The Twisted Paths of Spirits and Mares

The bow of the Royal Fortune cut through the shallow ocean waves while gracefully avoiding the small, floating islands of debris from the once large vessel. Every so often there was the resounding thunk of flotsam that inevitably collided against the thin hull of the sloop.

”We’ll hole the hull if we hit anything big,” Lily remarked aloud as she wrenched the wheel, avoiding more of the dangerous debris. Every thunk made her wince, but the seasoned unicorn never took her eyes off the waters ahead. “But there has to be something useful left here, don’t you think?”

Iron glanced up to Lily from the starboard railing where he had been keeping a keen eye out for valuables to salvage, though his task was made all that more difficult in the dead of night with only the dim lanterns that hung around the small ship’s exterior and the waxing moon to guide them. “It was your idea to come over here,” he calmly pointed out as he returned to searching for floating valuables on the water. A moment later, the well-built earth pony stallion reached down with a metal hook and grabbed a small wooden box out of the water before it could slip past him.

“Got something,” the grey coated stallion with a fiery orange mane and tail called out as he pulled the small prize over the railing and dropped it on the deck with a muffled thud. A quick strike from his large, well-worn hoof had the ornate box open. “Jewelry.” Iron chuckled as several pearls necklaces, assorted rings with gemstones in them, and a few unfamiliar metal coins glittered softly in the moonlight. “Probably a few hundred bits worth at least!”

Lily let out a low whistle, eying up the spoils for a split second. “That right there might just make this little diversion worth it!” she called down, a faint grin on her face.

“Let’s just hope there is a bit more so we can retire, huh?” Iron amusingly remarked as he moved back to the railing and resumed scanning the dark waters for more potential retirement funds.

It wasn’t the most efficient way to search the wreckage, but the Royal Fortune didn’t have a large crew. Their line of work didn’t afford the luxury of having a full complement of ponies so they had to run on a skeleton crew of just three. With Lily busy steering the ship, it fell on Iron, the only other awake crew member, to scan the entire area for valuables before they could sink beneath the waves.

There was one thing that had been bothering Iron and Lily, setting their fur on end the longer they searched. Normally there were survivors, ponies calling out for help when a ship sailed close by, but here, there was nopony to be seen nor heard.

“Are you finding it a tad bit creepy that we haven’t found a single soul yet, living or dead?” Iron hesitantly asked, glancing up to his captain after the silence about the subject was too much for him to bear.

Lily solemnly nodded. “I was expecting us to find somepony… We are out way too far for any pegasus or unicorn to get back safely to land. And with how silent is is out here, it’s pretty darn spooky.”

“Where do you think they all are? Where could they have gone?”

“Possible that another ship came by and rescued them already, but it looks like whoever it was didn’t bother looting anything,” Lily remarked, glancing around the waters for a moment. “Just keep searching. Never know what we’ll come across.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t like it though. This doesn’t seem right to me,” he grumbled and went back to searching, pushing those ominous thoughts from his head.

“Oh, what have we here…” Iron mused to himself a little while later, after his nerves had calmed some, snagging a large trunk on his hook. Struggling with it for a moment, Iron’s muscles straining against the weight of the waterlogged chest, wrestling it up and over the railing before letting it unceremoniously fall down onto the deck with the squishy thud of water-soaked wood. “This one’s sealed and locked shut. Probably something really valuable in here.” With a gleam in his eye, Iron fumbled with the lock for a moment before it yielded to his powerful hoof strikes. Throwing open the lid, his hopeful mood instantly turned sour as he rubbed his hoof. “Clothes? Bah. Too much damn work just for clothes.”

The interior of said chest was filled with dresses and other formal wear, all sized for a mare and varying shades of dark blues and even fewer lighter purples. Though Iron couldn’t make out exact details in the poor lighting conditions, he could tell that they weren’t ordinary clothes. “A lot of effort to keep clothes safe,” he said with a shake of his head as he shoved the large chest off to the side and out of his way.

Lily perked up at that and glanced over the wheel for moment. “Could still be valuable!” she suggestively hinted to Iron. “A lot of nobles like to buy expensive clothes, and those looked expensive to me.”

“I don’t even know how you can tell from up there,” Iron said with a shake of his head, and returned to the railing and readying his trusty hook. There was still a lot of wreckage to explore and a short time to do so before it was all lost to the sea forever.

“A mare has an eye for such things,” she remarked with a playful grin.

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The moon had risen higher in the sky and Iron’s limbs were now sore as the distant sound of thunder could be heard dancing across the calm waters. They had been meticulously and carefully zig zagging back and forth through the slowly sinking wreckage non-stop, hauling out anything and everything that looked even remotely valuable. While they had recovered a vast amount of salvage worth keeping, it was slow and tiring work to pick through it all and there was quite a bit that unfortunately had to be thrown back. Most of it was simply too large or too heavy to be worth keeping in their small cargo hold and was replaced when something of greater value was discovered.

With their hold now mostly full and the debris thinning out, Lily decided it was time to call off the impromptu salvage operation and get back on their original course. They had a deadline to meet after all, and their employer accepted nothing less than what the deal stated. This deal was very time sensitive.

“Hey Iro-” Lily started to say but was cut off as Iron excitedly called up to her.

“We got somepony here! And I think she’s still alive!” Hooking the flotsam with his hook, Iron pulled over the impromptu raft, its sole passenger unconscious but still breathing, if barely.

With a bit of a struggle, Iron managed to gently pull the battered mare over the railing and onto the ship. The dark purple coated thestral coughed up a bit of water and then laid still on the deck, the slight rise and fall of her chest was the only indication that she was still alive.

Iron leaned down and brushed their new passenger's light purple mane off her drenched face only to inhale sharply as he got a good look at her. “It’s her,” he said with a grim expression on his face.