Chapter 11: June 3
Dear Journal,
Lots happened today so I’ll jump right into it before I collapse from exhaustion. Found some really interesting things, and invented the first shoes for horses. What, don’t believe me? Bet you will soon!
Sky is still taking care of the animals. She’s been scavenging for things she can feed to the chickens and apparently succeeding. I never thought chickens were picky about what they eat, but I guess she knows more about that stuff. Farmers.
Hey, at least one good thing came of this disaster: no more traffic! I feel like I make better time downtown on my hooves than I ever did driving there or riding the bus. Once I get a car worked so that I can actually drive it, it’ll be like the whole city is my playground. Get anywhere in just a few minutes. Of course there won’t be much reason to go anywhere…
My first priority today was horse-shoes. The old design has some severe disadvantages, such as the fact that there are freaking nails being driven into your foot. Yeah it’s like a big fingernail yeah you can’t feel it — no, you’re wrong. You can feel it. You can absolutely feel it. I can feel it every time I step on a little rock or a piece of glass, even if it doesn’t cut me. Not to mention that putting metal onto my hooves would make dexterity-dependent things almost impossible. With some careful patience, it’s still possible to do most things. My body’s flexible enough to make up for the lack of hands a little bit. That would absolutely not be the case if I nailed bricks to my hands.
Human feet are shaped perfectly for human shoes. They’re so long and wide compared to the thin ankles at the top that once the shoe goes on it isn’t coming off. Horses don’t have feet like that; our hooves are only slightly wider than… whatever we have that’s like ankles. I’ll ask Sky. Not to mention that the back legs move different than the front ones, and there are even more weird motions for the four different types of moving horses have. Sky told me about it today: walking, trotting, cantering, and galloping. I still can’t manage anything more than a walk (sometimes more of a shamble). Sky’s apparently been practicing, because she can go way fast with a trot. Probably about human walking pace. I wonder how fast we’ll be able to move when we can gallop. Maybe we can find videos of horses galloping and watch how they do it.
I’m rambling, probably a sign I should get to bed. I won’t though, because I’m a stupid horse who can’t adapt and change habits in the face of change. Look at me, writing a journal I’m almost certainly not going to have children to appreciate when I’m gone. Or… foals I guess. Foals to appreciate. Whatever. I’m not sure I want them if they’re foals anyway. I don’t suppose there are any underprivileged, precocious human orphans I could adopt.
Given my body these days, we’d probably be one of those buddy kids movies. I’d be the adorable animal sidekick and she would be always getting us into trouble. I would have to get us out again of course, without letting anyone know (apart from the audience) that I was really the one driving our success.
See, there I go. Came up with a horse-shoe idea that didn’t involve nails. Instead you’ve got a thick rubber sole like any western shoe, a hard plastic shell going to below the knee, and a thick foam interior molded to each leg and hoof specifically. The plastic shell could have clasps or something like a ski boot, enough to hold it in place no matter how energetic our activity became.
You probably notice this design involves several advanced parts, joints, and materials. The workshop had several tools I would need, but not all of them. The project would have been difficult if I still had my hands; without them it was going to be Herculean. Making two sets, even more so. My only advantage? Before the Event, I watched every episode ever of “How it’s Made.” Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to use what I learned from a TV-show to make our shoes. How bad can they be?
At least we don’t have all those tiny delicate bones to screw up like humans do. Strike that one up for an advantage to being a tiny horse. Still would’ve taken my old body. Even if everybody else was a tiny horse and I was human, doomed to be the last… I still would’ve taken it. Too bad nobody came to offer the trade.
I made up a boring list of everything we ought to need to make at least sixteen of the shoes (so I could screw up once per shoe if I needed to. Pretty depressing number), and set off with a newly comfortable wagon cart thing. I asked Sky if she wanted to join me, but apparently she had more work to do on the barn. As if it wasn’t already obvious, let nobody say a girl can’t get things done. Was it obvious? I don't actually know. I resolved to stop by the "ranch" on the way back from shopping and see what she had accomplished so far.
