The Coming Storm

by Jay911

Life in Ponytown

JULY 1

Happy birthday, Canada, I said silently to myself and the country that for all intents and purposes no longer existed.

For all I knew, the entire population of the country now consisted of one unicorn, one regular pony, and one defective (but improving) pegasus.

I let the anthem and fireworks play in my head, while the flags hanging off the front of the building cracked in the medium-strength breeze coming from the south-southeast, carrying with it water vapor from the lake which would inevitably condense and fall to the aforementioned defunct country as rain later on.

My reverie was disrupted with a clank from behind me and a shouted voice. "Never mind! I found her. Up here again." Hoofsteps crossed the roof and shortly thereafter, Swift's voice was much closer and softer. "No clouds to snag a ride on today?"

I kept my eyes shut to try to focus on one last fleeting sensation of the climate around me. "Not humid enough yet," I sighed. Opening an eye and folding in my wings, I looked sideways at her. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. Just wondered where you'd gotten to. You normally tell us all where you're going."

"Nobody was up yet," I responded. "Didn't think you'd take kindly to me rousing you to tell you not to worry about me because I was heading out."

"To tell you the truth, I wanted to come with you next time you did this," Swift said, sitting down beside me.

"What for?" I asked.

"I can do more than just lift and move things with this, you know," she said, tapping her horn with a hoof. "I can sense ... Idunno, I guess it's magic. It feels like there's magic all around us."

"Have you detected any other unicorns?" I said.

"No, not as far as I can tell," she said with a scrunched-up face, miffed at me unwittingly derailing the conversation. "I just want to sit and watch you."

"You think I have magic," I finally deduced.

"I just want to see what I can see," she said, waving a hoof towards me and the roof's edge. "Go do your Batman pose again and play weather vane."

"It's hardly a Batman pose," I murmured, but got up and went to the edge from which the winds were coming anyway. Focusing again, I let my wings unfurl, and shut my eyes, letting the breeze - which had died down somewhat, but was still enough to make my mane flutter a little - talk to me.

I took in the differing atmospheric pressures, the airflow and its subtle changes in direction and velocity, and the little bits of water vapor that were technically too small to detect with the naked eye, but I could sense (or smell? Feel? I have no idea) gathering against my hide, bunching up briefly before sliding past me and scattering again.

I looked over my shoulder, lowering a wing briefly to let me see Swift. She was staring at me with her horn glowing yellow. "What?" she said.

I smiled. "I just wondered if when you were doing something other than your Uri Geller impression if something else glowed like maybe your eyes or whatever."

"Oh, hush."

I giggled and turned back to sampling the environment around me.

"I could tell you I have x-ray vision, and you'd not know if it was a fib or real," Swift said out of the blue.

"If you do, have that I mean, tell me what kind of weird-ass joint we have in our limbs that lets us bend them like horses one second and humans the next. It's like we have ball joints instead of knees."

"I was joking, but that might be an interesting thing to look at some day if we find a working x-ray machine."

"Pick any hospital. Just bring along a semi-tanker of fuel to power it back up," I said. "By the way... speaking of semi-tankers of fuel. That cold storage warehouse where you said they have huge generators and fuel stores and high-security fences. Did you turn anything on or off when you went in there?"

"Maybe," Swift said. "I don't know. I went to find lights at one point. Why?"

"Just thinkin' about that weird transmission that faded in and out for a few days. I wondered if that was a bunker phoning home that you broke in."

"I did not 'break in'," Swift said with indignance. "I walked right through the door."

"After magically picking the lock, I bet. Right?"

"...I plead the fifth."

"Wrong country," I quipped, and thought back briefly to my ruminance on countries earlier. I was getting bored; the currents weren't saying anything new. "You got any data yet?"

"I guess," she said, and I folded up and turned to face her. "I don't know what it means, though."

"What did you get?" I asked, walking over to her as she stood.

She made a shrug with her forelegs. "I... think you have some kind of magic. Not a lot. Or at least you weren't expending a lot in doing what you were doing."

