The soft, throbbing hum of the magical steam-engines reverberated throughout the entire airship. Raindrop hadn’t really noticed it when she first entered the airship, but now, when all was quiet, it was almost deafening.
Several long, boring hours had passed, and it was night time. Sentinel was snoring faintly on the floor, a blanket pulled up over his wings. Raindrop was on the bed, uncomfortable on the strange, very flat mattress, and wishing that she had Shine to snuggle up with. It had only been a matter of days, and already she was missing him.
Raindrop cast her thoughts back to Ponyville, trying to imagine what Shine would be doing right now. Sleeping, probably. Or sitting up late and drinking coffee to stay alert enough to work on his lights. Shine specialised in lighting, and more specifically, tailor-made light bulbs of different shapes and sizes designed for specific rooms to give them the perfect lighting.
Raindrop heaved a soft sigh, staring out the tiny window at the stars, idly tracing a pattern into her pillow with the tip of a hoof. She wondered if Shine was looking at the same stars, and then shook the thought from her mind, biting her bottom lip. Dwelling was going to do nothing but make her pine for her husband-to-be.
Raindrop rolled off the bed quietly, and then straightened up, stretching slowly. She peered back at Sentinel, making sure he was asleep, before walking calmly towards the door, keeping her steps steady. She knew from Shine that trying to sneak away in the middle of the night only served to awaken someone. If you really wanted them not to wake up, you just walked normally.
Slipping out the door, Raindrop turned down the hallway and headed for the stairs leading upwards. The soft hiss of steam working in the walls of the airship muffled the sounds of workmen toiling to keep the airship afloat. She could barely hear it beneath her, the clunk of tools working and the scrape of a shovel scooping up coal to power the giant propeller to the rear of the craft.
Several flights of stairs later, and Raindrop emerged onto the deck of the large airship. The giant balloon hovered above them, connected by chains and sturdy ropes. Reaching out with a hoof, Raindrop idly pushed on one of the chains. It was solid, stiff, and immovable, holding up the immense weight of the airship below the balloon.
Raindrop headed for the rear of the deck, throwing her forehooves over the railing and resting her chin between them, staring out over the sparse shrubbery far below.
The full moon illuminated the desert nicely, casting soft quicksilver glows. There was even a shadow from the airship, casting the desert into inky blackness wherever it went.
Surprisingly, it was cold. Hot during the day, but near freezing at night, as all deserts were. Shivering faintly, Raindrop looked left and right furtively, observing the different workers on the deck.
A pair of griffons were scrubbing at the deck of the large airship, washing it down to keep it rough and ensure there would be no slips. A third griffon was checking the lines connecting the ship to the balloon, one-by-one, and a fifth was steering the ship at the wheel. He was wearing a strange glowing green eyepiece, that looked like a telescope and an eyepatch put together.
Raindrop cast one furtive glance about, and then threw herself bodily over the side of the ship, wings spreading to catch the air. Immediately, the ship started to pass her, and she made no effort to catch up. Relatively, the airship was traveling very, very slowly. Estimating, Raindrop figured it was going only a third of her normal flight speed.
Giving a happy sigh, Raindrop settled into a gliding pattern behind the large airship, having to weave left and right as though drunk to keep from catching up. Occasional wingbeats lifted her to higher altitude, as it was the middle of the night and she couldn’t rely on thermals to help keep her aloft.
An hour of languid gliding later, and Raindrop caught back up with the airship, scrabbling back onto the deck, panting just faintly, her cheeks pink with exertion. Immediately, she caught sight of a griffon-shaped bundle of what appeared to be rags and newspaper, curled up against one edge of a structure holding spare ropes.
Raindrop could see the bundle rising and falling slowly. Frowning, she stepped forwards and lightly nudged the bundle.
Immediately, the bundle uncurled, and Wisp tumbled out clumsily, her right paw, encased in the heavy metal limb, thunking down on the deck. “Wha?! I’m up!”
Raindrop blinked once, head tilting to the left. “Wisp?”
“Whu?” Wisp asked uncertainly, rubbing her eyes with her good paw, her good wing giving a little uncertain flutter. “Raindrop?”
