Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Vikings are cool, right?

I was cheerfully puttering away in my lab, trying to set up an apparatus to try out a few variations of the double-slit experiment with my new light spells. Some of the gear had sub-millimeter tolerances, so I didn't want my heavy breathing to disturb it; so I'd pulled a piece of cloth over my muzzle, tied on behind my head like a surgeon's. However, since not only did it catch my hot breath, but also covered my nose - which, on a cow, is one of our main hot-spots for cooling off with, I'd used the spell 'frigere' on it, which was quite cool and pleasant. As I was trying to carve a nice, straight piece of cardboard 0.7 mm across, to divide a single slit into two, Captain Red's voice came through the speaking tube, "Owner to the bridge." Since she was using my title instead of my name, and curt ship-speak phrasing, I figured something important was going on; so I took a few seconds to make sure everything important and/or breakable was locked away, and listened to the engines' steady throbbing noises change in pitch.

When I trotted up the stairs into the bridge, Red was staring forwards through a pair of binoculars. Hearing me, she said, "Boat," and I hoofed up another pair of binocs against my goggles, aiming them in the direction she was looking. After a bit of searching, I finally found it - a simple, square-rigged sail, with a dozen vertical red-and-white stripes, dangling from a horizontal mast; a ship that looked like an oversized canoe, with a tall, Nessie-like figurehead; and as I focused in, I made out one further, rather interesting detail - a line of round shields.

"Hunh," I said.

"You recognize it?"

"Sort of. GREEN WELL has some info on ships like that - but I'm not sure how trustworthy it is." GREEN WELL was my codename for my general background information from Earth; in this case, anything from Hagar the Horrible comics to the movie 'How to Train Your Dragon' to what I'd read of history. "Keep your distance, for now - but try not to look like you're keeping your distance."

"Is that a serious order? How exactly are we supposed to?"

"I don't know - fly casual." Red whuffed her breath, then went to give Bouncer a few orders. While she was doing that, Micro came up, and snagged her binoculars.

"So what am I looking at?"

"That depends," I mused. "There's an old joke. How do you tell a Viking raider from a merchant?"

"Dare I spoil the humor by even trying to guess?"

"If you're better armed, he's a merchant." That got a snort out of her. Red came back, and took her binoculars back. "So - what info can you tell me to make some plans around?"

"Um. A whole lot, some more likely to be true than the rest. On an overall level... it comes down to food. Northern climes aren't great at the best of times, and even just due to random chance, there'll be some decades that are better than others. When there's more food, population increases. Then things get worse, and there's less food - and more people than can be fed. So there'll be bunches of people with literally nothing to lose, so they sail off to find someone to kill, other than their families, to take their stuff, including, if they can, the land. Most often, that's some nearby group who're in the same situation. Some of them spread out to other places, usually places they've traded with in the past, to raid and conquer and whatever. For complicated reasons, the outer edge of that group are... the least civilized. If we're lucky, that ship is trying to do some trading with the Griffin Dominion, or maybe the Zebracornian Isles. If we're less lucky, they're more interested in killing, pillaging, raping, and enslaving, but will pretend to be harmless traders if we're better armed. If we're quite unlucky, they're so uncivilized that they'll do anything in their power to kill us and steal our ship."

"Hm. Got any idea of what they'll fight with? Is it too much to hope for a nice, pleasant non-lethal pie-fight?"

"If they're using boats like that - then probably swords and axes, bows and maybe crossbows. No data on their magic - could be none, could be unicorns, could be something we're unfamiliar with. Might be a good idea to find out now, with a single ship, instead of arriving and having no clue what to expect."

"Right. In that case - I'd suggest we pull a Stalliongrad." Remembering what had happened to Blanche there, I shuddered. Red added, "With a few modifications."

---

I stretched out on a deck chair on the sterncastle, in my Star Trek outfit plus goggles and torc-cloak, sipping at a glass of ice juice and trying as hard as I could to look like I was so over-confident that I was completely relaxed. The rest of the crew were making themselves look busy, each one in one of the new blue uniform shirts. It was actually fairly pleasant, our relatively low speed still enough to give us a nice breeze, skimming close to the wave-tops. Blanche and Blast were up top with me, and just about everypony was watching the longboat closely for whatever hints about its crew we could gather... especially the increasing number of various pointy objects we could make out. If they were traders, they seemed to be some sort of door-to-door spear salesmen, so I reluctantly approved Plan Stalliongrad.

When we got close enough to be able to tell a diamond dog from a griffin - and that their crew included both - Red throttled down our main engines, so that we came to a stop... with their boat literally in our airship's shadow. Not to mention a ballista and cannon or two pointed at them from our observation deck.

Bouncer, waiting at the bow, spread her wings and glided down, to a four-point landing on their figurehead and perch there. Assuming she was following the script, she was then supposed to say, "My mistress, the great wizardess who deigns to allow you to call her 'Missy', is finally getting around to looking for a few things lost a few centuries ago. She desires to know if any of you have seen any of them, such as Scutum, which she has described as 'round and sort of glowy'. She offers great reward to any who assist her, but great wrath to those who even attempt to deceive her, for, as she says, 'you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup'."

