Here It Is. Here Is The End

Most ponies found their way to Manehattan by land. From Vanhoover to Ponyville, every pony had a trail of land to cover to find their haven. Had I not left Fillydelphia in the way I did, it could have been the same for me. Just a quick trip north, and the great city would have been there.

Before I had come across Nes and the camp of survivors, I sailed with a pegasus sky ship over Equestria. The captain and the crew lived off the need for trade. What the government could not send with their Wonderbolts and EUP, the sky ship would fill. It was a cobbled mess of engineering, combining hot air balloons, magic, and clouds into one big floating ship.

Magic came naturally enough to me that I could stay on the clouds with a simple spell. In fact, it was the entire reason I found them in the first place. Made mostly of clouds, no pony expected me to stow away when they landed in Dodge Junction to trade.

I wasn't in a good spot then; scavenging the kitchens on derelict first-class train cars fed me most of the time, and the other times I haggled for food using parts I had taken from the train itself. I felt tied down by my condition, and naturally saw an escape the instant the sky ship clouded the sun.

No pony bother to check the cargo when I snuck in. Any pony else, and they would have been fine, but I had a trick to make casting a cloud easy. At least I thought so. The captain, to my surprise, was an earth pony of magnificent bluntness, and so he caught me off guard when his flashlight blinded my eyes in the dark cargo hold.

"What're you looking for?" he asked me. Not much suspicion or contempt, just a simple question.

I didn't know how to respond at first, but then I took a closer look at him. He was an earth pony, miraculously standing on a ship of clouds and commanding a crew of skilled fliers. What he had accomplished was more improbable than my stunt, and he was taking it to great lengths. I looked at him, and new what answer would please him and hold true.

"Liberty," I told him. "I'm looking for liberty."

For a months I was stuck on cleaning duty, making sure the clouds didn't hold onto any feathers or dust during each landing. It was menial labor at best, but I was never stuck. I roamed every inch of the ship while I had time, and saw more of Equestria with each landing.

Word spread about how I got on board quickly, and by the time I was allowed to give a helping hoof with unloading Appleloosan apples at a survivor camp in Los Pegasus, it had become a motto.

"What're you look for?" every pony would ask each other as they left the ship.

"Liberty bro, liberty," each crew member would say.

Now, it wasn't always the best of times. Changelings did always get in the way, either staging raids midair, or ambushing us as we landed. I saw my fair share of combat, firing harpoons from one of the balloons on the edges of the ship.

The first crew member I ever saw die was on my first battle. He took the harpoon in the balloon next to me and gave me tips on how to shoot. He was one of the top harpooners on the ship, only missing twice when the captain had to steer the ship away from the Changeling ambush.

"You'll always hit if you shoot at the swarm," he shouted to me as he died. "Changelings are like bugs, and they're just as stupid without their queen." He for a part of the ambush where the Changeling swarm was thickest and fired after barely looking at what he shot at. It hit one of the creatures in the head, splattering it in a burst of green ichor.

He cheered, then he fell of the side of the balloon as a Changeling passed by and blew out his heart with a bolt of magic. I still remember his face, even now. I see him smiling, not even realizing he had died. His forelegs were thrown up in victory, and he was feeling the thrill of the kill pump through his blood.

As he plummeted down, I watched his body hold his position of cheering. At the time, I wondered what he was thinking as he fell. Now I know he died happy and careless. He wouldn't contend with chores, or have clean his bed everyday, or even eat and piss. He was free from his life, and as he fell to the earth he seemed free from the world as well, as if falling had lifted him to the sky.

The next day, after we got our bearing and recovered at a nearby ruin, we turned back for that Changeling camp. We sniffed them out, and we burned their encampment to the ground.