“Well, that was too easy...” Featherweight muttered. “Next time, we need to send Rumble to Berry Punch. I always wanted to check how whiskey tastes like.”
“I’ve heard it tastes like a summer campfire, including the fire,” said Zipporwhill. “Dad says that it makes you fly funny...”
They were sitting in the cinema lounge, waiting for the movie to start. Zipporwhill was sitting on the couch, smiling at Rumble, who just came to them with tickets in his hoof. Alula sighed and shook her head, turning to Featherweight.
“You know, Ms. Heartstrings was selling the tickets,” Rumble said.
Alula rolled her eyes. “Let me guess: you told her that she looked nice and she didn’t even ask you for ID?”
“How did you know?”
“Please.” Alula sighed. “You always do that. Except for that one time when you were sick and we had to ask my sister to buy us tickets for Equestrian Pie. She insisted on going with us. Most. Awkward. Situation. Ever.”
Rumble chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Today we’re watching Crimson Feathers II: The Final Confrontation. There won’t be any awkward moments. Just action.”
“Action and romance,” Zippoorwhill said, still staring at Rumble. “I’ve heard that Stardrop and Silver are totally going to–”
Alula cleared her throat. “Maybe we should go? The movie starts soon...” she muttered through gritted teeth, accenting the last word. “I think I’ve heard the trailer of Fear and Loathing in Hollow Shades. It’s always the last one.”
“Yeah, come on.” Featherweight popped up from the couch, wings buzzing, and zipped out of the lounge. The others followed at a trot, heading around the corner and toward the auditorium. Featherweight huffed a bit as they entered the room to find it already packed with moviegoers. “See, I told you we should’ve come here earlier.” He pointed a hoof toward the upper-middle section of the seating area. “The sweet seats are already taken.”
Zipporwhill tilted her head a little, looking about the room. “There’s plenty of room up front.”
“The broccoli seats?” Featherweight said.
Alula scoffed. “Yeah, I don’t need a neck cramp today, thanks.”
“Let’s just find a spot where we can all sit together,” Rumble said, walking up the nearby stairs and scanning the aisles for a place to sit. He held a hoof up, pointing at each seat in a row and counting under his breath. After a few seconds, he just shrugged and headed off, seating himself in one of the available gaps between the awaiting ponies. The others made their way to him, with Alula landing in the seat next to him. Featherweight was next, followed by Zipporwhill.
It was only a few more seconds before the lights began to dim, and the ponies in the room quieted down from their chatting. Rumble checked to his right, bit his lip for a moment, and then leaned over. Alula pressed herself back into her seat as he stuck his head past her and hissed, “Hey, Featherweight. Switch me seats?”
“What?” Featherweight whispered back, turning his eyes toward Rumble.
“Switch seats with me, c’mon. The movie’s about to start.”
Featherweight glanced over at the seat next to him. There was Zipporwhill, cleaning her glasses off against her coat. Featherweight looked back at Rumble, and then to Alula in the seat next to him. “You got it,” he said, hopping out of his seat and hovering over Alula. Rumble jumped up onto an armrest, and then into the now-empty seat. Alula just sat there with a thoroughly unamused expression as Featherweight dropped down next to her with a little smile. Zipporwhill didn’t seem to notice, her eyes on the screen as the movie’s opening credits started up.
A little over two hours later, the pair of fillies and pair of colts kicked open the exit door and trotted out into the daylight, the sun having just begun its downward journey toward the horizon. “That was totally awesome,” Rumble said, hopping over the curb and onto the dirt road. “What’d you guys think?”
“Pretty well done, but not as good as the first one.” Featherweight turned slightly toward the others, commenting, "Did you see that long tracking shot of Stardrop when she was weaving through the other pegasi to catch Silver Breeze? That was a great shot."
“Yeah, if you’re a nerd,” Rumble muttered. “Great shot was when Stardrop grabbed Silver Breeze’s rifle and shot that griffon’s head off.”
“How about that moment after Stardrop caught Silver and crashed through the trees, and then they were totally about to kiss before the griffons spotted them and started strafing the forest?” Zipporwhill asked, bright eyes looking toward the clear sky.
Alula shoved a hoof into her mouth and heaved once. “How about not? And am I the only one who is sick and tired of all these war movies having ponies fighting griffons? That’s all I see, anymore.” She kicked at a little rock along the dirt road, her bored expression softening to one of amusement. “And hey, if you wanna talk about romantic moments, how about when Stardrop and that griffon Gretel locked swords and were glaring at each other? C’mon, those two were totally hot for each other.”
“Eww...” Featherweight winced. “How’d that even work? Not to mention that she died.”
Alula shook her head. “How do you know? Have you seen the body?”
“She plummeted to the ground from, like, two thousand metres,” Rumble said. “Nopony could survive that...”
“Please. Just like Dr. Delusion couldn’t survive falling into that enormous woodchipper he’d made ponies build. And yet, he came back in Power Ponies: Retribution. With an eyepatch.” Alula smirked. “And Gretel was totally hot.”
“You’re comparing a comic book adaptation with a historical movie,” Featherweight said. “Well, loosely based on a true story.”
“Can’t you just relax?” Zipporwhill asked, trying to stare at the ladybug that sat on her nose. “That was just a movie.”
“Exactly,” Rumble said, looking at Zipporwhill and smiling a bit. “You know what? This whole movie made me wanna fly.”
“It’s still early.” Featherweight took a look at the sun. “We can go to the lake and fly a bit there...”
Alula stretched her wings. “Yeah... Those armchairs are always killing my back. Also, remember that scene when they were bombing that underwater base? I have an idea...”
“So, now you like it?” Rumble asked. “You, a griffon lover?”
Featherweight shrugged. “That scene was awesome... Do you know how much dynamite they had to put there to make the explosion so big? Stunt double almost got killed during filming...” He smiled at Alula. ”“And I liked that griffon too...
“Yeah,” Alula muttered. “So, are we going?”
“Sure,” Rumble replied. “I’ll be Silver and Zippy will be Stardrop...”
“Why can’t I be Silver?” Featherweight asked. “And Alula would be Stardrop...”
Rumble looked at Featherweight and sighed. “Look at me. Then look at yourself. Remember how Silver looks like? Not like you, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I don’t think Stardrop wears glasses.” Alula narrowed her eyes.
“That wasn’t nice.” Zipporwhill glared at Alula.
Alula opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything, looking at Rumble and Featherweight. “Okay, I’m sorry, Zip.” She shrugged. “Maybe you want to be Gretel?”
