The changelings of Delta Unit were scouting out a clearing in which their rather large ship—comparable to even the likes of the Scylla—had landed, with Rhinoc leading the entourage. Horns flashed with flickering lights, scanning the barren trees for even the slightest signs of movement. For several minutes, the only thing that was moving were the changelings themselves.

Rhinoc looked at the trees, frowning at the lack of leaves within the branches. His frown deepened, almost to a scowl, when he saw nothing darting across the branches either. He turned to another changeling who didn't have a trenchcoat, but did possess a simple army helmet. "What's the status regarding the surrounding Ashwood Forest?" he asked.

The helmeted changeling stiffened, struggling to keep his face from even twitching slightly. But alas, his ears fell back, and he stammered out, "There's… a l-line of torches, s-sir."

Rhinoc raised a brow. "Torches?"

The helmeted changeling nodded frantically. "Y-yes sir. It d-diverges a f-few feet after the c-crystal caverns," he reported.

Rhinoc eased his frown. "Better than nothing, I suppose," he muttered as the faint sounds of several sets of hooves filled the clearing, followed closely by a constant scratching noise. "Secure the immediate area. I think we have company."

The helmeted changeling nodded, and with his fellows started to encircle the clearing. Once every inch of the makeshift circle had a changeling on it looking out into the woods with their eyes and ears peeled, the hooves and scratching only got louder. Everyling tensed, and all magically summoned forth an array of weapons similar in shape and size to the Accelerator, with some sporting extra clock hands and others missing a hoofgrip. The lightshow, brief though it was, had an instantaneous effect in that it caused the hoofsteps to become more frantic. Soon enough the ground began to shake slightly.

Rhinoc snorted. "Joy, we have a stampede on our hooves," he hissed. "If it's Greenwood's villagers, I swear I'll—"

He stopped when Lance burst into the clearing from the side of the vessel with his wings fanned out, legs splayed out in a pouncing stance the moment he stopped, and eyes narrowed to slits. "Hold your fire, Godcat-dammit!" he barked, causing the changelings to back up with surprised hisses and weapons vanishing in several lights. Rhinoc himself recoiled from the sheer volume of the cry, ears falling back.

"Sir, are you…" Rhinoc stopped, noticing the flared wings. His voice died in his throat and his jaw dropped, and he barely registered Lance relaxing and straightening his posture.

Cassida waved a twisted hoof. "H-he's fine," she replied.

Lance folded his wings and looked at Rhinoc, easing his glare somewhat. "Could we… talk inside the ship?" he asked slowly as the rest of his group caught up. "And speaking of ships, I'm glad you brought the largest one over."

Rhinoc nodded and turned to one of the changelings closest to Lance, this one with a brown carapace and ribs. "Lower the gangplank and set up the beds in the guest rooms," he ordered.

The brown-ribbed changeling Rhinoc ordered donned a frown. "Should I prep up the master bedrooms?" he asked.

Rhinoc nodded. "That too."

The changeling who was ordered nodded again and promptly flared his wings before taking off towards the ship's deck. Lance turned to the changeling as he flew and called out, "And medical supplies, please! Cassida crashed again!" Once the airborne soldier took the time to pause and nod, Lance turned back to Rhinoc and sighed, his stomach rumbling again from exertion.

Maria waddled up to Lance's side, reared up, and tugged at one of his wing feathers with a talon to get his attention. When he turned to her with a brow raised, she asked, "What's inside the big ship?"

Lance sighed and draped Maria with the wing whose feather she'd tugged at. "I think it'll be better to give you a tour. It's nothing like the Scylla," he stated. "And no, we won't use this one to head back to Mythos, either."

Maria frowned, and opened her mouth to say something else when a thud briefly shook the ground. She turned to the ship to find a lowered gangplank, and the changeling who'd flown to the deck trotting out back to the group. "Bedrooms, medical supplies, and the… the thing we found at Frostbite's general area are prepped, sir," he reported.

Lance nodded to the brown-ribbed changeling. "Excellent." He folded his wing and trotted to the gangplank, and his entourage followed him, with at least a few muttering either complaints or wondering how the beds they were going to spend the night in were bound to turn out. Their complains and musings died when they entered the vessel.

The inside of the ship sported a few rooms joined by no more than four windowless halls, all ending in platform lifts going both up and down rather than ladders. The lifts were of a simple circular pattern and walling with a sliding door, though it was only large enough to house about a half-dozen ponies at any one time. To one side a panel laden with buttons stood, housing simple up and down keys, with another outside the lift matching it.

