16 - Cruise Shipping
Drifting Down the Lazy River
Cruise Shipping
"Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel."
— The Adventures of Buck Fin
A simple touch of the blade peeled off the white paint in long spirals, curling around his hooves much like the leaves which were just starting to come off the trees in ones and twos. It was probably a little late in the season to paint, but Princess Celestia was going to be at the castle in just a few days, and Turpentine wanted…
Well, he was not quite certain what he wanted.
Sunglasses would be welcome, due to the way the dawning sun was coming right through his narrowed eyelids just about no matter where he stood on the riverboat deck to scrape paint. He had just found a comfortable and slightly shaded spot to scrape when the sounds of an early-rising pony heralded the arrival of Sen, who looked at the long bare patches where Turpentine had already been hard at work.
“Paint for breakfast, lad?” Sen picked up another paint scraper and positioned himself to scrape the taller areas where Turpentine had been unable to reach, and scrolls of dull white paint began to spiral to the deck while the old earth pony pitched in. The two of them scraped in tandem for a time until a third pony holding onto an empty coffee cup stumbled out into the bright morning light.
Gaberdine looked at the two earth ponies, one large and one small, before wordlessly picking another paint scraper out of the collection of equipment Turpentine had brought back to the castle last evening under the cover of darkness. Using his magic instead of gripping it in his jaws, Gaberdine scraped even higher, working his way along the side of the ship until the black peeling paint of the smokestack caught his eye.
“Yes, I got s’me paint for that too, s’r,” said Turpentine from around the paint scraper. He spit the scraper out onto the deck and took a deep breath. “You weren’t kidding, Mister Gaberdine. Canterlot has everything, even ship paint, on the top of a mountain without a ship anywhere. And I got some black metal paint that’s supposed to stand up to dragon breath, so doing the smokestack shouldn’t be a problem. Paint and primer, not like whoever painted the castle before.”
Sen took advantage of the break to spit out his own paint scraper and stretch with a popping of aged joints. “About a decade ago, Baron Miller hired a couple of young unicorns who priced out the low bid. They got paid half in advance and tore out of here right after collecting the other half, but it all started peeling about a week later. Never got around to getting a professional to fix it up afore he up and died. Sometimes I think he liked it this way, all shabby and tore-up lookin’ in order to keep the looky-loos away.”
“Ripple said the paint flakes get into the water when the wind blows,” said Turpentine. “They sting when they get caught in a gill and taste terrible.”
“Hm…” Gaberdine’s horn changed hues when he pressed a section of his magic against the paint and began to run it back and forth. “At least it’s not lead-based. Oh!” The paint he had been pressing broke loose from the wall and slid down to the deck in a disintegrating sheet. A second application of his magic brought down a broader sheet and Gaberdine lit up with a gleeful grin. “This is a lot easier than the scraper.”
Sen exchanged a knowing glance with Turpentine and lowered his voice to the point where the happy unicorn, surrounded in sheets of falling dry paint, most probably could not hear. “Well, Baron Gaberdine always did say ‘The right tool for the job.’”
Turpentine gave a quick glance out into the lagoon and a series of inverted v’s headed in their direction. “We better get the trash bags and a couple of brooms.”
“No.” Sen patted Turpentine on the head, which the captain’s cap was doing a very good job of keeping free of paint flakes. “I’ll get the broom. Gaberdine had a meeting with the school teacher last night before you got back. Today’s your first day of school in Gravel Flats.”
“But—”
“Half-day,” clarified Sen. “Classes are morning-only until First Snow. You need your book bag and a towel.”
“A towel?” Turpentine turned to look at the departing servant with a puzzled frown, but figured out just what he meant when Ripple came bursting out of the water in a long arc and wrapped around him with all four flippers.
“School!” she cried. “We’re going to school today! Isn’t this terrifffically fantastically great!”
Turpentine could not immediately respond, because he was busy attempting to get a breath of air while trying not to be swept back out into the lagoon with the backwash from Ripple’s abrupt appearance. Likewise, he did not say very much while being dried off, or even during the fairly short trip into Gravel Flats while Ripple was attempting to skip and talk at the same time, which required quite a bit of support on his behalf.
School turned out to be not that bad at all.
