Go With the Flow

~~~

Star Point cantered like a mad-colt through the griffon town, in a rapid dash towards the docks. He offered a dozen gasping apologies along the way as he forced his way through griffons and ponies alike, racing along with his mind a furious tempest of panicked thoughts.

He skidded to a stop at the docks where the sailboat was still docked. He felt his heart sinking into his chest when he realized Flowing was nowhere to be seen.

“No no no…” he breathed out. “Flowing…”

The single word wouldn’t bring her to him. He called it out louder, screaming it out towards the waves at the end of the dock. “Flow! It’s Star! Please, come back if you can hear me!”

His heart was pounding so hard he thought it was going to race out of his chest. He trotted up and down the dock, staring down into the waters, resisting the urge to dive in like a fool and start searching for her under the waves themselves…

He couldn’t have lost her. It didn’t even seem possible. After all they’d been through, after how closely he’d felt the two of them were… only for her to be gone in one stupid little lapse of judement on his part…

No. She… she must have fled. She was out in the bay somewhere, waiting for the coast to be clear before she met up with him…

He hadn’t even realized he’d been pacing back and forth down the dock, until a voice jerked him out of his panicked, fearful reverie.

“Ahem… uh, s’cuse me? Earth pony?”

Star had been staring into the waves waiting for the glow of Flowing’s angler light, but he whipped around the second he heard a voice, any voice. “Yes?”

“I, arr… I’m thinkin’ ‘Flow’ is a seapony, eh?”

Star bit his lip. He didn’t want to answer that question coming from a stranger, and the grimy, eye-patch wearing griffon who had asked it wasn’t exactly the glowing figure of trustworthyness. But he wasn’t rife with option.

“Yeah…my marefriend. She’s… I told her to wait, while I…”

“Listen, kid. I don’t like to get caught up in any messy business, but…” The griffon scratched at the scruffy, oil-flecked feathers at the top of his head with a claw. “Last I saw her she was getting' swooped away by a hippogriff and flown inland.”

Star blinked. “You saw her?”

He nodded. “Aye. Ain’t exactly a common sight. Might not be the most lawful town, and a lotta unsavoury folks hide out here only to get scooped up by bounty hunters or the law, but… I don’t reckon your marefriend fits the criteria.”

Star breathed out a ragged exhale. Any news of Flowing was better than none at all, but what he was hearing was…

“Which way?” Star quickly asked.

“Storm King vessel. Dusted off in a hurry... Might still be able to see ‘er on the horizon…” he nodded at the sailboat. "That yours?“

“Yeah.”

“Ain’t gonna be able to catch up with that, kiddo.”

Star felt a sudden spike of indignation, which he knew was him being utterly ridiculous. It was the truth, after all, and just because it was unsavoury didn’t mean he had the right to get mad at the griffon for pointing it out. Still, it had felt like a distinct twist of a dagger already driven into his heart; ‘Hey, I saw your marefriend being foalnapped, but don’t worry, you can’t possibly catch up to ‘em. Tough break, kiddo.’

Star was already turning and cantering over to the sailboat, already untangling the line from where he’d tied off. “Still… gotta try.”

“Hey, hey…” the griffon sauntered after him. “Listen. You ain’t catchin’ up. Not with the winds how they are… but look. Ain’t exactly a good look for us to let the Storm King’s flyin’ monkeys in our town causin’ trouble.”

Star finally turned back to face him. “What are you talking about?”

