This story is a sequel to Desert Getaway
Set in the Pandemic Universe
All actions have reactions, even if they're not always obvious.
Almost a year has passed since Sapphire Sky, a pegasus from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, brought forth a powerful rain storm that tore through the desert ghost town of Mesa Verde, but also reinvigorated it’s growth into a proper Oasis. In that time new friendships and families have started, and for the first time in a long time things started to feel normal again. For Silver Eclipse, his decision to forgive and move on from the Great Storm paved the way towards an unexpected friendship— a friendship that brought on so many new and exciting adventures in his and Scarlet’s lives.
This is a story about family and friendship, and the new and exciting adventures it can bring to one’s life.
Special thanks to Lawra, Halira, and ASGeek2012 for offering feedback, advice, and encouragement on this project.
And of course, thanks to Lawra, Halira, Javarod, and ModernSilver, for assisting with edits.
Special thanks to:
DoughNut Wubbs
Cotton Sweets
Broken Tooth Rabbit
Ravenpuff
FlagStopAgent
FanDrawsArt
and @ArtTartistry on Twitter for their art used on the cover!
LOL at Pegasus ponies on a plane when they have working wings.
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Um, by that humor and logic. Haha at humans in cars when they have perfectly good legs?
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I think Diamond's laughing at the irony of the situation, not at the character's stupidity.
Nice chapter, and I'm liking the new cover. Nothing wrong with the old cover (covers? Did the others change), but that uniform look sometimes made it difficult at a glance to tell one from another. Plus the bright colours are nice.
Hmm, dunno if I asked before, but any chance of me (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15yxMkKtagIT3tzeeYW7PxV8Ldle61DwAO_HMBB9F8M0/edit?usp=sharing) being an NPC if an opportunity arises?
Good eye, the cover art actually did update slightly between previous chapters, it will continue to do so with the new cover, I just felt like it was easier to add characters that way, plus it makes it it’s own thing too.
And I’ll consider it if they’ll fit in anywhere in a natural way. Glad you enjoyed the chapter.
Cool chapter! Glad to see that you're doing slice-of-life stuff for the 'verse; so much of the rest is so heavy.
Why does Zipper give me a Trixie impression?
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I've been trying to find that right balance between the slice of life stuff and some more in depth lore stuff. Lot of the slice of life stuff that's being brought up now will eventually become bigger down the line, at least in the context of the Oasis plot line. Continuing that theme of small things can have big consequences down the line, there's going to be a steady progression from solely slice of life, to slice of life with some lore/story thrown in, and then stuff that ties it all together in the end. I like to think that Zipper's had a progression from Zephyr 2.0 to slightly more responsible Trixie
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If he thinks he has a chance with one of Sapphire's friends then he better not be a Zephyr.
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He's been slowly moving past that, but that doesn't mean the Oasis ponies don't still give him a hard time about it every once in a while
I just noticed this story.
I like this verse. I like that there are more stories in it.
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Hope you enjoy it, I definitely recommend reading its predecessor, Desert Getaway because that sets this story up. My other two, Dreamers and Departures are a bit rough and could probably be skipped for now (I’m going to go in and rework them significantly down the line). This story has a few connections back to Lawra and Halira’s, but you don’t need to read theirs to generally get this one
Nice update.
Well, Silver just invoked Murphy's Law, now everything will go wrong. XD
Marcus also invoked Murphy's Law, either it'll cancel it out or just make it worse.
You know, at first I thought Orion would open a window in his room and try to fly back to the airport.
Well that's certainly...creepy. Not sure why you would want to have a plush of yourself in the house.
No, not the TV! Silver has some really good self control it seems.
Silver is lucky that Orion is a night pony instead of an earth pony, that'd likely be a trip to the hospital in that case. XD
Protein. Also I take it Silver has arachnophobia?
I just noticed that the voice thing in the gauntlets is called Navi. Is that a deliberate Zelda reference or accidental?
Overall pretty good story thus far! Not too many typos that I saw.
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So something I tried to write in is that Silver tries really hard to keep calm and collected in public, considering he's in charge of an organization that's trying to make life for both ponies and humans easier and they don't want to come off as a bunch of brainwashed aliens that aren't interested in reintegrating with the rest of the world. As a result he winds up channeling all of his aggression and protective instincts into other things, and in this case it's being the best parent he can be for Orion. He's a bit overprotective and you'll see how far he goes with this in the Dream Seekers chapter, and even see some of his aggression flare up in Fowl Play.
