Chapter Four
This Isn't What I Had in Mind
I was actually pretty impressed by the thoroughness of Flurry Heart's planning, once she had admitted the extent of her little escapade. She had magically scrubbed all the text except my signature from some of my letters to make the phony release order for Nebula and the orders for Mayor Buzzy. She "borrowed"—her word, not mine—the core nexus from Sunburst's scrying mirror to get around the three-alicorn lock on our home dimension. She even employed a suitable disguise and nom de guerre to avoid any chance of recriminations reflecting back on her parents or the Empire, though the name itself...
"What was that name you chose, again?" I asked her. I knew full well what it was; I just wanted to hear her say it.
"Captain Skyla…" She hesitated before coming out with the complete name, and I do believe that there was the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks. "Skyla Windsong of Shadows Dancing."
"Mmn," I said. Nothing more, but it was the way that I said it.
Flurry scowled. "Aunt Luna said that in your junior year at the academy, you called yourself Darkness Nightshade and wore black—"
"And the crew," I rushed on, my self-indulgent smugness evaporating.[1] "How did you manage to find ponies that were willing to steal a princess's airship and fly to another world?"
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[1] I made a mental note to have a word with dear Luna about sharing pillow-talk.
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She shrugged. "They're mostly friends. Fencing partners and some crew from Mother's yacht."
That explained their less than stellar performance in the face of… well, me. All stallions, too, I couldn't help but notice. I was thankful that Flurry hadn't yet consciously realized (and weaponized) the effect she had on the opposite sex.
"I didn't really steal Nebula," she continued. "I was going to return her after I'd had a little adventure. I thought you understood! I thought you'd be on my side! But no, you agreed with Mother and didn't even consider—"
"I am on your side, Flurry," I said, quietly enough that she had to derail her incipient rant to hear me. "I would gladly have taken you on a little clandestine jaunt to Zebrica or Neighsia. But I knew that it was an argument I couldn't win with Cadance. All it would have led to was hurt feelings and resentment."
Flurry sighed and hung her head. "Instead it led to this! Why does everything always have to go wrong for me?"
I had enough of a grasp of the workings of the teenage mind to realize how useless it would be to point out that nearly everything imaginable had gone right for her. Flurry was one of the most beautiful and powerful mares in existence, she was heir to an Empire, and her impulsive High Crime of air-piracy was likely to be punished by no more than losing her desserts for a week.
"When we get back, I think it would be a good idea to have a serious talk with your parents and Celestia," I said. "I'll keep my horn out of it, because I'm sure to do more harm than good, but I will make it understood that I think you'll truly benefit from… an apprenticeship, shall we say. Nothing dangerous, just some foreign travel and experience not being a princess."
Flurry sniffed and forced a smile. "Thanks, I guess. But how are we going—" She looked up at me then, and grimaced and broke off. "Sorry, but it's going to take a while to get used to… Aunt Darkness Nightshade."
"Captain Skyla Windsong was a bit of a shock for me, as well," I said dryly.
She gave me another sheepish grin, and in that instant I forgave her for everything. "So… the gate closed behind us. That wasn't supposed to happen. How are we going to get out of here?" She gave me a thoughtful look. "I bet you've got a plan, right?"
"Yes," I said, being careful not to grin. "The plan is to wait here until we're rescued."
"What? You don't have some clever way to get the gate back open or something? Don't you have one of your famous mechanisms, or—"
"I have only what I left in my travelling kit from my last voyage, I'm afraid. I might be able to work something out, but in three days, when I don't return, Celestia is bound to send out patrols to look for me. And that's only if Baroness Buzzy hasn't sent off a message already. They'll figure out what happened and easily open the gate from the other side. All we have to do is stay near the arch and wait."
"That doesn't sound like a lot of fun."
I bit my tongue. Metaphorically. With the teeth I was sporting at the time, to do so literally would have involved rather a lot of blood. What I am saying is that it took an effort to refrain from mentioning that my cabin had a very well-stocked little library. "Well, maybe in the meanwhile, we can have some flying lessons? I'm pretty sure I can get Nebula's engines working properly again."
