• Published 25th Feb 2016
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Silver Glow's Journal - Admiral Biscuit



Silver Glow takes an opportunity to spend a year at an Earth college, where she'll learn about Earth culture and make new friends.

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October 2 [Red Bull Air Race]

October 2

I'd picked a good bed, 'cause aside from Rocky Storm, everypony was an early riser, and we got out of bed and all three of us went over to the window so that we could look out and see what the weather was like.

It was cloudy outside, and so Lofty got out her folding computer and made it show us all the weather charts—she'd gotten pretty good at using it, 'cause she had a little pen with a rubber tip that she could use on the screen to move things around with and she could also use the letter buttons with it. And we all thought that it didn't seem like it was going to rain, and I sniffed at the little vents at the heater but you couldn't smell the outside through it.

Paradise said that there should be a way to get on the roof, besides going downstairs and flying up. She said that Merry May had told her that there was a door up there but you could only go off the roof and into the hotel through it; it wouldn't open up the other way without a plastic key.

Then Lofty started making coffee for everyone—they had lots and lots of little packets for their coffee maker, and lots of cups, too, and she said that you just had to ask and the hotel would give them to you. They'd had to get plenty of extra towels, too, because the room hadn't come with enough for everypony.

We went and got in the shower, and we were washing each other's tails when Prism Glider stuck his nose in the bathroom and got in with us, and we moved out of the way to let him get his coat wet, then had to shuffle around so that we could rinse out our tails. It was getting a little bit crowded with four ponies, 'cause the shower stall was long and narrow, so we had to move around a lot to stay under the spray.

But you could go right to the very back and shake off in it before opening the door, and that kept all the water inside, which was smart. And they'd laid down a bunch of floor-towels outside of it, 'cause the tile floor was kinda slippery.

Electric Blue came in when we were drying off, yawning and stretching, and when we got back into the lounge, Rocky Storm had got up, too, and she was sitting next to the coffee maker, with a cup of coffee in her hooves. And I saw Dewdrop come out of the bedroom, too, and he just went straight for the shower.

Paradise went over and took the cup that was full of coffee out of the machine and then refilled it and put another cup in. There was already a little row of filled-up cups, so Electric Blue must have made a couple before he went into the shower.

Lofty said that she was gonna make sure that everypony was awake or almost awake, and she went into the bedrooms and then went out of the second bedroom and said that she'd found Meghan and that she was really cute. So I went in to look, too, and Meghan was asleep on her back, and Stormbreaker had his head on her breast and a wing stretched out over her bare belly, and Flanking Line was snuggled up against her side, with Meghan's arm around her barrel and it was really cute. I didn't have my camera to take a picture but Paradise had hers and so we really quietly took a picture of them all snuggled up together and then Lofty woke them up while I was brushing Paradise's mane for her.

When she came out of the bedroom she had her shirt on, and she looked around to see if there were any other people in the room, then she got a cup of coffee and sat down on one of the chairs and asked how soon the shower would be available.

I said that there were only a couple of ponies in it now so there was probably enough room for her, and it kind of took her a moment to think about it and then she drank the rest of her coffee and went into the bathroom.

She had a couple of minutes alone, 'cause Dewdrop and Electric Blue both came out of the bathroom and then Rocky Storm went in and Stormbreaker followed her.

When she came back out, I said that she was really good at preening and I didn't think that anypony was going to trust her too much, so I had her sit down on the bed and I stuck my left wing in her lap and let her preen it—Paradise had already done my right wing—and once the other pegasuses saw what a good job she was doing, Flanking Line got on the bed to take my place and Dewdrop lined up behind her.

She wasn't going to have enough time to do everypony's, though, which was too bad. I think she would have liked to.

So about a half hour before we had to go downstairs for breakfast, everypony who was still in line had to preen their own wings, except for Velvet Light who said that she'd just wait and have Meghan do it on the bus, and she didn't mind going to breakfast with her feathers ruffled from sleep.

Meghan almost didn't have time to dress at all, and she had to do a little hunting in the bedroom 'cause her bra had gotten tangled up in the sheets last night but she finally found all her clothes and I brushed her hair for her, and then everyone went downstairs to breakfast.

They had the same breakfast as before and when everybody except for Aquamarine had arrived and eaten, we got back in the bus to ride out to the race track again, and Meghan sat in the back and I sat next to her and Velvet Light sat on the other side and Meghan preened her wing, then we switched seats so that Meghan could get her other wing.

