Dinner began as a tense affair. Flotsam expected there to be talk, banter of some sort, the casual jokes and humour of a working group at rest. One could not actually hear a pin drop—these were mares of the sea after all, they chewed and scraped and slugged drinks audibly. There was that same feeling though, tingling along just outside his periphery and along his ears. Somehow he’d ended up seated with Patches, which was a good thing, but the filly’s usual spot was in the centre of the benches, which was not quite so good.
It left Flotsam awash in a sea of watchful eyes. Even limpets usually had a corner to cling to. Harpoon had taken one end of his bench without a word, Charming Booty had slid herself along to the other. Patches sat across from him, cheerful as ever. Beyond them, the rest of the crew ate and watched. It was dinner and a show, really.
“Could I have another pickled egg, please?” he asked.
The ships’ filly looked up from her fumbling with the screw-cap jar. “You’re tho polite, Flottham. Okay,” she decided after a second’s deliberation. The filly fished around in the jar with her hoof, but the squidgy eggs slipped constantly around her grasp. He watched the spectacle in silent awe; the briny, vitriolic vinegar splashed about in the glass. He could almost hear the stuff at work as it sent untold thousands of bacteria to untimely doom. What it had wrought on innocent eggs was nothing short of eldritch. Otherwise, once the majority of taste buds stopped screaming and merely whimpered, it actually made for a distinct taste, one that etched itself into memory with only the faintest of acidic sizzles.
He inhaled. If his time in the ocean and bilge had conspired to give him a cold, such notions were burnt out now. It was like a menthol sensation, if menthol had an evil twin covered in warts whom tended to spit out teeth with ballistic force on occasion. It was heady, to say the least. Toothpaste would’ve melted on his tongue just then.
The actual meal was a lot less interesting and, after the dubious delicacy, entirely flavourless. But it was bountiful, and Flotsam’s stomach was not in a mind to care. It was mostly some kind of syrup accentuated biscuits, dipped heartily into a small bowl of stodgy stew made up from grains, tubers, anything that’d keep, really. Really, it was gruel. But it was a gruel that cared. All in all, it was good stuff.
If only their eyes would stop eating him in a similar manner.
“Hey, filly!” the cook called, the non-nonsense mare’s name forgotten to Flotsam. She hefted a slightly more presentable meal, for this one was on a wooden tray to the counter. “You know the drill,” she said not unkindly.
“Okay!” Patches called. “Captain’s dinner,” she explained hastily, leaving the stallion alone with the floating, tumbling eggs.
He felt the squeeze before he saw it; the two mares sliding along from either end, coming together like the vice of pincers. Flotsam tried not to look at either of them, not if it meant turning his back on the other. Then he caught up with his thoughts.
What was he thinking like this for? Sure, these crew were rough around the edges, but what did that matter? They’d pulled him from the brink and been nothing but decent to him. He put on his smile and decided to face them with civility and pleasantry.
“Heya Charming. Harpoon,” he said, nodding to each mare. A memory from his rather limited supply sprung up, and he blushed. “You know, I never properly thanked you for pulling me out—” she cut him off with a grunt. Slowly, as if great muscles strained to do so, she smiled a thin grimace.
“Harpoon,” said the quartermaster flatly before rolling her eyes, her voice rolled with it too. “Not much of a mare for—”
“You're welcome,” said the pegasus. Her grimace lowered its smile like other ponies might lower the bar of a bench-press: slow, controlled, with restrained intensity. Flotsam wasn’t meek by most measures, but he knew he balked a little with that. Charming Booty’s condescending huff brought him back to himself.
“Well, yes, niceties and all, how nice. But I was just going to speak to this Charming stud, if you don’t mind. No offense dear—” she blinked and paused. “—well, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You’re hardly a dear, Harpoon. Dire, maybe. But not dear.” Charming Booty smiled and simpered. And Flotsam had thought the pickle juice was caustic. Yet it’d have been better to have that in his eyes than this in his ears, he felt.
“I fished him out,” the pegasus said gravely.
Flotsam hunched his shoulders in, his head sank down upon his neck. “Ladies, if there’s—” He was interrupted by Charming, putting her knee up on the table. Hoof to the ceiling, her ankle was wearing a strange, compact device, all springs and swivels. There was an empty clasp in it, and when tricked open it swung forwards, brace and all, like an extension of her leg.
“I do more than appraise and store the swords, Harpoon,” the unicorn growled softly. “I’m quite good with them, too.”
“Handle a lot of swords, do ya?” Harpoon’s hoof touched down on the table. Her muscles and tendons must have been irate, being packed in so tightly. Thin scars traced errant lines across her coat.
“A lot more than you, and proud of it. Finesse, not stab-stab and it’s all over, Harpoon.” She hissed emphasis on the name. Flotsam wasn’t sure they were talking about weaponry anymore, but his doubt gave him no answers, just fear. The atmosphere could have been carved with a knife, provided neither mare got hold if it first and hencely and put it to more literal work on one another. The rest of the crew watched silently, not wanting to spoil the show or miss any nuance of it.
Harpoon was the first mate, wasn’t she? What kind of hierarchy did this ship even run on? Force of will and assertion? His suspicions were forming a dreadful, Flotsam shaped silhouette trapped in the middle, but he didn’t want to believe it. If he raised his head, their matched glares probably would have burned pinpoint holes clean through it, cauterizing his brain and all.
“Charming Booty? Harpoon?” For a delirious second, Flotsam thought the filly was his salvation. But her voice quivered, her brow creased with concern and uncertainty. The grown mares eyes’ flicked to her lick snakes’ tongues, deciding in an instant what the new presence factored.
He’d never yet seen the ships filly less than cheerful. Whatever enigmatic presence she carried with her, it wasn’t cutting it this time, not here.
A heavy wing fell over his one shoulder, a unicorn’s hoof settled on the other. Flotsam stifled a gulp and tried to sink lower. If he wasn’t screwed right here, right now, he was certain he very soon would be.