"Lance… are you sure about this?" Anna asked, turning to regard Lance with a frown on her face.

Lance's face hardened. NoLegs, Angel, and Owlowiscious, perhaps sensing unease, clambered off his back and made their way to Fluttershy. "About getting over there? Yes. What's broken the bridges? No," he admitted as another warm draft rose up from the gloom. "I don't know what has decided to make the caves here its home, and frankly if it's big enough to make the ice melt, then I'd rather not piss it off." His wings drooped slightly as he turned back to the remnants of the bridge that lay at his hooves, his brow slanting and his gaze turning to one of pity at the poor thing.

"For all I know, the source of the warm drafts could have burnt the bridges," he added as an aside upon looking up again.

Anna's frown deepened at that. She heard the sound of somepony further back stomping the ground before raising on their back legs. This was followed by Applejack indignantly shouting in a voice loud enough to echo everywhere at once, "What's with this dang holdup? Don't tell me we gotta find another path to Greenwood!"

Another warm draft blew in from the chasm once Applejack's voice ceased echoing seconds later, followed by a deep growl that resonated through the very walls of the caverns. Silence settled as soon as the growling died, broken only by sound of Rainbow's still-beating wings. Anna and Lance exchanged looks, frowns deepening some more as they took mere seconds to process what the presence of that growl meant.

"... was that a dragon?" Anna murmured in a low whisper.

For a few seconds, Lance did not move a muscle. Then his eyes gravitated up, catching sight of the melting icicles as yet another warm draft blew in from the chasm. His gaze returned to Anna once the zephyr passed, and he sighed. "That's the only thing large enough to do this," he murmured, lifting a hoof to gesture to the remnants of the bridge that lay mere inches from them. "And fit down there," he added, his hoof shifting to gesticulate at the chasm beyond.

Anna tensed. If a dragon had decided to turn this place into its residence… "... what do we do?" she asked.

"If it is a dragon, we try not to wake it up. If it isn't, and it wakes up anyway…" Lance turned his gaze to the gloom once more. He didn't speak for another few seconds as he stood there, contemplating his options. Then, his wings flapped and pushed a slight gust into the gloom, though only once. The beat he produced, though, echoed for a few seconds before it gave way to silence.

Whatever Lance suspected was slumbering in the chasm only replied with another warm draft of air. No growling or rumbling came with the breeze—just that draft, and nothing more. Lance flapped again, this time with a little more force. Another draft answered him. At this, he turned to the still-hovering Rainbow, who returned the look with both brows raised high. "Rainbow… could you get Flash Sentry, Armin, and Alexander please?" Lance asked, making sure to keep his voice at a low tone, mostly to keep whatever was asleep from waking up.

Rainbow frowned, but turned around before spotting Flash and waving him over with a hoof. Flash tilted his head, but with a magical nudge on the withers from Shining, flared his wings and flew over. Then she waved Armin and Alexander over, garnering small frowns before they complied.

Lance nodded at their arrival, and motioned with his still-spread wings for Anna, Matt, and Natalie to back up at least a few paces to let the airborne quartet land. When they did, they made everyone else back up as well, though now several whinnies of protest and a few squawks of indignance came as a result.

To quell the small-scale riot before it could even begin, Anna embraced several heads in her magic, with Matt and Natalie focusing on the ones she didn't grab. The embrace lasted for a few seconds, just long enough for a triple-telepathic utterance of "Keep it down, will you?! There might be a sleeping dragon in the chasm!" to enter everyone's minds and stop the dissent then and there.

Though that didn't stop Spike from raising a claw and interjecting, "Uh, is it… a big dragon?"

Anna shrugged and lifted a hoof to gesture to the melting icicles as another draft blew in from the dark depths. "If it's big enough to do this, then we really don't want to be noticed by it," she mouthed in reply. With that, she turned to Lance as Rainbow and Flash landed on either side of him, watching as all three pegasi huddled up with Armin and Alexander as they followed suit. They began whispering amongst themselves, and fervently at that. Her ears perked, and she started listening in on the murmurings.

"So… we carry…"

"Yeah, but we need to…"

"I'm not sure m'lord would approve of this…"

"And you said yesterday that…"

"Change in plans. Drastic times…"

"What about Maria? She can't…"

"Well, shit…"

"What do we do about Harry? He's not…"

Anna shrugged again and turned to the rest of the group, letting Lance mutter with his huddlemates and inwardly hoping they could work something out. She heard somepony audibly facehoof, but didn't know who it was until the owner of the sound began speaking, keeping his voice just loud enough to be heard. "Why didn't we bring chariots?" Blueblood scoffed.

