Clippy Breeze's hooves touched down on solid earth for the first time in hours. His chosen perch was a jagged steeple of rock, narrow and sharp, jutting upwards into an overcast sky. Scant clusters of weed and moss dangled along the upper edges of the stone promontory, tickling at the pegasus' exposed flank and fetlocks beneath his thick woolly flight jacket.
The young stallion tossed his auburn mane back, freeing his goggles to be slid up by an athletic hoof, exposing handsome green eyes. Relaxing his gray-toned wings, he sat on the only flat stretch of stone available to him. There, he unhitched his saddlebag and took the opportunity to pore through the contents of his afternoon search.
Fishing through his satchel, Clippy Breeze produced a pair of necklaces. The pegasus had been lucky enough to have found them first; he snatched the jewelry from where they dangled off the branches of an errant tree that Clippy had found stretching bent and crooked off the side of another cliff. The chains were made of a gold alloy—which would likely fetch many a bright coin—but the pendants dangling from them had rusted over the centuries. In the fading daylight, the pegasus' eyes could make out the tarnished silhouette of an avian profile. No doubt these were ancient griffonese heirlooms; they would provide more value if he could find a traveling vendor from the eastern lands.
Snorting inwardly, Clippy shoved the necklaces back into the bag and fished around some more. Something grazed him—old and sharp—and he smirked past his grimace before producing a miniature scimitar. The metal of the blade was too worn and decrepit to be of value, but the handle was a thing of beauty. Just above the grip, an alicorn effigy had been sculpted out of pure ivory—which could only mean that the antique weapon hailed from many many years before such practices were outlawed... or at least when elephants still roamed the northern plains of Equestria. It was hard to believe that Clippy had found the item protruding from beneath the branches of a phoenix's long-vacant nest.
Whistling casually to himself, the pegasus held the mouth of the saddlebag even wider. Clippy reached in deep this time, pulling out a silver cylinder bespeckled all over in celestial intaglio. The top-piece featured a crescent moon with a seam down the center, and there was a switch at the very bottom. When his hoof pressed it, the top of the cylinder split open like a beetle's shell, and a tiny figurine of Nightmare Moon kissed the silver light of the dying day. The prancing figure turned about fifteen feeble degrees to the sound of discordant musical notes—before the mechanism went dormant altogether, its interior springs damaged by years of neglect and exposure to the high-altitude elements.
Clippy Breeze arched an eyebrow, relishing in the fact that the find was so pristine that he could even see his own reflection in the sides of the contraption. Despite its defective condition, there was no doubt he would rake in the most bits for this item and this item alone. He already imagined shoving the fact in his friends' face once they had all returned to the taverns at Skybreak Point for a round of cider, and it broadened his smirk all the more.
He gently placed the loot back into his saddlebag. As he tied the satchel shut, Clippy looked up into the western heavens, his eyes trailing after his own thoughts—in search of his companions. Also his competitors.
He saw three of them so far away that they resembled seagulls against a peasoup wave of mist. They were carving channels into a swath of overcast clouds, gradually exposing an even taller pillar of rock, layer by layer. The earthen architecture formed a charcoal black band of shadows from the setting sun, but even in the penumbra Clippy could see dozens if not hundreds of griffoneese spears and cannonballs embedded into the southeast face of the structure. Among the ancient detritus were remnants of Pegasopolitan glaives that were also stuck in the rock. Clippy snickered to himself; no doubt his friends had gotten so desperate that they were attempting to pawn in old artifacts of war that any pony could find in a Cloudsdalian museum.
He was the victor that hunt. He was the victor every hunt.
With a satisfied sigh, Clippy used his nimble wing feathers to unhitch a canteen from his side. There was still some spring water within; he had refilled the container earlier when he discovered a babbling brook beneath a snowline of a mountain that he and his friends had flown past hours earlier. Not only did he have an eye for precious things, but he had the wherewithal to take advantage of them.
As Clippy enjoyed the refreshing liquid rolling down his throat, he gazed idly eastward. With the advent of quickly-approaching night, the upper atmosphere had started to take on a dull purple hue. Here—so far northeast from the populated valleys of Equestria—moisture gathered coldly, loftily. Moist winds from the neighboring sea produced thick gray clouds that hung through the troposphere in layers, with each ascending ceiling far colder and duller than the last. Nighttime—oddly enough—was a painterly blessing against such perpetual malaise.
