> Silver Lining
>  by Amber Spark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> By Luna's Light
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------




“She’s supposed to be brilliant.”

“Yeah, that got thrown overboard when the Icarus got turned into charcoal. When that marefriend of hers bit the big one, something just snapped.”

“You know, Tensile, that makes me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“Maybe that marefriend of hers was the real brains behind their little operation.”

“Hm. Never thought of it that way.”

“Considering how Bee’s been since we set out? You should have.”

Only then did Blue Venture feel their stares. They probably thought the sounds of the Silver Lining’s engine compartment would mask their moronic gossip. After all, she was on the other side, recalibrating the port-side lateral power cable and they were by the primary crystal core cage. And gossip was an airship tradition.

Once upon a time, there had been somepony to help her in situations like these. Once upon a time, she had assistance in dealing with ‘difficult’ ponies. Once upon a time, she’d had a friend… and more.

Then, once upon a time, that pony and her had worked two different ships going to the same place. 

Once upon a time had stopped that day.

She had worked on the Silver Lining for eight months. She’d built half of the ship with her own hooves. She’d supervised the ship’s transformation from an it to a her. 

Nopony cared.

Once upon a time, that hadn’t mattered anyone but one.

Once upon a time. 

And those ponies on the other side of engineering were now claiming Blue Venture was a fraud and Lunar Skysong had done all the work. A common theme with many others she’d been forced to work with. 

Lune would have punted them overboard for that. She would have told Blue to stand up for herself. She… would have done a lot of things.

Blue wasn’t Lunar Skysong.

Blue would—and could—never be Lunar Skysong.

But Blue could still stand up for herself.

She sealed the cable she was working on—being surrounded by idiots was no excuse for shoddy workmanship on her part. She put her tools back into her kit and her electromagnetic bracer on her left forehoof. She paused for a moment, staring at the device. It might make an effective object lesson. After all the ‘recovery time’ she’d been forced to endure, Golden Aura would be proud of her for using basic psychology to educate the fools. Her sister always did like when Blue followed through in her therapy lessons.

With her equipment stowed, she crossed the compartment, marching directly toward glassy-eyed Engineer Cogstrut and his simpering trainee, Tensile. She ducked under the two-feet-thick central power conduit that ran between the secondary and primary cage. 

That’s when Cogstrut noticed her. A unicorn with a dirty blonde coat and a buzzcut, he didn’t even have the decency to have any cage grease on him or his fancy pressed overalls. It was pathetic. The sight made her blood boil. Tensile just wore a crew jumper, but at least it had a few stains on it. Still, his bright red hair looked like he’d just come out of a salon. 

Any engineer who didn’t have a stain or two on them at the end of a shift hadn’t done their job. Lunar had taught her that. 

Blue blew one of her bangs out of her face as she focused on Cogstrut. The coward had already been looking at the hatch to the cargo deck, but Blue didn’t give him a chance. She strode up to him in her best attempt at a confidant stride and stopped right in his face.

“I have excellent hearing,” she said flatly.

Cogstrut glanced at Tensile for a moment, almost like he was confused or something. 

“Should I draw a schematic?” Blue demanded. “Oh no, why would I do that? It’s not like either of you can read them. I’ve picked up so much slack over the last three weeks that I should be charging triple my normal fee.”

Finally, she saw some spark of… something in Cogstrut’s eyes. Maybe it was intelligence. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. 

“Lunar Skysong,” she glowered at them, even if she was over a foot shorter than either of the stallions, “was one of the wildest, bravest and most brilliant engineers ever to grace the skies of Equestria. But we were a team. I did my work. She did hers. Because that’s what good crews do, instead of sitting on deck all day trying to get a tan or whatever you grease-brains do for fun.”

Both stallions now had their teeth clenched and eyes narrowed. Probably feeling guilty for being so rude. Maybe this would finally make them change. Celestia knows she’d been yelling at them so much she’d had to buy throat drops on their stopover in Baltimare.

“And don’t call me Bee,” she snapped as a parting remark as she turned away. “I hate that stupid nickname.”

“Now, wait just a damn minute, you little featherhead!” Tensile shouted as she grabbed her left forehoof and spun her back around. “You don’t get to just go fluttering away after bitching us out like that—again!”

 Blue blinked a few times and frowned at both stallions. She snorted out a short huff of air. This wasn’t fair. Lune always did this part. Blue had always been terrible at it! But, Lune… wasn’t here. So she had to do it. 

“Maybe if you didn’t make it so necessary to correct ninety-three percent of your so-called work, I wouldn’t have to ‘bitch you out!’” Blue shouted at Tensile. “Why are you even talking to me? You’re a trainee. I can at least understand you being incompetent! You’re learning! It’s your boss I have a problem with.”

She turned to glare at an oddly red-faced Cogstrut. Most ponies tended to have expressions like these and even now, she didn’t get it. She knew the signs of anger. Anypony could see that, obviously. But just a moment ago, they’d been guilty! Maybe stallions just had really bad mood swings in general.

“We’re going to call you Bee, because that’s what you are,” Cogstrut snarled in that rough-and-tumble voice of his. “You’re a pathetic, busy little bee who got broken one day and no one could figure out how to fix you. So they used some duct tape and gum and shoved you back out into the world.”

“How dare—”

Cogstrut ran right over her! Why did so many ponies do that? 

“This is my engineering section, Bee. Mine. Not yours. Yeah, you helped build the ship. Woo-hoo.” He waved his forelegs around and even conjured a few sparks with his horn. Then, it was his turn to get right into her face. “I’ve been listening to you rant for weeks and I’m convinced the only reason nopony’s thrown you overboard is because you have wings. All your pretty speeches? All your little lectures? All yours stupid micromanaging, correcting, suggesting and tips?! No. Pony. Cares. The only one who did? She died with the Icarus.”

Crack. 

Blue took a step back and blinked, her left forehoof suddenly aching… and Engineer Cogstrut on the floor, clutching his face. He pulled his hoof away, only to reveal a rather badly bleeding lip and quickly developing bruise. His eyes found her and, for once, she understood exactly what the stallion was thinking.

It wasn’t hard.

Tensile knelt to help his boss back to his hooves as Blue took a few steps back. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her wings shook. Her knees trembled. From the way Cogstrut kept staring at her… she… she wanted to pull out her multibow, even if it went against everything she believed. 

“Get. Out.” Cogstrut growled. 

A single drop of blood fell from his muzzle to the deck.

Blue Venture got out. She did it without thinking or hesitation. She moved on instinct and fear. She darted through the main hatch leading to the cargo bay. For a moment, she debated hiding somewhere in the mass of boxes they were transporting to Canterlot. But while confining spaces were normally comforting… not now. She needed to get further away. Not just from what had happened.

From the words. The words that battered at the thin, pathetic shell of her sanity. The words that still smashed into her. It didn’t matter how long she’d spent at that hospital. Those words still threatened to shatter her. 

Her eyes darted around frantically in the dark hold, but she’d never had trouble seeing in the dark. She spotted the central stairway and bolted for it, scampering up with all four hooves galloping as hard as she could. Blue shoved opened the deck hatch and a blast of cold air buffeted her, nearly knocking her back into the stairwell. There were days she hated being smaller than everypony else.

But she powered through it and managed to seal the hatch, hoping the words would stay belowdecks. They didn’t, of course. Instead, the words became something far, far worse. 

Memories.

Twelve minutes and forty-seven seconds staring at the newspaper that informed her the Icarus had been destroyed—with all hands lost—by the infamous Crystal North Pirates.

Approximately thirteen hours flying over the Coltumbia River as she hunted for the site of the attack.

The shattered core fragments.

The hooflocker.

Her eyes fell on the bracer she wore. Tungsten and steel with copper plating and stainless steel. The sensor plates allowing twenty-eight combinations of commands to connected devices. The generator. The—

The body.

Blue looked toward the bow of the airship, but the wind made the night sky almost impossible to see. She squinted then gave up and pushed down her mechanized goggles. A few touches from her bracer adjusted them for nighttime use. For anypony else, that would mean fancy night-vision enchantments. For her, it meant completely clear.

She’d come up right in front of the forward cargo hatch. The railing and bowsprit—jutting out from the front of the Silver Lining like a thick spear—were only a few hoofsteps away. Beyond—and below—that, lay the countryside surrounding the Everfree Forest. She shivered at the thought of that unnatural place, but they weren’t going anywhere near there.

Just like she needed to be anywhere but here.

Blue stepped forward and made for the bowsprit, stowing the rest of her tools, cinching her bag and adjusting her cloak. It wouldn’t do to allow it to be damaged from a bad—

“Lovely night, eh, Bee?”

Blue squeaked in surprise and whirled, almost sending herself spinning off the narrow spur of wood. Captain Greystern rolled his green eyes. His horn flashed and yanked her hooves back onto the deck of the Silver Lining. 

“Captain!” Blue squeaked, trying to get her breathing under control. “What are—I mean… what are you doing out here?”

Blue’s hooves still crawled at the touch of the stallion’s magic on her. She… she didn’t appreciate that. But right now, the last thing she wanted was another fight. She… she couldn’t handle another fight.

The tall stallion in a bright white uniform eyed her up and down with an insufferable smirk on his lips. While his brown-and-gray mane fluttered in the wind coming off the airship’s prow, he strode past her and looked out over the vista before him. Almost like some ancient king surveying his domain. 

He put his immaculately clean hooves on the railing and sighed into the wind. “I just had the most interesting conversation. Would you like to know whom it was concerning?”

He sounded like he was talking about the weather. Blue knew better. And she also knew for this kind of conversation, her participation was not required. She remained silent, her terror beginning to melt under the heat of her annoyance.

“It was about you, little Bee!” Greystern said, sounding completely shocked, as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing ever happening. “About how you… let’s see, how can I put this delicately…”

Blue swallowed hard.

