Chapter 18
Spending the second night on Spring Rain’s sofa granted me a more intimate and illuminating view of the sort of conditions that the common pony must endure than any late evening spent ambling through the slums with one’s valet and a hired guide to clear a path through the swarms of proles and the accumulated filth in the streets. Granted, my short life in the military had not been without hardship, and I don’t mean simply being shot at, gassed, stabbed, or bitten, but still, as an officer and a gentlecolt certain privileges, such as the officers’ mess and not having to do physical labour, allowed one to maintain that all-important distinction between the social classes. That said, I doubted that my host here would have taken it as a particularly gracious compliment if I told her that staying in her home and sleeping on her lumpy sofa was a damned sight better than what I had endured atop Hill 70.
Nevertheless, I was grateful to her for her hospitality, and though this was all very far removed from the sort of carefree and idle luxury that I was used to and still longed to return to, there was something rather comforting about knowing that, even if her motives were not entirely altruistic, she was looking after me. There was a sort of simple domestic pleasantness to this that offset the sparse surroundings and distinct lack of staff and fine things, particularly coming ‘home’ from ‘work’ to a hot and comforting home-cooked meal. I suppose it is another thing that the common pony takes for granted that we nobles can never truly appreciate, as though we gave up the basic pleasures of a true familial relationship in exchange for power, wealth, and prestige. It might perhaps go some way in explaining the sort of vicarious contentment I felt momentarily in these twilight hours between sleeping and waking, and what some young, bored chaps see in strolling through run-down slums.
Nevertheless, I would not be able to enjoy it for long; we were going to see the pirates, which, even with the benefit of several decades worth of time to process and come to terms with, still feels like a very odd thing for me to write. I’d be lying a little more than is usual for me if I said that I wasn’t at least a little bit excited, for I suppose most stallions who have not had the misfortune to run into the real ones still out there in the world still holds onto those stereotypes of peg legs, funny accents, parrots, and not a whole lot of actual piracy from treasured foalhood adventure stories. I was to be disappointed, of course, but I already knew to expect disappointment, as with most things in life, and so the impact would be lessened somewhat.
We were to set out quite early, though not so early that we would be picked up again by the roving bands of Changelings rounding up workers for the docks. Once was more than enough for me, as seemingly every muscle in my body that I was aware of and a few more whose painful existence I’d only just discovered that morning ached abominably. It was rather like a hangover, but with exercise, and unlike with drinking this experience served as a more than adequate deterrent to repeating the process. Unfortunately for me, however, I still had a lot of walking to do that day; the pirates, I had been told, did not exactly take up residence in the city itself, especially after our navy’s best efforts to eradicate them and their bases, but had spread themselves out across the a variety of coastal villages, caves, and isolated islands far off into the sea where the long span of colonial authority was less keenly felt than in the city itself.
“Just where am I going?” I asked Spring Rain, as she was getting ready for a day of work and I was waiting around to be escorted to wherever it was that I needed to go. In truth, I was getting rather annoyed at being pushed and pulled in various directions without much of an explanation as to what was going on. After years of that in the military, I ought to have been used to that.
“A small village, just along the coast,” she answered, not bothering to look up from where she was loading bags of cold pre-cooked rice into her cart.
“What’s it called?”
“Ah, how should I know?” she snapped, though did not look up or slow her loading at all in the slightest. “I never go to those places; creepy, backward places with flammable wooden houses on stilts. Kirins not exactly welcome there.”
That sounded like a few isolated, rural places in Equestria that I could mention, where even ordinary unicorns were greeted with a degree of suspicion by earth pony peasants for whom the printing press was seen as a dangerous new invention. At any rate, it seemed she knew about as much as I did, and so I gave up trying to interrogate her about what was in store for me and let her get on with packing. The more that I thought about, the more it became apparent to me that simply getting to this mysterious rendezvous was going to be a challenge by itself.
We then went through the undignified process of applying my disguise again, which had long since lost much of its novelty. Spring Rain apparently felt much the same way, and the stylised peaches she had painted on my flank cheeks had by now turned into two red balls, which I thought I would have to explain as actually being a cricket ball, which represented my love of a thoroughly tedious game with arcane rules and somehow lasts several entire days.
A tattoo of pounding knocks on the door some time later, which I had spent by pacing around in a circle around her living room and fretting silently to myself while Cannon Fodder looked on with vague uninterest, signalled either the arrival of our guide and escort or that of the Blackhorns about to haul me away and present me trussed up on a silver platter to Queen Chrysalis. To my immense relief it proved to be the former, when Spring Rain, muttering exasperated epithets under her breath for being interrupted from her important task of counting ingredients for the day, opened the door and revealed three kirins, each of whom I recognised from Uncle’s secret hideout under the coffee shop as the fellows playing mahjong. They slipped inside quickly, closing the door behind them; there was an awkward moment where none of the three wanted to be the first to speak, instead exchanging a series of meaningful glances to try and silently prompt another to address their new charge, but I ran out of patience, of which I had a very limited supply to begin with, before one of them could sum up the courage.
“Good morning, gentlecolts,” I said, hoping that I didn’t sound too sarcastic. “What’s the plan? I do wish somepony will tell me what in blazes is going on for once.”
“Sorry, boss,” said one, his voice heavily accented. “Uncle says the less you know the better, should you get captured again.”
“I certainly don’t intend on that; I didn’t much like it the first time, or the second for that matter.” The sensation of stumbling around alone in the dark, groping my way towards some sort of concealed exit to whatever predicament I found myself in, while harried and hunted by all manner of unseen horrors was one that had persisted throughout my career, but I felt it especially acutely here. Still, there was nothing to do but to carry on putting one metaphorical hoof in front of the other until I found my way out.
