II
Roads groans as he opens pale blue eyes. Looks out and sees a small pond. Around it, thin, bright green ferns and towering oak trees. He stands slowly, his entire body aches. His coat is matted with dirt and blood, wet from recent rain. He is covered in bruises and cuts. One wing hangs limply from his side, twisted painfully, possibly broken.
He is not sure how he got here, but he remembers being hit. A hoof to the face, to the side, all over. Then falling. A storm. Striking tree branches on the way down. Nothing more.
He is young. Younger than he thinks he should be. Just a colt, coated with mud. Everything dripping; there has been a storm. He picks a twig out of his mane and inspects his surroundings. A forest. Bright green, slightly blurry. Lots of brown. Bushes, trees, ferns. It is very bright, the sun is rising. It moves up from the east, towers over Canterlot.
Roads is not sure who he is, not sure where he is, not sure he dislikes it. It is nice here. Pleasant. He has never been to the Ground before. He likes it better here. The air is so harsh in Cloudsdale.
But he can't stay. He has to go east, to Canterlot. He knows he needs to hurry, but isn't sure why. He moves as swiftly as he can bear; he is not yet fit to travel. He drinks from the brook, looks for the right plants. Healing Ivy. It should be here. His books have told him it should be here. He searches for a while, finally finds a long patch of it. He picks it, crushes it, mixes it, makes a poultice. Binds the mixture around his wing. Over his wounds. Rubs it against his face. Holds it still with reed stems.
Numbness. Blissful numbness. The plants take away the pain.
The ivy is a path. Following a ley line, but he doesn't know that yet. Someday.
Roads follows. He is led to a grove. An aura in the center, billowing, it beckons him. He does not know that it is a f.
Not yet. Someday.
He steps into it. It surrounds him, resplendent, shining. He feels some of his cuts begin to heal, some of his bruises begin to fade. A bone begins to mend.
But the aura is weak. Its energy drains into him, then it fades. He is confused, but content. He feels better. All will be well, in time. He sets out. Heads west. To Canterlot. To safety.
The forest is not expansive. An hour of walking, he emerges. Soft grass under his hooves. A blue sky, bright, clear. No clouds. He sees a road in the distance. He goes to the road, stares down it. A long walk. One hoof in front of the other.
Suddenly, a speck on the horizon. Coming in from the west. Fear. He knows the speck. It flaps dark against the sun. Coming for him.
No, not yet. He can't be found so quickly. But he is. The speck grows closer, larger. It is a pegasus. It calls his name.
"Roads!"
The voice is dark. Malignant. Vicious. He fears it, he knows it. Far away, faint, but getting closer. He hears it again.
"Roads!"
It is different this time. Softer. Closer. A deep baritone. He likes this voice. It calls again.
"Roads!"
Very close now. Good. Comes with a sudden shaking. A world rising. Fading. A third time, very loud.
"Roads!"
The world shimmers away. The speck is the last to go. He is waking.
Volume 1
II
"And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!"
-Arthur Hugh Clough, Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth"
Roads awoke to warm sunlight streaming through the open window, birds chirping high in the air, and a throbbing, miserable headache. A headache that was definitely not being helped by the captain shouting in his ears and shaking him awake.
“Come on, now, get up!”
Brindle gave him one last, forceful nudge, pushing him into the wall. Finally roused from his groggy slumber, Roads sat up, palms over his eyes, and groaned. He had really overdone it last night. An entire flask of whiskey, gone, and now he had to meet his new co-workers hungover. Great.
The captain’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “On your hooves, now, let’s go. ‘Less you figure you wanna pay fifteen more bits for another ticket.”
Roads looked up at the captain, confused. “What?” he asked, staring blankly. “Why would I need another ticket?”
“One ticket per ride. ‘S mah policy,” Brindle explained.
“What? What ride? What are you talking about?”
The captain grabbed him under the shoulder and hoisted him to his hooves. “We’re about to head back to Ponyville. You wanna come with us, you gotta pay.”
“Wait--why are you--we’re in Canterlot already?” he asked.
“We’ve been at port for four hours, son. Everypony else already up an’ left. Walked right past you, but Ah guess you never woke up.”
Roads clapped a hoof to his forehead, staring at the captain in open-mouthed shock. “Four hours?! What time is it now?”
“Oh, about half-past,” he said lazily.
