The Legend of Captain Bones
The loose door opened quickly, and a large cloaked figure entered the shack in a hurry. The door shut behind it, and it stood observing the scene before him. The interior of the shack was unadorned with any sort of decoration in the regular sense, though coils of thick line and cast iron tools lay in neat piles along the walls. A low table stood in the center of the small room, atop which sat a solitary candle, a pitcher of water, and a bowl filled with spoiling foodstuffs. Centered on the wall opposite the door to the shack was a small wood burning stove, which gave off a weak heat, a warmth which barely took the bite out of the chill draft that forced its way through the spaces between the warped boards that comprised the shack's walls.
The figure tossed its head back, revealing a spiraled horn centered on the forehead of an ash gray unicorn colt. The colt looked towards the stove, at the shadowy figure of an aged unicorn stallion resting on a moldy mat, his breath coming in low, wet rasps. The colt's horn began to glow dimly, and the clasp holding his cloak unfastened itself, letting the sopping garment fly loose from his strong body and hang itself on a rusty nail on the doorjamb. He glanced back at the door, and muttered softly under his breath when he noticed that the rickety door didn't close completely and that freezing water from the storm outside was leaking through. He shivered involuntarily and walked slowly towards the stove, careful not to disturb the items within the rickety shack.
“The weather is very poor, grandsire, and the drafts are cold. Let me stoke your fire for you, before you catch your death,” he said loudly as he opened the door in the stove's belly and added a few damp pieces of wood to the smoldering flames that barely survived within.
The old stallion did not indicate that he minded, or even that he knew the colt was there. The colt stepped lightly on the stove's bellows, forcing air into the embers. Before long, the freshly added wood came alight, and he pulled a small piece of wood from the flame and used it to light the candle atop the table. Closing the stove's belly, the colt noted that the improved light did nothing to improve the room's ambiance or the comfort level of its occupants. The colt lifted the bowl of foodstuffs off the table and emptied its contents into a small rubbish hole cut into the floor, and refilled it with fresh items from his saddlepack, including freshly dried seaweed rolls, a small granola bar, and a dried apple. He walked slowly over to the figure on the mat and gently lowered himself to a sitting position before him, keeping a respectful distance.
“Grandsire,” the colt said, “I have come as you asked. Are you alright? Is there anything I can do for you?”
The wet and unhealthy breath of the old stallion caught slightly, and his ears twitched as he started awake.
“Grandsire, I am here. Are you well?”
The old stallion's ears twitched as he shakily raised his head to look with unseeing eyes in the direction of the colt's voice. He suddenly jerked his head to the side and began to cough, his lungs emitting a rattle with each cough, terrifying the young colt as he stared upon his elder with concern. Spitting a yellow glob of something unpleasant on the floor beside him, he turned his head back towards the colt and stared. The colt noticed the slight tremor in the stallion's body, as though he was having difficulty holding his head aloft. He looked with concern into the stallion's cloudy and glossy eyes and realized that this once regal unicorn had little time left in this land.
The stallion gave another little cough before attempting to speak, and then naught but a hoarse wheeze issued forth. The colt's horn glowed softly again, and the pitcher floated gently from the table towards his elder.
“Drink, grandsire, there is water for you here,” he said, with an unfamiliar quaver in his voice.
The stallion dipped his head and drank deeply from the pitcher, ignoring the tin cup which rested upset on the floor beside him. As the stallion drank, the colt noted that his elder's once regal horn had been broken, and where once was a beautifully spiraled instrument of magic, now stood merely a chipped bone culminating in a jagged and ruined tip. The colt was saddened to see that all luster was gone from his horn, and much like the stallion's eyes, it was a completely dead appendage. The stallion's coat was patchy at best, all color replaced by a dingy and dirty white, and the marking on his flank had all but vanished in his age.
He stallion finished his drink and looked up again, clearing his throat. He looked again in the direction of the colt's voice, and spoke with a voice that belied his age and enfeeblement.
“For many years, you have visited me. For many years, you have shown this old stallion kindness and offered me fresh food and water. You have treated me like your kin, even calling me grandsire, when you and I both know that we are not of the same blood. We are not family, we are not close, and yet you persist in caring for me like I matter in the slightest to you.”
The colt began to speak words of protest, but was cut off by a sharp word from the stallion.
“Be still your tongue, foal. I have little time left to speak to anypony, and I mean to have my say before my time comes, and know you now that my time comes very, very soon.”
The stallion's watery eyes narrowed and the colt felt as though the ancient one could still see him, could see into his very soul, despite knowing that the stallion had been blind for the greater portion of the colt's life.
“I have often wondered what it was you wanted from me, to treat me so well in my dotage. Even though I complained and denied you, and argued that I wanted none of your help, you persisted. Why? What do you want from one such as me? My pride is wounded by your pity! You run me through with your kindness, and my pride, like blood, flows from every wound you inflict every time you visit your pity upon me! I hate you for my weakness, I hate you!”
The stallion's voice rose to a volume which the colt had never before heard, it fought valiantly to overcome the howling of the wind and rain which pelted the shack's leaky roof, and drowned out the creaking of the wooden foundation. The colt blanched at the stallion's admonitions, which he had heard before, but with never so much conviction and true anger. He had always hoped that some day, the old one might lessen his vocal opposition to his help, which he did for no reason other than true reverence for this stately old unicorn who had once roamed the seas with a crew of rough and unruly ponies at his command.
“Even though I hate your attention, foal,” the stallion continued, “so too do I love you for it. No other pony has come to me in years. My friends have left me for what lies over life's horizon, and I have no family left that I know of. And in my infirmity, I have come to realize that even your vile pity is all I have left, and though it wounds, I crave it. I crave your company and now, it is time for me to give to you what once was given to me.”
“Grandsire, no,” the colt protested, “I want nothing from you. It has truly been my honor to visit you all these past few years.”
“Stupid foal. Nobody asked you what you wanted. What I have is mine to give, and to whom I give it is my choice to make. What you do with it, however, that is your choice.”
The colt thought for a moment before asking, “What is this thing you have for me, grandsire?”
The stallion leaned back slowly and smiled, revealing his long and yellowed teeth.
“My past, and your future, fool. To take what I have to give you is to take the history of this place, to take the legend of this place, and to continue it, as I continued it, when it was passed on to me many many years ago.”
“How do I take a legend, grandsire? I don't understand...”
“Sit and listen, then. And I will tell you. I will give you our history, and I will give you the legend. And when I have finished, not only will you know the whole story, but you will have become the legend, you will have become the dread buccaneer, Captain Bones.”