“You first decided to tell off my two engineers. And then? And then you assaulted my Chief Engineer with that metal monster you wear around your forehoof!” he shouted in a voice that could probably be heard all the way back in Manehattan. “You attacked a member of my crew, little Bee.”

Only then did he turn around, his face livid and his eyes blazing with hate. He began to stalk toward her. Part of her wanted to flee, but she knew she wouldn’t get far. He’d just proven his magic was strong enough to keep her hooves on the deck.

She’d always had a weakness when it came to reading other ponies… but there were some things she didn’t need help with. Things like this.

But this time, her fury at Cogstrut came back to help her. 

“Your Chief Engineer is an incompetent twit!” Blue shot back. “I’ve been double-checking nearly all of his work since we first set out! Some of the modification he made to the core are moronic! If the cage gets knocked into the core crystal in the wrong way, they could fuse. Do you know what that would do?”

“Yes,” Greystern snapped, his ears down and his mane flying over his face. “Because I gave him approval for the modification. It’ll give us a ten percent efficiency boost in the main turbines!”

“And send those same turbines in an uncontrolled spin if something goes wrong!”

“You just think you know everything, don’t you?” Greystern towered over her, his tall form blocking her from the wind of the ship’s passing. “The busy little Bee, always flitting all over. Correcting everything from crystal core cages to rigging alignments to envelope stress tolerance. Always getting in the way of the ponies trying to do their jobs!”

Blue’s body shook with a desperate attempt to not repeat her mistake in engineering, but she wasn’t going to last very long at this rate. She narrowed her eyes and puffed out her chest. Still, even standing ramrod straight, she only came up the middle of his gleaming white uniform.

She really hated clean uniforms. 

“If you have a problem with my performance, Greystern,” Blue spat, making sure to emphasize the lack of rank, “take it up with Spitfire Avionics. They’re the ones who brought me on board in the first place. They’re the ones who wanted me on the shakedown cruise. Because they know I am the best.”

“Were.”

Blue staggered backward, enough so her cloak caught a little bit of wind. “E-excuse me?”

“You were the best, Bee.” Greystern’s voice seemed strangely flat. “I doubt you remember, but I was the XO on the Endless Vista. The ship that brought you and Miss Skysong to Cloudsdale before… the accident.”

His expression didn’t make any sense. There were a thousand emotions there, moving so fast Blue couldn’t read a single one of them. Like he couldn’t make up his mind. She caught regret, pity, anger, disgust… and a lot of other things. Blue, for her part, just stood and stared at him.

“I saw you two working together. It impressed me. Enough that I requested you accompany us on the shakedown. But what I’ve seen since leaving port has revealed a lot.” Greystern shook his head. “Whatever you had, you lost when you lost Skysong. She did do amazing work. Really did. You were the best with her at your side. But she’s not here.”

Blue blinked and kept it all inside. “I-I know that.”

“You know attacking a member of the crew would get you thrown out of the Equestrian Engineering Guild. Most private groups wouldn’t even touch you. At least the legal ones.” Greystern remained subdued as he studied her. “Still, all that would cause me more trouble than it’s worth. So, I’ll cut you a deal.”

“What deal?” Blue demanded, even as something shrank inside her while the ramifications of her actions below really hit home. If anything, Greystern was being generous. She’d be lucky to ever be allowed on an airship again with an assault charge like that on her record. It still didn’t mean she liked the stallion, though. “What do you want?”

“Stay in your bunk the rest of the trip.” Greystern’s face remained impassive. “Let me and my crew run my ship. Once we reach Canterlot, you sign off on the Silver Lining and we part ways. And by the way? I’m only offering this because of Skysong. It’s a one time deal. You get into it with me or any member of my crew again, and I’m throwing you to the Canterlot Constables the moment we tie down.”

Blue didn’t have much choice. Greystern had her cornered. What would Lunar say? 

She didn’t have to think hard.

“Done,” she spat, trying to find some comfort from the shifting of the deck and the vibration of the engines coming up through her hooves.

“Good. Now, it looked like you were going to go take a fly. I think that’s a good idea. Cool your head for a bit.” He walked around her, likely heading for the bridge. “Just be back here within thirty minutes. I’m not sending anypony after you once we hit the class-two squall.”

“I wasn’t aware of any—”

“I don’t care what you’re aware of!” Greystern spat, any sense of decorum finally cracking into shards of anger. “You aren’t part of this crew. You’re a consultant. We both know I could get a hoofstamp from someone on the gray sides of the dock, but I’d rather not bother. Let me handle my ship. And just stay out of our manes!”

With that, he marched away, his lightly armored horseshoes clicking on the deck.

Blue tried to get air into her lungs, but it barely came. The stallion walked in that cocky way all stallions walked. Especially stallion captains. Especially stallion captains who thought the ships she built were actually theirs!

Especially ones who constantly looked at her with pity since Lune had—

She didn’t let a single tear fall until he was out of sight.

Blue stood there for a bit, the tears forcing her to remove her goggles. She faced the wind and let the night air dry her eyes. Only when she was sure she had it out of her system did she put them back on. A few new clicks on her bracer generated the magical readout before her eyes, revealing the velocity of the Silver Lining, the ship’s position, relative windspeed and other such things. She glanced at the readouts more out of habit than any real interest. Then, all the data vanished save for the altimeter. 

She wiped the last few tears from her cheeks, turned on her hooves and galloped for the bow. Her hooves clattered against wood of the deck to the stronger stretch of wood sprouting from the prow that made up the Silver Lining’s bowsprit.

She leapt through the V-shape created by the twin ropes securing the envelope above. With practiced ease, she landed on the forward-most tip of the bowsprit like a cat ready to pounce.

Then she flung herself off the ship. 

Her cloak billowed as she fell, sounds of rigging and engines fading into the rush of racing wind. She closed her eyes and let herself fall for a time. She embraced the strange freedom of total freefall. After… everything… it was bliss. She fell through normal air. Without anypony demanding anything from her. Without anypony yelling at her for getting in the way. Without the comments about Lune or her own issues. 

No judgements.

Only her.

Her eyes shot open. Ignoring the altimeter, she licked her lips and gauged the world around her. Another few seconds passed before two small blue wings snapped out at her sides. Instantly, her plummet transitioned into a dive, then she stabilized and it became a soar.

For the first time since last night—her last flight in the moonlight—Blue Venture smiled. A few flaps, a twist of her wings, and she began to ascend far above the distant countryside.

All around her, Equestria lay quiet until the gentle touch of Luna’s Moon. The stars were out, each a tiny pinprick in the universe, like diamonds scattered throughout the sky. The sight of them all managed to fill her with a hint of hope that today wasn’t a sign of things to come.

Blue slalomed through the currents, taking the time to study various sections of the sky, spying hits of nebulae and other distant celestial bodies. She made sure to spot at least three, as three tended to bring back memories of her first trip above the clouds so very long ago. This silent place of wind and dark light all made a strange sort of bandage wrapping around her damaged insides. When she’d left Fillydelphia after her time at the hospital, her sister had encouraged these little outings. She’d also encouraged a little bit more.

Golden Aura could be a pain in her flank, but… she was decent for a little sister.

Blue adjusted course and climbed straight toward the Moon.

As soon as she was aiming directly for it, the familiar warmth washed over her. It only happened during moments like these, when it was just her, the Moon and the stars. She’d once tried to explain it to other ponies, but they’d thought she was crazy. The only one who hadn’t laughed at her had been Lunar. 

To her surprise, that was the first thought of Lunar she’d had that hadn’t hurt tonight.

The truth was, when she let herself go in the middle of the night, she could feel the moonlight. As if the long-lost princess’s wings were wrapped around her small form in some great dream-like hug. She basked in the warmth, studying the clear face of the Moon. She even let herself do a few twirls, making sure she could feel that warmth on every side.

“I wonder if you’re still out there…” Blue whispered to the Moon. “I mean… you have to be out there, since, you know… the Moon’s still moving. But nopony knows where you went.” She swallowed a knot in her throat. “What made you leave?”

Blue hated how young the question made her sound, but there was no one to judge her here. And she didn’t think Princess Luna would really mind. She adjusted her course to stay steady when she ran into a random thermal.

“Why’d you abandon us? Are you still watching us? Do we even still matter to you anymore?”

She took a breath. The last question… she didn’t ask it often. But sometimes she needed to.

“Were you at least watching over her when she died? Just so… she wasn’t alone?”

Her ears flattened and she coughed faintly. The pause was more tradition than anything else. She didn’t get an answer. She never did. She hadn’t expected one, not really. Still, it… felt good to ask. Just like the air, the stars and Moon never judged her. Even if the questions lingered around her like a cloud… her heart felt just a tiny bit lighter. 

Blue took a deep breath, then let herself simply slide beneath the Moon and the stars. After another few minutes though, she checked to make sure she was staying parallel to the Silver Lining’s course. The last thing she needed was something to go wrong on the ship when she wasn’t aboard to save their tails, no matter what they thought of her.

Her mind wandered like the winds, but they were drawn back to the ship. Like always.

“Nerve of that stallion,” Blue muttered to herself, gently coasting from side to side as she tried to shake off the captain’s words. “Treating me like… like… I’m nothing more than some… charity case electrician!”

Lune used to be here to talk to them. Yes, I was the prodigy, but she was the only reason anypony ever listened to me. She could have had Greystern eating out of her hoof. Blue chuckled morosely and remembered that annoyingly roguish wink of the sky-blue pegasus. She could have anypony eating out of her hoof.

She forced herself to remember it wouldn’t matter. Another day, maybe two and they’d be in dock. After that… well, she’d figure out what was next. Spitfire Avionics might have a new ship for her to work on. Who knew? She didn’t much care these days.

