All up in his head.
Waiting on The Captain seemed to take rather longer a span of time than it really should have. If there really was some sort of defined grieving process like pony pop psychology said there was (Flotsam could remember some little things like that, but not where he’d read it, or when, or who he’d been with or whom that ‘he’ had been), then Flotsam had the poor wherewithal to be taking that process backwards.
He’d been accepting at first. A Captain’s duties were important and could not be rushed for his sake, important to him as they were. In the start he was accepting, a brittle, stiff-upper-lip kind of accepting, and hoped that between the rest, the water, and the easy company of the more relaxed crewmares; if not actually overcome his throbbing, dizzy head then at least he could be distracted from it.
He had been accepting. Now he was falling backwards into less savoury frames of mind.
Flotsam forced himself to keep a hoof in the conversation and was learning from it something despite himself.
“Wot ye need to know is, the Mother bay a family business.” Scuttle pronounced it with such emphasis that the ‘si’ in business turned to ‘saw.’ Hard Tack was working the deck with easy sweeps of the mop. Scuttle intermittently hauled buckets up from the side. Flotsam didn’t offer to work and they didn’t ask.
“Aye. The Auld Captain, Mr. Merciful, calm bay his waters, he were something of a new breed in his day.” Day become die the way Scuttle spoke it and be, bay. “Ah, he was a good handsome stallion himself, proper twinkle in his eye sort.”
There was a moment of girlish fawning from the two elders. For many, many reasons Flotsam let them have it. “Ah sure, was always the gold tooth twinkled more for me!”
“And his big sword!” The elders tittered and played. “Ah, keen on treasure, was Mr. Merciful. Never could be ‘suaded to find some nameless, lifeless, soulless spit of nowhere to bury it all under, though. Neigh, not him.”
The mares sighed. “Was something of a character flaw, that, so’s you’d hear around. Never in the loud, mind.”
“What?” asked Flotsam, because, what?
Hard Tack bopped Flotsam with the mop handle. It hurt more than he’d allow the let on. A certain amount of physicality was part and parcel here, after all. If only his head would clear. The pain was a constant effort. “Shore, very traditional is that, amassing a great whopping pile of wealth what would make an honest filly unfurl the sails and hope to catch the wind, if you catch my drift.”
The elder rascals sandwiched the stallion.
“Push out for her maiden voyage, if you know what she’s saying.”
He wasn’t in the mood for it. Which meant really he wasn’t in the mood to be flustered, his head hurt so. Flotsam pushed them off; for their toughness they were surprisingly light. “So what happened to the treasure?”
There was a sore loser in Hard Tack’s tone. “Investment.”
Scuttle proved more philosophic on the matter. “See, the proper course of things bein', you'd amass that which we said, take 'er off to some far, forsook place and bury it right and proper. Your glistening, sea-sprayed treasure, mind. Not your glistening, sea-sprayed fawning fillies. So's Mr. Merciful, we was saying, you could say he buried his big one right here in good old, bad old Rivaplút. Shore, you might say here that many little thanks and more tin a few big ones are owed the outstretched hoof of Mercy.”
The city slumped against the shore of the sea, but hiked up its girth and made a determined effort to climb at least some of the ways up into the forested hillsides. The Mother was moored too far from the river’s mouth to see much of that, further out in the deeper waters of the bay as she was, but little boats were often darting in and out of view, often as not with ponies shouting at those on the shore and at one another.
“Big ideas he had, Very generous he was with his investments. Forgiving stallion too, was Mr. Merciful.”
Pausing in their work. Hard Tack plucked idly at splinters in the shaft. “Oh aye. Very forgiving.”
“Oh, aye.”
“Very fair, mind.”
“Oh, aye. Fair and more than fair, was our Mr. Merciful.”
“How many times could a pony slight him, and there hay’d bay, patient and understanding.”
“A good many times, me Scuttlebug. A good many times.”
“To a point.”
“To a point.”
“Aye. A good many times he’d take a slight. And despite all that yay’d never bay needing for forgiveness twice, shore as Siren’s salty teats. Very forgiving.”
Flotsam imagined the point. It was pointy. Flotsam imagined Siren’s salty teats. They were pointy. Probably.
“Now, ah’course, them debts be all paid. The interest done bein’ interesting, you might say.”
“Aye. Twas years ago. The name of Mercy is well built up on that.”