* * ✹ * *
By the time they were walking back to the riverboat, Ripple was showing signs of fatigue. School was a place where she had to remain quiet until called upon, which reminded Turpentine a little of a closed-up boiler building a head of steam due to the speed at which the little disguised seapony could spit out words after having to remain silent for even a little while. It was a little disconcerting for him, because he normally would have thought of a teakettle as an analogy for her explosive energy, but the longer he stayed in Ripple’s vicinity, the more ‘engineery’ he had been thinking. She had even helped Turpentine out with some of the tricky math problems the teacher had assigned, with numbers being carried from column to column as well as his evil nemesis, the nefarious Long Division.
Someday, Turpentine would probably meet a colt with that name and get beat up by him. It seemed inevitable. It had not been today, though. All of the little colts and fillies at the school had been various degrees of friendly, and they all knew Sen, so it was a little like the school was… nice. Turpentine had certainly felt more comfortable with only a dozen names to remember, rather than the hundreds or even thousands who could be at Celestia’s school in Canterlot.
One of the colts, a trouble-making little pegasus with a cutie mark of a frog, had even asked if he could come out to the riverboat and play after school. He had even asked Turpentine instead of Ripple, which was really confusing, but he seemed to accept being told he would need permission from Baron Gaberdine.
I wonder if he’s the little brother that Powderpuff and Lemon Drops were talking about?
The constant flow of chatter between Ripple and Turpentine faded out into a long and expressive pause once the two little ponies crested the hill on the near side of the lagoon and got a good look at Baron Gaberdine’s floating castle.
“It’s… naked,” said Turpentine, almost in awe at the way the entire structure and smokestack had been stripped down to the bare metal or wood, depending on where he was looking. Even the cover over the sidewheel had been removed and placed on the grassy bank, allowing complete access to the bare wooden blades sticking up in the noontime sun.
“We missed it,” said Ripple, breaking into an awkward gallop that made her hooves fly in all directions at once, leaving Turpentine to follow at a respectful distance so he did not get kicked by accident. They both made it to the gangplank just in time to catch Baron Gaberdine staggering the other way under the load of several trash bags destined for the trash cart. The baron used to be somewhat of a tan-brown, but now looked more Appaloosean with the number of white spots embedded in his coat and mane, as well as the dark flakes of peeled smokestack paint.
“Ah, Turpentine.” The baron grinned, then spat to one side. “Yuck, that’s terrible. How was school?”
After waiting a moment to let Ripple respond, Turpentine spoke up. “It wasn’t bad. Did you get the whole ship stripped?”
“Yep.” Gaberdine heaved the filled bags of paint flakes into the trash cart. “We should be able to get the first coat of primer on this afternoon, and start painting for real tomorrow morning.”
“Did you wash the stripped surface with the soda phosphate?” asked Turpentine.
“Um…” Gaberdine stopped and looked a little guilty. “We did get out the primer and made sure it was stirred up.”
“Put the lids back on,” said Turpentine. “We need to wash and rinse the surfaces first, then fill any voids with caulking compound, then—“
“Paint the primer?” asked Gaberdine.
“Condition the wood surfaces with two parts linseed oil to one part turpentine or the surface will absorb too much of the binder.” Turpentine paused. “Then we can apply primer.”
* * ✹ * *
It had been a long time since Turpentine had worked up a good sweat while painting. Between school in the morning and painting the castle in the afternoon, both mental and physical muscles were well exercised, and his painting grew around him. Ripple still seemed to be a little put out that she had not gotten to help strip the old paint off, but Baron Gaberdine enticed her with the need for putting the engine together (again), so while Turpentine worked above decks, he could listen to the thumps and rattles of Gaberdine and his little helper doing whatever arcane wizardry they were doing to the ‘Steam Engine, Reciprocating - Model 57V with Triple-Action Pistons and Regenerative Steam Recapture’ that was so difficult to understand when he had read through that section of the manual.
By the time the weekend rolled around, passed by in a flurry of brushing, and approached again, his painting was taking shape. Far more progress had been made than he expected, because Turpentine had found working on one side of the riverboat made a correspondingly larger amount of work happen on the other side, particularly if he talked loudly about how to caulk holes in the siding or properly stroke in the conditioning formula or paint with the broad brush before switching sides. At times he could even hear Ripple’s aunts chattering between themselves or giggling at little jokes, and twice several of the busy seaponies were so focused on brushing on a smooth layer of wood conditioner or primer that they painted right past Turpentine without even a pause.
