Pandemic: Big Apple

Chapters

I Heart New York
Let's Be Tourists
And Back to You
Home Again - Epilogue

I Heart New York

"Speech"
'Thought'

‘Middle seat, middle seat, aisle taken up by backpack,’ I grumbled, following a wall of human legs through the train searching for a pair of seats. A cheap itchy blanket to protect the seat from my hooves was draped over my back and it was a monumental effort to resist the urge to throw the cheap itchy blanket off my light blue furred body with my wings. Stopping suddenly again caused my friend Will to bump into my saddlebag on my right before he could stop. Without caring that a lot of others were trying to get on the train, a human woman took her time removing her oversized crossbody bag before she took over a set of seats just for herself.

“We wouldn’t have had this problem if you hadn’t stopped to take twenty pictures of the station.” Will decided to complain when we started moving again, “I never had this much trouble finding seats before. Being-- short sucks,” the light brown pegasus remarked, even though he was easily a few inches taller than me with his long legs.

“I couldn’t not, I promised pictures for everypony back home. And you’re right, being bipedal would make finding a seat easier,” I agreed, this train did not take a pony’s low field of view into account. “But when’s the last time you banged your knee?”

“What a worthwhile trade-- and where are our knees even?” he asked.

“Right here,” I answered seriously, pointing to the pony equivalent of the human knee. Like the others who changed early on, I spent an uncomfortably long amount of time watching my hindlegs slowly drift into their final configuration. Will had said he finished shortly before the Equestrians had cast the counter spell and it was impolite to ask him for details. So maybe he hadn’t witnessed that with how the transformation had drastically sped up around that time?

“It was a joke,” he clarified in a flat tone.

“Oh-- right yea-- a joke,” I turned away quickly and pushed some of my long silver mane out of my eyes.

“One day you’ll learn how to say yeah like a civilized person.”

“And how does a civilized-- person say it?” I asked, copying his incorrect word usage.

“As a civilized person you do not curtail the H off the end or have that drawly little expression on your face when you do it.”

“Drawly? Pssh, it’s a good thing I am not a civilized person,” I exclaimed trying to add as much haughtiness to the final word. A few rows ahead, the handle on the bench glowed yellow and the seat reversed direction to face backwards. ‘Ooh a unicorn.’

“You’re going to the height of culture, significance and civilization you know. Don’t be a bumpkin.” He finished in a mock overly serious tone.

“Are you trying to sell me on it or warn me away?” I asked jokingly, not even when I was a human did I feel like New York City was anything close to that important.

Reaching the seats where the magic had come from, a unicorn stallion with a grey coat and blond mane and tail grinned good naturedly at me from the aisle seat. Sitting next to him in the middle seat was another unicorn stallion with a yellow coat and pale orange mane and tail. “I knew I heard the clippity clop of hooves, you two need a place to sit?” He asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I gratefully exclaimed, happy to find some friendly equine faces in this sea of humanity. Stepping out of the aisle into the space between seats, I pulled the monstrously itchy blanket off my back, and threw it to lay haphazardly across the seat so that my hooves couldn’t possibly damage the seat material. “Good enough,” I snorted and jumped up to take a seat.

Moving the blanket from his back with a flick of one of his wings, revealing his cutie mark of a set of three gears, Will placed the blanket across part of the seat and moved it across with a quick bite of his teeth. “Blech. It tastes worse then it feels, gotta thank the Governor for his quality spending.” He said before hopping up in the seat before giving the two ponies in the seats across the very small aisle even for ponies a polite nod. “Hi.” He said to both before turning to me and adding, “You realize we’re going to be riding backwards now right?”

“And?” I asked, not seeing why that was more important than having more company to talk to.

“Nothing. It just feels weird sometimes. Try and brace yourself on stops and starts.”

“First time riding the train again as ponies?” the yellow coated unicorn asked.

“My first time on a train, ever,” I answered, my gaze drifting out the window that was just barely low enough to see out of, while absently fluffing my wings. It was going to be a beautiful day for flying even with the lack of pegasi moderating the weather patterns.

“I don’t go down to the city often and not since I was this either,” Will gestured with a hoof up and down the front of himself. “So first time since needing to put down this disgusting blanket.”

“As soon the humans let us use the train again with that rule, I made us our own,” the yellow unicorn briefly glanced down at the homemade blanket stretching nicely over all three spots. “I’m Lewis Domenick, this is my husband Martin,” he then gestured to Will with a forehoof.

“Will Monte.”

“Sapphire Sky,” I answered.

“You went for a pony name?” Lewis remarked glancing at the other unicorn.

“We’re not brave enough to change our own. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously by humans around here without copying the Equestrians,” Martin added.

“Obviously when you’re among-- us-- you can get away with it, but you may want to stick to your original name with humans.”

An announcement over the speaker system interrupted me before I could say how humans found the strangest things weird. “234 Southbound train to Grand Central Terminal, next stop Beacon,” a man’s voice spoke and the train started to move with a brief jerk that immediately became smooth acceleration.

I wasn’t sure on how to respond to the two stallions verbally about their suggestion so I let the matter drop.

A woman almost dragging a little girl quickly took the empty two seat bench across the aisle. “Sit down, the train is already moving,” she gruffly ordered, almost throwing the child into the outermost seat before she sat down at the window.

The little brown haired girl shuffled back on her far too large seat, eyes immediately being drawn across to where I was sitting quietly. “Mommy look! Ponies! Can I pet one?” she exclaimed excitedly.

“No, those aren’t real ponies, they are people dear. Like your Uncle in Nevada is now, remember?”

“Aww,” the little girl whined with an angry pout and crossing her arms.

“See,” Martin rolled his eyes, speaking in a very quiet voice that would be hard for the humans to notice with the increasing rumble of the train picking up speed. “Can’t even take the train,” he added horn lighting up as he summoned a smartphone and stylus out of a satchel sitting on the seat next to him.

“Get your ticket ready for the conductor,” Will instructed, digging into the small leather crossbody bag with his mouth.

“Right,” I nodded and did the same into my left cloth saddlebag, quickly pulling it out in my teeth, and dropping it into an upturned hoof.

“So where are you actually from?” Lewis casually asked in my direction. “Never been on a train, an accent I can’t quite place, while your coltfriend is obviously a local with how he complains about the Governor.”

“We’re friends from before but not close like that,” I hastily corrected, watching as a human efficiently made his way down the aisle, punching holes in tickets are checking out virtual tickets on smartphones. “As weird as it sounds, since it’s only been about five months now, but I finally have the stability to actually come visit for the first time.”

“She’s from Northern Michigan. She’s basically Canadian.” Will added helpfully.

“It’s Upper Michigan,” I clarified. “If you say Northern Michigan everypony thinks Northern LOWER Michigan because geography is too hard for someponies.”

“Is that anywhere near Ann Arbor?” Martin asked in confusion.

“I’m about seven hours north of that on a completely different peninsula,” I answered but from the blank looks I could tell neither had a clue where I actually was from. Will just looked amused like he had every time this had come up.

The conductor finally reached our little section and while he looked more or less human I sensed the slight aura of magic coming from him. Glancing to the side I could see Will noticed it as well. Rehumanization was not as perfect of a process as the government advertised. There simply was no way to remove every last bit of magic so while humans often couldn’t tell the difference, ponies could usually notice that something was off depending on their lingering magic strength.

“And how are my two favorite travelers today?” he asked cheerfully, quickly scanning the pairs tickets.

“Another wonderful morning, Hank. How’s Melanie?” Lewis returned the former ponies cheer.

“Starting to get morning sickness so she’s a little upset when I get home,” he answered, marking one of the little paper slips with punch, and placing it on the seat corner. “Can’t wait though. Already going to start getting the baby's room ready this weekend.”

“You going to take more tickets today or do I need to call and complain to your supervisor again!?” some man yelled further towards the front of the car.

“Duty calls or I would talk more,” he said to me and Will, quickly punching our tickets as he moved on.

“It really is a shame about him,” Lewis tisked. “He caught ETS but his wife didn’t. Pressured him to go human or else she would get a divorce and take everything.”

“Humans you know.” Martin said with a sigh. “Such a shame; he made a wonderful unicorn.”

“Excuse me,” the little girl who had been sitting across the aisle interrupted, having got up to come over and lean on the armrest.

“Hey is everything ok?” Will asked the girl as I peeked around him, seeing the girl’s mother too engrossed in her phone to see what her daughter was up to. “You need any help?”

“It’s-- eats right? Can I get it and be a pony too?”

“Are you really sure you’d want that?” Will asked. “Don’t you like to play on your phone or tablet? You’d have to do that with your mouth if you didn’t have a horn. And you’d have to completely relearn how to live too and that isn’t easy. Do you think that is worth it?”

“I think that’s enough, Will,” I jumped down to the floor, finding myself equal in height to the child. “ETS is gone so there is no more changing into a pony anymore.”

“It’ll happen again,” the brown pegasus mumbled under his breath.

The two unicorns nodding approvingly but I couldn’t be sure by the timing if it was to his statement or mine about it being gone.

“Oh,” the girl scrunched up her face in a frown. “Could I still pet you?”

“It’s impolite to ask that of a pony you don’t know,” I explained patiently. “Why don’t you head back to your seat so your mother doesn’t worry?”

“Alright,” she huffed.

“See Will, you didn’t have to fill her head with notions of ETS coming back,” I started before feeling the sharp pain of a feather being ripped from my left wing. “Ouch!” I jumped up to hover between the seats glaring at the little girl who had ripped out one of my feathers and was beaming at her mother showing off my freshly stolen feather.

‘Why you little--.’ The train chose that moment to start braking suddenly throwing me back into my seat. Will and the two stallions were laughing at me as I fumed laying down on the bench.

“Beacon stop! Beacon! Mind the gap when exiting the train!” the man over the speakers announced helpfully.

After sitting or laying down for almost two hours with nothing to do, I could only come to one conclusion, I hated trains.

I didn’t even know it was still possible for me to loathe something with as much passion as I hated being on this train. Stuck in this little metal box, surrounded by all these loud humans, and having absolutely nothing to do to burn off all my excess energy but try to be friendly with two stallions who turned out to be Shimmerists. Subtle ones, who didn’t publicly take pony names, but they were definitely hitting all the right rhetorical check boxes. They had even asked if I had an account on a pony only social media app.

I wasn’t going to be picking a fight or be rude to them, especially not when in close quarters to so many humans. The last thing I wanted to do was as the humans say, air out our dirty laundry. East coast ponies seemed to approach things differently and I needed to not disrupt what harmony they had created with humans over a couple innocent Shimmerists. Much like how those in the South had figured out a way to make it work underneath the blatant Shimmerist, Sunset Blessing. Or out West where ponies far outnumbered humans there were rumors of a Council forming.

My limited view outside the window suddenly went dark as we entered into a tunnel making me feel even more claustrophobic. “Hey Will, how hard is it to refund that return ticket?”

“Huh? Um there’s a form you have to fill out and send in by mail. They tack on a ten dollar service fee so it’s not really worth it. Also-- why?”

“Cause there’s no way I’m getting back into this box to sit for this long again,” I stated with a deep breath.

“You OK?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I answered, upset that I was failing such a simple task as tempering my instincts for such an insignificant amount of time. “And how are you so calm about this?”

“I spend nearly fifty hours inside at school during the week. Not all of us get to spend our days in the clouds.”

I couldn’t stop from tapping my front hooves repeatedly. ‘If I didn’t see his wings, I wouldn’t even know he was a pegasus. That’s a little bit of harmony I wouldn’t mind disrupting. Seeing him realize human means of getting around were no longer a requirement for pegasi like us.’

Martin moved the tablet he had been holding magically in front of him to the side to give me a sympathetic look. “It’s only another ten minutes or so.”

“How much coffee did you drink this morning?” Lewis asked.

“I wasn’t going to get addicted to caffeine again or stain my nice new teeth,” I answered, happy to have something to talk about. “Even though I do love the smell of it.”

The two unicorns shared a horrified look. “We would die without our grande iced, sugar-free, sustainably and ethically sourced vanilla lattes with almond soy milk.”

“That seems oddly specific, I only ever went for the cheapest possible single serve at home from Dollar General with a little international delight creamer.”

Both of them gasped scandalously, recoiling back into their seats.

“What? It’s better than how I used to rot my teeth out with a cup of sugar with each one.”

“I’ll stick to orange juice. It’s cheaper. And comes in gallons.” Will rolled his eyes.

“Last and final stop Grand Central Station. Please remember all your belongings. Grand Central.”

“Finally,” I sighed, hearing a digital click next to me. “What are you doing?” I asked Will who had his phone held up between his hooves taking a picture of me.

“Just helping to chronicle your first trip to the big city,” he answered with a grin, shifting the phone around in his hooves so he could activate the voice recognition. “And now for the perfect caption. Here we have Sapphire, having survived her first train ride, intact with no injuries other than a stolen feather, while the rest of us had to survive the far more torturous ordeal of two straight hours of her fidgeting uncomfortably and whining. I don’t believe our ears shall ever recover. And-- sent.”

I slapped him over the nose with a wingtip harder than intended.

“Ouch!” Will hissed, clutching his nose. “Why did it have to be the pony who flies all day to be the first one to do that?”

“Thank you for your company, gentlecolts, but I’m going to go wait by the door,” I said to the two stallions as I struggled to pull the blanket out from under me, finally using my teeth to drape it over Will. “You can carry this, smart ass.”

“You’re so mean,” he pushed the itchy material off.

“It was our pleasure to have some good company for a change,” Martin answered my goodbye.

“Hopefully you have a wonderful day here in the city,” Lewis added.

“Thanks,” I repeated, happy to leave on good terms with the couple, and trotted towards the nearest doorway just ahead of a few of the humans preparing to leave themselves. In my saddlebag I could hear my phone starting to buzz every so often with notifications but no calls came.

When the train came to a stop and the doors opened I was out onto the underground platform, immediately staking a claim on space next to a newspaper recycling bin and smaller one for the new pony blankets, to wait for Will. A large number of mostly male humans in suits and a smattering of ponies who must have gotten on during one of the stops on the way, hurried from my train. Many of the humans deposited newspapers in the bin next to me as they made their way down the platform towards the station. Most ponies gave a quick greeting as they passed but were clearly in just as much of a hurry as the humans and didn’t linger.

“Any phone calls yet?” Will asked smugly, dumping the two blankets in their bin, and shaking himself out.

“No, I heard a few notifications but I haven’t looked.”

“My dastardly plan has failed,” his ears wilted before he pointed towards the far end of the platform. “You were complaining, so let’s get going,” he suggested, and began heading towards the exit.

“Any good places to get something to eat? Or shops worth visiting?” I asked, falling into step next to him. “Surely this height of culture must have some of those that aren’t the Nintendo store.”

“You’re in Midtown, look in any direction and you’ll find a place to shop. Fifth Avenue is just over that way once we get out of here. Though unless you want to go bankrupt-- choose wisely.”

“So it’s definitely the height of human culture,” I remarked sarcastically at how greedy humans could be, following the platform as it ramped upwards to an area that began to branch into different directions.

“You’re totally the kind of pony that wants a three thousand dollar Coach or Louis Vuitton or pretty much any other brand you can imagine saddlebags right?” He said with a smirk knowing I wasn’t. “Though if we run over to Chinatown probably can get something that looks like them or that fell out of the truck for fifty bucks or so.”

“My mom made me these because she likes to sew, she’d clip my flight feathers if I came home with some cheap replacement,” I explained in mock indignation.

“There is THE Macy’s too. That everypon--” He began before coughing. “Everybody watches the Thanksgiving Parade end at, the prices aren’t awful. But all that stuff? You can find it anywhere.”

“Not everypony watches that parade, probably a whole lot less this year,” I replied, feeling bad that he felt so pressured to purposely use the human words. “I care more about seeing places I can’t anywhere else. Not just displays of products I could have gotten shipped to me in a couple weeks at home.”

I slowed to a crawl as we entered into Grand Central Station, marveling at the all the stone work with the curved bluish-green ceiling high overhead depicting constellations in gold stretching across the ceiling in an arch.

Will continued on, not noticing that I had stopped. “I know a place we can get a really good bagel. If that sounds good. Unless they went out of business after everything, but it’s right across the street from the Nintendo store. Or there’s this kinda mixed buffet place that’s pretty cheap where you can pick what you want from some really fresh fruits and stuff.”

“Now that’s a place I need to get a picture from,” I quickly dug out my phone and stylus, unlocking it enough to get to the camera set on a five second timer, wings stretching and flapping lightly in excitement.

With a few purposeful wingbeats, I was up in the air rising up to the image of a pegasus. Activating the timer and holding the phone as far as I could away from me in my hooves, I gave the lens a big cheesy grin before it clicked, the screen showing a preview that looked good. The shutter speed even good enough that my wings didn’t blur. Shooting over to be more in the middle of the ceiling with the rest of the hall stretched out below me, I snapped another.

“What the buck are you doing?!” Will shot up behind me and started to push down on my back with his hooves. “Get down! You can’t fly over people!”

“What are you so upset about?” I asked irritably, dropping the multiple stories with him continuing to push, and landing in an open spot lightly.

“There’s no flying in here!” he pointed at a sign declaring no flying and showing a pegasus in flight surrounded by a red crossed out circle.

“You two, stay right there!” an athletically built pegasus stallion ordered, landing heavily on the stone nearby and wearing a camouflage jacket. Two human men in full uniform approaching from the right carried pistols strapped to their thighs, and rifles across their backs.

