Wrapped in a striking patchwork woollen overcoat, Dim stood on the deck of the freighter and watched the lights blink into existence on the distant horizon. Istanbull glittered like a magnificent jewel, a diamond lodged in the rocks. The jagged peaks of the Starhome mountains rose around it, a sea of rocks on both sides, with Istanbull being the gateway to the Midreach. It was the only decent land passage available and as such, this made Istanbull a city of great importance.

For reasons he could not say, Dim suffered from an overabundance of excitement.

Eight long days in the air, most of which had been quite uneventful. Blackbird had sewn him a new coat and he was actually quite impressed by her skills as a seamstress. It seemed that anything Blackbird did with her talons, she was exceptional at. Mechanical tinkering, weaponsmithing, sewing, she had an impressive array of talons-on skills that seemed to come to her naturally, and Dim suspected it had something to do with her griffon heritage.

Behind him, Blackbird paced along the deck, impatient, and it was obvious that she was ready for this journey to be over. She too, wore a brand new overcoat made from recovered scraps, and somehow, she made it look magnifique. Like Dim’s, the different bits were all different colours; greens, dark blues, greys, charcoals, blacks, browns, but somehow she had assembled it in such a way that it was breathtaking.

Both coats also had a plethora of pockets, which Dim appreciated.

The peaks of the toothy mountains were buried in snow, which chilled the air that howled around their feral-looking points. This air sank down into the valley, leaving it in a state of near-perpetual winter. It was cold here, Dim had already been warned, and now, more than ever, he was grateful for his companion’s skills.

As the ship descended, dropping lower, snow began to swirl around the deck and the lift nacelle. Dim shivered a little, more from seeing the snow than feeling the cold, and he puffed away on one of his last few cigarettes. He would need to replenish his supply in Istanbull. With each inhale, the cherry of his cigarette glowed a rosy pinkish-orange and each exhale filled the air with thick blue smoke that reeked of sweetness and cloves.

“I think I’m tipsy,” Blackbird said, her words murdering the pleasant silence. “Dim, I have a confession… I killed off the bottle of Himbeergeist and had a good time. I was bored. Bored. I was so bored and I couldn’t find a good place to rub one out with some privacy, because I make horsey noises when I get worked up. And sometimes I caw. My tongue feels numb from all of the raspberries.”

Dim’s cigarette bobbed up and down in its holder when he smiled a secretive, smirky smile, an act that destroyed his dimples. Blackbird’s happiness was now his own, and her contentedness caused him some sort of mild hysteria that he had trouble explaining, like now. Lightheadedness, an urge to smile and or laugh, the sensation of butterflies in his stomach, and an utterly terrifying lack of motivation to kill things or go on sprees of spectacular ultraviolence. This unnatural state of being was distressing—but he somehow endured it.

“Hey Dim… Dim… Captain Melvin told me that when Istanbull was ruled by a matriarch, they called it Cowstantinople. I learned something about the local history, Dim. Ain’t that neat?”

In response, Dim’s manic grin intensified and the corner of his right eye began twitching.

“I am a horse-bird-lion creature,” Blackbird said, rambling aloud, “And griffons lay eggs but ponies squirt out live young, and somehow, I ended up with four teats. When it gets cold, they really sting sometimes. Why do I have four teats? What kind of milk will I offer, I wonder?”

“Blackbird—”

“Sometimes, it feels so good to pinch them.”

Whatever it was that Dim was about to say was now forgotten.

“I don’t have a cloaca, so I keep wondering if I have a horsegina or a liongina. I lie awake at night and think about these kinds of things. I mean, I haven’t spent a lot of time looking at pony parts, at least not up close, so I really don’t know what I ended up with back there. It’s hard being a hybrid, Dim. So many questions.”

Just as Dim was about to say something, Blackbird added, “I haven’t spent a lot of time looking at lionginas either. I just haven’t had the opportunity and sometimes, I feel really insecure about myself. How can I be beautiful if I don’t know which standard of beauty I am judged by?”

