic updates. I even wrote to an admin about it, but never heard back. I do remember some announcement about a bug like that from like two years ago.
7551457 I like your metaphor!
And that's well put. Chances are, the TV show happened to show the more serendiptous and neatly packaged parts of the Equestrian reality. Why? Well, if the reality is even more cutesy and (at times) contrived, then... yikes!
7568524 I'm pretty sure one of the early Life in Equestria episodes was an All Cuts Special. It was Spike's idea and the episode was hugely popular. For weeks, ponies were doing creative wipes in real life for each other.
7581296 Does that mean we should set free our wanderlusting pet cats and our farm animals who push up against the walls of their pens? Because I'm sure they understand the concept of freedom.
7660756 Thanks for all your comments! Sorry the story disappointed you. If you really think Peach and Pepper should have wound up together, I guess that means you really liked their chemistry, which makes me happy. As I see it, they did end up together, in the sense that they're still best friends... and best friends are still able to share quite a lot of 'chemistry'.
7661275 Aww! I think maybe my writer's instinct had her remain single at the end in order to make folks like you swoon and dream.
Well, tell you what! I'll create another blog post hosted by Peach so you and other folks can roleplay with her as much as you like! 
7661472 Thanks a bunch for your kind words! I was really trying to make this crazy pony premise 'natural' and realistic to the extent I could. Sounds like so far as you're concerned, I succeeded!
7662076 That's a good point. After I published the final chapter but before i read this comment, I posted a revision which changed a few little bits, including adding a line about how Ron never learned George's original name, as it's a secret Peach is sworn to. Maybe I should have revealed his secret in the final chapter... but the silly truth is, I don't know what it is! I'm guessing he happened to hear a George Harrison song just after coming to Earth for the first time and it had a big emotional impact on him for some reason, so he learned about the guy, found that he admired him, and decided to adopt his name in favor of the one his parents gave him that he'd never felt comfortable with: Dweezil Zappa.
7665855 I think my own favorite part of this story is the titular pony upstairs herself, but I will happily take the fact that I included the presence of the TV show. I didn't intend to break new ground when I did that--it just seemed like the most natural way to introduce ponies to the world.
7667551 Hey, thank YOU for all the comments! ...Now go read my Undertale story!
7668921
yes this is a good story i know the one part that really bothers me is the fact that Peach is lonely her hole life no one should ever go threw that.
i still stand with me saying things just seam to go sidewise a few chapters back.
Having read this story in it's entirety, I would say that it came out very, very well, at least from my perspective. It was really well written, with rather immense character development. It seemed predictable, yet kept taking unexpected turns (the largest of which is now obvious to all readers). It turned out rather well in the end, I think, and I have enjoyed reading it. Thanks for bringing this wonderful story to us, and the effort it took to write; no small feat on it's own!
Well, it took me some time to get around to it, but at last I've finished these last few chapters! I suppose it's time for a round-up of my thoughts. Not that I'm obligated to... but I like to.
So, first, big ol' elephant in the room:
Yeah, I'm in the camp of people who wanted Peach and Pepper to end up together. I guess right up 'til almost the end, I really wanted them to just reconcile and realize their connection. But don't take that as a criticism, at least not entirely: if you look waaaay back at one of my earlier comments, I was initially against them being together at all. I was in it for the friendship and the philosophy, but over time your writing of their relationship drew me in and I became a fan of PepperSpark (if it needs a "ship name," that is). I guess I got more invested in that aspect than I expected to, and while the ending is realistic, well, heh heh, who ever read fanfics for realism?
But in all seriousness, the realism was a positive and, when you get down to it, the twin cores of the story have always been the friendship and the philosophy, and that stayed strong right up through to the ending. Peach and Pepper with their existential banter made this story deep and wondrous, even when it amounts to little more than speculation. The kind of story that can make you think and feel is a good story any day of the week, and I think this story will hold a special place in my heart for a long time to come.
