Time to Shine

by Easysnuggler

29. Nightmare Pleasure Cruise

“Well, harmony magic of course comes from friendship. Friendship directs, creates, and sustains it. That is the basis for most magic in Equis. But there is chaos magic and order magic; life and death magic; dream magic, mind magic, love magic and more. Friendship magic can empower, frame, direct, sustain, affect, and grow all those types of magic.

—Pena, Reply to Prince Habib re: “On the Origins of Ponies*_{(*and Others)} and Magic”

29. Nightmare Pleasure Cruise

His astral opponent, the little blue monster that kept countering his moves, seemed to be quite occupied with events concerning the little green lizard. Sadly, the nightmare was forced to resist its urge to watch this fun drama and slipped away riding a red moonbeam through the sky, up to the abandoned satellite of Equis and back on down before sunlight could unmake it. The pain would be worth it if it could have a free claw for a while. It went right to work, nearly half a world away. It would take the blue annoyance time to find it again and more time yet to try and stop the nightmare from making changes. Hopefully too much time. It had been so long since it had a free hand. The last time it had knocked down the tower. There weren’t any targets quite as attractive this time, but there was one thing…

The nightmare was having a blast.

Well, it was about to.

A little suggestion to an over-educated and nosy zebra to take a couple of unlocked padlocks from a hatch for a better look later was readily accepted. As was the suggestion to set them behind a cabinet.

A suggestion that a certain minotaur sailor was tired and to just not worry about the unlocked hatch and let the next watch deal with it was equally successful. Sloth could accomplish a lot.

A quick bit of improvisation had a sailor notice one of the purloined padlocks behind the cabinet and naturally assume the lock went somewhere… perhaps to this accessway. Let's lock that, just in case. There that’s better, won’t the captain be pleased at our initiative?

Back to the little alchemist zebra. Vague hints of secrets that might endanger Zebrenica, and whispers of a need to check had the striped quadruped taking a hooded lantern to inspect the unlocked hatch in the dead of night.

The balky steam machine was shut down for the night and only the engineers below were awake. A few lullabies to sleep and the decks were now quiet, not his usual way, but the blue moon pony had known her stuff, so why not use it?

Open the latch. Better latch that door open. Don’t want it to close on our head by accident. Ahh here's the padlock. What happened to the other one? Never mind. I said NEVERMIND. There we go, let's just latch that hatch open. Now lock it. Lock it. LOCK IT. Good.

Now let’s look. Huh, just coal after all. High quality Anthracite hard, brittle, and black. Lustrous, good for carbon chemistry, HEY. Back on task you! This one’s a fighter.

Hmmm.

Now comes the hard part. Put the lantern down. PUT IT DOWN. Just set it there, right on the edge, a little closer to the edge. Just a little closer. We need to get a better look. Let’s move the lantern closer to the edge. STOP looking at the coal. Just a bit closer. Stop looking at the coal.

Wait. We need a better look at that coal. Little too much resistance here. Need some reinforcements here, some brain chemistry adjustments should do the trick, the irony is delicious.

Let’s move the lantern closer. Have a rush. Closer. What a thrill. Tap. TAP. Have some pain. Tap. Oh yea. CLOSER I SAID. Have a headache. Give it a tap. Oh, that feels nice. Another Tap. Woo-hoo more endorphins. NOW GIVE IT A TAP. Have a headache. TAP. Woo-hoo, here you go. TAP.

Whoops. Smash. Whomp. Well, there we go. A little fire at sea. Now my nightmare can really get started.

Now our little zebra has yelled fire and is trying to break the padlock with the missing key. Smashing at it with a fire axe. Can’t have that.

“Hey what's that zebra doing there? Grab him!” Get rid of that axe. Take it, might need it as evidence. Maybe give him a little love tap for being so difficult. There we go. Ha!

Fire trimmer’s locked behind that accessway. Oops. “Fire in the coal bin!” Fire teams can’t get there directly. The hatchway is still latched open despite the zebra. Hoses won’t reach. Every creature for himself.

Not enough rafts to begin with, better get while the getting is good right? Let's take the zebra and the axe. Sometimes the fun just writes itself.

Half the boats are in the water now.

Was there a call to abandon ship, I think I heard ‘abandon ship’?

Bucket brigade. Might as well pee on a bonfire for all the good that will do now…… wait for it, wait for it. There we go.

“It’s fully involved now, let’s try and smother it!” Hmm, can’t have that.

“Maybe if we throw canvas over it that will starve it of oxygen.” I mean that might have worked, but I think he’s crazy for even trying it. Let’s not help. Ahh there we go, onto the canvas and up, up, up and into the rigging. Star light, star light, tiger, tiger burning bright. Wish I may, wish I might, burn and drown them all tonight!

Oh sharks! Let’s see what I can do with these.

Now that is how you give a nightmare a pleasure cruise.