Washed Up

by ambion

...by the seashore

The crewmares of the Mother of Mercy had spread themselves out along the beach with a series of bonfires. The night air was warm, lukewarm at worst and still, but the occasional shifting of the wind brought a misty cool in from the water. The bonfires burned loud and bright like beacons, with rosy coal hearts making the air shimmer.

The seated ponies were lit up faces and hooves marked in sharp contrast with the extent of the night, which had settled over them all like a second ocean in depth and breadth. They cast strange shadows that stretched out far longer than any real pony, and once a pony stepped away from one – with everypony’s night vision shot – she all but vanished until appearing suddenly near another.

The oily crackle of the fires made conversation and jokes indistinct, even pleasant. A concertina played a few uncertain notes, then added a slow, almost doleful melody to air.

Some ponies cooked while they had the chance, as much to occupy their hooves or treat themselves than it was for food. Floury cakes topped with sweet treacle added their scent to the more universal smells of salt water and oily wood smoke. Over one fire was hunkered the ancient, pocked, familiar-to-all cauldron of the Mother of Mercy. There were still a few stodgy portions left in there to eke out, but the initial rush of dinner had been seen to while the sun was still up.

The Captain had had the supplies sent down earlier, they were stockpiled a little ways further up by the trees. She, along with a few hooves stayed with the ship. With the cache – or at least, they’d started out with there – were the barrels that now were propped up here and there in the sand and becoming steadily less full of serviceable ale.

Overlooking them all was the Mother. Her rigging swatted stars out of the night sky, did just this at least until the tiniest shift in perspective brought them popping back into sight.

Harpoon had left a few minutes ago. She knew it would be a sedate night, all things considered. A nameless spit of land was hardly a proper shore-leave, and there’d be only the one evening of it before they were away again.

Besides, depending on how the improvised mast held up they could be at Rivaplút within the week. Best not to spoil a good thing coming.

Harpoon navigated the sandy detritus of the island interior easily. She watched Flotsam as he lagged behind her. Even without his little cast-light on, his white coat would likely all but glow in the night.

He was noisy going, hoofing through withered leaves and drifts fo sand, but neither did he seem to make any effort at passing for quiet. His eyes were turned more often upwards than at where he was putting his hooves. He looked about often, not quite gawking but definitely…looking.

The fires were already visible from here, as were the indistinct forms of ponies. As they came upon the small cache of supplies the sounds both natural and pony-made opened to them.

A crackle made them both stop, pegasus and unicorn. Tailing that sharp, sudden sound were shushes and muffled whispers.

Harpoon wasn’t surprised. On a ship privacy was what you made it. A few crewmares no doubt had a little something more than idling about and light to moderate drinking in mind for the evening.

She gestured with her wing, Lower it. Flotsam didn’t get it, and then, with a little widening about the eyes, he did.. She made a note about getting Flotsam into poker. With a face like that he’d be terrible at it. His horn dimmed to a tiny speckle, little more than a match or candle would provide.

For a second he looked like he was going to say something, she was sure he had the urge to but nothing came of it other than a last, baffled, blinking glance at the shadow-hidden supplies. Thus they carried on, purposefully noisy enough to announce that they had come and, more importantly, gone again.

She wondered only in passing which of the two of crew it would be half-tucked away in behind there. She didn’t particularly care; no doubt a few others would be conspicuously absent from the bonfires. As the drink continued to trickle out and in a few more would probably slip away.

Captain Nauticaa’s policy on sex was straightforward. Keep it discrete, and never ever let it interfere with the running of the ship. The same applied with the various liquors and occasional intoxicants that some of the crew kept, or even made, for themselves.

It was a decidedly easy rule to abide, especially when one considered the typical punishments involved for feathering it up. Harpoon respected that capacity for severity in her Captain.

That policy was pretty tangible right here, almost like a ribbon tied around the unicorn’s neck

Stepping in the firelight came with a palpable wave of hotter, drier air.

Hard Tack gestured with the kind of limp, dazed eruption of hooves that only the drunk can really manage to pull off. ‘Shore, shore, but Scutts, scutts, yore not lis’nin to me,’ she said, nodding side to side as she patted the other pony’s shoulder, who bobbled nearly as much. ‘Course wheeze gun make it to Riva-plut this week. Wheeze did a gut job fixin up the big mather.’

Hard Tack squeezed the two cheeks of Scuttle giving her a fish-face, then brought that nearly to her own. "So you why you gotta-be-a cynic, huh? Jus’ tell me tha’. Tell me tha."

After a moment’s effort they managed to get their spinning eyes to meet. Scuttle for her part blew a raspberry – thick with spittle – and the two mares fell apart. "Bloody optimist, you are. Can’t stand to lookit you an yer bright-serp…side-of-life crap with-at ‘nuther drink enema hoof."

Scuttle got to her hooves, danced a little bit until she steadied herself, then nudged Hard Tack in the ribs. "Well come on then, Aich-Tee." Rolling her eyes and huffing, she worked a hoof under the mare’s shoulder and dragged her away to the nearest – still sloshy – barrel.

