The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Scourge of Seas

Morning treated Valey far less kindly than the ponies aboard the Immortal Dream. The storm had still been billowing off the mountain like an inky waterfall when the sun set, forcing her to spend the night in her tiny boulder niche, and while she hadn't fallen out and the way ahead was now clear, the good news ended there.

Sleeping on a far-too-small piece of cold, slanted, uneven rock with falling off as a perpetual concern, it turned out, was absolutely horribly for cramps, and she couldn't even arch her back or stretch her wings within the confines of the rocky hollow. "Urrrgh... nnngh..." She yawned, fanged jaws snapping, rubbing at her eyes with a dusty hoof. "Good morning to you too, world."

She quickly vacated the cave, if only to force her wings to wake up and give herself room to stretch. The sky below was still covered in clouds, but they were patchier and lighter gray and didn't look ready to pop her like a bubble the moment she set hoof on them. Or maybe it was because they were so far down... She hadn't realized quite how much height she had gained in her mad dash for cover the day before, even if it still left her a fraction of the way up the wall.

Sniffing, she lifted her nose and cleared out her lungs. Starlight was... east. Far east. So far that she couldn't tell how far up or down they were, and definitely far enough that no conventional sense of smell should have been able to detect it, but she would take what she could get. Which in this case was not a lot.

"Aww, bananas," Valey pouted, slumping her shoulders in midair and thinking aloud. "You left me behind! Me, your friendly, loyal batpony! I'm back here... Anyone...? Amber?"

The stone in her bag remained dull and unchargable, and Valey huffed. "This is lame..."

Her pendant glittered around her neck, its magic a single thought away. She had strongly considered turning it on multiple times the previous evening, since having a confused, memoryless voice in her head to talk to would be a lot better than being on her own. But while the pendant's price of making her hungry was extremely light next to the possibilities for dark, mysterious magic, it was the last thing she could afford to pay at the moment. She had managed to save the second half of her lunch all the way until dusk, since falling asleep on an empty stomach was impossible, but now she was out, and already hungry again.

Options... Valey tried to think. She could fly up, aiming for the top of the cliff, and maybe find something edible growing up there if she could actually make the ascent... which was a big maybe. She was starting off partway up, but it was a height pegasi didn't usually fly to for a reason, and she was also starting off in bad shape. Or, she could fly east, chasing Starlight and her friends, and getting closer to land as well. East it was.

Valey didn't descend as she flew, extending her glides with flaps and treasuring the height she had built up previously. If she flagged and needed a bit of extra distance, it could save her, and if she changed her mind and wanted to go up... She focused on turning her brain off as much as possible for the flight, though. Thinking took energy, and there were particular thoughts she very much didn't want to have. Like why her friends had abandoned her and left her behind...

No, they hadn't! The boat's sudden disappearance likely meant it was in trouble. But it had survived the descent, and the storm, and had traveled so far over the last day...

She shook her head. They would have stayed above the cloud layer until she was on board if they could have. Unless they didn't want to. Everyone had just found out that the Griffon Empire was hostile to bats, after all, and Maple and Starlight wanted a peaceful and safe trip, which wasn't what they'd get if the party constantly got heckled for having her in it. But they were committed to sticking by her. They better have been, after all she did to keep them safe in Ironridge. Like taking Starlight to the skyport where Herman was, or bringing down a group of powerful mercenaries when they were in the caves... But Maple didn't care about that. She was too forgiving for her own good, wasn't she? She didn't even believe Valey was anything other than a normal, leather-winged pony. That idiot. Trusting your friends too much would get you a big surprise, like being left behind...

Valey wanted to yell. When clouds brushed her belly, she did yell, though more from shock than anything: where had all her height gone? She flapped frantically to preserve her momentum and avoid getting tangled in the fluffy masses. Had she been fretting so hard that she forgot to flap, or... How much time had even passed?

A quick glance at the sun told her it was not long past noon. She groaned, flipping on her back and soaring on as she covered her eyes with her hooves. "I'm a wuss..." she whimpered to the world, rolling back upright. "All it takes is one little solo night and I spend hours and hours wondering about how my friends dumped me when they're probably in trouble and arrrgh! Why can't I just beat someone up and call it a day!? And I'm hungry! They should make food that grows on clouds, or something!"

Food didn't grow on clouds, but water did, and as long as she had fallen to cloud level she couldn't see a reason not to dip lower for a drink. Valey pinwheeled through a crevice between two gray puffballs, shoved them apart so she could proceed further, and broke through the barrier into a haze of cold but harmless rain.

"Oh, wonderful. Mmm, there we go..." Tilting her head back as far as it would go, Valey opened her mouth and let rain fall in. The sun was warm enough above the clouds that she'd be dry again before too long, and not being thirsty would help at least half of her fatigue. Water splashed against her fuzzy, dusty body, and she took a second to ponder the clouds: in Ironridge, nobody ever paid them any mind, since the storms were too strong and above the wind barrier where no pegasi flew, but clouds were dense enough to call solid to fliers. She could probably sit and rest on one, even. If only she wasn't so hungry and Starlight wasn't still moving away from her, that could be critically useful...

Suddenly, time froze, leaving Valey blinking at the raindrops trickling down through the air. Severe, mortal danger? Was she about to get struck by lightning? Her heart briefly stopped; how could she dodge that? The clouds hadn't looked like a thunderstorm! But when she forced herself into a forward spin, getting a look at what was behind her, she realized it was something else entirely: a shaggy, patchy pegasus with a very bloodshot eye, clothes that looked like they had been fancy before a century of patches and dust moths, and a chipped cutlass in her mouth aiming wildly for whatever part of her it could find.