He flashed Star a beaky grin. “Talkin’ about a motor, kid. You want one?”

He rolled his eyes, and went back to untying his sailboat once again. “I don’t have any bits.”

“No bits. Just wanna help."

Star blinked. He glanced back once more, analyzing the scruffy looking griffon for any signs of deceit. While he’d never been to the Griffonlands before, the stories he’d been told by those who had usually depicted the same thing. Charity wasn’t really a thing for them. Something about lesser natural resources, or about a more subdivided population… regardless of the specific source of their aloofness, it was a narrative he’d been told time and time before by seasoned sailors.

As such, he wasn’t quite sure how to take this blatant show of charity, now.

“Well? Gonna sit there gawking, sailor-pony? Or do you wanna go save your marefriend?” The griffon clicked his… beak?…and motioned with a claw for Star to follow, which he did after a moment’s pause.

“Why are you helping me?”

The question was still there at the tip of his tongue, ever since the griffon had first started speaking to him, but Star hadn’t wanted to ruin his chances, slim as they were.

“Mm?” The griffon turned back to look at him with his good eye. “Whatcha on about, pony?”

“Er. Well. I just... Showed up. You don’t know me. Why?”

He laughed, and gave a little shrug. “Dunno. Y’been to Griffonstone lately, pony?”

Star Point stared for a moment at the strange aside, but shook his head. “Never.”

“Mm. Place changed quick. All of a sudden, talk of friendship, and helping, and silly notions like that. Not somethin’ any of us woulda expected outta Griffonstone.”

Star nodded and said nothing.

“Point bein’. Storm King, that... Bounty hunter mare. They’ll have ya believe that ugliness and backstabbin’s the way these little isolated communities should be. And I guess I don’t like the idea that your memory of our town is watchin’ yer gal get stolen from ya.”

Despite the overwhelming despair of his situation, Star managed to crack a smile. “Well… I can’t… I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I’ll remember this for as long as I live.”

“Shucks, I know that, pony,” The griffon laughed. They’d left the docks, and the griffon was now leading Star towards an aging boathouse a few yards away. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Star Point. And my marefriend is…”

“Flowing. As I heard ya shoutin’. I shoulda… when I saw here talkin’ to that hippogriff…” The griffon shook his head. “Sorry, kid.”

“Hippogriff?” Star tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Mm? Oh, just this…troublemaker, that likes to hang out ‘round these parts. Friend of Tempest Shadow, that Storm King mook. I shoulda known he’d had somethin’ hidden up his plumage when I saw him chattin’ up that fish.”

“Well. I shouldn’t have left her be.” Star returned. “They’ve… well, that Tempest mare at least… she’s been chasing the both of us across the whole damn ocean.”

The griffon blinked. “No kiddin’?”

“No kidding. I guess she really wants Flowing for… something or other. Some evil plan. I don’t know. I just want her to be safe.”

“Aye. Well…” The griffon stopped before a rusty old crank-operated door, hooking the pull-chain around a talon and starting to heave it open. “Let’s both of us get you on the way to doin’ just that, huh? Fishcake, by the way.”

Star Point tilted his head. “Huh?”

The griffon turned back and flashed him a grin, winking with his only good eye. “S’my name. Fishcake.”

With a mighty heave, Fishcake yanked on the chain mechanism, sending the boathouse door sailing open, and leading the way in with Star Point following closely behind.

