Spike sat atop the crow’s nest, relieving the post of ship’s exhausted lookout. Alone for the first time in what felt like weeks, and was yet only a few days, Spike was glad to be up and out of the ship’s interior. Though he had no wings to experience such a feeling, he always had the distinct impression he was flying whenever he had been atop a crow’s nest. The wind rushing past his scales and filling his lungs, he gazed out over the ocean, the far-off storms on the horizon bringing no trouble to his mind.

However, storms much closer to home were brewing all around him, and for the life of him, the dragon was unsure of what to do. Well, he knew what to do, but not exactly how to do it. He had just been released from captivity, only to find himself tagging along ones he had considered friends, and to an extent, still did. Yet, now he was headed towards a horizon he had no idea he would, or could, reach. The troubles he’d heard rising all over the coast, both in cities and the surrounding areas, and the seeming increase in piracy, along with the potential of lasting peace talks with the changelings and their kingdom… he was going to be a part of that whether he wanted to or not.

The sheer possibilities flitting through his head of what could happen or what could go wrong were driving Spike mad. He had learned to be careful, considerate, and cunning over the years, but there had always been one aspect of life that he hadn’t mastered entirely, and that was learning how mares think. Sure, he could guess at points, but in this case... he knew he was bound to come across an obstacle he wasn’t prepared for. He didn’t like being unprepared; it gave him a sense of unease and vulnerability, something Spike had learned was readily exploited by others.

“So many secrets,” he whispered to himself, rubbing one of his eyes with a balled-up fist. He had been gone for years; the fact that his friends now had lives he knew next to nothing about, apart from what they had chosen to inform him of, was proof enough of that. His own life, filled with tragedy and triumph, loss and gain, deception and secrecy, was proof enough that he was no longer the same dragon the Elements of Harmony had known all those years ago. Even though he had told them much, Spike had barely scratched the surface on all of the things he had done; what he had been through, the ponies he had betrayed and the ponies he had murdered, often to save his own miserable hide in some arguably vague sense of self-defense. Dragons are far tougher than other beings, but in the end, with just a bit more effort than normal, they could die all the same.

His fear of death was equally matched by his desire to live, which had only grown stronger as he had grown older. He had been tempered in the fires of a harsh and often unforgiving life, emerging with a wrought-iron will and steadfast loyalty, but... sometimes the weight of it all just came crashing down on his shoulders when he least expected it, and he needed someplace to vent it all out. Perhaps that was why he liked being up in the crow’s nest so much.

Nopony could hear him cry up there.

“So many duties; so many plans,” he muttered to himself, willing his tears to leak out but not spill like a torrent. He had to keep so much bottled up inside, yet had to let some of it out every now and then, or else he might burst from it all. “Is this all really worth it? All these years; have they been spent in the best way possible, or have I wasted ultimately wasted a good portion of my young life for something I knew little about?” To anypony else, his words may have sounded like ramblings or even some attempt to confess, if only to himself, but Spike knew better than that. In all this rambling, he was still reassuring himself of what needed to be done, and why. It was all plainly obvious to him, even if the pain of it all truly felt like a scorching brand-mark upon his soul.

Luckily for him, dragons were born of fire, so the heat wasn’t so bad.

Wiping away the few tears rolling down his face, and controlling his breathing until his heart rate was back to its normal pace, the dragon looked out over the ocean and sighed. He’d been to Yankton once, what felt like ages ago; to be honest with himself, something he was trying to do more often, he was not looking forward to going back to that place. Nopony there knew him, likely not after so many years, but he knew of the kinds of folk that would frequent the harbor, and with all this unrest...

Perhaps the Broadside coming into port would light a hidden powder keg that could bring this simmering conflict to some unheard-of new level of discontent. He could only hope that would not be the case, and that their journey would not take them somewhere his friends would be in great peril. They were already likely facing enough danger as it was.

Meanwhile...

