The Wellermare
Spitfire...
Spitfire...
"Spitfire, this is Soarin. Are you fucking awake?"
Spitfire's eyes spread wide, and she groaned, stirring and disturbing the water in small ripples around her as she lifted her hoof to her chin, resting it in the crook of her neck. She squinted in the light, the sun blazing above her onto her prone form floating in the water, wings spread out for flotation, mane and tail resting dampened on the surface of the water.
"What do you need, Soarin?" She muttered groggily into the waterproof radio strapped to her foreleg, trying to figure out how far stray riptides had carried her from shore in her nap.
"Celestia, there you are. What's the point of carrying that radio everywhere you go if you're never going to respond to it?" His voice was clear carried along the waves of magic to the speakers, manufactured by one of the best magitek development companies out there.
"You're right; I should have left the radio back home, maybe then people would stop calling me about work on my vacation time." She exposited into the gift she had received upon captain promotion.
"I feel like you put me in charge during your leave as a joke. I feel like there's no way you could have actually expected me to be able to cover all of these captainoral... captainal... captoral... captoral duties."
Spitfire sighed. "Soarin, you know I respect you greatly."
"But was it a joke?"
She smirked. "Yeah, it was a joke."
"I knew it. Try to get back fast, alright?"
"Was that all you called me for?" Spitfire sat up, hindlegs dipping under and wings remaining spread to keep her bobbing in the water.
"Sometimes I just want to hear your voice. Also, there may be a wing of the academy on fire, but I think you should wait until you come back to worry about that, it's fine. Uh, break, break, break!"
The channel clicked off before she could respond. Spitfire dipped a hoof under and splashed some water on her eyes to try and wake up, to her surprise actually finding herself able to forget her friend's last statement in lieu of figuring out where the hell she was. She had drifted off and drifted away not too far from the shore of the beach; now, there was absolutely no sign of land.
Which turned out to be rather thankful in the short run, because it meant nobody could hear her scream.
She quickly calmed down when she realized it was a fish colliding with her leg, and not an icy hand rising up from the depths to suffocate her and pull her down. Still, the sudden appearances of the fish below her, followed by another and then several more intrigued her, making her wish she had decided to bring a camera out to the ocean on the spur of the moment. They were several different shades of the same breed, all swimming up from the blackness before suddenly dispersing before breaking the surface, creating a colorful windmill beneath her, with her at the very apex. Grinning, she took a breath and folded her wings, letting herself sink like a pill into a glass of water.
She swam deeper into the center of the funnel, driving the divergence lower and lower as fish had to avoid her sooner and sooner. To be in the eye of the migration was an effect she doubted she would ever be able to recreate; fish numbering in the hundreds now, and it was only as she stared into the darkness, surrounding by a tunnel of rainbow scales holding her inside did she realize the likelihood that they weren't just swimming away from the darkness for fun.
Something was moving up, a great gargantuan darker-than-darkness shape pulling up, culling the fish as they tried to escape in her direction.
She never even had a chance to grasp its size or shape. All she saw was its maw. Short and stubby conical teeth lined the plush interior, carpeted with a tongue that lazily hung out, drifting ajar and tugging along strings of saliva through the thinner water like a happy puppy. You could easily fit a car inside it at its widest, and its widest was what was swimming toward her.
Spitfire let some air escape from her mouth in shock, quickly fighting to turn herself back around, but as any astrophysicist will tell you, turning around while moving through an expanse with minimum friction requires equal force in the opposite direction and a turn at exactly the halfway point, or the momentum will overshoot and continue to carry you forward while cackling gleefully to itself like the cartoon supervillain friction is.
All in all, Spitfire was not having a good day.
Tidal Reef was having an excellent day!
The creature was a rarity; A cross between orcas and ponies whose origins should best be left to the imagination. Their quadrupedal shape and completely unsmooth body type had baffled biologists for years, completely going against all laws of evolution that should have prioritized speed and maneuverability underwater, seeming to be driven instead by what looked cutest, and that was without even mentioning their often brightly colored hair and even rare stripes, the bringing up of which at scientific panels is often enough to incite physical violence from attendees.
