Pyre/ Luna
Etpinego/ Applejack
Granny Patzo/ Granny Smith
Etpitivi/ Applebloom
Wraspeoji/ Snowflake/ Bulk Biceps
Xamspona Tevopi/ Twilight Sparkle

There are few things I treasure more than my sleep, things like watching a sunrise from a porch as I sit in a rocking chair and wind down after a rough night of work with a cold beer, or laying down with a good woman. Yes these are great things that should be treasured but right now some fucking bird outside my window has decided that it's time for me to get up as its shrill calls pierced my state of slumber more and more with each agonizing chirp. As I tried to drown out the bird with my pillow, I began to entertain the thought of starting my day off with some fresh poultry. But a thought briefly passed through my head of the possibility of this bird being one of Paxxila's woodland friends and as aggravating as it was I didn't wish to make the poor girl cry because I had strangled one of her friends. I swear the look that girl would give you when she's about to cry would make anyone feel like a heel.

Frustrated, I blindly fumbled with my hand over the side of my bed until I felt the rough leather of one of my boots, grabbing the weapon I hurled it in the general direction that the noise was coming from. The boot hit against the wall with a loud thud before coming to rest on the floor after another.

“Shut the fuck up! It's too early.” I shouted into my pillow, which somehow in my state of grogginess came out sounding more like. “Mmmphmmhhmpph.”

The bird luckily seemed to have stopped, hopefully my outburst had scared it off as I resettled myself into my pillow. My breathing evened out and I was just about to slip back into the amazing dream I had been having, when I heard the return of the hell-fowl now seemingly more intent than ever to raise me from my slumber. With one final groan of protest I opened my eyes and was immediately meet with night sky.

“Aw come on you stupid bird couldn't you have atleast waited till Gilzia had raised the sun?” I moaned to the open window, but the only answer I received was a simple chirp from my tormentor.

Looking at the clock on the wall I could see that it was just shortly before six in the morning, it was kind of a relief when I found that these ponies also followed a 24 hour day like back in my old world, small blessings I suppose. The bird must have realized that I was now awake as it began to excitedly chirp out a tune, causing me to let out another groan as I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed.

“Ugh, why don't you go find a worm or something?” I grumbled to the early bird as I placed my head in my hands and tried to gather my senses.

To my great relief the bird's stomach must have been a more pressing matter because I didn't hear it anymore, that or it had just flown off to tell whoever had sent it to wake me up that the deed was done.

Making my way to the bathroom I passed by a window and saw Pyre's moon hanging in the sky. The crescent object shinning its light upon the still sleeping world like the ever watching guardian it was, at least to most it was, to me it was a reminder that I could still be asleep.

“Good morning Pyre.” I said half asleep as I rubbed the stiffness out of my neck. Only to realize too late at what I had just done as I placed my head in my hand, 'Great now I'm talking to the moon.'

'And I am listening.' the voice of a familiar night princess rang out in my head.

A normal person would have probably been shocked by the sudden appearance of a voice not of their own talking to them, and would have headed down to the closest infirmary to be committed into the nuthouse. But in the six months that I had come to live in this nation of Equestria, and a mental link was formed between the two royal sisters and myself, it has become part of my ever expanding definition of normal.

'How long have you been listening?' I asked as I headed towards the bathroom.

'Not long, although you are about as difficult to get up in the morning as my sister,' she chided me lightly as I made my way to the toilet.

'Sorry I've never really been a morning person, always tried to work the afternoon or night shifts so I didn't have to wake up to an alarm clock. Wait a minute.. did you send that bird to my window?' I asked as hoping that she wouldn't have been that devious.

'What bird?' was her reply after a few moments. Maybe it was just my brain playing tricks on me as it tried to fire on all cylinders but it almost seemed she was trying to hide the fact it was her either way I shrugged it off.

'By the way you might want to stop listening for a while.' I warned her as I raised the toilet seat.

'Why's tha-... really Eric Broussard!? You couldn't have waited?' Her voice berated me as the feelings of relief from my morning business was no doubt picked up by her.

