VII July
The View From Here
July 1: From my castle balconies I can see much of the patchwork of fields, orchards and forest. It's very pretty. The harvest has turned the hay fields from lush green to golden yellow, which is now slowly gaining a delicate green as the grass grows back. Wispy timothy grass with a touch of alfalfa. We should plan a picnic soon, while the fields are still short and golden.
I'm a lot less oily today (my sheets are a tad shiny now) but my mane and coat are just so silky. It was so much fun just running my brush through my mane and watching the hair flow like water through the bristles.
I doubt Rainbow Dash or Pinkie will try the oil bath. Pinkie likes her mane frizzly and Dash isn't keen on having other ponies touching her all over.
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She's Got the Winds Something Fierce
July 2: It sure was hot today, I moved off the balcony and into the cool interior of my library room early. One of the advantages of living in a tree-shaped horse house made of cold stone is that it's cool indoors. It also sucks air by convection through the front door like you wouldn't believe. I thought Spike was slamming the door. Nope. Air was getting pulled in, along with anything or anypony by the door that wasn't well rooted or nailed down. I think I saw my Sum Sun paper lantern fly by me in the stairwell, on its way right out my small balcony window and rocketing off into the wilderness.
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Summertime and the Living is Easy
July 3: It was a good day for a picnic. The weather ponies scheduled a downpour for Ponyville, light showers for various root crops and vegetables in the farmland, but clear skies for the pastures.
We met up in the western pasture, up on the Summer Sun Celebration hill. Applejack brought a couple of her always excellent pies, and with summer in full swing, we had fresh celery sticks, fresh-pressed beet juice, baby carrots and lettuce to go with our freshly harvested first cut timothy hay. Pinkie contributed these great peppermint cookies. I could grow fat and content eating those, all day long!
The grass is growing in nicely in the strips of ground that got churned by galloping ponies playing follow the leader two weeks ago. We settled down to read and bask in the afternoon sun after demolishing all the food. All around us were golden fields, most turning green, some with scattered bales awaiting collection and storage. The grey rain clouds were busy over Ponyville, and in the mist floating up from that downpour, a brilliant rainbow.
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Strawberries
July 4: Turns out the solution to the wind tunnel effect is to keep the door at the top of the stairs closed and open a few windows and balcony doors in the lower levels above ground level to replace the air going out the windows higher up. I'm still fiddling with which windows and how many. I like my scrolls on their shelves, not scattered all across Ponyville and beyond. This magical Treecastle is huge.
Strawberries are in season! There are so many strawberries for sale at the Ponyville bazaar, I just had to get a whole bunch. Applejack and Pinkie are probably making big vats of jam. Spike and I are just going to eat ours.
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Strawberry Jam
July 5: OK, I gave in, we're making strawberry jam. Spike insisted and we just have so many strawberries. But the batch with the glittery sapphire and emerald grit in it goes into _very_ clearly marked jars. I had a ruby shard jammed between two molars once. I don't want that to happen again.
The jam is just about ready, time to heat the jars and lids!
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Ya Mare You Be Jammin' Too
July 6: It turns out everypony is making strawberry jam, even Rainbow Dash! So we had a strawberry jam-off this afternoon. The Treecastle dining room was the popular choice. It's huge and it's as cool as a cave.
Everypony brought a fresh loaf of bread (some still hot!) and a jar of jam. I provided the butter and the iced tea as well. Once we were all assembled and the loaves sliced, the jars were opened and the fun began! I was a bit embarrassed by my plain old straight strawberry jam, but I hadn't even planned to make jam at first. I got compliments anyway, or I should say we got compliments as Spike did all the stirring and cooking. I mostly read the recipe and watched the timer and the thermometer. We didn't actually taste Spike's bejeweled jam, but it sure was pretty to look at.
Rainbow Dash had a cloudberry and strawberry jam. They were very early cloudberries, very tart but perfect for the jam Dash made. Cloudberries are very popular in Cloudsdale and thus very expensive. Dash wouldn't say where she got hers. I think she has a secret berry patch on a mountain side somewhere.
Applejack had July Pippin apples in her strawberry jam, Fluttershy combined cherries and strawberries, Rarity made tiny jars of wild strawberry jam and Pinkie had stirred in swirls of chocolate into her strawberry jam while it was cooling. We finished that jar first.