Flotsam connected the dots. To be fair, most of them had been done for him already. “He wasn’t just the Captain. He was The Captain’s father. Before Nauticaa” The nullifier had come from her father, she’d said. Where might a pony sail to find such a thing as sombre stone? It was a question with no answer in Flotsam.
“That much should bay apparent to you. You’s more jumbled up than stupid, after all. And ‘tis her sister, Oil Cloth, what stays in the mansion. Keeps a hoof in, as it were. One rules the land and one rules the sea, you might say. Not that either of them be all so much as Princesses or Queens, but power is power.”
"Money is money."
"And cute stallions rolling are cute stallions rolling."
Scuttle hooted. "Waves and wheels roll. If you're rolling stallions, my Tacky, you're using them wrong!"
Hard Tack slapped her rump. "Not the ways I does it!"
And they laughed.
Ponies under duress are known to sometimes scream into pillows. Flotsam had none to hoof, neither was he crazed enough just yet to try such with the business end of the ratty old mop, all his affections for it notwithstanding, but the sea was an increasingly tantalizing prospect.
He steered the conversation's wheel hard to, not port, nor starboard, but decency. “So it’s not just a business trip for The Captain,” mused Flotsam. “It’s a family reunion.” He tried to imagine Nauticaa as a Princess. He didn’t like it.
The laughter died surprsingly fast. Hard Tack spat, with volume and quantity. ”Better here than there, so I say. Tis not the family reunion that she deserves, is all I’ll say to that.” She started something in a mutter, but a warning swat from Scuttle put an end to it.
Scuttle moved out of sight and cold water sloshed up against the backs of Flotsam’s hooves. The old mare laughed and the air cleared. That seemed her intent. The bucket clattered against the hull of the ship has she hauled it up afresh. “Now move off, Floaty, or the next one’s going under yarr tail.” She grinned. ”Fair warnings, and onlys 'cause we like you.”
“Understood.” Flotsam was quick to move; he took her threat as valid and literal, playful or otherwise. Water splashed on the deck, the mop was worked and thankfully, neither activity was under his tail. He left the mares to their work.
He’d hoped the sunshine might make him feel better. Instead it left him rasping more and more at his tongue and lips in dry mouth, as if it were much hotter and drier than it really was. His eyes prickled at the edges. He avoided looking to the sky or the glints of the moving water. Flotsam itched and while he’d had the distraction of story time his headache had not seemed so bad, but with it over it resumed building itself steadily as a bad canker at the centre of his world.
“There must be something I can take for this,” Flotsam thought. It was a plan of action, but also a confession: fresh air, fresh water and a splash of stoicism was not enough to get over this.
Nothing was stolen from the galley because the galley had nothing worth stealing. That wasn’t to say oddments didn’t wander off, spoons and cups and the like to the far corners of the ship, but that this phenomenon was understood to happen as no particular ponies’ fault and included the eventual return of these things to their places, more or less, in fair condition. More or less.
So Flotsam didn’t head that way as he sought out medication of one form or another. Even stepping from sunlight to relative dark hurt his eyes and made him wobble. Not as much as the opposite had, but still worse than it should have done.
Flotsam traced his way along the walls trying to make up his mind. Was it possible for a pony to suffer reverse seasickness? He hadn’t even stepped off the sea yet! Would Nauticaa have something for this in that exquisite folding chest of drawers of hers? Most likely. But waiting for The Captain to resolve a headache that was at least in part because due to waiting for her to resolve other, figurative headaches seemed at best silly and at worst, just stupid.
With that in agitated mind, Flotsam sought out the next best pony and was grudingly happy to find her.
“Charming Booty?” Flotsam pushed at her door and knocked as it opened. A mismatched set of bejewled goblets were brushed aside with a metal-on-wood ringing while the door’s journey ended and jammed in a pile of socks. The socks, which in turn had had balanced atop them a pile of dirty dishes toppled and let them slip in a clatter down the slopes. A plate rested like a drunken friend against Flotsam’s hoof. “You have a hoarding problem.”
The Quartermaster’s personal effects were, which was to say, those adornments directly on her body at that moment, those few of the many in here, those few were immaculate. Less could be said of the newly disturbed dish-socks. Spinning her legs around from the bed Charming Booty waded the mess in practiced strides.
“I don’t have a hoarding problem,” she said. ”I have a hoard. Possessions are a mark of high standing.”
