Odysseed

by AuroraDawn

Chapter 20

Applejack blinked sleep from her eyes, thankful she wasn’t staring into the morning sun. A couple weeks with no cider combined with the amount she had imbibed the night before had brought on a minor headache, and crawling out of her cell when Bilge Rat woke her at first light hadn’t helped. She chewed absentmindedly, examining Source Island from afar.

The meal had ended abruptly last night with Keelhaul’s shout. The crew scattered like rats at his call, racing above deck to change the sails and drop the anchor. Applejack had snuck up after them, watching silently in the freezing night while they coordinated their tasks of hauling on lines and moving gear about.

There, off the bow, lay Source Island. She felt a deep sense of deja vu rifle through her, which she felt was ridiculous given she knew exactly where she had seen it before. All the same, it was the first time her eyes had landed on the island in the waking world, and the physical hereness of it all unnerved her. After a week at sea, and some major changes, she was finally in view of the thing that had started her adventure.

A solemn sense of determination overwhelmed her. She twitched her chin in a nod, muttered “right”, and headed down to her pile of hay at the bottom of the ship, ready to sleep to meet the next day that much sooner.

She had awoken the next morning feeling strange—asides from the hangover—and was surprised to find her cheeks damp with tears. She felt like she had dreamt, but remembered nothing; nothing save for a lingering sensation of comfort mixed with regret that she could not quite pin down. With a shrug, she shook off the vestiges of sleep and flipped her hat on suavely while sliding her saddlebag around her back. Resolute, she inspected the straps and latches quickly, and then walked out the jail door—which she noticed had been left open overnight—and trotted up through the decks.

Bilge Rat had gone up on deck, and the rest of the crew were not on any of the lower decks; though in the mess there were signs of them via the stack of plates with bits of carrot still peppering the table around them. One plate had been left out and she had grabbed the hooffull of vegetables before sliding up on deck, which was where she was standing now, finishing her breakfast while the Dog twins prepared two dinghies.

“I’ll have the ponies with me,” Captain Keelhaul was saying to the crew as they flittered around him, tending to last minute items like checking the knots and lines. “Flintlock, Marrow, Powder Keg, watch the ship. If anything happens or ye see another sail on the horizon, send off a flare. Half Pint’ll watch the ship from the beach and yell if he sees anything.”

Applejack looked around, not seeing the Diamond Dog anywhere up on deck. She opened her mouth to speak before Loose Cannon walked up from behind her.

“Captain likes to make believe that Marrow listens to him, he does. Don’t call attention to it.”

“You all really do have these strange bugs up your butts,” she said.

“Oh, come now, there’s no need to be rude, saying such things about the captain,” he admonished, walking away.

Applejack blanched. “No, that wasn’t… I didn’t—”

Loose Cannon winked back at Applejack and then stood next to the dinghy as Mangy Dog slowly let the line holding it up run through her magic, watching it drop to the sea.

“Coming, dearie? First class accommodations.” He clambered over the rail and started walking down the ladder that had been built into the side of the ship. “Last one in gets to row!”

Applejack chuckled and then followed him, hopping over the railing and finding her footing on the rungs. She looked down, feeling a little dizzy as the smaller boat lifted and rolled at a different rate from the larger ship, and looked back up while climbing down. When her hoof bumped into something more solid, she turned and leapt from the ladder, rocking the boat.

“Hey now,” Loose Cannon said, spreading his forelegs out to calm the swaying, “Don’t be fancy.”

Keelhaul fluttered down next, settling in at the bow. He grunted, and then hauled out two oars from under the seat, tossing one to Applejack and one to Loose Cannon.

“I thought you said the last one in had to row,” she mumbled around the oar, holding it in her teeth and dipping it into the water.

Loose Cannon just laughed quietly, levitating his oar and pushing the boat away from the ship with it. “Last one in who isn’t the captain, of course.”

“Of course.”

They started heading towards the Island, joined shortly after by the second dinghy manned by Half Pint, Bilge Rat, and the Dog twins. Above them, Cuckoo circled the ships lazily, making strange high-pitched squawks and mewls. An orangey-yellow feather drifted down, landing on Applejack’s nose, and she shook it off.

“I didn’t even know ponies could make those sounds,” she said, staring up at him.

