The woodland was peaceful, quiet, and devoid of people. All that could be heard were the sounds of birds, the breeze, and the oppressing shrill of Pinkie Pie’s voice as she excitedly asked her silly questions.
Over and over, she asked…
“So which one do you all think sounds better, huh? Chimicherry? Or Cherrychanga? Chimicherry? Or Cherrychanga? Chimicherry? Cherrychanga? Chimicherry? Cherrychanga?”
Having walked non-stop for the past forty minutes, Pinkie’s boredom had sent her into a spree of her disorderly antics. This ranged from forcing me to give her a piggyback ride, to presenting a very detailed speculation of how a second Kung Fu Panda film would go, which ended up being scarily accurate to how the DreamWorks sequel had turned out. I wasn't even going to begin guessing how the pony’s mind worked, but it was clear that her reality-bending logic was in effect to some degree.
“Come on, surely somepony can give me an answer!” she squeaked merrily, “Is it Chimicherry? Or Cherrychanga? Chimicherry? Or Cherrychanga?”
“Will somepony please make her stop?” Rarity moaned loudly.
“I think my ears are bleeding…” Applejack sighed.
Rainbow Dash then turned her head to face me, her expression just as miserable as everyone else’s.
“Look, I know you told me not to talk about killing anyone, but I swear dude, I may actually kill her.”
“I might just let you.” I chuckled.
Huffing, I plodded along with them for quite some time, until the answer finally clicked for me. At last able to put everyone out of their misery, I snapped my fingers to get Pinkie’s attention in order to give her an answer. Despite being mid-bounce, the hyperactive filly somehow spun a perfect hundred-and-eighty degrees to look at me, landing on the ground with finesse and locking onto me with big expectant eyes.
“So, did you make up your mind?” she inquired with an innocent grin.
“I did indeed.” I replied, “The answer is Chimmicherrychanga.”
The second it left my lips, Pinkie broke into a laugh. She then emitted a squeal of delight and jumped into the air, confirming that I was correct. She continued to bounce mirthfully for a few seconds before eventually settling down. Now contented, she merrily pranced along beside me, humming quietly to herself and finally relenting in her mostly nonsensical riddles.
“Oh thank Celestia…” Rarity breathed.
“Uh, thank me, perhaps?” I pointed out.
With an awkward giggle, the white unicorn insisted that it was just an expression. She then quizzed me on how I had been able to answer Pinkie’s ridiculous puzzle.
“It was annoyingly simple.” I told her, “She was just looking for whichever sounded the funniest to her, and for one of us to say it. Chimicherry wasn’t doing it, and nor was Cherrychanga, she wanted to hear us put the words together to make Chimicherrychanga.”
Hearing me say it again, Pinkie cackled loudly. The others let out hums of understanding, with Fluttershy saying the word to herself and giggling.
“It is kind of funny if you think about it.”
Though still mostly exasperated with Pinkie, we all did eventually come to admit that it was. We then kept moving in silence, until Twilight called to me from the back of the group.
“You’re leading us north, I told you we needed to go north-east.”
She was staring at her compass, which floated a few feet in front of her, suspended by her telekinesis. With confidence, I told her not to worry, and assured her that I knew where we were going.
“If we were to go north-east as the crow flies, we’d end up in the suburbs.” I explained, “Far too many houses that way, plenty of watchful eyes. By heading north and sticking to the Ifield Brook, we’ll remain concealed in the woodland. We'll head east once we reach the River Mole.”
“Fine.” she huffed, taking my word for it, “But if we get lost, it’s your fault.”
{I’m pretty sure even if it rained, it would somehow be my fault.} I scoffed in thought.
Rolling my eyes and choosing not to respond, I walked along in silence until Fluttershy chose to speak up.
“Um, Callum… what's the River Mole?”
“Oh, it's just a really big river.” I answered, “It flows for miles, my dad used to take me and Oliver there to catch crayfish.”
“Are those like crawfish?” asked Applejack.
