Siren Song

by TheDarkStarCzar

First published 18th of March, 2013

My name is Sea Swirl and I love swimming in the Ocean. That hardly tells you anything about a pony, though. My name is Sea Swirl and my Mother is a thief and a murderer. Maybe. Maybe that tells you too much.

My name is Sea Swirl and I love swimming in the Ocean. That hardly tells you anything about a pony, though. My name is Sea Swirl and my Mother is a thief and a murderer. Maybe. Maybe that tells you too much.

Maybe a pony would say that has nothing to do with me whatever, sins of the mother, so to speak, but she's turned up after all these years, alive and well in Ponyville. My quest to find her and hold her to account is waylaid as she adds high treason to the list and leads me, as a bit of a tag along to the Element Bearers, on a desperate chase deep into the heart of Eagleland.

Airships, griffons, murder, scheming and magic. An unreliable narrator and often neurotic, Sea Swirl is toyed with by her mother whose motivations are her own secret. Is everything she ever knew a lie or is she likewise a killer as her mother insists?

Keeper of the Light

My name is Sea Swirl, I love to go swimming in the ocean. That doesn't tell you much about a pony though, does it?

My name is Sea Swirl and my mother is a thief and a serial killer.

Maybe.

Maybe now that tells you too much.

I stood at the precipice and looked over, down to the waves breaking below and the black jagged rocks spread out on either side.

"Thirty yards if it's an inch." I told nopony. Even my dog ignored me, preoccupied with the stink of some long departed animal that permeated the patch of dirt he was chomping at.

Cappy, a big black lab, was the dumbest dog I'd ever owned, but what he lacked in brains he made up in longevity. My other dogs, Luna rest them, would have sensed something amiss with me dancing around the verge, back and forth. Norry would have known I was about to jump and would have barked pensively. Scounder would have jumped right along with me. He was fearless and loyal, like I am on my good days.

Not Cappy, though. His big moronic self would just look around after I'd jumped, find himself inexplicably alone and eventually wander home. Even my cats were more intuitive and sensitive than him and you know how cats are.

Regardless, the time was right. A beautiful black storm was coming from the West, inland, and it's lightning flashes and ozone smell set just the menacing tone I love. My mind was made up and I was just intoxicated enough to finally go through with it. I looked over the edge again to the whorls of foam and vicious rocks reaching up like the erratically spaced teeth of a shark, then I kicked over the smooth stone obelisk that sat near the cliff edge, breaking it off even with the ground. Cappy started and looked searchingly for the source of the sharp sound.

"I'll put it back later." I lied, but not for the reason you may think. That obelisk was a marker of my mother's passing, the spot where she plunged to the rocks below, memorialized by the pink granite engraved with a name, Ocean Song. That's the name she was using then.

I wouldn't be replacing it because I was going to jump off the same exact spot and I knew I wouldn't die. In my mind that would prove to me she hadn't died so there wouldn't be any purpose in it.

Maybe that sounds a little crazy but I'm not suicidal, not these days. I'm just a seeker of truth and a fatalist and I was already galloping past the point where I could stop so I pushed as hard as I could for the last leap into the yawning void and hung there seemingly forever.

Thirty yards into open water is nothing to sneer at. From that high up the water slaps you like it was made of concrete even when you land well and that's ignoring the rocks, but I'd swum the gap below and I knew I wouldn't die.

In theory.

If I knew for sure I suppose I wouldn't have had to take the plunge.

The world moved so slow up here, I had time to idly ponder my strange and wasted life as the ocean loomed. The booze, the drugs, the unfinished novels, my three quarters complete college education that just kind of tapered off into nothing. Thirty four years old and still a foal living off Daddy's spare bits trying to become a writer. Statistically it could be stated that nopony ever made it as a writer, the few that did, so very few as to be effectively zero and everypony knew that trying to become an author was just a method of procrastinating to keep from joining the real world.

Bucking writers ought to all be shot.

Legs down, head up, eyes closed, take a deep breath...

I didn't land well, I'd listed uncontrollably starboard and hit a quarter ways on my side. The stinging slap of the ocean didn't slow me. Momentum carried me deep into the abyss, my speed seemingly not being scrubbed off by the fluid resistance of the dark, briny water that forced itself up my nose and down my throat.

The moonlight barely penetrated this deep but I realized my eyes had sprung open. My hind legs and plot skittered against a sloping wall of rock, the cliffside moving outward as I sank, cutting my flanks and hind quarters. Just as I had started to paddle and my momentum had been nearly neutralized I hit a rocky shelf and my legs collapsed under me and spilled me in a pile.

It effectively knocked the wind out of me and I was a long way down and I panicked, I'll admit.

It was as reasonable a place for it as any.

I sprung upward, paddling madly and inefficiently, buoyancy my only indicator of which way was up until I glimpsed that wavering moonlight.

I had no air in my burning lungs and my body fought to convince me to inhale and it was such a long way that I very nearly complied. It scares me how easy it would have been, how welcome, but I finally bobbed up to the surface. An eternity later I sucked in a deep, much needed breath along with more seawater than I had intended which caused a coughing fit while I unsteadily tread water.

I had survived with only scrapes and light injuries but it was nearly a mile swim to anywhere I could climb out without being dashed against the rocks and I was already exhausted.

Were there anyone who cared I would admit that this had been a bad idea and beg for either forgiveness for my stupidity or some manner of help. Lacking a proper confessor I just got to the business of churning my big clumsy hooves homeward. That, of course is when the storm finally cleared the coast and it started to rain fat, cold, stinging drops.

There was even a little bit of hail.

If you want the worst case scenario, stick with me, I'm pretty sure it's my special talent. That's what I was thinking then with a big, mad smirk on my face.

I climbed up the ladder that lead to the cramped dock. It was nestled precariously between the rocks that marked the cliff the lighthouse sat on. Nothing bigger than a dinghy could make use of it without risk of being crushed but I was glad for it just the same. It gave me a resting point before the rope ladder, which is an invention not well suited to pony physiognomy. Waiting patiently at the top was Cappy, tongue lolling and wholly serene.

If I had thrown him off the cliff before me he'd still have been here waiting patiently for my return with no ill feelings. I ruffled his fur with my dripping hoof.

This short trip over a cliff was a long time coming. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, that marked a longer one to be undertaken.

"C'mon Cappy, we've got packing to do, seems like momma's alive and I probably ought to do something about it." I said, talking tough to impress that idiot dog. Truthfully I had no clue what I was going to do. Ocean Song had turned up after twenty some years in Ponyville and I've little enough idea what to feel about it, much less do.

The morning after my graceless swan dive found me sitting high atop the stone tower that defined my home as a lighthouse. Former lighthouse, mind you. It had been decommissioned when I was a teenager, days after my mother's fateful but demonstrably not fatal dive. The light beacon itself was gone, scavenged by some collector of nautical memorabilia, no doubt, leaving a hollow in the center of the concrete floor, reminding me of an absurdly tall wishing well.

I had a few bits.

I had fewer wishes.

I lacked the faith required to make them without planning on bringing them to fruition myself.

Directly.

Wishes should be reserved for forlorn hopes and things that cannot be achieved in reality, not just for things one wants but is too lazy to bring about on one's own. All my wishes were of the latter sort.

The glass had been knocked out, maybe by wind, probably by vandals and all that was left was the barest skeleton of the roof, it's tiles made to last the test of time but it's wooden supports having given way and spilled them to the ground far below like a tray of cookies. A few of those old clay soldiers didn't know when to give it up and hung on tenaciously askew.

Celestia's sun was the barest sliver, just risen from the horizon and I looked to it pretending that I found inspiration in it. I did not. I rose with the sun religiously as a matter of discipline. It was one of the few things I did to alleviate my feelings of being the complete loser I knew I was. I'd instituted this bit of routine when I realized that I was getting a minimum of ten hours of sleep a day. I took to running three miles and doing a hundred and fifty pushups every day, no excuses. Discipline of this sort was all well and good but here I was at sunrise with half a bottle of cheap champagne and a saddlebag full of my favorite little herb which I nibbled at liberally.

I sat up here most mornings in a similar state as a matter of routine. On good mornings, like this one, I would hear hoof falls on the stair that announced Wave Crest had chosen to greet the day with me. She was not a morning mare, not a bit, but she had to be up early to see her foals off to school so sometimes she would join me. She worried about me, I know. We're friends of the sort that make the words "best friend" seem like a trite banality.

My horn lit with a purple aura, a monochrome to match my lavender coat and purple mane, as I plucked a fat little bud from my saddlebag and greeted her with it as she broke from the dark stairs into the dawning light. She snatched it from the air and chewed it eagerly, her jaw making little circles as she crushed the seeds.

So you don't judge I should say some things about that particular bit of foliage. She wasn't so much of a fan as I was, but she'd take her share because she knew it made me feel like she was a conspirator with me. She'd brought up that I should lay off, worried that my lack of motivation was brought on by my habitual ingestion of the sacred plant. I don't feel that this is the case. Some of the smartest, most motivated ponies I know partake and it keeps my anxiety in check.

Unlike Wave Crest who's had a perfect little life, I've been through some things. This is the part where I'd tell you about my childhood but I don't actually remember much of it, only bits and pieces and brief images I'd rather not recall.

Flashes of mad eyes, overpowering magic, destruction before me. Lovely little halcyon glimpses.

Repressed memories, that's what my therapist says and even though I pointedly do not believe in horseapples like that I do wonder if it might really be the case from time to time.

In further defense of my extracurricular habits I should like to offer the noble tomato in my defense.

The tomato is sweet, juicy and divine but that's just a ploy. The tomato is, in fact, payment for a service rendered. If you try to bite an individual tomato seed it's frog egg like covering makes it a difficult task. The seed tends to slide out of your bite to travel undamaged into your belly to later be deposited, in a pile of ideal fertilizer no less, some distance away.

