Forbidden Places

by Starscribe

Chapter 29: Blake

What was it supposed to feel like to become captain of a ship?

Blake stood on the high deck, just beside the helm. They'd stripped away much of the pirate's handiwork—he didn't need or want a ship with a cabinet carved into the shape of a nude, supplicating horse-creature, and they'd sanded away all the images of skulls and severed heads and other imposing imagery.

Really, he was just glad that nobody had brought up his failure in booking this ship when a simple trip up here would've revealed exactly what they were getting themselves into. But the only ones to suffer that mistake were a few now-dead pirates, so maybe it had been fate. The ponies had seemed thankful enough for rescue.

He watched Galena from just a few feet behind. He'd seen enough movies to get the gist of how you turned a wheel to steer a ship, but the reality of this ship was far more complex.

"We're far enough from port now," the griffon said, looking up at him. "Hold this course while I lower the mainsail."

He nodded, taking the helm from her with one of his hooves. The new wheel was built for that, with little slots about the right size for a hoof to get good leverage in steering. But he was still no equal of someone with hands doing the same job, or claws.

"We're lowering the mainsail!" he called out over the deck. Hopefully it wouldn't sound too much like an order. The hippogriffs hadn't liked him signing on as captain instead of Kaelynn—but she insisted, and so captain he was. For whatever it was worth.

None of the others complained as they worked the pulleys and hooks, unfurling the huge, repaired sail. At least the pirates hadn't covered that with skulls and evil markings. But if they had, he would've recognized the danger without booking them on it.

"You have to admit, this whole thing is kinda badass," Jordan said, from so close behind him that Blake almost jumped. The wheel wasn't just for turning—and his jolt made them list forward, diving just slightly towards the sea.

It was too subtle for the others to notice at first, but Galena's head whipped back almost instantly, glaring daggers at him until he leveled out again.

"How'd you get up here so quietly?" Blake asked. He tried to muster half of Galena's disapproval, but that was hard with Jordan smiling at him like that. Even being up during early afternoon was a bit of a struggle for her now. Who was Blake to damper her pride? "I didn't hear you come up the stairs."

"Didn't," Jordan replied, opening her wings a little wider. But if she were trying to hint that she'd somehow managed to fly after such a short time in this other world, she didn't elaborate. "But seriously: we showed up in a desert with a fish girl to take care of. Look at us now. Saved us some damsels in distress, won this proud vessel as our reward, and now we're setting off on a new adventure!"

Blake glanced back at the compass, adjusting the wheel slightly as the winds began to buffet them. There was a craft in steering with the sail, one that was harder in its way than the helm. It was a good thing they had at least one person skilled in it, or they'd probably be doomed. "Okay, sure. But don't get too married to it. We didn't abandon the world to be sky-pirates. We're on the clock if we ever want to get home. We'll have to give all this up."

Jordan shrugged her wings, inspecting the helm from just beside him. Quite close, with no respect for his personal space. But Blake didn't shove her away, the way he might've with anyone else. Besides, they would need someone else to learn how to drive sooner or later. Unless the other two tinkering down in their makeshift workshop ever made more progress in their latest scheme, anyway.

"I listened to the things Janet didn't want to say, not just what she did. Travel between worlds isn't impossible, you just need a break between visits. Let things mellow out, let the magic drain, and you can come back here safely." She took a few steps back, posing with both wings outstretched. The wind whipping around them nearly lifted her right off the deck—but then she snapped her wings closed again, and she thumped back down.

"Think about giving up flying, Blake. Janet wants to get back to her family, and her god, and whatever else. But my family only visits a few times a year, I can be home for that. Plus enough times to stop from melting into a bat forever."

She leaned up to his ear, whispering in over the sound of rushing wind. "Just because she sees the whole world in binaries doesn't mean we have to. We can have it both ways."

Blake watched her go, and maybe he should've been keeping a closer eye on his controls. But whatever else might be said for her, the bat had seemed far happier since reaching whatever equilibrium she'd been able to find on her identity. Certainly made things easier in Blake's mind, at least until they made it back home...

"Just so long as we get to share this with the world. Get on all the talk shows, get our book deals and brand endorsements or... whatever. Change the world. Think about how different things will be once we link our worlds together. Everything will change."