“Yup, staying right here,” Will quickly answered as we were surrounded by the armed men. “Just trying to get my friend down.”

“Sorry, I didn’t--,” I began nervously.

“Didn’t see the signs?” the pegasus asked sarcastically, reaching up with a hoof to touch a radio hooked to his shoulder. “Ten twenty-two. Code four. Just another pegasus with literacy problems.”

Another man tapped his foot impatiently. “What are your names?”

“Sapphire Sky,” I answered.

“Crimson Cirrus” Will answered and I turned to stare at him with my mouth hanging open before he lightly slapped me with a wing.

“Either of you got IDs?” one of the human soldiers asked.

“Forget the IDs,” the stallion snorted. “I don’t want to have to process all that paperwork by hoof over some ditzy tourists. Just keep those hooves on the ground and wings at your side while here.”

“Yes, Sir,” Will or should I say Crimson Cirrus replied.

“Thank you, I won’t fly in here again,” I nodded to the pegasus, unable to keep a stupid little smile from spreading across my muzzle.

“Better not, or it’s a three hundred dollar fine to start,” he added noticing my insincere appearing look.

“Right, right,” I nodded practically bouncing with excitement, pushing the other pegasus towards what looked like the exit to the outside. “Come on-- Cirrus, let’s get going,” I insisted, ears swiveling backwards to hear the human soldiers start to good naturedly tease the stallion.

“You always go easy on the mares you got the hots for,” one of the human men teased.

“I do not, and you’re one to talk, always hitting on every blonde human you see, it’s disgusting.”

“Would you two give it a rest?” the other human groaned.

Will suddenly bumped my shoulder with an outstretched wing. “Ponyfeathers, can’t you read anything? It’s this way,” he indicated another door.

“Ponyfeathers is it? Going to stop hiding your ponyisms?” I giggled.

He sighed, watching me prance excitedly as we escaped the national guard. “Can you please just shut up till we’re away from the nice men who almost shot us?” He grumbled. “At least that stallion thought you were hot so we didn’t get a fine. I REALLY don't need another flight violation on my record.”

“I’m sure he was just being nice because it was an innocent mistake. And they didn’t even have their guns pointed at us. I actually got shot at when trying to visit a shelter so this doesn’t count as almost being shot,” I ignored the nearby humans shooting me dirty looks to bounce around him. “So when did you come up with your name? Is it cause of your red feathers? And I never took you for a weather pony, you any good at it? Probably can’t get much practice around here though.”

“Some friends--” He began before cutting himself off and seemingly reconsidering. Body growing visibly more rigid. “Yes red tips on my primaries and tertials. Curly mane like the clouds. Oh so very original.” He said deadpan, roughly shoving through the door leading outside.

This immediately required us to be more wary as the sidewalk was nearly filled with humans waiting to cross the street I could barely make out through their legs. I gave off a soft whinny as my senses were immediately overwhelmed. The harsh pungent scent of all the vehicle exhaust hit my nose first, but that could be quickly categorized and partially ignored before the scent of food, fake rich artificial odors, and literally thousands of other scents came across. Adding to that my ears pinned back with the noise of so many cars, people, and other things I was too overwhelmed to identify. It was so awful that I nearly ran back inside. Will looked similarly uncomfortable but was pushing on, clearly wanting to act like it was no big deal. Being stopped, I had a brief amount of time to gaze upwards in awe at the buildings stretching up into the sky and in both directions for as far as I could see. I had never been around so many tall buildings before.

Following him as he crossed a small street, he kept glancing back to make sure I was still there. Traveling at a slower pace than the bipeds, led to some open space developing between us and the crowd. Having a small amount of privacy I decided to start up our conversation again. “Nopony cares if your name is original only that it’s descriptive. Ever since we were able to contact each other again, you’ve just seemed so-- I guess-- please don’t take this the wrong way, but like you wanted to live like a human again?” I asked hesitantly.

“I do!” He snapped angrily with a quick swish of his tail before sighing and shaking his head his tone switching to something more apologetic. “Sorry would you just drop it? My name is Will, I just used that so they would think we were dumb tourists who didn’t know any better.”

“If that’s what you want,” I conceded, he had his reasons and I respected that. Even if I thought holding onto so much baggage was unhealthy, and very odd for a pony. Letting go of our old selves had been so easy that many like myself had changed drastically, and just as many had discarded their previous lives entirely to become completely different.

“Come on, since you’re such a shutterbug, I’ll help you get a really good one with the lions at the Public Library to send back home before we head up to Rockefeller Plaza.”

Balancing a thick paper plate clutched gently in my teeth, I set it down carefully at a short square table before sittings on the uncomfortably hard slap of stone of the dining area outside of Bryant Park. Will was doing the same to my left, both of our plates loaded with ‘wafels’ covered in fruits and whipped cream for me and chocolate for him.

“Ya know the lion statues were a nice place for a photo, even with you mentioning Ghostbusters nonstop,” I remarked, dipping my head into my bag to pull out my cellphone to place on the table nearby planning to post the recent pictures after eating.

“It’s the defining movie of our foal...when we were little. And that was where they had the opening shot, not the stuff with the library basement itself though, that was filmed in California.” he began, “Besides, they’re in more then just one movie.”

“Not defining for me, that was Transformers.”

“Ponies.” He began, “Humans in disguise!” He tried to sing song robotically failing outrageously.

I groaned at the awful and honestly insensitive joke, but it did spark a memory of my father driving me to preschool. I was four years old, just a little filly playing with her brothers intricate seeming toy that would turn from a red airplane into a robot. Lost in my own little world, fingers moving with the ease of having done the motions countless times. Up until my dad playfully tried to imitate the transformation sound effect from the TV show making me laugh at how bad it was.

“What? Impressed by my talented tongue?”

“No, that was just terrible and the joke too, just awful and offensive. Was just remembering something.”

“Sounds like it was something nice?” he asked with a little uncertainty.

“Yea, it was.”

“You wanna tell me?” ears perking up and shuffling his wings in curiosity.

“No-- this is for me.”

“Tease. Well I never saw the original animated Transformers movie. Still haven’t.” He finished with a baited smirk, ruffling his wings before letting them settle against his sides before ripping a piece of his ice cream and chocolate syrup covered waffle off.

“Lying.” I accused, leaning in to start carefully taking a bite of the mix of strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream off my little waffle. ‘I don’t even remember the last time I’ve had bananas,’ I sighed dreamily, not even caring that they were clearly not produced by ponies, too caught up in the luxury of exotic food.

“Am not. Was more of a He-Man fan and Ghostbusters of course.” he said, eagerly devouring his waffle, getting chocolate all over his muzzle.

We both seemed to let the conversation drop since we were both ear deep in fancy overpriced waffles. I also wanted to have a moment to consider what we were talking about. Pop culture, foalhoods, and since I arrived on my visit a host of things that felt like unimportant human baggage I hadn’t indulged in for months. It felt like we had hit a pause button before ETS and were now picking things up where we left off, ignoring the drastic changes in our lives for the comfortable and safe.

“You going to eat that or pick at it all day?” Will joked, having finished faster than me. “Or are you having more happy secret memories?”

“Memories, I s’pose,” I answered absently, going back to enjoying that last few mouthfuls of my meal. “Feels like eating cake for breakfast.”

“Pancakes?”

“I don’t know what kind of pancakes you’ve been having, but ours were always butter and syrup. Rarely some chocolate chips. Maybe a little powdered sugar if we made waffles, just a little, and real actual maple syrup.”

“You still get to do that?”

“Syrup? It’s even better now. Stallion who lives just a bit west of town is so busy he had to hire help.”

“I bet. We love our sugary goodness don’t we?” He asked twitching a wing unconsciously. “And I don’t mean the syrup. I mean being closer to your family. Before you always said that was really hard at times. I’m really happy you’ve said it’s a lot smoother now.”

“Smooth is a relative term when we’re stuck supporting an unemployed human brother,” I replied, trying to hide my frustration.

“Huh? Didn’t you get him a job with the human ground staff?”

“Eh-- well-- most of the people he knew now have hooves, and he feels very isolated because they don’t really relate to him anymore. Anger, little bit of drinking, and he quit for the last time,” I answered with finality.

“He quit, again? After he came back to you begging for a second chance? With how hard it can be for a human to get a job where you live?” Will questioned with increasing disbelief.

“In the end, couldn’t take having a pony for a boss.”

“But you’re the boss.”

“And that was an issue too,” I sighed. “He’s never stopped being an asshole.”

“Sometimes you have to accept that you can’t solve everyponies problems,” he said with a quick glance back to his cutie marked flank. “I’ve been caught up in trying to do that too.” He began, eyes crossing as he finally noticed the amount of chocolate sauce covering his muzzle. “How covered in chocolate am I?” He asked, staring at me accusingly.

“Pretty covered,” I answered with a smug grin.

“And you didn’t tell me? Forget I ever said anything. You’re a horrible, mean, evil mare. I’m gonna go find a bathroom so I can wash this off.”

‘I better visit one before we get going to try and get on the Today show too, even if giant human sized bathrooms are annoying to use.’ Watching him leave briefly, a passing moment of insecurity passed over me at the reminder that I was still a blank flank.

“So you saw me alright?” I asked into my phone set to speaker and positioned on a bench between me and Will sitting on the ground. An unintelligible mix of excited voices all trying to speak over each other answered me. “One at a time please.”

There was a scuffling noise and then my Mom’s voice spoke up. “That’s a yes,” she answered before her voice dropped off like she was holding the phone far away. “Girls, we talked about this, you can’t all just yell all at once.”

“Hey girls, I’m taking lots of pictures just like I promised for you,” I said as soon as my Mom stopped talking to a quick duet of yays. “We got a little caught up when Will made a mess of himself eating like a pig.” I continued, favoring him with a quick smirk, while he shrugged before smiling sharkishly. “And they don’t let us fly around here, some dumb laws about not flying above cars or people. We had to go the entire way on hoof.”

“That’s not true, we were late because she caused a scene at Grand Central just so she could get a date with a handsome stallion soldier,” Will teasingly added and there were soft gasps over the line.

“Oh this does not end well for you,” I breathed out in a whisper, feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment while Will struggled to keep his laughter contained. “He was handsome but I had to turn him down, unfortunately I already had plans to spend the day with a-- lesser stallion.”

“Ouch-- mean-- right in my feels,”

“Aunty! Aunty!”

“Yes Reece?” I asked.

“I was able to fly for a whole ten seconds this morning!”

“That’s great Pieces, keep practicing, and I bet by the time I get home you’ll be able to follow me up to the clouds.”

“I’m going to practice right now!” the little filly exclaimed before there was the rapid buzzing of tiny wings.

“Reece no tiring yourself out trying to fly, we need to head into town!” my younger sister cried out in the background. “Anna don’t use your magic to help your sister!”

“Sorry sis,” I winced, hearing something smash in the background. “I’ll call again later Mom, don’t want to use up all my battery before noon, and Will wants to show me what thinks he good pizza tastes like.”

“He can have Congress whenever he’s able to come visit. You two have fun,” my Mom replied before I used my stylus to end the call.

“It’s an objective fact that the farther outside of New York or Chicago you go, the worse the pizza is,” Will affirmed as I put my phone back in my saddlebag.

“We’ll see later, won’t we? Central Park is to the North-East right?”

“It’s that way!” He proclaimed. Standing up and pointing confidently in a direction. “We’re going uptown. But not really out of midtown. Not supposed to use North and South in the City. Makes you sound like a tourist.”

“I am a tourist. I just need some place I can stretch my wings properly. For such a big city, everything sure feels cramped.”

“It’s at least a fifteen minute walk,” Will said apologetically. “Could always call an Uber or take a bus. But that isn’t going to cut down much time. Traffic.” He grumbled.

“Well--” I started, flicking a wing at him before shrugging.

“You want to fly? In the middle of Manhattan? We’d get at least a week in jail for sure with all the charges they’d tack on,” he asked incredulously.

“Then we have to walk,” I grumbled, my hooves already beginning to get sore from all the walking we’d already done today. I was much more used to flying from place to place, and certainly not walking on all this hard concrete.

“Though the police do only have a few pegasi trying to patrol the whole city. And not like we’ve got little license plates over our tails if we’re caught on camera.” He said with serious consideration, wings fidgeting with nervous energy. “Let’s go find a place away from all these people with a clear view of the sky.” He whispered. “Just keep the phone in your bags. Never document your felonies.”

“Your cutie mark is as much a license plate as my blank flank is,” I remarked, eyes quickly scanning the garden area.

There were only a few decorative trees and a good amount of humans visiting the shops around the outside. Other ponies were all busy with their own conversations and were likewise being inattentive to the world around them. “We just gotta go fast,” I explained trotting over to the only cover of the small trees.

“With all these people around? Someone is going to see, we should find a better spot.”

“May as well walk if you’re just going to hem and haw over what a good spot to break the law is. This was your idea, you can keep up, can’t you?” I challenged, giving my wings a few quick warm up flaps. “You said you were fast.”

“You don’t know where you’re going.”

“Go up, head North-East, look for big green park. Easy,” I scoffed.

“Uptown, you are going uptown.”

“Sorry, too tourist to use that word,” I smirked, giving a quick glance to make sure no one was directly watching, before launching myself vertically up into the air. My wings pumping furiously to shoot upwards at a speed only another pegasus could see as more than a blue and silver blur. Easily clearing the roof line of the two buildings surrounding the garden, before continuing to rise towards the much taller one in the direction I needed to go.

“Thought you said you were fast,” Will teased as he caught up. “Why aren’t you there yet?” he called back, slowing abruptly as he neared the roof like he was worried about running into it.

“Don’t fly into the giant immovable object,” I taunted as I blew past him as close as possible without slowing in the slightest, and generating enough wake that he floundered briefly from the sudden turbulence. “It’s a race then, see you there!”

“Cheater!”

“You— beat me,” I admitted reluctantly, still floating above the pavement, watching Will pant between drinks from a water fountain. I was never the quickest pegasus in a sprint, I needed time to get going. “Need to work on your stamina though, gotta stretch those wings more, city colt.”

“Still won though,” he gasped one last time before getting his breathing under control. “And as the winner you have to wear whatever I buy you.”

“When did I agree to that?” I asked at the odd request. What kind of pony wore clothing? In this heat?

“You didn't. It’s your penalty for cheating at the start. I had to really pour it on once I got over the buildings to catch up and pass you. But then when we got here you were like a pony pinball zooming through the trees. How do you change directions so quickly?”

“Practice? Tag might seem like a kiddy game but it’s great for building up your agility,” I puffed up briefly in pride.

“Really? Tag? You sure that’s not just going to end up being your cutie mark? A ball bouncing between clouds?”

“Misty Way, Firefly, and Garrett are much better than me, I’m good but I can’t keep up with them at all. It’s definitely not my special talent,” I explained, bumping him out of the way so I could use the drinking fountain. The water had the usual contaminated taste human produced water always had but it was getting hot out so I was grateful to have something.

“Better than how you were just flying? Seems like you’re pulling my primaries-- so then you’re better at feeling out the weather or planning it out then?”

“I think I’d know if I had a special talent for any of that by now,” I sighed, hating how incomplete I felt without knowing what my special talent was. “You done being tired? I want to go fly around and see what the ponies were up to in the field next to us.”

“I just needed to catch my breath. Asthma remember?”

“The asthma that you haven’t had for months?”

“I’m still getting used to being able to breathe through my nose OK? It’s weird, I forget sometimes. But you stay here, I have the perfect idea for what I’m going to make you wear.”

“Yuck, clothes, but I guess since I did lose, even though I never agreed to anything.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll totally help you look like less of a tourist,” Will waved a hoof dismissively, smiling in a way that wasn’t very reassuring. “Think I saw the perfect place a block back. Be right back!” He proclaimed before flying off.

‘He seems way too excited about that.’

Taking one last drink of water, I flew back above the trees bordering a large open field, and began to fly over it at a slow speed. Central Park allowed for free flying over most of the area as a semi-compromise for the no flying laws covering the rest of the city. Which as we had just abused, couldn’t really be enforced with the limited number of pegasi cops.

Unlike the rest of the city up until this point, the mix of humans to ponies in the park seemed closer to even. And in the big field below it skewed even more towards the equine side and I felt far more at home. Spread out over the grass were groups of young colts and fillies of various tribes while up in the air the eldest teen pegasi circled and played. There were only a few adults mixed in with the elementary aged foals, and I chose the nearest to find out what was going on.

“Hello,” I greeted, landing on the enjoyably soft grass next to a unicorn stallion with a cutie mark of a small leafy tree. He was sitting a short distance away watching a roughly even mix of twenty-three young foals from four to seven years old along with a pair of earth ponies mares. Considering the ages of the foals, the trio must have found a way to tire them out with how they were quietly sitting or laying around a rock pushing up through the grass being read to by the mares, and enjoying the morning sun.

“Hi there,” he answered my greeting pleasantly. “I’m John Frisk, you here to help out with the daycare?” he asked, extending a hoof for me to bump my own against.

“Sapphire Sky,” I returned. “Sorry, I was just curious on what was going on. I’m from out of town on vacation.”

“No need to be sorry, but if you find that you’re going to be sticking around, we’d love to have another pegasus to help watch the older foals. It’s not the easiest to keep track of them from the ground, ya know.”

