The Scourge was, in of itself, a rather pathetic flying piece of scrap. It's mottled pink balloon looked almost sullen when inflated, and I describe the balloon as mottled, I mean mottled from a series of patches seen into the massive air catcher. The hull of it was no better, the wood portions creaked and the metal bits would probably give you tetanus, if not some otherworldly equivalent.

She tried to ignore the fact that it smelled worse than her brain could process below deck.

She sighed and walked on the rust, her feet leaving dull echoing clanks. She smiled widely. It felt good to be in charge, even if it was a sham.

Her old sword, the one she had kept had a fancy new ruby hilt to it, Ivan having discovered a minor crack and overall shoddy design. He then proceeded to heat his own dagger red hot with the rotten boat's fire for the balloon and etched, rather carefully, a few unfamiliar symbols that the zebra would only say were alpha beta and omega. She still wasn't sure what they were, but half the time she talked to Ivan she was convinced that he had taken trauma as a canary.

His plan, Ivan's, that is, depended on the fact that it would look odd of a zebra were leading a diamond dog around at a port where quite a few slavers made their stop to refuel their primitive decrepit ships. So, she was to act like she was in charge of Ivan and Canary.

Which was great because she got to rub it in Ivan's face that he had practically thrown himself into slavery again. "Hey idiot, I mean, Ivan. What are you doing?"

The ship was lazily drifting on the currents of air that forced the waves of water towards the port town. Scorch, as Ivan demanded he be called, had been directed to go back to Rej once they were within a certain distance. The zebra of her disdain was mouthing words in a language she couldn't understand. And then it hit her. "I'm the only one that can speak common." Her face blossomed into horror.

Ivan nodded. "Yeah." He said in Zebrican. He continued mumbling under his breath.

Her right eye twitched. "Damn it. Damn all of you. I don't want to translate..." She made sure her sword was within easy reach and stood on the prow of her ship.

She felt a little stupid. "Why am I doing this?" She wondered out loud.

Ivan yelled from the ship. "Because you'll look cool. Just wait until there's a random gust of cliche wind coming towards the ocean!"

Slowly, she turned her head towards the port city. The faint chatter from the markets drifted into her hearing and she felt a tinge of nostalgia, and quite a bit more disgust. Half rotten fish smells like low tide.

Her keen eyes caught the landing zone for ships of similar make to The Scourge; almost literally a bulls eye located just off shore.

She could already catch the whiffs from the pleasure houses lining the dock. Hormones and perfume drifted over in what might've been an enticing manner if she had been in her heat.

Or if she were male. She turned back to look at the other two crew members. Neither were having a visible reaction, though Ivan let out a tiny cheer as a burst of wind almost knocked her off the prow.

She held on tight with her feet and all it did was ruffle her fur and knock her new leather hat back an inch.

Ivan burst into cheer. "Heck yes!"

Canary nudged him from just within the corner of her eyes. "Uh... would you stop that?"

He shrugged.

If she had still had a left forepaw she would've cradled her head. But she couldn't, and crying about it wasn't going to give her paw back.

A tan blur blazed on the deck and landed next to the prow. It was a griffon, and though Ivan tensed up in shock, it was not Terror.

Honestly, she probably would've ran for it if it had been Terror. Or stabbed him in the face. It was a toss up between how much she valued her life. The griffon has a beak that looked like it was almost made of brass, a tarnished yellow. Her feathers were a light grey and her hind quarters were about the shade of every other griffon in existence, a mellowish brown.

"Right. Right." The griffon chirped. She was female. "Here's the deal; you slip me a few gems and you don't have your ship stolen from you." Her face wrinkled. "Though honestly, I don't know who would want this ship. Did you at least kill the previous owners first?"

Ivan blinked and she realized that he probably wasn't used to how convicts treated property. She nodded to the griffon. "Slit his throat myself and took my pick of the crew." She motioned at the other two zebras. "These two are the only two that didn't wet themselves when I tossed his body over board."

The griffon nodded and Boss caught the barest hint of approval flash in her emerald eyes. "Good. Just remember, if you wind up with your throat slit in an alley then your property will be stolen." She drug her talons across her own throat. "And don't tick off the locals." She nodded. "There's a spot open to the left. Land this thing there and make sure to tip the guy in front of it." She braced to lift off.

Boss raised her stump. "Can you tell me what this place is?"

"Welcome to Oblivion Port. Last port on the map that the bloody equines will release." She smirked. "If you head south, down the coast from here you'll have to get another map."

That wasn't really a problem, they didn't have a map in the first place.

Ivan walked up to Boss, an odd swagger in his step. "Can you fly an airship?"

The griffon gave a blank stare.

Boss sighed and began translating. "We had to throw our pilot over board shortly before this port came in sight."

The griffon stopped what she was about to do. "And?"

Boss leveled her gaze at her. "We don't know how to land properly."

The griffon nodded. "That'll be extra."

She growled slightly under her breath. "Right. Shall I accompany you below deck?"

Ivan was still staring at the griffon. The griffon seemed to puff up slightly until she gave what could quite possibly be the best death glare Boss had ever seen to the zebra.

The zebra instantly deflated. "And could you tell your friend over there to stop staring at me like that? It's bloody creepy and I'd rather not have to deal with him."

