A hundred kilometres east, the stranded EAS Harmony still floated alongside the pleasant meadow at the edge of Blissful Pastures. Azure Feather had spent most of the morning making sure their kirin engineer stayed safe, but she was also concerned about the rest of the group's morale. Grenelda and Gustus especially, given the former's injury; she knew most winged creatures were badly affected by losing their ability to fly, even temporarily. She was worried about the research team too: staying behind hadn't been an easy decision, but with the looming threat of the dragon's return... she couldn't afford to have Nutmeg fall into hostile hands.
And so the blue and purple unicorn stood on the forward deck of the drow copter, scanning ground and sky for any sign of sneaky teleporting draconids. The artificial butterfly wings were on her back of course; she just wished they weren't so fragile, one touch of dragon breath and they'd be dust. Meanwhile, in the belly of the little ship, Nutmeg had disconnected the electrodes from one of the reddish crystals at the heart of the engine. Tilting her head in puzzlement, she tried just tapping the crystal to see if it provoked a reaction. All it did was make a faint 'tink tink' sound against her hoof.
Content that they weren't being observed, the guardpony gave a quick glance at the Harmony to check that all was well; things looked fine, crew on deck making minor repairs while other ponies continued to work on the meadow camp. Satisfied, she ducked into the engine room and nodded to Nutmeg. "Nothing to report outside. Likely going to be a quiet day, but we still need to keep our guard up." She wouldn't say it out loud, but a confrontation with even a lone dragon wasn't something to take lightly, especially one with magic... but she'd cross that bridge once she came to it. For now... "You need anything?" she asked the engineer, while staring at that red crystal the kirin had unearthed.
“Do you have a clue about this?” Nutmeg asked distantly; the kirin was still staring in puzzlement at the crystals set into the engine, “I could really use one of those. I repaired the engine damage, but these crystal thingies are where the firebox of the engine should be. I can’t figure out how to get ‘em to... do whatever it is they do.”
Azure stared at the crystal, considering Nutmeg's question. "I'm not an engineer by any extent of the imagination. I do work with magic, and... my best guess is that magic powers these. It seems magic works differently here than back in Equestria... from what Summer said... it's divided into 'elements'. And since this is an airship... it would only make sense that air magic powers this? Now I know my magic's more attuned to that element here, so... I could run a test for you?" She suggested, stepping forward, but then frowning and looking away. "This is only a guard's best guess."
Looking away from the crystal for the first time, Nutmeg regarded Azure with a thoughtful appreciation in her warm, green eyes. “Huh,” she said casually, “That’s not a bad idea. Lemme climb out of this and you can give her a shot.” Leaving the crystalline apparatus open and exposed, the kirin climbed out of the innards of the engine with a minimal amount of wiggling, catching herself against Azure’s side as she stumbled out. “Sorry, heh,” Nutmeg says, a little worn out it seemed as she took her hoof back to herself.
Concern flashed across Azure's face for a moment as Nutmeg seemed about to face-plant. Then she demonstrated her inexperience working inside engines by taking a minute to squirm and shove her way through the pipework; her larger frame also made it tougher than it had been for the kirin. She ended up having to dispel the Skyborn spell to get into a good position: sometimes - very rarely - wings would just get in the way. Finally she got where she needed to go, nodding with determination as her spiralled horn began to glow. First, to confirm that this engine was indeed powered by magic; if so, was it air magic...
Azure Feather closed her eyes and dipped her head, channelling a flicker of power into her horn and letting it diffuse out into the surrounding space, concentrating on the resulting sensations. The cramped space hardly warranted the name 'engine room', compared to the cavernous machinery of the Harmony; with her and Nutmeg in there it already felt full. There was some sort of magic in the surrounding hull, reminiscent of pegasus cloud techniques. There was the kirin, hot and bright and... fuzzy, somehow, flickers or filaments of something... coming out from her. Almost like mind magic, except that it didn't connect to anything. Strange, but not what she was looking for.
