“’Yun na! I’ll pull now!” and Ivory Trunk gallops off, hitched wagons in tow away from the airplane, onto the tarmac.
Under severe lights at half past four in the morning, blasted by the whirring of an airplane shutting down, a coffee-powered Earth pony pulls through with a couple wagons’ worth of baggage. Despite noisy aircraft’s fumes blasting around, her coat stays pristinely white and her pink tail remains squeaky clean of soot and dirt. The uniform helps if barely: reflective vest and a super shiny ID clipped on it, complete with her trunk bag cutie mark.
Past an opening, she enters the baggage handling facility—staff only. Fresh scent of baggage from days gone by as mostly empty conveyor belts loop around in a neatly ordered labyrinth. The airplane has come over from Manila; most of its baggage were just in standard sizes and shapes; no odd-size stuff like a surfboard or an electric guitar. She guesses it’s mostly business people on that plane, rolling up to Clark Global City to deal with companies’ summer marketing promotions.
Ivory stops at one of the belts, unhitches herself from the wagon, takes the baggage out with her human co-workers providing strength in numbers. One bag down at a time, make sure Clark-bound baggage are separated from transfers to another plane. Nothing said between them, only the synergy to put them down in a rhythm—blue bag down, red luggage down, occasional strikingly yellow bag, back to the usual blue or red or gray or white. Some terribly heavy bag over here which she can still carry with her mouth; mouth strength surprised her crew when she first came along under Clark International Airport’s initiative to lessen expenses by utilizing Earth pony strength and using fewer gas-powered trolleys. No other pony has taken up the offer within the six months the advertisement’s been out.
After heavy-lifting all the baggage, she gasps, tongue rolling out, sits down by a wallside chair, rests her weary back and legs. Some of her partners sit down by her, others go on to handle customer service—extra staff in the wee hours for security and what not; pays extra, though won’t work for too long—sun’s coming up soon.
With a tired sigh, Ivory scans her group of seatmates. Though her shift started out talkative, everyone’s quiet at the final stretch: sweaty Matias here texting on his phone, commenting on some funny YouTube video of a dragon doing a backflip; thirsty Gavino taking a breather and consuming heavy streams of water from his nigh-endless bottle; sleepy Alfonso taking a sitting five-minute nap, head down as humming conveyor belts and echoing footsteps lull him to sleep.
The sight of Matias gives Ivory an idea: her phone! Out of her vest pocket comes her phone. Four forty-two: the end is near. One more airplane coming in five or so minutes. Not much happens this time of the year. June’s among the weakest months for airplanes here: the tropical summer is too hot for Americans or Europeans to bear, children are going back to school from their months-long summer vacation in the country, and the month’s holidays are too short to warrant a family trip to the virgin white shores of Boracay.
A couple swipes into some messaging app tailor-made to connect Earth and Equestria’s dimensions—used some combination between arcane magic on Equestria’s end and advanced technology on Earth’s—
Two friends online. Her little group chat.
She presses the call button, holding it up to her on-the-alert ear.
Although the screaming died down half an hour ago, the human still trembles as he holds on for dear life in the flying carriage, remains of adrenaline still pumping through his veins as the night’s cool breeze washes him with chill to the rhythmic flapping of bat pony wings pulling the vehicle across the sky.
“Heto!” yells the bat pony, Free Wheel. Rough, in an accent trying too hard. “Dito na tayo!”
The human passenger understands, peering down to see the reflection of the shallow Magat River bordered by house and sari-sari store lights, joined by the fellow lights of other roadside shops clearing up a small narrow portion of the national highway.
Touchdown, on the ground. Free Wheel breathes a sigh of relief as jingling money rattles out of the passenger’s wallet, accepts the payment with her wing of skin.
With one client walking away and into, presumably, his home, she stretches her wing out to receive payment from her other passengers: two mares.
“That was a fun ride, Wheelie!” shouts the candy-hued unicorn, letting down her ribbon-strewn mane and tail. “Too bad Weatherwise couldn’t be here, Hot Shot—“ she turns to her chili-colored Earth companion thrillingly prancing in place “—but at least we got a pony ride through the clouds, no?” Turning back to their driver, “And it was a nice surprise seeing you here! I thought you’d be in New York or something ‘cause they have all those yellow taxis like Manehattan!”
