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// Chapter 3 – Storm 
// Story: Stella Cetaceae 
// by Novelle Tale 
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With Vapor finally forced into sleeping – she never stops – I can relax. In some ways living with her is like the one and only time Rainbow Crash asked me to babysit her spawn. Vapor always has to be bullied into bedtime.

I slump back into the chair, my wings flaring out of old habit for the gloves. All I get for my troubles is a twinge in my bad wing, and I wince and scowl. 

Nothing’s changed; of course it hasn’t. There’s nothing out here but spheres of hydrogen separated by billions of miles, the dead space in between, and me. None of the meteor-blasted planets down there hold life, I’m sure of that now. Ponykind has flown far enough and wide enough that we would have found them. Not that I could search anywhere even if I wanted to. We’re supply only now, and Wanderer only has docking equipment for the colony stations. Nothing that would let us land anywhere. 

I used to dream of flying in an alien atmosphere. Maybe one with lower grav than Equus, where my wounded wing wouldn’t hold me back. But it turns out that atmospheres are rarer than gold dust, and there’s nothing for me out here. Nothing for anypony. 

The sensors are humming softly. The sun with the flare-ups is closer now, and it’s bigger than it looked. A full-fledged solar storm, maybe. Our plotted course takes us through the outermost edge of it, and if I was feeling cautious we do have enough fuel to give it a wider berth. Hell, we have forty years of fuel on board, intended to supply three separate colonies and the ponies living there. If we wanted to deal with the reports on why we needed to tap into the cargo holds, we have enough fuel to go anywhere we want. 

But I spent a week fine-tuning our star maps for this route, and I don’t want to alter things unless it’s absolutely necessary. Fuel is scarce out here without the passive mana that Equus and its millions of inhabitants pump out. No leylines to tap into. 

And maybe there’s a part of me that wants to see a solar storm up close. It’s been a while, and looping gracefully around those slow-mo arcs of liquid fire is something I’ve always enjoyed.

I’ve been good. I deserve a little variety. 

It’s still miles off, though. Nine, ten hours till we’ll be close enough for the sensors to give me a clearer picture. Nearly a full twenty-four till we hit the edge. Plenty of time for the kid to rest up, and me to daydream miserably about my glory days. Same old. 

Resting my chin on the dashboard, I peer through the Y-shaped control wheel and let myself drift. If my eyelids grow heavy, it’s not like it matters. Out here, nothing does. 





We’re flying south over the edges of the dragon badlands. We’re in our usual V formation, me at the head. Ten wings flapping in perfect, effortless synchrony. The kind that only comes after years and years of working together, flying together, living together. Always watching each other’s back. 

And the ponies behind me are my best. Those I’m closest to out of everypony in my squad. Surprise is on my left, Blaze on my right. Soarin and Misty Fly bring up the rear, and I know that every one of them is exceptional. The finest fliers in Equestria, flying with me, at my command. 

My heart swells, and I know that nothing will ever make me prouder than this. Nothing will ever feel so right. Nothing will ever taste as sweet as this easy, implicit trust. Comrades and teammates and friends. Family, in Blaze’s case – my distant cousin – and my occasional lover, in Surprise’s. Nopony in the world means more to me than these four.

We’re using the long-distance gait I perfected – small movements of the wings, gliding wherever possible. We’re tough and like wolves, we can keep this up for days on end. Soarin calls it the goose-flap in my honour. Like all the ‘Bolts callsigns, mine is stupid. On my first official flight as a rookie I freaked out and galloped for my takeoff instead of using the standard leap-start – and it landed me with the nickname Goose and a billion flap-run impressions performed by ponies who weren’t even fledged when the incident happened. It overlaps to poor Blaze, who is saddled with the even worse Gosling. 

But I’ve leaned into it now, and most of the routines I choreograph feature the V-shape that’s become my signature. 

We’re headed down to the dragonlands on a mission for Princess Twilight. She wants us to talk to Dragonlord Ember about...ruby export treaties, or something. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem half as important as the chance to spend a few days with my favourite ponies. I’ve got all the details in my saddlebags, but I won’t look at them till the night before we arrive. If it didn’t buck up our reputation for speed and efficiency, I’d linger over these red-striped dunes. Spin out the trip a little longer. 

The sun sinks low over the sand, and we fly in companionable silence until Surprise suggests we call it here. “I’m starting to feel it, Cap.”