There was still a scant kiss of daylight left, which is what captured Clippy's curiosity, for there hovered a thick line of clouds far darker than they needed to be for that time in the afternoon. He paused in mid-drink, squinting at the eastern cloud bands. Sure enough, a solid line of blackness shifted slowly across the misty ceiling. As his eyes adjusted to the sight, he found a focal point to the phenomenon.
Something was casting a shadow. At first he thought it was a flock of geese—but even they wouldn't cast a shadow that prominent at such a distance. His next thought was that it was an errant rain cloud drifting westward from an oceanic gale. Soon, however, Clippy's heart had skipped a beat—for it was none of those things whatsoever. In the beams of the setting sun, something had glinted—bright and gold. Flying metal situated that high could only mean one thing.
An airship.
And as Clippy's eyes expertly studied the limp, sideways drift of the thing, he came to an experienced conclusion.
It was a derelict.
This was a motherlode. And his gaze was the first to grace it. Now was the time to capitalize even more.
Quick as a wind gust, Clippy pocketed his canteen away, tightened his saddlebags, and kicked upwards from his perch. His wings spread, and he flew higher and higher at a rapid pace. He did not fly straight for the airship. In case his assumption was wrong—and ponies were still manning the craft—then his approach might startle them. It was better he fly towards it from above, where the vessel's balloon would act as a blind spot. Plus, there was another reason to ascend as rapidly as he did.
Clippy touched the overcast ceiling. Once there, he grabbed a clump of cloudy mists with all four limbs. His wings flapped in reverse—like a backstroking swimmer—and he descended the way he came. Once his body was caught in the exposed rays of the setting sun, he dislodged himself from the body-ful of clouds he had caught. Then, with expert wings and hooves, he sculpted three “glyphs” out of the cloudy material. These he bucked into the sunlight and drifted back... looking towards the western horizon. In mid-glide, he took a monstrous breath... then let loose one long shriek—melodic and loud—that echoed along the lower bands of overcast.
A half-minute passed as Clippy waited for the sound to carry over to his friends. Sure enough, their cloud-carving flight paused, and he saw them hovering in place—their necks craned as they studied his smoke signals from afar. Each glyph he produced had given a simple message—one known to all pegasi since flight school: “East.” “Fly.” “Searching.”
Another thirty seconds, and one of his friends flew up, scooped a wad of clouds, and came back down in time to kick a return signal into the sunlight: “Affirmative.” With that issued, the pegasi continued looting the tallest mountain for its heirlooms.
Clippy Breeze bit his smiling lips with bubbling glee. His gamble had worked; they had seen his message but not his prize. With a flutter of his feathers, he kicked the wind and dashed eastward, scaling higher and higher so that the derelict skycraft would soon be lying in his meager shadow.
Within minutes, the stallion had come within a stone's throw of the vagrant craft. Upon closer inspection, he was surprised at how... pristine the vessel appeared. There was no sign of damage. The hull was largely clean and untarnished. For as long as the aircraft had been exposed to the elements, the elements had been kind to it.
And yet it drifted limply, strafing ever so listlessly starboard, with the prow aimed in a lazy angle towards the heavens above. From bow to stern, the craft was about twenty meters in length—an escort vessel by Equestrian aeronautical standards. It was perfect for long-range voyages, and it wasn't strange for an airship like this to stay aloft for years on the magically-imbued gases contained within its balloon.
Clippy's initial guess was that the craft had been tethered to a cruiser—but then subsequently lost in a heavy storm. Or perhaps something worse—like a pirate attack. Granted, none of these hypotheses clicked with the veritable lack of structural damage found on the craft, but a ship this immaculate was far too substantial (and embarrassing) of a monetary loss to have feasibly been abandoned for any other reason.
There was only one way to find out for sure. Angling his wings, Clippy Breeze descended sharply towards the vessel. With unabashed grace, he landed on the prow. A shiver instantly ran through his petite pony body—for the gold-laced bow was ice cold to the touch. This thing had been adrift for a long, long time.
In the glint of the setting sun, a series of platinum engravings caught his eye. He looked towards the port side and saw the vessel's name emblazoned in Equestrian Basic:
The Bird Feeder
The name was too coy and diminutive to belong to a Cloudsdalian commissioned vessel. Clippy guessed this thing was built by unicorns in Canterlot. Or perhaps Trottingham.
