Prison of the Clouds

While crying in protest and flailing violently, Starswirl made sure to keep his eyes planted squarely over his shoulder. His guards held his limbs firmly, and Chrysalis babbled away arrogantly, uselessly, beside him.

“Really, I can’t believe you unicorns haven’t figured it out yet. Memory is really quite malleable, not the iron scroll you always treat it as,” she mocked, “Sadly, you won’t be around long enough to crack the case yourself.”

From Mute’s memories, the city was at least 300 meters off the ground. He would need six seconds for the distance he needed, plus another two, so eight. Gravity is a constant. They would be fine; they would have plenty of time. But for him, to pull it off in one go, it would be close…

Tens of seconds after being hauled out of the cell, he saw a plum-tree colored blob floating out behind him. Turning its back to his party, it floated away and rounded a corner, headed towards the lift.

Now that they were out of view, Starswirl decided that he had carried his act quite far enough.

In a dull explosion of light, the pegasi and changeling were frozen in place. A grey haze coated their bodies. The cloud below drew back like a curtain, and Starswirl’s stomach rose to his throat as they all plummeted like stones.

He withdrew his legs to escape the statuesque hooves of the guards. He focused all his energy 180 meters below him, and counted…

6…

The ground rushed upwards, too close and too quickly for comfort.

5...

To his side, headed groundward at a significantly slower pace, Starswirl could see Mute and Hurricane riding a platform of the lift. He instantly felt disgusted and amused; there was no way the traitor could not see what was happening.

3…

He saw Hurricane jolt with recognition, and take to the air.

2…

The pegasi and changeling flailed to life, the grey glow disappearing from their bodies. They rose above him, their descent slowing, in a whirlwind of wings.

Starswirl could almost taste the ground.

1…

Now.

He felt his teleportation spell peak, and poured all his energy into it.

He jolted.

For a moment he saw and felt nothing. Then his chest rested softly on a welcoming bed of rock, and a grey crag of rock appeared, towering in the distance. Sighing in relief, he climbed to his hooves, still wobbly with vertigo.

He could see a ring of stone before him, two concentric walls circling an enormous, hollow pyre, half collapsed. Around the walls were littered the ruins of trebuchets and flying rams; the ground was peppered with pastel mounds, streaked with red. The air itself hung lifelessly around him, the sky matching both his coat and the stones under his hooves in color.

Stonehorn.