The Immortal Dream

by Czar_Yoshi

Scale

"Well?" Gerardo said, looking over his shoulder at us in the ship's cramped cabin as Crimson Valley disappeared behind us and Slipstream took the wheel. "Getting homesick yet?"

I had to admit, I was nervous. This was real. And yet, mixed in with all the fear and paranoia about Aldebaran were much more ordinary concerns, like whether I had forgotten to pack something or whether I had skipped a goodbye. Their presence told me I was at least thinking clearly, and not letting my prejudice blind me to the real things to be aware of. I could do this.

"Not on your life," Corsica retorted, extra prettied up in an attempt to stave off the effects of spending two weeks in a showerless airship. "I could do this every day."

"I think it's a little too early for homesickness," Ansel agreed as the sun touched the western horizon. "Wait until the trouble starts for that."

Gerardo nodded sagely. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but trouble starts now. Slipstream is taking the night shift, and that means this griffon needs his shut-eye. So before you get any stories or entertainment out of me, prove you can pass a night with only this meager space at your disposal." He hesitated. "Though becoming nocturnal might not be a terrible idea either..."

Right. We had signed up to deal with that.

"Until tomorrow morning!" Gerardo raise a wing in farewell. Then he let himself through the door to the rear cabin and closed it behind him, leaving the three of us alone.

I glanced around at the room we had. It was about the size of my bedroom, but a whole lot messier.

"There's a bench," I pointed out. "Plenty big for one, but two might get awkward. And a table, if you're not scared of falling off..."

"Dibs on the floor," Ansel called, yawning for emphasis. "You mares can do whatever."

"Yeah." Corsica looked suspiciously at our lodgings. "Well, at least it's hot enough in here that we won't need blankets..."

---

Day One

I woke to a pressure on my side.

"Nnrgh?" I grunted, lifting my head to look. A mop of raspberries and cream greeted me back. At some point during the night, Corsica had started using me as a pillow.

"Hey, get off!" I struggled meekly, enough to hopefully wake her but not enough to get sucker punched in revenge. "I worked hard for this spot! Go find your own!"

Corsica snuffled in her sleep.

"Come on, move it!" I protested a little harder, trying to flex my wing. My coat was off due to the temperature, and not only was Corsica worsening the problem that was meant to solve, but being this close to another pony without my customary armor was making me all sorts of uncomfortable. "It's already sweltering in here, and your mane's hotter than a blanket!"

"No, you're hotter than a..." Corsica groaned, starting to shift. "What time is it?"

"Sunrise, apparently." I dragged myself out from under her by shadow sneaking, using the table's shadow as cover - underneath it felt like the coolest place I could find. The resulting thud and yelp told me she was now much more awake.

Corsica glowered at me from under the table as I righted myself outside of it. "What was that for?"

I made a show of brushing my side off. "For trying to use me as a pillow. I know space is limited, but we've still all gotta make do."

Corsica pointed at my hooves.

I looked, and realized I was standing on a line taped on the floor, next to two signs that read 'Colts' side' and 'Fillies' side'. The colts' side took up about three quarters of the cabin. In it, Ansel was sprawled out like a rug.

"What did you get up to after I passed out?" I raised an eyebrow. "And you really let him stick you with such a bad deal?"

"First off, it's not my fault if I was sane and got some sleep after your party," Corsica declared, crawling out from under the table and starting the lengthy process of brushing her coat. "We were up for another hour or two. And second, Ansel is a dirty cheater."

"What?" I tilted my head at the spectacle. "How does someone cheat at deciding who gets to sleep where?"

Corsica just huffed. "Be glad you don't know."

"And even then," I pointed out, "you could've taken the bench! We get all of that. It's not like he's snoring or-"

The rear cabin door swung open, and Gerardo Guillaume poked his head through. "Top of the morning to you," he whispered, noting Ansel with a nod. "Too early, still?"

Corsica shook her head, sending her unbrushed mane flying everywhere. "Wake him with a vengeance."

"Very well, then." Gerardo retreated and shut the door. "Let us try that again..."

A few moments passed, just enough to make me wonder if nothing was going to happen. And then the door flew open and Gerardo slid out, skidding across the floor, kneeling into a one-winged bow. One of his talons held a trumpet. He swiftly belted out a dawn serenade.

Ansel grumbled and rolled over.

Gerardo raised an eyebrow at us. "Heavy sleeper, eh?"

I just shrugged.

"Well, let me go relieve my faithful co-pilot of duty, and then we can begin our first rousing day of carousing through the skies." The griffon slid open the door to the cockpit, trumpet still in hand, and stepped inside.

Moments later, Gerardo was up front, Slipstream was cooking breakfast, and Ansel was blearily regaining his senses in a corner, myself and Corsica already awake. "So," the griffon called back through the open door, eyes fixed on the horizon. "The journey begins. Tell me, how much do you three know about Ironridge?"