"Swift, I was standing there feeling the breeze hit me. I probably could have fallen asleep."

She made another noncommittal noise and began to follow me back to the hatchway. "I really thought I'd get more. Are you planning to do any cloud surfing later?"

"If conditions get right," I admitted. It still felt weird to be talking about this stuff with the others, but I was warming to it. "I suppose you want me to let you sit in on that too?"

"Yes please," she smiled. "Maybe I can figure out how to let me and Jeff walk on clouds like you can."

"Sure, take away my unique abilities," I joked with her as I ducked in through the hatch door. "You don't see me begging to be able to bend spoons without a horn, but suddenly the pegasus can stand on clouds and you act like I'm cheating."

"When the pegasus can get on clouds without using a one-and-a-half story building as a step stool, then it won't be cheating."

"Ouch!" I laughed.

Jeff was putting away dishes - bowls, to be more precise; we frequently had less and less use for flat plates, considering three out of four of us had limited dexterity with cutlery - but stopped when we came back downstairs.

"Are you going out soon?" he asked me, picking up a notepad from the table.

"Yeah, in a bit," I nodded. It was my turn to do the "patrol" run. "You want to come?"

"No, not unless you want the company. But I do have a shopping list."

I looked over the notepad. We were about equal in our mouth-writing skills, which was to say neither could really read the other's scratchings without plenty of time and effort. But we both tried. Little miss magical quill didn't bug us about it, either, which was a plus.

"First aid kits," I said with realization upon reading that line. "...and veterinary supplies. Yeah, okay, that makes sense."

"We've just about cleaned out the health clinic here in the store, and we need to be honest with ourselves," he said. "None of us really meet the criteria for what's left in there at this point."

"Yeah," I said. I tried to crack a smile. "I've seen what they do when a horse breaks a leg, though. Either one of you comes at me with a shotgun..."

"Just keep being as careful as we have been so far," Jeff said in all seriousness. "All of us. We've been lucky til now."

"Now ya jinxed it," I drawled, looking further down the list. "Phones? Don't we have enough in the display cas-" I then noticed the type of phone he was specifying and smacked a hoof to my head.

"If you can power them up as soon as you find them, all the better," he said. "Who knows - maybe the network is still alive."

He was referring to satellite phones. They were like bulky, oversized cell phones, for the most part, except they talked not to cell towers, but to satellites orbiting the planet. We knew quite well that the cellular network was gone, except for the little bit we'd recovered on our own, but it was entirely possible that whatever had caused us all to become brightly colored equines didn't affect the ring of satellites around the earth. GPS was still largely operational, as far as we could tell from the truck's dash, so at least the theory was sound.

"Anyway," I said, moving on. "Tes... ooooh, I remember hearing about these." TESLA home battery systems.

"I don't think you could disassemble an installation on your own," Jeff said. "Probably not even the two of us together. I suspect it might take the finesse of a certain someone with her fancy magic." He smiled. "I suspect these are few and far between, and odds are astronomical there's even any in Canada at this point, let alone within our reach. It'd be a huge boon though if we could score even just one, to bank our generated power in."

"Agreed," I nodded. "Anything else besides the usual?" - meaning, of course, edible food and fresh water. And things to read we all hadn't read 13 times apiece already.

"What, is that too easy?" he smirked, nodding at the list.

I smiled and tucked it under a wing - a trick I'd been pulling lately since they weren't good for much else. "See you in a while," I said. "Buddy! C'mon."

An hour later, I was on the road - or, more precisely, off the road at a roadside gas station, hacking up a lung.

"Puah," I exclaimed, spitting out hydrocarbons as I jammed the length of garden hose into the SUV's filler pipe. Gasoline started running from the underground tank into the SUV.

Buddy looked at me from his guard point with a disdainful look.

"You try it some time," I told him. "Tastes like ass."

He looked away and continued to scan for threats - of which there probably were none, but better to be safe than sorry.

"This stuff's not going to last forever," I murmured, listening to the fuel gurgle through the hose into the truck. "Might not have to worry about it much longer."

