Dinky Doo: The Scion of Wind

Toot.

Toot.

Toot-toot-toot.

Along the wood the magic danced.

Toot, toot.

Toot-toot-toot.

And on the holes it stepped and pranced.

Piercing through the windy roars a note did blow and soar.

Toot, toot, toot-toot-toot —

"Let the joy of dreamland find you!" "Woo, Dinky!"

Stopping, a burly earth pony turned to stare; a lump of coal tumbled out the cart he was pushing. The second it crumbled against the ground, a sandy bag fell. Within it, a rip widened; grains spilt out, unbeknownst to the pony who had dropped it, who was also glaring at Dinky; shaking his head at her, he went on his way. A unicorn poked his ashen face out of one of the many cannons lining the ribs of the vessel, following the gaze of the earth pony who was holding the cannon steady; the scrubbing mace paused, still afloat, as the duo silently made their annoyance plain to Dinky.

Quailing under the intensity of their stares, Dinky felt her cheeks go red. "Sorry."

Shaking their heads, the crewponies returned to their work. Gruff murmurings resumed, filling the air with a miasma of discomfort.

"Sorry," she said again, just in case.

Not that anypony paid her further mind or ear. The trundling carried on; so did the scrubbing; it was getting time to start work on cannon calibration.

Amidst the busyness, Dinky felt lost, unsure. She was out of place, and in more senses of the phrase than one.

She was aboard the deck of an airship, sitting on one of the less visited corners of it. Harnessed above the deck was a balloon that was responsible for keeping the ship afloat. The sky was bright around her; sunlight could only shine at her at a slant. A canopy crinkled loudly beneath her shifting in-place. Dinky could feel the wind streaming through the vessel; it wasn't just the vessel traveling so fast that the air it pierced felt like the wind. It just was. Apparently, after his passing, Alula's gift had returned for all the world to share, a true testament to his former role as the Avatar of Generosity.

But such things were of minor consequence to Dinky, who levitated her flute up, the better for the afternoon to beam at it. Spit careened clumsily over the length, like shiny rivers. And then like not-so-shiny rivers; she looked up.

"We are nearly halfway over the Draconic Ocean now."

A shadow was looming overhead.

"You make such beautiful music, little foal."

The canopy was made of hard, thick-threaded fabric. Dinky liked caressing the heat out of it; it was like ironing one of her mom's uniforms, but in reverse.

"How very much like your Esteemed Father you are," said the Haissanian; his shadowed eyes got narrower. "Come. It is past time I keep you in the dark."

Bidding her flute slide into its case, which clamped magically shut, Dinky looked up. "Then move outta the way, mister," she whined. "You're blocking the sun."

He chortled unctuously.

"My, the wit you Equestrians possess," he said softly, stroking his chin. "I daresay it is rivaled only by your love of the sun, and its accursed steward."

Dinky got up.

The flap of the Haissanian's sleeve bounced around the hoof he pointed at her, and the swing of his foreleg would have caught Dinky on the cheek had she not leapt back in time.

"She has poisoned your mind, Dinky Doo!" he boomed.

Dinky's legs were spread wide, her horn lowered, too. "Stop calling Princess Celestia funny names! Stop saying bad stuff about her!"

The Haissanian tilted his head, amused. "Come. You know how this shall end. Unfocus your horn, little one. And then we shall talk."

"No!" Dinky roared, her anger spurting through her horn; the Haissanian's amusement turned to discontent. "You're going to tell me who you are, and you want with me!"

The Haissanian cocked his head. "Is that what not what I had proposed?" he said, regarding the leer of his captive with only mild interest; he closed his eyes. "Very well, then."

He held his long snout high at an angle, opening his eyes to the sunshine upon his face.

"I am the Regent of the Desert Garden of Haissan. I was one of five who loyally served His Royal Highness, Sultan Al-Qafzah al-Ula, that is, until… recent events," he said, turning rancorous. "As for your second question, little foal, perhaps you should have thought of that before you left that precious sanctuary of yours."

Heat rose to Dinky's cheeks. She hated the Haissanian. She hated the shadowed face that was looking down on her, eyeing her like somepony who was waiting to see what his cute little puppy was going to do next.

"Come. Into my quarters, Dinky Doo," he said, wrapping a wing about her, only for Dinky to duck it. "There, we can converse more, how you say, freely."

