The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Building Toward Confrontation

Gazelle's raspy sarosian voice echoed through speaker after speaker as the alarms continued to blare, making Valey press her ears against her head. She wasn't as good on sleep as she'd have liked to be, and this much extra commotion was starting to cause a headache... but she was running after Meltdown, and the fiery mare seemed interested in lending her weight to problems that were well out of Valey's hooves.

"Starting to dig this guy again," Grapejuice remarked, short legs scurrying to keep up by Valey's side. "Way better at giving orders than any other jerk who's been up there. Better at insulting, too. So who's Puddles?"

"...It's a long story," Valey growled, suddenly glad she couldn't understand Gazelle. "I'm not a fan of hers."

Grapejuice winced. "Bad breakup, or something? He's making her sound almost in your league."

"Breakup?" Valey frowned. "Uhh, no? First off, she's always been bad news, second, just how much of a concept of relationships do you guys even have here? All the dudes are grunts and all the girls are in charge."

"What, that?" Grapejuice somehow shrugged as she ran. "Nah, that's just because dudes are way more common than chicks when you're having kids. Also so you don't accidentally have kids when you're flirting around, and so when you do anyway you can just yell at other dudes to get stuff done for you and not have to do it yourself. Or something. Maybe it's because stallions are stupid. I forget."

Valey didn't question it. She wasn't that curious, and it was still a better reason than Selma had for hiring only stallions for the Defense Force. "Yeah, cool," she growled. "So we know where we're going, and all that? Because I'm honestly just following her lead up there."

"Oh yeah." Grapejuice nodded. "Cat dude up there is saying where she is like every second or so."

"Fun." Valey sighed, trying to stretch as she ran, Meltdown's fans heating the entire corridor to toasty degrees and making it impossible for her to keep the prospect of rest out of her mind. Why here? Why now? She still had Shinespark to catch up to and bail out, and then they had to get back to the Dream and sail it somewhere there wouldn't be pirates or politicians or anything else...

The directions rapidly led them upward, taking every staircase and generally leading away from the prow of the ship. Meltdown seemed tireless in her march, despite wearing nearly a ton of twisted steel for armor. Was it powered like Braen? Valey couldn't think of any alternative, unless Meltdown was somehow just that strong... but something had to be causing her heat as well, and the armor seemed the most likely culprit. She still gave it a wary berth, the sensation that Meltdown could somehow undo her lingering at the back of her cutie mark.

Pow! They kicked through a door, emerging at a higher level, and a startled patrol racing in the same direction dropped into a confrontational stance. Instantly, Gazelle's tone changed, sending the patrol limp and ensuring they could proceed without a fight.

Valey grew more and more sluggish as they pressed on, finding it harder to use her hooves with every step. It reminded her of how she'd felt at the skyport shortly before fighting Herman; there were powers at war far out of her weight class and the moment she was neither the strongest thing in the rom nor directly fighting it was the moment she wanted nothing more to do with the fight. The battle with Kero's mercenaries in the buildup to the dam explosion might have been a better comparison... Her hooves itched as she ran. She didn't belong there. She just wanted to get out.

---

Puddles leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, focusing on the pain of the windigo heart in her stomach. It would take a lot longer still to process the heart's extra magic to the point she needed, far longer than she would have before this battle was over and done, but she didn't regret eating it rather than saving it for later. The extra power was useful now, and there was always a chance something wouldn't go her way and prevent her from getting it back if she had just held onto it.

She squeezed a hoof against her gut and let the sound of yelling fill her ears as the Varsidelians formed a phalanx, fighting for every inch of ground to carve a safe path to the shipdeck. Resistance was heavy, thrice so once the alarms had started. She didn't understand Sarosian, but she did recognize Gazelle's voice, and if he was here...

But there was one thing that didn't hurt her, and that was the chaos. Ponies fighting ponies, one side fighting for freedom and the other for whatever it was pirates fought for. They warred together, trading blows and hoofsteps of ground, and even as her pony body suffered, the two-thousand-year-old lance in her mind that stabbed her and thirsted for equine strife lessened and lifted. It was a freedom she had almost never tasted before. And as a newly-minted harmonic lifeform, she was determined not to enjoy the respite.

"Hiya," Puddles moaned, holding herself, a special sense telling her Melia was near.

"Hello yourself," Melia replied, stopping against the wall next to her. "Puddles. What are you doing on a pirate ship?"

Puddles flopped forward and tried rubbing herself against the floor. "Looking for a stupid horse so I could have fun and still rub it in cute Valey's face that I was helping. What were you doing in a pirate ship, huh? Puddles just followed you."

"I..." Melia's voice faltered. "Ran away, tried to go it on my own, made mistakes and got captured. What do you care?"

"Huh." Puddles sucked her lip, deciding that the floor was helping a little. "Maybe next time you shouldn't make so many mistakes. I care because Puddles had to drag her cute butt all the way out here when I could have gone somewhere nice and played with cute Valey instead. You like playing, don't you?"

Puddles opened her eyes to watch, focusing on Melia's regard of her and patiently, smugly awaiting any sort of answer. Melia frowned. "Playing how?"

Puddles poked at her cutie mark, still a jagged web of cracks. "Music, silly! Use it or you lose it!"

Melia frowned harder, a shakiness visible in her eyes. "I left because..."

"It was breaking? Yep. That stinks. Maybe Puddles knows why, or how to stop it from happening a-" Puddles winced, holding herself again as the pain briefly intensified. "Oooh, Puddles isn't happy..."

Melia sighed and turned away. "I don't know why I'm having a civil conversation with a windigo in a mare's body, and I'm definitely not giving you sympathy or curiosity for whatever ails you."

"You're not?" Puddles gave a halfhearted smile. "Even if Puddles offered to tell you how to fix your butt and keep it from breaking again?"

"It's called a brand!" Melia's eye twitched. "What do you know, or what do you want?"

Puddles pursed her lips and spread her forelegs. "A hug!"

Melia stepped back, disgust flickering across her face. "I'm not in a good place to be doing emotional charity work, right now," she muttered.

"We need backup!" a Varsidelian hollered from nearby, the sounds of fighting growing closer.

"Booo," Puddles sighed, heaving herself to her hooves. "Your emotions are a charity work. Now don't run off while Puddles goes to save the nice stallions! Heehee. Puddles is a pirate..."

Comments

[Zaid ValRoa]

8253167

But never anywhere near that long.

1,000,228 words

i.warosu.org/data/g/img/0661/07/1527445620154.jpg

[Czar_Yoshi]

9296222 I'll be honest: that 1,000-chapter limit is looking pretty frightening.

[Argeddion]

9296508
You could end this story after the empire and do a sequel, if the limit is a problem.