Say Yes
Fish Eye lay boneless across the princess's neck, right behind where the ornament sat which had consumed the cursed princess's coronet.
Below them in the light of the rising sun, unfamiliar orchards and low mountainsides streaked by, as the Hercegnő Gyongyi beat her mighty wings, flying low and swiftly across central Bitalia. Fish never would have been able to keep up with the great turul, even before her exertions had drained all energy from her, and left Fish a limp, wrung-out rag draped across George's shoulder.
It was peculiar, living alone in her head, again. Fish had gotten used to sharing rooms, as it were, with her crotchety old Auntie. The dread divine dowager hadn't even said goodbye, before she'd decamped from Fish's head in the heat of the Binding.
Fish's eyes turned again to the diadem that had been birthed of Fish's departed roommate, Fish's own energy, and more raw fish than she cared to remember.
Well, and a mountain's worth of magic. And a brief sojourn within Fish's reproductive facilities. She wondered frivolously whether the magic had taken her potential with it - would she ever have fry of her own, or had this taken that, consumed it via the ritual she'd so carelessly agreed to, in the heat of… excessive amiability?
Fish had to admit to herself, in the now-unaccustomed privacy of her own head, that she'd always had an issue with being too agreeable. Her mother had always told Fish that her inability to say no would someday lead her into trouble.
Was this trouble?
Weak-armed, Fish reached out a quivering talon to touch with the narrow tip of one claw, the back orbit of the new diadem.
-in the night skies are almost perfectly aligned, it's tonight, or possibly the night after tha- Oh! Fish Eye, my little fry! whispered the inner voice of Auntie Amphitrite, smaller and weaker than Fish had ever heard her before. I never thought I'd have the opportunity to talk to you again, my priestess. How are you feeling?
"No-uh. Not poorly, Auntie. Sorry. My throat's a bit sore. Can you hear me?"
Yes! Yes I can! I suppose it works like bone conduction. Ironic, because there's almost no bone at all in this! It's all cartilage! Well, other than the pearl. Pearl's sort of like the second cousin once removed of bone, isn't it? Not strictly living, though. Like me, now!
Well, that wasn't disturbing. "What do you mean, Auntie? The dead don't speak, here you are, aren't you?"
Ah, well. Turning yourself into an artifact is a better afterlife than most available to the divine. No Elysian Fields for us! No, not even Proserpina, that pale pretender.
"You never said that my idea would involve anything so permanent-sounding, Auntie."
Well, well. I didn't want to upset you at the time. It will be well, little fry. I am ever-change, after all. A century or two as matter, infused, will do me a world of god. Good. Hahaha!
Fish smiled. "You sound happy, Auntie. Did I do good?"
You did great, little fish. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Can you feel the changes, radiating out from us like the stirrings of prophecy affronted?
"No, Auntie. I think that may be a divine thing."
I'm not strictly divine right now. The prices we pay, little fry!
Fish frowned, worried by the implications of that statement. "Aren't the others going to miss you, Auntie? I don't want to think that I've taken our goddess from the flocks, for my own selfish ends."
Selfish! If this was selfishness, then may the wild, miraculous world be overrun by selfish fish! It would be better for us all, to be drowned in such selfishness. No, the nation is safe, secure, and deep-dwelling in my mansions of the abyssal depths. As I have taken up a new residence, they laze about my former home. It was getting crowded, with so many house-guests. It's good to take a dower-house in this newfangled diadem of your design!
Fish's eyes roamed across the surface of the thing she and the princess and the goddess had made between them. The great pearl's upper surface was barely visible over the turul's crest, tucked within the circuit of the artifact. Fish still couldn't believe that such a large stone had come out of her own nethers. Wrapped around the great pearl was the gold of the old cursed coronet, melted over shark-cartilage and rock-splinter alike.
Which brings us to this one last thing. As I have taken my people into exile, into safety, so I too have gone into exile. I send myself on an errand into the wilderness, I launch myself at the heavens. I cannot do that as a god, so I will, for a time, be a slave. A myrmidon, a mamaluke, a janissary.
This is not the thing. This is the reason that the thing must be, if you can. One last time, little fry. You have been such a good priestess, such a loyal little fry. Though I no longer can give blessings, leave with my best good wishes.
And this one last thing: be yourself. No matter what else happens, no matter what evils unfold in front of you, that tempt you to be a hero, to be noble, to be righteous.
That is not you. You are the mare who says yes. To dying, disgusting old gods, to narrow-minded sergeants, to misguided bat-ponies, to all the ponies who ever insulted you, mocked you, or made you do their laundry.
When they ask, little fish, say yes. I will not be there to support you, or protect you. I have been dedicated to this one, single task, a task which is, you will see in time, vital and necessary.
