Three days and three nights feel like forever to Rarity and Sweetie Belle as they stayed tucked away in the brig at the bottom of Korsan’s airship. Separated into two dimly lit cells all alone, the only company the two mares got other than each other was Chopin who’d come five times a day to give them bread and water and promptly go back up the stairs. During the long hours of silence in between, the only things the prisoners would find themselves doing is sleeping, eating, drinking, or thinking about the events and friendships throughout their lives that have all lead up to this.

During one night, as the howls and cheers of the pirates roars in the galley echo from four stories above to the brig, Rarity decides to talk to her sister before Chopin comes to feed them, “Hey, Sweetie Belle,”

“What?” The smaller unicorn lethargically responds, having her head buried into the pillow on her cell bed.

“Want to talk or something.”

”I don’t feel like it.”

“You haven’t said anything for over six hours and I’m beginning to worry about you.”

“Will our friends come and get us out of here? It just feels like they’ve left us.”

“Ridiculous. Our friends would never abandon us. I know it may seem impossible, but we can still hope that they’re still hot on Korsan’s trail as we speak and one day save us from this retched place.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Well…” Before Rarity can complete her thought, the familiar hoofsteps of Chopin are heard above. However, this is soon followed by an unexpected series of metal stamps into the wood above following behind Chopin’s. “Is that…” Looking to the lit staircase, the two mares look to see the mime and Korsan walk down the stairs and approach each cell individually, with the bipedal captain going to Rarity’s.  “You…”

“Hello Miss Rarity,” Korsan replies a he leans in towards the bar wall separating him from his prisoner, “I would like to invite both you and your sister to feast at the galley.”

“Why would we even want to join you and your ruffians in a meal? You kidnapped us and held us in here for days.”

“Quite, I apologize for my more brutish force against you, but in time you’ll find yourself forgiving me. Take this invitation as not only as a token of my apologies, but also as an opportunity to show you the benefits of being one with my crew.”

“How about no! You psychotic pegasus pirate,”

“Well then,” Korsan calmly replies, resting his metal claws onto the lever that opens the door to her cell, “Have fun wasting in this cell for a good number of your days. Hey Chopin, have any luck with the sister?”

“Get away of me you clown!” Sweetie Belle’s voice screams back in indirect response.

“He’s a mime from Prance, respect the stallion will you.”

“Leave my sister out of this!” Rarity barks, aiming her horn at Korsan’s face.

“What are you going to do? Everything you see is lined with anti-magic and I can already tell that you have little to no offensive capabilities with your magic alone that can harm me.” Rarity realizes that he’s right and raises her horn up in defeat. “How about a deal, you join me for supper and I’ll leave your sister be.” Seeing as this is her only option, Rarity nods in shame. With a smile now growing on his face Korsan pulls the lever down and the metal door into the cell swings open. “Follow me.” The white unicorn obeys her captors orders and follows him and Chopin out of the prison and up the stairs, leaving her sister behind all alone.

“Don’t worry Sweetie Belle, I’ll be back.” Slowly, the trio walks past the sick chambers above the brig and follow a series of staircases leading them up several stories in the hull. Past the abandoned crew cabins on the third and fourth floors, past the massive empty cannon chamber on the fifth, and up a final flight of stairs, they soon enter into the large dining chamber on the first floor of the quarterdeck. Activity is bustling all around just as before, the food is just as plentiful as when Dash first saw it, and there was another duel going on in the empty center of the galley with seated pirates watching it, this time though, it is two short and yellow unicorns fighting each other with katanas. However, despite the loudness and chaos of the room, as Korsan makes his way up the final steps, the entire room quickly stops in dead silence and looks towards their captain in the corner of the room.

“Greetings fellow sea artists,”

“Greetings Captain Korsan!” The entire cast of pirates replies in unison.

“I would like to introduce you to our newest guest aboard The Perfection on this fine evening. Say hello to Miss Rarity.”

“Hello Miss Rarity.”

“Please, treat her to a seat and may your festivities continue. Treat her as one of our own.”

“Aye Captain.” Slowly, the galley’s chaotic activity returns as the duel resumes and Korsan and Chopin take their usual seats, leaving Rarity anxiously standing at the corner of the main table.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” An orange mare with a short black mane and tail and wearing a brown tricorder hat calls out to the lost pony, “sit over here, please!” Cautiously, Rarity walks behind several seated pirates roaring at the fight and reaches the mare. Seeing an empty chair to the mare’s right, the now guest goes to it and slowly sets herself on it as to not get anything that could be dirty on her flank.

Nervous as to not do something that could end up killing her or make her look out of place, Rarity keeps her eyes focused on the fight as she whispers to the orange unicorn, “What should I do? You look like you know what you’re doing, and you look the least threatening.”

