An Equestrian Rogue

“Well I don’t know what it is, but it looks like it’s singing…”

The pegasi on the cloud took a moment to stare at each other before bursting out into laughter.

“Singing! What could possibly make it want to start singing?!” A cobalt blue mare said with tears in her eyes. She pushed next to the stallion. “Here! Let me see through that thing!” She put her eyes to the spyglass. The stallion gave a grunt and shifted aside. “Here, let’s move a little closer. I doubt it knows the cloud watch. It isn’t centaur.”

“Yeah but it is wearing centaur decorated rags. We’re going to have to report this,” the mare responded as she watched the confusing creature continue its merriment. “It looks absolutely dreadful.”

“Well that is the point of that wasteland,” the equally cobalt blue stallion said as he dug his hooves into the cloud and flapped his wings to push the cloud a little closer toward their target. “I’m amazed it seems to be in such high spirits.”

“Probably too dumb to understand. I’m more amazed it managed to make it through that desert.” The mare squinted through the spyglass. “It has a rug thrown over it, some supplies, and it knows how to use a raft. It must have scavenged.”

“Or, those monsters helped it.” The stallion grunted with exertion.

“Shh! We’re closing in. Listen! I think I can hear it!”

Thorne shouted out his jaunty tune as he went blissfully unaware to the spying that was happening above him. He was belting his song out at a Royal Canterlot level that made the two pegasi shiver.

“Sweet Celestia he’s loud!” The mare said in a harsh whisper. Her male counterpart nodded in agreement, taking his hooves to hold them over his ears.

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’, sis?” The male asked as he flicked his ears.

“Because it sounds like a stallion! Or well, it has a deep voice like one. Like one should,” she teased her brother.

There was a derisive snort from the effeminate sounding stallion. “Just jealous I got a stallion and you don’t,” he stuck his tongue out in a tizzy. His sister rolled her eyes.

“Come on, let’s go report this. Take us back to the ship. Command will likely want to intercept whatever this thing is. Nothing good comes out of centaur lands.”

There was a nod from her brother as he shifted in the cloud, moving to push their stealthy transport back toward Equestrian waters.

Thorne was too busy with his singing and paddling to notice.

The boat was small--nothing more than a patrol sloop. It wasn’t armed aside from the guards on board. Several unicorn deck gunners, pegasi patrols, and earth pony crew. It wasn’t meant to fend off a naval intrusion, merely act as a vanguard. It patrolled the waters near the deserts and wasteland that the more monstrous races called home. It had been moored up until a night ago before it was brought back on duty. Several of the guards were shaking off the evening of one last night ashore before they did a tour of the waters for the next two weeks. They had arrived in their patrol path early that morning and had sent several pegasi scouts out as the moon was being lowered.

“Another fine day on the seas, right captain?”

“Aye, that it is.”

It was going on mid-morning and Captain Crushing Depths was enjoying the salty breeze that blew across the deck of his ship, The Deep Blue. He stood resolute, his earth pony heritage shimmering in Her Majesty’s glorious sun. He had on a white uniform with the bars of a captain clearly denoted on it. It did much to hide away the amber-grain color of his coat. He closed his emerald eyes and let the breeze sway his caramel brown mane.

His mouth rolled the pipe between his lips before taking a slow drag from it. He exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. “How was your shore leave in Vanhoover--”

“Sir look!” His companion on the deck called out, interrupting his captain. Captain Depths was standing next to his first officer, a dull rust colored unicorn by the name of Rusty Anchor. Sapphire eyes that sparkled with untapped youth seemed to be peering up at the sky. Next the captain witnessed the binoculars being brought to the officer’s eyes in the grasp of a faded silver magical aura. “It’s… Spring and Summer, returning sir!”

“Let me see those,” the captain demanded. The officer obliged and sent them levitating over to his commander. The earth pony took them from the silvery telekinetic grasp and peered up to the encroaching cloud.

He could see the two pegasi scouts returning at high speed. “What are Spring Showers and Summer Flowers doing…” the captain commented. His curiosity got sated as the two abandoned their cloud and went floating down toward the ship.

“Permission to come aboard, captain!” The stallion called.

“Granted, Specialist Summer. You’re here, which means you’ve something to report. So hop to it.”

“Sir!” The brother and sister said in unison as they landed daintily on the deck. They looked at each other and Spring took a step forward.

“We encountered some...thing, sir. It sounded male in its singing, but we can’t be sure. We’ve never seen anything like it. The way it moved and sounded, it was almost like a minotaur. But it seemed nearly hairless. The thing was naked save for a centaur-made rug thrown over it!”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down Specialist Spring,” the captain retorted to her tale of fantasy with a gentle hoof raised. “So you two encountered some kind of… alien being that managed to not only come out of that desert, but it was singing?”

“Yes sir,” Summer interjected. “It was singing a rather jaunty tune about being in the navy.”

The first officer gave a snort at that. He was quickly reprimanded by the captain with a hard glare.

“How far is it from this position, Specialist?” The captain asked, his attention turning back to the brother and sister unit.

“In its current mode of transport, about a day, sir. It’s making a considerable amount of progress, but it looked pretty exhausted. It appeared to have stamina like nobody’s business.” The mare said. “The simple fact that it was belting out a song that was comparable to the Royal Canterlot voice should tell you enough about the lungs on the creature. So it stands to reason this thing is strong in both body and spirit.”

The captain nodded in thought. “I won’t lie, that’s actually kind of scary. Wasn’t using any magic, was it?”

“Not that we saw.”

“Alright. Give us a heading. We’ll intercept it.”

“Sir, what about our orders and what about command?!” Rusty exclaimed.

“We have a mysterious creature that is not only singing his merry rear toward us, but will likely reach our domain faster than any monster could before we could report back. While our orders are to keep these waters safe and keep exiles where they belong, clearly this thing didn’t get the memo!” The captain responded in a harsh tone, nearly shouting at his second-in-command.

“So!” He moved out from the upper deck, looking down at the gathered sailors. “General quarters! Specialist Spring! Give us a heading. We’re intercepting it and bringing it aboard in shackles! Deck gunners, flares out! We need all hooves present and accounted for--I don’t want a single scout to be lost and flying in circles when we aren’t in our designated position!”

A mad scramble happened upon the deck of the small ship as several bodies went piling into where they belonged. Spring Showers and Captain Depths shared a moment, getting their bearings on where this mysterious alien was in the vast ocean. Several of the unicorns on the deck lit their horns and fired a burst up into the sky that exploded in a bright and dazzling display of every color imaginable. Even in the bright of the daylight, it was seen for miles around.

“Well now… That’s colorful,” Thorne said to himself. He had taken a pause in his rowing in order to rest his weary body. He had laid out flat on the raft and was idly eating a carrot, his eyes watching the sky and the horizon. It wasn’t much of a view, but it was certainly better than endless sands and bland rocks. The fireworks that were now going off aided in the visual stimulation.

‘That’s likely a bunch of flares. Must be signaling another ship. Or maybe the shore line. Wonder if it’s some kind of code… Looks random, but one never knows.’ He thought to himself, the crunching of a carrot filling the air instead of speech. ‘I’ll likely have an escort on top of me in a little while. Maybe I can acquire some aid from them. A nice real meal, some healing salves for wounds, and maybe even a bed!’

Thorne swallowed the mushy carrot chunks he had been chewing on as he thought. With a flick on his tongue against his lips, he laid back and sported a cocky grin. ‘Let the games begin!’