“Half-past what?” Roads demanded.
“Noon.”
Roads didn’t know whether to panic or cry. He thought he might just do both. He sank against the wall, shaking. How could he miss this opportunity? How could he be so stupid. Why did he always have to--
“Are you gonna pay, or what?”
Roads stared up at the captain. “No.”
“Then get the hell offa mah boat!” he said, grabbing Roads by the foreleg once more and hauling him up the stairs. Roads barely managed to grab his bag.
In an instant, he was tossed roughly onto the dock, where he got to his feet and stood, blinking in the sunlight, feeling as though he were about to be sick. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the hangover or his nerves. He didn’t particularly care. Instead, he walked to the edge of the dock, fell to his knees, and vomited into the lake.
Rising, he wiped off his mouth and turned to peer at Canterlot, a sinking feeling settling in his stomach. The mountain city rose high above him, jutting through the clouds into the sky. Around its base was a sprawling metropolis, near its summit, the Royal Palace. On the other side of the mountain were the Skydocks, the wooden ports where he was supposed to be.
Well, if he wanted to even try to make it onto the expedition, that is. It was a lost cause, after all. His chance was gone. He had missed it, screwed it up, the worthless miscreant.
Although... he might as well check. Just to be sure. But he wouldn’t get his hopes up.
Spreading his wings--and wincing at how sore they were--he took off, headed for the top of the mountain. It would be freezing cold at the peak, and the low oxygen up there would starve his lungs. He would have to fly all around the top of the mountain, instead of straight over. And that would take time, time that he didn’t have. He would never make it.
But... he needed to be certain. He had to know they had already left. Going and finding the Skydocks deserted would be bad, but giving up without making sure would be even worse.
Straining stiff wings, he pushed harder, racing towards the top of the mountain. As he rose, the air thinned and chilled. Though the temperature on the ground had been tolerably warm, as he ascended, a sickly cold washed over him. His teeth chattered as he flew.
It was not long before he approached the summit. He burst through the clouds near the top of the mountain to find the entire Palace gleaming beneath him. It sat, stoic and resplendent, in a rocky cradle between the two peaks of the mountain. It was beautiful. Roads ignored it. There were more pressing things to worry about.
Banking as a burst of wind caught him in the side, he angled around the mountain. Soon, the Skydocks were within view. A powerful, complex wooden framework anchoring a series of massive platforms to the side of the rocky slope, the Skydocks were a feat of masterful earth pony engineering. They looked so spindly that it seemed they might blow away at a moment’s notice, but in reality they had weathered many a storm with impunity.
It wasn’t long before Roads reached them. Swooping low, he landed gracelessly at the end of an empty dock, and sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath. The ascent had been rough. Hell, the whole past two days had been rough. He hoped it was worth it.
Standing up, he glanced around at the nearby platforms. They were nearly all empty. A few tourist’s enchanted hot-air balloons here, a row of military airships there, but no expeditionary vessels to be found.
It was over. They were gone. They had left without him. He sank to the ground, sitting against one of the massive wooden beams, cradling his head in his hooves.
He’d known it. He’d known it was too good to be true. Him? Pull off an opportunity like this? It was laughable to think something wouldn’t go wrong. If only he hadn’t drank so much. If only he had woken up, he could have--
The tip of somepony’s hoof nudged him in the ribcage. “Hey. You. You’re the new guy, right?”
Roads looked up to find an annoyed looking unicorn standing over him.
“Uh... what?”
“What, don’t understand Equestrian?” she asked. “You’re the guy, right? The magic expert they sent us. They showed us your picture at the expedition briefing.”
“You’re--you’re with the expedition? You’re part of the crew?” he asked.
She laughed, leaned over, and pulled him to his hooves. “I am the crew,” she said, extending a hoof. “Summer Dew, cartographer extraordinaire, pilot, and the noble leader of a fearless crew of two. Or, well, three, counting you. You're the Warden from the Everfree, right?”
He shook her hoof, looking her over. She was almost as tall as him, and athletically built, her body rippling with lean muscle. She stood with a jaunty, at-ease posture, leaning against the pier rail, forehooves crossed. He noticed that her forelegs were covered in unhealed scrapes and cuts, as well as a number of small scars and marks that stood out against her cyan coat. It seemed the scars, though, didn’t stop at her forelegs. Instead, most of the her body seemed slightly scarred or nicked somewhere. This was not a pony who lead a relaxed life.
