Through the Well of Pirene

by Ether Echoes

Chapter 12: Great Expectations

It had been quite some time since I had last written in my journal. It’s day 3 of Daphne’s arrival, I scribbled into it before I glanced across the breakfast table at the mare—the woman—in question. She was trying one of the “Stars and Comets” drills, keeping aloft balls of different shapes, sizes, and masses while orbiting them around one another in a colorful display.

I returned to my journal, trying to organize my thoughts by putting quill to page. It helped to settle me. I had barely remembered to file the paperwork for a leave of absence before bed last night. My quill danced as I wrote, Going to be a job in itself explaining the tardiness of my work. It wasn’t much consolation that Twilight Sparkle herself had said she would vouch for me. I didn’t like having to rely on somepony else’s word. I’ve never needed anypony before, but, for Daphne’s sake—

“Whatcha writing there, Leit?” Lyra asked as she tried to push her head over my shoulder.

I half-closed the journal and nudged her away, saying, “Private, thank you very much.”

“He-ey. Did somepony steal all of the maple syrup?” Twilight asked from the counter—a reminder that I was composing rather private thoughts in a not-so-private area.

Marcus lifted a couple lids in the center of the table, his fingers quick. “The jar’s on the table, Twilight.”

“Oh, my bad.”

Marcus and Naomi… I continued writing once Lyra became bored and wandered off to find more pancakes. The next sentence had to be rewritten a few times, the originals scratched and scribbled clear but still leaving indelible marks. I couldn’t believe I’d nearly said that about Daphne’s friends, even in my journal. They were her friends, after all, but I had to wonder whether or not they had ever questioned what her parents were doing to her. My thoughts on the female, Naomi, began to consume space on the page. Naomi claims she believed Daphne from the start, but what does that even mean? She’s a bit of a nut regardless, so perhaps it doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps she just wanted me to herself, so she never bothered to try and talk Daphne out of it. She does seem to have an… unhealthy obsession with us all.

I glanced crossly in Marcus’s direction. He studiously refused to look closely at any of us mares, his smooth cheeks tinged with red.

This Marcus guy, though, my thoughts continued on the page, I really don’t trust him, either. I can tell he hurt Daphne. Badly. They fight and hiss at each other with just the slightest provocation. What’s really driving him into this trip, anyway?

“Hey, Daph,” he said, “pass the salt over.”

Daphne concentrated, setting her hooves on the table. Green light wrapped around her horn, and then the salt shaker, and the latter rose uneasily into the air. My heart swelled with pride. She was managing this while maintaining the “Stars and Comets” drill. When he reached for it, though, she yanked it up and grinned. He made another grab with his hand and she darted it lower.

“Don’t think I won’t get you for this,” he growled. “No jury in the world would convict me.”

“If they even have juries,” Daphne reminded him, before continuing in a sing-song tone. “Come on, Marc, get the salt.”

Twilight sat at her customary seat. “Well, we do have trials by peers in addition to arbitration by—”

Lyra groaned. “Already, I can feel my brains leaking out. Spare us.”

Daphne giggled as Marcus nearly fell forward trying to grab for the salt, and she squealed as he advanced around the table towards her. Soon, the two were chasing each other to the laughter of the table while her practice balls bounced off every surface. Everypony chortled—except me, that is—when Daphne simply chucked the salt into his face. Marcus returned the favor by splashing her with his glass of water. Daphne laughed then, too, and even Marcus smiled.

Or do they really hate each other so much? my pen committed to paper as I returned to my journal. I’m starting to doubt that considerably. I shall have to observe him closely. I watched him for a moment as he found his seat again. I do wonder what he might have looked like if he had been transformed along with Daphne. It’s only fair; I’m certain he’s imagined me as a human. A pegasus, I would wager, with that flippant attitude—assuming of course that whatever magic changed Daphne isn’t somehow constructed to only produce unicorns. I wonder if he’s considered good looking by human standards, I wrote, my thoughts beginning to wander. Daphne certainly seems to think so. So long as he doesn’t hurt her, I don’t suppose I rightly care.

I looked up at Daphne. She caught my notice and smiled. I returned it and continued writing.

She really does belong here. I hope she stays.

“Twilight!” Spike called as he burst into the room. All I could see of him from this angle was a bouncing package making its way across the floor. “Look! The books arrived!”

Twilight gawked as she relieved her assistant of his burden. “Wow, already? The archivist must have stayed up all night.”

Daphne’s gaze fixed itself on the box, as well. I rose, closing my journal and carrying it along as I circled around to join Twilight. “I can start reading through them now, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, sure,” Twilight said, shifting her telekinetic grip into mine. “I’ll be along in just a minute. Are you sure you don’t want to finish breakfast?”

“I’m not very hungry,” I lied, stealing a sideways glance toward Daphne. Her grateful look was all the boost I needed, and I trotted into the main part of the library to continue researching.

Thanks to Spike taking most of last night to clean up, the floor was clear, so I pulled up a cushion and opened the box. A puff of some other unicorn’s magic greeted me as I did. It was somewhat startling to see that a number of the “books” sent from the Royal Canterlot Archive were, in fact, scrolls. They were aged and yellow, delicate enough that I didn’t even dare handle them without layering on a preservative spell of my own on top of the one they came in. The books were equally archaic, and the languages dated back to the founding of Equestria, or earlier.

Almost in spite of myself, I found my interest piqued. Daphne was the sole reason I had undertaken this task, of course, but there was a puzzle that was fascinating in and of itself. These “goblins” had some connection to ancient Equestria history that evidently stretched back thousands of years, one intertwined fully with the connection between humans and ponies, no doubt. Daphne and I were, in some way, a continuation of that ancient history.

At the very least, those archaeology lectures from school would finally prove useful.

The first scroll unfurled, and I settled into reading. The pictograms therein, used by ancient pegasi by the looks of it, were very blocky and rigid, lacking any sort of punctuation, capitalization, or diacritical marks to indicate exact pronunciation, so the process began slow and remained something of a slog. Most of the first scroll proved to be tallies of tribute from lesser pegasus nations and some earth pony and unicorn settlements.

“What were these guys, sky pirates?” I muttered. “Might not be far from the case, actually… here we are; goblin-crafted arms… taken from earth pony villages near…” My magic reached out for an atlas among the library’s shelves and propped it open before me. “That’d be the Everfree Forest.” I skimmed the scroll again, biting at my lip as my brow furrowed. “What, that’s all?”

Needless to say, it would be a very slow day.

The others joined me in time, and the box was passed around. Marcus and Naomi, who had not managed to pick up even modern Equestrian, took their leave.

Twilight and I kept meticulous track of even the slightest mention of goblins, trying to form some consistent profile. They were certainly more active in the days before the Princesses Celestia and Luna came to rule the tribes, but they were fantastically good at hiding their origins and places of operation. Daphne became more and more despondent, even though it had only been perhaps an hour, and so much more material waited to be read.

I got up to go to the washroom and passed by Lyra as she worked, only to have her wave me down. “Hey, Leit, hold up.” She pointed down at the book she had before her. Illustrations of boxy, elaborately designed wagons decorated full pages. The inhabitants were distinctly animals, yet they walked upright and wore clothing.

“I don’t know if this is the same thing,” Lyra said, “but doesn’t this remind you of the other stuff? Those wagons are just like the ones that Marble Stone described.”

I nodded as I turned to Lyra. “Yes. Does the book say these are goblins?”

“It said ‘goblin enchantments’ earlier, so I’m guessing so.”

My head tilted, and my gaze fell upon the illustrations again. “Well, keep looking, we might… find…”

“What’s up?” Lyra glanced my way, then down to where I was looking.

I lifted the book, squinting at one of the illustrations. It depicted wares laid out on the side of the wagon, along with a tall rabbit showing them off. “I’ve… seen some of these before.”

“Some of what?” Lyra asked, poking her head over my shoulder. This time I allowed it and pointed my hoof at the page. Among the wares sat a shield decorated with curious runes and a number of strange coins in various different shapes.

“What? How, and when?”

“That trip I took after leaving school,” I said, scrunching my muzzle as I thought back.

Lyra was skeptical. “You don’t mean you saw these exact things. This illustration is like seven hundred years old.”

“No.” I shook my head. “But while I was collecting things, a dealer pointed me to a mare in Los Pegasus who had some things she’d never seen before. Coins, like these ones. They aren’t and never have been minted by anypony in Equestria, the three tribes, or any race we know about. And on that shield; a lot of the things she possessed had that exact same style of writing.”

“I don’t remember seeing anything like those,” Lyra said as she stepped back. “Do you have any of them at your place?”

Once again, I shook my head, lowing the book to look at her. “No. She wouldn’t part with any of the good stuff. She sold me a couple trinkets I didn’t really care for and we parted on good terms. She got quite touchy where those artifacts were concerned.”

Lyra rubbed her chin and arched a brow. “That’s kind of a thin lead.”

“I don’t think so.” I floated over a few of the books I had been studying. “I feel like an idiot, honestly—several of these accounts say that the goblins often carried tools inscribed with ‘curiously angular marks that cannot be deciphered.’ Look at the other recurring themes, too—Wands, Swords.”

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked as she stepped over.

“Leit thinks she’s found something,” Lyra said and nodded her head at me.

“There’s a mare I met who had a very large collection of goblin things,” I said, dredging the memory up. “Something akin to a whole chest full of knickknacks and tools, including weapons, and bits of armor.”

Twilight lifted her ears. “You don’t think it was just coincidence?”

“No.” The memory was definitely coming back. “She definitely had an idea of what they were and what they could be worth, but she seemed unduly attached to them.” I tilted my head. “Well, no, she was willing to part with some of the things in there, but she was asking some obscene prices. There was this beautiful lens she absolutely refused to sell.”

“Do you think you could find her again?” Twilight asked.

“If she hasn’t moved?” I nodded. “Yes. She lived in Los Pegasus last we met.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lightning Dust.”

Twilight stared, wide eyed, her lips a thin line.

Lyra and I blinked at her. “What?”

She shook the expression from her face. “Sorry, did you just say ‘Lightning Dust’?”

“That’s right.” I glanced over at Daphne as she trotted closer.

“Hey, girls.” Daphne came to a halt, looking between the three of us. “Did you find something?”

“Yeah, but it’s a bit of a trip,” I said with a slight frown. “As in, two days just to get there by train, and even more to find her.”

“Heh, that’s not all.” Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. “My friends and I have some awkward history with the mare in question. She and my friend, Rainbow Dash, were in a Wonderbolts training program together, and they didn’t exactly get along. She eventually got herself kicked out when she nearly caught us all in a tornado—I think she still blames Rainbow for that.” She glanced over at Daphne and caught an uncomprehending expression. “Oh. The Wonderbolts are an elite military group of pegasus fliers. They said Lightning Dust could return next season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she held a bit of a grudge.”

