The Sky Above

Squirrel wasn’t certain what to make of that morning. The three of them had gotten up as though for another shift, and so found out pretty much immediately that they were due in Snowbound by noon. The mountains below them had, overnight, become covered in snow, while the air tasted thin and ran in brisk whirls down the corridors.

It felt like home.

They’d been quickly chivied off to work again, which is how she now found herself leaning over a railing in the hold and staring down at the snow-capped forests passing just below.

“Quit dawdling!” the rough voice of Wintercress shouted from across the hold. Jumping a little in surprise, Squirrel pushed back off the rails and hurried her way down to the main deck. The plan this morning was to clear room for the upcoming repairs in drydock, as well as double-check the security of everything – since ships could occasionally jostle about a fair deal in their moorings, the worry was that one of those shocks could knock yet more loose.

Stepping off the staircase, Squirrel crossed to join a couple of others in their efforts, taking care to stay well away from the breach – last night’s chat had done little to ease her fear of tumbling down to her doom.

Rainbow, meanwhile, was thoroughly enjoying herself. There was a hiss of steam as she poured a touch of broth into the great iron pot, squinting her eyes into the mist as she worked the browning onions around. She’d been tasked with putting together some chowder – dijon chicken, as it’d turned out they’d had a few roasters buried in the freeze box – which meant she wouldn’t really have anything to stress about til they’d reached the city; admittedly, it was kind of weird to think of eating chickens of all things, but she was just the cook.

Shouting – standard fare in a kitchen, as she’d found out pretty quick – continued around her, but seeing as she didn’t need to do anything about it, she just ignored it. While cooking hadn’t been as difficult as she’d originally feared, it’d certainly gotten stressful in the leadup to meals.

Soup, though? That was easy.

It still bugged her that she wasn’t even getting paid for any of this, but she supposed since they weren’t paying for the voyage itself, it all kind of evened out; it helped that she’d picked up a few things, too.

“How’s she doing?” Crant rasped as he sidled up next to her. Rainbow let go of the wooden spoon, stepping back so that the sire could take a look. Seemingly satisfied after only a single glance, he turned to lean against the prep table. “You figure out your plans, yet?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Still think we should just wing it.” She’d been chatting idly with him and some of the others the day before about this whole trip – sliver and all. “I mean, we’re probably not gonna find anything, so why stress?”

Crant snorted, adjusting his faded mossy neckerchief as he did. “Definitely not going to find anything with that attitude, missy. Thought that friend of yours really wanted this rock?”

“And we’ll look for it!” Rainbow responded a touch defensively. “Just seems silly to try and put together some sort of checklist when all we have is there’s apparently maybe one nearby.” She shrugged uncomfortably before leaning back over the pot. “We’ll sort something out, somehow or other, but until then? No stress.”

Twilight sat hunched over a jury-rigged stack of splitters. Despite its distance from the breach – she was somewhere near the cockpit’s portside right now – the section that bridged from it had failed around the same time. “There’s no corrosion,” she muttered to herself as she pushed aside a few loose braids, trying to get a better look at the lower connections. The singers were inert, but she could still feel lingering traces of mana as she traced her hooves up and down the lines, feeling for a break; resonance cables like these rarely failed outright if only a few of their wires were cut, but she wanted to be thorough.

She huffed and leaned back, rolling her shoulders as she tried to stretch out the kinks. She was of half a mind to just give up wholesale and try to track down the issue somewhere else. Standing up, she walked over to a nearby porthole to see if anything had changed since she’d started. The mountains below were still largely barren and snowclad, with only scant clusters of trees scattered about; there was still no sight of Snowbound, although she wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case even if they were not a mile away given the sheer number of canyons and valleys the city could be nestled within.

Shooting another look at the stack, she sighed and, with a shake of her head, closed it all back up. “Let’s try tracing it back instead.”

She doubted she’d actually be able to track down the issue in time – from what she’d picked up earlier they were likely not an hour out from harbour – so it didn’t take much to convince herself to be a bit creative in where she searched.

Ascending a narrow utility ladder, she popped up on one of the access ramps outside the cockpit. Frigid winds blew around her as she hunched low and pulled her jacket close. Moving fast, she made her way down the walkway, keeping clear of the rails – they looked awfully rusty – until she’d reached the side door that led into the galley’s main pantry.

