13 Oh, Wilderness…
Chapter Thirteen - Oh, Wilderness…
We were well out of sight of land by the time the sun rose, and surrounded by nothing but empty air and water.
That's the thing about the deep sea and sky, they're an immediate sort of wilderness. In moments, the noise, bustle, and safety of a city can be left behind, and a pony has only her skill and wits to make her way in an uncaring world.
Even before I left Canterlot for Ponyville, there were days when I took up my old balloon and let the remnants of a weather front carry me away for a few hours, then set myself to figuring out a course for home. I could usually still see the Canterhorn, but searching for a favorable breeze took time, and I often had to climb and descend, zig and zag all over the sky to get back home.
Once or twice a curious pegasus had flown by and asked if I needed a tow. They meant well, but I was always just a bit irritated by the offer, as if it was an insult to my skill as a balloon pilot.
Nebula's cupola was just a bit bigger than the basket of my balloon, and it was nearly as quiet, particularly with her engines barely ticking over. I took over the station from Half Hitch halfway through the Forenoon watch. I'm not exactly sure why, except that it was a sort of comfort isolation similar to my youthful balloon voyages. Despite the jokes about my balloon's basket being the only place I could find to read uninterrupted, I never took anything but a logbook with me on those long-ago flights to nowhere, and I hadn't even donned my greatcoat for the climb up the mainmast.
I could have teleported, but it felt right to climb the ratlines like any other of the wingless crew. Even the pegasi did it in rough weather. I reached the crosstrees[1] where I had to squeeze past Mr. Landslide, a rather large earth pony who was Nebula's carpenter, who was fitting pieces of a new speaking tube, to get onto the dorsal catwalk.
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[1] The large bits of timber that anchor the shrouds to the top of the mainmast where the topmast is stepped. On a sailing ship, they are obvious. On Nebula, they are hidden just below the top surface of her envelope.
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I knocked a hoof against the underside of the hatch and announced myself, before climbing up into the cupola. Half[2] didn't seem surprised at all when I relieved him, and he went below without comment.
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[2] Yes, we had three crewponies whose names ended in Hitch. (Which isn't all that uncommon in sailing communities.) When I first shortened his name, I used "Hitch," because I thought just "Half" sounded weird, but he insisted that only lubbers would let themselves be called Hitch.
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The sky was nearly cloudless. I put my forehooves up on the forward edge of the cupola, closed my eyes, and spread my wings, letting the wind flow through my feathers. "Getting the feel of the sky," the old-timers called it.
It felt good.
I could have stayed up there all day, but two hours of quiet solitude before lunch was all I could steal from the day without feeling like I was shirking my duty. Besides, Pinkie had made her special Three-cheese Potato Casserole for lunch, and there were never any leftovers from that meal, not even for the Captain.
= = =
After lunch, Spike and I chatted about his evening. Perhaps "chat" is misleading. I mostly listened while he gushed about Slasher and how wonderful, smart, and pretty she was. He also told me that her troupe had decided to make Twilight Town a regular stop on their hopefully yearly tours. He said they often encountered other performing groups in their travels and would recommend the Town as a good spot despite its relative isolation.
"Well, it seems like an all-round diplomatic, commercial, and romantic success! Good job, Spike!"
I made some notes about looking into the possibility of an annual arts festival of some sort, and then settled down at the big table in my cabin to tackle The Book of the High Song.
The Middle Equuish wasn't too troublesome, except for the stumbling blocks of false cognates and colloquial phrases that were so deeply rooted in their time that they made no sense to a modern Equestrian. I had a couple of helpful reference books to hoof, but would have liked a couple more specific ones from my library back in Ponyville. I hadn't set off expecting to translate ancient manuscripts. I made some notes on a separate scroll to send to Luna, but I thought that some of the most puzzling passages might be too new for her to help with.
One thing was certain: according to the book there was a settlement of Diamond Dogs somewhere in the Great Southern Desert that had started out as a colony of ancient Anubia. It had grown into an "Empire" that had left no trace behind when it vanished.
