//------------------------------//
// The Red Whatever 
// Story: A Nice Cup of Tea 
// by Mannulus 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 2: The Red Whatever


There was no time for Derpy to go back to Ponyville.  Celestia and Brainwash had concocted a story involving a mid-air collision to explain why Derpy would not be home for a couple of days, and Celestia had sent Twilight a letter stating that since the “accident” had occurred in the course of a delivery meant for her, she would be grateful if Twilight would watch Dinky in her mother's absence.  The real reason for this request, she had explained, was that she wanted to ask Twilight about any observations she might have made regarding Dinky's natural magical talent.
In the end, all that was neither here nor there.  All Derpy had to worry about was getting this little brown box to the door of a pirate hideout north of Baltimare.  She had slept on the train, and now, in the light of early morning, she flew northward in search of a small, natural harbor encircled by mountains.
It wasn't long before she found it.  At first, she was unsure she had found the right place, but in the light of the rising sun, a big, red airship came into view far below her, floating low enough that it was hidden on all sides by the ring of mountains.  It was long and sleek with the rigid frame of a warship, and bristly with cannons.
This is stupid, she thought. They're gonna know somepony sent me.  You don't just find a place like this.
Whatever the case, she couldn't turn back now.  She began her descent.
As she sailed down past the gargantuan warship, she saw a name written on its side in elegant, gold letters.
"The Red Whatever," she mumbled. "Whatever."
Now, she noticed a small dock below the ship.  The Red Whatever was moored to it with huge chains, and behind that dock, there was the mouth of a cave.  The ship itself showed no signs of life; not even sentries seemed to patrol its decks.
Why would they need to?  They can see any possible threat coming from a long way off, right?
She let herself continue to descend, and was shocked to still see no signs of any activity below her.
“I can't believe how lax their security is,” she said, recalling the checkpoints that had stopped her on the way into the castle.
Still, her heart raced as she finally placed her hooves on the ground.  She looked around, tremulous.  Not even one pirate emerged from anywhere.
“If there was nopony on the ship,” she mumbled, “then they must all be in... there.”
She turned her eyes towards the cave.  It seemed much larger from the ground, and in the dim light of the rising sun, its yawning mouth seemed black and evil.  Still, she had come to deliver a package.
And for once, she didn't even need a signature.
She walked towards the cave, her stomach twisting and rolling inside of her.  As she reached it, she gave a timid shout.
“Hello?”
There came no reply, and given no other choice, she stepped forward.
“It's just a big, old, creepy cave full of pirates,” she said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
She stopped moving.
“Except every single thing about it.”
“Hello!” she called out again, stepping carefully forward.
"I wonder if there could be booby traps in here?" she mumbled. "Pirates use booby traps, right?"
Tripwire.
She felt herself tumble forward, heard the creak of something moving in the darkness, and then a tremendous crash.  Now came a metallic, tinkling sound, as of something rolling towards her in the darkness.  Whatever it was touched her hoof, and she bent down to examine it.  She could barely make it out in the darkness, but it seemed to be a small, iron washer.
Curious, she stepped in the direction from which the crash had come. Her hoof bumped into a large chunk of something metal.  She could see nothing about it in the darkness, but as she gave it a gentle push, it rattled, and fell over.
"I don't think that whatever this was did whatever it was supposed to do," she said. "But what if it had," she cringed.  "I better be more careful."
The walls of the cave grew darker as she moved deeper inside, but after awhile, she began to think that her eyes had started to adjust, as they seemed to come back into focus, somehow – as focused as anything ever was in her peculiar, misaligned field of vision, anyway.
It was not so, however.  Her improved vision came instead from a pair of torches which glowed from where they were mounted to either side of a wood plank wall set into a narrow bottleneck of the cave, itself.  In the center of the wall was a rough, wooden door, with what appeared to be a small window set into it at eye level, and covered with a wooden shutter.
She approached it quietly.
“Come on, Derps,” she whispered. “You've knocked on plenty of doors before.”
She raised a shaky hoof, and knocked twice.
There came the sound of something or someone stirring from beyond the door, but no other response.
She knocked again, this time thrice, and louder.
Once more, she heard the sound, and once more, there was no further reaction.
Frustrated, she began knocking directly at the small window's wooden shutter.  She knocked at it rapidly for at least ten seconds before it opened.  Her hoof had struck whoever stood behind the door five times between the eyes before she realized what was happening, and managed to stop herself.
“Yar.” was the only reply.
“I'm sorry,” said Derpy.
“Think ye nothin' of it!” said a growling voice. “No feelin' in my face no way, what with how hard I been at the cider barrel, this eve past!”
“Oh... well...” Derpy cleared her throat. “All for the best, then?”
