Eden Fire

by Sharman Pierce

Curses, Foiled Again!

The ship thundered. Normally, it rumbled pleasantly, or growled when it wasn’t happy. Today, the Yellow Rose roared.

It plowed through the waves without a care. It ignored the quartering headwind. With a full head of steam, she could go anywhere.

The deck swayed with the waves, and Cold Snap’s hooves rolled with it. He moved from station to station doing whatever he could. Everyone rushed through the ship trying to make her ready to depart...after they had departed.

The morning had been a wild ride. Captain Gideon had roused the entire crew and demanded the ship be ready to sail five minutes earlier. Everyone rushed to do the minimum to make it happen.

As a result, the ship had a number of loose ends that the crew had left the night before. The one benefit was that they had reprovisioned and recoaled during the drydock session. Thanks to the extensive repairs, the ship ran even better than before. When it was presented in that context, having to perform minor repairs and stow non-essentials while underway didn’t seem so bad.

Captain Gideon’s mountain fortress faded into the background. By now, it seemed like nothing more than a speck on the horizon. Ahead of them lay deep seas. And somewhere beyond that lay the Zebra continent.

And the birthplace of the seas.

And solar princess only knew what else.

Cold Snap fought as a chill racked his body. He couldn’t explain last night. Not the smallest part of it made sense. He had never had a dream like that in his whole life. Oh, he had nightmares. He had dreams too. None of them stuck with him like last night did. The dreams faded into a pleasant fugue as he woke, and the nightmares dissolved like mist in the morning.

Last night stuck with him as vividly as if he’d lived it, felt the flames crawling up his body. He felt the chalky scrape of death under his hooves. Smell the burned hair. He shuddered.

He threw himself into his work. It was the only way he could forget about it for a few minutes. Checking tasks off the chief mechanic’s list gave him a bit of structure that his life felt like it was missing.

Sure, the dream would haunt him as soon as he finished whiling away at his work, but in the meantime, he could enjoy a bit of an escape. In his work, he found a bit of meaning, value, and purpose. Besides, he’d grown up working on the plantation. When there was a problem, he worked at it to make it go away.

Pity it didn’t work now.

Still, it was a dream. A peculiar and vivid dream perhaps, yet still a dream. He’d forget about it soon. Dreams never stayed with him long, good or bad.

“Just like I never sleepwalk?” Cold Snap muttered to himself.

He was sure he never had before. Didn’t mean it couldn’t happen, but the chances…

Well, he would bet on another ship besting the Yellow Rose first.

He was overthinking it. It was his curse. He overthought Captain Gideon sometimes. He overthought Mr. Horn’s box. He was overthinking the dream now.

“Finished yet?” Nebula asked as he heaved himself out of a hatch.

His friend’s arrival stalled overthinking about overthinking. Snap shook himself back to reality. “Um, yeah.”

Stowing the last of the chains used to load the ship, Snap took a chance to breathe. He hadn’t seen his friend since dawn that morning. A chance to talk and enjoy a bit of companionship after last night would be a great break for his tired body and stressed mind.

“So, what’s next?” the unicorn asked.

Snap rolled his hoof. “More of the same. Finish clearing the deck and paint over the fresh steel.”

Nebula was already shaking his head. “Not that. That’s all we ever seem to do on this ship.”

His ears folded. “And shovel coal. No. What’s this ship doing next?”

Sleepwalking was obviously not a great rest because Snap blinked owlishly. “Uh, dunno?”

That obviously wasn’t the right answer. Nebula huffed and glared at him. “Don’t ‘dunno’ me. When we take off in the middle of the night, something is up. When we have the crew whispering about the captain being strange...er than usual, something is up. When the entire crew knows nothing at all but a heading, something is definitely up. So, spill.”

“But,” Snap weakly protested.

In a moment, his friend was in his face. “But? Care to finish that? You going to keep covering for Captain Goofy? Something is off with him; cause he’s nuttier than a squirrel. You don’t pull this for nothing. So. Talk.”