Thus the tomato is remuneration for propagating the species and it wouldn't do for it to be harmful to it's benefactors. Biology class taught me that.

Now if there were another plant that had a bud where grazing animals such as yours truly were likely to get at it and this bud contained seeds for the selfsame reason as the tomato does, and let's say this bud had certain psychoactive properties. Would it not be fair to, say, take as logical that the effects of this particular bud were wholly salubrious? For if they were not how would the plant survive?

It is, in the wild, considerably more plentiful than tomatoes, I notice.

Enough about that, though, I tend to do that. My therapist calls it rabbit trailing, I didn't get at first that she meant it pejoratively and I was proud of my unruly mind. I get off the path I intend to follow and crash through the underbrush after every stray little thought. I can't help it, though, I have so many things to convey and they all explode out in a tangle. I want to spin them into my yarn, into a rope and a hawser that moors the point I'm trying to elucidate to the greater narrative.

It tends, as I do, to drift.

Wave Crest was a blue earth pony with an unlikely straw colored mane, wild and spiky. Predictably she had the curl of a wave as her cutie mark. It reminded me of my mother's but for the music note that was missing on Wave Crest's. She grunted a greeting, still very much bleary eyed, sat down and took a dainty swig off of my warm, flat champagne. She expected it to be thus, though, she'd been around me enough. For a while we stared out at the sun slowly rising over the godless expanse of endless ocean.

Finally she spoke, "Your mom's marker was knocked over when I walked by it this morning." To this I grunted. "I suppose that means you finally went and jumped off the bucking thing?" She asked.

"Yeah, I did. A bit." I admitted casually, "How'd you know?"

She cocked her head towards me, "I know you is how. I've seen you staring over the edge for weeks now and I saw the newspaper clippings. Me, I would have thought the pictures in the paper would be enough to convince you she was alive, I mean I recognized her and I'm not even related, so why you had to go cliff jumping is beyond me!"

"I knew I'd be okay..."

"Exactly!" She interrupted giving me a full on glare now, "You said yourself the rocks formed a little notch there that went down deeper than you could dive, the extra drama is just...just...infuriating! Everything's got to be all angst and revelations with you, doesn't it?"

"Honestly I get so Celestia damned sick of worrying about the stupid things you do!"

"I'm sorry." I said simply and genuinely, "It just seemed like the only way to know for sure."

She took another little swig off the champagne and let the bottle clatter back down clumsily, "I don't think that's even true. The only way to really know for sure is to go to Ponyville and see for yourself."

"I know." I said, "I've known it all along, I suppose, but you know what? I'm scared."

"How would you be scared of your mother?" Wave Crest asked, "She was always the sweetest mare in the world so far as I ever saw."

"Yeah, well..." I thought of how I could possibly explain this and finally settled on the lighthouse itself, "When you're out in the bay on your surfboard and you look back at the lighthouse, have you ever noticed the crack in the tower?" She nodded so I continued. "There was a whole story to go along with it, about how my folks met. Dad told me that he'd been piloting a big freighter, a four master, one of the modern ones at the time, through some light fog. Not so thick you needed the foghorns, but thick enough you were glad they were there. He was sure he was in the deep channel right up until he rammed his ship right into the cliffside."

"Threw him right out of the wheelhouse onto the deck and when he came to there was my mom yelling about how dumb was he that he not only wrecked his ship but managed to nearly knock down the lighthouse that was warning him off the shore. When he looked up he couldn't argue because there was that old beacon blazing out into the night, so he came up with some line. 'As soon as I saw you I just couldn't delay introducing myself to you as expediently as possible. Do you expect this is sufficient to make an impression?'"

"Something like that, anyway, he's good with that sort of loose talk. Well she was taken in by his flattery, she didn't get much of it being a lonely lighthouse keeper so they got together and she testified in court that the lighthouse had a temporary failure. In the end the insurance company paid for the whole thing except the ceremony."

"Dad told me that that big crack in the tower is from where his ship hit the cliff. I don't think it's actually true, mind you, but he sticks by it to this day. He also views the whole thing as his greatest failing, thinks he should have seen the cliff and doesn't know how he could have missed it."

Wave Crest had walked over to the edge of the tower and was looking down it's side at the very crack. At the top it tapered away into nothing. Towards the bottom it expanded to a hoof wide fissure that traveled deep into the cliffside. Some day soon the whole tower would collapse into the sea, "How DID he miss the cliff if the lighthouse was lit?"

"See, that's the thing." I paused a long while for dramatic effect, "I think my mom shut off the beacon on purpose."

"That's crazy Sea Swirl, why would she even do that?" Wave Crest demanded.

"Actually I think she did it a lot." I said and understanding finally dawned on Wave Crest. There had been a lot of shipwrecks on this side of the bay. It was so bad that they dredged the channel out farther in the bay and put an automated beacon out on an artificial island at a cost of millions of bits. The wrecks simply stopped after that, but that was also the same time of my mother's fateful leap.

"You're telling me your mom was a shipwrecker?" She asked incredulously, "The sweet mare who baked us cookies and told us bedtime stories and always had a smile on her face? Why?"

I shrugged. As a foal I was too young to know anything was amiss and as a teen I was too oblivious to notice. So when the sheriff came to serve the eviction notice, a notice mom and I had both been expecting, I lead him in to the storehouse that was attached to the lighthouse's base. It was an admittedly stupid thing to do since it was full up with crates of cargo with various labels that indicated them as coming from local shipwrecks.

I was used to them being there and never even thought about it. After a wreck they'd show up in the middle of the night and they'd mostly disappear over the next month or so. A few crates were there for years. If I'd thought about it at all I would have thought mom was salvaging cargo, I'd certainly never thought it was anything illegal.

The sheriff caught on pretty quick that the storehouse was full of ill gotten goods and there stood my mother in the middle of a tower of crates, dumbstruck and defenseless. She sighed and seemingly acquiesced to going with the sheriff, who had yet to speak a word. He didn't need to, she knew she was busted and he knew she knew.

What happened next has shaped my life to this day, but I know now that I interpreted it wrongly. "I've told you about what happened that night, when the sheriff came to evict us and mom jumped off the cliff?" I asked. Wave Crest nodded, "Well it wasn't the eviction notice that drove her to it. I don't think she cared that much about that, it was the sheriff seeing all the cargo from the shipwrecks that spooked her."

"I heard about that, after the fact, but you can't condemn her for gathering up a bit of lost freight, even if it's not strictly proper." Wave Crest said by way of comfort.

"Yeah, but it was more than a bit of it and all from the wrecks that happened around here, the wrecks this old tower was meant to prevent." I shook my head. It appeared to me that Equestria had spent their millions of bits because of one petty thief whose take was how much? Maybe in the hundreds of thousands at most. She certainly didn't lavish any bits on me. It's bad enough from that perspective even when not considering that nearly every wreck resulted in the loss of the entire crew, which was statistically improbable.

Those suspicions, though, I wouldn't bring up with even Wave Crest.

"Also, this may only be hindsight lying to me, but I have to think she knew that cliff was safe to jump from. Like it was her contingency plan in case she ever had to disappear one day and if she'd kept herself out of the papers I suppose it would have worked, too."

"Maybe that's true, I can hardly believe she'd just run off and leave you without ever sending word for twenty years, though." Wave Crest said. She didn't know my mom, though. Not really. She was all manner of sweetness and light on the outside, but she had a hard streak that lay just out of view. The kind of scary hard that I wouldn't put anything past.

"If she's really in Ponyville I'm going to be asking her about that." I said dryly.

"So..." Wave Crest considered at length, picking up the nearly empty bottle and swirling it's contents aimlessly. She wouldn't drink it, I knew. She always left the dregs to me as a matter of courtesy. "You need me to feed your cats?"

"Yup." I confirmed and a lot had been passed unspoken in that short exchange.

Was I really going to Ponyville to take care of business? Yes.

Was I coming back? No.

Ever?

I didn't know.

Things hadn't been going well for me out here for some time and I'd been looking for an excuse to make a break.

Wave Crest worked with her family, repairing wooden boats and had a sideline making surfboards. That was her special talent and she hired me on from time to time to help out, but once I got good at it and the challenge was all gone all I wanted to take on was the hard jobs.

I had a way with seemingly unmanageable billets of koa that were otherwise going to be discarded. I could wrestle and finesse them into some of the finest boards to come out of that shop, right up there with Wave Crest's work, but I was slow, balky and I swore the whole time, generally making everyone miserable. It made it look like I was fishing for praise and maybe I was, but it made me uncomfortable and I eventually slacked off to nothing, having left a half carved board on the bench and never returned to it.

Essentially I was unemployed and unattached. The lighthouse I lived in was condemned (though it had been for a decade now) and it wasn't my property anyway. Dad lived in town when he was home, which was almost never. He was a sea captain now and in high demand. He loved me and lavished bits upon me that I might maintain my theoretically hedonistic lifestyle of swimming all day and trying to cobble together the great Equestrian novel at night.

I would miss Wave Crest immensely and certainly I'd come back to visit, but this chapter of my life was over, I decided solemnly.

I swigged the rest of the champagne and flung the bottle towards the sea. The wind pushed it back towards us and it shattered satisfyingly against the tower's rough masonry.

I hugged the still seated Wave Crest goodbye, swiftly gathered my few effects and headed off before she could think to walk me out of town. It was hard enough without that, it may be that I even sniffled the barest little bit.

Cappy by my side, I turned back to the ruined tower, "Tell the Captain when he gets back into town!" I yelled back to Wave Crest, who saluted from her perch, eyes glittering with tears.

