26. Lost
Again the open sky greeted Fluttershy. She knew it wasn’t real, and that was more than she usually knew. Or so she thought. It was all very confusing, and even trying to think about it hurt.
The butter-colored pegasus hovered in the air with wings that would not tire. This was also new. A streak of color danced at the edge of her vision, but she could not pin it down. A lot of things were different, but then, what were they different from? Below, an unending expanse of green and deeper blue, so far away that the colors were washed and blurry. The ground. Why did this matter?
All around, the vast blue sky stretched on, dotted with puffy white clouds. It was dark. Had it always been dark? It was supposed to be sunny, wasn’t it? Curiously, the sun was absent. It was day, she knew, but the moon was up.
What if she fell?
The slow-building terror announced itself, starting at her wing-tips and crawling towards her heart. She wished she’d never thought that thought. She had been here before, she remembered. Sometimes, she would be happy. She wouldn’t be alone like she was now. Other times, it was like this. Fluttershy trembled. Any moment now, her wings would seize up and she would fall.
“Hey. What’s up?”
The voice was both so intimately familiar and so desperately welcome, Fluttershy nearly spun out of control as she whipped around. A blue pegasus was effortlessly hanging mid-air, her colorful mane and tail bobbing with movement. She wore a playful smile that was so very much her. More Rainbow Dash than anything. Fluttershy knew, again, that this was different. It was wrong. Not how it usually went. Her thoughts would go no further down that road, steered away by an invisible hoof.
Wrong, but at the same time, so incredibly right.
“Nothing, sorry,” Fluttershy replied. “I was just thinking.”
“Wanna go for a flight?” Dash asked, flapping her wings a few times to gain speed. The agile pegasus sketched a quick loop around Fluttershy that made her giggle.
“That sounds lovely,” Fluttershy admitted. “But we’re very high up. Maybe we can fly a little closer to the ground?”
Rainbow Dash peered down between her own forelegs and frowned. After a moment’s deliberation, she flipped around, hovering upside-down at Fluttershy’s side. “Actually, I was thinking about going up.”
“Up,” Fluttershy echoed, shrinking back. Above, the skies were darker still. “Um, usually—I mean. I guess?”
“Just wanted to talk to you,” Rainbow Dash muttered, her attention suddenly all on a small cumulus that drifted by on a wind Fluttershy couldn’t feel at all.
“Oh. Okay,” Fluttershy said, swallowing. “Sure. Let’s go up.”
Rainbow Dash led the way. With a grunt and a nod, the powerful flier set her wings to work sketching an upwards spiral. For a moment, Fluttershy feared that Rainbow Dash would pull ahead, but she refused to let that happen.
It wasn’t that she feared Rainbow Dash would leave her. The thought stuck out as absurd. Even here, wherever it was, she laughed out loud at the notion, earning an odd look from Rainbow Dash. No, it was the idea that Dash would have to wait that was wrong. To think that she should have to pause and look back at Fluttershy.
She’d be nice about it. She’d sigh or roll her eyes before pacing herself. Perhaps she wouldn’t even do that. Rainbow Dash had been ever so nice to her. It just wouldn’t be worth anything if Fluttershy didn’t give it her all.
When Rainbow Dash soared up into the third turn of their ascent, she turned and found Fluttershy right at her tail, working her wings to the bone to keep up. There was no time to ask if she could keep pace with Rainbow Dash. She simply did it. Together, the two pegasi flew ever upwards, until the sky turned from dark blue to near black. The clouds hid most of the ground below now, and what little they could see was a shapeless mess.
Neither of them tired. Fluttershy found herself thinking she could do this forever. It was not a mad chase any more. Rainbow Dash wasn’t even leading. At some point, they had slowed down, and they ascended side by side at a comfortable pace. They climbed higher and higher with no goal except to see if they could.
The air was thin when Rainbow Dash suddenly stopped. She was smiling, but it wasn’t at all the huge grin Fluttershy had expected. She herself was bursting with pride—how far they had flown! But there, on Dash’s face, was a sad smile Fluttershy had seen only once before. It reminded her of when Rainbow Dash had said she was leaving Cloudsdale, before Fluttershy rushed to say she was going with her.
“Come home,” Rainbow Dash said, her ears flat.
“I’m trying,” Fluttershy whispered. Those two words drained all the elation from her in a second.
“Do you think you can make it?” Dash asked, licking her lips. The pegasus lowered her gaze and chewed her tongue as she inspected a forehoof. “It’s been so long.”