“Yeah.” I answered plainly.
Rainbow Dash then asked why we caught them, to which I explained that our rivers were infested with an invasive species from North America, which posed a threat to our native ones. Catching them helped preserve the ecosystem.
“And killing them, I’m sure.” Twilight sneered.
Choosing not to comment, I explained that every summer when we were little, Oliver and I would be brought to the shallow parts of the river in the summer. We would splash around for hours together, laughing and squealing as the crustaceans nipped at our toes. It was one of my fonder summer memories with him.
“Are there any moles?” asked Fluttershy.
“I don’t follow.”
“You said it’s called the River Mole.” she clarified, “So, are there any, um… moles?”
“There’s probably one or two knocking about.” I speculated, “Not that I’ve ever seen any. Why?”
“Oh, I was just hoping to see one.” she sighed.
“Well I’ll certainly keep an eye out for you.”
After that, we all returned to silence, not having much else to say for now. We continued making our way through the Ifield Brook, and were making good progress, without the need for any pit stops or toilet breaks.
{Do the ponies even need to take toilet breaks?} I wondered.
I then tutted to myself, what an utterly idiotic thing to think, of course they did! Firstly, the cartoon itself had portrayed such a thing outright, with Pinkie Pie rushing to the bathroom after a long train journey; that was in Season Two if I wasn’t mistaken. Secondly, and an infinitely more awkward matter at that, was that the girls very clearly had the capacity for it, for they were most certainly, and most incontestably, mortal beings; that was to say, their physical anatomy was very much on display. Not that I was into that at all, but out of sheer curiosity’s sake, I had admittedly found it hard not to glance every so often. Thankfully their tails kept them decent for the most part, but with the odd swish here and there, the uh… reality of the situation practically begged to be seen at times.
“So Callum, where is this place we’re headed exactly?” Applejack asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“It’s called an airport.” I explained, “A hub of sorts for aeroplanes, think of it like a massive train station. Twilight’s likely picking up on all the electrical equipment there, and all the signals they give out.”
“An aero-what-now?” the farm pony quizzed.
Clarifying for her, I explained that aeroplanes, or ‘airplanes’ as the yanks liked to call them, were mighty flying machines that allowed people to travel great distances, by way of ascending to the skies. Though we had fighter jets and bombers for war, the majority of our aircraft was used as public transport, where hundreds of humans at a time could be carried across the globe. Upon describing them as metal birds bigger than houses, Twilight scoffed loudly, refusing to believe such a thing.
“That’s absolutely preposterous! If they were made of metal, they would be far too heavy. There’s no way such a thing would be able to fly, especially without magic!”
“What if such a thing was perfectly streamlined, and had two fixed wings that aided the lift-to-drag ratio?” I responded, turning around to face her and walking backwards.
The use of a scientific term excited the unicorn, and what had first been a mere attempt to argue with me, transitioned into more of a debate. She pointed out that even if planes had such wings, the sheer weight of the machine, along with its many passengers, would prevent it from getting off the ground.
“It would need to be consistently propelled forward to be even remotely possible!” she concluded.
After pretending to be stumped for a moment, I gave Twilight a patronising gasp and placed a hand over my mouth.
“Oh yeah that's right, I forgot to mention! Both wings of the aircraft have massive, high-propulsion jet engines attached to them, perpetually launching the aeroplane forward at extreme speeds for the entire duration of the flight.”
The others all let out an enthusiastic ‘ooooooohh’, while Twilight rolled her eyes with annoyance.
“You know, you could have just told me that to start with, instead of being such a dick about it.” she spat.
It was a fair point, but without wanting to concede, I simply shrugged at her and replied with a high-pitched ‘meh’, before turning back around to look where I was going. Walking with a proud strut, I was chuffed to have proved Twilight wrong on something of a scientific nature. Although, I did admit to myself that it was rather dickish of me not to mention the jet engines until after the fact, as it was something she couldn’t have possibly known about.
