How Moonstruck Got Her Groove Back

Finite Sledgehammer

Disclaimer: Hasbro's toybox, I'm just playing in it.

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Chapter 4

The days leading up to the new moon were surreal. Moonstruck had a fair amount of reading to do, some survival training, and a refresher course in combat magic. The activity made the hours pass faster, but the downtime seemed to stretch on forever. She was both itching to go, and ready to bolt for home at a moments notice. Princess Celestia had raised some good points, but so had Spring Breeze back home.

She was still unsure if she was the pony for the job. Moments of confidence were scattered; every time she executed a spell perfectly, or displayed superior physical skill at something, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she'd be able to pull this off. Every time she goofed up, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would not end well, and it would probably be better to just go home and stop wasting everyponies time.

It was the emotional roller coaster that was the most tiring. She hardly slept at all the night of the new moon, and was on edge when she gathered with the others in a back courtyard of the palace. No one came to see them off; all goodbyes were made the night before. They were to leave secretly, although Moonstruck didn't understand why, exactly. It wasn't like there were spies lurking around Canterlot. Or at least, she didn't think there were.

She was surprised to see Princess Luna was already wearing her illusion when she ambled wearily into the courtyard. The princess was a shorter, lighter colored pegasus version of herself and she'd altered her cutie mark to a trio of stars. Windwake looked terribly uncomfortable standing near her, even though he stood respectfully at attention.

"Mornin'." Moonstruck grunted. She focused her sleep deprived brain enough to summon up her illusion as well.

Windwake broke his stone faced expression to shake his head. "That is seriously trippy."

"Heh, get used to it." Moonstruck scowled back at her cutie mark. "Think I should do something about this too?"

Luna scowled as well. "You are not known outside of your country so you will likely not need to."

"Yeah, you're probably right." She yawned. "What about code names?"

"Hmm, that may be helpful."

"I can just call you Mooney." Windwake quipped.

"Works for me. Actually, we could call Luna that too." Moonstruck smirked.

Luna smiled faintly. "That we could." She stared up into the sky for a few moments. "You may call me Nightingale."

"Gale for short?" Moonstruck asked.

"I suppose, if the need arises." Luna shrugged. "We should depart, Sister has already raised the sun, and we have a long fly ahead of us."

They did not fly out of the castle; instead wandered back inside and worked their way into a tour group that was on its way out. From there, they made their way out into the city, and over to a landing field where common pegasus generally came and went.

"I still don't understand why we couldn't take the train at least part way." Moonstruck grumbled as they waited in line to take off.

"Because the closest we could get would be Griffonstone Station, and we are trying to avoid as many ponies as possible." Luna muttered.

Moonstruck wanted to argue that they weren't avoiding very many ponies at the moment, but decided against it. They made it through the que and out onto the field in a reasonable amount of time, ultimately taking off without any trouble. Luna took the lead, Windwake and Moonstruck settled into escort positions behind and to either side of her. Luna set a brisk pace, Moonstruck was dismayed to discover. She frequently found herself falling behind, despite drafting off of the elder alicorn's wake. It certainly made any conversation difficult - which seemed to be how Luna preferred it.

Hours stretched on, Equestria rolled gently by beneath them, and Luna occasionally swerved off course to avoid scheduled inclimate weather. Around noon, she reluctantly led them down to a grassy meadow for a break. Moonstruck had the distinct impression that the elder alicorn had intended to fly until nightfall, and was somewhat dissatisfied with her lackluster flying abilities.

"Your flying speed and endurance will have increased greatly by the time we get there." Luna noted, confirming Moonstrucks suspicions.

"Whoo, flying the long haul again so soon is really taking its' toll." Windwake chuckled, pulling a sandwich out of one of his saddle bags and plopping down in the grass. "Plus, I think I'm still sore from the flight in to Canterlot."

"I thought you said you'd all be okay..." Moonstruck eyed him suspiciously then took a big gulp of water from her canteen.

"Yeah, we were fine. Just sore. Flying that fast for that long is pretty hard though." Windwake said around a mouth full of dandelion and black bean patty sandwich.

Moonstruck magicked her own sandwich out of one of her saddlebags and continued to eye him suspiciously.

"I told you, I'm fine!" Windwake barked, scowling back.

"Should you even be here? It's been less than a week since you and the others made a three day trip pretty much overnight." Moonstruck said flatly.

"YES. Sheesh! I know my limits, Mooney, and I haven't even begun to hit them yet." Windwake snarled.

"You have a bad habit of pushing yourself too hard, you know." Moonstruck noted.

"This coming from someone who never pushes herself enough!" Windwake snapped.

Moonstruck sputtered. "I push myself precisely as much as I need to! No more, no less!"