"Nothing practical," Corsica replied. "It's a city-state with lots of air power. They had a revolution two decades ago. The current government is a corporation called Cold Karma. It's hot there, and Cold Karma sells ways to cool it off."

"All true," Gerardo replied. "I imagine you should know at least a little about the city if you want to go there, but some say the thrill of discovery is everything. Would you rather it be left a surprise, or-"

"Tell us!" I interrupted. "We're not going out into the world to avoid learning things!"

Gerardo chuckled. "Well, you mentioned the heat already. Ironridge's climate is probably its foremost feature, and the one that shapes the entirety of life in the city. It is built in a geologic formation the locals call a crater, but is more of a mountain face that bends around in a three-quarter circle. The city is stratified based on height, and the height determines the climate, from the hottest jungle at the floor of the bowl up to the temperate reaches at the top of the surrounding mountains. The higher you go, the less the heat controls your life."

"Makes sense," I said, nodding. "So probably all the rich types live up top? If Graygarden's mistress can afford to court him, I bet she's among them."

"For the most part," Gerardo agreed. "Although due to certain long-running cultural tensions, it's not quite a clear cut as that. Regardless, due to that stratification, Ironridge is divided into four practical districts: the Day District, the Night District, the Sky District and the Ice District."

"Day and night districts?" I leaned in closer. "How so?"

Gerardo spun his feathers. "Go below a certain point, and it's simply too hot to be out and about in the day. That's the Night District, where all general work and commerce is conducted under the cool of the moon. The only ones out during the day in there are tough, have a very good reason to do what they do, and had better take care not to drop dead of heatstroke."

Corsica stuck out her tongue. "Bleugh."

"You'd better avoid the place altogether, with a coat like yours," Slipstream pointed out, cooking away. "I'm sure it must be nice to have that much thickness up here in the snow, but it won't serve you well in Ironridge at all."

Corsica looked disturbed. I, on the other hoof, wondered if I was finally about to get recompense for all the times I had envied Corsica for her ability to go outside at Icereach without any clothes.

"The Day District," Gerardo went on, "is the point where high society folks begin being able to stand the heat of day. It's a bit of a complicated topic, and there's something of an ongoing flexing match between those who want to see how low they can live without making themselves miserable. Doesn't help that before all this started, the Day District was the nicest and richest part of Ironridge to live in. Plenty of elites who just don't want to give in and move. You'd think everyone would just move further up, but that's not quite how it went down. And, like the Night District, it's still more active at night. Just, that's when all the normal folk who don't have an image to polish come out."

My ears twitched in interest. This was exactly the kind of real-world detail you never heard except in the abstract at Icereach. I was pretty sure I had heard the names of the districts before, but that was about it...

"At the top of the mountains, you've got the Sky District," Gerardo continued. "It's rather temperate up there. Warm enough to grow gardens, cool enough that you might close your windows from time to time. Far and away the nicest place to live, if you ask me, though it's got some... history that stops ponies from moving there in flocks. To make a long story short, a lot of development occurred in the region about thirty years ago, back when it was a glacier, and it happened at the expense of the working class. These days, there are-"

"Back when it was a glacier? Thirty years ago? And now it's temperate? You what?" I tilted my head in disbelief.

Gerardo raised a talon. "Patience, I'll get there. As I was saying, nowadays the Sky District has a lot of ruins with folks living in them, but every time anyone talks about using the place to expand the city or building actual infrastructure or housing... You'll see for yourselves. It's a mess. Doesn't help that the terrain is jagged and it would be an architectural nightmare, but that one at least can be solved with good old engineering. And if Ironridge has one thing, it's engineering talent in droves."

"And the Ice District is Cold Karma's headquarters, right?" Corsica cut in.

"So you do know a thing of two." Gerardo glanced over his shoulder with a bemused look. "Indeed it is. There's some debate over whether that makes it a real district, but given that they offer employee housing and have the largest square mileage behind the Night District, I'd say it more than counts. Incidentally, that's where your destination address is. Sounds like your father must be courting someone with connections."

"But what about the Sky District, though?" I pressed. "How did it change that much in such a short time?"

"Some breed of magic, I can only assume." Gerardo shrugged. "I don't know for certain. Ironridge's climate always has been unique, and I suspect magic may have played a role in keeping it the way it was. Or, it could have been a delicate homeostasis. Either way, ever since the Steel Revolution, the entire city's temperature has been ticking up year by year. It's localized entirely to the city, like a giant bubble of heat sitting in the crater, and you can find snow and ice just a mile or two outside its borders. All I can tell you is that someone had better figure it out soon, or else the city as a whole is going to have to pack up and move to the next mountain over."

