“Long story,” Sarah replied bluntly, closing her wing and sitting down on her rump.

“I just noticed that your feathers start out light brown, then go to a regular brown, and end in a green that’s a little dark at the tips of the primaries. Is there a rhyme or reason behind that?” Twilight mused, trotting over and pointing a hoof at one of Sarah’s closed wings for emphasis.

“It’s a hippogryph-and-gryphon thing. Unless the gryph is really old, or straight albino, they’re gonna have these kind of wing patterns. My wings are actually pretty dull, if you compared me to one of Mr. General’s male gryphon soldiers side-by-side. I guess it has to do with the fact that I have ovaries,” Sarah answered, briefly flinching for a moment.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading back to the Valkyrie now. The boarding dock let in too much cold air for my liking, and it’s bad for my broken wings,” Lance sighed, and with that, he turned around and trotted out.

“I guess I’ll follow him. Since his wings are broken, he has to be helped up into the hatch. Good thing I know levitation,” Matt sighed. He briskly trotted out of the airship, his mane and tail whipping about in a fleeting gale as he made his exit.

“I’ll go check on sis. I hope she didn’t go into heat,” Sarah groaned, standing up on her back legs and walking out. She’d been stopped by Fluttershy, however, before she could set hoof on the boarding dock. “Yes?”

“Um, why do you walk on your back legs, and is your sister’s heat cycles that worrying? If you don’t mind answering,” Fluttershy ventured, looking at the hippogryph with a frown on her face.

“In order, sometimes my talons hurt from walking on all fours for an extended period and I’d rather spare them more agony, and it makes it easier to fight with my harxe when push comes to shove. My sister’s heat cycles are… bad, to put it mildly. Or at least, that held true until we separated; it may not be true anymore though,” Sarah sighed, grimacing.

“What’s a harxe?” Twilight questioned, quirking a brow. The hippogryph shot a glance over her shoulder and smiled.

“You saw the halberd with the harp tied to the shaft? That’s a harxe, and yes, I invented that word,” came the answer. Sarah resumed walking upright out of the airship, her tail and mane gently swaying as she went down the boarding dock.

Fenrir made to stand next to a window and lean back into a wall, eying the Mythonians with an unreadable look still framing his visage. “It would seem you lot and the native ponies are, for a lack of better words, vastly different. The smells you exude as we speak are not ones I am familiar with, with the exception of the dried blood,” he murmured in a low tone, his ears jutting upright and standing as stiff as mountain peaks.

Applejack watched as the diamond dog crossed his arms and replied with worry flickering in her eyes, “How do we smell different from the Fantasian ponies? I don’t rightly get what you mean, except for the blood bit.”

Fenrir scoffed and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply before answering, “You all smell fresh and clean for starters, whereas the ponies in the tank smelt like they had dirtied their hooves so much I’d assume they’ve been doing just that since foalhood. The wraith reeks of… halted necrosis—she should be rotting to the very bones if she has them, yet she isn’t. The gryphons’ feathers, though, gave me… mixed results. I’d attribute that to meticulous preening.”

“By ‘dirtying their hooves,’ what do you mean?” Rainbow questioned, shooting a glance at her fellow mares. Her companions shrugged and shook their heads before turning their attention back to the diamond dog.

“They’re seasoned fighters, the whole lot, with the exception of the wraith. I doubt she could hold so much as a melting candle in a dampened cave filled with monsters,” Fenrir answered with another scoff. “A changeling that thin has little to no fighting chance; in fact, playing possum would most likely be her only means of staying intact for another day. The general… he had another scent wafting about him.”

“That scent being...?” Twilight trailed off, a frown worming its way onto her muzzle as she fell silent.

Fenrir answered after a few moments passed by, “He reeked strongly of metal—of blackened steel, iron, and brass. Whether it’s from his weapon and ammunition pouch, or something else entirely, I cannot say for certain.”

“Maybe his horseshoes had something to do with that scent. Perhaps they’re made of metallic alloys,” Twilight replied, raising a hoof and rubbing the side of her forehead with it. “But then, how’d he get his hooves on those shoes, let alone the Valkyrie?”

“I’ve asked him that myself. He would not answer,” Fenrir groaned, shaking his head. “The general asked me to spend the night with you bunch in the airship. He said something about a compromise.”

