Gleaming Shield sat happily in Gilda's clever new chair, and spun around several times, enjoying the smooth motion of the swivel mechanism. Gilda had gotten one of the ratings to kitbash the uncomfortable original heavy bench-style seat, re-mounted onto a spare swivel-gun pintle and installed in place of the cabin's removed bunk.
Gilda was standing in front of her desk with Captain Bell, as the major sat in Gilda's chair, with sheaves of papers and files spread out over the desk, and a summary held lightly in Gilda's talons.
"Done yet, ma'am?"
"No."
spin, spin.
"OK, now I'm done. Go on."
"Right," said Big Bell. "Lessee, where was we… yesterday's shootin' practice. From al' accounts, a very successful wasting of the fort's supplies, gonnepowder, and hearin'. The whole harbor got proper deafened, and a lot of really top-notch coopers' fruit was smashed up real good. There's a lotta dog coopers got a lotta work to do, replacin' the fort's supply of barrels. Not to mention the gonnepowder."
"All accounts? How many accounts did you get?"
"Several," Gilda interjected. "But the longest was from an understandably proud Lieutenant Lulamoon. Came surprisingly early, and frankly, it didn't sound much like Trixie. I don't know if she's recovering from her known issues, or is covering or compensating or something, but it's something to look out for."
"Because she's scarin' her gunners?" Captain Bell demanded. "I'ud think that'd be a good thing. She's finally cheerin' up inna way that doesn't give ya the douchechills. I've known cheerier asses."
Gilda and Gleaming exchanged a meaningful look.
"Something like that, yes." Gleaming said. "It's the curious case of the perro bitch in the night-time, isn't it, Gilda?"
"Oh, yeah, the new hire!" Big Bell said, smiling. "She seemed nice. And eager to learn."
"Be careful of that one, ma'am," Gilda disagreed. "I'm not sure what to make of her yet. Her family is terrible, and while I am sympathetic…"
"Victims aren't sainted by their circumstances, no," Gleaming agreed, sighing. "Well, we'll put a pin in the matter of Reina, then, until we get a better read on her. Is she settled into her berthing, Bell?"
"I've got her in the second bunk in Magus Heartstring's stateroom, Major. I haven't had time to check on her yet. Lyra isn't there right now, of course…"
"Yes. What is the sick and injured list looking like? How is she doing?"
"We supposed to be meetin' tomorrow afternoon with Doc Eye. We gotta talk about alla the officers passing through the infirmary so far. Three unicorn officers or almost-officers -"
"Wait, three? Who's the third?"
"Trixie was reported sick this morning," Gilda said, looking down at the report, "with a high fever and general lassitude."
"I thought you said she filed a happy, well-adjusted report last night!"
"And this morning, she was reported sick," Gilda continued. "She's under the doctor's care."
"Well, that's disturbingly vague. Did anypony else with the gunnery trials-"
"Training, Major, ma'am," Gilda said, suppressively.
"Fine, whatever, training. Did anypony else come down with something? Is there something going around port? We've got perros and ponies coming and going all over this ship, and if there's sickness in the city-"
"No other reported illnesses. Yet. Well, those two griffons who inhaled too much coal dust the other day, but that's a known issue. I've got a proposal from Purse Strings about supplementary safety training for ‘dust handling procedures'."
"Make a note for Martin Gale to take it in wing."
"Yes'm. Oh, wait, there is another illness on the list. One of the thestral lance corporals is down sick with something."
"Were they part of Trixie's shooting party? Bell?"
"Oh, ahm sorry, was ah part of this meetin'? Nah, ah don't think Dried Durian would have had any reason to be with the shootists yesterday."
"I can't see why she would have been," Gilda agreed. "I can enquire."
"Do that, please. What's next?"
"Let's see," Gilda continued. "The offending bunkers have been cleared out, that operation is complete. They're dismantling the jury rigs today. The galleys have taken possession of the rock lobsters-"
"Wait, what? They took what?"
