The little alicorn filly called Star Wing burst from the forest and took to the sky. Though the storm clouds ahead flickered with lightning, Star's electric green eyes challenged the storm with a piercing glare.
To Star Wing, the storm was nothing compared to what was behind her. Behind her was pain; behind her was hatred. Behind her was the shattered remains of a life she should have abandoned long ago.
Why didn't she abandon it earlier, one might ask? The simplest answer of all; love. Her mother, Princess Luna, had needed Star Wing. For though she controlled the moon and watched over the night, no pony recognized her for the wonderful mare Star Wing knew. The ponies would rather heap all their praise and adoration on Celestia, Luna's elder sister and the controller of the sun.
Star's eyes - slit pupiled like her thestral father - contracted in anger. She remembered how Celestia had let the ponies' admiration corrupt her. How she let the ponies neglect Luna... and abuse her. When they had demanded Star - at five months old - be thrown into a dungeon for crying too loudly, Celestia had accepted it without question. When they ordered the cooks to leave Star the barest scraps for nourishment, Celestia didn't bat an eye. And now, when Luna finally had enough, accepted the dark persona of Nightmare Moon, and straight up fought her sister in an effort to make her see her and her daughter as equals, Celestia merely banished her to the moon without a care in the world.
Oh, how the thought of Luna shifting into Nightmare Moon made Star's gut churn. She had done her best to comfort Luna; she had entertained the princess of the night with tales of great heroes; dreams of how she and Luna would one day become mighty saviors of Equestria. How every pony would bow and scrape and apologize for all the years of pain and hate.
But when Luna fell to darkness, and emerged as Nightmare Moon, the ponies gave Star her opportunity. "There's your chance to be a hero," they mocked. "Go fight Nightmare Moon! Go prove you're not like her."
But how could Star fight her own mother? The only one that had loved her? Even in her darkened form, Star had seen Nightmare's eyes widen in recognition. Saw her reach out for her. Heard her whisper, "My beloved Star?" in a pain-creased voice.
Star couldn't do it. She couldn't fight her mother. She couldn't destroy the one pony who had loved her. So Celestia did it for her. And the so-called nobles laughed.
"We knew it," they crowed. "We knew it! You're nothing but disgusting Moon Spawn. Like mother, like daughter. You deserve to die same as her."
Star knew full well they would kill her; there was no doubt Celestia wouldn't stop them. She never cared before; why should she now? Luckily, there were some that looked out for her. Flash Magnus, her father’s best friend and an Uncle to her, among them; he spirited her away, helped her flee into the forest after giving her a pair of saddlebags with her belongings which included a bunch for her favorite books and her dad’s High Royal Order Metal, one of the highest awards in Equestria. Flash had ensured her escape, were it not for the storm clouds ahead of her.
"So, come on, you miserable storm," Star dared the black clouds as they enveloped her. "You've already thrown everything you can at me. I've taken it before, and I'll take it now!" She threw her hooves out in challenge. "HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!"
The storm complied. A streak of lightning shot through the air, searing into Star's little body and hurling her from the sky. However, Star underestimated her young body's capabilities for flight; for instead of crashing into forests or land... she fell into the sea.
Freezing cold waves wrapped around her like a blanket, binding her in ice and pulling her down into a maw of black emptiness. Liquid pushed at her mouth, seeking to fill her lungs and drown her, no doubt like the nobles would have attempted.
"No!" Star thought in defiance. "This is not how my story ends!"
She lifted her horn, calling upon all her magical might. Her horn sparked in the dark waters, and exploded with light. A sphere of air briefly surrounded her.
But as the icy water pressed against it, the cold temperature reacted against the magic. Star felt the temperature drop below freezing. The cold struck her like a charging dragon. She lost her grip on reality. And as her vision faded away into darkness, her tiny sphere of ice floated with the currents, before settling against the ocean floor.
Time had no meaning to the ice sphere. With how deep it had sunk, there was no way to judge the time. No way to see the countless rises and falls of the moon and sun.
No way to tell how much time had passed... until they came.
The ruins of a once proud ship, touching down gently on top of the icy sphere. It wasn’t too long after that visitors came.