"What's more likely is that more and more ponies in the Day District will keep shelling out to line Cold Karma's pockets," Slipstream added. "Anyone sane would just move further up the mountain, but a combination of pride and lack of infrastructure keeps them down low. Can't help but notice there's a clear winner in all this..."

My thoughts spun with all of this information, immediately whipping up a tale where a dastardly company discovered a spell to make the Night District hotter and hotter to force ponies to buy their products... No one would actually do that, right? If they did, it would be too obvious. Someone would have to know.

"None of that will mess up our trip, right?" Ansel asked, finally lucid after spending ages waking up. "Impending doom and whatnot..."

"Not unless you plan on staying in Ironridge for upward of ten years," Gerardo replied. "And even then, you're well-connected. I'm sure Graygarden and Elise will be able to arrange something if you need help."

We all looked at each other. "Ten years seems kinda dire," I pointed out.

"Ironridge was founded around eight hundred ago," Slipstream told us. "Believe me, they've faced things a lot more dire than a ten-year deadline before. But that's just a guess."

"If only I could tell you the rest of the world was a much stabler place," Gerardo apologetically chuckled. "A few years back, the Griffon Empire traded a vain but competent dictator for one who's currently more popular but appears very corrupt. Varsidel had their most recent attempt at national cohesion fall through, and are back to the vagabond warfare they've been drowning in for however many decades it's been, and rumor has it Yakyakistan's church officials are appearing in public less and less often even though their succession crisis is supposedly resolved. I've heard some suspect this new Holy Sparkbearer of theirs isn't the real thing, and there's secretly been a coup. And Silverwind and Mistvale are just as empty as ever."

"Yep," Slipstream said. "Ironridge is about as good as it gets right now."

Well, that was a thing to think about.

---

Day Two

"Hey," I greeted, finding Corsica on the thin deck that ran around the ship's exterior, her mane blowing in the wind.

"Hey," she greeted back, glancing over her shoulder. It was bitingly cold out here, the high altitude and windchill mixing with the mountain climate to produce a harsh air that didn't quite want to enter my lungs when I breathed. But with how hot Gerardo and Slisptream kept it in the cabin, a moment or two of this was very refreshing. I could only imagine Corsica had it that much worse than me.

"Clearing your head?" I shouted, the wind tearing my words out of my mouth. I stepped up beside her so I would be easier to hear.

Corsica grumbled. "With how much he went on about Ironridge getting too hot, you'd think they'd keep it cooler in there..."

I shrugged forlornly. "Pretty sure this is just room temperature in the rest of the world. Icereach does have ice in the name..."

"So?" Corsica raised a frustrated eyebrow. "What's wrong with a little ice?"

"Easy for you to say," I pointed out. "You've never needed to bundle up to stay warm."

"And to you, stripping down is far more of a problem than bundling up," Corsica retorted. "So I guess we're even."

Aside from the new, lightweight coat she had gotten me... "Yeah. I guess we are."

"I've been thinking," Corsica said. "What do you want to be in Ironridge?"

"Be? You mean do?"

"No. Be." She shook her head. "How do you want ponies to see you? Ansel doesn't get it, but you and me? We're always putting on airs. You and your coats, you know?"

I frowned in thought. "Well, usually I just am whatever I need to be to get what I want."

"Duh. So what do you want, and how do you want to get it?"

I tilted my head at her.

"You're the ideas mare around here, remember?" Corsica nudged me. "We're going to Ironridge, for real. I know we're going to look for a cave to get some ether crystal samples, and we've gotta get a read on life in the city, but what else? Not like we can just walk into a store and buy a sightseeing trip to some caves that may or may not exist."

"Yeah..." I agreed. "We can't devote all our time to that because too much of it will be spent waiting for opportunities. It'd be boring. Honestly, I hadn't thought about the rest, though. I've just been so focused on getting out the door without getting kidnapped. And this is still so sudden."

"Better get some goals soon, or I'm going to make my own," Corsica warned. "And then leave you to do all the work."

"Oh yeah?" I raised an eyebrow. "Tell me. What have you got?"

Corsica shrugged. "For one, we have to make Ironridge nice and frosty like Icereach. That'll be easy. All we have to do is infiltrate Cold Karma, figure out how they're controlling the climate to make everyone need their product, and mess it up. For two-"

"The three of us, take down an entire evil company?" I gave her an incredulous look. "First, you're assuming they're doing all that in the first place, and second, you're assuming that if they are, we'd be able to do anything about it! Third, you're assuming no one else would have been able to do something already, fourth, you're assuming we're mentally capable of pulling it off, which is questionable because I panic under pressure and you do that grouchy zombie thing all the time. Fifth, you're assuming stopping them is equivalent to-"

"If I say it enough, I'll jinx it to be true," Corsica primly interrupted. "Maybe they'll be in league with Aldebaran."

"And you want that?"