Rolling her eyes, Dinky followed him. She had to keep a brisk pace, since his leg-strides were so long. Crewponies had stopped what they were doing, frozen at their regent walking across the deck. They cascaded into bows on either side; the Regent passed them by without sparing them so much as a glance.

He pushed open a pair of heavy metal doors to let Dinky through, and caught up with her.

Seconds later, doors kissed with a squelch that muffled the sound of shipwork. No hiss of wind could seep through; no sunlight peeked into the dark metal corridor that Dinky found herself trotting through.

Drip.

Drip.

Clank, clank, clank, went the metal beneath her hooves; it would have been amusing if it wasn't so cold in here. Dinky longed for the warmth that only a forest-green explorer's vest could provide. After the Crusaders had wiped out, Rarity had wrapped bandages over her various creams and sprays, which had long congealed on Dinky's body. Specks of heat lingered on those bandages, specks that Dinky salvaged by rubbing on them. She hadn't realized how much she had taken for granted.

Steel doors lined the halls, more forbidding than welcoming. Braids of lamp-bulbs arced from the ceiling, half-suggesting Hearthswarming had come early that year. But the only Hearthswarming-y thing about them was that they were the same hue of red, which Dinky thought she had seen elsewhere.

The halls flickered every ten paces or so; one lamp-bulb went out entirely, spurring Dinky onward.

The door that the Regent was holding this time was wooden and plain, one half of a pair.

Unlike the corridor Dinky was just in, the room she entered was not lit by lamp-bulbs. Wall-sconces hung on the walls of the square office, housing torchflames.

By their light, the heads of oily horned creatures stared unblinkingly ahead; the curves of their muzzles looked tortured, as if they had already known they were cursed to become little more than wall decoration. No life shone out of the hollows in their eyes, just an empty void whence nothing looked back. The groans in their last moments seemed to echo through their petrified mouths, which were still agape in horror. Dinky could almost hear the poor things…

The slam of wood awoke her. "Come. Have a seat."

The Regent was seated on one side of a perfectly ordinary desk, the kind Miss Cheerilee sat behind what felt like a century ago. To Dinky's satisfaction, his forelegs were still covered with bruises, his eye was still black, and there was a slight tremble to his foreleg, which he lay against the flat of the desk.

"You asked why you are here," the Regent said as Dinky adjusted herself on the seat.

She looked up. "Because you foalnapped me."

"You are here," he said, raising his voice, "because Our Esteemed Homeland of Haissan is on the brink of collapse. Our country is divided and confused. It has been so ever since Our Esteemed Sultan Al-Qafzah al-Ula, or 'Alula' as he is known too casually to your family, ah, passed."

The last syllable was spoken with an unexpected delicateness that pervaded the silence that followed.

He and Dinky were locking eyes.

Not until the Regent was stroking it did Dinky notice the stupid goatee under his chin.

"We of Haissan do not express it well," the Regent continued, "but we grieve for our fallen Sultan. Some of us pray in the hopes that He shall hear us from the Great Beyond, and return to answer our prayers. Some of us know for certain that He is gone for good from this realm.

"Now, as you very well should know, little foal, Sultan al-Ula represented, up until a millennium ago, the Element of Generosity."

"I don't," said Dinky, crossing her forelegs.

"And so upon His tragic end," continued the Regent, "He has left us a very generous inheritance: control over our beloved country of Haissan. But, ah," he said, pausing (Dinky was getting annoyed by his "Ah's"), "his children, us, we vie for it like wolves for a single sheep. I fear that His so-called Generosity has ruined us."

"Oh, like Diamond Tiara."

"Who?" the Regent said sharply.

"Nothing," Dinky muttered, pressing her lips shut.

The Regent's narrowing eyes told Dinky he did not buy her innocent-face.

"The country," he continued, still eyeing her warily, "does not know it yet. But we are on the brink of civil war. Unless He returns to us by some miracle, it is unavoidable. And this is where you come in."

He planted both hooves onto the table to get Dinky's attention; he stared intently at Dinky as though doing so would force the answer out of her lungs.