She pulled heavily on the door, sliding it open on its pivots until she could slip inside; once done, she pulled it close behind and started looking around for her quarry. A single gryph – taking inventory from the looks of it – shot her a brief glance before, with a shrug, returning to his work.

Figuring that if anyone asked she’d just tell them the truth – that she was trailing a fault – she poked her head around the corner and into the kitchen proper. She spotted Rainbow easily enough, her head wreathed in a cloud of mist as she worked away at a large pot; a lone gnoll was puttering around stocking things too, but it didn’t look like he’d fuss if she came in.

Weaving her way around the tightly-packed work tables and open-topped cooling boxes, she came up to Rainbow and reared up to take a peak into the pot herself. “Some sort of soup?” she asked as she stared down at the chunky, pale-brown surface.

Rainbow jolted slightly in surprise. “Oh! Hey Twi. Yeah – chicken.”

Twilight stuck out her tongue. “Bleh.”

“I know, right? Yuck.” Rainbow stepped back from the pot to lean against the adjacent table. “So what’s up? I know we’re not there yet.”

Twilight shrugged. “Just wasting time, really.”

“Heh – doesn’t sound like you.”

“I know,” Twilight said, rubbing her neck sheepishly. “But I don’t have nearly enough time to actually finish my assignment, so... yeah.”

“Mmm,” Rainbow agreed. She leaned back over to stir the soup again, but from the looks of it she was just trying to keep busy. “So...”

“Hmm?” Twilight said, her ears perking slightly.

“What’s the plan? When we arrive, I mean. I know it’s ‘find the sliver guy,’ but that’s kinda vague.”

Twilight nodded slowly, but didn’t immediately respond: as much as she was loathe to admit it, she hadn’t been able to work out their next step, either. “Squirrel’s going to want to see her folks,” she said eventually. “And we’ll need food and a place to sleep.”

“A market and inn’s going to take all of half-an-hour, Twi.” Rainbow folded her arms and yawned sleepily. “Though I guess we could stay there for a nap, first.”

Twilight hummed, but was too lost in her own thoughts to say anything more. It wasn’t long before she fell to pacing in the cramped cooking galley, leaving Rainbow to keep an eye on her work. “We know we’re seeking a tom, and we know they asked after Crest – that means we’ll want to check out the city lapidaries. We’ll want to ask Squirrel about the postal service, too – if the tom sent their request through them, they may have logs we can use.”

Rainbow snorted. “Really doubt they’d let us see them, no matter how nice we ask.”

Twilight paused mid-step. “Right,” she acknowledged as she continued her pacing. “It would be kind of worrying if they did, actually. Lapidaries and curio shops it is, then.”

The three of them were in the galley, staring out the fore-facing windows: the triple peaks of Snowbound approached, rising at the far end of a glacial trough. Below, scattered in clumps, were the farmsteads that made up the foundation of the city’s food supply. “I can’t imagine it makes for a particularly diverse diet,” Twilight commented as she tried to stare down at the snow-covered fields. “Especially in winter.”

Beside her, Squirrel shrugged. “Any port in a storm. You’re right though – a lot of the food here just gets shipped in from elsewhere, but the granaries always have to have enough for an emergency. Anyways, see the peaks ahead? And how it goes ‘tall, tall, short’?”

Twilight stared out into the thin fog at the city. One of the three dominating peaks were definitely shorter than the others. “Yeah.”

“That’s the main drydock for repairs and construction -- the other two are for everything else. There’s a really nicely-carved wooden bridge, easily forty feet across, that connects the two tall ones about midway up. It’s got some neat markets either side, so we’ll want to check that out while we’re here.”

Twilight couldn’t help but notice the warm smile on Squirrel’s face as she spoke, nor that she’d yet to break eye contact with the city. “I’m sure we can find time for it.”

“Know where the good eats are?” Rainbow chimed in.

“Definitely,” Squirrel nodded, her tail swishing faintly. “There’s a bunch near the main port – that’s on that tall peak there on the left; a bunch of inns around there, too. But,” she added, finally turning away from the city to face them, “the ones further away tend to be way better – I can think of a few, certainly. I’ll hook you two up somewhere decent for the night, then we can check them out.”

Twilight nodded contentedly – Squirrel seemed to have things well in hoof. “Any ideas about the sliver? Dash and I were chatting about it earlier, but we’re both a bit stymied.”