With so little time to think, he couldn’t come up with a convincing lie. He hated lying to his friend anyway. He hated telling him things that he didn’t understand himself. Captain Gideon’s command be damned.

“All I know is that we have a heading. Southern Atoli coasts. There’s a legend there, some creation myth of the seas. I don’t know what it has to do with the box, the seas, or Man.”

Nebula blinked. “What the fruitcake is a ‘Man?’”

Cold Snap grasped for an answer; then felt his gut clench.

“Something he should take more seriously,” Captain Gideon said from above them.

_+_=-

Funnily enough, the most shocking feature about the captain’s cabin wasn’t the great carved desk or the glowering griffon behind it. It wasn’t even the sheaves of paper and mechanical oddities that served purposes unknown. Rather, it was the carpet.

That sea-blue fabric was absolutely incredible, a marvel of crafting blending durability and softness. It was outrageously expensive, completely useless, and showy opulence.

And it was the thing that Cold Snap tried to focus on with every bit of his being.

His ears flattened as his cheeks burned with shame. He could feel Captain Gideon’s hard eyes working over him, even if the bird said nothing. He didn’t want to be here one bit.

Nebula, more precisely his hoof, shuffled next to him. The situation did not seem to bother him quite so much, but he also hadn’t been explicitly commanded to keep his stupid mouth shut.

Likewise, a taloned claw stood to his other side. Mr. Horn expressed confusion when he was first thrust into the captain’s lair, but he quickly held his tongue and watched to see where the situation went.

Silence reigned in the room, and only one creature had the power to break it. Snap dreaded that moment.

An eternity of minutes passed. Only their breathing and Captain Gideon moving papers and other things across his desk broke that silence.

“Some of you are wondering why I’ve called you in here today. Others know exactly why they are here,” the captain said.

Snap risked a glance up. The captain sat at his desk, a piece of yellowed paper in his claws and the damned box beside him. The predator’s eyes studied everything keenly.

“However, what is of far greater importance is the things none of us know. The situation has grown more uncertain. While I would like to see that Cold Snap sees my full displeasure for breaking my command of silence, there are more serious matters I must address. Mr. Horn, I believe that is where you will be most beneficial to this meeting.”

“Me, sir?” the hippogriff asked quickly.

“Don’t be too excited. I want to know everything about this box you were to deliver.”

Instantly, surprise traded places with confusion. “I’m sorry, captain. I’ve told you everything.”

“And I don’t believe that.”

“You know I don’t know who asked for it. I don’t know what he, she, or it wanted it for. I don’t”-

The captain held up a claw. “Spare me your theatrics. Managing a ship is dramatic enough. I need to either know what this,” he shook the box for emphasis, “is or an educated guess.”

He set the box aside and laced his talons. “At first, I assumed this was some treasure hunt taken too far. Artifacts have been known to disappear from legitimate sources and appear in wealthy collections. Now, I say that wealthy collectors would be pleasantly boring.”

Mr. Horn shook his head. “I’m sorry, captain, but I don’t follow.”

Captain Gideon did not answer. He spun the box so that its basic lock faced Snap and slowly withdrew his claws. “Cold Snap, open it.”

He did. Mr. Horn’s eyes widened as the pony pulled out the glowing blue orb. “How?” he breathed.

The captain did something terrifying. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Enchantments and spells are outside my purview. It has no mechanism, no movement, and no markings. Peculiar shape aside, it may as well be art.”

Snap stood there, blue magical thingy pulsing in his grasp. He hadn’t been instructed to put it back. So, he waited for the command.

“I tried messing with it a little. I admit I didn’t want the buyer to know I’d been fooling with his merchandise, but never got it to do that. How did you?”

The griffon pointed at Snap. “Ask him. He made it work.”

Once again, all attention was on Snap. Sweat started beading on his brow. His heart thundered. The blue pulse sped up to match. Every eye was on him, not that glowing…thing.

