A few months ago…
Last week, it had been an ancient castle dating from before the founding of Equestria, with noble defenders within holding off a horde of griffins and minotaurs and diamond dogs. A few days ago, it had instead been a great mountain, with a fabulous prize said to lay at its top for any brave enough to scale it. And today, it was a fortress in the Southern Sea, set next to the vital trading port of Neigh Orleans that, rumor said, was about to come under attack by Barbarneigh pirates.
In fact it was none of those things, it was just a tall, easy-to-climb tree in the Whitetail Wood with branches that had grown in such a way as to create a kind of natural fort. To the ponies of Ponyville, it was known as the Castle Tree.
“Alright you maggots, listen up!” Scootaloo exclaimed as she trotted imperiously before the line of foals that had arranged themselves on the ground inside the drooping boughs of the Castle Tree. “We’re here to – ”
“I don’t think ponies talked like that back during the Barbarneigh days,” Dinky interrupted.
“Yeah,” Snips said. “It was a hundred and fifty years ago…”
Scootaloo pointed at Dinky and Snips both. “Sedition!” she exclaimed. “Sweetie Belle, clap them both in irons!”
“We don’t have those,” Sweetie Bell pointed out.
“Well…fine. Snails! Flog them!”
“Huh?” Snails asked, looking up. He had one hoof raised, as crawling across it was something small and white and possessed of too many legs for most ponies to be comfortable with. “Sorry. I found an albino woodlouse!”
“Snails!” Scootaloo cried. “This is no time to be playing with bugs!”
“Woodlice are crustaceans,” Snails objected. “They’re not even insects. And only insects in the hermiptera order are ‘bugs’ anyway.”
Scootaloo stared a moment, before sighing, covering her eyes with one hoof. “This fortress is gonna fall to the Barbarneigh pirates,” she predicted.
Dinky puffed up her chest a little. “No it won’t!” she declared, stepping out of line and looking over the dozen other foals. “Everypony to your battle stations! Get the water balloons ready! Scootaloo, you can climb the best, so you can go and keep a look-out!”
Scootaloo frowned as everypony else burst into action. “I wanted to be in charge…”
“Sorry,” Dinky apologized. “Next time you can be. I won’t say anything. What’s flogging, anyway?”
“I dunno,” Scootaloo admitted as she scampered over to the Castle Tree’s main trunk and climbed it. Dinky followed, though not as high, instead making her way over to a natural gap in the branches that let her look out from the tree. The Castle Tree was situated on the edge of the Whitetail Wood; the forest to their back was the ‘town’ of Neigh Orleans, while the broad, hilly field in the front was the ‘ocean.’
“Make sure to save your water balloons!” Dinky called out. “We need to make every throw count!”
There was several long, tense minutes, before Scootaloo finally called out a warning. And there, across the open ocean/grassy field, they appeared, the war-galleys and carracks of the Barbarneigh corsairs, sailing north from Zebrica and Tapira and intent on raiding the Equestrian coast for treasure and slaves. There were pirates of every variety; zebras, antelope, and tapirs mostly, but with some ponies, horses, and even a few griffins and buffalo mixed in All were dressed and painted for war and armed to the teeth, as scurvy a bunch of sea-dogs as ever there were.
Everypony in the Castle Tree pointedly ignored that it was actually a few wagons or scooters, that most of the pirates were on foot, and that they were all just normal pony foals.
Dinky’s eyes, though, were immediately drawn to the pony/pirate leading them, a splotched-coated earth pony wearing a bandana and jerkin, cutlass at his side and directing the rest of the nefarious band of cutthroats. His mane and tail billowed in a breeze that came from nowhere as he drew his sword.
Dinky blushed at the sight. She didn’t know why.
“Avast!” The pirate exclaimed, his accent Trottinghamish. “I’ve put together this flotilla and I mean to sack this port! Surrender now!”
“Never!” Almost everypony within the Castle Tree retorted, readying to throw their balloons.
“Hey, wait!” Dinky called before the pitched battle could begin. “Who are you?”
The pirate grinned widely as he spotted Dinky amidst the branches. “I’m King of the Pirates, I am I am! Scourge of the Seas and – ”
“No, I mean, I’ve never seen you around town,” Dinky interrupted.
“Oh,” the foal responded, lowing his wooden sword. “I’m Pipsqueak. I just moved here from Trottingham the other day.”
“He’s cool!” One of the other pirate foals, Applebloom, said as she lifted up her eyepatch to get a better look at Dinky. “He had all these pirate toys already an’ even came up with the plan to outflank y’all by – ”
“Oi! Shut it!” Pipsqueak interrupted quickly. “Don’t tell them!”
