Nutmeg Inferno didn’t wander far. The trees up on the rocky peak were a scattering of stunted, weathered pines, a far cry from the dense, lush forest below, but they were quite sufficient for Nutmeg's needs. The kirin showed her companion how to break off dead branches, and levitated them into a growing bundle on his back. Soon they were back at the lakeside, where Nutmeg shifted the rocks and pebbles to make a circular, stony bowl. Reef watched curiously as she arranged the sticks there in a sort of pyramidal shape, then jammed two of the branches vertically into the rocks on either side of it.
The brown-furred kirin then squatted beside the structure, lightly shaking a foreleg and grumbling at it, “C’mon...” Then her hoof was engulfed in that eerie red and blue flame that once consumed her. Without skipping a beat, Nutmeg lay her burning hoof against the stick pyramid, which hissed as she did so, but didn’t immediately erupt into a roaring bonfire. She just kept her hoof there then, muttering as she moved it around now and again.
Reef Skimmer watched Nutmeg curiously, wondering if kirin spell casting inherently involved more gestures than unicorns, or if it was just something Nutmeg liked to do.
Nutmeg continued being a little on fire. The sticks caught eventually, and adopted a normal-looking fire colour as she pulled back and blew on it to fan the flames. Sharpening a stick between her hooves as the fire grew, she used it to spear a fish and suspend it between the forked sticks as a crude sort of spit. “See? That's how we did it back in the village,” she said, gesturing proudly at the simple setup, “Makes the fish nice and seared!”
Reef cocked his head. "You didn't use your horn at all? Fascinating..." He blinked and gave a little shake of his head. "That is to say, awfully convenient and, we can only hope, tasty."
“Well, I usually use my horn for catching them,” Nutmeg admits thoughtfully, “Guess it’s just not too much trouble to put the fish up on sticks with ordinary hoofiwork. She looks up at her own horn, and it glows green, along with the spitted fish, which rotates once slowly, before the glow fades. Then she rotates the fish with a push of her hoof, saying, “See? Not much more convenient. Wouldn’t think you would be surprised, since you do everything without a horn.”
Reef turned around in a circle, trampling down an area of loose pebbles, then sat down heavily, staring at the fire. "Your hooves do seem quite dextrous, my dear, but I was referring to the fire. I once saw a unicorn light a fire in a tavern, it was just a few seconds of her horn glowing, maybe a little grunting, and then hey presto, the logs were burning. That was more like, hmm, coaxing it from your hoof?" The hippogriff snorted and fluffed his wings.
"You know it took us a while to get the hang of that, after coming back to the surface. Cooking in general really, best we had in Seaquestria was that one place that broiled everything in a hot spring, but fires in particular, not a few griffs came to me with singed feathers after..." He trailed off, remembering that the goal of the trip was to get the kirin to open up more, not regale her with his medical student tales. "Well, it wasn't pretty."
“Oh! Yeah, actually,” Nutmeg stomped her forehoof and upon lifting it, a little fire flared from it, burning freely. “It’s more like... taking out your frustrations on your hoof,” she explained, giving it a conflicted look, before waving it out. “Horns actually don’t catch fire at all. They get really... cold though? Not cold, but like mean. I really don’t know how it works. I catch fire from the bottom up though, not from my horn.”
She looked back at the fire, then at Reef saying, “Well don’t worry about singing your feathers. I’ll take care of the fire. That... wing fluffy thing you’re doing means you’re worried about them, right?”
Reef frowned and stared at a wing for a moment, before folding them both down as tightly as possible. "Hah, not at all, just getting comfortable you know, sometimes the pinions sit at an awkward angle and you just want to preen them there and then... Oh, never mind about that." His eyes went back to Nutmeg, as he said in a concerned tone "How are you feeling now? You do seem less tense than, well, last time we spoke."
“Tense? When am I ever tense?” Nutmeg asked in confusion, then blushed, saying, “Oh yeah, the whole engine contract. Yeah it sucks, but what are you gonna do? Thanks for... getting me out of there a little. Heck, you threw me a whole gosh to honest cornucopia here! Or whatever you call this basket full of food thing.”
She gestured at the foodstuffs that were placed rather haphazardly around the area, as if by someone unsure of where to put them. The picnic blanket was still folded up in the basket. “So come on and sit by the fire and enjoy yourself too, okay?” the kirin asked hopefully, “And maybe we can try out some of that ale?”
