I stood in the cargo bay, eyeing the little metal crates before me.

“Don’t open ‘em. Don’t even touch ‘em till you get ta Harmony City. If even da slightest ting is wrong when ye arrive, ye’ll have da law on yer tail.”

I turned, stepping out into the hallway and then the lounge. The music that usually leaked from the navigation floor above was strangely absent, replaced by a loud, persistent banging. I flopped back onto a couch, bending my neck to get a better view of the landscape passing below.

The clop of hoofsteps reached my ears, and I raised my head to see Stormslider approaching. She sat on the couch next to me.

“Brings back memories,” I said.

She nodded. “Don’t worry. We’ll be done with this soon.”

“It’s not all bad. Things have been pretty dull ever since we quit smuggling.” Maybe we’ll get some excitement out of it.

“Smuggling is dangerous. Surely you haven’t forgotten the time we were shot down?”

I frowned. “I think we came out of that better than before. We would’ve had to get rid of that dinky little airship soon anyways.”

“Just be careful we don’t end up outside the law again,” she said. “I didn’t graduate from the Royal Air Academy so I could run from royal patrols with you and Silver.”

I chuckled. “Trust me; I’m trying to avoid that.”

She looked up, eyeing the ceiling above us. The banging had stopped. “What could they possibly be doing up there?”

As if in answer, Silver Feather came tumbling down the stairs with a stupid grin painted on his face. He flicked his goggles up into a mane even more spiky than usual. “Dissy! Storm! We’ve done it!”

Stormslider cocked a brow. “What?”

Ember tripped down from above, falling on Silver clumsily. She lifted a weary head and squinted at her surroundings. “Marvelous,” she whispered.

“Dissy, come look!” Silver beckoned to me with a hoof, pushing Ember off of him with the other. Hesitantly, I approached the staircase. What in Equestria did they do?

Silver flew behind me, pushing his head against my rump and forcing me upwards. Surprised, I barely managed to prevent myself from falling upon landing on the navigation floor. I looked around warily. “What is it?” I called.

“In the cockpit!”

My eyes focused in on the door at the end of the room. Closed.

Ever so cautiously, I stepped up to the door. I paused, searching for defects. Traps. Anything out of the ordinary. I pushed the door open. My jaw dropped.

The cockpit was unoccupied. It looked exactly how it was supposed to, to my suspicious surprise, with the exception of a vastly intricate network of ropes winding through it. They were everywhere, integrating every lever, chain, and somehow even button into their dominion. Ropes took mind-boggling routes in, out, over, and between walls. If the cockpit had been a confusing room before, it was now a puzzle that would challenge even the most analytical of detectives.

“Isn’t it great?” I jumped at the sound of Silver’s voice in my ear.

“Silver, what is this?” I asked.

He giggled like a foal. “It’s an autopilot, Dissy! Ember helped me make an autopilot! Now I can hang out with you guys instead of sitting up here all day!”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

“Hah! Good round!”

I flinched as Cleaver yelled his satisfaction, reaching out to pull the pile of chips in the center of the table closer to him. Frowning, I silently pushed my cards forwards. Another loss.

“Let’s go, Storm!” Silver said, grinning. “One more hand before we break.”

Stormslider swept the cards up off the table and shuffling them back into her deck. With the smooth confidence of plentiful practice, she dealt two cards each to Silver, Cleaver, and I.

I squinted down at my cards. King and Ace of magic. A good hand. I pushed a portion of my pitifully small collection of chips forwards to stay in the hand. With a flash of blue fur, the flop slid out onto the table. Seven of magic, Five of magic, Jack of harmony.

I bid a few bits, confident I could get a flush. All I needed was one more magic card. Cleaver frowned, but called anyways. Silver, however, raised, pointedly fixing me with a hard, emotionless stare.

This won’t go well for you, it said. How he managed to put so much message and so little emotion in a stare, especially while wearing goggles, confounded me. I called, and Cleaver folded.

Storm dealt the turn. Five of destiny. Lot of good that does me. I tapped a hoof to symbolize a check. Silver bet five bits. I hesitated, but called nonetheless. Just one more magic card…

Silver let a tiny little smile onto his visage. I ignored it, determined not to let him bluff me out again.