“For all we know, lass, he’s a seagull on every level except physical,” Keelhaul said, lightly flapping his wings to add speed to the boat. “I haven’t the slightest clue how he ended up that way, either. He was like that when we found him.”

“How did you find him?”

“We had waylaid a fisher vessel, and made off with several barrels of fish for our troubles. One of them had gotten broken open in the scuffle, and the scent musta attracted him. Found him nose deep in it when we were south of Dove Island.”

“He just showed up in the middle of the night?”

“Bilge Rat made the mistake of tossing a fish at him and he never left,” Keelhaul sighed. “But he does well as a watch, regardless of how he’s more animal than not. Makes a tartarusuva racket if he sees another sail in the distance.”

From high above, a loud, squeaky “Eraaaaah, ah ah ah,” echoed, and Applejack watched as Cuckoo curved his wings in sharply and dove fast, rocketing towards the sea. The stallion collided with the water and sent out a huge splash, soaking everyone in the boat with Applejack. By the time she wiped the salt water from her eyes, he was paddling in place, a huge sea bass flopping in his teeth. A quick toss of his head and some snapping of his jaws later, the fish was gone.

“That’s the worst thing I've ever seen,” Applejack said to nopony in particular, unable to turn her head away. “How does he not get sick doing that?”

“Ponies can eat fish,” Keelhaul said.

“What.”

“They can,” Loose Cannon said. “Some of the western settlements just outside of Yakyakistanian territory subsist on fish to help them put some insulation on for the harsh northern winters. It’s why they keep trying, despite the raids. The North Luna sea is controlled mainly by the Yaks, who don’t fish at all. The sea there is brimming with fish.”

“Aye, lass,” Keelhaul said. “I once sailed with another pirate up there when I was first gettin’ me legs. Ye could toss a net over the side of the ship and haul it up with the entire day’s catch in it.”

“There’s apparently a good market for that at Seaward Sholes,” Applejack said. “How come you didn’t just sell what you caught up north there, instead of shaking down sailors?”

“Hah! Like Equestria would ever allow a changeling to step hoof on its lands!”

“They do now.”

It was Keelhaul’s turn to blanche.

“What.”

“Oh, yeah, a couple years ago we learned that changelings can share love with one another. It’s like an infinite energy source or somethin’, I don’t really get how it works.”

“How’n the nine levels of Hades did ye get the Queen to cooperate with that?”

“They didn’t. She’s been deposed.”

“She’s WHAT?!”

Applejack shrunk back from Keelhaul, who had fully spun around in his seat to face her, eyes madly wide and wings flared menacingly.

“Uh. You didn’t know?”

He relaxed a bit, sighing deeply. “I’ve been… away from the hive for a long time, lass.” He scratched the chitin on his belly, thinking. “I’m glad to hear the ol’ eggsack’s gone. Good riddance to ‘er. I jus’ didn’t know it were even possible…”

He looked off into the distance, frowning.

“How long ago did ye say?”

“A couple years ago.”

His head drooped, and Loose Cannon reached out to pat a knee.

“Would you even go back, knowing you could now?”

“Nah,” he admitted, giving his head a shake and bringing himself back up tall again. “Nah, I wouldn’t! It’s been a far better life out here than stuck in that musty rock!”

“Hear hear!”

Keelhaul sat back down again, staring at Source Island as they approached it. It was raised high out of the water, the whole island seemingly surrounded with cliff face, though on the end they were headed towards there was a small sandy beach with enough of a crumbled edge of the island one could clamber up it with relative ease. The closer they got, the less visible the temple would become, obscured by the high stone walls.

“Woulda been nice to know, though,” he muttered, before spitting into the water.

While still several dozen metres away from the beach, the boat stopped dead, lurching the three of them out of their seats. Keelhaul jabbed his pegleg into the water, squinted at the distance between the island and himself, and smiled.

“Ahh, lovely. She’s shallow all the way,” he said, leaping into the wet sand. Applejack and Loose Cannon followed his lead, dragging the boat up with them as Keelhaul marched his way up to the coast. Once there, he halted, plunged his pegleg into the sand, and spun around on it to observe the crew as they arrived.

“Right, lass!” he called, once the rest of them were standing in front of him. “What’s yer map or prophecy or what have ye say about this temple? Any deadly traps or ancient puzzles? Do we need to make a sacrifice to some forgotten god? Where’s Cuckoo? He’ll do.”