Luna pensively ate her sandwich, watched them bicker with eyebrows upraised and eyes half lidded. She was mildly amazed that they somehow managed to eat their lunches in a fairly timely manner in the midst of their argument.

"We must keep moving." She said firmly once the others had eaten, and had an extra fifteen minutes to digest a little. "We need to travel as far as we can every day to reach the Broken Lands by spring."

"Um, isn't it spring now?" Moonstruck scowled as she tried to fit everything back into her saddle bags.

"Here, yes. But in the northern lands winter still holds sway, and the weather is not regulated." Luna inclined her head to the north. "At this pace, we should arrive after the worst of the storms have passed."

"Gotcha." Moonstruck nodded.

They cleaned up their impromptu picnic, then took to the air once again; Windwake in the lead this time to give Luna a break. Moonstruck dreaded her turn in the lead but did her best not to think about it. Instead, she stared down at the land, and oddball low cloud beneath them; taking note of their route. She knew she wouldn't be by herself when she came back (if she came back), but she liked knowing the way all the same.

They stopped again at sunset. They would not, Moonstruck was glad to discover, fly through the night. Dinner conversation was light and pleasant, although they did not sing songs or tell ghost stories, which is what usually happened when Moonstruck and her friends went camping. Windwake was typically the teller of scary stories, but he was either maintaining his professionalism in the presence of Princess Luna, or too tired to cook up a good one. Moonstruck knew the former was a contributing factor, but the latter was the main culprit. She was exhausted herself, so she didn't bring it up.

Unlike the previous two nights, sleep was a very easy state to attain. Waking up was the hard part. Stiff part, more accurately. She had suspected she'd be sore in the morning after a full day of flying, she hadn't expected to be nearly immobile. She managed to get out of bed, but only enough to slide slowly into a painful, awkward sprawl.

"Hey, c'mon, breakfast is ready." Windwake mumbled as he poked his head into her tent. Moonstruck stared up at him, about ready to burst into tears. He stared blearily down at her.

"Um... having issues?"

"Maybe I'm in worse shape than I thought..." Moonstruck grimaced, gathered up all of her strength (and legs), and climbed shakily to her hooves, then limped sorely past the bemused pegasus.

"Terrible shape, if your legs are sore too!" He quipped.

"Hey, it takes a lot of muscle to keep a streamlined shape for that long!" Moonstruck grunted.

"I suppose." He smirked, and ambled after her.

Luna frowned at her as she limped into view. "You will be able to fly, I hope?"

"Yeah, yeah, just gimme a few minutes to stretch." Moonstruck grunted. She took a sip of water, then walked in circles for a few minutes, the stiffness in her muscles giving way slowly, and reluctantly. Breakfast was a tedious affair, then she broke down and went for a quick jog around the campsite. Luna was looking rather irate by the time Moonstruck felt she was limber enough to take wing without killing herself.

The elder alicorn wasted no time in getting aloft, taking the lead again, and setting a brisk pace. Moonstruck lagged behind more so than yesterday, but not terribly far back. She almost wished they'd speed up so that she could fall so far behind that she might as well just go home. Windwake was no more forgiving when he took the lead later in the day.

hr

The morning of the fourth day they ran into a snag. When Moonstruck emerged wearily from her tent - before the others, for once - she could not help but notice that it was overcast, and that the clouds were moving along at a concerning speed. It smelled of rain. She blinked a few times, then pulled a small booklet out of one of her bags. It had the weather schedule for the next month for all of Equestria. Unless they were off course, there wasn't a storm scheduled for this area today. She scowled and checked the dates for the previous few days; occasionally the pegasus ponies missed a storm, and would re-schedule it last minute. Her scowl deepened as she didn't see any mention of rain for at least two weeks prior.

"This is unexpected." Luna murmured as she exited her tent, looking just about ready to fly.

Moonstruck shrugged and magicked the booklet over so that Luna could inspect it herself. The elder alicorn scowled as well. The wind picked up at their altitude just then, rustling manes and tents, and kicking up leaves. Windwake poked his head out of his tent and stared blankly up at the sky.

"You two eat and break camp, I will go and find out what is going on." Luna crouched, fanned her wings, then sprang lightly into the air.

Moonstruck and Windwake did just that, and were about done packing everything but Lunas breakfast into their saddle bags by the time the elder alicorn landed in an irate huff.

"It seems a storm system grew out of control, and it's too big for the local weather ponies to disperse, so they have herded it here to rain itself out." She grunted, sitting down grumpily. She used her telekenisis to pick up her breakfast and float it to her.

"Ugh, I hate when that happens." Windwake wrinkled his nose. "One time the weather pony interns cooked up a hurricane by accident, and it took every pegasus in the queendom to move it over an unpopulated area."

