Chapter 49: Kaelynn
The crew was back by nightfall, wandering back in a few groups. At least the ones who left, anyway. Kaelynn had denied Ryan's request to come with him.
For once, he hadn't been insistent, giving her some time to herself. Kaelynn visited her old water prison, floating along in the surface, skimming her book for useful songs. But mostly she was waiting for the return trip.
Blake and Vesper made it back first, smelling like fried food and looking like they'd been walking through the city taking all sorts of touristy adventures. But Kaelynn could see enough in the frustration on Vesper's face to know she didn't need to ask the important question. There would be no second couple on the deck today.
Janet and Galena returned a few minutes later, carrying sheaves of maps and printouts between them. Galena had acquired a "miners of Equestria" baseball cap, which she now wore awkwardly on her head along with an oversized jacket she'd acquired in Mount Aris.
"Promising lead to the other side," Janet said, as soon as she'd stepped into the mess hall beside Galena. "Galena was right, they didn't take us seriously at all."
"Ponies think we cannot abide to be underground," Galena said, grinning smugly to herself. "That we are scared of stone. But they are wrong—birds appreciate what we find beneath the ground. We are not afraid to work for it."
Ryan was the very last to arrive, so slowly that Kaelynn began to grow nervous. Had he gotten himself into trouble? Maybe the ponies were far less cosmopolitan about the mixing of races and cultures than they'd initially seemed.
The hours ticked along, long enough that Kaelynn's nervousness began to build. Maybe she should do something to go looking for him. They couldn't just sit here and hope the changeling would find his way back.
Then he landed on the deck, with a distinct buzz from his wings that couldn't be anyone else. Kaelynn stumbled away from the mess table, and found him rushing down the stairs.
His face was... different, somehow. Resolved? It was so hard to judge emotions on those fractal eyes. "Didn't you look like something else when you left?"
He waved a dismissive hoof. "I'm not going to hide here anymore. There's a cure for all that, Kaelynn—I don't have to keep living that way. The first step of getting over it is to stop treating myself like I'm a disease."
"I guess that makes sense." She rested one hoof on his shoulder. She wobbled a bit, though she couldn't have said why. She must be getting light-headed from spending so long aboard the ship. "I don't think you're a disease. But everyone else is waiting for you.
"We are!" Vesper called. "We're plotting our course through the mines. Galena's pretty sure she knows where the Worldgate is. We can stay away from the tours completely, go in through a municipal tunnel just here. Might have to pick a lock, but nothing more than that."
Kaelynn rejoined the others, Ryan hurrying along beside her. He didn't change into anything else on his way through the doorway, so he was still the fully-insect creature that had appeared on the other side of the Worldgate.
Only Janet reacted negatively, jolting away from the map spread on the table in front of them, nearly falling over. But she corrected herself quickly, taking a steadying breath. "You... decided to stop changing? That's good. Less magic will give you a larger window."
Ryan nodded. "For now. I'll change if I have a reason. But being with my friends is not a reason."
No one said anything to that. After a few seconds, Blake tapped his foreleg against the table, just beside the map. "If everyone has the energy, it would be better to go straight through tonight. We can sleep in the cavern, continue the rest of the way to the gate by morning, then... find whatever's waiting for us on the other side."
"Fine by me," Ryan answered. "I don't sleep."
The others each answered the same way, one by one. Except for Galena. "I am not staying behind. I still wish to see this other world, to know for myself your promises are true. I will not watch the ship."
"But... someone should," Janet said. "It can't be me. If that Worldgate goes somewhere safe, I'm going to stay on that side, find my own way back to the US. Every Worldgate could be my last trip with this group."
"I'll stay," Kaelynn said. The suggestion of crawling through the dirt of an old mine didn't exactly appeal to her right now. "I need some time to..."
"Change back?" Ryan asked, hopefully. "Before you get so sick you waste away?"
