Plain Old Chaos

Morning came. having had a restless night due to being on the lookout for her assailants. Twilight was starting to drift off and was looking forward to finding Lyra. Spike had fallen asleep and Twilight hadn't bothered to wake him since he had spent most of his time awake muttering to himself out of fear.

Waking Spike and telling him to follow her, Twilight went out into the streets of Baltimare. The streets were once again packed with ponies going about their business and Twilight felt quite safe among the crowds. Quickly making her way to the train station, Twilight found Lyra already waiting for her.

"You don't look very good, did you not get any sleep last night?" Lyra said as Twilight approached her, she had an amused look on her face and Twilight had a suspicion that the changeling was making a joke at her expense.

"Were you... Watching us? Did you see us go through that entire ordeal and not do anything to help us? Why would you do that!" Twilight snapped in anger at her, feeling frustration at the changeling leaving her to suffer alone when she could have helped her.

Lyra looked shocked by Twilight's accusation. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. But it sounds like you're feeling a little bitter about it, care to enlighten me?" She moved close to Twilight as she spoke and laid a comforting hoof upon her.

Twilight ignored the odd behavior and vented her frustrations to the changeling. "Last night was terrible! I spent so long going around trying to find good accommodation at a reasonable price and then when I finally manage to find a place, I get attacked and they try to take Spike!" Twilight was hit by a sudden revelation, "Oh, dear Celestia, I killed a pony!"

Lyra interrupted Twilight before she could continue. "Twilight, I know you might be finding that a bit difficult to deal with, but that is not the kind of thing you want to talk about here." She glanced around to see if anypony had taken notice of their conversation. "Anyway, I managed to get us transport on a East Griffonia Company ship that's heading out today."

Twilight had heard of the East Griffonia Company. They were a trading company that were responsible for a lot of the more exotic materials that she had seen for sale in Canterlot and quite a few of the nobles she had met mentioned that they had bolstered their wealth by investing in the company.

"I didn't think that a trading company would be interested in taking passengers." Twilight said, thoughts of her encounter the night before momentarily forgotten.

Lyra chuckled, "Well, the ship is quite empty before they get there, so it wasn't hard to convince the captain to take us on for the trip. We should probably head out there now, unless you have anything you want to take care of first?"

The smell of salt water assaulted Twilight's nostrils when they arrived to the docks of Baltimare. Several ships were docked and Twilight saw that many ponies loading or unloading cargo with a few griffins mixed in among the groups.

Eventually, Lyra came to a halt in front of one of the larger ships, the sails of the ship were already out and it looked like it was ready to depart. "Here we are then, this will be our transport across the ocean to the distant land of Griffonia!" Lyra exclaimed, turning to Twilight and finishing with a dramatic flourish of her hoof.

Twilight sighed but felt slightly amused at the changeling's antics.  "That's great Lyra, how much will this cost? I didn't bring many bits with me."

Lyra seemed surprised when Twilight said this. "Really? Even though you were going to a far away place and had no idea how long it would take you?" Lyra laughed,  "Luckily, I manage to convince the captain to bring us for free. Actually, I can see him right now"

Turning around, Twilight saw a grey coated unicorn stallion approaching them, he looked fairly old and she saw he had a small scar underneath his right eye. Following closely behind him was a large griffin. It had what Twilight assumed was a common appearance with brown and white feathers and walked with a slight limp.

Lyra moved over to them with Twilight following. "Hello captain."Lyra said graciously, she then turned to Twilight to make an introduction. "Twilight, this is captain Dented Hull. He's the one who has so graciously offered to bring us to Griffonia."

The captain spoke. "It's no burden on us I assure you, I couldn't just leave the two of you here when you were in such desperate need of a way to get to Griffonia." Twilight saw that, for a moment, his eyes flashed from a light blue color to a vivid green.

Lyra spoke again. "Well, we're still really grateful that you were willing to take us along, but if you don't mind, my friend here didn't get much sleep and she's quite exhausted." Lyra said.

Dented Hull nodded and motioned to the Griffin who had followed him. "Of course, Lesra will bring you to your quarters. I hope you two don't mind sharing, but this ship wasn't really made for passengers and only has one spare cabin."

The Griffin spoke up, speaking in a rather forlorn voice. "Follow me then, I'll lead you to your room." He went onto the ship, pausing on the deck to see if they had followed. Once he saw that Twilight and Lyra had followed he went closer to the back of the ship, opening a door that led further down.

He didn't' take them very far, stopping near the bottom of the stairs outside another door. "This is your room, if there is nothing else, I have to go back to the captain." With that he turned and went back up the stairs, leaving them alone.

Twilight huffed in frustration, irritated by the Griffin's rude behavior. "He didn't seem very happy about bringing us here. He  was quite rude about it.."

Lyra laughed quietly. "Well, you can't expect him to be too happy about his position here..." Lyra said. "Anyway let's go take a look at our room."

Twilight didn't really see why the Griffin wouldn't be happy but didn't dwell on it. Following Lyra into the cabin revealed that they were given a rather large room, even when she took into account that three of them would be staying in it. The room had two large beds on opposite sides but lacked any other furniture. Twilight figured it was serviceable, although she did wonder where Spike could sleep.

She looked at the little dragon, who had been quietly following. "I can't see any basket you could sleep in Spike, So it looks like you'll just have to share with me."

The dragon nodded dumbly and Lyra looked surprised at the offer. She voiced her concerns to Twilight. "You know, you could just let him sleep in the same quarters as the few Griffins they have on the ship, I doubt the captain would mind."

"No chance, I almost lost him last night and I feel a bit nervous about leaving him alone." Twilight shuddered as the memories of the encounter flashed across her mind.

"Yes, about that, you said you killed someone? Do you want to talk about it?" Lyra said sympathetically.

Twilight was about to agree with the Changeling but Lyra's attitude was starting to confuse her. "Why are you so concerned? When did this become an issue for you? I also saw the captain's eyes change color for a second, you did something to him didn't you?

Lyra looked at Twilight in a sad manner before quietly speaking. "Well... I gotta eat don't I? Changelings feed on emotion, you don't want me to starve do you?"

Twilight had no real answer to this so she decided to ignore it and continue on about the captain. "Whatever, that's not the point! I saw you do something to the captain! What black magics are you doing to him?

"I just used a tiny bit of magic to hypnotize him so he would let us come for free. It's nothing to worry about really."

Twilight was disturbed by Lyra's apathy towards such morally unsound matters. "That's terrible! You shouldn't do things like that, think of the moral implications."

Lyra laughed. "Well, I still think that we have the moral high ground, he'll probably kill us if he found out anyway, so it's too late to back out now. You're being a hypocrite though."

Twilight felt rage over the Changeling's argument, but decided that she didn't have to deal with such things anyway. "Fine, you go do whatever you want! I'm going to go sleep."