Woona’s Gets Scurvy!
Luna awoke to darkness and the scent of damp foliage. Around her, a full moon shone through thick canopy. The light was bright enough to see from far away, but sparse enough leave without even a guess of her surroundings. There were vines, overgrowth, and the thick air of a jungle, yet not so thick that she couldn’t see more than one-hundred feet unobstructed. It seemed to be a fairly standard jungle, with standard jungle things.
And among those things were crawling things.
Luna yelped as she felt hundreds of tiny taps cascade down her flank. She leapt away with the force of her wings and let out a reflexive blast of magic. The blast made contact with something and the forest flashed navy blue. The force of the blast sent her flying unusually far and seconds before she collided with a nearby root, she noted something was off about her voice and relative size. Trees usually weren’t ten times taller than she was, and her voice usually wasn’t so high.
“Infernal spawn of—!” she squealed before being abruptly cut off by a jutting root to the temple. There was a jarring pain as her brain seemed to bounce around inside her skull. She blacked out.
Luna awoke in approximately the same spot as before to spinning stars and the scent of burnt flesh. Her head hurt and despite the weirdness from before, she didn’t have the wits to spell her name. When the stars cleared, she saw her victim; several segments of centipede, charred and black.
She rubbed her head as a tinge of guilt overcame her. Killing things was strictly against Royal Canterlot Codes of Conduct. Even though she really hated bugs, she knew she shouldn’t have lost control so easily. Again, the sense that not all was well came back to Luna. She ran the scenario once more in her mind and concluded that she shouldn’t have had been so easily startled. For hundreds of years her resolve had been tempered and stoic. Yet now she jumped at the smallest of insects.
Then it hit her.
She looked to the side in the direction of the hoof rubbing her temple. She slowly brought her own tiny hoof into vision, stared at it as though a doughnut shaped growth was pulsating on it, and then slowly sent it back to rubbing her temple.
Tiny hooves, check.
“Pray, my voice shall the same!” sang Luna for reasons she wasn’t fully aware of. She let the sound of her new, youthful voice ring out into the jungle.
Adorably high voice, check.
For a moment, she let her mind wander. Within seconds she had already theorized that flying up a nearby tree and swinging from vine to vine while screaming at the top of her lungs would yield an adequate level of fun. What was definitely missing were any thoughts of royal duties, interstate affairs, or social awkwardness.
An undying need to do reckless things, check. She was a filly again, and as much as she wanted to grab the nearest worthy stick as her sword she forced her mind to reconsider the important before playing jungle explorer.
“So aside from the obvious, what else is troubling about this scenario?”
Luna looked to the moon and gathered her magic. Through her mind streamed all the force and will power it took to complete the daily cycle. She shimmered with her signature aura navy blue aura and cast her spell.
Upon opening her eyes to see the moon unchanged, her slowly went agape in contemplation. “I should probably try and find ponies, get home to Equestria, and return to my proper age.”
Even she didn't like her own plan. Within seconds she forgot it, and instead saw a futuristic set of rails that she'd fly down at top speed because swinging through the jungle wasn't fun enough. No, a tool or appendage with a weird spinning thing on the end would do. That spinning thing would then latch onto the rails and she’d speed off through the jungle.
She needed to be super hero saving a flying city from insurrection, a giant bird, and nonsensical world mechanics. And the only way to do that was by pretending that she was dangling by one hoof from disconnected sets of rail whimsically floating hundreds of feet above any surface. Had Luna been her proper age she was sure that all these notions and ideas would have been as delusional as they sounded, but being old was severely lacking in excitement.
And mindless screaming.
Her eye twitched in anticipation at a nearby vine. It was just swinging there, tempting her. A Sky Hook she'd call it. No—that was silly and entirely predictable. She'd call it "Luna's Super Rail System of Awesome." Yes! She imagined the wind flowing through her mane. There was freedom in this new, completely fickle body. Long nights spent worrying and thinking, wishing for youthfulness once more were suddenly remedied by a totally random event. Sure, she’d need to find civilization, ponies, and an explanation soon enough, but why not do that while swinging through the canopy at over forty miles an hour and laughing like a psychopath?
