• Published 28th Sep 2015
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The Twilight Enigma - iisaw



Twilight sets out to learn more of the ways of the world, and soon decides that the whole planet is disorganized, insanely dangerous, and desperately needs to be fixed. And she's just the mare to do it... with a little help from her friends.

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6 Learning the Ropes

Chapter Six
Learning the Ropes

Containing a surfeit of aeronautical jargon,
in which it is discovered that Fluttershy has acquired a new pet,
and Twilight has a revelation about an old enemy.

June 9th - 14th, 1012
Onboard Nebula, on course for Zebrica

"Out stu'n's'l bones!"

Our Second Mate and Sailing Master on that first voyage was Lee Helm, a grizzled old stallion who was having the time of his life. Commercial vessels rarely used the wind for propulsion any longer, and having a chance to exercise his expertise once again made him a very happy pony.

Of course, Nebula didn't need to use her sails; her power crystals stored enough energy to run her engines at cruising speed for a nearly a month. We could make landfall across the sea and return to Equestria with a 15% safety margin, and I could recharge the crystals myself if necessary. But it is always best to be prepared for anything. Plus, sailing was a new skill for me to learn; variety in one's study leads to greater mental flexibility. And it was probably good for the crew to keep them busy while on watch.[1]
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[1] Oh, all right... it was also really cool to be sailing to mysterious foreign lands.
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"Bones?" Rainbow Dash quietly asked me out of the corner of her mouth.

"Booms," I told her. "It means 'rig the studdingsail booms,' though I think they're technically yards. I'll have to ask Mr. Helm about that."

In the waist, the crew were running out the long wooden beams that would support the sails to either side of Nebula's hull.

"Why doesn't he just say what he means?" Dash muttered.

"He does, actually. As I understand it, naval and aeronautical jargon evolved so that it's short and easily heard over the noise of storms and such."

"Plus," Pinkie Pie added, "it makes 'ya sound like a salty sea-dog, right enough! Aye, maties?"

Rainbow chuckled at her. "Pinkie, do you even know what a stunned sail bone is?"

"No idea!" Pinkie Pie giggled and hopped off to get in the way of the crew.

Acorn was at the wheel, keeping Nebula steady and on a heading directly downwind to make the crew's work easier. Fluttershy stood near him, carefully watching everything he did.

"I don't think I'll ever understand half of what those guys say," Rainbow Dash said.

"Oh, you'll probably pick up a lot of it as we go along. It's going to take us almost a week to cross the ocean riding the trade winds. By the time we get to Zebrica, you…" Seeing I had lost Rainbow Dash's attention, I trailed off. After a moment's thought, I teleported a book from my cabin. "Here. This might help alleviate the boredom."

Dash looked at the cover. "Ms. Midshippony Breezy," she read. "Looks old. This isn't like… history or something, is it?"

The tone of disdain she put into the word set my teeth on edge, but I kept smiling. "It's an adventure story. Yes, it's set in the past during the age of exploration, but it's full of sword fights and pirates and stuff like that. You'll love it! Captain Merry Yacht wrote lots of others, and I've got all the best ones onboard."

"Okay," Dash said, cautiously taking the book from me. "I'll give it a shot." She sounded like she thought I was trying to put something over on her… which I was. By the time she'd gotten through three or four of Merry Yacht's books, she'd be able to rattle off aeronautical terms like a seasoned deckhoof.

I gave my full attention to the work of the crew, enjoying the practiced and economical way they went about setting up the various yards and sails. When all was ready, Lee Helm came up to the quarterdeck and saluted me. "Ready to make sail, capt'n."

I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling with joy. "Very good, Mr. Helm. Give the orders, if you please." I couldn't help feeling like I was playing at being the captain of an airship. At that moment it felt like a promotion from ordinary old "princess."

