The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Not Your Granny's Griffons

Starlight sat by Maple's bed in the infirmary, holding her moon glass sword as the world went by. It was a new day, late afternoon, and the ship was largely quiet. Harshwater and Felicity had been working, her friends were still stable, Slipstream and Nyala and Gerardo were resting, and she hadn't seen Jamjars or Glimmer.

Everyone had given up on asking about the sword she carried. She wasn't going to tell them what she had done with it, though she suspected anyone who had been conscious to see her stab Chrysalis's crown already knew. But it wouldn't do to get anyone's hopes up. She polished the sword, running a hoof down its sticky surface, wishing it wouldn't cling to her like it did. Though maybe the souls inside were clinging instead...

How many were there? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? One had to be Valey's. It taunted her, frustratingly out of reach when Amber had saved her body and all the parts that should have been needed to put her back together again were right there. She felt like there should be a way to do this. There had to, when Garsheeva was able to do it for Nyala. Knowing her friend was right there and she couldn't do anything to help her hurt, like her heart was the wrong size for her chest, yet at the same time, having so many souls right there that would have been someplace far worse if she hadn't saved them herself... It was almost hard to look away from the sword. They needed each other. She wouldn't let the ponies she had saved down.

"Nnngh..." In a nearby bed, Saffron stirred.

"Don't move," Harshwater instantly said, rousing herself from a catnap and stepping gracefully to the unicorn's side. "Your leg is broken, on top of a lot of smaller injuries. We're safe here."

Saffron instantly winced. "Oh, my head... W-Where...?"

"On our airship. Careful," Harshwater urged, soft and stern. "We had a bad fight. Do you need water?"

"Sure would be nice..." Saffron closed her eyes. "Can't say I feel great, sugarcube..."

Harshwater quickly stepped to a corner, where Grenada had moved an intact barrel of water. "Here," she said, raising a glass to Saffron's lips. "Starlight, go find Felicity and Slipstream."

"Slipstream?" Starlight asked, getting to her hooves and heading for the door. "I don't think she's one of the doctors..."

Harshwater nodded. "But she's been out scouting, and Saffron is the only other one who knows about where we are."

Starlight swallowed, disappearing out into the hall without further objections.

---

When Starlight returned a short while later, Slipstream in tow, Saffron was sitting upright, her leg bound in a careful, makeshift splint. The pink pegasus followed her on wobbly legs, and brightened when she saw one more pony up and about.

"Howdy," Saffron greeted, sounding slightly less dizzy. "So what's this I'm hearing about us being back in Equestria? They say you're the only one who's been to check the place out?"

"We're definitely south of the mountains, using the sun as a compass," Slipstream replied, leaning against a wall and stretching one leg at a time to fight off lingering cramps. "So, you know anything about the area around us? Because guess who volunteered to be in charge of scouting..."

"Good question." Saffron tried to shrug, stopping and wincing halfway through as Felicity quietly slunk to her side. "You've looked around at all? What's it look like around us?"

Slipstream sat down and rubbed her legs. "There's a lot of small hills, tall grass, rivers coming down from the mountains... an ocean to the southeast, and something called a train track running along the shore that was easier to walk on. We went far enough to see a giant bay with a mountain that looked like a tree across the water."

"That's Equestria, alright," Saffron hummed. "Sounds like we're just north of Griffonstone."

"More griffons, hmm?" Felicity tilted her head, running her hooves along Saffron's side. "I hope you don't mind me, by the way. Just trying to check your injuries again now that you're awake and moving."

"Doctors do what doctors do," Saffron replied, nonchalant. "And these aren't your average Empire griffons. There's only a few things you need to know about Griffonstone griffons. First, it's actually a griffon society, compared to the Empire where ponies are in the majority. Only them around. Second, they're mean, greedy, and don't like other folks. They'll treat you well only as long as you keep paying, and after that, you're out of luck. Fortunately, the Empire and Equestria use the same currency, so we can buy them off for a while. I wouldn't advise setting hoof out alone without a safe stash of money on you."

"Well, that's heartening." Slipstream folded her ears. "At least we have a lot of money left from the restaurant. So what do you recommend we do?"

Saffron thought for a moment. "In terms of where to go? Well, they'd sell us food, though don't expect it to be too high-quality. This isn't the best place to stick around, really. Can't we leave?"

"Out of fuel and stranded in the hills, I'm afraid," Felicity sighed, drawing back from her monk art ministrations. "From everything I've heard, we might be stuck here for quite some time."

Saffron's face fell. "That's not so great, I'm afraid. You've probably seen if you tried flying around, but the terrain here isn't something you can just walk over. The only way I made it past all these rivers and tall grass on my way north was by getting a small riverboat and a punting pole to push myself upstream."

Slipstream nodded, still stretching. "Getting a boat like that sounds like an important goal, then. I think I saw a forest to the east... Maybe we can get wood from there? If not, there's a wrecked airship we could possibly salvage for timbers."

Saffron tested a foreleg that wasn't broken, wiggling her joints and then smoothing a rough patch on her fur. "A forest? Hmm... That's just on the other side of a big canyon that's somehow important to local lore. Can't remember the name, but that's definitely something you won't be crossing without wings. Might be able to pay some griffons to carry some of us, though..."

