Dinky Doo: The Scion of Wind

She was slammed against a metal ceiling.

Invisible manacles pinioned her limbs to the cold surface.

Screaming was shaking her eardrums.

"Dinky! Dinky!"

A white blur greeted her stinging eye, followed by a spurt of green spores; they lost their glow, shrunk, and then they were nothing.

She was forcing her limbs to move, to struggle against the force of the fall. Her left foreleg budged by an inch; that was all she needed to keep going. And so she swam and swam, despite the breath slowly being pistoned from her lungs. She swam across the surface of the escape pod, sort of like she was making a snow-alicorn with her mom on a lively Hearthswarming morning. The memory gave her strength, a determination to not let it end here.

Horns grazed, white over periwinkle; energies crossed, grass-green into grass-green, and over each other they folded and folded, until they became a hot ball of worsted spun from the threads that were the ever-frenetic leylines of filly and filly.

An explosion of green overwhelmed the senses and the cabin.

Sheer whiteness.

That was all Dinky could see for a while.

It was imprinted against the inside of her eyelids. She felt dizzy, so for the first time, she was glad that she hadn't had breakfast.

She tried to wiggle the ears that she could barely feel.

"Whoa," said the muffled voice of Scootaloo, "I didn't know you could do the magic bubble thing, Sweetie Belle."

"I can't," said Sweetie, just as muffled, "at least, not a real one, and not alone. Dinky and I have been doing extra Twilight Time."

Dinky imagined Applebloom huffing. "Lucky."

When Dinky tried to part them, her eyelids felt like they were glued together.

Ghostly sheets of energy were passing over her, each one buzzing weirdly as it passed through her face. In steady rhythm, they pulsated outwards, from the floating green ball of worsted hovering equidistant from her and the Crusaders.

Things were becoming clearer, more obvious: That her tummy was spread flat no longer against the ceiling, that the energy sheets were harmless, and that they served only to regenerate the warm, strange fabric against which her tummy now lay. Clear-green ripples, interspersed with the occasional white, roamed beneath her, as though to constitute and define the protective bubble inscribed within the cabin. Watching the ripples was like watching the crissing and crossing of tides upon the shore of a beach, except without the familiar swish and sway.

A solicitous hoof touched Dinky's shoulder. "Y'all doing okay there, Dinky?"

"Yeah," Dinky said, too comfortable to get up. "Are you okay, Applebloom? Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle?"

"Yep," Applebloom said.

"Uh-huh," Scootaloo droned, watching the cascade of magic like it was as mildly interesting as the stars in the night sky.

"I'm okay, Dinky," said Sweetie, before she could ask; she was lying down on her tummy, just like Dinky was.

A gossamer strand strung the shine of Sweetie's horn to the magical worsted, whence another strand protruded, ending at the shine of Dinky's own horn. Beads of energy were flowing down the strands in-sync with the energy sheets.

Plopping down beside Sweetie Belle, Applebloom groaned. "Now what do we do! We're fallin' billions of Celestia-knows-how-many miles in the air!"

"Psh, relax, Applebloom," Scootaloo said, waving a careless hoof at her before angling her head to face a window. "We have a whole ocean to land in. Once we splash in it, all we gotta do is drive it back to Equestria."

"Assumin' any of us even know how ta pilot this here submarine, let alone back to whichever direction Equestria's in!"

"West," Sweetie said, drawing the attention of Scootaloo and Applebloom, and Dinky. "It's west. We were heading east across the Draconic Ocean. Not that that makes any difference, since we're all still little schoolfillies who don't know the first thing about piloting a submarine."

Scootaloo shrugged. "I mean, didn't we sorta pilot a submarine when we went to look for the Cake twins?" she said to the groan of everypony. "Sheesh, fine. I get it. I was just trying to liven our mood."

She stared out the window again; it was a circular thing with a metal frame bolted around it, visible albeit misty behind the magical tides.

Beyond the window was a sight some ponies would never get to see. Beyond the window twinkled an endless blue, shameless in sunlight. After a while, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle joined Scootaloo and Dinky in fixating on where shining sea and vastness of sky met. Up the window it crawled, almost too slowly for anypony to really notice.

Rushes of displaced air were bombarding the undercarriage of the vessel; Dinky could hear their hums and their howls. The occasional screech was something that all four fillies winced at; the pause between each screech was getting shorter. It pervaded the already-dire ambience of the situation, reminding them of how just far they had fallen, of how close they were getting to the ocean.

And it could have been just Dinky imagining it, but air seemed to seep in through unseen cracks of the vessel. She shook off the thought every time it came, knowing what it could mean once the vessel finally breached the watery blue, which didn't seem very far off, judging by a glance from the window. She was starting to see the waves, the ripples; it was disorienting because she had thought she would never have reached this point. The swish, the sway of the tide was untamed but gentle.

The moment was fast approaching…

The inevitability of it swooped upon her; her stomach was doing backflips; her shoulders were tensed up.

And then it was time.

The airy screeches stopped harassing the submarine.

Replacing them was a cool steady rumble. The ocean was thick, soundless and smothering as they sunk into it. Then they were rising, a bit too fast.