“No! She’s a griffon!”
“Griffons are cool.” Alula sighed.
“Meh.” Rumble spread his wings and took off. “Last one at the lake is a mule!”
The rest ceased their chatter and followed him. Small wings were flapping rapidly as the ponies flew through the meadow, just above the tops of the lonely trees. Wind was ruffling their manes. Alula quickly left Featherweight and Zipporwhill behind. She gritted her teeth, trying to catch up with Rumble.
Behind them, Zipporwhill overtook Featherweight. The colt, however, wasn’t giving up – he was just behind her, close enough to see her coat being drenched in sweat. Zipporwhill shook her head and blinked, trying to get rid of drops from the lenses of her glasses.
Featherweight groaned. Rumble and Alula were far away, almost on the shore, but Zipporwhill was getting weaker with every second. Her wings slowed down, moving out of synch. Featherweight flew under her, trading altitude for speed needed to overtake. His legs brushed against the grass, but he soon steadied his flight, leaving Zipporwhill far behind.
Rumble landed on the beach and wiped sweat from his forehead. A second later, he heard a knock as Alula’s hooves hit the grass, scarcely growing on the wet sand surrounding the lake. Her landing was far from perfect – her front legs gave up and she rolled on the grass, stopping a metre from Rumble.
“Nice... for a griffon,” Rumble muttered, helping Alula up. The filly gave him a nasty glare, but before she could say something, they heard flapping of the wings and saw Featherweight approaching. He dropped on the sand next to them and rolled on his back.
Rumble trotted to him. “Where’s Zipporwhill?”
Featherweight waved his hoof in an uncoordinated way and wheezed out some nonsense. Rumble looked in that direction and saw Zipporwhill flying towards them. She landed far away from them and walked to them, her wings twitching weakly.
“Am I a mule now?” she asked, lowering her head.
“You’re not,” Rumble replied, walking to Zipporwhill and patting her with her wing. “We should’ve waited for you...”
“Dude, I’m gonna puke...” Alula muttered. “Get a room, you two.”
Rumble took his wing away from Zipporwhill’s coat and looked at Alula. “Chill out, Ali. I just don’t like when Zippy’s sad...”
Alula rolled her eyes. “Somehow, you’re not so caring when I’m sad.”
“Maybe it’s because of what his brother said,” Featherweight muttered. “You and your sister play for the other team, or something like that.”
“What other team?” Zipporwhill asked. “We’re always on the same team when we play something...”
Featherweight shrugged. “I don’t know either. Maybe he meant that you’re both girls?”
“But Zip is a girl too.” Alula turned to Rumble, piercing him with her gaze. “What did Thunderlane mean by that?”
Rumble shook his head. “Dunno, he’s dumb. Like, he fell from a cloud when he was a colt, or something like that.”
“I can totally see that,” Alula muttered. “But hey, we didn’t come here to talk about your brother. We have a war to win or something.”
“Too bad we didn’t plan this better,” Zipporwhill said, digging a hoof around in the sand. “I got this super-neato swimsuit last month.”
“Swimsuit?” Rumble asked, his eyebrows sliding upward.
“Yeah. It’s this totally cute one-piece based on Fili-Second’s costume. I haven’t had a chance to use it, yet. All I got to do is try it on. It was a little tight, but it was the last size they had in stock at Barnyard Bargains.”
“We’re not gonna be swimming anyway, though,” Featherweight remarked. He turned to the others and opened his mouth, but he closed it again as his gaze fell on Rumble. “Uh, are you okay?”
Rumble’s eyes were locked on the spot where Zipporwhill had been a few seconds prior, his mouth hanging slightly open. Featherweight waved a hoof in front of his face, but no response came from the catatonic colt. A tiny droplet of drool fell from Rumble’s lips.
“Hey, come on,” Featherweight said, jabbing a hoof at the base of Rumble’s wing and making him wince. “Are we gonna go flying, or what?”
“Huh?” Rumble shook his head slightly, his eyes scanning the beach for a moment before settling on Featherweight. “Oh, yeah. I was just, um, thinking about which formation we should fly in.” Rumble smiled a sheepish smile, glancing toward Zipporwhill as she flipped over a rock and sent some tiny critters scattering over the sand.
Alula just gave him a level stare. “Uh huh. Right.”
Featherweight said, “So which formation? There are only four of us, so that limits us to squad formations.”
“Or leadponies and wingponies,” Alula added. “My sister said that’s how they do it in the Wonderbolts Academy.”
Rumble nodded. “Yeah, my brother said that, too.”
Zipporwhill, meanwhile, was lying on her back and watching a pill bug crawl across her foreleg, giggling a little as its tiny feet tickled her. After a few seconds, she rolled over and let it move back onto the sand. “So, who’s pairing with who?”
Rumble took in a breath, starting, “I think—”
“We should pair up by gender,” Alula finished for him, sliding over to Zipporwhill.
“Oooh, yeah, that can be fun,” Zipporwhill said as she got back onto her hooves. “Fillies vs. Colts.”
“Oh,” said Rumble, his ears falling flat. “Um, okay.”
Featherweight’s wings buzzed, and he shot across the sand to land next to the other colt. “You got it. C’mon, Rumble, it’s you and me. Let’s dominate these fillies.”
Alula spread her wings and smirked. “Let’s see who’s gonna get dominated... My sister taught me a few tricks.”
“So did my brother,” Rumble muttered, standing nose-to-nose to Alula. “Let’s see who’s better.”
“Bring it on...” Alula took off and made a loop in the air. She flew above the water and made a few somersaults. She then flew just above the water, her hooves almost touching it, and banked sharply to fly above Zipporwhill. Zipporwhill screamed and rolled on the grass to avoid a crash.
Rumble followed her, slaloming between the trees next to the shore. “C’mon, Featherweight! You are my wingpony! Let’s catch her!”
Featherweight narrowed his eyes and buzzed his wings, pulling his legs up and off the sand. Then he shot off past Zipporwhill and over the water’s surface.
“Zipporwhill!” Alula shouted, dodging Featherweight with grace. “I need you to cover me!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Zipporwhill exclaimed. She took off, almost colliding with Rumble, who banked to the left and hit the group of bushes. He emerged from them after a second and flew higher, leaving a trail of leaves and broken branches behind.
Alula sat on the cloud, waiting for Zipporwhill to catch up with her. “Remember,” she said. “If I get shot, you’re supposed to catch me. Just like I will catch you if you get shot.”
