Rainbow Dash flew southwest over rolling green hills and rivers glittering with trace starlight. Her naked eyes squinted against the wind as her body angled itself into a lazy glide. Layers of exhaustion clung to the pegasus' skin, and she took her sweet time with the upper air currents.
In the meantime, a certain statue clinging to another statue sat on her shoulders. Lancie leaned forward, peering down into her eyes.
“Hey, Sparky.”
“Hmm?”
“You know that spell I did for Miss Finish back there?”
“Mmmhmm?”
“Well, suppose we find another shard soon.”
“Mmmhmm...”
“Or, better yet, suppose we find two of them just like we did now.”
“Mmmhmm...”
Lancie toyed with his stone goatee, smirking. “Who's to say that I can't perform a similar spell on you?”
Rainbow Dash's jaws were clenched.
“You have to admit...” He examined his talons with a grin. “It'd make snuggling up to certain freckled pillow a lot easier.”
Rainbow's eyes darted off course. A slight shiver ran through her bodies.
“Don't you agree?”
Rainbow fidgeted in midair. Her wings twitched, then became still once again. At last, she opened her muzzle.
“We'll see...”
“That's it?” Lancie blinked. “Just... 'we'll see?'”
“Mmmhmmm...”
“You're not gonna do backflips and whoop and holler at how brilliant an idea that is?”
“MmmMmm...”
“... ... ...you're about ten seconds from dropping me hundreds of feet into a ravine, aren't you?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Fine... fine...” He leaned back on her flank and closed his eyes to the early-morning sky. “Just wake me up when we're on the other side of a slice-of-life arc.”
Rainbow's lips curved slightly. She curled her wings and dove towards a lower altitude. The morning sun rose, warming her tail and left wing feathers. When she yawned, it was dissolved in the golden crest of a new day being born.