“It was my idea, but now he reversed it,” Spike piped up, immediately finding himself getting a glance from the dog.

“Oh? And what was the idea?” Fenrir mused, his lips curling into a half-smile. “Humor me, small drake.”

“Yesterday, when everyone started to fight and things began boiling over, I suggested that one of my friends spend the night in the tank. Rainbow Dash took that offer, and it seems Lance is having you spend the night with us,” the drake answered, grinning sheepishly. “When we first landed, things got off to a very rocky start, and it came to a head after some wraith unicorns showed up apparently looking for trouble.”

“They called one of the Fantasian unicorns—the one with the orange mane—something foul, and the wraith unicorns… got a thrashing they likely won’t forget, to put it in eloquent terms,” Rarity added, shuddering partly from the temperature in the ship dropping thanks to the open dock, and partly from a repeat of that scenario playing about in her mind.

“Wraith unicorns…” Fenrir parroted, blinking as the words left his mouth. “What did they look like?” he ventured, tapping a claw against his upper arm.

“They all had armor, black manes, pale coats, and those creepy glowing eyes like the dead changeling has. But one had greaves on his legs and carried a spear, and the rest had strange horseshoes sporting claw-like extensions,” Twilight answered, shifting her back legs so she could plop down on her rump.

“Are wraiths scary?” Maria inquired, getting another look from the diamond dog.

“Most wraiths are, usually, at least appearance-wise. As for fighting, it depends on the individual involved, and almost all wraiths I have met prior to this very week would go out with their heads held high if it meant taking down a single living pony, gryphon, or whatever else that so much as breathes,” Fenrir sighed, shifting his stance so he could stand upright without the aid of the wall. “How many got thrashed?”

Twilight made a rejoinder, “Around a dozen or so. The last one took off his armor and fled, but the dead changeling flew after him and killed him by clamping on his horn with her mouth. One of the Fantasian unicorns believes she cut off his flow of mana and it backfired on him with lethal results.”

“That is… something I have not heard of before. I find myself more perplexed by the minute,” Fenrir remarked, his half-smile fading.

“Big doggy, why do you look grumpy?” Maria questioned, staring straight up at Fenrir’s face from where she sat on the floor. The diamond dog looked at her for a few moments, as if judging her with his expressionless visage.

“I’m not grumpy,” he answered coolly after another minute, “I’m just thinking to myself. That is all.”

“What are you thinking about?” Maria persisted, her wings twitching as she spoke.

“A lot of things. Things a filly like yourself… would have a difficult time understanding,” Fenrir replied, moving to kneel in front of the filly before patting her head with a paw-like hand. “Put it like this, little one: I am very confused at the moment.”

“Ah, okay,” Maria murmured, nodding and smiling at the diamond dog.

Fenrir nodded back and glanced up at Twilight, letting a small smile crop up on his muzzle. “Would you have something that Maria can play with? I have a feeling she will eventually get bored, with so little to do in this airship,” he said, his tone level.

Twilight frowned and released a sigh. “There’s a bit of a conundrum with that—I don’t know what kind of toys she likes, or has had before… you know, the mess yesterday,” she answered in a glum voice.

“I had these big sticks that were bendy and prickly, and they looked funny,” Maria remarked, turning to Twilight. “The meanies kept giving them to me, and I thought they were swords. Daddy got mad at the meanies because of the toys.”

Twilight proceeded to gawk at the filly. “Wait, the meanies gave you toys, and daddy got mad? And the toys bended and looked funny?” she all but squeaked her words out, voice rising several octaves higher whilst simultaneously lowering in volume. Maria nodded, and her smile fell.

“And daddy told the meanies I couldn’t have the toys. He even hit the bearded meanie with one, right across the face,” the child added, visibly shaking as the last bit came out of her mouth.

Spike hopped onto Twilight’s back and leaned in close to her ear. He whispered, “They gave her dildos, Twi. Dildos with barbs and knots.”