"I've piloted the imperial yacht several times," she said with a sigh.
After another metaphorical chomp, I casually said, "Did they ever let you do high speed evasive maneuvers?"
Her eyes went wide. "Really? Oh, you're the best, Auntie Darkness!"
I made up my mind right then that my darling niece was going to experience the worst air sickness of her life, or my name wasn't Twilight Sparkle.
The engines were a simple but inelegant fix. The telegraph itself was purely mechanical and would have worked on a completely non-magic world. The engines had purpose-built waveguides coupled with highly charged ruby crystals and a simple valve that fed mana directly into the engraved matrix on each driveshaft. They depended on their own power source and weren't affected by the meager supply of the world itself. They, too, would have worked on any world where only the usual laws of physics held sway. It was the magical linkages from the telegraph to the engines that were crippled by the lack of mana flow.
I could have created physical linkages if I had my usual strength, or laboriously cobbled them together out of spare parts, but the quickest solution was to assign a pony to each engine and have them watch the telegraph needles, then manually cant the engine and turn the valves as indicated. It was exactly the system that was used on old steam-powered craft.
I would not have liked to depend on such an inaccurate method in actual combat, but for practice, it was good enough.
"Ready?" I asked Flurry as I joined her on the quarterdeck after instructing the ponies at the engine pods.
She nodded with a comically determined look on her face.
"Alright then." I grinned. "Imagine we are being pursued by two ships when a third suddenly appears from behind a cloud, close on our starboard beam. Ordinarily, Nebula can't turn fast enough to avoid being rammed, but if we reverse both larboard engine pods…"
I deliberately picked the most abrupt and violent maneuvers to perform. Flurry set her hooves wide and used her earth pony magic instinctively in an attempt to weld them to the deck. It only made things worse for her. She grimly held onto the wheel as we jittered all over the sky, and didn't ask to stop even when she had to throw up. She just turned her head to one side,[2] did what was necessary, and went back to concentrating on the maneuver.
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[2] To leeward, bless her. She might have been inexperienced, but she had the instincts of a good aeronaut.
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My resolve to enjoy her suffering didn't last long. "Lift your wings a little bit, Flurry," I told her. "Just enough to feel the airflow under them."
"How's that… eugh... going to help?"
I did have the slightest impulse to let her go on enjoying the fruits of stubbornness, but the stronger impulse to teach won out. "Do you get sick when flying yourself? Of course not. That's because your pegasus magic is active while you're in the air. Get some wind through your feathers and it'll kick in."
Once she took my advice, she began to enjoy herself again. The crew ponies stationed at each of the engines to respond to the orders relayed through the telegraph did not enjoy themselves. Neither did they do their jobs very well. I called a halt to the exercises too soon for my niece's taste and much too late for most of her followers.
"Those three were Pole Stars?"[3] I asked, incredulously.
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[3] Aeronautical tradition has it that an airship's crew members should be called after the name of the vessel they serve. Therefore, a pony serving aboard Pole Star, the Crystal Empress's yacht, would be called a Pole Star, and more than one would be called Pole Stars. Nebula's crew were called Nebulas even though the correct plural would be Nebulae, and that's always been a bit of a sore spot with me. But there's only so far a captain's authority can stretch, and it certainly isn't far enough to overrule tradition or ignorance of Proto-Equuish plurals.
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"Pole Star's controls are all autothaumic! They're not used to old-time stuff like this!" Flurry said, sweeping a hoof at the main deck. "Besides, Cream Puff was in the Stewards Department."
"I don't suppose any of them have actually sailed an airship?" I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. I was less than impressed that they hadn't properly prepared Nebula for the journey. The engine crystals were only three-quarters charged and they hadn't topped up the ballast tanks. The galley was certainly well-stocked though.
"Pole Star doesn't even have sails, Twilight!"
"Alright," I said, steering away from a potential argument. "Why don't we take a break while your crew anchors and cleans the deck. I'd like to take a closer look at the stone arch."
She gave me an odd look for some reason, but nodded and gave the orders to her ponies.
Ao had been observing us from the top of a hoodoo while we flew around like madponies, not caring to be aboard for such antics. She joined Flurry and I as we flew down into the canyon.