'I warned you, what more did you want? Plus in the six months we've had this connection has my routine changed at all?' I replied as I pulled the chain to the wall mounted tank and flushed the toilet.

'Well no,' she said pausing for a moment before continuing, 'but it was very rude to allow me to pick up something as personal as that.'

'Pyre please don't take this the wrong way but I really haven't had 'personal time' since coming here and we all formed this bond. Where I'm from most people would probably consider us either family or married because of how close of a connection we have,' there was a long pause after I said that as I waited for her to reply, and it seemed that maybe she was actually upset about it to the point of ignoring the connection. 'Pyre? Pyre are you there?'

'Oh yes Eric, sorry, I was distracted by something,' she said quickly as if she was daydreaming about something. 'Anyways I figured that while we are talking, would you prefer to give me an update report?'

'Sure.' I thought as I grabbed my toothbrush and began to brush my teeth.

Every since I had agreed to help the Equestrians build their own plane I had been busy almost nonstop. The day after the dinner the princesses and I began to meet up with different members of Equestria's business and manufacturing communities. Unfortunately my lack of understanding the language made it necessary for either Xam or one of the celestial sisters to act a mediators in conveying my needs and desires to them. Needless to say having a princess or two, or three on your side made finding the right connections a whole lot easier and in almost no time I was able to source most of the materials that I would hopefully need.

After that came the task of actually finding a base of operations to try and build this contraption and assemble a team to make it happen. Surprisingly, a lot of recommendations for ponies skilled in the field of aeronautics came from Vemsa Hewl, I guess being a Squadron Leader in the Equestian Royal Pegasus Corps, Weather Command has its perks. The rest came from the princesses from all over Equestria, and even a couple of Etpinego's kin were nominated. Pretty soon we had a highly skilled team together, even including a translator for me who was teaching me their language, after that we began to look for a place to set up shop. Naturally, it would have to be located next to a decent sized town that we could go into and grab supplies when we needed them, while also being close to the rail lines so that we could receive parts from our manufacturers. It also needed to be close enough to one of Equestria's few electrical sources to run tools if need be and provide power to light up the shop so that we could work into the night.

After reviewing over a few maps and going to a few sites we came across a place that seemed almost perfect. A couple miles outside of the girl's hometown of Ponyville was a grass field that looked large enough to meet our needs, and after a couple of months we had enough of the complex built to begin receiving parts and start the design phase.

The complex centered around the hangar which was also our central workshop and where the construction of the final form of the aircraft was to take place, and was also where I currently made my home during my time here in Equestria in an apartment that made up most of the back of the building. The building directly behind it was our machine shop where we would be able to fine tune any parts we received as opposed to sending them off back to the manufacturer's or even be able to make certain pieces on-site. To the left of the main hangar was our wood shop where all of the cutting and shaping of the wooden frame of the aircraft would happen As much as I would have liked to stay in my element of a metal framed aircraft and even though Equestria did have access to steel and such, the aluminium and other lightweight alloys were unfortunately in very short supply and very hard to come by. A long building off to the right of the hangar and one of the first ones built, was our wind tunnel where we were able to test many different designs before we finally chose our winning design, we could still use it in the future to troubleshoot any issues that could arise as we went along. In front of the hangar at a considerable distance was our fuel cell shed which was where we manufactured and stored all of our dangerous liquids well away from the more flammable parts till the time came to bring them together.

Since opening up the complex a month and a half ago my team and I have been very busy, and word of our work has begun to spread throughout the country, and it wasn't too long before folks from all around began to come and see if the rumors were true of a stranger creature from a foreign world who was building a mechanical bird for the princesses. Even the girls had stopped by once and a while to see how it was coming along or to just visit.

Xam, being the ruling monarch for the area that our shop was located in visited more than the others to keep up on progress or to receive progress reports that she would relay to the other princesses. Although sometimes, like now, before anyone was awake I would deliever the report to the princesses myself through our link.