The three introduced themselves in turn: White Spirit, Silver Star, and Guiding Light.
“Just where are we going? I’d quite like to know if I’m to meet with a band of cut-throats and sea-reavers.”
The three kirins looked at each other again, then Guiding Light finally found the courage to speak. “The Batu caves, along the coast. Uncle has arranged a meeting for you with Golden Hook. You will need to bring those muskets to parley with.”
“Golden Hook?” I wracked what was left of my brain to try and remember where I’d heard that name before, but came up with only a cartoon caricature of what a pirate ought to look like - enormous, unkempt beard, eyepatch, clothes that went out of fashion more than four centuries ago, and a parrot atop a shoulder. “Who is that?”
I might as well have asked them who Princess Celestia is, given their stunned reactions. “She’s only the leader of the Black Flag Fleet,” said White Spirit. “The biggest fleet of pirate ships in the South Cathay Sea.”
“Sounds like the right pony, then,” I said. “Is there anything I need to know about her before we head off?”
“Don’t make her angry.”
Yes, very helpful, thought I; I could have made the calculation that these nautical outlaws might have a few issues respecting such things as the sanctity of equine life entirely by myself. Then again, these kirins might have been thinking about my old reputation for putting my hoof in it by saying something terribly witty that might be construed as offensive. A tendency, I might add, that I had since grown out of when the consequences of social faux pas started to become a little more severe than a glass of champagne hurled at my face with great force. Still, this infamous pirate leader was a she, and that implied a little dose of the old Blueblood charm might help ease things along—or result in me being keelhauled.
“I wasn’t intending to,” I said, realising that I was unlikely to get much else out of them.
We made the necessary preparations, loading up Cannon Fodder’s saddlebags with a few muskets wrapped up in cloth in the hope that any Changelings and police that we ran into were not particularly attentive. However, Uncle had clearly thought ahead and realised that a strange pony walking around with heavily-laden saddlebags would likely attract unwanted attention even in this metropolitan city, and so the other three kirins were likewise outfitted with saddlebags filled with disassembled fishing rods, with the cover story that we were all out on a fishing trip in the countryside. The reasoning, when I asked, was that most ponies would be too disgusted by the thought of eating fish, Yours Truly and his tastes for the exotic excepted, to confront them. Though I doubted it very much, the occupying force seemed unwilling or unable to police who could enter and leave the city, and we were simply waved through the security checkpoints along the way. I thought this very odd until we finally reached the jungle beyond and I realised that even the most dedicated of resistance fighters would be reluctant to escape there.
We left quickly, barely stopping to say goodbye to Spring Rain. The bruise and the cut on her pretty face hadn’t healed yet and both were certainly still noticeable, so I felt a slight twinge of guilt at the thought of leaving her alone in the city again. However, she seemed like a tough old mare; she’d taken the beating from those cowardly collaborators without losing her spirit, at least outwardly, and as with all forms of overt oppression it only served to strengthen the will within to resist such base tyranny.
“Uncle will see to it,” said one of the other kirins, with an air that certainly suggested that this Uncle fellow had connections and the means to enact some sort of revenge for this assault upon a kirin under his care.
The journey through the city was mercifully uneventful, thank Faust, though there were one or two moments that were too close for comfort, but we made it to the outskirts. Civilisation and its requisite trappings had sort of faded the further we walked, with the paved roads flanked by shops, apartment buildings, restaurants, and houses receding gradually into dirt paths populated by ramshackle buildings built of wood and the only amenities being a few kopi shops and things I’ve heard are called ‘convenience stores’. The further out we ventured, the more accusatory glares I noticed the kirins received from the pony locals, and the apparent flammability of the buildings this far out provided one explanation. There were fewer Changeling patrols here, and the only other tangible signs that I could see that this place was under any kind of occupation was the occasional on-duty pony police officer standing in the shade and lazily watching the street.
“Changelings’ control is strongest in the city centre,” explained Silver Star. “Not enough Blackhorns, lah. The police rarely come out here much anyway. The ones who are still here can only be trusted for as long as you can present coins.”
I thought about the sheer multitude of drones sitting idle in the docks, and considered that it was probably a good thing that I wasn’t in charge of the occupation here. Though the only time I’d actually exercised any political authority, aside from that brief appearance in the House of Lords and having to attend meaningless rituals relating to the Blood Clan every year, was when I’d served as the military governor of Virion Hive and I made certain that I’d do as little work as possible, I like to think that if I was in Dorylus’ ill-fitting horseshoes that I’d at least ask if there was something productive that they could be getting on with. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said that Queen Chrysalis’ presence here, peering over Dorylus’ shoulder at all times like a disapproving governess, had made him terribly single-minded in his pursuit of Operation: Sunburn that he was unable to see the very real rebellion fomenting right under his sharp little nose, or perhaps just as likely, unwilling to. I would also not have put it past those drones blessed with both strong ambition and a keen sense of self-preservation to have omitted the more obvious signs that something was clearly up in order to avoid the wrath of both their Queen and her Purestrain.
After a while, the city simply stopped. The mostly-empty suburbs gave way to fields and rolling hills all smothered with vibrant green vegetation. A single dirt track carved a winding path through the fields, leading off somewhere. We followed this track, my limbs already complaining about being put through yet more hard work in the only painful way that they could. Along the way we passed acres of paddy fields, where sullen earth pony peasants in soaking wet clothes and wearing those peculiar conical hats laboured quietly under the growing heat of the morning. The landscape was stunning, with its distant hills shrouded in the mist of the early day and the fields punctuated by curious wooden houses built on stilts above the flooded marsh, but force a pony to walk through it without much rest under a blazing sun and he will soon be sick to death of the sight of it. I was in much the same position, and started to loathe the picturesque fields and idyllic rural life untainted (so far) by the cruelty of war and occupation.