Raindrop stared down at the diminutive griffon, her head tilting slowly. “Why are you… sleeping up here on the deck?”
“What are you doing up here?” Wisp asked defensively, pulling her blanket tight around her shoulders, the brace on her wings clicking faintly.
“I needed to err… clear my head a little bit,” Raindrop explained, kicking a hoof nervously. “But why are you sleeping up on the deck?”
Wisp looked away, her nares flushing faintly. “I… I errr don’t really have a room belowdecks. Not enough room,” she said with an earnest nod.
Raindrop’s eyes narrowed slowly. “I passed several vacant rooms.”
“W-well we could pick up more passengers and they would need the rooms, and wouldn’t want the smell of griffon all through the room,” Wisp explained further.
“And the rest of the crew? Do they sleep on the deck?” Raindrop asked suspiciously.
Wisp paused, opening her beak, before closing it and frowning deeply, shaking her head. “No. No they don’t.”
“So why are you sleeping up here in the open?” Raindrop asked, giving a faint shiver and flexing her wings as a cool breeze ruffled her feathers.
“Because I’m a pygmy griffon and no one likes me,” Wisp admitted with a long sigh, before shrugged her shoulders, producing a clicking sound from the wing covered in the spindly struts.
Wisp’s ears perked up, and then laid flat. “Are you… are you making a pass at me?”
Raindrop jerked backwards, eyes widening. “I have a fiance!”
“But it’s an arranged marriage,” Wisp said with an earnest nod.
Raindrop nodded jerkily. “Well… yeah. But my other fiance is a guy, too!”
“So… you were going to be married to this other stallion and then got stuck in an arranged marriage?” Wisp asked, her tone disgusted.
Raindrop nodded, ignoring the twinge of guilt she felt at lying to the griffon.
“That’s disgusting!” Wisp said, brow furrowing deeply.
“So… you gonna come sleep where it’s nice and warm?” Raindrop queried, an ear perking.
Wisp gave a slightly strained smile. “It… it really won’t be any trouble?”
Raindrop shook her head, offering her hoof to the diminutive griffon. “And hey, if you’re there, Sentinel won’t dare make a pass at me.”
Raindrop pushed open the door to the room, stepping inside and making room for Wisp to shuffle in. The small griffon immediately sidestepped to one side of the room, and laid down in a corner, grasping her blanket tight about herself.
Frowning, Raindrop shook her head, motioning towards the bed. “Come on, you can sleep up here with me, provided you don’t take up all the bed.”
Wisp lifted her head at that, her ears splaying back flat and a faint flare of pink tingeing her cheeks. “B-but… N-no I’m fine down here!”
Raindrop blinked once, confused, before slowly cottoning on. She snorted once, and then waved a hoof firmly. “I had a fiance back home!” she rebuked, “I’m not making a pass at you.”
The young griffon frowned slightly at that, uncurling a little, before rising to her paws and tentatively stepping closer to the bed. “No funny business?”
“I won’t even tell any jokes,” Raindrop said, patting the bed lightly with a hoof.
Wisp nodded to herself, and then leapt up onto the bed ungainly, heavy metal forepaw thudding down on it. Raindrop automatically recoiled, rather bothered by the thought of the claws coming down with such weight behind them.
Spinning in a circle in a very feline fashion, Wisp kneaded at the bed with her good paw, and then flopped down on her right side, resting her encased forelimb on the bed and crossing her other paw over it, and then resting her chin upon both.
Raindrop smiled faintly, lifting the edge of a blanket and then throwing it over the young griffon, before she rolled away from the other female and stretched out lazily, pulling her own blanket up around her shoulders.
Frowning slightly, Raindrop cast her gaze towards the floor. Sentinel wasn’t there.
The door opened, and Raindrop tilted to peer back over her shoulder, before giving a long-suffering sigh as Sentinel entered.
Sentinel stretched languidly, giving a faint yawn. “Nothing like a good drink… uhm, Raindrop? Are you aware that there is a griffon on the end of your bed?”