Corsica just shrugged. "I did warn you this was the alternative to getting some goals of your own. But don't worry. Fate only bends over backwards for me when I say please."

I scowled, feeling thoroughly played and hoping whatever force of destiny ruled over jinxes was feeling merciful. "Yeah, yeah. So, err... Let's see..."

Nothing came to mind. Not because my imagination was empty, but because it was unformed: Ironridge was a great big blob of horizon in my head, and Gerardo's explanation yesterday had done more to increase my canvas size than paint a clearer picture. Instead of a single city to wonder about, now I had four unique districts to fill in instead. I needed to explore and find out what there was to do.

So, that was what I told Corsica.

"Sure. Goes without saying," she agreed. "Bet you Ironridge has better entertainment venues than Icereach. Wanna go see a movie?"

"As long as it's not that Green Menace film you made me watch last time." I stuck my tongue out, and instantly regretted it as the wind threatened to freeze it that way. "Actually, maybe let's get a different tradition to start adventures with than that one."

Corsica just shrugged. "All on you, chief. Wanna find a fancy restaurant and see if we can waste some money?"

"It had better not be our money," I warned. "We need this for... stuff. It's good to have a rainy day fund. Although I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do once..."

"I feel like I'm still fielding all the ideas, here," Corsica flatly told me.

"Sorry." I flicked my ears. "Heat-induced brain fog. Err..."

A moment passed, but I came up with nothing. In fact, I forgot what I was even supposed to be coming up with.

"Here's some food for thought," Corsica said, her voice slightly quieter and slightly more serious. "Gerardo said the temperature started rising after the Steel Revolution, right? There was an ether crystal fault plane likely in Ironridge during that time."

I blinked several times. "You think those are related?"

"Could be," Corsica replied. "You ever talked to the meteorology team? It's poorly understood, but they've got some compelling evidence that an area's large-scale geographic weather is related to concentrations of magic in the ground. Might be a shot in the dark, but what if no one's ever put that together before?"

"I dunno," I admitted. "The way Gerardo told it, I kind of figured it only started after that point, like a long-term trend. Not like one day the charts just packed their bags and changed direction."

"Or maybe it takes a while for changes to manifest," Corsica countered. "No one ever proved a hypothesis right as they came up with it, right? You can't say I might not be onto something."

"Slipstream did say it might be magic," I pointed out. "Or Gerardo. I forget which one."

Corsica gave me an owlish look. "I know that. But what if it's related to the fault plane magic, and your spooky light spirit? Our best hypothesis is that that thing is attracted to major turning points in world history, right? What if their Steel Revolution attracted it, and it messed something up deep beneath the ground?"

For a moment, I thought about that, letting her theory sink in. "Well, we want to find our way to the ether river some way or other," I eventually said. "If that's true... I wonder what we'll find."

---

Day Three

"Hey, Gerardo," I said, edging my way into the entrance of the cockpit. "Mind if I come in?"

"Help yourself," the griffon replied, motioning me towards the empty co-pilot's chair. "Fancy learning to fly an airship?"

I blinked, not expecting the offer but sliding in anyway. "Err... Really? Sounds fun, but not why I was here..."

"I see," Gerardo told me. "In that case, what can I do for you?"

"I need some practical advice," I said. "Stuff that's useful, not just meant to scare me more or less than is warranted. See, I get that batponies have a bit of a bad rap in the rest of the world. And, I'm pretty decent at wearing disguises. Exactly how much effort should I put into not being conspicuous about... what I am?" I fluttered my leathery wings for emphasis.

Gerardo rubbed his feathery chin. "You put me in a sticky situation. Knowing what I know about teenage mares, I wouldn't want to-"

"Don't even start," I warned him. "Before you trip over yourself, I don't have body image issues and I'm not gonna make myself any stranger in the head by wearing a disguise. I can weigh for myself the consequences of anything I might do about it. But I need to know how much heat I'll bring down if I do nothing."

Gerardo gave me a suspicious look.

"I've got a disguise kit in my bags," I told him matter-of-factly. "I've got two full sets of colored contact lenses for round and slitted eyes. I've got braces to make my ears face forward and hide the leaves if need be. I've got fur dye in every color of the rainbow, and I know how to use it better than most make-up. I know how to speak while hiding my teeth, and am fluent in five different accents I stole from imported movies, but not more because everyone in Icereach sounds exactly the same. And I always wear clothes anyway, and am perfectly comfortable hiding my wings beneath a garment that doesn't have holes for them. This is what I do for fun. Still think I won't be able to do anything about it if there's anything to be done?"

For a moment, Gerardo looked even more surprised, and then he nodded in respect. "An up-and-coming professional, I see. You're practiced with shadow sneaking?"

"I know how to do it," I said with a shrug.