Author's Notes:

Okay, so about that...
The inspiration for the character of Sea Swirl is my best friend, a forty some year old stoner who wants to be a writer, film maker, painter, boxer and sometimes even a politician at different points in time.
I am ambivalent about her drug habits. It's a big part of defining who she is at this point, but mostly relevant to the story to show her attitude.
I have enjoyed her warm, flat champagne for many a year.
"Why Sea Swirl?" You may ask. Since she's a canon background pony who's been in Ponyville where do I get off bringing her in towards the end of season three? Well...I've no extenuating details that justify it just now, I'll admit.
I actually fixated on her because when I finally gave in and bought a blind bag pony she was it. When I got the code that tells you what's in the blindbags I realized that multiple hers and Peachy Sweets were the distilled discards from any number of cases. Being cast off like that made her an endearing character for me and I wanted to tell her story, sad though it may be.
So that's the why.
Now as to the quality, I'm a mediocre writer. I'm well aware of it but I'm not doing this for practice, I'm compelled to write this and cannot help it. Therefore, as arrogant as it is to say, critiques of my general style aren't all that helpful, but if it makes you feel good to break out your English major destructo vision in the comments, feel free, I guess.
Ooh, and tell me why feet of clay means what it does while you're at it.

Point out any of the dumb spelling and punctuation errors if you see them. It's proofread and somewhat edited, but by someone who's not keen on ponies so...that.
This is meant to be somewhere under 100,000 words when it's done.

Detective Work

A bloody sunset cast a melancholy light over me. Times like these, the light fading away, speaks of nothing more than another day dead and buried and nothing but darkness forthcoming.

Elongated shadows are cast and fade away against an ever darkening backdrop. Soon the light from inside the train car casts such a glare I have to open the window and nearly stick my head completely out to stay in that dark world that passes by. I try to ignore the cheerily painted passenger car's interior and it's cheerily painted ponies.

I was enjoying my brooding.

On my bad days I'm like that, I'm afraid.

On some of my better ones too.

This elicits some wondering stares and draws some condescending throat clearing that I'm meant to interpret as an objection to the breeze I'm letting in. I choose to overlook them. Were I to react I would do so with hostility and me passive aggressively ignoring them is, at least, passive.

Outside that strange and dry land passes unobserved by anypony but me and I watch the tiny houses pass with their twinkling lights and families of ponies I'll never know or meet. A whole world of love, triumph and traumas contained in each one, existing wholly separate from myself, with no knowledge intermingled between us.

We roll right through this strange, ever darkening land that I've never seen before, so far from home and I wonder at the loneliness and isolation of it all. As the stars come out I start to wax philosophic and am considering shutting the window and striking up a conversation with one of my fellow ponies, Cappy starts to bark.

At first it was a clipped, uncertain half bark, but soon enough he's lost himself in the act and is going full roar as I try to clamp his muzzle shut with my hooves.

"Ma'am," The conductor addresses me in irritation, "If you're having trouble with your dog might I suggest you take him to the baggage car?"

"No...that's okay, he...dammit Cappy!" I struggled with him. Usually he's well mannered about such things but the train seems to have him spooked and I finally concede, much to the grimacing pleasure of the other passengers.

I notice one of them rise and slam the window down before I'd even exited the car.

I'm certain the other passengers smirked in haughty solidarity against me as he did it.

Cappy finally shuts up when the baggage car door slides shut behind us and then only because he's found a new world to explore. First and foremost there's another dog, shut up in a crate and they yip greetings to each other happily. Cappy hopped around ludicrously and the crated dog spins several revolutions in his crate.

That done Cappy takes to sniffing the trunks and bags. I almost yell at him when he begins to lift his leg, but being exiled from the civilized ponies has made me vindictive and I let him repeatedly urinate on the various stacks of luggage, just as he pleases.

I grumpily spread the map out before me on someone's trunk and look it over. It looks like I'll be stuck on this grumbling, slow swaying train for three days yet and I'd only managed a few hours before being relegated to the company of parcels and a great lummox of a dog.

"Good going, Cappy. Now I've got to sleep on the floor like a hobo." I groused, but was surprisingly unbothered by it and resigned to it. I was used to this sort of thing, I felt out of place out there anyway, like everypony was watching me with barely disguised contempt. I felt alone out there, too, but surrounded, as well, so it's just as well that it went this way.

For all my bluster I got a crick in my neck and finally paid to have a compartment.

That's a funny thing, too. Here they had an empty compartment with nopony in it and they sent me to the baggage car rather than bring it up without me asking about it. I mean really it's part of the train and they've got to haul it around anyway, empty or not, but they couldn't have just let me have it? Like it's better to have it just remain empty and unused than to let somepony, Celestia forbid, soak up it's meager luxury without having paid for it?

At least here I could break into my stash without prying eyes upon me.

Between that and a novel I gainked from one of the bags in the baggage car I passed the majority of the trip in sequestration.

I was so caught up in reading, thinking of the past and seeing to Cappy's needs that it never even occurred to me until we passed Canterlot that I had no coherent plan of action once I did get to Ponyville. It was an abstract idea, actually arriving.

I'd had in my head that I'd get there, find mom in a few minutes and confront her with a heartfelt, "Mom, What the buck?" That's as detailed a stratagem as I had come up with so far, but I'm a play it by ear kind of mare in most cases anyway.

This was meant to the be the start of a whole new life or some such thing, so I figured some modicum of energy should be put into a plan. I meant to be in town a while and seeing as hotels disliked dogs I'd have to rent a house. I had enough spare bits to swing that for a little while, but I'd certainly have to find some semblance of a job.

I had all manner of skills, so that shouldn't be too difficult. I had a hard time stomaching tedious work, though, and most work became tedious once you'd done it long enough to excel at it.

Long ago I'd won many swimming competitions. I was the fastest mare in Equestria and with a few months of training I could be again. Swimming as much as I did kept me in top physical shape, I might even be able to hire out as a farmhand and get some extra exercise in until I could get my regimen together.

Once I won a few competitions and a sponsor picked me up it'd be a tolerable living, even if all the traveling and training was a bit dull.

As for locating Mom, I found that I was dancing around that issue again because I didn't know where to start. I couldn't be too obvious about it, if she knew I was in town she might even bolt since I was one of the few ponies who knew who she really was.

Sherclop Holmes I am not and by the time the train pulled into the station all I had come up with was to check with City Hall.

The first thing that struck me about Ponyville upon exiting the coach and stepping out onto the platform was just how clean it was. Ridiculously clean. All the buildings freshly painted in bright, sparkling colors and in perfect repair and all the lawns were evenly mowed. Even the dirt streets were free of washboarding, as if they'd been freshly raked on a weekly basis. They probably had been.

The flowers and topiaries were all pristine, freshly barbered, not a sprig out of place.

It gave off an aura of the whitest of white bread earth pony towns I had ever seen and that was before I saw the 'wacky' novelty shaped architecture as I walked through town. A gingerbread house, a jester's hat and a carousel being the most notable. They were so overdone I couldn't help but groan and grin a pained, unwelcome smile. These middle of the country earth pony towns were so corny and it was clear on the faces of each pony that passed that they loved it.

Back on the East coast it's not like that. Ponies there are a bit more subdued, as is their architecture. That sort of overwrought frilly-ness would be seen as overindulgence and frowned upon. It seemed to me like a comparison between a stand up comic and a clown. Their purpose, after all, was the same, but one aimed towards a decidedly less sophisticated demographic.

All in all Ponyville looked like a circus had exuberantly, but neatly, vomited.

As I stood wondering in the technicolor brilliance Cappy was making his own discoveries, new frontiers of scent, and with a sneeze and a snort he took off to explore them.

"Cappy! No! Get back here!" I yelled, but he'd built up momentum already and his nose was drawing him into a loping gait I couldn't match. In moments we were in a marketplace, him recklessly darting between stands and pony's legs and me hollering my frustrated lungs out.

From the looks on the faces of the Ponyvillians I took it they were unused to the Eastern flair of my language. Which is to say that I was swearing maybe a bit more than was proper. It felt good, though it's effect on Cappy was non-existent as I chased him two whole circuits around the marketplace before my lungs insisted I stop.

Desperate and embarrassed I became aware of all the eyes upon me and flushed. A mare behind an applecart took notice of my predicament and nudged her own brown and white dog.

"Git 'im!" She said laconically to the dog and leaned back against the cart with a smirk.

Her dog rocketed off and though I was worried about Cappy being attacked those fears proved to be unfounded. The bright eyed farm dog ran tightly around my own elephantine mongrel and shifted his path back on itself. In mere moments the smaller dog had herded the bigger one right back towards me and I was worried about being bowled over by my own black behemoth. Again the small dog had it handled and cut in front of Cappy at the last moment, forcing him to scrub off speed by squatting down onto his haunches.

Before he'd even come to a stop I had his leash out of my saddle bag and levitated the end over to clip onto his collar's D-ring. I should have harshly chastised Cappy, but I knew from way back that he just didn't learn from that and if I did it would only make him harder to catch the next time. I just shook my head and sighed.

I turned to thank my savior, an orange, blonde maned mare wearing a cowpony hat. She was praising her dog and I couldn't blame her.

"That's some dog." I said and she nodded, "I can't get mine to even mind me most of the time, much less do anything useful. Thanks for that, by the way."

She considered me for a moment, then held out her hoof to shake, "Shoot, wasn't any kinda trouble. Winona here loves 'ta herd animals, even if it's only a herd o' one. For her that was a real romp so don't worry 'bout it. Name's Applejack, by the way."

"Sea Swirl." I replied and returned her hoofshake.

"I'm gettin' from that accent that y'all ain't from around here." She said and I was instantly put on edge. I didn't really think I had an accent, but apparently I did. I'd meant to keep a low profile, prowl around like a shark until I got the lay of the land and some manner of lead. Thanks to Cappy I was drawing attention to myself already and putting myself at risk of laying out all my business for everypony to see when I just wanted to circle and observe.