“Aye.”
“Uh... I have something for Magenta-with-a-Saffron-Stripe-Beard,” said Derpy.
“The Cap'n be asleep” said the odd voice from beyond the door, “and ye knows I can't be lettin' ye beyond ye olde portal, here without the password.”
“How did you pronounce that 'e' at the end of 'old?'” asked Derpy.
“It be years of practice, but trust me lass, give it ye're best, and one day, ye too shall speak like a true salt!”
“Yes, of course,” said Derpy.
“Ye means 'Aye,' of course,” said the voice.
“Um... I,” said Derpy.
“No, lass,” said the voice. “Thar be two syllables in 'aye;' ye must stretch it out into a diphthong, or it be no good, at all.”
“Ah-ee?” said Derpy.
“Closer, but now ye sound like ye be tryin' to sing backup vocals for a pop song. Be more sure of yerself, and growl as if sufferin' the deepest of intestinal discomforts!”
“Aye?” said Derpy.
“Aye.” said the voice.
“Aye.” said Derpy.
“Aye!” said the voice.
“AYE!” said Derpy, as fiercely as she could manage.
“And that be the password!” said the voice.
The little window shutter closed, and the door flung open, revealing a rotund, green pegasus with pegs where his wings had once been.  He had a white mane, thinned with age.  He also wore a red, polka-dot bandana, and reeked of stale cider.  His cutie mark was a cutlass, and he wore one on his waist.
“This is a pirate cove, and the password is 'aye?'” asked Derpy.
“Aye,” said the pegasus. “And did it not yet take the expert instruction of ol' Pegwing to gain ye ye're admittance?”
“Aye,” said Derpy.
She shook her head.
“I mean, ye has... You have a point.”
“Takes ye quick, don't it?”
Derpy shrugged
“Now, what business has ye with Cap'n Magenta-with-a-Saffron-Stripe-Beard?”
“A package,” said Derpy. “I'm with EPS.”
“Yar!?” said Pegwing, stunned. “Be that the way of it!?  I thought sure ye was some swab taken on as a cabin girl!”
“Nope,” said Derpy, “just a delivery pony.”
“Well, ye spake the password, and ye has the brown bags, so 'tis my reckonin' ye can be trusted.”
“But you...” Derpy began, but was cut off.
“And yet how is it ye came to find the infamous hidey hole of Cap'n Magenta-with-a-Saffron-Stripe-Beard?”
“Uh, the address on the package.”
She produced the package and displayed it to Pegwing.
“Captain,” he began, but paused. “Yar, they be usin' an archaic spellin.'”
He cleared his throat.
“Cap'n Magenta-with-a-Saffron-Stripe-Beard, box one, that little, secluded cove north of Baltimare.”
He shrugged.
“Well, how could ye not be findin' us with such clear instruction as these.  'Tis the marvel of the modern postal service which oils the cogs a' the machine a' society.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Derpy. “It's that.”
“Well, go on about ye're business,” said Pegwing, “I'll return to me cider, me pipe, and me songs of strappin' young lads trimmin' the topsails!”
“Okay!" said Derpy.
Pegwing gave her a scowl.
“I mean, YAR!”
“That's a lass,” said Pegwing, before bumbling away towards a cider barrel on a small, nearby table.
Derpy turned and moved further into the reaches of the pirate hideout.  The smell of cider pervaded everything around her, and in may places there were bunks and hammocks strung from support beams, each one occupied by a pirate.  Most were pegasi, but there were also a few griffons and even a very few bat ponies.  Stallions prevailed, as would be expected, but there were more than a few mares, as well, and most of them looked meaner than the stallions.
“I guess they'd have to be to survive around here,” she said quietly. “Oh, Derps, what have you gotten yourself into, this time?”
A nearby griffon stirred, scratching at his belly, and Derpy reminded herself to be absolutely quiet as she searched for the pirate captain.
I don't even know what this pony looks like, she thought, unless I really see a magenta beard with a saffron stripe, of course, but what are the odds?
She moved as quietly as possible, stepping down a long hallway lined with bunks, each one taken by another hard-faced, cider-soaked pirate.
Finally, after traversing several of the halls, and climbing a short staircase, she found a door.  It stood partially open, and from inside it came the sound of somepony snoring – loudly.
“Could this be it?” she whispered.
She pushed the door open, cringing at how it creaked in the silence.
The air inside was much cooler than the crowded passageways of the rest of the hidey hole, and unlike the rest of the strange bastion, the room was decorated.  There were paintings of various nautical scenes, and the furniture was actually quite nice and apparently antique.  There was a fine dresser, an elegant chest-of-drawers, a large, freestanding mirror, and even a small nook with a little table having nothing on it but a silver tea set.  A small wood-burning stove stood near it,, and last of all there was a lovely, four-post bed.  In that bed slept a mauve-colored pegasus.  To find such a room in a place like this was, in itself, a surprise, but what made it seem even stranger was that the sleeping pony was clearly a mare.
