The train's wheels had barely stopped rolling, the car had only just come to a halt at the station, when a short burgundy mare practically shouldered the poor conductor aside. Vlyka Velveteen sniffed the air and glanced around, her ordinary nervousness at a new place or ponies swallowed whole by her fear at what Winter had told her. Her upper fangs dug into her lip as her mouth tensed with worry, sniffing again to try and figure out what scents were natural to this new town. She had heard little about Dodge Junction, just that it was one of the towns nearest the Badlands, which rumors had told Winter that was where those monsters that had attacked Ponyville came from. The arid climate around her gave Vlyka a momentary pause to worry about Winter behind her: the snowy pony's body didn't do well with heat, but it didn't feel too hot for what Vlyka thought Winter cold take... Vlyka's thoughts didn't last long though, shifting back on the fear and determination about her sister Crys, how she'd refuse to give up finding her.
Vlyka's sensitive sense of smell was momentarily overwhelmed by the new odors, but she thankfully was adept at blocking out the sheer volume of smells that came at her nose. She brushed her darker pink mane from her similarly colored eyes as she blinked in the sun, her tritanomalous vision not changing the shades of brown and orange around her as much as she was used to. She would maybe have taken a more interested note in that fact under better circumstances, but now she had far greater worries to attend to. She hadn't even slept on the train like Winter had, unable to pause for a moment while their friends were in danger.
Winter put a hoof on Vlyka's shoulder gently and nodded towards a small group of ponies hovering around the train platform chittering and staring up at the sky. Vlyka sighed, but as she sniffed the air and found nothing, she admitted that some socialization might give them a hint as to where to go next. She could only hope that would be less painful than the thought of losing her sister.
Vlyka nodded and followed Winter as she trotted towards the group. "Excuse me?" the snowmare called, drawing their attention to herself. As the ponies looked down at her, Winter glanced up at the sky as if asking what they were looking at. "Did you ponies see anything...odd recently?" she asked.
Vlyka grumbled silently, wondering why Winter didn't just come out and say what she was looking for, but to her surprise an older pony seemed to be keyed into the problem already. "You saw those things too?" the old stallion asked in a heavy country accent. “Those big, flying varmints that headed off south o here?”
"Well that's certainly odd, and maybe what we were looking for," Winter nodded. "Did you get a good look at them by chance, see any details?"
"Not really," the pony shrugged, as the crowd around them shook their heads or looked confused. "They were too high up for me to see anything but a shadow. Right big varmints though, surprised I haven’t seen ‘em before now. Wonder where they came from…”
Vlyka sighed impatiently and held her tongue for a moment, but right before Winter opened her mouth to speak the little mare's patience snapped. "Were there holding any ponies captive?" she blurted out.
The crowd jerked backwards in shock, a few of those looser attached to the group turning to trot away swiftly. The stallion looked nervously ay Vlyka, before glancing up at the sky. "I dunno, they were too high up to see anything. Why, did you..."
But Vlyka had already turned her attention away from the group. They had nothing useful to give her, it was time to go. She focused again on tilting her head back and sniffing the air: now that the town's general scent was starting to settle in her nose she could distinguish unique smells, and she picked through the scents in a desperate effort to find something helpful.
As Vlyka focused on sniffing, her other senses tuned out, keeping her from hearing the crowd's mild panic at Vlyka's statement and Winter trying to keep them calm but alert. "We may have somepony in danger, if the guards come down this way point them towards the creatures, ok?" As she got a few nods of understanding Winter then turned to hurry after Vlyka, who was already making a beeline for the southern border of town. She had something, something faint but unmistakable, something hopeful, and even as Winter's mildly irritated voice drifted into her mind Vlyka couldn't focus on anything else. "We could try and talk to somepony maybe, explain to them why we think somepony was kidnapped…”
“I think I smell Crystal,” was Vlyka’s only response, her nose up in the air as she sniffed. “It's faint. Scent won’t hold, we need to go.”
Winter stared back at her in mild disbelief. "Vlyka, I know your sense of smell is incredible but..."
"Do you have a better idea?" Vlyka replied, one eyebrow raised as she glared at Winter. Her lips were pulled tight against her teeth, her bottom fangs digging into the back of her lower lip. Winter responded by simply shaking her head, prompting Vlyka to turn her head back up and take another quick sniff to try and catch the scent again. There was the chance it wasn't really there, she could just have been imagining her sister's familiar scent...heck she probably was, in desperation to find some trace of her. But her nose at least wanted to lead them in the same direction the locals had suggested.