Fluttershy opened her mouth to reply, but in the blink of an eye, Rainbow Dash was in front of her, a hoof pressed to her muzzle.
“Actually, don’t answer that. I know you will,” Dash said. She was glaring at her, daring her to disagree. “You’re coming home.”
Fluttershy nodded as slowly as she could, afraid to dislodge Dash’s hoof. Her eyes stung as she swallowed before speaking around her touch.
“Rainbow Dash? There’s one more thing—”
“Yeah. I know,” Rainbow Dash cut her off. Those rose orbs burned through her, burned the budding tears away as their eyes met. “I think I do, now.”
Dash slipped her forelegs around her and held her tight. A second later, her feathers joined in the hug, blue wings wrapping around Fluttershy and enveloping her. She held her close, yet they didn’t fall. Impossibly suspended mid-air, the world was blue, downy warmth. Dash’s presence was all around her.
“Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy opened her eyes and found that they were wet. She lay on her thin blanket atop the hard stone floor of their refuge, and the storm raged ever on outside. Curiously, the dream didn’t fade, as such things usually did. Unlike most days, she didn’t have to try to grab the details, cling to them and try to remember scraps of her dreams. It sat there patiently and waited for her, as clear as her memories of yesterday.
She wasn’t quite sure if she liked remembering it. It was at once both a wonderful dream, and a terrible reminder of what she missed. All the same, she had promised. Or rather, Rainbow Dash had promised that she would make it home. That, if nothing else, she would latch on to.
“Sugarcube, if you lay there staring at nothin’ for much longer, I’m gonna get right worried,” Applejack said. Fluttershy shook her head and blinked. Applejack was frowning at her, the farmpony sat on her own bedroll right next to her.
“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy muttered. “I just had the most wonderful dream. I think.”
“Just don’t scare me like that,” Applejack huffed, leaning over to nuzzle her. “You ain’t missed much anyhow. Storm’s still going.”
“I don’t think it’s going to stop,” Fluttershy sighed. It had been many days, but it was impossible to know exactly how long. When they had stumbled upon the old watchtower in the middle of the sandstorm, they had thought they were saved. The simple structure had no real features; rock and mortar formed a circular tower, and aside from some dilapidated weapon racks, there was little to be found in here. The rusty hatch at the top of the stone stairs that went along the tower’s inner wall had holes in it, and the iron gate that had admitted them wouldn’t close fully. Sand was still trickling in and piling up, and the sandstorm outside was continuing unabated. Without the crystals they had brought all the way from the Dreamspire, they would be in almost complete darkness.
It had been all they could do to get comfortable and wait in the soft blue-white light.
“So, any bright ideas?” Applejack asked, as she did every morning, evening, or whatever it was when they woke up.
Fluttershy spread her wings and twisted her neck around to eye their feathers critically. The vivid dream had reminded her that she hadn’t seen so much as a minute of flight for far too long. While she was usually happy enough on the ground, her wings were a mess. Yesterday it had hardly been worth thinking about, but today it was a crime.
“I think I need a good preening,” Fluttershy said.
“Well, I was thinkin’ about getting out of here and such, but that works.” Applejack snarked. “Need any help?”
“Huh? Oh. Well, actually, I guess it is a little hard to reach all of the feathers,” Fluttershy admitted. “Um, it’s probably a little weird for you though.”
“Sugar, if Lotus an’ her sister over at the spa can file horns, I should be able to handle myself around a pair of wings unless you’re afraid I’ll muck it up.”
“Not at all,” Fluttershy assured her, trying to relax her wings as Applejack walked around to sit at her back. “Some feathers aren’t, well, aligned, I guess. Just need to make sure they’re all straight and everything, but—” she winced as she felt Applejack tug at one of her pinions. “—gently, please.”
“Right, sorry,” Applejack muttered. The pressure abated, and a moment later, the earth pony buried her muzzle in between the feathers again, her teeth gently gripping the feathers one by one. Fluttershy sighed and closed her eyes.
“If you want me to work those tangles out of your tail sometime, I’d be happy to,” she murmured. “This is really nice.”
“Think nothin’ of it, sugar.”
And the dream still stuck. Every detail still there in perfect clarity for her to pick at and dissect. Why did a promise given in a dream mean so much? A command, a desperate request—whatever it was? It had felt so very, very real.
“I’ll tell her when we get back.”