He was going to miss that kind of delicate acceptance in Canterlot. Ripple’s aunts were a contradiction, both powerful and talented, as well as timid and sensitive. They could not help but treat Ripple a lot like an outsider, while Pearl was somewhere in between, trapped between two worlds and unable to truly embrace either. It bothered him, and much like anything bothering Ripple, the words had to come out of Turpentine eventually.
It was nearing the evening while they were just finishing up some final bits of trim work. The rest of the ponies had gone into the galley to start dinner, leaving Turpentine and Pearl to paint alone for a few minutes. Pearl had a small brush for the light teal swirl pattern cresting atop the cabins like Celestia’s blowing mane, while Turpentine was following up with a smaller brush to tidy up the lines and add whatever flourishes struck his fancy at the moment. It took concentration to wait until Pearl had reached the end of the trim and was cleaning her brush, but Turpentine had gotten better at not ambushing ponies out of the blue, which was critically important with an already shy pony like Pearl.
“Miss Pearl. I was wondering.” Turpentine shifted the brush to the side of his cheek and kept his eyes on his work, because he knew looking at her would only make her more nervous. “Are you and Ripple ever going to go back to the ocean? Not that I want you to. I really don’t. I mean… You don’t have to tell me if you are. After what you said about your husband…”
The words had been a lot easier to say and made more sense when Turpentine was only thinking about them. Once they got out of his mouth, they started flapping around like crazy butterflies, taking off in all the wrong directions and only getting worse when he tried to fix them.
“I don’t know.” The quiet words made Turpentine relax a little. He had expected to only hear a splash when Pearl fled back to her underwater home, and he really did not expect to hear the words that followed. “Are you ever going to find a home, Turpentine?”
Now it was his turn to be flustered. Turpentine took a deep breath and almost inhaled the paintbrush, but covered for his action by wiping it clean and quickly dunking it into the solvent. “Yes,” he muttered finally. “I just need to find the right parents.”
Behind him, Pearl gave out the smallest of giggles, sounding almost like the tinkling of fairy bells in the cool evening air. “Princess Celestia would make a nice mother for you. She told us about your… misconception. It was very touching.” Pearl giggled again. “Prince Turpentine.”
Turpentine was grateful that the captain’s cap allowed his ears to stick out, because they turned bright red with embarrassment and itched uncomfortably. If they had been stuck under the cap, he would have needed to scratch or else. As it was, he hunched over the solvent bottle with the brush until the gentle touch of an oversized hoof on his shoulder made him look up.
Those dark green eyes were only darker and more entrancing in the evening shadows. Gaberdine had confided once that he was first attracted to the beautiful seapony from her voice, but Turpentine was fairly certain that those fascinating eyes had a powerful role in his infatuation, and possibly if Turpentine was reading his eleven years of worldly experience correctly, something far more permanent in their relationship. They were so much like Ripple’s eyes, only with most but not all of the mischief faded away and considerable pain mixed in. Still, the pain seemed muted, even missing whenever Gaberdine was in the immediate vicinity. And over the last few weeks, that same pain had faded slightly whenever Turpentine was around too.
His introspection was gently cut off by a soft but persistent touch on the end of his nose. When Turpentine blinked his way back to awareness, he saw Pearl with her own small smile as she continued to boop him until he moved to push away the hoof with a protest. “Hey! Did Mother Windrow teach you that?”
“Yes.” She giggled again, a musical noise that Turpentine could never tire of listening to, and much the same as Ripple’s happy laughter, but quieter. It was also far too short, and although her smile remained, there was considerable regret in her eyes when she turned the unwelcome nose-booping into a more familiar caress along his cheek. “I will miss you,” she added. “I feel safe when Ripple is with you. I worry about her so. She’s all I have left.”
“Uh… Thank you, ma’am.”
“Pearl.” The seapony’s smile thinned, and the hint of a tear appeared in the corner of one of those beautiful eyes. “I wish you could stay,” she whispered. “I wish I could turn you into a seapony and steal you away to live with my Ripple forever beneath the waves.”
“What about Mister Gaberdine?” asked Turpentine. It was a question he had not intended to ask, but his mind was still deliriously scrambled by Pearl’s beautiful eyes, and he had to say something.
“I…” That terrible pain crept back into her eyes again, and Turpentine reacted by instinct. He reached out and wrapped his forehooves as far around the mare as possible, only instead of holding the hug for the absolute minimum in the way he always had done with Mother Windrow, he clutched her just as tightly as Ripple would have, and kept holding her until she started breathing regularly and relaxed her own crushing grip.
