//------------------------------//
// Sleep Tight 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Maple and Starlight stepped off the ramp and onto the ship's deck, Starlight riding on her adoptive mother's back once again. The open space was long, flat and rectangular, with walls at both ends near the prow and stern, unobstructed by masts or giant dirigibles. An ornate wooden railing came up to an average pony's chest on either side, preventing passengers from plummeting or being blown off, and to the front there were two doors she could make out heading under the forecastle.

Shinespark nodded at the doors. "The right one goes to the bridge, but we can look at that tomorrow."

Instead, she pushed open the left, revealing a staircase sloping forward into darkness. At a flicker from her horn, manalights built into the interior triggered, glowing with warm orange light and highlighting places along the walls where a carpenter might have spent days fashioning engravings into the trim. A short descent left them standing on a generously-sized landing, with a ladder against the forward wall and a door inset to the right.

"To the bridge, for if it's raining or you don't want to go outside," Shinespark said, pointing to the ladder. "Engine room..." She pointed right. "And back that way, down the stairs is the main hall, kitchen, storage, cargo bay, and navigation room, and on this level is the reading room and cabins." Her hoof pointed back the way they had come, where there were both another staircase and a level path.

"I know where I want to go..." Maple yawned, eagerly slumping along the bridge between the two staircases.

"...Sure you do." Shinespark smiled, standing aside and letting her lead. "The biggest cabin is mine, but you can have any of the others. I mean..." She dug in an ear with a metal hoof. "Unless you really want to sleep in my bed, or something..."

Maple smiled wearily back. "I think we'll be fine."

"What do you think, though?" Shinespark asked, lovingly touching the wood paneling as they entered a room lined with bookshelves on the forward and aft walls, circular windows letting in sterile beams from the floodlights outside. Frowning at them, her horn sparked again, and the outside of the ship went dark. "This is the ship that's going to save Sosa. It's where all of our faith ultimately rests... Do you think it looks the part?"

"You might be asking the wrong pony," Maple admitted. "Before yesterday, I'd never seen even a normal airship, and the last time I saw a regular boat was years before that. But..." She yawned again. "It does look very pretty..."

"I filled this library myself." Shinespark proudly paced past several rows of bookshelves on the starboard side, the other taken up by three fluffy reading chairs and a pair of short tables. "It has almost everything you could ask for, and sometimes more. There's an entire section dedicated to every bit of shipbuilding knowledge Sosa ever gained, along with other arcane arts and sciences, and even some personal research journals from myself and Arambai. Does this look familiar?"

She held up a book in her aura, floating it over for Starlight to see. The filly squinted. "That's the book Arambai asked me to read."

"...An older version," Shinespark admitted. "At least, I hope. But yeah. We have fiction, too, though, if that's more your style! And history. Here's a complete collection of everything ever discovered written by Sosa, the explorer who found Ironridge hundreds of years ago. His style is pretty long-winded, but I find him quite entertaining. If you haven't had a chance to read since coming to Ironridge, you should try it!"

Starlight grimaced and stuck her tongue out. That was a guaranteed pass.

"Thanks, but..." Maple held a hoof to her mouth. "I don't think we're really in a state to appreciate classic literature right now, especially if we need to be doing things tomorrow."

"What are we doing tomorrow?" Starlight frowned. "Can't we just stay here and sleep? Nobody's chasing us for once!"

"We promised White Chocolate we'd be back, remember?" Maple smiled sadly. "It's only a short way, though, if it stops raining. We can come right back here afterward. If this is a safe place, I'd at least like to recover that thing we left and bring it here..."

Shinespark's ears perked, questioning.

"...It's nothing." Maple smiled. "Just something we left with a friend because it was too heavy."

"Okay." Shinespark shrugged, and made to turn away... but didn't. "By the way. I got interrupted to come here in the middle of a conversation with your friend Gerardo, and he had some... interesting things to say. I'm going to invite him to join us, too, and if he agrees I'll bring him here in the morning so we can get you all up to speed at once on everything else that's going on. Long story short, he has some stuff to tell me that might make tomorrow a little bit less peaceful and relaxing than it could be, once you leave areas we have direct control over... and by that I mean this warehouse."

Starlight huffed. "We're going to have to mess with Ironridge again, aren't we."

"If you leave..." Shinespark's ears slowly rotated. "Is that a problem? I can get someone I trust to escort you, if it helps."

With a thud of small hooves against polished wood, Starlight hit the floor. "Can I see the engine room?" she asked. "Like, right now?"

"Sure." Baffled but willing, Shinespark turned back down the corridor to the stairs, Starlight in hot pursuit. Maple trotted uncertainly behind.