Shining snarked in reply, "How would we have fit chariots in the airship?"

"We could've dismantled them first," Blueblood pointed out, turning to glare at Shining.

"But that would've been a safety hazard," Shining retorted, his voice firm, but his tone low. "And it would've taken too much time to even figure out how to put them back together, had we gone through with it. Last I checked, we didn't bring anypony who could reconstruct the blasted things. And I don't know if Twilight could convert them to thaumic energy for transport, let alone how many, so I decided I wouldn't take that chance. They're kinda hefty, you know."

Blueblood seethed and his ears flattened against his head, but he didn't utter anything else in response. He instead settled his gaze on Lance specifically, inwardly wondering what was taking him so long to break away from his huddle formation and do something. He opened his mouth to make a proclamation, only to be stopped when Anna, Matt, and Natalie looked at him in unison and shook their heads as if to say "Hold up."

Blueblood closed his mouth and sighed. His eyes fell on Maria as she waded her way over to the ongoing huddle session, which also seemed to catch Anna's immediate attention. Her gaze alone stopped the filly before she could even get halfway there. Maria returned the look with a sullen frown. "I wanna get to Greenwood already," she complained.

Anna wilted a little and her shoulders sagged, but she did not avert her gaze in the slightest. "Just wait. Lance's working on it," she stated, her voice firm and yet faltering a little. "We'll get to Greenwood soon."

Maria raised a talon and stomped it like she would one of her back hooves, and her frown twisted into a grimace. "No we won't, if daddy doesn't do something now," she hissed, flaring her wings and puffing her chest for all it was worth, which caused her feathers to stick out that much more.

Anna grimaced, ears flattening against her head again. Quickly seeing that Maria wasn't buying it, she sighed and replied with an air of exasperation, "Could you give him a few more minutes, please? I'm sure he'll figure out something soon."

Maria, with the air of someone whose patience was beginning to wear, narrowed her eyes. "Why not now?" she griped, stomping her talon again and flapping her wings indignantly.

Anna's knees began to shake. She looked to Matt and Natalie, but they shook their heads at her and mouthed "She's your foal. Not our jurisdiction," in unison. "Just put your hoof down. Be firm, but gentle."

Anna balked at that. 'Firm, but gentle?' That was an oxymoron if she'd ever seen one roll off the tongues of her colleagues. She took a deep breath and turned to Maria again, only to blanch when she saw that the foal had decided enough was enough and began walking towards the ongoing huddle session again, this time with a noticeable stomp in her step.

Shining was watching the scene with interest, smiling a little when Anna began trotting after Maria without using her magic to stall her. He leaned over to whisper to Blueblood, "And so it begins."

"What begins?" Blueblood replied as Anna stopped Maria in her tracks by picking her up as soon as she was in reach, whilst also sitting on her haunches simultaneously.

"But I wanna go now!" Maria yelped, starting to flail in Anna's grasp.

Anna, who had turned her head away to avoid getting her eyes poked out by flailing talons, groaned in annoyance. "If you keep this up, you're gonna be grounded again before you even know it," she groused. "And I won't be able to help you get out of it if you do."

"I can't fly anyway, so being grounded wouldn't do shit!" Maria cried, in turn causing the huddle formation to finally break up and turn to her in unison.

Lance exchanged a look with Anna and sighed in exasperation. He marched over, planted a front hoof on the top of Maria's head, and tilted her head before he looked her in the eye without bending a second knee so much as an inch. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and that caused her to cease her flailing. "Stop whining this instant." His voice was firm and brokered no argument. Only when she nodded did he drop his hoof.

Anna put Maria down and sighed. "And don't let me catch you swearing like that again. Alright?" Lance continued, garnering another nod from Maria. He looked at Anna and leaned over to whisper, "Next time she behaves like that, just do what I did. Alright?"

Anna nodded, and smiled at Lance with a hopeful glint in her eyes when he pulled away. "I take it you've got… the bridge issue squared away?" she asked.

Lance nodded back and trotted around Anna to look at everyone else, easing his glare a little. He took a deep breath before speaking in his no-nonsense tone, "I have a suggestion that should get everyone across the chasm if we can cooperate and pull it off. However, we'll have to do this in a roundabout way: self-levitators up front, please." Twilight, NoLegs, and Shining all stepped forward.

Lance looked to Blueblood, who merely shook his head and mouthed "I can't self-levitate." Then his gaze settled on Lazarus, who blinked before likewise trotting forward. In doing so, only two lights were left within the group, and the owners of those lights donned small frowns. Once the gaze of crimson turned to Rarity, she balked and flinched before stepping up. At this, Lance smacked his face with a wing, grumbling into his oversized feathers unintelligibly.

