Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 1
“You know you're going to love it, Sky.” The mare in question had supplemented her typically nonexistent wardrobe with a long black scarf with a red streak, along with a pair of flying goggles. Moriah had a pair too, taken from the many gifts Equestria had given, though she also had a leather jacket and pants, both tailored for her by the pony who called herself "Cloudy Skies".
“I'm not sure I will...” Sky advanced to where the aircraft sat, nudging the open door with one hoof. “These just look like tubes...”
“They are. Aluminum tubes!”
“And cloth. We're... going to fly in this? Just some tubes and some cloth? Is that safe?”
Moriah nodded vigorously. She had swept her mane back that morning, gelling and grooming it in preparation for the new arrivals. Just because she now lived in a body that disgusted her didn't mean she would let it fall into disrepair, or look less than presentable when making a first impression. “Don't you fly with less, Sky? Just those feathers and those wings. I promise your bones are weaker than these poles.”
Of course, Moriah didn't actually know that. This was the same model ultralight she had learned on as a kid. Assembling it had been harder than she remembered, but it hadn't flown that differently. It would’ve been easier if she had been able to use her horn, but considering things she pointed it at often disintegrated, she wasn’t about to take that risk with the plane she was flying. “Well yeah, but if something bad happens, we might not be high enough for me to get out!”
“I won’t let something bad happen.” She gestured to her own sides, notably devoid of wings. “I don’t have any chance of living through it. You can bet I’ll be careful.”
“Lonely Day really went with you?”
“Every weekend. Alex loves flying. She’s begged me every week to let her take the controls. She’s not afraid, and she doesn’t even have wings.”
“Day isn’t afraid of anything…” She poked her head into the belly of the little plane. “Looks pretty secure I guess.”
“It’s very secure.” She privately added, ‘I made sure of that this morning when I finished assembling it.’ She didn’t say that part out loud, though. Poor Sky was fearful of enough without her adding enough to scare her out of flying. Moriah could go alone, of course. But that wasn’t much of a first impression. The first new colonists ever were arriving in Alexandria today, and Alex wasn’t here to greet them. Nobody else seemed to want to, so that meant the duty fell to her. If she just arrived on her own, it wouldn’t look like Alexandria cared about them. Nevermind they were going to have a feast tonight, blow some of the last of their fresh food. It would be cans and more cans until Oliver’s next crop came in.
“We can’t just wait until they arrive? You said this wasn’t much faster than driving anyway, and if they’re close enough we’re going to reach them today…”
“Might be slower. Depends on the wind.” She gestured. “Get in, Sky. You’ll enjoy it. Quit second-guessing yourself.”
“O-Okay.” The pegasus pondered the door one last time, then hopped up, crawling around the front seat to sit in back. There were no controls back there; it wasn’t a copilot seat. This was only an ultralight, a plane with less power than some go-karts. There was a thrill to soaring through the air with so little between you and the sky, as close to truly flying as Moriah would ever experience.
If only the goddamn “Preservation Spell” hadn’t made her a unicorn. If only it hadn’t got lots of things wrong about her. Maybe she wouldn’t resent the Equestrians so much if they had given her more reason to be grateful. Maybe she wouldn’t loathe herself so much either. Pity Joseph was too frightened of heights; it was always good to have him around to drown her sorrows. She wouldn’t trust herself to drink just one glass of wine before flying.
Moriah kicked the triangular stops away from the wheels, slamming the door shut behind her by the rope tied there. The cockpit had been cramped before, but for a pony it was practically roomy. There was little to be done to adjust the joystick for pony control; even clumsy hooves could manipulate it with ease. Her legs could even reach the pedals, though they had added padding to the seat so her back wouldn’t go unsupported through the entire flight.