The second Fluttershy had said, it, she knew it had been the right thing to say. The thought didn’t fill her with dread any more. Her heartbeats and her breath both came faster, but it was excitement, not fear.
“I know.” The words echoed in her mind, and she was only distantly aware that Applejack had stopped attending her wings.
“Sugar,” she said, pausing to sigh. “I feel right terrible for pressuring you. It ain’t my business at all. You don’t have to say that.”
“I want to,” Fluttershy said, smiling and lowering her eyes to the ground. “It’s not because of you.”
“Well, let’s get right on that then,” Applejack retorted. “Oh. Right. Sandstorm. Nope.”
Fluttershy stole another glance at the tower’s door while Applejack nipped at another feather, tilting her wing a bit. “How long has it been, anyway?”
Applejack groaned. “It’s me poking at your feathers, or it’s talking. Y’can’t have both.”
Fluttershy folded her wings, wincing at the displaced feathers before she stood. Turning around, she shook her head at the slightly annoyed farmpony. “I don’t know a lot about weather here, but the sandstorm was moving, wasn’t it? It caught up to us, but it’s been going on here now for days.”
“Three, four, maybe five days. I reckon’ we sleep a bit more when there’s nothing to do,” Applejack agreed with a shrug. “Besides, it’s awful dark. Still, we got food left, and we ain’t like to run out of water soon.”
Fluttershy’s eyes drifted up to the metal hatch far above.
“I ain’t liking the idea of heading outside,” Applejack murmured. “You thinkin’ to try the hatch? I’ll come with.”
“I just want to have a look,” Fluttershy agreed.
Applejack made for the narrow, unprotected stairs. She mounted the steps easily, giving Fluttershy a look as the pegasus flew at her side.
“You’re chompin’ at the bit today, sug’. What’s up?” she asked.
“Nothing. I just—”
“Want to get home, huh. Yeah,” Applejack finished for her with a wry grin. “Let’s get this here thing open.”
At the top of the stairs, Applejack braced herself against the stone steps, tongue between her teeth as she tried to work through the awkward angle. After a minor adjustment, she gestured for Fluttershy to stand back, her powerful hind legs winding up for a kick.
The groan of metal was deafening, a screeching wail and a loud clang as the hatch swung open and hammered against the stone. A small trickle of sand poured in, but it was far less than Fluttershy had feared. The two ponies exchanged glances, and Applejack slipped outside with Fluttershy in tow. For a moment, Fluttershy wondered if she should head downstairs to collect her cloak, not wanting sand in her mouth and nose, but it quickly became apparent she needn’t worry.
The top of the tower was flat stone, and here, there was no wind. Fluttershy spread her wings to confirm just that, but even the most sensitive of her feathers found nothing. Around them, just off the edge of the tower’s roof, the sandstorm howled and raged, a whirling vortex that darkened the sky going on for as far as the eye could see.
“When you say you don’t know much about sandstorms,” Applejack broached through a frown.
“Wind doesn’t behave like this,” Fluttershy replied. “I’m not very good at wind theory and all that, but this, this is wrong.”
“Yeah. I think Applebloom could say the same without spendin’ five years at weather college or whatever, no offense,” Applejack agreed. “Question is, what is this, then?”
“I don’t understand. Why does this happen to us?” Fluttershy asked. Sitting down and crying on the spot was becoming a better and better option.
“It does, don’t it?” Applejack mused.
“Sorry?”
“Well, we still don’t know the first thing about who gave the prince that book, and we know he wouldn’t have minded us passin’ through if he didn’t have that book,” Applejack said, scratching her snout.
“You think somepony is doing this to us on purpose?” Fluttershy asked, taking a step back.
“Just thinking. Told you, I ain’t a glass half empty kind of mare, but this all stinks,” Applejack grumped, turning her eyes skywards. “Don’t suppose you think you can fly us over this?”
Fluttershy puffed her cheeks out and shook her head. “We don’t know how big the storm is. If it’s very big, and I start losing height, being in the air with all our equipment—”
“And my big flank,” Applejack supplied, grinning. “Just checking our options. Doubt even Rainbow could pull this one off.”
“Maybe,” Fluttershy agreed, feeling for the first time like she wanted to try anyway. It was reckless and dangerous, and she would never suggest such a thing, but part of her wondered if she could do it. It lasted only for a few seconds, until the storm around them seemed to press closer.
