10. All These Things That I've Done
Planet Hell
Solocitizen
10.
All These Things That I’ve Done
22nd of Winter Season, 10,056 AC
The hyperlift hummed down the spine of the tower, while Breeze Heart and Thunder Gale stood side-by-side, watching the floors on the meter click by.
“Can you tell me where we’re going, yet?” She opened her saddlebags with a wing and stuffed her sunglasses in.
“No, because then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He locked his hoof around hers. “Trust me, you’re going to love it.”
Little over a week ago a transport ship had landed in the capital city of the planet Marble under the pretense of delivering a shipment of quadrotriticale to the Central Bank. Grain seeds might not have seem like much to a pegasus from a highly developed world, but to an earth pony colony established not fifty years prior, the promise of hardy crops couldn’t be overvalued. When the president of Marble, his cabinet, and a gaggle of reporters had gathered on the bank’s landing pad to formally welcome the transport and its shipment, griffon pirates emerged from it and took the president hostage. They were in space before the planet’s aerospace fighters could deploy and were speeding toward the outer reaches of the star system.
Fortunately for the president, the Spitfire had just ridden into the system on an FTL ferry and was conveniently headed in the pirates’ direction. Thunder Gale’s marines had taken the ship in a matter of minutes and saved the day. On top of all that, the griffons actually did have the quadrotriticale aboard their ship. The Manticore Mercenary Company was rewarded handsomely, and the president called in some favors to make sure the entire crew’s stay was comfortable.
The crew had been in high spirits celebrating ever since—all except for Breeze Heart. Along with the Spitfire, their jumpship had also carried news from home. The Divine Emperor of the Pegasus Tribe had driven out all ponies of unicorn or earth lineage from Upper Pegatropolis—included most of Breeze Heart’s family.
During the time they spent aboard the Spitfire, Thunder Gale never heard her complain. Not even once about adjusting to life on a gunship as its only physician or even about the news from home. But she was hurting; that perpetually downtrodden expression weighing her down lately wasn’t the anything like the Breeze Heart who first stepped aboard his ship.
He couldn’t change what happened, but he still wanted to find a way to make her smile again.
A wide-brimmed hat hid most of Breeze Heart’s face, and her flowing mane covered the rest. She kept her eyes on the floor as she waited for the hyperlift to reach wherever it was taking them.
“Don’t worry, we’re almost there,” Thunder Gale said. “We’ll be back in time to catch the Secretary of Defense’s press conference about Hellas, if you still want to see it.”
“I’d like to, if possible,” she said quietly.
The hyperlift stopped, and then dinged.
“Okay, this is it.” He flexed a wing and straightened out the straps of his saddlebag.
The doors parted and revealed a perfectly white expanse stretching out in each direction. Regularly placed pillars divided up the floor, while windows declared its boundaries. Sunlight bled through the heavy paper covered the windows and bathed the whole floor in a soft light. Air conditioning vents hung exposed from the ceiling and pumped a continual flow of cold air into the room.
“So, what are we doing here?” She took a few steps out of the hyperlift and jumped a little when the doors shut behind her.
“I wanted to show you something.” He led her by the hoof over to the windows on the far side of the room. “Believe me, you’re not going to want to miss this.”
Thunder Gale scrutinized three or four of the paper covered windows before settling on one, and then signaled for Breeze Heart to wait. He scrapped at the edges of the paper with his hooves while she watched.
“Are we even allowed in here?” She brushed the mane out of her eyes and peeked over his shoulder. “What are you doing to the window?”
“Let me answer that first one with a big ‘no.’” He peeled back enough of the paper to bite down on and spoke to her through clenched teeth. “If they catch us in here, they’ll probably kick us out of the hotel. As for what I’m doing… this!”
He reeled away from the window and yanked the whole sheet of paper off its glass. Unfiltered sunlight poured in and forced them both to squint while their eyes adjusted to the bright.
“Tah-da!” He spat out the paper and waved his hoof over the naked glass. “Do you know what this is?”
“No.” Breeze Heart shrugged. “Vandalism? I’m starting to think coming here wasn’t such a good idea.”
“No, keep guessing,” Thunder Gale said. “Maybe try looking for what you don’t see.”
