Go With the Flow

~~~

When Flowing and the two griffons came back into view, Star Point let out a sigh as though he’d been holding in his breath for as long as Flowing herself had been gone.

It was only a slight exaggeration, at that. The sense of relief that swept through him when he saw the three approaching—Flowing dangling with her tail fin catching the wind, looking like she was having the time of her life—was just about indescribable.

And… the mighty ursa’s hug he gave her when she was deposited gently down before him by the two sheepish griffons put her in about as much danger as the lusca itself did.

“Dear, you’re okay…” he blubbered into her shoulder. “You are a foal! You know that, right?!”

Flowing laughed. “Of course I do! And, foal or not… that’s your lusca problem taken care of, I hope.”

Another relieved sigh left Star. He found himself unable to stop petting her head crest, or releasing her from the tight hug she was captured in. “Good. Gods, Flowing… I was worried sick…”

“I was fineeee,” Flowing said it like she was a young mare being scolded for staying out too late. “T-think you’re holding me tighter than the actual grabber shark.”

“Sorry, sorry…” he released her—slightly, anyways. Behind him, he could hear Captain Misty’s hooves on the deck as he came closer. He’d been hovering just in Star’s peripheral, but had seemed content letting them have their moment before stepping in.

When Star let Flowing go and she looked over at him, he cleared his throat. He’d removed his captain’s cap, and was holding it to his side as he gave Flowing a little bow of his head. “Y’really saved our skin with your swimmin’, missy. I really owe ya one.”

Flowing waved a fin. “Owe, schmoe. Happy to help. Want me to take a swim around your hull and see how damaged she is?”

“We ain’t leaking, thank the stars,” Misty replied. “And I reckon you’ve already done more’n enough as is.”

Flowing’s smile could have powered a city block, with how bright it seemed to Star. “Anytime, really. It was fun!”

Star just about squeezed her tightly again, a million scolding words almost leaving him at her blatant recklessness. Sometimes, despite everything, he felt as though his fishy marefriend was as wild as the sharks or the seals or the schools of a thousand fishes that roamed the untamed oceans. Not in a million years did he truly think he could ever take that wildness from her, nor did he ever want to.

But… with thoughts of her joyous, untamed freedom on his mind, he gripped her fin, gave it a gentle squeeze, and turned to Captain Misty himself. “We really should be heading on and getting back on the waves now, though. Don’t you think, dear?”

Flowing nodded. “Yeah, we should. It’s been a pleasure, cap’n, but we’ve really been in your mane for long enough as is.”

Captain Misty chuckled. “And what a pleasant surprise it’s been. Know where you’re headed?”

Star tapped the compass that Misty have given him. “I do now.”

“Righto. Well. Drop in if ever you two lovebirds are sailin’ across this route again and ya happen to see my ship. Not everyday ya make friends on the open sea.”

They said their farewells, and soon enough, Star was piling back into the small little sailboat that, by some miracle, was still tied faithfully to the cargo ship. A bit full of water that required some bailing, but afloat all the same. He loaded the map and the compass into the small little under-seat locker, and re-jigged the sail. Flowing clambered in, and in what felt like no time at all they were turning into the cargo ship’s wake, the wind grasping their sails, the till stiffening in Star’s hoof as the boat gained momentum.

The cargo ship vanished into the distance over the next hour. They sailed on, as the sun began to creep lower into the sky. Star thought he could spot thunderclouds off to the east, where they were headed, but they seemed distant and drifting along the same course as they were.

“That was exciting,” Flowing said eventually, breaking the silence that had been between them for their initial shove out.

Exciting. He felt his grip tense on the till, feeling somewhere between aggravated and amused. “I’ll say. Flowing... You don’t know what it does to me when you do crap like that, do you?”

Flowing glanced back at him with a wary, surprised expression. “Starry... I am sorry that I scared you. I did tell you I could handle myself, though...”

“I know. I know,” he sighed and nodded. “I ain’t sayin’ you can’t, dear. Just sayin’ it scares the blazes outta me knowing you’re in danger.”

“Well. Now you know why I couldn’t swim off and leave ya be when that airship first showed up in Herring Harbour,” she replied after awhile. “Sometimes we’ve gotta do stupid things to make sure the ones we love are safe. And sometimes, we gotta trust ‘em to be safe even when they’re doing something stupid.”

Star couldn’t hold back a light chuckle. “That’s some twisted life advice, Flow.”

She laughed, too. “Yeah. Well. At least I got to show off my swimming skills.”

“As if I didn’t already know.” Star patted her tail fin with a smirk. “Hey, Flowing? Y’know that Pearl that Tempest is obsessed with finding? The one Queen Novo’s got?”

Flowing nodded.

“It transforms stuff, right? That’s what it does? That’s why she wants it so badly?”

Flowing nodded again. “Yup. Queen Novo used it when the hippogriffs first fled. Used it to transform into seaponies like us.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I wonder why that Tempest pony wants it so badly.”

“I was kinda thinking about that,” Star admitted. “It’s probably her horn. Or, uh. Lack of a horn. She’s missing it. I thought she was an earth pony at first, but no, she’s a unicorn. She’s just got a stub for a horn, like it got cut off or somethin’.”

Flowing blinked, glancing back at Starry with a horrified look. “O-oh.”

“Yeah...”

“Poor mare...” Flowing bit her lip, looking away for a moment and instead watching the water racing beneath them. “I mean. I know she’s chasing me and wants to capture and interrogate me, but... Still. Poor mare.”

“Yeah,” Star Point said again. “So... Naturally, I got to thinking about the Pearl, and... Well. What if we can help that Tempest pony ourselves? I mean, with that Pearl... Couldn’t we maybe fix her horn ourselves?”

“You’re thinkin’ like a seapony now, Star Point.” Flowing laughed. “That’s not entirely a compliment. See, I respect where you’re coming from, but, uh. Yeah, we ain’t getting' anywhere near that Pearl, sorry.”

Star frowned, and nodded sadly. “Queen that protective, huh?”

“Oh, you have no idea. She’s got the thing rigged up to a whole jellyfish security system. It’s nuts. If anyfish so much as swims into the palace without a scheduled appointment, the jellies go haywire and they get the boot.”

“The palace that, just so I’m making sure I’ve still got things right, she forcibly ‘inherited’ when your people extended their generosity to her while she was fleeing.”

Flowing blinked. “You really don’t like Queen Novo, do you, Star?” A small smirk grew on her lips. “I think you might have some trouble charming her into giving you the Pearl to use on your bestie Tempest.”

“I know it’s a pipedream,” Star said, shrugging. “Just, uh. Something I was thinking about, is all.”

“I really love ya, y’know that, Starry?” Flowing let herself fall back gently, her head resting onto his lap. “Mare sinks your boat and threatens you and is hunting us both down and you’re still thinking about whether or not maybe we can help her.”

He ran a hoof across her fins and smiled. He hadn’t even really considered it like that...perhaps he was just being foalish, after all. Naïve, stupidly optimistic. Truth be told, the past few days had passed in such a blur that the events during them still felt dreamlike, as though he were remembering scenes from an exciting novel he’d read, and not something he’d actually lived himself.

“I guess maybe you bring out the best in me.”