“Right. Let’s head back down. Get the hatch, will you?” Applejack asked, the clops of her hooves receding down the stairs, and Fluttershy did exactly that, closing the protesting metal hatch. Once safely inside once again, she glided off the stairs down to land on the main floor of the little tower with a thud.
A hollow thud.
Applejack had heard it too, judging by the odd look she was casting in her direction. Fluttershy stood on a large stone like any other, a large flat tile by the tower wall. Experimentally, she raised a leg and stomped down on it again, rewarded with another, loud thud.
“You best let me have a look at that, sugarcube,” Applejack suggested, and Fluttershy gladly stepped off the curious stone tile. She tapped another nearby rock, but there, her hoof yielded nothing but a dull clack of hoof on stone.
Applejack wasted no time digging her rear hooves in at the edge of the stone. Bracing herself against the nearby wall, she grunted and shoved with the tips of her hooves. The earth mare lowered her head and gritted her teeth, and Fluttershy was just about to ask her to stop for fear that she would hurt herself when the stone yielded. With one final burst of strength and a wordless cry, Applejack heaved the flat stone tile over, toppling it onto the side where it landed with an impact that shook the tower.
Applejack slumped to the ground, breathing heavily but grinning all the same. “Almost half as fun as uprootin’ dead trees,” she laughed.
Fluttershy shook her head at her friend, trotting over to collect one of the three light-crystals they’d scattered about the room. It was hard to see much with it in her mouth, but when she put it down on the edge of the hole, both she and Applejack gasped. An earthen staircase led down and further into the darkness, barely wide enough for the two of them abreast.
“Not afraid of the dark, you said?” Applejack asked. “Hope you weren’t crackin’ a joke.”
There was no need to even discuss whether or not to explore the dark and mysterious hole. After Fluttershy had dipped down and returned reporting a tunnel rather than a cellar, Applejack had their stuff packed up within the minute. The staunch earth mare gave the half-closed iron door and the storm outside one final glance and stretched.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Applejack asked.
“Of course,” Fluttershy affirmed. The pegasus was over by the hole in the floor, busy trying to pin the last of the three light-giving crystals in a fold of her light cloak. Applejack wore one herself, tucked between the straps of her saddlebags.
“Right then,” Applejack hummed. “Just thinking, there’s barely enough space to turn down there.”
“I tried. I could turn around just fine, and you really aren’t that much bigger than me,” Fluttershy countered. “I can almost spread my wings, too. Do you want me to go first?”
Applejack swiftly shook her head and trotted up to the hole, peering down into the darkness. “I’ll go first ‘lest you mind. Scoot over.”
When Fluttershy did just that, Applejack took one last, deep breath, and hopped down to land on the first step. It wasn’t much of a drop, but immediately the faint roar of the storm was replaced with that odd muted lack of sound, the throb that filled her ears whenever she was trotting down the staircase to her apple cellar. A second later, a gust of air announced Fluttershy taking up position behind her, and then, there was little to do but move.
After a long descent down the staircase, the tunnel evened out, and here the walls were earthen and the ceiling rounded. If not for the hard-packed floor, Applejack would be tempted to think that this was the work of some colossal earthworm rather than ponies. Or zebras. Or giraffes. Perhaps the latter, then? The ceiling was a mite tall, even if it was all a bit too narrow for her tastes.
“Let’s hope this here exits somewhere sensible, huh?” Applejack said. “I mean, who makes a tunnel without an end?”
“Oh, lots of creatures,” Fluttershy replied. “Let’s see, moles tend to have many exits, but if this was the den of a badger, they’d probably like it snug and cozy with just one way out, just like hedgehogs, porcupines—”
“Sugar?”
“Yes?”
“Not helping.”
“Right. Sorry,” Fluttershy said, promptly shutting up. After a second she gave a little giggle, and Applejack just shook her head and sighed. For how long had they walked now? Two minutes? Three? Aside from some gentle curves that always seemed to right themselves afterwards, as if weaving around some small obstacle, the tunnel led straight on. Their own shadows played across the dry earth walls, and occasionally a rock or two would poke out at them. Applejack took great care not to touch them, in case they supported the whole mess.
“Now I ain’t no geologician or whatnot, but why ain’t this sand?” she asked.
“Oh. I guess we’re deep down? I don’t know. I’ve never been to a desert before. If it was sand, it would be ever so hard to make a tunnel though, so we should be happy,” Fluttershy suggested, the pegasus trotting easily along behind her, pale pink mane framing a smile in the dark.
“Yeah, happy,” Applejack murmured.
