Stroll

by re- Yamsmos

Onus

Waiting was a most impeccably horrid kind of thing, now, wasn't it?

There was nothing more mind-bogglingly stupid than letting out a long, dramatic sigh, plopping your rear on the ground, narrowing your eyes, and having to be patient for something that could very easily never come. It wasn't like the green, green world had anything to actually beam at and gift her, if the past few days of her ever-dwindling life were any wholly real, somewhat believable, or otherwise unfalsified indication of the claim. A nice watch, or a nice book, or a nice pony to talk to helped time absolutely flow by, but, then again, Octavia was never one to wear odd accessories, one to bring a book everywhere she so much as stepped hoof, or one to talk to random people who might call her dumb and lonely and ugly and petite and short and lazy and an alcoholic and fat and gross and boorish and bloody mental and nuts and bonkers and reclusive and dumb.

Waiting was solely meant for the birds high above her head as far as she was concerned.

Not to say that she wasn't patient, per say. Years of living among the upper crust of Canterlot helped to both establish and hone those two skills to the finest pencil point that she might've been able to consider herself a master of it. Prissy, pissy ponies perusing personal payrolls, stopping the long line at the bank and clogging it up like her Great Grandmother's arteries because their addition of nine-thousand and one wasn't fully up to their laughable level of careful scrutiny; two arseholes slowing down hoof traffic on the sidewalk to the concert hall because one of them just recently bought a nice pair of shoes and Gods forbid they get them even slightly soiled and bah who cares who's behind us they probably don't even know who I am except she knew who they were and they were a problem she'd much rather suplex and toss in the dumpster; one unholy sod of a Unicorn who had to stop all profitable business at the McDuckle's because she had to be more than absolutely sure that the gallon of fries she was ordering were gluten-free (which they weren't, by the way) and then ended up just leaving the establishment without paying cash or attention.

The problem stretched a bit further back, now that she thought about it.

Hearth's Warming Day was the unceremonious climax to a whole year of edging that only ended up making her want anything but. Her brother may have been ecstatic to open up his presents to find action figures and play swords, and her sister may have shattered a few windows after unveiling clothes and hats and more clothes and, occasionally, more hats, but Octavia herself never held the impulsiveness to be one of those spoiled rotten fillies — not to say her siblings were — who only cared about the shoddily-wrapped presents and not the lovely weather, or the crackling fire, or the beyond happy parents watching quietly, or the beautiful carols, or what have her. She mainly enjoyed switching between munching on festive cookies, plucking strings to distant noises, sleeping on the couch in an embarrassing position, and talking to her mother and father about her excitement for the season and seasons to come.

She'd actually known a few ponies who were like that when she was younger, and even when she was a tad older as well.

There was one in particular that she was blanking on at the moment. She was a Pegasus who looked like a sentient hybrid between one such race of pony and a banana. Something with a C. C, C, C... blast, she couldn't figure it out. No matter. She would call her "Banana." Banana had two incredibly wonderful parents, one of whom — her father — worked two grueling jobs and the other — well, that was kind of obvious — was a reserve for the military. Both of them were as nice as could be, with nerdy glasses and curly hair that looked like they belonged more among the faces of kindly old nursing home residents, but one encounter with Banana herself was loads more than enough to stay away from anything Banana-related for as long as you walked the earth.

Banana was a bitch.

Octavia and her friends had gone to one of Banana's birthday parties back in grade school, bringing presents and simultaneously adorable and stupid party hats down the road to a fairly normal-looking abode where it turned out that, surprisingly, a lot of ponies had shown up. Banana's parents were so, so heartwarmingly proud of their daughter for making so many amazing friends in their new location, welcoming each filly and colt that walked through the door and making sure to catch their names in case they ever wanted to see them again, and yet... Banana was just particularly... stropping about, glaring at her family whenever they smiled at her and murmuring the worst kinds of things under her breath whenever their backs were turned.

When it came time for the birthday cake, Banana took one second of a gander at it, tilted her head, tilted back, and let loose the most animalistic snarl Octavia had ever heard. And she had three dogs at home. Banana had risen up out of her seat, brought up a hoof, and simply karate chopped the cake like it was a single plank marking her achieving a white belt. As everypony, prior gathered around the dinner table with grins as wide as the sky, gasped and either shied away or looked upward, Banana stomped over to her parents, ground her teeth together dangerously, and yelled loudly enough to wake up Luna still exiled on the moon.