“Ehhh you sure about that?” Nutmeg said, coming up to the open iron boiler, looking worriedly after the unicorn making her way in. “Just get out of there if it starts turning on,” she added, “Remember you’re not fireproof. And wow, your magic is... crazy good. What does that even...?” She watched Azure work with the vague understanding of a unicorn foal watching a professional casting their complex spells.
Concentrating on the engine itself, Azure felt... something dark, something terribly unsettling that made her want to bolt out of there right now, a hollowness... but it was just an echo. Something... grim had had happened here, and Azure couldn't help but wonder what exactly it had felt like for Cloud Cutter... but no, this wasn't what she was looking for either. Steeling herself and trying to ignore the traces left by a soul being forced from its shell, she felt for the crystals. There... that must be it. Magical, but not like her own techniques... more akin to the kirin perhaps, but it felt like... a sponge? Like it wanted to suck energy in, and hold it inside, presumably to release when the time was right. A magical crystal sponge? Azure opened her eyes and blinked, wondering if her horn was playing tricks on her.
Her scan completed, the unicorn turned back towards Nutmeg, her expression troubled. "Oh, it's a magical power source, all right, it's... hungry... for something. The crystals themselves don't feel 'airy', for lack of a better word, though perhaps the hull benefits from some workings along those lines. But... those creatures seemed to have love for slavery, battle... and death. Part of me wonders if... are these creatures insane enough to use life force, even living sacrifice, to power their engines...?!"
“But... that can't be... this is a steam engine, it runs on coal, not... souls! You don’t really think they love death, do you?” Nutmeg asked uneasily. "Ok... so maybe not coal, but this part of the engine is definitely supposed to get hot, and there's no tanks of air or oil or chemicals around here, just these crystals. So I thought, they must be able to produce heat, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to get them to start doing their thing." She looked at Azure's horn, pondering. "Do you think if you feed enough air magic into them, it'll... light ‘em up?”
"That I can't say. My initial thought was just that this place is full of magic, airships fly, air magic, two plus two, you know?" Azure started, before her brows furrowed in thought. "You know, the traps my unit fell into were designed to catch birds... griffons... flying creatures of all kinds, all with wing magic. Maybe it takes a particular kind of life energy..." Azure looked even less comfortable at this notion, and part of her just reaffirmed her wish to get the heck off this ship...
Nutmeg's big round-cornered ears went flat at that, and she sent an unappreciative look Azure’s way, the kirin saying dryly, “I’m not gonna stuff a bird into it. I don’t think they’d do something like that, even if it did work. Maybe you... maybe you are being a little too hard on these creatures. Yeah slavery is... is bad, I guess. But they had like an arena or something, so that’s pretty cool right?”
"Cool if you win, yes, cool if you keep winning, but these monsters won't let you stop until you lose! And if you lose, it's lights out!" Azure said angrily, getting worked up.
“They wouldn’t do that!” Nutmeg retorts at Azure in confusion and disbelief, “They’d run out of creatures to battle then! Why wouldn’t they take care of them? You can't know that!"
"She boasted about it!" Azure said, almost shouting. "That horrible drow told us... ah..." Seeing Nutmeg's horrified face, the unicorn closed her eyes and tried to calm herself with a few deep breaths. Finally, she continued in a more level tone. "Maybe you're right. It might just be what happened here, whatever Cloud Cutter did, if it left traces on the engine somehow. Something just feels wrong with this place. But as for the crystal itself, my main impression was of a kind of magical sponge. A kind of fuel tank, in short..."
"R-r-right." the kirin stammered nervously. "M-maybe this crystal just needs a bit of magic to sponge up. It’s not a blood crystal, even though it’s red. Those are actually black! So why don’t you try zapping it?”
Azure paused... and nodded a bit, sighing. "Sorry. Got carried away. Always hated slavery." The fear and rage had dimmed in her eyes, enough for her to focus on the task at hand. Summoning up her magic once again, this time, she wouldn't give it a form, simply trying to feed it to the crystal. A slow trickle at first, as Nutmeg's warning about the engine bursting into flames lingered in her mind. The gentle stream of unformed, almost raw magic flowed out from Azure, surrounding the red crystals... which just sit there, unresponsive. She tried a few tricks, varying the frequencies in the stream, but no dice. The crystals felt hungry, but they didn't want her magic.
