When Legends Rise

The next morning we were roused from casual discussion, typically dominated by Octavia questioning any thoughts about earth which came to my mind, by a knock on the door and opening it I found myself looking down at Reinesfell levitating some form of long wooden box alongside her.

“Might I enter?” she asked, same old haughty tone but with a noticeable trace of courtesy, and I got the feeling that if I’d said ‘no’ she might have actually obliged, regardless I nodded and stood to one side to let her past. Upon entering she paused at the sight of Octavia sat on the bed brushing her mane with a small mirror levitating in front of her in a hazy purple aura of gravity magic.

“I did not realise you two were an item” Reinstall said in a reserved tone, clearly trying to bite back a remark.

“For now it’s purely a private affair until I can discuss the matter with my father. Understand that it’s mostly for Onælan’s benefit, Reinsfell” Octavia said in a warding tone “He was dragged from his homelands and dumped here by the gods; he has no blood family, no sigil, no nation, and little material possessions beyond the clothes on his back”

“So why not just let the Equestrians claim him?” Reinesfell retorted, as if I wasn’t even present “I’m sure they have the means and charity to provide for him until he can earn a living”

“Oh yes, leave him in the care of millenia old demi-gods, that certainly won’t make him feel even more isolated, why, I’m sure the canterlot nobles will make him feel right at home. He might just become best friends with Prince Blueblood” Octavia shot back “I’m trying to give him a live with friends, family, who won’t just exploit him for political gain in one way or another...now, did you actually have a reason to be here, or are you simply going to pry into matters that are not your concern in the first place?” I had to resist the urge the let my jaw drop, risking me making a bigger fool of myself that Reinesfell perhaps already perceived me to be. Octavia had actively talked back to a pony who, younger or not, politically outranked her by some margin, and I was on the verge of preparing to break up an altercation between the two, but instead the Empress merely shrugged.

“Tsch, it is of no matter to me” she said, walking to the writing desk and placing the long box on the worksurface “as for why I am here, I wanted to thank you for your actions yesterday, Onælan. Your work in the boiler room saved us a lot of problems later on, the ship might be limping but we are still making good progress for home, as such I would like to give you this” at this she levitated out what looked like a prosthetic limb for an equine, like the ones Autumn used to have before her mutation. I couldn’t help but be confused

“Uh...not to seem ungrateful” I said, picking my words with care “but that’s a hoof, I question how useful that would be for me” Reinefell giggled at this.

“Have some faith, this won’t be your final prosthetic, we shan’t begin work on that until we set down and you shall have full input into its design” she said “but safe to say this one should serve you well despite first appearances...well go on, you can’t try it with that shirt on”

“My my, that’s very forward, Empress, I would have thought you’d at least have the courtesy to ask to borrow him” Octavia said, though her voice held mirth rather than offence, she then turned to me and nodded her head upwards, giving me the OK. Taking off my tunic I couldn’t help but notice the empress staring wide eyed at my injuries, before looking away.

“Tut mir leid” she muttered apologetically “I was not present when the doctors stitched you up” she then levitated the prosthetic limb over and held it up to my shoulder, just before the two met she hesitated “I will warn you...this will hurt” I sucked in a breath and nodded, giving the empress permission to proceed, with a shove she pressed the arm against my shoulder and immediately my vision went white with pain, I wanted to scream and thrash out, but as soon as the feeling came it disappeared into a dull ache.

Coming to my senses I looked down to see the limb shifting; the arm lengthened to match my right arm and the hoof began splitting apart to form two fingers and a thumb. At the same time I gained an eerie sensation of feeling returning to my left arm, needless to say I was rendered speechless.

"I…I really don't know what to say" I managed to get out.

~~Thank you, would be a good start~~ Octavia said.

"Uh… thank you, Reinesfell" I parroted, trying out the range of movement "Seriously, this is beyond anything I was expecting"

"And your proper arm will be even better, this I guarantee, just take care for the first couple of days, it might be a little clumsy" Reinesfell said, before holding up a hoof "but that is not all, Octavia tells me that you have something of an interest in certain vehicles, the tanks as you call them, yes?"

"I guess you could say that I have an academic interest in them, as I do in many types of transport and technology, yes" I said, at this the Unicorn beamed.

"Wundabar!" she exclaimed "meet me in the hold in ten minutes, I can show you some of the newest designs that we have stored. I'll have a guard waiting outside" and with that she took the wooden case and departed, once the door shut I turned to Octavia.

"Is it just me is was she acting unusually friendly?" I asked.

"we're not surrounded by ponies expecting her to maintain social standards, what you saw was how she really is" she said, before letting out a sigh "the poor dear has so many expectations to live up to, and so young to be saddled with the throne"

"When was she crowned?"

