How Moonstruck Got Her Groove Back

Finite Sledgehammer

Disclaimer: My Little Pony is Hasbro's toybox; I'm just playing in it. With… HEADCANONS.

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Prologue

The pegasus pony was very nearly out of control. The stiff tail wind that propelled her well beyond her top speed was almost more than her long, broad wings could manage; but she couldn't slow down, much less stop. The same wind that was sending her hurtling through the clear frosty air, and over unfamiliar mountains was also enabling the dark airship behind her to close the gap she was working so hard to broaden. In just a scant few seconds she would be in range of their net-throwing cannons.

She gritted her teeth, and fought back the tears that threatened to blind her tired eyes. It felt like she'd been flying for days, although she knew she would have collapsed and fallen out of the sky well before now, if that was the case. Even a mountain pegasus like herself couldn't maintain her top speed for so long, no matter what was chasing her.

The only reason she was still alive, and still flying was the world had gone completely mad. The highest reaches of the mountains were always astoundingly confusing, but she'd somehow wound up in a side canyon she'd never been in before – a dead ended side canyon at that. She'd attempted to pull up before she hit the far wall, but she'd had too much momentum and had slammed straight into the jagged rocks, which – if nothing else – was a better end than what the ponies aboard the airship had for her. She should have crashed. Somehow, inexplicably she passed through the wall to find herself tumbling haphazardly high over the mountains, so high the air was almost too thin to breathe.

And the airship had followed. Was still following, though they were impossibly over the crest of the mountains now, driving towards the far southern horizon – something she'd never even seen before, something she had only known existed simply because it had to exist somewhere.

Something exploded to her right, then left, then straight behind. She ignored it as best she could to focus on speed, and that distant, strange horizon. Just a little further! If she could make it just a tiny bit further she could dive, and take cover among the rocky peaks below. At least, this is what she told herself; in reality she was exhausted, her wings and lungs were burning from fatigue and lack of oxygen from the extreme altitude, and she had no idea what was waiting for her in the landscape below. But it had to be better than this – anything was better than this!

The wind shifted suddenly, buffeting the pegasus and the pursuing zeppelin with a powerful blast out of the west. The pony took the opportunity to tuck her wings and dive, allowing the wind to nudge her eastward. She couldn't afford to look back, but she hoped and prayed the airship couldn't follow her at such a steep angle – especially with the shifting winds. Even if they did manage to follow from above, the speed of her dive should carry her well out of range of their cannons.

Gritting her teeth, she opened her wings slightly as the mountain grew dangerously close, adjusting the angle of her dive so that she skimmed the rocky surface to sweep dizzily down the steep, snowy slope.

The mountain rippled, then gave way beneath her, opening up abruptly into a shallow, misty gorge, in to which the wind was blowing strongly. The pony yelped and opened her wings further, flapping them frantically to gain control of her flight, but a sudden, sharp downdraft sent her tumbling into the mist. Disoriented and all but blind, she managed to right herself just in time for one wing to brush against an outcropping of rock. The brief contact was all it took to send her spinning into another rock; then a tree, then finally the ground. She rolled to a stop at the bottom of a hill of slush and scree.

Silence descended upon her; for a few tense moments she held her breath and waited for the whir of the airships engines to sound overhead. While the mountainside was so quiet that every minuscule pebble that came bouncing along behind her rang loudly in her aching hears, nothing lumbered in above. The pony let out the breath she'd been holding, then coughed, and sobbed violently. Once the coughing subsided she tried to stand, but only managed to roll painfully on to her side. Everything hurt, making it impossible to tell where, and how badly she was injured.

She could go no further, she knew. She escaped the airship, but she would die here, far from her family on the impossible side of the mountains.

Alone.

Darkness tugged at the edge of her vision as tears she had been holding in began to stream down her face. She had nothing left but to surrender to the darkness.

As she slid into unconsciousness, something lifted its head above the ground-clinging fog and sniffed curiously in her direction.

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A/N: AND SO IT BEGINS. Started writing this a few years ago based on some headcanons that needed to get out in the world in story form. It started out as just a few plot bunnies coming together for a little playtime, then kind of spiraled out of control. Way out of control. Like, over 400 pages of plot bunny orgy out of control.

Yeah. One of those.

I hadn't really written much of anything in a long time, so I've just been rolling with it. And now that it's finally, finally done, I am posting it. Because when you spend several years on a fanfic, and the show hasn't really smashed any (well, except one, but the show's kinda weird on that one… and I get the inkling the movie might mess a few things up) of your headcanons, you post it.

Oh yeah, according to Ponder Stibbons of Unseen University on Discworld (Terry Pratchett), thaums are a sort of unit of magical measurement. I have borrowed them for the time being. Also octarine (the color of magic). Both will pop up later.

Anyhoo, this starts out just after season 3, and kind of runs partway into season 4. It's mostly OC-centric, but canon ponies pop up from time to time. I'm gonna try to get a new chapter up at least once a week. Maybe twice for exciting stuff, unless I'm feeling sadistic.

SUPER EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS TO MIDORI FOR READING THIS MESS AS I WAS WRITING IT. Seriously. I am eternally grateful! [bows forever]