~~~

Tempest didn’t usually carry a weapon.

They were extra weight. They were a distraction. They required maintenance, and care, and if you weren’t carefully keeping track of them they could wind up in the hooves of your enemy anyways, and used against you. The way she saw it, there was no point in relying on some auxiliary tool, when one’s hooves did the trick just fine.

Still, it was hard not to feel a little bit overwhelmed when she had the barrel of a blunderbuss pointed at her snout, and the shining light of two rapiers in her peripherals. The griffon male that was holding the blunderbuss was looking at her expectantly, as if expecting the gun itself to do all the required talking to motivate her to surrender. Perhaps for most bounties, it did. His partner, the female, had drawn out her blade from a sheath that was mounted on her wing—as jet-black as the rest of her raven-like form.

Oh well, she thought. It would just prove to make the ensuring conflict a bit more interesting.

She shared a sideways look at Cirrus. The hippogriff’s beak clamped shut of the usual smarmy remark. His normally jovial, joking eyes narrowed in focus, locking with those of the two griffons closest to him. He had a rapier wielding griffon and a wing-blade doning griffon to contend with. Tempest had the blunderbuss and the rapier on her side.

So, altogether a fairly fair fight, Tempest thought. Her expression twisted into a grin. And then, she lunged forwards, towards the griffon with the blunderbuss. He rose it to meet her quickly approaching form, but she was too fast for him. Tempest signalled the start of the conflict by colliding into the griffon male at a mighty speed, driving him forwards and shoving him towards the brick alley wall behind him. They impacted with a heavy thud, the force enough that his grip on the blunderbuss faltered.

“Told ya to back off,” Tempest sneered, her expression a grin of sadistic glee. This was the part of her job that she loved. She kicked the blunderbuss away with a hoof. “Now you’re gonna find out why you should have.”