“I can imagine,” I smiled, glancing at where the older pegasi were making a rather crude attempt at forming a cloud maybe thirty feet off the ground. The five weren’t doing a very good job, spinning and criss crossing each other in the air, as they were equal parts wanting to create a cloud, and compete with each other. “So it’s a community daycare?”

He nodded. “It’s not easy with our restrictions in the city but everypony pitches in.”

“This can’t be all the foals in the city,” I glanced around trying to take a more accurate count but couldn’t see how there were more than a hundred in this area.

The adolescent pegasi had finally created a little cloud and were buzzing around it, using the increasingly defined weather construct as a barrier for their play.

“Of course not, we’re spread out around the other parks too, and it’s a small group today,” he laughed. “The city lets us use this space in the morning so we can rotate groups and let them have some time out in nature. If you’re up by 86th street, we have an actual earth pony farm by the police station. Humans aren’t allowed to buy from it directly but we can, rest sells to restaurants. It’s really helped soften the hit we all took from lost jobs when PONY negotiated it with the city.”

“PONY?” I asked.

“Pony Opportunities of New York, they’re an advocacy and charity organization.”

“Ah, I’ll have to stop by and see it,” I was definitely interested in seeing more of the actual pony culture of this area. And it’d be nice to be able to get some food that didn’t taste funny.

A soft gust of wind made my feathers puff up and I paid more attention to what the young pegasi were doing. Their innocent little cloud was growing as they wove around it, occasionally bouncing on it with enough force to begin changing it into a rain cloud that grew in size. As they chased and played around it, they fell into a pattern of going around in the same direction, a spiral of air beginning to form underneath their cloud, and the colts being thrown away by the increasing wind.

“Looks like I’ll be helping out after all,” I told the unicorn who didn’t realize what was being summoned, and set off across the field to where the young pegasi had inadvertently created a tornado. I arrived just as they passed a threshold and an invisible funnel began to spin and tear at the grass below.

“That’s enough!” I shouted grabbing their attention.

Flapping hard, I flew in tight circle the opposite direction of the small stationary tornado’s rotation as fast as I could until I felt the air slowed, and the funnel construct fall apart. A little dizzy from such quick spinning, I shot out and away from the cloud in a tight arc. Legs stretched out in front and behind, I created as much disturbance in my wake as possible. Coming to a sudden teeth rattling stop on the far side of the cloud, I gathered my hind legs in close, and gave a powerful buck to the cloud just as my wake turbulence reached it. The rain cloud burst instead of beginning to downpour, as the conflicting magical forces tore it apart returning the water vapor harmlessly to the air in a fine mist.

“You colts alright? I don’t think you’re really old enough to be making tornadoes yet,” I said to the gawking teens, giving a quick shake of my head to clear some of the fine mist clinging to my long mane. I wasn’t expecting them to surrounded me and begin animatedly begging me to teach them.

“How’d you make all that wind?”
“What’d you do to buck the cloud away like that? You kicked and it just went POOF!”
“You just stopped in the air, that was crazy!”
“What are you, an Equestrian? Is that why you can do that stuff?”
“Ya, you from that other world?”
“She doesn’t have no cutie mark, she can’t be from there.”
“What is your special talent lady?”
“We weren’t trying to make nothin’ like that.”
“You’re not gonna get us in trouble are ya?”
“We were just playing.”

“Slow down,” I held up my front hooves and back away slightly from the group. “I’m from Earth just like all of you, and no I’m not going to get you in trouble. Especially after I just got you out of it,” I answered, all these colts were far too young for me to tell them how to use their magic in a way that could be dangerous to them and others.

“But you really need to be careful and think about what you’re doing if you’re playing with weather in a group. It’s very easy to stop thinking and let your magic lead you to a place you’re not capable of dealing with. I’ll show you how I did that stop if you promise not to try something like that again?” I asked and received a quick chorus of agreement.

“Um-- excuse me Ma'am!?” A voice called up from below.

‘Oh dear,’ I gulped, realizing that I was now the center of attention for all the foals in the park, and they had congregated beneath me. Standing out was a single human man wearing khaki pants and a white short sleeved collared shirt with a ‘4 WNBC’ logo embroidered on the front. He didn’t look like he wanted to yell at me or the colts for doing weather magic in the park so I wasn’t sure what he wanted.

A slate grey unicorn stallion with a green mane and tail stood next to him levitating a hefty digital video camera and wireless boom microphone. On his flank an old style hand cranked camera stood out as his cutie mark. A sizable navy saddlebag for the camera and other electronics was wrapped around him with a big ‘4 WNBC’ logo embroidered across the side.

“Lemme see what he wants and then I’ll show you, alright?” I asked the five, several kicking at the air in childish frustration at the lack of immediate reward. Dropping down, I hovered without settling onto the grass, and ignored the murmuring discussion about me going on. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Mark Blair and I work for WNBC,” he stopped talking to motion towards a photo ID badge hanging from his neck, before gesturing at the unicorn next to him. “This is Joel. We caught your-- thing with the weather on video and I was wondering if you would be willing to be interviewed and answer a few questions.”

“Eh? For what?” I asked, slightly suspicious but definitely willing to go along with it.

“We’re trying to highlight the magical abilities ponies have in a positive light.”

“I’d love to,” I answered without hesitation, slowly beginning to rise back up. “But first I need to give some flight pointers.”

“Great, would you mind being recorded? And please don’t leave until we get some forms signed.”

“Sure, if you want,” I answered with a shrug, it was a public park after all. “Okay gentlecolts, have any of you figured out how to manipulate air pressure yet?” I asked the five before noticing that there were six. “Oh, hey Will,” I greeted, a black shopping bag held in his mouth which he casually dropped to hook a hoof through the handle loop.

“Sapphire?” he asked before his eyes narrowed seeing the camera filming me below and the damage to the park. “What did you do? Why are you always the center of so much attention?”

“Back off old man!” One of the pegasi teens shouted flying between the two of us after which the others flew to his side to neatly separate us. “She’s gonna show us how to do this weather stuff right!”

“Is she?” He asked calming down and sighing. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Buck yeah! I can’t wait to learn how to make a bigger one!”

“Hold up! No, no I am not teaching you to make a bigger one,” I shook my head to which the colts all looked briefly disappointed. “And you are not going to be making bigger ones till you’re older and more mature. What I am going to teach you is how to actively use those wings, it’ll make you some of the best fliers in the city.”

“She’s a pro weather pony from Michigan. You better listen to her, she knows more than anypony in the state I bet,” Will volunteered helpfully with an encouraging smile.

“Detroit? I’ve got family there.”

“No-- I’m from a place a lot farther North,” I tiredly corrected. “But I do have family from there,” I admitted and began describing the use and manipulation of air pressure zones.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had that big of an audience to watch me try to teach before,” I remarked, holding position some twenty feet above the field, waving with a big smile on my face towards the five colts who were reluctantly joining the rest of the foals leaving the park in smaller groups.

“Next time you should make your lesson plan a bit less ambitious. But I think they had a great time.”

“Just didn’t have enough time,” I snorted, unhappy with the limited amount of time the foals had to express such a fundamental part of themselves as flight. As soon as they were back out into the actual city they would be expected to abide by the oppressive rules keeping them grounded.

“You never have enough time when you’re teaching on a tight schedule. Come on, you still have to talk to the news guy, Miss Popular,” Will nudged me with a hoof in the shoulder before flying down to where the two were waiting.

“Shutter is the one who loves to hear himself talk,” I quickly mentioned and landed next to him. “So you wanted an interview?” I asked, looking up at the human.

“We’re not trying to fill a lot of time and we already have a ton of great footage of you teaching the kids to work with. So don’t need your life story, this is completely informal, just looking to know who you are, where you from, and a little bit of background on how you figured out that weather trick.”

“Let’s start with who I am, Sapphire Sky,” I greeted cordially and moved to within a few paces before extending my hoof towards the pair. “Sorry for being rude earlier.”

“Compared to a lot of responses that we get, it was very polite,” the human, Mark replied, reaching out to grasp my pastern awkwardly and shake it instead of the proper greeting of touching his palm against the bottom of my hoof. A minor gaffe a lot of humans made. I really didn’t remember what it was about hands that made humans want to grab at things so incessantly.

“Joel,” the unicorn added and briefly touched his hoof to mine, camera never faltering from its place floating perfectly still in air pointed directly at me, his microphone floating just slightly overhead and out of frame.

“And your friend?” Mark asked, looking to Will.

“Sorry, not interested in talking to NBC thanks,” he responded curtly.

“Ah-- that’s alright, so now that we know who you are, do you mind telling us how you decided on that particular pony name?”

“My friend Jasper suggested it. A few of us were-- challenging each other, taking turns to see who could clear the most clouds. It might not be my special talent but I cleared such a big section of the sky that when she saw me against it, some ice formed by the water vapor clinging to my coat, she said it was like I was a sapphire in the sky.”

“Poetic. If you feel comfortable may I ask what your name was before you transformed, for the record?” Mark asked, his unicorn camerapony remaining aloof and professional but I caught him briefly shuffling his hooves.

“I am not comfortable, sorry,” I answered. Post ETS legal name changes had been nearly impossible until recently in Michigan, but we had been able to successfully get many of the now absurd requirements removed.

“Just so you’re aware the release does require your legal name,” Mark mentioned quickly. “So where are you from?”

“Marquette, Michigan. That’s in the center of the Upper Peninsula. I’m here for the first time on vacation. As for understanding weather-- I’m a pegasus, it’s part of me. But I also have a lot of specialized practice because it’s my job. I work for the State on a pilot project to moderate and improve weather conditions on a large scale.”

“You’re kidding right? That’s a violation of the federal weather manipulation laws.”

“We have federal oversight through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So it's not in violation, we haven’t really advertised it so I understand why you haven’t heard about it,” I started, the man opened his mouth to ask something else, but my enthusiasm for the program kept me talking. “Keeping winter storms under control will be our first real test but so far we’ve beaten their expectations and the state is pressuring the feds to let us go statewide as soon as possible.”

“We might have to do some fact checking on that,” Mark muttered quietly to himself, sounding skeptical of my claim. “So since this is your first time in New York, what do you think of our lovely city?”

“It’s beautiful, I just wish I could enjoy it without needing to keep all my hooves on the ground. I’m not used to being told I can’t fly where I want. Just getting here from midtown we--,” I started to bring up how long it took to walk with all the ground traffic but Will almost shoved a wing into my mouth.

“So you had some papers she needed to sign?” he interrupted to ask, giving me a desperate wide eyed smile before folding his wing back against his side. “Sorry, but we’re going to be late to an appointment.”

“Right-- probably should get that taken care of if you two need to go,” Mark agreed with a suspicious glance at Will before turning to dig around in one of the saddlebags attached to Joel. “Do you have your own pen?”

“Of course,” I answered, giving Will a quick glare before pulling it out of my own saddlebag. The human placed a clipboard with a form on it for me to sign on the ground in front of me. Skimming the simple form quickly and finding nothing untoward, I filled out the required information.

“Thank you,” Mark picked up the clipboard and I could see him looking over the information. “And that’s really your legal name?”

“Yes, Sapphire Sky is my legal name,” I responded with a roll of my eyes. “Do I need to show you my ID?”

“Ponies don’t lie so brazenly, Mark,” Joel chastised his coworker, taking the clipboard with his magic to settle it back in his WNBC branded saddlebag. His camera and microphone casually sliding into their own positions in the bag. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to us and for all the great footage, Miss Sapphire.”

“Thank you,” Mark said, checking his phone quickly. “We should have something put together for the news at four. Have a nice day,” he gave a little wave and started to text something rapidly as he walked away.

“Hope you enjoy your vacation,” Joel waved a forehoof before trotting after his human coworker.

“I really should start doing more of those back home,” I remarked absently. “Shutter makes it seem so easy.”

“Shut up. You were fine,” Will snorted and flicked his tail. Dipping his head into the shopping bag he had been keeping on him to pull out a black shirt that he threw at me covering my head.

“What was so important that you had to go spend money on just to torment me?” I asked, sitting back on my haunches and manipulating the garment with my hooves to see what it said. “Really?” I asked dismissively.

“And some glasses,” he added with a big grin, gaudy black frame sunglasses dangling by one of the arms from his mouth.

“You are not kind,” I sighed, holding the I heart NY t-shirt, my muzzle scrunching up in disgust. But at least some clever human had made it with slots in the back so that it wouldn’t bind my wings.

Author's Note

Next chapter should be out in either one week or two followed by an epilogue. Depends on how much I want to overthink everything.

Big thanks again to Bree R for being such a good sport and helping to write out the parts for Will. His legit distaste for the setting was perfect. Cosmic Eclipse and Halira for their input through the Discord server. As well as Asgeek2012 for letting me have a lot of freedom to play in his sandbox.

Art for Will Monte, Sapphire is already on the cover.

Let's Be Tourists

American Museum of Natural History

The air was warm and humid in the climate controlled room for the special exhibit. Making me even more uncomfortable with this gaudy black shirt on. Exotic trees lined the greenhouse space creating a winding path, UV lights overhead provided enough illumination for them to survive, and kept the temperature up to tropical levels. A few museum employees were wandering around answering questions or luring in butterflies with slices of fruit.

“This is— wonderful,” I exclaimed, watching as dozens of brightly colored butterflies fluttered delicately overhead.

The museum was comfortably crowded today, mostly humans but there were some ponies mixed in, but in this smaller space made it feel a little more cramped. Inside were a few human families and a couple older guests like me and Will, though they were all humans. Other than us, there were only a few young earth pony foals clamoring to see a few butterflies perched on an orange slice.

“I told you that you’d like it,” Will said with a happy smile.

“I’ll need to bring my nieces sometime,” I said, carefully stretching out my left wing so as not to disturb the air, and allowing one of the small insects to perch on it. “Not that I’ll be able to arrange time away again for a long time,” I lamented, I loved being a weather pony but there was going to be so much to do before we all figured out the best way to deal with winter and I was going to have to manage it all.

“Your cushy government job doesn’t give out use it or lose it time to ponies?”

“Of course we have that, I’m just the first pony to actual use it for a non-emergency. My boss said I had to take some time off,” I answered, gingerly maneuvering my wing closer to get a better look at the resting butterfly lightly flexing its wings. “Did you just call my job cushy?”

“You love it and do nothing but talk about how wonderful a time you have with it. So yes.”

“Okay, it is wonderful and fulfilling and I love doing it. But that doesn’t make it cushy,” I replied before favoring him with a look. “If you’re that jealous you have my open invitation to come and be an actual weather pony for as long as you can take it,” I challenged, watching the butterfly that had been perched on my wing take off into the air.

“As enticing as She made me to find that offer,” he spared a forlorn look up at the butterflies dancing overhead before giving an annoyed flick of his tail and heading towards the greenhouse exit. “I’m just not cut out for spending my days up in the clouds.”

“Open offer,” I teased, following him to exit the humid glass box. Passing by yet another of the no flying signs and one proclaiming no eating of insects showing off a cartoonish night pony head about to eat a butterfly.

“So being that I successfully distracted you from your failure to teach kids advanced flight before lunch with pretty butterflies, where to next?” he asked, stopping to sit underneath a big map of the Pacific ocean showing off different prevailing wind patterns.

“The Equestrian Gallery of course,” I answered with a big grin, taking a seat next to him so a few humans could pass by. “And then lunch.”

“Pony propaganda,” Will then dropped his voice to a tiny unenthused whisper. “Yay.”

“I know right, hopefully it has something new I haven’t seen before. Magic demonstrations maybe? Wait no, humans would never let any unicorns see higher level magic. This place is too small for a proper weather show. And it’s inside so no earth pony shows. Although they did have the butterfly house, I bet if they had some proper soil setup they could show off some really impressive stuff,”

“Are you done wondering yet?” He asked with a genuine laugh. “We’re only one floor down and a few rooms over from it.”

I paused to take in a deep breath. “Not done yet, need to fantasize just a little bit more.”

Staring ahead he sighed, “No regrets huh?”

“I— um— what? Regrets?” I asked in confusion.

“Wings, hooves, the whole pony package. You don’t have any regrets, no desire to go back at all do you? You love it.” he finished in a tired nearly defeated tone.

“That sounds like a very loaded question.”

“I guess it is. It’s just you’re totally Sapphire Sky now.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“You’re like meeting someone new. We were friends for years. And most of what interests and drives you now isn’t what drove— you. I miss her a bit.” He finished turning away from me throughout eyes staring into the floor as he grew less comfortable with what he was saying.

I chewed on my lower lip mulling over a response, and waiting until we once again had a bit more privacy as a few more visitors to the museum passed by. “So you don’t like who I am?”

“That isn’t what I meant. You seem very happy, Alena—” Will trailed off abruptly realizing he had used my former name.

My ears pinned back as the muscles in my chest and throat tightened, my pupils contracting into small dots. “Will,” I responded flatly. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t call me by that name, you wouldn’t like it if I called you Crimson Cirrus.”

“No I wouldn’t like that, sorry— it just slipped out,” he admitted apologetically.

“Forget it then,” I quickly dismissed the insult, eager to forgive. “Let’s go see what safe stuff the humans will allow us to see,” I playfully bumped against his shoulder as I stood back up and knocked him over in surprise.

“Ow,” He groaned getting back up onto all four hooves. “You’re so violent.”

“Pssh, that was clearly playful bordering on flirty if you could stay upright, don’t you ever spend time around other ponies?” I scoffed, trotting off in the direction of the steps to go up a floor.

