Questioning Iron Will didn't explain everything I was looking to find out, but it was enlightening.
I got that the goats serve minotaurs and that the minotaurs protected their goats. A goat would do anything their minotaur told them to do, and the minotaur would put everything on the line to protect their goats. How this set-up came to be, he wouldn't explain, but it seemed to be a cultural thing. He also yelled at me when I asked about where they came from or anything about their culture past that. What I guessed was that it was from somewhere outside Equestria, somewhere ponies weren't welcome. He did answer me in a way when I asked what he was doing in Equestria rather than his homeland. He said back home, he had no way of carving out a profit because every business angle was cornered, so he and other minotaurs would leave their home searching for opportunity. I suppose I could respect that.
I had gotten lucky breaks in life that most people would never have dreamed of getting. My early life had started with no seeming hope for the future. Most people didn't have a rich pony show up in the dead of night and change the course of their lives. Iron Will was someone who looked around and didn't see any future, and instead of accepting it, he decided to leave home and make a future. There was something to be admired about that. You could cry about it, and you would be justified in doing so. It wasn't fair, and you had done nothing to deserve it. You might never escape the situation you were put in, but all you had for choices were to accept it or, whether you were successful or not, do everything you could to change it. Iron Will took the second option.
That left me to figure out again what to do with myself. Thankfully, the cramped halls of the cabin had cleared out, and that let me return to my body and come out on deck for real.
Once on deck, I decided to take in the scenery. I propped my forelegs up on the side of the ship's railing and looked at Equestria in all its glory. At the moment, Equestria's glory involved many pine trees and cliffs, lots and lots of pine trees. It smelled like a bottle of Pine-Sol. Still, it was pretty. This part of Equestria made me think of Canada.
"Oh, Canada! Our home and native land!" I sang out over the side of the ship, then broke down into giggles.
"Cute. Ya know, if you keep hanging off the edge like that, you're going to fall off."
I turned my head to see Crystal approaching me. I gave her a big smile and spread my wings. "I might not be the most aerodynamic pony, but I can still fly. It would be embarrassing, sure, but not anything dangerous. Actually—" I flexed my wings. "—the air here feels different than back home. Don't ask me how I know, but I think I might be able to fly better in Equestria. I can feel it."
Crystal rubbed a hoof against her leg. "I can take a guess. This whole place feels saturated in magic. It's like background noise that I can't get away from, and it's driving me nuts."
I got down from the railing and gave her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry to hear that. Guess Equestria isn't such a great place for our crystal ponies. It seems like they should have warned you about that."
"Oh, they did, but one of the bodyguards needed to come along, and Tempest is banned from returning until Phobia retires. That meant either me coming or one of those amateurs that we use as meat shields," Crystal replied, still scratching herself.
"Ooohhh, you can get paid to be a meat shield?" I asked excitedly. "Where do I sign up? I have to make the best meat shield ever!"
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Not happening. I was briefed about you and the other four right before this trip. It was need to know information, and since I was the only bodyguard who would be here, other than an old man, it is now needed to know. You don't get to put yourself in danger."
"Just kidding," I said, waving it off with a wing. "I don't do dangerous. Does this look like the body of an adventurer?"
Crystal raised an eyebrow. "I've been called pudgy in my day." She reached into her mane and pulled out a peppermint, and then offered it to me. "Peppermint?"
I didn't waste any time snatching it up and plopping it into my mouth. "Did you smuggle this through customs?"
"Heh, no, they caught the ones I was trying to sneak through. I bought some fresh ones the first opportunity I could in the Crystal Empire," Crystal explained as she pulled another piece out of her mane and plopped it into her mouth.
"And why aren't you with your normal ponies you protect?" I asked as I looked around for Wild Growth and the Dreamwarden's family.
Crystal flopped on her butt. "Apparently, crystal ponies, not these pseudo-crystal ponies they have in Equestria, make Jean jumpy."
"Really?" I asked, confused.
Crystal shrugged. "I mean, I get it, and then I don't. She had a horrible experience when she was a crystal pony. Still, I'm not a psycho-monster like she was back then."
I frowned. "Just a suggestion, but I wouldn't phrase things quite that way around her or her family."
"Yeah, probably a bad idea," Crystal admitted. "I still don't understand why she's that scared of me. Have you seen the talons on her? She could rip my throat out in a second if she wanted to."
"I wouldn't say that around her either," I added in. "That might reinforce the whole monster idea too. Hey, the chick they have is kinda cute."
Crystal scrunched up her face. "That chick conned me out of a bit. I watched the rascal do the same thing to three other passengers."
I decided not to mention he had done the same to me. I wondered how much he had made so far today. "You could tell his parents about it."
She gave me a skeptical look. "Do you know much about griffins? They're capitalists on steroids. It is baked into their blood. It isn't all-consuming greed, but a griffin will never fault someone for trying to make a profit. His parents wouldn't see anything wrong with it unless he directly stole—even a griffin would see that as morally wrong, but a griffin wouldn't complain about a con. They'd probably be proud of him."
"Are you sure that isn't just a cultural thing rather than a species trait?" I asked. "I only met one griffin before today, and even though I don't know her that well, she never did any conning or do anything that seemed that greedy. She is going into graphic design, which isn't exactly a huge money-making career. If she were that greedy, I would assume she would be at a business college, not an art one."