“Did you really mean you think someone is doing this to us?”
Applejack sighed and mulled that over, forced herself to really think. At length, she shook her head from side to side. “I don’t rightly know, sugar. Do you remember the applebuck season four years ago?”
“I, um. I didn’t know you all that well, back then,” Fluttershy admitted. “But I remember.”
“Yeah. First applebuck season where Granny Smith wasn’t feeling up to helpin’ out with the bucking on account of her hip and all, and then I went and hurt myself.”
The empathic pegasus winced and nodded as Applejack went on.
“Nurse Redheart was threatenin’ to restrain me in my own bed,” she said, grinning at the memory. “Had to lie there in bed with my legs up in the air, staring out the window at Big Mac and the hired help working their flanks off. Ain’t proud of some of the things I said and did back then, but it had me wondering what I’d done to deserve it.”
“You were angry because you couldn’t do your part,” Fluttershy said. “I think that’s really nice of you, in a way.”
“Anyway,” Applejack shrugged. “It was just bad luck, was all. Weren’t no gods or ghosts or what have you. I was stupid and had a bad fall when I should be taking care of myself. Lookin’ back it all adds up.”
“But this doesn’t,” Fluttershy agreed, stretching her wings.
“I ain’t got no clue as to why what happened, happened. As long as our friends are okay—”
“I know they are,” Fluttershy interrupted. It wasn’t desperate need in her voice, but rather, certainty. Applejack paused and gave her a long look from which Fluttershy did not shy away.
“Right. Long as they’re okay, I don’t care why we woke up in the flank-end of nowhere. The business with the malices and up in the mountain, I haven’t a clue. But everything since then? We got this here book,” she tilted her head towards her saddlebag. “And we got us a sandstorm that won’t move. That’s not bad luck. You don’t send some prince a book like that at random, and I sure didn’t see any pegasi out there playing with the storm.”
“Someone wants to hurt us,” Fluttershy said, her ears drooping.
Applejack didn’t have the heart to agree, so sad did the pegasus look once she’d said it. The realization, the very idea seemed to hurt her.
“Let’s just hope that whomever or whatever it is can’t find us down here,” Applejack muttered.
“Down here”, as it turned out, was more than just a basket’s worth of apples. The tunnel stretched on and on, here taking a dive only to climb back up, now twisting in an S-shape around things they never saw. When Applejack had to pull out their compass and make sure for the third time that they were still going in the same east-ish direction, she was starting to get tired. A small yawn from behind betrayed Fluttershy’s fatigue as well.
“Do you think maybe we could take a little rest?” Fluttershy asked.
“Ain’t too fond of the idea of sleeping here,” Applejack responded, resolutely keeping her legs moving.
“It’s cozy, isn’t it? Well, okay, not exactly, but it seems safe,” Fluttershy suggested, her head held high as she scanned the walls. “Not a lot of burrowing animals here in the desert, I guess, but I’ve never heard of any burrowing predators that are dangerous to ponies.”
“Don’t need anything nibbling at your flanks for this to be bad,” Applejack retorted. “Roof could come down on us.”
“If it hasn’t collapsed in all these years, I doubt it will fall now.”
“Right, right, nap it is,” Applejack grumped, ignoring Fluttershy’s questioning look. The tunnel had looked narrower than it was, though not by much. When she stopped, there was enough room to turn and shed her saddlebags without much trouble. It wasn’t comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but the soil floor was better than the stones that had been their last home. Soon enough the two ponies lay side by side under thin covers in the quiet darkness of the tunnel that seemed to go on forever.
Whatever it was that ponies reached out to to find sleep, Applejack couldn’t find it. With Fluttershy facing away from her, it was hard to tell if the pegasus was awake or not, but her sides rose and fell slowly.
“Alright, shoot,” Applejack whispered.
Fluttershy stretched one wing and rolled her shoulder before she turned over, blearily rubbing at her eyes. “Hm? Sorry?”
“How do you know they’re fine?”
Fluttershy tilted her head and blinked heavily.
“How do you know this all ain’t in vain? That Twi and the others are back home? You seemed awfully sure of yourself, is all,” Applejack asked. It was hard to keep the need from her voice. She was sure she sounded like some foal eager for reassurance, but ever since Fluttershy had spoken, she’d been wondering. Only now that they were getting somewhere, now did she herself start to wonder if there was something to come home to. How long had they been gone, again?
“I had a dream,” Fluttershy said, lowering her eyes to where she clopped her hooves together.