She made a show of the last of the pre-flight checks, going through them as though moving through a carefully choreographed dance. Alex had been a rapid learner and been able to help; she had done most of them herself this time, and only had the last few to go. Five minutes later, and she flicked the electric ignition. The engine roared, and the little ultralight began lurching forward along the ground. Her heart began to pound as they rolled along the deserted street. She felt the lightness as the wheels tried and failed to rip themselves free of Earth’s cruel grip, then the elation as they did, taking her up and up into the sky. Nothing like the heights a commercial aircraft might reach, which was part of what would limit their speed. The turbulence at such low altitudes could easily shake an ultralight to pieces.
A brisk wind could too, though she wouldn’t want to be airborne in anything during storm conditions, be it made from cloth or metal. Sky cheered from behind her as they rushed up and up, though they never got higher than about two thousand feet. So low, that the objects below them were still easy to distinguish. On a day like this, Moriah could easily navigate just by following the highway. That was exactly what she intended to do, fly along the highway until they saw any sign of the caravan moving in.
“We’re so high!” Sky shouted over the engine, which roared not so much because it was actually that loud as because it was only a few feet from their heads and the cabin wasn’t fully enclosed. That made things more exciting too, plus it justified wearing awesome flying goggles. Shame none of the helmets she found had fit on a stupid pony head. “I’ve come up this high a few times, but it’s been hard building up the endurance! The books from Equestria say that pegasus ponies can walk on clouds, but they’re way too high up to find out!” She glanced up out where a window would’ve been, looking straight up above them. Moriah was fairly impressed she could shout loud enough to be heard at all.
“I could bring you up if you want! I could probably slow down quite a bit over some clouds. You could hop out! Not sure how you’d get back in, though!”
Moriah didn’t see her expression, only heard her shout, “Maybe another time! I’d rather have a pony parachute if I was gonna try that, but I feel like it would probably get in the way of my wings! Maybe I’ll wait until Adrian can fly up with me!” Pause. “You’re really good at this, Moriah! How long have you been flying these?”
She glanced briefly back. “Since before I was old enough for it to be legal! Got my Private Pilot the day I turned seventeen. Best birthday present ever!” She took them into a sudden dive (well, as sudden as was safe for the delicate little plane), pulling gradually up and grinning.
“You were gonna be a pilot professionally then?”
“Yeah! My family’s been doing it for three generations now! I had less than twenty hours before I was gonna be eligible. Guess I’ll never make ATP now…” She trailed off, leveling them off in the air and staring off into the endless sky.
So the flight went. There wasn’t really much to be seen soaring above Illinois; not a single city to speak of anywhere they would be visiting today, only endless dead fields and rolling grasses and the occasional little farmhouse or town even smaller than Alexandria. Moriah found herself settling into a routine. There was no autopilot to set, but she found herself almost going into autopilot, watching the road in front of them and the sky and letting her mind drift amid the clouds.
Was flying easier for her now that she was a pony? It felt that way; like her hooves were operating on muscle memory, even though until a few months ago she had never used hooves to control anything. There were other kinds of instincts too, the sort that her father had sometimes talked about. Having a sense for what the weather was going to be, or knowing how to adjust her flightpath to compensate for pockets of turbulence. She was sure that in the event of something more serious, she would know what to do without even thinking about it even if it hadn’t been a circumstance she had been specifically trained for.
A few hours of flight later and Sky called out from behind her. “That’s them! See them in the distance?” She didn’t, not until she saw where Sky was pointing. Damn those pegasus eyes were sharp. Being so light meant it didn’t take long to bring them in for a landing. She gradually reduced their speed, pulling up for a gentle landing on the flat, featureless center of the highway. She used what remained of her momentum to coast to the side of the road.
“Help me turn ‘er around. We want to be ready to go as soon as they get here. Unless they’re slow as balls, they’ll beat us back to town anyway. Might as well not keep them waiting too long.” The ultralight was not heavy, not with two ponies pushing. The hardest part about getting it turned around was avoiding putting pressure anywhere they weren’t supposed to; even a pony might pop a support out of place (or worse, tear fabric somewhere). Such minor damage would nevertheless ground them; Moriah wasn’t stupid enough to trust her skill over substandard equipment.
