The Twisted Paths of Spirits and Mares

Hesitantly, I emerged from the hatch, blinking a few times to stave off the bright sunlight of what seemed like a nice day before scanning the surrounding area, not knowing what to expect. The first thing that caught my eye was the large, solitary mast in the middle of the ship. It was there that I saw Lily using her magic to mend a hole in the ship’s only rectangular sail. I carefully closed the hatch behind me and went to the port side railing, staring out at the blue, near cloudless sky, not wanting to be a bother while Lily was busy. Taking a deep breath of the salty air, I silently sat and mused for a while before my wings started to bother me. Shifting them didn’t seem to help much either as I wished that the Moon was out right now. At least it could have given me some comfort.

“Hey, you’re finally awake!” A high-pitched, possible young, female voice called out from left, a little above me. Somewhat startled out of my thoughts, I quickly jumped to my hooves and turned to face the voice and made the mistake of trying to open my wings again out of reflex causing them to hurt once more.

“Oww…” I caught sight of a blue coated filly with a two tone orange mane looking down at me from the raised deck where the ship’s wheel was. She had a wide smile on her face as she curiously stared down at me. “Uh, hi?” I said somewhat awkwardly to the filly. Huh, red eyes. Makes her look a little… sinister.

“Hi! Your wings hurt?” the filly excitedly asked as her eyes swept over my form and locked onto the makeshift bandage over my wings and barrel.

“Yeah.” A frown crossed my face as I glanced back at my bandaged wings. “Not sure how badly, but I passed out when Lily set them,” I remarked, turning back to the inquisitive filly. “So… my name is Night Shimmer?” I offered a hoof up for the filly to bump.

“Waterspout,” she happily offered in return and bumped my hoof with her own. “But are you asking me if your name is Night Shimmer? Because how am I supposed to know what your name is, huh?”

“Uhm, I think that is my name?” I hesitantly offered with a forlorn sigh. “I can’t seem to remember much of anything past my name.” I nervously rubbed my left leg with my right, glancing out to the open water.

“Well, at least you look cool!” Water said before she flew up over the railing, revealing a very impressive wingspan for a filly that looked to be about five years old, and then landed with a thud on the deck beside me, inspecting me with a critical eye. “You even have fangs! That’s awesome!”

I blinked in surprise at that reaction before regarding what was said. “Well, I am a thestral. And thestrals have fangs,” I explained to the filly with a soft smile. “Wait… Why do I remember that?” I furrowed my brow as that information had easily popped into my mind.

“Because you can feel them with your tongue?” Water surmised with a grin as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So, do you remember why you were floating out in the ocean in the middle of all that wreckage? Or how your wings got hurt? Oh! Maybe you were attacked and you valiantly fought off the interlopers!” Water excitedly remarked, doing a few kicks and punches while making accompanying noises to go along with her display.

“I…” Blinking I trailed off, a sudden rush of images flickering through my mind too quick to understand. Fire, screams, pain, and finally, cold. Then as suddenly as it arrived, it was gone, leaving just a vague sense of unease. I staggered back a step before shaking my head a few times to try and clear it. Quickly deciding to only say things I knew for sure. “I know my name and that I am a thestral. I can’t remember anything else before I woke up,” I answered with a bit of finality to my tone.

“That’s kinda sad...” Water said, driving a purely unintended spike of pain into me. Even a filly was feeling sorry for me… Before I could dwell on that too much, she kept talking. “Well, Lily and Iron will keep you safe now. They are good at that kind of thing. And who knows, maybe you will get your memory back soon. Oh crap!” Water suddenly exclaimed as her pupils dilated in panic. “I’m letting us drift off course!”

With a surprisingly powerful flap of her wings, the filly flew back to the upper deck and grabbed the wheel, turning it hard to adjust our heading which sent the whole ship pitching to one side. My legs bent as I automatically leaned in the opposite direction as to not be thrown off balance. “Huh…” I quietly remarked to myself in amusement. Apparently I was experienced at being on a ship or at least my body was.

