That Which Carries You To Yourself
With bright flashes of blue mana, Floydien welded yet another plank of metal to a central chassis. Once the task was done, he cut the power tool off and leaned back, pivoting the swinging visor away from his red eyes. He carefully studied the underbelly of a tiny gondola in the center of a royal warehouse. The vehicle was compact, cylindrical, with whalebone “hoops” rising up from the bottom platform and arching over the length of the slender structure. Each hoop was adorned with tiny glowing skystone shards, all placed at equidistant points in a beautifully geometric fashion.
“So this is what you've been working on these past few days?”
“... … ...” Floydien turned and looked over his flank.
Midnite Bastion stood at the entrance to the warehouse. Cold night hung outside, with stars brimming in the bitter desert chill. “Wouldn't your friends enjoy your company? You won't have much more of an opportunity to speak with them. The whole group, I mean...”
Floydien's nostrils flared. He placed his visor down and trotted over towards the rear of the small gondola, where a tiny interior cabin loomed. “There isn't much spit left for Floydien to give that the boomers haven't heard before.”
“But it doesn't have to be all in the words, Floyd,” Midnite said. She gulped, trembling slightly in the brisk wind blowing in from outside. “It's the gesture that matters.”
“The boomers know what to expect and what not to expect,” the elk muttered, shoving several supply trunks into the rear compartment and examining the welded bulkheads. “Floydien wouldn't be Floydien if he obsessed with anything less.”
Midnite nodded, teeth chattering. “You're right, I suppose. Who am I to say what they should or shouldn't expect from you...”
“Silly charcoal boomer,” the elk grunted. “Shuffle over to where it's less freeze freeze.”
Clearing her throat, Midnite Bastion obliged. Up close, she took the opportunity to admire Floydien's hoofwork. “Good God... where'd you get all that skystone?”
“When Nancy Jane blesses, Floydien receives.”
“Wait...” Midnite stroked a hoof along the support strut of one of the many hooped metal bands, studded with crimson shards. “...are these the skystone bits salvaged from the Noble Jury?”
“Yes yes yes.” Floydien nodded. “When built in close proximity, even tiny samples provide lift.” The elk tapped the hull with his hoof. “A small place for flank flank, it has to be, of course. But the shimmer glimmer is enough for lift.”
Midnite stared at him. “Floydien, I have to ask. About the Noble Jury...”
“Go ahead and spit with it.”
Her dark brow furrowed. “You really built that thing, didn't you? I mean... it wasn't stolen from the Cartel or the Lounge after all?”
His nostrils flared. “Far off boomers had the material, but not the heart fuzz to give it life.” He stroked a hoof across the metal plates. “Floydien needed to breathe it into being. He... didn't want to go West alone after all.”
Midnite smiled delicately. “You really did love Nancy Jane, didn't you?”
Floydien gazed off into the distance. “Yes yes...” He murmured. “...Floydien did.”
Silence.
Midnite's hoof stroked along the edge of the vessel until it met with Floydien's limb. “You're leaving again, aren't you?” she asked. “Only... with this vessel instead?”
Floydien took a deep breath. “A larger vessel of shimmer glimmer, Floydien will need, but only when Floydien finds the time to make it.”
Midnite gulped. “Does the Duchess know?”
Floydien opened his mouth, hesitating. At last, he muttered, “The boomer might.” His nostrils flared. “In a way, Floydien thinks, she's always known.”
“She'll be sad to see you go.”
“Boomer will be even sadder to see Floydien go nowhere.”
Midnite's gaze fell. “Well... I guess it all depends...” She fidgeted. “What's carrying you this time? And is it strong enough to rebuild Nancy Jane?”
He gazed sideways at her. “What means the charcoal boomer?”
“I... I don't know. Not yet at least.”
Floydien arched an eyebrow.
Midnite looked up, her eyes teary. “Floydien wants to find himself, yes?”
He gazed at her. Eventually, he nodded. “Yes yes yessss...” He then shook his head. “Floydien found many things last time. Boomers... glimmer... sparks...” His muzzle hung open with a shuddering breath. “But Floydien still lingers on the horizon. Color wheel boomer showed him many of the hues, and Floydien is glad. But Floydien would be disloyal to Floydien if he kept in one place, pretending that... th-that Floydien is here.” He shook his head. “No no no... Floydien is everywhere... moving. To find him... Floydien must become him again...”
Midnite sniffled. A whimpering voice came out of her muzzle. “Midnite Bastion w-wants to f-find Midnite too...”