"Oh, least I could do, cook seemed happy for me to take the provisions actually, at least after the first ten seconds of staring at him, ha ha... eh." Reef cast his eyes about, looking for the bread, before grabbing a piece of fruit he could reach without getting up. "Honestly I usually take brandy these days, goes better with the coffee you know, but back at the academy, before we could have a proper party we'd plan out a whole mission, to, uh, 'liberate' a few kegs from... heh, there I go again."
His ear tufts flattened as he thought over the kirin's earlier statement. "Problem with a contract did you say?" She'd said something before, what was it, a pony expression... 'railroaded here'? He'd assumed that just meant taking a train to Canterlot, but maybe he had missed something. "I thought you said you didn't build the engines?"
“It’s not much of a story,” Nutmeg said dismissively, mincing over to sit on her haunches beside the hippogriff, tail neatly tucked around her feet. “Our contract is to work on the ship’s engines for the duration of the trip. Turns out the fine print said round trip, and I didn’t know it was going to be going out into the middle of nowhere.”
She did use her horn to levitate the jug of ale he brought with him, giving it a hungry look before taking a swig out of it, and then another one. “Oh fires, I have been dying for some this,” she said, leaning back and heaving a relived sigh, “I haven’t had any since Manehattan. It’s not the same stuff as back home, but... yeah.”
Nutmeg proceeded to float up a piece of bread, breaking it with her hooves, and sending half over to the hippogriff. Along with the jug of ale, a little reluctantly. Setting them on the other side beside him, she added, “Thanks for... bringing me that radio. I think I might actually have some fun on this trip, if you keep bringing me back stuff like that to tinker with.”
Reef grabbed the bread out of the air with a claw, setting it aside for now, before frowning at the jug. After a moment he grabbed that too, tipped his head back and poured a generous slug into his beak. "Not bad, not bad at all!" he exclaimed "Those earth ponies do know what they're doing, well, compared to griffs at least. Try as we might I don't think we've quite got the knack for it, although, I heard Griffonstone finally has a proper brewery going again so... mmm."
After a moment, he continued. "Oh and that radio, think nothing of it, hate to see a fellow officer going to waste. Does seem promising doesn't it, if an abandoned village just inside the border has something like that, must be more to find further in."
“You wouldn’t know it at a glance, but it was definitely not built by ponies,” Nutmeg happily agreed, finishing her bread in two bites, “I bet you’ll find all sorts of awesome stuff,” she said with mouth full, “Even if it’s jus’... hold on.” After swallowing, she continued, “Even if it’s just ordinary appliances, the parts’ll be all different on the inside. Could learn something from that.”
She snagged the jug for another drink, before setting it down and heading over to the fire. Turning the roasted fish, she takes a deep breath, before lifting it off the fire with her hoof, pulling the spear out, then transferring the fish to float in her horn’s magic, while she speared a fresh one to take its place over the flames. “Seems like they’re pushing you around to places you didn’t sign up for as well,” she said, heading back to Reef Skimmer, “Sending you off on those missions just because you’re big and tough. I bet all you thought you were gonna do is do medical stuff the whole time.”
"On the contrary, one appreciates any excuse to get out here and study new species!" Reef replied, staring at the dancing flames, then out into the water. "Do you realise this one lake must contain enough finds to populate a book on Cloudbreak aquatic life! I mean, I was optimistic about the prospect of new species, but literally every creature we've encountered has been unknown to Equestrian science!" he continued enthusiastically. "Much like finding entirely new kinds of machine parts, I suppose?"
“Seems like a lot more creatures out there than machines,” Nutmeg countered in an amused tone, giving Reef a joking nudge to the side. She led her hovering cooked fish to float before him, adding, “Like these for instance. Here go ahead and have the first one. You caught ‘em after all.”
The hippogriff looked nervously at the kirin for a second "Ah, erm, thank you..." before grabbing it in a claw and tearing strips of flesh off it with his beak. "mmm, gud, qite delishus in fac! Do tri sum!" Reef exclaimed, mouth full.
Nutmeg beamed at that, saying, “What’d I tell ya, kirin cook ‘em the best.” She hurried over to check the other fish, turning it over, and feeding a few more sticks into the fire. Not that there was an emergency, but the smell of cooked fish pervading the air lended a sense of urgency to her movements. Tail swishing playfully, she returned, noting “Second one’s all mine. Needs a little more cooking still.”
