Hyrulequestria

Ch.59

“Well, time for our next adventure!” Shining chuckled as we were assembled in the throne room once more. I was a bit sad that Gohma was actually busy, arranging for a servant akin to Volvagia’s Mitzi so she could have her own body when not adventuring with us. At least we’ll have Volvagia.

“Indeed, and not a day too soon either. There have been rather disturbing reports of ships of all sorts going missing in the Sea of Tartarus, we fear something may have left the gates.” Zelda informed us with dire seriousness. “The Sea of Tartarus, for those of you ignorant of geography in these rather trying times, is the sea separating the south shore of Abyssinia from the Thunder Plains to the continent to the south, where the minotaurs, satyrs, and buffalo have fled for safety.”

“There are many small islands dotting the Sea of Tartarus, making it a popular route for trade. This does, however, mean that many ships have already been lost. Please, take the King of Red Lions post-haste and head to the gates of Tartarus to see if they know what is happening.” Celestia implored us, Luna nodding grimly in agreement.

“We’re taking a ghost ship,” I whined, not liking the idea one bit. At least it’s a possessed ship rather than an actual ghost ship like from Wind Waker.

“Oh shush, Father is not that bad.” Zelda pouted. “He’ll get you where you need to go.”

“I do not doubt that, but why bother taking a ship when Shining can wear me, and then we can both just fly there on our own power?” Volvagia asked from my right breast curiously.

“Because of this.” Shining held up a hand, and within moments, the throne room became unbearably hot. “I couldn’t do that before wearing Gohma for so long. You impart your traits onto your wearer.”

“Hm, what traits did the Robin Hood mask imbue on Robin?” Luna pondered with curiosity. “After all, thou hast lost his stealth and her strength. What remained?”

“Considering I used to be a boring little skin-and-bones human, I guess it turned me into a real fox after so long-wearing it, but at the same time you played with my body like it was play-doh to the point I was what you made me even after the mask was gone.” I considered, but that felt...wrong. I felt that wasn’t right for some reason. My memory was poking me, something about the color blue?

“Wait? So you had the mask on the whole time? How do we know you were not Displaced as something else?” Zelda questioned, having been in contact with Sam after I let her borrow Sam’s Token coin to find out more about us Displaced.

“We don’t.” I shrugged, it didn’t really matter. But now it was bugging me. Did Majora turn me into something else, then turned me into something completely unrelated just to screw with me? “Shouldn’t really matter in the long run at least.”

“Hopefully.” Luna sighed. “Just be careful. Tartarus was where the world’s worst were sentenced to imprisonment before the caribou threw international cooperation and peace in the toilet.” With that, the princesses all nodded in dismissal, and we left for the pegasus-flown rickshaw up to Cloudsdale.

---]===>

“To think. I would sail the seas of the sky instead of the waters below.” The King of Red Lions laughed at his new fate as a haunted schooner airship. The draconic figurehead bobbing and weaving as his magic sails pushed us through the sky at a fairly incredible speed, his magic causing his new body to treat the air like water as he literally sailed the sky.

“Yeah. Don’t be a manipulative creep this time around.” I huffed in annoyance at the obnoxiously red-painted ship. For whatever reason, the Cloudsdale shipyard decided that as their most ambitious project yet, that King of Red Lions would be as ornamental as possible, while being not only fully functional but have as many fancy gadgets thrown in as possible. Aka: this ship was basically Wind Waker’s King of Red Lions scaled up to a reasonably big ship.

“I do not understand your mistrust and dislike for me milady, but I will endeavor not to upset you further.” King of Red Lions replied as he continued to enjoy the break-neck journey south by southwest. We’re crossing over the arid region down below where the ruins of a town called Appleloosa once was. It’s only been an hour and already King of Red Lions has surpassed twice the distance that Trachea could manage on hoof through the tunnels in that time.

The only reason we can even be on deck without getting blasted off by wind is due to all kinds of magic fuckery with physics around the ship’s vicinity. “This is indeed quite fun, I don’t understand why you’re so unhappy,” Volvagia commented from my breast and I sighed.

“It’s a me thing Volva. Some things I know are best left alone I guess.” I grumbled from Shiny’s shoulder, the stallion sitting on the port railing, looking down at the land as it passed beneath us. He did much the same on the Red Lion when flying to the Dragon Lands.