"her parents died when she was 13, and she was crowned two years later" she said "she's not like me, she never had the opportunity to go out into the world and make friends unburdened by her status as I did, most ponies she interacts with are servants, the rest are trying to use her for their own gain. In truth I'm hoping to help her, which is why I'm asking you to humour her and look beyond your own misconceptions as well as the culture of her people. To have an ally outside of Equestria would come in handy, and dare I say having her as more an acquaintance will do you both some good"

"Playing matchmaker, are we?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, to which Octavia shot back a conspiratorial smirk.

"That, my dear, would depend on how much interest she shows" she said, before she looked me up and down "because if what happened last night between us was any indication you certainly need a lot more experience with mares" I couldn't help but blink and recoil my head at that.

"I don't recall you complaining last night" I muttered dryly, and Octavia rolled her eyes before standing up and rearing up to playfully bat me on the nose with a hoof.

"Oh hush, I didn't say you were bad, just inexperienced" she said, dropping back down to all fours "Now, let's go, I'm sure Reinesfell is eagerly awaiting us"

We were quickly escorted to the hold of the ship, the guard escorting us was blunt and to the point, but had a modicum of cordiality. He left us once we reached the chamber were we found Reinesfell sat upon one of the tanks in a pose strikingly similar to how a human would sit, upright with her hind legs crossed and dangling over the side, with her forelegs behind her back propping her up. Sat next to her was another pony I didn't recognise, a stocky unicorn, closer in build to an earth pony, with a similar oxide-red coat to Autumn, but with a silverish-grey mane to set her apart, on her flanks the image of a steel bolt was emblazoned.

The tank in question, one of a number parked in a line, was like a blend of the first British tanks and later turreted tanks. a large rhomboid shaped body with tracks running the full length and height and duckets containing swivelling turrets on either side, then on top there was a boxy turret with a rather large main gun.

"This is Glück Bolzen" Reinesfell explained, jerking her head towards the aforementioned mare "She is the chief designer of these "tanks" as you call them, and a good friend of mine, she'll be taking notes on any input you have" I nodded and began making my way around the tank, Glück shadowing me all the while and taking notes whenever I gave pointers, I typically stuck to advice regarding the armour and overall layout rather than contributing anything to the armaments. As we went I found myself connecting with Glück, certainly not in a romantic way, but as someone with more than a casual interest in engineering I couldn't help but click with the mare, who was largely reserved, but passionate about her talent and exceedingly knowledgeable, and by the time I finished looking over the tank a couple of hours had passed, Glück had some 20 pages of notes, and I dare say we had become firm friends with Glück inviting me to personally help on future engineering projects once we had settled in Marelin.

"You simply must see my engineering works" she insisted "I think you will like it, ja? You could even have a go at designing something yourself"

"I certainly won't say no to that" I smiled, before turning to Reinesfell "But no weapons, you hear? I want to improve lives, not end them if I can help it" at this the Empress regarded me with an odd look.

"But you're a warrior, are you not?" she asked "Is your whole role not to fight, to end lives?"

"I don't want to start fights, simply work to end them" I said with a shrug "If given the choice I'd rather make peoples lives better, not shorter"

~POV 3rd person~

Inside Autumn's quarters Alee rested her head on the edge of the bed, once Autumn had been confined to her quarters she hadn't so much as moved from under the cover of a blanket, seemingly dead set on hiding herself from the world. The others had tried one by one to try and pull her out and at least get her to eat something, but to no avail, and so it fell to the former river pirate to try her paws at shifting the mutated pegasus.

"Come on, lass, you can't lay under there sulking all day" The kelpie said, prodding the mass of blankets.

"Just you watch" Autumn shot back, curling up tighter under the covers till only her cybernetic eye could be seen glowing dimly from under the covers.

"Why won't you at least come out and have something to drink?" Alee asked, turning her head to the side to rest on a cheek. The light of Autumn's eye shifted as she looked away.

"When I first turned something came over me, I just couldn't stop myself, and I just wanted to hurt something" she confessed "I don't want to risk that happening again with you or anyone else, so for everyone's sake it's best if I stop here…" faced with this revaluation Alee said nothing in response for a good few moments, before she nodded determinedly and proceeded to hop up onto the bed and worm her way under the covers, much to Autumn's surprise and subsequent protest.

"If you won't come out, then I'll just have to stop here with you" she said, wriggling her way under Autumn's organic wing and nuzzling against the feral pony's cheek "There, you see? I'm perfectly fine, it'd take a lot more than you to put me down for good" Autumn grumbled at the kelpie's chipper tone.

"You aren't moving from there, are you?" she muttered, secretly thankful that the covers hid her flushed cheeks.