Reef was now picking the remaining chunks off with his talons and dropping them into his beak; Nutmeg thought it was kinda funny how his tongue wasn't long enough to stick out of his mouth. She supposed that prevented griffs from biting it off by accident, at least.
"You did say something before... mmm... about wanting to go to Klugetown, instead of here... must take a couple of these back for Grenelda..." The stallion froze for a second "...and the whole crew to try! Uh... the non-herbivores that is. Like Grufftuss!" Reef stared at Nutmeg for a second, crest feathers sticking out in different directions and ear tufts twitching and looking utterly befuddled. "So, err, yes Klugetown! Awful place I hear, don't know why you'd want to go there."
Raising an amused eyebrow, Nutmeg replied, “Awful, maybe. But there’s all sorts of strange creatures there. I’d hardly be noticed, compared to trying to work in a pony city. They got a legendary mining industry, too. I’m sure we’d find something to do.” She picked up a piece of fruit in her forehooves, then asked sweetly, “So, Grenelda, huh?”
Reef looked down, apparently inspecting his claw. "Us griffs have to stick together you know... oh maybe you don't know her. Came with me to the chomp chomp pit you know, seemed upset she didn't get to fight anything. Gustus, well, they're paired, very firmly it seems, at least to hear him say it..." Reef was frowning and staring into space now. "Cute couple I'm sure.
Nutmeg’s ears drooped as Reef mentions Grenelda’s beau, saying, “Right, you don’t want to actually do anything, because it’d break the poor guy’s heart. Even I can tell he’s a softie under that grumpy exterior. Still doesn’t hurt to look though, if that’s the kind of girl you fancy.”
Reef blinked and refocused on the kirin. "Well anyway, erm... I'd always thought, well, always heard, ponies were very welcoming! Compared to all the other species at least. You must have... had it bad, if a dusty dump like Klugetown seems more promising than Manehattan."
At his protest of her life choice, Nutmeg griped around eating her fruit, “Yeah, they sure are welcoming, until you try to do anything. Then it’s oh no we can’t have that. It’s too much risk! It’s too weird, and I don’t like things that are different, and weird. I can’t believe ponies even got a railroad built with the attitude of some of them. They’re herd animals, you know? They have a hard time thinking straight in large groups.”
She paused for a moment after finishing her fruit, then said, “And they already took away my license to work in Manehattan. I had to go somewhere, so we all decided... well, obviously we didn’t make the greatest decision.” Looking off over the water, she asked, “You ever... feel like you don’t fit in, no matter where you go?”
Reef frowned. "If you'd asked me before I set claw on this crazy ship, I'd say definitely not, but just recently... well, it's been harder than I thought. I imagined that was down to the whole bird among mammals situation, but I suppose a tendency to catch fire would spook those little ponies as well..." Reef stopped, wondering if this was insensitive. "Is that what happened in Manehattan, they were afraid of your flames?"
Nutmeg started to shake her head, but then nodded, saying, “Yeah, something like that.” Standing and strutting over to check on the fish, she returned with it in tow, sans stick. “I met some amazing ponies though,” she said, sitting down with her fish, “Who didn’t even care if I flared up just...” Biting into the crackling skin of the fish, Nutmeg’s eyes half closed, as she concluded, “Mmm...”
Reef was biting chunks off the bread now. "Novo knows the Navy could use your help, what with phasing out sail and going steam-only, more than a few false starts there you know. Keep running out of coal in the middle of the ocean... don't tell anyone I said that!" He looked shocked for a second, before continuing "Of course the younger griffs tend to say it's a fool's errand, should just replace the whole fleet with airships, no matter if they crash every time there's a proper storm." Ear tufts dropping, he explained "I guess we don't quite have the way with the weather that the pegasi do."
Nutmeg paused in devouring her fish to shake her head, saying, “If I ever see another ship’s engine again, it’ll be too soon. No offense. We’re more about... personal labour saving devices. Like that hair dryer that’s been all the rage in Equestria. That was one of our designs. Subcontracted, of course.”
Using her powerful magical abilities to toss the bones on top of the remains of Reef’s fish, Nutmeg lifted the ale jug in her hoof and took another swig. “Ah, yeah, that’s the stuff,” she purred warmly, setting the jug down and laying back. She sat up again hurriedly then, blushing through the brown of her fur as she looked Reef’s way and said, “Sorry I forgot it was your turn at the ale.”
