When Spike next awoke, it was well after dawn, but still early morning still. Light now streamed into the warehouse mostly from the sun rising in the east, making it better lit and much less intimidating and fearsome in appearance, and more just like the forgotten ruin it was. Feeling stiff from sleeping on the hard concrete floor and as such taking the time to pop several of his joints, Spike nonetheless felt rested enough. Sitting up, he pulled the trench coat he had used as a blanket off his legs and glanced around for Thorax. He saw that the changeling had removed the cloak he had been wearing finally, which he had left in a heap around the spot Thorax had spent the night at. But there was no immediate sign of his friend and for a moment Spike wondered if Thorax had for some reason left.
Thankfully, though, he soon spotted Thorax sitting peacefully on top of a large old crate that sat against the warehouse’s west wall, his back to Spike as he seemed to be gazing out the dusty windows that lined the upper two thirds of the wall. The changeling’s gossamer wings were spread but relaxed, shimmering in the light of the sun shining in from behind them, and he seemed to be lost in thought.
Curious, Spike wandered up to the base of the crate, which was much taller than he was. He assumed Thorax had flown to get up on top of it like he had. “Thorax?” he called aloud hesitantly.
Thorax turned and looked at Spike. “Good morning,” he greeted the little dragon. “Did you get enough sleep?”
Spike rolled one of his shoulders, trying to work the stiff muscles loose again. “Yeah,” he said simply. “You?”
Thorax lowered his gaze slightly. “Yeah,” he replied, even though Spike was quite certain the changeling hadn’t slept a shred more since his nightmare.
Spike watched the changeling for a moment. “So what are you doing up there?” he asked.
Thorax replied by leaning down and reaching out a hoof with which to help Spike climb up himself. Once clambering atop of the box, Spike turned and peered out the windows the edge of which came down almost level with the top of the box itself.
“Wow,” Spike whispered, enthralled by the sight before him.
Thorax had wiped the dust from many of the panes of glass composing of the window, giving them a clear view of the sprawling cityscape of Vanhoover, beautifully aglow in the golden rays of the rising sun. Most of the city could be seen from here, including the city’s iconic Ponies Gate Bridge, which Spike had previously only seen in pictures. Their view was unobstructed on to the coast in the distance where the city bordered the North Luna Ocean. Because it sat to the west, on the opposite side of the sunrise, the waters that stretched forth on to the horizon were tastefully cast part in shadow and part sparkling in the early morning sunlight.
It was this body of water that Thorax had his attention directed towards. “I’d always heard of the oceans,” he explained aloud, gazing out at the view. “But I’ve never actually seen one before now.”
“I’ve seen the Celestial Sea a couple of times before,” Spike spoke up. “This is the first time I’ve seen the North Luna Ocean, though.”
“What does the Celestial Sea look like?”
“Pretty much the same as this, actually.” Spike grinned. “Still a pretty sight, though.”
They continued gazing out at the view for a another moment or so, then Spike’s gaze wandered down to the rest of the top of the crate they stood upon, and saw Thorax had also taken a large plank of wood and had been marking it with a piece of sidewalk chalk the changeling must have found lying around.
Spike tilted his head at the symbols the changeling had drawn, appearing to be a series of circles and sideways eye-shapes, but with occasional circular notches taken out of them. “What’s this?” he asked Thorax.
Thorax followed Spike’s gaze. “Oh, I was just passing the time making some notes, trying to figure out how likely somepony from the Crystal Empire might come chasing after us here,” he explained, picking up the chalk with his magic again and proceeding to make a new mark on it.
Spike stared at the symbols and realized what they were. “You mean that’s writing?” he asked, surprised.
“Well and a little math, so it’s more of a mix of letters and numbers.” Thorax admitted. He pointed one hoof at one of the circular symbols. “Letters.” He moved his hoof to one of the sideways eye-shapes. “Numbers.”
“I don’t recognize any of those, though.”
“Well, unless you know linguae mutationis, I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Spike paused, glancing at Thorax. “You saying this is all a sort of…changeling language?” The idea such a thing existed surprised him, especially considering Thorax was clearly fluent in Equestrian, so much so he had never stopped to think it might not be the changeling’s native language.
He heard Thorax chuckle, who understood Spike’s thinking. “I wasn’t born speaking and writing Equestrian, you know. Changelings have our own language, just like a lot of other races. It’s just when around ponies…Equestrian is the language you want to be using, obviously.” Thorax made another mark while speaking. “Changelings are actually pretty good with languages, so we generally know more than one on average. We have to. No good if we can change ourselves to look the part if we can’t also speak the language.”
Spike shrugged to himself. It made sense. “How many languages do you know, then?”