As soon as the words sank in, the color all but drained from Twilight’s gaping visage. Her mind short-circuited and shut down while she stood there staring at Maria vacantly. She knew now why the filly’s father got angry, if her words were anything to go by, which had led to… to…

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she stood there for a tense moment longer before her legs buckled from Spike’s weight upon her backside. The lavender unicorn collapsed into a heap, legs sprawled out and her entire form going unresponsive. The other ponies, as well as Harry and Angel, were at her side in an instant. Fenrir and Maria rushed in not a second after.

“I see whatever it was the drake whispered into her ear had been a tad too much for her mind to handle,” Fenrir sighed, shaking his head. “I’ve a feeling things will not go swimmingly when she wakes up.”

“I… second that,” Spike conceded, nodding as he got off of Twilight’s back. “This doesn’t happen much back at home, and when they do, she gets real mad. Like, you've no idea how mad Twilight can get.”

“Let us not discuss this further, lest the other ponies find themselves in a similar state of unconsciousness. Is there anything in the airship that might distract the filly?” Fenrir asked in a low tone, eyes narrowing for the briefest of seconds.

“We have papers and quills and ink; maybe it’s a good idea to let her draw stuff,” Spike suggested, a small grin worming its way onto his face.

“Hrm?” Fenrir hummed, looking at the drake with a brow shooting up. “Why was I not made aware of this sooner?”

“Well… we’ve packed the papers and quills and ink in case we needed to send a letter to the friend that’s a leader. But I figured we’d packed enough for emergency situations, and to keep Maria entertained,” Spike replied, grinning at the dog sheepishly.

Fenrir’s brow rose even higher. “You… send letters to your leader-companion on the sister planet?” he inquired, his voice rising an entire octave.

"Yeah," Spike answered, nodding fervently.

"What's paper?" Maria questioned, her remark causing Spike to turn to her as his face paled.

"I'm afraid to ask why she doesn't know what paper is," Dash interjected, fidgeting in place.

"I'll just..." Rarity began, shying away from the gathering on unsteady hooves, "I'll just, er, go get the paper and quills and ink. I shall be back in a jiffy." With that, she made a beeline to the airship's storage compartment in such a hurry that her mane and tail appeared to have been whipping in a nonexistent wind as she went.

"That mare sounds troubled to me. Deeply, deeply troubled," Fenrir sighed, watching where Rarity had gone whilst shaking his head.

"She... uh, never killed anypony... or gryph, I should say, until yesterday," Fluttershy replied, her ears folding back and her wings hanging as though limp. "Rarity's... trying to cope with the fact."

"Big meanie had it coming. He killed mommy and daddy!" Maria huffed, bare wings flaring for a moment before languidly folding back at her sides.

"There's no denying that, sugarcube," Applejack sighed, turning to the filly and trotting up to her. She forced herself to smile and asked, "You still looking to get your cutie mark?" At the filly's nod, the earth pony continued, "Well, how about you grow your feathers back, and then me and my pals and the nice ponies in the tank can see about helping you with that."

Maria donned a grin of her own. "Maybe the nice wing-ponies can teach me how to fly!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, boy," Rainbow Dash sighed, looking at the hippogryph filly with a fond and exasperated smile. She turned to Pinkie and mouthed, "She reminds me of Scootaloo already."

"At least we're not being reminded too much of the meany-pants who hurt her," Pinkie mouthed back, beaming in a wide grin.

Dash nodded back to the pink pony, her smile fading a teensy bit.

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

Rarity scrounged around in the storage compartment, her hooves heavily dragging along the floor, her breathing once more uneven and raspy. "Must... not think... about the town of barbarians," she mumbled to herself over and over, as if it were a calming mantra. She paced back and forth, trying her absolute damnedest to not dwell on the events that happened the day prior, but no matter how hard she tried she could not shake off the memory.

She kept at it, though, in as diligent a manner as she could possibly muster. Given her still-stained frame, frazzled mane, and the way her hooves seemed hellbent on making new scuff marks in the floor, she hadn't been very successful. Eventually, though, something came to disrupt her in her solitude, punctuated by a masculine 'ahem' that echoed from behind. The unicorn whirled around and spotted the ship's armored pilot, looking at her with a stoic mask that threatened to break beneath slanting eyelids.

"Miss Rarity, are you not well?" he asked in a level tone.