“Yeah, no,” and Free Wheel hitches her wagon to a nearby tree. Places a Pony Driver on Break sign across her wagon before locking it. A few cars pass by on the highway, lights cutting across people-lively darkness: some people setting up shop early on, others karaoke-ing in a little shanty of a bar. “Way too expensive there. Mean bits to get a place in NYC. Too much air traffic for now, they said.”
“Aww,” and Hot Shot whimpers. “But it’s more peaceful here, right? Just hanging around in the countryside giving joy-Uber-rides?”
“Beats traffic when you can get over the cars, yeah?”
The bat pony looks across the street: big lights on, building screaming dark green paint, and that smell—she salivates, licks her lips, bares her fangs. “Well, well, well…”
And her passengers look across, too. The lit-up interior uncovers a few hungry customers milling around or eating or waiting at the counter, some vending machines humming at the back, the meaty chop! of a thick blade hewing through piles of young green coconuts at a stall outside the building, a line outside to get coconut juice—
“Buko Pie ni Buan,” Skittles says, reading the sign. “Buan’s Buko Pie! And buan means moon, so coconut moon pie?”
“Or it’s just someone named Buan,” adds Hot Shot. “Imagine that, though: Princess Emeritus Luna baking coconut pie!”
“Ah, you and your fancy words! So, Free Wheel—“
“Yes, you can join me for my breakfast break.”
The other two passengers eee! in excitement as they cross the street, looking both left and right though the road’s empty, ignorant of the stares of locals who’ve rarely witnessed Equestrians visiting this out-of-the-way slice of the road.
From there, the smell only heightens, beckons them, as they approach. That toasted smell of hot fresh pie; it’s close to the fruit pies they’ve had, the apple pies all the way from Sweet Apple Acres’, the orange pies hailing from the Northeast, all the other fruit pies under the sun making their own deliveries around Equestria—
“I’m getting the juice first!” and Skittles trots to the start of the line, already looking up at the back of someone’s shirt, leans to the side to see the coconut-cutting and juice-making magic.
Free Wheel sighs as she waits in line there, graced by the night’s chill and the quiet chatter of people in line and even across the street, tending to their stores—the crack of a bottle from the bar; someone must’ve slipped. No fights, fortunately.
It’s a long wait, agonizing.
Coconuts are nice to eat, refreshing to drink from with their frigid thirst-busting abilities, but that tortuously delicious scent of baked pies—her heightened sense of smell catching sweet baked coconut blended with crumbly delectable crust—but not just coconut! Mangoes forming luscious mango pies, and small yet abundant pineapple slices to make pineapple pies, too: tropical overload to the max! Drinking juice straight from a chopped-up coconut will have to wait, must wait—
“And here ya’ go, Wheelie!”
Shoved right onto her face: a shaved, cut-down coconut, a straw sticking out of it. Shoved there by the colorful abomination that is Skittles.
“Come on!” she cries, beckoning the bat pony to follow Hot Shot into the shop. “We’re gonna go in and—“
Bells alarming, vibrating, from her saddlebags. Grabs bystanders’ looks, curious or irritated.
“Whoops! You go on! Gimmie a sec!”
And following Hot Shot, Free Wheel enters the little bakery.
Coconut pies, boxes of them, stacks of them on the counter; someone wearing gloves and a GrabFood shirt to match the GrabFood motorcycle outside—food delivery service on humans’ phone apps—but back inside, ignoring the seconds-long curious stares from the humans already eating there along with the staff’s cheerful greetings (in English for the Equestrians), there again lay fruit pies galore, those toothsome smells ascending the peak. Some real meals are served—stir-fried pork noodles, for one—but it’s all about pies and coconuts for even the vending machines at the back hold bottled ice-cold coconut juice. All of these, good ways to round out Wheel’s work; just one or two more trips after this stop and she can call it a night.
“Ivory?!”
All the diners turn to the suddenly-shouting Skittles levitating her phone to her perked-up ears, frozen in ecstatic surprise.
“Wow! You’re calling us?!”
“Wait, that’s Ivory?!” and Hot Shot gallops to her, planting her muzzle to the phone. “Aaaahhh! Hello, Ivory! Long time, no see! I can’t believe we forgot you worked here, too! And you won’t believe this! Remember when we bumped into somepony called Free Wheel a year ago back home? Well, she’s here and she just took us for a trip!”