Now, Dim had questions, and this irked him a great deal.

“I have hooves in the back and horsey hind legs, but I also have a lion’s tail and I don’t even know what my hips are, but they are super flexible and I can put my hind legs behind my back and touch my hock-thingies together. I don’t know what I am and there are times like right now when I start to worry.”

“Blackbird, you’re drunk.” Dim’s aristocratic assertiveness compelled him to state the obvious.

“No I’m not.”

Sighing, Dim rolled his eyes and puffed away at the shrinking nub of his cigarette. “Blackbird, you are wasted.”

“Am not. I could probably fly if I had to.”

“That proves nothing. Flying into the ground or perhaps a mountain would prove something though.” Ahead, Istanbull grew larger. If Captain Melvin could be believed, it was a city of a half a million or so souls, and Dim had no reason to think that the good captain was a liar. Blackbird on the other hoof…

Wearing a heavy greatcoat, Manfrit approached with his hands folded behind his back. Dim thought the giant looked rather reserved, dignified, but was still a disgusting primitive. Like Captain Melvin, Manfrit smoked a pipe, and he puffed away on it now. Reaching out with one hand, his flesh and blood one, he pulled his pipe away from his lips and coughed.

“Down here, at the southern end of the Worldwall Mountains, we have the Sea of Granite. Make no mistake, this is a sea like any other, and just as dangerous to cross. It’s not safe to sail over these mountains… the only real safe passage is this long valley and Istanbull.”

“Why are the mountains dangerous?” Dim asked.

The older minotaur smiled and his eyes gleamed with the faint city lights as they grew closer. “Stories. Stories make them dangerous. There are weird places in the mountains, places where ships don’t fly and begin to sink. Places where strange lights will attack all things living and strip the flesh off of their bones. There are all of these fantastic stories, and almost all of them have some grain of truth to them, some terrible fate promised to those who violate the skies. A long time ago, stories were told about a place called Skyreach. Nothing that ever went there returned. Those stories proved true, and the Howling Peaks, the location of fabled Skyreach, is now a scorched crater miles wide where nothing grows.”

The roach of Dim’s cigarette burned from existence and turned to ash on the wind.

“Starhome used to be a city of the alicorns,” Manfit said as he waved his smoking pipe around. “You’ll see soon enough. We minotaurs took the city a long, long time ago, but it was abandoned when we found it, a ruin filled with monsters. Mostly eye tyrants… gazers. These mountains were overrun with chaos. The most twisted, most terrifying monsters you could imagine roamed these peaks and these valleys, and many still do. This is not a safe place… there is only the illusion of safety.”

“No offense meant, but how do minotaurs fight gazers?” Dim asked, incredulous.

“A good question,” Manfrit replied with a chuckle. “Mirrored shields. The different rays of the eyebeasts can be reflected with mirrored, magical shields that we minotaurs can forge. It took us over a hundred years to claim the city and it cost the lives of tens of thousands. This is why we minotaurs believe that we own this land now, that we are entitled. We paid for it with blood. However, as you will soon see, Istanbull welcomes all who would live in peace. It wasn’t always like this though… but these are things that you will learn more of later.”

Now, the view of the city was breathtaking and Dim stood in awe of what he saw. Vast walls went from mountain to mountain, blocking the valley pass, and beyond there were more walls, securing the city front and back. As for the city itself, it was built into the very cliffs on both sides, with an enormous, sprawling urban cityscape spread out in between the cliffs and the two walls. Dim could see rookeries along the highest parts of the cliffs, the places where griffons and pegasus ponies built their homes.

Parts of the city glittered with electric lights—a testament to its modernity—and Dim could see construction cranes from where he stood. It appeared as though the old was being replaced with something new and modern. Even now, in the middle of the night, work was being done. This was a city that did not sleep and Dim was entranced by what he saw.