As he peered at her, she sized him up with light green eyes, staring out from under a loosely cut green mane, streaked with white that might have been attractive had she bothered to fix it. In fact, Roads was pretty sure she might be striking--if she had thought it worthwhile.
A moment passed as the two stared each other down. Roads realized he was probably supposed to say something--but as soon as he opened his mouth, she cut him off.
“Try not to stare, new guy. I know I’m gorgeous, but you’re gonna have to keep your eyes--and hooves--to yourself.”
“I wasn’t--”
“Sorry bud, I don’t get with coworkers. So don’t go falling in love with me, Romeo, or I’ll have to shove you out of the zeppelin a couple hundred feet up,” she said, shooting him a haughty smirk.
A flicker of annoyance rose in his stomach. She’d been staring him down--he’d just responded in kind.
“Gee, what an inconvenience to a guy with wings,” he said, not minding to check his tone.
Summer cocked an eyebrow.
"Sarcasm? I like that. Maybe having a new guy won't be absolute hell," she faked a sigh, clearly relishing what she got to say next. “Still though, you could never replace the last specialist the Aggregate sent. If only he hadn't lost a leg on our previous trip..."
A what? No... no, that couldn’t be right. He must have misheard her.
"He... he lost a--?"
"A leg, yep. There was a rockslide, it wasn't pretty. But hey, nothing to worry about, right?"
"Uh..."
Oh, no. What have I gotten myself into, he thought.
“That’s what I thought. Now, what was your name again? Ronin, was it?” she asked.
“Roads.”
“‘Roads?’ Huh. Weird nickname, how’d you get it?”
“It's my given name. My parents decided to call me 'Roads' because I was born on the side of one,” he explained.
"Huh. Interesting folks."
"You don't know the half of it."
There was a brief silence.
“So, where exactly is the zeppelin you mentioned?” he asked finally. “I was looking around, I couldn’t find it.”
“I figured as much. The Aggregate’s got its own dock. See that crook down there?” she asked, pointing to a spot where two steep cliff faces met to form a sharp bend in the mountain.
“Yeah.”
“It’s over there. When you didn’t show up on time, I realized no one must have told you we were parked around on that side. Figured I’d wait around here and see if I could find you,” she explained.
Roads saw an opportunity to save face. “Oh. Yeah, right, no, I was just waiting here--I showed up at twelve, you know, and wasn’t really sure if--”
“Nah, you were just plain late,” she interrupted. She winked at him, seeing the dismay that crossed his face. “I saw you fly up from a mile away. No worries, though--no one’s at their best after a night of drinking, right?”
His brow furrowed. “How did you know that I--”
“They’re called breath mints, rookie, use ‘em. I think everyone on this dock probably knows you’ve been hitting the bottle like a freight train.”
“Uh--”
“Well, are we just gonna stand here and chat all day?” she asked, turning and walking down the dock. She gestured for him to follow.“Daylight’s burnin’, you know. Chief got a head start while we were waiting on you, but we’ve still got some more cargo to load onto the zeppelin before we can head out,” she explained as she led him along a walkway around the side of the mountain.
Before long, they came to a long, solitary dock, at the far end of which was moored a massive zeppelin marked “Royal Expeditionary Aggregate.” At the near end of the dock, a pallet of cargo crates sat, waiting to be loaded. As they approached it, Summer directed him to help carry the wooden boxes aboard.
Mutely, he grabbed one of the lighter boxes and started down the platform, the words “lost a leg” ringing in his head. He stared at the ground as he went, worrying that he might be in over his head, unaware of where he was going.
With a thump, he walked into something bulky and solid. Unbalanced, he toppled to the ground, the container landing heavily on top of him.
When he looked back up again, he found himself face to face with the largest earth pony he had ever laid eyes on. The chestnut-colored gargantuan glared back down at him, two beady eyes peeking from under a close-cropped mane. A frown crossed his twisted muzzle, bent in two places where it had been broken. His face was half covered in pinkish scars, one of which ran all the way down his nose, across another that ran horizontally across his head, narrowly missing an eye.