"Aye, aye, ma'am." My sailmaster turned toward the bow and called out, "Loose sprit's'l!" It wasn't as loud as the Royal Voice, but the command could have been heard for a mile. The sail hanging from the yard fastened crossways below our bowsprit unfurled and made a solid whumph as it caught the breeze and filled. "Take up on the larboard sheet."[2] Helm watched until he was satisfied with the set of the sail and then ordered, "That's well."
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[2] A sheet is a line that controls the corner of a sail. It isn't really sheet-like at all. And Celestia help you if you call it a "rope." As far as sailors and aeronauts are concerned, it's only rope if it's coiled on the wharf. If it's involved in the rigging of a ship, it's a line.
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Lee Helm paused for a couple of moments, and I realized that he was getting the feel of how Nebula was behaving before continuing. "Loose kee's'l!" he called out. We couldn't see the mast and sail that had been fixed to the keel below Nebula's hull, but the crewponies out on the stu'n's'l booms who hauled on the sheets could, and the sound of the sail catching the wind was clear enough.

"She's drawing well, sir," called out the pony on the starboard boom.

"On deck, then," Helm replied.

As the ponies worked their way back onto the deck, Lee Helm lit his horn and cast a spell that I had only read about. It connected Nebula to the magical essence of the ocean below her, acting as a keel would on a watercraft and allowing her to tack into the wind as well as run before it. I watched carefully as the spell unfolded and took hold.

When it was done, Helm turned to Fluttershy. "Ring for Full Stop, Ms. Fluttershy," he said in a much quieter voice that had somehow acquired a more gentle tone. I could have kissed the old guy.

"Oh… yes… I mean... aye, aye, sir. Full Stop." Fluttershy blushed furiously as she took hold of the brass levers of the engine telegraph, but she moved them with confidence and left them at the correct position. After a second, the markers duplicated her motions and the deep hum of the engines faded away.

After another pause, Helm ordered, "Loose fo'ard stu'n's'ls!" The matching sets of sails near the bow unfurled and were set, then the process was repeated with the bigger ones closer to the quarterdeck. He ordered a few adjustments of the sheets until he was satisfied and then turned to me and said, "Nebula is under sail, capt'n."

As if I hadn't been there and watching all along. But there was a precision and formality to the whole process that hit all my happy buttons and I couldn't help smiling. "Thank you, Mr. Helm. I want to get a feel for how she steers under sail. Could you stand by to advise me?"

"It would be my pleasure, capt'n."

From behind me came an incredibly dainty clearing of a throat.

"And also for Ms. Fluttershy when she takes her turn at the wheel," I added.

= = =

Something else I learned on the trip out was stellar navigation. My astronomy studies gave me a huge head start on the process, but there was still quite a bit to learn. A side benefit was that the complex math involved was very soothing to work through.

And I often needed soothing. The work on creating a talisman to receive the Nightmare's magic power did not go well. Several times, I thought I had created a perfect matrix, only to have the magic rebound, the gem crack, or some other disaster occur.

The fourth night out, I had climbed up the access way that went through the middle of Nebula's envelope, between her second and third gas cells, to the small open-air cupola at the top. It was the best place aboard to get an unobstructed view of the stars, which made it the ideal spot to take latitude readings. It was also a great place to get a bit of privacy to think. I had my own cabin, of course, but I shared it with Spike and there were always ponies coming and going for one reason or another. When a pony had to climb a 45-foot ladder to talk with me, the reasons were usually pretty good ones.

So when Fluttershy popped up out of the hatch, I was a bit surprised.

"Oh!" she said when she realized I was there. "I'm sorry, Twilight. I didn't know you were up here. Am I bothering you? I can come back later."

"No, it's fine," I told her. "I'm just relaxing a bit."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely,"

She smiled at me but didn't come aft to sit next to me on the low wooden bench. Instead, she went and leaned out over the short rail at the forward edge of the cupola, spreading her forelegs out on the surface of the upper envelope. After a few minutes, she laid her head down between her hooves, with one cheek pressed against the fabric, almost as if she were listening for a heartbeat.

I waited patiently. She was obviously intent on something, and I didn't want to interrupt her.

