Speaker wasn’t sure if he liked exactly how Cash handled the pirates.

Cash had ordered his new crew to line up on the bank of the river, which was fairly difficult considering how injured most of them were – not to mention that half of them hadn’t woken up yet from being knocked senseless by Cash or via losing consciousness from blood-loss.

Speaker willed the sack with medical equipment to appear and started patching up the pirates. It took a while, but with strong rice-wine for disinfectant and essence guiding his suture-needle, all the pirates were patched up when the ones with the worst injures started to awaken up. It was easy to tell that they were conscious: all the screaming and moaning was a dead giveaway. It would take weeks for all the pirates to recover, months for a few of the most injured: A solar doctor might flawlessly patch them up, but broken bones take time to heal, as do wounds even when stitched up.

The fisherponies were released and were very grateful, saying that they would hurry back to their village upriver. Cash took a boat out and explored the pirate’s junk while the pirates tried once again to line up on the bank.

Speaker wasn’t sure what Cash’s plan was with the pirates, but didn’t question him as he helped the fisherponies get their gear back on their fishing boats. As the fisherponies were about to leave one of the oldest of them, an old stallion who looked about as haggard and rough around the edges as Speaker, approached Speaker, his head bowed in shame: “I cannot thank you enough for saving us, but we have nothing to repay you with, please forgive us”

Putting a gentle hoof on the old fisherpony’s shoulder, Speaker said: “You don’t have to give us anything. Just know that the chosen of the sun have returned to creation to bring peace, justice and prosperity back to creation for all ponies to enjoy” It felt surprisingly good on Speaker’s end to know that even among simple fisherponies there was still honor and a wish to express gratitude, even if they didn’t have anything to give.

“We will give our prayers in thanks to Celestia, thank you for your generosity” The fisherpony said, joining his friends as they pushed off into the rover and started to row up towards their village.

Cash Charmer returned a while later with a big grin on his face: “You won’t believe this: We’re rich!”

Speaker gave Cash a quizzical look.

“The holds in the junk are loaded. They have over eighty slaves tied up, stallions, mares, foals, as well as loads of pots, pans and pottery – if we make a stop at Nexus and sell everything we’ll have loads of money!” Cash beamed.

One of the less injured pirates’ ears perked up at the mention of their cargo: “Well of course we have all that, we just spent the last three days plundering the village those fisherponies were from – they were the last part of the haul before we set sail to nexus!” the pirate pony said, smiling with great pride in his work.

Speaker’s face betrayed his feeling of horror as he gave the pirate who spoke up a swift hoof to the side of his head that sent rotten teeth flying out, pelting the other pirates.

“I take it you’re upset?” Cash cautiously inquired, sounding otherwise as if he didn’t see the source of the problem.
Speaker gave Cash a thousand yard stare and spoke sternly: “We’re releasing those ponies, giving them all their stuff back, plus whatever they want of whatever other loot the pirates have.”

Cash looked insulted. He was the new captain; this wealth was his to use as he saw fit.

Taking a somewhat intimidating step towards Cash, which really wasn’t that intimidating on account of Speaker being up to his knees in mud while Cash sat in a boat, he tried to explain to Cash why they shouldn’t keep the slaves: “We just saved their fisherponies. What do you think they’ll do when they return and find their village emptied, taken by the pirates here?”

Cash shrugged unapologetically: “They’ll moan, whine and get on with their lives – what else is there to do? It’s a moot point, the villagers are ours now. Didn’t you say something about a mandate of heaven giving us right to decide what is right and wrong? I say that it’d be a crime not to refill my purse after having lost all my money invested in my caravan”

“Cash, do keep in mind who actually defeated the last captain here? Don’t make me do that again” Speaker calmly stated. Oh how he wanted to smack Cash so hard right now, but that’d probably just rip the fool’s stitches.

The pirates voiced their support to their captain – both because they claimed to have ‘worked hard’ in rounding up all those villagers, but also because they seemed to like the prospect of a captain who ruthlessly sought wealth.

Refusing to give in to the urge to punch everyone or peer pressure to keep the slaves, Speaker decided instead to remind Cash of their priorities: “Slaves are a liability. Plus this is a pirate vessel, we’re likely to be held up by the Lookshyan navy on our way to Great Forks – if we’re caught with a hold full of slaves, what do think they’ll do to us? I don’t want a reputation as a pirate or slaver any more than you want a business reputation as anathema”

Raising a hoof as if to gesturing for a moment to speak, but then lowering it again, Cash conceded to Speaker’s points – but did express reluctance in doing so: “I guess depending on what we do next after we reach great forks, then I could sell the junk”

The few pirates with energy to do so shouted for Cash not to do so, but Cash was quick to point out that none of them were in any position to stop him.

