Bad Booty
"Yohoho and a bottle of rum!"
"Frank! For the last time! I'm sick of that shanty! And besides, we don't have any rum!"
"Why don't we have any rum?!"
"Because it's all gone!"
"Why is the rum always gone?!"
"Will you two zip it already?!" All eyes turned to the owner of the final voice. A towering and imposing-looking woman, whose sword gleamed in the light of the high noon. All the other sailors aboard the vessel immediately kept silent, showing their Captain her due deference. As the waves lashed against the bow of her ship, the woman simply smiled, as though the feel of them sailing through these violent waters was the most enjoyable thing in the world to her. But all good things must come to an end eventually, and as she turned she looked to an especially diminutive member of her crew. "Finick. How fares our plunder? I assume we got a good haul this time?"
Her crew-member, a much shorter man, adjusted his glasses before looking to the ledger in his hands. "Well, it wasn't the biggest port we'd raided, but we did manage to get several crates worth of food and fabric. Enough to keep us fed and our sails in good order for some weeks."
The Captain smirked. "Not too shabby if ah do say so mahself." Then her smirk faded, replaced instead with a look of annoyance. "Although, we might have managed ta get some decent gold or silver if somebody hadn't decided to try and go for the kid back there!"
After casting nervous glances at one another, one of the other crew stepped forward. "Well, he didn't run like the others, so, figured he'd go for a good price at the shadier markets? Or a least make a decent cabin boy?"
The Captain rolled her eyes. "First of all, we don't take people as booty, you flounder! Draws too much unwanted attention. And besides..." She arched an eyebrow as she looked past the group behind her. "He's a bit on the scrawny side to be good at any work we'd want him to do."
Her underling cleared his throat, though in a clearly-nervous manner. "Well...maybe we could motivate him? You know, let him know it'd be good to just go along with what we want?" After a long silence, he continued. "I mean threaten him, you know?"
The Captain gave herself a facepalm. "Yes, yes, we got ye the first time." A moment went by and she eventually let out a sigh. "Alright you lot,. Get back to work. Ah'll look the kid over mahself." Such was the effect of her authority that she got an immediate response of salutes before a flurry of activity, as every hand on deck got back to what they'd been doing before this conversation had started. As for the Captain, she made good on her word, striding forward and heading for the back of her ship. Sure enough, there he was, a youngish-looking lad with slightly unkempt green hair, looking far less concerned with this situation than anyone else would be, much to the Captain's amusement. "So, ah'm bettin' ya weren't much of a thinkin' boy, jus' standin' there while we took ya?"
The boy in question, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the ship, had his arms tied to the side of his body with expertly-knotted rope. And yet, despite his clearly perilous circumstances, he looked bored more than anything else, which was reflected in his tone when he finally spoke. "Oh, I think plenty. For instance, I'm thinking it's not going to look good for you and your crew to be pirating like this."
The Captain chuckled. "We've been doin' this fer some time, my lad. Ah promise ya, ain't nobody on these ere high seas who can contend with the likes o' Captain Celaeno an' her merry band!"
The boy arched an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sure you've made a name for yourself and all, but I wasn't talking about law-enforcement..." He glanced to the side. "Assuming people actually start making some of course," he grumbled. Then he looked upwards, to the cloudy skies above them. "I was thinking...higher powers."
But Celaeno waved him off. "Oh, I assure ya, not even the gods are gonna bother us. I mean they've got big monsters an' world-shapin' stuff ta deal with most days. Ya think they'll take time out o' their day ta jus' do somethin' bout little old us?"
Here, the boy smirked. "Oh, you'd be surprised just how much micromanaging they'd be willing to do...when circumstances present themselves."
Celaeno eyed him carefully. "What, ye some kind o' priest in-training or somethin'?"
The boy considered that. "Well, you got the 'in-training' part down right at least."
Celaeno was getting irked with his attitude now, and so drew her sword, putting its point right up against his throat. Though again, she found herself irritated when this action did nothing to actually intimidate him. "What's yer name, lad?"
The boy shrugged. "Oh, you can call me Spike."
To that, Celaeno gave a guffaw. "Really? Like that mini-God? Wow, yer parents must have been really devout."
Again, Spike mused on that. "Hmmm...yes, you could say that. But enough about me. Let's talk about you."
Celaeno resumed her earlier smirk. "Ah, mah favorite topic."
An eye-roll from Spike before he started talking again. "Okay, here it goes. I'm going to give you a chance to let me go."
A pause, and then Celaeno snickered. "Er...pardon?"
Spike shrugged again. "You heard me. Untie me, let me go, return the things you took from that town, vow never to go pirating again, and that'll be the end of it. We can all walk away and never hear of each other again, and everyone can go on with the rest of their lives." His expression grew darker. "But if you don't, if you insist on keeping me, and in continuing your life of crime and violence...there will be dire consequences, for both you and your crew." Taking a deep breath, he sighed. "So...what'll it be?"
