Featherflit's Narrow Escape

Featherflit loathed the oppressive shadow of the catacombs. She had never liked it down here, and after that one disastrous field trip that had ended in her hysterically screaming for her parents, she had never ventured back.

But now here she was, Flylight trembling at her side, huddled together in the caves beneath Queen Novo’s palace with about thirty other stragglers. The last of the hippogriffs, Featherflit thought to herself, realising that the macabre statement was true in more ways than one. Not only were she and her sister among the last hippogriffs to descend, if what the Queen was telling them was true, they were among the last hippogriffs in the world. The others had already become…something other.

“The Storm King is merciless, according to all reports,” the Queen said, her rich voice even fuller than usual as it echoed in the confined space. “He kills everyone who resists him, and from those who can’t or won’t resist, he takes their magic. He drains it from them and leaves them as helpless husks.”

One of the hippogriffs to Featherflit’s left let out a stifled sob, the sound quickly muffled.

“You know what that would mean for us,” Queen Novo said, sorrow writ large upon her face. “We would lose our flight, our spirit, our very souls. The Storm King’s forces are too strong to resist and he grows stronger every day. My scouts report that he is close to Mount Aris now, within a few days’ flight, and we must face the facts. Our kingdom does not have the strength to defeat him. We are a peaceful race and we simply do not have the numbers.”

The hippogriff who had sobbed before began to cry aloud, a long, broken stream of groans.

“I care about each and every one of you,” the Queen said, and Featherflit’s eyes filled with tears as she looked up at her. She was closer now to the Queen than she had ever been before, but she couldn’t enjoy the experience. It was horrifying that something that once would have been an exciting event now paled into insignificance, overshadowed by the horrible weight of everything Featherflit was losing. Even her triumphant return from the earth dragon islands seemed hollow; a foalish escapade that was could not offer her or her people any assistance.

“And that is why I will not risk even a single hippogriff,” Queen Novo went on. “We cannot fight, so we will hide. We will simply remove ourselves from the equation. The Storm King will arrive here to find Mount Aris empty and deserted. He can burn our homes and sit on my throne, but the real kingdom of the hippogriffs will be safe, where he will never find us.”

Featherflit’s stomach roiled within her. She felt like she might be sick. Her lovely home and all her paintings, burned? Her life’s work, gone up in smoke. She had been so very proud when she sold her first big painting and earned enough bits to put down a deposit on the aspen tree. Tears crowded in her eyes. She remembered the joy on her mother’s face when she had told her, how her father had struggled to hide his emotion. Flylight had screamed for joy at the news. Featherflit glanced sideways at her sister, who sat huddled under her own pale green wings like a seagull in a storm. She looked nothing like the carefree young mare Featherflit had left behind only a few weeks ago.

“I can promise you that we will rebuild,” Queen Novo said gravely, and Featherflit’s hopes surged for a moment, “Safely under the ocean. We will make our catacombs as beautiful as Mount Aris, and we will be as happy there as we have been here. I promise you that.”

“Will the transformation hurt?” an older stallion stood at the front of the crowd asked.

Queen Novo looked relieved at the slight change of topic. Featherflit couldn’t imagine how many times the Queen must have had to give this same speech over the past few days.

“It will not hurt,” Queen Novo stated. “I have undergone the process several times myself, and my own little daughter, the Princess Skystar, has also been changed. She is just as happy and full of laughter after the transformation as she was before.”

The hippogriffs around Featherflit nodded. They seemed happy to follow the Queen’s guidance, eager to rejoin their families and friends below. Featherflit tried to gauge her own emotions, but all she felt was numb. She could hardly believe that this was happening.

Suddenly, there came the sounds of scuffling and shouts from the corridor leading into the cavern. The hippogriffs flinched and exchanged fearful glances at the noises. Flylight cringed into Featherflit’s side.

“Stay calm!” Queen Novo pushed through the scrum of hippogriffs from the water’s edge where she had been standing, and put herself squarely between the doorway and her subjects. “Who goes there?” Her challenge rang out like the clang of a bell, and Featherflit admired her courage. Queen Novo seemed like the type of hippogriff who could face down an earth dragon and come out unscathed.

“Let me go!” an unseen voice shouted, and then at last the intruders came into view. Two royal guards were dragging a pale purple hippogriff between them, his white mane-feathers mussed and dirtied. “I won’t go down there!” His protests went unanswered, and the guards dropped him unceremoniously at Queen Novo’s feet.

She looked down at him wearily, but her face remained compassionate. “What is your name, young hippogriff?” she asked, gently enough.

The purple hippogriff scowled, and Featherflit felt her sister shifting uneasily beside her. It was clear Flylight wanted nothing more than to be gone. While Featherflit too longed for the return of safety and normality, she felt sympathetically towards the stranger. If Flylight hadn’t waited to tell her what was happening, she would have spent hours more painting, and the guards would probably have come to round her up too.