But it means I cannot be there for you in your time of need. And, if my borrowed sight is not mistaken, and it does not misguide me in my turn as it did its prior owner, I could not help you if I could.
What is coming to you must needs come, but having come, I trust in you, little fish. If you can remain yourself.
Be yourself.
Say yes, if you can.
Fish pulled herself up onto her elbows, and leaned forward, and kissed the back of the diadem.
And said nothing else.
Gilda stomped out of the meeting, and through the hatchway onto the main deck. The ambassador and her embassy-guard were being obnoxious, and Gilda was getting tired of the wheedling. They'd come up onto the Bit after the presentation to the Emperor and his court of the ambassador and her subsidies. Gleaming had managed to avoid being present for that event, but they were running out of reasons why the Crystal Guard hadn't moved on from its mooring above the embassy, if not to support the delegation in their political and military goals.
Lady George and her weird little cult-chaplain were a day late, and it was making Gilda and her major look foolish. It made them look like Gleaming was holding out for a bribe, or considerations of some less immediate dubious means, and was intending to do the bidding of the ambassador and the Superb Ouverture, once her price was met.
Gilda was almost positive this wasn't true, but her trust in her major wasn't really an argument that bought any favors from Ambassador Flare or the rest of them, and Gleaming could argue for herself.
A sudden commotion on the port side of the ship broke out, among the gun-crews maring their swivel-guns. Gilda looked up, trying to see what they were fussing about.
Whatever it was, it was hidden by the gunwale on that side of the ship, so she hurried over to see what the fuss was.
Below them, in the lower airs above the slums to the north of the embassy, the combat air patrol was swirling around a strange sight, flying with great wings set to glide over the city below.
It was Lady George.
And yet it wasn't Lady George.
Gilda had always seen the great turul as two images, superimposed. The true bird herself, and the griffon-and-roc lie the cursed coronet wove around her. The former almost always dominated the latter, but they were always both present, except that one time that Gleaming had tried out her special anti-curse spell on Gilda, who didn't really need it.
The figure in the distance wasn't doubled. It was just… a turul. And for a half-second, Gilda panicked that some would-be subject of Lady George had come looking for her - when the bird was gone!
And then Gilda saw the pink figure laying recumbent behind the distant bird's crest, and she recognized Gilda's missing lance corporal.
It was them.
Gilda ran down the line of mared swivel guns, and shouted belaying orders at all of the confused troopers, swatting one slowly-reacting crew's gun-barrel envelope-ward, although the mechanism that prevented gunners from shooting out their own ship's balloon rang as it recoiled from the shock of Gilda's blow, kept from fully elevating by mechanical contrivance.
"Hold fire, hold fire! Those are friendlies!" Gilda cried. Then she gathered her breast, and boomed as loudly as she could towards the approaching lance on combat air patrol. "CORPORAL! ESCORT OUR SHORE PARTY ABOARD!"
After a great deal of confusion, Gilda's will was finally done, and the bats on patrol brought their turul client into the Bit's airspace. Even Trixie appeared, to shout at her swivel-gun crews and reassert discipline and good order.
When Lady George touched down in the middle of the main deck, Gilda was able to get a good, close look at the turul princess's new look. The old, cursed gold circlet had been replaced by… something new. And more than a little villlainous-looking, a webby, broad head-covering that looked half helm, half crown, all white and grey and gold, with an opalescent, glistening white stone in the middle of it like a blind eye.
It looked an awful lot like Gilda's late grandfather's blind eye, in point of fact, all milky and uneven.
To complete the ensemble, Lady George had Gilda's missing lance corporal draped around her shoulders like a stole, or a hippogriff skin worn by some barbarous cannibal tribe of the south seas.
Gilda could hear the lance corporal snoring, so her first fear upon seeing that had been proven groundless, but still…
"Lady George!" Gilda said, greeting the turul with a bow, "I presume?"
"You presume rightly, Master Sergeant Gilda. My apologies for the delays, it took somewhat longer than expected. We return… with solutions in talon."
"So… I see?" Gilda tried to agree. "You seem to have… traded in the old coronet. Is the new one- you, private first class, what do you see here?"
One of the troopers looked away from the turul sitting in front of his swivel-gun position, and gulped. "A big bird, sarge?"
"That's master sergeant, private! What kind of big bird?"
"Uh, master sergeant, ma'am. A really big bird, with a fancy ‘at? Maybe bigger'n the ship's roc? Different colors, though. And the roc didn't have a fancy ‘at. Wait. Didn't you say-"
"That's enough, private first class… Joe, wasn't it? Do you know Magus Heartstrings?"
"Yess'm! I know ol' Lyra!"