Hard Tack blinked as she her eyes finally settled on something. "Hey is Poon! Poon!" Hard Tack’s grin was both dirty and infectious: it was the sort that ponies surreptitiously went to clinics days after the fact to fret about. "And…Sammy! Oh bells, Scuttlebug, nivermind me, I think he’s dry as a drop ah…drop a…get him a drink is what I’m sayin!"

Harpoon wordlessly passed a topped up mug to the unicorn. She didn’t let much of her smile show, but it was there.

Hard Tack was sagging into the beach with a placated smile. Her voice came even more disconcerted and a lot softer. "Ah, yous a good pone, Poon. Ray mine me buya any three drinks you ca’ name wens wheeze in Rivuput…"

Scuttle seemed altogether less happy. "Oi! What she’s got to be smilin’ like that about?’ Then she laughed. "Aich-Tee, you’ll’se-singe the hooves there, so you will.” She hefted up the pony with a grunt and a sleepy rebuttal before dragging Hard Tack away.

That left Harpoon and Flotsam. She was actually rather curious about him. Everypony was, but being first-mate had its perks. Keeping him close was more about enforcing the Captain’s orders on him then circumnavigating them.

He sipped at his drink, regarded it for a moment, then knocked back a little more. Then his eyes were turned to grunting, affably cursing, slowly disappearing crew mares. "That’s normal?"

"Yes."

“Oh.” The unicorn stared into his mug for a long moment. Harpoon had never minded quiet in her life. Awkward silences happened to other ponies. He flicked his gaze over to the other fires, where other ponies were nearer the food and music. Then he said, “Alright. Normal.”

Then he knocked back a more respectable, friend-winning kind of slug.

Author's Note:

Note the first - a name like 'Harpoon' means the nicknames were either gonna be Harpy or Poon. Or Stabby McPokeyWater. I think she just takes it like a stoic. Hard Tack and Scuttle are pretty benign, really.

Note the first, the second - Hard Tack and Scuttle are strictly platonic. This has no bearing on the plot one way or another, just felt like putting it down here.

Comments

[ScrambledCrackers]

For the life of me, I still can't figure out why the heck you've got your quotation marks mixed up with apostrophes for dialogue. It's the only glaring technical error going on and throws off the read a bit because the eye is expecting different from what is actually there.

Beyond that, this continues to be interesting.

[bahatumay]

>Stabby McPokeyWater
Actually, I kinda like that.

[djthomp]

Well, I'm sure Cadance is fair enough to understand that what happens while you're an amnesiac isn't quite the same as when you know who you are.

[ambion]

6428466 It's confusing ground, that. A lot of the books on my shelves use the ' ' instead of " " for dialogue. There's a fairly even split between the frequency at that. In a way it makes sense, because a character qouting another character means you can go:

'blah blah "bleeh bleeh" blah', said blooh.

Expect the next chapter tonight.

[ScrambledCrackers]

6447317 I see.

Well, I simply point it out because it's defying proper implementation. Just look in any published book with someone speaking on the shelf for an example. For the longest time, I had it stuck in my head that all sentences were supposed to end with a double space before the next, except when at the end of a paragraph for obvious reasons. Someone pointing out the misconception made me take another look and I realized it was one of those 'now how did I ever think that was right?' kind of things.

With a character quoting another, your example is actually backwards. The proper version is: "blah blah 'bleeh bleeh' blah", said blooh.

All that said, it's a relatively minor hiccup that is visually distracting for those of us that catch it. Nothing one can't work around, but I do believe it would be to your benefit to make the adjustment. It took me a bit to stop double spacing sentences myself, but it's rare I do it anymore.

I also look forward to the next chapter.

[kooarbiter]

harpy, it needs to be harpy

[SHMANDER]

I'm going to post this on every chapter where this is a problem until it's resolved. You don't use ' marks, you use " marks.

[FinalFan]

6447389 I don't know where exactly you would have picked up the double space tradition, but the reason you would have done so is because that used to be the standard. Now single-space is the more common standard, though I hew to the old school in this matter. I even do it for colons, too: thus. However, some websites (not this one) will auto-delete consecutive spaces until only one remains.

When nesting quotations, the point is that you reverse it with every iteration. Both of us* disagree with ambion's default setting, but if you did start with what single or half-quotes, full quotation marks would be next. "A said, 'B said, "C said, 'blah.'"'" (<--ew.)

6447317
Almost all the books I have read myself use full quotes initially, but one notable exception is The Lord of the Rings. My family owns two editions, published decades apart in different countries, and they both use half quotes initially. Maybe it's an older standard, or British vs. American, or both.

*Though I would definitely use full quotes before half quotes, and I think there is an argument to be made for that standard, I would not try to stop someone from using the other way as long as they made an informed decision.

[Muggonny]

When you go in to do the final edits of the story, you should like, make every double quotations single quotations to piss everyone off.