“You know,” said Shadow “This is probably almost as crazy as anything we’ve ever done right?”
“Yeah,” said Lightning “I think we established that.”
“And I’m probably beating a dead human, but I’m guessing you know that this is probably your very last chance to leave?”
Lightning giggled “I don’t think I would’ve been interested if you weren’t planning something stupid and crazy at the same time,” she said “At this point there’s no turning back.”
“Are you sure?” Iris stammered.
Light, Shadow, Charm, and Iris were on a precarious overhanging tree sprouting out of the mountainside, almost as though they were ornaments festooning a Hearth’s Warming tree. Their progress to this point had been systematic, short flights via the grip of Shadow from the nearest available cliff. Their next leap, however, would be one of peril, one more accurately, blatant insanity. As the wind precariously rocked the little plant the three earthbound of the group found themselves clinging to the branches in desperation.
“Is it coming soon?” Lightning shouted in Charm’s direction “I’m not sure how much longer this derpy little tree is going to hold all of us!”
Taking the hint, Shadow lifted himself into a somewhat stationary position in the air, bobbing with the beat of his wings “The soil’s all loose by the roots,” he said “She’s right, we don’t have a lot of time, when is it going to be here?”
“Soon!” Charm shouted to them “Just, shut up and don’t move alright? We’ve got this!”
Almost as if fated to contradict this statement the tree made a ricketing snap and fell several inches. Iris screamed, Lightning fixed Charm with a wide-eyed stare. Shadow looked to the slender trunk, feeling trepidation rise as he noticed the split in the bark.
“Are you absolutely sure?” he asked Charm “Because if not we need to get back on the mountain, fast.”
“I told you, I’m sure!” said Charm “I saw the whole schedule before we left!” despite her bravado, she seemed to be trying to shift back towards the trunk. “Any second now, I swear!”
Shadow was ready to pull the retreat when exactly what the group had been waiting for crested the mountainside. It was the tapered fin of one of Canterlot’s famous airships, and a truly massive one at that. The balloon itself was a striped purple crossed with intermittent streaks of white with a fin that dominated the rear, apparently to steer. The boat beneath looked like a full cruise liner of solid wood, like a galleon in the sky. The deck was loaded with huge shipping crates, each looking capable of holding a small herd, truly illustrating the exceptional girth of the aircraft.
“Buck me…” said Lightning in silent awe “That is a boat.”
The tree released another high-pitched creak and lowered an inch, sending a cascade of grit to tumble down the mountainside as the roots were pulled into view. Iris whimpered, Shadow panicked.
“Alright, we’re going, Iris first,” he said, gliding down to her branch “Charm, you think you can do something to keep this thing up a little longer?”
“I’m no good with kinetic magic!” Charm shouted, her expression uncertain. Still, she gave it her level best, a yellow nimbus of light enveloping both her horn and the base of the little tree “Work fast, Shadow, this isn’t going to hold much longer!”
Shadow nodded, prodding gently at Iris, who seemed uninterested in releasing the only solid tether she had to reality “Come on!” Shadow exclaimed “We need to go, now!”
As the tree dropped another inch, tilted towards the ground now, Iris finally let herself be gripped and pulled into the air. It was a strain to carry the full weight of a pony, but nothing he hadn’t dealt with and more in meteor hunting. He crossed the dozen or so yards of open sky to the deck of the ship, trying to keep as out of sight as he could before making an unsteady landing between two of the huge crates.
“Thank you…” Iris murmured, pawing at the deck to get her bearings “H-hurry up, there’s still the other two!”
“Stay out of sight,” Shadow hissed in response, turning on a dime “If you hear anyone, just, hide, I’ll be back soon!” His heart sank at the sight of the tree, tilted even further, clear even from this distance.
When he got back to the tree Charm was sweating from exhaustion, eyes screwed up tight in the effort of keeping the last few trees roots anchored in the mountainside. He moved over to Lightning, who was clutching at the base, only to be swatted away.
“Get Charm!” she shouted “She can’t keep that up much longer, she’s gonna pass out!”
