Moonlit Skies

by -Polaris-

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Original Character, Adventure
Length: 5554

The airship Australis and her captain, a pegasus scientist named Verdant Aurora, take off on a quest across Equestria. Along the way, they pick up a bat-pony mare, and fight their way through pirates and bounty hunters.

Story Description:
Verdant Aurora, a pegasus scientist and inventor from Canterlot, is sent to the far south to investigate reports of strange atmospheric disturbances. Aboard his airship, the Australis, he fights his way through the nomadic pirates who call the skies of southern Equestria their home, only to end up picking up a passenger. Literally falling from the sky in the middle of a battle between Verdant and a small pirate vessel, the frisky and mildly bipolar mare finds herself far away from her home on the moon, and they both quickly find themselves involved in something much bigger than skypirates...

Credits:
Editor-in-Chief: TAB
Cover Art: Me... As usual.

Other Stories:
Darkest Days, Brightest Nights: Celestia's degrading sanity causes a civil war to break out, and a human-turned-unicorn is a primary cause. Celestia seems to recognize this human, but no one knows where from. His story spans a period of over 80 years, in Equestria and beyond.
Redemption of the Sun: Celestia must find her place in a scarred world, a world she nearly ended twenty-one years prior. Meanwhile, dark forces gather in the southern wasteland, and there are no Elements of Harmony to fight them.
Emberdawn: When dealing with balance on a universal scale, third party intervention frequently consists of ripping something from one universe, and dumping it in another. When the intended result is to create chaos, that thing is usually a human.
[DEADLINE PARADOX]: Not all wars present you with a clear opposition. Sometimes, there are no heroes and no villains. Sometimes, we are all just soldiers. The same is true of the Gods themselves, and when they go to war, things are not always black and white...

Author's Note:
This literally popped into my head two days ago... I'm totally gonna go for it.

Published 2012-12-08 23:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-01-10 00:29:20 UTC

The rain was blowing / Lightning cracked...

Moonlit Skies

Chapter 1:

The rain was blowing

Lightning cracked...

Verdant Aurora was a strange specimen. He was a bright green pegasus with different hues of green and blue inlaid throughout his feathers. All natural of course. His eyes were an incredibly vibrant blue. He was also one of very few pegasi native to Canterlot rather than Cloudsdale, and was head of the Equestrian Royal Committee of Weather Science. Head, and only member of. He usually didn't mind. That just meant that he got to spend time alone in his personal airship, the Australis, floating through the night skies. He did, however, tend to dislike his lack of co-workers when he was in the middle of being chased by pirates, like he was right now.

"HORSEAPPLES!" He yelled, as another arrow lodged itself in the railing, directly below his head. Most pirates tended to avoid the use of cannons, as they preferred to take ships intact. Verdant on the other hoof, had no qualms about simply blasting the ever-loving buck out of anypony stupid enough to attack his airship. Of course, this was easier said than done when there was only one pony to load, aim, and fire all of the cannons, as well as steer the ship. 'That is it!' He decided, 'If I make it out of this alive, I am hiring a crew.' Making it out alive didn't seem very likely at the moment though. The pirates had taken him by surprise in the dead of night, using the storm that was raging around them as cover for their ambush.

They had come up on his port side without any warning, and immediately began firing their crossbows. Verdant had no time to retaliate, and quickly found himself pinned down behind the railing designed to stop dumbass crewmembers from accidentally falling overboard. They had to reload eventually though, and the moment the rain of arrows let up, Verdant equipped his flight goggles and rolled himself over the railing, into the stormy night sky below. After falling for a good fifty meters until he was below the cloud layer, he spread his wings and flew back into the storm.

As a general rule, pirates were pretty dumb, so when their opponent had gone missing between flashes of lightning, the lower ranking ones started to panic. The higher ranking officers were all either attempting to calm them down, or carefully scanning the skies. One such officer, a unicorn, had anticipated an attack from the port side, and had taken up a position at the automatic crossbow mounted there. Unfortunately for the pirates, Verdant always made sure to target the smarter ones first.