“No.” He quickly answered gruffly. “I mean, not rough ones that like to beat me up like you do,” he joked, quickly catching up. “My nose still hurts from this morning,” Will whined dramatically.

Climbing the awkwardly sized steps for a pony to the third floor, we took some time to pass through the Primate hall. Evolution had been one of my favorite things to learn about. I found the experience of looking at a series of different hominid skeletons next to each other behind the wall of glass to be oddly fascinating now that it no longer applied to me. I almost left Will who was alternating between glaring at the human skeleton and an upturned hoof.

“You ever try to remember what it was like to have fingers?” He asked, flexing his fetlock to roll his hoof towards himself.

“I’m good at imagining things, so yes, but no I can’t remember what it was actually like to have those weird grabby sausages,” I answered, hoping that he wasn’t trying to restart the fight we had just avoided.

“Me either,” he sighed with a little irritated shrug. “They’d be really nice to have for work. But if I still had a choice, I don’t know if I could stand to give up flying or lazing on clouds anymore.”

“Any luck making a cloud bed that’ll stick around?” I asked, moving away from the display in the direction of the Equestrian exhibit.

“Ha ha— no. I did fall asleep on the fluffiest cumulus once and ended up in Massachusetts. That was a fun phone call to work to try and explain how I slept in and floated halfway to Boston.”

Snorting in amusement, I smiled at him actually having pegasus problems. “I’ve done that too, but try waking up in Canada without your passport.”

“Nice to know I’m not the only pony stupid enough to do that.” He said chuckling. “How far into Canada you end up?”

“A little place called Wawa, Ontario. Misty Way and Jasper accompanied me on that little adventure. Jasper just had her birthday and they were able to convince me to have some drinks and we had a wee bit too much and had the brilliant drunken idea to sleep it off on a cloud. Thirteen hours later, we woke up over some tiny Canadian town. Hung over, we stumbled into a Tim Hortons for some muffins and timbits before getting chewed out by the local cops. There weren’t any ponies in that town so we sort of stood out.”

Throughout my story he kept snickering louder and louder before finally as my story ended he asked with a chortle, “You know you have a real gift for getting into and out of trouble.”

“A lot of humans still can’t look past our appearance. Which is occasionally very useful,” I answered, exiting the Primate hall to pass by another flight of steps to our left.

“Humans being gullible are one thing, but don’t blame them for your poor decision making,” he started with an irritated roll of his eyes. “I still get students who try to brush me. As if that wouldn’t be super unprofessional and inappropriate.”

“Alright enough about humans weirdness,” I stopped to sit down, forcing a few other visitors exiting to walk around us, so I could take a picture of the extravagant entrance to the Equestrian hall.

Growing from two wooden planters on either side of the entryway were thick trees with a sparse covering of small leaf covered branches, following the frame perfectly straight and then horizontally to meet in the middle where the tops curled together in to snake around each other to form the initials of the museum, AMNH. Binding the two together was an exotic climbing vine with small purple flowers that wrapped around both trees. It was the kind of tree shaping that would have taken years to accomplish but with magic it likely had only taken a few days if they were taking their time. Attached to the ceiling were four UV lights to provide illumination for the plants and highlight them in a soft orange glow.

“With three seeds and three tribes this gift was grown into one. A piece of our world to live on in yours. Our bond of friendship is stronger than any force that would seek to bring disharmony between us,” Will said to my side obviously impressed by the work. “How nice.”

“It is, isn’t it,” I replied with a smile, snapping another picture of the dedication plaque before putting my phone away. “Guess they didn’t think to include any Night or Crystal ponies,” I noted, passing slowly through the arch into the hall crowded mostly with humans.

“Who knows? We only ever see a few that Equestria trots out for us to talk with.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of being suspicious?” I rolled my eyes, catching sight of a few ponies wearing bright yellow vests with Equestrian written on the sides in English and the runed language of Equestrian going around answering questions.

“I get tired of being the only pony I know to be.” he whispered wearily.

“Why don’t we just ask?” I questioned, stopping in a short line to talk to a actual Equestrian unicorn waiting inside the entrance to answer questions.

Will put a hoof in my path and stared at me with wide fearful eyes. “You’re going to talk to an Equestrian unicorn? Are you crazy?” he whispered harshly.

“Um yes? He’s there to answer questions,” I stared at him briefly before rolling my eyes.

“Right. Well you do that. I’ll just be over there looking at the Cloudsdale model. Don’t come crying to me if they melt your brain and make it run on pure sugarey pony goodness or something.”

“Two things. First you’re going to stand right next to me and quit being weird,” I commanded before finishing with a shrug of my wings. “And second, it already does?”

The muscles around his jaw tightened and he narrowed his eyes. “Fine.”

“Excuse me, sir,” I started and he regarded the two of us with a pleasant but tired smile.

“How can I help?” he asked with perfect English.

“We had a question about the tree at the entrance. Do you know why Night and Crystal ponies aren’t mentioned?”

“Crystal ponies aren’t mentioned because on Equestria they aren’t considered separate from Earth ponies. While Night ponies tend to keep to themselves and don’t often engage in outreach programs. It’s a common question and if you wish to know more, the sections of the exhibit related to them go into more detail on their history,” he explained helpfully.

“Thank you.”

“Yes, thanks,” Will brusquely replied as he leaned his shoulder into me to push me along.

“Enjoy the exhibit,” the stallion added.

“You survived the big bad helpful Equestrian,” I teased.

“And we got away before he did any magic,” Will retorted breathing out a large sigh of relief.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes again at his paranoia. “Let’s escape over to the Cloudsdale model since you were so interested in it,” I suggested and pointed a hoof towards the display case in the center of the hall with the cities name displayed prominently across the top.

“Yes I want to see it,” he admitted, brown eyes looking away evasively.

“Then stop being such a doofus,” I playfully bumped against him again to push him towards the display. “A pony is supposed to enjoy life, not worry about every little thing.”

“Ugh, don’t quote Her vision at me,” Will grumbled half heartedly but didn’t stop moving.

A Couple Hours Later

“This is definitely what I imagined a pizza place in New York to look like,” I remarked as I entered first, hooves making loud clops on the tiled floor. Stepping out of the way of a trio of humans leaving with pizza slices on paper plates who nearly walked into us.

Black and white checkerboard walls, cramped seating with one table cut short for ponies, and a counter that was far too high for a pony to ever hope to see over. A quaint little stereotypical place that I would have thoroughly enjoyed if it wasn’t for the off putting scent of cooked meat. It was warm enough outside that they had the front of the store open to the outside so at least there was fresh air.

Thankfully they had helpfully placed a menu over a portion of the counter base so I wouldn’t need to fly to see what they offered. Placed low as well was a chip reader for easier payments. On the menu it listed all their standard pizzas but also a Pony Special that was a pop, mistakenly called soda in this backward area, and a slice of their veggie only pizza.

“It’s an authentic city Pizzeria. If it was fancy it wouldn’t be good.” Will replied, quickly trotting to stand next to me.

A man in his early twenties leaned over the counter to lazily look between them. “Two pony specials?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, please,” I answered.

“Yes,” Will answered at the same time.

“Take out or eating in?”

“We’ll eat here,” I answered.

“Thirteen fifty,” the human said before disappearing behind the high counter. The chip reader lit up and I was able to get my phone to it before Will could, having had it tucked underneath my wing. “To drink?”

“Um—,” I ended up humming as I looked over their selection. “Cherry Coke.”

“Sprite.”

“You gonna want that cut up or just the slice?” he asked.

“Cut up, please,” I answered.

“I’m fine with the slice,” Will answered gruffly.

“Have a seat, I’ll call you when it’s ready,” the man instructed, vanishing behind the counter again.

“What?” I asked at his narrowed eyes, trotting over to take a seat at the lone pony sized table in the tiny restaurant. Giving a quick swish of my tail I sat down so that it would wrap comfortably around my legs and not get walked on by any humans. “I gotta pay you back somehow for all that expired Valentine candy you kept sending me.”

“I send those to a lot of people, and it was day after sale, not expired,” he grumbled as he took his seat across from me. “So what did you want to see when we go back? We can catch the planetarium show, those are every half hour.”

“That seems like a good place to start back up. I haven’t been to a planetarium since I was in middle school and I do want to see more of the dinosaur stuff, even if they don’t let us fly to get a better look,” I pouted.

“So we’ll explore the rest of the museum then what else do you want to do? It’s your vacation.”

“Yea— but you’re the one who actually knows this place.”

“But I don’t know what to do!” Will suddenly replied putting his hooves up to his head and flaring his wings unconsciously, coming close to hitting a human walking past to the counter who tossed him a dirty look. “Sorry.”

“I—”

“Do you want to go see the top of the Empire State— oh wait we could fly and have a better view. Take the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty? That’s a pretty standard touristy thing to do— oh, stupid me we could just fly and it makes the entire experience pointless. Broadway? Comedy shows? Nightclubs? See some more live TV being filmed? I don’t know what we should do and it’s exhausting. You could have at least visited during Hockey season then you could have finally went to a Devils game.”

“Sorry,” I stared at the table and my ears drooped. “I know I dropped this trip on you at short notice.”

“No, not your fault. I just wish I had realized how— boring so many things I would have recommended a year ago are when you’re a pony who can fly.”

‘And they don’t really want us to fly here,’ I added to myself.

“Order up, two pony specials,” a different human called out from behind the counter, sliding a plastic tray with a disposable carry handle for a pony to bite down on.

“I’ll get it,” Will offered, quickly going to rear up against the counter so he could grab the tray with his mouth and carefully return to the low table.

“Smells good,” I said, inspecting the bite size slices of pizza topped with green peppers, onions, tomato, mushrooms, black olives, and broccoli. Will’s on the other hand was a whole slice and judging by it’s unwieldy size may have need for the plastic knife and fork that sat off to the side.

“You know it doesn’t matter to me what we’re doing,” I started, watching him fumble briefly to get the knife and fork in position between his pasterns. “I know I wasn’t— happy about the train ride but even if we don’t do anything else, today has been wonderful.”

He stopped fumbling with the too small cutlery to look up at me briefly before answering. “You’re not half bad for company in person, even with how you keep getting us in trouble.”

“If you say so,” I replied with a smirk, dipping my head down to take a bite of pizza.

“Go ahead and admit it, New York pizza is best pizza,” Will encouraged before I had even had a chance to chew and swallow. “Your whole life has been a lie up until this very moment.”

“It’s definitely good,” I answered slowly. “But I think you oversold it too much and nothing could live up to such expectations,” I added haughtily, avoiding mentioning that the lack of pony grown ingredients was a major knock against it.

“I can’t believe you would lie to me like this,” he snorted loudly. “A pony is supposed to be honest.”

“I’m not lying, and now who’s quoting the vision,” I scoffed and took another bite. “For years now you’ve boasted about how unimaginably superior the pizza is here,” I explained with a mouthful of pizza. “Nothing could have lived up to the expectations you yourself created.”

“It’ll hit you later, and then— much like how you wear the shame of your cheating ways, you’ll admit to me that I was right,” Will nodded to himself and began to eat his pizza.

“Not that I would ever say I would have picked it out for myself,” I started, leaning back slightly to brush some imaginary dirt off the logo of my black shirt which was making the hot weather a little less bearable. “But it does contrast nicely with my coat,” I added haughtily, giving a small sideways glance at a loud human couple who were now eating at a nearby table. ‘Why do humans always have to start shouting at each other when they get excited?’

“Contrast is good, you were looking a little blue,” Will pointed out helpfully.

“But I’m always blue?” I asked as I took another piece in my mouth before freezing as I realized what joke he was making. Rather than rise to the bait I simply went back to eating at a leisurely pace.

“Why are you so blue?” he continued, struggling to stop himself from snickering.

“Cause it’s my fur color?” I answered casually, completely ignoring that he was joking. “Don’t try to claim that you’re color blind.”

“You ruined it,” he sighed, giving up trying to force the joke.

“I really don’t know what I ruined, so why the long face?” I asked innocently and stared at him expectantly.

“You ruined a good joke by trying too hard,” he groaned.

“You deserved it.” I finished with a light laugh.

He returned my laugh with a chuckle of his own. “We are both so witty.”

“Indeed, we are clever ponies,” I agreed sarcastically.

Settling into a comfortable silence between us as we finished our meals, listening to the humans talk, and the sounds filtering in from outside. Listening to a man complain about how late a cable technician was getting to his home made me want to speak up in their defense, people not in the industry never understood the job. I was just about to do so when my phone rang. Hurriedly digging it free from my saddlebag, Will stared at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m surprised your phone hasn’t rang more,” he joked as I swiped with my stylus to answer.

“Cause my public number is set to go right to voicemail,” I answered and used a wing to hold the phone to my head. “Hello Seth, what do you need?”

“Hello Sapphire, I know you’re on vacation but I needed to double check something, we got a call earlier from a New York TV station asking for clarification on some things about our weather program. Did you do an interview with them?”

“I did do an interview— what were they asking about? Is there a problem?” I asked nervously, trying to remember if I had said anything that could cause issues.

“No, not a problem. They just wanted to know more details. Can you stay in the city for the next few hours? They seemed pretty excited and we’re waiting to hear back if they want to have a follow up. When we know more we’ll send over some guidelines for you.”

“Wasn’t going to leave till later so I can stick around,” I answered, not like I was going to get back on a train, so we were free to leave whenever we wanted. Will’s home wasn’t too long a flight. All we had to do was follow the Hudson North for a couple hours at a leisurely pace, couldn’t even get lost.

”Thanks, Sapphire. I’ll give you a call as soon as I hear more.”

“No problem,” I responded and prepared to hang up when he spoke again.

”Oh and just in case something like this happens again, please give me a call before you talk to the press. The higher ups gets a little nervous when our employees talk to the press without any talking points and handlers. Wouldn’t want an innocent statement to cause any problems, not with how paranoid the feds are about magic.”

“Will do,” I answered and hung up.

“Will do what?” Will asked with a dumb grin on his face. “Sorry, puns. So who was that? Sounded official. Problem with work?”

“That was Seth, he’s the human who manages the media and public relations. Guess this might become a working vacation later.”

“Want to go do the touristy Statue of Liberty trip first? I remember reading that they have a pegasus pass, cheaper than the ferry, and we can just fly right to the island.”

“Sounds great.”

Liberty Island Gift Shop

“Um— excuse me,” I tried to interrupt a trio of women who were standing in front of a display and blocking me from getting at a small bag I wanted to get for my youngest niece. They ignored me to continuing talking amongst themselves and comparing things on their phones.

Frowning, my wings rustled in irritation but I couldn’t try to interrupt their conversation again before I had to dart out of the way as a man nearly stepped on me. The real gift shop building was being remodeled so everything had been shoved into a smaller space making the temporary gift shop extremely crowded with all the humans from the tours trying to get in. I didn’t take up that much space as a pony which only made it worse as the humans weren’t paying attention to where they were going.

“Hey,” I spoke up more forcefully and gently nudged the nearest woman in the side of her calf with my knee.

She jerked like I had zapped her with static electricity and bumped into her nearest friend. Gasping before sighing in relief she rolled her eyes. “Oh it’s just a pony.”

“Good job being scared of a little pony, Jackie,” one of them teased and knelt down to be closer. “You’re so adorable, what can I do for you cutie?”

I frowned and one of my ears flipped down. “I just wanted to get one of the small green bags,” I answered and pointed towards the display I could barely see.

“Sure thing,” the one called Jackie answered and easily picked one to hold out for me to take.

“Thank you,” I sat to take it from her with my hooves before tucking it under a wing.

“You mind taking a quick selfie with me? There aren’t any ponies back home and you’re all so cute.”

“I— guess,” I answered after a brief hesitation, hoping to be friendly and make a good impression.

The three young women quickly knelt down to crowd around me, squeezing in close around me as they all tried to awkwardly use their phones at once to take a picture. I maintained a pleasant smile even though whatever perfume or lotion they had bathed in, irritated my nose. It was a struggle but I thought I did well to keep my irritation from showing up until one of them started running her fingers through my mane down my neck.

“You must spend a fortune on conditioner,” the one with her hand in my mane said. “You’ve got to feel this, she’s so soft.”

“Ooh she is! I thought it’d be more horse-like.”

“It’s— um not polite to— pet ponies you don’t know,” I tried to explain, backing up to get away from the trio, I ended up bumping into the wall. They didn’t seem to hear, trapping me as they reached out to place their hands on me. “Stop. Please,” I protested, my wings spreading involuntarily preparing to take flight, and dropping the bag I had just received.

“I said stop!” I demanded and slammed my hoof on the floor making the trio jump slightly, but at least they took their hands away. “Sorry, but I’m a pony, not some pet and you were making me very uncomfortable,” I explained in attempt to be diplomatic towards their ignorance. Even human strangers could be friends waiting to be made.

“Can you believe this? She’s so rude,” the first one to pet me snorted.

“You’d think we insulted her.”

“We were just being friendly. God, I didn’t know ponies were so rude!”

‘I was being exceptionally accommodating,’I thought, pupils shrinking in anger.

The harsh taps of a hoof against the floor stopped me before I could point out that they were the ones being rude. “Is there a problem here?” a stallion with a deep voice asked. He was a larger than an average earth pony, wearing a green vest with a yellow badge prominently displayed on the front of his chest, and a tan campaign hat modified to let his ears peak up through the brim.