“Where did someone like you even learn about the lift-to-drag ratio anyway?” she asked me.
“Well, though it may be difficult for you to believe, you aren’t the only living thing in the universe to know about science.” I teased.
I went on to explain that the subject was mandatory in our education system, and that I was terribly fond of it. To my surprise, Twilight didn’t react with negativity, disregarding my jab entirely. Ever-so-slightly emerging from her shell, we were all delighted to see just a hint of the real Twilight Sparkle, conversing peacefully with me and quizzing me on all the different subjects that I had learned in secondary school. I answered every query she had, with my scientific aptitude being the main topic. I knew such pleasant courtesies wouldn't last forever, but I was thankful to meet the real unicorn for a little while, and to have a leisurely conversation with her for once.
After a good twenty-or-so minutes of talking and exchanging culture, the sudden sound of a car horn in the distance ruined the moment, spooking Twilight and sending her back into a frightful, defensive mindset. The tonal shift was nearly enough to knock us off our hooves and feet, but I tried to remain positive and simply enjoy what had been. Trying to do the same, Applejack gave me a melancholic expression, exhibiting her joy for my first friendly interaction with Twilight, along with her grief for the moment’s passing. We shared this feeling in full, and I could only hope that Twilight did too, though she would never admit it if she did. Yet again we found ourselves walking in silence, besides Pinkie Pie, who quietly hummed the Parasprite Polka to herself in a desperate attempt to saturate the empty air. It was Rainbow Dash who eventually filled the gap, asking me a most peculiar question indeed.
“So uh… dude, I was wondering. What's it like being a human?”
Unsure of what she was getting at, I simply replied that I didn't follow, and requested further elaboration. With this, the pegasus grew surprisingly quite shy, as though she felt stupid for asking. However, it wasn’t in Rainbow’s nature to back down, and she continued with her query.
“Oh, well like… I just mean… what's it like, you know? What’s it like always standing on two legs and needing to keep your balance? Do you ever get cold without any fur to keep you warm? Stuff like that, you know? Oh, and how in Equestria do you work those hands of yours? They look like tentacles with bones in them or something!”
That last part nearly had me bursting into laughter, though thankfully I was able to stifle it with a cough.
“I've certainly never heard anyone describe fingers quite like that! Well, as far as standing on two legs goes, it just comes naturally. We humans are structured for it, no different to how birds walk on two legs, and you don’t see them struggling to keep their balance. Tell you what, a better example would be Twilight's assistant, Spike. If the cartoon is anything to go off on, I’d say he walks on two legs just fine, and you never question that, do you?”
Upon hearing Spike’s name, Twilight frowned at me, clearly resenting the fact that I had dared to speak it. Thankfully she let it go, and Rainbow Dash gave off an understanding hum.
“As for hands and fingers,” I went on, “I can’t imagine it’s all too different to how your wings work.”
Slowing down in order to walk beside the pegasus, I decided that a physical demonstration might be the best way to explain it.
“So, if I were to raise my finger like this, that would be the same as you raising this group of feathers here…”
Boldly allowing myself to touch her, I lightly pressed against the area that I was referring to, and found myself immediately infatuated with how it felt.
{Woah… her feathers are so soft!} I exclaimed in thought, {They’re like silk!}
Rainbow went ahead and flexed that part of her wing, and just as my finger had done, that particular set of feathers raised up. Furthering the demonstration, I curled my fingers in to make a fist, clenching it tightly, and in turn, her entire wing balled up and did the same.
“Oh, I get it. That’s awesome!” she cheered.
Giggling to herself, the pegasus wiggled her different sets of feathers, occasionally opening and closing the wing with excitement. I went on to say that instead of flight and feathers, my digits were for grasping, probing, and otherwise interacting with the world around us.
“Fingertips are sensitive.” I told her, “We can identify things with incredible accuracy, to the point where we have a writing system called braille, allowing even the blind to read.”
