//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Lost at Sea 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
//------------------------------//

Lost at Sea
Epilogue
Admiral Biscuit

There were times that the ground was frightening. Lots of ponies wanted to talk to her, and they didn’t speak Equestrian quite right—or maybe it was her. She couldn’t be certain; all that she knew was that sometimes their words grated upon her ears, and she longed for the solitude and simplicity of her cloud and the ocean and nothing else.

Most of the time, she stayed at the small vineyard with Auvergne and Ariégeois. She learned to tend to the grapes, and flew bird patrol, feeling a bit guilty every time she chased a small flock of starlings off. After all, her first proper land food had been stolen grapes.

Some afternoons she watched over the sea, sitting atop a cloud that she put together, much to the confusion of her host.

Unbeknownst to her, she had circled the ocean for months, caught between trade winds. The feral winds that had spawned her storm had conspired to put her into a continuous loop of the ocean. Had she known, perhaps she could have flown northward for a day and made a new cloud, or southward . . . out of the reach of the winds. But she hadn't known, and so she'd circled over the ocean several times, just out of eyeshot of merchant ships.

The capricious winds had finally shown her a bit of mercy, guiding her out of the endless cycle and into a more easterly breeze, where she'd traveled for half a moon as it made its way slowly but inevitably towards a distant shore.

It took weeks before Cloud finally accepted the land as truly real.

She sat in her room, with the sea breeze gently blowing through an open window, ruffling the lacy white curtains. A quill sat beside a fresh sheet of paper, as she considered what she might write in a letter home. Would anypony believe her story? She could hardly believe it herself.

If it hadn’t been for Star Catcher, she might have left the letter unwritten, but she couldn’t leave her wingmare unsure of her fate.

Cloud Climber finally picked up the quill in her mouth and began writing.