“No problem except this rude pony,” one of the woman answered. “Let’s just go, stupid barn animals,” she muttered under her breath.

“Enjoy your time on the island,” the earth stallion remarked in a tone that lacked any sincerity, the trio of women roughly pushing past him already chatting amongst themselves about the the perceived unfairness of being accused of wrongdoing.

“Thanks, I’m not used to dealing with such— pushy humans,” I told the stallion with an embarrassed chuckle.

“Sorry it took so long to step in,” he reached up to incline his hat towards me. “Most guests are more respectful.”

“Well, thank you again,” I repeated and leaned down to pick up the bag that had fallen to the floor and return it under my wing. When I looked back up, I noticed him take a serious look at my blank flank before his eyes lit up.

“Oh hey I just saw you on TV!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh, it’s already after four?” I asked rhetorically, starting to make my way towards the checkout.

“Yeah, just had my lunch break and you were on the news for an interview,” he explained as he followed me. “The pegasi I know, never get to do any weather magic, so it was cool to see even a little.”

“I’ve noticed that about the pegasi here. Hopefully the humans will quit being paranoid soon and let them help out with the weather,” I answered.

“So if they let you control the weather, does that mean it’s mostly ponies like out West? I heard that only ponies in the homestead lands were allowed to do that.”

“Yea it’s mostly ponies,” I nodded. “Actually feels weird to be around so many humans, I forgot what it was like,” I joked.

“It can be— trying, being around them all the time,” He said softly, eyes almost crossed in contemplation. “I’d like to see a place where it’s more pony someday.”

“We’d never turn away a friendly face,” I gave him a big smile, happy that my brief interview was going over well, at least with one pony.

“You have a great day,” he said, tipping his hat to me once again. “I should get back to work.”

“You have a great day too,” I told him while taking a place in line, and beginning to dig out my phone to pay. I would likely be getting a call soon from Seth if it’s already past four. While Will should be done with the call he had to take from the new hire at his school, in order for him to explain how to do a basic task that the human had been hired to do.

Five minutes later I was outside flying in a lazy circle around the island around twenty feet in the air searching for Will. ‘He said he was just going to find someplace quiet, where did he fly off to?’ Our tickets let us fly so long as we stayed beneath the height of the pedestal the Statue of Liberty stood on. Unlike the city itself, this area did have several pegasi in high visibility vests patrolling to make sure that rule was followed by the dozen or so pegasi who were taking advantage of the special tickets. But I was being allowed to stretch my wings so I wasn’t going to complain about a little thing like height restriction.

Coming to a stop to hover as I reached the front of the Statue of Liberty, I decided to come back to this spot to take a picture with Will’s help, I wanted to be in the shot. I had expected the statue to be bigger but it was still absolutely marvelous to see in real life. “I wonder if I could do a full pan shot,” I considered, spinning around to look away from the island. An endless body of water felt so normal to look out over but the exotic saltwater smell strongly reminded me that this was not any of the Great Lakes, no matter how familiar the view.

Swooping down, I skimmed the surface of the water to resume my search for the missing stallion. Just to amuse myself for a little bit, I trailed my hooves through the gentle waves as I followed the coast. A wave jumped up suddenly and drenched my legs, so I shot upwards to get out of it.

“Having fun?” Will called out, flying in to land at the railing of the brick path at the edge of the island before rearing up to lean against the railing. “Watch out for the sharks.”

“Oh no! Sharks!” I bemoaned sarcastically, trying to kick off the excess wetness clinging to my legs before flying over to land next to him on the brick walkway. “Finish your work thing?”

“Yes,” he answered tiredly. “Not being on call apparently means call me immediately with the stupidest possible problem. But good thing they got their fancy IT degrees. And you should keep your hooves out of the water around here, you’re likely to grow flippers from all the stuff in it.”

“Grew hooves once, I can live without flippers,” I remarked and absently tried to shake more water from my fur.

“Personally I think you look pretty surrounded by water,” he said with some hesitation and sat back to quickly dug out his phone to show off that he had taken a picture of me as I flew over the water. “I guess if you wanted I could get it from the other side and have the island in the frame,” he nervously suggested, stylus hanging out his mouth to one side.

“No way, it’s great just the way it is.”

“Guess you’ll want me to post it,” he flipped the phone around in his hooves to face him, and switched to the right app.

“There’s no rush,” I said and sat down next to him to watch. “And I thought you weren’t really active on social media? You’ve been posting more than I have.”

“I—,” he floundered for a response. “I normally don’t have a reason, today I do,” he explained evasively.

“Oh, okay,” I nodded, easily accepting the excuse considering it didn’t sound like he had a lot of other friends left from our conversations, or made much of an attempt to make new ones. “Jasper replied to that oddly quickly, even though you didn’t tag me,” I noted suspiciously.

“Um— maybe she’s watching my stuff since I posted that pic of you on the train this morning?” Will answered a little too quickly.

“I guess she is kind of obsessive like that. You should send her a friend request, she’s a really nice mare,” I suggested helpfully. Will could use some more ponies to talk to.

“She sent me one earlier,” Will said before he turned to stare at me. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“With new friends, sure,” I answered with cheeky grin. “If you want more than that, well— it’s not up to me what two consenting ponies do.”

“Don’t play matchmaker for me,” he grumbled and put his phone away.

“What? It could be my special talent! I can’t know unless I try,” I giggled as I dug out my phone from my saddlebag. “I’m going to tell everypony I know to friend you. Ooh, what kind of mares do you like?”

“Sapphire, please— just don’t,” he quickly replied with an expression like he had swallowed a lemon. “Think I’ve had my fill of crazy mares for the year.” He whispered softly under his breath.

“What was that?” I asked dropping my phone into an upturned hoof as I dipped my head back into my bag to take out the stylus.

“Nothing!” He answered quickly. “No call from your PR guy?”

Waking my phone up, I gulped audibly. “Ope, that’s a lot of notifications,” I grimaced. Even condensed it showed over five hundred for just one social media account. “No I’m going to give him one, I’m tired of waiting.”

“Hey Siri,” I started and waited for the pleasant chime that indicated it was listening. “Call Seth Andriacchi.”

“Mobile or Work?”

“Mobile. Or— uh maybe work is better.”

“Did you say Mobile?”

“No. Work.”

“Calling Seth Andreacheche, Work,” the synthesized woman finally replied and I switched to holding the phone with both hooves so I could hold it to my head.

Seth picked up after the second ring. “You have perfect timing, I was just about to give you a call.”

‘Uh huh, sure,’ I thought. “So what’s going on?”

“Well— the Governor has taken a personal interest in this, and since this is your vacation time and you can decline, she would look upon this as a personal favor.”

“To do what?” I interrupted.

“We received an offer for you to appear on national TV tomorrow morning and act as a goodwill ambassador for the program. I know you’re aware of how unpopular pony magic as a whole is becoming in Washington, and she feels you’re the best pony to do that.”

“Uh—” I floundered for a response, glancing over to Will to see if he’d offer any kind of moral support as I knew he would have heard.

“She’s offering to pay you off. Ask for stuff.” Will whispered conspiratorially.

I started to smirk before catching myself. I wasn’t going to hold out for personal gain when this could benefit so many. “Of course I’ll do it. What show and when?”

“You were just on it this morning,” Seth answered, not trying to hide how happy my acceptance made him. “The Today Show is going to slot you in for a segment at eight. We have a hotel room booked for you at Rockefeller Plaza so you don’t have to worry about travel. Sound good?”

My mouth suddenly felt very dry and my forelegs drooped before I recovered and raised the phone back to my head. “Sounds— great,” I answered nervously and gulped.

“Thanks, you’re the best Sapphire, I’ll email you all the nitty gritty details. Oh, and we’ll reimburse all your expenses from here on out.”

“Okay,” I responded still feeling overwhelmed.

“Right, call me if you have any questions. NBC should be contacting you soon as well. And I’ll call you tomorrow if anything new pops up. Bye,” Seth didn’t wait for a response before he hung up.

“Bye,” I mumbled numbly, wings relaxing to almost touch the ground.

“Oh—,” Will started, staring at his own phone as he moved around with his stylus held in his mouth. “Your little interview earlier is trending on Twitter,” he remarked before looking up. “Grats, you’re famous?”

“I think I need to lie down for a bit,” I replied and stumbled over to the inside a brick barrier to sink down to the ground.

“Hey, you alright?” Will asked in concern. “Don’t faint on me, you’re way too heavy to lug around.”

“I’m fine, really I just—,”

“Need some water?” he asked when I trailed off.

“I think I could use some,” I nodded and swung my head around to dig out my water bottle by the tiny carry handle with my teeth to drop between my waiting shaking forelegs. Unfortunately only a tiny sliver of the water I had made from purified rain water remained.

“Here,” he snagged my bottle with his teeth before I could protest. “You relax, take some deep breaths, and I’ll go fill this up quick,” he explained and I could only nod in response.

A soft flurry of feathers and he was gone leaving me alone. Immediately I found the hard path uncomfortable to lay on so I jumped up past the small inner wall to the grass field surrounding the statue. Taking several deep breaths I was starting to feel a little better. It’s going to be just another interview, obviously the one I had already done was fine, and I could do that again. ‘I will do it again,’ I reaffirmed over and over in my head.

My phone vibrating with yet another round of notifications abruptly ended my train of thought. But I did feel like I could start dealing with it now. I could at least start clearing out the notifications I didn’t need to worry about. A lot of my older posts to communicate with the weather program were getting traffic. All the new friend requests though would take a lot more time to go through, and it didn’t feel right to simply decline them all. There were far less direct messages but it was still a daunting number to have to sort through or respond to.

Will landed next to me in the grass with my water bottle held in his teeth. “Sorry, only had that fake spring water stuff to fill it up with,” he explained and placed it next to my forelegs.

“I’ll survive,” I set my phone aside and popped open the lid to take a drink of the chemical filled water. “Thank you.”

“Let’s sort this famous pony stuff out so you can quit being such a nervous wreck.”

“It’s going to take forever. I’m going to just send Seth a message to log in and deal with it for now. Put those hands of his to work.”

“Just, let me take a look,” he dug out his own stylus and laid down next to me. I shifted to shove my phone over in his direction. Will spent several minutes looking through messages before he began his own. “Let’s just make a generic tweet so that all these new followers know you’re a little too busy to properly respond. Lock out your private messaging to only those you follow, thank them for their interest, yadda yadda yadda, and done with that.”

“Wow, that was fast,” I remarked, watching as he quickly navigated around and easily phrased a message that I would have spent hours agonizing over attempting to make it perfect.

“Facebook, let’s just start a fan page and make your personal page friends only. Seth can be a mod, I’ll send him a message so that he knows he needs to deal with things there, be more detailed with information, manage requests, and promote others to help moderate. And let’s just mute all notifications until all this activity dies down. We’ll make you a Instagram and Snapchat account later.”

“Can I just hire you to do this for me?” I asked, stunned by how effortlessly he had sorted things.

“You couldn’t afford me.” He returned with a smile.

“Name your price.” I offered.

“Wouldn’t work out, helping others like this only works when I’m with them.” He replied with a shrug glancing back towards the mark on his flank.

“Oh! So that’s your special talent, that’s really cool. Well you could always move up to me and do it right?”

“It’s not that useful and doesn’t always work when I want it to. Besides, I don’t like when it comes out, feels like I’m losing whatever is left of my humanity.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, not really understanding why that remained such a huge deal to him. “Anypony would love to have a talent that lets them help out others like you can.”

“Maybe if I had a choice in it and if it felt like I wasn’t being used just for it sometimes,” he said spitefully.

Staring wide eyed I gulped feeling immediately extremely guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh no. Not you.” He replied quickly shaking his head. “It makes me really happy when someone genuinely needs the help and appreciates it. Feels like the whole world makes sense and anything is possible. But there are times when— well let’s not talk about that now.”

“Right,” I trailed off before trying to change subjects. “So you’re not going to leave me all alone in the dangerous city at night are you?” I asked.

“Don’t play that game, and of course I’ll stick around to keep your backwoods hick pony self from getting into more trouble,” he teased before poking a bit at the shirt he had forced me to wear with an outstretched wing. “Anything you think you need for tomorrow? A cute little black dress or something?” he asked with a joking tone.

“I’m not going to wear clothes on TV.” I said seriously, feeling a phantom itch to get this stupid shirt off.

“Heh. Ok ok.” He replied. “You want to go get your mane done or something?”

“Psh. I don’t need that. I’m beautiful and perfect from hoof to wing.” I said mockingly, jumping to my hooves to flare my wings dramatically and sticking a foreleg out.

Immediately noticing how many of my feathers were out of sorts and how much I needed a good preening. My eyes traced the tip of my outstretched hoof, a small otherwise imperceptible crack at the very tip standing out making me think it would split in half at any moment. My bangs draped in my vision showing nothing but split ends. Will was right. I looked atrocious! I had to make a good impression for the weather program and all the ponies relying on me and everyone that would be listening. I had to look as good as I possibly could!

“Sapphire you ok?”

“Spa.” I whispered.

“What?”

“I need a spa!” I screamed turning my body to inspect my wings as best I could and staring at my hooves critically. How had I left myself get this bad?

“Why would I know where a spa is in New York City?” He answered annoyed, cutting into my inspection. “Let alone one that’ll know how to serve one of us.”

“We have to find one.”

Author's Note

Some real life stuff is getting hectic, what with surgery next month, and this chapter started to get away from me. This felt like a nice place to end before going into the home stretch for the trip.

And Back to You

TRANQUILfalls Spa
E 42nd St

Waiting patiently with Will in the back seat of a nice car, I watched the driver get out, and walk around to open the door curb side for us to get out. I had no clue what traffic was normally like here but I would have lost my mind trying to deal with what we just went through to get here from Battery Park. It was crazy how many cars they could pack onto this island.

The door opened and I leapt out with Will following a moment after onto the sidewalk and back out into the loud noises and pungent odor of the city. “Thank you, sir,” I told the human, hoping that he wasn’t expecting a tip as I didn’t carry physical money.

“Thanks,” Will added a half beat later.

“You’re welcome,” the driver responded and closed the door with a soft clunk before heading back around the car without waiting.

Turning away from the street and waiting for a small group of humans to pass, I looked up at the three story front of the massive building set back away from the roadway. It was obviously the right place as the glass window front allowed a clear view into the spa.

A lavender earth pony stallion nosed the door open and then menuevered to hold it open so they could come inside. “Traffic must have been light, you made good time. Please, come in, come in,” he greeted cordially and gestured with one hoof for them to enter.

“That was light?” I gaped in horror as I trotted past him inside.

“You’ve been to Detroit right? How is this any worse?” Will asked, keeping close to my side.

“I’ve been to downtown Detroit, once— when I was six for a baseball game,” I explained, noticing the two human security guards opposite the reception desk watching the doorway.

“Welcome to Tranquil Falls,” a unicorn mare behind the pony height reception desk greeted sweetly. “Are these your guests, Mr. Richards?” she then asked the stallion who had opened the door.

“These two fine young ponies are indeed,” he answered and casually leaned against the counter. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself properly, I’m Nate Richards, Head of Pony Programming at NBC. So did you two decide what you want done? I sent you the list of services for you to look over on the drive cross town.”

“Nothing for me,” Will answered first. “She’s the one who’s going to be on TV.”

“Don’t listen to him, he’ll have a mane and tail trim at least,” I replied and approached the desk.

“Would he also enjoy a hooficure?” the receptionist asked, horn glowing as she manipulated a stylus against a tablet.

I smirked. “I’m sure he could use one. Now the brochure said your hooficure was some kind of Equestrian magic treatment?”

“Oh yes, it replenishes and restores, it’ll leave you feeling like it’s the first day you had them.”

“I don’t need that, can I just get away with a mane and tail cut then.” Will broke into the conversation. “Sapphire you can get all this stuff, I’m not into it.”

“Sir, we are not a— barber. If you want that you can get it anywhere. You’ll need at least a proper hooficure or we simply won’t provide that level of low end service,” the receptionist explained haughtily.

Will gave the receptionist a steely glare. “Fine. A trim and some hoof care.”

“Since it’s for a special occasion,” I drawled slowly, trying to jump start my memory of what I had decided on by looking at a list of services printed on the wall, and ignoring the door opening behind me. “I’ll do the mane and tail trim, the hooficure, the special pegasus coat scrub, and the wing massage with feather rake.”

“You know what, I am feeling kind of stressed, I’ll do that extra strength hot stone deep tissue massage,” Will added holding a hoof up to his mouth in contemplation.

“Excuse me,” a mare’s voice broke in from behind. I looked back to spot a pair of unicorn mares standing with a pair of humans in dark suits behind them in the doorway. “If that’s anything like the version in Equestria, you should just stick with the wing massage or you’ll be in pain and walking funny for the rest of the week,” the lilac coated one with purple mane and tail streaked with a band of teal warned ominously.

“I guess I’ll stick to just the wing massage then, thanks for the warning,” Will corrected and the receptionist nodded.

“If you would have a seat in the waiting area, we’ll come and get you when ready,” the receptionist explained and gestured towards a small seating area past the security station.

“Probably for the best, you’re just a soft citycolt after all,” I teased and poked him with a wingtip just behind his ribs as we started walking.

“Redneck,” he sniped back.

“Yes yes yes, Trixie finds your lovers spat quite endearing but you two will need to take it elsewhere quicker as you are delaying,” she paused for effect, ”the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie, from getting this awful chemical exhaust stink removed from her coat.”