"So what about the train tracks?" Slipstream asked. "Do you know anything about them?"

Saffron blinked. "Those things? Oh, right, I guess you might not have seen a train before... The Empire doesn't have them, at least. It's basically a path for a machine that gets you here quickly from the center of Equestria. Doubt it'll be of any use to us, except, as you said, a road." She tried to look to the window, but it wasn't at a good angle to be seen from the bed. "Griffons don't care much for visiting the rest of Equestria, so the only time you get trains is when someone wants to come here, not leave. And the closer you get to the center of Equestria, the less they care to admit the rest of the world exists. So, this stop won't even be on a lot of maps, and you might need to be a bigwig to ask to come here even if you know about it. Long story short, it may as well be abandoned."

"Noted..." Slipstream nodded. "At least it will make a good road if we're walking to Griffonstone. But in order to get more than just Harshwater and I there, we'll have to make a smaller boat for the rivers, and to do that we'll need wood, which either means exploring the forest or the crashed ship... I guess I have my next exploration objective. I'll get to it as soon as I'm not feeling dead after yesterday's flight."

"Fortunately, Gerardo should be up before long, and able to help," Maple added from her bed nearby. "He only got stabbed with Starlight's sword, and it wore off after about a week when it hit me and Amber."

The black sword wasn't with her, but Starlight felt a small note of appreciation that her friends seemed to remember them having it once again.

Harshwater cleared her throat. "One more important thing, now that you're up: you had a healing potion on you when you were teleported. Since no one was in immediate danger of death, we waited for you to be up to use it. Who do you want it used on?"

Saffron blinked. "Well... who all is down, and with what?"

"Your broken leg and assorted ailments, Maple has cracked ribs..." Felicity pointed around the room. "We're not entirely sure what's wrong with Meltdown, and Shinespark has a cracked horn."

Saffron instantly winced. "Give all of it to Shinespark, or as much as will help. That's not an ailment she'll want to pass up help recovering from."

"There's also Gazelle, who's mostly in shock," Harshwater added. "Everyone else is minor and will recover on their own."

Saffron lit her horn, testing her aura's strength. "Give it to Shinespark," she insisted. "Though since you're not mentioning Valey, I assume I didn't quite prevent her from... not being an option..."

Maple folded her ears.

"Here you are, darling..." Felicity pointedly didn't look at Saffron as she held up the jar, uncorked it, and slowly coaxed Shinespark to drink, stroking her throat with a wingtip to make her swallow.

Shinespark's eyes were open yet blank, and she reacted to the drink, not quite lucid. As the bottle slowly drained, her horn tingled with a faint light, and by the time it was empty many of the lesser cracks had sealed, though it was still obvious where they had been. The bigger ones were noticeably smaller, though it didn't seem a single dose was enough to banish them.

"Urgh..." When Felicity pulled the bottle away, Shinespark licked her lips and rolled over, slightly more animated than she had been before.

"Hopefully that will help her come around soon," Harshwater sighed. "I can't believe out of the six unicorns on our ship, three are disabled and one is Neon Nova..."

Slipstream shrugged. "All we can do is wait."

Comments

[Phoenix Kitten]

okay, so if the train tracks lead in both directions, and you know where Griffonstone is.. why not just.. head the other direction? Why did that not come up as an option?
That aside, they have the harmony extractor right? They could at least try to get the Dream refueled, even if it's only enough to get her to the ocean, she can at least function as a seacraft.
I recall her having an alternate power source that could be used in the water in case of an emergency.

[alamais]

9813064
I mean, presumably it's a long way to anywhere else. I would think rigging up some sort of hoers-pulled cart for use on the tracks could be helpful, though—at the very least for trading for some food from the griffons, possibly also for gathering forage from the area, or salvage from that wreck if it's closer to the tracks than it is to the Dream.

As for flying, I seem to recall they were never able to get it to work off a pony bc not enough harmony...I think Shinespark had the most potential, but not even she worked before pink-charged Maple or the hearts. NEED PINKNESS. Maybe if they had a way of suckin' some harmony out of each pony to slowly trickle-charge a heart enough to make a short hop, but I don't think that's an established technique, and their expert on the tech is still de-magicked and generally wrecked, I'm guessing for a long time still unless they can get more healing potions.

[Boopers]

9813064
Last time they ran out of power they put Maple in the extractor iirc, because she still had a little bit of remaining harmony left and it was enough that they could get down to the water safely. Did she use up everything this time? Maybe they could still try that. Maybe a nearby river could be deep enough for them. Especially as the rivers are all swollen with rain water now.

[Phoenix Kitten]

9813618
I had forgotten about that.
And yes, Maple used up the last of her stored harmonic energy punching Chrysalis in the face.

[Boopers]

9814627
Last time she supposedly used up everything too in order to help Starlight's horn problems, yet she still had enough left to run the ship for a short time. So there still might be a chance.

[Alchemik]

I like how everyone is counting Howe and Neon Nova as useless. I can't blame them, I probably would too, but if those two know how to do anything, it's survive.

[Venlinelle]

Oh thank god Shinespark’s horn can heal. After reading The Broken Bond I was nervous.