The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Flying is Uneventful...

"Morning seventeen," Maple yawned in Starlight's sleeping ears, forcing the filly to blink herself awake. "I should get breakfast started... or should I sleep in again? Hmmm..."

Starlight had every intention of sleeping in. Even though she had been having a successful time browsing Shinespark's library and differentiating between books on advanced magical theory and actually interesting passtimes, the days on the ship were beginning to drag. Peace and quiet, she had unfortunately discovered, meant nothing ever happened, period, so she was killing time until... something happened. She didn't know.

"It's noisy outside," Maple remarked, her warmth disappearing from Starlight's side as the bed shifted, and eventually light filled the room. "Ah," she said from by the curtain. "There's a storm outside, but it looks like we're flying above it. Starlight, do you want to see what a storm looks like from above?"

"That already happened a few days ago," Starlight mumbled, adjusting her hooves so they covered her eyes and muzzle.

Maple took a minute, seeming to concede. "Well, yes, but it's still impressive. It's like a sea of dark clouds, instead of water! I bet it's raining very hard down below. Hmmm... I almost wish we'd dip down lower. This ship is weatherproof, and I love the smell of rain..."

Starlight rolled over so her chin was outstretched and exposed to the air, eyes still covered and buried by the bedding.

"Come on, you," Maple giggled, patting her with the side of a hoof. "The sun rose two hours ago. We should do something with the day?"

"Like what?" Starlight muttered, mouth still sticky with sleep. She needed a drink...

"Say hello to Slipstream? See what Valey is up to? Visit Shinespark on the bridge?" Maple shrugged. "There aren't many ponies here, but we do have friends. And I'm already trying to stay sane with how isolated we are. We could brainstorm something else to do!"

Starlight grunted and hugged herself. "Mmmph."

"I know..." Maple sucked in a quick, eager breath. "When I was a filly, Willow would design and make homemade board games for us to play with the other foals we were friends with. I bet we could find some paper and do that? How does that sound?"

Starlight squirmed in the bed. She clearly wasn't getting back to sleep, but every time she opened her eyes, they just closed again on their own...

Still, Maple didn't give up. "What else could we do... We could mix different kinds of fruit juice in the kitchen to try and create a punch that tastes very good, and share it with everyone?"

Again, Starlight tried to get up, and this time gravity didn't weigh as heavily on her as before. That was nice. She yawned luxuriously, and when she next opened her eyes, clouds were rushing past the windows... Wait, were they descending?

Maple had noticed as well. "It looks like Shinespark heard my wish!" she remarked, beaming at the passing clouds. Then they broke beneath them, dropping with the rain... and Starlight raised an ear in concern. The feeling of weightlessness in her chest that came with rapidly descending was growing, not going away. Slowly, Maple's expression dropped from pleasure and joy to concern and then outright fear. "Starlight?" Her voice cracked as her forehooves broke contact with the ground. "Are we falling? We're falling! Starlight!"

Starlight was suddenly wide alert, her coat standing on end from tip to tail. She scanned the room, assessing her options in an instant. Save the ship? She had no idea how. Maybe she could make a big enough crystal... Her horn was mostly recovered from her encounter with Hemlock at its slow, broken rate, and she thought she felt the tree's gift magic returning, but she definitely would blow herself out again if she tried that. But Maple had just opened the window, and she was certainly strong and experienced enough with falling to protect herself over water. She couldn't tell how high up they were; there was no time to plan out what to do after that.

"Maple! The window!" she shouted, kicking off the bed and lighting her horn. Her telekinesis wrapped around the mare, pulling. She would drag them both out the window, freeze them together, they'd hit the sea, float-

POW! The cabin door burst open before she could reach the aperture, and Shinespark floated in it, looking even more frazzled than Starlight. "You two!" Her own horn flared, and a sapphire aura ensnared Starlight, quickly pulling her back and putting a stop to her plan. "Engine room, now! Something's up with our power source!"

The library streaked by, less-secured books floating aimlessly as they fell in time with the ship, and in an entire second of ferocious telekinetic force, Shinespark kicked off the doorframe, whipped them around into the engine room, and had the spare harmony extractor helmet placed over Maple's cutie mark. There was a crack, the inert rail mesh suspended from the ceiling crackled back to life, and Starlight was suddenly smashed against the floor by twice the force of gravity as the ship stabilized and its power hummed back to life.

For several eternal seconds, the room was still, everyone catching their breath. Eventually, Maple nervously swallowed from her seat next to the extractor. "What was that?"

"I don't know." Shinespark paced up to the other helmet, which had been replaced with a homemade apparatus connecting a windigo heart to the machine. Scared and shocked, she poked at the heart, and it gave off a frosty blue glow, completely devoid of pink energy. "We suddenly lost power over the course of about three minutes. I tried to figure out what it was, and apparently decided to hook you up just in time, since you stored some of the harmonic energies from the crystal palace using your brand." She pointed a hoof at Maple's pink eyes. "But... this doesn't make sense..."

Starlight tilted her head and folded an ear, her own heart still hammering. She had been inches away from the third near-death mile-high tumble of her life, an experience she really shouldn't have been keen to repeat...

"This ship wasn't supposed to run out of power," Shinespark continued, pacing and agitated. "That was the entire point of researching this technology! Some spark of magic or life within ponies produces this harmonic energy indefinitely, which would allow it to be a theoretically infinite power source! So long as the crew remains alive, at least..." She blinked, eyes widening. "But we didn't get this magic from ponies! The underworld flame might have been an infinite source too, but we only bottled some in this windigo heart. And now it's empty..."

