Of Aerial Dominance

by Sorren

Chapter 11 - Blending in

“Is that all you got!?” the stallion screamed at her. “My grandmother could fly faster than you with one wing tied behind her back!”

Slipstream groaned and picked herself up off the cloud she had landed it. Clouds, in general, were very soft until you crashed into them. She couldn’t help but sit up and shoot her drill instructor a pointy glare. She turned her neck right, then left, coaxing a series of pops from the joints as she recovered from the crash.

“Move, move, move!” he screamed, flying a few feet above her as he continued his mental beration, face red, spittle spraying from his lips. “I’ve seen shit that flies better than you!”

Slipstream flared her wings and gave them a strong flap. Without warning, a stab of pain shot up her spine from her right wing and she almost fell back over on her side. Growling under her breath, she raised a hoof and rubbed the shaved mane along her neck, taking a deep breath.

Again, she tried to lift off, and again a stab of pain shot through her body. Now it was a clear fact that she wasn’t getting back up on her own.

“Sweet Celestia on a fucking stripper pole, you're dumber than a box of rocks!” He lowered himself a bit farther to yell in her ear. “Move your soggy flank, right now!”

“I can’t, Sir!” she yelled, taking a moment to grit her teeth.

“Bullshit!” he hollered back. “Private Slipstream, unless I see that wing come off, you are going to fly or you are outta here!” He regained his normal height and waved towards the group of pegasi flying ahead. “One of you haul your lazy flanks over here and give Private Slipstream a hoof!” He glared down at her. “Apparently, captains are soft like that.”

The pony that came to her aid was a somewhat bulky light blue stallion. He landed beside her and smiled softly. “Which wing is it?”

“Right,” she said with a wince.

He moved over to her left side and stooped down a little. “Okay. Come on, we’ll get you back.”

Slipstream nodded. As she pulled herself onto his back, she couldn’t miss the smile he gave her from the side.

“What’s your name?” he asked after a moment. With a flap of his wings, he carried them both off the cloud surface.

Slipstream couldn't help but grin a little. “Slipstream. What’s yours?”

“Briar.”

“Food.” Slipstream groaned and rolled over as Price’s voice invaded her dreams. She squirmed on the hard floor, trying to get comfortable, though any chances of continued sleep were ended when a hoof jabbed her sharply in the bruised ribs. She hissed under her breath and sat up with much more effort than it should have taken, blinking sleep from her eyes.

“What?” She yawned, ears folding back to her head as she stretched her forelegs in the process. Her stomach grumbled at her and she gave Price a sheepish look.

The others were already up, and judging by the position of the sun just out the window, it was almost noon. They’d slept for a good five hours.

Price dropped four tin plates to the ruined floor in front of each pony and they formed a rough square in the corner of the room, Wiltings and Minnow leaning against the wall while Slipstream and Price sat proper. “I found food,” he said gruffly, a little air of satisfaction in his voice.

Slipstream kicked off the rug she had used as a blanket and immediately wished she hadn’t. The room hadn’t gotten much warmer, even with the afternoon sun. And it was just pure torture that there was a fireplace they couldn’t use for fear of being discovered.

Price thunked a can of beans as wide around as his hoof down before the four of them and stabbed a shard of glass through the top. He made quick work of the can and licked the blade clean when he was done. “Sorry if it’s cold.”

Slipstream held out her plate eagerly as he poured her a ration. “It’s food, isn’t it? I’m starving.” Her ears perked. They were honey beans, and although the honey had begun the crystallization process, they still looked pretty delectable in her ravenous state. “Where’d you get them?”

“Back of a cupboard. They’re probably ages old.”

Wiltings eyed here pile of cold beans with skepticism. “Are they safe to eat?” Her stomach growled.

Price dug into his food with a shrug. “Safer than starving.”

Slipstream found herself watching Minnow between bites as she ate her ration, which was surprisingly delicious despite the fact that they were cold and old. Minnow ate in small, timid bites, as if she were afraid she would throw up her food at any moment, which could very well be true.