“Hey! Careful with the wheel, Water!” Lily unhappily shouted from her position at the mast. Turning to look at her, I could see there was now a larger hole in the sail then there had been before, glad that I wasn’t the one responsible for causing Lily to rip the hole larger.

Seeing that Lily wasn’t in the best of moods right now, I walked across the deck and up the small set of stairs to the slightly elevated deck and stood beside the filly adjusting the comically large wheel compared to her. “So… Where are we going?” I casually asked, wondering how she knew we were headed off course with no points of reference besides the sun and the waves to guide us.

“El Marado!” Water chirped happily, ignoring the angry look I could see Lily giving her, though the older mare just sighed after a moment and went back to fixing the sail. She had a look on her face that seemed the things like this was a common occurrence, and Water didn’t seem to be all that worried about it to begin with.

“What is El Marado?” Furrowing my brow, I tried to figure out what that place was as I searched my criminally small amount of memories. But just as before, my mind seemed to be drawing nothing but a blank as to what El Marado could possibly be.

Water let out a gasp and looked at me with wide eyes. “You don’t know what El Marado is?! The lost city of gold?!” she demanded with a tone of disbelief and shock.

There was a flicker in the back of my mind at that, but it was gone as quickly as it came. I really needed my memories back... “Okay… I know what gold is. But no, I don’t know anything about a lost city of gold.”

“I can’t…” Water trailed off, staring at me like she didn’t believe me. “You really don’t know about the lost magical city that’s made entirely of gold?”

That sent a flicker of annoyance through me, and I let out a huff before I replied. “I can’t even remember my parents names… So apparently not!” I shot back at her, making me wonder if I was ever able to get along with foals before all this happened.

“Well,” Water continued, showing no signs of caring that I was agitated with her. “It is a lost, magical city made entirely of gold! And we are going to find it and become the richest ponies in the world!”

“Okay, so you are doing it to get rich then...” I recapped with a slight tilt of my head to study the filly’s reaction.

“Duh~! Who isn’t?” Water instantly replied with a roll of her eyes. “Why else would we be here out on the ocean? Besides it being awesome, that is.”

Groaning at that answer, I let my eyes sweep over the ship. Probably only sixty feet long I guessed. Barely twenty feet wide. There were only two cannons on the ship, small ones that were pivot mounted at the bow and aft of the ship. Good for discouraging boarding if you loaded it with grape shot, but not good for much else. “I am guessing you are a merchant ship. You aren’t heavily armed enough to be military, and you would have a scarier looking armament if you were a pirate.” I answered without really thinking about it and blinked in surprise at what I had just said, it had felt natural and the words slipped out of my mouth without my brain having much say on the matter.

“Well, trade ships are out here to make money too, you know,” Water replied, though I wasn’t really listening to her anymore. “And we could be pirates!” she huffed. “Just really sneaky ones!”

“Who am I?” I said aloud with a confused look, ignoring the inane ramblings of this filly, eyes on the horizon. My thoughts were still focused on what I had just said.

“You are Night Shimmer, the confused and flightless!” Water half-jokingly told me with a grin.

That once again got the anger flaring up inside of me. “Thanks,” I snapped back sarcastically, and winced at what I had just said. I figured I should be politer to the ponies who had saved my life, and besides, Water was just a young filly, she probably didn’t know any better. “Sorry… I just,” I let out a drawn out sigh, eyes fixated on the horizon, “feel so lost right now.”

“I can see that, just trying to make you think of sillier things,” Water stated with a toothy grin, brushing her unkempt mane from her eyes. “Do you remember how to fish?”

Caught off guard by the sudden question, I looked at the small rising and falling waves for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know…” I replied before looking back at Water. “Maybe?”

“You better because I was told you ate my breakfast last night!” Water said, her mood shifting mercurially from happy to annoyed in an instant. “Hey Lily!” she called out, looking down at the mare still attending to the rip in the sail. “Can you get Night the fishing pole and teach her how to catch my lunch while I keep us on course?”