The next time the lightning lit up the deck, none of the pirates noticed that the aforementioned unicorn had suddenly gone missing. 'Eugh...' thought Verdant, as he watched the screaming unicorn's cloudwalking spell backfire when he impacted the clouds below like a brick, staining them with blood and adding droplets of crimson to the rain. 'I would hate to be outside in whatever town we're over right now...'

He flew up onto the deck of the pirate ship and spun the crossbow around to face the crew. "Hey!" Every head onboard turned to look at him. He narrowed his eyes and allowed a small smirk to cross his face. "Get some." Then he opened fire. Pirates fell in droves. Some tried to run at him, others ran away from him, and others stood still in their shock, sometimes getting used as cover by their allies. Then he ran out of ammo. "Uh-oh."

By the time the panicked pirates realized that their enemy was without weapon, he had already dived backwards off the ship, and returned to his own. He removed his goggles from his eyes and placed them back upon his head before swiveling a cannon to aim at the balloon of the hostile ship. Normally, putting a single hole through the balloon of an airship wouldn't do much. That would be true if Verdant was using regular cannon balls. Having realized this after his first encounter with the skypirates of southern Equestria, he had opted to use cannon balls that ignited upon being fired. They tended to work well against flammable gas like that in airship balloons.

*boom* ... ... ... *KA-BOOM!*

Naturally, the noble pirates who were capable of flight helped their flightless comrades from certain doom. Oh wait... No they didn't. They ran like pussies. Leaving their crew-mates to burn, the pegasi and stereotypical one-eyed gryphon captain took to the air... and then flew over to the Australis.  Verdant, now hiding behind a stack of crates, had a single thought. 'Well I'm an idiot.' Honestly, what did he expect to happen? ‘Well at least there’s nothing else that could possibly go wrong.’

At that exact moment, they exited the storm, allowing the moon to light up the entire deck. Oh, and it also fired a mare at them. 'Well, I've been wrong before...' Everypony present, vicious pirate captain included, jumped as the unconscious mare impacted the deck of the ship with a dull *thud*. There were a few seconds of shock, during which the only sound was the thunder of the storm that was slowly shrinking into the distance. The captain took a step forward to examine the strange mare. "Oi! This wench's got bat wings! ... kinky."

It's usually not a good thing when pirate captains take a sexual interest in unconscious mares, so Verdant decided to distract them with the two spring-loaded knives mounted on his fetlocks. Two pegasi fell to the deck, and two more were swiftly cut down by a sudden cutlass-wielding scientist.

Meanwhile, the mare from the moon woke to the sight of a cycloptic gryphon grinning hungrily at her. With a scream, she proceeded to punch him in the face. Then she jumped to her hooves and punched him again, then knocked him backwards with a swift uppercut. She followed up by jumping into the air and bringing both hooves down the the captain's head, forcing him further back until he was stopped by the ship's railing.

While the captain was kept busy, Verdant was locked in a struggle against the last remaining pegasus. Verdant slashed from the left, and the pirate matched him with a slash from the right. When neither could push forwards, they pulled apart once again. They matched each other blow for blow, neither able to land a hit. Eventually, the pirate decided to attempt a powerful downward strike. Verdant deflected the blade right, into the deck of the ship, then swiftly flipped his blade the other way and stabbed his opponent through the neck.

As he shoved the pirate off of his sword with one hoof, he spotted the captain blocking blows from the mare before knocking her to the deck. Time seemed to slow as Verdant pulled his sidearm out of it's holster. It's appearance was similar to a crossbow wrapped in a metal cylinder. The captain yelled in rage, and reared up onto his hind legs. At the same moment, Verdant bit down on his weapon's firing mechanism. The string shot forwards, dragging a small piece of Flint along the steel rail. When the Flint struck the back of the cylinder, the sparks it was trailing lit the powder inside.

With a crack of thunder, the flintlock-bow launched a small metal pellet through the air and into the gryphon's left eye-socket. He froze right before bringing his talons down on the mare beneath him, then slowly fell backwards and over the railing, his limp form falling to the ground hundreds of feet below.

The mare stood and looked at Verdant. For some reason she didn't look very happy. She galloped forwards, murder in her eyes. Verdant started to quickly back away. "No wait! Nononono wait! Wai-" *whack!*

Captain Robert looked at his crew / And saw that everyone was new...