Sure Silver doesn't have to deal with raw surging earth pony strength, but in the past he's had to deal with a surging night pony running through the dream realm, and an ensuing lecture from Sha'am about keeping an eye on his surging foal, (Which is something that definitely contributed to him wanting to be the best parent possible).
Thought the two of them having plushies of themselves was a weird visual too but thought it’d be cuter if Orion was trying to get ahold of one because he missed his mom. I figured that Scarlet’s Grandmother would think that Silver, Scarlet, and Orion were really adorable as ponies and decide to make little stuffed versions, Silver not wanting to offend her would happily take the gift and keep them away on a shelf. I’m working on an expanded Christmas chapter that gets into the vast differences between Scarlet and Silver’s family. Scarlet’s love her, her husband, and her son unconditionally as if they were all human, whereas Silver’s are a little more apprehensive and aren’t sure what to think or how to interact with them. Both of their parents are human, but live in very different areas and get a very different perspective on ponies as a result.
Silver absolutely has arachnophobia, and the idea of dealing with spiders, even little ones, is mortifying for him. Unfortunately for him, Scarlet picks up a new recipe in Equestria that you'll get to read more about in her own point of view chapter. (He learns to live with it when it's clear that that's a source of meat that they can actually eat without issues.)
Navi is actually started as an accidental Zelda reference and was meant to only be the prototype name for the Gauntlets' built in OS. In universe it's short for "NAVIguide" which is the built in automated assistant that runs the gauntlets and makes it easier for them to control everything via voice commands. I liked the idea of naming the personal assistant after Navi from Zelda because it felt fitting enough. Eventually that gets phased out in favor of something you'll see come up, starting in Dream Seekers, but that isn't until sometime before Monsters We Make.
When writing this chapter the only thing I intentionally wrote as a reference (albeit a very loose one if you can even call it that), was the name of the Doctor -- "Dr. Wayne Marshall". I was watching Land of the Lost at the time and liked the name "Dr. Marshall" so decided to use that as the Oasis' doctor's name.
I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far, this is the one I'm most proud of so far, even though it's slightly less linear than my others. While it's technically an anthology, there are connections between chapters that link everything together and eventually form an overarching background narrative.
Oh, so Silver's one of those parents, the kind who would want wrap their kids up in bubble wrap before letting them loose on the playground. XD While funny, it is kind of scary how far Silver's willing to go for Orion's sake. I wouldn't be surprised if Silver channels that aggression onto the school bully for hurting Orion if Scarlet doesn't reel him in.
You know, this is the first time you've said that Silver (and I suppose Scarlet) helped spread the Vision. I will say though it does come at quite a shock, we know Silver simply had reluctant acceptance at staying a pony forever. He certainly doesn't seem like the "mass brainwasher" type, or at least a pony who endorses it. To be fair, Dreamers/Departures didn't give too much insight into the time before and shortly after he got his cutie mark.
I have to ask, Moonlight was the same pony who was in Departures and led the charge against Sunset Dawn, correct? Later in the chapter events seem to contradict what happened in Departures. In Departures he leaves Dawn's village and joins the PRISM team. However, New Horizons suggests that he's either still there or at a different village. Unless I'm thinking of a different night pony.
I'm getting Cupcakes vibes. XD Season 5 premiere also works I guess.
How to piss off Silver:
Step 1: call him a shimmerist
Step 2: ???
Step 3: profit.
Found a typo.
Overall, really good chapter, really enjoyed it. Sounds like Silver's project in Somewhere is similar to Arbiter's project mentioned in MWM.
One thing I wanted to mention about the last two chapters though, is there any special rules night ponies from earth have to follow in regards to dreamwalking in Equestria? Or do they just have the ability stripped from them while there? Would've been interesting to explore how different dreamwalking is on Equestria as opposed to Earth.
Really enjoyed getting a good look at Equestria post Aftermath. We don't see a whole lot of it outside the initial story in the universe.