I do hope that perhaps you'll find your interest in pony waxing once again, and we'll get a story from you soon. Now, I'm not planning to go down the rabbit hole of Undertale fanfics yet either, but maybe I'll pop in at some point. I am a fan after all, and I co-commentated a playthrough of the game a short while back with my illustrator, Greenfinger. Regardless, thank you for the wonderful story, and best of luck to you, always.
...Hopefully sometime soon, I'll be finishing my own doorstopper too!
I'm a little disappointed that Ronald and peach didn't get together not what I was exactly looking for but it still was a good story.
That was, by all counts, a simply extraordinary feat. You have delivered a story that is incredibly thought-provoking, a story that made me laugh, a story that made me cry (almost), and everything in-between. This tale represents, in my eyes, a very grounded portrayal of potential human-pony relations. I say 'grounded' and not 'realistic' because the premise is absurd (as are all pony-human fics, let's be honest here). However, as this story taught us over the course of 32 months, it's that 'absurd' does not have to mean 'bad'. Just because something is unimaginably different doesn't make it something to fear or hate. Peach and Pepper taught us that, and I believe that it's a critically important lesson, especially in today's word, where fear and division threaten to rule our lives. They taught us that it's okay to love someone different, and love them for their differences, not in spite of them. They taught us that in order to bridge the gap between hearts, species, ideals, beliefs, values, cultures, interests, and even dimensions...
...all it takes is a single spark.
Thank you so much for this. It's truly been a pleasure.
I liked the banter between Peach and Pepper. The whole group dynamic between the different ponies and humans. When I read that they we're going to see Cadence I knew something would happen with their relationship. I don't quite get the jump from Ron wanting Peach to be his girlfriend and having George be a possible threat, not not finding her sexy. The build up to the point of do we have a chance together or I'm leaving then after the spell your not not sexually appealing to me. I didn't expect an immediate attempt at an actual relationship, but was sadden that ship did not sail. I wanted my kale and marshmallows together.
Add me to the folks who didn't get notifications - bit annoying, but I've taken to reviewing my tracking list once a month.
But a well-done ending to a well-made tale. Kudos!
And, I apparently neglected to do this months ago; have a fave.
7668846 Oh yeah, forgot about Johnston. I mean, the Governor General is mostly useless. The only one who almost did something was Micheel Jean a few years ago. So they are fery forgettable. The Lieutenant Governor even more so...
Ditto. FiMFiction apparently had a troll eat the notification for the finale, but I finally realized it'd updated thanks to your blog feed.
I'd been meaning to get to finishing this for awhile. There was plenty to praise early on, and the writing was solid. But, this story is one of those where the ending is such a way that it basically has more than enough weight to bomb the rest of the story.
I get what you were trying for, but it failed miserably in my opinion, giving the vestment you provided us with the relationship prior to you jacking it all up. Not satisfied at all, would've rather it simply not ended before the whole 'Oh, it was Cadance's magic and that alone.' Nevermind the fact that you kept dropping signs of romantic tension and interest all throughout the story, even before meeting with Cadance. Honestly, you torpedoed your story so goddamn hard here. One of the biggest reading regrets I've had lately, to be honest.
Well written story, but I simply cannot agree with how you decided to end it. It pretty much torched the rest of it for me. Damn shame, too, given how few quality pony on earth romances that exist. And this had been one of them.
EDIT - Also, you tagging this story romance is a bit of an insult. More I think on the direction you took, this is anti-romance. Infuriating, really. :/
Well... What can I say?
I absolutely loved the story from begining to end, and specially the final chapters, because it felt to me like "right-in-the-feels" Finally one story that doesn't end "happily". Honestly I wasn't expecting him to marry another woman, despite he said that he was not attracted to ponies.
Other thing to point out was the setting; you didn't use the "spell-brought-me-here-and-I'm-the-only-pony-around" cliche, and the fact that MLP exists in the story and how you made Peach question her existence was brilliant.
The whole story (but specially the final chapters) made me feel a weird mix between joy and sadness, which I enjoyed very much.
This is by far one of the best stories I've read.