I suppose I could find a nice full station somewhere or a tanker and dump a couple gallons of stabilizer in it, I thought to myself. That was probably the best solution, since it would involve less siphoning too, especially if I chose a tanker. Or maybe it was time to eschew gasoline entirely? Diesel was supposed to last longer, wasn't it?

"Or! Or," I blurted out aloud, startling Buddy. He huffed at me and shook his head.

"Sorry, bud," I said. "The answer's obvious. I should have thought of this when Jeff mentioned the batteries this morning. We go electric."

The odds were half-decent that I'd find a Model S somewhere in the suburbs of the GTA. The only problem was that it didn't have a big cargo space like the SUV (even with the "two trunks", or a trailer hitch for the flatbed trailer. Maybe it was best to toss the idea around with the others before abandoning our SUV - which also had my old ham radio in it, which an electric car wouldn't have.

After a lot longer than if I'd been using a proper pump, the SUV's tank was finally full, and I stashed away the siphon kit, reeking of gasoline. "I'm sure this smells worse for you, pal," I apologized to Buddy, keeping it as far from his riding position (passenger seat, naturally) as possible.

A quick raid through the convenience store - with its plentiful spoiled frozen goods and melted ice cream and so on - gained us some warm drinks and a few random canned goods, plus some candy bars and chips. I gave Buddy some lukewarm bottled water and offered him some regular potato chips, but he balked at them and just drank his fill as we moved on.

I was still having a hard time getting the taste of gas out of my mouth when I saw something in a field beside the road, and pulled over to a stop, looking at it over the steering wheel.

I sat there for a long few moments - long enough that Buddy 'ruff'ed at me.

"What the hell," I said, putting the truck in park. "Stay here, I won't be long."

I got out and hopped the fence. As I crossed the field, I mused about how Sue and I used to call these things Shreddies in the winter, when there was snow atop them.

I stood before it, shook my head and shrugged, and reached out and took a chomp out of the big round hay bale.

Chewing on the straw, I realized it wasn't any better or worse than anything else I'd ever eaten. It definitely didn't light up my taste buds, but it was probably sustenance enough in a pinch.

I walked back to the fence and hopped it easily once again, then climbed back in the truck, where Buddy just turned to look at me silently.

"You tell anyone I did that and I'll paint all your spots pink," I said simply, putting the truck in gear and moving on again.

Buddy just made another huffing sound - was it a chuckle? - and looked back out the window once more.

The rest of the day went on in a cyclical routine - break up the monotony of driving around an empty world by listening to CDs of music by people who were no longer around to make more music, and feel depressed at that; find a place that might have an item on Jeff's list, stop and check it out; load up whatever spoils we obtained, then drive around some more.

We did manage to find most of the things we were looking for, which made it a good day overall. After parking the SUV back at the auto shop, I trotted back into the store proper, humming to myself.

"...Picture hangers paper cutters waffle irons window shutters paint removers window louvAAH!"

This last bit, while not in the song running through my head, was definitely justified, as Swift galloped around a corner and nearly collided with me.

"Great!" she said without any form of greeting, grabbing hold of a hoof while I was trying to settle my wings back down again. "Come on, I need your expertise to settle an argument."

My heart stopped trying to exit through my throat as I was tugged along, but it was still racing. "What? What's the matter??"

Swift didn't say another word, and just dragged me to a cleared-away part of the store, where Jeff was staring at something on the floor and shaking his head.

"This," Swift said. "I want to put it up. And don't you give me any grief about the name," she said, whirling on me again and jabbing a hoof in my direction. "Just tell me if it can be done or not."

Jeff sighed. "I didn't say it couldn't be done, Swift. I think it's a good idea to advertise ourselves to people. I said there were better ways of going about-"

"You had your turn," she said, holding a hoof up in Jeff's direction. "Let Stormy have her say."