As the wreck was fairly deep down, the only creatures who could access it were creatures that could breathe underwater: Shark Ponies, Merponies, and Sea Ponies with Sea Serpents as support. Together, a large group of the aquatic creatures - all dressed in similar pirate garb that had been streamlined for movement underwater - followed down after the wreck. Withdrawing intact and sealed canisters, they took several trips to and fro, scavenging what they could from the wreck. While some of the canisters had been broken open and their contents exposed it still wasn’t that much of a loss, the only total loss in fact was the ship, known on the surface world as a “Bulk Merchant”, as when it had impacted the ocean floor the keel had broken in several places. But even then, with how fresh the wreck was the Salvage Teams that would be by later would be able to get a lot of resources out of it.
The leader of the team, a Shark Pony Stallion, smiled as his crew finished hooking up the last few containers and with two sharp tugs to the chains their loot was lifted up towards the surface, he then turned to another Shark Pony Stallion as he came over.
"That's the last of the loot sir, should we head up ourselves?"
"Not yet, we'll do one last sweep of the ship first," The leader said, gesturing with a foreleg. "I know the coming Salvage Teams will do their own sweeps, but better safe than sorry."
The second Shark Pony nodded but before he could respond a third voice spoke up.
"Sir."
The two turned to look at a Merpony Mare coming towards them.
"What is it, Coral?" The leader asked.
"I'm picking up a strange reading on the waterproof scanner, a lifesign... but it's not coming from the ship. Rather… from under it."
Blinking in surprise, the two Shark Ponies looked at each other then back at the Merpony.
"Under the ship?" the second shark pony asked. "It can't be the crew, all of them were able to leave before the ship went under."
It took a few minutes but the three gathered a small team with a few Serpents as the rest did a final sweep of the ship, they soon found the spot and after pulling some wreckage away and digging down, they hit it; a perfect sphere made of magically-strengthened ice.
But it was what was inside the sphere that had their attention: inside was a Thestral Filly curled into a ball and after a quick scan was shown to be alive and sleeping, it wasn't long before they spotted a horn along with the wings. The Filly was an Alicorn!
The lead Shark Pony took hold of the sphere, stared at the Filly within for a minute, then turned to his team.
"We'd better bring this up to the Archduke."
His team nodded in agreement as they looked back at the sphere and the Alicorn Filly within. Working together, they hoisted the sphere up to the surface. Where a massive dreadnought of a ship, far bigger than most surface ships and silhouetted by the sun, awaited them.
Star's vision slowly returned to her. Blurred shapes shifted and throbbed before her. Voices echoed in her ears as she struggled to wake.
"By the great spirits," one voice echoed. "An alicorn filly. All alone... what could have happened?"
"Is she still breathing?"
"Well physically she's fine," a third voice said. "Health is good, and she appears to have no injuries or any long-term effects from being frozen. Though she does seem to be a bit underweight for her age and a little malnourished. Not too badly but enough to be noticeable."
One of the blobs shifted closer to Star. She made out a thestral, eerily similar to the photos Luna had shown her of her father. He had her father's white mane, so similar to her own. He even had his - and her - electric green eyes, though this particular thestral's eyes were slowly widening in growing shock.
"It can't be..." he breathed out as he stared at the star pattern on her wings.
"Star Chaser? What's wrong?" Another member asked.
"This Filly..." Chaser turned to the others. "This is Star Wing! Princess Luna's Long Lost Daughter!"
"What?" "Impossible!" "But she vanished eons ago!"
The voices all jumbled together into a cacophony of gibberish, drilling against Star's ears like the babble of a cafeteria. She covered her ears with a groan, catching the attention of the others.
"Stop! She's awake! She's waking up!" the third voice declared, bringing a relieving end to the chatter.
Star slowly sat up, blinking the haze out of her eyes and wiping them with a hoof, before looking up at her surroundings. Several creatures of many different species stood before her; some pony, some griffon, some kirin, some minotaur, and more than Star could remember from her stories and the visits of various ambassadors that came to the castle on occasion. Star blinked as she tried to take in everyone around her; the only thing she could see in common among them was their pirate-like attire.
For a moment, silence reigned as everyone waited for Star to speak. The filly coughed, finding her voice... along with a memory of one of her favorite pirate stories.
"So..." she ventured out tentatively. "Are you guys going to use me to stop some sort of curse that turns you into werewolf skeletons?"
The pirates blinked, glancing at each other with surprise and confusion. "Wait, what?" rang out from more than a few mouths. Star, reading the room, gave a grin.