A woman, armed with a machete and lantern, slowly made her way through the thicket. She was thin, lanky, and smelled sorely of urine. Her hair was a greasy, auburn mess. From her more rounded face, one would obviously suspect her of being English first, then maybe Dutch predominantly. She was pretty, but only barely so, and not in her current state. She was the sort of date a bar owner, or lowly commissioned sergeant would consider if she wore a wide hat to hide her face, and a corset to prop up her bosoms.
Yet, Jack wanted her, and she wasn’t about to argue with him. He was going to have a ship soon, and then she’d be far off the god forsaken rock known as Port Royale. All she needed to do was clear the southern docks of a few guards, and she’d have done her part.
There was yelling deep into the jungle. It was the sound of men. The woman put her back to a tree and blew out her lantern, listening carefully to them.
“Aah’m nought going to tell you ‘gain—” said a voice.
“Din’t your mother tell you to close your mouth when you’re smugglin’?” quipped another. “All’s the port’s gun’ hear your blabberin’ trap.”
“My mother wanted me to be a priest. She’d be whupping me good if I didn’t sell her to the company!”
They laughed drunkenly. The woman’s nose wrinkled with loathing. She’d spent the last eighteen years of her life around drunk men; making her living off drunk men. With that profession came a certain set of skills and knowledge that saved her life, and made her rich, on more than a dozen occasions. She wasn’t proud of it, but she would openly admit to it making her the best scoundrel this side of the Atlantic. Right now, that knowledge was telling her that she had two burly men with more than enough stupid muscle to ruin her day. She was tough, but she knew her limits.
She’d need to go around them. There wasn’t time to wait for them to pass because Jack was waiting for her. The longer she made him wait, the more likely someone would realize that he had escaped. The jungle was probably the poorest route in terms time, but from the treeline, she had the best shot at the guards. She always preferred the slow-and-steady approach over fast, loud, and stupid. Even being in a time crunch, there was something comforting about doing something the safest most efficient way.
“Ey you, how bout we test out some of these here goods? We should make sure the boss is gettin’ the right goods,” said the man whose mother wanted him to be a priest.
The other one laughed greedily. “You know, thats not a bad idea.”
They stopped moving in the middle of a larger clearing. Mary swore to herself. That clearing was how she planned to cross the jungle in any decent amount of time. Going around it would take more time than she wanted to waste.
She gripped her pistol and blunderbuss. Two shots could be reloaded on the way there. The nearest road was maybe two-hundred feet away, and the shots would be muffled. Normally she wouldn’t consider it, but thoughts of freedom and a clean record pushed her. She moved silently towards the sound of the voices until they came into view. Two men, approximately the same height, very drunkenly carrying a chest between them. She wasn’t about to let these long months of planning go down the sewer over two drunk idiots.
“Maybe I do like loud and stupid…” she mused to herself. “No one will miss them…”
Her heart rate began to pick up. Her legs and trigger fingers tensed up. She knew where her knife was if she missed. Whatever was in that chest must be valuable. She couldn’t carry it all, but a pocketful of precious pieces would be a nice touch to the night.
She spent a fateful moment playing out the kills in her mind: a sprint, a leap onto an arching root, one shot to drop the wannabe priest, wait for the chest to drop, and the second shot. Unfortunately, she’d never get to execute her simple, but flawless plan.
There was a soft yelling in the distance that rapidly closed in on them. Eventually it was upon them and a tiny form shot out over the clearing, eclipsing the full moon. “Ponies?!” screamed a high pitched voice over head before diving back into the jungle
“Wot was that?!” exclaimed the second man to speak.
“Witches?!”
The second man slapped the first upside the head.
“Ow!” cried the first.