P.S. George, we don't all wear boots here in Spain
7668932 Oh, I'm sure Peach isn't lonely her whole life! She has plenty of adventures and relationships, and maybe someday she'll find the right partner. I just wanted to leave it wide open who that might be. 🙃
7673902 Thanks for all the analysis, Hat Man! It was interesting seeing how many people wanted them to get together for good versus how many thought it shouldn't happen. I didn't know whether they'd end up together right until I wrote the part where Cadance undid the spell--that was when it came clear to me. For the record, I don't consider this to be an unhappy ending.
Glad you made an Undertale blind stream--it's the kind of game that needs live reactions to surprises.
7678991 Thanks very much, metroid freak. It's true that absurdity can be good and even moving. I once wrote a short story about the conjured creature of a wizard trying to find meaning to her existence--she was a beast made entirely of Spam. I've noticed that sometimes I write things that are silly to begin with and get slowed-paced and serious as I engage in the sport of making the absurd interesting and meaningful. As for loving and not fearing others for their differences, it's funny, because that was a lesson that neither Ron nor Peach had to learn. That was basically their starting point. If the creatures that came through the portal were giant slugs with telepathic powers, it would be another story--it's easy for us to love cute animals we created for the enjoyment of our own children, and of course we made them tolerant in turn. But if this novel spoke to you on that theme, I'm fine with that!
7694781 Yeah, I didn't handle that aspect of the story as gracefully as I should have. In my head, Pepper was genuinely excited about Peach on both emotional and physical levels while they were sort of dating. Then they got jump-started into physical intimacy. When the spell wore off, Ron had that added perspective and realized that he wasn't physically interested in Peach after all, which is something he would have discovered more gradually if they'd gone through the normal dating process. I wasn't really clear about that, though.
7714883 My outline was altered when Johnston got an extension to his term through 2017; I was planning to use a conservative-leaning public figure instead.
7835329 I don't follow--what was so foreboding about the name "Peaches and Sparks"?
7863262 I'll just say that I don't agree at all with the premise that for a story to be a romance, the main couple has to end up together, even if that is the genre standard. As I see it, if you can predict the ending to a story based on the genre, it weakens the reading experience quite a bit.
7865845 I just know that when I made a website many years ago, I used FTP to upload my files to it. :) So did you ever finish the story?
7875077 I'm glad some people liked the bittersweet ending. Really, it's a pretty happy ending, given that life is an ever-moving story and things rarely settle down perfectly. I wonder where George ends up. I wouldn't be surprised if he and Peach somehow run into each other in distant lands and have an adventure together. Thanks for the comment on boots.
7903749 If only I were a famous author and this were a famous work, I might actually buy it and do something with it!
8107717 Ron didn't actually ask Peach to marry him--he was about to, but deleted that line from his blog post before submitting it. As for Peach's moral character... well, you can certainly argue about it. She's complicated.
8209900 Thanks very much for your comment. I'm amazed you were able to read this whole story in a day! It's close to 200,000 words! Glad I could restore your artistic peace of mind.
You may find it interesting to Google the Pre-Joycean Fellowship--several of its members are people I know.
8281554
I did. Peach is one of thoose characters that I'll always remember. This story is in my favourites for a reason. Awesome job!
PS. Event though I found the ending a bit dissapointing, I don't think It ruins the story at all! life has not always a happy ending
8281531
vary true.
This was such an amazing read. I felt like I was right there with Peach and Pepper through every awkward, exciting, and heartbreaking moment they shared. I'm no expert, but in my opinion, this had the perfect balance of deep, profound existential questions, humorous interactions, and cute yet sincere moments of discovery. Thanks, Ringcaat!
'Grats on the EQD feature! This story certainly earned it.
You played with my heart so much! I wanted Peach and Pepper to get together in the end. Peach had long since won me over with her personality, and for someone like me personality is all that really, truly matters when it comes to falling in love. It's a shame Pepper wasn't able to overcome his intellectual wall regarding her physical appearance.
So, for toying with my heart, I should smack you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. For writing such a wonderful story, though, I'll give you a gentle boop instead.