The bat pony rubs her eyes, that incident coming to mind: a bunch of happy-go-lucky mares encountered over Hearth’s Warming, seeing if the wagon-driver can carry them for a joyride in the skies, all while screaming and fawning over the bat pony from far-away Saddle Pintonio. At least she got paid for that last stint of hers before moving to Earth for lucrative opportunities, catering to humans who’ve never thought of cheap flying taxis until now.
The happy mares don’t mind her much, so occupied with Ivory that a heartbroken gasp escapes Skittles’ throat. “I know that tone from anywhere!” and her eyes water. Chokes a little. “You… you miss us don’t you?”
While the phone is hard to hear, Free Wheel can discern the words from the other side: “I… I can’t hide it, can I? I… I really do miss you. It’s not as cramped here as Seaddle, but… you know, not many ponies come around here even with the portal just a few halls away. Not too many familiar faces here. All of it’s still so new to me…”
“You need a hug!” declares Skittles. “But if only—“
And rumbling. Nervous giggling from the other side.
“Oh no! You’re not just lonely but hungry, too!”
“That’s fine. I… have some chocolate bars with me, and we’ve got some stalls there. Just need to get some cookies and pie and I’ll be back in—“
“Did you say pie?!”
Skittles flips the phone around, turns on the video, lights up the phone’s flash—
Against the bat pony’s light-sensitive eyes.
“Eeek!” and Free Wheel falls out of her chair. Though the others look by, she quickly wingflaps back onto her chair, busying herself and glaring at everyone else who dared witness her misfortune. No, I’m fine; that was just a mistake. We all make mistakes, we all fall out of chairs once in a while. Who are you to throw stones at me, huh?
“Oops! Sorry there, Wheelie!” and Skittles turns the camera away from the bat pony to the counter. “We’re over here with Buan’s buko pies!”
“Who’s Buan?” calls Ivory.
“Name of the store!” Then Skittles’ eyes twinkle with whimsy. “There’s an idea! Ivory, what do you say to ten of these pies?”
“Ten?!” and her stomach rumbles once again. “That’d be great! I’m starving over here, so if you—“
“On it!” and Hot Shot hops off her chair and trots to the counter, ignorant of the menus already laid out on the table.
The woman at the counter—Estrella, according to the name tag—greets her with a grin and minimal, accent sunny over her emerald apron. “What will you have tonight, ma’am?”
The chili pony gesticulates wildly with both forehooves, standing on her hind legs. “Ten of your finest buko pies for a dear friend in dire need!”
Estrella blinks once, unfazed. “Would that be for take-out, ma’am?”
“Yup!” and the pony slams down a thick wad of twenty-peso bills.
Takes the money halfway across the counter, not into the cash register yet. “Would you like anything else?”
“Uh, yeah... what about that bottled coconut water or something? Buko juice? Four for us, please!” Quickly reads the menu behind the counter and coughs up the extra money in coins.
“That would be no problem, ma’am! You can get your bottles there at the back,” and Estrella gestures at the vending machines.
After the cash is counted, it’s all put away with a ding from the cash register. Estrella shouts amicably at the kitchen in the back, “Ramon, Ora! Sampung buko pie!”
Hot Shot returns with bottles on her back, hopping to the side of Skittles who turns the phone around for everyone to see a familiar Ivory Trunk, imposing columns, snaking conveyor belts, and stray bits of a co-worker’s face caught in the camera.
“Say hi, Matias!” and Ivory points the phone at the human.
For a second, he is a deer in the headlights. Though Matias is confused, he manages a wave before going back to his phone.
“Hello there!” That’s Hot Shot waving at the human. “Oh, Ivory—“ and she sits back on her chair “—we finally got your pies!”
“Aww! That’s… I didn’t know you’d do that for me!” Ivory turns the phone back to her, a huge smile stretching across the portrait-oriented screen. “Hot and fresh from the oven, oh and—“ tongue rolls out, dreamy eyes looking up, stomach rumbling again “—and to imagine that we were pulling all that luggage first day on the job! You couldn’t believe it if I sent you all those pictures; one of them told me I was literally eating like a horse! Boodle fight, wasn’t it? Like banana leaves, and they were just eating with their hands—but it was New Year’s, and there were lots of wagons of baggage and food!”
