Chapter Eight - Fortune's Filly
It's all Celestia's fault.
A couple thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, she had meddled with the World Wheel as part of a plan to overthrow and imprison her demonic mother. She bent that titanic magical construct away from its original purpose as an engine of equine eugenics and toward a sort of morality machine. She intended that it would guide the natural laws of our universe toward automatically rewarding good behavior. It was a brilliant idea, but it didn't work.
Luna had been involved also, but I am convinced that she was just going along with her big sister's plan, and trusting naïvely in her wisdom. They'd both been very young (relatively) at the time, and had not yet been brutalized into respecting the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The most obvious consequences of that well-intentioned meddling was the fragmentation of magical energy into several different subtypes, most of which were poorly understood. The changes resulted in downstream effects like cutie marks, judgemental crystal trees, and idiosyncratic "wild" magic that could manifest itself as almost anything, including the ridiculous[1] ability to predict the near future based on patterns of body spasms. Being a methodical and logical scholar in such a chaotic system is maddening at times.
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[1] But admittedly, occasionally useful.
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My intuition insisted that one of the unique and unpredictable consequences of a twisted World Wheel was standing right in front of me, but I wanted to make sure.
"Let me guess. Exploring incredibly dangerous territory seems risky at times, and everypony says it's risky, but it always works out fine for you, right?" I said to the incredibly dangerous mare that stood before me.
Lucky Charm gave me a wide grin. "Yes, it does! I'm glad you understand, Captain Blackmane. So many ponies tell me I'm dumb for taking so many chances, but aside from a fun little scare every once in a while, nothing really bad ever happens."
Rain Storm (née Rainbow Dash) gave me a look that I interpreted as, Huh? You're gonna explain this to me later, right? Mango Tango (née Pinkie Pie), standing in the fo'c'sle hatchway, her various appendages twitching and shuddering in turn, had her head cocked so far that it made my neck hurt to look at her.
"You must be tired after that run, and I think I ought to have Dr. Woundwort check you over, just in case. Would you like some refreshments? Maybe a nap?" I desperately wanted her out of the way, so I could warn the crew about how to behave until we could get rid of her.
"That sounds fine, thank you!"
I settled her on the stern gallery on a bed of brocade cushions, with a platter of assorted treats nearby, and then called the girls and Nebula's officers together for an emergency meeting on the fo'c'sle deck, as far away from Lucky Charm as we could get without climbing atop Nebula's envelope.
I quickly explained the situation. Most of them looked doubtful, Pinkie was nodding vigorously, and Rainbow raised her hoof. I nodded to her.
"But if she's, like, totally lucky, wouldn't it be good to keep her around?"
I shook my head. "It's her own luck, not an area effect. If she's always dreamed of having an adventure where she was the sole survivor of an airship wreck..."
The crew looked around at each other, beginning to understand how dangerous the mare might be.
"Gettin' other ponies killed ain't exactly somethin' she'd hanker after, is it? She seems like a real nice pony to me."
"No, you're right, AJ, that was just an extreme example, but there's no way to predict how her luck will manifest itself. She's—"
"She's probably very lonely," Fluttershy said.
"What?"
Fluttershy frowned and looked down at the deck. Her voice was so low that we all had to swivel our ears and lean in to hear her. "Discord was. He didn't know it, but he was. When you can just snap your claw and have anything you want, ponies get uncomfortable around you. They treat you differently. They tend to shy away when they realize how different you are. Lucky was all the way out here, alone. Ponies shouldn't be alone."
She stopped talking then and didn't look up, as if she really didn't expect a reply.
I disagreed with her on a fundamental level. Ponies didn't like Discord because his sense of humor was that of a two-year-old foal embodied in a cosmically powerful, barely-civilized, impulsive narcissist. But—
But he'd gotten better. Much better, I had to admit, and that was all down to a meek little mare that a lot of ponies foolishly dismissed as insignificant. She was right; loneliness was one of the worst things that could happen to a pony.
Before anypony else could say anything, I spoke up. "Alright then! What are we all about, Nebulas?"