Fortunately, I would not have to put up with the quaint, pretty countryside for much longer, for our guides guided us down the right hoof path, which took us straight into the rainforest, and I soon wished that I was back on the dirt path.
“The roads are patrolled,” explained our Guiding Light. “Not often, but Changelings don’t go into the jungle unless they really have to.”
I began to see why. The path we were following stopped part way through the jungle, and from that point on we had to hack our way through the dense undergrowth. We waded through vegetation - leaves of brilliant green hues and flowers exuding intoxicating scents, trees with thin sinewy trunks whose fronds blanketed the ground below in shadow - whereupon our kirin guides produced wickedly-sharp machetes that had been concealed within their laden saddlebags and commenced the arduous task of chopping our way through. In addition to the sights of the vast multitude of greenery all around, forming a dazzling mosaic of varying emerald shades punctuated by the splattering of brilliant colour from the flowers, and the heady smells of exotic flowers in bloom that reminded me of wandering into a perfumer’s shop, the noise was equally incredible. A cacophony of myriad calls, screeches, and growls, not unlike the dissonant noise made by an orchestra warming up before a lengthy and very serious Germane opera wherein one could still pick out a few individual instruments, formed the thoroughly constant background music to our intrepid expedition.
“Excuse me,” I said, abruptly remembering something salient about the local fauna native to rainforests, “what are the chances of us meeting a pony-eating tiger here?”
“Low,” said Guiding Light, not bothering to look up from his arduous task of hacking away at the plants unfortunate enough to be in our way. The machetes tore through vines and bark with ease, and had put me in mind of those Pattern ‘12 sabres; I would have assumed that they had a very similar effect on Changeling bodies.
“Just ‘low’?” The only satisfactory answer for me would have been ‘none at all, sir; there is nothing for you to worry about at all’.
“They tend not to attack kirins.” He chuckled. “Not much does, unless they want to get burned, lah.”
“Fair point,” I conceded, and resolved to stick as close to them as possible in that case. “Is there anything else I should be worried about out here?”
“Many things, sir,” he said, which did not fill me with much confidence. “Snakes, poisonous ones that look like vines until you get too close and they bite you and fill you with venom until you die in pain. Monkeys, too; they look harmless, but a fully-grown one will tear your head off, lah. I heard there’s a naga in one of the lakes, but no one bothers her and she doesn’t bother anyone.”
A naga. I was already familiar with the rather friendlier sort of dragons over in Cathay, and to a lesser extent their boorish Equestrian cousins, who tended to be either strict loners who think of themselves as being so superior for having vast wealth and doing sod all with it or loud, brash imbeciles with little concept of manners or self-preservation. The ones from Coltcutta, who I had just learnt had spread themselves somewhat, I had only a passing notion of, and that they were rather offended if referred to as ‘dragons’.
“Do you think she might help us?”
Guiding Light barked a short laugh and shook his head. “No. No one has seen her in centuries. It is said the naga would flood the valley if she did not receive pony sacrifices, but nopony has been sacrificed for a long time and the town only floods when pegasi mess up the monsoon season again. She will not help.”
I was desperate, but not so desperate that I was about to enlist the services of a creature with a penchant for equine sacrifice and violent tantrums if villagers thought the exchange was a little unfair, so I left it at that.
We pushed onwards, thick mud squelching around my hooves with every leaden step. All the while I was assaulted by swarms of mosquitoes, who seemed to find my royal blood to be of a far superior vintage than that of the kirins around me. After an hour or so of trudging through the jungle, I had been bitten so many times that I was starting to resemble a chickenpox victim. They completely avoided Cannon Fodder, and he emerged entirely untouched by mosquitos throughout this entire ordeal. To this day I wonder whether it was the result of his unique deformity or his inability to maintain the minimum standards of personal hygiene that kept them away.
However, now that I had been made aware of all manner of beasts lurking in the forests, more than just the ones that I could hear, I found myself jumping at the sound of every snapped twig or the half-glimpsed sight of something shifting in the vegetation beyond. The dark shadows in the foliage, shifting with the movement of the leaves and fronds above, was interpreted by my febrile imagination as panthers stalking us. White Spirit apparently saw my heightened sense of trepidation, and decided to tease me about it.
“The only things you need to be afraid of are ghosts,” said White Spirit, flashing a huge grin as he carried on hacking and slashing the defenceless greenery. I shot him a look of utmost scepticism. “It’s true, lah! The spirits of mares who die giving birth to foals become, ah, like what you call vampires. They hide in the banana trees in the day, then come out at night to eat the insides of stallions.”
“Don’t bother me with such nonsense,” I snapped dismissively. “Just take us to where we need to go, and don’t talk so loudly, anypony could be listening.”
“Or anything, lah!” He grinned wider, but carried on with his arduous task in silence. The problem with reason is that sometimes emotion, particularly fear and anxiety, tends to be louder, and both were very easily aggravated and could only be calmed down with a great deal of difficulty.
