fandomhigh | Oh the Humanity!: Friendship is International Adventure, Thursday, period 1

The class met up, much like Pinkie's last class, outside the Portalocity offices on the island. Pinkie waved to the students enthusiastically as they arrived, while Eliot eyed her suspiciously, a notebook tucked under his arm. Once the class seemed to be all gathered, Pinkie got started.

"Hellohellohello!" she greeted, beaming at each student in turn. "Welcome to 'OH THE HUMANITY!: Friendship is International Adventure!' I'm Pinkie Pie!"

There was an awkward pause. Then Pinkie elbowed Eliot.

Eliot didn't even know she HAD elbows. "I thought you were going to keep going," he grumbled, then nodded to the class. "I'm Eliot Spencer. An --"

"And we're your teachers!" Pinkie said. ". . . We don't have our rhythm down yet."

Eliot looked like he had no intention of getting any sort of 'rhythm' down at all.

"In this class, we're going to explore the world that Fandom mostly seems to call home: the planet Earth!" Pinkie explained. "Each week we'll go somewhere fun and different and see different human cultures or animal activities or historical sites or who even really knows!"

"Yeah," Eliot said, edging slightly away from the excitedly flailing pony. "I'm mostly here to make sure she doesn't land you all in an active volcano or a civil war or somethin'." That was the only reason he hadn't just outright refused to participate.

"Before we go see where we're going this week, let's get to know each other!" Pinkie said.

"If you ain't had enough introductions so far this week," Eliot said with a faint, rueful smile. "Name, class, where you're from originally, any places you'd especially want to see, if you know enough about modern Earth to have an opinion."

Once intros were out of the way, Eliot pulled his notebook out from under his arm. "It ain't gonna be a thing this week, but some of the places we're going, it's gonna be best to have an official form of identification. Specifically, a modern Earth passport. I know a lot of folks around here ain't from Earth, or from modern times, or have some other reason why they're not gonna have one, so let me know if that's an issue for ya, and I'll make sure we've got something for you starting next week."

"Isn't he just SO USEFUL?" Pinkie said. "I didn't even know passports were a thing!" A portal opened up behind her, and she started trotting through. "Anywho, follow me to ADVENTURE!"

Eliot stayed to the back of the group to make sure everyone made it through. The class stepped out of the portal on the other end to find an incredible vista.

"Welcome, everypony, to the Grand Canyon!" Pinkie announced.

"Specifically, the south rim," Eliot said. "This sucker is nearly 300 miles long and in places almost 20 miles across, so we don't have anywhere near enough time to see the whole thing."

"There's a visitor's center behind you where you can find out all the super-duper fun things there are to do here, like go on nature hikes and paint a landscape and ride bikes along the rim trail and learn about geology!"

"Or you can find a nice quiet spot to just sit and look at it," Eliot said. "Wouldn't blame ya."

"Go on and explore, and we'll see you back here at the end of the class period for the portal home!"

"Fall off the edge and I'll kill you." Eliot smiled a slightly toned down version of his creepy grin. "Have fun."

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"No, that's a horse."

Well spotted, Brooklyn boy.

"A pink horse."

Oh, this was precious.

"She talks, too."

Steve gave him a loooong look. "You need to cut back on the morning drinking, son."

"Sober as a judge," Eliot said, giving his extremely inaccurate scout's honor salute. "Give it a try, go over an' introduce yourself."

Eliot planned to watch. And laugh.

Steve clenched his jaw, fairly certain he was being hazed. "To the pink pony. That talks."

In a way, he absolutely was.

"I'm assumin' you came here lookin' for her for a reason."

Steve rattled his piece of paper. "It's my teaching buddy."

Suddenly all of the talk about a moose seemed terrifyingly literal.

"You poor bastard." That wasn't very helpful, Eliot. "Hey Pinkie!" he called over his shoulder. Pinkie turned to look. "Your new teaching buddy's finally arrived!"

[please stand by for Pinkie ping]

Pinkie zipped over faster than the human eye could track. "Omigoshomigoshomigosh," she enthused, then thrust a front hoof at Steve. "Hi there! I'm Pinkie Pie! I missed you at the welcome picnic but I heard that you might not be in until late and if I'd known you were coming here I would have brought my welcome wagon but it's really hard to drag around a welcome wagon AND a party cannon at the same time so I don't bring it as many places and what's your favorite flavor of cake?"

Over her withers, Eliot just smirked at Steve.

Steve had fallen back on his old USO training of a slightly glazed smile as he stared, unblinking, at the pink talking pony.

"Someone's given you a cannon?!"

"Oh no, silly," Pinkie said. "I made it myself! Party cannons aren't exactly standard issue. Wanna see it?"

And then without waiting for an answer, she whipped the thing out and fired, blasting confetti, streamers, and balloons all over the place, and three party hats which aimed to land perfectly on all three of their heads.

"What just happened?" Steve asked Eliot faintly, wiping confetti from his shoulders.

Eliot shrugged. "With Pinkie it's always hard to tell. Near as I can figure it's some kind of air cannon, but it ain't exactly like she obeys the laws of physics."

Pinkie harrumphed. "I'm very law abiding," she protested. "I have a permit for that cannon." She pulled it out to show them. It looked mostly like a card decorated in balloons and squiggles to anyone not literate in Equestrian.

"Welcome to Fandom," Eliot said. "You almost get used to it after awhile."

"That might be the scariest part," Steve said, eyes wide. "Hello. I'm Steve Rogers. It's nice to meet you."

"You, too!" Pinkie said happily. "So have ya taught before?"

Steve shook his head. "No, I was in the Army."

"Omigosh!" Pinkie gasped. "So you went to fight wars and things?"

War was primarily an abstract concept to her, but she knew they were pretty bad. To be avoided at all costs, even.

And now he'd made a talking pink pony upset. It had been a very long week for two days. "I did," he said. "So this should be a little easier."

Pinkie nodded quickly, then paused and tilted her head. "Well. Most of the time."

"Most of the time?" Steve repeated.

"Sometimes we have to fight off evil ghosts or aliens or antiques dealers or carnivals or corporate stooges or flying carnivorous eels or auditors. . . ." Pinkie had been in Fandom for a long time, now. ". . . or harpies or monkey ponies or zombies or trolls or snowmen or jello dragons. . . ." Okay, she hadn't been around that long. "Not all the time, just every now and then. The party cannon can be useful for that stuff sometimes, too!"

Steve was looking at her like maybe he needed to caution her about daytime drinking.

But then he'd fought aliens last week.

"How do you fight a snowman?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Hair dryers?"

"Are radiators more portable now?" he offered.

"Sure! . . . More portable than what?"

Re: Talk to your teachers

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