这艘巨大的飞艇展开它那五颜六色的羽毛状船帆，冲破了云朵。自从云宝黛茜上一次跟她的新朋友西拉诺船长还有她的天空海盗们见面的时候，那种壮观场面感觉就像永远都不会忘记，但他们现在就在这——就在她父母的房子面前！这一切几乎感觉不像是真的。

“是他们！”云宝黛茜高兴地叫道，微风越吹越快，从窗户呼啸而过，吹动了她的鬓毛。“我的朋友们来了！”她转过身来，看到趵虹和风哨子的脸色在慢慢恢复了，他们松了一口气。他们有很长一段时间没有被介绍给他们女儿的朋友们认识了，而他们自从得知云宝成为闪电飞马后，他们的社交圈似乎扩大了十倍。

“好吧，你在等什么呢，亲爱的？”风哨子的喊声都超过了外面飞船的轰鸣声，她剪短的橙红色鬓毛在风中拍打着前额。“赶紧让他们进来吧！”

云宝黛茜飞奔到院子里，从她母亲珍爱的水草丛中疾驰而过，穿过修剪得整整齐齐的薄雾草坪，当飞艇巨大的气球靠近时，它似乎填满了整片天空，遮住了金色的太阳，让这个家庭的房子在黑暗中笼罩了一小会儿。

西拉诺船长很容易就能认出来，那只戴着她那顶有着粉色羽毛独特造型的宽大海盗帽、有着绿色和白色羽毛的高大鹦鹉正得意洋洋地站在船头，两爪插腰，泰然自若。她的鸟儿船员们在她周围成群地叫着。他们拉紧绳索，准备让船靠岸。他们一看到厚实的云朵，就扔下锁链，把舷梯放下来。

“云宝黛茜！”西拉诺船长喊道，她咧嘴一笑。“你派鸟儿来找我们了？”

“这真是…太棒了！”云宝黛茜高兴得尖叫起来。“大伙们，我真高兴能见到你们！我真不敢相信我的信真的送到你们那了。”云宝把她的蹄子放在下巴上，扬起眉毛，想起小蝶是怎样把纸条系在一只小鸟的脚上，然后把它送上天空的。“小蝶的那只小信鸽一定是个天才…”

“其实——”西拉诺船长开始爬下了舷梯。“——它叫噗噗，曾经是我们的其中一位船员。”她向云宝眨了眨眼，谁也不知道这位船长是不是在开玩笑。

“云宝黛茜！”一直戴着眼罩，头上长着红色羽毛的绿色鹦鹉喊道。他敬畏地环顾了四周，看着这个完全由云构建成壮观社区。“这是你住的地方？”

“不，穆雷大副。”云宝摇着她的头。她自豪地指向身后的风景。“这是我长大的地方！欢迎来到云中城——飞马之城。很酷吧，对吗？”

云宝歪歪头，把她那鬃毛甩到一边，“你们还好吗？”她又看了看脸上充满疑惑的风哨子。鸟儿们难道是需要额外的鼓励加油才能勇敢地张开翅膀跳到云上吗？风哨子耸耸肩，做了任何一位好母亲都会去做的事——她开始为他们加油打气了。

“黛茜说得对！——别害羞！你们能做到的！”风哨子大声喊了起来，直接吓到了斯鸹博，那只疯鸟尖叫着挥着他长满羽毛的胳膊，撞倒了莉克斯。莉克斯尖叫着从甲板上滚了下来，她用爪子抓着木板边缘，眼睛瞪得大大的。

“关于他们我很抱歉，夫人，”西拉诺叹了口气。“云宝黛茜在信中可能提过只有天马才能在云上走。我的伙计们有一点…呃…有点儿对此过于激动。不过无需担心！”西拉诺船长拽了拽她肩膀上的两根带子，转过身来，露出一个精巧的装置，看起来像一个带喷气机的迷你气球。“我们来这里的路上，和一匹格外友好的陆马飞行员换来了这些空中背包。”她再次拽了拽带子飞了起来，稳稳地落在了云宝黛茜旁边的云坪上。