Dinky didn't answer at first. She liked making the Regent angry. She liked playing dumb. She liked making him think that he should have kidnapped one of Alula's children who was actually keen enough to catch onto his tired puppet sultan plot. Even within the confines of this small creepy office, Dinky could still sense the wind billowing beneath the undercarriage of the ship; they felt like sparse threads of an airborne train to grind along, rather than the fully-woven fabric of the ocean.

"You want me to come to Haissan to be Sultan like Alula?" she finally said, with as much foal-like cluelessness in her voice as she could muster.

"As I am sure you know by now," he continued, "there will be a funeral for the late Sultan. At that funeral, I anticipate that the other regents of the land shall commence the war. The power vacuum the late Sultan left, perhaps our true inheritance, is vast, Dinky Doo. Amidst our grief and greed, we shall remember our old differences. It will begin with a small skirmish; but like wildfire, that skirmish will spread, and the enmity dormant between us Haissanians for centuries shall resurface. Very soon, Haissan would be engulfed within the flames of a war that we cannot possibly survive. Not unless you are there to ease their grief, to light our way, as He once did."

Dinky cocked her head. "Why should I help you? For all you know, I can just ride the wind out of here."

"Ah-ha!" the Regent said quickly, pushing himself off the desk and pointing. "But you see, you cannot! Your imagination is wild, and your tales are taller. Not even the late Sultan could summon so much wind that He could fly all the way across Haissan let alone the Draconic Ocean.

"Have you noticed my wings, Dinky Doo?" he said suddenly, spreading them.

Like leaves from a wind-startled tree, his scaly feathers scattered.

"Yeah," Dinky answered, her forelegs still knotted together, "they're still broken from when my aunt Daring kicked your sorry behind."

The Regent's unbruised eye twitched; he straightened his face. "I resent that, little foal."

"Right back at ya. She beat you so bad you're molting. Literally."

"You are mistaken, foal," the Regent said with a shake of the head. "That is not why I molt. I molt because I once acted as His sharpening block, so that His magic would not rust. There is so very much for you to learn, Dinky Doo. I alone am acquainted with His control over the Wind. It is why I had such resilience to your attack in that sad simple town of yours."

"It's called 'Ponyville'," said Dinky, irritated, "and it's not sad or simple at all!"

For a while, the Regent said nothing.

Then he walked over to a small bookcase, which sat beneath a particularly large dragon's hollowed skull, and roved through it. "Aha!" he said, returning with a book in his wing.

The book was pressed beneath Dinky's nose and flipped open.

It wasn't long before Dinky snuck a peek; unknotting her limbs, she began roving her eyes over the text and illustrations. There were illustrations of horn movements, notes about leyline control, and much more about how to 'channel the Wind to [her] will', as the preface to which Dinky flipped promised.

"You see?" the Regent said, reseating himself. "About eight years ago, His Esteemed Brilliance transcribed His findings here. It is my belief that He had planned to kidnap you with the intent of raising you as His newly-christened daughter, His beloved Princess. In that role, you would be personally by Him about how to use your magic, your birthright."

"So why the books if he was just going to teach me himself?" Dinky said, clapping one such book shut.

"Because He also foresaw that you might not want to live with Him, that you did not desire the role of a Princess and the duties that come with it. He had dreaded the possibility, but considered your happiness, above all. Freedom, Dinky Doo," the Regent said, leaning close to her. "He wanted you to have your freedom, and the right to learn the secrets to His magic, so that you would not endanger anypony you came to care for. You see? His Generosity reaches out to you, from even beyond the grave, Dinky Doo."

Dinky stayed silent, staring at the hooves she was twiddling in her lap.

"I, of course," the Regent continued, a hoof upon his proud chest, "shall be more than willing to allow you to hone your skills, as I once did for him. I daresay a demonstration of my services is unnecessary. After all, you have already seen them in action, have you not? Not that I've any ill will for it… Oh? What's this?"

The book was sliding back to him; catching it, he slid it back.

"You mistake my meaning, little foal," he said with a shake of the head. "This book, and so many others that lie deep within the Royal Archives, are yours. He had meant for you to have His knowledge."

Planting her hoof on the cover, Dinky said without looking up, "What happens if I don't go?"

The Regent laughed.