“You could stand high on this. You’d have to squish it more into a pile, though. “
She smiled, like a pleased tutor. “What is it you want? You’re only funny when you’re hurting. Such a tragedy. So, what problems do you feel like sharing?”
The mess Charming Booty’s ownership seemed to span further than the confines of her quarters. Some of the piles looked capable of making a grown stallion plunge, through the floor and into some figurative dimension of heaped stuff. The impression only added to the hurt. “My head’s pounding. Things move if I don’t focus on them. Anything in here I might take for that, what with being Quartermaster, and all?”
The mare flicked upon a flask. No sooner had she held it out then Flotsam, having tried and failed to levitate it over — it always failed now, the magic was gone — swiped it and swigged it.
Her grin turned to annoyed alarm. “Woah, hey! Not like that!” she said, and magic pulled it away again. The rush of alcohol made Flotsam feel sick, but he welcomed that nausea.
Nasuea was a relief because it was different.
Charming grumbled and tipped back a swill for herself, her eyes staying on Flotsam. “Don’t guzzle it. You’re not yourself when you drink.”
“I’m not myself when I’m sober. I’m not myself on general principles.”
His throat burned and his stomach turned, it was entirely unpleasant but it was a different unpleasantness than the fugue he already had, a change of scenery improved his mood some. “Anything proper?” he asked.
Charming Booty turned to go rooting. Her tail bobbed in a pleasing manner or would have, if Flotsam were in a frame of mind receptive to being pleased. He still watched, though. More for habit than anything. “Hit of this, you won’t feel trouble for a long time.”
She was referring to a cudgel now levelled with the side of Flotsam’s face. It was slim and clad with spurs at the thick end that dug into Flotsam’s skin. Charming Booty smiled. Then she booped him with it, but the heft and the spurs made it more of a bop anyway. “The Harpy doesn’t know I have it. She thinks she lost it when the griffons attacked.”
“An evil little weapon,” Flotsam mused.
“Whereas Harpoon is hugs and kisses?”
Flotsam gave an ambivalent snort to that. The weapon was shoved in a corner and a cloak thrown over it. Charming was testing his patience precisely because, Flotsam knew, precisely because she knew he currently had a patience to test. The inside of his head was ringing. “Do you have something for this or don’t you?”
Flotsam shot her a glare, or meant to. The shifting in his vision dizzied him; he tensed his muscles to stand firm.
“You really aren’t well, are you? There’s nothing I have like you’re looking for.” Her dissapointment seemed genuine, though it moved him little.
“Gripe Weed,” she said. “It’s a tea. Maybe it’ll clear on its own? It will blunt the edge, at least.”
Flotsam didn’t speak his mind. His mind was too much in upheaval to be spoken kindly just then. If anything, the severity had been creeping all the more upwards for him, not done.
“Thank you,” he muttered, finding manners somewhere. He looked at the mess and fought off vertigo. “Where is it?”
Charming Booty looked him in the eye. There was mischief there, but it was adrift on concern. She shook her head. “I don’t have it. It’s Sea Bed keeps some. She’s shared once or twice before.”
“The weird pony in the dark?” Flotsam asked.
“You’re one to talk.”
“You’re room is messy.”
“Your brain is messy.” Charming Booty leaned up and kissed his cheek.
Flotsam conceded the win. He touched the kiss and looked at his hoof. “I'm in the dark, aren’t I?”
“To say nothing of weirdness.” She smiled. “Go on, Sammy. Take care of yourself.”
The last time daylight had reached these depths of the ship, griffon cannonballs had smashed her from above. Flotsam had gained a little of a sailor’s sense and something in his hooves told him that he’d reached rock bottom... wood bottom.
It was dark. Flotsam focused on moving forwards. Until he didn’t.
“Sea Bed?”
“Yes, Flotsam?”
“Have I walked into your butt?”
“Yes, Flotsam.”
“I’ll just... take a step back.”
“You may.” Which was not precisely ‘yes’, but Flotsam wasn’t splitting hairs. Spitting hairs, though, that he was. Tail hairs. In his teeth.
“Sorry.”
She only made a sound.
It was slow and that made the going seem far. Rationally, Flotsam knew they’d only come a couple of pony-lengths. Rational Flotsam, though; he was a facet of the wider person much abashed and coping poorly alongside the likes of Overwhelmed Flotsam, Hurting Flotsam, Sexually Aggrevated Flotsam and, that one's awkward bosom buddy, Self Restraining Flotsam.
