//------------------------------//
// Sosa's Gates 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

When the rain let up, it was with a red tinge to the clouds in thin spots where the sunset shone over the mountains. The Earth District valley was already bathed in dusk, making the backlit stormclouds' illumination all that more apparent.

"...Hmm," Gerardo mused, sniffing at the petrichor that filled the air. "I'm no pegasus, but I would hazard a guess that this break will be long enough for travelers to dare press on?"

Sharpie had recovered as much as she was going to, and sniffed beside him, tasting the air on the back of her mouth. "Probably," she agreed with a nod. "Are we waiting or going to Sosa now? It's late, and your friends might be stopping for the night."

"If I'm not mistaken..." Gerardo clicked his beak, thinking. "Some time shortly after sunset would be when it is most optimal to find ourselves in Sosa. Seeing as we haven't seen them pass by yet, it is very possible they opted to press on ahead of us in the rain, and we never truly caught up. I'm inclined to suggest we press on ourselves, and if we did indeed pass them, so be it. There doesn't seem to be anything here outwardly suggesting this town is not safe, at least."

"This is Dangerous Karma's town," Sharpie added, flicking a wing. "I've investigated him before to look for connections, but as far as I've seen he's a legitimate businessstallion who is neutral to the Stone District and dislikes the Spirit. That means they're not welcome here, so it should be one of the safest places in the Earth District."

"Dangerous Karma?" Gerardo blinked, grinning despite himself. "Now that's quite the interesting name. Have I heard it before? It sounds... difficult to forget."

Sharpie shrugged. "Maybe," she replied, staring down the east-west boulevard at the dim signs of the sunset. "He owns most of the Earth District's means of production. Almost all of its money goes through him. He's strange, but showed me his ledgers himself. You can't deny that his methods work."

"And neither do I care to." Gerardo shook his head, still damp from the flight from Blueleaf. "Ponies who are not my enemies I would very much like to keep that way. Although..." His eyes narrowed, in the process of forming a plan. "I wonder, would attempting to get him as an ally prove beneficial? If his influence is as great as you say..."

"No." Sharpie instantly shut him down. "He isn't like Stone District ponies, or the yaks. Getting involved in every last thing that sounds interesting is like candy to them, but he knows how to keep his hooves clean and far away from string and ropes. If he thinks you're trouble, and he will, he won't help. And aren't we supposed to be going to Sosa to warn them of a bomb attached to their dam?"

"Yes, yes... quite..." Gerardo hung his head. "Alas, it was worth a shot. Set the pace, if you would?"

Sharpie soured slightly, but thankfully took up the lead, flapping her way over the muddy ground and out the eastern gate of the city.





The tree trunks got straighter as the sky darkened and the road progressed, the ground having leveled to flat long ago. There were no travelers walking against them; apparently any Sosan workers who dwelt in Grand Acorn had already returned home for the day. At least their hours weren't unreasonable, Gerardo thought... unless the truth was that the workers hadn't yet begun their return, or the even more morbid scenario that there simply weren't any workers to return in the first place.

He shook his head, clearing his mind of jungle shadows. Even the Earth District night was warm, though it was still considerably cooler than the roads earlier in the day. The road they traveled was closed in on both sides by a thin, metal fence, and straight enough that sticking near the ground was just as fast as winging through the sky.

To one side, across the fence, a set of wooden poles ran, wires strung between them likely as a long-distance energy relay. Communication, perhaps? Gerardo watched them rise and fall in arcs between the poles, his mind idly counting the number of bushes growing between each pair as a means of passing time.

To the other, a largely overgrown field stretched, covered in young saplings, hefty shrubs, and tall, wild grass. He got the impression that both sides of the road had been cleared, once, and left to go wild many years ago. How far back had these been abandoned? Ten years? Or perhaps more, following the airship crash he had read about with Starlight and Maple in the museum?

"I hope," he murmured, breaking the long silence, "that there are no planned deliveries the Sosans are making tonight which the Spirit intend to rob. It would be rather unpleasant to be held up by two of those in two days."

Sharpie said nothing back. Gerardo didn't know what he wanted her to say; on a practical level his words had been true, yet part of him was eager to confirm whether Braen still possessed his sword. But in the distance above, clouds continued to push each other on, and as he pushed on himself the road continued uneventfully without signs of delivery or attack.

Eventually, they came to a fork in the road, a branch that looked even better-used than the way to Grand Acorn splitting off to the right. Gerardo turned his head to look down it, careful not to pass Sharpie while he was distracted.

At some point, he realized, the roads had become paved, because the southern path was made of concrete, shiny with water and split frequently so it could drain. He blinked, looking up. "Are we-?"

Ahead, the road broadened, proceeding through a massive metal arch higher than the domes in the Sky District before splitting into a plaza, empty and wide and covered in miscellaneous guiding lines and markings. Forming its back was a wall of corrugated aluminum, crisscrossed with dirty glass windows and forming the side of a warehouse at least five stories tall, its base lined with large retracting doors atop a dock high enough above the ground to easily load or unload materials from docked carts. Several of those carts sat at their docks, free of ponies to pull them, wooden and high-fronted and identical in design to the one Gerardo had rode to the Stone District on the previous morning.

He swallowed, craning his neck. "I take it we have arrived at Sosa, then?"

Sharpie nodded, not at all impressed. "Yeah, this is Sosa. Now, where are we going from here?"