“But they’re not shooting at us?” Zipporwhill asked, looking at Rumble and Featherweight, who were circling above the lake.
Alula sighed. “They would be, if we were in the movie.” She looked at Rumble and Featherweight. “What are they doing down there? Picking mushrooms?”
“Looks like they’re gathering pinecones...” Zipporwhill replied. “We’d better go...”
“Go where? Another cloud?”
“Maybe we could make our cloud into a fort.”
“I don’t think that would work.”
Zipporwhill adjusted her glasses, still watching the colts down below. “Why not?”
“Because it’s a cloud.”
“So?”
At the same moment, a pinecone flew right through the cloud and missed Zipporwhill by a few inches. Zipporwhill looked at the surface of the lake through a hole in the cloud. “Hmm, it got pierced,” she muttered.
“You don’t say!”
“Hmm,” Zipporwhill hummed, patting the cloud with a hoof. She reached out, pulling some of the fluff to her and pressing down, compacting the cloudy mass. “Maybe if we can make it denser, it can stop the pinecones. Do you think… Alula?”
Alula had vacated the cloud, dropping down and gliding to the edge of the lake. She landed, immediately sweeping her forelegs against the ground and collecting up her own supply of pinecones and muttering something under her breath.
Zipporwhill just said, “Oh,” and turned her gaze back to the sky just in time to be bombarded by a barrage of pinecones from the pair of pesky colts above.
“Zipporwhill!” Alula exclaimed, tossing a pinecone at Featherweight. It bounced off his head and fell to the lake.
“If the cloud was denser...” Zipporwhill ignored the pinecone thrown by Rumble, who took great care to miss her.
“So far, the only dense thing here is you!” Alula exclaimed. She tackled Rumble and pushed him at another cloud, landing on him.
“Get off me!” Rumble shouted, trying to untangle himself from the cloud and Alula’s limbs.
Zipporwhill smirked. She was holding the cloud, now much smaller and harder, in her hooves. Featherweight circled around her and threw a pinecone at her. It bounced off the cloud Zipporwhill shielded herself with and fell towards the water. Featherweight unleashed another barrage of pinecones, but they either missed or got stuck in the cloud.
Zipporwhill aimed and threw the condensed cloud at Featherweight. It hit his head, dissolving into vapour. Featherweight closed his eyes and flew past Zipporwhill in an uncoordinated way, ramming into the cloud where Rumble and Alula were trying to untangle.
“Ouch!” Rumble cried when Featherweight landed on the top of him, pushing him deeper into the cloud. “Can you get off of me? You two are heavy...”
“First Featherweight has to move...” Alula muttered. She kicked Featherweight, who groaned and rolled off of her. She then got up and straightened her squished feathers.
“I’ve had enough of this game...” Rumble muttered. “Why don’t we go on that small island in the middle of the lake and rest for a bit?” He pointed at a small green spot in the middle of grey water.
“Let’s go,” Alula took off and joined Zipporwhill, who had been circling around their cloud, laughing at them. “Listen, Zippy, as my wingpony you have to fly behind me and look for enemies, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Zipporwhill muttered, rolling her eyes. They waited for Rumble and Featherweight to join them and made a formation that looked like rough Claw Four.
They glided towards the island. A slight breeze was carrying them to the green spot, which soon turned into a small patch of land with some trees and bushes, surrounded by a beach. It was forming an almost perfect circle of sand brought over ages by the water.
“There’s a clearing in the middle,” Featherweight said. “It kinda looks like the place where the army of ponies set their camp before the final battle.”
“Let’s go there,” Rumble said. They circled above the island, just few inches above the treetops.
The clearing was overgrown with grass, almost as tall as Zipporwhill. In the middle of it, there was some grey stone, leaning slightly to the side. Alula landed next to it and knocked at it with her hoof.
“Hmm, it’s not a rock,” Alula muttered. “It was built by ponies.”
“How can you say so?” Featherweight asked, landing next to her. “There are like, vines and moss everywhere.”
“It’s made of bricks, moron,” Alula replied. “Not to mention that some of them lie here.” She grabbed a brick and showed it to her friends.
“Interesting,” Rumble said. “Who built something in here?”
“Yeah, and why did it fall apart?” Zipporwhill asked, looking at the brick pole.
“I don’t think it was a part of a building,” Featherweight said, blushing a bit. “Maybe it was a pedestal? Too bad the figure is gone.”
Alula nodded, scraping some moss off the monument. “There’s something written on it, I think.”
Zipporwhill smiled. “I know! It’s from that poem Ms. Cheerilee told us about! About looking at it and despairing or something.”
“No,” Alula replied. “It says ‘I met Raindrops here and she gave me a–’. I can’t read the rest, but I’m pretty sure that it’s more modern.”
“Maybe.” Rumble shrugged. “I wonder what Raindrops gave that pony.” He looked at the place where a piece of stone had fallen off the rest of the pedestal. “Hey, it looks a bit like your sister’s writing!”
“It doesn’t,” Alula replied, examining the letters carved in the stone. “You know what? Let’s go to the beach. It’s pretty cold in the shadow...”
Zipporwhill was brushing both forehooves through her mane, raining down little woody scales onto the beach. Even a few whole pinecones fell out. “Do you think we can throw pinecones at other stuff for a while?”
Rumble pulled his muzzle from the water’s surface to ask, “Like what?”
“Well,” Zipporwhill started, flicking her tail to remove more of the pinecone debris, “we could make targets out of stuff. We could set clouds up and throw stuff at them.”
“What’s with you and clouds, today?” Alula asked.
“I like them? They’re big and soft, like giant pillows.”
Alula just hummed a little and kicked at one of the pinecones, watching it as it landed in the lake and bobbed along the surface. Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Hey, you know how they bombed the underwater base in that movie? We could do something like that.”
“Hmm.” Featherweight lifted one of his thin hooves to his chin. “Maybe we could do both.” He turned to the others, the hoof held just above the ground. “You remember that scene near the end, when all the ponies were out of bombs except one, and they had to find a way to take the base down before it unleashed its superweapon? They had to drop one of their concussion bombs down into one of the base’s air vents and down into its power source to take it out.”
Zipporwhill’s muzzle emerged from the lake. She wiped the water from her lips with a foreleg. “We could do that, yeah. We could totally make a tiny little target like they had in the movie and dive bomb it.”
“First one who makes the shot wins?” Alula said.
Featherweight asked, “Wins what?”
Alula gave him a frown. “The game. Duh.”