Not to mention Seeing Things Flotsam and Hearing Things Flotsam where, respectively, one was covering his eyes — and the other keeping his mouth shut.
For all the good it did. Strange fancies twisted themselves to formation in the dark.
They came upon a cubbyhole of sorts: table, tools and hammock lit by a beaker of luminescent fluid. The material’s glow was enough to keep the shadows entertained. Its light was a green pallour and entrapped bubbles promised a goopy, oozing nature.
Stooping to fit, Flotsam sat on the bed. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, that still being something of a redundancy. In short order and without fanfare, a mug of murky broth was pushed into his lap. It smelled like nothing he wanted to know. What surprised him more was that it was warm.
His surprise, unspoken, must have outed itself regardless. “Not all of us are gelded,” Sea Bed said. He hadn’t noticed the use of magic, than.
“This is temporary,” said Flotsam, rapping his stone-clad horn against the wood. His temple followed as a thud and his golden earring as a clink.
The drink was stodgy and uncomfortably hot, just shy of scalding. Even so, haste was better than taste — the first sip had a marshy kind of quality that Flotsam would later rather than sooner recapture by drinking from a well-churned puddle.
He remembered himself slowly. “Thank you. I should go.”
“You should stay.” Blue-black as she was, the only way to really see Sea Bed was by the sheen of her. And the eyes. They seemed black. Or maybe green.
They stared at one another. Flotsam surprised himself by how much he brought to the contest. Something was dredged up in him more and more lately. It reared its head at its own choosing.
Sea Bed blinked. Flotsam relaxed. “Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Gripe Weed can be potent.”
Flotsam wasn’t alarmed in so much as he was annoyed. Only slightly, though. Losing way was really only frightful if there was a way to lose at first. Flotsam eased himself lower onto the cot and let his eyes close. “Charming Booty didn’t make it sound so strong as that.”
“Charming Booty keeps her head above water.”
The words meant one thing, but the tone something else entirely. Flotsam opened an eye. Sea Bed’s horn glowed in tandem with the beaker; a pale green light. Trails of the same began. She was a unicorn and she was casting a spell.
The lucky bint. Try shoving sombre stone up in her business...
Flotsam was going to be annoyed and, yes, a little scared if his headache relief turned into a situation quite different. The direct approach, than. “Should I be worried right now?”
The lines of light were past her horn now, dropping slowly to the floor like a spider spinning silk. Past her chin. Her chest. Her knees. They probably weren't a hallucination. Probably.
Paranoia squeezed at Flotsam. His vertigo and pain were lessening, it was true. So was his sense of urgency, of presence. He watched himself as if from the outside of his own body, almost.
The magical line halted in a dancing green spark just shy of the ground. “There are things to fear.” Sea Bed sounded reluctant. “I don’t mean to be one of them. Not all things dangerous want to be.”
Flotsam managed a little chuckle. Despite himself he did feel a little better, if weird. And if this pony were doing some crazy, broken-headed dangerous feat of inexplicability, well, he’d had more than his fair few goes at that, surely? Let somepony else have a turn.
“You’ll do this to help me?” he asked.
The mare nodded, almost shyly. The green spark fizzed and bobbed at the end of the line.
Flotsam’s paranoia was there, but pushed to a time-out corner, where it sulked amidst the distractable and flighty sexual fantasies normally dwelling there.
He thought of the crew. Not in that way. A little in that way.
Flotsam smiled, to make the signal clear. He lay back to submit. “Alright than. Time to pay back some of this trust I’ve been shown.”
Flotsam closed his eyes, his quickened heartbeat betraying his demeanour.
The next bit was easy and painless as falling asleep.
It didn’t feel like dreaming. It certainly wasn’t wakefulness, though.
There was no sound and, in its place, a sense of pressure in the air... water? In the stuff. Flotsam flopped. The resistance made movement slow and he tumbled slowly over.
A leg and he parted ways. He waved it goodbye and watched it go in melancholy. It was his leg, and there it went. Floating away.
There was no sound, but the intention of sound. Hello? he asked in the not-sound.
I’m here. The words seemed a thought inside his own head, another part of the ever-lasting monologue that prattled to itself when the mouth wasn’t moving. The words were imagined but, and this was a lovely big bubble but, not his imagination.