She had been distant so far, with everypony. Getting burned must do that to ponies.

“Are you okay?” Slipstream decided to ask after a long moment.

Minnow looked up from her food and nodded slowly, the eye on the side she had been burnt pink and bloodshot. “Never better.” Her voice was quiet and raspy, nothing like her old one.

“What exactly… happened?” Slipstream asked, maybe a little less tactfully than she had wished. “I know you went down, but… how?”

Minnow sighed and closed her eyes. “They boarded us, grappled us and pulled my vessel to theirs.” She swallowed with a grimace of pain. “I was forced to abandon the helm, forced out of the gondola. We were compromised, so I scuttled the vessel, let loose the gasbags. I was still in the envelope when a spark set it off… all of them were… they all burned…” Twin tears streaked down her cheeks and she tenderly wiped them away. “It all gets a little cloudy from there. I was in and out of things, then I woke up in a cage.” She lowered her head to study the floorboards. “We lost… didn’t we?”

“I gave the order of retreat.” Slipstream hung her head in shame. “One hell of a commander I am.”

Wilting threw her good foreleg around Slipstream and pulled her into a soft hug from the side. “It was all you could do, Slips.”

The commander tensed at her pet name. The only pony who had ever dared to call her that was Briar. “It was the only call… but I still should have done better.”

“Slipstream,” Price interjected. “I was out there in the fighting the whole time with a rifle in my hooves. There were too many of them and not enough of us. The only fault falls on the ponies back in Canterlot who sent us on this suicide mission.”

Slipstream skimmed her mind for a new topic, anything to get away from this area. Her ears perked as she remembered something. “You came back,” she said suddenly, turning to Price.

“Of course I did. What, did you just expect me to leave you lot held up in cages?”

Slipstream shook her head. “Of course not. But how’d you do it?”

Price opened his mouth, then choked on a swallow of beans. He smacked his chest with a forehoof a few times, then swallowed with a small shake of his head. “It’s a good story,” he said in a choked voice.

“So, after I escaped that vessel we were caged on, I realized that I was in the middle of a fleet. They had spotlights and running lights flashing up like mad trying to find me. I couldn’t fly for more than a few moments out there in the wind, the bloody air was icing up my feathers. I had to get out of the air, and besides, keeping up with the airships was killing me as it was. So I made my way over to the nearest airship. It was easy as rutting to get aboard in the dark. It was just a watcher, small support vessel. I tossed out the bloke on the tailgun—never even saw me—and that’s where I got the combat armor.”

Price had since removed steel-plated armor he had worn from before, and it now sat tossed in a corner. “Armor’s heavier than you’d know,” Price said with a soft laugh, “but it was insulated and I was freezing my icy tail tail off. I’ve not an idea how the Longcoats can wear that barding and not lose mobility.” He shrugged. “So I rode on that airship ‘till they’d spotted their gunner was missing and sounded the alarm. I bailed before shots fired—hid out in the envelope atop one of the gasbags. It was maybe a few hours before they docked and I watched them ready to unload you three. I stole the explosives from a demo kit in the envelope, and I think you all know the rest from watching.”

Slipstream gave him her best, warm smile. “Congratulations. If we make it out of here, you’re promoted to the highest damn thing I’m allowed to promote you to.”

He chuckled. “After this, I’m done. This is all enough excitement for an old stallion like me. It’s time to settle down and be a part of my family again.” He turned to Wiltings. “What about you?”

Wiltings looked up. “Huh?”

“When we get out of here.”

She seemed to hesitate as if the question were attempting to trick her. “I’m going to open a restaurant and serve the best beans in Equestria.” She pushed away her empty plate, looking a little sick.

Slipstream snickered, along with the others.

Wiltings couldn’t help but crack a smile at the reaction she received. “But in all seriousness,” -she wiped away her smirk- “I’m going to head back to Baltimare and open up my own pizza place. I know it sounds silly, but it’s a dream. And hey, if I survive this, I might as well chase a dream; that and I’ll probably get a bonus big enough to swim in.”

Slipstream turned to Minnow. “What about you?”