Tidal didn't understand any of that! She had far more important things in her life to worry about. She enjoyed the simple things like swimming, swimming but slightly faster, not swimming, having sick pink hair, and absolutely gorging herself on anything she could fit down her gullet. As long as it didn't start talking, anything was game- fish, seaweed, coral, shiny rocks, license plates, sunken ship parts, you name it and she had likely fit her mouth around it. It was how she explored the world- she couldn't be faulted for that. She even gnawed on her friend on occasion, a fact of life they had begrudgingly come to accept.
Well, there was one thing she would never put close to her tongue.
She hated boats.
Fucking boats.
But everything else was game!
Food was a gift granted by the very earth itself, and she was nothing if not respectful. Despite the sheer volume she devoured a day, she always ensured she never grew wasteful or careless- her philosophy was that anything that felt as great as a good meal was something not to be taken for granted, and it was an important philosophy because she almost never trifled with silly stuff like philosophy. She loved every meal, and thanked them for existing every time she came across one, and in return, they paid her, sometimes in more ways than just nutrition.
(Counterproductively, this was where the friend-gnawing came from. Friends are good. Food is good. Ergo, food is a friend, and vice versa. This made enough sense to her, and was the reason the first thing she did when she came across food that talked was ask if it was absolutely positive it didn't want to be eaten, and the second thing was try to befriend it at any cost.)
Tidal cherished the feeling of fish sliding down her wide jaws, coming to a stop in the water and briefly forgetting her hunt at the feeling of a large, winged, and furry fish. Hey, she knew this type! It always seemed to be finding its way into large swarms. This deserved more than just a swallow; it deserved a taste test.
Spitfire hit something fleshy, hard, and the world began to revolve rapidly. She lifted her head in time to see the trapdoor of teeth snap shut in front of her, and the carpet sized tongue suddenly caught her in the barrel, whipping her around and around like a gravitron. Her hair was slicked into her face, her limbs were falling over themselves as she struggled to right up from down, and all she could feel was humidity and slime all around her. In a moment, she wished she still could feel the slime as she was shoved between a hard place and a hard place, both surfaces experimentally squeezing her between them, seemingly trying to identify her. All light was drowned out, but she could tell the exit was just in front of her if she was being held between teeth. Her foreleg came forward weakly, and she immediately felt the tongue whip into her side, wiping her across the entire row of teeth before pulling her back. Then, something tightened around her, and it felt like tiny hands were all over her, gently shoving her down.
Yummy. Tidal licked her lips, thanking the meal for existing by running a hoof down her throat to follow its progress.
Spitfire grimaced all the way down, battered and suffering one of the most painful headaches she had experienced in at least a week. Peristalsis and a pressure from outside was still nudging her along the tight but softly padded tunnel, ribbed flesh running along her damp fur. At some point in the process, she had breached water, but it was hard to tell when- she had been a bit distracted by other things, and the air was still just as scarce and clammy as it had been when it literally did not exist. The smell was worsening as she was pushed and prodded towards the gut, a rotting fish stench that seemed to peel away her skin and nestle itself on her very bones. Her nose was crawling, and as tight and compact as the throat was, she couldn't even lift a hoof to hold it.
Spitfire was pressed against a fleshy starfish-shaped roadblock, cheek squishing as it continued to work her into it. She winced and groaned at the slimy surface depressing underneath her, until it finally gave away. She fell a heart stopping inch, caught her leg in the hole, and then fell a heart stopping three feet.
And here she first saw the dungeon she would become very familiar with in the coming days.
Discomfort crawled in her fur. Spitfire thrashed in the acidic pool, suddenly finding a renewed vigour that she thought had died in exhaustion. Using the fact that she had fallen in headfirst, she correctly assumed where the pool would end and swam up for it. Her head broke out gasping, shedding several hairs behind her torn out by the aggressive pH. Her flailing hooves collided with something solid and hard, and she grasped onto it, pulling it towards her. Her eyes stung, and it took a moment before she could trust them enough to open them, but doing so finally told her her saving grace- A shattered piece of driftwood rising and falling to the sloshing fluids below her. She took a raspy breath, scrunching her eyes shut, and sunk back into the thick, before bursting up and using the force to lift her chest onto the wood. Kick a leg over, and she finally had a place to rest and take in everything that had happened to her.
