Chapters
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Whenever Princess Cadance organized the annual Crystal Ball, she knew to expect strange creatures. The more universalist Equestria became, the more friends they made with distant tribes and species she'd never even known existed, the more of those creatures she began to see wandering around Equestria at large. Before too long, those even ended up visiting her parties.Ponies could be flighty, even xenophobic at times. But the ponies of her Crystal Empire had never failed to impress her. They welcomed all…-
142.0 K •
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Tracy could feel the effects of Celestia's tea wearing off already. She had given him a bit of grace—long enough to have that last conversation with her. He certainly couldn't be upset with her over that.All this time I thought Discord would trick me into breaking my contract. I watched that so carefully, I had no idea what he was really doing. But now it was done, and Tracy's fate was sealed. This is my home now.He nudged Rose in the side with one hoof, grinning awkwardly at her. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry…
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142.0 K •
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Tracy stumbled through the inner door. Everwake shoved down his throat didn't have quite the same effect as carefully managed doses. The magic was still there, still enough to keep him awake. But now all those nights without sleep loomed behind him like a pallet of bricks. But he couldn't sleep now. Tracy would have to face the goodbye to his world with barely enough strength to walk. He managed that at least, making his slow way into the living room.For the second time in a year, he found a princess…
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142.0 K •
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Roseluck settled uncomfortably into the seat of the car. This wasn't anything like the one she'd been practicing in. Tracy's had been old, but it also felt like something loved. Every change he'd made had clearly been to keep the old thing working longer. While that meant there were a few odd parts or things that didn't work right, the purpose was always clear.She stared down at the dash in front of her, and found no such thing to be true here. Every dial looked like it was stolen from some other machine,…
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142.0 K •
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When Roseluck was just a filly, she'd looked forward to the family's winters with fierce anticipation. It wasn't just that she didn't have to work in the back of the stand—though after a whole year, her excitement for arranging flowers did fade. Every year it seemed they went somewhere more interesting, gathering plants so rare that they were only described in ancient poetry, or depicted in ruined castles.But now all that was gone. She had all the same freedom, but none of the direction.At least her last…
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142.0 K •
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Tracy yanked off oversized clothes as he ran, ditching his shirt and jacket in the hall between his office and Janet's. The pants were a little more stubborn—he couldn't get those off without stopping. The sound of running, terrified people followed him like a wraith, so close it sounded like they might tackle him at any moment.But none did, and he made it all the way to his office, passing dumbfounded coworkers and confused secretaries along the way. By the time he kicked the door shut, he could hear a…
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142.0 K •
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They spent several hours at that table, before finally heading home to finish their conversation by the fireplace. Load told him about all the work he'd done, building infrastructure at an archaeological dig site. Tracy learned about the friends he'd made, all sentenced to community service just as he had been.In return, Tracy had less to share with Load than he wanted, since all his questions were about Earth. He hadn't ever cared about politics the way Load did, and the others weren't talking nearly as…
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142.0 K •
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Winter came to Ponyville exactly as scheduled, with regular snowfalls and cheerful decorations and lots of adorable winter clothes. Everwake might be coiling its medical grip around his hooves one at a time, but in the meantime it meant that he could go out into town with Rose almost whenever he wanted. Among other things, Tracy used his credit with the flight school to schedule a week of no-crash lessons. If he was willing to take the lessons during the day, they even volunteered to send an instructor to…
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142.0 K •
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Tracy didn't have much time alone in Equestria anymore, not now that Rose was away from work and they were usually together. But just because they were trying to capitalize on every moment they could didn't mean there weren't times he was alone.One of those was early in the morning, when he'd finished every project Apex had left with him and didn't have anything new. Janet's "reputation reconstruction" left him with almost exclusively grunt-work, nothing that occupied his attention as soon as he came home.…
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142.0 K •
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Returning to Apex was no easy task for Tracy. Of course it wasn't that any of the actual engineering had gotten harder—two weeks wasn't enough to forget everything he knew, even if he hadn't been working for most of it. But he had been, so he hadn't even come unstuck from the projects everyone was working on.Part of the challenge came from the sudden return of his humanity. Tracy wouldn't admit to himself that anything was wrong while he drove to work, feeling a strange lack of coordination in his hands.…
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142.0 K •
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