Queen Chrysalis walked quietly through her ship, the sounds of her hoofsteps making the occasional changeling look up from what they were doing, only for those same crewmates to immediately go back to their work. Several of the more veteran crew, upon the queen’s instruction, were following her closely, the sounds of the waves outside almost giving them a feeling of being in a moving but very dry cave.

Changeling ships were as dry as one might expect any other ship on the high seas to be, but the truth was that this dryness was all in part due to a special moss each ship had coating the spaces between boards. This special moss, found only on their home islands, grew very fast in the presence of excess water, to the point where it could solidly plug sudden holes should enough water, be it salt or fresh, came into contact with it. However, it needed an anchor point that was not vertical, so it could only grow in horizontal patches. This meant the ships did not have to worry about it growing out of control along the bottom or top of the ship. This also meant that if retreating from combat, any holes in the sides of the ships could be rapidly filled-in with the moss, sort of like a makeshift bandage for the ship until later repairs could fully fix the damage.

The ships themselves had copper bottoms, so as to not only increase speed but deal with the problem of barnacles growing on the hull, which would eventually eat their way through the wood and make the ship as watertight as a sieve. The masts were made of wood, as were any others, but the core of each had ribbons of steel magically inlaid, so as to strengthen the masts from high winds. All in all, combined with wheeled cannons and steel-plated hatches, ships in the changeling fleets were a bit more potent than anything they might come across.

“Your highness, we are very nearly half-way to our destination, though with that approaching storm, our arrival near North Yankton may be delayed slightly,” one of the changelings said, their queen’s silence putting them on edge. Chrysalis usually talked with her subjects, though much of the time it was either associated with their work or with reports she needed to go through. One wouldn’t think that bureaucracy was a thing in the changeling race, but it had been for countless generations, improving with each passing decade in some way or another. Surprisingly, it was almost completely devoid of any semblance of corruption, the closest example being higher-up bureaucrats getting family members into positions in some company or form of government, though they almost always started out at the lowest rung of the ladder. One did not advance far in changeling society without skill, merit or ambition. Working as a whole had long since weeded out most of the highly individualistic and selfish specimens from government, and had relegated them to jobs more befitting them; merchants and lawyers, for instance.

“Very good, though we may have to press on through the storm if our timing is to be accurate,” the queen said, opening a door to a room few had entered on the ship. Chrysalis did not keep many secrets from her crew, or her kind for that matter, and the few she did keep were respected by all who served her. Nopony among them, for instance, knew the exact father of her little filly, but there was a consensus among the crew as to the true identity of that particular male. Changelings weren’t born with scales and spines, after all, and they had only had one “passenger” who had any of those features. “I haven’t read this morning’s reports; how goes the constructions of the drydocks on the northern isles?”

“They are proceeding along schedule, though a sudden storm delayed construction for a few hours,” the changeling said in reply. “It should be done and ready to start building ships within two weeks. There was a bit of a problem of keeping the unfinished lumber dry, but it has since been resolved.”

“Excellent,” Chrysalis said as she closed the door behind them. The room was small, as one would expect on a ship, but it was large enough for them all to comfortably sit on a few large bags of grain. “What of the forts along the harbors? the last i checked, the coral collection processes had been faced with the problem of needing to go farther for more supplies.”

“Aside from the far northern fort, all have just been finished and are currently being fully stocked with cannons, ammunition and supplies,” a different changeling said. “The coral issue has been resolved, for the time being, by pouring excess nutrients on the old corals to promote rapid regrowth. We’ve also made preparations, should they fall into enemy hands, that the hidden powder kegs lining the underside be lit by a select few chosen for such a task.”

“Let us hope it does not come to that,” the queen said as she drew a small scroll from her pouch. “I also wish for the new lighthouses to be constructed as soon as possible. Our growing fleets will need beacons to find their way to these ports."

"It will be done, your majesty," the first changeling said. Their queen was truly an industrious one, if her style of governing and finance allotment was anything to go by.