To the immediate right and left were simple lounges sporting bolted-down couches, chairs, tables, and a few ottomans here and there with bookshelves and small dressers interspersed throughout. The ceilings were adorned with oil lanterns and chandeliers, some of the arms housing bioluminescent goo in place of candles for a bit of variety. The floor was carpeted, but the carpet itself was a simple homely beige without any discernable patterns apart from a few scuff marks, and the walls were painted a slightly darker hue. There was also a gurney present, though it wasn't bolted down and rather stood in a leftmost hall with two changelings sporting nurse hats attending to it.

Lance trotted to the gurney and helped Cassida onto it. Alexander came over as well and nodded to the nurses, who mutely nodded back before all three filed to the nearest lift. He then trotted to the rest of the group and sighed, seeing tired faces with bloodshot eyes staring back at him expectantly. He spread his right wing and gestured up with it. "Bedrooms are a floor up, close to the deck." His wing shifted down. "Engines are that way." His left wing opened and pointed up. "Kitchens and dining room is over there, and the medical bay is downstairs. Knock yourselves out."

He closed his wings and trotted to a hall down on the right, though he paused before the lift. One by one, the group moved to join him. "Um… do the rooms have bathrooms?" Fluttershy asked.

Lance nodded without looking at her. "Yes, and the bathrooms have supplies," he answered before trotting on the lift. Matt, Natalie, Maria, and Anna joined him before he pushed the up key with a hoof. The lift shook, closed off the opening and started to go up mere seconds after the button was pressed.

It took a few minutes for the lift to return after that, whereupon Blueblood, Shining, and Flash Sentry boarded onto it. "They have sparsely decorated this ship thus far…" Blueblood muttered as Zecora and Fenrir hopped on.

"Perhaps they have made the bedrooms lavish in exchange for the basic boarding dock?" Fenrir suggested once Owlowiscious flew in and proceeded to perch on his head. The door slid shut once Blueblood pressed the up key, and he looked at the owl cross-eyed.

"Perhaps, though I was never one for the whole 'utility over form' mindset," Blueblood sighed. The platform began to rise with a tremble, and he looked down to find a rather ornate and intricate pattern set onto it. From what he could see of it, it boasted elegant swirls of gold touched up with slivers of green resembling leaves. Some parts were brass-colored instead, giving the platform an oddly wooden feel to it that reminded him a little of Canterlot.

"Understandable," Flash piped up, looking towards the roof of the platform to find a similar pattern seemingly woven into its frame. Whether it was carved, smelted, or painted on, he wasn't certain of. "Maybe this was a spare airship that nobody knew what to do with, so they went hogwild."

The platform shook, stopped before another hall, and opened its door. Everyone disembarked and the lift dropped back down as soon as they all got off, finding several doors lining both sides of the hall, each one a simple wood-grain and spaced about a meter apart. The floor between them was carpeted, though the walls were ornately decorated by a subtle purple hue that boasted countless colors and shades similar to that in a galaxy of stars. The ceiling and carpet were decorated likewise.

Each door also had been marked by a simple bronze plaque, all but four of them reading 'guest room.' One set of two doors that did not have 'guest room' instead read 'master bedroom,' further set apart by four square-shaped marks carved into the wood above, one set of which boasted four cutie marks in their frames, and they were the doors farthest down the hall. The other two read 'soldier barracks' and were the second-farthest. Zecora trotted to one guest room on the left whose door was ajar and opened it, her jaw dropping at what was on the other side.

The room was very intricately decorated, more so than the lounges, sporting the same pattern on the walls as that in the hall. The carpet was lavishly patterned, red with golden edges and an array of sun and moon motifs set into the cloth, the ceiling painted similarly to match it. Instead of one lantern or several, a few standing lamps with thick wooden posts boasting more intricate patterns lit up the room, made primarily of mahogany with a few nice touches of oak for contrast.

There was a mirror-dresser to one side, its frame made up of mahogany and oak with some touches of silver. One corner of the room had come with more raised walls and an opaque door that housed a toilet, a sink, and a shower large enough for Celestia herself with room to spare, a few bookshelves that were repurposed for simple toiletries and soaps. A few cabinets, shelves housing actual books, and nightstands littered the room, crafted of birch touched up with gold that glittered in the light.