They also covered large portions of the rest of his body, which was covered in dense, heavy muscle. On his flank was a cutie mark of a sword crossed over a shield, and on his face was a horrendous scowl. When he opened his mouth a voice gravelly and disdainful rang in Roads’ ears, a voice that carried more grunts that actual speech.
"Watch it," he growled. He fixed Roads with a scornful glare, then whirled around to keep working. Somehow, he was just as menacing with his back turned.
"Uhh... sorry," Roads said as the gargantuan marched away.
"I see you met Chief," a voice beside him said. He turned to see Summer standing just behind him, smiling, watching him pick himself up off the ground.
"Chief?"
"That's his nickname. They call him that because he once wrestled a buffalo chief into submission somewhere in a desert south of Appleoosa. Most folks think he doesn't even have a real name," she said.
Roads couldn’t tell if she was joking again. He decided it was probably best to assume she wasn’t. Better safe than sorry.
"What does he do?" he asked.
"He's ex-Royal Guard, the Aggregate pays him to protect my expeditions. In case we end up somewhere where the locals—or the animals—are less-than-friendly. He's also an expert survivalist, and he does whatever else calls for serious muscle."
"I think he hates me."
"Of course he does. Chief hates all the newbies. A word of advice: stay out of his way, and work hard and he might just resist the urge to punt you across Equestria."
She spoke amicably, but what she said still scared him.
These were the people he was traveling with? Into the middle of the tropics? With no one around to hear his agonizing screams as Chief slowly murdered him?
Seven whole, glorious days with a dagger-tongued sadist and a murderous giant--he was loving it already.
"Hey," Summer said, interrupting his inner laments, "help us load up the rest of these crates and we'll be on our way."
She gestured to the stack of dark wooden boxes, each marked "Property of the Royal Expeditionary Aggregate" in large black letters. Roads walked over to one that was only slightly larger than what he had been carrying when Chief knocked him over. He grasped its rope handle and struggled to lift it. It didn’t budge. It seemed most of the cargo consisted entirely of bricks. How useful.
“What’s in these?” he asked Summer after letting go of the box.
"Erm... supplies. Surveying equipment—sextants, sun compasses, A-frame range finders, optical transits and that sort of thing, a good bit of food, a number of cases of fresh water, in case we can't find any and... hmmm... a few odds and ends. First aid stuff, tents, blankets, mountain climbing equipment—"
"—mountain climbing equipment?"
"You never know. A lot of the islands near where we're going are volcanic, and the older ones have mountains in their centers. Granted, the area where we're going is totally uncharted, so we don't even know if there are any islands..."
"So what do we do then?"
"Basically, we head out, and map whatever we find. If there's an island, we land and map it. If there's not, we note that there isn't an island. Basically, we're heading out to add as much as we can to the map in seven days. And you're supposed to do... whatever it is you do with all of your magic stuff."
"Research."
"Research, sure. Research it if you can, and stop it from killing us if it's dangerous. I'm pretty sure that's what they said you'd be doing." She paused for a moment, as a thought occurred to her. "Hey, wait, if you're a pegasus, how exactly are you the magic expert?"
“Well,” he said as they loaded more crates onto the zeppelin. “Have you ever heard of ley theory?”
“Sure,” she replied.
He blinked. He wasn’t expecting that. “You have?” he asked.
“Yep. When they told us you were coming along, I read your book. Well, I read the inside cover of your book. And the author bio. Actually, the first few lines of the author bio, then I got bored and left the bookstore.”
“So you only know the basics?”
“I think ‘basics’ is putting it a bit strong. I know you think there are a bunch of ley lines all over the place, and Celestia thinks that has something to do with all of the expeditions in the Triangle that’ve gone to shit in the past few months,” she said.
“Well, that’s the short version, anyway. But, to answer your question, I’m the magic expert because I’m one of the only CSGU graduates that’s interested in studying natural magic. Because, you know, it’s the only field I can even be on the same par as anypony else in--well, except for alchemy, but alchemy is about as interesting as watching paint dry.”
“So, how exactly do you plan on helping us, you know, not die?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not actually entirely sure what the Princess wants me to do about it, but I do have an idea of what your problem is.”
“Which is?”
“Nexi.”
“Which are?”
