The adventure had ended with existential terror and tree sap, but such was the way of things. Getting back into the air was an adventure all its own, one full of frustration, swearing, and eventual hard-won triumph. While Sundance should have felt good about getting back into the air, he really didn't feel anything but melancholy and now, as he flew in a general southward direction, he thought about why.
What had kept him in the city?
He was a pegasus, a creature capable of flight. Which meant that at any time, he could have flown off to have adventures. To do adventurous things. Of course, he would have had no companions, but that was beside the point. At any given moment, he could spread his wings, take to the air, and have an adventure. There was a huge world for him to see, and he'd spent his life trapped in a city—a clever cage that was difficult to escape. He tried to figure out what had kept him trapped there in a cage with no bars, but try as he might, he couldn't make sense of life. He, his grandmother, and his mother, at any given time, they could have gathered up his father and just flown away together. No more fear, worry, and dread about rent or being stuck in a hated job that was kept solely out of necessity.
Below him were rivers, forests, lakes, ponds, meadows, and probably all manner of hidden, forgotten, and yes, even secret places, all waiting to be discovered. Places to explore. A huge section of the world that stretched from horizon to horizon awaited him. He wanted to know what was in the Gulp Hole, if anything. As dangerous as it was, he still wanted to explore the temple, and check out every ruined room.
Even better, or perhaps best of all, he could take others on adventures…
Drowned Rabbit Gulch had changed dramatically. With the water, some green had returned to the ancient riverbed. While the water wasn't deep, not yet, it flowed without ceasing along its bed. Evidence of the flood could be seen along the banks, fresh deposits of rich black dirt—which made these banks wealthy. As he flew along its lengths, Hennessy offered no reports about rabbits, which meant that they had drowned or gone off elsewhere.
"Grandmother Oak has all kinds of new growth and sprouts," Paradox said as they flew along above the restored river. "There's even new roots growing down into the ground. The old dead tree has come back to life. Not sure what to make of it."
"Can trees do that?" Hennessy asked in a mechanical growl, his mask making his voice distorted and unpleasant.
"I don't know," Paradox replied. "Grandmother Oak seems to be undergoing some sort of treeincarnation—"
"Oh, that's terrible! And you should be ashamed!"
"Well, what else do I call it, Hennessy?"
It took several prolonged seconds, but the word 'treeincarnation' detonated within Sundance's brain matter, and then caused ripples through his nervous system as a mighty, mighty cringe overcame him. A lesser flier might have dropped right out of the air, stricken from encountering such a dreadful word, but Sundance somehow managed to stay aloft. Hennessy was wrong: this was beyond terrible and Sundance couldn't tell if he were offended or impressed by what he'd heard.
"Sundance," Hennessy called out. "Let's fly a circle around the barony. A broad one. There's still a lot of land we haven't covered. Then let's go home for lunch. It's starting to get really hot under this mask."
"Can do," Sundance replied as he banked right, towards a westerly direction.
Due just west and north of the barony, hidden along the ridge rise of the plateau that formed the rear of the barony's box canyon, the trio found a bevy of bunnies. An army of rabbits had taken up in the secluded, somewhat marshy area. The sheer cliff face wall offered some shelter, streams and trickles of water flowed down from the plateau up above, and there were all manner of thickets and briars that covered the ground.
It was close too; within walking distance. Just leave the box canyon of the barony, go west, follow the ridge, until one could go north, and keep following the ridge. This was a far worse threat than Drowned Rabbit Gulch, and Sundance couldn't help but feel that they were lucky to spot it. It was right under their noses, in a manner of speaking, but not for much longer.
"There's so many warrens and burrows." Hennessy's report was delivered in a menacing mechanical growl. "I've got a condition critical indicator… rabies is confirmed!"
"Your mask can do that?" asked Paradox.
"That and so much more," replied Hennessy. "We prioritise plague and rabies. Our masks have the means to diagnose it at a distance. Rabbits don't get rabies often, surprisingly enough. I wonder if we have a hot batcave hidden around someplace nearby. We need to purge the area with fire. It all must go. Paradox, I need for you to be very thorough… there is no cure for rabies."
"Alright, I understand. Cleansing fire it is then."
