The Sea Singer

by Dick McKickEm

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Adventure, Derpy Hooves, Other, Princess Luna
Length: 45773

Twelve years ago, Equestria was taken over by he rapid expansion of Everfree. Now most of the country is engulfed in forest. These are the tales of Captain Strider, an airship trader struggling to get by in these tough times.

'Bout twelve years ago, Equestria got taken over.

But not by vast armies or corrupt governments, that'd be too easy. My country was taken by Mother Nature herself. One day, huge trees just started coming up from the ground faster than you would ever belive. Not much we could do about it, the trees we cut down just get replaced by more trees. In a few days, everypony had to find higher ground or get lost in the woods. Today, the forest down there is a real dangerous place, filled with bloodthirsty monsters 'n heathen ponies and the like.

We called it Nature's Curse.

There ain't many operatin' cities left now, most of 'em got swallowed up. The ones that were untouched lost contact with each other, making it real hard to move goods and messages around. Most couriers that tried to make deliveries on hoof just ended up lost or eaten, and most pegasai can't fly that far without rest.

That's where I come in.

The name's Cloudstrider. I'm the captain of this beautiful little airship called The Sea Singer. This here's my first mate, Derpy Hooves and y'all probably already met my pilot, Scootaloo, my navigator, Sweetie Bell, and my engineer, Applebloom. Me and my crew are at your service, providin' y'all have the bits to pay for us.

You have a job that needa doin', we can do it... don't much care what it is.

Rated T for light cursing and many ponies getting shot.

Published 2013-07-21 19:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-01-19 16:09:57 UTC

Chapter 1: Pilot

The Sea SingerChapter One: Pilot

     "Fooooour!" the crowd of dirty, smelly bar patrons enthusiastically shouted as I downed yet another shot of pure Serenity Island moonshine. The evil water flowed down my gullet like oil, burning my throat with the intensity molten lava from the planet's core. By Celestia's pearly white flanks, this was not one of my better plans.

     I was sitting at a two pony table in the middle of an old west style bar, sitting across from me was a big, buff stallion who had a gruesome scowl on his ugly mug. The bar was dimly lit, like you would expect most shady joints like this to be. The only source of light filtered in through the grungy winows, stained a piss yellow from years of ponies smoking indoors. The place smelled of body odor and cheap five-bit bottles of whiskey.  This was the one of the more dangerous kinds of bars, the kind where most less-than-innocent ponies get themselves shot just for not sharing another's opinion.

    On the flip side, that also made it the place to get the best deals on booze. The lawponies tend to avoid places where they're outnumbered and outgunned, which made it a haven for illegal beverage runners. Today's little adventure involved me striking a bet with one of the distillery owners, if I beat him in a drinking contest, he would give me a juicy discount on a shipment of moonshine I was fixing to pick up. If I lost, I would have to pay normal price, plus twenty percent.

     Luckily,  I was winning.

     "Fiiiive!" I slammed the shot glass down on the table with enough force to knock over the other four empties. The molten lava booze still tore at my throat, forcing me to choke back a wet cough. Wow, this was some strong stuff, probably ninety percent alcohol or so. Hooch runners always did like to push the limits, it was no wonder that he drove the prices up so high.

     "Give up?" I asked the stallion, my voice hoarse.

     The booze jockey, Corn was his name, threw down an empty glass and let out a squeaky wheeze. The kind of wheeze that somepony got from eating a red hot Marexican chilli pepper without drinking any milk to wash it down. "Heh, not by a long shot!" he lied. This pony was on his last drink and he knew it. Then again, I probably was too.

     I gave a sly smirk and raised a full glass at him "This one's for you." Then I threw back said drink in one painful gulp.

     "Siiiix!" the crow of drunkards cheered. Honestly, I don't what these ponies found so exciting about watching two grown stallions slowly set themselves up for liver failure in a contest of sheer dumbassery. Did they really have nothing better to do?

     Probably not.

     Corn's perpetual scowl intensified. It looks like this guy expected me to give up after that last one. Looks like he was wrong, heh heh.

     Corn eyed his flicked to the next shot...then they flicked to me...then to his shot...then back to me. He was carefully considered the risks and rewards of going on. He took the 'shine into his hoof, I could see the hesitation on his face as plain as day.

     "Give up now?"  I chuckled "All you have to do is say it, say uncle!"

     He visibly gritted his teeth and glared daggers at me "Not on yer life." He braced himself and drank the shot, throwing the empty glass into the wall and shattering it into a hail of silvery shards. He looked at me with a wry smirk. Damn, this guy was good. Well, it was six for six now and-...Oh.

     Corn's smirk instantly disappeared, his face contorted into one of agony, it also seemed to turn quite a few shades greener. In a flash, he stood up from his chair and barreled out the bar's doors and onto the porch. The crowd and I watched with a grimace as he leaned over the railing and threw up the contents of his stomach into the street, heaving and moaning as he did.

     We stared at the poor bastard in silence, the only sound was coming from Corn's heaving. Then just as quickly as it happened, the quiet disappeared. I was the first to throw my hooves in the air and cheer at my apparent victory "Wah-hooo!"

     The crowd of drunkards more than shared my sentiments, they cheered louder and a longer than I. "YEEEEEAHHHH!" they bellowed all at once. One of them gave me a smile and playfully punched my shoulder.

     "That was awesome!" one of the drinkers shouted.

     "Totally!" another agreed.

     "I likes me a stallion that kin hold his drink!" came the sultry voice of one of the mares. Since when did the ability to not throw up constitute sexual prefrence? Meh, who cares? Certainly not I.

     The big booze runner stumbled back into the bar and plopped himself back into the chair as the patrons congratulated me. He wiped the leftover puke off his muzzle with the crook of his arm and ran the other through his greasy yellow hair.

     "That was a mighty fine match," I complimented, offering him a smile "but a deal is a deal; Four crates of fine Serenity Island Moonshine at fifteen bits a unit."

     Corn must've sobered up a bit from heaving, because a drunk stallion just can't look at somepony else with that kind of anger hatred. "Ain't no chance in Tartarus!" he growled "I don't know how ya dun did it but you cheated! Effin' you want the 'shine, then you're gonna hafta pay twenty five bits a pop like ere'pony else!"

     I rested my elbows on the table and folded my hooves together, I summoned my inner lawyer and spoke with a very businesslike tone "I truly am sorry to hear that, Mr. Cobb, really. But where I was born and raised, we find it real rude to not honor a bet on mere suspicion of cheating. And how could I have cheated anyway? You, sir, drank from the same-"

     "Did y'all here me?!" Corn Cobb barked, his acrid breath assaulting my nostrils "Ain't...no...way...in...TART'RUS!" He emphasized each word by slamming his hoof into the table, spilling the remaining shots of moonshine.

     I sighed "Well in that case-" before Corn even knew what was going on, he suddenly found the business end of my flintlock resting on his schnoz "-You'll just have to find a way in Tartarus, Mr. Cobb." I said, not dropping my lawyer tone.

     Corn looked like he was about to piss himself, his eyes crossed humorously to stare at the loaded pistol. "I- uh...erm," he stammered. The crowd of drunk ponies surrounding us suddenly realized that they all had left their ovens turned on, and dispersed without another peep.

     I cocked back the hammer "Now I'm gonna boil it down to two options for you," I explained "Number One: I could scatter what brains you do have all over this fine establishment and it's patrons, leaving me without a shipmet to sell and you with a darn big hole in your head. I doubt that anypony wants to see that. OR, Number Two: You could cut your losses and sell me the crates for fifteen bits a bottle and we can all walk away unhurt, apart from a hangover and a little liver damage-" I pressed the barrel firmly into his forehead "-Comprehendé, muchacho?"

     He didn't Comprehendé.

    "Gaaaaaurds!"

     Crap.

     In a millisecond, two big and burly bouncer-lookin' fellas burst from one of the bar's side rooms. It was one unicorn mare with floating a musket beside her and one earth pony stallion clenching a rusty shovel in his jaws. Corn looked at them and pointed a hoof to me "Sic 'em!"

     Not wanting to know what getting hit in the head with a shovel feels like, I holstered my pistol and backed away from the table cautiously "Now hold on there, folks." I said in the most calming tone of voice I could manage "Can't we just discuss this like civilized ponies?"

     In response, the musket mare took aim and fired at me. The gun roared with a low boom and the shot whizzed past my head and embeded itself into the wall.

     I stared at the fresh hole "I'll take that as a 'no' then." That being said, I turned tail and hauled flank out the doors and into the town. "Thanks for the free drinks!"

X-X-X-X-X

     I rushed out into the dusty streets of Serenity, gaining me a few odd looks from the townsponies that had elected to stay outside on this hot summer day. This town always reminded me of Appleoosa back in the day, before it was swallowed up by nature. Old-timey shops and homes lined the streets in a tight crisscross pattern. Most of the building beared little difference from one another, making it a mite difficult for newcomers to get around.

I was, more or less, a newcomer.

 I trotted in place for a moment, unsure of which way to go. "Now where oh where did I park that ship?"

     I had no time to answer my own question before the two goons ran out of the bar, hell-bent on shooting and/or bludgeoning me. I chose a direction at random and hightailed it. Naturally, they gave chase.

     My strong earth pony legs pounded the dirt road, carrying me through the town at top speed. Heh, they didn't call me Strider for nothing.

     I shot across the dirt streets, ducking and weaving past a few townsponies that were out for a stroll. The goons behind me rudly shoved through them, unaware of the death glare that they received.

     I made a sudden right turn and nearly collided with a cart of cabbages, pulled by a pale green earth pony. Luckily, I managed to side-step that cart and murmur my apology to the pony.

     A loud crash sounded behind me, followed by a few suprised shouts and the woeful cry of an older stallion "My cabbageeees!"

     I stopped to take a look at the commotion. As I had expected, my pursuers were tangled into a mess of splintered wood and cabbage. The green earth pony was standing over the heap, yelling a multitude of explicit words so foul that they could have made a sailor blush like a schoolfilly. (I would know, I used to be a sailor!)

     A new bad guy-looking pony burst forth from a random house, this one was an earther mare with a flintlock in her mouth. She immediately spotted the wreck and helped pull the two buffoons out of it, muttering something around the pistol. The two pointed two accusing hooves my way. That was my cue to take off.

Boom! A shot buzzed past me, knocking my hat off. I picked it back up to find a fresh hole going straight through it. I glared up to the offending ponies "Somepony's going to pay for that!" But here and now was neither the time, nor the place. For now, I run.

     They chased for what felt like hours until I decided that running in a straight line just wasn't going to loose them, so I made an abrupt right turn into an alleyway. The three ponies lost their momentum just as I had hoped. The alleys were only wide enough for a single pony to fit through, and not three dimwitted rent-a-gaurds chasing me side by side. I had successfully turned their own numbers against them.

     I emerged from the alley only to find four new henchponies shaking their muskets and clubs at me. As any other smart pony would, I went the other way.

     The intense beating of my heart pounded in my ears as the adrenalin rush kicked into to full swing. I galloped hard to get away, pusing my legs to go faster and faster. I zagged into another alley, but the posse didn't fall for it a second time. They went around the building and came close to having me cornered.

     A pegasus swooped over me, nearly konking me on the noggin with a frying pan. I stumbled,  but did not fall. "How many goons does Cobb have?" I shouted to nopony in particular.

     I tried to duck into yet another alley, but I was forced backpedal when I saw three familiar ponies charging at me from the opposite end. Okay, not that way then.

     The posse was within spitting distance now, giving me some serious motivation to keep running. I forced my body to widen the gap between me and them, but it was quickly becoming apparent that I was loosing this little race. The mob closed in, getting close enough for one of them to snap at my tail. Thankfully, she never did get a good hold on it.

     I had to think of something to try, and fast, or else it would not turn out pleasantly for me...

X-X-X-X-X

     "End of the road, pal!" one of the henchponies shouted at me.

     I couldn't think of anything.

     I found myself staring at the end of a rocky cliff at the very edge of town. This was where Serenity Island ended and the Green Sea began. I looked over the cliff, the endless expanse of Everfree Forest loomed below me in every direction, like a giagantic pit of raking claws, ready to snatch up any unlucky pony it could get. The drop must have been fifty feet at least, there was no way I could have lived through the fall. Even if I did, I'd be in no shape to survive alone in the wild.

     I looked to the left and to the right, the cliff was to narrow to sidestep the posse. So the only way was backwards and forwards, and both were equally unappealing.

     This pack of idiots had me by the balls, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do.

     Or was there? A low hum sounded in the air, not unlike that of a giant metal cicada. This was a distinct noise that I have come to know and love very much. It was a noise that signaled rescue. I stood there, looking at the crowd of ten or so ponies with a knowing smirk.

     Corn Cobb separated himself from the mob and calmy approached me. His beady little eyes regarded me like a cat regards a defenseless mouse before it gets horribly mangled and tossed away. "It's over, Strider." he said "Ya dun got yerself in a tight spot over the price of a few measly 0 a 'shine. Now dont'cha feel like a fool?"

     "Captain Strider to you, Cobb!" I instantly corrected him, ignoring his question. (For the record, yes I did feel like a fool.)

     Cobb raised an eyebrow at me "Izzat so? Then where's y'all's ship, Capp'n?"

     "Should be here in a few minutes!" I grinned widely at the old moonshiner, making everypony a little uncomfortable. The hum was getting louder now, the entire group heard it very clearly. I noticed a few ears turned toward the source.

     "What's that noise?" one of the mares asked.

     "I dunno." another answered "Sounds like a motor."

     "Never you mind that!" Cobb snapped at his henchponies. He turned to regard me again and cleared his throat "Now Strider, I'm gon give'ya two options for ya to pick-" he chuckled darkly "-One: I kin tie ya up to an airship and show ya what bein' keelhauled without water feels like. And trust me, pardner, it don't feel too friendly. OR Two: I kin give ya a huntin' knife and a rifle and banish ya to Everfree. Let whuddever's in 'ere have their way with ya. Which do you chose, Cap'n?"

     "Option Three," I answered, maniac grin threatening to tear my cheeks "I get the hell outta dodge."

     The mob shared looks among one another "Huh?"

     A massive shadow encompassed the entire cliff as the light was blocked out by a gigantic figure. It rose from the drop behind me, slowly and steadily, like a second sun. The hum of it's droning engines shook the cliff like a minor earthquake. Aye, this was a ship, and not just any ship. It was my ship. The twin ballons mounted on her sides, a mite bigger than Ursa Minors, kept the gargantuan wood hull afloat. She was painted in me two favorite colors: Midnight blue and seafoam green, with green as the primary and blue as the trim. The pure white sails unfurled to reveal my coat of arms, a beautiful blue mermare with flowing blonde hair. She had a long, bulky prow with a carving under it that matched the sails. Twelve small square ports opened up, revealing twelve gleaming black cannons, aimed right at the bad guys.

     Proudly painted on the stern in bold blue lettering was the name of my one true love: The Sea Singer.

     A grey and blonde wall-eyed head popped up from the deck's railing, she spotted me and waved "Hiya, Captain!" Derpy Hooves cheerily greeted.

     "Hiya, Derps!" I returned "What took'ya so long?"

     "I stopped for a few drinks." she giggled, winking at me.

     I turned to speak to Corn Cobb, who was staring up at the ship, either dumbfounded or awestruck. "Cobb," I shouted over the engines "I've got two ladies that I'd like to introduce to you. The blonde one with the funny eyes is my first mate, Derpy Hooves. Don't worry, she won't hurt you. Honestly, it's the big one with the cannons sticking out of her gullet that I'd be more concerned about. That fine lady's name is The Sea Singer, and she has enough firepower to turn this town to a smouldering black crater, so I suggest you don't piss either of them off!"

     As if on cue, a rope ladder urnfurled from the decked, beckoning , me to it. I lept over the gap and caught one of the rungs in my hooves. I turned back to shout my parting words as the ship began to depart "Well, fillies and gentlecolts, it's been a fun game of tag, but now I hear my mother calling, time for me to go! Adios!" I paused "Oh, and thanks for the good deal on that shipment!" I fished a pouch of bits out of my coat pocket and tossed it to his hooves "This should cover it!"

     Cobb wasn't having any of that, he ignored the money and drew his pistol, threatening me with it "Celestia damn it, Strider!" he screamed at the top of his lungs "What the hay are you talking about?!"

     "You'll find out later!" I shouted as I began the long climb up Sea Singer's deck.

Boom!

     A bit-sized hole suddenly appeared in the ship's hull, right where my head was a second ago. I turned back to Cobb, hurt look upon my face. "You shot my ship!"

     "I was aimin' fer yer head!" He snarled.

     That won't do. Not at all. I drew my own pistol and brought the barrel up to bear. I leveled the sights directly at his ugly little face and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

     Corn Cobb doubled over, screaming in pure agony.  He clutched his front-left leg, crimson liquid spilling from the wound and staining his brown coat red.

"Agggh! Motherbucker shot my leeeeeg!"

Huh, I missed. Damn moonshine made me tipsy.

     I hauled myself to the top of the rope ladder, Depy grabbed my hoof and pulled me onboard to sweet, sweet safety. I picked myself off the deck and brushed the excess dust out of my coat and hat, gaining a few sideways glances from five or so of the crew.

     "TIME TO GET THE HAY OUTTA HERE!" I hollered, my voice sounding throughout the deck "LET'S PUT SOME DISTANCE BETWEEN US AND THIS ROCK!"

     The crew gave a collective salute and an "Aye, Captain!" and went to their stations, readying the ship to make way.

     I decided a moment to relaxation was in order. I drew a deep and calming breath,  taking in the familiar scent of oak planks that always lingered on my beloved Sea Singer. I exhaled in a long, calming sigh, letting out all the tension from today's shenanigans. I slumped against the side of the railing.

      "Y'know," my fist mate began "You didn't have to go shooting him."

     I waved my hoof dismissively "He put a hole in my baby, I put a hole in his body. By my somewhat cloudy judgement,  that looks to be a fair trade." As an afterthought I added "Did'ja get the shipment alright?"

     Derpy giggled to herself at the thought of today's job "It was like taking moonshine from a drunken gaurd. When did everypony get so bad at crime around here?"

     I laughed with her "About the same time we got so good at it." I stood back up and looked about the ship, searching for the telltale ice cream mane of my navigator "Where's Sweetie?" I asked "She's usually up here mocking the bad guys from a safe distance."

     "She's below deck, in the infirmary ." Derpy answered "When we took the goods we had a little scuffle with some of the gaurds. Sweetie got grazed, but she's fine. The doc is patching her up."

     I nodded "Let's go pay her a visit, see if she hasn't bitten the good doctor's head off."

     "You go on, Captain." Derpy said "I have to make sure nopony tried to drink some of the shipment while I was away. You know how they get."

     "Okay. If you catch any of them red hoofed, make sure to tie 'em to the mast upside down for a few hours, teach 'em a lesson."

     "Aye aye, Captain. "

     With that being said, we parted ways.

X-X-X-X-X

     I peeked in through the glass window, catching a view of Sweetie Bell lying prone on the infirmary's only operating table, giving nasty looks to our resident doctor. The room itself was a joke to be called an infirmary, being so small and empty of professional medical supplies. But calling it "The room with a table, a few over-the-counter drugs, and a first-aid kit" didn't fit very well.

     Doctor Cotton Swab was standing over Sweetie, levitating a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at her side. Swab was an middle-aged unicorn doctor, about six or seven years my elder, though the stress bags under her eyes made her look a little older. She had her shock of electric blue mane tied into a standard nurse's bun, starkly contrasting her steel grey coat. Her cutie mark signified her medical skills: a pair of band-aids and a red cross arranged like a skull and crossbones.

      "Hey wai- OUCH!" Came Sweetie's high-pitched voice.

     "Quit being such a filly!" Cotton Swab's older, rougher voice scolded with a motherly tone "It's just a little antibacterial! You're not going to die."

     I opened the door without even knocking and trotted right in, earing me a glare from Doctor Swab and a relived look from Sweetie. "Afternoon, ladies." I greeted coolly.

     "Captain, (thank Celestia) tell her that I don't need any more anti-whosit!" Sweetie pleaded with me. "I'm fine, really."

     I cracked a wry smile "I don't know, Sweetie." I warned "Back in my seafaring days, I've seen a pony like you lose a whole leg to infection just 'cause he didn't splash a little peroxide on it afterwards. Hoo boy, did that sailor scream. I had to take a frying pan to his head just to shut him up 'til we could finish the operation."

     Sweetie's eye became wider than dinner plates at my tale. "Really?" she whispered.

     I nodded "Yep."

     "Captain, please don't put any of those exaggerated sea stories into her head." Cotton nagged me  "That poor pony probably lost his leg because your captain didn't think to bring a trained medic on the ship. Any idiot with half a brain and a bottle of decent antibiotics could've saved him."

     Cotton returned to patching up my navigator "Don't you listen to him, hon. I'm not going to let anypony on this ship get that sick, even if I have to drag 'em in here kicking and screaming. "

     "I know I know," I said  "but what can ya do? Past is past. Y'now how they say hindsight is twenty degrees cooler...or something like that. " I shrugged "We were young and incredibly stupid."

     "Now, you're not so young anymore."

     "True."

     "But in all your stories I thought you were the one who was captain?" Sweetie questioned with a little confusion in her voice.

     Sweetie's thougts were put on hold when Cotton Swab poured a little peroxide over a cotton swab and wiped it over Sweetie's war- wound, eliciting a small hiss and an "Ow" from the patient. I took a close peek at it, the shot was superficial at worst, she wouldn't have even needed stitches.

         I let out an embarrassed chuckle and rubbed the back of my neck "Yeah well, that was after I shot the old captain."

     Cotton look up from her work and raised an eyebrow at me "You shot your own captain?"

     "I had a good reason!" I defended.

     "And what, pray tell, could that have been?"

     "I was young and he was incredibly stupid."

     My story must've irked the doctor further, she shot a mean look my way. "Sir," she grumbled while wrapping a clean bandage on Sweetie "With all due respect, if you have no businesses here then please get the hell out. I have a patient to attended to and you're not helping with your little tales of murder."

      "Sure thing, Captain Swab." I snarked  "I just need Sweetie to report to the bridge and draw us up a route to Canterlot after you're done with her."

     Sweetie Bell shot up instantly "Were going to Canterlot?!"

     Cotton shoved her back down into a lying position "Hold still, I'm not done here!"

     "We are!" I said cheerfully "It should take a day or two to strike a deal with Berry Punch and offload the goods, assuming she hasn't been thrown in jail again, so you'll have plenty of time to visit your sister."

     The navigator squeed in delight "I haven't seen Rarity in months! Oooh, I hope the shop's doing well." She eyed my brown turncoat and hat. Which, by the way, had a few more holes in them than it they did the day before "Looks like you need to pay her a visit, too."

     I laughed heartily "Ain't that the truth. I recon Rarity'll start flippin' tables the moment she sees what I done to this old coat."

     Cotton Swab smirked "Isn't ragged and dusty a little last season?"

     "Doctor Swab, my dear, ragged and dusty is always the hot fashion." I answered, feigning a high-class accent "At least on this ship it is."

     "Anywho, I've gotta go see Scoots and tell her to start flyin' in a north-ish direction til' you can draw up a course." I gave the two mares a casual salute and sauntered off toward the bridge...

X-X-X-X-X

     The clinic, which I had recently disembarked from, was located on the stern of the ship, just under the crew's quarters and above the engine room. (Stern means the back end of the ship, for all you land-kissers that don't know a mast from a masochist) The bridge, where the pilot's controls were, was in the bow. (Alternatively, the front end.) Which meant that I had to cut through the upper deck to get there.

     The hard-working mares and stallions of my crew were busy maintaing the direction of the sails, as they only cast slidelong glances and subtle nods my way as I passed them. I wasn't a pony in the habbit of forcing my crew to stand at attention every time I trotted by them like some of those pompous,  overdecorated windbags that captain all the military ships in The Green Sea.

     The senior crewmembers like Cotton and Sweetie and I had become comfortable with eachother over these past years, a comfort born out of mutual of respect of one another. I gave the orders, they followed them, and I give them all a damn nice cut of the profits. If they didn't follow orders, I can sometimes get a little... cross.

     A perfect example of crewponies not following orders hung from the main mast just a few feet away from me. One of the sailors was tied by his midsection to the large wooden pole... upside down. This colt was one of the newer members that I picked up a few weeks ago in Las Pegasus. He gave me a nervous smile as I passed him by.

     "Heh heh...Hello Cap'in."

     I stopped and bent down to look him in the eye "Ahoy, sailor." I greeted, trying to hold back my mirth "So, how have you been?"

     "Honestly, sir?" He chuckled "I can't feel my legs."

     "Tried to snag a bottle of moonshine, did'ja?"

     "Ayep."

     "It's a rookie mistake to underestimate my first mate, sailor" I explained "She might have the depth perception of a one-eyed, drunken diamond dog with her condition, but that don't mean she's as dumb as one."

      "I understand that now. I do belive I've learned my lesson, captain. " he said with an apologetic expression.

     "Good to know!" I turned to trot away "Carry on."

     "Hey, wait!" the sailor shouted after me.

     I turned and eyed him coolly "Hmm?"

     "Uh, a-aren't you gonna cut me down?!"

     I put a hoof to my chin, pretending to contemplate the question. Truth be told, I already knew what I wanted to say "No, I don't think I wil."

X-X-X-X-X

     Fun fact; The Sea Singer was the one of the first models of airship to feature a bridge. Before Everfree had even begun to take over Equestria, the first generation of airships had their controls in the stern, mostly above or in front of the captain's quarters, just like a seafaring vessel. Having the pilot's vision blocked by a bulky cloth sail worked in the water but not in the air, since airships go in all cardinal directions instead of just starboard and port.

     To fix this, the ship's controls were built toward the bow where the pilot could see in most directions without having their vision obscured. The bridge was actually built below deck, under the prow, giving the sailors inside extra protection.