"No, I am indeed unwell. Just... retreating here for a while to... er, gather my thoughts," she replied, voice quivering. She let off a nervous laugh as she whispered to herself in the darkest corners of her mental crevasse, "Thank Celestia he didn't ask about the blood on my hooves..."

"What's that on your hooves?" the stallion asked, gazing quite pointedly at the dried red still caking the ends of her limbs and drowning out the ivory.

"Where's a washcloth when you need it?" Rarity mentally groaned before sighing and replying, "I spilled red ink on them yesterday and hadn't gotten it off since."

"I see. Carry on," the armored pony said in an uncertain tone before nodding and taking his leave.

"He didn't seem terribly convinced. I just hope I can wash this hideous red off before he has the chance to ask again... wait a second, ink..." Her thought processes halted as she eyed one of the crates, still closed tight. Lighting up her horn and embracing the wooden container with her magic, she lifted the lid with ease to reveal entire wells of ink within, stacked near-seamlessly one atop the other, in neat little rows.

"Almost as hideous as the red of blood... but I'll take sable over deep crimson any day at this rate. And this time, I think I can make a convincing lie on my way out," Rarity murmured in her mind, a small smirk splaying out on her haggard visage. She eyed some more crates before effortlessly prying them open, revealing a lot of stacked, blank papers and multitudes of quills. At this, her smirk only widened, albeit a tiny bit.

She immediately frowned, though, upon remembering the other crates in the room. "I don't want to spill ink all over the essentials, especially if they're in crates. Why, the ink would drip through the nooks and crannies and I'd have no excuse for that! I cannot afford to sully even one apple, let alone an entire casket of them," she mentally chastised herself, shaking her head furiously as if speaking to another pony that had managed to get on her nerves.

"Hrm..." Rarity began as the mass prying of all of the crates in the room started, the open containers levitating to her so she could examine their contents. "Food goes over there, but I have to keep the apples and corn separate from one another..." the mare went on as she sorted the containers based on their contents, which took a little less than a half-hour to complete. Once finished, she strode to one end of the storage room and began trotting to the other in a slow gait, eyeing her handiwork all the while.

Upon reaching the other end, which took only moments even at the snail's-pace she went at, she turned around with a flourish and beamed. "I... think I feel much better now," she murmured to none in particular. She paused upon hearing a faint, peculiar sound. Her ears swiveled, trying to catch that noise; catch it, they did. "Who in Eque—in Fantasia could be playing a harp?" she mused, her horn lighting up and embracing a sheaf of papers, an inkwell, and a few quills as she spoke.

"Oh, nevermind, I'll ask when I return with the papers and things," Rarity mumbled, trotting back to the lounge of the ship with the stuff in tow. As she went, the sounds of the harp grew louder and louder, and she mentally noted that the tune warbled in an erratic nature, yet somehow remained soothing all the same. When she made it no closer than three hooves to the threshold between lounge and storage room, the tune abruptly stopped, a final thrum fading as it rang in the air.

From where she stood, Rarity could see Twilight rising onto her hooves languidly, a vacant look on her face as she came to with a vibrantly-glowing horn. Before her stood Sarah, who frantically started up a tune on the harp tied to her halberd. A wide-eyed look set into the hippogryph mare's visage as she plucked at the strings with careful claws, the instrument radiating with some kind of innate, green-tinted magic.

This new tune betrayed Lyregale's apparent urgency well; the notes were sporadic and all over the place—not once did the frantic song posses an instance of harmony. Rather, it seemed to be a chaotic thing, as if its maker were trying to soothe a dragon that threatened to swallow her up. Twilight's horn began glowing brighter, and the instrumentalist's ears flattened against her head as she continued playing her song with a faster gait. Her claws constantly tethered on the verge of snapping the frail strings all the while the tune spiraled deeper into the chaos of seemingly-misplaced notes.

The lavender appendage's light shined brighter, to which the harpist responded accordingly: further devolving the song into an incomprehensible jumble of high and low notes and pure madness. The harp itself had its own light that began shining brilliantly, as if Twilight were its competition. The green aura morphed into lines, adorned with all sorts of musical notes that circled the vacant-gazed Mythonian and rammed her full force, eliciting a shriek of pain and a pair of eyes that finally snapped to full alarm.