No trace, except of course for the fairly new woven wind map hanging in my chart room, the book floating in front of me, and probably hundreds more artifacts that the lazy nags in the Canterlot University History Department had never bothered with because it would have been so much more difficult than simply cribbing bits out of Celestia's diary and old castle account books.[3] Forgive me for editorializing, but the state of historical and world geographical education in Equestria is truly shameful.[4]
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[3] That is probably unfair of me, but scholastic provincialism makes me cranky.
[4] Related areas of study are not much better. The Chair of Ethnography at Windmane College once said to me, gesturing to the left and right, "Griffins are that way, zebras over there. What else does a civilized pony need to know?"
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The book I was levitating held enough material for a dozen scholarly papers. Several ancient tablets unearthed amid the ruins of the Anubian city of Cur mentioned colonies that had traded with the Third Dynasty, but not their location. Evidently, ancient Anubia had been a greater seafaring power than anypony had realized.
Even though the text was a couple of centuries out of date, it could still contain invaluable information and I doggedly kept to my reading.
Dinner appeared on a tray next to me. It was a pile of sandwiches cut into bite-sized pieces that I could float into my mouth without even looking, and a mug of strong coffee.
Sometime later, Applejack cleared her throat. I waved a hoof at her in a "just a minute" motion.
"Git to the end o' that sentence an' then close the book, Twi."
That got me to look up. "Trouble?"
Applejack smiled. "Not as such, but it's near four in the mornin', and the gals thought y'oughta be rested in case we get dry-gulched by yetis or sky orcas or suchlike."
"There's no such thing as sky orcas. That's a myth."
"After the things we've seen?" She chuckled. "I wouldn't bet the farm on that if I was you."
"Fair point," I admitted. "But first, I need to finish this section. It's so fascinating! They had these cast bronze weights for merchants that represented different figures from their folklore."
"That's nice an' all but—"
"By choosing particular figures as they weighed out commodities, they could conduct a sort of silent second bargaining dialog based on the meaning of the figures." I pointed to a table of drawings in the book. "This coiled snake meant that the user suspected a trick, and this little one that looks like a wrapped package was used as reassurance, or an offer to be flexible."
"Twi, listen—"
"Oh, and this double crocodile shaped like an X is really neat! It refers to a story that—"
AJ shook her head sadly. "I purely hate to fight dirty, so I'm gonna apologize for this in advance." She looked me dead in the face and yawned. She put her front hooves together and stretched them up over her head. "Oooooh, I sure am tuckered out! Gotta hit the hay. Yep, I'm fixin' to be cozy as a raccoon in a crawl space." She yawned again in an even more exaggerated fashion.
"AJ, that's not going to work on me! I know you're not—not…" I couldn't help myself; I yawned. "Oh, horsefeathers!"
= = =
The sea and sky were just as empty the next morning when I came on deck. We were still too far out for coastal traffic, or even fishing fleets. I took a quick look at the logbook and watched Rarity and Tempest sparring and comparing notes in a miraculously friendly manner for a couple minutes while I finished my morning coffee, and then I headed below to get back to work.
Breakfast appeared, and then lunch somewhile afterwards. I had paused to consider a tricky line, so I noticed when Lucky came in to clear away the tray. "How are things going?" I asked her.
"Really well, Captain! Ms. Rain Storm is going to teach me to fight with a cutlass this afternoon!"
I took several deep, calming breaths before replying. "That's nice," I said.
As soon as the door closed behind her I teleported Rainbow Dash into the cabin. I was not overly gentle about it.
Dash floundered a bit after she popped in. Evidently she had been flying when I had grabbed her. "Whoa! What's up, Twi?"
"Are you out of your damned-to-Tartarus mind?"
"Yeah, well, hello to you too, Captain. What's got your tail in a twist? I told Ket I was going out scouting."
"You told Lucky you were going to teach her cutlass!"
"Oh, that? What's the problem? All the rest of the crew can handle a blade. Well, mostly."
"But she's Lucky!"
"Yeah, so she probably isn't gonna, like, stab herself in the hoof or something, right? If things go pear-shaped and we end up going hoof-to-hoof with some baddies, she's probably not going to get a scratch."
"Dash, listen to me very carefully and think."
Rainbow frowned, sat back on her haunches, and crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Yeah?"
"When you first picked up a sword, you got really good really fast. Natural athlete, great reflexes, right?"
She nodded, still frowning, but I could tell she was pleased by my assessment of her prowess.