What I had been deposited in front of was a mishmash of sign parts arranged in a row. There was a large stylized cursive P from the name of the mall, Pickering Town Centre; then the last three letters of the Sony Store logo. The first two letters from a Toys 'R' Us sign, a capital W from the Manchu Wok in the food court, and then the N from... I don't know where, really.

"Please explain to her that she has fluorescent, LED, and neon lighting together," Jeff said plaintively. "The wiring would be a nightm-"

"It's all just electric light," Swift said dismissively. "These were the easiest ones to get un-mounted."

I tried to figure out how to let them both win. To be honest, no matter how I felt about the name, it was a good idea to have something on the exterior of the place to let people know we were here, and just lighting up a random sign wouldn't have the same impact as something which basically screamed "we're like you, come find safe haven".

I looked to Jeff and picked what I thought was the hardest task of the endeavor. "Is it that difficult to get a neon transformer hooked up?"

"Its high voltage output is inherently dangerous and the whole thing would be difficult to protect from the elements, and might not even work well on the kind of power we have at hoof," he pointed out.

"Fair enough," I said. I looked to Swift. "Can we find a replacement W? Say, from..." I quirked an eyebrow. "I don't know, a Wal-Mart?"

Jeff chuckled and Swift whirled around to look at the relatively small lettering over the exit from the store into the mall - more or less the right size for her sign. "Oh. I guess that might work, yeah," she said with a nervous, embarrassed laugh.

"Jeff, I presume the CFLs and LEDs aren't a big deal?"

"They'll need to be wired separately instead of in series, but I suppose it'll be fine."

"Do you have a place for this all to go?" I said to Swift.

"Right above our entryway," she nodded. I was pleased by that; I feared the plan was to put it over the spotting deck, which troubled me for two reasons. One, light washing out night vision, and two, I wanted anyone who felt that the sign constituted a threat to concentrate their attention (and perhaps fire) on another, more distant part of the building (which was why our entrance was so far away from our living space in the first place).

"Okay," I said. "Glad we could work that out. In that case, I'm going to sort out my haul and try to put it away, and then do something up top that you gave me an idea for. Don't worry, it's not got to do with clouds or weather," I said, cutting off Swift's protests. "I promise, I'll come get you for that."

And so, a couple of hours later, I was struggling to carry several items up the roof stairs by myself. Jeff was busy wiring all the junk together and Swift was mounting it on the side of the building, with Buddy watching out for her for anyone approaching the site, so I was by myself on my mission.

We might as well have called today 'Catching Up On Shit We Shoulda Done Weeks Ago' Day, I said to myself as I hoisted the paint can up onto the roof. I had to go make a second trip for the roller and the tray - I tried tucking them under my wings, with the paint can's handle in my teeth, but lost my feathered grip on the roller tray and had it tumble all the way to the warehouse floor, necessitating I start completely over.

Between finding the satellite phones (which I did manage to do, though only one of the six I got were activated, so I'd have to figure out how to make the other five work later on tonight), re-thinking the idea of using a gas automobile, and doing what we all were doing now, it was all stuff we should have put in place as soon as we were settled. I wanted to smack myself in the head for forgetting some of this, especially the satcoms.

The paint smell almost drove me to my knees, but that was probably partially from opening the lid of the can with a screwdriver held in my mouth. The deep breaths from the effort to make that work caused me to inhale a lungful of paint fumes, but at least it wasn't the paint itself. I'd look pretty stupid with a bright yellow muzzle.

I managed to pour enough paint in the tray to make the roller work with it. Learning from my mistake opening the paint can, I went back downstairs and found a long handle for the roller. Holding it between my forehooves, I even managed to stand on my hind legs for a bit, propping myself up and laughing a little for the thrill it gave me to be at least pretending to be bipedal if only for a moment.

Finally, I got to work.

Three cans and 90 minutes later, I heard voices coming up the stairs. I called out, "Careful! Wet paint," from across the roof.

"What are...? Oh, you should have let me help. This must have been back-breaking," Swift said as the two of them came out of the hatch.

