//------------------------------//
// Heart of Ponyoak 
// Story: The Ninety-nine Nectars of Princess Luna; Or How Twilight Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Her Wings 
// by NoeCarrier 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Fourteen


“Heart of Ponyoak”


At a fair rate of knots, the Equestrian coastline quickly retreated into the distance. The great, glistening expanse of the dauphine sea stretched out in all directions, spanning the horizon. The broad and plentiful strokes of the Divine Artist’s pallette had been most gracious here, and Emboss did not know that so many shades of blue existed, and he lacked the experience to properly compare them to anything. Shoals of wicked-looking orange fish, long and curved like tiny tusks, followed the Barely Eagle, easily matching its pace. Sometimes, they would leap from the water and, to all but one individual on board’s surprise and wonderment, extend ruffs of frilly membranes, taking to the air for what seemed like an implausibly long period before disappearing beneath the sapphire waves.

Birds that seemed far too small to be ocean-going descended on the deck a few hours into the journey. They were the size of hummingbirds, a shiny, almost pearl-like white, and would sit on any perch they could find for short periods, then dive at speed into the water, returning half a minute later with one of the orange fish, speared through the midsection on the end of its needle-like beak. Emboss had been quite perplexed as to why they, having caught their prey, simply perched, as if waiting for something. Then, another bird, this one far larger and about the size of a small albatross or large gannet, though not as shiny white, would swoop down and, with its one, massive claw, gently scoop up the little bird and its catch, carrying it away at speed.

“The big ones and the little ones work together,” Astrapios had explained, after seeing Emboss’ baffled look. “See, the big ones can’t eat anything except the orange fish, but they can’t go in water, so they have to wait until the fish jump, and be in the right spot to catch them, and that means they don’t get much fish. Now, the little ones can go in water, but the orange fish eat almost all the little one’s favored food. So, for six months of the year, the big bird and the little bird work together to make sure everyone’s better fed.”

“But where do the little ones usually live?” Emboss had asked. “Surely not on the coast, we’d have seen them before… wait a minute, are they gussets?”

“No, those are waders. As for where the little ones live, well… islands, usually,” At that point, he’d looked to windward and frowned uncomfortably, as if he had just spotted a fly in his soup. “You’ll see.”

There was a great deal of activity on the boat, despite the one gryphon crew. About two-thirds of the ship was ‘off limits to passengers’, and Astrapios was constantly in and out of them, like a whirlwind of horse, bird and tightly-wound fury. Besides a few short conversations, Emboss and Truth were mostly left alone to mill about on the deck, or hide from sun beneath it in the upper cargo hold. It wasn’t until well after nightfall, when Astrapios called them to dinner, that they had a chance to talk, and Emboss realized that there were, in fact, more persons aboard.

They were to eat in the captain’s quarters, which were quite sparse and functionally appointed, with a giant black desk, an orbiting collection of high-backed chairs and miniature chaise lounges of various sizes, a neat set of varnished ponyoak and mahogany filing cabinets, a few writing slopes and other official ephemera, and the big, teak dinner table, which was brought in by the first two new people they met, full gryphon twins. Emboss wasn’t fantastically good at telling the genders of gryphons yet - they lacked any of the normal, equine features such as a small muzzle or curly eyebrows - but they radiated an aura of immense sexuality, of femininity, that overrode any mere boundaries of species.

There was something in the way they moved; neat, perfectly-even paws at the back and slender, manicured claws at the front, some indescribable thing that rode on the gentle bob of their wings as they held them, not quite mantled, not quite unfurled, that lurked in the depths of their green eyes and squealed and begged a purity of lusty intent. That thing crept into Emboss’ mind, whispering in mellow, honey-wrapped tones that yes, we can be had, if only--

“Stop staring!” Truth whispered, sharply, snapping him from his reverie.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, blinking.

The twins had noticed his wandering attentions, and smiled in what might have been called a bemused fashion, had they not so closely resembled raptors. They dragged around two of the little chaise lounges, then another four of the chairs, which they settled themselves into rather unusually once they’d placed them on the opposite side of the table from the chaise lounges, sitting almost upright, feline thighs crossed over each other. Emboss and Truth climbed up onto them. They felt rather curious and lumpy on the fur of his belly, as if they had been used, many times, over the course of many years, for some rough purpose.

