Chapter 3
The Scorched Wings
"Why the desert?" Derpy mumbled to herself as the sun beat down upon her. "Why the desert in the middle of summer?"
Even high in the sky, where the temperature was significantly lower, she could not stop sweating. She had brought plenty of water, but the sun had warmed it enough that even though it restored what moisture her body lost through perspiration, it did little to refresh her.
Below her, the San Palomino desert stretched out to the horizon. Its surface was hard, cracked, and thirsty, full of high buttes and mesas that flung themselves upward to plateaus of sparse sagebrush and the occasional small, round cactus. This, at the very least, provided pretty scenery for her to enjoy, but even that soon gave way to an endless sea of flat, shimmering sand.
The place was more wretched and uninhabitable than even the lands of Queen Chrysalis had been, but she was fairly certain she was headed in the right direction, at least.
She could not guess who might live out here to even receive a package, and the return address of the box had read only "The Scorched Wings, San Palomino Desert, followed by coordinates given in latitude and longitude. How whoever had sent this to Rarity had even managed to mail it to her was a total mystery, but "return service requested," meant "return service obliged" to the EPS, even if the return address was on the other side of a lifeless desert.
Derpy powered herself onward over the sand, stopping to hover occasionally and check her location on a map. She had, in the course of her training as an EPS delivery pony, been taught how to use the compass, the sextant, the astrolabe, and several other navigational instruments for deliveries to out-of-the way places with no formal address, but she had not actually had to use such instruments in all her years with the organization. This, of course, had precisely the effect that Derpy had anticipated, all along: she became hopelessly lost.
"Hate my job," she sighed. "Didn't I have a better idea than this, at some point? I mean, my cutie mark is bubbles, for crying out loud! I could literally do, like... anything."
She strained her mind for a moment, trying to recall what it was she had wanted to do as a filly, but it escaped her.
"Well," she said, looking up over her map as she hovered over a small patch of sand dunes, "It could be worse. At least I brought plenty of water... and I can always just ride the jet stream back east to get to someplace where I can probably find some more, but..."
And then, a stroke of luck: Near the horizon, she caught sight of movement.
"Maybe somepony that knows where I am?" she asked herself aloud. "Might as well find out."
She flew towards the tiny, moving speck, and as she approached, it began to distinguish itself as several tiny, moving specks. Then, as she grew even closer, the specks became distinguished as the forms of quite an unusual party of travelers.
There was a camel, a zebra, a donkey, and a griffon. All were heavily laden with many bags, which led Derpy to believe they must be traders of some kind. As she approached, the camel waved to her, and she waved back.
At last, some good luck for a change, she thought, and she spiraled slowly downward, landing beside the group.
"Hello, traveler!" said the Camel, smiling broadly. He was bearded, had several gold teeth, and wore an outfit typical of his desert race: A Keffiyeh and a white tunic to reflect the sun's rays and keep him cool.
"Well, hello," said Derpy. "I'm Derpy Hooves with the EPS."
"And I am Steve!" said the Camel.
"Steve?" asked Derpy, blinking twice.
"My camel name is all but impossible for most ponies to pronounce," said Steve.
"So you went with 'Steve?'" she asked, her voice thick with disbelief.
"Yes," he said, and these three are Will, Chet, and Fran," he said, indicating the donkey, the zebra, and lastly the griffon.
"Uh-huh," said Derpy, not even attempting to hide her confusion.
"Yeah, we all made up our own handles as whatcha m'call a... solidarity thang," said Will, the donkey, with a twangy, hayseed accent that would have made Applejack blush. "Y'see, us four are known all 'round these parts as..."
And the four dove together, making a dynamic posed tableau, and shouted in unison:
"THE MULTICULTURAL TRADER TRIO!!"
And with that, The griffon stood up from her position at the back of the group, and pointed both of her index claws at Derpy.
"Plus Fran!" she said.
"Fran came on late in the operation," said Steve, "and we'd already worked out the whole bit. We tried going with 'trader quartet,' for a little while, but it had such a terrible ring to it."
"Right," said Derpy. "I'm... uh... looking for a place called the Scorched Wings."