Storm flipped the river onto the table. Nine of magic! A flush! I tried to contain my emotions, pushing ten bits forwards in what I hoped looked like a last ditch bluff. Silver stopped smiling and cocked his head at his cards. He raised me another ten bits. I called, broke out into a wide smile, and slapped my hand onto the table face-up.

“Take that!” I exclaimed. “A flush!” I eyed the huge pot in the middle of the table greedily, already planning my future hands. Leaning against the couch behind me, I looked to my side and grinned at Ember smugly. She raised her eyebrows, quietly nodding towards the table. My eyes followed hers, focusing in on the cards that Silver had silently slid forwards.

A Six and Eight of magic. He had gotten a straight flush on the river. He beat me. Again.

I looked down at the five measly bits that remained before me. They looked so tiny. So insignificant compared to the hoard that blocked my view of Silver. Cleaver and Storm chuckled, exchanging humored glances. Silver offered me an irritating smile.

“Nice try, Dissy,” he said. “but I think you need some more practice.” He got to his hooves and flicked his goggles up. “So how about we take a break, and when we come back we can start betting on coin tosses or something?”

I stayed seated as Silver, Cleaver, and Ember headed for the bar, the stallions chatting enthusiastically about the card game while the mare followed behind quietly. Stormslider collected the cards, neatly arranging them into the deck.

“It surprises me that you’re still so bad at cards,” she said.

I shot an exasperated glare her way. “It’s not that I’m bad. It’s that he’s good.”

She raised a brow, shuffling the deck absentmindedly. “You’ve known him longer than any of us. I imagine he would’ve taught you something by now. I learned how to play at least competently when we were still at the Academy.”

“You never play against him though,” I said.

She grinned slightly. “Yes. I decided that dealing was easier. And more fun than losing all of my bits.”

The rest of the trip passed in much the same way. After losing a sizeable amount of bits at the poker table, I begged Stormslider to take my place and teach me to deal. The games passed remarkably slow as I fumbled to shuffle the cards correctly, but it was better than going broke.

It took us a week to reach Harmony City. I had been relaxing in the lounge, idly levitating a deck of cards over my head, when the city’s major landmark came into view: a massive wall of rolling thunderclouds, stretching up as far as I could see and off into the horizon to either direction, serving as a backdrop to the city itself.

I had heard of the Cloudwall, of course. It was impossible not to, with all the traveling that I did. Still, I had never actually seen it before. I shivered as I took in the behemoth, thinking of the stories. At least two hundred airships had fallen to its might, struck down by lightning storms and ripped apart by harsh winds as they tried in vain to discover what was on the other side. Even here, at Harmony City, where the Wall was weakened enough by age for the most skilled pilots to fly through, a dozen wrecks could still be seen lying under the clouds. It was too dangerous to retrieve them. Those who died amongst the storms stayed in them for eternity, their bodies left to the elements.

From what I knew, the Cloudwall had surrounded Equestria as long as anypony remembered. Even Princess Celestia was uncertain about its origins.

Harmony City was situated on the base of a peninsula, jutting out through the Cloudwall. The lack of water weakened the massive storm as it passed over the land, forming a narrow corridor where a talented airship crew could pass through.

If anything could be said of the city, it was that it capitalized on its placement. Its architecture was devoted almost exclusively to trade with the exotic lands outside Equestria. Even from our distance, miles away, towering skydocks could be seen rising up to touch the clouds, each one surrounded by a swarm of airships waiting for their turn to dock.

As we came closer, I began to pick out more detail. The city was practically bursting at the seams, with a plethora of new buildings halfway-built along its edges, all vying to get a share of the profits. Abundant skydocks gave every district the ability to trade directly with the aerial merchants that filled the sky. The three roads leading up to the western side of the city, opposite the Cloudwall, seemed to come alive with the colors of all the ponies coming to and fro. The central part of the city, protected by a tall wall, was so darkened by the shadows of the ships above it that it was impossible to pick out any detail.

Pushing myself off the couch I’d been relaxing on, I trotted up to the navigation floor and entered the cockpit.

“We’re here?” I asked.

Silver nodded. “Yeah. I’m gonna park us near one of these smaller skydocks. Hopefully somepony will come out to talk to us.”

After about half an hour of floating near one of the smaller skydocks near the city’s edge, staring awe-struck at the Cloudwall, a pegasus flew out to greet us. A knock sounded on the hatch.

