The Sky Above

It was still close to twenty minutes later before they were waving their goodbyes to Quill, who’d come to briefly see them off. Rainbow fluffed out her wings, a distinctly satisfied feeling filling her belly as they began their backtrack. “This was fun!”

“Novel, certainly.”

“I liked it well enough, once the dragons weren’t so scary; still have that cliff-climb to do, though.”

“We can always take the long route,” Twilight pointed out. “If it proves too difficult.”

“Lots of time to find out,” Rainbow added, glancing pointedly at the sun. “It’s not even close to noon.” They had gotten up quite early.

They carried on in relative silence, each too lost in thought to have much to say. They were passing under the very archway they’d slept under the night before when Rainbow spoke up. “Hey – you guys alright if I get in the air? I can land wherever it’s easiest to climb.” The cliffs in question were just ahead, so if they were going to do this, now was the time.

“Sure,” Squirrel said. “I don’t think your gear’s heavy enough to be a problem.”

“Shouldn’t be.”

As Rainbow swapped over her satchels, Twilight paced a few steps ahead and back out into the snow. A few snowflakes drifted lazily down, but otherwise all was clear. There was the crunching of scree behind her as Rainbow flew deftly past and quickly wheeled up into the sky.

“Time to follow, I suppose,” Squirrel said, standing a moment abreast before leading the way; conveniently, the very same path they’d made coming the day before was still there to walk.

Twilight wasn’t certain they could make the climb – she hadn’t noticed any clear paths leaving the canyon yesterday, although she hadn’t exactly been looking; nevertheless, she wasn’t looking forward to any scrambling.

Instead of fretting, she shifted her thoughts to their newfound sliver – a real, honest-to-goodness sliver! -- and just what, exactly, her next step was going to be. Sure, she had the prospective anchor now, but she still needed to work out the where and how of using it.

A problem for later, perhaps.

Rainbow could be seen circling ahead, low over the cliffs. From here, it all looked the same to Twilight, but evidently Rainbow’d spotted something.

“So does that look like good circling, or bad circling?” Squirrel asked.

“Good? I think it’s good.”

As they neared the cliff, Rainbow swooped down to fly close circles overhead. “Think you two can get up here!” she shouted down to them. “Might not even need ropes!”

Twilight glanced between Rainbow and the cliffs, but couldn’t even guess where to begin. “Squirrel?”

“Yup,” Squirrel said as she trotted through the untrodden snow and towards a spot that looked identical to every other spot. “Think we can start here.”

“That’s it!” Rainbow shouted as she worked to gain some better height. “Take your time and wave me down if you get stuck!”

Twilight hurried close to Squirrel as the mare began placing step after careful step upon little rocky protrusions and snow-covered gashes. A quick once-over told Twilight that the cliffs were probably at as much as a sixty-degree angle – difficult, but not necessarily unconquerable.

She was barely ten feet up before she began to feel like a mountain goat, her boots barely clinging to the ruts and crags Squirrel had cleared out for her, her body braced as often as not against the cliff face; unfortunately, it was a scant few creeping steps later when she nearly bumped into Squirrel’s tail. “What’s up?” she asked, not daring to lean out to try and see what was happening.

“Don’t think we can keep going,” Squirrel said, similarly unwilling to turn her head to look back at Twilight. “Ropes?”

“Alright,” Twilight said hesitantly. “But first --” her horn lit up as she strobed a light to grab Rainbow’s attention.

Rainbow immediately dropped down to hover erractically next to them. “What’s happening?”

“Need rope,” Squirrel said shortly. “Not going to be easy after this, and I don’t want us tumbling down.”

“Hold on!”

While Rainbow was busy – presumably scouting out some tie-off points – Twilight carefully untied the rope from her panniers and double-checked it for any breaks that may’ve suddenly appeared. Seeing none, she set to working out the best way to secure themselves. “Should we tie ourselves together? And where?”

“Our pannier harnesses would be best,” Squirrel said. “I’ll need you to try and do mine; should’ve done it when we were below.”

“Give me a moment,” Twilight said as she thoroughly attached her rope to herself before moving on to Squirrel’s.

“Remember you’ll need some way to eat up slack as we go.”

Twilight nodded, though Squirrel couldn’t see her. “Mmhmm. And we’re not tied together?”

