Ocellus opened her eyes, quickly setting the illusion of her dragon self in place with a brief thought, the wards shimmering for a brief moment as she placed them upon herself, her bones settling in place as she did so. Mother had personally created that particular spell, the one that made her approachable, made her feel safe, after years of testing out certain alteration spells. Umbral magic was close to Changeling magic, the dark spirals and whorls of the shadow useful to one such as Chrysalis. To Ocellus, it was just a cobbled together spell, reminiscent of mother. Of herself. Of the failed versions of her. The ones that didn't take to the royal jelly.

She stretched a claw, unused to the feeling being a dragon. This height. Feeling oddly normal for the first time in forever. Ocellus looked at the bronze scales that covered her arms, slowly taking them in as her, at least for a while and sighed. It was easier to deal with- the change between what was real and what wasn't, but there was still a part of her that knew that this was a lie. A falsity. The Changeling way of things.

She leaned up and felt a noticeable weight shift on her. Odd.

The fake dragon looked down to see Smolder. On her. Ocellus breathed slowly and felt something like an emotion from within herself. She stared at the small, snoring dragon and Ocellus shivered as she tried to still her breathing. She tried not to overreact since this was just completely normal. Smolder in her bed. In a small room. By themselves. She turned to see that Smolders' bed lay untouched and perfectly made so she was even more confused. Ocellus tried running through every single possible reason why Smolder was on top of her. She quickly ran a claw against the small dragon and she sat back trying to figure out the body temperature of a dragon, realized that she didn't know and groaned as she tried to get up without waking Smolder.

"Hive preserve me." Ocellus slid out of bed with a thump as her head bumped into the other bed in the room. She groaned in pain as the room spun, her draconic form sparkling and flickering blue as it dealt with the slight loss of concentration.

Smolder yawned and opened an eye, slowly taking in the scene. "What's going on? Thought I heard a noise."

Ocellus blushed, her disguise's brown scales turning slightly red as she stammered out a quick reply. "Fell out of bed."

Smolder stretched and groaned as she popped her neck. "Claw, I slept terrible. I hate how small these beds are." The dragon glanced at Ocellus who was furiously blushing. "I mean, whoops. Looks like I sleepwalked again. Thought the Headmaster had fixed that issue. On that note, I'm starved." Smolder crawled over the disguised changeling and scrambled out of the room.

Ocellus sat there for a moment, horribly confused about what just happened.

***

"You can't starve here." Ember traced a claw over Thorax's dragon disguise, carefully poking the illusion to let little sparks of magic twirl around her. She shifted and leaned into him, letting his leathery dragon wings envelop her. "I won't let you."

Thorax laughed, the sound buzzing around them as he spoke. "If I did, I'd think Pharynx would have some words with you." He stretched out a claw and entwined his with Ember's.

Ember rolled her eyes, remembering the last time she had seen the black Changeling, the transformation of Pharynx to a new 'ling not causing his quiet and sometimes gruff exterior to change. Nor his odd attachment to Thorax, the Changeling a shadow to him, usually in the background of everything he did. Pharynx was there. Doing whatever he wanted. "I have a few words to share with him about you too." Ember huffed. "I'm not one to share."

Thorax hummed slowly in thought. "He's trying to protect the hive. Nothing more, nothing less. He just hasn't redirected that kind of protection to another target." Thorax sighed and shifted back to his normal bug state and got up slowly from the rock, his buzzing wings humming in rhythm as he flitted around the room. "Sending him out might be good for him. The world's a huge enough place that even he might find love."

Ember shook her head. "I doubt that."

Thorax smiled as he curled a faux green claw around his mate's and wolfishly grinned, rows of teeth sparkling in the fire light. "I doubted it for me as well and yet here we are." He ran a claw below Ember's throat and traced her breaths, rising and falling as he did so. "Now, let's get back to business. You needed help with the, what did you call it, gathering of drakes?"

Ember huffed. "Gathering of the Tribes, but yes. Acheron and the other five leaders have been particularly prickly about having a female dragon lord. Something about me not having the correct qualifications."

Thorax hummed quietly to himself as he thought on how best to phrase his next sentence. "Well. Then I guess these drakes haven't really seen you take charge where it counts." Thorax grinned as he flicked a clawed hand at his lover. "I mean if you need a few choice words I bet Pharynx and I can have a written declaration about all your feats. I mean puffed up a little of course to help with the decidedly important task."