“Did she just speak in the third person?” I asked, stopping to turn and face the second unicorn, who shared a similar coat and mane color to myself.

“You get used to it after awhile,” the lilac unicorn answered first with a nervous titter.

The earth pony, Mr Richards, who had remained silent during the exchange, gently clapped a hoof against the tiled floor to get everypony’s attention. “It’s an honor to meet you, Starlight Glimmer.”

“Um— thank you, it’s nice to meet you too, Mr. —,” the lilac mare started waiting for the stallion to supply his name.

“Sorry, it’s Nate Richards,” he answered. “We haven’t met before but I work for NBC as the head of pony programming, and it’s very difficult not to know your name.”

“You’re Starlight Glimmer?” I gulped with nervous excitement. This was almost as huge as meeting Princess Twilight.

“Princess Sparkle’s personal student? That— Starlight Glimmer?” Will grimaced, taking a half step away from the two.

“Trixie would be so relieved if we could go somewhere without you being mobbed by these earthlings,” the blue unicorn remarked, roughly pushing past us up to the counter. “At least Trixie finds the stallion easy upon her eyes.”

Will stared at the unicorn with wide eyes before stepping up to me and sticking a wing over my withers possessively. “Sorry. Totally taken. Completely smitten and in love with this beautiful pegasus right here.”

My jaw dropped open in shock, eyes bouncing between him and the Equestrian who was staring at Will with a raised eyebrow. “You know I was just teasing you with the flirting earlier, right?” I whispered to him.

“Please, just sell it,” He whispered softly.

“HA!” the mare finally barked in laughter. “You thought Trixie was serious!”

“That’s enough, Trixie,” Starlight’s horn lit up with a mint green light and enveloped the other unicorn in an aura before forcibly pulling her back behind her. “You promised not to pick fights while on Earth.”

“Trixie wasn’t,” the blue unicorn whined as she was set down.

“Excuse me, but we are ready for you three now,” the receptionist nervously interrupted, a human woman standing next to the desk, waiting to bring them into the spa proper.

“Excellent,” Mr. Richards answered and turned to us. “After you.”

“Sure thing, if a certain somepony wasn’t holding me so tightly with his wing,” I joked, Will’s eyes widened and he pulled his wing away and hurriedly trotted forward.

“Sorry, sorry,” he quickly apologized purposely looking away from me while nervously settling his wings against his sides.

A short time later

“Please have a seat, Miss Sapphire,” a human woman gestured to a barber chair modified to have no backrest at her side.

Still a little damp from a quick but thorough shower, and smelling vaguely of lilacs, I hopped up to sit down on a barber chair modified to have no backrest, letting my waterlogged tail hang off the back. The woman wrapped a plastic cape around my neck to cover me before using the arm rest to turn the chair to face a mirror.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over being jealous of all the colors ponies have naturally,” she gushed, briefly running her fingers through my mane before using a detangling brush to smooth any knots that formed in the wash. “So you have a big interview in the morning.” She leaned in close to take my mane in both hands as if trying to imagine a different style. “Are you interested in something to really make a statement, something professional, or am I just cleaning this up? You had a chance to look at the Equestrian style book, right? You have the length to pull off most of them.”

“I’ve never been very good at picking a style from one of those things,” I admitted, never finding anything that looked right if I tried to have it done with my hair. Which was much harder with the Equestrian style book as it wasn’t even photos but simple drawings. “So I just decided that since I really like how my bangs look, I’ll keep that, but maybe you can clean that up and keep the overall shape. But along my neck, can you make it short at the bottom and get longer towards my ears? So the whole thing flows forward. All that length likes to get in the way,” I explained, twisting my head to the side to get a better look at the heavy mass of hair that shifted and fell all the way down to my forearm.

“So,” she started and gathered all that up. “All this beautiful silver hair, gone.”

“Yup.”

“Shame,” the stylist rolled her eyes and set about grabbing a pair of scissors.

“Eh, it’ll grow back,” I shrugged with a flick of my tail. My normal days didn’t leave a lot of time to dedicate to mane care so something easier to manage would be nice.

“Would you mind if I put it in a braid to see if it can be donated?”

“Sure,” I nodded and she gathered up a few elastic bands to make a few braids going down my neck. As she worked at that, I heard Will in a heated conversation with Mr. Richards. Glancing sideways, they both came walking in looking as damp as I did.

“The Rags are terrible, how can you even try to talk them up?”

“I have had season tickets for the past 15 years. Better than watching the Devils single handedly kill the league with the trap.”

“So you sit in the lower stands in a suit with all the other ‘fans’ then or you’re actually a fan?”

“Well— not the last couple years, we have a company box.”

“Box seats? Right. I bet everyone else in the box with you is GLUED to the game.”

“There’s no right way to be a fan. I can show you if you want, it would be no trouble for you to come watch a game somewhere you couldn’t usually afford.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but we are ready for you,” a human woman interrupted, gesturing to two more of the chairs lined up to the side of me.

“Sorry about that,” Mr. Richards quickly apologized before gesturing for Will to sit first. “After you.”

Will paused for a brief instant debating something internally before he took the nearest seat to me. “Please just a trim, I really don’t want anything fancy,” he halfway begged.

“As you wish, sir.”

“And for you?”

“I was looking to get something more professional looking, in the style book I believe it was number sixteen,” Mr. Richards answered, bringing up a hoof to brush the small amount of wet mane from his eyes.

“Seems like you two hit it off,” I jokingly whispered to Will as a cape was placed over his body.

“Rags fans,” he mumbled.

“You’re both pretty silly,” I said back and then nodded to the stylist as she checked the length I wanted at the base of my neck. I watched nervously as she used a pair of scissors to snip it off at the base of the braid. She then started to work her way up my neck till the final braid was cut away leaving my head feeling very light from all the weight that had been removed. “And thinking on it, do you mind not talking about hockey?” I asked, catching sight of the two Equestrians passing through on their way out of the fancy baths.

“Why? You like hockey.”

“Yes but I also liked skating, and they don’t really make ice skates for hooves.”

“But they do,” Starlight Glimmer stopped briefly to say. “Well— I mean on Equestria we do, but I’m all left hooves when I tried last so I gave up on it.”

“Really?” I asked excitedly, fighting down the urge to jump off the chair to go over to Starlight before realization hit. “Yea, but they aren’t going to ship them through the portal.”

“Yes— that is a problem, but they aren’t magical items so it should be sooner or later for at least the design to come across,” Starlight explained.

“I guess I’ll just have to be patient,” I responded, ears flopping down lifelessly.

“Starlight, the humans are waiting,” Trixie complained as she made an overly dramatic show of dragging her hooves.

“Right, sorry. Just be patient, we’re working to get more over this way,” Starlight added before trotting off after her friend.

Frowning at the need to be patient I lit up with realization and turned to Will. “So that means you could learn how to skate.”

“Like I want to break four ankles,” Will snorted as his stylist went about trimming his bangs.

“Your four perfectly good ankles? Can’t blame not trying to learn on the weird over-flexibility thing you had as a human,” I drawled.

“Fine, if you can somehow get some crazy pony skates— I’ll try.”

“Excellent!” I turned back to face the mirror with a smug grin on my face as the stylist now worked her way up my neck creating a smooth change from short to long hair. The woman didn’t attempt much small talk as she worked diligently to bring my unruly mane under control. Will and Mr. Richards were finished before me, both being shuffled off towards their massages. I was asked if I wanted anything done to my tail and almost declined before having the woman clean the ends that sometimes dragged on the ground.

Thanking the woman for her time, I was led to the massage station where the two Equestrians were being rubbed down by a pair of women. ‘I get to get a massage next to Starlight Glimmer,’ I giggled to myself, stepping onto a padded bed that was then raised to be an easier height for the masseuse to work.

“Do you two come here often?” I asked, my voice rising as the woman put a lot of pressure on a sensitive spot by my left wing. ‘Did they segregate us based off sex?’ I wondered, not seeing either of the stallions.

“Not often, no,” Starlight answered without looking at me, relaxing into hands that deftly kneaded her withers. “But the Great and Powerful Trixie likes to take advantage of our great and powerful expense account before we head back to Equestria and she has to hoof the bill for her own pampering.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” the other blue mare sighed happily. “Does find hands superior to hooves in this regard. So maneuverable.”

“You don’t seem like a regular yourself,” Starlight started, finally turning her head to look at me with her eyes briefly going wide. “Oh, wow, you look just like a pony I know with that manecut.”

“I do?” I wondered absently.

“More or less the same style, but hers sweeps back,” the Equestrian explained before stopping suddenly. “I owe her a lot even if she thinks all is forgiven.”

“No need to punish yourself endlessly for past mistakes. If she says it’s forgiven then you should trust her,” I giggled to myself. “Heh, look at me, trying to lecture Starlight Glimmer. Sorry, I’m sure you’re more than smart enough that you don’t need me butting in.”

“No need to apologize, it’s not bad advice at all. There’s a reason I’m still Twilight’s student, after all. Sometimes I get hung up on the wrong things.”

“And I am definitely not a regular, this is my first time ever coming to New York CIty. I’ve lived my whole life in Michigan.”

Starlight sighed happily as some knot of tension was eased out of her neck. “I believe we’ve passed through there flying to the Homestead lands.”

“That’d be downstate, Detroit Metro most likely. We’ve never had the pleasure of such a high profile unicorn like yourself visiting us in the UP. We’re sort of the forgotten peninsula. Which has its good and bad points.”

Trixie suddenly spoke up. “So that you might move this conversation on and we might relax without interruption. What brings you to this place voluntarily?”

“Ah— well first it was a vacation from work but since I caught the eye of somebody at some local news broadcast, it’s escalated up to a national news thing,” I answered, feeling my wings spread and shake a little in pleasure as the masseuse went to work manipulating the powerful muscles between them. “Since I’ll be on TV tomorrow, they want me to look my best so they’re paying for my visit.”

“Trixie, with her unimaginably sharp intuition believes that you did something weather related. Trixie asks that you confirm her suspicion.”

“Yes, that is what it’s for,” I responded sarcastically. “I run the weather program Michigan established. Guess they feel I’ll be a great ambassador,” I remarked haughtily, earning a withering glare from the unicorn.

“Careful,” Starlight said with a cheeky smile. “Trixie gets jealous if somepony steals her bit.” she warned jokingly.

“Trixie is above such paudry emotions as jealousy,” Trixie growled. She then snorted and purposely looked away.

“Yet not above lying,” Starlight teased. “I remember them carving out an exception when passing the homestead act. Is everything going well with it? I’m always amazed at how far the pegasi out West have come in such a short amount of time, but I’ve never had time to visit your area.”

“We’re doing very well. We’re supporting more farms than we’ve ever had in the area and are preparing to deal with what looks like a harsh winter. A few of our human crew have been running simulations and we should be able to keep the temperature at least stable instead of dealing with forty degree swings in a day. Not sure about winter yet. But we’ll definitely find out.”

“Good luck! A lot of the pegasi who come through the portal find Earth’s weather very daunting.“

“Trixie in her great and magnanimous opinion would give you all free reign to sort this world out,” Trixie mumbled into her table.

“But it’s not up to us and there are good reasons for limitations,” Starlight lectured the other unicorn before turning back to me. “What time will you be on TV tomorrow?” Starlight asked “Maybe we’ll be able to watch before we head back to Equestria.” I froze up like a deer in headlights.

“You’d be willing to watch me?” I asked and swallowed.

“Of course,” Starlight started confidently before switching to a more nervous tone. “I mean, good pony human relations is my job and seeing Earth pegasi get more knowledge and leeway on what you can do is always a good thing.”

“NBC, Today Show, eight AM,” I answered mechanically, not even knowing what channel that was here.

“We won’t be able to get through security until nearly eleven so that’s plenty of time for us to catch it,” Starlight said with a reassuring smile. “Of course we can’t officially endorse anything, but personally I hope you wow ‘em.”

“I’ll do my best,” I nodded, suddenly feeling far more confident knowing that somepony like Starlight Glimmer was behind me.

“A scathing review from the Great and Powerful Trixie will assuredly be en route if we are disappointed,” the blue unicorn warned, this time sounding somehow encouraging.

“Thank you,” I nervously shuffled, feeling the masseuses hands end their massage. Noticing that the other two were likewise finishing up. “Were you getting hooficures as well?”

“Would it be a trip to the spa otherwise?” Starlight laughed, her voice gaining the beautiful Equestrian musical quality to it as she slipped away from English.

“No? Uh well— would you mind talking some more while that goes on? If it won’t annoy the great and powerful Trixie, that is?” I hazarded to ask.

“I think that would be a requirement,” Starlight answered as her table lowered so she could comfortably get off.

Sometime later

“Can you believe it? Starlight Glimmer, THE Starlight Glimmer, personal student of the Princess of Friendship herself, said that she’s going to watch ME on TV,” I gushed once the limousine door was closed. I wasn’t going to act like this in public, but Mr. Richards, who was coming along with us to the hotel, seemed like he had been similarly intrigued with the Equestrian unicorn. “And she was so nice, it was like talking with any other pony, so I kept forgetting just how important she is.”

“I’ve heard that Twilight herself is like that as well,” Mr. Richards added. “It reflects well on both of them to be so personable even after all they’ve accomplished.”

“Meeting Princess Twilight, now that’d be an honor,” I sighed dreamily. I’d probably just stammer stupidly, what could I possibly say to a pony like that? Maybe someday she would visit my little corner of the world and I could find out.

“They say, don’t meet your heroes,’” Will interrupted grumpily as he pulled out his phone.

“Yes, well, from what I’ve heard, Twilight is one to meet,” the earth pony answered the other pegasus before regarding me. “I wanted to ask for tomorrow, obviously there will be the interview; we’ve given you the questions so you can be prepared. But I wanted to ask if you have any ideas for content?”

“A little demonstration? I could make a small cloud as long as I had some moisture to work with,” I answered, imagining that it would work well as a good visual and maybe let the crowd that stood outside to interact with.

“Ooh! That’d be wonderful! I’ll contact the studio after you get checked in at the hotel so they’ll have something ready. But are you able to do that on your own? Or is Mr. Monte going to help you?”

Will looked up from his phone and shifted his stylus to stick out one side of his mouth. “She’s the expert. I can’t even be called a hobbyist.”.

“I’d be happy if Will wanted to help but I can manage it on my own just fine,” I answered. “It’s not like I’m trying to summon up a storm,” I laughed lightly.

“A storm might attract a different sort of attention,” the earth pony chuckled. “Remember your segment won’t be that long. Our producers are talking to your representatives and we’re ironing out a general outline of the questions and demonstrations we’ll be highlighting. Please try to follow some of the suggested answers, but just be natural too. You should be getting that list in an email soon. Just remember this reflects on you, your weather program, and it could really help us bring in new pony viewership so please do your best.”

“I’ve never done anything so— overly coached,” I admitted with a frown, the limo jerking briefly as we came to a short stop due to traffic before resuming.

“I’m sure you’ll be fantastic,” he said reassuringly and gently patted me on the withers with a hoof. “Generic corporate speak is always more intimidating than it needs to be.”

“So while the fancy spa had some nice snacks, I can’t help but notice it’s getting a little late for dinner,” Will interrupted as he returned his phone to his bag.

“The hotel has a restaurant, doesn’t it? We’ll just eat there,” I answered, happy to eat whatever I could get.

“The hotel does have a fantastic little restaurant but we’ve taken the liberty of already making reservations for you at the Rainbow Room. It’s close to the hotel. They’ve even started offering pony produced items as part of their menu. I’ve become quite partial to the quinoa sliders. A bit too much, my wife says, but she doesn’t believe me when I tell her earth ponies are just big boned. Says I’m getting pudgy. Unicorns,” he chuckled with a small roll of his eyes.

“Quinoa?” Will asked with a brief stutter before he coughed and shakily continued. “Do you know where they’re sourcing that from?”

“Um— some commune upstate I think. There’s a charming set of brochures about them in the lobby if you’re curious about them,” the earth pony answered.

“I was just a little curious, but not that curious,” Will quickly replied shaking a hoof dismissively.

‘Well he’s not being suspicious at all,’ I thought. “I look forward to seeing what they have.”

“Excellent, we’ll go get you checked in at the hotel, then head over.”

After Dinner

“Why is this stupid card reader so high on the door?” I mumbled as I hovered in the air, plastic card clenched between my teeth as I brought it close enough to the chip reader to unlock the door. As soon as it clicked I hurriedly used a hoof to push down on the handle.

“Guess they don’t get many pony guests,” Will helpfully remarked.

“Can’t imagine why not,” I sarcastically remarked, quickly flying into the room and spitting the card out onto the tv stand.

Other than the exotic location and higher quality furnishings it was a generic hotel room, though noticeably smaller than I expected. The two queen sized beds seemed like overkill for two ponies. A small bathroom, desk with office chair, and a dresser with a TV on it. Since the shades were open, everything was bathed in a nice orange glow from the setting sun being reflected by the buildings outside. Flying over to the window, I looked out at the tall buildings surrounding the room.

“Tourist,” Will teased, depositing his bag on one of the beds.

“This tourist gets to be on TV,” I giggled and gave a quick flap of my wings to launch myself onto one of the beds so I could lightly jump up and down.

“And has the big shot taken a look at her messages from her adoring fans yet? I bet there’s a few,” he flippantly remarked as he headed to the bathroom. “Also, you’ve had your phone off for hours now, what if some family tried to get a hold of you?” he asked, before disappearing around the corner.

