Three days passed before Slipstream was feeling up to a scouting trip again. Gerardo was recovered enough to talk quietly, and he and Nyala had been moved to another room Grenada fixed up so they could rest in better comfort. Nyala herself was taking getting her strength back into her own hooves, and had gotten a wheel cart Jamjars and Glimmer had cobbled together from the wreckage of Shinespark's supplies in the cargo bay. The cart fit beneath her barrel, taking most of the weight off her legs while still allowing her to push herself around and strengthen them. Maple, Saffron, Meltdown and Gazelle were still confined to Harshwater's infirmary, the former two awake and talking, Meltdown silent and Gazelle in an unabated state of shock. Howe and Neon Nova had continued to make the pantry their lair, and had been issuing increasingly vague and ominous warnings about the state of the ship's supplies. And Shinespark...
"We're getting ready to depart," Slipstream reported, standing in the doorway to the bridge and doing pre-flight stretches, Starlight and Felicity at her back. "We're going to scout the shipwreck, as planned. Any last instructions or advice?"
Shinespark sat in front of the ship's dim control panel, hooves on the levers and head bowed. She tensed, concentrating, and her horn sparked blue... but no aura formed. "I don't have anything to offer," she said, voice stoic and hard.
"Right. We'll... try to bring back good news, then..." Folding her own ears, Slipstream stepped away.
"She's far from alright," Felicity apologized, keeping her voice down.
Starlight frowned. "She was bad after Ironridge, too. Losing ponies she cares about is hard for her." She hesitated, then added, "Probably because she spent too much of her foalhood not being a normal filly. She was fighting for Ironridge ever since she got her cutie mark. I don't know how to help her."
"I hate to say it, but I'm a little bit more skilled at emotionally deconstructing ponies than putting them back together again..." Felicity looked out over the railing. "So, the three of us are on a nearby scouting mission."
Slipstream's eyes found Felicity's belly. "If you're sure you can handle it. I know you have a lot of issues that lower your stamina..."
"But you have a filly to carry," Felicity countered, "and are self-proclaimed out of shape yourself. Besides, I need to make myself useful as well, and I can pace you so you don't get too worn-out to get back out again tomorrow. And I'll be useful if it's dark in there! Besides, it's not like I we can't rest along the way. The ground isn't hazardous, merely slow for progress."
Slipstream reddened, helping Starlight onto her back. "Well, it might be a lot easier carrying one filly instead of two... but if you're sure you want to come, let's go."
The three took flight, Felicity breathing heavily and flagging within minutes. "How are you holding up!?" Slipstream called back, lowering her speed.
"Not... quite peachy, I'm afraid," Felicity huffed. "But I don't need a break yet! Let's press on and... keep going!"
Felicity eventually needed a break.
She needed four of them, in fact, during which Slipstream left Starlight and her on the ground and flew high to try to pinpoint their destination. After the final ten minutes of flying, they settled in on a hill forming one side of the valley the wreck was lodged in. Felicity sprawled out on her side in the grass and let her eyes go thin, her coat already too full of seeds and grassy bits to care as she waited for her breathing to steady.
"Are you alright?" Starlight sat down against her back, innately bothered to see someone as bright and important as Felicity in distress. If the roles were reversed, she knew she wouldn't want to be left alone...
Felicity dryly licked her lips. "Didn't overdo it. Just need a moment to catch my breath..." She raised a wing, tucked her head under it, and pulled out a small dagger from a concealed sheath. "Here," she said, offering it to Starlight with her teeth. "Maybe cut down some of the grass...?"
"Good idea," Slipstream agreed, using a trick with her feathers to try to measure the sun's angle to the horizon. "The ship is hard to see from low down, so marking this hill will give us a better landmark if we want to find it again later."
"I think she meant so it's easier to lie down," Starlight mumbled around the knife, getting to work shearing off grass around Felicity and creating a nicer patch for the mare.
Slipstream was busy thinking aloud. "So, it's hard to tell because of the breaks, but excluding them, at our speed, I think we're about an hour and a half from the Dream. Three hours with them. I was too tired and sort of forgot to measure last time, but I think you fly around the speed I fly with a full load. But we can only fly at a direct speed if we leave landmarks and don't have to constantly check where we're going..."
"Very clever of you," Felicity panted, getting a shoulder beneath her. "Perhaps we should investigate the ship and see what there is here that's worth coming back for before planning a return?"
Slipstream wiped some sweat from her brow. "Just a hunch, but I think it'll be interesting. Are you ready to go in now?"
"A few more minutes, please." Felicity closed her eyes. "And a drink. Starlight, are you coming in or keeping watch?"