"Oh, quite all right... Sails does want me on the shore party by noon after all. Set Sail, that is. The captain." Reef stopped to glare at his wings, which has somehow become partly unfolded again. Pulling them in tightly, he continues. "Our? Oh of course your herd, erm, group? You're the leader aren't you, before you even came on the ship I mean. They do seem to like you, that stallion in particular... Steer Shift, he was quite... protective, when I followed you after the saloon incident."
“Yeah, I guess I ended up with a herd, heh,” Nutmeg said, laying back in soft disbelief, just gazing upwards, “Kirin aren’t as herdy as ponies. Mostly we just live together. But I’m not gonna say herds are a bad thing. Got some good ponies in my crew.”
She cast a lazy look Reef’s way, “Gear Shift’s the one you’re thinking about, I think. He really doesn’t mind you or anything. He just doesn’t want me to go get myself killed. Poor guy has his hooves full, I’m afraid.”
Struggling up again to a sitting position, she hastily added, “Oh, we’re not together, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s with Static and Sprocket right now. He’s just somepony who’s been with me since graduating. Cares about me like a... like a brother would.” She didn’t seem entirely pleased with that conclusion, sighing and holding before herself one of her uniquely two-fingered hooves.
Reef blinked. "Static... and Sprocket. I suppose stallions are hard to find, in ponyland. I'm aware of the genetics of course, read quite a few papers on it, it's just... well, it's always a bit of a shock. Griffs are 1 to 1 you know, same number of males and females, even if us hippos are a little more relaxed on the pair bonding than the cat-birds..." Reef looked thoughtful for a moment before giving Nutmeg a curious look. "Can't say I've ever seen the figures on kirin sex ratio, I just assumed things worked for you like they do for ponies? Reproduction that is."
Giving Reef a leery look, Nutmeg asked, "You know about the Stream of Silence, right?"
The hippogriff frowned, thinking back. "Just what you told me, that time in the sick bay. Magical device suppressing emotions and all that. Hmm, one imagines your, erm, leader? ...must have just ordered you all to, err, procreate. To continue the species and so forth."
“It’s called the Stream of Silence for a reason though,” Nutmeg said, “It goes beyond just removing emotions. It takes away... I mean I just... no, the leader didn’t order us. She didn’t say anything. It was just, when you went into season, you counted how many kirin had died the last year, and then you just randomly assembled, and... had that many babies. We didn’t have pair bonding, or any bonding. And it wasn’t terrible. It just... was.”
"Huh." Reef looked away for a while, unsure what to say about that. Tentatively, he asked, "erm, if you don't mind me asking, did you... participate? Do you have any foals, I mean to say."
Nutmeg was quiet for a moment at that. “No, I haven’t had any, err, foals yet,” she said, “I was getting on to that age when we awoke, but then we, y’know, awoke. I haven’t known how kirins are supposed to love each other ever since. I don’t think it’s like ponies though, even if we’re also one of the creatures with more females than males.”
With a smile, she added, “But it was nice to get my emotions back right when I was starting to appreciate males. That’s a crazy feeling, I’ll tell you.”
The hippogriff looked away for a long moment. If we was blushing, he managed to hide it by the time he faced Nutmeg again. "Indeed, no doubt, teenage hormones, bad enough without magical artefacts complicating things, can't imagine... well." The stallion rose to his feet.
"So! I regret I do have to get back, have to prepare for the sortie you see, certainly can't let Sails down. We do have a little time though, if you'd like to go for a little swim? Try being a seapony for a bit, I mean." Another pause, then "Oh you might not have heard; you know us hippos, we can transform other creatures into seaponies you know. Well usually seaponies. I hear dragons can be a bit unpredictable, eh heh, but it's all fully reversible, I assure you."
Nutmeg blinked, staring at Reef like a deer in headlights. "Wait... what?" she asked incredulously, "You can turn me into a seapony?"
"One certainly can, should you desire, nothing to it really, the Queen did all the real spellwork... oh, not to rush you, wouldn't want to spoil your breakfast." Reef Skimmer took a few steps down to the lake shore, dipping a claw into the gently lapping water."
Nutmeg didn't follow immediately, saying from where she sat "I... but... you didn't even have any hind legs," she says faintly, "What would that even feel like?"