Realizing she was falling a little behind of the Silver Lining, she flapped her wings and sped up, looking out beyond the ship to the landscape between them and Canterlot. Her special talent allowed her to see Canterlot’s shining lights, spires and towers even from this distance on the other side of the Everfree. Her eyes fell on the forbidding stretch of wild forest and she shivered, then shivered again when she spotted large swaths of wild clouds wandering over the ancient forest, blocking her view of New Ponyville and the lands beyond. 

A few degrees to the north—along their present course—she spotted what was probably the squall Greystern had mentioned. A massive bank of thunderheads stretching at least a hundred miles in either direction, climbing up to block out the stars. The land beneath the storm looked utterly soaked, highlighted only by the glow of the homesteads of those brave—or foolish—enough to live so close to the Everfree. A few bolts of lightning ran through the cloudbank, but those were few and far between.

The squall didn’t look too nasty, though she knew better than to push her luck. The last time she’d been careless with a storm, only the pegasi emergency rescue team—PERT—had saved her and the ship’s crew. That wasn’t an experience she ever wanted to repeat. Which, unfortunately, meant she’d need to be on board before the Silver Lining hit the stormfront, otherwise she’d have to fly over the storm or wait it out somewhere on the ground. 

Blue shifted slightly and dropped a couple dozen feet, then a dozen more as she accidentally wandered into a cold drift from the oncoming storm. 

Greystern would go to the ‘grey side’ of the docks if she didn’t come back, but they knew that would just cause more trouble for both of them in the end. Might as well just finish this shakedown quietly. It’s what Lunar would do. Probably. 

With a long, drawn-out sigh, she angled her wings and soared forward. The Silver Lining would likely be getting chop within the next ten minutes now—

Blue froze in midair when she caught signs of the propeller blades of the small cargo ship adjust their spin ratios, right before the rudder twitched and the ship yawed to starboard…

On a direct course over the Everfree.

“That idiot!” Blue shouted to the night sky. “He can’t be that stupid!”

The Silver Lining’s propellers accelerated to three-quarters. She could see it in the way the wind played along the rigging and the speed of the spinning blades at the rear of the ship. In a matter of moments, the increased power had driven the ship into an unmistakable heading.

Captain Greystern was driving the ship right into the wild cloud fields of the Everfree. 

Blue shot forward as if propelled by a cannon, a surge of speed generated by sheer panic. Ignoring protocol, she skimmed over the railing of the accelerating airship before she slammed down onto the deck before the bridge. She looked up through the glass and glowered at the ponies inside. 

Greystern stood there, completely unphased by Blue’s sudden appearance. Skiff—a small, tan earth pony mare at the helm—took a step back. 

The bridge of the Silver Lining wasn’t big. The central station held the ship’s main wheel and navigation array. There was a small secondary station along the wall holding the systems for communications and backup engineering controls. There was barely enough room for four ponies to fit in there and only then if they’d all showered recently.

Blue shoved her goggles off her eyes and growled at the captain under her breath, but he continued to just stare at her, looking thoroughly unimpressed and generally being a complete idiot. She wanted to pound his face into the safety glass of the bridge, but that wasn’t going to help matters. Instead, she marched over to the side and threw open the hatch.

“I would remind you of our deal, little Bee,” Greystern said calmly, as if asking how many clouds were outside.

“I remember.” Blue forced herself to take a deep breath. It wasn’t worth a screaming match. Not yet. “However, as leading consultant for Spitfire Avionics on this ship, I must ask what you’re doing. You have deviated from the flight plan and will soon violate restricted airspace.”

She was impressed with the forced calm in her voice. Very impressed. Lunar probably would have been impressed too.

“Yes. Thank you so very much for an update on the course I just ordered.” Greystern sighed and rubbed his face with a forehoof. “New Ponyville sent out a weather update. The squall in our path has been upgraded to a level four, likely caused by air currents from the Everfree. I had no intention of driving this ship through a class-four squall on her maiden voyage.”

Blue paled a little. The squall that had nearly downed the Dreaming Angel had been a class-four. No sane captain went into a class-four, especially if the Everfree was involved. She glanced out the window and spied the storm, now looking far more menacing than it had during her flight. Still, her eyes drifted to the chaotic masses of clouds strewn all over the Everfree Forest.

“Then heave to and wait it out!” Blue cried, her wings flaring. “Or head north and swing around it. I’ll sign the paperwork saying it was a necessary deviation. Don’t be an idiot by flying into restricted airspace!”

Greystern’s eyes bored into hers. “I’ll take your recommendation under advisement.”

“That’s captain-ese for ‘go kiss the sun’,” Blue snapped. 

“So it is. Nice to see you are capable of picking up on some social cues.” 

“Do you have any idea what’s in those Everfree clouds?” Blue demanded, stepping forward, her voice echoing in the tiny confined space of the bridge. “For all you know a class-five squall could break out over the Forest at any time. There could be pirates lurking in them! Or hidden thunderheads that’ll fry half this ship’s systems!”

“They’re Everfree clouds, little Bee.” Greystern rolled his eyes and studied the small magitech radar array beside Skiff. Blue couldn’t help but notice entire swaths of the display were grayed out as the Silver Lining’s radar scattered off the Everfree clouds. “As long as we steer clear of them, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Believe it or not, but every captain I know has cut through the Everfree skies more times than I can count. As long as there’s a clear path, it’s perfectly safe.”

Skiff shifted awkwardly, but she didn’t respond to either Blue or the idiot of a captain. 

“You can’t know that!” Blue shouted, pointing a hoof out to the approaching Everfree clouds, each looking like puffs of pure shadow in the light of Luna’s Moon. “I’ve been in those storms, Greystern! I barely survived with my life! Sit it out! Go around!”

Greystern twitched and closed his eyes. He took in a long, slow breath and adjusted his captain’s hat with a flare of dark green magic. Only then did he turn and face Blue. His motions were like some clockwork soldier, though when he opened his eyes, the glare she felt was very real.

“That’s enough, little Bee,” he said quietly. “I have tried to be patient with you for the sake of Skysong. I have tried, and tried, and tried!” He took another breath to get his voice under control. Something dark flashed in his eyes, dark enough to make Blue cringe back until her flank bumped the bulkhead beside the door. “You seem to be under the impression that you have some sort of authority on this ship. Allow me to fix that for you. This ship is mine. You are here as an advisor. Your advice is no longer required and I will not tolerate any further insubordination. Spitfire Avionics may have built my ship but my contract is with Glitterbell Shipping. They own this ship now. And they trust me.”

Greystern slowly marched toward Blue until she was nothing more than a cowering ball on the deck, shaking like a foal as the captain’s rage washed over her in ways she wished she could ignore.

It shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t be doing this. She should have someone here to help her…

“Return to your cabin. Immediately. You will remain there for the remainder of this voyage. If you leave your cabin or attempt to further interact with my crew before we make berth in Canterlot, I will bring you up on charges of assault and mutiny.”

She… she tried to spit something back at him, but her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t get a word out. She… maybe she really was just an annoying little bee to everypony around her.

“Do you understand me?”

Blue nodded, unable to meet his eyes. She didn’t want him to see her crying.

“Good. I’ll have secu—”

A piercing alarm erupted from the navigation console, cutting off the captain’s words. Skiff let out a shrill shriek. 

Greystern whirled and stared out of the bridge’s window. “Celestia above…” 

The sudden change was enough to get Blue to push herself to her hooves. Skiff and Greystern may need to squint, but she had no such trouble. 

While Greystern had been ripping into her, Skiff had piloted the ship into the Everfree. She’d been working herself through a narrow corridor of Everfree clouds, looming menacingly to port and starboard. But those hadn’t been what tripped the proximity alarm. 

Three airships had just emerged from cover of the Everfree clouds. Lightning raked them all, but the black envelopes of their balloons absorbed the blasts and sent the electrical charge into power sinks toward the rear of each ship. One seemed to be a fairly normal air-clipper design, while the other two were needle-nosed schooners, ships designed to be fast above all else. The schooners would likely hold a crew of ten each, while the air-clipper would crew at least thirty. 

All of this shot through Blue’s mind in less than two seconds as her eyes locked on the most important part: they were flying without colors and their hulls were matte black. Moonlight still glinted off the metallic struts and supports. 

Not to mention the cannons and harpoons.

Greystern threw himself at the communications console and pulled a headset over his ears.

“Mayday, mayday!” he shouted into the microphone. “This is the Silver Lining, out of Balt—gak!”

Two black shapes shot out of nowhere and tore over the main deck of the Silver Lining. They’d been moving so fast Blue could hardly track them. But she did catch a glint of moonlight on something along their wings.

Wingblades.

The communications console went dead. 

Greystern smashed it with a hoof, but Blue knew it was less than useless. He yanked off the helmet and slammed the intercom button right above Blue’s head in a field of magic.

“General quarters!” Greystern roared. “General quarters, three pirate airships on approach! Prepare to defend against boarders!”

Blue froze, the terror she’d felt at Greystern’s shouting nothing compared to the flashbacks she had at hearing those words. 

Black-hulled Gemrunner on approach, her forward cannons blasting great holes out of the Siren’s Song’s hull.

The touch of a pirate’s blade against her throat and a demented little giggle.

Periwinkle’s terrified whimper, begging Blue to help her.

A single pirate’s blood on her hooves. 

Blue started to shake. 

The only reason she wasn’t forced to relive finding Lunar again was Greystern shoving her into a bulkhead. She reeled upon impact, her head spinning. Her trance broken, she staggered back upright and wiped blood from her mouth where she’s bitten the inside her of cheek.

“I said dive, dammit! Take us low!” Greystern bellowed at the white-faced Skiff.

“We can’t outrun them, Captain!” Skiff shouted, her hooves in a death grip on the ship’s helm. “They’ve got boosters!”