It took a while to get the pirates out on the junk, since their injuries left only a few of them able to row. On board, Speaker entered the hold to check on the villagers and give them the good news, while Cash made good use of the now three pirate ponies who were able to walk about without makeshift crutches to get the junk ready to set sail.

What Speaker found horrified him to no end. The pirates had certainly captured and enslaved an entire village of ponies.

Sixty-seven mares and stallions and fourteen foals of various ages were tied up in chains or ropes, barely able to move.

Several of the mares had severely bruised flanks and were sitting oddly. Speaker recognized the position from recovered prisoners of war: They had been beaten into submission and raped repeatedly. A couple of the stallions had been tortured, with their noses and lips cut off, their wounds still bleeding and rapidly on the way to develop nasty infections. Speaker wanted to cry, be sick, or just run up on deck and start beating the pirates, but that was just instincts and gut reactions – and Speaker knew how to control himself, even if he didn’t always want to.

He gazed on the ponies as they tried to huddle together as well as their chains allowed, and acted like a proper combat medic at triage: “Okay my little ponies, my name is Heart Speaker and I have good news, better news and very good news. Good news is that I’ve killed the captain of this vessel and with a friend taken control of the ship. You’re all free to go. The better news is that I killed their captain while the pirates were in the process of capturing your village’s fishing fleet, who are now free already. The very good news is that once I’ve untied your ropes and opened your locks you’re free to take anything of value from the ship, although not stuff we need to operate the ship with. I suggest looking in the captain’s cabin first, as they tend to hoard valuables there”

The ponies didn’t seem that enthusiastic at first, as Speaker, still somewhat bloody and very muddy from the fight with the captain untied their ropes and brought out Gift to make swift work of the chains.

When everypony was free, Speaker addressed the mares who had been raped: “If you want, I can tell you what herbs you’ll need to find to make maiden tea – it’ll terminate any pregnancy you might develop from what was done to you. And if we haven’t killed the ones who did this already when we fought them earlier, I’ll see them gelded myself”

One of the stallions who had been facially mutilated, his nose and lips having been cut off – leaving ugly, festering wounds – approached Speaker. To Speaker’s surprise the pirate captain hadn’t cut off the stallion’s tongue, as he was able to speak, although not well due to his missing lips: “What a’out us? The pirates killed our ‘e’icine ‘are, these ‘oun’s will ‘ake us sick and ‘ie”

Nodding, Speaker quickly introduced himself as a doctor, one with great powers in that area no less: “I can restore your faces completely – it won’t be easy, but I can do it, if you will let me tend to your wounds”

The mutilated stallions agreed to let Speaker help them, seeing as they had nobody else to turn to. Speaker then led everypony up on deck, where he found Cash in the process of ‘swearing in’ his pirate crew.

“Do you all swear to obey my orders while I am captain of this ship, and never to raise a hoof against any of the chosen of sun, lest the rivers themselves come and swallow you whole?” Cash bombastically inquired, from the helm next to the ship’s wheel while looking down onto the main deck where the pirates were assembled, most of them leaning on each other just to remain standing, all of them bandaged or stitched up somehow from their injures courtesy of Speaker.

A split second later Cash added: “Need I remind you all that refusing to swear this oath means I let Speaker use his little death spinner on you again?”

Finding Cash’s threat ironically appropriate considering what he wanted to do to the pirates who had partaken in the rape of the village mares, Speaker held his tongue and refrained from saying anything – waiting to see if any of the pirates would resist.

To Speaker’s surprise none of them did, and Cash sanctified their oath in a brief but shiny materialization of golden glyphs; a manifestation of the oath in an ancient divine tongue fluttering about until fading away, forever to be known by heaven – but that was a moot point, as Speaker quickly informed Cash of his promise to the raped mares, to which Cash simply nodded and demanded that all crew members who had taken liberties with the mares identify themselves.

A pirate with his left forehoof in a sling defiantly asked why, showing no remorse, while also giving the now freed villagers some dirty looks.

Cash quickly reminded his crew that they had just sworn to obey all his orders – and that his prior request was now an order: “…because my good friend Heart Speaker here takes offense to such behavior, and wishes to punish them”

Holding up Gift, Speaker said but a few words that sent dread into the males of the pirate ponies: “Rapists get gelded where I come from”

One pirate, obviously not interested in losing his stallionhood shouted: “Buck that, they were ours to screw. The old captain said we could!”

Cash didn’t even have to point out that such a statement of refusal to obey his orders constituted a direct breach of his sanctified oath – for the next thing anypony knew the junk lurched to port side as river water ‘flower up’ on the deck and grabbed the defiant pirate and dragging him screaming into the murky waters of the river of tears, never to be seen again. It all happened so fast that few others even had time to react, gasp or shriek in horror.

