Performance Review
Later that night, on an airship grounded in the airfield north of the city, a hippogriff silently waited near the stern. Eventually, a head of seaweed, wrapped around wooden wrack and stinking of foam and rotting fish, lifted itself over the aft gunwale, sly in the bright moonlight.
Fish Eye brought her ensign's polearm to guard, the sharp spike pointed steady at the sea-thing's most protuberant portion, now raised headlike in the half-light. The thing stopped, and turned its regard in the young mare's direction. Elsewhere on the ship, the bright lights intended for the day-ponies had been extinguished, and the darkness rumbled with batponies active into the dark hours, putting away this and that in the quarters, preparing the storage holds for the cartloads due from the warehouses in the morning from the dayfolk.
Here, it was quiet, and still. It was, no doubt, what had drawn the thing of seaweed and shadows.
"Daughter of the deep, good night to you," it said with a mother's voice. "You swim leagues and leagues from where your tribes lurk, battered, beaten, and afraid."
"Good evening, Lady Amphitrite," Fish Eye chirped. "Something told me I should wait for you, or something like you, after all the talk last week, and our little scrimmage over the harbor the other day."
"And they chose to send you? Brash griffons, to taunt me so, and send a seapony to make their apologies. What foolish geas did they trap you with, for them to make you their beast of burden?"
"I don't think any griffon sent me. I mean, I work with some of ‘em, and some of them are nice, but I work for the ensign, the master sergeant, and the major, in that order, or so the master sergeant says."
"The master sergeant? Oh, young Gilda de Griffonstone. She drowned, you know. Almost one of mine, but a pony took her back in her time, before her time. And the winds whine so when I take a child of stone."
"Huh. You know, I forgot the master sergeant was a griffon? You're right, I guess a griffon sent me," Fish Eye said, her head tilted to the side, and thinking about what had brought her there, standing on a darkened ship's deck, threatening a goddess with a sharp stick.
Then the thing of foam and sea and shadows began laughing. Loudly.
Fish Eye looked around, wondering where her batpony fellow-troopers were. The two of them were making a great deal of noise.
"Oh, no need to wonder, my little priestess. We stand in the space between spaces, the moment between moments. I have been summoned, and you are, tonight, my chalice. Let us talk, you and I, and while we do, no equine voice will drown us, this I promise, this I swear. By the tide and the moon, by the shore and the sun."
Fish Eye nodded, and brought her ensign's spontoon to port, saluting the sea goddess.
"So I witness," the hippogriff mare said out of some instinct she didn't even try to understand.
"Ah, this is why I love the seaponies. Even miles from sea, you remember the rhythms of the wave. Why are you so far from the sea, child?"
"Why are you here with me, Lady A?"
"A! Are we already at such close terms, that you give me such a light name, little fry?"
"Well, I could call you Lady Amphi, but it seems a bit on the nose. And your full name is such a tongue twister!"
And being so serious was giving me a cramp.
The darkness laughed, and the scent of salt and rot made Fish Eye want to sneeze.
"Call me Auntie A, then, if you must. I won't be the only dread thing with nieces in this mess, will I? To business, little niece, to business. Somegriff has blotted my register, has she not, has she not?"
"The registry of the deep, of course!" chirped Fish Eye. "Only thing the toms could talk about, in between the training sessions. I mean, I only caught some of it while we were all waiting for our turn at the roc, and the griffish platoons were around, but twitter-twitter-twitter, like a flock of robins gossiping in a tree!"
"So glad to be the subject of rumor-mongering among the damnable get of the wild winds. There was a reason I gave your people the rule of my waves, little fry, and it wasn't because I loved your amphibious nature."
"Ha! I just got that! Amphibious!" laughed Fish Eye. "Is that where we got the word?"
She wouldn't have thought that a thing without eyes could glare, but the goddess of shadows and sea proved her wrong, there in the darkened corner of a place that was both the squadron's ship, and nowhere at all.
"Exactly," the goddess continued. "They have to follow rules, the griffons and ponies who trespass upon my waves. And yes, before you rules-lawyer at me, little priestess, the winds above the waves as well. I've had millennia to get used to the wiles and cheats of the trickster winds. The registry. This ship has been renamed! Why should I not mark it with the death of wood and canvas, linen and hemp? Why should I not curse this two-faced barque with the doom of all turncoats and liars and frauds?"
