Perils of a Merpony: A Ponies after People Tale

by kitten_girl86

June 13th, 2015

July 13th, 2015 @ 10:30 PM, still Harbor City

Dear Journal,

I wanted to include a map of the immediate area of Harbor City but Google Maps does not work anymore and I can’t draw.

It’s been a couple of days since we last wrote. Sarah has been spending much of her time with Patrick, either on his rig or swimming at the nearby beach. She told me that Patrick introduced her to a bunch of sharks that had taken up residence in the area. She also told me that they now possessed intelligence similar to Raea. What I gather from that means that we don’t need to fear sharks in the oceans anymore; they’re like puppy-dogs when treated with kindness.

Chalk another one up to the world’s newly found craziness!

I've been biding my time either helping Gary with the farmer fields or lending them a hoof with my pickup truck to haul in the big stuff; feed for the animals, diesel tankers from the distribution center...

On the plus side, they did help me replace the bio-diesel barrels with a secondary big rig’s tank on the back trailer. It’s become obvious that the deep fryer used cooking oil was not going to be viable for much longer. “Also,” Earl pointed out. “Cooking oil burns a lot hotter and so each time you use the generator on it, you run the risk of motor burn-out.” (1)

So one day, Earl & Denis helped me flush out my genny completely of cooking oil and got it primed to go back on diesel. We ran a pressure washer off the genny to test it out (and to water the farm garden in the process). I did notice that the genny ran much quieter on the straight diesel than the bio-fuel; hence the need for a second fuel tank.

They offered to keep the last of my old bio-fuel and put it to good use. “A loaner truck or something,” Earl had said. I figured that so long as it didn’t go to waste, I was happy.

Earl also taught me now to use the genny to rig up the diesel pump at the gas stations to make refills a whole lot faster than my old siphoning system. For that, I will always grateful.

Denis doesn’t talk much. Neither does Mark. Their voices are deeper and although Mark still has his full vocabulary, Denis talks in a broken English like he’s still learning but not. I can see the frustration on his face every time he tries anything too complex. Instead, he takes to writing the complex stuff down on a notepad he always carries with him. “Pony make sure fuel stay clean,” he said at one point; and then he wrote down the instructions for adding the fuel stabilizers to each gas station we use and leave a “pony note” sign letting others know it was done.

Denis also became a gem-hoarder. No one knows for sure why but his RV is filled with the spoils of multiple jewelry stores, both finished and unfinished; his bed is covered in diamonds... didn’t matter if they were real or fake.

Being a guy, Denis had never gone into a Michael’s craft store so I did that for him... found those giant fake decorative “diamonds”, grabbed every single one on the shelf and the box of them from the back storage; plus i got every little box of those fake filler gems; got rid of all the packing material and left the box on his RV’s porch. I had let Sarah in on the surprise and she agreed to help me. She had also seen how Denis had struggled and so wanted to cheer the Dog up.

We both tried so hard not to laugh as we had watched Denis’s reaction to the box of “gems”. It was almost like that scene in Lord of the Rings, where that goblin-creature says “Precious”; Denis dug his huge paws into the box, lifting up as many of them as he could, snuggling them like one might a kitten.

Eventually, Sarah & I came out of hiding and surprised Denis. He may not have the words but he understands everyone else perfectly. “Thank you, ponies. You make Dog so happy,” he said simply as tears of joy fell down his face.

We hugged and that’s how Denis became an admirer of the merponies.

Gary spends the vast majority of his time at the farm fields with a shotgun in the former equipment shed. Rose May explained that he had done ALL of the work by himself on that field. “It’s like his baby,” she had said. He even went so far as banning Patrick from ever stepping hoof or wheel on the property because of some prank the pony had done to the shed early on.

But what surprised the group was that he more than welcomed ME to the field any time I came by to bring a delivery of seeds, water or something as simple as a bagged lunch! According to Rose May, I'm the only other pony besides her that has seen the inside of the shed. Gary had ditched all of the equipment at a house nearby and had somehow dragged a couch into it, making it into a home-away-from-home. He covered the shelves with his collection of geode rocks, from his life before and a few new pieces. He was so proud of that collection; especially now that he was able to get his hooves on a real diamond geode.