"Good," Gerardo replied. "That's far and away your best ticket out of any conflict. Ironridge night life being what it is, there are always shadows available, and your kind is scarce enough that most of the populace doesn't know how it works. If you've ever got that available to you, I wouldn't be worried a bit, provided you're fine with dodging a few shady customers here and there. That said, you mentioned having contact lenses. It may behoove you to choose a different color for your eyes, just in case."

"Really?" I tilted my head, curious. "How come?"

"Because sarosians are rare enough that you just might be mistaken for a certain other with green eyes," Gerardo lectured. "Her name is Admiral Valey, and she has a reputation that you probably wouldn't want to bring down on yourself. Or, for that matter, anyone you love."

Well, okay, then.

"On the topic of mistaken appearances, before I forget," Gerardo went on, eyes lighting in remembrance. "I've been meaning to ask. What does your friend Corsica's brand do?"

"Brand?" I frowned. "What... Oh, you mean her special talent?"

"Yes, that's the one." Gerardo tapped the ship console with a talon. "So that's what you call those in Icereach, is it? Even after all these years, you learn something new every day. Regardless, my question stands."

I shrugged. "It's a talent in geometry. Why?"

"Would you mind if I asked how she got it?" Gerardo inquired, eyes on the horizon ahead.

"Well, she was..." I thought back. It happened around when she woke up from her coma after the avalanche. Exactly when, even. Right...? My memory suddenly fuzzed, the way it did when I tried thinking about things that were connected to ones hidden behind my mask, as if my thoughts got round and slippery and hard to hold onto. "It was around two and a half years ago. Why not ask her? And why do you ask, anyway?"

"Merely curious," Gerardo said. "You see, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the talent of someone very important. Not many are actually familiar with that talent, so it's fairly unlikely she would be recognized, but I thought I'd pass along the warning anyway. If you don't like attention from high places, it might not hurt for her to take a cue from you and try her hoof at clothing."

I tilted my head at him. "Well, okay. I'll let her know. But why are you telling me this, and not her?"

"I just didn't want to forget, while it was at the front of my mind." Gerardo shrugged. "Besides, this flight will be more than long enough already if I'm constantly repeating myself and saying the same things to each of you individually. If I had to think up something new to say every time I had a conversation, that would be quite something."

I squinted. "Is that how you and Slipstream are? You tell her the same things over and over so you don't have to think of new things to say, too?"

Gerardo grinned. "On the contrary, the reason my cleverness is in short supply is because all of it is reserved for her alone."

"Cute," I told him. "How many times have you recycled that one on her?"

"None," the griffon admitted. "I believe she's only heard it once. The only time I've recycled it has been just now, on you."

I was starting to see how Gerardo could come across, to someone like Mother, as a buffoon.

To the less-crotchety me, at least, he was entertaining. "Hey, so about piloting this airship," I said. "If I can get it all down in under an hour, can I get a prize?"

"What sort of prize?" Gerardo asked, perking up at the challenge.

"Turn the thermostat down," I declared. "Not much. Just a few degrees. See how much it takes for Slipstream to notice."

Gerardo chuckled. "I'm afraid that would be a curse in disguise. It's true that she's always been a fan of desert climates, but if you want to survive in Ironridge, you'd better take this chance to acclimate to the heat and pen an ode to its honor."

I frowned.

"Although that said," he pointed out, "a pilot does have to be comfortable enough to operate at peak capacity..."

---

Day Five

"There's really not that much to it, is there?" I mused, sitting in the real pilot's seat this time. Controlling an airship might have been difficult if I was navigating an obstacle course, but keeping it flying in a straight line was about as simple as two levers and having a good eye for landmarks. Experimentally, I had tried the ship's other controls, Gerardo at my side and explaining everything in detail. Even without my talent, I figured I would have an easy idea telling what to do.

"Being a licensed pilot is more a matter of professional liability for anyone who ensures or contracts your airship," Gerardo explained. "Or anyone seeking to hire you to fly theirs. Out in the open blue, most anyone can point the prow where they please."

"So, hey," I said, preparing to take the conversation in a different direction. "If most anyone can fly one, how difficult are they to get? Seems like they wouldn't bother making it easy if only the elite could afford them."

Gerardo chuckled. "You'd be surprised at just how easy the elite like things. It's hard to put a number on difficulty, though. To buy one straight up, you'd have to work a good middle-class job for twenty years and scrimp for loose change. But if that was you, what would you do once you had it? Anyone flighty enough to make proper use of an airship is going to have no reservations looking for shortcuts in getting them. And that's just a test of how enterprising you are."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mean folks are just waiting to hand these out to anyone who asks nicely in the right places?"

"You make it sound silly, but you'd be surprised." Gerardo watched the horizon. "Charisma and owed favors can go a long way in this world. Especially for anyone with few enough roots that they can afford to take risks, and skip town if things turn sour. I'd be willing to wager that's how Aldebaran came by their own airship, and Elise made it out to be the top of the top."