“I worked with that thing for hours after I got a hold of it. Never could make it do anything. What is it? Some sort of enchantment obviously. But what?” Mr. Horn asked.

The captain ran a claw gently over the box lid. “I don’t know. As a griffon, I never had the natural aptitude for magical arts. Hence why I’m pressing you for everything you know.”

Finally, Cold Snap managed to slow his breathing with all the attention finally gone. The blue glow also slowed. That only made his his breathing pick back up. The glow did too.

Captain Gideon and Mr. Horn traded theories and crushed them in turn. Many theories gathered by the wayside like fallen casualties after a battle. Most of them got pushed aside from a lack of information.

Snap stared at the jeweled piece in a weird blend of curiosity and horror. Why was this tied to him, and he knew beyond a doubt it was. Whatever this was, it was no trinket.

“Snap?” Nebula’s voice finally jarred him to his senses.

“My heart,” he whispered.

That whisper silenced the room. Everyone looked to him. Snap looked up. Fear quavered his voice. “It’s my heart.”

Captain Gideon’s eyes alternated between the almost panicked pony and the artifact. In a moment, he had stood and crossed over to one of his many chests. He rummaged through it, pulling out various brown bottles, tins, and metallic instruments. “Ah ha! Here it is.”

He turned back with a peculiar device in his claws, a metallic wishbone ending in a large carved flare. The two ends of the wishbone went in his ears, or wherever griffons had ears. “Hold still and do not speak.”

He pressed the flared end against Snap’s chest. His other claw opened up that silver disk. Snap could see a thin rod tracing a circular path across angular symbols that looked like they had been carved in gold.

Cold Snap watched that rod ratchet its way around while wild thoughts ran through his head and the others in the room could only watch the captain’s eccentricity play out. Finally, the captain pulled the cone away. “Perfectly healthy heartbeat, but he is right. It is matched utterly to his heart.”

“So what does that tell you?” Mr. Horn asked.

Captain Gideon stowed his device and bottles. “It confirms a suspicion, that there is much more to this thing than jewelry. As to why you had no luck,”

He took the artifact and turned it so Mr. Horn could see the bloodied edge. “The life of the flesh is in the blood. Blood is a powerful force.”

The color drained from Mr. Horn’s face as the captain uttered those words. “Blood magic?”

The captain nodded. “Of some form. It seems that someone, your patron perhaps, knew more than he let on. He wanted this thing desperately.”

So that was the strange feeling eating away at his body. Snap saw the thing in a new light. It was a leech trying to suck him dry. It was tied to him now, or was that just his frightened imagination? He couldn’t look at it. He looked anywhere else, the captain’s maps, his potted rose, his half-completed projects stacked against a desk.

Yet these things didn’t soothe him. He kept getting a sense of...something. There was something in the room that was screaming for his attention, but he couldn’t find it.

The captain sighed and tapped the chest.

There. Cold Snap saw them. Two trees lay carved into the exotic wood. Add a little fire to them, and they would be perfect matches to last night.

Dream or something else?

The smoothness of the bark, the venation in the leaves, the subtle differences between them: they had been captured perfectly by a master woodworker. They had only missed the fire.

“Cold Snap.”

Something violently shook him. Next thing he knew, he was on his rump starting away from the captain. The captain kept pace with him. “What is it? Your heart is going like a quarter horse.”

True enough. The blue light was flashing on and off like the spurts of fire from a gun. He fought his way past a parched throat. “Trees. Last night.”

“What about trees?” Mr. Horn pressed.

Snap forced himself to swallow some spit and haltingly launched himself into his story. Captain Gideon interrupted once to give him a glass of rum. Snap downed it without hesitation careless of the burn.

He told them of his sleepless night. He described the bones, the room of fire. Then he pointed to the box. “And those trees were there.”

Captain Gideon turned back to his desk and lifted the box. “These trees. You’re sure?”

