The sun had long set but that meant nothing to the ponies in the small city below who were enjoying their evening. A dark red night pony with a purple mane sat in a small park on top of one of the tallest buildings, looking down at the city below and enjoying the view while she waited for her husband to return from his business trip. With a small contented sigh, she glanced down at her gauntlet to check the time, and then smiled as she slowly walked over to the purple night pony foal that was playing with some plushies a short distance away, “Orion guess who’s going to be here in a few minutes!”
The colt perked up and hopped in place, abandoning his toys for a moment as he smiled and ran over, earning another smile from the mare, “That’s right, Daddy’s gonna be home soon! Are you excited?!”
The foal responded with a big grin, jumping into the air and flapping his wings in excitement, earning a laugh from her, “Alright, calm down little buddy, Silver’s gonna be so sad if you’re all tuckered out when he gets here.”
Orion let out a happy squeak and cuddled up next to her as she draped a wing over him. She gazed back down at the city, reminiscing at how much The Oasis had grown in just a year’s time. It had gone from a humble ghost town to a slowly growing city of their dreams. It had had its early growing pains of course, but the ponies that moved to it had helped shape it into a place where imagination and creativity were more important than anything else, and there was just something so special about that.
On the surface, the city was simply a modest example of what ponies and humans could do when they set aside their differences and worked together. However, it was also a place where scientists and researchers worked tirelessly in the hope of making the world a better place with their projects. It was overly optimistic, sure, but it was something that they felt was worth working towards. What was the harm in trying to make the world a better place after all?
The quiet sounds of a helicopter were quickly becoming more perceptible to her pony hearing, and in the distance Scarlet could make out a helicopter flying in. As it grew closer, she picked up Orion and took a few steps back, giving the pilot some room to land. The helicopter came to a graceful landing and a very tired looking night pony hopped out. With a running start, Orion took off, cheerfully galloping over to his father whose face lit up at the sight. Despite being tired, he always had energy for Orion, and Silver crouched down to his level. Meeting him with a big grin, “Hey there buddy, I sure missed you!” he said as he pulled him in for a hug, then carefully lifted him onto his back.
With a big smile on her face Scarlet ran over, excitedly calling out to him, “Welcome back Silver! You get enough sleep on the ride over? I know you’re probably a little tired.”
The night pony smiled back, relaxing a little, “Not as much as I'd like, but hey at least I’m home now with my two favorite ponies.” He lifted the sunglasses he wore off of his head, and warmly embraced her, “You sure are a real sight for sore eyes, you know that?”
“I could say the same for you too,” Scarlet replied.
Silver waved to the pilot and walked off of the landing pad as the helicopter departed. “You know, I really need to bring you along on one of these trips sometime, the Mariners’ lab up in Maine is starting to really show some promise, they’ve really been making some amazing progress with the Sea Castle.”
Scarlet leaned in and hugged Silver tightly, careful not to disturb Orion, “I don’t know how you manage to stay sane after going on all these trips.”
“Well I have you and Orion to come home to, that helps quite a bit.”
“Yes, but you’re also running two departments right now and spending all your time doing that.”
“Technically I’m only running one department, Stanley and Midnight are helping with facilities stuff, and we have that intern handling the bookkeeping now.”
“You’re still keeping super busy with that though,” Scarlet pointed out. “You’re the research team’s director, not the facilities director so maybe you should think about taking a break and letting other ponies handle it.”
Silver smiled. “You’re right,” he replied, waving her over with one of his wings. “C’mon, let’s go take a walk.”
The two ponies started to trot back into the large tower, chatting and catching up along the way. “You know what Silver? We really need to take a proper vacation sometime, no business, no responsibilities, just you, me, and Orion relaxing somewhere for once.”
“You think we’re due for one of those?”
“I think we’re long overdue for one hon. You’ve been so invested with all your work and dream stuff that we’ve barely been able to take a weekend off.”
Silver’s face softened, “I know it’s tough, and I’m sorry I’m working so hard. Stuff is so complicated here lately and I’m still trying to figure out the best way to get the dream project off the ground too.”
She sighed, “I know, you’re doing so much just to make sure Orion and I never have to worry about anything. It’s not fair to get frustrated at that… it’s just…” she looked away.
“No, it’s completely fair to be,” he cut in, pulling her close to him. “You have a completely fair point. We definitely need to just relax and chill out and leave all of our work out of it.”
“Even your dream stuff?”
Silver nodded, “Even my dream stuff. I think I have a good idea on who I’m going to look at first, and finding them all was the hard part. The rest is going to be a breeze.”
“Okay, if you say so,” she replied with a smile. “So when do you want to start planning this out? I’m just dying to be somewhere else that isn’t here.”
Silver smiled, “Well go get ready then, I can put in a little vacation time for us and we can go do something fun. Maybe that big road trip we were talking about?”
“Wait, you mean right now? What about Orion? I can’t just leave him here alone with a sitter.”
Silver shrugged. “Well I said we could take him along too. You’ve been waiting for our first big family vacation after all.”
“I know… but I guess I was thinking of something smaller, like Disneyland, or the pier, or a trip back home… stuff that isn’t exactly a big adventure.”
“We’ve done more than a few trips back home… don’t you want to go do something a little bigger?”
Scarlet looked off to the side and slowly nodded. “I mean we could… It’s just, I don’t know, I was kind of expecting a lot more planning before we just jumped on that kind of thing. Do you think he’s fine to travel?”
Silver nodded. “Of course! My Grandmother took me all over the place when I was his age and I turned out just fine.”
Scarlet laughed at him. “Well that’s certainly debatable.”
Silver gave her a deadpan look before replying. “So where should we go? Somewhere out west or something else entirely?”
“What do you have in mind?” She asked.