Or… that’s the wrong word. Mare? I shiver at the thought. How much is our language going to change? If we somehow meet up with enough of this new species to form a society, I wonder how we’ll talk in a hundred years. Will it still be recognizable as English with mare instead of woman and foal instead of baby and all the other horse-words? Or will we just keep using human words, changing their meaning so that they apply to new bodies that don’t fit them the way they were intended?
While I could get some of the ingredients at the crafts store close by, I couldn’t be sure of several of the others without going much further. I’m not worried; I might still have the coordination of a horse with three legs, but at least I’ve got stamina. An unnatural amount of stamina, if having Sky around is any judge. We’re about the same size and general build, so I’m not sure what could be causing the differences…
My map of the city tells me it’s about three miles one way. I’ve walked further plenty of times before, and every step was more practice. Maybe I could learn some of the new steps Sky showed me. The park didn't look like it'd changed all that much when I got there, except that the other entrances and gates had all been shut, except for the one nearest the discount store and the one nearest the house. Left my wagon by the entrance as I went in.
Sky was running. No, that's probably the wrong word. Cantering? Galloping? I'm not sure what the specific differences are. She was running around the lake, her wings flapping like a goose trying to get off the ground but not quite muscling the energy. It was almost sad to watch; she ran with all her might but clearly wasn't having any luck. Really, it was impressive she could run without falling. I couldn't do that.
I know, because when I went in to talk to her (making lots of noise so she could stop pretending to fly without knowing I'd seen), she went through the motion with me and I tried to imitate her. Got to say, there's no magic pill. A few minutes of doing the motions slowly didn't translate to knowing how to trot and canter like a pro. The grass is still alive enough to cushion my fall, though it's turning brown in places.
I swear the cows started laughing the first time I tripped. I can't be sure, since cow noises all sound the same to me, but they all stopped chewing and staring. I rolled the first time, landed with my head somewhere stupid and my butt straight up. Sky giggled, but I couldn't really blame her. I must've looked pretty stupid. I kept trying, but I never got it. Another day I guess.
It was pretty late when I got back, but I wanted to start work on the shoes. Sky agreed to help, though she didn’t see the need for them as much as she did with the saddlebags. She didn’t plan to do as much walking around through the city I guess.
Wasn’t too happy about the way I had to wrap her legs in plastic, smear them with lubricant, and submerge each one in a tray of goo. I just told her to pay attention since she’d have to do it for me once I made hers.
I worked several hours after dark, fighting through the tiredness. Cans of kick-starter, baby. Almost tastes as good as Mountain Dew. Almost. Most of the machines in the workshop take more wattage than the battery unit can offer. I’ll probably have to get my hands (that I wish I still had) on a generator. It isn’t as though there isn’t enough gasoline left in the city to burn it 24/7 until it all goes bad. Does gas even go bad? I’ll have to look that up.
I cheated a little bit: I’m actually stealing lots of the parts from fully assembled shoes that I’m cutting apart and gluing together.
Tomorrow I’ll finish hers and probably mine too, if I work hard. If I have the time, I think I’m going to try and get the parts together for a shortwave rig. For now I think I’ll put the best antenna I can on the roof. Long term, I know there’s a massive antenna fifty miles or so away that could probably cover the whole United States and much of Canada (if I could figure out how in god’s name to power it). But that's a little much. Short-term survival first. Thriving second.
—A
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Just saying, I love how popular this story has become. Almost five hundred likes and it's been, what, a week? Less? Fifteen dislikes too...
Anyway, another great chapter. The process of discovery being documented like this is enthralling.
it will be interesting when/if sky goes into heat
HA!
Yes, we've had ideas for horse-shoes quite a while ago. No nailing things here.
For once I have nothing to say.
Well besides keep it up!
-Chapter pops up-
Must...use.......all...............strenght.......................................to.................................................read..........................................................and annoy author by posting a comment on how the chapters stillremaingood.......-Ngh.-
readthesmiths.com/articles/Images/Finance/TiredAtWork.jpg
So... how likely is it going to be that Sky tries to dismiss shoes entirely or say he was wasting his time on them?