‘I hate when he’s right,’ I grimaced and came to a stop to undo the velcro holding my saddlebags on.

Shrugging them off, I dug out my phone and stylus. Seeing that the battery was dead, I dipped back in to grab the charger and went through the awkward task of plugging it in and holding the power button in so the phone would turn back on. ‘It’ll be nice when they come up with phones designed for us,’ I thought irritably and gave my wings a big stretch while waiting for it to boot up. If it wasn’t for my case having a raised button I would never be able to manipulate the tiny power button.

There was a brief moment of inactivity punctuated by the sound of flushing from the bathroom before all the notifications came flooding in, my poor phone creating a noise like it was throwing up from multiple different sounds all playing at once. I winced and my ears pinned back.

“Yikes,” I hissed, noticing that I had missed a few calls from family and close friends. Seth had his own grouping of notifications that was going to be fun to go through.

Even with Will’s filtering in place the amount of notifications still getting through made me feel like panicking again. It felt wrong to just ignore so many, I wanted to look through every last one but it was such a daunting amount.

“Still struggling with that?” Will asked, startling me out of staring at the screen and chewing on my stylus.

“Yes,” I admitted. “You mind making it better again?”

He sighed. “If you can’t hack it, why don’t you just walk away? Not everyone can deal with being a public figure. Most people will forget about you in a couple days if you don’t keep putting yourself out there.”

“I agreed to go on TV, dealing with this kind of thing comes with that,” I replied resolutely with a firm nod. Trying to sound more confident than I actually felt.

“Your droopy ears, lifeless wings, and limp tail make that proclamation sound sort of suspect.”

“You’re right,” I snorted, shaking myself out before standing up straight and flaring my wings. “I’ve come too far to be afraid of some social media and my stupid phone!”

A loud wolf howl from under me made me leap up almost to the ceiling with a scream. Hovering in place unconsciously I nearly hyperventilated as Will stared at my ringing phone with a small smirk.

“Yep. Totally calm and ready to deal with her fame.”

“Shut it,” I snapped and dropped unceremoniously down to the bed, laying down with a bounce that nearly sent my phone flying off. My stylus had, though, so I awkwardly used my upper lip to answer. “Hey Jasper, what’s up?”

“It’s about time you answer your phone. What have you been doing?” the other pegasus asked with a demanding tone.

“Battery died,” I answered, glancing at Will who looked a little nervous for some reason. “NBC paid for us to go to this fancy spa and you’ll never guess who it was we saw,” I trailed off into a pregnant pause.

“Who?” Jasper asked in her usual dry tone.

“THE Starlight Glimmer.” I answered excitedly.

“You made a fool out of yourself, didn't you?” She asserted blandly.

“I did not!”

“Is that stallion still there with you? Can he confirm that?”

“Well, Will?” I glared at Will, daring him to lie about me again like he did to my mother earlier.

“Unfortunately no,” Will spoke up and got closer to the phone. “She did not make a fool out of herself.”

“I don’t know,” Jasper drawled. “She has been known to make a fool out of herself.”

“Oh would you stop with the whole fool thing? Give it up, the joke isn’t working.”

“Shame,” Jasper sighed. “I was hoping to get some gossip for Misty.”

“You didn’t call me just to pull my tail, did you?”

“No— I just had some serious questions about these pictures you posted earlier and I really want to have you tell me all about your day.”

“Jasper, you can just ask, I’d love to tell you all about my day.”

“Well since I saw it first hand, you two have fun, I’m going to go have a quick jog on the treadmill,” Will excused himself.

“I didn’t chase him off, did I?” Jasper asked, though her tone made it clear that she was not at all concerned if she had.

“No, he just wants to ruin the nice spa treatment we just had by getting sweaty,” I waved off the question even though I did want to go burn off some excess energy. “So the beginning of the day or something more interesting?”

“Tell me about the train station. I want to hear about that pale imitation humans made with lights.”

Laying still in bed looking out the window at the building across the street, my right ear flicked in annoyance as Will continued a whispered conversation with someone from his bed. It had started a few minutes ago when his phone had woken me up, and now it was keeping me awake .

“No, I haven’t really thought about that for a while,” Will started to say before he was interrupted on the other end and paused. “Yes, your pamphlets made the place look nice but I have a job, and we both know...”

He paused again for a longer time.

“I’m happy you’re doing well, I really am. But it’s not enticing to me personally when you mention how you’re giving ponies good jobs they can’t get elsewhere.” He paused again listening contemplatively before he made a growling noise deep in his throat. “I told you that’s not my name. You abused my talent to start that town, I know your endgame remember?”

Tired of the one-sided conversation, I sat up to turn towards him. Will was laying with the phone resting on his forelegs. He looked like a deer caught in headlights, clearly having thought I was asleep. “Who are you talking to?” I asked in annoyance and glanced at the alarm clock. “It’s almost one.”

“It’s um— she’s just an old friend who called,” he answered so fast I barely caught it, scrambling to find his stylus in the dark, and ending the call. “No big deal.”

I shifted to lay back down facing his direction and crossed my front legs while staring at him.

“It’s not what you think,” he added evasively.

“That you have a marefriend you didn’t tell me about?”

“We are not a couple, we were NEVER really a couple.”

“Well— explain it to me.”

“No,” he retorted quickly and bitterly, his phone going off again and he quickly sent it to voicemail. “It’s not something I’d ever like to talk about. I just want to forget the whole thing.”

I frowned and stared at him. He had been on the phone far too long for it to have been nothing.”You really not going to talk about it?”

“I’d really prefer not to,” he huffed and rolled away to lay down facing away from me. “Sorry for waking you, good night.”

Narrowing my eyes and shuffling my wings in agitation, I briefly considered letting the matter drop before deciding against that. With a quick hop, I jumped over to his bed, and landed as heavily as I could to jostle him.

“Sapphire, what are you doing?” he demanded angrily.

“Well I was thinking that two queen size beds are way too big for two ponies, and that I didn’t really answer your question earlier.”

“Whatever, now isn’t the time.”

“I’m making it the time.”

“Sapphire, I do not have to answer to you and I’m not going to talk right now,” he snapped and made a big show of twisting around to face away from me and bury his head underneath a pillow. “Go to bed. You need to be up and getting ready in like two hours anyway.”

I ignored his protests and made myself comfortable next to him. “Earlier I didn’t really answer when you asserted that I had no regrets.”

“Go to bed.”

“But I did have a regret. Don’t you want to know what it is?”

He turned to look out from under the pillow at me. “What?”

“That it didn’t happen sooner.”

“That’s not a regret you brainwashed weirdo,” he groaned in disgust.

“Why not? Five years sooner and my Grandma and Dad might still be alive. She wouldn’t have been a quadriplegic anymore and while I don’t know if it could have, maybe ETS could have fixed my Dad’s brain damage.”

“Sapphire— when I asked that—” he started, leaving his hiding place under the pillow.

“I know what you were asking,” I interrupted. “But if I expect you to give up what is obviously an emotional thing you have with that mare on the phone, it’s unfair of me not to give up something personal myself.”

“I knew about your family already, you need to work on your guilt trip,” he grumbled halfheartedly with a sigh.

“Dunno, seems like it might be working—” I trailed off hopefully.

“Worked enough,” he snorted. “Her name is Bountiful Majesty. That restaurant we ate at? They bought from her commune. Ugh, can’t believe how pompous those brochures were,” he trailed off in thought. “She— yes we were close after ETS for a while and she was very good at getting others to follow her. But I wasn’t interested in living the vision life so I left.”

“So why you having long conversations with her late at night?”

He groaned before answering. “She heard that I was on TV when you were doing your interview and she wanted to talk. It was nice hearing her voice and— she just has a way of talking that keeps you hanging on every word. And it’s not even her talent.”

“Guess that was nice of her to give you a call then, sorry I interrupted.”

“No!” he responded far too loudly and shook his head. “Sorry, it was good that you did. I shouldn’t have been talking to her at all. I should just block any number she calls from. She doesn’t just run her commune like the vision, it’s her own cult. She thinks she’s some new pony messiah.”

“You were involved in a cult? No way,” I gave off a soft laugh.

“Don’t laugh, the transformations had stopped, and with that damned dream bouncing around in my skull everything— it all made sense when she explained it,” he glanced at his cutie mark. “And I helped her get it all before I figured out what she was doing. She used me for my talent to get things going, secure land, lock in investments, coordinate with businesses for supplies,” he admitted shamefully and glanced at his flank. “I could see the way to make it all work and when I was done I was stuck with this damn brand and body.”

‘Well that explains why he has such a problem with being a pony,’ I thought and gently placed a hoof on his withers. “I’m sorry she did that to you.”

“Do you get why I didn’t want to talk about it?” he demanded irritably.

“Yes, sorry for forcing it out of you. But if you ever need to deal with her, I’ll tell her off for you,” I boasted, sitting up and puffing out my chest with a quick flare of my wings.

“Don’t talk to her. Really don’t. She has a way of getting in your head and getting you to dance to her strings.” He said sternly. Before giving a quick laugh and shaking his head.” But thanks for the thought. No sense dragging you into it, so I'll just block her and be done with it, I can handle my own problems.” he gave a reassuring smile.

“Well, you know who to call, cause no pony who runs some cute little farm is going to harass my friend,” I answered and flopped onto my side with a yawn. “But right now it’s time to sleep.”

“Oh sure, when I say it’s late for a heart to heart but when you say it it’s actually time for bed,” he grumbled.

“Shh,” I replied with my eyes closed. “Or I’ll make you tell me more about this old marefriend of yours.”

“She wasn’t my marefriend!”

The Next Morning

Things were a blur after I arrived at the studio. I was not prepared for all the activity going on around me. Intellectually I had known that a TV show was a big production, but seeing it in action was another thing. So many humans and the rare pony were rushing about their business to keep everything running smoothly.

My mane had been lightly styled and they had applied some pony-specific makeup that really accentuated my eyes. Having a human put her hands so close to them had put me on edge, but I liked the effect, so I may need to learn how to do it myself. Bouncing nervously with each step, Mr. Richards escorted me to the doorway leading to the outside plaza.

“Good morning, Mr. Roker,” the earth pony greeted as we reached the human talking to an aide.

“Good morning,” the man returned jovially and nodded to the aide who excused himself.

“Good morning,” I added quickly, feeling awkward and out of place talking to such a well known personality.

Mr. Richards chuckled. “This here is Sapphire Sky; Sapphire, this is—”

“Mr. Al Roker,” I interrupted trying to sound confident. “I’ve seen you on TV a few times,” I added casually.

“Well I have been doing it for a few years now, yes. It’s nice to meet you, I’ve been informed that you’re going to put on a little show for us.”

“I hope everypony will enjoy it,” I nodded. “Um, do you happen to remember— it was a few years ago, visiting Upper Michigan?”

“I do indeed, it was for the world's largest game of freeze tag,” he answered before kneeling down to whisper. “Don’t tell anyone but I did have to look it up after I heard I was interviewing you.”

I made a motion with my hoof to zip my mouth shut. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“Since we have a few minutes before crunch time, would you like to join me outside to say hello to some of the audience? Get a feel for the set?” he asked.

“Sure—,” I answered with a nervous gulp.

“You’ll do fine,” Mr. Richards reassuringly said. “Relax and act like you’ve done this before. I’ll go see how Mr. Monte is doing in the green room.”

“Thanks,” I replied in a small voice and took a deep breath before following Mr. Roker outside to be buffeted by the crowd that lit up as soon as someone was there to be a target.

Being on this side of the metal fence was a different sort of experience from what I had yesterday. A wall of humans and a surprising amount of ponies all had their eyes on me or the man who would be interviewing me. Pausing briefly as I watched Mr. Roker expertly greet the crowd and begin interacting with them, I took another deep breath, put a smile on my face, and stepped forward to try and match his easy charisma.

“Good morning everyone and I hope you’re having a great time so far with us here at the Today Show! I’m Al Roker and this is my guest for the next segment, Ms Sapphire Sky,” the man announced and began walking around the fenced in area to greet the assembled crowd.

“Hello, everypony,” I greeted, trotting over to the group of ponies first and coming to a stop with a small hop. “I guess I get to put on a little show for you all today.”

My smile increased at the seven foals of mixed tribes, three of which looked absolutely adorable holding signs almost as big as themselves in their mouths. I said a lot more greetings as I moved around the border. Since the metal barrier was over my head, I quickly gave up walking to fly high enough to talk to the humans without them looming over me.

“Five minute warning,” an aide named Anthony interrupted while checking his clipboard before gesturing to where they had setup a small sprinkler. “Do you need the water on right now?”

“Excuse me,” I said to an earth pony I had been talking to so I could go see about preparations. “No, not right now, turn it on when we start the interview though, but like I said earlier I just need enough for it to create a light mist,” I explained, and flew over to double check that the sprinkler was in the right location.

Doing a quick circle around the area I had to operate in, I felt out the current conditions, and guesstimated how much work it was going to be to produce a cloud by myself. It wasn't ideal, but it was doable. I returned to grab the sprinkler in my mouth and move it to a slightly better position. “That’s better.”

“Places please, two minutes,” the same aide announced.

‘Already?’ I gulped, but flew over to land on a tall chair next to Mr. Roker’s start position in front of the camera. Shuffling nervously I couldn’t stop myself from folding my wings repeatedly attempting to find the perfect position.

“You ready?” Mr. Roker asked, leaning over slightly.

“Maybe,” I answered with a hiss before I gave a quick shake of my head, and sat up straighter. “Yes.”

“Ten seconds,” a woman next to the camera man said before starting to count down, finishing the last five seconds using the fingers on her hand.

“Good morning, welcome everyone,” Mr. Roker paused and gestured to me briefly. “And everypony, I’m Al Roker here with my special guest for today, Sapphire Sky.”

“Hello,” I added on cue and stretched out my right wing to give a quick wave.

Mr. Roker immediately went into the next scripted portion after a comfortable pause. “Locally and on the internet you’ve made a bit of a splash after your interview yesterday. Before we get to the special demonstration, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”

“Right, I am the director of ponies for the Michigan Weather Management Program. We work in coordination with human authorities and meteorologists to better manage the weather. Right now we are limited to the Upper Peninsula, but hope to expand statewide in the near future,” I explained, leaving a small pause as I tried to remember what I was supposed to say. “Weather magic and pony magic in general is unfortunately a controversial topic, even though for many it’s now part of our everyday lives.”

“ETS’ legacy, unfortunately most humans first exposure to magic has been negative,” Mr. Roker added.

“And because of that, there’s still a long way to go before ponies and humans can truly live in harmony,” I replied, ignoring how many cast the result of ETS as wholly negative. “But, we’ll never get there if ponies and humans don’t work to understand each other.”

Mr. Roker picked up on his queue but ad libbed slightly. “Since not many of us get to see it, today you’ll be performing some weather magic for us up close.”

“It’s what the sprinkler is for,” I said with a grin.

“Would you like to begin? I think Anthony started the water for you,” Mr. Roker made a big show of shifting in his chair to look off in the distance for the camera.

“It’s started,” the aide answered from the side.

“Guess I’ll get started then,” I remarked and gently flapped my wings several times to lift up off my chair to take off towards the sprinkler, which was doing an excellent job creating a fine mist about four feet above the ground, along with a pretty rainbow from the light refraction.

I made a lazy pass around the area to feel out the air and buy some time to think up what I wanted to say, before I looked at the camera as I started my second pass. “I don’t normally work alone or in this small a scale, but I don’t think the city would appreciate anything bigger,” I joked, beginning to gather the moisture as I made a tighter and faster circle.

“Please shut the sprinkler off,” I instructed and it was done before I had made another circle. I could feel the air was becoming overly saturated and I wasn’t intending to create a rain cloud.

“Is this normally how you would do it?” Mr. Roker asked from nearby.

“This is the easiest way to do small clouds,” I half answered before I felt the conditions were right, so I gave a final strong flap of my wings and shot around my developing cloud at high speed before shooting up to pause over the center. Letting myself drop down to land on it and compress it the final amount, I gave one last flap of my wings, leaving them spread, tips just touching the surface, and suddenly I was standing on a nicely fluffy white cloud big enough for two pegasi to stand on comfortably. “I heard that Sunrise Storm used this method to create one inside with a couple friends. That was really impressive for first timers,” I finished, smiling for the camera and enjoying the cheers, clapping, and hoofstomps that erupted from the crowd.

“Is it alright to touch it?” Mr. Roker asked, sounding for the first time like he was a little unsure of himself.

“Sure,” I answered and gave the cloud a few pats with my right forehoof. “Well, as much as humans can, of course.”

The TV personality reached out and his hand predictably passed through the cloud like the simple water vapor it was. He immediately broke out in laughter and tried to gather some of it in his hands, but it continued to slip through his now damp fingers. “I’ve seen experiments to make clouds before but this—,” he trailed off.

“It’s magic,” I finished for him. “So who wants to give it a feel? Any foals want to feel their first cloud?” I asked and with a few light flaps of my wings started the cloud slowly moving along the barrier fence, allowing the humans to reach out and try to touch it. Some didn’t while others acted like they might be burned, quickly passing their hands through the harmless vapor. I glanced to the side and saw that the cameraman was catching a wide shot of the crowd as I moved along. At this elevation I needed to actively maintain the magic holding the small cloud together or else it would begin to dissipate up into the drier air.

