To the Skies [Open]

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"You had a friend that's good with animals? Or is it just one that has a lot of animals around? Or both? That sounds like it would be pretty interesting, if there were lots of animals around. Not that being around humans can't be interesting. And there can be very pretty things created by the humans. I saw a wonderful plaza in the country of Italy after my Shifting. I wish I could have taken a picture of it," Jasmine rambled on. She didn't really notice that she'd completely changed the topic.

"Maybe you're just proportional? It would make sense if you were the perfect size so that everything felt natural. And Shifted would be less likely to freak out if things felt just a little natural to them," she said. It was pretty flimsy logic, but it made enough sense. Jasmine was pretty sure it wouldn't hold up under scientific investigation, but would Shifting? Nothing about this seemed very scientific. Hopefully her minimal understanding of magic held up in this world. She should have asked Jafar to teach her some.

"We eat a lot of things. Meats and fruits. If you go to a restaurant or the supermarket, you should find whatever you need. I'm still getting used ot buying my own food, but I could show you sometime, if you'd like," Jasmine offered. She was pretty sure Rainbow wouldn't except, but then again, she didn't know the ex-pegasus that well.

"I've been a human my whole life, remember? And the thumbs are to help you pick things up. Probably a lot better than hooves. But what's a cutie mark? And I'm sorry about the life you lost. I hope we can find you a way back to Equestria," Jasmine said. She wasn't quite sure how to help Rainbow with getting up. It was something that she had always just done. It was nothing special to her. Rainbow would figure it out eventually... she hoped.

[Rainbow Dash]

"...humans?" Rainbow Dash said doubtfully. "Isn't that, like, a bad word? I thought it was an insult." The last time she'd heard it used it was, anyway. But then, it had been coming from a pretty unreliable source. "I don't know what it's like to be around humans a lot, but my friend Fluttershy loved animals, and she always had, like, fifty living in her house. I once saw her put a mouse in a wheelchair. She really loves it, but it's not really my cup of cider. I like seeing the world. Like going up north with the Crystal Ponies? Or seeing the dragons. So yeah. There's some cool stuff in the world. I don't know about this one, but it would make sense for it to be pretty cool here, too."

Rainbow Dash scratched her head, trying to understand some of the shifting nonsense. "I guess," she said doubtfully. "I don't know, that all sounds like magic stuff. That's Twilight's business. But I did freak out pretty bad when I got here. I mean, I didn't have my wings anymore, and I looked like this, and I landed in a swimming pool. And I never got the next Daring Do book!" If the conversation wasn't exactly centered on her, Rainbow Dash was pretty good about making sure it got that way. Her own problems were far more interesting than general theories about shifting, anyway.

"You guys have a market?" she said, perking up. "And you guys eat fruit? So apples are still good? Phew! That's one thing, at least. I don't know about eating meat, though. That sounds pretty, uh..." Her nose wrinkled at just the thought. "No, I think I'll just eat fruits and stuff. And thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty good at finding my own way around. Besides, I've been to the market plenty of times." She gave a confident smile and rubbed her hoof--er, hand--against her shirt. She wasn't helpless in this world, whatever it might seem.

Rainbow Dash squinted at her thumbs. They helped to pick things up? "My hooves did just fine. Why would you need thumbs?" She looked at them again, then looked over at a small rock on the ground. She bent over to pick it up, then tossed it between her hands as she straightened, though it made her slightly dizzy to do so. "My cutie mark is a sign of what I'm supposed to be in the world, everything that I love. I got it when I learned how much I love flying." She dropped the rock and put a hand on the top of her jeans. "It's here on my flank. Do you want to see it?" She pulled down on the side of her pants, just enough to show the tip of her cutie mark.

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"Definitely not an insult. Or, not an insult to those of us that are humans," Jasmine said with a little smile that felt a little forced, "She put a mouse in a wheelchair? Where'd she get a wheelchair small enough for a mouse? And your world had dragons? That's really amazing." Jasmine was just full of questions, wasn't she? She had heard stories, but had always been told that they no longer existed. She would love to visit a world that had dragons still.

"That's pretty true. I don't understand magic well, so most of what I say is a whole lot more quessing than what you'd get from Twilight, anyway. Still, it was a nice thought. And I ended up in a fountain myself," Jasmine said. It had been a strange experience, the Shifting. One minute she was walking to the stairs, the next moment, she was in a fountain. Well, there had been some time in between, but it didn't seem like she had been in the fountain all that long.

