Lilac was screaming. There was smoke everywhere. The ship was being consumed by fire. Flames spread hungrily over the deck, resisting all efforts to extinguish them. She heard Chip yell "Bucking hay!!", but she couldn't find him amid the smoke and burning and the milling crowd of panicking people and ponies.
The transport ship had just left the dock at San Francisco, heading for the ever-encroaching barrier to cross over into Equestria, when a gang of masked and black-clad figures had hurled firebombs all over the ship's main deck. There wasn't much flammable–no wood, only metal and plascrete–but still the fire grew and spread, threatening to engulf everything on the ship, inert or alive.
She heard a sharp whistle pierce the gloom and Harmony's voice rang out. "Featherfall here to me!" It was a command the rose gold pegasus obeyed before she realized she was moving.
Like a tiny blue-green drill sergeant, Harmony directed the ship's grizzled captain to herd all the passengers and crew below decks. She had a plan, and that plan involved enlisting Featherfall to help Madrigal whip up the biggest whirlwind she'd ever attempted. For once Feather had to follow her friend's lead as they flew in ever-tightening circles around the burning ship. The cyclone would suck up bay water and wash off the deck; the salt water would render this particular accelerant, which Harmony called "Hell Jelly", inert.
Harmony's plan worked; the ship was stripped of whatever substance had made the bare metal burn, and they continued on their way. Harmony had stayed on the deck, protected by her hornfield, which had collapsed just as they released the water onto the deck. Both Madrigal and Featherfall had feared the worst, but Harmony had died once, and she was in no hurry to do so again. Recovering from her near-drowning, the tiny unicorn directed the others and applied her own magic and carefully-stocked herbs to heal up the injured.
Harmony couldn't hate the terrorists who'd thrown the deadly molotovs–so she said. Featherfall found she couldn't truly work up a good hate-on, either…but she could be–she was–so angered by the attempt on their lives that she felt no sympathy whatsoever when she heard that the Blackmesh had taken care of them.
Permanently.
She only had to look at her lovers to justify her lack of empathy. Chip had a poultice on his flank where he'd lain to smother the blaze of Lilac's tail…
Poor Lilac. Her long, lovely cornsilk tail had been destroyed. In its place she had a short tuft of hastily-trimmed hair. It made Featherfall heartsick, but Lilac didn't seem to mind. She even said she might leave her tail cropped. Feather promised herself to put a stop to that nonsense.
Equestria was everything promised by the holos, and so much more. The air was sweet and clean; the sky was improbably blue; the grass was green and fragrant and lush, and Chip seemed determined to sample every variety of ground cover within line of sight before they'd even set hoof on the nearby road that led…wherever it did. It was a road. It led somewhere.
And then the griffon showed up.
It–he–knew Madrigal from back on Earth as Tib. He even knew her new name. Most astonishingly, Maddie knew him. She hadn't talked much about the AI program she'd used in her work–apparently it had been too painful for her–but somehow this griffon was that very same AI, brought to Equestria and given flesh. It was hard for Feather to wrap her head around that concept, but Madrigal was happy to be reunited with something–no, someone–she'd thought lost forever, and that was all that mattered.
Strangely, Featherfall knew how that felt. As the group set off on the road to the village Corey the griffon said awaited, Feather reveled in the strength and grace she felt with each step of her new legs. She began to dance as she walked, forever on her toes now, with no cramps or blisters or bleeding sores to worry about, ever again. However much Chip might joke about "ponies in tu-tus", Feather was determined to found a dance troupe as soon as she got settled in this new, alien, beautiful world.
She jumped straight up and executed a perfect double entrechat, fore and rear legs fluttering back and forth in perfect tandem at least a dozen times before she returned to the ground. And she hadn't even used her wings to keep herself aloft!
Bounding ahead, she threw herself into ronds and jetes and graceful glissades. Laughing with pure joy, Lilac frisked around her, and Chip began whistling merrily. It must have been a tune Madrigal knew, because she began singing, and soon Harmony joined in, her throaty contralto weaving in and around Madrigal's clear soprano. The griffon, Corey, proved an appreciative audience of one, riding between Madrigal's wings.
So delighted was she in her capering, Featherfall didn't even notice the tingle in her flank. Only later, when they'd reached the village, would she see that she'd gained her cutie mark.
A pair of red ballet slippers.
THE END