May 5 [Cinco de Mayo]
May 5
I did wake up when Aric got home. He smelled like rain overtop of the strange hot dusty smell that the theatre had, and when he came into his room I pretended to be asleep but I opened one eye just a little bit and watched him get undressed and then I reached out and brushed up against him with my wing which he wasn't expecting at all.
I must have helped him relax from his long day because afterwards he fell back asleep before me, and I just listened to him sleep for a little while.
When I woke up again in the morning I got out of bed quietly and opened the window 'cause it was kind of stuffy in his room. It was overcast, but the rain had stopped, and all the grass outside the window was glittering in the early light.
He caught me by surprise when he got up and came to the window beside me—I had been watching the birds hop around on the lawn. There were a couple of robins who had found something to eat in the grass, but I couldn't see what. Probably worms, 'cause worms like to come out of the ground when it rains. I think their burrows fill with water and they have to.
I could just see a little bit of the driveway and there were a couple of smaller birds which I think were chickadees that were splashing around in a puddle.
Aric asked me what I was looking at and so I pointed out all the birds and he watched them too and said maybe he should get a birdfeeder, but if he did, I had to promise not to eat the seeds out of it. I said it would depend on what kind of seeds he put in it.
Then I told him that me and Peggy were going to drive go-karts on Saturday afternoon and I wanted to know if he would come, too. I told him that she had said that the more people who were there the more fun it would be.
Well, he agreed with that, and he said he would.
We stood by the window a little bit longer, and he ran his hands through my mane and rubbed my ears and then ran his hands down to the sensitive spot on my back that he'd been so proud to have discovered and we went back to bed for a little bit.
Once we'd gotten up for the second time, Aric said that on Saturday just to make sure that we didn't start go-kart racing until noon, because he wouldn't be up before then and I said that I'd tell Peggy. Then he kissed me on my nose and I went out the window again because it was fun and I wasn't supposed to do it from my dorm room.
I thought I'd fly a different way than I usually did, so I went across the big road by campus and then followed a curvy road called Oakland for a while. It came to a big open pasture right before it got to the 94 Highway, and I landed there and trotted around for a bit. It was a strange place; there were short grassy trails and little holes marked with flags and I couldn't figure out why, unless they were afraid that people would trip on the holes. But then when I got more towards the front a man driving a white car yelled at me for being on the golf course, and so I guess that's what it was and I wasn't supposed to be there.
I don't think he expected me to fly away when he yelled. I thought about circling back around and landing on the roof of his white car but there wasn't any point in making him mad, so I just made a big circle away and back towards campus.
At lunch I mentioned how I had been shouted at and Leon said that the white man doesn't like coloreds on his golf course unless they're caddies and that was just another way that The Man kept us down. I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, until Cedric asked Leon what his handicap was and Leon said it was eight and he sounded proud of that.
Cedric said that the last time he'd played golf he'd scored a perfect three hundred, and I thought that was pretty good, until Trevor started laughing and told him that he was mixing up his sports again. Then Cedric said that bowling was a better sport anyway because the black ball got to knock down the white pins.
Trevor said that the last time he'd bowled he'd gotten a blue ball and what did that mean, and Leon put his hand on his shoulder and said that it meant he didn't have game, and all three of them started laughing.
Lunch was really lousy, which I hoped meant that they had something special planned for dinner. Even the lettuce didn't look all that good; it was kind of wilted and sad.
Conrad began by reading a poem called The Fisherman, and it reminded me of home. Even the name of his clothes sounded like the name of my village, and so I couldn’t help but perk up a bit in my seat and listen to every word. There was a pair of old stallions just like that, and one of them was gray and the other a dingy brown. Their coats were forever stained with sea-salt and each morning they would go down to the beach and wade out in the surf with nets behind to fish—they were too old to work on a fishing boat anymore; everypony knew it—and they would bring back their meager catch and sell it in the market. They were both quiet and respectful and every now and then my mother would trade them some fresh grass that she'd found for a small fish or two. And when I was little I didn't understand why that made them so happy, but now I did and so whenever I was at market I'd buy a fish from them, too, even though I could have gone out and caught my own easily enough. And sometimes I'd give them pasture grass and sometimes I'd give them a bunch of wildflowers in exchange, and sometimes when there weren't either I'd give them a bit coin but that felt cheaper.
We read another sailing poem next, called Sailing to Byzantium, which started out by saying that it was no country for old men, which I thought was an interesting change from the last poem. Mister Yeats thought that Byzantium was a really nice place but I'd never heard of it.
Conrad finished out the lesson with a poem called Easter 1916 and I thought back to the Easter service I had attended with Meghan, but this was much sadder and maybe not literally about Easter at all.