Celaeno, looking around like she was expecting someone to jump out and yell "gotcha", soon looked like she was more amused than at any other time of her life. "Oh wow, yer a funny one, ah'll grant ye that. But here's mah counter-offer." She again placed the tip of her sword against Spike's throat. "We'll keep our plunder, we'll keep our life o' piratin', an' most importantly, we'll keep the mouthy one who decided it was a good idea ta threaten the woman who has a sword on him." Her grin grew wicked. "But don't be sad, kiddo. As it happens yer a right pretty one. So maybe ah'll jus' keep ya fer mahself. Won't that be fun?"
Spike unleashed the longest sigh yet, and after shaking his head he looked up to the sky. "Well, let it never be said that I didn't give them a chance." Before Celeano could say anything in response to that, she was stunned to find that the boy's ropes had suddenly transformed into flimsy-looking vines, which he effortless snapped himself out of before jumping up to stand on his own two feet. Naturally, the Captain would want to try and defend herself against what he had planned, but she was soon distracted by the sudden screams of her crew. She whipped around, her eyes widening with horror when she saw that, of all things, her mast and oars and somehow transformed themselves into massive and murderous-looking snakes, which now coiled around all of her sailors and squeezed them tightly. Celaeno too had a barrage of the deadly reptiles some for her, but she dodged and waved past them all, heading away from Spike as she did so.
"What in the name of...?!" Her confusion was grown further when, all of a sudden, she found herself clasping her hands over her ears to keep herself from being deafened by an unexpected arrival of massively loud flute noises. Where this cacophony was coming from she had no idea, but she and everyone else here was being driven nuts by the sound of it, especially those that couldn't cover their ears thanks to the aforementioned snakes. Celaeno's eyes darted all over, and it was right around here when she discovered that the wooden planks of her ship were all creaking and cracking, with rapidly-growing vines of ivy creeping in between them and from every direction. Some of her crew, having wormed their way out of their snakey bindings, elected to scream wildly before throwing themselves overboard. Celaeno, seeing which way the wind was blowing, figuratively of course, decided that she had little choice but to do the same. Better the dangerous waves than whatever madness was going on here of course. But as she reached the edge of her now-transforming vessel, she cast one final glance at Spike, who was casually leaning against the edge of the boat himself, smirking to her and giving her a quick goodbye salute. "Kid...yer trouble," she finally said.
Spike watched as his would-be captor leapt from the ship, and he sauntered over, with all the vines, snakes and music around him subsiding as he did so. Leaning over, he watched as the sailors and Celaeno tried desperately to swim against the raging current, though their chances of doing so were slim. Seeing that, the young God shook his head with disappointment. "Well, maybe I'll let them come back as dolphins. It's the least I could do." Then he paused. "Well...unless Adagio's kids eat them afterwards."
Before anyone asks, yes, I am indeed terrible at capturing the personality of Captain Celaeno. I just needed a pirate for this scenario and she's the franchises most famous one, so...yeah, sorry Captain 
Stats
Page generated in 0.037 seconds
Total duration
990 users online
9,968 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
HA!!!!! Also didn't expect the Dionysius
Huh. I always pictured Discord in the Dionysus role.
Sucks that Spike didn't let Celaeno live. She would have been a nice follower/worshipper for him... Among other things if you catch my drift.
Also...
I'll never get tired of this scene
I love that Spike and the crusaders are always referred to as 'mini-gods'.
Well, there's probably enough clips of her online for you to get a rough idea of what she's like. Though, technically, you don't have to get her right. You've got a fairly benevolent, or at least, not actively malevolent Sombra where the canon one's a prick, so...
10138782
I'd have pictured Pinkie.
Spike as Dionysus? I'm not quite seeing it really.
REALLY good job on this latest chapter. Yeah, I see your point about needing a pirate for this, but I feel kind of bad for Celaeno and her crew drawing the short end of that stick, even if I DO understand the reasoning . I admit that I DID enjoy seeing Spike getting a chance to shine here against opponents that even a Mini-God would be powerful enough to more than handle on his own. Actually, I would have liked seeing Spike resurrecting Celaeno and her crew as fish, dogs and parrots so that his girlfriends (all three of them) can keep them as pets.
Still, the exchanges, action, (dark) humor and general wrap-up were all well done in all the right places.
This is actually a Dionysus myth, he has a fascinating history. 2:10-2:28 for this one specifically.
Green hair. Oh dear.
Yeah, the phonetic accent did not work here. Celaeno sounds less like a pirate and more like a long-lost member of the Apple family. Still an entertaining interlude.
10138782 10139007
Spike's probably interning with each of the major deities in turn as he finds his own portfolio. This was clearly Pinkie or Discord's week with him. Which one is left as an exercise for the reader.
Not feeling this one. I thought the point of these myth retelling chapters was to put a new spin on them by replacing the personalities involved with MLP/EQG ones and seeing how the story changes as a result.
But this chapter is pretty much a near straight retelling of the original Dionysus myth. The presence of Spike and “Celano,” was almost irrelevant.
I never see Spike and the Sirens hanging out together.
10143337
Which is probably a GOOD thing. The Crusaders might not mind sharing Spike, but they might still get a bit - untrusting concerning the Sirens (as almost anybody with even the smallest lick of common sense would).
Dionysus moment