Ember groaned. "No, I just need to be my father's daughter and take charge. Even if it sucks."

***

"This sucks." Smolder stared out of the galley kitchen window, rain hitting the pane of glass in a rhythmic pattering. "I knew that Equestria had it all swanky with the controlled weather, but it's been a while since I've seen something like this."

A hearty chuckle came from behind the small dragon and Smolder turned to see the pink captain slither into the kitchen, her wings hitting the sides of the door as she squeezed into the room. "I'm surprised somedrake as young as you could remember a storm such as this." The captain's eyes sparkled. "Not many know of the Thunderbird."

Smolder shrugged as she ate an amethyst, her mind focused too much on what had happened with Ocellus. There was an odd feeling that she couldn't place when she thought back. Warm and yet cold in her heart. Indigestion probably. "What? No I was saying that there was a bad typhoon off the shores of the Dragon Lands once. That reminded me of this." Smolder groaned. "Here I was thinking that getting from Equestria to home would be simple. But no. . ."

The pink dragon looked at Smolder and shrugged as she moved on to the next thing that kept her interest. Two young female dragons, all by themselves, without drake supervision. She blushed as she remembered her own sending out into the world, young and impressionable. "Hmm, so tell Jade here about why two vibrias such as yourselves go out hunting together?"

Smolder shook her head and blushed furiously as she realized what the older Lust dragon was insinuating, her tone rife with all the information that she needed to quash, right now. "Uh, see, that's a good question. And we have a completely normal answer."

Jade smiled as she glanced at Smolder, the dragon's eyes twinkling as she tried not to laugh. "Yes, the rooster cough thing or whatever you called it. Very rare. Very interesting." She clicked a claw against a cupboard and slid out a few gems, carefully eyeing them as she talked. "If it was me, and I'm speaking hypothetically, yes, as that strange purple princess of the ponies likes to say. . ."

Smolder goggled at the dragon. "You know of Head- I mean Princess Twilight?" The word of 'princess' in conjunction with Twilight Sparkle odd to Smolder's tongue after months of Headmaster this and Headmaster that. Plus she knew too much about the older mare to even see her as a real princess. Pancake Day had ruined any hope of taking Twilight Sparkle as more than a weirdly obsessed mare with power.

Jade eyed a peridot and crunched it between her teeth. "Trade routes love stories and that mare breeds stories like a rabbit in heat. Ponies talk a lot. Something about a dragon saving the day and she being involved in passing." Jade smiled. "Whichever great and powerful dragon opened up the north to a creature like I, I'd love to shake his claws."

Smolder put two and two together. "Yes, I would as well. I bet they'd be so amazing and wonderful." Smolder felt the sarcasm drip off her tongue as she thought of Spike, the savior of the Crystal Empire, in a dress acting out the part of Princess Platinum. "Probably be a theatrical one, that's for sure." She tried not to laugh as she spoke. "Haven't gone to the Crystal Empire, haven't had time."

Jade's pink eyes sparkled. "It's a dragon's dream. Everything made out of crystal, the ponies being that as well? It's like the old tales come to life again. Fafnir's mighty hoard of gems all in one spot for the taking. If I was a Greed or Pride dragon, I'd have the best time ever." Jade hummed to herself as she thought about it. "Though the brothels were adequate."

Smolder blushed at that thought. "Interesting. I'll remember that."

A cannon shot echoed in the distance.

Jade's slight smile faded for a moment as she sniffed the air. "This isn't good."

Smolder sighed. "What is it?"

Jade sat there, quiet for a moment. "Slavers."

Smolder laughed. "You serious?"

The pink dragon nodded. "There's not many, not anymore, but the ones left are rather focused. Especially the-" A howling chorus hit both of their ears as more cannon shots boomed from nearby. "The Howlers." Jade gripped Smolder's smaller claw in hers and dragged her out of the room. "Go back to the room. Now."

Smolder shook her head. "Not until you get O- I mean, Amber- down there as well."

Jade sighed and cracked her claws. "Knowing how I train my crew, that's probably happening already. And we'll talk later about you letting a Changeling aboard my ship." The pink dragon almost laughed as she saw the look on Smolder's face, the sheer shock that she would know. Bending down, she whispered into the orange dragon's ear. "I'm a Lust dragon that's been all around the world, you think I haven't been around the rock before. I know what a Changeling smells like, their glisten, their way of hiding? She smells similar enough for my nose to tell. Now get on down and I'll deal with the Black Hounds. We'll talk about this later. I just have to make sure they don't get on my ship."