Everything hurt. Spitfire was once again prone and woozy in the middle of a body of water, but she was now inside it. The stomach was shifting and rocking, emitting gurgling and thumping noises from every which way around her. Taking into account how she floated in the center of it, it was approximately the size of her office back in the Wonderbolts barracks, allowing her to sit up and even stand on the wood, weight given, but would bump her head if she tried to jump. The chamber converged upward into the entrance to the tube she had slid in from, sealed shut with the thick flaps of flesh settled back into place. All sorts of liquids and acids were crawling out from the folds and pores in the walls, dripping down to the pool below. Rolling over, she analysed the pool again- she could stand on the bottom (hypothetically) and be about an inch from the surface. It resembled water closely enough, but she already knew not to treat it as such. She experimentally dipped a hoof in, and found that despite the discomfort, she could hold it in for a surprisingly long amount of time before retracting. A second test revealed the time to be approximately ~90 seconds before the hairs dropping out showed the faint pink of skin, which she filed away for later- all could be important.
As this realization unconsciously entered her mind, she realized the inevitability she was preparing for- inescapability. Things didn't normally go into stomachs and leave. Her mind overrationalized the idea to death, insisting it was untrue.
Rather irrationally, she called out. "HEY! I'M IN HERE! SOMEBODY OUT THERE! HELP ME!"
Her calls went unheeded by anything but the subtle shrink and grow of the chamber she was locked in. Spitfire wiped sweat off her brow, peering over her shoulder and internally muttering half hearted reassurances.
All she needed to do was breach the throat, she insisted.
She could make it out, she insisted.
But she was already spent. The nap had made her more tired somehow, and combined with the sudden swim and being rocked around and shot through multiple meaty compartments in a matter of minutes, she found her reassurances washing away feebly.
She sighed, head hitting the driftwood as she drifted off again.
Unfortunately, it was the first day of her vacation.
DAY 1
...The first shipments of the Kail Box Wave, the newest handheld portable by Equestrian Technologies and Kali’s joint collaboration has begun, with thousands of copies being shipped out to pre-orderers all across the country. ET, which has recently partnered with New Moon Cruises for... some reason, have been using their newly acquired naval fleet to...
Spitfire's eyes shot open, and she choked on the air in the brief amnesia of what had happened to her. When it finally came back to her, she groaned, unconsciously flipping off her radio.
It took her a few seconds to absorb the implications of that.
She bolted upright, nearly falling off her driftwood, and began fiddling with her radio, switching it from AM/FM to direct transmission. It was funny the morning news had mentioned Equestrian Technologies; her radio was also manufactured by them. One of their first patents that skyrocketed them as a company was the ability to transmit signals along magical waves, instead of radio waves. Since magical fields were more common then dirt on Equestria (hell, with a fancy clothes hanger she could probably work the radio off her own inherent pegasus magic field), it meant it worked damn near everywhere but the vacuum of space.
"Soarin. Soarin. Soarin, this is Spitfire. Are you fucking awake? Radio check, Soarin!" She yelled into the speaker, banging it angrily. While her steadfast yowls wouldn't have given it away to anyone watching, her logic-tuned brain was beginning to reason the hopelessness of it. She knew where she had fallen asleep- an Archipelago miles from the mainland, set into the Luna Ocean. She didn't know where she had ended up after her nap, or which direction her devourer had moved after snatching her up. 'The ocean' was hardly a starting point for a search party; And what did she expect them to do? Track down every aquatic creature big enough to eat a pony and cut them open?
The radio continued to transmit morning news, completely oblivious to her even as she repeatedly jabbed the PTT button. Spitfire growled in frustration, sliding the radio off her limb and preparing to throw it away, before she realized what a bad idea that was. Instead, she took a breath and surveyed her current situation.