She had enough time to savour the fury in his gaze, before the battle cry of the raven-coated griffon sang out behind her. What was with these punks and telegraphing their attacks for her? She ducked just in time to narrowly miss being skewered by the rapier, which clanged loudly against the wall, sparks shooting off. Whipping around and turning her back towards the still-stunned male griffon, Tempest lunged at the raven-coated one. She rose the rapier to meet Tempest’s charge, but Tempest dodged beneath it, lying nearly flat on the alley floor, and kicking off the ground to collide with the griffon’s legs. They both hit the alley in a heap with Tempest on top, the rapier clanging noisily on the ground next to the female griffon.

For a brief moment she saw Cirrus’s own little combat. He seemed to be holding his own well enough, she saw with delight. Despite his devil-may-care attitude, the hippogriff could at least put his money where his beak was when the sparks began to fly.

Beneath her, the female griffon was squirming her way out of Tempest’s grasp, a wing muscle grazing the hilt of her blade. Tempest began to charge energy into her severed horn, but the griffon’s talons were grazing the handle before her spell had the chance to ignite.

The griffonness suddenly pushed up with her hind legs, roughly shoving Tempest off of her. Tempest tumbled back, skidding across the cobblestone for several feet, while ahead of her the griffon grabbed her rapier with a wing and started towards her. To her left, the other griffon was scrambling to retrieve his blunderbuss. With a dramatic cry, the griffonness swung towards Tempest, forcing her to quickly step back to dodge it. It struck the stone ground in a torrent of sparks which scattered across Tempest’s face as the blade impacted with the ground inches away from her. And then, again, and again, on either side, as the griffoness swung down at an ever-moving, dodging Tempest.

“You’re awfully sloppy with that thing…” Tempest sneered. She rolled to the side one last time, and then rolled backwards, nimbly returning to her hooves in one showy, dramatic motion. The griffoness snarled and charged, and Tempest ducked beneath her blade’s swing and then, anchoring both of her forehooves firmly on the ground, bucked directly at the gleaming metal of the blade as it arched downwards.

Hitting the rapier from the side spared her the worse of its sharpened edge. It sailed out of the grifonness’s grasp once again, but this time actually struck one of the concrete walls of the alley and stuck there.

Then, a resounding, deafening boom rang through the alley, and a heavy chunk of the cobblestone ground beneath Tempest’s hooves scattered violently through the alley. It might have missed her… but it scared the buck out of her, too. She had just enough time to turn to face the blunderbuss wielding griffon, just as he collided with her and shoved her to the ground. His talons gripped her sides firmly, the sharp claws digging into her flesh and drawing blood. Tempest wasn’t even sure if he was intending to do so, or simply too caught up in the throes of combat to notice. Regardless, she couldn’t deny that it hurt like a bastard.

“Get your sword!” he barked to his griffoness companion, but she was already way ahead of him. Tempest knew he wouldn’t be able to fire off another shot in the throes of combat, which meant he had to rely on his companion to actually put an end to the conflict.

Tempest wasn’t having that, though. The griffon, in his amateruish impulsiveness, had resorted to pinning her with her back against the ground. This meant her forelimbs were still largely free. Baring her teeth, she curled her arm around the griffon, and pulled him in closer to her. At the same time, she was charging magic into her horn, her frustrated expression gradually morphing to a devious grin as bitter realization finally struck the griffon.

He released her and moved to put some distance, but it was already too late. He had just enough time to let her go and disconnect himself, before Tempest let loose with an enormous blast of ugly, unfocused magical energy, doing her best to localize it on the griffon who had been pining her. He cried out as it struck, not enough to put him down but certainly enough to sway his focus.

She turned. Looked back, and saw that Cirrus was still holding his own well enough, against the one griffon still fighting him. Good hippogriff.

The griffon was attempting to pack more gunpowder into his blunderbuss when Tempest turned to him. She smirked, and this time did not bother charging. At the rate he was doing so, she did not have to worry. Her horn was alight once again, and this time there was nothing to interrupt her. The ensuing magical discharge was indiscriminate. She hadn’t been charging any spell specifically—that ability had left her long, long ago. Instead, she was simply feeding magic into it for the sole purpose of a violent discharge. Like firing up a faulty engine just to watch it smoke and burn.

The magical burst cascaded out of her horn. With the narrow alleyway on both sides of them, the sparks once again bounced off the walls and ground and struck all three of them without discrimination. Tempest winced as the electricity shocked through her, but she had been expecting it at least. She’d been prepared, and that preparation was enough to keep her on her hooves while the other two stopped dead in their tracks in literal shock. The electricity bounced off the stone walls, coaleced against the pinned blade and turned it into a sparking lightning rod already casting betraying bolts towards the griffoness who had been wielding it…

As quickly as it had begun, the blast dissipated. Her muscles still singing electric pain, Tempest cantered to the discarded blunderbuss and stomped a hoof down onto the firing mechanism. A messy, ugly crunch, and the firearm was no more. The male griffon had struggled back to his feet just in time to see it, and to see Tempest standing in the middle of the alleyway glaring back at him.