As soon as wing parted from face, Lance sighed again. "Well, this is a bit of a conundrum…" he muttered, now seeing an issue of sorts: the disproportionate number of fliers and self-levitators in comparison to those who could do neither or were presently handicapped. He turned to Twilight and asked, "How many times can you teleport before your horn gets red-hot?"

Twilight pursed her lips for a few seconds. "I'd say… by myself, up to three dozen times if I have a direct line of sight," she answered. She turned to the chasm of gloom that was still obstructing at least half the group. "Of course… there's no light ahead…" She trailed off, seeing no need to finish.

Lance nodded and whirled around to face Anna. "Help Twilight and NoLegs get everyone who can't fly or teleport to the other side, please. Consider this your teleportation practice," he said. Anna turned back and nodded before trotting up to Twilight. Then Lance turned to Natalie and trotted right back up to the chasm's edge, never once taking his eyes off of her until he'd stopped. "We'll gauge out an optimal route… you'll need to light a path before me."

"Lance…?" Natalie began in a low tone, only to balk when Lance took several steps back before then galloping forward. Everyone's pupils shrank when he jumped over the edge, wings spread as far as they could go. He plummeted sharply and went out of sight, but when he did the sound of flapping wings, flexing once-useless muscles frantically, filled in the void. It took several seconds for Lance to re-emerge into sight, all four legs kicking frantically at thin air as his wings struggled to simply balance him at the most basic of hovering maneuvers.

"Great hairy teats, this is awkward!" Lance exclaimed, though his voice went no higher than a standard utterance. A draft chose that moment to blow in from the chasm, only serving to lift him higher and make him flail that much more. "I feel like a bloody albatross fledgeling!"

"You're telling me!" Armin snarked, smiling at the sight of his own superior making an utter fool of himself. He watched as Lance tumbled back to the edge of the chasm and landed unsteadily, the feathers along his back and barrel puffing out the moment his hooves touched stone.

Lance shook himself, flapping his wings without taking off a second time. He turned to one of his feathered limbs to find red mana pulsing between the feathers. He took a deep breath and willed just a tiny bit, feeling something within him stop before seeing the mana cease pulsing. "Well, at least that was some progress," he remarked. Releasing his mental hold, he saw the mana pulsing anew and smiled.

With his confidence bolstered and an awkward grace more fitting of a dodo bird, Lance took off again, this time without flailing his hooves in every conceivable direction in the process. It made a noticeable difference; his stance, while still on the warbly side, was more stable. Natalie sighed and embraced herself in her magic before levitating next to him, eyeing her superior with a critical gaze as he continued his second attempt at a basic hover. "Wings hurt?" she asked.

Lance shook his head. "Not even sore yet," he replied. "Why?"

Natalie gave a small smile. "Alright then." Her light flared brighter, and into the darkness she began to float. Lance clumsily followed after her, squinting his eyes a little to minimize retina damage. As another draft blew from below, Lance tilted dangerously to one side with a surprised squawk of all things leaving his mouth when said draft managed to brush up against every part of his body at once. Hastily reorienting himself and mentally seizing his legs before they could start flailing again, he took some deep breaths and continued to press onward.

Natalie flipped so she floated backwards, looking at Lance with a smug grin forming on her face as she crossed her rear legs and lifted her front hooves to hold her head up. "And you said I couldn't fly for shit?" Lance growled, an eye twitching the moment he saw that smug smile.

"Certainly doing worse than before you were bound," Natalie chirped, seemingly content to drift lazily ahead. "I mean, you could've ran out of mana and plummeted by now," she unhelpfully added with a dismissive flick of her tail. "And that's just the best-case scenario."

That got Lance's eye to cease twitching. As much as he'd have hated to admit it, Natalie had a point. But that didn't mean she could make such a comment and expect it to come true—even she had her limits, after all. "Don't yak like you can predict the bloody future, you sparkling meteor wannabe," he snarked.

Natalie merely rolled her eyes and flicked her tail dismissively again, continuing to float backwards as though she were lounging on a levitating couch. This particular stance, though, only got her so far—roughly forty yards, in fact, before a part of the back of her head that wasn't covered by her hooves met with stone. Natalie yelped as hard, chilled rock scraped against her scalp, though it didn't scrape hard enough to draw blood. She twisted around and backed up from the obstruction for a bit, tilting her head when she saw that the portion of stone to her immediate right caved inward.

