Chapters
-
Summer fell amid a gale of roaring updrafts, each one rising from the front of a different skyscraper. Some part of her had wondered why there were so few ponies flying between the dense skyscrapers, and now she learned. The sky didn’t want her here. What was worse: Summer wasn’t some master aerial navigator, able to dodge and weave and dart through the sky with dozens of named maneuvers. Emerald wanted her to learn, but Emerald wasn’t here.They’re behind me. Someone as powerful as Kate will have…-
163.3 K •
-
-
Theo stumbled into the lobby of the Feather building about an hour later. She hadn’t seen any sign of Sharp or Emerald trying to stop her. That hurt plenty in its own way—she’d ran away as though she were being followed, but she didn’t actually know that she was. Maybe they didn’t care.The lobby was spacious and mostly empty, with a single reception desk by an elevator on the far wall and a large fountain in the center. So ponies did have them. They just weren’t installed in magical crystal…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
Manehattan swallowed them like a living thing, with streets so overflowing with ponies that Theo felt instantly lost in the crowd. This was certainly a good thing—even if Sharp Edge was right about the dangers of working with Feather. In a city this big, there was no danger of being recognized and attacked once they slipped into the crowd.Of course nothing will happen to us, because she obviously wanted to be in contact. The ponies who delivered this could’ve attacked me, but all they did was give me a…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
Agent Barton snapped the door to the unmarked truck closed with a characteristic click. For a few seconds he just stood there beside the truck, staring up at the sky and its spectacular aurora. Then the wind picked up again, biting through several layers of government-issued black coats, and he remembered why he hated traveling this far north.“You know we’re not going to get anything out of them,” Agent Foster called from the other side of the truck, pulling her scarf tighter about her face. It…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
After much work—it felt like months, but Theo knew full well it couldn’t be—the Horizon was finally ready to sail. Theo learned this news from Sharp after a hard day of work in the cabin, leaving with empty cans of finishing stuff and the scrap-metal left over from her electronics work. “Hey, Summer.” He caught her wing with a hoof, which couldn’t put more than a tiny bit of pressure on the feathers. Still enough to slow her down, which was the real point. Then he seemed to actually notice…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
Theo followed the pony at an arm’s reach, unable to suppress her constant, background fear at being around someone so important. For all the time she’d been in Equestria, she knew almost nothing about its royalty. Should she have refused the request?For all her panic, her companion didn’t seem to be having the same concerns. She glanced at the symbols scribbled on the edge of various shelves, reading some meaning from them that Theo herself couldn’t. Some pony equivalent of the Dewey Decimal…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
Theo didn’t get to go on the expedition to retrieve the airship. It wasn’t anything personal—even Sharp Edge wasn’t able to go. The team the blue pegasus brought wasn’t so much a group of trained experts as a dozen pegasus ponies from halfway across Equestria.If it was Theo’s airship, she probably would’ve told the pegasus “no thanks” at that point. But Sharp seemed to recognize some of them, and the knowledge made him more willing to let them make the trip.There was no more work to do…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
By the time their train arrived in Ponyville, full dark had settled over the town like a heavy blanket. This was no Crystal Empire or Canterlot, with bustling activity even late into the night. As Theo emerged from the train, she could see only a few flickering gas lamps, leading into town towards a round, municipal-looking building.The rest of the town could’ve come out of any number of semi ancient villages in her home country, though it had been quite some time since she’d seen a thatch roof on…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
Theo had been in government buildings before, when she’d been gunning for her current position. Current, former position.Either way, she found the inside of the embassy strikingly similar to plenty of identical structures she’d visited before—polished marble floors, too high ceilings, and metal banisters. It was all about showing stability and casual wealth for anyone who visited. They represented whole nations, after all. They couldn’t do that without showing off.Once through the doors, Theo…
-
163.3 K •
-
-
They didn’t have the train to themselves for long, as more ponies boarded the closer they came to Canterlot. As the car became more and more crowded with strangers, Theo and her companions moved to a single row, where they could sit in relative comfort and not disrupt anyone else.Theo watched the countryside closely from one of the wide windows, sitting beside Sharp Edge on one side and Emerald on the other. The more time she spent with ponies, the more her fears that they would violently kill her for…
-
163.3 K •
-
- Previous 1 … 38 39 40 … 136 Next