“Better?” he asked hesitantly, not certain if his ribs could take another aquatic hug.
“Better,” she reassured him from where her nose was pressed into the top of his cap. They could have remained holding each other for longer, except for the sound of a familiar sharp beeping of the smoke alarm from inside the riverboat galley and some associated commotion.
“Oh, fishguts.” Pearl cocked her head to one side and looked at the trail of smoke leaking up from the galley vents. “Gabby was baking your birthday cake.”
“Birthday?” Turpentine glanced between the embarrassed mare and the trickle of smoke, which was rapidly dwindling while Ripple and Gaberdine dealt with the source. The days had snuck up on Turpentine despite his best efforts, but it was only a birthday, and nothing really special. Normally, Mother Windrow would bake them both a few tins of cupcakes and they could apply whatever sprinkles and icing desired. And she bought him some new paints, which were normally not the ones he needed but he never complained. A whole cake…
He eyed the suddenly shy seapony again. “Were you supposed to keep me out here so I’d be surprised?”
“Yes.” She tried to look down, but Turpentine slipped under her chin and wrapped her up for another hug instead. After a considerably gentler squeeze and some thought, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and a smile.
“Thank you, Pearl. That’s one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten for my birthday.” He chuckled, because giving in to an urge to giggle was not a very eleven year old colt thing. “I’ve never had somepony tell me they wanted to turn me into a seapony and steal me away before. I think it’d be fun, but I’d miss painting.”
“We can’t have that.” Pearl lifted his captain’s cap up and arranged Turpentine’s mane before putting the cap back on his head and settling it down. “Just as long as you don’t invite any more of those kind of pegasus over to paint anymore.”
“Do you mean batponies?” asked Turpentine, still feeling a little giggle-y inside. “Or female ponies.”
“Princess Celestia is a female pony,” said Pearl very sincerely despite the smile that kept trying to sneak into the corners of her mouth. “You have my leave to paint her this weekend, only if you don’t put her under the waterfall.”
“Oh.” A little of the levity in his heart lessened at the thought. Princess Luna’s rescheduled visit was the day after tomorrow, during a period of time where Celestia had punched a temporary hole in her schedule and might be able to come along. Baron Gaberdine and Ripple had worked from dawn to dusk on Castle Paradise’s engines, so there was supposed to be what he called a ‘smoke test’ tomorrow that did not involve cooking, and if it succeeded, the riverboat would be able to take a short cruise up and downstream all decked out in bright white paint with the pastel colors of Celestia’s mane on the trim like some giant celestial swan out for a daytime paddle. Everything was all in waiting except the most important part of all.
Where was he going to paint her portrait?
He had not put any thought into the problem over the last week, due to the immense amount of work it had taken to get the castle properly painted. He couldn't just paint her alone and fill in the background later, because that’s how that terrible, awful, creepy painting in her art gallery happened, and all of the paintings over the years that followed with those eerie eyes. Turpentine did not think his portrait of Celestia would become that popular, but it was best to err on the side of caution, particularly since his get well card had wound up being printed in the newspaper, and he had not expected that either. He really needed to find somepony with an answer to his question.
By the time his birthday party was over and he settled down in bed, he knew just exactly who he was going to ask.
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Irony: running away from home because all they paint is white houses to find yourself painting a white house(boat)
And they rechristened Paradise IV as "The Swan of the Dawn"
Loved his interactions with Pearl. You have me in suspense to not only how the sisters will react to Luna's portrait but how he'll do Celestia's.
I gotta admit that I was never that happy about going to school. Of course I was also never as good at math as Ripple.
7962768 Well he had the trim and all sorts of interesting bits to paint
7962768
Considering how you keep referring to huck finn, kinda surprised they didn't trick folks into painting the boat for them ;-)
I love how Turpentine is unintentionally really good at erotic paintings.
the cover over the sidewheel singular - I don't think side wheel steamers work well
with only one wheel. You would tend to go around in circles.
Lovely wikipedia article on history of steamers
Sorta late early squad, go!
Probably airship paint, if I had to guess.
Hahahahaha.
Something something osmosis.
I wonder how long it's going to be before the kids at the school know about Ripple’s seaponyness.
Man, Gabby was really primed to apply that primer.
Oooo, I didn't realize the boat itself was a new art project. I was expecting just a replacement white coat. We probably need some art of the that, too.
Hah! Turnabout is fair play, you know.