Lyra grumbled. “I take it a royal command is out of the question, then?”

“I don’t know if we want to send a letter anyway,” I said. “She was already rather cagey. Besides, it’s a little difficult to convince somepony to take a cross-country trip, no matter who is saying so. If she knows something about goblins, it’d be better to find out from her directly.”

Daphne’s ears fell along with the rest of her. “But… that’s like a five day round trip.”

“Well, I think I can cut that down considerably, actually,” Twilight said, posing with an upraised hoof. “Am I a princess or aren’t I?”

Lyra tilted her head. “Well, I dunno, aren’t you?”

“Shush,” Twilight said, waving her hoof at Lyra. “Anyway! I can charter a flight with a fast airship. I’m sure one won’t object to changing schedule if I ask.”

Lyra tapped her chin thoughtfully. “That would cut the travel time in about half, if it was fast enough. Not to mention skipping the step of having to take transit up to the cloud level.”

But Daphne shook her head. “So three days, maybe a little less. I can’t be away from Ponyville for that long. What if Amelia were to come out of the Everfree, or news were to come about these goblins…? All for a few trinkets…”

“I can do it,” I blurted out. Everypony turned to look at me, making me flinch back and scuff a hoof on the floor. “W-well, I mean… I’m not really doing anything, and it would help Daphne out.”
 
Daphne immediately threw her hooves about my neck. "Oh, thank you, Leit! You really are a great friend."
 
“It’s a strong lead,” I said woodenly. My cheeks burned under Lyra’s and Twilight’s twin grins. “She had a whole chest full of goblin articles and obviously knew what they were.” My face purpled further as they grinned more. “It’s a solid, rational idea. Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Lyra said airily. She turned towards Twilight. “How soon can you get that ship here?”

Twilight glanced thoughtfully out the window. “Depends how close one is. I’ll flag a mail carrier down—Cloudsdale is still pretty close, and Canterlot usually has traffic of some sort. I think we can say one, maybe two hours, tops.”

It meant being separated from Daphne again, but it was something that could be borne in the cause of helping her. Just seeing her face light up at my offer to help had already made it worth it. I sighed, looking towards the door. “I suppose I’d better go get packed up. Twilight, could you come around to pick my mail up while I’m out?”

Twilight nodded. “Of course. Do you have any pets? Spike is great with pets.”

“No, but thank you.” I shook my head and turned towards Daphne. I reached a hoof up to her, but found no words. There were a thousand and one things I wanted to say to her, and all of them died in my throat.

Daphne gave me a curious look and tilted her head. “Is something the matter?”

“No.” I wrapped my leg around her and pulled her close for a moment. “I should get going.”

“All right,” she murmured into my ear, giving me another appreciative squeeze. “Thanks, again.”

Old maps and brochures from a half-dozen towns and cities piled up behind me as I tossed them aside. More junk added itself to the pile as I dug through my closet. “Where the heck are my good saddlebags…?” I growled as my magic threw aside dusty coats and a box containing a graduation dress that had never been opened. The pair I used for grocery shopping sat on the bed, the frayed edges giving them a forlorn appearance. They smelled of cabbages and old tomatoes, making them vividly unsuitable for the task.

Some part of me began to wonder why I was going through so much effort. Already, I had put my life on hold for several days, and this trip promised to add several more. Of course, there was always the possibility that this lead would prove fruitful and some actual progress would be made, thus demanding even more of my time.

But I couldn’t just abandon Daphne. Not again. Not now.

My hooves found something stiff, and I tugged, pulling free a teal cloth bundle. This set, unlike normal saddlebags, used a thick, padded brace that would distribute load more evenly across the back than straps. Perfect for long trips and carrying heavy things. With a quick spell, I dusted the pack and threw it across my back.

Before leaving my bedroom, I pulled an older journal from the nightstand and checked inside. Sure enough, it catalogued my trip to Los Pegasus—most importantly the street address and work contact information of one Lightning Dust. I searched through my travel supplies and carefully packed away whatever seemed as if it might come in handy. Then I went around the house, checking windows, doors, and cabinets to make sure everything was secured and in place. With luck, no rampaging monsters would come tearing through while I was gone.

I paused at the front door, gave a groan, and walked back upstairs. A mess of a bedroom closet greeted me as I returned to my bedroom. Perhaps it was a little silly, but it was something that would bother me the entire trip. I hadn’t even made it out the front door, so up went the the boxes, the coats, the spare sheets, and the craft supplies. One horse shoe box fell off the top and fell open beside me. Several papers slipped out, sliding across the floor.

It was sheet music, written in a filly’s imprecise notation and awkward phrasing. I picked one up for a closer look, reading over the lyrics.

Take me down to the river, where the sweet waters flow so pure.
Sail me out to the ocean, there’s whole worlds waiting for sure.

I just want to go there again, to take you where I’ve been.

My eyes searched down the page, fixing on the last part. Five notes…

Together, always.

The sheet went gently back into its box, and the whole thing carefully floated up to the top shelf. I rubbed my face fiercely and sniffed loudly. “Everything is right where it needs to be,” I said with a small smile, and, with that, turned and made to leave.

The tracks outside Ponyville ran across an open field until they vanished into the hills in either direction. A quietness pervaded the lonely station that I had always found appealing in some intangible, indescribable sense. The pensive sensation of waiting for something to take you away filled such places. It was likely why they featured so prominently in literature as a place between life and death.

My whole life had been spent in that liminal space, it seemed—crossing the threshold of two worlds.

Whatever it was, the mood suited me just fine. Even though I was waiting for an airship to land in the field beyond the tracks rather than for a train to come into the station, it still presented an excellent opportunity to recollect. My journal detailing my trip to Los Pegasus hovered open before me, and I flipped through it lazily. The excited impressions of a filly out on her own for the first time dotted the pages along with clipped in photos, each displaying a different dizzying vista of orange trees and ocean surf from far up in the sky.

How quickly that ecstasy had faded.

The next few days would offer a strange opportunity to relive those sensations, however, and with a new purpose besides. There would be time to plan for the future and settle my thoughts. This time, it was a mature, settled mare who would be experiencing the world.

As it turned out, though, my peace and quiet was doomed from the beginning.

“You know, I wasn’t sure I believed that you guys had trains,” Marcus said as he rounded the corner. “Yet, here I am.”

Lyra’s voice joined him as she trotted up the stairs to the platform. “You know, I’ve always preferred flying by chariot to airship, but, then, it’s a little far for that.”

“Is that pulled by pegasi or something?”

“Sure is!”

Marcus gave her a wry look. “I’ll bet you just like the thought of a pair of sweaty stallions hauling you around the country.”

Lyra smirked. “Hey, don’t judge a girl for her needs.”

“Oh, no.” I groaned, planting a hoof over my face. “Not you two. Anything but you two.”

“Hi, Leit!” Lyra called. “I told Marcus and Naomi all about the trip you’re taking, and Marc here decided to come!”

Marcus shifted the strap holding that weapon of his on his shoulder and shrugged. “Ponyville is kind of wearing thin. I’m going stir crazy—just one more cutesy song out of Pinkie Pie and I’ll go insane.”

Lyra tilted her head, asking, “The good kind of insane where you’re wacky and entertaining or the bad kind where you put on a cape and try to conquer Equestria?”

Marcus opened his mouth, and then closed it. He shook his head. “Right, well, yeah. Uh, Lyra thought you could use some help if there’s trouble, and—I admit—I’m actually kind of curious to see what this Los Pegasus place is like. It sounds like a bad joke, but still.”

“Naomi isn’t coming, is she?” I asked Lyra with just a hint of terror. “I know you implied she wasn’t, but—”

Lyra waved her hoof. “No, no, she’s staying with Daphne.”

“She’s not yet completed her quest to brainwash the town’s foals,” Marcus said sardonically.

“Don’t be silly, Marc,” Lyra said. “That family invited her into their home of their own free will.”

“Sure, that’s just what she wants you to think.” Marcus pointed at his head and spun his finger. “Once Naomi gets into your head, you do what she wants you to do. It’s a thing. She has every adult at school wrapped around her little finger, and that’s only the beginning of her twisted empire.”

I watched them go back and forth with a flat expression. “You two are going to be like this the whole way, aren’t you?”

“Either way,” Lyra said as she grinned at me, “you won’t be alone on this trip! We’re going to have tons of fun.”

I was not above begging at this point. “Could I pay you to stay and just say you went with me? Is that a thing I can do?”

Lyra’s grin turned wicked. “Oh, trust me, you couldn’t pay me nearly enough.”

I snorted and flicked my tail at her.

Marcus put his hands in his pockets and watched the sky. While Lyra went inside the station, I pulled out my journal and returned to the last page.

He’s been staring up a lot, I penned. Ever since he and Naomi first settled in town, he’s been like that. While she goes around and meets everypony she can in a sort of psychotic haze, he just sits around and watches the sky. What is he thinking about?

He glanced towards me, his face still directed toward the sky. “You know, I can tell you’re writing about me.”

Uh oh. He’s on to me.

I glanced past him towards the sky, as well. “No, I’m not. I’m just putting some thoughts down.”

“Do you usually stare directly at someone while chewing your lip and tapping your feet when you put random thoughts down?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Ones totally unrelated to the person you’re staring so intently at?”

“Uh.” I ran my tongue across my teeth. “Yes.”

“Right. Well.” He shrugged, returning his hands to his pockets. “If by some chance you do have questions, just ask. I don’t bite.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve been biting Daphne’s head off pretty much every day on the hour.”

“That’s just—” He shot me an irritated look and paused to collect himself. “Forget it. Honestly, it’ll be good for me to get away.”

He persists in argumentative behavior even when questioned in a perfectly reasonable and noninvasive fashion, I wrote, punctuating ferociously. Further experimentation required. Perhaps he will respond positively to his clothes being turned a hideous shade of yellow.

At that point, Lyra came back out of the station with a smoothie and a bag of candy bars.

“That’s your travel food?” I asked skeptically.

“What?” She glanced down at her stuff. “No way. This is my ‘waiting at the station’ chow.” She levitated out a chocolate bar. “Care for any?”

Marcus frowned. “Isn’t chocolate toxic for horses or something? I seem to recall Naomi telling me it was a neurotoxin for them.”

“If it were toxic, would we sell it in train stations?” I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous; we aren’t just simple animals who eat whatever we find.”

“I dunno,” Lyra said as she peeled away the wrapper. “I might risk it anyway. Chocolate is awesome.”

“Except Lyra.”

He held a hand out. “Well, I dunno about you, but I’ve got a hankering. Toss one over.”