"Well, your worship, the prevailing theory is that there are exceptions to the renaming thing. Caveats and suchlike. I'm no scholar-"
"Of that, every wind, mountain, and backwater bay has heard, or will in their day, as your shadow touches upon them, my little fry."
"So nice to be famous! If only ponies and griffons knew me like you know me, Auntie A! But like I said, I'm no scholar, but the ones who are tell me that there are three exceptions."
"The keel, the reconstruction, and the battle capture."
"And I didn't really understand the keel business - if it's a new ship, why is it an exception at all? Why a new keel?"
"Because people will reuse their damnable names for their fool ships. Bad enough that they try to hide an evil crew with false names, but they stretch true names across new hulls! But I was lured into making allowances, and this is the one for transfer of names. The breakers must break the old ship, or I must be able to find her bones on the floor of one of my seas, or else the false-flagged bit of land on my sea will join the bones of the rest below my seas."
"Right, right! The second is the reconstruction, so changed that it is no longer the same ship!"
"Theseus was a lying cur, and the fact that his bones lay ash beneath the foundations of his town is enraging. I will never love the dogs of Perroneus, and their cunning, divine bitch-goddess."
"So you can rename a completely rebuilt ship, or re-launch it under the same name."
"Yes, damn Athena to Tartarus. But this barque of frailty is not that. Not so greatly changed as to be covered by that exception to my rule, my registry."
"And nogriff was trying to claim that! They have too much respect for you, Auntie A! Which leaves-"
"The capture, yes. And there is the point upon which the get of the winds would cheat me. What theft can compare to the price of battle upon the open sea? It was sly cheats like this that made me give that swaggering bastard Grosvenor into your people's talons, little fry. The arrogance of the imperial west wind! Who thought to call itself emperor of all my seas. I drowned that braggart's precious son of destiny, didn't I?"
"I don't know about any of that, Auntie. I'm sure he was a bad tom, Gilroy wanted to name the ship Drowned Grosvenor, but I didn't understand what it meant, just that they were competing for the most offensive and silly names they could get on paper!"
"Ha! Your people's greatest victory, and you don't remember it?"
"Well, as you say, Auntie, I'm not a clever fish."
"You surely are not, little fish. And I suppose that pain is a better reminder than victory. A people remembers the agonies of that which they barely survived, better than the transient successes that they pass through, from victory to victory. The Field of Crows, the Brown Church by the Sea… and I see you don't know either of those, either. For the nations you broke, they were everything! For your people, they were a long Tuesday, or a busy weekend.
"Well, little fish, the hippogriffs have had their soul-defining, crushing defeat, haven't they? They will remember the shadows of their conquerors for a thousand years, as they cower within my bosom. Well, let them hide, and remember that they are my little fishes, my little fries - and cease to be so proud of their wings and their faithless flirtations with the fickle winds."
Fish Eye listened patiently to the aunt of sea and shadows as she ranted about Fish's absent relatives and her relatives' neighbors. Fish was too young to remember much of Aris and the hippogriffs. Before her mother had taken the family to Equestria and the diplomatic mission, before the great retreat that slammed the doors, emptied out the houses. The things that her terrible auntie of wrack and ruin told her, there in that darkness between the ticks of the sea-clock, condensed the news of an entire decade of worry, and confusion, and fading hope, into one long terrible litany of defeat and failure.
Finally, the goddess Amphitrite's long-winded sea-foam rant wound down, like the turning of the tides.
"And you've gotten me monologuing, little fish. Clever fish! Enough of your feckless, foolish race and their travails. We were talking of falseness, and ugly plays to fool old goddesses."
"Oh, good, I had hoped you'd take the demonstration in the spirit it was intended, Auntie A! Were you entertained? Did we do well? We tried our best to make it an even fight!"
"It wasn't a fight at all! It was a spectacle, a great deal of flash and bugger-all! No bodies falling into my hungry waters, no feeding of the sharks! Just your damnable ponies firing off their silly pop-gonnes and blowing smoke in my face!"
"But there was blood! The major showed it to the crowd, I saw it glitter in the sunlight. The infirmary has a half-dozen casualties recovering over there, under the poop deck. Heh, ‘poop'."