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So Moonlight is actually one of the characters mentioned very briefly in Departures and Dreamers. Midnight was the one in Dawn's Village and she gets brought up in another chapter, but doesn't actually make a full appearance yet (Not sure if she will or not, it'll come down to finding a good place for her to show up in). The "we" Silver refers to when he's talking about the vision is more in relation to night ponies as a whole. He didn't spread it for personal reasons at the time, and hates that it was done, but Scarlet might have at one point. It's not a personal thing he holds against the others, but he just couldn't see the merits of it until Emily came along and showed off her own take on the ability. The others in the group all likely have, though I probably won't wind up exploring that in too much detail. I had originally considered bringing up Josie because she's the most powerful night pony known in existence, and she'd definitely fall onto his group's radar, but it didn't feel like a good addition to the storyline and I wound up cutting mention of her, might bring that back someday. It's funny you mention his project in Somewhere, there's definitely parallels and similarities between what he wants to do and what Arbiter wants to ultimately do, but it's pure coincidence. Somewhere as a narrative device is actually something I wanted to introduce early in Departures, but wound up cutting. It wasn't until Lawra suggested that I made my dream stuff more interesting that I decided to bring the idea back in full force. Somewhere I've got early planning docs from way back in late 2018/early 2019 that include it as an Idea. Overall this story is kind of my way of writing what I wanted to write originally but didn't because I wasn't confident enough in the ideas, the dream stuff in particular is going to feature a lot of that.
The Dream Seekers weren't meant to be the main arc in this iteration of the story, but two major parts of the ending I had originally written for it are now considered "non canon" so I had to make some course corrections in order to come up with something new and better for the ending. The next chapter they all appear in will set up some very big things for my side of the universe. Perhaps I'll share the original someday, make it's own alternate universe ending or something along those lines.
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Oh, and in reply to dreamwalking in Equestria, in my own personal head canon, which hasn't been shown or contradicted by anything else yet, it functions as normal, with less restrictions going in line with what we've seen/heard from Equestrian night ponies. I'm not done telling stories involving Equestria, and Starry isn't just going to be a one off character. Scarlet's dream is to get back there someday and you better bet she's going to work towards that until she can't any longer
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Ah, must've got the two of them mixed up. I don't recall where Moonlight might've popped up from.
Barely finished Departures a week ago and I'm already forgetting crucial details. XD
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So night ponies native to earth don't get any special rules or stipulations while dreamwalking in Equestria? As long as they follow the rules laid out by the resident Dreamwarden, that being Luna, anything goes?
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Moonlight made about two actual appearances in both stories, and only briefly both times. She was one of Phoenix's best friends back home. When it came to writing this story I wanted to bring in seldom seen or more obscure characters along with characters that might not appear in their own isolated narratives yet, but realized I didn't really have a library of those at my disposal, or at least characters that were night ponies and could fit into the narrative of the group. And that's more or less how I viewed it, they'd be subject to Luna's rules just as Equestrian dream walkers are for the wardens on Earth. Scarlet was probably given a little more leeway just because she was a personal friend of Crescent Shadow who was one of the ponies involved in running the "Equestrian Astrological Exchange Program", which is what was shown in Star Struck. Scarlet was most likely evaluated by Luna before she was even allowed to take part in the program and knew she'd be interacting directly with her in Pelham Outpost
Who will win? One very aggressive night pony, or one very aggressive goose? XD
I'll be honest: when Zipper was introduced in Desert Getaway, getting his cutie mark in understanding animals was the last thing I thought it would be. I thought it'd have something to do with weather management, like he also says later on.
Might be debatable for night ponies. We know they can eat spiders, surely there's other meat products that they can eat without issues. They've got fangs for a reason, right? Fangs might just be for drinking
pony bloodapple juice though.How far Silver's willing to go is frightening though. (Yes, I know I've said this before) This is like mother bear level of aggression.
Also just to clarify, what Silver's implying is to serve the goose to his dog for Thanksgiving? I hope not, might not be the healthiest choice for him/her.
Doesn't stop me from making some references to it. So, Untitled Night Pony Game when? XD
(I haven't actually played said game, but I have seen a desktop application inspired by it.)
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Silver really struggles to keep so calm and collected all the time, the thought of anything harming his pride and joy is enough to break through his calm facade. I'd say he'd definitely be a force to be reckoned with and would absolutely win against the aggressive geese. Funnily enough, Zipper probably has some of the deepest backstory of any of the characters, second maybe to Silver, Scarlet, and Orion. We'll see a lot of that in his next big chapter, including a lot of his backstory that helps explain why he was the big annoying pony that he was up until this chapter. It's not been confirmed in any of the stories, but there was some discussion about this in the Discord and basically insects are the only main source of meat that they can properly digest. Silver definitely takes his aggression too far in the brief moments it slips through, and that's something he later personally tries to get help with. We've seen some of his alternative methods of getting that aggressive energy out in the dream realm, and we'll probably see more later on, some of which leads to some fun chaos. It's also another reason why he pours himself into projects like the Oracle project we've seen a bit of already. The implication with his threat was more or less him saying that he wouldn't hold back if the geese hurt Orion, maybe not necessarily go as far as actually harming them, but he'd pursue every avenue possible to get them out of the Oasis, and knowing him, it wouldn't be a hollow threat.