"Sundance, we can't afford to put the fire out. At least not right away. We need a controlled burn of the area. We'll need to sacrifice some vegetation if we want to do this right. We might also need to find us a batcave and see what's what. Rabies in bats is overhyped and not all bats carry rabies. It's actually kind of rare. But when you have an outbreak in rabbits, you have a canary in a coal mine situation. If there is a source, we'll need to find it."
Angling his wings and trimming his primaries, Sundance allowed himself to drop in altitude as he began to circle back around over the hotzone. He would come in low and slow, so Paradox would have plenty of time to carpet bomb the area. As he began his approach for his strafing run, he wondered if there were other semi-hidden places just like this one, and if so, how would he find them?
"Set the area around the thicket ablaze!" Hennessy's shouted command was distorted with a mechanical rasp. "Form a circle of fire so the rabbits have no place to go!"
"Right, got it!"
Black smoke poured like reprehensible liquid into the unsullied blue sky. A roaring inferno sent lapping tongues of flame skyward and Sundance was careful to avoid them as he flew through the conflagration. They had to stay low so that Paradox could control the blaze, because magic had range, a limited reach of control. Searing heat formed powerful updrafts that threatened to push Sundance skyward, and he had to fight against them with each pass he made. Each run through the blaze was a learning experience in how to fly during extreme conditions. The fact that he maintained any steadiness at all amazed him, but not so much so that he became distracted.
A fence of fire had been carefully constructed, and now, the flames moved inward to consume those trapped within. Sundance could see frantic movement in the thickets and brambles, and he could only imagine what must be going on underground. Fire burned on all three sides and impassable stone sealed their fate. A rose of terrible beauty bloomed as Paradox ignited yet another blaze.
Over the crackle and roar of the flames, one could hear the screaming of rabbits.
The ground beyond the barrier of fire erupted and a stream of frantic, frenetic rabbits was vomited out of the earth. Just how many came out seemed impossible to count, but they poured out like an endless flood. Sundance moved to intercept them, weaving between the shimmering heat and lapping tongues of flame, and Paradox dropped a fireball upon them. Many died from the blast, but others sprang up from the earth in other places, and Sundance tried to prioritise which direction he should go.
Rabbits ran in all directions after bursting free on the surface. While fire contained the heart of the warren, the many burrows now posed a serious problem. The fine control that Paradox had while creating the fire barrier was gone now, and replaced with reckless pyromania. Discordant chaos wrought ruin upon the pastoral serenity…
And then they were not alone.
There were ponies on the ridge of the plateau; the residential confines of the barony was but a short distance away, even shorter if one crossed the plateau in a straight line, rather than go around the long reach of the canyon's embrace. They were barely visible with all the smoke, but at least one of them stood out: she was brilliantly, vividly, eye-searingly fluorescent, and not even the blackest smoke could obscure her glorious, retina-burning luminescent radiance.
A group of crystal pegasus ponies flew in a tight formation and Sundance wondered what they were up to. There were intense bursts of incredible heat and concussiveness that threatened to knock him right out of the sky. Sundance found himself navigating an active war zone, and he was forced to pull up so that he and his companions would not get roasted. While he pumped his wings to gain altitude, he saw that the crystal pegasus ponies were gathering clouds, lots of them.
The bullied clouds darkened as they were herded and pressed into one another. A unicorn went flying past, held aloft by her own telekinesis. Sundance thought it might be Starlight Glimmer, but he wasn't sure—there was far too much chaos to sort out what was going on. Down below, flaming dust devils ran down fleeing rabbits, leaving patches of scorched, blackened earth behind them.
Then, to the south, he saw the gleaming silver airship rising in the distance…
A drenching rain washed the summertime heat from Sundance's sunny ochre pelt. Overhead, the airship pooted out clouds from its onboard weather factory, which Sunburst said was a defensive measure to keep the ship safe. That it had a practical purpose beyond defense was a happy accident. The torrential downpour had put the fire out and turned much of the area down below into a mess of black mud. Any rabbits that had survived the fire were now surely drowned.
He spread his wings, gave them a good shake, and then just stood there to soak in the rain. It felt good; the day had grown far too hot and that was without the raging inferno. Quite a crowd had gathered up along the top of the ridge where he stood, and many of his peasants stood gawping down at the mess below. A huge section of the plains had been burned away and for a short time, the fire might have gotten out of control. But the summoned storm drowned the fire, and so all was well.