"Majesty," she said to me as she approached. I'd tried to get her to call me simply by name for years, but authority had lost to her internal tradition time after time. "This one saw five burros to the south. They bore heavy packs and paused in their journey to watch Nebula as she flew."
"Just a normal caravan?" I asked.
"This one believes so, Majesty. But this is a strange world and what things appear to be, they may not be in fact."
"It's a close analog," I replied. "No bald monkeys or squid-people, but you're right to be cautious. We've already had one unpleasant surprise."
"This one would have gone to examine them more closely, but here this one cannot use the magics of disguise, and flying is more tiring than this one is accustomed to."
Being a kirin, Ao didn't have wings, and her channeling of flight magic was less efficient than that of an average pegasus pony. The effect of the world's limited magic flow was significant and noticeable when I took to the air. It had to be even worse for her.
"You've actually been to a world where the people are squids?" Flurry asked me as we approached the arch.
"Squid-like, yes," I told her. "Such worlds are more common than you might expect."
"Ewwww!" Her muzzle wrinkled in distaste.
"Oh, you'd be surprised how quickly one gets used to having tentacles and slime glands," I said casually.
"Ewwww, ewwww, ewww! Just no!" Flurry responded exactly as I'd hoped, and I felt a little guilty about teasing her, but she really should have known that squids don't have slime glands. She huffed and tossed her head. "That's why I made sure to pick a world where the people were ponies. I didn't want to be something creepy like a squid or a monkey!"
I considered telling her that the Sunset Shimmer she knew had grown up as a monkey or rather, a "human," but I'd teased her enough... and we had arrived at the arch.
To my surprise, the natural-looking stone arch was anything but. Close up, the marks made by the tools that had shaped it were visible, and the inside had a cut channel that carried an inset bronze cable. The three deep markings at the apex of the arch were faceted and symmetrical, and I could make out bronze contact pads at the back of the depressions.
The greenish patina of corrosion on the contact points suggested they hadn't been used in a fairly long time. I pushed a pitiful little pulse of magic into the system to confirm my suspicion, but the purpose of the construct was immediately obvious to me.
"What is this thing?" Flurry asked.
Ao turned to look at me. "Portal, Majesty?"
I nodded. "Yup. Portal."
"Portal magic takes a huge amount of energy!" Flurry protested. "If this is a low magic world—"
"Gems," I said.
Ao nodded. "This one agrees, Majesty."
I reached out and tapped one of the depressions with a hoof. "Three high-quality, fully-charged crystals set in these holes could power the gate mechanism easily enough. From the cross-connections, I think they were designed to harmonize with each other to amplify the power output. Very nice magical engineering, in fact."
"So…" Flurry frowned. "This isn't just a passive congruent point?"
"No… and that may be why… oh, let's go back to Nebula; I'm getting tired of hovering here." I didn't want to tell her what my magic pulse had revealed. At least not until I'd had some time to think over the situation.
The deck was sparkling clean when we returned. I could have rubbed a white cloth in the scuppers and it would have come away spotless. It seemed Flurry's crew had some merit, after all. Cream Puff had made a pie.[4]
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[4] He'd intended to serve it à la mode, but the cooling spell on the cold locker had failed and the ice cream had melted. Seasoned adventurers take such misfortunes in their stride.
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Watching a creature with emphatically carnivorous teeth eat—even something as innocuous as a cherry pie—is a sight that disturbs most ponies, so I took my slice all the way forward to stand beside the bowsprit on the fo'c's'le deck where I could survey the landscape while enjoying the treat. The twisting sandstone canyon was quite beautiful in the golden light of the afternoon sun.
"Majesty?"
I sighed. "I really wish you would just call me Twilight, Ao. There, I've said it for the umpteeumpth time, and for the umpteeumpth time, you'll refuse. What's up?"
"This one is concerned about the gate…" She tried, she really did, but it was just as necessary to her as breathing. "...Majesty."
I gave her a sour grin. "Yes, I thought you'd spot it. I would have thought less of myself as a teacher if you hadn't."
"You did not tell the young one."
