The Jörmungandr slowly crept between the mountains that separated the Frozen North and The Griffin Kingdoms, it had gotten so risky that Frostfang had stopped flying and was now crawling though, dragging the ship behind him, I had even resorted to requesting the help of Blazewing, the former captain of the pirate ship, so he was now stood beside me in the bridge, I was still relatively new to this, and he had more experience, never the less, my brother kept a very close eye one him, and when I say kept a close eye on him, I mean he was constantly stood behind Blazewing with his sword drawn, the crew were uneasy, and that was making me uneasy, the walls of the mountains were no more than 10 feet from each side of the ship.

“If ah may be so bold as t’ speak my mind” Blazewing looking back and forth between both sides of the ship nervously “you are takin’ an ‘uge risk, goin’ through ‘ere”

“True” I said, nodding “but we’ve come too far to back out” he nodded at this.

“Aye, tha’ be true” he said “th’ sooner we ge’ ou’a this cursed moun’ain range, th’ be’er” just as he said this the ship hit the side of one of the mountains, sending us all to the floor.

“See wha’ ah mean?” he said, getting back up, thankfully, we didn’t have much further to go before we were clear of the mountains, I turned to my brother.

“When we get out of these mountains, remind me to have some pegasi check out any damage” I said, he nodded, after about half an hour of tense traversing of the mountains, we finally reached clear skies, you could practically hear the sighs of relief as we accelerated away from the mountains, now we had several weeks of open air before we reached the mountainside capital of the Griffin Kingdom, so we could afford to relax a little, as we weren’t needed we all retired to our quarters, in the couple of weeks since we had rescued Aurora, Minion had become her surrogate father, I noticed that he was now more subdued and matured, he was now starting to act his age, rather than acting like a big kid most of the time, once she got over her grief, Aurora turned out to be a sweet little girl with a mild demeanour, although a noticed she was starting to pick up a British accent, due to her being around my brother, I opened the door to mine and Autumns quarters and was pounced on by Scar, who began to lick my face.

“O.k., I get it, you were worried about me” I said, pushing him off of me and stroking him from head to tail “you’re a good boy” he yipped slightly and I patted him, before getting up and walking over to the stereo system that Vinyl had installed a few weeks ago, I brought up the music player on my laptop and put the music onto shuffle, I stared to bob my head to the music, the pounding heavy metal pouring out of the speakers as I clicked at Boris, who was perched on a special perch that I had built for him, he flew over to me as I walked towards the balcony and perched on my shoulder, I opened the doors and sat down on one of the chairs on the balcony, I sighed as I enjoyed the view, the skies were clear, the sun shone and the view of the mountains was spectacular, I levitated a glass and a bottle of cider over, Scar walked over to me, his claws clicking on the floor, he laid down next to me and I patted him in the side, I then clicked to Boris and he took off into the open air to hunt for some food, I sat back and sipped my cider as I watched a master of his craft at work, he then dived and disappeared for a few minutes before returning, I then spotted Aurora flying alongside Autumn, seems the pegasus was teaching the dragoness how to fly, I waived to them and Autumn waived back before saying something to Aurora, the both of them banked towards the balcony I was sat on and landed.

“Hi Aurora” I said to the dragoness.

“Hello Vuur Koning” she said cheerfully, she then heard the music I was listening to and scrunched up her snout, I chuckled before pausing the music.

“Better?” I asked, she nodded “was Autumn teaching you how to fly?”

“Yeah, my parents never really had time to teach me” she said sadly.

“Listen” I said, lifting up her chin “if it helps, both me and Minion know it’s like, losing a parent, so we are here for you if you need support, okay?”

“Okay” she said, cheering up a little, I then remembered something.

“Aurora, what’s you fire breathing?” I asked, she puffed her chest out and spat out some green flames.

“Really good” she said proudly.

“in that case then” I said getting up from the chair and kneeling down to her level “how would you like to help me write a letter to Princesses Celestia and Luna of Equestria” her eyes went wide.

“You know princesses!?” she asked, if her eyes were any wider they would’ve fallen out of their sockets, both me and Autumn chuckled at that.

“Yep, and who knows, if you are really good for my brother Minion, you may just get to meet them one day” I said, I then walked over to the writing desk and sat down, I turned to look at Aurora “come on then, do you want to help me or not?” her eyes went wide and she flew over, landing on the chair next to mine.

“I’m going to write something quickly, and then you can write something, okay?” I said, Aurora blushed before mumbling something “What was that?”

“I can’t write?” she said, before holding out her wings, I could now see that she only had two claws on the top of each wing.