I frowned. "So I just... what, sidle up to anyone in a fancy suit and introduce myself? That doesn't sound like it's gonna work."

"Add a little more nuance," Gerardo advised. "Be opportunistic, but play to your strengths. Focus first on-" He cut himself off. "Why are you so interested in this, anyway?"

"You told me I needed an airship if I ever wanted to go find that goddess you're collecting Writs of Harmonic Sanction for, remember?" I raised an eyebrow. "So how'd you get this ship? It's gotta be more specific than 'playing to your strengths'."

Gerardo patted the console. "This lovely craft came to me by way of a high-ranking mafioso in the sky city of Wilderwind. It's an extremely long story, but to put it shortly he wanted to pay me off and settle our debts so we could go our separate ways. Of course, it was slightly more generic at first, but I got a few friends with carpentry and shipbuilding knowledge to come overhaul the interior and add more storage. It's served me well for coming on five years now. The ship I had before this, I bartered for in Excasesis - that's in northern Varsidel, if your geography's lacking - and the one before that was chartered for me by Ironridge's reconstruction manager as part of a mission for the state. Prior to that, I hitched a ride on a friend's ship, and several years before that one-"

"I get it." I smiled a little, lifting a hoof and cutting him off. "Rather than a list, could you go into detail on one?"

Gerardo looked at me. "I can't tell if you're remarkably impatient or just have a lust for life. Kids these days, I suppose."

He let the topic drop, and I slowly found myself wondering why I had silenced him when he could have told me something useful about where to get a ship of my own. Some kind of instinctual, self-preservation response, maybe? I felt like...

I closed my eyes and took a breath. I felt like he was rambling on purpose to avoid telling me something.

"Eyes on the sky," he remarked, noting my lapse in sight.

Yep. He was very aware of me. I wondered what reason this griffon could possibly have to entertain me as far as he had, give me a starting point for my journey, even offer us a ride to Ironridge, yet start stalling about a subject like how to get an airship. Maybe he just really wanted to keep his Writs of Harmonic Sanction goddess to himself.

"Alright. New subject," I said, focusing on the mountains and deciding to test whether I was right. "Maybe an airship's not the most practical thing to go for immediately in Ironridge. What is? What should I spend my time trying to get?"

"First and foremost, money," Gerardo instantly replied. "Money makes Ironridge go 'round. That can be said of any place, mind you, but it doesn't make it any less true. In Yakyakistan, there are some things you don't need money to get. In Varsidel and the Griffon Empire, there are some things no amount of money can buy. In Ironridge, it all comes down to what you're willing to pay." He tapped a talon. "What next depends on the kind of money you get. If it's a stable income stream or a large enough lump sum, get a house. I don't know anything about this mistress you're being sent to stay with, but self sufficient is a good thing to be. Always think in terms of having a base of operations."

See, even if it sounded like common sense, that was common sense I could make use of. The moment I stopped asking about how to continue traveling, his advice became much more concrete. Still a little wordy, but compare 'get a house' to 'play to your strengths'. One of those was far more specific...

I didn't even need to ask to know that if I asked him what would be some good next steps for traveling the world, I would get a vague response filled with personal anecdotes. I had a lock on how this griffon worked. The real question was, was he keeping something from me on purpose, or was this just the way he was?

Or maybe vague and unpredictable was just how travel worked. I had, after all, been sitting in Corsica's lab one week ago planning my upcoming birthday party, my present situation not even a blip of a possibility in my mind. What I saw as obfuscation could really be the clearest, truest truth.

I decided to just ask. "How come you get way more vague whenever you're talking about how to travel?"

"Because you're inexperienced and have no other sources save for me," Gerardo replied. "I know it sounds circular, but hear me out. Say I gave you a roadmap for where you want to go: who to talk to, what to say. I have a hunch you'd try to follow it to the letter - perhaps warily, perhaps questioning my advice, but follow it still. And there are three outcomes from that: you get stuck, you get in over your head and then get stuck, or you somehow get what you're after and then have a whole host of consequences on your tail. Before, I told you I believed you were ready to strike out and go on an adventure, and I stand by my assessment. But being ready to start is very different from being ready to finish. If this were a tabletop game, you would be at level one, asking me for directions to the big bad's castle."

I frowned. "But I'm not asking for the big bad's castle. I just wanna know where to go next."

"And the answer to that is to live a little," Gerardo told me. "You're still quite young. That means you have a lot of time at your disposal. Blundering through the world and learning how it works may not be the fastest route to catching your dream, but it will give you experience you need when the time is right to do that."

"Oh." I focused on the sky.