Silence.
Gently, Floydien tilted Midnite's chin up.
She gazed at him, biting her lip.
Floydien's red eyes narrowed. “Can charcoal boomer maintain a mana engine...?”
She gulped. “Yeah... y-yeah, I think I can...”
The edges of Floydien's lips curved. “Then maybe Nancy Jane can help Floydien and Midnite find Floydien and Midnite together...”
Midnite blinked at him. Wiping her tears dry, she smiled... then smiled harder, teeth showing.
“Yes yes...” The elk trotted firmly past her, eyes on the gondola. “Floydien needs a spanner and some rivets.”
“Right...” Midnite rushed across the warehouse, her heart beating wildly. “What else does Floydien need?”
“Spit,” he muttered, fishing through a large tool crate. “And lots of it.”
Midnite giggled, her every step a flighty one. “Can do!”
Floydien continued to rummage through the tool box. He lingered momentarily, glancing over his shoulder. As Midnite started talking at length about one thing or another, he focused once again on his work.
A tiny smile lingered across his muzzle.
Stats
Page generated in 0.043 seconds
Total duration
732 users online
1,118,785 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Again, Floydien needs his Nancy Jane. And he has her.
Yes, yes, yes.
A nice short update right before I leave for work. Glad to see them going off together, just said we will never get to see their adventures. (as this is Rainbow Story not theirs.) Hopefully we can get some updates from everyone from time to time.
Happy journey to them. I doubt it will become romance, since Floydien seems to be beyond that right now, but closeness is closeness.
Thirty cucnhes, ):(. Knock 'em out!
Good nite, Floyd.
So, those two will be travelling now.
I wonder where they'll go.
GET IT, FLOYDIEN
Beautiful. Glad to see Floydien getting a new Nancy Jane, and glad to see Midnite happy with him.
So, I'm confused. Is Floydite (Floydienite?) a thing now?
Or is it still...
um...
...
...okay guys, I need help on a Floydien x Nancy Jane name.
This sort of reminds me of an RP campaign where we kept getting our ship blown up, and then we'd build the next ship out of the pieces of the last one.
We started with a giant galleon type airship and ended up with a flying carpet. Which was finally completely destroyed during the final battle.
5649464
I suppose I'd have to start at the beginning of this series to understand a word you just said.
Best of luck to you two. Without Floydien and the Jury, Dash probably would have died before reaching Stratopolis, she just couldn't travel fast enough. And Midnite, good luck to you as well, I wish we had known ye better.
A new ship is building a new ship.
This is nice.
5649593
Wait, you're trying to start towards the end of book 6?
You need to start West of here. A lot further west.
Well, Flloydien is regaining the wings above, this time his passengers will be abriding, instead of abrading.
I wonder if he is going to go for just the basic pseudo crystal form, or if he going,as he has the current resources, for the full antler, feather work, burning heart form.
I wonder if the crystal framework has a hole down the middle lengthwise, and at wat point ramjet operation kicks in.
Steam? Where we're going, we wont need, Steam.
5649855 Well, I continually see these stories pop up on the main page, so I figured I'd pop in and see what's going down. After reading through comments, I agree I would have to start at book 1. I shall most likely make this series a reading project for my paid vacation coming up.
I wonder how many chapters of farewells there's gonna be.
Question that's been bothering me for a while. I really have trouble envisioning the physical size and layout of this 'ring world'
It's clearly not a Larry Niven size ring world (distances there are in the hundreds of millions of miles) and based on expected time/distance and rounding up the numbers greatly, the longest possible distance Dash might have traveled is about 300,000 miles. (probably much less)
Why this becomes important question is how come the Sun and Moon are never seen from the 'dark side' Do they bounce around going 'north/south' in the center of the ring? (In which case on alternative days the Sun and Moon rise on opposite sides of the sky?)
Or are the Sun and Moon magic objects that travel across the sky on the 'light side' of the ring, (again with north and south playing the roles of east and west as there no logical way you can have a 'sunrise' on an 'eastern' horizon that bends toward you) but disappears and reappears back at their starting position each day?
Or there's another option, the 'ring' bends the other way. So unlike a Niven Ringwold which people live on the 'inside' of the ring, instead The 'light' side is the outer part of the ring. 'magic' plays role of gravity, because if the ring was spinning at all everything would be thrown off into space. Sun an Moon encircle the ring, pretty much the same way they would encircle a planet.