Her horn began to glow again.

An evil, taunting smirk split across her face.

In a clang of metal, the freshly retrieved rapier once more hit the alley floor, this time willingly. The raven-griffon had taken flight. Her partner was right behind her, the two fleeing instantly as they no doubt realized that whatever bounty they thought would be rife for the taking was certainly not worth clashing with Tempest over.

She chuckled, and started back towards Cirrus. As she started to move, she could more properly feel the damage that the magical discharge and griffon talons had had on her body. She walked with a barely visible limp, wincing and internally cursing herself for not wearing her armour into town.

Deeper into the alley, she could hear the clanging of metal on metal, and when she rounded the corner she saw one unconscious griffon, and Cirrus gripping the hilt of the other rapier in a wing, using it to deflect the slices that the griffon was attempting with her wing-blades. He was too focused on his duel to notice Tempest at first.

“You’re out numbered now, griffon,” Tempest spoke up. Amazingly, she ceased, and glanced back in Tempest’s direction with an incredulous look.

“No feather-flipping way…”

Cirrus chuckled. “Not the best fighters, are ya lot?”

The griffon grimaced. She looked from Cirrus, to Tempest, and then to her unconscious companion and the discarded weaponry of the others.

“Not worth it. Workin’ with a buncha cowards,” she grumbled out. She spat in Tempest’s direction, spread her wings, and took off into the sky.

Cirrus let out a heavy exhale, dropping the rapier and shaking his head, forcing out a chuckle. “That scary, are ya, Tempy?”

“Mm. So it seems. You’re uninjured?”

Cirrus wiped a streak of blood off his face, where a wing-blade had grazed without really penetrating anything. “I’m fine. We should, uh…” He nodded at the still-unconscious fourth griffon. “Before folks investigate those blasts…”

Tempest did not need to be told twice. She led the way out of the alleyway, and as smoothly as they could, they blended back in with the busy marketplace. Cirrus was still bleeding, ever so slightly, and so Tempest led them towards a tavern after a few paces and headed inside, motioning for Cirrus to follow. They got a seat at once of the booths, and Tempest tossed the napkin at her spot towards Cirrus.

“Put pressure, stop the bleeding. I’m getting us a round, and I doubt you’re complaining.”

He chuckled. “That I ain’t. I’m… uh, look, I’m sorry about that, Tempest.”

“Bounty hunters, right?” she managed a smirk. “When they’re not us, they’re a real hastle.”

“Easy for you to say, miss fearsome Storm King lieutenant.” He dabbed his cut with the napkin. “Thanks, Tempy. Seriously. I would, uh. Be in a bit of a pickle, if it hadn’t been for you.”

Tempest shrugged. “Whatever. That cut isn’t getting you off the hook from helping me, y’know.”

Cirrus nodded. “Kinda funny, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“This whole situation, I mean. It’s just… funny.”

“You’re going to have to be a smidge more specific, Cirrus.”

Cirrus rolled his eyes. The napkin moved from the grip of one wing to the other as he unclasped his pack and threw it down on the booth chair beside him. “Just the, uh. Double standard. Of you protecting me, I mean. From bounty hunters. While we’re hunting a seapony for basically the same reason.”

“No.” Tempest narrowed her eyes. “Not the same reason. Do you really think I’m hunting that seapony for money? Like those fools? Do you think it’s a payday for me, and that’s it?”

“Right, the horn. I know. But you have to admit you think it’s a bit ironic, don’t you?”

“Cirrus, you would do well to not put so much stock in my protecting you. I value your worth as an asset to my cause. There does not have to be more to it than that.”

Cirrus was quiet for several seconds, looking away from Tempest, and around at the bar as her words reverberated in his head for a few moments. When he next met her eyes, she could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced by what she’d said. “But isn’t there?”

For a moment, Tempest wasn’t sure what to say. Of course there was more to it. Of course she did not actually want to see Cirrus hurt for some stupid bounty claimed by a gaggle of incompetent fools. Of course she knew how hypocritical she was being, to so sorely judge that earth pony, for being so willing to go to such lengths in order to protect his seapony mate.

Of course she knew what she was doing was wrong.

But knowing that didn’t make doing it any less necessary.

“There is not.”

Cirrus sighed, shaking his head sadly and then getting up to go fetch them a couple of drinks from the bar, leaving Tempest alone to her thoughts once more. Not somewhere she liked to be when she could help it.

Outside, the late afternoon sky was starting to darken with both cloud and night. She would have to get out there soon enough, find somewhere outside to stand vigil for her seapony target.

