***

While Rainbow Dash and Starlight Glimmer descended into the abyss, Sweetie Belle helped feed the long black cable down for them using her own unicorn magic.

Fluttershy stood, then sat, then stood again, and paced about the nearby rocky terrain. “There has to be something else I can do,” she said. “Usually I help with the wildlife, but there aren’t any animals around here.”

“They’ve got this,” Sweetie Belle noted. “We’re just here on backup in case something goes wrong.”

Fluttershy lifted to the calmed chasm winds and circled about. “I guess I should practice my flying then. I don’t do it nearly as much as Rainbow Dash does. I need to be ready to catch her or Starlight or the idol or the staff in case something happens. And these winds do feel rather nice.”

The winds steadily picked up the longer the other two ponies worked their way down. Fluttershy found herself thrust up out of them and then descended again, sometimes flapping against them and sometimes letting them push her. At one point, the winds even started to encircle Sweetie Belle’s adult form, as if trying to push her into the abyss.

The young unicorn gulped but remained focused on her task since they were not strong enough to truly threaten her mission. Still, when that happened, Fluttershy drew near and flapped her wings as a contrasting shield to guard the young unicorn. The winds obeyed the pegasus’ guidance, leaving Sweetie Belle all the more safe and sound.

At last, the winds were beyond Fluttershy’s practicing efforts, so she joined Sweetie Belle at the edge of the cliff. No winds followed or tried to draw either of them in toward the abyss again.

After more time passed, Sweetie Belle finally said, “The rope’s run out, so now we just wait. One of us should be on lookout over the cliff and the other near the rock where the rope is tied since I’m guessing that’s where Starlight would teleport.”

“I’ll stand guard then since I’ve got wings and all that practicing,” Fluttershy decided aloud.

Sweetie Belle nodded and sat on her haunches by the rock, pulling out her drawing pad to do some practicing of her own.

Eventually, with a flash of light, Starlight Glimmer teleported herself and Rainbow Dash to not far behind where Fluttershy stood.

A sudden gust of wind blew through them, and the idol slipped out of Rainbow Dash’s grasp, ramming right into Fluttershy’s flank. “Ow,” the canary-colored pegasus said. Fluttershy rubbed at the struck spot with her hoof. She gasped at seeing the idol on the ground, quickly grabbed it, and flew closer to Rainbow Dash to give it back. Rainbow accepted and looked it over.

“I don’t understand,” Starlight said worriedly. “We practiced it twice. Why would it slip away like that? I know I did the teleportation spell right.”

From the wing tip of the idol, a small gust of wind blew in Fluttershy’s face. The canary-colored pegasus blinked. “Um, is it supposed to do that?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know,” Rainbow Dash admitted. She glanced over to the powerful gales still sweeping through the chasm. “What did you do while we were gone?”

Fluttershy blushed. “I tried to practice my flying in the winds while we waited for you until it got to be too much as the staff’s magic wore off. You know, in case I needed to catch you or Starlight or the staff or…the idol of Boreas.” She pointed at the last listed object in question. With that, a whirlwind formed at the tip of the wing similar to the tendril of darkness at the bottom of the abyss.

“Master, what is that?” Fluttershy asked.

“That is a gift. It’s magic for you to eat. The bottom of the abyss gave Starlight darkness. Hard to say what exactly is making the offer here this time. I don’t know if it’s the idol, the abyss, or just the winds in this area, but it is an offer of wind,” Rainbow Dash explained.

“Wind?” Fluttershy asked with innocence.

Rainbow stared at it closely. “Yeah.”

“Still trying to figure out what it’s from?” Starlight asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Rainbow Dash acknowledged.

To answer the master mev’s curiosity, the red sphere inside the idol glowed. The whirlwind above the wing tip lowered to circle the glowing sphere before ascending once more to where it was.

“And there we have it,” Rainbow Dash remarked. “The idol of Boreas offers wind to you, my Segunda. Do you accept?”

“Oh, definitely,” Fluttershy said with a kind smile. “How?”

“Open wide,” Rainbow Dash said playfully with a grin.

Fluttershy obeyed and the whirlwind whirred itself into her mouth. The canary-colored pegasus clamped her mouth shut and swallowed. “That’s…interesting. Am I supposed to do anything now?”

