Washed Up

by ambion

Rude Awakening

Flotsam was sore all over. His stomach being sore went without saying, and he could understand why his neck was too. But for his legs and eyes and head to jump on that bandwagon...or ship...that was just uncalled for.

Even so, he heaved himself up out of the cot, just as the pickled eggs had heaved themselves up out of him the evening prior. The tiny cabin offered no mirror for him to look into, which was probably for the best, because there were such things as sights for sore eyes, and there were such things as sights to cause them.

Flotsam definitely felt like the latter.

A grimey, nasty gunk had settled along his lips in the night and he wiped it away, trying not to think too much about it. Thinking about it at all was, of course, too much.

Somepony, well, somemare had seen fit to leave a half filled bucket of water for him. He filled his mouth and rinsed but, having not thought to consider any further than this, suddenly found himself looking back and forth for a sink, or anything into which he could expel the water. Cheeks bulging, eyes flicking about, a certain daunting truth became apparent.

With no nice way to rinse and spit, Flotsam was found himself with no option but to swallow, flecks of unmentionable things and all. Again, and with greater fervour, he tried not to think about.

Nausea roiled through him, a feeling he immediately stifled with deep breaths and drowned in deeper draughts of water. It was cold, more or less, and fresh, more or less. Probably less, but still.

Feeling just a little bit better he opened the door and stepped out, just to get himself out of his sour mood. It was early; the water was quiet and stars dimming in that twilight that isn’t quite yet dawn.

Bucket in tow he dragged his hooves to the rail of the ship. Only the murmurings of waves and wood spoke to him. He rinsed his mouth, spat a fine spray of water to the wide abyss below, then did it again.

Flotsam sighed. Each salty breath filled deeper into his lungs, and for all the feeling of cleansing and newness in them, there was a tightness that grew there, one that had nothing to do with breathing.

Dunking his head, face and all into the bucket he screamed, a long hearty exhalation of bubbles that tickled their way up along his jawline and under his ears. Spent, he slumped to the deck and sighed.

What was he doing here, who and what was he? Was the world spinning on just fine without him, whoever ‘him’ was? His stomach grumbled in firm manner, as if to say that it cared not in the slightest for his angst, but could be made more agreeable if he roused himself and filled it. With something actually edible this time, as well.

He turned away from the coming dawn, finding himself near face to face with the pegasus Harpoon. A tiny whinny of surprise escaped him, one that would not have happened had this been any other mare. In the quiet of this hour, it seemed awfully loud.

“You look rough,” she said with her usual stoic, neutral tone.

“I feel rough,” he answered back, his voice feeling steadier than his hooves. He made to press past her, but she shifted her weight side to side, her wings gyrating almost imperceptibly against her back, like caged things. The thick slabs of muscle that lined her legs and chest tensed and untensed, making her blue coat writhe like the ocean waves below. Her whole body was as a black cloud, crackling with barely restrained force.

Flotsam realized too late that he was staring, and when he met her eyes it was like they had already swallowed him whole, fixated and deadly still. One side of her lip was pulled back tightly into her teeth.

“I’m going in,” he said, reiterating his point with a stride forwards. Her body blocked most of the door, but not so much as to stop his passing, nor did she move to try. There was no choice but to press through her wing, still flexing restlessly, feathers and knobbly ridges of wingbone ran up and down his back and flank, over his cutie mark and tail.

Flotsam made sure not to hesitate, not to look back: his own feelings were turmoil. He felt sick, he felt elated. Tired, but also vivified. There was no mistaking her intent, and a sizeable —and rapidly growing—portion of his heart felt inclined to go for it. But more than that he felt challenged, and a tiny singing thing inside him said ‘wrong, wrong. This is wrong, go away from it. Don’t fall, don’t fail.’

So he left her there, unmoving yet so full of motion. He didn’t look back, but her hoary breathing filled his ears like tongues. Then there was a grunt, a blast of air that tussled his tail, and finally silence.

Or there would have been, but Flotsam’s own breath churned the cloistered air like something hot and heavy. His heady breathlessness followed him all down through the ship and into the mess, whereupon he finally battled it under some measure of control. He tried to sit and calm himself, but it was a long time coming; his own muscles clenched and unclenched before his very eyes. Coarse blue feathers and a thick, staunch coat would come to the forefront of his thoughts for him to banish them, only for them to come seeping back, oozing through the futile distractions he tried to make for himself.