After a few seconds of trying to fuel the machine up, Azure soon shook her head and stopped the flow. "Wrong analysis... it's designed to absorb something, I'm pretty sure, but not magic." she concluded, soon starting to make her way out of the engine's vicinity, leaving the area once more accessible to Nutmeg. "It was a valid train of thought, just... not what we needed to get this thing off the ground."
“Aw, well it was worth a shot,” Nutmeg said, her muscles relaxing after several tense minutes preparing to tackle the unicorn at the slightest sign of danger. “Maybe we should take a break on it for now. See if any ideas pop into my head. I’m the one who’s supposed to figure it out, but... y’know it’s not mechanical or anything. It absorbs... something, then releases heat... huh, do you think it could just be a thermal battery? Like... a ridiculously high specific heat capacity? Maybe if I tossed it in the Harmony's firebox for a while..."
The engineer carefully levitated the crystal out and stowed it in her saddlebag. Now that she wasn't completely focused on the problem, she suddenly realised how hungry she was. "Uh, yeah, you want to go get some food first?”
"Sounds like a heck of a plan, Nutmeg." Azure said with a smile. She had no idea what a 'thermal battery' was, but was liking the prospect of getting some lunch. "I'd happily take a field ration right now." she admitted, giving the engine one more look before trotting back out onto the deck. The unicorn wondered if there was any cider left, it'd been a while since she'd had a chance to partake.
“You’re a pony, aren’t you?” Nutmeg asked the unicorn in clueless if bemused curiosity, “I thought you were all happy eating grass and stuff.” Just a few tools to tidy away and she'd follow.
"Grass is most of the pony diet, yes. But you'd be surprised what some ponies can do with it!" Azure mentioned with a chuckle... before she quickly added "Just don't expect any culinary magic from me..." Her voice trailed off as she spotted movement near the stern of the Harmony. Billowing black drifting movement. Smoke in fact, pouring out of the portholes at the back of the ship.
Without another word, Azure recast the Skyborn spell and sprang into the air, heading straight for the smoking stern of the giant airship. To her, it's was clear that this was enemy action, and she mentally prepared for a fight; but was it another dragon, or the drow, or another threat entirely? She'd been so keen to assist the engineer... that'll teach her to let her guard down!
Nutmeg came outside in short order, saying amiably, "I'm sure you could make something I never tried before. It—" Where had the unicorn was gone... her gaze settled to the billowing black smoke and the kirin immediately dashed forward, hardly noticing Azure soaring up over her head as she bounded straight for the ship.
The smoke was definitely coming from the galley, at the back of the middle deck... right below the coal bunkers. As Azure flew over to the Harmony the air filled with the shouts of crew members rushing to assist, pierced by the distinct sound of a screaming mare. Without their first, second or even third mate to direct them, the firefighting response seemed enthusiastic but disorganised.
"Some creature's stuck down there..." Azure muttered as she arrived, casting about for options and seeing Nutmeg charging up the gangplank. "Nutmeg, could you...” and Nutmeg went on charging wordlessly past her, heading down the ramp to the lower decks, where ponies with buckets were frantically and all too infrequently carrying them down into the ship. “Well okay then,” Azure concluded, glad that somepony seemed to know what she was doing. Nutmeg was fireproof, so she’d probably be fine. But still, with all that smoke... Azure was torn between trying to get down there herself and try to do something about the smoke with her new skill at air magic, and helping out on deck. It looked like the crew could use some direction as well. This was one fight she didn't expect to be in today...