Moonlit Skies

Chapter 2:

Captain Robert looked at his crew

And saw that everyone was new...

Verdant Aurora woke from his pleasant nap with a yawn, then sat upright, squinting in the morning sun. “Well that was a strange dream.”

*Whack*

It took him a few moments to realize that he had just been slapped in the face by the wing of the nonexistent bat-pony that was sitting beside him, glaring. When the thought had finally managed to connect with the rest of his body, he slowly turned his head to look at the mare. “Oh.”

“Where am I!?”

“Um...”

“Who are you!?”

“Well...”

“Who did you steal this ship from!?”

“Steal!? I’ll have you know that I built this ship, thank you very much!”

“Why- Wait what?”

“You are in Equestria, My name is Verdant Aurora, and this is my ship!"

"Oh... Well how was I supposed to know!?"

"Well you could have asked, instead of, you know, beating me unconscious!"

"You had just killed that thing with some sort of thunder crossbow! I was terrified! I- I'm still terrified... I just want to to go home..." She laid down, covered her face with her front hooves, and started sobbing.

'Oh hay... What am I supposed to do now?' "Uh..." He very delicately draped his wing across her shoulders.

She immediately looked up and glared at him. "What are you doing?"

He quickly pulled the wing back. "Well, I'm pretty sure that I was trying to comfort you, but now that you've reacted like that, I have no idea what I was thinking."

After a minute of awkward silence, the mare quietly mumbled, "Thank you..."

Five more minutes passed with the two silently sitting side-by-side before Verdant broke the silence again. "So, what's your name?"

"Violet. Though I don't know why. I'm grey like all the others."

"...Your eyes."

"What?"

"Uh, your eyes are violet. You don't know your own eye color?"

"Everything's kind of... grey... on the moon."

"Then how did your parents know what color your eyes were when they named you?"

"...Huh..."

"Anyways, if you want to get home, Princess Luna will be your best bet. She is the Princess of the moon, so if anypony'll know what happened and how to fix it, it'll be her."

"How long will it take to get to her?"

"Well I was sent way down here to check for atmospheric disturbances. The only one I've really noticed was you, falling from the sky, but that's besides the point. We're currently south of the southern jungles, so going at top speed, and without any more interruptions, we should be able to make it to Canterlot in a little under a week."

"How likely are 'interruptions'?"

"Likely."

She rolled her eyes and gave a sarcastic, “Greaaat.”

"As long there's no more storms over the jungle, we'll be able to see them coming in time to ready the cannons. Don't worry. I'll get you home if it's the last thing I do."

"Which, judging from last night, it very well might be. Seriously, thanks."

"Are you going to start crying again? Because that was really awkward for me to deal with."

*whack*

"Ow! Damn those bat wings hurt..."

"No wonder you have all these crazy inventions! You need them to defend yourself cause you're such a wuss!"

"I resent that comment."

"Yeah? Well I resent your face."

"You have a very pleasant personality. It reminds me of rubbing my eyeballs on sandpaper."

"How do you even know what that feels like?"

"I refuse to continue this conversation."

"Woohoo! I win!"

"Good for you. Now, if you want to get home, I need to go plot a course for Canterlot."

"Pfft... Plot."

"This. Is going to be a long trip..." Verdant gave a resigned sigh, then went to the cabin to plot a course (*snort* Plot).

Violet looked around the ship for a bit before following. "Oh hey! Is this a map of the world?"

Without looking, Verdant answered, "Yes." and continued with with work.

"Hey! I can find Canterlot on here!"

"Yes, that's kinda the point of maps. To find places."

“Oh. Right.”

“...”

“...”

After a full half-hour of silence Violet suddenly screamed, “AAAGH! I’M SO BUCKING BORED!”

*sigh* “I’m fine with you talking as long as you’re not complaining or being annoying.”

“Okay! Hmm... Oh! Are you half bird?”

“What!? Why would you- Oh right, you’re not from around here... I’m what’s called a pegasus.”

“Okay... So what was that thing that attacked me last night?”

“That was a gryphon. They are half bird. They’re also half lion. Don’t ask me how that ever happened because I don’t know, nor do I want to.”

“Cool! Back at home we- back... home...” She burst out crying again, but it quickly turned into laughter. “I’m in a whole new world! This is so AWESOME!”