Spitfire, captain of the Wonderbolts, while on a week long vacation away from her duties to the archipelago off the southern coast of Equestria in the South Luna Ocean, had fallen asleep while resting in the water, and had now found herself swallowed, whole and alive, in the wretched smelling and claustrophobic stomach of a massive creature, kept alive by a stray wooden board lodged down here that seemed far sturdier than what the acids could do to it, warped and burnt as it was.
This was not the most survivable of situations.
She was alone, surrounded by acids that saw no hurry in killing her. She had a platform, but for how long? Soarin and everyone else had no idea where she was. She had no idea how long she'd be in here, and what circumstances would eventually end that.
She spent a few more minutes fruitlessly screaming, begging someone from the outside to help her. Even her consumer made no reaction, negative or positive, and she once again wondered what it could possibly be that was big enough to swallow her. Finally, she calmed herself down.
"I see we have some new faces joining us." She blithely bit, looking around at the heaps of seaweed floating in the warm pool around her. The sight made her stomach growl, and she wondered just how long it had been since her lunch the previous day. Her hooves gingerly dipped into the acids, and she quickly fished out a clump of the slimy plant, wrinkling her nose as it slid around in her grasp like a slug.
Seaweed was no new meal to her. Seaweed this fresh(?) was, but she tended to take some medicinally every so often for her skin. Still, the dangers of seaweed were well known to Equestrians; they contained high amounts of iodine, which could be toxic in large doses to her species. So, essentially, she was considering living off poison.
Absolutely none of these thoughts occurred to her until she was done shoveling the clump down her throat ravenously like a poor Victorian chimney-sweep being given a taste of sour candy by a sympathetic time traveler and dying instantly of the overload of foreign flavor.
Spitfire forced herself to calm down, swallowing down the substance and calming down again. There would be more food; she had to severely monitor her seaweed consumption. It wasn't like the food levels would plummet; the amount filling the stomach betrayed how much of a glutton her consumer was, but given the fact that she had eaten an entire pony, she supposed it shouldn't surprise her much.
Which reminded her; should worst come to worst, there was another form of sustenance she could rely on. She glanced over the driftwood, peering down at the heaps upon heaps of fish bones pooled below her. Near the top, some were still covered in flesh from her most recent meals.
Might as well figure it out now. Spitfire dived under, scooping up the closest fish she could and returning to the driftwood, now comfortable enough to leave her hindlegs dangling in the water and use the wood as her table, dropping the fish on it with a splat and a faint sizzle.
Her first taste impression? Bleh. Note to self; fish is last resort.
It was amazing what a nap could do to your sense of hopelessness. For the third time in however long, tactical plans were kicking in without her needing to ask. This tacticality had measured out her seaweed to keep her from getting diarrhea, it had judged the possibility of eating fish, it had worked her radio (unsuccessfully, for reasons she had yet to gauge), and it was planning days in advance for her survival. The truth was, as much as it hurt, she had to confront the possibility of being stuck in here for who knows how long. Her job was all the rest; confront problems as they came to her, stay sane and optimistic, and don't die.
So, what was her current problem?
Getting out seemed like a good one.
Spitfire quickly settled her stray ideas into a neat line- Get the hole above her open, get the hole below her open, or disturb the chamber enough that it would reject her. She briefly entertained the idea of her captor being intelligent, but dismissed it rather quickly. There was no way an intelligent creature could accidentally eat an entire damn pony and not think twice about it.
Outside, Tidal was completely motionless. She had seen a cool coral reef, and would proceed to stare at it for the next two hours until she got hungry and left.
Inside, Spitfire tried every variation of her theories she could. Her feathers were slick, stuck together, and stuffed to bursting with cramps, but she hovered below the sphincter for as long as possible, trying every which way to open it. She beat at the walls with everything she had, even trying to stab them with bones dredged up from the pile below her to no avail.
When she had finally exhausted those options, she took a deep breath and dived as deep under as she could, and this was the attempt that really shook her up and swore her off trying for a while- Because after tossing aside fish for what seemed like hours, and finally getting to the bottom, she actually did find the sphincter down lower to be much weaker, and easily fit her forehooves inside.