To be honest, despite the very humane way Sky was going on about cows and all, I would think their own survival needs to take a part in this process as well, not to say that the cows and chickens don't make milk and eggs, but she could worry a little more about other things happening, like other important survival preparations than livestock.
Smart livestock that are likely going to talk like 'this, don't ya' knoow?'
Yeah, that will be the day.
More things are happening! Hurray things!
6048543 Oh dear, I didn't think of that.
A, you're having foals. Whether you like it or not.
6048547 A's put more thought into it that I would/did. Honestly, I didn't get past modifying sandals.
Well, I suppose one solution would be locating the power grid distribution control center and shutting down everything you could, then rerouting whatever little is coming in from the more maintenance-free power plants (solar, etc.) to power the radio tower.
Then, obviously, A must broadcast 50's music 24/7, intermitted with witty news banter.
"This is Three-Horse, neeeeigh!"
Im not sorry.
6048868
You are BRILLIANT!
It does! But that depends heavily on how it's stored and if it's treated for long-term storage beforehand. Realistically you're probably going to get a year out of diesel fuel (probably half that for regular consumer-grade gasoline), maybe two years if you're really lucky.
This is why I call bullshit on movies like The Book of Eli where people are driving around cars thirty years after nuclear war when nobody's got a refinery going. And don't even get me started on Battlefield Earth, where an entire underground hangar (including Harrier aircraft and jet fuel) were in perfect condition after a thousand years.
(In fact, just don't get me started on Battlefield Earth at all. Just... just don't.)
Hahaha!
Make a note for the future, A, fireproof horse boots for chimera wrangling.
To answer the question of our protagonist;
Yes, fuel does go bad. IIRC octane, the stuff you need in most modern car and generator engines has a half-life of 3 years ... Or something in that general direction.
I recommend getting old German diesel generators or getting a car generator.
Car generators are regulated and will output 12V no matter how fast or slow they spin, ideal for usage in simple wind or water Mills.
Wait a minute........most of humanity has disappeared and whoever's left have been turned into ponies. The animals are oddly a lot more sentient now. and the few "humans" left are starting to integrate horse terminology into every day speech. I think I have an idea about what's going on here. I think that whoever is responsible for this whole situation is a time traveling pony and Equestria is our own planet Earth in the very distant future. In the book "The Journal Of the Two Sisters" It stated that Starswirl the Bearded knew several spells for time travel and it even implied that he had met Twilight Sparkle. Time Travel is canon in the MLP universe. Whoever that pony was, they only did all of this in the first place to ensure that pony society would evolve the way their history books said it did. Besides, that would explain why Equestria seems to share so many land marks with the U.S. It's the same bucking place!!!!!!!! For all we know, Ghastly Gorge is probably the grand canyon and horseshoe bay is probably the gulf of mexico. As to the existence of magic, there are two possible explanations. Either magic already exist on Earth and humans simply aren't physically built to be able to use it or all magic in Equestria comes from the Tree of Harmony (where the tree came from, I will never know). However I will admit that this idea leaves some giant loose ends. For example.........where the buck did all the mythological creatures come from!!!!!!!!!!!! While Changelings, Winigos and Sirens could probably have all evolved from ponies and manticores might have evolved from lions (Discord is from another dimension so he doesn't count), that still doesn't explain Hydra's, Cockatrices, Gryphons, Minotaurs and whatever else exist there. Then again, if there's a spell that can suck people (or ponies) into a fictional comic book world, there's probably also one that can bring fictional characters/creatures/objects from books into reality. That's probably the explanation.
6048984 How about Mad Max and Waterworld?
Moooooaaaaarr!
Shoes were neat. Other than that, life goes on.
6049054 In Mad Max they actually do have refineries.
6049593
He also used great extinction, but alright.
6049366 For me it's the whole situation building on my natural paranoia. Introducing someone who is very off and who demonstrates clear signs of either knowing something or of having gone off the deep end is not a good way to reduce the paranoia.
Doesn't help that I'm not a people person and that her personality and especially priorities would severely grate on me. Not sure I wouldn't prefer to got it alone over doing it with her, or just have infrequent contact.