The queen nodded, lighting a small lantern so they could all see one another. Changeling females more or less looked similar, though that was only at a passing glance. Looking closer, one could see so many differences, just like in other ponies. Taller, shorter, skinnier or not, with naturally exaggerated hips or chests where others had longer or shorter wings; they all varied in some way.

Perhaps it was just the ability of being able to change appearance that gave them the stigma of all looking the same. "As you all know, I’ve selected you for a very special mission, one I no doubt will come to pass far sooner than we’d like.” Chrysalis knew business was at hand; important business, and she could not afford for things to go south. So, out of all her hand-picked crew, she had chosen only the best and the ones with the greatest potential.

“What would you have us do, your highness?” the youngest changeling asked, her smaller stature betraying her age. Tabby, as was her name, was barely one year older than the minimum enlistment age, and was on this ship because she was unsuited to construction back in the home isles. Her small size gave her an advantage, however; she was quicker than most ponies would expect, and easily scrambled up and down the rigging of the Phantom as if she were part squirrel.

“You are to infiltrate this city and meet up with my contacts; I will give you their names and general locales beforehand,” Chrysalis said, pointing at the small map on the scroll. “You’ll be leaving within a few minutes, by way of a small but fast fishing vessel, and you’ll likely be in the city before the afternoon is over.”

“It will be difficult; security will be high after what else is bound to happen,” the eldest of the gathered crew said. A good ten years older than tabby, this one, called Bree, had the distinct air of one who was long used to dangerous assignments. She was, after all, one of the queen's oldest spies and had more experience than pretty much any of the others. “How will we know when to get into position? We could be found out at any moment, especially if we slip up in some way.”

“You will know when to act, and I trust you to remain discrete,” the queen said, pocketing the scroll once more. “I would not have chosen you for this mission if I did not think you stood a very high chance of succeeding. You are dismissed.” As they were leaving her, and almost as an afterthought, she added, “While there, try not to kill anypony. I’d prefer this mission to have as little bloodshed as possible, if only for future reference.”

Meanwhile...

As the day progressed, Spike continued to stay up in the crow’s nest, only accepting some relief in the form of some food whenever the captain felt like he would be hungry up there. After a while of softly singing to himself, Spike turned his head after hearing a fluttering noise, only to find Rainbow Dash hovering next to the crow’s nest.

“What is it, Dash?” he asked, looking away as she sat down on the nest’s railing.

“There’s somepony who wants to talk with you,” she said, casually flicking an errant bit of her mane out of her face. She looked better with her short mane down; of all of the Elements of Harmony, she perhaps had the shortest mane, and for some reason, it suited her just fine. Her parents, or her mother, to be precise, always wanted her to grow it longer; her father thought she should have her mane up any way she wanted.

“Which one?” Spike asked. He didn’t exactly want to come down from the crow’s nest, but he really didn’t want to put any of the mares in the dangerous position of having to climb up here. Dash was obviously confident enough to have flown up here, so who could it have been? Wait a minute... confidence... “Is it Fluttershy?”

“How’d you know?” the blue pegasus asked. "None of us told anypony else about what's going on, so it couldn't have been any of those sailors who brought you some food..."

“Call it a lucky guess,” the dragon said. “If she’s up to it, do you think you could sit up here with me? I'd prefer somewhere private to talk.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rainbow Dash said, flying back down to the deck below. Alone once again for what would only be a short period of time, Spike took in a deep whiff of the salty ocean air. He belonged near the sea, but not of it; he had too many ties to land, and as much as he had grown to know and cherish the mighty waters, there was still that bit of mystery he was unwilling to try and explore.

He turned his head at the sound of two sets of fluttering wings, one sounding much more rushed and unsteady than the other. True to form, Fluttershy dropped herself as quickly as she could onto the crow’s nest, grateful to no longer be flying so high. The fact she was up so high was still at the forefront of her thoughts, but it was doing battle with some other thought.

“If you need me for anything, just give me a holler,” Rainbow Dash said, giving a mock salute before flying back down to the upper deck. She would have made a great sailor in another life, especially if certain sailors didn't feel uneasy about letting mares onto ships.