"I asked for strawberry, you Godsless retards!"

Even remembering it today caused her to choke on her spit.

She didn't want to think about it, but for Gods' sake, that was horrendous.

Birthday parties in general were a slight on the amusing side, in her opinion. Though she may have thoroughly liked the idea of celebrating another year of someone's life without being dead or making themselves be dead, the concept of receiving a commendation for just kind of being there was only quietly ridiculous. Birthday parties were meant to be held in private, with much better company like the dozen of lovely pieces of dough in her oven and the half-full bottle of refreshing Sauvignon in the cooler near the fridge that were way nicer than ponies who could call her dumb and ugly and petite and all that at a moment's notice. Or maybe not at a moment's notice. She certainly wouldn't let anypony, mind anything know if she were going to go and drop a bomb like, "You're mental, you anorexic mop," at a party meant for kids. She'd known a guy. In the papers. He was still in jail.

Oh, test results too. That was something you really shouldn't have had to wait for. Sure, mare hours were mare hours and all that, and it wasn't like Octavia's teachers could just go and plug her students' test results into a machine and instantly get the answers to them in the form of countless red X's, but the very real notion of going home after slogging through a test you were — prior to actually pulling out your chair and sitting down — fairly certain you would ace and whittling away at your hooves about attending class the next day wasn't something she was sure anypony found comfort or enjoyment in. Be it medical or academic, test results were scary things to consider. Either one, or neither, or both, what she received thereafter would mean inconceivable success, or crippling failure, or complete kidney collapse. She was very scared about that last one.

Trains, too. She'd touched up on that already, she was sure. Having to wait to get weekly claustrophobia done and over with was a rotten, bogey-covered cherry on top of the accidentally strawberry cake.

Important dates, as well. Annual ones, she could glance at the calendar here and there and very simply deal with. It was the once-in-a-troubled-lifetime ones that really bit her on the arse.

"...so we're planning to stop here..."

Octavia's ears flicked at the rays of sunlight glistening onto the window next to her. With her head resting against the pane, her left foreleg making an L shape to assure comfort she didn't care for, and her tail curled around her body on the chair she was lying in, she blinked twice in rapid succession and struggled to suppress a mouth-widening yawn.

"Left side or ri–"

"On the left." Tap tap. "Fort Luna. We've passed by it before on our way in."

"Don't they have like a rat there or something so we can't dock?"

"A mole, Lavi."

"Duh."

Shoomp.

"Hey–"

"Fish lover–"

...

"Sorry."

Octavia finally let up, sliding her foreleg over and resting her cheek on it. Her neck felt terrible right now but she really didn't want to move at all this chair was so nice.

"It's got a mole, but there's a pier there that we can dock at. We'll drop anchor and send Octavia off from there."

"What's she even doing over there?"

"Oi! Mate! What in the 'ell ah you DOO in?"

"God, your English accent is terrible, Val."

"Octavia."

She felt an ear flip about.

Snap snap!

"Octavia."

She darted up, but didn't leave her chair, and swiveled around to face the center of the room.

"Yes?"

W opened his fist and pressed it against the map on the table. "Hope you don't mind waiting."

Heh.

He nodded his head toward his right side, an obvious sign that he wished for her to join him. Hopping off the wooden chair and trotting over, Octavia stood on her tippy-hooves and stole a glance at the disheveled sheet of paper they were all crowding about. She never really imagined a Captain's Quarters to be so spacious but... bloody hell it was nice in here. There was the big round table they were all outlining, with a deep red cloth draped over it and dozens of rolled up papers strewn about like she was a retired papercolt who couldn't get over the job, there were the carpets and rugs flung haphazardly across the floor in a callback to Octavia's own home-found piece entitled I Bought Too Many Carpets, Vinyl, there were the two rear-fixated D-shaped windows situated to her right on the back of the ship, showing her a lovely view of the ocean, the ocean, and more of the ocean with gold trimmings ooh that was lovely, and there was the quaint bed where Andy probably lay awake thinking about bits and drowning in bits and not drowning without bits.

"It's two days until we reach the spits at the edge of the bay," W's loud, gruff voice arose, prompting a jump and a clearing of her quivering throat. "We'll dock at Fort Luna and see about sending you home from there."

She had to ask.

"Is there a railroad?"