Squirrel nodded thoughtfully as she once again turned to stare off into the distance. “I think we’ll just have to ask around? There’re a few towns nestled in the valleys around here – if the city turns out to be a bust, we can always check them out.”

“Sounds good,” Twilight agreed. From the looks of it, they wouldn’t have much time to look around today -- the breach had slowed them down more than she’d anticipated, and it was already an hour past noon.

Around them rang the sounds of the crew, echoing along the corridors and ventilation shafts. The captain had already dismissed them from their duties – he didn’t want them getting underhoof, Twilight figured – which left them with little to do but idle.

“We should get our gear,” Twilight suggested as they drifted ever closer to the city. “Then to the hold, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Squirrel agreed, taking one last look out the windows before hopping off the bench. “Let’s go.”

The walk back through the ship was quick, with none of them particularly interested in detouring – they’d already said their goodbyes to those few they’d gotten along with well enough to bother – and so found themselves strapping on their satchels and panniers in short order.

“Think there’s anywhere to clean our jackets?” Rainbow asked as she tried to buff out a dark, oily smudge on her sleeve. “Squirrel?”

“I can think of a couple launderies,” Squirrel shrugged. “I’ll need ‘em myself, anyways.”

After a brief double-check to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, they continued on to the hold: breach or not, that’s where they’d be disembarking.

A chill wind greeted them as they reached the base of the starboard cargo-deck stairwell. “Let’s find somewhere warm?” Rainbow suggested as she glanced around at the open doors to the hold. “There’s probably somewhere around here with a view.”

“There’s a workroom near the bow,” Twilight said, leading the group afore. “Should be free, and we’d still be able to see the city.”

They wove through a cramped network of pipes, tables and various other mechanisms, while the sounds of shouting and banging came through the open observation windows. “They sound busy in there,” Squirrel noted, looking curiously into the cargo bay. “Trying to patch it up? Don’t know why they’re bothering this close to the city.”

“Does it matter?” Rainbow asked innocently. “We’re done; they’re probably just trying to keep busy, anyways.”

“Fair enough.”

The workroom was surprisingly tidy compared to the rest of the ship: the tools were neatly put away, the stools tucked in under their tables, and there were barely any wood- or metal-shavings to crunch through underhoof. Seeing a pile of sheetmetal lying conveniently next to the dust-enshrouded windows, they settled in for the wait, chatting quietly as the city came ever closer.

Tails and manes whipped in the wind as the three ponies stood pressed against the outside of the very cabin they’d first come in on just a couple days ago. The East Wind hovered fully three-quarters of the way up the first peak as it was slowly manoeuvred into the wide, multi-leveled arms of an awaiting berth. The plan was to quickly unload what of their cargo had survived before moving the ship down to the semi-enclosed drydocks of the shorter third peak.

Rainbow blinked and shook her head as an errant dusting of snow blew off of some higher platform and cascaded down onto the crew, momentarily stalling attempts to pull the ship in for the few seconds it took to clear.

She recognized a few of the people around her as they heaved on the thick lines that had been flown over to the piers either side: apparently, even with the wind the ship was still bouyant enough that you could simply pull it the last little ways into berth.

The deck shuddered underhoof as the starboard fenders once again ground into the pier, further slowing the attempts to reel them in. By the time the three of them were actually able to disembark, Rainbow figured they’d probably have just enough time to find an inn – Squirrel had practically insisted she show them somewhere decent, away from this peak’s main docks – before needing to get some dinner.

The sliver would have to wait until tomorrow.

“I wonder how many ships blow up at this point?” Rainbow said, looking to distract the other two, neither of whom seemed particularly pleased with all the juddering. “Or break the docks instead.”

“Not many,” Squirrel said, as she looked upon the procedings with cautious interest. “This is all pretty normal when you’re this high up, which means everything’s been made real sturdy.” Another dull bang echoed around them, making them all flinch. “Reeeal sturdy.”

Twilight snorted. “Well,” she said, hunched between them. “Look at it this way: the featherfall spell is touch-based, so if the ship does fall, just try to keep a hold of me.”

Squirrel nodded slowly. “Riiight. And what about when the balloon falls on us?”

Twilight looked up and blinked. “Oh. Nevermind then.”