Ivan gulped. "Snip snip?" Boss asked.

"Only if he doesn't stop staring."

Canary cringed and Boss had to swallow back her laughter. "I haven't seen him this cowed in ages." She pointed back at the controls that looked haphazardly mounted on a slap of metal plates.

The griffon smirked and then laughed. "You should've seen what happened to the last idiot who thought they could take advantage of me. I heard he's singing soprano in the opera now. This will cost you quite a few gems." She said in an odd tone.

Boss rolled her eyes. "Yeah. We need a good cleaning team." She said, cringing at the smell.

She shook her head and sighed. "Not what I meant." In a flash of movement the ship jerked as she took the wheel. She smoothly operated the bizarre array of confusing pedals and switches in a manner that conveyed that she was highly experienced at this.

Boss took this moment to crack her neck audibly, barely keeping back a sigh of relief. "What do you mean?"

"You came here for the race, right?" She slowly floated into the mess of the port, then slowly turned down the fire from the control panel. "I mean, I can't imagine why you would ever take over a piece of scrap like this if you weren't. Rustic division?"

Boss scratched the back of her head. "Race."

"Yeah, the prize is massive. And I really don't have anything better to do..." The griffon looked nervous.

Boss sighed. "You want to try and fly this thing in the race?" She didn't even know the griffon's name.

She nodded. "They call me Catastrophe for a reason. I've survived at least 6 full on airship crashes!" She puffed out her chest proudly.

She looked at Catastrophe oddly and sighed. "How big a prize are we talking?"

The awkwardly named griffon seemed to get more excited. "Every so often some bloody idiot rich goody two shoes decides to try and make a 'difference' on the 'oppressed' convicts around here. After he's been dealt with and ransomed off, we usually have a nice airship and most of the loot that we get from him up for grabs."

"Interesting..."

"In this case, around 20000 bits. And a VERY nice airship. With most of the airships that the rabble around here brings in being old junks and sailing ship with a balloon attached to them, the one in charge of the ship usually decides to keep a few bits and give the ship to whatever idiot is willing to race their modified scrap heap for his pleasure." Catastrophe nodded. It occurred to Boss that almost every single being she had met in the past month was using the convict naming system.

Boss herself was not actually named Boss. She took a new name when she fled her pack.

The system was put in place centuries ago when ponies came up with a VERY good way to deal with their serious convicts. Using acid to erase the cutie marks of the offenders was a way to keep the public in line, though it was normally only done with the truly serious offenders.

And they thought the rest of the world was the savages.

Destruction of the cutie mark was normally traumatic enough to force the convict into an existential crisis and wipe quite a bit of their memory. It also almost completely destroyed their desire to do what they were best at.

Most ponies in the mines had been treated that way.

Most beings that ended up in the wastes took on new names to distance themselves to what they were before hand.

Boss nodded. "Right. We'll do it. And can we hire you on as the driver?" She was half distracted.

She looked positively amorous with the prospect. "Of course! I just want about half of the prize winnings if we win."

She nodded. "Right. Makes sense." She looked at her stump and sighed. "Welcome to the crew."

The griffon gave an almost manic smile.

"And if you even try to kill anyone on board that isn't threatening you." She walked forward and bared her teeth. "I'll make sure this is the last ship you crash."

-----------------

I sat down on board and tried desperately to clear my head. My hormones were buzzing around like energetic bees, stinging away my resolve and my thoughts.

That griffon was hot.

In a primal way, her every move seemed to be designed to draw my eye to her like a magnet. And, like a magnet, the hard drive in my head felt like it was glitching up and coughing up garbles of memory and opening random programs.

And she had the nerve to stand up to my eyes. I mean, I wasn't trying to stare at her but I couldn't look away from her. She looked like she could flay my skin from my bones and have a hell of a time doing it. Which, disturbingly enough, was attractive.

And then there was a deeper horror. I had never been attracted to anything outside of my species before. And now I was. Something was messing with my head.

"I was going to make you a griffon, but someone already did it. I might've messed with your wiring a teeny tiny bit. I was also going to make you into a giant spider, as well, but I figured that wouldn't go over."

Oh. Yeah. I have some sort of snazzy spider god thingy in my head. That would explain a lot.

Wait a second... "Someone? THERE ARE OTHERS?"

"I never said that. And that's all of the information you are getting from me, buster." I had a mental image of a cane appearing in the spider's grip and getting twirled around before he bowed and popped away. His hat fell to the ground before giving me a metaphorical middle figure and disappearing away.

"I hate my life."

Canary looked at me oddly.

----

The Shoggoth, now better described as being a floating spiky ball of death covered in tar, continued its quest inland. A few eyes stared out dully over the deep blue sea before sunburn took out the optical organs and they were replaced by new growths.

It hungered.

It floated and hungered and its very presence in the sky was enough to divert the natural migration of a flock of semi large birds.

Anything stupid enough to come close was devoured by the floating mass separated into an abomination of a mouth and a long sharp tongue lunging out and spearing through it. The tongue fell from the sky and trailed over the water as the internal bio mechanisms reeled it into the thing.

It continued its slow flight after the ship.