"So," asked Cloudy Thoughts, "what's your story?"
High Winds glanced up from her meal (some sort of pasta dish, horribly bland as usual - she had explained to the quartermaster that you couldn't just take low-altitude meals and expect them to taste good at height, and Daily Bread had promised to adjust the menus, but so far nothing had come of it). "Story?"
Cloudy gestured vaguely with a hoof. "You know, why you ended up here? We've worked together a while, and I don't know that you've ever said."
"I haven't. Not much to it, really; I was between jobs, saw a recruitment ad, figured the pay was good and I had nothing better to be doing. You?" There wasn't much point in asking, really - every unicorn and earth pony aboard the Hinnyburg answered the same way, Oh, I've always wanted to fly, ever since I was a foal - but it seemed polite.
Cloudy gave a wry grin. "Figured I had to. On the ground, pony with a name like 'Cloudy Thoughts' is either simple or an airhead; up here everypony figures I just love flying. And I do like it well enough, so why not, you know?"
"Huh," said Winds. "Heck of a reason to spend half your days trapped in a tiny cage a dozen stadia above the Celestial."
"Well, the bits are also good."
Then there was a flash of heat and light, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No.
No, that can't be right. This was Equestria. And sure, bad things happened sometimes - Winds had been on the wrong side of plenty of rescues, and on rainy days her bones still ached from the time a dragon had tossed her into the side of a mountain - but not pointless bad things. Not out of nowhere, with no chance to do anything about them.
So this must be what happened:
"So," asked Cloudy Thoughts, "what's your story?"
High Winds looked up sharply, ears at attention. "What was that?"
"You know, why you ended up here? I just realized - "
"No, I mean - the light. What was that flash?"
Cloudy gave an apologetic headshake. "Didn't see one, sorry. I can ask around, if you want, see if the others noticed?"
High Winds nodded, and Cloudy stood and hurried off. Winds stayed at the table. What had just happened? It had been too bright for even Cloudy to miss, and she wasn't the sort to pretend not to see for some kind of bizarre joke - really nopony on the Hinnyburg was, but Cloudy especially had a straightforward earnestness that made it inconceivable.
Hadn't she eaten more of her meal than that? Maybe High Winds was finally cracking. It happened to pegasi who spent too much time in enclosed spaces, sometimes, even the ones who seemed to tolerate it just fine - claustrophobic delirium, that was the term. But High Winds was a maintenance engineer. She spent most of her shifts flying around the outside of the Hinnyburg, checking for signs of wear and tear; she shouldn't have been at risk almost at all.
"Sorry," said Cloudy, "Nopony's seen anything."
That didn't make any sense. Not unless High Winds really was going mad, and -
There was a flash of heat and light, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No.
No, that can't be right either. This was Equestria; ponies didn't die in distress and confusion, unable to even trust their own minds.
So this must be what happened:
"So," asked Cloudy Thoughts, "what's your story?"
High Winds stood, ears sharp at attention. Something was terribly wrong, even if she wasn't sure what. "Not now," she said, "need to - need to get to medical."
Cloudy gave her a concerned look. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," said High Winds. "Just peachy. That's why I'm going to medical, to play a feathering chess game with the nurse."
Cloudy shrunk back. "Right, sorry. Stupid question. I'll let the captain know?"
"Thanks," said High Winds. "And sorry for snapping. I'm just - a bit on edge right now."
"Don't worry about it," said Cloudy, and left.
Medical was nearly at the opposite end of the airship as the dining hall. Before High Winds could reach it, there was a flash of light and heat, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No, not that either.
This must be what happened:
"So - " asked Cloudy, but High Winds had already leapt to her hooves and begun sprinting down the halls of the Hinnyburg. There was no time to think. She had to get outside; nothing else mattered.
"Open the drop doors!" she shouted, entering the cargo bay, which was an absurd order, but an engineer in a clear state of alarm outranked everypony, whatever the org charts said, and she had compliance in seconds.
She plunged down, dodging falling cargo - that would go on the incident report for sure, that the doors of the cargo bay hadn't been kept properly cleared - took a breath of blessedly fresh air, looked wildly about. It had to be an attack of some sort; a spell, a weapon, some new stranger thing, but from where? They were a full league above sea level in the middle of the ocean on a cloudless day; there should have been no living creature bigger than a seagull within a mile. And more importantly, why? If this was the first strike of a new enemy of Equestria, then surely there were better targets than a moderately successful merchant venture.
As she was contemplating these questions, a tremendous mass of burning metal fell upon her, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No.
This must be what happened:
"So - " asked Cloudy, but High Winds had already leapt to her hooves.
"Emergency!" she called. "We have less than a minute to stop our hydrogen cells igniting. Pegasi, external checks with me; unicorns, earth ponies take internals. Move!"
Nopony raised the obvious objections; there would be time enough for questions later. Down the hall, half a dozen pegasi following closely behind, into the cargo bay, out the drop doors, dodge, breathe, up. Look for anything out of place - she had checked the canvas hundreds of times, whatever it was should stick out like an unpreened feather.
But there was nothing. No uncaught tear, no planted trap. The Hinnyburg, to all appearances, was functioning entirely normally.
There, burning canvas. No time to stop it - she tried anyway, of course, threw all her magic into creating what little rain she could, but even if she'd had a talent for weather magic, it was much too late.
A flash of light and heat, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No.
This must be what happened:
"So - " asked Cloudy, but High Winds was in the air, flying down the hall as fast as her wings could carry her. Into the cargo bay, through the drop doors, dodge the falling debris - she hadn't flown like this since the Wonderbolts, and a part of her exulted in it - deep breath, skip the search - she knew exactly where to go.
The fatal location was a stretch of canvas, near an attachment point for a gas bag, but otherwise unremarkable. If High Winds hadn't known already what would happen, she wouldn't have given it a second thought, and even now she could do little but wait to see what attack would come.
There - a spark. Only a spark, which in another second would be blown out by the winds, but there must have been some miniscule leaking of the hydrogen cells, because the canvas ignited.
High Winds's heart sank. It was a trivial fix, under ordinary circumstances: patch the fabric, oil the sparking propeller, reprimand the pony last assigned to the location. It was even a fairly quick fix. But it wasn't an instant fix, and there was only an instant to act.
She had the thought that she might escape, if she fled as fast as she was able. But she couldn't bring herself to act on it.
There was a flash of heat and light, and High Winds knew nothing more.
No.
This is what happened:
"So," asked Cloudy Thoughts, "what's your story?"
High Winds looked up from her meal (a pasta dish - bland, as always, but properly firm, and with a smooth sauce that let it slide pleasantly down the throat). "I really never told you?"
"You don't talk about yourself much. That's your right, of course, but I'd like to know you better, if you're willing."
"I was a Wonderbolt." At Cloudy's surprised look, she nodded. "Yeah, that's how everypony reacts. Even the hardcore fans never recognize me. With reason, admittedly: I was the best flier in my village, which meant I barely scraped by with the Bolts. Two years, not one solo role, and everypony knew I wasn't improving - aerobats peak young. So I quit, spent a year living off savings, saw an ad, figured it'd pull me out of my rut. Found I liked the work, liked my coworkers; everything we do up here matters, you know? So I stuck around."
"I'm glad," said Cloudy. "I like having you around."
High Winds smiled. "I'm glad, too."
Cloudy reached across the table and pulled her into a hug. "Might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
They were still hugging when the fire reached them.
Author's Note
Despite the name, the airship disaster in the story bears almost no resemblance to the actual Hindenburg disaster, which occurred as the ship was landing and was survived by about two thirds of those onboard.
