"Give that back, you little scoundrel!"
With a laugh and a leap, Rainbow dodged the grasping hooves, leaping to the floor below the bunk as she ran, giggling, from the cabin. Behind her, her victim scrambled down as she made to give chase, but Dash was too fast. She was the fastest pony in the Dale Sky, and nopony alive could catch her when she had a head start. Grinning, she clattered up the staircase and out onto the deck, planning her next move. To either side, open sky whipped past at incredible speeds as the vessel ploughed the cloudocean. The deckhands looked at her with knowing amusement as she galloped gleefully towards the galley.
Bursting through the doorway, her nostrils were met with the beautiful smell of a cooking meal. On the hob, pans were filled with boiling asparagus and frying peppers, their aroma intensifying as the earth pony cook added garlic and ginger and all manner of spices she deemed appropriate. In the oven below, marrows roasted, their fat flesh puffing and sizzling as the sky-fare heated.
"Hey Dashie," grinned the cook, her poofy pink mane bouncing as she turned quickly to the newcomer, before returning her focus to the carrots on her chopping board which she diced mercilessly with a hoofknife before scraping them into the great salad bowl. "You'd better not be here to snack. Captain's ordered you not to do that anymore," she said, her perky tone bearing no form of reprimand."
"Don't worry, Pinkie," grinned Rainbow Dash. "I think I've satisfied my kleptomania for this afternoon. Look!" She pulled the stolen eyepatch over her head and giggled, disregarding her sudden loss of depth perception. "Hey, look!" she said, putting on an accent. "I'm the Gembutcher!"
"Hee hee!" Pinkie laughed. "That's pretty cool, Dashie! It kinda suits you!"
Rainbow grinned at that. "Really? I'm not planning on putting out my eye so I can wear one anyway."
"Of course not!" chuckled the cook. "That would be silly. And anyway, Rarity wears her eyepatch on her right eye. Don't you, Rarity?"
Rainbow Dash's grin was replaced with a numbed expression, departing moments later for one of surprise as a deep-blue aura surrounded her new accessory and pulled her backwards, spinning her around to face the pony stood in the galley doorway. The white unicorn's impeccable appearance, with her tricorne skyhat and pristine topcoat, was only marred by an ugly old wound across her right eyelid. The Gembutcher's face adopted an angry snarl as she tugged the cover from her crewmate and planted it firmly over her damaged visage, hiding the wound perfectly.
Suddenly, without warning, she smiled. "There we go," she proclaimed. "Much better!"
"Heh. Looks like I caught you napping, Rares," joked Rainbow. "I was kinda hoping you wouldn't wake up for a bit longer..."
"Yes, well," mused the unicorn sailor, "I suspect that might have worked out a bit better if you hadn't fallen on me as you tried to make your escape."
"Ooh! Oh! What happened?" called Pinkie from the back of the galley, where she was now delving into a crate of tack.
"I was just gonna sneak off with the patch, but the ship pitched," admitted Dash with an embarrassed grin.
"It was a rather startling wake-up call," Rarity agreed, "but I suppose I should be getting back to work. See if Fluttershy needs any help with the engine, or the fuel - I have prepared enough for several days, though, so we should be alright on that front."
"Eh," muttered Rainbow, smoothing down her leather jerkin with little impact on its appearance. "You know what she's like. Just give her what she needs and she'll be alright."
"I suppose, but I may as well make myself useful," conceded Rarity. "After all, there doesn't seem to be much else in need of doing right now. I'll see you at dinner, darlings," she called, striding out back onto the deck. "I'm looking forward to it - it smells absolutely divine, Pinkie!"
Outside once more, Rarity slowed for a moment as she felt the wind against her once more. It tugged at her skyhat, as if it were trying to fling it into the void, but it was a relatively calm day, and the hat was clipped firmly into her mane on the inside. The disfigured Gembutcher was at no risk of losing her headgear that day.
From the galleyhouse at the ship's aft, she turned left, and left again, to find herself at the top of the ladder to the engine deck. Below her, the gemengine roared as its precious, volatile fuel combusted within. Lowering herself down quickly with sailor's expertise, hooking her forehooves over the rungs to stop herself from falling, she entered the domain of the introverted engineer that kept the ship aloft with her skillful craft.