It felt much hotter and much more confined down here than it had before.

He must have been stuck in his musings for half an hour or more when he was finally shaken from his lonesome. More dour than her usual self, Patches snuck into the kitchen and set herself the momentous task of clearing and cleaning the products of the night before. Perhaps she too had been lost in thoughts, for she did not notice Flotsam right away. She’d no reason to expect anypony at this hour, nor had he made any movement or sound to announce himself.

Remembering himself and his manners, except not literally of course, Flotsam greeted her with a smile and hello. He couldn’t have borne a grudge against the filly if he had wanted to, though how she survived, even thrived on her abominable pickled eggs would remain a mystery to him. It was probably better that way.

She looked remorseful, but she stood and held his gaze, her expression tempered by some defiance.

“I’m thorry about making you thick,” she said, but even in that endearing lisp there was still a kernel of hardness, a willingness to fight her half of an argument if she had to. Flotsam wondered just how old she was exactly, and just how much of that short time was spent here.

“I’m not mad,” he said, and meant it genuinely. His smile widened of its own accord, and she relaxed and smiled back. That made him feel better like no amount of rinse water could have done so. “Tired, maybe,” he confessed, “and sore, sure. But not mad.”

“You thure you’re not feeling feverith?” the filly inquired with a motherly seriousness, like she might yet swat the back of his head for this or that. Otherwise, she filled a thick, stained mug with water, dropped something small and fizzing into it, and pressed it to him firmly.

Something in the tone made him worry. “No. Why?” He took a deep draught of the stuff. It was some kind of tangy salt, just on his tongue he could feel it perking him up, chasing the dredges of sickness out of him. He swished it side to side between his cheeks.

The filly shrugged, and went back to her self-appointed task. “It’th juth that Harpoon helped me get you to your cabin latht night, but tchee made thure to touch you all over. Harpoon thaid you were hot.”

It was not to be known to either pony, but it was a great shame that the lighting was so poor down in the galley. The force of Flotsam’s spitty outburst combined with the last vestiges of unmentionable biology and esoteric medicinal salts, along with good old fashioned saliva would have, with good lighting, made for a most bedazzling array of colours, ones that would have reflected most splendidly in the stallion’s wide eyes.

Paying this no mind, Patches sauntered up and put the flat of her hoof to the unicorn’s forehead. “I don’t think Harpoon knowth how to take a temperature properly,” she announced matter-of-factly. “I don’t think you’re hot at all.” That said and done with, Patches prodded him into downing the rest of the restorative.

Flotsam did as he was told, stunned and confused and desperately hoping not to make an embarrassment of himself. He remembered how forcefully the pegasus had lifted off, presumeably to the crow’s nest. The high crow’s nest. The lonely, secluded crow’s nest. Where she was bound to be this very instant.

Somewhere outside, the sun cracked opened its eye, wondering if it was morning already. With arguably the best vantage point of all, Harpoon nonetheless missed its coming.

“Oh my,” Flotsam said to nopony in particular, sipping at the last of his tonic in tiny sups like a unicorn ten times his age. Humming something half-remembered pieces of something jaunty, the ship’s filly set about cleaning up the kitchen. She wasn’t fussed for time: there was a whole lot of day ahead of them yet.

Author's Note:

This story is the story I write a chapter for when I've been a dope and failed to keep a decent pace going on my more important stories. I apologize/celebrate any failures/successes that this methodology lends to Washed Up.

I hope I remembered to set it to teen rating...

Comments

[Brony Tom]

Bah, I enjoy the willy-nilly air of this story, it doesn't matter if it's just a side thing.

[AyanamiRei]

Oh Harpoon you naught mare you!!

[JohnIsOffline]

I knew something will happen... I like it.

[Snowkitsune]

Run Mares Run for you have awoken the great Love alicorn and have stolen her snuggletoy

[Journeyman]

Harpoon, you naughty girl. But stuck with all that estrogen on board a cramped ship? Eh, you do what you have to sometimes. I just wonder how hooves-on she got.