As Zecora and the prisoner wrestled on the ship deck, I felt the tinge of hairs standing on the back of my neck, telling me what the prisoner's intent was.
With a quick reach into the component pouch at my hip, I pulled the thorned stem of a rose out. With them rolling towards the edge of the deck. I called out the word "Rapto," as quietly as I could manage and cocked my hand back as if ready to crack a whip.
When they tumbled over the side, I flicked my wrist forward and released the spell I held. Failing to grasp the prisoner too, a magically manifested whip lassoed Zecora's barrel and pulled her back to the ship before she could fall overboard. In doing so, however, several painful gashes had formed on her body from the thorns innately on the whip that I just couldn't remove.
Without pausing to explain, I ran to the side of the ship, called out "Help!" to Archimedes to give initial aid to Zecora's wounds and dove into the ice cold northern waters after the prisoner.
Before I even hit the water, I was ready for the cold with a thick white fur coat of a polar bear.
With the innate swimming ability of the polar bear form I was borrowing matching my own, I was easily able to keep up with the human woman doing her best to try to swim away. I knew she was dangerous, however, and I needed to let her tire herself out. So I just kept my distance and followed.
Pretty soon, she had swam to a ridge of ice that had yet to melt in the early spring sun to get away. It was clear that by the time she had reached it, her strength was beginning to wane as the ice water was taking its toll on her far more than it was me.
That's when it got dangerous. Not dangerous so much for me, but for her. She tried to heave herself up on a ledge, but her hand hold broke, making her fall deeper into the ice water.
She found herself being dragged down by the undercurrent without the strength to keep from being pulled under the solid ice sheet she was attempting to clime on to.
She swam as best she could, but it was to no avail. her arms were barely making any headway against the current before I saw her finally collapse from the cold.
Knowing she was going to drown if I didn't act fast, I swam to her, closing the distance the current was pulling her in. As soon as I got to her, I turned her around to get a better angle and gripped the scruff of her armor in my fangs.
With all my borrowed strength, I pushed and pushed to get back to the bottom of the ice that was between us and escape from this cold, watery death.
Transforming back, I quickly shifted one arm to catch her and reached my other arm to the ice above us. With a quick motion of my hand opening from a tight fist to a loose open palm, the ice above us melted and I quickly swam up into it with her.
I gasped for breath from the surface, having no particular desire to breathe the icy water. Meanwhile, I found a grip on the edge of the opening.
I then loosed my grip on her just as I made a swooping motion with the hand that had released her. Like clockwork, instead of falling back under again, she was swooped up with the gush of water that I had motioned out of the hole.
Pulling myself out, I felt the air making the already icy water drenching me suck even more of the heat away from my now exposed form.
In response, I reached back into my component pouch and found my tiny leather baggy of fine sand. With a quick rubbing of the baggy and granules inside between my fingers and a call out of "excoquatur!" I targeted the water surrounding both of us, as well as hoping I could clear out the water in her lungs in the process too.
Instantly, the cold stopped biting at me and I saw an involuntary and brief gasp from her. When I didn't see any more breathing, I called out to Archimedes again, "Partner, help."
As the stamina came back into her from the spell, I could see her start breathing again.
That was good of course, but I had to contend with her suddenly waking up. She jumped at me and nearly stabbed through my scale mail. I could feel the tip of the shiv she had hidden poking through and giving a tickling prick to my skin.
In response, I pulled out the crystal I had confiscated from her partner and called out "Dormino..." with a twist of my wrist and a calm tone.
Instantly, she fell asleep and landed face first into the ice.
I raised my curled fingers in an aggressive form and called out "Uro!"
With a flame on the ice a few feet away from us, we finally started regaining some warmth. I then grabbed the rope in my pack and quickly got to binding the prisoner's arms. This time, though, instead of tying them up in front of her, like Plasma Wave did, I tied them behind her back.
With the ice melting, I let go of my spell and pulled the prisoner to a safer distance before she woke again. When she tried to kick me, I did another sleep spell and tied her feet up to her hands as well.
I wasn't able to carry her with my own normal arms, so I instead opted to just shift into a polar bear one last time, gripped her bindings in my fangs and meandered back to the row boat that had finally spotted me from the edge of the ice.
I set the prisoner in the boat, letting the guards secure her properly, then shifted back to my normal form.
Zecora, still clearly sore but managing, spoke to me.
"Lost I feared the two of you were, but returned you have, and with her!"
With a skeptical look, I gave a mocking huff, pressed my amulet and asked, "The great medicine mare and tracker, Zecora, wasn't able to keep her eagle eyes on me like she always does?"
She gave a blush and an embarrassed smile. "So my flaw you do now know. In the depths, it is hard to tell where you go."
As I climbed into the boat myself, I asked, "So, do you still think you have dinner in you, or do we need to break out more of what's left of the rations tonight?"
Zecora pulled a pouch from her pack and presented it. "The spell was completed when she first jumped me. Though getting used to these spells, I am, as you can see."
Reaching inside the bag, I grabbed two of the berries from inside. They were pretty generic, not too tasty but not bad either. Most importantly, however, they were filling. One berry could even feed the biggest members of the team for a full day.
"It's amazing, the spells from the Animus Mundi you've been teaching the servants to tap into, battle brother," Speaks with Talons called from the air, "It is a shame that you do not have the relationship needed to cast them yourself."
I turned up to him, then back to Zecora with both a slight scowl, and twitch of my cheek in reluctant acknowledgement. "It does take quite the tax out of any creature trying to cast them without spell slots. It's apparently hard to muster the energy like that without them, especially with healing magic. But I'll keep trying to mind my manners as long as she keeps her deal to help me understand how to cast like a servant. The Animus Mundi pumped another level up into me about three missions ago and I still can't understand what I'm missing."
Zecora shook her head as I popped a berry into my mouth. "You simply need to find what she means to you. My lessons are always the same, nothing new."
I felt the slight easing of my body's pain from the chill as I swallowed. Just as the ship started cranking the rowboat back aboard, I offered the prisoner the other berry.
She just spat at me and called out, my amulet translating the non Equestrian in a thick accent.
"To the deepest depths of Avernus with you, champion! Threaten me with torture or bribe me with luxuries, I will never talk!"
As we were being hoisted up, Tempest and Scraps peeked over the side and called out.
"Moss, there's been a development. We need to talk. It's about your continued participation volunteering in the roundup missions."