     The dome-like window protruded from The Sea Singer like a bubble on the surface of the water. I could see The Green Sea below in all directions but behind, an ominous mist flowing up from the forest floor. Scattered about a U-shaped panel were all manner of levers, buttons, and switches that I only knew rudimentary uses for. Sailing, I was a master at, but flying was never my forté. That's why I had a pilot.

     Scootaloo stood on her hindlegs at the north window of the bridge, wheel in hoof. The bright orange mare stared stoically at the horizon, her gaze only straying a little as I walked in.

      I'm not going to beat around the bush, Scootaloo was a cripple. She was born with a pair of wings that never fully developed, they only grew to be about half the size of a normal pegasus. Scoots wasn't ever able to fly very far, but she could pilot a ship like nopony's business. Her cutie mark, a minature of an old model of airship, was proof of that.

      "Ahoy there, Captain." She greeted me pleasantly, her eyes not straying from the sky "Did everything go smooth like you planned?"

     "Does it ever?" I chuckled.

     "Well, no." Scootaloo admitted "But things have to change some day! What happened?"

     "Let's see," I said, putting a hoof to my chin "I got drunk, stuck my gun into somepony's face, got chased about the town like a wild goose, got shot at, and shot somepony."

     Scoot smiled mirthfully "Same ol' story. Same ol' song and dance, eh?"

     "Ayep." I agreed "Just another day in the life of you rougishly handsome and highly talented captain."

     I couldn't see her face, but I knew that Scootaloo rolled her eyes "If you say so, sir."

     "I do say so!" I chirped "Anyhoo, I need you to point the ship in a northern direction until Sweetie gets up here with the charts and stuff."

     "Aye aye, sir." Scoot said, turning around to the console and punching a few of the shiny buttons with practiced fluidity. The pegasus grabbed the Singer's oversized wheel and spun it thirty degrees to port. The ship in turn lurched, jarring us around as the engines and the sails turned toward the north simultaneously.

     "Geez!" I griped, grabbing hold of the console for balance "Could you make it a little smoother next time, Scoot?"

     "Not can do, sir." she retorted "One of the baubles down in engineering busted while you were out. I can't use any if the turn radius hydraulics 'til Bloom and Oak get it fixed." As an afterthought, she added "By the way, Applebloom said she needed a replacement part to get it running again.  She wanted to see you about that."

     I sighed in a self-pity sirt of way "Welp, a captain's work is never done. I guess I'll get to it then."

     Scootaloo nodded "You do that. I'll be here, like always."

     I turned around to leave but was stopped by Scootaloo "Hey, wait."

     I turned around and cocked an eyebrow at her.

     "Where are we even going?"

     "Canterlot. "

     Scoot did that wing-buzzing thing that pegasai do when they're exited "We're going to Canterlot?  Cooooool, I can go see some of the new military airships they got floatin' around the docks."

     "Yeah, great." I nodded and headed out the door without another word...

X-X-X-X-X

     After my first year of flying on the Sea Singer, I got used to traipsing about the whole ship and fulfilling everypony's needs after a job. It always seems that every time I leave the ship something or somepony always gets lost, stolen, broken, or shot, and I'm the stallion who has to deal with it. Mostly because I'm the best at getting stuff replaced with my many trading connections and my knack for bartering.

     I stopped short of the blackened iron doors that led to engineering. A faint rumble could be both heard and felt through the threshold. I never liked going into the engine room, it was sometimes so loud in there that the engineers had to wear ear protection just to hear themselves think.

     Thankfully, our current course didn't demand that much of the engines since we weren't turning or running at full speed, so the noise was mercifully lessened,  but not eliminated.

     I took ahold of one of the heavy soundproofed doors with my teeth and pulled at it with all my strength. Another reason why I hated engineering; the doors were so heavy that it was a pain to get into.

     The door was pried open with an ominous and metallic screech. A wave of hot, dry air hit me like a wall, carrying with it the foul scent of burning coal and motor oil. Reasons number three. And four as to why I hated this room: it was hot and it smelled funny.

     I slipped in through the narrow crack in the door and pulled it shut. Closing it was always much easier than opening it, but it was still a chore.

     Applebloom was sitting at her chair next to the Singer's gargantuan twin engines. The masses of wires, gears, and oddly shaped steel parts hummed and sputtered behind her in a chaotic mess of sounds. I honestly had not the foggiest idea how these thigs worked. I knew they were powered by coal and other burnables...that's it. That's why I had AB.

     Applebloom was my chief engineer. Kind of. There were only two people that ever worked engineering in the ten or so years that Sea Singer had been in the sky.  Notice how I said "people" and not "ponies." Bloom's partner was Oakfang, a tall diamond dog, smart as a whip and black as the coal he shoveled into the furnace.  I picked him up a few years back in Keldigram, one of the last stable underground cities in Equestria. Oakfang was one of my stranger crewmembers, he just kinda showed up one day, offering hard labor in exchange for food and board, no explanations as to why. But who was I to turn down a worker that didn't want to take a slice of my profit pie? Ever since then, he's been a part of the crew as much as Derpy, Applebloom, or I.

     Applebloom was idly leafing through a copy of "Ships and Sails Monthly!" that I notices was three months old. I always liked Applebpoom, she was one of the only young folk around this ship who came in knowing the value of hard work, probably from working an apple orchard before Nature's Curse took over. She, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Bell were the first three crewmembers that Derpy and I ever recruited to fly with us on Sea Singer. Goddesses, they were like, twelve years old when we found them sitting on the sidewalks of Canterlot. Child prodigies, the lot of 'em. Scoot could fly a ship better than any grown stallion that I ever knew, Applebloom might as well have been able to talk to machinery for all I knew, and Sweetie could sing like a chorus of angels, which isn't too useful on an airship, so I put her on navigation since the other two wouldn't separate from her for the world.

     "You rang?" I asked, speaking a mite louder to compensate for the engines.

     Applebloom closed her magazine and stood up from her chair "Capp'n, just the pony ah needed ta see." she said in her southern drawl.

    Oakfang saw me and offered a curt nod my way. Oak never was much of a talkative dog, he only spoke when he had something to say, which was a quality that I felt that more ponies needed. I returned the nod and regarded Applebloom.

     "Scoots said you needed to talk to me about a new part?"

     "Yeah." she said, gesturing a hoof toward the engines "Ah need a new Steam Gauge Assembly fer the hydraulics in engine number one. Ah managed to patch 'er up fer now but we'll be needin' a new one in a week or so."

     "And if we can't afford one?" I inquired. I could have afforded it, probably.  But I prefer to cut the corners that could stand to be cut.

     "Then there'll be some real nasty complications."

     "Define comlplications."

     "The Oh goddess,  oh goddess, we're all going to die! kind." Applebloom deadpanned.

     "Ahh, I'll get right on it just as soon as we hit Canterlot."

     The yellow mare did a double take "We're goin' ta Canterlot?"

     "Why must everypony ask me that?" I whispered to myself "Yes we are."

     "Hot digity!" she exclaimed "Canterlot's the only decent place ta get any good shoppin' done in the whole darn Green Sea."

     I cocked an eyebrow "You never struck me as the shopping spree type, AB."

     "Not if I 'kin help it." She smiled to herself "But steam gauge assemblies ain't the only thing in Singer's engines that's hurtin' fer replacin'. Golly, if it weren't fer duct tape, we'd be crashin' into the ground right now."

     I rolled my eyes, but smiled in spite of myself "Thank you," I deadpanned "I'll try and think about that while I'm sleeping in an airship tonight."

     Applebloom waved a hoof "Ahh, ain't nothing wrong with her. Sea Singer'll always tells me when she's hurtin'." AB placed a hoof on one of the engines and gave it a loving look "Won't ya, girl?"

     In response, the engine continued to run as it always has, blissfully unaware of Bloom's question.

     I pulled up the coat's sleeve and checked my watch. Nine thirty-two, I should probably hit the hay. Assuming that Berry Punch was still in her old habits, getting a good deal out of her was going to be like pulling a sore tooth from an angry manticore, I needed all the rest that I could get.

     Just thinking about sleep gave me the urge to yawn, which I did with great gusto. "Well," I said, stretching out me stiff legs "I'm gonna go crash in my quarters, I'll be there if anypony needs me."

     "Well g'night, Cloud. "AB said  "Don't let the duct tape engines bite."

     I snorted mirthlessly "Funny."

     I nodded at Oakfang, who in turn, nodded back. Neither of us needed words to understand eachother, we just knew...It's a guy thing.

     I began the grueling task of reopening engineering's heavy metal doors. One long, screeching creak and a loud slam later, I was was off to my quarters...

X-X-X-X-X

     My room was totally unchanged from the way I left it this afternoon. All the many assorted peices of treasure, trinkets, books, baubles, guns, and gizmos  lay carefully and methodically placed on the shelf above my trusty rope hammock. The captain's quarters were built in the upper-half of the stern, giving me an absolutely perfect view of the Green Sea that laid spread out behind the ship through the pane glass windows.

     Lying on a cot up against the wall was my youngest, smallest, and most loyal members of Singer's motley crew of misfits: Easybreeze, my neice.

     Easybreeze was a smally filly, about thirteen years old, give or take a few months. She was born not before, not after, but during the days that Nature's Curse took over everthing at the sea level. She was my brother's kid, had her mother's bright green eyes and her father's pegasus gene. A few years back, her parents got in a real tight spot with the law, they couldn't leave little Breezy all alone so they transfered custody to me. They entrusted me with the responsibility to keep her safe, and I'll be damned if I fail that.

     Breeze had her eyes glued to one of those old-world history books that I had found on a scavenging job in over-grown Fillydelphia. She idly flipped her snowy white hair out of her face, barley noticing me.

     "Hi, Uncle Cloud. " the light pink filly greeted my absentmindedly, not lookig away from the book.

     "There's my favorite sailor." I said with a smile, removing my coat and hat, hanging them on a hook, and throwing myself into he hammock. "Wat'cha doin'?"

     "I'm reading about the socio-political state of Equestria before the Curse happened." she answered. "Did Princess Celestia really have to handle all the lords and nobles by herself for a thousand years?"

     I nodded "Yep. I saw Princess Luna herself the same day that she came back to us. Even got a picture with her."

     Easybreeze's attention was instantly piqued "What? No way!"

     "It's true!" I defended "Here, I'll show you." I slipped out of my hammock and threw open a random chest. After a few moments of digging through a pile of things that brought back more than a few memories, I found the dried up, old slip of paper.

     "'Course," I said, handing it to her "I was young and vibrant back then."

     The photo was taken almost fifteen years ago, it depicted almost half the population of old Ponyville squeezed into a crowd so that they could all fit into the photo. At he very front were six youthful Elements of Harmony with Princess Luna dead center. They all wore smiles that were bright enough to be used as a flashlight, except for Luna, who looked both confused and sheepish. Which was natural, that picture was kind of spur-of-the-moment.

     "Where are you?" Breeze asked, squinting at the photo.

     "There I am." I pointed out a much younger earth pony stallion with a dark blue coat and a chocolate brown mane. He was standing behind and a few ponies to the right of the princess. By the Godesses, I was a total puppy back then.

     I chuckled "Back when the world was flat and the trees weren't out to get'cha."

     I noticed Breeze's eyes drift to the background "Wait, is that Canterlot there on the mountain?" she asked, pointing it out.

     "Yeah, it was a lot smaller than it is now. Back then, we hardly had any airships, the city didn't even have a port. We rode trains and carriages everywhere."

     "I can't even imagine..." she let her words trail off.

     "How we lived on the ground?" I finished "I'll admit it was a lot nicer than it is now. You wouldn't have had to grow up on an airboat, you could've gotten in to a good school, found your cutie mark, got a nice job. Life would've been a lot more stable, more safe."

     "Blegh, sounds boring." Breeze said "It doesn't sound as fun as being a sky sailor."

     I gave her a half hearted chuckle "Yeah,  it was pretty dull when I wasn't at sea. But Eternal Night, cotton cany clouds, and whole empires springing from the ground occasionally added some spice to it every now and then."

     "Cotton cany clouds?" Breeze questioned in a disbelieving tone.

     "Long story. Lots of wierd." I said. I checked my watch again, it was nine fifty-two.

     "It's time for bed." I announced "We should be making port tomorrow, best get some sleep while we can."

     Easybreeze groaned "It's not even dark yet, why do you like to go to sleep so early."

     "Because I get cranky waking up at zero-dark-thirty every day." I answered gruffly "You'll understand when you're older."

     Breeze harumphed and gave me a cross look.

     "Fine," I gave in "You can stay up and read, so long as you do it quiet-like, alrightly?"

     "Yeah, thanks." she said, returning to her book.

     I nodeed and threw myself back into the cradling arms of my beloved hammock. I stretched myself out like a cat and blew out the lamp on my nightstand. "G'nite, Breeze."

     "Goodnight, Uncle Cloud."

Chapter 2: The Ladies Man

The Sea SingerChapter Two: The Ladies Man

Captain's Monologue

- July 24th, Year Fourteen of the sixth age

Just finished "acquiring" my latest shipment of Serenity Island's finest liquor at fifteen bitsa unit. Cobb didn't give me too much trouble this time around, only onepony got shot. And thank Luna it wasn't me, though business with him will be a mite rougher if we tried to do any trading in the Serenity area again.

We were getting real close Canterlot last time I checked. Log says we haven't been there in a hundred and three days, the crew could sure as Tartarus use some shore leave right now. Even I wouldn't mind a nice vacation... right after I do this next deal. Should net us a decent amount of Platinum, enough to keep Sea Singer floating for a good while.

-4 crates

-112 bottles/crate

-15b/ea cost

-448 bottles total (minus one or two that the crew snagged)

-15×4×112= 6720b ÷10= 672plat. (Damn abacus. Gave Cobb 680plat)

-No idea how much I can squeeze Berry for (20b? Possible, but not probable)

Note to self: Don't get her drunk again, she argues better when she's drunk.

Knock knock.

My train of thought was immediately derailed by an abrupt knocking on my quarters' door, both Easybreeze and I whipped our heads to the entrance.

     "Come in."

     Derpy Hooves opened the door and sauntered in, casually munching on a banana-nut muffin. "Hay, Capp'n." she said around a mouthful of baked goods "There's a couple of EBRoT pegasai that flew on the deck. They were asking for you."

     "Crap, not these clowns again." I hissed under my breath "Are they asking for me by name, or just trying to figure out who's in charge?"

     "By name."

     "Double crap." I sighed and let my head droop to the point of knocking it on the edge of the desk with a dull thud.

     I should probably explain, EBRoT was an acronym for Equestrian Beru for the Regulation of Trade. Princess Celestia, in her infinite wisdom, had it thrown up three years after the Curse to organize some of the inter-city commerce so it wasn't as much as a cluster buck as it was back in the day. The EBRoT really worked well for awhile, but some bureaucrat up in some high chair decided that the beru didn't put enough ponies in jail to satisfy them, and so he or she gave enough power to EBRoT to keep the whole damn economy under an iron hoof.

     The ponies aboard were likely the trade police, they mostly handle ponies who try to move around "outlawed goods" under their noses. Ever since the Canterlot Prohibition Initiative was thrown up, they've jailed dozens of captains like me for the possession of alcoholic beverages.

     I turned in my seat to regard Easybreeze on the bed behind me "Wish me luck."

     "Good luck, you're going to need it." my neice deadpanned. Smart girl, that one.

    I grabbed my beloved turncoat and hat off their hangar and slipped them on, they fit me like a second skin "Aye, that I will."

   X-X-X-X-X

     On the main deck stood three steel-grey pegasai ponies, all clad in identical white and blue cloth uniforms. I had not a clue as to why the lower ranking gaurds, soliders, and government officals always had to have grey or white coats that were exactly the same color with no variation from pony to pony. Seriously,  am I the only pony around here who's ever noticed this? Was it fur dye? Enchanted clothes? Were all the grey or white mares and stallions in the Green Sea magically predestined to work for our government as grunts? No that can't be it, I can name at least ten grey or white ponies that are either crooks or thieves and hate the government with a passion. Confound these ponies, they drive me to think.

     I got a litte off-topic there...Ahem.

     The EBRoT officers received cross looks and wary glances from the crewponies as they tried to go about their work like nothing was wrong. But the fact of the matter was, there was most definitely something wrong. EBRoT ponies never ask for you by name if it was just a routine inspection, they just ask for the captain to sign off on a paper that says he knows his ship was being inspected, pretty standard stuff. Every sailor worth a damn knows that.

     But when the officers ask to see a specific pony, nine times out of ten it means that somepony had tipped them off about ceartian illegal goods that may or may not have been on the ship. The other one time was when they temporarily draft you and your crew into the military. Depending on who you ask, that's even worse than getting caught smuggling alcohol.

     'You've handled worse before, Cloud, old buddy.'my inner voice tried to tell me 'You can deal with these cops, no problem.

     I straightened my faded hat an duster in a ditch attempt to look even a little presentable, which was hard considering how many holes were torn through my clothes. Trotting up to the lawponies, I said in a friendly tone "Can I help you fine, young officers of the law?"

     A fourth pony revealed herself from behind the other three, this one actually wasn't grey, she was a yellow pegasus mare. And judging by the silver bars on her fancy hat, she was a Lieutenant. "It depends," she said in a bored voice "are you Captian Cloudstrider of the airship Sea Singer?"

     I took off my hat and put it to my chest in a suave showpony's bow "At your service, ma'am" I said humbly.

     "Humph." the Lieutenant grunted "I'd like to ask you a few... questions on behalf of the Equestrian Beru for the Regulation of Trade."

     I mentally fadehoofed 'Oh for the love of... These government ponies never ever tell you anything outright!' Can't they just say "Oh hey, by the way, we know you have over four hundred bottles of illegal moonshine in your cargo hold! Stick 'em up!"

     I put the hat back to it's rightful place atop my head and offered the officer a small smile "Do I have a choice?"

     "No." she deadpaned.

     My smile faded away "Uh, okay. How about we go someplace more private to chat, yeah?"

     Lt. Kill-Joy narrowed her beady little eyes "Actually, I'd prefer it that we speak in your cargo hold-" she hoofed me a scroll, sealed with the offical EBRoT logo "-We have a warrant to search your hold for any goods banned in the Canterlot area."

     Ponyfeathers.

     "Just a sec." I said, opening the scroll. I skimmed over all the booring legal crap as I held the document to the sun, a fancily designed stamp of approval was visible only when I held it at a ceartian angle, and dissapeared in the direct sunlight. This definitely wasn't a fake. Some EBRoT officers in the past have made it a habbit to give known smugglers forged warrants so they wouldn't have to request one from their higher-ups, speeding the legal process up, not to mention nab a hefty commission they recive for bringing the poor sailors to "justice."'

     "Looks legit." I motioned to the staircase that went below deck "Follow me."

X-X-X-X-X

     The cargo hold was, naturally, the largest room on the ship. The Sea Singer was a Mk. I Gemini-Model airship, meaning she was built for long voyages over the Green Sea while hauling obscene amounts of cargo. The room was about ten feet tall and sixteen feet wide, loaded with dozens of wodden crates filled to the brim with various goods that were both for the crew and for trade. It was fitted with a large drawbridge-like door for easy loading and offloading, said door was big enough to drive a carriage through, which I have done many times before.

     I tried to keep the best poker face that I could while the three privates turned the cargo bay upside down. They went around the room levitating crowbars and prying open all the crates and peering in. Searches were always a long and mundane process since the officers had to restowe all the cargo that they opened and rummaged through.

     "So what is your purpose here in Canterlot City?" the still-unnamed officer mare asked in a very businesslike tone.

     "Trade." I said with as little emotion as I could manage "What else would a legitimate businesspony like myself be doing in Canterlot airspace?"

     She shot a sideways glance at me "We'll see soon enough...So what are you planning to buy or sell, Mister Strider?"

     "See for yourself." I told her, making a sweeping gesture toward the opened crates. "We've got crates of corn, wheat, grain, mostly crops in high demand 'round these parts."

     The Lieutenant's frown deepened "And where did you aquire these goods?"

     I mentally rolled my eyes "The only place in Equestria where you can get fresh harvest in decent bulk, the Macintosh Mesas." I resisted the urge to add a "duh" at the end of it. The Macintosh Mesas were one of the only growth-free areas with fertile soil left in Equestria. The whole chain of "islands," which were actually tall mesas, produced enough food to keep the country afloat for decades. "You didn't even know that?"

     "Don't get snappy with me." the officer growled, taking a step toward me "I know your type, you think you're contraband is all safe and secure, squirreled away in some little corner of this ship. I tell you, these ponies are the best at what they do. I have not a doubt in my mind that they'll expose you for the smuggler you a-"

     "It's clean, ma'am!" one of the privates shouted from across the room.

     Lt. Nofun whipped her head around and gave that poor colt a glare that could've stopped an elderly pony's heart "What?!"

     Despite the colt's extensive military training that was supposed to teach him to resist hardcore torture and interregations, he couldn't help but shudder under his superior officer's gaze. "Uh, m-ma'am-" he stuttered "There's no outlawed goods in this cargo hold, it's all legal."

     The mare whirled back to me, I affixed her with a mischievous smile, which infuriated the damned harpy to no end and made me want to laugh my flank off. "This. Proves. Nothing!" she hissed, giving me the impression of an angry, poisonous snake.

     "If you want something done..." The mare stomped off and shoved the innocent private aside, she craned her neck and took in everything there was to see in my cargo bay. The Lieutenant paced back and forth running her hooves over the all crates and the walls.

     The officer stopped suddenly, a wicked grin apprearing on her muzzle "What's that I hear?" she put a hoof to her ear and used the other to paw at the floorboards "This board sounds a little...loose."

     Horseapples. I spotted the lose board and immediately tensed up "I, uh, I ought to get that fixed...yeah." I said shakily.

     The officer wordlessly motioned for her lackeys to go to work. The privates dutifully complied and one swift motion later, the board was out and my ship had a gaping hole in it's cargo hold.

     "It's empty ma'am."

     Her eye twitched.

      Say what? Empty? I could have sworn that I had the crew stow it under the loose boards this time...or was it in the wall? Maybe I told them to hide it in that little nook in the crew's quarters, but that dosen't seem like a good idea to leave the sailors alone with copius amounts of moonshine. There's also that spot in the infirmary, but that's too small for all that cargo. I sighed. Celestia damn me and my old age! Pretty soon I'd be forgetting what I had for breakfast.

     Disregarding my misplaced booze, this little episode of mine was a stroke of pure dumb luck. That is, if the officer wasn't obsessive enough to search the entire ship. Belive me, there's enough crawl space in Sea Singer to smuggle a small town into Canterlot Castle itself, provided I pull the right strings of coarse.

     "Well would'ja lookit that!" I said with an exaggerated tone of suprise. I turned toward the door to the hallways and hollered "Hey Derps, looks like were not criminal scum after all!"

     Derpy Hooves, who had been listening in the whole time, popped into the room and dramatically slapped her forehead "Wait, you mean we're not smugglers?!"

     "Nope!" I chirped in reply "It turns out little miss police officer here was wrong." I shot the Lieutenant a glance and a wry smirk.

     "Well geez, Cloud." Derpy said, unable to contain her smiles "I could have sworn that we just bought a dozen kilos of cocaine last month..." For the record,  I don't sell drugs. Derps was just being commendably sarcastic.

     "This is horseapples!" The still unnamed officer growled. She made it a point to get all up in my personal space and poke an accusing hoof to my chest, subtly reminding me that she was a good two inches taller than me "My informant told me that you were trying to smuggle enough moonshine to get Princess Luna herself tipsy! My sources never lie!"

     I looked defiantly up into her furious, light brown eyes. Come to think of it, this mare was actually kinda pretty, with her vividly colored orange-on-orange mane that reminded me of a flickering campfire and her dandelion yellow coat that accented her hair quite nicely. I should really look this lady up some time...

     Regardless of prettiness, she was still pissed at me to no end. So, to counteract her bad mood, I literally and heartily laughed right in her face. It wasn't a mocking or a condescending laugh, it was like one of those good-natured laughs that a pair of mutual acquaintances would have as they shared a bad joke and a bottle of overpriced champagne at one of those fancy-as-all-get-out parties in Canterlot. A sort of, casual laugh.

     The officer mare gave me a piercing glare that I'm sure has used to make many a delinquent pony throw themselves off the side of a ship into the Everfree forest below out of pure shame.

     "I'm sorry to say, Lieutenant,  it looks like this informant of yours mislead you." I said, taking on my signature salespony tone "We here on the Sea Singer pride ourselves in being one hundred percent felony-free. You can do extensive backround checks on every darn pony on this boat, they'll likely come out cleaner than the bathroom stalls in Canterlot Castle." Have you ever actually seen the bathroom in there? You could eat a whole mess of hay fries off the floor and not feel totally disgusted afterwards!

     "You're bluffing!" The EBRoT lady accused "There's not a single pony on this ship that's that clean." See? Even the inspection wench agreed how clean those stalls are, and she hates my guts right now.

     I cocked a sly eyebrow at her "Even you?" Somewhere behind me, Derpy snickered.

     "Don't change the subject!" Noname growled back.

     "Actually," I began, shifting to a more businesslike tone "That'd be the best thing to do seeing as how you're interrogating a pony who you yourself proved to be innocent. That seems to me like something both EBRoT and other captains such as myself would take a mighty powerful offense from. I reckon you should stop while you're ahead, 'fore I contact your higher-ups about this." This was good, I had the high ground and I was on the offensive.

     Like most smart ponies, the yellow pegaus said nothing in retort, she instead silently fumed at me, letting the smoke coming from her ears do the talking.

     "In conclusion, you have nothing left to do here. Get the hell off my ship." I finished with a smartass smirk. Rarely ever did I get to kick ponies off The Singer, and I savored it each and every time. It's good to be the captain.

     "This isn't over." the officer said more calmly than I would have ever expected "There will be a reckoning,  belive me."

     My eyes rolled, but it was Derpy, who had been mostly silent, who voiced my thoughts "Why are you so sure that we're breaking the law?" she asked, cocking head.

