Tell Your Tale: A Home to Share / Zipp Gets Her Wings / Sisters Take Flight
I was getting bored waiting on the main G5 show, so I started writing chapters based on the short YouTube clips. We'll see how this goes, if I even finish.
Who thought bean mouths were a good idea?
The model looked like a lava lamp sitting on top of a purple lunchbox. To be fair, it wasn't a bad representation of the real building in the distance.
“Welcome to the home of our dreams!” Sunny Starscout gushed, presenting it to everyone.
Izzy Moonbow, Pipp Petals, Zipp Storm, and Hitch Trailblazer all ooh’d and ah’d, even as Hitch’s pet crab, McSnipps Alot, started beating the model into dust.
“Forget the model. We’re going to make the real Crystal Brighthouse perfect!” Sunny said.
Happily ignoring the model, Izzy gushed, “We can spend every minute of every day together for the rest of our lives!”
Zipp and I both chuckled with confusion but also sudden nervousness. “What?”
I would have called jinx if Pipp hadn’t interrupted us just then with an impromptu one-line song. “It’s going to be i-con-ic!”
“There’s a lot to get done, but we can do anything if we work together,” Sunny said, gesturing to a box of supplies. Apparently the actual building of the Crystal Brighthouse, which had apparently occurred when I wasn’t looking, was comparatively easy compared to the decorating.
While I had been in the pony land for a little while now, I was still getting used to how things scaled. A culture that had cell phones, but perhaps not heavy machinery, and had recently rediscovered magic, was difficult to predict. Apparently the new lighthouse had been built literally when I wasn’t looking.
Sunny started to grab the supplies, but everyone else made a mad dash and rushed to plunge into the decorating.
“Enthusiasm! I like it,” Sunny laughed. “Wait up, roomies!”
They did not. Sunny hurried after them.
“Wait, roomies?” I said to myself.
A cacophony began from inside the lighthouse. I heard splats of paint, wallpaper being pulled from the roll and pasted up, sawing, hammering of nails, and an automated pancake machine running.
I wasn’t sure if I was able to tell all that because my pony ears were that sensitive, or if I just no longer had the occupational hearing damage that I did when I was human.
With some trepidation, I walked over to the front door and opened it.
The place was immediately just as big of a mess as I had imagined and it had only been a few seconds. I guess if I was impressed the lighthouse had been built so fast, this was only more so. Paint was everywhere. Wallpaper was crooked. Furniture had been broken. Somebody had glued a bird to the wall.
Hitch was doing what he did best, which didn’t necessarily mean he was the best at what he did. I admired him for being the only one doing something practical, building shelves, though his pet crab seemed to keep getting in the way.
Izzy danced by, throwing liberal hopefuls of glitter into the air. I quickly stepped aside, leveling a hoof at her. “Izzy, I’ve told you before, don’t get that herpes anywhere near me.”
“I don’t understand,” Sunny mumbled, eye twitching at the sight of the ruin that had been created near-instantaneously. “I thought working together would be easy, but it turns out, it's super messy.”
“You didn’t have a plan,” I observed.
“I guess not.”
I nodded. “Okay, get everybody together. We’re going to work this out.”
Sunny nodded and managed to get the others corralled and together. They sat on a couch that had somehow survived with only a little stuffing beaten out of it. I pulled over a whiteboard and picked up a marker. “Okay gang, we need a plan.”
Pipp started to say something, but I immediately began writing, drowning her out with the squeaking of the marker.
SMEAC
Situation
Mission
Execution
Administration
Command & Control
“Okay, we’re going to create a detailed order that lays out exactly what is expected, of whom, and how to get there. This is important not only for division of effort, but to ensure everyone is aware of the overall goal, so in the absence of something not covered in this plan, you know what you need to continue working towards.
“Now, Situation covers the current state. It has a number of subsections.” I swept the marker at my audience, and then wrote everyone’s name on the board under a heading titled Friendly Forces. “Okay, and now what’s our enemy?”
A moment of silence. Zipp spoke up. “Um, disorder and an undecorated house?”
“Good.” I wrote it down. “Okay, our operating environment is this lighthouse. I’m going to have to lean on you all for the exact details because frankly I don’t know anything about this place. Anybody got blueprints?”
Nobody did. How did this place even get built?
“Okay, moving on to Mission. Who, What, When, Where, Why. We, the gang, on order will perform our assigned tasks to accomplish beautification of the residence. We can polish that later.
“Next up is Execution.” I pointed the marker at Sunny, and as nervous as she looked, maybe she had confused the meaning. “What is the intent? What is the desired end state?”
“Uh…to make this place beautiful.”
“Good enough for now.” I wrote it down. “Okay now comes the time-consuming part. We need a list of tasks to be accomplished. All the individual things that you can think of that need to be done.”
“Build shelves,” said Hitch.
“I like it.”
“Paint the walls,” added Zipp.
