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// 9 - A City Divided 
// Story: Ponyfinder: Potions and Swords 
// by David Silver 
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Peering out the side of the train, Jon could see a city was coming up. "Is that ours?" It had taken several days, though the train was hardly a rough trip. Having pre-paid for drinks and food helped a good deal, and the seating was comfortable too. "I see another city coming up."

They had seen another city, in a forest. It had been quite tall, with lights in all directions. For a moment, the train had been swarmed by smiling faces. They were like ponies, but had insect wings and antennae to go with their eager smiles. Some of them tapped on the windows, but most just buzzed around the train as if it were just fascinating.

A few even came on board, but most were happy to just peer in the windows at the riders. And then the train resumed, and they vanished, darting away from the electrified carriage all at once, as if there had never been flutterponies to start with, a name Aeorean had shared with the others.

Well, except the few that had gotten a ticket. They sat down like every other passenger, though those who sat near them got to talk to them, and they seemed to enjoy chatting.

One of them was near Jon, detecting he was someone who could be approached. "That's Gallopingdam," gushed the excitable female flutterpony with great moth wings. She was curiously monotone compared to most of her people. "I'm moving there."

"Yeah?" Jon hiked a thumb forward at it. "That's where we get paid, not sure what comes after that. Why are you moving?"

"Prism's nice and all." She inclined her head sharply, her deely bobbers bobbing in the motion. "But they have a real color fascination, and I don't have colors." She gestured over herself. "I can't help that I'm a moth. So I'm moving here. Ponies aren't as worried about it, and they'll like the colors I do have."

Jon smiled a little. The moth had shown quite a bit of color of personality. She was cheerful and bright. "You're colorful enough."

"You're a human." She rolled her eyes. "Humans are all brown in different shades and that's the only color they have." She leaned in suddenly, her quivering nose almost touching his. "I guess that makes us similar. Hi!"

Jon chuckled softly at that. "I'm a lighter shade of brown." He wasn't really brown at all? Though arguing shades with the flutter felt silly. "You have a color, and it's a nice one."

"Aw!" She clapped her hooves to either side of her face. "You're flattering! Gosh, wait, is this a... Are you trying to court me?" Rather than looked scandalized, she looked amazed. "I've never been courted before. This is kinda nice. No wonder people like it."

Jon wasn't sure how to react to that. Zecora suddenly sat down between them, taking up the space that wasn't really there. "This human is mine, I am afraid. You have to find somecreature else to admire your shade."

"Aw..." She inclined her head the other way, her wings lifting her from her seat. "That didn't last long. I'll always remember you!" And off she darted, having lived out her first romance in the space of minutes.

Zecora slid into the seat made available. "We get off at the next station. And so ends our mobile vacation."

"Thanks for the rescue." Not that Jon was specifically scared of the flutter. She had seemed perfectly nice. "I wasn't sure how to turn her down without hurting her."

"Sometimes it's easier with a friend." Zecora was smiling gently. "Soon our trip comes to an end." She hopped down and he followed, not going that far to run into the rest of their party around a table. Aeorean was waving a wing at them with a great big smile.

"Hey! Everyone ready to hop off?" He looked from one to the next with eager eyes. "Time to get paid. Uh, and I get to get my money back." He had to pay a lot out of pocket for them so far.

Longma did not look at all put out by that. "The sooner you get paid, the sooner the day of proper pampering can begin. Then..." She raised her right hoof. "We go off and do something interesting, hm? What sort of trouble do you have in mind?"

Aeorean rubbed behind his head softly. "Well, that depends on what's posted. I plan to stop by the Seekers and see what they're offering. The Seekers usually have interesting jobs." He nodded once firmly. "How I got the one we just did." He pointed back where they had come from. "It was just a little baby portal, really. Oh! Now you have me doing it. Rift!"

Longma smirked at the display. "A portal brings you somewhere. A rift is a connection between two places. A rift can also be a portal. A portal, also a rift, but they can also not be. That rift was also a portal, it brought you to a place. So, technically..."

Aeorean sagged in his seat with a weary smile. "Fine fine, so it was a portal too. But most people call those rifts." He reared up, hooves coming down on the table between them. "Next one, no rifts."

Longma inclined her head faintly. "A rift sounds lovely. You could just drop me off..."

Aeorean threw a hoof high. "We don't get paid for rifts we just visit."

Jon lifted his hands in an emphatic shrug. "Longma, you don't seem to hate us. Are you that eager to retire from the adventuring business? We haven't even started."

Longma squinted a little before a smile replaced it. "You're not wrong, Jon. Since I've bothered coming this far, I may as well enjoy myself a little before looking for somewhere cozy to curl up. Maybe get a few trinkets to decorate with... A dragon my age without a proper hoarde, shameful..." She tapped at her chin softly. "Before you comment on it, we rift dragons, often as not, take pride in the rifts we occupy. The last one was quite lovely before it was smashed."