With instinctive ease, Valey flicked a forehoof, and time returned to normal. "Wow, you're ugly," she remarked, sizing up the mare's mildly unattractive body and deciding it wasn't worth ogling as she batted the flat of the sword. Her blow was light, but the pegasus's poor grip caused it to go wildly askew, causing the handle to twist violently in her mouth with a cracking of teeth. "What are you, some kind of pirate?"

The maybe-pirate didn't reply, shrieking in pain and spiraling away on mulch-colored wings. Valey hovered with her forehooves at her sides, taking quick stock of everything below her in case more tried to ambush her. Not like they could do anything, but better safe than sorry...

Valey's eyebrows rose at the sight in the waters below. No more fliers were chasing her, but the seas held a boat that was so obviously pirate-owned it was almost comedically overdone. "Is this a joke?" she muttered aloud at the sight of the ship, flat and swift with a reinforced ramming spike on the prow and a huge black flag depicting the skeleton of a...

"Hey!" Valey's temper rose indignantly at the realization that the flag showed no ordinary pony: capital letters embossed in bone big enough to read at a distance spelled 'DEAD BATS'. Her brow furrowed, and she started to rub her hooves together in anticipation. Dead bats, huh? That was a very nice boat those pirates had, there. It would be such a shame if anything were to happen to it...

Putting on a wicked smirk, Valey dove, searching for the best angle to approach the ship. A group of pirates as unskilled as the first would have nothing on her, and the benefits of taking down a group could range from good favor with the Empire to stealing free food.

---

Valey slid low along the waves, gliding carefully up to the pirate ship at an angle between the bridge and the deck that was least likely for anyone to be watching. Nothing spotted her approach, which furthered her opinion of the pirates' incompetence: she let the pegasus live, so they should have been on alert. That might have been a mistake, especially if she was intending to kick them all off their ship and take it for herself... but a part of her still badly disliked the idea of Valey the murderer, even if they were pirates and the fairest game she would ever find. The side of the boat was protected with bumpers made from gutted rubber wheels that looked like they once belonged to machines; she landed on one just below the open door of the bridge and tucked herself against the wall, figuring it would be smart to scout first. The pirates might be dim, but her cutie mark was warning her of enough latent danger she had no doubt about their reservations for killing. A lot of stupid opponents playing dirty with sharp swords still only needed one hit to win, after all, and there were voices drifting out ready for her to listen in on.

"But Cap'n, I'm tellin' ya!" a wimpy voice that didn't use proper inflections on its syllables was protesting. "There was a big, monstery sarosian while Lorenza was scoutin', and it sucker punched her an' broke every tooth in her face! There's probably a sarosian frigate nearby! We gotta attack!"

"Har!" a female voice barked back. "A sucker punch broke her teeth? Now that's what they call irony, isn't it, loverboy? Ooh, bet you're real broken up about that one."

"Don't mock me!" the wimp returned. "It's true! Her bod was perfect! We cuddled each other to sleep when the waves got-"

Valey held back a boo. "Your taste in mares is garbage!" she hissed under her breath.

"Then you'd best get cuddlin' her back to health, boy," a new voice cut in, "because that thar be the worst excuse for injurin' a lass bein' too rowdy with her me poor ear has ever had twiddled in it. It be like the time Bozbo was so fat he broke 'is bed and blamed it on that wench from three ports ago. You don't need no euphemisms to admit up front you smashed her yerself. Now get out of my cabin and do something productive!"

"Heh heh heh. Or reproductive," the female chuckled to the sound of disappointed hoofsteps. "And 'smashed her'? Nice one, Cap."

The third voice, weathered and quick and very definitely the captain, let out a long, defeated sigh. "Arrrrr... You're an idiot too, Belinda. What do a pirate have to do around these waters to get quality help these days? Too many small-minded rulebreakers focused on simple pleasures with no minds for grand ambition! Even gold's less of a motivator to these layabouts than a willin' soul to sock in with at night. This ain't the life it once was twenty years ago..."

Below the railing, Valey's chest puffed out in a combination of mirth and indignation. Apparently, she had been served a ship of freebooters that were incredibly horny... and not even self-aware about having no class. It was as if they were accidentally offensive in addition to deliberately making an enemy of her, which was all the more reason not to kill them: if remotely feasible, she wanted to embarrass them instead.

But that still left her hungry, achy and tired on the side of a boat filled with murderous plunderers who were likely armed to the teeth. She had no idea how many there were, but she needed a plan. Stealthy, maybe? Take out as many as she could with the element of surprise? Or announce her presence to all, show off as she fought and let the intimidation factor work on her side?

"Target ho!" a screechy female crowed from the lookout atop the mast, cutting her plotting short. "Vessel at two o'clock! Looks... like a merchant ship! Booyaaaaah!"

Valey swallowed, putting her brain to work faster. That wouldn't be something the captain ignored. If she wanted to get any sort of good reputation from dealing with these pirates, now was the time for action.

Comments

[Texus]

9033015
I agree partly with that. However I think no matter how you try to explain it he at least acts like a huge asshole no matter if he would have to organize another way out or not. It souns however as if they wouldn't manage to get out of town by foot that easily so I think that is not an option.

[Boopers]

Oh yes, nothing can stop Admiral Valey and her fleet of kicks and cuteness!