Before them, the rest of the crew had finally got the sail secured in place. Well, Galena, Ryan, and Janet. Kaelynn was in her quarters during their launch, floating in her newly constructed tank. Whether that felt like a luxury or a prison, only she could answer now.

"Thinking about it a lot," Jordan said. "Guess it might be different depending on where the portals end up. But the way it looks right now, feels like... an unhappy pressure gradient. This place is way primitive in some basic ways, but also has technologies that we can't even begin to understand. The thing lifting our airship, for example... configurable anti-gravity. It gets crazier from there."

"You sound like Ryan. You want to be an engineer now too, Jordan?"

She shook her head once. "Too slow. It's not about how any of it works, that's for Ryan to stress about and Kaelynn to build. I'm looking at it more practically. If we find or build a real bridge from their side to ours, both sides change forever. Who's to say anyone is happy with the change? Maybe the real reason our worlds aren't already connected is the powers that be like things the way they are. If we try to swim against the current, we might drown."

Galena arrived up the stairs then, and Jordan backed away. All that subtle body-language that passed between them, with Jordan's ears lowering and wings closing, without ever facing away from Galena—it was its own message, even if it took no words. If only he'd learned how to read it as fast as the others learned to speak it.

"We are on course," Galena said flatly. "We can ride the current north. We could fly at this heading for at least a hundred miles. I will listen to the wind and warn you if things change." She nodded towards the wheel, and Blake released it. It wasn't just that he was eager to give it to someone who knew what they were doing—there was still a decision to make belowdecks, one that would wait until he made it.

"Galena, before we took this ship, before your people locked you up, what did you do?"

The wooden wheel creaked slightly under her grip, claws digging. She looked away from him, off to the distant horizon. "I was bosun—master of sail. Would be quartermaster one day, at the rate we were going. But Captain Callahan... I didn't like the way he sailed us. I never felt bad taking from those who had more than we did. The way they get these things, not fair. But taking their lives... that was not fair either. I made too much noise. You saw where that leads."

The magic of their crossing still left her sounding strange. Maybe the magic didn't work as well on griffons? Or maybe she just couldn't speak that clearly, no matter what language she used.

"New life now," Blake said, patting her shoulder once. "You're someone else now."

She tensed, turning her beak briefly towards him. But she didn't strike. "Maybe. Still not sure if the ghost of Captain Callahan is finished with us. Maybe we go far enough into Equestria that we hide under the Alicorns' wings. Maybe they find and kill us all. Guess we'll find out."

Blake left her there, at the helm. But she seemed to like being alone, and anyway she knew what she was doing better than any of them.

"You trust her?" Jordan whispered, only after they'd descended the steps below, and shut the door behind them. Anything less, and they risk the griffon's sensitive hearing picking out their words. "She could just be giving the ship back to those pirates. Maybe she thinks she can trade the ship for getting a place back."

Blake blocked the path ahead of her with his shoulder, putting them suddenly inches apart. He spoke in a low, dangerous whisper. "Questions like that could make that fear come true, Jordan. We trust her, we make her part of what we do. I've seen pain like hers before. She wants to be something different, and that's the opportunity we represent."

"But it's a lie," Jordan said. Her eyes reflected amber in the darkness, slits widening in response. She was so close now that Blake could feel her hot breath against his face. "She killed someone. That never goes away. The nightmares never stop."

Blake glanced once down the stairs into the mess—the others would be gathered there, and they didn't need to hear this. But nobody had showed up to demand they hurry up yet. Blake rested one leg on Jordan's shoulder, and she didn't pull away, or show her teeth. Not that those fangs were big enough to threaten him much.

"I felt like that sometimes, at first. There were guys in my platoon who cried themselves to sleep at night over some of the stuff we saw. But you and I have something Galena doesn't. We were defending ourselves. We would've left the pirates alone; we didn't want to kill anyone. If some bastard makes you choose between his life and yours by coming at you, he made the choice. You just lived."

Jordan leaned up against him, tears streaking down those huge eyes. She kept herself almost silent as she cried, the same as how she moved. But at least that meant no one would hear them down here. "I can tell myself that," she whispered. "Feels like a lie. Was it a lie for you in... Iraq?"