There were a few coffee tables and some chairs to go with it, both hewn of sweet-smelling pine with cushions on the latter and a few knick-knack drawers on the former. The centerpiece of the room was a massive, cherry-wood-born king-sized bed with quilts and thick pillows with yet more suns and stars on them, again large enough for Celestia to rest in comfortably. This was all nicely topped off by a single large window overlooking the whole room from behind the bed, and one with faintly visible latches and glowing runes at that.

Maria was also sitting on that bed, vibrating in a manner that suggested she didn't know whether or not to bounce on the thing. She looked at Zecora and grinned. "Daddy told me it was bedtime," she chirped. "This bed feels good."

Zecora smiled, mutely nodded, and closed the door. She turned to Blueblood, noticing he was wide-eyed with a jaw that had dropped and his muzzle affixed towards the room she'd left. "I think the Fantasians have not yet abandoned lavish comfort. But I do wonder why into this vessel they put in so much effort," she intoned. She turned to the room next to Maria's and trotted to it, opened the door, and cantered right in.

Blueblood let himself assume a small smile. "I wonder what soaps and washes they have in their repertoire… and if they could decorate the lounges with better tastes," he mumbled as he took a room on the right and waltzed in with a spring in his step. Before the door closed, Shining heard him add an enthusiastic, "By Tartarus, this feels like Canterlot's diplomatic quarters, and then some!"

Fenrir looked at Owlowiscious again. "Are you going to share a room with me… as indecent as that sounded?" he asked. At that, Owlowiscious nodded in assent, followed by hooting just once. Fenrir sighed and padded over to a room, opened it, and walked in. He left the door open, allowing Owlowiscious to fly back out and perch on the doorknob.

Flash moved to claim a room. "I wonder what the master bedrooms are like if Blueblood likes the guest chambers…" he muttered.

The lift came back up again and Armin, NoLegs, Harry, Angel, and Katie came up before stepping off. Shining turned to Armin and asked, "So… why's this ship decked out like a mansion? I've seen the other one, and it's a desert compared to this."

Armin flashed Shining a small smile. "In the event that diplomats from villages and such Lance actually liked would have lavish transport, but until now we never got to use the damn thing," he chirped. "And it seems the General was right to invest in it."

Harry tenderly set Katie on Shining's back before spotting Owlowiscious, who waved him over with a wing. Harry nodded and padded over with Angel and NoLegs behind him. "You make it sound like he was crazy to have such a thing even built," Shining pointed out, only causing Armin's grin to widen.

"Trust me, even Matt and Natz questioned it when they'd first heard of it. But none of us accounted for the barrier breaking and running into decent ponies after," Armin retorted, a hint of smug satisfaction in his tone. "I guess it just means the General likes you enough to do business with, so to speak."

Shining smiled in return. "Sounds a teensy bit biased," he chirped.

Armin rolled his eyes at that. "Trust me, if you'd seen half the village elders running around Fantasia that Lance gets the pleasure of meeting with, you'd be a bit biased too," he stated rather matter-of-factly, with 'pleasure' rolling off his tongue in a sardonic note. "And besides, you're getting all buddy-buddy with him, so I told the rest of Delta to just bring this thing."

Katie proceeded to pipe up, "Do I have to be in the medical ward, or do I get a bed?"

Armin shrugged. "Not up for me to decide." His horn glowed in a flickering, faltering aura and he picked Katie up with it before settling her on his back. "Alexander's gonna have to give you another preliminary."

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Rhinoc waited until everyone was in a guest room doing something before he even dared to bring in the rest of his troops back aboard the ship and close the gangplank once everyling had been gathered. "I'll check on the General. You guys watch the forest from the deck and make sure none of Greenwood's villagers come here. If they do, cocoon their asses," he ordered.

The other changelings nodded, stiffened their legs, and gave a salute all at once. "Sir yes sir," they replied in unison.

Rhinoc nodded and trotted to one of the lifts on the right before stepping aboard, pressing the up key, and waiting for it to transport him upstairs. It didn't take long for the lift to register that he was present before closing the door and going up. He pursed his lips, wondering what Lance was getting up to now that he had an actual bedroom or fifteen to use. Rhinoc sniggered as an image of Lance trying and failing to preen his own recently-restored wings formed in his mind.