“Oh I get it. You have an extreme case of emotional instability.”

“That sounds fun!”

“Not for me...”

Violet started bouncing up and down, giggling.

“Yep. Loooong trip...”

That night, Verdant showed Violet to the bedroom, and was about to tell her that she could sleep on the couch when she suddenly hopped onto the bed, and promptly fell over sideways, snoring. Verdant facehooved, then mumbled, “Well I guess that answers the question of whether or not she’s nocturnal...” He proceeded to the couch, flopped down onto the much-too-small surface, and swiftly joined Violet in sleep.

Meanwhile, some number of leagues aft of the Australis, a second airship, lanterns dimmed, followed the drifting research vessel. The entire outer surface of their ship was painted matte black, with an iridescent dark purple sheen, allowing it to blend perfectly with the night sky.

At the bow of this ship, the First Mate approached his Captain, a dark figure, obscured by the shadows. “Do we attack?”

“No. Give them this one night t' recover. It makes it all t' more satisfyin' when we blast them out o' t' sky.”

“Then we attack at first light?"

“Aye, and we can expect t' pay t' be good for takin' this one down.”

“Very well.” The First Mate left the shadowy Captain to his business. Moments later, the ships cannons retracted back into it’s hull, forced to wait the night. The darkened ship floated on, leaving nought but a trail of smoke from the fires of the coal-powered engine.

Here we come, fife and drum, propellers in the dawn...

Moonlit Skies

Chapter 3:

Here we come, fife and drum, propellers in the dawn...

The Australis and her two pony crew drifted through the skies over the mountains that bordered the southern jungle. The skies were clear, save for the two airships floating through a few wisps of cirrus clouds. Wait... two ships? Oh right. Pirates. Well, sucks for the Australis.

The moment the sky began to lighten, the pirate ship’s fires were stoked, and her propellers began to push the ship closer to the Australis with a quiet thrumming sound. Violet's ears twitched as they picked up a strange noise coming from outside. She slowly sat up, and suppressed a groan. "Uhh... Verdant!? Do we really need to go right now?"

There was no response.

"VERDANT!"

"Aah!" He flipped over sideways and fell off of the couch. "Ugh... what?"

"These fuzzy ears here are a bit sensitive, and you woke me up when you started the propellers."

"Huh? What are you talking about? I didn't- Oh, buck me... Violet, get down. Now.”

“What?”

“Lay down on the floor, right now.”

“Can’t we do this on the bed? It’s right here.”

“What are you- Eugh! Seriously!?”

“Wait... what were you talking about?”

“Not that. Definitely not that. Now get on the floor.”

“Tell me why first.”

“You are insufferable! Fine. Those propellers you hear? Those aren’t-” He was interrupted by a series of distant cracks. “DAMMIT JUST GET DOWN!” he yelled, tackling the surprised mare to the floor.

Before they even had time to hit the floor, the east wall of the bedroom imploded in on them. Splinters of wood buried themselves into the backs of the two ponies, and a cannon ball tore through the room, missing Verdant's head by a centimeter.  All across the ship, the volley of metal spheres tore through the hull. The two ponies impacted the floor, and laid there for a second to make sure that the barrage was over.

Violet looked up at the pegasus on top of her with a mischievous grin. "I thought you said you didn't want to do this."

"What are you-? Augh!" He quickly rolled sideways off of her.

"Aww..."

Verdant stood up and started pulling a series of levers. As he pulled the last one, a hidden compartment in the south wall opened, revealing what looked like a long brass tube attached to a hot water tank by a hose. He looked at Violet and got a grin of his own. "Maybe later."

They pressed themselves against the wall as another barrage impacted the ship, doubling the size of the hole to their right. Verdant dragged the strange contraption to the hole, then stood up on his hind legs, holding the thing like a rocket launcher. Which as it turns out, wasn't that far off.

He looked at Violet behind him. "See that valve there? Open it." She wordlessly did as he asked. "Good. Now get down." She promptly dived to the floor, having learned better than to argue when Verdant says 'get down' (Nor make any jokes about dancing). At the same time, Verdant pulled back on the weapon's oversized trigger. With a puff of pressurized steam, a projectile was sent flying into the sky before them. It made it a very short distance before starting to arc downwards. A small array of clockwork sensors in the tip of the device detected the change in wind speed.