The very prow he was perched on sliced a swath in the sunlight, draping the upper deck in dense shadow. There was no sign of any hooves on board, but a pegasus like Clippy knew better than to blindly assume.
“Hello?!” he called out. The cold winds carried his voice further, cascading it across every wooden floorboard and metal plate of the craft.
There was no response. Only the groan and creak of the drifting ship's taut superstructure.
“Hello?!?” Clippy tried once more. Despite the earnestness in his voice, he very deeply hoped that the ship was indeed abandoned. Equestrian Salvaging Laws would work against him otherwise.
Yet again, the air was full of nothing but whistling winds and softly flexing ropes. The bands that held the balloon to the gondola of the airship were as tight as ever, and well-maintained. It was as if the crew had done their task with loyal hooves... before inexplicably abandoning the vessel yesterday.
A slight flutter of unease wafted through Clippy's tummy. He tongued the inside of his muzzle, then turned to look west. Towards the light. Towards his friends. His wings flexed with the thought of potentially sharing this potential bounty after all...
...when a glitter of shiny light bedazzled the stallion through his peripheral vision. Instantly, he threw his gaze at the upper deck of the Bird Feeder. What he saw took his breath away. The vessel had drifted into a pocket of light afforded by a hole in the clouds, and it revealed a clutter of reflective gold and silver spilled out across the floor. There was a half-empty satchel caught on the edge of a metal grate, and its contents were exposed: antiquities from Equestrian epochs that Clippy had never witnessed before.
“Whoah...” With a single push, he glided off the prow and landed on the naked deck of the ship. He stood over the spilled loot, his jaw dropped in awe. “...no friggin' way!” As the light from above spread, he became aware of another bag of goods—spilled out against a wooden supply crate. There were tokens of war—Hippogriff design—that were far older and more valuable than any old rusted griffon blade found on the side of a mountain. “Please... somepony... anypony...” He grinned stupidly to himself as he trotted over towards the loot. “...I need to know that I'm not dreaming.”
He reached forward, his fetlock hovering just above the handle of an immaculately-preserved Hippogriff spear. Then, as he held his breath, he pushed down until he felt the decidedly real kiss of the real metal.
“Ha! Ha hah! I'm not dreaming!” Clippy Breeze did a little dance of joy in place. “Cha-CHING! We hit the jackpot, brothers and sisters!” He swiveled west and stuck his tongue out at the familiar shadows scraping uselessly against a mountain. “Who's a pain in who's flank now, huh?! Slackers! You snooze—you lose, melon bucks!”
With a pronounced slap, he slammed his saddlebags onto the deck, opened them in a flurry, and began scooping in all the gold treasures and metal loot he could get his shivering hooves on.
“That's mine! And that's mine! And that is most definitely mine!” Clippy's grin grew wider and wider as he fattened his satchel to the bursting point. “'Clippy, you should be studying law! It's tradition!' Blpblpblp! Feathers to you, Dad. I'm gonna buy me a marefriend and then buy her fifty marefriends and then we're gonna gather all my illegal-perching-violation tickets into one big-flank pile and roll in them!” As he said this, another glittery shine lit his eyes and he gasped at another satchel of spilled goods lying further along the deck. “Oh sweet juice boxes!” he spat. “Are those minotaurian rupees?” He scrambled closer, squealing with pent-up joy. “They are! They are!” He scooped as many of the precious stones into what remained of his bag space. “So help me—This will buy me my very own cloud bed in Las Pegasus for sure—”
So engrossed was Clippy in his euphoria that he failed to notice a downdraft of cold air billowing into the body of the ship. The vessel pivoted sharply, rising and falling in rapid succession. Nevertheless, his nimble pegasus reflexes compensated, and Clippy kicked off the careening deck before landing back down in an agile slide. No sooner had he gathered his bearings that he heard a loud clatter immediately behind him. The rocking of the ship had flung the door to the cabin wide open; the panel must have been loose on its hinges. A gust of cold air rolled over Clippy's body, making his coat hair stand on end. He hugged his bulging bag of things, feeling his teeth chatter from the nippy sensation.
If—perhaps—this ship was indeed recently-abandoned, then it was sheer luck that allowed Clippy Breeze to land on it while it was still in one piece. At this rate—untethered and tossed to the winds—a vessel of that size could easily slam into any of the jutting mountain peaks of that area. It was quite likely the right time—then—for Clippy to count his blessings and take off with what he had pilfered.