(According to some of my forbidden texts, Children of the Alicorn, such as ponies and cows, actually could eat meat - it was merely the local cultural preference for vegetarianism that led to them throwing up whenever they tried it.)

At that point, I really wished I'd finished figuring out how to upgrade CAT WHISKER to full voice - I wanted to know exactly what was being said as one of the vikings - a griffin, it looked like - stepped up to their bow and talked with Bouncer. After a few exchanges, Bouncer looked back up at us, gave a pre-arranged hoof sign, and pointed at another member of the crew - a diamond dog with a horned helmet. I squinted, dropped one hoof under my seat to the bowl of glittery gems, and muttered, "Volare".

In less than a minute, I landed the wriggling diamond dog on the deck before me, followed in moments by Bouncer and the griffin she'd been talking to, whose head-feathers made a sort of crest. The dog looked at me, at Bouncer, back at me, then asked Bouncer, "Is that...?"

I gave a snort. "Don't be fooled by appearances. I'm spending the year as a cow for tax reasons."

He and the griffin looked at each other, then back at me, then the dog said, "Then who - what -"

I rolled my eyes dramatically. "If you think you know, do tell me - I'm curious which of the many and contradictory hints I'm dropping are the ones you pick up on. If my pegasus failed to inform you, you may address me as 'Missy', as I choose to keep my other names to myself for now." I took a sip of juice slushee from my straw, and idly stirred my bowl of sparklies with my hoof.

The griffin growled - an interesting switch - and said, "I think you're full of hot air - and that you're my lunch!"

He started striding toward me, so I murmured a quick "Adherere," my earlier experiments back at the Dairy having let me know exactly the minimum volume I needed to work this sort of magic were. As I expected, and he didn't, he found himself stuck in place - and unable to even spread his wings. I merely raised an eyebrow. "You come onto my ship, and threaten me? You certainly have balls. Perhaps I'll snack on them." I put down my drink, reached into the other bowl, pulled out a piece of Armina's smoked jerky, and popped it into my mouth.

As I started chewing, the griffin started spewing forth a rather impressive array of curses, imprecations, and invocations. I made a note of some of them for cultural purposes, then swallowed the jerky, and said, as if idly commenting, "I grow bored of your noise." I whispered a nigh-inaduible, "Vomitere," and the griffin's profanity was cut off as he choked, then started heaving out his previous meals onto the deck.

At this point, the diamond dog threw himself forward, kneeling, then bending over to press his forehead onto the wooden planks. "Mistress Missy," he said, "Please forgive my first mate. He is headstrong and good in a fight, but he doesn't know anything about how to show proper respect to a, uh, cow of your power." The griffin tried to say something, but was interrupted both by another heave and the diamond dog loudly whispering, "Shut up, Gord!" Back to a normal voice, he said to me, "I beg of you not to do anything permanent to him. I take full responsibility for him. I give you my word that I'll punish him severely once he's back on my ship."

I glared at him. "Do not make a trifling oath with me - I have ways of forcing you to fulfill every last detail of a promise, whether you desire to or not. I can even ensorcel you to tell the truth, whether you will or no - I occasionally find the results of that amusing to watch, though at the moment, I am more amused by allowing you to keep your free will about that, to see what you will do with it."

"I... he's my good friend, Missy, and important to me and to my crew, and I don't want him killed like this."

"Hm." I sipped at my drink. "He has made something of a mess here." Gord managed a pretty good glare at me. "So if he cleans it up and leaves, then I'll be willing to forget about him."

"Yes, Your Ladyship! I mean, Mistress Missy! I mean-"

"Just 'Missy' will do." I whispered a quick "Nullus magicae," and Gord the griffin fell to the deck as his claws and paws detached, and took a few deep breaths as his stomach returned to normal. I glanced at Blast. "Go get him a mop and such."

"I still want to kill you," said Gord.

"Many do," I said casually. "I still want to use you as an experimental subject. Perhaps see if I can reverse the direction of your guts permanently. Shall we see which of us is more able to get what they want from the other?" Blast came back with a mop and bucket. Gord looked at me, at his puke... then, with another growl, grabbed the mop with one foreclaw, and went to work swabbing the deck.

As that was being done, I examined the diamond dog captain. "Now then. Remind me of why I brought you aboard, again?"

"Your, um, pegasus - she said you were looking for some, uh, glowy things you lost a few centuries ago?"

"I doubt she said quite that, but it sounds close enough. Do you know where one is?"

"Yes. I mean, sort of. I mean - I've heard some stories about some things like that, and I can show you on a map which countries they were said to be in."

I yawned, just a touch dramatically. "I don't bother keeping up with such petty details - I have a navigator, below, you can talk to. ... What are you still waiting here for?"

As he scurried down the stairs to meet up with Red in the bridge, I watched Gord finish up mopping. His beak somehow curled into a grin. "You're a dragon, aren't you?"

