The Heart of Azure sailed north.
To the south, the column of ash and smoke from the volcano was still readily visible at it continued to rise for miles into the sky. But the volcano itself no longer posed a threat to them. They were safe. Empty-hooved, tired, injured, but safe. The sail of the Heart of Azure was left open as they lazily and slowly made their way back north to Malkonrik. There was no other option but to get back to port and Ballast’s shop. They had nowhere else to go, no rumors to go on, and a lack of supplies to make the trip even if they did.
Rainbow Dash sat in the crow’s nest as she looked up at the sky. She hated going backwards. It was dumb to really think of it that way, she knew that, but she couldn’t help it. The way the Grand Ocean was, and the nature of the adventure she was on right now, meant she’d probably have to criss-cross all over it. But going north felt like a delay, like giving up in some way. Even though she also knew it would just be a short stop before they went back out again.
Hopefully. She didn’t want to be in one place for too long, there was still so much to do.
Dear Journal,
Unfortunately I can’t be as optimistic as my usual entries this time, though I will say we’re at least all alive and that’s what’s truly important.
Though we are not all unscarred. That is certainly the biggest reason for why I am not feeling as positive as normal. My brother is responsible for a grievous and heinous injury delivered to my good friend, Senax. Although we’ve patched her up for now with quite a few stitches, she’s developed a fever and has been in and out of consciousness for the past few days as we make our way back to Ballast’s. Senax is usually the one who takes care of our injuries and illnesses, but she can’t do that for herself with something like this.
I hope her tail heals fully. She loves to swim and she wouldn’t be able to swim to her fullest if her tail isn’t healthy. It seems especially cruel for my brother to have done something like this to a merpony. Despite my… previous desires to potentially fix the relationship with my brother, I’m not sure I can forgive him for this. Although I don’t even know if he survived the volcano. I have to assume he did, I can’t imagine my brother would be stopped so easily. Whether we’ll see him again anytime soon or not is what I really don’t know. He’s certainly still going to look for us.
Senax is sleeping down here in the hold, right next to me as I write this. A heavy sweat covers her scales and she shivers and takes long shuddering breaths. Every now and then she’ll wake up, exhausted and disoriented, before eventually falling back to sleep when she gets tired enough again. I wish there was something more I could do for her than simply watching over her. Daylight has been coming down to wipe her clean of sweat and keep her forehead cool. Senax doesn’t care for fish so I can’t even go catch something for her.
I’m sure she’ll get better soon.
Rainbow Dash is feeling rather glum as well. I believe she blames herself for Senax’s injury, though the rest of us have told her not to. She’s the only reason far worse didn’t happen to all of us.
Perhaps we’re all just feeling down now after having nothing to show for all the trouble we went through at the Smoking Island?
Breakwater and Daylight have been equally quiet. Despite our ship normally being quite a jovial one, no one can muster a smile these past few days, not even me. I’ll try my best to fix that, but I might not succeed until Senax is in better shape. I don’t know if that will happen while we’re still out to sea or if it will take us until we reach port again. At the moment we’re still a couple of days away from reaching Malkonrik.
With another failed rumor I’m not even sure what we’re going to do next from here on out either.
Well, I think I’ve written enough negative words for now. I’ll write a new entry when I have something more positive to put down on paper.
“One day away?” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at Breakwater.
He nodded. “That’s right. We’ll be back at the port of Malkonrik tomorrow morning.”
“Back where we started,” Rainbow sighed.
“True, you can certainly take it that way,” Breakwater said. “Before you came we had to return to port a number of times before heading out again. It’s nothing new.”
“Yeah I know… just gotta remember why I’m out here in the first place.”
“Fun and adventure? Wouldn’t be very satisfying to just fly straight south through the whole ocean?”
“And to help my friends. Believe it or not but that’s what I care the most about doing right now. It’s not just finding the treasures for Senax anymore either. I feel like stopping Godfrey would be a big help to everyone on this ocean.”
“Are you sure he didn’t die back at the Smoking Island?”
Rainbow glanced over to him with narrowed eyes. “I’m positive. And he can’t get away with what he’s done or be left to keep terrorizing the ocean. Before I leave you guys, before I go to the south pole, I’ll deal with Godfrey too.”
“I’ll admit, the ocean would certainly be a better place if you did,” Breakwater said with a mellow expression on his face as he looked ahead at the ocean. His hooves were on the wheel as Rainbow Dash stood next to him, the two of them had been either talking or silently standing with each other all morning. With every pause in the conversation, the both of them were able to take in just how quiet the ocean around them was today. The sky was clear ahead of them so that was nice, but neither of them could recall even a single seabird flying around and making noise. Nor could they recall spotting any colorful fish swimming in the waters. It seems the whole world wanted to be as dull as the atmosphere on their vessel for now.