W frowned, but looked down at her and shrugged his shoulders. "If not, I'll call for a carriage."

"I'll–"

"I'll go see about a train," Lavi piped up, probably not even hearing Valkyrie try and propose the same. About-facing and jogging out the door in a blind hurry, she stopped, turned around, reached a claw out, grabbed at the knob, closed the door slightly, opened it, closed it again, opened it, hummed, whispered something crass under her breath, and quickly fled the scene in search of Andy.

Octavia's eyes wandered over to T as he rotated at the waist away from the threshold. He smiled at her and snorted.

"We have to stop meeting like this," he regarded.

What? When she was in trouble and needed help, or... actually... damn it.

"Back to your book, T," she spat, then, remembering what his book actually was, thought back to her few hours reading it, droned, then added, "'F– Fall like a thunderbolt," with a big, stupid grin on her face.

It was enough for T, who nodded approvingly, pulled The Art Of War out of his pocket, and excused himself ("Permission to–" "Go for it.") to go and read in the corner like some kid who'd just discovered his father's shag film collection.

"You ever been to Fort Luna before, Octavia?" W asked, screwing up his face for some reason.

"Can't say that I have," she admitted, shaking her head, "but I do know that it's a fairly sizable establishment."

"Really?" Valkyrie chimed in, pausing her screwing with her feathers to look over. "How big?"

Octavia pursed her lips and worked them around a bit. "About the size of... maybe three-quarters of Tall Tale. Maybe half. My brother was stationed there years ago and he always wrote about how lost he'd get on his first few months." When would poor little Forte learn to use cardinal directions like normal ponies did?

"It's also got a massive cannon near the shore," T called from his corner of the room like some kind of house spider reminding you it was still waiting to murder you when you slept.

"And I never saw it?" Valkyrie asked, mouth agape.

"You must be terribly blind," W diagnosed with a shake of his skull and a crossing of his arms.

"You're the old one, W. Surprised you can still shoot straight with those bags!" Valkyrie shot back, two digits making a Y underneath her own eyes.

"Well, that's why Gordon made you the Aych Ay Em and me the rifle."

Aych Ay... HAM? Made her the HAM?

This elicited something from T that caused him to about drop his book and roar with laughter. Valkyrie made a snapshot of a glare directed his way, but he barely noticed with his eyes as shut as they were. Cheeks red, Valkyrie adjusted her back holster's strap and inquired, "W– What about T then?"

W only smirked. T looked up from his book, appearing legitimately curious about what he'd say.

"He's just scarier, I guess."

"F– Please, I'm way scarier than T is."

Valkyrie wheeled about, possibly to address the griffon she assumed to still be reading in the corner, but eeped loudly and almost jumped out of her armored skin. T sized her up a bare centimeter away from her, but melted his own resolve by chuckling heartily.

"By the Upstairs, you're such a massive dickhead..."

Slam!

A thought about... the subject went back down into the swampy depths of her mind as Andy burst through the unopened door, his tricorne shifting from the hard contact. Octavia craned her neck to see Lavi in tow, mindlessly screwing with her shoulder plates even as she saw Valkyrie gifting her a very kind and very wonderful stink eye.

She finally gave one in kind when Andy stopped next to the map and placed his palms on it, "Sorry about that, lads." He pointed a fat talon behind him. "Was communicatin' with the other ship." Down it went. Wait, what? "There ain't a railroad as far as I remember, but–"

"Another ship?" Octavia, might she note, rudely interrupted.

Andy's beak-smile-thing went straight (how the hell did they morph it like that?) as he stood straight, peered over at the door, then back at Octavia, and then–

"I guess you didn't have time t' see it, after all. With me."

Octavia clip-clopped around the table to follow after Andy and, judging by the noises sounding out shortly after hers, begin a pony-led griffon train outside into the fresh air. Fresh bearing an incredibly fragile, fickle and figurative meaning, considering the orange Unicorn she about bumped into a mere hoofstep out the door. She stopped for a second as he raised his eyebrows up in apparent surprise.

"Sesame, don't you think it's a slight dim to be smoking onboard an all-wooden vessel with flammable sails?"

Sesame pouted out his lower lip. His cigarette continued burning steadily away.

"No."

"Wonderful," Octavia groaned, rolling her eyes and moving her body like she was spazzing out, "come on. We're going topside."

"Aren't we already–"

"Shut up and follow us, Sesame."