Squirrel shook her head. “I could hold you if my footing was better, but here we’d just drag each other down.”

Rainbow kept close to the other two, ready to catch either of them if they fell, or at least crush them against the cliff to slow them down. They’d both been tied off to some stout-looking trees she’d found up top, and though she was plenty confident in her knots, she was still anxious about the whole thing. Maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it?

Too late now, she supposed.

They weren’t far off the top by this point, in as much as the less-than-forty-five-degree change in steepness could even be called such. It’d been something like half-an-hour, but she wasn’t worried about that – she really just hated not being able to do more than watch.

From where she was she could just make out the highest buildings in Shade, only just blued by distance; she still found herself grinning at the thought of just how close they’d been to the town this whole time. Farther to the west, she could make out the occasional silhouette of a wyvern flying off to do whatever it was that wyverns did. A quiver of movement below caught her attention; she darted down, but quickly eased off once she realized no one had fallen – things had just evened out enough for Squirrel and Twi to speed up. With a quick check to see if she’d be able to take off again – there was a bit of a plateau over there, so she should be fine – she circled low and landed in a spray of snow near the anchor tree.

“All good?” she called out.

“Yup,” Squirrel said as she clambered over, Twilight close in tow. “How’s it after this?”

“Easier, I think,” Rainbow said, stepping over to check on Twilight while Squirrel undid their knots. “You good?”

Twilight nodded, a pleased smiling adorning her muzzle. “Tired, but yes.” She stamped her hooves, shivering in excitement. “That was tense! I can’t wait to never ever do it again!”

“Well, since technically you’ll be going down on the next bit, that might come true?”

“I’m pretty sure that makes it harder,” Twilight said as she detached her rope.

Rainbow gave her a friendly shoulder-bump. “We’ll be fiiine.”

The canyon top was anything but smooth – Twilight wouldn’t have been surprised if there wasn’t a single flat spot on it. She and Squirrel were utterly dependant on Rainbow for directions, being unable to see more than a hoofful of metres in any direction before the horizon was lost in a sea of crests and troughs.

A quick look at the sky suggested they weren’t far off noon. “Going really has been slow, hasn’t it,” Twilight said. “Lunch?”

“Sure.”

“Sounds good.”

They settled down on the nearest vaguely-clear surface they could find, panniers doffed and rooted through. Twilight grimaced as she took a pull from her canteen. “Hate how cold this gets,” she said with distaste.

“Almost back,” Squirrel reminded her. “Won’t be like this anywhere else.”

That it shouldn’t: after this it was just convoys til ‘Canum, then whatever it took to get back home again. There were still a few brief stopovers she hoped to hit along the way, but that was a plan for another day.

Minutes passed in companionable silence, bar the munching of oatbars and peachy things. Soon enough, it was time to get going.

The landscape changed little, with only shrubby bushes and leafless trees to mark the distance. It wasn’t until they’d gone an hour further that they could make out the distance plumes of chimney smoke, drifting lazily over Shade.

“You know,” Twilight mused as she stared off towards the idyllic, wintery sight. “I never did ask anyone about the name.”

“Hmm?” Squirrel shot her a questioning look. “You mean the town?”

“Yeah – hyphenated names aren’t exactly common.”

Squirrel shrugged. “Changelings are peculiar, remember? Anyways, I think the name’s based on the town’s history. Can’t recall how, exactly, but I’m pretty sure the ‘down’ is feathers.”

Twilight hummed in response. “If we have time, I’ll ask.”

The cliff down wasn’t nearly as steep as the one they’d taken up; at least, according to Rainbow – near as Twilight could tell, it was virtually vertical.

“You’ll be fine!” Rainbow insisted from where she stood, right at the very edge. “You’re all tied off, we’ve worked out a path and everything, and plus, it’s nothing but snow drifts below! It’d be like landing on a pillow!”

That didn’t help. “Okay,” Twilight said, taking care to take slow, deep breaths. “Okay. Do I – should I go first?”

“No,” Squirrel said immediately. “Stay close behind me – I’ll clear a path so you’ll see all the hoof-holds; if you think you might slip, just, I don’t know, yelp or something – I can try and brace.”