"No. The monsters were real, but I wasn't one of them. Don't think you are either, Jordan. That's the real way they reproduce. Convince you that you're stained forever—there's nowhere to go but down. What difference would it make? You'll find no sanity down that road."

She whimpered, a high-pitched squeak that echoed down the hall ahead of them. She twitched, drying her eyes against his leg, before quickly pulling away. She was just in time to avoid Janet seeing them a few inches away from each other, waving down the hall. "Good, you're here. We're still waiting on that course, Blake. Have you decided?"

He let Jordan trail behind him, giving her a little more time to clean herself up, so the others wouldn't see. The mess was full, just as he'd expected. Even Kaelynn had made her way here, wearing her crude harness and the transformed water-suit over her face.

Only one thing Blake didn't understand—even if the transformation would wear off, why not make the trip on four legs? So long as she kept her gear close by, it didn't seem like changing back would present much danger. The worst it could do was make her into what she'd already become.

Kaelynn hadn't explained herself, and she didn't now, settling into a long harness that would stretch out her body with head and forelegs extended towards the table. God bless Ryan's patience with her increasing eccentricity.

"I've been thinking about it," Blake said, settling down in front of the table. He took closest position to the oversized map—well, tracing of their map. They kept the original stored away now, just in case. Ryan had made this one by combining their information with a modern air-traffic chart they purchased from the hippogriffs. "I'm still not sure I'm convinced. You think we shouldn't go to the closest Worldgate because... it's haunted?"

Jordan slipped through the doorway behind him and took a spot across the table.

"Not haunted, guarded." Janet pointed down at the map, past the place browns were replaced with vibrant greens, and notes on jungle topography. "There's a book series about the place, and I've read some of them. Reading kept away the boredom when I had to avoid people as much as possible. Your map points to a place mentioned in one of the books. Those temples are well guarded, and we'll likely face an attack if we try to use it."

"I still think we should go," Kaelynn said. Her mechanically amplified voice lacked any of the confidence and power of Janet's high-pitched calls. But everyone turned to listen anyway. "The course is almost straight all the way up. If this Worldgate really is too dangerous, we can just leave. But what if your information is out of date?"

"Our map doesn't warn of any danger," Ryan added. "The ones who made it seemed to think it was safe enough. Plus—Louisiana. That's the first confirmed destination in the United States we've had since the time we almost got poisoned."

No surprise you took her side. Blake stared down at the map, as though just looking at the ink long enough would answer his question. But the pages didn't speak to him. The mapmakers hadn't warned of any dangers, not with any of the Worldgates they'd tried so far. It wasn't impossible this one would be dangerous too.

"You're sure about the books you read? Tell me we're wasting our time, Janet, and we can sail another way. Tell me you're sure about them."

The hippogriff hesitated, shifting backward in her seat. "I couldn't... tell if they were real," she admitted. "The fiction blends so freely with fact on this side, and every danger brings 'a thousand years' of awful things. Maybe none of them are serious, maybe all of them are. Figuring it out meant spending too much time with ponies."

Blake tapped one hoof against the little magnet representing their ship. "Then the Bright Hawk will stay on our original course. We'll visit these forbidden temples. If we get sent away, then that's what happens."

Comments

[redmar]

It's clear that the group already knows about what happened to Spark Gap. I would have liked reading about their response to Janet when she told them though would have been interesting. It's clear that Jordan would be fine with traveling between their worlds and that Blake is more hesitant. I wonder why the hippogriffs where so insistant on the fact thet the seapony ahould be captain when she never expressed a desire for it.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ah, intercrew tensions. Definitely the hippogriffs who want to exalt the seapony as much as possible, but they're far from the only ones. This will be tricky business, and that's before considering anything opposed to their using the Worldgates. And even if that goes smoothly, the societal ripples from opening up the multiverse cannot be understated. No matter what happens next, this is going to be complicated.

But right now, we just need to worry about whether Ahuizotl feels especially social, assuming they're headed for his neck of the woods.

[Teraunce]

Here's to meeting Daring Do. Nice chapter!