Breeze Heart stepped closer and he reached a hoof around the back of her neck as she did.
Outside, Marble’s half-finished capital city sprawled out before them. There were streets, cars, and ponies bustling to and fro. There were hotels as tall as theirs that framed the ocean to their right, but nothing quite as tall as the cranes that loomed over the construction sites further in-land.
“I give up, what am I looking for?” she asked.
“How many hospitals do you see?”
She took off her hat and leaned closer to the glass.
“Just one, and it hasn’t even been completed yet,” she said.
“And how many of those other buildings would you guess are, or are going to be, clinics?” Thunder Gale leaned closer too and looked right at her. “I’ll give you a hint because I looked it up: three. They’re designing this city with the idea that over a million ponies will live here one day, and they only have one hospital planned.”
“That won’t do,” Breeze Heart said. “That’s rather negligent of them. They’re going to need a lot more than that.”
“I agree, I think they’re going to need more help.” He turned to her and waited for her to glance his way. “And I think I’m looking at the best pony for the job.”
She turned to him and dropped her hat.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said. “Just what are you suggesting by all this?”
“When we escaped from that cell in Kronos Station, I made you a promise that we’d search the galaxy for a way back home for two years.” He reached for one of her pink hooves and held it in his own. “If we didn’t find what we were looking for, we’d find a planet where all of us could settle down. Remember that?”
She gazed out the window beside her and held a hoof up to the glass. Thunder Gale followed her eyes out to the ocean.
Out on those crystal colored waves, boats with the most vibrant of sails were racing along the water. Kites littered the sky above the beach. It was so sunny, but from where they stood behind the glass it was cool and the air smelled sterile.
“That was a long time ago,” she said after a moment. “More years than I think either of us had originally intended. Are you telling me it's all finally over? That our search is done?”
“Life onboard a gunship is hard,” he said. “The constant travel from star system to star system has worn out the crew in ways two-weeks of shore leave just can’t fix. They need that home I promised them, even if it’s not in the Empire.”
Thunder Gale squeezed her hoof.
“Besides, I kind of like the idea of living in a cottage.” He pointed out at green hills beyond the limits of the city and Breeze Heart’s eyes followed him to that far away place. “Maybe somewhere over there?”
It was so far from the city, that forest shrouded hills were tinged blue by the distance. Breeze Heart smiled for the first time Thunder Gale had seen in months. The glass in front of her reflected her face across their view of the city.
“I-I-I don’t know what to say!” She beam in glee. “This place has been mocking me since we arrived. How cruel it is to spend so much time in a metal box hurtling through space and then come to a place like this knowing that your stay is only an interlude between flights. Now you’re telling me this isn’t the case? That we’re here to stay?”
“Maybe, it’s not set in stone yet.” Thunder Gale nudged her in the side and whispered in her ear: “You still have to approve of it first.”
Breeze Heart threw herself at him, wrapped her hooves around him, and whispered back at him: “Yes!”
“Good!” He hesitated in letting her go right then, but he needed what was in his saddlebags. “Now, there’s on more reason why I brought you here.”
When she stepped from him, he saw that there were tears running down her bright-face.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Thunder Gale shrugged off his saddlebags and rummaged through it. He passed a pair of wine glasses to Breeze Heart and pulled out a blanket as vivid as the sailboats on the water. As he unfolded the blanket over the cold floor, she laughed exuberantly.
“Did you figure it out?” Thunder Gale asked.
“I don’t believe it: a picnic,” she answered. “That’s what you brought me here for? To ask me if I wanted to live settle here with you and have a picnic? The last time we had a picnic was…”
“In a jail cell, I know.” He set a bottle of red wine out on the blanket, then a block of white cheese, bread, and green apples. “You starved yourself so we could have that meal together, so now that we finally have the chance to relax and enjoy being ourselves, I thought I’d treat you to one. Think of it as my way of returning the favor.”
“That’s so sweet of you. I love it!”
“Don’t say that until you’ve tried the wine. It's a Syrah. Here, have a seat.”
They lay down in front of their view of the city with the saddlebags and picnic items between them. There was no sound except for the rumbling of the vents above them and the squeak of the cork as Thunder Gale wrestled hoof and mouth to get it out. By the time he managed to pop the cork loose, Breeze Heart had stood up and snuggled up beside him.