"Rock lobsters, ma'am. Apparently they go well with butter and garlic."
"What does shellfish have to do with my coal bunkers?"
"The perros found a significant rock lobster infestation in bunker number five, the other load of magical coal we inherited from the previous version of this ship."
"Rock. Lobsters. Literal crayfish made of stone?"
"No, ma'am. I asked. Apparently they just favor magic rocks. Such as what was hiding in our bunkers. There was apparently quite a scene when the perros found the nest. The lobsters had eaten half of the contents of bunker number five, we would have had issues fairly soon even if we hadn't broken down. The lobsters were eating our fuel at a prodigious rate."
"I thought we wouldn't have issues with rats because of all of you griffons on board."
"I take offense at that, Major, ma'am."
"I saw you eatin' a harbor rat yesterday!" Bell objected, smirking accusingly at Gilda.
"Just because a stereotype is completely true doesn't mean it isn't hurtful."
"...Y'all're having me on, ain't you?"
"Perhaps a bit. Ahem. The perros ate a number of the rock lobsters on the spot, raw. Apparently it's a tradition. But they left the cooks the rest. The galley promises to do better with the lobsters this time, than they did with that shark."
"Ah would hope so. Y'all excuse me from tryin' predator cuisine again just yet."
"Yes'm Captain Bell," Gilda said, smugly. "More for us. Moving on… they should be finishing the loading of the replacement anthracite by tonight. They're topping us up, as well."
"That should give us a cruising range of…" Gleaming Shield said, thinking.
"We could fly directly to the Great Nest and back to most of the Equestrian bases in the Inland Sea without refueling, now. We technically don't need to stop in Well Burn."
"Ain't they expecting us on Celentine?" objected Big Bell.
"Technically," Gilda conceded. "I believe we can leave a note here for the next packet ship. The governor-general has his own infestation up at the fort, they want us to transport some excess diplomats to Roam if we can."
"We're not a cruise ship," Gleaming Shield said with a frown.
"Unfortunately, you did have the shipwrights put in those extra staterooms, ma'am. We have the capacity, and we're going in the right direction."
"I'm never getting to see the Kokonipolis, am I?"
"Not on this trip, ma'am."
"Well, Roam. That's even better, isn't it?" Bell said, looking interested. "Ah never thought ah'd get to see Roam."
"I've read that the ruins were mostly cannibalized. They tore down most of the Great Circus to rebuild the walls during Bellicose Rose's wars against the Ostergriffs, as well as all of the Perrotine Hill temples."
"Yes, Gilda, I know, those were my books," Gleaming said suppressively.
"Not all of them. We did have books in Griffonstone."
"In vaults like Celestia's central reserve."
"Knowledge is precious, major, ma'am."
"We're gettin' off track," Bell objected. "Where were we at?"
"Hrm. Diplomats. Roam. Rock Lobsters. Trixie sick in med bay. Coal loading. New girl. Am I forgetting anything?"
"How would I know?" Gleaming asked, pettishly. "I just got off the sick list Tuesday. Where is Ping, he should be here."
"There's some sorta problem with the batponies," Bell said, looking at her papers.
"There's always something going on with them, isn't there? Where is Bob, for that matter?"
"Up here, ma'am!" the bat-colt squeaked from overhead. He'd been clinging to Gilda's cabin overhead, quietly waiting for his turn.
"Bob, what are you doing up there?" the unicorn demanded.
"Darning, ma'am!"
"Darning? Darning what?"
"Your socks, ma'am!"
"I don't have socks!" Gleaming objected, her neck craned upwards, staring at the batpony overhead.
"You do now!"
"Shouldn't that be knittin'?" asked Captain Bell.
"Was knitting. Then I bucked up. Trying to fix the mistake. That's why I'm darning it. Darn it!"
"Bob, what's going on with you bat-ponies?" Gleaming demanded of her dangling, darning valet.