Snap was lost for words. So he only nodded. The griffon studied the carving closely, pulling out a magnifier for the fine details. Eventually, he shook his head. “I don’t recognize them. I will question Midshipmare Blue and Jupe regarding the incident. Given the amount of discussions we have had on the subject and the number of times you’ve seen the box, it’s perfectly reasonable to say that they combined into a nightmare.”

Somehow, Snap wasn’t sure if that was comforting. Not that it would be better to believe a pleasant lie rather than a horrible truth: he was in over his head.

He looked at the blue light. He couldn’t bear to look at the cursed thing itself.

Cursed. That’s what it was. So was he by extension.

Wood thumped as Captain Gideon practically slammed the box back on his desk. “Mr. Horn. I think it’s time we dispense with prior assumptions.”

“Sir?” the hippogriff asked.

“Any belief that this box and its contents are ancient treasures to gather dust on a collector's shelf is denying the facts. These are ancient and valuable, perhaps much more so than anyone ever thought. However, someone suspects that these are much more than would meet the eye. Your patron.”

Mr. Horn shuffled in place. “I don’t know if I believe you, but I can’t disprove it either.”

“That is good enough for me. I have more to add to my theory: you were a pawn. This artifact was extremely valuable to your patron. They understood something about it, maybe more than we do. They were willing to pay generously to have you collect it from its prior owner and deliver it to them.”

Low chuckles rumbled in the hippogriff’s chest. “If that’s the case, then they chose poorly. Not only did I end up on your ship, you were attacked by pirates too.”

“Pirates going after one thing only. They only wanted the box. Your voyage was the most risky part of the journey, and you were on the Golden Hound before they could change plans. Those ‘pirates’ were their backup plan in case your ship foundered or was attacked.”

“But they lost. You won against them,” Nebula piped up.

Captain Gideon looked at the otherwise very confused pony. “We did. We put them in check. The Yellow Rose was something they could never have predicted. Now they are having to come up with some backup plan to their backup. What that will be? I don’t know. What I know is that they want this badly enough to destroy any who stand in their way. If they catch this ship, then every one of us is marked for death.

“As to the other unknowns of this antiquities collection, that will take more time. Call me obsessed, but I know that Man has something to do with this puzzle. That will take time to study though. Whatever the reason, these two trees are central to it. Return to your duties and I will resume my studies.”

Snap wasn’t sure what to say about it. What was a cursed pony having his soul slurped away by an ancient thingamdooder supposed to say? So, he let Nebula drag him off the carpet and back into the hallway.

Once outside, his friend looked at him sadly. “Hey, it’ll be okay. You got me.”

Snap said nothing.

Nebula sighed. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know things would turn out like this.”

“No one did.”

Nebula grimaced, then cocked his head. “Hey, when did you burn your mane?”

-------

Time passed like mud. Days had passed, and all Cold Snap could do was throw himself into his work. It was his only relief.

Nightmares of trees and fire plagued his sleep. Thoughts and glimpses of blue light hounded his days. Only in the backbreaking work of keeping a warship running could he escape his tormenting demons.

He eagerly sought out the chief mechanic for any work that he could throw himself into. He worked long after the crew slept, and he crashed into fitful sleep halfway through his tasks. These were thankfully dreamless only because of sheer exhaustion.

Gradually, the jobs changed from complicated to things that a sleep-deprived pony couldn’t screw up. He was supposed to be trimming paint near the wheelhouse. Somehow, the crew had missed some battle damage here. So, it was his job to clean and paint the bare steel.

Simple jobs for simple types. The problem with painting was that it was so easy to get distracted and daydream, and dreaming was the last thing he wanted to do.

He felt the fire, and the unnatural pull of the trees. His grip slipped, and he stared at a streak of gray paint across the wheelhouse glass window. He grumbled a curse; then he picked up a stained rag, dipped it in vile smelling liquid that put toxic moonshine to shame, and cleaned away his mistake.