But then a lot of poems weren't really about what it seemed like they were about, and a lot of the students said that they thought it was about World War One, so I thought about asking Conrad about that, then decided that there were so many books in the library surely there were some about World War One and I could find out about it there and not have to bother him at all.
Before I could do that, though, I went back to my room and read more of the Bible. King David constantly fought battles and got dethroned for a while but then took his throne back and then he got so old that his friends found a woman who would sleep with him to keep him warm. And then he made Solomon the next King.
Of course not everyone was happy with that, and there was still some fighting and people getting killed because they had been loyal to the wrong person in the past or because King Solomon just didn't like them. But then King Solomon did something that was smarter than anyone else had and he asked God for wisdom, and so he was so wise that people came from all over the world to hear him talk.
Then he went and got all the good workers and built a house for God called a temple and after that was done he built a palace for himself, too.
But when he got older his wisdom must have run out because he married hundreds of women and then he started building temples to their gods, too, and that made God angry at him. And so God decided that He was going to split up the tribes of Israel like He had said He would if Solomon was bad, but He let Solomon remain king until he died, because He had made a promise.
I should have known that was going to happen. Nobody had had the good sense to follow God's instructions and I thought that Solomon would be better because he was so wise, but he messed up, too.
I stopped by the library and one of the student helpers found me a book on World War One, and I took it back to my room before going to dinner.
We did have a special meal; it was tacos and burritos and other food like Taco Bell has and Christine said that was because it was Cinco de Mayo, which is a special day in Mexico. I asked her why it was special and she didn't know. Joe said that it was because the Titanic was carrying a cargo of mayonnaise, and then it sank, and Sean told him that was the stupidest theory he'd ever heard because the Titanic sank in April, not May.
Christine said that John Kasich had given up and so now Trump was the Republican nominee. Joe said that he was glad he was moving to Japan after he graduated because that was a pretty safe distance to watch from. I was worried that if he got elected he might build a wall like the angry man had said, and Peggy said that so far the only wall he’d proposed was the one between the US and Mexico and besides no matter who got elected they wouldn’t actually get to be president until January, and I’d be back in Equestria then.
Liz met with me outside since it was a nice day now: the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared and it had warmed up. And that was probably for the best because I'd eaten more tacos than I should have.
We talked about how the kings of Israel still weren't very good at following rules, and she said that was just human nature. And then she said that she'd heard I had been sick and I told her that I was better now and that I was going to go watch a Frelon dance tomorrow and then participate in a campus tradition that Aric wouldn't say what it was, and on Saturday race go-karts.
She laughed at that and said that the campus had a lot of traditions and she had been a student when they first started having their after-Frelon tradition and she'd think about participating for old-time's sake. But she wouldn't tell me what it was, either.
I thought after that that I'd better see Meghan 'cause I hadn't talked to her for a week, so I went over to her room and knocked and she was surprised to see me and I said that I knew it was short notice but maybe we could watch another Harry Potter movie together and start over again and she considered that for a minute and I thought that she was going to close the door in my face but she wound up inviting me in.
She put the movie on but we didn't get very far before neither of us were watching it any more. I farted really loudly during a quiet scene right at the beginning and she looked over at me and I said that was the tacos talking and she laughed and then we started talking and didn't pay any attention to the movie at all.
We both agreed that we had made bad assumptions going in and that perhaps if we had known more we would not have made those mistakes but she said that nobody had brought them up in any of her classes and I said that no one had told me either until it was too late.
And then we both decided that the best thing to do was start over, sadder and wiser than we had been before. Then we talked about what we were going to do for summer break which was coming up really soon, and I told her that I didn’t have any firm long-term plans yet but I was going to go go-kart racing on Saturday with Aric and Peggy and maybe some other people and she could come if she wanted to. She said that sounded like fun and she cheered up a little bit and it made me happy too because when all my friends were doing different things it was hard to choose what I wanted to do.
I snuggled up on her lap and she pet me for a while and then braided my mane and neither of us really had noticed that the movie was over until she had to get up to pee. When she came back out of the bathroom she said it was pretty late and that I could stay if I wanted to.
I told her that I would like that very much and waited until she had gotten undressed and then got in bed beside her and fell asleep with my head on her chest.
Stats
Page generated in 0.05 seconds
Total duration
1,011 users online
1,645,395 hits today, 2,561,572 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.®
Psst... Meghan... here's your chance! Silver Glow is frisky in the morning!
7361639 unfortunately i think the thing im missing would be a small press to turn the bread in to ravioli shapes then cook them thill their really crispy. That should allow them to hold their shape in something thick like potatoe soup.
We finally come close to SG digging in deep to the true scale and awesome terribleness of humanity's modern wars! I can't wait for her reaction to passchendale or the Somme!