I rolled my eyes and planted myself as far away from them as I could while remaining on the platform. A few minutes later, the buzzing of propellers broke the stillness of the air, and a dark shadow had formed against the sun. Hoofsteps drew my attention away, and I found Twilight and Daphne walking up to join us.

“Hey!” Daphne said as she came up to my side. “Thought we’d come send you guys off.”

“Aww, you shouldn’t have, honey,” Marcus said with a roll of his eyes.

“I hope you fall to your death,” Daphne said in a cheerful tone. She turned to me with a grin. “No, seriously, it’s okay if you push him off.”

I shot Marcus a narrow-eyed look. “I might.”

Daphne put her foreleg around my neck and I slid in against her, burying my face in her mane. “Good luck, okay? I’ll keep up my magic practice with Twilight, and I’ll make sure your house stays clean, and… just be careful. I couldn’t bear to lose you a second time.”

“It’ll be okay,” I managed to say through a tight throat. “It’s an easy trip. Ponies do it all the time.”

“Are all journeys so dangerous where you come from?” Twilight asked thoughtfully.

Daphne laughed and wiped at her eyes. “Ah, no, I’m just being a sap. On that note, I got you something.”

“M-me? B-but—” I stammered, only to stop when she put a hoof to my mouth.

“Not taking no for an answer.” Daphne concentrated, and her horn lit up. With awkward strength, she pulled a thick woolen scarf out of her saddlebags and draped it around my shoulders, tucking my long mane up. “There,” she said with a smile. “I bet it’s pretty cold up there, and I know you barely pay attention to the weather as it is, so… I asked Rarity if she had anything, and she said she’d sew something up at once. I offered to pay, but she waved it off and… yeah.”

I glanced down at the dangling strands. The scarf was a deep vermillion, with teal notes—the same color as my cutie mark—picked out along it. I even recognized the melody portrayed as a portion from one of my favorite songs. Lyra’s too-innocent grin at my realization told me she had been in on this, as well. I worked my mouth for a moment, trying to frame a response.

Daphne blushed and ducked her head. “It’s just a scarf.”

I put my legs around her and squeezed her tightly. “It was very thoughtful. Thank you.”

Marcus looked away and scuffed his shoes, and neither he nor Lyra said anything as they hitched up their stuff for the boarding. Twilight, for her part, didn’t seem to have noticed anything at all as she waved. “Have a nice trip! Bring back pictures!”

“Whoa,” Marcus said, breathless, watching as pegasus sailors steadied the great craft before us with long guide ropes.

It was certainly one of the largest airships I had ever seen—it must have been fresh off the docks at Canterlot. Nearly fifty yards of steel-reinforced wood, with an envelope that had to be two or three times longer, it gleamed in the morning sunlight, its wood protected by a vibrant finish. A half dozen propellers in the rear and two more attached to the envelope bespoke a genuine beast of the air.

I turned and gaped at Twilight, who blushed. “What?” she said. “I asked for the fastest ship they could get on short notice.”

“How much is this going to cost?”

“Well.” She scuffed her hoof on the boards. “They kind of sort of refused payment.”

I spluttered, but Lyra picked me up with her magic and dragged me off before I could protest further. My green aura mingled within Lyra’s golden one as I pulled out my journal, lacking any other outlet. Great, I wrote, not paying for passage on the nicest ride I’ve ever been on. I’m going to feel like a complete jerk. A jerk stuck with a pair of jerks for company.

The crew opened the side of the craft, dropping out a stairway. Their attention, however, was clearly on Marcus as he followed Lyra and me inside. He smirked and saluted them, eliciting a wooden return salute before they shook themselves free of their shock.

Back outside, a grizzled cerulean pegasus in a cap bowed before Twilight. “Princess! We were under the impression that you were urgently in need of transport.”

“Oh,” she reddened. “I can see how you might have gotten that impression, from the letter saying I needed urgent transport and everything…”

A sailor diverted my attention by asking for my bags. I waved him off. “Just the saddlebags, thank you,” I told her, “and I’d like to keep my things close. Can we go up on deck?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The mare nodded and gestured with a wing down the hall. “Just keep yourselves off the cockpit in front and don’t get in anypony’s way and you’re good.”

I nodded my thanks to her and made my way up the stair—or ladder in naval parlance. My journal came out again. Do airships use nautical terminology? Must remember to surreptitiously query one of the sailors later, I wrote as I came to a stop by the rail. An earth pony engineer passed me on his way to look at the engine, and I narrowed my eyes as Marcus crouched to get a better look at the machinery, as well.

“That’s an interesting design, there. You use electric engines?” he asked of the engineer, peering into the recesses of the exposed mount. His intent eyes seemed to parse the components in a familiar fashion. It had never occurred to me to wonder if he had any hobbies.

“Sure do,” the lean stallion answered as he visually inspected the rotor.

“What do you use for power?”

“Ship’s main power is a special order thundercloud generator, and a couple alternators under Come to Life spells provide steady power. You new to Equestria, uhm…” He glanced up and down Marcus’s form before hazarding a guess. “Sir?” Well, wouldn’t be the first pony to have to guess at gender.

Marcus nodded. “I’ve done a bit of work with engines back home, though. My father helped put my bike together.”

“Really? Huh.” The stallion shook his head. “I’m surprised, I thought foreigners weren’t all that mechanically sophisticated.”

“We’re full of surprises.” Marcus smirked. “Am I bothering you? I’m curious about the sort of rig you guys are running.”

The mechanic pulled his head out and glanced at Marcus. “Why don’t you bug me when my shift’s over in a few hours? I’ll be down in the mess. Wouldn’t mind a chance to talk with somepony who has half a mind about what he’s talking about.”

“Can do,” Marcus said before rising and dusting his pants. He stood looking over the town for a while, and then went to another part of the deck. There were a few other passengers who had caught wind of the impromptu landing and managed to board as well before the ramp was pulled up. The ship’s engines hummed gently before they began to growl viciously, and, with inexorable force, we overcame the pull of gravity and began to rise.

A shout of “Hey, wait!” caught my ears, and I turned to see a pegasus struggling to haul a unicorn up. With a few more powerful wing bursts she managed to catch up and, with a heave, tossed her burden onto the deck, who landed with a shriek and a thud. The pegasus joined him a moment later and flopped down in a pile of speckled feathers. Her bay coat—with the dark spots along her back and speckling her wings—pegged her for an out-of-towner, but something seemed oddly familiar about the unicorn.

The captain trotted over and gazed narrowly at the two.

“Wait, wait! We have money!” the mare panted and fumbled about in her saddlebags. She produced a substantial bag of brass bits.

The captain’s look softened—not much, but just enough—and he hoofed the bag casually. “You should know we’re on special assignment. Direct flight to Los Pegasus.”

“That’s fine,” the dark-coated stallion said in a low, deep voice. “Anywhere but here.” He used a bit of dark green magic to straighten his mane into an elegant coif.

“You two ain’t in some sort of trouble, are you?” the captain asked.

“Only with our families,” the mare said. “We’re eloping!” She was almost beside herself with glee as she pulled up her new soon-to-be-husband and squeezed him tightly. When her long blond mane shifted to reveal his face, I froze as recognition struck me.

His eyes, a dark, mossy green, widened as they caught sight of mine, then shrank almost to points.

“Uhm. Bright Skies, honey,” he squeaked. “Maybe we should find another flight.”

Bright Skies giggled. “There aren’t going to be any other flights, my tasty morsel. Ponyville isn’t exactly a major stopping point.”

“Train. Wagon. Anything.”

“What’s the matter, love?” She turned her head and blinked at me. “Whoa. Turn that glare down, sister. You’re liable to burn something.”

“Hello, Legato,” I said.

Sweat broke out along Legato’s brow. “Leit. Hi.”

“Hey, whoa,” Bright Skies said as she stepped between us, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t like it. Sweetheart, who is this mare and why is she trying to murder you with her eyes?”

“That mare—” Legato sighed, “—is my dear, sweet sister, love.”

Bright Skies glanced between us. “You weren’t kidding about your family being judgemental, were you, hon?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” I said with acid sweetness. “So, eloping, huh? How is it Father isn’t swooping down on us out of the sky right now?”

“Don’t even joke about that,” he hissed and glanced towards the town as it fell away, then up towards the clouds. “You have no idea what I went through to get away.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m honestly not that interested.” I flicked my tail and turned aside.

“Leit, don’t be like that,” Legato complained, taking a few steps in my direction. “I’m trying to start a new life. We don’t need to drag the past into this.”

His hoof settled against my shoulder and I shrugged it off. “It’s a little late for sympathy, Leg. I don’t remember seeing you around when Mother and Father were riding me.”

“I don’t think the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra was going to be very sympathetic to a first year violinist taking a leave of absence,” he grumbled.

I glanced over my shoulder, eyes narrowed. “Not even a letter. You never once visited while I was at school. In Canterlot. Speaking of, aren’t you back on tour, soon?”

Bright Skies fluttered her wings, giggling as she nuzzled the side of her husband-to-be’s face. “Well, he should be practicing, but we’ve had something of a… shall we say… whirlwind romance?” The look she gave me was icy, however, transitioning instantly between warmth and frost. Fair enough. She didn’t know our history.

Legato laughed, but it had an awkward tinge to it. “Well, yes. I brought Bright Skies home to introduce her to Mother and Father.”

“Which was… interesting,” Bright Skies said, her eyes flashing. “I didn’t know one could serve tea in a condescending way.”

“Mother manages, somehow.” I glanced back at Legato. He scuffed his hoof on the deck in an utterly transparent fashion, giving me a sheepish look. I rolled my eyes and took the bait. “You’re not too happy about having to elope, are you?”

“It’s not really proper now, is it?” He jerked his head over the side.

“Oh, honey,” Bright Skies said warmly. “You know I don’t mind.”

“I do. I shouldn’t have to fight my family just to live the life I want to live, or marry whomever I choose.” He rubbed his cheek against hers. “And I wanted to give you a proper, romantic engagement…”

She giggled. “No, no, it’s totally cool. I love wild escapes on airships.”

I watched the two of them snuggle in their own warm little bubble while tapping my hoof pensively against the deck. When Legato turned back to look at me, his mossy eyes challenging, I refused to meet them. I stared down at the vanishing town instead.

“I’m going to see if the captain will let us hold a private ceremony,” Legato said. “Would you, ah…” He looked at me for a long moment before shaking his head and walking away towards the rear deck. My soon-to-be sister-in-law gave me a frosty look before joining him. All that was left for me was the slowly disappearing landscape, with Ponyville a collection of dollhouses spread around a glittering river.

“I can’t imagine family like that.”

