“Captain’s Log, Day 97.”

The gentle scratching of pen upon parchment punctuated the otherwise quiet quarters of Captain Celaeno. The dogged parrot wore a look of solemn contemplation as her quill hovered above the words she had just written, her mind searching for the best, most professional way to write what she was about to log next.

“Today, we lost Grover, a fine crewman if ever there was one.”

A lump began to form in her throat as she finished the sentence. She shut her eyes tightly, gritting her teeth as she swallowed hard in an attempt to disperse of the accursed buildup. Alas, a single tear began to fall across her cheek as she released her breath--any attempt to fight the sadness that was coming was futile. She set her pen down, resting her elbows upon the desk as she propped her head up with another deep breath, the subsequent exhale bringing another tear. Then another. Then another.

Losing a crewmate had always felt like a jab from a rusty pike straight through her heart. It had happened before, and she was grimly certain that it would happen again--but that did nothing to make it easier. When she had lost her first, she had told herself many times over the course of several days that this was just something that happened--they were pirates, after all. The potential for death was one of the most understood facets of their profession. The more she had told herself this, however, the closer she came to breaking down and sobbing like a little chick--and at the end of the fourth day of it, she had.

Since then, five others had fallen under her command, and each time, Celaeno had mourned them as if she had lost a member of her own family; because in a very real way, these creatures were her family. They were the ones she ate with, fought alongside, told jokes with, got drunk with, and looked after every moment of her every day--and when one finally found their eternal rest, leaving an empty seat at one of the tables in the mess deck, an empty bed in the crew’s sleeping quarters… so too did it leave an empty space in her heart, bringing a grim sense of reality back from the far corners of her mind: the reality that it could happen to any one of them, at almost any time. The reality that by forming the bonds she was, she was only setting herself up to be hurt time, and time, and time again.

The cream-colored parrot sighed. She needed a drink.

Scooting back in her seat, Celaeno opened one of her desk drawers, and from it, she fished out a shot glass, and a bottle of rum. It was a new bottle--one she had purchased the last time they had all been in dock. Sticking one of her talons into the cork and pulling sharply, the stopper popped out with little resistance. It wasn’t long before a familiar, almost comforting fire was burning at her throat once again.

The parrot set the small glass upon the desk as a grizzled “Ahh” left her beak. She allowed her body to go limp and for her head to fall backwards, a small “thump” sounding as it struck the back of her seat. For a blissful moment, she forgot all about her sadness, the flames in her throat directing all of her attention away from anyone and anything else.

It could not last, however--and as her physical pain subsided, her emotional pain began to return. The fowl again eyed the shot glass before her contemplatively, feeling the bottle that still remained in her talons with a growing thirst. After a few moments, however, she only sighed, quickly popping the cork back in, and shoving both the bottle and the glass back into their drawer--out of sight, out of mind. Tonight was not the night.

Sitting back up, Celaeno shook her head and took the pen within her talons once more, dipping its nib into the nearby bottle of ink. As she hovered the writing utensil above the page, however, her mind almost immediately blanked on what next to write. Moments passed by, and her pen remained completely still, dribbling bits of ink onto the parchment every now and again.

Silence once again overtook Celaeno’s quarters as her mind rushed from one thing to another. A part of her wanted to end the log at that, and simply crawl into bed for the night, hopefully letting unconsciousness quell the guilt and sadness that hung heavy on her heart and mind. She knew, however, that that would not do--there was too much else to record, and she was far too meticulous to allow the excitement of any day to go unwritten.

Thus, the captain closed her eyes, and took a deep breath as she began to piece together the next sentence she would pen in her mind.

“How in all Equestria could you have let him die?”

A voice broke the silence that was both nowhere, and everywhere at once. Captain Celaeno nearly jumped out of her feathers, attempting to make sense of what she had just heard. “Wha… who are you, and what the fuck do you think you’re doing asking me something like tha--wait…”

“He was one of your original crewmates--there with you all the way from your very first voyage. And you let him down. You failed him.”

Celaeno realized with horror that the voice she was hearing… was her own. She soon stood, quickly brandishing her sword as she frantically looked this way and that, hoping against all hope that this was just some elaborate prank being played on her by her crew, and not what she thought it was. What she knew it was.

“He had a dream of becoming a professional blacksmith one day, running his own shop in Canterlot. He had a wife. A family. A family, Celaeno. And now, they are without him. Without their brave and courageous Grover. And you are the only one responsible!”

“It’s not true!” Celaeno preemptively shouted, trying her best to maintain a fearsome composure. Her heart began to pound in her chest as her mind caught up with her words, sending waves of panic through her body. “He signed up for this! Both he and his family knew the risks! I kept him fed, watered, and paid for seven years! Seven whole years! The gods decided that his number had come up!”

“The gods decided? Don’t make me laugh,” the voice chortled as it began to materialize on the other side of Celaeno’s desk. The shape that it began to take on was one terrifyingly familiar to the captain; it was her--but at the same time, it was not. The figure that took shape was far too beautiful to truly be her. She was clothed in a frilly, scarlet gown, and a large, fancy sun hat with a brim wide enough to block out any offending ray of sunshine that could possibly be hurdled her way. Her feathers were perfectly preened and maintained, and her eyes glimmered and shone brighter and more beautifully than what the captain had ever thought possible. “Are the gods suddenly responsible for your decisions, Cel? Hmm? Are you telling me you haven’t any free will, and are just a puppet they play with whenever they feel like it?”