There are still parts of the world that are as yet untamed by the gentle hoof of equine civilisation; the Everfree Forest is the one most ponies are familiar with, along with the frozen northlands beyond the Crystal Empire and those parts that still paid lip service to the fading glories of Griffonstone, but these jungles were certainly gave those wild, monster-infested lands a run for their money, at least in my eyes. Looking through the dense foliage, those dark shapes and shadows took on the forms of great beasts glaring at us, but as we forged onwards, hewing our path through bark and mud, I saw that some were shaped more like ponies. Hidden in shadow, such that I almost dismissed them as another figment of an overactive imagination given fuel by the kirins’ teasing until I looked more closely, they were clearly creatures in the form of small, slim, lithe ponies of indeterminate sex and tribe. Their features were indistinct, hidden in shadow, of course, but what little I could make out seemed to shift each time my eyes fell upon them. They each stood still, merely passively watching us hack our way through what I presumed was their home.
“Kuda bunian,” said Silver Star as though I ought to know what those words meant, when I pointed out these figures to our guides. He called a stop to our trek. “We are trespassing through their forest. We must ask for permission to continue.”
“Oh.” That was rarely a good thing, especially in old stories of ponies getting lost in the Everfree to be never seen again, at least alive and in one piece. “Are they evil?”
The kirins looked at me as though I’d just asked them what two plus two equals. “No, lah. They keep to themselves. Sometimes they can be friendly, but we must ask them for permission before we go further. They don’t trust kirins because we might burn down their homes.”
That was most creatures, but I kept that thought to myself. “Do you think they’ll help?”
“Aiyah, you not listening, boss? Unless you are a bomoh, you might as well ask the plants to help you!”
That was me told, then. We halted, and one of the kirins, who had taken the lead in our journey, sat on his haunches, bowed his head, and pressed his forehooves together in the manner of a prayer. I watched with faint bemusement as he mumbled something in Marelay that I didn’t understand, but from what I gathered it was something old and arcane. Whatever it was seemed to placate these odd creatures, and the moment he had finished his prayer they melted away into the darkness once more. I had no doubt that they were still around, watching us stumble about clumsily in their home and smashing up the furnishings, so to speak. Not seeing them again did very little to assuage my fears, and though I had been told that these creatures were at least tolerant of us, the trepidation I felt would not fade in the slightest. I suppressed a shudder, and carried on. Perhaps they were one reason why the Changelings did not go into the jungles often, though slogging through the undergrowth was disincentive enough as far as I was concerned.
[The kuda bunian remains a mystery to this day. They are traditionally thought of as benevolent supernatural spirits in folklore, inhabiting the forests and occasionally interacting with rural pony villages. A modern hypothesis is that they may simply be groups of native ponies living in small communities in the forests, isolated from other ponies, or even a new, undiscovered tribe of pony altogether. However, all attempts by Equestrian anthropologists and researchers to meet them have resulted in failure, with the kuda bunian avoiding all efforts to establish contact with them entirely.
A bomoh is a shaman, particularly involved with invoking and controlling spirits and undertaking healing rituals. They still practise their craft in rural areas, though some continue to operate in the cities to sell their services to gullible tourists.]
We paused again briefly for a short and much-needed break in silence, with one of the guides on the lookout for tigers, Changelings, and anything else that might be lurking within the rainforest. Quite what we were supposed to do if one or more of the above presented itself with murderous intent was not made clear, but I gathered that there would be a great deal of running away and screaming. One could hide an entire army in here, thought I, as I sipped water from my canteen and stared out into the all-consuming jungle that surrounded us, though I doubted that they would be particularly happy about it and would hardly be in a fit state to fight. We had marched for about an hour, by my estimate, and the thought of pushing onwards was not a particularly encouraging one; I was already damned tired, in not-inconsiderable pain, and feeling rather sick.
Watered and fed, we recommenced our expedition. Our guides, like me, apparently did not want to spend too much time in this miserable place. The remainder of our journey proceeded in much the same manner as the first half; full of such trepidation that something would come tearing out of the foliage and rip us all into bloody little ribbons at a moment’s notice that it felt almost like a let-down when we emerged safe and sound on the other side.
The jungle stopped abruptly, as though nature had decided that this was sufficient and had clocked off after a long day of crafting one of the most unpleasant and inhospitable places known to ponykind. Our party emerged as if from a dark cave into an open field that had been obviously cleared for some purpose, and beyond a hill that gradually sloped downwards to the open sea lay a collection of wooden houses perched upon stilts that I took to be the tiny village that Spring Rain had mentioned. The sea, that vast open blue beyond which lay Equestria and home, sparkled and shimmered with the morning sun beyond. Out of the jungle, I could taste the salt in the air. Small rocky islands were visible, some seemingly close enough that I thought a trained athlete might be able to swim there with only a slight risk of drowning. These appeared as tall, steep mounds that emerged out of the still sea, with sheer cliffs that were topped off with green bushes and trees.
The village itself certainly matched her description of a backwards rural hamlet that shuns outsiders, and if it had transpired that I had somehow gone back in time over the course of our journey through the jungle I would not have been overly surprised based on the sight presented before me. This was a scene that had remained unchanged in centuries, seemingly untouched by the war; at this distance I could make out the tiny figures of ponies working in the paddy fields that surrounded their tiny home and others in the village itself attending to market. I could even see the smaller shapes of what must have been foals playing, chasing after one another with the energy that only the young and hopeful can possess.
“This way.” Guiding Light directed us along a path that ran to the side of the village, avoiding it, towards a series of vegetation-smothered hills just to the side. I was a little annoyed at this, as I’d hoped that there would be time to stop off briefly at a small village hostelry before setting off; I’d have appreciated a glass or two of whatever passes for alcohol here to brace oneself before seeing a dread pirate queen. We received more than our fair share of accusatory glares from the earth pony farm workers as we passed them in their fields, and they gripped their sharp scythes a little tighter when, to try and lighten the tense mood, I fell back on that old royal staple and waved politely at the peasants. They did not reciprocate.
