Parcly Taxel: Every journey has to start somewhere, regardless of the time and effort spent preparing for it. Twilight’s always the picky one who spends hours deliberating what books to bring and Rarity is much the same with hats, whereas Pinkie just trots off without any prior planning.
 
Spindle: Before I met Parcly, she was a more upbeat and impulsive unicorn, which showed in the lighter colour and lower viscosity of her magic as it ran across spellbooks and levitating objects. The infusion of myself and my kind’s philosophy into her heart calmed the auras but introduced finer pathways in her brain for them to channel through. Thus her thoughts acquired a beautiful, fantastic level of structure, and after Luna’s inception they’re sweet as molasses (though she hates sweets).
 
Parcly: Still, unforeseen circumstances are everywhere. Ready to fly with my drawing pad, coats, toothpaste, beloved bottle and others, Luna thought of a message which I received:
 
Hey, genie! I wish you’d stop in Bangkok for a while before continuing to Japan. I’ve prepared some spicy foods so that you won’t freeze upon arrival at your final destination.  
Kwankao
 
“Kwankao?” I wondered. “That’s Thailand’s rice pony. I’ve eaten her rice before lots of times… a stopover wouldn’t hurt much, right?” So my bearings were adjusted slightly west; unlike my previous trip to Bali, I had plenty of time to solidify from a featureless form rippling between glass walls, have lunch using Kwankao’s rice, shower my body and rinse my bottle.
 
Spindle: To Bali and to Bangkok from Canterlot are roughly the same distance, but Bangkok doesn’t have a cruelly busy airport in the daytime – it’s larger and ponies come from more places, so it has less variation in landing frequency. Parcly was free to choose a departure time.
 
Clouds were dark and raindrops were sparse among the exposed surfaces of balcony rails and the edges of the moat surrounding Canterlot Castle. Winds blew cloud and rain with equal preference, sometimes plucking a leaf from its stem along the way, eventually encouraging a full thunderstorm.
 
Parcly: A last-minute news item popping up on ticker-tape before my flight to Bangkok announced the date of Thailand’s next general election, 24 February the next year. However, as my wings were unfolding, I suddenly lost all sensation throughout my body, tipping over into a trance. My master Luna, having been informed about the thunderstorm from the weather mares, walked into my dream and kept me there for 90 minutes with heartwarming chitchat while the hazard cleared.
 
Princess Luna: She was travelling very soon after that delay though. While holding her up, I gave her information on what to expect in Bangkok, Kwankao’s personality, time zones (the city is one hour behind where Parcly started, two hours behind Japan) and local food. All in all, the actual movement took less than two hours.
 
Spindle: Landing at Suvarnabhumi under a purple sky, we had to hunt around for a while before finding Kwankao, smiling at our presence. “What took you so long?”
 
“Terrible weather,” Parcly explained, “and then huge waves of ponies just itching to fly after it!”
 
“That’s fine. I was stuck in a traffic jam coming here too. Those yellow streets you saw during descent are lit more by carriage lights than overhead ones.” Parcly couldn’t resist giggling at the self-deprecating humour.
 
Kwankao: To show my appreciation, I gave the blue princess a massage of my own. She was used to Saddle Arabian massages, so I figured that making a wish would pique her interest in other styles, given her disposition to granting more than the minimum requested. Then I served her pineapple fried rice topped with cashews, raisins and prawns, a fitting refresher for a restless alicorn. After the first few mouthfuls she drifted off time’s beat…
 
Parcly: …until 22:30 local, when I gasped at the darkness above. I still had thousands of kilometres to go, so I rose and thanked Kwankao for her hospitality. Skies were less imposing for the second half of my inwards thrust on Tokyo, yet it would require a distinct level of endurance.
 
Spindle: Breathing in and breathing out, most of her streams of consciousness yielded to my icy, blistering self, converging upon a third eye flowering in her forehead. Merged as such, I piloted my corporeal manifestation into the land of a rising sun.