We all promised to give each other a fresh jar of the jam we'd made (they were all delicious), even Spike. Spike's jams will be just to look at, until he comes over to eat it, eventually.
So it was easy for me and Spike to distribute our jars right away, since we had them at hoof. We'll be getting jars from our friends as they drop by in the days ahead.
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Message in a Bottle
July 7: I've waffled long enough. I'm going to Canterlot and I'm going to get a telescope. While I'm there, seeing as I won't be on a rush errand or at some royal function this time, I'm going to go book shopping with my foalhood friend, Moondancer. My foalhood friend from back when I didn't even realize I had friends. Awkward. But that's all in the past, and it's good to have friends in Canterlot, especially a friend who's as book crazy as I am. I sent her a letter. Everything will be fine. I'm sure she'll be happy to see me again. And make time for me. I hope she writes back. Soon.
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Friendship Preserves
July 8: Everypony has dropped by with a fresh jar of strawberry jam. All the jars are different shapes and all the jams are different colors. They're all so pretty I decided to put them on display. I pulled out Pinkie's chocolate strawberry swirl jam from where I'd stashed it, deep in a cupboard and tried to decide where to put them. A shelf in the kitchen makes sense, but they'd probably get eaten before summer was out. I could put them in my bedroom, but then my friends wouldn't see them. The Treecastle is huge, so there's lots of space but I don't want to put them in some spot where nopony goes. Not my library. On the dining room table? They'll get eaten. Not the throne room either. There's the sitting room, with the couch. That's kind of cozy. That will be perfect.
I'd just chilled a fresh pot of iced mint tea when Rainbow Dash dropped in (via the balcony) with her jar of cloudberry and strawberry jam (in a lovely Cloudsdale jar). We got to talking about Daring Do's latest exploits, such as finding the Eternal Flower and notably, the previously invisible cloud city of Cirrostrata. It should be somewhere near the town of Alto Terre, but I have not heard any news of long eared pegasi in Equestria. Neither has Rainbow Dash. Maybe these elusive ponies have found another way to remain hidden.
My seven jars of jam have pride of place on a well lit shelf in my sitting room, nicely ranked by size. I was going to go for hue, or perhaps from light to dark. I considered making a pyramid with Rarity's tiny jar on top. It's cute -- she tied a cloth cap to the lid with a shimmering red ribbon. The pyramid would have been interesting but precarious. The row approach is best.
All my best friends, in jam form. Spike's jam sparkles as I walk by. I might never eat these.
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Ticket to Ride
July 9: I got a letter from Moondancer! I'll meet up with her at the Canterlot train station day after tomorrow and we'll head out from there.
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I'm Going To Catch That Train
July 10: I'm catching the early train to Canterlot tomorrow morning! I've packed a few books for the trip and a jar of the strawberry jam I made with Spike (but not Spike's gem-grit jam). The jam is to give to Moondancer. I guess I could fly to Canterlot, but I'd rather read on the train. I'll be taking the train back anyway since I expect to be loaded with books and a new telescope! Spike is staying here. Shopping for books and a telescope didn't appeal to him.
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Practical Glassware
July 11: I caught the early train to Canterlot this morning and sped off to connect with Moondancer, get a small versatile telescope and go buy some books.
After meeting up at the train station, we went to that shop selling scientific glassware and optical equipment I'd seen last time I was looking at telescopes. We pondered the Celestian line of telescopes. The reflector-type Startracker model was tempting, but calling your brand "Celestian"? How gauche. I wanted a refractive telescope anyway. Double Bridle Glassware had a Lightbridle reflective with a trusstube Bobroanian "light bucket". Oh mare! That has to be my back-up choice. But in the end I got a big Double Bridle night and day refractor telescope. It's quite similar to the one I had at the Golden Oak Library, only a bit bigger. It comes complete with tripod and an eyepiece and filter set.
We stopped for lunch and then it was off to Moondancer's favorite bookseller. I got that copy of T.S. Celerybit's Collection of Poems I've been meaning to buy, as well as some more reference books and some light reading.
From there we went to my old place where we talked for hours. I told Moondancer about the foal's storybooks from the Crystal Empire I'd read, especially the one with Epona and the windigo named Winter. Moondancer sat bolt upright at that. She told me about a scroll fragment the Canterlot Mane Library has in its archives, a fragment that is all that's left of a larger text several thousands of years old. It appears to recount a legend of a time before ponies. You need special permission to see the treasures they keep in that archive and this fragment is very delicate. It's printed on gold leaf and she wasn't allowed to touch it or even breathe on it! It spoke of a giant windigo named Winter. Moondancer thinks she can figure out where this windigo lived. It's very exciting.
