Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Journey Through the Dark - Part 18

Twilight considered her options, as she watched the airship float in place a short distance away. Not being noticed while on top of it would certainly be more of a challenge than if she'd been travelling elsewhere. On the other hoof, it would save her a huge amount of time and effort to use it.

In the end she decided it was worth it. She'd managed to make it into Nightmare Moon's castle, eluding the airship's security wouldn't be harder. She needed all the help she could get in crossing the distance to the Empire, and without a train to hitch a ride on that was the fastest option to cover the most ground.

A small crowd of ponies had already gathered on top of it, evidently waiting for it to depart. A busier crowd than what she would have preferred, but at least it wasn't like they were looking for her. Even if someone bumped into her, they'd assume they'd just bumped into somepony else there. Who she had to look out for most were the guards.

The toughest part would undeniably be spending her nights there. She could cast spells to hide herself, like the ones she'd used before to hide the portal, but it was no guarantee someone wouldn't find her anyway while she was sleeping. She couldn't afford to stay up though. She'd hopefully manage to find a safe enough spot in the storage rooms, or in an unoccupied bedroom, or anyplace else that would be empty enough and hopefully not checked too throughly.

Reasonably, the guards wouldn't be looking too hard. Not after a first pass to make sure no one was hiding there. At worst she could probably crawl inside of a box. She could force a pony to keep her in their room, too, and erase their memory afterwards, but she didn't want to do that. They had done nothing wrong. Most looked excited about the trip. It wasn't much different at all from watching the ponies of her own Equestria, aside from a slightly different sense of fashion perhaps.

She wished she could help all of them. But could she? She'd need to defeat Nightmare Moon and Sombra, and undo a thousand years of propaganda and manipulation. Those ponies had never seen the Sun. Some probably didn't even know what it was. Would it have been even right to take away eternal night from a world that had lived with it for so long? And was there even a Celestia in that world, or was she dead? There was no Mare in the Moon, at least.

And even if she did all that, what after? That world would have its Behemoth too, or some other abomination, maybe a worse one. She had yet to find a way to save her own, could she hope to save another twice over?

She was taken from her thoughts as the ship began to move, her already on top and as reasonably far away from the main crowd as she could stand. Everypony had come aboard, and evidently the guards were done checking the passengers. She decided to wait things out for a bit. She'd scout for a room to hide in later on.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

At worst she could probably crawl inside of a box

But she doesn't have her sneaking suit!

Goodness, there really aren't any good options here, are there? Poor Twilight. Heck, even Stella's going to be hard-pressed to keep a low profile in these confines, but she's a lot less gun-shy when it comes to erasing memories.