Featherflit's Narrow Escape

The sisters swam steadily downwards. Their progress was slow and uncertain, filled with awkward loops and floating as they tried to learn how to control their fins and long tails. Featherflit felt almost as though she were watching somepony else, dimly trying to control this body that wasn’t hers. But she tried to keep up with Flylight as they descended into the darkness.

There seemed no end to the vast underwater cavern, and the pressure on Featherflit’s barrel increased and increased until she felt like her lungs would burst. She glanced at Flylight, who looked only inches away from giving up herself, and decided to stay quiet. Uncertainly, she tried to flip a foreleg to propel herself towards Flylight, and extended a wing-fin to brush against her sister. The touch helped her to feel a little more in her own body. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and winced again at the feeling of the water rushing down her throat. Her every instinct screamed at her that it was wrong, that it would drown her, but her body accepted the water as though it were air.

It got darker as they went down, even to Featherflit’s keen new vision. They found that the best way of moving was to fold their forelegs close to their body like when in flight, and rely on their large tail fins for propulsion. Featherflit watched Flylight’s full-body undulations closely and tried to copy the motion. It felt a little like she had been transformed into a caterpillar rather than a sea-hippogriff. She said as much to Flylight, who gave a hollow laugh, though Featherflit had not intended it to be humorous. Their wing-fins were large and caught the water enough to impede progress considerably when they were spread, so Featherflit learned to keep them pinned back as much as she could, and utilise them only for stopping. At first she had tried to fold them up as she would have done her wings, but the fins had only rudimentary mobility, and all she managed to do was sway them uncertainly in the water. The failure had stung, but Featherflit swallowed the bitterness and accepted it as one more slap in the face from her strange new reality.

Flylight soon showed herself to be the stronger swimmer, and Featherflit began to struggle to keep up. She gritted her teeth and thrashed her wretched tail harder. She had always been the stronger flier. It was her who had taught Flylight to fly, for Novo’s sake.

Flylight turned to look back over her shoulder and skidded to a halt. “Are you okay, Featherflit?” With a flick of her tail, she was back beside Featherflit, extending a concerned hoof.

Featherflit pushed it away half-heartedly. “Of course I’m not.”

Undeterred, Flylight gently brushed at Featherflit’s crest with her hoof. “Let me help.”

Featherflit looked away. It hurt somehow, to accept help from her baby sister. “We don’t even know where we’re going.”

Flylight nodded agreement. “I don’t know how all the others got so far ahead of us. I’m sure we ought to have seen somepony else by now.”

They floated in place and Featherflit looked carefully around. All was the same midnight blue, fading to black at the limits of her vision. She had no idea how far up or down they were, or where. Had they somehow stumbled from the catacombs into the open sea? A flush of dread ran through her. Without the Queen, without the Pearl, all hope of returning to Mount Aris someday was lost. She and Flylight would wander the oceans forever, hopelessly lost.

Flylight edged closer to her, and the two drifted shoulder-to-shoulder, scanning the darkness for some sign of life. Time slowed to a crawl and Featherflit’s breath came faster. The pressure on her ribcage that she had pushed to the back of her mind came back with a vengeance. The darkness at the edges of her vision pressed closer. She clung to Flylight, her heart thrumming like a bird’s. They were trapped here, hanging in space, water pushing down on them from above, dragging them deeper —

“Look!” Flylight cried. Her voice was shockingly loud in the dead quiet.

Featherflit desperately followed her sister’s outstretched hoof. There, flickering in and out of existence, almost so tiny as to be invisible, shimmered a tiny light. Pink and purple, purple and pink. Relief welled in Featherflit’s breast. “It’s the Pearl!”

Flylight breathed out a long stream of bubbles. “Thank the stars!” She pulled away from Featherflit and thrust her purple tail-fin into her muzzle. “Here, hang on!”

Featherflit, pride evaporated, was more than happy to oblige. She instinctively grabbed at the fin with her claws, remembering too late that her talons were gone now. When her hoof-fins slid off, she winced, muttered an apology, and clamped down with her teeth.

“Gah!” Flylight’s face contorted as she swallowed her shout of pain back down.

“Sh-orry,” Featherflit mumbled around a mouthful of tail.

“It’s fine, its fine,” Flylight waved away the apology. “Just do what you can to help.”

Featherflit narrowed her eyes and nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the little distant light. They had to get there before it faded out of sight completely.

Flylight nodded her head once and then kicked out with her forehooves. They started at once into motion, and Featherflit’s muzzle was jerked upwards as Flylight began the rolling motion of swimming. Featherflit tried to streamline her body as much as she could and copy her sister’s movements. She wasn’t sure she was contributing as much as Flylight was, but between them they made decent progress and the light grew stronger.

Before long they could make out silhouettes. A party of about ten hippogriffs — no, Featherflit mentally corrected herself. Not hippogriffs any more.

The large figure leading the group, holding the Pearl aloft — that could only be Queen Novo. Her white coat and purple fins were unmistakeable, but Featherflit’s throat still felt a little tight as the Queen’s new shape came into clearer view. The Queen’s statuesque good looks were universally acknowledged as the standard for classical hippogriff beauty. But even she was reduced to an ugly, featherless, soft-muzzled thing.