7361650 Man, look at all them weird-lookin' "E"s. That's not the kind of "E" you spell "FREEDOM" with!
I think the golfer was just concerned about Silver getting hit by a stray ball, if such a cute thing ws injuried, he would never forgive himself.
Of course he could be just an elitist snob, but I prefer the first theory.
Come on! You totally cheated with your cute puppy eyes, how could've she even say no?
Didn't she already covered world war 1? Or am I confusing us anticipating it with it actually happening?
Actually it's because it's the only time the surface is dry enough for them to be able to come up, and they don't have to expend as much effort digging.
Congratulations, Joe! You're in the shoulder-punching competition now!
At no point have I admitted or will I admit that I've told that joke myself. Insinuations to the contrary will be treated as libel and will be met with swift legal action.
7361645
Silver Glow is frisky all the time.
7361646
If they're well-cooked, and you add them late, they might hold together. Or maybe if you made them with stale bread.
7361669
Yes, poor Silver Glow.
7361670
Strangely enough, I haven't ever seen Blazing Saddles.
7361696
I know, right?
7361708
Nope; elitist snob.
It's true. You can't say no to the pony.
7361713
?
Do you mean wet enough?
7361708
I think you were anticipating. She did get a brief mention of the Civil War, but nothing too specific.
7361726
What kind of lettuce did they serve on the Titanic?
Iceberg.
7361734 I wonder how many of SG's hometowns died in the first day of combat at Passchendale?
7361754
Just counting her cloud town, over a thousand towns' worth.
This is perhaps my favorite passage I have seen from you in 6 months. Bravo. Their is something sad yet incredibly heartening about doing the things you love despite the ravages of time. It reminded me of a similar passage from a book that I haven't read in a few years about an old general.
The image of an aging horse sitting in a field eagerly trying to do its job despite its age is very powerful. It's like a old dog trying to chase a ball that it cannot quite reach. The spirit is willing but the body is lacking. Its both endearing and heartbreaking at the same time, most especially because odds are we will end up in that condition ourselves one day (unless you die young which has its own elements of tragedy.) Again, bravo.
I love Sailing To Byzantium
Growing up in Pennsylvania I never heard of Cinco de Mayo until I went to Texas. Here in Arizona it is a big deal. It honors a famous battle.
Also, you can't have a poetry class without Walt Whitman. I will never understand what is so damn alas about sparrows on the grass. Pigeons on the grass, alas makes sense but not sparrows.
IIRC, he got into an argument with someone & said "You say that I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes.". I think that's cool.
7361806 Mexico Independance day is september 16, Cinqo de Mayo commemorates the battle of Puebla.
7361806 Mexico's independence day is September 16. Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
7361770 That's probably a number worth mentioning. Well, Passchendaele was just another battle in that war, so maybe how many time her town in the whole war.
at least she didn't start eating the grass
how long is her Visa for?
7361830
7361849
Cinco de Mayo is actually more important to a lot of Mexicans (and Mexican-Americans) than their Independence Day. The Battle of Puebla was the first battle Mexico ever won against a foreign power (not counting filibusters and internal insurrections like the Texas Revolution, and VERY MUCH COUNTING the entire Mexican-American War).
7361708 As a golfer myself, there's also the possibility of being annoyed at a non-player being in the way. Having to wait on or play through slower groups is annoying enough, and if I'm having a bad day my manners are all too likely to slip.
7361639
I know right. Imagine walking outside and a pegasus is eating your lawn.
i've only done lecture 1. Design work takes up a lot of space. I remember that I did 5 pages of hand calcs for some code in a half assed project.
that's essentially what I did. I'm running off of the fallen Alicorn race hypothesis, so the Alicorns and ponies aren't as similar as they appear. I'm just working on the details now.
I got it working with classical mendelevian genetics. The big thing is that pegasi dad and pegasi mom only have pegasi. It's hard to have cloud cities if a lot of the new babies can't fly or cloudwalk. There's acutally a massive chance that the offspring won't be a pegasus if only one parent is a pegasus (especially if the other parent is homozygous). I think Dinky is Derpys biological daughter, but the dad has to be a unicorn or Earth pony. This actually works for Unicorns as well.
Yeah tacos can do that to ya. Glad to see the tension between Silver Glow and Meghan resolved.
And this reminds me of that fic where ponies get the internet, but it's actually heavily censored, and then Twilight convinces the human in charge of the connection station to give her a brief window of unfettered access. Anybody else remember the name of that one?
7361645 With how much she likes sex her name should probably be After Glow
7362161
I'm pretty sure you're talking about Humanities greatest pastime.