"Go get the magus, Joe. And… the rest of you, secure those guns. And keep your eyes on your arc, look lively!"
Gilda turned back to the turul, whose hippogriff stole was waking up and rubbing her eyes sleepily. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Lance Corporal Eye. I see you overstayed your leave by almost a full day!"
"Awk!" squawked the bat-hen. "Master Sergeant! I didn't mean to- I mean, reporting for duty, Master Sergeant! No excuses!"
Gilda stared up at the turul's shoulder. "We'll talk about it later, lance corporal. Get down from there, and stand at attention, we have matters to attend here."
Gilda's attention returned to the turul princess, as her subordinate clambered down from her royal perch, too wobbly, it looked like, to use her wings.
"So is your solution that you've broken the curse, somehow?"
"More like… transformed it, Gilda. I found answers in the sea," the princess said, looking somewhat pensive.
"Some birds do that, I hear, on long voyages," Gilda said, cautiously. "Some just go mad. Uh… that looks like bone. Is it… somebody we might have known?"
"What?" the turul asked, confused. "You mean the diadem? No, it isn't bone, this is shark cartilage. And I didn't ask the shark, but then, I didn't think sharks talked. I've been eating them for years…"
"No, your highness, sharks don't talk," the lance corporal said out of turn, still braced to attention as Gilda had ordered. "Nor do octopi, squid, or most fish that aren't… well, seaponies. Some dolphins, a few porpoises-"
"That's enough, lance corporal!" Gilda said, sharply. "So it's just fish bones, fine. And you… used up the old cursed artifact in making it. And ponies and birds see you for yourself now, wonderful. That's half the game, isn't it, Lady George?"
"This is not a game, Gilda. But yes, it is a start. I've also been given some… advice. And a few ideas. Speaking of which… I need to talk to your mistress, and the ship's-master. We need to change direction."
"We're not going to the Great Roost, ma'am?" Gilda asked, looking up at the barbaric-looking princess.
"We are, eventually. But I have been given some clues. We head north, first."
The princess and the master sergeant were joined by an increasing gaggle of officers, sailors, and diplomats as the chaos grew. Everyone seemed to forget about Fish Eye, but she continued to stand to attention, until somegriff ordered otherwise.
It wasn't a griffon, though, who eventually remembered her, but rather her ensign.
"You went out of the chain of command, Fish," Fruits Basket said, sadly. "You went over my head."
Fish remained braced, not daring to move.
"You may speak."
"I am sorry, ensign, ma'am. I didn't think-"
"Yes, you don't do that very often. Certain things happened after you disappeared."
"I didn't disappear, ensign, ma'am! I took leave, the master sergeant should have-"
"Yes, I didn't mean that, Fish. I meant things which- well, we can't talk about here. This is bat business."
"I… am not a thestral, ensign, ma'am."
"I don't care about any of that. You're in my command. That makes you part of Baker Troop. Will you accept our discipline, as the troop sees the right of it?"
Someone had finally asked her a question. Fish remembered what Auntie A's last request had been. This mattered.
"Yes, ensign, ma'am."
"Then come with me. There's somepony who needs to hear you."
"Don't you mean see me?"
"No, Fish, I mean hear. Did I say you could talk back?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"What?!"
"Sorry, ma'am, I've made a promise, to always say yes!"
"Come with me, Fish, and stop blithering."
"Yes, ensign, ma'am!"
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Nice to see you back at it
WTF?
IT'S ALIVE! *muahahahaahhaahaaa*
Oh my gawd it's ALIVE!!! yaaaas!
this is going to take some rereading to get my bearings back, but I am glad that it’s still being worked on
I had this and the previous three ones to read, and the divine twist was awesome. Also the song. Plans within plans within plans, developing in a wonderful net of mythology and conflict
I love your work and I'm anxiously waiting for more
Glad to see this lives once more. I was getting worried that I'd have to put another story in my "Dead" folder
Now she just has to explain that she birthed the physical form of their goddess to her sister. That’d be a fun bit of family bonding time for the two of them.
😃 so happy to see this story I abondoned the other storey I was reading to read this the second I saw it thanks for updating
I'd say "Back in saddle", but that seems inappropriate given present company.
Whole lot of implications I could get out of that, considering past implications the story's been giving about what still lies ahead. It hasn't been so long since this story last updated that I forgot all that, after all.
I could also speculate on that too...but I'm not sure I like all of the possibilities one can get from that statement in regards to my fave hippogriff, so I'm hoping I'm just reading too much into it there.
...Grandpa Gruff?
Well then, that begs the question of what lies to the north. Imagine we'll find out soon enough, but still...
...no wait, I think I already know! This is, after all, the CRYSTAL Guard we're reading the adventures of, is it not?