“So,” Mr. Roker began, keeping pace as I moved along the crowd. “Being that I have a small interest in meteorology, are you aware of how your magic works? Does your magic work the same way that we know clouds are formed? Or does the magic work in a completely different way from nature?”

“It’s the same way— if science allows us to know how the world works, then magic lets ponies speak its language,” I answered with a phrase that had come to me this morning while going over the script and turned back to five pegasus foals. “Any of you ready to get on?” I asked. Three were bouncing excitedly on the ground while the remaining two were perched on their parents' backs to get a better view.

Steadying the cloud so the group of foals could be assisted up onto it without it accidentally slipping out from under me, I briefly worried about them jumping on it and making it release its water. But none of them seemed to have enough magic to do more than shakily stand on the small cloud. And it didn’t seem to matter, as only two were brave enough to actually try to stand up and move around, while the others were a little younger and happy to just lay down on the comfy condensation.

While one camera never left me and the foals, another was going in for a close up with Mr. Roker. “That is unfortunately all we have time for today,” he started before shifting to my direction. “Thank you stopping by today, Ms Sapphire, we’ll have more details and links to her weather program on our website.”

“Thanks for having me,” I responded with a big smile looking into the camera that he was speaking into.

“I hope everyone out there has a fantastic day. We’re going to bounce you back into the studio for national weather before what’s happening in your local forecast.”

“Bye!” I waved at the camera, noticing out of the corner of my eye a couple foals had stopped to do the same.

Author's Note

Well this took much longer than expected to finish, and I spent about 5 weeks just staring at the final section unable to write the last few paragraphs. Surgery recover is going well but for a few weeks was very distracting and hard to produce anything, though I have been kept busy with editing for Halira and Silver Eclipse.

Still got some issues with swelling but feeling better and get to go back to work. Yay! Or try to and see if I can go back to work without being in too much pain.

Just a short epilogue left and this will be complete.

Home Again - Epilogue

As interesting as it was to travel to a new and completely unfamiliar place, I felt much better to be once again comfortably back at my home. My place wasn’t much, just the upper floor to a barn-style garage that had been unfinished before ETS. Afterwards, I had moved in with the two ponies who had become my best friends, Jasper and Misty Way. It also allowed me to be close to my family, who lived in the main house. Not something I would have expected to ever do or find important before.

There was plenty of space for three ponies and over the summer, we had even been able to get it mostly finished off minus a kitchen. It was just easier to go over to the main home and have shared meals with everypony else. But we did have a few things, like the small movie-theater style popcorn machine that I had just finished loading up so the three of us could snack on something.

Closing the door with a wing, the motor loudly stirring the kernels, I glanced towards the bed in the middle of the long room, pushed up against the wall where both of my friends were going through the photos on my phone.

“Would you two stop killing my phone’s battery?” I playfully snapped. With a light hop and a quick flap of my wings, I cleared the small distance. Landing heavily on my bed between Jasper and Misty, they bounced and then came together to jostle against my sides. “I told you I didn’t hide anything.”

“That doesn’t mean you shared all of your pics,” Misty giggled with a quick shuffle of her seagreen wings, and shifted the stylus in her mouth to stick out to the side. My phone had skittered across the covers and was now out of reach of their snooping.

“And purposely keeping them from your best friends would be dangerously close to lying,” Jasper nodded to herself as she crossed her red furred forelegs.

“Accusing me of lying? In my own bed?” I scoffed with a quick snort. Jerking my head to look out the big patio doors that led to a balcony outside overlooking the driveway. Technically it was all our bed, but it was big enough that we all had enough space to stretch out without interfering with the others.

Sitting in silence with them for a few seconds, I couldn’t keep a smirk from spreading across my muzzle before we all broke out into laughter.

“What are you even looking for?” I asked, not understanding why they were being so uncharacteristically nosey.

“You were at a stallions house that you’ve known for years for a whole week— alone,” Jasper answered.

“We’re just trying to see if you had some— ya know— steamy bedroom pics,” Misty added with a suggestive wink of her orange eyes and quick flick of her tail.

I spread my wings and lightly slapped both on the back of their heads. Replying testily, “I think you both have the wrong idea about him. He was a perfect gentlecolt.”

“And you didn’t try to seduce him?”

“I know it’s shocking, but a mare and a stallion can just be friends.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t lift your tail for him,” Jasper crudely summarized in disappointment.

“Not sorry to disappoint,” I replied haughtily as I could.

“Didn’t he make any pass at all? Well... is he even interested in mares?” Misty asked.

“Always seemed to be,” I answered, twisting so I could wedge myself between them pushing them farther apart. Misty rolled and playfully batted at my chest with her forehooves. “If he’s caught your eye, just call him up and ask him. Seems like the type who’d need a direct approach,” I added, right ear perking up as the popcorn began to pop, and begin to fill the room with it’s delicious aroma.

“He’s just too bland,” Jasper responded in her ironically bored way of talking.

“Eh, he’s a city boy, too hoity toity for me,” Misty added before taking a deep breath in through her nose. “Hmmm, popcorn.”

“Good, so if there’s no interest then you can quit badgering us then,” I said, righting myself to leap off the bed towards the popcorn machine. “And then come over here and help me with the popcorn and drinks.”

“Back for only a couple hours and you’re already bossing us around,” Jasper remarked teasingly, but eagerly came to help as the popcorn began pushing up the kettles lid, spilling out to start filling the bottom of the machine.

Misty had paused standing on the bed to look out the patio door. “Hey, were we expecting visitors?” she asked, flapping her wings to lift off, and go over by the glass.

“I wasn’t, still on vacation till tomorrow,” I answered, hitting the power switch and then the lever that dropped the kettle to release the popcorn so it wouldn’t begin to burn. Trotting over to take a look, there was an official looking black sedan with lightly tinted windows that had pulled in to park in front of the garage below. “I’ll go see what’s up,” I volunteered and slid the door open to fly out and land between the car and the main house.

Stepping out of the driver seat was a man in a black suit who immediately opened up the back door to allow a golden-furred, purple-maned unicorn to exit. The stallion stopped to breath in the scents before regarding me with a smile. The door on the far side opened and a human woman in a blue suit walked around to stand near the unicorn.

“Anything I can help you with?” I asked, glancing between the trio. ‘Ugh, I really don’t want to deal with government types right now.’

“We’re sorry to bother you on your day off, but I know from personal experience that it can be hard to track down a busy pegasus,” the stallion answered, his voice having the musical undercurrent that many Equestrians had. “My name is Gold Compass.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sapphire Sky, and I’m guessing this isn’t about the weather program,” I surmised, otherwise they would have just set up a normal meeting through the official channels.

“You could say it’s tangentially related,” the woman answered, pulling a badge out from her jacket pocket. “I’m Agent Renaldo with the Department of Rehumanization.”

“You’re not welcome here,” I bristled, taking a short step back, wings flaring defensively. I’ve had to put up with them pestering me to rehumanize since they first installed their awful offices and convinced my mother to go through with it.

“Please, I know how the transformed feel about my department but I am only here to accompany an Equestrian envoy as official oversight for the Government,” the woman quickly explained, but I didn’t relax my posture in the slightest.

“It’s true,” Gold Compass affirmed, and I turned to look at him with suspicion. “She’s here to be a witness and if need be to give the official warnings and disclaimers. Can we discuss the opportunity I have for you before you turn us away? A pegasus of your talents and— growth potential should find it very intriguing.”

I snorted loudly and relaxed my posture, but left my wings spread wide. “Fine, but if she suggests I rehumanize at all then this little talk is done,” I conceded, and spun around to the path that wrapped around to the back of the barn to head back up to my apartment. “Come on, I’ll hear you out.”

September

Riding in my mother’s car, I sat quietly watching the roadside as we headed to the airport to pick up Will. Other vehicles were few and far between; mostly buses transporting ponies back home from work. Normally I would have flown out to meet him, but he was bringing some supplies, and it was simply easier to travel by car. Especially with Will arriving on the late flight and we would have been flying in the dark.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” my mom broke the silence, drumming her fingers on the top of the steering wheel.

“I was just thinking,” I answered and tried to give her a big smile. “Sorry.”

“For what? Not having second thoughts about inviting your friend here, are you?”

“No— well— sort of but in a roundabout way.”

“Want to explain that?”

“There’s just a lot going on and he’s coming here to write a book on our program,” I paused as the car turned onto the road that circled the airport. “We won’t even really see each other.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re not that busy, you’ve barely been working since you returned from your trip.”

“I’m busy! It’s just— Jasper and Misty really stepped up while I was away and found their niches. It’s taken a lot of work off of me.”

“See, you’ll have plenty of time. It was a good thing you took that vacation, you were trying to do far too much. But you’ve always been like that, trying to do everything alone and stressing yourself out.”

“I’m fine without the lecture, Mom,” I rolled my eyes.

“I know,” she laughed, turning into the mostly empty parking lot. “Have you decided what you want for your birthday? There’s not a lot of time left.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, as the car came to a gentle stop. “I know nopony has a lot right now so if all I get is a nice meal with friends and family, that’ll be great.”

“If that’s what you want,” she shrugged, quickly turning the vehicle off so it didn’t idle and pollute the air longer than necessary.

Using my mouth to open the door, I hopped out, and absently gave it a light kick to close it behind me. “The airport crew did a great job today,” I commented, scanning the perfectly clear sky side to side as the sun was just starting to drop. Public flights had increased to two a day recently, but the airport had a long way to go before it recovered to how busy it was pre-ETS. But keeping the approach clear to avoid delays no matter the weather was a big enough job to warrant a dedicated team of pegasi contracted through my program.

Waiting for my mother to walk around the car, I was reminded of how slowly she moved after rehumanizing. She did her best to not let it hinder her, but she admitted a couple months ago that her short time spent as an earth pony in perfect health made every ache and pain feel fresh.

“So we got a few minutes, want to get something to drink?” I asked, looking up at her as we walked towards the entrance. With so few flights, the store was usually closed most of the day, except when passengers would be here.

“How about you go get us something, I need to visit the bathroom,” she answered.

“Alright,” I nodded, pausing momentarily to let the automatic doors slide open. My mother went to the left where the bathrooms were while I continued straight towards a small shop that had a few locally flavored souvenirs and some snacks for sale. Next to it was the line for security where a number of humans and a few ponies were passing through preparing for the last flight out.

It hadn’t been any bigger pre-ETS, but the selection of food was much better now with a range of fresh pony farmed produce. And from talking with an employee on my last trip through here, they were planning to put in their own smoothie bar. Thankfully along with fresh produce, their drinks were no longer big name brand soft drinks but mostly juices made by a local business. They may have been mass produced but were still very good.

While my order was being put together, I caught sight of the plane landing through the big windows facing the runway. My mom surprised me, returning from the bathroom to take the tray before I could. Since Will was going to be here sooner than expected I ordered a drink for him along with a serving of blueberries, strawberries, and various nuts.

Sitting at a table just outside the shop, the plane seemed to take its sweet time in getting to the terminal and letting its passengers out. I was nearly finished with my drink by the time Will finally exited the security area along with a mostly human group of passengers. He looked a little worn out from his trip and didn’t have much spring in his step.

“Looks like you survived,” I teased as soon as he noticed me. “If only there was a mean, petty, spiteful pony around to take a picture of you being miserable to share with the world.”

“Ha ha,” he laughed sarcastically, before adjusting his leather satchel, and coming to stand near the table. “Is this really an airport? I was shocked that the runway was paved.”

“You want to continue making bad jokes? Or do you want to have a seat and introduce yourself like a civilized pony?” I asked with a smile, gesturing towards the empty seat next to me.

“Sorry for being rude. Will Monte,” he apologized, extending a hoof to my mother.

“Betty Carrier,” she introduced, holding out the palm of her hand to his hoof. “It’s nice to meet you and please just call me Betty.”

“So how was the flight?” I asked, watching as he trotted around to take the seat next to me.

“Weird, wouldn’t want to make it a regular thing,” he answered as I casually pushed the tray over in front of him using a wing. “This smells good,” Will nostrils flared and his ears perked up.

“Bet it’s better than airline food.”

“Anything would be, all that little death trap had was peanuts and a cup of water,” he took a long drink with the straw, nearly emptying the cup. “Ooh that’s good,” he said under his breath.

“I know right. It’s so much safer to be carried by our own wings.”

“I was just making a joke about the tiny plane. As if I would want to fly halfway across the country myself.”

“Are you two going to keep being cute and bicker with each other much longer? We do need to get home some time tonight?” my mother asked, glancing at her watch.

“Hopefully not, she can be so tedious,” Will teased.

“So tedious that you’re going to write a book about me,” I shrugged.

“No, nuh uh,” he quickly shook his head. “I am here to write a book on the first human and pony weather control program. You just happen to be— tangentially related to that.”

“Put me on the cover or no one talks to you,” I patted him on the shoulder before jumping off the seat. “I’ll go get your bag from the carousel thingie, finish off that food so we can go.”

Two Days Later

“Mom, what’s he doing here?” I asked in annoyance, hovering in the air at human eye level behind the woman who was drizzling chocolate overtop my white, frosting-covered birthday cake.

“He’s here for your party,” my mother answered, finishing and putting the measuring cup she had been pouring the chocolate from into the sink. “Is that a problem?” she asked like it didn’t matter.

“It’s not a good thing,” I huffed, crossing my forelegs.

“Sapphire, he’s your brother. You can’t invite your nieces, his daughters, and tell him not to come.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I did. I was specific.”

“You’re being rude. I don’t care if it’s your birthday, that’s no excuse. This is my house and he’s your brother, and I say you need to invite him,” she explained tersely. “A pony forgives, now come into the living room and be sociable,” she added, grabbing my front left hoof to drag me along after her.

I didn’t resist, too upset over her total lack of respect for my feelings on the man. This was supposed to be my day and she had just poured cold water all over it. But I put a smile on my face and landed to focus on the good things, like the friends that had shown up. While ignoring the human who was parked in a chair nursing a beer and looking dour. My nieces and their mother, the only three other humans in the home were sitting on the carpeted floor where the rest of my guests were as they chatted.

“Food is almost ready, so start moving to the table,” my mom announced. “Hope everyone is hungry,” she added, earning an enthusiastic response.

Purposely trying to ignore my brother’s presence, nothing good could come from engaging with him, I walked over to sit down next to Will and Emily who were off a bit to the side. “Thanks for coming Emily, I know it’s early for you.”

“It’s not too bad,” the pink night pony glanced at the patio door with a withering glare at the bright sunlight. “Not that I want to make it a normal occurrence.”

“So what are you two off here whispering about by yourselves?” I asked, trying to fill my voice with implication.

Emily gestured to the brown pegasus, “Mr. Monte was just asking me about what us night ponies do here.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be working on his book at my party,” I said favoring him with a glare.

“I’m not working, I was just curious,” he explained defensively. “And it’s just Will.”

“That’s good because it’s time for food, so grab a seat at the table,” I happily suggested, heading over to take a seat on the floor at the head of the long table. Cutting down the legs on the table had been one of the first modifications we had done in the home to make it more accessible for ponies. A smaller round table was left unmodified and it was just off to the side with chairs for the humans in my family to use if they wanted.

Jasper and Misty sat down at the spots on either side of me, and I felt better with them there for emotional support. Will found a spot next to Emily. Both of my human nieces ignored the human height table where their father and mother sat to find places sitting on the floor at the cut down table. Coming out from the kitchen with several plates of food held securely in her green magic was my sister, Tender Smiles followed by my step father, Golden Brew. He was a sizable earth pony easily carrying a large tray in his mouth with the rest of the food. Tender’s magic made quick work of distributing the meal as she was particularly adept as manipulating multiple objects at once.

“And for big sis, the birthday girl,” she added, setting down my plate which had an extra serving of steamed carrots.

“Thanks, Tender,” I answered, watching as she sat down with her two young fillies off to the side at a small table set low enough that my nieces would be able to reach their food easier.

Seeing that everypony was actually gathered in one place for the first time during my party, I realized that it was now or never to get the word out to them all equally. Giving the table a light tap with my hoof before giving it a much harder one to make sure I had drawn the attention of the room, I smiled nervously and I cleared my throat with a couple small coughs. “I have something important I need to announce,” I paused and took a deep shaky breath. “It means a lot to me that you’re all here for my birthday but there is something I’d like to say sooner than later cause I know you’re going to have a lot of questions and I’m not going to have much time to answer.”

Glancing at Jasper and Misty, both were giving me looks of reassurance. “A couple of you already know what I’m going to say and I can’t thank them enough for agreeing to take on a lot of responsibility so I could have this opportunity. I didn’t want to say anything too soon in case it all fell apart, but I can’t put it off now that the red tape is gone.”

“What is it Sapphire?” my mother nearly interrupted me to ask.

“Well—,” I paused to look down, a smile spreading across my muzzle before facing my family and friends. “I’m going to Equestria.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delay for those of you waiting but life has been a bit hectic, and I got caught up helping Halira and Cosmic Eclipse, and also I was just overthinking the hell out of everything in this before realizing that I was being ridiculous. Nothing in this was halfway as important as I was trying to make it.

Cosmic Eclipse has some stuff coming up in New Horizons that has more of Sapphire's adventures a couple years down the line, one of which will be rather game changing, and I'll eventually get to another story covering her short trip to Equestria.

But as for this story which was always supposed to be a small intro to the character and hinting at the setting to jump off from, that's all for now folks. Thank you for reading.