云宝黛茜靠了过来，想好好看看这个独特的小装置。她点头表示赞同道：“好吧，这简直太酷了。”其他时候，她的那些不是天马的朋友们能来拜访云中城，都是因为暮光闪闪给他们施了非常厉害又复杂的咒语。云宝在计划着以后可以给她在小马镇的朋友们也准备一些时髦的空中背包。

当穆雷大副把船停靠在云宝黛茜的房子旁边时，博伊尔在帮着其他船员去研究如何使用他们的背包。很快所有海盗们都开始以一种飞跃的动作跳上了云层并像小马们一样咯咯乐了起来。当西拉诺船长和云宝站在一起，看着这些船员们的疯狂行为时，风哨子赶了过来叫道：“如果我们不赶紧出发，我们可是要错过闪电飞马连环呼啦圈了！

“噢，不！”西拉诺也喊了起来。她不想让云宝黛茜为了欢迎他们远道而来，结果在他们要去观看的活动上迟到。“你最好快点动身吧，伙计。”

云宝黛茜开玩笑道：“噢对，好吧，至少我们知道他们没有我是没法开始的，对吧？”然后她就立刻全速飞向闪电飞马体育场。“稍后见了，大伙们！”

趵虹看着女儿在天空中留下的标志性彩虹轨迹咧嘴一笑，这绝对会是一场精彩的表演，他已经迫不及待地想让云宝黛茜的新朋友们看看她有多特别。“快来吧，鸟儿们！还有个节目在等着我们呢。”

（注：本章部分翻译包括译名参考了前译者“Awsome”发布的翻译版本，感谢她的付出）

翻译地址：https://fimtale.com/t/3158

英文版:

The colossal airship burst into view with its colorful feathered wing-sails outspread,  cutting  through  the  wispy  clouds.  It  felt  like  forever  since Rainbow  Dash  had  seen  her  new  friends,  Captain  Celaeno  and  the swashbuckling pirate parrot crew, but there they were—right in front of her parents’ house! It almost didn’t seem real.
“It’s them!” Rainbow Dash shouted with glee as the quickening breeze picked up and whooshed through the window and into her mane. “My friends are here!” She spun around to see that the color was coming back to Bow’s and Windy’s faces as they breathed a sigh of relief. It had been such a long time since they’d been introduced to friends of their daughter. But ever since they’d   become   privy   to   the   information   that  Rainbow  Dash   was   a Wonderbolt, it was as if their social circle was widening tenfold.
“Well, what are you waiting for, dear?” Windy called out over the loud hum of the ship outside. Her cropped red-orange mane whipped against her forehead in the wind. “Ask them in!”
Rainbow  Dash  darted  to  the  yard,  speeding  past  her  mother’s  prized hydro-rangea bushes and across the perfectly manicured mist lawn. As the ship’s  massive  balloon  approached,  it  seemed  to  fill  up  the  whole  sky, eclipsing the golden sun and shrouding the family home in darkness for a brief moment.
It was easy to spot the outline of Captain Celaeno, a tall parrot with white and green feathers, by the distinctive shape of her wide-brimmed pirate’s hat with the peach plume. She stood triumphantly at the bow of the ship, poised with her claws on her hips. Her crew of birds flocked and squawked around her. They tightened ropes and pulled pulleys to ready the ship for docking. Once they’d met with solid cloud and thrown down their chains, the crew birds lowered the gangplank.
 “Rainbow  Dash!”  Captain  Celaeno  shouted,  her  beak  twisting  into  a sneaky grin. “You sent for us?”
“This is… awesome!” Rainbow Dash squeaked in delight as she zoomed over. “Boy, are you guys a sight for sore eyes! I can’t believe my letter made it  you.”  Rainbow  Dash  put  her  hoof  to  her  chin  and  raised  her  brow, remembering the way Fluttershy had tied the note to a bird’s little foot and sent it off into the sky. “That random homing pigeon Fluttershy found to deliver it must have been a genius. . . .”
“Actually”—Captain Celaeno laughed as she began walking down the gangplank—“that was Putt-Putt. Used to be a part of the crew.” She winked at Rainbow Dash, who couldn’t tell if the captain was joking or not.
“Rainbow Dash!” called out a green parrot with an eye patch and wild red head feathers. He looked around in awe at the impressive neighborhood built entirely out of cloud structures. “This is where you live?”
“No, First Mate Mullet.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. She motioned to the scenery behind her with pride. “This is where I grew up! Welcome to Cloudsdale—the Pegasus city. Cool, huh?”
“Almost as cool as where we hatched back in Ornithia,” Mullet admitted as he ambled down after the giggling captain. The other pirates followed suit: the burly and hook-clawed Boyle, the boisterous Lix Spittle, and the wacky cross-eyed shipmate, Squabble. The pirate birds were clearly as excited to see Rainbow Dash as she was to see them! So why did they stop abruptly at the bottom of the wooden plank and stare at one another? Even Boyle looked nervous.
Rainbow Dash cocked her head and her spiky mane flipped to the side. “Everything okay?” She looked to her mother for any clues. Was it true that birds needed extra encouragement to jump from their nests and spread their wings? Windy just shrugged and did what any good mother would do— started cheering them on.
“Dashie is right—don’t be shy now! You can do it! Get on down here and let us host you ladies and gentlebirds!” Windy Whistles hollered, accidentally startling Squabble. The batty bird squawked and flapped his feathered arms, knocking  over  Lix  Spittle,  who  came  tumbling  down  the  gangplank, shrieking. She grabbed on to the wood with all her claws, eyes bulging out of her head.
“Sorry  about  them,  ma’am,”  Celaeno  replied  with  a  sigh.  “Rainbow Dash’s letter may have mentioned that only Pegasus ponies can walk on the clouds here. These scalawags are being a bit… er… dramatic about it. Not to worry, though!” Captain Celaeno tugged at two straps on her shoulders and spun around to reveal a contraption that looked like a mini-balloon with jets. “We bartered for these sky-packs from a friendly Earth pony aeronaut on the way here!” She tugged at the straps again and soared over, landing her claws safely on the cloud lawn next to Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash leaned in to get better look at the unique contraption. “Okay, these are seriously cool,” she admitted with a nod of approval. All the other times her non-Pegasus friends had visited Cloudsdale were thanks to seriously complicated spells placed on them by Twilight Sparkle. Rainbow Dash made a mental note to get some of these snazzy sky-packs to keep on hoof for her Ponyville friends.
While First Mate Mullet anchored the ship to the side of Rainbow Dash’s house, Boyle helped the others figure out how to work their packs. Soon, the whole crew of pirates began jumping across the clouds in a sort of bouncy motion and giggling like fillies and colts. As Captain Celaeno and Rainbow Dash  stood  together  watching  the  madness  of  the  ragtag  crew,  Windy Whistles rushed over in a panic. “If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to be late to the Wonderbolts’ Hoopla!”
“Oh no!” Celaeno cried. She didn’t want to make Rainbow Dash tardy for the very event that they had come all this way to see. “You’d better get a move on, matey.”
“Oh, right. Well, at least we know they can’t start without me, huh?” Rainbow Dash joked before taking off at full speed toward Wonderbolts Stadium. “See ya there, scalawags!”
Bow Hothoof grinned at the signature rainbow trail his daughter left in the sky. This was going to be an excellent performance, and he couldn’t wait for Rainbow  Dash’s  new  friends  to  see  just  how  special  she  was.  “Hurry, everybird! We’ve got a show to get to.”