Twilight's horn ceased glowing, and she stood there dazed for a minute longer before glaring at Sarah. "What was that for, and how did you get into the airship?" she growled.

Sarah flinched back, wings ruffling momentarily as she shakily conveyed her answer, "You were about to have a magic surge, and your friends let me in through the window."

Rainbow rushed to Twilight with wide eyes and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Your horn was glowing while you were out, and we didn't want to find out what you'd do if you weren't stopped!" she cried, her tone worried.

"Is nice horn-pony okay?" Maria piped up, trotting to Twilight with a frown on her face.

"Er... kind of," Rainbow answered as Twilight opened her mouth to reply. "Just give her a few."

"I haven't had a magic surge since I was a filly..." Twilight mumbled, ears folding back. "And earlier, I felt awake, but... like I wasn't there. Almost exactly like the day I got my cutie mark, in fact."

"Well, at least... whatever you were charging has been halted, even if it required my music to literally slap you upside the head to do it," Sarah replied, her smile unsteady as her muzzle quivered.

"Just how were you able to do that, anyway? Don't unicorns use that sort of magic?" Dash asked, looking at the hippogryph mare with an unreadable look.

"My harxe, blade and instrument... they're enchanted. With the latter, I can turn my own songs into weapons in of themselves, but they require me to... be frantic about it. With the blade-and-spear portion, it's more of..." Sarah trailed off, taking a moment to twiddle her claws awkwardly.

"'More of' what?" Applejack interjected, trotting up to the harpist with a frown on her muzzle.

Sarah's nervous grin widened. "I'd... rather show you the enchantment than prattle off about it. It's hard to explain anyway," she answered.

Twilight studied the weapon-instrument-thing for a bit before her horn began softly glowing. When Sarah started reaching for the harp's strings again, she sighed and said, "No, I'm not going to have another magic surge. I just want to sense what kind of enchantments your peculiar weapon has." With that, the claws stopped just shy of the instrument as the whole thing found itself embraced in a lavender aura and hovering in front of the Mythonian unicorn in moments.

She continued to gaze at the two-piece object, noting sparks of innate green magic bursting forth here and there at random intervals from the entire thing. "Hrm... seems to be imbued with latent pegasus magic on the blade-and-spear portion, and unicorn magic for the harp's strings. Tell me, does this thing let you channel its magic, even though you're clearly not a unicorn?" she asked, turning her attention to the weapon's owner with a brow raised.

"Only the harp does. The enchantments on the blade-and-spear just... I've never been able to activate them by myself, really," Sarah hastily replied, shaking her head. "And the harp only activates its magic if I play on random notes; you couldn't ask me to partake in an organized symphony of some kind to save my own life."

"Prove it," Dash said simply.

"Give me my harxe back first, and I will," Sarah retorted, her face hardening. Twilight relented and handed the thing back to the hippogryph mare, who took a deep breath before she began to play some random piece on the strings. The notes were in-tune and pitched in accordance, yet inexplicably, they somehow sounded wrong. As the song went on, the Mythonians started wincing, ears folding back as if they were listening to a drunk pony with a non-musical cutie mark attempt to play a violin with one hoof.

The notes continued, sounding more and more grotesque as the gryph continued to play. The harpist's visage, as well as those of Maria and Fenrir, also morphed into scrunchy-eyed expressions of anguish as the horrid cacophony played for a few more agonizing minutes that felt like hours. The song devolved into a horrid screeching as the harp began glowing, sparking violently until, at last, Sarah stopped playing.

She dropped her harxe as the thing began sparking all over, her claws shooting up to cover her ears as the thing released one last shrill note coupled with a terrible clang as it landed on the wooden floor of the lounge. After another minute, the two-piece thing ceased glowing altogether, its innate magic fading into ember-like remnants of emerald.

For another few moments, all went silent, with everyone trying to recover from the horrid racket the harpist somehow managed to procure with her own talons. Twilight groaned, her head pounding in pain and blood rushing through the veins of her cranium. She looked around, eyes darting to and fro until their violet gaze fell upon Rainbow Dash. The cyan pegasus had her gaze affixed on Sarah, who was too busy covering her ears to notice she had found herself getting stared at.