Bubbles were birthed from below, popping as though to call after them.

Springing out of the watery depths, leaving the mute and thickness of it behind, the vessel leapt into an arc, not unlike a great metal fish.

"Whoa, nelly!" Applebloom cried, holding onto her bow.

The vessel was underwater again; the view outside once more submerged in blue, before it bounced back up.

And back down.

And back up again.

It went on like that for too long.

The bouncing of the submarine was ebbing into bobbing.

Dinky crumpled, her relieved sigh an echo of those of Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. She was tired. A stream of sweat peeked, then crawled into her ear.

Once she felt Sweetie Belle do so, Dinky stopped her own flow of energy into the heart of the barrier. Her horn was buzzing weirdly; she had never used it for this long. She sensed the barrier unraveling around her; she didn't need to open her eyes to know this. The hot green streams were thinning, and thus to nothing they swirled.

It was a while before anypony said anything more.

But somepony was playing around in some unseen corner of the submarine.

The floor kept swimming, and in more than the figurative sense.

Dinky didn't realize she was on steel flooring until it was cold against her underbelly. Stirred did the ghosts of the scorches on her skin from two days ago.

"I don't suppose anypony knows how to pilot a submarine?" Scootaloo said. "Anypony?"

Applebloom helped Sweetie Belle and Dinky up.

Now that the barrier was gone, Dinky could get ahold of her bearings. The cargo space, where she had been in for the entirety of the fall, was spacious and empty, save for the shriveled orange skin of something that could have been a liferaft.

The remaining space contained the cockpit, which was wide enough for at least four grown ponies to stand in. Visored over the width of it was a thick-looking window. Waves of water were swishing half-heartedly against it; behind the glass she felt safe.

Each of the cockpit's twin chairs was about a pony and a half wide.

The copilot's sole duty, as it transpired, was nothing but something that looked like a lot like a small fire alarm.

Sitting in a snug-looking pilot's chair was Scootaloo. She was hovering her hooves uncertainly over a panel of lights and controls and switches. All of them were beeping and blinking in an organized panic; Dinky could have sworn the valve to the kitchen sink was there, too. It also had a bunch of other doodads and doohickeys that Applebloom was pondering loudly about and which she asked Sweetie Belle about.

"Don't ask me!" Sweetie said, fur spiked in annoyance.

Dinky's fur, on the other hoof, was spiked up because of another feeling. "Did anypony hear that?" she said, looking up at the sky she couldn't see.

"Dinky, focus," Applebloom said, her attention still on the control panel, "ain't no way we're gonna get back to Equestria unless we figure all this out."

Something splashed in the distance, seconds later causing the submarine to undulate.

Scootaloo poked her muzzle in the air. "Hey, I hear it, too."

"Me, three," Sweetie said, going with her to the cargo space.

There, some large rusty thing groaned.

Dinky turned to find Scootaloo looking through a scope.

"Hey, I see the airships," she said, standing atop Sweetie Belle's trembling shoulders.

The air trembled again. The vessel rocked on water. Scootaloo fell off. "W-whoa — !" she said, wings aflutter, atop Applebloom, who had rushed to catch her on her back just in time. "You're a lifesaver."

Sliding off, Scootaloo walked over to stand behind where the scope would be once Sweetie Belle finished pulling it down with her magic.

"What happened? What do you see? What do you see?" said Sweetie, once Scootaloo looked in again.

"That creep's airship," Scootaloo said, "it's blown up."

Silence followed her announcement.

True, the ponies who had been aboard that airship had not been the kindest. But the subject of their fate permeated throughout the cabin all the same, all too palpable, and all too suffocating, like a cloud of poisonous gas. Dinky was in half a mind to ask what happened to them, until she realized that nopony was around to tell her a soothing lie about it.

Releasing the scope, Scootaloo walked towards the comfort of her fellow Crusaders; they embraced.

Only Dinky was brave enough to look into the scope.

Smoke was hanging thick high above, and from it rained droplets of flame, scraps of wood and metal, and dragon skulls that had been finally put out of their misery. The bow of an airship emerged through the dust, exquisitely curved, porcelain white, and unblemishable. Golden lines traced the outline, as majestic as the Princess after whom it had been modeled.

"The Equestrian airship is coming this way," Dinky said, as the Crusaders parted.

A yellow hoof stamped the metal. "Then we gotta send a flare up," Applebloom said, "now."

Dinky followed the Crusaders back to the cockpit.

The control panel was just as inscrutable as ever; the airship, meanwhile, was getting closer.

Sweetie Belle was in the pilot seat, trying to decipher the controls, with Applebloom and Scootaloo over her shoulder. Dinky meanwhile was reseated in the copilot's seat, with a familiar device sitting on the dashboard. She knew what it was, having seen a unicorn aboard the airship use it once before. Dinky closed her eyes. The unicorn had been pointing to her horn, then to Dinky's, then to…

'Bingo,' rung the device.

The submarine rocked, and then it slowly sunk.

"Wait, wait, wait," Applebloom said, "what did you do, Sweetie Belle?"