They didn’t tear anything, though, and together they turned it around with plenty of time to spare. Enough time to relieve themselves, and to sit down by the little plane to await the caravan.
Once she had overcome her disgust from even such basic bodily functions, Moriah returned to feeling pretty good about the flight. Yeah, she couldn’t do anything special with the ultralight. Yeah, they hadn’t gone that fast. That hadn’t made it less fun, though. “You regret coming?”
Sky shook her head, grinning. “Way better than staying back at home without Alex to keep an eye on the freaky bugpony.” She glanced over at the ultralight. “I bet Alex didn’t even have that much fun riding in that HPI plane. Uh… Hummingbird? Yeah, that’s what they called it… Bet it’s not nearly as much fun without having the wind in your face…”
“Did you never fly before the Event, Sky?”
“Nope,” she agreed. “My family didn’t really… I was kinda lucky when they just forgot about me. Fancy trips? Not a chance in hell!” One of her hooves ground into the dirt, just a little.
Moriah was surprised she could even hear it. “Sorry to bring it up. I don’t mean to make you relive something unpleasant…”
Sky sniffed, wiping a few angry tears away from her face before nodding appreciatively. “It’s not your fault I lived in a shithole. It’s all good now, though. I’ll never have to see those people ever again. Gone forever… gone forever…”
Stats
Page generated in 0.025 seconds
Total duration
873 users online
1,110,504 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Moriah has a setting other than 'bitchy'? That's got to be an academy record!
So Moriah and Alex get along? That is good to know, if a bit surprising.
I don't get why so many readers are all up in arms about Moriah. If you haven't noticed, there's plenty of anger to go around between all of our protagonists.
Say it that much and you'll jinx it, Sky.
Moriah being amicable. Will wonders never cease. Although given flying is her special talent, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. Ponies always seem happier when embracing their talents.
I know his is Sky's trust on Alex talking but it's nice to see the contrast between them, because we know Day has been afraid lots of times.
Also, good to see Moriah acknowledges being bitchy even if to herself only. I don't think she likes being angry to the world (even worse, to a world she won't ever reach).
Odd to see that Moriah and Day have actually had some offscreen bonding, but no complaints here.
Unless she was lying to Sky, which really wouldn't make sense.
Although I don't remember anything about Day having left, and considering Moriah has an interest in these newcomers that she wants to keep on the down-low, I'm not sure what to make of this.
Skies:
Moriah: Why are you asking that? You're the one with wings!
Darn, doesn't anypony like Riley?
I'm sure that Sky is too smart to mention it to Moriah but I wonder what 'pony name' she has given her? She may have mentioned it once or so and it might be interesting to know how Moriah reacted, given that she is clearly suffering from severe dysphoria about her pony body.
It will be interesting to see just how many ex-humans feel the same disgust and for how many it was so bad that death was the only solution.
ten bucks says that one of the new ponies is a member of sky's family
6259834
Twenty says Sky killed them herself.
... SKY, your back on the bottom of my LIST!
Freaky bug pony... where THERE GOES the 'respect' she had for Alex, 'this is a little girl, don't be a bitch' AND HERE WE HAVE IT FOLKS!
And I guess that Moriah must be rather put out, flying and all is her life so it's kind of sad in a way that she is limited because of it, but she does have some retreat... hmm, she is certainly a lot more calm and all when she's in the sky or with Joe. Her picture is pretty cool as well.
The future is bright, it is beautiful, and my opinions for the characters are going up and down like a freaking yoyo.
Fun, now who are the new guys coming in?
Note the italics....
I foresee Moriah and Skies coming to loggerheads, if not an outright fight. Their worldviews are just too far opposite of each other.
6260140 6259673
Most of the Herd's reaction against Riley seems to be caused by "in front of a predator" pony instincts.
Yes Moriah chapters! I still have my shipping googles on so I hope we find out what Moriah actually see in Joe since he kinda seemed pretty self absorbed in his chapters.