'Well Pyre, we are still on track for the most part and should begin construction of the engine today, assembly should only take a couple of days at most and I expect to move it over to the hush house for it's initial run. From there we should be able to move the motor to the main hangar and begin construction of the actual XP-27.' I told her as I laced up the pair of running shoes that Vivmay had been nice enough to make for me. The XP-27 was the designation we had given the plane 'X' for experimental, 'P' for plane, and '27' for the design number that we had finally decided on.

'That is good to hear, I know my sister and I both look forward to the 'run' as you call it, ' she said with a pleased tone but it soon turned serious. ' With that out of the way that brings me to the next point of topic, your attendance at the ball that is happening at the castle in two weeks time.'

I let out a sigh as I pulled a shirt over my head and grabbed my MP3 player, one of the last pieces of electronics that I had from my world. 'Look Pyre, I know that you and the others mean well, but like I told Xam I'm not really interested in meeting any nobles anytime soon, especially that nephew of yours.'

'And I'm sure his feelings on the matter are the same, but it is still required by Equestrian protocol to share with the other nations any and all discoveries that we have made to help ensure the peace.'

The sisters had been trying to convince me to attend this 'revealing' ball for the past couple of days, and honestly I didn't like the idea of being shown off to a bunch of stuck up nobles like some kind of prized pig at the county fair. Then there was the fact that they'd all be talking to me in languages that I would have no idea what they were saying.

'Still, all the same I would prefer to stay here and continue with my work.' I told the princess through our link and I heard her sigh.

'Very well Eric but I am sure that Gilzia will want to talk to you about this subject further.'

'I'm sure,' I said as I made my way down the stairs to the main hangar floor below.

'Well I must go for it is almost time for Gilzia to take over the day,' her voice said to me.

'Alright Pyre I am off to Wraspeoji's gym. Talk with you later and don't be a stranger,' I said as I opened the door and stepped into the cool morning air.

'You go to this 'gym' a lot Eric, is there a reason for this?' the princess asked me.

A few months ago if someone would have asked me why do I go to the gym I would have probably looked at them funny, but here in Equestria it was an entirely different thing. Back on the Earth I had come from, the gym was the only place a lot of people who didn't live physically demanding lives went to to get that outlet of exercise to help achieve whatever their end goals may have been. But here in this world, without technological inventions like the automobile and the availiability of fatty foods, they lived far healthier lives almost to the point where needing exercise was pretty moot. But like on Earth during the similar time of such fitness legends like Eugen Sandow the idea of physically being more than you started out as seemed to be gaining a small underground following.

'Even though I'm here in Equestria now I'm still a member of my countries military, and I have to maintain a certain level of physical readiness. Plus when I'm lifting a weight and pushing my body to it's limits the feeling I get afterwards is almost euphoric.'

'I am not quite sure I understand,' Pyre said thoughtfully, 'but perhaps sometime I should join you in this 'lifting' to truly understand what you mean.'

'You're welcome to come anytime Pyre,' and with that I was on my way.

The crisp morning air chilled my face as I stepped out the door. It was now late summer and the pegasus of the Weather Corps had begun to bring down the colder air from the northern mountains recently, at least that was the way that Vemsa had explained it to me. Honestly this whole controllable weather thing was something I was going to need a while to adjust to, but at least it meant that I could be guaranteed a perfect day when it came time to fly the XP-27. But the colder weather meant that I was going to have to grab some winter clothes from Vivmay's shop, yet the thought of clothes shopping of any kind sounded about as thrilling to me as watching paint dry. Still the chance of gazing on the beautiful store owner almost made up for it, almost.

As the music pumped into my ears, the beat keeping rhythm with my steps, it wasn't long before I was in my running groove. Luckily it wasn't far to Wraspeoji's, probably about three miles if I had to take a guess, and the road I was on also took me by a familiar neighbor. About a mile down the road a light off to my left let me know that the sun was finally up and it was officially the start of a new day, and shortly there after I came to the white wooden fence that marked the border to my neighbor's farm.

“Howdy neighbor!” I heard the cheery voice of my neighbor ring out from the porch of their farmhouse as she tipped the brown hat on her head back a little.