The smoky main deck was full of activity, but no one was trapped down here. Her huge ears perked for the pony in trouble, Nutmeg winced as she heard the cries coming muffled from further below. Ponies weren’t going down there, from all the thick smoke billowing out of the entrance to the tween deck. The pony down there was worse off than Nutmeg though, and the first thing the kirin had been taught in dealing with fires she hopefully hadn’t caused was to forget about the fire, about the burning things, and make sure everyone was out of the smoke first. Scurrying down the second ramp, it was hard to see clearly. The smoke was already making Nutmeg’s breath come short and her eyes water. Nopony at all was going in from where it was billowing out of the galley into the mess hall, but Nutmeg was sure that’s where she heard those weak cries.
A chill going through her as she realized that the pony had stopped crying out for help, Nutmeg lit up her horn and pushed as much of the smoke away from her face as she could before venturing in, fearing the worst. She was never all that good with magic though, and shielding from an amorphous expanding cloud of smoke particles was not something that was easy to do, so she just tried to keep her breath shallow and pressed forward.
With Nutmeg already rushing into the ship, it was down to Azure to coordinate the firefighting, and while she's not very good at it... "We need more water, or we'll lose the ship! Rainwater would help, but the clouds are too far. Do we have any water supply nearby..." she muttered. Her eyes settled on river, at the far end of the meadow. "Okay... okay, we've got water in the river, gotta get it back"
A crowd of pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns, they were all flying above or running around the deck now. Trying a bit of a trick, Azure cast a weak, but visible walls of shimmering wind all around the deck, trapping the crew inside. Another touch of air magic amplified her voice to Royal Canterlot proportions. "Unicorns! You're on bucket duty, grab all the containers you can find, gallop to that stream and bring more water! Pegasi! Clouds, get them down here now, once we've got rain I can use my magic to blow it inside! Earth ponies... you're on the front line, dump all the water we've got into the mess, then get everything flammable out of the nearby corridors! Come on, no time to waste!
The stunned crewponies (and one crewdonkey) looked at each other, and collectively decided not to argue with the winged battle mage casually tossing around powerful magic. As soon as the wind walls dropped, they streaked off, the small herd of unicorns heading for the water with levitating buckets in tow, while the larger flock of pegasi sped off seeking clouds to corral. Azure herself automatically went with the unicorns, flying over their heads towards the river as well: water was the highest priority, and perhaps a couple more buckets made the difference... but immediately she started questioning her plan. Was this really the most efficient way she could help? Her Lieutenant would kick her flank for this such a simplistic plan... but in the heat of the moment it was the best she could think of.
In the mess hall, ruddy light flickered beyond the doorway of the galley, as the flames licked up from the dried hay locker to catch on the tables and cupboards. The door was hanging askew like it had been forced open, and about two steps out the door, a blue pegasus mare with a cutie mark of heart-shaped flowers lay there collapsed on the floor. Nutmeg gave the flickering flames a helpless look, then rushed to the blue mare’s side, murmuring, “Don’t breathe. Short breaths only,” in case she was still conscious. As it so happens, the flower-rumped pegasus was completely unconscious, making it easy to shoulder her upper body onto Nutmeg’s back. Unfortunately, the flower rumped pegasus was a larger mare, and Nutmeg was not, so her upper body was about all the kirin could shoulder. With her horn holding the smoke back from both of their heads, Nutmeg draped the pony’s foreleg over her shoulder and hung onto it firmly with her teeth. Slowly, the kirin dragged her away from the fire and the heat, out the door to the mess hall and back toward the ramp.
Fortunately Nutmeg didn't have to go far before help was at hand. Standing nervously at the base of the main ramp she found Winter Hope, the unicorn nickering and stamping his hooves, apparently scared half witless by the prospect of the ship catching fire. "Who's that... oh, oh it's Bluebell, oh no..." he said, kneeling down beside the mare and checking her over. "She's unconscious... still breathing, thank Celestia. Did you... you saved her?" the unicorn added, looking at Nutmeg as if seeing the kirin for the first time. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"
“We need—” Nutmeg coughed at her burning lungs, “—out of the smoke!”
The stallion's eyes widened, and his horn lit, adding his much more powerful telekinetic push to Nutmeg’s efforts. The two backed up in the corridor and up the ramp with the heavy mare, until they were all out of the ship and clear of the smoke.