Hmm also it looks like a lot of Moriah anger is from being disgusted with herself, I wonder if it's the pony thing or the gender swap thing that upsets her more?
6259834
6259963
Fifty says, she would go right back to how she would react around that family member.
*sigh*
I'll hope for Sky that you disregard the narrative imperative like you usually do.
No points for Moriah as of yet. That pony makes me uneasy in a dozen ways. The description of her 'special talent' is really nice though.
And Alex has put on the manacles and gone on a HPI visit? More things that couldn't go wrong, yay! On the other hoof, that's pretty cool. It's easy to see why Sky thinks that 'Day isn't afraid of anything'.
PurplBlurpl, we need you! Alex, manacles and the 'humming bird'.
Pilot time! I've been waiting for this, and I like it already! Especially how Moriah already built herself an ultralight, probably from a kit left over at some airport near the town, that's particularly great.
Interesting that Alex is going straight to the HPI for a visit, makes you wonder what will be in the next Interlude chapter.
That cocky smile might be the best thing about Moriah so far. Well, that and the other side of her we got to see this chapter.
Hmm, I mentally tensed up before starting this chapter, but so far my opinion of Moriah is neutral. Sky's comment's however are setting off all kinds of alarm bells. Reminding me of both Alex's first impression of her, and the whole Sunset issue once more. As for the issues with Sky's family, I'm still on the fence there as well. Abusive parents, or psychotic child? Much like with Alex's gender in the first story, you leave me perfectly unsure.
Bravo!
Throwing a random thought: we know Lonely Day is the de facto leader of the group as of now. How would the newcomers react to that? It'd easy for them to believe Alex is 'just a little girl.' How would the memory crystal could influence that? And the fact she gets a lot with "flee instinct ON" changeling Riley?
We saw something like that when Adrian arrived by the end of LPoE but that time he was only one and we dont know how many newcomers are going to Alexandria this time so they might have more push than a single pony.
6261471
Hmm, that's a good point.
Alex's age might end up being a serious barrier to her authority. All these new ponies will see a young filly, and it could be a while before Alex can gain their respect. Not to mention, these newcomers aren't going to take kindly to Riley. That poor girl needs to learn transformation ASAP.
6260298
I would have thought the damn picture of a little girl would have made them reconsider... and that is why Joe is my favorite right now.
... why do i get the feeling one of cloudy's relatives are going to be in the caravan?
It was probably a mistake to wait a full day to respond to these. Stupid minecraft server. X.x
6255110
Everyone thinks Alex is gonna end up a princess! I swear, I've got no idea why people would get that impression >.>
6255118
You already know this, but unfortunately not. Moriah's next. Cloudy is after her, though! Then Oliver, then Alex last.
6255136
Take a computer back to ancient Rome, and they could watch you do everything with it and probably never realize what you were up to. I'm sure what happened with Alex in Equestria was similar. She saw everything, but probably didn't understand what was happening in front of her. The question is, how much did she see and understand?
6255171
I'm sure she had to learn that song from Oliver, he's the one with musical talent.
6255197
You wanna see something really scary? Let me show you where more than half of the people in the united states live:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/U.S._counties_population.JPG/1280px-U.S._counties_population.JPG
Look at that land use right there. Pretty much if you don't look in one of the highlighted areas, you're not likely to find another pony.
6255260
That seems like a very, very good idea. Real question? Did Alex tell her about that power?
6255448
What would she be if wings came in but not a horn? Can you be a 2/3rdsacorn? Or would she just be a regular pegasus without earth pony magic?
40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzrqrt9lZm1rop03zo1_400.jpg
6256113
Yeah, this might not've been clear, but she was talking about the car accident. The commenters were right!
6256146
Lonely Day would be a pretty lousy leader if she bowed to confusion and instinct. She's a pony, so she felt the same pain everypony else does. But she got over it. Or... is trying to get over it. Not sure which it is right now.
6256552
Thanks! It was really, really hard to write, but... dreams always are. Finding the right balance between real and fantastic...