***

Ocellus sighed as she felt the rain hit her face, her disguise a respite from the nightmares that she had had for months. She brushed a faux brown claw through her keratin and leaned over the railing, seeing the small forms of islands glide by, each a green blot on the ocean, a world devoid of worry. Ocellus tasted the excitement in the air, a mix of chili peppers and dandelions as she turned to watch the scampering deckhands- a motley crew of reptiles, parrots, and gryphons all clamoring up the sails in their own ways.

Ocellus watched distant lightning dance in huge rolling clouds. She knew that weather out here was technically dangerous from the mass of scrolls and books that she had read in the School of Friendship. How there were microclimates all attuned to each area of the world all built on what lived there. Birds that controlled the weather, Saddle Arabian djinn who willed the sands to move, ancient dragons the size of mountains. She smiled briefly in that thought. Chrysalis would never be out here, alone, with all these dangerous animals. Even if she loved dragons. Ocellus shook her head, letting her disguise sparkle as she pumped in more magic. She was overthinking things.

She listened to the sailors singing sea shanties and smiled as she stared out at the horizon. It was dark with an incoming rain cloud the size of a castle, to be sure, but it was lighter than most of her nightmares. She stretched her faux brown dragon wings and felt her feet lift from the wooden boards for a moment. "Stupid." She let herself glide on the winds for a moment, letting her fluid heart pump blood in her chest. She hummed softly, letting the moment wash over her, her muted emotions of joy, a facsimile of a pure feeling she fed on, giving her a slight rush of happiness for the first time in a while.

She would have soared in the sky as long as possible, savoring the feeling of freedom, of living in the moment free of expectation. Except for one thing.

The black cloud parted for a moment, lightning dancing between the cloud halves. It was rather interesting to Ocellus, the charged particles zipping around the ship as motes of light, tickling the edges of her perception as creatures watched the lightshow, careful to keep their limbs inside the ship due to the magic that powered the craft drawing the harmful electricity towards the engines. She let a bit of her fake claws out of the ship and felt the lightning tickle her disguise, letting sparks fly off of it in its own tiny lightshow. She smiled, imagining Thorax watching her do something so reckless, so stupid, so completely dangerous, and having his own panic attack.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him. And anyway, I always wondered what pegasi felt, the rush of electricity on their fur, the danger, the I don't know, feeling of being alive. . .", she mumbled to herself that thought.

A cannon shot broke her smile and she watched the black cloud dissipate as a massive black ship cut through it.

Shouts of 'Thunderclaps!' rent the air as the pirates ran across the deck, gathering up cutlasses and guns as fast as they could.

Ocellus thought she saw a huge bird weave through the air, shimmering with light and its eyes blood red. She almost decided to stay on deck to make sure, but a nearby pirate saw the young 'dragon' and pulled her forcefully below, the reptile's slimy hand grossing out Ocellus a bit. "Where are you-"

The reptile hissed, its words slithering out as it spoke, "Captain says passengers are precious cargo. You smell not right to her. Which means precious." The reptile gazed at her, its eyelids fluttering as it stared. "You no smell like dragon, to her. She knows what you smell like." The reptile pushed her into the room that Smolder and Ocellus shared. "Don't come out. Dangerous."

The door was locked behind her and Ocellus frowned as she stared at the door, trying to shift into a different form to sneak out. but finding that somehow she couldn't. "What? That's?"

"Probably a magic thing. Wasn't the Headmaster talking about anti-magic devices during one of our lectures?"

Ocellus turned to see Smolder sucking on a gem. "I remember most things that the Headmare said and I don't remember anything about anti magic fields."

Smolder shrugged. "Maybe it was during a detention or something? Most of the time the Headmare starts talking all I usually hear, unless she mentions like dragons, or things I'm interested in is all 'blah, blah, blah.' Smolder grabbed a pillow and flipped it, careful to slide back into place as she tried to gather her thoughts. "So color me impressed when she started talking about what I thought was going to be like the most boring thing ever- why I shouldn't mix magic potions and all that, and Sandbar talks about, I dunno, like the Storm King, and I was like, that sounds pretty cool. Then the Headmare just clams up. Totally suspicious right, so I talked to Prof Dash and she filled me in."

