The Little Curiosities

by Comma Typer


Boldly Gone

The ship stares Cartie Graph in the face. The dock he stands on is a plank to glory or doom.

Sometimes, on the way here, he wondered if his peaceful station in life—or even his destiny, now that he has a cutie mark on his flank, proclaiming to the world his talent if he did not put on a pair of pants—would ever kill him. Compared to the safety of making maps on a commission to tabletop game enthusiasts, up-and-coming fantasy writers, and big-pocket antiquarians, this is fast becoming a death sentence.

Sometimes, on the way here, he wished he never took that online cartography course to boost his credentials. Now that they knew he had some real education and experience in real map-making, he was up for grabs by the highest bidder. The pay was quite good, and the waiver was humane or equine enough.

In his quest for more money and some additional stability in life, though, he forgot to check where exactly Sound Line’s End was. All he knew was that it was an ambiguously defined region at the edge of Equestria’s known world. His task there: chart the uncharted, know the unknown.

Having faced the unknown up close and personal, he wants to scream and gallop back home. However, that would mean going back on his word, and his employers expected him to understand the terms and conditions of his job before jumping in. Too bad: he thought he understood them while he skimmed the words. How high his confidence was. How far his stupid mouth got him into the abyss.

Cartie does not complain as he boards the ship—modern enough to have been a vessel from Earth. He hides a wince or two as the anchor is pulled up and the land begins to disappear into the horizon. One uneasy laugh is all he allows out of his mouth an hour later when he realizes he could no longer see even the faintest hints of land.

Three hours after leaving shore, conversation is had, and it is with the captain who is some surly and bulky hippogriff. “Sir Cartie! I apologize for not entertaining you any sooner! You seemed to be quite busy with your food and your notes—and when you weren’t busy, the crew’s always got something for me to check. See, these modern ships you’ve got are quite something!—running on this diesel substance I still can’t get a crack on. But, anyway, what’s got your goat?” He sits down by the pony’s side, resting his feathered shoulder on the table. “You don’t seem too happy about things. Something wrong? An ill omen from the sky? Bored that you haven’t seen any new continents or islands yet?”

The circumstances are loose enough that a second uneasy laugh is allowed passage. “No, it’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

On top of all this magic madness, my boss is an eagle-horse. A hawk-horse. A… bird-horse… that can turn into a seapony. And he’s riding a boat. “I’m just surprised. How far… it’s….”

“How far it’s what, my good sir?”

No energy to fake a good-natured laugh at him. The hippogriff is too sincere and too polite to offend without good reason. “Just… how far are we going, exactly?”

“I thought you read the terms of the job, mate!” The captain slaps him on his withers without a trace of ill will. “Looks like you’re so eager to map everything out, you leaped before you looked! I shall backtrack for your sake: we’re going off as far as is possible in two years. Either we discover new lands, or we reach the edge of the world. The rumors and legends imply nothing else!”

“Edge of the world?” he asks. “I thought this world was round!”

“So eager to join us, you didn’t even check basic information you may not deem necessary! Not even that new-fangled Internet thingy helped you, eh? See, sir, the world is flat. The princesses say so, and they’re the ones controlling the cosmos.”

Ah, yes: the flat world. I’d have been called a lunatic if I said that back on Earth. Not even then! Calling someone a lunatic might be blasphemy against Princess Luna too.

“Why not send satellites, captain? We’ve got some.”

The hippogriff pulls a hearty laugh at the suggestion. “Are you crazy? I may not know much about your satellites, but I’ve heard Princess Luna said no because they couldn’t orbit something that’s flat anyway! They’d just fall flat and crash onto the ground—plus, our cosmology is just not compatible with Earth satellites, I’m afraid. I’m sure she didn’t want to see billions of bits thrown down the drain.”

Cartie discovers that he is running out of options. Time to pull out the trump card—one that disappeared from his mental bag of marbles until it flew back in right now, hundreds of miles from terra firma: “We have drones! They could assist us, and—”

“You should’ve said it while you were still inside Equestria’s borders! Even then, didn’t they say the best drones last for just a day or two? That’s hardly helpful. Besides, we need all claws and hooves on deck. It’s a claws-on experience, you see, which is something those digital things can never substitute.”

The captain rubs Cartie’s mane as one would rub the head of his son—Cartie saw him do so to his actual son, a sailor on this ship. “I know it may take a while to get away from those phones or whatever they call it—or to get used to seeing no land, seeing you’re not a pegasus—but we’re good company! We’ll make the next two years the best two years of your life, you’ll see! Oh, and mapping the unknown, of course! What was it that the Element of Laughter said? ‘Time flies while you’re having fun’?”

Only then is the captain called out to another duty, leaving Cartie Graph on his own. He is surprised that the hippogriff left him a plate of fried hay and flowers without him noticing.

Before taking the well-needed bite, for he is hungry and scared and confused and also stressed, Cartie asks the only question he could ask when someone is at his wit’s end, jumps across it, and only begins to understand the consequences of his jump from halfway down:

“What did I get myself into?”