//------------------------------//
// Field Notes for 10 May 200- 
// Story: Draft Mission Summary as of 10 May 200- 
// by publiq 
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AGENT: 🅱️ (owner of journal, automagically filed)
MISSION: at this point, returning.  Survival is more or less guaranteed until our return attempt. 
STATUS: homeward-bound?

The past two weeks have precluded me from finding a safe, private, and quiet opportunity to gather my thoughts.  Precluded.  There’s one of those fancy Lyra words sneaking in.  Unsurprised, as she was the pony who cast the spell to let me write directly from my thoughts.  If I were back in Equestria, this spell would just work.  I’d think directed thoughts and words would appear on the page.  Here, I can feel the connection from my words to the concentrated magic pellet at the base of Lyra’s horn and back to the page.

Current setting: As I am writing this, I am in the covered bed of what the humans call a “pickup truck.”  The windows separating the passenger compartment from the bed have been removed, so I can talk to Trixie and have her relay messages to the human driving if I shout.  Currently, Trixie is napping with her head resting in the human’s lap.  I think his name is Dave.  This bed is covered in pillows and straw.  Starlight and Lyra are both asleep as the occasional tree rushes by.

Starlight and I seem to be the only ponies who can feel that there is a near-imperceptible flow of ambient magic.  It’s as if there is a crack in reality with magic slowly flowing in.  Lyra and Trixie both have their own internal magic.  It’s weak, about the same grip strength as an unfocused human toddler, but it exists.  They’ve told me that in Equestria, this internal magic is used to manipulate the ambient magic.  As we continue east, I cannot help but feel that the magic levels slowly rise faster than when we were with the herd in the same general territory.  It’s almost as if the planned destination for our return attempt is the source of the leak.

Lyra just flicked an ear—every bit as cute here as it was in Equestria.  Speaking of Lyra, there are some truths I must write here that she should never know.  She needs to keep her ears forward and never check her blind spot, lest she understand the unexpected consequences of her actions and lose her inner beauty.  As the saying ends, “to the dead, we owe the truth.”  The reason I have been unable to write lately is that we have been commingled with a large herd of Earth’s horses for the past month.  Imagine a nomadic tribe of large Earth ponies, all in a limited palette of white, brown, red, orange, and black.  We were attacked and chased by some black mechanical rotary birds.  She had to defend herself and the herd.  She needed to save all of us.  Her aim was true: the blade’s impact on the magic pellet unleashed its full energy all at once.  No birds remained in the sky. A small crater was born under their former location.

It’s the follow-up that I must shield her from.  Four ponies were close to being caught when she destroyed the birds: the stallion, two mares, and a yearling colt.  The concussive blast was too much for their bodies to handle.  Lyra couldn’t have seen them in the dust.  I did not see them.  Trixie and Starlight were focused on running as far away as possible.  The horrors do not end there.  From what little of the radio chatter I can translate, the humans have been itching to go to war for a while and are now actively looking for “the home nation of the terrorists that cost us eight servicemen and two helicopters” so they can invade it.  We must return to Equestria before they blow themselves into uninhabitability, unless that is the event that frees the planet from human control and allows equines to evolve to their rightful place.