Of Hooves and History

Zipp's Castle Playground (and a Friendship Questionnaire)

If there's one thing Sunny was good at, it was reading historical documents. Being able to recognize diagrams and maps was one thing, but she picked up on the levels of interconnected structures twice as fast as I did. Even with a topic as simple as an elemental-based energy formula, she could correlate it to an aspect of Equestria's magic from just two terms. Yet after finishing a half-hour study session on the material recovered from the tree house, she had a slight pout on her face.

"What's the bee in your bonnet, Sunny?"

"Nothing, really. I was... was just thinking of how fun it would be to travel across Equestria together. Going on adventurous endeavours, discovering old ruins, deciphering clues and working out the timeline of Equestria's history at certain frames."

"Your inner peace is currently turbulent due to affirmative knowledge that the happiest times are due to end forever," I replied, caressing her shoulder. "But you can only regain that joy and bliss by upholding gratitude and thankfulness for all that you have experienced with me. Now whom you are thankful to is up for you to decide – could be Queen Haven, could be her daughters, could be Izzy, could even be a different entity entirely. Believe me, once you feel it, the positive change will follow swiftly."

"Thanks for the advice, Aiden," she replied, nuzzling my forearm with soft eyes that were glowing with gratitude.

"My pleasure. Now, I have been told by a guard that there's an old grand chamber somewhere in the castle with staircases and big fans. I have a fun idea, but we need to act now. Let's go find Zipp."

Taking the iPad with me along with my skateboard and a pair of gloves from my luggage, we headed up the stairs to the royal suites – and as expected, there were two guards at the entrance.

"Halt! This is off limits!"

"We've come to see Zipp," I replied clearly.

One them twisted his lip in doubt, but nodded. "Come on in."

Down the hall, it was too easy to recognize Zipp's room, or rather hear it, with a strong, catchy guitar riff.

"Zipp? We need to talk," Sunny began, stopping as I put a finger to my lips. Raising my finger and counting under my breath, I rapped a sequence of knocks in the same rhythm of the riff, deliberately going off-key on the last note. After a good thirty seconds the music died down, indicating Zipp had gotten the message.

The door opened, and out stepped Zipp, wearing a leather jacket and a pair of headphones. "Oh hi Sunny! Aiden, that sure was a way to alert me."

"Like I said, I have heard lots of music. I have something fun we can do together, but it's going to require some effort. Are you busy?"

"Nah, today's my day off, actually. Pipp has some royalty training to do."

"Perfect. Let's go to the experiment facility."

Flicking on the lights, I slid and repositioned several items in the back until I came upon what I had suspected existed when I caught a glimpse of it earlier: plywood, some metal pipes, and a set of basic tools. Zipp looked unamused, so I swiped on my iPad and held it out.

"Looks familiar to you?"

"Somewhat."

"I can build this for us. And we can install it in the old chamber where the giant staircase and fans are."

Her eyes lit up as she soon recognized what I was describing. With Sunny's help, we heaved the wood out of its hiding place and laid it flat on the ground. Happily, I still had a copy of the design files on my iPad. Sunny held a piece of string in place as I triple-measured and drew out all the markings and lines.