“Stupid weasel. Ain’t no such thing as witches. That’s just the church tryin’ ta scare ya.”
“All right then, if you think you know better than God, whats was that flyin’ thing?” asked the priest. “And what’s it goin’ on about ponies?
“Ain’t you know anything? The natives here have voodoo magic.”
“Ponies—!” said Luna as she came to a hovering stop just above them.
The two ugly men turned around and the three exchanged horrified glances. Before Luna were two smell, talking apes, and before the men was a dark flying thing that talked. Unfortunately for Luna, a “dark flying thing that talked” basically summed up all of human superstition in a nutshell. The screamed in unison.
“Natives!”
“Witchcraft!”
“Celestia!”
The two men dropped the chest and drew their pistols.
“We should kill it, right?!” said the second, panic cracking in his voice. “Oh wait, let’s throw rocks at it and knock it out!”
“Wot for?”
“Please, don’t hurt me!” said Luna. “I’m just looking for ponies! Why are the apes here so hairless and violent?!”
“So we can study it and become big wig scientists!”
“No, it’s clearly a demon, and needs to be sent back to hell,” said the priest, who was turning out to be quite the clergyman.
The scientific man picked up a rock and nailed Luna right in the flank with it. She fell to the ground with a squeal, sobs coming from where she fell. It was pretty anti-climatic.
“Righto. Comon, we gots some discoverin’ to do.”
The woman’s eyes flared up with rage. On instinct, she sprung out from her hiding spot and sprinted towards the two, vaulting over rocks and disfigured trees. She worked a few acrobatic cartwheels into a ten foot vertical flip over the two.
“Discover your own way to hell!” she screamed.
She rained down shots on the men. One missed and the other only barely nicked the arm of the scientist. The two men turned around to see her racing up to them with a knife in one hand and a machete in the other. She swung at them wildly, cutting deep into the same man, but ultimately being side-stepped and being pounded on the back and shoved to the ground. Before she could react, she had a foot on her back and a gun to her head.
“Excuse me ma’am!” said the priest with a surprised but triumphant snicker. “Ya nearly scared me to death.” The woman could feel his tone going sour like the tones of drunken men always did. “If you wanted to dance, ya could have just asked, but now I think you’ll be ownin’ me and my friend Willy an apology… Willy, you okay to have us some pleasurable company?”
Willy groaned.
“I guess I’ll go first then…”
She howled as his boot stomped her knife from her hand. A few seconds later, she felt the same knife slowly cut its way up her blouse. Anger grew inside her. She made such a simple mistake and now she was going to pay for it. Sadly, she cared less about her dignity than the time. She’d done this enough times to never want to count, and if she got to walk away from this, she’d consider herself lucky, but why did it had to happen tonight. She almost considered using her “other” talents to make this go faster. The less time she spent in the jungle, the more of a chance she had to be with Jack.
She looked over to see if she could see whatever thing she’d just tossed her one chance at freedom for. A pair of deep cerulean eyes pierced the darkness. They looked nearly as angry as she was. Her ears popped as the air pressure dropped and the form began to glow dark blue.
“Thou darest to strike the Princess of the Moon…?” she hissed.
“Wot the?” said the priest, pointing his gun up at Luna. “Willy ain’t here to stop me from puttin you down in the name of our Lord.”
The woman knew an opportunity when she saw one. The gun was no longer pointed at her. She slid out from behind the man, cutting his ankles as she did with a smaller, sheathed dirk, causing him to draw the foot up reflexively. She took her momentum, rolled up into a ball and kicked off the ground into a handstand, hitting him square in the back with all her weight. He buckled beneath his injured foot and as she followed the tackle through. After she was on top of his, she took the knife to his neck.
“You’re going to thank me in a moment,” she said to the priest. “I’m going to send you to see your favourite man in the sky.”
By this point in time, Willy had recovered from the shock of being shot and had seen the entire stunt. “I—I’m gonna kill you…” he said, his eyes ablaze. He cocked the hammer on his gun, its muzzle right at her temple.
