One year later...
Summer tucked her wings as she went into a dive, dodging narrowly around an outstretched bank of thick cloud. She skimmed its surface by inches, close enough that even a tiny bit closer would probably have sent her into a mad spiral down to the surface. Clouds lifted around her in wispy white lines, trailing behind her like a fluffy white cloak. The flash of green ahead of her was still in the lead, but not for much longer. She was so close now, almost close enough to snap at the hairs of her tail with her beak.
Emerald finally noticed her, squealing with delight and fear as she drew closer, spreading her wings into an abrupt loop. That was one of the advantages of ponies in the air—they were so much lighter that they could make harsh turns and delicate maneuvers her own wings just couldn't handle. But while she'd avoided Summer's advance, dancing in the sky took speed, and now Summer was blasting past her.
Her target hovered over crystal seas, maybe twenty meters above the surface. The gasbag was a relatively small target, obscuring the Horizon's deck below. But the reflection of their oversized antenna was enough that she wouldn't have missed it, even if they were flying over something less uniform than the ocean.
"No fair!" Emerald called from behind her, voice barely making it over the wind. "You startled me!"
Summer twisted slightly to one side, pulling up from the dive. Emerald just didn't have the right build for a maneuver like that. But Summer didn't actually need to win this. "You're the one who did a loop! It's not my fault you picked something slow!" While she turned, the little pegasus zipped past her, leaving only a single gray feather in her wake.
Emerald cheered excitedly as she dodged around the balloon for her final landing, but Summer knew there'd be no catching up with her now. That was fine. The filly could use a little confidence now that her legs were all stretched, and her balance was totally thrown off. Puberty was tough, even in Equestria.
Summer landed behind her a few seconds later, skidding along the deck for a short distance before stopping a meter or so behind the pegasus.
"Equestria wins again!" Emerald cheered, her voice so loud it echoed off the gasbag. Summer returned her smile, though of course she'd lost. But it was hard not to share Emerald's enthusiasm for just about everything she did. I wasn't sure you were ever going to get better, kid. I'm glad you did.
"Yeah." Summer patted her briefly on the head. "Guess I'll have to keep practicing before I can fly as good as you, if I ever can. You're getting so big." She reached down, extending one of Emerald's wings with a claw. "How am I supposed to compete with that?"
Emerald giggled, pushing her away. But she couldn't keep the pride from her face. "Stop, stop."
Summer kept going for a few more seconds, then turned back towards the helm. Sharp watched from the elevated section, grinning. Then he noticed them both, and straightened, looking awkwardly away. "Oh, Summer! We got a message from Corey while you were up there. Do you want to see it before we go down?"
Summer lifted easily into the air, hovering vertically up to the upper level. If there were any thoughts of embarrassment about her nudity, they were long gone now. Equestria just didn't give her the luxury of that particular taboo. She landed beside him on the modified helm a second later, and wasn't even a little surprised as he pulled her close for a kiss. She didn't hesitate, nor did she hurry to get his body away from her. The longer they were together, the better. "I can already tell," Sharp whispered into her ear. "Emerald's not stupid. She'll figure it out soon too."
Summer's tail tucked briefly between her legs, and she felt the first real echoes of embarrassment. There was at least one thing she had good reason to be shy about. She nipped at his ear with her beak, though didn't actually grab it. It was meant for hunting fish, after all. She could hurt a pony with it if she missed. "I won't be that big. Don't hippogriffs lay eggs?"
Sharp laughed once, loud enough that Emerald actually noticed. "What's so funny?" she called. "Did I get cloud in my tail again?"
"N-no!" Summer called hastily. "Nothing!"
Sharp kept smiling as smugly as ever. At least he was sensitive enough to keep his voice down. "You really think you can hide that? ‘Yeah, we built a gigantic egg-incubator. We're raising ostriches on an airship now!’"
She shoved away from him, then stepped under the canopy. There were a few chairs here, but more importantly was the instrument table. It was made with standard hippogriff shipbuilding techniques, with one exception. The weatherproof box protected a ruggedized military tablet, connected to the larger server downstairs. Summer took the tablet hanging by its cord into her teeth, and selected their incoming messages.
Sharp crowded next to her, close enough to make her squeak with surprise. She looked up, glowering at him again. Emerald's here, we can't just... on the deck. She shoved him with one of her hindlegs, pushing him well away before selecting the single received recording.
It was voice only, given the extremely limited bandwidth of the radio they used, bouncing around the planet's atmosphere when the weather was right. It was one of a very limited number of options for communicating at such long range with no infrastructure.
"Message received at 12:40am, yesterday," began the synthesized voice. "Beginning playback:”
“Hey Summer, Bravo Site checking in for the week. We've got our second real shop—these brothers came all the way up here from the Equestrian mainland to sell to us. Well, maybe not us. How many things can you sell to a base with three actual humans in it?"
As the recording went on, Sharp's amusement was replaced with more of his usual annoyance. She couldn't really blame him—Corey could speak passable Ponish now, and had been for months. But he still sent all his messages in English, even though he knew the whole Horizon was listening to them. That was the real reason why he'd waited to listen to this. Sharp was gifted in many skills, but with language he was hopeless. He still struggled to ask for the bathroom in English.