Also, being a dolphin would be so much worse. Disregarding the frequency of dolphin rape, you wouldn't even have limbs. Well, beside that limb, but I'd be hesitant to use it for manipulating items.
Then there's the whole, "breathing is completely a conscious activity, so you can only have one side of your brain asleep at a time," thing. Screw learning magic or adjusting to a new pair of limbs on your back, being a dolphin would be so much harder.
6049007
I thought the same thing an few chapters ago though minus the whole time travel thing but that's an good idea!
AGGGG!.... It's so good!!
My little Dashie ain't got shit on dis.
Yep totally an Equestrian origin story. Probably.
6047380
It's true. It's not healthy for humans to act the way they are, and ponies seem even more dependent on relationships. I think we can expect either a failure to bond turning into a disaster or a better friendship developing between them as time goes on.
6047740
Correct, My Little Pony does not exist in the story's universe. It'd be lame if it did, and A could eventually see a toy in a store and research it or whatever. That's too lame for me.
6048540
I've been positively blown away by the response this story has received. Not only has it been on the main page in one day or another since its release, but people have written spinoffs. Nobody's ever asked to do that about my stuff before, so I take that to be a sign of success. It'll probably never be on EQD (human-story-haters mang), but still. Now to see how long it can keep that. I won't stop writing entries, so the real question is how long will people still care about it. (well I won't stop writing entries until I'm done. I will stop after that)
6048543
The real question is, if this did happen, how much A might notice/write about. A fully sapient being is likely, even if the cycle was the same as it is for horses, to have much more control everything than a horse would.
6048547
Even when it's not easy to draw. He's right, though. We've known A wasn't going to have nails for over a week I think.
6048657
I'm not sure A's sanity could handle it if the cows started talking right now. Or ever. I think that would be a bit much.
6048791
As before, I think an intelligent, thinking being could probably will their way out of that situation and give them both some space, if it did come down to something like that (which I'm not saying it will, just pontificating here).
6048868
That's a really good idea, actually. If it shows up in the story, take this comment as my way of saying I didn't actually think of it. That's the hard part, since I write so far in advance that often times people talk about things that I already know are coming soon. This idea, though. Didn't think of this one.
6048984
I very much enjoyed Battlefield Earth! But that might just be because I enjoy bad movies. Like, really, really bad movies. Battlefield Earth goes right up there on my shelf with "The Room." 10/10 would watch again.
But yeah. A doesn't know a ton of things I appreciate when people talk about real-world science in the comments, though of course A's lack of knowledge on things doesn't generally reflect my own (usually an hour or more of research goes into each chapter).
6048987
Stylish, black rubber boots. That other people talk about pairings in... >.>
6049001
Now if only A could read the comments...
6049007
Now what worries me is that people are getting closer and closer with their theories. Eventually somebody in one of these huge thick posts is going to get it right. More and more information is showing up in every chapter, it's only a matter of time. I hope people will still enjoy the story when they've figured out the mystery of earth! I guess people won't actually know if they're right, even if they happened to voice a correct theory.
Not that I'm confirming your theory is right. It's just the one that made me think of this. Sooner or later...
6049366
I completely agree that the story's readers and commenters are some of the best I've ever seen on Fimfiction. Every chapter it seems there's some discussion going. I try to get involved when I can, though of course I could do much more if I didn't already know the answers and thus I'm not allowed to speculate.
I love to see the different interpretations people have for the characters, particularly since even the gender is still disputed in the comments. Granted, more and more seem to think A is male, so...
6049596
Well that theory is quite popular in the comments right now, so you wouldn't be alone i thinking it.
6050233
Woah! I dunno if I could ever be compared to a seminal work like that, but I know I take this story about as seriously as that story's author does.
6050441
Again, I worry that eventually somebody's going to get things right in the comments, and then everybody's gonna see it, and the mystery's gonna be gone. Even if I don't confirm it... it's only a matter of time. My estimate is that it will take until 4 weeks of entries are posted. At that point, I think all the information will be on the table that is required to solve the mystery. Can the story still be fun after that?
