Rainbow Dash didn’t have another chance to talk to Hot Coals for the remainder of the day, despite how much she tried to or would have liked to. After the morning patrols came back, at least one other pirate was always hanging around the camp doing something. Though Coals did his best to stay within Rainbow’s eyesight as sort of a symbolic gesture of comfort and support, there wasn’t much he could do except keep an eye on her and glower or spit at her with the rest of his crew. But now that Rainbow knew it was all simply show, she didn’t mind it so much.

Thankfully, she didn’t see much of Squall that day. The blood red pirate had set off into the jungle early that morning and spent most of the daylight hours away. Once, Rainbow’s ears twitched at a distant bang, and she realized it must have been Squall discharging one of her pistols at something. She didn’t know what it might have been, but it at least confirmed to her that the pirate captain had working firearms. She didn’t know how much powder the mare had, per se, but it must’ve been enough for her to discharge rounds both that day and the day before when she’d first heard it without caring.

Rainbow regretted that decision more than anything right now. If she’d simply waited for Rarity and Gyro instead of wandering off into the island like an idiot…

But all good things had to come to an end eventually. Squall returned shortly before dinner with a wild boar of some kind towed behind her in her magic, obviously something she’d hunted during her excursion into the island. She set the thing down in front of the fire, and with effortless precision, pulled out a series of knives and quickly cleaned the kill and sliced it into different cuts of meat. Rainbow watched the whole thing with a horrified fascination; though eating seafood meant nothing to her and most pegasi, a pig was still another hooved creature. And Squall had shot it, killed it, and chopped it up without a second thought.

Even worse, Squall grinned at Rainbow and held up a cut of the boar’s ribs. “Nothing juicier,” she sang, wringing some blood and grease from the meat and letting it fall onto the sand. “We eat like royalty tonight.”

Rainbow shivered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to eat at all now.

It wasn’t long before the golden and orange clouds started smothering the island in darkness. Rainbow was surprised the entire day had been mostly sunny and dry when she thought it was going to rain just the day before. She’d been so certain she’d smelled rain on the horizon, but there hadn’t been a drop all day. She figured her concussion must have been messing with her usually very accurate forecasting senses. But now she was certain it’d start raining that night. She could see the thick sheet of clouds crawling across the sky. By the time it was midnight, she figured the heavens would open up and let it rip.

Groaning, she rolled over and buried her eyes under a canvas tarp to block out the light. She couldn’t focus on anything for too long or she’d start seeing spots of light flitting across her vision. She already knew she’d gotten a severe concussion from one of the pirates; she just had hoped it would’ve started clearing up by now. She could hardly move without feeling dizzy, or at least, as much as she could move, hogtied as she was.

That irony wasn’t lost on her. Here she was hogtied, and the pirates were serving pig for dinner. Hopefully she wouldn’t meet a similar fate as the boar—figuratively or otherwise. The pirates certainly didn’t look like cannibals, but Squall was so dangerously unhinged that Rainbow didn’t put it past her doing it just to make a point. Whatever that would actually mean to Rainbow once she was dead, the Wonderbolt didn’t know.

The camp suddenly quieting down caught Rainbow’s attention in a hurry. Swallowing hard, she took her head out from under the tarp and spotted her torturer watching her with a predatory smile. A raw piece of pork floated in the air, and as soon as she had Rainbow’s attention, she skewered the meat on a knife and advanced on her.

“It’s dinner time,” Squall warbled as she approached Rainbow’s lean-to. Swallowing hard, Rainbow tried to back away, but there wasn’t anywhere to back away to. Once more, her coat tingled as Squall’s magic seized hold of her shoulders, and suddenly Rainbow found herself seated in front of the pirate captain. Twirling the knife about, Squall aimed the point at Rainbow’s face. “Be a good doggy and eat your dinner.”

Rainbow grimaced and angled her head away, but refused to say anything. She knew the moment she parted her lips, Squall would try to jam the knife into her mouth. She also knew the pirate wouldn’t care if she cut something in the process.

Squall pouted, and the knife drifted a few inches to the side. “Aww, you’re no fun.” Sitting down directly across from Rainbow, Squall’s eyes brightened and her voice took on a demeaning tone. “Here comes the choo-choo train!” she sang, moving the knife at Rainbow’s mouth. “Open wide! Open wide!”

Rainbow gasped and hissed as the end of the knife dug into the side of her muzzle as Squall held the meat there like she would a spoon to coax a foal to eat. Still, through it all, Rainbow kept her teeth clenched and her lips as sealed as she could.

“Eat your fucking food or I’ll jam it between your ribs myself,” Squall hissed. The knife started to twist in her grasp ever so slowly, so painfully slowly. “Do it, dog. Do it, you worthless bitch.”