We were all watching from the same place as before, and so most of us didn't bother going through the door and up the stairs but just flew around to the balcony and went in that way. I stayed with Meghan, though, 'cause she couldn't fly up, and she said it was really strange to see a flock of pegasuses all take off at once like that.

They had food for us again today and so we all got comfortable while waiting for everybody else to arrive, and looked out over the crowd, too.

They had big televisions in the room and someone was taking pictures of the crowd, and I saw a woman who was wearing a blue shirt with a horseshoe on it, so I guess she was a pony fan. It had the number 12 on it, too, but I didn't know what that meant, except that there were 12 weatherponies, so maybe she'd really liked seeing us yesterday. Of course, we'd flown with thirteen but maybe she hadn't known we would and had gotten the shirt before.

Even though it was cloudy and overcast it wasn't raining, and so there weren't any delays today. Almost everybody had arrived by the time the race started, but Cayenne and her friends hadn't arrived yet. I thought that maybe they were having fun back at her hotel room, and so I asked Gusty if they'd ridden down together, and she said that they'd come in an airplane, and none of Cayenne's friends had.

Watching the airplanes race was a lot like watching them practice. They couldn't go all at once or they might crash into each other and fall out of the sky—Aric said that in car races, the cars crashed a lot, and he didn't think that they'd want to have that happen with airplanes.

Prism Bolt and Velvet light were both out on the balcony with their wings out and it was kind of funny to see them banking along with the airplanes. They didn't tilt as far, but you could see them dip their wingtips down each time the airplanes turned.

People who were inside could see pictures on the televisions and sometimes that was better 'cause you got a closer view than we could from the balcony and also they had cameras inside the airplanes, too, but overall I thought it was better to see them outside.

There were only a few airplanes that flew in the Challenger class, which was the first competition, and then when that was done they announced that there was going to be a special performance by the Wonderbolts before the next race started, and there was a lot of cheering for that.

I was really excited, too, 'cause I hadn't seen a Wonderbolt show in years.

Everybody crowded out on the balcony and some of the pegasuses flew up to the roof or hovered just in front of the balcony, so that everybody would have lots of room to see. Cedric lifted Aquamarine up on his shoulders so that she'd have a better view, and then the Wonderbolts dove into the stadium.

They must have been waiting for their cue somewhere outside of the stadium, 'cause they all had pretty good speed when they dropped over the center field, and they didn't run the course like we had, but they just did their own routine. I recognized a couple of moves like the Buccaneer Blaze, which they did right down the middle of the runway, but there were a lot of moves I hadn't seen before. They'd probably had to change the show a little bit for Earth, 'cause it wasn't as easy to fly here.

Everybody in the crowd seemed impressed, though. There were lots of cheers and so much applause that it sounded like thunder when they did their last fly-by and zoomed out under the same bridge we'd used.

Their smoke hadn't quite cleared when the first airplane that was competing in the Master Class took off. The pegasuses on the roof flew back down and landed, and I saw Stormbreaker inside begging Mister Dove for a chance to meet the Wonderbolts, and he had a little smile on his face that told me that they were probably going to get the chance. Mister Salvatore got that smile a lot when he knew something that I didn't.

I was disappointed that we didn't get to see Kirby get to fly again, but I found out that he'd gotten disqualified for making his engine go too fast. I would have hated to have come all the way to a race and then not be able to actually race, but I guess if they let everybody race it might take days to get it all done. And if that was a rule he should have obeyed it.

While the afternoon races were still going on, a woman called Mélanie who was another pilot came by to visit us. We'd seen her race in the morning, and she'd finished in second place in the morning races. She had a friend with her who could translate for her, because she didn't know any English or Equestrian, and none of us knew any French.

Even so, she was really fun, and she loved watching us fly. Every time somepony flew off the balcony she'd look right over at them and even stop talking in the middle of her sentence, and watch as they flew around the balcony and then landed again. And I heard her translator ask Paradise what they were doing, and she shrugged and said that they were just flying around 'cause it was no fun to have your hooves on the ground all the time, and Mélanie smiled when she heard that.

She stayed with us and watched the race out on the balcony for a little while, and we all saw when one of the airplanes clipped a cone and tore the top off of it. They weren't supposed to do that, but at least the airplane was okay. The cones were really soft so that they wouldn't hurt the airplanes if they crashed into them.

Before she left, though, she autographed the schedule books for all of us, and we autographed one for her, too—everypony on the weather team signed by their biography, and I signed on the bottom of the page 'cause I hadn't gotten a biography.

So when all the races were over, they announced that Matthias Doldere had won, and there was a little bit of debate about whether he'd really earned it or not, and I thought back to how me and Aquamarine had argued about whether the team who won the wagon hauling competition had really deserved their win.