Violet watched as the projectile suddenly exploded mid-flight. "... Well that sucked."

"Be patient."

After a couple seconds, a series of large explosions occurred on the incoming airship as the small pellets that were released by the initial projectile reached their target. "Oh. Okay. That makes sense."

"The sabot was loaded with enchanted explosive pellets and a directional charge. Doesn't work at long range, but those idiots were dumb enough to get close. Look at those bastards now!" The enemy's airbags had ignited, and almost half of the ship was completely shredded by the explosive hail.

Suddenly the ship flickered and wavered before seeming to reverse time, fallen pieces of it's hull flying back to it and repairing. The fires extinguished themselves, and the airbags sewed themselves back together. In a matter of seconds, the ship was completely fine, it's iridescence glimmering as the sun peeked above the horizon. The emblem of a skeletal bird with a trail of that irridescent purple could be spotted on the side of the ship. Violet tilted her head to one side. "Is that a normal occurrence on this planet?"

"Not usually, no."

"I see... What now?"

"Cannons?"

"Sure."

They both dived out of the hole and took flight, using it as a shortcut to get to the top deck faster. Verdant demonstrated to Violet how to operate a cannon, doing so more slowly than normal for her benefit. He then took aim and fired it at the rapidly approaching airship. It bounced off the ship's airbags. Verdant looked at his cannon, then back to the pirates, then back to his cannon, then at Violet. "Uh-oh."

"Yeah that pretty much sums it up."

Verdant abandoned the ineffective cannon and ran over to a box that was sitting just outside the cabin of the ship's bridge. He reached in and pulled out something that looked similar to the flintlock-bow that he had used two nights earlier. It was slightly more sleek and compact, and the flint had been replaced by a solid metal cylinder. "I've been trying to find an excuse to use this baby for a long time." He ran back to the starboard railing.

By this point, they were close enough for Verdant to hear the pirate Captain yell, "Fire!"

Verdant stopped aiming and took cover behind the railing. "Horseapples! Violet, brace!"

“Wha-?” It was too late by the time Verdant realized that Violet wouldn’t know that ‘brace’ was synonymous with ‘take cover so you don’t get hit with cannon balls’. Violet’s question was cut off as one of the aforementioned cannon balls ricocheted off of the deck and impacted her right wing, throwing her to the floor.

“Violet!”

“I’m fine!” She yelled in response, gritting her teeth and stumbling to her hooves again. “It was just a grazing hit.” After a few seconds, she tried to  flex the wing. She cringed and folded it back before it could fully extend. “I think there might be a fracture. Shouldn’t break unless I try flying.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make them pay for that one.” He reached into a saddlebag that he had apparently picked up at some point. He came back up holding something that looked like a pistol round, but it was more oblong than the usual round pellets, and with one end flattened. He pushed the bow’s sight to the right with one hoof, revealing a small opening. Careful to make sure that the flat end was facing the back, Verdant loaded the round into the bow, popped out from behind his cover, and took aim with his weapon.

He bit down on the firing mechanism. The string was released, and it shot forward. The metal cylinder impacted the mercuric fulminate at the back of the pellet, causing it to explode and ignite the powder charge in front of it. The pellet, now perfectly round once more, was sent flying in the direction of the pirate vessel. One of the pirates partially became red mist in the ensuing explosion.

Violet gagged. “That was nasty...”

“Better him than us. Anyway, I’m calling my new toy a complete success.” He then proceeded to reload the caplock-bow in under five seconds, firing again. This time he missed all of the crew, but the explosion took out at least two of them.

“Why do they explode exactly?”

“Those are the same pellets as the ones in that launcher from earlier. Got a unicorn in the Canterlot underground to enchant them to detonate if they hit something at a high velocity.” He reloaded and fired again, taking out one of the ship’s cannons, and causing a small chain reaction with it’s powder stores. A small portion of the pirate airship was blasted to pieces.

The ship once again flickered and repaired itself. Then the entire thing teleported the last of the distance between them. The next time Verdant stood up to fire, he found himself surrounded by pegasi, and face-to-face with a gryphon- no, a pegasus- no, a unicorn- no... “What the bucking hay are you?”