"I'm almost done. It was tough for a bit, but once I got into a rhythm, it turned out OK, I think," I replied. I propped myself up on the roller's handle again and stood tall just for shits & giggles. Smiling, I said, "What do you think?"

Both of them turned their heads a little sideways to try to read the large letters I'd painted on the building roof.

ALIVE

INSIDE

x3

"Times three?" Jeff inquired.

I looked at the two of them pointedly for a long moment. "Can I just add a little '+1' beside it?"

"I won't tell Buddy if you won't," Swift quipped to Jeff.

"The point isn't to give a census of how many dogs and cats are living with us," I shot back. "The important bit is what's before the times three."

"It's very good," Jeff acknowledged, and Swift nodded with a smile. "Now we only need a helicopter or an airplane to spot it."

"Or someone better with these than me," I added, spreading out my wings, and nearly falling from my perch on my hind legs from the change in balance. I grinned sheepishly once I got my rear hooves back underneath me steadily.

"That too," Swift acknowledged, rolling her eyes at my near-fall. She cast a look around at the horizon. "I thought you said there was going to be a cloud front today, feathervane?"

"Obviously I haven't perfected that either," I said, looking around along with her. The skies were clear from one end to the other as far as I could see.

"Maybe that's for the best," Jeff said. "We've all worked hard today and deserve a rest. You should come out front and see the fruits of our labors too."

"Let me finish up up here and I'll be right down," I said. I dipped the roller in the paint and set to finishing off the 3 - and preparing to add the plus one.

Fifteen minutes later, I'd wrapped up (and figured out how to hop over the still-drying lettering on the roof - wishing I could have just flown over it all, and for that matter, over the edge of the building to where my friends were) and was out in front of our entrance.

Swift was inspecting one of our mini-gardens when I arrived, while Jeff was fiddling with a junction box near the entrance door. "All right," he said, standing up. "I think we're ready for this."

"You haven't turned it on yet?" I asked.

"Waiting for you," he said. Then he stepped aside and gestured Swift in. "And since it was your idea, milady..."

Swift stepped forward and looked at the bundle of wires inside the junction box, at Jeff's urging. He instructed her, "Take the two white ones in your magic and hold them together, when you're ready. If you get a shock - can you get a shock while magically holding something?"

"We'll find out in a second," she said, grinning nervously. "Knock me clear if I start shaking like a leaf."

"Of course," Jeff nodded.

The wires were surrounded in a yellow magic glow, then a brief yellowish-white spark from within the glow as they connected.

"That looks awesome!!" Swift gushed, trying to stand back and look at her creation while holding the wires together at the same time.

I had to admit, it was an impressive feat, and looked about as good as a cobbled-together sign could. I smiled and nodded my approval.

"It's great," Jeff agreed, accepting Swift's sudden hug. I urf'ed and flared out my wings when she collected me up in the embrace as well.

"This is so going to work," she said, pulling us tightly close. "Now everypony can see us for miles!"

Supper that night was a veritable feast. I don't know how Swift still had the energy to make such a plentiful spread after working herself to the bone all day. Maybe magical ponies don't exert energy like those of us who have to get physical in order to do things.

We were sitting around digesting and going over my haul from the scavenging run for the day, and chatting about some of the ideas I'd had while out driving.

"I thought the truck was running rough the last time I used it," Jeff nodded when I brought up the fuel situation.

"The gas is probably starting to go in most every place we can reach it," Swift replied. "It's probably wise to look for a diesel powered vehicle any time now - they'll last for a while, so long as we're picky with our fuel sources and keep the engines clean and well-running."

Swift was speaking with such authority on the subject that I realized I'd nearly forgotten what she - Jill - had done for a living before the Event. This was her bread and butter.

"Electrics aren't really going to be ideal due to the small storage space, but we probably shouldn't rule them out either," she went on, mildly surprising me.

"Because diesel will eventually give up too?" Jeff hazarded a guess.

"Exactly," Swift nodded. "In about a year-" she shivered, probably at the thought of us still trying to fend for ourselves after that amount of time "-internal combustion is just not gonna work. Not without a lot of hassle tearing them down and cleaning them out. And using up probably all the stabilizer we can find just to make a couple of tanks of gas run without issues."