     The officer didn't reply, she instead turned to leave the ship, blank expression on her face. She motioned for her lackeys to follow, and they did so with robotic discipline.

     She was halfway out the door when I stopped her "Hey, wait." The mare cocked an eyebrow "Do you maybe wanna go grab lunch sometime? I mean, I know you might think it's your sworn duty to put me in a small four-foot-by-four cell to rot, but that's no reason two civilized ponies could-"

     "Are you mocking me?" The officer asked in a apathetic voice.

     "Maybe a little." I answered honestly  "Then again, maybe I just want to get to know this pretty yellow mare in front of me a little better." Suave, Cloud, real suave.

She sighed "You, sir, can go throw yourself off the side of this floating heap of scrap wood that you call a ship and buck yourself with a flaming cactus."

     Ouch. Right in the gnards.

     Regardless of that low blow, I seductivly wiggled my eyebrows at her obvious display of affection for me "Classy lady, I like that. What's your name, Miss Class?"

     A roll of the eyes "Spitfire."

     "If you can't do lunch, do you want to grab a cup of coffe some time? Maybe when all this inspection business is ov-- Hey, where are you going?!"

     And just like that, she left, slamming the door behind her.

     "Did he just ask out an Ex-Wonderbolt?" Derpy Hooves asked nopony in particular.

    "Wait, I hit on a celebrity?" I answered with another question "Huh, that's...new. I guess I can check another thing off my bucket list."

     "Asking out a celebrity is on your bucket list?" Derpy asked, completely serious.

     "What? I'm a simple kinda stallion, with simple kinds of desires."

     She half chuckled and shook her head dissapointedly "If you say so, Captain."

     "What?" I echoed.

X-X-X-X-X

     Canterlot.

     Hooooo boy, this place has really changed since I was a foal. What was once a small city of hoity toity nobles clambering to kiss Princess Celestia's hooves has now become a gargantuan metropolis where all the social classes can mix and mingle. After a decade of nonstop construction, The elegant white and gold spires had multiplied just as fast as the trees in the Everfree below. No longer was it a sickening cluster of pretentiously decorated mansions and overpriced shops, it had become a city worthy of being called "Capital of Equestria."

     When Nature's Curse took hold of the country, Canterlot was the number one place to seek refuge from the dark woods. Being smack-dab in the middle of Equestria and one of the only cities out of reach, thousands of ponies from all over rushed to seek safety on top of the mountain.

     I was there during that period, so trust me when I tell you that it wasn't a pretty sight. The only comfortable way to get up to the city proper was by train or by airship. Trains tend to become utterly useless when the tracks are torn up by invasive roots, and there weren't as many airships as there are now. Damn near a dozen ponies got either hurt or killed trying to scale the mountain on their own. It's a wonder what crazy things a pony could do when they're being pushed to it.

     Canterlot's a whole hell of a lot more stable now that the citizens got elbow room. The city was about six times the size that it was twelve years ago. It wraped all the way around it's mountain now, like a crown atop a head, or a ring on a finger.

     I was leaning over the railing up on the deck, watching the grand city draw nearer and nearer. Derpy Hooves was at my side, we chatted idly about how we both hate inspections and the major amounts of teeth-gritting suspense that they bring.

     "Where did the shipment go, by the way?" I finnaly asked her. "I specifically told you to hide it in the nook under the floorboards. Not that I'm complaining. Whatever you did, it saved my flank."

     My first mate gave me a cheek-tearing grin "We chucked it in the garbage bay!"

     "Youwhatnow? The garbage?"

     "Yeah!" she said proudly exclaimed "Thought of that one myself. I figured those cops would be paying too much attention to the little nooks and crannies that could be our hiding spots. The best place to hide it was in plain sight. Plus, most Canterlot types would rather fall on their sword before they dig around in the trash."

     I shook my head in minor disbelief, small smile on my face "Derpy, have I ever told you that you're a genius?"

     "Many times!" she giggled  "But I wouldn't mind hearing it just once more."

     I happily obliged "Derps, You're a genius."

     Scootaloo brought The Sea Singer around to the north side of Canterlot, the side that had a lot more grey in it's construction than the rest of the city. This was the port and middle-lower class housing section, where small time mom and pop stores and big companies alike tried to hawk their wares to traveling sailors like myself and the crew.

     Finding a good pier to tie The Singer down to was always a real pain in the flank. Compared to most other boats in the sky, my lady was a little on the chunky side. You had to have a big ship to haul decent amounts of cargo around The Green Sea, a trader with a boat that can't hold much is like a pegasus with only one wing. They both just end up lamely flying in circles until they crash and burn.

     On top of having trouble finding a parking space, one of those freakin' EBRoT officers charged me fifteen whole Platinum a day to moor the the ship. Fifteen! That's enough to buy half the crew a pint of beer back at Serenity Island.

     I paid the cop three days worth of highway robbery and the crew rushed out of the cargo bay doors like they were late for an appointment, all looking as giddy as Applebloom in an engine garage. Though I didn't blame them, Canterlot was one of the best cities to find entertainment in, second only to the sinful casinos and swanky showrooms of Las Pegasus.

     Derpy was the only one to stay behind with me, we both prefered eachother's company when on shore trips. Mostly because I always went on jobs that I needed her to help me with. Now I'm the probably the best damn salespony in The Green Sea, but you can already tell that I'm not much of a people pony when trade isn't involved.  That's why I needed my first mate, she had a personality more bubbly than a club soda and brighter than a flash of lightning. There ain't a damn pony in Equestria that she couldn't have gotten on the good side of.

     We trotted along through the dirty, rusty streets of downtown. I would tell you that this place had seen better days, but that would have been a lie. Downtown had always been this shifty looking and deeply commited to the color grey since the ribbon was cut. This place was built to be functional,  not fancy. So instead of the glittering marble houses and cobblestone streets of Oldtown, this sector was comprised of square concrete apartments and wrought iron fences. It was a gloomy color scheme for sure, but I'd take it any day over the crusty upper-crust parts of this city.

     Both sets of eyes were peeled for Berry Punch, she should have been wandering the streets at this time of day. Berry could sometimes be either an easy or hard pony to find depending on you luck. She was normally off running the local speakeasy at night, but nopony had a clue as to what she did in the daytime. We just assumed that she led a normal life outside the bar. Then again, Berry Punch was not a normal pony.

     We spent the next hour aimlessly wandering about this section of city, searching for purple eyes, purple coat, and purple mane that made up Punch. We probably should have thought up a decent method to finding one pony in a city of thousands and thousands, but hey, where's the adventure in that? The speakeasy is closed during the day, so that was more or less the only place in Canterlot that we weren't going to find her.

     "Agggh!" I cried in frustration "How can a pony so damn purple be so damn hard to find?"

     "Maybe we should, I don't know, ask somepony?" Derpy dryly suggested, fixing me with a deadpan stare with one of her eyes.

     "That, my friend," I said "is a good idea. Now I remember why I hired you in the first place."

     My first mate rolled her eyes, which is quite funny to watch because of her condition "And I'm supposed to be the ditz."

     "Who should we ask?" I asked, craning my neck to pick out somepony walking the streets who looked like the type to know where to find a liquor salespony. "Though, I don't think it's a good idea to ask a random pony something like "Hey, have you seen that one pony who runs a highly illegal operation out of her inn? I'm fixin' to sell her some moonshine strong enough peel the paint off of an airship."

"Okay, that's a good point." she admitted "But how else are we gonna find her?"

     "Well, we could just wait til nighttime." I offered "But she'd probably be too damn busy tending the place to hammer out a decent agreement."

    Derpy nodded "Yeah, but it's the best we can come up with for now." I said nothing and merely grunted in agreement.

     I checked my watch, twelve-oh-eight, we had about nine hours before nightfall hit, better find something to kill the time with.

     "Hey, do you want to go grab something to eat?" my first mate suggested "I dunno about you but my belly's growling like an angry Ursa right now."

     "Hmm, food that doesn't come prepackaged and have M-R-E spelled on the front?" I asked myself "How could I refuse?! Come on, I'll buy."

X-X-X-X-X

     We quickly found this greasy little place in the market district that sold big bowls of moderately editable stir-fried rice out of a stall. We grabbed two of those and took a seat on a concrete bench near the edge of the city.

     By edge of the city, I meant take a single step out of bounds and find youself tumbling down a steep mountainside. The only thing between our table and a long drop with a short stop was a five foot tall chain link fence. Like I said, downtown was built for practicality, and practicality doesn't always mean safety.

     Though I couldn't deny that view. The north side of Canterlot always had the best view of far-off Cloudsdale. The modest city of puffy white clouds and cascading rainbow falls had been Equestria's only source of weather before the curse. The factories that churned out rain clouds, thunderstorms, and rainbows had halted a while after The Curse. What's the point of weather if there's no one on the ground to benifit from it? Not only that, but whatever magic voodoo came from the Everfree turned all the clouds that passed over it feral, unable to be manipulated by pegasai.

     But even that didn't stop the rain from coming. Clouds started forming on their own, without any kind of pattern or logic. Sometimes weather happened, sometimes it didn't, we had no way of knowing when the next thunderstorm was going to be. Everything was random. It bugged the hell of everypony for a long time, but we eventually got used to the unpredictableness of it all and -- WOW! This fried rice tasted awesome!

     My train of thought crashed and burned like a pilotless airship the moment the food hit my tounge. Those pretentious hight-society types on the upper levels of the city pay hundreds of bits to sit around for an hour and a half in a "five star" restaurant until they are served the most mediocre food on the planet by an overdressed waiter. If those ponies weren't filty ritch, I'd pity them, because the real food is down here amongst the dirty middle-class ponies, being sold on the streets for less than ten bits a serving. Sure, it was probably very bad for my health at this age, but by Celestia it was worth it!

     Wait, that was I talking about before? Oh yeah, Cloudsdale.

     I was actually born there, you know. That would immediately raise the point "But you're an earth pony, and Cloudsdale is made of...well, clouds!" And what a surprise it was for my parents, too! You see, my mom and pop were both regular pegasai with a recessive earth pony gene handed down from their grandparents. Naturally certain complications arose, what with the possibility of not having a floor to stand on.

     Funny thing was, I'm not full earth pony. According to my parents, the doctor that delivered me was trying so hard not to drop me on the puffy cloud floor that he actually did drop me. Instead of passing through and falling to a horribe death that would have traumatized my parents to no end, I was just cradled by the clouds like any other normal pegasus.

     So far as I've heard, that's only happened nine times in recorded history. It turns out, I'm not a real earth pony, just a wingless pegasus. I have the internal magical powers of one, like moving clouds around and stuff, but none of the bone-breaking strength or the crop-growing green hoof of an earther. I was caught in a big ol' grey area.

     So that's where my name comes from. Cloud. Strider. My parent's weren't very creative with names, but it was too fitting to pass up.

     Anyway, Derpy and I eagerly finished the rest of the stir-fry without a word. With full bellys and happy smiles, we left the table in search of something else to pass the time.

X-X-X-X-X

     My first mate and I decided to go our separate ways for the time being, agreeing to give one-another a holler if either found Berry Punch during their shenanigans.

     Derpy wandered once she caught a whiff of what the local pastry bakery was cooking up. I decided that it was high-time that I got all those damned holes in my brown turncoat and hat patched. And what better pony to get repairs from than the same fine lady who crafted it in the first place?

     I made my way out of Downtown and trotted into the aptly named "Midtown." Midtown, as you might expect, was somewhere in between the tacky architecture of Uptown and the scruffy minimalism of Downtown. The buildings were much less bare than they were before, but not to the point of being too flashy for it's own good. They were less like concrete boxes and more like proper homes, it actually reminded me of a lot of the cottages back in Ponyville that once was.

     Here in this section of Canterlot stood my desired destination; Canterlot Carousel Boutique. Blegh, I can't even write that name without feeling just a little bit more feminine. I need to find the pony who invented the word "boutique" and kick his or her skinny little flank. Regardless of it's unappealing name, the shop's owner made the sturdiest damn clothes that I'd ever seen. The coat she made be back before Nature's Curse would probably last longer than I did.

     The shop itself looked exactly like every other building in Midtown; made of wood, brick, and concrete. It didn't look like her first shop, but you should have SEEN the one that the she ran back in Ponyville that once was, it just screamed "Makeovers and frilly lace!" like a crazy hobo in Manehattan's central park. The place reeked of pretty princesses and the color pink.

     I saw the "Open" sign in the window and trotted right in, the sweet-sound of a bell's jingle played as I opened the door and crossed into the shop. The room inside the Boutique looked like the old one had, only a little smaller in size, the sheer amount of bright colors and shiny sequins could have made my eyes water. Dresses and suits in all shapes and sizes were being proudly displayed gor sale, and at a fair price, too.

     I immediately noticed Sweetie Bell, who nearly blened in with the frilly colors, sitting in the corner at the cash register. She looked at me sheepishly. "Sorry about this, Captain." she said.

     "Sorry about wha--?" Before I could even finish voicing my confusion, my vision was filled with what looked suspiciously like a giant marshmallow. It was instantly followed by a blunt pain in my right eye.

     Turns out, a ceartian somepony's hoof looks a lot like the aforementioned puffy white candy. I was on the floor before I could make any connections in my brain. My body collided with the wodden flooring with a dull thud.

     "You scoundrel, you!" came an incredibly familar voice.

     "Ugh...Hello, Rarity." I groaned.

     "Of all the sailors on The Green Sea..." she continued, unperturbed by my greeting "You are by far the most untrustworthy, unintelligent, and unsophisticated pony that I've ever met!"

     "Nice to see you too." I dryly returned, picking myself up off the floor.

     That's the second mare whom I've incited the fury of today, hope I won't make this a habit.

     Ahh Rarity, by Luna's silvery moon, Rarity was a feisty one. She had a face that belonged on the cover of a magazine and a body that should have belonged to a supermodel. Her shiny amethyst purple hair was done in a wavy, curly style, one that looked like it took hours to prepare. Over the course of the twenty or so years that I knew her, she hadn't aged a day. Father Time had been much kinder to her than it had to me.

     Rarity wasn't all that pretty on that particular moment in time to me, I was too busy being terrified of her. The officer mare from this morning may have been just as mad as Rarity, but she couldn't have beaten me to a pulp, being bound by law and the strict standards of profesionalism and whatnot. But Rarity... Don't let her looks fool you, she could throw down just as hard and fast as any other stallion out there. She can get real mean and nasty when you press her Berserk Button, which I had unwittingly done.

     "How could you?!" the shopkeeper wailed in my face.

     "How could I what? I haven't done anything to you--" It was my own hoof that met my face this time in a rather epic facehoof. Of coarse I didn't do anything to her. She was mad because of Sweetie. I shot Rarity's sister a glance, she was intently staring at her own hooves to look back at me.

     "Listen..." I said as calmly disarmingly as I could "I'm sorry about Sweetie, I really am. But things happen when you're out at sea and there ain't nothin'--"

     "Horseapples!" Rarity cursed "You could have not sent her on that crazy mission in the fisrt place!"

     "I went willingly!" Sweetie weakly protested.

     "Irrelevant!" Rarity snapped at her sister. She grabbed the collar of my jacket with one hoof and pointed the other back at Sweetie Bell "Look at her, what do you see, Cloud?!"

     I did as she asked, Sweetie looked exactly the same as her usual self, with her off-white coat and her pink and purple mane that always reminded me of ice cream. What was not usual was the bandages wrapped tightly around her foreleg, which would have been barely visible if not for the little spot of blood that seeped through the wrappings.

     "She looks like Sweetie Bell." I said in a tone so dry it could have killed a camel of dehydration.

     "Look at her cutie mark!" Rarity hissed, small amounts of her saliva hit my muzzle "What is it?"

     "A...a bell with some music notes around it." I answered cautiously.

     "It's A BELL!" she cried "Not some big red target for shooting at. Her special talen it singing, not being immune to bullets!"

     "Well she knew what she was getting into when she signed on to The Singer!" I shouted back.

     "She was Ten. Years. Old!"

    "And she's handled everything that Equestria has thrown at her for all the time on my ship!" I argued "My hat has taken more bullets than she has!"

     "That is because you are always putting youself and your crew in danger!" Her face was becoming as red as an apple now.

      "You weren't there!" I shot back "The dangers out there are serious business,  that's why I made it a point avoid them whenever I can. You're just dramatizing it in your head."

     "Dramatizing?!" Rarity *cough cough* dramatically screeched.

     "Yeah, dramatizing." I vocally agreed with myself.

     "Why you little--!"

     "Will everypony just shut the hay up?!" Sweetie Bell had found her voice. Rarity and I were startled to hear her normally sweet voice in such a way, but we reluctantly did as told, scowls on our faces. She released my from her iron hoof and crossed her forelegs defeatedly.

     "Now that I have your attention..." Sweetie began in a scolding tone "I'm an fully grown mare now, and I can speak for myself. Rarity, aren't I right around the same age that you started saving the world and putting youself in worse danger than I ever did? Cloud is right, I can handle myself."

     Sweetie shot her sister a look that could have froze Tartarus in a block of ice, Rarity shrunk under it just the slightest bit. Score one for The Captain.

     "And Captain, Rarity is right, too. You both are." she went on "You put me and the crew in danger more times than I can even keep track of. This probably won't be the only time that I see the buisness end of a flintlock either." Sweetie trotted over and put a hoof on my shoulder, her expression lightening a little "But you took good care of us. I've never seen a single pony die in ten years on The Singer, all thanks to you and the others."

     She stopped and put a hoof to her chin thoughtfully "Though I do see ponies get shot on almost a daily basis, including yourself." she stated, eliciting a semi-horrified look from her sister. "Come to think of it, I should really start carrying a gun." Another horrified look from Rarity.

     "Ghastly..." she muttered, much of the anger from a minute before slowly vented itself out "How can you live like this, Sweetie?"

     My navigator gave her sister a noncommittal shrug "It's adventure. I like adventure. There'll always be something new to see, someplace new to go, or somepony new to meet. It's keeps you guessing, keeps you on your toes. Sure, it can be dirty, painful, and sometimes it can be downright cruel. But, as far as I've seen, it's always worth it in the end."

     Rarity sighed and ran a white hoof through her curly mane "Well I can't say I blame you." She looked at Sweetie and gave her a sad smile "Saving Equestria always did give me quite a thrill. Sometimes I miss our little adventures in Ponyville, no matter how dirty or uncouth they were. I guess wanderlust is in our blood, Sweetie. That certainly explains why our parents were always off vacationing someplace."

     Rarity moved a step closer to her sister and gave her a big affectionate hug, Sweetie rertuned it happily "You're getting to be just like me." Rarity murmured "Strong willed."

     "I'm sorry for yelling at you." Sweetie said, breaking the hug.

     "And I'm sorry for overreacting. " Rarity admittied.

      There was a short scilence, both sisters leveled an expectant look at me.

     "What?" I asked.

       Their stare only hardened.

     "What?"

     Sweetie coughed lightly, giving me a look that said "Say something idiot!"

     "Oh right, uhh... I'm sorry for..." What did I reall have to be sorry for? It wasn't my fault that Sweetie got grazed! She's the one that wanted to be on that job in the first place. But if I knew mares at all, they wanted an apology from me, regardless of whether I'd done it or not.

     "I'm sorry for getting Sweetie Bell shot?" There, that should satisfy them.

     It was Rarity's turn to shrug noncommittaly, she looked at Sweetie and asked her "Close enough?"

     "Close enough." the little sister confirmed.

     Humph...  mares. Can't live with 'em.

X-X-X-X-X

     ...Can't live without 'em.

     With Rarity not fixing to skin me and use my fur as a new material for one of her fancy hats, I managed to persuade the unicorn to give me what I came here for. With Sweetie Bell's help, of course.

    She forcibly yanked the coat and hat off of me and whisked the garments away to the back room, presumably her work shop. Rarity slammed the door shut and that was that. I suddenly found myself with more time on my hooves. Oh joy.

     My eyes wandered around the fancily decorated shop as I sat there twiddling my hooves. Many half-finished outfits lied scattered about the room, hanging on those creepy faceless mannequin ponies that I thought could come to life when I was a foal. Come to think of it, this place was a mess by Canterlot standards. Several rolls of fabric, sewing tools, and spools of thread were haphazardly toosed about like a fashion tornado had ripped through here.

     Amidst the mess were a few semi precious gems that I knew Rarity liked to decorate her clothes with. Amethysts, peices of Jade, and garnets and the like. I'm not ashamed to say that I pocketed a few of those when Sweetie wasn't looking.

     What do you expect from me? I'm already a smuggler! Why not add "thief" to the list, it holds much less social weight than it used to.

     "So uh, how long does this usually take her?" I asked Sweetie Bell, who was sitting silently on one of those armless couches that head doctors have you lay on when you're being examined. I've seen Rarity faint on it quite a few times....Don't ask.

     Sweetie didn't answer at first, she seemed to be staring off into the distance, lost in her own thoughts.

     "Sweetie."

     She whiped her head around like I had yelled at her "Huh?!"

     "You okay?"

     She laughed quietly and unconsciously rubbed her wound "Yeah, I'm good.-" she paused to gather her thougts "-I just haven't yelled at Rarity like this since I was a filly. I always knew that she never liked me working on The Singer all that much. It had to come to a head at some point. I'm just suprised that it took ten years."

     "Well worryin' about family will do strange things to a pony." I commented "Hell...my ma nearly had an aneurysm every time I went out sailing to The Griffin Republic. She would say "Son, if you die on that ship, I'll kill ya. I will drag your sorry flank kicking and screaming out of Tartarus itself just to send ya back." She would usually be threatening me with a silver soup spoon when she said it."

"Sounds like a hard mare." my navigator observed.

     "Eh, sometimes she was." I admitted "But not always, sometimes she was an old softie." I chuckled "But it was the first one most of the time."

     "So your parents, where are they now?" Sweetie asked innocently.

      "Weeeell..." I droned as the smile ran away from my face "I don't rightly know. I wasn't with them when The Curse hit, and they weren't in Canterlot after it was over and done with." I shrugged "Haven't seen 'em in twelve years."

     "That's horrible!" Sweetie gasped.

     I let my head droop a little "I can't disagree with ya there. But hope ain't lost, not to me. Odds are that my pa's still sittin' in his lazybuck chair back in Ponyville like nothing was wrong. He always was stubborn stallion, would rather fight a band of heathen ponies and a pack of wolves with his bare hooves than move out out of the house he built."

     "But I thought you lived in Cloudsdale?"

     "Not all our lives, my parents were in the trading buisness. We've moved around more than a few times, goin' where the goods are made. He liked to busy stuff factory direct." I laughed as the memories of those two old ponies flashed through my mind. "This one time, he--"

     "Finished~!" Rarity singsonged from the adjacent room.

     "Wow, that was fast." I wittly observed.

     "Oh it was hardly a challenge." Rarity said as she crossed into the room. Floating beside her was my hat and coat, perfectly repaired and looking just like the day I bought them.

     One thing that I found to always be true in these trying times is that a good sailor can be measured by the quality of his or her own apparel. That might sound a litte shallow at first, but less so when you think about it. Sailors who take pride in having a nice coat have always tended to live longer without getting shot. Not sure why that is, but it's just something I've observed and learned to emulate over the years.

     That being said, bigger and fancier isn't always better. The stuffy, overpaid captains that run military vessels have hats the size of their bank accounts and vests with more brass on them than a chandelier.  Flashy outfits tend to attract pirate ships like Rarity to a fashion show. And the pony with the shiniest outfit is often the first one in the room to be shot since the purpose of their clothes was to attract attention, be it negative or positive.

     But a pony with a more humble, yet still high-quality wardrobe garners that pony more respect from their peers. Plus, ponies were quicker to trust other ponies that walked, talked, and dressed like them. And I did trade mostly with the small settlements of farmers and ranchers farther away from big cities. You couldn't have picked me out of a crowd back in Serenity island, but in Canterlot I stick out like a bar of gold in a bucket of coal.

     My particular vestments were a brown leather duster with two sewn-in flintlock holsters on the inside and enough pockets keep all the odds and ends that I pick up over time. My hat was a wide-brimmed fedora that matched the coat, good for keeping the sun off my face. It seemed Rarity had stuck a grey feather in the crown when I wasn't looking. I pretended not to notice.

     Rarity, who didn't know the first thing about the principles of an air captain's attire, chose to comment on my apparel. "I haven't the foggiest idea why you want to wear the same outfit over and over again until they're worn out. That's just like eating hay for dinner for ten years straight."

     I considered explaining to her the same thing I just explained to you, but that would be a waste of breath considering how set in her ways Rarity is. "It suits me." I said simply, accepting the coat and slipping into it.

     She hummed "Well maybe we can fix that scraggly mane of yours next. Honestly, it looks like somepony stole your hair and replaced it with a bird's nest."

      I pulled the hat over my head defensively "Huh uh! I don't do haircuts." I like my scraggly-ass mane, thank you very much! Why do mares insist on changing me?

     I thanked Rarity for her work and paid her my fine. I may scoff at the the high class types in Canterlot, but even though she thought of herself that way, Rarity just wasn't one of those snobs because even after all that, she still gave me her famous friends and family discount. We nearly came to blows not minutes before, and she forgave me... just like that. I didn't know whether to surprised or...Actually, scratch that, I was suprised as hell. Most ponies tend to hold a grudge longer than five seconds. Heh, not Rarity.

     I stayed a for about another hour as Rarity and her sister chatted amicably with me about The Sea Singer and its crew. Nothing important or already known to you, the reader. After the conversation died down, I thanked the dressmaker again and went on my way. Sweetie chose to stay a little longer, we had two and a half days left after all.

X-X-X-X-X

     Finding Berry Punch was easy as could be after night fell. All one would have to do to find her was to ask the clerk at The Autumn Leaf Inn "How the grapes were growing this year" and she would lead you into a craggy old wine cellar. This cellar served as the best and biggest speakeasy in Canterlot, founded by the heaviest drinker in all of Equestria.