Some people said their goodbyes at the race track, 'cause they had to get back home. Cayenne and Gusty and Nicky had to get to the airport so that they could fly back home, and so we all hugged and nuzzled them, and I promised that next time we'd meet up in Chicago, maybe in a couple of weeks if that worked out for everypony. And Cedric and Leon had to leave, too, and Aquamarine was kind of sad to see Cedric go, and she hugged him and nuzzled his cheek, and then she left with Jenny and Mister Barrow and Miss Parker.

Then Aric said that they were leaving, so I hugged him and kissed him and thanked him for coming, and I said my goodbyes to Meghan and her roommates, too, 'cause they were also driving back from the stadium.

Peggy and Sean and Christine and me were gonna ride back in the bus, 'cause she'd left Cobalt at the hotel, and then we found out on the way back that the tornado team was gonna meet the Wonderbolts for dinner, and I really wanted to do that.

So there was a bit of negotiating but finally Miss Cherilyn convinced Mister Dove to let us, so we got to go, too.

We had a private section all to ourselves, and I was kind of sad that Meghan hadn't gotten to be here, too, because she really would have liked it.

They had lots of fish, and they also had some pasture grass salads that they'd probably made special just for us. And we all got to eat at a big round table, and mostly talk about the weather and I did feel kind of bad for Peggy and Christine and Sean, 'cause everypony mostly talked in Equestrian the whole time. The only Wonderbolt who could speak any English at all was Sassaflash, and she wasn't very good at it.

Rainbow Dash said that she was impressed that I'd gotten to fly a Dreamliner simulator, after I'd told her that it was a really big airplane, hundreds of times bigger than the ones we'd seen flying at the airshow. And I also knew Pizelle's youngest sister, 'cause she was a sailorpony on the Sea Spray, which sometimes delivered supplies to Chonamare. I didn't know her very well, but I'd seen her around a couple of times.

There was a lot of talk about the weather on Earth, because before she'd become a Wonderbolt, Rainbow Dash had been the lead weathermare in Ponyville, and I wondered if Aquamarine had known her. So we got Miss Cherilyn to show Rainbow the movie of me and the rest of the weather team fighting the tornado, which she thought was really cool. And she asked a lot of questions about our flight gear, and so we had to explain what it all was and what it was for.

I told her how I'd gotten to fly in a wind tunnel and when I said what it was, Rainbow said that she could probably beat it, so I had to explain how it wasn't a race. But she was really determined to beat it anyway.

So we stayed there probably later than we should have, and there were lots of hugs and nuzzles and promises to meet up back in Equestria. I got an extra program autographed by all the Wonderbolts, and I thought I'd give that to Meghan 'cause I knew that she'd like it. Misty Fly had the biggest signature, which she said was so that everypony would know it was her. And Blaze just drew her cutie mark, like a lot of older ponies did. I think she was the oldest Wonderbolt who was still an active flier; she'd been performing since I was a filly.

When we got back to Cobalt, it was pretty late and we still had a long drive ahead of us, and I was a little bit worried that Peggy might fall asleep while she was driving. She said that I should sit in the front seat and make sure that she stayed awake, so I told her that I would. Sean helped slide my seat forward to make more room in the back, and then he got in behind me and Christine put her head on his shoulder and we hadn't made it very far out of Indianapolis before she fell asleep.

Peggy said that it had been a crazy weekend but a lot of fun, and I agreed. I thought that everybody had had a good time, and I was really happy that they'd all gotten to meet the Wonderbolts. And I said that I just wished that we'd taken an airplane, and she said that I didn't like to fly in them and that was true, but I said that I felt bad that she had to do all this driving all by herself.

So she told me it wasn't the craziest thing she'd ever done.

We didn't get back to Michigan until almost one AM, and she was yawning a lot so we finally stopped at a rest area so that she could run around the car a few times to get her blood circulating again. And she said that we shouldn't trot through the neighborhood tomorrow, and I agreed with her. We both would want to sleep in as late as we could.

Once we finally got back to school, she had to wake up Christine and Sean, and she let them out at their dorm, then she went up to our parking lot and hunted until she found a parking space. We didn't feel like unpacking our stuff from Cobalt and there wasn't anything that we needed anyways, so we went up to our dorm room and Peggy took off her pants and bra and said that was good enough, and she got in bed.

Before I got in my bed, I reached over the edge of hers and nuzzled her arm and thanked her for driving us all that way, and she scratched my ears and said that she’d been glad to do it.

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