“Don’t sweat yourself, these guys around here aren’t that threatening when we’re off duty. I’m Slasher Gutzoult.”

“My, what an, interesting name…”

“My mom thought of it.”

“I’m Rarity.”

“Yeah, I know. The captain just announced it.”

“Oh yeah, he did. Oh dear,”

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. I remember this one time that-”

“I’m not embarrassed. I’m trying to keep my skin attached to my body.”

“I see. Hey, maybe this will make you unwind,” Rarity looks over to her new friend and sees her sliding a mug away from the stallion to her left’s table area and in front of Rarity’s blank table area. “Try it.”

“What is it?” Rarity curiously asks as she slowly holds the drink up to her lips and lets a few drips of the whitish-clear liquid into her mouth.

“You don’t want to know.” Upon having her tongue touch one of the drops, Rarity immediately spits out all the fluids in her mouth.

“Taste awful.”

“That’s the same thing we’ve been telling Anton for years, but he still drinks it. Seems to work though in your case,”

“Are all of you pirates this invasive? Is there somepony else I can talk to?”

“Sorry, I’ve just been a little jumpy, you know, with this being our first guest in a long while. Maybe I need a bit of Anton’s stuff to unwind as well.”

“Well look, I don’t consider myself a guest. I was forced into this by that tyrant you call Captain Korsan. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look for another empty seat.”

“But wait! Don’t you want to know who you’re sitting with? I can help with that!” Rarity’s ears immediately burn after the hyperactive pirate girl screamed right into them.

“First off, I’m right next to you. You don’t need to shout. Second off, no, I’m not interested in knowing.”

“But some of us are really interesting, like me. I was arrested for twenty charges of cat burglary in Ti and was sent an all-girls prison until Korsan broke me out and hired me for his crew.”

“You were a cat burglar? You don’t look like somepony who’d be so stealthy.”

“Not that type of burglar, I was a burglar of cats. I just love them so much! I have three in my cabin, Bob, Curly, and Moe. Want to meet them?”

“No-”

“Wait, I should tell you about the rest of the crew, they’re interesting to!”

“That won’t be necessary-”

“Oh, like Lazarus Lazuli over there!” Slasher then points a hoof across the room to a skinny blue stallion with a grey hoodie over his head and covering his mane, peacefully eating a bowl of soup in front of him at the end of the table. “He was banished to the Island of Perpetual Tickling for life for treason against the king of Talos by working as a terrorist spy. He claims that he was on the island and tortured for ten years before Korsan came, but I have my doubts. Ooh! And her!” the brown mare then points to a white mare with a red mane and tail who is talking with the chef through the serving window next to where Rarity and Slasher are seated. “Maria Vanshwitz, one of the deadliest out of us all, she was put in maximum security for providing fighting services in the resistance.”

“Which resistance?”

“No one really knows, she doesn’t mention it apparently because it lost.” As the young mare turns around to return to her seat, the two onlookers get a good look at her sharp face and fiery red eyes.

“Hey, I saw her at the bar fighting November. Wasn’t she part of your crew?” After her response, Rarity quickly realizes that her curiosity is getting to her and that she’s gaining interest in the backstories of the many pirates around her.

“November Gale? I remember her. She and Maria were practically arch nemeses whenever in the same room.”

“Why?”

“They were always fighting over Hans Kraus, one of main cannon operators. In the end, November and her dad left and Maria won. Though we don’t talk about November and her dad anymore, at least in public.”

“I see. How about the two near-identical stallions fighting each other?”

“Yin and Yu, they’re brothers from Gorgonzola. Before they joined Korsan, they were a compulsive gambling team and were even banned from Glascow, Los Pegasus, and Monte Canter for cheating. Though if you ask them now about it, they’ll claim they don’t cheat,”

“Hey,” Rarity replies, pointing her hoof at a pale and bald stallion with a light blond beard, silently sitting near the middle of the center row of chairs of the table alone, eating a loaf of bread, “What about that guy?”

“That’s Horus, the quartermaster.”

“What’s his story?”

“No pony really knows, we just picked him up from a large prison in Pearis. He changes the story of how he got there every time you ask him. Like one time, he told me that he defrauded the royal kingdom of Cervidas.” Hearing the conversation between the two mares, the pair of yellow fighters in the center of the room leans over to where Rarity and Slasher are as their blades continue to clash and their bodies tightly held against each other.

“Hey Slasher,” the two brothers nonchalantly say to the orange pony.

“Hello Yin. Hello Yu. We were just talking about Horus.”

“We heard,” one of the brothers replies in a groan as the weight of his rival starts to pull on him, “He told me that he robbed the second largest bank in Prance with only an inked quill.”