Starlight looked up from her mowing. "If I cut down this entire hill, it will be easy to see from a distance and will be a good place to put anything you bring out that we want to carry home." She winced inwardly at having to ask her friends to leave her behind, but this was smart and useful. If they recognized that...
"Good thinking." Slipstream winked, a sight that made it all worth it. "Alright. Felicity, we'll go whenever you're ready."
"Darling, I know it's not polite to ask a lady her weight," Felicity apologized, standing and surveying the wreck with Slipstream. "But is it safe to assume I weigh more than you?"
Slipstream sized up the bigger mare's proportions. "Well, I haven't tried to lift you, but unless you're deceptively light..."
Felicity nodded. "Then any floor that holds me should safely hold you. Now, I'm not the fastest, but I can sneak through falling things in the dark, so we should travel far enough apart to spread out our weight but close enough we can reach each other if something collapses. If there is an incident, grab onto me as quickly as you can."
"Grab onto you?" Slipstream blinked.
"Ever seen a sarosian shadow sneak, darling?" Felicity fluttered her eyelashes. "Don't tell me Valey never showed you. It's good for avoiding things, like prying eyes, watchful guards... and in this case, debris if there's a cave-in."
"Right. I've seen that." Slipstream nodded. "You think this place is that unstable?"
Felicity took a deep breath and spread her wings. "Only one way to find out."
Slipstream watched as she soared to the shipdeck, landing as softly as her wings would allow. The boards creaked dangerously beneath her, but as Felicity steadied herself and folded her wings, they held.
"It seems to be safe!" she called back. "Don't land right near me just in case!"
Slipstream felt the ship's timbers give ever so slightly as she landed, too. It felt less like the boards themselves were compromised and more like the ship's structural integrity was broken somewhere inside, because the whole floor held together as one. "Are you sure this is safe?"
"Look at it this way, darling," Felicity assured, getting down on her belly and beginning to crawl forward. "The more dangerous it is, the more likely no one else has plundered it and there will be useful supplies for us. And move like this. It spreads out your weight more."
"...I have a feeling I will get splinters." Slipstream took a breath, and complied.
They crossed the deck uneventfully, Felicity choosing to descend through the hole that had been broken in the floor rather than any normal doorways. Looking down through the hole, she identified where the floor support beams ran and crept along those, dropping gracefully when she reached the edge and taking care not to snag her mane on a broken board.
Slipstream followed, using her wings as extra limbs to carefully maneuver down the hole. The sun was still high enough to provide illumination in the bottom, and they found themselves in an area that seemed to have once been a galley. Countertops and a contained oven were spaced around the surviving side of the room, and Felicity was already opening them, picking through. "Empty... empty... far too old... Ooh, a rusty spatula. Too bad we can't eat utensils..."
While she searched, Slipstream wandered to the door at the side of the room that hadn't been blocked by the cave-in. She carefully eased it open, but the floor beneath her seemed mostly sturdy and a short hall with a bathroom on one side and a staircase on the other greeted her.
"It looks like there's a way further down," Slipstream suggested. "Shall we?"
"Stay by me," Felicity requested, waving a wing. "We don't want to overlook anything anyone else has missed. Disappointingly, someone's already been here before us, but we'll just have to hope our eyes are better... Think there's any way this oven could be used for parts?"
Slipstream grimaced, walking back to the debris from the cave-in. "I am not carrying back an oven to find out." She tugged at a board. "We might be able to get some good wood from this, but I'd need a way to get the nails free..."
"Alright." Felicity sighed and straightened up. "I think we're going to have to go further in to find anything useful. This way, you said?"
Slipstream nodded, following as Felicity turned into the bathroom, stepping carefully while scanning the dim light with her keen eyes. "Still has a bit of a stink," Felicity commented, opting not to touch anything. "What's this on the wall? Petunia's favorite..." She made a face and stepped backward into the hallway. "Ech. Well, that says a lot about this ship's crew's taste in graffiti. I've rarely felt so degraded for being a mare."
"What is it?" Slipstream frowned in concern, peeking in through the doorway. "Someone did graffiti in their own airship?"
"That or a griffon looting this place." Felicity tapped her with her tail, prodding her to follow. "Nothing in there you want to see. Let's look through the rest of this floor before trying those stairs."
Slipstream followed. The next room was significantly darker, but she made out something that might have been a big table on its side. "Mess hall, no doubt," Felicity remarked, faint rays of light filtering down through cracks in the ceiling and a stench of old ale permeating from everywhere. "Mmm... I'm guessing this ship wasn't designed to sail like yours. I have a feeling it isn't watertight..."
She picked her way around a collection of assorted debris on the floor, mostly mugs and plates that looked like they had been made entirely from wood. A broken cabinet to the side revealed the source, and Felicity trotted carefully closer, inspecting it. "I wonder if there's anything else of value in-!"