The hippogriff looked back at his own hind legs: long and covered in short grey fur. "Hah! Quite normal I would say, you know when I first turned at seventeen, I had no idea what to do with these things! Must confess, I still turn seapony at night sometimes, if I can't get comfortable..." Reef blinked: maybe he didn't need to confess that. "Well anyway, not exactly like your legs are tied together, more that your body just sort of, tapers down to your tail... maybe a little like a snake? No that I've ever been a snake, so..." The griff trailed off, realising he might not be making a good case. "Must say it's nice to have a good splash about... unless... that doesn't cause problems with your fire does it? Wouldn't want you going, out, ha!" His beak grin was short lived. "That can't happen can it?"
“Water’s never put out my fire before, but I’m not even on fire right now,” Nutmeg said cautiously, taking a step forward, then a step away, then bounding up to him, saying, “Oh what the heck, let’s try it!”
Nutmeg Inferno's red ruff and chocolatey brown fur quickly became soaked, plastered against her as she kirin-paddled away from the shore. "You know I'm n-not entirely sure this is a good idea," she said nervously, sticking close to Reef, who was swimming confidently even in hippogriff form, though at least she wasn't having much trouble staying afloat. "Are you sure it'll even work right on me? I can't really turn into a... a fish, can I? Maybe we should..."
Reef gently placed a claw on Nutmeg's flank, saying "No need to worry, very reliable this single-purpose magic. It all feels quite natural, so I hear, even for first timers; certainly the ponies I've see give it a whirl were swimming around confidently after just a few minutes. Wouldn't suggest it otherwise..." He frowned: this was supposed to cheer the engineer up. "...but if you're having second thoughts, we can give it a miss and just head back to the ship."
Clinging to Reef's arm for support, she started to speak, then looked back to the shore, then turned forward again saying, "But you know then I'd have gotten all wet for no reason and... yeah let's do it. Before I get tired from all this..." a bit self-consciously, she pushed free from Reef, floating on her own, concluding, "...paddling around."
Reef cocked his head, looking at the kirin with an unreadable expression for a moment, before continuing "Righty-o then. Now the one thing that can panic a landlubber, err, pony, is if you think about respiration too much. You see what actually happens is that your trachea gains two additional branches that lead to your gills, the valve action is reflexive when..." Seeing the kirin's confused stare, he summarised "Yes, well in essence you can breath air or water, you won't drown, no need to worry about it. Understood?"
Nutmeg nodded, looking his way seriously. "Don't think about it. Got it. Let's do this." She sounded more confident than she looked, which wasn't hard considering her timid demeanour. "So how do you... I mean go ahead and zap me, or whatever."
Restraining himself from delivering another confusing explanation, or perhaps preferring to preserve a little bit of mystery, Reef Skimmer nodded silently and swam over to Nutmeg, placing one claw on her shoulder while the other grasped the amulet dangling around his neck. The hippogriff closed his eyes and concentrated: almost immediately an irregular humming started, rising in tone while beams of bright white light escaped from between his talons. A few seconds later, the magic reached a crescendo and burst out, wrapping the two creatures in swirling ribbons of energy. It left Reef in the sleek grey seapony shape Nutmeg saw earlier.
As for the kirin, the light enveloped her, slightly lifting her in the water as her tail expanded through the water into a huge muscular snakelike rudder, sucking her hind legs right into her body and leaving only a pair of small fins where they had been. Her slick brown fur became smooth scales, though the golden ones remained on her back and rear, now extending all along her tail. Her hooves became more cuplike and prominent, the tuft at the end of her tail became a large sail-like crimson fin, and her ruff shrank slightly while staying fluffy. Her horn didn't change at all, though it already resembled coral so went along nicely with the whole aquatic theme. Nutmeg twisted around on the surface of the lake in confusion, exclaiming, "W-woah, what?"
For a long moment Reef Skimmer just watched the transformed kirin: he had been thinking of her as 'kinda cute, in an extra-fluffy-pony way', but as a seapony his impression was 'really rather pretty'. He shook his head; he should probably be doing something more supportive. "That's it, just go with it." he said, swimming in a slow circle around Nutmeg, "Tail drives you forward, angle your body to steer."
Nutmeg was still unconsciously attempting to paddle along with her forelegs splashing on the surface, turning her tail slowly left and right, more to keep herself upright than to move forward. "Woah, my tail is... HUGE," she said in astonishment, twisting in a circle to openly stare at what was now the lower two thirds of her body.