Marcus’s unexpected interjection was enough to make me jump, clutching a hoof to my chest. It was easy to forget that I wasn’t entirely alone, though I might have wished I had been. Refusing to acknowledge him to spare myself the embarrassment of one of Daphne’s human friends seeing me in such a compromising situation didn’t work out quite as well as I might have hoped, either.

“Lyra mentioned you’d had some trouble with them,” he added.

“It’s not really any of your business,” I said curtly. My first impulse was to run off and hide in my cabin, but—in addition to the fact that I had no idea if we had separate cabins or not—retreating felt wrong just then. I didn’t want to cede anything to him—some shaved, half-minotaur creature. This expedition fell under my leadership, and I couldn’t let anypony nor anyone run me off. Thus resolved, I put my legs up on the rail to watch the ground beneath, letting the wind catch my mane and billow it about. The crisp air felt nice against my face, and concentrating on landmarks far below helped to steady my nerves.

“It’s not that bad, anyway,” I said after a moment. “They’re just very concerned about their children’s success in life.”

“So I’ve been hinted,” he said as he glanced down at me. “They made you do stupidly rigorous tests, had you apply for a really prestigious school at a young age, and then when you get there you drove yourself up a wall.”

“I didn’t drive myself up a wall!” I snapped at him. He remained unbowed in the face of my fury. Blushing, I turned my face aside. “I just needed time to myself is all.”

He leaned back against the engine housing. “Well, I’m not going to judge your folks. It’s just hard for me to imagine is all—my folks were all about giving me space and letting me figure myself out. I don’t know. Maybe I’d be doing better in school and stuff if they pushed me harder, but whatever.”

“That must be nice,” I said icily, “getting to do whatever you want, with no fear of consequences.”

Marcus laughed. “Never said that. I can’t imagine the sort of Cain my folks are raising after they found the guns missing, then there’s the whole ‘running off with three young girls’ thing.” He grimaced. “That, or they think I’m somehow responsible for all of that. I may have a lot of explaining to the police to do when I get back.”

I looked at him for a while. His thoughts were elsewhere—his eyes seemed to stare right through the strap he was fiddling with. “I’m sorry. This is hard on all of you. I don’t want to imagine what your family is going through.”

“We’re strong, we’ll get through it. If I bring home a herd of unicorn mares, I’m sure I can wring some forgiveness out.” He grinned. “Grandmother has been bothering me about bringing home some pretty girls after I broke up with Daphne. It’s not my fault if she didn’t specify the species, and you certainly fit the bill.”

“I guess it wouldn’t be too much trouble of me, after everything you’re doing for Daphne, and… wait, the bill of… what?” I blinked. “Being… pretty?” My cheeks rosied and I gave him a sour look. “Hey.”

“I think you’d like to meet them. They’re nice, if a little weird,” he said with that stupid grin still plastered on his face. “I’m sure they won’t judge you for being a horse.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, tossing my head back in disgust. “Even if you were a stallion, you absolutely aren’t my type.”

He arched a brow. “Yeah? What type is that?”

I snorted. “The exact opposite of you. Studious, noble, honorable, polite, and well-mannered!”

“In other words, boring.” He crossed his arms. “Did your parents pick that out, too?”

My mouth opened but quickly shut before I managed to say, “No. Shut up.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems to me that you and your brother both are letting them cast their shadows over you, no matter how you remove yourselves from them. What, you live in a cave and growl at everyone coming close, while he feels it’s better to run away than confront them over the woman he loves?”

 I glowered at him. “I’m an independent mare. I have my own place and I set my own rules.”

“If you say so,” he said with a shrug. “I’m hungry; think I’ll go hit up the mess. You coming?”

“I want to stay here a bit,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”

Marcus stepped forward from the engine housing and started back towards the ladder. All around me, sailors scurried across the deck as they prepared to catch the ship in the high speed currents over the cloud layer. I ran a hoof through my mane and sighed—it was going to be a long trip.

My eventual retreat below decks came when the air turned far too cold to bear any longer. With Daphne’s scarf tucked tight around me, I slid down the ladder and scurried along the corridor seeking warmth. There was a common room, a sort of ship’s library with chairs and sofas bolted to the floor and glass cabinets filled with books, that I quickly piled into. It suited me right down to the core, my eyes drawn from the books to the paneled ceiling to the glass doors at the back, leading to other passenger areas.

Some ponies were clustered around one of the doors in the hall out that way, with one young mare passing out flowers that the others put in their manes. At first, this puzzled me, but, after a moment’s reflection, the most likely explanation floated to the top: Legato and Bright Skies’s little ceremony.

“You going back there?” Marcus asked, startling me. I turned and found him lounging in one of the large, scooped chairs, leafing through a picture book. It was remarkable how little presence he had when he didn’t feel like being seen—for all his pomposity, Marcus knew a thing or two about subtlety, it seemed.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted quietly. My eyes followed the impromptu party as they wandered inside. It would be just like Legato to insist on gathering at least a few witnesses, so he could prove his feelings in a public fashion. “Having to settle like this must be killing him.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s theatrical,” I said bitingly. “Well… that and he would hate the idea that he can’t give Bright Skies a wedding that he thinks she deserves. Legato was always dramatic with a purpose.” A faint smile touched my lips. “After Daphne disappeared from my life, I was pretty much inconsolable. Still, he tried to cheer me up by getting my ‘school friends’ to sing a ‘get better’ song outside my window one night.”

“That sounds rather sweet.”

“I hated those kids.”

Marcus glanced up at me with a silent frown.

I rubbed my leg awkwardly. “They teased me a lot… I was an egghead, awful at sports, blank flank. I never… really had any friends until Daphne.” I shot him a challenging look. “She treated me like I was the greatest thing in the world, like I was a princess instead of an awkward, gangly little filly.”

“Things didn’t improve after that?” he asked. “I mean, no one was really sympathetic towards you after you’d gone through a traumatic experience and all?” That surprised me—he had to have known that my statement was a shot at him about the way he treated her, yet he didn’t rise to the bait.

Which was unfortunate. I could have used a good fight right then.

My eyes slid to the side again. “No. I mean… maybe they could have, but my parents… well. I didn’t have a lot of time on my own after that. After school I went to magic practice.”

“So… putting it together, your folks saw you running off into the forest and decided you’d already had a little too much freedom?”

A nod. I sank down into a chair.

“Sounds like Legato cared, though.”

“Sure sounds like it.” I shook my head. “You heard us back there, though. Do you know what he did when I went to him for help? He put me off. He didn’t want to ‘rock the boat.’ Had his own career to think about. After a year, he was gone anyway—off to a music academy in Fillydelphia. That was the last I saw of him, aside from a brief visit in Canterlot when he got a job there.”

“Ah.” Marcus glanced back at the vanishing wedding party and then back at me. “All right, I understand.” With that, he went back to looking at the pictures in the book.

I couldn't believe that was it—that he had just dropped the subject and given me my space.

After a lifetime of dealing with Lyra and other ponies who kept trying to shove their noses into my business, that was strangely comforting. I peeked at him, wondering if he was going to start in again, but he seemed content to allow me my privacy. He didn’t so much as glance my way.

There was no pressure, just the two of us sitting around with me not explaining at all how I felt about personal matters to someone who was, quite frankly, a perfect stranger. He left me in peace, just the way I liked.

I kneaded the sofa cushion with a hoof.

“So, uhm… Marcus. What does family mean to you?”

His head turned with a surprised little tilt. It took a fair amount of effort not to stammer an apology for interrupting him, hide my face, and pretend I had never asked anything at all. He had been perfectly willing to leave me be and would continue to do so if I had given him the opportunity. All that would have accomplished, however, was leaving me with a lump in my throat and a gaping uncertainty I’d have to bear alone.

For once in my life, I wanted to say something about how I felt to another living being.

“Family?” Marcus mulled that over, closing his book and setting it across his lap. It was as if he were testing an unfamiliar morsel. “That’s a pretty complicated question.” He sat up and turned his chair around to face me, crossing his legs. “I’ve got kind of a big family. I don’t really know how it is among ponies—I know you and Twilight Sparkle live on your own, while that Applejack mare lives with her grandmother—but we’re kind of unusual in that we have our grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins under one roof. We’re even bigger than Naomi’s family by a fair margin.

“That comes with a lot of problems, of course.” He smirked. “‘Privacy’ is kind of a joke when you have a handful of siblings and cousins all sharing the same few rooms. Sometimes, it’s a huge challenge to make yourself stand out. Everyone develops his or her own special ‘look at me’ personality traits. All that said, though, there’s a lot of warmth in that house. You always know that you had a half-dozen people who would back you up in any situation. If someone needed a little love and affection, there was always someone on hand to provide it. An uncle tutored me in math because I was struggling in school. One of my grandfathers taught me everything I know about engines and machines, and the other taught me about the outdoors and how to love nature.”

I slid Daphne’s scarf off as I listened and combed my mane out with a hoof, trying to relax on the sofa. My eyes settled somewhere around his shoes.

“So…” He spread his hands out over the chair’s arms. “What does family mean to me? A lot of things, I guess. It means unconditional love, respect for history… it means always having someone there for you.” He ran a hand through his hair and watched me in silence for a few moments. “What does family mean to you, Leit Motif?”

“Family is…” I took a breath and continued. “Family is knowing you won’t always be alone.” I stared at the floor without quite seeing it. Memories of a warm quilt around me as I sat tucked against my mother’s bulk in front of the fire one Hearth’s Warming Eve, too sick to go to any of the celebrations. “It’s respect. It’s people who will trust you to make your own decisions and help you live with them, not judge you before you even start.” I saw my father pinning up my acceptance letter on the refrigerator. Mother sobbing as I was dragged back home from the fringe of the Everfree between Father’s legs. Legato hiding in his room while they shouted at one another.

Memories churned inside me with the taste of sour milk.

“Your parents didn’t do any of that, did they?”

“All they ever wanted was to protect me,” I mumbled. When Marcus said nothing, I went on. “At first, it was great. I needed them. But… especially after they caught me running away… they… they just…”

“They didn’t trust you any more,” Marcus said gently.

I nodded, rubbing my face. “After that, it was like there wasn’t an escape any more. If I asked them to let me do things on my own, not to interfere, they just took that as a cry to help—the thought that I could handle my own problems was just ridiculous. And it was even worse if I felt I needed them, if I actually asked for help… for them it was confirming that I needed looking after, that I couldn’t handle problems at all. It was as though I was saying, ‘I’m running my life wrong, please correct me.’” A lump sat up at the top of my throat, making it hard to speak clearly. Another mare might have described it as being on the verge of tears. “I just wanted them to be proud of me,” I mumbled.

Silence fell again. Eventually, I lifted my head and looked at Marcus. “Well?” I asked. “What do you think?”