Daylight at the moment was seated by the bow, a common place for her. And Gilbert was still down below in the hold with Senax. A common place for him as well.
Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and flew up to hover over Breakwater. “Well, I don’t really have anything more to talk about for the moment, gonna take a quick fly to give myself something to do. Kind of feel like nobody else here would be in the mood to play cards.”
“Probably not,” Breakwater sadly grinned.
Blowing a deep breath out of her lungs, Rainbow Dash ascended a second later until she was well above the Heart of Azure. For a moment she just hung there in the sky, taking a look in every direction and seeing the deep blue, seemingly endless, waters of the Grand Ocean. Only to the south did she see anything different and that didn’t have anything to do with the ocean. There weren’t really any clouds up here and the weather looked like it would be good for the rest of their trip—overall a good thing but it made it more boring at the same time as well. She was kind of surprised the sky wasn’t overcast to reflect their mood even more accurately.
Would the smoke from the volcano reach this far at some point? She had no idea how much of the sky it would actually cover. Maybe it depended on just how much ash was shot into the atmosphere from the eruption. It must’ve reached the Strip of Storms by now, maybe it all got funneled into there instead?
Either way for now it was a clear blue sky with the sun shining overhead. She probably shouldn’t take it for granted. Rainbow Dash huffed and placed her hooves behind her head, flipping over and lazily flying upside-down with her eyes on the sky. It was easy to keep pace with the slow ship below her, she just wanted a little relaxation. In a minute she might go back down for a nap in the crow’s nest.
While Rainbow Dash was thinking about that, Daylight Gleam was still sitting at the bow and mulling over what needed to be done next.
Unfortunately she wasn’t really coming up with anything.
They had no more leads. Even when they returned to Malkonrik what would they do besides sit around the port? Their quest was looking to be as impossible as finding the Lost Isle of the Lizard People. Did they just start chasing down every old rumor and tale that existed on the Grand Ocean in the hopes that they might chance upon the Necklace of Ponyseidon? Not to mention she was worried about their ability to survive out here after what they had just gone through.
She wasn’t strong enough, her magic was no use back there. All she had contributed was scowls and contrarianism…
“I have to be better next time,” Daylight whispered to herself. “If I was better at using my magic then maybe Senax wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
She sighed and shook her head. Four different dangerous encounters since they had left port. And if she knew her luck, they’d keep getting in dangerous situations like that. Sometimes it felt like the whole ocean was out to get them. Or maybe it was just fate or coincidence since meeting up with Rainbow Dash—things had become even more hectic since that day. Well, that crazy pegasus had saved them enough times, they’d be either dead or lost without her.
Daylight snorted. “Maybe I can shape up to be half as useful in a bad situation as she is. Not like I don’t have enough experience with fighting for my life at this point.”
The sounds of someone coming from the hold alerted Daylight and she turned around to see a struggling Senax walking onto deck with a nervous Gilbert right behind her.
“Senax!” Daylight shouted and immediately ran over. “Are you alright? You’re not still feverish are you?”
Breakwater also came running down from the helm, just letting the ship drift for now, and a very good of hearing Rainbow Dash also flew back down from the sky. Together they gathered around Senax, who was still pale but at the very least was standing under her own power. Her brow was heavy with sweat and her breaths came long and labored, but her eyes still took them all in, she was no longer in a feverish fugue. Behind her, her tail was still wrapped in bandages but thanks to the stitches that had closed her wound shut there was no blood seeping through. For a moment she had to catch her breath and the others got ready to lend their hooves if need be but Senax remained standing strong. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a few more deep breaths before opening them and staring up into the clear blue sky.
“I’m sorry.”
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash said, tilting her head to the side.
Senax frowned with dismay and looked down to the wooden deck. “I’m sorry.”
“What...” Breakwater rolled his jaw around. “What are you talking about? If anything we should be saying that to-”
“NO YOU SHOULDN’T!” Senax yelled, startling all of them.
The four backed up as Senax grit her teeth and tears started to fall from her eyes.
“It’s my fault… everything that happened is my fault… everything bad that’s happened on this entire adventure is my fault. I’m sorry, I’m sorry for all of it...” Senax said.
“Senax, you know we all chose to come with you on your search for home,” Daylight said to her.
