Flotsam’s horn surged with magical power. A bucket responded to his summons, flinging itself violently over the edge and down headlong into the watery abyss. Just as quickly it soared back upwards, overflowing with the salty brine of the drink below. The mop-head, none too clean, was thrust into this within an inch of inanimacy then wrung out so tightly that the water fled those fibres in terror and panic. Unsatisfied with his work and his lips drawn back in a grimace of concentration, Flotsam subjected his improvised weapon to the ill treatment once more. When the brushy-brushy part was a little more tolerably gray, he sizzled them dry with a final gout of magic. The steam of it rose up around him and, awesome as it looked, he instantly regretted not having the foresight to consider the smell it would produce. Even so, he endured firmly and presented himself a warrior, ready and waiting for his chance to redeem his dignity in the face of filly ridicule.
Everything that had felt alien and wrong in the sword felt fight and familiar in the what he now held, leaning easily in the crook of his leg. It wasn’t just a mop, nor was it just a spear at that: it was a stabby-pokey-thrusty-swingable beatstick with a pointy bit...or in this case a scrubby scrubby bit on the end. An elegant weapon from a more civilized time...well, place anyway, unless he’d been drifting in the ocean a lot longer than anypony expected.
Patches and the nearest mares seem duly impressed with the stallion’s renewed confidence. The last pretense about the others practicing dribbled away, mares of all colours leaned on their blades or any convenient surface to view the coming entertainment. While it wasn’t quite the coming entertainment an unspecified by significant portion of them wanted, they’d take what they could get where and when they could get it.
This is well and truly ridiculous, the more rational, boring part of the white stallion’s mind chided, but the filly’s enthusiasm and sense of fun were infections, and like any proper infection, Flotsam was just a little heated and delirious with it. “Well, come on then,” he said and grinned, lowering the dubiously ‘clean’ mop-head to stare down the filly on his behalf. At a flick of his horn the strands all extended and wavered of their own accord, like the ugliest anemone ever to bless the ocean with the sacrifice of making every other anemone around feel better about itself.
They circled one another, these two silly combatants. She had agility, but she’d played that card in the farce of a fight before. He knew to watch for it now, and she knew that he watched for just that. The lanky filly showed an unexpected patience for her age, feinting here and there, testing the little twists and jabs of his defence. Even the moppy bit at the end stretched this way and that like a thing alive, trying to snatch at the filly and give her a face-encompassing noogy the likes of which would not be soon forgotten.
Being a unicorn did come with that kind of perk. Flotsam flicked his mane, full of sweat, seawater and wind from his face, unknowingly putting a peculiar tingle in the chests of a substantial few mares that hungrily followed his motions. For his part though, there was only the fun of the game, a contest born of boredom and fun nudging ever further into the ridiculous.
Patches lunged, little hooves storming along the deck. In came the swing, mop-head and all, but she ducked and flicked it away with her short blade. She lifted her head to strike only to find the butt of the ‘spear’ had come all the way around, Flotsam had planted it at an angle it in front of her and she slid up it like a ramp, completely immobilizing herself atop it, her front legs waggling uselessly for contact against the too-far deck.
She was swift, but also light. The stallion heaved on his impromptu catapult, the poor filly’s eyes wide as she took her first screaming steps into aeronautics. It was a good flight, the sort to make every pair of eyes follow it like the ascent of a splendid bird, a sudden flight ended just as abruptly when Patches was caught in a sudden glow of magic. Flotsam righted her, turned the spinning filly about face and let her drop back onto firmer footing.
“Nice catch,” Harpoon grunted from her spot in the shadow of the rigging. The crewmares were really getting into this, jostling for the best views and chatting in much animation about all things pertaining to the match.
“Thanks,” Flotsam said and, in turning to face her for that one singular moment, dropped his guard. As quickly as he caught his mistake Patches caught it faster, her legs churning through the intervening distance with a vengeance. There was no clever trap, no showing off this time; only a pure mistake that nearly cost him. Flotsam only barely caught her assault on the edge of his mop, flicking the filly aside so that she slid past him, and even at that the peculiar wet-sock tingle of the protective spell around the weapon made itself known along the length of his flank.
She made to slide a one-eighty in that really cool but nearly impossible way that always kicks up a lot of dust regardless of how much dust there is present, discovered just why it was considered nearly impossible and toppled head over hooves. She sprung back up just as quickly, but all the fight was gone from her shoulders, even her mane seemed more relaxed somehow.
Patches giggled, and once she got into the swing of it couldn’t stop, the really hearty kind that makes it nigh impossible to stand, let alone find. She even lisped her giggles, were it to be believed, and again her good humours proved utterly virulent. She sat on her haunches, dropped the knife to her side, panting and shaking with filly laughter.
Flotsam held to his guard for a moment, just in case it was some kind of ploy. Then the ridiculousness of it all caught up with him as well, and he too was struck down by a sudden fit of the giggles, an ailment of which there was no known cure, but time.
“That,” the filly huffed, “that wath thuper fun!” She made a sound like ‘wooooh!’ and threw her head back, letting herself fall right back onto the deck with a plume of wild hairs, relieving the flight in all its spectacle. She flung her hooves up to the skies. “Flottham ith the betht thtallion ever!”
The crew mares, for their part, seemed willing to concede the notion that yes, he was a pretty swell guy, but there were other ways to make a stallion sweaty and breathless, and it was these that they were more interested in for the judgement of his ‘bethtethtnethth.’
Blissfully ignorant, neither stallion nor filly noticed that underlying tension to the air and, leaning on one another (though really only she leaned on him, because of the obvious size differences) they wandered off together in search of a refreshing drink.
Left to their own devices, the crew picked up their armaments once more and got back into the swing of things. An instinct born of close quarters and hot heads meant that the rest of the crew, through no overt action, drifted well away from the First Mate and Quartermaster.
“Want to make this...a little more interesting?” Charming Booty’s hoof touched Harpoon’s shoulder, and the pegasus looked over her shoulder to the unicorn. Both glanced to the door Flotsam had passed into not a moment before, and an understanding flickered and fizzled between them.
The pegasus’ lip curled up in something like a grin, but what was really a sneer. In one respect it was a total shame she’d been born a pony, perfect as she was for cracking knuckles ominously in moments exactly like this. Instead she cracked the kinks from her neck in two stiff movements. “Alright then,” she said, and the two mares turned for their preferred weapons.
From across the deck, Nauticaa watched over her crew, all of her errant crew, and her eyes narrowed, though nopony witnessed this.