“I am Erisne,” the one sitting on the left said, in a heavy gryphic accent. “And this is my sister, Ensire.”

“G-good, strong gryphon names, those,” Emboss said, extremely thankful that he was lying down, for their voices were as beautiful as his mind had imagined. “Firm, rigid, like… ballo--”

“This is my husband, Double Emboss,” Truth said, in the most unamused tone of voice she had ever mustered, at least in his presence, dragging out the emphasis for only a fraction of a moment. “And I am Absolute Truth.”

“The captain will be joining us in a moment,” Erisne said, speaking slowly but very purposefully, and with not a word or bit of grammar out of place, despite the fog-like brogue. “Leaving so rapidly has caused a great deal of troubles.”

“Oh, what kind?” Truth said.

“Most of our stock was still in the printer’s warehouse,” Ensire said, her voice as identical to her sister’s as the rest of her was. “We had also only just returned from the broodland, and so we are short of consumables.”

“We’ve enough to make the trip though, right?” Truth said, briefly quite worried.

“The Barely Eagle has a big belly, you won’t go hungry for hay and oats for some time,” Erisne said, clicking her beak. “But we will need to stop at Noble’s Isle to take on fresh water, and supplies for those of us with different appetites.” She clicked her beak again. “You understand, yes?”

Before anyone could respond, Astrapios came into his quarters, pushing one of the cargo trolleys he had been using throughout the day to move things about. It seemed to be mostly full of glass decanters of many shapes and sizes, stopped with glass plugs, all the colours of the rainbow. They rattled together as he hurried in, shortly followed by the tallest zebra Emboss had ever seen. He walked with a deep grace to his gait, as though he were dancing everywhere, narrow, unshod hooves placed exactly where he meant them. There was muscle to him, but it was in tight and wiry bands, as though it were for purpose, not for show. The stripes along his barrel, neck and flanks were obsessively even, like they had been painted on, and the fur carefully trimmed. He surveyed the room with a quiet yet striking intensity for just a beat, then followed his captain.

“Terribly sorry about the delay,” Astrapios said, parking the trolley and taking a seat, which he scrambled up onto in a way that reminded Emboss of a terrier, or other small dog, trying to clamber onto his master's table. “We have been so preoccupied, haven't we, gang? So busy, that we have neglected our sudden guests.”

The two gryphons nodded gently, but said nothing. The zebra simply rolled his eyes, moved the fourth chair out of the way and sat down on the thickly woven carpet, folding his legs beneath him.

A dinner routine, obviously well rehearsed, began next. Ensire served herself and her sister, fishing a trio of bottles and a something heavy looking wrapped in paper from the trolley, which turned out to be a sort of black, cured meat, and a little tub of fish sauce. Astrapios enthusiastically grabbed a large, very square bottle, which was filled with a thick purple liquid that didn't quite move as though it were, but more like it was syrup, or tar. The zebra latched onto the largest food parcel on the trolley, hefted it onto the table, and very daintily unwrapped the paper that contained it, revealing golden oats and compressed cubes of hay, which had been drenched in some sort of paste and allowed to set, resulting in a very appetising biscuit-like thing. He looked at Emboss and Truth, holding their gaze for a moment, then began to eat.

Emboss exchanged a glance with his wife, who shrugged very slightly, then lit her horn and swiped a share of the herbivore's food over, further divvying it up between themselves. As soon as the eating had begun, Emboss realized how hungry they had become during the day. There had been little time to stop since breakfast at the Gusset, and that had only been the lightest of meals. He tucked into the oats, the pleasurable sensation of satiation rolling over him.

There was a cracking sound as the gryphon sisters tucked into their apparently well-cured meat. They snapped their beaks eagerly, pausing only to drown chunks of the stuff in their fish sauce, which only became more pungent as the surface of it was disturbed. Their bottles turned out to be mostly other sauces, including vinegar, something that smelled of freshly cut grass of all things, and another kind of fish sauce, which was thicker and seemed more rotten than the other one.