Indeed, both schooners were now blasting toward them using some sort of chemical rocket booster. Blue swore, trying to calculate trajectories in her head as the captain and the navigator simply panicked.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion!” Greystern shoved Skiff aside, who landed roughly in a heap beside the communications console. The captain took the wheel and growled, “I’m not losing my damn ship to bloody pirates!”

“Wait!” Blue cried desperately as she finally realized what was about to happen.

Despite Greystern’s shouts to the contrary, the ships were on them in seconds. As Greystern banked, both the starboard and port side pirate ships fired a pair of heavy towing harpoons almost point-blank at their hull. The dive-and-bank managed to avoid the starboard ship’s harpoons entirely. However, they weren’t so lucky on the port side.

The entire bridge lurched horribly as the ship beams and timbers screamed in protest.

In less than a second, Blue knew what had happened. One of the harpoons had ripped straight through the portside rigging connecting the gondola of the Silver Lining to the envelope. Blue could feel the entire ship shudder as the weight of the vessel forced the ship to yaw dangerously to starboard. From the tilt of the deck, the harpoon hadn’t torn out all of the rigging, but at least half of it had to be gone. 

A cold sweat washed over Blue as she realized the implications.

“Idiot!” Blue snapped as she tried to get past Greystern to the engineering controls. “They already had our trajectory calculated!”

“They can’t have my ship!” Greystern sounded more like a manticore than a pony. “Not now, not ev—”

A black-armored pegasus exploded through the bridge window, sending them all to the deck and showering them with jagged shards of glass. Blue screamed as the pieces ripped through her coat and skin. Skiff screamed as well, but Blue couldn’t see her. She could only see Greystern hauling himself to his hooves, a look of murderous rage as the Everfree Forest flashed outside the shattered window.

“Captain!” Blue could barely hear Cogstrut over the sound of the rushing wind and the laughing pegasus turning to face the bloodied Greystern. “Secondary core has shorted! The cage has crumpled on the side and is making direct contact with the crystal core! It’s funneling energy into the port propellers! I can’t get it loose!”

Greystern didn’t respond to Cogstrut’s panicked cry. Blue had a rather different reaction. Specifically, the cry froze the blood in her veins.

The world around her slowed as she processed the data in rapid succession.

Incident: Port-side rigging damaged. Result: Over eighty-two percent of gondola weight would now be focused on the starboard side of the envelope. Following Result: Shift in weight would cause ship to drift increasingly starboard. Risk: Starboard side rigging failure. Risk: Remaining port-side rigging failure.

The only reason the ship hadn’t spiraled to the ground entirely was the port-side rigging hadn’t been completely destroyed.

Incident: increased energy directed into port propeller array. Result: Port propeller array would increase in speed until problem corrected or propellers tore themselves apart. 

There were a half-dozen ways to get a fused crystal separated from a dented cage, but with Cogstrut’s moronic modifications, she doubted any of them would work in time.

Incident: Pirate ships likely coming around for a second shot, but as ship is now in an erratic, spinning dive, increased likelihood of harpoon impacting envelope. Result if harpoon misses: none. Result if harpoon spears hull: ship boarded. Result if harpoon spears envelope: loss of air would cause immediate decline in altitude.

Combination of results: airship will likely either be captured, torn apart in midair or crash to the ground. Maybe a combination of the three.

At that point, Blue believed very firmly that whatever pony had named this ship had made a terrible mistake.

Time snapped back into motion. 

“Get off of my ship!” Greystern bellowed. With a primal scream, he unleashed a torrent of arcane blasts at the pegasus only a few feet away from him.

The pegasus just laughed, his face hidden behind a thick cloth mask. He flung up his wings as an impromptu shield… only to have the arcane blasts ricochet off of the armor and slam back into the bridge. Blue barely dodged one, while Greystern had to conjure a shield to absorb two. Skiff let out another scream from somewhere behind Greystern. 

Blue glanced behind the pirate to see more black forms swarming the ship. Crewmembers were shouting and fighting, magic going off and the telltale snap of crossbows erupting in the ragged wind as the Silver Lining continued its spin downward.

The pirate darted forward and bucked Greystern in the chest, hitting him hard enough to sending him flying over the ship’s wheel and crashing onto the deck with a thud. With a raspy voice, the pirate laughed again. He gave a sidelong look at the prone Blue and at the cowering Skiff, then seemed to dismiss them as he went after the captain.

Blue ignored the pirate and shot a glance at the terrified Skiff. She had a bad magic burn along her left flank and was covered in small bleeding cuts. But they didn’t have time for first aid.

“Get the ship level!” Blue shouted.

“What?!” Skiff cried, glancing out at the battle raging over the deck. “Our only hope is to get away before those ships get a solid harpoon in us!”

“Port propellers are stuck in a power spin!” Blue cried over the sound of the raging wind. She didn’t dare look outside. “If we don’t get out of this dive, we’re going to be a smear on the Everfree!”

Skiff, thankfully, knew her trade well. It took her less than five seconds to process Blue’s information. Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and she leapt up, only to scream when she landed on all four hooves. Still, she ignored her injuries and started to pull hard against the massive wheel.

Blue threw herself into helping the navigator as she spied a large shadow come up on their starboard side.

“By Harmony’s light!” she spat as she realized the lead pirate ship had decided to take part in the festivities. 

Beyond them, the pegasus’s laugh echoed as he dodged more arcane blasts from the enraged Captain Greystern. Purple light flashed in the night, but not a single shot connected with the nimble pirate. He danced around the captain on black wings, darting this way and that with the grace of a Wonderbolt. 

“Stop moving so I can kill you!” Greystern screamed, his voice almost hysterical with rage.

“Okay!” the pegasus cackled… and darted forward so fast he was little more than a blur, even to Blue’s eyes. When he darted away, Greystern was on his back, groaning. 

“I think I almos—Oh, Celestia!” Skiff screamed when she looked up to see her captain. “Help him, please!

The pirate had unsheathed twin hoofdaggers, each gleaming in the moonlight. 

For a fraction of a second, Blue hesitated. But really, it was only a fraction of a second. Still, she knew better than to fly in there and get directly involved. She’d be cut to ribbons. And with the rest of the crew occupied fighting for their lives…

“I hate doing this…” Blue whispered. 

With a swipe of her left hoof along her right side, her magnetic bracer engaged the matching magnets on her multibow. She brought it forward and twisted her hoof a little to the right. Both the upper and lower limbs of the bow snapped out, revealing the enchanted bowstring. With another twist of her hoof, a small mechanical assembly on the side of the multibow slotted a single grapple bolt into the arrow rest. She hauled back on the string with her other hoof. The entire process took moments.

Another hesitation. Her heart twisted in her chest. But the pirate had Greystern dead to rights. Either she fired or Greystern was dead. 

Blood on her hooves…

“Pirates are the exception,” she mumbled to herself as she sighed on her target.

She swallowed hard, and loosed the bolt.

The bolt shot through the air with a whipcord-quick buzz. It caught a sliver of moonlight before slammed into the pegasus’s left wing. The impact instantly shattered the wing armor and sent the pegasus spinning to the deck with a scream. 

Greystern glanced back at her and seemed to nod once in the darkness. Blue didn’t nod back. She just thanked Harmony she hadn’t been forced to go for a killshot.

However, Greystern didn’t seem to be under any such apprehension. With a roar, he threw himself on top of the stunned pegasus. With a savage yank of his magic, he ripped the hoof daggers away and shoved them on his own hooves. Even from here, Blue could see the manic grin on Greystern face. 

“No!” Blue screamed as she darted out in a blur of speed.

Only then did she notice the pair of shadows flying above the Silver Lining.

“Incoming!” a unicorn mare near the railing shouted, her voice laced with more resignation than terror.

Greystern whirled before he made the killing stroke. Blue turned in midair and gaped.

“No…”

One harpoon from the hovering ships missed entirely, flying out into the night. The second speared directly through their central envelope and crunched into the deck a few feet away from the bridge. Skiff let out a cry, but she was hidden behind the massive iron harpoon. 

Shouts came from the large pirate vessel to starboard, most of them furious or outright enraged. Within seconds, they were already pulling away as the attacking pirates fled to the safety of their mothership.

She looked up and her heart sank as the enormous envelope of the Silver Lining began to deflate. Cries of panic sounded around her as the crew of the doomed cargo ship tried to find the safety gear. But Blue had seen their altitude. There wasn’t time. She had to get everypony off this ship now.

Blue turned to shout something to the captain, only to see Greystern being flung at her by the pegasus. She let out a scream as the massive stallion crashed against her and slammed her into the giant harpoon, now obviously cut loose from the pirate schooner. Greystern groaned and snarled something Blue couldn’t make out. From her vantage, she could just see the pirate pegasus give a one-winged salute to them both before darting off into the night. 

Blue blinked a few times, trying to shove Greystern off of her.

Then she looked up as the canopy of the Everfree came up to greet them.
> By Luna's Grace
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------




“Hey, come on, wake up!”

Blue let out a low groan. She didn’t want to wake up. Her everything hurt. She wanted to wrap herself up in a blanket and sleep for a few weeks, preferably near the heat assembly. Hadn’t she earned a break? She’d dealt with that idiot Greystern constantly calling her ‘Bee’ for weeks, not to mention all the time she’d spent working on— 

“The ship!”

Blue darted bolt upright, her wings wide, her eyes even wider. 

She immediately crashed into something. 

She went back down, clutching at her skull. 

“Ow!” A tall silhouette fell backward in front of her, clutching its head. “Luna’s Mane, I go out of my way to save somepony and this is the thanks I get…”

“Who… who’s there?” Blue pushed herself upright, only to slump over a few seconds later. She tried to gasp for breath, but it seemed hard to get air into her lungs. She could barely think. “Who is that…?”