"Oh yeah, I remember that." Moonstruck screwed her face up into a scowl. "I think we only managed to wrestle it over the foothills outside Trot City. Still downed a few trees all over the place though."

"And knocked over some old barns." Windwake added.

"You helped?" Luna lifted a brow and inclined her snout towards Moonstruck.

"Of course. I do use my wings sometimes." Moonstruck snorted, then she scowled. "That was a while ago though."

"So, what's the plan?" Windwake asked, eyeing the clouds. "The wind isn't strong enough to pose a problem yet, if we fly at a lower altitude."

"The weather ponies plan to start the storm in an hour, otherwise it may gain strength on its own and swing back towards the village." Luna said, daintily wiping her mouth with a napkin.

"We will fly as far as we can in that time, then continue on hoof."

"In the rain?" Moonstruck groaned. She didn't typically mind rain, considering it rained nine months of the year in Trot, but she was still sore. Rain, stiff muscles and sore joints did not mix.

"Yes. The storm is simply too large to fly around, and too dangerous to try to pass through to fly above it." Luna said flatly. "We also cannot remain here and simply wait it out." She scowled at Moonstruck darkly.

Moonstruck huffed and looked away, pulled her ears back slightly. "Guess it isn't just going to be a cloud burst, then."

Luna rolled her eyes, then finished her meal. They took off a few minutes later, flying at a brutal pace. Moonstruck lagged behind, huffing and puffing and seriously considering just teleporting to keep pace. Although teleporting while in motion (mid-air, to boot), was difficult, she might be able to do it in short jumps. Line of sight wasn't a problem, it was a matter of math. Without an easy visual reference, she'd have to set up a virtual 3D grid, calculate out coordinates, and adjust those coordinates while she was flying and... it was really too much trouble. And math. Lots of math. She knew of a trick that would more or less allow her to cheat by giving herself a pair of visual reference points to teleport to and from, but it really only worked if she started out from a walk, or a leisurely trot - not flying at the equivalent of a gallop. She could - she supposed - use Windwake as a sort of anchor point; maybe attach a glowing spark a short ways behind him so that she just had to keep track of her own location. But if he had to stop suddenly, or changed direction abruptly, it could lead to a mid-air crash, or possibly worse. It generally wasn't recommended to teleport into a space something was already occupying - much less someone.

Thankfully the winds started to pick up about a half an hour into their race against the storm, which forced the three of them to slow and close in to a tighter formation. Shortly after that, the winds were too unpredictable to kite along, so they landed early.

They did not bother with their rain gear - the wind was so strong that it made it pointless unless they had a full suit - and none of them had thought to bring something more form fitting that would have offered a decent amount of protection. After a few minutes in the howling wind and driving rain, Moonstruck was quite convinced that they should have waited the storm out. She suspected that Luna and Windwake were thinking the same thing, although neither seemed willing to admit it. Moonstruck quietly wondered how long it would take for one of them to suggest finding shelter to wait out the rest of the storm.

For hours they slogged along the muddy roadway, passing the occasional campsite where other travelers had done the sensible thing and stopped when the weather turned ugly. Moonstruck would sigh dramatically and eye the camps enviously whenever they passed. If the others heard her, they didn't comment. She was fairly certain they couldn't hear her over the storm.

Lightning flashed across the sky above them, thunder hot on its heels. The trio froze, staring upwards in trepidation, fur and manes standing on end. She could practically taste the electricity in the air. Lightening couldn't cause serious harm to a pegasus (and by extension, an alicorn), but it was still far from a pleasant experience to be struck by it.

"Is it just me, or was that too close!?" Moonstruck shouted over the din of the storm.

"I vote for taking cover!" Windwake barked.

Luna scowled, but nodded. They dashed along the winding road, down to a broad open meadow away from the tallest trees, and hopefully away from things that might attract lightning. Choosing a natural low spot in the knee-high grass, Moonstruck reared up on her hind legs, spun in a complete circle to make sure they were alone in the meadow, then used her telekenisis to hastily unpack her tent and set it up. Luna gave her a sharp look, but darted inside as lightning struck a tree in the near distance.

Once they were all in the tent; Moonstruck closed the front flap, then sat down. They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the storm, and watching water drip from their forelocks.

"Guess we should have - "

"Don't." Luna warned, throwing her a sharp look.

"What?" Moonstruck scowled. "It's only sensible to wait out a violent storm."

"I wouldn't have a problem with it, if we weren't behind schedule two days." Luna said curtly. "I am aware that you are not in peak physical condition, but you're slowing us down more than anticipated."

Moonstruck pulled her ears back as Windwake glanced back and forth between the two in trepidation. She'd been wondering when this would happen.

"I'm flying as fast as I can." She said as calmly as she could.