With some luck, she’d be the last one Tempest would have to chase.

~~~

The sun had begun to fall and darkness was beginning to spread out across the ocean.

They’d been back on the waves for almost five hours now after the incident with the lusca, and it was enough time for the sky to grow more clouded and dark, though thankfully the closest they got to a storm was a light drizzle that resolved after half an hour or so.

Flowing had, on occasion, crawled out of the sailboat and taken to swimming next to it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t comfortable laying in Star’s hooves. But even so, she still needed to stretch her swimming muscles every once in awhile, and she could think of no better way to do so than challenging herself to keep up with the sailboat that Starry was now getting quite the hang of. He kept it headed along at a decent 15 or so knots... Slower than Flowing could swim even on an off day, but still impressive for the force of the winds alone.

They saw no more ships since leaving the cargo freighter behind. Flowing considered it a blessing. Any more distractions wouldn’t be ideal, and any ship carried the (albeit small) risk of having crew that were sympathetic more to the cause of the Storm King than herself.

With some luck, at the rate they were travelling, they might reach the shores of the Griffon Empires before noon of the following day.

Skipping along the waves, Flowing twisted her path back towards the sailboat and gave Starry a wave. “I’m gonna go dive for some supper. Y’want anything while I’m down there?”

Star Point gave her a blank stare. “I, uh. I don’t really eat raw fish like you do, Flow. And I don’t know about starting a fire inside of a wooden sailboat to cook it.”

Flowing laughed. “There’s other things to eat in the ocean, silly! Ever ny had sea-weed salad before?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well. Y’gotta make do when ya live in the ocean,” Flowing replied.

“It’s fine. I grabbed some canned veggies from the lighthouse,” Star said. “Come on in when you’ve caught your fish. We’ll eat dinner together.”

Flowing was able to scrounge together a fin-full of smelts, which, while they provided a bit of a chase, she was able to scoop up with a decent amount of slight of fin. Starry started a little when she surfaced immediately next to the sailboat and tossed a few of them directly at him, swiftly informing him to ‘think fast’. They flopped around helplessly on the deck of the sailboat, before Flowing herself crawled aboard too and scooped them back into her fins again.

“Graceful as always, dear,” Starry commented, as she began to messily bite into one of the smelts’ heads with the ease one might bite into a raw carrot. If he was grossed out any by her raw-fish diet, though, he didn’t express it any. Truthfully, he’d grown accustomed to the sight, and while it had been a little striking at first, there was some sort of primal, predatory feeling her got watching her that somehow made her look even more...

Well. Beautiful was perhaps the wrong word.

They ate in each other’s embrace while the sailboat drifted on its own. The sun set and darkness fell over them slowly, and as it did Flowing crept out of the sailboat for one last swim before retiring for the evening aboard the sailboat with Starry.

Diving beneath the waves, she let out a sigh as the cool water flowed through her scales. As she swam, it once again struck her, in all it’s foreign strangeness, that she was enjoying this, still. Being on the open seas with Starry... And being together for so long, without interruption, without having to flee back to Seaquestria by the end of it...

With such thoughts in her head, Flowing nearly missed the faintest pinpricks of shimmering light deep beneath her, in the void of darkness that was only growing darker as the light above the waves ebbed into night-time.

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Flowing guided herself downwards, slowly and cautiously, her ears flicking to and fro as she felt for any changes in water pressure that might be stirred by some large creature she should be worried about. The last thing she wanted was to swim right into the nest of a coecalanth or sea-dragon.

No. That wasn’t what was causing the lights belong. As she swam closer, she felt the distinct pull of a downwards current, one of those strange ones that occurred when a great number of creatures were all flowing along one path, riding their own mutual momentum. Her eyes widened as she swam deeper, and the disconnected lights beneath her revealed themselves more.

It wasn’t just one. It wasn’t even just ten. Gasping in amazement as she realized what was beneath her, Flowing realized quickly that she’d be hitting herself in the skull for the rest of her life if she didn’t show Starry what surely might’ve been a once in a life-time sight.

When she surfaced by the sailboat and quickly requested he get out immediately and join her in the waves, he had been confused but complacent.

“Alright, alright, I’m holding on. I just don’t see what the--”

“You will! Trust me, ya will! Just... Hold on...” Flowing swam out a little ways from the sailboat, not wanting it to get caught up in what she was about to do. “Okay, get off, and tread water. I need to make ya another flow bubble.”

Warily, Star climbed off her back and began to beat the water with his hooves. She saw him at it as she dropped under water, giggling to herself at the cute way his little hooves doggy-paddled at the waves. In the water, there was something so adorably helpless about the way ponies instantly lost the majority of their mobility.

She worked fast, though. She could see the shimmering lights in the distance, swimming downwards, and she didn’t want to lose the opportunity. Quickly, she began to swim in a quick pirouetting spiral, spinning a current stronger and stronger. Her angler light glowing brighter as she worked, until after about a minute of intense swimming and even more intense focus, she had carved a decent sized air pocket out of the ocean water. It seemed just large enough that it would cover most of Star Point’s handsome visage, which was all it had to be for now.

Swishing her tail to create an upwards current, she sent the bubble drifting slowly upwards. Then, she swam up to Starry, wrapping her fore-fins around his unexpected barrel and submerging her snout along the underside of his. As she gripped him, the air pocket reached him, brushing against his cheek and floating on the waves next time.

“Gotcha,” she purred. “Ready, dear? ”

He jumped a little from instinct as she grabbed him, but snickered and nodded. “Ready.”

“Alrighty. Just...” She cradled the air pocket in her hooves and eased it around his snout. He took a gentle inhale, and, apparently finding himself able to comfortably breath, gave her a smooch from his side of the bubble. Their lips technically didn’t connect, but it still felt just as intimate to Flowing.

