A handy benefit of Valey's cutie mark - very handy, her stomach reminded her - was that it allowed her to eat almost anything without fear of accidental food poisoning, poisoned food, or really bad gas. Bourbon's stew, she could presciently tell, wasn't doctored with anything that one would usually slip into an unsuspecting enemy's food, allowing her to dig in with abandon... which was good, because she was hungry and it was really good.
Starlight joined them, sitting lethargically and slurping from a bowl left on the ground, occasionally bumping the edge by mistake and causing the contents to slosh. Bourbon barely paid the filly any mind. Her eyes were fixed on Valey.
"Random weird observation," Valey said with her mouth full. "Hypothetically, if someone were to want me distracted and out of the action or away from my friends for any reason..." She swallowed, belching noisily. "This would be a really great way to go about it."
"Would that someone include yourself?" Bourbon asked back, sipping from her own bowl, which was held in a wing. "You did say you want to leave Ironridge, didn't you? There's a fight brewing in Blueleaf right now, not far away. I thought you'd want to stay clear of that. I do." She took another drink, large eyes showing over the rim of the bowl. "If you really want to get involved, be my guest."
"Yeah, okay, maybe bad idea." Valey set her own bowl down, polishing it one last time with her tongue. "What about my friends, though? See, the longer I'm away from them, the more chance there is of something happening I'm really not cool with..."
Bourbon nodded. "That depends. How likely are they to go to Blueleaf? If they're there, that's their own fault, and if not, there won't be many pegasi willing and able to catch them. Not if it's just a griffon carrying an earth pony."
"Mrmmff." Valey leaned back, reveling in the warmth of the meal and wishing she could ignore the need to return to action just a little longer. "Says you and your big fat mercenary brigade which could totally be waiting right around the corner."
"I'm trying to be nice!" Bourbon frowned. "If you don't trust me, that's... expectable, and maybe I should just go. If anyone has a right to be worried, though, it's me. You're not behaving like yourself at all. You're being far too pleasant. You haven't once done anything outlandish, or made any comments about how I look, or even acted rude beyond poor table manners. Especially if you don't trust me, that makes me think something is going on."
Valey's eyes widened. "I haven't? Argh. Sorry about that. Apparently switching teams seriously throws off your game with all this stuff. Uhh..." She squinted. "The way your legs-"
"That wasn't an invitation to start," Bourbon interrupted. "Look, if this is just going to be awkward for everyone, I'm leaving. All I wanted to do in the first place was patch you up, and I did that. Don't be too hard on yourself, physically. You might feel better and be able to move around, but you're still injured and won't be able to take nearly as much as a healthy mare. Try not to run yourself into the ground."
"Yeah, believe me, I'd rather avoid doing anything stupidly suicidal too." Valey got to her hooves, looking at Starlight, who was most of the way through her bowl, and flexed her wings. "Flying while carrying her better be fine. Don't tell me it isn't."
"That depends on how badly you hurt your wings," Bourbon sighed. "Which I don't know. I gave you general restoration, not local. Where are you going?"
"Blueleaf," Valey grunted.
That got Starlight's attention. "What? Why? Didn't she just say not to go there?"
"Yeah, probably." Valey shrugged. "First off, if Ironflanks and Birdo get back and we're missing, they're gonna assume trouble, so they'll head toward trouble to find us. At least Birdo will and she won't be able to stop him, even though it would be really smart to stay out and wait for me to return. And depending on how long I snoozed, that's probably already happened. Second, our local unhappy unicorn probably totally did head right there, so if we want to bail her out of whatever she's getting herself into, we give chase. I dunno if that's even worth it, but she's strong enough to be useful and it would be sort of great if she was on our side. Still, she's ditchable. And third, because Beer Butt here told us not to and I don't really trust her. Don't worry, we'll be sneaky about it."
"There it is..." Bourbon sighed, holding a wing over her face. "Look, I'm... going to regret asking this, but if your wings were hurt... I'm going to the skyport to meet up with my friends. Blueleaf is on the way. Do you want a ride?"
"A ride?" Valey's eyes grew massive, then narrowed. "Hold on, like, as in, fuzzy pegasus offers to carry me where I'm going, for free? With Starlight? You can lift us both?"
Bourbon snorted back. "I'm not a well-paid mercenary for nothing. I can manage two ponies."
"Starlight?" Valey raised an eyebrow at the unseeing filly. "Best deal of my life, or actually too good to be true? Because seriously you have no idea how much I want this right now."
"Too late," Bourbon deadpanned, spreading her wings and flapping away, abandoning the cooking implements on the roof. "I regret I asked!"
Valey snatched Starlight and leapt after her, wings pumping unevenly in a bid to keep up. "Hey, wait! I'll take it! I'll take iiiiit!"
Shortly before Valey came to...
