Slowly coming to wakefulness, Bon Bon opened her eyes and took in the world around her. She felt weight and pressure on each side of her body, which was good. She spooked now if she woke up alone. The isles had left behind their mark on Bon Bon, and while she was the solid rock of her herd and tribe, she too had her issues. Wiggling between the two bodies, Bon Bon yawned. She felt hot breath on her neck and on her cheek.

As she gained higher and higher states of awareness, Bon Bon slowly came to the understanding that she had awoke between two very aroused unicorns. Lyra, who was breathing on her cheek was practically sleep-humping Bon Bon’s leg, while Bucky, who had his face pressed into her neck, well, Bon Bon could tell that her husband had pressing issues. That pressing issue was pressing into her hip, right into her cutie mark.

Suffering a very perverse thought about cream filled candies, Bon Bon giggled.

Bon Bon moved her head, trying to get away from Bucky’s horn, which was always unnaturally cold, coated in frost, and smelled like an afternoon thunderstorm. As she started to stir, both Lyra and Bucky latched on to her, squeezing and pulling, not willing to let her go. She felt Bucky’s stump clutching her, sliding around on her barrel, and his breathing increased. The earth pony mare waited, hoping it wasn’t panic. She heard Bucky whimpering faintly in his sleep and felt a tugging at her heart. She squirmed and rolled over, greatly disturbing her companions, who grunted in protest.

With a great deal of caution, Bon Bon extracted herself from the bed and went to work, rolling Bucky over on to his other side, and then she carefully nudged Lyra over against Bucky’s back. Still asleep, Lyra latched on to Bucky immediately, pressing her face into the back of Bucky’s neck, and wrapping one foreleg around the girth of his barrel.

Both of the troubled unicorns quieted, and Bon Bon slipped away to take a shower.

Dawn had slipped past and yet it felt too early for Fluttershy, who was as sensitive about the time of day as a pegasus could be. The idea slowly crept into her mind that it was probably still dark in Ponyville, or at least maybe the sun was getting ready to rise there.

She turned her face into the wind, feeling it caressing her body, and without thinking about it, her wings opened slightly, allowing the breeze to tickle her ribs. The air was damp and smelled of salt. They were over the ocean, and Fluttershy tried not to think too much about the deep water beneath her.

She did not like deep water. She much preferred to have solid ground beneath her. The idea of being over the ocean unnerved her greatly. She was not a strong flier, and, if something happened to the ship somehow, she would have no way of rescuing her friends or herself. There would only be crashing into the water eventually, no matter how hard she tried to fly, followed by crushing blackness as she slipped beneath the waves. When she heard hooves behind her, she squealed in alarm and whirled around.

“Sorry!” Ripple apologised, dropping into a submissive posture as her ears splayed out sideways. She extended a wing and gently touched Fluttershy. “I saw you up here near the prow and thought I’d join you. Not many ponies are awake yet. Who’s cooking breakfast? I wasn’t sure… Rarity fixed a really good meal last night but the portions were all so dainty. Not all of us are worried about watching their figure and Rarity is a unicorn, if she doesn’t want to get a fat plot she should just use more magic. That’s what Lyra does.”

Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy relaxed and found herself giggling from Ripple’s loquacious greeting. “Oh, Rarity is always watching her figure,” Fluttershy said in a voice that was as soft and silky as two satin sheets rubbing together. “You have a lump on your head that wasn’t there when I saw you last… what happened? Are you okay? Did something attack in the night?”

“Last night, Lugus, Flash Sentry and myself were on the deck. We were talking. I got a little playful with Lugus, and boxed him a bit, and then Flash Sentry showed me this great new combat slam. The only way to really show me involved piledriving me into the deck a few times to make sure I really got it. Flash accidently dropped me on my head. It’s no big deal. Lugus caught me before I could get seriously hurt, and Flash caught the rest of me,” Ripple explained.

“Oh that’s just awful,” Fluttershy breathed, covering her mouth with one hoof.

“I trusted them both to teach me, and when an accident happened, they both moved quickly to reduce my injuries. I could have been seriously hurt. When getting piledrived, the target is supposed to land on their back so the wind is knocked out of them. Non lethal takedown. Flash was nervous and I slipped from his grip. I took a tumble headfirst. These things happen. I’m not upset,” Ripple said as she sat down on her haunches. “It is an impressive lump though.”

“Rainbow Dash does martial arts… some kind of hoof-fu, I don’t know what it is, but I suspect the martial arts she practices are very different from actual hoof to hoof combat training that soldiers have,” Fluttershy said in reply, looking at the lump on Ripple’s head in concern. She moved close, wrapped a foreleg around Ripple’s neck, and began to examine Ripple’s somewhat lumpy skull, and faint soft whimpers could be heard with Fluttershy’s every breath.

“I’ve heard about this from Surprise. There are a lot of so called ‘martial arts masters’ running around in Equestria claiming to be a master in some form of combat. Some sort of highly organised combat dance routine with a lot of rules, regulations, and safety. In real combat, there are no rules, there are no regulations, and there is no safety. There is no crying ‘foul’ or having a referee step in and make something stop trying to kill you. There is only sudden brutal death for one combatant or the other, and Lugus has done everything he can to teach me that,” Ripple said, wincing as Fluttershy traced her fetlock over the big lump on Ripple’s skull. Ripple felt two lips pressed against her face, just between her eye and her ear, and Fluttershy kissed her softly, trying to make everything better. Ripple knew better than to push the kindly healer type away and allowed Fluttershy to continue working.