"No… no, I don't think it's a good idea. She's feeling guilty and defensive, and if she knew how well and truly stuck we are, I don't think she would react well."
"What is to be done, Ma… ah, this one cannot abandon the habit of a lifetime, Majesty."
"It's alright, Ao. I know you don't really mean it."
The snakey-bodied kirin almost tied herself into a knot before convincing herself I was teasing her. Which I was.
"Ah! Truly, you are a dark and evil goddess, Most Exalted Divinity!"
Teasing could go both ways, it seemed. I laughed and said, "That I am, Ao, that I am." Then I pegged a goopy cherry at her, which she snapped out of the air. She had some pretty impressive teeth herself.
We sat together in silence for a while, simply taking in the spectacular view.
"Even though the feedback from this gate mechanism collapsed the portal and hardened the veil between worlds," I said, thinking aloud, "its presence indicates a civilization capable of overcoming the limits of a low-magic universe."
Ao nodded, watching me closely.
"I'm betting that somepony made off with the gems that once powered it. They'd be too valuable as mana storage to cut up, particularly on this world. They'd be big and showy… not easy to disguise.
"You think it would be possible to locate them, Majesty?"
"Yes, and I think finding them would be the quickest way to get back to Equestria. Based on my little probe, at a rough estimate, the veil won't be permeable from beyond for a couple of years… and when it is, a portal from Equestria would just collapse again within minutes of opening. So my original plan isn't workable. We really need to open the gate from this side."
Ao got all twisty again. "It is as this one feared. They who hold the gems will not part with them for less than a fortune. What have we to offer?"
Dark and evil goddess, huh? I grinned. "Well, the ponies who have them now obviously stole them from the gate, so I think we'd be justified in stealing them back."
"Ah," Ao said. "This one begins to grasp your intent, Majesty."
"Feathering right you do!" I said, standing up and brushing crumbs of pie crust off my chest and forelegs. "I'm going aft and telling Flurry that I've decided it's too boring to hang around here, and that we're going to rescue ourselves and have some fun in the process. Go down to the flag locker and see if you can find a Jolly Roger, would you, please?"
Just because we were being forced into an adventure didn't mean we couldn't enjoy it.
= = =
=
Time to meet the natives. Wonder how long until the first fight ensues.
This time for real! <3
Looks like Flurry gets that adventure she wanted after all.
Sup
Yessss... . moar
8021728 By my careful estimate? As soon as Flurry opens her mouth.
I'm really excited and glad that Ao is included in this story, she's my favorite oc from the previous stories.
8021755 Hey, aren't we all here for the adventure she wanted?
This is our earth isn't it? (Not the EQ girls one)
Of course, the downside to not telling someone how serious their situation is, is that they won't take it seriously and might do even more reckless things that will cause more trouble down the line...
Oh well. That's Future Nightshade's problem.
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Wow! Are you psychic? Because... well, no spoilers.
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Lucky you! She plays a major part in this story.
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Course corrections as needed!
This whole story has so many hilarious lines, I have to try really hard to take the challenges seriously. Also since Twi is badass Nightmare mode and is perfectly at home on her ship. Also perfectly comfortable in this situation of incredibly dire straits. (Or perhaps attempting to get through a particular strait, hmm? Since they are on an airship...and need to get through a narrow portal to another dimension? Eh? That's a pun by its strictest definition, right?)
This line made me laugh, REALLY hard.
I will never tire of banter.
Yes, Darkness Nightsh-- I mean, Twi...er...let's go with Nightshade. That seems to be the
happy mediumangsty medium between sounding not-ridiculous and fitting your form. Yes, Nightshade, be the pirate you need, and this world deserves.I imagine Luna is going to be rather put out when Twi gets back. "We had ONE RULE, Twi. If you ever go on an adventure, you have to TELL me first! ESPECIALLY if I can't contact you via dreams for the duration!" Of course. they'll probably be putting out shortly after. HEYOO.
I'm sorry. I can't resist the puns. These sentences don't start out with puns in mind. I write out what I want to say, and then halfway through I realize there is a pun to be made and I just can't resist.
