//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 // Story: Odysseed // by AuroraDawn //------------------------------// The door swung closed behind her, causing Applejack to jump when it slammed and bounced against the frame.  The navigation room was small, and a far cry from the more luxurious setting about the Croupiere. Small, tinted windows wrapped around the structure, giving a strange feel to the room. Keelhaul’s horn sparked, and a lantern in the centre of the room flared to life, illuminating a much smaller map table just below it, which Applejack approached. The map that was on it was vaguely familiar to the one the navy had, but Applejack was surprised to find it was far more intricately detailed. The eastern half was relatively the same, with a few more landmarks marked on it, but the western half was entirely filled in. Actually seeing how large the South Luna Ocean was made her dizzy, but the odd numbers of marked towns and ports along a strange and unknown western coast were what really did her in. Sonder smashed into her at the thought that there were entire civilizations completely unknown to Equestria, just across the sea. She stumbled, causing Keelhaul to look back sharply in concern. “Still ain’t got yer legs beneath ye, eh? Well, best ye wait a day or two anyways afore we get ye hauling lines and trimming sails even if ye wanted.” “No, it’s—well, yes, that too. But there’s just… so much here. So much undiscovered.” Keelhaul stood tall on the other side of the table, following Applejack’s beleaguered gaze to the map before bursting out into a laugh. “Undiscovered, lass? Then who made the map? And what of the critters who live in the towns upon it? Har har har, it’s been long discovered! It’s just unknown to ye and yer kingdom. Well known to us, though.” Applejack cringed back, slightly embarrassed. It was a little ignorant to think that just because Equestria didn’t know about it, it didn’t exist, and she felt chastised more by herself than by the chuckling changeling. Her ears drooped, but then quickly snapped back up. She was still on a pirate ship, after all. Social faux paus or not, she had to stay alert. “Right then,” Keelhaul announced, magicking a model ship onto the map. “We’re here, headin’ this way, to Dove Island. Where should we be goin’ then, lass?” Applejack frowned. “To Dove Island. Obviously. That’s why Captain Square Sails was going there, bugbrain.” Keelhaul’s expression changed quickly from a sleazy grin to an unimpressed and almost hurt face of disapproval. “Thought ye’d gotten all that out on the deck, I did. My mistake, o’course. But where next? No point taking a year to sail zigzag ‘cross the Luna.  She blinked, staring blankly at him. “Well, uh, you have to sail… portside to… the crimson steppes?” A second passed where neither of them spoke. “Do ye even know the map, lass, or have I been taken for the fool?” “No! Honest! I do know it! I just don’t know what it means. None of us really did, that was why we were following it step by step, thinking the next phrase would make sense.” Keelhaul shook his head, and then pulled out a blank roll of parchment and a quill from underneath the table. “Ye’d make a lousy treasure hunter. Alright, let’s take it step by step then. Perhaps what your company was lackin’ were some proper experience in these waters. Cowardly squids don’t know a thing five miles past their shores.” After considering a snarky rebuttal and realizing he was entirely correct, Applejack sat down and then furrowed her brows, remembering the poem. “Hugged by waves of dark mystique, a white bird of peace lay resting—” “Dove Island. Next.” “Er, right. ‘Keep starboard true to where sun sets, and your voyage shall not be testing. Upon the portside cast eyes like nets, until you catch the crimson steppes.” Keelhaul looked up, scratching his chin with the quill. “My apologies, Applejack. I’ll need ye to step back a bit. Did the first lines say where to depart Dove Island from? It’s the largest island on the Luna.” “You mean the sea?” “The Luna Sea, yea. I calls it the Luna.” He shook his head. “Well?” “It’s ‘start your journey upon its beak’.” “Okay, wonderful.” Keelhaul set the parchment down and returned to his map, circling a sharp point on the western side of Dove Island. “It means to say sail south and look off to the east.” He drew a sharp line from the circle towards Applejack, and then stopped right next to a smaller detail already marked. “Ah, Temple Island. Makes sense,” he muttered, circling it. “That’s only half the map though, how can it be the island already?” “No, no no,” he muttered, voice lowering while he focused. “That island has long been known. There be an ancient temple upon it that’s said time’s forgotten. The marble is pure and clean, and moss can’t seem to touch it. The doors are sealed solid, too. Had an old friend who once tried to raid it. Hauled a whole cannon up the island and a dozen shots. An hour later the stone was untouched, and he had lost all twelve cannon balls. Turned to dust on contact, they did.”  “How many ancient temples are in this ocean?” Applejack mused, looking about the map. “No more that I know of, anyways. Point bein’, it ain’t nothing new that’s climbed outta the sea anytime recently. The island itself is all blocky and segmented, the rock cleaved in clean, straight lines. Like steps of a staircase.” “Are they red?” “They’re stone, grey as can be. But if the sun be settin’ on the west, and it’s on the east, she’s liable to be glowing red in the dusk. Where next then?” Applejack stood up and got closer to the map. “Below the ascendant mountain high, take not our guidance as jesting. Directly as the peg’sus fly, follow Coltlantis’ seaward eye.” She spotted the familiar landmark off the southwestern edge of Equestria, the partially submerged architectural site well known to most ponies. “Where’s Coltlantis?” Keelhaul asked, craning his head about the map. “I ain’t ever sailed there.” “Just off the coast of Equestria. Here,” she said, pointing. “Ah, that be why. We steer clear of there as best we can. Yer squids may be useless on open sea but they know that coastline like the back of their hooves, and defend it with a vengeance. No haul is worth risking that over, I’ll tell ye.” He grunted, tapping a hoof on the map. “I’m afraid I’m not much use with this one. Ye know of any eyes facing the sea?” “Well, there ain’t nopony who lives there, that’s for true.” She paced back and forth while Keelhaul watched her curiously. After a few minutes of struggling to recall the middle school lessons on ancient history, she turned back to the map. “In the center of the city, there’s a huge horse head. It’s one of the only things above the water actually, it’s so big. One eye faces the coast, and the other looks out to the sea, I guess.” Keelhaul ran a hoof over his muzzle, considering it. “Do ye know exactly how? Is it perfectly west, or off-kilter a bit?” “Couldn’t say. I’ve never seen it.” “Well, we’ll start with due west and see if we can’t find whatever matches the next part. Ye said we were ‘alfway through it before this one, right? What’s the last bit?” She cleared her throat and recited. “If true you’ve followed all our course, you’re almost done with questing. Seek those frozen lands introrse, and find safe passage to the Source.” “So it’s called the Source, is it?” Applejack opened her eyes, realizing suddenly who she had been speaking with. “M-maybe! What’s it to you?!” “Calm down, lass. I already told ye we’ve no interest in whatever shiny bit yer after, just the shiny bits we get for retrievin’ it. Honestly.” He sighed deeply and returned to the map, tracing straight lines out from Coltlantis with the tip of his hoof. “And how am I supposed to trust that?” Applejack huffed, turning her back to the captain. “Have I lied to ye once, ye blaggard?” “You pretended to be Captain Square Sails.” “Y- oh, I suppose ye be right. My apologies, Applejack,” he drawled sarcastically, “but asides from that? Once I’ve been me, have I said a thing to ye that be false?” She looked down, thinking. “Well, no, but you haven’t said much to me to begin with!” “I shoulda just ransomed the Croupier,” he grumbled. “Fine then! Don’t trust me then, but it be true all the same! Think about it for a moment, lass. What’s more dangerous? Some sorta whosawhatzit that certain groups of powerful creatures would do anything to get their hooves on, or a hold full of gold that only we know we have?” “...Well…” she said, grimacing. “Some artifact ye’ve already been waylaid for? Or bits?” “...The artifact,” Applejack admitted. “Exactly! My crew wants to be paid, y’see. We tend to enjoy eating food and drinking something that isn’t distilled saltwater! A shiny rock can’t get us those things, but bits can. It’s hard enough keeping crew when ye hardly know when ye can pay them, nevermind taskin’ them with guarding some hullabaloo that may nearly get themselves killed at any moment.” “Well then why go after it in the first place, if you’re so afraid of it?” Keelhaul stomped around the table and slammed his right foreleg—the wooden one—onto the deck, the dull thock of wood on wood echoing about the cabin. “Cause bein’ free comes with risks! There are costs to be paid to live a life of your own choosin’, and we ain’t afraid to pay it if that comes to be!” He stood there, breathing deeply, staring down his muzzle at Applejack, before dropping his voice to a low growl. “Ye may think we chose to live like this, but life gave us no other option. Ye’ll not find a one creature aboard this ship that hasn’t suffered a thousand times over than ye, I guarantee it. So forgive me,” he hissed, turning his back to her and walking back to the map, “If my decision to go after somethin’ dangerous to release ourselves from the toil of our final option seems paradoxical to ye, so be it. It’s true all the same.” He glared at her, his chest heaving as he controlled his breathing, while Applejack stood frozen near the door.  