"Oh, I don't know. Nopony ever tells me anything. Would you?"
"Of course not, how foolish of me." Gleaming Shield heaved herself out of Gilda's office chair. "Come on, Gilda, Bell, let's go look in on Trixie and Lyra. Think we'll need medical masks?"
"I doubt it, Major, ma'am," Gilda said, making room for the ponies. "Idiocy is catching, but I've never heard that it was airborne."
Fish Eye was slowly working her way through the platoon's laundry. You'd think it would be simple, but the ship was filthy with coal dust and assorted messes, and the ship's laundry was crowded with officers' servants, detailed troopers, and a few sailors here and there doing their own wash.
Ugh, could you possibly find a duller way to amuse your goddess, Eye? If I see one more thaumically doctored garment, I will… I do not know, perhaps call down a shore-scouring hurricanoe, to drown the red-tiled steeples of this benighted dogtown.
"Now Auntie, don't be in a pet. The seas have always been full of boredom and tedium, you must have found ways over the eons to endure a period of nothing exciting happening. Don't you have a shark somewhere you can watch eat a tuna, or maybe a school of squid you can play with? You don't have to hang out in my eyes while I clean the troopers' uniforms and unmentionables."
They are ponies. There is nothing they own that could possibly be unmentionable. Not clothing-wise, anyways. I swear, I have tried five times over the millennia to invent swimwear, and none of you mortals ever take me up on it.
"What, not even the other hippogriffs? If you like, I can try out this swimwear business, when I have time. And some spare thread and fabric."
Fish Eye pulled a load out of the specially-tuned industrial dryer (guaranteed to not denature thaumic cloth!) and waited for the goddess to volley back.
She was left waiting for a while, as she folded her pile of uniforms, and tagged each carefully for return to their respective owners.
"Auntie? Auntie? You still there?"
Yes, Eye, I am here.
"I've noticed that you've stopped talking about the other hippogriffs. Since you took my eyes."
Eye, I have not taken your eyes. Rather, you have given me your sight. Never say that they are not yours.
"Well, that's sweet, but that's not what I was talking about. You were saying some things about the folks back home, when we started, before we left Trottingham."
Yes, well, I was new-summoned and perhaps a scale irate, back in Albacore. I have had time to remember the rhythms of the world above wave and below moon.
"You're deflecting again, Auntie. Why aren't you back home, taking care of the others?"
What makes you think I am not with your kin even now, tending to my home waters as I should? I am a goddess, little fry. I contain multitudes.
"How can you get bored, if you contain multitudes?"
How many people, in a nation, are doing the exact same thing, at the same time, thinking the same thing, experiencing the same thing?
"I haven't the foggiest fog bank of an idea, Auntie. But you'd know, wouldn't you?"
Silence, tempered by the folding of magically infused, annoyingly glowing clothing. The new magic-sight made it hard to see mundane stains, but at least it was now easy to spot fraying enchantments, so there was that.
"Auntie? The others?"
My abyssal sanctuaries are not the joyous halls of song and delight they ought to be, Eye. Let us say… you are a welcome distraction.
"Auntie… what happened to them?"
I think I will not say. I would not infect you with their… my other children's…
"Auntie, you're scaring me."
I do not mean to, little fry. Be of good cheer. They are safe. They are sound. Well, they are intact.
More silence, and Fish Eye hugged her ensign's spare uniform, terrified by the goddess's uneasy pauses.
The seaponies are not good company these days. And the more time I spend with my reduced people, the smaller I become. I would not grow any smaller, Eye.
Fish Eye looked at her own shadow against the laundry bulkhead, and watched the halo of green-black not-light flicker around the shadow her head cast on the studded ironwood, and worried.
The platoon berths were empty of waking bat-ponies. Over a dozen hammocks were full of sleeping thestrals, and Fish Eye tried to not let her talons click or her hooves clop as she walked down the aisles, returning uniforms to chests and shelves as she went.