He did also let Raea accompany me to the fields; didn’t mind if she squatted to pee or poop, so long as she buried it when done. “It is great compost,” he explained, but it had only made my nose wrinkle. “We wash everything in antibacterial before it leaves the field, and then again before it is prepared,” he added.

Not much to Mark. He’s tall & strong but the silent type. I thought Earl spoke very little; Mark speaks even less! He drives the big rig truck, mainly because he can reach the foot pedals without modification. I asked him once about being a Minotaur. “It’s ok,” he said. “Need more pillows to sleep because horns are heavy.”

That pretty much sums him up.

Karen, the Kirin, is far younger than she looks. I’d take a guess at 12, maybe 13 at the time of the Event. And then the poor thing got turned into a half pony/half dragon. She may be young but she’s still really big so they created a suite of permanent rooms for her inside the Target, in a back corner next to a double door fire exit, so she could come & go as she pleased. She’s already the height of the Prius and twice as long; she’d probably out-size Princess Luna by the time she stopped growing.

Karen could already fly and although she could breathe fire, it was a magical green color rather than red or yellow. I was, indeed, surprised to learn that Karen ate fish AND also gems! Like, yeah, the gems that Denis would hoard, or Gary’s geode collection if she got out of hoof.
(On behalf of Karen, I was able to convince Gary to part with some of his bigger, uncut diamonds to help Karen curb her cravings. They were making plans to go back and check the shops for more; Karen was even willing to try the fake zirconium at this point. I felt so bad for her. I think that there’s a mineral in the gems that the dragon half needs to grow or something.)

Susie describes herself as “just a regular, old unicorn” despite her youth and her amazing magical skill at sewing. Humble at first, she came out of her shell and shared with us the projects she had done; Mark & Denis’s pants, t-shirts for Rose May, dresses for herself.

I presented to her all of the supplies I had acquired from the craft store in Amsterdam and asked her if I could help in making some clothes for us too. Her face lit up and she got right down to business. Sadly, that meant a lot of standing in merpony form for long periods of time.

For Sarah, we made a kind of bag that she could slip her tail into and fill with water before strapping down to her wheels. It really did not need too much water as the warm air would evaporate it, the bag would catch it and let it rain back down. Plus the bag was transparent so the tail could be seen inside; and then we made a flowy pink flowered skirt to wear over the bag, if wanted. For me, I got some silk translucent blue blouses with the short capped sleeves that I love so much. With all the silk & organza scraps, I sewed up a patchwork canopy for my RV room (and hopefully for my underwater room some day).

Susie and I would also go “shopping” at some of the other malls in town, sometimes taking Sarah with us. Raea would come but get bored fairly quickly, lounging on the non-functioning massage chairs in the walkways. To make it up to Raea, I’d bring along a tennis ball or grab a new one from the dollar store; throwing it down the walkways, letting her chase after them and having the whole place to do it in.

We mostly raided places like Garage, Sears, Winners, and Rikki’s for shirts that I used to call “over tops”... pretty shirts but often too baggy, detailed or see-thru to wear without something underneath, like a tank or tube top. Now that those under shirts are redundant, we can wear said over tops any time on their own! I found one at Sears that I really love: it’s a navy blue over top, color-matching lace shoulders and a cloth tie at the back of the neck. Despite grabbing the XS, Susie took the shirt in and cut off the too-tight sleeve cuffs to make them the same flaring style that I love on the others. Sarah got the same shirt in a pale pink and Susie did the same modifications for her.

And then, Susie asked us for our help in making something that the others refused or simply could not do: model for a body cast so she could make a mannequin but for a pony.... a ponyquin, I guess! And we figured it was only a fair trade for the work she had done for us. Sarah modeled for the front half, I did the back. It was really weird! Rose May came back to give Susie a hoof; Sarah went first and despite our misgivings, Susie really knew what she was doing. I could tell that she had done these kinds of body casts before and so it was a job well done, although I did have to suffer through an itch on my back left leg the entire time! She had left Sarah’s horn exposed as she had planned to make the ponyquin an Earth pony for simplicity but would add notes to the finished product when done.