She cut off with a sharp breath as her forehoof sought floor and found none. "Oh!" she gasped, immediately falling to her chest, the floor groaning loudly below her, one of her forelegs dangling up to the shoulder into the room below.
"Felicity?" Slipstream froze.
"Darling?" Felicity whispered. "What was the first rule I laid out when we were preparing to enter?"
Slipstream hesitated, not wanting to move in case the floor was more unstable than she thought... and it was dark enough that Felicity was merely an outline on the ground. "Let you go first to test for floor that can't hold us."
Felicity frowned. "And what was the second rule?"
Slipstream bit her lip.
"Grab onto me the moment anything happens," Felicity reprimanded. "Not wait five seconds to see if I'm okay or there's no more danger, grab on immediately. And you're still several hoofsteps away."
"Um. Sorry!" Slipstream winced.
Felicity hummed. "You still haven't done it yet..."
Awkwardly, Slipstream crawled forward, careful not to fall herself, and put her hooves on Felicity's shoulders.
Felicity rolled her eyes and sighed. "Alright. This is clearly making you uncomfortable, and I apologize for not practicing when we were still out in the open. But first, help me up? I'm slightly stuck."
Slipstream grabbed Felicity more certainly, beat her wings and lifted, and together they were able to scramble upright and back onto solid ground.
"That's more like it," Felicity said, dusting herself off and staring at the ground. "Looks like a table corner smashed things after tumbling around during the fall. Not big enough for us to comfortably get down without swimming, though. Speaking of which..." She turned to Slipstream, tapping the floor to make sure it was stable. "Anything unexpected or possibly dangerous happens. What do you do?"
"Hold onto you," Slipstream repeated, answering like a student in a lecture class.
"Show me." Felicity's eyes sparkled in the darkness.
Slipstream stepped forward and hugged her, but there was some hesitation in her step, and her hooves more of brushed Felicity than clung to her. The batpony frowned. "Darling, you're letting your modesty get the best of you. I'm not some forbidden fruit, and this is a matter of safety. I don't care where you hold or how hard you do it so long as it's quick enough that I don't have to make it back to the ship and tell Harshwater one of our only fit ponies is stranded an hour and a half away injured or worse. Try it again, and try it like you mean it. The ceiling falls right... now."
This time, Slipstream was quicker, jumping fast on her hooves and grappling Felicity still awkwardly, but hard. "How's this?" she asked, making the batpony stagger backward a few paces from the effort.
"That's... much more like it," Felicity said, carefully staying upright. "Good. You alright? You think you can do that without me prompting if this place tries to come down on us? We've just had a scare right there, and I would have greatly appreciated someone to catch me if I had been about to fall a whole floor."
Slipstream nodded, momentarily grateful the darkness was hiding her blush. "That is not something I'll get used to, but I can do it quickly."
"A bit too close for comfort?" Felicity asked. "Still stirring up those memories we talked about the other night?"
Slipstream rubbed her hooves. "It's not bad, just awkward. But we still have a ship to explore, right?"
"Truly." Felicity took up the lead again, dropping and crawling again to safely guard against further falls. "We can talk about it later if you like. Ugh, I wish we had Jamjars and her working horn..."
"A lamp would be a great thing to find around here," Slipstream agreed.
They made it to the far end of the dining hall without further incident, Felicity testing the way by crawling along on her belly and Slipstream following carefully in her trail. There was one more door here, this one leading up a short flight of steps to a door that was locked and looked like someone had tried to force it off its hinges. It was well-built, though, and as the two mares felt out the edges in the darkness, Slipstream figured it was both ornate and designed to guard against precisely that sort of thing.
"Someone's been after this," Felicity singsonged to herself. "And whoever it was forgot to bring a sarosian. Grab on, darling. I think we've found somewhere nobody has managed to plunder!"
Slipstream clasped on tightly, wrapping her hooves around Felicity with a speed she hoped would make the mare proud. As many initial reservations as she had felt about her, Felicity knew what she was doing... and she needed all the help she could get.
"Oomph! Good job..." Felicity wheezed slightly. "You were listening after all. Now, I suppose we'll get to practice shadow swimming as well, which is all on me but still something that might be nice to be prepared for. Ready to go under this door?"
Slipstream nodded. "You're kind of sticky, by the way," she mentioned, feeling a hoof against Felicity's fur. "Just so you know..."
"Was it the floor? Of course it was the floor," Felicity sighed. "Hopefully it's not too bad. Oh well. Treasure hunting first, seeing what I accidentally crawled through in the dark later. Here we go!"
The duo sank into the floorboards, vanishing beneath the sealed door with a ripple of shadow.