Outside of the city wall, the closest wall, the wall that they approached, there was a shipyards of sorts built into the cliffs and Dim could see the distant sparking of arc welders. These were crude factory shipyards by the looks of them in the dark, but they were shipyards. It occurred to Dim that this city, this place, it truly was a major power and somepony here held an interest in him.

“Welcome to Istanbull,” Manfrit said in a soft voice filled with pride. “It’s not Equestria, but we strive to make it that way.”

Down below, Dim could see the foundations being laid out for another wall. The city was expanding, it seemed, with a second wall, an outer wall, the city would have a new section. Dim could see buildings dotting the ground, but had trouble making them out. Almost overcome with curiousity, Dim found that he wanted to explore this place, to know it, to walk through its streets and see everything that there was to see up close, in the flesh.

It was at this moment that Dim saw it—a gleaming white hand rising up out of the middle of the city. It was stone, near as he could tell, with the thumb and four slender fingers forming graceful towers. The sight—breathtaking; the beauty—beyond words. From where he stood on the deck of the freighter, the fingernails on the finger-towers were vast panels of what appeared to be stained glass.

From beside Dim, Blackbird gasped, and then he heard her say, “So beautiful…”

He was inclined to agree. Several small tugs appeared on either side of the massive freighter and Dim watched as they connected tow cables. The ship was descending with great rapidity now and he could see a vast gathered crowd near the landing stall where the ship would be docking. Somehow, there was order to all of this chaos. No ships collided, nothing crashed together, nothing went wrong.

“Dim!” As Blackbird shouted his name, Dim felt his neck being grabbed and his head turned. He was about to ask what the big deal was, but then he saw it, he saw it and it stole his words away. Off to the left was a sleek warship that had to be at least two hundred feet long. It was not yet completed, vast sections of the hull were still missing, but the steel skeleton he saw was impressive like nothing else. Massive cannons were being lowered into place with complex-looking cranes so that the ship could be built around them.

“Is there going to be a war?” Blackbird asked while she clung to Dim.

“It seems likely.” Manfrit’s voice was filled with noticeable regret. “If there is, I’ll follow Captain Melvin and do whatever he does. He’ll do what’s right. We’re a crew and there is a lot to be said about sticking together through thick and thin.”

“Dim and I are a crew.” Blackbird tightened her grip around Dim’s neck just a little as she spoke. “He came back for me. I’d come back for him too. Even if he says I’m drunk. Pfft, as if. Pfft. Pfft. Hey, my lips feel numb.”

In the distance a horn sounded, causing Dim to jerk his head in its direction. After a moment of jittery panic, he pulled himself together. The unknown was out in force and growing in number, with no telling what was about to happen next. If this was an elaborate trap, he doubted that he could fight his way out of it. The best that he could do was leave behind a big mess and a whole lot of inconvenience.

Removing bodies teleported into walls was an inconvenience.

“Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.”

“Blackbird, I must demand to know what you are doing.”

“Mouth queefing. You wouldn’t understand, you don’t have a grippy vulva.”

Manfrit the minotaur turned and strode away, snickering, leaving Dim alone with Blackbird. Dim, flabbergasted, had no idea how to respond, so he turned away from Blackbird to look at the city instead. For good measure, he slipped his goggles over his eyes to protect them from the bright lights.

“Pfft.” The sound came more from behind Dim, and he began to back away while giving Blackbird a sidelong glance. Wasn’t much of a grip if it couldn’t hold on to that.

“Change in altitude,” she said with a dismissive snort and a wave of her talons. “But hey, they do kinda feel the same, now that I can compare them. Maybe this is why creatures with lips kiss each other. It feels kinda nice. Better than a beak, I figure. You can’t kiss with a beak.”

There was a thump followed by the creaking of metal as the ship settled into its cradle. Istanbull awaited and the area around the harbour was bright as day in the middle of the night. It was time to go and face whatever came next, though Dim was distrustful of whomever had gone through so much effort to bring him here.

When armored pegasus ponies began to land upon the deck, Dim knew it was time to go.

Author's Notes:

What... stop looking at me like that.