"Me!? I didn't do anything!"

The ocean seemed to be crawling back over the cockpit window, pushing the sky up to make room.

The rushed air of the airship seemed to be getting closer, louder, until it was muffled, for the submarine that it sought could no longer be seen bobbing on the surface.

It passed them.

"No, no, no!" Applebloom squealed, holding her cheeks. "Now we'll never get home! We're stranded in the middle of the ocean!"

Through the constant billow of seawater, Dinky saw the Equestrian airship race for the eastern shore. She didn't need to wait long for the airship to disappear from sight.

The submarine was rising; the familiar pressure in Dinky's ears was decompressing. Rotors were being willed to life; an engine shuddered and wheezed with the cadence of somepony clearing their throat. Low grumbles filled the cabin. The submarine lurched experimentally, then drifted forward.

"Wait," Scootaloo said, watching the sky descend into view, "the submarine's… moving?"

"It's Dinky," Sweetie Belle said.

"Dinky?" Applebloom said, looking like she had smelt overcooked muffins, "what's Dinky gotta to do with this?"

Then she and Scootaloo followed the pointing of a white hoof to the round fire-alarm thingy; within it, Dinky's magic blew and swirled like sprinkles in a constantly shaking snowglobe.

Of the widgets on the control panel, Applebloom had only been able to find the compass, at which she now pointed. "What the hay? Dinky! We're going in the wrong direction!"

"Dinky. Dinky. Dinky," Sweetie said, finally making her wince. "What are you doing? Equestria's the other way. Dinky? We are going the right way, right? Right?"

Dinky shook her head. Feeling the eyes of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, such wonderful ponies, upon her was too much. "I'm sorry, everypony. But I can't go home. Not like I am now."

Growling, Scootaloo stamped the floor. "Are you kidding me!?" she exploded. "After we came all this way to save you!?"

Sadly, Dinky turned away. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the window.

The ocean was parting violently before her. Seafoam was pitterpattering on the window, accumulating in bubbly white clusters. Puncturing those clusters were spits of ocean water, which was clearer than it had looked from way above; the Draconic Ocean was dotting the window like rain in a storm.

"Dinky," Sweetie whispered, "why?"

Hearing the hurt in her voice was worst of all. "I ran away from home."

"Why in the hay would you do that?" Applebloom said.

"Yeah," Scootaloo chipped in. "Don't you wanna see the cool aunt you never knew you had? Don't you wanna see the mommy you never thought was cool?" Applebloom shot Scootaloo a flat stare, while the horrible secret festered further within Dinky. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure they're all worried about you. I know my mom would be worried about me being gone for so long."

"I can't," Dinky said, shaking her head, "not like I am right now." She got tired of repeating herself. "None of Miss Twilight's books can teach me how to use my wind magic."

Applebloom raised a confused eyebrow. "But what does that have to do with running away from home?"

"I'll scare Miss Rarity again; I'll hurt Miss Applejack again. I'll just hurt everypony again, like I did to… her. Like I did to the bad pony. Aren't you scared of me?"

Dinky sure was, but she couldn't admit it, even to her friends.

"No way, dude," Scootaloo said, jumping and fluttering excitedly, "the way you handled that creep was awesome!"

"Not helping, Scootaloo," Applebloom said.

"Somepony in Haissan has to know how Alula used wind magic. If not him, then maybe somepony else can show me. Alula had a whole buncha books in his library. He told me about it."

"He?" Sweetie said, her voice rising to an appalled shriek. "You mean… that creep!? Why are you listening to him!? He's the one who foalnapped you! He's the one who foalnapped all of us! He tried to hurt Rarity! He tried to hurt you! Dinky, think of what your mommy would say if she saw you running off to Haissan all on your own like this!"

"I can't," Dinky said, feeling her face ready to burst. "I hurt Mom. I hurt Mom just like how Aunt Daring hurt Mom. And it's all because I can't control my wind magic. I don't know why I can't anymore. But I just can't! I can't! And nopony in Ponyville can teach me how! Not even the no-magic band can stop me anymore! If I don't go to Haissan, I'll just end up hurting more ponies!"

"But your friends!" Applebloom pleaded. "your family!" Her tone became softer, more hurt. "Our friends… Our families…"

Dinky tried to say something, only for it to come out as a mumble.

"What?" Sweetie said.

Tears cascaded down the periwinkle cheeks.

Then their forelegs were around her.

Seconds passed.

Minutes.

All the while a single thought hovered in Dinky's mind, like a fly she could not swat. No matter how they embraced her, they could never relieve her guilt she would be carrying along with her from that moment on. Nopony had asked to come on this trip. Silently swearing to one day find a way to bring her friends back to Equestria, Dinky withdrew.

Looking the Crusaders in the eyes, amber, violet, then green, was one of the hardest things she had had to do.

Looking away was even harder. "I'm sorry, everypony."

Lately, all she had done was hurt ponies and feel bad for it afterwards; it was getting easier and easier to do.

Outside, the skies were faltering. The light of mid-dusk shone upon the darkening scene.

Neither fanfare nor cheer came to christen the start of another crusade.