Thank you for such a great story. :)
Yes, statistically speaking it actually is. The percentage of people that gets killed by wars is dropping since the 40ies. I for one sold all my defense industry stock and invested in health care and products for the elderly.
This story is amazing! But, pepper screwed up so bad! Peach is the one he could have done everything with and every moment with her was a treasure to them both!
I can buy Equestria becoming real. But I cannot for a second buy that what Pepper and Peach have isn't true love!
If this were at all real, as time goes on, Pepper would be wanting to spend more and more time wanting to call Peach and spend time with her. His wife would get jealous, rightfully, and tell him he likes Peach more than her. She could try to stop him from talking to Peach, but he wouldn't. She would leave him and he would end up back with Peach. Only death can stop a connection like that in real life. It don't matter how ugly she is to him, we usually don't get prettier as we get older.
When exciting things happen to him, and he tells his wife, he is gonna start missing Peach's reactions. I'm telling you Pepper screwed up! It don't matter if Peach was as ugly as an 8 tentacled mutant with three noses! He will miss the moments he had with her and wish he made different choices.
Oops, I keep forgetting when I read an epub to come back and like and fave and comment. Fixing that now.
Honestly, it's a little disorienting coming here and seeing reader comments after the fact and reading the level of dissatisfaction with the ending. Given what happened in the aftermath of the Radio City Music Hall visit, them coming to terms with their actual respective feelings was the only healthy outcome. Yes, I would have liked a happy ending, but that wouldn't have been the right choice for this story.
I should also note one big positive thing that stuck out at me: throughout my reading, I occasionally found myself rolling my eyes at what seemed like gratuitous exposition -- only to have Ron remark on that too, and the nature of that discussion immediately become an important plot point about the differences between Equestrians and Terrans. I can't easily articulate what a delight it was to see my reactions anticipated and mirrored in the story; it did wonders for my investment.
Great job all around!
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Thanks! Nice of you to leave a comment on my story after I left a less than kind one on one of yours. I wasn't immediately sure what exposition you were talking about, but I'm guessing it was the bit in the club about ponies teaching vocabulary. :) It occurred to me one day that was an unheralded way in which ponies seem to be different from humans, so I might as well work it in. I don't think I put in gratuitous exposition on purpose before that chapter, though, so maybe I just wrote some boring stuff!
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(And besides, people bounce off of stories for all sorts of reasons. I don't need to feel threatened by the story not appealing to everyone, especially when it's edging toward the upper half of the HRBES scale.)
I'd like to think I'm able to dissociate personal ego from the fact that you wrote an enjoyable story worthy of the praise.
The bit in the club is definitely the big one I'd point to, but there were a few other moments — it's been a little while since I did my reading, but I want to say another one was at the ranch — where the ponies got explainey in what at first seemed like a jarring way. But, like I said, the reaction of the narrator lampshading that turned it into a positive.
And congrats on the upcoming RCL feature!
Nevermind, after rereading, the ending makes total sense. This story is quite the masterpiece. I am ashamed to have skimmed over details when I first read this.
Captivating story. Nicely written and the romance was exciting and different. A refreshing taste of a realistic romance/drama novel.
Feeling terribly disappointed that he suddenly revealed that he wasn't attracted to ponies. It was really odd how he suddenly decided her physical appearance was a relationship-breaker.Loved the story it’s been put into my personal favorites folder and I will re read this someday!
Reading this gave me,
An existential crisis,
But it was very good.
-Spark, a haiku by Dlaf'rferg
I'm not gonna lie, I'm disappointed that they didn't fall in love, and use Cadences magic to help Ron get over his hangup on pony bodies.
But that's a fairytale ending, and this is most cetainly not a fairytale. A solid 8 (maybe even 9) out of 10.
That was a... I feel the only word that fits is a 'healthy' ending. It just fits. Liked and Faved.
I would like to thank you for writing such a wonderful story, one of the best I have ever read in the fandom...
And thank you for the inspiration, I think I'll try writing again, and find a person to edit for me..
Take care and enjoy the rest of your day....