He was wrong. He was so, so wrong. Things indeed did go bad that day. It started out quite nice, as he had expected. Just a pleasant and small voyage out of harbor, and then the beginning of a three day long journey to the Griffin Lands. Or at least, that was what it was supposed to be. What had really happened was around a three hour trip with nice weather and semi clear sky's, and then a storm had rolled in. A massive freak storm that was completely and utterly unexpected. Even the Pegasi on board hadn't sensed it until it was right on top of them, and they were fucking magically connected to the weather! Even the youngest Pegasi with absolutely no training should be able to detect this storm from miles away! It was as if it hadn't actually existed until it was on top of them.

But, that ultimately doesn't matter. What does matter is how they were going to survive this storm. They had already been battling it for over two hours and the crew was getting tired, they had had a few close calls and some ponies almost went overboard, but none had so far. And the worst part, the storm seemed to be getting worse.

"Pull the fucking lines! Somepony get on the lines!"

"We're tipping! We're tipping!"

"Hard to port! Get over that wave!"

"The fucking water pumps aren't enough! We're still sinking!"

"Barrel! Get five ponies and get below deck to start bailing! We're taking on too much water!"

Captain Anchor stared out over the ship from the quarterdeck, watching as his crew ponies scurried back and forth across the deck and from below. They were fighting hard to keep the Dandy afloat, but it seemed as though it was never enough. There was always more to do, always one more emergency cropping up at exactly the wrong time, they were lucky they hadn't lost anypony yet, mostly thanks to the tireless work of the crew. He watched as his second, Silent Sail ran from the below deck and began to ascend to the quarterdeck.

"Captain!" He called. "we're taking on too much water, and we're already quite low in the water thanks to the extra crew and cargo we're hauling! We can't bail quick enough, and the pumps are already working overtime! if we don't get higher on the water soon all our effort will have been for nothing! Sir, we need to lighten the load, we need to throw some cargo overboard."

Anchor grimaced, he trusted his second wholeheartedly, and if he said they needed to lighten the load, then they needed to lighten the load. But still, the docs and relief teams weren't gonna be happy about it.

"Do it." He said. " And if they give you any trouble, force your way through."

Sail grimaced. "Aye sir." He saluted, and ran off to do his job. Anchor sighed. If they survived this, he'd have to deal with the bloody paperwork of all that lost cargo. Fucking great, maybe being lost at sea wasn't so bad after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sail rushed through the bowels of the ship, down one flight of stairs, then another, making it onto the third deck.

"You, you, you, you, and you!" He called to five nearby ponies, calling them over. "Powder!" He said to one of them. "Get ten other ponies and get them down here to help us throw some cargo overboard, we gotta lighten the load. The rest of you, with me!"

Powder saluted and ran off, the rest continued down to the fourth deck. As they ran they were constantly moved and buffeted around by the sharp rocking and tipping of the ship, always threatening to tip over at a moments notice. When they finally made it down to the fourth deck, they could see the extra personnel they had on board running around, trying to keep the supplies they had strapped to the wall or ground, and trying to keep from being crushed by the myriad of boxes.

Sail looked around trying to find somepony who looked like they were in charge, he eventually just grabbed one of the ponys running by.

"What's your name!?" Sail shouted, trying to overcome the sound of the boat crashing through the waves and water around them. The pony in the white doctors coat looked startled.

"I- I'm Scalpel! Doctor Scalpel!"

"Well Scalpel, tell your ponies to start removing boxes and bringing them topside, we need to throw some overboard to lighten the ships load!"

Scalpel stared at Sail for a second, in a shocked silence.

"Are you mad!?" Scalpel finally said. "Do you have any idea how much some of this equipment costs!? How much went into procuring the supplies!? Not to mention how hard it was to get the Griffins to accept them in the first place! We simply cannot-"

CRACK-A-THOOM!

CRACK, SMASH!

Scalpels ranting was interpreted by an extremely loud lightning strike, followed by an equally loud and worrying sound of cracking wood, and smashing timbers. Sail looked around wildly, looking for any sign of a beach in the hull of the ship. Seeing none, and not hearing any of the crew shouting about a breach, he looked back towards Scalpel.

"Listen doc! You got two options, you help us throw your shit overboard, or you get out of our way and we go do it ourselves! Because the third option is death! And I very much prefer to live!"

