My everything started to really ache about when I got halfway back to the treebrary. But even so, I had stopped by Rarity’s store and put in an order.
It had made the white unicorn rather excited in ways that had nothing to do with the… significant chunk of Bit’s I was going to pay her for it.
That gleam in her eyes was one that I recognized anywhere, even if I was much more used to seeing it from the other side. My suggestion of ‘something scandalously sexy for Luna’ almost made the unicorn glow.
I almost thought she’d offer it for free, but she kept sense about her enough to suggest a price for the rush. I think I paid less for my first printing of books.
But fair enough, it was a rush order… and I had no doubt the result would be well worth it.
Pushing the door open to the library, I slowly entered and looked around, “Anypony in here?”
“Over here, Page,” Sunset called back, “About closing time anyway, you can lock the door.”
Nodding, I locked the door behind me and moved off in search of her. I found Sunny and Sparky by the fireplace, a book open before them, “Hey you two. Had a nice day?”
Twilight smiled and nodded, “It was. And I have some thi-”
She was interrupted by Sunny putting her hoof on hers, “Tomorrow. It’s been a long day for everypony and I bet Page is tried too.”
“...Sorry,” Twilight said and gave me a small chagrined look.
I smiled at her, “Never apologize for being excited about something you love doing,” I told her and looked at them, “Mind some company, or do you two want some alone time?”
Sunset smiled and reached up to pull me down next to her and giving me a quick nuzzle before touching her horn to mine, “How did your flying go?”
“So why couldn’t we come help?” Twilight asked, “I’m sure we could have figured something out.”
I rested my horn against Sunny’s before I sighed and looked to Sparky, “Look, this is difficult enough without having to have two attractive mares watching me flail around and ending up in the bushes. There is only so much my ego can take.”
I didn’t even lie. It was bad enough that Fluttershy saw it.
Sunny stuck her tongue out at me as Twilight blushed.
“So how did it go?” Sunny asked.
Letting go of my illusion, I stretched my wings and sighed, “I can get in the air and mostly stay there. Anything else though is an exercise in frustration for tomorrow. Another couple of days away from ponies that can spot me and I’ll be okay, I think.”
Twilight slowly nodded, looking at my wings over Sunsets back, “I would expect it to be very different from regular pegasus wings.”
“They are,” I admitted, “It’s almost…” I said and then frowned, “Sunny, you might know what I mean what I say that it’s almost like swimming for a human. Less like shifting the wings and more like you grab the air and throw it behind you.”
Sunset slowly nodded, “I think so. I never learned how to swim as a human though.”
I blinked at her, “You didn’t?”
She shook her head, “Never had the time,” she admitted and rolled onto her back, looking up at Twilight and myself, her front legs held to her chest, “I… I was always so busy when I was in the human world. Very little of it good.”
“Well, you were a villain,” I said with a smile.
Sunny sighed and looked to Twilight, “Still, I do wish I spent more time exploring and less time plotting.”
“Not overly long until the portal opens again,” Twilight observed and smiled down to her, “We could go through and go exploring.”
“I know I’m taking Luna through,” I said, “It may not be my Earth, but it’s close enough that I want to show her around.”
Twilight nodded with a smile, “We didn’t have a lot of time to look around last time,” she agreed, “I would like to explore a bit. There were so many fascinating things!”
Oh yes. Twilight Sparkle, a laptop and Wikipedia. We’d never get her away from it.
Sunny smiled back to her, “It’s a date,” and then rolled back onto her stomach, leaning against my side and I slipped my wing across her back,
“So what are you two reading?” I asked as Twilight shifted to copy me, scooting a bit closer to Sunset and slipping her wing across her back in turn, “Large tome of hidden magical lore?”
Twilight grinned briefly and lifted it in her magic to show me the cover, “Daring Do and the Crystal Chalice.”
I frowned and nuzzled at Sunny’s ear, “Is that new?”
“Just came out,” Sunny nodded, “We’re only a chapter in,” she then added and looked to Twilight, “Want to restart?”