"Gettin' swag and booty!" shouted Pinkie Pie, suddenly sporting her piratical red bandana and striped shirt, and waving a cutlass.
Well, she wasn't wrong, but I had something else in mind, and if all the shenanigans I'd gone through since moving to Ponyville had taught me anything, it was to trust my friends, even when I disagreed with them.
"Getting swag and booty with the help of friends," I corrected her. "If what Lucky Charm needs is a few new friends, then I think we can take a risk or two?"
It was gratifying to see the group nod in general agreement, but best of all was Fluttershy's grateful smile.
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Lucky Charm was a very sweet mare. I would have called her innocent and naïve if she had been any other pony, but her behavior wasn't because of inexperience or ignorance. She had plenty of experience and understood the world perfectly as it was—for her.
Where a naïve filly might wander out to a dangerous bog to watch frogs and never be heard of again, Lucky would come home with a story about how a mean old hydra had collapsed of a heart attack just in time for one of its necks to provide a handy bridge across a particularly mucky patch of swamp that led her to a perfect place to watch some nice frogs.
A charming story, unless one was a hydra. I intended that Nebula and her crew would, at the very least, fill the role of nice and entertaining frogs.
Without mentioning the potentially disastrous wild magic involved, we passed the word to the rest of the crew, as well as Grubber and Tempest, that the little mare was to be treated as an honored guest. Fortunately, Lucky seemed to like all of the crew and enjoyed chatting with everypony and exploring the ship as the day wore on.
There was a bit of a worrisome moment when Lucky met Tempest as she was coming on deck to stretch her legs.[2]
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[2] With legs like that, I assumed she needed to stretch them quite a lot.
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"Oh! Your poor horn!" Lucky said, one hoof going to her mouth to cover her gasp of dismay.
I stiffened, trying futilely to prepare myself for whatever the wild magic might do to save Lucky from damage or discomfort.
Tempest looked down at her, unsmiling. "It's fine. It happened a long time ago and I'm used to it."
"What happened?"
I cringed, expecting Tempest to snarl at her or kick her over the rail or something, but she surprised me by laying down on the deck next to Lucky and crossing her forelegs over each other. "I was just a filly—"
She told a story of how she'd been attacked by an Ursa while trying to retrieve her friend's wayward ball from a cave. More than a few ears swiveled in her direction, my own included. Lucky Charm wasn't the only supernaturally lucky mare onboard; Tempest ought to have ended up as a wet smear on that cave floor. She finished up by looking up at the quarterdeck and saying, "I get along pretty well without it now, but the pri—uh—the captain there has promised to get me a new one."
Lucky threw her forelegs around Tempest's neck in a hug that also miraculously didn't get her turned into a smear on my deck. "I hope it's soon!" she said.
The bigger mare gave her an awkward pat on the back. "Thanks, Me too."
When Lucky trotted off to the galley with Pinkie and AJ, chatting happily about the intricacies of cooking aboard a ship and the particulars of what was going to be served for dinner, I came down from the quarterdeck to where Tempest had rapidly moved on to methodically working through several martial arts combat forms, holding each pose with excellent control and striking with precise power.
I stood and silently watched her for several minutes. She was amazing. Her moves were so clean and focused that I knew exactly the size and shape of each of her imagined opponents. I could almost see them. She finished a set and walked over to the leeward rail to shake some of her sweat off into the wind. "Thought I'd lost my horn in some battle?" she asked, not looking at me.
"Not that it matters, but yes. I didn't think it was any of my business to ask."
She shrugged, still staring off toward the distant mountains. "Well, now you know."
I put my hooves up on the rail alongside hers. "Unless I die, or you die, or the Storm Drain takes over the world and wrecks everything, I'll make sure you get your horn replaced, no matter how everything else turns out."
She didn't say anything, so I thought it would be good to change the subject. "Is that a Neighsian style you're using? It's not familiar to me."
She turned just enough to give me a side-eye. "The princess gets her hooves dirty? Don't you have magic for that?"