Spike looked at Fluttershy, who had apparently tried to do her mane up into some upper-class amalgamation of a beehive and a ponytail. With the wind unfurling some of the looser strands, it started to look a bit less ridiculous, and more towards her style. Her clothing was a simple dress, warm-looking since the ocean air here wasn’t getting any warmer the further north they traveled. As it was, it looked good on her, but then again, her parents always made sure her clothes were tailored to be the best fit for her, even more so than other parents might.

“So... Rainbow Dash said you wanted to talk to me about something,” he said, trying to keep his tone casual.

Fluttershy, for her part, did a very good job of keeping her eyes on his face, and not on his body, barely hidden under his clothes, strong but likely riddled with evidence of his hard life of captivity out here on the sea. “Oh, um, y-yes,” the pegasus said, wishing she had the same way with words Twilight did. She knew she was too easily flustered, even now, with years of diplomatic experience under her belt. “I-I wanted to t-talk to you a-about... stuff.”

“Stuff?” Spike asked, arching an eyebrow and letting a small tone of amusement enter his voice. Fluttershy was downright adorable when she was nervous, something he’d eventually have to tell her someday. “What kind of stuff?”

“Well, I... I... I don’t kn-know how to p-put it, but I... I’msorryforwhatyouwentthroughandifitsokayIwouldliketoknowwhathappened,” Fluttershy said, the part coming out all in a jumble.

“Sorry? I didn’t catch that last part,” Spike said..

“I... ‘m sorry for what... y-you went through, and I want... if it’s okay… I would like to know what happened,” the mare said, wishing her mane was down completely so she could hide behind it. There, she had confessed it: one more thing off her substantial chest and out in the open.

The small smile on Spike’s face disappeared. “Oh, that,” he said.

“Oh, you must think me horrid! We’re supposed to be friends, and we haven’t s-seen each other in s-such a long time, and now w-we’ve met again and I-I feel so guilty about it all, how we never wrote and-,”

“Hush,” Spike said, pressing his finger to her lips to silence the now-rambling pegasus. "Fluttershy, I’m not mad, but I do need you to understand something.”

“What is it?” she asked

“There is much I went through that I cannot, and will not, tell you, or any of the others,” Spike said. “I have my own reasons to do so, but even with that, I can see that my past few years has been bothering you.”

“It… it has. I just… it’s awful, Spike, to not know even a bit of what you went through, and it’s driving me up the walls!”

“Then please bear with me that I will, in time, tell you most of what happened,” Spike replied. “Only, for now, I will not tell it just to you. I will say what I can to assuage your fears and hurt, but you will have to be satisfied with that, okay?”

“Whatever you tell me will help,” the mare replied softly. “Even a little bit is better than not knowing and imagining the worst.”

Spike settled himself in, leaning against the mast. “It all started, I don’t know, maybe six months after I’d moved to Port Royal. When I got here, I only had what I’d brought with me, which wasn’t much. Growing up with Twilight had provided room and board, but I technically didn’t own anything under her care unless I earned money and spent it.”

Fluttershy nodded. All of Spike’s needs had been taken care of because of the stipends from the princesses to Twilight’s duke and duchess parents, respectively, but he’d likely been unable to access whatever funds he’d had in there before he was old enough. That was, at least, what she had heard from Twilight. Come to think of it, he’d likely been unable to get to those funds before his time in captivity.

Spike continued. “Eventually I found a little inn to sleep in, and what money I’d had on me went right to rent. For work, I unloaded cargo for a bit, and did odd jobs here or there for ponies needing an extra hand. Times were better then, more cargo coming in and out, so there was always work to be found. Helped that I was going through the first of my growth spurts, made it easier to clamber over the docks and sling ropes to tie up ships.”

He paused. “After that, I started working specifically for this one schooner captain, a grizzled old stallion. Captain Vette was a good if bit stingy captain, not giving out pay unless he was sure you’d not waste it all and come back looking for an advance. Many sailors do that, you know, so I guess he just didn’t want a young one like me taking up on the bad habits of the older ones. I think it was about now that I started sending Twilight letters on how I was.”