That had Twilight back on board, and with her keenly listening, I went on to explain that due to this highly developed sense of touch, humans were at a predisposition for touching things, with it arguably being the greatest of our basic five senses. Just as dogs identified things primarily by scent, we humans loved to touch stuff, with toddlers especially sticking their wormy little digits wherever possible. Rarity hummed with interest, though with a laugh, she implored that I kept my ‘wormy little digits’ to myself if I could help it.
“Shame, I give great massages.” I teased, giving a sly look.
“Oh well, uh, I just meant that, I-I would want to be warned first!” she quickly backtracked.
Everyone laughed, and I brought the explanation to a close. Moving on to Rainbow’s question about getting cold, I gestured to the clothes that I was wearing, and said that humans relied on them to properly insulate our bodies.
“That must suck during the winter.” Dashie speculated, putting her mouth to one side.
“Eh, some and some.” I responded, “We have plenty of thick clothing for the colder months. To be honest, I actually quite prefer the winter. I’m much more of a ‘hot chocolate by the fire’ person than I am a ‘roast to death in the sun’ kind of guy.”
A few chuckles came from that, with Pinkie pointing at Twilight and grinning.
“Hey, that’s exactly what Twilight’s like! Did you know she even asked once for Rainbow Dash to make winters last longer? And she was being serious!”
“We don’t need to talk about that.” Twilight stated blankly, trying to hide her embarrassment.
Smirking at her, it intrigued me how intently they had all been listening to me as I yammered on about human life. It would seem that they were about as interested in me as I was in them. As with Rainbow’s query, my brain was riddled with questions about their lives, both fundamentally and physically. How soft was their fur? Was it the same all over, or was it softer in certain areas? That puffier chest fur on some of them certainly looked softer, though I wouldn’t dare ask to feel it. And with such gigantic eyes, how on earth did their brains fit inside their heads? Surely their eyeballs had to be less spherical than mine, otherwise their ocular cavities would take up half their skulls! On top of that, thinking about their diet of humanly foods like cheeses and breads, it was quite clear to me that they didn’t share the same digestive system as earthly equines. This in turn made me wonder if their organs were more like a human’s? These girls weren’t animals so to speak, they were aliens for crying out loud, the possibilities were endless!
Eventually, I plucked up the courage, and asked a handful of the questions on my mind. They were all happy to elucidate, and I was soon the beholder of mountains of new information. As it happened, their eyes were less spherical, taking on a more oval, disc-like shape. Though they had a much broader field of view because of this, their eyes didn’t come without their flaws. Apparently, ponies had absolutely dreadful eyesight in the dark, as their pupil size was linked more to emotional factors than they were to luminance. This explained why their eyes seemed to shrink when they were scared, or expand to intense proportions when enthralled, or enticed. Essentially, if they wanted to see better in the dark, they needed to be both relaxed and captivated by something.
{That, or take a load of methamphetamines.} I joked in thought.
What interested me the most about this fact, was how it completely contradicted the eyesight of equines on Earth, of which could see tremendously well in the dark, better than humans in fact. Continuing down the path of pony biology, I learned something that absolutely blew my mind.
Apparently, ponies possessed a special gland inside their brains, nestled deep within the cingulate cortex. Known as a ‘mana well’, the gland stored pure mana, which was effectively the very lifeblood of the universe. Unicorns, as expected, had a larger mana well than earth ponies or pegasi, and it was connected to their horns via a one-way vessel known as the ‘transmutus arterium’, known in more modern terms as the unicorn’s artery. This artery transported mana to their horns and converted it into a more stable form of energy called magic, which was used in order to cast spells and incantations.
I was speechless, completely baffled and blown away by the knowledge of how magic actually worked, and that it had a scientific explanation. By the end of Twilight’s lecture, I was positively giddy from the excitement. Talking also helped pass the time, and soon enough we reached the River Mole. Wrapping up the academics for now, I approached the river’s edge and gestured to it with a swing of my arm.