The woman slit the throat of the priest. She wouldn’t die without at least taking one of them down. In her final moment she pushed the man’s face into the dirt and gently placed her knife beside it.
The air pressure continued to drop. And for some strange reason the woman turned to see Luna draw int a breath that belied her size. For a moment all stood still.
“Stand down!” piped a Royal Canterlot voice.
A sonic explosion rippled out from Luna. It rung Mary’s ears and staggered her, yet beyond that she was left unharmed. However, the colour drained from Willy’s face and his lungs turned to stone. He and the priest went limp. Within seconds the warmth in their bodies turned to ice. The woman shook off the the shock of the bellow and turned to look at the tiny filly it came from.
“S-s-sorcery,” she stammered. “I a-am no fool... You are a sorcerer.”
“Monkey citizen, tell me, where are the ponies?” said Luna. “And do you not know that assault is illegal in Equestria?”
The woman could now feel the lack of any pulse in the body beneath her. This tiny thing had merely uttered a few words and killed both men. She was silent as she took in all this new information.
“Also, why is it that you smell so sordidly? Have you bathed at all today?”
It was now circling her, whatever this thing was. It kept speaking of ponies, and it sort of looked like one. It was probably some possessed pony.
“Come now! Speak good citizen! Your princess commands it! What is your name?”
“M-Mary, Mary Read.” As interesting, and horribly terrifying, this “princess” was, Mary had things to do and people to see. She’d need to abandon this discovery in the name of freedom. There simply wasn’t enough time to sit and talk.
“Very well, Mary. Perhaps you can point me in the direction of the nearest town. I need to make my way back to Canterlot, and somepony should be able to direct me to the nearest train station or Wonderbolt academy.”
Mary also made a mental note of the long lasting effects of indian, peace smoking. “You not making too much sense is starting to terrify me,” she said. “If you’re here to kill me, I suggest you do that now and be done with it. If not, I suggest you move on.”
“Kill you? I cannot even fathom such an idea!” said Luna. “Do you want to be my friend? Friendship is a most valuable asset.”
She ducked her head in an embarrassed laugh. “Alcoholism: it does things to you,” she commentated to herself.
Buzzing right next to Mary’s head, Luna hovered with a friendly smile which evoked another sardonic laugh from Mary. What this thing serious? Was she really serious with herself? How crazy would she have to be to believe a small flying horse was now talking to her? Sure, two men were laying dead at her feet, their bodies way too cold already to be natural, but weirder things had happened before. Most of the time she ignored it, but this pony seemed strangely real. Or at least would be if it wasn’t talking about “friendship”. That was a joke in itself.
Even though she didn’t have the stomach to entertain the notion of friendship, she did see potential in this creature. If it could take out two men without a hassle, it must be able to do more.
Luna looked at her curiously.
“You—you want to be my friend?” said Mary with the most serious face she could muster.
“Absolutely! A princess must always make time to find companions among the populace.”
“Welp, I’d really like that. And, you know, I think we can help each other out. You want to find other horses, yeah? Well, there aren’t very many here, and none of them can talk.”
Luna looked equal parts perplexed and disappointed.
“However, there is this place called London where there are a bunch of horses. If you can help me get a boat, I can take you across the ocean to London, and we can go on our merry ways.”
“Boats are fun! I know because Twilight Sparkle read a book about fun and told me all about it,” said Luna. “A’vast! Take me on yonder to London!”
Mary blinked twice. Alcoholism. That was the only word that was running through her mind. The other girls had always told her to watch her drinking, or she’d fall victim to a horrible addiction. She always thought herself of herself as ahead of the curve with such things. She didn’t smoke regularly, and she didn’t drink that much… “The first step is admitting you have a problem…” she muttered.
Luna was preoccupied with the frog she’d suddenly found. In a flash it transformed into a flintlock pistol that matched her coat. “Aye! I have made one as well! We are companions!” she exclaimed. The pistol was followed by a tricorne and holster.
