Heron took another sip of the coffee she had in front of her. She hated formality. After returning from the marriage that had just underwent between Heron's sister and her betrothed, Heron went straight home and pulled off her itchy clothing. Why would anypony want to wear that stuff in the first place? It wasn't worth it. She dragged a nearby newspaper out of her inbox and flipped it open. She was greeted with the familiar words "News from the Moon" and the headlines below. The front page artical read "UNICORN TELEPORTS HALFWAY ACROSS EQUESTERIA, FALLS INTO COMA" she looked down into the article. It was fairly short, and she had nothing better to do, so she began reading. UNICORN TELEPORTS HALFWAY ACROSS EQUESTRIA, FALLS INTO COMA Last night, a unicorn from Lunar Island, who's name has not been released, managed to fire himself all the way from the capitol of the Nation of the West to his native Lunar Island, an estimated 320 kilometers. Upon arrival on the island, he went into a deep coma and was rushed to the hospital. Generally, such a feat would kill a unicorn, but Chancellor of Lunar Island Armiddon Mathiss explained the event. "We have a barrier set up around out mind that we feed every moment we are alive." Mathiss said. "We call this emotional barrier our Fye. Our friend here smashed that barrier wide open and rode the jump to his most memorable location; here. Fortunately, we were able to repair the barrier before any real damage could occur, but it is still unknown at this point." Heron sighed. Daredevils were not what they needed at this point in time.
Fire and Dark flew to a restaurant near the center of town. "Well, I may not know this place as well as the next guy, but I know where to find good food." The two walked in, sat at a table, and waited for a waiter or waitress to take their orders.
Winter guided Snow to her cottage and then to bed. Snow whispered, "Thank you." before passing out. Winter sat next to her for a little bit before remembering that pony Celestia had made his apprentice. He wrote a quick note discribing where she should teleport to and then sent it on its way, "I hope this will all blow over soon." He said to himself as the magically imbued paper ashes floated out the window.
Heron sat still as the workers strapped her onto the float-cart. "Now here's the deal, missie. If there's ONE scratch on this cart when it arrives, your head's going on a pike. Not to mention, Lunar Island is surrounded by sea, so you'll get no rest stops. I doubt you ca-" the nearby guard smacked him, ending his speech. "Shut up, ensign, or I'll kill you myself." The guard said. The ensign backed down. "Lunar island is in desperate need of supplies. They still haven't recovered from their last siege from the Solar nation. They need you. Good luck." Heron nodded, looked forward, and took off at a sprint. When she was sure she had enough speed, she jumped into the air and flapped her wings. The load was really heavy, and she gritted her teeth, but she forced herself into the air. This delivery was NOT going to fail.
Velvet started to feel sleepy, when ashes arrived to her, and transformed in a letter. "Mmmh...? I wonder from who's that letter could be..." She opened it, and read it quickly. 'Okay. Should i go now? Nnnaaaawww... Better meet them tomorrow. It's late now, and i don't want to disturb him...' She walked to a tree, climbed it, and found a secure branch, hard enough to hold her for the rest of the night. She installed herself, made a pillow with leaves, and had a last thought about her sister, before falling into sleep.
After waiting about an hour for the kid to show up, Winter decided that it would be best to go back and sleep. As Snow's bed was too small for the both of them (And Snow had a terrible case of kicking in her sleep) he grabbed a chair and fell asleep next to Snow. (Alright, boring enough, next day! GO!)
(TIME WARP ACTIVATED!) Firebreeze stood on top of the capital building and looked over the land. A good sum of the guards were given the day off to celebrated the recent peace with the Storms, Fire being one of them. It was a rather windy day, and Fire could feel his mane and tail, waving in the wind. He could only think about Snow and Winter's new baby and puppies for some reason.
Velvet awoke to a dark sky. She blinked her eyes, and looked at the horizon. She could see the sun, about to raise. 'Good. Not tardy.' She looked at yesterday's letter again, and started to walk in it's direction. She could'nt teleport, but she enjoyed to walk for long hours. Even days. And, after a lot of travels, she had started to know the main places and roads in each towns, each forests. It took her about three hours to finally arrive at the cottage, so it was merely 9:30. She hoped not to wake anypony, and knocked discretly. Too silent to be heard from outside, but with the echo, a pony in the room next to the door would've heard.
Winter woke to the sound of a soft knock on the door, he had never been a heavy sleeper so little things like that tend to wake him. He walked to the front door and opened it, revealing Haze, "Oh, hello. What are you doing here so early?" Winter asked rubbing his eyes.