Astrapios, in the meantime, had gotten out six shot glasses, three of them designed for beaks – much smaller and designed to be grasped and then cocked upward to work with the avian inability to suck – and three of them designed for ponies – wide rimmed so the tongue could be stuck in and the content licked out. Into them he'd poured the purple drink, an act of supreme coordination for a hippogryph.

“To our guests,” he said, smiling faintly. “May the fairest winds and quietest skies greet them wherever they may be going, and may Princess Celestia smile Her beneficence on their business, whatever that might be.”

Emboss nearly choked on a mouthful of oats, but managed to keep his composure.

“We're going to--” Truth started to say.

“Ah, ah, ah, no,” Astrapios said, shaking his head. “It's bad luck to mention it, and besides, you might make us accessories or something.” He laughed at his own joke, and it elicited the first emotional reaction from the unspeaking zebra, whose black lips curled into a warm smirk.

With that, Astrapios bit one of the glasses, and that was the cue for a great shuffling and fluttering of feathers as the others reached for theirs. Truth again took care of that with her magic, floating theirs over. Emboss carefully grasped it with his own, sniffing it. The drink smelled of peppermint, if peppermint was actually a kind of gigantic, monstrous plant that roamed the countryside, breathing fire on people.

“Shastoi!” Astrapios said, and downed his shot.

The others did too, eliciting much grunting and suppressed coughing, even from the placid zebra. Presently, his eyes began to water.

“Shastoi, indeed,” Truth said, and drank hers, smacking her lips as it went down. “Oh, it's actually quite nice!”

Emboss went last, and all eyes were on him as a result. It burned as it touched his mouth, like being dunked in a vat of chili peppers. His throat trembled, and a prickling went through his cheeks, down the back of his neck and along his spine, where it hung around for a moment before petering out. An unfamiliar warmth came over him, and he too coughed, and the next time he breathed, it was like sucking down a mouthful of freezing mountain air.

“Another?” Astrapios said, nudging the decanter.

“Yes, please,” Emboss said, eagerly grabbing it.

Ah, this might not be too bad after all!


*



“Alright, here goes,” Twilight said, touching her horn to the wire that she'd pulled from one of her note binders and run into the assembly of flasks which, despite the microgravity making things a little easier, had still been tricky. She ran the smallest and most tenuous current she could through it and, after a moment, the liquid in the Ewenmarer flask began to bubble.

The process would throw off another gas too, one they couldn't breathe and would actually be quite dangerous in the enclosed space, but Twilight had contrived a cunning system to deal with that. The pipe sections she'd slotted into the holes of the Ewenmarer's cork stopper split, with the hydrogen going one way, and the oxygen another. Some rubber tubing later, she'd slipped it through the strange thaumic metamaterial surrounding them, changing its composition so it would expand into a cavity under the slight pressure the escaping hydrogen would provide. Then, if it came to it, she could close off one entrance and open the cavity on its other side to space.

Five or six minutes later, and Whom was looking better, if not back in peak condition. Her cheeks were still quite ruddy, and she was breathing strangely, like she was cantering up a hill all the time. Oxygen depletion was invariably fatal, but it was the asphyxia from the building up of carbon dioxide that would get you first. Twilight knew of a number of chemical processes that would remove it from the atmosphere, but none she could think of that would work with the limited array of items at her disposal. She would have to periodically drain as much from the makeshift spacecraft as she dared, and hope it didn't displace too much oxygen along with it.

Having banned Whom from speaking at all, Twilight began to work to address their next problem. Panic and fear, old friends, clawed at her thought processes with their little feelers of catecholamines and cortisol, but she stamped them down each time as if they were biting rodents nipping at her fetlocks. However, she was spurred on by the seemingly limitless amount of energy she had. Maintaining a magical construct, like the bubble, usually took it out of her in no time at all, resulting in its collapse. She figured that it must have been the speed they were travelling at, and the resulting constant refreshing of the local magical battery, that was the cause.