His leg was on its own now, but they kept in touch. It waved encouragment as it spun in stately manner away into the not-quite-nothingness.
A creature that looked like a pony, or a pony that looked like a creature popped up in front of him from a spasm of green fire. He recognized it as Sea Bed, though he’d never seen the like of this, nor her like this, before.
Firstly her eyes weren’t pony, instead existing as a full spread of green. Her horn was a tatty looking thing, gnarled and whorled, and a pair of papery wings had appeared on her back.
Sea Bed scooted past and by gentle insistence, began shepherding Flotsam’s erstwhile leg back his way.
His back half got bored, perhaps from lack of attention. With a suction-cup pop! it turned tail and mosied away.
You look different, Flotsam not-said. Have we met somewhere?
This is- ...and Flotsam received an overarching impression of, not definitions, but rather vague understandings as if understanding was a thing that could be quarried up from below, hewn to order, packaged and imported.
Shared thoughts. Connection. Space between.
Mind meld, Flotsam deduced happily. He retched and coughed up a comic book, it and spittle hurrying off into the unkown, watching it until the fogginess of this place overtook it completely. Huh. You see that?
Sea Bed was only just stuffing Flotsam’s leg back on. It tickled; he wiggled, making her efforts all the more frustrated. She pushed it in and twisted it around to face the right way.
My butt’s over there, Flotsam said helpfully. He pointed and, in a uniquely literal way his reach exceeded his grasp. He caught it by the elbow. Got it.
Sea Bed’s anxiety was a palpable sensation. Don’t let it go.
Flotsam’s leg was in his mouth. Like a dog with a stick. A hinged stick. Curiosity got him: he shook his head. Oops.
Sea Bed was wrestling Flotsam’s butt into submission. It wasn’t going down easy, though.
It was being a stubborn ass. I said to hold it.
It came apart.
He’d only shaken his leg very gently. Flotsam was down to one leg. Thankfully, he didn’t need it for standing just now. Sea Bed gave the hind quarters a push so they were at least floating in Flotsam’s general direction before she drifted off after the pieces of leg.
In the end, Flotsam was resigned to a carry-bag, where it squished down surprsingly compact. His head was carried with that personal touch; his mane tied hastily off in one of the curious holes in Sea Bed’s body.
A vague optimism bouyed him through all this.
Flotsam thought maybe Sea Bed didn’t feel the same. Piecing Flotsam back together wasn’t hard, but it was hard enough and nothing would stick. This isn’t right.
I’m willing to try out life as a necklace.
There were other things appearing, too. Hello, Mop.
Evening, sir.
Sea Bed shoo’d the mop away, but addressed Flotsam. Don’t do that.
He’s a friend of mine.
No, it’s not.
You think he’s not my friend?
He’s...its not anybody’s friend. It’s an it. It’s not anything.
Flotsam craned to see, which was difficult to do in his current state of decapitation. My head still hurts.
I know. Don’t think about it. I’m still trying to fix it.
What’s over there? In lieu of appendages, Flotsam stuck out his tongue.
Dreams.
Flotsam nodded as if that answer meant anything to him. And over there?
Consciousness.
Sea Bed rummaged. The bag seemed to get bigger, the more things were taken out. A purple pony jumped out, startling them both. She had two books in the place of wings. She flapped her books, flew a widening gyre and disappeared. Flotsam watched her go.
She didn’t have a face. Sea Bed sounded unnerved, for the first time since... whatever this was.
Flotsam felt a prickle of agitation, also for the first time. She doesn’t have to have a face if she doesn’t want to. I’m a head and you’re a bug.
Everything should have a face.
Mop doesn't have a face.
Mop isn't a thing.
That's mop-
A torrent of sand spilled out over Sea Bed’s hooves. A black and holey hoof pulled Flotsam’s head free of the deluge. Thanks, he said. Rather than pouring flat, the sand showed some ambition and built itself up as if filling an invisible mould. Walls climbed up around them. Flotsam chuckled as the last few grains scurried into place. Here’s this castle again. We should explore it.
Sea Bed was trembling. I’m in over my head. You're head, she corrected.
Flotsam obliged. Bah-dum tssh.
What?
Never mind. Up or down?
This is your castle.
Up it is then, said Flotsam. Maybe Twily’s in.