Applejack looked to her right to see Cuckoo rearing, wings extended and bent ominously towards Keelhaul. A low series of long whines issued from his mouth, and she shook her head while laughing.

“Dontcha worry your beak one bit, Cuckoo. There wasn’t anything said ‘bout no sacrifices. There wasn’t anything said about it at all, to tell the truth, Keelhaul. Just that we’d find safe passage to the Source, and that was it.”

“There were a lot of dreams with different lines, lass. Did ye get them all? Miss a stanza maybe?”

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Not a chance. We’ve got them all.”

“How can you be so sure?” Loose Cannon asked, starting to pick his way up the tumbled boulders that made some manner of a stairway to the top of the island.

She thought about it, and then shook her head again.

“None’a your business. You wanna start earning my trust, you’re gonna have to trust me a bit too. Just know that I ain’t lying when I say our source is unquestionable,” she said, dragging the un out.

“Whatever ye say, lass,” Keelhaul sighed, kicking off the sand and buzzing into the air. He tasted the air with his tongue, relishing the mixed scent of salt and sand, and then zipped up above.

The rest of them crawled their way up the short cliffs in due time, and as Applejack laid eyes on the temple up close now, she marvelled at it.

It was massive, for one thing. Great pillars hewn of stone held up an even larger roof, dwarfing the height of the gazebo back in Ponyville. Keelhaul was pacing around on the foundation, and the sight of the huge changeling looking so small next to the construction made Applejack a little dizzy.

It looked brand new, too. The stone was limestone and marble, a brilliant white that glinted in the still-rising sunlight. It took on the hue of the sky, ranging from tints of red and orange as saturated as her cutie mark all the way to a faint blue that reminded her of Rainbow Dash’s coat, and as the sun continued to lift in the sky the colours shifted. It was a miniscule amount of movement, but the building was so big she could still watch as the light wavered on top of it just as the sky shimmered and warbled.

There wasn’t a single chip or crack that could be found, either. In fact, the only evidence that time had passed at all upon the island was the smallest hint of weeds and vines that were starting to dig their thorns and roots around the base of the pillars. Inspecting one as she approached the front of the temple, she noticed that it was only a couple week’s worth of growth that had occured—the same amount of time the island had been out of whatever eldritch prison had held it. She scuffed at the dirt, and then stepped back in concern.

Being a farmer had taught her an awful lot about different fields. Sure, her specialty was apples, but to grow good apples meant knowing so much more. She needed to know about the weather and what amounts of different kinds of precipitation were best for growing conditions. She needed to know about insects and pests and the best way to ward them off without tainting her own crops. And she needed to know about soil, its composition, the different types of it and how they all affected different plants.

Of course, she wasn’t an expert, so when Bilge Rat poked her flank sharply and asked her what was so upsetting to her about the scratch she had made in the dirt, she couldn’t tell him.

“The soil is wrong.”

He looked down and then back up at Applejack.

“Looks like soil to me.”

“Well, it is soil. But it’s wrong. It shouldn’t look like… well, that. It’s missing something.”

Again he inspected the patch before side-eyeing Applejack.

“...Grass?”

“No, not… I dunno what. But it ain’t right. I haven’t seen any soil like this before. I don’t like it.”

Bilge Rat ducked his head down under Applejack’s barrel, hefting her up onto his withers in one fluid motion. She slid down his mane and settled onto his back, frozen in surprise.

“What’n the hay are you doing?”

“Y’said you didn’t like the dirt. Now you ain’t on it.”

She looked forward at no one, unimpressed, until Bilge Rat stepped onto the marble foundation and tilted, unceremoniously dumping her onto the stone. She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and stuck her tongue out at Bilge Rat before cantering up to what appeared to be the entrance where the rest of them were standing, sans Keelhaul.

The doors reached almost all the way to the roof, and like the rest of the temple they were gigantic and carved out of the same stone as the pillars. Intricate carvings of swirls and circles ran in lines across them, surmounted by a line of lettering that was duplicated on each door. Applejack tilted her hat back and rubbed her brow as she looked at them. The words weren’t in Ponish—heck, she realized, they weren’t even in the same alphabet. Twilight might have been able to identify them, but she didn’t have a Twilight with her. She looked them over again, trying to see if there was anything to be gleaned from a dead language she didn’t understand.