She let him climb aboard her again. “That bubble should last ya a few minutes. Enough for a quick look.”

“You got it, dear.”

With Starry riding on her back, Flowing descended beneath the waves. She didn’t swim far at first, glancing back to make sure he was breathing comfortably through the bubble. He looked... Wide eyed, amazed, thrilled... But not at all short of breath. She laughed aloud and let out a gleeful cry.

“Seapony magic!” she shouted. “Gods, I never got a chance to try it before!”

“Workin’ like a charm, dear!” he replied, hooves gripping her tightly. “Where ya takin’ me?”

“Shh, shh!” came her quick reply. “You’ll spoil the surprise, silly!”

With another laugh, Star seemed to resign himself to the roll of passenger, resting his head on top of hers and looking eagerly at the waters racing past them.

For Star Point, it was like he was riding one of those roller-coasters they’d sometimes have when the midway came to Herring Harbour. He couldn’t hold back a few little whoops of delight, as Flowing’s lithe form swam him further into the depths. Her angler light pierced the darkness, which seemed to be growing thicker and thicker...

Until, with widened eyes, he realized that it wasn’t.

Below them, slowly fading into view from the veils of submarine darkness, what looked like a city of light was slowly fading into view. As Flowing guided them deeper, Star Point realized that he wasn’t looking at a city at all, but rather, thousands upon thousands of subtle shifting, moving lights. What they belonged to, he couldn’t see quite yet. But there were countless, of various colours ranging from blue to green to white, some flickering brilliantly and others a sustained solid.

Flowing glanced back to gauge his reaction, and his wide-eyed amazement seemed to delight her and fuel her swimming muscles. She swatted at the water excitedly, and they shot forwards into the shimmering forest of light.

They were squid, Star realized. They did not seem to be actively swimming, but instead riding along some submerged current, forming a road of a million lights that spiralled downwards into the darkness. They were far enough down now that when Star looked up, the blades of moonlight were having difficulty meeting them, which meant there was no other source of light to blot out the vivid display of bioluminescent beauty beneath them.

Flowing kept them a safe distance away from the display, skirting along the blinking, brilliant dance on every side, riding the same current that it was following but also pirouetting around them in a steady corkscrew.

And then, as Star was watching them all floating along on their lonesome, together, he started to notice a few of them were floating close. He watched as one of them would begin to rub it’s tendrils against another, the contact resulting in a shared little flicker of light from both, like somepony fiddling with a light-switch.

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, their tendrils began to intertwine, wrapping around each other. One of them glowed brighter, blue light piercing out and nearly blotting out it’s partner. Meanwhile, the other had gone dim, it’s green light fading away to nothing...

Only for the bright blue from it’s conjoined partner to fade into the dimmed squid. It looked like it had transferred the light through it’s tendrils, and Star would have thought as much if Flowing wouldn’t have piped up then and there.

“They’re findin’ their rhythm,” she cooed out, swimming closer when she noticed Star’s staring. Flowing scrunched up her cheeks with her fins, squeeing in delight as she watched. “Come on, little guys! You can do it!”

The blue light faded from one squid to the other, and then back again. And then, the rhythm began to hasten. And then, after a minute or so, they were sharing one rhythmic pulse between each other, again and again, swirling down with the currents while blinking and fading in togetherness.

Across the entire swarm of squid, the same motion was being repeated by all of them. Rhythm forming from chaos, bonds forming from solo flickers, and little by little, Flowing and Star watched as the multi-coloured tapestry of lights took on a shared hue. Flickering in unison, fading out and in, changing colours and growing brighter, all together, in pairs, and all at once.

It was one of the most beautiful things Star had ever seen.

Flowing let him go, floating there with him, her sleek and scaly form backlit by the light show behind her.

Though Star felt the bubble around him losing integrity, he wished he could have stayed down there longer. It was incredible how much freer one could feel under the waves.

“Nice little mating rhythm, huh?” Flowing said. “They’re monogamous, y’know. They’ll stay together until one of them passes. That little display ya just saw?” She pursed her lips into a bittersweet smile. “Only one they’ll do, now that they found each other. They’re in it together, now.”

“Mm. Didn’t think I’d have something so in common with a buncha prawns.”

“Squid.” Flowing’s smile grew. She hooked a fin around Star’s barrel, and then began to beat her tail, guiding them both upwards towards the surface again. “Well, actually ammonites, but. Details. C’mon. Let’s getcha up before ya get the bends.”

He wrapped his hooves around her waist, glancing back down at the display of light continuing to swirl down into the oceanic depths, growing smaller as Flowing swam them both upwards.

When they finally surfaced, the bubble she had formed out of flow magic had mostly dissipated, and it vanished with a resolute ‘pop!’ as soon as they surfaced and his head poked out into the open night air.

“That was incredible, dear...” he gasped out, kissing her again, now that he no longer had a magical bubble impeding his efforts.

“It was, wasn’t it? Nature is so great!” she chittered out happily.

Their sailboat had drifted off some ways, during their excursion, but not far enough that Flowing wasn’t able to catch up to it with ease, and quickly clamber back aboard. Flowing followed him inside once he was settled in, curling in close and holding him tight in her fins.

“With some luck, we’ll reach the Griffonlands by tomorrow morning...” Star said, stroking her head. “And then... We can see about putting this running behind us.”

“Almost out of it, eh?” Flowing cooed out softly.

“Almost out.”

“Gonna miss it, a bit. It’s been nice, seeing the world with you.”

“No reason we have to stop. But... Maybe we can see the world from the safety of Equestria for a little bit, eh?”

Flowing chuckled, closing her eyes and resting her head against him. “Right.”

Star took the tiller in his hooves again, and consulted the compass quickly as he took them back towards their proper course heading. Slowly, the sailboat began to gain speed, skipping over the waves as the starwheel gently spun above the two lovers.