She glanced around to see the engineer sat by the gempipe itself, directly on top of the engine that hung below the aft cabin, clad in her favourite worn, thick green jerkin, and staring out into the sky behind the ship as it sped away from them. The great steel orb spewed flame from the great vent at its rear, but the stream of green dragonfire was beginning to die down.
Fluttershy glanced quickly in her direction as her boot clanged against the engine's outer shell as she moved to join her. The twitchy pegasus, upon realising there was no threat to her or her charge, looked back once more, ignoring Rarity to stare out into the blue and white midday sky, absentmindedly stroking her beloved machine with a forehoof.
"Need any help, dear?" Rarity asked innocently, seating herself on the other side of the gempipe.
"Um, no," decided Fluttershy, not facing her. But as she continued to watch the sky and the fire driving the galleon, a muscle twitched in her eye as she spotted something amiss. "Wait. Yes. I need to change the gem. Could you get me another combustion cell?" she asked, in a hushed tone barely audible over the incredible bellowing of the gemengine.
Rarity nodded and stood, moving over to a crate by the ladder that she had filled only this morning. Lifting the lid, she carefully grasped one of the volatile gemrods in her magic, and floated it over to the engineer by the engine. Fluttershy had stood, and was now resting her forehooves against the bars of the cage guarding the engine deck from sky debris - and its occupants from falling off.
"Here you go, Fluttershy," said Rarity, as the meek yellow pegasus took it from her in her hooves. The precious crystals within the gemrods were charged with unicorn magic - not as powerful as that of a true dragon, but more than enough to keep the skyship aloft and moving.
"Thank you," replied Fluttershy gratefully. "It's a lot easier to change the rods when there's somepony here to help me." Gently laying the triangular rod down on its side, she trotted slowly to the back of the engine deck to the wall of the aft cabin, where a large brass switch was embedded in the wood. She pulled it down with her teeth, and there came a hiss from the mighty engine as the spurting green jet of flame went out.
Rarity gasped for a moment, that old fear that the ship might plunge from the sky as the gem disengaged coming back to her for an instant - but then it was gone again, as the engine continued to make itself heard. Not with the mighty roar of combustion did it now speak, but rather with the gentle humming of the buoyancy crystals within. The skyship continued to float in the windswept ocean of cloud.
"Could you push down on that lever, please?" mumbled Fluttershy as she moved back over to the gempipe, picking the rod up once more. With its three-sided length, it hadn't been able to roll away and off the deck as they flew. Rarity nodded, and, rearing slightly, depressed the control with her left hoof, watching it with her good eye.
As the lever sank, the old rod rose, its clasping-handle poking out of the pipe with another hiss. Fluttershy grabbed it in her teeth and pulled up, before dropping it to the engine shell where it landed with a clang. Pulling up the second rod, she dropped it down the triangular gempipe. It fell for a moment, and then stopped, instead sinking slowly out of sight as Rarity pulled the level back up, dropping it back into the gemchamber below.
Finally, Fluttershy ambled back over to the switch, pulling it back up. There was a clunking from deep within the engine as the tapping-hammer pulled back. Then followed a little crystalline ting, and the engine exploded into action once more, shooting them out across the sky faster than before.
Rarity gave a little yelp of surprise as she fell off her feet, not expecting the sudden acceleration. Somepony else hadn't anticipated it either, and there was a thud as a body slammed against the door next to Fluttershy's control panel.
"Steady as she goes, Miss Fluttershy!" called the first mate at the wheel above. "Down a notch!"
"Yes sir," whispered Fluttershy, turning to a valve on the same wall and giving it a tiny twist with her forehooves. The ship slowed to a more reasonable pace, although the fresh gemstone meant it was still going faster than before. Rarity disentangled herself from the deckcage, relieved for its presence, and not for the first time. Next to them, the back door to the storeroom burst open as an angry orange mare burst out, back on her feet.
"Gol' dang it!" shouted Applejack as she advanced onto the lower deck. "Why can'tcher give us a lil' warnin' when yer gonna do something like that, 'Shy?" The meek pegasus mumbled a little apology that nopony heard.
"I would have thought the engine stopping would have been good enough notice, dear Applejack," retorted Rarity. "Or are the vermin squeaking louder than dragonfire today?"
"There ain't no damn sky-vermin in mah storeroom," Applejack shot back. "See fer yerself if ya don't believe me." She stormed back into the storeroom, leaving the door wide open. Rarity glanced back to the engineer, who was once again sat by the gempipe, staring out into open sky.
