((Prompt: Rarity tells her friends that she's in love with them. All of them.))
Timbers groaned as the deck listed below her. Rarity had never heard of a kraken before this day. As the thick, slimy tentacle that was wrapped around her midsection waved her through the air, she was quite certain she never wanted to hear of one again.
“Keep it away from the mast!” hollered Twilight, firing off hot bolts of raw magic at the encroaching tentacles. Rainbow Dash whizzed through the air, diving at whatever looked like an opportune target, while Applejack wrestled with a slimy tendril as big around as she was.
“Wheeeee!” Pinkie cheered as she rode one of the tentacles across the sky.
Rarity struggled against her captor, but its grip was too tight to squirm free. She blew a strand of seawater-soaked mane out of her face. “I have a confession to make,” she announced.
Applejack grunted as she kicked at the appendage. “Maybe this ain't the most opportune time, sugarcube.”
Twilight leaped over a toppled pile of crates and blasted away at another tentacle. “Fluttershy,” she called, “any luck?”
Fluttershy hovered in midair over the deck. “I keep asking it to stop,” she cried, “but it just won't listen!”
“That's because it doesn't have ears!” Rainbow Dash shouted, veering sharply to divebomb a tentacle that was busy wrapping itself around the mast.
“Is anypony listening?” Rarity asked. She kicked her rear hooves in frustration.
Applejack now had a pike in her hooves, and was stabbing at the meaty appendage fiecely. “Ya got-” Stab. “-our un-” Stab. “-divided-” Stab. “-attention, hon.” She looked up. “Twi, behind ya!”
Twilight did not turn to look, instead immediately teleporting out of the way as a wide tendril crashed down on the deck, sending splinters of wood everywhere.
Rarity tapped her front hooves against the sticky flesh wrapped around her. “It's all ruined, thanks to this thing.” She gave the tentacle a spiteful kick. “Now this is just going to sound like some half-baked confession in the face of imminent peril. You have to believe me that I had planned to tell you girls this all along.”
“For pony's sake, Rarity, just spit it out already!” Rainbow Dash whirled in the air and took another pass at the tentacle wrapped around the mast.
“Very well, then,” Rarity huffed. “I am in love.”
Pinkie let out a pleased squeal as she hung upside down in front of her. “Ooh! Who's the lucky pony?”
Rarity took a deep breath. “You.”
“Me?” Pinkie pointed to herself with her free hoof.
“All of you,” Rarity said, gesturing across the broken deck of the ship.
Twilight paused, a wisp of smoke rising from her horn. “All of us?” she echoed.
Rarity nodded. “That was the point of taking you girls on this cruise. I wanted to let the five of you know how very much you all mean to me. You are so very much more than just my best friends. I don't know what I would do if any one of you were not in my life.”
The tentacle shook her back and forth. “Would you stop that?!” Rarity kicked it hard, and it held still. “Ahem. Each of you makes me so incredibly happy just by being there, and I don't ever want us to be apart. If that isn't love, then by Celestia, I don't want love.”
Her friends went silent, staring at her wide-eyed. The sounds of crashing waves and creaking wood remained, but the ponies were speechless.
Suddenly, Fluttershy took a deep breath and dove over the side of the ship. For a few moments, only bubbles rose to the surface of the water. Then the tentacles loosened their grip on the ship and retreated into the water, dropping Rarity unceremoniously onto the deck. The yellow pegasus returned to the surface shortly after, rubbing her eyelids.
“I think I got saltwater in my eyes,” she said as Applejack and Pinkie helped her back on board.
Pinkie let out a short giggle. She was soon joined by Rainbow, and then all of them were laughing and sharing a group hug.
Rarity was cold and wet, and she smelled like dead fish. She wasn't even certain what her friends' reaction to her announcement would be yet. But surrounded by the warm bodies and warmer hearts of the ponies she loved, Rarity couldn't keep the smile from her face, even if she tried.