//------------------------------//
// The Two Ponies You Slap 
// Story: Urohringr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	"So..."  Rainbow Dash's voice droned.  She blinked, turning to glance at Props from across the engine room.  "Where's the signal?"

"It was crackling like crazy earlier!"  Props sing-songed, hopping in place while Ebon and Eagle looked on.  "For two minutes solid!"

"For two minutes solid..."  Rainbow squinted.  "Crackling?  Doesn't sound like much of a signal to me."

"But it totally was!"  Props grinned.  "And I could recognize the frequency in a heartbeat!  Nopony but my own genuine Uncle Prowse could possibly broadcast it!  It's his radio signature from across the waters!  I know it!"

Rainbow Dash's muzzle scrunched and unscrunched.  She trotted quietly across the engine compartment, her eyes locked on the communications array.  After an extraordinarily long pause, her voice unenthusiastically muttered, "And you detected this how long ago?"

"About a half hour!  I got you as quickly as I could!  Well.."  Props fidgeted, staring down at her hooves with a slight blush.  "To be honest, it took me twenty minutes of courage to interrupt you from your hammocking."

"We basically kicked her in the flank," Ebon said with a wink.

"Yeah, Rainbow."  Eagle nodded.  "We figured you needed to see this."

Rainbow turned about, her eyes dull and jaded.  "What's there to see?"

Eagle's and Ebon's ears drooped.

"Uhm..."  Props bit her lip.  "It was the only signal that my array picked up in days..."

"And yet it's somehow matching your Uncle's trademark frequency?  After all these months of being away from him?"

"Uhhhh—"

"Props..."  Rainbow Dash sighed.  "Have you stopped to consider that the only reason you know it to be Prowse's signature is because that's what you want it to be?"

"But... but..."  Props' muzzle quivered as her eyes sparkled.  "It's him!  It h-has to be..."

"Rainbow, what are you getting at?"  Eagle Eye trotted over to Props' side.  "We all know that Props is an expert on this stuff.  Why shoot her down?"

"Was there a voice on the other end?" Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow.  "Was there clear communication from a stallion fitting her Uncle's description?"

"The signal came from ninety miles southeast!" Props exclaimed, leaning forward.  "That's a lot of room for interference!"

"A lot more room for phantom noises, if you ask me," Rainbow said.

"Rainbow, can't we just check it out?" Ebon asked.

"No."  Rainbow frowned.  "We can't just check anything out.  We've been out here for a long time, and we're running out of resources as it is.  Now our goal is to head towards the Strip of Flurries, and we're going to need all the concentration we can get to pass on through it.  Any detour we take could put us behind, not to mention risk starving us completely."

"I can draft a new ration, Rainbow!" Ebon said with a hopeful smirk.  "Josho may be ticked off, but so what?  He can survive off his body fat.  If this is indeed Prowse's Uncle trying to radio for help, then it'd be really stupid to not go and investigate!"

"We know that he's headed this way, Rainbow," Eagle insisted.

"No, we know that he's headed east.  No pony in their good minds would try to cross the Frozen Sea, which puts us in a far worse position than him."  Rainbow turned towards Props.  "I'm sorry, Props, but unless we get something on that array of yours that's actually concrete, I can't have us risking the crew unnecessarily."

"But can't we just... I dunno... cruise by the source of what I picked up?  Please?"  Props fought the urge to grimace as she pleaded.  "If I could just see him again, it would be really, really, really super!  What's the harm in just making a quick flyby?"

Rainbow frowned.  "There's every harm in it.  We need to stick to the plan."

"Rainbow—"  Eagle Eye began.

She snapped at him.  "Every detour we have taken—Every.  Single.  One... has ended in manure hitting the fan.  From a gunfight at Green Slope, to abduction at Gray Smoke, to a total friggin' massacre at Lerris, we've done nothing but find or stir up trouble, and I'm not about to risk it again."

"If you'd please just listen—"

"No, you listen!  My job is to make sure this ship gets across the Frozen Sea and to the continent on the other side!" Rainbow growled.  "We're not here to chase after phantoms."  She blew the bangs out from her brow.  "Celestia knows we've got enough of those to deal with as of late.  I owe it to my friends and everypony on board this ship to get us to safety.  I'm sorry, Props, but until you've given me more than just a mere hunch to lean on, we're heading east and east only.  You got that?"

"But... but..."  Props shuddered, then hung her head.

Ebon's eyes swam from Rainbow to Props and back again.  He stood cold and silent.

"Props, I appreciate all the work that you've been doing on the skystone engine, but there's no need to overdo it.  That much labor without sleep will play tricks on your head.  Trust me, I know."  Rainbow trotted over, paused, and motioned with her head towards the dried up Ice Wyrm gland.  "Looks like that thing's running out of juice.  Is the fluid for the heating system depleted?"