I was not expecting to flashback to My Immortal when reading Ponyfic today. Twilight's name reminds me too much of Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.
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I thought that random apostrophe was a typo... but no.
My Little Cephalopod!
Also... I am going to call Jordanis Raven Bloodtear when he gets home. He'll probably kill me, but it'll be worth it.
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OMG, yes! I didn't tell him I was going to add that author's note, BTW!
Arrr, mateys! Hoist the Jolly Roger!
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I have the strangest urge to MS-Paint a bunch of really thick black eyeliner onto my avatar.
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We do not speak its name.
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Well then little lady, you should have planned better and not done something so stupid. You have nopony to blame but yourself.. and just be glad Aunt Twilight found you when she did or you'd REALLY be screwed.
And to be fair... for a teenager doing this for the first time... it wasn't all THAT bad an idea, just a few issues that were mostly a case of lack of experience to know better.
Okay this.. this is just awkward. She's repeating what Flurry Heart told her, just recapping for.. no reason, they both know this, Flurry just told her.. this is pure "As you know" exposition. And.. wouldn't it have been just as easy, and make perfect sense given how these stories are written, to it just be Twilight just mentally listing them, say she was impressed and deliver the exposition directly to the audience? Having in story Twilight recap it like that.. again feels clunky.
However, okay, so lock is still in place, but they made a few, or at least one, thing that could slip past it, but it does make sense, have somepony they trust able to look around, scan other realms, see if anything major that warrants their attention is going on or, anything that they might want to look at... good job on that one.
Skyla.. last chapter...... oh.... how the .. wha.... how the hell did I....
Wow I rolled a Nat 1 one my perception check here, how the fuck did..... yeah I've just.. not even noticed Skyla/Flurry Heart.. hell think I've been mentally thinking of Flurry AS Skyla half the time just due to the title and well, being around for when everyone thought she might be Skyla. Damn that is... yeah that's one me just..... wow I failed that spot check hard. Also nice usage of the name though story.
Oh this is a phase I want to see. Though having a tough time seeing Twilight as caring enough about anything but studying to even have a goth phase. Or any phase beyond 'Study" Also..... Even without being there, easy enough to see how Luna would know, but.. Twi's gonna have to have some words with her about repeating this kind of stuff. Time for Twilight to be the one holding the whip for a few weeks. (What, again, we know those two can get hella kinky, and they have had years to build up some fun stuff.)
Heh, called it.
Wow..... so, get some of that advice from Rarity then Flurry? Still.. this could have been even more... interesting if Twilight hadn't shown up.
So no Rarity yet.
Classic teen logic....
And yup saw that coming, hurt that Aunt Twilight wasn't agreeing with her and so lashed out, not thinking WHY the cool aunt was saying no for a change.
And yeah I 100% buy this. Well now you have one hell of an adventure to deal with together.
Because you are a teenager and so can't see anything but everything being perfectly how you want it as some massive catastrophe of everything being horrible. Also... you have NOPONY but yourself to blame for this one.
Which, no desert is really one of the highest forms of punishment Celestia and doll out to ponies. After all, it deprives them of CAKE!
But so far loving the exchange, both being mostly rational, Flurry a bit less so, but in teenage way that isn't pushed to far, no screaming, no histrionics, Twi really his taking this very well.. now to wait till the reality of how potentially fucked they are sits in for 'Skyla'.
Wow.. Twilight really HAS matured a lot since Enigma, seeing the issue, seeing the issue the issues might cause, seeing a way to head it off, and doing it all quickly, and intelligently... I am loving this Twilight!
Okay story, the above 'ehhhhh' about the idea.. all gone for this joke.. this is priceless.
D'awwwwww and such a big softy for her niece... it's so sweet.
Smart plan.... the only question being.. what is going to go wrong to force them to not be able to follow it through? because, if it was THAT easy, we wouldn't have a story.
Welcome to the life of a Pirate Skyla... long bought of utter boredom punctuated by brief moments of utter terror.
Heh, well Twilight's good for a few weeks at least. And.. even with all that wisdom.. yeah think she'd see Skyla isn't going to find that fun.