“Well,” Rumble said, “let’s get started, then. It’s gonna be getting late, soon.”
“So let’s stop standing around doing nothing and let’s go!” Alula pointed a hoof out toward the lake. “Pick a place and set up a target.”
Zipporwhill lifted up off the beach, wings flapping. “Yeah! C’mon, Rumble, let’s do it!” she shouted, rocketing off and over the water.
The others just stood there, watching her leave. Featherweight turned to the others. “So, what are we making the targets out of? Sticks sound good?” The three other little ponies nodded silently before rooting around to gather some sticks, with Alula pulling dying twigs from trees, Featherweight searching the nearby grass, and Rumble wandering off into a shrub.
“Hey, can I have an extra rock?” Alula said a few minutes later, looking at the little gray stone on her hoof.
“Skydive only got one bomb in the movie,” Featherweight pointed out, sitting on a cloud and clutching a stone of his own. The others were scattered here and there around the cloud, aside from Zipporwhill, who was hovering a few feet away. The little filly squinted through her glasses, looking down toward the water.
“I don’t think I can see our target from all the way up here,” Zipporwhill said.
Featherweight sighed, eyes turning to the sky as he stated flatly, “Skydive couldn’t either. He only had time to find it on his way down from the airship.” He turned to the flying filly. “It’s supposed to be a challenge.”
Zipporwhill didn’t say anything, staring at the small point in the middle of the lake. “I’m not sure. It’s getting dark and we should soon go home.”
“Chill out,” Featherweight said. “Just one time.” He smirked. “Or maybe you chicken?”
Zipporwhill flapped her wings. “I don’t,” she replied. “And I’m gonna show you!” She turned upside-down and flew downwards sharply.
The wind blew through Zipporwhill’s mane as she was scanning the surface of the water, looking for her target. She clenched her hooves on the rock and blinked. When she looked down, she couldn’t see the island or the shores of the lake. Grey water was everywhere.
Zipporwhill made a somersault and dived towards the water, tucking her wings – not folding them completely, but enough to have control of the flight while being as aerodynamic as possible. She straightened her hind legs. Her tail was waving between them.
She focused on the target – a circle made of branches floating on the surface. The wind was deafening her. Aided by gravity, she quickly accelerated beyond her limits. The frame of her glasses pushed against her nose. Zipporwhill could feel her eyes watering; tears were forming a slight mist behind her.
Water was everywhere. Zipporwhill had lost sight of Rumble, Alula, and Featherweight long ago. Only once she saw a splash when one of her friends dropped a rock which landed in the middle of the target. She smirked, adjusting her wings and feeling how the flow of the wind changed; she was now diving at the water at a steep angle; almost free-falling towards it.
Suddenly, Zipporwhill noticed something moving on the edge of her vision. She moved her head slightly to the left. Something dark was there, just below the surface of the water. Zipporwhill blinked, trying to get rid of tears welling in her eyes. The dark thing could be some really interesting fish that probably wouldn’t like Zipporwhill throwing rocks into the water. Zipporwhill shook her head. She didn’t want to make some fish upset.
She looked at the surface of the water below her and noticed something else. She opened her mouth, realising that it was her own reflection, getting closer and closer.
Zipporwhill screamed, spreading her wings to slow down. The breeze hit them, pulling them backwards violently. Gritting her teeth, Zipporwhill flapped them, trying to pull up. She saw the red sky reflected in the surface of the water. A few more flaps and she’d be flying straight towards it.
A wave of pain exploded in her hind legs, filling her mind and causing her vision to blur. She heard a splash and saw the surface of water getting closer to her rapidly. She threw her hooves into the air, trying to shield her face from the inevitable impact.
The water closed above her head. Zipporwhill turned on her back, slowly submerging in the cold lake. Red mist spread from her nose. Her wings were still spread, suspending her in the water, like an ancient insect drowning in amber. She couldn’t hear or see anything; the crash knocked the wind out of her, leaving her unconscious in the hostile environment.
“Zipporwhill!” Rumble exclaimed, looking around. Alula and Featherweight were with him, but he’d lost sight of the last of his friends soon after they started the dive. His eyes scanned the surface of the lake.
“There!” Alula exclaimed, pointing at the concentric circles on the water. They were bigger than the ones their rocks had made and she could see a dark silhouette slowly disappearing near that place.
“Oh Celestia...” Rumble darted towards the circles. Alula and Featherweight followed him, trying to remember where they’d last seen Zipporwhill – the circles were slowly disappearing and it was getting dark.
“Somewhere here...” Alula pointed at something floating on the surface of water. Rumble gasped, seeing Zipporwhill’s glasses. One of the lenses had a long crack in the middle.
Without hesitation, Rumble held his breath and dived into the water. He shuddered – even though the day had been warm, he immediately felt numb from cold. He swam, using both his legs and wings.
Something patted his back. He turned and saw Alula swimming behind him. She raised her hoof and looked around.
Rumble shrugged – he could barely see his own hooves in water, not to mention finding Zipporwhill. Only once, he looked below. The bottom of the lake was impossible to see, shielded by the everlasting darkness.
Alula swam in a different direction. Rumble was trying not to think about breathing – his lungs were practically screaming for a gasp of fresh air. He winced, forcing his muscles to move.
Rumble resurfaced and saw Featherweight floating right above the water. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Come and help us!”
“I think I saw her there,” Featherweight replied, pointing at the place few metres away from Rumble. “I’d better stay here and guide you.”
Rumble nodded and dived again, swimming in the direction Featherweight pointed to him. He blinked, trying to get rid of water from his eyes. A few more thrusts and he suddenly hit something heavy.
He almost gasped, letting some air out. Zipporwhill was right in front of him. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted slightly. Large bruises were forming on her hind legs and her nose was bleeding.
Rumble grabbed Zipporwhill’s front hooves and moved his legs, trying to get her to the surface. Her body was limp and heavy; Rumble felt that it was slipping out of his grasp. His lungs twitched again, begging for air.
Suddenly, his efforts gained help – Alula emerged from the darkness and grabbed Zipporwhill. Together, they lifted her to the surface.
“Is she okay?” Featherweight asked, hovering just above the water.
“I can’t hear her breathing!” Alula exclaimed, splashing water around and trying to keep Zipporwhill’s head above the water.
“I can’t hear anything!” Rumble shouted, emerging from water. “Let’s get her outta here!”
“Where?” Featherweight asked. “We’re in the middle of the lake!”