"Nope!" came Alee's cheerful reply, at which the one time pegasus let out a huff and shifted her head to rest under Alee's.

"breath a word of this to anyone and I'll gut you…" she muttered, prompting a giggle from the kelpie.

"Love you too, Autumn"

“No pauses...no spills” Glück said, levitating mugs brimming with the finest Hiemutian beer to Octavia, Vinyl, and Midnight.

“And no regurgitations” Reinesfell added, smirking as she held a tankard of her own. After the little rendezvous with Onælan the human had retired to his quarters for the remained of the day, he was still recovering after all, and clambering around a tank for the better part of two hours had exhausted him. Following Reinesfell and Glück to the mess hall they had soon found Vinyl and Midnight Quarry, light-heartedly bickering over drinks, where the Empress promptly invited the two to join them for a round of drinks.

“So...it’s a drinking game?” Octavia asked, to the cheers of the sailors surrounding them in mess hall.

“In Hiemutia drinking and politics are the same thing” Glück said “Good luck being taken seriously by the nobles if you can’t hold your liquor. Besides it’ll warm you up to the crew if you’re seen drinking with the Empress”

“Last one standing wins” Reinesfell said, before chugging her beer

“Well” Midnight said, enthusiastically grabbing her own tankard “I’d take a scrumpy over Germane piss water any day, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be drunk under the table by a prissy unicorn”

“That’s the spirit!” Vinyl egged on, and as one they downed their pints, Glück’s eyes bugging slightly as Midnight proceeded to down her pint in a single gulp.

I stood with my hand gripping the rail and my head peering onto the top most observation deck on top of the balloon, Tarn was sat resting against the perimeter handrail with her arms crossed, her eyes scanning the night sky.

~~Just go up there and talk to her~~

Octavia's prompting brought me back to the present, and even though she wasn't even here I couldn't help but rub the back of my neck.

~~I don't know…are you sure about this?~~

I could practically feel her exasperation drift across.

~~For Celestia's sake! We both know how she feels for you, quite frankly she couldn't be more obvious about it if she tried. How even you haven't noticed is quite frankly beyond me~~

At this I felt a sudden shift in gravity at my feet, making me stumble up a step, Octavia had used her powers to effectively give me a remote shove… needless to say once I’d started moving I couldn’t easily stop, so I was forced to step onto the deck, her ears twitched and in the pale moonlight I caught a glimpse of her looking my way out of the corner of her eye.

"I wondered when Octavia would send you my way" She said "I was beginning to think that she'd kept you to herself"

"Nah, if anything she's been pushing me to talk to you" I said, walking over and sitting down next to her.

“I see you’ve got a new arm” she stated matter of factly, not looking away from the night sky .

“Courtesy of Reinesfell” I said, looking the hand over. It was obvious at this point that we both knew why I was here, talking to here, but neither of us quite knew how to address the elephant in the room. Taking the plunge I let out a sigh. “Tarn...what do you see in me?” this clearly wasn’t what she was expecting, and promptly scrunched up her nose in confusion.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Well, Octavia’s already told me more than once that the primary nature of our relationship is more about giving me the means to settle down in the long term rather than romantic, so it’s not necessarily any attraction to me” I said

“I don’t see why that would spark any doubt over my feelings for you” she said, leaning forward and hugging her knees to her chest “the way I see it I’ve made my feelings perfectly known, both to you and to Octavia, I’ve simply been waiting for you to return those feelings”

“But no one has shown any real interest in me before, romantic or otherwise...god knows I’m not the epitome of masculinity nor attractiveness by my species standards” I said, before letting out a hum “hmm, baby faced they called me, told me looked about 5 years younger than I actually was”

“Who told you this?” she asked.

“People” I said, waving a hand dismissively “not that I could tell you their names even if I wanted to, Fantasia’s being as frustrating as usual...only showing me stuff to put me down”

“Well, clearly that means you need to look past what she shows you” Tarn said, a cheeky grin on her face “and it’s just as well that I’m not a human bound by your society’s standards of attractiveness” at this she starting to lean against me, sighing contentedly.

“Meaning what, exactly?” I asked.

“Like it or not, you’re stuck with me” she said, letting out a yawn and worming her way under my arm, settling down further “so quick worrying and get snuggling, you big lump”

*some hours later*

Octavia groaned as she rested her forehead on the edge of the table, her eyes clenched as she put the last remnants of coherent thought into not throwing up the contents of her stomach.

“Damn you...for dragging meh into this, viy-nul” she slurred, her inexperience made her one of the first to tap out. Her alabaster coated friend wasn’t much better, still sat upright but definitely out for the count and visibly swaying despite her supernatural tendencies.