It was a few minutes later when, quite suddenly, the ship stopped resisting and pulled up snugly against the dock where waiting stevedores quickly began mooring the ship to a battery of cleats. Rainbow didn’t doubt that much the same was happening to the balloon above, as it, too, was tied in place to a series of strutted towers, their guys just visible through the snow.

“Hope this doesn’t take too much longer,” Squirrel grumbled. “Still have lots to do today.”

Rainbow hummed in agreement. “No kidding.”

Rainbow trailed close behind Twilight as they crossed the wide offloading ramp that had descended, bridging the centre of the hold to the main receiving platform; Squirrel stood waiting for them at the far end, seemingly unbothered by the now rapidly falling snow. “Let’s go!” Squirrel called as they stepped off the ramp and onto cold metal. “It’ll be warmer inside.”

Rainbow never felt happier that she was wearing boots and not trying to walk through all this bare-hooved. The platform quickly transitioned to a great, covered hemi-spherical bay; looking around, Rainbow could make out several such platforms dotting the cliffs. Even through the snow-haze she could see countless splashes of warm glowing light from windows, balconies and buildings built on spars jutting out of the rock.

“Looks a bit like a termite mound, doesn’t it?” she said, speaking a touch loudly over the wind. “With all the holes and stuff?”

Twilight nodded, shivering even as she walked. “A little.”

“It’s just the top that’s like this,” Squirrel said, falling back to walk close on Twilight’s other side. “Passages and homes go right to the bottom, of course, but it’s only a labyrinth way up here.”

“H-how far down are we going?”

Rainbow frowned and stepped in closer to Twilight, despite that it made walking somewhat awkward.

“About halfway,” Squirrel said, her gaze sweeping over the cliff face. “You can’t see it from here, mind. You’ll like it, though – most of the stuff on this face is still all rock, but the other side looks like someone took a huge bite out of the peak before the gap was filled in with wood and brass and silver steel. Weather’s kind of lousy for sightseeing, though.”

While Squirrel kept chattering away, clearly trying to distract Twilight from the cold, Rainbow did her best to try and memorize where they were; luckily, the various docks were fairly distinct in height, shape and size. While the face their dock abutted had a trio of low storage hangars cut slightly into the rock, Squirrel directed them to a curving ramp that rose off the side and up towards what looked like the main entrance to the peak. Rainbow could make out several other docks that likewise fed into it, their own connecting ramps weaving right along the cliffs, their walkways covered in dull, snow-covered canvas.

The ramp was icy, but the knurled metal kept them from slipping. “All the docks on this side lead up to here,” Squirrel said, apparently still happy to chat up her hometown. “It’s where the harbourmaster, itineraries, supplies and all that sort of stuff is. We don’t have to check in or anything, mind -- it’s just the ships that do.”

“This is weird,” Rainbow said. “I mean, you’re actually being a guide right now.”

“This again?” Squirrel huffed.

“I didn’t say it was bad!” Rainbow added hastily. “Just weird.”

“Well, here at least, I shouldn’t get us lost.” They reached the upper platform and found themselves in front of a wide alcove cut into the rock. Large pillars of stacked stone blocks rose up to support a series of great wooden beams, upon these resting a steeply-angled slatted roof. Wooden doors, studded in metal and covered in intricate fretwork, lay invitingly open, while dark, vertical slits stared ominously at them from the faces either side. The wind whistled as they approached.

The stone floor swapped briefly to wood again as they crossed the threshold. “It’s a drawbridge,” Squirrel said, still in tour guide mode. “This is pretty much a barbican: all the docks lead up to one.”

Rainbow nodded distractedly, but was only half-listening, as the moment they entered the gatehouse they were met with a blast of warm air: either side of them, raised on decorated plinths, were blocks of stone, hot enough to glow a ruddy orange. Not many metres ahead lay another open set of doors.

“Arrow slits, murder holes,” Squirrel chirped happily as she led them further in. “There’s a couple of rusty portcullises you can’t see either, hiding up in slots in the ceiling.”

“You didn’t mention this place was built like a fortress,” Twilight said, looking around curiously. “Even if it’s an old one.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s anything impressive, really,” Squirrel shrugged as the three of them stepped off to the side – it was nice and warm near the blocks, and it kept them out of the way of the steady stream of traffic. “It’ll work, mind you – or, well, it probably will, but as this place is so pointless to attack anyways, it hardly seemed worth bringing up.”