Αυτό το μέρος δεν είναι τιμή
Αυτό που είναι εδώ ήταν επικίνδυνο
και αποκρουστικό σε εμάς.

“How old is this thing,” Half Pint muttered, craning his neck high to try and read. “Thems look like somepony took Ponish and played dice with it.”

“Twilight said it was older than the oldest folk we knew of.”

“Twilight?”

“Twilight S—” Applejack stopped, biting her tongue, earning strange looks from the crew. “Twilight’s not important to y’all,” she decided on. “What’s important is gettin’ inside. Er, uh, how do we do that?”

She reared up and pressed against one of the doors, leaning hard into it. The massive slab of stone moved about as well as any could have expected it to, which is to say it didn’t. What did happen was, as she closed her eyes and arched her back into the pressure, the slow reflection of sunlight upon the marble changed abruptly. A ripple raced in towards her hoof, coming in with a bassy electric hum that rapidly increased in volume. Applejack’s eyes opened just in time to see the ripple of light converge in front of her.

It sounded like time ripping open. There wasn’t any pain, but a second later Applejack was rolling and skidding along the flat terrain towards the cliff. Right as she felt the discomforting soil vanish from beneath her, a set of hooves wrapped around her chest, hauling her to a stop before lifting her slowly back towards the temple.

The soft orange legs around her let her go a foot above the ground, and she stumbled for a moment while catching her bearing and balance. Cuckoo landed in front of her, squawking curiously, his eyes confused or sad.

“Right!” Keelhaul said, hobbling around from the backside of the temple. “This must be the entrance, cause I ain’t see nothin’ else. Onwards, crew! To glory!” He opened his eyes to find them all staring at him, save for Applejack, who was too busy trying to hold on to the earth and keep it steady. “Er, what’d I miss?”

Cuckoo turned around and made a series of mad flaps with his wings, crying and screeching and kicking. Keelhaul nodded intently, muttering “Mmhmm? Oh? Ah. Really? I see,” and when Cuckoo finally finished his tirade, the captain nodded solemnly before turning and calling Half Pint.

“Aye Captain?”

“What did he say?”

“She tried to push the door open and the whole thing spit her out. Cuckoo caught her right as she went off the cliff.”

Keelhaul looked at the door to the temple, and then slowly twisted his vision all the way back to the beach, some fifty meters away.

“Queen’s concubines, lass, are ye alright?”

“I’m, uh, fine? It didn’t hurt, save for the slip’n’slide. Oh, um, thanks Cuckoo.”

“Rawwwwwk,” Cuckoo replied, nodding.

“Welp, I still ain’t seen another way in. Bilge Rat, why don’t ye try the door next?”

The stallion frowned. “It seemed pretty clearly to b’ saying ‘hooves off”, Captain.”

Keelhaul stared at him.

“It ain’t an order if you ask it as a question, Captain.”

“Right, right. Bilge Rat! Try the door next!”

“Uh, Captain?” Loose Cannon said cheerfully, tapping the changeling on the pegleg.

“Aye?”

“Mind explaining your logic to the crew? For morale, o’course. Inspire us.”

“For what need?”

“For explaining why you want them to touch something that don’t want to be touched,” Applejack said, finally regaining her breath.

“Ah, right. Well, ways I see it is, there still ain’t no other potential way in. Whole place is locked up tight, no windows, no gaps, no airways, nothin’, save for the door. With luck, our dear esteemed guest just used up all the magical wards for us.”

“And without luck?”

“Well, the other option is I get to see how far this thing’ll fling Bilge Rat, which frankly seems so entertaining t’me that I don’t really consider it unlucky.”

Bilge Rat rolled his eyes up before walking backwards up to the door. He glanced behind himself quickly before lowering his head, shaking his flanks, and bucking. When the enormous hooves connected, that same synthetic screeching sounded off, along with the low frequency hum. With the more sudden style of contact, the entire temple didn’t ripple, but the flash of light that did shoot towards his hindlegs blew him forward, causing him to somersault plot over teakettle and land on his hindquarters hard.