I mean...I'd argue the point if it wasn't also true.
But our Fish Eye is a sweet little airhead, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I don't think Auntie meant that quite that literally, Fish Eye.
Ah, it's good to see an update for this story again--I had missed it so.
11088246
Oh, all aspects of this little adventure of Fish Eye's will probably go over just swimmingly with Hawkeye, I'm sure.
Glad to see you back. I am so happy to be reading this again.
That's a very intriguing development for the Sea Goddess, sealed into a cursed headwear with a plan to help a new race.
Fish is the girl who say 'Yes'... an interesting way to see her character. But now she lost her place as a priestess so she lost a bit of what made her interesting... maybe she still have some connections to the other side? Maybe she should have asked the Goddess about her reproductive system and if she still can have kids? Perhaps it's only temporary? Err... maybe she should see the ship surgeons about that? I mean she just laid an unplanned egg? Her sister is going to freak out.
And going North? Humm, I mean they are already on another continent no? So it can't be the Crystal Empire isn't it? Bugbear territory then? Or am I mis-remembering where they are on the map?
And oh boy the Princess new appearance will make waves. The ambassad will need answers for the local government, Celestia need to be updated, Twilight and Lyra will probably need over the artifacts a little and there is a new course to plan for.
What a smashing come back for this story! Welcome back Mitch H!
It's alive!
But I am not. I died a while ago... kinda sucks... gotta eat brains now and then. They're actually pretty good. I get why other zombies are so obsessed.
(So I know I’m late to the party but in my defense I’ve had a long day.)
Now to read it! Can we reasonably hope to see more soon, or was this squeaked out between various curveballs thrown at you?
11088412
You're one hungry sonuvabitch then, ain't ya?
11088510
We'll see. I don't have a job that I can write creative prose in between calls anymore, which was helpful for productivity in the old one. And wandering around the lot doing my job and thinking about griffons on the new one is a recipe for vehicular disaster. But on the other hand, I'm not on the lot twenty-four seven, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up some momentum with a bit of concentration.
Admiral Biscuit does it somehow.
There it is. Now then...
FISH, YOU'RE ALIVE! Phew... for a second there I thought our favorite 'griff was done for!
Always say yes? That could get difficult.
11088549 Nom nom nom...
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Had a clown yet? I hear they taste a bit..off
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Does this taste funny to you?
"the griffon-and-rock lie"
"the griffon-and-roc lie"?
Thank you for writing! :D
Nice to have more of this. :)
It Lives!!
That's not ominous at all ...
11089460 Do I taste funny to you? Do I make you laugh when you're chomping on my innards?
*That time vore got crossed with "Goodfellas"... it was horrifying.*
Well...that was certainly an unexpected turn of events! The plot thickens! I eagerly await our next installment.
Tbh, I only just barely remember what all is happening. Not upset or anything just scratching my head trying to recall the sequence of events prior to the break.
If anyone has the time or inclination to give a forgetful person a brief recap I would be much appreciative.
11091146
The Bit is sailing across the sea to help lady George reclaim her throne.
Unbeknownst to most of the people on the bit, it's actually the major chess piece in a war amongst the gods. Celestia is sending the bit around to find mcguffins in a last ditch effort to save her sister, the bat ponies are trying to bring back nightmare Moon/Luna (depends on which bat you ask). Fish's god is trying to save her fishponies or something, and pinky pie is desperately trying to manipulate this 5d game of chess into something that will save the timeline.
In the recent chapters:
Ping, who is actually the big bat in charge of the dream warriors onboard the Bit (don't tell the day ponies that!) Accidentally gave Auntie his future sight because being sarcastic in the dream realm is a bad idea. Auntie talked to him in the dream realm but he thought she was a demon and told her to fuck off. He is now blind for reasons unexplained but I bet telling gods to fuck off is probably something to do with it.
Fish (the birdy kind) are three times her body weight in fish (the fishy kind) to give birth to a big fuck off pearl full of sea magic that nullifies lady George's curse (the one that makes everyone think she is a dumb animal bird and not a smart royal bird)
Basically this boat is full of overpowered unicorns, deposed royalty, and half the equestrian pantheon all vying for control of what is essentially the trump card in a Millenia long struggle. It's basically magical reality TV.
So good to see this continue. I thought I might have to go back a chapter or two to get a running start at it, but I read the first paragraph and everything clicked right back into place! Good stuff!
Forgot to post when I was originally reading this.
It's alive!
... I don't think always saying yes is great advice.
That must've stung coming out.
Fish racism!
Poor, lovely, wonderful Fish Eye. Saying yes to things in the military is never a good idea! Anything worded in a way that might make you want to say yes is a trap!