Moondancer has been practicing Haycartes' book-study method and she's making good progress. I read therefore I am the book!
I caught the afternoon train back and lugged my boxed telescope and my new books back to the Treecastle. I was a long day and I'm tired.
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Some Assembly Required
July 12: I opened the box my telescope was packed in. The bad news was that there was some assembly required. The good news is that there are detailed instructions. I didn't want to end up with a microscope, knowing how well I put things together. It's not like the instructions aren't clear, it's just the assembling part that keeps going wrong somehow. So I got help.
Rarity is my go-to pony for this. She's a whiz with this kind of fine motor control. She can insert tab "A" into slot "A" and not "B", "C" or "D", no problem. Pinkie is good at assembling things too, but the things she builds are often a bit eclectic. She might end up making a starlight cannon rather than a telescope. Applejack is a can-do pony, but she can-do best with a hammer. I think she can-don't do delicate glass instruments. Too fiddly.
So I got out the instruction manual, hi-lighted the key steps, made a flow-chart and arranged all the parts on a table in the order that they are to be assembled. Then I called on Rarity.
Rarity was free this afternoon, and after tea we got to it! I read the instructions, Rarity put it together and Spike handed her all the tools and pieces. Team work! I did have to rein in her artistic tendencies a little. There were a few times she suggested that such and such a piece would look oh so avant guard breaking free from the orderly arrangement of the other parts and oh! glitter and could we paint it chartreuse. Chartreuse is so "in" this season!
So now I have a shiny new, two whole hoofspans lens, modular ocular, refractive, night and day, Double Bridle telescope. With a glittery chartreuse bow tied around the middle. I took it out on my small balcony after dark and gazed deep into the sky. Just like old times.
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Plans For the Morrow
July 13: Just a lazy day spent reading inside. It's much too hot to go out for more than a short errand or such. But I did organize a stargazing picnic for tomorrow night. Maybe if we're lucky we'll see a few meteors go by.
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The Spinning Heavens
July 14: We met up in the west pasture right before sundown, I brought my telescope, we all brought snacks, pillows and blankets.
Together we watched the sun set over the fields and forest. Into the twilight rose Luna's moon, scattering constellations and stars as it carved a path through the sky. We ate strawberries and we watched for meteors. Some constellations dodged about the stars playing tag, and when a meteor did shoot by, scramble to catch it and toss it hither and yon across the night sky.
The true constellations, the ones that move, not the other stars that fill up the sky, are alive. They are the star beasts, born of grouped stars, probably stars attracted by a shared love. A love of family, a love of adventure, a love of lore... That link lives on, in giant twinkling beasts in the illusion that is Equestria's night sky.
Maybe one day I too will be one with a constellation. Or perhaps I will be a shooting star. For now, I gaze up, not down. I press closer to my friends.
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By the Books
July 15: I got a letter from Moondancer. She has found that she can teleport from one book to another, but only if it's the same edition and printing. It was an accidental discovery and not too practical since both books would be identical. She is still limited in how long she can maintain Haycartes spell.
She also wrote that she's working on something exciting but she'll tell me about it later when she has more time. I wonder what? She's interested in just about everything.
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Tea For Two In the Everfree
July 16: It was a lot cooler today. The weather ponies gave Ponyville and the surrounding fields a good drenching early in the cool hours of the morning and the cool temperatures stuck with us all day. It had been a while since I had spoken to Zecora so I decided to take advantage of the break in the heat to go knock on her door.
She was at home but when I arrived I peeked through her window and I saw that she was meditating. I decided to let myself in quietly and practice the breathing exercises she'd taught me. By the time she was ready I was feeling well centered.
We drank chilled chocolate peppermint tea and chatted about wild and ancient Equestria and what it must have been like before ponies (or the Tree) equiformed what is now Equestria. Also, what if the moon is a failed Equestria. Or maybe it's just not equiformed. Maybe weird, wild things live in the moon.
That chocolate peppermint tea is really good, as good cold on a summer day as it is hot in the winter. Zecora keeps her summer brews cool by storing them in a felt-lined hole in the ground.