Admittedly, that wasn’t very charitable of me. I put him on the spot, asked him to confront grief he potentially wasn’t prepared to deal with and, frankly, had never asked to receive.

He sat back and watched me for a bit. “I think,” he said slowly, “that you already have a good idea of what family should be. There’s really no one out there but you who can answer the question of what you want or what you need.” He turned his head to look down the corridor at the open door. “Don’t let anyone pressure you into conforming to a standard you don’t feel fits you.”

I ducked my head, letting my mane fall between him and me so he wouldn’t see me wipe my eyes. “Yeah… yeah. Thank you.”

“Do you think you’re going to the party? If you want some company, I could go with.” He smirked. “I’d say ask Lyra, but she turned greener than usual when we took off and I haven’t seen her since.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, “but no.” I gave him a small smile. “Maybe one day Legato and I can talk, but… not today.”

“Got it.”

An awkward pause followed. We coughed and glanced away. “So, uh,” I said airily, “wonder what’s good around here.”

“Don’t ask me. I can’t read a damned thing.”

I wrapped a green aura around one of the cabinets and pulled a couple books to my side. Neither of us said anything more for the rest of the day.

Dinner aboard the vessel came after the sun set. After travel chow in my earlier journeys, the meal pleasantly surprised me. The kitchen brought up many autumn favorites like pumpkin pie, spiced apple cider, eggplant parmesan, apple dumplings, and heaps of freshly harvested salad.

Marcus, for his part, looked to be pining for any sort of meat. He slathered almost everything in copious amounts of gravy, doubtless to satisfy his sick, carnivorous cravings.  “You going to finish that?” he asked as he pointed at my chocolate pudding.

“Yes.” I hoofed it closer.

“Too bad, that’s good stuff. Hard to believe the trip is almost over, actually.” He glanced out the window at clouds turned golden with the low sun. “Not a bad trip.”

“Yeah, I enjoyed it. I really like to travel.” I glanced Lyra’s way. She looked positively ill, chewing despondently on a sprig of celery. “Unlike some ponies, apparently. Why did you even come along if you get airsick?”

“I didn’t know!” she groaned. “I’ve never been up in an airship before. Ugh. Marcus, can you tilt the room back to normal?”

“Hold still,” I said and reached out to steady her with a hoof. With a bit of concentration, I shot a narrow green beam at her ear. After a few seconds, I lit the other one up as well, and Lyra leaned back on her cushion with a relieved sigh as her stomach settled.

“What was that?” Marcus asked. “Is that at all like how you helped Daphne’s leg?”

“No. That was easing the swelling in a sprain,” I said. “This was me making a slight adjustment to Lyra’s inner ears.”

“I never could get the hang of healing,” Lyra grumbled. She grabbed a big bowl of hummus and began demolishing it at once.

“Wow, like, healing magic?” Marcus waved his spoon at me. “You have a ton of great talents.”

“Yeah, well.” I reddened. “I’m not really that good at healing. I never got beyond the first aid level of study.”

“Word around town is you and Lyra are probably two of the most skilled unicorns around, aside from some of the other graduates like Twilight.”

I flattened my ears and turned away.

“Wish you’d done that earlier,” Lyra grumbled. “I bet your brother would have paid a mint for me to perform at his ceremony. Did either of you make it?”

My response was curt. “No, and, honestly, I’d rather focus on what we need to do. We’re going to be landing soon.” Putting a point to my words, I pushed away from the mess table and rose. “Don’t bother retrieving your things—Twilight already saw to it that the ship won’t leave until we’re ready.”

Together, we made our way to the deck, where Marcus paused at the top of the ladder to stare openly. Directly ahead of the prow sat a great city, sun-kissed clouds gathered into a sprawling, chaotic landscape. Palm trees waved in the breeze in long avenues while fountains of liquid rainbow cascaded from well-tended homes overlooking the glittering ocean.

“Ah, Los Pegasus. I always wanted to perform here, you know?” Lyra said as she stretched her legs. “You can only follow so many dreams at a time, though. So, are we going to search now? I mean, it’s a little late, isn’t it?”

“I don’t care if it’s three in the morning,” I said grimly. “Daphne is waiting on us. We’ll just have to wake her if she’s gone to bed early.”

“Is there seriously a giant letter sign that says ‘Applewood’ in the hills down there?” Marcus asked as he peered over the side of the airship. “That is absolutely disgusting and makes no sense, you know that?”

“No,” Lyra said. She lit her horn, a golden light touching her hooves briefly, and walked back to the ladder. “I’m going down to the departure ramp, meet me there?”

“Right,” I said with a nod, before turning to Marcus. “Now, Marcus, I’m going to put a Cloudwalk spell on you. You’ll be able to walk on cloud vapor, but be careful—pegasus cities aren’t really designed for visitors.”

“Sure,” he said with a nervous glance towards the city. “H-how long does the spell last, anyway? I don’t want to be caught with my pants down at the wrong moment.”

“It’s a pretty simple spell, and I’ve gotten some decent practice at it. I can manage well over six hours, so we’ll be fine,” I promised as I lit my horn. “If anything goes wrong, just shout for help, or step on some cloudstone. That should support your weight even if the spell fails.” Carefully, I wove the spell about his legs.

“Cloudstone,” he muttered as he watched the green glow envelop his limbs. “Great. I’m in pony California and already I’m as high as a kite.”

By the time I finished weaving the spell around the both of us, pegasi at the airship dock had already tied the ship to heavy cloudstone pillars jutting out from the dock. We pulled up against a bank of fog like two explorers ready to disembark onto an undiscovered shore. Below, Lyra stepped out from the vessel and began to chat up one of the young stallions standing near a ticket booth. As I began towards the ladder, Marcus contemplated the rail.

“You said this spell would hold me on vapor, right?” he asked as he rubbed his chin.

“Ah… yes?”

With a grin, he hitched his rifle higher and took a running leap off the side. I shrieked and tried to snag him with my magic, but missed as he careened away. Running to the rail, I saw him land and bounce off the cloud substance with a high whoop before skidding to a halt near the arrivals and departures board. My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough down the ladder and out the gangplank. I skidded to a halt before him, a cascade of puffy white mist erupting around me, as he rose to his feet.

“You—!” I growled, stalking this way and that around him. “You crazy imb—! You could have fallen!”

Marcus only laughed and dusted himself off. “It’s a big dock. There’s no way I would have missed it.” He bounced up and down on his heels a bit. “This stuff is great. It’s like that rubber stuff at Disney World, only even more springy.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying scaring the living daylights out of me!”

He gave me a sheepish grin. “I suppose I did kind of freak you out there. Sorry.”

I looked up at his face. It was just like Lyra—it was so open and disarmingly full of raw joy that there was absolutely nothing I could do to put a dent in it. “Ugh.” I snorted. “Ugh!” I turned and flicked my tail right at his face.

No wonder Daphne dumped him. If I had dated a stallion half as infuriating as Marcus, I might have sworn off colts entirely.

Legato and Bright Skies stepped off the ship, a wreath of flowers gracing the latter’s blond locks. They would have to find lodging for the night and would probably be gone in the morning, Legato out of my life once again. There was a certain irony in the fact that I gave up a portion of my life to search for someone else’s sister while my own brother slipped me by. He and I locked gazes, our movement stilled for a time, before Bright Skies tugged him along. They wandered off the dock and into the remaining daylight, lost to me amid a sea of clouds.

“Hey,” Marcus said, “you okay?”

“What?” I jerked my head up. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I gave him an uncertain look. “Don’t worry so much about me.”

He shrugged. “I’m not. You just… looked kind of miserable is all.”

“I do not,” I growled. At the same time, though, I wondered. I rubbed my face surreptitiously and hoped that emotions weren’t treacherously playing themselves out without my knowing again.

He gave a sideways nod. “Well, all right. If you ever want to talk about that ‘nothing wrong’ again, just… let me know. We’re in this together. I can’t spend all day staring at flying horses like an awestruck idiot.” He walked off and perused the pamphlets by the information desk, where the Captain was speaking with the dockmaster, likely over the possibility of cargo. I reached into my saddlebags for my journal—

Nothing. Quickly, I emptied them and checked the contents, but found no sign of the tome. With an irritated sigh, I trotted back onto the airship, darting past a pair of pegasus aircrew and sliding my cabin door open. The journal stared back at me from the bed covers where it had been left, and I fancied it sitting there rather guiltily in the wan light from the hallway. As I picked it up, though, flipping to the most recent page and taking out my pen, I found the nib unwilling to move. Less because of any failure on its part, and more because I simply had nothing to say. For once, I didn’t really feel the need.

After a moment’s thought, I lowered it back to the bed and hurried back out. Marcus was long gone by then, and I wondered where Lyra had vanished to. Of course, the moment I thought of her, she appeared in front of me as though summoned.

“So!” She grinned. “How are we going to go about this? Are we going to break in and kidnap her in a daring raid, or is this going to be more of a cat burglar affair? I’ve got some great sound-cancelling spells.”

“Lyra!” I gasped. “Knock that off! What if somepony overhears?” A quick glance confirmed that no pony stood in easy hearing distance, but my heart needed a moment even still.

“I’ll explain that I’m just working on ideas for a play.”

“That’s a stupid excuse, and we’re not doing anything illegal. I never gave any impression I intended to do something illegal!” I stamped a hoof. “Besides, all we need to do is go to her place and talk to her. It’s not as though it’s some big production or anything.”

Lyra pouted. “Darn. So where does she live, anyway?”

“Just south of the race track.”

“Hey, ladies?” Marcus called. “I’ve hired a flying cab—or chariot, or whatever. Well, by ‘hired’ I mean ‘asked them to stand by while you two pay for them.’”

“Oh, thank Celestia. Someone who has a lick of sense,” I said loudly to the air. Lyra stuck her tongue at me and we trotted after the human. Outside, a pair of beefy pegasus stallions hitched themselves to a simple wooden chariot, big enough for a small family of visiting ground-dwellers. It wasn’t strictly necessary—unlike some districts of Cloudsdale, Los Pegasus saw enough need for ground traffic that it had been laid out in tree-lined rows, with long boulevards of cloudstone spreading across the city like a net. Still, it meant a quicker journey by far than walking.

Lyra eyed the pair up and down with a slow, appreciative look. “Never mind. This trip is already shaping up well.”

“Oh, knock it off,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Let’s get going.”

“Where to, ladies?” the yellow one on the left asked, flexing his wings when he noticed Lyra's gaze lingering longer than strictly necessary. I fixed him with a stare, and he blanched, facing forward.

I rubbed at one of my temples with hoof, climbing into the back of the chariot. “Just head for the tracks.”