“I guess that’s important, though they look plenty painted enough already.”
“Take lots of pictures so everypony knows how glamorous this place is,” said Pipp.
“Well, we can circle back to that one.” I kept writing as they kept talking.
As the board began to get filled up, Sunny remarked, “Wow, this is actually really helpful. I didn’t understand the first part, but having a clear list of tasks to get done makes it easier to cross off, like a checklist.”
She started to get up, but I said, “Where are you going?”
“Huh?”
“We aren’t done planning yet. We still need to analyze enemy centers of gravity, develop our concept of operations, write the fire support plan, somebody needs to publish the Intelligence Preparation of the Operating Environment, we need to consider the Administration and logistics along with it including what to do with prisoners, and we haven’t developed who has the overall command and who the contingency leader is if the commander is killed in action.” I tapped the marker on the board for emphasis.
“Sentra, one of these days we need to have a talk about what you used to do before you met us,” Sunny said. She quickly hurried to add, “Let’s get started, everypony!”
I surreptitiously smiled as I watched them work. Nobody ever wanted to go through the pain of planning, so my plan to get them to cooperate with each other just to get away from the planning process had been a perfect success.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, introducing magic to the world all of a sudden led to some problems.
Most of the time, it wasn’t dangerous or anything, but when two thirds of the population suddenly had superpowers, shenanigans were bound to happen.
“Hey, Sentra.” Pipp shoved her cell phone in my face. “Do you want to join the Zippsters?”
“Stop trying to make "Zippsters" happen, Pipp! I don't want followers!” Zipp called distantly while she practiced flying tricks.
Pipp had been rather salty about the whole #spillthebeans social media sensation thing I had started and hadn’t yet developed something of her own that had gone so viral. I think she was trying for anything that would stick.
I was in the middle of trying to buy sunglasses at an open air stall on the Maretime Bay seaside walk and didn’t appreciate being interrupted. Nor did I appreciate involuntarily appearing in someone else’s stream. I had my own followers, thank you very much.
“Sorry, I’m not in the mood,” I replied.
“Oh, why not?”
Sudden inspiration struck me. “I’m actually really broken up right now. Somebody close to me passed away from a terrible disease.”
“Oh no!” she gasped, though still recording. “What was it?”
“Ligma.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, though apparently not enough to actually ask what it was.
Oh well. At least it got her to go away. I carried on with my purchase. Sunny had lent me some sunglasses, but it was time to get my own. Ones that weren’t pink, I decided.
It was turning out that I actually might be part bat. It wasn’t like I was blinded by bright sunlight, but I definitely wasn’t squinting as much if I had some shades.
The question of where my money was supposed to come from to buy things like sunglasses was a good one. I still wasn’t exactly sure if this body I was in had been somebody else before and if they had a bank account, but fortunately I was getting an income as some kind of law enforcement officer. Who knew you could stumble your way into being a cop? Apparently whoever was paying me had a better idea of what I was supposed to be doing than I did, and had not yet realized that.
I was just finishing with the sunglasses and turning away when somebody crashed out of the sky into the sunglasses stall. A pegasus mare stumbled out of the wreckage. “Fifi’s Flying Fruit Smoothie Smooth Fruit Delivery Service. Where every delivery is...smooth.” She fell over.
Her ungracious arrival had drawn a crowd. Particularly Zipp, who had come in for a hover nearby. “Woah. Somepony really needs to teach these pegasi how to fly.”
Literally everyone looked at her, flying.
Quicker than even Zipp knew what was happening, she was leading a self-help seminar in a grassy meadow outside town. I think Pipp had done the arranging because she was featuring heavily in the marketing and promotion.
I was there because I could use the help. Flying, that is.
With a total lack of enthusiasm, Zipp read a prompt card. “Welcome to WINGS, the Wonderful Institute of No Gravity Sky-walking?”
“It means flight school,” Pipp clarified.
“It’s really more of a one-off training day,” Zipp said, trying to set expectations.
“I was told it's an academy,” said a fellow student next to me, who appeared to be one of the royal pegasus guards.
“Uhh, is this the university of flying?” asked Fifi, showing up just then.
Anyway, back to my comment about introducing magic to the world all of a sudden led to some problems. The lesson began as a disaster. Everyone was so bad at this.
I was actually pretty proud of myself for not getting hurt very much. I at least understood the concept of aviation and had a little practice gliding in the fan machine Zipp had built back in Zephyr Heights, and that made me the star student.
Zipp did eventually coach everyone into reasonable flying. While I think I could have figured it out on my own, I was glad for her relative expertise. If nothing else it was about getting into the mindset. I just never considered flying because up until recently I hadn’t been able.
After an exhausting but rewarding day, I headed back into town. While I still wasn’t sure about this job of mine, Hitch had offered to clear out a desk for me in his office. I’m not sure if that made me a guest circuit marshal in his jurisdiction or what, but treated it as a place to occasionally hang out.