“She’s all that’s holding the tree in!” Shadow snapped back “It’s going to fall any second, we’ve got a better chance if-“
“Shut up!” Lightning shouted “We don’t have time to argue about this, get Charm, I’ll be alright!”
Well, no arguing with that. “You’re really, really annoying.” Said Shadow, perching near Charm and grasping her around the middle “You better be right about this, you understand? I’ll go as fast as I can but-“
“It’s a promise!” Lightning shouted, wincing as the whole tree swayed out of the release of Charm’s magic “Hurry up!”
Shadow took off at the quickest pace he could muster, but even at his best the secondary weight was holding him down immensely. Charm seemed to have gone limp in his grasp, he wasn’t even sure she was conscious, but what mattered now was getting her to the ship to join with Iris while holding onto enough time to catch Light. The struggle was very real, and keeping the fast pace left him breathless by the time he got back to Iris’ hiding spot.
“Are you okay?” Iris asked as Charm stumbled from Shadows grip “You’re breathing so heavy, you sound exhausted…”
“Something like that,” Shadow panted “No time, get her back on her hooves, I have to go back.”
“Go, quick,” Charm gasped “Seriously, that thing is about to go…”
Shadow would’ve snapped something along the lines of ‘I know damnit’ but he was already turned around and flapping his wings as fast as he could get them to move. The distant plant shook, twisted in the air, still dangling by those precious few roots as he focused his entire energy on reaching that point before the unthinkable.
And then he didn’t have to think about it, the horrific event was unfolding right before his very eyes. He was still too far off to hope to do anything. The last root came free and that tree on the cliff-face fell into open air, crashing down the jagged rocks over itself on its way down into the seemingly endless void beneath.
“Lightning!” Shadow’s voice cracked into a high pitched wail as he dove, too slow, after the plant. He already knew he’d missed his chance. His wings slowed, his flight evened towards the cliff, and entering a slow quiet glide, he bumped gently against the cliffside. His stomach dropped out, going numb against the side of the rock as he willed himself to not look down. He’d been too slow, too damn slow… and now-
“Hey numbskull!” a voice emanated from somewhere below “I can’t hold on much longer!”
Shadow’s eyes shot open, detaching from the rock wall to see Lightning, clinging just as he had been, to a tiny hold on the cliff’s face. He almost laughed, the sensation of catastrophic failure turning to almost immediate elation as he lowered to grab her by the hooves and haul her up, not without a short grumble of discomfort from the saved.
“Well we can put the near-death experience counter for this trip at a solid one,” said Lightning “Looks like it’s your sort of plan alright…”
“Yeah, except now you actually weigh about as much as a meteor,” said Shadow “Try not to do that to me alright? I think we got enough crazy in our systems back then.”
“If you weren’t all that was keeping me alive right now I’d kill you,” said Lightning, squirming as they approached the ship “But… thanks. That could’ve been a whole lot worse…”
“I suppose you never said that?” asked Shadow.
“Damn straight,” said Lightning.
When they made the final touch-down back behind the tall crates the duo received an enthusiastic reception. Lightning was hardly five seconds out of Shadow’s grip before she was ensnared in Charm’s. The poor unicorn looked as though she were on the verge of a meltdown.
“I thought you were dead…” Charm mumbled into Lightning’s neck “Celestia, filly, don’t you ever do that to me again…”
“No promises…” said Lightning, returning the hug as best she could. She couldn’t help but notice an eyebrow wiggle from Shadow which she promptly ignored “I get the feeling it’s kind of just going to get more dangerous.”
Shadow took on a more serious expression at this comment “Right away too,” he said “I mean, now we’re stowaways, you know they have all sorts of… unboarding things for getting rid of ponies like us.”
“I think they’re just rumors…” Charm’s uncertain tone made her reassurance seem somehow false as she detached herself from the hug, “I mean, they can’t actually… kill ponies right? If you threw someone off a ship like this…?”
“There aren’t a lot of ponies out here,” said Iris, prompting confused expressions from all present “The strongest vibrations are the ones from the engine, and that’s down at the bottom, probably. Any walking would be just a little bit stronger if they were on the same level as us.”
“That… makes sense.” Said Lightning, somewhere between awed and begrudging in her tone “But then what are they all doing? I mean the captain would be steering but there’s a crew too right?”