She floated over to the caved-in part, only to smile as she found another lengthy stone hallway, albeit one lined with ice cascading across the ceiling and parts of the floor. Lance, for all of his clumsiness, managed to meander over and landed rather gracefully onto the first five feet of the next hallway without issue.

Only to then slip and faceplant when he set one hoof forward on an ice patch. Natalie couldn't help but snicker at that even as she came in to land daintily next to him, prior to feebly masking her bout of chuckles with a weak cough when Lance turned to glare at her. Lance then smiled at her, though, before getting up and brushing his legs with his wings. He turned and waved at the lights on the other side of the chasm, noting he could barely see them—past several star-shaped lanterns that were now dangling from various icicles and dribbling with golden dust.

Huh. How'd that escape his notice? He turned to Natalie, who shrugged and gesticulated to her horn. "Couldn't have one Lucky Star spell go back and forth, could I?" she asked, turning to the several dangling stars and smiling proudly. "Besides, this is less taxing."

"Whatever you say," Lance stated, turning to the other side of the chasm again. He blinked when… no less than three lights began drifting closer, easily making out a gold, a green, and a blue-turning-red-and-back in the gloom. He wasn't sure if their owners had perhaps seen him wave with the distance at which both halves of the party effectively stood, though he'd decided to save that question for later.

It took a little under ten minutes for Matt, Anna, and Lazarus to reach the two, though Lance raised both his brows when he saw they didn't come alone. Harry and Fenrir, both of whom were curled up into balls with all three auras lugging them along, and one with his ears pinned against his head and tail tucked between the legs, floated over just behind them. Anna also had Maria settled onto her back. With a thump the whole group landed on the second stone platform, and Lance took a moment to look at Fenrir in his rather widening eyes. "Don't like being levitated?" he guessed.

Fenrir fervently shook his head. "I-I loathe it entirely," he whimpered in reply, his voice a good octave higher than it normally was. He lifted a paw and gestured to Matt with it. "I-I'm not s-sure how he i-is perfectly c-content with it!"

"If he doesn't like the thought of flying against his will, then I'd wager he's not fond of teleportation, either…" Anna murmured, using her magic to lift Maria off of her back before settling her down onto the stone. She turned to the star-lanterns that were still dangling, noticing they were starting to dim. "I'd say give him a few while we lug everybody else here before setting off again." With that, she promptly vanished in a flash of light and reappeared on the other side of the chasm.

"Why didn't you freak out on the airship, then?" Matt asked, turning to Fenrir with an incredulous brow raised.

"I-it was enclosed! It seemed m-more like a cavern than an airborne v-vessel!" Fenrir yelped in reply, his voice loud enough to echo for several seconds on end.

"I'm going to go ahead and blame 'instinct' on that one," Lance groused, turning to Maria with a slight frown on his face. He opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it when another draft, this one much colder than the other drafts, blew in from the chasm. He turned to the chasm, feathers along his back and chest puffing out some more when another growl came from the darkness.

A growl that was, against all logic… oddly hollow, yet deep enough to still cause the caverns to tremble. Lance's brow furrowed. He spread his wings and started to frantically wave them, beckoning everyone else who was still on the other side to come to his side at once. But before anyone could teleport with Anna and Twilight's assistance, something rose from the blackness with another guttural rumble.

At first, it was obscured by shadow, before some kind of deep red energy began to gather around a jagged silhouette that was dribbling with a sickly greenish-black liquid. The red energy crackled with what looked like black lightning, and it tilted up towards the very stars that Natalie had set over the cavern's chasm.

Before the whatever-it-was could unleash its energy, though, the stars immediately homed in on it and struck it squarely where the red and black hues had been gathering. The stars crashed into the energy and promptly shattered, coating the creature in a fine golden dust that glimmered in the lights still cast on the sides of the chasm whilst also dispelling the red and black energy entirely. The dust highlighted sickly red scales, almost the color of blood, that contrasted sharply with several nasty and blackening wounds which oozed greenish blood that ran along the length of a serpentine neck.

A reptilian head, one bearing wounds severe enough to leave bits of flesh hanging from a yellowed skull, roared deeply. As the sound issued from its throat, it revealed jagged and cavity-riddled teeth that dribbled with the greenish-black substance. It swiveled its head, further revealing broken horns and black canvases where eyes should have been, housing pinprick golden orbs that flickered ominously.

"... a lich-wyrm, just great," Lance hissed right as the creature turned to him, narrowing its eyes ever so slightly. "Not a dragon, but close enough."