"Indeed it is, and a very shapely tail it is..." Reef blinked, realising what he'd just said. "Erm, I mean to say, that's the expected shape! More or less, vertical caudal fin rather than horizontal, and pectorals too, definitely closer to fish anatomy than... erm, I mean to say, the transformation, well, it came through just fine, fine indeed..." he blurted, blushing and turning his head away. Trying to focus, he suggested "Perhaps you might try just tucking your forelegs in there?" He pulled his own forelegs up to his chest, the fins that had replaced his claws folded back. "Let the tail do the work, you see."
"Oh yeah, I... I see," Nutmeg said, cautiously snaking about, still on the surface. "You like tails, huh?" she asked in amusement, trying to strike a pose for him, but her upper body just flops back to splash into the water when she tries. "Whoops, ha ha..."
The question immediately took Reef back to certain escapades as a teenage seapony, which he considered sharing with Nutmeg for about half a second before classifying the whole notion as hopelessly embarrassing. "Hah, yes, surprisingly flexible you know... One does wonder how dragons feel, lugging theirs around all the time, no buoyancy to help."
"Oh, right, yeah, s-sorry," she said, somewhat mollified by her awkwardness as a fish thing. She managed to swim up to him uncertainly, saying "I dunno about dragons. I don't even have hind legs though, so my tail would be lugging around me!" Swishing her rear fins, she qualifies, "Well... sorta. Am I... supposed to be this long? I mean you don't know you said every creature is slightly different, but it's just really... I mean..." Flopping her tail over her shoulder, Nutmeg looks wide-eyed around it at Reef, explaining, "See? I can hug my own butt!"
"Indeed you can." Reef beak-gape smiles, swimming backwards for a little way before flipping his own big pink tail fin up between the two of them, poking just above the water, and resting his forefins on it. "You do seem to have stretched out to more like hippo proportions, ponies usually look a bit more, erm, stubby? Not that my sample size is comprehensive." The griff seemed very interested in the anatomical differences in Nutmeg's tail, compared to his own more dolphin-like setup. Yep, that was definitely why he was staring at it, Reef told himself. Realising it was starting to get awkward, he turned away from Nutmeg and disappeared under the surface with a quick splash.
"Well, I guess I... follow him," Nutmeg said to herself, left alone on the surface, "N-no problem, right...?" She hesitated, but then took a deep breath and just sort of pulled herself underwater by the power of that thick tail. Squinting her eyes cautiously open, she could see Reef descending away from her. It was a simple enough mathematical vector, to angle herself at the hippocampus and undulate her tail back and forth to quickly catch up to the male... whatever male sea ponies are called.
Seeing Nutmeg make it under, Reef thrashed his tail up and down and zoomed around for a bit, kicking up swirls of sand, pushing through strands of kelp and setting the whole kelp bed twisting and undulating in his wake, before slowing to a stop near her. "Oh good show, you're taking this in your stride! Couldn't ask for better conditions, this water is crystal clear." Indeed, the two could see clear across to the far side of the lake and down to the bottom, which was laced with bubbling cracks.
Curling around in a half loop to right herself, Nutmeg smiled nervously and nodded. She seemed to be more focused on him than the surrounding lake though. Or focused on something, at any rate. Still very tense, she certainly wasn't swimming around and having a blast.
Reef admired the transformed kirin, now fully underwater and bathed in shifting rays of light, for another long moment. He was definitely tempted to... well, no, that would be unfair wouldn't it. He did rather have her at a disadvantage; the kirin was completely reliant on him to turn her back and get her home, and she might feel pressured to accept any advances on his part. Hardly sporting. He started casting about for something else to engage her with. Hunting fish was probably asking too much for a beginner, not to mention they'd just eaten. In Seaquestria or even the nearby reefs there would be a multitude of attractions, but this mountain lake was relatively barren, except... hmm.
Giving Nutmeg a little fin-wave, the stallion swam away for a while, heading down to the bubbling cracks in the central lakebed. He darted about down there for a bit before making his way back to Nutmeg. "Substantial outflow, and looks like some interesting polyps in there... I mean to say, they're, erm, nice and warm! Must be what's keeping the streams going." He cocked his head, looking at Nutmeg. "Want to try one? Might relax the muscles.."
