Child of Mine

by Starscribe


Chapter 52: Arrival Lotus

Twilight spent most of the flight in the Radiant Hope's bridge, making occasional adjustments to their flightpath with the tracking spell. After being redirected once, it crossed her mind that they might be heading in the wrong direction, and that only more of Flurry's magic would be waiting for them up north. Maybe Theresa had only acted supportive, and intended to warn her allies to move Flurry somewhere else.

Twilight could imagine that, but some part of her had a hard time accepting it. After months of exposure to another frightened mother, she thought she could judge the sincerity. Theresa was terrified for her children, and desperate for any hope of having them returned.

She shared all this with Cadance, emphasizing how much the family of aliens had cared for Flurry, and everything they'd sacrificed. A child had given up his whole life to keep her safe. 

Slowly, over hours of flight, her words seemed to make an impact. Cadance’s nervous anger faded to the exhaustion that must lurk just beneath the surface of everything she did. While he had failed to keep Flurry in place long enough for rescue, the alien named Kyle might have prevented a war.

"When my daughter is returned, I'll have to... think of some suitable reward for this pony and his family," Cadance said. "What do you think an alien would want?"

Twilight shrugged. "We can ask. Though there is something else you should consider." She checked the spell again, feeling the tug. They were getting closer now, very close. "Captain, reduce speed to one quarter and begin to descend. Prepare to stop, but don't drop anchor. I'll need to go to the ground personally to fine-tune the position. We're moving too quickly to take precise readings."

"Aye, Princess." The crystal pony saluted, then repeated her orders to his helmsmare. "You've chosen quite the vacation spot for us, if you'll excuse my saying so. Many uncharted mountains and strange winds. If we stop too soon, there may be no place for the Radiant Hope to land."

"Meaning, Captain?" Cadance turned on him, returning to her fury in an eye-blink. "Are you telling me I won't be able to retrieve my daughter because of some piles of rock and wind?"

"N-no, your majesty." He shifted uneasily, not meeting her eyes. Even a captain gray with many years of sailing struggled under the pressure of an Alicorn. "We will find a way. But the Radiant Hope is not a small creature, nor a very nimble one. If the winds keep up, we may need to ferry any ponies to the surface in landing-craft, then ascend to great height and wait to retrieve you. He pointed out the domed front window with one hoof. "If it pleases you, you'll see there is no field large enough to land anywhere in view. These winds... I'm seeing gusts as high as eighty knots. If we get a strong lateral current while anchored, it could sheer the gasbag."

The Alicorn glared for a moment more, then shrugged her wings and turned away. "I will trust to your expertise, Captain Stern. My sister will give you the destination. However you think best, you will establish a camp where she suggests. How soon after we land can your equipment be ready, Twilight?"

"A day," she answered. "And no, there is no way to make it faster. The calibration on my reconfigurable Worldgate must be exactly perfect. You saw the months of trial and error we spent to find that world. 'Close enough' does not exist for transiting the multiverse. Configuration must be exact."

Cadance nodded, slumping into her seat. "You've been around me too long, Twilight. Thank you for your help. You don't know how much this means to me."

She nodded, even though it wasn't true.

A few hours later, and Twilight was on the ground, with Rainbow just beside her. None of the others had come, and it was no mystery why. Captain Stern hadn't been exaggerating about the dangers here. She was probably imagining things, but it felt as though whatever faction had taken Flurry had moved her to a deliberately hard-to-reach place.

The trees here were massive, old-growth pines of a species she'd never seen, growing so close together that even finding space for a rowboat would be tricky. 

The tracker didn't just take her to a forest, though, but up a slope of black crags, with jutting spires of rock sharp enough to cut flesh. They glided all the way to its summit, then navigated down through the trees until they found a narrow strip of flat land. There was no plateau at the top, or anywhere to put a comfortable camp.

"Seems like this place doesn't want us here," Rainbow said, touching down behind her a second later. "Buck, Twi. I don't have to ask why the Empire never built any villages up here."

"Yeah." Twilight didn't turn around, her eyes only for the tracker. She lowered the metal ring all the way to the ground, and still it pulled her. About a hundred meters, though she wouldn't be sure until she followed it. "This isn't good."

"You can say that again." Rainbow shivered, pulling a scarf tighter around her neck. "I thought that other world was cold without fur, but I could sure use a jacket about now. At least there's no snow."

"Yet," Twilight muttered. "No weather factories up here, no schedules. We could get a blizzard any moment."

"Not quite any moment. Weather science is a little more predictable than that, even without teams controlling it." Rainbow took off, spinning in a low circle with her eyes scanning the horizon. After a few seconds she turned back to Twilight. "With all these peaks, we could get a gale any minute. Whatever camp they build will want to be extra reinforced."

Twilight nodded. She didn't think the princess would be happy with the delay, but they didn't exactly have much choice. Her crew needed somewhere perfectly stable to work. Portal magic wasn't frontier science.