Lily sighed and glanced up at us, stopping work for a moment. “Right now?” she asked, softly groaning.

“I’m hungry~ Unless we have any more food packed away somewhere?” Water whined, sitting back and making a display of holding her stomach.

“Well no, that was the last of it.” Lily smiled towards me as she spoke and her horn lit up, untying a fishing pole from the port railing and walked up to the raised deck at the aft of the ship. “I guess you get to learn how to fish,” she said stopping in front of me. “But, how are you feeling? I assumed well enough since you are up and moving.”

“Better,” I answered honestly, glancing at my wrapped wings for a moment. “Still sore in a few places, and my wings hurt like Tartarus every time I try to move them.”

“I bet they do,” Lily said with a soft smile. “I didn’t make the wrap too tight did I? I can loosen it a little but not too much, your wings need time to heal. At least another day or two without stress on the joints.” With that said, she gestured me to follow her to the railing at the back of the ship, about ten feet behind Water.

I followed her to the railing, gently testing the bandage with my wings. “Uhh no, the bandage is fine for now.” Then I asked her a question which suddenly felt very important. “So... who is in charge?” My voice was carefully neutral, and I wasn’t exactly sure why.

“Who is in charge? Well, you’re looking at her,” Lily said with a grin and then magically pressed the fishing pole into my hooves.

I managed to grasp it in my hooves after fumbling for a moment, not sure how one should properly hold a fishing pole. “You’re the Captain of this ship?” I asked, an odd inflection of respect and curiosity in my voice. It felt like there was a certain way I should be acting around Lily now, and I decided not to fight it.

“I am,” Lily casually replied as if being captain was no big deal as she changed the subject. “Now, I know you have a bit of memory loss and all, but do you recall if you know how to fish with a fishing pole? I know most fliers don’t use one.”

Looking down and studying the pole in my hooves, I searched my thoughts. But, as with most things, it annoyingly eluded me. “I don’t know if I ever knew how, but… how do I even hold it?” I asked, glancing back to Lily as I awkwardly held onto the rod.

“Alright, from the very basics then…” Lily said before spending the next half hour giving me a crash course on how to fish from the back of a moving ship. I learned how to hold the rod, what baits and lures to use. What to do when you got a nibble on the line and how to properly reel in a fish once you caught it. I listened, giving her my utmost attention the entire time. There was a deep seeded part of my brain telling me to respect and obey this mare as she was the Captain.

“...that pretty much cover all the basics,” Lily finished with a nod. “Now, when you catch a fish, which I know you will, we will go over how to prep and cook it too. Anymore questions?”

I shook my head, feeling confident I knew what I was doing now. “No, I ‘m ready to get started now, Captain,” I respectfully said before turning and casting the baited line into the ship’s wake.

“Please just call me Lily dear,” Lily said with a warm smile. “Just remember to let it trawl between our wake. If you have any issues, just come find me. I won’t be far. Don’t bother asking Water, she won’t fish with a pole.” I flicked my ear at that, wondering how she fished then. “Says it is not the way pegasi are supposed to, but I say whatever puts food on the table works for me.”

Nodding, I replied. “Yes Captain… I mean Lily.” That was apparently going to be a hard habit for me to break. I heard Lily walking away as I watched the line spool out, vanishing into the depths below. So many strange things I seemed to know, yet obvious things were a total blank to me. It was very frustrating to say the least.

I had a few minutes to myself to ponder the things I could remember before there was a sudden yank on the pole. Whatever was on the end of the line nearly tore it right out of my hooves! I immediately leaned back, bracing my hind legs against the railing as I fought against the strength of the fish. At least I hoped it was a fish. “Oh no you don’t!” I growled out, my wings tried to spread out to help my balance, their only help, if you could call it that, was in driving another spike of pain up my spine.