Then his expression turned dire. "Silly foal. You act as though you have a choice. You are at my mercy. This meeting is merely a formality to ensure your cooperation. But I shall humor you anyway. If you do not go, things shall turn sour for us all: Haissan shall fall, and you shall remain a danger to those foolish Equestrians you deign to grace with your holy presence, however diluted it is."

It was no threat.

It was a statement of fact.

And they both knew it.

"Don't you want to control your powers," the Regent continued casually, "so that they do not control you?"

Broken glass and cracked ceilings were echoing inside of Dinky's head again. The fear in the violet pupils was hard to forget. The pupils blinked; now they were golden, dilating with betrayal that Dinky could not just blink away. Beyond the hurt, a hoof was offered to her.

Dinky looked up from it.

"May I remind you, little foal," the Regent droned, "that no harm has come to you yet? I do not mean it, after all. I ask only for your cooperation. You are something Haissan cannot live without. I see no reason why you should be so opposed to me. I have visited no harm upon your precious silly town, or those accursed ponies whom you are unfortunate enough to call your 'family'. And your little friends are still safe, I assure you."

Dinky blinked. "My… friends?" she asked, before something rocked her off her seat. She expected to land on the cold metal of the bumpy floor, only to find herself being hugged by a hot red aura; she was reminded of a cocoon. "What's going on?"

The Regent was rebalancing himself.

"We are being boarded," he said, a bitter rumble in his throat, "by one of hers. We shall resume our conversation another time, I promise you this, little foal. But for now, we must part ways."

He nodded to somepony, who hovered Dinky and the book out of the office.

The red aura of her prison seemed almost like it matched the red lighting of the corridors.

The unicorn stopped at a nondescript square alcove. Glowing on its side wall was something that looked like a round fire alarm.

A magic cloud encased it; in seconds, a distinct green light shone beneath the magic, which dispersed as the alarm seemed to ring, 'Bingo!'

Then a wall was parting.

The unicorn slipped through the second it was wide enough for her and her cargo.

Somewhere above deck, somepony was speaking using a skin-tingling unctuous tone. "Why, gentlemen. How may I be of serv…"

Thankfully, the voice of the Regent could no longer be heard, silenced by the wall clamping shut behind Dinky.

Now, it was pitch-black; it also sounded hollow. A gentle howling filled the space above her, not unlike the howling of a cavern that she and her mom once visited on vacation. Red rays of magic lit the way through what looked like a descending spiral of stairs.

Clank, clank, clank, clank.

Iciness seemed to waft up from the steel like steam from a geyser.

From this far down, the shouting from above-deck sounded like strange indistinct muffles. One set of muffles could easily be discerned as the Regent's.

The magical cocoon stopped bobbing; once more, the unicorn had stopped before another magically-responsive switch. 'Bingo!'

A door was groaning open again.

Either it was parting more slowly this time, or the unicorn was waiting until it was completely open before slipping inside.

It was the latter.

The door squelched metallically into place, activating what sounded like a series of motors. A series of rectangular lights came on, waking up one after the other in a cascade.

Hooves were galloping, echoing in this underground chamber.

Unshielding her eyes, Dinky found herself in a large metal garage; it was about as wide as the inside of the Ponyville postal warehouse, and twice as long. She thought Sweetie Belle had once called a place like this, a 'hanger'.

"Dinky!" came her voice suddenly, arousing a whole mess of confusing emotions.

The unicorn galloped to a trot, and then to a halt, before a large vessel that Dinky had seen on a previous adventure. Inside the vessel was a white unicorn filly, and she was knocking on the other side of the window.

The filly looked up; so did Dinky, for the lid of the vessel had whined open.

She was dropped inside, the book along with her. No longer was she trapped within the folds of red aura; no longer did it insulate her from the cold that was pervading her senses.

From above, the lid groaned ominously, before slamming shut with a rusty clang.

Four voices were startled.

Now, Dinky was surrounded by the darkness, and the dawning comfort and voices of her friends.

The air had become thicker.

The echoes of the lid were still making the portside window tremble, almost as though in fear. Dinky smushed her muzzle on it, steadying it.

Outside, the unicorn was pointing to her horn, then to Dinky's, then to some point near the front of the vessel.

Before Dinky could make out anything more, she felt something like magic humming all around her.

Red consumed her view.

Its radiance was dampened, less than a second later, by the sky below.

And then she and the Crusaders were diving into it.