“You must trust Lugus a great deal,” Fluttershy whispered.

“With my life,” Ripple replied as she reached out with one foreleg, wrapped it around Fluttershy’s neck, and gave the yellow pegasus a squeeze. “Thanks for teaching me how to knit. More lessons today?”

“Oh goodness yes, there is nothing else to do,” Fluttershy responded.

Not fully awake, Twilight Sparkle moved around the kitchen and tried to concentrate enough to prepare breakfast. No she mentally corrected. On a ship, this is called a galley. I think. She started to prepare the coffee and the tea, pulled several loaves of zucchini-banana bread out of the freezer, placed them into the magical reheater, and then began to prepare a large batch of oatmeal. She was starving from last night. Rarity never fixed enough food to feed anypony, much less a large crowd.

As she pulled multiple packages of hay bacon from the fridge, Twilight Sparkle suffered a curious thought. Why does hay bacon exist? She knew what bacon was. It was made from pigs. It was made of meat. Horrifying meat from another animal. And yet some pony thought it was a good idea to take hay, process it heavily, add artificial flavourings, compress it into strips, and somehow make it taste like bacon. How did that pony know what bacon tasted like? Twilight Sparkle wondered. She flipped over one of the packages and looked at the ingredients.

“Egg whites… well, that seems harmless enough,” Twilight said to herself. “Soybean oil with TBHQ… wait, tertiary butylhydroquinone? Eeeew… that stuff is basically butane… this is an explosive… ugh… textured soy protein, waitaminute, hay is like halfway down the ingredient list right next to wheat gluten. Why does this have some of the same ingredients as gunpowder and why are there so many explosive compounds? What are we eating?” Twilight muttered as she began to tear open the packages of hay bacon and then laid the bacon out so it would be ready to fry when the oatmeal was nearly done. “I don’t even want to know what is in a hay burger,” she grumbled to herself. As she started to toss the emptied packages into the trash incinerator, she noticed one important detail.

The hay bacon proclaimed itself all natural and organic.

“Pinchy knee just won’t go away,” Pinkie Pie murmured. “Why do I keep getting pinchy knee? This is driving me crazy. Must be because Mister Grumplepuss is around. Why must Bucky always set off my pinchy knee?”

“What are you nattering on about?” Applejack grumbled blearily, giving Pinkie Pie a raised eyebrow of Apple Family Disapproval.

“Pinchy knee!” Pinkie Pie cried. “It actually hurts Applejack, my knee is killing me,” the pink earth pony mare admitted.

“Maybe you need to have a doctor look at it when we get home,” Applejack suggested just before she yawned.

“You mean if we get home,” Pinkie Pie hissed as some of her curls went limp.

Yew Wood carefully brushed Harper’s mane, trying to get the enormous poof of fluff to behave itself even somewhat. The mass of Harper’s mane was actually larger than Harper was, sticking out in all directions, frizzy, curly, and crackling with static. The foal’s face was currently invisible, hidden behind the mass of fluffy bright orange curls and her horn was completely buried somewhere in the almost cloud like mass of hair.

“How is my sweet little Harper this morning?” Yew asked as she tried to tame Harper’s hair.

“Want mama,” Harper replied.

The foal’s body moved, but Yew couldn’t tell if Harper was trying to look up at her. She couldn’t see Harper’s eyes. She tried to scoop the fluff away with one hoof to get a look at Harper’s face.

“Which mama do you want?” Yew asked.

“Mamamama,” Harper replied.

“Bucky,” Yew stated.

“Mamamama,” Harper repeated insistantly as a ripple of static electricity coursed through her mane and zapped Yew Wood.

“Oh my, you have some serious static issues this morning. Must be the altitude or something,” Yew said, pushing back Harper’s mane and spotting one tiny faded indigo coloured ear. She leaned down and gave a kiss on the ear, and she heard Harper coo from inside of the cloud of frizzy orange hair.

The chestnut pegasus watched Peekaboo playing on the floor, pushing a ball around with her nose, chasing it as it rolled away from her. When it rolled too far away, Peekaboo pounced, landing on the ball. Yew watched as Peekaboo tucked and rolled, clutching the ball to her barrel, and kicking it with her hind legs like a cat.

“Daddy would be proud,” Yew said, praising Peekaboo. “Such a good little pouncer!”

Delivering one good powerful kick to her ball that sent it flying, Peekaboo looked up at her mother. “Daddy proud?” Peekaboo asked as she watched her mother brush Harper.

“You pounced the ball, caught it, and subdued it. Daddy would be proud,” Yew responded, smiling broadly.

“I bounce too,” Peekaboo announced as she clambered up on all fours and then pronked around the room stiff legged. When she got near the ball, she dropped into a crouch, spread her wings out as much as possible, waggled her rump around in the air, and then launched herself at the ball.

This time, she hit the inflatable rubber ball too hard, bounced away, and then she took a tumble across the floor. Undaunted, the pegasus foal picked herself up, curled back her lip, snarled, growled, and then launched herself again. She collided with her prey, rolled over with it, and kicked at it with her hind legs as though she was trying to disembowel it, just as her daddy had shown her.

“That’s my good filly,” Yew praised, her smile broadening across her face. “Mama’s little terror… you show that ball who’s a big bad pegasus!”

Author's Notes:

I hope Pinkie Pie will be okay. I wish I could remember what pinchy knee means... oh dear. If only I paid attention...

Probably means a warning about typos.