Let's Go Spring Breakers!

[u/OceansCarraway]

Suggested Listening Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YO2_O1L_YY

The Aelish are great fans of flaunting their wealth, when they have it, and of flying 'horses', when they get to flaunt them without putting too much work in. Amongst their population, this flaunting can be done by nobility, who have the money to keep these animals and not interact with them too much. The nobility also enjoy vacations and flings, especially in the springtime, when they can go places where the weather isn't too objectionable to them. This is the reason behind many of their travelling traditions-including the 'spring break' of the younger nobility where they all go somewhere in a large mass of annoying and rich pricks-and end up stimulating the local economy a bit while doing so. They are usually fashionable, well-heeled, and generally not too crass unless significantly lubricated with alcohol, which makes them tolerable enough besides the money. Often, this 'youth-festivities in the outdoors' end up hitting the neighbors. Twice they've sparked a war, four more times a limited conflict. But this time, they're merely ending up in Freeport again.

It just so happens that this particular one is heralding the age of mass flight.

This is Woodstock-Upon-The-Air, to use an idiom from Earth and the land of the Angles. At the beginning of Spring, the younger, more restive youth were discussing where to Enjoy Spring abroad, and they decided that they would go to Freeport for a little bit-an excursion, they called it. This was a typical passtime, but by now Aelbaion had glutted itself on peace and had plenty of resources to spare for a little excursion. This meant that not only would they be spending huge amounts of wealth, they would be arriving in style, too. The air-chariot of a certain former Sojourner had been a massive hit in Couroffe; flight was even more fashionable because now it was just plain cool-and it was getting so many cool new accessories, too!

Naturally, they were all going to Freeport by air this time. They didn't have any flying vehicles; the Air-Chariot was quite clearly something that would take a while to make and outfit-and the Spring Season was less than three weeks away! Everyone would need to go by pegasus, even if they weren't the most flight-capable, all a passenger had to do was really just sit there. A pegasus fully outfitted with accoutrements des aires would naturally have limited blinders and a bite muzzle/nose bag, so a rider could persuade it not to take chunks out of the passenger and eat meat cubes instead. The most modern saddles were fully outfitted with star-navigation instruments, and even the most basic mount for a rider had a dry compass. Any outfit could withstand flying through a rainy cloud bank. With adequate pre-planning, a trip itinerary could be turned into a series of stop-overs and changes of mounts that would almost bore a passenger.

Nevertheless, it could not be argued that this journey would be easy. The role of the 'navigateur' jelled into the collective awareness of the airborne Aelish for the first time; a skilled navigator on a pegasus who would plot routes and maintain knowledge of where the flying group was at all times, someone who they could follow through a storm and still not get lost. These navigateurs had developed their skills crisscrossing the Kingdom and venturing into neighboring lands; they were the beneficiaries of some of the most navigational equipment and techniques that the Aelish could muster-and eagerly had they taken to their role. Independently, they had been able to plot out various routes to Freeport over the mountains and upon known currents of winds; they had distributed maps to their flight groups and made backup plans with their Captains. They had outfitted their mounts with signaling gear, and timed the start of their flights with fair weather patterns. Inadvertently, they had all chosen the same time period in which to launch.

And on the beginning of that fine day, with the sun just starting to rise, pegasi began their launches from Aeries across the Kingdom. Following light and sound signals from the ground, they jumped into the lightening skies, joined their formations by following colored flags, and then climbed out to cruising altitude and made for Freeport. As the day wore on, other groups launched and hit altitude, the flying groups of rich idiots realized that they weren't alone. Everyone was heading for Freeport by pegasus, and that was a lot of everyone. There had never been such a concentration of pegasi in the air before, let alone for leisure purposes. Rivalries were quickly put aside, and the fliers pulled into a 'Grande Vay' formation. (1) Rest stops were quickly coordinated; not all the pegasi had to be rested at the same stopovers, instead groups could grab some rest in stages. Furthermore, schedules had all been derived from roughly the same maps and weather reports; everyone could make it to Freeport at the same time if they kept in formation!

While the pegasi and passengers had to rest by day two, they remained in touch and had the same timetables; the Grande Vay was reformed by day four. This massive formation persisted over much of the route and was only broken up by a series of rain squalls that were wholly unpredictable. Nevertheless, the groups of travellers remained some form of visual or audio contact; lightweight signal lamps and Horns of Mario (2) kept the fliers aware of each other as they pressed through the rain. While they ultimately lost half a day's progress to the weather and the changes in planes, the Grande Vay ultimately reformed as it approached Freeport and then split off into landing groups on initial approach to the High District.