"Maybe." She gestured away from him. "You guys go! I can hold down a ship in a friendly city."
"Thanks, Kaelynn," Blake said. "We'll all take turns if we make it through today. Guess that means you're first."
She watched them go about an hour later, slinking away into the city. Her eyes were on Ryan the longest, watching to see what form he'd copy for the trip up.
None, as it turned out. Good luck, Ryan. I hope I figure out what's going on with me by the time you get back.
It would be so easy for Kaelynn to wander off the deck of the Bright Hawk and explore this huge city of ponies. In many ways, this was exactly the sort of thing she'd come to see—another world, full of incredible mysteries waiting to be discovered. And yet, she was trapped, imprisoned on the Bright Hawk and unable to leave.
Despite the effort in willpower, she managed to remain on the deck, only looking down with longing at the city below. Thousands of creatures moved down there, living entire lives to rhythms that she didn't understand.
I should've taken Ryan up on his offer to stay here. Then there'd be two of us, and we could take turns. But no matter how tempting it could be, getting a route back and forth to Equestria figured out was more important. Once we know we can stay on the Earth side as long as we want, we don't need to worry about being stuck this way.
Obviously being "stuck" this way didn't bother the locals moving back and forth just below the Bright Hawk. The docks were packed with creatures, each one busy with their own lives.
Kaelynn stared at one passing group, a set of muscular earth stallions pulling a fancy white carriage. It looked like there was someone inside, though she couldn't get a good look to tell for sure.
A few even pointed up to her on the deck, about twenty feet higher than the flow of traffic. They waved, and she waved back. Then she got a little too energetic, and the world started to sway.
Kaelynn backed away from the railing, nearly flopping to the ground. She settled down on all four legs, breathing heavily. It was okay, she'd be fine. She'd just had a few bad nights. It wasn't the first time she'd had trouble sleeping.
Hold down the fort, what does that even mean? She wandered to the supply shelf, where they kept refreshments for anyone who happened to be spending a long time on deck. That meant climbing another stairwell to the helm, since it was in a shelf just beside the instruments.
There was a barrel of water inside, along with a ladle. Instead of actually drinking, Kaelynn just stuck her head right inside, practically inhaling the stuff. But she didn't actually try breathing it. That familiar pressure against her lungs, the one that came from old human instincts, remained.
Why did she feel trapped in the open air? She had legs now, she was free to be among other creatures! She wasn't locked in a tank.
Being up here was the entire reason she had fought so hard to figure out the strange magic of her new race. Sure, she felt a little disoriented, a little weaker. But there were other explanations.
Ryan's wrong. There's no reason using a little magic would be harder on me than it is on him. He can change into whatever he wants without an issue. I should be able to stay like this as long as I like.
She continued her patrol of the Bright Hawk, though of course she expected very little. This was the capital of the pony nation called Equestria, apparently the safest place in the entire world. If they could be a little overconfident with their safety anywhere on this alien planet, it was here.
I can go belowdecks and catch my breath. There's no danger there. Kaelynn took one last circuit of the deck, made sure the ramp was still raised, then headed back down the way she'd come.
Maybe this would be the way back her friends had been searching for all this time. Sooner or later, they were bound to try enough portals that they found one that actually did anything.
Kaelynn wandered down past the bedrooms into the place that was called the workshop, where cargo-bay doors could be opened to load the ship whenever they wanted. Of course they were all securely shut—they had precious little gold, and had to guard it carefully.
Even the old shelves were stripped out of the cargo area, all but one. They needed every pound they could to make up for the weight of water loaded into the captain's quarters.
But their equipment was still here, what little they'd bought from supplies in Mount Aris. A single workbench, a few boxes of metal springs and hinges and spare parts. Basic mechanical tools. Everything was manually operated, from the drill to the bandsaw.
That was all they could afford. But then, the hippogriffs had mentioned "thaumic-driven" tools that could be purchased for a lower price in Equestria. Maybe she should run down to the market and take a look around.
