About 19 hours ago...
The Ensign
I put my pencil down, flexing the frog of my hoof to get it to release the yellow painted nubbin. It clattered on the library table as I flipped the lined pages to the front. The title read, Revised Plan to Invade Mount Aris with an Assessment of Hippogriff Upgraded Defenses and Accounting for the Failures of the Prince of Storms' Abortive Invasion of 994.
"Done," I whispered, shutting the composition book with a not entirely satisfying whump. All I had to do was deliver it to the typing pool. I wasn't the only pony in the Vanhoover Naval Academy library this morning—
No longer morning! The red second hand of the clock ticked over to noon. Lunchtime. I had no friends to share meals with. Never would. Ponies despised me, and I despised them right back. So long as I proved useful, the navy tolerated, paid, and sheltered me. Nopony could dispute my competence on any assignment or on my few airship postings. Ponies simply hated me. Years after graduation and my cadet cruise, I rotted once again in the academy. No promotions after the initial one from midshippony passed to ensign every cadet graduate got. Practically unheard of.
I huffed. "Well, they're getting no further treatises from this mare. After this, they can clean up their own messes." I hoofed my pencils into their pencil case, stacked the library books and periodicals I used as research, and reached for my saddlebags.
"Two days until discharge, and happy as all Tartarus about it," I murmured.
Sometimes the Equestrian navy offered a promotion to get officers to re-up. Me?
I blew air through my lips.
No.
Of course not.
I'd begun to think I was Princess Celestia's favorite strategist, I'd filed so many plans. I judged the brass were foals to lose me, but there you were. Not even an offer to become a professor at the academy, where my height and horrific appearance could scare recruits into line.
I heard hooves approaching.
Not particularly superstitious, but I had said aloud that I was about to be discharged. The vague plan I had to wander the world, and to visit Mount Aris in person to judge if I could have succeeded where the Prince of Storms failed, faded from my head.
"Just walk by, just walk by," I said under my breath. I cringed.
The hooves stopped. "Ensign Berrytwist?"
My eyes actually burned.
I smelled dander, usually raised when a pegasus had flown a distance. I heard feathers rustle. I sighed, pushed out of my chair, and turned to face the stallion.
A blue pegasus in a white sailor uniform snapped to attention, saluting crisply with his right wing as pegasi were allowed. He held a brown satchel in the curve of his right leg, tied with elastic bands. I towered over him. He looked earnest and unguarded, but then he didn't know me, or my reputation, yet.
I saluted back. "As you were."
"Thank you, ma'am. I have orders for you from VanNavStatComm." The embroidery below his collar read Chief Petty Officer Bent Feather. The uniform indicated he had a shipboard assignment. He wasn't from Vanhoover HQ.
"I'm being discharged in two days. Are you sure?"
"Yes, ma'am, it's for you."
I reached out, hoof up, like an earth pony for the satchel, which clearly confused the warrant officer. He even looked at my flight cap.
They always did.
I wore it stretched between the remnant of my horn and my heavily glued crested mane. I hated hiding my handicap. I hated the word handicapped because ponies used it as a label to hide behind so they didn't have to deal with what discomforted them. I hated that even more. As a tactician and a strategist, I knew how to manipulate ponies to prevent useless distress and disruptive behaviors.
Nopony had ever told me, verbally, hide my handicap. Still, doing so made living in Tartarus that much less horrible.
He took out an envelope and placed it in my frog. I, of course, slit it open with the sharp of my horseshoe like an earth pony or pegasus would, held it in the crease of my frog, then blew out the page with my breath so I could read it.
VanNavStatComm to Ensign Fizzlepop Berrytwist assigned Vanhoover Naval Academy Research ST3A Eyes Only. Begin. E F B posted to command—
"Flapping Freaking Horse Apples!" I cried, dropping the sheet as if it had burst into flames. "Two days before my discharge they do that!?"
I heard a loud hiss. I turned to see the librarian, an old mare with reading glasses hanging on a silver chain, glaring at me with emerald eyes.
I almost gave her the hoof, but I was well-trained. Sadly. One swipe by an Ursa Minor meant my destiny was a life without joy, even the joy of retribution or through anger. I knew how to survive: Total. Utter. Self-control.
Which had just slipped.
I let my lip curl up slightly in a grin as I caught up the communiqué in a hoof and brought it back up.
—E F B posted to command the frigate HRHAS Eagle's Stoop with Midshippony Brother Gruff serving as XO—
"I'm getting my own command!?"
I looked to the pegasus. I realized that he was middle-aged and it showed in the white fur near his eyes and a peppering of white feathers in his wings. This was where a proud sailor would say something like, "She's a good ship," or thus and such. He remained tight-lipped.
Hooves growing cold, thinking with cause KOHICA, I snapped the paper and continued reading.
—Reposition from the dock at the Vanhoover Aeronautical History Museum to Castle Canterlot Station with all due haste without fail. Await there for further orders. End.