Once all three of us were settled, the stallions took off into the sky and soared over the puffy cloud city. Marcus’s eyes lit with interest as he watched the carefully sculpted towers and parks glide by. Entire sections of land, unmoored from the earth and suspended on gossamer strands of cloudstone, teemed with families and couples enjoying the sunset. I set my chin down on the side of the chariot next to him and gazed down to see the lights along the streets below being lit in neat rows of dim stars.

The stadium came into view not long after that. Over four miles of twisting, curving track tangled amongst themselves, with showers of rainbow and rumbling, dark storm clouds corralled into hazards. Even from our elevated vantage, it looked trashed, with flyers and confetti and busy custodians everywhere. Pegasi streamed out of the exits or just flew right out of the top. “Lightning Dust is probably going to be exhausted when we see her. She competes there professionally, and, from the looks of it, they’re ending for the night,” I said, my breath frosting in the air. I cinched my scarf tighter against the chill high-altitude air.

“Figured. Athlete and all,” Lyra said, tearing her gaze away from the bearers. “How good is she, anyway? Like, on a scale of one to Rainbow Dash.”

I chose to ignore the scale remark. “When I met her? Very good. I don’t think she’d ever lost a single race.” I pricked my ears. “There!” I shouted, fixing a hoof on a dense neighborhood of cloud houses moored together behind a line of businesses near the track. “Take us down there.”

The chariot descended from the thin air back down to the city level and came to a rolling stop. There was no street access—considering pegasus athletes lived here and could detach their homes at any time from the rest, it was doubtful the thought ever occurred to them. The chariot rocked on the narrow strip of cloud and I slipped with a little gasp. Marcus caught me about the shoulders, keeping me from a humiliating faceplant into the cloud below.

“Thanks,” I said, quickly finding my footing.

“No problem.” Marcus looked around appreciatively. He took special note of the columns and silvery tracery that was so popular among the locals. “I like the style here. A lot classier than Ponyville—no offense.”

I shrugged. “None taken. Honestly, I prefer something a little less folksy, myself.” I glanced over at the taxi. “Wait up, we won’t be long,” I told the stallions.

Lyra frowned as she glanced around. “Leit, you said Lightning Dust is really successful, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“If so, why is she still living in a…” she cleared her throat, “...low rent area?”

“The rents here aren’t that low.” I glanced back at an overflowing trash can with a bird sleeping on it like a big, feathered cat. It squawked at me angrily and flapped its wings. “Besides, she probably just wants to stay close to the tracks.”

“I’m not sure if you two were paying attention, but there were some really nice ranch-style houses north of the tracks. The winds here blow southerly, carrying the stench, so everypony who’s anypony takes up territory to the north.”

I sniffed the air. There was certainly a bit of a stale odor coming off the tracks. I gave her a sour look. “Weren’t you staring at our drivers the entire time?”

Lyra smirked and buffed a hoof against her coat. “Yes.”

“Uh…” Marcus looked between us. “Can’t you guys just build the city three-dimensionally? I mean, that would remove problems like that, wouldn’t it?”

“What, and have the ponies overhead dumping their trash and blocking the sun?” Lyra scoffed. “There’s a reason the airbound Ponyville pegasi don’t live directly overhead. Ugh. Imagine getting Rainbow Dash’s kitchen leavings all over your house.”

“Who is this Rainbow Dash, anyway?” he asked. “I keep hearing about her, but I’ve never seen her around.”

“She’s just the best flyer in Equestria, or near abouts,” Lyra said, waving a hoof at the sky. “You remember that sonic rainboom thing? That’s how she completely impossibly defied all sense of rational physics and—”

“Well!” I interrupted, “if our quarry has moved on, we’ll find out soon enough.” Taking the lead, I started into the neighborhood, hopping from cloud to cloud until I stopped in front of a familiar facade. It had been a couple years, but little about it seemed to have changed, with the same ice blue columns and lightning motif about the doorframe. The mailbox was stuffed to the point of bursting, bulging at the welds with bills and offers.

Marcus boldly picked up a fallen letter and checked the address. With a scowl, he must have remembered belatedly that he couldn’t read Equestrian and sheepishly presented it to me. Sure enough, it listed “Lightning Dust” as the addressee.

Lyra tilted her head, looking at the house. “Maybe she’s not—” Golden light poured out of the windows on the ground floor. “Oh, nevermind.”

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered and stepped up to the door. My hoof rapped three times on the door. The scrollwork chipped, and I grimaced. It flaked off and fluttered to the cloud below before evaporating. The place definitely could have been kept up better.

“Get lost!” a mare’s voice reverberated back. “No solicitors!”

“Lightning Dust?” I called. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“If you’re a fan, that counts double!” she shouted. “Scram, before I autograph your forehead with my hoof.”

Lyra, Marcus, and I exchanged a glance, and I swept a hoof at Marcus. “No, it’s Leit Motif. We met a few years ago, to talk about selling some of your things?”

He scowled but took my hint, edging to the side, out of easy view of any of the windows. No sense frightening her with an alien if she turned out to be skittish. Not immediately, anyway.

“Leit Motif…” Lightning Dust said thoughtfully. “Teenager, kind of nerdy and gloomy?” An eggshell blue face peeked out through one of the small windows by the door. “Yeah, hey, I remember you,” she said in a more casual tone. “You’re looking a lot better—things with your folks work out?”

My expression fell. “Not really, but I moved on.” I scuffed the doorway with a hoof. “I wanted to talk to you about that collection.”

The door opened a crack. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I wasn’t doing anything tonight, anyway.”

I shot Lyra an apprehensive look before pushing the door the rest of the way open, walking inside. The place had definitely gone downhill—downwind?—since the last time I’d been there. Newspapers were piled in the corners, dishes were stacked high in the sink, and cans of cold food gathered dust on the shelves. Lightning Dust herself didn’t look all that much better. She was still impossibly fit, her lithe muscles standing tautly against her pale blue hair, but her eyes were bleary, and her swept-back dark blond mane looked like it was in dire need of a brushing. There was just a hint of salt about her breath—and what seemed a touch of alcohol, too. She joined me in the living room, which had gone from a neat little living space to a den of old magazines and litter. The trophies she’d once proudly displayed on her mantle were no where to be seen.

For a minute, I’d wondered if there’d been an accident—some sort of crippling wing injury which had killed her dreams. The pegasus I had met before had been cocksure and almost unbearably arrogant, associations I found mirrored almost perfectly in the Scourge of Ponyville, Rainbow Dash. There was no indication she had gone to seed in anything but mind, however, not from my cursory glance, yet she looked beat for all of her apparent physical perfection, like the sun might never shine again.

When her gaze fell on my friends, though, a frantic light returned to her instantly. Lyra she dismissed out of hoof, passing over her without interest, but when she saw Marcus her eyes grew wide as saucers, and she pulled herself up very straight indeed.

“So!” she said after a moment in too bright a tone, fluttering her wings and shoving a box off her sofa. It had the distinct air of somepony trying very hard to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything. “What can I do you for?”

“I wanted to talk about that collection of strange artifacts you showed me last time I visited,” I said. “Oh, this is Lyra and Marcus. They’re just visiting town with me.” I declined the seat with a wave of my hoof, though Marcus and Lyra took it, the former stretching out his long legs, and the latter sitting in the upright pose she used for performances. “I’ve built up a fair bit of savings, and wanted to see if you’d be willing to part with any of your other artifacts.”

“Nope!” she said. “Sold it all. Got rid of the rest. The parts of it I didn’t sell.” She smiled and gestured towards the door with a wing. “Well, gosh, sorry you wasted your time. It was nice seeing you again, though!”

“I can see one of the pieces right there.” I pointed a hoof at a corner, where a sharp knife had viciously pinned a set of overdue electric bills to the wall.

Lightning Dust’s eyes flicked over to the dagger with a flash of irritation. “Except that.”

“The chest you stored the others in is right there.” I pointed to a heavy, iron-bound box in front of a puffy chair. “You’ve been using it as an ottoman.”

Her cheeks heated. Lyra exchanged a look with Marcus, but said nothing.

My eyes hardened. Even if my job didn’t demand that I be alert to shams, scams, and concealment, this was just insultingly obvious. Frankly, though, I didn’t care at this point, not with Daphne waiting. Smoothing my features, I stepped up to her. “Look, Dust… I can see you’ve fallen on hard times. I heard about how the Wonderbolts rejected you.” She spluttered, but I pushed on regardless, speaking over her and fixing my eyes to hers. “It’s fine. I know how important pride is—you don’t need to make excuses. Tell you what… I’ll pay three times your asking price from before, no bargaining.”

Lightning Dust’s face twisted, but she couldn’t hold my gaze. “Fine… just… let’s hurry up.”

She went over to the chest and spun the lock. With a sound click, it popped, and she opened the lid. Marcus and Lyra leaned forward to get a better look. Within were stacked the strange and unusual bits and ends that had brought us here, and Lightning Dust went about arraying the items along a table. There were pieces of armor, strange mechanical devices, utensils, and more. Each one harkened back in some way to the research done at Twilight’s library. Pulling a shield closer, I stared down at the angular script adorning it. It seemed like chicken scratches, or perhaps the suggestion of pine needles.

“Aren’t those runes?” Marcus asked.

Lightning Dust’s head snapped up and she stared at him for a moment before shaking herself. I frowned and watched her carefully.

Lyra floated a goblet into the air. “So, where did these come from, anyway? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

“I don’t know,” Lightning Dust said quickly. “My parents passed it on to me.”

“Where are your folks from?” Lyra pressed.

“Here. Los Pegasus.”

I frowned at Lightning Dust, saying, “Well, they must have told you something.”

“No, nothing at all. They didn’t tell me anything at all.” She shook her head firmly, her ears twitching and swiveling around. “Look, what does it matter where they’re from?”

“We want to find more like it,” I said. “I’m rather curious about their origins.”

“You won’t find anything more like it,” she said in a hush.

Lyra tilted her head. “How do you know that?”

“I…” Lightning Dust bit her lip and ruffled her wings. “They’re old, from like my grandparents.”

Lyra held out an overturned hoof. “You mean your parents?”

“Yeah, I mean, my parents got them from their parents, who got them from their parents. And stuff.” Sweat broke out along Lightning’s brow. She glanced out the window. “Do you guys mind if I use the bathroom?”

“No.” Lyra shrugged and squinted at the cup in her telekinetic grip. “Go right ahead.”

Lightning Dust darted off into a neighboring door. At once, Marcus got to his feet and met my gaze.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.

I nodded. “She’s madly suspicious, obviously knows something, and is about to run away. Circle around and catch her before she flees through the window?”

“Already on it,” Lyra said before a golden sphere enveloped her with a flash of light. When it faded, she was gone. Marcus rushed for the front door, and I went to the bathroom to knock.