Mustering the strength to ignore her headache for the time being, Twilight turned to Sarah and proceeded to remark, "A harp is part of your cutie mark; you shouldn't be able to play that badly."

Sarah removed her claws from her ears. "Come again?" she croaked.

"How did you mess up whatever piece you played that badly?" Twilight paraphrased, groaning partly from pain and partly in exasperation.

"I've... never been able to play good. Hell, if you took me to a composer and had me play for them right now, they'd declare me hopeless in the field of music," Sarah replied, shaking her head. "And the harp's enchantments seem to react to my playing if I tried to play a piece of music in tune, like the thing's magic is aware of my terrible performance." Her gaze fell, and she sighed bitterly. "Frankly, I'm still impressed a harp is part of my cutie mark to begin with."

"Now that worries me. You have to play notes out-of-tune to make a maybe-good song, but if you play them in-tune, it backfires and gives everypony and their grandmare the mother of all headaches?" Dash groaned, her hoof raising and connecting with her face. She slid it down the bridge of her muzzle and added, "Remind me to not dare you to do that ever again."

"Duly noted," Sarah conceded in a sad tone, slowly nodding her head, yet never looking at the pegasus who dared her in the first place.

"Maybe I'll try to play a song on the harp," Twilight proposed, instantly finding herself getting a wide-eyed glare from the hippogryph as soon as she spoke.

"No, don't touch it!" Sarah shrieked a moment too late as a lavender aura embraced the harxe and lifted it up. In an instant, the innate magic in the weapon reacted and began playing the strings by itself and producing another awful orchestra of strained, groaning notes. The song cried louder than before, forcing the lavender unicorn to release her hold on it and let it clatter to the floor with a final and echoing thrum of the string that had magnified itself to near-deafening levels of volume.

Once everyone regained their ability to hear, Pinkie pointed an accusing hoof at the two-piece weapon whilst keeping her gaze on Sarah, and she stated, "That thing is possessed! How'd you get your claws on it?"

"Er... hand-me-down," Lyregale replied simply, frowning. "Nobody told me to avoid playing things on that harxe; I pretty much found out the hard way not to. Let's wait a half-hour before touching it again; it evidently does not want anything to do with being held right now."

"I think we can all agree on that. I'm sure Harry and Angel would greatly appreciate that," Fluttershy conceded, shooting a gaze at the animals in question. Both nodded fervently, with Angel tugging his ears down using his paws, a wide-eyed, agonized, and pleading look on his face that all but screamed 'Don't do that again, please!'

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The following day, the Mythonian ponies found themselves in the company of another airship. This one had been roughly as big as their own, yet its insignia was drastically different from the markings on theirs. The giant balloon portion sported a deep black hue, highlighted with silvers and greens. The hull had crude wings on the sides, two pairs; one stylized to look like a changeling's set, the other that of a gryphon's.

The front sported a figurehead that had three heads, the first two like a gryphon and changeling again, but the third of a pony. Its front limbs were mismatched; one had holes, and the other was a talon. The back legs also had a similar appearance: a back paw, and regular hoof. The back of the ship bore three tails; a haggard one of the changelings, a thin one ending in a fluffy tuft, and the last flowing and thick all around like that of a pony's.

The hull itself sported predominant deep maroons, accentuated by golden railings, orange-tinted trimmings, and a faded white that made up the docking platform which had been closed tight.

"That's one mighty scary airship," Applejack remarked as she stared out the window of the vibrantly-colored Mythonian airship. The other mares surrounded her, each trying to gaze out of the window as well.

"That looks more like a war machine than it does an airship," Twilight commented, scanning the thing and suppressing a shudder.

"I dare say, that looks quite dreadful if you ask me. It's quite fashionable, don't get me wrong, but it's... dreary," Rarity noted, eyeing the figurehead of the ship. "And who would put a chimera as a figurehead on an airship?"

"I blame Lance for that," Rainbow replied.

"I wonder what all's in that thing, though!" Pinkie chirped, bouncing over to another window to see a much larger airship, stylized almost exactly like the one closer to the vessel she stood in, further away with its gangplank dropped. The Valkyrie was being maneuvered into the third vessel. "Where's that other airship taking the tank?"

"I don't know," Fluttershy murmured, shaking her head. "But the wings on the other airship are flapping; should I go tell our pilot to take off?"

