Canopy

There was nothing to be seen but darkness.

The ghastly green light coming from Pell’s horn penetrated into the seemingly bottomless void, but it was still too weak to illuminate anything of value. The constant flood of freezing rain felt like never-ending icy needles prickling his body, and blurred his vision to the point where he had to squint through the deluge and wipe his eyes frequently with his hooves. Streams of water flowed from the tips of his wings as he glided below the ceiling of clouds, and the flows were occasionally thrown into chaos as he flapped to maintain altitude.

Lightning flashed. Pell did not see the strike ahead of him, but blue-white light bathed the world for an instant all the same. In the brief moment he could see the ground below, he saw nothing but the canopy of dense forest. In that moment, the roar of thunder was upon him as well, and he clenched his teeth and winced as he covered his ears.

Pell pushed on through the storm and the darkness. He began to flap harder and slowly gained altitude until he was flying just a hair’s breadth below the pitch black of endless cloud. Cautiously, he extended a foreleg to touch the cloud’s bottom, and as he made contact his hoof scraped against the hardened surface. Boosting his wing speed to the maximum and gritting his teeth, he arrested his forward momentum and pushed with all his might against the cloud, but it still would not budge.

Pell pulled his hoof away from the cloud and paused for a few moments with a light pant. Just then, another strike of lightning flashed, and Pell could see the bolt of plasma hit the ground ahead of him. It was very close. In the moment of brightness, he could make out the forest canopy giving way to a thin corridor free of trees. And just before the world faded to pitch black once again, he swore he could see something glint, just barely reflecting a tiny amount of the blue-white light.

As the thunderous boom rolled over him, Pell stopped flapping his wings and entered freefall. The wind began to roar as he dove head first into the rush of air with his forelegs and wings tucked to his side. He could feel his gemstone pull at the end of his necklace as it blew around wildly, and he became aware of his heart beating faster as his body was instinctively filled with adrenaline. The raindrops streamed into his face and eyes even faster as he fell, and the combination of rushing wind and water assailing Pell’s nostrils and mouth made it difficult for him to breathe, so he was forced to hold his breath.

Pell’s muscles tensed as he continued to fall into the darkness, ready to extend his wings and pull up at a moment’s notice. He poured more of his energy into his horn, focusing the green light into a narrow beam for maximum range. The pressure in his lungs slowly and steadily increased as he fell for what seemed like almost a minute, and eventually they felt like bursting. But before he was forced to slow down in order to be able to gasp in some fresh air, the tips of evergreen trees came forth from the darkness, bathed in Pell’s green.

Immediately, Pell threw out his wings, and he felt pain in his wing sockets. They curved as they violently caught the howling wind, feeling as though they were about to be ripped clean off. Pell clenched his teeth as he angled his wings upwards as much as they would go, and his heart raced as he fought to pull up as hard as he could. His eyes were glued to the tops of the trees that were visible in his light as they rushed up to meet him.

The tension in his chest tightened and tightened as he continued into his downward curve, and despite giving it his all, the curve was still so shallow that he couldn’t tell if he would make it. Pell shut his eyes tightly as he approached the trees, and a moment later he could feel the very tips of the pine needles brush against his belly. He opened his eyes and his body relaxed in relief, as he was still greeted with the sights of a pitch black sky and freezing rain.

The maneuver had bled off a lot of his speed, and Pell was finally able to breathe without choking on a torrent of water and wind. He leveled off his flight as he sucked in big gasps of air, and the bursting sensation in his lungs — which had actually become quite painful during the last moments of the dive — quickly dissipated, although there was still some faint pain that stuck around. Pell lowered his altitude in order to skim just above the tips of the trees, and refocused his horn’s light from a narrow beam to illuminate a larger area in front of him. The dense forest canopy whizzed past below, a smooth sea of green with the occasional treetop sticking out above the rest. The light of Pell’s horn cast tiny reflective glares of points of sickly green in a few of the pine needles that were angled just right, breaking up the monotony of the scenery as he flew.

Up ahead at the furthest reaches of his light, Pell could see the sea of trees end abruptly. He began to slow down as he approached this drop into the all familiar pitch dark void, until he had stopped at the precipice and hovered over the tops of the last few trees before the nothingness. He pointed his horn downward into the tree-less corridor, but his light could not reach the forest floor. The corridor was not very wide at all, as he could see the canopy resume on the other side through the sheets of rainfall with ease. He turned his head to the right, and then after a brief pause to the left, while shining his horn as far as possible. The corridor seemed to go on forever in both directions.

Again turning his attention to what was below, Pell flapped his wings to propel himself forward, and began sweeping his light from side to side while he descended into the void at a gentle slope.

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