The Endless Winter 2
Chapter 1: Ponyville
“You didn’t go down the mountain very fast. I’d totally make it down in ten seconds flat”
“Going fast isn’t the point, Rainbow.”
The perplexed rainbow colored pegasus scowled. “Then what is the point?”
“The point is to enjoy the ride.” He beamed.
“Psshhh… That’s lame.”
“Whatever, but did you see the trick I threw? It wasn’t too steezy, but it was something I thought you, of all ponies, could appreciate. ”
Rainbow Dash scrunched up her face in confusion and asked, “Steezy?”
“Ugh… don’t worry about that, it’s hard to describe. Many try to explain it as style blended with ease, but that doesn’t do the word any justice.” He only received a more perplexed look from the pegasus.
He then decided to try and change the topic quickly, as the subject of steeze was further frying the neurological circuitry of Equestria’s best young flier. “Where did the other two go?”
“They left as soon as you made it most of the way down the mountain. Twilight said you were safe once you made it down to the ridge. She also said something about preparing her lab for an experiment tomorrow. Rarity was whining about her hooves being cold.” Friggin Rarity. She even had those asinine winter boots on. The extremely frilly ones. Even the word ‘frilly’ bothered him.
He quickly regrouped his thoughts and recalled what he had previously told Twilight about his chosen line down the mountain. The top of his line would take him through an avalanche path, but the lower portion mostly consisted of following a ridge, where he would be out of harms way if avalanches started popping.
Twilight was there to supervise the run, and coordinate a search and rescue effort in case he became injured or buried in the snow. At first, she was worried about finding him in the event of an avalanche, but they had devised an Equestrian Av Beacon (EAV). He would carry a small gem in his jacket, which Rarity could then locate with relative ease using her gem finding spell. Why Twilight couldn’t do it, he hadn’t the slightest idea. Rarity had always kind of pissed him off, mostly because she always complained about something, but he was nice to her because she served a purpose.
The only thing he was really worried about, besides the threat of a wailing fashionista setting off an avalanche, was the possibility of falling and injuring himself. The slope he was descending was located quite a distance from Ponyville, and thus, the nearest medical center. In the event of a bad fall, the plan was to have Rainbow Dash fly him to Ponyville. She was an excellent flier, but she was no helicopter. The jarring motions of her flying meant a spinal injury could be fatal for the human.
He spoke up, “We should probably bounce.”
A questioning glare from the pegasus.
“Make like a tree and leave?”
Another strange look from skittles.
“You know, take off?”
That terrible pun earned him a response.
“You aren’t very funny,” said a slightly annoyed Rainbow Dash.
“And you’re no pun,” he quickly countered.
His comment was met with a loud groan and an even louder face-hoof.
He understood her frustration of having to spend a day away from practicing her flight routine, but didn’t know why she never laughed at his terrible jokes. It was like she hated him. A lot.
The walk back to Ponyville through Whitetail Woods sucked, but at least he had company. Even if that company was silent, and made the situation awkward.
His traveling companion took a deep inhale of breath, and quickly forced an “ItslateIgottagetbacktomyhouseokayseeyabye” on her exhale. With a few powerful strokes of her wings, she was gone. He was alone. In the woods. At night.
He was initially excited by her outburst, thinking she was starting a conversation, but his outlook quickly changed as he saw her fly away. He was slightly angry with Rainbow Dash for her sudden leave, but he was also a little thankful for the abrupt end to the awkward situation.
He quickly grew bored with the darkening scenery, and decided to contemplate things. His thoughts turned to his preferred winter hobby. Many ponies he had conversed with had found the thought of his activity fascinating, but also a bit foolish. They felt the reward of something so dangerous couldn’t possibly outweigh the mountain of risk involved (bad joke, sorry). Some ponies just don’t understand others’ constant search for adrenaline.
He didn’t always ride down large slopes to get an adrenaline rush; he just simply didn’t have the logistics necessary for it. All the traveling, researching, and a lack of a solid mountaineering group kept him from riding some of Equestria’s best slopes on a regular basis, but this didn’t stop him from riding altogether.
He had set up a small terrain park on the side of a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville. He could ride his board every day due to the hill’s close proximity to his house. He had built every feature of the park by hand in the summer, but finding materials to build from was the hardest part. Good luck finding high-density polyethylene and galvanized steel pipe in Equestria.
The walk back to Ponyville sucked, but at least he had his music to keep him company. He pulled out his mp3 player, which was stuck on a screen reading low battery. “Shit.”
Late last night, he had finally made it back into town. He was elated at the first sight of civilization, but unfortunately this meant still had a long two-mile walk ahead of him. Those two miles would prove to piss him off to no end.
Of all the stupid things he could have forgotten to bring, it had to be his flashlight. Stumbling down a road in the dark pretty much sucks, but when there are large ruts dug into the muddy path, the suck level is over 9000. “Stupid ponies, and their stupid carts. Why doesn’t somepony pave this road? It’s practically the Equestrian equivalent to an Interstate.” His short rant met an abrupt and slightly painful end. He stepped, but felt no ground beneath his foot. By the time his tired brain had registered the void it was already too late. His face met dirt at a high rate of speed. He had tripped into the Godzilla of potholes. Many obscenities followed.
