This was a great airship. I had forgotten that along with all of Pinkie's mad attempts at lawmaking we got something useful accomplished too. Griffany had always been a bit isolationist. They obviously accepted some visitors, and they even let ponies and others settle in the country if they wanted, but it was never easy. Now there were regular airship routes opening up. Even better some of Griffany's own former warships were on those routes. I really never expected that Pinkie would be the one to stand in the way of re-purposing even more of them, but she had. Of course military or not all griffin airships had party supplies on board now, but that wasn’t the point. Though all evidence suggests having an excess of warships did make the griffins happy somehow.
I shook my head and just enjoyed the sunset from the huge upper deck of the ship. It was roughly shaped like a bird in fight, or maybe a griffin, but it had no legs and was fairly indistinct so it was really impossible to say. Unlike most Equestrian ships it was in no way a balloon, fully supported by magic and technology. It gleamed gold in the sunset even though it was a mix of countless metals, none of the ones visible on the deck actually gold. Though a lot of the trim looked golden at least. The engines were all on the bottom or rear of the ship so up top was a seemingly clear expanse. Of course the reason was because this had been one of the warships and the entire crew could be assembled up here and launch directly into combat when the ship got close enough to the target.
"Twilight, I'm still confused about a lot." Said Spike from my back
I laughed.
"What? I didn't even say anything yet."
"No, it's just I completely forgot you were back there."
"Really? Didn't you used to complain about heavy I was like only a few months ago?"
"I guess I have been getting a little more exercise lately. So much running."
"Anyway, what are we really doing? I mean why are we hiding the bowl from Luna and why is it important we keep it if you don't know or care what it does?"
"Because of what it is. I found it by scrying for anything that wasn't eaten by the Smooze. Manually. Simply focusing on a kitchen related object in Dream Valley should have been enough, but it wasn't. Do you know why?"
"Twilight, just tell me."
I laughed. "The same reason Luna and Celestia can't find them themselves. It resists all magic trying to target it, whether it be scrying, a locator spell, or anything else. Except if I touch it, or get near it outside the container it feels weird. Like Discord."
"Oh, and Fluttershy says the pieces feel like Gaia."
"Exactly. So I figured they all should be both. I've all but proved it. Also the reason Luna and Celestia wouldn’t let me see any of the other pieces is because like the bowl they're terribly dangerous."
"Oh, cause it's not just the power of a goddess, but Discord's too."
"Yes, but more than that it's both fighting each other. So it's positive and safe effects but laced with pure chaos. It's so tempting because it seems like it can't possibly be bad, but eventually it will get out of control."
"Except the carrot."
"Even though Dash didn't really think it through she might be right about it driving the griffin kings to be so aggressive. So it's probably everything. The problem is I really need one artifact once we get to Reinia."
"Why exactly."
"I'd rather not say."
"So what does Griffany have to do with…"
"Nothing. It's just I've been looking everywhere for a very hard to find item and I think I finally found one. Under Equestrian law it's too dangerous to ship, so I have to pick it up personally or hire a courier."
"And why didn't you?"
"Well because when I finally got word of it I was ironing out the details of the rest of this plan. Since we were in the neighborhood anyway…"
"Twilight we're going the wrong way and…"
"Relatively speaking. Obviously it's not the same country, but considering how far this whole trip is going to be it's really not that big of a detour."
"I guess. Okay, then what about Valhalla?"
"I need to talk to Sleipnir. He'll come visit Celestia again eventually but I'd rather not wait. Especially since he's not too regular with his visits. It could be years, if not decades. This is more urgent than that."
"Who?"
I shook my head. "You can't tell me you forgot about an eight legged pony as tall as Celestia built like big Mac with only one eye and eight hooves."
"Oh, that guy."
"Yes, that guy." I rolled my eyes despite knowing he couldn’t see me do it. "I know he doesn't always seem like it but he's very wise. Also he can run on air to fly which is suddenly far more interesting than it used to be."
"More interesting? I seem to remember you bugging him the whole visit about how he did that. You were so insistent you walked in on him and Celestia…"
"La la la, I can't hear you." I trotted around, only belatedly realizing it obviously wouldn’t get me any further from Spike.
"Oh come on, you're the one that told me and…"
"I didn't mean to. Also I'm sure I had to be wrong. I mean he's married right?"
"Uh, maybe? I sorta thought he had a whole herd of mares though, real old school style, so adding one extra every so often doesn't seem like a big deal."
I was blushing fiercely. This is really not a subject I wanted to discuss. Even though in most ways it made a lot of sense I didn't even want to think about it. Sure Celestia hints all the time that as far as mating goes, she isn't that different from a normal mare, but it still just seems wrong. I mean she's Celestia. How can anypony think of her like that? It's just, weird.