“Yup!” and Skittles licks her lips, the grand reunion with her friend already set in the stone of her mind. “Now which airport are you working in? It’s Bagabag Airport, right? It’s just some miles north of here according to my GPS. We can get Wheelie on the way there, too!“
Free Wheel almost spits out the buko juice from her mouth, retching some of it back into her huge coconut bowl/cup through her straw. She pays them no mind, going back to her drink: more money on the way, and the journey’s not too taxing.
“Yeah... sadly, no.”
Her friends, bewildered at Ivory’s response. “What do you mean, no?” asks a disheartened Skittles, hogging the phone with her frowning muzzle.
“Uh, I’m at Clark. Clark International Airport.” A loud cartoon gulp can be heard from the phone. “Where exactly are you?”
“Uh, near Bagabag Airport? We just hung out with Free Wheel for the ride when we were taking some rideshares on the highway. Ya’ know, road trip but you don’t own the carriage and you gotta switch it up once in a while but it’s not too expensive because the exchange rate for bits and pesos is so high—“
“That’s about two hundred kilometers from here,” Free Wheel says.
And they wheel their heads at her, asking without words.
Free Wheel is nonplussed. She shrugs with her leather wings, rests her hooves on the table. “What? It’s far away. A couple of provinces away. You’d need... I don’t know, four to five hours on a car to get there.”
“But then the pies won’t be hot and fresh anymore!” Hot Shot says as if backstabbed by the pies themselves; smacks herself on the head. “Argh! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Not your fault. Clark isn’t the first airport people think about when you say world-class. Still, you gotta apologize for—“
“We’re not canceling our order!” Skittles yells, half-standing on the table to shock the humans in the room.
It persuades Free Wheel to slap her forehead in disbelief, to rub her temples with a headache coming on. “You can eat pie right here, right now, and I’m pretty sure the gals at Clark have ovens. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Why don’t we get one of those motorcycle guys?” and Skittles points at said motorcycle guy in green uniform. He puts a strap around his stack of pies then walks out of the store to stuff it all in his delivery box at the back of his pair of wheels.
“Delivery fee would be astronomical over two hundred kilometers,” replies Free Wheel. “You’re asking him to drive halfway across the island just to deliver a couple pies while somehow keeping it all fresh like it was just baked five minutes ago. That’s a tall order.”
“Heh, tall order. Heh-heh! Because, you know, it’s literally a tall—“
“Shut up.”
Hot Shot shuffles her hooves about, catching the attention of several diners. A tourist comes by, taking photos of the whole place with particular focus on the ponies, but Hot Shot keeps on—“Okay, what about buying from a nearby branch? I’ll go ask!”
She gallops back to the counter, beating said tourist to the counter and ignoring Free Wheel reading the menu for information. “Doesn’t say here that they’ve got other branches. Just a couple thanks for eating here.”
“Maybe they just don’t say it on the menu!” argues an adamant Skittles. “Like, you know McDonald’s here; I checked their menus and they don’t have lists of branches on their stuff. Maybe it’s rude on Earth to do that!”
Before Free Wheel pokes any holes in that argument, Hot Shot returns with hanging head and sagging tail. “This is the only branch they have. Small family business, basically.”
Free Wheel folds the menu closed. “Told ya’.”
But that doesn’t stop Hot Shot from racking her head, sometimes truly banging her head against the table, for ideas. “What if we get a sample of buko pie and get—“
“Ten buko pies for Hot Shot!” shouts Estrella from the counter
Said mare grabs the pies, thanks the lady for her time, compliments their speed at baking (“We keep it heated at all times, ma’am.”), and makes it back to the table with the pies standing precariously on her back, Skittles finally levitating the boxes onto the table.
“Now where was I?” She picks up her own phone, the one with a stylus so she can write with her mouth. “What if we take a taste of the pie and then we list down the ingredients so we can extrapolate a recipe from there?”
“And you think she’s got the energy or the time to bake a pie while she’s at work?” Free Wheel points out.
And Hot Shot sighs, resorting to a blank expression.
“Look,” Ivory’s voice pops out from the phone, “it’s okay. Thanks for the gesture, girls, but I can handle this on my own. We’ve got buko pies here anyway—“
“But were they made with love and care like Applejack does with her apple pies?” Skittles asks, close to accusing, hoof bumping her screen.
“Uh, I think they do! Otherwise, they wouldn’t be making the pies in the first place. But hey, food’s food, right?