Ocellus sighed and let her disguise drop. She would have kept it up longer but after months of knowing Smolder, she knew that she'd be here a while. For some unknown and dumb reason, dragons could not for the life of them, tell a story that didn't meander in the telling. Counselor Glimmer mentioned in probable jest, though Ocellus had to be told explicitly afterwards that it was a joke and nothing more, that maybe they were so long lived that they could take their sweet time. "And?"

Smolder shrugged. "Dunno. Storm King sounded like a cool guy, in dragon standards anyway, took over a lot of land. Had an army. Was a strong force in this area. Sounds like a few old dragon myths where we destroyed our neighbors. But I guess he was bad. Silverstream had a panic attack when she thought she saw him in the caves, right? Must be a bad memory or something."

Ocellus rubbed her temple and shifted back to normal, her bones cracking and reforming into her Changeling form as she did so. Shouts and low rumbling could be heard above them, and she wanted to be focused on the moment, clear her mind of any stray thoughts and stay as ready as possible. She had trained with Pharynx briefly on how to fight, but they hadn't gotten past the basics of Changeling morphology and generalities of battle when she went back to school. She slowly flexed her blue hoof, imagining hardening her exoskeleton if need be, or turning parts of her to a more jelly like state to deal with blows. The sky seemed to be the limit, but there was a few ground rules on how changes affected-

"'Cel, you okay?"

The changeling smiled and shook her head, letting the thoughts of violence to be easily compartmentalized within her brain. "Fine. Just thinking. About up there."

Smolder winced as a particularly loud noise came from up above. "Yeah, guess my idea for a 'fun vacation' wasn't really in the cards, huh?"

Ocellus sighed. "Well it's definitely going to be a memorable one."

A knock came from outside the door. The two stared at each other, unsure of what exactly to do for a moment until a slightly familiar voice came from the other side. "It's the captain of the ship. I'd say open up."

Ocellus smelled the air, hints of nightshade and snake venom filled her taste buds as she tasted the emotions from behind the door, her sensed dulled from being in one form for too long. It seemed familiar to her, notes of home, the hive, on her tongue. Hints of memories long buried and forgotten, seeing the failed carcasses of her sisters litter the ground, their guts full and dripping with royal jelly. Ocellus blinked and forced bile down as she saw Smolder reach for the door. "Stop!"

Smolder froze, unsure of what to do, mostly because her friend usually spoke in little more than a whisper, and hearing something that shook the blue changeling enough, even for a moment, worried her.

A muffled scream came from the other side of the door. The pair waited in silence, unable to breathe as they stared at the normal door, scuffed and worn with slight age, but otherwise a door. "Knock, knock. I thought we had a good talk. . . Smolder. Thunderbirds and all that."

Smolder nodded. "We did."

"So open the door."

Ocellus shivered as she tasted the tangy bite of mustard on her tongue. Excitement. She breathed out slowly. "Is the battle over. Or whatever caused your pirates some worry? I mean I was told to come down and not open the door."

"I don't remember giving that order. Seems like a crewmember took it in their hands for something I did not allow."

Ocellus shivered as she continued. "Well you did. You mentioned getting me down here to Smolder."

Knocking devolved into banging as a new low growling was heard behind the door. Dog like and feral, angry and focused on getting what it wanted, it mixed sweet honeyed words with strong demands as it spoke. "Let me in. Its over and done with and just please. I mean I can't just be let in without being offered. It wouldn't be right."

"Well then I say no." Ocellus firmly denied whatever was behind the door entry. She looked around the room, seeing small cracks in the wooden boards, quickly covered with resin and sap, then hardened with magic. She breathed out, trying to come up with some kind of idea, some alternate way out. But finding none, she decided to-

"Mistress Chrysalis wants to talk to you, you failed abortion of a Changeling. She felt you on the wind, child. You make a fine addition to the slave pens near Mount Aris. She has been waiting. So long. So very much. Something about a mother's love. And the black dog of the wild hunt will find you, no matter the door, no matter the stupid, simpering dragon I have to dismember to puppet like a little lost lamb of a creature. Her mouth sure opens good." The growling voice laughed.

Ocellus' blood ran cold. "Smolder, get near the door."

