That night, Floydien sat faithfully at the helm. His antlers sparked randomly into the console of the Noble Jury's cockpit, steering the ship faithfully towards the bleak horizon beyond the mountain peaks. At some point, the elevated terraind sloped north, and a stretch of snowy tundra appeared below, separating the last remaining strip of the continent from the icy-cold shoreline below. The ship hung low enough for the elk pilot to hear the crashing of waves against sand and frost. His ears twitched slightly, but he continued to say nothing.
Further back, in the middle of the open deck, Eagle Eye was in the middle of exercising complex fight moves. His lungs heaved and his lithe limbs were coated with a fine layer of sweat. As weary as his muscles felt, he forced himself onward, parrying invisible enemies and thrusting his sword into the night air. His violet eyes were dull and weary, and it constantly looked as though he was gazing at a fixed point miles behind each of his imagined opponents.
At one point, he slid forward on two knees, levitating his sword in a deep stab. As he did so, he paused, for he spotted white flakes collecting on the tip of the blade. Blinking, he caught his panting breath, then glanced upwards.
Likewise, inside the cockpit, Floydien tilted his head to gaze beyond the frosted windows. He saw a thin curtain of snow collecting above. Undaunted, he pushed the Noble Jury on through it. Eagle Eye lingered for a minute or two, then sighed, resuming his fighting moves in eerie silence as the vessel coasted along.
Inside the kitchen, Ebon Mane pretended to mix a large salad. He threw in a heap of tomatoes and half a bag of carrots. It was right when he was preparing to toss the whole mess when he suddenly froze, then slumped back onto a stool situated between two counter tops.
He ran a hoof through his mane, shuddering. With a dull expression, he gazed out the nearest doorframe.
Josho sat at one end of the mess hall's long table. With a contemplative stance, the old soldier gazed quietly out porthole, watching as a powdery stream of snow fell pass the circular glass window. A plate of pasta sat before him, but the obese stallion hadn't taken a single bite.
The first stretch of dawnlight poured into the observation room, casting a golden sheen across Rainbow's sleeping face.
The mare turned over, stirring unconsciously in her hammock. Even in the deepest slumber, her face carried the deep, hard lines of distress. She murmured indecipherable words, her eyes jerking rapidly left and right beneath her lids. At one point, her forelimbs tensed up, then dangled across her chest as a bead of moisture clung to her lashes.
It was around this point that a light brown hoof reached up and brushed her chin, before softly caressing her cheek.
Rainbow Dash tensed again, her clenched teeth showing beneath her lips. But as the hoof stroked her muzzle, she whimpered something in a foalish tone, then unconsciously nuzzled it. The hoof stayed in place, accepting the pegasus' slumbering gesture. A deep breath escaped Rainbow's lungs, and the tension dripped loose from her body. Her eyes relaxed, and she dangled still in the hammock, breathing evenly for once.
Then, slowly—receding like a drifting feather—the brown hoof slipped away. Shadows shifted against the bulkheads, and Rainbow was alone with the sunrise.
A minute passed.
Five minutes.
Ten...
The Noble Jury shook with a slight jolt.
Almost instantly, Rainbow Dash's eyes fluttered open. She squinted at the bright window of the observation room, then at the empty floor beneath her and the hammock. With a sigh, she closed her eyes again.
Silence...
Suddenly, Rainbow Dash shot up. Her sleepy eyes blinked wide. She flung a hoof up to her cheek, rubbing it, her lips pursing. Then, with a look of frightening curiosity, she turned to stare out into the vertical crawlspace. Her wings twitched... then twitched again.
Cl-Clank!
She jumped down on all fours and galloped across the space. She tore across the navigation room, flung open a metal door, flew across the engine compartment, and opened the door on the other end. Almost instantly, she was greeted with a blast of cold, wintry air. Squinting, she rushed through the open doorway to the hangar and skidded to a stop.
The hangar doors were slightly ajar, and blistering cold gusts whistled through the yawning frame. Staring out, Rainbow could see powdery snow banks looming less than a hundred feet below.
Shivering, Rainbow flashed a look to her side. Half of the crates inside the hangar was missing, along with a huge stockpile of weapons. Breathless, she backed herself into the stairwell and tore her way towards the top deck.
Eagle Eye gasped at the sound of Rainbow's clamoring hooves. He spun, gawking at her. "Rainbow! What's... what's wrong?"
Rainbow Dash was panting. She galloped up to the edge of the ship's stern and gazed out across the landscape. The golden light of dawn was glinting off the mountain peaks to the north and glittering across a sea of ice cold waves to the south. Finally, a long bank of sand and snow stretched west beyond the vanishing point, with a swath of mildly forested valleys bending northwest through a dip in the mountain range.
By this point, Floydien had stepped out of the cockpit. "What brings paint bucket so glimmeringly into the gasp of frost frost?!" He waved a cloven hoof, grumbling. "The boomer should at least throw on a leather coat! Is none of Floydien's relatives, yes yes?"
Rainbow said nothing. With a low grunt, she galloped clear off the edge, spread her wings, and dove down towards the frozen shore.
"Whoah—Whoah!!" Eagle Eye gasped, dropping his sword and shield. He dashed to the stern, gazing in shock as Rainbow flew a blue blurred streak due west. "Rainbow! Come back!" He winced, then spun towards Floydien. "Well?! What are you looking at?!"
"Lavender boomer's guess is as good as Floydien's."
"Bring 'er to a stop! We can't leave without Rainbow!"
"Unless Floydien's mistaken, paint bucket has done the leaving and the stopping."
"Floydiennnnnn..."
"Yes yes yes..." The elk stumbled back towards the cockpit. "But this is not Nancy Jane's wanting or doing!"
Eagle spun back towards the stern, squinting to see as well as his expert eyes could allow.
Rainbow Dash flew briskly along the shore. Her right ear ached from the whistling howl of mountain winds while her left ear was assaulated with a barrage of crashing waves. She flew for a solid five minutes, her ruby eyes sweeping left and right across the powdery shoreline.
At last, she spotted something, and her body jerked to a stop, hovering a dozen meters above the ground.
The shoreline below was marked with three large impacts. Two were shaped like solid squares, and a third was considerably smaller and irregular, but was haloed by a series of thick hoofprints that wandered over to the other two craters. From there, a long trail of hoofprints began, followed by a pair of thick tracks. They lead due west, then made a sharp northwest turn, leading towards the valley between the dipping mountains.
Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. She flew along the tracks, flapping her wings harder and harder. As a minute squeezed by, however, her feathers moved less and less. She felt her muscles going slack, and before long she had drifted to the ground until her hooves touched the snow.
She slid for a few feet, then came to a stumbling stop. At last, she stood rigidly in place, her body frozen in the middle of the steady tracks.
Vaporous breaths exited her blue muzzle, growing less and less fervent.
Rainbow swallowed a lump down her throat, staring towards the northest horizon. After a solid space in time, she turned and glanced over her shoulder, staring calmly at the speck that was the Noble Jury in the distance, having slowed to a frigid stall.