I made my way down to the lounge and into the hallway which connected it to the crew quarters, engine room, and cargo hold. Ember, Cleaver, and Stormslider were already there, waiting in front of the hatch. Clearing my throat, I opened the hatch. A clipboard-wielding pegasus hovered on the other side.

“Wat’cha carryin’?” she asked.

I hesitated, suddenly realizing that I had no experience with the black market in Harmony City, or with how one went about as to announcing the wish to take part in it.

“Uh, stuff. From Manehattan,” I added. Hopefully she knows what I mean.

“What kinda stuff?”

“Y’know. Stuff.” I glanced at Cleaver with a silent plea for help. He knew more about the underground here than I did.

The big stallion lumbered up to the door, almost pushing me aside with his girth. “We are here to deal in local black market,” he stated.

“Ah, okay.” With a flap of her wings, the pegasus alighted inside the ship. She looked to Cleaver expectantly. “Lemme see what’cha got, then.”

“He is Kaptain,” Cleaver said, nodding in my direction. The pegasus raised a brow at me doubtfully, but nonetheless fell in behind me as I led the way to the cargo hold. Flicking on the light, I waved a hoof at the boxes.

“Some guys in Manehattan told us you’d be interested in these,” I said.

She nodded, scribbling a note on her clipboard. “Right. Good. You’re gonna want ta make for the Central Domestic skydock, in the central city.”

“What’s inside these?” I asked. “I’m just curious.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Do what yer told, get yer pay, and get out.” She began to walk out, before stopping and glancing back. “Just gimme half an hour to tell ‘em you’re coming.”

She left, and we waited. Silver set the ship to hover, and we each passed the time trying not to look nervous about our first black market trade in two years. Except Cleaver. He remained implacable.

After the allotted time had passed, we began the approach on the designated skydock, a smaller one just inside the shadow of the main swarm of airships, dwarfed by the titans of architecture that towered above it. I didn’t see any other airships docked on it. Stormslider tapped my shoulder with a wing.

“Silver wants to see you,” she said.

It didn’t take me long to enter the cockpit, unusually devoid of music. The silence was eerie, broken only by the occasional hiss or clank of the airship’s machinery. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I don’t like this,” the pilot said. “Look, some other ships are drifting in around us. Surrounding us. We won’t be able to escape if something goes wrong.”

I squinted through the cockpit glass, picking out the ships forming a vague circle around us, and the shape of the cannons on their sides. “They’re probably just watching for cops.” I hope.

I heard a noise behind me. The rest of the crew had joined us.

As we neared the skydock and details emerged, it began to look more and more dilapidated. Visible rust covered every surface, and some of the piers looked ready to fall off, or even completely gone.

“There’s no way those piers can hold an airship,” Stormslider observed.

“Yeah,” Ember agreed. “That structure hasn’t had maintenance for years.”

“I have bad feeling on this,” Cleaver rumbled.

“Would you all shut up, please?” I hissed. I felt myself beginning to panic. Looking out the cockpit glass, I saw a group of pegasi flying towards us. A chill ran down my spine as I saw the sunlight reflecting off the blades strapped to their feathers. “Ah, horseapples. Get ready for a fight, everypony!”

Cleaver shook his head, reaching for his bottle. “Is no use. Too many to fight. No way to escape.”

Silver turned around, opening his mouth to offer a retort, but was cut off by a determined knocking on the hatch.

“Open up!” a gruff voice commanded.

Ember grabbed me, pushing me back against the wall. “What the buck have you done to us?” she hissed.

Stormslider pulled her off. “Ember, calm down! Now isn’t the time.”

“How about you shut the buck up and come to grips with reality?” Ember shot back. “We’re all gonna die if we don’t do something!”

“You don’t know that! They have no reason to kill us yet!”

“Besides the fact that we know about their operation!?”

“We can work something out!”

“Open the bucking door before I have to open it for you!”

The mares fell silent, cowed by the roaring coming from just outside the hatch.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

Slowly, I stepped down the stairs and stood before the hatch. My crew followed behind me. I flinched at the metallic echo of another barrage of furious pounding. My crew positioned themselves around me. All eyes were on me.

I creaked the hatch open. “Yes?” I asked politely. Like a complete idiot.

The stallion on the other side fixed me with an evil grin. “Welcome to Harmony City,” he said.