We got to talking about Haycartes and Pasture Ffjord's bookworld books and how Moondancer found she could teleport from one book to another... kind of. We wondered if Pasture Ffjord discovered the same trick... or even if her books aren't fiction. After discovering that the Daring Do series is in fact real life travel diaries, all bets are off.
We whiled the hours away, but I really had to go home before sundown. The Everfree Forest is dangerous enough by day, but at night even more creatures go prowling.
I left Zecora a jar of the strawberry jam Spike and I had made, and I took home a pouch of that great chocolate peppermint tea I like so much. That Zecora is so talented.
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Fish Are Jumping and The Sun is High
July 17: Applejack invited us all over for an afternoon of horseshoes, swimming, snacking and generally just hanging out. It's too early for harvesting the corn, it's between cuts for hay, most of the weeds have been shaded out by the crops and she doesn't have that many early pippin and star apples to buck. It's still a month early for the boughsweets. So she's been making apple butter.
I finished up my jobs early, closed my books and headed over to Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity took the occasion to show off a dazzling swim suit she's designed which Pinkie was testing by doing cannon balls into the Apple family water hole. That's not exactly how a swimsuit is supposed to work. Fluttershy watched from a safe distance. Dash and Applejack were already pitching horseshoes, and I just spread out on a picnic blanket and sunned myself. Fluttershy and Rarity soon joined me. Eventually, when we all got sun baked and hot, we all went for a swim.
It's summertime and the living is easy.
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Tutoring the Trio
July 18: The "Twilight Time" tutoring sessions are moving forward slowly but surely.
Sweetie Belle's has progressed from sorting the gem grit by color and size to arranging it in abstract swirls. She now makes more complex patterns via magically enhanced harmonies, such as simple diffraction of streams of gem grit through a narrow gap in a magic shield. I think the notes she takes in her field book helps her to focus and improve.
Apple Bloom's glassware vibrates a bit under the influence of Sweetie Belle's humming and I could swear the color and length of the strings Apple Bloom pulls out of her pitchers and flasks match the color of the grit Sweetie Belle is moving and how long she sustains her humming between breaths. Apple Bloom is also developing a very strong glue. It just hardens too quickly and it needs to be more flexible.
Scootaloo has built a few wild scooter designs out of cloth, scroll paper and Apple Bloom's glue. Long boards, short stunt boards, boards with longer hang-times. Her wax canvas field notebook is already three quarters full of design ideas for all sort of mechanical things, from better gears to fixed wings to tire treads. I'm having her build an index on the last few pages to keep better track of what she's done and to find things faster. She's also playing with ways to weave Apple Bloom's fibers with reeds to create a lightweight board. I think Rarity could help her with that.
At the end of the session, I had the fillies stick short strands of Apple Bloom's strings to Scootaloo's near-finished vehicles, tie them down and move everything else into a nearby room. Then I opened up a few doors in the stairwell to the upper floors, opened the front doors, and we had a wind tunnel in the corridor. The fillies were thrilled, throwing bits of paper into the gale and leaning into the wind. I told, shouted really, that wind was howling, to Scootaloo to look carefully how the air flowed over her designs and to look for straight and wagging strings. After I closed the doors I explained drag and turbulence, putting into words things Scootaloo had a feel for before but now she could visualize.
They were so excited that I think all three must have run all the way to their clubhouse to work some more on building the perfect scooter.
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Appreciating Pets in the Park
July 19: Fluttershy came knocking on all our doors to suggest that we really should have a pet appreciation outing. It's been quite a while since the last time we did that together. So this afternoon I roused Owlowiscious and joined my friends and their companion animals in the east pasture.
Applejack was playing fetch with Winona, Rainbow Dash had Tank tracking down strawberries, Fluttershy was watching Angel tearing around like a mad bunny (distracting Winona and making her lose track of the stick Applejack had thrown), Opalescence climbed a tree and watched as Gummy sat in the sun below with his mouth open and let butterflies light upon him. Owlowiscious flew to a higher branch and watched the watchers.
After a lazy few hours we called it a day and I took Owlowiscious home.
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Moondancer's Venture
July 20: I received another letter from Moondancer this morning -- in it she wrote that I should go find my copy of Haycartes -- Treatise on Ponies and leave it open on my reading table. So I pulled my copy off the shelf, opened it up to a random page and a few hours later there she was! She's in the Crystal Empire and heading north with Lemon Hearts to look for the giant windigo of legend, Winter! She said it takes some doing to get to the _right_ copy of the book she's teleporting to. While she was getting the hang of it, she even popped up in a book somepony else was reading. Fortunately, the pony was just flipping pages idly and didn't notice her. We had a good laugh over that!