“You know how to—you know about the poison in smoke,” a panting Nutmeg asked the white unicorn stallion, afraid to leave the mare like this, “The poison that takes away your breath even after it’s gone, right?”
Blinking at her in confusion, the stallion said, “Carbon monoxide? Y-yes. I can—”
“Do that!” Nutmeg shouted with a push of her hoof against his chest. Then the sooty kirin mare leapt straight for the engine room, bounding across the deck in two shakes of a kirin’s tail.
In a cabin at the far end of the ship, two griffons had been carrying on a spirited argument about just how long one should rest an injured wing before flying again, when the muffled shouts of "Fire, it's a fire!" started echoing up the corridor. Gustus sprang to his feet and was already half-way out the door, before he turned to his mate and beseeched her, "Grennie, sounds like they need help... just, stay here, alright, I don't want anything else happening to..."
"Shove it in your cloc, Gusty!" the hen shouted back, her feathers puffing up. "I'm not sitting here while..." Focused as he was on his mate, the griffon's keen eyes picked up motion behind Grenelda... something green, creeping across the floor in front of a porthole that had been closed a minute ago, light glinting on the knife raised high in one hand, ready to be plunged into the back of his beloved Grennie...
Gustus's eyes narrowed in a sharp and horrified look at the creeping figure! "Grennie, look out!" he squawked, leaping forward to try and intercept the intruder. That weapon was small but no less dangerous for that; he went for a grab, trying to wrestle it out of the small biped's grip before it was too late!
His mate's eyes went wide: she started to twist and look over her shoulder but was body-checked sideways as Gustus lunged forward. The griffon's claw reached out to grab the drow's arm, but he was off balance and facing a bloodthirsty, battle-hardened enemy. The drow didn't fare much better, instinctively adjusting her aim as Grenelda shifted sideways before realising she'd over extended. Both parties missed their mark, but Gustus found himself with a slashed and bleeding claw while the tips of his own talons scored deep red gouges in the attacker's forearm. She screamed and nearly dropped the butcher's knife, before managing to transfer it to her other hand. "Die, just die, like the animals you are!" she raged, stress and her bizarre accent making the insult barely understandable.
The griffon let out a screech of pain, as this hostile creature drew blood! He might be panicing, he might not be an experienced fighter, but he was an apex predator and the adrenalin was flowing. He grabbed again for the drow's wounded arm, while his other foreclaw reached for the first place his instinct said to strike: the attacker's face!
Jagged Blade's first instinct was to parry, but the knife was in her off hand and the griffon was much stronger. Instead she flinched back, just fast enough to avoid getting her face ripped off but not enough to avoid losing most of her left ear to Gustus's claw. The drow screamed again, desperately twisting and managing to slip out of the griffon's grip thanks to the lubricating effect of her own blood. She pulled back, preparing to make another slash at her tormentor... but now the female griffon had managed to turn around in the cramped cabin, and was glaring murder at her.
However full of grief and rage she might be, the sight of a pair of giant eagle faces intend on ending her forced the drow to the realisation that her plan to assassinate her mate's killer had failed. Desperately she scrambled back out the open porthole, climbing onto the hull where the much larger griffons could not immediately pursue.
By now Azure had made it back from the stream. A pair of sloshing buckets held in her magic, but that didn't stop her pounding a hoof into her face. "I have air magic now... I should be choking out the fire, cutting off the oxygen, dealing with the smoke..." Why couldn't the Lieutenant be chosen for this mission? "Take them!" she shouted to one of the earth ponies, dropping the buckets at his feet, before flapping down into the ship. If she could push the smoke and stale air back into the galley, then block the doorway with an air curtain, perhaps that would stop it spreading...
“You blooming idiots!” Nutmeg shouted as she ran full tilt into the engine room, “Why haven’t you—?” The kirin cut off as Sprocket and Gearshift ran up with a grey hose carried between the both of them. “Oh you guys are awesome,” Nutmeg declared with a rough smile, turning around as the other two made haste to strap the hose tightly to their chief engineer. With it in tow, Nutmeg went mincing out of the engineering room, hoping to all heck that there’s enough spool on this hose to reach the galley.