“Here we are folks!” I announced.
It was a wide river, and not easily jumpable. It was awfully deep here too, and with the strength of the current, it wouldn’t have been an easy swim. Turning to the others for suggestions, Rainbow Dash scoffed and said that it would be a piece of cake.
“If Fluttershy lends me a hoof, we can just lift you guys over. One at a time, obviously.”
“Or one of you two could just teleport us across?” Applejack proposed, looking at Twilight and Rarity.
“Darling please, I can barely even teleport myself without using all my mana. Unlike some of us, I’m not an all-powerful spell chucker.”
Huffing with amusement at Rarity’s remark, I waited for Twilight’s input.
“For what it’s worth, my mana’s actually running low at the moment. Two cloaking spells and three Pullie-Portals are more demanding than you might think. I could teleport us across, but I’m saving what I have left for the airport.”
“That’s fair.” I pointed out, “How long does it take for mana to recharge?”
“I’m not sure here.” she said with a frown, “Normally it comes back quite quickly, but since coming to Earth, I’ve noticed that it’s recovering slower than usual.”
“Well that’s worrying.”
“It’s fine.” she retorted, “It just means I want to conserve mana where I can, so no, I’m not teleporting you all across. We’ll go with Rainbow’s idea.”
Nodding, the pegasus stretched her wings in preparation for flight. To warm up, she and Fluttershy took our bags across, and when they were done, they prepared to carry us.
“Me first! Me first!” Pinkie begged, bouncing up and down.
The pegasi approached and put their hooves under the pits of Pinkie’s forelegs. She was lifted across, and upon being put down, she zipped around like a dog with the zoomies.
“Ugh, this is so mortifying…” Rarity droned as she was carried over the cascading waters.
“I can drop you if you like?” Dashie offered with a grin.
“Don’t you dare…”
Laughing, Rainbow Dash denied the temptation and successfully transported the pearly unicorn. Already worn out, poor Fluttershy could help no longer; it was no secret that she was a weak flyer. Happy to press on, Rainbow flitted back over, where she took just a second to catch her breath.
“You good?” I asked her.
“Yeah, Rarity’s just a little heavy these days.”
“Oh you absolute so-and-so, I heard that!” Rarity shrieked, raising a hoof to her in anger.
Cackling with mischief, Rainbow Dash took to the air once again and collected Applejack, followed by Twilight. She then prepared to lift me, though I had a suspicion that I would be too heavy for her, and all it took was one attempt to confirm it.
“Mother of Celestia, how much do you weigh, dude?” she gasped, being able to lift me only just a few inches off the ground.
“About ninety kilograms.” I replied sheepishly.
“What's that in normal measurements?”
“A little over fourteen stone.”
“In pounds, dipshit.”
Bursting into laughter, I told her that I weighed roughly two-hundred pounds, give or take. At this, the mare loudly trilled her lips and called me a fatty. With a scoff, I assured her that it was predominantly muscle, and that I had plenty of bone density. Not convinced in the slightest, she jabbed my belly with a hoof and repeated herself.
“You’re a fatty, dude.”
Without a good comeback, I stuck my tongue out at her. I knew she was only bantering, but I had always been conscious about my weight, and admittedly it stung quite badly to be called fat by a new acquaintance. But again, she was just joking and I needed to just let it go.
“So how are you going to get across?” she asked, tilting her head.
Looking a little further upstream, I saw an oak tree that leaned towards the river. Quickly studying it, I spotted a nice selection of branches that conveniently stretched all the way across the river. They were rather high up, but I was confident that I could hack it.
“I’ll show you.” I answered, grinning.
Jogging over to the tree, the girls all watched me with great curiosity, and upon getting there, I found that the branch I had been hoping to grab was even higher up than I thought, but that wasn't a problem for me. Taking a few steps back, I readied myself, and then ran at the tree at top speed. I then took a leap at the trunk and planted my foot into it, springing myself up further with a wall jump and grabbing the branch. Hoisting myself up, I manoeuvred up until I reached the thickest of the branches, which thankfully went across to the other side. I looked at Rainbow Dash to find her staring at me with her mouth agape. Grinning, I called over to her.