“Well then, you can tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it down for you, okay?” she nodded, I then got a quill and started to write:

Dear Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

I just thought I would write to tell you how things are going, I am currently sitting in the captains quarters of the dragon hauled horde ship ‘Jörmungandr: the Midgard Serpent’, Jörmungandr is pronounced Yur-mun-gan-der if you were wondering, anyway, I’m now the Captain of this ship, which belongs to Frostfang, that’s the dragon that attacked the train were on, Luna had him become our transport, we stopped in his cave for the night and well, it kind of just came up in conversation, anyway, Frostfang pulls the ship, whilst I’m in charge of the crew, I’ll tell you now, it is a fully armed vessel, with enough fire power to blow other ships out of the sky, as has already be proven against a pirate ship, and don’t worry, I saved the crew, and they’re now doing work on my ship, speaking of crew, we now have a sizable one of around 250, just enough to keep this ship running, we’ve just passed through the mountain range that lies on the border with the griffin kingdom and we should be in the capital within a few weeks.

In case you were wondering how you got this message, my brother is now in the care of a young dragoness called Aurora, and just before I write down what she wants to say, I’ll say this, if ever Equestria goes to war, I will gladly have Frostfang pull this ship into battle, we have more than enough firepower to make a difference.

Aurora says that she feels very lucky to be able to communicate with you two, that she hopes to meet you one day and that she is excited to be able to help me write to you.

Yours sincerely.
Your friend Vuur Koning, captain of the D.H.H.S. ‘Jörmungandr: The Midgard Serpent’
And Aurora the dragoness.

I rolled up the letter and then bound it in a seal that was enchanted to send the letter to Princess Celestia when burnt by dragon fire, I then held it in front of Aurora.

“Go on then, burn it” I said, she looked confused.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because the seal is enchanted to send the letter to Princess Celestia, but it only works if you burn it with dragon fire” I said, she gingerly took the scroll in her claws.

“Okay, 1…2…3” and then she breathed green flames onto the scroll, the whole scroll burnt up and the flames flew out the window.

“There it goes” I said, Aurora quickly flew to the window to watch the flames fly towards Equestria, a big grin plastered on her face.

“It worked!” she exclaimed, she went to fly out the window but I stopped her

“Don’t you want to wait for them to send a reply” I asked her, she climbed down from the railing and flew inside, we didn’t have to wait for long, only instead of receiving a letter, there was flash and a loud pop, and Princess Celestia herself landed on the balcony, the force of the impact causing the balcony to tilt downwards ever so slightly and sending Boris and Scar running inside.

“Hello Vuur Koning, Autumn Skies” Celestia said, nodding to each of us, as if she hadn’t just teleported out of nowhere and landed on my balcony.

“P-princess” I hastily bowed, she just rolled her eyes.

“There is no need for formality, I simply wanted to see this ship of yours” she said, she then took notice of Aurora and knelt down to seem less intimidating “And you must be Aurora”

“Y-yes Princess Celestia” the young Dragoness said, shaking slightly.

“There is no need to fear me” Celestia said softly, before standing up to full height, Aurora looked up at her in awe Celestia then turned to me “how about showing me your ship then”

“Yes, of course” I said, before walking towards the door, I stopped and turned to Autumn and Aurora “go and tell Minion and Vinyl that Celestia is visiting, I want the crew to be working their hardest by the time me and Celestia are on the top deck” Autumn nodded and beckoned for Aurora to follow, as me and Celestia walked along the corridors she turned to me.

“How did you end up with a dragoness so young?” she asked, I sighed.

“Unfortunately, the pirates I mentioned in the letter, attacked the ship that her parents were working on, Aurora was the only one we could find, alive that is” I said sadly “that is why I blew their ship out of the sky, my brother is looking after Aurora now”

“But why add the pirates to your crew?” Celestia asked.

“Because if I just let them die then I would be no better than them” I said, shrugging “plus I need all the crew I can get, this is a big ship, bigger than any on my world, at the moment they’re on all of the worst jobs, just because their now part of my crew, doesn’t mean I’m letting them off Scott free” we walked up the steps to the outside deck, all of the crew were doing something, Celestia’s eyes widened when she saw the massive 10 foot long gun barrels of the turrets.

“Impressive, aren’t they” Minion said, leaning against the base of the turret closest to us and tapping it with a knuckle “there are 4 barrels to each turret, and 10 turrets dotted along each side of the ship, that’s 20 turrets and 80 barrels of magical destruction ready to unleash ragnarok upon any ship foolish enough to attack us”

“Why so many Turrets?” Celestia asked.

“Dragons covet their horde” he said simply.