She did indeed have a long, magenta mane with a saffron stripe, but there was, of course, no beard to be seen.
“I knew it!” said Derpy. “No beard, at all.”
The sleeping mare rolled over, and snorted in her sleep.
“Well,” said the pegasus. “I guess I could just leave it here, and hope she found it.”
She shook her head.
“No, she might not see it.  Princess Celestia said she had to be wearing it to make the magic work.”
Derpy approached the bed, trembling slightly.
Up close, she was shocked to see that the mare was actually quite pretty, and probably a few years younger than her.  This was not what she had expected when she had come looking for a pirate captain.
“Do I wake her up?” she asked herself. “Maybe I should just wait until she wakes up on her own.  She might be mad if I disturb her.”
The sleeping pony snorted and rolled, again.
“Well, maybe if I just gave her a nudge.”
“Uh, captain?”  Derpy touched the catatonic pegasus on the shoulder, and almost immediately wished she hadn't.
She bolted upright, a dagger in her teeth, and wrapped Derpy up into a headlock.  Then, she spoke -- carefully and slowly, so as not to cut her lips on the glistening blade of the weapon clutched in her incisors.
“Somepony trying to take advantage of my open door policy, I see?” she snarled.
“Delivery!  Package!  Something for you!” Derpy spat out frantically.
The pegasus slackened her grip.
“Oh,” she said, still not removing the dagger from her teeth. “Well, I apologize, then.  Have to be careful, these days.  Spies around every corner, you know.”
Derpy withdrew her head, and stepped back.
“You don't say?” she said.
“Wait,” said the other mare, at last removing the dagger from her teeth with a wing. “Who are you?”
Her voice was thick with a Trottingham accent, and without the impediment of the dagger, she spoke clearly and articulately -- nothing like Pegwing's pirate dialect.
“Derpy Hooves – EPS.  Someone shipped this to you, and I just followed the directions on the label, and...”
“Likely story,” said the pirate. “How did you find this place?”
“The address on the box.”
Derpy showed her the package.
“Well, that explains it,” said the pirate captain. “What is this?”
“I don't know,” said Derpy. “It wasn't stated on the invoice.”
“Who sent it?”
“The return address is a residence in Canterlot,” said Derpy.  “I can't tell you more than that.”
“Really?” said the other mare, suspiciously. “You open it.”
She passed the box back to Derpy.
“We scanned it already,” said Derpy. “It's nothing dangerous.”
“Still,” said the pirate, “you open it.”
“Okay,” said Derpy, and for a moment, she found herself questioning Princess Celestia's promise that this was not a bomb.
Then, she realized that the pirate mare still had her dagger.  She really didn't have any choice in the matter.  She tore into the brown paper, and popped open the lid of the box.
It was a necklace, set with a large, heavy ruby.
“Well, well,” said the pirate, reaching out a hoof.
Derpy passed her the heavy, golden necklace with its huge, red gem, and was glad to have it out her hooves.
“Such a pretty thing,” said the Pirate.
“There's a note here, too,” said Derpy. “It just says, 'From a fan.  Keep this next to your heart for good luck.'”
“Well, how thoughtful of... somepony,” said the pirate, and she pulled the huge necklace around her neck, and clasped it behind the back of her head.
“Well, I'm off,” said Derpy.
“Oh, do stay awhile, said the odd pirate mare. “The company around here is all but insufferable; nothing but smelly vagabonds and the loathsome dregs of ponykind.
“What about the griffons?” asked Derpy.
“They can actually make good conversation, but you have to catch them in the right mood.  Otherwise it's all "'Let me tell you 'bout this one bloke what I disemboweled with me talons, mate.'”
"That's probably what makes them good pirates," said Derpy.
"There is no such creature in all the world as a good pirate."
"Efficient pirates?" asked Derpy.
"Apt," said the other mare. "I shall have to use that.  You see, this is just the sort of conversation I need."
Derpy thought about the army of sleeping pirates outside, and realized that there was no way she could hope to escape should this pirate not take well to any refusal she might offer.
“Well,” said Derpy, “I suppose I could stay awhile.”
“Lovely!” said the young mare. “I'll make us some tea.”
Within minutes, Derpy sat at the small table she had earlier noticed in the nook of the pirate's bedchamber.  A steaming cup of Earl Fleabitten Gray sat before her.
“So, where are you from, Ms. Hooves?” asked the pirate.