“Right, so it’s that or just a small part of your anatomy – what’ll it be?” Cash said, enjoying his new-found power immensely.
About a third of the pirates, which was roughly half of the males, reluctantly raised a hoof or crutch to identify themselves. Seeing the fear in their eyes, Speaker realized that his planned punishment, combined with now losing their ‘cargo’, former captain, and once the villagers were done looting the ship probably most of their possessions, made gelding the now very defenseless pirates a horrible act of adding insult to injury.

Speaker suggested to Cash that they instead make all the pirates swear, both mares and stallions, never rape or otherwise unconsensually sexually molest another living being for the rest of their lives. Cash agreed, saying that doing so would be a lot quicker and less messy than the alternative. The stallions among the pirates certainly seemed relieved, even though some of the mares they had violated didn’t seem to agree that simply making them promise would be enough
Cash smoothed things over by specifying in the ‘no rape’ oath that to break it would case the offending pony’s fun bits to fester, rot and fall off. For some reason this made the stallions being sworn in look far more frightened at that prospect, than when Speaker wanted to geld them.

With all drama over, the junk was sailed upriver to the village. After a day and half of sailing they caught up with the fisherponies from the village, making for some very happy reunions.

Speaker tended to the mutilated stallions, carefully washing healing essence over their wounds so that it would manifest as new flesh. It wasn’t a pleasant procedure, and each took a long time, involving first cleaning up the festering wounds that were where their noses and lips had once been – and even with his treatment it would be weeks before the new lips and noses would stop hurting. On the second day of sailing, a day away from the village, Speaker discovered while treating the last of the mutilated stallions that with a little essence he could completely take away their pain – an anesthetic medical charm. This was a nice change from having to get the patients drunk on the pirate’s foul rice wine to dull their pain and make them sit still.

Later that night at the helm, Cash was impressed of Speaker’s new ability, and equally pointed out how navigating the ship over the last few days had given him some fun insights into how to use essence to improve his ability to steer the ship up the river or set the best angle for the sails.

“Cute, you discovered excellencies” Speaker mused, prompting Cash to ask what that meant.

Speaker explained that of all the powers of the exalted, then the most basic charms that all exalts shared was that of the excellencies – a fancy word for the ability to use essence to momentarily improve a pony’s ability to do certain things: “You need to learn excellencies for different things – the essence patterns that reinforce your abilities as captain aren’t the same needed for hoof to hoof combat, but they fundamentally work the same”

“Well that’s nice – so I just whip some essence around and I can be good at anything?” Cash said, smiling like a foal who had just been told of a secret stash of sweet-rolls.

Speaker more or less agreed, explaining that there were different ways essence could work. Looking to the stars, he spoke of essence used to overwhelm the odds – giving exalted ponies the greatest of potential: “In my past incarnation’s life, this technique gave Solars potential on a scale that there were no words for. We had a lot of fun inventing new words to express how powerful we were”

“I can totally see myself doing that” Cash noted.

Speaker then explained the idea of essence used as a guarantee: It would not allow for equally grand results, but those more risky attempts could still fail. These techniques of certainty guaranteed success, which was often more important: “I use a technique like that when cleaning and caring for wounds – you don’t want a hoof or knife to slip during surgery”

Nodding, Cash praised Celestia that he didn’t scar easily.

“Then there’s the way in which essence can be resurgent, giving you a second wind to pull you back on track even if you do mess up – it’s a good way to better your odds, plus if applied with a different motonic motivation, you end up with a brief clarity that allows for very impressive physical and mental performances” Speaker noted, adding that there were other basic techniques, but that Cash would do just fine by knowing how these fundamental techniques worked.

Cash looked as if to speak, having no clue what ‘motonic motivation’ meant, then pausing for a second, looking at his hooves: “So that’s how I was able to fight so well against the pirates while you down in the river. I just kept willing essence into my hooves, and they flew around as if guided by the gods themselves”

“Exactly. The rest of your powers and charms are informed by our skills. If you know the basics of hoof to hoof combat you can learn simple charms to do impressive feats on par with a master, but if you are a master – say a master swords-pony, then you can learn Solar charms that will let you cut down entire armies on your own” Speaker proudly stated, looking off into the darkness.

The junk, lit by a hoof-full of paper lanterns hung on the sides, the stern and the bow, was a dim beacon of light in the darkness of the river of tears as Cash navigated it upriver, idly fantasizing about what his past lives must have done with such amazing things.

By dawn they had reached the village. The villagers had their pick of the captain’s cabin, which netted them a small chest full of silver, two dozen sabers and bows and enough arrows to equip a hundred archers. The villagers also took a few bars of iron and sacks of coal from the ship’s armory and smithy. The pirates were now officially defenseless.