“Hello,” he said to her. “Would you like me to pour you a glass?”
“Sure, but I was wondering.” She rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “Do you think they can see us?”
“Who? The ponies outside?”
“Yes. Do you think they’d see us up here?”
Thunder Gale looked out the window and at the ponies far below on the city streets. They were little more than colorful specks.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re too far away and I think the window’s too reflective even if they could. Why?”
Breeze Heart propped herself up on a leg and whispered something in his ear that made his wings shoot up. She giggled, and lay back down with her face half-hidden behind her mane.
"Yes!” He gave her a kiss on her cheek. “But first, one thing.”
He stood up and started rummaging through his saddlebags again. He set a candle on the floor and held it pincered in his hind legs while his front legs and mouth worked to strike a match.
After he’d gone through three or four matches trying to light them, Breeze Heart sat up.
“My love, are you sure we should be doing this?” She brushed her mane aside and looked over her shoulder in concern. “What if we set the fire alarm off?”
“It’s one candle,” he said with a match still in his teeth. “We’re not going to set off any alarm.”
It took him a few more minutes and half of the matches in the box, but he finally struck a little flame. The scent of sulfur tickled his nose. He dropped the box and passed the match to his hooves, but before he could light the candle, the sprinklers above smothered him and all the food he had laid out in blue goo.
The flame hissed out and Breeze Heart covered her head. After a second or two, the sprinklers shut off.
“I pretty much asked for that one, didn’t I?” Thunder Gale said.
Breeze Hearted nodded.
“Come on, we better get out of here before they send somepony to investigate.” Thunder Gale tossed the match aside and scrambled for the door.
“What about the picnic?” Breeze Heart yelled to him.
“Leave it! We can always get dinner somewhere else!”
Thunder Gale galloped for the hyperlift and hit the button ‘up’ button while Breeze Heart sprinted after him. Once the doors open and they were on their way to their floor, they broke into laughter.
Marble’s president had insisted on making their stay as comfortable as possible, and had upgraded their room to a penthouse suite on the top floor of the Oceanside Hotel—the very first resort built on the planet. No expense was spared.
The bathroom alone was equipped with almost as many luxuries as Thunder Gale had known in his family’s palace. The bathroom fixtures were all gold-plated, and a certified massage therapist AI controlled the many heads in the shower. He was just happy to be off his ship and to take a shower without having to stagger the water between rinses. But he didn’t spend enough time in the bathroom to enjoy it. He washed the goop out of his mane, feathers, and his coat, then got out of there so Breeze Heart could have her turn.
The suite overlooked beaches as white as ivory and that ocean the color of turquoise. He stood on the balcony, watching and listening to the waves breaking on sand, and breathing in a dry heat that was nothing short of an indulgence.
"I’ll be a few minutes more!” Breeze Heart’s voice carried out of the bathroom, across the master bedroom, and out onto the balcony. “Don’t run off.”
“Believe me, I’ll be right here, waiting,” he said.
His datapad rang, and he followed it into the cool of the living room. He crouched down on the shag carpet and dug out the pad from underneath the sofa.
The words on his datapad spelled out “URGENT.” That got his attention. He tapped the answer button and a note from the president of Marble unfolded on the screen. An EYES ONLY watermark shadowed the text.
I wanted to thank you again for your service to the proud planet of Marble. The grain samples you recovered are invaluable to our continued colonization effort, and on a personal note, you and your fine crew saved my life. The least I could do to return the favor is to forward what little intel The Earth Pony Defense Coalition has provided us about Emperor Gale. Your assumption that he visited our planet in the last seven years was incorrect, but there are still some files in our database that might be of use to you. Needless to say this information is extremely sensitive and I’ve gone to great lengths to prevent any replication or sharing of it beyond your datapad.
I hope you find what you’re looking for, but if not, Marble could always use a pony with your skill set. My offer to employ you and your crew as security consultants is still standing.
A percentage bar started inching across the screen one single pixel at a time. He read over the message again, and his mind whirled in anticipation. His heart thudded in his chest and his hind legs quivered. He was so focused on watching that percentage bar grow, that he didn’t even notice when Breeze Heart sauntered out of the bathroom and over to their bed.