Blue blinked rapidly, but everything remained a blur. All she saw were smears and shadows. She tried to flip down her goggles, only to find she wasn’t wearing them anymore. Swearing, she tried to push herself up with her wings, but a bolt of pain ripped through the left one. She howled and collapsed again.

“Ssssh!” the shadow hissed at her. “I’ve had plenty of excitement tonight saving your cute little tail and would appreciate it if you didn’t invite everything within ten miles to join us!”

The other pony sat up, though Blue could barely make out the shape of what was probably a mare in the light of the… Moon? Probably the Moon. She squinted hard, trying to get a look at the odd figure as she shifted around in the damp earth.

When she finally caught sight of the outline of the mare through the haze, she fell over again.

“Not possible…”

The ringing in her ears made it impossible to clearly make out the voice. But… the silhouette… the height. The…

“Lune?” Blue whispered.

The figure crept a little closer, enough to make out her mane. It shone an odd color she couldn’t identify in the moonlight. Gold, maybe? But it wasn’t in the wild flaring waves she knew, but instead, in a elegant mass of curls?

“You… you changed your mane?”

The figure paused and looked around, as if trying to figure out who Blue was speaking to. “How hard did you hit your head?”

“Lune, it’s me. Blue.”

The figure leaned back and seemed to study her.

“That was quite the landing. So I’m guessing you hit it pretty hard…” Okay, yes. Blue was now positive she was speaking to a mare. It had to be a mare with a voice like that. But, of course, Lune was a mare. But… she sounded so strange, even though the ringing. Why? “Especially if you’re this mixed up…”

“I… I don’t understand,” Blue said slowly. “How are you here? Where… where even is here?”

“Well, I’m guessing you were aboard what used to be that ship over there?” The figure shook her enormous waves of hair. “And you were thrown all the way over here? You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

“Over… where?”

The other pony pointed—at least, that’s what the shadow looked like it was doing—but Blue couldn’t focus properly. All she saw flickering lights in the near distance. She didn’t care about that. She cared about how—

She whimpered as a shot of pain speared through her brain. The ringing and the blurriness tripled in intensity as she clutched her head. Where was she? What had happened? She… why was Lune acting so strange?

“Hey, that looks like it’s getting—”

“Who…?” Blue tried to sit up again, but this time, she lost the war with gravity entirely. She flopped down on her back, biting back a screech when she landed on what could only a broken wing. 

“Oh wow…” Lunar moved closer to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see just how bad your wing was…”

“Head hurts…” Blue mumbled—probably. “Everything hurts. What’s wrong with you, Lune? Your voice and… everything...”

“Hold on, I think I might have one more...”

Blue shivered as a cool wind brushed over her. That wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be feeling cold. But something else bothered her. She couldn’t… remember much right now. But Lunar hadn’t been on the Silver Lining. She was… she was pretty sure of that. 

Was… was it somepony trying to pretend they were Lunar? She couldn’t see any reason why, but she’d long ago given up on trying to figure out other ponies. So… she needed answers, right? Because if this pony was intentionally trying to fool her by acting like Lune… she was going to beat her to a pulp using her multibow as a club.

Blue’s right wing—the intact one—brushed against her side to check for her multibow. Though she didn’t remember stowing it, it was still there. That meant she wasn’t defenseless. With the figure so close, actually using it as a bow was out of the question. Still, she could try and unleash the power crystals at point blank range. Theoretically, the blast could knock out a full-grown mare. Then she could run for help! 

Blue’s left foreleg crept over to her side—it still felt like she had her tools on her, thank Celestia—but then the figure loomed over her again. Blue shuddered and tried to look as helpless as possible. Considering her size, it wasn’t all that hard—at least, that’s what she hoped. 

She squinted, but her eyes… she couldn’t make out anything but shadows. The mare was the right height for Lunar Skysong… but… something was wrong…

“Now, I’ve got a healing potion here,” the mare said soothingly in a voice that sounded a lot less like Lune than it had a minute ago. She held up a small glass bottle in one hoof. “It won’t fix that wing, but it should clear your head up and take care of some of your other injuries, okay?”

She couldn’t fight off the mare in her current state. She either had to use her multibow’s power crystals to stun her now… or take the potion. But if this was some ploy… why heal her? What did she want? What was going on?

As the mare popped the lid off the bottle, Blue slumped into the earth and resigned herself to her fate. Trying to unload a power crystal into a stun shot was tricky work and she couldn’t even see straight. That wasn’t going to happen. Which left her little choice but…

With a surprising amount of gentleness, she lifted Blue’s head and slowly poured the potion down her throat. Blue shuddered at the bitter taste of the potion, as if the pony had brewed it themselves. Or had put in some dirt for fun.

“Ssssh,” the mare whispered softly. “Take it slowly. No need to rush.”

Blue choked down the potion. The world went strange again, spinning despite the fact she was sitting still.

The next thing she knew, her head was in the mare’s lap. Blue blinked and finally the world around her came into focus.

The first thing she saw was the face of her apparent savior. 

The first thing she felt upon seeing said face was a dull, familiar ache in her chest.

This wasn’t Lunar Skysong. Of course not. She’s… she’s dead.

These days, it didn’t hurt nearly as much to think that. 

The first thought, however, surprised even her. 

Harmony, she’s gorgeous.

A mane of luscious violet and purple hair curled around her delicate and rather exotic face. She had her gray-coated head cocked at an odd angle—though it was presently upside down to Blue. Both of her ears flickered in the breeze coming through the trees around them. To Blue’s surprise, both of the mare’s ears appeared to have tufts on them. 

And Blue knew of only one kind of pony who had tufts on their ears… 

Blue’s eyes locked onto the stranger’s gaze. She should have been terrified. She should have bolted away. Or screamed. Or something. But she didn’t. There was something oddly comforting, yet curious in the slitted emerald eyes. The stranger blinked once or twice, long eyelashes fluttering. Then she broke out into a gentle smile, a single long canine glinting in the moonlight.

“Hi there,” she said. “Welcome back.”

Blue found her throat suddenly quite dry. She licked her lips a few times, trying to figure out why’d she’d lost the ability to speak all of the sudden. It was a silly, foolish thing to do, to suddenly lose the ability to speak.

“Um… hi,” Blue whispered. 

“Feel better?”

Blue nodded dumbly.

“Good.” The smile didn’t change. 

“Who… who are you?” Blue asked. It seemed like the natural question. “Where did you come from?”

The stranger narrowed her eyes for a split-second, then that snaggletoothed smile reappeared. “I’m Shadow Blossom. As for where I came from…” Shadow Blossom’s grin widened. “Well, that’s a long story. What’s your name?”

Blue opened her mouth to answer when another voice rang out through forest. 

“Little Bee!” bellowed the voice of Captain Greystern. “Dammit, you pathetic excuse for a pegasus, you’d better not be dead!”

Shadow arched an eyebrow as she peered down at Blue. “Would you happen to be this ‘Little Bee’?”

“Um… sorta?” Blue offered, resisting the urge to facehoof. “It’s a… nickname?”

“Bee, hm?” Shadow Blossom seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding in approval. “I like it. I think it fits you. Cute name for a cute mare.”

Blue actually looked around, positive that Shadow Blossom had been speaking to somepony else. “Me?”

Shadow Blossom laughed. “Of course, who else—”

“Celestia damn you, Little Bee! Where are you?” 

“For the love of Harmony…” Blue muttered. This time she really did facehoof. “I really hate that stallion.”

“Friend of yours?”

“Hardly.”

“Still, he seems interested in finding you.”

“Better than something else trying to find me, like a…” Blue’s mind finally finished restarting. “Wait… who are you? You’re not a member of the Silver Lining’s crew.”

“Is that the airship that crashed?” Shadow Blossom asked, glancing to the right. 

Blue followed her gaze, but couldn’t see through the bush—though she did note several large paw prints in the mud. She ignored the prints and, with Shadow Blossom’s help, she managed to get herself upright for the first time. Then her heart sunk as she saw what remained of the ship she had spent eight months working on.

The crash of the Silver Lining had left a great swath of destruction through the Everfree Forest, tearing up trees, rocks, brush and anything else in its path. Several hundred yards away, half the gray envelope lay in tattered rags, while the other half lay in scattered bits around the wreckage. From the damage, the envelope had been dragged behind the ship as the overcharged port propellers had continued to drive the gondola forward until they had finally ripped apart under the strain. Another two hundred yards past that lay the shattered hulk of rest of the Silver Lining.

The ship had broken into three large pieces. The stern somehow had actually caught on fire, though it was a slow smoldering thing—probably caused by one of the crystal cores sparking badly on impact. Beyond that, Blue could just barely make out the two halves of the bow, cracked against an enormous boulder.

Blue stared at what remained of the airship for a few long moments before releasing a long, mournful sigh. “Yeah. That’s the ship.”

“Nope. Definitely not aboard that.” Shadow Blossom sounded rather relieved.

Blue didn’t blame her and then refocused on the reason for her question in the first place.

“Then… where did you come from? You aren’t a… a…”

She could think of only one other reason a pony would be in the Everfree Forest at the final resting place of the Silver Lining. It was rather simple: because they’d originally been aboard one of the three ships they’d had the misfortune to meet earlier this evening. 

Blue slowly turned to look at the mare who had apparently saved her. 

If she was a pirate, she was the strangest pirate Blue had ever seen. Pirates normally wore patchwork armor—if they bothered wearing anything at all. However, this mare wore a large black collar with silver buttons—though it was presently open—along with dark brown barding and shining silver horseshoes.

“I don’t think you’re a pirate.” Blue stared. Probably for too long.

Shadow Blossom blinked at her and smirked. “Um, no. Sorry. Animal care specialist. If you’re looking for pirates, they’re up there.” She pointed a hoof skyward.