Behind the Queen swam two male hippogriffs, a third purple-coated male between them. His white fins meant that he had to be Sky Beak. His head was down, his tail and wing-fins hanging limp. His spirit seemed altogether gone. The two males flanking him had to be the guards — what had their names been? — Stratus Skyranger and Seaspray. They had been fully armoured when she had last seen them, but now only their golden helmets remained. Clearly the hippogriff-proportioned armour was now useless to them. Bringing up the rear was the family with all the chicks, each of them now a tiny fish-tailed creature. One of the children was swimming in confused circles, still clearly unused to his new body, and another was fast asleep and being carried by a parent.

As they drew closer Featherflit released Flylight’s tail and tried to swim fast enough to draw alongside her sister. She didn’t want the Queen to see her being towed like a foal.

The guard’s heads swivelled towards them first, followed by the Queen. She dipped her head in mute greeting, and Featherflit and Flylight joined the back of the group. Flylight took Featherflit’s foreleg again, to help her on, and Featherflit let her. No one was looking, and she was so very tired. The exertions of the past few days had been greater than any in her life before, and her head swam a little. She tried to calculate how long it had been since she slept. Not since the dragon islands, if you didn’t count the snatched, fitful dozes she had slipped in and out of while on the wing.

The Queen led the silent procession deeper and deeper. More stragglers joined them as they went, but Featherflit didn’t recognise any of them. She assumed they were remnants of the group from the lake edge, lost as she and Flylight had been in this vast space.

At last, the darkness they were swimming into took form. A vast wall loomed out from the shadows before them. It stretched further in every direction than Featherflit’s eyes could perceive, but Queen Novo swam unhesitatingly towards it. The group hurried after her.

“There,” Flylight whispered, pointing with her free hoof.

Featherflit strained her eyes to see whatever it was her sister was looking at, but could only make out shadows. “What is it?”

“A tunnel?” Flylight guessed. “An opening in the wall, at any rate.”

After a few moments more, Featherflit finally saw a dimple on the featureless black wall, and breathed out in relief. She prided herself on her sharp eyesight; relied on it for her art. But being down here was like having blinkers on, or having your senses wrapped in cotton; she couldn’t make out what she would have taken for granted above the water.

The Queen swam a little faster, and everyone hurried in her wake. Featherflit was received to see that she wasn’t the only uncoordinated one. Many of the group were receiving help from others. But everypony was at least trying — only Sky Beak hung limp between the guards. Featherflit wasn’t sure if he was unable or unwilling to swim. It wasn’t clear whether he was even conscious.

The tunnel entrance yawned before them, black and uninviting. The Queen plunged into its maw and the Pearl sent pink lights spinning over the uneven walls. Featherflit looked around hesitantly, but didn’t resist the pull of the group. She had come this far. There was no turning back now.

The throat of the tunnel opened wide to receive them. The darkness was almost absolute. Even the Pearl’s glow dimmed. Featherflit tightened her grip on Flylight’s foreleg. The passage tilted steadily downwards and everypony swam in silence; even the chick who had spent the entire journey exclaiming loudly about their new body was quiet and huddled close to its parents.

Apart from the slightly steepening decline of the shaft and the flickering light of the Pearl, there was nothing to show where they were or how far they had come. They might have been going for hours or merely minutes; the oppressive darkness dulled the senses and Featherflit could hardly tell which way was up anymore. She felt herself flagging, leaning more and more heavily on her sister, but was too exhausted to summon any more strength. Her reserves were gone. Both emotionally and physically, she was drained to the dregs. She had no more left to give.

She sank closer to the tunnel floor, scarcely moving her tail any more, and Flylight hissed quietly through her teeth. Featherflit looked up at her sister’s face and tried feebly to stir herself once more, but her limbs felt like they were made of lead.

“Just a little further,” Flylight whispered, her tone more strained than encouraging.

“I can’t,” Featherflit heard herself mumble. “I can’t.”

She drifted lower again, and with a grunt of frustration Flylight hauled her onto her own back. Deep down, underneath the exhaustion, Featherflit felt the sting of embarrassment. The last time she had given Flylight a piggyback ride was when she had been a chick of less than seven summers.

But it felt so good to let her eyes drift closed at last, and she stopped trying to fight it.

As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she heard snatches of distant conversation, lowered voices, a foal crying. Then a flash of light beyond the protective darkness of her closed eyelids, and she blinked and tried to drag herself into wakefulness.

They were clear of the tunnel at last, and a vast open space stretched before them. Flylight’s back was warm beneath her, though she swam much slower now. Pools of orange and pink light pierced the gloom, and as Flylight swam slowly forward Featherflit saw small groups of hippogriffs huddled around vaguely phosphorescent corals.

“Family?” A voice challenged them.

“We’re looking for our parents Dawn Dancer and Skylark,” Flylight said, her voice cracking with fatigue.

Featherflit looked through half-shut eyes at the guard before them. Like everyone else, she looked like she was about to keel over. Only the golden helmet remained of her armour, like Stratus Skyranger and Seaspray. “I think I saw them over that way,” she answered Flylight, already turning away to the next group of new arrivals.

Flylight swam on, and Featherflit let herself drift away again. Let the ocean carry her into sleep like a gull on a wave.

When she next stirred, gentle hooves were lifting her. Flylight was stroking her forehead and slipping a some sort of slimy lump underneath her head as a pillow. She heard them saying something, but she couldn’t rouse herself enough to hear it properly. Ah well. Time enough for that later. Now all she wanted to do was rest.