Crystal stood up and gave me a long look. "You're a little young to remember this, but when we all transformed, there was an eagerness to copy what the Equestrians were doing. We wanted guideposts for how to be proper ponies, and we looked to them for examples and accepted ideas that we would never have accepted before being ponies. Do you honestly think Jean and Roger wouldn't do the same with griffins? I think they would. Whether it's something inherent to the species or just the culture, they will look to other griffins as examples of how they should do things and follow along, even if it is something that they would have never done before or even objected to before. You can count on it."
The intercom screeched on, making me flatten my ears.
"Ponies, griffins, and humans! If you would give your activities a pause, please look to the left to observe Neighagra Falls!"
Crystal gave a pained shake of her head. "Do you think Iron Will spent a previous life as a wrestling announcer?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't get the reference," I said sheepishly.
She rolled her eyes. "Kids, making me feel old. Anyway, come on, let's go look at this waterfall."
It was just a matter of moving from the starboard side to the port side. I knew those terms because they were in the brochure along with a bunch of other shipping terms—but no clop, mind you. We wedged ourselves in among other guests, particularly between Phobia's kids and Sunflower and her family, and we got a good view of the falls.
The waterfall was massive, and the fact the name corresponded with a similar waterfall on Earth made perfect sense. Surprisingly, the waters down at the bottom were pretty calm and seemed to be filtered through a series of dams, at least six different dams that I could see creating a series of small lakes in a row before the river continued again.
There were also several buildings along the side of the water. I spotted a good number that were obviously tourist traps, including a set-up for the barrel-riding experience. There were also some that served more essential purposes. These included what looked like a water plant that had aqueducts branching from it out into the distance, and what I was ninety-nine percent sure was one of the very few Equestrian powerplants. It figured that the eco-friendly Equestrians would use hydroelectric power if they were going to use electricity at all. The dam it was attached to was modest in size, at least compared to the ones we used for hydroelectric power, so I wasn't sure how much energy it was providing. I suppose it could be using some of the others, but it didn't look like it. I also didn't see any power lines, so I was unsure how it was getting electricity to communities. Maybe Roger or Jonathan would know.
"I'm going to do the barrel ride," the least likely person I would have expected announced.
I turned and stared at Sunflower in shock. She was looking over the edge of the ship, giving the waterfall a very intense gaze. I wasn't the only one taken aback by this declaration. Her entire family had turned to look at her in disbelief.
"No can do!" Crystal yelled as she advanced on my friend.
Sunflower turned and looked at Crystal with a calm but determined expression. "You don't have a say. You're Phobia Remedy's bodyguard, not mine. You can fuss all you want, but unless you intend to restrain me, you aren't stopping me."
What was up with her? She didn't usually take that tone with anyone. Sunflower Smiles was normally cheerful, or at least she might be withdrawn if something was bothering her. This was neither of those things; she seemed almost cold.
I decided to try. "Sunflower, you don't like tightly enclosed spaces. Don't think I haven't noticed you still fidget when you have to get on the elevator. Forget how dangerous this is on its own; they're going to seal you in a barrel! I don't want you to have a panic attack."
"Your friend is right, dearie. You've never done well with stuff like that," an earth pony mare, who I assumed was her mother, said. "I know you have gotten much bolder and daring in the past month. Getting away from the farm has done wonders for your self-confidence, but you don't need to prove anything by doing this."
Sunflower set her jaw. "I need to prove it to me. I took one look at our cabins and started trembling. I am tired of being scared of something silly like this. I need to beat this fear, once and for all."
"Can't you find a safer way of beating your claustrophobia?!" her mom cried out.
Sunflower pointed a wing down at the falls. "Look down there. There is a steady stream of ponies doing barrel riding. It wouldn't be like that if it weren't safe. I understand it is scary, and I understand it plays to my worst fear, but that is why I am doing it. If I can go through that, I can deal with something like a cramped cabin or an elevator without them even bothering me."
"I say, let the young mare face her fear," a new voice cut in before anyone else could object.
We all turned to see the Dreamwarden's wife had quietly come up to us and had decided to intercede. She gave Sunflower a reassuring smile.
Crystal apparently wasn't getting cowed by her employer's wife and rounded on the night pony. "Rosetta! I don't think—"
Rosetta waved a wing to silence her. "No need for confessions like that. Anyway, as I was saying, as the Warden of Fear's wife, it behooves me to support the young mare if she wishes to face her fear. I'm sure Phobia would be delighted with her decision. But, hey, that is only the opinion of a Dreamwarden. How important is that in the big scheme of things?"
And that silenced all objections from Sunflower's family. They knew Sunflower was a candidate, and they knew how big a deal Phobia Remedy's opinion was in that case. They were still going to worry—there was no helping that, but they weren't going to do anything that could sabotage Sunflower's chances. I wondered if how Phobia would react had played into Sunflower's decision as well. The clock was clicking down to decision time, and it was up to each of us, without putting the others down, to prove we were the best candidate.
"Can we do it too, Mama?" Charlotte asked in a hopeful tone.
Rosette turned and smiled at her daughter. "Of course you can. The pegasus makes a good point about how safe it is, and it seems like it could be fun. I'll not only allow you to; I'll do it myself." She turned her head and looked at Wild Growth, who had been silently listening to the conversation from a distance. "How about you, little sis? Want to join us?"
Wild Growth shook her head. "I have a particular phobia of falling from a high place into water. I may be able to shrug off gunshots, but I'm more vulnerable to drowning than most. I'll stand watch from a safe distance with Mom, Dad, and our brothers. I doubt a human could fit into one of those barrels, Mom and Dad are too old to be doing something like that, and Guillermo is too young."
"I guess I'll try it too," Roger said, stepping forward. He then turned and looked at me.
Aww, horsefeathers!