I need to sleep, but I need to keep flying. Gotta find the princesses…

Too dark to find a place to land. Gotta keep flying until the morning.

Ooh, is that a torch? I hope it’s a tor—damn it, it’s a firefly.

Why’s it so dark?

The sun went down a few hours ago. Did Celestia lower it, or is it doing it on its own? Or maybe she just moves it on special occasions, when she needs to show off to her subjects…

That rock! The one that looks like Pinkie Pie’s right flank! I’ve passed it before, I know I have! Am I going in circles?

Or maybe that’s just one of the spells that the princesses put up to keep anypony from finding them! Yeah, that’s it. The fabric of space is bent into a circle, and I'm going around and around in it until I starve to death.

Dumb fabric.

I hate the dark.

Dumb princesses, hiding out like they are.

Damn the darkness.

Galloping Greatness, I'm tired. I need to find a place to land.

No.

Keep flying.

Gotta find the princesses.

Keep flying.

Where are they? Zecora said that they’d be somewhere around here…

Keep flying.

I’ve never flown this much before… my… my wings…

No.

Keep flying.

I can’t fall asleep. I… I have to… keep…

Keep flying…

“Wow, look at him go.” A gentle, feminine snicker.

A sigh. “Just let him pass on by already. That poor pony looks like he’s about to… fall…”

A hearty yet dainty laugh. “He just fell out of the sky!”

A grunt. “Ah! I caught him with my magic. He’s safe. I'm bringing him over here…”

“He’d have been fine, as long as he didn’t hit a cactus.”

“No, he’d have broken nearly every bone in his body.”

“Well, if you’d let me experiment with that potion that I’ve been thinking up…”

“All that stuff does is turn your mane and tail into a rainbow.”

“I'm telling you, one of these days, there will be a pegasus that can crash through walls without hurting a single hair on their head.”

“And she’ll have a stupid-looking rainbow mane while she’s doing it.”

“Sticks and stones, little sister. Sticks and stones.”

Night Rush awoke slowly, as he always did. He was lying on his back, his hooves in the air… a position that he was far from used to. He stirred, mumbling incoherently, and tried to open his eyes. He immediately squeezed them shut; something above him was very bright.

A female voice gasped quietly. “Oh! He’s waking up!” A voice came from somewhere to his right. Night Rush’s eyes snapped open, revealing to him the source of the voice: a dark blue unicorn gazed down at him with worried eyes. “Hi, there. What’s your name?” She said, somewhat timidly.

He sat up and took stock of his surroundings: he was in a cave, that much he could tell—but it wasn’t like any cave that would normally come to mind whenever somepony said ‘cave’. Instead of a dark, damp, moldy hole in the ground, this cave was warm, homey, and most importantly of all, bright. He squinted up at the ceiling right above him, and was met with an odd sight: a miniature, orange sun hung like an undulating chandelier from the roof of the cave by a shimmering blue thread of light.

Night Rush was lying on his back on a small straw bed in the center of the room; it seemed to be the only item of furniture in the room, but along the edges of the room were cupboards, drawers, and various statues carved right out of the solid rock. To his right, the dark blue unicorn sat on a small, white mat that had been spread beside the bed.

“Uh… Hello?” The dark blue unicorn waved a hoof at Night Rush, who was too busy taking in his surroundings to pay attention. “What’s your name?” She asked again.

“I have to keep flying,” Night Rush said. He moved to get up, but the dark blue unicorn snorted and pushed him back down onto the straw bed with a forehoof.

“You’re staying right here,” she said affirmatively.

“I have to keep flying,” he said again, sitting up again. The mare simply didn’t seem to understand—he had to keep flying! She had her back turned to him, so he was able to sit all the way up, folding his hind legs underneath himself and looking around blearily. He was giving his wings a few experimental flaps when the indigo unicorn gave a small shriek and picked him up with her magic, straightening him out like a board, and none too gently.