Heron looked around the strange town in awe. The mere fact that the sun never reached this place was both terrifying and amazing at the same time. The store unicorns finished moving her haul, and one of the approached her. "That's everything." He said with a rough voice. "You can go home now, or stay and look around a bit first. The choice is yours, I suppose." Heron thanked him and turned to fly off. Her plan was to go straight back to the mainland when she had an idea. The newspaper she had read the other day said something about a unicorn teleporting halfway across Equestria...to this very location. The longer she thought of it, the more excited she became about. Heron flew straight up into the air and glanced around. It wasn't hard to locate the hospital, being the only white building. As she entered, the receptionist looked at her cheerfully. "'Ello!" She said happily. "Might you need anythin'?" Heron examined the plain white room. There was nothing special, just some chairs and a playset in the corner. "Yes, I understand a unicorn teleported here recently and is now in the hospital?" The receptionist's face darkened. Oops. "Well..." she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "You must be talkin' 'bout Kleft. Yes, he is in room 231, but the Chancellor himself ordered no visitors. You'll have to come back after the order is lifted." Heron nodded. "Okay, sorry to waste your time!" She said as she walked back outside. Of course she wasn't giving up that easily, Heron was too stubborn for that! Since it was pitch black outside, she didn't have any worries of ponies seeing her. She floated up and checked each of the windows, carefully looking at the number on the door. "It starts with two, so it's on the second floor..." she mumbled to herself. After a couple minutes, she found the correct room. The window was left completely unlocked, guess they don't think anypony would try to get in through these. She pushed the door open and slid carefully into the room. It was exactly like the reception room, except the chairs were replaced with beds. Only one was occupied. In the bed, Heron saw a dark purple unicorn in a seemingly immobile state. 'That's right!' Heron remembered. 'He's in a coma! I almost forgot!' Upon closer inspection, she saw that he had some odd sort of life support system hooked up to his heart and his horn. What it was doing on his horn, she would never know. His body itself gave off an odd presence, as if he were trying to break free and contact the outside world. Heron's face distorted with a mix of disgust and pity. How sad that a pony who could pull off such an amazing teleport was reduced to this. Heron re-opened the window and flew out, turning towards the sea. It was her time to fly home.
Dark stared out from the highest mountain in all of Equestria, Convergence Mountain, the one point in all of Equestria that wasn't under control of any one nation, but all four. It was the one border that all the countries met at, it was the personification of the division. She could see every part of Equestria from the top, from the farthest corner of the nation of Storms to the Lunar Island, from Canterlot to South Cloudsdale. She took in a deep breath of the high air, she was the only pegasi she knew of that could fly all the way to the top in one go, and ponies rarely tryed to climb it. "How much longer must this go on." she asked, just like always, but like with ever other time, there was no response, she breathed in deeply again and laid down on the snow and relaxed for the first time in seemingly forever.
Velvet laughed. "Early? Come on, it's late enough, sleepy head! I give you half an hour to get ready, then we shall have a proper training."
"Ug, sorry kid, but your training is going to be very limited, at least for a while, my wife just had a baby, and I won't be as free to help as before. It will also have to be done from here, I will not be returning to the Solar Nation, I will train you to replace me and send you back." Winter said.
"Wait- a baby? Oh, i'm so happy for you! That's why i saw so much joy in your future! Can i see him? Or her? And how will you name her? Or him?"
"Sorry, he's still at the hospital, and we haven't had much of a chance to name him. But I was thinking something like Retalius, or even Winter-Snow." he said, "But, I don't know what Snow was thinking of for a name."
Velvet closed her eyes. "Retalius. Retalius Mark. Go ask Snow, don't tell her the name you'd like. Just ask her." She opened her eyes, and smiled. "Could you do me a favor? I'd like to see your child someday, and give him a single present. A familly pendant that Purple refused. It would be an honnor for me to see that the good things are in the right hands."
"Um, sure, anything for a friend." Winter said. Snow suddenly piped up from the other room, "Who is that?" she asked. "My apprentice and future replacement."Winter responded over his shoulder, "Hey, is the basement still how I left it?" "Of course dear, you know I don't go down there much." Winter then motioned for Velvet to follow, "The basement is set up for training and target practice, of course when we do things such as camoflague and stealth excersices, we're going have to go out into the forest."
Velvet bowed to Snow. "Hi, it's a pleasure to finally meet you." She smiled and followed Winter. "I'm ready for anything. Do i have to call you "Master", or "Sir"?"