“Not as many as most other changelings, admittedly. In addition to my native language and Equestrian, I really only know Diamond Dog, Zebra, and a little bit of Breezie. I was set to start learning Saddle Arabian at one point, but then the whole invasion of Canterlot happened, and, well…you know what happened after that.” Thorax looked off into the distance wistfully for a moment while Spike gaped at, to him, the impressive number of languages the changeling knew. He then glanced at the dragon. “How many languages do you know?”
Spike twiddled his claws together sheepishly. “Just Equestrian.”
“I suppose I could teach you something else then if you like,” Thorax offered.
Spike chuckled to himself. “It’d be kind of ironic if I took you up on that, actually,” he admitted. “Twilight’s always been trying to get me to learn a second language because she—” he trailed off suddenly as the memory of Twilight standing to one side while permitting Spike to join Thorax in banishment unexpectedly returned to the forefront of his attention.
Recognizing this, Thorax cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Anyway, I’ve been running the odds on anypony from the Crystal Empire tracking us to here in Vanhoover specifically, and I’m finding it’s actually not as big as we feared.” He faced Spike. “I mean, think about it. All they could know at this point is that we had your season train pass and that we boarded a train. Unless someone at the train station in the Crystal Empire spied us boarding which train and was able to piece together that we might not be who we seemed, they aren’t actually going to know which train we boarded, at least not with reliable certainty, and we know more than one train went through the Crystal Empire yesterday. There is the matter of the tracker Princess Celestia attempted to send you, but by the sounds of it you destroyed it quickly enough that the spell almost certainly didn’t get enough time to send a reliable signal back to her. Of course, as you pointed out last night, getting dinner on the train means that a bill will be sent to Twilight that will reveal that we were on the southbound train, and that we were still on it by that evening, but she’s not going to get that bill right away, will she? Until then, they could only guess which train we might have boarded, unless they manage to find the remains the scroll and seal you disposed of, which, without the tracker, is a one in a million chance. Plus, since we’re technically banished, I’m inclined to think that they’d assume we would head someplace out of Equestria rather than head deeper into it, and that they’re more likely to try and track us using a northeast bound train.”
“When they do get the bill for that dinner,” Thorax continued, “that will give them an idea of some of the stops we might have gotten off at, which would include Vanhoover, but keep in mind that we passed I estimate five other stops since getting that dinner on the train that would be possible places we could’ve stopped at before we arrived at Vanhoover, and I estimate there were about a dozen more the train stopped at after Vanhoover, because for all they know, we could’ve kept riding that train well into dawn. Feasibly, they could think that we’re still on that train by this time in the morning. That means they’d have a search radius of several hundred miles to cover, with no surefire means of knowing which of those stops we actually stopped at unless we’ve done something we haven’t considered to clue them in, and I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t think of anything. And as you haven’t received any further messages from Princess Celestia, that means either the spell I cast to prevent them from coming has worked or she only sent the one, and without those messages, they have no other reliable way of narrowing their search area without some other lead to follow.”
“So the way I see it,” the changeling concluded, “we have probably a day or so of safety we can spend in Vanhoover getting whatever we need to proceed before we really need to start worrying about ponies coming here looking for us, and when they do arrive, it will most likely just be a small party come to discreetly poke around for any clues, and not a big investigation force. If we continue to keep a low profile like we’ve been doing…I think we’ve got a good chance of not ever getting found by them here, or at least long enough to be able to move on to the next destination we choose to head for.”
Spike glanced between Thorax and his piece of wood of written notes for a moment, regarding both with surprise. “You’ve really thought this out,” he stated, impressed.
Thorax fidgeted with his hooves sheepishly. “When you’re a changeling, good risk assessment is an invaluable skill to have,” he explained simply.
“Okay, so we’ve got a few days at best to get our acts together,” Spike deduced. “How do we want to use them?”
“Well you said we should get as much supplies for a long journey as we feasibly can,” Thorax said, and pointed one hoof out at the cityscape outside the warehouse windows. “So I was thinking I’d go out real quick in disguise and do a bit of scouting…see what might be the best places to get some of these things.” He glanced back at Spike. “What sort of things should we prioritize?”
“Food and water primarily,” Spike responded immediately. He rubbed his chin for a moment. “We probably will want some basic camping gear too, light stuff we can carry easily…we should probably make a list, actually.”
“Tell you what then,” Thorax said, standing up, handing him his piece of chalk. “You stay here and put together the list while I go out scouting for places of potential interest to us for a couple of hours. When I get back, we can then work out how we want to proceed from there.”
Spike accepted the piece of chalk. “Sure,” he said. “But while you’re out doing that Thorax…” he hesitated. “…just…be careful you don’t get caught.”
Thorax put on the stallion disguise he had worn on the train ride here, but adjusted slightly so that the stallion was now a unicorn and bore a different cutie mark featuring a pair of books. He gave his dragon friend a soft grin. “So long as you do the same.”
Spike returned the grin. “You bet I will.”