Magicka Lager

They gathered together that night, carrying memories and evidence, to the library. The loss was still fresh in their minds, and they all felt the chill of careful, barbed hope with the appearance of the hooded pony. The liquor bottle, the cloth, the books, and what they saw of her were all that they had to go on, but they tried. They tried to find the significance of the books, the contents of the bottle, the symbolism of the fabrics. They tried to piece together the visuals. The pattern of her hood, the saddlebags. Where the mare went that night into the Everfree, why she looked so familiar, but so foreign. They gathered several witnesses besides themselves to try to get together any possible detail that they missed. The first conclusion that they came to, and clung to like shipwrecked boaters in shark-infested waters, was that Twilight Sparkle was alive. Rarity was the first to suggest that Triumphant Star was Twilight Sparkle, but only Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash agreed. Fluttershy, Spike, and Applejack thought differently. But the evidence gave them no clue where Twilight was. The books, however, and the cloth, gave testament to who she was with: changelings. But that was where they stopped, where they were forced to stop. They could find no way of confirming her location, no method of knowing why she was with changelings, or could they form any method of communication. They sat around the table, disheartened and depressed, slumped over their evidence and their failure. Nopony objected when Rarity pulled the stopper on the bottle, and together, sans Spike, they shared a drink.

Rainbow Dash looked around at the tall buildings that surrounded her and made up the huge and distinctive harbor city of Manehattan. She weaved her way through the straight drives and winding alleys, through the rush of ponies that never seemed to end, even at the late hour she was here at. The moon shined harshly on her feathers, like Luna’s angry gaze, as she shivered as one unicorn brushed up against her side, even as other ponies sweltered the stiff summer air. She slowly turned down another alley, passing by one of the vendors, and found herself at the Docks. The note had told her where and when she needed to be, and she didn’t want to be late. She scanned the wooden piers and the ships lining the harbor, looking particularly at the warehouses behind the seawall. Magic lanterns carried soft light through the air, lighting the rusting fronts of the warehouses with a flickering and diluted yellow that made the grimy walls look even more disgusting. She paced down half the length of the Docks before finding the specific place she was looking for.

Number 5-B was a decrepit building, filled with pallets, dusty boxes, and one brown stallion carrying a small briefcase. He was an average looking pony, with a single tone of brown on his mane, and a lighter tan covering the rest of his body. His cutie mark, a fedora, did little to betray his business that night, although it was nothing short of sketchy. Rainbow Dash knew sketchy, and she hated herself for it. Because, like the last four times, she couldn’t stay no.

Rainbow Dash made sure that there was nopony around, then pulled the sack from under her wing. She gulped as the contents rattled in their cloth bag, wincing slightly at the sound. She approached the stallion, glancing warily at his case. From the look of the thing, it would be identical to the other four briefcases: cheap cloth and wood, brass tacks, filled with paper and cardboard. Paper, cardboard... and the last of her self-esteem.

”You have it?”

“Y-yes.”

The stallion nodded underneath his hat, smirking with his strange mustache. He placed the briefcase on the floor, handle up. Rainbow Dash took the bag in her mouth and placed it on a wooden pallet next to her, then walked to the briefcase and carefully opened the clasps on top. She spent almost half a minute taking in the contents, before nodding, shutting the case, and taking it onto her back. The stallion was already hovering the bag in his magic, hefting it, then opening the top and counting what was inside. He nodded back, and Rainbow Dash walked away into the streets of Manehatten, her lifeline bouncing on her back. She never took flight until the lights were a glimmer on the horizon.