     Berry Punch was leaning on an old oak bar, tending to seven or so of the early drinkers. Behind her was a wall of glass bottles coming in all shapes, sizes, and colors. The stock of different brands of drink she had was staggering,  most of the companies that made these bottles of liquor either died when the Canterlot Prohibition Initiative was approved, or were lost when Nature's Curse took over.

     The room itself was as big as most above ground bars. I heard that Berry had this cellar expaned by a hell of a lot when she heard about the CPI, hoping to horde some of her alcohol. The excavation must have been stopped early because more than a few spots on the far end were rough granite instead of smooth concrete.

     The place was dimly lit by a collection of candles strewn about and placed on the tables. These candles were all cinnamon scented, probably to hide the smell of unwashed patrons and strong drink. Instead, the different acrid and spicy odors fought to overpower one another, creating an nauseating smell that could knock a grown stallion off his hooves. I always tried not to breathe through my nose when I was here.

     I said that The Autumn Leaf was the best speakeasy in Canterlot, but that didn't mean it wasn't a total shithole, just less shithole-ey than the others.

     Unlike the bar back in Serenity, the ponies here didn't want to beat you to a pulp and steal your money. Rule Number One of the speakeasy was no weapons, they were checked in at the door. And if somepony broke those rules, Berry kept a blunderbuss under the bar as an insurance policy.

     Berry Punch noticed Derpy and I walking down the stairs, she cracked an honest smile and waved us over. We took our seats at the bar and Berry immediately set down two glasses for us.

     "Well if it isn't my favorite suppliers." the purple-on-purple bartender greeted us coolly "Tell me what'cha want to drink, first one's on the house."

     "A martini for me." I said "Dry as a bone and stirred, not shaken." I hate when they shake my martinis. I don't know who started that damned craze, but it's another pony on my long flank-kicking list.

     "Just a glass of root beer for me." my first mate said. Derpy never was much of a drinker, her hoof-eye coordination was already bad enough with alcohol in the mix.

     Berry dissappeared under the counter and returned with a bottle of fine gin and a can of Bucking Bronco Root Beer! She silently stirred me my drink and popped the cap off of Derpy's soda. I thanked her and soon we were sipping on our drinks and talking about booze.

      "So what brings a hardy sailor like you to my humble beer cave?" Berry asked as she leaned on the bar.

     "Business." I stated "I'll be quick about it, because I know both you and I do not like all that small talk and foreplay. I've got four hundred plus units of Serenity moonshine strong enough to turn your liver into a gooey pulp." Well, maybe not her liver. I've heard stories about how Berry Punch could outdrink whole bars full of ponies. None of them had a happy ending for anypony other than Berry.

     Berry Punch gave low whistle and raised an eyebrow "Serenity?  I've been bending over backwards trying to strike a deal with Corn Cobb for months. How did you manage that? If I recall correctly, he tried to shoot you... Twice."

     "Three times." I corrected "And they were all honest-to-Godesses misunderstandings." That was a lie. They were far from misunderstandings, I will not deny that he had good reasons for shooting at me. Stupid, but still good nonetheless.

     "Captain, if I recall correctly, you slept with his daughter all three times." Derpy Hooves said blatantly, getting me a humorless look from Berry "He's dumb, but not dumb enough to misinterpret that."

     "Hey, at least I didn't do it this time around!"

     "Are you offering me... stolen goods, Cloud?" Berry suspiciously inquired.

      "Heh, it's not stolen if you pay for it~!" my first mate singsonged.

     "I paid Cobb." I said in my emotionless, poker-playing tone. I took a sip of my cocktail "He didn't agree to it, but I paid him a fair price."

     The bartender stopped to ponder for a moment, then shrugged "Eh... Close enough, I guess. I've already got enough contraband in my private stash alone to keep me in prison for life. It's not like adding "fence" to my long list of felonies will do much."

     "Well technically you wouldn'tbe fencing anything." I protested "It's bought and paid for."

     "Uh huh, and I've "technically" been drinking old grape juice all my life." Berry drawled in an unamused tone.

     Another sip of my martini "So, do you want it or not?"

     Berry cast a long glance at the drinkers sulking about the bar, various drinks in hoof. She rubbed her forehead tiredly and sighed "Yeah, I guess I could do with some stronger supply. That is, if you're telling the truth about the liver thing."

     "We thought you'd say that." Derpy declared, pulling out a meduim-sized glass bottle filled with a hazy white liquid and hoofing it over to the bartender.

     Berry took the bottle of 'shine and studied it's sloshing contents carefully. I had no idea what she could have learned from staring at it, but then again, I'm not the one who's been drinking since I got my cutie mark. She took the cork in her teeth and yanked it out with a satisfying pop that echoed throughout the bar-cave, grabbing the attention of the quiet drinkers. Before I could even blink, Berry had a shot glass on the counter and was already pouring herself a sample.

     The bartender gingerly held the glass to her nose and took a deep, deep breath. Judging by the way her nose curled and the hairs of her mane stood on end, Berry found it to her liking.

     "You sure this isn't rubbing alcohol?" Berry asked jokingly.

     "Go ahead, try it." Derpy prodded her lightly with a hoof "Try it."

     With a curt 'What the hell?' shrug, Berry 'Iron Liver' Punch threw back the shot like it was chocolate milk, not grimacing or coughing at all.

     Seriously, she was totally unfazed. I was drinking the watered down version of this stuff back on Serenity, and it burned like the fires of Tartarus all the way down! To this very day, I still cringe at the thought of gulping a whole shot of that stuff. Yeesh.

     "Not bad." Berry said approvingly, her voice showing no trace of strain from the 'shine "Not bad at all. This stuff really upholds its reputation. "

     Derpy took a swig of her root beer "So are we in business?"

     "Im sure we could work something out..." Berry said musically,  wicked smile upon her face.

X-X-X-X-XTwo days later...

     Night.

     I allowed my self a long, relaxing breath. The cool air of a midsummer's night came rushing in all at once, filling me up with calm and casting out all the unwanted feelings that had beem irking me for the previous two days.

     Hold it for one...two...three...four... and exhale. You're paranoid, Cloud. I silently told myself Nothing is going on. You've done deals with Berry a million and one times before. It's all routine.

Ugh, but why didn't it feel routine? Why was my gut telling me that there was something wrong?

Because something iswrong! the inner Cloudstrider hissed. That damnanble pony prancing around inside my head had been blaring alarms and raising red flags all day, yelling and screaming and kicking, trying to tell me to back out like a little filly for the past fouty-eight hours. Abort mission! Abandon ship! Get your rutting flank outta there!

     It was so trivial. I was getting worked up all over a tiny detail like an insecure, angsty little teenage filly at the prom. Why hadn't Berry haggled me down any? I just offered her thirty bits a unit and bam! She took the moonshine, just like that. All four crates. Thirty. Bits. That is so not how trading worked.

     Was she slipping? It hadn't even been half a year since she bought that shipment of apple whiskey off me for only fourty percent of what it was worth. Was she playing a practical joke? No...no one joke in all of the Green Sea is funny enough to be worth hundreds of platinum.

     Was she just being generous?

     No, that couldn't be. Berry had her coin purse locked up tighter than Canterlot's own treasury. She wasn't much of a giver, not like that Rarity.

     But yet... it seemed the only logical explanation. I sighed and leaned moapingly over the Singer's brightly painted rails. Why can't ponies be straightforward? Oh by the way Cloud, I'm overpaying you because...

     Eight sailors directly below me were swarming around the dock that Singer was morred to. They went about with ropes and dollys, hauling the four crates of alcohol out through the cargo bay hatch, moving with a purpose, getting the job done. Good workers, the lot of 'em. Derpy sure knows how to pick the good ones.

     I checked my watch, the deal was to go down in twenty five minutes. Twenty. Five. I lightly beat my head on the rail. This indecision's bugging me, should I stay or should I go?

     "You okay, Captain?" the unmistakable high-pitched voice of Scootaloo cam from behind me. Damn, I didn't even hear her trot up to me. That pony sure could be stealthy when she wanted to be.

     "Yeah, yeah." I lied, not bothering to turn and look at her "I'm fine, Scoot. Really."

     The pilot came into the corner of my eye and leaned up on the rail beside me "Cloud, you're easier to read than a neon sign about male enhancement pills. What's up?"

     Another sigh from me "It's just my gut that's bugging me, that's all."

     "Your gut, huh? Have you been to see Doctor Swab yet?"

     Wait, Doctor Swab? "What? No, not--" then I caught the knowing smirk on Scoot's face "--Oh, har har... I'm supposed to be the funny one here, not you."

    She shruged with her tiny orange wings "It's a gift."

     I snorted mirthfuly "If you must know, this deal is just giving my anyeurusms. I'm half tempted to leave money and run."

     "Are you kidding?" my pilot chuckled "That's way too much platinum-ey goodness to leave behind. I'd say this is the best deal Puch has ever given us."

     "And that's what's bothering me." I stated curtly "You've met Berry, she's got a coin purse tighter than an airlock. She just doesn't give good deals, it's not her way. The captain of the Santa Margarita will probably give up his pirating ways before Berry gives us a fair price."

     Scootaloo gave me a look so blank, she would've made a brick wall jealous "Well she just did."

     Yet another sigh from the captain of the Sea Singer "I know."

X-X-X-X-X

     I made my way through the Singer's belly and onto the concrete docks. Most of the crew was dead asleep at this time of night, the few that were awake were milling about the crates of 'shine, waiting for the pickup to arrive so they could finish and go back to bed.

     I checked my watch for the um-teenth time that night. Berry Should be here in three minutes. Three minutes. Threeminutes threeminutes threeminutes. Tres minutos, if you speak Southern Griffin. I myself was a bit rusty in that area.

     I paced around the shipment, unable to hide the effects of my inner turmoil. The few crewponies out here lazily watched me trot back and forth like a caged lion as I muttered my thoughts aloud.

     "This is wrong, this is wrong..." I mumbled under my own breath.

     "Woah, chillax, Cap." one of my newer recruits,  whos name escapes me, said in a drawling tone "You're gonna like, strain your pancreas or something."

     I chuckled aloud. Though this crewmember was a hard woker as I recalled, she had a hardcore hippie accent that I found real amusing. She was never all that bright, either.

     "Suuuureee, maaaan." I emulated her accent perfectly, getting me a small smirk from the mare.

     That lightened my tension a little, as easily distraced as I was. The tighness in my chest released just a bit. "Need to be calm." I told myself, Berry could smell hesitation like a shark smells blood.

     Just then, a familar and raggedy old carriage shambled on to the dock, likely to be holding the certain somepony that had caused me all that inner grief. I forced a fake look of serenity onto my face, drawing from my years of experience as a battle-hardened merchant. It was like a switch, the way that I went into trading mode.

     The carriage door swung open and out trotted the bartender with a deep commitment to the color purple. Berry sashayed across the dock and regarded me with a cool expression. But, like most of this visit to Canterlot, something seemed off. She wasn't looking the same as she normally did on these exchanges, I detected a flash of emotion that played across her face. I couldn't put my hoof on what emotion exactly, was that...regret? Well that isn't a good sign. Not at all.

     "Lovely night, isn't it?" I said conversationally, ignoring the pony in my head that was urging me to pack the crew up and head for the skies.

     Berry looked distractedly up at Luna's starry sky, the pony in my head was banging against the walls "Yeah... sure is." she said dreamily.

     A long, akward silence hung in the air like the smell of the speakeasy as we looked at each other, unsure of what to say. I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice trailed off before it could even begin.

     "So, the goods?" Punch quickly inquired.

     I nodded my head vigorously "Yeah, yeah, got them right here--" I bumped a hoof against the wooden create "--Almost four hundred and fifty units, all packed up and ready to ship--" I stopped mid-sentence.

     Wait a moment. That carriage had driven off. Berry was all alone. Those crates were mighty heavy. Thoughts processing.  Pony in my head was screaming bloody murder.

     "Uh Berry, how are you going to get the goods back to the Atumn Leaf?"

     The bartender lowered her head shamefully and murmured something incomprehensible. The pony in my head was beating drums and banging cymbals,  warning me to vacate the premises.

     "Berry, you're scaring me."

     She said nothing.

     "Berry!?"

     She whipped her head upward and shouted one word. A single, little word that stopped my heart, a word that all smugglers dreaded. One of the few words that can strike true fear into the heart of every that has ever served on the Sea Singer "Echo!"

     Damn it.

     Out of nowhere, like striking lightning, they swarmed. At least two dozen burly grey ponies clad in offical gold and silver Canterlot Royal Gaurd armor materialized onto the narrow dock. Some appeared out of thin air, some crawled out of the woodwork, some flew in, and another even popped out of a nearby barrel. They all leveled their bayonets at me and my crew, the razor knives flashed a reflection of the full moon. We were completely and utterly surrounded.

     The pony inside my head facehooved. This was a booze bust. Berry Punch had betrayed me. I had been caught with my pants down like a rutting amateur. I should have listened to him, the pony in my head. He was right all along.

     I said the only thing that came to mind "How could you, Berry?"

     The traitor refused to meet my furious gaze, instead choosing to hang her head and shy away behind the impenetrable wall of muscle and steel.

     No less than five gaurds advanced foward, robbing me of my hat, coat, and all it's contents. I made no move to resist, it would have been an utterly futile attempt. I didn't care at the time, all I could think of was Berry Punch.

     "I trusted you, Berry."

     The only indication of her presence was a flash of mulberry between the limbs of the police. The mare said nothing.

     "Coward." I spat out that word like it was the most vile of poisons.

     "You have the right to remain silent." One of the gaurds drawled stoically. I had no intention of exercising that particular right.

     "Coward!" I echoed "Traitor! Low down, conniving, good-for-nothing, bitch!"

     "...Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law." I felt rings of cold, hard metal clamped under all four if my hooves one by one.

     "Dirty, dirty whore!" I continued, unperturbed by the cuffs.

     "You have the right to an attorney..." Celestia,  was that pig still going? It didn't matter.  All that mattered was that a pony I trusted betrayed me. She was Spitfire's inside source. She made these past few days hell on Equestria for me. Berry Punch was now my enemy. I was too focused on her to notice that I was now being lead away from my ship, away from my love.

     I've been busted, and there wasn't a Luna-damned thing in the world I could do about it.

Chapter 3: The Jailhouse Rock

The Sea SingerChapter Three: The Jailhouse Rock

     Betrayal's a funny thing to experience.

     You think you can trust a pony, you think that he or she is somepony you can lean on, somepony who you know well enough to turn your back to, somepony that you're totally sure about. Whether they stab you in the aforementioned back or not is up to them. In the end, it's their decision to make, regardless of what you think about it. They can either pull you up from hanging off a cliff, or stomp on your feet and let your sorry flank fall to the ground like a slab of meat. That's just the way it works, if you trust the wrong pony, you could wind up injured,  in jail, dead, or worse.

     This, I have done.

     There's no surefire way to know who will betray you and who won't. They either do, or they don't, it's a fifty-fifty chance. That being said, the only way to not be double-crossed is to not have any friends, family, or lovers and live a sad, sad life cut off from society. It seems that the floor of the Everfree Forest is the best place to do that. But that doesn't seem very fun, now does it?

     Berry Punch was the only pony whom I've ever trusted that didn't lay her head to rest in the hull of a ship, and look how that turned out. There are less than a dozen ponies alive that I know that I can trust. That would be my best friend Derpy, my navigator, engineer, and pilot, Oakfang the diamond dog, Cotton Swab the medic, Crowe the security officer (You haven't met him yet. I'll get there soon), and my neice, Easybreeze. Eight ponies. That's all. I have to sleep with both eyes open when I'm around the rest of the world.

     But, I digress. You all don't want to hear me whine about my trust issues, do you? You want to know what happens next. Well, my friends, this little adventure of mine starts with a jail cell. A cold, damp, dark, and generally unfriendly jail cell.

X-X-X-X-X

     What's the best way to describe a prison?

     It's been done a million times before in a million different books, and the descriptions all seemed the same. Cold, damp, dark, and generally unfriendly.

     Belive me, I know jail cells. I've spent more nights in a room with bars for a door than a proper hotel. And compared to both the hotels and dungeons, this one was actually kind of nice. There was a cot with clean sheets, a sink with actual running water, and a crapper that wasn't three years overdue on a cleaning. Come to think of it, this is probably the best prision I'd ever been in.

     Trust me, I know for sure that Canterlot has seen it's fair share of scum and villainy. These walls had mostly been temporary home to drunks and petty thieves, occasionally housing the odd drug dealer or murder suspect. In my experience, jails cell with high traffic like this one tended to be a bit...messy. What with the drinkers mistaking the sink for the toilet, and the teenage hoodlums writing profane words on the walls and drawing highly unflattering images of Celestia on the floors.

     How they kept it so tidy, I'll never know. Probably the same way they keep those bathrooms all pearly-white. Seriously, those restrooms were totally awesome, and I don't even feel weird for writing that.

     Anyway, moving on from how rutting clean this place was... After the gaurds manhandled me into a tiny cage hooked to the back of a carriage, they stripped me of everything I'd been carrying, guns, sword, wallet, hat (My hat, for the Sisters' sake!), and even my damn watch. I'd bet ten platinum that my father's golden time-teller had conviently gone missing while they took my stuff to the vault, but then again I can't bet a thing, cuz my freaking wallet was gone.

     So, I did the only thing anyone in this purgatory of a jailhouse would do, I made myself comfortable on the cot and waited. There's wasn't much I could do at this point. There was nopony around the place to talk to, no other inmates or even a single guard. I was isolated, though I preferred it that way. All that was left to do was pass the time until somepony comes along and reminds you why you're in here.

     ...

     .....

     ...............

     Well it's that time to play one of my favorite games again; Find Something to Do! With your host, Captain Cloudstrider of the Airship Sea Singer! Also joining us will be the ever-so-charming pony in his head.

Good to be here, Cloud! the inner voice echoed inside my head Hey, remember that time I told you to back off from that deal? Wasn't that a barrel of laughs?!

"Shut up." I muttered aloud, my gruff voice filling the deathly silent dungeon for a brief moment.

     Well, I guess I should play the game now. Let's see...something to do, something to do, somethig to-

X-X-X-X-X

     "Oak tree? No, that's two words!"

     The gears in my head turned.

     "Everfree? Eh, probably. Then again, probably not."

     Okay guys, quick question: what word rhymes with "country?" I, for the life of me, cannot figure it out.

     "Munchies? Hmmm, nope."

     Gaah! This sucks. I give up.

     ...

     Now I have nothing to occupy mysef with. Oh joy.

     I checked my watch, only to stare at my hoof about two seconds too long before I realized it was not there. "Oh, right." Well, at least I had probably killed about twenty minutes with that little game.

     I tossed and turned in the cot, this thing was not at all comfortable. Then again, I was in a rutting jail cell, which is pretty much synonymous with "crappy beds and plenty of alone time."

     Finally finding a reasonably comfortable position to lay in, I relaxed.

Oh Goddesses... thoughts began to creep into my mind The proverbial shit has hit the proverbial fan. This has got to be to be the biggest booze bust in history. Four hundred bottles of some of the most potent moonshine in the Green Sea, and I'm the dumb fool who was caught with it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The freaking Smuggler's Guild is probably going to put my portrait up on a wall somewhere in Las Pegasus HQ. They'll take every new member up to it and say "See this scraggly stallion right here? The one with the dorky hat. Do not, under any circumstances, be like him. Else you'll end up stairing at metal bars the rest of your life."

Funny, I hadn't even come to terms with it until then. It took me this long to realize that I was going to jail. There was no way in Tartarus or Equestria that I could weasel my way out in court either, not a single way. The bust was too quick and clean to leave anything to technicalities, even with the best lawyers in Canterlot. There was just too much damn evidence. I was, for lack of a better term, royally and utterly screwed beyond comprehension.

     That was it. No ifs ands or buts about it. I. Was. Going. To. Prison. No more smuggling, no more airships, no more skies. They'll probably take away my ship, turn it into a military vessel, let half my crew go, and send the other half into jail with me. That'll be fun, all the newer crewmembers will probably blame the whole thing on me, and then I'll become some big burly earther's "shower buddy."

Oh Goddesses, my crew. How are they going to handle this? They can't leave, most of them only know the Sea Singer and nothing else. The Crusaders will have to find another ship, probably a crappy one compared to the Singer, Dr. Swab will have to go back that hospital full of greddy bloated doctors, Derpy would have to move back in with her parents, Crowe would have to go back to pirating,  I don't even know what Oakfang would do, and Easybreeze...

Oh Goddesses, Easybreeze! She'll be sent some run-down old orphanage with no one to look after her now. Celestia have mercy, I can't leave her all alone, not now. My brother, Wind Waker, he and Rose are still on the lamb, and they have no idea what's going on! I promised them....I swore to them that I'd take care of her, no matter what. I can't break that promise, I just can't.

     But I'm here...and I can't do a damn thing outside of these four walls except talk to the gaurds, and even they won't pay me any mind because there not even here!

     I sighed aloud. That's it, I've got to get out of here... and I think I know just how to do it.

     I darted off the bed and stuck my head through the door's bars "Gaurds! Hey, gauurrrdss!" My words echoed down the dim hallway of jail cells, with no ears but my own to hear them "Oh for the love of..." Well, there goes that plan.

      Why in the Deep Green Sea would they have no guards aroud? What if I had a heart attack, huh? Who would know? Okay, maybe I'm not that old yet, but it doesn't mean that I won't have and medical emergency with no one to look out for--

     Ahh forget it. I could actually use this to my advantage.

     I spun around and dragged the overly firm mattress off of the cot and, to my delight, there were plenty of decent springs in the bed frame, more than enough to preform the feat that I had in mind.

     I picked a loose spring out of the crowd with my teeth. It was just bendy enough to get it into shape. For almost half an hour, I fumbled with that peice of metal in my hooves and mouth, biting and bending it around, until it was as straight as it was ever going to get, then I added a little hooked end to it with no small amount of effort.

     With my newfound tool I sashayed over to the locked prison door. The bed spring found its way into the door's keyhole and I slowly picked at the inner mechanism of the lock.

     Okay, I hadn't had to pick a lock in quite some time, I had mostly used the skill for a little petty burglary back in Canterlot just after the Curse hit, that was about a year or so before I found the Sea Singer. Point is, I'm pretty rusty at this particular skill.

     Oh, I felt it. I felt the lock give way. Almost got it... just a little to the left... amlost there... almos-- Snap!

     "Ponyfeathers!" I growled as my makeshift lockpick snapped. Maybe I was a little rustier than I thought.

     No matter, I had hundreds of springs and an unlimited time budget. I plucked another spring from the bed frame and went to work.

X-X-X-X-X

     "C'mon baby, ninth time's time's the charm!"

That's what you said the eigth time around. the voice in my head whispered.

     "Shutup."

Tic tic tic...tic...tic...Chunk!

The iron door triumphantly swung itself open.

     I stopped to admire my hoofwork, feeling quite glad that I had been a theiving hoodlum ten years ago. "Groovy." was all I said before trotting out of my cell a free pony.

     I peered into the other cells as I passed them by. As I had suspected, every one of them was just as empty as the last. Odd. Very odd is the time when Canterlot's dungeon had a slow day. That bugged me There should be other crooks that aren't me in here. I thought.

     Whatever, I was more concerned with the lack of gaurds. There were no sentries posted in the hallway like any other prison, meaning that they were stationed elsewhere, meaning that I was more likely to run in to them when I leave the room. Wonderful.

    Okay, I needed to come with a plan. Step one: Escape cell--check. What's step two? Well, obviously,  it should be Aquire stuff. Now...where would they be keeping my coat and hat? Probably in a room behind the front desk, whch was likely to be gaurded. Yeah, perfect, just what I needed.

     I found myself at the end of the hallway. When I tested the door, I found it to be locked.

     Not a problem. Tick tack tock, picked was the lock. I was lucky to not break my last lockpick that time, else It'd be a freaking pantomime.

     The door opened up into staircase,  scarcely lit with flickering orange light by the few torches clinging to the walls. I've got to hand it to the interior decorators of this place, they sure knew how to make a dungeon look spooky as hell.

     It took more time than I had thought it would to ascend to the top of the stairs. I must have gone up four flights before I reached the end, this place was probably far underground. Maybe that's why there are no inmates here, the cops decided that putting the crooks in jail wasn't worth all the effort of climbimg all these damn stairs, and they made an exception for me since I was on the receiving end of the biggest booze bust in history.

      Anyhoo, the top of that staircase held a single door just like the last, only not locked this time. It opened up into a bleakly decorated room with only a table and a few chairs and...a raven blue griffin with sword in his claw and a flintlock in the other standing over the unconscious forms of two royal gaurds, his chest heaving as if he had just punched out a pair of burly earth ponies.

     I relaxed my body the instant I saw this griffin's face. "Hello, Crowe."

     My crewmember's eyes went wide when he caught sight of his captain before him.  "Jefe?" he shouted in southern griffin "What the hell?! What are you doing?"

     "Escaping.  I trust you're doing the same."

     Crowe shook his head vigorously and pointed an accusing talon my way "No, I'm here to rescue you, hombre!"

     I chuckled and put my hoof on his shoulder "You're acting like you don't know me, Crowe. When has there ever been a cage that could hold my sorry flank?" Come to think of it, it was pretty easy escaping my cell. Maybe they'll make up for it by having competent gaurds. That was a joke. Prison gaurds are never better at combat than you, it's like some unbreakable cosmic law or something.

     The griffin chuckled along with me "Heh, I ain't never met a place you couldn't break out of. You're like some kind of mastero, man."

     "I try." Oh yeah, I should probably ask him about Step Two "Anyway, do you know where the keep all the prisoner's personal affects?"

     Crowe cocked an eyebrow at me "The hell are "personal affects?" Is that like a band or something?"

     I stared at the lookout blankly, my brain working overtime to comprehended what he just said before I reminded myself that Equestrian was not his first language "Oh, uh no. It means "their stuff." Do you know the place where they put all the things that the prisoners had before they got tossed in jail is? Sorry, I forgot that you've only been speaking Equestrian for a year."

