"Ping! I need you to check against the budgetary files, I have a sheath of signed vouchers that- Ping?"
Gilda looked around the squadron office, which was neat as a pin, as always, but was notably lacking the usual Ping.
Then a batty head popped up from underneath Ping's desk.
"Hi, Sarge, what can I get you?" the bat stallion asked.
The wrong bat stallion.
"Bob! What were you doing under Ping's desk?"
"Looking for a pencil I dropped?"
"Are you telling me, or asking me, Bob?"
"Uh… telling. I think?"
"Bob, why aren't you in the major's quarters, doing… whatever it is you do when you're not doing your job like you should be doing?"
Bob tilted his head to one side. "Why would I be in the major's quarters if I wasn't doing my job?"
"Why are you here in the squadron offices?"
"Oh, that one I can answer. I'm covering for Ping."
"You are? Why?"
"He's away from his desk?"
"Yes, I can see that. Why are you the one covering for him?"
"He asked me?"
Gilda threw up her talons. "Fine! I don't care! Do you know where the budget paperwork is filed?"
"Another one I can answer! No, I do not."
"Gah! Here, make sure Ping sees these, when he gets back."
"Yes, master sergeant!"
Gilda left Bob in the squadron office, and hurried off to deal with her next problem.
Trixie looked over the job her gunners had done. The swivel guns gleamed like silver bullion in their cases, each latched securely against the shocks and disruptions of shipboard stowage.
Say what you would about Trixie's evil alter-ego, she'd put the fear of Blessed Bob Tail into the troops. Although, admittedly, they'd not actually discharged any of the weapons, so the cleaning had been more performative than strictly necessary.
But still, the gleam of gun-oil well-polished always set Trixie's heart aflutter. A clean gun was one that hadn't recently been used to…
Trixie turned her head away from the implements of mass murder and stared at the bulkhead until the moment was past.
She'd mostly gotten her breathing back under control when Short Fuse returned with the last of the swivel guns they were putting away, and as Trixie talked her new ensign through the procedure one more time, her voice didn't hitch even once.
It was going to be a good day.
As long as daylight lasted.
Trixie shook herself, and returned to her harangue of the red-faced ensign.
"Ping! I have these inventory lists and bills of lading that I need fil- you're not Ping."
"No, sir, I'm not. Quartermaster Strings, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. You're… Weave something?"
"Bob, sir."
"I'm not a sir, I work for a living."
"You're not a sergeant, either, sir, so you don't get to use that line. And you're sort of like an officer. Just one without a commission."
"Whatever. Where's Ping?"
"Out of the office, sir."
"Since when did Ping have an assistant?"
"He doesn't have an assistant."
"Then what are you doing in here?"
"Covering for him."
"Isn't that what assistants do?"
"I don't know!"
"What do you know?"
"I'm supposed to file anything you give me in the 'In' box."
"It isn't going to get lost, is it?"
"Has Corporal Ping ever lost paperwork?"
"When I ask him to lose paperwork, yes, he has."
"Oh. Uh." The thoroughly average looking bat pony looked pensive, and then looked up at Purse. "Do you want this lost?"
"No, file it properly."
"OK, Mr. Strings. I will. Do you need anything else?"
"No. Uh. Carry on, I guess?"
"OK!"
Giles watched one of the other lances launch from the griffon's nest, and leaned against the gunwale. The whole ship was bustling as the sailors ran about casting off lines and tying down loose gear all over the place. Giles' own lance wasn't up in the rotation for another four hours - eight bells, the sailors insisted on calling it.
The big bird, which rumor said was the same critter as the missing Lady George's roc, squatted behind Giles in the middle of the main deck, looking for all the world like a queen sitting placidly on her throne at the fore of some ancient royal court.
Giles was doing his best not to stare at the big bird. For some reason, it felt rude. Even though her appearance was impossible to ignore, impossible to not look at.
Giles had hunted with Lady George and her roc. Had fought with them, in a manner of speaking.
Except they had never existed? If what the magus had explained to him was true. That there had never been a Lady George. Just the roc. The roc and some cursed artifact that the officers had been… not keeping secret, but not bothering to explain, either.
Giles looked up at the enormous, royal-looking bird with the savage-looking crown, a crown that seemed to stare at him with its one, milky, cyclopean eye.
The royal bird was chatting with the magus and her new apprentice, the odd little perro they'd picked up in Barkalona.
What even was going on anymore? Giles was so confused.
"Bob! You're still here?"
"Yes, sergeant! You just missed Ping!"
"Really? Which way did he go?"
"Uh, out of the hatch? He didn't say where he was going."
"Did he say what he was doing?"
"Not to me, master sergeant!"
"Don't you have some valeting to be doing? Who's keeping the Major's kit straight?"
"You used to do that job, master sergeant! She mostly keeps her own kit, you know that!"
"Are you saying I was essentially useless?"
"Of course not, master sergeant! That would mean that I, also, am essentially useless!"
