The Princess's Bit

by Mitch H


You Cannot Knit Time, Without Darning Eternity

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?