"Yeah, I just got into town." I replied, evading admitting where I was from. In small towns like this gossip got around fast and I couldn't risk my mother finding out I was here. I wanted that meeting to be made on my terms just in case, "Do you know of a hotel that will let me in with this monster?" I pointed a hoof at Cappy who was happily panting in blissful ignorance. Applejack considered it for a moment.

"I cain't say I've ever had to make use of the lodgings around town, but I 'spect Peachy Sweet's boardin' house, down ta sixth and mane, would be your best bet. Bakes a mean pie, too, if you're partial to peach anyhow." Applejack rolled her eyes as if that were one of the sillier things she'd ever heard, "I prefer apple fritters myself, but ta each her own, I reckon. So what're y'all doin' in our fair city?"

This is where I got shifty and evasive. I must admit I'm just not very good at it having preferred blunt honesty my whole life. I tried to tell a half truth that downplayed the urgency of my quest, "I'm just in town looking for somepony is all."

"Maybe I can help. Who ya' lookin' fer in particular?" I should have seen that question coming, but I hadn't, and I couldn't formulate a convincing answer on the fly.

"Um...Just a relative I lost track of a long time back who turned up in Ponyville a while back." I answered somewhat truthfully. If I was smart I would have said I was looking for Wave Crest or some other pony I knew so I could use their name without making one up. It would be more natural that way, but I didn't and though Applejack could clearly tell I was being dishonest she didn't press the issue but rather gave me a useful bit of information.

"Well if'n yer lookin' for anypony 'round here you could do worse than to ask Pinkie Pie. She works at Sugarcube Corner, big gingerbread house in the middle of town," She told me and I mumbled that I'd noticed it earlier, "She knows everypony in town and she's a good friend ta have besides," She moved in close, speaking in a friendly, mock conspiratorial whisper, "Specially if'n ya got some kinda secret yer tryin' ta keep."

"Secret? I, uh, no..." I stammered cleverly. She just shrugged, content to mind her own business, told me it had been a pleasure to meet me and turned her attention back to the applecart. I thanked her again and hastily trotted off to find this Pinkie Pie, hoping her to be the discrete and level headed mare that Applejack had implied her to be.

I clipped Cappy's lead to the handle of a waterpump out front of the swaybacked sweet shop. Being a practical mare at heart, I stopped to consider the water shedding problems the faux icing on the roof was bound to cause and to wonder at the composition of the roof tiles themselves. In the past I've hired out as a house painter so dry rot issues are near and dear to my heart. I couldn't help but speculate that it must cost a considerable sum just to keep the cupcake styled cupola freshly painted, after all there's nothing enticing about a weathered, peeling giant cupcake.

The whole facade was an adamant statement of form over function so I was surprised at the simplicity of the interior. Certainly it had many carpenter style flourishes and candy striped support posts but it was mostly marked by an open, uncluttered space of worn, but freshly painted, green floorboards.

There was a single display case with neatly arrayed pastries and candies, a bell upon it indicating it to also be the front counter. A ceiling high shelf to the side held cakes and pies under domed glass and a punched tin pie safe beside it promised reinforcements should there be a run on sweets.

Several nicely made folding tables were propped unobtrusively against the wall. A trio of round tables and the attending stools were all the dining room held, along with a teenage colt and filly sharing a milkshake with two straws.

That level of endearing preciousness turned my stomach a bit.

The counterpony hadn't shown up yet and I absolutely deplore 'ring bell for service' type arrangements; It always makes me feel guilty, having been a countermare myself for a time and I always took the bell to be accusatory. Every ring like a passive aggressive declaration that I'd been caught not attending to my job. I wouldn't ring it unless I had to and then I would tap it tentatively, apologetically.

Honestly, though, analyzing the layout was also my method of putting off ringing the bell and interacting with strange ponies.

I'm like that.

No one would take me for a shy mare, quite the opposite in fact, but I was, so I stalled further by formalizing my observations with a hypothesis. The open floor, extra tables, lack of a counterpony and minimal lingering patrons hinted that this was not just a bakery or sweet shop but a hall to be rented out for parties, likely a catering outfit as well. If there were a steady flow of customers the interruptions would severely hinder the baking process, but the floorspace is more than required for the operation of a sweet shop. Thus, a party hall with catering close at hoof explained the fusion of utilitarianism and frivolity.

I smiled proudly at my astute and useless observation, blinked smugly and whispered to myself, "Q.E.D."

Admittedly I'd been seeking a proper place to say that for some time.

When I opened my eyes I was muzzle to muzzle with a frizzy maned, pink all over mare.

I could smell her breakfast, it had involved maple syrup.

Her head abruptly cocked to the left, further startling me, "What's a kyueedee? Is it like a kumquat? Because I don't think I heard of that one, but I can check in back with Missus Cake and see if she's heard of it and maybe we can make one up special for you! It sounds delicious anyway. Phew, now you've got me wanting one!"

"No, I'm just looking for..." I started, but was interrupted. The pink pony's eyes went wide and she quickly looked me up and down.

"Hey! I've never seen you before!" She gasped.

"No, I just got into..." Was all I got out before her next verbal ejaculation.

"Well, welcome to Ponyville! You're going to love it here, this is the best town around and just you wait for your welcome to Ponyville party! I'll invite everypony and we'll have music and dancing and cake and..."

I shook my head and said vehemently with a look of fear in my eyes, "No! No party! I'm just here looking for somepony."

Her smile grew to encompass the majority of her face, "That's great, because as it happens I AM somepony and it's superrific great to meet you! Miss...?"

"Sea Swirl." I stated and stuck out my hoof. She enthusiastically hugged me, ignoring my extended hoof, "But I'm looking for a specific somepony. Somepony named Pinkie Pie."

She gasped, I cringed, "That's double super great-tastic because not only am I somepony but I'm Pinkie Pie too and now you've found me and I'll be your best friend and we'll have oodles of fun together, but first what do you say we try for a couple of those kewpies you were talking about?"

"Kewpies?" Oh, Q.E.D. She's still talking about that. I should know to keep my mouth shut rather than say something inane trying to sound smart and make a foal of myself, but how could this outcome be foreseen?

"Actually, Pinkie, a mare in the marketplace sent me, Applejack I think and told me that you knew everypony in town..."

"Oh, yupperoo! I know everypony and everypony is my friend!" She blurted and did a joyful little twirl.

"She also told me you could be trusted with a secret." I stated. Pinkie suddenly looked very serious. She crouched down and looked me in the eyes and nodded.

"See, I'm looking for somepony..."

She sprang back up to full height and gave me a mock suspicious glare, "Wait, wait, wait. I can keep a secret, I'll Pinkie promise to that, but I think we did this part already and it turned out that I was somepony so I don't know where you're headed with this because I'm the only Pinkie Pie left and you already found me."

"Somepony else." I clarified and wished I'd been more tactful in my phrasing because she was immediately crestfallen.

"You...you don't like me anymore?" She whimpered.

"No no, it's not that," Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes and her lip pouted and quivered, Celestia, were we really doing this? She must be kidding, I thought. I'm pretty sure she was kidding, "Applejack told me that you might know where I could find somepony and that's why I was looking for you."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." She calmed right down, leapt right over calm again to painfully chipper as a smile erupted from her face in a frighteningly short manic cycle, "So which somepony were you looking for?"

"Can you keep it a secret?" I asked, and I really did wonder. Nothing so far had led me to believe that anything put into her head would not simply be spewed forth from her mouth in an effluent wash at the earliest opportunity, but Applejack seemed to think I could trust her and for some reason I trusted Applejack right away..

Pinkie looked a little hurt, or maybe confused.

"Of course I can keep it a secret. If you can't trust your best friend who can you trust?" She made a series of hoof motions, the only one I understood was the last one, a swipe across the mouth to indicate 'zipped lips.' I pointedly didn't ask what any of it meant. I also didn't see any advantage in correcting her 'best friend' assumption.

Though it's less than a legally binding contract I figured I had no choice but to take a chance and trust her. I got out my newspaper clipping that had a picture of mom in the background of the murder scene. She was turned a quarter way towards the camera as neatly as if she'd posed for it. I folded the paper so that the chalk outline and the guards weren't visible and hoofed it to Pinkie.

Pinkie studied it and skeptically appraised me.

I looked around the room to make sure nopony else was around. The foals had left after Pinkie's first outburst so we were alone. I told her what little I knew, "She's an older mare, mid to late fifties, maybe going by the name Ocean Song. It'll be something related to water and music most likely if it's not that, it's not her real name anyway."

Pinkie deflated and hoofed the paper back to me sadly. "I can't say."

"You recognize her though, don't you?" I demanded, "C'mon Pinkie, why can't you tell me? Did you make a promise to her too?"

"I can't say. I'm sorry." She repeated and turned away, starting slowly towards the saloon doors that must have led to the kitchen. At least now I knew she could keep a secret, but what could I say to convince her to help me?

"Pinkie, please!" I pleaded, "Come on! I'll be your friend! I'll let you throw me that party, buck, I'll throw you a party! Just please tell me!"

She paused for a moment, shook her head and continued on, slipping through the swinging doors. I yelled after her, "Pinkie, Celestia damn it! She's my mother! You've got to help me find her!"

That was my desperation move, I'd pulled it out way too easily and I was not proud of myself. I sighed, turned to leave and was stopped by a pink muzzle poked back through the doorway.

"Why keep it a secret?"

"I want it to be a surprise, I guess." I lied and Pinkie quickly retracted her muzzle back behind the door, "Fine, fine, that's not it at all. She ran out on me when I was still a filly and I don't want her skipping out again before I get a chance to see her."

A muzzle with the barest trace of a sad grin reemerged.

"I can't say." She reiterated, "But go to the library, it's the giant tree just down the way. Ask Twilight Sparkle, she's just terrible at keeping secrets."

I smiled, thanked her, and turned to leave again but she hesitantly called after me, "You might want to just describe the pony you're looking for, though. You'll probably get better results than with a picture of a crime scene, even if you do fold it over...and after? I'm holding you to that party."