So, okay chapter, though it had a slight issue.
Tinker is inconsistently described as being a unicorn and pegasus. I'm fairly certain that he was introduced as being a pegasus in Dreamers, so I'm not what's going on here, unless he ascended to alicornhood off-screen. XD
Some examples of what I'm talking about:
I thought I saw one of these in the latest chapter as well, guess not.
At any rate, your starting to drive me nuts when you start a segment off like this, where the reader has no idea who is speaking, or what's even going on. At the least, please provide a name for who's speaking if you start a segment with dialogue. I've noticed that you have a tendency to do this since the last few chapters of Departures.
I did enjoy seeing Phoenix/Stanley in this chapter, he's unfortunately faded into the background since he stepped down in Desert Getaway/Departures epilogue.
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Good catch, got distracted when writing and had swapped him In for his assistant at one point because he really hadn’t been introduced at all yet. Was writing this during a time when I was juggling two jobs and no free time so I’ll correct this tonight ASAP.
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Definitely was an issue in Departures, and a slight one at the beginning of Desert Getaway. This was somewhat intentional just to sort of establish an opening narration type feel, at least that’s how I envisioned it in my head. There was something that was sort of turning into that in the next chapter but I reworked it a lot to avoid that.
I wanted to bring Phoenix back in again in Desert Getaway but just couldn’t find anywhere to put him that didn’t feel forced or weird. Thought he’d make a nice counter to Gyro and Zipper and he’ll make more appearances again
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Rectified now, thanks again for catching that rather embarrassing oversight
Nice update.
Been a while since I heard of the Sea Castle. I'd like to see them explored a bit more in the future.
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I definitely want to do more with that group, they would have had their own little sub arc in this originally but it just didn’t fit anywhere. I’ve got a lot of side story stuff I might make into its own anthology at some point, because they do have a story of their own in a way. Figured bringing them back in in some small capacity was a good way to at least lightly reintroduce them.
Keep trying for your dreams Zipper. Wonder if he'll ever realize the success he's already had.
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Zipper's greatest strength is his weakness, he tries to be confident and "cool" but he has a tendency to miss what's right in front of him. Hopefully he'll learn to overcome that sooner rather than later.
Nice update.
Just got caught up. Great update!
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Thanks! Probably going to have a break between updating this story for a while, right now my main focus is on the prequel story, but I have some really big things planned out for this one too
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."
If only Silver knew Rossman and Lair would be right up near the top of the FBI's most wanted list later in the Pandemic universe. They really need to invest in some better background checks.
Kid would end the movie Eight Legged Freaks right quick. With a loud NOM NOM NOM.
Finally get to this story, and so far it's very pretty. All the novelty and cultural differences are a fun thing to explore and you're doing it wonderfully : )
That picture is adorable : )
Huh, quite the ending!
Great story, thanks !
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Really glad you enjoyed it!!!
Nice start to the story. It seems a lot has changed since the end of the last story, and poor Silver has gotten wrapped up in a few big projects. A vacation is definitely needed
Such a cute chapter on travelling. Funny to see Zipper still crushing on Dazzle after a year. And I'm fairly certain Sha'am is pretty lenient for first-time parents when those little magic surges hit. Can't blame them if they haven't seen or experienced those events
Sounds like the vacation is off to a great start
Scarlet's going to get the chance at work in Equestria. Pretty exciting stuff
Heh heh, looks like Orion has started to get rather exploratory and a little rambunctious now. Poor Silver
Instead of "Alice in Wonderland", we get to see Scarlet in the magical realm of Equestria!
Can definitely get where Scarlet is feeling with being in Equestria. Once everything feels "normal" sized, hard to not get a feeling of "home".
Also seeing another little peek at Sapphire's back story
Scarlet seems to be enjoying her time in Equestria so far. Though it looks like her human coworkers need some military training. That ability to fall asleep anywhere is quite handy at times
Having so much fun in Equestria, and yet realizing it wasn't home. Scarlet is having a nice adventure, and glad she's making some friends along the way