“What’s the name of the village?” asked Cannon Fodder, apropos of nothing.
The kirins seemed to have forgotten that he was with us, lumbering under the strain of all of the very deadly presents he was lugging about in his bulging saddlebags, and reacted with surprise when he finally said something after spending the entire journey in near total silence.
“Who cares?” said White Spirit. “I got chased out of it, before the Changelings came.”
“What in blazes for?” I asked.
“For that,” he said with a shrug. “Kind of, lah. I was passing through on the way to Marelacca. The bomoh said I would burn the village down and that was enough for an angry mob to run me into the jungle. I only wanted to get out of the monsoon rain. Aiyah, not even nirik fire can stand against that.”
“Did you make it to Marelacca?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head in an exaggerated manner. “Aiyah, no, I was eaten by a rakshasa in the jungle.”
“The sarcasm was unnecessary.”
“Very necessary,” he said, flashing another grin. “How else will you learn not to ask stupid questions, lah?” He looked to his two friends, and said in that odd strain of Cathaynese that I’d been gradually picking up from Spring Rain, “Can you believe this idiot? No wonder the Equestrians lost Marelacca so quickly!”
I decided to refrain from speaking after that; ordinarily I’d have informed him that under no circumstances was it appropriate to speak to a prince of the realm in that manner, but, to put it in the frankest possible terms, being an uncomfortable number of miles away from home and surrounded by inhospitable jungle and Faust knows how many Changelings around, I needed them more than they needed me, regardless of how much weight me putting in a polite word with the government about the prospect of their independence might have. That I would eventually be rid of this place, one way or another, was solace enough.
The path we followed winded around these paddy fields, and then forked at a junction. We took the one that led to a sandy beach, the sort that, given sufficient investment, might become a rather attractive little tourist spot. The steel-blue sea, stretching on to an infinite horizon beyond which lay home and a war that felt both so very distant and thoroughly inescapable, invited me to bathe in its cool waters. Yet a prince, much less a commissar, was not supposed to frolic, as that would be too unseemly, and I was quite eager to get this next part over and done with. Still, as we traipsed along on the sand, thoroughly devoid of ponies, I amused and distracted myself by imagining what would happen if one immersed a nirik in water. A steam explosion, most likely.
To our left, the land rose up into sheer cliffs, with sharp and jagged surfaces. Our path along the beach brought us to a cave, into which a small stream of water forward from the open sea. A couple of ponies stood guard at the mouth, and they’d watched us stumbling along towards them with the sort of vague interest that only bored sentries can muster; I wagered we were the first even slightly stimulating thing that they had seen all day. They waited patiently for us to get closer, never once taking their steely gazes off us. Our arrival was rather less dignified than I had hoped for, as I had slipped and fallen face-first in the sand at least twice; the first was bad enough, but I’d foolishly hoped that I might get away with pretending that it hadn’t happened, at least until the second time.
They were two unicorns, clad in Cathayan style with a high collar shirt of sorts with frogs, worn unbuttoned. Both were slim and slight, and one had a rather nasty scar on his chest that might have been caused by a cutlass and he had worn his shirt in a way so as to show it off. Speaking of weapons, they both carried short, curved blades that had been thrust into sashes around their waists. They each looked me up and down several times, and I tried to stand up as straight and erect as I could, given I’d been walking however many miles to get there, and failed miserably.
“This him?” asked one guard in broken Cathaynese. Considering what I had been through it was likely that even Princess Celestia would have a difficult time recognising me now. He turned to his friend and said, “I thought he’d be taller.”
“Aiyah, you blind?” said the other. “He looks like a big, fat, clumsy Equestrian.”
“Smells like one, like gone-off milk. They eat that over there.”
“If by ‘big, fat, clumsy Equestrian’ you mean Prince Blueblood,” I said, responding in that perfect tongue of the imperial court, “then yes, I am he. I have business with Golden Hook.”
The twin bug-eyed, shocked expressions I received from both ponies was worth the journey; they must have gambled on the thought that I would be unfamiliar with their language, or the debased version of it that they speak, and it was entertaining to disabuse them of that notion early on. I hoped, however, that I had not revealed my hoof too early, so to speak.
“Inside,” said the other pirate, gesturing appropriately. I doffed an imaginary hat and trotted on inside, my equally stunned entourage in tow. Inwardly, I was positively beside myself in fear, but they certainly didn’t need to know that.
The cave extended quite a way into the cliff, the path carved by the flow of this underground stream. The atmosphere was cooler here, mercifully, and almost tolerable. At the far end I could make out the glow of several lanterns, candles, and braziers, with a number of silhouettes of figures of varying shapes and sizes gathered around them, dancing with the flickering candlelight. The air was filled with the sharp tang of smoke, subtle at first, but it was sufficient to entice certain images of battlefields saturated with the smoke of burned powder from the depths of my subconscious. The surrounding darkness and the deep shadows cast in this cave from the flickering lights, which danced upon the rocky walls, did little to help to banish those bloody daemons, and I could not help but consider that this little parlour trick was a deliberate attempt to unsettle me; the damned thing was that it was almost working.
As we neared, I could see that there were four individuals gathered around a central brazier -- two ponies of as yet undetermined tribe, a griffon, and a kirin, judging by their shadowy silhouettes. I could sense them watching and judging me as I approached, and I tell you, reader, those lessons spent marching up and down the corridors of the east wing of the palace with heavy books balanced on my head certainly paid off here in making sure that my nervousness was concealed beneath a veneer of aristocratic detachment.