"So what did you do that first time we got jumped by corsairs?"
She actually smiled then. "I kicked their butts!"
"Why?"
"What? What do you mean why? It was us or them! I'd been practicing for, like, ever!"
"Because you were looking forward to a fight."
She shrugged. "Hey, I don't mind a dust-up when—"
"No," I interrupted her. "You wanted a fight. You wanted to prove just how good you were with a blade."
"Uh… Yeah, I guess. So?"
"So, don't you think Lucky will want the same thing? She's expecting this trip to be like a Daring Do novel!"
I saw the instant it clicked for Dash. "Oh." Her smug smile vanished. "Oh. Right. Lucky gets what she wants."
"And if she wants a heroic swordfight—"
"Yeah, yeah, gotcha. So how… Wait." Dash frowned in concentration for a moment and then smiled again. "I think I can fix it, Twi."
"Really? Now that you've promised her—"
"No, really! I've got it covered, Twi! I know just what to do!"
"What—"
"Trust me, okay?"
Rainbow Dash is very far from stupid, despite what some ponies think. It's just that she gets impatient with all the time it takes to think through a situation when jumping in, hooves first, is most often the best way (for her, at least) to deal with any given situation. But when she bothers to apply a little brain-power, she isn't often wrong.
"I trust you, Dash," I told her.
She hopped onto all four hooves. "Good! You should come watch. This ought to be fun!"
= = =
It was not fun.
It was, in fact, appalling and horrible. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I stood on the quarterdeck, aft of the speaking tube rack where I could watch without being obvious. An unusual number of crewponies had found maintenance chores to do on deck. Evidently word had gotten around.
"Okay!" said Rainbow Dash, facing an eager Lucky Charm. "It doesn't matter much if you hold the cutlass with your hoof, mouth, or magic, the moves are pretty much the same, but start with your mouth."
Lucky nodded, lifted her cutlass to her mouth, and bit down on the grip.
Dash had her adjust her grip a bit and then moved the blade with a hoof. "There. That's your first guard position. First cut goes like this. Hoof or head or whatever comes up, sword points toward your centerline. Then, you twist and cut downward on the diagonal." She guided Lucky's blade with her hooves through the maneuver.
"Recover here—" Dash moved Lucky's blade to a new position. "—and that's your second guard. Second cut is a mirror of the first. Sword up, point to center, then twist and cut down the opposite way. There! I know you have to twist your head more on this one, but it's easier with hoof or wing."
"Wiff magic?" Lucky asked around the grip of her cutlass.
"Easy-peasy! But it's also, like, really easy to get sloppy or drop your sword, so you've got to start the stronger, not-so-cheaty way! Okay, do those two cuts again. Make a big X." Dash used her own cutlass to correct Lucky's swing. "Again."
"Again."
"Three times, each side."
She did fairly well. "Can I reft for a second?"
"Sure thing. I won't go too hard on you today, but you're gonna be sore in the morning anyway."
Lucky put the sword down and rolled her neck and shoulders. "It feels awkward."
"Yeah, it will for a while."
"When will I learn the fancy stuff? Like what Silver Mask and Tempest were doing?"
Dash laughed. "That? Lucky, that's dueling! I'm teaching you how to fight!"
"Uh… What's the difference, Ms. Rain Storm?"
"Murderous intent, mostly. Duelists are all about flash and leaving your opponent alive so they'll remember that they got their rump kicked by a better pony. Fighters want to kill or cripple their opponents as quick as possible so they don't get killed or crippled themselves."
"Oh." Lucky sounded quite a lot less enthusiastic than she had at the beginning of the lesson.
"Yeah, and that fancy-schmancy dueling stuff is one-on-one. Griffin corsairs—heck, most all the bad guys like to gang up on you. There are a couple dirty tricks I'll show you to help with that sort of thing, but the best move is to bring all of your stabby friends with you to the brawl!" Rainbow turned and gave a big wink to AJ and Pinkie who were loitering at the main fife rail.
Lucky gave her an uneasy little grin.
Next, Dash had her walking across the deck from rail to rail synchronizing her steps to her swings. "Okay, now turn around—no, lead with your sword! That's right, now back over here. Okay, good! Take a break!"
"Whoof! that's harder than it looks!"