"I think you should go," Fluttershy told her. Rarity didn't argue. She knew the pegasus liked her privacy. Instead of climbing back up the ladder, she strode into AJ's storeroom, pulling the door to with her unicorn telekinesis.
The interior was lit with the glow of orange lanterns. In the lamplight, Rarity could see AJ, casting shadows on her stock as the Quartermistress rested her notes on a barrel, taking stock. Her uniform was in form the same as Rarity's. However, its design and appearance were not. While the Gembutcher wore a comfortable and elegant topcoat and hat, the finest she as an honest skysailor had been able to afford, the Quartermistress was clad in a simpler affair. Her topcoat was brown and unadorned, unlike Rarity's blue, black and gold affair. Unlike the Gembutcher, Applejack wore no undershirt. There was similarity between them in that their hats matched their apparel - but they were still no similar to each other. AJ's was brown, old, and unadorned, whereas Rarity's was a black and gold affair. The irony of it was, of course, that it was typically a Quartermaster who took more pride in his appearance, but then again, Applejack was not a typical Quartermistress.
"Twi' wants us to only go to Baron's Ridge," AJ told her, grumbling, "but we got enough supplies to go straight on to the Everfree. I keep tellin' her, we can git a better deal at the timber villages or the rootmines, but she won't listen! She just wants to go to Baron Ridge."
"Baron Ridge is that mining stack, isn't it? The one with the castle?"
"Yeah." AJ nodded. "I - ah, you gotta remember that town, Rarity, I mean-"
"My eye. Yes. I know," Rarity said, with no trace of regret in her voice. "We did what we had to do under the circumstances. Wretched pirates," she spat. Well, not literally.
"Now them're proper sky-vermin if ever there was," agreed Applejack.
"I can't think why Twilight would want to go to Baron Ridge, though," Rarity said, moving the conversation away from the slightly painful topic of the past. "They just mine sapphires there, and not the best either. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't left that wretched mount to crumble."
"I know what ya mean," Applejack said, nodding sagely. "It's the squalidest pit Ah've ever set down on."
"Surely not," Rarity argued, "what about Smogburg?"
"Now that was a hell-hole," Applejack chuckled, "really lived up to its name. But what about Canyon Ridge?"
"Oh! Or Ponyv-"
"Quartermistress?" A low, calm drawl came from the far end of the storeroom, by the upward ladder. The two crewmates glanced over to see the impassive face of AJ's big brother, Mac, stuck down from the deck above. "Gembutcher? The Captain wants to speak to ya both." Without waiting for a reply, he pulled back up. Above them, the distinctive sound of hoof on thin wood could be heard clopping away.
"Captain wants to see us," echoed Applejack. "We better git goin'..."
"Indeed," agreed Rarity, as they began to walk toward the ladder Mac had appeared at. "Maybe your questions will be answered, Applejack."
"Ah sure hope so," the Quartermistress replied. "Twi' hires me to make a profit fer her an' then ignores mah advice? Ah mean, what's the point?"
"Well, she clearly knows you have a head for numbers."
"Aw, shoot," AJ muttered. "Just 'cause mah Pa wanted me to take over the forge and gave me a fancy education don't mean Ah'm some sorta smart cookie. You and Twi' are easily brighter lamps that me."
"Don't put yourself down, darling," Rarity chided as she hooked her hoof over the closest rung and began to pull herself up. "You're quite level headed, patient, and you can tell when somepony's trying to pull one over on you. You're better at making a deal, so you make a better Quartermistress. And," she went on, lowering her voice, "you're not one of those greedy, self-righteous, mutinous brutes that do the job on lesser vessels." As they reached the top, they walked through the small, bare skylounge and up the stairs, straight into the Captain's office. "I would even say - oh, greetings, Captain!"
"Howdy, Twi'," AJ greeted the unicorn captain, who was lost in thought, lent over her desk, surveying the groundmaps and skycharts. "Captain?"
Twilight's head snapped upwards. "You know you don't have to call me that, AJ," she said, softly.
"Ah didn't the first time."
"Oh." Twilight smiled, looking back down. "My fault."
The Quartermistress and the Gembutcher stood side by side, awkwardly waiting for instructions. As Captain, Twilight was highly efficient, but informal. Everypony aboard the skyship went a long way back, and Twilight didn't enjoy raising herself above her crew. However, she had her moments of leadership, and they came randomly. There was very little way to tell they were coming, and ponies often only found out about them when they interrupted one and were reprised. So the scarred unicorn and the former forge heir stood, wondering whether or not they were allowed to speak. Twilight remained bent over the charts for a few seconds more, before beginning to speak.