Maybe I was reading into things. Maybe his reasons for stalling and being vague really were just that I would get myself into trouble if I had a clearer path forward. But my hooves itched to do something, to move, to go out and find what I was looking for in the world. That nameless thing that Icereach lacked, which I sometimes understood so well and sometimes couldn't explain at all... I felt it like a magnet, pulling my heart east. Doubly so, now that we were on the move.

I didn't want to just live a little. I wanted... Well, actually I did want to live, a lot. Was Gerardo implying that life would just find me, instead?

If I trusted him enough to ferry me to Ironridge on an airship, even if it would do nothing to quell my restlessness, maybe I should trust him on this, too.

---

Day Eight

A storm hit, like the blizzard that came during the Aldebaran incident.

Memories piled up in my mind, of the ship zipping along the underbelly of the clouds, lightning illuminating them in the dark of night. This time, however, had one key difference: we flew above the storm instead of below.

I peered out a window, flanked by Ansel and Corsica, as the clouds rushed on by, surging northward like a shoreless river of smoke. Here and there, mountaintops broke or scraped the clouds, causing them to part and bunch up in their fury to fly on, or sometimes surge into the air like water running over a large rock in a stream. The result was a landscape that was anything but flat: standing waves and stationary plumes gave the cloud sea an unimaginable texture full of dips and ridges, with monolithic masses of gray where the weather rose up to follow a predefined curve. Most otherworldly of all was the Aldenfold, the southern edge of the world, usually a wall of stone and now a waterfall of cloud instead. The storm had spawned in the mountains, and now it fell off, a falling wall of gray that powered the northward cascade.

"Woah," Corsica breathed, tense. "Doesn't look like this from below..."

"Doesn't even look like real weather," Ansel remarked, obviously enraptured. "Clouds aren't supposed to move like that, are they? No way can they be that dense."

"It's a mystery for the ages," Slipstream replied, cooking breakfast after a long night of piloting. We had woken up to the spectacle, but according to her, the storm wall had been even more spectacular. "Some say the Aldenfold contains an incredibly powerful magic, and the storms it creates are a side effect of that. Personally, I think there's another reason, though I couldn't tell you what or why."

I blinked. "Wait, so these come up all along the mountains? These storms?"

"Weather like this? Yes, it does." Slipstream nodded, flipping a batch of pancakes. "They're fairly regular at all times of the year. If you're interested in meteorology, I'm sure you could learn a lot in Ironridge. They spend a lot of effort studying the storms there."

"I can imagine," Ansel replied. "If Ironridge is as much of a hub of air commerce as it's been made out to be, they probably take a big impact from weather like this."

"Not only that," Slipstream agreed, "but the storms are the only time the lower districts ever cool off."

"Really?" I twitched my ears, interested.

The pink pegasus nodded. "They've been shaping life along the Aldenfold since the dawn of recorded history. The Varsidel desert starts where the storm rains stop, Yakyakistan is completely frozen... Did you know that most scholars think they're one of the biggest reasons for the divide between Yakyakistan and the Griffon Empire's differing theologies?"

"Because they limit trade, or something?" Corsica frowned.

"Exactly," Slipstream said. "The eastern continent is separated from the rest of the world by an ocean that takes up almost a quarter of the world's width. Since the Empire was in the south, anyone trying to sail directly to them had to brave a close route past the base of the Aldenfold, without any harbors. It was much easier for Ironridge to trade with their northern neighbors in Varsidel, because the western seaboard had plenty of safe harbor and the storms get weaker the further north you go. Sailing a more northern route, you could much more safely go from Varsidel to Mistvale. The sarosians had a lot of commerce there, but they typically didn't open their lands to trading routes down to the Empire. Much of the Empire's contact with the rest of the world didn't start until we were advanced enough to make ships that could weather these storms. And, by then, their culture had thousands of years of tradition."

"Huh. Guess that's what happens when you live that far south," Corsica muttered. "How'd they grow enough food for an empire in a climate like that?"

"Garsheeva," Slipstream explained. "She used her power to stop the storms. I witnessed her do it once. She took care to make it visible. That more than anything else was the source of her legitimacy as a ruler... though providing the continent's mana power and being the progenitor of the royal bloodline probably helped, too."

I listened, just as intrigued by her stories as by the storm out the window.

"Most of the Empire was fertile farmland, except for the far south and east," Slipstream went on. "I spent about half a year there, before it fell. Sometimes Gerardo's work takes us back, and it's hard to believe how much it's changed. The weather makes food scarce, which in turn drives conflict... There's always been fighting in the Empire, but before it was based on pride, and everyone had their national unity under Garsheeva to fall back on. Now that it's based on necessity, the stakes are different." Her ears fell. "That's a continent that could really use a hero."

That the Griffon Empire had fallen was something I had known for a while. What happened to a continent after its government fell... That was something I was still hazy on. And the more I heard, the more I felt like it just hadn't settled into anything at all.