“My name is Wisp,” the griffon corrected, lifting her head to scowl at him. “I don’t like you.”
Sentinel looked thoughtful for a moment, before he shrugged. “Yeah, I’m cool with that.” Without another word, he ambled over to the wall and then settled himself up under a thin blanket, resting his chin on a bag and closing his eyes.
“You followed me, didn’t you?” Raindrop asked bluntly.
“Indeed?” Sentinel asked, perking an ear upwards. “Is that a problem?”
“Hoping I’d fly away?” Raindrop accused.
“I could do with the exercise, and there’s nothing quite like chasing live prey, you know,” Sentinel responded dryly.
Raindrop snorted once, scowling and then curling up, chewing on one of her hooves angrily.
Wisp frowned, lifting a hoof to reach out and comfort the pegasus, before thinking better of it. “Why do you have to be so mean to her?” Wisp asked, her eyes narrowing at the stallion. “Isn’t it bad enough that she’s stuck with you?”
“If I was pleasant and nice, then it wouldn’t be such a chore, would it?” Sentinel asked with an eerie smile.
Wisp scowled and clicked her beak. “You treat her nice or I’m going to clip your wings,” she threatened, lifting her metal-encased paw tellingly.
Sentinel arched an eyebrow at that, and then gave a faint smirk. “I welcome the challenge, little one.”
The morning light disturbed Raindrop, and she jerked awake, squinting heavily and clumsily lifting her hooves to block out the light streaming across the bed. She gave an exasperated sigh, laying her hoof over her face.
“Wakey wakey!” Sentinel said cheerily, stepping back from the curtain he had just opened. “It’s nearly Six AM, and as your friendly neighborhood half-hybrid, half-junkyard roommate decided that my face roughly resembled something that should be stepped on as part of her pre-work ritual, I’m going to be spending the new few hours torturing you! Now rise and shine, Raindrop, you’ve got a long, painful morning ahead of you.”
“This rant brought to you by the ‘see if I even give a damn foundation’,” Raindrop stated flatly, making a dismissive motion with her hoof. “I’m not a morning pony.”
Sentinel pondered on that for a long moment, frowning to himself. “Well… that is a very reasonable argument. I mean, what kind of pony would ruin another pony’s rest just to be vindictive?”
Raindrop’s ears perked slowly, and she shifted her hoof off her face to glare at him suspiciously.
With a shrug, Sentinel released the rope he was holding, sending the bucket suspended over the bed tilting over and a wave of water splashing over the prone pegasus.
Raindrop gasped in shock and outrage, immediately completely soaked to the core, sitting up and flailing a hoof to send the soggy blanket spilling onto the floor. “HOW DARE YOU!”
Sentinel shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, you see, it’s a simple pulley system, you get the pivot-point at the base of the buck-”
“-I’ll kill you!” Raindrop screeched, leaping off the bed and aiming a hard blow at the side of the stallion’s face.
Sentinel neatly sidestepped the blow, and just barely nudged Raindrop’s side with his hoof as she passed, sending the female off-balance just enough that she ran head-long into the wall.
Raindrop recoiled, stunned, seeing stars, before sitting down heavily on her rump and then crashing flat to the floor, giving a soft groan.
Sentinel winced. “My… that did look painful. You really should look where you’re going,” he remarked demurely. “Breakfast downstairs. You might wanna towel off though. You’re looking kind of wet.”
Without another word, Sentinel turned and headed for the door, smirking to himself as he stepped out into the hallway.
Raindrop scowled as she paced back and forth across the deck of the airship, squinting at the bright sunlight washing the deck in golden hues.
It had been a painfully long day, and the sun was setting on the horizon, slowly dipping down behind the ever-increasing amount of dunes. Raindrop was on the deck because she most definitely did not want to be anywhere that Sentinel was.
Her food had been salty, sugary, and watery. The bed was still wet. There was paint in her mane. Her face had been steam-blown. And each and every incident could be traced right back to Sentinel.
Raindrop would have thrown herself over the railing and flown into the desert if she wasn’t sure that Sentinel would already be waiting there with a picnic blanket all set up, holding a candle and a match wearing his best innocent smile.