The filly tales from her childhood never told this type of story. It was always about a pony who was joyously cruel, who took to sea for the love of crime and danger. About a group of characters who lived in dirty, squalid conditions because they were running from the law, and didn’t care one bit about their situation; only cared about filling it with booze and beddings. Never this; never outcasts with no other option. Never those who desired easier lives but couldn’t make do. She stammered softly, confused.  It was all too much change, way too fast. She didn’t know how much of what he said could even be trusted, of course. Could she reconcile that the ponies who had kidnapped her had done so out of desperation? Not yet, she decided, setting her jaw. “Well, you didn’t need to drag me into it.” “Bah!” Keelhaul shouted, tossing a hoof up. “Like I care what you think about me. Come here.” She did so begrudgingly. “MARROW!” He shouted, pounding his pegleg on the floor. Applejack flinched, and then a second time as a deep, ungodly growl rolled up through the floorboards from below. It was followed soon after by the clear echo of a slamming door, and then slow thumps that slightly shook the floor. With each whumph, the noise got closer to the quarterdeck, and the room rattled with increasing veracity. Applejack could hear a shuffling noise between each pound now, and started to picture some sort of horrific monster, summoned right out of the filly tails to do terrible things to her until she cooperated. What punched open the door to the navigation room was not a monster, though it was hideous to her; it was a tall, hulking Diamond Dog, tricolour with brown and tan spots splotched over his otherwise white body. The fist dropped limply, coming to rest on the floor and sliding along the wood while the creature ducked down, grumbling, through the portal. “What stupid Bugthing want now? Marrow busy!” he sneered, wrinkling his face in disgust. His eyes fell on Applejack, and he grumbled, shaking the windows of the room. “Oh, good, more dirty, fragile, weak and annoying pony to fix when they break. What you want?! This thing?” it growled, pointing a long, accusatory claw at Applejack. Part of her wanted to object to the name calling, but the other part was screaming at her to shut up, and she obliged it. “No, that pony is perfectly fine, Marrow,” Keelhaul muttered, squinting over the parchment where he had been transcribing the directions. “I just need ye to answer a question.” Marrow huffed. “Fine. Quick. Busy. What?” “What does introrse mean?” “I coulda told you th—” Applejack started, before a massive paw clamped over her muzzle. “Shush, pony! Marrow speaking now! You talk later, when Marrow gone!” With a paw still over her face, he glared at Keelhaul, and then gave a huge grin. “Bugthing stupid. Not know what introrse means.” “Yes, Marrow,” Keelhaul replied, uncaringly. “Means curves inward! Like bite taken out of meat! You done now?! Marrow tired of silly ponies and their games!” “Thank you Marrow, that will be all.” The Diamond Dog snorted, and then spun around on his heel and ambled out of the cabin, grumbling with each step that bent the board beneath him. Applejack stood perplexed, staring at the door long after he had left, while Keelhaul ignored her and perused the southern edge of the map. There was a soft rumble in the distance, like a barrel rolling below deck or a sideways wave colliding against the hull, and she shook her head before grabbing Keelhaul and aligning her incredulous face with his. She spoke softly.  “What’n the Tartarus is that?” Keelhaul looked into her eyes with his blank purple compounds, his expression betraying nothing but indifference. “A Diamond Dog. They tend to come from the Appaloosan caves—” “I know what a Diamond Dog is.” “Then why’d ye ask?” Keelhaul replied quietly, his curiosity mixing with sarcasm. “Why is that,” Applejack pointed at the door, still holding Keelhaul’s face with her left hoof, “aboard this ship?” “He’s part of the crew. Let go of me,” he said, just as quietly, and Applejack complied. “You’re tellin’ me that that, that dangerous animal, is… is part of the crew?” “Ye’d do well to let go of your problematic preconceptions,” the changeling suggested while turning back to the map. “There’s much about life at sea ye won’t be expecting.” “But why let him treat you like that? Why so… ‘whatever’ about how he acts?! Why is he here?!” Keelhaul threw his head up and faced her again, exasperated. “He’s the doctor, lass. Best one I know, too. Yes, we have unicorns,” he stopped Applejack’s next question, “but they’re all specialized in combat magic or somethin’ useless. Mangy Dog’s got a cutie mark in beard trimming. Beard trimming, Applejack. I’ve met a lot o’ ponies in me time but never more than a hooffull with beards. The rest of us jus’ got hooves, and as much as he hates the sight of a pony, there’s no denying how well those claws can stitch up a wound.” Applejack dropped to the floor, head in her hooves. “Oh, Luna’s lights, what’ve I gotten wrapped into?” she moaned, head starting to hurt. “Pirates,” Captain Keelhaul answered, tapping the map.