The charred mare actually gave the smallest of brittle smirks. “Skin grafts.”

They didn’t laugh as much as that one.

Minnow let the smirk fade off into a distant smile. “I’m going to find that special somepony and have that foal I’ve always wanted.” Her eyes drifted up to the ceiling on their own accord. “If it’s a filly, I’m going to name her Silver, and if it’s a colt… well, I’ll just have to get creative.”

The four ponies shared a silence that left them smiling for a moment. Slipstream silently hoped the conversation would move on without reaching her. She didn’t want to give her answer, mostly because she didn’t have one. The war was all she knew; without it, what would she do? Best bets were she’d go back to living by herself, working day to day and having some fun on the weekends. But she was getting older and she didn’t have many years of that left.

“Slipstream,” Minnow said after a moment.

She looked up. “Yeah?”

“Could I ask…” She paused, seeming to fight a battle with herself. “I know my entire right side is charred. I know it’s going to get worse as the flesh dies… I haven’t seen a mirror yet. Is… is my face okay?” She turned her head to the left.

Slipstream looked, looked closely for the first time. Minnow had lost all of her eyelashes and a good amount of the hair from her right ear. The right side of her face had gotten it, not nearly as bad as her body, but it had gotten cooked. The very distinct pattern of the grated catwalk had been burnt faintly into her face, red in the middle and black around the edges. It ran up her neck where her mane had burned away and across most of the side of her face.

Minnow winced and closed her eyes, and Slipstream realized she had been staring for much too long. “I-it’s bad, isn’t it?” she whimpered.

“It’s probably going to scar, but you’ll keep the flesh and all the hair should grow back.”

A more awkward silence fell this time, the occupants of the room hovering in tension around the burnt mare, none sure whether they should speak and break the mourning silence.

Minnow was the one to break the trance. She pinched her eyes tight shut and lowered her head. “No stallion is ever going to want a mare who looks like me.”

Slipstream winced at the mare’s doused tone. “Hey... that’s not true.”

Minnow looked up and glared. “Right, let me reword that—no stallion that isn’t a complete nutcase is going to want me!” She choked on something in her throat and made a rather unsightly motion of clearing it.

“Minnow, if he cares, if he really cares, he won’t care about how you look.” Slipstream patted the mare on her unburnt shoulder. “You’ll find one.”

Minnow sighed and looked up. It was a sad smile, but an accepting one nonetheless. “Thanks, Commander.”

“Name’s Slipstream.” She returned the smile. “We’re all equals here.”

During their talk, Price had ambled his way over to the corner window. “We can’t stay here. We’re too close to the airfield and these beans were hardly what my stomach needed.”

Slipstream forced herself to her hooves and crossed the creaky floorboards to him. “Yeah, but we can’t just go prancing down the street. We look different. Some of those ponies have coats so thick they look like they’re wearing rugs. We’re too lean and too smooth coatwise.”

“There are some short-coated ones.”

“Even if we could pass with short coats, they’ve got stronger hindquarters and thicker necks. Wiltings might get away with blending in, but we’re going to look out of place out there. I’ve only seen civilians on the streets but if we draw their eyes I bet the guards come next.”

Wiltings perked her ears. “Was it just me, or were the streets too empty yesterday for a city this size?”

Price ignored her, instead shooting Slipstream a sideways grin. “I’ve got an idea.”

---

“This is ridiculous,” Slipstream hissed.

Price looked over at her and chuckled. “You look like a shaggy dog.” He gave his head a little shake. “Look, Slipstream, we’re just four ponies heading to the market to sell rugs.”

They had gathered up every rug and window curtain in the old house and left looking like bundles of cloth. Minnow carried the least for obvious reasons, though they had still tried to conceal her burns the best they could; it was too much of an identifying characteristic to let go. She had cried silently as they’d draped the diamond patterned rug across her back.

Still, rugs. How Price came up with an idea as ridiculous as it was effective, she would never know.

“Do you know how much we stick out?” she hissed, eyes darting around as they strode down the near-deserted street.

Where is everypony?

