//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Questions // Story: A Dragon's Wake // by Cold Spike //------------------------------// Spyro and Claws woke up early in the morning feeling far more refreshed. They were also now headache-free. Spyro looked around and, to his disappointment, realized that they were, in fact, stuck in a room together with nothing to do but wait. Spyro decided to stretch his new body some and Claws decided to watch him, still giving him that curious look. "Spyro, again, you're weird." "Good morning to you too," he replied sarcastically. "Okay we’re up, stuck in this room and are now prisoners. So now what?" "We wait for the captain to come get us, I guess. He did say he would show us around the ship." "Oh no. No way am I going to be paraded around with those ponies staring at me!" Spyro gave him a quizzical look but stopped when the door swung open to reveal Captain Sailing Winds. "Good morning, dragons. I trust you're both ready to see the ship." Spyro gave him an enthusiastic nod, but Claws was simply glaring daggers at him. "No! I will stay here, thank you!" "C'mon, Claws, you really want to spend the next two weeks just sitting here?" Spyro questioned while walking away from the captain. "Yes! If it means staying away from those ponies then fine by me!" The captain was unable to reply so he simply stood by to wait out their argument. "Fine by me. I mean, it's okay if you're scared." "What? Of course I'm not afraid of them!" "Then let’s go!" Spyro was pointing to the captain and smiling. "Fine!" In a momentary lapse in judgement, Claws ran out the door and into the ship. He looked around and was greeted to over a dozen eyes all staring down at him. "Gentlecolts, these two dragons will be accompanying me today. They are prisoners, but just treat them as you would treat anypony that's underage." The captain finished speaking and all the other ponies simply nodded their heads but did nothing else. "Oh, and… GET BACK TO WORK!" With a command from the captain, they all hastily attempted to follow his order but only caused some chaos. But they eventually fell back in line. "Now, come along you two, and keep up!" Immediately, the captain started his daily routines, not waiting for them to listen or not. Spyro did his best to follow, with Claws looking reluctant to do much of anything, but he kept up as well. They both followed the captain, with Spyro asking a million questions a minute on every single task he was doing. Meanwhile, Claws was nervously twitching his fingers every time a new pony would greet them and keeping as silent as he could. It turned out, a captain had a lot of tasks to take care of just in the morning alone, and most of what they did seemed like busywork below the decks. After a while, the questions became less about the ship and how it operated and more about ponies. "Can magic cause lightning bolts to appear?" "Well, sort of. Pegasus ponies can manipulate the clouds and make thunderstorms. Does that answer your question?" "No, I meant can, like, a unicorn pony summon a cloud and cause lightning so they can target something?" "Why in the world would you want to do that?" The captain was taken aback by such mention of violence. "Sounded cool to me!" Spyro exclaimed defensively while crossing his arms. "Harming others is not in any way cool. And to answer that question, I very much doubt it." Questions would start like that; Spyro would think of all manners of magic that he had witnessed in fiction and video games from his world and seem to ask about topics relating to them. But a lot of the magic he remembered either involved wishing or harming others, so the captain would grunt and simply ignore him for a while and go back to his duties. After a while, Spyro made a note to not ask about harming others, but it still didn't stop him from asking question after question. "Can magic make a carpet fly?" "Well, yes it can." "Can you use magic to make wishes come true?" "Absolutely not." "Oh, can it make you invisible?" "Well, yes, but to be honest, Spyro, I don't know too much about unicorn magic, not being one and all," the captain said dismissively. At this, Spyro had to think. He wondered if other ponies would feel jealous of the ability to use magic. For that matter, wouldn't earth ponies feel jealous of both? He would wager that the captain was at least thankful to be able to fly so he couldn't be that jealous, but still, using magic sounded like the best option if he could become a pony. The dismissive nature of the captain at the mention of a simple question was starting to bother Spyro. Still, they were already in trouble so it wasn’t not like more annoying questions could make it worse. "Hey, Captain?" "Yes, Spyro? What is it?" The captain was already at his wits end and the constant drum of questions was not helping. "Do you or earth ponies ever feel jealous of unicorns?" The captain had stopped walking when he heard this question to think. Why in all of Equestria did that dragon ask such a random question? Sure most non-unicorns had wished in their lives to use magic, but flying itself was always enough for him. He couldn't speak for earth ponies, not being one himself, but they all certainly seemed happy enough. "I'm not sure why you ask, but I'm perfectly happy not being a unicorn and so are other earth ponies." The captain continued to walk, not bothering to even look down. "I just wanted to