“Well, you did call me a big furless monkey!”
Chuckling, I focused on my grip and began to swing, using my momentum to transition across with a simple ‘one hand in front of the other’ method. I reached the other side just as the branch began to bend under the strain of my weight, and with a final swing, I let go and allowed myself to drop. Just as I had done when I jumped from the ironwood tree, I performed a forward roll upon landing. This was partly to break my fall, though in reality, I had mostly done it because I was a self-indulgent sod who wanted to look cool. Springing up to my feet, I looked at the girls and clapped my hands together.
“Right then, where were we?”
Swooping over, Rainbow Dash practically fangirled over me, praising my ‘awesomeness’ and doing a mighty fine job at tickling my fragile ego, as did the others.
“Where did you learn to do that?” asked Rarity, astounded.
“Nowhere.” I laughed, “I’m just the weird kid who never grew out of climbing trees.”
“Those hands of yours are stronger than they look.” Applejack remarked, “I would have thought they’d break, carrying your whole body weight like that.”
“Yeah and trust me, there’s a lot of body weight to work with!”
“Thank you Rainbow Dash…” I deadpanned.
Shaking my head, I was about to explain how human hands were, when I heard a mighty rumbling coming from Pinkie’s belly. Giggling innocently, she announced that she was hungry.
“Couldn’t have guessed, Pinkie.” Rainbow chuckled.
Applejack went to retrieve some food for her, and thinking about it, I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything either since breakfast, and so I went over to my rucksack and retrieved the first of my rations. Starting light, I went with a bag of crisps, Quavers to be specific. Hearing me open the packet, Pinkie pranced over to me with curiosity.
“Ooh, wha’cha got there?”
“These are Quavers.” I told her, showing her the curly puffed crisps inside.
Her eyes widened the second she caught a whiff of the cheesy goodness, and I knew that she wanted one. Leaning forward and standing on the tips of her hooves, Pinkie slowly edged towards me until her nose was almost touching mine. She then twisted her head to such an angle that it was almost upside down, which even by Pinkie’s standards, was horrifying.
“Callum?” she whispered.
“Yes, Pinkie.” I replied blankly.
“Can I have one?”
Rolling my eyes, I took a Quaver from the packet and handed it to her. Taking it politely with a hoof, she sniffed it intensely and then engulfed the crisp, and as the flavour danced upon her tongue, the pony began to buzz, followed by letting out a long, drawn out ‘mmmmmmmnn’ of delight. After that, the others all wanted one too, and before I could say ‘Quavers’, I was dishing them out. They all loved the snack except for Twilight, who upon sniffing it, decided that she didn’t want to risk being poisoned and threw it away. Thankfully it didn’t go to waste, for Pinkie spotted it and dropped to the ground, slithering along like a serpent until she was close enough to inhale it. Greatly amused, I ate the rest of the bag before she could ask me for more. I then waited patiently for Applejack to dig up something a little more substantial for her, and after she had eaten her fill, we headed off once more.
We were walking for some time, when a faint rumbling in the sky had us all looking upward. Letting out a gasp, Applejack’s mouth fell open as she spotted what was causing it.
“What in tarnation is that?”
“That, AJ, is an aeroplane.”
The ponies all went ‘aahhh’ as they realised that this was what I had been talking about. Looking at Twilight, I noticed that she was staring at the plane with great interest, studying it as much as she could. Creeping over as quietly as possible, I was able to get right up behind her.
“Not so preposterous now is it?”
“Aah!” she yelped, whipping around to glare at me.
Scowling, she barked at me never to sneak up on her like that again. The others tried to stifle their laughs, and I gave her a half-hearted apology for scaring her. Pressing on, we reached a chain-link fence near the edge of the woodland, and beyond it were the runways, along with the traffic control tower.