She didn't appear long. The Haycartes spell is hard enough without stretching it halfway across Equestria! She said she'd spent a few days researching and planning her journey in the Crystal Empire Library and she was all set to go, north of Yakyakistan and into Equestria incognita! I tried to tell her to be careful, but, well, ponies. They're either running from danger in a panic or charging into it at full gallop and teeth bared. They'll be fine.
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Memory Like the Glimmer of Star Dust
July 21: It's a cool, clear night and I was playing with my double bridle telescope, peering at stars so faint that they were like dust kicked up by Taurus' hooves. Were there stars before ponies? Do old stars forget what they were and fade away?
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Off Kilter
July 22: I went back out on my balcony last night and I was up way too late looking through my telescope. Then I slept in. Then I had a headache so I ate a big bowl of beet pulp soup to settle my stomach and balance my blood sugar. That took a while. By the time I felt better it was night again.
Time for a little light reading and off to bed again. Tomorrow I'll be back on track.
Speaking of on track, I suspect Moondancer is either in Yakyakistan or she's already following her compass due north to the unknown and the stuff of legends. My copy of Treatise on Ponies is always open, ready and waiting. But I'm not always beside it. I probably wont hear of her adventures until she gets back to Canterlot.
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Seismic Sundae
July 23: It was hot today. That hot and sticky kind of day, one that just calls out for ice cream.
I did heed that call, but I didn't go alone. With some help from Spike, I rounded up my friends and we converged on Sugarcube Corner for ice cream and cake. The cake was to sop up the melted ice cream, of course. Many other ponies had the same idea, so it was a little hard to find a table for all seven of us, but we pulled in an extra chair here and there and we squeezed in around a table.
Pinkie ordered a "seismic sundae" for us all. A seismic sundae is a whole bucket full of ice cream, a mix of flavors and three flavors of syrup or sauce, with a cherry buried somewhere in the ice cream. It's called "seismic" because after you've eaten it, you're so cold you shake. She chose a chocolate fudge, a strawberry syrup and a peppermint sauce, poured over every single flavor the Cakes had on hoof. And we had vanilla cake to go with it. It took us a better part of the afternoon, and more cake, to finish it. It was good! We talked, we laughed, we shivered and we ate some more. Pinkie got the cherry.
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So Large Against the Sky
July 24: Somehow nearly all of our constellations share the same names as yours. Parallel universes are weird.
For Equestria, space travel is not the option it may be in your universe. Our sky is an illusion where going up eventually leads you back to the ground. The horizons touch at all points and our constellations exist just this side of that convergence. If you could imagine the fourth dimension of space as a cone perpendicular to Equestria and the other three dimensions of space, "outer" space is a point and Tartarus is infinite.
The closer something gets to where the horizons join, the bigger it looks from the ground. During the day, the higher up you fly the hotter it gets due to the inverse square law and getting close to the sun.
Staring up into the nothingness beyond the stars makes me giddy.
Don't ask me to explain gravity. Nopony has that figured out yet.
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A Site to See
July 25: The Treecastle is attracting tourists, I'm sure of it. The train station is more crowded and I'm seeing more unfamiliar faces at the Ponyville bazaar. There was a group of crystal ponies there. They're hard to miss in the bright sunshine. I also heard Manehattanite accents and saw a few buffalo. And there are always ponies wandering the grounds around the Treecastle and gawking at it.
At the bazaar I picked up raspberries, early blueberries and summer apples, sweet ones and tart ones. Spike wants to make apple butter.
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Apple Butter
July 26: Spike got his wish and we made apple butter. That called for bread, so we made that too. Lemon poppy seed, rolled oat with sesame seed, and raisin bread. It wasn't that hot outside, but it's still nice that the castle absorbs all that heat from our baking.
While the bread was cooling we ran out and called our friends over. They brought food too. So we had an impromptu surprise supper and get together.
Most of the apple butter is now gone, eaten right out of the pot. I guess we'll have to make more. In the meantime, we suddenly have leftover Fluttershy's salad, Applejack's pie, Dash's creamed potatoes, Rarity's raspberry oat parfait, and Pinkie's green grass and clover caramel cream blintzes.
