-One week later, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-
“Okay so if Nefer is a cabin boy, you’re the captain and that griffon Gene is the first mate… then what am I in this gaggle of weirdoes?” Sammy asked as she performed a fake form of slithering to come up me. I turned to her from tinkering with the clockwork pony head, one of which I was slowly prying apart to find out what went into it. “I would also like to know where we are even currently going right now, how are you keeping our supplies so fresh and what is up with all the fish jerky?”
“Well you did place a good shot on the mechanical menaces that chased me to the docks… I could try to teach you how to properly maintain a cannon if you want me to. You can even practice with this one.” I pulled my modified Party cannon out from behind me back. “As for…”
“Where did you pull that from, it’s too big to have been behind you all this time!” Oh right, Flotsam did kind of have a point that I never told Nefer or her about this.
It was always so simple that I could just pull my cannon out at any time or that I even had a special cannon always at the ready. I couldn’t do it with a normal cannon, only the party cannon had that kind of functionality.
“It’s a party cannon, one that I’ve modified to be more viable in a fight.” I received an incredulous glance from the sea pony, it wasn’t powerful and I didn’t exactly keep it loaded. It wouldn’t have destroyed the killer boulder, one that had survived several point blank dynamite explosions without so much as a single chip coming off of it. “Pulling one out of nowhere is really quite easy, though the mechanics to explain how it works always escape me and anyone else who uses one of these things.”
“Okay, ignoring the fact that you’ve always somehow have a cannon on you at all times that’s apparently not taking up space and is also weightless until pulled out... I might take you up on the offer of learning to be a gunner. Though I would like to know any other open positions and why this ship would need five crew members when four seems to be working well enough.” Sammy was rubbing her forehead with a flipper hoof looking mildly aggravated with the idea that I could pull my party cannon out of nowhere and that it was always on me. “First, I want to know about my other questions.”
“In order, we’re heading towards some place that is just labeled ‘The Garden’. We’re looking for the object the map says is there. As for how we’re keeping our supplies fresh and the fish jerky? A simple answer would be my mother Kuril La Perm is responsible for both of those things.” I still had that large sack from when we used to dump all that illusion dust over Canterlot during the gold ship caper, it is quite useful for storing perishables. Most bags, pouches and containers have the same or similar effect when sustained by magical alchemy, the self-sustaining effect meant that nothing could go bad in storage. “Our storage methods are capable of keeping most food from perishing indefinitely thanks to some preservative magic that my mom worked. She’s an Abyssinian witch that knows how cook and make strange potions. Speaking of, do you know how to cook?”
“No, but I understand the various methods of how to make potable water.” Eh, good enough for me Sammy. “Now what positions, aside from cabin boy, first mate and your given captaincy, are available that would be sorely needed?”
“Well I’m good at repairs, gunning, navigating, to be fair I know a little bit to cover all the positions on this ship personally. The problem is that I can’t be in more than one place at a time, someone who can cook might be eventually needed as I should never be allowed to do anything even remotely related to cooking. The galley is going entirely unused and we’re kind of coasting on the edible supplies that will never go bad, so that’s not much to worry about. More importantly we’re all also going to need to know first-aid if our fifth crew member isn’t a doctor.” Which reminds me that I shoulder offer her a pack to keep fruit rinds in. “I should give you a spare pack so you can load it with banana peels and other fruit rinds like apples. Same preservative effect on it or any other bag in the ship.”
“I actually like apple rinds, unless it’s one of those apple rinds with that horrible waxy taste.” You weren’t the only one Sam, even I gagged at waxy tasting apples. At least Sweet Apple Acres apples didn’t have that problem. “I’ll certainly take that pack you’re offering though.”
“Well you can wait here and let me get it for you.” I stopped tinkering around with the clockwork pony head and quickly put the various parts back in place. “I hope you can learn to open up to the idea that we can be friends eventually or at the very least learn that we can work together in an amiable manner unless you want us to drop you off somewhere?”
“No, for better or worse… I don’t really have any better places to be.” Sam ran her right hoof through her long fin styled hair looking dour and moody as she turned away from me. “Not many people want a useless sea pony that can’t even swim and my whitecap ability isn’t all that great either.”
“Eh, it could be worse, you could have been born a mer-mare and you could have given up on life by now before meeting me. That would have deprived me of getting to know someone incredibly like you.” The difference being, she wouldn’t have hooves to manipulate things with and mer-mare fins were much shorter. Mer-mares and sea ponies were incredibly similar with the minor differences, the easiest way to tell them apart was to see if they had hooves or not. “I’m going to say this right now, I don’t believe you are useless and you remind me of my sister Fizzle. She’s a unicorn with a badly broken horn and has problems controlling her magic, but she persevered and eventually started learning to do magic even when it hurts her at times. You’re just as unique and interesting despite your slightly bitter attitude at life constantly kicking you in the teeth. My sister Fizzle and I both know that feeling that you’re experiencing, like nothing can get any better. So never forget this, every person is special in their own way and that I want you to live!”
“What?” Flotsam didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her or she couldn’t grasp that I saw something special about her.
“I repeat that you, specifically, are not useless!” I yelled in her face while clenching my beak as I stared her straight in the eyes. “Nefer wants his big pretty sister, I want a friend who understands how miserable it is to be a blackcap that I can share that burden with and even Gene cares when he doesn’t look or act like it. Gene is just that ridiculously calm all the time.”
I stood up and grabbed the clockwork pony head to go put it up, I wanted to get Flotsam her pack and then I had some navigating to do. The first step I took on the stairs down to the deck, I tripped and fell painfully down them. I got up and smiled back at Flotsam, she looked a little concerned. Good, I wanted her to be concerned!
“Are you okay?” Flotsam asked dully, she’s seen me get hurt numerous times as I did so much work around the ship. She already knew the answer and was just asking to be polite.
“There’s a thing about me that you should learn how to do for yourself Sammy.” I might be covered in bandages and a walking pile of sores, might have even opened some of my wounds again in that fall and my shoulder was certainly bleeding again, but I wanted to inspire her to see how great she could be. Maybe she could learn how to sing, it sounded like she had a good voice for it. “You really need to learn how to always get back up and try not to let life get you down Sammy. Stick around long enough and you might even find yourself wanting to be a family with us.”
-Flotsam De Brie-
A family? I don’t exactly see it happening.
-A day later, Gene-
“Captain I don’t see any islands below and probably wouldn’t be able to in that storm. In fact, I doubt anything would survive under this kind of storm for long.” I turned to Jacky who was consulting the map with quite a bit of scrutiny as we stayed in place. “It doesn’t even seem to be moving.”
“We’re almost at the right coordinates and the storm we’re looking at does seems quite unnatural.” It was odd, overly so to the point that Jacky even noticed.
We had been sitting here for an hour and the localized storm in front of us hadn’t moved an inch. The coordinates for what was ahead of us were quite daunting, then I noticed Jacky beak turning into a smile and she turned to me.
“Gene, I need you to fly above the storm, do some scouting up there and tell me if you see anything interesting.” Throwing Jacky a salute, I spread my wings and launched myself from the deck to fly high above the storm.
I ascended until I saw a waterfall and a rainbow coming from the storm… that was even stranger than constantly going storm sitting in one place. The waterfall definitely was not part of the storm.
Flying higher still, I was expecting to see a place like Cloudsdale. Upon seeing what Jacky might have been thinking of, I blinked and then blinked again. I turned to fly back towards The Ardent Survivor and landed upon the deck to report my findings to Jacky.
Both Nefer and Flotsam were relaxing on deck staring at the terrible storm of destructive winds and lightning sitting a mile from us. When they saw me coming back, they got up and came over to us with curious glances.
“Captain Blackcap… if it was your intuition that we needed to go higher, then you are completely right!” I watched quietly as Jacky got behind the wheel and the airship started raising us up above the thick wall of clouds and the storm.
I turned around and everyone else got a look at what I saw as we passed by the rainbow and the waterfall.
“Whoa, that’s… amazing!” Nefer was spellbound as he looked at the large floating continent, at least I thought it was a continent. It was too big to simply be called an island.
“Do you suppose that the land stays afloat because of the storm going on beneath it?” Flotsam has been a bit less reclusive lately, I wonder what Jacky had said to Flotsam to make her slightly more talkative. She was almost always silent since we left Port Turtle Toga, now she was fascinated by what was in front of us. “I seriously doubt that even an entire city of pegasi could float a whole solid continent like this, it’s easier for them to build a city out of clouds.”
“I think that’s, ‘The Garden’, we’re currently looking for… looks more like a jungle to me.” It was in fact a jungle Jacky, and yet something looked off about it to me. “I’m going to fly us closer to look for a clearing to land in and maybe see what’s up with those funky trees.”
“Everyone prepare for landfall and we’ll all disembark to get a look around, we are to always stay in sight of one another and to not get separated. Do not get off the ship or wander off on your own, especially you Nefer!” That sounded like a good call Jacky, we didn’t know much about this place. “For now Nefer will check our supplies and see if we need to pick up any food or water while we’re here. Gene, you need to prepare the balloon for deflation. Flotsam watch the sky and ground for any signs of danger, I’m not lucky enough to believe our landing will go unnoticed or smoothly if anything intelligent lives here.”
“Will do, captain.” I went to go do as Jacky ordered as we came down towards the continent slowly.
-Flotsam-
I was staring at the strange plants and something seemed oddly familiar about them as we got closer.
Once we were near the clearing Jacky wanted to land in, I finally realized what I was looking at. I decided to speak up about what I was seeing.
“Jacky…” I was still a little pensive about drawing attention to myself, even if they were giving me full run of the ship and would have happily dropped me off anywhere I wanted to go or be.
“Yes, Flotsam, is there something we should know about?” She was actually paying attention to me and I carefully slithered along the deck towards her.
“You know those large tree like plants we’re seeing in the jungle?” Glancing beyond me, Jacky blinked several times. “It’s not a jungle, they’re flowers.”
Her eyes widened as the ship slowly lowered to the peaceful looking grassy knoll.
“Giant flowers?” Jacky finally stated as the ship came to rest on the ground. “What next, giant bees?”
A bee larger than a Manticore flew by and the noise of its wings tearing through the air could definitely be heard at this distance from anywhere on the ship. At least it could be heard until it landed on one of the large flowers. Looking around I spotted a giant orange mound with a beanstalk shaped green protrusion poking out of the top of it.
“Jacky… I think I know why the map calls this place ‘The Garden’. Port side giant carrot!” I pointed out as Jacky came down the stairs carefully. She stood next to me as she looked off to left side of the ship at what I was staring at.
“That… is a huge carrot.” Jacky muttered as she stared at it.
Looking slightly to the left I saw a large ant walk up to the carrot and started to pull a large boulder sized chunk off the giant vegetable and then carried it away.
“I heard about how Tatzlwurms can be found near giant flowers like this around Equestria…” It would only make sense, we were in a place that was like a garden of giants. Giant insects at the very least. “Do you suppose this is where all those huge flowers in Equestria come from?”
“Possibly.” Jacky stated as she looked around the ship and even below it. “Seems calm enough for now.”
“So what are we looking for here?” I’ve been meaning to ask about that, now that we were in a really dangerous place full of giant and scary bug monsters.
“A cursed object called ‘The Cape Of Ill Winds’, when activated it creates strong winds pointing towards the nearest threat.” Well that didn’t sound pleasant.