Her ears went down at how dizzy she was already feeling, but Nutmeg led her crew downstairs anyway, and promptly ran into Azure’s fire suppression squad. They had already closed all the internal hatches, cutting the fire off from the draft and choking it in its own smoke, and yet the mess hall was mostly clear of smoke. Ponies rushed up and down the ramp carrying away tables, chairs, anything wooden or flammable. Nutmeg pressed on into mess hall itself, where she saw Azure standing there in the middle, horn aglow, holding back the black smoke with a wall of air.
“Azure! Head’s up we got water incoming!” Nutmeg called out, biting the handle on the spigot to send a short blast of very hot water at what the fire she could see licking at the edges of Azure’s wind wall, steam bursting from the spot with a furious hiss.
In the griffon's cabin, Gustus glared with a deathly gaze at the retreating drow, breathing heavy, muscles tensed, feathers flared, ready to pounce. When the biped disappeared through the window, it seemed the immediate threat is gone. Gustus lets out a sigh of relief, turning first to hug Grenelda protectively, then checking on his own wounds. "What in Equestria is going on around here? I hardly feel safe anymore! I mean, we knew that we were heading into danger, passing through the storm barrier and all, but now we have assassins crawling over the ship! Where does this malice come from?"
"Shoulda killed that little bitch when we had the chance." Grenelda spat, taking Gustus's claw in her own and checking it over. "You gotta get that bandaged." The hen pressed her beak against her mate's neck. "Gusty, oh Gusty, ya did great just there, she had me cold."
Gustus flattened his feathers. "It went so fast - I hardly had a moment to think. Next time." He seems obliging with his choice of words, but he's scared on the inside.
"Yeah, but... look, we gotta take her down. Before she does any more damage." Pulling out of the hug, the griffoness pushed out into the corridor, heading for the upper deck.
Gustus looked down, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I do... Ah, where are you going, Grennie?! You need to rest!" He perked up, and hurried after her.
As he padded after his mate, Gustus spotted another of the creatures, crouching inside a darkened cabin. The furless green biped seemed smaller than the first one and less sure of herself, with no obvious weapon. In her haste to get topside, Grenelda swept straight past the doorway and disappeared up the ramp. The little drow watched the griffon go and seems to sag with relief, before turning and seeing Gustus staring at her. Her face contorted in shock and fear.
Gustus put on a scary face (an easy feat for a natural predator) and approached the drow, claws brandished. "Are you feeling remorseful for your horrendous actions yet, little green creature?" He clicked his beak and stared.
"W-What? What do you mean? Look, I didn't do anything, I swear" Silent Arrow squeaked. "It was all Jaggers, she's the one you want. And... I can help you find her! I know how she thinks! You're a smart griffon, r-right, so d-don't eat me, 'cause that would be dumb!" The little drow nervously glanced around, avoiding Gustus's gaze and considering whether to make a break for it.
Gustus thought for a moment. Well, the little thing does seem to be missing its knife... suddenly he remembered his mate mentioning that two of her would-be slavemasters had survived. "You would lead me to your brethren? I swear if you're trying to set a trap for me, you're gonna find your guts all-"
Up on the deck, Grenelda was leaning over the rail, one wing extended and squawking with frustration. "Azure!" she shouts. "Gustus? Someone! That little elf bitch is crawling on the hull!" If only she could fly right now, it was like her enemy was mocking her.
His ears perk up at Grenelda's shrill voice! "Nevermind. Coming, Grennie!" Gustus gives the smaller drow one last glance as he scampers onto the top deck. "Point me and I'll take flight, dear!"
Down in the mess, Azure's kept her spell stable, keeping the mess clear of smoke while Nutmeg fought the flames in the galley. The bucket brigade had cleared and were in the process of slowly drenching anything flammable left in the room, while outside the ship, the first drops of rain began to patter on the portholes as the pegasi worked their weather magic. A little more and the ship would be saved... but who could have started this? Little that she knew, they weren't the only ones having problems...