“Ponyville,” said Derpy.  She had been watching the little pirate mare bustle about, taking note that her cutie mark was nothing other than a steaming cup of tea much like the one that now sat before her.
As she sat down opposite her, the pirate spoke.
“Ah, I hear Ponyville is a lovely little town.  I should like to visit it someday, though my current profession of course renders that an impossibility.”
“Have you ever thought of getting out of... uh... piracy?” asked Derpy.
“Often enough,” said the mare, "but have you seen my crew?  They'd fall to pieces without me."
“If you don't mind my asking,” said Derpy, “how did you end up... here?”
“Now that is a fascinating tale,” came the reply. “As you might have guessed, my real name is not Magenta-with-a-Saffron-Stripe-Beard.”
“The lack of a beard sort of tipped me off on that,” said Derpy.
“Ah, yes,” said the pirate; “this trick.”
She pulled her long mane around in front of her face, and hooked it behind the opposite ear.  It hung there like a thick, bushy beard for a moment, and then with a flick of her hoof, she let it fall back to where it had hung, before.
“It makes me more intimidating.”
“Ah...” said Derpy.
“To get back to my story, when I was growing up in Trottingham, I was known as Teacup, and you may address me as such, if you wish.” She sipped at her tea. “My family was a respectable lot, in those days.  My parents made their money importing tea, which is always big business in Trottingham.”
“So I hear,” said Derpy.
Teacup chuckled.
“I suppose everypony hears,” she said. “We do drink a great deal of tea in Trottingham.”
She sipped again at her own cup, and Derpy, realizing she had not touched her own, did likewise.
“Well, things were just getting along right swimmingly until a competitor arose in the East.  They started importing direct, and it wasn't long before it seemed like my family's whole business would topple.  Father let himself be driven out of house and home, and went to living in a little flat in a rather poor neighborhood.  Even so, he kept paying my tuition at boarding school, even if he had to sell off a little more property here or there.  He was positively insistent that no matter what happened to him I should have a chance to build as fine a life for myself as I possibly could.”  She sipped. “I of course protested, but he would hear none of it.”
“He sounds like a good dad,” said Derpy.
“Oh, the best,” said Teacup.  She sighed.
“It went on like that for awhile, until I got a telegram one day saying that I should come and see him in the hospital.  He had contracted a case of pneumonia from living in such squalor.  It did him in, the old warhorse.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Derpy, sadly.
Teacup said nothing, but sipped once more.  After awhile, she spoke again.
“I was rather upset, as you might imagine, and decided that my only clear course of action was obviously cold-blooded revenge.  Of course, there was nothing unfair or illegal about what father's competition had done.  It was just that our business was a remnant of the old world, and was fading away with the rest of it.  I was just too young and foolish to see that, though.”
“What did you do?” asked Derpy.
“I sold all that was left of the family estate, and bought an old, disarmed ship left over from the griffon war, claiming I intended to use it for scrap metal.  I had it rearmed in secret, and then sailed east with a skeleton crew, stopping along the way to take on every vagrant, beggar, and individual of less-than-savory circumstance and repute whom I could find.  They were all so grateful to have a place in the world for the first time in their lives that they became rather fanatically loyal to me, and when I announced my intention to prey upon the merchant marine of my perceived foe, they were all elated.”
“And then?” asked Derpy.
“It took me a scant two years to bring my enemy to utter ruin,” said Teacup, “but do you know what happened?”
“What?” asked Derpy?
“Three more businesses just like them sprang up to compete for the market.  Suddenly, I was confronted with something of a moral dilemma:  These were not the ones who had brought my family to ruin.  How could I then, in good conscience, seek their destruction?  This of course made me wonder how, in good conscience, I had done the things I had already done.  But by then, it was too late.  I had never given consideration to what I would do when my enemy was vanquished, and I had a crew of loyal followers who depended on me for their very survival, even at the expense of others.'
“So, we began our strange odyssey, sailing from country to country, taking what we could, and living as merrily as our plundered riches allowed.  Such has been our way, ever since.”
“How long has that been?” asked Derpy.
“About six months,” said Teacup.
At that exact moment, Pegwing stormed into the room.
“YAR!” he shouted.  “The gypsy griffon says thar be half the Equestrian Navy headed this way with fire in their bellies and powder in their cannon!”
“So, they've found us again,” said Teacup. “Very well.  Is the Whatever prepared?”
“Aye, Cap'n,” said Pegwing, “The Whatever be ready as ever what she be.”
“Well, let's get aboard, and get out of the cove, then,” said Teacup. “You should join us, Ms. Hooves.  It promises to be a merry chase, as always.”
“Oh, I don't think I can...” Derpy began.
“You're coming,” said Teacup, having once again produced her dagger.
“... don't think I can stand to miss the excitement,” said Derpy.