(Story extract)
 
‘Thank you for saving me from there, and letting me come with you.’ Huh, so, she’s not entirely a mute after all! Magic screens, what a clever thing. The alicorn mare wore a soft smile, which I returned, the screen clearing before text scrolled across it again. ‘You said you weren’t from here - is that thing outside what you came here in?’ She nodded to the window that looked inland, the black tail of the Valkyrie prominent in the midday sunlight. Eesh, good thing there really aren’t that many pegasi around here, thing sticks out like a Sunrise Sarsaparilla bottle at a Sparkle-Cola warehouse. Blinking a few times after realizing I’d been staring out the window, I went back to facing Aerith, stuttering slightly.
 
“A-ahm, yeah, yeah, we kind of crashed that here awhile back. Trying to find an industrial generator to get it fixed… from looking it over, we might have a small issue with the engine exhausts. Had it switched to VTOL mode when we landed…” She gave her head a slight tilt, blinking and looking at myself. You’d think ponies in giant pre-war flying war machines was a foreign concept to her… point taken. “Anyways, yeah, we’re stuck here and SOL until we can get it to fix itself. Dunno if it’ll clean the mud out of the intakes and exhausts for us, though… kinda doubt it.”
 
Aerith gave a small nod as I leaned forwards against the table, the magical screen dissipating as she watched me open the second Sparkle-Cola, myself starting to think over the Valkyrie’s current situation more. Intakes and exhausts have to be clear of mud before we can even think of taking that thing off again, probably… that’s gonna be a pain in the ass, unless Crash Dive has a lot of shovels somewhere. Or a crane, that’d be nice. Or maybe Scouring could lift it up with magic, and we could set it on it’s actual landing gear… nah, doubt he could. Not every unicorn can be supercharged like Minty or lift box cars like the Lightbringer, Strikey… I found my eyes falling to the mare sitting across from me, and her large horn, remembering just how many magic-cancelling rings Static pulled off of it. Swear my brain had the same ding as Kindness when it finally meshed right.