“Oh I could tell you that,” said Charm “It’s a cargo ship, that’s why we chose it, meaning the crew isn’t really there for much other than loading and unloading these crates here. Keep in mind we are in the air, which means they don’t exactly need an active guard like you’d have on a building. The crew’s probably all downstairs playing cards or something, I bet they don’t even know we’re here.”
“That’s… kind of the point,” said Shadow, ears flattening against his head “Don’t treat it like it’s no big deal though okay? Stealth is kind of a big issue.”
“What we have to do now,” said Lightning, trying to inject authority into the moment “Is figure out whether or not we should go below deck. It would probably be a little easier to hide, but like Charm said, everypony is probably down there.”
Three sets of eyes turned to Shadow, or two towards him and one vaguely in his direction. “Hey, why me?” he asked, feeling a flush creep up his neck.
“You’re kind of the plan guy,” said Charm “I mean, this whole idiot thing was your idea from the get-go, and so was this insane mode of transport. You’ve known what you’re doing so far, so what’s next?”
“I just liked the idea of flying,” he said, trying to look away, then back to his friends, as though trying to find some way around the question “Look, just, what does everyone want to do…?”
Lightning groaned “Come on flyboy,” she said “Let’s go below, it’s windy out here…”
Charm shrugged and followed Lightning across the wide deck towards the hull, inlaid in which was a two-pony wide wooden door. Shadow felt a little sheepish as he followed a good few paces behind, Iris opting to keep pace.
“That was pretty lame,” Shadow broke the ice as they passed the doorway, all but losing the front group but for the sounds of their footsteps as they descended further into the behemoth ship “I shouldn’t be so much of a fluke…”
“Well…” Iris was torn between honesty and sparing her friend’s feelings “It didn’t seem a lot like you I guess?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shadow asked.
“Well…” said Iris “You were really gung-ho… did I say that right? Never mind, but, you used to be really impulsive, and you always thought about things really fast. I remember you didn’t have any problem in getting in other people’s way but you did have good… snap choices? Oh, and some not some good ones, but I think that waiting for the right answer to a question like that isn’t… well… like you?”
Shadow shrugged “I was six,” he said “Crazy stupid decisions go with that doesn’t it?”
“Well…” said Iris “Not if you can’t make decisions at all anymore…”
“You’re overthinking this…” said Shadow, ignoring the fact that he had been the one to present the topic in the first place “How old are you anyway? I don’t think that’s ever actually like, come up. I mean you’re a lot short-“
“Twelve,” said Iris “My birthday is in October, so I’m more than a year older than you are…”
“Oh,” said Shadow, feeling snubbed.
“Where are we going?” asked Iris “I think we might’ve lost the other two, I can barely hear them anymore…”
Almost on cue Shadow caught the sound of a voice, specifically Lightning’s, but it wasn’t coming from down the hall, it was coming from a wooden door on the end of their corridor. Iris had apparently already noticed it, taking a few quick steps closer to stand against the frame.
“Why aren’t we going in…?” Shadow asked.
Iris tried to fix him with an impetuous gaze, missed, and delivered her glare to the wall behind him. “You’d miss an opportunity to find out what those two talk about when they think we leave them alone?” she asked “I mean, they had to have gone in there for some reason, they wouldn’t want to split up on purpose unless it was important, right? I’m going to find out what they don’t want us to hear…” she flushed before her next statement “They might even be… kissing…”
Shadow didn’t even have the capacity to be confused at this statement, he outright didn’t understand it. “I don’t know for sure about Charm,” he said “But, seriously, aren’t they both girls?”
“Yes they are both girls,” Iris snapped “Now will you shut up? I’m trying to listen!”
Shadow quieted, shocked by the uncharacteristic attitude of the little Zebra as she pressed her ear against the door, face screwed up in concentration. Occasionally she would look to the floor, or stifle a giggle, as though whatever dialogue was being discerned was as interesting as an evening soap. The Pegasus, missing the entirety of this, merely stared at her impatiently.
That is, until she tensed against the doorway, “Wait…” she said “There’s another voice in there, no way, that can’t be-“