And she was right—about an hour later, when they were back on the bridge, the princess wasn't happy. "What do you mean the tracker was pointing underground?"

"A few hundred meters," Twilight said. "Given how similar the geography seems from our world to Flurry's, I'm guessing there are caves, and Flurry was taken deep inside them. Whoever has her doesn't want to lose her."

"We won't be asking their permission," Cadance said, rising from her chair. "Captain, prepare the corps of engineers. Princess Twilight will give you the dimensions for whatever facility she needs. We'll build nothing else on the surface and ferry needed supplies between this vessel and the ground. How long can we stay here before we need to resupply?"

The captain looked thoughtful. From Cadance’s expression, he was probably taking a little too long to answer. "We can make our own hydrogen if it comes to that," he said. "Probably we could gather water out there. Not food, though; my crew are sailors, not bivouacking soldiers. Two weeks. If we have to stay longer, we can radio down to Flurry's Vigil and establish a supply-line. Is two weeks long enough?"

"Yes," Twilight said, without hesitation. "It will only take my crew a day when they have somewhere stable to work. We don't know what's waiting on the other side, but I don't think it will take that long to get one foal." And if they don't give her up, we might have to do a little fighting. Hopefully they give up quickly.

"I would rather excavate directly to her and build the portal wherever that is," Cadance continued. "I wonder how long it would take to bring a diamond dog digging crew this far north."

"At least a week," Stern said. "That's assuming there's a willing crew waiting for hire in the Empire as we speak. We had Princess Twilight guiding us directly to this spot. But the land this far north is poorly charted. We would have to relay back instructions to find us by radio. To be safe, nothing without its own receiver should bring them. That means at least a destroyer to plod its way up here, making wrong turns and starts along the way. That's why I asked about our plans to stay, princesses. If we need to establish a line of supply, I would need to start now, not when hunger sets in."

"Too long," Twilight said.

Cadance looked up, eyes widening in surprise. Did she expect Twilight would want more delays?

"There might be magical forces on the other side," she continued. "We already know there are spellcasters, whatever form they might take. They realize that Flurry is from another world, and now that we've been seen searching for her they know somepony might want her back."

"You think they moved her to get away from us?" Cadance asked. "Not some authority on that side? Not the... Body Invisible?"

"I don't know," Twilight said. "But we know some things. They already moved Flurry once. Given how dramatic our last visits went, I think they'll figure out we're coming for her."

Cadance stopped inches away, her voice a harsh whisper. "Do you think we need more soldiers? Should we send an army to rescue her?"

"No." Twilight matched her voice, grateful that their conversation wouldn't have to spread all over the ship. "If we wait too long, their spellcasters might have some way of sensing our arrival on this side. They could move Flurry again. But if we send too much force, there's a chance..."

She winced, but there was no way to sugarcoat it. They needed to consider every possibility. "We don't know who her captors are like. We don't know how much power the alien protecting her has. We should treat this with the caution of a hostage situation. If we push too hard, her kidnappers might... make sure we never get her back."

Cadance stiffened. She nodded slowly. "But if we don't push hard enough, we don't get her back. Are you suggesting we negotiate instead?"

"One possibility. It might be our best option, if we think they're trustworthy enough to keep promises. My plan is to cross with a small team and gather information about the other side. A Worldgate opening nearby will be impossible for any local spellcasters to miss, so we won't stay secret for long."

"How many creatures can we send at once?" Cadance asked. "If they'll sense our arrival, then we need enough to be a threat. Enough to bring Flurry back. I would swallow the indignity of paying a ransom for her return, if we thought it would work. But we need to be prepared for a refusal."

Twilight considered the question from a purely theoretical point of view. Strictly speaking, Cadance knew more about anything military than she did. Twilight had fought a few terrible battles with other spellcasters, but in each one she had been alone. She didn't know how to command an army. 

Cadance might be blinded by her feelings for her daughter, but she still knew more about this mission than Twilight could. She would have to trust her tactical sense, and hope that she could think clearly. "If we packed ponies in as closely as possible, we could bring a dozen with the equipment I prepared," Twilight said. "We could make multiple trips with more, opening the Worldgate maybe... once an hour."

Such a schedule would quickly work her crew to exhaustion. But so long as they didn't have to sustain it for long, they would manage. By necessity, Twilight trusted those ponies with her life.

"But there's one catch." Twilight lifted her emergency-return necklace. "I only have one of these, created over weeks of precision spellcasting. I can't make more out here, or quickly. That means a large group must return to the exact position of the Worldgate and exactly the right time, or else be left behind in another world. If they guess we have this vulnerability, they might use it against us."

"I will consult my husband and consider our options," Cadance said. "Instruct your crew to prepare for the largest possible group. They may not need to bring so many, but it would be better to overprepare. As for now, I'm going down to assist the construction myself. Cutting trees by hoof would be far too slow."