Cash’s crew wasn’t happy with this development – but Cash made it clear that he didn’t want to hear any complaints: “I lost a great deal of wealth when I gained my powers because stupid ponies did stupid and cruel things. You lot did stupid and cruel things to these ponies, so I can relate to what they’re going through. They want something for their pain. They want their things back. With a little luck I’ll see a creation where ponies like you don’t have to resort to piracy to get rice in your bowls. Now shut up and hoof over your belts, or the river gets you”

With the villagers offloaded and the junk lightened considerably of anything of any value, Cash and Speaker bid farewell to the villagers. The previously mutilated stallions had miraculously regained their noses and lips thanks to Speaker's medical charms – and the mares, well, Speaker had told them what herbs to mix up for some field-expedient Maiden Tea. Maiden Tea was a common feature in the diet of most prostitutes and brothel employees across creation: A single cup would render a mare barren or stallion infertile for a month and induce abortion, so in those businesses it was well worth the cost of shipping in the rare herbs needed for the mix. Drinking too much was slightly poisonous, and drinking way too much would make the effects permanent – but considering the unique, pungent flavor of the tea, that was a difficult feat to accomplish by accident.

Luckily for the villagers, the stuff grew wild in the eastern forests, so they could gather it up themselves. Cash even suggested they collect loads of the stuff and sell it, which didn’t seem like that bad an idea.

Setting ragged sails for the Yanaze river, the junk flowed downriver at a reasonable pace. Cash Charmer estimated that they were covering a good fifty miles a day at least in the summer heat. Nothing earth-shattering by any means, but this was the fastest way ponies could travel with any large amount of cargo over long distances in the east, for the jungles and forests were often quite impenetrable unless you had a yeddim or something stomping down trees up in front.

In the week it took to get to where the river of tears merged with the mighty Yanaze river, Speaker spent most of his time practicing with Gift, throwing the gyroscopic chakram at trees that hung over the side of the river. He didn’t do it for target practice, but more to remember how he had used it in his exaltation’s past life. It was with no small amount of joy that he finally understood the essence patterns that went into the stances that made up the Thousand Wounds Gear Style form – allowing him to stand ever-ready to both attack and defend, while using Gift not just to catch blades with its teeth, but to deflect blows as if it was a small shield. Cash wasn’t particularly impressed, but Speaker scolded Cash: “Never think less of magical martial arts – never, because you can’t always tell from a stance how a pony benefits from it. A low, firm crouch can give stability, or be the first part of a leap to rip your throat out. I would personally be quite pleased if I do not have to ever use Gift for violence from this point on, but in this age of sorrows, I don’t think that’ll be possible”

Cash laughed: “You think too much – you need to learn to not worry and just let things happen”

Merging into the Yanaze river’s boat traffic was a smooth transition thanks to Cash Charm’s surprisingly good skills as a captain. His crew was continually surprised as Cash would act and speak like a seasoned captain who had walked the deck of the junk for decades.

It was just before they were halfway to where the grey and yellow river merged into the Yanaze river, the site of Nexus, Creation’s second largest city and greatest site of commerce, that Speaker suddenly started yelling that they had to go to shore like a madpony. Cash couldn’t calm him down no matter what he tried, no matter how much essence he put into calming words.

Ultimately Speaker jumped off the ship and swam ashore to the southern bank, Cash ordering the anchor dropped off shore shortly thereafter and following in a boat.

What he found was Speaker nosing around in the grass of a weed-filled meadow.

“Speaker, what in the sweet lush rump of the mare of the serenity are you doing?” Cash simply had to ask.

Speaker raised his head with a start, having been completely unaware of Cash walking up to him: “I… I’m looking for where my past… where I died”

Cash blinked a few times.

“I’m looking for the tomb I remember burying myself in” Speaker said, suddenly disappearing from sight.

The Solar pony named Cash Charmer looked around on the quite open and empty meadow, feeling increasingly panicky. His fellow Solar, Heart Speaker, had just disappear from plain sight in the blink of an eye, after saying that he was looking for the tomb that he’d buried himself in alive… or dead – it was a little confusing.

Several silent minutes passed as Cash ran around on the meadow looking at the same bland weed-filled grassland.
Suddenly Speaker reappeared and Cash nearly fainted from the shock as the hazel-colored pony came out of nowhere.
“Okay, I take it you found something?” Cash said, looking up from the ground.

Speaker nodded as he helped Cash up.

Pointing a hoof over at a spot in the meadow, Cash saw… grass… and meadow.

“You don’t see it?” Speaker said with a thoroughly confused voice.

Cash shrugged, and said that he couldn’t see anything special.

Speaker then walked over to the spot and disappeared from view. That got a reaction out of Cash – mainly a big gasp and Cash shouting: “You disappeared again! Where’d you go?!”

Speaker reappeared a moment later, looking as if he just realized some profound truth: “I think I understand the problem here”

“Good, because I was getting tired of waiting on you” A female pony with strange silvery tattoos covering her body said with a notable western accent, leaping from out of nowhere to embrace Speaker in a tight hug and a very sloppy kiss.