[minibox]

Interesting idea Jordan has alternating worlds to prevent complete consumption by magic. Might even work but that's still pretty risky considering what happened to Tracy. Consuming or touching anything might tip the scales too far. You would have no idea what exactly is infused with magic.

[Latrans]

Having finally caught up the last chapters of Fine Print, it occurs to me that they won't be successful in bridging the worlds. Fine Print's epilogue is several years in the future and the mare who showed up had no idea.

[Technowolf]

She leaned up to his ear, whispering in over the sound of rushing wind. "Just because she sees the whole world in binaries doesn't mean we have to. We can have it both ways."

Did anyone else read this as Jordan admitting they're NB/genderfluid?

[Rawislon03]

10809650
Her readers are going to be so confused when the book just veers off into inter-dimensional mumbo jumbo

[Eroraf86]

10809651
If I read it correctly, the issue with Tracy was that he was constantly putting more magic into his system with the Everwake, even on his side of the portal. This isn't Persephone in the Underworld.

[ShadwSonic]

10809626
Because to them, Seapony = Precursor = wise and intelligent. They can't quite wrap their heads around the "not really a seapony" aspect, and understand the "these guys are normally my normal species" part even less.

[LunarRai]

10809688
Back in chapter 21, she asked to be referred to with female pronouns while in magic horse world. And only in magic horse world.

[EverfreeSparkle]

10809688
If by genderfluid you mean his mindset changes with the body he/she has, then yes. Which is how I'd do it, and I imagine most people who aren't as focused on their gender would too. I'd personally be fine with changing sex if I could change back by going through a portal, and I'd change my gender pronouns according to said sex. I'm unsure if this is the common use of gendefluid, though.

[minibox]

10809955
Perhaps, though it would probably be safe to limit exposure to magic as much as possible given human bodies' lack of resistance. There's no comprehensive guide on which consumables might have the same effect as everwake. Maybe even magically grown food might have residual energy.

[minibox]

10809688
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10810100
I'm guessing there's a little practicality in there too. Won't raise eyebrows or cause confusion with the native folk. Or animosity from the intolerant.

Would it really be hard to mentally accept the change? Nothing really changes personality wise. There maybe changes in how you experience the world and how people react to you. Though I'm guessing a number of people will be fine being called female by virtue of looking and sounding like one. A flip of a coin. Of course mileage will vary per person.

[Luminous Lead]

Looks like the chemistry between Blake and Jordan grows, at least from Blake's point of view.

Nice to have some insight on Blake's stance on trauma and self-fulfilling prophecies. Not sure if it's necessarily the healthiest but it keeps him going.

Also cool that Galena's not a big fan of killing and slaving. Paints her more as a Robinhood type sans the altruism. A gentleman bandit maybe? Lower risk of Equestrian law tracking her down if she doesn't bathe in innocent blood.

[Fancy Fox]

Wait so what story is Janet from?

[Lithl]

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Janet is Tracy/Spark Gap's boss from Fine Print.

[SkyArrow]

Daww, the more I see Blake and Jordan together, the higher my shipping senses rise.
Also, oh boy, looks like we're bound to run into Ms. Yearling/Daring Do in the future. Wonder what she'll be up to these days.

[djthomp]

"We're lowering the mainsail!" he called out over the deck. Hopefully it wouldn't sound too much like an order. The hippogriffs hadn't liked him signing on as captain instead of Kaelynn—but she insisted, and so captain he was. For whatever it was worth.

Hopefully it does sound like an order, someone needs to be in charge on a ship.

Galena arrived up the stairs then, and Jordan backed away. All that subtle body-language that passed between them, with Jordan's ears lowering and wings closing, without ever facing away from Galena—it was its own message, even if it took no words. If only he'd learned how to read it as fast as the others learned to speak it.

Huh.

"But it's a lie," Jordan said. Her eyes reflected amber in the darkness, slits widening in response. She was so close now that Blake could feel her hot breath against his face. "She killed someone. That never goes away. The nightmares never stop."

Not sure if I'm incorrectly reading between the lines here or not, but this feels more intimate than I'd expect from even a conversation this serious.

Daring Do temples on one side, Louisiana on the other? This should be a fun portal to visit.

[Lexiebommel10]

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Gasp