Kera's scraping hooves echoed through the thin alleyway as he scampered to a stop. With a rustle of her cloak, she twirled, leaned her body up to a niche in the wall, and crawled inside the thin partition. Squatting low, she wormed her way up a concrete rain drain, scaled a segmented column of mortar, and evened out on a sharp ledge located just two and a half stories above the bottom floor of the alley.
"Whew..." She exhaled, lowering her hood so that her peach coat and hard lines were exposed to the dim light wafting down from the sunset beyond the Blue Nova spires above. "Oh, how I love killing two birds with one stone." Kera licked her lips as she fiddled through the deep pockets stitched into the insides of her cloak. "Let's she what she had on her. Yeesh, I could sure go for some bread right now—"
Two books slid loosely in her grip: one an album with green binding and the other a dusty old tome.
Kera's mouth hung open. She blinked several times, then grumbled. "A book?!" She pouted. "Nnnngh! I knew it was too heavy to be something edible!" She squatted with an indignant folding of her forelimbs. "Really! What kind of mare carries nothing but books around?! And in both sides of her saddlebag?!"
Several seconds limped by.
"Unnngh..." She sighed heavily, slumping down and hoofing through the dusty tome with bored eyes. "Whatever. I need something to make a fire with anyways." Her green eyes narrowed on the flicker of ancient runes. "Hmmmph... These words..." Her nostrils flared. "They're..."
Silence...
"Guh! Do any of these actually have pictures?" She kicked the tome aside and picked up the one with green binding. "Hey!" she beamed suddenly, her eyes filling with foalish delight as she stared at an array of colorful photographs. "This is more like it! Whew... this lady's got a bucket load of friends." Kera flipped and flipped. Her eyebrow raised. "What's the deal with the white one? Does she even know her head looks bald from an angle? Pfft... seen one unicorn you've seen..." Her voice stretched thinly. "...them all."
Kera leaned forward, her brow furrowed beneath a mess of green bangs.
In the center of one group shot, a peculiar pony stood, being nuzzled by the others. Her face was frozen in a look of disgust as she attempted in good humor to shove off the invasive reach of her companions. Her colorful mane and tail stood out like prismatic flames, but that wasn't the only thing that caught Kera's attention. Halfway between the pony's flanks and shoulders, twin wreathes of feathers shimmered in the flash photography.
"A... winged pony...?" Kera blinked several times. She leaned back from the book, as if the colors on the photograph might jump out at her. "Just like... j-just like..." She said no more words. Instead, she hummed a haunting tune to herself, something as old as she was, if not older. A chill ran through Kera; she flicked her ears, as if desperate to lose the melody that was suddenly stuck in her head.
Just then, the alleyway filled with clopping hooves.
Catching her breath, Kera slapped both books shut, slid them under her cloak, and layed down flat against the ledge's surface. Two green eyes stared down into the corridor like a parascope.
"...be anywhere by now! Oh, if I only had been more careful!"
"You can find the book even if you can't see it, r-right? Like... you have a connection?"
"It doesn't work that way, Mr. Phoenix! The book has a connection with Rainbow Dash. At least, I think so."
"Maybe we can still try to get inside the building even with it gone—"
"No!" A mare scurried into view, swiveling on her hooves with a flurry of her brown cloak. A face beneath the hood frowned at the similarly dressed stallion trotting alongside her. "I can't afford to lose that book! I've lost enough already!"
"Maybe we should consider putting the search on hold—"
"Mr. Phoenix!" the mare gasped.
"I'm just saying!" He shrugged away from her glare. "It's not gonna help us to run around with our heads cut off! I say we sit down, count our losses, and figure out a more realistic way of getting inside that building than relying completely on some magical manuscript!"
"Without that book..." Bellesmith lowered her hood, hanging her head with a sad breath. "I'm completely lost. It was... it was the closest thing I-I had to him." She bit her lip as a sorrowful spasm rose through her body. "I miss his wisdom so much. I feel so blind without him. He was able to make me see so much..."
"Hey... this is exactly what I'm talking about." Phoenix reached out to her. "The worst thing you can do right now is dwell on the bad stuff. We're here, we're alive, and we know where to go next. Book or no book, what matters is that we get our hoofing, gather enough resources, and proceed when the moment's right... and only when the moment's right."
Belle sighed, saying nothing.
"Look, I know it may not seem like much, but at least you have me." The stallion's face could be seen smiling at her from beneath his own hood. "I made you a promise, and I'm sticking to it. But you gotta be willing to stick to it yourself, alright?"
"I know, it's just..." She sighed again, shaking her head. "It's so hard. So terribly hard..."
"What is it you keep repeating and repeating? 'What would Rainbow Dash do?'"
"You're right, Mr. Phoenix. You're right."
He guided her with a hoof towards the far end of the alleyway. "Let's go. This kid's long gone. We've searched everywhere, now we gotta move on."
"I know it sounds strange... but I still feel bad for her..."
"She's a thug, Ms. Belle," the stallion grunted. "That's all she's gonna grow up to be."
"I know... and suppose that's why it's sad..."
All the while, Kera was staring at one thing and one thing alone. It was only after the two were out of earshot that she finally afforded herself the chance to murmur: "Her horn..."
A breath of wonderment escaped her lips.
"Did... did she somehow get out before the rest?"
She blinked... then smiled.
Licking her lips with devilish zeal, the filly slid the books back under her cloak, forward-flipped off the ledge, landed expertly, and scurried on silent cat feet down the avenue, trailing the two figures.