All of the sleeping batponies were mares, and that was strange. The rest of the platoon was out on patrol, she thought. Fish Eye had barely seen her ensign since getting out of the infirmary. Her ensign looked different now that Fish had the goddess in her eyes. All of the batponies had a bit of darkness to their auras, but Fruits Basket and some of the other mares had it deeper and richer than the rest. A darkness so deep and rich it was almost purple, and sometimes they pulsed slightly, like a beating heart.
Those thestral mares looked more like unicorns than pegasi to her new sight, and Fish was starting to wonder if thestrals were actually pegasi at all.
The mares sleeping the day away in their hammocks were mostly - one, two, three, four - no, actually, they were entirely from that cadre of unicorn-aura'd batponies.
Fish wanted to talk to her goddess, ask her some questions… but she hadn't figured out how to talk with her Auntie without speaking out loud.
Not yet, anyways. It was making her something of a spectacle among the crew and the squadron. Nopony had approached her yet, but she'd seen griffons and ponies making superstitious gestures at her when they thought she wasn't looking.
Her peripheral vision had always been excellent, and the blessing had only sharpened it.
Anyways, Fish didn't want to wake the troopers. That would be bad.
She went back up front to the duty station, and looked at the assignment log. The other troopers and the ensign were out in the city and on the port approaches, detailed out to the fort's security screen. But… the sleeping mares in the hammocks were marked down ‘internal security NP'. She thought she'd seen that before, but never really remarked upon it, since Fish was a bat-mare, not an officer or command NCO.
But that was a lot more ponies on ‘internal security NP' than she'd ever seen before. Almost nopony was off duty according to the duty roster.
What was going on?
Gleaming is back in the chair (literally and figuratively) and ready to command. Or at least stear this insane asylum in the general direction they wanna go.
Good on the fuel situation, not having to worry about reloading mid mission is a relief. Those new engines are really performants, when they don't blow up, the griffs back home will be pleased with the performance review. But maybe they could add a misting system for the dust like Reina suggested and pass on the idea bath to the shipyards in the Trottingham.
And they had a rock lobster problem too?! Man they were all kind of lucky to stop there... but at least with so many griffons on board, there are absolutely no rats problems on this ship... as long as there is a last tomato sause bottle...
And it looks like Twilight will have to play host to some dignitaries! That the place they are at want to get rid off... is... there trouble brewing in this country and the reason Mindy wanted Reina gone was for her to escape the upcoming conflict? Anyway, Roan? Nice place to visit.
And I like that you are hinting are the trouble back in hippogriffs country. It set up future stories for the Storm King and maybe a future mission in these waters for the Crystal Guards. I think maybe Celestia would appreciate if she send someone to investigate or help a friendly nation in trouble.
Comedy gold.
Bob knitting socks for the captain while hanging upside down. Love it.
Tantilizing. I do wonder at a shore-scouring hurricanoe. I suspect you meant hurricane, but if not, the mind boggles at what the goddess may have up her emphemeral sleeves.
Fish Eye is onto something big, and I don't think Ping will appreciate it. Question is, who will she tell of it first?
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Oblique King Rear reference by Auntie A:
Strange fact: every version of Equestria in every universe has produced a Shakes Spear, or some equivalent. There is a theory among multiverse scholars that the Barded Poet is some sort of product of an ideal form, a projection of a Splayed Toe 'perfect solid' of stagecraft or something like it.
Shake Spear's cutie mark is always thought to be a spear. But. Is always really a pen nib on a long line.
Nobody thought to mention THE GODDESS POSSESSED HIPPOGRIFF to Gleaming Shield? O.o
Just wait until they invent AM airwaves.
Relatable
Oh no, Ping's spoopy taste for the panoply of modern bureaucracy is spreading!
It is somewhat inane that the Night Shift can't report "We evicted a thing from Trixie's" soul. Although I wonder if a backchannel might form between Gilda and Ping on Night Shift stuff.