Author's Notes:

Firstly, I promise this isn't one of those stories where the protagonist is bounced from one to another until they've met the whole mane six all formulaic-like, but it did come uncomfortably close to going that way. I felt some interaction before the main event was necessary and I got to play with the dogs for a second, so that's good.

From the train ride it can be seen that Sea Swirl's morals are malleable at best.
Vindictive urination and minor thievery both hopefully establish this solidly.

I hope Pinkie's characterization is decent, though she's acting funny because she's being forced to keep a secret and maybe something else besides.

Denied

Stepping back onto the cobbled street, the odd tension of the sweet shop was burned away by the sun's gentle caress, but it still left me puzzled. That mare's reactions implied a great many things that my mind was, at the moment, too scattered to understand. Maybe this Twilight Sparkle had the answers that Pinkie Pie couldn't give.

I could see a large and likely tree in the distance that rose above the rooftops majestically, only to be pinnacled by a rickety looking wooden platform to which a telescope was mounted. Even from a distance which rendered it misty I was ready to call out the platform's shoddy construction. I assumed (correctly) that beneath it was the library in question, it was too large an edifice to be some colt's tree fort.

I sighed. That short encounter with Pinkie Pie had taken a lot out of me and I was starting to get irrationally irritated. Not the best time to meet somepony new so I figured I might as well see about a room at Peachy Sweet's boarding house before it got too late.

To retrieve Cappy he first had to be unwound from the waterpump since he'd looped around it and under it's barbs and protuberances in some Gordian pattern.

It used to be that I used a thick rope but he discovered he could chew through it until I soaked it in bitter apple extract. He built up a tolerance and I had to switch to leather, then to a steel cable which he would chew anyway and tear up his gums. It made me feel terribly guilty but I didn't know what else to do. His innate tenacity kept him at the hopeless task and I feared switching to any manner of chain, it would likely break his teeth.

It seemed to me like his tangling himself up like this was his retribution and I had little choice but to slowly thread the lead apart, retracing his confined and circuitous wanderings.

I had musical accompaniment for my task, I realized. A rambunctious little melody that I recognized from school plays jangled towards me, though it took a moment for me to recall what it was since it was usually played on a saxophone rather than a lyre. It was a comic piece, usually reserved for disorganized chase scenes but it was now directed at me, an offensive melodic commentary on of my task.

I vacillated between the calm, harmonic pony I wished I were and the brash Easterner who wanted to tell this musician to mind her business.

Predictably, I chose the low road, walked over to the grinning mint green mare, well pleased with her little joke and cruelly kicked over her case, scattering her collected bits across the cobbles. I ignored her indignant outcries and led Cappy off with a nasty smile on my own face.

The smile was false, of course. An indication of how I thought I should have felt and an indictment of my own idiotic actions, but I was still riding a minor crest of rage and adrenaline. In my nervous shame I spun momentarily to meet the lyrist's death glare with a peculiarly Eastern hoof gesture and then resumed my short journey. The whole way I kept my pleased facade while internally chastising myself for my extreme foalishness. She was just trying to be friendly by making light of my stupid dog, I know, but still I felt her unwelcome intrusion justified my actions. That's what I told myself on the surface, even though I didn't believe it for the barest moment.

I hate me so much. Moments like this especially, when the transgression is fresh and the loathing is so overwhelming it shows in my face and I get curious looks from strangers.

Would I go back and apologize like a grown mare? No, but I would tell myself I would and that I should just long enough that it would be to awkward to actually do it. Then I could proceed directly to berating myself about it at irregular intervals for the rest of my life. It would join the already vast arsenal of failings and perceived slights that afflicted me most nights.

Yay, me.

I lost myself in the sparse crowd and stone expanse of Mane street, Cappy dragging behind, trying to stop for every extended hoof that brushed his shaggy coat. Ponies just couldn't help but to stroke his sleek fur, he exuded an innocent good nature, but it took forever to walk the few blocks to the boarding house because of it.

It was clean and well kept with a tasteful and moderate look that I very much appreciated. It's only drawback, as nitpicky as it was, were the high front steps that Cappy balked at. A few words of encouragement and he took a bit of a running start and leapt. Three legs made it, the fourth slipped off the rounded front edge of the steps and he toppled over backwards, back into the street with a startled whine.

It broke my heart, but he was getting on in years and since he panicked when I tried to lift him by magic I was forced to take that heavy black dog awkwardly into my forehooves and climb the steps on two legs.

Having made the effort it would have been disappointing if Peachy Sweet was not as accommodating as Applejack implied, but she was and me and Cappy were quickly established in our spartan, wood paneled room. It's twin bed, tiny writing desk and empty dresser were all of the bland hotel variety. The painting above the bed, however, was a considerably more interesting piece of art than is generally found in such places and I took some time admiring it. It depicted Princess Luna in a monochrome palette, blocked in with bold, sure strokes of a palette knife. The moon was crudely but effectively indicated, it's detail derived from the incomplete mixture of paint from the palette. I was envious of such mastery and incredulous that it was wasted to decorate a boarding house. I resolved to ask Peachy Sweet about it at dinner. I had it in my head just then that I'd like to start a collection of art by unknown young artists and cover every wall of whatever abode my future had in store.

Admittedly my art appreciation had been enhanced at this point by a dip into the stash contained within my saddle bag, but it was still genuine, I assure you. I'd tried painting and failed to achieve any sort of skill at it. My mother, though, I thought was a master and though I can't remember the canvases or what they contained I remember the smell of the linseed oil and thinner and the patter of a broad brush being beaten dry.

By dinner, during which Peachy Sweet justified Applejack's praise of her pies, I'd forgotten to ask about the painting. Afterwards my mood had improved and I took Cappy for a long walk before bed. Even though she'd probably be long gone by now I avoided the area the where the Lyrist had been.

I awoke early, as was my strict habit, did a set of pushups, fed and walked Cappy and took a light breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice in Peachy Sweet's cramped kitchen. Her other boarders had trickled out already or failed to trickle in just yet and I was alone for the moment in the cheerily worn kitchen. It's scarred counters and dented pots and pans spoke of a homely joy and of boundless hospitality, much like the proprietress herself.

The lime coated mare glided effortlessly around me, coordinating several cooking operations while she sighed contentedly at the empty bowl I'd left.

"So what are you up to today?" She asked by way of making conversation, "Going looking for work or did you have other plans?"

I'd told her of my vague ambitions towards gainful employment earlier, but it seemed like such a mom question I had to work hard not to take offense and keep an even tone, "Actually, I was planning to visit the library, I'm kind of looking for some information before I get too far along in the job search."

"Oh, well tell Twilight 'Hi!' from me when you see her. She's such a helpful mare, I'm sure she'll be able to find whatever you're looking for." Peachy Sweet beamed, "Yes ma'am, there's nary a mare I'd rather have on my side than that one and she does love her books, though confidentially, she keeps rather irregular hours for a public library."

"An eccentric old bookworm?" I asked with a smirk.

"Oh, no, I mean yes she's a bit...excitable, at times and she does tend to keep her face buried in a book more often than is healthy, but she's quite a sweet young thing and oh so clever. Just best to get there well before lunch or you may be left waiting for a while." Peachy Sweet confided and I wondered if her nature made it impossible to think harsh thoughts about her fellow ponies.

Looking her over I pegged her as younger than me by a few years but her matronly attitudes forced me to ask in blunt curiosity, "Do you have any foals?"

"Oh yes!" She replied, with an ear to ear grin, "I have three lovely colts! Two of them twins. Before I had them I wanted fillies, but now I couldn't imagine it any other way. They're so smart, it just......"

She continued on from there for ten minutes without a further word from me in response. I looked as attentive and interested as I could until a chink in the wall of words of motherly pride presented itself just long enough for me to scramble to my hooves, saying that I must get on to the library before the day got away from me and slipped away.

My fault for asking, I suppose. I felt bad that I couldn't take much of an interest, but Peachy Sweet hadn't seemed to have caught on and she seemed to take great joy in telling of her progeny's exploits and triumphs. She smiled happily and waved goodbye as I collected Cappy from his shaded spot in the patchy grass yard and led him down the cobbled street.

Twilight Sparkle did not present herself in a manner which I would remotely classify as helpful, or sweet for that matter.

My only fault, so far as I'm concerned, was one of timing. Really though, even if it is her home, as I later found out it was, it's meant to be a public library and it's not really barging in at half past ten on a weekday.

Maybe I should have knocked.

Honestly I just didn't think of it, wouldn't have thought it would be appropriate.

Public building and all.

The scene I entered into was one of a rainbow maned pegasus arguing loudly with the purple unicorn I pegged for a librarian. Her haircut gave it away, I'd say.

They both ceased their bickering and the pegasus looked me up and down impatiently, "Hey, library's closed, give us a minute here." She bluntly demanded.

"I'm sorry, I was just..." I was interrupted by the unicorn's cold glare. Outwardly she just seemed a little perturbed, but what transfixed me was the roiling power she exuded. I'm not an overly powerful unicorn, I'll have to admit, but I could sense thaumaturgic waves, barely held in check, warping the aether and fixing my soul like a pinned moth. It had been since my foalhood that I'd felt anything like it. Raw, raging and above all chaotic and for a moment I could remember scarlet eyes transfixing me in a like way so many years ago.

"Are you okay?" The hovering pegasus asked, looking between me and the unicorn.

"I'm...fine..." I stammered, groping for the door, "I'll just...come back later."

With that I beat a hasty, stumbling retreat. I managed to crash into and then scrape my flank against the door jamb on the way out and upon exiting I collapsed, shivering, next to the largely oblivious Cappy. He continued to gnaw at his braided steel lead, spittle and fresh, bright blood flowing liberally as he chewed.

"What just happened?" I asked aloud. Cappy, being the poor conversationalist that he was, kept worrying the braided steel.