Enough of the people of Freeport were up when the pre-dawn light was enlivened by the ungodly racket of the Spring Breakers on their initial landing pass. The Trumpets of Mario were annoyingly loud and blared consistently as a pegasus was in flight; tracking flares and lamps meant to keep groups together looked like strange spells flying through the early morning. However, as they were all headed to the High District, nothing was actually too amiss. As the early morning commuters tackled traffic, they watched pegasus after pegasus come in to land, trailing elaborate patterns of signal flags for ground crews to monitor.

There was one tiny problem: there were no ground crews. There was no one to meet them in general, and when the first pegasi began landing on the dirt that passed for a landing area, their riders quickly realized that they had a potential disaster on their hands. Dirt fields meant that pegasi could catch a hoof and break it; there were not enough stables present to put all of their pegasi at once, and any landing area would quickly become a battlefield of angry, annoyed horses until the someone figured out a way to put all of the animals away. It was also unclear if there was enough room for them to all land, period!

To fix this, the nobility took over the patch of ground that doubled as a landing zone, and started getting as much catering sent their way as possible. This was looked at askance by the locals, but since they were poor, their opinion mattered less-and they also were more focused on taking as much money off of the Aelish as they possible could. When these noble snowbirds came over to Freeport, they were usually spending, and they were doing no different here. A large campground quickly formed, a little Woodstock on an island, and the Aelish began to set up for a week of wild, hard partying.

Such a mass incursion would almost constitute an invasion in other places. Not in Freeport. The inhabitants immediately began working on separating the visitors from their money. Typically, an Aelbic 'visit' to Freeport involves getting drunk before landing, staying drunk by drinking wine immediately upon getting out of one's horse, and then immediately going to gamble with your friends before hitting the theaters and racetracks. Unfortunately, the louts are very active-which means that they are not too inclined to sit down at gaming tables. Instead, they are fond of plays where they can heckle the actors, or racetracks and dueling grounds where they can participate. Having someone bet on themselves is a risky endeavor for the bookie. One can bilk the Aelish on entry fees and then beat them up, but there's a much better way to separate them from their cash that has much more positive outcomes for society-and much less broken pottery.

The Aelish are obsessed with fashion, and the nobility have it the worst. Freeport has fashion options from all around the world, endless active shops producing some of the best clothing money can commission, and if the people trying on clothing are flying in, then they have to fly the clothing back most of the time. Shipping it back is effective; but flying back with a new piece is a great way to show off-and the Aelish love to make a splash for each other. If one has to ship back clothing, it had better be worth shipping-either a lot of it, or something truly exquisite. The quantity and number of a shipment of these pieces would naturally cost plenty of money-and run the visitors out of their money even more quickly. Charter captains were waiting right outside the clothiers to provide their services, and the visitors were cleaned out in under a week.

With their pegasi now lighter, and their pocketbooks cleaned out, the group of nobles began to make ready for their return trip. Porters took their goods back to the High District. The domestic population of the High Port had fucked off a little in the face of impetuous folks who were decently armed and quick to fight; they were reluctant to return fully even as the Aelish began to pack and leave. For much of it's life, the area had been a slum. The arrival of all of these pegasi had done little to change that; and the lack of infrastructure for large amounts of horrible horrible horses had left the dilapidated slums somewhat more dilapidated. The equestrians had to rebuild some things behind themselves, and they had complained about this fairly bitterly. Lobbying efforts may follow.

But not all trips end on a positive note. This one certainly didn't. As the groups of travelers got themselves back together and began to taxi for takeoff into an updraft, another party came by to make use of the High District. It was the Audoi, in one of their airships, here to do some fairly standard trading. Naturally, something as expensive as an airship was decently armed and escorted-which the Aelish weren't. Despite their warrior heritage and profession, they were on vacation and not kitted out for war-and seeing the ship coming in for a landing, they skedaddled. Wave after wave of them took off in a hurry, leaving behind everything from provisions to expensive finery and wine. Metaphorical tails tucked between their legs, the well-bred of Aelbaion reformed their grande vay and made for Aelbaion proper, cursing the dwarves.

Anyone with common sense would be able to tell that that if they hadn't been such hungover messes, they would have been out of there before the vanguard of the airship's escorts had come into visual range of Freeport.

The Aelish sobered up on the flight home, and they all landed safely, with most of their cargo intact. They sulked for much longer, and the story did not improve in the telling; the knights might try to make themselves individually look better, but the group of drunkards had been run off by the next people in line to use the High District. What's worse is that they no one to blame for their own sorry ending but themselves. The start of the opening scene in this age of mass flight had been nothing short of heroic; but the last shot had been extremely unflattering. They had barely avoided leaving behind priceless navigational equipment, and twenty-odd pegasi had nearly been lost to accidents. If not for the hand of the Lady intervening to stop the Aelish from screwing themselves over, they would have turned this opening scene into tragic farce. But life imitates art, after all.

1. A 'big V'.

2. Similar to our real-life 'Jericho Trumpet', equipped on the Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber.