//------------------------------// // Martial Mare Matrimony on the Maria // Story: Bomblets // by Carabas //------------------------------// “Rarity, of all the possible times —” “We are well past most possible times, Twilight! Events have obstructed us at every turn for weeks now, but no more, I say! I insist that you marry me, here and now!” Rarity would have kept talking, had she not been obliged to turn around and shoot a kelpie between the eyes. “But priorities!” Most of the conversation was shouted, due to the ongoing kerfuffle on all sides as their ship was attacked. A mob of kelpie pirates had arisen out of the salty depths astride a tamed kraken, and were in the process of ruining what had been a lovely sunny day with plans for a wedding in the afternoon. Sailors yelled, steel screamed, tentacles whipped hither and thither, flintlock pistols fired every which way. “Priorities other than marrying the mare who owns my heart and love wholesale, at long, long last?” said Rarity scornfully, her magic reloading her brace of flintlocks. She stepped to one side to avoid a scrum of violence that rolled across the deck. Pinkie bounced atop it, shouting ‘Whee!’ as she went. “I wasn’t aware they so much as existed.” “There’s a few, believe me!” “Well, I refuse to let us be sidelined by peripheral trivia, darling!” Rarity floated up her pistols and discharged them to either side, was rewarded with a brace of pained squawks, and lobbed the pistols themselves the same ways to be rewarded with yet more squawks. A boom rang out from the bow and a cutlass clattered across the deck in front of her, along with disassociated bits of kelpie. Rarity smoothly scooped it up. “Do you not remember how delayed this day has been?” “Yes, Rarity, I was there for all the delays too! But —” Twilight broke off as she flapped out of the way of the seething magics of the kelpie warlock-captain, and snapped off a crackling purple bolt his way. It was all the opening Rarity needed. “A lovely little ceremony in the Orkneigh Islands, arranged months in advance! And no sooner do we get there, then the Earless of the Nuckelavees launches her invasion! And what with all that to-do, and having to rush out and head over to the Gallopagos to remonstrate with Discord after he stole all the tortoises there, and then that storm on one of the few calm stretches of open water we had, and now this … I have had enough! I won’t have us delay so much as a minute longer — Unhoof me, you villain! En-garde!” “Glark!” protested the accosting kelpie, falling back with Rarity’s cutlass in his spleen. Rarity turned back on Twilight, breathing heavily. With a great effort, she seemed to force herself steady, and her expression and tone softened. “And every time I look at you, Twilight, I only want the occasion to come all the faster. For us to become one another’s, utterly, for all the world to witness.” Her voice hitched a bit. “Every time, I say.” Twilight flapped in mid-air for a moment. Something — possibly the mizzenmast, or some breed of mast at any rate — detonated overhead. The alicorn’s eyes welled up, and then she croaked, “Yes.” Rarity gasped, and she trembled out, “You … you mean you will —” “Yes! Yes, Rarity, I’ll marry you right here, right now! Hang the sea-battle!” Twilight alighted on the deck in an instant, wrapping one foreleg around Rarity’s wither. “Here, now, forever.” Rarity squealed with eardrum-piercing joy, and wheeled around to where a full-blown cluster-rut dominated proceedings on the deck. “Ooh, we need our best mares! And the captain to officiate! Where’s Fluttershy? Where’s our ship’s captain?” “Last I saw from up there, the former was trying to convince the kraken to regurgitate the latter,” Twilight replied. “They might be busy for a while.” “Oh, peeve.” Rarity looked from side to side. “We’ll have to make do with a volunteer officiator. Applejack!” She craned her head up, eyeing the spot where a doughty farmpony was jumping on the heads of four kelpies at once. “A marriage is happening! Would you do us the honour of —?” “Mite busy here, Rares!” “But Applejack, darling dearest, you —” “Rares, recognise a fruitless prospect when it’s yellin’ at you!” “Fine! But if I had a bouquet to throw, rest assured, I would not aim so as to favour you catching it!” Rarity huffed and cast her eyes skywards. “Rainbow Dash? Could I oblige you to — what on earth are you doing?” “Gathering stormclouds!” whooped the pegasus, and kicked a lightning bolt out of one so as to electrocute a kelpie who’d been brandishing their cutlass unwisely high. “Almost done!” “Gatheri — no! You’re not going to whip up a rainstorm on our wedding day! Put them away!” “But … but I was going to whip up a maelstrom for us to have the battle in, and it’s going to be so awesome —” “Clouds away, please!” There came a disgruntled noise from Rainbow, and she begrudgingly shoved away the first of many accumulated stormclouds. As Rarity hopped on the spot with aggravation, Twilight cast her own gaze about until she found the last likely pony. “Pinkie?” “Avast! Or yarr, even?” The perky pink party pony, evidently done with the earlier scrum of violence, popped her head up from where she’d been loading a carronade with mounds of stale buns, smiling brightly. “Now, ah, Pinkie, we appreciate this might seem like an awkward time, but we need you to, er, officiate our wedding.” Pinkie frowned. “Don’t you need the captain for that? Didn’t he get, like, scooped up by tentacles and get dropped into a hideous cephalopodic maw —” “Fluttershy’s working on that! But until then, as a Princess of Equestria, I appoint you captain of this vessel, and ask without much optimism that this authority doesn’t get abused.” “Oh, neat! Okay then!” Several more kelpies clambered up over the railing by her side, and Pinkie hefted her carronade and barrelled round only briefly to blast them back into the brine with bakery before turning back to Twilight and Rarity. “Now, or ...?” “Now, please!” Twilight and Rarity clutched each other close. “Alrighty!” Pinkie dropped the carronade and perched herself atop it, clearing her throat. “Dearly beloved and recent acquaintances alike, we are gathered here today to celebrate the joining in matrimony of these two mares, and/or to reave and plunder! If the latter, not naming names, but rude. Two mares in question! Please face one another!” Twilight and Rarity turned to face each other. “Ahem.” Pinkie pointed at Rarity. “Do you, Rarity, pledge to take this mare, Twilight Sparkle, in sickness and in health, to share her burdens in her office and to share her joy in her accomplishments, from now till time’s ending?” Rarity’s eyes met clear and shining violet. “I do.” “And you, Twilight Sparkle —” From one side, there came a splashing noise and a hideous roar. “Oh, hey, they’ve brought up a second kraken. Never mind that, though. Do you pledge to take this mare, Rarity, in sickness and in health, to support her in her endeavours and art and to be a wither to support her whenever she should need it, from now till time’s ending?” Twilight stared into brilliant, glittering blue. “I do.” “In which case ...” Pinkie drew in one last breath, while Twilight and Rarity held theirs. From one side, there came Rainbow Dash’s warcries mixed with the roar of lightning bolts lashing down into a surfacing kraken. Screams and shots and striking steel rang out from every direction, building to a thundering crescendo. “...The brides may kiss!” And they kissed.