"Scorch-ed." said Chet, the zebra. "Not 'scorcht'"
"Excuse me?" said Derpy.
"It's more poetic to say it thus," said Chet. "And if you go there, you must be nuts."
"Was that supposed to be a rhyme?" asked Derpy.
"I grade myself on a curve," said Chet. "It's easier on my nerve...s"
"Chet feels like it's kinda dis unfair steereatype that he hasta speak in rhymes," said Fran, her voice thick with a Manehattan accent. "But he can do it wheneva he really wantsta. It makes him seem more authentic and whatnot for da customahs."
"Yeah, I'm actually from Philly," said Chet. "I mean, my parents used to speak in rhyme, but I think it's a waste of..." He caught himself, and thought for a moment. "Brain power," he finally said.
"Seriously, though, girl," said Fran, stepping forward. "Ya don't just go to the Scorched Wings. The ponies and camels and whatnot what live out heah don't even go theyah. Dat place is kinda... It's, like, sacred or cursed or haunted or... somethin.' The stories are all, ya know, different... But you wandah 'round the little towns out heah in the desert, and you heah plenty of 'em."
"You know," said Derpy, "there's really nothing about anything you just said that I wasn't just sort of already expecting. And I have to go there; I have a package that has to go to somepony that lives there."
"Ain't Nawpony lives at the Scorchid Wangs," said Will. "You sure somepony ain't yankin' yer chain?"
"I gotta at least go there and check," said Derpy. "It's my job."
"Well, I s'pose we could tell ya the ol' nursery rhyme," said Will, and all eyes turned to Chet.
"Really?" he said, incredulously. "Just 'cause it's a rhyme, the zebra has to lay it down? That's whack, y'all."
"Just do it, Chet," said Steve. "I don't like this Keffiyeh, either, but I wear it, anyway. And do you know how hard it is to put in these hokey gold teeth every morning?"
"Yeah," said Will, his voice suddenly articulate and concise, "and this really wasn't the way I saw myself using a Master's in Equestrian Lit, either."
Chet huffed, and looked at the griffon.
"Gonna get your word in, now, Fran?"
"Nah, I like griffon steereatypes," she said, and the trader trio gave her a hard look.
"Griffons're cool," she shrugged. "I mean, we just ah."
Never mind that Fran sounded like none of the few Griffons Derpy had ever met; the pegasus did not have time for this.
"Um, I really need to get moving," she said.
"Fine, y'all" said Chet, and he turned and stared into the west, his gaze intensifying. "I got this."
And with that, Chet threw out a hoof to the horizon, and began, in a booming voice, to "lay down," as he had put it, the most gallant, sincere recitation of poetry that Derpy had ever heard or witnessed.
In the west where all is sand,
An ancient and forbidden land,
There rises where the sun shines bright
A pair of wings which once were white
Blackened now by ancient fire
A legacy of cruel desire
Below them lies a secret tomb
Accursed is that place of doom
Never shall one cross its door
And see the light of day once more
For secrets lie there, best untold
Until, with time, these wings shall fold
The trader trio looked on in silent admiration of Chet's flawless recitation. The zebra took a deep breath, shook himself loose, and turned back to face them.
"Whadja think?" he asked the group.
"Absolutely flawless," said Will. "Perfect meter, every time, this guy," he said, gesturing towards the zebra while looking in Derpy's direction. "Gives me chills."
"Yeah, I don't much keeah fa' poetry," said Fran, "but I don't mind it s'much when it's coming outta you, Chet."
She batted her eyes, and Chet gave her a wide, toothy grin.
'Oh, I know baby," he said. "See, it ain't even a thing; the stripes teach you to sing."
"But that was a recitation," said Will. "Not a song."
Chet gave him a hard look.
"It was good!" said Will defensively.
"Donkey gonna ruin my moment every time," said Chet.
"Never mind the donkey," said Steve, nodding appreciatively. "Song or recitation, it was absolutely wonderful."
"Uh, guys," said Derpy.
"Yes, Ms. Hooves?" said Steve, looking her way.
"That rhyme doesn't tell me anything about where the place is, and now I'm just terrified to go there."