“I'm a horned hippogriff, you insolent dog.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Well, apparently me mother had a good meal once she was was done with t' unicorn.. Speakin' o' which, I like t' looks o' your bat-win'ed crewmate”

Verdant just rolled his eyes. “Pirates. You’re all the same.” He proceeded to fire his caplock-bow point-blank into the hippogriff’s face. It didn’t work.

“Lookin' for this?” The captain asked, levitating the small pellet beside him. He gave a wry grin, then threw the pellet at Violet. The explosion propelled her over the railing, and off the ship with a yelp.

“VIOLET!”

“I wasn't hungry anyway.”

“I’LL KILL YOU, YOU FILTHY, MOTHERBUCKING, PIRATE!”

“Pirate? That's t' second time you've said that. I suppose introductions be in order. I be Captain Carrionrook o' t' airship Raven Mocker. We're no pirates. We're bounty hunters, and you, mister Aurora, be our bounty. Wanted dead.

Meanwhile, a few hundred feet down, Violet spread her wings to stop her fall. The moment she did so, the bone in her right wing broke completely, causing the appendage to bend in on itself, sending her into a spin. Her screams were just barely audible to the ponies (and hippogriff) above. She fell into an uncontrolled downward spiral, the frozen peaks below rapidly rising to meet her.

    Verdant did indeed hear her cries, and he was pissed. He pulled his cutlass out of it’s mechanized sheath, which kept the blade glowing white-hot. Giving no chance for retaliation, he slammed the blade into the hippogriff’s horn, creating a small nick in it’s side. Carrionrook screeched in pain, and Verdant immediately launched himself past the distracted creature.

Violet looked up at him, tears in her eyes. She mouthed, ‘Goodbye.’ and right before she hit the ground, Verdant found himself teleported back to the ship, facing a very angry bounty hunter. “You chipped me horn. You're gonna die.”

“You're way in over your heads, it seems.” He punched the hippogriff in the face, then stabbed the pegasus to his left. He carved his blade through his dying opponent, and lodged it in the side of another pegasus’ head. He he flipped around, pulling the blade out as he did so, and deflected an incoming attack from Carrionrook with a reverse slash. He used the momentum left at the end of the slash to allow the hilt of his burning cutlass to turn in his mouth, holding the blade out to his left once again, and blocking a downward strike from the Captain.

Quickly finding himself outmatched by the hippogriff in terms of sheer strength, he flared his wings and used them to push himself backwards, cutting down the last pegasus along the way. He realized that there was no way to win through conventional tactics. He threw his cutlass at Carrionrook’s head, causing him to dive to the side, and giving Verdant just enough time to draw his pre-loaded flintlock-bow from it’s holster. He fired it into the bag of enchanted ammo, which he had left lying by the railing.

The impact set off one of the enchanted pellets, causing the others to go flying in all directions, exploding all over the ship. Amidst the airborne sea of flames, Verdant lost sight of Carrionrook, then gave in to the comfortable pull of unconsciousness as he fainted from exhaustion. The next time he woke, he was still on the Australis, which was still on fire. He realized too late that the airship had been falling out of the sky the entire time he was out. The once-mighty ship impacted the side of a snowy mountain peak, erupting into a giant ball of fire as the powder store ignited.

And down we plunged, a fireball/ A skeletal frame of ash...

Moonlit Skies

Chapter 4:

And down we plunged, a fireball

A skeletal frame of ash...

Given the circumstances, it didn't take Verdant long to regain consciousness. He blinked open his eyes and saw blue sky, partially blocked by a thick black smoke. Bits of flaming wood seemed to hover in midair around him. It was then that he heard the wind.

The debris wasn't floating, it was just falling at the same speed as him. At the sudden realization that he was falling from hundreds of fathoms up, he snapped open his wings. Unfortunately, he hadn't looked up first. The sudden decrease in speed allowed the rest of the Australis to catch up with him, smashing into him from above and sending him spiralling sideways. Eventually he managed to regain control, and he began falling at a much slower pace with the Australis directly below him.

He had forgotten to look up again. A much small piece of flaming wreckage impacted the back of his head. His last thought before the darkness closed in around him was, 'Not again...'