“I’m a bit worried,” Shiny commented as he looked down, his keen eyes scanning. “We’ll be flying right over the San Palomino Desert, which is also called the North Gerudo Desert by the Gerudo tribe. We’ll also be flying over the South Gerudo Desert even further to the southwest of here.” Shiny worriedly commented as I too began focusing more on the fine details of the land below as arid badlands turned to sand.

“That’s a good point, but we’re not going to be able to deal with them right now, not with the caribou and the Gerudo actually at war. We’ll have to hope for a stalemate to give us an opening.” I reminded the Hero, who huffed out of his nose and nodded in understanding.

“HARD TO STARBOARD!” Came the shouts of the lookout in the crow’s nest, and the helmsman quickly steered King of Red Lions just in time to avoid a boulder from below. “EVASIVE ACTION! INCOMING BARRAGE! FASTEN YOUR LIFELINES!”

At the lookout’s shouts, someone blew a boatswain whistle. All hands on deck including Shiny ran for the mainmast, grabbing a lifeline rope and tying it around their waists.

“What’s going on?!” I yelped as the ship juked left and another boulder flew past.

“LOOSE THE FORESAILS! FULL SAIL!” Ordered Daphnes, who was transferred to captaining the King of Red Lions since he was the most veteran ship captain available. “IF THOSE CATS WANNA HIT US, THEY’RE GONNA HAVE TO HIT A COMET!”

“AYE!” Responded all of the sailors, a mixture of veteran griffins as well as more experienced pegasi who have been apprenticing under them.

“I say! The rules of engagement hasn't changed at all!” King of Red Lions laughed as he added his own efforts to fine-tune the actions of the crew manning him, his magic sails even more open, filled with even more magically-directed air, and causing us all to jolt with how fast he was going now. Holy hell! The ship was only going half as fast as it could?!

“Are we sure its the Gerudo?!” I hollered against the wind as I clung to Shining.

“The tree-heads don’t use trebuchets!” Daphnes replied, and then several enormous arrows punctured one of the foremasts. “Or ballista! RETURN FIRE!” Daphnes ordered of the gunner on the starboard side of the ship, who took aim with the Puckle Gun and began firing. King of Red Lions had a fairly impressive arsenal if I had any understanding of it. He had port and starboard Puckle Guns, which were incredible antique large-caliber mounted guns with drum revolver magazines. He also had 12 cannons a side in broadsides, as well as a forward-facing cannon, and two mortar launchers on the aft deck behind the helm.

“Then what do they-?” Shiny’s question was cut off by the ship shuddering, and a massive bullet-shaped shell burst from the deck, almost hitting a crewman.

“ARTILLERY! CARIBOU SOUTH BY SOUTHEAST! HARD TO STARBOARD! EVASIVE ACTION~!” The lookout screamed, and soon enough the crew was working triple-time to head straight west, dodging the scarily accurate shots of the caribou artillery barrage, as well as taking us out of range of the more hidden Gerudo trebuchets. “All clear! Keep heading west until we hit the coast!”

“I’m never doubting your intuition again Shiny.” I whimpered as I cowered in his hood, hugging my legs.

---]===>

After the harrowing experience of being an all-too-visible target and escaping the vicious assault, the ship continued west towards the South Luna Sea since at least on the coast, the worst we had to worry about would be patrolling caribou ships, who at best had cannons like us, which were nearly as easily dodged as the Gerudo boulders from before.

This meant that with the damage the ship had suffered, but would literally magically repair itself from, along with the detour, would add a whole day to the journey to our destination. Considering the voyage on the Red Lion to the Dragon lands still took two days, this wasn’t too bad since Tartarus isle was about the same distance.

“Hey, is that another airship? What flags does she fly?” Daphnes said from where we’d been lounging by the helm, the captain taking his own telescope out to look out towards the ocean.

“I don’t recognize it. It’s two lines of blue on a black backdrop.” Declared the stallion on lookout up in the crows nest. “Looks like a sloop, may be a scout.”

“I’ve never seen a flag like that. Did the groups in the south join up in a new country?” A mare asked in concern.

“It doesn’t matter. If they don’t follow or attack us, we’ll leave them be.” Daphnes stated, keeping an eye on them anyway. “Has anyone taken a pictograph of it?” Getting an affirmative from a yeoman, Daphnes nodded. “Good. We’ll report on them when we get back.”