“My name is Sky Beak, your Majesty,” the male said, angrily brushing at the dirt on his legs. “And I have been bought here against my will.”

Queen Novo sighed quietly, but the sound echoed in the cave like everything else. “We are evacuating,” she said firmly. “That means everypony.”

“Even if we want to stay behind?” Sky Beak snapped, his eyes flashing with anger. He hastily looked away from the queen, lowering his eyelids as though he had suddenly remembered to whom he was speaking.

“Even so,” the Queen flared back at him, her crest rising on her head. “It only takes one straggler to be captured and tortured and then the Storm King knows the whereabouts of all of us. I will not risk all of my subjects for the sake of one.”

Sky Beak’s ears went flat back and he dropped his head at the word ‘torture’. It was clear he hadn’t considered that possibility. “But I would never reveal—” he protested weakly, but the Queen cut him off with a wave of her claws.

“You cannot know what you would reveal under torture, Sky Beak. I am the Queen of Mount Aris, and I speak for all of us. My decision is final. You will come with us into safety.” She paused to look around at the watching guards and civilians, and her eyes were suddenly terribly sad. “In time, we will all grow accustomed to our new life.”

“Please, your Highness—” Before she fully knew what she was doing, Featherflit found herself pushing forward, ignoring Flylight’s instinctive grab at her wing. Queen Novo turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. Featherflit couldn’t help herself; she quailed before the regal visage that had watched every day of her foalhood from the stern-eyed portrait on the wall of her old classroom. She used to have nightmares that Queen Novo would find out when she had cheated on spelling tests and would have her thrown into the dungeons. Well, here she was in the catacombs already, she supposed. How much worse could it get?
“Your Highness,” she said again, fumbling for her words. “How— how long will we have to stay down here?”

The Queen looked bleakly down at Featherflit, who shuffled her hooves uncomfortably under the pressure of that weighty gaze. “Until the danger is passed,” the Queen said simply. Her eyes skimmed over Featherflit and away, and Featherflit had the strong impression that the Queen had not really seen her. She had just seen one of many subjects in a crowd, needing to be protected and corralled into what was best for them.

Featherflit bit her lower beak. “But—” The Queen’s eyes snapped back to hers like a whip, and Featherflit had to work hard not to let out a squeak of fright. “But when will it be safe?” she persisted, feeling unreasonably relieved once the words were out. It wasn’t like her to be so afraid; maybe the lack of sleep and the long flight back from the islands was catching up with her at last. But then again, it wasn’t every day that one got the chance to speak to the Queen. Some nervousness was probably to be expected.

The Queen sighed again. “It may never be.” With that, she brushed past Featherflit, and the other hippogriffs respectfully parted to let her through. She walked slow and stately back to the edge of the lake.

Featherflit watched her go, her heart sinking. Never? She would surely be able to fly and run and paint again. It couldn’t be true. In a few months, a year perhaps, this Storm King would have passed over like the bad cloud he was, and then the skies would be fresh and clear once more. She looked at the reluctant male, Sky Beak or whatever he had said his name was, and his eyes were flicking from left to right. He clearly wanted out. He met Featherflit’s gaze and the appeal was clear on his face. For one heady moment Featherflit imagined accepting that unspoken invitation, fleeing the guards and the caverns side by side with this stranger and heading back into the blue sky she knew was waiting for her. They could always return to the earth dragon islands to wait out this crisis, or see what lay beyond the eastern ocean — despite herself, her wings flared with eagerness — but then her gaze slipped again to her sister and she sighed and deflated. How could she ever leave her family? Her parents and Flylight would never recover from the shock of her betrayal. She turned away from Sky Beak, lowering her eyelids to shield herself from the sight of the distress that so closely mirrored her own.

“Step forward, my people,” Queen Novo said, turning to face them once more. “Step forward into our new lives.” She reached into a bag that had hung unnoticed beneath her wing and fished out a glowing sphere.

A murmur ran through the crowd at the sight of it; the Pearl of Mount Aris, the royal family’s oldest and most closely guarded treasure. The Pearl contained magic beyond knowing, according to the fairy tales Featherflit and Flylight had loved to hear in their younger years. The saga of Queen Regal Quill and the Pearl was known to every chick in Mount Aris. The carnivorous Eastern Oyster was the subject of many bad dreams, and was among the most popular costumes every Hallows Festival.

Queen Novo held the Pearl in both hands, rolling it between her palms. It glowed with an unearthly light, shades of pink and purple swirling over inside it as thought it wasn’t a pearl at all, but a glass window into a living universe. The shifting shades cast strange lights on the Queen, throwing her shadow tall and flickering against the cavern wall behind her. “Who will be first?” the Queen asked again.