“The island!” Rumble pointed at the green patch not far away from them. “C’mon!”
Together, they half-carried, half-dragged Zipporwhill towards the island. Her body was cold; Alula shuddered, touching it, but she flapped her wings, trying to get her friend out of the water.
Zipporwhill coughed and looked around, blinking. “What happened?” she whispered. Her gaze fell upon the water surrounding her and she closed her eyes again.
“Shh...” Rumble patted her head. “We’re close...”
They put her on the sand and sat around her. She was breathing, twitching and coughing water. Featherweight put his hoof on her forehead. Zipporwhill hissed. Featherweight took his hoof away and in the faint light of sunset, he saw a large bruise on Zipporwhill’s forehead, as well as a pair of black eyes. A minute later, the sun disappeared behind the horizon, leaving them in darkness.
Suddenly, Zipporwhill moved. “W-what happened?” she asked. Her body twitched; she turned on her side and coughed up some more water. She then lay on the beach, panting and shivering.
Featherweight broke the silence. “Y-you don’t remember?”
Zipporwhill winced and shook her head. She inhaled loudly and threw up the remains of popcorn on the sand, nearly choking. Alula wiped her mouth.
“We went to the cinema...” Zipporwhill muttered. “But what was later?”
“You fell into the water,” Rumble replied. “I found you and saved you...”
“With our help,” Alula said. “We have your glasses... I’m afraid they’re cracked.”
Zipporwhill nodded. Alula put glasses on her nose.
“It’s cold...” Zipporwhill shuddered.
“Well, it kinda is,” Rumble muttered. “I don’t usually swim in the lake that late...”
“What are we gonna do?” Alula asked, trying to pierce the darkness with her gaze. “Where the hell is Ponyville?”
“I have no idea,” Featherweight replied. “One of us could fly there for help, but... what if they get lost?”
“I can try,” Rumble said, staring at Zipporwhill. “If I knew where...”
Zipporwhill moaned. Featherweight looked at her unsurely. “Maybe we should carry her to the clearing?” he asked. “There won’t be so much wind there...”
“We can’t,” Alula said. “Remember when Nurse Redheart was teaching us first aid? We can’t move her. We don’t know how’s her spine and if we make it worse, she may never walk again.”
“Well, we already moved her,” Featherweight muttered.
“Out of the water,” Rumble replied. “She wasn’t safe there.”
Featherweight sighed. “She’s not safe here either. She may freeze!”
Rumble walked to Featherweight and pushed him away from Zipporwhill. “Oh, so now you care about her? And whose idea it was to throw rocks into the water?”
Featherweight pointed a hoof at Alula. “It was her idea to recreate that scene.”
“No, it was her idea to do something like that, you’re the one who said we had to do it exactly like they did in the movie.”
“She didn’t have to do that!” Featherweight rushed to Rumble, pushing him. “She didn’t have to fly all the way down!”
“Yeah, but you provoked her to do that, you idiot!” Rumble exclaimed. “You called her a chicken!”
“Shut up!” Alula shouted, standing between the colts. “Both of you! It doesn’t matter now whose fault it is! She may die!”
Zipporwhill groaned and tried to get up again. “I’m fine guys... What happened?”
“You asked that already,” Featherweight muttered. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t remember, really...” Zipporwhill stood on her hooves, shaking. Alula ran to her, helping her up. “We were in the cinema, I think? What happened later?”
“That’s pointless,” Rumble said, rolling his eyes. “You two, stay with her. I’m gonna bring some help.”
“You’re going to leave us?” Alula asked, looking around. Zipporwhill trembled, resting herself against her. “We’d better stay together till morning...”
“She may die by then!” Rumble exclaimed. “Do you think I’m not afraid of flying in the darkness, trying to find Ponyville?”
Suddenly, they heard the sound of heavy hoofsteps coming from behind the nearby bushes. Rumble, Alula and Featherweight froze, their ears perking up, ready to catch even the faintest sound. Featherweight shuddered and fell to the ground, hiding behind Alula. The hoofsteps could be heard again, this time further away from them; a twig snapped somewhere in the distance, but it was the last chord of the symphony of nocturnal noises. Silence, interrupted only by Zipporwhill’s shallow breath assaulted their ears like a heavy veil falling from an ancient ceiling.
“You can stop hiding, chicken,” Alula muttered, looking down on Featherweight.
Featherweight stood up, smiling sheepishly. “I was just getting ready to attack it, in case it wanted to come here...”
Alula rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right...”
“Wait a minute, where’d Rumble go?”
Alula looked around, but the colt was nowhere to be seen on the sand. “Did he… did he leave? That little weasel!”
“Maybe he went to get help.”
“After we agreed to stay here and protect Zipporwhill?” Alula sighed. “What is wrong with him?”
Featherweight shrugged. “Dunno, he wouldn’t–” He shuddered. “What if something crawled out of the lake and ate him?”
“If there were something dangerous in the lake, wouldn’t we have heard about it?”
“Not if everypony who finds out gets eaten.”
Alula put her hoof on her forehead. “Think for a while... How many ponies you know disappeared suddenly?”
Featherweight started to count on his feathers. Alula sighed and smacked him in the back of the head.
“There’s no time,” she muttered, pointing at Zipporwhill, who was now crawling through the sand. “Zip, where are you going?”
Zipporwhill dropped on the sound heavily and muttered something. Alula ran to her and lifted her head. “Stay with me, Zip. Are you okay?”
Zipporwhill groaned, blinking. “Can’t... see...” she whispered, a few drops of blood escaping her lips.
Featherweight ran to her, shivering. “She’s dying!” he exclaimed, sobbing. “Where’s Rumble?”
“She’s not.” Alula hugged Zipporwhill closer. “You’re not going anywhere, right?”
“I don’t think so.” Zipporwhill’s voice was barely audible. “What happened?”
“You almost got yourself killed and Rumble left us alone here.” Alula sighed. “You may also die of cold like Silver Breeze’s friend...”
Featherweight swallowed hard. “Maybe we should get something to warm her up?”
“If we could start a fire...” Alula muttered. “I don’t think you have any matches?”
“No chance,” Featherweight replied. “Rumble had Thunderlane’s lighter, but he didn’t leave it, I’m afraid.”
“I wish Cloud Kicker was with us.” Alula groaned. “She accidentally burned down some meadow while disposing of some stray stormclouds.”
Featherweight lifted his head. “That’s it! If we had a stormcloud, we could start a fire.”
“Yeah, because I always have one in my pocket,” Alula muttered.