She thought the acids in the stomach were pretty bad, but as she came to realize here, they were rather diluted by the water, raising the pH level significantly. The real acids were in the chyme of the intestine below. Immediately, her hairs began falling off far faster, forcing her to pull back. The last thing she felt was something hard crumble to dust as her hooves brushed past it in her escape. She didn’t want to guess what it was.
She was forced to rise up and rest herself completely on the wood to give her body a break. She couldn't imagine skin grafts were easy to come by down here, after all.
She would have to file that problem away for when she had regained her strength. She moved onto her next problem; timekeeping.
Next I'll start work on crop rotations, Spitfire blithely thought to nobody in particular.
DAY 2
Waking up on the second day in the center of the sloshing pool was the first time it began to truly sink in for Spitfire that she had no idea how long she'd be trapped inside the foul smelling, humid, near poisonous gut.
She finally gave in, allowing herself an hour to cry before she began working on scheduling her radio shows as rudimentary timekeeping.
DAY 7
In other news, shipments of Kail Box Waves are suffering difficulties, as more and more turbulent...
Spitfire groggily awoke, feeling the now familiar bobbing and swaying of the driftwood beneath her. By now, she had a schedule: morning news kicked in at 6 AM, waking her up the same as it had on the surface. She would fish around for breakfast, give herself some time to prep for the pain and stinging that was to follow, and then continue trying to brute force her way out. She spent hours thinking up new combinations, and trying them. As time went on, her solutions got more ridiculous. Tickling the inside with a feather (only resulted in several lost feathers), trying to work only the antenna of the radio into the sphincter (quickly aborted each time before much work could be put into it, for fear of breaking it), using the driftwood to clear away fish at the bottom (nearly disastrous when she tried to rise and found nothing to steady herself on). Each time only brought more desperation, and by day seven she was beginning to accept the inevitable; she couldn't make it out on her own. Her only saving grace was the radio. Four more shorter radio news programs would play throughout the day until, at 9 PM, an episode of Chickenman would play, marking the end of the day outside, where time still mattered Then when it ended she would climb up onto the board and try to get some sleep in the hopes of keeping a tie to the outside world and its laws.
She had been waiting for this day. Day 7; her vacation was supposed to end today. Before too long, Soarin would notice her absence and radio her in, and then she could call for some sort of backup. Soarin was slow at times, but nowhere near dumb; together, they could get her out. She just needed patience. He would radio her in any day now.
DAY 8
Any day now.
DAY 9
Any day now.
DAY 10
Spitfire bolted up at the familiar, near holy by this point voice. "Spitfire? Spitfire? Spitfire, this is Soarin. Are you there?"
She scrambled for the radio, nearly knocking it off the driftwood. Holding the PTT button down, she practically screamed into the radio. "Soarin, this is Spitfire, do you copy?"
"Spitfire?"
"Yes! Oh, Celestia, it's me!"
"Spitfire?"
"Yes Soarin, it's me, now listen closely, I need your help. I'm-"
"Spitfire?"
Spitfire fell silent as the realization dawned on her. She had worn the radio the entire trip down. Maybe it had gotten bashed too hard, or short circuited in acid, or just decided to stop working. Did it matter? It wasn't a bug or a one off fluke. The transmit button was broken. Nobody was coming. She couldn't break out, and nobody was coming.
"Spitfire?" Soarin's melancholic words echoed in the rocking stomach.
"Spitfire, I don't know if you're listening, but I need you. You've been gone a long time. This isn't like you. I trust you have a good reason for this, but... I wish you'd tell me.
"Please try to get back to me as soon as possible.
"I miss you, Spitfire."
DAY 14
Tidal Reef was a simple pony.
Being an Orca Pony, she spent the majority of her time doing fun activities that could largely be grouped under the umbrella term of "Orca Pony stuff". This included racing her friend, making bracelets from scavenged naval ropes that she laced starfish and shells into, and eating (we've been over this).
The Orca swam headfirst into a school of round blue fish at speeds that likely violated most school zone limits, opening her mouth wide and catching over thirty in a single gulp. She grinned cutely at nobody in particular, tails helplessly flopping out from her mouth in vain attempts to escape.