Price rolled his eyes at her. “This place screams poverty like no other.”

A pair of dirty foals ran by, giggling like mad, a rucksack clamped in the jaws of the lead one. An old stallion hobbled after them, summoning up insults that Slipstream assumed was Longcoat for ‘you’re all dead’.

Price grinned at the sight. “Case in point.” He turned his head towards the middle of the street, keeping it low under the rugs he wore over his back and neck. “I doubt if there’s an authority figure within a quarter mile of here.”

Slipstream perked her ears. All they had to do was find food, then find a place to hide... and do what? Wait until the war was over? Yeah right. They needed to fabricate a plan that would get them out of this ash-heap of a city and to safety. Even then, what were they going to do, walk to Canterlot? The Crystal Kingdom was closer, but the terrain was much more difficult and Cadance would throw an almighty fit if Equestria brought the war to them. There was a reason they had stayed out of the war; it wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, it was simply that they couldn’t. The Crystal Ponies had simply been through too much after the whole Sombra thing to need any more problems. The Crystal Kingdom remained isolated, which meant that they were not an option.

Well, they were certainly drawing attention, but none of it seemed to be negative. And while heading further into the city seemed suicidal, it made sense. The Longcoats would have set up barriers and checks all around the city. In theory, the Longcoats would be expecting them to try to escape. And really, what ponies in their right mind would run into the heat?

A shadow washed over them in the afternoon sun as an airship passed low overhead, a trail of black smoke in its wake.

“Would you look at that,” Wiltings muttered, eyes drifting upwards. “Remember the days when those flew in Equestria?”

Like the ones she had seen from the docking platform, the vessel resembled a sailing ship, minus the mast and sails, hung above was a dirty, gray gasbag. It swayed and creaked in the wind as the two propellers whooshed it on, steam hissing from the escape valves.

“I remember flying one of them.” Slipstream chuckled. “I thought it was the most advanced piece of technology I’d ever seen... Now they’re practically obsolete.”

Things were starting to get a little tense. Slipstream could feel every eye on her. She swiveled her ears, trying to catch snippets of conversation to see if they were a centerpiece. She picked up a snatch of conversation from two stallions as they trotted alongside at a faster pace.

“Any news on the revolution?” one asked in a rusty tone, head hung low as if the subject were a punishable one.

“What’s there to be news on?” the other asked shortly.

“How much longer do you think they’ll last under the queen’s army?”

“Not long. I tell you, they’re going to bite it soon.”

Price gave Slipstream a nudge. “You hear that?”

“About the resistance?” She snapped out of observation mode and turned her attention back to Price.

He nodded. “I think there’s more to this than we know.”

Slipstream would have replied, had she not bumped directly into a furry chest. She found herself staring at a grimy, yellow unicorn stallion.

“Good day to you lot,” he said in a cheerful voice.

Slipstream bowed her head in acknowledgement. “Good day,” she muttered.

The stallion furrowed his brows at the four of them in confusion. “What doing with all the carpets?”

Slipstream recalled the stallions back at the loading dock and tried best to emulate how they had sounded. “Sellin’em,” she grunted.

The unicorn immediately levitated a small sack from around his neck, eyes drifting over their assortment. “Oh, how much for the one with the frizzle?”

She looked back to the particular rug on Price’s back that the stallion was eyeing. “Um, five b—” She had almost said bits. “F-five.” The rug wasn’t exactly in good shape. It sounded fair.

The unicorn’s eyes practically shot open. “Five shards you say!?” Without a moment of hesitation, he levitated five oblong silver coins from the little sack he’d produced. He lifted Slipstream’s forehoof with his own, slapped them into her possession, then levitated the rug of his own accord and gave her a bow worthy of a princess. “Thank you for your service.” He turned tail and made a fast pace away, shaking his head. “Jokes must be crazy. Five shards.”

The last thing Slipstream heard was his snicker as he disappeared back into the crowd.

“Too low,” Price hissed. “That was way too low.”

Slipstream eyed the grimy coins she had received. “That rug had more holes in it than swiss cheese.