“Hey Etpinego how are you and your family doing!” I yelled back as I continued to make my way down the road.

“They're doin' fine, infact we're just settin' down fer breakfast if'n y'ah want to join us.” She said as she waved me over.

“Would like to Etpinego but I'm on my way to Wraspeoji's.” I said as I quickly made my way up to the house so as to not be yelling.

“Is that Eric?” I heard an aged voice yell from inside the home before a sweet old lady with key lime green fur and a checkered apron tied around her waist and an orange bandana tied around her neck while her silver hair was tied tightly in a bun on her head, and nothing else.

'Well there goes my sex drive.' I internally thought to myself.

'Etpinego when evi y'ah kesr ewo lex stallion to avpu a livy sel you? Xeam erc sovniv and one s'v lixr saliv fillies in your feglisivix livy is kesr wrek him up.” The older one, known as Granny Patzo,said as she waved a laddle covered in oatmeal at Etpinego. Some of the gooey substance landing on the woman's tan colored chest.

'And there it's back.' I thought as my mind began to go into overtime as I watched her scowl at the family matriarch and using a finger swipe up the breakfast before placing the finger in her mouth.

“Now spompi here Granny, Eric is nyza a mymir who's try'in to get back to his asysk. He emu'a izir a pony, and izir if'n I aerxih to ask Eric to avpu a livy, I'll be lecpu' it when I'm hevr good and viech. Not because y'ah vass me to.” I heard the younger say as she crossed her arms defensively.

“ Then yer kesr to pwis him to zsqi saliv livy of fillies, “ Granny Patzo said as she waggled the cooking utensil again and placed a hand on her hip, “Why if'n I was yer eki I assid'zi wrekkih up a stallion moi lex fego in lex there vivca lex y'all two qix up in. Big stallion moi lex needs to be oitx in the fikysiq, he even looks moi he gysph zybl slaw this old mare a aypog or two.”

“Granny!”

“What's she saying?” I asked Etpinego hesitantly, thanks to my language lessons I could begin to make out certain words, but I wasn't sure I was liking where this conversation was heading.

“Y'ah don't want to know.” Etpinego said plainly as she gave me a quick look.

Feeling highly uncomfortable now with this conversation I decided to make my exit, “Well it was nice to meet all of you again but I must be going. See you later.”

With that I was off back down their drive to continue my run into town. I got to the fence when I heard a familiar high pitched voice yell out from inside the house.

“Eric wait up!”

Turning around I see a young girl, that looks to be around ten or eleven, running out of the house. She has yellow fur covering her body and the color of her wavy mane and tail reminds me of the play-doh I played with as a child; tied up into her hair was a huge red bow that bounced along as she made her way down the steps. Strapped across her chest was a white bookbag with an red apple patch sewn into the front flap. Her face was beaming with the exuberance that can only truly be known by a child, as her amber colored eyes shone in the light of the early morning sun. I had come to know this girl and her friends very well since my arrival to the town, this was Etpinego's younger sister Etpitivi.

The girl waved goodbye to her family over her shoulder as she tried to catch up to me, “Bye everybody I'm off fer school.”

“Etpitivi, did y'ah get zsqiaopun to eat befer y'ah run oft?” Granny Patzo yelled from the porch at the fleeing girl.

“Sure did Granny, I'll see y'all later!” Was the young girl's reply as she ran up to me before stopping and giving one final wave to her family.

“Spomi moi y'er sister has the vynoa mhie, “ I heard Granny Patzo say to Etpinego as we continued down the road, obviously picking up their previous conversation where it left off, “If'n you zass ercsqvi y'ah might even pwis him to Etpitivi.”

“Aww, shush Granny, “ was the tan colored woman's muttered reply, which only earned a cackling chuckle from the old woman.

Etpitivi and I continued down the road with the girl chatting away about something excitedly like all children do, while I tried to follow along as best as I could. Her and her friends had been a big help to me in learning the language, due to their smaller vocabulary and kindness to speak to me slowly so as to help me improve my abilities. Although that wasn't always the case, like when I first met them one day shortly after I had arrived into town. I had stopped by Etpinego's farm to say hi and visit her family Etpitivi and her friends were there, having just gotten back from school as I later learned, luckily for me the girls were not frightened of me in the slightest as they began to fire off questions at a rapid pace in their language.