By the time he made it home and was in bed, it was 4 in the morning. He needed to be at work in four hours. “What a downer” he thought. “Mondays suck, unless you call in sick on a powder day.” Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t going to be a powder day.
He was tired. Four hours of sleep was not enough after yesterday. No amount of caffeine could rouse his hazy mind from its barely functioning state. He sighed as he was forced to exit his warm, steam-filled bathroom and enter his considerably chillier bedroom. After dressing in some nice, warm winter clothes he made his way toward the door leading to the garage. His stomach growled as he turned the knob and swung the door to the garage open. He hadn’t eaten breakfast today, because he was already a bit late. Despite his empty belly, he couldn’t help but smile as the lights flickered on in his own beautiful version of paradise. His garage was an adrenaline junkie’s wet dream.
Luckily, he, his house, and all the great things which it contained were all brought through the inter-dimensional fracture (Cliché much? Bite me.). His house was small, with two bedrooms, but the great thing was that, attached to the house, there was the huge garage. This leviathan had been the only reason he purchased the one-story turd of a property in the first place. His tools, mountain bike, snowboards, dirtbikes, truck, and numerous other motorized objects were occupying most of the cavernous garage’s space. A large tarp was draped over an even larger object in the back, but that wouldn’t be uncovered until summer (oh, what could it be?)
Since he was late, he decided upon taking his snowmobile into town. This would be considerably faster than walking, thus making it more fun. His Bombardier Summit X was typically used for boondocking and backcountry access, but the thing also hauled total ass.
He was in town in no time, and could have cut through town to shorten his ride, but opted to take a longer route around town to Twilight’s Place. He hated operating his loud motorized vehicles near the townsponies. His sled was extremely loud to his ears, so he couldn’t imagine what it would be like for ponies and their ultra-sensitive hearing.
He entered the library and was instantly greeted by a wall of dry heat. Nothing living was in the main room, which confused him. Where were Twilight and Spike? His distress was immediately eliminated as he heard a large crash in the basement. He could hear a feminine voice shouting expletives, which intrigued him. He hadn’t known that these seemingly innocent ponies were capable of such exquisitely filthy language.
The basement door suddenly swung open, nearly striking the human. A terribly frustrated purple unicorn stomped out, but she immediately froze as she spotted her new employee. He wasn’t really an employee as much as he was a test subject for her spells.
“You’re early,” said the now flustered mare.
“Not really, plus I was late all last week.”
Twilight rubbed the back of her neck as she glanced at a clock on her wall.
“I must have lost track of time,” she muttered sheepishly.
“Where’s Spike?”
“He is taking a personal day. Celestia knows he deserves it.”
“So…he’s at Rarity’s?”
“Yep.”
He could envision poor Spike chasing after the colossal nightmare known as Rarity. This though sent shivers down the human’s spine.
“So what was that crash I heard just a minute ago?” he quickly said, successfully changing the subject.
Frustrated Twilight returned. “I just messed up the equipment I spent hours setting up,” she practically hissed.
“What was it going to be used for, if you don’t mind me asking?” he asked in as delicate a manner as he could.
Twilight blushed as she realized she had startled the poor biped with her quick temper. “It was going to be used to monitor your reactions to a certain spell,” she said in a more even tone.
”What was this spell I would have been subject to?”
Twilight quickly muttered “Just a simple transformation spell,” hoping the human wouldn’t pick up on the ‘transformation’ part.
Unfortunately for the unicorn, he had heard it. He quickly realized today must have been his lucky day. He thanked Celestia for allowing him to avoid becoming some strange creature or weird entity at the hooves of Twilight.
“Well it’s a shame I can’t be subjected to that, it sounds awfully fun,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Would it really be that terrible to be turned into a pony for three hours?” Twilight whined.
He paused for a moment and reflected on his predicament. He loved his human form, but he often fantasized about becoming a pony. He always had wanted to know what it felt like to walk on all fours and have a tail, but the more he really thought about becoming a pony, the scarier the fantasy became. He wouldn’t have fingers. His whole life revolved around those ten beautiful digits. How would he snowboard, even if he could find a way to bind himself to the board? Ponies couldn’t balance on their hind legs for a sustained period, and even if they could it wouldn’t matter.
Bipedal activity wasn’t conducive to ponies. Their lower leg joints didn’t move in the right way to allow finite edge control needed on a board. He thought of an alternative to snowboarding. All that came to mind was skiing. He could possibly use skis, strapping two legs onto each one, but he would rather die. He didn’t hate skiers, he just hated skis. This was because of the first time he went skiing. It was a disaster: he had french fry-d when he should have pizza-d. Needless to say, the ski instructor was right about him having a bad time.
He quickly digested and weighed the benefits of being a pony with the things he would sacrifice with his humanity, but instantly remembered a particular piece of what the unicorn had said. Twilight had specified that the spell would only last for three hours. If he hated it, it wouldn’t matter. He would eventually change back.