Lazarus summoned his spear without hesitation. He waved it in front of Lance before he could do so much as flap his wings. "Wait…"

"Huh?" Lance balked, turning to Lazarus with a brow raised.

"Its face is peeling from its skull," Lazarus noted, his utterance causing the lich-wyrm to turn its beady orbs onto him. He stared back, peering intently at the few yellowed bits of bone he could see. "This one doesn't have much time left."

The lich-wyrm huffed and turned to Lance again. "You…" it spoke in a hollow baritone, an air of contempt in its sickly voice. "Come to mock me?"

Lance shook his head. "No. Just trying to get to Greenwood Village," he replied. "Half of my group is behind you."

"I see... why do you have a bear?" the lich-wyrm asked, turning pointedly towards Harry, who flinched under its gaze.

"He's… a pet of a friend," Lance replied, his wings twitching as he spoke. "Said friend is behind you too."

For a few seconds, the lich-wyrm was silent, seemingly contemplating what it had just heard. "If you lie, then I will not be… so kind much longer." The lich-wyrm twisted to face Twilight's side of the chasm, its gaze causing several to balk. It regarded them for a moment before its orbs settled onto someone—who exactly, Lance couldn't tell. "Who owns the… bear?"

"I-I do… he's my friend," Fluttershy answered.

"Intriguing… and why would you go… to Greenwood? Do you… have a death wish?" it asked.

"We're not going to Greenwood; I'd much rather go around it if I could," Anna answered, her voice shaky and shrill.

The lich-wyrm shifted a muscle of some sort, and it would have been a silent motion if not for the awful sound of tendon and sinew tearing loudly enough to briefly echo. "I would stay… well away," it warned. "But it won't be… my fault if you enter Greenwood anyway. Leave… before my mercy wanes. Make haste… you would do well to stay out of… the villagers' path." With that, it dipped back down into the chasm with another guttural growl leaving its decaying throat, before one final and cavern-shaking thud resonated throughout the stone with the force of a small earthquake that made everyone briefly stagger.

Nobody spoke until after the tremors ceased and everyone either flew, teleported, or had to be manually carried over the chasm, the process of which took several minutes to execute. Once everyone was safely over onto Lance's side, Spike whispered with a deep frown etched onto both snout and brow, "I did not know that dragons could become wraiths."

"That was a wyrm," Natalie corrected, her voice also kept to a whisper. "Let's get going before he changes his mind and eats us." With that, she began trotting into the hallway beyond, being meticulously mindful of frozen patches of stone as she went. Hesitantly, everyone else followed, with another warm draft trailing behind them as they trotted on, and that only made them trot faster. Natalie dispelled her own light, and even started dragging her hooves, almost as if silently asking the others to catch up to her despite the fact that she was mere feet from them as she walked.

Silence held as the hallway kept stretching on and on after that, spanning for several yards and minutes on end, the latter of which were all going uncounted thanks to a lack of sunlight with which to keep track of time. Only the scraping of claws and the clip-clop of hooves filled in the otherwise-silent void. The caverns continued to grow colder and colder, and the ice seemed to thicken considerably, almost to the point where it could bear solid reflections of the passing group.

Fluttershy cantered over to Twilight, frowning deeply. "A… wyrm… that's…" she trailed off, a look of wide-eyed and abject horror settling firmly onto her face.

Spike reached over and patted Fluttershy on the withers with a claw. "What worries me is that even he told us not to go to Greenwood…" he muttered. "Had he seen something we didn't?"

Fluttershy pursed her lips and fluffed her wings. Her gaze flitted to Anna, who was doing less trotting and more hoof-dragging even with Lance coming to start trotting at her side. The more she looked at the two, the more they seemed hesitant, and the more rigid their postures looked to become. "It's likely the wyrm did see something," Fluttershy finally answered, keeping her tone low on the off-chance that either Lance or Anna were doing more listening in their reluctance. "But I don't know what…"

Spike spent another forty yards or so contemplating what Fluttershy relayed, staring at her the whole time before he finally shrugged and turned ahead, just in time to see Natalie trotting onto something rather rickety. He heard a noisy creak as she went on, with whatever she was plodding along on protesting under each step she took. She halted before she could stray much farther, whereupon the sound of snapping wood reached everyone's ears. Natalie jumped back, looked down, and shook her head.

"This bridge won't hold much longer. We gotta fly and teleport again," Natalie reported before trotting back to the group with hasty steps. "I really hope the bridge-builder's been informed…"

"I think the bridges is the least of our worries, and of whoever built the damn things to begin with," Sarah piped up in a sibilant hiss, frowning so deeply she seemed to be scowling.