Scalpel looked around the deck wildly, shaken and sweating, seems the crash had gotten to him bad. He looked back towards Sail.

"R-right…" he managed to say, stepping back towards the cargo boxes to tell his ponies what they had to do.

"Follow him." Commanded Sail. "I'm gonna go topside and see what that crash was." The ponies around him nodded, and followed the doctor back into the maze of cargo.

Sail sprinted past crew ponies, heading towards the stairs leading up topside. He passed some more ponies led by Powder, coming down to help unload the cargo on deck four. He cleared the top deck in just over half a minute, and noticed something immediately.

"Where's the main mast!?" He shouted. The main mast was gone, not destroyed, not toppled over, gone. All that was left was a cracked and singed stump where it used to be. It seems that one of the crew ponies had hear him over the noise of the storm raging around them.

"Mast broke!" He shouted. "It was struck by lightning and fell over! Was barely hanging on! A Unicorn had to cut it the rest of the way off and push it into the water so it didn't tip us!"

"Shit!" Sail swore. "How the hell are we supposed to survive this storm now!?"

And that, is when a miracle happened. They reached the eye of the storm. Or rather, it reached them. The clouds above them began to clear up, the rain lessened, and though the waves were still rough, they weren't as choppy or high as they had been.

"What in Celestia's name?" Sail said. "Did… did we reach the eye?"

"Looks like it." He heard behind him. He turned to see Captain Anchor approaching him. "But, we really shouldn't have." He continued. "Cloudy told me the eye was still two miles south just five minutes ago, and while Dandy's fast, she certainly ain't that fast. So it seem more like the eye reached us, instead of us reaching it."

Sail thought about that, Cloudy Skies, the ships navigator. A Pegasus who had served with the Captain for longer than he had, she was not only great for navigating around the world with a map and the stars, but she was the ships weather expert too. And if she said something about the weather, she ment it, she had almost never been wrong with her predictions either. So for her to get the location of the eye of a storm this big wrong was… unprecedented, to say the least. Worrying at most, as it ment that either something was wrong with her, which was unlikely, or… something was very wrong with this storm.

"Well, no use lollygagging around form something that benefits us." The Captain started. "We need to fix up the ships hull, retighten the cargo we can keep." The Captain looked at the stump where the main mast used to be. "And find out to survive without a main mast."

Ten minutes, that's all the time that got to use. Cloudy had given them thirty, maybe forty five minutes before they left the eye, but all they got to use was ten. But, this was not because they had left the eye, no, it was something much more mysterious and... terrifying.

'A dragon, it has to be a fucking dragon.' These were Sails thoughts as he heard the loud roars that were slowing increasing, as whatever was making them got closer. 'But.' he thought. 'it hasn't stoped, even a dragon wouldn't be able to roar for a minute straight.' whatever it was, it was getting closer, and they were in no way prepared to handle it.

The crew was in chaos. Some were trying to load cannons, believing that whatever it was they could fight it off. Some were running around trying to fix up the ship, thinking that maybe they could escape it somehow, even without the main mast. And some had just broken down, crying in the middle of the deck or just going stock still, he couldn't blame them. After everything that had already happened today, there was what seemed to be a dragon coming straight towards them. The situation had just overwhelmed them, and they collapsed under it all.

Yet, as the noise got closer, it began to sound even less and less like a dragon. It sounded more, mechanical. Like the trains that ran though town sometimes back in Manehattan, but louder. Much louder. Whatever it was finally came into perspective, or, at least the outline did. Whatever it was it was blinding to look at. The sun shining down on to it and reflecting back in all directions like a shield of light. it seemed to be flying through the air, and it was metal. An airship? If it was an airship, it was not any kind of airship Sail had ever seen. It came right over the ship, the roar reached it peak. it hurt his ears. But, now there was something else, a quiet sound, in The background behind the roar. It sounded like… music? No that can't be right, who would be playing music, and why? What was it for… Sail suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of tiredness pass over him, like he hadn't slept in days. He- he needed to lie down, he was so, so… tired…

THUNK.

Author's Note

Scene/Perspective skip ~~~~~
Time skip -----
'Thoughts'
Second chapter is out, not certain when the next one will be out. Maybe in a week.