No, Kaelynn. We don't need to buy anything on this side. Focus on getting back, then we can have all the tools we want.
The removal of most shelves meant there was plenty of wall space for her sketches and designs, and so most of the space around her workbench was covered with them. Most related to her condition in one way or another—ways to take a body with only two legs and no ability to breathe air, and somehow free herself of those restrictions without transforming.
She already had the v1, the simple harness that held her in damp cloth and relied entirely on the rebreather for air. The v2 was about halfway assembled here.
Instead of a simple v-frame, her improved version had back legs that responded to movements from the tail, and were driven by motors. While on a flat surface, they could lock in place and roll, using her forelegs to drag her along. When she needed to, that mechanism could unlock, and allow her to walk upstairs or over rough terrain.
"Is there any point?" she asked the empty room, smacking one hoof into the side. The harness fit over all four legs, so that the majority of its substantial weight could be channeled around her forelegs, rather than relying on her to lift the whole thing at all times.
But as confident as she was in the mechanical parts, there was one aspect she hadn't yet answered. How would she possibly power the damn thing? Similar mechanisms on Earth required massive battery systems, or fuel cells. She would never have either in this world.
Maybe songs were the better way.
She tinkered with it for a time, relying on something far easier to think about than her friends off on a dangerous mission. Here in the workshop, she might not have all the answers, but she was still in control. It was the way the world ought to be.
She probably kept working for hours, because the next thing she knew, the light streaming in through the porthole above her had turned to the soft amber of streetlights. She groaned, sitting up from her desk. Had she dozed off again?
She barely noticed the hoofsteps behind her, except they had probably been what woke her. Kaelynn turned, expecting to see Ryan standing there. He would have just returned from another portal that was unsafe to use for one reason or another. They'd check a Worldgate off their list, and that would be the depressing reality.
Instead, she found a stranger standing in the hallway. She'd never seen a creature quite like her up close, though she'd now seen plenty from a distance. These were the ones that locals called “unicorns.”
This one was older than most of the natives she had seen, with a bleached white mane and a coat that had lost most of its color. Her horn was almost a full foot long, maybe longer. Was it her imagination, or was it already glowing in the tight confines of the Bright Hawk's corridors?
"Excuse me, are you the captain of this vessel?" The pony sounded friendly, the same way so many other creatures did. Like the grandmother of a personal friend, who had gotten themselves a tad lost. "I'm looking for the captain, and I must assume it's you."
She straightened, shaking off the last vestiges of sleep. Her tail still sagged, and she could feel one fin dragging against the wood. But that was fine, the wood was soft enough.
The unicorn was well-dressed, wearing more than almost any local that Kaelynn had yet seen. It might very well be the first time she'd ever seen another pony dressed as completely as they had been when they first stepped through the Worldgate.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure the rest of my crew has the time to talk much about..." She took a deep breath, then tried again. "Perhaps you could leave a message, and I'll deliver it when the captain returns? We raised the boarding ramp, we thought that meant..." Apparently there were other customs about wanting visitors and the sanctity of personal space. On Earth, Kaelynn would probably think she was being attacked.
"Certainly," the unicorn said. She stopped in the doorway, blocking Kaelynn's escape. She could easily have shoved past her, but that old pony was so wrinkled and feeble—she had to be careful, or else she might hurt her by accident!
"But are you sure the captain isn't here? I'd like to have a word with the pony in charge. I've heard some remarkable things about this vessel. Like you! I've never seen a mare like you. Is it true that you're an actual seapony? Relic from the past, returned despite the war to the south? Proof of mysterious things forgotten by creatures all over Equestria?"
Someone was bound to make a big deal out of that, she thought. Half of Mount Aris freaked out when I showed up, but here I could walk around in broad daylight and it took hours.