"I guess we'd better look pretty seriously for those battery banks," I suggested. "And some Mod-"

She pointed a hoof at me with a smirk. "We don't need to round up a fleet of your luxury sports car. Some of the hybrids on the roads today can be configured to use only their electric motors. There are hybrid pickups and mini-SUVs out there that fit that bill. Bring 'em in, disable the gas engine, and we should be able to run them as long as we have ways to charge 'em."

I felt my ears fold back. "Is there any reason I can't go find a Model S? I always wanted one."

Both of them laughed out loud.

We were about to turn in for the night when Jeff was studying the weather radar. "Hey, Stormy, there's something showing up approaching from the south side of the lake," he declared. "I know it's late, but are you going to give it a shot?"

I thought about it for a minute. I did feel like I'd been cheated out of my chance to play with some vapor earlier in the day, by misreading the climate somehow. I wandered over to the screen and watched the image for a couple of seconds. Just like he said, there was an indistinct blob crossing Lake Ontario and heading almost right for us.

"Same kind of front I saw this morning," I mused aloud. I thought it was moving a little fast, but with luck, I'd be able to 'catch' it and hold it down like I had with other clouds. "Yeah, what the hell, why not."

"All right!" Jeff said excitedly. "We'll be right up."

Moments later, they came up as promised, finding me standing with two hooves on the parapet of the building and the other two on the roof, in what Swift called my 'Batman pose' minus having my wings spread out.

"I brought a first aid kit," Swift teased, magically toting along a repurposed laptop bag we'd stuffed some medical and veterinary supplies into.

"Ha ha," I said flatly, turning back to the night sky. "I'm not sure about this. I'm not feeling it."

"Not feeling it? Turning chicken? Hey, chickens can't fly eith-"

"There's no breeze," I interrupted her. "And I'm not picking up any pressure differentials in that direction."

"So... no clouds coming?" Jeff asked for clarification.

"I'm not sure what's coming," I frowned.

"Sssh!" Swift cut in. After a moment, she set down the first-aid bag, so that even the strange shimmering-twinkling sound of her magic in use was gone.

"What do you hear-" Jeff began to ask, and then stopped, presumably because he picked up the same thing then that I did.

Whump whump whump whump whump whump whump whump.

Swift was up beside me in a fraction of a second, peering into the darkness. "Is that...?"

"I can't see them if they are," I told her. Weren't search helicopters supposed to run with giant spotlights turned on all the time?

"Uh... ladies?" Jeff said, an unnerving tremolo in his voice. "Maybe we should go inside..."

I missed whatever else he said, because an uneasy, primal fear started out just then in my gut and spread through me like lightning. Not only were my wings splayed out, but it felt like every strand of hair and fur on my body had stood on end. Involuntarily I found myself backing up to put my forehooves on the roof deck.

"I, uh..." I began, but as I turned to say whatever it was that I was going to say to Swift, I found that she was not there; she'd already pushed herself back even further, backing away from the edge and towards the roof hatch.

I followed her lead, not sure what was going on and not really caring at that particular moment. Even my analytical side had given up on me. Every fiber of my being was telling me that, despite the fact I'd longed to hear rotor blades approaching for over a month now, the approach of this particular group of them was a Very Bad Thing.

Finally I gave in to my urges and turned to head for the hatch at a dead run.

Jeff and I managed to keep our dinner down and stay just below the hatch, but Swift had dashed down the ladder and run back into the main part of the store. Buddy went after her, so I felt she was in good paws. Hoov- Whatever!

With the hatch pulled down as far as it would go and still allow our two pairs of eyes to peer outside, Jeff and I watched as a trio of machines - barely visible against the night sky - whumped their way over towards the nuclear plant, a few miles down the road, circle it, and dip below our horizon with landing lights suddenly lit up. It looked like two gunships of some kind I'd never seen before, and a larger cargo craft.

