Chapters
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Theo’s claws scraped uselessly at the edge of the Horizon, staring over the railing at the distant forest. “Out of curiosity, Sharp… what’s our altitude?”“About… two thousand feet,” he answered. “We could do ten times that if we wanted to lose some of our ballast, but I thought you would be more comfortable learning down here.”“More comfortable…” she muttered. Out in the empty air, little Emerald was flying back, somehow pushing a cloud along ahead of her. It was several times…-
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“I’m sorry sir. That volume is missing too.”They stood together in front of the circulation desk, with a stack of white cards in front of them. Every recent map catalog that might be able to give them a heading to the hippogriff homeland.The librarian was yet another creature that Theo could scarcely imagine existing, a being of strange transparent crystal with faintly glowing eyes. Granted, she could only see through the pony when the sun caught her just right, but… she wasn’t so sure she wanted…
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Their accommodations proved to be nothing special, the same sort of housing she might’ve expected at any cheap hostel back in her own world.She was a little intimidated when she saw that of the two rooms, hers was the one with two beds. Sharp had Emerald staying with her, without so much as asking.But she didn’t voice her complaints. Just opening her mouth to try and explain it made her feel like an idiot. What am I supposed to say, that I shouldn’t let her stay in here because of something I’m…
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Theo was supposed to be helping Sharp bring the Horizon down—but instead of doing anything useful, she stood completely still, staring off the edge at what was below them.They’re supposed to be primitive. A traditional village frozen in the north, with a few bits of medieval hardware in Sharp’s tower.Everything Theo thought she knew about the ponies and their world shattered before her eyes as she got her first look at the Crystal Empire. Semitransparent spires as large as skyscrapers rose into the…
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The Horizon was many things. Sturdy, comfortable, and even safe. But fast? Not so much.They couldn’t outrun the storm. As the huge black clouds began to close in on them from behind, Sharp called Theo to the door leading down, offering her a safety harness. “Get this on, and get clipped in. I’m going to act like you can’t fly for this if that’s okay.”“Yeah, it’s fine,” she said, shrugging into the harness quick enough. She still wasn’t sure about her body in this strange world, but she…
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Theo emerged from Sharp’s workshop to see the mob had finally decided that she was out of time. They weren’t keeping to the edge of the hill anymore, even though there was no sign of the sun in the sky. Only a gentle orange light, radiating slowly overhead. But nowhere close to actually touching them. There was no sign of the village elder this time either, just angry faces lit by sputtering torchlight and covered by half-frozen, half-melted ice. “That’s it!” called a voice from the crowd, loud…
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Theo could barely lift her claws as she made her way into Sleighsburg. Here the earthquake hadn’t just torn up rocks and opened random holes over nothing—here the devastation was real and extremely pronounced.There weren’t thousands of bodies littering the streets—there weren’t even thousands of ponies in the entire village. But there was terrible damage to everything she could see. Houses had come crashing down—sections of wooden bridge over ice had collapsed, and gaps had widened. Already…
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For a few seconds, Theo stared up into the sky with abject horror on her face. She had been so close! Corey had even talked to her on the radio! It was all the proof she’d wanted to overcome her growing fears that everything she knew was a lie—that maybe she’d always been a hippogriff and every human memory was some kind of illusion.Corey was the proof that her world was real, that the objects she carried were from a real place. That she was really Theo, and that the path back to her true body and…
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The stairway into nothing was waiting for them exactly where Theo remembered it. Yet despite how little time had passed, as they approached it from the sled, she saw it with new eyes. When she’d stumbled out of the gateway in a body that wasn’t hers and nothing making sense, she’d taken the structure for something out of The Lion King. Yet now that she saw it from the ground, that clearly wasn’t the case. Snow and ice covered it, but from the ground there were plenty of sections where wind or…
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Emerald’s attempt at dinner was something Theo would’ve described as “admirable,” though she very obviously wouldn’t be opening any restaurants in the near future. But at least Theo’s beak didn’t fall off.The child was a little less amicable about going home. But Sharp walked her out, promised they wouldn’t leave come morning without saying goodbye first, and finally the little pegasus flew off.Actually flew, like right up into the air. Theo stared openly as she took off, though her…
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