“Fine, I’ll do it.”
Twilight seemed quite surprised by his answer. “I really thought you would have said no.”
“You said it would only be for three hours, so why wouldn’t I agree to do it?”
“Many ponies wouldn’t want to be changed into another species. It could potentially freak them out and cause them to go through an identity crisis of sorts. I think I am one of those ponies that wouldn’t like it, because I could never imagine losing my horn and the ability to use magic.”
“I think it would be fun to see what becoming another species would be like, but I’m just scared of not knowing whether or not I would change back. It would be terrible to be stuck as a different species.” The human said to explain his previous apprehension. “I guess I was just scared of what could hap….”
Twilight quickly cut him off and stated, “The spell used for the transformation has a defined duration. The three-hour period in which the change affects you is actually written into the spell itself. There would be no way to change that, unless you rewrote the spell completely. I assure you it is perfectly safe and won’t harm you in any way, except possibly mentally. If you freaked out over the change, you could end up harming yourself. I think….”
“Ok Twilight, I believe you.” He whined, cutting off her developing lecture.
“So you would be willing to try?”
“Yes, I will.”
Twilight squealed in delight. “ThankYouThankYouThankYou. Nopony was ever willing to try it.”
“When do we start?”
“Tomorrow at 8, since I need to fix my equipment, see you then.”
He walked out of Twilight’s place and up to his snowmobile. He checked the gas tank out of habit, but the tank was empty, as always. He had forgotten that, in Equestria, everything ran on friendship and love. Or something along those lines (yeah, pretty weak, I know). Twilight had explained the basic concept to him multiple times, but he tended to not pay attention to pony science, magic, or scientific magic, especially if Twilight was the one explaining it.
It made no sense to him. He never needed to fill anything up with gas, and never had to change oil or transmission fluid. Nothing ever broke, and batteries could be charged with unicorn magic. He wasn’t really complaining, but he knew that it wasn’t right to never have to perform maintenance on anything. He would tear apart his truck on occasion, just for fun, but it wasn’t really the same as tearing apart something in an effort to fix it. It was just disassemble, then reassemble. It was boring.
The lack of necessary maintenance meant he had more time for other things, like hitting the terrain park behind his house. He didn’t even need to walk up the gentle slope. He theorized that the unlimited fuel magic concept allowed him to constantly run a 10 horsepower lawnmower engine, which was then hooked up to a rope tow style lift.
It had plenty of power to pull one person up the slope (gear reduction ftw), but he was constantly worried that the pulleys used at the top of the hill weren’t anchored well enough to take the high tension needed to keep the rope from slipping on the bullwheel that was attached to the engine. He currently had the pulleys mounted to a tree near the crest of the hill, but planned on attaching the pulleys to a much sturdier pole the next summer.
His small hill was decent in length, but was really a glorified bunny hill. It was just steep enough for gravity to barely overcome friction. This meant it wasn’t fun to just ride down, so he had decided to build a small terrain park. A few rails and a couple of decent size jumps, but no large kickers. His favorite feature was a ten stair, or more specifically the handrail going down said ten stair. Oblivious ponies had told him that it was a stupid idea to build a stairway in the middle of the hill, but he didn’t care, it was fun to hit.
The jumps were a good ten feet tall, which took him a long time to construct using only his snow shovel. The run up to the jumps were trashed though. He didn’t have a snow cat to groom his run, so he had to bust out the snow shovel yet again. Three hours were spent just filling in gouges and tamping down the newly accumulated layer of snow. Work time was over. It was now time to ride.
Standing up on his board, he could feel something was off. It wasn’t substantial, but his balance seemed to be a bit compromised. He wasn’t too worried about it though, and figured that the instability was induced by his lack of sleep, and would pass once he started riding. He decided on taking a few warm-up laps down the slope, but couldn’t shake the slight vertigo he was experiencing.
He rode back up the rope tow and decided he would start hitting the terrain features this time around. The first rail he hit completely kicked his ass. His ollie onto the feature was terrible, and that set him up to wipe out and literally eat snow in a most spectacular fashion. It was a harsh zeach to scorp, for those like me who follow stupid snowboarding trends.
“Well that sucked” was all he could cough out. Hitting your head in a violent manner has the distinctive ability to extensively limit your expansive and refined vocabulary. After a few minutes of cursing, he rolled over and stood up. “At least I got my bad fall out of the way early,” he muttered to himself.
He pointed his nose down the slope and quickly approached one of the larger jumps on the slope. He didn’t want to just straight air the gap, so he decided to throw a nice and easy front side 180, but he ended up over-rotating and catching his heel side edge.
His body’s whipping motion ceased after his head bounced violently off the hard-packed snow. It was safe to say that he was done for today, as two hard blows to the head will kill any potential desire to continue riding. He put away his riding gear and laid down on the couch in his living room. His lack of proper sleep and traumatic head injuries finally caught up with him, and he immediately dozed off.