We stayed there silently shivering, even though the night was warm and (as mentioned earlier) windless, until the machines rose up again eleven minutes later, shut off their lights, and vanished into the black.

Comments

[SolangeEggbert]

"CDs of music by people who were no longer around " - made me think.
Enjoyed the chapter - thanks!

[Celefin]

I know I'm repeating myself... but this just sooooooooo good!
Your characters are wonderful and you keep them in their established character perfectly all the time and the dynamic between them just works.
That cobbled together sign? Brilliance.
And this.

I walked back to the fence and hopped it easily once again, then climbed back in the truck, where Buddy just turned to look at me silently. "You tell anyone I did that and I'll paint all your spots pink," I said simply, putting the truck in gear and moving on again. Buddy just made another huffing sound - was it a chuckle? - and looked back out the window once more.

Perfect.
This playfulness is what drives this story for very large parts. Of course, that also makes the small suspenseful parts we've seen feel a lot more suspenseful when things suddenly get serious like with the dog pack (also neat with buddy as diplomat btw.) and now the HPI. That's like 'uh, playtime's over, what now?!'

See, the problem with your story is that if I want to describe everything I liked I'd be quoting at least 85% of your story back to you :) Hence the very short notes of appreciation so far. Add to this your regular updates of nicely sized chapters... *content sigh*
You go!

[Celefin]

So, I've just begun to re-read the whole thing to pass the way for the next (regular and nicely sized, as you do) update. And it's worth it, since you've packed so much fine details in your descriptions that I missed in the flow of the first read through. Your regularly spaced shifts between descriptions where not much happens but that paint the scene and the following action that then plays out on that vivid scene work really well.
And again, characterizations. You take your time, introduce properly, bring the character to life and first then throw in the action in the best manner of making the reader identify with the protagonists and first then put them through trials, making the reader interested in how they'll get through that in their own unique ways.

I loved the description of 'Casa Jill', it's exactly the surreal setting that I'd imagine in a situation like this. Just hope it's far enough away from the grocery section when all the meat there does go bad. Now Tom is taking the transformation surprisingly well after the initial breakdown at the racetrack. That was important, by the way... too little despair at that deeply shocking experience in most stories.
That he's a mare now has somewhat faded into the background by now though I does hope it will play a larger role again at some point. The giggling instead of chuckling is a nice touch and reminder though.
speaking of the transformation:

But inside my cozy little den, all the blankets and pillows were adorned with Disney princesses and the like.
“I got you some stuff to make you feel right at home,” she said teasingly. “Have a good night, Tom.”

This has to be one of the very best scenes and really cements Jill (or Swift, of course) as the somewhat annoying but caring and lovable character she is. You also introduce us to her other, strong side when she rescues Tom from falling to her death -'a fierce look in her eyes'-.
Just works.

So... have an essay because I'm having a nice cup of coffee on a slow morning.
*pushing this story on several people by now - better half is really enjoying it, doesn't have a fimfic account though*

[Starscribe]

Loved the little details, like the sign image. Really cute!

Excited for the first sight of the HPI outside of LPoE! Well I guess we've already seen them now, but...

I really think the story format is working. I love how it doesn't try to imitate the journal of the main story, it just tells its own story and tells it well. At the end of the chapter I tried to upvote the story again with how impressed I'd been... but of course it didn't work. X.x

[ThePrinceOfTheNorth]

Holy crap, I forgot Canada Day!

Oh well, to late for that, I suppose.

Have to agree with Starscribe's earlier analysis of that sign. Points for both creativity and good old human/pony ingenuity.

[ChaosDX1]

"That looks awesome!!"

It does! Probably! The image broke...

[theoldenbrony]

A little late to the party hear, but, singing Hardware Store by Weird Al is just hilarious!

[Lightwavers]

I do like the little interactions shown here. I wonder what the long-term plan for this story is. There isn’t too much detail about pegasus magic in the PaP-verse, so that could be interesting.

[Doctor Hugo Jager]

Wow, swift is truly the master of unlocking