“Still, raise your prices. We don’t want a mob on us.”

“Right...” She pocketed the five bits—no, shards. “Let’s just hope nopony else wants to buy something from us.”

---

Three hours had gone by in a fly. When one didn’t even have time to think, things went that way. The foursome was now much farther into the city, huddled up in the corner of an alley between a dumpster and a large brick building. They had laid out their four remaining rugs on the ground simply to avoid sitting in ash. It seemed rather silly, but rugs must have been in very high demand. Price had swiped them a head of lettuce—how the Longcoats grew it in this environment, she would never know—and it was now proving as a rather delectable meal.

Slipstream hefted the bag of shards she had been paid for the rugs that they had sold, a little less than willingly. It had occurred to her that the house they had stolen them from might have been owned and they had probably robbed a pony silly. The bag contained roughly three hundred shards, which had seemed like a lot until she’d learned that a single loaf of bread was about a hundred and twenty shards. As far as she could tell, one Equestrian bit was worth about forty.

“Okay, intel time,” Wiltings said, hugging the rug she and Minnow shared as a blanket closer to her. “That stallion said this city is Praeclarus, whatever that means. We know that they use ‘shards’ for currency. But, what do they call themselves?”

Price turned his eye on her. “What do you mean?”

Wiltings stopped fidgeting with the frazzle on the carpet to give him her full attention. “I highly doubt they call themselves Longcoats. Chances are they have a name like us, like how we’re Equestrians.”

Minnow cleared her throat for attention. “Well, according to Equestrian history, all ponies are Equestrians.

Slipstream frowned. “But remember, they call us Equestrians, which only means that they go by a different title.

Minnow only closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. “Celestia’s rein spans everywhere. She even has influence in zebra lands, did have some over the griffons until things got tense with them... How did it never make it here? Why was this place never on any maps? Why weren’t these ponies ever noted in history? Who are they? Where do they come from?”

Wiltings seemed to be joining in on the bafflement. “Maybe they were at some time. I mean, they speak our language, they seem to share most of our customs and culture. Maybe we just... forgot about them?”

Price put the kibosh on both of them. “There is no way you can just forget about an entire region! There’s got to be something more going on here.”

“I believe it,” Slipstream argued. “Look at how far north we are. I’m freezing my tail off here. A pony would have to be crazy to come this far, let alone live here. Air travel is a recent advancement, and there’s no way you’d be able to get a railroad all the way out here. I can see how these ponies were completely overlooked.”

Price huffed. “Bloody brilliant. We’ve found snowy Atlantis.”

Slipstream nodded towards him. “Precisely. Only this Atlantis doesn’t want to stay hidden anymore, and it wants something from us.”

“Resources?” Minnow suggested.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Slipstream said. “But why not ask? Why not try to negotiate first? Equestria would have been happy to set up a trade route. Instead, they directly attacked the capital. There’s something else they want, we’ve known this since the day they bombed us.”

Price huffed. “Because they’re strong enough to beat us in an air war. He who controls the air controls the ground. Why trade when you can take?”

Slipstream groaned and clasped her head in her forehooves. “I’m a fleet commander, not a wartime specialist.” She hung her head. “I’m just a mare with more flash-judgement than brains.”

Price shook his head at her self-beration. “The rug idea’s wearing out. I never expected we’d actually end up bartering them off. Now that we’re not packing them around by the bundle, if we go back out there wearing a rug each we’re just going to look like a band of gypsies.”

Slipstream batted a lump of coal towards him. “What, you don’t know how to tell the future?” She frowned at the mark on her hoof the coal had left and wiped it on her other foreleg, leaving a streak of gray across her silver coat.

Price watched her with a small grin, mouth opening for a reply. “Slipstream, you’re a genius.” He scooped up the bit of coal in his hoof and ambled over to her.

“Excuse m—” She let out a yell of discontent and turned her head away as he smeared her with coal dust. “Price!?”