My vision swam for a moment as I fought through the pain and somehow managed to hold onto the rod at the same time. “Stupid fish!” I shouted as I struggled to reel it in.

I was too busy fighting with the fish to even notice that Lily had walked up behind until she spoke in my ear. “Easy Night. Remember what I said, don’t try to fight it like you are. Just let the fish tire itself out. Let it run until the line goes slack and then reel it in until it starts fighting again. Repeat that and you will get us some lunch.” The whole time I could hear Water laughing in the background, but quickly filtered that out.

Blinking, I managed a nod to Lily and started doing what she had instructed. “Yes Cap… Lily,” I coughed, trying to cover the fact that I kept automatically calling her Captain. I tightly gripped the pole but stopped trying to reel the fish in, starting to play a game of cat and mouse, or would it be a game of thestral and fish? Whatever, I was busy with other things to really care. After a few more moments of ferocious struggling from the fish, the line eased up, signaling that it was my turn to play. “That’s right… Got you now!” A predatory grin spread across my face as I started meticulously reeling the fish in, eager to see what I had on the line.

“I know you can do it,” Lily said, placing a hoof on my shoulder. I was too engrossed with my current activity to even notice. “Now bring’um home!”

“Yeah Night, catch my lunch!” Water chimed in with a happy tone, her laugher finally subsiding.

Giving a brief nod to Lily to show I heard her, I kept my focus on reeling in my prize. It fought back once more, and I waited patiently, knowing how to play the game now. It got tired, and I reeled it in with relative ease. A few minutes later, I gave a mighty heave, straining my recovering limbs as the fish was pulled out of the ocean and onto the deck. “Got ya!” I happily exclaimed, giving it a grin as it flopped helplessly around on the deck.

“Oh! You caught a Tarpon. Big one too!” The creme colored mare happily stated congratulating me.

“I did,” I said with a blink before smiling happily at my catch as it struggled to get free.

“Go ahead and catch a few more. Then, I will show you how to prepare them,” Lily told me before using her magic to free the hook from the Tarpon.

“Yes Cap… Lily,” I replied as I turned away and baited the line with some insect parts that Lily had brought me. Why did I keep wanting to call her Captain? I mused on this as I cast the line out, trolling for another fish. It was a little perplexing at how strong the instinct was.

I heard Lily’s soft hoof steps fade away, replaced by a small chuckle. My ears flicking behind me for a moment as I kept an ever vigilant watch on the line. I wasn’t going to let another fish get the jump on me.
“Keep catching fish like that and you’ll be our new fishy fisher,” Water stated, giggling, poking my flank with a hoof.

That made me sit up a bit straighter, annoyance flickering through me. For some reason, being the ‘fishy fisher’ wasn’t something I really wanted to be. “Is there anything else I can do on the ship?”

“Sure! Lots of things. We all share roles. Have to with only three of us. Well, four now,” the cheerfully annoying filly explained.

I thought about that for a moment before speaking up again. “I think I might have been a sailor… before I mean.” Saying it out loud it did feel at least somewhat correct. “I am not sure, but it feels right.” Most of my attention was on the line floating the water as I tried not to let Water distract me any further.

“You were a… Well, duh! We found you on some flotsam in the middle of the ocean,” Water said with a laugh. “Of course you were a sailor.”

I didn’t bother looking back at the filly. “Not everypony on a ship is a sailor. There can be passengers as well,” I explained patiently, lightly tugging on the rod.

“And I could have been born a dragon,” Water replied with an amused tone, obviously trying to rile me up. “The ship wreckage we found you in wasn’t carrying any passengers. Prisoners maybe. But no willing passenger would ever set hoof on that ship.”

That got my attention. Though a simple flick of my ear the only outward sign I gave. “What do you mean?” I asked turning my head to glance at Water. “What ship?”

“Oh, you know, just one of the most dangerous pirate ships to ever sail these waters,” Water idly replied with a twirl of her hoof as if it was no big thing. “The Eclipse.”