"Let's get going then," said Winter, as she readjusted the saddlebag on her back. Vlyka curtly nodded to her in acknowledgement before trotting out of town and into the desert ahead of them. It didn't take long for the dingy, cluttered scents of the town to fade away, and with her nose to the ground Vlyka could be more certain of her findings. She was almost certain that Crystal had come through here, though it certainly wasn't by hoof, of even on the ground at all. It was lucky that there was any trail for her to track in fact, and she refused to lose it now.
“This way,” she said, hastening her trot deeper into the desert. She didn't focus on anything but the scent, but her anger wasn't so easily forgotten and gnawed slightly at the edges of her mind, causing her whole body to tense as she walked. She heard Winter's hoofsteps behind her, the mare's familiar dry-wintery scent billowing forwards even against a headwind that helped Vlyka get any kind of scent for Crys. She could tell that the warm afternoon air was rising in the open terrain ahead of them, but she still felt confident enough that Crys was out there, and that she would find her.
The two walked in silence for about an hour as Vlyka concentrated, trying to cope with the age of the trail and rising wind taking the little scent there was and throwing it in the wrong direction. She may not have had the training of a sniffer dog who did this professionally, but Vlyka had reasoned out that changing wind directions would fool her into going the wrong way. She was doing her best to compensate for it, but she couldn't deny the pit of uncertainty starting to grow in her heart.
"I can't believe I did this to him..." Winter's voice caused Vlyka to snap out of her focus, disorienting her for a second as she stopped in her tracks and turned around to Winter. The snowy mare nearly bowled Vlyka over as she was distracted as well, only just realizing Vlyka was staring at her. "This...Vlyka I'm sorry, this is all my fault."
For a second Vlyka wanted to yell, snap at Winter for putting Crys and Midnight in danger. She bared her fangs and curled her lip, but the growl didn't rumble from her throat. Instead she shook her head and sighed with irritation. "I know." She said abruptly, turning back to the scent and trying to just move on. But behind her came the thump of somepony falling to the ground, prompting het to look back again.
Winter was indeed on the ground, hooves crossed over her face as her whole body shook. "I'm such an awful pony, I did this to him! He was going for help and I...I just wanted to yell at him. And they went after him, and Crys...they targeted them! It has to be because Midnight ran from me, they were all alone outside town..."
Vlyka stood in mild horror, hearing way too many thoughts spilling from Winter's mouth that felt far too familiar. But Winter had never succumbed to that kind of mood before like Vlyka always did, she had never mentioned being so distraught except for the elemental incident...this wasn't like the Winter Vlyka knew at all. And here Vlyka was, watching a friend, her only friend right now, not even trying to comfort Winter. She was doing no better than Winter now, only focusing on something far beyond when there were far more immediate issues she should have known to solve now...
The spiral almost caught Vlyka and threw her into her natural abyss of dark thinking, but something caught her just before she fell. A flash of green fur in her mind's eye, a memory of Crystal's soft voice talking rationally to her emotional overload. Vlyka may have considered herself useless in terms of mental health assistance, but right now she was Winter's only recourse. She had to at least try, right? "Winter, hey..." Vlyka whispered, stepping just a bit closer. Her hoof moved awkwardly towards Winter's shoulder, but she didn't touch her outright: even though she liked Winter, Vlyka wasn't sure about being so touchy-feely, even in an emotionally distressing moment like this. Her thoughts turned dark again, nagging her for not putting aside her own social anxiety for Winter's benefit right now, and in anger at herself she stepped backwards growling. "Okay Winter...look," she said, trying to stay calm. "I don't blame you for what's happening here."
With a sniffle, Winter glanced back up at Vlyka, who tried to smile at her friend but wasn't quite up to it. "Vlyka..." said Winter, with a hint of relief in her voice.
"You're out here trying to save Crys as much as Midnight. I know you, this isn't a problem we're just going to let sit." At that Winter smiled sadly and nodded, standing back upright. Vlyka moved again to hug her friend, but paused and shifted uneasily back. Winter smiled again and shook her head understandingly, letting Vlyka come down from her social nervousness. "We'll find them, together. We'll get them back, and they'll be safe."
Winter nodded again and readjusted her saddlebag so it rested comfortably on her back, before trotting to Vlyka's side and staring off into the distance. "Hang on Crys, Midnight, we're coming."