~~~

For Flowing, the next little while passed in a dizzying, disorienting blur. She was carried for what felt like forever, struggling to see where the blazes she was even going. She found that if she rolled herself over, she was afforded an inverted look at the looming belly of the same Storm King airship that had been tormenting the two of them across the Celestial Sea.

Eventually, as they approached the deck, Cirrus let go of his grip on the net, causing her to hit the airship with a thud that nearly took the wind out of her.

"Sorry! You're one heavy fish, ma'am!" she heard him chuckle above her. The net opened on impact. She was thrashing about immediately, though her efforts were swiftly halted when several of the armoured Storm Guards descended upon her. She felt a thick nylon rope wrap around her tail, and then another around her forelimbs. Just as she turned to confront Cirrus himself as she heard him land, a hood was roughly shoved over her, flooding her vision in blackness.

They worked with terrifying, practiced efficiency. Flowing reminded herself that, of course they did. This was what they did, after all.

The hood muffled more than just the sights of the outside world... she could hear talking, but it seemed faint and far away and impossible to make out with any sort of legibility. She thought she recognized Cirrus's voice a few times. Tempest had always been too far away for her to actually know what she sounded like, but there was definitely someone else speaking that could have been her.

Regardless, after too long thrashing helplessly on the deck, she heard movement once more. Then, she was lifted, the ropes binding her undone, and she was thrown unceremoniously over a distance of several feet, landing with a splash into a small tank of water just barely large enough to swim a full circle around. The blindfold came off her eyes from the force of the impact with the water, though her surroundings were still mostly dark.

Her heart was beating in a moment as she quickly swam around to confront the pony, or griffon, or whatever had just deposited her into the aquatic prison. To her chagrin, there was no-one to be seen. A glance up at a closing panel on the ceiling showed her that she had been deposited from above, falling into what was apparently some sort of live-well intended for bigger fish than just mackerel or herring.

Fish like her.

The reinforced glass of the tank rose until it hit the ceiling, without so much as a crack between the two. There was a valve for pumping in or draining the water near the bottom, but besides that the tank was featureless. She swam around urgently, striking one of the glass walls of the tank and being rewarded with a sting of pain on her head for her efforts. She swam as far back as she could, attempted again...

Bang. Nothing. She wasn’t breaking her way out of the tank any time soon.

Her angler light was the only thing illuminating her surroundings, and even it’s light only cast so far. There was more to the room than the tank she had been dumped in, but as far as she could see was pure darkness.

Her heart began to beat faster. It was a thousand times worse than any of the claustraphobic time spent in the hold of Star Point’s trawler, despite technically being a wider breadth of room for her to properly swim around. The darkness, the mystery, the dull thud of the glass every time she thrust her body against it, trying to free herself... And even then, what? Where would she go? Would breaking out of the tank even help her, truly?

Defeated, she swam to the bottom of the tank and lay flat upon it. Nothing to do for now, but wait, she supposed. As she lay on the floor, she could feel a faint rumbling, as though something large was rhythmically whirring noisily some distance away.

The airship's engines, steadily churning them forwards towards the Storm King's hideout. Had to be.

She grew tired of laying idly before too long. She took to swimming in restless circles around her prison--an aquatic equivalent to panicked pacing. Her mind alight with thoughts of Starry. Was he alright? Did they have him, too? That seemed unlikely, unless they had gone back to capture him...for some reason.

She wanted to weep, but that seemed stupid and useless. It wouldn’t change her situation. It wouldn’t get her free.

“Hello?” she called out into the darkness. No reply came, and the darkness remained lit by little else but the light of her angler lamp.

It was nearly an hour before anything of note happened in the dark prison, but when it did it jerked Flowing to attention immediately. There was a sudden flood of light in one corner of the room, but it was a dark orange, near-torchlight, just enough to illuminate the silhouette of the tall unicorn entering the room from beyond the door that had just slid open.

Tempest Shadow marched closer to the tank, flanked on both sides by those guards of hers. The hippogriff that had tricked her was nowhere to be seen. Flowing swam to the edge of the glass, glaring daggers at the unicorn as she approached, until they were practically snout to snout. Flowing scowling and Tempest with a smug smirk on her face as she looked back into the tank at her prisoner.

“Flowing Sands. A hard fish to catch.”

Flowing bared her incisors at the deformed unicorn through the glass by way of response. Her voice sounded muffled through the glass of the tank containing Flowing, but not enough that she couldn’t make her out clearly.

“I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Tempest replied, waving a hoof. “You don’t really have any reason to, right?”

“Let me go.” Flowing swam an impatient little circle, before returning to her position looking back at Tempest. “You have to know that this isn’t right.”

“I’m going to make you an offer, Flowing Sands.” Tempest Shadow ignored her. “But before I do... A run down. You’re in a heap of trouble. You don’t really have a lot of leverage over me, or anybody. Nopony is coming for you. Your own Queen doesn’t know nor care about your plight. Right now, you’re enroute to the authority of a being with no mercy, or sympathy, or patience. But I can help you.”

Flowing laughed. “Yeah? How?”

“Simple. You tell me what I need to know. You give me a location for Seaquestria, and for Queen Novo. And I let you go free. No strings attached. I don’t need you. I need the Pearl. You put me on the right route to find it, and I let you go. You can swim right back to that earth pony of yours, and pretend this never happened.”

