As the first morning light crested over the horizon the next day, Celaeno’s airship made its way towards the ominous dark clouds to the northwest. The mass of thunderheads, illuminated occasionally by a flash of lightning, was surprisingly dry and lacked any sort of hard winds. The lightning bolt-shaped island was barely visible.
The ship anchored a half-mile from the thunderclouds and Yearling, Elytra, and Celaeno approached the starboard side of the ship
“Elytra will assist you with whatever is on this island,” Celaeno explained. “We’d join you, but… well, we have parachutes, not lifeboats. And these,” she gestured to her arms. “Aren’t meant for flying.”
“I think we can manage,” Yearling said. She nodded to Elytra, and the two of them took flight towards the island.
The clouds seemed to darken as they approached the structure near the center of the island, and the flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder seemed to grow in intensity. Yearling’s hair stood on end from the ambient energy.
The structure they stumbled across was the only building on the island, which seemed riddled with long old scorch marks from all the lightning strikes. It was constructed in much the same way the locked building on the central island had been, only smaller.
And much like the central structure, this one also had a sealed door. Lacking any sort of mural on the door itself, instead there were a series of metal nodes with large, round tips sticking out of the wall around it. A stone overhang shielded them from the skies above.
Yearling flapped closer to the nodes and touched them. They seemed nearly pristine. “These aren’t corroded like the stuff on the center island,” she remarked.
Elytra flittered forward and sniffed. “Copper. A little discolored,” she reported.
“Highly conductive, too,” Yearling said, flapping backwards to eye the dark skies. “I think I have a way to open the door, but you’re going to need to stand back.”
“With pleasure,” Elytra said, uneasily watching the skies and flittering away until she was near the edge of the island’s southern tip.
Yearling took a steadying breath and flew up into the thunderheads above. She snatched a series of clumps as she flew, careful to avoid streaks of lightning as they darted between the clouds.
Taking the hooffuls of dark cloud puffs back down to the door, she set each one aside and smacked it with a hoof. A bolt of lightning shot out of each one, sometimes, widly askew, sometimes dead straight.
Carefully aligning the clouds toward the door’s nodes and angling them so their projected lightning bolts would make contact, Yearling rapidly smacked each one in succession.
She shielded her eyes as the nodes lit up in a brilliant, flashing display of arching electricity. She missed a lightning bolt symbol briefly glow on the door, but took notice when the door creaked open. The lightning display quickly dissipated.
Elytra flittered over, nodding at the gathered cloud puffs. “Let’s see if we can find our key,” she remarked as the duo entered.
It seemed to be some sort of simple temple, consisting of a wide pathway to an altar near the back. Glowing white orbs of light, crackling with electricity, illuminated the way. As Yearling examined the walls, she took notice of a plaque on the wall just inside the entrance.
“Hey, take a look at this,” she said to Elytra, whose attention snapped away from the altar in the back. The changeling tilted her head at the writing.
“Can you make out what it says?” she asked Yearling.
“Yeah, it’s… it’s Old Ponish,” Yearling said, blinking in surprise. “This might predate the Unification of Equestria, back to when the pony tribes first arrived. Let me translate it:
“We came to this land to escape the conflict from where we came, the constant bickering between the other pony tribes. We, the pegasi, soon claimed the clouds as our own, and found they reacted well to our magic. Though the other tribes were quick to follow, we stayed aloft, keeping the weather to ourselves, as it is our birthright."
“The Pegasi made this? These islands?” Elytra spluttered. “How? Since when have they been capable of levitating stone?”
“I… don’t know,” Yearling admitted, eyes growing distant in thought. “I know we have cloudwalking and control over the weather, but these islands are beyond that. I knew that armor was familiar! It looks just like the depictions of Flash Magnus, with his armor and Netitus!”
“Maybe there will be other plaques in the other islands,” Elytra said, turning back to the altar and flying over to it. “I think we found our key.” That caught Yearling’s attention, and she quickly followed Elytra over to the altar in the back.
A glow came from a teardrop-shaped gemstone on the altar itself. It was a brilliant, nearly-white yellow color, and a soft crackling noise could be heard coming from it.
Elytra reached out to touch the gemstone, only for a small jolt of electricity to shock her hoof. She snapped it away with a hiss, shaking the stinging sensation from it.
“Are you alright?” Yearling asked, walking up to the gemstone.
“Yeah, but maybe you’ll have better luck,” the changeling hissed.
Yearling gulped, slowly reaching out a hoof to touch the gemstone. When she received no shock from it, she gripped it and plucked it from its pedestal. She waited for a moment to ensure there were no traps, then turned the gemstone over in her hoof. A tingle coursed through her wings.
“You shouldn’t be so greedy,” Yearling chastised. “There could be traps on these things.”
“I’ll let you handle the other three then,” Elytra groused.
Yearling shook her head, carefully stowing away the gemstone in her saddlebag. “Let’s head back to the ship. We still have three more islands to visit – and I want to know the story behind these islands.”
Elytra nodded with a frown, and followed Yearling out of the temple and back towards the ship.
Unseen by them, another pair of masked, furry creatures watch them go from their hidden boat. The first made a move to start the engines, but the second stopped it.
“No,” it grunted. “We cannot go against the Queen’s orders. We wait.”