At the time I couldn't say or understand much of what they were saying beyond, 'Hi, my name is Eric,' and a couple of other simple phrases. To my great relief Etpinego was there and helped me to understand their questions as she relayed my answers. Upon learning of my inability to speak their language they viewed it as some sort of challenge to help me learn as much of their language as I could; I think they even called themselves something like 'Cutie Mark Crusaders: Language Teachers'.

'Cutie Mark Crusaders' was apparently the name of a club they had formed to help them get their marks on their hips which were called, as I listened to the girls explination, 'cutie marks.' From what I understood of it everyone of these ponies received one of the marks of their hips when they found out their one true calling in life, and each mark was unique to that pony although it wasn't uncommon for two ponies to have the same mark. To me, it kind of took the fun out of life. To wake up one day and find out that you were destined to do something you might not have liked as your calling in life, but then again I was more than likely wrong in my understanding of the marks because it seemed to work for them well enough. Still there's some part of me that wonders if maybe something like these 'cutie marks' couldn't be helpful to humanity, in simplifying the choice picking a career that is best suited for you.

“How school Etpitivi?” I asked the girl in my broken Equis.

“It's good,” she replied slowly so that I could follow her, “Ms. Glivpi is xeopun us to Gerxivsa tommorow.”

“Xeopun?” I repeated the word not understanding it.

Etpitivi thought for a moment as her ears went back and she brought a finger to her cheek and pursed her lips, I think that that look has to be a family trait because I had seen Etpinego do the same thing. For a couple of moments she kept the look and we even found ourselves pausing along on our walk, before she snapped her fingers and smiled triumphantly.

“I got it! Give me yer tyzm ive,” she said to me as she held out her hand as I stared at her confused as to what she would want.

“I no understand,” I told her as I scratched my head shook it from side to side.

She wasn't detered as she pointed to the wire that ran from my earbuds to my player in my short's pocket, “Yer tyzm ive.”

Catching on I pulled out the device and removed the earpieces holding it out to her. “This?”

She shook her head in conformation, “Yes.”

“Tyzm ive,” I repeated word that she had said, and she shook it again happily.

Handing the device over to her she grabbed it in her hand as she said the word from earlier that I was confused on, “Xeopun, xeopun, xeopun,,” and with that she took it from me and then repeated the gesture of taking it from me as she repeated the word.

Realization dawned on me after a couple of tries, “ Oh, 'taking.'”

“Yeah y'ah got it Eric!” she said excitedly as she handed the player back to me with a wide smile upon her face.

“Thank you Etpitivi,” I said as I tucked the device back into my pocket, at that time a faint sound of a bell could be heard off in the distance and I could almost visibly see Etpitivi's coat pale.

“Aww, ovyzetpiz! Ah'm late! Later Eric!” she yelled as she shot down the road in a flash, leaving me alone and bewildered.

Catching my senses I decided to continue on my original journey into town towards Wraspeoji's, and I to was soon off as I begin my run again. It didn't take me long to finish running the last mile or two into town and by the time I arrived at the gym I had managed to work up a sweat and loosen up my stiff muscles in preparation of the suffering I was about to put them through.

Wraspeoji's gym really wasn't much of a gym in the modern sense of the word, it looked more like a medieval torture chamber for the body that he had hidden in his basement. The air was humid and warm, even despite the cool morning wind that blew outside, and stunk with the faint odor of old sweat and tears. No where to be seen were the rows of treadmills in the dimly lit room each one full of people walking leisurely while reading a book, and gone were the mass amounts of machines that gave you a false sense of accomplishment on your actual abilities to lift. In there places were pieces of bare metal that were thrown together to make the triumvirate of the gym: the squat rack, the flat bench, and the preacher curl bench. All sacred places of worship for the followers of the Church of Muscle, hand-built by the local prophet of muscle himself, Wraspeoji.