"I'll take that as a no." Noting how sore she was, Star stretched and cricked her back, sighing in relief. "Okay, then, who are you guys really? And... why am I here?" She looked around, taking in the masts and rigging that immediately told her she was on the main deck of a ship of some kind, though not one she was familiar with as this one looked to be far bigger than the ones she knew of, in fact the main deck reminded her of a castle courtyard. "Wherever 'here' is."
"You're on what is called the Dragon of the Depths, lass," A new voice spoke.
The crowd of pirates parted, to reveal one that Star knew could only be the Captain. He was a Western Kirin with a silver coat, a red, gold-striped mane on his head, neck, and top length of his tail, and red eyes with slit pupils. His back legs had the hooves of his Pony half while his front legs ended in the hand-like claws of his Dragon half with four fingers. His wings showed his Pegasus parentage as his wings were over-sized compared to Kirin who were born from either Earth Ponies or Unicorns with a wingspan of, by Star’s guess, fifty feet when fully extended. At the 'wrist' of the wing arms were small four-fingered hand-like claws similar to the ones on his front legs, the right one holding a large dragon-shaped halberd. Two fangs stuck out of his upper lips with the tips reaching to his chin, two half-a-meter long black horns jutted out from the back of his head under his very large tricorne hat and on either side of his long mane.
His tail was three times the normal length of most Kirin his age, who's tails were normally eight feet long on average, and was tipped with three scythe shaped blades with the shortest on top and the longest on the bottom. His tail was twenty four feet long, not counting the blades which was four feet on the longest one.
Draped over his shoulders was a cape normally worn by Kings, which along with his hat, gave him the air of Royalty. Star quickly recalled what she knew about Western Kirin, including that back when she still lived with her mother, whenever the ambassador for the Kirin would come to the castle for meetings or whatnot, he had always treated her with kindness and had even shared a number of stories of their home mountains with her.
From what Star could see, this one seemed to be slightly shorter than Celestia by maybe one or two inches give or take, though his massive hat which actually resembled a crown from its coverings and had two sets of long teeth braced on the sides, made him look bigger.
The Captain stopped in front of her and leaned his head down. "As for who we are, lass, we are the Outcasts of the Abyss. And I am Archduke Razor Tail."
Star nodded, glancing at his tail as it slowly swayed across the deck. "Explains the tail," she mused.
Razor smiled in amusement, and the crew chuckled. Grinning at their reaction, Star inclined her head in a bow.
"Well, good to meet you,” she replied. “I'm..."
"Star Wing; the daughter of Princess Luna," Razor Tail replied with a grin.
Star looked up, partially in shock. "My reputation precedes me?" she asked.
"More than you know, lass," the kirin replied, gesturing to the thestral that had been examining her from the start. To Star's surprise, he not only had a similar mane and eye color; he even had the same star-like pattern on his wings that she had. Though his didn’t have quite the same shine to them that Star’s had; they almost appeared to be decorative paint or perhaps tattoos, whereas hers were naturally a part of her wing fibers; a gift passed down from her mother, Princess Luna.
"You wouldn't happen to be familiar with the Star Clan, would you?" Star asked. "Maybe a certain - really awesome - Star Clan member called Star Hunter?"
The Stallion gave a smile in return.
"Yeah; I'm Star Chaser." His smile faded, "And I'm sorry to say, Princess, but you've been in that ice sphere for a long time."
Star shivered slightly, drawing the blanket she had been laying on around her. "Explains the cold," she muttered, cricking her shoulders, before giving him a grin. "Well, either way, thank you for releasing me." Her smile turned wry. "If this was a game, this would be the part where I tell you how to use the jump button, right?"
Numerous chuckles rose up from the crowd as Chaser gave her a small smile, which faded again as he said his next words.
"The thing is Princess, my line comes from your uncle Star Fighter. He was my ancestor."
Star's smile faded into confusion. "A-Ancestor?" she stammered, before looking up at Razor Tail. "H-How long was I a Star-cicle?"
Razor hummed as he laid down next to her. "What was the last thing you remember, Star?"
Star looked down. "I... my mother..." A haunted look came over her. "She changed. The nobles, they... hated her and hated me. B-But I was so sure we were going to earn their love. But then my mom... turned into something dangerous. Something scary. I tried to fight it, but... but she was my mom! How could I...?"
