Ponies on Earth and their New Horizons

by TikiBat

Chapter 15: Family Business (Trips)

The afternoon sun warmed Silver’s back as he swooped and dodged between the different Oasis buildings. He was never the most graceful stunt flier, but when it came to navigating in the air he was as good as he needed to be. This was a rather unusual route for him to take home at the end of the work week— oftentimes he decided to take a nice relaxing walk instead, but today was also a break from the norm. He had his big business trip to get ready for, and more importantly, his mini vacation.

The rest of the week that followed his meeting was relatively boring and uneventful, though Silver’s excitement over his upcoming trip kept it moving along quickly enough and much to his own excitement, it was now Thursday. He of course hadn’t told Scarlet much of what he had planned, other than saying they would be going off to a trade show and spending a couple of extra days in the area. Scarlet was a smart pony and probably had him figured out by now, but that still didn’t stop him from going as far as having Balanced Books buy their Disneyland tickets so Scarlet wouldn’t find out prematurely. That was the big surprise he had planned— and just the thought of taking Scarlet and Orion to the place his own parents had taken him as a kid just made him so excited and happy.

His hard work this week had paid off, and now it was finally time to get going. Balanced Books had gotten the trip set up, and had taken the liberty of setting up both their plane trips, and arranging a driver to take them wherever they needed to go. That had cut a little more into the budget than Silver had really wanted to, but Balanced Books had insisted that that was most likely the safest and easiest way for them to get around the Los Angeles area. It wasn’t that it was dangerous or anything, but traveling with a night pony foal who was oftentimes rowdy and overly excited in an area that wasn’t known for being the most readily accommodating for ponies meant that sometimes it was better to be safe than sorry.

As he approached his house he flapped his wings wide and slowed to a gentle hover, gracefully landing in front of the small but comfortable home. Shifting his wings, he dusted himself off and nudged open the door where he was very quickly greeted by Cosmo and Orion, who were both overjoyed to see him.

“Hey little guys, you both have a good day?”

Cosmo barked a high pitched happy bark and Orion giggled, and both were just the perfect combination of adorable to absolutely melt Silver’s heart.

“Think that means yes?” Scarlet asked from the hallway, trotting up to Silver.

“I’d say so,” he laughed. “Got everything you need for the trip?”

“If by everything you mean toys for Orion and some Equestrian astronomy books to pass the time on the plane with, then yes, I’ve got everything we need.”

Silver smiled. “Perfect. This is going to be such a fun trip, and I don’t know about you but I’m so excited for it.”

“Oh me too, it’ll be a good mini vacation for me and Orion.”

“And me too,” Silver corrected. “I’ve just got to pop into the convention for a couple of things, then we can all relax and enjoy the weekend.”

Scarlet tried to stifle a laugh but failed. “Silver, this is a tech convention. You might as well be going to Disneyland or something because I know you, and I know I’m going to have to drag you kicking and screaming out of there.”

Silver couldn’t help but grin at the mention of the park, but didn’t say anything more. This was going to be a surprise, whether she guessed it or not.

“You think so?” He laughed. “Am I really that predictable?”

“Do you need me to answer that?” She teased him. “Because I think I know you better than even you know you.”

“I guess we’ll wait and see then. So how about I whip us up a nice dinner we get some sleep in, and then we can get going?”

“That sounds lovely dear. Want me to help or anything?”

“I think I’ve got the dinner part figured out. If you wanna keep me company though then I wouldn’t be too upset.”

Scarlet smiled. “Deal.”

Not wanting to waste any time (he was pretty hungry after a long and exhausting day of work after all), Silver trotted towards the kitchen and started to rummage around for the different ingredients he needed. His dinners were never culinary masterpieces, but that didn’t matter to him. What was important was that he could make a decent meal when he needed to, even if it wasn’t a five star gourmet offering.

“So what’s on the menu today?” Scarlet asked with a dash of curiosity carrying in her voice.

“Grilled cheese and tomato soup maybe? And something a little less messy for Orion?”

Scarlet nodded her head. “Ahh, the good old Silver classic. Well in that case you better hurry up because I’m starving just thinking about it.”

Silver smirked and nodded his head. “Sure thing.”

---

Both the drive to the airport and the plane ride itself was more or less similar to their last big family vacation to the UP, but the next leg of the journey was markedly different in a good way. For as much as Silver balked at the idea of having someone drive him and his family around, it was already proving to be a good decision.

He couldn’t help but giggle as he watched Orion’s wide eyed fascination with the buildings and lights outside, and a part of him almost wished they had gone to Las Vegas instead. Though as he thought about it more, Vegas was definitely not a good family vacation spot, at least not right now. Sure there were more family attractions and plenty of shows to watch nowadays, but if he had a choice, where they were headed to now was his preferred option.

The car ride from the airport to the hotel was thankfully quick, and soon enough the convention center and the hotels surrounding it came into view, and more excitingly to Silver, so did the park. As excited as he was for the convention, the big goofy grin that was spreading across his face was in response to the fun memories he was already envisioning his family making. All he had to do was make it through a few work things and then he’d be set.

