A Sailboat, Two Mares and a Crate Full of Rum

Chapter Ten

Suddenly, the Journey Continues

***

“Don’t you ever have this feeling of determination?”

Vinyl concentrated very hard on her cards, still trying to understand the rules of the game. So, apparently, she had to score a twenty-one, but a twenty-two was too much. If she had a twenty on her hooves, that was a sure win. And if she had twenty and an ace, that was twenty-one and an absolute win for sure.

Vinyl Scratch had thirty-six.

“Or,” Lyra continued, checking her captain’s hat, as if to make sure it wasn’t going to ditch her for some more insightful and responsible captain, “rather, this feeling that it’s been a while, but it’s time to continue what you started?”

Vinyl Scratch had thirty-six, and she was greatly displeased with this fact.

“Or,” Lyra took another card, “the feeling that our journey hasn’t ended yet and we have a lot more in store for us before we can deliver the package?”

Vinyl Scratch had thirty-six, and, no matter how hard she had thought on it, there was no way for her to make the count any less. Finally, she gave up and threw the cards on the barrel with a sigh. “Don’t you ever have this feeling of breaking the fourth wall?” she lamented, watching Lyra collect the bits gleefully. “Besides, isn’t gambling actually banned in Equestria and limited to Las Pegas?”

“We aren’t under Equestrian jurisdiction,” Octavia shouted out from the kitchen, where she and Bon-Bon had finally found the peace they needed. Bon-Bon was assisting Octavia with the food, and Octavia was the chef, or, rather, the cook. But she sure saw herself as a chef at a three-star restaurant.

“Really?” Vinyl blinked obliviously, wondering if, during the couple days they’d been sailing this new ship, they had moved far. “Where are we.”

“The map says we’re moving past native islands.” Lyra collected the cards and placed them in the little wooden chest. I want that chest, Vinyl thought. I want it so much. This made the white unicorn question whether she would actually kill Lyra in order to- Nah. That’s just silly. Vinyl chuckled innerly, then grew serious. Well, if the chest was purple…

“So, like, good-natured native Equestrians?” Vinyl asked with a fake yawn that hid her lust for adventure. Poorly. “Reservations and all that stuff?”

“More like pony-eating cannibal natives,” Lyra replied with a grin. Without any further words, the captain and her lieutenant threw their hooves in the air and slammed them with a grin. Such was the power of the high-hoof that it brought Octavia and Bon-Bon out of the kitchen.

Mares should be in the kitchen! a fedora-wearing little pony in Vinyl’s head complained. Damn right, brother! another little neckbeard pony in Vinyl’s head agreed. Vinyl blinked at the abundance of the little ponies in her head.

“But all we have to do is to avoid nearing the island.” Octavia pushed together two barrels, all the while balancing the plates on her extended hoof. So stretchy, Vinyl mused, licking her lips. Kinky when she does the stretch in bed, but oh so painful when she hits me. “And we’ll be just fine.”

“Yes…” Lyra smiled sourly, eyeing Bon-Bon’s bulging belly as the captain’s wife walked out of the kitchen, holding two more plates. She turned towards Vinyl, who had already dropped into one of her philosophic moods, now musing upon why they didn’t have a table but instead a whole lot of wooden barrels. “Just fine…”

***

“Juuuuust a little.”

The shadowy figure crawled towards the mast, across the silent wood of the floor. The graceful, elastic ninja pony called Vinyl “Silent Hooves” Scratch, who right now had one mission at hoof, a mission that was by no means blurred in her mind, even despite the rum that she’d consumed some half an hour ago.

“Juuuust a tiny bit more.”

Out of the corner of her eye, the ninja pony saw the light flicker on in one of the cabins of the new sailing boat - no, a huge, glorious ship. Which we stole. Which makes us real pirates! Vinyl grinned. A little pony in her head facehoofed. Then again, we stole it from a pirate. Does that make us vigilantes?

“Okay, just a teeny weeny bit!”

Fearing the light - and wondering how in Equestria they had electricity on the ship and no running water - Vinyl stood on her back hooves, and, defying all the comprehensible laws of physics, tiptoed towards the mast.

Wrapping her hooves around it, she grinned widely. There she was, on her way to adventure. All she needed to do was cut the sail somehow so that they had to stop at the native islands and have some fun. I mean, I’m not the villain here, right? Vinyl mentally ran through all the things she’d done and immediately concluded that no, she was definitely no villain of the piece. At least, not this time. Sorry, hedgehog, she addressed her old-time friend who she’d mercilessly launched from a toaster. You were a good friend. Probably.

“Vinyl, can you tell me what exactly you are doing here?”

The ninja pony yelped and fell down on her butt. “Mercy, I demand Drunken Mercy!”

Octavia sighed and leant in to help her marefriend - wife! a little pony in her head squeed happily - get up from the floor. “What were you doing near the mast, at night, all alone?”

“Uh, nothing?” Vinyl lied, remembering how her then-marefriend-now-wife had allowed her to lie back then on Titaneigh, during their previous adventure. Tavi, so powerful as to overturn a court ruling!

“Let me tell you what you’ve been doing.” Octavia sighed and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “You want to meddle with the ship somehow so that we have to stop by island, filled with dangerous, cannibalistic ponies. This is what you’re doing.”

“I may not need to.”

Octavia looked up and gasped, while Vinyl grinned as wide as she could.

Off in the distance, a fierce wind howled, and far, far away, lightning illuminated tall, majestic tornadoes. Octavia yelled and ran away screaming to Lyra’s cabin, while Vinyl just grinned and raised her hoof:

“When you get dat storm just right.”