The other sibling adds on as he tries to punch his competition, “As for me, he claimed that he created a hole in the ozone above Cowrea.” The two fighters then catch each other in a strangle and roll back towards the middle of the galley.

“See, he changes the story everytime,” Slasher speaks to Rarity, “like this even.” The brown unicorn swiftly turns to the buff albino pirate before shouting. “Hey Horus!” Immediately, the large stallion snaps his head towards the energetic pony and sharpens his small red pupils into her eyes. “What did you do to get in jail?”

The blond stallion hastily grabs a small silver spoon on his table area with his magic, holds it up in front of his face, and quickly responds, “I killed a stallion, with this spoon!”

“Okay. Thanks!” She then returns to Rarity, “Anypony else?”

“So Korsan just picks up these criminals and hires them for his crew?”

“Yep,”

“All of them?”

“Well, most of them.”

“Most?”

“There’s one or two members around here that us crew members aren’t really sure of where they came from.”

“Who?”

“Chopin, the mime, and Isyan,” Slowly, Slasher raises her hoof and points at a dark beige stallion standing next to Korsan’s large elevated table. He’s wearing a black tailcoat suit, has his short, dirty blond hair combed back to his ears, and looks to be studying the captain as Korsan slowly eats his fruits while watching the battle. “Captain’s cousin,”

“Cousin?”

“Yep, he was one of our newest members actually. Korsan picked him up last year while we were all asleep one night and didn’t say anything about him to us the next morning other than Isyan’s his cousin and will be serving as the boatswain.”

“He doesn’t look like the piratical type.”

“He isn’t, he’s just some snob-nosed jerk that’s constantly pushing us lower ranking job members around. The mechanics, the coopers, the carpenters, and the janitors, all of us are just swabs to that stallion’s brown, soulless, eyes.”

“Why don’t you talk to Korsan about it?”

“I’m a janitor, a poop-deck cleaner, a toiler scrubber, a sick bed washer, what gives me the authority to even talk to him, let alone tell him about how much a jerk is own cousin is?”

“I think Korsan would understand.”

“How would you know?”

“I’ve, heard some things from a certain stallion.”

“You mean, Gale?”

“Yeah,”

“Did he tell you about-”

Before Slasher can finish her question, one of the brothers shrieks out from the battle area, “Uncle! Uncle!” Retuning their focus to the center, Rarity and slasher see that the one screaming is being pinned down by his rival while their blades are wedged in the ceiling. The roaring of the crew immediately follows this defeat as well as processions made into bets being thrown around the galley table.

“Whoop! Nice job Yu!”

“I’m Yu, but thanks for the encouragement.”

“Oh, sorry,”

“Bah, okay you can get off of me Yin.” Not noticing their swords are still in the ceiling, the two yellow stallions walk up to the front of Korsan’s table and await their leader’s report.

As the room quiets down, Korsan speaks, “Yu Shou, rigger, congratulations on your victory.”

“I’m Yu, Yin won.”

“Apologies, would help if one of yous wore something. But that’s another matter. Yin, powder monkey, congratulations on your victory. Your form was most adequate, and your balance is one point. However, I would recommend less, silly fighting methods when dealing with opposition from the field.”

“Yes sir,” Yin replies before beginning to head back to a seat at the table.

“Ahem…”

“What?”

“Your swords?” Looking back at the fighting area, the leaving unicorn immediately sees his and his brothers stuck weapons.

“Oh, yes. Sorry. I’ll take care of both of them.” Swiftly, Yin grabs the bladed weapons with his magic and hurries into the armour with them to put them away.

“If I were to align the second piece at a forty-seven degree angle over the first, that would formulate a symbol equation. Then using the cipher system in the edge of the first half, I could then create a series of solutions with the decoded variables and translate those solutions to translate the symbol…”

“Captain?” Yu hesitantly asks as Korsan continues to silently ramble in his chair.

“Huh, what?”

“I lost to Yin.”

“Oh, right, right, right. Ahem. Yu Shou, rigger, although your creativity was put to good use, you are still being easily tricked. Try to remedy that.”

“Yes Captain.” With the two brothers now returning to their seats, Slasher and Rarity return their attention to one another.

“Pity the poor captain,” the brown mare proclaims to her friend, “he’s been so sidetracked by that Diamond Eye stuff and the new weapon he’s working on.”

“Pity him?” Rarity snaps, “He’s just using you criminals to do his dirty work, no offense. Your practically prisoners on this ship from what I’ve heard of your captain.”

“Just using us? Prisoners? Korsan’s practically saved us. He’s given us new lives and plenty of adventures to foreign lands. Sure we’re pirates, but that’s just our standing in life.”

“And murderers?”

“What?”