Silver shrugged. “I don’t have anything set in stone. We could do something like Florida, Hawaii, New York… even Riverview if you really wanna go on that trip still. Any of those strike your fancy?”
Scarlet paused in consideration for a few moments, “Hawaii sounds fun, but I’d rather save that trip for later, you know, when we’re not dealing with an overly energetic foal. Florida could be fun, but it’s gonna be really hot and muggy right now and that doesn’t really sound like a ton of fun right now. And you just got back from Riverview, so I’m going to strike that one down because you’re probably going to be Riverviewed out for a while.” She paused for a second and a smile started to creep across her face. “What about Michigan?”
“What about it?”
“That could be a really fun getaway spot. You know, we never took Sapphire up on her invitation. It might be nice to show that we’re not still mad over everything.”
Silver raised an eyebrow. “You know it’s going to be pretty cold up there right? Like colder than anything we're used to down here.”
“I think I’ll manage just fine, I mean how bad could it be?”
“Well we live in the desert and Sapphire lives up in an area where it snows a lot and the hottest it gets is maybe a nice brisk eighty… so I don’t know about you but we’re probably in for a surprise.”
Scarlet shrugged, “Then we pack some scarves and blankets and hope she’ll be able to help us if it gets a little too chilly.”
Silver shook his head and laughed. “Alright well if you say so… I’ll go get everything settled once we get to my office.”
The two looked out the window and over the lake in the distance, watching the residents enjoying their evening, “You know, this place sure has changed a lot over the last year… I mean that whole storm fiasco last year kind of threw a wrench in our operations for a while, but in the end it was oddly productive.”
“I’d say it worked out really well. Sapphire really lightened up once you explained that it was all one big misunderstanding.”
Silver nodded, “That’s true, it could have been so much worse right? Like thank God she’s only a pegasus, can you imagine what would have happened if a unicorn of her caliber had tried a stunt like that?”
Scarlet shook her head, “I don’t want to think about that, let’s just be glad we pissed off who we did, otherwise we’d have never made the kinds of connections that we did. How was Sunset by the way? Did she have any issues with that new robotics budget you asked for?”
“She said it was fine, and I made it very clear that if she ever does something like she did with the whole Sapphire situation again we would not hesitate to pull out of the deal. She seems a lot more welcoming in person, but I still don’t know what to make of her yet.”
She chuckled, “Maybe that sudden vacation is a good thing after all. Want me to come along with you to your office? Keep you company?”
“Don’t you have some work over in the new observatory?”
Scarlet shrugged, “Nah, the shipment got delayed again, nothing big, just a lot of complicated parts that they found defects in. Had to recall a whole truckload.”
“Well in that case, I’d really love that.”
The two continued walking down the plain hallway, an occasional door or window breaking up the bland walls.
“So did I miss anything interesting while I was gone?”
“Oh you know, nothing special, just the Neptune team making an emergency call right before you touched down. Isa wanted to speak to you over the video phone, it sounded like they ran into an issue with the Aquarius project right after you left and needed some emergency resources to make repairs.”
“I’ll just approve it. Their research was starting to really show some potential when I was down there. I know they’re a bit eccentric but they’re hard workers and we need that data for the Horizon project.”
Silver opened the door and walked in, cheerfully greeting the night pony that was waiting for him, “Hey Phoenix, I didn't realize you were part of the welcoming committee too, so what's up?”
“Oh you know, I just figured with you gone I’d throw my name into the hat for the robotics department director spot.”
Scarlet gave a quick nod, “You know, now that I think about it, I’m gonna go run down to the Observatory with Orion and grab a few things.” She leaned in and gave Silver a quick kiss, “Don’t wait up too long or you’ll miss all the fun, kay?”
Silver smiled, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The blue night pony gave her one final hug goodbye as she left the room and slipped off the bag he had been wearing, “You know, you should really quit your day job and pick up a new career as the Oasis’ resident comedian, you’d probably do well at it.”
“Maybe,” Phoenix considered for a moment, “but for real, I just wanted to touch base with you about the whole project we were working on.”
Silver raised an eyebrow, “The on the record or off the record stuff?”
“The off the record dream stuff you were asking about. I think I have a few good ponies in mind for it.”
Silver nodded, “Wow, you really were interested in this, weren’t you? I was just talking to Scarlet about that.”
“Mhmm… well of course I’d be. Give me a chance to help others with my dreams and I’ll do it, that’s what I told you when you first started kicking this idea around.”
“Well I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting you to start hunting down some connections so soon. Who’s on the list?”
“A friend from back in California mainly, and maybe one other that I ran into in the dream realm a while ago. He was a little… eccentric but he had an interesting perspective that I think you’d love to hear. I know you’re kind of leading the charge on this and won’t tell anyone much, but I’d definitely give these two a chance.”
“Go ahead and send me their info. I don’t know how soon I can get any of this set up, but it’d definitely be nice to start looking at potential prospects. It’d also save me the hassle of having to hunt everyone down on my own.”
“This is going to be big, isn’t it?”
Silver slowly nodded his head. “If it works out the way I want it to, it'll be bigger than big. I don’t think anyone’s done this kind of thing yet, so we really need to make sure we hit it home.”
“Mhmm, well I’ll forward you their info and we can go from there. I’m looking forward to this Silver, I really am.”
“Me too Phoenix, me too. Now, not that I don’t enjoy your company, but I was kinda planning on setting up a vacation for the family—“
“And I’m keeping you from that,” he finished. “My bad, I was just kind of curious about the project. I’ll let you get back to that though, drop me a dream line if you figure any more of that out, and have a fun vacation.”
Silver Smiled, “Will do Phoenix, thanks for stopping by.”
The other stallion nodded, “Anytime, Silver.”