And then his hoof slammed into my face, and reality slipped away.

I woke up, lying in a bed and full of pain.

It wasn’t a very comfortable bed, either, which I supposed was a good thing. If I was dead and woke up on a bed it would probably be like sleeping on a cloud, which pegasi always told me was wonderfully soft.

I opened my eyes to the sight of a neglected ceiling, with a few rays of filtered sunlight passing over its numerous chips and holes. A shadow moved at the edge of my vision. I tried to move my neck to get a better view.

Bad move. A wave of nausea overcame me, eliciting a pained moan. I decided to leave physical movement for later.

“Oh, you’re awake!” a gentle mare’s voice said. An earth pony stepped into my limited line of sight, wearing a tired but reassuring smile. She looked exhausted, with a worn magenta coat and a dirtied red mane. “We thought you’d be out longer. You seem like a delicate pony.”

I tried to ask the mare what had happened. Where I was. Where my crew was. But all that came out was another pathetic moan.

“Don’t worry, you’re in good hooves,” she said. “My name is Phoenix Down.”

“What happened?”

“You’ve been tricked, sold into slavery for somepony to make some extra bits,” Phoenix Down answered. She stepped into another room. I heard the sound of running water.

“Where am I?”

“The inner district of Harmony City. You’d better get used to it. You’ll spend the rest of your life here.” She returned with a damp towel on her back. Crouching over the only other patient in the room, she began to clean his wings.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Your pilot,” she said.

My heart sunk. I rolled over, fighting off the nausea to get a better look at Silver Feather’s softly breathing body. “How?”

“He tried to fight those pegasi in the air. He fell. I don’t…” she hesitated. “His left wing is bad. I don’t think he’ll ever fly again.”

My body went weak. I fell back, staring up at the holes in the ceiling blindly. A terrible feeling of dread, of disgust, of shame welled up within me.

Because of me, Silver Feather would never fly again. My best friend, who had always been there for me. In a desperate attempt to distract my darkening thoughts, I turned to ask more questions.

“Who are you?”

“You can call me Nix. Lots of ponies get hurt in this place, and I heal the ones that I can. Make them good and ready to work again. Keep them from dying. This is my home.”

“How did I get here?”

“Your crew brought you two.”

Of course. My crew. “How are they?”

“Fine. Physically, at least. I don’t know how they’re dealing with the… change. They should be out working. It’s their first day.”

Oh, Sweet... no. No, don’t think about it. I stared at the ceiling, mind blank, mouth open. A few minutes passed. “How long have I been here?” I asked.

“Just one night.” She walked over to a set of drawn curtains and pulled them open. A sliver of sunlight peeked around the silhouettes of the massive airships hanging in the sky.

“And I’m some kind of slave now?”

“Yes.”

“Any chance of rescue? Escape?”

“I’m afraid not, Dissy. I’ve lived here my whole life. Other ponies have been here longer. Nopony has ever gotten out. We all die in here.”

“How is that- how is that possible?” Surely the Princess, the Royal Guard! Somepony has to know about this!

“The Inner City is a well-kept secret. The Outer City handles all the trade with Equestria. Nopony knows the truth.”

Just then, I came to the full realization of the sheer weight of my mistake. My crew, the ponies that had become my family, that I’d been closer to than anypony else for years, were now slaves. And it was all my fault.

Silver would never fly again, by airship or wing. Stormslider would probably never get to tinker with the cloud engines she loved. Ember and Cleaver might be lucky enough to end up working as mechanics or cooks, but never as anything more than a slave to another’s wishes.

What must they think of me right now? I had just practically thrown their lives away. Destroyed their dreams. Realized their fears. In a world where everypony was happy, everypony fulfilled their destinies, and everypony got along, I had managed to find the one city that enslaved ponies and tossed them into it.

I should’ve fought, back in that alley in Manehattan. Ember was ready. Silver was ready. I was the only one that wanted to avoid a conflict. Even if they had gotten me, Silver could’ve flown away, and Ember was never an easy mare to contain. They would have been free.

I had been selfish, afraid for my own hide when it was theirs I should’ve been looking out for. Why did I try to take a shortcut? Was the ten minutes it would’ve saved worth all this? I could’ve waited for daytime before I went to see Masquerade.