The orange dragon shook her head. "You said not to, remember? And I really don't want to do it now. With whatever that is."

Ocellus groaned. "Black dog. Like a diamond dog. Eats souls. I really don't have the time or patience to explain to you Professor Shy's entire lecture on the less enjoyable parts of nature. Especially with that thing behind the door. Sure, it can't get through the door without us agreeing to that, but there's always loopholes. Like the wall or small things like cracks in walls if need be. So get over there quick cause I need space."

Smolder inched closer to the door. "Fine. Fine. But if that thing eats me, I'm haunting you forever."

Ocellus broke a quick smile. "If it ate you, I think the memory would haunt me. Your ghost would be an afterthought." The changeling shivered as she fired up her magic, flipping through each and every thing she could remember seeing, a catalog of creatures all in a row. She quickly took away some of the smaller ones- useful for hiding in normal situations- and quickly ran through the rest, finding none. "Crud."

Smolder twiddled her claws, keeping one eye on the door, that had now gone deathly silent. "What now. Don't tell me you do have a plan cause I'm really not liking it so far."

Ocellus breathed out and nodded. "Yeah. I'm just not going to like it." Ocellus breathed again and felt worried as she opened up the locked section of her mind, the magic that separated her from the rest of the hive. The thing that made her special. Her mother's daughter.

Chrysalis stared down at the little pupa that held so much potential in it. The chitinous black gleam of its exoskeleton, its multifaceted blue orbs staring at her, the smell of her- to Changelings she'd smell like the finest flower, full of pheromones and enough power to lead a hive, if need be, or lead the hive when Chrysalis withered away. The new birth almost made her smile, if she could see the thing as anything more than a pure science project, gene splicing as many different strains of genes together, weeding out the weak ones, letting the royal jelly choose exactly which strain of Queen should be next.

Chrysalis' wings buzzed calmly as she thought of a name. A name meant so much to her in that it made those who had names stand out in the hive, a hierarchy of power, from drones, workers, warriors, speakers, and queens. All in their place in a sacrosanct line. She bent down and poked the larva, the female staring blankly at its Queen. She prodded the curved horn and let a bit of her magic touch it, letting sparks swirl in the near darkness of her cave, the green glow illuminating the corpses of the bloated failures of her research. This step was her favorite, if most dangerous, for if the strain wasn't formed correctly, the larva would join her sisters as a bloated mass of flesh, eyes and limbs jutting out in unnatural angles. Or the transformations had too many eyes, or too few; too many heads, too many stomachs deforming the chest cavity.

Chrysalis smiled at the thought of perfection. "Go, Ocellus, my eye of perfection, you can do it. "

A sickening green glow lit up the throne room as the magic started.

Ocellus screamed in pain as parts of her self finally saw the light of day, codices of genetic material all stored magically, nicely wrapped in a bow, and packed away in her brain like dangerous mementos, all there. She quickly grabbed the first thing she could, a bandersnatch. She felt her magic work overtime as her body billowed out, her head aching as it was pushed and prodded by her magic, letting each wave of greenish magic wash over her like a shower, shimmering as she stared at the wall. Mother said it was based off of something. Maybe a dream she had. Maybe not.

She didn't think about anything but being out of here, letting the pain focus her. She felt her mouth fill with rows upon rows of teeth, like a shark, letting her neck extend like an accordion, her world now a mass of colors as her eyes shifted, the room shrinking as she expanded, her body snakelike and coiling upon itself, her spotted body like a leopard. She purred softly as her bones popped into place with a horrible crunch. "Smol-"

The wall started to bend and break as a new howling snarl came from the wall. "You little bitch you. You think you can run from the hunt? The hunt of the dark?" The dog giggled, its voice in duplicate as the captain's laugh joined in, a mix between a scream and a yell as the wall bent and partially shattered. "I can scent your kind. I will send all of the hunt."

Smolder scrambled away as a large paw started picking the wall, long red claws clicking slowly against the wood. She slid carefully to the weird thing that 'Cel was, the mix of creatures slightly off, a nose too big here, eyes too small here. Not entirely natural, yet almost familiar. "What now?"