“It’s still interesting!” Twilight insisted. “For instance: how did they keep fliers out? We’re not underground in the traditional sense, and there’re so many windows and balconies.”

“Optimism, I think, but there were gatehouses layered all about, once upon a time – we’ll pass by some of them as we go. Speaking of...” Squirrel trailed off expectantly, looking pointedly at the inner doors.

Twilight cast a last longing look at the heating blocks before nodding. “Right. Let’s go – I can see the masonry later.”

“I’m sure it’ll be warmer inside,” Rainbow said as they moved on. “Everyone’d freeze, otherwise.”

“It’s always brisk up here,” Squirrel agreed as they exited into a busy shard-lit corridor that ran left, right and straight ahead. Daylight could be seen spilling in from slots running along the outer wall, while the inner looked to be dedicated to a contiguous line of workshops and storehouses. People of all races were moving about with purpose, while the sounds of wood- and metalwork rang throughout the halls. “Let’s keep going,” Squirrel said, nudging them onwards.

“I suppose it makes sense to have the industrial shops right next to the ports,” Twilight said, her breaths still putting out little puffs of mist.

“Yep!” Squirrel agreed. “It’s still cold here, I know – once we’re up top it’ll be warm again.” As she said this the corridor curved, leading them to the base of a large, bright staircase; the top was warm and inviting, with painted signs both great and small hanging from cables overhead.

Ascending close behind a pair of thickly-jacketed gnolls, they soon reached the top. “And here we are,” Squirrel said in an unduly dramatic voice. “The traveller’s atrium!”

They stood at the edge of a polished stone plaza; at its centre stood a grand, wrought-iron spiral stairwell that ran down into the floor, while daylight shone in from a great glass dome set at the top of a fluted chimney above, itself cut roughly down from the surface; mirrors and polished marble lined its faces, angling and diffusing the light until the entire atrium was lit. Stores of every manner lined the hewn walls, hawking everything from basic gear and supplies to mechanisms and arcana. At a glance there must’ve been nearly a hundred people moving about.

“Fancy,” Rainbow said, eying the shops for anything interesting. “Drizzle was cooler, though.”

“Yeah, but this is still way better than it used to be,” Squirrel said, nodding along agreeably. “Everywhere else here is a bit maze-like, which makes this just about the only place where passers-through won’t get lost; on that note, keep close when we’re down below and just remember that if you do get lost, you’re never actually more than a couple dozen metres from the nearest window.”

“Good to know. It’s nice that it’s warmer here, too,” Twilight added. “But we can come back later – it’s getting late and we really need to find an inn.”

They circled wide around the centre, passing by the storefronts with little more than a glance. Despite Twilight’s words, it wasn’t actually late – barely a couple hours past noon, by Rainbow’s guess – so they weren’t bothering to move too quickly.

At some point Squirrel directed them down a seemingly nondescript passage, the walls of plain stone. Rainbow soon realized that the city layout was even simpler than she’d said – virtually all the walkways they travelled were cliffside, with windows to the outside constantly in sight. As these pathways spiralled their way down the inside of the peak rooms would suddenly open up, revealing simple shops and homes or trickling fountains and greenhouses.

Occasionally they’d come across much larger gashes, as though huge vertical slices had been taken out of the peak. Small homes built on spars covered much of either face, with balconies and bridges running back and forth. It’s a sunlight thing, Squirrel had said. Gnolls might be fine without daylight, but it’s mostly gryphs and pegasi here.

Surprisingly, there was an absolute abundance of plants everywhere. “I can’t imagine these growing so well unattended,” Twilight said as they passed by a clump of flowering mosses, their stamen glowing a faint bluish-white. “Even with the sunlight.”

“All the proper gardens are tended, sure,” Squirrel said. “But there’s plenty of water running through these rocks, and these species don’t need much in the way of nutrients, otherwise.”

“Do you have a lot of bats?” Twilight asked. They’d paused on one of the outer walkways, the view showing them they were perhaps halfway down already. “Guano would certainly explain it.”

“Yep! Plenty. Birds, too.”

