Washed Up

by ambion

In a Pickle

Flotsam had never been so happy to bathe in his life. Or maybe he had been, he wasn’t to know one way or another with his wonky memory and all. Regardless, the tangy seawater that he poured over himself was crisp and strong, the salt a welcome remedy to the stink of the bilges. He scrubbed at himself, hoping to scour the scent from his hide, or at least subdue it. The water was cold but the sun was hot on his back making his sunburns tingle, but not painfully so. The sensation was a welcome change from the clamoured closeness of below decks.

Surely the mares of the crew agreed, all of them finding reasons and time to loiter, half at work in the sunlight. Flotsam hesitated then dumped another bucket over his head, pawing furiously at his mane. Salty water poured over his eyes and as he shook his mane a catcall or two teased him, but from who or where he could not be certain.

He was surprisingly tired. Proud as he was of his tandem physical-magical work, he hadn’t halved his workload in the bilges, he’d doubled it. It was an interesting idea though, and one he felt could be tried as a new training regime on the guards once he...

Flotsam blinked, and the memory welling up in him popped like a soap bubble, sinking back down into him. Then it was gone, and Flotsam was...Flotsam.

Patches the ship’s filly stretched out her legs and back in the warmth. ‘I’m hungry. You hungry? Let’th get thomething to eat!’

She raced him to the galley, which was really the deft little thing maneuvering speedily through the belowdecks, with the stallion hastening just to keep up. The occasional mare poked their head from one doorway or another to look out at the passerby. Something in their eyes made him strangely self conscious, and he hastened to stay near the filly.

He was happy that the galley was empty. It was between meal times, and with the sun shining it drew the crew up to the surface like water from a well. For the moment at least, there was a chance to breathe easy, free of the feeling that he should bee looking over his shoulder every second step.

"I did all the wathing while you were down there!"

She dragged Flotsam’s head around into the tiny, cramped space of the kitchen, and saw it filled with an landscape of dishes. Precarious mountains of cast iron pots and pans towered over plains of plates and borders of bowls, all tinking and clinking with a placid geological gentleness as the ship rocked in the water.

Flotsam had to stop just to regard how much dish there was, and how little filly there’d been to actually do it. He was downright impressed. When he’d been a filly he’d...Flotsam backtracked in his somewhat vapid head. When he’d been a foal, he’d...the rest of the thought didn’t come. It just wasn’t willing to surface yet. But it didn’t matter, because Patches had made stacks of dishes taller than herself. That was quite the something and, with an unexpected tinge of feeling, somehow saddening. Between the dishes and the walls, there was only just barely enough room left over for a filly, and not even a lanky one at that.

"I know thomething thpecial! I’ll get it from my bunk. Wait here!” she commanded, an order Flotsam felt happy to oblige with.

Not five seconds in his lonesome, a silky voice draped itself over Flotsam’s shoulders. "Well, hello." It was a voice to put his hair on end, the way those sultry tones tapered off like tongues of candle-flame. "So you’re the new pony everyone’s talking about. Mmm."

She stood between him and the door, a high-tailed unicorn, one both slender and shapely. Her mane was rippling waves of scarlett cascading over her shoulders, her coat a dappled creamy white. She slid up next to him. "I’ve heard all sorts of things about you." She flicked her tail under his chin as she circled around him. "Charming Booty’s the name. Charmed, I’m sure." She laughed ironically at that; she probably said it to all the ponies she met.

The stallion scrutinized her every inch closely. There was a certain feline quality of predation about her that made him gulp involuntarily. "They’ve been calling me Flotsam."

She turned tail and cat-walked her way to the opposite wall. "Such an ill-fighting name for a fine figure such as yourself, don’t you think? Whatever was Nautica thinking?"

"The Captain?" he asked, feeling somewhere in the corner of his mind that Charming was leading a dance around him.

She smiled as she came back his way. "The one and only. What a shame that I wasn’t there, all the same." She leaned in close, raising her mouth to his ear. "To come up with something better, of course," she said, puckering her lips on the consonants.

Flotsam cleared his throat, or tried to, but somehow his voice had reverted to that of a cracked pitched teenager’s. "And what’s it you do?"

Her simper smoldered. "Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that. Quartermaster for this fine vessel, but isn’t that title just so serious? Mostly I appraise the loot." She eyed him up and down, smacking her lips with an audible pop. "And whatever else happens to drift our way." She turned away again, but stopped. "You know," she began with a simmering heat in her voice—

"I’m back, Flottham. Hi Booty! You want one of my thcrumpthiouth pickled eggth too? I made them mythelf!" In an browned jar something vile and green floated ominously.

Charming Booty hesitated, and both her voice and manner visibly came down a couple of gears. "Uh, no. No thank you, Patches. No thank you," she reiterated as half-fossilized eggs bumped menacingly against the stained glass. She shuffled away from the stallion, suddenly mindful of bright young eyes.

"Pleasure to meet you, miss," he said.

She flashed him a smirk. "The pleasure will be mine, I’m sure. Be seeing you." She tussled the filly’s mane as she eyed him, smiled, and left.

The noxious spheres looked utterly evil, but Flotsam was too distracted in thought to appreciate their quality or the filly’s chatter as she pried open the jar. There were strange tidings afoot he felt, stranger even than the frightful sloshing of the pickle juice.

Comments

[CoastalSarv]

Mmm, pickled eggs! Happy to see more.

[Brony Tom]

It's good to see things beginning to heat up for *ahem* Flotsam, both literally and figuratively.

Please, do go on.

[Nealend86]

And Cadence gets the urge to give a death glare pointed off towards the sea all of a sudden.

[AyanamiRei]

It's certainly interesting and nice to see a guy being sized up as a piece of meat for one! Most amusing and awesome indeed!

[JohnIsOffline]

6500710 hahahahahaha. It gonna be good buddy.

[SHMANDER]

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

[Marowak47]

6687467 someone's being an obnoxious jeeeeeerk~

[Muggonny]

6687467 It's a bit late telling you this, but that counts as spam.

[EverfreeSparkle]

6531163

It's certainly interesting and nice to see a guy being sized up as a piece of meat for one! Most amusing and awesome indeed!

You're hilarious! "For once." Ha! Oh man, my sides hurt!

[Lancerlot]

See, this is why the crew of a ship should be all the same gender. When there's a struggle between discipline and biology, discipline, and efficiency, suffers.

[Scornas]

Yoo pickled eggs sound delicious rn

[redandready45]

She stood between him and the door, a high-tailed unicorn, one both slender and shapely. Her mane was rippling waves of scarlett cascading over her shoulders, her coat a dappled creamy white. She slid up next to him. "I’ve heard all sorts of things about you." She flicked her tail under his chin as she circled around him. "Charming Booty’s the name. Charmed, I’m sure." She laughed ironically at that; she probably said it to all the ponies she met.

This certainly won't be a source of shipping-HAHAHAHA! Who am I kidding?!