I levitated a belaying pin out of the rail nearby and held it firmly in front of me. With my left forehoof, I drew one of my short blades, swept it out and through the pin, and then returned the blade to its scabbard in one smoothly flowing motion. It all took considerably less than a second, and I caught the loose half of the pin in my magic before it could fall.
Tempest reached out, took the larger part of the pin, and held it so that she could squint at the cut surface. It was nearly mirror smooth and perfectly straight, no little splinters at the trailing edge. She sighed and dropped it overboard. "Figures," she snorted. "The kirin must have taught you that, am I right?"
"I practice most of the classical Equestrian forms, too. But these?" I touched the grip of one of my blades. "Yes, Ao taught me this style, and it's become my favorite. I'm not bad, but she's absolutely uncanny."
Tempest tapped a hoof on the rail. "I studied a lot in Equestria when I was still young. Typical pony nice-fighting." There was definitely a sneer in her voice when she said that. I think she saw it as a weakness that dojos didn't want to send their students home with broken bones or concussions.
"At least it got me in shape for the real thing," she continued. "I learned the effective stuff from the Eastern Griffistan nomads. After I'd spent three years with them, no pony alive could touch me."
I was impressed. I hadn't even heard of that particular griffin tribe, let alone their fighting style. "I would think that a griffin style would depend a lot on beaks, talons, and claws."
Tempest chuckled. "I adapted it a little, and it works well enough for me. The flat teeth and hooves just make the hurt last longer."
"That's a good thing?"
She shrugged. "Ask a belligerent moron who's just been on the receiving end of a double-disemboweling kick. Given the choice of not being able to breathe for a couple minutes or decorating the ground with his own—"
I held up a hoof to stop her. "Gotcha. Pain can be a merciful option."
"And instructive." She turned to me. "Don't tell me you're squeamish about instructing misguided ponies, Captain Princess?"
I sighed. "I hate it. But I've learned that sometimes there's no better way to protect my ponies. And I've learned that hesitation can get me and ponies that depend on me killed." It was all so complex and I wanted to explain to her the details of how I'd become—what I had become. But I'd also learned that almost nopony was interested in the intricacies, so I shrugged and finished up lamely. "I just hate it."
Tempest gave me a long, evaluating look and then tried to kick my head off.
It was a feint, and she snatched her foreleg back immediately after beginning the move. An instant of furious movement later, we both stood there frozen in place, me in the first flush of an adrenaline rush, one of my blades held in a forehoof guard and the other at her throat in a tight magical grip, while she crouched in a defensive stance, the shallow cut on her pastern dripping blood on my deck.
She looked curiously at the cut and said, "Huh."
"You're crazy!" I shouted in disbelief. "I could have killed you!"
"Yes, and now I know that for sure," she said, as if explaining something obvious. She gave me a little salute. "Lesson learned, Captain. I'll go get Grubber to stitch this up." And then she blithely trotted away.
Dash dropped down by my side. "What was that all about? She's lucky Ao wasn't on deck, or she'd be in, like, a dozen pieces right now."
I was starting to shiver a bit as the adrenaline was flushed from my system. Tempest hadn't been wearing her resistant armor; why hadn't I simply grabbed her with my magic? "Once," I said as I wiped my blade clean and sheathed it. "Just once, I'd like us to have a dull and boring voyage without any madponies aboard!"
"Planning on staying home then?"
"Oh, don't you start with me, Rainbow Dash!" I don't know why I snapped at her like that. It was myself I was angry at. It seemed my reflexes were set on overreacting.
"Hey, hey," she said, holding up both wings in a placating gesture. "Just kidding! Besides, a boring trip would be, well, boring, right?"
I couldn't argue with that, not that I needed to. An identity function is only useful in combination with other arguments. But, taking into account her unstated premise that boredom was bad, I couldn't help but agree anyway. "Just interesting and intriguing would be good enough for me; it doesn't have to be traumatic!"
Dash grinned and looked over her shoulder to where Tempest had descended the ladder to the crew deck, leaving little spots of blood on the deck along her way.
"Too late for that."
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