“Thunder, where did you go?” she said. “I thought that the Pegasus Prince knew better than to keep his lady waiting.”
He stood up, with his eyes still buried in the datapad, and stepped around the other side of the couch.
“Give me just one second and I’ll be right there,” he said. “I just need to finish reading this thing real quick.”
“Don’t take too long, my love, or I might get tempted to start without you.” Breeze dived underneath the comforter and the ruffled the bedding.
Thunder Gale’s hoof tapped furiously, and he counted the seconds between each percentage tick. His ears were zeroed in on the datapad.
There was a rustling in of sheets in their bedroom, and a moment later the bathroom door creaked shut.
“So, what are you reading, anyway?” She came at Thunder Gale sideways and threw both her front legs around his neck. She ran her hooves through his blue mane. “Are you sure whatever this is can’t wait?”
The bathrobe wrapped around her spilled over the screen but he brushed it away.
“Just another minute, and then we can get up to more fun than you can handle.” He didn’t take his eyes off the loading bar.
“Oh my, are you reading up on some new tricks? I’m flattered!” Breeze Heart took a peek at the screen and her eyes sped over the president’s note. “This is all about your father? You’re still on that crusade? But you said we were done. You said it was over!”
“Just one more minute, please. This is important.”
Breeze Heart pushed herself away from him and marched back to their bed. For a tense minute she watched him from atop the bed, and then turned her attention out at the sunny beaches beyond their window.
Except for the clock counting away the seconds, all was silent. It wasn’t until after the percentage bar reached ninety-percent that Thunder Gale looked up from his datapad, and then he bolted into the bedroom.
“No, listen, it’s not like that at all,” he said to her. “Please, just let me explain, see—”
“It’s been five years.” She didn’t look at him, and her voice barely rose above a whisper. “You said that we’d take two to search for a way back home, but after that all of us would find a nice planet where we could start over. I thought that was why you just said we came to this planet to begin with, but that was all a lie wasn’t it? You were following up on another lead. Was that what all the delays and traveling these past three years were about? Just our two-year long mission continued under another pretense?”
“You’re right, we came to Marble because I heard a rumor that my father visited this planet on a diplomatic mission before the bombing,” he said. “I’m not proud of that, but I haven’t been lying about what we’ve been doing all this time. I want to put an end to this search, and I’ve been trying to. Really, I have, but when I heard about Marble I just had to take a look. This was the last stop, I promise.
“When I asked you to start over here with me, I meant it.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, so after that he just waited.
Breeze Heart picked her eyes up off the floor, and reached out for his hoof, but stopped halfway. Her eyes were watering, and her pink face turned red.
“I want to believe you, Thunder, I do.” She reached out again and squeezed his hoof. “A part of me knew that you weren’t ready to give up the search and settle down after the end of those first years, but I told myself you just needed time, and that I was wrong: that the planets we visited truly were poor choices, as you said. But when you showed me Marble and said that we could build a home here—I just can’t take it. Not anymore.”
“I want to build that cottage with you too.” Thunder Gale squeezed her hoof and caressed her cheek. “Please, if you don’t believe anything else, at least believe that much.”
The datapad beeped done, and drew his attention out into their living room. His hoof poised above the floor ready to bolt into the other room, but he didn’t. The clock on the wall kept ticking by while he stood there in indecision. The tropical sun shining through their cream colored drapes dimmed as a cloud passed by.
The datapad beeped again.
After a time, Thunder Gale hung his head and walked towards the door to the living room. Just as the datapad beeped for a third time, he shut the door on it and collapsed on the shag carpet next to their bed.
Breeze Heart sniffled and a smile crept into her lips and in her eyes—a genuine smile, the same kind that melted even the coldest of his moods and that he so longed to see from her. She grabbed his hoof and opened her mouth to speak, but she did he pulled her off the bed and threw his front legs around her. They clung to each other’s warmth while the minutes passed on the clock.
