//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Eruption // Story: The Last Migration // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Daughter of Wintergreen’s deck was packed with ponies, as all fifty of the crew jostled for the best places to watch the eruption. Of course, few of them seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to be watching. A few seemed to think Scythia itself might be about to explode, as though the griffons had built their city directly atop the volcano without noticing. The quarterdeck where Starlight Glimmer stood was not so busy, since it had been reserved particularly for their illustrious passengers. Captain Sails was here, along with Sure Heading, who was serving as Starlight’s assistant for this mission. Other than the three of them, the others here were all griffons. Starlight Glimmer was not a scientific pony, but she still felt proud of the camera apparatus that Twilight had entrusted her, and that she had managed to set up in time for the event without any real difficulty. The assembly was fairly large—a mixture of metal and glowing enchanted crystal that drew in a length of silvery tape when it was working. Starlight didn’t know how it worked, somehow it could be used to capture moving images. It’s amazing how much ponies came up with while I was living in Our Town. She didn’t have much more in the way of sensors—much to Twilight Sparkle’s chagrin. But this event was more a humanitarian mission than a scientific one. The ponies back home would have to make do with what they could learn from this one angle. The griffon queen had brought her own instrument, and had even taken the very best spot on deck to set it up. How they had flown it all the way here Starlight couldn’t guess—it was four times the size of the Equestrian camera, and constantly belched a smell not unlike their airships. But the purpose seemed to be similar, at least from the large reels that constantly spun and gathered tape. Unlike the Equestrian camera, the birds apparently had enough tape to spare that they could just run it as long as they wanted, not wait for the moment of the eruption itself. The emperor had his own tools spread in front of him, though they were not on a table. There was a bright red cloth unrolled onto the deck, along with numerous ritual objects. A few of these registered to her magical senses as faintly enchanted, though she could not name the school or the spell that had created them. Gaius had not volunteered why he had brought them or what they were for, and so she hadn’t asked. Captain Sails had ordered chairs brought for them all, and there was a serving table with wine and the finest refreshments the Daughter of Wintergreen could offer. Nopony had touched them, not even Velar with his appreciation for exotic foods. “How much longer?” the griffon noble asked her, glancing curiously at the camera as he did so. “Your machine will tell you, yes?” His mother answered before Starlight could, her voice annoyed. “Any moment, Velar. We only know it will be before sundown. And there is some chance it won’t happen at all.” “Would that it could be so,” Gaius said. He sat beside the queen, wearing the strange black armor he had fought in all those months ago. It had no reflection in the sunlight, and no imprint on her magic senses. Starlight wouldn’t have been surprised if it didn’t show up on the camera recording, either. “I would lose the throne, certainly. Our family would be the laughing-stock of the entire world. But hundreds of thousands of birds would not be about to die.” “It is no fault of yours what the mad and the blind do to spend their lives,” the queen said quietly from beside him. “You warned every bird. You passed the strictest laws you could. You even killed Gabriel. Saving four clans in five is not so bad.” Starlight Glimmer felt something then—something strange, she couldn’t quite place. And the other ponies noticed it—conversation on the lower deck abruptly fell silent. The griffons kept talking, apparently oblivious. “Shame you didn’t let me duel Santiago as well, Father. Our new Accipio rising in Equestria would have been even better off with two of the worst clan lords gone instead of only one.” Something passed in front of the Daughter of Wintergreen, moving rapidly and filling the sky with shadow. The royal conversation was suddenly drowned out with the calls of millions of birds. Starlings, she was pretty sure, flying so dense that the deck briefly turned black. Their calls were loud enough to be heard over the idling engine, and a few of them even went sliding over the edges of the shield. It became visible for a few seconds as they struck, its glowing sections appearing only where needed and vanishing just as quickly. Starlight Glimmer lacked any talent for animals, but even she could hear their terror, their desperation. And she could feel it too. She was trapped up here, they needed to get away! What did it matter if they made recordings of the eruption if they died in it? Captain Sails was apparently thinking something similar. He rested one hoof on the navigation. It looked for a moment as though he might be about to steer them away—but no. A few moments later and he set down his hoof, and he hurried over to Starlight. “Are you sure your defenses will be enough?!” he shouted over the flock of birds, which had finally stated to clear from in front of them. Their squeaks and calls still made it difficult to hear anything else, though. “You’re certain the spell will hold?” “It will hold!” Starlight Glimmer shouted back. “So long as we start moving as soon as we see ash. We could even take a direct hit from a chunk of pyroclastic material, if we’re very unlucky! Just make sure nobody flies out of the shield, because once they do, they won’t be able to get back!” “The birds waited until now?” Velar’s voice, coming from behind her again. Between her and her instruments, which was just a tad frustrating. “Why did they pick now?” “They can feel it,” Starlight said, not having to yell as the birdsong quieted around them. There were other distant flocks further away from the ship, and the blur of more activity as well. On the ground, other animals were running away. She could see their small shapes moving away