Dear Godcat, that would be a sight worthy of bragging rights amongst his retinue. Rhinoc continued to snicker to himself even as the lift shook, stopped, and opened the door to let him canter to the hall of bedrooms. Rhinoc had to stop himself from outright prancing through the hall, instead marching in a sort of lockstep as though a few of his lesser-ranking changelings were doing much the same behind him. He could faintly hear excited muttering and soft snoring coming from some of the rooms as he trotted past them, and he relaxed a little.

At least the guests were keeping themselves entertained somehow or other, if the snorings and mutterings were anything to go by. Before he could reach the end of the hall, his ears twitched when he heard a dull, metallic clang come from up ahead. His smile faded and his brow arched sharply when he heard the sound.

He waited for a few seconds, but then silence settled. Rhinoc shrugged and kept going to the hall's end, figuring someone had dropped something and were either picking it up now, or leaving it for later. When he reached the master bedrooms, he turned first to the one on his left. No sound came from it, so he then turned right and leaned a little.

He heard Lance ask, "Anna, why the hell did you drop your chastity belt on the shower floor?"

Rhinoc's brow ascended to the top of his forehead. He heard Anna reply, "I'm going to take a shower, and I figured I could clean the belt too. If you want to join, then be my guest."

Rhinoc blinked, his eyes going round. What the hell did he just stumble upon? He cleared his throat, raised a hoof, and knocked on the door. "Who is it, and what do you want?" he heard Natalie call.

"Major Rhinoc, and I'd like to discuss the anomaly I found at Frostbite," Rhinoc replied, holding back a snort of amusement. He heard a click, and saw the doorknob embraced in a blue glow before it swung inward. The first thing of note was that the room wasn't all that different from the guest rooms, although it sported a much larger bed that could house two Celestias with no issue, on top of the shower being much larger. There were also weapon racks hanging from the walls, holding various blasters, bows, swords and staves.

The second thing of note was that, once the door was opened, he saw Lance standing in the toiletries' corner, looking at the shower stall wide-eyed and rather red in the face. To the other side, Matt and Natalie sat on opposite sides of a coffee table having a hoof-wrestling match, of which Matt won the moment Natalie had turned away. A tan-green form was blurred beyond the shower door, and the sound of running water filled the room, which left no doubt that Anna was inside.

Rhinoc trotted inside and closed the door behind him with a flick of magic. "Should I wait for a few minutes? You all look… a little busy," he asked uneasily.

"It's fine," Natalie replied before turning to Matt to find him smirking at her, as well as her hoof pinned to the table. She simply retracted her hoof and smirked back before standing up and trotting over to Rhinoc. "Just tell me and Matt what the anomaly is and we'll let Lance know whatever it is once he's done…"

She heard a door sliding open, hooves hitting tile, and then the door closing in that order. She turned to the toiletries' corner and asked, "You getting clean, Lance?"

"No, I'm taking a slime bath! What's it look like to you?!" Lance cried in exasperation.

"Alrighty then!" Natalie turned back to Rhinoc. "Yeah, you see what I mean?"

Rhinoc hastily nodded. "Just make sure they play nice," he mouthed before his horn glowed and he conjured several books, all neatly stacked together, in a flash of light. Then he conjured a massive bag of bits, which promptly fell to the floor and spilled. He turned to Matt and added, "I believe the bag belongs to one of you, so… and it was just sitting around in an igloo hut, so I figured 'why not take it?'"

Matt nodded with his horn glowing and made the bag, spilled bits and all, vanish in another flash of light. "Thanks," he chirped, lifting a hoof and gesticulating to the table he had yet to move from.

Rhinoc mutely nodded and levitated the stack of books over before plopping them on the table. "We'll let you know what we find," Matt added, prior to Rhinoc nodding again, saluting and exiting the room.

Silence held until the door opened and shut in swift order. Then Lance broke it by asking, "Is he gone yet?"

Natalie sniggered even as she replied, "Yes, Lance, Rhinoc's left the room and dropped off… books." She turned to the toiletries' corner, certain Lance was now more than beet-red in the face. "What are you doing in there? Can I join in?" she offered, garnering a surprised squawk from Lance and a guffaw from Anna.

"Natz, it's not like he's gonna till my fields or anything!" Anna snorted with a few giggles. "Especially with you and Matt not even, like, ten feet away from the stall!"

"Then why'd you take off the belt?" Matt chimed in, sniggering when Anna gave a startled squawk of her own.

"You two make it sound like I want to mount the barely-adult mare of the room!" Lance yelled in indignation.

"You did have a wet dream about her," Natalie countered, a large grin spreading on her muzzle. "And you did trot in despite the fact that she's in heat! I know that bitter smell when it hits my nose, Lance; don't you dare fucking lie to me!"