“Blow the wind out with the intent to control what you release, nothing too strong,” Rainbow Dash suggested.

Fluttershy did as instructed, and a line of wind worked its way around Rainbow’s face in a circle, then around Starlight’s neck, down through Sweetie Belle’s tail. Fluttershy smiled widely and lifted into the air. She hovered above the winds of the abyss and sent a powerful gust out from her mouth. It matched against the other winds momentarily before she found her whole body thrust upward and thrown back in the direction of her friends. Fluttershy caught her balance in time and landed. “It’s like Applejack’s and Pinkie Pie’s. I can only release so much.”

“We didn’t test the limit amount with mine,” Starlight realized. She blew out a shadow of herself onto the ground and tried to stretch it, finding she could not. “No more than my own size,” she noted quietly.

“Master, does that mean every one of your fledglings gets some kind of mev magic just for them?” Sweetie Belle asked. “They all seem to have certain properties and are blown out through the mouth. I guess that makes sense since you all eat the magic.”

“That would be really cool,” Rainbow said with a small smile.

“Pinkie Pie has water through Penny. Applejack has fire through Spike and Amara. Starlight has darkness from the Abysmal Abyss, and Fluttershy has wind from the idol of Boreas. That leaves Twilight and Rarity. And maybe even you,” Sweetie Belle said. The young unicorn paced thoughtfully as she spoke her notes aloud.

“Oh Rainbow Dash, what kind of thing do you think you would get?” Fluttershy wondered.

“Yeah, what do you think yours would be?” Starlight was curious as well. “Your gut must be able to tell you something.”

Rainbow Dash thought for a moment and chuckled. “My gut tells me it won’t ruin the surprise. It’ll happen when it happens. Plus, I’m already the master. I got Blitz, my eye enchantment, vampire transformation. The list goes on. I’m just a teeny bit spoiled here.”

“But do you think you’ll get something?” Sweetie Belle asked with hope in her voice.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah, I do. I am an Awesomev, an actual member of the pack, even if my position has a lot of bells and whistles on it compared to the fledglings. As fun as this theorizing is, our mission’s not done. We need to show Gilda we got the idol, maybe try to find Grampa Gruff for info and hope he doesn’t throw a fit over us taking this thing.”

The other three nodded and smiled. “Yes, Master,” they all said at once.

“Whoa, best kind of chills just now,” Rainbow Dash remarked. “Back to filly you go, Rhezenda,” she said and deactivated Sweetie Belle’s adult form.

The quartet made their way back to Gilda’s house. Gilda opened the door and stared with her mouth open at the sight of them. The idol was tucked away in Sweetie Belle’s saddlebag at this point, but the griffon could read their smiles all the same.

“No way,” Gilda uttered and let them all enter her house.

Sweetie Belle lifted the idol out of her saddlebag and set it on the large tree stump table for the griffon friend to see it.

“How did you do it?” Gilda asked.

“I appreciate all you’ve done for us, I really do, but the less you know, the better,” Rainbow said. “I promise we didn’t hurt anyone or anything to get it.”

“Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” Gilda replied.

“Do you think Grampa Gruff would be able to tell us more about it than he did the first time Pinkie and I visited?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Tell you what?” Grampa Gruff stood in the doorway, having heard from the shopkeeper that something interesting might be going on with some ponies in town. Knowing of Rainbow Dash’s friendship to Gilda, Gilda’s house was his first stop. His eyes widened at the sight of the idol. “Impossible! Is that…?”

“No, no,” Gilda said as she shook her head and nervously began to lie. “It’s just an amazing replica from Equestria. See the shine. It’s all spruced up instead of all scuffed up from when I last saw it. Rainbow Dash here was just showing it off.”

“You ain’t fooling anyone, Missy,” Grampa Gruff said with authority. “That’s it, that is. The idol of Boreas. How did you get it, Rainbow Dash?”

“Trade secret,” Rainbow Dash replied back proudly.

Grampa Gruff flapped his wings in place. “You wanted information, didn’t you? How about we do a trade then, hmm?”

Gilda stood defensively between him and the group of ponies. “No. They just want to know if there’s anything more to it than what you told them last time. Just how they got it isn’t for us to know. I told Rainbow Dash she could take it if she could actually get it. I was the last griffon to touch it.”