Leaving the oxygen generator for a little while, Twilight changed the composition of the sphere, slipping inside it. As carefully as she could, she ensured that she was well within it, and that there was a solid layer protecting the envelope of life-sustaining gas inside, before pulling herself out into space. The feeling of the odd material in her nose, pressing against her, was suffocating, but she managed to stay calm, even though the old instincts in her brain were telling her to kick, believing that she was drowning.

Space was chilly, but that same autumnal briskness that she had felt on the surface of the moon was complemented by the scorching rays of the sun, which lit up one side of the sphere a brilliant, almost blinding white, leaving the other side in total darkness. All was silent, and only the low and muffled thudding of her Divine heart broke it. As she tugged her back legs out of the shell and climbed up onto the surface of the sphere she almost threw herself off it, so she had to hold herself down with her telekinesis, quickly adjusting the material again to make it solid.

The sun was a sharp gem too fierce to look at it, and she was thankful to have come out on the side not being complemented by the scorching rays of the sun. She glanced around, trying to find a star fix, hoping that years of obsessive astronomy would now pay off. Thirty seconds later and, after finding the now tiny disc of the moon and then the larger blob of the planet they were aiming for, she ducked back inside, taking the same cautious route in as she had going out. Not two minutes had passed by the time she connected her horn to the wire again, restarting the oxygen flow.

Parallax reading equals distance, distance plus time equals velocity. No, margin of error is too big, blast it. Can't account for the time I was out cold. At least we're on roughly the right vector. Will gravity catch us without interference? Lets see... bugger it, I wish I had my charts. No, I think we're going too fast, but can we change that? By how much? Landing in the middle of the sea or the desert might be a death sentence in itself, at least for Whom.

And so the calculations went on, and so the amount of water they had to convert into oxygen got steadily less.



*


The first few drinks had set the stage for more, and more, with each new decanter pulled off the trolley offering a strange new range of delights. Some weren't even very alcoholic, just a kind of intense fruit punch with lots of odd ingredients, and Emboss found he was far more drawn to those. Alcohol had never been of particular interest to him, and probably never would be. Still, he enjoyed the buzz and the slowing of thoughts, the propensity to laugh at everything, even if it wasn't very funny, and to generally slough off much of the anxiety of recent times.

The gang, as Astrapios had called them, mostly talked about themselves, and what they did for a living. Once they'd gotten past the initial awkwardness of Truth and Emboss discovering they had boarded the floating offices of Equestria's only transspecies gentlecolt's publication, which did not last very long at all, given the inebriated state they were in, conversation had flowed like water from a mountain spring. The gryphon twins spoke most, telling of their upbringing in a place they described as a Henhouse, but which sounded more and more like a prison with every mention of how they had been regularly beaten, starved for long periods, and generally mistreated, until they had managed to escape hidden in a laundry wagon.

Later, they had met with what was perhaps a more unfortunate fate. Having gotten themselves into a lot of trouble, financially, they were forced to pay off their debt through sale into bonded labour. They had worked their way through the houses of the Eerie classes as maids and scullery hens, mention of which required twenty minutes of explanation on the caste and rank system present in gryphon society in as of itself, until, at the age of twenty-three, when the Mistress they were serving at the time's fortunes changed and she'd been made destitute, they had been lucky enough to have their debt purchased by Astrapios, who immediately forgave it. They'd joined his then-fledgling business in a heartbeat, figuring that a life overseas and a chance to earn real money was better than another twenty years cleaning and had been key to its running ever since.

The zebra, whose name eventually turned out to be iYut, continued his trend of quietness, and Emboss decided to try and bring him out of his shell, quite innocently asking if the lad was working his passage. This had provoked a brace of shocked expressions from the others, most of whom had then immediately burst out laughing. His pearly white and black striped cheeks went a shade of deep rose, and Emboss was sure he was about to gallop out of the captain’s quarters to go and hide. He didn’t though, and eventually, after much cajoling, explained that he was on trotabut, a fifteen-year exploratory wandering period customary to his people, and was working with the Barely Eagle team in order to fund the next leg of it. He was definitely not in the same role as his colleagues, however, and didn’t appear in any of the issues of the magazine, a point which he made firmly clear, several times. He would not say more, and seemed quite embarrassed about it all.