“I will!” A voice cried out, and an elderly female stepped forward. Her coat was a dusky green, her mane a lighter shade of emerald. She spread her wings as she walked to the Queen, and Featherflit could see the tips of her feathers trembling. Was it fear, Featherflit wondered, or merely age?

As the aged hippogriff stood before the Queen, Featherflit felt a claw steal into her own. She glanced at Flylight, whose eyes were huge with unshed tears, and squeezed her sister’s talons.

The Queen dipped her head in salute to the older hippogriff. “Well said, Jade Breeze. Your bravery is commendable.” She ran a hand over the top of the sphere, her claws tracing invisible patterns on its surface, and a yellow glow began to build deep in its centre. The pink and purple swirls parted to make way for the powerful amber light. The patterns seemed to draw Featherflit in, and her perception of Flylight and the other hippogriffs began to fade as the Pearl sucked her towards it. The glow flared into white-hot brilliance and suddenly faded, leaving Featherflit blinking in the sudden gloom, trying to see what was happening. She dimly saw a blurry green shape falling towards the surface of the lake, and then there was a splash. Featherflit dropped Flylight’s claw to rub her eyes hard. When she opened them again, there was no sign of the hippogriff the Queen had addressed as Jade Breeze. Just ripples spreading outwards from the centre of the lake, and Queen Novo standing alone, calling for the next of her subjects to step forward.

One by one, other hippogriffs did, and Featherflit watched as the Pearl flared again and again. She tried every time to watch the transformation, but it was impossible to resist the hypnotic pull of the Pearl once it began. It dragged her vision in over and over. But in between the flares, she was able to study the surface of the lake. Nopony ever resurfaced.

The number of hippogriffs at the lakeside dwindled. There were only five or six left — Featherflit, Flylight, Sky Beak and the guards flanking him, and a small family of hippogriffs huddled around their crying chicks. Featherflit felt Flylight tensing beside her and cast an anxious look at her sister. She saw her sister opening her beak to speak, and put a cautionary claw on her arm. “Flylight, I’m not sure I—”

But Flylight cut off her whispered words before they were halfway out of her beak. “I’ll go next, Your Majesty.” Her tone was artificially bright, and before Featherflit could pull her back she was moving confidently forward.

Queen Novo graciously inclined her head, and Featherflit noticed with a shock how drained the Queen looked. Dark purple shadows marred the smooth white fur beneath her eyes, and she swayed a little on her hooves. The Pearl must take a toll upon those who wielded it.

Flylight bowed low in front of the Queen, and the Pearl began to glow once more. Featherflit stumbled forwards — once Flylight was gone she would have to follow — but as she was opening her mouth to call her sister’s name the Pearl flared again and Featherflit was pulled into those swirling depths once more.

When she reopened her eyes, she was lying sprawled on the floor at the Queen’s feet. She blinked and looked around her. “Flylight?”

The Queen gestured with a wing and a guard stepped forward to offer Featherflit his claw. “Let me help you up.”

Shakily, Featherflit accepted the proffered talon and got back up on her hooves. “Thank you,” she said, looking anxiously past the guard at the smooth black surface of the lake.

“Stratus Skyranger,” the guard said in a friendly tone. When Featherflit did not respond, he repeated it. “My name, I mean. Captain Stratus Skyranger, at your service, Miss—?”

“Featherflit,” Featherflit said at last, finally looking at the guard. His fur was a fetching shade of green, and his eyes were as purple as his mane, and big with excitement. Featherflit’s gaze slid away from him and back to the water, but the guard remained there, still with his arm extended towards Featherflit.

As Featherflit’s eyes combed the surface of the lake for what felt like the umpteenth time, there was a faint splash from the back of the cave. Featherflit stared eagerly into the shadows, and then, finally, a head broke the water. It coughed, and grunted, and splashed a little closer. Featherflit’s eyes went wide with horror as she looked at it.

The thing in the water had her sister’s colouring, true enough, pale green hide with purple fins the same amethyst colour that Flylight’s mane had been, but the similarities between her sister and the creature before her ended there. Where Flylight had soft fur and faintly ruffled feathers, this thing was covered with slimy wet hide as blank and featureless as the flesh of the manatee that had once washed up on the shores of Mount Aris. The other children had loved the fat, fleshy, apparently friendly thing, and had lavished upon it all the fish they could catch, but its smooth skin had repulsed Featherlight. She had avoided the beach until the manatee had regained its health and moved on.

The green monster in the water gurgled damply and raised stubby legs above the water, each ending in a repulsive, floppy purple fin. Featherflit shook her head in uncomprehending horror. How could her beautiful, spirited sister, as flighty as a dandelion seed, have become this wet, waterbound beast?