My mouth hung down. "It's docked at a museum?"
"Yes, ma'am. The Stoop got decommissioned half a century ago after the Battle of Crystal Mountain when the rear ballista and stern got blown off. She received enough repairs to stay afloat and acted as a naval exhibit. Recently, because of structural aging issues and for the upcoming 999th Summer Sun Celebration next year, we'd begun to refit her for cosmetics. She also serves for cadet and Seabee training in ship repair, and a place to park personnel HQ wants to retain but cannot post elsewhere."
I huffed. "I fit the category of personnel who are permanently parked but cannot be posted elsewhere."
"Sorry, ma'am. If you say so." He drew a circle on the wood floor, unwilling to meet my eyes.
"Can the museum piece even sail?"
"I've already rounded up the three unicorn rowers assigned for this mission. The Stoop's canvas and spars are all new, but we haven't had the recommissioning cruise, yet, ma'am."
"Do you have other papers for me? A promotion? Offer of Recommission, perhaps?"
"No ma'am."
"The final insult, then? A simple mission, on the bald face of it, that I cannot help but fail to execute. Demote then discharge? Am I so hated that the brass can't stomach my small service pension so I can live a decent civilian life?" I had been kicking around the idea of never turning in my last report. Now I was certain. First thing after discharge, I was traveling to Mount Aris to prove firsthoof that the brass were making a very bad mistake.
The Chief grew stiff. "I can't answer that, Ma'am. The mission is real. It's urgent. Scuttlebutt makes me believe the brass needs a ship at Canterlot Station and that the request comes from Princess Celestia herself. First there was Saturday when the sun didn't rise. News is that some criminal unicorn kicked the princess to the cobbles on Ponyville Way in downtown Canterlot, stunning her before escaping early that morning. If that doesn't scare you, there were reports of a fire on the castle grounds not long after, then later that the princess named an heir to the crown. Serious horse apples are a-hoof, Ensign. I believe the mission is real."
"Assigning me to it, though? What the flap are they thinking?"
"Maybe you could do it?" He shrugged.
"I may grow to like you, Chief."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"If there is a real answer, it could be they have nopony else available and no other ship. What are the chances?"
"Slim, ma'am."
"Yeah, but we're in the same boat."
"Respectfully, same ship, Ma'am."
With a sigh, and filling my saddlebags, I said, "Lead on, Chief."
"One more thing," he added. "It is a posting to a command."
I closed my eyes, feeling an ache behind then throb. This poor pony sailor didn't know, and while I knew any trust or camaraderie from a service pony was simply an illusion that couldn't last long enough to enjoy, this hurt.
Scratch that. It always hurt.
The blue pegasus pulled out a flight cap. It truly had the gold piping that signified command, but it lacked all insignia since I was still only an ensign. Accepting the cap meant I accepted being the skipper of the Eagle's Stoop.
To do so, I had to remove the generic flight cap I wore. My camouflage.
Would my humiliation never cease?
"Of course it'll cease. I'm discharged in two days."
"Ma'am?" He coughed into a hoof. "You cannot receive discharge while posted to a command, Ma'am."
I growled and snatched the folded blue felt hat from the pegasus' feather grip. I sat and pressed the current hat hard enough to dislodge it. Released, and thanks to the elasticity of my mane, it popped off and landed with a fabric huff on the floor.
The Chief of course looked up—and involuntarily gasped.
All ponies gasped. Unicorns sometimes vomited, running away. I understood well. My long horn was snapped off at the second turn. That I had a broken horn didn't mean I didn't have magic. It meant I couldn't control it, nor use it to calculate as I was told other unicorns could.
It left a hole in my head, or that's what other ponies whispered behind my flank. Static magic is not something ponies ever see. It is the essence of chaos and akin to the vicious unpredictability of ball lightning. Looking into my horn was looking into wild unbridled irreality; everypony instinctively sensed danger. Staring at it led to madness.
I knew.
I stared into the swirling prismatic rainbow of chaos every night in my lavatory mirror.
I hated myself. I hated my choices. I hated my fate. For the sake of a stupid hoof ball and to fend off the jibes of my so-called friends, I'd entered a cave ponies suspected harbored an Ursa Minor. I had been so stupid, I didn't deserve to have survived. Yet, I had a destiny to live out. Apparently. Undoubtedly. Abandoned by friends, I had to live long enough to find it.
I hated that, too. I hated being a blank flank at my age.
No wonder nopony trusted me. Broke horn. No cutie mark. Probably going to run, they thought, when the fighting started. There was madness inside her horn!
I unfolded the flight cap and shoved it on, breaking the glue on my crest behind. I felt the bristles lean over.
"Skipper!" the blue pegasus said, sketching a salute in recognition.
My eyes flicked to him. He looked pale. Perhaps he'd served alongside unicorns long enough, or been married to one, that he was one of those afflicted by nausea.
"The lavatory is over there," I said blandly, pointing.
He flapped away immediately, knocking over a chair in his wake.