• Member Since 11th Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen Yesterday

Tundara


Sea Otter, Tempest domain Cleric, Gamer, Writer. Currently nestled out on the east coast, watching icebergs float past. Discord: Tundara's Fanfiction Forum

More Blog Posts197

  • 4 weeks
    Winter Update for Sunset of Battle

    Going to be a short update.

    Chapters 15 and 16 are in the final editing phases now. I'm waiting to publish anything however until after chapters 17 and 18 are done so I have the latitude to tweak 15 and 16 as needed. Once the current story arc is finished I'll start posting the chapters on a weekly basis.

    That is all...

    Like I said; short update.

    XD

    2 comments · 94 views
  • 22 weeks
    A minor alteration...

    I made a minor edit to the most recent chapter. There were two little words that had become a massive pain in my arse working on the next chapter. They were, 'to her'. :twilightangry2: It was leading to rabbit holes of character arguments that spiraled into hellish domains where finding a feasible 'out' for Sunset grew dire indeed. After several attempts I've decided to just rip out the root

    Read More

    4 comments · 205 views
  • 28 weeks
    I Live!

    Title.

    That is all.

    I slink now back into my resumed writing.

    May I post again in less than ten months time...

    6 comments · 130 views
  • 112 weeks
    New Cover Art? Discord? A blog of some random thoughts...

    This blog will be a little more rambling than normal.

    Read More

    0 comments · 350 views
  • 114 weeks
    Nearing the end of Schola Arc, and future planning.

    So, as I begin to near the final rise in action for the schola arc of Sunset of Battle I'm looking more and more ahead to what I want to do with the story and where to go next. My general plan is to do a time-skip to when they are novitiates and start the next arc in-media res. But what to do and who to have as the antagonists?

    Read More

    34 comments · 280 views
Mar
14th
2014

The Ship's Belle (Brief Side-Story opening) · 5:45am Mar 14th, 2014

So... an hour and a half ago I got a flash of inspiration while editing chapter 8 of Myths. Since I am feeling more than a bit guilty that the Myths revisions and new chapters are taking so incredibly long to publish, and I doubt I will actually continue this into a full one-shot side story, it seems like a good idea to share.

The Ship’s Belle
By Tundara


Far from any land, the deep, hefty roar of double loaded cannons broke out across an otherwise placid sea, carried for miles on a hesitant breeze. The Sea Serpent raced along under a full spread of canvass, topsails and studdingsails creating a white tower, ranging shots falling a few yards short in her shadow. Behind her, in an equally impressive show of sail, came the Equestrian frigate, Revelation.

While, ordinarily, the Sea Serpent was more than a match for the smaller ship, with forty guns to her pursuer’s thirty-two, she had been caught flat hooved. Her look-out, scanning the east for signs of a rumoured Hackney treasure ship, had utterly failed to see the Revelation approach from the west, gather her wind, and make a straight dash. The two ships had been less than two miles apart when an idler on the Sea Serpent’s deck had looked up and seen the fast approaching Equestrian.

Hauling her wind as quick as she could and dancing as nimbly as a cutter, the Sea Serpent turned and ran. Her Master had standing orders to avoid conflict with the Equestrians, the ship’s captain and owner being Equestrian herself, with a deep running love for her homeland. The Sea Serpent’s captain would have happily dropped her sails and invited the Revelation’s captain aboard for some coffee and dinner, if not for the slight problem that the Sea Serpent sailed under a pirate flag, and Equestria’s navy took a very grim view on such enterprises.

There was another, smaller reason why the Sea Serpent’s captain was running rather than fighting, or more likely shouting insults across the water—the two ships being some way from Equestrian waters—if not for acting like a fool of a landspony and leaving the Jolly Roger waving so proudly from the main masthead. Standing next to the captain—her mother—with her little hooves resting on the weathered rail, was Rarity, staring across the slight roll of the sea.

“Why are we running away, mama?” Rarity glanced up at Bonnie, her mother wearing her wide brimmed hat and large jacket. A cutlas hung from a broad sash on her left, and a brace of pistols on her right, each already primed and loaded. Rarity wore little more than a gem studded replica of her mother’s attire, minus the sword and pistols, and a wide grin.

Bonnie ‘Bloodrose’ Belle had brought Rarity along as a cutecerina present. It was supposed to have been a short cruise, a quick pop out into the mid-Marelantic, a dumb show of looking for merchants—the nearest convoy being over a month to the south this time of year—and then back to Baltimare where she’d lay right under the Equestrian Home Fleet’s muzzles disguised as the Summer Song.

By shifting masts and the use of an ingenious contraption that rotated the ship’s name, the Sea Serpent could transform herself, losing her piratical appearance, but only if she had time.

But her crew, their faith in their captain running higher than their common sense, had suspected Bonnie’d received secret intel and that they were on their way to ensnare of fat prize. The nature of the prize grew as the days turned to weeks during the voyage, morphing from a merchant brigantine to a full on treasure galleon, loaded with gold and jade. Such a prize, if taken, would set each and every mare aboard the Sea Serpent for life.

There was no treasure galleon, of course, and now, instead of being able to spend a couple months with her daughter, Bonnie was running, tail between her legs, terrified that the Revelation—as swift sailing a ship as there was afloat—would draw another hundred yards closer, yaw, and open with her entire broadside of three hundred and sixty pounds of enchanted iron.

Worse would be if some critical spar or stay broke.

She knew the fear was unjustified. The Revelation would have them within the next hour, she sailing five knots to the Sea Serpent’s four and a half.

If it was her, she’d cut across her prey’s stern, peppering with a rolling broadside and aiming low for the rudder, put to more broadside’s through the galley windows, and then board in the smoke, if the other ship hadn’t already lowered her colours. Equestrian captains, however, were wildly unpredictable.

Was her opponent one of the flash-and-dash romanticists, in love with the idea of battle, but untested in it’s bloody ways? Would she gleefully charge forward, heedless of the cost to her crew and ship?

Or, was she a grim pragmatist? Bonnie doubted this, as such a captain would have done more than take ranging shots.

Perhaps the chase, itself, was what the Equestrian captain desired. They were running south-by-south-east, putting more sea between themselves, Equestria, and any hypothetical merchants plying the trade routes between the Old and New worlds.

Too many questions, and not enough time to ponder an answer.

“We’re running, deary, because your mamma is a fool sometimes. But don’t’cha worry, I got a plan or three under my hat, still,” Bonnie said, more confidence than she felt in her voice. “But, I’m going to have to ask you to go down now to the cockpit and wait with Mrs. Bonesaw, okay?”

Rarity pouted at the not-question, but didn’t argue as another bang sounded from the pursuing ship, a cannon ball whizzing by overhead to cut a neat hole in the mizzen royal. A few moments after Rarity disappeared down the hatch, the Revelation yawed, revealing her neat row of gleaming cannons for a moment before they vanished in a cloud of smoke and stabbing fire.

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Comments ( 6 )

Awesome.

There's no time like family time.:moustache:

"canvass"
"cutlas"

I want to draw Bonnie and Rarity with their sea outfits.

1925765

That would be neat. :raritystarry:


1924773

Family time, always getting interupted by over zealous Equestrian captains. :trollestia:


1924354

Thanks.


1924338

:moustache:

Well, shiver my timbers but that sounds like a right proper sea tale.

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