Ocellus grinned, her rows of teeth giving the smile a menacing twist. "We get out of here." Ocellus pointed to her back and let the small dragon to climb upon her back. Smolder felt slightly odd about it, since whatever this creature was, it looked both unnerving, yet the feel of the fur was like stepping on a cloud. Ocellus shifted her weight, her long frabjous tail curling and uncurling as she pounced at the side of the wall, her weight and momentum crushing the wooden beams, and the pair tumbled out of the ship and into the waves.

***

Smolder opened her eyes and regretted doing so as harsh salt water burned them immediately, stinging bits of salt causing her to go blind for a few moments. She looked up at the ship that they had jumped from slowly sinking into the distance, listing on its side as she saw the magitech engines blow, sparks of mana raining down like liquid fire. She dove as parts of the ship hit the roiling waves with a crash, tons of weight causing the water to thrash into a frenzy.

Smolder held her breath and tried to paddle her way to safety since she had no idea how to swim properly in seawater- she had more experience than most dragons since she stayed in Equestria at the school- living with creatures that didn't outright know that lava was buoyant and easy to swim in, she had to learn how to approach water without drowning outright, limbs flailing in sheer terror as her mind tried to come to grips with that.

She had kind of paid attention to Professor Fluttershy on sea creatures, since they seemed rather neat. Sharks and whales and other things that could rival a dragon's size or power- but that was in the classroom, far away from the sea.

She pumped her limbs as much as she could, coughing as water touched her face. She would drown out here since she didn't know which way was land in the fall to earth, her directions were all crossed and jumbled as the water just looked like it extended for miles in each direction, an antithesis to a desert.

Smolder felt a tail curl around her legs and she screamed, water pouring into her mouth as she did.

"Smolder, calm down."

Smolder opened her eyes to see Ocellus carefully twist her free of her seapony tail. "What?"

Ocellus huffed in pain as she let Smolder get on her back. "We get to land. While I think I could hide out here for as long as I needed to, you can barely swim."

Smolder grumbled. "Yeah, well if it was a volcano, I could swim just fine."

Ocellus grinned, her sharp row of seapony teeth glistening in the sun like pearls. "I don't doubt that." Ocellus craned her neck, swiveling her head as she did so to see any rocky outcrops of land. "Let's see, I thought I noticed something over there when we were in the sky." The faux seapony pointed a long regal flipper towards the east. "Hard to tell though, since there wasn't enough time to be sure. Seemed like a big island."

Smolder leaned in close and sighed, smelling the salty breeze on the air and feeling the slightly warm clamminess of Ocellus' new form. "Better than dealing with that." She pointed at the large black ship that was circling above. "Still don't know what they were talking about. I thought the Headmaster beat Chrysalis, what with you guys not looking like black anymore."

Ocellus shivered. "Yeah, guess not." She breathed slowly, trying to get her rampant emotions under control. She had things to think about, thinks to deal with, and pressing things that truly mattered. Like the shivering dragon that was curled up on her back. Ocellus let her fins carry her, the seapony magic that she copied in this state letting her breeze past some of the worst currents through skill and finesse. She tried to cheer up the dragon, even though she felt sick and tired herself from using her magic so often. She had tried to limit it for the last few months due to Thorax's command to fit in by being herself- a queen. A near copy of Chrysalis- genetically modified to be slightly better. In different ways. For a different time. "Well, at least when we get back to school, I think everyone's going to love Story Day. I mean think of all the cool stuff we can mention."

Smolder sighed. "Still we're totally lost and I don't know where we are."

Ocellus rolled her eyes. "Semantics. And think about it. I eat emotions and you eat gems. It's not like we have to starve. If we just treat it like a dangerous vacation, we'll be okay." The changeling didn't mention the dark ship. She didn't have to. Her words range hollow in her head as she saw a coastline appear. A coastline she never saw and didn't know anything about. "Land. Now, let's hide cause I bet if we do it well enough, the ship will leave. Cause I'm not that important."

She didn't believe that for a second. But it made her feel better.

Author's Note

I am a massive Lewis Carroll fan. So when I was stuck on exactly what to figure out how to try and tie together the "Chrysalis is a crazy geneticist" and "things that Ocellus don't want to turn into unless necessary and are unnatural and probably painful to turn into" and not go with the normal MLP stuff, and particularly difficult to fit in a small ship's hold (Thought of ursa minor, tatzlwurm, etc, but most are too big) while letting Smolder ride her off of the ship. So I chose a Bandersnatch. Sounded like a good idea.