A mass of white over at the squat rack and the guttural sound of straining under a heavy load attracted my attention as I saw the proprietor of this establishment himself performing a set of front squats. The bar bowed under the mass of plates as pure focus shone in his ruby red eyes as he stared at some unknown point on the wall infront of him that it looked like the wall would burst into flame at any given moment. His massive muscles strained under the weight as I saw his right thigh muscle spasm uncontrollably and I thought he might be in trouble of loosing the weight, but with one final feral yell his body began to slowly rise. As his body began to max out he drew from somewhere deep within, one last ounce of effort and racked the heavy weight with a resounding clash of metal.

Finally free of his burden he draped his arms over the bar and used the rack to hold himself up on shaky legs, least they give out from under him. His white wings fluttered on his back with each labored breath, looking almost comically disproportionate against his muscular bulk. This pegasus stallion was by far the largest being I had ever seen, human or pony, and put even the modern swollen bodybuilders of today's Mr. Olympia to shame in shear size. Looking more like a pony version of the tooth fairy, if the tooth fairy's parents were the Hulk and Arnold. But even with all his imposing size and appearance I had come to find out he was one of the gentlest and just all around nicest guy you'd want to meet, who began lifting when he was young as a means to build his confidence like so many had done before him. But with all of his muscle as proof of his struggles he still lacked the courage to ask out the mare of his dreams, Paxxila.

I could have gone over to him to congratulate him, but we both had a deep respect for the unwritten code of the gym, which rule one stated: While I'm lifting don't talk to me. Instead I decided to head over and begin my own routine not a word passing between us, only a simple nod acknowledging our existence to the other.

A couple of hours later my body could not handle anymore as the dumbbell I was using crashed back into the rack with the rest of it's brethren, my arms no longer able to lift its weight. As sweat dripped from my brow, my lungs strived to draw as much of the stale warm air into them, yet each inhale did little to cool the furnace burning within me. The only relief I got was the cool of the metal dumbbells soothing the rawness of my palms as I leaned my body against them. All in all it had been a good session, was able to finish all my reps and was even set a new max weight for reps on the incline dumbbell flye, and despite all the pain and lack of feeling in most of my body I felt good, really good.

A hand rested itself on my shoulder, slowly turning my head I see Wraspeoji standing there his mass towering over my own body and a smile on his face.

“Good job Eric, better than last week,” he said as he held his fist up, which I tapped with my own and weakly returned the smile, “But could do more on hiehamps.”

“Hiehamps? I do not understand,” I said to the giant of a stallion, who proceeded to squat down and immitate lifting a bar deadlift-style, “Oh, deadlift.”

Nodding again he offered me up a towel, but I politely refused as I grabbed my shirt that I had taken off earlier to help relieve heat that my body was producing. Giving my brow a quick wipe I threw the shirt over my shoulder as I shook Wraspeoji's hand and said my farewells.

On my way out I saw a certain light blue pegasus mare with rainbow-colored hair sitting backwards on one of the incline benches working her rear dealtoids. Every sinewy muscle along her back, down to her taunt firm backside, stretching like the drawstring of a bow with each time she drew her arms and wings back. Ready to snap back froward at any moment, and it didn't take much to realize why she was the fastest flier in Equestria.

Choosing once again not to disturb another patron I made my way up the stairs out of that bastion of muscle and into the fresh air of the outside world. The wind felt cold against my wet skin as my body let out an uncontrolled shiver, and I thought about throwing my shirt back on but decided against it because I still had to run the almost three miles back to the compound. Despite my bodies protest at the unnecessariness of this endeavor I shook it off and began to make my way back to my home, although this time at a much slower pace than when I had come.

Finally making it back to the hangar I dragged myself back up the stairs, each one seemingly my own personal Mt. Everest with every heavy footstep. Eventually I made my way to the top where I rested for a moment to let the burning in my legs subside a little before I attempted to try and make it to the shower. After a few moments I was able to make it to the bathroom and I shucked whatever remaining clothes I had as I turned on the water. Stepping into the shower my body sang praises of joy as the warm water melted away the soreness and sweat from my body and giving my spirit the rejuvenation it needed.