Blue followed her gaze to see the black airships sailing off into darkness, a few pegasi trailing behind. They’d lost interest now that the Silver Lining had crashed. Nopony was crazy enough to go into the Everfree Forest to— 

“We’re… we’re in the Everfree…” Blue mumbled as every hair on her body stood straight up.

“Last time I checked.”

“Celestia damn you with a kiss from the sun, Little Bee, if you’re hearing me and not answering…”

“He likes to shout a lot, doesn’t he?” Shadow Blossom asked, looking out over the forest to where the gray stallion continued to bellow around pieces of the Silver Lining left in the wake of the airship’s destruction. “Not really a smart thing to do in the Everfree.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not really the smartest stallion I’ve ever met…” Blue muttered, watching him silhouetted against the piece of burning debris and trying not to think of what might be lurking behind— “Wait…”

Blue’s heart skipped. Behind the limping form of Captain Greystern, three pairs of glowing green eyes flickered open in the darkness.

“Find anything, Captain?” came another voice coming from the direction of the wreck. It sounded like the first mate, a unicorn mare named Pine Dart. “Any sign of her?”

“No, the Celestia-damned idiot. She probably got herself eaten by a manticore or something,” Greystern grunted and tried to adjust his now filthy and torn uniform. “Ugh, the last thing I want to do is come home a crewmember short, even if she is the most annoying pony I’ve ever met.”

Blue’s ears went back and she frowned, but her gaze remained locked onto the green eyes in the woods beyond the devastated section of forest.

“Those are…” Blue began.

Shadow Blossom followed her gaze, grunted and stretched slightly. “Oh, those things again.”

Shadow adjusted something on her forehooves and to Blue’s shock, gleaming steel hoofdaggers snapped out from her barding’s cuffs.

“Who are you?” Blue asked with a gasp, looking up at the strange batpony mare. 

“You keep asking that question,” Shadow Blossom said with the same snaggletooth grin. “I already told you!”

And like that, she vanished into the darkness. She was there one moment, then gone the next. Blue didn’t have time to figure out what had just happened with her mysterious savior. 

Because three timberwolves had crept out of the woods toward the unsuspecting captain. Blue wanted to shout a warning, but she’d never be heard from here. She could try to run to them, but the healing potion hadn’t mended any of her broken bones. One of her ribs burned—probably broken—and there was no way she could get to Greystern or his oblivious first mate in time. 

That left only one option. 

Wincing in pain, Blue pulled out her multibow. The bow shook horribly in her grip, forcing her to try and brace it against a nearby stump, but even that barely helped. 

She slotted a bolt, but a spasm in her wing sent the bolt clattering to the ground. Without waiting to try and find the lost bolt, she triggered another one, tilting the bow to keep it correctly slotted. 

Squinting down the length of the bow, she sighted on the first of the timberwolves. The hulking masses of branches, leaves and bark moved forward with predatory grace. Neither Greystern nor Pine Dart had seen them. They were too busy yammering about something, facing the wreck of the Silver Lining.

Blue’s hoof spasmed and she found her aim wobbling between the timberwolves and Greystern. She glanced around, trying to catch sight of wherever Shadow Blossom had disappeared to, but couldn’t see her.

She bit her lip. She couldn’t depend on the stranger to save either officer. If she could take down the lead timberwolf, it would give the two unicorns time to react. 

She swallowed, took a breath and fired.

A second after she unleashed the steel bolt, Shadow Blossom appeared behind the rearmost timberwolves. In the space it took for the bolt to go from Blue’s multibow to the first timberwolf’s head, Shadow Blossom had already shattered one of the timberwolves into splinters with two precise blows from her hoofdaggers.

The lead timberwolf collapsed mid-pounce as its head exploded in a spray of splinters and shredded leaves. Blue let out a sigh of relief as Shadow Blossom grinned at her before turning her attention back to the last of the timberwolves.

Both unicorns whirled in shock at the sudden commotion behind them. Pine Dart let out a shriek and jumped backward, tripping over her own tail, while Greystern snarled something and fired a volley of arcane missiles at both the last timberwolf and Shadow Blossom.

“No!” Blue cried, clutching her side in pain.

Her voice didn’t carry far… though it didn’t appear to matter. 

With impossible grace, Shadow Blossom spun out of the way of the four arcane missiles, though two of them came within an inch of her mane and tail. Pieces of the timberwolf went flying as it buckled under the assault, but it didn’t go down. Instead, it turned its attention to Greystern, snarled and charged at the captain.

Greystern backpedaled, but tripped over the form of Pine Dart, still scrambling in the mud. He let out a howl of panic as the timberwolf leapt at him. 

In a blur of motion, Shadow Blossom darted forward, did a twirl in midair to land beneath the flying form of the timberwolf and then sprang directly upward, her twin hoofdaggers outstretched. 

The timberwolf exploded, leaving nothing but sticks, mud and leaves in Greystern’s surprised face.

Shadow Blossom landed on her hooves with a little spin, bowed to the two unicorns and then vanished into the night without another word.

Blue just stared at the spot where she had been. 

“What… just… happened?”

“We saved their lives,” Shadow Blossom said directly behind her.

Blue shrieked, whirled, tripped over the stump and finally crashed into a blueberry bush upside down.

Shadow Blossom giggled, her emerald eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Yup. Definitely cute.”

“Ow?” Blue muttered, though her pride felt more wounded than her body—more or less. “Um… little help?”

“Oh, right!” Shadow Blossom came up and deftly extricated Blue from the blueberry bush. “Sorry about that.”

“Somehow, I doubt it,” Blue grumbled, brushing at a few stray blueberry stains before stowing her multibow. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Shadow Blossom’s eyes glittered. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Uh… yes?” Blue stared at her. “I did ask.”

“Like I said, long story.”

“Uh-huh.”

Blue glanced behind her to where Greystern and Pine Dart were picking themselves up off the ground. They quickly headed back toward the forward wreckage of the Silver Lining, though they kept looking around in barely-controlled panic. 

“They’re going to get eaten trying to get through the Everfree like that,” Shadow Blossom said with a sigh. “I’m guessing you don’t want that to happen, Bee?”

“I may not like them,” Blue said. “But I don’t want… wait, did you just call me ‘Bee’?”

“I thought you said it was a nickname.” Shadow Blossom shrugged.

“Actually, my name is Blue Venture,” Blue corrected her with a sniff.

However, when she saw a flash of disappointment in Shadow Blossom’s eyes, she decided it wasn’t so bad if this mare called her that. After all, it wasn’t an insult coming from her. 

In fact, it reminded Blue of simpler times.

Anyway, she’d been called a lot worse during her career. ‘Bee’ wasn’t that bad, was it?

“But, if you want to call me Bee, I think I’d be okay with that?” Blue said, tapping her forehooves together nervously. 

“Great!” Shadow Blossom beamed at her. “And please, call me Shadow.” 

“O-okay, Shadow,” Blue murmured, blushing for some strange indefinable and completely inexplicable reason. “Wait… didn’t you have a question about something?”

Shadow rolled her eyes. “You don’t want those two to be eaten, right?”

“Um, no. Preferably not.”

“Well, we should probably go help them. I scouted out the wreckage and none of the crewponies looked armed with anything more than horseshoes or a bow. I think you might be the most well-armed of the bunch with that fancy bow of yours.”

“It’s… not a weapon,” Blue protested, shooting the mare a glare. “It’s a tool!”

Shadow raised an eyebrow.

“It just… does a really good job of being a weapon if I need it to be,” Blue muttered. “It’s… complicated.”

“If you say so.” Shadow shrugged. She seemed far too casual about this entire thing. “Still, that was a pretty good shot against that timberwolf. I couldn’t have made that shot, that’s for sure.”

Blue blushed again. Why did she keep doing that? “T-thank you.”

“Think you can walk?” Shadow asked. 

“I can try…” Blue pushed herself to her hooves, but collapsed halfway through with a yelp, her broken wing spasming in pain. “Or… maybe not.”

“We’re going to need to bind that wing,” Shadow said, tapping a hoof to her chin. Her eyes brightened. “How attached are you to that fancy cloak?”

“Well, I’m wearing it so fairly—”

“Great!”

A flash of steel later and Blue’s cloak had been inexpertly trimmed.

“Hey!” Blue protested. “I happen to like this cloak!”

“Sorry,” Shadow shrugged as she cut it up into ribbons. “I’m out of bandages. I’m assuming you don’t want to spend the night here?”

Blue glared at her, but didn’t complain any further.

“That’s what I thought.” Her overly-chipper voice lost some of its warmth. “Now… this is probably going to hurt.”

It did. A great deal. Blue made several piercing comments about the level of pain she felt from it. Shadow’s tufted ears remained pinned back long after she had finished, though the sounds hadn’t carried far. However, by the time she was done, Shadow had successfully bound up Blue’s broken wing in a surprisingly competent fashion. While Shadow would likely not be a future candidate for any of Equestria’s emergency response teams anytime in the near future, she’d gotten the job done.

Sometimes, that was what mattered. Working on massive flying airships—especially in emergences—tended to focus one’s expectations into the immediate and the necessary. 

“Thank… you,” Blue wheezed. “Don’t suppose you have another healing potion?”

Shadow shook her head. “Sorry, Bee. That was my last one. I don’t usually need many.”

For once, Blue didn’t need to ignore the nickname. She did, however, ignore the blush that appeared on her cheeks. “How do you go into the Everfree without healing poti—”

Shadow’s fang glinted in the moonlight again… just like her hoofdaggers.

“Right. Foolish question.”

“Think you can walk now?” Shadow asked.

“With a little help?”