Ignoring the terminally dull conversation for the moment, Rainbow leaned out over the rails as far as she could and tried to figure out exactly where they were. Despite Squirrel’s earlier comment, there didn’t seem to be any real anti-flier defences – which suited her just fine – so she should be pretty free to just come and go however she pleased; the odd gryphon or pegasus she could spot flying around only further assured her. “So how far til we get to this inn?” she asked, interrupting the other two.

“Hmm?” Squirrel blinked as she glanced at her. “Oh! Just a little lower – the one I’m thinking of’s just above that bridge I mentioned: it’s real convenient there.”

Rainbow frowned. “Considering how much of a nightmare walking all the way back up this thing’s gonna be, staying near the top would’ve made way more sense.”

“Only if you were leaving right away – we’ll probably need a couple days to scour the city for info, and that means we’ll be using that bridge over and over and over again.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes and got ready to disagree purely out of habit before catching herself. “I guess that makes sense...” she pouted instead. “As long as the food’s decent. Still gonna suck when it is time to go.”

“Tell me about it,” Twilight grumbled. “Let’s just focus on one thing a time.”

“’Inn’ it is, then,” Squirrel nodded as she led them back inside and on their way.

They were in a tiered cavern, wide enough that Twilight could make out daylight on either side. Wood-and-stone buildings lined the inner edges of each terrace, leaving a host of open, plant-covered spaces in between. A small creek built along a finely-cut channel ran in pools and over falls until it disappeared out of sight through a low, grated passage.

“Roomy,” Rainbow said conversationally.

“Cozy, too,” Twilight added as they moved down towards a multi-story building near the bottom. “Inefficient,” she couldn’t help herself adding, “considering how valuable space is here. But cozy.”

Squirrel chuffed. “Like I said – we’re not all gnolls here. All the stuff up top is pretty cramped – you’d have windows of a sort, staying there, but no open air otherwise. Once you’re set up I’ll head off to see the folks.”

“They’re nearby?”

“Yep! Just a few minutes, actually. We can meet up again in the morning? They’ll probably want me to stay for dinner.”

“Sounds good,” Twilight said, Rainbow echoing her sentiment. There was no need to rush things today: they’d be spending most of it just getting settled and orientated, anyways.

Their room was narrow and low, holding nothing more than a bunkbed and writing desk, but they did at least have a large window that looked out into the cavern. Streaks of daylight, running across the busy stone, did a lot to reduce the oppressive air. “It’s a good deal nicer than Drizzle, isn’t it?” Twilight said idly as she tested the bed – it was softer than she’d thought it would be. “Less closed feeling.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed, already curled up bootless on the top bunk. “What’re we up to today? I mean, I wouldn’t mind getting a good fly-around before it gets too dark.”

Twilight nodded. While the city – or this peak, at any rate – seemed pretty straight-forward, with ramps and stairwells in abundance, what each level actually contained was a complete mystery. “Do you think they have a city map? We can’t be the only people that aren’t just passing through.”

“We kinda are,” Rainbow noted. “But yeah – hopefully Squirrel can help there. I can at least figure out if there are any more plazas and stuff.”

“Sounds like a plan; I’ll scout around this area and see what I can find.”

Rainbow rolled her wings, stretching them out before tucking them neatly back at her sides. She was somewhere near the top of the shorter third peak. She’d pretty quickly realized there wasn’t any way to scout out every nook and cranny – absolutely nothing in this city was laid out neat and tidy, so for all she knew she’d passed by hidden workshops and marketplaces ten times over – so she’d settled for simply learning the location of every bridge and dock, and a little ways into them, too.

She clucked her tongue as she stood on the peripheral of what looked like a major west-facing drydock: from the looks of it, the sun had just gone down past the surrounding mountains; with the cloudcover as thick as it was, it’d be dark soon.

While she sincerely doubted they’d ever be coming up here, she nevertheless turned to try and figure out how they would if they wanted to. A small trisail – its mast down and lying flat across its deck – was being fussed on by a few workers off to the side, but they didn’t even spare her a glance. The whole area reminded her of the kind of drydocks – the ones for actual seacraft – that she’d occasionally passed over back home: all disorganized and messy, with stacks of wood and scrapmetals piled up high beneath shanty roofs, all amidst the ever-present sounds of cutting- and welding-machines loud enough to reach far up into the sky; where one glance told you that they couldn’t possibly even patch a rowboat, and a second glance would see ship after ship launching smoothly and confidently back into the bay.