"Shut your cocksucking cakehole, you adoptive brother-diddler!" Lance shot back, his voice several octaves higher now.

Natalie sniggered, but said nothing more. She trotted back to Matt and sat on his side of the coffee table, taking a moment to let the growing giggle fit run its course, but not before casting a barrier over herself, the table, and Matt that kept her howling from reaching Lance's ears. It took a little under five minutes for her laughter to die down, and by then the barrier had crumpled of its own accord and her lungs burned slightly.

After that, she turned to a book as she regained her breath, pausing momentarily to rest her head on Matt's shoulder and listen for anything other than the sounds of rushing water and body scrubbing. Her ears perked when she heard an oddly muted and muffled grunt, followed by the sound of a bone popping. "Wings refusing to flex?" she asked.

"Nah, just popped a bone near one of my hocks," Lance replied. "And all I was trying to do was reach a scrubbing brush."

"Ah." Nodding in understanding, Natalie turned her attention back to the books. She picked up the topmost one in her magic and slid it off the stack before plopping it in front of herself and Matt. Her brow immediately furrowed when she saw strange runic characters on the cover. "A book… in ancient alicorn," she muttered.

Matt sighed and studied the book's title, but had his attention torn away from it to the shower when Anna gave a surprised yelp. "You put the soap up there, didn't you?!" she cried, which was followed immediately by a snicker from Lance.

"Hey, I was just helping you wash a rear hock," Lance chirped in reply. "It slipped out of my hoof."

"But soap doesn't go up my friggin' tailbone! That's for shampoo!" Anna protested. "You want me to ram my horn up your ass?!"

Matt rolled his eyes. "Play nice, you two," he called before turning back to the book. He heard Lance and Anna mutter for him to shut the hell up already, but he paid it no heed. As long as neither got violent, he figured he could let them sort out that issue however they deemed fit. His eyes scanned the cover of the book, and they narrowed a bit. "How the utter fuck did this get into Frostbite Haven?" he asked, which caused Natalie to turn to him.

"What's it say?" she asked, frowning.

Matt's horn glowed, the aura gold at first, before it embraced the book and turned blood red with a violent crackle that caused the two to jump back. The glow was hastily dispelled, though not prior to it giving an unsavory hiss like a tea kettle. "Well then, damn thing's enchanted…" he hissed. Slowly, carefully, he leaned back forward, giving the book the gimlet eye as he continued to scan the cover. "Good thing I learned how to read this shit…" he muttered.

His horn glowed again, and tenderly he flipped the cover open, finding something that made him scowl. There, right off the bat, the very first page boasted Lazarus's cutie mark. Hastily, Matt flipped several pages, finding several runic scrawlings and notes. The notes ended when his cutie mark cropped up about twenty pages in, so he skipped and then came across Natalie's mark. The book slammed closed, and another was levitated and thunked atop of it.

The second book was crudely flung open, showing more cutie marks Matt wasn't familiar with, all detailed in that same runic writing and overlaid with bright red X's. A third and fourth book swiftly followed suit, before they too were closed and Matt proceeded to slam his face into the coffee table. Natalie, who'd looked on throughout the whole procedure with eyes widening the entire time, blanched considerably. "N-no… it couldn't have been…" she stammered weakly.

Matt rose up and turned to her with a scowl, but he eased the expression when he saw the distress painted all over Natalie's face. "It… was. Those fuckers had gotten the records on…" His voice dropped to a low, ominous hiss as he finished, "How did the gryphs of Frostbite get their claws on the whole Royale Catastrophe catalogs…?" His pupils shrank as he recalled how they acted once the barrier broke. "Is that why they..."

Natalie gulped and rested her head on Matt's shoulder again. He sighed when he wrapped a foreleg around her in response. "But now the whole mess… on that is in our hooves now. No wonder Delta Unit rushed here," she muttered ruefully. She slumped a little. "Even though it's been wiped off the face of Fantasia, I never thought it would have had records kept…"

They heard a door sliding open, and running water shutting off. Anna and Lance trotted out of the small bathroom with towels slung over their backs and right to Matt and Natalie, frowning when they saw the distress that lingered on their faces. "What's wrong?" Lance asked, his own mouth forming a thin, tight line.

"The bastards at Frostbite got records of friggin'..." Matt paused long enough to lift his free hoof and gesture to the books with it. "A hellhole that got wiped off Fantasia, and it's written in ancient alicorn," he hissed.