Star started to shake her head, struggling with the memories as they came crashing back. Realizing what was happening, Razor gently laid a wing on her, the wing hand gently rubbing her head.
"It's okay Star, you're among friends here." He gave her head a gentle nuzzle.
Star froze. Only her mother had ever nuzzled her like that before. Her mother who...
The dam broke. She buried her head into his shoulder, sobbing as the horrible memories came back.
"They took my mom...!" Star whimpered in despair.
Razor tightened his wing around her and rested his head on her back as he comforted her.
"Don't hold any of it back Star, just let it out."
Star wasn't sure how long she cried, holding onto Razor like a giant teddy bear. But faintly, she managed to remember her rational side.
"Come on, Wing," it said in her head. "Crying's not going to help for long. We gotta be heroes. Come on... calm down..."
Sniffling, Star wiped at her eyes. "I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, struggling to keep her voice level. "I... she just..."
Razor hushed her. "It's okay," he assured her, gently stroking her head. "It's perfectly okay."
Star sniffled, and managed a faint smile at the Captain. She sighed. "My... my mom... tried to protect me. Celestia never did; she let the nobles throw me in jail when I was a kid... just for crying."
There was numerous loud shouts, some louder than others, of “WHAT?!” from the gathered crew, with one of the Pony pirates - a snow white pegasus mare with an eyepatch topped with some sort of ring - snarled in anger. "That horrible mare..." she hissed.
"My mom tried to protect me..." Star continued. "Flash Magnus too. But it got too much for my mom. She snapped... they overpowered her... sent her away... and I was worried they'd do the same to me. So I ran… Uncle Flash helping me escape... and a storm tried to stop me. I got launched into some water, and I tried to keep myself alive with a bubble spell..." She closed her eyes, and sighed, her voice much more even. "And then I woke up here."
Star Chaser rubbed his hooves together nervously. “Is there… anywhere you want to go?” he asked. “Maybe back to…”
“No!” Star barked, her voice louder than usual which caused several of the crew to flinch from the sudden pain in their ears. She caught herself, and cleared her throat. “No,” she said more evenly. “Equestria isn’t my home anymore.” She managed to crack a small, if humorless, grin. “I think the ponies there have made that more than clear.”
Razor tsked in sympathy. “Well, lass, "You wouldn't be the first alicorn we've encountered or helped, and you're still a filly. As beautiful as the Sea of Legends is, it is still a dangerous place, especially to youngsters like you. So; if you choose, you can sign up as one of the crew aboard this ship.”
Star cocked an eyebrow. “Be a pirate?” she asked, intrigued.
“You'll be pulling your weight around like the others,” Razor admitted. “But as you are still a foal, it wouldn't be anything too physically demanding for now. But in exchange: you'll be under my protection, you'll receive a full share of treasure like the rest of the crew when the time comes to divide the plunder, and you will be treated with respect like the rest of the crew. As the Pirate Lord of the Sea of Legends, I hold a lot of power here and judging from the books we found in your saddle bags, you always wanted to be a hero right?” He finished with a playful grin.
Star chuckled sheepishly as she noticed said bag, which was bursting with books about heroes and legends alongside her other belongings, which included her father’s medal around her neck. “Maybe a little.”
“Well now you have the chance to be one. It'll take time but you'll find those in the Sea of Legends, or SOL for short, are far more willing to thank those who help them."
He removed his wing and stood up, walking in front of Star and offered her his hand. "So what do you stay Princess? If you chose not to join I know a few individuals that will make sure you're safe until you're ready for the world. Just know that even here an Alicorn can attract a lot of attention, not all of it good."
Star nodded, and started to reach for his hand… before a sudden growl rang out. Everyone spun, looking for the source in confusion. A second growl sounded, and Star found the source: her own stomach. As it gave a third growl, she swallowed and chuckled sheepishly. Razor just chuckled in amusement.
“Hungry?” he mused. “Wouldn’t surprise me. After all, a thousand years is a long time to go without food.”
Star chuckled. “Yeah, and getting chased off by angry nobles didn’t exactly leave a lot of time for lunch.”
Razor nodded before turning to Chaser. “Chaser, bring her to the Tavern,” he said.
“Right away, sir,” the thestral agreed. Star rose up, cricking her legs like a cat or dog, before joining Chaser as he led her to the tavern.