Flowing sneered, baring her fangs at the unicorn. “Y’think everypony’s willing to betray their kind as easily as you are, huh? Kiss my fishy flank, short-horn. I’m not tellin’ you squat.”

“Yeah? That’s really the route you wanna go, seapony?” Tempest laughed. “I’m serious. You’re not gonna like what happens when we get you home. We’re going to get that information from you one way or another, and then you’re gonna spend the rest of your life in a fish-tank as a decoration. You won’t see freedom or your dear little earth pony again, unless I bring him to you in shackles just to gloat. Is that the future you want?”

“What’s in it for you?” Flowing tilted her head. A diversion, a tangent. But it beat playing whatever game Tempest was trying to make her play. “Why are you helping the Storm King, anyways? What’s he offering you?”

Tempest blinked. For a moment, she seemed genuinely taken aback. “...I don’t have to answer that, seapony.”

“No? You really don’t wanna monologue to me about your sob story?” Flowing let out a tittering laugh, bubbles floating to the surface of her prison. “I betcha it’s the horn, right? He says he’s gonna give you a new one? I betcha that’s iiiiiiiit!”

“Shut it!” Tempest snarled. Flowing felt the water within the tank shift and shudder as the unicorn’s hoof struck the ground, whilst a few sparking discharges escaped her maimed horn. “Y’know, you’re right. It’s silly of me to think that the seapony stupid enough to put her entire people in danger would be willing to see reason...”

Flowing’s smug demeanour tapered. Tempest Shadow had reached a hoof into her armour, and then slowly she withdrew it again. In her hoof, she held a single black orb, about the size of a softball. In the middle of it emanated a faint greenish-blue glow, which crawled around the black orb in splintery patterns.

“They say it’s best to flash-freeze fish when you transport it...” Tempest mused thoughtfully. Flowing watched her stroke the orb, and suddenly the glowing runes upon it began to illuminate more brightly. She clicked her tongue, and one of the two guards standing at the entrance of the chamber came closer.

When it happened, the guard hardly had time to react. Flowing’s eyes widened with horror as Tempest suddenly reared back and tossed the glowing orb directly at the guard. There was a split second, where his eyes lit up in shock.

Then, his petrified body thudded down on to the ground in front of Flowing, letting out a dull clanking as it struck the metal grated floor of the airshp’s brig.

The other guard looked just as terrified as Flowing did, but by some intense force of will he did not flee back down the hallway. Tempest, meanwhile, was already fishing out a second orb from her armour.

“What do you say, seapony? Last chance to consider my offer...”

“Is he..!”

“He’s fine. Consider this me being theatrical. I’ll release him when I finish up with you. Now. Seaquestria. Where are we going? Or do you want to wait until I unpetrify you in front of the Storm King himself to tell me?”

Flowing exhaled. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get out of this without providing an answer...

She wasn’t about to give up Seaquestria, though. She only hoped Tempest’s knowledge of the sea and the threats within it was as incomplete as she was making it sound.

“There’s a network of underwater caves a few miles off of the Griffon Isles. To the South. Queen Novo has been hiding out there.”

“There we go. Not so hard, was it?” Tempest chuckled. Then, she turned to the second guard. “Okay, get her out. Let’s do this.”

The second petrification orb stayed out. Tempest stayed where she was, standing at the ready... And suddenly, Flowing realized that she hadn’t lied her way to safety at all.

“W-what happens next?” she said warily, as the guard shuffled over to the release mechanism for the tank.

“It’s nothing personal, seapony,” Tempest replied. “I just need to make sure that you’re telling the truth, is all. I’m taking you above, and we’re gonna see if you’re lying to me about where we’re headed… cause if you are…” The unicorn gave the petrification orb a taunting stroke. “Well. You know what I’ll have to do. Same goes for if you try any funny business when I let you out. Got it?”

Flowing gave a shaky nod. “Fine.”

“Good fish.”

A mechanism was thrown, and the water levels of the tank rapidly began to fall. Flowing’s tail eventually fell flat on the bottom of the tank, and once it was completely drained of water, one of the guards entered via a latch in the reinforced glass.