"Can't argue with logic like that. Tell Ping I was looking for him, won't you? Again."
"Yes, master sergeant!"
The Princess's Bit was leaving Roam, and Lyra hadn't had a chance to go play tourist. The puzzle of Trixie's noggin, and the challenge of straightening out the education of a type of larval magus that Lyra had never even gotten the most rudimentary of instruction about, had thoroughly distracted her.
And now here was a brand new puzzle! Lady George had returned with that strange pink hippogriff, with a new, less cursed crown in the place of the old, seriously cursed one.
Or possibly just differently cursed, Lyra wasn't exactly sure yet. Lady George kept moving her head around, restlessly moving and darting glances here and there and the other place, watching anxiously as the many sailors and troopers of the travelling circus which was the Princess's Bit rushed about and around them, sitting like weathered stone statues in the eye of a hurricane.
"One more time, your excellency, you say it's-"
"Divine, yes, magus. Why do you insist I keep repeating this?"
"Because divinity isn't an acceptable explanation among my peers. I need details, better descriptions, clearer ones. For one thing, this ghost inhabiting your new artifact-"
"The sea-goddess Amphitrite, my new patroness, yes."
"OK, I can write this down, anthropologically. I mean, my dissertation committee keeps yelling at me that doing that is also unacceptable, and that it isn't scientific or proper. But it's at least a framework…"
"So glad that I can conform to your tribal superstitions, Magus Heartstrings."
"Hey! I'm supposed to be the funny one here! Stop being better at it than I am!"
"If you insist, magus. Ah, Ship's Master Tailwind, thank you for coming."
The sallow pegasus had snuck up on Lyra while she'd been arguing with the turul princess. "H-hello, ma'am. Uh, they say you were-"
"Always was Lady George, yes. Hello, Ship's Master. Nice to finally meet you, in the flesh as it were."
"Yes'm! Uh, sorry about the crack two weeks ago about fat, stupid cows of the skies…"
"Ship's Master, I entirely understand, I am quite big and often in the way. But I thank you for your care until now. Have you the course I described to your helmsmare?"
"Yes'm! But… I don't understand. Turul country is due east of us, not on the northerly line you have us taking."
"Technically, it's more north of east than true east from Roam, but at this distance, that's close enough. We have a long wind from here, Ship's Master, and there are other things we must do, before leaving Bitaly."
"What things, princess?" Lyra interrupted. "This is the first I've heard of such a thing."
"Mestre, you've been inside our room for three days," whispered Lyra's pest of a roommate and sort-of-student. "The sun-dogs coulda pulled down the sun and eaten her, you'd be none cap més savi, yeah?"
Lyra turned her head a bit and whispered back, "Put a cork in it, Queenie. Mama's working.
Lyra turned back to the others, saying, "Right, I was interrupting you, sorry. What was I saying?"
Lady George looked down at her with one eyebrow quirked. "Things I must do before leaving Bitaly. And I don't see what business it is of yours, magus."
"Aw, come on. I came all this way to study you, princess!"
"I thought you were sent to help me."
"Little of column a, little of column b. What's changed?"
"My curse is lifted."
"Yeah, everypony noticed! What's that got to do with the price of Marezonian cherries?"
"I've been told - look, magus, I just have a… call it a hint from somebird that gets premonitions. I have subjects who need my help."
Lyra squinted at the turul's new artifact. "Is that what the thing does? Your new hat tells you where other turuls are?"
"In a roundabout way of speaking, sort of, yes. Ship's Master, can you get us to those coordinates?"
"Six and a half miles north-east of Bulldogna?" asked the ship's master. "Yeah, no sweat. We'll be there before you can sing all five verses of 'Land I Love' falsetto!"
Lyra frowned. "Wait, weren't there just four verses?"
"Ha, if you're a landlubbing pansy, there are!" laughed the yellow pegasus as she trotted back towards the aftercastle.
"Wait, what?"
"You again."
"Me again, master sergeant!"
"I don't believe you, Bob."
"Believe me about what, master sergeant?"
"I don't believe you're covering for Ping. Where have you hidden him?"
"Me! You think I could hide the P- the squadron clerk?"
"Bob, it wasn't that long ago that you were in chains below the old fortress in Trottingham, accused of treason."
"I wasn't ever actually charged!"
"Bob, I moved winds and sea to get you out of stir. Why would you lie to me like this?"
"Master sergeant, I have the greatest respect for you, and I haven't told a single lie!"
"You can't pull that one on me, Bob. I invented the falsehood told entirely with meaningless facts! Just tell me where Ping is!"
"Have you tried the engine rooms?"
"Yes!"
"Armory?"
"Yes!"
"Number one and number two forward holds?"
"We pulled those out for the launch bays!"
"We did?"
"You didn't, you're just a trooper, but yes."
"Huh! I didn't know that!"
"You've been through those on inspection! I was with you and the major!"
"Oh, is that what those were? Huh. Was Ping in either of the launch bays?"
"No! Wait, I only checked the port bays."
"Maybe he's in the starboard bays, then!"
Gilda left the squadron office, cursing.
Ping rested in his darkness, a compress over his worthless eyes, his ears straining for every scratch, every bump, every change in the Bit's engines as the ship moved through the… well, Ping wasn't sure anymore whether it was day or night.
He supposed it was all night, now. His blindness had transitioned from lack of seeing in the dark and the night, into lack of sight in the day, now.
Ironic, wasn't it? He had always been so ambiguous about the doctrine of the End of Days, and now, he was looking forward to a personal night of darkness that promised to last forever.
Or, at least, the rest of his nights. No day for him, no light, no understanding…
"-I was saying, ensign ma'am, that you didn't have to - oh, OK. Just don't tug! I'm coming."
There she was. Ping had asked for the hippogriff. Asked for the source of his torment.
"Is that you, Fruits Basket?" Ping asked the darkness.
"Yes, Corporal."
"Have you brought your valet?"
"Yes, Corporal."
"I can't see her, bring her to me." Ping groped with his wing, trying to find the - there it was, the hippogriff's muzzle - no, her beak. "I never really thought about your face, when I could see it, lance corporal."
"What happened?" she asked with that flighty, innocent voice. "Auntie was supposed to-"
"Yes. Your aunt," Ping… said. "You're here to explain your aunt to me. How is it, Fruits Basket, that you harbored this diabolist in our midst for weeks, without ever reporting it to m- to the council?"
"Pu- Corporal Ping! I had no reason to think that-"
"Have we ever asked you to think, Shi- Ensign Basket? Or to-"
"Thinking is why we have officers, Corporal Ping," interrupted the pink menace. "You can't ask an ensign to stop thinking, that's Corporals 101. Sergeant said."
"Be silent, Lance Corporal!" Ping barked. "You are a prisoner."
"Am I?" she asked - was she asking Ping?
"Yes, you are, Fish," the shieldmaiden said, in her own patch of darkness. "That's why we have you in restraints."
"Oh, OK, I thought this was some new game."
"Is that what this is to you?" Ping demanded. "A game? You brought this monstrosity, this evil into my camp, and you call it play?"
"No, Corporal Ping," she said. "I wasn't playing anything with you."
"You dare to claim-"
"I hardly thought about you at all, Corporal. I'm sorry, maybe I shoulda paid more attention to you. He really can't see?" she asked, suddenly, interrupting herself.
"Since two days ago, yes."
Three, actually…
"Damnit, Auntie. I asked you to help, not to do… did I do this?"
"THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO-" Ping's wrath seized him, and his words were swallowed in a coughing fit. He could feel the webby comfort of his shieldmaiden's wings, holding him up as the phlegm worked its way out of his throat. "You had me play in that mummer's farce. It must have been when the demon slid through our defenses."
"She did not!" the prisoner objected from the depths of Ping's darkness. Ping peered in the direction from which the objection had come. "Auntie has only ever tried to help us! She's always been concerned about Lady George, and the turul problems, and the ship, and the ponies, and- and- a thousand other things! Corporal, I know you're hurting, but Auntie Amphitrite isn't your enemy! The only reason she would have come to you was that I was worried about- well, not you personally, I didn't realize it was you, personally, but I knew there was something off about you bats. And I was worried about you all! I just asked her to help!"
"Your help has stolen my gifts, hippogriff, and broken our defenses, left us all exposed to the shadows that lurk in the night!"
"We only wanted to help the turul-"
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR MEANINGLESS DAYLIGHT PIFFLE! None of it matters! Your imaginary turuls, the griffons, the Roamans, the dayponies - only the night matters! And you have brought a demon into my night! Take her away, Basket!"
"Yes, Lord Pumpernickel!"
Ping was too tired to bother with correcting the shieldmaiden's lapse of operational security. He was so tired…
"Take him, Gwaine."
"Master sergeant! Wait, you don't have to-"
"Bob, I'm putting you under arrest, on suspicion of having foalnapped Corporal Two Pings. Gwaine, Grant, take him down to the brig. I'll be by in a minute to begin interrogations. Ensign Sunburst, can you make sense of this mess?"
The orange unicorn looked around the no-longer-neat-as-a-pin office. "He's been missing for only two days? It got this bad in two days?"
"This is your introduction to the font of chaos which is Trooper - wait, we made him Lance Corporal Bob, didn't we? Damnit, Gleaming…"
The unicorn ensign stared at Gilda, patiently.
"Right, sorry. I only noticed Ping was missing two days ago. I haven't seen him in… I don't know how long. I'll have to check my log. We need to figure out if he's still on the ship, or if we somehow left him back in Roam. Look for evidence, while you're straightening out this mess. Can you do that, ensign?"
Sunburst looked around at the scattered piles of paper and the numerous half-opened filing cabinets.
"I guess I can? Yeah. I think I can…"
Gilda left the officer to clean up Bob's mess, and stomped off to interrogate her prisoner.
Again.