“A dream,” Applejack repeated with a sigh, arching her neck back to stare at the wall behind her head.
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Incredible.
Nothing more is to be said.
Love the "reality" tie between chapters 25 and 26.
Well, that was one short "adventure."
It's never enough! I need more!
MORE!
Please keep writing, I'll keep reading!
I don't know why I'm so engrossed in your story, but I keep coming back for more with each update! Please continue sir.
"...we been sittin on top of a tunnel out of here for days..."
"..G-GOD DAMNIT!"
I liked this update. It worked rather well together. Three very distinct...episodes. The jump back to Ponyville was a bit jarring though. I loved the dream though. That was great.
I do have to wonder what's stopping Dash from continuing on by herself now though.
Why must good reading fly by so quickly? I'm loving this story, and I'm glad that there is more of it to look forward to. With stories this good, even the happiest of endings are sad experiences. I feel this is one that I will be revisiting in years to come every time I forget enough of the details, and perhaps still when I have read it enough times that I couldn't possibly forget. It may sound like I'm getting ahead of myself, but I have faith in the author.
1316182 Writing princesses is my favorite. Adding Dash to the mix is even more fun, hah. Thanks!
1317564 ...That's terrible. I love it.
1318919 There's one at every party. The pony who drinks too much punch and pukes down your bathroom, right?
1319155 Saturdays and Wednesdays, but thank you!
1319507 It was a bit of an awkward chapter split all the same I feel, though it felt good to get the Ponyville segments done with! Hopefully those who start reading when this completes have no issues with the chapterization.
1320295 Aaah, Grimdark, the one thing you will never see me do.
Along with sad/tragedy.
1322780 I won't claim to be able to explain the exact why of anything, both due to how I write, and because I don't want to spoil, but I will say I agree with your assessment; having two parties on the move like that would be very very messy and probably lose part of its charm.
I've never read Eternal and I don't want to show my hand either, so I can't very well comment on that, sorry. If this was a TwiLestia adventure, it would've been mentioned earlier, is all; starting 110k words in is a bit silly, hah. I'd like to do that some day, but this story doesn't go on forever.
1323118 Thank you very much for your kind words, and I hope I won't disappoint!
1323447 Fix'd!
I'm loving this story, thank you!
And thanks for the frequent updates: You are an inspired machine, it would seem!
1324259
Oh, I don't think anyone reading it after it's complete would think twice about it. It's only now, when you're putting three chapters up at a time that a reader might wonder, "Why wasn't this one chapter?"
Hey, quick question: How much of this do you have planned out? I mean, do you already have the whole thing written, or are you ironing out the details as you go along?
1324387 1326407 I cheat; I've been working on this story for about 4 months I think. When I started posting, I had approximately two thirds of the story written, and the rest was planned to some degree. I would never subject readers to a story that's written as I go along.
I edit, polish, spellcheck and incorporate pre-reader feedback twice a week, before each update, and I'm working on the epilogue these days. The story will take a few more weeks to post up, and to be very frank, if I write another long story, I would do it differently. This has been massively stressful, writing and editing while publishing.
Perfect segue into this chapter, lol. Sandstorms, mysteries, and tunnels, oh my! Really wondering who the wise guy following them around and trying to hurt them (putting them through trials?) is, and what their motive is.
You say you'll never do grimdark/sad/tragedy, but you dance close enough to that line to keep things tense and emotional. Well done!
two weeks of sporadic reading, and I finally catch up with this fic. Now I have to wait...
Here's hoping for more soon!
1326696 /play X_files_theme.wav
1328507 I really am sorry, I guess I skirt close to the edge sometimes. I was told the exact same thing with Within and Without - an arguably darker story. I hope I'm not violating anyone's trust.
1335891 1339065 Updates every Wednesday and Saturday evening with three chapters or more per update, we're moving at a high speed sirs or madammes!
1339551
[youtube=MkMKzdTBEOc]
It was harder than it should've been to find a halfway decent video of this tune (that didn't have embedding disabled). Youtube, I was almost disappoint. :I
1339798 We can play that one again in about twelve hours' time, too! That's awesome.
1342065 Ohmygosh, this is the coolest thing to wake up to, ever! I'mma link this in the next blogpost (likely soon) unless you mind? You rock! Also, who the hay told you I have a crayon fetish? No, I mean, I love crayon art like you wouldn't believe, serious. Okay, call'em "colored pencils", I don't care. Those thingers. Aaaah!