She’d always liked those places – it was fun to land and walk around and chat a little, and no one seemed to care that she was just passing by.

She angled away from the wall, aiming for what looked like the main road in and out of the open hangar. If it was anything like she expected there’d be a bar and a few small shops along the street, filled with off-duty workers; not far beyond that would be the minute apartments they and their families could rent for a fraction of what they could get offsite.

She wasn’t wrong. Passing through the open gates – so heavily wedged by debris against the walls that she doubted they could ever be closed – she almost immediately found herself staring at the colourful signs, lit now by many-hued shards, of little market shops.

“Hello there,” Rainbow said conversationally to the clerk as she dipped into the nearest. The demigryph looked up from his reading and nodded good-naturedly back; he looked bored by Rainbow’s reckoning. “Quiet day?”

The clerk sighed, the wind whistling through his beak in the curious way it always did. “Yeah – weather like this outside’ll stall traffic for a while.”

Rainbow nodded along, figuring it was her accent that betrayed her as a nonlocal. “Makes sense,” she said as she poked around at the shelves. “Anything interesting around the port?”

The demi looked pointedly at her wings. “Considering you’re all of five minutes from anywhere in the city? No. If it’s gear or trinkets you’re looking for, either the big atrium at the top of Caile should do, or the main one under Stile if it doesn’t.”

That caught her ear. “Stile?”

“The middle peak,” the demi said with a roll of his eyes. “You’ll have seen the big bridge that connects it and Caile, certainly? Cross it to Stile, then go down a level – you can’t miss it.”

That was some unexpectedly good news. “Alriiight! Thanks!”

The demi grunted in a self-satisfied kind of way before going back to his book. Considering that permission to leave without buying anything in thanks, Rainbow hurried back out the way she came. She’d hadn’t expected to get anything out of this peak, but the location of a second marketplace? Perfect.

Rainbow huffed, arms folded as she pouted on her bed.

Below her, Twilight was having a hard time looking her in the eye. “I mean, I’m not trying to diminish your contribution or anything,” she hedged. “It is useful information.”

Rainbow hunched over harder. “So maybe I forgot Squirrel would’ve told us about it anyways. It’s not my fault I can’t scout worth a dang in this dumb city.” She trailed off with a bit of grumbling for good measure.

“Well... I did find a few nice places around here,” Twilight said, rearing up to give Rainbow a gentle poke. “Including a couple of pretty nice-looking restaurants.”

That perked her up. “I guess that sounds okay...” Rainbow said, relaxing; she’d intended to be a nuisance for a little longer, but if Twilight was offering food then the least she could do was cheer up. “It wouldn’t do to not try out the local food while we’re here, after all.”

“Exactly,” Twilight agreed, falling back to all fours. Rainbow remained curled up as her friend turned back and continued working on what looked like a fledgling map of the city. Their room was warm and snug, a nice reprieve from the sharp cold that was growing outside: the wind had kicked up and dustings of snow could be seen whirling about in the atrium below. Rainbow didn’t know how anybody sane could live here – their homes must be half insulation! – and found she couldn’t wait until they could descend again to warmer heights.

Squirrel hadn’t returned, having presumably stayed for dinner; it was going to be the first night in a while without the mare. “Well, this is kinda weird.”

“Hmm?” Twilight glanced back at her over her withers.

“No Squirrel – I mean, I don’t think we’ve not slept with her somewhere nearby since we met her, have we? So it’s... I dunno. Weird.”

Twilight set down her pen. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, a contemplative look on her face. “Even in Hurricanum we shared an inn.”

Rainbow found herself staring off into the distance, lost in thought. The mare hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought when first they’d met; plus, it’d been funner than she’d thought it’d be to go on a trip with a stranger – getting to know them filled in a lot of otherwise dull hours. “I guess Blunderbum’s just around the corner, isn’t it.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Wanderbelle, and yes, it is. I’ll miss her, but I can’t deny it’ll be nice to be back home and see everyone else again, either.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, trailing off. “Yeah – we’ll have some awesome stories, too!” She cheered up a bit at the thought. With a glance out the window at the fading light, she nodded to herself and set to preening – she figured she’d have enough time before dinner. After that, there wouldn’t be anything left to do but wait until the morrow.