“Hope you've got some bits on ya,” Farouche said.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...” Rainbow Dash continued staring at the jagged emerald peaks looming just beyond the western bluffs of Rohbredden. At last, she turned to blink dumbly at the steamboat captain. “Huh?”
Farouche finished gesturing at several of her deckhooves. The paddlewheel vessel slowly made its way towards the docks of the iron platform looming just before the mouth of an enormous river. “That's Sunset Tract.”
“What is?”
“That.” Farouche pointed at the wide, voluminous estuary. “One of the longest, most important rivers in all of Rohbredden!” She smirked. “It winds all around the mountains and hills, snaking deep into the heart of Osmanthus Prefecture.”
“But it'll take me to the Silt Path, right?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Only if you have the money to pay for passage!” The captain exclaimed. She braced herself as the ship came to a gentle stop against the loading planks. Sun-tanned ponies in work gear rushed up from a series of shaded huts. They worked with the vessel's crew as they tied the steamship to the docks. “Sunset Tract is a very busy river. Full of ships carrying goods and passengers around the mountains. They gotta keep a check on traffic somehow.”
“I see...” Rainbow took a deep breath. “What's the fee?”
“Twenty bits,” Farouche said. “I know that may seem steep for river passage—but the Sunset Tract is the fastest way to Riverstem.”
“Riverstem?”
“The closest town to the Silt Path that'll take you out of the shoreline prefectures.” Farouche whistled and directed more crew members to the docks as the vessel moored. “There are dozens... if not hundreds of little towns and farming communities built around Sunset Tract, but Riverstem is by far the largest. Any arriving ponies who wish to go anywhere in the continent will want to stop there first.”
“I see...” Rainbow scratched her chin, turning to glance at the multiple ships docking at the iron platform. Hundreds of ponies chattered and argued with the workers on board, bartering for passage through the estuary for themselves or for their goods or for both. Her eyes lifted up, glancing past motorboats coming and going in the wide mouth of the river. “And... what if I just wanted to... uhhhh... hoof it?”
“Pffft...!” Farouche rolled her eyes. She folded her forelimbs with a smirk. “You'll be at it for days... weeks.” A chuckle. “If you're feeling adventurous, have at it! But you'll be having to climb no less than two hundred mountains along the way!”
“You call those mountains?” Rainbow Dash remarked, waving at the jagged terrain beyond the bluffs with a lazy hoof. “Looks like a bunch of giant groundhogs built a utopia while they were drunk and then abandoned it for a hundred years.”
“Hrmmmff... colorful... but cute.” Farouche slapped Rainbow's shoulder before trotting off. “Good luck, Miss Rarishy! Don't say I didn't warn you.”
Twilight phased through the hull. Clearing her throat, she whispered in Rainbow's ear. “I'm really liking the boat option.”
“Me too, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said, hovering closer. “Let's not forget you've got a yucky alarm clock ticking in your harmony belly!”
Rainbow clenched her jaws. “But...” She grumbled under her breath. “I haven't got any bits, though...”
“Then improvise, darling!” Rarity said.
Rainbow glanced over. “Huh?” She blinked.
Rarity smiled elegantly. “Never underestimate the power of generosity...”
“... … ...” Rainbow Dash craned her neck to look past her friends. “Hey Cap'n!”
Farouche finished talking to her first mate. She turned towards Rainbow, blinking. “Mmmmyes?”
Rainbow fidgeted. “Uhm... I don't suppose you would... erm... be willing to—”
“Ach!” Farouche snorted. “Want me to spot you some bits, eh?” She bore an amused squint. “I only picked you up because it was the decent thing to do, Miss Rarishy. Now that you're alive and all, best be lookin' after my own profits. Ever since things went down in Rust, every little bit counts, y'know.”
“Uhhhh...”
“Course...” Farouche adjusted the brim of her hat. “I ain't no stranger to barterin'.” She gestured at the glittering pendant under Rainbow's neck. “Reckon you're carryin' a bigger fortune than you make yourself out to be.”
Rainbow gripped her Element. She bit her lip... then blinked. Ears twitching in realization, she pointed across the hull. “My boat.”
“Hmm?” Farouche blinked, then turned to see where the dinghy hung off its rope supports. “What of it, ma'am?”
“I'll trade you!” Ranbow said. “My boat for the money to make the passage to Riverstem.”
“Echhh...” Farouche raised her cap and scratched her scalp. “But... it's out of fuel, Miss Rarishy...”
“Oh puh-leeease...” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You said yourself that you lost a lifeboat before picking me up! I mean... look!” She trotted over, waving a hoof at the thing. “It even fits the spot you got there perfectly!”
“Mmmmm...”
“Sure, it may need some fuel, but it's pretty friggin' sturdy.” Rainbow grinned. “It's built from the best metal White Barge has to offer—”
“Eeep!” Fluttershy suddenly squeaked, eyes wide. She and Twilight Sparkle waved their forelimbs dramatically. “Nonononono—!”
Rainbow glanced at them. “Wha—?”
“But...” Farouche squinted curiously. “...I thought you done said that you was never at the Barges, Miss...”
Rainbow grimaced hard. Gulping, she turned and smiled nervously at the captain. “Yeah... well... that's... uh... wh-what the pony who sold this to me said.” She cleared her throat. “Prime White Barge manufacturing. They even whacked the hull with a hammer to test it for me. Sturdy stuff.”
“... … ...” Farouche stared.