“You don’t have pockets.”
Alula looked at Featherweight and sighed. She then looked at him one more time, before sitting on the ground and staring at her hooves.
“Besides, there’s a lot of clouds up there.” Featherweight looked at the sky.
“Does any of them look like a stormcloud to you?” Alula asked.
“Dunno...” Featherweight shrugged. “My parents don’t work in the weather team.”
“Well, none of them looks like one to me,” Alula muttered. “And I can hardly even see them.”
“What if you take a closer look?” Featherweight asked. “I’ll stay here with Zipporwhill.”
Alula shrugged. “It won’t help much, but it’s better than nothing. Just don’t go anywhere and call me if something goes wrong with Zip.”
Before Featherweight could reply, Alula took off and looked around. Just like she expected, she couldn’t see anything. Remembering what her sister had told her about weather control, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.
It was harder than she thought. The images of Zipporwhill, Featherweight, and Rumble kept resurfacing in her memory, making her shudder. She gritted her teeth and rubbed her temples, trying to catch small changes in the air pressure, humidity, and temperature that could tell her about the location of nearby clouds.
Practically anything outside the five-metre radius around her was a mess of mixed signals, static, and false leads; Alula groaned, remembering how Cloud Kicker could tell about the exact position and kind of every cloud above Ponyville without getting up from the couch. She moved slightly to the left, trying to make some sense of the overwhelming mass of impulses.
There was electricity in the air; she could feel it on her tongue. Straining her brain to its limits, she focused on that small bit of information. With every inch of her body, she clinged to this thin thread leading her towards the stormcloud. It was slightly below her – she could feel an itch in her right hind leg. She headed in that direction, her eyes still shut.
The itch moved to her chest before disappearing completely. Alula groaned and opened her eyes, realising that she must’ve lost concentration.
The cloud was right in front of her. Alula shrugged and hauled it towards the place where Featherweight was. Once she touched it, she knew it was the right one. The electric feeling on her skin couldn’t be confused with anything else.
Alula looked from the cloud to the campsite, then back. She nudged the fluffy mass one last time, her tongue sticking out between her lips. One quick nod later, and she unleashed a torrent of hoof blows on the cloud, pelting the clearing below with lightning. Featherweight shrieked, diving behind a rock and narrowly missing one of the blazing bolts. It seemed as though the lightning wanted to go everywhere except their little fire pit, scorching stones and blackening grass all over the clearing.
“Are you even aiming?!” Featherweight called from behind his stony cover.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alula yelled back between her punches, scowling. “Should I put a telescope on it?” She turned and bucked, blasting out a cluster of blinding white streaks. One of them struck a tree, skipping up it and arcing between a couple branches. Embers grew to fire on the bark, and soon the leaves were wilting and igniting. Alula put her forehooves on her hips and shrugged. “Well, good enough.”
“Get down here and help me bring Zipporwhill closer to the fire,” Featherweight said. Alula darted towards him. On her way down, she suddenly noticed a dark shadow coming from her right. She turned left, twisting her wings painfully. A couple of bats, scared by the lightning, flew above her, one of them getting tangled in her mane. Alula shuddered, trying to shake it off.
“Watch out!” Featherweight shouted. Alula looked forward and saw a tree branch getting dangerously close to her. She yanked herself upwards, but the branch hit her stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs. Alula somersaulted and fell on her back, hitting the ground hard.
The first thing she heard was Featherweight’s frantic hoofsteps. Her whole body was numb; for a one, painfully long moment, she thought that she could have broken her spine. Then, she regained her senses and wished she didn’t – she curled into fetal position and bit her lips.
“Are you okay?” Featherweight asked.
“No,” Alula whispered. She tried to stand up quickly and nearly fell down, resting herself on Featherweight. “I’m not okay... I’m hurt, scared, Zipporwhill may die...” She lowered her head.
Featherweight patted Alula’s head. “It’ll be okay... Someone will find us...”
“No, it won’t!” Alula yelled, pushing him away. “Even if they realised that we’re gone, no one will look for us here, because no one knows we went here! My sister told me about a pegasus who got lost over Ghastly Gorge and–”
“It’s not Ghastly Gorge,” Featherweight muttered. “You need to calm down...”
“You won’t be telling me to calm down!” Alula shouted.
“Well, then stop yelling at me!” Featherweight yelled, getting closer to Alula. “I’m trying to help!”
Alula punched Featherweight in the face, causing him to sit down. “I don’t need your help!” She punched him again. “First Rumble ran away, now you’re being a pain in the–” She paused, hearing Zipporwhill’s groan and collapsed next to Featherweight.
“You okay now?” the colt whispered.
“No...” Alula sobbed. “But at least I don’t feel like beating you up.”
“And how do you feel like?”
Alula didn’t say anything. She just shook her head and crawled to the fire. The smoke blew on her, causing more tears to flow from her eyes. Coughing, she walked around the blazing embers and sat next to Zipporwhill. Featherweight followed her, sitting on the opposite side of Zipporwhill and rubbing his bruises.
“So… What are we gonna do?” Featherweight asked, staring into the fire. “Wait till the morning to find help?”
“She may not have that much time,” Alula replied, her voice empty and almost alien to Featherweight. “My sister once told me about her friend from the flight camp. She also had an accident… they saved her only because it was quick. And then she got sick with…” She groaned, trying to recall the unfamiliar name. “Something you get when your brain gets swollen. If we wait all night…”
“But how do you want to find Ponyville?” Featherweight looked into the darkness, but he couldn’t see anything outside the circle of light from their campfire. “I can try, but–”
“I’ll do that,” Alula whispered, fire reflecting in her eyes. “Stay with Zipporwhill. I’ll be right back.”
“No!” Featherweight exclaimed. He shivered, hearing the echo of his voice. “D-don’t leave me…”
“I have to.” Alula spread her wings. “Don’t try to stop me or I’ll punch you again.”
“We shouldn’t split up,” Featherweight said, looking at Zipporwhill. “You know what happens when ponies split up in the movies, right?” He swallowed hard. “They die.”
“Someone may die if we don’t split up.” Alula took off. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back. Stay here with Zipporwhill.”
She flew above the island. After a few metres, she realised that it’d be harder than she thought; the only thing she saw was a patch of light at the clearing she’d just left. She focused, trying to remember where was Ponyville, but it was all for nothing.
A gust of cold air told her that she left the island and was now above the lake. She shuddered, her teeth clattering, but she pushed away the thought about Featherweight and the campfire, instead focusing on what her wings were telling her.