Finally, Astrapios told them his story. He'd been born out of wedlock; his father a naval captain and his mother a servant. It was a cliched beginning, he said, but it was his, and it was the truth. Origin hidden from the rest of the world, he'd been to work in the gryphic fleet as a cabin cock, a phrase that caused Emboss to break into fits of giggles. The life had been tough and hard, especially as his stunted size became more apparent. Eventually, and he skirted over exactly how with the fluid efficiency of a long-practised storyteller, he'd gotten away from the navy with a large sum of money, enough for his own small boat. Trading and other freelancing had been the name of the game from then on, until he'd hit on the idea of a gentlebeing's magazine whilst in a bar in Port Dauphine, late one night, having gotten into a talk about the sad lack of said product. The rest, he claimed, gesturing at his friends, workers and the ship itself, was history.

Questions nudged at Emboss' mind, like what Astrapios had been running from when they'd met him, and why they'd left in such a great hurry, but the hippogryph had done him the service of not asking the why of it, and so decided not to pry. His wife had made the same deduction, it seemed, for she did not either.

In the end, it was well past midnight by the time Astrapios showed them to their cabin, just off the captain's quarters, along the wide hallway that was also a viewing gallery, with great, tall portholes that looked out onto a moon-lit sea, crested with waves in which flashed the occasional signs of glowing, nocturnal animals dancing through them, though if they were fish or otherwise, he could not tell. The ship seemed to be just fine sailing itself, and kept on a single track, and there was very little chop. Emboss drunkenly hugged the diminutive gryphon as he left them to it, and received one back, before he staggered off down the hall back to his room.

The cabin was, despite being apparently little bigger than a big utility closet, very well appointed, with a comfy looking cotton-sheeted futon and its own porthole, with black wooden slat blinds and too many cushions, each one of which was slightly different, as if they'd been collected over a long period of time. Truth was flopped over the futon, fuzzy, ochre rear end hanging over the edge, back legs collapsed. The sight was wonderful, and Emboss slithered up alongside her, kissing her neck. It wasn't until he got to her head, and realized that she was out like a light, that he stopped, sighing deeply. Ah, the booze got you, my love. Alas, I doubt it would work anyway, as the booze has gotten me too...

Emboss had joined his wife in the silken abyss of a drunkard's fitful sleep by the time the multiple strings of pleasured, gasping cries, high-pitched giggling and rhythmic thudding, slowly rising in intensity, came drifting through the ship's timbers.




*


“Dolphins!” Truth yelled, bounding over to the edge of the ship so quickly she almost fell into the sea, eyes full of joy. “There are dolphins! Look!”

How she could be so eager with what must have been a hangover at least as powerful as his was beyond him. The mare had always been strong-willed, but this was ridiculous. His brain pounded mercilessly, and the bright mid-morning light was painfully lurid. The only small relief was the strong breeze, still a firm easterly, as it had been for the last twelve hours. Emboss gingerly trotted over to his wife, leaning gratefully on the thick, wooden rail.

There were, indeed, dolphins, chasing the boat with an ebullience and eagerness that made him smile. They joined up with the wake, diving in and out of the water, peeling away to play with the rest of their pod or catch orange flying fish, gulping down three or four in a single go before coming back again. They cheered his mood, and the occasional brace of clicks or drawn-out squeaking that came up from the waves that slipped quickly by did not sound too bad, even through the headache.

Eventually, Astrapios joined them on the main deck, making his own clicks and fluttering sounds as he stretched, yawned and warmed his body in the rays, preening his feathers. It was a strange sight to see, a half-horse, half-raptor creature, simultaneously preening, grooming and licking himself. Loose feathers, tugged out and discarded, were caught by the wind and swept up into the four unfurled and billowing sails. The lewd images on them, depicting a number of what must have been samples, in light of the realization about the ship's purpose, gleamed magnificently, and Emboss tittered as he saw them again.

“Good morning!” Astrapios said, as he launched into a series of calisthenic exercises. “Lovely, isn't it?”

“Oh, yes, marvellous!” Emboss said, even though it was mostly a lie. “So, when do we get to where we're going, sorry, I forget the name...”

