Chapters
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Sunset hadn’t been allowed to see the dig site before. But now, after weeks of cooking and hauling and cleaning, she was finally allowed to walk the short trail up into the hills and see what was worth sending people so far into the wilderness to retrieve.The ruins were located at the bottom of a valley, nestled into the peaks of Isla Colas so tightly that most would probably have walked past them within a hundred meters and never known what they were missing. “Couldn’t have happened to a better…-
27.2 K •
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Instead of being packed into the cargo hold with the other help, Sunset got a cabin all to herself on the return voyage. Well, it was assigned to her, but she invited a certain stallion to share it with her just like their tent. Some part of her wondered if Daring Do had put the two of them together like that all along, after noticing their friendship during the trip over—but that was stupid. There was no reason for an important pony like her to care.Sunset did a lot of stupid things during the trip…
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27.2 K •
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For the palace of the princess, Canterlot Castle wasn’t much of what she’d expected. It was really just a large room, with an elegant chair on one end and a few seats for witnesses along the wall. Sunset walked in at the back of the group, keeping her head down. I can see why the Princess is renovating. The throne room she’s building is way more impressive than this.The trip into Canterlot had been uneventful, painfully so. She couldn’t have said which train Flash Sentry had ridden in, but she…
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27.2 K •
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By the time their train arrived in Ponyville, full dark had settled over the town like a heavy blanket. This was no Crystal Empire or Canterlot, with bustling activity even late into the night. As Theo emerged from the train, she could see only a few flickering gas lamps, leading into town towards a round, municipal-looking building.The rest of the town could’ve come out of any number of semi ancient villages in her home country, though it had been quite some time since she’d seen a thatch roof on…-
163.3 K •
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Theo didn’t get to go on the expedition to retrieve the airship. It wasn’t anything personal—even Sharp Edge wasn’t able to go. The team the blue pegasus brought wasn’t so much a group of trained experts as a dozen pegasus ponies from halfway across Equestria.If it was Theo’s airship, she probably would’ve told the pegasus “no thanks” at that point. But Sharp seemed to recognize some of them, and the knowledge made him more willing to let them make the trip.There was no more work to do…
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163.3 K •
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Theo followed the pony at an arm’s reach, unable to suppress her constant, background fear at being around someone so important. For all the time she’d been in Equestria, she knew almost nothing about its royalty. Should she have refused the request?For all her panic, her companion didn’t seem to be having the same concerns. She glanced at the symbols scribbled on the edge of various shelves, reading some meaning from them that Theo herself couldn’t. Some pony equivalent of the Dewey Decimal…
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163.3 K •
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After much work—it felt like months, but Theo knew full well it couldn’t be—the Horizon was finally ready to sail. Theo learned this news from Sharp after a hard day of work in the cabin, leaving with empty cans of finishing stuff and the scrap-metal left over from her electronics work. “Hey, Summer.” He caught her wing with a hoof, which couldn’t put more than a tiny bit of pressure on the feathers. Still enough to slow her down, which was the real point. Then he seemed to actually notice…
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163.3 K •
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Agent Barton snapped the door to the unmarked truck closed with a characteristic click. For a few seconds he just stood there beside the truck, staring up at the sky and its spectacular aurora. Then the wind picked up again, biting through several layers of government-issued black coats, and he remembered why he hated traveling this far north.“You know we’re not going to get anything out of them,” Agent Foster called from the other side of the truck, pulling her scarf tighter about her face. It…
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163.3 K •
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Manehattan swallowed them like a living thing, with streets so overflowing with ponies that Theo felt instantly lost in the crowd. This was certainly a good thing—even if Sharp Edge was right about the dangers of working with Feather. In a city this big, there was no danger of being recognized and attacked once they slipped into the crowd.Of course nothing will happen to us, because she obviously wanted to be in contact. The ponies who delivered this could’ve attacked me, but all they did was give me a…
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163.3 K •
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Theo stumbled into the lobby of the Feather building about an hour later. She hadn’t seen any sign of Sharp or Emerald trying to stop her. That hurt plenty in its own way—she’d ran away as though she were being followed, but she didn’t actually know that she was. Maybe they didn’t care.The lobby was spacious and mostly empty, with a single reception desk by an elevator on the far wall and a large fountain in the center. So ponies did have them. They just weren’t installed in magical crystal…
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163.3 K •
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