Grampa Gruff twitched his face in irritation. “Some bits then?” he asked with a claw.

Rainbow Dash nodded, and Sweetie Belle magically floated some out from one of her saddlebags. Then the young servant brought out her quill and scroll to write what Grampa Gruff had to say.

The older griffon studied the idol closely. His beak was near the talon claws at its bottom as he said, “Strength to stand with pride in all that is dark.” He lifted one of his own claws and pointed to the reddish sphere held in the idol, “The pride itself, a heart of pride that inspired griffons for generations and still does in memory to this day.” He waved his right wing over the idol wing piece at the top, “Strength to fly and withstand powerful gales.”

Starlight and Fluttershy looked at each other, concern in their eyes, then at Rainbow Dash. The master met their eyes and looked at Grampa Gruff. “Can you sense all of that in the idol yourself right now?” she asked.

“I can,” he said.

“I can too,” Gilda openly admitted.

The two fledglings sighed in relief. The griffons caught it but did not question it.

“You’re taking it with you back to Equestria?” Grampa Gruff asked.

“I am,” Rainbow Dash said. “We need it for something special. Rhezenda, go ahead and give him the letter from Princess Celestia.”

Sweetie Belle lifted out the letter from one of her saddlebags and passed it to him.

Grampa Gruff read it and looked them all over, then focused on Rainbow Dash. “A ‘master mev,’ huh? Can’t say I’ve heard that one before.” His eyes fell on the Staff of Sacanas. “This isn’t the first item you’ve worked with as this master?”

“Indeed, it is not,” Rainbow Dash answered firmly.

“Hmm. Alright. You’ll keep it safe I take it,”Grampa Gruff noted with a hint of hope in his voice.

“As safe as I can with my own purposes for it,” the master mev admitted.

Grampa Gruff nodded. “Princess Celestia has a crown of King Grover you know. Griffonstone left it in her care.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “No, I did not know that.”

“Perhaps then…” the older griffon started to say. His eyes wandered over to Gilda who shook her head to stop him. “Never mind.” He put a claw around the base holding the sphere to feel it before leaving the house. “It feels like all is well, so I’ll be on my way.”

Gilda blinked and did the same to feel the idol as well and smiled. “Dash, you got a minute? Just you and me,” she said.

The other three ponies conveniently left the house without a word between them.

Rainbow Dash stood with her back to the door of the house and waited.

“I gave it a lot of thought,” Gilda said, rubbing her neck, “and it’s really cool that you did get the idol with your friends. Props for that.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said.

“You know I care about you, right?” Gilda said, looking away from the master mev.

“Of course I do. We went over it today even,” Rainbow answered with a smile.

“I know, but I just can’t do it, Dash. I don’t want you to bite me. I’m sorry,” Gilda said. “And I won’t be asking any other griffons. You shouldn’t either for that matter. None of us are giving up magic for a week. If I can speak for us on the idol, I’ll speak for us on this too. No. You can’t have griffon magic for your reserve, except of course whatever you might find in the idol itself.”

Rainbow Dash stayed where she stood, and her eyes slightly shifted side to side from within their sockets as she took in the answer. She glanced down at the floor and quietly nodded. She swallowed. “I understand,” she said, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice, even if the answer was not at all surprising. She looked back up with a sad smile nonetheless. “Don’t sweat it. Two out of three ain’t bad. We’re friends. Sometimes friends say no.”

“Right,” Gilda agreed with a nod. She held out her clawed hand, palm up, and Rainbow Dash put her hoof in it. They each pulled back into a claw and hoof bump, just as they did when they greeted each other. “Well, good-bye and good luck to you Master Rainbow Dash,” Gilda said.

“Many thanks, Miss Gilda,” Rainbow said with a respectful bow.

Gilda stood quietly for a moment, sensing the title’s power on herself and Rainbow’s response to it being said aloud. “This your vampire thing?” she asked.

“That it is,” the master mev admitted with a friendly air.

“Eh, I guess that part’s not so bad. See ya,” Gilda remarked.

The two long-time friends waved each other their farewells.

Although Rainbow Dash was denied eating griffon magic, she got everything else she could have hoped for and then some out of her trip to Griffonstone. It certainly felt like a success overall.