I love that. Cap. The word encompasses everything I’ve worked for, the respect I’ve earned – but the affection as well. The trust they have in me. 

“Sure thing.” I lead us into a spiralling descent, and we settle down in a sandy hollow, flank to flank for warmth in the cold desert night. 

We talk about nothing, about anything. Soarin’s problems as a single brother-slash-adoptive-parent to a troubled teenager, Misty Fly’s recent entanglement with a cute stallion from the rich part of Canterlot, Blaze’s hopes of being picked as a mentor when the next clutch of newbs roll through – hint hint, cuz. 

“That’s Captain to you, Gosling,” I say without any rancour, head resting comfortably on my hooves as I look up at the stars overhead. Millions of them, billions, stretching into infinity, laid out just for us in endlessly beautiful patterns. And my squad with me to watch them as they turn overhead, slow and stately as the princess who put them there. 

As I stare into those white pinpricks in the velvet black, one of them seems to detach itself and drift downward. I squint up at it, then fan out my wings to feel the air currents and the weather brewing in the atmosphere overhead. 

“That’s weird,” I say, and my squad are so in tune with me that four more pairs of wings flare out to sense what I’m sensing.

Soarin frowns. “Snow? In the desert?”

“We’re outside of Equestria,” Surprise points out. “There’s no logic to any of the weather here.”

By logic, she means ponies, but the point stands even if Princess Twilight wouldn’t be a hundred percent happy with it. Most of us prefer civilisation – just with a more multicultural interspecies spin on it these days. 

“Even so,” counters Misty Fly. “Snow in the desert in high summer is weird.”

The flake twists and turns through the air, and finally comes to rest on my nose. My eyes cross as I stare at it with my eyes and all my pegasus senses. A chill breeze stirs my tail. It’s colder already. Even as we stand here talking, the temperature is plummeting.

“Should we turn back?” Soarin says nervously. Capable as he is, he’s not a fan of stormy flying.

Blaze bristles. “No way!” She’s laser-focused on that mentor slot. Wants more than anything to prove herself to me and the commanders back home. “We’ve got a mission and we’re seeing it through.”

“Don’t bite my head off.” Soarin actually scowls at her, which isn’t like him. He’s gotta be feeling the lack of sleep now, though. We all are. 

Blaze glowers right back at him. “You can go home if you want, Plop.” 

The rest of us wince a little at that. Of all the unfortunate callsigns, Soarin’s is perhaps the most unfortunate, and he’s still a little sensitive about the incident behind it. In another two or three years it’ll be blasé, but for now it stings, and Blaze clearly only brought it out to wound. 

“Keep the pecking to yourself, Gosling,” hisses Soarin, and the vitriol in his voice is so real that I am jerked into action.

“Cool it!” I muscle in between them in a way I’ve never had to do before, and they both have the grace to look cowed. 

“Sorry, Captain,” somepony mutters, and I return my attention to the sky. 

The single flake is followed by another and another, and suddenly the stars are being blotted out by the gathering clouds. Snow is falling thick and fast, and the purple-blue sand beneath my hooves is quickly turning to white. 

Something is very, very wrong here. 

I stretch my feathers wider, feeling for the air currents that will lead me to the source of this unnatural blizzard – a rogue pegasus, maybe? Tracked us out of Canterlot and followed us all the way here? Uncharitably, my thoughts go straight to the Dropouts, but even they don’t take that stupid trumped-up rivalry to mount a weather attack on us in the wilderness beyond Equestria. 

“We need to get up there,” I say briskly. “Suits on, everypony. We need the protection.”

Wordlessly, they obey, though Blaze and Soarin are still glaring at each other when they think I’m not looking. That’s not right either. They’re friends. 

“Storm formation,” I command, and jump. 

At once, we form up. Me at the head of the diamond, Blaze above me, Soarin below and Misty Fly and Surprise on either side. Tight enough that the tips of my feathers brush theirs as I flap, and I can feel the downdraft from Blaze overhead. Everyone visible in my peripheral vision, able to twist and fly exactly as I do. Only pegasi who know one another intimately can flock this close together. Only real teammates. But my crew and I live for moments like this, and nopony lets me down. 

We shoot up into the gathering storm, and the wind is rising. Howling like a gale as we plunge into the clouds – and now I can sense the storm much more intimately, boosted by the presence of the others, and suddenly I feel the tangled threads of the wind looping together at the center of the storm. The twisted knot lurking there, fouling everything with its presence and its wrongness. 