“Sure Kitten,” Twilight agreed and flipped back to the start.
“You don’t need to do that,” I protested.
“Hush,” Sunny said and touched her horn to mine before she did a small wiggle beneath the wings and got comfortable, “It’s only a dozen pages.”
Twilight gave her a quick nuzzle and then started to read.
I settled down and closed my eyes, letting the tension of the day drain out of me.
Twilight did have a very nice reading voice and it didn’t take long until I drifted off to sleep from the warmth of the fireplace.
Cute.
This wound down really nicely. That said, I'm curious if some shenanigans might happen before Page wakes up. I forsee sharpie marks.
Nice
9985664
Agreed.
Next Chapter:
Rainbow Dash is extremely nervous.
Bulk Biceps is extremely nervous.
Cloud Chaser is extremely nervous.
Wind Blossom is extremely nervous.
Clear Skies is extremely nervous.
Daring Do is extremely nervous.
Crafty Crate is extremely nervous.
Flash Sentry is extremely nervous.
Zephyr Breeze is extremely nervous.
because...
Every pegasus is secretly a thestral! And they all know the secret is about to come out....
CUTE!!!!
9985691
LOL
But to be fair, I can see rainbow dash and Daring Do being bat ponies, I'm not so sure about anyone else in the list
the only way to sleep cuddling a mare.
9985720
Daring Do would make a good bat pony, and it would make total sense given her ocupation of climbing around through old ruins.
Meanwhile in the Storm lands.
“F it! Invasion!”
9985720
9985842
Those two--yeah--I could seriously see that.
I was playing off the meme of "everypony's a changeling" to make "every pegasus is a bat pony", (every pegasus really is born a pegasus, but when puberty hits, all their feathers fall out at the same time they instinctively develop the illusion spells to hide it) and it was going to be Lord Page who outs everyone.
Lord Page: "....wut? how? I ... but ... can't even... wut? "
Luna: "I have to admit, they hid it well. They hid it very well. "
Lord Page: "Wait. But ... I got this feather from Rainbow Dash..."
Rainbow Dash: "Oh, I just kept snagging all of Gilda's feathers when she was done preening back in Junior Speedster Flight School. I dyed them blue. "
Ok it would be great to see a reveal 1/5 of the Pegasus population is a batpony But i wonder if that would actualy be a problem. Especially if there loved like Daring Do Page would make a mark for that reveal in the history books.
Destroyer of Tirek , most sexy stallion around ,bridge between races, defender of Equestria & uniter of pony tribes (after Thestrals are a welcomed part of the Pony tribes again) . In future maybe breeding stud nr. 1 and most wanted stallion evaaaaa!
9986569
9985720
Daring maybe. Rainbow? I just don't see it.
9989014
I agree. Would make a better context to have both subspecies in there friend group.
Do we have Lunar Unicorn btw? I guess Rarity would be a fine one. White like the Moon
Would make it a amazing pony variant group.
Just thought about this: Would the Flutterbat episode be enough to classify Fluttershy as a former 'vilain'? Because that way it would fit with how all of Page's love interests are reformed vilains!
9991544
Flutters needs some lovin', too! Get the cuddle bugs in here stat
Match made in heaven
11042061
To be fair, Wikipedia (the English one, at any rate) doesn't actually take up that much space.
According to an article on HowToGeek, the whole package (incl. media) will set you back some 150 GB - so, about two to three modern games' worth (or one third of ARK with mods).
Setting up a webserver to locally serve the articles is trivial (because as an IT guy, Page wouldn't be caught dead using a Java all-in-one app :D), regardless of the OS. So - this is a very doable thing.
11068034
The more you know…
(For real, interesting trivia.)
9985691
O my gawd... Pegasus are about to be the subrace that is endangered! That would be a awesome plot twist...
"I had to learn how from an expert, but I know a guy and he likes his privacy. He has good prices though."
"Who is he?"
Not my secret to tell, just a benevolent benefactor."