The goddess of sea-wrack's featureless black head turned in the direction Fish had indicated, and rumbled, discontent.
"Feh. All that sulfur and chemical stink had covered the scent. True blooded?"
"We had some ponies holystoning the decks this afternoon where the blood stained our fresh new finish! It isn't done, you can probably find a few blotches here and there."
"Bah, I tell you, bah. It's a cheat. I'll remember being cheated, little fish."
"Don't think of it as gains and losses, or thefts and… losses I guess. Think of it as a performance Auntie A! We trained our hearts out, and gave you the best show we could manage. And it will be a warship, really! We're going off east to do something violent to the turul, whoever they are."
"Ha! Pestering the darlings of the East Wind? I could see that proud bastard taken down a peg or two. Hrm."
"What can we do to calm your waters, Auntie Amphitrite? We want you to be happy!"
The shadows spread, rising up over the still moon-swept decks of the Princess's Bit.
"An offer? A promise? I heard your Major Shield talk about the value of promises, and of gold. You fools have taken your fool's gold from your fool princess, who strides the world's stage in the cloak of a god! Who lives upon the pap of the heavens and calls herself nothing more than royal heir, as if we, the true gods of the firmament, do not see her for what she is! You heard all that, that cynical, lying speech, and you dare to talk to me about promises?"
"Yes! And I believed the Major! I think she means well, and we mean to do well! What can I do to make you happier, Auntie Amphitrite?"
The darkness shrunk in on itself, and took the form of a shadowy hippogriff.
"Fine. Build me a shrine, and bless it with a trained priest. You can use that colt who thinks he's hiding his nature from the day, we of the darkness know him well enough. Tell your batpony mistress I want to borrow the Spear-Stallion, her Pumpernickel for the blessing, she'll know what I mean. And, when it's ready, a carved figurehead upon the bow, in my likeness."
"Uh, you mean a blob of shadows with bits of sticks and seaweed sticking out of it?"
"No, you daft niece, look in the mirror, and use that."
Fish Eye felt the shadow-goddess staring eyelessly at her.
"On second thought, use your sister as the model instead."
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Angry pirate sea gods are the best sea gods. I wonder what she'd think of spaceflight?
I'm curious, is all this stuff about limitations on renaming vessels based on a real-life practice, or was it created for this story?
Fish Eye with the accidental bargaining? Seems to have to turned out alright, all things considered.
Is this a In the Company of Night reference I see? Is that story in the past for this one? Or am I mixing things up?
How...how did you forget Gilda was a griffon? There's probably not a more griffony griffon in the whole squadron!
Yeah, that's not going to last--not if the likes of Silverstream has anything to say about it. But that's a story for another day.
Hey Ping! Your ears burning?
I can just picture how conversations with Fish Eye are going to go in the morning.
"Hey Fish Eye, how was the night shift?"
"Oh, pretty good! Mostly it was just standing around and looking all guard-like, but then Lady Amphitrite dropped by to visit, and I got to listen to her rant on for a bit about registries, falsenesses, gets of the wind, and stuff like that."
"Mm-hmm, that's ni--wait, what?"
"By the way, we need to build a shrine. Who do I need to talk to about that again?"
9992615
The base superstition is very real, including the idea that you're trying to fool the gods of the sea and the notion of a registry of the deep. If you google around, there are various and contradictory renaming and rechristening ceremonies.
This particular codification and discussion of specific ways around the issue is fictional, though. Although based on simple reasoning and the panoply of reasons to rename ships.
In practical terms, the superstition reflects the seagoing community's collective hostility to people trying to play silly buggers with ship names. Especially those who try to dodge bad reputations (for treatment of crew or dodging port fees or outright piracy) by shedding a sullied name.
She's a proper priestess if nothing else to listen to the old waves crackle and sway.
To hear and listen, not as such to speak. And perhaps wiser than most to accept on faith where others might question.
Still, interesting to refer to gilda as a "Child of Stone", than the sky or winds. It is very interesting to see the powers of old know a name as well.
9992587
The outer seas of between and within the pearls of her depths, with a dozen more waves to flow about, pressing so upon the pearls she covets so.