There was heat below, and cold above. It took Verdant's muddled mind a few seconds to realize that neither of these were good things. He opened his eyes... and found himself looking into a fiery pit. He yelped and jumped backwards... and into a snowbank. "Lovely." He waited a moment, half expecting a mare's sarcastic reply. There wasn't one. 'It was my responsibility to keep her safe...'

He laid in the snow for an hour. Unwilling to even bother to try to find safety. A single thought caused him to stir. 'Carrionrook will die.'

Free of his misery, and set on revenge, he stood up and began to scavenge the skeletal remains of the Australis, whose fires had died out in the cold. He found his cutlass, cooled from it's time outside of it's sheath, impaled in a piece of the ship's hull. There was also a bag of ammo, though only five of the shots in it were explosive.

It wasn't until he investigated the cabin, which had broken off in the impact, that he found the most important item he owned. It was a dragonflame candle, for sending mail instantly in environments where keeping a live dragon would be unethical. Princess Celestia had given it to him, and told him only to use in in an extreme emergency. He was pretty sure this counted.

Princess Celestia's breakfast with Luna was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a letter. The color of it's aura upon arrival told her that it was from Verdant. She quickly opened it. Her expression turned to anger the farther she read. Luna noticed and asked, "What is that?"

Celestia tossed the letter to her sister. "You owe me an explanation, sister. And possibly much more."

Luna picked up the letter from where it had landed on the table in front of her.

Princess Celestia,

On my way to the site where I was to take readings, a mare who was apparently from the moon landed on my ship. I turned around to take her to Princess Luna, but we were attacked by a hippogriff bounty hunter named Carrionrook en route.

The mare was killed in the attack, and I've crash landed in the mountains at the border of the Southern Jungle.

I ask that you send a recovery crew immediately, and grant me funding to rebuild my ship.

~Aurora

Luna slowly placed the letter back on the table. "What have I done?"

Celestia had risen to her hooves, and was now glaring at her sister. "Rook is only authorized to take jobs from us. What you did is not in question. I want to know why."

"He discovered something he shouldn't have."

"The mare? We will discuss the fact that there is an entire race on the moon that you never told me about later. Right now, I need to figure out what to tell Verdant. And you might want to read the back of the letter."

Luna picked up the letter again and flipped it over.

Violet and I may have had the beginnings of a relationship, and I feel I owe it to her to find the bastard who did this. Then I'm going to find his employer. I understand if you do not wish to assist me with funding, but a new ship will lessen the chances of me dying in the process.

All Celestia had left to say before turning to leave was, "I'm funding him. You'd better have covered your tracks."

"Sister?"

"What?"

"Violet... was the name of my daughter."

While he waited for a response, Verdant decided to see if just maybe, Carrionrook had died in the explosion. When he realized that the Captain was nowhere to be found, he didn't know if he should be happy about it or not. On one hoof, that wretched creature was still alive, but on the other, it would still be possible to torture the name of his employer out of him.

He jumped when a letter appeared in mid-air beside him with a pop. He unrolled the scroll and began to read.

Verdant,

I approve all required funding, and the HMS Shadow of a Doubt has been deployed to pick you up. Keep warm for the next few days, and we'll get you back to Canterlot.

"Alrighty then. I guess I'm staying put."

A low growl answered him.

"Oh dear."

Captain Carrionrook was not a happy hippogriff. He managed to get back to the Raven Mocker, but not without acquiring some nasty burns. The most prominent of which was directly on the left side of his face. His day became substantially worse when he found out via letter that he was now wanted for the attempted assassination of Celestia's top scientist.

As he held a pack of ice to his face, he considered how anypony could have even figured out what had happened so quickly. It honestly took a few minutes for the slightly slow Captain to figure it out. Attempted assassination. The pegasus was still alive.

"Alright stallions, the Princesses have betrayed us, and we are now the most wanted crew in all of Equestria. Luckily, that pegasus whose ship we trashed survived. What do you say we go and teach that stupid bird a lesson!?"

"YEAH!"

As the resounding cheer from his crew answered him, Carrionrook allowed himself a small smile. He was going to teach the Princesses a lesson they would not soon forget, and kill that annoying bird in the process.