Applebloom blushed in embarrassment, putting her eyepatch back on. Dinky giggled as she looked back to Pipsqueak. “Hi!” Dinky said. “I’m Dinky Doo!”
Pipsqueak waved, then slipped back into character. “Be ye the master of this fort?”
“Huh?” Dinky asked, blinking. She suddenly remembered that she was in the Castle Tree, trying to fend off a Barbarneigh Coast attack. “Oh! Um…yeah, I guess. Yeah! Captain Dinky of the Royal Equestrian Army!”
“Then I’ll give you one chance! Surrender now or I’ll sack the fort and sack Neigh Orleans!”
Dinky weighed carefully the pros and cons of letting Pipsqueak into the Castle Tree. She couldn’t actually think of any pros, however…but for some reason she really didn’t understand why it’d be so bad.
“Dinky!” Scootaloo called down at her after several moments. “What’s taking so long?”
Dinky blinked a few times, then steeled herself. “No!” she called down to Pipsqueak. “I have a duty to my ponies and to Equestria!” She threw her water balloon. Pipsqueak yelped as it sailed at him, quickly taking his wooden sword into his mouth and swiping. He managed to deflect the balloon, making it land at his hooves before it popped, getting only a little wet.
“Alright then, lads and lassies!” Pipsqueak said after spitting out his sword, as his scurvy band of miscreants readied their own water balloons. “We do this the hard way! Attack!”
The Barbarneigh pirates charged, Pipsqueak retrieving his sword and joining at the front. Many of them fell on their way to the fort, their first attack repulsed after long minutes of intense fighting. Both sides got soaked, Dinky in particular hit Pipsqueak a number of times, though she was hit a number of times in return. The second attack came later, unexpectedly, from a hidden force coming in from the Whitetail Wood itself that was quickly reinforced by the main body of corsairs – apparently this had been Pipsqueak’s master plan that Applebloom had accidentally almost spoiled. A time-out was called to determine if that was fair or not; by the time the issue was resolved, the surprise was ruined anyway, and the pirates withdrew in disarray, and Pipsqueak had been given a black spot and had to defend himself from Rumble’s attempts to take over leadership of the band. The Castle Tree’s defenders, however, were perilously low on water balloons, and couldn’t exploit the weakness.
The final attack came not long after Pipsqueak managed to get enough votes to remain the Pirate King, with only a precious fifteen minutes before everypony had to go home for dinner. Exhausted, demoralized, and low on ammunition, the defenders of the Castle Tree were at last overwhelmed, the Barbarneigh corsairs penetrating their outer defenses and getting into the boughs of the tree itself. A pitched battle followed, the remaining water balloons flying, but in the end, Dinky, Scootaloo, and Snails stood alone and side-by-side against Pipsqueak and his ragged band.
“Surrender!” Pipsqueak demanded.
Dinky lifted the last water balloon over her head telekinetically. “Never!” she exclaimed heatedly. Unfortunately, her concentration slipped, she squeezed the balloon just a little too hard, and the balloon popped.
“Wagh!” Dinky cried out at the unexpected fall of water onto her head. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed, though, as at the sight, everypony around burst out laughing, Dinky joining in wholeheartedly. It was several long minutes before she calmed down. “Aww…” she observed. “We lost…”
“Haha!” Pipsqueak exclaimed, holding his cutlass over his head again. “The Barbarneigh corsairs win! You lot will all be shipped back to Tapira, and to Swala and Ngamia in Zebrica, to be sold in the slave markets!”
“I don’t want to be a slave!” Snails objected. Dinky wholeheartedly agreed.
“Too bad!” Pipsqueak laughed, turning with his band and trotting triumphantly from the Castle Tree. He stopped on his way out, though, turning back to Dinky. “That was fun, though!”
“Yeah!” Dinky said, trotting forward as she shook her mane. She was soaked, but so was everypony, and it was hot enough that by the time they got back to Ponyville proper, they’d all be dry. She looked at Pipsqueak. “We get together like this every weekend. It’s not always attack-the-fortress, though. Sometimes we play hoofball, or go on treasure hunts…”
“That sounds like fun!” Pipsqueak said. Up close, Dinky realized he was shorter than her, though he seemed a year or two younger, anyway, so that made sense. “I can’t wait! Gotta go home for dinner now, though.” He waved at Dinky as he turned around. “Bye!”
“Bye! I’ll see you soon!” Dinky called, smiling brightly. She may have failed to protect the Castle Tree, but for some reason she couldn’t stop smiling anyway. Probably because even though she had lost, she’d still had a lot of fun, and had even made a new friend. She scratched at an errant itch on her flank at that last thought, but when she checked to see what caused it, saw nothing. She decided to write it off, though. After all...
“Today was a really good day,” she decided as she hurried home.