Ooh, could she swallow all of them down in a single gulp? Hell yeah she could, she was Tidal Reef, and she was the coolest orca this side of the Luna Ocean. She was going to swallow them all down, and nobody could stop her.
Deep inside her dark maw, where the growling of her rolling stomach grew to a white noise, Spitfire loudly talked to herself, using her driftwood as a dinner plate covered in seaweed that had been haphazardly stacked in a semi-polite pile.
"What's the worst part of this gonna be... after I get out? Maybe the long term health detriments of living for who knows how long on Seaweed and the ocassional fish? How pruny my legs are going to be after spending so much of so many days treading water?"
She lifted one of the fragile spines of a fish she had found at the bottom, using it to spear a piece of seaweed and bring it to her mouth. Chewing out the cud and stinging acid in it, spitting it in a glob back into the pool around her, and swallowing down the rest with difficulty, she continued.
"Maybe it's never being able to enjoy a vore story online again. It was never really my kink, but late at night when I needed something it would do in a pinch. Now though, this is about the least turned on I've ever been. That's a fraction of internet porn I'll never be able to even glance at again without remembering this stupid place."
She speared another reed... and heard a familiar gurgling. Slowly looking up, her face and ears fell as the sphincter high above winked down at her coyly.
"Oh no."
Pounds and pounds of water and flopping fish rained down upon her. She dived for cover, lifting the board above her, but the water simply poured through the holes and cracks, and eventually shoved it out of her grasp. Slimy tails slapped against her face, and water filled her nose. When it finally ended, she spat and snorted, somehow coughing out an entire fish into the acids below her.
"Or maybe it's the fact that I'll NEVER BE ABLE TO WASH THIS SMELL OUT!" She screamed out, climbing back aboard the driftwood. "STOP GORGING YOURSELF, GIRL!"
DAY 22
...And yet the search for her still remains undeterred. No new leads have been found in her case, making her just one more number in the increasing statistics of disappearances in the South Luna Ocean. We thank you all for listening. Goodnight.
Now, another exciting episode in the life of the greatest crime fighter the world has ever known...
"Gurgle gurgle. Tha thump. Tha thump."
Spitfire boredly echoed the familiar noises as her 9 PM show started. Still, she didn't feel like sleeping- even her carrier was snoozing outside, loud snores carrying inside her belly, nyxing Spitfire of any excusable reason to stay awake herself. Still, she continued to play one player chess on the warped lines the driftwood made.
She had long stopped wearing her radio; given how often the stomach turned over, it was far too easy to lose it. Instead, she had strapped it down with the seaweed that was always in abundance to one end of her trusty wood, where it always played morning to night.
As her hopes of escape had died, she had turned instead to just finding ways to pass the time. Chess was a new one- various fish parts were used as pieces, and she moved them across the uneven squares she had to squint to convince herself were there in the wood, simply chucking them aside when she knocked them out. Most of the time, with how fast her carrier was, it was near impossible to finish a game, but night turned out to be the perfect time- the predator was completely still, only the sloshing of her working acids threatening to topple the pieces.
Spitfire perked an ear, listening to the snores of her predator. At least she always seemed to be happy. Zipping around, stuffing her face, happily getting Zs. Despite everything, she couldn't bring herself to be mad at the creature. Call it Stockholm, but she was still convinced it was innocent, that it would be mortified if it knew she was inside.
Ah, what did it matter. The truth was, at this point Spitfire had resigned herself to living inside here. Memories of her Wonderbolt days were looked back on as fond good old days, days she had simply moved past, as if by choice. She couldn't do anything now, so why mope about it? Problems down here, as plentiful as they were, were taken as they came and digested (heh) just as quickly. Life wasn't perfect in the belly of the gentle giant, but it was what she had.
But there was a nagging problem she still had, that still brought guilt to her every few nights when she was reminded of it.
Chickenman was cut off by a sudden transmission.
"Hey Spitfire. I mean, uh, Spitfire Spitfire Spitfire. You know who it is. I guess it's time to admit you probably don't hear these anymore, but I'd like to believe you do."