She shifted a bit from time to time and then finally sat back. She was frowning and her lower lip was caught between her teeth.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

Fluttershy nodded slowly. "Nebula isn't happy. There's something wrong with her."

O—kay. "What is she unhappy about?" I asked, carefully not rolling my eyes.

"I know you think I'm being silly, Twilight, but she talks to me. No really! Half of what animals say is in the way they move or stand or even just breathe. Nebula isn't moving the way she should. Everything I could check below seems fine, so that's why I came up here."

"Alright, that does make some sense," I admitted. "But I haven't noticed anything wrong with the way she's moving."

Fluttershy put on her "stern" look. I'm really not the maternal type, but it made me want to wrap my wings around her. "That's because you think of her as a bunch of separate parts all stuck together! Like they're all individual things instead of one big creature. I can tell when a mouse has a toothache by the tension in her hips!"

"So…?"

"So, if I knew Nebula better I could tell what was wrong with her. As it is, I just know there's something not right…" Fluttershy frowned and waved a hoof toward the starboard bow. "Somewhere over there."

I nodded. "It might be something that's easy to miss in the dark, so I'll order a thorough inspection first thing in the morning. Will that be soon enough?"

"I don't like to think of Nebula hurting, but I guess that's okay. Thank you, Twilight."

Fluttershy went below and left me to my thoughts. Her ponification of the airship was silly, but if it put her into a mindset that allowed her to make an intuitive diagnosis that was accurate, it could be regarded as a tool rather than superstition. Considering a complex system as an organism might give an advantage when approaching a seemingly simple problem that had hidden holistic repercussions. After all, I knew the dangers of becoming too reductionistic when studying—

And, just like that, it hit me.

I had assumed that the Nightmare's magic within me was just raw power. I had told myself that the particular forms it had taken on were the result of her habits and attitudes molding the energy, not an actual echo of her personality. Based on a flawed premise, I had been trying to design a purely mechanistic matrix to contain it.

It didn't work because I had been dead wrong. She was still in there… somewhere.

= = =

The next morning, Lee Helm came to my cabin to report on the inspection. I had my tools and crystals scattered over the surface of the work table that folded down from the bulkhead, but I pulled a sheet over it all before I gave Mr. Helm permission to enter.

"It was a cracked strut inside the fore starboard elevator, capt'n," Lee Helm told me. "Must have been a stress fracture, because the fabric over it wasn't damaged at all. A little splint and glue made her right."

"Thank you, Mr. Helm," I said, nodding. "Well done."

"The thanks should go to Ms. Fluttershy, ma'am. How she noticed the vibration from that strut way down on deck is a mystery to me. Could have caused us some trouble if it had broke free in bad weather."

"I'll be sure to thank her personally. Is there some traditional way to reward a crew member for good work like that?"

"I doubt she'd value an extra ration of cider as much as most old sailors. Havin' her hooves on Nebula's wheel seems to be reward enough for her." Lee Helm gave me a crooked grin. "She's there now, singin' a little tune to herself so soft you can barely hear it."

I smiled fondly and dismissed him.

My smile leaked away when I uncovered the project laid out on the table. The gem was a black opal, the fittings moon-kissed silver, and the matrix prepared for it was nothing like a simple container. The design was based on ancient patterns meant to ensnare the essence of a pony, imprisoning spells from the Age of Chaos that hadn't been used in centuries.

I worked on the talisman for another couple of hours after Mr. Helm left and then prepared myself to attempt the transfer. When I had hit on the solution, I was disgusted and repelled. But at the crucial moment, I was seized by a strange sadness and regret. My hooves shook and rattled against the wood as tears streamed down my face. I found myself mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" over and over again. I didn't even know what I was sorry for.

Finally, I gave up and placed all the components back into the little locked chest that sat on my bunk. I was in no frame of mind to attempt intricate magical manipulation; at least that was clear. I composed myself, went on deck, and tried to let the fresh ocean air blow the worries from my mind.

That worked about as well as you might expect.

= = =
=

Author's Note:

Thanks to PresentPerfect, Princess Woona, and statoose for editing and pre-reading!