“It’s hard to explain succinctly, but basically... for the most part, natural lines balance each other out. No one line in nature enacts too much change on the land around it, because it’s constantly being hampered by other lines in the area. The way they do that is insanely complicated, so I won’t even try to explain. But there are cyclical shifts in which lines are the most powerful. That’s why places like the Everfree have shifts in seasons without pony intervention. Ley shifts control everything out there.”
“And what, exactly, does this have to do with ‘nexi’?”
“Well, whenever ley lines aren’t in proper balance, cyclical shifts can cause some lines to become so strong that they physically manifest at certain focal points. Ley theorists call these manifestations ‘nexi’ and they can be insanely powerful. You wanna know what’s wrecking your expeditions? I’d guess the other crews ran abreast of some seriously powerful nexi,” he explained, grabbing a particularly heavy crate and struggling to carry it over to the zeppelin.
“Wait... do you have any plans at all for helping that not happen to us, then?” she asked.
Roads was about to reply when he was interrupted by Chief, who had just slammed one last box onto the floor of the zeppelin's undercarriage.
"That's it. Let's go," he barked.
“Time to move out,” Summer said. “You can explain the rest later.”
She grabbed Roads’ crate, lifted it easily, and moved up the gangplank, into the zeppelin’s boxy metal underside. With a flap of his wings, Roads followed her up, flying through one of the paneless windows and landing on the floor of the undercarriage.
It was a sparsely furnished metal expanse, bolted to iron plates on the bottom side of the zeppelin’s balloon. On one end was a navigator's table that was conjoined with the control mechanisms for the gargantuan propellor affixed to the zeppelin. In the center of the room the stack of boxes rested. Apart from that, it was bare, just white-painted metal slats and rods. And the two lunatics he was spending the week with.
"Everyone ready?" Summer called, manning the controls.
"Yeah," Roads said.
Next to him, Chief gave an affirmative grunt.
"Alright then," the unicorn said, releasing the aircraft from its moorings and steering it into the sky.
Summer piloted the craft away from the pier and through a cloud bank. Roads peered out the window. As the zeppelin rose and he stared out into the roiling fog, into the misty banks of the unknown, he wondered once again just what he'd gotten himself into.
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Still amazing, a bit sad to see none of the usual (non-OC) characters coming along on the journey, but alas, this could be a good chance to get out of that thinking
Love the story, and I see improvements from the first chapter (in which I had almost nothing to critique)... YOU'RE MAKING MY JOB HARD!
-Glassed
Edit: I'm actually a bit surprised to see so few views... Not just on this one, but on chapter 1 as well. It deserves so many more
Glad you're still enjoying it! As far as bringing along canon characters is concerned, when I was outlining, it was extremely tempting to make up some excuse to get one of the mane 6 to join the expedition. It would have been nice to write for a character that most people are already interested and emotionally invested in, but in the end, I couldn't figure out any way to bring in any of the mane cast that didn't seem reasonable and believable. I suppose I could have brought in a background character, but in that case I would have still ended up, for the most part, creating a personality for them anyway. Hopefully, though, people will still find the two supporting OC's entertaining enough- particularly Chief, whom I'm finding to be extremely fun to write. Also, as far as views go, I haven't really spread this around the internet all that much yet.. Honestly, I really have no idea how to go about getting new readers, aside from sending this in to EqD, which I plan to do sometime around chapter 5, and after I get a lot of editing done. Anyway, thanks for the support and feedback.
156827 A good way to get "easy" views is just commenting a lot on this site
My own little 2-chapter-on-hiatus-3.5-stars-fic-drafts have 554 views, just from my commenting alone
Actually, I've had the idea of being able to reference as many of my favorite fics from this site, into my own fic and still make it make sense, be they big plot-points or just small references. Would you mind if I used Roads a bit? He wouldn't make more than a small cameo
-Glassed
159071 Not at all, so long as he stays relatively in character.
Really good dialogue here!
"talk to an old professor who just perfected a method of embedding a magical 'beacon' in space-time, insulating the destination of teleportation and making line-of-sight irrelevant, so long as the pony performing the spell is going somewhere they've already been."
Out of curiosity, did you borrow that from another fic? I feel like it's a familiar concept...
Love this fic!
I was wondering when that was going to come into play. One does not simply vomit up a full bottle's worth of whiskey without some serious halitosis. Greatly enjoying the story so far, can't wait to see where it leads next!
...well, the islands in Starswirl's Triangle are next, but you know what I mean.