The high atmosphere thudded as three Pegasi exited the Jetstream. The turbulence was high, but all three of them kept their wings clamped closely to their bodies. Almost as soon as they exited, though, each of them instinctively became aware of the fact that they were descending far too fast, and each spread her wings in turn.
To Rainbow Dash’s surprise, the air gave way far too easily. Her vision began to become dark, and her breathing accelerated. She knew what this meant, and compensated by beating her wings faster and faster while forcing herself to take deep, controlled breaths. It was a gamble, but she was more than athletic enough to handle it. White, likewise, managed to sustain her flight, despite being substantially younger than Rainbow Dash and insisting on wearing her dark-colored armor.
Daring Do, though, descended rapidly and suddenly. She could not move her wings fast enough to support herself in the thin atmosphere, and it was apparent that every deep breath she took was agonizing against her broken ribs. Rainbow Dash quickly descended, performing a lead maneuver to support Daring Do with her wake. White, seeing this, performed the same maneuver on the alternate side.
“We’re above the safe operating ceiling,” said Rainbow Dash, her voice carrying strangely through the cirrus clouds and frigid air. The cold itself was dangerous; she could feel her feathers starting to ice up. “Where the heck even are we?”
Daring Do regained her composure and spread her wings into a gliding position. “See for yourself,” she said.
They broke through one of the thin high-altitude clouds. Rainbow Dash could not help but gasp as she immediately realized why the air was so thin. Stretching out below them was an enormous mountain range: a wall of jutting crags covered in ice and lifeless rock. The chief among them was a vast pair of peaks that stretched up through the clouds to a dizzying height, a single two-pointed mountain that even at her altitude Rainbow Dash had to look up to see the summit of.
“No way…”
“Lyskymm,” said Daring Do. She tilted her wings and banked in a wide but graceful arc. “There’s a village on the south side, on the tree-line. Aim low, the Jetstream converges over the top of the mountain. If you get sucked in…”
Daring Do did not need to complete the sentence. Rainbow Dash knew what would happen. High-altitude flying had been covered extensively in her Wonderbolts training, and while she excelled at it- -as she did at everything involving flight- -she knew how easily it could become incredibly dangerous incredibly quickly.
They continued to sail downward, arcing past the mountain. Their descent speed was substantially higher than Rainbow Dash generally used, but because of the size of the mountain it hardly felt as though they were moving at all. In fact, despite the constant need for perfect wing-control, the whole of it was beautiful. Cold, of course, but beautiful nonetheless.
At a certain point on the mountain, the ice and rock faded to harsh tundra and then to rough scrub. Just below that stood a line of trees ringing around the mountain, and obscured on a tiny portion of that slope, Rainbow Dash saw a village tucked away in the greenery. All of it seemed to be built on a highly sloped plane, but far less sloped than its surroundings: on one side it dropped off to a sheer cliff, and on the other braced against one heading upward toward the twin peaks of Lyskymm Mountain.
Daring Do saw it too, and she descended toward it. Rainbow Dash did as well. White followed behind. Although her skill was impressive for her age, her style was crude and it was obvious that she was trying exceedingly hard to mask the fact that she was having trouble breathing.
They touched down in a rocky clearing surrounded by trees. When Rainbow Dash saw them up close, she immediately shivered. They were unpleasant and strange: bizarre cedars with dark, gnarled trunks and strange leaves. They stood silently in the cold, looming over the clearing and the paths through their naked and curving stems. The whole forest was dark and foreboding.
They paused for a moment to catch their breath. The air was still thin, even on the ground, but it was more tolerable. The cold, though, was not. Rainbow Dash ruffled her wings around her to try to keep warm, and Daring Do pulled up her collar. White did not react; her armor was apparently more than capable of regulating her temperature.
When Rainbow Dash finally stabilized her breathing- -which, her being Rainbow Dash, took under ten seconds- -she stared up at the looming peak overhead and laughed. “It’s so high! Look at that thing! Look at my neck! Look! I’m staring straight up at it!” She laughed again. “I can’t believe we’re actually here!”