Gray smeared the glass. He wiped harder. The noxious chemical soaked his hoof, drawing a lance of pain through his injured frog. Snap jerked back and hissed. His grit teeth felt like they were about to shatter from the stress, and his hoof throbbed badly.

Somewhere in Captain Gideon’s cabin would be an otherwise unknown object glowing in time to his heart. He could see the sickly light in his mind as clearly as if it was before him now.

While the pain died down, he looked back at his mess and saw a faint blue glow. Cursing, he blinked and shook his head. No good. The light was still there.

Was he cursed?

The light moved. Then he saw that Captain Gideon though the slightly distorted and painted glass. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look irritated at the painted window. Instead, he looked rather sad.

For a moment, the Captain looked like he might speak through the glass. Then, he turned and vanished into the dark heart of his ship. The last thing Cold Snap saw was a pulsing blue glow.

He had no proof for it, but he knew that his dream wasn’t a dream. It was more than that. He could feel it with total conviction. It felt like piece of him had been burned in that damnable fire. That bauble latched itself to him like a leech.

Would it kill him?

Snap picked up the wet rag with his hale hoof. He cleaned, but halfheartedly. Tears slipped from his eyes, and his chest throbbed in time with his suppressed sobs.

For the first time on this grand adventure, Cold Snap genuinely feared that death would find him soon.

“C-cursed.”

Author's Note:

To be fair, the Publisher had spent days doing worse things. He just couldn't remember when.

There was that time that he helped his Aunt Agnes do her...wait. She gave him lemonade at least.

Then there was the time his boss... nevermind. That time had earned him a decent bonus.

Or perhaps....

Well, there were things worse than listening to the Author prattle. He just couldn't remember any of them.

"And you know what the answer was? Coconut hulls! Seriously! I was tumbling those things for hours, and the walnut wasn't doing anything!"

The Publisher blinked. "Walnut what wasn't?"

The Author backtracked like an expert politician. "The bullets. I'm sitting on crates, I mean CRATES of 7mm Mauser, but they're all covered in crud and have seen better days. I'm cleaning them of course, but the walnut hulls weren't doing jacksh"-

"Please, we are based on a children's show after all," the Publisher waved a hoof placatingly.

The Author rolled his eyes. "Fine. Jack shoopedoopy. Oh, and I found my missing casing."

Missing casing? Just what was the lunatic talking about now? Thinking back over all his
conversations with the Author hurt his head terribly, but he did so anyway. "From the POW! incident?"

"Yep. Found the thing halfway under my tool shelf. Had the neck all blown apart."

With a quick spin, the Author turned to face the Readers. "Remember kiddies, that's why you take safety first, unless you're at your local insurance agency."

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one who cares about you," the Author said primly.

"I have no idea if that's a good thing or a bad thing," the Publisher retorted.

He tapped his desk. The effect was muffled by all the red-marked pages in front of him. The pages ranged from elegant script of ponies on wild adventures in foreign lands to a crayoned picture of Twilight Sparkle and Spike with a caption that said "Now ki5s" to a not-safe-for-woona submission covered in...

"Look, I receive all sorts of submissions, and I have complaints about yours."

The Author stiffened indignantly. "Excuse me?! My submissions are carefully vetted and studied by the best of grammar nooners, me. You will be hard pressed to find a more polished first draft than"-

Slap!

A stack of pages covered in mud, grease, spots of blood, and metal shavings landed on the NSFWoona submission. The NSFWoona was better because of it. "Look at this. It is filthy. You expect people to read this? Our publishing house has standards, and we pride ourselves on reputation!"

Seemingly unharmed the Publisher's tirade, the Author rolled his eyes. "You say that, but you have me working for you. Soo..."

"Touché."

The Eden Fire manuscript was set aside on a clean-er part of the desk reserved for "special" submissions. The Author was proud. He always knew his work was special.