6051007
I'm not quite as against poly-amorous relationships, particularly in a survival situation. This is not a clopfic, though, nor is it even remotely related to that sort of thing. Even if ponies did have some sort of biological cycle closer to horses than humans, I see no reason why the mind and will couldn't overcome to make it more-or-less a normal few days for them, so long as they took a few precautions. The society doesn't seem to suggest groups of ponies going off into disgusting orgies at a moment's notice. Further, even if it did, I probably wouldn't include it in this story because that's gross and this is about surviving, not mating.
Most sources I read tend to agree that goats and cattle will survive in most parts of the world, both as escaped animals and those kept on free- range type farms, breaking down their enclosures and the like. To say nothing of the more rural parts of the world where they're kept uncaged. Only those in the factory farms are categorically doomed.
Chickens, on the other hand, stand little chance of surviving in the wild, except where they are an invasive species with few predators (like on the Hawaiian islands).
6049559 Oh, I probably just forgot XP.
6051007
Okay, I get why we SHOULD keep them fed and all, but she could at the very least be more worried about other parts of the survival process.
6051133
Hey, it might give him someone to talk to.
This sentence gave me an idea. I read it wrong, and it gave me an idea. A great idea! I've gotta PM you this...
Nice touch here. The story medium indicates certain personality traits, and you apply them to A.
Diegetically, it's very neat to see A fabricate. Who needs thumbs? They'd be nice, but he seems to be getting by without them. I know I'd be less handy even with hands.
Also, Cloudy's at least trying to fly. Good for her. She may get off the ground some day, but apparently that isn't today. Still, I hope she keeps it up. Likewise A and running. That may prove necessary in the future. The city's pets aren't getting any less hungry...
Can't help but to think that A's really missing an important point related to the whole short time survival thing: accept that new body of yours for what it is and learn to use it. You don't have to like it because of that, in fact you are still free to despise it... but you really aren't a four legged human and rather sooner than later there will be a situation that requires running, ehm, galloping.
It's great how you write A's insistence on being human though as opposed to Sky who's gone about trying out her new body's capabilities while being alone. Oh, and nice touch of A with the whole making noise to give her a moment of forewarning... A's been practicing the gentlehorsely side.
Sky giggled.
There! Character development in two well placed words!
And of course great reflections on the whole language thing; something's begun to shift in A's mind after all.
Our & we... I really like how you sneak in these incremental developments.
/spam
6051133
Well, obviously :)
How many novels have you read where you hadn't figured out the plot at least three long chapters before its conclusion? You still read on for that satisfying end. Also by now this story's comments are half the fun (and make the wait for the next chapter bearable)!
6051133 well i think he would write about the possibility that he's gonna become a father
Fun fact: gas actually does go bad after about a year or so... I think
Depends on if you remember the right instructions in the right order. You could be making shoes or a tension fabric building.
That's so sad. She's given up a lot to come to ... or am I wrong?
Well, for starters horse-puns will be a pretty prevalent thing.
The ethanol in the gasoline will spoil after a few months. The good thing about being in LA is that marina gas should be abundant. No ethanol, with stablizers added, it can last years.
8163217 would be more efficient to use car batteries wired up to solar panels.
Depends on how it's stored, what it's mixed with, etc. If I ignore evaporation...
Got ethanol in it? A year or two, tops, and you'd better be prepared to drain water out of the tank before you try to use it. But only if you've got fuel stabilizer in there. It'll screw up carburetors, too. No, I don't work in a garage, but I got "the talk" about smol engine care a year or two after I got my first lawnmower after buying a house and getting away from landscaped apartment complexes... and needed a new carburetor.
I wonder if I could get away with referring to my lawn mower engine as a pony engine...
No ethanol, and does have stabilizer? Well, I had no issues at all with two-year-old gas stored in an airtight container, but I wouldn't want to bet my life on it.
Diesel may be a different story, but I don't know offhoof. I just know you can run a diesel truck off of jet fuel, because we did it at a summer job at an airport.
8899981
it does. that's why it stored in cold. oil does too, unless it is left down where it was
civilian gas go bad after couple of years. diesel is stored for longer. some military grade mixtures hold for several decades if sealed.
gas absorbs water, thanks to ethanol in it