Then Thunder Gale stretched his hind legs out to find hers, but where he expected to find her soft coat, his hoof pulled against fabric. He leaned to the side to get a better look at her hind legs, and his eyes widened. She was wearing lacy, black, socks that reached all the way up to her flank and vanished underneath her robe. There was such a powerful contrast between the fabric and her pink coat that he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t notice them earlier.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
“You’re wearing socks?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yes, I picked them up our first day on Marble. I thought they’d be worth giving a try. Do you like them?”
Thunder Gale ran his eyes all the way up her legs and let his imagination fill in everything concealed by her bathrobe. He put a hoof on her, but he didn’t go any higher than her ankle.
“I never really understood them.” He pulled on the fabric, and the elastic snapped back on her shin.
She shivered but didn’t complain.
“I know that they’re supposed to be sexy, but I guess I don’t really see the point, to be completely honest,” he said. “We don’t normally wear clothes unless we’re on duty, so what’s putting more on supposed to do? You’re plenty attractive without them.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes.
“I suppose if that’s the way you feel, there’s only one thing for us to do.” Breeze Heart pressed her lips against his, and reached for his hoof and guided him past her ankle and up underneath her robe. But she didn’t let him linger; she pulled herself away. “You’ll have to help me take them off.”
She stepped over him, tail raised with her hips swaying side to side, and climbed onto the bed.
Thunder Gale’s wings shot up and he and followed her in.
* * *
Each wave’s rise and crash breathed salt into the air, carried on a strong westward wind through the piers and over the vendor stalls and boats bobbing in on the tide. Earth ponies strolled to-and-fro between the vibrant banners and through the marketplace’s arteries. Families and friends calling to one another, and the eager vendors luring them to their booths, brought the pier to life.
Thunder Gale trotted past it all swaggering in his step and smelling of sex. He was fairly confident that the sea air would mask the odor—but even if it didn’t, he wouldn’t try to hide it. His hooves drummed against the boardwalk planks, and his mane and tail flowed with the coastal gusts.
There was a seafood restaurant at the end of the market place that served kelp-rolls on square plates, and he had let Breeze Heart talk him into running down there to grab dinner for the two of them. He trotted up to their patio, flagged a waitress, and ordered enough kelp rolls—without the dandelions, because Breeze was allergic—for four hungry pegasi to-go. Once the waitress jotted that down on a ticket, she showed him to a bench by the railing and scurried off to wait on a family of zebras that had just strolled up onto the patio.
On the boardwalk, right by the entrance to the patio, a three-pony bluegrass band had finished setting up. The lead singer leaned into her microphone, a banjo-wielding earth pony in a straw hat plucked away, and the violinist put bow to strings.
The song kicked off, and Thunder Gale recognized it immediately: “All These Things That I’ve Done.”
At once he thought of his sister, his mother, and his father—and the pain of their loss. His sister wasn’t played that song for his birthday, right before the attack.
For a while, he studied the lanterns strung over the patio, and the earth pony patrons seated at the tables surrounding him, but then he looked toward the sea and spotted something odd on the pier to his left.
It was a dog without an owner, a scruffy thing so worn from street life that even its gait told war stories, and it carried a huge slab of meat in its jaws. An artificial reef protected the pier, and the water was calm enough for the dog to notice its own reflection in the water.
Meanwhile, the band played on.
“Excuse me, but are you Thunder Gale?”
He looked to his right, and there stood a griffon clad in the dark denims of The Interplanetary Express. He was almost as old and worn as the dog on the pier. There was a musk hanging about him, too.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“Delivery.” The griffon passed a clipboard from his wing to his talons and into Thunder Gale’s hooves without ever looking him in the eye. “I need you to sign that.”
Thunder Gale bit down on the pen and signed the documents with a few deft swings of his mouth. He spat it out, and pushed the clipboard back to the griffon.
“You’re the pilot, right?” he asked. “Isn’t it pretty unusual for you guys to track down deliveries yourself?”
“Yeah, well, I guess somepony out there thought you were worth the extra currency.” The griffon checked over the forms, reached into his jacket pocket, and thrust a micro holorecorder into his hooves. “It wasn’t like I had better things to do. I’m also obligated to let you know that you can download a virtual copy of the message from any datapad registered to you before I leave orbit.”
The griffon stomped off and left him with the holorecorder.
