“Okay, I need to be real quiet,” She nudged the door open a crack. It groaned on its hinges in protest. She opened it a little further, it speaking out again. Tinker stopped, poking her head out and looking down the hallway. Flo’s door was open, and the faint sound of snoring could be heard drifting out and down the hall. Tinker put a hoof on the door and took a deep breath, flinging it open with one deft motion. It hardly made a sound, “Figures.” Tinker crept down the hall to the kitchen. She’d need something do tide her over for tomorrow. She opened the fridge and pulled out some left overs that Flo had neatly packaged. It wasn’t the tastiest of foods, but it would suffice for now. She set the leftovers on the table and glanced around for her saddle bag. She could see the wings tossed on the table, as well as a few of the books she had left at school. She carefully lifted the wings and folded them back up, making sure to secure the cables this time to prevent any further accidents. “I guess I should take these, it’s not like Flo will have any use for them.” She set them with the rest of the stuff she planned on taking. “Ah, there you are,” she pulled out her saddle bag from under one of the books, shaking it out. “That’s not good,” noticing a small hole starting to form in the bottom. “Oh well, I’ll just need to get a new one eventually.” She started packing several of her smaller items in the bag, making sure to block up the hole well so as not to lose anything. It would still be several hours before Flo woke up but she wanted to make sure she was well outside the city by then. She tied the wings and a few larger things to the side of the bag and then fastened the strap, tugging on it to ensure it was tight enough.
Tinker hefted the small sack of bits she had left after paying off the storage fee. She could have sworn she had paid last week, not that it really mattered. She didn’t plan on coming back here anyway. She tossed her saddle bag onto the wooden deck of the airship as she performed her last minute checks. “Looks like I have plenty of fuel.” She said aloud, noting the containers of vegetable oil that she had topped off last week. She pulled back on a lever and the balloon started to rise. Slowly and silently lifting into the early Manehattan sky. She looked down from above, the ponies below like ants as she eased off on the lever to balloon ceasing its ascent. She turned around and fired up the engine, slipping her goggles down over her eyes to protect them from the smoke until she got going.
“Now that sure is a pretty site.” Tinker sighed, watching the sun rise over the tall buildings of the city. Flo would be getting up any minute now, she thought as the airship slowly put more distance between her and the city. She could see for miles in the clear sky of the early morning. She had no idea where she was going, but she had all the time in the world to get there.
“I just can’t believe I went through all my fuel that fast.” Tinker explained to the attendant at the station. The winds had really picked up once the sun started to warm things up. She hadn’t made much progress at all it seemed. “Are you sure there isn’t a cheaper place?” She asked, receiving an annoyed look from the attendant as he filled up the last of her fuel containers.
“There’s not a finer place in all of Filly Delphia miss, we don’t get many airships dropping by anyway.”
Tinker paid the pony and loaded the containers onboard. “At this rate I’ll run out of bits by Horse Shoe Bay if this wind keeps up.”
“Um excuse me?” An older stallion walking by couldn’t help but overhear her complaint.
“What?”
“Do you need vegetable oil? I have a heap of a lot of used cooking oil you can have if you’re interested?”
“How much do you want for it?” She groaned. She needed as much fuel as she could get, for as cheap as she could get.
“Free, you can have as much as you want.”
“Free? What’s the catch?”
“No catch, it just costs us so much to get rid of it ourselves.”
“Are you sure?” Tinker couldn’t believe her ears.
“Yup, I’ll even get some help if you’d like and we could get it all loaded up for you, miss uh…um…”
Thoughts raced around in her head, if she told them her real name then they might find out what had happened to her, or worse ponies would be able to follow her. She glanced around at the different shops, looking for something to suffice for a name. A flashy display in a salon window drew her attention. “HiLite, you can call me HiLite,” She stammered.
“Well Miss HiLite if you would just follow me I can show you where we store the stuff and you can have all you want.” The stallion smiled.
What a sweet deal! She couldn’t believe all this; barrels filled to overflowing with used cooking oil. Just the stuff she needed, it wouldn’t burn as clean but hay, you couldn’t beat free. The stallion wrangled up several young lads and they loaded six of the large barrels onto her vessel. Each one holding as much fuel as she had just bought a while earlier.
“We’re mighty thankful of you for taking these here leftovers off our hooves Miss HiLite.”
“Oh no, thank you! You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“Well you be safe now you here, them skies aren’t even fit for pegasi when the winds get a going.”
“I’ll be careful, and thanks again.” She waved as the balloon lifted off into the sky, catching the breeze and blowing gently along with it.
It sure was going to be an interesting trip, she let the ship drift in the breeze for several hours, touching down when it got too gusty. Everywhere she went, everypony she talked to she used her made up name. HiLite the earth pony, captain of the skies. Well a girl could dream couldn’t she?
At Horse shoe bay she decided she would settle down for the night, and continue on in the morning. A her shops were still open when she trotted into town. She looked around, catching sight of her reflection in one of the shop windows. She looked disgusting, all the smoke and grease staining her mane, goggle marks rimming her eyes. She jingled the bag of bits she had left. She had plenty of fuel for a good long time now, so why not? “Too expensive… too fancy… already closed,” She walked by several salons. She finally stopped in front of a smaller shop, she looked in the window, seeing no one inside put the mane-dresser.
A bell rang as she opened the door. “What can I get for… OH MY!” The stylist remarked at the disaster that walked through her door.
“I just need a wash…”
“Oh no my dear, I’m afraid you need much more than a wash! You need a completely new look on life!”
“A new look?”
“Yes dear, a new look. What’s your name?”
“Uh, HiLite…”
“Well HiLite it looks like we have some work to do, take a seat.”
Tinker did as she was told, the stylist going to work, with different shampoos, conditions, sprays.
“Not the front of the mane.”
“But why on earth not?”
“I uh… I want to do that myself, later…” She fudged her way out of that close call.
“Very well, I’d say you’re pretty much done then.” She spun her around so she could see herself in the full wall mirror.
“Wow!!” Tinker’s jaw dropped, “I Love IT!” Turning her head from side to side, not only was it actually clean, but the blue streaks added a lot! It was as though she was looking at an entirely different pony, she was looking at HiLite!
Tinker paid the stylist and headed out on the town, she felt great! She had become something new; and while it might not be better than the unicorn known as Tinker Sparx, it was something altogether different. Maybe being an earth pony would be easier than she thought. Little did she know what the night would have in store for her.