Not far off from Canterlot City hangs a big lump of clouds. Like ants to unsupervised candies, trails of pegasi fly to and from the lump, carrying supplies and construction material most of which is processed cloud to be processed further by pegasus magic into proper building resources.
To those who could not fly, the pegasus movement can be likened to one of those famed dragon migrations from Equestria. The pegasi were also considerate to them: to allay any fears that non-pegasi would not be able to visit their pegasus friends, there would be regular balloon trips from Canterlot City proper to the new neighborhood in the clouds.
This new neighborhood shall be called Horizons.
Horizons nears completion: only a few buildings are left in the construction phase with several more in the stage of interior design. Paved roads made of flattened and hardened clouds cut across front yards of finer clouds along with the occasional plant—for those with Earth pony lineage in their blood, there are some plants which do grow with clouds as their soil, taking up water from the clouds which is, for all intents and purposes, water in another form anyway: it often leads to the case of “rain” falling upwards to the soil instead of falling upon it from above.
Amid the traffic of pegasi carrying boxes and construction matter, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy carry a big box, the last one their client needs before moving in can be completed, while speeding past stores, houses, and other pegasi that are not as fast as them. Or, at least, not as fast as Rainbow Dash.
“Careful, Dash!” Fluttershy’s voice carries above the whirl of the wind. “We’re not supposed to go too fast with—“
“I know, I know!” She rolls her eyes but not too much—have to stay focused on what’s ahead of her. “But, seriously, it’s just wood. Intricately carved wood, yeah, and only most of it is wood, but it’s wood. I can make it fall at terminal velocity sideways and there won’t be any damage. Okay, not much damage—”
“Rainbow!” The glare would have turned into the Stare.
Good thing Rainbow is not Angel. “Just guessing, Fluttershy! Hey, right turn!”
They turn around the last bend, the two pegasi shifting the box’s weight so that none of the wooden pieces there would fall or otherwise scratch itself in the impact.
There’s the house. They slow down and gently put the box down by the front door. Fancy columns fixed into the walls greet them, reminding the pegasi of the ancient city of Airthens across the Amblantic Ocean. Unlike the architecture of Airthens, however, the cloud abode is not all straight: the ceiling is slanted, even curves at spots, giving the house a cartoonish look. It does not strike them as weird, for most other houses in Horizons are like that—a lot of Cloudsdale houses they saw from their trip there also had that look, to be attributed to how clouds aren’t straight lines. Horizons is only following the taste, aesthetic and practical, of the engineers and architects hailing from Cloudsdale and other cloud cities back in Equestria.
Rainbow knocks on the door. No hoofsteps to watch out for. Instead, her ears perk at the flapping of wings.
The door opens to reveal a happy pegasus family, all hovering above the floor made of cloud.
“Finally!” The father is a red stallion with a metal heart for a cutie mark. “You brought the board and tabletop games! Are they all in peak condition?”
“You bet, Mister Ferrum Heart!” Rainbow rips the box open.
The whole family poke their heads into it. They see it all: checkers, chess, backgammon, the Equestrian import of the guessing strategy game Cloud Grid, and a couple wargames with their numerous miniatures of insane detail.
“We’re glad you’re absolutely right!” The white-coated Trotpowski with a hint of a thick Russhaft accent is the mother; Rainbow recognizes the chess’s queen piece on her cutie mark—only to wince since it reminded her of when she played chess with Twilight, lost in four moves to her queen, and called chess lame. “We were very worried that things wouldn’t be the same since we’ve all turned into pegasi. Our daughter just couldn’t stay still without our family-bonding game nights, now that she can pace around the room in the z-dimension too.”
Fluttershy nods before turning to the parents’ teenage daughter. “And… um, I’m sorry for forgetting your name, miss, but what’s your name again?”
“It’s Cozy Glow!” declares the young mare. Her mane can be likened to a messy shelf of scrolls somehow tied together by the white ribbon at the top. If it were not for politeness, Rainbow would have groaned at the rook which is Cozy’s cutie mark. “Hanging out with Scootaloo and her Movie Club is sure fun, but it’s never the same when I’m always watching their movies and they don’t get to play some Battlemallet Seventy-Thousand with me!”
“I told you, Cozy,” Ferrum begins, “they’re just not that interested in a dark lore-heavy wargame, tragic as that may be. You’ve asked them like a dozen times by now.”
But Cozy Glow ignores her father, going straight to Rainbow Dash. “You know Scootaloo, right? Can you… can you tell her that Battlemallet is just so cool?”
The multi-colored pegasus eyes her back—the teenager’s name has felt familiar, but she shrugs it off. “I’ve never even heard of Battlemallet Seventy-Thousand.”
“It has battles, wars, mechas, tanks, and lasers… all that and more in space!”
That settles it. “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind when I get around to Scootaloo!” Looking to the parents and past their withers—the living room is already well provided, complete with a wireless television (she left the matter of sky electricity to the Cloudsdale engineers). “So, is that everything for you guys?”
Trotpowski nods with a grin shiny enough to blind the visitors after a few concentrated seconds of staring. “Thank you all for your big help with these moving boxes. Now we can finally lay down and take up our new lives in the clouds.”
With farewells being said, the two spunky teenage pegasi leave the house and have the door gently close behind them.
“That went off without a hitch,” says Fluttershy, remembering how sweet Cozy Glow was.
“You tell me!” Dash glances at the orange sky, a sign that sunset nears. “Looks like we’ll watch that Daring Do movie right in time! Still wanna come? Scoots is comin’ too, and—“
One huge flap and one whoosh of falling wind later, Twilight Sparkle lands right behind them. One big gasp after that, she asks, “Just to check, uh, are you my Equestrian friends or my local-universe friends?”
“Princess Twilight?” Fluttershy asks, fearful of royalty coming straight out of nowhere to her, although she was and still is her friend and even then as pen pals only for now. “Wh-what are you doing here?
“Haven’t you heard the news?!” Her wings flap in panic. “We’ve just wrapped up another Class A disaster—“
“The one with the failed attempt to drain magic from Equestria for, like, an hour?” Rainbow proposes.
“It would’ve been days were it not for the extra help from this world,” Twilight manages to get out of her hungry-for-air mouth, “but one hour is already bad enough!” Her eyes check her pegasus friends wildly. “I just… well, I have a new counterpart to check villain-wise.”
“Let me guess,” Rainbow starts: “pegasus, since you’re up here?”
“Yes! Now, have you heard of a filly named Cozy Glow?”
The pegasi’s eyes shrink into pinpricks. “Cozy… Glow?” Fluttershy asks, her voice quieter and higher with each syllable.
Astute enough to catch Rainbow’s nervous glance towards the house, Twilight trots up to Cozy Glow’s home. “Don’t worry, Fluttershy. It’s just a few questions and then I’ll be off. Hopefully.”
Rainbow Dash sighs as the paranoid princess knocks on the door. Still, the pegasus understands: with two worlds to consider, there are two world-sized sources of trouble to worry about.
She understands, even if she does not like it.
I mean, how fragile is Equestria anyway, Twilight? Did a schoolfilly just wreak havoc on your world or what?