“Alright, Princess Hallucination, we’re off to steal our ship. Comon, mustn’t fall behind schedule,” said Mary. She picked up the spare powder and rounds of the two men and strapped their pistols to her outer thighs. A pass by the chest revealed a few bags of Royal Navy medicine which she greedily took. The only things worth their weight in gold these days were tonics and she knew they’d come in handy.
“Steal? Theft is a crime punishable by the dreaded, ‘sitting in the corner’. Surely you know this,” said Luna.
Mary sighed. “As much as I hate the common term, I’m technically a pirate, so if you have issues with that, I suggest you hop off this ship while you still have a chance.”
After about a half hour more of cutting their way through the jungle, the two arrived at their designated location. They were only about thirty feet from the guard’s post. Inside it were the two guards Mary was tasked with dispatching. Luna was eagerly standing at Mary’s feet.
The plan was simple. Mary would take out these guards and take up their post. It was a Friday so their commanding officer wasn’t likely to make his rounds at all tonight. The two would be drunk and hopefully passed out. After that, Mary would signal the far side of the dock and Jack would take his guard post. Once they had the dock secured, they’d simply sail out with the boat under the cover of night.
Or at least that was the plan. Mary hadn’t really considered the possibility of finding a tiny magical horse that could so far: turn things into guns, kill people by talking, and, much to Mary’s terror, never cease talking.
“Arrgh matey! There it be, our ship!” she said, pointing to an impressive looking, royal frigate at the far end of the dock.
“I swear, if you say that one more time, I will kill you…” she said. “And no, that’s not our ship, that is.” Mary pointed to a smaller sloop in the dock nearest to them. “By the way, how old are you, princess? You’re a wee little horse, but do you have an age?”
“I uhm—I forget. Somewhere in the thousands. Like five-thousand years old.”
“Right… Alcoholism… Thank you, God, for blessing us with booze,” she said as she shook her fist in futility at the sky. “I have a five-thousand year-old horse.”
“What’s ‘alcoholism’ mean?” asked Luna, scrunching her nose as she said it.
“It means ‘happiness’, but that’s not important right now. Right now we need to take out those two. Do you think you can make them sleep?”
“I want a sword…” pouted Luna.
Mary sighed and drew one of her many knives. “I’m serious. This is very important. I saw how you dealt with those two thugs. You did it without even blinking, but if you aren’t sure about this, then just let me.”
“Nay, I shall earn my own keep!” she bellowed.
Mary grabbed Luna and shoved her hand over her mouth.
“Good lord,” she hissed. “Do it quieter. Earn your keep quieter. Now are you going to do this, or do you want me to?”
“Mffhee.”
Mary grimaced as she looked into Luna’s eyes. Suddenly she didn’t really like the thought of sending the pony to do her dirty work. First of all, she didn’t trust anyone anyway, but more importantly, Luna was a child, or at least she seemed like one. As much as she liked the thought of not always having to face her own death or getting her hands bloody, she wouldn’t send a child to do it.
Now that she thought of it, this pony would probably be abused or taken advantage of by anyone besides her. Not that she wasn’t above taking advantage of any man dimwitted enough to think they could tell her what’s what, but children were different. She always fancied that she’d raise a daughter sharper than steel, but she hadn’t figured her heart would be bleeding this much for some pony.
“Bloody hell… Seeing talking horses that turn frogs into guns, and I’m startin’ to have a moral compass? Jack’s gonna be pissed when I tell him I quit drinking…” she swore under her breath. She kept her hand firmly over Luna’s mouth. “Listen, instead of sending you out there to die, you get to watch a professional work her magic. Stay close, be quiet, and do everything I say, got it?”
Luna nodded with a whimper. Mary wanted to puke in her mouth over her cuteness.