The casts had come off so easily, I pretty much just stepped out of mine! Sarah’s took a bit of cutting to get her horn out of the hole but Susie managed it without a nick to either of us. It was so funny seeing Sarah’s front on my back end put together because she's leaner than me.

We had rinsed off with the power washer before going down to the beach with Patrick and go for a swim in the ocean. That was on the second day and so that was my first swim in ANY ocean, EVER.

And it was incredible!! If the bathtub was breakfast & the old Farmville pool was a lunch, the ocean was a ten-course feast with a five-tiered wedding cake for desert.

OK, so I might be getting with a florid with my descriptions... I really don’t know how else to describe my experience.

It was just simply... unbelievable.

OK, so let’s just be honest a minute...

Kathy was like a kid at Christmas! I had never seen her so happy.

Patty & I had gone in first, kicking off our wheels as soon as our tails became buoyant. I did manage to wash all of the plaster & Vaseline out of my fur & mane; using a kitchen brush I had found in the home section and nearly a whole bottle of shampoo.

I let Kathy use the brush after me while she used another half bottle herself; she had been better covered in the plastic wrap so there was less to remove. Which I figured she was grateful for, based on her facial expressions. :P

I watched her try to swim as an Earth pony... it was a basic doggy-paddle but even Raea out-paced her. She said that she could not see underwater at all, nor could she hear much without it being muffled. “Merpony senses are far superior underwater than average Earth pony,” she said in a voice that made me think of a college professor giving a lecture. The three of us giggled when Kathy cracked a smile. She then used her ability to turn and she dove into the water.

I followed her under so she would not be too scared but really, she was so at ease; just like back at the Farmville pool. She bore no fears of the ocean; just that she never got to swim in it before that day.

OK! OK! This is still technically my tablet so I should be allowed to finish my entry before some pony else butts in on my current one.

And hey! As ponies, we got a lot more butts to butt in with!

Ugh!! Those guys are terrible... can’t a girl finish a journal entry in peace & quiet anymore? Sheesh!

Yeah, so anyway.... we had some distance races, depth challenges, breaching contests, and of course relaxing as we talked about our plans to create a merpony colony in the ocean.

---

“So where do you think you’ll locate this colony of yours, Kathy?” Patrick asked her casually as he took up three pieces of kelp and started braiding them together, Sarah tightly binding the ends in pieces of twine she found floating by.

Kathryn had finally resigned herself to the cutesy moniker that the other two had gotten stuck on her. “I want to be not too far from the land,” she began as she gathered her thoughts. “Perhaps with access to a pristine beach for sunbathing?” Sarah suggested looking up from the knots her magic was tying; Kathryn nodded.

“I was also thinking of it being within a short swim of whatever colony has already been started down there. I can only hope that they’ve labeled the highway just as obviously as they have done here,” she turned her raised eyebrow on Patrick, who blushed suspiciously. “Uhh... yeah... I painted that pony on that first highway sign. Karen hung the other ones,” he said. The girls laughed at his antics.

“For the colony itself, I was thinking of locating a bunch of boats and sinking them.” Sarah & Patrick looked at Kathryn like she had lost her mind but she was quick to set them at ease. “If you think of it this way, any ship that had people ON it when the Event happened disappeared along with all those people. Any ship or vehicle we have right now had been empty at the time, and thus we can use them. It would be the same for any boat, yacht or cruise ship we find at a port! So, I figure we find some TNT or ANFO and blow some holes into the boats, sink them in the spot we want to use and then go crazy on the interiors.”

Silence filled the empty space, filled only by the call of sea gulls on the rocks. “I like everything except the part where we use explosives to sink the boats.” Patrick’s pronouncement was met with a nodding Sarah. “OK, that’s fair enough. How else do you propose to sink the boats?” Kathryn asked. “Welding torch,” he answered promptly, as he grabbed an empty plastic bottle floating by - biting off both ends - and fitting both ends of the kelp braid inside, holding it above water as Sarah used magic to heat-seal the plastic down to the ends making it a solid connection.

“Can you use one of those safely with hooves?” Kathryn countered. “Well, no; not really... BUT I have had Susie use her magic to lift it and not look while I wore the mask and used my hooves to guide it in place. I just need to find another unicorn when we get down there and do the same thing.”

