The hotel room is small and cozy. Weathered furniture lines the walls, ranging from dressers and drawers to tables and chairs. Two beds take the far wall, the mattresses stained and the sheets long gone. Instead, sleeping bags lie on top of them.
One of the bags is empty. Its occupant is standing on the balcony, stretching her wings in the warm glow of the morning light. She rolls her neck, feeling it crack and pop. Lightning Dust closes her eyes and sighs, letting the light warm her tense body.
The morning breeze blows through her mane. She opens her eyes and spreads her turquoise wings, the wind brushing playfully against her feathers. It still gives her a tingling feeling, making her want to leap off the balcony and fly away.
But she doesn’t. She folds her wings back against her sides and looks out over the city. Fluffy white clouds dot the sky, high above the skyscrapers. The Weather Factory hasn’t been operational for years now, but nature still found a way.
The skyscrapers grasp for the sky, their highest peaks piercing the heavens like spears of concrete. The buildings are old and worn, their windows broken and paint chipped and peeled away. But it's still majestic to Lightning, in its own way.
The streets below are littered with garbage. Abandoned cars are parked at awkward angles. Their windows are shattered and their doors are open, and they rest in a graveyard of rust and decay.
Lightning sighs and turns around, heading back into the hotel room. The little kettle she salvaged from an old Chineighese restaurant almost four months ago is whistling now. Lightning goes over to the sink and swipes her mug from the dish rack and pours out a cup of hot water.
She thinks for a second, then grabs a second cup and fills that up as well. The other sleeping bag moves, the pony inside waking up.
Fiddlesticks rubs her eyes, shaking off her drowsiness. She sits up and yawns again, her cobalt mane falling loose. Lightning chuckles softly to herself.
She opens the cabinet above the counter and pulls out a box. She removes two tea bags and puts one in each cup. It’s been ages since she’s had coffee, but she can’t complain.
Fiddlesticks grunts and pulls herself out of her cotton fortress. She makes her way over to a desk on the other side of the room. A map of the city is spread out, its corners weighted down with cans of food.
The map’s a cheap, throwaway one given to tourists. It’s stained and ripped, marked with pen ink and pencil scratches. Places are circled and crossed off; streets are underlined and categorized. It’s not much, but it’s the best they’ve got.
Lighting joins her, draping a wing across Fiddle’s back. Fiddle smiles at the contact, though her eyes don’t leave the map. She traces a street with her hoof, and Lightning nods. They’re ready, but first thing’s first: tea.