“Is that it over there?” asked Rainbow.
“Yup.” I confirmed.
It was then that a plane came in above us to land, and a big one at that. Being a hefty Boeing Seven-Four-Seven, the jumbo jet’s deafening engines bellowed overhead like a dragon’s roar. Taken unaware, all six ponies dropped to the ground and cowered in fear at the metal behemoth. Over the noise I could just about hear Fluttershy screaming in terror, and I felt horrible that I hadn’t warned them how loud planes could be. That wasn’t to say I enjoyed it either; being autistic I was particularly vulnerable to overstimulation, and the noise had me plugging my ears with my fingers until it passed. Looking to the others, I found them to be frozen solid, stupefied like a small herd of fainting goats. As they recovered, I realised that Fluttershy was now having a panic attack, gasping for air and shaking.
“What the heck was that?” Rainbow Dash shouted at me, rubbing her aching ears.
“Okay everypony, calm down.” I sang to them, “That was just a plane coming in to land.”
With wide eyes, a gobsmacked Rarity blinked at me.
“That was… normal?”
Nodding, I explained that the bone-shaking racket had come from the jet engines I had mentioned earlier, with wide-body aircraft in particular having terribly big ones. I promised them that they were safe, but sadly Twilight was not convinced.
“Safe? Did you see the speed and size of that thing? We were seconds from being crushed to death! You brought us here to be killed by that thing, didn’t you?”
Doing my best not to laugh at such an absurd accusation, I swore to her that I had no such intention. Stepping in to back me up, Rarity came over and placed a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder, hoping to reason with her.
“Twilight darling, how could that possibly have been an attempt to kill us, hmm? Callum is standing right here with us, he would have been squashed as well if that… thing had crashed into us. Honestly, use some common sense, dear.”
Shaking Rarity’s hoof away, Twilight pointed her own hoof at a hyperventilating Fluttershy, using her as an example as she accused me of trying at the very least to frighten them all to death. However, as the yellow pegasus got control over her breathing, she came to my defence as well, stuttering as she did so.
“It’s n-n-not… his f-fault… I’m j-j-just a b-b-b-big s-scaredy-cat…”
“Oh Fluttershy, come here darling.” Rarity sighed, wrapping her in a big cuddle.
Putting my hands on my hips, I told Twilight to stop with the accusations. I then redirected her focus by asking if she was close enough to use the electrical signals to amplify the gem finding spell. Huffing at me angrily, she clenched her jaw and glared at me with disgust, going straight back to square one. Still, she argued no further and scanned the area with her magic.
“Yeah, this is close enough.”
“Good.” I spoke, turning to look towards the airport, “Because we’re not getting any closer without passing this fence, and I don’t feel like getting shot today.”
“Say again?” said Applejack with wide eyes.
With a nervous chuckle, I explained that airports were under constant surveillance, with security being tighter than a nun’s arse, though I didn’t use those exact words for obvious reasons. Trespassers caught crossing the fence would be treated as a threat, and would thus be dealt with severely. The girls asked why, and I explained that it was to prevent people from sneaking into other countries, or illegally boarding planes to cause acts of terror.
“You mean like Nine-Eleven?” Pinkie called from behind me.
With a sudden jolt, my blood ran cold. How the hell did she know about that? Gulping, I spared a thought for the incident, and for all those innocent lives taken. Twilight had every reason to fear us…
“Yes” I answered faithfully, “But how do you know about that?”
“I read it in Humanity's Tragedies, you know, that book in the living room? I found it while Twilight was telling you how scared of you she was.”
“Were you eavesdropping on us?” Twilight gasped.
“What? Not at all!” she insisted, “I don’t even know what an eaves is, so how in Tartarus could I drop one?”
“Then how do you know about our conversation?”
With a giggle, she explained that my bedroom was right above the living room, so she had tilted her head up in an attempt to hear everything that was being said.