THAT was met with more silence, but this time it made Patrick confused. Finally, it was Sarah who spoke up. “Does this mean you’re coming with us, Patty?” she asked in a small voice. He looked to each mare, and with a straight face. “On one condition,” he said as he slung the now rounded piece of braided kelp over his head & brought left leg and wing through it. Suddenly he turned and pointed a hoof back to the beach. “You, Kathy, help me fix my water-wheels so they don’t squeak to raise the dead!” he exclaimed, bursting out laughing at their expressions; Kathryn’s annoyed while Sarah relieved.

---

Later that evening after dinner, I took Patrick and Sarah to the sporting goods section; specifically to the bikes. I took some measurements of Patrick standing, just like I had done one Sarah, with a tail on a chair at perfect legs’ height. Then, I tossed them a wrench and told them what size of wheels we needed. Then I walked away, leaving them dumbfounded.

Of course I returned with a bunch of PVC pipe, cutter, corners and cement piled in a buggy; there was also a bag of sand & a few bottles of crafting glue. “We don’t have the room to bring that boat of a ‘water wheels’ cart, Patrick. We have to build you something like Sarah’s,” I explained. “So what’s the sand and glue for?” Sarah asked.

“Patty here is far heavier than you so I have to fill the pipes with something to add a little bit of weight. He’s gotten too used to lugging around that cart full of water. I have to compensate for that,” I said eyeing Patrick as he blushed a little.

A few hours later, he had a cart very nearly identical to Sarah’s. The only difference I had made was that I put the side pipes more in-line with his body, slightly lowering the position of the tail but still gave him full height and range of movement that Sarah had. The straight poles used for the wheels were filled with a mix of craft glue & sand until they were balanced perfectly level. I had let Patrick use the cart without the sand and just the look on his face was enough to tell me that it was too light. The sand did the trick for him but I didn’t let him try it right away.

I confess... I lied. I wanted to get him back for the teasing and so when the new wheels were totally done, I told him it had to sit for 24 hours so the cement could ‘cure’. “Otherwise, you might get cracks in the glue where water could get in and make it too heavy. Or the cracks could break & the whole rig comes apart,” I had told him, doing my best to keep a straight face.

At some point, when Patrick gets ‘a bug up his butt’, I’ll go wander over to the bike section, transform and try the new wheels out myself. Go down a couple of aisles, scream my head off, etc, etc.... wait until he shows up, demand what’s going on, and then I confess with a “got ya!” and then get him all hooked up to try it out for himself. :P

I hear Sarah whisper that I have no sense of humor.... sure I do. I just don’t let it out like her or Patrick. ;)

I did, however, tell them that we’re heading out tomorrow. It’s time we got back onto the road. I want to be in Florida before the end of the month. Something keeps telling me we need to keep moving; to get down there as fast as we can.

I can hear Patrick groan and grumbling outside my bed room door. Sounds like it’s time for payback! -K

---

Kathryn exited her RV, heading into the Home Depot to drop off a piece of paper filled out with a list of all her call signs and what stations to use. Earlier the previous day, she had helped Mark, Denis & Earl set up a new radio antenna so that they could receive from both Farmville & Wal-Town.

Kathryn reflected on the message they had received from Wal-Town that same day: Bad News Bob had been seen by Marjorie while she was on scouting duty. She had already learned to fly and had hidden in a tree while he trotted the Bridge St overpass. He had spotted something off to the opposite side, ditched the wagon, climbed down the embankment and disappeared from sight. “I could not imagine what he had found,” Marjorie had said over the radio. “I heard the revving of an engine and a 4x4 Jeep burst up the embankment back onto the road. He loaded up the stuff from within the wagon, bucked the wagon so hard it flew to my side of the road and crashed into the tree I was hiding! I managed to keep quiet as he snorted in the direction of the ruined wagon, jumped into the Jeep and took off down the road.”

That’s when Marjorie said she got her cutie mark! It was a pair of binoculars; Kathryn suggested that it meant that Marjorie was an excellent scout. Kathryn had been sure to pass on the news about Bob to Farmville, so they would not be surprised if he arrived sooner.

