Flotsam
The white unicorn couldn’t remember where he was. Or, for that matter, who he was. His eyes were still shut and he was closer to being asleep than awake. He drifted between the two. Before thoughts could tangle up his head, the smells of food roused his stomach. Ever the pragmatic organ, it told the pony to just get up already.
If there was food, and warmth and dryness, then overall things had to be alright, it reasoned. A tray next to the bed drew the unicorn’s eye. The tinware he found there was tarnished with age and use, but the bread and dried fruit on it seemed good. Better than good, and the white unicorn tore into it with a gusto he’d only just realized was his own. He hunted down the little crumbs with precision, then turned to gaze about the room, licking absentmindedly at his lips.
From the walls to floor and table, everything of the room spoke of that same, tarnished wholesomeness. Old spills of various kinds and dried wax teased out interesting colours from the woodwork, and everywhere it was pocked by rough and frequent use. The solid wood construction bore the marks well, like marks of and history. It would probably look no worse in a decade as it did now, and despite the personality worked up and down across its grain, it was clear of any true dirtiness.
The slightest roll beneath his hooves whispered ship into his mind with a saccharine voice. So he was in a cabin on a ship. It was a slight improvement on his present knowledge, and though he still had no idea of how he had got here, at least ‘here’ was looking pretty good.
The hollowness of hunger still gnawed at his stomach and its insistence gave him some sense of purpose. Walking became a strange new experience on how feeble his legs felt, and all along his back and neck his skin felt stretched and itchy from sunburn.
After clambering his way up a stairwell he stepped out into glorious sunshine. In every direction light, sky and sea ran on into infinity, and for a fleeting second he wavered with a mixed sense of elation and dread.
A little brown filly scrubbed the deck with a thick rag, while another one tied around her head made for a lopsided bandanna. It hung over one eye. She worked with a jaunty sing-song voice, enjoying herself.
‘Thcrubbie thrcrubbie thrcubbie! Thcrub thcrub trcrub!’
Her simple pleasure was infectious and he called her from her task. ‘Hey, do you know who I am? I can’t seem to remember.’ He didn’t feel all that worried about this.
She eyeballed him, squinting with the exaggeration of a young mind, then shook her head. ‘You look funny,’ she concluded. She smiled a wide, gap toothed smile and leapt back to her task while sneaking glances at the stranger.
With nothing else to do, warm sunshine and equally warm company, the drudgery looked inviting and simple. ‘Can I help?’ the unicorn asked.
The filly’s eyes beamed wide. ‘Thure!’ With a flick the improvised bandanna returned to its natural state of being a rather sad, deeply stained rag of canvas. With no half measure the stallion took up scrubbing the deck, easily keeping up with the swabbie’s playful yet impressive pace.
Side by side they worked up the deck and back down again through sunshine and sea breeze. The wash water, hoisted straight from ocean, was a refreshing tingle of sensation that washed over deck and hooves alike. Various grown up ponies worked rigging and sail, and though none acknowledged him directly, the white stallion felt certain that they watched him.
He found out quickly that the ship’s filly’s name was Patches, and she liked the sunshine and her favourite colour was red and what’s you’re favourite colour do you prefer ship’s biscuits or the dried fruit what do you think of the soup have you had the soup what was it like on the wreckage did you meet a whale or probably not because it would have rescued you instead do whales do that what’s your name how do you not know your own name?
His replies, when he could find room for them, satisfied Patches greatly. Her running, stumbling and bounding narration brooked no signs of slowing. She did not so much carry the conversation as launch it to the stratosphere.
She bounced and wiggled with childish glee as she led on, while he hauled the bucket. The strength in his neck and legs surprised him and, even being full, it was no particular challenge to carry. He knew he looked scraggly enough from the ocean, but there were muscles underlying it all, and he wondered distractedly if he’d built them up by choice or necessity, in his life before waking up.
Something in the way hooves sounded on the deck made him turn, expecting to see a pony announcing her authority. Even as he wondered how he could tell this, he was proven correct. This mare was no doubt The Captain, standing tall and wearing a brimmed, three pointed hat. A few ponies above the rigging discreetly tuned in to watch whatever might unfold. And there seemed to be more than before, unobtrusively getting in on the show.
Patches carried on for another sentence with her verbal momentum, even as her expression turned sheepish. She scuttled away in embarrassment. Captain Nautica patiently waited for the ship’s filly to wind down, surveying the deck in the meantime.
‘I like to see initiative in a fresh face. It’s good to see that I didn’t drag out a sea rat instead of a pony. And you’re going to work to earn that, don’t worry. What’s your name?’
He turned away from the captain’s gaze. He tried forcing memories, and failing that he tried emptying his thoughts to let them surface gently. Neither worked. She seemed to understand his predicament.
‘Well then,’ Nautica said. ‘Since flotsam is what you were found as, that will do for now.’ She nodded the tiniest bit with satisfaction. ‘Patches, find Flotsam some work. I’ve got better things to do than show a green horn around.’
Flotsam hurriedly tried to look at his horn, worried there might be something wrong with it to warrant such a colour. Patches giggled unrepentantly.
‘It’th what you are, mither. You’re horn’th jutht fine. Come on now!’ she commanded with a happy little cry. ‘I’ll thow you around.’
Flotsam smiled with relief and followed after the filly. ‘That sounds good.’
From the nooks and crannies of the ship, eyes tracked him hungrily.
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
944 users online
1,858,701 hits today, 2,139,894 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
YO HO! A PIRATES LIFE INDUBITABLY!
That should be "then".
That's redundant. You only need to mention the fullness once.
I'm already enjoying this, I'm even seeing words I've never seen before! (And that's a big thing for me, even if I don't use vocabulous words all the time).
Why do you use ' instead of " for dialogue?
I think I am to assume that by "watching hungrily", you do not mean "Flotsam" is about to become the crew's next meal. At least, not in the traditional sense...
6454530
One good-looking stallion, an entire ship worth of mares who haven't had...er....shore leave in a while.
I wonder if the old superstition works in reverse for Equestria?
Putting a ' instead of a " disturbs me....
like many said go replace all your 's with "s for spoken words
He's going to work to earn ... what? I can't see anything that "that" stands in for that would make sense. Unless, perhaps, "that" means "the fact that I dragged you out of the sea", but it seems to me like that would be "pay back" or the like, not "earn".
For some reason, using ' instead of " for speech is killing me on the inside. Quotations are for...you know, quoting. Apostrophes are for possessives. Is this a cruel writing challenge of some sort, likely going along the lines of Goal: Slowly drive my audience insane from a simple error, whilst making the story so interesting that they won't just leave to avoid the torture.
I'm enjoying the story thus far, let's see if I'll still be sane by the time I'm caught up.
6967964 ' is actually a style of writing in. If you read a book like Lord of the Rings, you'll find that it's used throughout.
I can see that everyone is confused. The author uses single quotations instead of double quotations as opposed to the style of the story. It's very common amongst literature. Books like A Clockwork Orange, Lord of the Rings, and I believeThe Dark Tower uses this method. It's just something you need to get use to. You gotta give the author a hand for picking that up.
A ship full of mares, all of whom are no-doubt pent up from lack of stallion contact. Likely for weeks or months at a time. Let's face it: Shining Armor is screwed, in more ways than one.
7039542
I KNEW I had seen that before but I couldn't remember where.