It wasn’t much. With the amount of flying she’d done, her bones quickly started to feel like they were on fire. Alula felt one of her joints almost giving up and fell a good few metres before regaining control of her flight enough to avoid hitting the ground. However, the cold wind carried her further, tossing her around as she tried to focus on her destination. Another gust overturned her, and for a moment she could see the surface of the lake way closer to her that she’d thought. Alula flapped her wings harder, gritting her teeth. The air left her lungs as she was trying to force her muscles to still work.
A pang of pain ran through her nerves. Alula screamed and went numb as the wind attacked her even more ruthlessly. She somersaulted, suddenly gaining altitude and smacking into the clouds. Her wings gave up; she plummeted towards the ground, hitting the branches and leaves before slamming into the mud.
Alula screamed, trying to stand up and wipe her eyes. She choked on the mud, falling face-first into it. Lightnings tore the sky around her as she crawled on a root of some tree, coughing and retching. The rain was pouring down on her, each drop piercing her fur and dripping down her body.
“Where am I?” she muttered to herself, trembling and clinging to the root. “It can’t be the island…”
Another lightning tore struck a tree somewhere near her. Alula flailed her wings and fell into the mud again. She felt the taste of blood in her mouth, so she spat, trying to get her bearings. In the brief moments when lightnings flooded the whole place with otherworldly light, she could see it reflecting from the surface of the lake, quite far away from her.
“What’s going on?” Alula climbed back on the root, ignoring the numbness in her hooves. “Why is it raining? There was no storm scheduled… Unless…”
When the thought struck her, she automatically crawled closer to the moss-covered bark of the tree, closing her eyes and shuddering. She realised that in the darkness, she had probably lost her way and ended up in the Everfree Forest. That was the only explanation why the weather changed so suddenly and why the darkness around her was so overwhelming; even when she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see anything.
Suddenly, the wind blew stronger, nearly knocking Alula off the tree. She heard the monstrous branches scrape against each other. Her heart nearly stopped, only to resume beating as if it wanted to get out of her chest.
With a scream, Alula took off and flew forward. She kept getting caught in bushes and branches, but she didn’t even realise that. Adrenaline rushed through her body as the world around her changed into the dark blur. She couldn’t hear the thunder anymore; all that she could discern was the beating of her own heart. Her lungs felt like they were on fire. She couldn’t catch a breath, screaming and crying, flying blindly across the forest.
The tree that grew in front of her was almost a salvation for her mind. She ran into it and bounced off, rolling on the ground before resting in the puddle, unconscious.
Somewhere above her, the first ray of the sun pierced the layer of clouds.
Featherweight opened his eyes. Everything around was blurry, spinning around him at the pace that quickly made him sick. He groaned, shuddering and clenching his eyelids.
“Featherweight?” The voice seemed familiar.
“Rumble?” Featherweight’s throat was pierced with a wave of pain as he spoke. He opened his eyes again. Everything was still blurry, but at least it stopped spinning. Rumble was sitting by the hospital bed. He had a few band-aids on his face and wings and he was looking at Featherweight with wide eyes. When Featherweight looked around, he saw a few more ponies in the room. His brother, Bulk Biceps was sitting on the other side of the bed. Thunderlane stood away from it, embracing a trembling Cloud Kicker with his wing.
“What’s going on?” Featherweight asked, coughing. “Where’s Zipporwhill?”
“I managed to fly back to Ponyville,” Rumble said. “Well, I ended up in some bushes, but I found my brother, your brother, Alula’s sister, and Zipporwhill’s dad looking for us. By the morning, we reached the island and found you and Zip.”
Featherweight coughed. “How’s she?”
“Bad,” Rumble replied. “She didn’t wake up yet and it’s been five days already.”
“Not that he was much better,” Thunderlane muttered. Bulk Biceps gave him a heavy glare.
Suddenly, Featherweight realised something. He looked around once again. “Where’s Alula?”
Cloud Kicker screamed and nearly fell to the ground. Thunderlane caught her and helped her up, carrying her out of the room.
“She wasn’t with you two.” Rumble’s voice faltered. “What happened to her?”
“She…” Featherweight groaned. “She wanted to find Ponyville and bring help. She flew away and then… I don’t know. I guess I passed out.”
“Well, she didn’t reach the town,” Bulk Biceps muttered. “Frankly, we’re looking for her in the lake.”
“Alula? No way.” Featherweight suddenly felt cold, but he continued to speak anyway. “She was a great flyer. She wouldn’t just drown like that.”
His words echoed across the room, but no one replied. After a moment, Rumble spoke up.
“Even if she survived, it’s been five days. She’s gone.”
“That’s impossible.” Featherweight replied. “I won’t believe this… Until we find her. Else… it’d be like killing her.” His eyes closed and he fell asleep again.
Rumble looked at Bulk Biceps and walked out of the room.
It took a couple of days before Featherweight was released from the hospital. He was still coughing from time to time, but he didn’t want to stay at home any longer. He soon came back to school, but the classroom seemed pretty empty without Zipporwhill, who was still lying in the hospital, unconscious. Alula’s body wasn’t found yet and, as Featherweight heard, the search was eventually called off. On the same day, Cloud Kicker left the town without uttering a single word to anyone.
Rumble’s gaze wandered aimlessly across the open book on his desk, only taking in a few random words here and there in between the pictures of ponies in funny clothes. He paid as much attention to the book as he did Cheerilee’s ongoing lecture. Something about riots in Manehattan. His attention was only drawn out of his own head by the sound of the recess bell ringing.
Cheerilee’s historical pontification ceased, and her muzzle turned toward the vibrating bell on the wall. “Oh! That’s fifteen minutes, everypony. Mark your pages and we’ll pick up when you get back.”
Rumble pulled a little strip of cardboard out of his desk, it’s surface adorned with the face of a sneering griffon pirate. He slid it into his book, flipped it shut, and joined the rest of the class as they funneled through the door and dispersed onto the playground. He met up with Featherweight near a set of benches. “Hey,” he said simply.
“Hey,” Featherweight said right back , taking a seat. “So, uh… You hear about Crimson Feathers?”
“Yeah.” Rumble nodded. “Not even a week after the last one comes out and they’re already working on number three.”
“So much for the ‘Final Confrontation’ bit.” Featherweight dragged a hoof across the bench, eyes following as it bumped over the rough wood. “Or maybe it was just the final one for that one guy who died.”