Flowing was bound again, a heavy metal shackle affixing her tail to another heavy collar around her neck, connecting the two with a solid metal bar. It left her forefins free, but ensured she would not make it very far if she attempted to swim away. Then, one of the guards lifted her by the metal bar. A rather humiliating position… Flowing wondered just what would happen if she sunk her teeth directly into the yeti’s arm as he was carrying her…

…A brief stint in the throes of petrification, most likely. She knew better, as tempted as she was.

“Where’s the hippogriff?” she asked instead. “Cirrus… if that actually is his name. Didn’t wanna show his face after he lied to me?”

Tempest shot her a sideways look, and held it as they made their way towards the upper-decks of the ship. “Not your concern, but if you must know, he’s not really the gloating type. You seem to be under the delusion that some personal slight has been made against you, seapony.”

“Got betrayed by the only hippogriff I’d ever seen. ‘Sposed to be cousins. ‘Sposed to have our backs. I’d say I did.”

“Mm. I’m sure Cirrus is very sorry. But look at it this way, seapony.” Tempest looked back towards the path ahead. They were ascending a set of metal stairs, and Flowing could see what looked like a heavy gangplank door above them, emblazoned with the glowing Storm King emblem. “If you continue co-operating like this, maybe we can let you go when we’re all done here.”

“Yeah, right. After your Storm King enslaves the rest of my friends and family, right?” Flowing growled out. It was hard being intimidating when she was being carried along like a yeti’s fishy luggage, though she tried her best. “No wonder you and that hippogriff work so well together. You’re both traitors to your own.”

“That’s enough out of you. I’m plenty willing to let you try and spew your taunts from a prison of stone, seapony.” Tempest shoved the gangplank open, and they were instantly struck by the chill wind of a ship sailing through the night. “…If that’s the route you wish to go.”

“Truth’s hard to stomach,” Flowing returned. “So fine, I’ll spare you from it.”

“You’ve got quite the tongue. You do know that this is all your own fault, right?” Tempest halted in the middle of exiting onto the ship’s deck.

“How ya figure that?”

“Went out, started makin’ friends. Stared thinking the world would protect you when something big and bad came knocking.” The unicorn’s face twisted into a smirk. “Shoulda listened to your Queen, seapony. Shoulda stayed home. Unless you really think your lover made it worth it.”

Flowing could see the taunt for what it was… some attempt to rile her up, get under her scales. She supposed Tempest would have loved that, now that she had her exactly where she wanted. She could scarcely believe she’d been actually thinking about helping this monster. Offering to take her to the Queen on an offer of friendship… offering to help with her horn… what had she been thinking?

“Didn’t think so,” Tempest said with a sneer when Flowing didn’t take the bait. “Just don’t cast me as the villain because I had to be the one to teach you the way of the world, seapony.”

They continued onto the deck of the ship, which was flying about fifty feet above the dark, white-capped waves below. A blustery breeze had sprung up, and Flowing felt the whipping of rain against her scales as she was hauled onto the airship’s deck.

Ahead, she could already see where her destination surely was. An oversized fishbowl, mounted near the stern of the ship where the steering column was located. It’d been filled up with water in anticipation of it’s seapony prisoner, and without much hesitation she was hauled over the top, a sturdy metallic lid sliding into place atop her promptly sealing her in. They did not bother removing the bindings keeping her tail arched upwards.

Humiliating, like everything these Storm King mooks had been doing to her.

Still, as she watched Tempest take the wheel in her hooves, and begin to turn their airship towards the Northern seas, and as she listened to the airship’s engines raised in pitch as they sped forwards into the pelting rain, Flowing felt a slight tinge of hope.