“Lightning Dust?” I called.

The rattling of a window met me. I summoned forth my own magic and fired a bolt at the door. It occurred that we probably should have pinned her down or cornered her before letting her wander, but this at least removed any shadow of a doubt. The door blasted open, a smoldering, whisping hole where its handle and lock had been previous, and I found Lightning Dust struggling with the window, which was held in place with a golden glow. I tried to catch her in a net of green light, but she demonstrated her obvious strength and simply smashed the window open with a hoof, diving through and whipping up into the air as fast as her namesake. Outside, Lyra was breathing out balls of flame that she shaped in midair. Within moments, she’d turned them into a phalanx of golden pegasi that leapt and snatched at Lightning Dust.

There was a spell I’d never seen before. For the life of me, I had no idea where she could have developed such a thing. On another target, it might have completely wiped the floor with the opposition.

Once again, though, Lightning Dust’s incredible physical prowess and sheer ferocity caught us off-guard. She spun in mid-air and bucked a simulacrum into oblivion before instantly snapping her wings, launching high into the sky. She darted through the gauntlet as they raced to meet her. Her tail became a trail of zig-zagging yellow light as she picked up speed.

My horn hummed as I wove a complex spell to paralyze her in place, but Lightning was already moving beyond my effective range. Just as it seemed as if she might get away, a pair of thunderous cracks rang out across the sky. Lightning Dust pitched and slowed, glancing back with surprise that matched my own. Marcus was crouched on one knee with his weapon stock pressed against his shoulder, the end of the weapon’s barrel still smoking. My recovery was quicker than Lightning’s, though, and I sent a wave of green energy through the air.

Only the trailing edge of the spell caught her as Lightning juked suddenly, but veridian lightning cascaded across her back and wings just the same. She yelped and seized in midair. Her descent was more controlled than I might have liked, however, and, instead of plummeting nearby, she managed to dive forward.

“Gragh! Dang it!” I swore, stomping the clouds beneath me. “Now we’ll never catch her! She’ll go to ground and be miles away!”

“No, it’s fine,” Lyra called out, coming up beside the broken window while watching the direction Lightning had retreated. “That spell is going to ruin her wings for a while; there’s no way she can risk leaving the city. We can still get her so long as we find her before she recovers. I’ll go on ahead; catch up when you can!” With a golden flash, she teleported again and again, hopping across the buildings.

“Ugh. Show off.” I blew the window off its hinges with a burst of magic and climbed out gingerly. Marcus trotted up to my side. “You didn’t shoot her, did you?” I asked nervously as I stared around at the darkening houses.

“No.” He shook his head. “I aimed way over her—just wanted to startle her. How are we going to catch up?” he asked with a frown, regarding the line of buildings ahead. “Can you do that teleport thingie like she did?”

“Yes. Sort of. I’m not as good at it. Just… hold still for a moment.”

Marcus looked at me in alarm. “What? You aren’t going to scatter my atoms if I move or something, will you?”

“I might if you don’t shut up!” I growled. Shutting my eyes, I concentrated on the feelings within my horn. Bright light shot out and then swallowed the two of us up. It felt not unlike being compressed, heated, then stretched and frozen all in rapid succession. It left me a little dazed, two of everything swam in my vision for a bit. Teleporting never had been my strong suit.

Marcus swayed and caught himself on my back. He dusted scorch marks off his side before we straightened and came to our senses.

My aim wasn’t ideal—we’d wound up in a dark alley between two businesses, rather than on the far street. “Just as planned,” I lied. Marcus didn’t need to know the whole truth.

“Let’s get going, then,” he said and began jogging out to meet the lights of the city. It was still early evening, and many pegasi were out and about, enjoying the last few autumn evenings much as the ponies of Ponyville would.

“Excuse me!” I interrupted a pair of young mares. “Have you seen an eggshell blue pegasus with a blond mane, or maybe a mint green unicorn rush past here?”

The smaller one spoke into the ear of her companion, who pointed a hoof down the street to the right. “We saw a unicorn galloping past just a few seconds ago.”

“Great! Thanks,” I called, already starting to run in that direction. Marcus, in spite of his longer legs, fell behind and did not catch up until I slowed again, nearing a park. Lyra waved us down, and I hurried to join her on the grass. “Where is she?”

“I’m not sure. I saw her and then she was just gone,” Lyra said, her face cross. It was one of the rare times I had ever seen her look utterly serious. “I’ve asked everypony I could find, too, but no one saw Lightning Dust come this way. I must have lost her on the way.”

I steadied myself to catch my breath, heaving a few chests of air. Marcus jogged up to join us, a frown on his face. “Hey,” he said, “didn’t you say Rainbow Dash hasn’t been seen around Ponyville in a while?”

Lyra gave him an uncomprehending look, and he thumbed over at a trio of stallions chatting near a fountain. We perked our ears to listen.

The first, a heavy-set brown one, gushed, “I swear, it was her. That ragged rainbow mane and tail, those perfect legs, that tight—”

“Luna’s flank, you’re always going on about her,” the tallest of the lot said with a roll of his eyes. “Getting kind of creepy.”

“I totally saw her, too,” the third, with a trio of hoofballs on his haunch, said.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure that I had heard right. Of all the ridiculous places Rainbow Dash could have wound up in, Los Pegasus was one of the last I could have imagined. It seemed like a pointless distraction, though, and I opened my mouth to say so.

“I asked her for her autograph, but she just glared and blew me off,” the brown one continued.

My mouth froze in place and I stared first at them, then at Lyra. “Since when has Rainbow Dash ever turned a fan down?”

“Rainbow Dash has never turned down a fan,” Lyra said as she trotted towards the trio. “Hey, boys,” she said with a smile and singsong tone. “I’m sorry, did I hear you say Rainbow Dash came this way?”

“Yeah,” the brown stallion answered with a crooked grin. “Isn’t she amazing?”

“She sure is. Tell me, did she hold her wings awkwardly? Maybe walk with a limp?”

“Yeah,” the hoofball player said with a nod. “Had them stretched out really tight.”

“And where’d she go?”

He pointed down the road, where an entrance to the race track gaped open. “She ran off there, to the arena.”

“Great! Thanks,” she said, and started running.

I groaned and raced after her. “Slow… down!” I gasped. My earlier sprint had taken a fair bit out of me, it seemed.

“What’s going on?” Marcus asked as he caught up, only a touch out of breath—it was terribly unfair that he’d be so fit while I struggled and huffed. “Why are we chasing Rainbow Dash?”

“That’s not Rainbow Dash,” Lyra said firmly, having slowed to allow us to keep up. “I don’t know how or why, but Lightning Dust disguised herself.”

We cantered through the entryway with cartons of food and crumpled up flyers crunching underfoot. Giant posters and banners of famous racers and Wonderbolts loomed down at us from all angles. While I heaved like a bellows, Lyra questioned a janitor.

He pointed down one of the side hallways. “Yeah. She asked where the ground lift was.”

Lyra raced off at once with a shouted, “Thank you!” I sucked up my breath and joined her, ignoring the burn that was growing in my lungs and legs. Together, the three of us flew across the corridors. Lyra yelped as she found an unexpectedly steep ramp, and, one after the other, Marcus and I slid after her into a pile on the floor near a great crane that dangled over the open air. Pallets held crates and barrels for delivery to and from the ground station.

“Aw, come on!” a high, somewhat raspy, feminine voice cried out from the control booth. Sure enough, a cyan mare with a vibrant, multihued tail and mane stood here, her wings held stiff and unresponsive at her sides. She watched the slowly winching cable, its length wrapped around a cylinder as big as a farm house, before turning her gaze on us. Her eyes narrowed and hardened.

“Crap!” I shouted, and Lyra struggled back to her feet. In the two breaths it took for Lyra to stand, ready herself, and start casting a spell, Rainbow Dash raced across nearly fifty feet of cloud and struck Lyra across the horn. She followed up with a spinning kick that sent Lyra flying across the floor into a pile of barrels. They split open on impact and gushed amber liquid over the floor.

Marcus leapt to his feet, raising his firearm, but Rainbow Dash simply stepped inside the length of his weapon and shoved it to the side. It went off harmlessly, all sound and thunder, and she twisted him over her shoulder, flinging him away. He dropped his weapon in his flight.

Desperately, I stood and lit my horn up to start a spell, but Rainbow’s rear hoof cracked me in the ribs and knocked the wind out of me. Just as she wheeled to deliver a blow to my head, a golden bolt clipped her, knocking her back a pace. Lyra, her eyes ablaze and blood trickling down her face, pushed her way out of the barrels and lit the room up with hissing, smoking bolts of fire.

Rainbow dodged and spun, but before she could advance and deal with Lyra, Marcus recovered and leapt on her back, throwing a rope from a pallet over her mouth like a crude bridle. Maddened, she bucked and screamed with fury, but she wasn’t the only enraged pony here. Just as she tossed Marcus across the room into Lyra, I acted.

I pushed myself up and shoved all of the pain, exhaustion, and frustration this trip had given me into my horn and pushed. A silent, billowing curtain of jade fire rushed across the cargo bay and caught Rainbow Dash up, sending her spinning in a flash of eldritch flames and embers. The sound caught up a moment later, reverberating like a lion’s roar.

Bruised and battered, with trails of steam rising off of her, a pony who was neither Rainbow Dash nor Lightning Dust crashed into the floor. The three of us limped up to surround her, looking down in amazement.

“Sweet cupcakes, she’s a goblin!” Lyra declared.

It was hard to disagree. The mustard-colored coat and shock white mane and tail were common enough, but her chest, belly, and back were covered with amber fish scales. With her leathery wings, I might have mistaken her for a bat pony, but none of them had prominent talons on the ends of their wings like she did.

“Well, I presumed she had something to hide, but this…” I gaped at her for a while, remembering the familiar face of Rainbow Dash set into such a terrible expression. “I think this little adventure just became much more important than we thought it would be.”

“What if there’s goblins everywhere?” Lyra asked, wide-eyed, her face a red horror with the cut gushing onto her scalp. “There could be goblins in every facet of Equestrian society! Goblins could even now be crashing our stock markets, derailing our trains, and spoiling our milk!”

“Spoiling our… oh for the love of Luna.” I grabbed her and lit up her head. “You’ve got a head injury. Don’t go bananas on me, now.” The green light focused on the cut, telekinetically pulling it closed and staunching the flow. “There’s some needle and thread in the first aid kit in my saddlebags, Marcus, can you…?”

“Got it,” he said, coming over to my side and reaching into one of my bags.

Lightning Dust—or whoever she was—groaned on the floor.

“Oh, shut up,” I told her harshly. “We’ll deal with you in a minute.”