“Yes, I remember them, Twilight used to read those to us whenever we’d get together,” the yellow mare replied. “We would talk about you and what you were likely seeing, out there in Port Royal.”

“It certainly had the sights for a young dragon like me, especially back in those days,” Spike said with a small smile. “The naval museum, the old dockyards, some of the mansions and plantations that dotted the hills and outskirts, the beaches and cliffs around the area… it seemed a great place to live.”

His expression darkened slightly. “That was, if you tended to stay away from the poorer parts of the city. The slums were… well, I doubt they’ve improved, but they were likely not as bad as they are now.”

“What do you mean?” Fluttershy asked.

“When there is plenty of work, from ships coming and going, naturally, poorer folks will travel to find paying jobs. If the work is steady, they can make a living, and perhaps make enough for themselves to, say, buy plots of land further into the countryside and take up farming, or become part of some industry, like textiles or metalworking. In this way, they can leave the slums behind, and pick themselves up out of the poverty of their family was born into. However, if readily-available work falls by the wayside, then paying jobs are sparse, and the coin flows less freely. Getting out of the slums then isn’t possible for a lot of poor folk, and so they’re stuck, waiting for better.”

He sighed. “Whole generations can spend their lives working for whatever it takes to survive in those slums. It’s the same for any large city along the coast, or really any large city anywhere. The poor are downtrodden the most when trade and work is most scarce, and while they’ll always be there, at least in the good times they have the ability to leave it all behind.”

“So with the piracy of these days, and with both trade and thus prosperity being threatened…”

“The poor are suffering for it. Even the middling classes are feeling pains of it, and usually they can weather it far better than those struggling just to survive,” the dragon muttered. “That is why your mission from the princesses must succeed. I’ve been in those slums, often hanging out at night with some of the ponies I was working with on unloading Captain Vette’s schooner. It was decent then, but now… I fear for them.”

“The impressments have likely been an added source of trouble, according to Blueblood,” Fluttershy said. “There are roving groups of officials with soldiers “convincing” ponies to join the navy to protect the trade and lifelines of these coastal cities. I can see why it’s being done, and if piracy falls by the wayside, it will have been for it, but… can our cities and their citizens really take such another burden upon themselves, on top of everything else?”

Spike sighed. “I don’t know, ‘Shy, I don’t know. What I do know, was that I joined Vette’s schooner crew after one of the older sailors came down with severe scurvy, and had to be hospitalized. So, not only did I load and unload cargo, I started on as a cabin boy for the old captain.”

“You said he was tough but fair?”

“Yeah, he was, that old salty stallion,” Spike said. “I learned a lot from him when I was on board. Only sometimes… I wish I’d never taken the job, and been happy unloading cargo. Maybe then I might’ve gotten the chance to work in the navy dockyards, and then maybe enlist in the royal marines or something.”

“The military?”

“Yeah, pay would have suited my needs just fine, and maybe I could have risen through the ranks with my sets of skills I already had,” he said with a shrug. “But that’s in the past. All I know is that, we should have steered clear of that reef. Vette was a little ill at the time, and spent most time in his cabin. If he’d been out keeping an eye on things, then we wouldn’t have run aground like we did.”

“You were marooned?”

Spike snorted. “Yep. Tiny little speck of sand in the middle of a huge reef. Shore was miles off, and we had little food. Any plans were dashed by a sudden storm that turned our mostly-intact schooner into a pile of driftwood.”

“So then what happened?”

“One of the deck hands tried hoarding food and the arguments turned into an all-out brawl. Eventually things settled down, but we all went to our own little part of the island, if you could call it that. The deck hand convinced a few of the others to try and slap some of the wood together, held together by spits, prayers, and whatever rope they could find in the wreck. They set off the next morning.”

“And?”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “They didn’t make it.”