"You can stop fantasizing about Celestia any time Twilight."
"Spike." I stomped a hoof "I do not in any way fantasize about Celestia. I mean I had that one dream about Luna, and obviously think about my friends that way every so often but never, ever Celestia."
Then there was a long drawn out silence. The worst part is not only did I just blurt that out, but it sounded way worse than it is. Or at least I think it's not that bad. I never did really find a study that had any conclusive evidence about what is normal regarding how much somepony is supposed to think about sex. I think I was actually well below normal even, but without proper data how could I know?
"Uh, well…" I began
"Yea, whatever. I sorta knew that already. Anyway…"
"You what?"
"It's kinda obvious you like mares too."
"That's not new. I told you that directly."
"You did?"
"Yes, it was that speech about how studies have shown that herding created an incredibly strong genetic predisposition to mare to mare attraction. This was probably somewhat less sexual originally, but as we evolved things changed."
"Oh, I think I fell asleep during this."
"No you didn't, I remember."
"You really aren't that good at paying attention when you're lecturing."
"You do at least know the point is full on missy mares are relatively rare but estimates put mares who are interested in other mares between 50% at the absolute lowest, and probably much higher, possibly going all the way to 100% at the other end but…"
"Yea. I know lots of stuff Twilight. We've been over this."
"Not really but…"
I sighed. I didn't want to talk about it. Spike didn't want to talk about it. We both knew he figured out way more than I ever wanted him to know. We also both knew even though I kept calling him a baby, he was more like a teenager, especially mentally. We both knew what I considered most important too. So we never talked about it directly and probably wouldn't for a long time to come.
"So, what about Cavernus, what's it like?" he asked
"A big cave. It's full of bat ponies. I thought the real ones only lived there, but Sweetsong probably is one too. With the armor it's hard to tell for sure but I think her aura is weird."
"Oh. What about this Queen Nocturne."
"She hates Luna with a passion. She feels she was abandoned by her and has let that feeling fester for 1000 years. Their first meeting will not be pleasant."
"Whoa. That is heavy. Uh, what about you?"
"She likes me, but she rarely visited Equestria so I've only seen her a few times and it's been years. Also there is a slight chance she might hate me for curing Luna using the elements instead of sealing her in the moon again."
"So that's why it's last on our trip?"
"No, our visit to Reinia could be even worse. Though really I have no idea how that's going to go. Which makes it all the more terrifying."
"This is a lousy vacation."
I sighed, and hung my head. "I told you, this is all field research. You insisted on coming. None of this is to have fun. I admit I might have some but that's not the point."
"Twilight, one more question. Why didn't we take Pinkie's fish blimp?"
"Blinkie is tinkering with it. I don't know why but it doesn't really matter."
"And you aren't good enough for long distance teleports yet?"
"No Spike, I'm not. Also I really need to work on passengers. Pinkie was a big help volunteering to be repeatedly teleported because it's fun, but I’m not there yet. You might think energy is the main problem but actually that matters less than you think. It's holding your focus properly over greater distances."
"So, even Rarity could do it?"
"That's not as good an example as you might think. Lyra can teleport to and from Canterlot with ease. It's not that great a distance, but it's still notable since she isn't that terribly powerful."
"It's still weird to me even though she's been in the same classes with you for so many years that you know the rest of the girls so much better than her."
I laughed. "She doesn't seem to mind, but I guess I do feel a little bad about that. I mean she seems like a nice enough pony."
"Yea, she's a little weird, but compared to Pinkie it's nothing."
We both laughed at that. Pinkie laughed with us. Then she gave us a hug. I decided it was best not to even question how she was here and just kept laughing along with her. So far everything has been going just according to plan. I guess Pinkie doing something impossible is to balance that out somehow.
"Ooo, I bet I can get the Griffins to do a barrel roll."
"You mean the whole ship?" I asked
"Duh."
"Pinkie, that isn't a good idea."
"Awww, why not?"
I sighed. I was fairly certain this would be a very annoying problem. Then I realized Pinkie was gone along with Spike. I found a small note taped to my back.
"Sorry Twilight, I have to borrow Spike for a bit, have him back as soon as I can. I would have told you but I didn't have time. Sorry again, Pinkie." I sighed. "Pinkie, that doesn't even make sense."
Then I felt something covering my cutie mark on one side. Was it there before or not? I pulled it off with my magic and looked at another note. "Yes it does silly. You don't know how fast I can write." This one I didn't read out loud. Other than a twitch over my right eye I didn't move. It never gets easier with her, does it? I mean just as I'm learning to ignore one of the impossible things she does there is a new one waiting in the wings. I just sighed and focused on the sunset again. It looked really amazing this high up. I'm really glad there were such powerful wind dampening spells up here.