"Do you have a rag or," the Publisher said before common sense caught up to him. "You know what? I'm good."

"You want the high-temp grease rag, the 30 weight rag, or the cutting fluid rag?"

That only made the poor office pony grimace. He pulled a stack of pages covered in numbers and columns out from under his desk and started wiping his dirty hooves. "Actually, I was meaning to get rid of these shareholder reports anyway. It's not like companies use real numbers anymore."

"Just one more reason to want an actual apocalypse. It'll make the world make sense again."

The Publisher stopped rubbing his hooves on the crinkly paper. "I hate how much sense that makes."

"One more question. Are you sure it's good to send Cold Snap through this?" the Publisher asked.

"Absolutely. He's growing older. He needs to realize that his idea of an adventure doesn't line up with reality. It is dangerous and comes with consequences you can never predict. Some are minor and others are horribly life altering.
"Also, it's not like his curse won't come without a few perks. It might prove useful in unraveling at least one of the mysteries here."

The Publisher frowned. "Well, if you insist. He's a good colt. Hate seeing this happen."

"So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given us."

The Publisher didn't look up. "Put my Starswirl hat up."

"Hrmpf. Fine. But I do suspect that Captain Gideon is more right than he expects."

"What do you mean?"

"Nope. Spoilers."

The Publisher dropped the subject and continued the futile task of cleaning his hooves. Then he stopped again, anger boiling in his eyes. "Hold up! You only do one draft!?!"

The Author quickly looked at the crayon watch on his foreleg. "Oops. Gotta go."

_+_____+_+_+_+_____+_
Never saw the point of doing more than one draft. Seemed like a ridiculous waste of time if you planned correctly. The Publisher and Author interactions are different. They aren't planned. I just come up with them after snorting a bottle of Coke.

And yes, coconut bedding from your pet store will clean off the toughest crud on a cartridge case. Better than risking POW! and taking all the time to do them. They still need more time in a finer media like walnut hulls or corncob to get a bit of polish back. Otherwise they look like brushed brass

Comments

[Scyphi]

His other claw opened up that silver disk. Snap could see a thin rod tracing a circular path across angular symbols that looked like they had been carved in gold.

You know, pocketwatches do canonically exist in Equestria (for that matter so do wristwatches, but they're less common), so Snap should know full well what that is.

Nebula grimaced, then cocked his head. “Hey, when did you burn your mane?”

Wuh-oh.

Never saw the point of doing more than one draft. Seemed like a ridiculous waste of time if you planned correctly.

It depends entirely on the personal style of the writer in question, as some have more use for them as a means of refining their writing. It can also depend on how you define "draft"--technically speaking, writing it out then going back and correcting any missed errors can be termed as a "second" draft, as it's arguably not the same as the initial "draft" you originally wrote.

[Scyphi]

11581844
Well, in fairness too, the Roman Empire's steam power was still very infant and unrefined, and thus limited in capability. Their empire fell before they had the chance to really advance any further beyond that and the political turmoil that followed ensured such advancement didn't continue until much later.

Had the Roman Empire not fallen when it did, it may have embraced steam power eventually, changing the playing field centuries earlier than it did.

[Sharman Pierce]

11601385
True. Though this story is supposed to be set prior to the Equestrian Diarchy. It is feasible for pocketwatches to be an aristocratic rarity. Also, its hinted, though never quite said, that Snap comes from a region that is slightly backwards from Equestria proper. Not unbelievable that he doesn't recognize it. Of course, this is a blatant cover up of me missing details.

[woggs123]

So Snap accidentally bound himself to a..... phylactery? matrix upload beacon? Claymore Roomba control unit? Nu-age health fad crystal that somehow actually does something?

And whatever it is, it's inducing dreams of apocalypse while pulsing in time with his heart. Clearly this can only end unambiguously happily with all major characters alive and hearty!

[Sharman Pierce]

11601438
See? Now you're thinking like an author!