“Shut up!” Celaeno growled, pointing her sword directly at the heart of her apparition. “Your tongue may be sharp, but I know you! You’re only here to torment me with lies! Lies and… and fallacies!”

“Aww, is Cel having a difficult time coming up with anything to say? I don’t blame you--you didn’t complete school, after all!” the apparition giggled as she sashayed her way around the desk, making her way to Celaeno’s side with a devilish grin. “Say, that’s a pretty big word you used! I bet you five bits that you can’t tell me what it means, though!”

“Buck off!” the captain bellowed as she reared back, and thrust her sword forth at the taunting ghost of herself.

“Oh come on, Cel!” the apparition tittered. “We’ve done this before! You know that you can’t hurt me! Or do you truly forget that easily?”

“You-”

“Look, Cel,” the apparition interrupted, draping an arm around the captain’s shoulders. “I’m gonna be nice, and tell you a little secret: sometimes, it’s best to keep your mouth shut and look stupid, than to open it up and prove it. You may be the queen of your little disgusting band of misfits, but when it’s just you and I, you might as well be my bitch.”

The ghost turned around, and began to pace back and forth, her transitions between walking this way and that always punctuated by a small twirl that brought ample attention to her dress. “Now, I know that I might be a teensy bit mean, but you know, I’ve stopped caring. I was the version of us who actually listened to father, after all, and look where I am? I just got this beauty yesterday!”

Celaeno’s apparition took a few steps back before twirling in place, her gown effortlessly flowing and flying around her body in the process. “This could have been you, ya’ know--an educated, refined, proper parrot with a family of her own. Any material possession you could have ever dreamed of, with a loving husband by your side, and a bunch of little chicks all saying how much they love their mommy and daddy as they run around the house playing with the toys you had just gifted them. If you had just listened to your father, and been a good girl, it would have all been yours. But what did you do instead? You ran away. You forsook your own caretaker, and ran far, far away. Now look where you are--a leader, but a leader of what? The filth you call crewmates who have probably never even bathed once in their lives? Scum of the land who couldn’t find work anywhere else?”

The apparition chuckled as she shook her head. “And now… this marks the sixth one of them you’ve let down. The sixth life who so unfortunately has discovered how misplaced their trust in you was.”

“You bucking bitch!” Celaeno screeched as she picked up her seat, and threw it with as great a force as she was able at the offending voice. A great crash soon filled the air as one of its legs snapped, the seat having passed effortlessly through the transparent form of her tormentor. Tears had begun to form in the pits of her eyes as her composure collapsed, her limbs beginning to shake and wobble as her vision tinted red from rage. “Father was a controlling piece of shit! I wasn’t going to let him do to me what he did to my sister! I wasn’t about to… to…”

“No, I get it.” the apparition nodded. “You weren’t about to pay the price you needed to to have a happy life. You weren’t about to do something difficult that would pay off in the end. I understand loud and clear, Cel--you always were a lazy, ungrateful brat.”

“You… you bucking…”

“Geez Cel, I knew you were slow to come up with retorts, but this is just pathetic. Besides, don’t you remember the advice I gave you?” the tormentor asked with an evil smile. “Well, anyways… I’ve gotta go. Can’t be hanging out with you forever, not like I’d ever want to do that. Toodles, Cel! Have fun with the crushing guilt of knowing that all of this is entirely your fault!”

With a hearty laugh, the voice’s form began to disappear, and as it did, Celaeno could not fight the tears that were falling any longer. She could not see hardly anything anymore, the combination of rage and tears tinting and clouding her sight such that she could only make out vague outlines and movements. She collapsed, beginning to sob uncontrollably upon the cold, hard ground. She hated this. She hated her. She hated…

She hated herself.

With a start, the captain jerked her head skyward, suddenly finding herself back in her seat at the desk. It took only a few moments for her to get her bearings, and when she had, she found her pen still clutched within her talons, and the parchment upon which she had been writing her log still in front of her. Her quarters were as quiet as ever, and as she began to tentatively look around, she could feel a stiffness in her neck and shoulders consistent with having been completely still for hours on end.

She had fallen asleep. It had all been a dream.

Grateful though she was for this simple fact (not least because her beloved chair was still intact), she remembered with a grimace the words that the ghost of herself had spoken, and worst of all, how she had been scarcely able to even lift a claw in reply. Setting her pen down, the parrot rubbed her tired eyes, releasing a forlorn sigh as she did so--this certainly was not the first nightmare like this that she had had, and she had no reason to believe that it would be the last, either.

In any case… for the moment, it mattered little. Celaeno had a log to finish.

Author's Note

And so we begin a new story! I can't guarantee how often new updates will be out (let it never be said that university is not busy), but I'm actually quite excited about this, and I hope you are too!

I hope you all are having a wonderful day! Thank you so much for giving me a little bit of your time!