I slowly stirred awake and yawned, stretching slowly.
Huh?
Feeling about a bit, I opened my eyes and looking around. I was alone on the bed, both Sunset and Twilight were missing.
Ugh. What time is it?
The sun was filtering in through the high windows, but I couldn’t actually see it from here so all that told me was day.
We had been up late last night, going through everything that had been delivered. I had expected Sparks and Sunny to sleep in today, but apparently not.
Yawning again, I scooted out of bed and then stretched again before heading towards the other room, finding it also empty, but the door to the balcony/landing platform was open.
Exiting to the balcony, I instantly spotted Sparks and Sunny standing and looking out over the city, a scroll floating in Sparks magic.
“Morning sleepyhead,” Sunset said and grinned at me, “About time you wake up.”
“Naturally nocturnal,” I grumbled to her as I joined them, resting my head against Sunny’s mane.
“Lazy stallion more like it,” Sunset teased, “Or what do you think, Twi?”
“Definitely,” Twilight agreed with a smile, slipping her wing over my back, pulling me into a quick cuddle on the side opposite to Sunset, “Sleep well?”
“Mmm,” I agreed, resting my head against her neck. I couldn’t do that with Sunny anymore.
Both Sparks and I were almost half a head taller than the unicorn by now. Used to be half a hoof, but we had both gotten taller in just two years.
What more… our body type seemed to have started to change too. I had started to see hints of the longer legged look on Sparks that Luna, Celestia and Cadance all shared.
And… in my own mirror image as well. Not quite as much, but that might just be an illusion because of my naturally wider barrel as a stallion.
But I couldn’t deny the fact that we were both growing. My old ‘Warmage’ uniform didn’t fit anymore.
Another five or ten years and we’ll need to renovate the castle in Nocturnis or we’d both risk banging our horns on the lower parts.
Any unicorn knew how nice that was, even without magic going through it.
Nopony can ever say that being an Alicorn was all upside.
“So what are you two up to?” I asked after a moment as I raised my head again.
“We’re discussing the construction of the city,” Sparks said, “Kitten was just pointing out that the heavy walls are from not having magic.”
I nodded, “Yep, no blasting spells. And while Griffons have wings and can skip the walls, most non-pony enemies don't.”
“Earth pony cities were actually similar,” Sunset pointed out, “Not to this level, but they tended to have strong walls pre-equestria.”
Sparks nodded in agreement, “They were, but those walls are thicker than most roads are wide and those blocks of stone… they must weigh hundreds of tons.”
I nodded, “You aint shifting those in a siege. Even with magic, unless you have the right alicorn or an exceptional unicorn you can hammer those all day with spells and it’s not doing you any good.”
“Of course, then it would be better to just teleport on top of them,” Sunset admitted, “But it is impressive construction. But I think they might have been constructed before teleport spells were invented in anycase.”
Hmm, I agreed, nodding before my stomach rumbled softly.
Sparks grinned, “There is some breakfast inside,” she pointed out.
“I should have a look at that, shouldn’t I?” I admitted before I slipped out from beneath her wing and headed back inside to find a spread of food laid out on one of the side tables. A collection of baked goods and fruits, a mix of Equestrian and what I could only assume was Griffon kinds.
I also found a thestral on one of the couches, going through a stack of papers, squiggling down a note from time to time.
“Morning Flower,” I said as I picked up an apple with my magic, splitting it in quarters before nibbling on one of them, “Everything going okay?”
She looked up from her notes, a pen held in her muzzle, “Good morning, your majesty,” she said, smiling around the pen, “Everything is well, I’m just getting some paperwork ready.”
“Halfway across the world and I still can’t escape, huh?” I asked playfully.
“It’s not for you, your highness,” she chuckled, “It’s for my counterpart among the griffons. He’s not entirely sure what to feed thestrals and is wondering if anything else special is necessary.”
“Ah. Fish then?”
“And some meat,” she agreed, shifting her pen to the other side of her muzzle with a smile, “That did take some time getting used to,” she then admitted, “But it taste so goood…”
“That it does,” I agreed and snagged a muffin after finishing the apple, “So what’s on the schedule today. I’m assuming we’re meeting King Darkfeather again?”
“Indeed, your majesty,” Flower Rain agreed, “At noon for lunch.”
“Plenty of time to review the field reports, “I agreed, “Good, I think tha-”
“Oh no,” Sunset said with a smile as she and Twilight walked inside, “Bath first, it should be done by now. We all need one after a week on an airship.”