I tried to call forth the feeling I'd just experienced, but had little luck. What of the flashback, when was that? I couldn't say for certain but it occurred to me that as much as it felt the same, this felt different too. Magical fury, sure, but there seemed to be a vast undercurrent of desperation here. A palpable despair oozed from Twilight's aura and there was another thing that separated the two impressions. There was an apologetic shame in this one, while the impression from my foalhood was confident, imperious and decidedly vicious.

I pondered for a time, trying to piece together the disparate memories and impressions with maybe a little more luck than I'd had before. Just when I felt everything coalescing and I was on the verge of an epiphany the library door swung open and the rainbow maned pegasus shot out before it slammed back shut with a crack.

It derailed my train of thought completely.

"Hey," The pegasus looked down sheepishly at me sitting on the ground, "Sorry about all that back there. You can go on in now, if you want. We're done for the time being."

I arched my eyebrows, "Er, no, I don't think I will at that. She's not likely to want to help me out after a blowout like that. I'll come back later, maybe."

"Eh, it might be for the best if you did, but don't get the wrong idea. Twilight's the best friend a mare could have, but she's under a lot of stress right now and she's... BEING A COMPLETE PLOT HOLE!" She screamed the last part with the intention that her friend could hear her from inside. It left my ears ringing, "Still, give her a little while and she'll be calmed down and forget all about it."

"I suppose maybe I'll walk my dog around for a while and let her cool down." I said, to which the pegasus made a disheartening reply.

"What dog?"

Sure enough there was a loop of frayed steel cable still attached to the post. I couldn't believe it, he'd actually chewed through the cable while I was sitting right next to him, distracted. Now that's determination. If I credited him with any guile I'd have to credit his guts too.

I took off at a gallop towards Peachy Sweet's, hoping he was returning there.

"I hope you find your dog!" The pegasus called after me as I ran.

I don't believe in Karma, but it believes in me and keeps a close watch.

After three hours of non-stop searching I gave up. He was gone and there was no point in wearing myself out looking for him. He'd either show back up or he wouldn't. Either way, all my frustration was for naught. I plopped down on a bench near the gingerbread style bakery, let out a ragged sigh, slumped down and closed my eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" A lilting voice asked from nearby. Surely, even in a place like Ponyville, nopony would play Johhny-do-good and interrupt my wallowing, would they? When I tentatively opened one eye, who else should I see but the mint green lyrist.

"Buck."

"Well buck you too." She said with a smile and made that hoof gesture that goes along with it in a jesting sort of way. I was caught. The world had arranged things thus that I no longer had a choice but to do the right thing, the thing I wanted to do anyway but was too cowardly to actually do.

"I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have been such a jerk for no reason." I contritely said.

"Don't sweat it." She shrugged, "Just because I was feeling playful doesn't automatically mean you are too and I can see you had something stressing you out. I'm still not thrilled you busted up my lyre case. I have other ones, though. That was just my favorite one for busking."

I blanched and thought for a moment that she didn't, in fact, have peaceful intentions but was instead lulling me into a position where I could be more easily bullied and humiliated. I wasn't sure just how likely that scenario was, but I feared it more than is healthy and it resulted in a simpering reply, "I...I'll buy you a new one! Top of the line, all the frills!"

She laughed, "That would be completely the opposite of why I liked that case, though. I only used it for busking, it didn't even fit my lyre very well but it was just the right type of ratty tatty that brought in the bits. A little grime and roguishness suits the aspiring street musician better than the old spit and polish look. Don't worry though, I'll just have to wear in one of my others, it's only a matter of time anyway, entropy being the natural state of the universe and all."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."

"You can stop apologizing, I already told you it doesn't matter and it was a worthless old thing besides." She waved her hooves in a dismissive gesture, "So what's up with you, anyway? If you want to talk, sometimes it helps."

"No, I can't really say that much about it." I shook my head and looked in her placid amber eyes, "But thank you, really, and thank you for forgiving me. Name's Sea Swirl, by the way."

"Lyra." She replied and hoof bumped me. Ponies in the Midwest were a lot different than in the East, I realized. If I'd pulled this sort of smooze back home I would have a nemesis for life no matter what sort of penance I did and here she'd forgiven me like an old friend, "So can you say what brings you to town?"

At this point I hardly cared about my pseudo-secrecy so I laid out the broad strokes for her, "I'm here looking for somepony, but I don't want them to know I'm looking for them or they might run off..."

"Oh, it's like that is it?" She asked, "If there's some stallion that's done you wrong..."

"What? No, no. Nothing of that sort." I backpedaled out of one sort of soap opera and into another, "It's my mother, actually, but uh, don't go telling anyone, please?"

"Pinkie promise." She said and solemnly went through a series of gestures that ended with her jamming her hoof into her eye.

"Oh, um okay. Anyway I know she was in town, but I haven't really got any leads."

"What's she look like?" Lyra asked.

"Green mane, sort of darkish, turquoise coat, a breaking wave and music note as her cutie mark." I described.

Lyra squinted in thought, "Is she a unicorn named Sea Breeze?"

"If that's the name she's going by. Sounds likely anyway. You really know her?"

"Of course! Everyone knows Sea Breeze. She's right up there with Pinkie Pie as far as popularity goes, but before you ask I don't know where she lives but she's been studying with Twilight Sparkle at the library most nights until late. Like late late." Lyra smiled, "She ought to be pretty easy to find."

I slumped back down, yeah, right back into that little crucible. "That mare scares me."

"Twilight? The librarian?" Lyra was incredulous, "I mean, sure, she's Celestia's personal student, and maybe she IS the most powerful unicorn of our generation and the element of magic besides, but what's scary about her?"

"All those things you just said, for one." I replied, I hadn't realized she was THAT Twilight Sparkle, one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and a modern legend, "But really, I was in there a few hours ago and she seemed a bit...off. Stressed out like and in a scary way."

Lyra shrugged, "Yeah, she is like that from time to time. I guess it's worse lately because of the investigation. I'm not sure how a librarian, no matter her connections, gets saddled with the Equestrian Guard's work. I've heard she's not dealing with it all that well. Emotionally, I mean. Her and the rest of the Element bearers seem to get stuck with a lot of dirty work."

"Is she investigating that murder from a couple weeks ago?" I feigned disinterest. Lyra wilted a bit at the mention of the murder implying it had been quite an ordeal for the denizens of Ponyville. That or Lyra knew the victim. I resolved to find out from someone who's feelings I wasn't worried about hurting.

"No, they..." She sniffed and then gulped back hear gathering tears, "They settled that, so far as I know. There's been some kind of theft, but they won't say what was stolen. I know it's big because even the Princesses are riled up about it, so yeah, she's upset, but you can't judge a pony when they're at their worst. Otherwise I'd think you were some kind of jerk or something."

"I am some kind of jerk or something." I grumbled.

"No you're not. I don't know what you are and it's not really my place to judge, but you're not a jerk." She considered it for a bit, recovering her grin, "You know, even if you were it's not so bad as all that. I know lots of ponies who really are total unrepentant jerks and loudmouths besides and there's always somepony out there who loves them anyway. Sometimes lots of someponies. Yeah, someponies take them at face value and just decide they like that kind of thing. Takes all kinds, y'know?"

"Maybe. But then maybe you're just too forgiving."

"Probably, but I like me that way, so whatever." She looked up towards the clock tower and started, "Shoot. Hey, I've got to get on. You want to come with me for dinner? My girl Bonbon is a darn good cook."

"Oh, I don't want to impose." I said, even though I could think of nothing I'd like better right now than to go with her.

"Oh, it's no problem. She always makes enough that there's leftovers anyway. C'mon, it'll be fun." She prodded.

"No. Thanks a lot, but I think I better try again with Twilight before my courage fails me." I politely refused, even though I wanted to say yes and had no reason not to. Deep down I hoped she'd ask once more forcefully, so I could say yes. As she scooped her lyre up and trotted off I tried to force myself to run after her and say I'd changed my mind and I know that would be just fine with her, but I remained rooted in place, mentally flogging myself for my reticence. Right before she turned the corner she spun and waved goodbye, a goofy grin on her face and Celestia help me, I waved right back with an equally foalish smile.

Then she slipped out of my view and was gone. I'd almost forgotten Cappy was awol, but there's little enough I could do about it. There was nothing left but to try the library again and hope Twilight Sparkle was as reasonable a mare as Lyra.

There were no overwhelming waves of magic spillover this time, no arguing pegasi. Just a purple unicorn librarian and a young dragon contentedly reshelving books. Twilight was friendly and cordial when I came back to her for assistance, right up until the point that I told her who I was looking for. Then she sent her pet dragon out of the room, which was a foreboding sign at best.

"Why are you looking for Sea Breeze?" She demanded with narrowed eyes.

I figured I'd told half the town already so I might as well just admit to it, "She's my mother."

Twilight scoffed incredulously, advanced on my and poked a hoof into my chest, backing me into one of the tall bookshelves, "You have some nerve making such a claim. So far all you backstabbing reporters have at least been honest when I've called them out, but claiming to be her daughter? That's lower than even the Fillydelphia Enquirer would stoop to."

"But...I really am her daughter, I don't know anything about any reporters or any of what's going on, I just saw her picture in the paper after all this time and hoofed it out here to see her again." I didn't mention that I thought she was a killer and I intended to stop her if it came to it, maybe the reporters looking for her meant that they already knew.

"Nice try, but Sea Breeze's daughter died as a teenager. She jumped from a cliff into the ocean and Sea Breeze is still traumatized by it. So get a better cover story, or at least do some research before you just come in spouting such offensive nonsense." Twilight shoved me, hard, and it was a good thing, too. I was on the verge of giggling before she had.