With a majestic shimmer of pink magic, Shinespark's unnamed airship floated closer to a rooftop tower standing amid the watery remains of Sosa. The huge comet of energy hovering above it pierced the night like a laser, casting aside whatever ghostly illumination made the moonless world visible in the first place and replacing it with harmonic light. The ship shone like a star all across Ironridge, and Gerardo piloted it with a nervousness born of the knowledge that any curious pegasus could simply fly up for a look and he would be too short-staffed to do anything about it.
As it was, his lack of crew members presented an entirely different problem: he had left Valey and Starlight in the tower to take a nap, and had no free members to head in to wake them up.
The tower was too sheltered to establish line-of-sight; he couldn't actually see them. He had given up looking several minutes ago, holding the airship steady and taking to the manual on the terminal instead, browsing it hurriedly in search of an autopilot feature that could automatically anchor the ship in place and allow him to leave to check himself. He was sure there was one. He couldn't find so much as a horn feature.
He was just beginning his third reread of the manual, examining each fuzzy magically-displayed monochrome letter in eye-watering detail, when the sound of a unicorn horn pulsed, and the door to the ship's deck slid open. Gerardo blinked in alarm as a graying unicorn stalked in, light glinting off his black coat as he stared about in desperation. "Shinespark! Where is she!?"
"I'm sorry, what...!?" Gerardo gasped as he was pinched by the stallion's aura, which was incredibly hard despite its shakiness. "Unhand me!"
"This is Shinespark's ship..." the stallion panted, still staring frantically. "Not yours! What are you doing here? I want my daughter, not a griffon!"
"Sir Mobius..." Panting, a short unicorn stumbled in behind him, burgundy mane mussed, glasses and professional attire askew and a wisp of steam rising from her horn. "I told you to wait for me! I can only teleport us so many times in a row, and... and..." She swallowed dryly and was cut off.
"Secretary, arrest this griffon," Mobius commanded, his red-turned-gray mane also hardly a model of recent grooming. "He's stolen my daughter's airship! He must have her somewhere... he must..."
"Sir, you can't just barge onto a privately-owned aircraft like this and start making baseless demands and accusations!" The mare glanced at Gerardo with as apologetic a look as she could muster.
Gerardo tried to say something, but his beak was being held shut by Mobius' vicelike aura. Mobius stomped. "This is my daughter's ship! I'd recognize it anywhere! She showed me it herself; it was built in secret! Arrest him and save my daughter!"
"Sir, that's ridiculous," the mare protested. "Sosa doesn't build airships in secret. I know you miss Shinespark but this is far overstepping Sosa's cargo searching right of-"
"Silence, secretary," Mobius growled. His horn flashed brighter, and suddenly he was struggling to haul Gerardo out of the pilot's seat, the airship slowly drifting away from the tower with no one at the controls. "Give me my daughter's ship...!"
Gerardo rolled with the aura, getting his head clear, and it dissipated as Mobius climbed into the chair in his place, throwing several levers and forcing the ship into a rapid ascent. "What is this even about?" Gerardo coughed, climbing back upright. "You're Shinespark's father?"
Mobius leaned into the controls, accelerating the ship to the east, back toward the impact site where the water rush had hit the land the hardest. Face grim, he refused to answer.
"I'm sorry about this..." The mare accompanying him stumbled up to Gerardo, leaning on a wall. "Sosa will compensate you for this inconvenience, I promise." She gulped again. "The Factory Chief is taking the loss of his daughter very hard..."
"You look in a mild state of disrepair," Gerardo remarked, pulling a water flask from his uniform and offering it her way. "Water?"
"Ah... Thank you..." She took it in her hooves, draining it in one go and sighing heavily, then wiped her brow, straightened her glasses and blew on her horn. "Thank you. He's been having me teleport us all over the Earth District, and even though that's my specialty..." She paused for a moment, still panting. "I don't know where he's going now, but if you could humor him until he finds something else to chase, that's the fastest way to resolve this. Again, I promise-"
"We're going to the dam!" Mobius barked. "She's still there, I know it! I will find my daughter!"
"Last I saw her, she was going south," Gerardo offered, and was promptly ignored.
The mare looked up at him. "You've seen her since this catastrophe?"
"I suppose I have," Gerardo said. As pressured as he suddenly found himself, he decided it was better to err on the side of saying too little. If push came to shove, at least, he had his sword back and could forcibly incapacitate Shinespark's father, though he didn't imagine that would earn him many favors with secretary or daughter.
At the mare's hopeful gaze, he added, "I couldn't tell you where she is now. Blueleaf, at best guess, but she was heading there a while ago."
She sighed. "Sir, did you hear that? We should check Blueleaf next! And since the wind barrier prevents us from flying ships in the Earth District-"
"No!" Mobius interrupted, well-acquainted with cutting her off. "Don't let him fool you, Secretary. That's a ploy to force us to abandon her ship. You can't fool Mobius..."
Gerardo sighed. Despite everything he had hoped, it seemed like the night had nothing but more escalation in store.