"That's good farmland," Hoppy said as she sidled closer to Sundance, but stayed just out of reach of his wings. "A lot of hops and oats and cereals could be grown down there. I think next spring, when it comes time for planting, this is where I'll do it. All that ash is bound to make the soil healthy."
Though he remained silent, Sundance considered these words.
"Lots of boulders and stones out there though. All of that will have to go. As soon as it dries out a bit, I think I'll get started. Anything in particular you want done with all those stones, Sundance?"
He thought about this carefully, unsure as he was of how to answer. Then, he had an idea. "Build a low wall to section off the fields from one another. I mean, I've seen that in postcards. There must be a reason why it's done."
"That's a good idea," Hoppy said. "Just look at that. Open plains as far as the eye can see. Endless meadows. I want Wort to grow up in a place like this, not the city. Wort likes plants. He says they talk to him, but I think it's his imagination."
"It might not be," Sundance said.
"Wort's imaginary friends talk to him too. He'll grow out of it."
"I can talk to owls," Sundance said to Hoppy in a voice that had turned a bit firm.
For a moment, Hoppy's mouth opened so that she might respond, but then she must have thought better of it when her mouth closed. She squinted, one eye wide and the other narrow, and then stood there studying Sundance with a critical expression of thoughtful intelligence. She must have arrived at some conclusion, some terminus for her thoughts, because she smiled, and what a smile it was. Warm and vivacious, and more than a little bit flirty.
"That was exciting!" Almost vibrating, Starlight Glimmer looked this-a-way and then that-a-way, as if surveying the destruction she had wrought. "This trip has been great! First I got to be a crane and then I got to blow stuff to smithereens. I thought this was going to be a snorefest! Most trips with Sunburst usually are."
"Hey!" Sunburst shouted from some distance away.
Then, without warning, Starlight Glimmer pronked away, splish-splashing in and out of puddles. For a short time, Sundance watched as the mare muddied herself, and then he returned his attention to the devastation down below. Hoppy moved a little closer, and now almost stood beneath one outstretched wing. Her expression was unreadable, but Sundance expected that she wanted something—though what remained unknown to him.
"I'm gonna need a lift." Hoppy seemed almost as bashful as she was flirtatious. "I need to see a pony about an airship. And there's the greenhouses. I already have the materials purchased and ready to go. Now that I have land, I have a place to assemble them. Just need to go and talk to a pony about getting them delivered here, to this place. Think I could beg a ride?"
"I can get you where you need to go," he said to her, and then it occurred to him how this might also be construed.
"I bet you can." Biting her bottom lip, Hoppy moved just a little bit closer. "The greenhouses are in Fillydelphia. We'll have to assemble them here. Shouldn't be too hard. I've been teaching Double Helping how to be crafty. He's a natural, you know. I mean, he's really good at what he does. He's a good kid."
"He is," Sundance agreed.
"Those steam vents are going to allow for year-round growing." About mid-sentence or so, Hoppy's tone changed from flirtatious to businesslike. "It will be downright tropical inside the greenhouses… at least I think it should be. I might get proven wrong. Everypony is excited about the prospect of year-round growing."
Ears pricked, he listened as the short mare beside him prattled on.
"Granny and I are going to see if we can rig up the steam turbine from our ship into some kind of power plant. I thought that I'd have to strip it down completely, but Starlight was able to pull the entire thing out of the ship whole, and in one piece. She's kind of amazing. Not sure how we're going to do it, but there are boiling springs we should be able to tap.
"The turbine was powered by a coal-fired boiler, so all we need to do is just find a new way to boil water without coal. Will certainly be a lot cleaner. Once we have the boiling water we need, I figure the old gal should still make plenty of power. Enough to run the brewery I have planned and probably enough to provide some power to our little town. Not sure what we'll use it for, but we'll have it, and that's important."
"Sounds like a plan," Sundance said to her.
"It does. It does sound like a plan." Her tone now awkward, Hoppy shuffled on her hooves. "I'm going to make other plans. Excuse me."
Before Sundance could say anything, she was already gone, vanished in a flash of light.