Once the car came to a stop and their driver had opened the door, Silver hopped out with Scarlet and Orion, and the three began the short trot into the hotel’s lobby. The wide open seating area of the large, yet cozy lobby spread out in front of them, and that was where the trio headed towards first.

“Okay, I’m going to go get us checked in, why don’t you hang out here with Orion and make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

Scarlet nodded and glanced down at the sleepy foal who hadn’t quite woken up yet. “I don’t think you need to worry about him getting into trouble. Poor guy’s all tuckered out from the trip over.”

Silver smiled. “Good, gives us plenty of time to get him used to another new area.”

“Exactly. So why don’t you go get us checked in and I’ll hang out here with the little Diablo. Maybe we can take a walk later too or something.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Not wanting to waste a moment of his mini vacation, Silver trotted over to the shortest of the admittedly tall desks, and reared up on his hind legs to speak to the attendant. Much to his own relief, it was a relatively empty lobby, he always hated the check in lines after all.

“Can I help you sir?” An older woman with a streak of white running through her jet black hair asked.

“Yeah, just here to check in. The room should be under Silver Eclipse.”

The woman nodded and typed away at the keyboard before pausing for a moment. “Weird question but are you Val’s kid?”

Silver shook his head. “No, just a friend of his kid.”

She nodded. “I was going to say, you didn’t seem like the timid little tike that used to play around the lobby.”

Silver smiled. “Was Stanley really always that shy?”

“Oh he was painfully shy. You almost had to bribe a conversation out of him.”

Silver snickered. “Well you should see him nowadays, he’s totally different. It’s like becoming a pony cut through the shyness.”

“Oh I bet, you all seem to be so much more social, so maybe it was a great thing in the end.” She clicked a few things on the computer and scanned a couple of bracelets before looking back over at Silver. “Alrighty, you should be all set. Just go ahead and hold out whichever hoof you use the most.”

“Huh?” Silver raised an eyebrow, “What for?”

The woman held up one of the bands. “We stopped using regular keys once we started getting more pony guests. These still work the same as the old ones, but they’re obviously a lot easier for you to deal with.”

Silver nodded and held out his right hoof. “So you get a fair amount of ponies checking in then?”

The woman slipped the hand on just under his gauntlet and smiled. “A lot more lately. We still haven’t had a chance to finish all of the renovations we were planning on doing, but we’re happy for the business no matter what you are.”

Silver looked down at the bracelet. “So that’s it then? We’re all set to go?”

“Mhmm. You’ll be in room 826, it’s written on the band too if you forget. Tapping it inside the elevator will show you what room you’re in too.”

“Well thanks again…” Silver looked over to her name tag. “Vivian. Thanks for all your help.”

Vivian smiled. “The pleasure’s mine. Feel free to stop on by if you have any questions or need help with anything.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

Grabbing the other band in his mouth, he stepped down from the counter and trotted back over to Scarlet, who was playing with a groggy looking Orion.

“All set to go hon?”

Silver nodded. “Mhmm, we’re up on the eighth floor.”

“Good. Guess that means Orion gets to do his favorite thing in the world and ride the elevator.” The foal giggled as Scarlet tousled his mane.

Silver gathered their few belongings and started towards the elevator. “Guess so.”

He stopped and looked over at the elevator panel, noticing a couple of oddities that stood out to him. Instead of the usual call button, there was a touch panel and what looked like an RFID touch point. Remembering what the lady at the front desk had told him, he absent mindedly reached forward and tapped his hoof to the point.

It only took a second for the screen to light up with their room number, and only a few seconds longer for an elevator to arrive in the bay accompanied by a loud ding. The inside of the elevator was even odder than the outside, for there were only a few buttons inside, all maintenance and operations related. Without much warning the doors closed and the cabin began to move on its own.

“Huh, interesting.” Scarlet commented. “I heard about this kind of system back in high school, but I never had a chance to try it out.”

“I’m guessing it’s all automated?”

“Pretty much. You tap the button on the outside, put in your floor, and it automatically dispatches it for you. If we had more people out in the lobby it would have bunched us together with whoever else was going to an adjacent floor.”

“No kidding?” Silver chuckled. “I can’t really complain, it makes it real easy for ponies, especially ones with excitable foals… that said, poor Orion’s not going to get the experience of innocently clicking every single button and learning what happens when you do that the hard way.”

“That’s good for us,” Scarlet laughed.

The elevator chimed once again as they reached their floor, and with an eager spring in his step, Silver trotted towards their room. The door setups here were almost identical to the ones in the hotel they had stayed at up in Michigan, with a push-bar handle located at a pony friendly height.

In true fashion, once Silver had opened the door Orion sprang into it like the excitable young night pony he was, and as if in cue, was already starting to explore every nook and cranny of the place.

Comments

[Lawra]

Orion having made a giant fort out of the furniture and being told it's time to go to bed by Silver

"Sorry father, but you're authority is not recognized in fort kick ass."

[ProgAltRocker]

Will admit, tech conventions are kind of cool. Lots of neat little things to watch for demos