She wasn’t the only one capable of being baited, it seemed.

~~~

On Fishcake’s suggestion, Star Point sailed over to the boathouse from the docks, where the griffon promptly hauled the boat up on a winch.

Star was…a little out of his league, admittedly, as he stood back and watched the griffon at work. Talons made for more precise tinkering, it seemed, because the way Fishcake worked was nothing short of breathtaking.

The boathouse itself was populated by a vast supply of broken, poorly repaired, or otherwise downtrodden boat motors of various persuasions. Star recognized some as simple trolling motors, like one would affix on the bow of a small little speedboat. Others were clearly intended for large propeller ships more akin to Star’s late great trawler.

The winner was somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t much to look at—it had been taped together in a few placed, it seemed, and it spat out a messy regurgitation of black smoke when Fishcake first cranked it, but after its initial protests it seemed to be running decently enough. Furthermore, it was small enough that they were able to winch it onto the back of the sailboat with only a slight amount of jerry-rigging. While the sailboat itself ran a little deeper in the stern-end now, it at least wouldn’t sink even with the additional weight of an improvised motor.

The old rudder had been gutted out to accommodate the new motor. The jib-mast was out of the way enough that it could stay, and indeed, would benefit for a bit of extra speed to help along the motor itself.

Star and Fishcake had talked as they worked, and it was then that Star learned that his…issues with Tempest were hardly isolated to just himself. While the rest of the Griffonlands seemed to be making a conscientious push towards a kinder, more generous reformation, many of the isolated communities continued to be prime grounds for the exploitation of the Storm King menace always lurking on the edges of the map.

Star couldn’t help but shake the sensation that something big was coming to Equestria, with how Fishcake spoke of them, and of Tempest, and of the ambitions of tyrants lurking outside of the purview of the princesses and the Elements of Harmony.

He just hoped him and Flowing wouldn’t serve as a catalyst.

“Your gal…” Fishcake had asked, while they were winching the motor into place. “Y’think she’s headed for Seaquestria, now? That’s where Tempest wants her to lead ‘em, right?”

Star nodded. “Yeah, but… I don’t know if Flow would give in too easily. She’s too… headstrong.”

Fishcake grinned. “Yeah? Y’think she’s leading them somewhere else, maybe?”

Star tilted his head thoughtfully. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it didn’t seem impossible to him that Flowing just might try to send Tempest after a red herring. “Maybe… I guess I just worry Tempest is gonna take her straight to the Storm King.”

“Mm. Place’s a fortress, or so I’ve heard from sailors dumb enough to go explorin’ the Southern Isles. You’d… have a tough time getting her outta there.”

“Yeah. So I guess I’m hoping… I don’t know.” Star shrugged as he tightened the last bolt on his side, wiping his brow with a hoof. “That I get there before they do?”

“Aye, well. If your gal is as ‘headstrong’ as ya claim, it ain’t impossible she might just wriggle her own way free, hrm?” Fishcake gave the motor a tap of his talon, his own end of the job complete. “That should finish ‘er. Y’ready to sail, kiddo?”

Star nodded. “Gosh yes. I really can’t even begin to…”

“Then don’t. Would be a waste of time ya don’t have,” Fishcake flashed him a supporting smile. “Hop in, and I’ll lower ya down. Go save your fish.”

Star Point left the griffon harbour town with the motor cranked to full throttle. He rested a hoof on the tiller and kept it there as the boat skidded along the waves with a constant whine.

The airship had already left, but he at least knew where it was going thanks to the filthy refuse it had dumped into the sky as it had traveled. South, which he would have suspected anyways, considering it was where Flowing had mentioned the Storm King’s hideout being.

It occurred to him as he sped along that he... Did not have anything even closely resembling a plan. Unless ‘catching up with Tempest’ counted as a plan in its own right, though Star wasn’t really certain it did. What was he going to do even if he did catch up? Sneak in when they landed? Go rescue Flowing like he was some sort of elite S.M.I.L.E agent?

Yeah, no.

Then again, he had to wonder how Flowing herself was taking her capture. He sincerely doubted she’d be making it easy on them. His marefriend was a bit too... stubborn, to capitulate to the concept of defeat quite so easily.

And if she managed to escape on her own, he couldn’t say he’d be entirely shocked.

Until then, he couldn’t really give up his chase. Even if it took him right into the Storm King’s hideout. Even if it wound up getting him captured too, then at least Flowing wouldn’t be alone.

Foolishness, he knew. He’d been told in his past that love would do that to somepony. He was starting to think maybe all those drunken sailors had been onto something after all.