//------------------------------//
// Reunion 
// Story: Not So Far Away 
// by Cold Bolt 
//------------------------------//

Moondancer gazed upward.

It was an hour after dawn. An entire day had passed since Pinkie's departure, and they had long since lost track of her, even with telescopes. The waiting game had already begun.

These were the moments she liked the least - the ones where things were completely out of her hooves. She had already done all the calculations, the prototyping, the testing... There was nothing for it now but to wait.

She stared at the anemometer as it spun lazily in the breeze, the calmest weather they had seen since reaching the summit of the mountain.

Then she noticed the speck. 

Moondancer's ears perked, and she sat up. A tiny dot had begun to descend from the Atoll. Immediately, a nearby telescope floated over courtesy of her magic, and she fiddled with it for a moment in an effort to get a better look at the anomaly.

Her jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Wake up, ponies!" she barked, leaping to her hooves. "We've got incoming! Code green - I repeat, code green!"

All around, ponies scrambled. Notebooks, cameras, and telescopes flew telekinetically every which way, many nearly bonking heads in transit.

As the assembled watched with bated breath, the speck slowly grew larger. Now, even those with unaided eyes could make out two pairs of flapping wings, followed by a very small carriage with two figures seated inside. The air was jubilant - one of the figures was familiar.

The scientists scattered from the flattest stretch of ground, leaving an impromptu runway that drew in the flying carriage. The two winged ponies leading it flared their wings, bringing it to an only somewhat bumpy stop.

"WHEEEEEEE!" Pinkie threw her forehooves into the air. "That was so much fun! Can we go back and do it again?"

One of the ponies leading the carriage sighed noisily as she unhooked herself. "By fortune may we refrain..."

The other was too distracted beaming at all the scientists to respond.

Pinkie leaped from the carriage, somersaulting in midair as she landed beside it and offered a hoof to the other passenger, who took it with a pleasant smile and climbed down.

"Ahem-hem-hem!" Pinkie waved her hoof with an exaggerated flourish. "May I present Constable Fluttershy of Alto!"

"Alto...?" echoed Moondancer.

The Constable curtsied with a graceful flare of her wings. "How do you do?"

Pinkie grinned. "And this is my good friend Moondancer, leader of the Floating Atoll Expedition!"

Moondancer's glasses glowed for a brief moment as she adjusted them before offering a hoof. "I can't tell you how much it means for us to be meeting like this."

"I am honored indeed that I should be the first leader of my ponies in five hundred years to bridge the divide with the surface," said the Constable, taking the offered hoof and giving it a friendly shake. 

"Hey, Whirly! AA!" Pinkie called out to the ponies who had flown their carriage down. "There's more 'groundwalker rations' in the building there. Help yourselves!"

Aerial Ace's sour expression evaporated as she curiously approached the prefabricated building and poked her head inside.

Whirlwind was still preoccupied by the act of flying around a scientist's head, examining his horn curiously. "But surely such an implement must inconvenience you time and again?"

The scientist shook his head with an amused chuckle. "Tore a couple of pillowcases when I was a foal, but you basically get used to it."

"Those wings, though!" demanded another scientist. "Your wingspan's way too small for your body, so they have to be powered by... I dunno, some kind of winged pony magic, right?"

Moondancer smiled at the sight before turning to Constable Fluttershy. "That seems like a good sign, I think."

"If I might share a deep truth..." began the Constable with a wistful smile, "never did I dare speak of hope for a day such as this, yet how I longed despite..."

"I don't know whether it's more luck or fate that we came here with the same goal, but I'm definitely not complaining," said Moondancer. 

"Nor might I," said Fluttershy. "Still, a mighty feat indeed awaits our efforts, concurrent though we may be. Five hundred years has more than left its sting."

Moondancer nodded. "Yeah, let's not waste any time. But first..." She glanced around. "Pinkie? Pi - where did she go? I swear I can never keep track of - "

"GASP"

The two spun around to find a brilliantly beaming pink pony smiling at them.

"So does this make my new friend and my old friend friends?"

Moondancer hesitated, making sure she had kept track of the question well enough to answer it. "I'd say so, yes... and we couldn't have done it without your help."

"YEEEEE!"

Pinkie's legs promptly coiled and extended, launching her several feet into the air, and then flailed with excitement as she squealed her delight to the valleys below.

Rolling her eyes, Mondancer flagged down a nearby pair of ponies with a wave of her hoof. 

"We're heading to the conference tent, and I need three things. Rivets? Get me an inventory on transports and refit supplies. Fountain Pen? Draft a letter to the Duchess - we may need a camp for a few hundred ponies until we can set them up with proper housing, I'll give you exact numbers when I've got them. Pinkie? Stop defying conventional physics and get down here; you're with me."

"Aww..." Pinkie gave a disappointed huff as her hooves touched ground once more. "Fiiiine."