Scowling, Raindrop kicked an errant cog overboard, watching it until it faded out of sight, presumably falling into the sands of the desert. Her gaze was drawn north, to where a misshapen huddle of buildings stood out against the rolling desert dunes. Palm trees sprung up from the centre of the group of buildings. An oasis in the desert.
The large turbine at the rear of the airship began to slow, and eventually came to a ponderous halt, leaving the airship to coast slowly towards the small town, losing altitude as it gracefully glided. In the distance to the north, Raindrop could see the jutting towers of mountains, sillhouetted against the pink of the sunset. Gryphus lay somewhere beyond them, in the arid wasteland of the desert mountains.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Sentinel asked idly.
Raindrop almost leapt out of her skin, baring her teeth and grimacing deeply. “You enjoy sneaking up on people, don’t you?”
“Do I?” Sentinel asked, arching a brow. “I think I just like making you jump. Oh, and knowing that you’re damn-near deaf and stupid when it comes to simple awareness makes my job a whole lot easier.”
“You’re not worried that some griffon will overhear us?” Raindrop asked flatly, peering at him over her shoulder.
“They’re all belowdecks getting ready to do cargo transfers. We’ll be staying in Featherfall tonight, while they service the airship,” Sentinel explained airily. “I suggest you go and pack your stuff. You know, if you can find it.”
Raindrop’s eyes narrowed slowly, and she scowled. “If you touched my luggage, I’m going to remove your wings.”
“Already did, and you’re welcome to try,” Sentinel said with a dismissive flick of a hoof, turning away from her and lifting his forehooves to rest on the railing, peering out at the buildings they were approaching.
“If you didn’t have wings…” Raindrop growled, hooves tensing and relaxing on the deck slowly.
“And if you weren’t part-changeling. And if you weren’t a weakling. And if you weren’t this and that and the other thing. They’re just excuses. If Princess Celestia wasn’t an alicorn I would fly up and move the sun across the sky with my bare hooves,” Sentinel stated bluntly. “Except she is and I can’t. So kindly go blow it out your ass.”
Raindrop’s eyes narrowed, and she bit her tongue until she tasted blood, contemplating charging the stallion and throwing him bodily over the side of the airship.
“You don’t have the balls,” Sentinel said idly, flicking some dust off the railing with a hoof, carefree.
Raindrop gave a cry of muted rage, turning in place and then stalking down towards the stairs.
The airship slid into dock smoothly, only the softest of whispers sounding out from the hull as it came to a halt in the soft, loose sand. Immediately, tow ropes were thrown over the edge of the airship, where various griffon workers were waiting to catch them, tying them down to keep the ship immobile.
A long wooden gangplank was extended from the deck of the airship, slanted sharply down to the ground, and within minutes, passengers were ambling down the sloped walkway and into the small stopover city.
Raindrop slowly walked down the plank, head lowered, subdued, biting her bottom lip, eyes slightly red, conspicuously not carrying any luggage.
Sentinel gave a faint yawn, laying at the bottom of the ramp with his chin resting on his bag, with Raindrop’s own bag sitting next to his.
Raindrop looked up, her expression darkening, cheeks tightening. She stalked towards him, whispering, “I hate you, I hate you… I really, really hate you,” under her breath.
“I didn’t tell you that I picked up your bag? Sorry!” Sentinel chirped, giving her a winning smile. “I hope you didn’t obsess about it too much.”
Scowling deeply, Raindrop snatched her bag up, and then stalked past the stallion, refusing to look at him, joining with the crowd heading down towards the hotel, literally the largest building in the entire area.
The giant, four-tier building stood on the main street, a short distance from the airship dock, with banners hung from every one of its balconies, and torches burning merrily in sconces in the fading light of the sunset.
Raindrop didn’t even bother waiting for Sentinel, pushing her way through the crowd and forging ahead, heading straight for the front desk. She walked briskly through the reception, and then slapped her back down on the counter, causing the griffon receptionist to look up in surprise.
“A room for one, please.”