It took me a few seconds to get she meant lesson flying the ship, not lessons flying just with her own wings. Also... hmmm, super charge the crystals so they draw the right amount of power?
I am never going to stop grinning at that name... and yeah.. also at just how damn adorable these two are.
but it's not.. it's "Darkness Nightshade" right now.. sorry but it has been decided. You get a vote yes, but you got outvoted.
That is a lot of magi-babble.... and I'm not sure if ti's a bad thing or not I actually think I understood all of that.
So, the batteries... or whatever you want to call them, are still fully charged, all the stuff keeping them moving and in the air just rely on pure physics, the magic just being used to power them, and so they only issue, was the stuff that cuased altering the telegraph to alter the flow of power was being messed with...
I could see that, if it worked on a sort of power flow deal, where opening up the telegraph caused more power to run through the relays, power taken from the ambient magical field, and so in this field, even at full open, the engines are thinking ti's only barely open... yeah this makes sense.
AKA how I kind of assumed it worked given that's how telegraphs work on ships, if it wasn't just relaying the message to the engine room, it would just be a throttle. But, figure that's the basic idea, Twilight just got a ship that automated that part to save more ponies for fighting.
Heh.. also how it works on nuclear powered ships still. Though with an added step, bridge signals the throttle-man, not the Reactor Operator, throttleman increases or decreases the opening of the throttle valve to the main engine, altering stem demand, which in turn alters reactor power.
Twilight,,,, you's been through this enough to know that saying that is just an invitation for the universe to make you have to do that. Also, so.. question, can you charge the storage crystals if needed? Maybe just take longer then normal?
Tough girl... now.. how bad is the rest of the crew doing with this?
Kick in your flight instinct that make this feel more natural, since one of the issues is your inner ear being assaulted with radical changes without the split second of forewarning it would have if they were the result of your body moving itself, and doing that will likely switch your brain into 'flying' mode to be better ready to deal with that. Tough luck for the non-pegasi in the group though.
More or less what I said........
And even after all that..... Even with all sh' been through all shes changed, grown up.. matured... Twilight... is still Twilight.
Also, oh to bad the crew got sick.... serves them right for being accessories. Still going to have to get them trained.
Well.... yeah you got a bunch of ponies with no idea what they are doing... yeah Flurry Heart, good overall planning, really needed to work on the details a bit more, again, could Twilight charge the crystals here?
And Ao is smart, so.. someone knows you are here..... now to see what comes of it....
okay the first one is obvious but... the second? Ohhh please tell me they were Cthulanoids!!!
... And I am not sure if she is just trolling Flurry Hear tor not.. but I could believe it either way.
Or both... and trolling through taking advantage of lack of knowledge of useless trivia... how very Twilight.
Store power up in gems to feed the thing rather the rely on the natural field.... AKA what I kind of assumed Twi's plan B would be to get back after something went wrong with 'Just wait to be rescued".
Now now story, hiding fun little plot twists like that isn't fun............so, guessing bad news... if only becuase, well, it HAS to be bad news, what else could it be. Plus, if it was good news she would tell her...... wait.. wait.. is it "That may be why the portal closed"? Hmmm, are we going to be going by Stargate rule, where the portal only works one way, so they have to open it from this end to get back?
And if Twilight can't give you an accurate count of how many times she's said it, you KNOW it's been a LOT!
And you all love her for it!
Oh... well fuck.. didn't count on that bit....
AKA "We have a quest!"
All the oh fuck.. just one little portal like that can do that for the entire universe? Or, just locally but with that being the confluence point... wait, couldn't the other Alicorns just go up that realm above all the universes and fiddle with it from there to get to her?
Yup called it.. maybe not the EXACT reason but, called it.
Well, this IS more or less a pirate ship after all......
That's the spirit Twilight!
So again really loving the dynamic here, just how adorable these two are, how they can have issues, yet aren't screaming and being melodramatic, and just.. making things worse fro the sake of 'drama' it' so refreshing... and this is... yeah one hell of a smart way to bring down Twi's power level a bit, have a story of her having less then Reality ending level threats actually be a challenge. And love how eager she is to get over it, have fun, and just enjoy things, not fretting about the past, not holding mistakes to long.. just taking things as they are and making the most of it... she really has grown up.. while still being our adorakable book-horse.