After a few moments of just soaking in the heat I quickly finished with my shower went to turn off the water, but instead of turning off the faucet there was a blinding flash of light that knocked me flat on my ass and made me hit my head on the door as I fell out of the shower stall.

“Sonuvabitch!” I yelled as I grabbed the back of my head the pain already throbbing through my skull. Part of me wanted to know what had just happened but taking past events into account and judging by the weight now straddling my waist I could only imagine what had happened. Opening my eyes my suspicions were proven correct as I saw the lavender princess of the land straddling across my lap and rubbing her head as the water cascaded over her slender frame, forcing me to look away not because I wanted to but so as certain “things” didn't come up.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” she said as she continued to rub her head, making me take sympathy on the mare and temporarily forget my own pain as I reached up and took her face into my hands.

“Hold on Xam, let me have a look,” I told her as I looked at where she was rubbing, her fur made it a little hard to see the injury but as I gently brushed the fur to the side with my thumb, mindful of the whimper from the princess, I saw that it wasn't anything serious, “Doesn't look that bad, might get a bump but I think you'll survive. If you want I have some of that powder from Otzdy that seems to work pretty good for headaches.”

She didn't reply right away and I could kind of guess why being as she was looking down at where our bodies were in contact, “Xam, are you okay?”

A simple nod was all she gave me as she refused to look me in the eye.

“Would you like to get up?”

Another nod as she quickly got up and stepped over me to get out of the shower and made her way to the other side of the room still refusing to look at me. Now free of my weight I got back to my feet and turned off the water before grabbing myself and my guest a towel to dry off. She quietly took the one that was offered to her and proceeded to dry off the water out of her short fur and hair, as I proceeded to do the same before wrapping it around my waist.

“So, is there something you needed?” I asked as I walked out of the bathroom and over to my bedroom, where I put on a clean pair of shorts.

“Not really, just coming by to see about this engine you are going to start building,” she said seemingly putting the incident behind her, which was fine with me being as would rather not talk about it either. Still, her sitting there sure was a fine sight to see and almost worth the dull throbbing that was currently going through my head.

“What about it?” I asked as I walked out of my room to see her standing in the hallway drying her hair as droplets of water shone on her wings like diamonds from the sunlight shining in through a window making her appear every bit the goddess she was. I just stood there soaking in her appearance for a second before I caught myself before she noticed mentally berating myself a little for allowing my hormones to take over.

'Wouldn't be so hard to not be attracted to them if they didn't look so much like the girls back home, and always walking around showing off the goods!' I quickly regained my calm as I also thanked whoever was listening that I was wearing somekind of shorts, 'Must be all the testosterone from working out talking.'

“Well how does it work? You explained it at one point as a series of explosions,” I heard Xam say bringing me back to reality.

“In a way yes. Are you hungry?” I asked absently as I headed into the kitchen, my stomach growling for something to feed to my muscles.

“No thanks, Prion made breakfast before I left,” she replied, reffering to her dragon assistant, as she sat down at the counter infront of the stove as I went to the fridge and grabbed a carton of eggs along with a bell pepper, tomato, onion and some mushrooms.

Placing the ingredients on the counter I grabbed a pan and pot out of one of the cabinets, filling the pot with a little bit of water and spreading a little bit of cooking oil in the pan I set them down on the stove to warm up. As I got around to chopping up the vegetables I began to answer Xam's question.

“Yes the engine runs on a series of explosions which drive down a piston that turns a shaft, called a crank, and from there that rotational force can be used to turn any number of things. It's really not unlike how a steam engine works I would imagine.” I said as I finished chopping the last of the peppers and tested the oil in the pan with a drop of water, which just diluted into the oiled pan. 'Not hot enough yet.'

“Yes but what will power this engine if not steam?” the curious alicorn asked as she watched me measure a serving of ground oats into a cup before placing it into the now boiling water.