"Oh, yeah!" said Fran. "You wanna get to da Scorched Wings, just follow dis road heeah." She pointed down at what Derpy only now realized was a paved, brick road, thinly dusted with sand. "It'd take yas a day on hoof, but you'll make it in like three owwahs wingin' it."
"Thanks," said Derpy.
"Dimension it," said Fran. "Just watch for dese little mahkahs, heeah."
She stepped to the side and flicked with her claw a wooden marker she had been standing directly in front of. It was as simple, wooden stake driven into the ground, with its top painted what had probably once been bright red, but had dulled to pink with the battering of the sun. Derpy glanced left, and realized that there was long line of such markers, spaced several yards apart, each, leading off towards the west.
"Dey put 'em down to help yas keep da road if a sandsto'am covahs it up."
"Well," said Steve. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Derpy Hooves, but you have your business, and we have ours! Good day!"
With that, the Multicultural Trader Trio plus Fran turned, and headed off down the path towards the next stop on their trade route.
"That was weird," said Derpy, and she scratched at the side of her face with a hoof.
"You know, they don't have a pony in their group," she said. "That's kinda wrong."
Derpy followed the markers as she flew westward, and what came into view after Fran's promised three hours almost made her drop the muffin she'd been munching on for the last few minutes.
"Wha... Huh!? How... Like WHOA!?" was all she could muster.
It had been a Pegasus city, once, larger even than Cloudsdale. It was now spread over many miles of the desert landscape, parts of it floating at uneven altitudes all throughout the sky, supported on bits of cloud that must have been woven together by pegasi with skills that would defy the imagination of Derpy's modern kin. All of Cloudsdale would drift apart and dissipate completely without constant maintenance, but these ruins, by the look of their architecture, must have been thousands of years old. Still, time had not left them unscathed.
There were many damaged columns, cracked and separated, floating at angles they were never meant to occupy. There were what must have once been huge dwellings and places of business that were now bent to the point of breaking. There were buildings of government with fallen and half-vaporized cloud domes. There were places of commerce, also, these with their ornate signage long illegible, and fallen into ruin. All of these things floated there, some more or less whole, and others shredded to chunks of stone-shaped vapor that hung limp in the dry desert air, anchored in place by the remnants of ancient magic that would one day fail, allowing them drift into wisps of cloud that would be quickly evaporated by Celestia's great light, off so far away in the cosmos.
Most strikingly, though, all shared one thing in common: They were black. It was not the black of dark storm clouds, either, but the filthy, sooty, and very opaque black of a cloud of smoke. Every single building in sight was polluted with it, so that all were uneven, sooty shades of dark grays and blacks, with only a little white left to be seen, here and there.
Above it all, there rose a pair of towering wings, these polluted so thoroughly that they seemed less like cloud and more as if they had been painted onto the sky in pure tar.
They filled Derpy with such dread that she felt no greater urge than to stop, turn around, and fly home. Instead, she lit upon one of the least blackened patches of cloud she could find, and finished her muffin, craning her neck around to take in the scene of desolation that lay before her. She did not want to go any further, but she knew that she must. First, though, a little water to quench her thirst and another muffin to give her courage were both in order.
After a drink from her canteen, She stuck her nose into her bag in search of something appropriately calming, and was surprised to notice the edge of a photograph sticking upward over the edge of an inside pocket.
She had forgotten to mail Twilight's parents the picture.
"Really, Derps?" she asked herself, but at the moment, it was far from her greatest concern.
She was, after all, sitting on the edge of a dead city of her own kin, and in her bag lay a mysterious box meant for somepony somewhere deep inside it.
"Probably right in the middle, beneath... those." she said, looking up at the enormous wings that dominated the wrecked skyline. "How is it I just don't know about places like this? Why doesn't anypony ever tell me these things?"
She dug out a muffin, and slowly picked it apart, nibbling at it bit by bit to stay her inevitable advance into this ancient, terrifying place. In the end, however, she finished it, and though she toyed with the idea of having another -- or three -- to further stave off her coming foray into the unknown, she finally shut her bag, stood up, and flew forward.