"Uhm..."  Props ran a shaky hoof through her mane and nodded limply.  "Yeah."  She sniffled.  "Kind of."

"I'll see what I can do about fetching another.  Eagle, next time you're on the top deck, keep a look out for more peculiar shaped icebergs.  We're bound to run into another one of those frozen creeps at this point."

"Uhhh... r-right..."

"Give a shout if there's an emergency or anything."  With that, Rainbow Dash briskly made her exit towards the stairwell.

The three ponies stood alone.

Eagle Eye sighed. He looked towards the lone mare in the room.  "Props, look... I... I'm sorry..."

"No, it's... it's alright."  The Noble Jury's engineer hid her face, trotting with slumped shoulders across the room.  "She's right.  I-I haven't been getting that much sleep lately.  I... I guess I'm letting my imagination get the best of me..."

"Props..."

"Ebon, if you don't mind watching over the engine, I-I think I'm gonna go lie down for a while..."

Eagle Eye winced, watching as Props trotted through the door to the navigation room, closing it gently shut behind her.  He sighed, toying with his silken bangs as he paced across the engine compartment.  At one point he froze, tilting his head up until he looked squarely at Ebon.

Ebon stared back.

"Wh-what?" Eagle stammered.

"You're the one who looked at me," Ebon said.

"Only 'cuz it looks like you've got your mind on something."

"I've got my mind on something, alright," Ebon remarked with a nod.

"Like... what are you thinking?"

With a hard sigh, Ebon glared towards the stern.  "That Austraeoh and Eljunbyro are both the best and worst things to happen to us..."





Rainbow Dash lingered halfway up the stairwell.  She stood, slumped against the wall in her brown leather coat, turning over a pair of goggles in her hooves.  The initials "S.L." were barely noticeable, just dark blemishes obscured by shadow.

A cold gust blew down from the open entrance above, carrying with it flakes of frost and arctic air.  Rainbow Dash shook.  Her teeth chattered, and for a moment she feared the onset of another dizzy spell.  So, impulsively, she trotted up the stairwell and made for the first door that she could find.

She emerged upon the upper platform of the hangar.  There, she stumbled to a stop, for she was not alone.

"Just choke her to death, while you're at it," Zaid muttered to himself, bouncing a little rubber ball against the wall and back again.  "Not like she's got anything to breathe but your incurable funk, anyways."  Upon feeling a sudden draft, the stallion's ears twitched.  He turned around, blinked, and smiled faintly.  "Ah.  Rainbow Dash, as I live and drown.  How kerflails you?"

Rainbow's eyes squinted.  "Where'd you get that ball?"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking."  Zaid threw the object up and balanced it playfully on the tip of his nose.  "Found this lying in a mostly empty crate along the bottom floor of the hangar.  Figures that the only thing with mirth and silliness is what Roarke would have left behind when she blew this ship like a tornado trying to get the bills paid."

"Hrmmph..."  Rainbow's eyes narrowed.  "I can see this hangar is taken.  I'll leave you alone."

"Pfffft.  Oh please.  It's a free airship, at least until Floydien desides to go Saddle Haysein on our flanks!"  Zaid head-butted the ball up and balanced it with his tail.  "Seriously, I can see what Roarke digged about this place.  It's quiet, roomy, and the acoustics makes for some really bodacious ballad recittals."

"I... don't think Roarke was the type to take up singing at random," Rainbow Dash muttered as she shuffled along the platform's railing.

"Heh.  How would you know?  You barely hung out with her; Goddess knows she tried."

"You do realize we're talking about Roarke here," Rainbow droned.  The pegasus leaned against the railing, staring down into the spacious compartment below.  "She didn't exactly present herself as friendship material."

"And yet, from what I've been told, all it took was five rounds of buttkicking for you to learn her right!"  Zaid winked as he hoisted the ball up, over his flank, onto his shoulders, then balanced on the square of his head.  "Seems like you two made rapid progress!  Ya can't harsh that!"

"Zaid, she's gone.  Will you drop it?"

"Nah.  I've kept this thing off the floor for thirty consecutive minutes.  I'm trying to challenge myself."

Rainbow merely groaned.

Zaid tongued the inside of his mouth.  He whistled for a few seconds, cleared his throat, and then leaned towards her.  "Y'know... in speaking of challenges..."

"Mmmm..." Rainbow merely hummed.

"I can't help but feel like a certain pony has been coming short."

"Oh really...?"

"Yeah really.  For sure for sure."  He smirked.  "A pony who has had every opportunity imaginable to rise up out of the deepest pits, but for some reason has chosen instead to stay cold, distant, and downright unsexy."