“And hey, we can talk through the phone. Catching up with each other... that’s more important than any physical gift you can ever give me. That’s... that’s what they say, right? Friendship is magic? Not ‘food is magic?’”
“Yeah, and I’m starving,” butts in Free Wheel, “so let’s eat some magic—I mean, food, right?”
“Yay, you can eat with us, Wheelie!”
She groans at Ivory’s enthusiasm.
Equestrian enthusiasm aside, Hot Shot opens up the first box of pie on the table.
Steaming, delicious coconut pie, sliced into eighty hefty triangles of scrumptiously sweet fruitiness, crust soft yet firm enough to hold everything together, smells tempting enough to water tongues and mouths to the brim. Skittles floats a piece into the air, examining the inside: slices of coconut stacked in white-gray stripes upon layers of thick, juicy condensed milk.
“Oh, wow!” Hot Shot yells. “It’s tropical custard pie! This is... wow, amazingly tasty—!“
“You haven’t even tasted it yet,” says Free Wheel before chomping into her own slice.
She halts. Her eyes open, irises shrink. Crumbly, sticky, that milky sweetness attacking her, stomach begging for more—
“That hits the spot!” and Hot Shot sucks in some more coconut juice from the bottle. “I... wow, I didn’t know you can even make pies with coconut, let alone make one that’s so good!”—all while the counter staff overhear the compliment, congratulating themselves at this extradimensional seal of approval.
“And hey, I’ve tried some of that frozen apple pie from Las Pegasus,” Skittles goes on. “It’s nothing like real apple pie! Do they even have somepony’s name on that pie stand in the airport?” Although her stomach rumbles too, she half-stands up on the table again. “Ivory!”
But the phone’s gone blank. Call’s dead.
A long, drawn-out sigh, the room getting colder around her as her ears droop. “Guess she got busy.”
“Yeah,” and Free Wheel stuffs her face with another slice of pie, scarfing it greedily. A loud gulp later, “Let’s eat more of this delicious pie. I’m sure you can give her another gift when you’re actually there—“
Skittles pulls out a scroll and several glowing magic stones from her bag.
It’s enough to get nearby customers looking, pointing, mumbling among themselves. Free Wheel slowly leans away from the table to stay safe from “that dangerous unicorn mumbo jumbo.” It’s certainly enough to have Estrella sauntering to the offending table to firmly say, “Ma’am, that seems does not look safe—“
“Free Wheel,” says Hot Shot like an interrogator, “can you take us there in half an hour?”
“Why half an hour?!”
“It says so on the box!” and she shoves an unopened pie box in front of her.
On the side, small text reads, Eat within thirty (30) minutes for the freshest experience! Consume within three (3) days.
Free Wheel’s expression can be likened to that of a confused parent. “What makes you think that?! I’m not a Wonderbolt!”
Skittles rubs her hooves and aims her horn at her nifty scroll, the tinkling bells of magic ringing on. “Then we teleport for Ivory!”
And the bat pony spits out freshly-drunk coconut juice onto Skittles’ face. “That’s a spell only advanced magic students can perform and definitely not over hundreds of miles! What are you, some magic prodigy from Celestia’s School of Gifted Unicorns?”
“Not the prodigy part, but I did graduate from there.” Skittles brandishes a smirk while she wipes her face clean from juice. “Plus, I also had this theory about how Earth has gained ley lines thanks to the magic portals, so I brought along some spells and stones to test that theory out, and now—hey, teleportation? Since the portal is a huge conduit of magic on Earth which hasn’t experienced any magic until we came along, I’d say… I’ll let the teleportation spell take us to the closest portal! It’ll attract us like magnets and metal!”
“That’s all nice,” Estrella interrupts, striving to maintain a straight smile, “but this may not be the safest place to perform your magic experiments.”
“Don’t worry about it, miss!” says Skittles with a dismissive salute. “It’ll affect only me, my friends, and the pies, and don’t worry about your pies, ma’am! They’ll be fine! I’ve done a couple of these tests back in elementary with Princess Celestia!”
“But you didn’t teleport across the country, you dolt,” mutters Free Wheel.
“I heard that! And I don’t know what your problem is, Wheelie, but—“ wipes her eyes, tears forming “—we didn’t know Ivory was there, we didn’t know she was so close yet so far, and to think we chanced upon this pie place right now when Ivory called us—“ she grabs a surprised Hot Shot by the withers, shakes her back and forth. “You know what this means? This is destiny! This is harmony! It’s calling out to me! Oh, the ley lines are manifesting on Earth! These coincidences aren’t coincidences anymore!”