“Is that a brigantine by sea?” Another stallion asked while looking below. “The flag! Pirates!”

“I think we found our reason for the missing ships!” Another yelled before cannon fire came up at us.

“All hands to battle stations!” Declared a much more calm Daphnes. Unlike before, this wasn’t an overwhelming situation. It was a single enemy, even if said enemy was a ship maybe 20 percent bigger than the King of Red Lions. That said, it was a traditional sea-faring ship. “Position over it! Prepare to drop anchors on my mark! We’re not wasting a single shot on these wretches!”

“W-what?!” I asked in bafflement, watching a few stallions and toms at the anchor winch.

“We’re over it, captain!” Informed a griffin who had flown slightly to the side of the ship to keep an eye on the target.

“Drop!” At Daphnes’ order, the crew at the anchor winch released the locks, letting the windlass spin freely. The ship below feebly let off another cannon shot, which at the angle they were, missed horribly. The huge heavy iron anchor of the King of Red Lions smashed clean through it’s bowsprit, dunking it’s bow into the water, and quickly the vessel began to sink. “Raise anchor lads! We’re not making any good time lollygagging!”

“Aye captain!” Dutifully answered the crew at the winch, who began pushing on the crank to reel the anchor back up.

“Why don’t they use airships?” A stallion asked as he watched the pirate ship sink with a small spyglass, probably to make sure nobody grabbed onto the anchor or something.

“From what I can tell, it was manned by monsters, mostly bokoblins and moblins. It’s likely their master does not have the resources for airships, but since that was a brig, they likely have enough to be a threat at sea.” Daphnes declared as he watched the pirate ship sink through his telescope. “I don’t like the emblem on that flag lads. Keep an eye out!”

“Aye!”

---]===>

“So. Bored.” I groaned as we neared Tartarus Isle. After all that excitement and danger, it was nice to relax for a bit, but then the flight achieved the same level of dull as the one to the Dragon Lands. Only this time I wasn’t comfortable finding a little nook to shag Shiny, what with the spooky ancient ghost possessing the ship.

“Oh, don’t be that way.” Shining chuckled at me. “We’re almost there, and we can start saving the merchant ships.” Shiny was referring to one of the islands we passed. Windfall Island, ugh, had it’s port packed to the gills with terrified merchants unwilling to leave the relative safety of Windfall’s artillery barrage. A brave local griffin guard had flown up and quickly exchanged information with us, so we knew that the island couldn’t safely house any more ships, and were being forced to make new arrivals squat further out, putting them in more danger.

“Is that a floating island?” The lookout called out and we looked over to see a city that was floating and looked predominantly egg shaped chained harshly to Tartarus. “Where did that city come from? I thought only the pegasi made sky cities, out of clouds, not stone?”

“OH HELL NO! NOPE!” I dove into the safety of Shiny’s hood. I refuse to acknowledge their existence! ACK! Just thinking about the Oocca makes me want to vomit!

“Robin, what’s wrong?” Volva ignorantly asked of me, so I gently clamped her lips shut and began stroking her hair, which was still weird, having hair on my boob.

“Robin, just tell me what it is? Are we doomed?” Shiny pleaded worriedly, and justly so.

“If you want your eyes not to see a horror fashioned by a divergent group from your ancient ancestors that decided to stay in the sky, I’d say we don’t dock at the island city in the sky,” I said.

“Ahoy!” I heard someone new greet us and a heavy thud of someone big landing came from the port side. “It is good to see the art of crafting airships has not suffered our absence.” Commented the rich bass tone of someone who sounded incredibly fuckable, so I eagerly poked my head out and proceeded to drool at the sight of the paint-patterned cream and black adonis of a stallion who easily stood at 7 feet, and had wings that made Tia and Lulu’s wings look small.

Omg he’s only wearing shorts too~! “Hi! I’m Robin! Nice to meet you!” I excitedly declared as I hovered near his handsome face, taking in how his black and cream striped mane fluttered in the wind and his brown eyes eyed me curiously.

“An unusual fairy. Good day madam.” He cordially greeted me and turned to speak to Daphnes. “You are the captain of this fine vessel, correct?” I don’t mind you ignoring me! Not at all! I’m totally not upset! Shiny~! The hunk ignored me~!

“Indeed good sir. I must say, it is quite unusual to see a pegasus of your build and stature. Especially in these times. I saw you coming from that restrained egg-shaped flying machine, is it yours?” Daphnes politely questioned of the hottie.