A well-oiled door soundlessly opened, letting Starlight look up into the starboard side of the ship. It was smaller than she had expected, only stretching back as far as the reading room. Starlight was no nautical expert, but putting a heavy engine far at the side of a boat didn't take training to identify as a bad idea... and the sparse amount of material inside revealed why such a design choice had been possible.

Instead of any magical generators or hunks of iron, the engine room's floor was spotless... but the ceiling was festooned with a twisting mesh of thick metal rails, interweaving in a pattern that made her eyes hurt to follow and was clearly a counterpart of the machine in Arambai's basement in Riverfall. Near the forwardmost point of the room, against the center wall, several heavy metal consoles stood, including a stack-like machine and several panels of dials. The starboard wall, meanwhile, held a pair of posts with wired helmets placed atop, ostensibly used for tapping a pony's cutie mark.

"Can I wear one of those?" she asked, pointing a lilac hoof at the helmets.

"Uhh... why?" Shinespark's eyebrows furrowed. "My letters from Dad said you already tried that, and it didn't go well. I'm thrilled if you want to get started figuring stuff out, but there are more scientific-"

"Not that," Starlight interrupted, walking closer to the rump helmets. "Both times I used them in Riverfall, it knocked me out, and when I woke up my horn was feeling better. Right now, I need to sleep anyway, and my horn hurts because I've been using it all day. If we're going out tomorrow and it might not be safe, I want to be able to fight, so I need my horn fixed!"

Shinespark bit her lip. "That... might actually be a good idea. But Dad did say to hold off on anything big until we could use proper testing equipment, and to start small..."

At that moment, Maple caught up, standing in the door and panting lightly. "Starlight?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

Starlight blinked at her. "Making sure my horn will work tomorrow. You saw how much I needed to use it today. Why?"

"That's..." Maple stretched a hoof out, but her words died on her lips. Starlight frowned, getting a distinct impression there was something she deliberately didn't want to say.

"...It could be dangerous," she eventually managed. "Starlight, we just heard about all the kinds of technology they're working with here, and how complex harmony and cutie marks and ponies really are! Shouldn't we do this slowly?"

Shinespark stood uncertainly by. "Do you two need a moment to talk?"

"I could just go to bed," Starlight huffed. "But come on! You keep telling me I'm special, don't you?" She crouched, staring at Maple. "Or at least you're thinking it. And I am strong. So do you want me to use it to protect you, or not?"

"Well..." Maple's ears folded. "If you're sure, but..." She shook her head, then swallowed. "How are you feeling compared to the last times, at least? Your horn, I mean?"

"My horn?" Starlight rubbed her forehead, feeling the stiff appendage. "Better than the first time after I lifted Gerardo's boat. The second time... I don't even remember what I did. But it hurts."

Maple sized Starlight up, and eventually sighed. "Only once, then. And after that, if you want Shinespark to work on your horn, you do it properly. And this time is only if she says yes."

Starlight's eyes lit up.

"I guess she can," Shinespark said, shrugging. "According to Dad, the wiring on the helmets burnt itself out, but we've got spares. Unless it busts the primary multiplexer, the machine itself is built to handle concentrations of energy greater than the overloads we've seen from sequences of brands. He said his was fine, at least. If you're sure about this, go ahead and take one..."

Eagerly, Starlight waddled to the pole rack where the helmets were stored, casting off her saddlebags, then lifting and inspecting one in her hooves. She looked to Shinespark for approval.

Standing near the stacks of consoles, Shinespark adjusted several settings in her telekinesis, allowing the machine to him to life. Then she nodded, and stared up at the rail cloud, waiting.

"Umm..." Maple interrupted. "Be ready to catch her in your telekinesis. Both times before, she went flying."

"Really?" Shinespark tipped her head. "Interesting. Ready when you are, Starlight."

Starlight held up the helmet... then stopped and blinked, setting it back on its pole.

"Huh?" Maple and Shinespark both blinked back.

"Hang on," Starlight muttered, moving to her pack and rooting around for a particular package with waterproof wrapping. "I've... almost..."

She tumbled backwards, her prize in her hooves. "Here," she said, leaving it sitting on the floor. "You can have this. I don't want it, but maybe you'll like it. I'm tired of lugging it around, anyway."

"For me?" Shinespark knelt, inspecting it, curious.

"Yeah." Starlight nodded, picking up the helmet again. "But first we need to do this! Is it ready?"

"It is." Shinespark straightened up, ignoring the package and focusing on the rails overhead.

"Starlight?" Maple asked, stepping cautiously closer. "Can you try to stay awake this time, after the machine does its work? Just... as long as you can? For me?"

Starlight nodded. "Okay."

Resolutely, she held the bowl-shaped apparatus high... and slammed it down over her head.

CRACK!