Thunder Gale set it on the table. Once he found the play button, he let the message run.
An image of Hill Born, emaciated and bloodied, coalesced above the table. Thunder Gale’s mouth and ears dropped in shock. He hadn’t seen or heard from him since going into exile. He stood up and peered into the crowd for the griffon, but he gave up the search when the image of his friend started talking.
“Thunder Gale, I hope this finds you quickly. I’m working for a research company – I can’t go into details about it now, but this entire project has spiraled out of control. So much is hopelessly wrong; I didn’t know monsters were real until today. “I’m taking a huge risk by sending you this message, but I don’t see any other choice. I need your help. Go to the third planet in the Azrael system and bring an army.
“And listen carefully: I can tell you what happened to your father. Your real father. I wish I could tell you more but I can’t be certain of who might be listening. Wait, something is coming, I have to go.”
That last part made his head swirl and his heart race. Thunder Gale clutched the recorder and played the message again.
Conversation throughout the patio hushed as many of the patrons at the neighboring tables were now watching him and the hologram.
After Thunder Gale finished listening to the message, he pushed the recorder across the table, and bit the edge of his hoof. He turned back toward the dog on the pier, and when the waitress walked out carrying his order, he ignored her.
The dog on the pier had discovered its own reflection and stared intently. It opened its mouth to bark at the other dog in the water and the other slab of meat, and when it did the slab of meat fell into the water.
Thunder Gale didn’t pay the waitress and didn’t take the food, he just grabbed the holorecorder as he bolted off the patio in search of the griffon pilot.
Right then, the band reached the last lines of the song:
“Over and again, last call for sin.
While everypony lost, the battle is won,
With all these things that I’ve done!”
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Another awesome chapter my good friend
i'm ready to see him fly. I wonder if you are going to put together four more stories along these lines.
Congrats on getting featured again!
My latest story was featured for two days straight and ever since then has been in the popular stories box XD
4717733
Thank you!
Another nice chapter. Interesting to see how close Thunder was to giving up before he received the massage, I wonder how Breeze would have taken that... Also, these flashbacks are really starting to catch up with the start of the 'current time' chapters. Looking forward to more.
But I've already liked and favourited, and Fimfic won't let me do it again! I'll just have to settle with commenting as usual...
You're updating again on the day I have an exam? OH COME ON!
4717354
Ever time somebody asks me that question, I cut the horn off a unicorn.
In all seriousness, I don't know. I'm not currently working on the next story and I don't have any current plans about writing it, or even an idea of what the next story will look like and be about. Most of my energy is going toward getting the current one edited and posted. There's still a lot of work to do on it. After the last chapter goes out, I'll probably take a break from fan fiction all together and pursue projects that have some degree of commercial viability. I'm getting a bit tired of ponies in space, so I'm going to take a break to do other things and not think about them at all.
Just kidding
I'll be ready to come back to this series after that, and there will most likely be at least one more story. I can't promise more but not because I don't want to; each one of these stories literally takes years to produce, and right now I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to another pony based project like that when I don't even know what I'll be doing a few months from now.
For now, don't worry about it. Not even half of Planet Hell has been posted to the site yet, so you have all of that to look forward to. It will be a long time before the last chapter gets posted here, and a lot will happen between then and now. Ask me the same question in December and I'll have a better, clearer, answer for you.
4724450
The story isn't going anywhere. You could always ready the new chapter after you take your exam 
Yet another chapter where nothing happened. You know, the whole three-act thing became popular for a reason: the reader doesn't have to deal with nearly as much pointless horseshit.
Seriously, write a chapter where something fucking happens.
4724482 that makes sense. I simply hope to see the day where we have new set of bearers saving that little universe of yours.
I'm really enjoying this story so far- the fact that you've got it all mostly complete before posting is a massive plus, so there's no uncertain, months long gap between chapters. Of course it takes a lot of time to do with little to no reward until it's done so all the more to you for doing it,
I enjoyed Awakening but I have to say I'm enjoying this a lot more. Perhaps it's because I'm more of a fan of military sci-fi anyway so this ticks a lot of the right boxes. Or it might be because this feels like a more straightforward kind of story as opposed to Awakening. Of course it's also likely you've grown as a writer doing these stories.