This storm is not natural.

It knows I feel it, and the howl of the wind spikes into an anguished shriek. It’s a targeted attack, and Blaze only just manages to keep her position as the wind rips at her. 

“Can’t you keep up, Gosling?” Soarin shouts from beneath me as she struggles back into place, and then I realize the other, more insidious magic at work here. The skittering claws digging into any crack they can find, widening and tearing to amplify the discord between us. 

“Retreat!” I bellow, knowing that even with our training, our skill, our bond, we are no match for this. We’d have to be alicorns before I’d feel confident tangling with this monster. “Windigo!”

As one we wheel away, turning our noses north to Equestria and home – but the wind screeches on every side, spinning us farther than I intended, and without the pole star to guide me suddenly I’m not quite sure which way true north lies. But anywhere is better than here, and I strike out with a confidence that is not altogether feigned. My first responsibility is to my team, and I have to get them home safe. 

Another blast of wind, snowflakes frozen into tiny icicles peppering my fur like buckshot. Frost is lapping at the edges of my feathers, threatening to crystallize as the temperature drops and drops. 

Surprise is lagging, her white feathers crusting over as she flounders, and Misty Fly rounds on her – “Fly faster, Slowpoke!”

“Cool it, Dizzy!” I bark at her. “Slowpoke, back in formation!”

Surprise struggles back up to us, shooting me a resentful look from under her lashes – and the responding fury that surges in my breast is not the less irresistible for how unnatural it feels.

“Stay tight!” I scream at them, fighting to be heard over the gale. The snow is so thick, I’m feeling them more than seeing them. But though I can sense every snowflake around me, I have no control over this storm. We’re way out of our depth.

I try to dive, to lead us out of the underside of the storm. But the wind catches us from beneath and hurls us back aloft, scattering us – and the ground could be a million miles away for all I know. All that is left is the clouds and the maelstrom of swirling snow. My own hoarse shouts as I call for my team, over and over. “Soarin! Dizzy! Gosling! Form up! Where are you?”

A harsh, grating whinny that sounds like ice grating over stone, like the laugh of a madman. I see a shape in the clouds, always just out of sight. Sinuous as a snake, with only the barest suggestion of an equine face and a mane that ripples down the too-long spine.

Buck.

“Stay away from me!” I bare my teeth at it. The anger almost feels like mine. “I’m the bucking Captain of the ‘Bolts, and I’ll kick your face in!”

Another hyena-laugh, glaciers grinding in the frigid waters, and then a boom of wind slams into me from behind. Another from a different direction, another, another – the windigo tossing me like a toy, like a cat playing with a mouse. I’m spinning and churning, my wings beating like a hummingbird’s as I fight for a semblance of control. The world is a blur of whirling white until – snap – one gust of wind hits my flailing right wing at just the wrong angle. It goes limp and all at once I know what direction down is, because I’m tumbling head over hooves in a tailspin. 

Far above me, the windigo laughs. 

My mind is racing – hunting for a solution, a way out of the impossible hand I’ve been dealt. My wing is loose in its socket and blindingly painful; definitely dislocated. My team is scattered, and for all I know in the exact same position as I am. 

And I’m falling from almost a mile up, from which height the soft pillowy sand will be harder than steel. The wind buffets me again, one last slap in the face as the snowy ground yawns up beneath me. The impact sends spikes of pain radiating up through my body. My wing burns like fire, a pain so sharp that it catches at the breath in my throat, sends tears spilling down my cheeks. A pain so intense it almost feels…real. 

I’m yards from the ground – inches – I shut my eyes, not wanting to feel it – a bruising impact – I go flying out of my chair, my head colliding with the wall as my eyes snap open, my bad wing crumpled awkwardly underneath me. Shit. I’m awake, and – shit shit shit. 

I scramble upright – though the grav must be malfunctioning, because upright suddenly seems hard to achieve – and flap my way back to the dashboard. Hover lopsided in midair, staring stunned and horrified into the darkness of space, now burning bright. 

From deep in the bowels of the ship, I can hear the rookie’s panicked shouts. Captain! That’s me, I realize dimly, still fixated on the impossibility before me. I have to…I have to do something, I think. Wingbeats in the hallway. Vapor’s coming. I have to be a captain.