"I'm not so sure this was such a good idea..." Kevin murmured as he looked out at the expanse of treetops in front of them. He and Flight had been running and walking in a route perpendicular to the path that the ship was on, passing between the trees and through the underbrush. They had moved quickly, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the path as they could before morning came and they could get a better scope of the situation. And, in some respects, this worked.

In other respects, though, it really didn't. The sheer drop in front of them, hundreds of metres down, was testament to that; not looking where you're going has its limits. They had been standing at its edge for nearly twenty minutes, trying to figure out where to go. In that time, the warm rays of the sun were already starting to be visible on the horizon, over the treetops. It had to be at least six-thirty in the morning, so they had been running through the forest for a few hours at least with hardly a break.

"At least I saw the edge before you ran over it," Flight replied. She was looking down at the tops of the trees. "Maybe I could fly us down there..."

"Do you really think you could hold my weight?" Kevin asked.

Flight shrugged. "Probably not. But what else are we gonna do?"

"Maybe we can go around?" Kevin said, looking to the side. The ledge kept going on either side as far as the eye could see, but there was no indication that it sloped downward; if it did, he couldn't see it due to the trees in the way. "It's gotta go down somewhere, right?"

Flight turned her head to look leftwards and then rightwards. "I dunno, Kev, it could keep going for a long time before it goes down. This could even be an inverse mesa or something. I don't know the land around here very well..."

"An inverse mesa?" Kevin asked.

"Well, a mesa is a flat-top hill with steep cliff sides, so an inverse mesa is basically a big hole in the ground."

"Oh. Are those, like, common? I've never heard of 'em..."

"Not really," Flight replied. "I know there's some in the northernmost provinces, but I've never heard of one this far south. Still, it could be one. I dunno."

"Hrmph," Kevin hrmph'd, and turned back to look out on the drop. He put a hoof above his eyes to block out the rays of the sun that were creeping upwards, and then he gazed across the trees of the hole to see if he could make out anything on the other side now that it was a bit lighter. And, as a matter of fact, he could. "Hey, I think I see the other side!"

Flight breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank Argent. You think we can just go around the edge, then? It doesn't look like it curves."

"I'm not sure," Kevin replied. "It could be some sort of ravine... the sides could not even connect for kilometres."

"Well, Umberlight is northeast from here, right?" Flight said. "We could at least go eastward along the cliff, then, so we're going in the right direction at least."

Kevin nodded. "That sounds like a plan. If it gets to be noon and we still can't see that we're making any progress, we should try calling Doc Zed for direction."

Flight facehoofed. "Dammit, why don't we just do that now?"

Kevin scratched his head. "Well, uh, maybe 'cause it's kinda early? He probably didn't get to bed until really late because he had to fly the ship back and all..."

Flight rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Kevin, you haven't been gone that long—you know what Doc Zed is like. There's no way he's even slept a minute since he got back—I bet he's been working on the ship this whole time."

"Hmm, yeah, you have a point," Kevin said, nodding. He arched his back to slide the saddlebag off and it landed on the ground with a soft plop. A few moments of rummaging later and he was holding the comlink in front of him atop a foreleg. "Y'know, I never actually had one of these when I lived here since I was too young then."

"Oh, really? I guess that makes sense..." Flight walked over so that she stood right next to Kevin, almost touching. He blushed, but she seemed not to notice. "You know how to use them?"

"Erm... not quite, but I think I can figure it out. I just press this button here to bring up the contacts, right?"

"Yep, and Doc Zed said he put his comlink in there so you can just press that green button there when it's selected and it should patch you through."

"Here goes nothing, then," Kevin said, magically pressing in the green button. He heard a flat tone from the speaker and then three short pips. These were followed by a crackling noise.

"Hello?" The voice emanating from the speaker was crackly and distant, but unmistakeably that of Doc Zed. "Kevin, Flight, is that you?"

"Hey, Doc, how's it going?" Kevin asked.

"Oh, good, and I'm glad to hear from you ponies. It's going well... I've already got the dashboard gutted and I'm working on fitting in a new one with controls that actually make a lick of sense!"

"That's great to hear!" Kevin replied.

Flight cleared her throat and then leaned in closer to the microphone. "Say, Doc, we were wondering if you could help us a little bit."

"Sure thing, Flight! What with?"

"Well, we've come to some sort of... cliff. It's too steep for us to go down, and we can't tell if it slopes down in either direction. Kevin said he could see the other side, so we can't tell if this is a ravine or an inverse mesa or exactly what it is."

There was no response for a moment; they could hear speaker crackling without the voice there to mask the noise. Then, Doc Zed said, "Oh, I know what you're talking about!"

"You do?" Kevin asked.

"Yep, that's the Delorean Ravine. You're going the right direction, in any case; Umberlight is just a bit north and then a lot of bits east from there, right?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah," Flight replied. "So, if it's a ravine, do we have any chance of crossing it?"

"Lemme dig out a map..." There was more crackling; the sounds of papers shuffling didn't exactly translate well through the comlink's low-quality connection. "Aha! Here we go..."

"Anything?" Kevin asked.

"Yes, actually—it looks like there's a hoofbridge on the main path that connects Umberlight and the fork to Dienna. You can just keep going east along the ravine and you should reach it within a few hours."

"Thank you so much, Doc!" Flight said cheerily. "We'll talk to you later, 'kay?"

Kevin nearly jumped back but re-collected himself quickly. "Ehem... yeah, thanks. Good luck with what you're doing, Doc."

"Thank you. Alright, Doc out." There was a final crackle and another three pips, and then the speaker fell silent. Kevin shoved the plastic object back into his bag.

"Guess we should get going, then," Flight said, watching as Kevin magically lifted his bag so he could drape it once again over his back.

"Can we go a little slower for this part, though?" Kevin asked once he had finished putting the bag back on. He walked over to where Flight was standing, on the east side of the little clearing. "I'm feeling pretty tired, and it would be nice if we weren't running the whole time."

"Heh, fine, ya wuss." Flight stuck out her tongue and started walking. "We don't wanna go too slow, though, or else Officer Gloss might get a warrant before we're back in Dienna."

"A brisk walk it is, then," Kevin replied, pulling up on the left side of Flight. They started off eastward, in the little area between the edge of the cliff and the extent of the underbrush. It formed a neat little path which, if they were careful, they could walk through at a quick pace without much danger of falling.