I had no idea what this Golden Hook fellow was supposed to look like, but when I reached the point where I could see the gathered entourage more clearly, it became quite obvious which of the assemblage was she. Power identifies power, so to speak, and the pegasus mare who carried herself in the manner that only a pony in charge and who was confident in her authority can muster. She was a small mare, slim and lithe, probably in her late forties judging by lines that marred what was once a pretty, youthful face, but the aura of authority that radiated off her made her presence seem that much bigger than even that of the hulking griffon who stood by her side. She hardly matched the image one might have of a feared pirate captain, but if there’s anything that I’d learnt over the past few years is that reality often fails to live up to the expectations one gains from a diet of silly escapist adventure stories. Her black mane was tied back in a long queue that fell over her back like a long, thin, sinewy cord, and she wore a vividly-decorated ru [a type of Cathaynese traditional coat for mares] in what appeared to be red silk, woven with embroidered dragons on each half, but with the traditional long, flowing, and thoroughly impractical sleeves trimmed into a much more form-fitting shape that was more suitable for combat. Sharp eyes peered imperiously at me as I came into the circle of light cast by the brazier, and a thin smile played on her lips.
“Prince Blueblood,” she said, speaking in slightly-accented Ponish.
“Golden Hook, I presume?” I said.
It was then that I’d noticed she was armed. Pegasus wing blades are banned in the Equestrian Army for the simple fact that they are as much of a danger to the wielder and to everypony unfortunate enough to be within their wingspan during an ill-timed wing-stretching as much as they are to the enemy, but such niceties appeared to be lost on these pirates. She, however, seemed entirely at ease with the vicious-looking things attached to her wings, and I had no doubt that she knew how to use them to great and bloody effect. Her entourage were armed with large, single-edged swords with curved blades called dao thrust into sashes tied about their waist. Should things take a turn for the worst, which I always anticipated they would with a sort of depressing regularity, I had the kris that Uncle had presented to me, Cannon Fodder had the one he had apparently stolen, but our kirin guides were unarmed, as far as I could see, though their ability to burst into flames at a moment’s notice ought to have counted.
She laughed softly and extended her surprisingly well-hooficured hoof towards me. “At your service,” she said, with a slight bow of her head.
Quite perplexed by the display of manners from a mare whose entire source of income came from the looting and pillaging of innocent merchant ships, it took a few seconds before I remembered myself and took her hoof politely. I refrained from kissing it, as aside from not knowing where it had been (though I could imagine that the conditions on a pirate vessel were hardly sanitary) it was an affected gesture that only would have suited me in my later years.
Her soft smile grew wider, it was like the snarl of a timberwolf before it pounced upon its helpless prey. Ponies likewise bear their ‘fangs’ in a smile, I’ve found. “I understand,” she said, placing her hoof back down, “that you intend to take on the Changelings.”
“It appears everypony knows that,” I said, “except for the Changelings themselves.”
“Why else would Lord Commissar Prince Blueblood arrange a meeting with me?” She sat down at the table and invited me to do the same.
An imperious wave of her hoof summoned her kirin companion from the shadows, who produced a bottle and two earthenware cups and placed those on the table between us. Upon pouring the cups and raising it to my nose, I was a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t rum, as I somewhat foalishly expected based on those fun little adventure stories I used to read, but baijiu. Still, it had an alcohol content and I’d been sober for far too long, so I did as tradition dictated and spilled a little from my cup onto the ground to show gratitude to nature, before taking a small sip.
“Very good,” I said, in a rare moment of genuine honesty.
“It ought to be,” she said, reciprocating the gesture. “We stole it from a shipment from Cathay intended for Princess Celestia herself.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her what she has missed when I next see her.” Again, in accordance with tradition, I downed the remainder of the baijiu, which went down rather nicely, and placed the empty cup back on the table. “So yes, I’m here to ‘take on the Changelings’,” I said as she poured a second cup for me, “and I need your help.”
“I see!” she exclaimed no small amount of amusement. Her sharp eyes sparkled in the dim light. “Prince Blueblood needs the help of a band of pirates, brigands, thieves, cutthroats and… ah, shall we say, not very nice creatures at all!”
“Yes, that’s the long and short of it. We have weapons to give you.”
“We do not want for weapons,” she said, her smile never failing to leave her lips. “If you mean those fancy new muskets of yours, well, when it comes to boarding actions, a sharp blade and a thirst for blood is all you need.”
I was quite prepared for a little reticence on their part, having anticipated that they would not exactly be chomping at the bit to help me out of the mere goodness of their black hearts. Before, however, I attempted bribery, I thought I would at least try reason. “I imagine the Changeling occupation has put a little dent in your operations.”
“We have an unofficial arrangement with the Changelings.” Golden Hook leaned back in her seat, and peered over the rim of her cup at me. “We leave the bugs alone and they leave us alone. We have no reason to poke that dragon with a stick.”
“They won’t honour their side of the arrangement for long,” I said. “No threat to their Queen’s power will be allowed to survive. Besides, them shutting down the spice trade means fewer of our merchant vessels to raid; I dare say Changeling cuisine has little need for such things.”
Golden Hook nodded her head softly; she took only small sips from her cup, barely noticeable, in stark contrast to me positively downing them with all of the gusto of a college colt on spring break. “It is true that the harvest has been barren as of late, and my beloved crew are becoming quite restless as a result, but it will not last forever. We have weathered worse storms than this, and once you have won this war the trade will pick up again, greater than before, and my fleet will again return to its unofficial toll duties.” Then, as she arched her eyebrow curiously and her smile grew unsettlingly wide: “Unless you think you cannot win this war, and need us to help.”