Pinkie and Rarity bit their lips.
“...hrmmfff...” Farouche snorted, then smirked. She reached into her vest pocket and flicked several coins in Rainbow's direction.
The mare nimbly caught them. Her ghostly friends gawked over her shoulder as she cradled the golden money. “...thirty bits?”
“What, are ya complainin' now?” Farouche said.
“No. Just... a bit surprised, to be honest,” Rainbow exhaled.
“Yeah, well...” Farouche folded her forelimbs with a smirk. “You just reminded me of somethin'.”
“And what's that?”
“Of how much I admire a soul who really... really needs to get somewhere fast in life.” She winked. “Headstrong, courageous, no-questions-asked.”
Rainbow took a deep breath. “Wouldn't even think of it.”
“Aye, that's the spirit. A good, stupid wind.”
“Heh... in another life, I'd totally join your crew, Cap'n.”
“Well, barnacles, ma'am! Who says you haven't already?”
“Heh... still... thirty bits.” Rainbow slipped the money into her saddlebag. “Thanks a ton.”
“Don't.” Farouche gestured at the raft. “It's a good boat. Better than you think. But—all tide's the same—it's as much as I can spare.”
“Gotcha.”
“And if I were you, I'd spend the leftover ten bits on food... and some water to cool ya down with.”
“Huh? Why?” Rainbow blinked. “Doesn't it get—like—super cold in Rohbredden?”
“Hah! Not for another three Prefectures at least!”
“Wow, really? Weird...”
“Ma'am, only weird thing around here is you.” Farouche shuffled towards the bow. “Not that I'm complainin'. It'll be a dockin' to remember, that's for sure. Ahem... now if you'll excuse me, Miss Rarishy, I've got me some silks to deliver. Best be driftin' with ya, or else you'll be overwhelmed by the midday rice shipments.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, watching as Farouche trotted out of view, her sea-legs making her lean perpetually to the side.
“Well, if she wasn't Admiral Nice Pants!” Pinkie squee'd.
“I'd give good mind if she wore a less pungent pair,” Rarity muttered.
“Rarity...” Twilight frowned. “Honestly?”
“Oh, Twilight, cheer up!” Rarity smiled. “We have a fabulous boat ride to look forward to!”
“Woohoo!” Pinkie cheered.
“Hmmmm...” Fluttershy exhaled. “A calm trip up river sounds... nice, actually.”
“Get your heads in the game, girls,” Rainbow muttered. “I'm about to burn through twenty bits just to get us to where we need to go faster.”
“Awwwwww...” Pinkie pouted, blue eyes sparkling. “But Dashiiiiieeee...”
“I mean it!” Rainbow said she strolled towards the platform. “It may not look it, but this trip is—like—super dangerous'n'stuff.”
“She's right,” Twilight said with a nod, floating after her. “We've dodged the bullet with Captain Farouche, but who knows how many Rohbreddenites up and down this... 'Sunset Tract' may be searching for the Rainbow Rogue and her bounty.”
“Right,” Rainbow said. “We have absolutely zero time to sight-see.”
Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy all stared with their muzzles agape. Glazed eyes sparkled, reflecting rising and falling greenery, rippling across their combined gaze in emerald waves.
“Uhhhmmm... Dashie...?” Pinkie gulped. “...you wanna take that back now?”
Rainbow's eyes blinked, fluttered. “I'll... get back to you on that...”
The pegasus and her ghostly friends stood on the outer deck of a motor-chugging riverboat as it slowly churned its way up a thick winding stream. All along the brown silt shore, tall grass waved in jets of warm summery breeze. Beyond, shiny-green rice paddies loomed, rising in geometrically curved terraces that hugged the corners of countless mountains.
Mountains... rising up in a sporadic pattern—but multitudinous in their design, complexity, and numbers. Covered in dense green foliage, these jutting formations shot out of the earth with such frequency that they devoured any possible horizon that Rainbow Dash could even be bothered to see. There was no counting where the hilltops began or where they ended. What's more, each unpredictable bend in the river revealed more and more of them—some so sudden and steep in their inexplicable presence that they towered directly above the boats navigating the Sunset Tract.
Sprinkled across the bumpy landscape, tiny farmsteads loomed, with humble one-story shacks made out of knotted, petrified wood—undoubtedly constructed hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Other rustic settlements clung to the concave bends of the Sunset Tract, populated mostly by elderly ponies garbed in flowy brown peasant robes. Those who weren't working the rice fields busied themselves with repairing fishing boats, bartering with tiny trade vessels along crooked docks, or beautifying the fronts of ancient cottages with all manner of colorful flowers.
Other than the occasional growl of single and dual-motor engines, the atmosphere over the mountainous tributary was the very definition of tranquil... serene. All the while, a white hazy splotch of mountainous continent loomed in the far east, hovering like a granite thundercloud.
“Uhm... Twilight...” Fluttershy found the breath to speak. “You're the most well-read of us all here. Could... could you adequately describe what we're looking at?”
“Well...” Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat. “It would look like the direct result of thousands upon thousands of years of subsidence and limestone erosion, not to mention the redistribution of soft fertile silt in addition to what may have one time been a glacial plain long before the mountains ever formed—”
“Can't you just say it's damned beautiful, darling?” Rarity rasped.
Twilight gulped. “Yeah...” She nodded dumbly. “It's darn beautiful.”
“Mmmm...” Rarity smiled, cheeks rosy as her eyes continued to shine. “Close enough.”