The thing now raised a long tail and thrashed it in the water. No wings, no legs. Just one long tail-body hybrid. Just like the manatee! Featherflit felt bile rising in her throat and clamped down on it. “Flylight?” she croaked, almost hoping that the thing wouldn’t answer.

That horrible smooth head swivelled to look at her, and as it watched her with her sister’s violet eyes, Featherflit saw a transparent second set of eyelids slide mechanically down over the irises. Her breath came faster as she waited in mute suspense to see if it would answer; if, indeed, it was even capable of answering any more. She wondered how she would bear such awful changes to her own boy.

“Featherflit!” the beast said in a voice as familiar to Featherflit as her own, and Featherflit reeled back in shock.

“Come on in,” Flylight said in the tone she used when she was searching for humour. “The water’s fine!”

Featherflit felt a tear trickling down her face. She recognised the voice, but all else was alien. She couldn’t even read her sister’s expression any more. Her beak was gone, replaced with a hideous fleshy muzzle like that of a pony. How would she be able to speak or express herself without a beak? Flylight had become a monster. Worse than that, so had every other hippogriff Featherflit had ever known. And if she didn’t accept the fate of becoming one of these beasts, she would never see any of them ever again.

There was a muffled noise behind her, a grunt and a shout, and Featherflit whirled to see Sky Beak, the white-maned male, thrusting the one guard who remained beside him down onto the floor. Then he took wing and darted for the cave exit. His voice echoed behind him as he vanished from view. “I’m not going down there!”

“Corporal Seaspray, Captain Stratus Skyranger!” The Queen’s voice was a lash cutting through the stunned silence Sky Beak had left in his wake. “Get after him!”

The downed guard stumbled to his feet and took off in haste, and after one last unreadable look at Featherflit, Stratus Skyranger hastened after him. Once they were gone, the Queen sighed and sagged to the floor. She ran a claw over her beak and rubbed at her temples. “What a dreadful day,” she muttered, seemingly to herself.

Featherflit exchanged a wide-eyed glance with the young parents beside her, who had finally managed to quiet their squalling chicks. Nopony had ever seen the indefatigable Queen Novo in this state before. She was so…so unreachable, usually, appearing high on balconies or surrounded by courtiers, always seen from a distance. Here in the caverns beneath the castle, acting as a rearguard for the very last of her subjects, she suddenly seemed like just another hippogriff. Tired and beaten down by the strain of these terrible events just like everypony else was.

A faint splashing noise echoed in the quiet, and Featherflit saw the creature that had once been Flylight sliding back beneath the surface. A second tear and a third dripped onto the short fur of Featherflit’s cheek. There was no way out of this. There was no other option. She had to face this, as much as her family and the Queen and everypony else already below had done.

“Your Majesty?” Featherflit said haltingly, reaching out a claw to the Queen. A simple gesture of support, of fellowship, just as the guard had offered to her a moment ago.

Queen Novo flinched at the sound of her voice. She stared blankly at Featherflit for a moment before gesturing the extended hand impatiently away. She rose unaided, her face carefully schooled back into its usual impassivity. “We must move quickly,” she said simply. “Time grows short.”

Featherflit nodded numbly. She knew Queen Novo was right. The Queen was a glacier, implacable and cold, quietly crushing every piece of resistance in its path. She could try and flee like Sky Beak had done, but what was the use? In the long term, she knew she wanted to be with her flock, with her family. Surely the Pearl would not change them inside as well as out. They would still be the same hippogriffs that she had always known and loved on the inside, even if on the outside everypony looked like disgusting fleshy monsters. Even if it meant they would never fly again.

Queen Novo drew herself up and held the Pearl out before her. The amber fire began to gather in its heart again, the whirling patterns of light shifting wildly on the walls of the cavern. Featherflit shut her eyes tight against it and spread her wings, trying to feel every bone, every muscle in her body. Her foreclaws flexed against the stone, gripping it tight — she would never grip anything else again. Her legs tensed, her tail thrashed from side to side, her beak screwed up against what she knew was coming. And most of all, her wings, her beautiful butter-yellow wings, those precious things that let her cut through the air and merge with her beloved sky, that could carry her above the clouds or anywhere in the world she pleased. All these parts of her body that she had taken for granted, that she had never thought she might have to say goodbye to.

A fuzzy feeling took hold of her, and she felt herself being lifted from the ground by gentle, unseen claws. The fuzziness intensified, all her limbs stretching and reaching for she knew not what, and then the blackness behind her eyes flared into blinding white. She cried out and she was falling, tumbling head over tail down. The shock of the icy water knocked the breath out of her and she instinctively tried to snatch another. Water flooded into her mouth and down her throat, but to her shock, she wasn’t choking. She panted for a moment, water rushing into her lungs, bubbles coursing upwards from her nostrils, and then gingerly, she opened her eyes.