Shadow nodded and slowly helped Blue up to her hooves. She wobbled a bit, but this time, she stayed upright, though Shadow hovered over her like a mother hen for a bit. Finally, Blue waved her off—which had nothing to do with the reminder of how freaking tall Shadow was compared to her—and nodded toward the wreck of the Silver Lining.

“We should get moving. Even if the pirates are moving away, the Everfree isn’t a safe place.”

“Well, if you’re not me, it’s not a safe place,” Shadow said in a sing-song voice. “But not everypony is amazing as me. Don’t worry your pretty little head, Bee. I’ll be right behind you.”

Blue—annoyingly—couldn’t find any argument to that and settled for a glower that had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the smiling batpony mare.

With slow, deliberate steps, Blue and Shadow headed for the smoldering wreckage of the Silver Lining. Through the haze, she could see figures milling about between the stern and the broken bow. Somepony had decided to use some sort of spell to douse the fire before it had spread any further. They’d set up a few emergency alchemical glowsticks in a circle around the perimeter. A familiar-looking stallion stood on a box of some kind and addressed the crew, though he was too far away for Blue to make out. 

Shadow—despite her assurances—actually walked beside Blue instead of behind her. This annoyed Blue, though she couldn’t say why. Instead, she just glanced to the side. Shadow calmly looked around her, as if they were in the Canterlot Gardens and not in the most monster-infested forest in all of Equestria. Blue found herself staring at the sheer grace of the tall earth pony’s movements and her—

“Wait… you’re an earth pony?” Blue blurted out, her eyes tracing the mare’s barding—completely without any sign of a wing access point.

“Actually, I’m an alicorn, I’m just really good at illusion magic.”

“You’re an alicorn,” Blue stated flatly.

“Mmhmm.”

“You don’t even have a horn.”

“It’s a compact horn. You probably can’t see it from down there.”

“Okay, I’m not that short!” Blue protested, wobbling as she tripped over an exposed root.

“Whatever you say, Bee.”

“I can literally see your forehead right now,” Blue insisted. “And I’m sure you don’t have a horn.”

“I said I’m good with illusion magic.”

Blue just glowered at her. They made it another five yards before Shadow finally broke down with a giggle. 

“Yes, I’m an earth pony. Why?”

“Ummm…” Blue frowned, suddenly realizing this may not have been the smartest line of questioning. “Well… I thought you were… a…” she whispered the last word in a tiny voice, “batpony.”

“I am!”

Blue shook her head. “Okay, you’re hurting my head. And I’m pretty sure I still have that concussion. And you’re not supposed to hurt the heads of ponies with concussions!”

“Well, if that’s your expert medical advice,” Shadow commented dryly. “I can’t just ignore it, can I, Doctor Bee?”

Blue winced. “Don’t call me that, please.”

Shadow paused and peered at her. “Oh. Sorry? Um…”

“Sore subject. Long story. Moving on.”

“Right!” Shadow chirped, apparently as eager to change the topic as Blue was. “My mom was an earth pony. My dad was a batpony.”

“Really?” Blue scratched her head—and almost fell flat on her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an earthbound batpony before.”

“We’re rare.” Shadow shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the question. “But not unheard of. Anyway, you’ve got your head in the clouds all the time!” Shadow poked Blue’s uninjured wing. “What do you know about earth ponies?”

“Enough,” Blue answered, staring at the ground.

“Another sore subject?”

“More long story than sore subject,” Blue sighed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You know, it’s a good thing we’re almost there.” Shadow said. “Otherwise the rest of this conversation might turn into one long story.”

Blue looked up from her contemplation of the ruined earth beneath her hooves just as she stepped into the circle of light cast by the alchemical glowsticks. 

Instantly, the crew of the Silver Lining reacted. Half a dozen unicorns’s horns burned with arcane fire. Two pegasi aimed crossbows at them. And ten earth ponies picked up pieces of debris. 

“Wait!” Blue shouted, jumping in front of Shadow. “Don’t—”

“You realize that you’re like… half my size, right?” Shadow commented, sounding exceedingly amused. “I mean, thanks for throwing yourself in the line of fire and everything, but still…”

“Back away from her now, you damn pirate!” Greystern snarled from atop his box. The stallion looked desperate to attack something. “Or I’ll take your head off!”

Shadow yawned. “I’m terrified. Can’t you see how terrified I am?”

“Take her down!”

“No!” Blue shouted. She tried to jump up into the air, only to crash to the ground when gravity reminded her about her broken wing. 

It was the only reason she faced the right direction to see Shadow easily sidestep two crossbow bolts, then three arcane missiles and then do a flying leap over a single energy blast from the quartermaster. 

Shadow landed neatly, exactly where she had been a moment ago, looking bored. “You all done now?”

“Uh… Captain?” Pine Dart asked, taking a few steps backward. “What do we do?”

“Idiots!” Blue snapped as she scrambled back to her hooves, wincing at the pain in her wing and side. “She saved your damn life, Greystern! Yours too, Dart! Otherwise you would have been timberwolf food because you were too busy whining about not finding me to see a pack of three directly behind you!”

“You know, that’s the second time he’s shot arcane missiles at me,” Shadow noted as she buffed one of her horseshoes. “A girl could get the wrong idea from that sort of thing.”

“Is the idea that he’s an idiot?”

“I’m leaning toward that,” Shadow said with a shrug.

“Then you aren’t wrong,” Blue stalked up to the captain. “Because if he had listened to me, the ship wouldn’t be in pieces all over the Everfree!”

Greystern’s eyes shifted from Shadow to Blue. “Little Bee, buzzing away again, I see. At least you’re in one piece. The paperwork to report your death would have been a pain in the flank.”

“I saved your life, Greystern.”

“And that’s the only reason I’m not going make things hard on you for breaking our deal,” Greystern whispered.

Blue gritted her teeth, unable to contain the growl of fury boiling up from inside her.

“Wow. She’s even cute when she growls.” Shadow hummed. “Actually, that wasn’t cute. That was downright adorable.”

“Stop helping me,” Blue snapped without turning away from the captain—though she couldn’t stop the blush.

“A few minutes ago you were begging for my help!” Shadow said, her voice the very epitome of pain and confusion. “Now, you don’t want it. Make up your mind, Bee!”

An evil little glitter appeared in Greystern’s eyes, until they flicked over Blue’s head—presumably toward Shadow. A moment later, the glitter vanished.

“If you aren’t a pirate, who are you?” the captain growled.

“I’m a yak spy, obviously.”

Blue facehoofed and turned. “Seriously?”

“What?” Shadow blinked owlishly. “Did I forget to wear my shaggy coat today? Darn.”

“Who are you?” Greystern demanded again.

“Would you believe a hippogriff infiltrator?” Shadow grinned her snaggletooth grin. Her fang glinted again.

How does she always get her fang to glint like that, anyway? Blue wondered. She made a point not to blush at the grin this time. Any color on her face had to be a result of dying embers from the ruined stern of the Silver Lining.

A few of the crew snickered a little. Blue turned back and smirked to see Greystern’s own face turning red, though it wasn’t anything that could be called a blush.

“Oh wow, you look like you’re going to blow a gasket there!” Shadow cooed in a terribly concerned voice. “Well, if I knew you were that worried, I’d have told you I’m a concerned citizen. I saw this little bird crash to the ground with nopony to care for her. Poor thing.”

Blue’s ears went flat. She’s enjoying this far too much.

“So that was you behind me back there?” Greystern asked, his voice still laced with doubt.

“Yup. Though, Bee here saved your life too. Took out the lead timberwolf with a single shot. So… doesn’t that make that two times she’s saved your life?”

Blue ducked her head, trying to ignore the whispers of the crew around her. Most of which sounded like considered disbelief… and a few uncomfortable notes of awe.

“I did see something flash out of the darkness right before you fell, Captain,” Pine Dart said. 

“Quiet you,” Greystern snapped. “Well, Blue? Is what this stranger saying about the timberwolf true?”

“Lucky shot,” Blue muttered. She didn’t meet the captain’s eye. And for some reason, she found it odd that Shadow didn’t add any comments this time.

Greystern remained silent for almost half a minute, as did the rest of his crew. “Well, if it was you… I guess I owe you one, because the other favor you already used up. And yes, I owe you one, too,” he snapped at Shadow.

“Don’t get too excited about it, there.” Shadow’s words were laced with sugary sweetness. “You might sprain something.”

“Enough of this!” Greystern shouted. “We need to get out of here. Where’s Hindsight?”

“Here, sir!” said a scrawny pegasus at least a decade younger than Blue. He fluttered up to the captain and snapped off a salute. Both of his wings were intact, though he had several bloody gashes along his flanks.

“Since our little Bee here appears to be wounded, you’re taking point. Get up there and give us a bearing on how the hell to get out of this infernal forest!”

“Yes, sir!” Hindsight darted up into the night sky.

“The rest of you lot!” Greystern barked. “Get whatever gear you can scavenge from the Silver Lining. I’ve already got the black box and the ship’s log. Cargo’s been marked if the company wants to recover it. As soon as Hindsight gives us a bearing, we’re getting out of this forest.”

“But… sir!” said one of the cargo haulers Blue didn’t recognize. “This is the Everfree! There’s all sorts of crazy things in here! Ponies come in, but they never come out!”

Greystern marched up to the stout unicorn and whacked him upside the head. “That’s idiotic. At the very least, New Ponyville’s on the very edge and they’ve been dealing with this place for centuries! So, get it together!” 

The cargo hauler quailed under Greystern’s glower, nodding and running off. 

With that, the crew of the Silver Lining moved off in different directions to salvage whatever they could from the wreck of the ship. Meanwhile, Blue slowly trotted over to the smoking stern of the ship and peered into the blackened interior. 

As she had suspected, one of the cores had sparked the fire. It had scorched most of the engineering bay where she’d spent the last couple of months. With a frown, she sat down and pulled up a hunk of power cabling. Running it through her hooves, she scraped away the dirt and soot to reveal a small label in her own wingwriting.

