//------------------------------// // In the galley // Story: Washed Up // by ambion //------------------------------// The Mother of Mercy’s galley existed in perpetual gloom. Two brass lamps affixed to the walls did their best to light it. Their coppery sheen had long gone tarnished and the glass bulbs were burned brown and black. Small motions kept the flames perpetually flickering, making the shadows quiver like excited puppies under the tables and in the corners, and it was always a little warm and a little stuffy. A row of tiny glass windows, all parts equal, round, very thick, admitted dusty beams of sunlight making for lighter and darker places throughout. It was quiet, but then it would be, this time of day. That was how he heard Shanty humming; just under her breath, not really meaning to be heard. Flotsam moved passed the mares. They seemed to take Shanty’s doleful little tune as a matter of course. Charming Booty’s head was down on the table. She might have been asleep, but an ear half-seen in shadow flicked his way and Flotsam knew the unicorn merely nursed the residue of last night’s excess, but she was aware. This he understood, being in the same boat himself. The galley was large enough for the purposes of the ship and no more. Tight benches and narrow tables – both mounted into place – leaving enough of an aisle that a pony might squeeze past another, or manoeuvre with care a large pot or cauldron to and from the decks. The aisle didn’t end like the rest of the rectangular space did. It carried on, becoming a chokepoint of ever-clattering tinware: ladles and spoons and knives, pots, pans and strainers; over-head drawers and hoof-height drawers; a row of drawers for eclectic arrangements of bowls: pewter, wood, chipped and cracked ceramic; a whole drawer of wiry-headed scrubby-brushes for cleaning up: a monsterous, evening-eating task in its own right; the whole of it making a chokepoint of stuff. If a pony could go through a narrow mineshaft, remove the rock and leave the metal and struts and things exactly in place, it might have resembled this. The things all translated the sea’s every motion into constant sound. On today’s gentle waves there was only a suggestion, a hint of clitter-clinker-CLATTER-clinker-clitter, going on and on and mutable in every way. The actual space didn’t end there either, to the very back the space opened up again, but only Cook regularly went there on pain of hard-eyed, squinty staring. Whether that was her actual name or honoured title/job description/both Flotsam didn’t know. In either case, it was her tiny kingdom back there and everypony – including the Captain – respected that. It was two-fold reinforced. Back there was the stove that cooked all meals, and a ship that doesn’t respect fire and said fire’s keeper doesn’t remain a tiptop shipshape ship-shaped ship for very long. The second aspect was that it is always unwise to make an enemy of the one who prepares your food. Flotsam had in fact been back there despite the preamble, but then so had most every pony at one point or another They went to do the Washing Up. Or more exactly, they were sent to do it. Nopony wanted to go: getting stuck the tab for the gritty, greasy, gratuitous pile-up of dishes was a mainstay of the not-punishments that Nauticaa dished out for various minor infractions on her ship. Patches, to whom the task typically fell to outside of such circumstances, didn’t mind as much. The ship’s filly took it in stride, treating the cramped, half-blind, elbow-creaking work as a sort of stay-at-home pilgrimage. The times Flotsam had worked alongside her she’d seemed content. He tried to adopt the same mindset those times he worked alone and found that he could, more or less. Fortunately, Flotsam had no need to go so far in today. Everything a pony needed for snacks and light meals was much more accessible than that. The fireless kettle (just add magic!) was a communal treasure, and some of the mugs were so old and well-used that they could make quite a strong cup of coffee - or at least something resembling coffee - all on their own. He took a lesser, merely-mortal mug and made his coffee the more conventional way. There was the box of cookies as well. A very faded vestige of flaky paint suggested that once there’d been a widely smiling pony, dressed outlandishly and holding up a long-gone cookie, winking as he bit into it. It could have simply been a sturdy tin bought in some town years ago and used as the ship’s cookie-hoarding place, being roughly and frequently loved for the years ever since, but a much more believable answer was that it had been dredged from the pits of darkness, little smiling foreigner and all. It was rusty. It was old. Flotsam took one and ate it. Custard cream. Stale, as was to be expected, but not bad. The ancient painted caricature smiled at him, as it did to all cookie-comers. Giving in to his darkest, damndest desires Flotsam fished about quickly – daring not to glance at the other ponies behind him – and fished out two more. One custard, one bourbon. He felt in his soul the tangled guilt-thrill of a sneak-thief. Charming Booty grumbled. Even in this poor light her mane was like banked fire. She gave an agonized little wave from her catnap place. She hadn’t raised her head that he had seen. “Make me one too, handsome Sammy.” “Mmpph.” Scalding his tongue to wash away the pasty crumbs, he reiterated, “alright.” “Same.” “Yeah.” Other voices mumbled in accordance. One whistling kettle and two minutes later Flotsam came to the table levitating near half a dozen mugs. Head still down on the table and hidden in her leg, Charming Booty patted the seat next to her. He took the seat and up she came, her mane spilling about her shoulders. Treasuring it in her hoofs she breathed in the steam. She moaned appreciatively. “Oh, yes.” Flotsam was a little abashed. Partly about the whole seat-patting sexual patronisation thing, partly because he suspected the word deviant had been coined with ponies like her in mind, partly because he had to remind himself she was one of the higher-most ranking members of the crew just shy of the First-Mate and Captain themselves, and partly because she was cultured. But also not. No, that wasn’t quite right. The Quartermaster and self-acclaimed finder of treasures was cultured, after a fashion. But hers was a manner and style that had been pieced together from snippets of a dozen different places. She turned and caught the ghostly sunbeam arcing between them and Flotsam almost lurched. He’d expected her to look hung over. Which she was. His mistake was expecting her to look it Charming Booty was stunning, which was to say she literally and not figuratively stunned Flotsam. Her mane hung down with only its slight natural waviness about it – she hadn’t done anything with it yet today – and honestly it looked striking, although this time it was figurative. This was it, the fabled, the mythical, the much-falsified ‘just out of bed’ look and Charming Booty had not only caught it and nailed it and killed it, she’d left its head on a proverbial pike in the middle of town for everpony to see. Except, you know, pretty. She looked more vital. Less crass. It was a look to make one think about getting back into bed. A week ago Flotsam might have blown it off, better yet not even thought this way at all, but his growing familiarity with the crew and with a certain First Mate had tugged off that scab of indifference and distance, leaving him a little more inflamed for it. She caught his eye and must have caught his general gobsmackery because her eyes caught his. Just below his focus her lips did something, a whisper maybe, or the motions of one and then the light sunbeams lighting the galley shafted them all and vanished. Three things passed through Flotsam’s mind almost instantly. The first was an impression: this being that it was a pegasus flying outside the hull. Harpoon or Parrot or someone. Pegasi flitted above and about the ship all the time. The second was an observation. A pegasus would have been a quick and fleeting blur, not a lasting darkness and not on every window at the same time. The third and final thing was a sensation: a sensation of cold – a very peculiar, particular chill. Not freezing at all, only a slightly lesser warm, but somehow always sidling to the forefront of awareness. Flotsam recognized it for what it was. It was the cold a pony felt when they were suddenly standing in shade. Like a cloud passing overhead, but thicker. More solid. There were already hooves and voices from the deck, loud and fast and coming this way.