One point I do really like are the flashback chapters bringing background to what's happening in the present. It can go horribly wrong but here you've pulled it off near perfectly.
While I would urge you to take your time, I'll not hide the fact that I will be eagerly awaiting more. I also look forward to a continuation of the overall story arc but I appreciate the effort involved writing something like this so even if these two are all we get I certainly won't be disapointed.
Ah, just as he was ready to settle down. Looks like past and present have caught up with one another.
((Sorry for the delay, RL crap))
Ohhh, are we going to get Tribbles too? (Really nice reference.)
How lucky for them. So if they stole a FTL rig to escape from the Pegasi, why do they need to hitch rides?
What the buck are the changelings up to?
I don't know why, but stories that remember to let pegasi use their wings like that... just love it.
Either one to many 'the's or missing a 'that'.
Okay so the whole crew settling down. So what ends up getting them to not? Their choice, or something go wrong? And, so been several years of this we missed... hmmm, might have been fun to see some more of the 'verse through them just going out and doing stuff.
One or the other. Not both.
Breeze... planning on putting on a little show for anypony that could see in? Got a little exhibitionist streak in you?
Poomf. Well guess I was right. So, now to await something showing up to cock-block them.
Okay is he just worthless at this, to distracted by blood being redirect to certain other appendages, or do ponies just suck that much at making candles and matches they can use?
That.... I, I don't know why but that particular combination of words just... sounds so odd to me. No clue what it is about it but, just really feels weird.
So much for settling down I guess. So emergency mission the will get them off planet, the message from Hill Born, or are the pegasi about to attack the planet?
Ah, well that would be useful. Would be more so if we didn't know something happened to make it fall through.
And then it freezes at 98%
Must.. resist... urge.. to make... horrible... jokes.......
Ears? Why ears? Will it 'ding' when it's done?
Okay not a TOTAL moron.
Missing an 'as' in there.
Ponies... in.. socks.... to much adorableness!
How do you not notice something that adorable Thunder?
Well, not totally hopeless anyway.
"Yeah, that's right, I just got laid."
How convenient they start playing the one song that will have the biggest hit to his emotions. So make him second guess staying and decide to leave because of this? Also, "His sister wasn’t played that song" Typo, but sure what exactly is wrong because not sure what it's trying to say.
Hill Born's message?
Well, at least it isn't continuing to search for his father, and they cans till settle down here after that mission. So not AS bad. But still, she is not going to take this well.
So, that's why she was so pissed when she heard the full message. He told her it was just a rescue mission for an old friend, and not about finding his dad. Also explains why he's so driven to find hill Born, not just to save him, but to find his dad.
And this means they WERE experimenting with Changelings, knew about them, and... knew they had snuck into place? What? this.. again answering some questions, but raising even more.
“
That's not creepy at all........
Well, good chapter. Was just entertaining but not really all that into it till the end. Now we know why she was so pissed. And really explains a lot about their relationship.
But, if this was going to be their last mission before settling down, why so worried about the ship needing a massive overhaul? they have a planet that seems like it would be more then glad to help them with that. But, again with the answering some questions to raise more. Love it. Good chapter overall, fun, but, eh, kind of average. Nothing really great other then the end and finding out something more is going on. Fun to read though.
Oh, and that ending..... that ending just... yeah that is just creepy and hopefully not to heavy on the foreshadowing, other then in a warning type way.
4724934 Something did happen, it's called character development. Learning more about the characters, the setting, the 'verse. not to mention just being rather fun to read overall.
4724482 Must... have.. completed... story...... GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!
4739731
There are much better, smoother ways to create compelling characters that do not involve flashbacks out the ass.
Also, how are any of these characters developed? The only one we know about is the least interesting of all of them.
4739759 It's how the story is set up. Exact same way as Awakening and just one of the staples of this overall series. Inter cutting the 'present' action, with scenes of how things got there. Exploring why the characters are doing what they are doing. Was this chapter particularly stunning? No, just average. But did fill in some gaps, explain more of why Thunder and Gale were acing like they have so far. And dropped that bit about Hill Born knowing about the changeling impersonating the Emperor and where the real one is. Answering some questions, while raising others.