That was unplanned, unorchestrated, a little chaotic, but fun. Friends make everything better.
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Hoof-Cranked Ice Cream
July 27: We had a scorcher of a day today. It was already hot out when Pinkie popped into my door and announced she had a super special great idea. We were going to make ice cream at Fluttershy's cottage. I like ice cream as much as any pony so this sounded like a good idea. It also turned out to be a not so good idea.
We were each to bring our own fruit, flavors and other savory ingredients to add to the ice cream. Pinkie was providing the cream, milk, sugar, salt and the hoof-cranked churns. Rainbow Dash was providing the ice maker, on loan from the Cloudsdale weather factory.
I grabbed some peppermint oil, a few pails, a basket of sour apples, threw them into my pack sacks, grabbed Spike and we were off to Fluttershy's cottage to make our own ice cream!
On the way we caught up with Rarity. She was packing dark chocolate and saffron. When we were almost there we met up with Applejack. I was expecting something with apples but no. She'd received a case of oranges from her Aunt and Uncle in Manehattan and she intended to turn a dozen of them into ice cream. It was either that or marmalade.
Dash, Pinkie and of course, Fluttershy, were waiting for us at the cottage. Since it was their idea, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had a head start. Pinkie planned on a carrot cake ice cream, Dash was going to try for a vanilla oat swirl and Fluttershy's idea was to make a dandelion, almond, sesame, marzipan, cherry ice cream. She insisted that it was not Angel's idea.
We set up the ice maker on a end table and on the kitchen table we installed three hoof-cranked ice cream churns. Making ice cream is a team effort. I teamed up with Rarity. That chocolate really smelled good and teaming up with Rarity suited Spike just fine. Meanwhile, several dozen pairs of eyes peered out at us from their hiding places in various nooks and crannies of Fluttershy's cottage. This is where Pinkie's plan was not such a good idea.
It's a few weeks short of mid summer. It's the height of summer baby season. Fluttershy gets most of the orphans, the lost, the tired parents, the injured. Most of those live in her cottage. Most of them are always hungry. We were piling treats on Fluttershy's kitchen table, right under their noses. All those eyes were looking to see which of them would make the first move.
It was a jackalope kit that struck first, making off with a mouthful of Pinkie's grated carrots. I was told it was a jackalope, but at that age the kit didn't have antlers yet. Some chipmunks and mice helped themselves to the oats and almonds, and when Rarity reached for her saffron, she found a few bees buzzing around in the jar, happily loading up on saffron. There was still enough for her ice cream.
Pinkie had to push a fawn and a bear cub away from the milk and the cream, then away from the honey and everything else on the table. By now all the critters were getting a lot braver, scampering about and looking for ways to get on the table. Fluttershy wasn't much help. The kitchen was heading for total chaos.
Finally, I cast an exclusion zone around us to keep Fluttershy's critters out of our workspace and materials. They'd already eaten about half our stuff. Or rather, they were eating it while looking in through the bubble I'd cast, moaning and chittering plaintively, with their mouths full. I somehow felt guilty.
We succeeded in making a fair amount of ice cream, despite our losses. We were also almost obliged to pick up the pace, just to keep warm. Dash's ice maker also chilled the room. That drove off most of Fluttershy's wards to warmer areas of the house and we got some relief from their sad, hungry stares. I think the ferrets and the skunks teamed up to leave us an offering of insects, fish and dead things. I'm not sure if they hoped we'd make a dead thing ice cream for them or if we'd take it in exchange for something like honey and cream cheese. I don't speak ferret and Fluttershy wouldn't say.
I popped our protective bubble and we fled with our buckets into the afternoon haze before Fluttershy's horde woke up from their naps, play tussles and whatever it was they were doing.
Next time we make ice cream, I think we should do it in the Treecastle.
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News From the North
July 28: Moondancer appeared in my copy of Treatise on Ponies. She was very faint and she wasn't there long but she had good news! She found an ice cave carved out of a glacier saddled between twin peaks of a mountain range in the snowy north. It's much further north than Yakyakistan. She and Lemon Hearts were going in. She said something about a weird mist trickling out of the cave and then her projection faded out. I hope she finds something there, a clue to this pony legend, ancient pony artifacts... A book even! It shouldn't be long now. Her Haycartes combo spell has turned out to be pretty useful.