“And I have just the idea—Ouch!” Lyra winced as I patched her up.

“Why didn’t you use your armor spell? That would have protected your stupid, thick skull.”

Lyra squirmed and whimpered under the needle. “Oh, hush up and finish already!”

After I finished with Lyra, she levitated one of the damaged barrels over and drained the remaining drink from it before firmly binding Lightning Dust with rope and stuffing her in. As a final measure, she grabbed a sock from her saddlebag and shoved it into Lightning’s mouth.

I arched a brow and curled my lips. “You packed socks?”

“A girl never knows!” she replied glibly, completely unfazed.

She would be the type. No matter.

“How are we going to get out with that…?” Marcus asked with an uncertain frown. He picked up his firearm and gave it a cursory inspection.

“Don’t worry about it. You two just walk out,” Lyra said confidently.

“All right,” I said. “Meet back at her place?”

Lyra nodded, then vanished in a flash of golden magic.

“So how come she can jump all over the place like that, while it knocks you out to do it once?” Marcus asked as we started back.

“Everypony has different talents and areas of expertise,” I said distractedly. It came off a little more dismissively than I intended, but Marcus didn’t seem offended as we walked back. After a moment’s silence, I added, “Lyra and I are different kinds of musicians, and that has an impact on our magic. She’s a performer and I’m a composer. I can perform, but I’m really more into composition and crafting, while she prefers tackling a problem head-on and seeing what works for her.”

“I’m not sure I see the correlation between that and teleportation, but I think I get the general idea.”

The janitor from before gave us an uncertain look, but said nothing. I groaned as I considered my now-tangled mane and tail. “I look like a complete mess.”

“Adorably disheveled,” Marcus corrected with a broad smile.

I gave him a sour look. “Just be glad you aren’t a stallion, or I might have had to deck you.”

Still, part of me smiled.

“Honestly, aside from getting beaten up by an adorable little horse, tonight went pretty awesomely,” Marcus said as he helped steady the barrel through Lightning Dust’s entryway.

“Unless the police come knocking on the door!” Lyra added brightly.

I shook my head. “Let’s just focus on the task at hoof. We have an interrogation to complete.” I focused my attention on the struggling mare-thing before me as my barbaric compatriots dumped her unto the floor, wrapping her in a web of my magic. “All right. There’s two very skilled magic users here to hold you down. You may be fast enough and tough enough to push one of us off, but the other is just going to slap you back down.” With that, I plucked Lyra’s sock from her mouth with my telekinesis, allowing Lightning Dust to speak.

She slumped immediately, as if I’d pulled a plug and let all the fight drain out of her. “Yeah… fine. I shoulda run from the very start. Really, I shoulda run the minute you left the first time.”

I blinked at her.

“Ain’ this just tidy. Once I saw that human I shoulda bucked him right in the face.” She groaned. “Well? Get it over with. We gonna do the execution here, or are you haulin’ me all the way back first?”

“What are—?”

Lyra cut me off. “You think we’re goblins, too, don’t you?”

Lightning Dust’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes widened. “You mean you ain’t…?” Her eyes flicked to all three of us. “Oh, bollocks.”

“I can see how that might have been an embarrassing mistake,” Lyra said with a nod.

My mouth hung open. I shut it with a hoof and regarded my captive for a long moment. She didn’t much resemble the creature Marble Stone had sketched, yet neither did Daphne currently resemble a human. “You… don’t sound very happy about the prospect of running into others of your kind,” I said at last.

Lightning Dust glanced away.

“Did you steal from them?” I kicked the chest with a rear hoof. “Is that what this all is, stolen goods?”

“No,” she bit off, then started to sweat. “Well… n-not all of it. Just let me go, please. You can have the junk, I just… I’ve been meaning to leave anyway. I won’t make trouble, swear it.”

I shook my head. “No, I think you’re going to have to start at the beginning. We’ll decide what to do with you after we’ve heard the whole story. Like how you can change forms, and why.”

Marcus sat on the puffy chair and propped his feet up on the chest. Lyra sat beside him, but kept her eyes firmly on our captive. Lightning Dust craned her neck around and sighed heavily. “All right. Bloody hell… can I at least sit down?”

My magic plopped her on her backside on the couch facing us, but held her firmly immobile from the chest down. She squirmed as best she could and stared firmly at the floor. “Aye. I’m a goblin, sure enough.” With a gentle tremble, she changed before our very eyes, so fast and smooth that my mind needed a moment to process what my eyes had just witnessed. It was like an octopus changing colors, but not only did her mane gain color and turn a golden amber, not only did her coat go from a dark mustard yellow to a pale eggshell blue, but feathers sprouted along her wings and her fish scales vanished entirely. She changed back just as easily.

“My name’s Flash, and I ran away from home years ago with whatever I could carry on my back.”

“Home where?” I asked after licking my lips. They felt suddenly dry. Reading about this sort of thing in a library was one thing, experiencing it was quite another.

Flash’s eyes, slit and pale blue, lifted to mine. “A goblin town hidden in the Everfree Forest.”

“I see…” I shook my head. “All right, go on. Just tell us everything. Why did you leave?”

“That’s a long story—” My eyes hardened and she swallowed. “—which I shall tell you about, in detail.” She shifted again and I slackened up, letting Lyra’s rope hold her while I changed to simple telekinetics. With a relieved sigh, she sank into the cushions. “I was chosen, one of six out of who knows how many hundreds of young goblins, for a special mission. After it didn’t materialize, well—frankly, I wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened.”

“What sort of mission?”

“We were to impersonate a set of six ponies here from Equestria,” she shook her head. “I didn’t much care for that, honest. I was given a character who was supposed to be this awesome speedster—she was meant to be the best of the best, the absolute pinnacle of what it meant to be a great pegasus.” Her eyes flashed. “Sure, that’s great and all, but what does it mean for me? A whole life of sittin’ around in somepony’s shadow, that’s what!”

It took no further prompting—now that she had the bit in her teeth she didn’t seem inclined to give it up.

Flash gesticulated with a forehoof angrily. “I mean, what kind of life is that? Some cythraul of a human girl fails to show up and I’m told I’ve got to keep it up until she gets off her behind and comes on her own good time? I don’t think so.” She grinned. “So, while the others were mopin’ around, I came up with a great idea.”

With another effortless shimmer, she shook herself, turning her mane blond and her coat blue again, banishing all those alien features. “I’d make my own character up! Lightning Dust! I wanted to go to Equestria and be a real athlete, and become a Wonderbolt!” she declared. “I’d be ten times the pony Rainbow Dash is!” Her face fell as her tone turned bitter. “Well. That was the plan, anyway. I guess after the whole thing with the Wonderbolts where it got out of hand and they kicked me out… I just… I just felt like I was faking it, you know? I don’t know what I was thinking, coming up with my own original character and trying to compete against… uh, are you guys still listening?”

Lyra and I stared blankly at Flash. Marcus gave the two of us an uncertain look. “So, wait,” I said, “what does Rainbow Dash have to do with anything?”

Flash paused and turned quizzical. “Didn’t I mention? I impersonated Rainbow Dash as a filly. Each of us was taught to mimic one of the Elements of Harmony.”

The stunned silence that followed caught even Flash off guard. She looked between us with a puzzled expression. “This happened… when you were a filly? How long ago was this?”

“Like, uh…” Flash tapped her chin. “Maybe seven or eight years now, wow. That’s getting on to be half my life.”

“You knew who the Elements of  Harmony would be years before Nightmare Moon’s return?” Lyra asked, leaning forward intently now. “How? And why?”

“Yeah,” Flash said with a shrug. With another causal shimmer, she changed again—her coat and feathers darkened to a deeper blue and her mane elongated, with every shade of the rainbow popping into being along its length. “I’m kind of surprised no pony noticed that our bodies are, like, exactly the same,” she said in Rainbow Dash’s scratchy voice.

It felt like leaping into a pool, only to discover too late that somepony had forgotten to fill it. What should have been a simple questioning of a random, uninterested party had become something far more. Flash sat there on her haunches, apparently completely unaware of the fact that she had dropped a metaphorical bombshell that left Lyra and myself reeling at the implications.

“You mentioned a little girl,” I said numbly. “Who was she?”

Flash shrugged as she changed back into her Lightning Dust guise. “I don’t really know. She was supposed to show up eight years ago, but never did. We were supposed to take her to a copy of Ponyville and be her friend.”

“What for?”

Flash scratched her chin. “Something about taking her to a special place so she can do… something.”

“What, weren’t you paying attention?” I growled.

“What? I was eight years old, how much do you think they were going to tell me?”

“They who?” Lyra asked.

“The Wand King,” she said. At our blank looks, she elaborated. “Or the King of Wands, I guess you’d say. He’s the master of the Wand Court of goblins.”

Marcus sat forward. “Whoa, hold on here… so if I’m getting this straight, eight years ago these Wand goblin guys got some kids to play the Elements of Harmony—Twilight and her friends—before they even knew who they were, all so they could kidnap Daphne and do… something? Now they’ve kidnapped her little sister instead, though they’re down one of their fake Elements, and are carrying out their eight-year-old plan?”

“That about sums it up,” Lyra said sardonically.

“Great. What does it all mean though?”

“It means,” I said grimly, “that we need to take Miss Flash here home with us.”

Flash groaned and slumped. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

I bit my lip and regarded her for a moment. “Look… I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on here, nor the implications thereof. It doesn’t sound like you’ve broken any laws that I’m aware of, and I certainly can’t characterize anything you’ve told me as wrong.” I rested a hoof on her shoulder. “If you tell our friends everything that’s happened and where to find the person we’re looking for, I’m sure this can be smoothed over. We’ll let you go on your way, maybe even pay you nicely.”

Flash perked her ears up, but then she shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re asking. The Wand King is already going to be pissed at me enough. You want me to lead you right to him?”

I met her gaze steadily. “Whoever this ‘Wand King’ is, he’ll have a lot to answer for.”

Flash grimaced and sighed heavily. “Can I at least go on my own power?”

“No way,” Lyra said. “You’re a flight risk, missy.”

I nodded. “Sorry, but Lyra’s right. This is way too important. Gag her—we need to leave now.”

“Hey, wai—mph!” Flash gasped as a golden light appeared around her jaw and snapped it shut. Looking around thoughtfully, Lyra improvised a bag from Flash’s sheets and then stuffed our captive in, while Marcus put the goblin artifacts back in the chest to carry.

I gave one last look around at Flash’s trashed house and sighed. “How did I become a criminal? I used to be such a nice mare.”

Lyra beamed as she hauled her sack out. “By the power of friendship!”

Gritting my teeth, I followed my partners in crime outside and shut the door behind me. Whatever else happened, I was committed, now and forever.