SO LOVING THIS!!!!
8022014 No, Flurry heart explicitly said several time she made sure there were ponies here, also they didn't change into humans.
Fun chapter! I am looking forward to acts of piracy! Yarrr!
Excellent story, I will be waiting to catch the next chapter.
And I love the colors for the ship, an excellent flag.
Remember, spoiled Princesses sometimes need to be set back on course with the ade of a hickory switch.
Wow.
Pays to be related to royalty, I guess. Hopefully Skyla will never be in a situation where she has to take responsibility for her actions and the welfare of others.
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Your hope is about to be dashed. (Hopefully in an entertaining way. For you. Not for Flurry. )
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With thanks to deathaanator, who has mysteriously deleted their comment, I am appropriately attired.
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I am confused and curious!
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Dunno! They sent me a PM with my current avatar linked, and I saw an e-mail notification for a comment reply as well, but it's gone now. They managed to get the exact same frame. So I am appropriately eyelinered now.
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Oh stars! I just noticed!
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You're right, I fixed it.
That gally had best contain rum and many reagents. How else will they make an interdimensional signal fire and sing silly songs in the proper we're-marooned-on-an-alien-planet-and-the-door-back-home-is-kersplodey-like-so-may-as-well-sack-someone's-hometown-for-knick-knacks mood?
Better find some space turtles, mate.
I find myself wondering what Darkness Nightshade would look like in the Equestria Girls world. Probably a goth Twilight with darker hair and possibly an over-abundance of leather and metal studs in her clothing.
I know that sounds disgustingly self-indulgent, Twilight but think for a moment. Yes, Flurry has all the things a filly might want but think of her life other than as a Princess. The point is that she doesn't have one. What she does have is strained relationships with a mother she adores and with an aunt who is far more a role model than her parents ever would be. Worse, she has duties and public expectations that are more effective chains than the wisest and strongest Diamond Dog could forge. Every time she tries to find our who Flurry Heart is, as opposed to 'Crown Princess Flurry Heart of the Crystal Empire', something seems to go wrong.
The fact is that the concept of a 'poor little rich girl' is more accurate than many imagine. In the end, she wants to find the things she needs - good relationships with others on her own terms, personal meaning and a direction to life that makes her happy on a personal level.
That said, the fact that Flurry isn't all that good at foresight and planning probably doesn't help here. Yes, Twilight and the Six have muddled their way through multiple Apocalypsi but that doesn't mean planning is unnecessary.
Welcome to apostrophe land!
somehow this made me think of this scene in "Galaxy Quest":
8055062 I think you mean:
W'lc'e t' ap'phe l'd!
Or for the hardcore:
'''''''''''''''''''
Flurry scowled. "Aunt Luna said that in your junior year at the academy, you called yourself Darkness Nightshade and wore black—"
I love that reference!
Come on Twilight, you know better than this. Monkeys have tails, apes don't.
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Invoking the Rule of Funny here; monkey is a funnier word than ape.
Hmmmmm... With that high praise on the cleaning job im surprised he didnt serve it à la commode
A fun story so far. Also, nooo! The Nebula's Jolly Roger flag pic isn't working anymore.
9840402
Thank you! Yeah, tinypic is going down the drain; Picture is fix'd!
9573109
oh, that made me think of a "MLP friends forever" comic book i read where Applejack and Pinkie wound up in a cooking contest (Applejack by accident of mistaken identity) and TRIED to lose the second round by using outright garbage, pickles covered with crap...and the Griffon judge loved it!
BTW, one of the other contestants made a flaming dessert that set a pony judge's hair on fire!
That gif's a nice touch. Where does it come from?
10168208
One of my pandemic quarantine projects is a 3D model of Nebula:
Not quite finished yet. The camera angle hides the lack of main deck railings and decoration on the envelope.
10168219
Awesome, I will eagerly await the finished product.
As to the my little squid, did you know that in some of the original scripts that Pinkie's sisters were going to be inky and blinky?
10168219
awesome ! ^^