See, my mom was a pathological liar. The first time I realized this was when I was in elementary school in front of the class giving a whole presentation on how I was related to Star Swirl the Bearded. It was quickly pointed out that Star Swirl's descendants were well documented and that I wasn't one of them. A mother could name her foal any name she wanted and the inclusion of 'Swirl' in mine was not indicative of a familial relation. That, however, is what my mother had told me and I took it for the truth.

Soon I realized that she would tell me lies where the truth would fit better just because of her nature. It was never anything that mattered, mostly about what our relatives had done or owned, but it's easy to verify whether or not a pony is one sixteenth alicorn on their mother's side and I wasn't no matter what she claimed.

We also did not have a half stake in Donut Joe's Canterlotian location, which was a more disappointing truth.

"Ok, but I really am her daughter and I'm not dead, so how do I get you to believe me and stop poking me in the chest?" I asked, levelly.

"Fine, you want to stick by that story, I can play it that way. Will you submit to a truth spell?" She smirked, probably figuring I'd back down, but I didn't.

"Yeah, that should do, right? Ask away." I said. She started to say something but a spark arced from her horn into mine and everything became soft mumbles and disjointed words. She was questioning me and I was answering but I was so out of it I had no idea what was transpiring. I could hear my blood pulsing between the muffled echos of meaningless words. Then, just as I was getting interested in that state, everything suddenly rushed back into focus. The purple unicorn mare looking me right in the eyes from uncomfortably close.

"Whassat?" I asked groggily, then came up with the more sensible, "So you know I'm telling the truth, now?"

"That spell won't let me force you to tell anything you don't want to and it only tells the truth subjectively, as in; what you believe to be true." Twilight said. I must have had some of the answers right, though, because her tone was much gentler now, "You'll have to forgive me, there's been quite a bit of drama around here for the past few weeks and there's all kinds of cloak an dagger shenanigans ahoof so I've had to be wary. Aside from that, you showing up here, now, is pretty much out of left field, it looks...suspicious."

"But you'll let me see my mom now?" I asked hopefully and a bit fearfully. Even though I'd agreed to the spell, in truth, I felt vulnerable and violated after she'd gone through with it. Mind altering magic like that should be outlawed as far as I'm concerned, it's just as bad a outright mind control.

"When and if she returns, and I'm not saying she will, I'll tell her you're looking for her and where you're staying. If what you say is true I expect she'll be in contact."

"No, no, I don't want to do that. She skipped out on me when I was a filly, if she knows I'm looking for her she's likely as anything to do it again, then I'll never find her again." I pleaded, "It's only dumb luck that I saw her in the paper. I thought she was dead."

Twilight's when and if statement would absolve her of ever having to acknowledge anything one way or another if mom simply chose to ignore me. This whole arrangement put me in a very weak spot. Since I wasn't privy to my own interrogation I wondered how much she knew. Did I admit to my suspicions about mom? There was no way of telling and Twilight's poker face didn't give much away.

"If things were normal I'd honor that, but they're not so you're just going to have to take what you can get." Twilight said sadly.

"Why? What is it that's such a big deal that it's got everypony on edge around here?" Twilight didn't answer so I made my case more forcefully, "You know what I'm saying is the truth, why can't you just let me see her? Tell me when she's coming back and I'll meet her on the street like a coincidence. She'll never know."

"The truth that I know is just that you think you're her daughter. I have no way of knowing that for certain so I'm going to verify it with her first. Your story doesn't jibe with what I know about Sea Breeze and your answers were inconsistent. You could be brainwashed and not even know it, or crazy or who knows what." She remembered her escape clause, "When and if she turns back up, no promises on that, I'll tell her."

"But..." I started only to be interrupted immediately.

"No. What's going on is too important and orphan stories with middle aged protagonists don't play as maudlin enough to sidetrack me." She was right in my personal space with her cold glare, nose to nose, "The other truths I know are that you're hiding things..." Here she took a step back, snorted and fanned a hoof in front of her nose, "...and that you're on drugs, so you'll understand if I'm a bit...circumspect."

Unsurprisingly I was mortified and I had no counter to either point that I felt would actually get me anywhere, so I glumly acceded, said my goodbyes and headed back to the boarding house.

"If it helps, I really do hope you and your mom get back together!" Twilight shouted after me and waved. I waved back. Now I couldn't even properly hate her. What a really nasty thing to do.

Author's Notes:

Yakkity Sax on lyre, now that's talent, Miss. Lyra.

Living alone in a lighthouse with only animals for company and occasional company coarsens up one's social graces. Sea Swirl seems to feel slighted by the least little things and tends to react erratically and petulantly. Shame keeps her from apologizing so it's lucky that Lyra's a forgiving mare with a fairly bulletproof ego.
That, of course, being a requirement of a successful street performer.

Once, when there was snow on the ground the archetype for Cappy was leashed to the post of a chainlink fence with a bike lock for about fifteen minutes. He had a run of sidewalk that had been cleared but wasn't satisfied with it. He chewed through the cable (he'd been chewing on it for years), crawled under the fence and stayed lying in the snow until his owner returned and had to figure out how to get him back out from the fenced yard.

In the next chapter Cappy eats the Elements of Harmony and becomes an alicorn princess.

First Contact

I would have liked to do some research, but the library would be...awkward. Peachy Sweet's colts were charming, however, and the oldest one's history text book was only a year old and had the first thing I was after; Pictures of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.

I thought that I might be able to tease information out of one of them, as Lyra implied that they were involved in whatever investigation was going on.

It turns out I'd met the majority of them already, which I felt at the time, narrowed my options considerably. Pinkie's erratic shift in mood during our conversation and Twilight's reticence implied that Mom was involved in all this and a taboo topic so I resolved to lay low, keep quiet and see how things played out for the time being. Maybe I'd stumble upon something interesting in the meantime.

I had borrowed the book on the pretense of being interested in the eleven year old colt, Peachy Keen's, schoolwork. The younger twins didn't want to stick around to talk about school but Peachy Keen was old enough to be susceptible to an old tactic I'd been taught.

It's simple and goes like this: Almost everypony likes to talk about themselves and the quickest way to endear yourself to them is to ask questions that allow them to do so. They don't even have to be good questions, just so long as you keep asking them. It's hard to do and not start talking about yourself accidentally and it's even harder to keep thinking up questions when you first start, but it's by far the simplest, most effective trick I've ever come across. Foals are especially inclined to being unselfconsciously self involved.

It was a tactic that worked on me, too, amusingly it would work even when I knew it was being wielded against me. I'd exhausted Peachy Keen's scholastic achievements and he'd already plumbed the depths of his athletic exploits when his mother seated herself at the table with us.

"So did you find who you were looking for?" Peachy Sweet asked, setting down a mug of coffee for me. I levitated it to my lips, blew on it and took a sip.

Peachy made strong coffee and for that I was grateful.

"Not exactly, but Twilight knows her and is going to tell her where I'm staying." I glossed over that whole situation, there was little enough point getting into it, really. Either she'd come find me or she'd bolt, it was out of my hooves now.

"Well that's good. Does that mean you're going to go looking for work now?" She gestured towards the South, "I know some ponies if you want any kind of recommendations."

"Recommendations for where I should work or recommendations to my prospective employers? Because if you're going to vouch for my sanity, I'm not sure if you've known me long enough." I joked, she chuckled politely, "I'll give it a couple days, a bit of a vacation, before I start seriously looking."

"Well I meant that I'd recommend you, but I'm good for either one." She smiled, "Do you have an idea what you want to do? What your special talent is?"

"My special talent is not actually very applicable to the sort of jobs available in the real world." Truly I should be by the water, I felt very isolated when I was so far from it in this vast Midwestern expanse of grass and trees. Never in my life have I felt so withered, dry and homesick for the sea, "I don't know, I can do about anything so maybe I better just have a look around and see what's out there."

"That's probably a good idea. You don't want to be stuck in the wrong job for years on end. A little diligence now might pay off big later." She paused to sip her coffee, "Hey, I didn't see your dog with you when you came in. Did you leave him in your room?"

"No, Cappy chewed through his lead and ran off."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, I'm sure he'll come back, though, don't you think?"

I sighed and swirled my coffee in it's mug, "He might, but I have it in my head that it'll be like those animals that are lost on trips and miraculously make their way home that you hear about every once in a while. Only Cappy's too dumb to wait until he's been abandoned. In a week he'll probably be back home at the lighthouse, waiting to be fed."

"Maybe you could write back there and have somepony keep an eye out for him?" Peachy Keen suggested, looking up from his schoolwork.

"I could, but actually I've got a friend out there that'll take him in if he makes it that far. She's already got my cats, might as well have Cappy and complete the set." I said with a sad grin, "If that's where he's headed I hope he makes it. In dog years he's around a hundred and forty."

"Wow!" Peachy Keen gasped, looking up from his schoolwork, "That's got to be the oldest dog ever! You don't seem like you like him very much, though."

"Oh, I love him. Don't get me wrong, but I also love complaining about him." I chuckled, "I really will miss him though, even if he is a bit worthless."

"Maybe I could tell my dad to look out for him. He's in the Ponyville reserve guard so he's been out keeping the peace with his squad ever since...the thing from a couple weeks ago, but I don't think anything's really happening so maybe he can take a break and find your dog." Peachy Keen revealed. I had wondered about the colt's father and where he was but hadn't seen a polite way to ask. More importantly it gave me an in to find out more about recent events without sounding awkward.

"The reserve, huh? That must be interesting, I'm sure he has more important things to do than to play dog catcher, though." I transitioned, "Hey, what did happen that's got everypony so upset? I wasn't around yet, y'know."

"Oh, I guess that's right." Peachy Keen conceded and answered sadly, "Well, somepony killed a guard and they had to track them down."

"Really? Was it one of the reservists?"

"No, thank Celestia," Peachy Sweet answered for her son, "It was one of the Canterlot guards, here either undercover or on vacation according to which story you believe."