The two hastily crept out of the treeline across a network of boardwalks and rope railings to the guard’s post. The full moon meant darkness wasn’t as dark as they wanted it to be, so they weren’t as much remaining hidden and stealthily taking them, as they were quietly rushing the post before anyone could raise an alarm. The guards may be drunk, but they still knew how to do their job. Probably.
Mary worked her way up to a graceful sprint with Luna taking off and flying close behind her. She leapt over barrels and crates that littered the boardwalk, quickly taking in her surroundings. In farther down the dock was a couple, probably an officer with his date casually looking out over the bay. From their distance, and with the backdrop of the jungle, Mary’s movement would be nearly invisible. They wouldn’t notice anything if the kills were clean, but they’d need to be taken care of before they could leave the dock. If he saw a ship get stolen, he’d have enough cause to give chase and they didn’t have the manpower to fight off military vessel. Hopefully they’d just leave.
Mary made the final bounds to the small building and sat with her back against it, just below the window. With a small mirror affixed to a rod, she peered into the room. There sat two guards and another man, probably an off-duty guard. They were playing cards. It smelled of enough alcohol for all of them to easily have their motor function impeded, but only two bottles sat between them.
Mary’s stomach gurgled grossly and remembered that smell was her. She swallowed a spittle of bile back down.
“What was that?” inquired Luna of the noise.
“That, my dear, is my drinking reminder.” Mary took out a small flask, emptied it, and shivered off the bite. “Mustn’t let yourself get dehydrated. Now, stay here.”
Mary noted that she should probably bathe sometime soon as she filled the flask with the gunpowder she’d stolen from the men in the forest. She tied off a bit of cloth over the lid and sealed it in tight. She dropped it silently into the room, and stripped herself of weapons.
“Guards, guards!” cried Mary as she turned into the room.
They stood up at attention and reflexively threw the empty bottles into the wastebin. After seeing the mess of a woman in front of them, they relaxed their posture.
“Whataya want?” asked a guard exasperated, as though someone reported that a man had used a bad word.
“I found something in the forest!” Mary opened the bag full of medicine. “I wanted to return it to the Royal Navy.”
The guard peered into the knapsack as though half-expecting a poisonous snake to slither out and bite him. After seeing its contents though, his demeanour shifted from annoyed to wildly suspicious.
“ey’ John. Lookie what the wench’s got.”
The other on-duty guard looked down into the bag too. His eyes went wide. “Blimy… That’s a boatload of meds. Must be worth three-hundred pounds. And you just found this, miss?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t entirely believe that you just found this, but for the time being, the Royal Navy thanks you for its safe return,” said John. “Earl, go get the lieutenant . I t’ink I saw ‘im out on the pier. Rules say we gots to report all recovered medical supplies to the command.”
“Aye, aye.”
A few minutes later a well-dressed naval officer entered the small quarters. At his side was a dame whose beauty far exceeded his own physical attractiveness. She gave Mary a stinking glare.
“Now, what’s this about medical supplies?” said the officer with his chest puffed out.
“Lieutenant, your men are drinking heinously on the job, and I wanted you to catch them red-handed,” said Mary, cutting in between the men. She stepped past him and took a bottle of rum from the cabinet behind him. “Princess! Fly away!”
The lieutenant rolled his eyes. Mary smiled. The crazier she made herself out to be, the more she could bewilder simple men. She flapped her arms for good measure.
“I’ve been watching them for weeks. I know where they hide their rum! And hasn’t anyone ever told you lieutenant?” She leaned in close to the officer. “Alcoholism is a terrible thing...”
In one clean motion she smashed the bottle into the corner behind her, took the pistol of the officer right out of his holster, walked out, and shot at the spilled rum. She smiled as the the heat from the shot ignited the alcohol in the rum. A lake of fire spidered out across the floor reaching to the flask stuffed full of gunpowder. The men yelled and drew their weapons, but it was too late.
