Wonders

We spent a few more days in Canterlot, walking the streets and seeing nothing new, before we moved on.

The next town was on a cloud, so three of Twilight’s friends would not be able to accompany us. They had planned to use a spell that allowed them to walk on clouds, but I stopped them, I didn’t want to attract attention. For that reason I asked Twilight to go with her non-Pegasi friends, they would take the train to the crystal empire, and meet up with us when we got there.

So the blue Pegasus, the shy Pegasus, and I flew northwest and up until we reached the town on the cloud.

It was a very infrastructure heavy town, the weather factories took up most of the space, and various sports facilities and administrative buildings took up the rest, the blue Pegasus informed me that the pegasi houses were actually on smaller clouds all around the town. As we flew around I sensed very little disharmony, the worst places seemed to be the sporting facilities, where jealousy and anger and cruelty were all present in some form, usually minor.

As we flew past a large building with a lightning bolt on a flag out front we were hailed by an orange Pegasus dressed in some kind of military uniform.

“Rainbow Dash! We need to talk.”

“Oh, hey Spitfire, can it wait? I'm on an important mission for the princess”

“That’s what we need to talk about, come with me” the orange pony glared at me as she said this.

The blue Pegasus gave me an apologetic look and followed the orange pony into the building. As the shy Pegasus watched them leave I changed into snowflakes and followed them. As the door of the building closed I heard the shy one calling my name.

The orange pony led the blue one into a side room.

“I understand you are escorting a Windigo around Equestria?”

“Yep, his name’s Zephyr”

“You know windigos can be very dangerous, right?”

“Zephyr says he only freezes disharmonic ponies”

“And you trust him?”

“The princess trusts him, so I do too”

The orange pony grimaced at that.

“Dash, as the commander of the Wonderbolts I am responsible for the kingdom’s security, and monsters that can freeze ponies solid are a threat to the kingdom’s security”

“He’s not a monster”

The orange pony was getting annoyed, I could tell

“The point is I need to know what his weaknesses are, and I need you to help us capture him”

The orange pony was foolish, you cannot trap the wind, and you cannot trap a Windigo.

“Why? He hasn’t done anything”

“But he could do something at any moment! He is an evil creature and as a member of the Wonderbolts reserves it is your duty to help us defeat him.”

“He’s not evil, and he doesn’t need to be defeated”

The blue pony stood and walked towards the door.

“Don’t you walk out that door Dash! I’ll have you court marshalled”

The door closed behind the blue pony, and she walked back outside to find the yellow pony panicking.

“Zephyr disappeared!”

I let them fly around a bit before rematerializing behind them

“I have seen all that I need to; we shall fly to the crystal empire now”

So we flew off north east.

I thought about the conversation I had heard, the blue pony was the element of loyalty, if I remembered correctly.

Disobeying a commanding officer is not very loyal.

But I suppose she had conflicting loyalties over that issue.