Fluttershy gasped, covering her mouth with one hand. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

“Their deaths weren’t entirely in vain,” Spike continued. “A passing ship likely found their little wreckage and floating bodies. That’s what we believed, anyway, when we saw the ship appear on the horizon. We set a fire with some of the debris to flag it down, but now… maybe we should have taken our chances like the others had.”

“A pirate ship?” she asked.

“Aye, old Captain Bloodhoof, probably one of the last of the old breed of pirates that still go through these waters. From what I could gather, he’d been in Their Majesty’s Navy a long time ago, but turned to piracy because some of the more… genteel-minded members of the navy board didn’t want some upstart son of a blacksmith becoming an admiral, you see. He’d more than earned it, from the stories, but he’d stepped on one too many aristocratic hooves and was bound to pay the price. So, upon them attempting to arrest him while out at sea, on trumped up charges, he and his crew rebelled and turned pirate.”

“What was his ship?”

“It was originally called the Oathbound, but after his turn to piracy, he’d renamed it the Bloody Cutlass. A fitting name, don’t you think?” he asked with a snort. “One of the best captains they had, and the navy turned their back on him because he wasn’t some son of a noble.”

“The reforms of the princesses have all but stamped out the aristocratic favoritism in most of the navy,” Fluttershy said.

“The princesses put in those reforms directly because of Bloodhoof. His crimes were not many, mind you, though he made a name for himself targeting the ships belonging to the ponies who had betrayed him, or the companies which they owned.”

“So, did he force you on board?”

Spike shrugged. “Technically, yes, but if you’d ever met the old codger, he’d not have seen it that way. He offered us board on his ship on the oath that we’d not attempt to escape or try and start a mutiny. That, or we could stay on our island, and wait for the next ship to pass by and pick us up instead.”

“So you joined his crew?”

“Unwillingly, yes, and at the bottom of the rung, so to speak,” Spike said. “Despite everyone supposing to be equal on board the ship, there’s still a hierarchy, and I was the lowest of the low. Turns out not a lot of ponies have seen dragons, and only have some… misguided stories to go on.”

“Was it hard?”

“Hard is a light way of describing it, yes. The shittiest jobs were delegated to me, and by “delegated”, I mean dumped onto me whenever the captain wasn’t looking. Bloodhoof was a good captain, though he spit tobacco everywhere, and often would make one of us drop and clean it, just to see if we were paying attention. He took no delight in grueling labors, feeding us better than most might have, but more often than not we’d have to barter with fishing trawlers for anything they’d managed to catch.”

Spike chuckled. “That was part of his robber baron mystique, I suppose. He dressed the part of a captain, or even an admiral, with plain but very fine clothes, and for an old stallion kept himself in remarkably good shape, not going soft like so many others. He’d rob from the rich, often outnumbered and yet was able to absolutely humiliate his opponents. From the coffers of the haughty aristocracy he’d buy supplies for his ship directly from some of the poorer folks along the coast, always somehow staying one or three hoofsteps ahead of local pirate hunters. Most kids in the small seaside villages we’d make port in for a night or two always came out to see him. To them, with lives that seemed boring and with souls thirsting for adventure, he seemed larger than life, like an old hero from the stories their grandparents might tell; a stallion robbing the rich to feed the poor, and an honorable duelist more skilled than any that sailed the seas at the time.”

Spike sighed. “He died during a stormy night, far out to sea. His last wish was to return home, and under the cover of another storm, we arrived in a small, out of the way seaside village. It must have been fairly run down once, but he must have given every piece of gold he’d had to it, for it was a cozy one, with proper buildings and docks, with room to grow in the future. His family was there, and though he’d seen little of his many children, they had buried him as they would any member of their community, with solemn respect and dignity.”

“It was afterwards, then, that I tried to escape. His first mate, however… had other plans.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bloodhoof had promised freedom from his ship upon his death. He thought that serving under him was our sentence for his generosity, and in a twisted way, I guess it was. What was the price of someone’s life when you’d rescued them from certain death?” Spike shook his head. “The rest of the crew had agreed to it, the majority of them having been rescues themselves who had decided to stay on anyway. For a few, however…”

“The first mate?”