     A glint of comprehension sparkled in Crowe's eyes. It looks like somepony just learned a new word. "Yeah, I saw them gaurds take your clothes into some room. I know the way from here, vamos."

     "Lead the way..." And so, I followed the griffin.

X-X-X-X-X

     Crowe had been busy.

     All the way through, the griffin led me past a multitude of unconscious and tied up ponies, all strewn about the floor, forcing me to step (and trip) over a ton of gaurds. Some of them had shallow bullet wounds and cuts, but not a single one of them were dead. There was going to be a hell of a lot of blood stains on the carpet,  but no bodies to clean up. Crowe had always taken great pains to not get anypony killed, which I can respect. Not having the blood of good ponies on your hooves is an excellent feeling to have.

     On my way to the room that we spoke of, I noticed a particular shade of yellow from the corner of my eye. It was a specific kind of color, found only in the coat of a ceartian irate lieutenant that I barely knew.

     I casually trotted up to Lt. Spitfire, bound with the wires of an electric radio and gagged with her own uniform hat. Crowe had laid her in an upright position and, judging by the way she was trying to murder me with her fiery eyes, Spitfire was already conscious.

     I yanked the gag out of her mouth "Howdy, miss Spitfire. Did'ja make up your mind on that cup of joe I offered you?"

     The officer spat some excess hat fuzz out of her mouth and fixed a gaze of hatred on me "Not a chance."

     "Not a chance that you'd make up your mind ooooorrrr--?" I droned.

     "Not a chance that I'd go on a--" She stopped herself "Why am I even talking to you? Go away and leave me be."

     Ohh, that is so not the thing to say to me "Just because you said that, I'm going to sit here and chat you up until you accept my offer." I plopped my sorry flank on the floor and gave her an easy going smile. You know what they say about mares, persistence is key. Persistence and breath mints.

     Crowe took a step foward "Uhh, Jefe? You sure we got time for this? I'm sure that a few gaurds got awa--"

     "Quiet, Crowe." I commanded, waving a hoof at him "I'm getting my game on."

     "Ay Jefe, sometimes I just cannot understand you."

     I ignored my crewmate and looked deep into the lieutenant mare's brown eyes, she looked back with a gaze that suggested bloddy murder. "So why do you hate me?" I asked.

     "Why do you like me?" she countered.

     "No way, I asked first."

     Spitfire rolled her eyes "I don't like you because you're a self-serving smuggler and a petty crook. You have no regard for the law, only for yourself. I read your file. I know you better than you're actually aware of." Wait, I have a "file?" Damn. That's the kind of thing that I like avoid. Having "a file" never bodes well for a stallion in my line of work.

     It was my turn to roll a pair of eyes "Whatever. My file lies."

     "Now you answer my question." she demanded me.

     "Nope!" I cheerily declared, and then preceeded to unceremoniously jam the hat-gag back into to the fair lieutenant's mouth.

      Spitfire grumbled angrily through the peice of clothing,  cursing me in some elaborate mumble language while I went on my merry way.

     "Uh, Captain." Crowe said to me just as we trotted out of earshot "I'm pretty sure that's not the way to properly woo a girl."

     I shot the griffin a dry look "Miss Spitfire don't seem like the cany and flowers type of mare, now does she?"

     "She doesn't seem like the sarcasm and bondage type either." he countered.

     "Touché."

      "Huh?"

     "It means, "good point" or "you win."

     "Oh."

     We continued on through the prison. So far I had counted ninteen ponies that Crowe had incapacitated. Hot damn, I sure made the right decision in appointing him security officer, the guy could knock more heads than five of me put together.

     Ooops, make than twenty. I spotted a uniformed EBRoT officer splayed out over some secretary's desk. On her left hoof, I noticed, was a particularly nice and shine gold w--Hey, that's my watch!

     "I knew it!" I roared as I galloped over the the oblivious officer "Somepony owes me ten platinum."

     The mare only twitched as I undid the watch and put it back where it belongs, on my hoof and nopony else's. Just as I was redoing the clasp, that officer's eyes fluttered open. "W-what...?" she murmured blearily.

     I instantly froze in place and shared a look with Crowe. The mare was fumbling to find her balance on the wooden desk. She gazed around the room dizzily, her eyes came to rest upon me and my security officer. "Hey, you're not supposed to--"

Ring! The telephone gave of a cheery chime as I smacked the officer upside the head with it, instantly sending her back to dreamland.

      I tossed the phone to the floor "Well that was unexpected."

     "No shit." Crowe agreed.

     "Come on. Let's blow this joint."

     "Right behind you."

X-X-X-X-X

     Guns guns guns! Who loves guns? I love guns!

     After a bit of poking around for my stuff, Crowe and I inadvertently uncovered a treasure trove of gunpowder and steel... the armory. Lucky for Crowe that the gaurds hadn't gotten here when he broke in and I busted out, else there'd be a major shootout.

     At least a dozen muskets and two dozen pistols lined either wall, along with a multitude of standard EBRoT short swords and two mannequins decorated with full sets of plate-mail armor. There was enough steel in here to arm a small outer-rim colony.

     "Ooooh, shiny!"

     Too bad that I was in a hurry and I couldn't carry too much stuff, all this weaponry would be worth a fortune in a place like Serenity Island. I don't know if you knew this, but iron was getting hard as hell to find since all the mines down below that belonged to Equestria were flodded with rutting killer plants and giant pony-eating insects. Besides, a half-earth pony and a griffin walking out of the city jail with their arms and bags full of guns would get the attention of every cop in Canterlot.

     Instead of looting everything in sight, I merely grabbed what I could afford to carry; which was a pair of powder horns, two six-pack tins of musket shots, a single flintlock pistol, and a sword for good measure. All that stuff should be well-hidden under my coat when I do find it.

     We moseyed out of the armory and quickly found my stuff locked away in the room next door. Finnaly. I was totally naked with out my hat and coat, both in a literal and emotional way. It felt like I was walking around with a "shoot me" sign taped to my back when I was without my gear.

     Now armed with a pair of custom made flintlocks and and a cocky attitude, I proudly strode out of that jail like I owned the place, into the busy streets of Midtown. I was a free stallion. Yes siree, ain't no cage that can hold the alustrious Captian Cloudstride and his merry security officer. We were unstoppable, unflappable, and unbreakab--

     "Oh shit." I uttered.

     "Oh mierda." Crowe echoed in his native tounge.

     Facing us down was nothing less than four whole squads of EBRoT Special Forces Police, scattered about the streets in defensive positions. A wall of steel armor and pure muscle stared me down behind the sights of over a dozen muskets, all trained on and Crowe and I.

     "Well... this sucks." Crowe deadpanned.

Chapter 4: Gathering

The Sea SingerChapter Four: Gathering

     Have you ever had a feeling of Deja Vu?

     Well, that's what I felt in spades whilst staring down a full team of EBRoT officers, armed to the teeth and looking to be in a "shooty" mood. Almost like I had had the same feeling of being caught red-hooved the night before...Oh wait.

     I shielded my eyes from the bright light as we exited the prison. Celestia's sun was just beginning to peek its bright face out from the spiraling white towers of Uptown Canterlot, the orange light glistened off of the brass rooftops, giving each one of them a fiery aura like no other. Goddesses, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night, did I? Few ponies were out and about this morning, the citizens of Midtown tended to sleep past twelve if they could help it, as most of them made their own hours being mostly shopkeepers and stay-at-homes. As a result, over a dozen fully armed and armored gaurds standing in the middle of the street went almost unnoticed by the general population.

     "Drop your weapons!" one of the officers barked, her voice muffled by the full-face helmet that all the combat officers of EBRoT wore. She was probably the coordinator, judging by the fancy insignia on her helmet.

     Crap. That could ruin my whole day.

     With glacial slowness, I did as the policemare said,  unhooking the holster that held the pistol that I stole. It clattered to the floor with a quiet-shattering roar, making everypony wince. Then came the sword, which made a similar noise as it hit the road. Then off came my duster, which lightly jingled with all trinkets and loose change that seemed to collect in the pockets as I slipped it off.

     "The hat, too. Take it off, take it all off!" the leader ordered.

     "Take it all off?!" I echoed "I'm a smuggler, not a stripper!"

Boom! A musket shot whizzed my and Crowe's head and embeded itself into the concrete wall of the jailhouse, lightly peppering us with shards of wall and causing me and Crowe to reflexively curse.

     "Son of a gun!"

     "Maldito hijo de puta!" I had no idea what Crowe said, but I knew it didn't involve the magic of friendship or anythig of the like.

     I looked to the gash in the building, then back to the crowd of armored gaurds, then back to the gash, then to the gaurds. The sour scent of burnt gunpowder wafted into my nostrils. "Okay, I see your point..." Off came the hat, which fluttered almost daintily to the street.

     "Happy now?" I asked irritably.

     "Bring 'em through." the leader said gruffly from deep inside her helmet, completely ignoring my query. Instantaneously, the mass of iron and muscle parted like a giant gate, revealing a real scrawny-lookin' mauve pegasus colt with a scroll clutched in his teeth. The colt wore a bright red sash with a crest that I recognized, he must have belonged to the Equestrian Courier Corps. Which,  incidentally, was owned and overseen by EBRoT.

     The courier gave the police officers that made up the "gate" nervous glances as he trotted through. Wow, this guy looked so thin that he could've been knocked over by a stiff breeze, most couriers are like that, something about them flying farther on the jet streams.

     The colt stopped just a few steps away from me "Uhhmmm..." he said in a high-pitched voice that suggested he was about fourteen. This kid must have been a cadet. I took the scroll from his maw so he could speak properly "Thanks, uh, are you Captain Cloudstrider of the airship Sea Singer?"

     "Judging by the gaggle of gaurds pointing muskets at me..." I said "Yeah, I'm him. Sometimes I wish I wasn't. "

     The courier allowed himself a glance at the officers "Ohhh-kay. Well, that letter you're holding is for you." He cleared his throat and stood up a little straighter "You are hereby cordially invited to partake in a royal tea party with Her Highness Princess Celestia at presicely twelve of the clock on the twenty eighth of July, Year fourteen of the sixth age at Canterlot Castle."

     Oh that's nic--

     "What?" Crowe and I shouted in unison.

     "I said: You are hereby cor--"

     "I-I-I know what you said!" I stopped the colt "But, why does...?" my voice trailed off. Was this some sick joke that the police orchestrated? If it was, I'd have given them props. This turn of events thoroughly confused the hell out of me.

     I gave Crowe a pleading look, as if he knew why that courier just invited me to a tea party. And not just any tea party, a royal tea party, with Princess Celestia herself. The griffin just gave me a shrug and said "Vete a la mierda si lo sé, capitán."

     "You know I can't understand you, right?"

     "Si."

     I gave Crowe an exasperated look and returned my attention to the colt, who had flown away already. Damn impatient couriers, always something to deliver, always somewhere to be. I instead moved on to unwrap the scroll and skim it over.

~Dear Captain Cloudstrider of the airship Sea Singer,

You are hereby cordially invited to partake in a royal blah blah blah just heard that from the guy...Celestia...All of the current senior officers serving on the airship Sea Singer are required to attend as well as blah blah blah political jargon... presence is absolutely mandatory and failure to attend will be punishable to the fullest extent of the blah blah...

Sincerely,

~Princess Celestia

Well I'll be damned, I just got Celestia's autograph! Ooooooh I am so keeping this invitation. Oh yeah, and there's the mandatory tea party thing, too, but my sovereign's signature seems sooo less ominous than a tea party hosted by said immortal alicorn ruler that I'm legally obliged to go to. I mean, holy crap. It's not every day that the pony whos name you swear by invites you for tea. Sure, almost everypony in Equestria has seen Celestia with their own two eyeballs, especially with her major involvement with the public in the last twelve or so years, but actually meeting her personally is considered one of the greatest honors that a civilian can receive. I haven't spoken with either of the princesses since...Well, since the whole Nightmare Moon thing.

     I rolled the scroll back up and tucked it into my-- Oh right, no coat. Ugh, I hate being naked. I tossed it on the pile made up of my coat, hat, and guns without another thought.

     I caught a flicker of motion from the corner of my eye, the squad leader lady separated herself from the rest as she walked a few paces closer. The sleek plate armor she wore matched the rest of the EBRoT policeponies, it appeared surprisingly flimsy considering how thin it actually was. But make no mistake, gaurd armor is almost impenetrable and hard as hell to forge. I actually have more than a few chunks of those armor plates woven into my own coat. Thanks, Rarity.

     The armor was painted the same color as everything else owned by EBRoT; blue and black. The mare rapped her hoof a single time against the full-face helmet, creating a hollow clang and popping up the tinted face-visor. She had a mug that seemed just as expressive with our without the visor. It could habe made an unmarked piece of white paper jealous.

     "Strider," she said, her voice gravelly and aged "under orders of Princess Celestia herself, we're here to escort you and your crewmember to Canterlot Castle. And don't you even think about bolting, by the way. Our orders are to get you there by any means necessary, even if we have to drag you there kicking, screaming, and bleeding."

     "Captian Cloudstrider." I countered.

     The mare eyed me dangerously "I'm sorry, son." she said slowly "What was that you said? My ears aren't what they used to be."

       "Here we go..." Crowe muttered under his breath, thinking I wouldn't hear, but I did.

     "Oh it's quite alright." I assured "But I prefer to be known by my full name and title; Captain Cloudstrider. Most ponies make that mistake. I think it makes me sound more distinguished,  don't you agree?"

     The officer narrowed her eyes.

X-X-X-X-X

     The lady wasn't kidding about her orders.

     They sure did drag me, not kicking, screaming, or bleeding, mind you, but they paraded me all the way to the castle by a pair of steel handcuffs fastened around my two back hooves. It would have been funny as all hell to see, in a sort of throwing rotten fruit at pony locked in the stockades sort of way. That is, only if I wasn't on the receiving end of those metaphorical fruits.

     "Are we there yet?" I deadpanned to the poor policecolt unlucky enough to be the one who has haul to me through the steets like a rutting apple cart without wheels.

     "No." the officer said in the most unbelievably military tone I've ever heard.

     I let a moment pass.

     "I have to pee."

     "Too bad." Argh, that tone of his voice! It makes me want to put an angry bee in that helmet of his and laugh as he dances in the street like a maniac and causes all the uptight Uptown ponies to get their tails all in a knot.

     A moment passed. I stuck my tounge out at one of the curious rich ponies who stopped to gawk at the sight of a convicted criminal being dragged through the dirt and grime.

     "Are we there yet?"

     "No."

     I sighed dramatically.

     "Are we there yet?"

     "No!"

     "Are we t--"

     "Do you even have any idea how relaxed police brutality laws are in Canterlot?!" another officer practically shouted.

     I shut up.

     ...

     "Are we there yet?"

     "Oh son of a--Yes!" was his actual answer. The gaurd precced his answer by unceremoniously dropping my back hooves on the street and our little convoy came to a halt. Over a dozens sets of eyes including my own stopped to look up at our destination. Standing before us was the ten foot tall wall that formed a circle around Canterlot Castle. The white-washed gold-trimmed stone wall towered over our puny forms as it wraped around the heart of Equestria's capial. Several white and grey gaurds stalked the wall's battlements, creepily leering at us as we strolled up to the gates.

All in all, you're just another brick in the wall my memory echoed that little line from the last song that I heard over the radio the other night.

     "That's a big wall." Crowe, who had not been dragged like me, observed.

        I gave a mild whistle of appreciation. It wasn't  every day that you get to see the wall this close, not since the castle was closed to the public. But then again, I should focus on how Princess Freaking Celestia invited a lowly sea captain like me for tea and casual conversation. Okay, maybe not the casual conversation thing, but the tea was guaranteed!

     My stomach did a small backflip at the thought of actually speaking with the Princess again. Those who have seen her up close and personal know what I mean; the feeling of being utterly insignificant in the presence of divine royalty. It had been at least fourteen years since I had felt that feeling, but it's one that I never ever forgot. Ever.

     The leading officer cooly stode up to the towering wrought iron door that seperated the castle from the common ground. She hit a big red button that was attached to a two-way radio and said "Captain Deadwood reporting for drop off. Over." (Deadwood?)

     With a somewhat delayed response, the radio crackled to life and a friendly yet muffled voice came through "Zzzt Alright, Captain, we see you and you're cleared for entrance. Welcome home, old gal. Over bzzzt.

     The armor-clad ponies on the battlements sprang to life as they found themselves with a new task: open the door. Several disappeared into the bowels of the wall and some others advanced to our position and trained their guns on me. I counted six, to be exact. These weren't EBRoT controlled gaurds at all, no, they were not the dime-a-dozen cops-for-rent that you see patrolling the streets of all the major cities. These gentlecolts were  bona fide Royal Canterlot Gaurds, who were a few steps above. I had heard that royal gaurds all got a permanent "Don't screw with me, or else" signs tattooed on their back, and each one of them did something awesome to deserve it. Yeah, they were that tough. I should ask one of them about that when I get the chance.

     A resounding bang shattered the air and nearly gave Crowe and I a heart attack. Soon after the bang, the iron gates jostled and vibrated like some giant force was shaking it up. The doors finnaly cracked ajar with a scream and began crawling their way open. The metallic screech grated on my ears like steel wool on a chalkboard, all the while it took nearly thirty seconds for them to open wide enough for us to scoot through.

     As we hobbled into the courtyard, the doors replayed their same horrible song of screams, only in reverse this time. These ponies take security here waaaay too seriously. Then again, there's no kill like overkill, right?

     Just as we crossed the grassy courtyard, Canterlot Castle itself came into view. And...woah, was it a sight.

     The grand old building stood proudly just below the very peak of the mountainside that I was nestled into. Its white washed brick walls and tall shining spires flew higher into the sky than any other structure out there, seeming to eternally reach for the sun and moon with its golden claws. A majestic waterfall flowed down from the very peak of the mountain, spilling out into a small lake that served as the castle's moat, which in turn emptied into more, smaller lakes on the underside.

     I stopped to admire the beautiful structure that laid before me. This place had been built well over a thousand years ago, it had seen the rise, fall, and return of Nightmare Moon herself, it had seen a full scale invasion of Queen Chrysalis and her changelings, it had seen the resurrection of the Crystal Empire, and it had even seen Equestria That Once Was claimed by the Everfree Forest, and yet this castle still stood strong. Through all those years, this place stood and watched, just as its Princesses did. There was some epic metaphor in there somewhere, but I didn't bother to make one.

     I would have stared longer if not for the gaurd prodding me in the flank with a particularly pointy bayonet "Keep it moving, bub!"

     I grumbled and did as the gaurd demanded, eyes still locked on the castle. We plodded along til the moat cut across the path and blocked our entrance. The leading officer once again broke off from the group and trotted up to a black box coming out of the ground. She punched another big red button and repeated her line. The scratchy radio voice from before came back and let us pass.

     The gaurds ushered Crowe and I across the bridge, we walked at a brisk pace through the castle insides, taking seemingly random turns through the lavishly decorated halls. I had been inside this place one before in my life almost twenty years ago when I was a cocky little teenager. It looked remarkably unchanged since then, the walls were still tinted a light purple trimmed with shiny gold leaf. The halls were still lined with stark white Romane-style support pillars and Saddle Arabian red rugs. Tapestries that depicted a wide array of historical and mythological characters still hung from every other wall. Midmorning light still filtered in through the many stained-glass windows and reflected off of the gold leaf, creating a haze of different colors and shades throughout the whole building. This castle was a museum of fine arts just as much as it  was a home to our rulers.

     "Day-uhm." Crowe said "Celestia sure likes to show off the fancy stuff, eh Cloud?" He turned and nudged me with an elbow.

     I chortled, despite myself "Yeah. Every good thief in Equestria has wet dreams about what the inside of the vault in this place would look like." I think I just passed a statue of Starswirl the Bearded that was worth enough to buy a second Sea Singer with, and I'd probably still have enough platinum left over to hire another crew.

     "Quiet!" the gaurd lightly prodded me and my security officer with his bayonet again.

     My mind began to wander off into daydreams about planning an ingenious hiest for this place. Captain Cloidstrider, Master Thief and Billionare they would call me. I'd fly around the Green Sea with a boatload of priceless paintings, stealing from EBRoT and giving money and supplies away to the outer-rim colonies. They would all love and praise me as a hero and I'd get chased all across the country by bounty hunters but I'd never get caught because,  let's face it, I'm the dashing rouglike hero in this little storybook and I'm smart and strong and--and very narcissistic at times.

     The officers led Crowe and I into a large foyer slash waiting room-type place. It was as nicely decorated as the rest of the building, with several small tables and couches strewn about for having pleasant conversation with your snobbish aristocratic friends, along with a couple of mahogany bookcases filled with literature that would probably give me a headache if I tried to read any of it. The biggest and most obvious feature of this room was a pair of huge intricately carved double-doors that looked like they needed a rutting mountain troll to get them open and closed. They must have been twenty five feet tall at the very least.

     "Alright," the lead gaurd said "Sit your flanks down somewhere until the rest of the ah, guests get here." She forcefully grabbed me by my cuffs and unlocked them.

     I rubbed one hoof with another, boy did these things chafe "By guests you meeeean...?"

     "The other criminals."

     Ahh, that must have been my crew. Probably the senior officers from that letter no doubt. I obliged the officer and sprawled myself out on a particularly comfy-looking velvety red couch that wraped around a table. Crowe grabbed a seat next to me.

     All of the EBRoT gaurds immediately left as soon as I was comfortable, and without a word of goodbye. How rude. Almost immediately after the last Berau officer filed out, four pure white Royal Canterlot Gaurds stomped in with almost robotic motions. They gave one another a silent nod and took their posts in each corner of the room. After that, they stood completely still, save for their steely eyes that scanned the room back and forth.

     "Hi there. So do you have any tattoos? Why are all government workers white or grey?" I asked the gaurd stallion in the corner nearest to me in the most obnoxious tone that I could muster.

     The royal gaurd's eyes flicked to me briefly, but he continued to stay as stock still and silent as the dead.

     "Ohh, I get it. You're on duty, so you can't talk or show emotion or anything. Gotcha." This was going to be fun! I had never had a better excuse to blatantly insult somepony in all my life. I swear to Luna, I'll be sorely disappointed in myself if I don't get this poor sap to crack a smile or scowl at me or something similar.

     "You know, that armor makes you look fat." I said, pointing a hoof his way.

     He was silent. Eh, I admit that that was kind of a weak one. I can do better.

     "Your parents never loved you."

     Nothing.

     "Your breath smells like low tide."

     Nada.

     "Your mother was a harlot. Dreadfully so. In fact, she was so sexually active that every single band from here to Manehatten has written no less than seven songs about your dear old mom's many acts of kinky fornication with stallions whose names she had never learned. I would know, for I have experienced three of those songs firsthoof myself. And she had only charged me ten bits. What a price!"

     Still nothing. Gee, this was going to be tough.

     "You have a tiny pe--"

X-X-X-X-X

     I was quietly lying back in the couch with my forehooves behind my head and my rear hooves propped up on the table when our first guest came in. During that small amout of time alone with the silent gaurds, somepony had graciously allowed me to have my beloved hat and duster back. Sans the guns and all.

     The entrance door swung open and in trotted seven tired-looking EBRoT gaurds followed by one deep black diamond dog, bound by his paws with thick metal shackles that jingled eerily when he walked. I also noticed an iron muzzle that kept his maw shut.

     "Oak!" Crowe and I exclaimed in stero.

     "Shutup." barked a policemare. She turned to one of the royal gaurds and said "Man, this one was a ruttin' pain, I'll tell you what. Beat the tar out of five of our guys before we could even bring 'em to the ground." HA! Ah ha ha! That's the Oakfang I know and love.

     In reply, the white gaurd cocked an eyebrow.

     "You're not very chatty, are you?" the mare asked.

     "Don't even bother." I said "These guys are about as talkative as a brick wall." And built like one, too. I mentally added.

     The officer offered me a glance and a scowl, then she and her posse trotted back out, leaving us alone. Well, alone-ish. It's not like these gaurds will say or do anything to us.

     Oakfang took a seat across from me and greeted us with a curt nod, as he was unable to speak through the muzzle. Not like he would talk to us without it anyway. Those gaurds weren't the only silent ones in here.

     "Only five, Oak?" Crowe said "You must be slipping."

     The dog looked at him and gave a noncommittal shrug.

     "Here," I offered "Let me get those for you." I grabbed a bobby pin that I had slipped into my mane earlier as a precaution and used it to fiddle with the locks on his chains.

     I glanced at the observing gaurds, they made no move to interfere with my lockpicking. Cool.

     Tick tack tock. Picked was the lock.

     As the bindings clattered to the floor, Oak gave me another nod as his was of saying "thanks."

     "Oakfang, please, don't talk my ear off all day. I have things to do." I gave my crewmember a light punch on the shoulder before going back to my previous position on the couch.

X-X-X-X-X

     We were sitting around the table making small talk and blatantly skirting the obvious issue at hoof when our second guest walked in.

     "Get your bloody hooves off me!" came an oh so familiar Trottingham accent from beyond the room.

     The door swung open again and in trotted an irritable Doctor Cotton Swab, followed by the bayonet on the end of a musket, followed by another nameless gaurd floating said musket at his side. "You can't force me in here like this, I have rights!"

     "Fancy meeting you here, Cotton." I said, casually waving a hoof at her.

     The gaurd slipped out and door slammed shut, locking me and my boys in here with an incredibly pissy doctor. Swab caught sight of us, she briskly galloped over to the table and dramatically slammed her hooves on the poor peice of furniture "Captain! Where the hell have you been?!"

     I winced "Jail. Nice to see you too."

     Crowe extended a claw and slipped it onto her shoulder "Cool your jets, Señora, and have a seat."

     Cotton shook off my security officer's claw and sat down in a huff "That's rich, coming from the griffin who couldn't cool his jets."