"I know what you're going to say. None of us are human anymore. We need to accept—blah blah. The volunteers are pretty good about that. Molly—that's the cute Canadian girl, if you forgot—she's almost as excited about going home like this as she is about all her great zoology data. I watched her put together her letter home in the rec room yesterday—shitting you not, she's filling it up with SD cards. Apparently she's putting her vlogs up on YouTube. She says they're huge over there, I'm not sure I buy it. Would you watch a channel called ‘Molly's Nest?’ where a bird walked around in the snow collecting samples of alien plants and put them in machines and stuff?
“Everything's gearing up for the big meeting with that Twilight... princess? That's her title, right? Yeah, her. It's all anyone can talk about, human or pony. I hope she doesn't mind staying in one of our crappy bunkrooms for the video conference, because that's all we have. Sure you can't be down here for that? I know she's not here to talk to nobodies like us, but the videoconference isn't going to last forever. When the doors close and the cameras are off, we'll only have the ones on our side to keep her happy. You know this stuff better than I do.
“Stay safe out there, Summer. Use bird protection and all. Peace."
She flushed deep red, glancing over her shoulder again at that last bit. Too late, Corey. Apparently Equestria wasn't at all unfamiliar with family planning, they had cheap spells and everything. But they didn't have any unicorn shops three thousand feet over the sea.
"Must've been an interesting one," Sharp said, leaning briefly up against her neck. "Should I be upset about anything he said?"
She shook her head—much too rapidly to be convincing. But she'd never been a good liar, and being in Equestria didn't make her better at it. She translated the whole thing over, cutting away some of the fat, and not bothering to go into detail about what “YouTube” was.
When she finished, Sharp had forgotten all about the ending, which was probably for the best. "The princess is actually going to visit." He turned away, muttering something under his breath. "I didn't think there was any chance of a real meeting, after... everything that went wrong before." He made his way over to the railing, resting one hoof against it and looking down into the swirling depths beyond. "Buck, right when we find this. Why couldn't she go in a month? What's so special about right now?"
Emerald landed on the deck beside them, with a tray of cold drinks. The yellow liquid within wasn't anything special, just powdered lemonade from Bravo Site's supplies. It was now her absolute favorite beverage, so much that Summer had to stop her from going through their supplies too quickly. "Thirsty?"
Summer took it, holding the mug carefully in one claw. All that flying did make her thirsty. She drained the glass, settling it back on the tray.
"You can have mine," Sharp muttered, waving her off. "We've got a decision to make, and I don't think sugar will help."
Emerald glared. "Sugar helps everything, master. You really want to drink seawater over this?"
"The process isn't quite the same as drinking," he countered, apparently by instinct. "Seaponies have distinct biology. They don't even—"
Summer pushed his mouth closed with a claw, giggling. Maybe you should guest-star on an episode of Molly's biology show. “You’re really thinking about going back? With Setessa's ancient ruins right under us, waiting to be explored? Is meeting with your princess special enough for that?"
"No." He took the other mug, wedging his hoof into the oversized grip as Emerald had to do. "It's about helping to set the tone. The human volunteers are fine, and Corey is a good enough representative. But Twilight has already met you once. One of her friends likes us. These unicorn types... they care about who you know. You could make a real difference."
"We're making a difference here." Summer pointed down over the side, holding out her necklace. It was entirely mundane now, quite similar to the ones that most hippogriffs seemed to wear. With the single exception that Sharp had made it for her, out of tiny links of precious metals he'd forged himself. She was pretty sure the custom was some kind of pony engagement, but she was still too shy to confirm as much. "When we go down there, we'll be finding more clues about the history of our worlds. Kate wasn't acting alone, and the Chevaliers are still out there. Understanding their history is important. And... you know, finding enough to build a door that doesn't transform creatures into birds on the way through."
"Could we even make it all the way there in time?" Emerald asked, settling the empty tray down beside the instruments. "All the way back to Bravo... that's a long way to go in a week."
Sharp grinned, taking a few steps back and resting one hoof on the throttle. "If we flew through the night, we could make it all the way to Bravo in three days. Don't tempt me."
Too bad we can't just mark this place with GPS. They'd written down its position using Sharp's compass and sextant, but that was far less precise. Finding a long-flooded ancient city of Seaponies now lost to the tropical sea was something they might never repeat. "That means we have four days to work," Summer said, hurrying forward and wrapping one wing around him. "Four days in the sunken city, then three heading to Bravo."
She could see Sharp's sudden doubt, expression faltering. He glanced down, probably thinking about the engine as they spoke. "Unless it was all just bragging."
Sharp met her eyes. "Four days. Fine. But if there's nothing down there, we're leaving early. It's not that I don't like swimming... but there's no reason for us to be wasting our time when we could be working on more important things."
"Fine." Summer nudged him down towards the stairs. "Drop anchor. Let’s see what’s waiting for us.”