What?
What?
You said something. Did you say a name?
No! No? Oh, it’s hurting now.
There was really no discerning the passage of time. Fortuitous or perceptive, Sea Bed didn’t speak until the flash of pain receeded. Flotsam gave it a moment more and risked opening his eyes. They were in a corridor of indeterminate length. The shapes of paintings lined the walls, but what their depictions were meant to be was impossible to tell.
They came to a junction.
Sea Bed’s voice was soft. Flotsam? Your pain... Does remembering hurt you?
“Yes.” Flotsam hadn’t really known the answer but he’d spoken without hesitation. Hold on... I spoke?
That shouldn’t... that’s not how... It makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t mean to do that...
There came a shifting in the sand. Sea Bed turned around sharpish, Flotsam’s face bounced off her side. He wanted to rub his nose after that. Shapes were boiling up from the sand they had just passed over. Ponies filled the passage choc-a-block.
Not ponies. Sea Beds. Featureless to the last, but recognizeably dimpled of body and whorled of horn like she.
Back up slowly, Flotsam suggested. His detached demeanour was fast becoming invested in the situation in the decidedly unhappy kind of way.
Sea Bed did not need telling twice. She took two trembling steps. The sandy mob matched them. Another was met by another.
Then havoc broke loose.
Specifically, it broke through the wall and plouged through the first rank of the creatures, striking with a headed spear that made Harpoon’s weapons look like toys.
The slasher glittered and the slashees were shorn. Of heads; of legs.
The many remaining spectres were undaunted, which was just as well because their attacker had brought excessive amounts of daunt and delivered it out with exterme generosity. Their foe was a glittering suit of steel, each piece floating where it ought to be regardless of vacancy.
A front half of one sand spectre slapped bodily... half-bodily against the wall before collapsing into so much harmless sand. A soaring, severed head splashed against Flotsam’s.
The shining armour stopped only an instant in its assault, turning on Sea Bed and Flotsam with spear levelled in an impossible yet unmistakable stay there or else expression before flipping its spear the other way and charging.
Sea Bed was charging also, albeit the opposite direction. Flotsam’s head was bounced about wildly, and he was still blinking and spitting sand.
They’re not me, they’re not me... Her thoughts were louder, anxious almost to the point of panic. And they were repetitive.
That way, urged Flotsam and Sea Bed swung the corner hard. He wanted to believe some knowledge of direction or destination was with him, but truth was he was a helpless head bumped along on the chest of a distressed mare and picking the turns gave him at least an iota of agency. Up the stairs.
Wait. Wait! It was hard to get a running mare to stop. I think we’re good.
They were in an open hollow with a pool of water. It wasn’t doing anything and that was a start. Part of the castle had collapsed as the water encroached under it, as sand and water were wont to interact, forming a sort of courtyard. It smelled of salt.
The effect on Sea Bed was immediate. She stepped into the water. It flowed in little swirls around, and through, her hooves. The ripples spread. Oh. Of course. Of course.
What’s of course?
“You won’t hear it if I say it. You have to hear it. Listen for the music.”
“There is no music!” The vehemency would have shocked Flotsam, if the flash of pain behind his eyes hadn’t gotten there first.
Sea Bed pulled the necklace that was Flotsam free. With quiet reverence, spoiled quite handily by his protests, she set Flotsam’s head to float on the water. Seawater.
“No!” he yelled, his disembodied head turning over and over in the water. “Not again! Please, no!”
He was spinning and spluttering. Choking. Not seawater. Tears.
Sea Bed stood back. “You guided me here. Don’t fight it.” She tipped the bag of his body parts into the water. They pulled together of their own volition like cereal in the bowl, but despite newfound wholeness Flotsam could still only struggle and thrash, barely keeping head above water.
The armour. The shining armour. It was on him. That’s what was pulling him down, down, how could a little pool be so vastly deep?!
A surge of strength lifted him up. The spear was in his hoof, and he recognized Sea Bed for what she was.
A changeling.
He ran her through. She looked more surprised than hurt before the water finally dragged him down to a depth beyond bearing.
“What did you do?!” a pony was shouting over and over.
Flotsam opened his eyes to the dark underbelly of the ship, and saw what he had done.