When I arrived and put my hooves up on the desk, leaning back in the chair, Hitch nodded to me. “How’d it go?”
“Pretty good, though I could use an icepack.”
He got one out of the minifridge and tossed it to me, sitting back down to continue what he had been doing, sifting through the mail. He opened one large envelope that I saw was from some sort of public health organization. He pulled out a poster and unfolded it.
Protect yourself from ligma!
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Official public service notifications,” he said. “We get them all the time. I’ll probably put this on the bulletin board.”
“Uh, sure.” I studied his face, but saw no trace of being in on the joke. “Hey Hitch, about ligma…”
“Yes, Sentra?” He turned to face me, waiting expectantly.
He was just so pure and innocent that I couldn’t do it, and looked away. “Uh, nevermind.”
So apparently all of us we were going to live together.
The deal had been done behind my back, and they just assumed I was going along with it.
I mean, to be fair, I didn’t have any place else to stay, and Sunny’s new house was already going to host the rest of the friend group. At least it was pretty big and there were only a handful of us.
That necessitated everyone gathering up their stuff to move in. I had basically nothing to my name in this world, so that was easy. The two royal sisters, Zipp and Pipp, were off in Zephyr Heights and were apparently going to get an appropriate sendoff.
“It’s crazy,” Zipp told me over video chat as she walked through the castle hallways. She only had one duffel bag and was ready to go. “Pipp is already trying to figure out how many servants she can justify bringing.”
I think the reason everyone likes tomboys is that they’re low maintenance and generally have their stuff together. Zipp was good in my book.
She pushed open the door of Pipp’s bedroom in time to catch an overstuffed suitcase popping open and showering the room with clothes and accessories. The royal dog - Cloudpuff, if I recalled correctly - was also inside. I still hadn’t figured out why the dog had wings.
“You seem busy,” I observed to Zipp. “I’ll let you go.”
I ended the call and sat down on the couch at the Crystal Brighthouse with Izzy, Sunny, and Hitch. With the four of us, it was a little tight. The girls had banished Hitch and I to one side. Apparently something about big people taking up more room. I was tall, but I wasn’t exactly wide. Whatever.
Maybe my hips were a little bony. It took me a moment to realize Hitch seemed uncomfortable, so I gave him a little more room, moving so that our bottoms weren’t quite touching. He seemed a little better after that, but still seemed to be being careful.
As we sat on the couch, the TV was on, showing preparations for the royal send-off for the two princesses. It was going to be a big event.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t be there in person,” Sunny lamented, “but they’re really taking ligma protocols seriously.”
The TV hosts were just discussing it between themselves, actually. I again thought that maybe I should come clean about it. Maybe disease concerns were why Hitch seemed flustered about being so close to me?
The royals appeared on TV and the event got rolling. Even on the other end of the TV, I could see Zipp looked uncomfortable, being on a parade float in front of everyone. There were also parade balloon lookalikes of each of them.
Pegasi with learner permits for flying - which face it, was basically all of them right now - kept getting close to things. Even the TV presenters commented on it. “Ooh! Another close call. There’s been a lot of those lately.”
The TV camera switched to showing the crowd, some of whom were literally crying tears of joy.
“I know exactly how they feel right now,” Izzy said. “Leaving home is always such a poignant moment. I remember when I left Bridlewood it was just like that.”
I doubted the unicorn forest had the resources to throw a parade for her. “Just like that?”
“Where did you come from, again?” Hitch asked me.
“Oh, um…” One of these days, these ponies were going to figure out I was basically ad-libbing my entire backstory. I should probably figure that out sooner rather than later.
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Huh. Ligma in comparison to COVID. Real nice. Whether it's airborne like said virus, is the question.
I suppose you could do a structure similar to More Dreams for in-between episode stuff. Then, of course, there's not nearly as much universe set up as in A Dream when More Dreams started so I can see the difficulty. In any case, I'm happy to see more of this story! There's something about these that I cannot get enough of.
Perhaps the kiss will come up too... I know I'm a horrible shipper but they're relationship parallels some stuff in my life uncannily well in regards to my own relationships.
What, no 5S, or Kaizen system? Lol, I refuse to continue working in these substandard conditions!!!
11228362
I had to look up 5S. Though, I would have recognized Six Sigma.
Then I would have made a joke about Sigma Balls.
“We aren’t done planning yet. We still need to analyze enemy centers of gravity, develop our concept of operations, write the fire support plan, somebody needs to publish the Intelligence Preparation of the Operating Environment, we need to consider the Administration and logistics along with it including what to do with prisoners, and we haven’t developed who has the overall command and who the contingency leader is if the commander is killed in action.”
"I have a question. When did you turn into a nutbar?"
Idiot
Bro what the fuck why are you pulling out the squad order briefing
Who the hell consults FM 7 something for HOME RENOVATION?