There a loud explosion as metal shrapnel tore the interior of the post apart. Fire failed to catch beyond the alcohol as the drenched seawood smothered it. Luckily Mary had sidestepped the door’s threshold. Shards of red hot metal shot out across the darkness and by the time the smoke cleared, Mary was already sprinting towards the second guardhouse that sat at least four hundred feet down the pier. Luna soared down from the night sky beside Mary.
Luna was giggling. “I thought you said that we couldn’t blow things up! That was so loud!” she cheered.
Mary smiled. She had to admit that even she felt pretty clever despite alerting everyone in a quarter-mile radius to their presence. “You like that? I’m pretty good aren’t I?”
“That you are, but this time I shall be the victor!”
“Go for it kid, just don’t hit the guy with a hat like yours and we’ll be good.”
Luna soared ahead.
*
Luna knocked on the door of the guard house. “Guards, guards! I have stuff you want!”
She readied herself, drawing her pistol and sword. She was Luna, the hero of floating cities with an amazing taste in hats. Mary had come up with such a cool plan, but she would come up with a cooler one. It’d involve explosions and being really loud, like all cool plans.
A masked gentleman opened the door. In his right hand, between his index and middle finger, was a fat cigar of exquisite taste and offensive smell to Luna. In his left hand was a spatula, stainless-steel and non-stick. His gaze was cold, but wild. This was the sort of man that blew smoke rings in the face of death and sat in the corner without whining. He stayed awake through naptime and probably stabbed people instead.
He was in the middle of some sort of chant when he opened the door that slowly gave way to silence. His voice was deep, alluring, and unmistakably french.
“I’m ready! I’m ready. I’m ready...—What the fuck?”
Luna lost mild control of her bowels and farted cool-scale rainbows. She began to shake beneath the stare of the illusive gentleman.
“Are—Are you a dog or something?”
“I forgot my plan...” she whimpered.
“Oh my Christ, it talked.”
She began to sob. “I wanna go home…”
Luna didn’t want to play pirates anymore. It was mildly chilly out, everything smelled funny, and now this creepy man was questioning her much less awesome plan. Mary had made everything seem so cool, but she was beginning to see that getting results actually required effort, and that was simply too much for her to handle. Princesses were meant to be coddled.
Or something like that…
Mary had finally caught up with them. “Jack, what did you do to her?” she said upon seeing the crying filly. “Why is she crying?!”
“Mon amour, the dog simply walked up to me and broke down!” he exclaimed. “I am innocent!”
“Princess, don’t open your eyes,” hissed Mary.
Luna didn’t really know what happened after that (because she had her eyes closed), but she figured that it probably had something to do with Jack getting the hurt laid down thick by Mary. There was a flurry of smacking and punching noises followed by Jack’s whining, mewling, and generally sounding a lot like a little colt. Mary also said twenty-one words very loudly that Luna had never heard before. They did seem to follow a pattern of shoving that spatula in places though. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable experience.
“And I swear, if you ever, ever, make her cry again. I will maroon you on an island without access to ground beef.”
He nodded from the fetal position.
“Now, let’s steal this boat and get going already.”
From the direction of the other guard’s post, a familiar woman approached. She was a lot like the one that was with the lieutenant, except burnt and really angry. Of all the people in the general area, she definitely looked like she was in most need of a friend. So far Luna had already made two friends, how proud would Twilight Sparkle be if she made three whole friends in the same night?
Luna jumped to her hooves and flew over to the woman.
“Greetings citizen! I am Princess Luna! There is no need to be angry! You are in the company of comrades. Come, join us in smelling bad!”
The woman halted and stared at the flying creature with great suspicion. After a few moments, she spoke. “Child, I ain’t even got time for that,” said the woman whilst snapping her fingers in the shape of a ‘Z’. “What I need right now is that bitch.” She pointed to Mary. “A can-opener, and a lifetime supply of canned whup-ass.”
“Oh, okay,” replied Luna. “Let me ask my friends if they have that.”
The woman stomped right on past Luna.