"Eh, do it another couple thousand times and you won't even notice it!"
"Couple thousand…?" Lucky chewed her lower lip, doubtfully.
"It's the only way to get good! By the way, congratulations! You just finished the entire Royal Equestrian Navy Cutlass Combat Course!"
"What? You're just kidding… Right, Ms. Storm?"
"Nope! That's it. That's the whole thing! Unless you go for the advanced class for spears or boarding axes. For the swabbies, it's just cut and step and cut and step—repeat until the bad guys are all gone. I mean, there are a few tricks and tips I'll pass along, but yep, that's it! If this was the Aeronautical Service you'd get a certificate or something, but pirates aren't big on paperwork."[5]
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[5] Rainbow Dash was not lying to her, not even exaggerating. For aeronauts and naval ponies who spend 99.99% of their time not fighting with a sword, strength and endurance combined with very simple and easy-to-remember techniques were the most likely guarantee of success.
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Lucky just stood there, dumbfounded.
"Okay, grab your sword and do another ten crossings of the deck and then you can quit for the day."
I give that mare full credit; she picked up her cutlass and went back to it.
After five crossings, Dash yelled at her, "You're slowing down! Put some umph in those swings!" After one more, Dash grabbed her own sword and met Lucky at the larboard rail. "Okay, I'm gonna put my blade up for a target, right? You're gonna hit it on each swing, and if you don't make it ring like a bell each time, I'm gonna make you do another two crossings, got it?'
"Yesh, Msh. Shtorm," Lucky mumbled around her grip. She straightened up, squared her shoulders, and started another crossing.
Dash nonchalantly slapped each swing of Lucky's cutlass away with her own blade. Half-way across, She turned to look at me and yelled, "What did I tell you, Captain? She's a nat—aaagh!"
An instant's inattention and her blade drifted just far enough out of line to let Lucky's cutlass whip past it and bury the edge deep in Dash's neck above her shoulder. A bright fan of blood spattered onto the deck as Rainbow dropped, hissing with pain, her foreleg clamped over her wound.
"Oh no!" Lucky cried, her sword tumbling from her mouth, "Oh no, oh no, oh no… I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"
I teleported in, next to Dash, and pried her hoof away from her neck just enough to confirm my suspicions. "Half Hitch! Get the doctor and get him to my cabin with his kit, now!"
I spared an instant for Lucky. "It wasn't your fault. She'll be fine." Then I teleported Dash and myself to my cabin.[6]
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[6] It was the largest interior space aboard that had any pretensions to privacy. It was often used as a meeting place, and sometimes an operating theater. There were both ink and blood stains on my big table.
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= = =
"Rainbow Dash, you are a horrible, horrible pony!"
She nodded to me and lifted her big jack[7] of cider in a silent toast, as if I had paid her a generous compliment.
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[7] A "jack" in this context is a leather mug lined with brewer's pitch to make it waterproof. They are light and have the advantage of not being as breakable as ceramic or glass, and so are most commonly found aboard ships or in the rougher sort of taverns.
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"You traumatized that poor mare!"
"Yep! That was the plan. You wanted her to not want any swordfights, and—" Dash gave me the toast gesture again, and downed the rest of her cider in one go. "—aaah—mission accomplished!"
"That cut could have killed you if it weren't for—"
"Yeah, yeah, but my little doohickey fixed me right up!" She tapped the back of her head. "Nice to know it works just fine on something besides little scrapes and bruises. I mean, not that I doubted it would. Your magic thingies are really amazing! That raptor set—"
"Don't try to change the subject, Dash! Or flatter me out of being upset with you, for that matter."
She shrugged and put down her jack. "Okay, let's do that logic thing you like so much. I fixed the problem. Flutters is now fixing the new problem caused by how I fixed the old problem. When Lucky's all calmed down and stuff, we'll have a crewpony who doesn't 'rush into danger like it was Free Sample Day at the Canterlot Mint.' Yeah, you thought I'd forgotten about that crack, didn't you?" (At least she was smiling when she said it.) "And all I have to do is pretend to have a little boo-boo for a couple of days, and we're golden. So why are you upset?"
I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths. Without raising my head or opening my eyes, I said, "I'm upset because not everything is about logic, okay? When I saw that sword cut into you, I…"
"Huh? Holy smokes, Twi! Are you crying?"
