//------------------------------// // 2015 project - The Child of Solace - Chapter 1 // Story: RoMS' Extravaganza // by RoMS //------------------------------// Prologue. “Damn you, Celi’! For those dang damn annoying sailing boats can’t fly in space! Where shall I hoist my black flag now?!” Captain Pipsqueak the First!!! (Yes. With three exclamation points, you peasant!) ₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮ Viking rubbed his forehooves together while his teeth were unconsciously munching over his lower lip. “So…” He stopped and sighed. His eyes riveted on the winged unicorn filly, the bulky blue stallion had a hard time hiding his uneasiness. For the tenth time, he ruffled through his short yellow mane with his twitching ear. I couldn’t tell if it was the wings, the horns, or the combination of both that crept him out. The filly met his stare, glared blankly for a few seconds at him before she focused back on what she was doing: building… something out of the paper she had snatched from our table. I couldn’t tell what she was trying to fold. We had brought her back to the Dust. Surprisingly the filly had showed no sign of resistance. She had cried a bit thought… at least until we had given her back the morse straight key. We had unplugged it and brought back the old antique computer with us. She never spoke to us. She simply grunted and fidgeted when we entered our auxiliary spacecraft and went back to the Dust. The look on her face when we went from natural gravity to a short period of zero gravity then back to its artificial ersatz amused the team. “... How much is it worth?” Viking dropped with a smirk. His words echoed a few seconds in the nearly empty cockpit of the Dust. At least until Amaryllis raised her voice. “Bravo…” She applauded very, very slowly. “Another like this one and it’s the door for you…Out. No respirator. No suit.” She was overplaying the sarcasm in my opinion. I thought the joined dagger-glaring stares of Albion, Amaryllis, Nebula, and I were enough for Viking to get the message. Nebula scratched her forehead with her claws. Eeyup! Nebula, tall on her two hindlegs and scary with her rows of sharp teeth and her ebony fur, wasn’t a pony at all. With her two yellow darting eyes and the two streaks of red marks on her cheeks, she was one frightening hell of a Diamond Dog. She was my mechano and Amaryllis’s best friend as well. Let’s say that when I recruited my red ball of silk-fur, that ruthless, rustic, and drinking-oriented female alpha came as a business gift. “This gonna be so much trouble…” she grumbled, her talon tips biting slightly in her leathery skin. She was the one who’d issued the ‘no child on board’ rule. Not that I ever had children on the Dust but... by showing her around the reactor and key parts of the propulsion system she had asked me about that. No, I know you’re coming to a false conclusion right now, and no! We do not behave like kids on the Dust… I promise. “Well,” I broke the chit-chatting. “We found her. Now what? We ain’t going to dump her back on that rock.” “I’d rather like to understand what it is first!” That gleeful voice belonged to our pristine white Albion, touring around the filly as she scanned her from head to tail with her picky blue eyes. Curiosity was distorting her face with a large smile. “It’s an incredible discovery, Captain!” she assured. “You’ve found some kind of hybrid between a Pegasus and an extinct Unicorn, I think. It’s incredible! The mates that did that might have dumped that chimera her by fear of…” “Albion,” Amaryllis warned. “Not you too. I’ve already too much to deal with Viking’s piraty ways to have to listen to your creepiness.” Albion lifted her head and pouted at the Pegasus. “No, Albion,” Amaryllis seeped in. “No experiment. No attempt to see ‘what’s inside’. No medical scanner and other X-ray carpet-bombing.” Albion extended her hoof at the navigator pleadingly. “And no wiring to one of my computers.” “Oh, come on!” Albion wailed, spreading her hooves wide in protest. Doing so, she nearly knocked the filly off with the back of her hoof. The young pony dodged at the last second and grimaced at her. The orange filly pushed the android in retaliation. Or, to be honest, she tried. Her two little hooves bunked on Albion’s flank with a squish followed by tunk. Albion didn’t move at all while the filly’s hindlegs grinded on the floor. Her wings flapped around but Albion never moved. Androids were thicker than normal ponies. We just laughed. The filly understood her attempt to topple her white aggressor down had failed. As such, she huffed, turned her back at Albion and resumed her origami...thingy. “So, Albion,” Nebula asked with her voice as sharp as her teeth. “Got a name for this pony. Pegacorn?” “Your idea is ugly as hell!” Albion stuck out her tongue. I saw Nebula plucked her lips together. Yet, she said nothing.