Well, except for the art school plans, I think he already has found a home.
That was a well timed hug.
Heh, that's really quite the waterfall.
7963106 You're probably right. Think of it as the *nearest* sidewheel, since they're looking at only one side at the time.
7963027 (I need to do this as a blog plug sometime) For commercial writing along the same general bend as I do (only better), take a look at AugieDog and the various stories he has in print, as well as Bookplayer and her book, Pierside, which is very good. Review by Bats. Review by Titanium Dragon.
7962958 Don't the seaponies count?
7962878 I have this mental picture of Luna telling her sister, "And I won't show you the portrait he made of me unless you get yours painted too." That'd get her.
7962804 I have endured many a severe beating by Long Division, as well as Derivatives, and both Taylor and McLaurin functions.
Flim and Flam, me thinks?
7963133
Read it once:
Read it again:
7963133
Turpentine is painting. Why would it not be?
I think he might be actually incapable of just painting something a plain white.
7963133 "...which reminded Turpentine a little of a closed-up boiler..." Originally, I used a teakettle there. Tek suggested I use the boiler analogy. I told him no, then thought about it, and went back and used it as an example of how Ripple was affecting the way he thinks. I
all of my editors.
7963146 Implied, of course. I originally had a pair of young griffons, but I thought about it, and they were the natural way to go.
7963182 Just be glad he's not a carpenter. Or worse, the general contractor who did Canterlot.
Princess Celestia stood very quietly with her tongue stuck in the corner of her cheek while looking up at the mountain. Finally, she took a deep breath and addressed the young architect at her side.
"I seem to remember asking for a small mountain cottage with a view of the valley. Three rooms, perhaps four, where I could spend the occasional weekend in peace and quiet away from the troubles and stress of court."
"There's at least three rooms in your tower, Your Highness," said Cost Overrun, pointing with one hoof at the tallest tower in the city, done up in enough gold around the edges so that it reflected considerable glints even at this distance. "I made a tower for your sister too, just in case," he added.
Celestia cast a sideways glance at her sister, who was still lying on her back, holding her gut with all four hooves, and laughing her plot off.
"Yes, I can understand why we might not want to share a room." The unspoken "Or I might attempt murder while she's sleeping for suggesting you as a contractor" drifted silently through the air.
7963225 Aha! I knew it!
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b9/e7/89/b9e789ee53122872b753f9fb8f7b879a.jpg
7962845 To the moon; term, 48 years. 63 if you ever tell anyone why you were banished.
Me thinks you're trying to get us to overdose on Ripple's cuteness. Also the word 'terrifffically' has two too many 'f's
I am curious where the story is heading, I fear a bittersweet ending but hope for a really happy ending.
Sounds like the Flim Flam Brothers applied a paint job so crappy, it would literally fall off if you looked at it funny.
I hadn't considered this potential hazard of Equestrian Naming conventions, and it is a wonderful one.
D'aww! It's like she's his little sister already.
Pretty sure we all wish for something similar to that.
Beautiful story, and an amazing concept. Your writing style really bring these characters and places to life. This story and it's prequel are so tranquil and beautiful that reading it relaxes my very soul. I rarely praise stories that I like, but this one certainly takes a place among my favorite. I never want this story to end, and I know that when it will inevitably come to a close, it will leave a void in my chest
7963291 Really? I thought there were too few 'f's there to fully describe it correctly.
Very subtle.
Nice to come back after the weekend to all of this.
Pearl, stealing away young foals and keeping them forever is exactly the the kind of thing that had Turpentine scared when he first met Ripple. Even if it was a rather cute thing for her to say.
Ohh. He asked Gabby's mom for a different kind of "painting things"
They got airships. Same paint
I can already guess their identities
Hah. Don't let the tool hear it
Sen is so very forethoughtful.
Well, he's got somepony to help him with math
Gaberdine just wants to paint the primer already
Well, that works, I guess. Ninja painters!
Hah. Windrow would know how to get him out of his overthinking-trances, yes
Wait until you're old enough to appreciate it before painting more lewd pictures
7963291
No, no. The f's change the stress. You have to pronounce it with the stress on the fff now. Terry-Fically!
7962878
If he's going to ask Luna, probably in leg-deep water. At dawn.
7962768 In all fairness, it is the only white house boat on the river--should he encounter more, then Turpentine would be doing something ironic after all...