He shoved the piece of coal back in her forehoof, then trotted over to a pile of ash and embers that had been dumped from an ashtrap on the second story of the building proper. “A lot of the ponies here must work at coal plants.” With a knowing smile, he scooped up a hoof-full of ash and hurled it at Slipstream.

She got up a hoof in time to cover her face, but the rest of her was layered with soot. Snarling, she jumped to her hooves, ready to play the commander card. “Price, what the—” Her words stuck in her throat and a slow smile spread across her face.

Price grinned back. “Well it’s about time you caught o—” Slipstream hit him square in the chest like a sack of winged bricks and they both fell backwards into the heap of ashes. Slipstream tried to keep on top of the stallion as he squirmed, but he was stronger than she was, younger and faster too. He writhed and kicked below her, churning up a black cloud of soot that billowed around them as Slipstream beat her wings to keep her balance. Her resistance was only short lived. In one quick move, Price grasped one of her forehooves and threw her onto her back. Firmly, but not roughly, her body was yanked around until she was pinned on her belly with a face full of soot. Price’s firm weight pressed down on her from behind.

“Two years combat training,” he murmured smugly in her ear.

Slipstream coughed up a mouthful of soot and tried to shrug him off. “Get off you lump!”

Price released her and pulled her up to her hooves. “You put up a good fight.”

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” she replied with a small sigh. “If I didn’t have a few years on you I’d have smeared the ground with your face.”

Wiltings sat back, cackling as the dust settled around them. “Good show you two!” She stopped to breathe as Minnow wheezed beside her, face contorted in laughter as she leaned on Wiltings for support. “Though now you two look like a couple of ash babies.”

Slipstream looked down at her coat. Her normal sleek, silver coat was ruffled and smeared with black soot and ash. Her mane and tail were just as bad, the crimson color hidden by black. “How is it?” she asked. “Do we look like Longcoats?”

Wiltings sat up. “I can barely recognize you.” Her eyes widened as Price and Slipstream grinned at one another. “What?”

Slipstream took a step forward, scooping up a pile of ash, Price following suite. “Your turn.”

Wiltings slumped and rolled her eyes.

Comments

[the other sans]

Ahh, war time politics... now for them to find out the other side of the story and escape! The coal scene at the end reminded me of 101 Dalmations where the pups went on the back of the van to outrun Horace and Jasper. Ahh, good times

[Sorren]

2974361 You got that right. Time for the tricky part.

Also, I love that scene!

[CuriousCurse]

2974361
Good times indeed.
2974404
Nice avatar. A bit heroic and slightly asian. I like it.

I believe I've got a few things to say that you might not entirely like regarding the way you style seems to be changing, but I want to do a reread of the story real quick to confirm a few things and be able to figure out solid examples of what might be causing a little bit of a disconnect between the starting story style, and the current style.

Only thing I can really say for sure is that I think you're not focusing on the world interactions enough. The whole battle and a bit after wasn't shy about giving character views about things they witnessed but didn't exactly pertain to them but now it seems you're starting to do less world building and relying on basic details and possibly a stereo type of an industrial communism with a generic "this place is oppressed and poor" theme. It needs more side stories interacting with the main one. Why did that guy want a rug? "Because I needed a guy to buy a rug". That's not enough detail. What did this guy look like and why was he interested in a rug? What else could you make up about him? What does he do for a living? Did he have a family? You don't need to answer things like these outright but you would do well to hint at the answer through his features, actions, what he says, and things he has with him. Just some more of this in your background character interactions (both in the background and with the main characters would steer you back on the track I think you're getting away from.

[Sorren]

2976359 I wasn't really too aware that my style was changing. What is boils down to is that it gets rather exhausting as the author to write every little detail into fine proportion. What it is is laziness, but it also gives the reader a break as well and allows the story to move on faster than it normally would. Now that I'm out of the battle (there will be more soon) I don't have too much of a reason to paint details like the Mona Lisa.

And yes, I know I'm falling into a cliche, but the whole reason it's a cliche in the first place is because it makes sense. Minus the communism--that's not actually what I'm shooting for. Sometimes background characters don't need to have a story. Sometimes they just need to be there.