She fixed Jon with a deadly glare. "Wonder what happened to it...?"

Zecora cleared her throat for attention, sitting up tall. "We knew each other not when that happened. I feel sure had he known better, he wouldn't have flattened." She inclined her head faintly. "But now we approach, the train slows down. It is time to be luxuriated in this town."

Longma's eyes shined, rising as the train slowed. "Rhyming zebra, you have a point. I could be pouty, or I could get my scales polished." She paused then. "Hrm, most of them are probably shy about dragons. I'm perfectly nice!" She flashed a grin at the others, her teeth just a little too sharp. "You'll vouch for me, won't you?"

Jon rose to join her, others also becoming parts of the motion. The train had come to a smooth stop and it was time to get off, for those going to Gallopingdam. "One thing." Aeorean looked over his shoulder. "We're not actually in Gallopingdam. The train gets us close. We'll have to hoof it a little to get in the city proper."

"Or you can get a boat," noted a random pony that had not been asked. "What I plan to do."

Aeorean frowned a little. "We've wasted enough money, thanks. We need to work off all the food we ate anyway." He sprang free of the train the moment he could, stretching out his wings and each of his legs one by one. "We got hooves, uh, most of us, let's use 'em!"

Longma peered at the city in the short distance away it was. So close, and yet not there just yet. "Let's be on with it. This is just a delay to luxury."

"I'm new here." Jon was moving towards the city. They weren't alone, a few others from the train joining in the hike, many of the others going for the great big river that had boats in it, some going the right way. "But what is the local opinion on dragons overall?"

Zecora gave a thoughtful hm. "That is a good question, Friend Jon. Information that would be good to act on."

Longma rolled her eyes. "Abject terror? It's not all bad. Some dragons get along with ponies pretty well."

Aeorean hopped ahead, wings deployed to carry him in a sharp little spiral that had him hovering before Longma, flying backwards. "Good dragons get along with ponies just fine. Mean ones don't. Kinda like most creatures really." He reached out to boop her on the nose. "Are you a nice dragon?"

Longma snorted softly, wrinkling her booped snout. "If you do that again, you'll learn exactly how nice I am." Her eyes drifted to the city. "Nice or not, ponies usually get spooked if they see one just flying into town, especially... large ones." Say as large as Longma was in her natural form. "Not that I blame them. Basic survival instincts, that."

Still... "Better than I was worried about." Jon turned a hand about, palm side up. "Sounds like, if we ask around, we may get your scales polished without causing a panic."

"I take it back." Longma slid over in her steps to be beside Jon. "This one has his head on right, focusing on what's really important. Do they have many humans in Gallopingdam? Little fingers are just right for getting in there and really working the scales to a shine." She smiled with visions of the indulgence. "I'll settle for ponies if that's all we got."

Aeorean landed in front of the group, trotting along. "Mostly ponies, but some humans, and gnomes! Gnomes are funny. They're humans, but way shorter." He lifted up just to be able to get his hooves close together to emphasize the smaller bit. "Brightly colored, like us. They love ponies, and we love them. Works out!"

Jon could but smiled at the excited pegasus. How could anyone dislike ponies? He hadn't seen any evidence so far that it was even possible. "Ponies are easy to like."

"You'd think so." Aeorean landed lightly, bouncing because he felt like it. "But some things out there get really irritable, really easily." He glanced back at Longma, but said nothing to her.

"You are not as subtle as you imagine yourself." Longma strode past him in a sudden acceleration. "Why is that town so... divided." She raised a hoof to point at the left side of things, the north side. "Did they divide the city by the river? It's like two towns."

"Sharp eye." Aeorean bobbed his head as he went. "Gallopingdam really is two towns. They came together when they built the dam." He pointed to the largest bridge that unified the two. "It's where most things cross the river if it isn't on a boat. And it's how two towns became one city!"

Looking with fresh eyes, Jon could pick out that even the architecture was different between the north and south sides. The north side was also... cleaner? More upscale? It wasn't a day and night thing, but, looking for it, he could see it. They were two different worlds, just a river apart. Bonded by that dam. "Huh... Which side has the Seekers you brought up before?"

"I will hazard a guess." Zecora pointed to the south side. "Perhaps on the side that is west?"

"Nope!" sang Aeorean with a grin. "I mean, half right? And even that's only half. Quarter right?" He shook his head free of that thought. "The Seekers are on both sides, but we're gonna go to the south one, so you got that! But it's closer to the east than the west. Why'd you think the west side? Kinda curious now."

Zecora inclined her ears. "We approach from the west, to greet new comers, that would be best."

"Maybe they wanted to...." Aeorean shrugged and lifted into the air. "But they got what they got. Let's go check in!"