9992624
In The Company Of Night is definitely not in the same AU as this one - for one, the cosmology is radically different, and for another, the batponies still exist in this world. There is exactly one real thestral in Company of Night, the rest are ponies wearing glamours which in certain cases got made permanent by dark magic corruption.
9992587
I think with space flight, a sea god or goddess doesn't get a say. Wind gods might... and for certain whatever god or goddess is in charge of the moon is going to have words.
"One of my priests? Well, do you have one? No? Well, there you go. Just a priest, then."
Pumpernickel... love it.
That could refer to Celestia, certainly, but I get the feeling it's nowhere near so straightforward.
Hmm. Not sure if that talk of dogs and bitches is meant to be insulting or if this particular Theseus was actually canine.
Funny. You'd think M. Bison would be a buffalo.
Yeah, definitely not just talking about Celestia.
I do love the idea of Pumpernickel being a batpony name of multiversal significance.
Ouch. "I made you in my image, and I clearly wasn't trying very hard."
Fascinating interlude. The gods are very much real in this world, and they have only so much patience for the performers who put Trixie to shame. Definitely looking forward to Gleaming and Gilda's reaction to this news.
9992587
Not sure how she'd feel about liftoff, but I can't imagine she appreciates those reentry-heated capsules splashing into her.
"Oi! Dem's fightin' words!"
So. Much. Lore!
Love it! Goddess of old asking for sacrifice, death and blood to pay her ledger. It valid the Dark tag of this story.
Ping be like after sensing what just happened: "Gyaaaaaaaaaa!"
. So apparently he is also valid for priestly duties... Gleaming is getting a lot of mileage out of that Ping. But figure an ancient goddess of the deep wouldn't have been satisfied with breaking a bottle of champagne upon the boat.
Loooooooore! It look a bit Greek with an MLP sauce. Was that the inspiration?
The West Wind is for Griffins
Auntie A for Hyppogriff
Piraeus for the Diamond Dogs (can I ask he is a God of what? Mining, the mountains and forgings? A war god? Or maybe all the gods have a war aspect in themselves?)
The East Wind for the Turul
Celestia, Luna and Cadence for the ponies but it seems there is something going on with that. Because they incarnated?
Snrrrk. Low blow Auntie. Give Fish a chance to grow up a little, I am certain she will blossom into a a lady that will make head turn. Buuut I am sure her sister will be happy to stay still for sculptor in an indecent pose for hours. Reeeeeaaaalllly happy. She will at least ask to have knives on hands...
Wasn't expecting the sea god to be real, but this was very entertaining. I liked how casual Fish Eye was with Amphitrite.
Nobody wants a figurehead with a goofy grin on a warship!
9992629
Interesting! Seems I have some research to do. Thanks for explaining!
9992750
It's explicitly Athens, and the bitch-goddess in question is Athena. I should note that Poseidon (or, in this case, his wife Amphitrite) and Athena did not get along at all in Greek theology. Piraeus is the port of Athens. And yeah, I suppose it means that Athenians are canine in this world. At least some of them. Some other things have dropped here and there that suggest that the diamond dogs are quite tribal or multi-cultural, with Bones' polygamous, unnamed tribe or culture, these demi-Greek dogs, and there's at least one tribe of dogs who have contact with the turuls, who I don't think are any of the above.
Well, plus that clan of savages who attempted to enslave Rarity in canon, but I think we can all agree that they were just an uncultured band of canine murderhobos.
Well, kidnaphobos. Wait, isn't that basically gypsies?
9992587
That's Titan territory, the father of the Four Winds who mated with the Dawn.
Very old portfolio, indeed. Probably a lot of burnt incense offerings.
Referring to Celestia, maybe?
Oh, so the "old gods" consider Celestia (and presumably Luna, as well) to be pretenders ... although they apparently aren't angry enough to deal with such usurpers. (Controlling the Moon and Sun used to be done by normal, mortal, ponies, after all, so from the "old gods" view, getting rid of Celestia would not be a big issue -- the ponies would just have to start doing their jobs again.)
I wonder if Gleaming's little mission to the turul will draw the attention of any of the other old gods? (or should it be "true gods"? Or titans?)
9992667
"Not sure how she'd feel about liftoff, but I can't imagine she appreciates those reentry-heated capsules splashing into her."