And what he'd done was, he'd pinned Sea Bed to the wall with a spear. She was upside down, her head nearly reaching to the floor. She wiggled in weak struggle and her guise as a pony was stripped, almost as it were pulled into the jagged edges of the stone leaving her a mostly similiar, somewhat different creature than the Sea Bed Flotsam had been familiar with.
Sea Bed's table had been blasted clear of her things, goopy, mucky tea was spattered all over the mare. The spear was clean through all four of her legs and stuck fast to the decking behind. The spear looked unmisteakably of sombre stone.
"Holey hooves," Sea Bed said in awe, and passed out.
So... Flotsam had seen what he'd done, and it only baffled him. His perceptions were cloudy with that still half-dreaming fatigue. Where visions sapped at his sight.
There was another scream from the doorway. It was shrill enough to be an attack in its own right, and Flotsam winced, his ears pressing flat. He was vaguely aware of a drawn sword, also. "What did you do?!"
"I can explain."
Flotsam caught up with his mouth's running improv. He sighed. "I can't explain. Would you believe me if I said she's fine? I think she's fine? Sea Bed. Sea Bed?"
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Ah, that just be what I needed on this broiling day! A fine chapter of a tale posted by another good author! Thank ye kindly!
Damn. Great way to come back to the story.
Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.
cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder508/500x/65516508/spongebob-time-cards-one-year-later.jpg
uhhhhm...
...ummm...She was like this when I got here?
And he never woke up again!
Cuz... she turned into a giant spider and ate him, I guess.
(And ending just in case the story doesn't finish within the next eon.)
*Alondro's busily sipping tea in his dressing room, relaxed and calmly browsing the latest "Mad Scientists Monthly" magazine... when there's an urgent knock on the door* Yeah?
*a flustered pony flails its hooves* YOU WERE DUE ON STAGE FIVE MINUTES AGO!!!
*Alondro yikes and leaps to his hooves, frantically clattering through doorways and bursting onto the stage where two ponies, one in a cheap-looking green and black cellophane costume and the other in shoddy aluminum foil-over-cardboard armor, glower at him for his tardiness. He takes a deep breath and whinnies at the top of his lungs* ERMAHGERD!!! CHERNGLERNGS!!!
Huh, so this is a memory of him in the Guard?
Oooh.
Shouldn't that be "your head" or is there something I've missed?
So does this imply that it was changelings that caused this memory blank, or were they simply another memory drifting back to haunt him?
Well, that explains how Flotsam was able to do the whole spear-thing while in the
VulcanChangeling mind meld.Prior experience in resisting changeling influence?
Also, hur hur, Flotsam finally impaled one of the mares with his mighty spear.
The Captain shall return soon
The story's still alive! Yes!
A year and a day, but it was worth it. Please tell me there are more chapters coming soon, this is one of my favorite stories!
Ahhhh! I've waited entirely too long for this. Thank you. Next please.
It's great to see this continuing! So I'm guessing that the nullifier wasn't quite up to handling a pony of Flotsom's abilities... lots of interesting imagery in the dream/Vision to unpack, but it seems like answers are coming soon... or at least, Flotsom better think of some fast.
Well, this has been on my 'read later' list forever, and I finally took the time to read through it. Part of why I hesitated was because it was so hard to know what you were getting yourself into by simply reading the description. An amnesiac Shining on a boat filled with pirate mares, tagged Teen-Adventure-Comedy. Sounds like a blast, but what will actually happen in it?
I think the problem here is the teen+adventure, which often just tells you that everything can happen in the story. Will the pirates be slitting throats and forcing people to walk the plank? Or will it be a more light-hearted action story? I had no idea until much, much later in the story (gryphon encounter), and I really prefer the later over the former.
I kept wondering about this as I read it. Where is the actual adventuring and comedy in this story? And I found out there were actually very little of either. The only silly and fun part I could recall was when Shining tried using a mop as a spear. Out of the 90k words, the majority was simply Armor's slice-of-life on a boat, with relationship and hints of drama that had a somber tone, and lastly spiced up with some mystery. Now, I actually prefer those stories, so I was pleasantly surprised by that fact, and I do believe every good adventure should have a fair amount of slice-of-life.
All in all, I enjoyed it, but would have prefered more information in the long description about what I was getting myself into.
I think that Shining Armor is going to need a lawyer with the last name Sawyer, cause this looks dangerously close to the cure being worse than the ailment.
Congrats on publishing another chapter. Stay inspired good author.