A shrug was all Rumble gave in reply. Quiet drifted over them, as they tried to find a conversation topic that wouldn’t involve an empty seat in the second row.
“You hear anything about Alula?” Featherweight asked.
“Nope. You?”
“If I did, why would I ask?”
Rumble shrugged. “I dunno, so you could be dramatic about it?”
“Hey,” came a third voice. The two colts looked up to find a pale filly with a frizzy brown mane. “Did you say ‘Alula?” Rumble and Featherweight both nodded, and the filly said, “We got an Alula in Ponyville General last night.”
Featherweight’s jaw dropped, and Rumble sputtered out, “She’s alive?”
“She’s…” The filly rubbed a hoof to the side of her head for a second before finishing, “She’s stable.”
“Death is also stable,” Rumble muttered.
“Wait,” Featherweight said, “how do you know that?”
The filly replied with a smile, “I’m an intern there.”
“What? They let—”
“Which room?” Rumble cut in.
“ICU, room seven.” The filly paused for a moment, then a look of panic shot across her face. “Wait, who are you two, again? Are you—”
But Rumble was already trotting away from her. “Come on,” he said to Featherweight, who was just a few paces behind him.
“Thanks.” Rumble let go of the counter, dropping his forehooves back to the floor. The mare behind the counter poked at a button on her desk. A nearby set of double doors door slid open, the words “INTENSIVE CARE” painted on them. Featherweight and Rumble wasted no time making their way through the now-open doorway.
It was only a few seconds before they found room seven. With a hover upward and a tug of Featherweight’s teeth, the pale green curtain slid aside with a dull metal screech. True to the filly intern’s word, there was Alula. She was lying still on a bed, a tube stuck in her foreleg and a sheet covering half her body. Her eyes were locked on one of the ceiling tiles.
Featherweight advanced first, gliding down to land next to the bed. “She’s awake,” he stated. “Hey, Alula? You okay?”
Rumble asked, “What happened?”
Alula’s eyes remained pointed at the ceiling. She blinked. “Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing?” Rumble repeated.
“Nothing. The colour… it burns.” Alula’s hooves slid the covers up to her neck. “Cold and wet, but it burns.”
The two colts shared a confused expression, and both opened their mouths to speak, but they instead turned around at the sound of the curtain being slid aside behind them. A nurse stood in the doorway with a clear plastic bag hanging from her jaws.
The nurse dropped the bag into her hoof to say, “Friends of hers?” The two younger ponies nodded, and she stepped around them to Alula’s bedside. “I figured. She did say something about two dunderhead colts, earlier.”
Featherweight followed the nurse, stopping near one corner of the bed. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“Not really.” The nurse went about replacing the deflated sack hanging from Alula’s IV stand. “The zebra who brought her in said she found her in the Everfree Forest and took her in. I don’t know what kinda medicine she gave the kid, but she’s been loopy ever since she came in here. When she’s awake, that is.”
“Is she gonna be okay?”
The nurse looked from the colts to Alula, then back down to them. “I’m… sure she’ll be fine,” she said slowly.
Rumble furrowed his eyebrows. “I have a feeling that you’re not telling us everything.”
“Zebra superstitions,” the nurse whispered, wincing and shuddering. “That’s, of course, ridiculous, but…”
“It burns,” Alula muttered. The heart rate monitor near her bed started to beep faster. “I’m not a pony. This is just a dream and soon I will awake. He’s coming. He’s here and soon he’ll take what belongs to him.” She took a deep breath, her body shuddering.
“The zebra thinks she was cursed.” The nurse backpedalled towards the door. “Of course, it’s just acute confusional state and–”
“Shut up,” Alula whispered, suddenly focusing her eyes on the nurse. Rumble and Featherweight looked into them, trembling at the deep emptiness lurking behind Alula’s irises. “I’m only the messenger but one that comes after me…”
“Who is he?” Featherweight blurted out.
“A thing… from the lake… I don’t know... He’s coming… to get… what… belongs to him…” Alula’s head dropped on the pillow. The heart rate monitor slowed down to a normal pace as she closed her eyes and snored.
“It may take a while before such episodes stop,” the nurse said. “Frankly, we’re not sure if she can see anything. You’d better go. It gets worse when there are more ponies around her.”
“Yeah, we’ll come back later,” Rumble muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. He turned to Featherweight. “Come on, let’s see how’s Zipporwhill.”
Without a word, they left the room and trotted down the corridor. They didn’t walk very far, when one of the nurses ran past them, pushing them aside. A few more nurses and doctors followed her, rushing towards one of the rooms.
Featherweight suddenly felt cold. He looked at Rumble and ran down the corridor as fast as he could. He heard Rumble’s hoofsteps, as his friend slid on the slippery floor. Blood was rushing through his veins, beating of his heart echoing in his temples.
One of the nurses turned back, blocking the door. “You can’t come in,” she said. Behind her, the room was filled with noise of various machines and loud voices of the doctors. Someone tripped, losing a tray with some tools that scattered across the floor with metallic noise.
“What’s going on?” Rumble asked, his wide eyes staring at the nurse.
Featherweight felt that his throat was dry. “He’s here,” he whispered.
Rumble looked at him. “Who’s here?”
“He’s coming to get what belongs to him,” Featherweight replied. The noises suddenly faded, replaced by a piercing, continuous beep of a heart monitor. Someone was crying. Someone kicked an IV stand, turning away from the bed with a small, pony-shaped lump covered by a green bed sheet.
Rumble took a deep breath, staring at the pair of black-rimmed glasses lying abandoned on the nightstand. “D– did she…”
Featherweight didn’t reply, nodding slightly. He turned back, leaving Rumble at the door, and walked back to Alula’s room. She was still sleeping on her bed and didn’t move when he sat on the chair, breathing heavily and rubbing his temples.
“You know…” he whispered, his vision blurring. “Zipporwhill’s dead.”
He trembled when he heard her voice, so different from what he was used to.
“His work is done.”
Author's Note
So, this one is kinda cursed. I mean, we started it in 2015 and it was hanging in a mostly finished state until now. In the meantime, Bootsy retired from writing and one of the people who preread it somewhere around 2016 got banned (the reason I don't list prereaders on this one is because I don't remember half of them and one of those I do remember humbly said that he didn't do much and doesn't deserve credit, despite, like, pointing out that I'm using a Polish word for "pedestal" for some reason).
And now the cherry on the top: when I was posting this, fic, I noticed that it's the thirteenth fic featuring Zipporwhill.