The look of frustration on his face was lessened somewhat by the uproarious laughter that Half Pint had collapsed into, rolling on the dry dusty stone while pounding his hooves. His mirth probably would have continued long after everypony else still found it funny, but he was stopped when he rolled back over and collided with a hoof that very much had not been there a second ago.

“φύγε από αυτό το μέρος.”

There was a coordinated scream as all of them, hardened pirates, pescetarian pegasus, and adventurous farmer alike, scrambled backwards from the new creature that had appeared before the door. It was shorter than a horse, not quite as thick as a pony, and had a far longer neck than either of them. It was also very much, absolutely dead.

Applejack had fallen onto her rump, tripping over herself as she fled from the apparition. It made no move to chase her, though she couldn’t even fathom how it would have been able to make pursuit. For the most part, a set of waterlogged and seaweed covered bones formed a full skeleton that was adorned with strips of engorged and rotting flesh. Where there should have been eyes were two pale blue issues of light, and they stared down at Applejack from the ghost’s post before the door.

“W-who, and what, are you?!” she managed to croak, after running into a pillar and finding the thing still had not yet gone after her.

The light in the eyes dimmed for a moment before coming back to full life.

“Ahhh,” a hollow and raspy voice came forth, sounding dirty and scratched like it had finished a long trip to come forth from the floating jaw bones. “What a strange… and inefficient language. But it shall do.”

“Stay back beast! I’ll be yer unmaking if ye harm any of me crew!” Keelhaul was standing tall, having stepped forward in front of Applejack with horn blazing green, the magic crackling as he charged a bolt.

The skeleton slowly shook its head at Keelhaul. “Your threats are meaningless. I have already been killed. My purpose here is my punishment, and I shall serve it until none remain upon this planet who may utilize the Origin.”

“Y-your purpose?”

It nodded. “I cannot physically harm any of you. You have no need to fear me, save for perhaps my visage. For my avarice I have been cursed to warn all who may attempt to retrieve the Origin of its dangers. My name was once Plesippus. Though it brings me no comfort now, you are welcome to refer to me as such.”

Applejack came to her hooves and walked slowly towards Plesippus, cringing while the skull swung to face her but carrying on regardless. Once close, she reached out and jabbed at a leg. Her hoof connected with solid bone and bounced off, but he did not react and, after swallowing hard and thinking a quick prayer, she sat down before him.

“I’ve been directed with higher purpose to get that Source, feller,” she said, meeting eyes with it. “I can’t be leaving ‘till I have my hooves on it. So you might as well just step aside and open the door.”

“No purpose is selfless enough for the Origin. It is the same lie I told myself that led to my destruction. All of you!” he shouted now, the voice echoing across the island, “All of you must turn back, leave, be gone! There is nothing here for you.”

“Aw, well, y’see, whenever somecreature says somethin’ isn’t mine to be had, it instills in me an awful urge to be havin’ it even more,” Keelhaul said, sitting down next to Applejack. “So I think ye best listen to the filly and open the door for us.”

Plesippus waved a hoof, and in a blink the world was gone. The crew stumbled before realizing it was visual magic, the kind Applejack remembered Luna using to show her the sky.

“I will not. You may have a warning only, a description of the awful things that the Source would wreak. The only help I shall bring you is saving you from fates such as mine, and saving the universe from fates such as you. It all begins aeons ago, before the frozen hemisphere thawed and the lowlands flooded, before any of your races or your ancestor’s races existed…”

Author's Note:

Not me forgetting to post this on Monday, no siree…

How’re you enjoying things so far, folks? I’d love to get your thoughts. Remember, every time a comment comes, an author gets its wings!

Comments

[Rambling Writer]

I recognize the translation. Ominous.

[AuroraDawn]

I don’t know what it is about that message but it always strikes me with a sense of awe and reverence.

[Axolotl222]

Plesippus...

th.bing.com/th/id/R.863fcfbfeca806b11ca1420e904e5581?rik=eyn%2fIrhl%2f1nF%2bQ&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.quickmeme.com%2fimg%2f7d%2f7d3da5f11625f3f577619b14e462e89b56a6dca885b4eeb761a3e6e812a1a421.jpg&ehk=XuWrZ3mn5eb7YO720TNhnmypNwfOpndEB3F%2fIoGBB90%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0&sres=1&sresct=1

[overdue]

Glad that the consequences of unlimited power are being explored here. now to translate that greek