Kathryn made her way to the back of the Target where Patrick’s new wheels were still resting on the chair they used previously. Despite the slight height difference, Kathryn managed to get her own merpony tail into the rig, minus any water bag or cloths as she did not plan on being in it for very long. The weight was a little dragging but hardly noticeable once she got up to speed and certainly better than dragging her tail across the floor.

Kicking off her front running shoes and catching her groove, she raced down the aisles, laughing and cheering as loudly as she could. Her unshod hooves clattering on the hard tile, echoing around the formerly quiet space as she took another tight corner and then another. She rounded the whole back three departments of the Target before any pony came back to investigate.

Patrick watched Kathryn as she zoomed right by with a shocked expression. Sarah stood behind him, snickering in her hoof. Raea’s face lit up and she bolted, to run alongside of Kathryn. The pony saw the dog, laughed loudly and picked up her speed to match. They raced the entire length of the back of the store before criss-crossing their paths and racing back to a stunned Patrick & a snickering Sarah.

When pony & dog finally came to a stop in front of them, Kathryn smiled, keeping a mostly straight face while slightly out of breath. “A little heavier than what I like but seems like it’ll hold your sorry ass up just fine. You guys ready to head out bright and early?”

Kathryn let the quiet hang for a few minutes, watching Patrick sputter. “What...? Wait... what?” he finally managed to get out.

“Tomorrow; we’re leaving in the morning. Are you guys ready to go?” Kathryn asked, still with her straight face.

“But.... but.... but you said the cart was not going to be ready until 24 hours!!” he finally erupted, pointing his hoof at the cart.

Kathryn & Sarah made eye contact; it was Sarah who burst out laughing. “Got ya,” said Kathryn with a cheeky smile.

Fifteen minutes and a bucket of water later, Patrick finally caught on that Kathryn had tricked him and got him real good. By then, she had removed the cart from her own tail, transformed back and let him put it on instead. He took the cart down the aisles like Kathryn had done, putting it through the paces; Kathryn & Raea ran alongside him, the former to watch for weak points, the latter just plain for the run.

As it turned out, the old water cart was big enough, when emptied - wheels removed and a simple plywood lid made, they could actually use it for storage in the back trailer; moving some stuff from the back of pickup to make room for Patrick's new wheels.

Also helped that four of the six barrels were gone. Kathryn had power washed two of them and refilled with (table) salt water so that when they stopped at night in hotels, the water could be dumped into bathtubs for Patrick & Sarah to sleep in and then siphoned back into barrels for reuse. Each barrel was labeled with their cutie marks instead of names. "Because it's more fun that way," was Kathryn's only explanation.

Patrick simply rolled his eyes and dropped his new kelp sash into his barrel before closing it, to keep the sash fresh.

Author's Note:

(1) I don't actually know if it does.... I just wanted an excuse to get rid of those barrels.

I'd also like to take a minute and thank all of my loyal followers who have been reading this story. You're the reason I keep writing it... well, that and i love this story... and my brain might, i-don't-know, if i don't get it out of there. Lots more exciting adventures for our now, THREE, merpony travelers!

Comments

[Fistfire]

Keep going. I am intrigued.

[SolangeEggbert]

Interesting. Clearly not 'canon' with the rest - far too many ponies. Also - is geology different - that would be interesting if true - and I don't think has been mentioned elsewhere.
There are no actual diamond geodes, and no large diamonds found in the US.
(large in normal contexts - a diamond the size of the end joint of your middle finger is of course quite valuable)
Geology in Equestria is clearly comedically different - might we see what a rock farm actually is?

[kitten_girl86]

7503057 I never said he found the diamond geode in the ground... it might have been "liberated" from a museum for all Kathryn knew

[Starscribe]

Though I question the need to characterize so many ponies given the caravan is passing through town and probably not coming back, I am impressed with all the effort you spent doing it here. It's quite impressive, actually. I'm also impressed by something else that sets your story apart from some others.

It makes appreciable forward progress. I can't say this enough, but this story actually advances us towards a goal (reaching the Atlantic) without getting bogged down. It's so awesome, and rare for the genre. Keep up the good work!