Outside, Tidal floated on the surface of the water on her stomach, legs softly kicking below her in her sleep.
"Not because you're dead- I know you're better than to die on me- but because you probably lost it somewhere. I don't blame you. It was a pretty cool gift, though, right?"
A massive, disgusting snot bubble big enough to fit an entire pony inside expanded and contracted with her breaths. Tidal smiled in her sleep. Today had been a great day. Swimming around, exploring, eating like there was no tomorrow- what could best it?
"They're still looking for you on those islands. I reckon you probably made it to the mainland. C'mon, you're a pegasus. Still, it'll probably be a while before they expand their search. In the meantime, some newspapers are already holding memorials for you. Check this out; 'A performer, an activist, and a loving friend to many, Spitfire's death left a hole in our hearts nothing could ever replace'. How cheesy can you get?"
Who cared that Tidal's days were all the same? They were all good, weren't they? That was what she focused on. The little things in life were all she had. Of course she focused on them.
"Anyway, I know you didn't die. Don't worry; I can wait for you. Take all the time you need.
"For tonight though, I gotta go. Barracks are on fire again, but it's Friendship Fire, which is better? I think? It's gotta be better than the Lust Fire that took it last week.
"I consider this your extended vacation. You owe me when this is over. See ya."
Spitfire smiled, finally beginning to drift off to sleep. Friendship Fire was far, far more volatile than normal fire.
DAY 42
It was finally time. Days of planning and collecting the materials she needed, and it was finally time for her greatest project yet.
Her very own radio show.
"And now, an exciting entry in the life of the greatest flier in Equestria, Spitfire!"
Spitfire mimicked an audience cheer behind a hoof as she lifted the great corpse she had worked hard to preserve- that of the biggest fish her captor had swallowed, the Great Barracuda.
"That's right, rookies, and I'm going to whip you all into shape, or my name isn't Pussy!"
She lifted another fish, a teeny Ballyhoo. "But Spitfire ma'am, your name isn't Pussy!"
"And neither is yours, so get your rear into gear!" She enthusiastically played out the Barracuda swallowing the Ballyhoo whole, forcing the tiny fish down the jaws of the larger one and accidentally cutting herself in the process.
"Oh no, I'm being dominated by this powerful and sexy mare, oh me oh my!" She acted out in a high falsetto voice.
As soon as she got bored with the act, she moved on, lifting her next player, the Bluefish whose shimmering scales reminded her greatly of Soarin.
"Spitfire, ma- No, no, Spitfire, your majesty, fuck yeah, that one's better. Spitfire, your majesty, you must come at once!"
The barracuda sighed. "Soarin, we don't have the runtime to accommodate your awkward skirting around of your painfully obvious crush on me, each episode is only three minutes long!"
"No no, your majesty, it's something different for once! A great and horrible dragon has been sighted, and only YOU are hot and cool enough to beat her up! Wait, that's pretty offensive to dragons actually, uh... Hydra! Are Hydra sapient? Nah, it's good."
Outside, Tidal swam with only a hint of strength against the flowing stream pushing towards her to remain still, lifting her head halfway above the water and taking a steady sip, then staying put after she was done to blow some bubbles playfully in the water. She was still a sucker for basin water, although ever since being spotted drinking her first time, the rural town nearby had definitely seemed to keep a closer eye on the things they threw into the water, which was a disappointment. She liked the taste of metal cans and plastic baggies.
"No, your amazing flying skills are too much for me, Spitfire! I give! Please, take me and- Oh, Celestia."
Spitfire grimaced as the deluge of water poured onto her, licking up what she could as it ran down her nose. When it finished, she shrugged. It could've been worse.
At that moment, it got worse.
The stomach contracted massively, and for the first time in weeks she began to once again notice the horrid smell permeating the Creature's inner plumbing as it grew tenfold, forcing her to hold her nose and gasp. The stomach shook, and Spitfire quickly hugged her toys between her and the board, preparing for the armageddon that was to come-
Tidal belched loudly, for a solid seven seconds, excusing herself to nobody with a polite giggle.