~~~

“Yikes… Tempy, these are…”

Tempest rolled her eyes as Cirrus finished removing her cloak, setting it down as gently as he could manage against the seat of a harsh metal desk that had been bolted down onto the floor of Tempest’s quarters in the Thespis.

“I have had worse.”

“How’d you manage to get burnt in the first place? That from the blunderbuss or somethin?’”

Tempest couldn’t hold back a smirk. “Guess you missed the light-show. Too focused on keeping all of your feathers in line as you fought. Not enough to win, have to look ‘dashing’ while doing so.”

“Aw. She thinks I’m dashing,” Cirrus chuckled. “So, not the blunderbuss. What happened?”

“Magic discharge.”

Cirrus looked confused, for all but a moment, before bitter realization coloured his face. “Ah. Shoot, Tempy, I’m sorry…”

“Yes yes. Were you here to treat the wound, or gawk at it, hippogriff?”

“In my defence, it’s situated in quiiite the gawk-able place.” He replied, his smirk returning with a vengeance. “Alright. Sit your flank down, then. That griffon’s talons did a number on you, too, so I’m gonna treat that first. Not much I can do for the burn marks besides bandage ‘em up.”

“Do what you must,” Tempest waved a hoof. “And… thank you.”

For once, Cirrus did not have a reply. He had opened the first-aid kit atop Tempest’s cot, and was in the process of organizing its contents. A few strips of bandages, a few cotton swab pads, a bottle of disinfectant…

She felt his talons touch her back, close to the wound, and then a gentle dabbing as he brought the cotton swab to the harsh and jagged claw marks. It stung, but only a little. Nothing she couldn’t handle, and she did not so much as flinch.

“Tough gal…” Cirrus said, moving on to the other side and giving it the same treatment. “They’re probably gonna be havin’ nightmares ‘bout you tonight, Tempy.”

She chuckled. “I think you might be overestimating my influence just a little.”

“Mm, maybe. Maybe not.” She heard him shuffle, and felt him sit down behind her. His presence something she could simply feel, even without turning back to look at him. The entire situation felt…

Well. To say her mind wasn’t a bit restless would be a lie. She could not recall the last time she’d let anypony treat her wounds like this… usually it was something she did herself, by the vision granted by the mirror in her chambers, shaking and shuddering with the vibrations of airship flight. She wasn’t somepony that others could see as injured or vulnerable. And… she did not have anypony she quite trusted to fulfill such a roll anyways. If he wanted, Cirrus could probably have grabbed a scalpel and driven it right into her throat.

