City Spirits

The pegasus and griffon duo wandered through the crowded streets of Appleoosa. Market stalls set up along the cobblestone streets; selling fresh produce from farms inside the city walls. Accompanying these stalls were several larger carriages with their walls collapsed out. These carriages were selling all manner of mechanical devices, from sensitive machine parts used in industry to tool-belts and personal trinkets.

Gilda passed by the carriage and snatched up a circular device mounted onto an arm brace.

“What's this?” She asked, bringing it close to her eyes.

“A chronographer. It tells you the time. Only fourteen bits, and the brace comes with it!”” Answered the young colt merchant dressed in a single piece black suit.

“Pfft.” Gilda huffed. “What would I need that for? I can just look up at the sky.” She set the useless trinket down on the carriage table and caught up with Fluttershy.

“Hey Flutz, this place is weird. How much useless stuff do they sell here?”

Fluttershy caught herself grinning at Gilda's remark.

“Oh, lots! This city moves something like ten thousand bits in total, from hoof to hoof, in a week.”

“Then how come I don't see you wearing any of those things?” Gilda asked

“I don't need them~” She hummed sweetly as she made her way through the bustling crowd. Gilda gave up attempting to weave or push her way through the crowd and opted to take off, flying just above Fluttershy at a slow pace.

“I guess that's why I've not seen any beggars yet.” Gilda thought out loud. Fluttershy looked quizzically up at her. “Oh, Canterlot is full of them. Once you get into the lower rungs of the city.” Gilda shook her head. “It's pretty lame.”

“Is that where you've come from?” Fluttershy ventured.

“No. Not recently at least. Why are we walking anyway? Why don't we just fly up there?”

Fluttershy laughed and pointed down the road and to where a large flight of metal steps began. The steps went up and onto a metal platform held up by huge brass struts. Gilda could even see that there were houses built underneath this platform.

“We don't really use wings to fly any more around here. I'll show you.” Fluttershy picked up the pace and the two hurried over to the steps.

The platform was crowded with ponies from all walks of life: some foals dressed in school uniforms, some mares dressed in their summer dresses, more than a few stallions dressed in fine attire and sporting tophats, and the pair could even see a few soldiers dressed in their brown uniforms.

“I'm not really seeing anything.” Gilda looked around at the platform just as a dark shadow began to cover the ponies standing there. Gilda looked upwards and saw the form of a large wooden boat, held aloft by airbags, slowly descend towards them.

“Oh.” Gilda followed Fluttershy and the rest of the moving crowd towards the craft.

The airship was a grand sight to behold up close. Gilda was craning her neck fully upward to see the four balloons and the cables that held them tightly in place to the hull of the ship. The hull itself was made of some dark and incredibly sturdy-looking wood. The panels and planks that made up the hull were held together by numerous bolts, and at the top, where they connected to the deck of the ship, there was a metal mantle that rolled over the top of the wood.

Gilda watched as the crew on board the ship tossed lines out for staff below to tie to sturdy-looking bars of metal on the platform. Planks were dropped from the deck and ponies began to make their way up them, showing tickets or badges to the attendants at the bottom. Fluttershy got there first, held out a badge of and then pointed to Gilda. The attendant nodded and waved Gilda up with Fluttershy.

“They've really improved upon those flying boats now, ain't they?” Gilda remarked as she arrived on deck. She saw on her way up a large plaque mounted on the port side of the ship, painted over in blue and gold it read; 'Cherry Springs'.

“I don't think they have. They've just made them bigger. They're just as dangerous, but no one is willing to listen to me about it.” Fluttershy made her way up to the pilot's deck and flashed her badge to the guard there, who let her in.

“What's that badge anyway? Can you go anywhere you want with it?” Gilda asked and wandered to the end of the ship where she rested up against the back barrier of the pilot's deck.

“With the Seal of the City there's not many places I'm barred from entering.” Fluttershy proudly announced.

“Could you get us free drinks?” Gilda waggled her eyebrows at Fluttershy.

“That wouldn't be very honest.” Fluttershy pouted. “But yes, I could.”

“Aw right!” Gilda clenched her talons and pumped her fist in the air.

“I thought you said you'd changed.” Fluttershy quipped with a grin.

“I have. I now drink more.”

Fluttershy just stared blankly at her.

“Just kidding.”

“Sure.” Fluttershy turned away, rolling her eyes. The ship rocked in the air. “The ship is taking off. Just don't look down.”

“What? You think I'm scared of heights?” Gilda laughed

“I'm not talking about heights.”

Gilda opened her beak to respond where there came a heavy rattling sound and the roar of fire beneath her. Wildly turning about and looking down she saw two huge propeller blades kick into motion below her. The rickety frame she had been leaning against was all that stood between her and an efficient dicing machine. Gilda swallowed the lump back in her throat and backed away from the rear frame of the ship.