“Can you see why I said my ship is your ship?” I said “no doubt something with this many guns will be a big boost to moral, and will no doubt help to turn the tide of most battles, it can attack from both sides at once”

“You would send this ship into battle for my country?” she asked, surprised.

“And the crew” I said “this ship has people from most species, I’ve given some of them the task of creating armour and weapons that are as perfect as is possible, come on, I’ll show you” I then turned around walked back down the steps

---

“And here we have the armoury” I said to Celestia as I opened the door, there were various creatures, all working on pieces of armour, there was now even a dragon from Blazewing’s crew, a blue dragoness with gold spikes, currently working on a helmet, on one wall there was examples of armour for each species, Celestia looked at the armour.

“How did you design it?” she asked, walking up to the pony armour and examining it closely.

“I had a member of each species list of the strengths and weaknesses of their nations armour” I said, picking up the chest-plate for a griffin’s set “we then incorporated as many of the strengths as practically possible, and the styling was taken after mine and my brother’s armour, better to have a uniform look, there are minor variations depending on the species, like the armour for the flying species is more lightly built than let’s say, that of a minotaur”

“Truly a versatile concept” she said, levitating over the helmet of a pony “do you have spare designs?”

“I’m guessing you want to incorporate this into your royal guard?” I asked, she nodded and I levitated copies of the plans for the armour for all of the pony types “if you want I can have them draw up designs for Alicorn armour” she shook her head.

“I can have some made for me in Canterlot” she said, taking them in her magical grasp.

“Right, onto weapons testing”

---

As we walked into weapons testing I could see various different species sparing, there were blades and blunt force weapons laid out on a table, I walked over to the table and picked up a sword similar to a broad sword.

“A Griffonian broad sword” I said passing it to Celestia “but built like a Neighponese katana, the steel has been folded over 1000 times, we actually tested it, and it cut all the way through 4 body widths of meat before it stopped halfway through the 5th” Celestia’s eyes widened and she took it in her magic and gave it a few test swings.

“This is very well balanced” she said, looking up and down the length of the blade

“A sword can have the best blade in the world” a griffin said, walking up to us and bowing “but it’s useless if it isn’t balanced properly, your majesty”

“What is your name?” Celestia asked.

“Baldric, your majesty” the griffin said “I helped to design the blade, hence the Griffonian influence”

“How would you feel if this ship went to war with the Griffin Kingdoms?” Celestia asked.

“If I may speak my mind, your majesty, King Alexander is an arrogant bastard, I would gladly follow Vuur Koning into battle against the Griffin Kingdoms with my sword drawn” Baldric said.

“Which is why I’ve put Baldric in command of the griffins on this ship” I said, patting the griffin on the shoulder “I’m grateful to have someone like him on my ship, it also helps because I can’t speak a word of Griffonian, he translates any orders I give to the other griffins”

“Is it like this with every species on your ship?” Celestia asked.

“Yes” I said “me, Autumn, Minion and Vinyl are the senior officers on the ship, then there is a secondary chain of command, with a senior officer of each species, we have a council of sorts, any major disputes between two or more species get put forth and we all discuss a solution, it also makes it easier to keep everyone in line if there is a member of their own species giving orders to them, the former pirates are currently led by their former captain, Blazewing”

“Aren’t you worried about mutiny?” Celestia asked, I laughed.

“I need only threaten to lock them in a room with my brother” I said, Baldric chuckled, Celestia just looked at us, confused “Minion punched Blazewing in the jaw, twice, and then threatened to tie him to the hull of the ship whist we went through the Griffonian mountains, they’re scared of my brother, that’s why they haven’t tried to take command yet”

---

Celestia and I were stood on the top deck of the ship, looking at the Griffonian Mountain range that we were following to the mountainside capitol of Gryphus, Boris was flying alongside the ship.

“You have a journey of a lifetime ahead of you” Celestia said “not many people get the chance to do what you are doing”

“Why do you think I’m so eager to let people join my crew” I said, Celestia then closed her eyes and raised up into the air, she began to glow and I saw the sun slowly dip below the horizon, she then lowered back onto the decking.

“You have incredible power” I said “I’m surprised every nation isn’t grovelling at your hooves” she scoffed at that.

“That’s just unrealistic” Celestia said, rolling her eyes “every nation has their allies, and their enemies, our situation with the griffins is a key example”

“Still, you are practically a goddess, your sister too, I would hate to go up against either of you in battle” I said “if you can move the sun without effort, then I’m scared to see you at full power” Celestia chuckled.

“If you stay on my good side, you won’t” she said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye, she then stepped back “now, I must be getting back to Canterlot”

“Send my regards to Luna and the Elements” I said, she nodded before disappearing in a flash.

Next Chapter: Chapter 18 Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 51 Minutes