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Blue Mare Group
July 29: I got a good soaking today. Late this afternoon I went out to run a few errands and to stretch my legs (that's good for the circulation and the digestion). I'd picked up a few quills, some fresh green alfalfa and a couple of books I'd ordered. On the way back I was nose deep in Quantum Energy Transfers and Micro Manipulation: Proceeding from the 65th Decennial Canterlot Conference on the Advancement of Magic and on instinctive navigation. I didn't notice that the sky was filling up with big black clouds.
It get very dark very quickly and I automatically lit my horn to see what I was reading. I was in the zone. Then I heard a low rumble. It sounded like an avalanche building up momentum and it sounded like it was headed straight for me. That made me look.
Looking back over my shoulder and then up, I saw the clouds and I saw flickering lightning. It wasn't raining yet and generally our weather ponies manage to tame the lightning pretty well. So I just picked up my heels in a light trot and kept going.
I'd just about found the paragraph where I'd left off when it started to rain. Hard. Great. I put a protective shield over my book, held the book over my head and trotted faster. Then the real lightning strikes happened. Right behind me.
All of a sudden the air got a blue tinge, I smelled ozone, and the thunder! It sounded like a giant beast was tearing its way out of the rock slide and it was heading my way! The lightning flashes were dazzling and I wasn't trotting anymore. I was at a full gallop, racing for my front door toward safety, so far away. Behind me there was a sound of titanic hoofsteps. Slow at first, but picking up speed, working up to a trot, then a gallop, with a sound like the ground was going split asunder right down to Tartarus. Now I was terrified.
I never galloped so fast in my life. I streaked, screaming, right past the outskirts of Ponyville, down the road to the Treecastle, magically opening the door while I was a dozen body lengths away and slamming it shut a split second latter. I didn't stop until I was in my library room.
Soaking wet, gasping for air, my heart pounding so fast I could feel it in my ears, I stood stock still in my library. I happened to be staring at my sorting table. There, on top of a neat stack of papers, illuminated by the continuous lightning flashes, was a printed program. "Blue Mare Group Outdoor Concert. Cloudsdale's Finest Brontotechnic Percussion Orchestra is coming to Ponyville! Be prepared to be amazed and thrilled as the Blue Mare Group unleashes thousands of tuned lightning strikes and musical rumbles to shake you to the bone!" And it went on to list the works to be performed. I'd just fled in terror from the second movement of Night Mare Mountain. Now I felt soaking wet and foalish. I'd forgotten all about it.
I dried off, and now that I had my wits about me, I teleported, first to Rarity's boutique. Nopony answered the door so I gritted my teeth and bravely teleported to Sugarcube Corner's front door. All my friends were there looking out the windows, including Spike. Sugarcube Corner has a good east - west view of the concert and I joined them to watch the rest of it.
The last piece ended with the clouds parting, revealing the setting sun to the west and a rainbow to the east, to the sound of a sighing rumble, like the clouds had gone to sleep. After the last rumble had faded away and the blue-clad pegasus performers had gathered on a fluffy white cloud over the center of town to take their bows, the citizens of Ponyville poured out into the streets and drummed their hooves and whickered and whinnied in applause. It had been an outstanding performance.
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It Was a Real Scream
July 30: It seems my shrieking flight through the streets of Ponyville didn't go unnoticed. There was a picture of me being chased by forked lightning on the cover of the Ponyville Express, brought to me by a very gleeful Spike. Who then promptly burped out a scroll from Princess Celestia. She had had a good laugh as well. I hadn't yet realized that Canterlot Castle receives the Ponyville Express too, I guess delivered by Pegasus Express. If I ever had hope of being a picture of princess elegance and poise, this certainly squashed that. Spike plans on asking the Ponyville Express for a print so he can frame it. I'm glad he has his own room now.
Later we all went out to Sugarcube Corner for frozen deserts and to treat Fluttershy. As I suspected, she gave out her ice cream to all her critters and barely tasted it herself.
I passed a lot of giggling ponies on the way there. I think that the Ponyville Express printed extra editions to keep up with demand. My friends all had a copy as well. Rainbow Dash was grinning from ear to ear. At least Fluttershy understood me. Hmph. It didn't help when other patrons in the shop stopped over and sheepishly requested I sign their copies. All the while stealing glances with their friends and suppressing giggles.