Which was a fair point, airships didn’t even have showers, just small washing basins.
I nodded, “...That would be nice.”
Nice
Love it, as always
Im confused... So they didnt reach the Capital last chapter?
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They did, but this sort of thing takes more than an afternoon to resolve.
Nice to see a mention of how they've changed in the past two years, the strong continuity is one of the best parts of the series, though I think this wording might have gone a bit wrong?
Minor additional nit-pick, but 'anymore' needs a space in the middle and there are a couple of tense errors near the end of the chapter.
Do let me know if my grammatically jackbooted ways are annoying by the way, if so I'll stop.
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No, actually useful. Not promising I will remember next time, but I can hardly get worse...
True
But teleportation is a decently rare skill and takes a fair bit of power to pull off
Seems that on they way back to Equestria, Page is gonna have to stop at Rarity's shop to get a "new" Warmage uniform.
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You villain
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Evil laugher in the distance
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You did that on purpose didn't you?
problem with teleporting onto a wall is now you're on a wall surrounded by enemies instead of on the ground looking up. Mideval walls weren't tough just because of the size, they were also very deadly to take and hold as you could be shot at from any other wall and also had no cover
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Good to hear, it had been weighing on my mind for a few days! As for getting worse, don't do yourself a disservice Hiver, you've definitely improved over the course of the series (barring a rough patch during Responsibilities if I recall correctly) and even compared to New Beginnings, I have seen adult native English speakers who have a far worse grasp of the language.
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Absolutely, getting atop those walls would be murderous, especially when the defenders can fly to mitigate any cover the height of them might provide. Adding to that the likelihood that most teleporters can't take anyone with them, or at least enough to really matter, you'd be putting your very valuable and now briefly disoriented wizard alone in the middle of a lot of angry, armed and armoured griffons, at least some of whom likely have countermeasures against magical attack which could be anything from enchanted armour to simple training on how to resist mind-affecting magic. Furthermore, there's the not insignificant risk that the teleporter might not be able to find a clear space to arrive in, which could depending on the rules of the magic system mean the spell simply not working, the caster getting killed on arrival or, as in the Triptych Continuum, recoil - arriving in a random unoccupied space nearby with a rather large velocity in whatever direction they were displaced, probably in this case slinging them off the wall to their death.
Simply put, you're better off leaving walls like those to your engineers and using your teleporters elsewhere, such as to assist in night time raids to sabotage wall-mounted artillery, as messengers to give generals a greater degree of control over the battlefield and as scouts.
Question: Is Morning Flower and Flower Rain two different ponies or….
(Morning Flower)
(Good Morning, Flower Rain.)
Nevermind
Dear god... Got to love the comment section. I probably re-read all storys again for them alone Not to long until my current re-reading and commenting is done
FAST FORWARD 15 YEARS LATER...
Sunset: ...I told you adding a chandelier made from Rexasaurus teeth to the throne room was a bad idea.
*Prince Page has said chandelier tangled in his horn and mane*
Page: ...it was fine 6 month ago...stupid alicorn growth spurt...
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Anymore is perfectly fine, and does not need to be made into two words.
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Most curious, looks like it's a weird US-only thing I wasn't aware of (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/anymore). In regular English it's generally considered poor form like most other dual word conglomerations that aren't contractions, hence why I noted it as a minor nit-pick.
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"Its not my fault my bloody neck decided to grow out before my legs did. I look like a flying giraffe right now!"
"Yes but a very sexy giraffe."
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Half the contradictions between american english and british I swear are from angry editors on either side of the atlantic who insist the other is wrong and they're perfectly correct.
There should be a comma between "exceptional unicorn" and "you can hammer"
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You're not wrong there, and the other half are due to revisionist franco/anglophobic racist idiots in the 18th century on the western side of the pond who thought they had the right to defile the language for political reasons and pretty much got away with it.
Dude, you literally did the thing you said you can't do 2 seconds ago.
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Mane, not neck. Sorry.
'Complications' Chapter 32. The renegard invaders are found , selected and locked in less than a day.
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Sounds like American coffee, alright.
If you ever find yourself in an Australian cafe, though, you won't regret it.
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PRICELESS!!
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Well, here at FIM, you've got half the writers are from the UK, half are from the US, half are non-English speaking, and half who aren't even human.
As you could jal, this sorts of thing are taH expected. ♪♫
I wonder if Gilda will make an appearance.