Inside was chaos. Spitfire went flying, the water below her rising in a great wave that yeeted her against the ceiling and brought her crashing down again. The horrid smell of gas began to fade, and she finally panted and choked out a "Celestia, girl, excuse you". Her hoof came down to grab the barracuda, and instead found nothing.
She slowly looked down at the massive pile of fish below her, still settling down after being turned over entirely, and screamed, unheard.
DAY 50
Spitfire wondered how her local hoofball team was doing.
DAY 51
Tidal carried her passenger unknowingly over a large rock formation, pursued by a good friend of hers- Wave, a smaller, slimmer shark pony with wavy blue hair that trailed in the water behind her. On one of her dorsals, a shell and starfish bracelet identical to Tidal's was tied around itself, a sign of how long they had been friends. Both tore through a school of fish, Wave watching with exasperation as her friend showed off how she had maintained her habit of swallowing food whole, a trait she had held onto since they were calf and pup even as her friend ditched it in favor of chewing and shredding. Swallowing whole was for Tiger Sharks, and half the time the fools had to cough up their stomachs inside out because of how horrible they were at gauging what was food and what was not. But nevertheless, Tidal had always gulped hers down happy as a clam (a hyperbolic simile, as clams are constantly grasped with existential dread), and never seemed to suffer as a result of it.
Shaking her head, Wave perked up in response to Tidal suddenly clicking at her through a maw full of fish. It took a minute for Wave to register the noise, a bit put off by the impolite display, but as soon as she realized it was an invitation to a race, Tidal was already a league in the other direction. Wave shook her head silently, before giving pursuit.
"Hmm? What's happening?" Spitfire's driftwood suddenly drifted hard to the side, wrenching out of her grasp and taking the radio with it. As she began to swim towards it, it suddenly shot back towards her as the entire stomach lurched to one side, clocking her in the side of the head. Spitfire went down, fading out woozily and sinking into the sharp pile of fish bones and guts below her. When she came to, her eyes were already beginning to burn, and she quickly pushed up for air as her mind swam.
Tidal dove low through a forest of kelp and suddenly shot upwards, ricocheting towards the surface.
The entire pool sank, bringing Spitfire with it and leaving the wood hanging in the air for a split second before it came crashing into her, smashing splinters into her head.
Up, up, further and further, before breaking surface tension and flying into the air, almost seeming to fly for a moment that felt weightless to Tidal.
Spitfire hovered in the air, the entire body of water becoming formless before suddenly becoming the ceiling, and then the floor very rapidly. Fish were raining down on her. That was nothing new. What was new was that she knew the driftwood was hidden somewhere above her, and seemed to like to make its presence known by absolutely obliterating her.
Tidal hit the ocean with a resounding splash.
Spitfire was buried, and quickly began shoveling her way out to little avail- every time she shoved fish out of the vague direction that could be described as 'up', more just tumbled in. Acids were washing through the cracks, and it was getting hard to breathe. Finally, as she began to see spots again, she folded her wings over her belly, pushing out with all her strength. The fish cleared away in a sizable hole above her, like she was being dug out of a grave, and she writhed out, reaching up and praying her hoof would hit wood.
Coughing, wheezing, and covered in a thin layer of hair, Spitfire pulled herself onto her trusty driftwood, chest moving a mile a minute. She stared up at the familiar slick and dripping ceiling, calming at the sight of it.
Tidal clicked at Wave teasingly, nibbling at the shark's fin in her happiness. Satisfied with her meal and her race, Tidal floated up to the surface again, lying on her back and kneading her potbelly with her fins.
Spitfire sighed as the roof caved slightly, the layer of pudge outside rolled and played with by her satisfied captor.
"Love you too, dude." She muttered.
Tidal clicked happily as the two slowed to a stop, unmodestly parading about her victory and getting appropriately lauded for it by an exasperated but happy Wave.
Tidal was by far one of the slowest orcas Wave had ever met. She had always been a slow learner in the swimming department, since they were young.
Wave never let it slip how much faster she was. It was far more satisfying to see Tidal happy; if all that meant was losing the races she was challenged to, she would do it a thousand times over in a heartbeat to see her dopey smile.