This might become a story · 8:54pm Jul 25th, 2013
In any case, I couldn't get this scene out of my head, so I had to write it down. I've also made an attempt to make my prose more ornate than I usually do. Here you go:
The nameless airship creaked, trembled, and then bucked, sending salt, sand, and fragments of metal skittering across the deck. The engines, normally roaring, now simply growled, pathetic and fitful. Hooves steady against the motion, the captain looked out over the railing at the front of the ship. The desert below was dirty white; where it caught the sun, blindingly so. The captain squinted, brought a phial of water to his cracked lips and sipped. He savoured it for as long as he could until temptation overcame will, and he swallowed.
They flew over a desert of salt, and the air was even dryer than it had been when they were over sand and molten rock. The ship had run out of coal two days ago and now they powered the engines with sunlight alone. It was slow and inefficient, and, worst of all, they would soon be out of water too if they did not find any salvage. It was time to send out gliders and pegasi, assign scouts to a likely futile and lethal task, and hope one of them would return with good news.
The captain sighed and turned from the brutal, gleaming vista. He trudged back across the deck, metal of shoes and deck together clanking and squeaking. Upon return to his cabin, with a careless sweep of a hoof, he knocked his visor to the desk. There was a silhouette visible through the primary door; his first potential scout. The captain sunk onto the frayed cushion behind the desk and summoned surliness to mask worry.
"Come!"
The summoned pony pushed open the door and stepped inside. She was a unicorn. That meant she'd need a glider. On the upside, that would give her a greater range. At first the captain thought she was spectacularly unsuited to the job – any job out here, really – but when she had taken a few steps it was evident he had misjudged her. She was young and slender, but had a wiry strength about her. Dark scorch marks marred her white coat; a stokehold worker, then, useless there until they found fuel and thus a perfect candidate for scouting. Her cutie mark did not match any job to be found aboard the airship, but that was not surprising. Nopony's destiny lay in living out here – well, except Muttershanks, but the captain preferred not the think about her – and all had tales of lurid drama the captain didn't care to hear that led them away from a comfortable life in Equestria.
The captain retrieved a sheet of paper and a pencil from the desk's drawer. "Name?"
"Sweetie Belle, sir."