“He hadn’t been on long, and while he’d been loyal, there was always something about him that was just… off. He had a hankering for gold, more than the others, and immediately saw my worth. Why, a dragon of all things, that had served and possibly learned skills from the legendary Bloodhoof? There was a pretty penny to be made selling me to the highest bidder.”

“Sold?” the yellow mare asked, eyes growing even larger in shock. Slavery was known in other parts of the world, but to be this close to home, where it was so vehemently outlawed… it wasn’t something she’d considered possible.

“Yep,” Spike muttered, as her shock grew more apparent. “He took me to the Isles of Flesh.”

With a surprised squeak, Fluttershy fainted into his arms. He stopped, holding her so she wouldn’t fall.

The mention of that horrible place must have been a bit too much for somepony with as tender sensibilities as her; perhaps another time, then.

Meanwhile...

Geralt was bored, though not from lack of things to do. With the disappearance of so many ponies the few nights before, he had had to lay low for a while, doing covert things such as eavesdropping, bribing and pickpocketing just to keep himself occupied. Port Royal was a growing city, and even amidst the seemingly unconnected deaths of several of its more prominent and well-connected citizens, the aura of concern covering the city would soon fade away, until it was nothing more than a mere afterthought.

Blueblood had once given him the “important” task of tracking down bankers who dealt with pirate money. Technically, they were doing nothing illegal by it, so long as income taxes were paid and the bankers donated a bit here and there to charitable purposes. It hadn’t taken the white pony long to ensure that any and all bankers dabbling with pirate coin also donated a good portion of the interest to the taxes paying for defense upkeep, ship repairs and troops wages. Fighting the pirates with their own money; rather clever, Geralt had to admit.

However, that day he was on one very special assignment, one he wasn’t exactly thrilled to undertake. Blueblood was meeting with some of the lumber suppliers outside of the city, further in the countryside, and so had given Geralt the task of looking over the newest batch of recruits for the fort. To be honest, it would likely be a very boring job, but luckily for him, he had been given a false identity as a high-level inspector from the government. He actually was, if anypony looked close enough, all courtesy of Blueblood’s machinations, but he liked the feeling of possibly being discovered as being false. It gave the job an air of danger and excitement.

Striding through the fort’s doors after a quick conversation with the guards, Geralt slowly made his way to the outer ramparts, where the freshest batch of recruits were waiting under the watchful eye of the fort’s captain. His own clothing mirrored the captain's, though his own hat had two white feathers tucked into it to symbolize his lofty title. that, and the coat he wore was fashionable, but at the same time thin, so as not to have him overheat. His knee-high boots clicked loudly on the stone and mortar of the fort below him.

The fort itself had high, sloped walls, but was nothing like a fortress of more medieval times. The fort was the only thing protecting the city from the ocean's many dangers, as it was difficult to build and maintain city walls, especially when said city grew too large for the walls to contain. So, naturally, forts were built around the city to help defend it, and city planners turned to making cities themselves highly defensible, with grid pattern streets and buildings with tunnels beneath so as to make defending forces traveling in secret that much easier. The cannons that lined the forts had crossing fields of fire, so as to prevent there from being a weak point in the defense.

Walking up to the captain with a false air of superiority, Geralt removed his hat and slicked back a bit of his mane. “A fine day, is it not, captain?” he asked.

The captain quickly saluted before returning to a more relaxed stance. “It is good to have you here, sir; I was just finishing getting all of the recruit’s names. it pays to address them by their names, and not just their ranks.”

“I won’t need to know that, thank you, though I would like to see what our recruiters have gotten for us,” the spy said. “Are these all locals?” Many appeared to have grown up along the docks, though a few seemed a bit out of place.

“Most are, though a few of the larger ones are from further inland,” the captain said as the pair strode up and down the line. “Better fed out in the farmlands, you see; didn’t grow up in a place as cramped as a city, either.” in the countryside, you had to be big to work the fields and do so much manual labor; that, and farmhouses were usually big enough for large families meant they didn't live in cramped conditions.