6256834
Hah! Riley the changeling > Moriah. She'd be heartbroken!
6256926
Yes, it does seem she was dreaming of being human. I imagine it's something like people who get limbs amputated feeling sensations for years afterwords, or the way ordinary people sometimes dream of memories from much younger in their lives. Or it could be something meta like some people are speculating.
6257181
She is going to need to tackle these issues at some point. We can see from previous diary entries that she plans on using electric vehicles in the short term, once of the fuel goes bad. Natural gas and hydrogen both have problems of their own (such as needing to be able to manufacture and store a pressurized gas), so we'll just have to see what resources are available to them and what they go with. This story won't last long enough for all the diesel (let alone any they stabilized) to go bad, so it will probably be out of scope, but they might plan for it.
6257869
You're exactly right!
6259392
It's gonna be a rough week. >.>
6259438
Well we knew they got along to some extent, otherwise Moriah could've just left. Something has to have been keeping her from trying to get Joseph to come with her and leave. Unless of course she has and we just haven't seen it.
6259447
Even sour ones full of awful.
6259495
Well in the interest of brevity this story takes place over a much wider timeframe than the previous. You'll see it in the dates on Lonely Day's journals, but each character gets an entire "month" to themselves, even if we only see five scenes worth of it.
6259673
I hope not many. If Luna learn ponies had killed themselves because of mis-assignment by the spell, I'm sure it would give her yet another wave of crushing guilt to live with for the rest of forever.
6260140
We'll meet the new guys soon! Well, as much as possible for a story that moves as fast as this one does. It isn't about the newcomers, it's about the founders. So we'll see how much of them I get to fit in somehow.
6260617
Disregard the narrative imperative? I was born to break rules! Though more to the point, foreshadowing like that is just lazy.
6260663
Unless she starts sucking out ponies' souls. X.x
6260751
Yes, all those species are in the universe. I may or may not be able to squeeze in all those different creatures. We'll find out!
6260762
I do kinda regret the Moriah section... specifically, that I'm not more of a pilot myself. If I wasn't on such an insane update schedule, I probably would've liked to sit down with a real pilot and proof everything. Instead all I get are my memories of flying with my dad when I was a kid. If I did anything too awful, I'm sure people will tell me and I can make corrections.
6260983
I think part of my purpose in writing this story was letting each pony in the group be the hero of their own story. Joseph thinks of himself that way, even if the rest of us (with more balanced vision) can see he's also got faults. But then, who doesn't?
6261187
Two dimensional romance you say?
mlore.manipalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Flatland.jpg
6261471
This seems like exactly the sort of question we'll see explored. At least, I hope we do...
6263038
But such an awesome place to spend the afternoon!
6263122
She didn't seem as revolted by the food as Adrian was when he encountered it. That's the question, then. Was it there because she liked it, or had she been going hungry, and just not taken it out because she'd gotten desensitized?
Huh, Moirah has a setting other than abrasive cunt; that's good to know
she still has baggage but she can be nice so that's a plus
And she's gone up a few points on the likes scale because of this
6263153 soo looking forward to Oliver, he has to the most enigmatic out of the whole group besides cloudy about her past
I still say moriah's a bitch. and cloudy...stop trying to be fluttershy!
its too cute!
6259438 Well it kinda makes sense. Moriah's passion is flying, and Sky seems to be quite enthusiastic about it too. Common interests if nothing else.
6268846 Cloud is sort of like Fluttershy but still VERY different. I mean Fluttershy would have warmed up to Bug Pony by now, plus she wouldn't talk so much about bad stuff and people.
Just watch, that will be her family in the caravan.
7010477 huehuehue.
Knowing what happened to the original Library of Alexandria and how prophetic pony names tend to be... Well, I am currently expecting another fire soon.
Man, on my 4th reread through this series. It’s just downright nostalgic seeing my innocent ‘huehuehue’ from what, almost if not over 3 years ago? Man.