     Crowe and I shared a look "What's she talkin' about?" I asked.

     The griffin awkwardly rubbed the back of his head "Well, uh, hah hah. It's kind of like... Not everypony agreed with me rescuing you and all..."

     I rolled my eyes. Crowe and his irrational split-second decisions, same ol' same ol'. "Well it's not like I don't appreciate the effort. But next time, try and hold off on the rescue mission n'til you know that I can't do it myself. Kay?"

     "Alright, Jefe. Have it your way."

     Cotton Swab sighed and began to rub her temples in a circular motion "So what in Equestria happened to you anyway? I was puttering around in the med bay when all of a sudden I hear that you got captured by a bunch of Bureau ponies."

     Crowe nodded in agreement "Yeah, I've been wondering that to."

      "It was Berry." I said solemnly "She snitched on us, the whole deal was a setup to get me thrown in prison."

     All three of my shipmates gaped at me "Berry?!" two of them said in unusion, while the other remained silent.

     "But I thought you two were tight!" said my security officer.

     I snorted mirthlessly "So did I."

     "Well, damn."

     "You can't trust a single pony out there these days..." the doctor groused.

     I was about to say something when the words died in my mouth as they were cut off by the shrill voice of a certain navigator that served on my ship "I want to see my lawyer!"

     "Y'all ain't even got a lawyer." came a southern twang with atrocious grammar.

     "I can get one!" Sweetie protested.

     "Where?"

     "Uhhmmm..."

     "Ha! Ah thought as much." Applebloom said with a small smirk as she trotted into the room with Sweetie Bell and two more gaurds.

     "Welcome to the party." I greeted them "Our extra-special party favors include hoofcuffs, muskets, and...incredibly ripped royal gaurds. Don't get any dirty ideas, though,  they're not strippers. I don't throw those kind of parties."

     "Captain!" Sweetie exclaimed, choosing to ignore my stripper comment "I was getting a little worried about you. What the hay happened?"

     "Yeah," said Applebloom "Y'all dun got yerself arrested. Crew was sayin' that EBRoT took the goods and threw ya in the pokey."

     "C'mere and have a seat." I waved them over "I was just about to explain that..."

X-X-X-X-X

     "Bed springs?" Applebloom giggled madly "That's all it took, just a buncha bed springs? Gosh dern."

     "Right hoof to Celestia!" I said, rasing my right hoof and placing the other over my heart "I got out of jail within about four hours just with the stuff under a matress." I'm just surprised that nopony figued out that it's how I've escaped so many police stations in my time.

     "Well ain't that sumthin'." the engineer said, eliciting a murmur of agreement from the group "Bed springs."

     "I think I want to hear about how Crowe laid up that whole station full of Bureau officers to get to you again." Cotton said, inclining her blue-maned head toward the griffin.

     "Well, you see, it's kind of like this, see..." And before the big security officer could tell his story again, our next guest came in.

     Erm, well... "came in" wasn't exactly the way to put it. It was more in the neighborhood of "knocked in in the door using the head of a shell-shocked EBRoT gaurd."

     The blue-clad officer slid across the floor like a train off its rails, tracking wood splinters and other door parts everywhere. His metal plate armor created a sound that vaguely reminded of me of the gigantic iron gate from earlier.

     "This chick's crazy!" screamed somepony.

     "Oh-ho-ho, you want some? Hah! Come and some, brony! I could kick your ass eight ways to Sunday!" A particularly filly-ish howl of terror sounded from beyond the threshold, followed by a second cop stallion flying in here and colliding in to his fellow officer with all the grace and beauty of a half-dead walrus. He desperately scrambled to regain his footing on the slick marble floors, but before the poor cop could prepare for it, a familiar buzzing orange blur lunged at him through the doorway. It, or should I say "she," grabbed him by the helmet and gave it a swift reunion with the floor.

     Scootaloo used both her hooves and the power of her tiny buzzing wings to lift his head back up and slam it repeatedly into the marble floor, making a metallic sound not unlike that of banging two rods of metal together. Ping! Ping! Ping!

     "Oh hey, Scoot's here." Crowe said dryly.

     "No kiddin'." Applebloom agreed.

     A third gaurd burst into the waiting room, musket brought to bear directly at the exposed back of the pegasus pilot.

     "Scoots, watch ou--!" Boom! The words died in my mouth as sparks met powder and the flintlock roared.

     The rifle clattered to the floor, followed by the gaurd herself clutching at the chestplate she wore as she crumpled to the ground. A quick look told me that the mare was still very much alive, but with a lungfull of air knocked from her.

     There was the pilot of my beloved Sea Singer, squatting over the form of an unconscious Bureau officer with a gun in her hoof, a puff of powder smoke wafting away from it. Crippled pegasai- 3, Equestrian Bureau for the Regulation of Trade- 0. Yet another reminder as to why I never wanted to fire that mare.

     Apparently, very few things in the Green Sea could get the four royal gaurds in the room to actually do something other than stand there and look mean. Beating the everloving shit out of three ponies was one of them. They were on my pilot  before she could draw another breath. Two gaurds held Scootaloo down by the forelegs while the other two adorned her with silvery hoofcuffs. When they walked back to their, Scoots was tied up like a steer at a rodeo, only with steel cuffs instead of rope.

     The pilot squirmed and wriggled in her bonds fruitlessly "Hey! Oh for the love of--Let me go!"

     "Uhhmmm..." I droned. What was I to say in a situation like this? "Better luck next time?"  I don't think so.

     Cotton, who was closest to the Scootaloo, stood up from her seat and knelt down next to the orange mare "Are you alright?" she asked.

     Scoots stopped struggling against the cuffs to look the medical officer in her eye "Yeah," she said with a huff "Those mooks got a few hits in, but nothing serious."

     "Hmm." Cotton hummed as she dug through her saddlebags and retrieved a small pink fist-aid kit. She unzipped the nylon bag and drew out a small stethoscope "No bruises? Lacerations? Concussions? Are you feeling dizzy or nauseated? Maybe a little light-headed? Is there a pain in your chest? Are you having trouble breathing?" Cotton was listening intently to the other mare's heartbeat as she rattled off those questions.

     If Scootaloo had use of her limbs, she would have pushed the good doctor away "I'm fine! Just, please, get out of my face."

     Cotton Swab pulled the medical instrument out of her ears and gave Scootaloo a stern look "A filly with hypoplasia as bad as yours shouldn't be picking fights with ponies three times your weight,  or at all for that matter."

     "I don't feel any different than I did twenty minutes ago." Scoots said irritably "So just let it be, doc."

     "Fine." Cotton grumbled "You're not having any irregular organ activity as far as I can tell. But if you have a heart attack, I swear to The Sisters..." She let her voice trail off, leaving the rest to imagination.

     While Cotton Swab prattled at Scoots about her condition, I tried yet again to grab the attention of a royal gaurd. "Hey, buddy." I said "I think you made your point, here. She's all immobilized and stuff. Can't you unlock her if she promises to be a good little filly?"

     I really got a response that time. It wasn't actual words, mind you, the gaurd just slowly shook his head "no" for scarcely a moment before turning back to stone. One foal step at a time, I guess.

     "But she's a cripple!"

     The gaurd's eyes momentarily flicked the pile of KO'd gaurd on the floor, then to the pilot. He cocked a brow at me questioningly.

     I rolled my eyes "Long story."

X-X-X-X-X

     The final two guests to this little pre-tea party party arrived.

     The two didn't in anyway make a grand dramatic entrance as the others did. No hoof fights or snarling cops this time, one just lazily fluttered in with the other on her back, barely making a peep.

     "Did we miss anything?"my fist mate asked innocently.

     "Uncle Cloud!" Easybreeze shouted as she lept off the grey pegasus's back. Before I could react at all, the bubblegum pink filly tackled me with the most violent and powerful hug in history. She squeezed me like I was a role of tooth paste with only just a little bit of stuff left in it. Breezy could have squeezed a clump of coal into a diamond. It would have been painful and harrowing experience if not for the fact that she was so damn cute.

     "What? No hug for me, little chica?" Crowe said, prompting Easybreeze to stick her tongue out at the big blue griffin.

      After she let me breathe again, I tustled her poofy white mane in the way that I always do "Heya kid. Miss me?"

     Breezy instantly straightened her hair back to its proper place "I would if I wasn't so used to seeing you busting out of jail." she said, poking me in the chest. The filly took a moment to look around the fancy shmancy waiting room "But this whole "tea party with a princess" thing is new."

     "Amen to that, sister."

     "Uhmm..." Derpy said "Why is Scootaloo uh...tied up like that?"

     "Because I was a bad, baaaad pony." the aforementioned pilot deadpaned.

     "I'd try to unlock you." I said, flashing that little bobby pin of mine "But I'll just leave you there as payment for that antiquing you gave me last week."

     "Oh, come on!" Scoots griped "That prank wasn't hardly worth something like this."

      "Maybe, but it was totally worth it."

     "Ugh."

X-X-X-X-X

    I checked my watch. Eleven fifty six.

Precisely the courier said ...at precisely twelve of the clock...

In four minutes I would meet her again. One of the two most power ponies on this planet, and she wants to have a cup of tea...with me. Me. Why me? There are a million other smugglers, thieves, and liars out there. Most of them would probably make more intelligent conversation than I could. So...why me? Why now, after what would likely be the biggest contraband bust in forever?

     It was time to find out.

Ding dong. The faded grandfather clock leaning against the wall chimed exactly twelve times, confirming what its small counterpart on my wrist told me. All nine pairs of eyes turned toward the grand set of double-doors at the end of the room. We watched the big chunks of wood expectantly, the anticipation and foalish wonder was so thick in the air that you could've drowned in it and floated to the top.

     Then the doors opened. It was not a quick motion, no. They first began to glow with a brilliant golden light,  completely encompassed with a magical aura the same shade as the morning sun. With nary a creak or moan, the wooden giants glided across the floor like phantoms and came to a silent stop

     There she stood behind the doors, the Master of the Sun and Grand Ruler of all of Equestria: Princess Celestia. The alabaster white alicorn stood a head higher than even Oakfang the biped. Her mane and tail of three colors gently flowed around as if on a wind that was unfelt by mere mortals. She wore a sparkling gold set of regal regalia and a warm, almost motherly smile.

     "Welcome, Captain Cloudstrider and crew." the princess said sincerely, her sweet voice like chimes in the wind "I do belive we have much to discuss this day."

     Heh, you're telling me.