“Yes, well, they’ll make good at grenadier training; only the biggest and strongest of soldiers can haul and throw our grenades. Tell me, what of that small one over there?”

“That’s William; he’s only been living here a few months. Moved down from North Yankton, you see, after a fire destroyed his home. I heard about that fire; luckily nopony was killed.”

Fires in cities, especially near the slums, were always dangerous, usually deadly as well. The sheer luck that everypony had managed to get out before local weatherponies had managed to build a raincloud big enough to douse it was all but a miracle to most.

“Yes, indeed,” Geralt said. Walking over to William, who was indeed a good deal shorter than all the ponies around him, Geralt looked down on him. “So, William, I hear you are from North Yankton originally.”

“Sir, yes sir,” the young pony replied.

“Have you ever been to the Withering Heights portion of the city?” Geralt asked. He of course, having been there himself, knew that there was no Withering Heights, but Weathering Heights. It was a trick question, just to make this young recruit squirm.

“Sir, there is no Withering Heights in North Yankton, sir,” the recruit said, a small bead of sweat forming on his brow. While normally this could have been associated with stress or worry, Geralt knew it was likely the uniforms. They didn’t breathe well and almost gave the troops an appearance of being slightly large in the chest and rump, almost like a mare. They were undoubtedly uncomfortable in the things, but they did look nice, and to many, that was all that mattered.

“An excellent answer, soldier,” the spy replied. “Tell me, where do you see yourself in a few years?”

“Sir, I hope to serve Their Majesty’s armed forces until I am no longer needed, sir,” William replied. “Sir, then I wish to start a family and raise my foals on the same duties and principles I was, sir.”

“Ah, an ambitious yet humble soldier; I like you,” Geralt said, giving him an honorary bow. “You’ll likely make captain one day, William, with an attitude like that.”

“Sir, thank you, sir.” William's salute was sincere and professional, something one so young usually might not have known how to do. Geralt thought nothing of it; he was just better trained than one might have expected was all.

“Recruits, dismissed!” the captain called out, watching as the lines of soldiers left for the barracks. “So, inspector, what do you think of our fresh batch?”

“I think they’ll do just fine, so long as we aren’t attacked by some foolish pirates,” Geralt replied as the pair walked to the ramparts. “Tell me, just how have we been recruiting in Port Royal? I know there’s been some discontent among the lower classes with the level of impressment in some of the other cities for the navy.”

“Here we put up bulletins and hire town criers, calling for young stallions looking to not only make some money, but have the honor and privilege of serving under the banner of Their Majesty’s armed forces,” the captain said. “So far, we’ve had almost no discontent, seeing as how the soldiers are free to move about the city in which they are from, and even have something akin to shore-leave every other weekend. Most have families in the city, you see, and would hate to be parted from them, like those in the navy are.”

“Ah, I see,” Geralt said. “Is there any friction between the respective branches of the navy and army?”

“Somewhat, though it has less to do with pay, as some might expect, and more to do with labor,” the captain said simply, wiping a small bead of sweat from his brow. "Sailors complain land forces do less work for the pay they receive, and soldiers call sailors a bunch of ill-mannered louts, if you will. I've always believed that cooperation amongst the armed forces is key, but some admirals and generals just don't see eye to eye, and those disagreements tend to work their way down through the ranks."

"Indeed," Geralt replied. "Now, these recruits, I have a few ideas on how to test their mettle..."

Behind them, William was walking past when he heard them mutter something about "sending out patrols”. Patrols were often an excuse for new ponies to test their mettle of working under less-than-favorable conditions outside of the fort. Sometimes they’d be alone for hours at a time, with their only company those whose assignment they shared.

The briefest shimmer of green crossed over William's eyes before he continued on to his post.

Author's Note

Hmm... the plot thickens, no pun intended. Where shall all of this planning end up? You don't know yet, but you will in time!