“That day, three years ago,”

“We don’t really discuss that day in public,”

“You know what happened, you were involved, all of you.”

“Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-”

“Is this what you want? To remove most ponies from the world, take away their lives, all for some arbitrary reason that their not unicorns?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it!”

“No, you’re doing something you know is wrong. You can do something about it, even if your boss won’t like it.”

“No! I don’t want to go back to prison!”

“Please, just-”

“Attention everypony,” Korsan proclaims as he rises from his chair, causing the entire galley to quiet down, “I shall now duel. And the lucky pony that I shall spar with will be Miss Rarity.”

“What?!”

“Yes ma’am. As a treat of being an honoured guest with us tonight, you will be firsthoof to see my true fighting potential. Now, what’s your preferred weapon Rarity? Chopin, be ready.”

“I’m not really the fighting type. So you can just pick another pony.”

“Don’t worry, it is only a spar. We fight until one of us is disarmed or the first sign of bloodshed. Now, what will it be? Cutlass, claymore, longsword, sabre, dagger, rapier, katana, broadsword, Khopesh, lance, mace, we got them all.” Seeing this as an opportunity to gain the upper hoof against Korsan, who is now practically giving her the unit of her escape on a silver platter, Rarity decides to join along in the fight.

“Rapier please,”

“Prance or Cervidas make?”

“Prance please,”

“Right then,” Within a few seconds, the large white stallion pulls out a long, thin sword from the back room and levitates it towards Rarity, who carefully seizes it with her magic and aims it towards her rival. “Initial positions,” Slowly, Korsan and Rarity walk to the middle of the galley with their audience still in silence. As he walks, Korsan draws out one of his large cutlasses from his mechanical suit and points it at Rarity. Now stopped at their positions, only the sounds of undistinguishable mumbles echoes around the chamber, as if a murder is about to happen. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“En garde…”

“…”

“Prêts…”

“…”

“Allez!” In an instant, the two competitors charge at each other and swing their blades into each other’s, creating a loud chink upon collision. As the sound roars across the room, the onlooking pirates burst into fanatical chaos and start to call their bets. After the initial hits, Korsan soon breaks out into a furious series of slices and charges at the unicorn, forcing her to back up and parry the attacks from a distance. However, within only ten seconds, it looks to be that the brown pirate is running out of steam. Rarity then uses the moments of breaks in-between Korsan’s slowing barrages and switches into an attack position. Her thin rapier charges forward at the stallion, aimed right for his heart. However, just before the blade can get close, the pirate pegasus springs back to full energy and jumps over the charging sword, performing a backflip in midair whilst doing so. Several oohs and aahs can be heard from the crowd as Korsan sticks the landing on his hind hooves.

“What?!”

“Just as gullible as Yu it seems.”

“Just as gullible as me?”

“No, Yu Shou,”

“I shall what?”

“No I mean Yin’s brother.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I mean you are as gullible as Yu for falling for my fake fatigue.” As Korsan angrily responds to Rarity’s questions, the white unicorn stealth fully turns her sword around and aims the tip at her opponent’s back.

“I’m as gullible as me?”

Rarity immediately makes her move, charging her rapier forwards towards her and Korsan. “No, Yin’s brother, you are a gullible as-” Korsan suddenly stops midsentence and jumps over the incoming blade. With the long rapier having missed its intended target, the speeding weapon charges towards Rarity instead. The white mare panics and lets go of the sword, but forgets to stop it whilst flying. It continues to speed forward into Rarity, slicing into her back right leg as she attempts to leap out of the way.

Rarity screams in pain as the sharp edge cuts deeply into her skin and severs her nerves, “Ahhhhh!” The room bursts in a flurry of gasps as the rapier exits from Rarity’s flesh and hits one of the corner legs of the massive table behind her, piercing through the wood before coming to a sharp halt. As Rarity then falls onto the wood floor and wraps her front hooves around the cut on her leg, she sees the tip of Korsan’s cutlass in between her eyes.

“Very clever, trying to play me like that. Too bad I was tricking you into thinking you were tricking me. Other than that though, everything about your fighting needs improvement.” The bipedal captain then turns to his back to see his crew silently staring at him, all of which are amazed and still trying to grasp what has happened in front of them.

“So wait,” Yu whispers to her brother in the left corner of the table, “who was tricking who into tricking who?”

“Well my fellow sea artists, it would seem that I have won. Hurry along with your bets and let the next match begin.” Obeying their leader’s order, though still stunned at the quick fight, the pirates slowly and silently deal with the bets and get back to their meals. “Chopin, take Rarity to the medial chambers and get Lilis to deal with that cut please. After which, escort her back to her cell, but also give a ration of baked potatoes to both her and her sister, would you kindly?”