"I'll go tell him," Spike interjected, turning to another door on the right-hand side of where the storage compartment lay. He ran to it and opened it, finding said pilot in a room filled with maps, compasses, and a megaphone that jutted out from the floor. The armored pony stood behind a steering wheel, front hooves gripping the circular piece of wood at the protruding knobs, staring intently at a wide window that revealed the outside. "Fluttershy wants you to take off, and the other guys in the Fantasian airship are already itching to go."

"Alright," he answered with a nod, turning to the megaphone and shouting into it, "Let's go, boys! We haven't all day; start powering the engines with your magic!"

"Yes sir!" a plethora of masculine voices replied as one from the other end of the megaphone, and in an instant, the fish-fins on the Mythonain airship began rapidly flapping in tandem with the rather lazy motions of its Fantasian counterpart. In moments, the lavender-and-gold vehicle ascended into the air, rising high into the sky before circling about languidly. At first, its pace had been little more than a snail's crawl, but it soon became faster and faster. It took off towards the sister planet, which the other airship took as its cue to do likewise. Mimicking the first ship's motions, it too achieved a great speed before darting away in pursuit of the first flying object.

Spike ran back to the mares and grinned. "So, how do you think the Fantasians will react upon seeing how Equestria's run?" he asked.

The ponies exchanged glances with one another before they all turned to Spike and shrugged in unison. "You might as well be writing a letter to Celestia asking her how she feels about the fact that we somehow found a Fantasian general," Twilight retorted, frowning.

"Oh, speaking of letters, when should we send one to her?" Spike sighed, his grin fading.

"Not until this ship is in Equestria and it slows down. If we opened one of the windows now, we'll all be vacuumed out by the intense force of wind. Or pushed out another window, depending on which side is opened, where we'll all fall to our deaths. Not only that, but suppose we somehow live that whilst staying in the airship and try writing back to her. The letter itself will be lost to the suction; it's all-around impractical," Twilight replied, her gaze falling to the floor.

She rambled on, "It's just too risky now; the flames would extinguish before they could send the letter because the force of wind sucks the oxygen out, which fires of all kind need to burn with. And then we'd have to contend with the lack of oxygen the higher we climb up the atmosphere; at best, we're still in the troposphere. Ugh, we should've just sent Celestia the letter before taking off!"

"It would've taken longer for the letter to reach her, though. The distance between the two worlds isn't exactly as small as I am," Spike countered, shaking his head.

Twilight sighed in defeat. "You're right about that, Spike. At most, the two worlds are ten-thousand kilometers apart," she conceded. "It would've been days, if not weeks, before she even got the blasted piece of parchment."

"Let's talk about something that'll make us smile. I can't wait to see home again; ever since two days ago, I've been itching to go back to a place of friendly ponies and happy foals!" Pinkie exclaimed, and at this, everyone else turned to her.

Applejack donned a small grin. "Oh, we can see how our folks are doing. I wonder if the Cakes and their twins are okay. Those foals are a hassle," she chirped.

"I hope the Cutie Mark Crusaders are well. Maybe they've gotten their cutie marks while we were gone," Fluttershy interjected, also donning a serene smile.

"Maybe Scoots learned how to fly, without my help! If she did, then it's gonna be so awesome!" Dash cried, her muzzle breaking out in a wide and triumphant smirk. A tear formed in one of her eyes and trailed down her cheek as she added, "It will be the best day ever if she can soar."

"Rainbow, pardon my forwardness, but are you crying right now?" Rarity inquired, gazing at the cyan mare with a slight frown on her face.

Dash indignatly turned to the ivory unicorn with a gawking expression. She hastily rubbed her face with a hoof as she replied, "No, no, and no. I just had something in my eye!"

"Then why are you rubbing the entirety of the righthoof side of your visage?" Rarity persisted, her frown morphing into a smile.

"Because it itches!" Rainbow retorted as she ceased rubbing her face in order to glare at Rarity. "There's nothing wrong with scratching an itch!"

"Alrighty then," Rarity stated simply, turning away from her companion and raising a hoof to her muzzle. She giggled into the end of her limb, careful to avoid smearing the dried red upon her lips as she did so.