"Positive," Kaelynn said, letting a little of her annoyance finally find its way into her tone. "There's nopony else aboard, miss. I can take your message, but that's it."
"Oh." The old mare shuffled on her hooves, looking away. "That's exactly the kind of news I wanted to hear." Then her horn glowed, lighting instantly to a spotlight on her forehead.
Kaelynn stumbled back, lifting one hoof to try and shield her eyes. But she might as well blow into a hurricane for all the good it did—the illumination was overwhelming.
"I'm afraid this might be a tad uncomfortable, dear. But you should know, it's for your own good."
Suddenly Kaelynn was falling, like she'd just stepped off a balcony and over a cliff. The air rushed past her, yet that air wasn't helping. She coughed and spluttered, her throat suddenly in desperate need of moisture, but finding none. Her head swam, and she flipped head-over-heels, spinning through the air.
She barely got a single glimpse of wood and shelves rushing past, before finally splashing down into the water. A... pool? She took a breath, and found the water slightly stale as it moved down her throat. Somehow, she was swimming again.
She took another breath—but aside from the water being a little stale, she couldn't taste much. The pool was dark, illuminated through a glass side with a shimmering glow of purple.
A face appeared before her, massive and out of focus. For a second she froze, unsure of what she was looking at. How could anything be so... huge? It was like her first time swimming through the Worldgate all over again, with her brain struggling and failing to identify whatever she was seeing.
Then it clicked. A gray pony face, with a few wrinkles and a towering spire of a horn rising up and out of Kaelynn's field of view.
Then a voice shook the water, one that she remembered from moments before—but suddenly it was much deeper, almost out of her ability to understand. "I'm terribly sorry about the inconvenience, mythical seapony. But I have to arrange transport, and I didn't think I had the strength to carry you through Canterlot on my own."
Kaelynn smacked up against the glass with one hoof, freezing there. Through it, she realized what she should've known instantly—that was the interior of the Bright Hawk. There was her workbench, towering like a skyscraper. And her posters against the wall were each like whole city blocks.
"You can't do this!" It was impossible, obviously. Somehow, this unicorn had taken away her legs, and... stuffed her in a bottle?
But the unicorn didn't seem to even hear her. "We'll speak again soon," she promised. "I'm afraid I can't understand you in there. I suspect you will have much to teach me."
Kaelynn's whole world was falling now, vanishing out of sight. She squirmed and fought, swimming up to escape—but soon found herself at the top of a huge space. A jar, with a metal lid securely tightened. There was a little space for air up here, just enough for her to surface.
She didn't, though. Something dark wrapped around her prison on all sides, cutting out what little moonlight made its way inside. Soon enough she was plunged headlong into darkness, and her ship vanished from around her.
She wanted to scream, call out to one of her friends for help. But they weren't even in the same universe, let alone the same ship.
I'm completely screwed.
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Leaving one person alone... never a good idea.
Seapony in a Jar: The newest product from... who in the heck was that?
(Yeah, the humor is endless for our Canned Tune-a, and I'm certain I'm going to be topped rather quickly in the comments, but it's a start)
10916484
And never tell strangers that you're home alone when you answer the door.
Hold up— is that Mistmane? I mean, I guess can see it— pony from the past looking to learn from a creature of the past, but that's still pretty f***ed up, especially from her. She doesn't seem the type.
This isn't good and I hope that she will be able to get free. That unicorn will be dissapointed when she finds out Kaelynn can't tell her anything she wants to know. Of course once the Royal Guard learns of this that unicorn will be locked up forever.
This is bad
Kaelynn's getting the damsel treatment again.
10916524
Mistmane doesn’t have white mane and tail, this is a stranger with dark intentions.
10916611
Yeah, you’re right. I was just going by memory, and I knew Mistmane wore clothes, had a long horn, and was old and feeble. Mistakenly combined the white mane/tail in there, too. Oh well. *shrug*
Well, that definitely could've gone better. That's the problem about apparently safe harbors; the dangers are just more subtle. Now it's a question of what this stranger wants, what she thinks is happening, and whether the explorers will actually be of any help. I can't imagine she'll take it well if they're not everything she thought they'd be.