Chapter 5: The Job

The Sea SingerChapter Five: The Job     Captain's Monologue-July 28th, year fourteen of the sixth ageIt's been about three days since my last confession, and boy, do I ever have a hell of a story to tell you. First off, the deal with Berry was a disaster (and that's putting it lightly). The bitch stabbed me in the back, ratted me out to EBRoT for Celestia-knows-why. I didn't even see it coming, it just happened. It was the biggest booze bust in history. They came during the deal and halued me off in hoofcuffs to some prison in Midtown. Like always, I broke out, but this time there was another damn squad of goons waiting outside, like they were expecting me to play the jailbird or something. Come to think of it, there weren't even any other criminals in the cells, it was just...empty. Rutting weird if you ask me.Now those gaurds took me to Cantelot Castle to have tea with Princess Celestia herself. No, that is in fact not a typo. Shewants to have a meeting with me. Me. How weird is that? Now I'm just sitting with the senior officers in a waiting room, minutes away from the meeting. Why did Berry screw me like that? What does Celestia want with me? What's going to happen to the Sea Singer and my crew now? And what the hell am I going to do about all this shit?I sighed.     This is going to be a long day. Strider out.X-X-X-X-X     Princess.      Ever had that feeling where you've heard a single word a million and ten times and thought nothing of it, yet one day you speak it yourself and it sounds...strange? Alien, almost; like you had never heard it before.     That's the feeling that I felt whilst standing face to face with Celestia herself. Princess. That's what she was, but not just any princess, she was my princess....and I her subject.     What was I supposed to say? "Hi there, Celly! How have you been? Me? Oh I'm just peachy, being betrayed by a trusted friend and manhandled to you by a group of sweaty gaurds really gives me a new outlook on life. By the way, have you seen my straight jacket? I could have sworn I had it when I left my cell."     Well, it would have been better than saying nothing at all, which is precisely what I did. Princess Celestia was looking right into my eyes, and all I could do was stare back silently.      There was just a feeling that emanated from her, I can't exactly explain it. It was a feeling all too familiar, those who have  before been in the immediate presence of a goddess have known it as I have. It was like watching the crimson orange sun rise up from the depths of the mountainous horizon after staying awake through a hard, starless night. I felt...warm, like the rays of undulating light would drive away my fears and sheild me from the dark and cold world beyond these walls. I felt safe; safe and secure under her protection. I felt a surge of something that had been scarce in the land of Equestria these days, I felt hope. Hope for my family, hope for my crew, hope for my future. Warmth, safety, and hope...that's what the princesses embodied and projected to those around her.     "Woah." I managed to say, eyes still wide and mouth still agape.      Celestia spoke with a trace of humor in her voice, and what a wonderful voice it was. "I get that a lot."     "Erhm..." I looked to my crew for some idea as to what to say or do, they just mirrored my dumbfounded look, emphasis on the dumb.     "Woah." all eight of the crewmembers shared my sentiment in unison.     As if on cue, everyrpony realized at the exact same time that they probably should bow down, what with her being our supreme ruler and all. So we did bow, those who had hats took them off, and those who had eyes lowered them to the floor.     "Rise, crew of the Sea Singer." Celestia gently ordered us "There is no need to bow before me any more, this is a free country after all." She paused a moment as her eyes fell upon Scootaloo, her voice hardening slightly "And get that poor child out of those chains, this is a place of discussions and diplomacy, not interrogation."     Almost out of nowhere, two royal gaurds marched forward and obediently freed the mare that they had chained up minutes ago. Her cuffs clattered to the floor with a great echo. It seemed that this day was destined to be filled with many a lock and key.     Scootaloo bowed her head once more and murmered a quiet "Thanks."     I put my hat back upon my head as we all stood up to once again look our sovereign in the eye. "I-uh.." Quick, Cloud! Think of something witty to say! "I was told there would be tea... here."     The pony in my head facehoofed How clever. That may have been one of your finest yet. I mean it, really.The princess cocked a multi-hued eyebrow at me "Indeed there will. Come, come and sit, Captain. We have much to discuss." That being said, she did an about-face and briskly trotted deeper into the chamber beyond those big doors.     We hesitantly walked in after her. The inside of this room was much more spacious than any of the other places that I had seen in the castle, it could have been fifty feet from floor to ceiling for all I knew. Celestia was already seated at the end of a grand dining table, made to hold banquets for dozens of ponies, yet at the time it was void of any food or silverware save for several eggshell white porcelain tea sets. The table was covered in a gold trimmed cherry red cloth from end to end, with two carved thrones at the very head, one made with polished marble and gold and the other with black basalt and silver. Celestia sat at the marble one, as per her usual color scheme.      I stared at the room's features in awe. Hanging directly above was a crystal chandelier the size of a small carriage. A series of polished bronze rods and wiring held together what could have been hundreds of  individual clear crystals, arranged in layers that descended by size. The ceiling that the chandelier hung heavily from curved outward like a dome. The inside of this dome was hoof painted by a long-dead master artist whos name I had probably read in a textbook. It depicted what I interpreted was the founding of Equestria; many ponies were painted into three crowds, one unicorn, one pegasus, and one earth. These crowds all stood around the upper-center in a semi circle, they surrounded the centerpiece of this massive  painting. Held in the middle was a relief of the two Sisters standing side-by-side on a grassy green hill, they looked out on their adoring subjects with warm smiles.     The architects of Equestria That Once Was certainly spared no expense building this place, and with good reason. Canterlot Castle was essentially built to last forever.     "First timers always stare at the ceiling." Princess Celestia chuckled, her voice carried through the room well, the acoustics in this place were great. I wished that I had brought my harmonica.     The whole crew snapped their attention back to the goddess before them, cheeks slightly redder than before. She made a sweeping gesture to exactly nine spots split up on both sides of the tables, each set with an empty cup and saucer. We all slowy shuffled to our randomly chosen spots and took a seat. I noted that there were four on her left hoof side and five on her left. I chose the seat second closest to the princess, with Easybreeze and Derpy on either side of me.     All ponies (and griffins and diamond dogs) awkwardly glanced at one another for a good long while, everybody had no clue what to say. The silence was mercifully broken by a sharply dressed servant trotting in without a care in the world, his hoofsteps reverberated in the room and put us all a little bit more on edge, all except for Celestia, that is. The servant poured us all a cup of steaming amber tea and trotted back out with a tip of his hat.     Naturally, the princess was first to speak "Ah, before we begin, Captain, I have but one question to ask of you."    Please let the question be about my favorite color, and not about my recent criminal records! I so did not want to explain those little felonies to the rutting princess of Equestria. Though, she probably already knew of that, it's just that I wasn't to keen to reiterate those facts to somepony who could have had me hung from the rafters like a sick Nightmare Night decoration.     Regardless of the pony in my head screaming no, I said yes. "I'll answer it the best I can then."      She took a sip of tea and  loudly cleared her throat "Do you trust the ponies at your side?"     I allowed myself a quick glance to a few select members of the crew "Would you explain that question a little further?"     "Would you trust your fellow sailors with anything in this world? Would you put your life in their hooves, or claws in some cases? Do you know that they would keep even your most deeply hidden secrets? Can you depend on them to be at your side, come hell or high water?"     I opened my mouth to say something but my words died. That was a good question, if a little bit out of the blue. These people...I've known them for years. I've seen some of them grow up, I've even raised one of them from a filly as my own daughter. I've seen some of them fall down, down into the deepest pits of despair,  yet I was there to pick them up and dust them off. And I know that they would do the same for me. Most have been with me since the christening of the Sea Singer herself, they've seen her constructed from the ground up. These eight that crew my ship are a part of me, part of my crew, and part of my ship. They were, dare I say it, a family to me. They were no different to me than brother or sister.     I took a long hard look at the people before me. They looked back with solemn expressions. We all knew what I was thinking,  no words were needed to be said. Years of familiarity had given us the near-psycic abilities to read one another's feelings.     Yes. I can trust them.      I gave the princess a small nod "Aye, that I can."     "And your word is your bond, correct?"     "Aye, what I say that I will do, I do."     Celestia was not one to miss the looks exchanged between my crew and I, she smiled a warm smile, like a mother unto her child "Exellent. I also have a small question for your crew as well."      The crew of the Sea Singer sat up just a little straighter at the mere mention of their name. All eyes were wide and all interests piqued.      "Do you feel the same way as your captain feels for you? Will you do unto him as he has promised to do unto you?"     "What kind of question is that?!" Sweetie said a little more loudly than she had meant. The unicorn shrank back in her seat as we all looked to her in suprise. "Of coarse we do."     "Yeah!" said Crowe "What la chica said! We got his back." His words were met with a chorus of agreement.      Without warning, Derpy locked a foreleg around my neck and preceded to give me a nuggie "He's my best friend, I wouldn't do anything to let him down."     "As much as he enjoys aggravating me," Cotton Swab chimed in "I have to agree with everypony else. He's quite a leader."     The princess had a look of serenity about her when she said "Then we are all in agreement then. Everypony can trust everypony."     I unhooked myself from Derps, took a sip of my tea, and turned to Celestia "So, Princess, now that you know about close I am to my crew, might I inquire as to why you've called us here?"     "You're not a pony who enjoys to beat around the bush." she said "I can respect that." Celestia took a moment to gather her thoughts and stare at a half cup of drink. "I have summoned you and your friends here to hear out a proposition that I had been meaning to make."     Many eyebrows were raised. So that's why I'm here then. To broker a deal with Her Highness. I can honestly say that it's not the last idea to cross my mind. Celestia was a powerful pony, that much was obvious. But, with all her power, why make a deal with me? What can I offer that everypony else can't?     "What kind of a proposition, Princess?" Doctor Swab immediately asked.     "One of...redemption." she cautiously answered "You see, I have a task that the military or any other party under my influence cannot preform, I find myself in need of ponies with a skillset such as yours."     "Y'all need smugglers?" Applebloom inquired bluntly "Why, shoot, ya came to the right ponies fet that."     "In a way of speaking, I need somepony not bound by the codes and regulations of governmental work, ponies who prefer to go around the system rather than through it."     "So, smugglers you mean."     I could have sworn that the princess rolled her eyes "If you must call yourselves that, then yes, I do need smugglers."     "And this redemption?"     She took another calm sip from her teacup "In light of your recent transgressions against The Equestrian Beruau for the Regulation of Trade, I am offering complete amnesty from these crimes in exchange for your services. Call it community service."     "Trading my prison sentence for community service." I mused aloud "Though, the freedom of one pony isn't worth having my whole ship full of sailors go on some sort of quest for the princess. It takes quite a bit of motivation to move my crew."     Celestia sank back into the seat of her throne and hid half of her face behind that ethereal mane "And who said it is the freedom of one pony that I was speaking of?"      The Princess's horn flared with a brief golden light, suddenly a large stack of papers materialized on to the middle of the table with a small puff of smoke. They were folders, eight in all.     Celestia telekinetically passed each one of us, save for Oakfang, a beige folder with a black and white photo of us stapled onto the very cover. Judging by he holes in my hat and coat, this pictues were recent, very recent. More so than I was comfortable with in fact.     "Well whad'dya know? I do have a file."     "Indeed you do, Captain Cloudstrider." the alicorn said stoically "I have personal and detailed files of all of the stallions and mares serving on your ship. I am not a pony to make her decisions half-cocked, I am a pony who does her homework."     Scowling, I flipped through the hefty file full of paper. Damn, they had copies of everything from my birth certificate, to my tax records, my high school diploma, and even the papers for the Sea Singer in it. I half expected my fifth grade report card to be in there, too. Oh look, my criminal records. Let's see: smuggling, smuggling, smuggling,  theivery, smuggling,  public urination (good times), smuggling, smuggling, possession of alcohol, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer of the law, smuggling. What was yet to be added to my resume of crime was my recent "super-smuggling."     "Stored inside those files are enough records to put each an every one of you in prison for a good long while. Trust me, that information was not at all easy to obtain."     "This is, th-this is...blackmail!" Scootaloo shouted.      "You said it, mi amiga!"     "Gal dern, I didn't 'spect this from a princess!"     "Who do you think we are? Some kind of criminal scum?"     "This shouldn't be legal!"     "It isn't!"    "But she IS the princess."     Rabble rabble rabble.     "Ladies and gentlecolts!" Celestia shouted over the rabbling "Compose yourselves!" My crew and I reluctantly sank back into our chairs, quietly fuming. She took a final swig of her Earl Grey and set the cup back into its saucer "It is not like these documents do not hold the truth. Each and every crime listed in your papers are all accurate."     Celestia scanned the small crowd of people before her with a stern look "You've all committed some kind of crime against the state in one way or another, smuggling and thievery being the most prominent, but not the worst.--" she leveled her gaze onto the grey unicorn sitting across from me "--Doctor Cotton Swab, you have been practicing medicine without a license on your airboat for how many years now?"     The good doctor sunk even further into her cushy velvet seat, too fearful of the princess's icy stare to say anything.     "And you, Mister Crowe." she said, pointing a hoof in the griffin's direction "You are in the top twenty most wanted pirates in the country, you've sailed under every notorious flag in the Green Sea."     Crowe crossed his arms defiantly "Ain't nopony can prove that, Your Majesty."     "Not to mention you three!" Celestia said to the three Crusaders sitting next to one another "You've been unintentional arsonists since you were fillies, and I have not forgotten your three counts of grand theft zeppelin. Not to mention how the ship's pilot has never had a license to fly that thing in all of her life. It is only by my governmental sway and good graces that you are allowed within fifty feet of an airship."     The three exchanged looks with one another "Well," said Applebloom "Ya got us there, Princess."     Princess Celestia's eyes fell upon a charcoal black diamond dog sitting next to Derpy "And I don't even know a thing about you. Tell me, Mister Oakfang, are you an innocent dog?"     Oakfang, with all his stoicism, looked Celestia right in the eye, never flinching or even blinking. He slowly shook his "no" and said nothing.      "So you have commited crimes?"     He nodded.     "Name them."     Oakfang stared at her wordlessly.      Her eyes darted from me to the diamond dog "Speak up, then."     I took an awkward sip of my drink "Ah princess. He's kind of a mute. A selective mute. He only speaks when he needs to."     Celestia nodded, turning her attention away from the dog and on to me "And you." she said with a trace of hardness in her voice "Both you and your first mate have committed dozens of acts against the state and gotten away scott-free. Smuggling, theft, assault, armed robbery, flying with an outdated license plate, possession of outlawed goods, possession of over a hundred unregistered firearms, the list goes on and on, my friends."     I couldn't help but feel a bit of pride for myself and my crew, we did love to get into trouble. Especially when that trouble nets us a tidy little profit. Especially when we get to screw EBRoT while we do it.     "We keep our Singer in the air any way we can." I said firmly, gaining me a few hesitant nods from the crew "If that means some fat cat looses a couple of platinum in the process, so be it. But you already knew about that, didn't you?"     Celestia folder her hooves together and eyed me warily. After a pregnant pause, she said "Is that all you care for, Captain Strider? Flying that ship of yours."     "Until the day I die." Which, given my current situation, may come sooner than later.     "Then we have reached an agreement." Celestia said  "You will do this task for me and I let you go free."     Derpy, despite her normal appearance, looked thoroughly confused "Did I fall asleep again? When did the captain agree to that?"     "The captain didn't agree to nothin'!" Crowe told her. He regarded Celestia with a hard look "Princess, it ain't an agreement if only one hoof does the shaking, if you know what I mean."     The goddess returned his look with calculated coolness "I do know what you mean, Mister Crowe. And no, nopony has yet given their word. But he said it himself: "any way that we can." Your captain knows that I am offering the only escape from that hole he has dug both himself and you gentleponies into. I know he is going to accept my gracious offer for certain."     All heads turned to me, everypony seemed to expect me to either confirm or deny it. I resisted the urge to give them a big toothy grin and totally kill the mood.     "Ugh," I said "Princess, when you're right, you're right." Why did everpony always have the upper hoof on me? And I really meant what I said, Celestia had me licked. It's either jail time for a ship full of sailors, or giving the Princess a freebie in exchange for a blank slate. When it gets right down to the basic facts, she was giving me a helluva good deal. I might have not agreed with the methods used to broker said deal, but hey, you know what ponies say about beggars and choosers.     Maybe it won't have to be a freebie "I'll do this job for you. Though, I have a few conditions first."     Celestia let off a mirthless chuckle "You are not exactly in a bargainig position, Captain. But go ahead, speak your terms nonetheless."     I nodded curtly and took another pull from me tea cup "Thank you, Your Majesty. So; number one, and this is non-negotiable: remove your spy from my ship before we leave port. If you wanted to keep an eye on me, at least have the good grace to do it anywhere but under my nose."     For a short moment, that diplomatic look of her faltered. She instead flashed a barely perceptible grimace. "I'm sorry to say, Captain, I have no idea what you're talking about."     Had she not be the princess and grand co-ruler of Equestria, I would have rolled my eyes "There's no way that news can travel that fast from a hooch runner with a shallow gene pool on Serenity Island to the ears of Princess Celestia herself. You have an undercover spy aboard my ship. Probably the one that put together all the info in that there folder. It wasn't that hard to figure out."     "That may be true, or it may not." she said with an unreadable expression and a blank tone "I am obligated by my duties as a princess to not depart that information to you. So I will deny it every time, whether I am lying or not shall remain a mystery. Regardless, I'll honor your condition to remove this imaginary spy." Celestia closed her eyes and cast a spell, her horn flaring up with gold light, then dying down. "There, the spy is gone. Satisfied?"     Whatever. I'll find that spy eventually, and then I'll stick him to a giant hook on a steel cable and use him as bait to fish for manticores in the Everfree, then I'll tame the manticore I catch and make it my pet and name it after him. I like to be ironic like that.     "Have you any other terms, Captain, or is that all?"     "No, I also need one thousand in platinum."     "Surely you must be joking!"     "I'm not. And don't call me Shirley." Somewhere, I heard the distant sound of exactly two beats of a drum and one beat of a cymbal.  Ba-dum pshh."I would think that the freedom of your entire crew and yourself would suffice for a simple job."     "You would think wrong. You're a princess with pockets as deep as an ocean trench, I'm a businesspony with bills that could be paid with very little in respect to your vast wealth. See where I'm coming from?"    "I can. I'll give you five hundred platinum, no more, no less."     "This job must be incredibly important for you to keep under EBRoT's radar, or else I would still be in a cell. Nine hundred."     "Six."     "Good luck finding a decent smuggler that will do it for that much. You may find one, but they won't be as handsome as me. Seven fifty."    "You are trying my patience, Mister Strider. Six fifty."     "You interfered with a lare business transaction of mine. Seven should cover the costs."     "Those transactions were illegal. Six fity is final! I did not even intend to pay a single bit for this, consider yourself blessed to have it."     "Okay, six fifty...and you send us your best team of grease monkies to give the Singer full repairs and a tune-up." I caught Applebloom grinning at from the corner of my eye.     Celestia turned a few shades redder, I could have guessed that she was gritting her teeth behind that mask of diplomatic impartiality. Gee, it sure was nice to have a cutie mark in haggling.     "Fine." she huffed "But I'm only allowing you that much because It would be more expensive to aquire another candidate for the job. And because it suits me."     I leaned back in my chair and gave the princess a smug grin. It was good to be me.X-X-X-X-X     I was relaxing on the deck of my beloved Sea Singer watching the ponies on the docks below shuffle around a few boxes of heavy equipment, they were busy as ants picking apart and carrying away a dropped jelly bean. Celestia had made good on her word and sent four gearheads my way, loaded with enough tools and raw material to make a second Sea Singer (along with a nice chest of shiny square coins). They were in and out in three hours, that was about thirty percent faster than any old commercial repair shop could do. I had to get me one of those in the crew, maybe Singer wouldn't break down so often if I had a few more hooves in the engine room. Sadly, the rates of permanently hiring one of those top-class engineers was totally out of my pay grade, even if I could haggle the princess for more platinum.     But after four days in Canterlot, it felt like a breath of fresh air to be back on my ship. Words cannot describe how much I missed my baby. And hey, despite that little rough patch, I actually made it out of this town better than I came in! I had a job, enough cash to get it done, the princess's autograph, and a slate wiped clean of all black spots. All of them. This was one of those days where it was good to be me.      You may be wondering by now, Cloud, what did the princess even want you to do?!Well, children, I had truly had not a single rutting clue at the time. Celestia had said to wait for "a trusted friend of mine" to show up and hand me the job description, though this friend didn't show up with the engies. That was just great, by the way, having another government official hover over me and take stock of everthing from my petty thefts to my bowel movements. Speaking of which, I noticed when I returned to the Singer that one of the newer members of the crew mysteriously dissappeared. It was that one mare who liked to watch me from the corner of her eye. Funny how things like that happen.      An hour of lazing around the deck went by before my trusted first mate tapped me on the shoulder.      "Fancy meeting you here." I said cheerily.      Derpy grinned "Feels like forever since we first got to Canterlot! I think I've had enough debauchery for one week, don't you agree?"     "Ahh, but it's only Thursday, my friend. We still have three days of knocking heads and getting arrested left to go."     "I think I'll sit out until Monday." she giggled "Anyway, the mare that Celestia was talking about is waiting outside, I assume you'd wanna go meet her."     "You assume correctly. Come on, let's go give her a cold an emotionally distant Sea Singer welcome." And with that, we made our way out to the dock.X-X-X-X-X     This friend of Celestia's stood idly looking about the crates and boxes of the cargo bay when I came in. She was this thin, curvy little number, had kind of a secretary look about her. You know the type; looked good but wasn't about to do anything to pull her own weight kind of mare. She didn't look like she would be fit to live and work on an airship like most other working-class ponies. She was probably in administration or something.     Her traffic-cone orange mane was worn down, coming to the nape of her neck. She had a well-kept coat of navy blue that really contrasted with her mane, it was sort of a Nightmare Night kind of color scheme. Her cutie mark was obscured by a set of fancy-shmancy designer saddlebags with a silver crescent set into the latch.     She gave Derps and I a cold, calculating look with a pair of cyan eyes, much like the princess had done earlier. "Good evening, sir and madame. Are either one of you Captain Cloudstrider of the airship Sea Singer?" Her voice didn't match what I had expected, it was hard and authoritive in a matriarchal sort of way. I had expected to be all high-class, kind of like Rarity's. Oddly, it had a sort of vague familiarity to it. Had she been a public speaker? Maybe I had hit on her once before.     I raised a hoof like a shoolcolt in a class "That's my name, don't wear it out. Who are you?"     She strode toward me with those long legs and offered a hoof "I am Harvest Moon, your taskmaster for the job you are to undertake for My--." She stopped herself "For Her Majesty."     I eyed her hoof, but did not shake it "I have a taskmaster..." It was more of a statement than a question.     "Indeed." Harvest Moon said "I am to accompany you on this job and see that it is completed to the satisfactory of Princess Celestia."     Well shit, this wasn't going to be fun. I didn't exactly react well to authority, that's kind of why I shot the only captain I've ever had and took over his ship as my own. Having somepony call my shots for me is one of the three things that I try to actively avoid... the other two being pirates and exes.     I sighed. This was going to be a long day. Looking her in the eye, I said "Alright, look, I'm not going to try and argue you out of here... because it's likely that even I can't get away from defying the princess that much. So, just stay out of our way and things will go smoothly. Oh, and unless it's about the job, for the love of Luna, please keep your mouth shut. Aside from those things, welcome aboard." I took her still extended hoof in my own and shook it.     She hadn't even blinked, her face was still calm and cool "That's an odd way to treat your honored guests, Captain. Having read your file, I should have expected this type of behavior from you. I intend to not make the same mistake in the future."     I rolled my eyes "Has everpony read my file?"     "Only the ones that haven't."     How helpful. "Come on, I'll show you to your room."     I did an about-face and went of a few paces down the hall. I peeked my head back through the doorway when she didn't follow "You coming?"     She shook her head "I'd actually prefer it if I briefed you on this job first."     I let out an exasperated breath of hot air "Fine, follow me."X-X-X-X-X     We sat across from each other in the Singer's mess hall, freshly brewed cups of black coffe in hoof. The mess hall lived up to its legendary name, being a complete and total mess. We here in the Sea Singer pride ourselves in being brutally slobbish. Well, what can I say? We're sailors. Being vulgar, dirty, and totally rude is what we live for. Some more than others. We only clened this place about once a month, right after the monthly food fight. Drawing the short straw for chores is never a good thing on this boat.     The place was empty, save for Harvest Moon, I, and the ship's head chef slash bartender, a North Griffin-speaking griffin named Gustave. We sat at a table while Gustave was busy behind the counter wiping down an old iron pot with a rag.     Moon flicked her eyes toward the chef "Are you certain he should be hearing this? Celestia explicitly stated that she wanted only you and your senior officers to know the details of this mission."     Gustave, in response, chose to raise his fist at the mare with the center claw extended. That was just a strange thing he did to everypony on she ship. Crowe said it was a sign of acknowledgment to non-griffins. They called it "flipping the bird."     "Him? He's a senior too, been with us for eight years. You can tell him anything. One taste of his grub and you'll spill your guts." In more ways than one.     "Why thank you, Capitaine." he drawled sarcastically in that nasal accent of his.     "Anytime, Gus." I took a drink of my coffe. I'll take this stuff over princess-style tea any day of the week.     "Zzzzzt Attention, all senior officers:" Sweetie's scratchy voice crackled to life over the intercom "Drop your trash, move your ass, and get there fast! Meeting in the mess hall bzzzt."     "Does she always curse over the intercom?"     "Only when she can talk."     "Lovely."     After we drained our cups half way, all eight of the crewmembers crowded round a table big enough to seat four, myself and Harvest huddled in the middle.     "So this is the new chick, eh?" Crowe asked, eyeing the mare "Pleased to meet a bella dama like you." Without warning reached across the table, grabbed her dark blue hoof, and kissed it. He wiggled his eyebrows seductively at her.     Moon wrenched her hoof away from the griffin "Tú no eres mi tipo, pirata."     Crowe crossed his arms "Mojigato."     "Bárbaro."     "Perra."     "Idiota."     "Could everypony please insult each other in Equestrian?!" Cotton Swab interjected.      "She started it." said Crowe.     "I'll end it!" I growled, silencing the three. "Good. Now that everpony is on the same page, let's hear what Miss Harvest Moon has to say."     "Thank you, Captain." Moon cleared her throat and umdid the latch on her saddlebags "Now, this job isn't as simple as you might think."     Everypony groaned.     She ignored us "It is not one little errand that Celestia would send one of her hoofservants to run, that would be a waste of resources on her part. It is, in fact, a sort of "search an aquire" task if you will, with multiple steps."     "Like a scavenger hunt or somethin'?" Applebloom asked.     Harvest fished out a stack of papers about the size of an average dictionary and plopped them down on the table with an audible creek "Exactly, only we aren't trying to find items, we're looking for important ponies."     I noticed that this stack of papers was a series of color coded folders filled with important-looking documents, each one with a different name and cutie mark. Good to know that the princess has an eye on everypony ever born. "So my ship is going to be used as a glorified taxi service." I mused aloud "Y'know, I should'a stayed in bed today."     "Maybe so, but all of these ponies have no idea that we are about to pick them up, some may not want to just put their lives on hold to come to Canterlot, and that's where we come in. Our job is to find the ponies that our princess has fallen out of touch with. Unfortunately, most of them do not trust EBRoT, they will be more cooperative with a "working stallion" than a government offical. Mister Strider, you have a special talent for bargaining, Celestia believes that you can persuade them to come with you."     "So what's up with these ponies that gets Celestia all hot and bothered? What are they? Fugitives? Politicians? Witnesses?"     She slid the topmost document to me "See for yourself."     This one was a lavender purple color. I read it aloud "Twilight Sparkle - F - Alicorn."     "Wait, this can't be...?" I grabbed a second folder, it read: Applejack - F -Earth Pony, Fluttershy - F - Pegasus "It is."     "Is what?" Sweetie asked, craning her head to get a look at these files "Lemme see."    "The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony." Harvest said in a matter-of-fact way "National heros."     "Mah sister?" Applebloom drawled "Well shoot, she ain't a very hard pony ta find. I just saw 'er 'bout a month ago."     "Yeah, and Rarity has been living in Midtown for years now!"     "Perhaps theh might be easy to find now," Moon said cautiously "but times in times like these, ponies can fall off of the grid in a matter of days. With the literal sea of hiding places that could forever go unchecked, it's a living hell to pick out one pony and find them."      She was right. How do you think I could run up a crime streak like that and get away with it? Well, maybe the princess might have  had a hoof in it, but the point is that Sea Singer and I can dissappear in this sprawling country like a fart on a windy day.      "So what big 'n bag monster is coming this time?" I asked.     Moon cocked an eyebrow "Pardon?"     "Well, those six mares and their shiny magic gems are our last line of defense against all the big, scary monsters and stuff, right?"     "Correct."     "Then it's obvious that they're needed to go shoot their friendship laser at something again. So who's the lucky villain this time?"     She squinted "That's on a need-to-know basis."     From behind me, I heard Oakfang grunt his disapproval.      "What he said." I said "We have a need to know."    "No, you don't." she returned "Gripe if you wish, your only job is to transport these ponies to Celestia. I will inform you if that policy has changed at all."     Eh, whatever. I'll find out what's coming soon enough. After all, the last few calamities that they fixed hadn't exactly gone unnoticed. Though, it's remarkable how they save the world so many times and stayed relatively unmolested by rogue fandoms and ravenous media companies.     "Alright then." Scootaloo chimed in "Who do we start with?"     "I'll leave that to you ponies." said Harvest "You may want to take a look at those files, find out who is the best pony to start off with."     I drained the last drops of coffe from my cup "So is that all?"     "It is."     "Well then, I move to adjourn this shindig. All in favor?"     "Aye!" came a chorus of voices.     I produced a gavel from my coat pocket and slammed it down on the table with an amusing Crack! "Meeting adjourned! Oak, be a gent and show miss Moon to one of the empty officer's cabins."     Oakfang nodded solemnly and led the mare out of the room.     "As for everypony else, get to your stations! I want to see this goddessforsaken town from my back window by sunset."      "Do we have a heading, Captain?" asked Scoots.     "Yes, get us far the hell away from Canterlot and find a nice quiet place to hover." I pointed a hoof at Applebloom "Bloom, put us on half burn as soon as we break from port."     The mares gave a crisp salute and an "AYE, CAP'IN!" then dashed off for their posts.     "Crowe, get up in your nest and keep an eye out for the colts in blue, chances are that Celestia won't wipe our slates until we finished the job."     "AYE CAP'IN!"     "Derps, keep an eye on the newcomer. She's trouble just waiting to happen, and I can feel it."     "AYE CAP'IN!"     "Everypony else, to your stations, let's move it! Time is money!"     A chorus of "AYE CAP'IN!"     "And Gustave..."     "Oui?"     "I think I'm gonna need another cuppa joe."     "Aye, Capitaine."I passed my empty cup to him and he filled it with a steaming fresh pot of sludgelike coffe. I took another sip, the caffine rushing to my brain. Goddesses, this stuff was horrible, but you get used to it after ten years.     I drained the mug in a few big gulps "Ahhh...This gig is going to a major pain in the flank, isn't it?" I asked the cook.     "It always is, Capitaine, it always is."     He poured me another coffe. Perhaps it was time for something stronger. "Yeah, always..."End Act INext up:Act II- The Castaway

Chapter 6: On the Run

The Sea SingerChapter Six: On the Run     Captain's Monologue-July 29th, year fourteen of the sixth ageIt's been a day since my last confession. And well, it looks like I got myself a new job. That's what the meeting with "Her Royal Highness" was about. That little scene back in the empty jail was a test. She wanted to see just how criminal I am, to see if I could break out. That gang of gards outside were probably waiting for me to burst out at any moment,  guns blazing. She predicted every move that I made with near perfection. Celestia offered me and my crew a deal; do a little gig off the books for her, and our criminal records get scrubbed away. I took it, but not without squeezing a couple hundred platinum out of her (heh heh). I can scratch "haggle with Celestia"  and "piss off Celestia" out of my bucket list at the same time.The princess wants me to pick up a couple of ponies from a bunch of different places and drop them off at Canterlot, hell if anypony will tell me why. Sounds simple,  right? But get this: some of the passengers are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. No so simple anymore, now is it? All six of them are in there, plus four more makes ten passengers in all. Fan-freakin'-tastic.Oh, and one more thing, Celly also stuck a babysitter on my boat, some bureaucrat mare named Harvest Moon. What a joy she is.That's probably it for now. Strider out.X-X-X-X-XHome.     I was home, safe and sound in the embrace of my lady Sea Singer. Now that I've got her, I can never leave her alone again. You know what they say, absence makes the heart grow ten times it's size. Or something like that. I haven't read a book in a while.     Funny how going less than a week without her made me antsy. Here I was, a veteran sailor on both a sea of blue and a sea of green, and I can't even be away from her for four days without all but chewing my leg off trying to get back.     Though, that was a pretty rutting close call with Celestia, I was sure at one point that she would dump me back in that jail and find somepony else with a weaker will. Coz I'm sure that's how she operates sometimes. All those land-kissers see Celestia as a kind and benevolent ruler, even I did a long time ago. "Oh, Her Majesty is a saint!" They would say. Yet...she was letting EBRoT rule this whole country with an iron hoof. They had control of nearly everything under the sun! The economy, the mail service, medical care, insurance, local elections, the list goes on and on. Since when did this country turn communist?      Probably around the time the trees came in. the inner Cloud told me.     I shook those thoughts from my head.     It's probably best to just accept it and move on. I closed my log and unceremoniously tossed it on the nightstand and spit the pencil out of my mouth. Turning over in my hammock, I was reminded how uncomfortable mass-produced prison cots were. I jumped out of bed and began stretching out my stiff muscles, my joints gave a both satisfying and disgusting pop as I tensed them.     Feeling like a million bits, I decided that napping here in my quarters wasn't exactly the most productive thing in Equestria to do, so I went to take a stroll arond the Singer and see what needs doing.X-X-X-X-X     During my wanderings, I passed by the senior officer's bunks. I had no reason to be loitering about the place, besides being the undisputed owner and operator of this ship. But, just as I passed a brightly decorated door with the letters "C~M~C" painted in a glittery red paint, I heard muffled, angry voices.     "Horseapples!" one twangy voice shouted "That ain't no reason!" Somepony really needed to work on Bloom's grammar.      "Yes it is!" Sweetie Bell protested "Rarity's almost an hour away, we could just make a quick stop and grab her  It'll be the fastest thing in the world."     "But she already is in Canterlot!" Scootaloo said "We don't even need to pick her up. I say we go for Rainbow Dash first."     "No way, she ain't yer sister, and I ain't seen AJ in a year."     "Rarity's my sister too, and she's the closest. That makes her first by default."     "No it doesn't.  And I haven't seen Rainbow in ten!"     "Oh, whatever."     "Shut up!"     "No, you shut up!"     "Both y'all shuddup!"     "Shut up, AB, nopony asked you!"     "Make me, shoogacube!"     "Bring it on, hayseed!"     Then, there came a shuffling, a grunting, and a crash, followed by a short pause, then more shuffling and grunting. It sounded like a miniature bar fight in there.     "Hey, no mane pulling!"     "Mane pulling? You mean like this?"     "Oww! You little--"     I believe it was interference time.     I casually pushed open the glitter-dusted door and trotted in without any regard to their personal privacy "What's up ladies?"     Three mares whipped their heads my way, goofy  looks of mild shock on their faces. They all froze in an award position, Sweetie with Scoot's mane in her teeth, Scootaloo with Applebloom in a headlock, and Applebloom with her hoof in Scoot's face. Behind them, amongst the absurd amount of brightly colored furniture, was the stack of dossiers that Harvest Moon gave me.     "Uhh, Captian..." one began.     "We were just..."     "Stowe it before I knock your heads together." I said in a distinct tone of finality "I'm the captain, and I decide who goes first, got it?"     The three of them cast their eyes to the floor "Yes, Captian." they said in stero.     "Now, I suppose I should make my pick before we shove off."     Sweetie was the first to perk up. She instantly spit out Scoot's mane, darted to the table behind her, and snatched up a pure white folder with a amethyst purple trim. Shoving it to me, she said, "I vote Rarity! She's the closest and she's probably the easiest to convince."     "This isn't a democracy." I said, hoofing it back to her "This is a Cloudtatorship. And besides, it's not like she's going anywhere. And I DO NOT want to go back to that city for at least a minimum of six months, understand?."     "Then pick Applejack!" Applebloom interjected "She's probably not hard to track down since she's got a job on that airship. The Smuggler's Guild prob'bly has a record of her."     "I don't need any help choosing, AB." I said flatly. I rudely pushed past the mares and grabbed the stack of files in my hoof. I sat myself down and laid each folder on the table, ten in all.     I immediately slid the white, rainbow, and orange dossiers away. "None of you get your wish." I eyed each of the remaining seven. A plain purple one with six stars on the cover, a glittery pink one with ballons, a green and purple one with green flames, a white one with sapphire blue trim and a shield emblem, a more flat kind of pink one with a light blue heart emblem on the front, a grey one with a big black question mark, and an-- "Oooh, yellow." I said. Yellow was my favorite color!     I picked up the yellow dossier with three pink butterflies on the front and held it up for everypony to see. "This one. Were going after--" I read the small print in the top-left of the cover "Fluttershy. Huh." Wasn't she a model?     I shrugged and flipped open the file, with the CMC peering over my shoulder. FluttershyGender: FAge: 33Race: PegasusAppearance: Butter yellow coat, cyan eyes, pink mane and tail, no other distinguishable features. Usually seen with a white rabbit in tow.Alignment: Lawful GoodLocation: Unknown. Subject was last observed in an outer rim town called "Farpoint" on the 21th of July, year 14 of the sixth age. We believe she left on a medium-sized civilian airship.Occupation: Voulenteer worker. Psychological Profile: Friendly, yet reserved. Subject's passion for helping those outer rim settlers has led her to dedicate her life to helping those in need, she is at times a true saint. Yet, when the work is finished, she seems secluded, opting to quietly watch the ponies she helped from a distance. Staying true to her namesake, subject seems very nervous around anypony who is not a close friend. It appears that she chooses the company of wild animals rather than ponies, whether this is from fear of society or disdain of it, we cannot say. But we do know that her shy tendencies makes it very difficult for our undercover operatives to interact with her.Notable Abilities: Subject is dominantly average or below average in most categories. Though, she has the uncanny ability to communicate with and even under stand the languages of wild and tame animals alike, and nearly all animals will bend to her wishes. We currently cannot determine the cause of this ability. Our agents have also been hearing a myth pertaining to the subject, something about a hypnotic "stare." Investigation is currently under way.     "Huh."     Scootaloo nudged me "What are you 'huh-ing' about?"     "A lady with power over animals." I answered "That's a mighty rare talent she has there. Could be useful to somepony like Celestia and EBRoT. But what the hell is a "stare"? Some kinda magic?"     The three mares fell silent.     "What?"     "We've seen the stare." Sweetie answered in the most solemn tone I've ever heard from her.     "It's..." Applebloom let the words die in her mouth.     "I don't wanna talk about it." Scootaloo said with a whimper that was uncharacteristical of her.     "Even after all these years..." Sweetie whispered "I can still see them, you know? Those eyes. That kind of thing never leaves you. Ever."     "Well, color me creeped out."     "Can we change the subject?" AB asked quickly.      "Aye, that we can." I gathered up the mound of paper and stacked it neatly on their desk "Ladies, rev up those engines, grab those charts, and man that helm. We make way for Farpoint."     "Aye, aye, Captain!" The three gave me a salute and bolted out the door.     I lingered behind for just a moment, taking a second to look again at the dossier.      "Farpoint." I repeated to myself. The name was vaguely familiar to me. I had probably made a pit stop there at one point in my trading career, probably to sell of some less-than-legal goods to the head of the town. Honestly, once you've seen ten outer rim towns struggling to get by, you've seen them all.     Just then, conveniently after I had finished my thoughts, the Singer's emergency sirens blared and cracked through the shipwide speaker system. I winced and laid my ears flat to my head. Goddesses, that was aways a hell of a way to get somepony's attention.     "Zzzt Captain! Captain! Pick up the mic. bzzzt" the voice of Crowe came through in between the siren wails. It came from the personal quarters speakers, not the main ones. Crowe was speaking      I calmly rushed over to the microphone on the wall, flipped the switch that connected me to the Crowe's Nest, and punched the "talk" button "Crowe, this better be good if you're gonna make the speakers scream like that."     "Zzzt We've got an EBRoT heavy military cruiser about seven klicks off the stern. Looks like they've gunning for us bzzt."     "Damn it all to Tartarus!" I cursed, slamming a hoof into the wall for emphasis "I thought Celly wiped our slates clean!"     "Zzzt So did I! bzzt"     I ran a hoof through my ragged mane and gabe off a frustrated huff of air "We'll try and beat the truth out of our new guest later. Right now we've got way bigger problems. How long is it before they get here?"     "Zzzt Uhhh...about twelve minutes til we can see the whites of their eyes bzzt."     Just fantastic.      "Alright, sit tight. Were gonna make a run for it."     "Zzzt Captain?! bzzt"     "We've got a freshly repaired Gemini model with the royal tune-up treatment. If we can't outrun the law with the Singer, then we deserve to be caught. Strider over anf out."     I flipped a switch on the wall panel, disconnecting me from Crowe. With another flick, I connected the comm system to the bridge "Scoots, turn the boat toward Farpoint and tell AB to put 'er on full burn."     "Zzzt I just got to the wheel, what's going on, captain? bzzt" came the muffled voice of my pilot.     "We're on the run again."