A suffocating Hot Shot mewls, “Uh, Skittles? You’re scaring me—“
“Don’t worry! I’ve got this!”
And with a cry, Skittles casts an overflowing river of magic into the stones, sucking up the magic from within and redirecting the thaumaturgical energy into the scroll, running through its complicated schematics—imagining the place so far yet so near, looking up the location on her phone complete with images and GPS coordinates to ground it in her mind, in her spell—yet all the exertion coursing through her veins, her magic draining and sucking dry, coursing back to her and coursing nowhere else, disintegration and exhaustion seeping into her brain—“N-need more power!”
Free Wheel and Hot Shot, pleading for her to stop for her own sake. Everyone else, whipped up into a panic, taking photos, videos, and calls, retreating from the precarious pony zone. Estrella, dialing 911 for medical services despite the lack of magic departments in any of the local hospitals or clinics; rest of staff, ready to evacuate everyone at a moment’s notice.
From the kitchen, “...sigurado ka ba, Ora? Baka masaktan ka!”
“Don’t worry!” Ora shouts back. “I won’t get hurt, I promise! I’ve seen this before!”
Loud steps, and Ora rushes out of the kitchen, revealing herself to the public, fast on her legs to the ponies’ table to put down a couple magic artifacts from her own pouch.
Hot Shot turns with a gasp. “Huh?! Thanks for the help, Miss Ora—wha?! I-is that—”
“That spell is not optimized,” replies Ora, name tag reading Direct Orate. The sepia unicorn levitates a scroll from her bag, similar to Skittles’. “Try this one. I got into the Canterlot Archives back in my time in Celestia’s school. Helped me make the right modifications to the usual advanced teleportation spell so—“
“Orie?!” and Skittles looks there, eyes blanked out thanks to the strong surge of magic combusting around her. “Orie, is that you? I knew it! Harmony has brought us together tonight to save Ivory!”
She stops her magic, silencing the magic hum, shutting off all the light of her mystical energy, then drops her phone from her magic grip—which Hot Shot catches.
Takes up Orie’s scroll, sheepishly asks, “So, uh, wanna do this together?”
“And combine our magic reserves?”
“...wait, but you’ll be leaving your work on a one-way trip!”
Orate shrugs with a smile. “I’m clocking out at five anyway.“ Turns to Estrella who walked a little closer once the magic subsided. “Mag-oovertime po ako bukas, ma'am. Sasakay po ako ng eroplano pabalik dito.”
Her boss nods slowly, slowly backing to the counter, preparing her announcement to everyone present that everything will be fine—
Magic blasts from both unicorns, fired at the pies with crashes and crackles, engulfing an excited Hot Shot and a screaming Free Wheel, all floating up in the air, arcs of magic lightning branching out across the bakery—
Ivory hung up the call before Orie came in: an airplane departing for Vancouver, and there’s much baggage to be had again. Shakes her head at her friends, but silently wishes them safety after answering questions from her curious co-workers about said friends—if that was magic they were pulling off; some comments about the pies—it’s good, they say, so at least her friends weren’t exaggerating.
By the power of her powerful jaw and her sturdy back, she hauls stacks of baggage into the wagons one by one, picking them up from the conveyor belt. The usual sizes and shapes; again, no surfboards or anything odd or indicative of a family vacation or a concert tour. She then hitches herself to the wagon train and makes her own departure onto the tarmac outside, into cool twilight.
The airplane, close to starting up under a brightening sky. Clouds part to reveal a violet canvas, stars twinkling out.
Loading it up the airplane’s ramp, feeding the baggage into the super-huge vehicle with the help of her team. As the seconds tick by in her head—to imagine that the baggage she held with her own hooves would be halfway around the world in just half a day. If only protocol did not bar her from putting personalized stickers and signatures on the rather drab bags.
Once it’s all done, Ivory wipes the sweat off her brow and turns back. The tube connecting the terminal to the airplane already fills up, passengers walking their way into a long trip across the Pacific Ocean, never mind the severe jet lag. The rest of the tarmac: sparse crew scattered across, blinking air traffic control tower lights in her periphery, soft illuminations of quiet villages and the harsh construction lights of a newborn skyscraper city painting out an irregular skyline.
“Eeeee!”