10916499
EVER!
As safe as Canterlot is, there's bound to be a few snakes roaming about. It's quite ironic that Kaelynn with her mythical "last of her kind" status, is basically a "unicorn" to a unicorn. Still, woe to her kidnapper... the enemies she just made will not let one of their own become part of some twisted collection.
You gotta let her know what the relationship is doing. She won't push you away for honesty. Hopefully.
Have you found a way to avoid the thestrals, too?
I would also think that at first, but since doors and locks exist, I'd be convinced a raised boarding ramp would be enough of a message.
Not everypony is considered a pony to everypony.
Not really, actually.
10917204
I'd go for a mutant gator. Increased entertainment potential right there, lol.
SOMEBODY obviously needs a good kicking here. Hope Kaelynn gets to deliver it soon.
10916911
No, No I'm sorry but I am calling BULLSHIT! on this. This is the CAPITAL of Equestria, the fucking PRINCESSES and GODDESSES are literally with VIEWING RANGE of the Port, a Port where there would be HUNDREDS of Guards for Security to make sure no one was Smuggling things either IN or OUT of the capital. And this is a FAMOUS Equestrian ship as well, so logically would have even MORE Guards around it as well.
How the FUCK did someone just walk in, onto a boat, that they have no right to be near, past ALL the guards, and NO SUPERVISION, on what would seem like an EMPTY SHIP, and be allowed to walk back out?!
The sheer fucking levels of Stupidity to the EXTREME can not be hand waved and 'Suspend your disbelief' bullshit excused. If she had LEFT the ship and was ambushed in an alleyway, 110% believable. But while on a high profile ship, in the capital where the rulers of the place is, within VIEW of the Castle, with Guards patrolling and guarding the entrances, exits, and ports? Yeah no. Fuck no, that's complete bullshit. Even in Mount Aris the ship and ports were heavily regulated and guarded. Just... Just what the fuck?!
Hmm. So... someone... has heard reports of a mythical seapony returning -- after those reports making it to Equestria purely through the grapevine, so who knows how distorted they've gotten -- and has concluded that Kaelynn is some kind of mystical herald of great things and has decided to kidnap her to pick her brain for... enlightenment, I suppose?
I think that things will get decidedly unpleasant once this figure learns that Kaelynn isn't anything like what she thought she was.
10917583
They might be famous but I doubt they're "mane six" famous. Any sort of attention they had likely faded away as the day went on and ponies went on their way. I don't understand why Equestria would dispatch more guards. They're also not diplomats or VIPs so they'd be treated like any other visitor.
The boarding ramp was up. It's quite clear she used magic to get in.
It's not that much of a high profile ship and it blends in well enough with the monotonous day-to-day view of the castle. I wouldn't put it above the guard to simply "go through the motions" in the safest city in Equestria. The dullness is enough to position the blade in the right place.
FanOfMostEverything puts it best:
There's currently no reason to think this magically skilled unicorn hunting for a mythical pony (no other pony is noticing) is anything but.
If you don't go on touristy adventures when you visit a touristy city, what's even the point.
I wonder if her got enough information that he'll manage the shiny beetle transformation at some point. Doing it offscreen at the embassy would have been cheating I suppose.
Rationalizations are fine if they get you to a point of accepting someone living as themselves.
Gonna be hard to figure it out considering she's firmly dedicated to ignoring the obvious solution that Ryan spoke out loud to her at least once.
Hmn. Mistmane, maybe? I'm forgetting where we are in the timeline.
If she's forcing Kaelynn to switch back, probably true.
Less than you might think, or at least different than you expect.
Holy shit, that came out of the blue.
Yeah, this is some stupid ass bullshit right here.