//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Ponies of the Caribbean 
// by Shukawarioserfi 
//------------------------------//

On the far end of Equestria, just south of the horseshoe bay lies a seedy port town, home to all manners of foul ponies. Vagrants, pickpockets, cutthroats, and of course, pirates. The greasy black tar that held the town together.

It’s name is Trotuga, and its existence had been a blight on Equestria ever since the Dragons started hiring couriers to move their treasure by sea. Those that could afford the collateral would move treasure for massive payment from the dragons. Those that couldn’t would outfit a ship and steal from those that could.

For a long while, nothing was done about the piracy. The royalty knew that treasure ships were being destroyed, but they assumed it was being done by the Griffins, or possibly other dragons. The idea that their own subjects could be attacking each other was incomprehensible. When Celestia finally discovered the true nature of the attacks, it was too late to do anything about it directly. It was decided that the best course of action would be to send a delegation directly to the dragons to find out why they were moving their hordes and either get them to stop or to change the way they were moving it.

Due to the potential danger and the involvement of dragons, Celestia decided that Twilight and her friends would be best suited for the mission. Since Equestria has no navy to speak of, they would have to charter a ship, and the cheapest place to do that was Trotuga.

Twilight and the girls had prepared for a month’s voyage, packing food, clothing, and other essentials, then removing everything Rarity thought was “necessary” to save space. In the end they had packed it into one cart. One very heavy cart that Applejack had been pulling the entire time.

“Could one of y’all spell me for a bit? Rainbow?”

“Ooh, I really wish I could, Applejack but I’ve got to uh, scout ahead and make sure we aren’t being followed” Dash said before vanishing in a blur.

“Anypony else?” Everypony was suddenly very interested in looking at the road. Everypony except Pinkie Pie.

“I’ll pull the cart Applejack! It’ll be super fun, and you look like you could use a break”

Applejack thought back to the beginning of the trip when Pinkie last tried to pull the cart. Her usual gait of hopping everywhere was less than ideal for pulling the cart. It was more work to run around and catch everything that fell out than it was to pull.

“No, that’s alright Pinkie. Let’s just take a rest by this here pond, it’s almost suppertime anyway.”  

The ponies set up around a clear blue pond just a few yards from the road they were traveling and split up to do the necessary chores for a meal on the road. As long as they could manage it, their food would consist of foliage they could find around the road, using the supplies in the cart sparingly. While Applejack rested and the other ponies gathered, Twilight was looking at the map and planning their route. Applejack noticed Twilight’s brow furrowed in concentration.

“How we doin’ on travel time there Twi?” Applejack asked as she found a comfortable rock to lay against.

“Pretty well so far, if we travel until sundown tonight and wake up early, we should arrive at Trotuga around noon tomorrow.”

“That sounds like we’re makin’ great time then. Why’re you frettin’ over the map so much?”

“We are making great time now, but once we reach Trotuga I have no idea what the rest of the Journey is going to look like. We don’t have any good maps of Dragon territory, what we do have is rudimentary at best. If these charts are to be believed, it could take anywhere from 3 to 12 days to get there by boat. We’ll have to rely completely on the captain of the ship we charter.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

“I don’t like having to plan around the trustworthiness of somepony I haven’t even met yet. Especially when they’d have every reason to want our mission to fail. If we can come to an agreement with the Dragons, the livelihood of every pirate there is threatened.”

“Well we knew this was gonna be a tough one going in, but we’ve been through worse,” Applejack yawned. “I’m sure everything’ll ll turn out okay.”

“I hope you’re right Applejack. I’d hate for this mission to be dead in the water before we even start.”