"You ever wonder what the point is?" Corsica asked. "Sounds like stuff's pretty bad in most of the world. What do you look forward to? Do you try to make a difference? Not just you, but everyone. Living like that, how do they get by?"

Slipstream shrugged. "The world has plenty of good things in it too. But I might not be the right pony for that question. I just fly above it all with Gerardo. We might only be doing something that might once have mattered in the grand scope of things, but it still can matter to our friends. That's more than good enough for me."

"You had better not be spreading pessimism back there, dearest," Gerardo called back through the open cockpit door. "The world is a fascinating place full of adventure and opportunity. Maybe it has a few rough edges, but those are just opportunities to do something truly spectacular!"

"You're exaggerating just to balance me out!" Slipstream complained in return.

"Then perhaps what you said needed a little balancing," Gerardo replied. "Never forget that what the world needs most is someone with the will to make it a better place. And it doesn't take a lot to make a difference."

I stopped following the conversation, not particularly engaged by platitudes and couples' bickering. The way everyone made it sound, the world at large was in dire straits. Had it always been this way? I wanted to find some uncensored history books and see how ponies in years gone by thought about the trials of their own times. Did they feel apocalyptic too? For that matter, how did other ponies in the present feel about the state of the world today? The only outside sources I had met were these two eccentric birds, and you didn't have to be bad to have an unusual point of view.

...Well, I had met Aldebaran, too. But apparently their view of the world was one that drove them to kidnap us and strand us in a cave.

This probably would have been a good time for me to panic. Or, not a good time, but a time when I usually would. For some reason, instead I just felt empty inside, sort of like a tiny version of how I remembered feeling when my mask was off. My cards were played, my dice were cast. I was going to Ironridge, a city where many, many ponies lived and had grown up and probably had relatively normal lives.

Probably. If not, I'd be in for a ride.

---

Day Twelve

I was awakened by the lights turning on. It felt much earlier than they should have.

"Eh? What's going on...?" I poked my head out from under the table, noting that it was still dark out. Corsica and Ansel were stirring as well - the former thankfully hadn't tried to share my sleeping space again since that first night. Gerardo was standing by the light switch, fully dressed and geared and ready to go.

"It's about four hours until dawn," he said quietly, watching us wake. "And I have good news and bad news."

I perked a little.

"The good news is, we're almost there." He nodded toward the cockpit. "The bad news is, we're going to have to hurry and get lucky if we want to reach your new address by sunup. Arriving at sunset would have been far more optimal, but we didn't make quite as good of time as I'd like. So, time for you all to get ready. As soon as we're docked, we'll depart without a moment to lose."

A tiny jolt of energy shot through me, kicking sleep away. This was it. It was happening.

"You all are going to regret not becoming nocturnal with me," Slipstream said from the cockpit. "Ironridge night life is pretty strongly preferable to day life. We'll be within range of the air traffic controllers in about thirty minutes, so get yourselves packed and awake and ready to go."

Comments

[KMCA]

Man, the world really has changed, hasn't it?

[Boopers]

"There's a bench," I pointed out. "Plenty big for one, but two might get awkward. And a table, if you're not scared of falling off..."

Oh boy Shinespark would have LOVED that table!

"No, you're hotter than a..."

OwO

Silverwind? Thats a place we've never heard of before. I wonder if we'll go there.

I frowned in thought. "Well, usually I just am whatever I need to be to get what I want."

inb4 animal sacrifices and genocide

"For one, we have to make Ironridge nice and frosty like Icereach. That'll be easy. All we have to do is infiltrate Cold Karma, figure out how they're controlling the climate to make everyone need their product, and mess it up. For two-"

It's gotta be Fire. She's secretly a dragon and is melting all the bedrock to carve out her giant lair in the old generator tunnels, heating up the whole city in the process. Case solved. That was an easy one. You can thank me later.

[PropsValroa]

If I remember correctly the destruction of the windigos in the Olden World also removed the glacier / ice in Ironridge? And without Garsheeva the Empire is now a mess.

[Mini-Joe]

zowee wow!! iron ridge

[RoboRed]

"Because sarosians are rare enough that you just might be mistaken for a certain other with green eyes," Gerardo lectured. "Her name is Admiral Valey, and she has a reputation that you probably wouldn't want to bring down on yourself. Or, for that matter, anyone you love."

Oh man I hope we get to see Valey again.

[Venlinelle]

"Because sarosians are rare enough that you just might be mistaken for a certain other with green eyes," Gerardo lectured. "Her name is Admiral Valey, and she has a reputation that you probably wouldn't want to bring down on yourself. Or, for that matter, anyone you love."

Aww, he calls her by the title she always preferred ❤️
I wonder if she’s still there with Shinespark, or elsewhere? It kind of sounds like she’s still around from the description of her reputation.