Rainbow's jaws tensed.  "Before you start, Zaid, don't.  I know I've been treating most ponies at forelimb's length, but it's because I wanna stay concentrated on the journey.  There's a Strip of Flurries for us to fly through and—"

"Yeah yeah yeah.  I ain't worried about you, girl.  That's like being paranoid about my own large intestine imploding.  It's a little too silly of a notion to sit on.  Hah!  Sit on!  Get it?"

Rainbow groaned, rolling her eyes.

"Nah, Rainbow, I'm not worried about you."  Zaid gulped then said, "It's your friends that I'm freaked out about.  Belle and Pilate—sure—but not just them, but Kera too.  And Props.  And Ebon and that princessy mare that he keeps hanging out lately.  Heck, even Floydazar and Joshochu in the flesh."  Zaid stared up at the ceiling, spinning the ball atop a raised hoof.  "Let's see... am I forgetting anypony...?"  He turned to blink at Rainbow.  "The Professor.  Did I mention him yet?"

"It's been a tough journey for all of us," Rainbow muttered.  "And need I remind you what happened only two weeks ago?"

"No.  You needn't... needle... nerdgasm...?"  Zaid went cross-eyed, then shook it off.  "I get it.  Life sucks and then you blow.  Still, I dunno about you, but the only thing I'll ever roll over for is a threesome with Japaneighs Schoolfillies.  So we've been through the fire and the flame.  Big whoop.  There's plenty of life to make music out of, and lately there's been a whole lot off sighing off key."

"Yes, Zaid, I've noticed—"

"Have you?"  Zaid raised an eyebrow.  "The only reason I came in here to begin with is to walk off the goosebumps I got after being given the third degree by your best friend!"

Rainbow blinked quizzically at him.  "Belle?"

"No, the seapony with a red mane and a thing for forks.  Of course I mean Belle!  Or at least, 'It Came From the Belle Dimension.'  Pffffft... if you ask me, she's exchanged 'lovely and funny' for 'nihilistic and stuck-up,' not to mention the fact she clings to Kera like a friggin' ball and chain.  And even after saying that I can't honestly claim to know who is the one tied to who."

"They've been through a lot, Zaid," Rainbow muttered.  "Give them time."

"They've got time!" Zaid cackled.  "I've got time!  You've got time!  Everypony on this friggin' ship has got time—but nothing to fill it with, and certainly not hugs!  Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one who hasn't forgotten that one of your friends went blind?"

"What are you trying to get at...?"

"Come on, gurl!  You've got wings!"  Zaid balanced the ball to another hoof so that he could reach over and nudge her.  "Swoop in and catch them!  Before they fall too deep into the pit as it is!"

"They're alive and they're healthy."

"They're miserable!  Even a blind zebra could see that—and I bet he does!  Every day of his friggin' life, as of late!"  Zaid sighed, gazing at the spinning ball before his muzzle.  "I'm just bummed out to see it get this pathetic.  From what I've seen and heard, you and your pals had something really sweet goin' on, like a friggin' platinum posse of ponies.  I'd hate for the same misery that engulfed Roarke to bite the eyeballs out of them too."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I guess that's a bit of a stretch."  Zaid chuckled to himself.  "Roarke at least had a bunch of tools at her disposal.  She wouldn't have left under the promise of pure hopelessness.  The dayum mare's too resourceful... not to mention sexy."

Rainbow's nostrils flared.  Staring into the far corners of the room, she surfaced from her deep thoughts just long enough to mutter, "Roarke didn't leave because she was miserable."

"Hmmm?  What, then?  She caught sight of a rust trade as we passed by the last row of mountains?"

"No."  Rainbow slowly shook her head.  "I sent her away."

The hangar echoed a light thud as the rubber ball fell to the metal platform below.

"She... confessed to me that she had told Kera about Lerris before we even left Archer Pointe."  The mare's features tightened slightly.  "She coerced the little scamp into making the decision to stay.  And look at what happened?"

Silence.

"I was upset with her... beyond pissed.  I wanted her out of my sight... and so... I made it happen.  I told her to leave.  And she did."  Sighing, she leaned away from the railing and turned aside.  "I almost tried going after her, but I realized that she was better off on her own—"

Thwap!  Zaid's hoof flew across Rainbow's cheek.

The mare's head jerked to the left, though her body stayed anchored in place.  Slowly, icily, she looked back towards him.

What she saw was a snarling muzzle just a twitch away from foaming at the mouth.  "You sent her away?!"  Zaid's mouth hung like a pendulum.  "You flippin' sent Roarke away?!"  He blinked like he was having a seizure, shook his head, and spat, "Are you out of you goddess damn mind?!  Did you drink extra paint that day?!  Wake up with feathers stuffed between your ears?!"