Follow he... hopefully ended up actually doing.

"Didn't we tell you t', like, go faaar away from the CQ before lighting up?" Lavi asked Sesame from behind Octavia as she turned the corner and accompanied Andy up the stairs.

"Gobble on my penis."

"Ew, pony penis."

"What do griffon penises look like– "

Nope! That wasn't something Octavia was going to tune into. No thank you. TV off. Mute on. Curtains shut. Door locked. Noooo thank you.

A slight — but still fairly noticeable — change in elevation caused her to snap back to her own concentration as she stepped hoof onto the quarterdeck. A few groups of griffons were chatting amongst one another, leaning on the rails of the ship and otherwise enjoying their little pirate lives and their little pirate things. She wondered what they talked about.

"Our sister!" Andy shouted, stopping near the leftmost side — that would be... starboard if she were facing toward the front of the ship — and fanning an open claw in a circle before him. "The Jackdaw!"

Octavia looked over the edge to, sure enough, find another ship trailing behind the Scuttlebug at its right flank, teetering to and fro as if the waves it were traveling through were rougher than what the Scuttlebug was pulling. Narrowing her eyes, Octavia had to note that it could've passed as the younger sibling of the Scuttlebug if they were living and needed to go... do something that required them to be family. Like a resort or something. With three sails instead of four and a very obviously stouter figure, the Jackdaw creaked and stayed its position in the water.

Andy noticed her staring.

"Lovely little bird, ain't she?"

"I... I wasn't staring."

Andy waggled his eyebrows.

Octavia did the same. "I'm just surprised to see someone else out here, is all."

"Well, lass, we aren't the only kind of ship heading to and from."

Were they all pirates, though?

"Are they all pirates, or..."

"Imports, mostly," W said from behind her and... now next to her. By Gods he was tall. "Blankets, ore, forces, the usual."

"Oh."

Octavia pursed her lips and watched the Jackdaw move next to them, expecting someone else to take up the hard mantle of talking to each other semi-coherently. There was a pause that became a pregnant pause, then a moment of silence, until finally bottoming out to become the worst kind of awkward quiet as one watched a ship, one cleared his pirate throat, one stood completely still, and one scratched her... oh Gods Valkyrie have some class.

Andy broke the silence by bringing up a foreleg, pulling back his sleeve, and looking cock-eyed at the watch on his wrist. "It's about four o' clock." He looked past Octavia to address the rest of the crew. "Anyone up for an early dinner?"

Octavia raised an eyebrow.

She was deathly curious about what a normal cuisine would look like on a pirate vessel. Then again, reading her adventure books as a kid, didn't pirates eat like kings because of all the grabs they bugged off of others? Things like whole pigs, chocolate, sea turtles, fresh veggies, eggs, bread, and even cake sometimes from the sugar they acquired? She remembered filly images of three-legged, long-bearded, one-eyed pony pirates sheathing their sabers as they stumbled about, drinking rum and holding a sauced-up leg of meat in his magic. They probably had lots of food! Not anything like a food court, mind her, but there had to be plates and plates of different things for them all to eat! She didn't expect a nice Caesar, but... oh Gods, what if they had salads? Maybe this whole "waiting on a ship" thing wouldn't be so bad!

"What're we having?" She asked hopefully.

Andy winked, which was weird, because he was wearing an eye patch.

"You'll see."

Comments

[the other sans]

I can see how Octavia was just slackjawed at the Jackdaw but certainly there's no backdraw at having another ship near eh? Though I'm thinking Octavia has more food for thought right now more than anything else. I highly suspect she's gonna feel like excusing herself for a stroll once she sees dinner. Though if she's hungry enough she'd probably be sleeping with the fishes and chips. If they have any of the latter of course.

[re- Yamsmos]

8424009

God.

[the other sans]

8424194 Where is it now?

The best thing really is practice. Lots and lots of practice. Or so my mom says that's what I did from a young age.

[re- Yamsmos]

8424216
It's just that seeing a style reminiscent of Octavia's head that isn't from ME is super bonkers.

[the other sans]

8424259
Huh... guess I can see how that would be bonkers. Don't worry though, this voice will be here for quite awhile. Possibly unlike that oven that might have been left on and Gods know if it was even turned off before the house went up in a smoldering pile of flame.

[re- Yamsmos]

8424328

oh yeah her oven don't forget it