Manehattan construction, as seen by four kirin

by publiq

1SSRS + 2 moons, 7 dawns (part 1)

1SSRS + 2 moons, 7 dawns (part 1)

“Woah! I’ve never seen a unicorn like you before,” our voices simultaneously bleated in surprise.

Our, in this instance, referred to myself and the project manager. Me, I can understand being confused for a unicorn by a pony who has never seen a kirin before. The project manager? Her coat was a dazzling alteration of white and black. From what little I have seen of normal Equestrian ponies and their unicorns, their coats are solid and pastel. Absolutely not black, let alone filled with white stripes.

“Puffy mane and branched horn: does that mean you can levitate more things at once?” she asked.

Despite being the boss mare for the project, she was no older than I was when our village entered stasis. Emotionally, we’re probably the same age, if I’m being honest. Probably her first summer working as a fully-grown mare.

“Branching is for heat dissipation,” I inform her. “You Equestrian unicorns have better telekinesis than us kirins.”

“Qilin? Is that the breakfast cereal you eat to cultivate such puffy manes?”

I was glad that my role was not directly under her command. No, she wouldn’t egg me on to become a nirik. Rather, we’d get nothing done. Maybe I’d become a nirik once a week, but the rest of the days, we’d be too busy attempting wittiness to do any work.

“Key-Ren,” I enunciated. “You know, the fourth breed of pony: earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, and kirins. We’re also partially dragon,” I said to conclude the brief education session.

Before our banter could continue, a brown earth pony stallion and Rose Lumen stepped into view.

Rose Lumen? If it wasn’t her, it was another kirin with her same pink scales and lavender mane. Was this the business trip she has been on all this time?

“I see you’ve already met Katiti,” said the stallion. “Most ponies know me as Budget Bill. Some few ponies call me William. Katiti is my project management intern. I’m letting her hoof run this as much as she is able. If you need my expertise, both Rose and Katiti know exactly where to reach the address on my business cards you can find scattered everywhere.”

So it was Rose. I bet she was here to sketch site-specific plans for us to follow.

Now that it was her turn to give a formal introduction, Katiti visibly tensed her posture.

“Hi, I’m Katiti and I’m the project manager here. I briefly studied at the Manehattan Alchemical Academy for engineering before discovering my passion for keeping my classmates on track during group work and transferring over to the Polytechnic. I think you’ve never seen a zebra before. Yes, we are just ponies—have unicorn zebras, earth zebras, and pegasus zebras. When you meet other zebras, our names commonly start with Z, K, or Mw. K zebras, like me, have broad and bold stripes. Mw zebras are covered in delicate line art. Z zebras have such fine detailing that they look grey from a distance with bands of light and dark gray depending on the density of the fine stripes. A pleasure to meet you, as long as you don’t call me Stripes—all my friends already have that nickname.”

Bill’s expression said it all: “we’ll work on that later.”

Pumpkin, Winter, and I lined up for our incendiary greeting from Rose.

Katiti turned to Rose to observe, “you must be the fourth pony Bill mentioned.”

Rose nodded and motioned for Winter and Pumpkin to follow her. Katiti—don’t call her Stripes—followed Bill out of sight.

Project status: Optimistic. Many hooves make light work. Our cloven hooves aren’t twice as fast as a pony, contrary to what some may believe, but we are a bit more nimble with our feet. I like this zebra. She seemed to imply that there are more of them on the far side of Manehattan from where we’ll work. Perhaps we’ll see some; likely we won’t.