After all, if he was quick and stealthy enough, it's quite possible he could make a return trip to the Bird Feeder with even more bags. It would be past nightfall, however, so he would have to do the second salvage by moonlight. It sounded like a rewarding challenge, and Clippy smiled at the idea of even more cream being added to his unexpected crop.
There was just the question of whether or not to share the bounty with his friends. This occupied his thoughts as he cinched the saddlebags shut and heaved the savage weight onto his flank—
“... … ...hello?”
Clippy Breeze froze in place—but not from the chill. He stared forward into the overcast clouds like an escaped prisoner under a spotlight.
One ear twitched... and then the other.
All was winds and creaking.
Until it repeated:
“... … … … … ...hello...?”
Clippy blinked. He turned around towards the source of the small, timid voice... and he froze yet again when he found it to be the dark hollow of the cabin's open doorframe.
The entrance to the airship's lower hold yawned before Clippy at a crooked angle—a perfect rectangular blackness devoid of any life... until that very same life announced itself for the third time:
“Somepony... anypony...”
Clippy's lips pursed. All traces of greed and avarice left him in a flurry, replaced instead by good ol' fashion Equestrian concern and empathy.
“Who's there?” He spoke in a soft tone, as if addressing a young foal. He remembered his two kid brothers from back in Cloudsdale—and his mind buckled from the sheer thought of them sounding nearly as scared and alone. “Are... is everything okay?”
The air was silent yet again. A part of Clippy hoped it would remain that way.
Then that same part of him sank upon hearing a response from the blackness within.
“I... need... help...”
Clippy gulped, trotting forward to lean against the doorframe. “Hey! Kid! It's gonna be alright! I'm just your regular friendly pegasus! You... uh...” He squinted into the shadows. “...can you tell me where you are? I can't see you...”
“I'm... in...”
“Yeah?” Clippy craned his neck. “Where?”
“... … ...pain.”
The stallion blinked.
“I'm... in... pain... please... somepony... anypony... help... me...”
Clippy chewed on his bottom lip. “He's delirious.” He turned to look west again. The light was fading. A sliver of diluted gold betwixt all the gray. “...I'm delirious.” Breath tight, he looked into the dark hold once again. He inhaled. He fumed. “... … … buck it.”
He slapped his heavy satchel down, leaning it against the inner doorframe. Reaching towards the other side of his flank, Clippy unhooked a black cylinder covered all over in an opaque black fabric. He untied the bottom of the veil and unraveled it completely, revealing a dull glass lantern filled with dormant insects. The pegasus gave the canister a shake. When nothing happened, he slapped it a few times. At long last, the lightning bugs awoke, flittering all about inside the glass container. Their bulbous abdomens refracted light outward in all angles, illuminating wooden floorboards and a lush velvet carpet within the cabin.
“Hang tight, kiddo!” Clippy Breeze announced as he boldly trotted into the hold. He shuffled cautiously forward on three limbs, using his front right leg to hold the lantern high. “Everything's going to be alright!” He swung the lantern left, illuminating a captain's desk covered with maps, parchment, and a dusty globe. “I'm gonna get you out of here!” He swung the light right, revealing an unmade cot and shelves full of navigational books. “Then my friends and I are going to get you somewhere safe! Okay?”
“... … ...okay...”
Clippy sniffled, his muzzle wrinkling from a musky odor—like an abandoned library built atop an abandoned sewer deep inside an abandoned city. This place was full of dust and soot—a sharp contrast to the pristine condition of the deck outside. As he shone the lantern-light around, he saw wine bottles, food crates, aeronautical equipment containers—but no foal in distress.
“Care to help me, kid?” Clippy echoed into the claustrophobic walls of the cabin. The further he went, the narrower the wall panels drew inward, as if coming towards a singular focal point towards the ship's stern. “Say something! Sound off so I can find you!”
“Please... can... you... find... me...?” The response was so immediate that it startled Clippy. It came from a point past the captain's table—the darkest point of the room.
“Kid?” Clippy shone the light towards it. He saw a closet door. “Are you in there?”
“I'm... in... there...”
“Just hold tight!” Clippy quickened his steps, galloping on three legs as he held his lantern high. “I'll get you out of there!”
“Get... me... out... please...”