I suppose one didn’t become the leader of a pirate confederation without being at least a little bit canny, thought I. “Operation: Sunburn,” I said, deciding that my best option was, as ever, to get straight to the point. “You might have heard of it. The Changelings have a fleet mustered in the Marelacca docks, ready for a sneak attack on Equestria’s east coast. I aim to destroy it before the attack can be launched. The kirin resistance has already dedicated itself, and besides them, yours is the only force strong enough to pull this off. So yes, I do need you and I am asking for your help, and I am willing to pay for it.”
“Oh?” There’s a curious inflection that is particular to the Canterlot aristocracy of exclaiming ‘oh’ in response to something both interesting and intriguing; it’s a long and dragged-out sound, starting quite low, raising in pitch to a peak, and then declining rapidly, rather like one of those graphs certain deluded ponies like to trot out to prove one tribe is inherently more intelligent than the other. I was rather shocked to hear it come from Golden Hook.
“Money, gold, gems, artefacts from my family’s private vault,” I said. “I expect you’ll put it all in a chest and then bury it on a remote island somewhere, with only a single map to guide you back to the treasure. You’ll then lose it, and it’ll end up in the hooves of a plucky orphan colt.”
Her right eyebrow slowly arched throughout the length of my admittedly bizarre tangent. “You’ve read a lot of pirate adventure stories, haven’t you?”
“A guilty pleasure,” I admitted, choosing not to mention the trunk of self-aggrandizing stories my much younger self had scribbled down, which my parents later discovered and had burned to teach me that a prince does not concern himself with such frivolity.
“I do hate to disabuse you of those guilty pleasures,” she said with what seemed like genuine contrition, “but we don’t bury treasure chests. Most of what we acquire is placed in the fleet’s fund and the crew are paid accordingly from it. It’s all above board and very fair. But as charming as this diversion is, I will commit my fleet to your plan for one thing and one thing only: a pardon.”
I paused, I thought I hadn’t heard her properly. “Pardon?”
“Yes, a pardon. A full royal pardon for me for everything.” Golden Hook noticed the look of utter shock on my face; I wasn’t even sure that it was in my limited authority to grant such a thing, and I realised that I would have to do a lot of tugging on Auntie Celestia’s fetlocks to fulfil even half of the promises that I had made for ponies and kirins here. “I want to retire. Ah, who ever heard of a fifty year old pirate? I have been doing this for so long that all I want to do now is to stop and settle down, and maybe run a gambling den or two. But this…” She grinned broadly, showing off a set of surprisingly impeccable teeth for a pirate. “This will be one last shot at glory before I hang up the black flag for good.”
“Well,” I said, at length. “I’ll see if I can pull a few strings for you in Canterlot, but it won’t be easy.”
Golden Hook shook her head and scowled, fixing me with the sort of stern glare that I imagine she reserved for one of her crew who had been caught stealing from the fleet’s fund she mentioned. “No, no, sir,” she insisted. “We’ll have none of that. If you want our help you will promise me that you will secure a royal pardon for me. And don’t think you can get away with reneging on it; you are a prince of Equestria and your word is your bond, and we will not let you forget that.”
I’d have thought that letting an infamous criminal go free, escaping the consequences of her villainy, would be the greater dishonour for Yours Truly, but I was already here trying to make some sort of deal with her. In that grim calculation, I concluded that, on balance, it was better to have an Equestria to return to that would ask me awkward and uncomfortable questions about my circumventing the judicial systems of multiple component vassals of Equestria’s empire, than none at all. At the very least, ‘I did what I had to do’ ought to suffice for most ponies with a reasonable sense of perspective about the world. I didn’t know how Golden Hook would go about exacting any sort of revenge should I renege upon my promise, but, I considered, it was probably not worth the risk.
“Very well,” I said. “Upon my return to Equestria I will petition Princess Celestia for a royal pardon for you.” And only you, I mentally added; the rest of her crew would be pushing it a tad.
“You promise?”
Well, I’d hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to this, but one feature that pirates share with princes is a taste for the theatrical. I carefully unsheathed my kris, and the pirates reacted accordingly by reaching for their weapons. A wave of the hoof from Golden Hook, who watched with keen interest, stopped them from running me through on the spot. The sleek, rippling blade glinted in the multitude of flickering lights, and the gems studded into its hilt seemed to glow from within. I winced as I pricked my fetlock, drawing a small spot of red.
“Sealed in royal blood,” I said.
“Ah.” She screwed her face up in disgust. “That’s a little… unsanitary. A hoofshake would have sufficed.”
“Oh, I feel a little silly now.” I placed the weapon down on the table between us, and we shook hooves accordingly.
A beaming smile dawned on Golden Hook’s face. She rested her hooves on the table, leaned in rather close, and said with a low, sultry voice, “Good! And now, the fun part; just how much carnage and extreme violence do you need from us?”
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Is it just me, or is that a tyranid mounth on the top of the cover art? I didn't read this story or any of its prequels, just curious.
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Read the story and you'll find out
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... That's why I am asking. So I don't have to read the story. I am not reading over 700 thousand words just to known if a monster mouth is from a specific monster. I have a life, you know?
11646482
Read and find out. We’re not spoiling things for you.
As much as you can manage without directly damaging civilians or allies.
11646428
the cover artist has a lot of MLP/Warhammer 40k crossover art on their page, so the answer to your question is "probably yes". but i dont think the author commissioned the artist specifically for this cover. at most the artist was inspired by the series since its been pretty long-running. i dont think its a spoiler to say so or anything btw. this series is pretty far-removed from anything warhammer aside from the obvious captain cain inspiration
11646428
Nah, just a flying changeling's mouth at an awkward angle.