"Saying either 'yes' or 'no' would kind of defeat the point of hinting, wouldn't it?"

"I think you're a green dragon pretending to be a blue one, stuck as a cow and pretending you did it on purpose."

"How do you know I'm not a blue dragon pretending to be all of that?"

"Mostly because I remember one of the stories Dug mentioned - you're Fraenir, aren't you?"

"Neither confirm nor deny, yadda yadda yadda."

"I always thought it was a bit convenient how you let yourself die, and just in time to pass on the cursed treasure."

"I can still sink your ship, you know."

"And turn me inside out, or use my skin as a disguise, and so on. But if you're coming back, after all this time... you know, it's probably a good thing we're heading the other way. Maybe I'll just look for a nice local griffiness and settle down for a few years - like, the rest of my life."

Instead of answering, I picked up another piece of jerky to chew on.

"Is that - that is, can I?" I shrugged, and he picked up a piece for himself. "Hunh. It really is rabbit meat, isn't it? And you're not even queasy."

---

Dug the dog insisted on letting Gord the griffin carry him, instead of letting me magic him back to his boat. I didn't argue.

When they were well out of earshot, Blast asked, "So - who's this 'Fraenir' he was talking about?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

---

(Author's Note: pwildani has put together a couple of illustrations for Missy's logo, which can be seen here and here.

Comments

[nemryn]

1224844
Or, perhaps, people think one particular dragon is Missy.

[Forevermore]

Vikings make every sea adventure 20% cooler

[Djerid]

1225000 and every air based adventure have a +1 excitement modifier

[Cystenian Remir Rhys]

1225928

That's... bizarre. Also, sorry.

[DataPacRat]

1225941
No worries - I was just a bit worried that the slang might go a bit too far, if I didn't mention it.

As for the bizarreness - remember, since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has happened. Any strangeness you perceive in nature is merely a function of your own mind, and isn't inherent in whatever you're looking at.

[Cystenian Remir Rhys]

1225965

Indeedy!

Like that, sorta.

[DataPacRat]

1225984
Well, if you're going to bring Japan into it... of course things are going to be strange.

On another note, one fun thing about the internet - if you try hard enough, there's always a way to top something. Even in such narrow a field as 'Japanese commercials containing people wearing odd furry animal costumes'. I'm not even going to provide a link - if you want to look for 'Anabuki Chan', you'll have to find the commercials yourself.

[steampvnc1880]

Fly Casual? Seriously? Could your Star Wars references get any more obscure? God I hope so.

Clarification edit: Because I enjoy finding them.

[Rune Heart]

1226271

Sometimes realizing what and where a reference is in media, intentional or not, makes it that much better when you get it. That said, obscure references are some of the best references, in my opinion. Never change, DPR.

As to the story...

Missy is now apparently a blue dragon of relatively high renown (Or is she the blue dragon? Never mind, too many OP'd blue dragons in fiction) who is either stuck as or is masquerading as a cow who just so happens to be involved with the government of the strongest known nation in this 'verse of the planet Equis, and who also may or may not have just faked his or her death again.

Fun.

[AppleTank]

1226728
Well, Missy did try to fake her death once. It was more of a bait, than actual death, but death was faked.

[Rune Heart]

1227375

Having good bait is nothing short of essential in quite a few situations. Two of them, in my opinion, are lake and ocean fishing, the other being faking a death in a potentially fatal environment of the political variety. That said, toh-may-toe, toh-mah-toe.

[Langly]

1228178
I've read a few but I dropped most of them pretty quickly and as far as I remember none of them showed what exactly is going to happen, in fact many didn't say anything about any catastrophe. Most of them where just "put human in unusual body and drop him in Equestria". They may have shown it after I dropped them but usually I give a story a quite a few chapters before I stop reading them.

[DataPacRat]

1226271
Hm; oddly, I thought that the Star Wars call-out was fairly obvious. I was actually happier about my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy call-out in this chapter...

[Horatiojones]

1228586
Wait a sec
Hitchhiker reference that I didn't see?
Read again

I CAN"T FIND IT.

[strangephantasm]

I dig Dug. Also, Missy is clearly Dunkelzahn.

[DataPacRat]

1229080
Do you remember who Hotblack Desiato is?

[Horatiojones]

1229913
Ah ha dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Derpy_Hooves_lolface.png
I prefer to get out of tax by donating works of art.
That I make.

[Corundum]

My favorite refrence is still "The tales of my death have been greatly exaggerated", if i find one better ill give you 5 bucks and ill eat my hat

[Thethhron]

"I don't know - fly casual."
Loved this SO MUCH

[scranity]

Ok, uh, is this a crossover with another fic or something?
Because I started to feel really lost when the griffin started talking about that Fraenir guy.
I mean, Missy doesn't seem to know who he is, and it came out of nowhere so...

[PetitPoney]

Perhaps see if I can reverse the direction of your guts permanently.

Pure evil.

I like it.

[World Theory]

I can't seem to stop randomly breaking out in chuckles and snorts... I blame you for this.