Lance's eyes widened. "Records?"

Anna's pupils shrank. "In ancient alicorn?"

Both Matt and Natalie nodded dourly. "We were hoping to put the Royale Catastrophe behind us," Natalie groused, eyes narrowing. "It seems we still have a few… record-keepers to deal with."

Anna tilted her head. "The fuck are you two babbling on about?" she asked.

"Lazarus won't be happy when he sees this shit," Matt grumbled, his hoof starting to rub at Natalie's withers reassuringly. "But why Frostbite of all places? Why squirrel away the records there?"

Anna and Lance exchanged looks, then Lance turned back to Matt and answered, "Well, we know those gryphs ate mares and fillies… who's to say they wouldn't eat potential whistleblowers on top of that? Maybe that frozen hellhole just didn't get that many visitors."

"Well, they did kidnap Spike…" Matt slowly nodded, at least seeing the logic of that statement, though he still found himself questioning the moral sanity of whoever made such a decision. Another thought hit him, and he asked, "And now that I think about it, would that also apply to their fridges and cabinets and whatnot?"

"Maybe they were bribed with the contraptions. The elder did say they couldn't use the fridges that much, if at all," Anna pointed out, frowning as her eyes gravitated up to the ceiling. "Kinda hard to use fridges when the whole house is basically a giant fridge."

Natalie shrugged. "Dunno," she stated tersely. She lifted a hoof and motioned for Anna and Lance to sit down, which they trotted over and did. Her gaze fell onto Anna and she sighed. "You're lucky to have not known about the Royale Catastrophe, and while I'd rather keep it that way…"

Matt shushed her by lifting his free hoof and putting it to her mouth. "Save it for tomorrow, Natz. Laz'll need to know of the damned records Delta Unit scrounged up too," he stated firmly. Natalie opened her mouth to protest the moment his hoof parted from her lips, but Matt merely silenced her by kissing her swiftly on the lips before she could object.

"Get a room you two," Lance piped up, causing the two to break apart and look at him with sheepish grins.

"Says the stallion who shared a shower with a mare in heat not even ten minutes ago," Natalie chirped in reply. "And besides, we already have a room. We're just sharing."

Lance facehoofed at that, grumbling something about Natalie and wrong ideas. Anna nudged him with a hoof to the shoulder, causing him to look at her. She looked back and swished her tail just once. "Do you mind if… I sleep without the belt tonight?" she asked.

Lance pursed his lips for a few seconds before he shook his head. "Whatever floats your boat," he replied tersely. He turned to Matt and added, "You okay with it?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah, I'm cool with it," he answered.

"On that note, you feeling better?" Natalie asked, looking at Anna with a rather critical gaze, which was only betrayed by slightly narrowed eyes. "Like… less hot and horny?"

Anna nodded. "A little," she answered, her tail swishing again. "And a lot less angry."

Natalie nodded. She got up, stretched her legs, and trotted over to the massive bed. Swishing her tail as she crawled in, she sighed as the bed and quilts tried with all their might to hug her close. "You know… it's been a while since a mess was made," she began, her tail still swishing.

Lance turned to Natalie, his still-drying wings fluffing as another heated blush spread on his face. "What sort of mess are we talking here?" he asked.

"I've a feeling that Greenwood's gonna become another mausoleum… and I was hoping to avoid that if we could," Natalie replied with a huff, her tail stopping just shy of her rear legs.

Lance's blush faded, and he frowned as his wings relaxed. "So… it may have…"

Natalie nodded. "We don't know if it's too far gone already," she stated matter-of-factly, cutting him off. "And part of me doesn't want to know if it is, either."

"Well, Applejack wants to head to the damned place, and so does Blueblood. I don't think they won't not tell us what they find, if they actually do manage to get to it and then out as soon as they are able," Matt pointed out, standing up before stretching his legs and trotting to the bed to flop on it. He wrapped his forelegs around Natalie's barrel and pulled her close, pausing only when Lance threw off his towel and rushed over to lay behind him. "Either way… we got a long day ahead tomorrow."

Anna threw off her towel and trotted over to lay down and snuggle up against Lance. Even so, she complained, "Damnit, I hate long days."

"I know. I didn't sign up for that shit either," Lance concurred, fluffing his wings again. "But somebody's gotta shoulder that burden. I'd rather it be us than some pea-brained foal-fucker."