“Y’all kill my date, be messin’ with my dress, and now I’m gonna hafta marry some lazy-ass chump who can’t even get a job! I got two kids to feed! Child support ain’t gonna pay itself.”
“Who is that?” asked Jack.
“Nobody. Let’s just get on the boat. If we ignore her, she’ll go away,” said Mary.
Luna followed the two to the boat. Contrary to Mary’s prediction, the angry lady didn’t leave. Luna wanted to help her because she seemed so crazy, and potentially lonely, but Mary kept telling her to “ignore the scary lady, honey”.
“Don’t you be pretending that I’m not here! I’m gonna be calling all the guards on your bitch-asses.”
Jack flinched. “Mary, we can’t let her do that. I’m not ready to take on a platoon of guards.”
“Look, we’re at the ship. She can follow us all around the dock, but she can’t follow us into the ship. That’s just psychotic. What’s she gonna do? Come home with us?”
“I be hearin’ yo plans, and y’all think I’m just gonna forget that y’all ruining my life? Nuh uh! I’m your problem now!”
Luna smiled. One more friend to bring along on their fantastic journey across the great ocean. Twilight Sparkle is going to have to write another letter about her to her own sister. How wonderfully inefficient would that be?
“Inefficiency is fun!” exclaimed Luna, rather unprompted.
Mary drew her gun and pointed it at the woman. “Come one step closer and you’re dead.”
Luna’s eyes grew wide, as tears began to well up in them. Why would Mary want to hurt such a nice lady? She was just mad because her date dumped her. Had Mary never been dumped before?
Mary glanced at Luna’s huge, puppydog eyes and growled in frustration.
“Fine! Are you willing to at least work the ship and earn your stay?!”
“Anne Bonny has sailed ships at the helm for the last fifteen years. Sloop like this ain’t gonna get you no respect. HMS Revenge?” She shook her head. “Nuh uh! Y’all gotta think big.
Anne looked toward the Royal Navy, second rate frigate from before, the HMS Illustrious.
“Thank you, thank you!” groveled a lesser man.
Bartholomew Roberts spat on him before tossing him a small sack of coins. The man groveled some more before being thrown out by a pair of guards at the door to his private lounge.
He should have done more for being forced to reveal himself. He was the dread pirate captain of the Caribbean and he should not need to make known his identity to any common man. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being caught, but that he’d prefer not to start a brawl or make a scene. There were many stupid men out there who thought they’d be someone if they killed Bartholomew Roberts, and indeed they would be, if they were ever successful.
Yet, tonight he wanted a quiet night. He hadn’t had rum in months now, and nothing would keep him from it now. There were rumors going around, and then there were more rumors: ships carrying tonnes of gold, fountains with the water of life, and great, lost cities made of gold. Of all the rumors the only he believed right now were of the Stallions of Calypso.
“What do you think?” asked Bartholomew to his first mate. “Do you believe him?”
A small pony spinning a gold coin across the table slammed his hoof down over it. He slowly ground the metal into the table until it was flat and smooth. Bartholomew didn’t have the slightest clue what had ticked his first mate off, but he wasn’t about to tell his otherwise.
“And the men were promised at least a week at port?” asked the pony.
“Aye.”
“We leave tonight. Gather the men…”
Bartholomew stared down the pony. The tension was thick. They sat at two ends of the same table, surrounded by treasure and rum. They were comrades and peers just moments before, but now they were David and Goliath.
“And who do you think you’re giving orders to?” asked Bartholomew through gritted teeth.
“We don’t have the time to spare. We need to go after them!”
“Stand down, mate.”
“I will not lose her.”
“What is so important about her? Is she that princess you keep talking about? The one you promised to save?” He taunted. “You’re never—”
Bartholomew was cut off by something. He struggled to speak, but couldn’t bring himself to say the words that flared across his mind.
“She’s not just a princess…” whispered the pony into his ear.
His neck felt warm. Something was slipping down it.
“She’s my favourite princess...”