But Rainbow didn’t yield. Instead, she just hissed two words out of the opposite side of her muzzle. “Fuck. You.”

Squall’s nostrils flared, and she viciously slashed the knife away from Rainbow’s face. The pegasus cried out in pain and fell over as her cheek began to bleed from the deep cut running along her muzzle to just below her left eye. She saw Squall’s hooves shift in the sand, and she instinctively pulled her head back before the knife buried itself up to and beyond the handle in the sand. When Squall’s red magic disappeared from within the sediment, it was like the knife wasn’t even there anymore. She’d driven it so forcefully into the ground that it’d vanished.

“I’ll fucking choke the life out of you, you stupid little cunt,” Squall growled, raising her hoof. Bet before she could, yellow magic stayed her foreleg, and she whipped her head around. “Who the fuck did that?!”

Rainbow managed to raise her head to see the other pirates singling Coals out from their number. The unicorn swallowed hard but stood his ground. “We don’t need to kill her so soon. Wouldn’t that just be wasting her life?”

“Oh, so you want a turn?” Rainbow’s heart practically seized up when the mare pulled a plank out of a woodpile and threw it at Coals, who caught it in his own magic. “Go ahead. Beat her up. Let it out. Just don’t kill her. Her life belongs to me.”

Coals momentarily froze, the plank floating alongside his head. “Captain…”

“You’re a pirate,” Squall spat at him, dangerously circling around him, just within easy striking distance of a knife. If she wanted to, she could kill him with a thought before he could react. “You’ve been on my crew for three years. You’ve helped me kill, rape, and plunder the skies. And you’re getting cold hooves now?” She shook her head. “I thought you were the real deal, not a faker.”

Rainbow made eye contact with Coals. Steeling herself, she gave him the barest of nods. “Do it,” she mouthed. She didn’t need to lose her only ally for her own sake. She could take a little pain if it kept Coals out of suspicion.

There was a moment of hesitation, but Coals swallowed his qualms and lunged at Rainbow. The first bite of the stick surprised her with its ferocity, and though Rainbow had been planning to exaggerate her pain, expecting Coals to hold back a bit, her bloody muzzle let loose a genuine scream of hurt. Again and again, Coals whaled on her, covering her body in bruises and cuts and bloody marks. It barely lasted a minute, but when the sympathetic pirate finally stopped, everything on Rainbow’s body hurt.

A singular pair of hooves clapped from the center of the camp. When Rainbow could open an eye again, she saw Squall grinning and borderline giggling like an idiot. “Oh, you two are so cute when you play together!” She laughed and stood up, taking the stick away from Coals. Shaking her head, she wiped a tear from her eye and circled wide of the stallion while the rest of her crew watched. “That was the sweetest thing. You two might have had acting careers ahead of you with a little work. Might have.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, but before her or Coals could react, Squall whipped out one of her pistols and fired. The stallion spun around and collapsed like a sack of meat, and Rainbow screamed. Again, Squall laughed and giggled, even as she holstered the smoking firearm. “I know my crew, Rainbow Dash,” she said, walking over to Rainbow. “I always knew Coals was weak. Weak and scared. And I had my suspicions all but confirmed after watching how he interacted with you today. Do you really think I spent the entire day hunting that pitiful boar?”

“You killed him!” Rainbow screamed. It was the only thing her mind could process. “Your own shipmate!”

“He was never a shipmate,” Squall said with a laugh. “He was pressed into service on my ship. He never had that true fiery blood that makes a real reaver. And today, he showed it.”

Coals groaned from the ground, and Squall lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “Though I may have spoken too soon. Tough son of a bitch.” Her magic rolled him over, and Rainbow saw the wound in his side, oozing blood into his coat. Satisfied, Squall dragged him across the camp and over to Rainbow’s side. “Though it doesn’t look like he’ll last long. Why don’t you take care of him for me? He’s your friend after all.”

Then Squall fixed her eyes on the remainder of her crew. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to repeat this lesson, but it never hurts to have a refresher. Don’t fuck with me. Or you’ll end up like him.” She nodded her horn in Coals’ direction, and then simply walked right through the middle of her crew, which parted for her as if by some unseen magic. “Flag, figure out the patrols for the evening. I can’t be assed after all this excitement.”

As the pirates went back to their work, Rainbow managed to twist and crawl her pained, aching body to Coals’ side. The stallion breathed weakly, but without any hooves free, Rainbow couldn’t stop the bleeding in his side. Out of desperation, she jammed her free wing into the wound, earning a moan from Coals but hopefully stemming the bleeding. “Just hang in there, Coals,” she said to him, her voice cracking. “Hang in there. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

The crimson soaking into her feathers told a different story.