“I can’t believe you followed us all the way here,” said Daring Do, addressing White. “I told you, you can go home. Or at the very least stayed in the safehouse.”
White shook her head. She made little in the way of expressions, but seemed adamant about this.
“Fine,” said Daring Do, shrugging. “You have every right to be here. In fact, frankly, as a Pegasus you should be here.”
Rainbow Dash blushed. “Well…I’ve never been here either…”
“Not surprising,” said Daring Do. She began walking up the steep clearing toward a thin break in the woods that housed a slow-moving stream. White stopped to take a drink from it, as did Daring Do when she reached the upper part of it where it dribbled over some cold, jagged stones. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and continued. “Most Pegasi don’t come here anymore. They forgot, or don’t care…or just can’t get this high.”
“It’s not that high.”
“Not for you, no. But not every Pegasus is as athletic as you are, Dash. Look at me. My wings just can’t keep up the speed. Another five years, and I won’t be able to make the trip either.”
“Don’t say that! You were fine! Just a little tired, but that happens to all of us! Especially since you haven’t been sleeping- -White! Write that down! You can’t be a good flyer unless you get good sleep!”
White stared, confused.
“She can’t write,” said Daring Do.
“Well I mean metaphorically, then! In your mind!”
They continued past the stream and into the woods. Rainbow Dash immediately fell silent. The looming trees and their gnarled trunks grew even more unnerving once she was amongst them. The shaggy cedars were joined by a different plant with thin, twisting trunks and only a few glossy leaves. Together they formed an unpleasant twisting grove, one that was completely and utterly silent save for the sound of the wind rushing through the mountain range.
The soil was rocky, but there was a clear- -albeit thin- -path. Daring Do led the way, stepping over rocks and roots with ease that made it seem as though she had trod this path before. Perhaps many times.
“It’s not just sleep,” she said. “Or me. It’s decay.”
“Decay?” Somehow, the word made Rainbow Dash shiver, especially in this particular forest.
Daring Do nodded. “The Pegasi that inhabited this mountain in ancient times were stronger. That’s the way things usually go. As time moves forward, ponies get weaker and weaker.”
“Are you sure the air isn’t getting to you?”
“Yeah.” Daring Do sighed, and then pointed at the highest peak on the mountain. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash gasped. “You don’t mean- -it isn’t- -”
Daring Do nodded. “The Peak of Lyskymm. A location only accessible to Pegasi. The most defensible position in all of Equestria- -and the site center of the ancient Imperium Pegasus.”
“Commander Hurricane’s castle,” gasped Rainbow Dash, her eyes wide with awe.
“At one point, yes. But not anymore. Not for a long time. It’s all just ruins now. Nopony goes that high. The last ponies left living on this mountain live in this village. And…”
“And what?”
“And they don’t like outsiders.”
The trees suddenly broke and the village came into view. While it had been apparent that it had been built on a slope from the air, the effect from ground-level was even more pronounced. The whole of it seemed to nearly be cut into the side of the mountain. Tall, thin buildings rose up amongst trees, and while they were not decaying they appeared somehow wrong. As if they were too dark, and had too few windows. They loomed, peeking out of the forest that seemed to have given birth to them. The whole thing gave the impression of an abandoned town that had been long-ago overtaken by the forest.
Except that it was not abandoned. There were few signs of life, but there were some ponies moving throughout the streets. Or, more precisely, a combination of ponies and goats.
The combination was surprising. Rainbow Dash was not terribly familiar with goats, nor did she especially have a desire to be. They were strange to her, with wide, staring eyes and oddly aggressive postures. The ponies that surrounded them were not much better. They were invariably Pegasi, although even the tallest of them was barely two thirds of Rainbow Dash’s height. Each of them were oddly stocky with small, even tiny wings, and they were invariably dirty. What was most striking, though, was the fact that each and every one of them was distinctly and almost clinically ugly.
“Wow. What happened here?”
“Time,” said Daring Do. “The Pegasi who built the Imperium left long ago. They migrated away, and their cities fell into ruin.”