Starlight swallowed, a memory coming to mind. "Fire said something about how the hearts needed to be processed to make better batteries. That if they were raw like this one, they were better for dangerous spells, but couldn't hold energy as well. She said all the ones from Ironridge belonged to me, and she was giving us this one now so we could leave but taking the others to Yakyakistan to process so they'd be more useful to us."

Shinespark clenched her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Fabulous. And we're going completely the wrong direction to get more..."

"So what do we do now?" Maple asked, voice quiet.

"Now?" Shinespark turned to look at her, kicking at the drained heart. "We'll have to make use of this ship's seafaring abilities. I don't know how much energy you have stored, and we can't run the risk of running out in midair again. Without the levitation abilities, we should be able to stretch Maple's reserves to power the boat a lot longer, and if that runs out too then I'll give it a try myself. My brand isn't nearly strong enough to levitate us by itself, but it has more harmonic potential than most, and will at least allow us to charge up the lights and heat and run them a few hours a day. Worst case, I'll fly behind us and push the boat." She turned back toward the door, pacing off. "I'm going to lower us the rest of the way to the water and let everyone else know what happened. The ship is probably going to be a mess after a drop like that... Starlight. Maple's probably going to have to spend quite a lot of time in here over the next few days, so she might appreciate it if you moved something more comfortable in here. Or I'll do it. At least we're not far from the Empire..."

She left, and shut the engine room door.

A pair of tan forelimbs encircled Starlight, and Maple was hugging her tightly. "Well, I was complaining about nothing happening," Maple murmured, trying a shaky smile.

Starlight heaved an unhappy sigh.

"Now I'm very glad I soaked up some more of the magic last time we were there," Maple went on. "That was scary, but it could have been a lot worse. I hope everyone else is alright. Do you want to go check on them, or stay here with me?"

"Stay here," Starlight mumbled, thoughts of falling pervading her mind.

Maple nodded, rubbing a forehoof up and down Starlight's chest as she held her to her own. "You were going to have us take our chances falling together on our own, without the ship, weren't you?"

"Yes..." Starlight forced the idea back down. She had been ready for it. If anything scared her, it was that she had been too ready: jumping off an airship in a storm an unknown height above the sea had been her first instinct to solving a problem. Whatever it took to protect her friends.

"Something tells me scares like this are just a natural part of adventure," Maple mused.

Starlight grunted.

"I wish there was more I could do to keep my friends safe," Maple continued. "Things like this, I'm just going to have to get used to. But it would be a lot easier if I could do more than just float around in crises. Maybe I should ask Valey to teach us how to fight. I bet I could have a big advantage thanks to my cutie mark, if I wanted to get good at it. We should do that some time..."

"Mmph." Starlight shrugged in agreement.

"I know." Maple held her tighter. "Let's just hope all our other friends are all right..."

---

"No, your cheeks are squishier," Valey cheerily protested, a glowing sound stone balanced on her fuzzy belly as she popped another cheese stick from a pouch in her saddlebags into her big mouth. "Remember, you gain points for blushing first."

"Aww! I missed you too. For the thirtieth time. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to Ironridge again, but come on, you gotta have more interesting stuff to tell me about than talking about me! What's new with Maple and Shinespark and Gerardo?"

"Nyaah... not much." Valey burped. "Like, seriously, it's boring out here. No drama whatsoever, and nothing ever happens. So why not make use of this awesome private room I got us?"

"I told you you can hit on other ponies too," Amber's voice informed her. "What's so special about me? We can't even see each other!"

Valey licked her cheese-crusted wingtips. "Something something absence makes the heart grow fonder? I dunno. But I flew way ahead and am on this little rock ledge on the cliff face right now. There's a storm below, the ship's like a mile behind us, and this is basically the most private spot in the universe right now. Like, super duper huge sky. Makes me wish I was a poet. What better place for being frisky?"

"Oh, fine." She could hear Amber chuckling on the other end. "Imagine me burying my face in your fur and-"

"Hey, woah, hold that thought." Valey sat up, suddenly alarmed. "Where'd the ship go? It was right there. Seriously!"

"Valey?" Amber's tone grew worried. "Is everything all right?"

Valey squinted at the dark wall of rainclouds. "Uh, don't panic, but hang on." She raised her muzzle and sniffed. "I can still smell Starlight, but wow, she's kinda low. What the...?"

She stuffed the remnants of her lunch back into her saddlebags and the sound stone under her hat. "Still hear me? Cool. Hold the phone, I need to check this out."

Amber's assent came muffled from between her ears as she lowered to the clouds, poking them with a hoof. "Eh... meh... mrmmm..." Valey frowned harder. "Ew, this storm. My butt says it's cold, rainy and maybe a little windy down there and there's a pretty decent chance if I try to fly to wherever they are, I'll freeze, get blown off course, hit the ocean and drown. Uhhhhh..."

"Valey?"

"Well, bananas." Valey pulled up several meters, surrounded by storm clouds, open sky, a gigantic rock wall she couldn't summit, and a target that was firmly out of her reach. "This stinks."

Comments

[crossed]

Never could get through austraeoh but starlight glimmer is a more interesting character.

[Sypher]

Hold the phone, I need to check this out.

You mean "hold the stone"

Oooh, does this mean we get to meet pirates too now? Typical Gerardo, jinxing everything.

[Quinch]

This makes me wonder, when did Valey start smelling Starlight? If the range on her is that huge, would she notice her way out in Riverfall when she first arrived?