know. Magic sounds cool!" "Well, it is, but all of us can use magic, Spyro." "Even me?" "Uh, well, not really, but dragon's do have some resistance to magics." "So I have, like, magic defense points?" "Sure, whatever that means." The rest of the morning was spent under the ship while they went back to eat some breakfast in the captain’s quarters. Spyro noticed that Captain Sailing Winds was a rather quiet pony; he only seemed to speak when necessary and always looked like he was deep in thought, even when busy. Eating with him was awkward to say the least. Both dragons could note his silence. After some more questions, the captain agreed to let them see the rest of the ship and hopefully find some other pony to watch after them. They were heading for the deck. The walk to the deck was excruciatingly boring to Spyro but just made Claws more nervous. The way the captain said nothing the whole time did not help his nerves much. The closer they got to the top of the ship, the more nervous Claws started acting. He was near the breaking point. Spyro was near the breaking point of boredom and wished to speak with other ponies. The captain was cool and all, but he was just too stoic and silent for Spryo’s tastes. They finally reached the top while they ascended one last set of stairs. All around, they could see ponies working on the ship. Unicorn ponies were using their magic to move around ropes and sails, among other things. Pegasus ponies were busy flying up above to make sure that the weather was clear enough while the ship moved at a brisk pace, for a ship, anyway. And finally, earth ponies were on the ground directing others and making sure that no pegasus pony strayed too far behind on their weather duties and got lost. Overall, it was a sight to behold and to the untrained eye it looked like chaos, but in reality, it was organized chaos. The waves hitting the ship made just enough noise to be louder than the ponies. All around they could see nothing but ocean with no clear landmarks or other ships. All three neared the middle of the deck and waited while the captain spoke with some of the other ponies. Spyro waited, feeling more bored than ever, and Claws simply stood by, nervously waiting and expecting a pony to pounce on him at any second. "Um, Spyro?" "Yeah?" "I really, really don't like it up here," Claws said while looking all around. His eyes kept locking onto random ponies from earth ones to flying ones like he was being distracted, but it was more than that. "Why?" "All these ponies just make me nervous, okay?" "They're just ponies. I know they are bigger than us but we do have fire you know? We're dragons, dude." "I know, but… can we just go back down? I'm scared…" This comment caused Spyro some concern so he went up to talk to the captain. The captain agreed to let another pony lead Claws back to his guarded room, and Spyro demanded to stay up on deck for as long as possible. The captain was far too busy to notice him wander off, but he decided to look around the deck while trying his best to stay out of the way. He wasn't exactly sure what to do so he tried to drum up some conversations, however, most were not interested in speaking to a dragon. He tried to talk to the pegasus ponies, but they were all too busy attending to the clouds. He tried the earth ponies, but they just grunted at him, and finally he tried the unicorns, but they all seemed far too busy. With a sigh, he walked back to the captain and waited, after a while the captain had stopped ordering others and was now enjoying the ocean breeze. Spyro took his chance to act. "Hey, captain?" "Yes, Spyro?" "Ever see any pirates?" "No. There haven't been pirates in these waters for over three centuries." "That's so boring! Does anything exciting ever happen on your ship?" "The most exciting thing to happen recently are two very annoying baby dragons who stowed away. So, yes." "I'm not a baby! And we are not that exciting. We don't even have wings!" Every word was followed by a stomp of his foot and a grunt. After, he simply sat down, sulking to himself. "You will get your wings eventually. True, pegasus ponies are born with them, but it’s not like we could all fly at your age." "Really?" "Oh yes. It takes quite a bit of training and practice. I believe my first real flight was at the age of eleven. Before that, most pegasus ponies can only glide or barely manage to break off the ground," he replied, smiling down at him. "So, you're saying that I just need to wait and I can fly eventually?" "Well, yes. One thing I can say that you have on me at my age is the ability to breathe fire. I would imagine that is something exciting at least." "I guess so." "Right, I'll order one of my stallions to bring you back down. You have plenty of books in your room. You seem quite content on staving off boredom, so try some reading." Spyro agreed to walk back in silence. With some encouragement, he picked up a random book and started reading. Claws appeared to be taking a nap, but the two guards remained just outside. They were still prisoners, but they didn't feel like it; they only felt slightly annoyed. The moon was just about to rise which caused Spyro to sigh loudly. It had only been two days at sea. They still had around ten days to reach Equestria. "This is going to be a long trip," Spyro said to himself, placing extra emphasis on the word long. With another heavy sigh, he decided to call it a night.