Nutmeg frowned, and waved him off with an oddly-shaped hoof, instead concentrating intently on herself and her intention here. She quivered there, scrunched her eyes shut, and then exhaled just a bit of air. That made her gasp, and all her air rushed out at once, which made her reflexively suck in a bunch of water. So far so good, but she'd never breathed anything as thick and heavy as water before, so her eyes snapped open as her muscles strained to pump it into her. She overcompensated and began to spasms, hyperventilating and writhing and yeah to be honest, totally absolutely panicking.
"Nutmeg!" Reef Skimmer looked shocked for a moment before bursting into action. With a few powerful strokes of his tail he was positioned behind the mare and able to grab her smooth-scaled body in his forelegs, wrapping them around her chest and holding her tight. She was still small enough that his tail was free to propel both of them rapidly upwards, breeching the surface in a dramatic spray of water.
Reef's dorsal fins spread wide as momentum carried them above the water, then at the top of their arc, just before they begin to fall back towards the surface, the ribbons of white-gold magic returned and transformed them back into a hippogriff and a kirin. Nutmeg found herself staring at her own reflection in the water just below her hooves, held aloft by the claws of a hovering hippogriff, her spine still pressed against his keelbone.
The transformation spared her a lungful of water, but Nutmeg was still dripping and bedraggled, hanging there in the arms of Reef Skimmer, gasping for breath as she stared at the water below. Her tail lashes behind her as if... well... as if she still were mostly tail. She slowly relaxed though: her breathing evened out, and she began to chuckle, then to shake with laughter, still hanging there.
Reef dipped his head and looked at his patient; his eagle face upside down from Nutmeg's perspective. Seeing she's fine, he gradually relaxed. "Perhaps that's enough swimming for now? You were doing well there until, err, hmm. You know maybe that explanation was counter productive. Can't recall any other griff mentioning it and the ponies just, well, didn't give it any thought. Ah well". His amulet was doing that odd blue light and ringing sound again, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now.
A few powerful flaps and they were rising away from the water, before gliding down to the pebbled beach. Reef dropped Nutmeg off next to the cart, landed, then began to pack away the picnic materials. Still chuckling to herself, Nutmeg caught her breath upon returning to dry land. "I, heh... I thought about it, sorry," she remarked, ears dipping a little guiltily, as she pulled the picnic blanket out of the basket and unfurls it to hang suspended in the air, while the two of them worked together to return the remaining foodstuffs to the now empty basket
"So, erm, how was it: two legs and a tail fin, that is?" Reef asked, uncertain. "You did make a lovely seapony." He blinked, then turned away. "Err, that is to say... I hope... you enjoyed the outing?" He busies himself backing into the cart's harness, fussing with the straps.
"It was... strange," Nutmeg admitted, "Not the sort of thing I'd ever have dreamed of experiencing. I'd love to try it some more." She floated the blanket down and secured it tight over the contents of the picnic basket, just like it was when they came here. She shook off here and there, the remaining water scattering from her fur and helping to put out the fire, before she stomped its embers into ashes. Some burned sticks and a few fishy skeletons were all that's left of their little meeting, as she came up to Reef with the basket floating behind her.
"You keep saying that about me," she remarked teasingly, "But you don't give yourself enough credit, I think, because you make a pretty lovely sea pony, or... bird pony too. No matter what you are I mean, you are yourself, and... I kind of like that guy." He might have caught her blushing at saying that, but she made a single swift leap into the cart, and busied herself with important things in there like putting down the picnic basket and finding where to sit.
"Indeed! Well then. Erm..." Reef muttered something Nutmeg couldn't quite hear, before saying loudly "Jolly good then. Better get back to the Harmony, wouldn't want Sails... the Captain, rather, getting stressed!" He looked over his shoulder at her, beak-grinning "After all, we've only got the one cart left and I had to swear I'd bring it back intact." The hippogriff spread his wide pinions, preparing to take to the air. "Ready to fly?"
"Ready!" Nutmeg called out, and with that they take to the air, soaring over the woods and heading back to the damaged vessel and the beleaguered crew. Approaching from the air, things did look a lot better than when they first came out of the storm. The balloon had mostly been repaired, all its cells gas-tight and full. In the adjacent meadow the array of tents, tables, and fire pit for cooking are looking pretty solid, though camped out on a wild island isn't exactly a permanent shelter.
Extra fluffy from the blow-drying on the flight back, the kirin again thanked the hippogriff doctor, and retreated nervously back into her beloved/hated engine room. And somewhere far across the island, something ancient and lost awaited, ready to change her future and the fate of them all.