Of course, then they have splashed down, and are floating there with presumably the bare minimum amount of boat-ness the engineers thought they could get away with. If those designers didn't include a goddess placation allowance in that minimum amount (or elsewhere in the mission), well, she's in a pretty good position to register her ire. The recovery fleet might want to hurry.
Great writing this chapter. It was fun to see her alternately try to keep up with and downplay her talk with the goddess, trying to placate her.
I love this about the setting, that it can be all these races in a kind of reimagined fantasy of our world, and that they can fit alongside these strange and sometimes dark gods yet still have such an MLP attitude towards it all. I both believe that the goddess of the sea meant her threats of destruction and that the characters kind of cheerfully work with it.
This story is shaping up for a great adventure. I like just about all the characters, and I'm looking forward to see where it all goes. Only concern is that the batpony stuff kind of overshadows the Turul plot. Like if this focuses a lot on big bird problems I'll be wondering when we get to the prophecies and Nightmare Moon hints.
Either way I'm along for the ride. Very fun read and I'm bummed I caught up and now have to wait.
Always love to get another peak into what feels like a bottomless well of Mitch H's lore.
This talk of the Sea Ponies makes me wonder where/what the Storm Tyrant is up to in this AU. In a world where Equestria has vastly expanded their military, intelligence agencies and overseas presence, it feels like they must be aware of him and consider him a significant threat, unless he's already been defeated.
9992615 Most of these old gods/powers really just want one thing: Respect. The shrines and figureheads and rituals are just gestures demonstrating it. Fish Eye may not be a genius, but she consistently shows Amphitrite respect, which is why I knew the whole thing was going to work out the entire time.
9996130
Huh, that's an interesting way of looking at things I hadn't considered before. Here's hoping the rest of the crew follows Fish Eye's example. I'm curious how
TwilightGleaming is going to take that kind of demand, although to be fair she did plan out the entire "capture" of the Bit, so she's aware of this kind of thing at least.The proper placation here is that the battle was so A would see the merchant ship was taken by a new master for a new purpose, and she would see the renaming and know it wasn't meant to hide or deceive. That they didn't testify falsely that it was a new master at the helm, and since she set the rules to keep tricksters from trying to fool her and deny her her due, somebody putting in the effort to meet her terms out in the open ought to be judged by the goal she set instead of how much blood was spilled.
Also, that the hippogriffs are given a fair shake here, and if mission one is to sort out the roc problem then mission two could be to sort out the yeti problem.
Celestia knows this Purple Angry isn't above making a pact with a bloodthirsty goddess if it serves her interests.
9993579
Honestly that's not how I read it. Not sure what the author intended, but the wording almost implies that she is something other or perhaps more than she claims to be. In fact what Lady Amphitrite says make it seem that she thinks it beneath Celestia to call herself only Princess (i.e. Royal Heir). To me it makes it sound as though Celestia must be a lesser deity or a something like a Titan at the very least.
10008344 Check out The League of Spinster Aunts, Celestia is very emphatic that she is not a god.
Go away, Amphodextriphuntsidontlistrippledeckerphibarogithrobarous, you're drunk.
"And you've gotten me monologuing,"
So, this is a setting with actual[1] Gods: wonder what other deities are lurking about?
[1] In their own opinion and that of their worshippers, at least. If they don't accept Celestia as one of them, what about Discord?
10010336 AH-HA!! Only someone who WAS a god would try to deny it so vehemently! The jig is up, GODDESS Celestia!!
*Celestia looks cornered and panicked!* It-it wasn't me! It's the 3-legged changeling!
9996130 Alondro rows out on a dingy named "The Butt Stops Here".
"Hmm, I'm tired of this weak pun name. I shall now call this boat "My Dingaling", so that I can tell everyone I am paddling my ding-a-ling! Hyuck hyuck hyuck!"
ALONDRO DISRESPECTS!!!
10454761
Nice chapter.
So... we got us a kind of miffed goddess. Good choice for who to deal with her, Fish Eye is so adorably innocent, you can't really be mad at her.
Now to explain this to Gildaa and the major. And get Hawk Eye to pose..... and Ping to add more to his list.
So, was she yelling about Celestia not being a god, dispite the whole controlling the heavens, or that such a god was slumming it by being merely a princess?
10851527
Mostly the latter. Gods tend to object to Hollywood atheism. Especially from nominal peers.