"Zaid..."  Rainbow's whelted muzzle icily droned, "Calm down—"

"Stuff it!"  Zaid pointed in her chest.  "You don't get to make orders and play the role as this ship's leader if all you can muster is stupid buck-ups like that!  I know you've been biting the proverbial bullet after all of that Shell crap, but to send Roarke away?!  Roarke, the one mare with the resources and know-how to get us through life's thickest bullcrap?!  Were you dropped on your head from a super high cloud as a foal or what?!  How in the turkey-humping Hell could you possibly have felt that was a good idea?"

"I... I-I..."  Rainbow shifted nervously, avoiding his gaze.  "I was upset—"

"You were a hysterical tube worm—that's what you were!  And now we're all having to pay the price because she's gone!"

"Zaid, listen—"

"No, you listen!" He leaned into her face and growled, "I've tried my darnedest to be a perfect gentlecolt!  In all my life, I've only ever hit a mare on two occasions!  I'll give you a hint!  One of them was Nightshade!"

Shuddering, Rainbow let her gaze fall to the metal platform below.  "I couldn't trust Roarke, Zaid.  Not after what she had done.  Not after learning how far she'll go to do something she thinks is right..."

"Heh... yeah... and you're just batting a thousand, aren't you?"  Zaid frowned.  "Rainbow, I can't pretend to know all the highs and lows you've flounced your sweet tight body through in your life, but at some point in time—it seems—the colors lost and something far darker won the ballgame.  All in all, I'm not a huge fanboy of what this nastiness is turning you into, because from this angle it's looking more and more like the hollow freak that lived up to his namesake and did a number on your best of friends!"

Rainbow flashed him a furious frown.  "Don't you ever compare me to—"

"—then stop before you become him!" Zaid snarled.  "Stop pushing your friends away, pretending that it's all for the best.  Stop distancing yourself from this crew, claiming that it's in the ship's good interest!  And, last but not least..."  He reached forward and slapped her shoulder like an angry sibling.  "Don't.  Be.  A dick!"

"Guhhh..."  Rainbow Dash winced from his light pummeling.  "Zaid, I can't expect you to know what this journey's going to cost me—going to cost all of us—if I don't see to everypony's safety first and foremost!"

Zaid stared at her with an iron frown.  "Rainbow, your journey ended the moment you stopped being awesome."

The pegasus blanched at that.  She leaned back, her face pale as a pair of fuzzy ears folded over her scalp.  Shivering slightly, she stared down at her hooves.  She said nothing.

"Rainbow Dash..."  Zaid sighed, ultimately squatting down across from her.  "Someway, somehow, you're going to have to pull yourself together.  It's not something any of us can do for you.  The whole universe knows that it's something that only you can accomplish.  And you'd better get it together quick.  You've already lost Roarke—who knows what this lameness is going to cost you next.  Belle?  Pilate?  If you ask me, they're already gone, Rainbow.  They're further gone than even Kera at this point.  But it doesn't have to be too late.  It doesn't have to be.  Talk to them.  Talk to yourself.  Just talk to somepony."

Rainbow Dash clenched her eyes shut.  She sniffled slightly, gritted her teeth...





...and slowly tilted her head up towards the full moon.

Pulling the collar of her coat wide open, she exposed the loyalty pendant to the cosmos.

Her body lit up, resonating with regal energy from where she sat on the very bow of the Noble Jury.

With remarkable speed, a delightfully eerie voice drifted along the arctic wind, tickling her ears and stealing the mare's breath away.

"Rainbow Dash?  Rainbow Dash, thou still liveth?"

Rainbow sucked her breath in.  After a few tense seconds, she muttered, "Yes, Your Highness.  It's me.  I'm still here."

"Oh, Rainbow Dash!  We ask that thou excuseth our tone of enthusiasm.  We hadst received no response from thy voice the evening previous, and we feared the worse hadst travaileth upon thee."

"It's... uh... it's all good, Princess Luna.  I'm not dead or anything.  I'm alive.  And... like... my friends and I are making our way to another continent... with kingdoms unknown."

"We admit to being somewhat perplexed, Rainbow Dash.  If thou art not in harm's way, then what disturbeth thy attempts at monthly communication?"

"I..."  Rainbow Dash fidgeted.  She tried smiling, but it lasted for only a few seconds, and then she was stammering.  "I just... I felt..."

The echoing voice morphed into a gentle, warm whisper.  "Rainbow Dash.  Doth thou fair well?"

The pony's muzzle scrunched up.  Tears trickled down her cheek.  She inhaled, shook, then squeaked, "No... No, Luna."  A sniffling.  "I'm not okay..."  She collapsed on shivering hooves, weeping into her forelimbs.  "N-nothing is okay..."  She hyperventilated, then wailed in a muffled tone.  "Everything is so horrible."

Silence... and then:  "Wouldst thou wish to talk about it, our little pony?"

"Yes... y-yeah..."  Rainbow gulped, nodding weakly into the moonlight.  "I think... I-I think I have to, your Highness.  I really do..."