"Yup, apples are still good. And don't horses eat carrots, too? Those are also fine. And meats aren't everyone's cup of tea. There are quite a few humans that don't eat it," Jasmine said. She had forgotten what the term was for them here. Or had she forgotten to ask about that? There were a lot of things she hadn't thought to ask the suits. Oh well, she'd get to the library eventually. She was sure there was a lot the suits couldn't teach her, anyway.

"I'm not really sure. It was some evolutionary perk or something. I don't really remember," Jasmine said. Thumbs were kind of strange. She was sure she could pick things up fine wihtout her thumbs, but they did make it easier. And humans really liked when things were easy, right? That must be it. "Uh... nah, I'm fine," she said. She didn't really have a problem seeing the cutie mark, but it would probably be mortifying for both of them if someone walked in when Rainbow's pants were down.

[Rainbow Dash]

"I think she made it," Rainbow Dash said in reference to the wheelchair. "And my friend Twilight actually had a dragon assistant named Spike. He was a pretty cool little dude, at least most of the time. Some of the other dragons were pretty mean. Most of them, actually. Spike's like the only cool one." Rainbow was happy to answer questions. After all, it gave her more chances to talk about herself and all the things that she knew.

It seemed funny to Rainbow Dash that both she and Jasmine had ended up falling into water. She snorted, sounding particularly like a pony laughing.

"Apples, carrots, but not hay. Got it." She nodded once, storing the information away in her head. "Maybe I'll just ask people around here and see if they can help me. Apples and carrots are great, but they're not really enough to live on, you know." And it was something she'd have to do soon. She hadn't had a really good meal since she got here. Maybe she'd try the meat again. Maybe it would taste better this time.

"Evo-what?" she asked, tipping her head to one side. She'd never listened very well in science, even if they had taught this at Cloudsdale. Flying lessons had just been so much more interesting.

She left her pants up. "Okay. It looks really cool, though. It's this cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt. Rainbow...Dash." She ran around in a large circle as quickly as she could, demonstrating her dashing abilities.

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"She made a little wheelchair? That sounds like a lot of work. Good for her," Jasmine said. She couldn't imagine putting all that work into something, but it was an interesting thought. How would one go about doing that with hooves, though? That had to be nearly impossible! Although, it sounded like the ponies had been very dextrous, unlike those in this world. Their world was quite odd compared to most of the others.

"There is a lot of other things, but I don't think there's much more you'd be familiar with. But I don't know much about the diet of a pony, so don't quote me on that," Jasmine sighed. She wished she could be more helpful. Well, Rainbow could get help from the staff, she was sure of it. They wouldn't let one of their people starve, at the very least.

"Evolutionary perk. That would be something we developed a long time ago," Jasmine explained. She didn't know much about the subject herself, but she could tell Rainbow the general idea. She would have to learn more about that, just like everything else. "Wait, are you born with the cutie mark? It would be really helpful if everyone was born with something that represented what they're supposed to be in the world.

[Rainbow Dash]

"I guess." Rainbow Dash waved off Fluttershy's achievements. Surely it couldn't be that difficult to make a wheelchair for a mouse. It was way smaller than a normal wheelchair, so it was probably even easier, right? And Fluttershy hadn't ever seemed to have any trouble with it. But she'd always been a little craftier than Rainbow Dash. Which was fine; they both had things they were better at. That's why they had such different cutie marks.

"Uh, sure. Whatever." The whole "evolution" thing still didn't quite make sense to Rainbow Dash, who was picturing being really old and one day waking up with thumbs. She didn't know anyone with thumbs. How important could they be if no one in her world had them? Even if they were as old as Granny Smith. It also didn't really seem like the thing she would be interested in or understand right away. "I think I'll leave all the sciency-magic stuff to Twilight. She's better with that."

She shook her head. "No, you're not born with a cutie mark. You find out what your calling is, and then your cutie mark appears. It happened to me when I was a filly. I was a whole year younger than Fluttershy when we got ours. It's actually a cool story. There were these bullies, see, and I challenged them to a race. Of course, I totally creamed them, and I was flying faster than I'd ever flown before. I flew so fast that I made a sonic rainboom! And all of my friends saw that rainboom, and they all got their cutie marks on the same day, at the same time basically! It was like we were destined to become friends." That last one was a phrase she'd heard someone say at some point, and it sounded really good to her, so she stole it for her own story. "Cool, huh? Every pony gets one, even if it comes a little bit later. What about you? How do humans know what they should do when they grow up?"