As that thought struck her, her earlier ponderings returned in full force. A fresh blooming of confusion and conflicting emotions. She trusted Cirrus. She liked spending time with Cirrus. She wanted Cirrus to be safe.

She’d protect Cirrus, even if it meant putting herself in danger.

What the buck was he? If she didn’t believe in friendship—and she knew for certain that she did not—then what the buck was Cirrus supposed to be?

The questions swirled in her head, as she felt Cirrus’s talons rubbing up and down her back, the hippogriff working slowly and calmly to clean out the bits of flecked, dried blood that had drizzled from her wound and down her exposed back.

“Bet you love this…” she grumbled out, glancing back at him only to see him pursing his beak in sheer focus, a vial of aloe ointment held in one wing and the cotton swab in the other.

“Loathe it. Woe is me, I have no choice but to put my talons all over the badass, sexy-voiced unicorn with the hot mane.”

She narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. “Keep it up, and you’ll need to use this kit on yourself.”

“For complimenting you? Nonsense.” Cirrus laughed. “Okay… well. Wounds look as clean as they’re gonna be, and they ain’t infected,” Cirrus said, giving her haunches a little tap with a talon. “Lemme get you bandaged up, and when you put your armour back on, no one will be the wiser.”

Tempest nodded. Cirrus began the somewhat slow and tedious process of wrapping her barrel in sterilized strips of bandage, doing his damndest to find the perfect middle ground between ‘tight enough that it wouldn’t bunch under her armour’ and ‘not enough to be a bloody corset.’

“Y’know, we’ve been workin’ together for, like. Six years now,” Cirrus said idly as he worked. “And you still haven’t told me about the horn yet.”

Tempest did not immediately reply. Cirrus did not immediately press it either, which gave her time to contemplate the question. She would not ever claim to be ashamed of her maimed horn… and her days of starting tavern brawls with anypony who made fun of it were long beyond her, yet it still was not a topic she felt comfortable willingly bringing into casual conversation.

“It is… something I find difficult discussing with ponies desperate to exploit weakness.”

“Y’think I’m desperate to exploit any weaknesses of yours, Tempy?”

She was silent. The bandages grew a little tighter around her sides, sealing off her wounds from the outside world. When the armour was on, nopony would even be able to tell that she’d ever been hurting.

“No, Cirrus. If you wish, I can tell you how I lost it.”

“Nah. If you wanted to talk about it, you would’ve already,” he replied. “I just thought it was funny. That neither of us really talked about, well. It.”

“It’s not like it’s something ‘talking’ can fix.”

“No, I guess it’s not. Still, you’re on your way to doing that, right?” Cirrus finished up bandaging the one wound, and moved on to the next. He was working a little slower now, his focus half divided between the conversation they’d initiated. The sort of conversation Tempest suddenly realized she hadn’t had with anypony besides Cirrus in years, and now was having it for the second time of the day with him.

“What’re your plans? When you get your horn back? Bet you’ve got a lot of them, right?” he asked. She couldn’t recall his voice sounding so thoughtful and curious before. Like he actually cared, and he wasn’t just asking to try and get her to smile.

“Cirrus, what is your game here?” Tempest asked. “Or, ever? Why is it so important to you that I find you charming?”

He stopped. His talons left her back. “Um…”

“You’re not content simply working together. You want me to like you. Don’t you?”

“Tempy, what kind of flightless hatchling doesn’t want folks to like them?” he replied. “I’ve seen a lot of griffs stab each-other in the back for an easy pay day. I’ve seen ponies do it, too. I know you have as well. I keep expecting the other horseshoe to drop, and you to do it to me, but you haven’t yet. You’re protecting me, and…” He exhaled. “…And I still don’t believe you when you say it’s ‘nothing.’ Maybe I just want you to admit that.”

She did not answer, though her mind felt alight with the temptation to. “…Finish up treating my wounds, Cirrus.”

“Already done,” he replied, tucking the bandages back into the first-aid kit, and clamping it shut. He was already rising to his talons, shuffling his way towards the port-hole exit back into the inner workings of the Thespis. “I’m sorry if I pried, Tempy.”

“Cirrus, look at me.”

He stopped, and turned.

“When I have my horn back. I’ll have time to worry about things like this.” She attempted a smile, and almost succeeded. “The sooner I get it… the sooner you’ll get my answer. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Good. Let’s go catch us our seapony.”