A tall silhouette in the moonlight walked over to stand beside her. “Bee?”

“Hm?”

“You okay?” Shadow asked as she settled down next to her. “Did Greystern get to you?”

“No, I’m used to that.” Blue shook her head. Instead, she handed the strip of cable to Shadow, who turned it over in her hooves curiously. “It’s this.”

“‘Portside Conduit A-Three-Seven-Six-Two-Zero’,” Shadow read aloud. “What is it?”

“I laid that cable eight months ago,” Blue said as she studied the twisted remains of the conductor cages. She caught the glints of shattered crystal throughout what was left of the engineering bay. “First thing I connected when I came on site.”

“You… you helped build this ship?”

Blue nodded, not looking at her. “Installed the conductor cages, set the crystal cores, oversaw the power distribution system, tested every strip of wire and conduit in the hull. I even configured the propeller arrays myself after Twirl caught a bad case of the pony pox. It would have been the thirtieth ship… my thirtieth ship.” Blue let out a low sigh. “Thirtieth ship I had crewed for a shakedown. Now? It’s nothing. Nothing but shattered wood and bent metal.”

Cogstrut—his uniform finally stained with grease, oil, dirt and soot—scrambled into the engineering bay and tried to pry out a half-melted toolbox off the port bulkhead. He didn’t look at Blue even once as he worked.

“I’m sorry.” Shadow sounded sincere. “I didn’t know.” 

“No reason you would.” Blue shrugged. The scent of burned metal, ionized crystal and smoldering wood filled the air. “Just another… damn thing lost to those… those…” Her breath caught in her throat and she rubbed her eyes. “Those pirate bastards. They… they never stop taking from me. Never.”

Shadow remained silent for a moment, before gently asking, “You want to talk about it, Blue?”

Blue turned to stare at the taller mare. “You called me ‘Blue.’”

Shadow smiled. It was a soft, gentle thing, with the same warmth and comfort Blue had seen when she’d first woken up—well, more like when she could finally see after waking up. 

The smile reminded her of somepony else… and she thought she was okay with that.

Blue found herself smiling slightly in return even as she felt her cheeks heat up for some reason or another.

“Well, that is your name, right?” Shadow asked. “Blue Venture?”

Blue thought about it. Then she turned to look at Greystern, bellowing at somepony she couldn’t quite make out. Finally, she did something she hadn’t done since the Icarus had been lost.

She smirked.

“Actually?” Blue’s eyes slid back to Shadow. “I think I’d like it if you called me ‘Bee’.”

Shadow cocked her head. “Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s an old nickname I’ve hated for years. Greystern’s not the first to call me that.” Blue shrugged, looking away and rubbing her mane. “But when you say it… it sounds… I don’t know… what’s the word…?”

“Friendly?” Shadow suggested. 

When Blue looked back, Shadow’s eyes twinkled.

“Yeah,” Blue admitted with a nod. “It’s been some time since I’ve had anypony call me anything friendly. I’m… not usually very good with other ponies.”

“Sounds lonely.” 

There was something in Shadow’s voice. Some note of resonance, like finding the sweet spot in the alignment of a crystal inside its conductor cage. For just a moment, Blue caught something behind Shadow’s eyes, as if a veil had dropped.

Blue wasn’t very good at reading other ponies. Once, she’d had Lunar there to help her with that. And she’d gotten better, though she’d… lost a lot of progress when the Icarus had gone down. Despite all that, she found herself able to actually get a decent read on Shadow. In fact, she seemed to be able to read her just as well as… 

Blue wondered just how much of the pony who’d apparently saved her life was a front. She’d seen it before. She’d met plenty of two-faced ponies before. But that’s not what Shadow felt like. It felt like Shadow actually cared, but there were things she needed to keep to herself. 

Loneliness apparently wasn’t one of those things. 

“It is lonely.” Blue swallowed. “Say… would you… like to come up to Canterlot with me? You know, once we escape this whole deathtrap of a forest?”

Shadow’s snaggletooth smile reappeared in an instant. “I didn’t realize you were that forward.”

Blue instantly went crimson. Despite everything, she couldn’t deny this was a blush and then some. “T-That’s not… I mean… that’s not at all what I meant but then again I really wouldn’t… you’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”

“You catch on quick.” Shadow’s eyes danced in the moonlight. “To answer your question? Sure. Anyway, with that wing, you’ll probably need somepony to look after you for a bit.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Blue protested. 

“Oh shush,” Shadow waved a hoof in dismissal. “I’ll make you a deal. You show me around Canterlot after you’re all healed up and we’ll call it even. But you have to show me your version of Canterlot.”

“My version?” Blue blinked a few times.

“Yeah!” Shadow’s smile never faded. “I’d love to see how those airships get made. Maybe see some of that fancy tech behind that tool of yours. Stuff like that.”

Blue blinked a few times. She thought about what Lunar would tell her to say. It took a matter of seconds.

“It’s a deal,” Blue answered with a tiny, shy smile.

“Sounds good then.” Shadow beamed at her. 

Greystern shouted something about getting the crew underway. Hindsight had apparently returned. Blue turned to look at him—only to see a hulking figure moving in the brush to their right.

“What—” 

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Shadow said when she followed Blue’s gaze. “He’s not going to be eating anypony tonight.”

“He?”

“Just a manticore. He’s how I found you. He had been looking for a snack. I convinced him to look somewhere else.”

Blue slowly turned around and gaped at Shadow as she processed those words and made the connection between the paw prints she’d seen earlier and this new data.

“Are you telling me… that you saved me from a manticore… before I even woke up?”

“Well, you were pretty out of it.” Shadow shrugged as if she’d shooed away nothing more than a vaguely-annoyed squirrel instead of a monster that could have swallowed Shadow in one bite. “Don’t worry, it was a short fight. I really just bopped him on the nose.”

“You took on a manticore to save me.” Blue said, as if restating it might make it clearer. 

“If you’re going to make a big case out of it, then yes.” Shadow rolled her eyes. “Seriously, it’s like nopony ever saved your life before.”

“I thought you just woke me up…” Blue muttered, eyes wide in shock. “You actually took on a manticore… a real live Everfree manticore…”

“He was just a hungry kitty,” Shadow replied. “It’s not a big deal.”

Blue stared at her, her jaw hanging open. “Who are you?”

“How many times you going to ask me that?”

“As many as it takes to get an answer I’m happy with!” Blue cried, waving her hooves in the air.

Shadow smiled again, another smile of something approaching fondness.

“How about a friend, then?”

“A friend?” Blue blinked a few times. That hadn’t been an expected result. “Really?”

“Sure!” Shadow replied. For a moment, her veil dropped again, though Blue couldn’t quite tell what was behind it this time. “I could probably use one… and you definitely could. Does that satisfy you?”

“A friend…” Blue murmured, smiling a little to herself and a lot to Shadow. “Yeah… I guess it does.”

“Little Bee! Get your tail and the tail of tall, dark and spooky over here now!” Greystern bellowed. “We’re moving out!”

For the first time since Blue had met the captain, Greystern’s shouts didn’t bother her at all.

“Coming!” Blue called back as she climbed to her hooves, Shadow doing the same.

“Bee, I hate to tell you this…” Shadow whispered, her eyes dancing. “But that captain? He’s kinda a jerk. Would you mind if I helped him figure that out on the way out of here?”

Blue smile instantly shifted into a smirk. “Go for it, please.”

Shadow let out a happy little giggle and the two friends trotted toward the crew of the fallen Silver Lining.

As they walked, Blue looked up into the night sky and the great shining sphere of the Moon hanging over them. 

“I guess Luna might still be looking out for us…” Blue murmured to herself.

Shadow stumbled. “W-what?”

Blue turned and smiled at her. “Before we crashed, I remember asking the Moon if Princess Luna was still out there somewhere. Why she left. If she cared. And… a few other things. A little while later, a strange batpony comes out of nowhere and saves my life.” Her smile widened. “I’d take that as her still caring. Call me silly, but I do.” 

Shadow stared at her for a long moment, her face unreadable. Her ears flipped back and forth. Her eyes darted between Blue and the Moon.

“Shadow?”

Finally, Blue’s new friend smiled a completely different smile. 

“I believe she looks out for us,” Shadow whispered, though Blue had no idea why. “And she cares. A lot.”

“Batpony intuition?” Blue said with a little smirk.

Shadow returned the smirk. “Something like that.”

“Well, I won’t argue with my guardian batpony.”

Shadow snickered. “Good. I’d hate to have to knock you out and carry you out of here, Bee. That’s what happens when you argue with batponies, you know.”

Blue blushed again and looked away. The crew had started to move into the forest proper. 

“You do that a lot, you know,” Shadow commented.

“What?” Blue asked, not daring to look back.

“Blush.”

“Nope!” Blue said loudly. “I never blush. For any reason. At all. Ever.”

“Whatever you say, Bee.” Shadow laughed. “But I’ll have you know, batponies have excellent eyesight. Especially under the light of the Moon. Legends say it was a gift from Luna.”

Blue smiled as they entered the forest behind Greystern’s crew. 

“So, you’re a gift from Luna, huh?” Blue quipped, glancing to one side.

“Something like that.” Shadow’s eyes sparkled.

“One of the best gifts I’ve ever received.” She wasn’t even sure why she said it… it just felt… right. 

For a split second, Blue thought she caught a tiny tinge of pink on Shadow’s face. It was gone a instant later. 

Probably my imagination, Blue thought.

Still, it didn’t stop Blue from smiling. Beside her, Shadow giggled quietly. As they headed into the Everfree Forest, the moonlight on Blue's coat felt warmer than ever before.

Maybe tonight would actually turn out decent after all.