“Just... just give me a sec!” Clippy fumbled and fussed with the door. He ultimately resorted to gripping the handle with his wingfeathers. After giving the thing a twist or two, he finally yanked it open... and was immediately greeted with an unnatural gust of warm, moist air. “Guh...!” His teeth grit as he fought the urge to vomit. The air smelled like rust and methane. “...what in Tartarus' name is going on in there, kid?” he stammered, seeing nothing but darkness within the closet.
“I'm... in... pain...”
“Why?” Clippy stammered. “What happened?” He held the lantern straight forward. “Could you show me where—?”
Something protruded from every inch of the closet's doorframe... something razor sharp and pale. Like teeth. No sooner had Clippy registered this than the closet entrance slammed shut over his outstretched body. When it reopened in a crimson splash, his lantern was gone. So was his hoof.
He was already screaming before he felt the agonizing pain. The shocked pegasus fell on his flank, clutching his right stub—the fountaining remnant of what once belonged to him. A puff of light issued forth from the carnivorous darkness. Somehow, Clippy found the urge to look forward.
The lantern had shattered, and its former occupants were flittering in all directions. The lightning bugs cast pinprick halos of light against the interior of the “closet,” revealing viscera, sinew, and throbbing abdominal muscles. Then—with eyes glazed white in eternal horror—Clippy saw a sea of shrunken pony faces lining the intestinal wall, and their mouths were moving with the same voice that drew him in.
“Please...”
“...somepony...”
“...anypony...”
Whimpering, Clippy Breeze spun around and scrambled against the bloodied floor on three legs.
“...just...”
“...hold...”
“...tight...”
“...kiddo...”
Clippy Breeze stumbled more than once. Hyperventilating, he flung his wings out and kicked off the floor with his rear legs. He glided close to the ceiling—and that's when two wooden panels hinged loose with animated malice, crushing a froth of passing feathers in a singular clap.
“Aaaaugh!” he fell like a sack of meat to the floor of the cabin. His right wing was a crooked, bleeding mess of bone. The smell of methane increased, along with a humid wetness that permeated every square inch of the room.
“Oh...”
“...sweet...”
“...juice boxes...”
“Gnnngh!” He pulled himself up and limped desperately forward, his eyes locked on the bright rectangle of gray overcast lingering at the apex of the cabin's throat.
“No...”
"...friggin'..."
“...way...”
The entire ship groaned. That rectangle of salvation turned darker as the entire vessel pivoted upwards at a steep angle. Clippy was fighting gravity now, clasping and clamoring at the carpet and floorboards as he fumbled for the exit.
“Mrnnngh—Help!” he finally hollered towards the elusive light beyond. In his mind, Clippy's friends were still swimming silly circles against the setting sun. Even beyond, a warm bed in Cloudsdale waited, drifting further and further away. “Somepony help me!”
“Not...”
“...dreaming.”
It was a chorus now.
“Help!” Clippy slipped. He clasped on with one struggling fetlock. “Celestia! Luna! Please help—”
There was a glitter of light. Clippy gasped—thinking it was the shadow of wingmates coming to help. Lightning bugs flitted past him, and he realized it was just his bag of looted treasures spilling all over the cabin floor—pelting his skull and withers and chest and finally his fetlock as they slid into him.
And now he was sliding too, straight into the wet, heated song.
“Not... dreaming...”
“No! Goddess—!”
“Not... dreaming...”
“I don't—!”
His voice box was cut loose from his lungs. A few bites later, his skull also sank into the belly of the maw. And when the teeth had accomplished its task, and the blood had rolled into the deepest, tightest crevices of the cabin, the closet door slowly swung shut.
Followed by silence.
And then not-silence... in a feeble whimper that resembled the voice of a stallion who once scavenged the skies with a smile.
“Pain.”
Somewhere, high in the skies of Equestria, a derelict airship drifted. Alone.
It should have remained that way.
Instead, it righted itself from a sharp-angled tilt.
Flying even once again, the airship pointed itself westward... towards where a flock of pegasi searched the remnants of a forgotten war fought by forgotten souls.
Then—with unseen purpose—the ship drifted stealthily into a cloudbank. A few panels along its port-side lifted on their own accord, bashing and breaking the mists until they produced sigils in the air. These smoke signals floated high—and swiftly—kissing the last sliver of daylight. They produced three words—a request.
Soon enough, the pegasi saw it. And they abandoned what they were doing, gliding eastward towards the vessel.
The vessel pivoted itself slightly starboard, resorting to a lazy drift. Its port-side panels slid back into place, quiet and patient, brandishing nothing but a name.