“Gotcha.” She managed, and turned about to face Fluttershy. “So, what are we doing up here anyway?”

Fluttershy tossed her hair and pointed with her wing to the deck below.

“I don't like being crammed down there.” She scrunched her nose.

Gilda wandered past the captain as he took the helm and looked down onto the deck. It was incredibly crowded and it looked like everybody who had been on the large station was now cramped on the deck of the ship. Gilda looked over to the captain; an old red coated stallion wearing a tall, peaked cap.

“How come they're not downstairs?” She asked. The stallion looked over to her.

“Old ship, ma'am. Downstairs is taken up by the guts of this ship's engine, and a scarce few rooms for us crew. There's no place for those folk to sit or rest.” The captain then laughed. “I hope you weren't thinking this ship was heading for a battle? This is ain't one of them civil guard airships.”

"'Course not, dude." Gilda looked down again at the cramped deck. “How long do these flights usually take?”

“Depends on where you're going from, but from tower three to tower fourteen that's the whole stretch of the city. It can take about thirty minutes, sometimes forty five.”

Gilda thanked the captain and made herself comfortable on the captain's deck. After a little while the pair could see the looming spire of tower seven and the damage done to it was plainly evident. There was a criss-cross grid of scaffolding on the outside, about a third of the way up the tower. Below that were more grids of pipework that had been exposed, and finally, at the very bottom, were several large sheets of iron that used to cover the internals of the tower up.

The Cherry Springs airship gently swung around and drifted over to the landing platform nearby the tower. Only a few of the ponies got off here from the deck, but even more from the platform below got on board. Fluttershy tapped Gilda and flew off the side of the airship and to the platform below. Gilda gave one last worried look at the heaving crowd on the deck of the ship before sailing on after Fluttershy.

The inside of tower seven was a bustle of activity. As much as she could have guessed; there were no windows inside the building. The entire thing was lit up by many glowing balls of light fixed to walls and caged up behind tiny metal bars. There were two elevators built into the centre of the room that could ascend to a third of the way up the spire. Around these elevators, with a wide breadth of clearance, were platform rings that housed shops and offices. Gilda could see that they could either take the elevator up to these rings or use one of the many flights of stairs that ran up and down through all the rings.

"You even have ponies living inside these things?" Gilda asked, looking up and around at the insides of the tower.

"Only for a third of it. The rest of it is taken up by the charge station complex." Fluttershy answered and made her way towards the stairs.

"Charge station? Is that what the big lights are?" Gilda followed on after Fluttershy, looking ahead to her intended destination. "We're not going to take the rising platform thing?"

"That's right! Those lights charge up any magic cell they pass over and ..." Fluttershy looked over at the elevator, appraising it. "Too crowded."

"Can we at least fly up?" Gilda looked up at the many flights of steps and then to the hollow clearance though the centre of the tower.

"That wouldn't be very civilized, would it?" Fluttershy began to hum a little tune as she briskly trotted up the stairs.

"You gotta' be freakin' kidding me..." Gilda began to trudge up the steps behind her.

The pair arrived at the top of the stairs a good while later. Fluttershy seemed unperturbed but Gilda was leaning on the stair rails, catching her breath. Fluttershy scampered on ahead and pointed to an orange painted door at the far end of the ring that they were on. The door was being guarded by two pegasi dressed in brown long-coats and caps. Fluttershy introduced herself by showing the guards her badge and they nodded, greeting her in return.

“The engineers have been expecting you upstairs. I reckon by now they're be starting the repair work, ma'am. We can take you up there now, if you want?” The guard offered and Fluttershy nodded in acceptance.

“How much further up is?” Gilda asked, still panting.

“It's on this level.” The guard talked as he lead the pair through the pipe riddled back works of the tower. “Nice to see Appleloosa is attracting plenty of outsiders. It's been a good few years since I last saw a griffon.”

“Yes, how long do you intend on staying in the city, Gilda?” Fluttershy asked.

“'Till you and I are fair and square.” Gilda cheerfully bumped Fluttershy with her bunched talons. Fluttershy shot her a look but Gilda continued. “There's plenty of riches and work floating around here. I might end up staying longer than I first thought, who knows?”

“I hope you don't make the City Council angry by quitting so soon.”

“Woah, who said I was quitting soon? I'll be around for a while. A couple of months maybe? Don't worry Flutz, you and the council will get a run for their money.”

“Flutz.” The guard repeated and snickered.

The guard brought them to a opened out chamber with several metal boxes stacked up and pushed to the corner of the room. The wind blew persistantly through the large opening in the outer wall and from here they could see out over the wooden rooves of the city buildings.

“Better view out here than in your office” Gilda remarked to Fluttershy and made her way over to the large opening. A grey pony engineer approached Fluttershy.

