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// 2.5: Cooperation and Crying 
// Story: Taking a Gander 
// by HackamoreHalter 
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“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Seafire shouted in exasperation as she dove through another layer of clouds, digging through the soft fluff in her desperate search. For once, she was not talking about herself. Oh, she’d seen the griffon’s plan, a bull-headed and fool plan though it was, but for him to just jump right in without a second thought? “When we get through this, I’m gonna tie his tail to an anchor!”

If we get through this, her traitorous thoughts whispered. She stomped on that notion as if it were a star spider. “Shut up, brain! Everypony’s gonna get through this, Ducky. Griffon, too! Just stop talkin’ and search!”

Not far below, despite her height in the skies, a pitched battle was taking place. Gander was swooping and diving and fighting what might as well have been part of the landscape. She'd never seen anybody stone-headed enough to try and stop a landslide by bucking it, but there was a first time for everything. It was so unreal that she tried not to think about it. Thinking about such things would have only led to more questions, anyhow. Like why, for instance. Even considering his griffon heritage, Ducky couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to take on an Ursa on his own. If all griffons were this crazy, one would think they’d have all died out by-

“No! We ain’t goin’ down that route, missy!” Nopony was dying today. No griffon, either. Not if she could help it, and she could. Gander had given her the idea, and now all she had to do was pull through. All she had to do was find the cloudstarter of this network, pull it while ignoring what the weather service was going to charge her for busting an entire cloudy sky and thus completely ruining a forecast, and then... something.

Now that she thought about it, Gander hadn’t been clear on that part. Actually, he hadn’t really said anything at all. All her rushing about was based on nothing more than a guess. For the fortieth time in as many seconds, she silently begged to Celestia that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. Her instincts were screaming at her to fly as far away as equinely possible, but her heart was adamant on not abandoning a friend. Thus, her mind was playing mediator and reasonably suggesting she grab the griffon by his ears and drag him away until she couldn’t see the Ursa anymore. Not that he would accept such a thing willingly, being a griffon and therefore crazy.

“Aha!” No time for second-guessing, now. She dug out the cloudstarter, listening to it hum with energy as she kicked away the adjacent clouds and gave it a slight push to separate it from the pack. With another gentle kick, she set it on a slow coast towards the battlefield.

And that was that. That was all she could do. She knew she should try and help, but stubborn griffon pride would never accept it. It just wasn’t ‘griffony’ enough to take on an Ursa with even a single pony’s help. Only solo would do. Stupid griffon. All she could do was watch, and so she watched.

Ducky watched as her cloud flew into the fight. She watched as Gander practically collapsed atop it, hardly able to stand. She watched as the Ursa thundered closer.

And then she watched as it ate her friend, swallowing the griffon up in a single bite.

“Gander!” She screamed so loudly that her voice grew hoarse, though she was hardly conscious of the action. It was a basic instinct, more than likely, just like breathing or blinking. Just like the tears that came unbidden, flowing down her cheeks even as she choked back a sob. “You stupid, thick-skulled, brain-dead son of a mule!”

The clouds that she waited upon, those that had recently held the cloudstarter, grew into a dismal grey as they fed off her native pegasus magic, her emotions fueling their somber transformation. “Why wouldn’t you... let me help you?” She dropped to her knees on the cloud, weeping openly. She'd hardly known him, they'd only just met after all, but that mattered little to the mare. Ducky wept for a friendship that could have been. She wept for a future tossed carelessly aside. More than that, she knew the loss of any soul on this earth made it just a little dimmer, just a little more empty. And, just as the ponies cared for the land, creatures, and weather, so too would she mourn on the earth's behalf. The skies in turn answered, the grey of her own cloud seeping to others, infecting them with a cheerless hue. As one, they joined her in her tears, raining their sorrow upon the earth. 

An ominous rumble of thunder spread through the skies.

Ducky raised her head, sniffling loudly and rubbing her foreleg against her muzzle. That sound... It hadn’t come from her clouds.