7963182
He's doing the boat in Celestia's colours... I can just see Luna showing up, taking one look and saying "oh, I didn't know you did 1 to 1 scale sculptures as well Turpentine".
7964287 somebody break out the burn heal
I can only imagine the sisters' reaction when they next see Castle Paradise. Seems like it could go any way.
Also, good to see Turpentine sort of connecting with others his age. He's not exactly the new kid thanks to his connections, so he's coming in with a somewhat positive reputation already. With any luck, he may know what to do with a friendly classmate by the time he heads to Canterlot.
The sexy kind? Nnnoooooo!
)
(For a split second I thought she meant the frog colt from school.
7963225 "Cost Overrun"
As adorable as Ripple is, she got all of that from her perfect Mother. Pearl is an Angel in pony form, and I have never wanted to bundle another living thing up and keep it safe and content more than when I read her dialogue. Her lines always make me hold my breath, she and her child are unbelievably, nuclear weapon-grade adorable.
I've held out on giving this a Favorite because I was not sure where it was going, or even what it's storyline was to begin with, (I didn't read it's prequel, a mistake I will be rectifying soon) but I've only just realized, I don't care anymore. Your character development is probably the best I have seen in my life, and for that reason alone, you deserve far more than the one Like and Favorite I can give you, Mr Georg. I can't even find the words to describe how in love I am with this story and it's characters, and I had never seen them before this.
I won't ramble (anymore), I'll just give you the bloody Favorite I should have around Chapter 3, and wait for the next installment of this master piece.
7964287 "Very nice, Turpentine. It even spreads around the hips just like her."
7964735 One might infer that Pearl is just a teeeeeensy bit jealous.
7965032 Hey, keep me modest. Oh, wait. Fixed. My wife just told me to go take out the trash.
7964173 Luna might have some suggestions. "Ok, first you need a cake large enough to hold her weight, then about a barrel of frosting...."
7964152 He's very literal. Particularly, when somepony uses "anything" in a context that applies to buying paint.
7963454 Admittedly, a unicorn looking at paint funny is different than the other two races of pony. They have to use a scraper. Well, and seaponies count as unicorns for this purpose.
7965068
Hey, that's one of her biggest jobs. Us men need our other halfs to make sure we have a side of humility at dinner time.
7965068 I imagine Pearl as a sea goddess of immeasurable beauty, so her being jealous is just another form of cuteness which adds even more adorable irony to her jealousy.
Beware of his pal Vector Calculus as well.
Apparently his talent extends to all kinds of painting, not just the art kind.
"Oh hey Celestia, looks like we're already done with your painting. The canvas is a little unconventional."
7965266 Long Division has a long 'division' if you know what I mean...
7961900 Just realized, if Celestia did lay an egg for her hippogriff child, then you could reference Twilight Sparkle Lays an Egg. Add more fuel to the whole alicorn's lay eggs prank.
EDIT: Forgot a title I thought up. "Celestia, The Emperor, and The Horned Hippogriff." Bounding Baby, also works for the last bit, but the thought of her giving birth to essentially an alicorn version of a hippogriff is funny to me.
As a note. Pearl might regret being far too subtle with trying to get Turpentine to stop drawing erotic portraits. He can't paint eyes, so Celestia will need to be drawn in a pose to make her closed eyes seem natural. Her's will likely be the most sensual he has done to date.
7965266
Yes, those two are surprisingly strong, for being total nerds
7965716
Celestia Lays an Egg has actually been done
heh.
a quit eatin' paint kid. It's bad for you.
now, beating it...?that's another story
umm...
that's nice?
totally not eerie or creepy to know pony mermaids can turn you then drag you down into the sea forever, because they have super strength and apparently some serious fightingskills...
But that's not what were talking about in this case thanfully.
Motherly. You sure you don't have a family kid? Or are you just blind to what is clearly right before you?
just reach out. It's so close you can touch it!
I remember some other creatures who really liked school...
i.ytimg.com/vi/U1PMCOQnldg/hqdefault.jpg
Bunch a' jackovs...
7979553
No. Wrong. Eww. If he gets adopted by Pearl, than the adorable relationship him and Ripple have turns into a step-sibling incest plot from a crappy porn video.
The seaponies are going to really love you after that turns the entire lagoon into an algae bloom.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lehrer+lyrics+new+math&&view=detail&mid=DCD6A7B96A4AB0F4232FDCD6A7B96A4AB0F4232F&&FORM=VRDGAR
Start about 1 minute in