"I know." Luna growled, shifting her gaze to the side and letting out an irate sigh. "Perhaps we should have delayed our departure from Canterlot so that you could better prepare yourself for the journey."

"Probably would have been better if I didn't go at all." Moonstruck muttered under her breath.

---

The storm finally tapered off shortly before sunset, but the three of them were too tired to attempt to fly any further that day. Morning brought cheery sunshine and scattered clouds, allowing them to hurry on their way. Moonstruck put more effort into keeping up with the others, but she was no better at it than the day before. In fact, she was worse - a chilly night and already sore muscles were sapping her strength.

Two more days of flying took them past Manehattan (the glow of which Moonstruck could see on the early evening horizon), and up along the eastern coast, past the eastern spar of the Crystal Mountains, and across the Trottingham Straight. From there they skirted the southern edge of the BugBear Mountains, then strayed into griffon territory for a day and a half as they passed through a great rift valley in the mountains that ran from the frozen north clear down past Griffonstone. The landscape below turned from verdant forest, to chaparral until finally empty, gently rolling plains of lush green grass. They stopped for the night a days flight from Stirrup Springs and quickly set up camp as an entirely unscheduled storm rolled in from the Broken Mountains to the north.

"I hadn't expected the magical influence to reach this far." Luna mused as they ate their dinner beneath a tarp they'd stretched between the tents. The wind was not so strong to blow the tarp away, but it was raining steadily. "The weather here is entirely unpredictable."

"Does Stirrup Springs have weather ponies?" Windwake asked.

"Only a pair of pegasus to keep the worst of the storms from hitting the town itself, and occasionally to whip up small rain clouds for their crops." Luna shook her head. "There is not much they can do, I am afraid."

"So... does that mean there's less magic here, or more?" Moonstruck asked.

Luna blinked a few times then eyed her curiously. "I don't understand the question."

"Well..." Moonstruck sat up a little straighter. "I was thinking about the places that seem to, well, take care of themselves. Like the Everfree Forest near Ponyville. It doesn't NEED ponies to manage it, everything happens on its own. So that would indicate that there's either an excess of magic there, or an absence of it." She waved a hoof around vaguely.

"Most animals can get along without magic, or any help from ponies, so one would assume that there are entire ecosystems that can function without it."

Luna's expression was unreadable. "Magic works normally in the Everfree Forest. In fact, there are many magical creatures found only in those woods."

"Hmm."

"We do not know how it functions on its own." Luna added. "Admittedly few have studied the phenomenon."

"Guess I'll get to find out." Moonstruck muttered, staring past Lunas shoulder to the mountains towering in the near distance. She knew they were over a days flight away, but they seemed incredibly close, and imposing; a nearly solid wall of rock jutting thousands of feet above the gently rolling steppes. She knew it probably wasn't solid at all, that it was probably just a trick of the light, but it looked more like a wall than a range of mountains.

"I wonder if magic works properly there."

"This we do not know. Conditions are harsh both physically and thaumically in the mountains." Luna said, then took a sip of tea. "Pegasus ponies cannot navigate the air currents at any altitude; earth ponies cannot climb the mountains for there are no passes that they can access, and unicorn ponies magic is unreliable. Additionally everyone is sent in circles, as if the mountains themselves are constantly changing."

She paused again, wrinkling her nose. "Curiously, many a pony has gotten lost entering the mountains, but upon deciding to turn back, they are able to return to the plains with little difficulty."

"Wait, if it's that difficult, why are you even trying to get in? And why send Moonstruck, of all ponies?" Windwake asked, scowling.

"I believe that is where you're supposed to say 'no offense'." Moonstruck said daintily into her tea cup.

"Face it Mooney, you're not the hardcore outdoorsy type." Windwake gestured to the distant mountains, "this sounds like a job for a team of survivalists."

"Most of what we know is because such specialists have done their best to cross the mountains." Luna said. "And we are sending Princess Moonstruck because, as an alicorn, she has more options to her than a pegasus, unicorn or earth pony alone. Additionally..." she worked her jaw around a little, "my sister feels she is sufficiently clever to come up with novel and effective solutions to the many problems she will face."

Windwake let out a contemplative grunt as Moonstruck absorbed all of that. Luna didn't seem convinced, but Celestia felt she was sufficiently clever?

"I suppose she is that." Windwake agreed before Moonstruck could say anything. "If there's a way to do something with little to no effort, Mooney will figure it out."

It was Lunas turn to grunt contemplatively, as Moonstruck screwed her face up into a scowl.

"I suppose that is rather clever," Luna agreed. "Work smarter, not harder. That my serve her well in the mountains, provided she can remain motivated."

"Yep."

"I'm not sure if I should be offended or not by all of this." Moonstruck muttered.

Windwake simply reached over with a wing and patted her on the top of the head.