Chapter 7: Peacemaker

The Sea SingerChapter Seven: Peacemaker(Fair warning: Most of the Sea Singer has been pretty tame so far, but this chapter will feature the first real battle in the storyline, with intense amounts of sweet, sweet violence. It won't have absurd quantities of blood and/or gore being flung around, but it'll definitely be a few shades darker than it has been so far. So if you don't like reading about red-shirted crewmembers and nameless troops being shot to death and stabbed in the face, click away.)...     Predator and Prey.     It's one one of the oldest and most basic relationships between two sentient beings that has ever existed. The predator chases after the prey in a desperate quest to sate its hunger, to stave off starvation as it grows nearer and nearer with each passing day. The prey, in turn, flees with all the haste that it can muster, using any means necessary to escape the fierce predator's grasp and maybe live another day on this planet. The predator gives chase, the prey runs. Nature at its most primal.     Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and scientific development later, this relationship still remains the same. Kill or starve, flee or die. While, in the case of the Sea Singer, the concept was made a little more complicated than a wolf chasing a rabbit through the forest, the general principle still stood. The government ponies wanted to arrest us, and we didn't want to be arrested. They were predator, we were prey. They gave chase, we fled.     And flee we did.     I was leaning on the guardrails of the ship's stern looking through a long polished brass spyglass. The foreleg-sized device gave me a uncomfortably close image of the angry mass of military hardware that rolled across the Green Sea at an alarming speed. The hulking airship was probably a few tons heavier and a few knots faster than a standard Gemini I model of airship, and that meant we were about to meet a full battalion of troops that probably wanted nothing more in life than to manhandle every one of us into a four-by-four jail cell and throw the key off the side of an airship.     Peacemaker, the black and blue behemoth said on its forward hull. Ironic, since ships like that made no peace with my type. If we didn't surrender immediately then it's likely that they'd try to board by force. If they couldn't capture the ship on hoof, then they would just blow us out of the sky. If they can't blow us out of the sky then they'd try to catch up with us. If they couldn't do that...well, that's when we were okay. I've seen them try the same damn thing over and over, as per standard operating procedure for chasing crooks. The EBRoT military might have been the most well equipped and well trained force on the whole planet, but they were SO damn predictable some times.     I fished a little black trottie-talkie from my coat and flipped the "On" switch "Crowe, how long do we have 'til those EBRoT clowns are crawling up our plotholes?"     My security officer's voice came in clearly through the radio "Gimme a sec..." he mumbled back. There was a short pause and the sound of wood scraping on wood came through as Crowe fiddled with his abacus. "Alright, I got it. If I did the math right and both of us go on full burn the whole time, the ship should be on us in aboooout... thirty minutes."     "Crap."     Thirty minutes. We were on a clock now. I checked my watch: half past twelve. Half an hour. Time to get going.      I stuffed the trottie-talkie back into my coat and did an about-face. I ran down the stairs that led up to the platform above my quarters, taking them two at a time. I rushed into the middle deck where every one of the sailors gave one another nervous glances. There were few things in this sea that made the  mares and stallions on the Singer skiddish. Unfortunately for us, pursuing military vessels were one of them.     I hopped up on top of a conviently placed shipping crate, grabbing everypony's attention. Clearing my throat, most of the crew gathered in a loose semicircle around me "Alright fillies and gents," I said "I'm sure your all aware of the ship full of angry EBRoT goons on our tails." This gained me a few yeps and no shits from the crew.     "I won't lie to you, were in deep shit...again. I just talked to our security officer, he said that they'll be within spitting distance in thirty minutes, and we'll be crawling with troops in thirty one. We're not going to let them get that close."     A dirty, beefy, red mare with an anchor for a cutie mark separated herself from the group, I think her name was Helga or something. "How the hell are we going to do that?!" she demanded "This ship ain't fast enough to get us the hell outta' dodge! And they'll outnumber us two-to-one!"     "We're going to fight." I answered immediately, eliciting several groans from the sailors "Sure, those guys have a bigger stick than us, and way more ponies that can swing it. But we can do some things that they can't. We can play dirty."     I cracked a confident smile at my crew "We don't follow the rules of engagement. They do, and we can use that against them. All's fair in love, smuggling, and war. Am I right or am I right?"     "Yeah..."  nine or ten of the fifty total sailors half-agreed.     "So... I want every one of you land-kissing milk-drinkers to get you dirty flanks down the the armory and load yourself with guns til' you can barely walk! I'm talkin' about a rifle in every hoof that can hold one, and a pistol in every holster that didn't have one before. If we run out of guns, use your swords, and if those are gone, you beat them with your bare hooves! If your hooves start bleeding, use your skulls! Celestia knows how thick you ponies are in the head. But you don't stop fighting until they do! Agreed?"     "Yeah!" About half of the crew heartily cheered.      "I want you all to kick, bite, claw, and use any means that you can send these pigs packing, back to their pathetic excuse for a boat. Gouge the eyes, pull the manes, go for the throat, and (Celestia willing) hit below the belt."     "YEAH!" All of the sailors agreed in a chorus.     "These navy clowns are gonna come at us with everything that they've got. They'll hit fast, and they'll hit hard. But we're just going to have hit faster and harder! Those assholes are coming for us, coming to take away our way of life so that they can continue theirs! Are we gonna sit around with our hooves in our mouths and let them do it? Are we gonna take that?!"     "NO!"     "Repeat after me: WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!"     "WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!"     I cupped a hoof to my ear and leand closer to the ecstatic group of sailors "WHAT?! Are you all half -asleep? Once more."     "WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!" The noise from the vocal chords of fifty airponies was deafening.      "That's right!" I stood on my hind legs in a showmanistic way and pointed off to the starboard side of the Singer "I want all artilleryponies to ready the canons, and pray that we won't need to use them. Also, somepony tell Doctor Cotton to ready the infirmary,  she's gonna take on some patients."     The ponies gave a collective "AYE CAP'IN!" and bolted off.     I drew an invisible line with my hoof down the center of the crowd "I want that half of you to go set up barricades in case they take the fighting below deck! Go go go!" They all galloped off as well "The other half of you grab as many guns as you can carry and pass them out like they were peices of candy! If I see a sailor without at least a loaded flintlock and a sword at their side, I will personally shove a cannon ball where the sun ain't shinin'. Got it?"     "AYE CAP'IN!"     "Good. Off with you, then." And so, they all dispersed in the other direction, leaving the main deck empty.      Well, relatively empty. Alone stood one little pegasus filly looking up at me with determined eyes.     "Breeze," I said "Go to my quarters and grab that pistol under the desk like I showed you. If anypony that isn't part of the crew comes in, shoot 'em."     "But I want to help fight!" she instantly responded, as if fully expecting me to say what I said "You know I can shoot a gun just as well as any other part of the crew."     "Oh goddesses, this again." I jumped off of the box and looked my niece dead in the eye "No."     "But--"    "Nope."     "I won't--"     "Not a chance in Tartarus."     "But I'm just as much a part of this ship as anypony else is! Why can't I help keep it safe?!"     "Now listen here, Easybreeze, and listen good. I ain't sayin' that you're any less a crewmember than any other pony that flies under these sails, but the difference between you and them is that you're young. You got plenty of good years ahead of you. Puttin' your life on the line for your ship might sound nice in your head, but you won't be thinkin' those thoughts any more when a bullet tears through your skull."     She grunted and stomped her hoof on the floorboards "But Sweetie, Scootaloo, and Applebloom were, like, three years younger than I am when they started sailing with you like this!"     "That was when we didn't have an evil government bureau snapping at our hooves."     Before she could retort, my trusty, ditzy first mate loudly burst through one of the hatches that went below deck. She spotted Breezy and I and galloped over to us, momentarily tripping over her own forelegs and landing right at my hooves. "Captain!" she said, springing up  "We got a ship named Peacemaker calling on the short wave, they're asking for you."   I snorted "Probably to "accept our surrender" or something." I checked my watch: twenty seven minutes. "Can't I just let it go to voice mail?"     The two ladies stared at me blankly.     "Fine."X-X-X-X-X     Scootaloo was furiously mashing buttons on the console and hollering engineer-speak at AB through the intercom when I trotted onto the bridge.     "What do you mean flooded?!" she hollered angrily into the comm.     "Zzzt Ah'm sayin' we done pumped too much coolant into the number one chamber in engine two!" Applebloom said through the speakers "We're gonna need at least three minutes to drain it, else we end up shutting the whole engine down for three hours. bzzt"     "We don't have three minutes OR three hours! I can't do anything less than full burn until that ship is a speck on the horizon."     "Zzzt Well, we ain't got no choice! bzzt"     "Just see what you can do, okay?"     Silence from the other end.     "You two alright?" I asked.     Scootaloo, not looking away from the flashing lights on the console, waved at me dismissively "We'll get this sorted out. AB's always holding back on something. She'll fix it, whether it's impossible or not."     "Anyway," Scoots grabbed the radio from its position on the console and passed it to me "You've got a call on the short wave. Must be telemarketers or something."     "Funny." I switched the radio on "This is Captain Cloudstrider of the Airship Sea Singer speaking...who the hell are you and what do you want from us?"     "Cloudstrider..." the radio crackled. The voice on the other end was masculine, but not too deep, and sort of smooth in a way. Whoever it was sounded like he belonged on a radio talk show "I've been waiting a long time to hear your voice."     "Cut the bullshit, bub." I gruffly said into the mic "I know you're here to either capture my ship, or sink her into the Green Sea. So just do your little monologue song and dance about how you're going to mount my balls above your fireplace and convert my ship into a fast food joint, and then maybe we can both get on with our lives."     "Not one for formalities, are you?" He hummed thoughtfully, then line went silent for a few moments "That makes two of us. And you're right, for the most part. I am here to ruin your day. To rain on your parade, as it were. I'm that stallion who would like nothing more than to see you in chains. So if you hand your ship over immediately, I get my wish, and you won't have to worry about getting caught anymore. Oh, but who am I kidding? After all, you are the unflappable Captain Cloudstrider, the dashing hero of this mad work of fiction! You'd never give in to a "corrupt" military mind like myself, now would you?" He chuckled darkly "No... you'll run away like you always have. That, I am sure of."     "Well, you're not an idiot, I'll give you that." I replied "It's good to know that there is at least one EBRoT officer that's decent enough to be earnest with me. I like you. Don't get me wrong, I still hate every aspect of your little government bureau, but I still like you."     "How civilized of you. You may not be the barbarian that EBRoT made you out to be after all. Be you a decent pony or not, it's still my duty to arrest you. Prepare your ship to be boarded."     "I'm guessing you didn't get the memo, huh? Celestia wiped my slate clean in exchange for a favor. A favor which I'd get right back to, if you'd let me."     There was the longest pause at the other end of the line. Scoots, Derpy, and I silently shared looks with one another. Then he came back and said "My records don't indicate anypony by the name of Cloudstrider on the royal payroll, much less a smuggler. I must warn you that lying to me any further would be a poor career choice on your part."     "I'm sure it would, but you do realize that I won't give my ship up without a fight, right?"     "I do. In fact, I'd be dissapointed if I didnt cross swords with you at some point. I'll see you on deck, Strider."     "That's Captain Strider to you!" I barked into the radio before immediately hanging up.     "That didn't bode well." Scootaloo dryly observed.      "No kidding. He's coming for us for sure." I sighed heavily and massaged my temples. This was turning out to be a stresful day "Looks like a battle is enevitable. Scoots, when I give you the word, I'm going to need you to use it."     "Wait, you mean it? That it?!." she groaned " We only have two more its left, and I'm pretty sure it's terrible for the engine. We just had it tuned up for Sisters' sake!"     "Well, we don't have another choice, now do we?"     "No, but..."     "No buts. That's an order."     "Aye, Captain." She said with obvious reluctance in her voice.X-X-X-X-X     They were on us.     The Peacemaker was less than klick away when the first set of Berau troops set their horshoes on the deck of my ship. It was a tactic that EBRoT used once in a blue moon, the commanding officer would send five groups of two pegasai and one unicorn over to cause a hundred different kinds of mayhem. The pegasai would drop the unicorn down to the main deck, who would in turn try to zap the crew and torch the sails with destruction magic. Then the pegasai come in behind them with their blades and muskets, highly trained to use both weapons with deadly efficency.      I watched five vague specks flying in a tight formation slowly become larger shapes on the horizon. The cluster of ponies broke off into three groups; two squads going on either side of the Singer, one flying over the stern and dropping directly from above.     The one from above was the first to touch down. The armored battlemage dropped like a block of concrete from ten feet high.... That poor sailor never saw it coming, those bastards must have been aiming for him. The crewmember, his name was Smithy as I recall, had served for quite awhile on the Singer, and he was one of the nicest stallions that I had ever met. He had been serving on the ship for five whole years, going on six. Everypony knew him, he was alway a hard worker, and an avid joker. That guy had a sense of humor that'd make a brick wall crack a smile every once in a while. I remember loosing a hooful of bits to him a few times in poker, but he was always a good sport about it. I liked Smithy.    Smithy's bones made a stomach-churning crunch as three hundred pounds of muscle and steel landed atop him. He was killed instantly, thank the Sisters that it had been quick.     I had no time to process what had happened, no time to mourn for my friend, I only had time to react. The unicorn's horn was already flaring with a red hot fire spell, and he was looking directly at another sailor, poised to let it loose.     My hooves were moving before I even knew it. With an adrenaline-boosted leap, I threw all my weight against that goon. It hurt my side like hell when I collided with the heavy armor, but it barely even registered in my head, all that mattered to me was eliminating the threat to my crew.     With all my momentum, I fell down along with the soilder. We were sprawled out in a tangle of limbs and metal, both a little bit stunned. My first reflex was to draw my iron cutlass and drive it through his eye socket, but the reinforced helmet visor deflected it uselessly. With a swift headbutt, said visor impacted against my skull, forcing me to cry out and loose the blade from my jaws.     Nursing a newly formed migrane, I rolled off of the nameless EBRoT solider. We both picked ourselves off of the deck. By now the whole ship had erupted into chaos, with five armored unicorns and ten bladeslinging pegasai versus thirty or so armed smugglers and their captain. The boat rocked with iron clashing with iron and musket shots being exchanged between enemies. There were gunshots that rung in your ears hours after the fight was  over, primal cries of pain that could drive a lesser pony mad, and harrowing near death experiences that would haunt your dreams for years to come.     My foe took a leap backward, moving with ease that should not have been afforded to somepony wearing armor like that. His horn lit up in a dull red light as he prepped another destruction spell. I, in response, drew my flintlock and leveled it at his head. He aimed the spell at me, I aimed the gun at him. Nopony fired, both combatants awaited the other's move.     "It appears we have ourselves a Marexican standoff." I shouted over the clatter of combat. These kind of things happened all the time in the Green Sea. Both ponies have the chance to kill one another, yet neither of them moves. It's a pause in which the two parties take time to whip their muddled thoughts into order. You see it in the movies all the time. I don't know why either pony takes advantage of their opponent's hesitation.      Boom! My flintlock roared, and in the blink of an eye, the half-face visor was nothing but cracked glass, and the pony behind it was dead. His body clattered to the ground lifelessly. I dared not look under the tinted glass, fearing the face of the pony I had just slain. I didn't even learn whether he was a he or a she. It was better that way.     I cooly shoved my gun back into its holster and drew a fresh one, shot and powder already loaded into it. Oh goddeses, I had just killed another pony. I hate killing ponies. Some psycho criminals out there get a rush from ending another's life, ponies like mercenaries, serial killers, and hitmares. Maybe doing it makes them feel more alive. Maybe they're addicted to the adrenaline high that comes from combat. Who knows? All I know is that I'll never throw my hat in with the likes of those ponies. Ever. I hate killing ponies.    I shook those thoughts from my head. No time to dwell, I've got a battle to win.     Just as the thought of fighting entered my head, an enemy pegasus solider flew over it. With the biting noise of metal on wood, he crashed into the deck less than five feet away from me. I only had enough sense to gape as the black towering figure that was Oakfang almost casually sauntered over to the prone goon. With practiced ease, the diamond dog brought his lengthy oaken longbow up to bear and nocked an arrow. Oak only needed to draw the string back halfway to do what he intended to do.     If somepony was looking very carefully at Oakfang that day, then they could see the dog use his claw to slice a small notch into the bow.     "Cloud!" I heard the strained voice of one of my sailors from behind me. I whipped my head around to see an armored pegasus charging my way, the cutlass clenched in his or her jaws shone for a split second as the sunlight caught it at just the right angle.     My one and only pistol shot merely grazed off of his armor, doing no damage at all to my attacker. I dropped the second gun and out came my sword for a block-- Argh! Damn thing was still lying somewhere on the deck. His blade barely missed my neck as I weaved under the first blow. I tried to counter with a swift punch in the gut, but my hoof just erupted into pain against that rutting barding. I hate armor.     His next attack came as a forward thrust at my chest Thankfully, I backpedaled far enough so that the tip of his blade only dug a gash into me about an inch deep. I stumbled backward and clutched a hoof to my wound. My normal navy blue hoof came back a color of crimson red.     That was gonna hurt like hell later.     The pegasus followed up that small victory with another thrust at a slightly different angle. My only choice to avoid being  impaled was to lose balance and fall on by back.      The solider took advantage of my brief moment of total vulnerability and swung her blade in an overhead arc. I rolled away on to my stomach and the sword cut a chunk out of the ship's deck rather than myself. I silently thanked the Sisters when I saw my own cutlass within hoof's reach. I barely had enough time to pull myself upright and bring the sword to bear before my attacker had pulled her own sword out of the wooden floor.     We were on even ground now. Well, even-ish ground; he still had his barding. There were only a few weak points on a fully-armored EBRoT solider: the one opening between the helmet and the shoulder where their jugular vein was exposed and the four soft chain mail spots where their knees bent. All of those weak points had a problem, unfortunately. The neck one was only usable when he stretched it forward to thrust and stab and I could only reach the knees when he wasn't facing me. Of course, as a highly trained agent of EBRoT, he wasn't stupid enough to not be facing me at all times.     I still felt a hundred times better now that I had a blade to attack and defend with. He swung high, I was able to block it. He thrusted forward, I could parry it. Then again, this guy was no no pushover. Even with his armor, he could still defend as well as I could, so trying for the weak spots yielded no victory whatsoever. This fight was still horribly one-sided, and it could only end with me making a mistake and him gutting me. I needed a new plan.     Or did I? Without any warning, the EBRoT goon tensed up and began so spasm and shake violently as if having a seizure. The armor made a horrible metallic clatter as the plates rubbed up against one a other. He shrieked like a filly, then went silent and collapsed into a heap of helpless horse, mercifully falling into unconsciousness.     Standing behind him was the cocky smirk of one Harvest Moon, her horn smoking like the barrel of a gun. Farther behind, I found that the fighting had ended. Funny, I was too caught up with my own battles that I hadn't noticed the other ponies had stopped. Thirty or so rag-tag sailors had defeated fifteen highly trained EBRoT troops. I was instantly proud of these fine ponies.     But it wasn't over yet. A quick glance told me that the Peacemaker was less than ten minutes away from boarding us. These next few moments would be crucial.     "I told you to stay out of our way." I said coldly to the government mare, sheathing my cutlass.     "My word, Cloudstrider, are you going to be alright?" she asked with what I though sounded like actual concern. "You're bleeding like a busted pipe!"     Not responding, I bent down over the knocked out solider. I removed the helmet from his...her head, causing a shock of golden yellow hair to spill forth. I checked her pulse, it was going pretty fast, but that meant it was still going. This one was alive. Good, because I hated killing ponies.     "Somepony tie this goon up and send her to Dr. Cotton." I ordered nopony in particular. Goddesses, I felt so dizzy.      As they dragged our new prisoner off, I pulled that trottie-talkie out of my coat. "Scoots, you ready to use it?"     "I'm not exactly ready on the emotional side," her voice came back "but I can do it when you give me the word."     "Good." I regarded the crew, who were busy dragging the corpses of the EBRoT goons to the side and pitching them over to be eaten by the Everfree. I've rather given them a proper burial, but we're too far away from ground to have over a dozen dead bodies stinking up half of the ship.     We couldn't take their armor, either, no matter how bad the world was running low on iron and steel. It's just plain bad luck wearing the clothes of a dead pony, even if those clothes were made from metal.      "Oakfang!" I shouted, stifling a cough "Where the hell are you?"     The diamond dog, whose towering self was easy to pick out of a crowd, turned and cocked an eyebrow at me.     "I need you down in engineering with AB. We're about to use it."     Oak's eyes flicked to my chest, then, to my surprise, he said "You're bleeding."     I looked down at the nasty gash in my chest that the EBRoT goon left for me. By the sun on Celestia's butt, it stung. Crimson liquid seeped out of my wound like a faucet,  running all the way down my leg and pooling on the deck. "Huh." I answered, before passing out.     My limp body made a dull thudding sound as it collapsed to the deck. Heh heh. I guess blood loss does things to a pony. My lightheaded feeling quickly faded away as the deep embrace of dark sleep encompassed me...X-X-X-X-X     I'm sure that you're all probably wondering what "it" is by now. Well, the guy who gave it to us was a bit of a whack job, and he never gave it a real name. We were doing a less-than-legal arms run to an outer-rim colony somewhere on the west coast, the place was a nice enough little village called "Shoreshire" or something. The whole place was built on five foot tall platforms on the sandy border where the Green Sea ended and the beaches began. Despite being literally on the blue sea, most of the ponies lived dry straw huts. It was a pretty cool place.     Anyway, in that village lived this crazy middle-aged alchemy professor that went by "Herbert." He was the town's mayor-slash-medicine pony. Herbert was really into homemade herbal remedies using weird weeds that he found in the Everfree. The guy could just go on and on about how many new species of plants cropped up when Nature's Curse hit and how many diseases that they could potentially cure and blah blah blah. Well, when we made port to drop off the guns, ol' Herb didn't have enough platinum to pay for the whole shipment. He tried to pay off the rest in barter. I'm the kind of stallion who prefers cold, hard coins, but I've been known to accept trades every now and again.      The alchemist dug a little lead case out of some chest in his hut and presented it to us. He said that these things could be worth twice what he owed, maybe more if I found the right buyer. Inside was a trio of shiny reddish-yellow rocks. He told us that he made them from coal, some blend of natural herbs, magic, minerals and junk. How that guy cooked them up, I'll never know. But appeantly they supercharged whatever fuel-burning machine that you put them in, made them work faster and harder than I could ever imagine. Like if you put it in a stove, you could boil water in seconds, or you could stick it in a forge and it could get hot enough to melt down diamonds.     So naturally, we put it in the Sea Singer. Woah nelly, did she go fast. With only a little chunk of it in her belly, the old girl traveled three klicks in two and a half minutes. No ship, and I mean no ship, that big can go that fast. That was the speed that professional racing ships went, on a good day. It was unheard of... and defianatly worth a half-crate of guns. I took the deal in a heartbeat.      We had already used one in a little escape from a merry band of mercenaries up at Keldigram. Heh, poor bastards had no idea what happened when we left their ship in our trail of smoke. After that, Derps made me swear to use the remaining two only in emergencies.     Being chased by EBRoT qualified as an emergency.     I wasn't awake to see the Sea Singer get away. Though, I wish I had been. Just as some of my faithful sailors hauled my lazy ass to the med-bay and plopped me down with all of the other wounded, AB and Oak had simultaneously threw open the two furnaces that kept the Singer's heart beating and chucked a piece of the wonder fuel straight into the hot bed of coals. They slammed the big iron doors as hard as they could and took a cautious step backward.     At first, nothing happned. There was a pregnant pause as everypony on the ship held their breath and awaited what was to come.     ...     Nothing.     ..."Well, that was mighty usele--" And then Applebloom was forced to eat her words when a huge, ship-shaking explosion was muffled by the sturdy interiors of the furnaces. A wave of sweltering heat washed over the two engineers as the rocks inside let off untold amounts of raw energy.      Just outside of engineering, the normal bluish exhaust flames that the Singer's engines produced was magnified a hundredfold. Scathing jets of magical red flames erupted from both engines to lengths of more than twenty feet, or so I had been told. The metal machine parts instantly began to glow a hot orange as their temperatures nearly reached the melting point.     Then, the Sea Singer moved like it had never moved before. Oh, if only I could have seen it with my own two eyes! She tore and screamed across the Green Sea like a bat out of hell, faster than any ship in the sky. The crew aboard panicked and flailed around limply, making a mad scramble for something to hang on to. The sailors desperately clung to whatever was firmly attached to the Singer, unlike themselves.      We were gone.     Farther behind, a ship full of EBRoT goons stared blankly at the supposedly slow and weighty airship that was becoming smaller and smaller by the minute. "That wasn't supposed to happen." one of them uttered dumbly. "But it did." another answered. "Damn!" exclaimed another.    The crew of the Peacemaker gave a collective "What the hell?" and scratched their heads repeatedly.      Inside, on the bridge Peacemaker, a lone pegasus stallion watched the Sea Singer dissappear with furrowed brows. His prey had escaped. I was now a dot on the horizon, and there was not a damn thing that he could do about it. The commander grimaced, this would not look good on his report. Not at all.      "Bested by a criminal." he grumbled to himself. Then again, how was he to know what the Singer had up her sleeve? No ship on the sea could fly like that. But how would he explain to his superiors what had justed happened? They likely wouldn't take "he outran the fastest ship in its weight class by sixty five knots like it was nothing" for an explanation.     He huffed and silently retreated from the ship's wheel and slipped away to his lavishly decorated personal quarters. "I'll find him again." he muttered. He plopped himself in front the mahogany work desk in his room and laid his elbows on it, hooves folded together in deep thought. The Green Sea was big, but not big enough to hide that giant freight ship for too long.     "I'll find him."