“Ma'am.” He tipped his hardhat in greeting. “We've started fixing up the pipeworks and they'll be up and running with the next two hours. It might be three hours if we can't get the pressure right first time.”

Fluttershy nodded and kept an eye on Gilda, who had reached the edge of the opening and was looking down.

“Where are the debris?” She asked and the engineer waved a hoof to a pile of metal crates marked with a cross. “Thank you. I'm happy to hear about the good work.” She smiled sweetly at him and trotted over to the crates.
The engineer followed after and opened the first of the marked boxes up. Inside, Fluttershy could see a few sections of pipe that were darkened and stained heavily. She picked one up with her wing and gently swung it to and fro through the air.

“It's bone dry.” She remarked to the engineer and he nodded in confirmation.

“It's a hot day, ma'am. I guess they dried out during the process of taking the pipes apart. It's been three hours, after all.”

Fluttershy considered his answer and set the pipe back in the box. As she did it snapped in two, brittle fragments and a tiny cloud of dust came out of it.

“Very dry.” Fluttershy said with a frown. “Is the other worker still here?” She asked the engineer.

He nodded and pointed to a earth pony stallion sitting down on a few layers of cloth, with a steaming hot drink in a bowl beside him. He looked worse for the wear: his white apparel was filthy and his green mane was a tangled mess.

“Worker ID 371. His name is Sourchops.” The engineer replied.

Fluttershy thanked the engineer and trotted away, over to Sourchops.

“Hello there, I'm Fluttershy.” She introduced herself with practised perfection, even throwing in a gracious dip of the head to him. “I'm with the City Council. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I can?” The stallion looked up into those big imploring teal eyes. He felt both his heart and his troubles melt away.

“S-Sure.” He mumbled, trying to stand up.

“Oh, no no. Please. There's no need to stand.” She hushed him and set a gentle hoof on his side.

“But, you're a lady and a city official. I want to show some respect.” The stallion forced himself upright with effort and exhaled at the end of the ordeal.

“Oh, you needn’t had.” Fluttershy gave him a sickly sweet smile and coy glance away. Gilda looked on at the two in disgust, silently retching in the background.

“So what can you tell me about what happened here?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well. Me and Oatbridge were doing some replacement work on the pipes up here. We'd had a few complaints from the restaurants just below that they were having leakages through the kitchen ceilings. When we started to open up the panels we found more and more of the pipes were out of commission.”

“Why were you on the outside though?”

“We wanted to make sure nothing had hit the metal shell outside. Then after that we wanted a closer look on the pipes at the far back. We weren't expecting them to just … give way like that. The whole thing just broke off. It struck Oatbridge straight in the head and sent him back off the edge. Parts were flying at me as well, I only just managed to stay on the platform. Scariest moment of my life, I swear.”

“You weren't expecting them to break apart?” Fluttershy curiously looked back at the marked boxes contained the decayed parts. “Why not?”

“We'd only put them in last week, ma'am. We figured it was a loose bolt or a damaged pipe. Y'know, something broken in the factory,” He gulped. “Or by us.”

“Have you seen what's in those boxes?” She pointed at the marked boxes. The stallion shook his head.

“No, but I saw them but the pipes in there. Besides, even if I wanted to look I don't think they'd let me.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes and trotted over to lift the decayed pipe out. She set the thing down before Sourchops and it just shattered apart upon contact with the ground. Sourchop's expression twisted into confusion.

“What the hay happened to the pipe? We fitted it just-” Sourchop silenced himself and just shook his head. “I don't understand how this happened.”

“I don't blame you,” Fluttershy patted him on the side again. “I'll get to the bottom of this.”

She gave him one last smile and trotted away. She gave one quick look around to make sure nobody's eyes were on her. She was in the clear! Fluttershy let out the long sigh she'd been holding in from the conversation with the worker. As she did a quick tremor of nerves rushed through her and out of her system. Mentally propping herself back up; she trotted back over to the chief engineer there.

“Have you had any reports of damages to the restaurants downstairs?” Fluttershy asked him. The engineer removed a clipboard from his saddlebag and looked it up and down.

“Yes, that's right. Two. One was early this morning, very early. The other has been lodged about and hour ago. The water damage has apparently ruined their grilles entirely.” The engineer huffed in amusement. “We'll be the judge of that.”

“Where does the water come from, to go through these pipes?” She asked. The engineer trotted over to a plaque mounted on the wall. The plaque was beside an array of the pipes that should have lead across the room, but currently terminated at the gap where they'd fallen apart.

“Floor 49.” He replied. “It's just a pumping station, ma'am.”

Fluttershy thanked him for his help and headed over to the gap where Gilda had been resting this entire time. The griffon was silently gazing out over city, watching the sun slowly fall into the horizon.