“Yelp. Right.” Privately, Twilight had a feeling that if she did slip, she’d be too terrified to even breath, no nevermind say something.

Squirrel started towards what she’d insisted was a path. “Let’s go.”

The way down was stressful, to say the least. Twilight spent the entire time with her flanks brushing and scraping against the hoary cliff, her legs sore from how much she’d wedged them into whatever notch or crenel they were on.

The end couldn’t come soon enough; once Squirrel had hopped down the last few feet, Twilight followed close behind, her legs sinking through the crunchy snow right up to the barrel. Faint laughter drifted down from above.

“You’re not stuck, are you?” Rainbow giggled as she flew in a tight loop over their heads. “Could maybe pull you out by the rope?”

“Oh shush,” Twilight grumbled as she wriggled her way towards the nearest boulder. “If you really want to be helpful, go untie us.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Rainbow chuckled as she sped away.

Twilight clambered out of the snowdrift right alongside Squirrel, the pair of them shaking the snow off of themselves while they waited for Rainbow to return.

“Almost there,” Squirrel said as she stamped her hooves hard, sending whorls of dusty snow flying off. “Can’t wait to curl up in front of the fire.”

“Mmhmm,” Twilight agreed. “Wonder if they have anywhere we could have dinner at?”

“Oh, the inn’ll definitely have something, banquet or not.”

A pair of thwumping noises drew their attention back to the cliff just in time to see the other end of their ropes flop into the snow. It didn’t take long to get these coiled up and stored again, a process only slightly delayed by Rainbow’s landing kicking up an ungodly amount of snow.

“It’s just over there!” Rainbow said excitedly, pointing a wing towards a snow drift that looked like every other one in sight. “Doubt it’s even an hour!”

Squirrel visibly perked up. “Really? Shoot! Heckuva shortcut, then – I thought it’d be a few more at least.”

“Nope!”

And it really was just an hour later that they stumbled back onto the very same path they’d taken out of the town the day before, their hoofprints still visible in the snow. “Well, that’s nice,” Twilight said as she spied the airdocks. “Our ship’s still there.” It’d only been a day, but a small part of her had been worried they’d up and left.

“We should sort that out first,” Squirrel said. “Before we get back to the inn.”

As they reentered the town, everything looked just the same as when they’d left it: deeply-cut, wood-floored walkways ran the length and height of the hill, with the occasional heavily-clothed changeling passing by to shoot them a curious glance; the muffled sounds of laughter accompanying the clanging of hammers and working of saws; even the odd curse was heard whenever they slipped on the icy platform underhoof.

“You’d think they’d have something grippy on this,” Twilight grumbled as she once again straightened back up, thankful that this time, at least, she’d managed to keep from falling over wholesale. “Knurled metal, maybe.”

“Sounds expensive,” Squirrel said.

“Rubber, then?”

“We’re a bit far from the coast.”

Twilight sighed. “Maybe the locals just have studded boots on.”

They stopped briefly at the airdocks, but the sailors were absent – unsurprising given the midday hour. “We’ll have to check back later,” Twilight said.

“I’ll fly past in a few hours,” Rainbow volunteered. “Easier that way.”

The upper alcove, too, looked just the same, though this time with a small group of ‘lings seated and chatting around a softly-crackling central fire. While a part of Twilight wanted to immediately go and complain to Tern about how danged elusive she’d been, the rest of her just wanted to get to their room and give the sliver a proper inspection.

It was Squirrel, though, that barely broke stride as she led them across to the inn. “Let’s get settled back in before we get up to anything else, shall we?”

Evening came fast.

Twilight curled up tighter on her duvet, the sliver resting on her pillow, while Squirrel and Rainbow chatted. After getting their room, the other two had convinced her to have another walk-around; she’d expected she’d have hated the idea, but with the sliver well in hoof, she’d found she hadn’t minded.

The argument with Tern had turned out more light-hearted than she’d expected, too, although coming back successful undoubtably had something to do with that.

They were leaving tomorrow – it was a stroke of luck, but it turned out the two sailors that’d taken them here were leaving earlier than they’d thought. From where Twilight was sitting, it really did look like they’d be back in Hurricanum in less than a week.

With that happy thought in mind, she shook herself lightly and tried to get caught back up in the conversation.