“Not quite. I am but a citizen of Skyloft. Our island plummeted dangerously when a great Helmaroc buzzed our turbine and some feathers temporarily jammed the rotors. Then, when we managed to recover, the soldiers on that ominous sea-bound island declared us suspicious, and are detaining our home. I came here in the hopes that someone aboard has the authority to bargain our release.” The hunky, polite, totally-not-a-jerk stallion said with clear frustration at the situation, looking both hopeful and exasperated.

“I’m afraid not. We have no dignitaries aboard, but we do have an appointed Champion of the Equestrian throne.” Daphnes gestured to Shiny, who nodded in confirmation, only for the hunk to snort derisively.

“Hmph. Those puffed-up princesses still don’t acknowledge the rightful Rule of Hylia I see. But if you’re the highest authority here, we’ll accept any help we can get.” The now-kinda-douchey hunk replied, but I perked up at the phrasing.

“Wait, what? Don’t you know that Luna and Celestia are Hylia’s daughters?” I mean, it might make sense that people wouldn’t connect the dots, what with them having been sent thousands of years into the future. But a faction that still claims genuine loyalty to Hylia, to this day?

“What? Really? For truly? What source claims this?” The suddenly-excited-not-a-douche hunk questioned of me, giving me his full attention.

“Princess Zelda, or Hylia reborn. She sits on the Equestrian throne’s highest seat right now, at least until the wars can be brought to an end.” I informed the rather-cute-when-excited hunk as his wings fluttered and his lips broke into a wide smile.

“If Hylia has returned, then we’ll fly to her post-haste! Please, bargain our release so we may return to the sky, and bring this news to the others!” The very-handsome-and-sexy hunk declared with joy.

“Huh, new allies everywhere we go,” Shining commented with a chuckle. “Guess having the patheon with you does help.” Declared my sexy handsome hunk, that I suddenly feel ashamed of ignoring in favor of the visiting, admittedly attractive stallion.

Probably shouldn’t mention I was an atheist before displacement...well if I haven’t mentioned it for almost two years no need to now! I thought to myself. “Yeah.” I chuckled as I silently prayed to Luna, a little weird that I was an atheist, but now I worship a moon Goddess predominantly. “Love you Shining,” I told him before slipping my tiny bod into his pants.

“WHOA! Robin~?!” Shining whined with a bright blush as he dove a hand in after me and pulled me out in embarrassment as I giggled.

“Hm, so fairies really haven’t changed much down here.” The buff pegasus mused.

“Well, most fairies are still balls of light with wings, and they’ve had to mostly go into the veil to-.” I was interrupted by a cloud of pink fairies appearing around us.

“SORRY! SO SORRY~! I can’t believe we’re DAYS behind showing up! UGH! We’ve gotten permission to hang around you to make up for it, that okay?” One of the pink balls of light said frantically to Shiny.

“Why not get the Breezies to take over their ancestor’s work.” A random-omigawd there’s another one-Stallion told the pink fairies. Said balls of light stopped, bobbed then a collective smack was heard. Dang it, I didn’t get to see a crowd-level facepalm! No fair!

“Do we know where they live?” One pink fairy asked the others. “Why didn’t we think of that once we knew the connection?”

“I don’t know!” Another said with a huff.

“I’m gonna go have some strong words with them!” One of the fairies vanished, then came back. Wow, that was fast! “There! I put the fear of death in them to do it, but they’re finally gonna be working their lazy asses like they should’ve been!”

“You know what this means girls?!” They all suddenly formed pink, nude draconequus bodies, which along with mine and my ‘sister’ Great Fairies’ children proved Eris’ claim of always having been a fairy to be true. “PARTY TIME~!”

“There’s a bunch of Fairies showing up everywhere!” On of the sailors said as the air around us lit up. It was about four thousand Fairies of all colors of the rainbow and more floating about with cheers.

“Now we have some free time until we have to go back to work!” The thousands cried out joyously and rushed me. “Join us our Queen~!”

“Why me?!” I yelped before getting hugs, kisses and having berries stuffed into my mouth. Did they wait for these to ferment?! I feel-whoa~ everything is wobbly and pink! “Let’s party girls~!”

“Robin no~!” I ignored the desperate call for me as I frolicked with my kin.