One problem with this version, is the dark side, well wouldn't be. There would be plenty of light since the Sun would have to be high enough in the sky that light would leak over the edges (due to atmospheric bending of the light at the very least, though some direct light probably gets though as well) and light up the far side of the inner ring. And with the ring being as small as it appears to be (100,000 miles in diameter at most) that sun light that leaks over would still be plenty bright.
If the Sun can be seen from the far side of the inside of the ring, then so should the moon. Meaning Dash might still have ways of contacting Luna, though it might be more difficult as the light would be at a slant.
5649593 yes. Yes you would. But it's worth it.
They'd better be coming to visit me.
5649874
It's totally worth it, even if it is more than a bit confusing in the beginning. The background isn't really explained until the middle of the second book (it's easy to figure out the gist of it from book one), so it's kind of a weird start.
Other than that, it's by ShortSkirtsAndExplosions, but under a different name, and nowhere near as dark as his (her?) usual stuff.
Now here's our spin-off story.
5650034
I'm not entirely clear on the mechanics of the sun & moon, but the ringworld isn't whole: it was broken into twelve pieces long ago, possibly by the action of ancient pegasi. They're living on a narrow rectangle drifting through space.
Hmm - have we had any mention of whether they're on the convex or concave side? Or perhaps the change in tension when it was broken warped it such that the distinction's not clear anymore?
5650548
I forgot about the breakup when I wrote that, but still leaves most of the same questions. (odd that the breakup was into twelve pieces, 12 seems to be a reoccurring number.
With it really hard to imagine a ring system remaining stable enough for life after breaking into pieces, at first I thought the 12 parts were still 'connected' with the breaks being the oceans between the land masses. I'e the 'ring' didn't break, but like Atlantis sinking, the mega content was broken up.
5649515
Charcoal Floyd
Floydnight
Floydienite
Basdien
Crazy Diamond
5650548
5650662
Reading these comments just made me think...
I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but what if the Midnight Armory has/is a hole to the Chaos Rift? i.e. On the light side, you have the rift, on the dark side somewhere near/in the Midnight Armory you have the other side of the rift.
And if so, then what if that hole could be traversed?
5650548
This raises a good question. What if we've been on the convex side the whole time? Because if we were on the concave side, wouldn't everyone see the edge of the world rising exactly 9 degrees declination above the "horizon"?
Rainbow has known the world was flat ever since grade school in Cloudsdale, so maybe "the edge of the world" is just common knowledge for everyone, but still....Eh, it's an interesting idea.
5650034
In my mind she's probably traveled more like 4-6000 miles. It has only been about 8 months of travel time, after all.
As far as the sun and moon problem, Celestia says they are luminous bodies of mana, so they may just straight-up turn themselves off to conserve energy after they set. The Yaerfaerda flashback depicts ringworld star systems where the central star apparently turns on and off at regular intervals so it doesn't sound too far-fetched in this universe.
5650412
"10/10, would read again."
But seriously? If Skirts doesn't do this, I would love to see someone do it...
assuming they go somewhere new. I wouldn't want to see the same places over again, 'cept maybe Equestria.
5651079
I would do it... if, y'know, I could actually manage to get anything written.
My goodness gracious,
I ship it almost as hard as Kareain!
5650959 XD those are all good, but I was talking about the Noble Jury, not Midnite Bastion.
Though I suppose Crazy Diamond might work... if you think about it
5651111
I'm certain if you asked nicely, several people here would be more than willing to help (guest chapters, proofreeding, etc.). Let us know if you do decide to do something with this
5651501
I was talking about both. :nods sagely:
Ugh. Cute.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/7/5/32640/full.png
Floyd is stirring in his sleep. He has finally stirred!
There is something in your past that you can't erase
Build the road in front of you
You can't fix a broken heart in a couple of days
So bring it back or start anew.
Stop delaying the East.
5650959 Yes yes yes.
Dawwww
I'm just glad to see Floydien happy.
Daww so sweet~ Someday the lovers will be whole again. Not today. But someday.
Huh. Somehow I missed this chapter. Now the Floydien goodbye chapter makes more sense.
dawww
Floyd and Bastion, together again. Whether in love or not remains to be seen.
-Spirit
Floydien will fly again. This time, not alone.
good character wrap up here. Farewell Floydien
Floydien and his Nancy Jane indeed. I hope for clear skies for them both.
Good for them!
I see the next chapters title...feels, lots of them.
The entire jury is complete now.
I guess there's nothing left... to keep us here.
And they shall hopefully fly so far west that they reach Equestria and we hear about them from Luna. Hopefully.