I had orange, lime and peppermint sherbet. It was good. I feel like I could eat a whole tub.
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Silver Lining
July 31: I had some surprise visitors today! The whole Blue Mare Group knocked on my door. They were out of costume, but there must have been twenty of them. I was a bit agog but I invited them in for tea. They were bursting to tell me that the Ponyville Express picture of me fleeing their concert has been a real boon for them. Newspapers all across Equestria have been reprinting the picture. I was a little less than thrilled to hear that. The upside is that the Blue Mare Group has been getting offers and invitations to perform from here to Yakyakistan. They were so thrilled and enthusiastic that it was infectious. Until one of them chirped up that the picture would make a great album cover. I must have looked mortified because another quickly modified that to using the picture as a model for an album cover. I guess that wouldn't be so bad, as long it wouldn't be obvious that it's me on the record sleeve.
While Spike hustled to get tea for everypony (being a fire-breathing dragon comes in handy in boiling that much water that fast) and served cookies and our apple butter on squares of bread, the Blue Mare Group gave me a gift. It was a big print of the Ponyville Express picture, framed and signed all over with thank-yous, little drawings and well wishes. Oh no. I was already wondering in which dark, forgotten corner I was going to hang it. Then the mare that had handed me the picture asked me to turn it over.
The back was transparent too and visible on the back of the picture there was a short letter. It read:
Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,
Today I learned that through music and pure chance you can make friends with people you'd never met before and that together you might just make something wonderful happen.
Your faithful subjects,
The Blue Mare Group
My first friendship letter. Addressed to me. I cried.
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Rainbow Dash: "Yeah, we all know I'm brilliant. Still, thanks for the compliment, Twi."
Twilight: "No, I meant...never mind."
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Twilight. At least ask the lunar princess for a second date before you go rising into her moon!
Twilight: "Captain Spitfire, I don't care how cold it is in the Frozen North! As your princess, I am ordering you to look after my friends! And be stealthy about it! I don't want them thinking I'm interfering...unless it's an emergency, in which case I demand that you interfere!"
Spitfire: "Princess, with all due respect, while we take our oath to protect all Equestrians with the upmost seriousness, this is alittle outside our boundaries as Wonderbolts. We aren't babysitters or undercover security guards for friends of the princesses to be summoned at their beck-and-call."
Twilight: "...you know, Pinkie Pie mentioned something interesting to me awhile back. When my friends and I first met and were tracking down Nightmare Moon in the Everfree Forest, she occasionally saw a cloud overhead that just so happened to have an orange tail sticking out of it. She thought clouds in the Everfree naturally had tails, so she didn't think much of it. If I ordered you to tell me if a certain Sun Princess had you play babysitter and security to my friends and I... "
Spitfire: *sighs* "Fine, I'll keep an eye on your friends."
Twilight: "That's better! And be sure to keep your tail tucked away in the clouds this time! At least when Rainbow hangs her tail out, it looks like an actual rainbow; you have no excuse!"
...Their world isn't a sphere, going all the way north just transports you to the south...how are there magnetic poles for a compass to rely on?
(...magic.)
"Yep, so glad he has his own room. It's not like I miss him sleeping beside me every night...hearing him snore...knowing that he's okay...that I'm not alone...or hearing him grunt in pain when he's not okay and being right there to take care of him. It's not like I check in him at regular intervals throughout the night now, as he sleeps, to make sure that he's still there...that he didn't get whisked away by some baddie, or vaporized by some vengeful centaur while I was across the hall in my own room, unaware and unable to save him.
Nope. Don't...don't do that at all.
I'm so glad that he has his own room...and I'll never be able to tuck him in again for as long as I live."
11204375
Magnets? How do they work? Yeah, there has to be a consistent magnetic direction in Equestria, Daring Do has a compass rose stamped on both cheeks! But as you say, north is also south due to the wrap-around topography of Equestria. Perhaps the quantum entanglement of subatomic particles can account for a stable direction of magnetic flow. Is Tartarus really infinite? Aren't ponies really living in a hollow sphere? Does gravity increase the deeper you travel in Tartarus? I'm suddenly feeling quite claustrophobic.
So many biological drives are a shifting balance of conflicting urges. Familial bond vs dispersal of the young. Parapatric occupation and defense of familial breeding territories. Pushing Spike out of the nest with one hoof while offering support with the other. He is a dragon, after all, and he straddles two radically different social environments.