“I told you, you have to stay still!” She said, louder this time as if it would help him hear it. She took a small, wet rag and dabbed his split lip with it, making Night Rush wince slightly.

“I have to keep flying,” he said again.

“No, you have to stay here. I’ll take good care of you, I promise!” She flashed a warm smile at him, as if it would make the words more convincing.

“I have to keep flying.” Night Rush began to struggle within the dark blue unicorn’s magical aura. “I have to keep flying!”

The indigo unicorn let out a huff and threw the wet rag down onto the floor of the cave. “You’re starting to irritate me, you know th—”

“I have to keep flying,” he said, louder this time.

“Will you stop saying that?”

“I have to keep flying.”

“O-okay... I’ll let you keep flying, if you’ll let me take care of—”

“I have to keep flying.”

“Please—stop saying that!”

“I have to keep flying.”

Celestia rather enjoyed being an alicorn, and the many perks that came with it: flight of a Pegasus pony, magic at least double that of an average unicorn, the strength and stamina of an Earth pony, and quite possibly most importantly, respect and awe by everypony that they came across.

The pure white alicorn, who was perched atop a quarter mile high butte, stuck out her chest and tapped into her vast reserves of magic, her horn glowing brilliantly in the dusky twilight. She could feel the immense celestial body that she was so intimately attached to, its warmth spreading through her frame like a crashing wave, spreading through her wings and arcing across the primaries like electricity. With a gentle, graceful nudge, she coaxed her sun out of its hiding place, bringing orange and pink light to this side of the world.

Her world.

She sighed happily and smiled, relishing both the feeling of warmth the rising sun gave her and the idea that she could do literally anything that she wanted, and there was nothing anypony could do to stop her. It was an empowering feeling, one that made her swell with happiness.

“Sister!” Came a mental shout, breaking Celestia out of her self-absorbed reverie. “Help!” The two celestial sisters had discovered their mental link a few decades before they were accepted as the princesses of the land, and they found that they could not only communicate mentally with words, but pictures, feelings, and emotions, too. To Celestia’s knowledge, the mental link had an infinite range, seeing as it worked perfectly fine while the sisters were on the opposite sides of the planet.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “Coming, Luna,” she replied, allowing her not-so-moderate disdain shine through their mental link. Why she had decided to run away with her sister in tow, she would never know. She leaped down from the butte, falling freely, spreading her wings only at the last second, using a little bit of magic to ease the strain of slowing down on her shoulders.

She touched down lightly, kicking up a small puff of dust around her hooves. She looked down disdainfully; a princess of her power and glory shouldn’t have to deal with dust. She tapped the base of the butte with her horn; the rock shimmered, and then disappeared, revealing a gaping hole in the side of the sandstone. With a slight smile at the flawlessness of her illusion magic even after the few months that they had stayed in that certain cave, she made her way inside, closing the ‘door’ behind her.

The cave itself was essentially a tunnel that opened into a few catacombs that had been expanded and decorated with magic, but the tunnel itself had been kept mostly untouched, and it still had a few twists and turns.

“What is it, Lu?” Celestia asked as she was about to round the final turn that opened into the main chamber, somewhat annoyed.

“Sis! Help!” Shouted her sister from inside the main chamber. Celestia could hear various scuffling sounds emanating from around the corner.

“Lu, what in the world is going—” Celestia cut off her exasperated question as she rounded the corner and looked into the main chamber.

In the middle of the main chamber was something that Celestia would describe as pure chaos. Floating in the air was a muted blue pony with a dark brown mane was flailing violently, thrashing his limbs around as if he was being electrocuted. Luna, the indigo alicorn of the night, stood straining slightly next to the makeshift straw bed.

“I can’t hold him down without hurting him!” Explained Luna hurriedly. “Please, help me!”

“I have to keep flying!” shouted the dull blue Pegasus pony, giving his wings a few hard flaps as if to punctuate his sentence.

Celestia scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I told you we were picking up another loon.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 7 Estimated time remaining: 14 Minutes