from the city—rats, dogs, a few ponies. They didn’t stand a chance. “Can’t you?” “I feel… regret,” Velar said. “That we won’t be able to save everyone. Is that what the birds are feeling?” “No,” Starlight sighed, but she didn’t know how else to explain. She no longer had to. There was a distant flash of light from the port side of the ship, exactly where she had been aiming. Velar’s bulk was between her and the camera, but Sure Heading was already standing beside it. Her simple instructions had just been to switch the thing on “as soon as anything happened.” That would have to do. The shield on the port side of the ship came abruptly to life, glowing brilliantly blue as the sound of roaring air rolled over them like a wave. All around them, thousands of birds were ripped to pieces, dropping to the ground like rain. Starlight Glimmer didn’t even have time for horror as the eruption itself began. The explosion of air was replaced with a deeper rumble, that shook her right to the chest even though the interior of the ship was protected. The flash of light was gone, though it had been replaced with a distant pillar of orange light, rising higher and higher. It was enormously far away, yet it still seemed as though it were reaching out from the atmosphere, towering higher than any cloud city. A single explosion lengthened until it sounded as though the planet itself was a lion, roaring in rage at those who had dared to build their civilization on its back. A visible wave passed through the ground far below them a second later, carrying with it the terrible crash of buildings to mingle into so many other awful noises. Starlight Glimmer imagined she could hear the screams of the birds who had stayed behind to loot it, though she was fairly certain their voices wouldn’t be loud enough to hear over so many other sounds. The sky in front of them was bright orange now, with distant blackness gathering behind. She could see a few streaks moving through the sky—by the calculations of Equestria’s engineers, this eruption would send at least a hundred cubic miles of material into the sky. What would not emerge as diffuse ash to destroy the climate would instead be raining down for hundreds of miles. She probably couldn’t hear the screams, but she did hear the emperor’s voice, quiet and solemn. He had his head bowed now in front of a bowl, where a few drops of blood seemed to be boiling away of their own accord. From the state of his foreleg, that was apparently their source. And the reason for the knife. But she couldn’t understand the language he spoke. Whatever it was sounded almost like music, and was solemn enough that all the other birds, even the guards, lowered their heads in respect. Velar glanced up briefly at her from the side, and that was all the invitation she needed to ask what she was thinking. And besides, it wasn’t as though the emperor would hear her over the terrible noise. “What is your father doing?” Her guess was apparently correct—Velar didn’t sound angry as he responded. “The emperor is also our high priest. It’s a prayer for the dead. To guide the passing to rebirth and greater strength in their next life. A lesser priest could handle something smaller—a soldier on the battlefield, or a sinking ship. But the death of the world requires someone with more authority.” Every time Starlight thought she understood the birds, they did something else that confused her. But academic questions were a little beyond her concern right now. The distant orange far away was being gradually subsumed by rapidly approaching clouds, clouds so thick that they swallowed the land and everything in it. The ash and the debris were not here yet, but they would be soon. It seemed a shame to interrupt the prayer, however much Starlight was a materialist. “Captain, now would be a good time to leave. I would rather not put our shield to more of a test than necessary.” Weatherd Sails nodded once, and immediately took the helm. Any semblance of respect and quiet he might’ve been showing for the birds’ strange ritual faded. The thaumic impeller engine did not make any noise as it activated, but it did charge the whole ship with a sense of energy, like lightning about to strike. The deck under their hooves began to shake, and the Daughter of Wintergreen put its aft to the end of the world. Starlight Glimmer made her way to the camera, gently pivoting it on the tripod so that it faced behind them. There were no sails to get in the way, though plenty of the connections to the gasbag high above would block the picture. That was the last of their worries, just now. At least we didn’t have to be close enough to see the lava swallowing everything. There were a few cities that were. Thinking about that made her wish she believed in a god after all, so that she could have some hope those stubborn birds might have another shot. The cloud was catching up to them. The speed the ash must have been going boggled the mind—yet still it came, darkening the sky to a greater and greater degree. A huge fragment of stone smashed into the side of the shield, sending them swerving to the right. The Daughter of Wintergreen shook so hard that the camera nearly fell over—the griffon’s instrument actually did fall over, smashing to the deck and exploding into a mess of uneven parts. Starlight was quicker on the magic with her own, and she managed to hold it steady for a little while longer. Until the cloud of ash swallowed the ship completely, leaving them in almost total darkness. “So dies Accipio,” said the emperor’s voice, low and solemn in the gloom. “May its memory survive in our minds long enough to see it reborn one day.” Starlight knew it had not died—not yet. Those living in the outermost cities would not be exploded, or suffocated with poison gas. They might have as much as a foot of ash rained on them though, killing everything that grew, killing all who didn’t have masks or magic to protect their lungs. And those that lived through that would get the hunger and disease. Would anything of clan Vanquish survive the catastrophe? She didn’t think so. And they’re not the ones I should be worried about. Equestria is the one that has to endure now. Through the cold, through the ash, and with a predator riding our back.