“Why?”
“You know why. You must have heard the Hearthwarming story.”
“About how Equestria was founded.” Rainbow Dash looked up the slope and flapped her wings against the cold, trying to keep them from going numb. She shivered, and not just from the chill. This was a warm summer’s day; she could barely imagine what this place must have been like when the windigoes had started to circle the peaks, howling and bringing grave storms. “Yeah. I know.”
“And then the Union of the Three Races.” Daring Do shrugged. “The Imperium collapsed. Pegasi didn’t need an empire anymore, especially one centered way up here. Hurricane was the last Commander to make her home on Lyskymm.”
“And these ponies?”
“Those that never left. Or their descendants.”
White pointed at a passing goat. It glared at her, and she glared back with her strange eyes. The goat hardly seemed to care.
“And the goats?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“They’re goats.”
“I know that. Why are they here?”
“Because it’s where they live. Only Pegasi and mountain goats can breathe the air up here. It’s too thin otherwise.”
“That’s going to be a problem when Bon Bon gets here.” Rainbow Dash looked around. “If she even can.”
“She said she didn’t want to take a Pegasus-drawn cart.”
“Then how’s she going to get here?”
“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t put it past her to find a way. Heck, she’ll probably try to climb this thing. Showoff…”
Daring Do stopped suddenly and eyed a shop recessed into the bottom of one of the buildings. The roof was supported by a pair of gnarled, cut tree trunks, and an iron sign hung from the wooden roof. It was swinging slowly in the breeze, and the language written on it was incomprehensible.
“What does it say?”
“It’s a shop,” said Daring Do. She approached the door. “If we’re going to work here, we need some supplies.”
“No we don’t. I mean, its right there!” Rainbow Dash pointed at the top of the mountain. “We can eat lunch and get up there easily!”
“No. We can’t. Unless you have a winter jacket stuck in your mane. White probably could. Whatever that Questlord armor is seems to be really darn expensive.”
White looked at them, and then shook her head slightly. She did not want to leave Daring Do.
“Then we stop for supplies.”
Daring Do pushed open the door. Inside was dusty and smelled like old wood. There was little light inside, but it was warm, having been lit by a stingy fire burning gnarled logs. The shopkeeper was standing behind his desk; he was a goat. His wide eyes seemed to stare at the entire room equally blankly.
“Goats can own shops now?”
“Don’t be a speciesist,” snapped Daring Do. She approached the goat. The goat’s wide and watery eyes immediately flicked toward her.
“I need winter gear,” she said.
“Bah?”
Daring Do winced, and put her hoof on her face. “Of course you do. Hold on.” She took a deep breath and leaned back. Then, much to both Rainbow Dash and White’s surprise- -and actually that of the goat as well- -she let out a long, strange “Bahhhh?”
“Bahhh?”
“B- -AAAHHhhh.”
“Bahhh bah!”
“BAH!”
Rainbow Dash did not know whether to be impressed or terrified that Daring Do might have completely lost her mind.
“You…speak goat?”
“Of course I do. You read ‘Daring Do and the Mare of the Silver Mountain’?”
“Where you seduced a goat? But I figured that was a goat who spoke…you know…words.”
“Don’t be silly. Goats don’t speak pony. BAAHHRRRGG!”
The goat gasped, and then suddenly opened its mouth wide and let out an horrible scream.
Daring Do replied in turn. A second goat- -a she goat, technically called a nanny- -poked her head out from the back room. She was silent for a moment before letting out another horrible scream.
“Dang,” hissed Daring Do. “They’re trying to goat my groats. Dash, this is going to take a while.”
“Then I’m going to go outside. Because that screaming? Yeah, it’s super weird.”
“Take White with you. She needs to stretch or she’ll cramp.”
“You heard her,” said Rainbow Dash, tapping White on the shoulder as the mare was staring intently into the fire. “Let’s take a walk.”
White opened her mouth as if to protest, but being unable to looked to Daring Do. Daring Do nodded, and White hesitantly followed Rainbow Dash out the door and back into the cold.