"No!" I said angrily, wiping at my eyes and turning away from her to look out at the empty sky.
"Twi…" She was at my side, putting a tentative foreleg across my shoulders.
I leaned into her side-hug, but didn't say anything for a while.
"Applejack is gonna rake you over the coals, you know," I said when I had composed myself.
"What? Why?"
"You didn't see her face when Lucky buried the cutlass in your neck, but I did. I had to risk giving the whole thing away by winking at her after I made sure you were okay, or who knows what she might have done. But if you think I'm upset…"
Dash got up, picked up the cider bottle and both her jack and an additional one. "'Scuse me, Captain, but I've got to go apologize to a certain cowpony and—"
I shook my head. "No, you've got to play the invalid, so you'll have to stay in here and endure more of the doctor's eye-rolls when he visits his so-called patient. I'll sling a hammock for you from the overhead, and I'll work in the chartroom. Speaking of which…" I levitated my books and papers and headed for the larboard door.
"But, AJ—"
"I'll send her in, don't worry." I went through the door, but before I closed it, I turned back over my shoulder and added, "And try to keep it fairly quiet, okay? Or at least make your moans sound like painful ones?"
I heard her jack bounce off the door after I'd closed it, and smiled.
= = =
=
Full credit to Cynewulf for the "raccoon in a crawl space" line. One of the most delightful countryisms I've ever heard. 
= = =
Incredibly, the extent of cutlass training given to most British sailors during the Age of Sail is pretty much what I have set down above.
From The Boy's Manual Of Seamanship And Gunnery, 1st ed. (1867):[8]
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[8] What an age that was! Nowadays, the poor kids only have badly supervised sports to threaten their lives.
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Also, this chapter is a good illustration of why you never, ever spar with real weapons, no matter what Hollywood says. Even Rainbow Dash isn't that dumb; she was planning on getting hurt.
Naval training cutlasses (often called "single-sticks"):
= = =
A leather drinking jack:
= = =
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Any given story has to decide whether they want to make Twilight actually be smart, or hew to her canon characterization. This line is just another example of how The Alicorn Adventures have clearly made their choice.
That's a kinda funny typo in this airshippery context.
I don't think it was ever mentioned, but I think the crew isn't really aware of whom they are actually working for, right?
Also looking forward to how RD's little trick is going to backfire later on.
11914992
Yawed, pitched, and rolled! Fix'd, thanks!
The officers (First, Second, and Third mates, (Ao, Clove Hitch, and Zashira/Khaatarrekket) and Dr. Woundwort) officially know who Blackmane really is. The rest don't know, or if they suspect shenanigans, are wise enough to play along and keep their mouths shut.
(Seriously, I fully expect the Anubians to be relevant with more than just their wind map. At least one ancient temple using the same symbology as the trading weights, mark my words.)
In any case… Yeah, that’s a Rainbow Dash plan, all right. Stupid, effective, and with high probability of messy death if anyone else had tried it. Signing on with Captain Blackmane is not, in fact, getting to hop into an adventure novel. Lucky might have been better off asking Princess Twilight for Haycartes’ Method.
11915024
Loved the chapter.
Like i loved all of your other stories.
Keep it up please!
That final pic in your notes was exactly what I thought when I read that line, save the birds. Hitch's expression was what I saw, though.
11915050
Mission accomplished!
11915044
No plans on stopping.
I can’t help but feel like they’re delivering the instrument of their doom straight to the one who they don’t want to have it. We’ll see though
Heh.
11915177
Thank you!!!
Does anyone mind giving me a refresher on the "doohickey" that saved Dash?
11915442
Chapters 13 and 17 of The Twilight Enigma
I have never seen that trope used in such a way...
And I love it!
11915442
11915453
TL;DR: The crystal Twilight embedded into her brain stem/spine and connected to the world machine crystal she found in the Labyrinth. It stores a record of RD's "perfect" physical state and magically restores it whenever a difference (like a sword cut) is detected.
11915453
11915487
Thanks a ton, guys!
Your autocorrect is showing.
11915539
Fix'd, thanks!
Damnit!
Thanks for writing!
11915487
And thanks! It's been a while.