Blueblood: One thing that might help your case in securing my Aunty's pardon and likely making a not inconsiderable sum for you and your crew would be to offer your services as a privateer to Eque...
Golden Hook: Hard bucking pass!
First time Blueblood uses that kris, and I can think of no better use for such a treasured relic. Taste for the theatrical, indeed.
The journey to the pirates caves was wonderfully described. Very vivid details and plenty of various scenery to paint quite the exotic portrait. Good world building that reflect ours, with a hint of magical in the background (could have gone more heavily on the mysterious and monsters since it's MLP but this was fine too). Great job, the sense of wonder or the horrible things Blueblood keep going through for his quest very much feels like an adventure story.
The negotiation with the pirates was well done! A little bit of secrecy, a bit of cloak and dagger and small helping of mystery from the pirates. They were surprisingly... "ordinary" which is was one should expect of real pirates: brutal, violent, armed to the teeth, very business minded, maybe a little unwashed. Of course this isn't a pirate story so the "fantasy" element one would see in Pirates of the Caribbean was not needed foe this kind of military story, so harded fighting sailor was what Blueblood needed. The aesthetics you aimed for match with the era you created with the rest of this universe.
It shows that both entered this negotiation with the expectation of getting what they wanted with how short it was. Or perhaps it's better to say both were good at negotiation. Blueblood from his background in politics, diplomacy and education and Golden Hook with her business savvy of a successful pirates captain.
However, if she represents only the biggest pirates gang of the region, that doesn't mean the others will also participate. I expected... more different groups not really willing to work together?
I was surprised there was no Celestia blurb about Golden Hook that gave some more context and information about that pirates.
The pirates didn't want the musket out of a sense of traditionalism? Either she fail to see how deadly they are or it's simply a failure on their part to modernize. They will do with what they know. But what can we expect 🤔? Water ships that for sure, probably various sized cannons since they have been around for a while... maybe airships as well? Not sure about that one. A varied species crew that for sure... will that be enough to attack the compound?
I blame One Piece to have screwed my idea of a fantasy pirates ship
but I am almost hoping the pirates have some kind of ace under their sleeves. Something magical or perhaps they have tamed great sea creatures to do their bidding, like Boa Hancock ship pulled by two poisonous giant sea snakes that scares even the mighty sea kings.
https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Perfume_Yuda
Sorry for my rambling, I always see the MLP world as some kind of death world when not within the confine of civilization, full of magic and dangerous creatures.
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At it's core, the series is roughly based on WH40K Ciaphas Kain adventure with Prince Blueblood as Ciaphas or perhaps Flashman which who Ciaphas Cain was inspired from. The Changelings roughly represents the Tyrannid and the Pony the Imperial army but everything is more under a lens of Napoleonitic wars.
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i say it a combination of Ciaphas Cain and Sean Beans, sharp more then Flashman
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Oh, it’s definitely Flashman, this entire story is basically Flashman at the Charge, but beautifully rescored for Cain and Ponies.
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What about The Good Soldier Schweik? I would say it folows the metaphysical footsteps of Schweik and the changelings represent the Holy Roman Empire. Or something like that. Idk, I just said thing that sound literary enough and hope for the best.
I know, right? Get those idle drones out there cocooning ponies and kirin already, sheesh. The larders are empty for crying out loud, and you just know someling is going to want a snack during the airship ride!
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Not gonna lie, insulting the readers of a story while refusing to read it yourself but still demanding answers from said readers that you could have gotten by reading the story description (or even just the character tags) is a pretty bad look.
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"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
This whole series is definitely worth reading. It starts off with some parallels to Ciaphas Cain's early commissarial career and builds its own highly competent storyline. For not actually being a crossover, it still captures the theme of 40k quite well.
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Dude, it was a joke. I even said I was talking bulshit straight from my ass. Nobody actually thinks The Good Soldier Schweik has anything to do with this.
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I have no idea what that title actually represents, nor do I particularly care. I was responding to two things in your post. First, that you said "hope for the best", with a quote any halfway attentive 40k fan can rattle off at the drop of a hat. Second, that you were saying you still knew nothing about this story and series, by saying it's worth reading.
Indeed, no one thinks whatever that is has anything to do with this. Odd, that you thought someone would.
So, is Golden Hook based off of a certain historical Chinese pirate queen?
This is glorious. And Blueblood does have a taste for the theatrical that completely pays off here. Surprised no more in depth commentary from our esteemed narrator. Perhpas she's saving it for later?
A royal pardon for pirates... why not offer it to the entire crew, with the condition that anyone caught on acts of piracy after recieving a pardon will suffer much harsher punishment.
Gives you an army and reduces the number and strength of local pirates significantly.
All of it. Break all their legs and then beat them with their lunch money.
"How much do you have?"
Outstanding atmosphere in the lead-up to the pirates' den, and some great tension in the negotiations. This should prove very fun indeed. Also, it's weirdly heartwarming that Golden Hook was so convinced that Equestria would win the war; a twisted sort of patriotism, or at least appreciation for her best "client." (Or she was just saying that to get Blueblood desperate enough to agree to the pardon. I can't completely rule that out.)
In any case, the counteroperation is sure to be one to remember. I can't wait to see the look on Dorylus's face... though I suspect with Chrysalis right here, it won't be easy. And if it does succeed, that face will be reduced to a ichorous pulp before long.
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Is it really a sense of patriotism if she isn't from Equestria or an Equestria collonies?
"Yes."