“About three weeks, give or take the time we spend on Noble Isle, and--”

“Three weeks?” Emboss gasped. “No, no, no, that simply won't do!”

“Well, I do apologize,” the hippogryph said, laughing and putting on faux apologetic tone. “If sir wishes, he may get out and push!”

“You don't understand, we absolutely must get to gryphon lands within the next few days,” Emboss said, trotting closer as the hippogryph began trotting on the spot. “This is of utmost importance, there can be no delay!”

“We're not a ferry, Emboss, there's no chance of it, this thing does fifteen knots on a good day, and it's not a straight line as such, we may spend a lot of time becalmed, and so on, and so forth,” he said, trotting faster as he worked through his little routine. “There's no way to speed it it up. If you were wanting a rapid passage, you should have gotten one of those superclippers, with the unicorn-powered steam drives.”

“We're unicorns!” Emboss said, glancing back at his wife, who was still captivated with the pod of dolphins. “Hook us up!”

“It's not as simple as that, there's all sorts of extra parts, and the engine itself! Unless you can magic those out of thin air, you're out of luck! The unicorn is just the power source,” he said, swapping between very rapid trotting and not so rapid trotting in five second cycles. “You can't magic one up, right? Because if you can, well, those things are expensive, so--”

“No, I can't, my talent is in...” He looked back at the marks on his flank – abstract two-sided blotches, with little orbitals that were like someone had spilled ink on him – and shrugged. “I've never been sure, really. I know I can't do that, though.”

“Refer to my previous statement about being out of luck, then,” Astrapios gasped, stopping for a moment to catch his breath. “Look, what can I say? You're here now. I'm sure whatever you need to do in the broodland can wait, and if it can't, well, you screwed up.”

“No, no.” Emboss shook his head, “We have to find a way. There's no other choice.”

“Listen, I'm an experienced sailor, alright?” He drew himself up to his full height, turning to face Emboss. “I'm open to suggestions, but unless you can somehow make us go faster, there's no way we'll make home in seventy-two hours. There's no way to do.”

“Let... let me talk to my wife,” Emboss said.

“Can she magic a steam engine out of thin air?”

“No, she's a housewife.”

“What does that have to do with it? Maybe she has a hidden gift, you should encourage her to try it out!” Astrapios started giggling, which would have been very unbecoming, had he not been so small. “Go for it, laddy!”

Emboss huffed and trotted back to Truth who, by now, had noticed the conversation and was watching with a worried face.

“What was all that about?” she said. “Was he making fun of you?”

“No, not at all, but I asked him how long it was going to take, and he said three weeks.”

“Oh, okay...” Emboss looked puzzled, then made the connection. “Oh! But that won't work! We need to go faster!”

“We're sail powered, there's nothing to be done.” He sighed, slumping down against the rail edged round the ship. “At least this is a nice place to watch the end of the world. Maybe we'll be safe out here?”

“There will be something we can do,” Truth said, quite simply, after what seemed like a long pause. “We are educated ponies, sweetheart.” She sat down with him on her haunches, resting against him. “We have our learning and our magic. I am positive that there will be a way we can think around this.”

“Do you know any spells that might help?” Emboss bit his lip. “You know, I don't think Celestia mentioned any kind of time limit, now that I think about it...”

“You're right; it might already be too late.” She grinned. “I might, actually. Do you remember that summer I spent with Mrs Spun Glass?”

“Oh, yes, uh,” he said, furrowing his brow. “The big mare, unicorn, weird mane, really irritating voice?”

“That's the one. She used to do this... thing...” Truth waved her hoof around vaguely. “With magic, and she'd feed her forge with it. More oxygen, more heat, better glass, apparently.”

“What does it do?”

“I think it was a modified weather spell that she borrowed from a Cloud Patrol pegasus who she used to have a bit of a thing with,” Truth said, smiling naughtily. “They don't usually let that sort of thaumic power out of the gates, so to speak, but the stallion was really into her. Anyway, it moves and compresses air.”

“Like an artificial gale...” Emboss chewed his lip. “But can you remember how to perform it?”

“No,” she admitted, looking up at the clear, blue sky. “However, I can try.”