7362218 Yep, that's the one.
The Irish War of Independence can be considered a part of WWI, since all the combatants were encouraging ethnic groups to rise up against their Imperial masters. In this case, the Germans were donating weapons to the Irish rebels (in almost every period movie, you see flying columns with Mauser rifles and C96s). The Proclamation of Independence mentions "Gallant allies in Europe." The Irish repaid the favor by staying neutral in WWII and telling Winston Churchill to sod off when he requested the use of Irish ports for the Royal Navy. Even after the Luftwaffe bombed Dublin by mistake they stayed neutral, though there was a crackdown on Nazi agents in Ireland.
But when you get down to it, their strongest weapon was public opinion. Most of the Rising Leaders knew their efforts were hopeless, but being poets and schoolteachers, they also knew their glorious sacrifice would be the stuff of song and legend and inspire generations.
Yes, WW1 is going to be a bit of a shock to our young flying horse, but it does got cushioned a bit by being 100 years ago and also the scale of it makes it almost impossible to grasp it all. You might be able to visualise everyone in your town being killed, but tha number dozens of times over? In one day? It just stops being something you can understand.
Of course the very name World War 1 leads the inquisitive mind to grasp that there must be at least one other after it (Or before it if you want to count the Napoleonic wars).
7361706 No sane person is a fan of the orange weasel.
I farted really loudly.
7361589
That looks like a hard way to make a living, for man and horse.
This guy knows pegasi.
pre03.deviantart.net/6464/th/pre/i/2012/366/3/c/get_out_of_my_bird_feeder__by_mattings-d5px3me.png
Conne-mare-a?
Well that didn't take long.
Cedric and Leon's constant battle for street cred vs actually being rich is hilarious. Silver's constant confusion at the change in direction of the conversation only makes it better.
7362223
The 1916 Easter Rising was separate from the War of Independence, which took place after WW1, between 1919 and 1921. Since Germany was no longer at war with Britain at that time, obviously we didn't have them supplying weapons either.
Neutrality in WW2 wasn't really about "repaying the favour" to the Germans either. Ireland and Britain simply didn't have the good relationship we have today, and the government of the time felt that small states should stay out of the affairs of the major powers - that if we got involved we'd lose a lot without influencing the outcome.
Awwww... Silver missed out on the most important part of Drinko de Mayo!
7361772
I want to say it's Black Beauty (but I'm probably wrong) where the old, retired Mill(?) Horse finds a tree in its pasture and wears a circular track around it because the horse had been pulling something around a pillar for years. It's what it knew and the routine was comforting.
I'm glad Silver was able to see Meghan again. I was afraid their friendship wouldn't be able to recover.
I went back to find the "skyseaponytown" bit and realized that she'd already brought up the name that sounds like Connemara then:
(Aw, and I almost thought "skyseaponytown sounds like Connemara" would be our first glimpse into the Equestrian language.
)
7361934 http://www.mexonline.com/cinco-de-mayo.htm
It became important for Mexican living in the states, but in Mexico itself it is not even a recognized national holyday.
7362571
I'm still waiting to see her reaction when she discovers that Connemara Ponies are a thing.
I can just imagine her letting that American idiom slip when she gets back home, and having to explain that she didn't eat food that actually talked...
Seriously, lads? As an Irishwoman this disappoints me, although it shouldn't really surprise me. How many Americans even know what the Easter Rising was, never mind who Connolly and Pearse were?
petted
I guess Silver Glow would count as a "colored", although when the term was created it probably wasn't meant to include "blue".
You haven't seen Blazing Saddles?! What is this blasphemy?!
Here, have the beans scene to tempt your taste buds:
All I could think of with that birdfeeder crack:
pre05.deviantart.net/37d7/th/pre/i/2015/272/1/f/rainbow_bird_by_otakuap-d9bc0mn.png
7361752 Yes I did, my bad.
The Bible sections always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, mostly because the interpretation of many of these stories can vary quite a bit from a Jewish point of view vs a Christian one. Example the Jewish take (somewhat similar to the refrence in this chapter) is the universal flaws of all the Jewish leaders is a way of keeping them human, even Moses had flaws. This is somewhat akin to the beliefs of some native American tribe that nothing made by man can be perfect, so they purposely include one glaring error in their artwork. (See the world tapasesty in Disney world's contemporart resort for more info on that) But i'v seen too many Christians take the stance "oh see how weak willed and curupt those Jews were" and then go on to use that as proof that Jews in general are evil and untrustworthy. In some of the previous chapters Sliver has taken a few tentitive steps down that line of reasoning, with comments about "God's people keeping forgetting the rules." I don't think Silvers aware that Jewish people are still a current living group. I wonder if her reading of the Bible would color her reaction to any Jew she meets now?