To answer her question I went into the fridge and pulled out an ear of corn and placed it on the counter infront of her. “This is what I plan on using.”

“Corn?” she asked me as she arched an eyebrow in confusion, “You're going to use corn to run an engine?”

“Sure why not?” I answered as I took the ear from her and placed it back in the fridge, “Surely your people have fermented grains before into alcohol before?” she shook her head from side to side. “Really?”

“There are no records of that, at least that I know of. Most of our alcohol is from fermenting fruits or other items like honey. Fermented grains are highly poisinous to us so no one has ever tried to make an alcoholic beverage from it.”

“Huh, imagine that. Where I'm from our whole culture is said to have been founded on a grain beverage called beer. So none of you have ever had any drinks like beer or whiskey or even sake?” she shook her head again and I couldn't help but feel a little concerned that they were missing out on so many drink selections, then again they already had their own great choices of alcohol, if the stuff that I tried over at Etpinego's that one night were any indication, 'What a wild night that was.'

“Anyways, by fermenting corn mash with some sugar we get an alcohol called ethanol, or as it's called where I'm from moonshine. Which can then be used as a fuel to burn inside a motor, even though it may not be the best choice for a fuel it should still produce enough power to do what we'll need.”

“Why isn't it the best choice for fuel?” she asked inquisitively, always full of questions.

“Well most engines where I'm from run off of somekind of hydrocarbon, mainly either gasoline or diesel, which is made from refining crude oil. This is better than ethanol because I can get more power out of gasoline than I can ethanol for the same amount of fluid. Ethanol burns at around a 9:1 ratio while gasoline burns at around a 14.7:1, which means I'll have to dump more ethanol into the motor to get the same amount of power, which means this will affect the overall range and probably the ceiling height of the aircraft.

“On the plus side though ethanol burns a whole lot cooler than gasoline which will help a lot being as we're going with an air-cooled motor instead of water-cooled. Who knows it may actually run too cool when we get up in the air and might have to design a way to actually keep it warm.” I said as I shrugged and grabbed another drop of water and droped it into the pan, this time it popped and sizzled violent. Grabbing the chopped veggies and mushrooms I put them into the pan to sautee them as I got to mixing the eggs in a bowl and stirring the oatmeal that was almost done cooking.

“And why are you using an 'air-cooled' motor? What's the benefit of that type over the 'water-cooled'?” She asked as she breathed in the smell of the cooking vegetables as I added some pepper and garlic powder for flavor.

“Simplicity really,” I said as I removed the pot of oatmeal from the stove and poured the contents into a bowel, “With a air-cooled motor it's as basic of a motor as I can think of to make, and I don't have to worry about other items like a radiator, cooling hoses, thermostat, water pump, coolant passages through the motor and reservoir tank. All of which come with a water-cooled motor, which can be looked as either an advantage or disadvantage for an aircraft motor depending on who you talked to.”

Taking the now seared seared veggies and placed them on a plate and poured the egg mixture into the still hot pan scrambling the mixture, while Xam took the oppritunity to steal one of the still hot peppers from the plate.

“Hey! I thought you were full.” I said in a fake surprised tone.

“Sorry Eric,” she apologized as she worked the hot vegetable around in her mouth trying to eat it without burning her mouth, “It just smelled so good.”

I gave out a hearty laugh as she gave a little blush, I grabbed a couple more eggs and added them to the still cooking mix in the pan.

Author's Notes:

Hey everyone, I know I said that Equis was over and I truely hoped it was but the more I tought about it the more I couldn't just stop it cold so it'll be weeded out as our protagonist spends more time in Equestria.

On to the chapter

Would have liked for this chapter to have covered the whole day but it would have been atleast twice as long so part two of the day is next. Also I'm sure there are still mistakes in this but I will go through it another day and finish editing it( been looking at this screen for 12hrs and I have to get to bed to get some sleep for tomorrow.) Look for next chapter hopefully in about a week, would be out sooner but not having as much time as I would like to work on it out here and I have more important things taking up my time.

As always translated version is here. You know for certian parts to avoid more confusion than necessary I'd just read the translated version.