Rage boiled within me. A terrible, all-consuming rage at the world that would do this to my friends. At myself, for letting it happen. Where was Princess Celestia? How could she let this happen?

I raised a hoof, punching the wall by my side as hard as I could.

“Buck!” I screamed. The wall shook from the impact. My body trembled with emotion. It wasn’t enough. I needed to shout my fury out at the world, to let all the emotion out with a barrage of violence, but I was too weak.

“Hey, stop that!” Phoenix Down ordered. She tossed a sharp stare my way.

Slowly, I lowered my hoof to reveal a new crack in the wall. A sudden exhaustion washed over me. I barely had the energy to speak anymore.

“How do you know my name?” I didn’t remember telling her. And if I had, I wouldn’t have given her my pet name.

“Your pilot told me, when the rest of your crew brought you two in. He was delirious, but awake.”

“Hmm. Okay.” I returned my gaze to the ceiling, examining its pockmarked surface absent-mindedly. “Tell me more about this place.” I hadn’t lost all hope yet. I couldn’t lose hope yet. Maybe we can still get out.

“Many years ago, an earth pony named Robber Baron took control of the city.” She rinsed the towel in a bowl of water. “Nopony knows exactly how he did it, but it’s likely that he started off as just another merchant, and used gold and underworld connections to either buy or replace every official that resisted him. He built the Inner Wall, and turned the Inner City into his own personal work force.”

“Why doesn’t the rest of the city do something about it? How has nopony found out about this yet?” I asked.

“It’s a well-kept secret. Outer City ponies think the Inner City is a glorious metropolis, where only the richest tradesponies are allowed. They even throw parties, whenever one of them is selected for the ‘privilege’ of joining us.”

“And the Princesses? Don’t they ever visit?”

She shook her head. “No. In all my life, I’ve never seen them anywhere but a poster.”

“What about the ponies in here?”

“The Baron is cruel, Dissy. He’ll freely kill you if you disobey him. And those are the lucky ones.”

I lay back down and closed my eyes. A life of servitude? Great. My crew was to spend the rest of their lives in this dark corner of Equestria, slaving their health away in the literal shadows of the world’s wealthy.

My ears twitched as the door opened, and Ember stepped through.

I shrunk away from her angry glare. The fire in her eyes was dampened only be the sweat soaking her coat. With an angry flick of her tail, she turned to talk to Nix.

“How’re they?” she asked.

“Dissy should be fine,” Nix answered. “Silver Feather needs more time.”

“Great. C’mon then, captain.”

I climbed to my hooves and fell in behind her as she stepped back into the hall. “Where are we going?”

“I’m showing you to your room.”

She began to walk, half-heartedly stomping her hooves like a mare that was too tired to act as angry as she wanted to. We ascended six flights of stairs in absolute silence, with nothing but her fury to fill the void.

“Ember, I- “

“Shut up.”

I closed my mouth. She was angry enough as it was. I didn’t want to provoke her, lest she turn around and try to set me on fire.

She was practically shaking when she led me down another hallway, past simple unlabeled doors draped in shadow. Our hooves clopped against the wooden floor, lit only by moonlight leaking through the single window at the end of the hall. Suddenly, she stopped.

I stopped behind her, confused. She showed no sign as to whether this was my room, or hers, or if she was just too tired to walk anymore or she just wanted to talk. A few silent moments passed.

“Ember,” I began.

With a sudden whirl of movement, she twisted around and bucked the door, hard. It broke straight off its hinges, collapsing inwards to bang against the floor loudly.

“Save it,” she said. “Enjoy your room.”

She took a dozen more steps down the hall, opened a door two rooms down from me, and stepped through.

Standing there, I had never before felt so ashamed. I’d known she would be angry, but that hadn’t made it any easier. Will the rest of my crew be like that? Silver Feather?

I jumped as a wizened old chuckling sounded from behind me. Twisting around, I was treated to the sight of an aged stallion, pulling at his pipe as he sat in the wooden chair placed up against the wall.

“Mare problems, eh?” he croaked.

Wordlessly, I turned to face my empty doorway.

Stepping over the threshold into my prison, I levitated the door back into position.

Author's Notes:

I couldn't really think of anything snarky to put here, and when I went to copypasta the old Author's Note from this chapter, I realized that it sucked.

So...
Uhm...

Come here often?