“Believe me, I’m regretting this myself” she said, surprisingly coherent “I forgot how heavy beer sits in my stomach”

“You… told me you were vampire...how can you...forget detail like that?” Reinesfell wasn’t much better either, a hard learned tolerance to alcohol being the only thing allowing her to retain a modicum of grace compared to the other two, but she was still well passed drunk at this stage

The reason for their heavily inebriated states could be seen a table away, Midnight and Glück were still at it, downing pint after pint, Glück was just starting to struggle whilst Midnight, giver her much larger stature, was only slightly tipsy at this point. Glück had a strong strain of earth pony genes in her blood, giving her an advantage over Vinyl and Reinesfell, but it was clear that she was fighting a losing battle with basic biology, the same reason that made drinking with dragons near-suicide; larger creatures always have greater tolerence for alchohol...always.

“Meine vati did not raise...somepony who gives up” Glück said, struggling noticeably. Midnight smirked, picking up another tankard and downing it in a single gulp as if it were simply a shot of liquor. Glück hesitantly picked up another tankard, took a gulp of it, struggled to focus her eyes, and paused for a moment before saying “Kaput”

And with that she promptly fell backwards off the bench, passed out.

“Game over?” Midnight asked, smirking.

I quietly carried a certain drowsy kobold in my arms, nothing much had happened between us, but all the same it had been a pleasant evening enjoying each other’s company under the starlight, but I’d figured it high time to retire for the night. I carefully shifted Tarn so that I was carrying her in one arm in order to open the door, before making my way inside and placing her down on the bed. I had gone to the bathroom to relieve myself and returned to the sleeping quarters to find Tarn stripped completely naked and knelt on the bed with her head hanging and her left hand resting on the opposite shoulder, her bare back turned to me revealing years worth of scars upon scars, rendering almost the entirety of her back and parts of her arms and legs rough

“Tarn?” I asked tentatively

“Seven years” she said, her voice low and thick.

“Pardon?”

“Seven years I was enslaved. I was beaten till I blacked out, lashed till my skin peeled and thrown in a cage to “recover” purely because my masters had a particularly frustrating day a hundred times over, and raped so many times I become desensitised to it all” she said. “Tell me what made you think I was worth saving, Onælan?” I felt my heart sank, from personal experience I was more than accustomed to a spontaneous depressive spell, but that meant I also knew exactly what she needed. I let out a sigh as I took off my gown and wordlessly made my way over to her, sitting close to her, pulling her into a protective embrace, and planting a gentle kiss on her cheek, which the kobald deflated into.

“No matter what happened to you before, you will always be worth saving to me” I soothed “you and the others, every single one of you, you’re all I’ve got in this world, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let anyone try to hurt you again...it doesn’t matter what happened, I’m here for you now”

“would you keep me, Onælan?” she asked, looking up at me with a pleading look, desperate for a positive response “you said your kind only does pairings, so I could be yours alone, to keep, to care for, to love, no one else could ever have me but you” I couldn’t help but let out a sigh at that, it was quickly becoming apparent that the poor girl had all sorts of underlying issues as a result of her time in captivity, she was almost desperate to be wanted, no, she was desperate to be wanted.

“Tarn, listen to me” I said, softly, but a small amount of firmness in my voice “please understand that if you want to be with me, it has to be entirely of your own choice, don’t feel like you have to do it as some form of repayment for me freeing you in the first place. I would gladly take you, but I’d never do anything that you didn't feel comfortable with. You’re free of them now, you don’t need to rely on others to control you or tie you down” at this her ears folded down and she looked away, a strangled whimper working its way up her throat.

“I know, but I was stuck with them for so long that sometimes I don’t know what to do without someone to tell me” she admitted, holding onto my hand “part of me still needs someone to guide me, tell me what to do”

“Well, we’ll just have to figure that out at our own pace” I said, planting a final soft kiss on her forehead before moving to take off my robe and “but for now, it’s getting late...or early depending on your viewpoint, we should get some sleep”

“Just sleep?” she asked as I turned the light off “nothing else?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t have any plans” I said, climbing into bed, Tarn quickly following after to lay beside me “not unless you wanted to, of course” for a moment Tarn said nothing, before I finally felt her shake her head.

“No, I don’t think I’m quite ready just yet” she said, starting to snuggle closer until her back was pressed against my chest, I was of course only too happy to oblige. With her smaller stature she was perfectly sized for cuddling into me and held within my protecting embrace Tarn quickly drifted off to sleep, my eyes adjusting to the darkness to reveal a contented smile on her face. Sleep evaded me as it typically did, but even I found myself drifting off faster than normal, some of the last thoughts I remember being that I could very easily get used to this.