"Guys, you remember Baron Ridge, right?"
"Yeah, Ah do," Applejack answered. "Ah also know that it's not the most e-co-nomic use of our time to stop there, but that's just mah opinion," she muttered. "Just doin' mah job."
"Rarity?"
"Twilight, Splinter Breeze only put out my eye," said the Gembutcher. "He didn't damage my brain, of course I remember our last and only visit to that pathetic little stack."
"I was hoping you'd mention Splinter," Twilight replied, grinning, "and I bet you have no idea why." She was right. From the nonplussed looks on their faces, they had no clue what about the pirate captain could possibly be worth mentioning.
Last time they had met, their crew had been much different. They had been sailing in the employ of the Canter City Council, sent to root out a pirate who was supposedly holding the town at swordpoint, taking all their gems for himself and leaving nothing for the townsfolk to trade.
They had attacked his vessel with their crew of Council militiamen, recovering most of the chests of gems, but Splinter Breeze had cut the mooring line and let his ship start to drift off over the badlands, forcing the boarding party back to their own vessel. Rarity had been locked in a duel with the pirate captain at the time, and the ship's lurch had disoriented her, giving Breeze an opportunity to lash out at her, which he did, taking her right eye before kicking her from the deck - mercifully she had landed on the deck of their own ship beneath.
They were preparing to give chase, however, when the greater disaster struck. What was left of Breeze's crew had managed to prepare their balista on deck and, lighting the bolt up with burning gemslag, they had fired it straight into Twilight's Council skyship, the Justiciar, dealing terrible, irreparable damage to the vessel. They had had to use the emergency dragonwings to escape to the mining stack, and as they did, one of their crewmate's miniature gemengines had failed, sending the earth pony screaming to his death on the wasteland floor below. Combined with the number killed during the fight, Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack were left with only two other crewmembers, stranded in Baron's Ridge.
"Council never even payed us," spat Applejack, literally spitting into a corner. Rarity frowned. Twilight ignored it. When in Roan...
"I know. That's why we went freelance."
"But not pirate," Rarity reminded her.
"Never pirate," agreed the Quartermistress.
"Uh, yeah," Twilight said, slightly flusteredly. "It took a long time for us to pull it back together, but I'm glad you stuck by me, girls. The Sun Mare is a ship I'm proud to call home."
"Yeah, she's a beaut." AJ beamed.
"Quite," said Rarity, nodding her support, "a true jewel of the skies."
"Yeah. Well, there's a reason I want to go back to Baron Ridge," Twilight went on, turning to face the door to the wheeldeck. Her own mane, unlike the other two, flowed free of any hat, although her greatcoat was by far the most impressive. Purple and magenta, embroidered with silver, she could only really pull it off because it matched her natural hues. "You probably want to hear it."
"Of course."
"Splinter Breeze has returned to Baron Ridge," she went on, distastefully, "as a privateer. Working in the employ of the council, but unlike us to less scrupulous ends."
Her two old friends gasped in shock. "A privateer?" Rarity blustered, "why?"
"I don't know," Twilight said, grimly, drawing her sword with magic to inspect its blade. It was a long, wide affair with a nasty point at the tip. Instead of the two edges coming together at the sword's centre, one edge slanted upwards to meet the other, giving the weapon an unbalanced top, giving means to devastating vertical attacks. "However, I do know what he is doing on the Council's orders."
"What's he doing?" Rarity asked, desperate to find out what her old enemy was up to.
"Two things. One, exactly what he was doing in the first place. Siphoning gems from the townsfolk, to deliver onto the Council, rather than himself."
"No," breathed Rarity.
"Ah heard the council was gettin' bad Twi', but not that bad! Why, they're almost as bad as the pirates!"
"Worse," Twilight insisted. "Pirates won't normally pillage those in need, but the Council clearly thinks it can."
"What's the other thing, then, Captain?" Rarity pressed.
"Oh, it's pretty important. Not only has he got the gems to keep his ship aloft for years, and the council's approve them, he's also got the means to charge them in seconds beyond what any unicorn could manage in days."
"Oh my... You don't mean?"
"Yep." Captain Twilight Sparkle nodded. "He's captured himself a dragon."