“That’s what eavesdropping means!”
“Ohh…” she murmured, “You know, that makes a lot of sense, because ponies have accused me of eavesdropping before and I’ve never known what it means.”
Shaking my head, I returned the subject back to the book, asking Pinkie how much of it she had read, and thankfully, it hadn’t been much.
“Oh, only a few pages.” she professed, “I skimmed it without really reading much, it was really boring and really depressing, so I just threw it away and got another one.”
At that, I sighed a great breath of relief. That book covered the worst of humanity's crimes, from the Holocaust, to the First and Second World Wars, to the Crusades. Humanity's Tragedies had it all, but to my indescribable relief, Pinkie Pie had been saved by her own innocence.
Now flustered over our ‘private chat’ being revealed, Twilight moved things along and said that she was going to start searching for the Orb shards. We all stepped back from her and she lit up her horn, using the frequencies from the airport to boost the spell’s potency. Her blank expression slowly grew contorted with intense concentration, indicating that this altered gem finding spell was very powerful, and how could it not be? We were talking about a planet-wide sweep to locate six chunks of crystal here! A humming sound began to emit from her forehead, but just as things seemed to be going well, the mare released the spell and let off a growl.
“Ugh! The spell found traces of them, but it’s still too weak, I can’t maintain it for long enough!”
Kicking the dirt with a hoof, Twilight clenched her jaw and fretted over what to do. Inhaling sharply, an idea came to me.
“You’re looking at this all wrong.” I said, “You don’t need to find them all, not right away. Forget searching for all six and just hone in on one of them. It’s not like we can be in six places at once anyway, so let’s just tackle this like a checklist, ticking off one piece at a time!”
Squinting her eyes at me, Twilight searched for some sort of deception in my words. Finding none, she gave her head a small tilt and admitted that it wasn’t the worst idea she had ever heard. Agreeing to do it my way, she closed her eyes and tried again, this time configuring the spell to find one shard, and one shard only. This time, she was able to maintain the spell. We all gazed at her intently, and as the spell grew stronger and stronger, little sparks began to spit from her horn. Most of them were shades of white and magenta, but there were a few green ones in there too.
“Shiny lights!” Pinkie squeaked loudly.
The spell reached its peak, and thrusting her head back, Twilight fired a bolt of iridescent light into the sky, which vanished through the clouds. The purple unicorn then sat there for a moment, panting, with sweat dripping from her brow.
“Did it work?” I asked.
“Yeah, give it a second.” she huffed, “I just need to wait a few seconds for the-”
BANG!
From up above, there was a thunderclap, and an identical bolt of multicoloured energy shot from the sky and smacked into Twilight, knocking her to the ground. Everyone gasped and cried out her name, and we all rushed over to make sure she was okay. Putting a hand on her foreleg, I nudged her gently and tried to get a response from her.
“Twilight? Twilight! Are you okay?”
“Uuuuhhhggghhhh…” she groaned wearily.
She then realised that I was touching her, and quickly scrambled away.
“What did I say about touching me!?”
Losing her balance, she fell back down to her knees. Moaning in great discomfort, she gave her head a shake, and we asked her what had happened.
“I was in space.” she explained, “I was looking down at the Earth, and I saw where the Orb shard is.”
She requested a map, so I took off my rucksack and quickly retrieved the world atlas I had packed. Showing it to her, she seized it from me with her telekinesis and flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. And then, withdrawing a quill and ink from her own bag, she inscribed a large ‘X’ over the first shard’s location.
“Huh… I wasn’t expecting that.” I murmured.
“Where is that?” Rainbow Dash queried, tilting her head.
Inhaling through my nose, I looked up from the atlas and gave her a wary expression. There wasn’t all that much I knew about this part of the world, only that it was hot, humid, and was the second leading country in illegal drug trade. On top of that, it also had the highest number of intentional homicides in the world, a fact that was hardly comforting to me.
“Brazil.” I told her, “We’re going to Brazil…”