Chapters
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For the second time, Summer found herself on the edge of a pool in the palace, staring down at the clear water’s surface. Only this time she wouldn’t be relying on someone else to change her, or fearing that she would run out of air halfway there. Instead she had other worries. “Why does the court want to see me, Princess? Did we do something wrong?”“Oh, no.” She bounced past her, grinning a little wider with every step. “You know how stuffy old creatures can be. They like to feel like they…-
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Of course they didn’t fly straight from Seaquestria after that. There was one place left for them to go—a promise she’d made to be kept.It wasn’t hard to find the Harmonizing Heights, particularly when every creature in the city couldn’t say enough about them. After being forced to sit through the court proceeding that might abruptly take away her ability to go home, Summer was thrilled to be out moving again, with her hooves on solid ground. “Hopefully you haven’t been too bored,” Sharp…
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163.3 K •
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It would’ve been wonderful to fly directly to their destination and get everything over with. Summer was eager to reach that portal, and confront whatever reality waited on the other side. Whether she’d be able to continue her relationship with Sharp or not, whether the portal would even work—at least the endless confusion and doubt would be over, and she could see how the chips would fall.But there were some distractions too tempting even for her.It was after at least two weeks of gentle travel that…
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163.3 K •
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Summer stared down off the edge of the deck, adjusting her scarf under the jacket and flexing her wings one at a time. The Horizon couldn’t moor alongside the balcony as Sharp had first wanted, not with the wind blowing so fiercely. If the wind ever did stop, they might smash the gasbag up into the jagged ice, and they’d be stranded.For humans this wouldn’t have been much of an issue: they could toss a rope ladder overboard and climb down with primate grace. Summer’s flying might not be great, but…
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Summer Ray stood in the doorway of a room full of corpses, trying to process what she was seeing. In some ways, this was worse than having Kate try to kill her, or even jumping out of a window. At least she only had to fear for herself then, instead of burning with the sympathetic agony towards these people and the battle they’d fought.It was worse than anything she’d seen on film. These weren’t show-props, but real corpses, each one its own unique flavor of horror. Skin was shriveled and sunken,…
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Summer stayed beside Sharp until he started shivering, and kept beside him until he stopped again. They might be species from the same planet, but there was no denying how much cooler ponies were compared to hippogriffs, even when they weren’t freezing to death. Probably the same comparison to birds and other mammals.She found herself thinking back to that naturalistic comparison more than once, and all the things she might do under that blanket. The warmer Sharp got, the more his natural scent returned,…
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163.3 K •
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The further they flew, the colder it got.Soon enough it became clear that their strategy of avoiding Feather by staying away from civilization had a price—they couldn’t descend again without buying or finding gas, and so they never did. But not landing meant they had a limited supply of food, and an even more limited supply of fuel.The little firebox struggled to keep the cabin warm against the blasting arctic chill, except when filled almost to capacity. But they were running out of coal much too fast…
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163.3 K •
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Summer settled down to bed with confidence. Opening the Doorway again wasn’t going to be easy, but now at least they had the magic for it. So long as she kept her head under pressure, she should be able to keep her friends. The hardest challenge waiting for her would be dealing with the awkwardness of their differences in sex.But in the end, she didn’t wake up rested with the dawn, ready to approach this last and most difficult challenge. Rather, she found herself yanked painfully upright out of bed,…
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Theo was lying in the snow. He couldn’t have said how he got there, or what he’d been. He couldn’t say much of anything at first, as his body adjusted to the apparent beating he’d just endured. For a few seconds it was all he could do to twitch and moan, trying to get up. There was motion around him, shouts and boots and many moving figures. More than there should’ve been. God, what happened?Memories were foggy to return at first. There’d been… a confrontation. Kate had been waiting for them,…
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Summer probably should’ve been excited about this. In some ways, this meeting was everything she’d been waiting for, months of effort all focused on this single moment. She’d fought her way across Equestria, swam as a fish, and now she was back home.Except… she wasn’t home. I need time to think. I need to figure out what went wrong. But it didn’t seem the US military authority now running the base was very interested in giving them time to figure things out. Maybe if I ask nicely they can put…
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