Nutmeg's supply of pressurized water from the boiler ran out quickly, but she used it in targeted blasts to kill the worst flames first, so by the time her hose went dry, there were just a few smouldering timbers for the bucket brigade to deal with. Azure pushed her air wall forward, blowing the rest of the smoke out the portholes, while the earth ponies rushed in, stomping on the embers. The terrible smell of fresh charcoal and burned provisions filled the air.
At the cry from Grenelda, Azure looked up. "...The drow escaped?! Damn it..." she cursed, flapping back out of the ship in short order, looking for the enemy. "Guess we need to go hunt, then..." The winged unicorn looks less than happy. "If they caused that fire, I don't care how much they plead..." She shook her head, starting to look...
Far away, in some abandoned castle, a cold chill went down Set Sail's spine.
Jagged Blade had expertly climbed her way around to one of the mooring lines attaching the ship to the nearby cliff. Wincing with pain as she forced her wounded arm to carry her weight, the drow managed to get on top of the rope and balanced on it like a tightrope with catlike grace. Clearly visible to all on deck, she didn't stop to look back, just ran for the relative freedom of the meadow, hoping to reach the treeline and lose her pursuers in the jungle.
Gustus peered into the meadow as Grenelda pointed the way! "I see them: I'm in pursuit!" He leapt off of the deck railing, wings spreading as he arcs up before diving down, claws spread, in a swoop towards the drow. She might be a fast runner but there was no way she was getting away from an airborne griffon!
The predator slammed into the drow warrior, his claws bearing her to the ground and pinning her there. The shock of the impact had stunned her beyond any prospect of immediate counterattack, and he easily pulled the knife from her belt and tossed it away while keeping the other claw on her back. A shrill screech of triumph escaped his beak before he leaned down to the enemy's face. "You're going to regret what you've done today." He held off on the killing blow though, hesitant to take a sapient life no matter what the crime.
Pursuit? "Not alone!" Azure cried out before launching into the air herself, her face grim and resolute as she flapped after the griffon (though the effect was slightly diluted by her glittering butterfly wings). The eagle-lion chimera was far faster though, and it looked like he'd have first choice on the drow's fate; a fact that's further driven home as she spots the gryphon pinning his prey. A few seconds later and the unicorn was right next to him, her disgust evident. "Lit the ship on fire and hoped to get away, huh?" She's jumping to conclusions, but judging by the race's track record...
Jagged Blade let out a frustrated scream. "Nearly took all of you down, didn't I?" Then between ragged sobs: "Do it! Just do it! You killed my crew, you killed my mate, I'm an... exile.... now, because... of you... stupid. freakish. beasts!"
Azure regarded the drow stonily for a few moments, then flapped back into the sky. The mare's voice was devoid of emotion as she said "Bring her, Gustus." The griffon followed behind, the biped held in his claws; her struggles subsided as she realised what escape now would mean. Azure flew over the island's jungle until they were out of sight of the ship, then veered off over the edge, until they were hovering in open sky.
"By your own confession, you are a slaver, a thief and a murderer." Azure's voice was like an icy gale worthy of the windigoes themselves. "Despite this you were granted prisoner of war status, and you responded by trying to burn down a civilian ship and assassinate the crew. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Knowing the game was up, the drow leader still managed to muster a cruel, coughing laugh. "I'd do it all again. You think you've won? My kin will come, every single one of you will be a slave or a meal! I just wish I could see it."
A final dismissive snort from Azure, then a nod to Gustus. Jagged Blade's last scream quickly faded away as she became a dwindling dot, eventually disappearing into the bowl of clouds far below. Gustus's claws were trembling; Azure took them in her hooves. "It's ok, Gustus. Two days on the ship was enough for her to nearly kill Bluebell-"
"And Grennie." he whispered. "If I hadn't been there-"
"And Grenelda." Azure stated. "One way or another, it was us or her. Remember that."