The wire along the wall that connected Starlight's helmet to the console burned a searing, jagged bolt of blue in Maple's vision, enough that she stumbled back, shielding her eyes with a hoof. With a frantic whizz, something tiny and filly-shaped blurred past her, soaring at an angle until being interrupted just before the wall by a thick aura of magic.

High above, the metal rails blazed with midnight-blue fire, lasting for a split second before dissipating in a haze of speckled, astral fog. That thinned, hovering by the rails as it vanished into nothingness, the entire display lasting less than two seconds. The only things in the room that moved were wisps of black smoke rising from the singed wire and Starlight, slumped in Shinespark's aura, gently sinking toward the ground.

"Starlight!" Maple lunged forward, jumping and grabbing the filly free. Starlight's eyes were heavily slitted, and didn't focus. "Starlight? Are you still awake?"

"Unnngh..." Starlight's eyes flickered. "'m tired..."

Carefully, Maple examined one of Starlight's hooves, holding it up to the nearest manalight and waving one of her own behind it. There was a definite transparency like she had observed at Arambai's house, and her heart clenched. She didn't trust her memory of what Starlight had looked like the last time, but she was undoubtedly transparent... and it might have been her imagination, but the filly could have lost a pound, too.

"Stay awake, Starlight," she hummed, rocking her. "Shinespark. Come look at this."

When Maple looked up, Shinespark hadn't moved. She was sitting, still staring at the dormant rails, transfixed.

"Starlight..." Maple rocked again, but the filly was fast asleep, and opacity was already returning to her fuzzy form. Slowly, Maple let out a breath. Whatever the harmony extractors did to Starlight, it wasn't permanent... this time. After a nuzzle, she got up, taking two steps toward her host. "I think we could really use a bed now," she admitted.

"Did you see that?" Shinespark whispered, a tear gathering at the corner of her upturned eye. A jagged, silly smile of wonder and disbelief stretched across her face, and she mouthed, "That was it. That was the effect we were looking for... The unstable reactions don't look like that. They're more than one color, and don't leave a mist. There's a way to extend that. There has to be. We're so close..."

"Shinespark?" Maple prodded, chancing one more step.

Shinespark didn't respond, a single gold-plated hoof stretched upward.

"...Good night, then." Taking Starlight carefully, Maple stepped through the door to the staircase landing, closing it quietly behind her.





Maple stepped through the warmly-lit corridor of the ship's middle floor, walking on three legs and holding Starlight to her chest with the fourth. The filly was snoring peacefully, completely limp and relaxed. When she stopped to nuzzle Starlight's forehead, her horn was cool to the touch, as if it had been left under a stream of cold water several minutes ago.

She stopped, looking back the way she had come through the reading room and eventually the landing. Most of the cabin doors were on the starboard side, she realized... a product of Shinespark's taking up most of the room to port. The cabin hallway continued far enough back that she assumed there would be more, but felt like settling herself nearer to the library than further. She still wanted to return to Riverfall... but it was at least a possibility that the incomplete airship would become her home for the next few days, and that meant treating it as such.

Eventually, she settled on the second from foremost, touching its door with a hoof. There was a latch, she realized... though some thoughtful pony had made it hoof-accessible, rather than a lock for horns or a handle for wings. With a soft click, it was undone, and the door swung soundlessly open.

The room beyond was dark, and while it probably had a light switch, the ambience from the hall was sufficient. A capsule-shaped rug adorned the center of the floor, and around it were two dressers, a writing desk, and a stack of bunk beds with a generous height. Unlike Riverfall's vast, round, fluffy beds that were near to the floor and acted like a sea of warmth, the bunks were raised, with storage space beneath the lowest and a plush, square mattress with a blanket that smelled like it had been recently made. Maple padded her way to it on carpeted hooves, gently depositing Starlight and turning back for the door.

It clicked shut, leaving the room in darkness save for a thin strip of light shining beneath. Maple recognized that darkness. It was the same kind that waited for her in her bedroom at Riverfall, sleepy and slow and waiting for all the ponies to turn in so it could, too. The ship's bare timbers still smelled of the forest, almost, though she could have convinced herself that part was her imagination.

She crawled into the bottom bunk, feeling around for Starlight as she moved and taking care not to squish her. Their coats still bore marginal residue from the rainstorm, but it was fading, and wouldn't last long before the bed's comfortable warmth.

"We did it, Starlight," Maple murmured, tucking herself in. "It was scary, but we made it through another day. I wonder how much tomorrow will have in store for us... don't you?"

Starlight didn't answer, curled loosely with her face upturned.

"Hmm..." Maple rolled over, properly positioning a pillow. "I guess we'll... just have to... see when it happens..."

She drifted off, the pure silence of the far-removed warehouse settling into her ears as the night wore on.