“That’s not it. You don’t understand,” Senax shook her head. “I know that, I know you’re not being forced to do this, I know you’re not doing it out of obligation, so maybe you don’t want to blame me when something bad happens but that’s still the truth, isn’t it? Especially there. Especially with what happened on the Smoking Island.” She bit her lip. “I-I’m sure you all noticed-”
“That you were acting weird? Pushing us all along no matter what while being way quieter and clearly unhappier than normal?” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow.
“Y-Yes,” Senax nodded. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately… and I came to a conclusion after we were forced to go through the Strip of Storms.” She took another deep breath to steady herself. “That I couldn’t put any of you in danger anymore simply for my own goals. So I wanted us to get to the treasure on the Smoking Island as quickly as possible, I-I kept pushing us even when we kept seeing bad signs because I just wanted this journey to be over so you wouldn’t have to go through anything like that again or have Godfrey chasing you. But that just… that all just ended up putting you in even more danger… and almost getting us all killed. I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being so reckless, I’m sorry for almost getting us killed for nothing, I’m sorry for being so stupid. This wound, what Godfrey did to me, I deserve it. It’s my punishment.”
“You absolutely do not!” Gilbert shouted. “Senax, regardless of what happened or why, we’re still your friends. We want to help you even if it’s dangerous because of that.”
“And because you’re my friends I don’t want to see you in danger anymore at all!” Senax shouted back at him. “That’s why… I’m ending things here. We have nothing else to go on. We have no more real leads… the search for Merlantis is over. J-Just leave the Grand Ocean and go somewhere else, somewhere safer. I’ll head back to East Glade and tell my clan what’s happened.”
“Senax...” Daylight said.
The rest stood around her, a moment of silence hanging over the boat.
“Eh, no,” Rainbow Dash suddenly stated.
Senax blinked and looked over at her. “Excuse me?”
“No. I said no,” Rainbow repeated.
“B-But Rainbow Dash-”
“You can zip it right there, Senax,” Rainbow Dash held up a hoof and grinned. “Believe me, I know what feeling like trash is like, and what it feels like to fail. Oh yeah, I know what you’re going through right now. So let me tell you straight that giving up—even for a good and noble reason like not wanting to get your friends hurt? That isn’t going to make anything better. I get that you’re in a bad spot right now and things seem impossible, but how much have you actually thought this through?”
“I… I don’t know what you mean?” Senax shook her head.
“If we stop looking for Merlantis and those treasures, does it really change anything? What if us stopping lets Godfrey or some other bad dudes find it all before us? What then? I don’t know a whole lot, but I know that would be terrible. And if you returned home, to the place you and the other merponies were exiled to, would you ever be able to accept that? Could you be happy going back there? And think about it. Your people have been there for ages now. Even if you come back and tell them you failed, how long will it take before some young merpony decides to go out looking for Merlantis again? No matter what, the journey’s going to continue. You can either help your people find it now or yeah, give up and leave it to another merpony down the road.”
Rainbow Dash briefly chuckled. “Heh, except—any other merpony who comes out here won’t have me helping them out. So I guess that might make things a little different.” She sighed and stepped forward to place a hoof on Senax’s shoulder, taking on a more serious expression. “Senax, I know this sucks. I know how nice you are, and how much it hurts you to see the rest of us in danger, but you know what? It hurts us to not being able to help you. If we left now, all of us would be miserable knowing that we failed you. I hate to say this but you’re just going to have to live with us sometimes getting injured and having to deal with dangerous stuff. That’s par for the course when it comes to an adventure like this. But we’re not giving up just cause of that, right guys?”
“That’s right!” Gilbert immediately stated.
“Heh, right,” Breakwater smiled.
“And I suppose even I have to agree to that,” Daylight nodded.
“But… but-” Senax stuttered.
Gilbert came up and put a talon on her back as well. “I think you should just accept that we’re here with you until Merlantis is found. None of us want to give up on this adventure.”
Senax quivered as tears gathered at her eyes. “You… all of you… why do you have to be so nice?” She reached up to wipe the tears away. “Thank you...”
Everyone joined in for a group hug with Senax at the center (and them making sure not to accidentally nudge her tail). After that, Breakwater was the first to detach from the group and head up back to the helm.
“Alright, gotta get us back to Malkonrik now after all. What say regardless of everything else we take a day to just relax there and have a little fun?” He asked them.
“I… I think I would like that,” Senax said.
“Ditto,” Rainbow grinned.
“I’ll consider it settled then,” Breakwater said as he took back control of the wheel. “Let’s go, one more day and we can relax.”