Of course Of course there are pest animals that eat coal. There are rock farmers, after all. Rock is part of the ecosystem. Eheheheheh. So, it seems like some level of rockhopper ought to be a standardized position on ships? Like maybe at minimum the engineer should have some rockhopping chops. In fact, I don't think they have an engineer...
Ah, they're making do.
Forty cakes. No, but seriously, why does trooper Bob suddenly think Gleaming needs socks. Like, I understand that Twilight and damaged socks are, like, a thing. But even if it's a reference, it's also a plot point, probably. Maybe related to the problem with the batponies.
Hah! I thought she might be more hat than cattle. She's worried. Looking for a new way. Also, Fish Eye is a treat.
Is the "something wrong with the batponies" just last chapter's exorcism from the dayponies' point of view?
Yeah, see, I knew there would be waking realm-level consequences from the...activities...from yesterday night in the dream realm. Hopefully nothing critical, though. Still...the likes of Ping had best watch their step, because sooner or later the higher ups are going to notice a pattern--Ping himself is already suspected to be up to more than he's let on thanks to the matron incident back before they started their journey.
Nice implementation of actual Roman history there.
Judging from comments he made in the previous chapter, probably either sleeping in late due to the night's activities, or going about swamped with other duties, grumbling about how he'd like to be sleeping in right now.
Also, feels like there ought to be a question mark somewhere in that sentence. I know it's supposed to be a hybridizing of a question and a statement in one, but perhaps predictably, it just looks grammatically awkward without that question mark.
Yeah, but there are times when I just gotta wonder, Gilda...
Well, when you really think about it though, no type of swimwear is ever really going to top full-on nude, both in terms of visual appeal and practicality. And since ponies are already quite good at rocking the nude look...
See, I knew Fish Eye would find all of the utterly mundane uses for that magic-sight.
Not enjoying their supposed "exile" and/or days in hiding, by the sounds of it, and was that a implication towards their population overall slowly declining I spy there?
Yeah, I was afraid of that, and it doesn't help she already had a reputation among the guard as a dim bulb, so this is definitely not helping.
So yeah, thanks again for that Amphitrite.
...and back to the issue of those of the waking realm starting to catch onto the bat pony activities. Honestly I would've pegged Gilda as the first to start putting two with two, but then Fish Eye does have certain unfair advantages now.
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I mean, it is Twilight after all, regardless of the name change she insists upon currently--she's never really been one for superstition, and Fish Eye's case is basically all the superstition poured into one great big bucket at the moment.
Well, that's foreboding ....
Appropriate to have the rock lobsters and laundry in the same chapter. Not only are they at the beach, but we can see that everypony has matching towels.
And the seaponies... Reduction can take many forms. The sanctuaries explicitly being abyssal makes me think we're getting a bad case of subaquatic Morlocks. Seaponies are known to be mutation-prone.
Meanwhile, Fish Eye is noticing the details of the ship's more esoteric security force, while Gleaming has to deal with what said force let slip through the cracks.
Captain'sMajor's back on deck. Time to crack some skulls.Did Gilda just invent the swivel chair?
*spin spin spinning spin*
10400721 Many LESSER gods need their 'children' to retain power, others need the adoration of worshippers.
TRUE gods (like me) need NOTHING from mortals! You are our PLAYTHINGS at best! We can scatter you and crush your puny planets at any time! One little kick at your orbital momentum and BOOM! Straight into the Sun or tossed to the frigid depths of space!
That's all your lot amounts to! HARUMPH!!! (Alondro is kinda like Angry Old Testament God, but much meaner)
The scary part is that it would have been logical.
Nothing suspicious is going on just honest, hard working soldiers doing honest hard work.
Gleaming and Gilda are getting suspicious about all these sick ponies. Ping is really not having a good trip.
Auntie A starting to mellow out a bit, seems that while the hippocampi are safe. They arent very happy or fun to be around.
And Bob is being Bob. Yes Gleaming, you need socks. All ponies need socks!