Assaulted by an explosion and a mysterious weight, Ivory trying to fight the weight—an assailant—off, but the two weights overwhelm her in surprise. Gasps, screaming, then looking behind her to see who dared hit her—
“Oh hey! That’s a plane, right?”
Her ears shoot high, on alert. “Wait, what?! Hot Shot?”
“That’s us!” and Hot Shot hops off of her friend, pulling somepony out from underneath her. It’s the bat pony Free Wheel, scratching her head and rubbing her ears, trying to shake off the ringing inside.
Dread, anticipation, fills Ivory’s veins, the mare bouncing in place. “I-it worked?! I… I can’t believe it! You actually did it!”
“Yoo-hoo! The pies are here!”
Skittles there on the tarmac, yelling and waving, pies levitated in her and Orate’s shared magic. Ivory gallops to the pair of unicorns, catching a whiff of their delivery’s wondrous smell. “Wow, is this… no, it can’t be real!”
“It’s real!” and Skittles slaps her on her hardy withers. “And Orie’s here, too! You remember Orie, don’t you? The one I kept talking about in my letters when I was studying in Celestia’s school?”
Ivory gives the newcomer a once-over then extends a hoof out to shake. “Nice to meet you, Orie! And thanks for helping Skittles out!”
“Oh, thanks!” Orie replies with a proper hoofshake before opening a box of truly fresh buko pie.
Skittles takes out a piece, levitating it there for Ivory to take. “So, wanna try—“
“Oh, wait!” then Ivory turns around at her fellow crewmates staring at what just happened, unable to look away from suddenly-appearing pastel equines. “Uh, these are my friends! That’s Skittles and Hot Shot, and that’s my friend’s friend, Orie... and Free Wheel! Nice to see you again, Wheelie!”
The greeting is answered by a groan and a roll of the eyes. “I hope we don’t teleport like that again after the round trip back—“
“Uh—“ Skittles blushes, teeth clattering “—we’re going back the long way. The stones were a one-charge thing, and...” She whistles, sweat dripping down her brow, much to the chagrin of the groaning-again bat pony. At least the crew’s saying their hi’s and hellos, mostly in accented English so the pony visitors would understand, though many of them then head off to the terminal to go on their break or to clock off.
But a woman there, in aproned uniform and all, lost confused eyes taking in her new environment—
“Oops!” Skittles’ blush reddens into tomato territory. “I guess... uh, we brought a surprise visitor, too! Um, welcome to the airport, miss! I hope it’ll be fun for you, Miss Estrella! And there’s some, uh, food... and a taxi... and, planes home, and... we’ve got some gems from the Dragon Lands if you need to pay the ticket fast to get home ASAP and—“
Orie sighs, trotting away from Skittles. “You go take care of the pies, Skits. I’ll take care of my boss,” and she already leads Estrella away, reassuring the misplaced human that it’ll be all okay, they’ll be back in the shop in no time, and that she’ll even work overtime for the rest of the week to compensate—even get to inventing some teleporting pie service she spitballed during lunch break some weeks ago...
“At least we’ve got pie!” and Skittles magically slaps a piece of pie onto Ivory’s open hoof. “Open wide and chow down!”
The hot crust already on her hoof, Ivory lifts precious food to her muzzle and takes a bite—
Ears melt, wilting—Come home to mama!—eyes closed to imagine, to dream, to take in all the wondrous flavors, textures, the perfect balance between crispy and crumbly, between sweet and healthy—“Wow, it’s... wow, wow, wow—!“
“And you said it’s close to break-time, no?” cuts in Skittles, rubbing her horn from magic exhaustion and chuckling all the while.
Skittles licks her mouth clean from crumbs. “Yeah, actually.”
The unicorn gestures to the terminal: lights on, a few in uniform already taking a breakfast break in the cafeteria. “So let’s hang and really get face to face? We can eat over there and get some more drinks, right?”
“Sure can!” and Ivory grabs the bottle of coconut juice from her friend’s telekinesis.
All their fuss done with, the three friends laugh and share stories as pies levitate or get carried on Ivory’s back, heading to the terminal as Ivory cashes in on break time.
“My cart!”
And Free Wheel scrambles to the nearest airplane, asking staff if there’s any trip to Bagabag Airport so she can “get my cart! I left my cart! Argh, why’d I have to get roped into these stupid friendship hijinks?!”