"Honey? Why don't you take your homework up to your room, I'll be up to check it in a bit." Peachy Keen groaned, gathered up his books and papers and headed upstairs. He had to know he was missing out on the good parts of the conversation but he didn't make any protest.

"The plain truth," Peachy Sweet confided once her son had departed, "Is that there's been any number of strange disappearances and there's a number of undercover guards trying to get to the bottom of it. The guards are really pretty poor at blending in, though, so it's no wonder they called the reserve in."

"But just when they had the murder explained, and it wasn't what anypony thought it was, by the way, there was some big robbery and they just stuck around to investigate that. I hear they haven't made any progress, though."

"What was the murder about?" I asked, hoping it wasn't part of a serial killing like I'd surmised.

"Apparently the undercover guard had been shaking down a small time pimp, lost control of the situation and got killed." Peachy Sweet said sadly, "The killer confessed and turned himself in a couple days ago."

"There are pimps in Ponyville?" I asked, stunned.

Peachy Sweet thought about it for a long while, "If you'd asked three weeks ago I would have said no. But I guess our little town isn't as innocent as it looks because there was at least one. He won't say who his...workers, are, but they performed some sort of truth spell on him, so they know what he's saying is true."

"Huh, I wonder what I kind of cutie mark you'd get for that?" I pondered.

"I couldn't say. It wasn't his special talent anyway, I think he sells furniture or some such thing as a day job or maybe a front. It kind of changes my perspective on the whole town knowing about it. It's not common knowledge, by the way. I know about it because of my husband, but they're trying to keep the whole thing hushed up, like that's going to work." Peachy Sweet shook her head, "The press knows there was a murder and their reporters are going to find out eventually, then it'll be all over the Equestria Daily."

"So what about the robbery? It must have been something big if the guard stuck around to investigate, or is it just a slow month in Canterlot?" I asked.

"I don't know, they're keeping that secret better than the last one, but it's something major I'm certain." Peachy Sweet told me. I think she could tell I was going to ask her more because she replied, "I really don't know anything more about it."

We sat in companionable silence for a time after that, sipping our coffees until I got to looking around the large and well decorated dining room. Thematically out of place on the green and white striped wallpaper was an unframed oil painting depicting a small figure of Celestia overwhelmed by a sunrise colored mountain landscape. Like the one in my room it was all painted with bold stippling and a palette knife. It was truly a beautiful piece that spoke of serenity in pastels and deep purple shadows.

"Did you paint that?" I gestured towards the canvas.

"Oh, Celestia no. I can't do that sort of thing. There's a mare in town who does them." Peachy Sweet told me.

"I just thought since it looked like the same artist did the one in my room that maybe you had."

"I've got paintings of hers all over this place." She gestured to one in the kitchen and to one in the living room, neither of which I could see the details of from where I sat, "She paints as a hobby and she used to make anypony who wanted one a painting for the cost of the canvas and the paints. In fact she painted that one right in this very kitchen, it was amazing to watch. In twenty two minutes she went from a blank canvas to this little masterpiece with just her knife, a fan brush, and five colors of paint."

"That's amazing! So there's a lot of her paintings out there then? Seems like she'd get famous pretty quick." I was speculating on trying to get hold of one of her paintings for my very own, even if an artwork to drag around was the very last thing I needed just now.

"I guess there's a lot of them. I've seen quite a few in ponies' homes, but most ponies won't part with them, me included, so there's only a few that ever come up for sale." Her eye's brightened, "Hey, if you wanted one, I did see one for sale in that antique shop on seventeenth and Bridle Lane, it might still be there. It's a seascape."

"A seascape? That's right up my alley, I think I might check that out." I said. Lacking any better motive to get me outside I eventually chose to do just that.

The antique shop turned out to be more of a junk shop than anything, it's eclectic blend of furniture ranged from the truly magnificent Fillydelphian high boy, faded from the sunlight in the window, to tumbledown and cast off pieces that would be too shoddy for even a dorm room. Every horizontal surface of said furniture was heaped with trinkets, baubles and the chipped, peeling detritus of a thousand foalhoods, priced with desperate nostalgia as the extortionist and collectibility as the apologist.

I am not a collector.

I am a utilitarian mare, I prize traveling light and take a dim view of bric-a-brac.

When I saw the painting though, I had to have it and the proprietor realized this and priced it accordingly.

"Well I'd love for it to go to somepony who'd really treasure it, but you see, it's on hold for somepony already, so I just can't sell it." The proprietor said. It was a lie, of course. A risky negotiating tactic and what I should have done was say that was too bad and start to walk out, assuming he would stop me with some way around the fictional predicament. What I actually did was less strategically sound.

"I really want it,though. Couldn't you let me have it if I paid a few bits extra? Like sixty bits?" The price was originally fifty. Did I ever mention that I'm a lousy negotiator?

"Hmm..." He stroked his chin, wondering how much he could safely fleece me for, I'm certain, "Maybe a hundred, I'm libel to lose a good customer over this and I'm not likely to find another by this particular artist of this quality any time soon."

I knew that was also untrue, this mare's work was all of superb quality, it was the subject that had me hooked; a mare, just the tiniest dash of color against the steel gray sea, a lighthouse in the distance and I had to have it. "Sixty five, you can't just double your price!"

"Maybe, or maybe it's my shop and therefore, my rules." He goaded, the wily old goat, "No, for sixty five I'd do just as well to keep it."

That time he didn't even make a counter offer and I had to up my own price, which was oddly humiliating, "Seventy, really, that's all I can pay for it."

"Weeeellll...." He looked up to the sky, shuffled his hooves, "You seem like a fine mare so I'll cut you a break. Seventy five and it's yours."

"Fine, I growled." Then I saw something else I wanted, "How much for that old case?"

"Two hundred and fifty, comes with a lyre, you see." He said in his folksy, infuriating drawl.

"I don't want the lyre, I just want the case and you ought to be ashamed to be selling a lyre of that value with that beat up old pressboard case." I hoofed him lightly in the chest for emphasis, "I want it solely for it's aesthetics, but it's only worth maybe ten bits?"

"Ma'am, they go as a set...." I turned to leave and finally got my way for once, "Fine fine, but for twenty five bits, make your bill an even hundred."

I narrowed my eyes, "You know what? I'll do it, but I want that giant martini-glass-vase-thing on the shelf up there, with all that glitter in it." Seriously, this vase had maybe two gallons of glitter in it. It may be the most glitter I've seen in one place that wasn't a school on hearts and hooves day. He shrugged and nodded. Even he wasn't going to argue the value of that bit of tchotchke, so I paid my hundred bits and carefully packed away my two primary purchases in my saddle bags and turned to leave.

"Miss, don't forget your...." He couldn't think of what to call it and trailed off. I turned, smirked wickedly and ignited my horn's magic. I levitated the vase off the shelf and let it fall, sending sliver of glass everywhere, then I brought up a bit of magical wind, whipped it around and let it explode across the shop, evenly coating everything, shopkeeper included, with a magnificent layer of fine, clingy glitter. His utter shock was worth the forty bits I figure he cheated me out of. Then I turned and left, nose in the air.

Unlike with Lyra I felt no guilt and at the time I didn't see the irony that I was going to track her down and give her the new used lyre case as an apology for my previous petulant act. I rarely learn from my mistakes, it would seem.

After asking around I found Lyra's house and she and Bonbon forced me to stay for a lovely dinner. Lyra fawned over the case as if it was a rare and delicate gem, but she's such a nice and cheerful mare I can't see her telling me even if she didn't like it. A real believer in the thought being what counts, that one.

She asked about my search and I told her just enough to keep her from asking anything more, then I changed the subject and talked about anything else I could think of. I even told her the story of haggling for it and the ensuing glitter storm, though I left out the prices, it's rude to tell how much you spent and I got gypped anyway, but she got a huge kick out of the story, declaring that it was "just like you!"

I'm not so sure how to take that, really. It's like my traits and personality have been ossified in her mind even with such a short acquaintance when I hope, more than anything, to make a change for the better. It seems like I've made a rough start of it so far.

'Just be yourself' is an axiom spouted by well meaning ponies since time immemorial, but I don't want to be myself, I want to be better. Not playacting, putting on airs, but truly a better pony than I was. This me was weak, petty, undisciplined and sad. Even if Lyra, and Wave Crest before her, saw past it and liked me anyway, it was a me I wished to shed and look back on, laughing and transcendent.

If only I knew how.

To be myself and leave it at that would be nothing less than a stark admission of defeat, so Lyra's statement stung a bit, even if it was currently true.

I got over it for the time being, set it aside to ponder later and we talked for a long while. By the time I left it was full on dark and I got turned around.

If I hadn't I probably wouldn't have confused the pony that was following me and I wouldn't have noticed him, out of place and trying to look nonchalant while attempting to figure out where I was going whilst I was doing the same.

He was busted and we both knew it. We stared at each other from ten yards apart, unsure of how to proceed. For me it was easy. He was a tall, beefy stallion with a grey coat and black mane, probably a guard, so I ran.

His choice was made, too, and he followed without so much as a 'Halt!' or 'Freeze glitter bombing scum!' which worried me to no end and called my guard hypothesis into question. He didn't have enough time to gain on me before I hit a dead end and was trapped. I wheeled on him and lit my horn, despite my utter lack of a spell powerful enough for this situation.

He advanced menacingly, his own horn charged a deep purple.

I looked around and found nothing but crates and garbage cans in the alley, so I flung them with my hooves and with my magic. He deflected all of them and set them all back down gently. Was he trying not to make any noise? I thought that was it so I started to scream. I was muzzled by a 'zip-your-lips' spell and I panicked.

In my fear and my rage I tore the street apart for it's cobblestones, hundreds of them, all of them I could see, and sent them to batter my pursuer. He didn't just deflect them with his shield spell but in fact set them back in place once they were stopped, the shattered street repaving itself. It was a chilling display of raw power and fine control.

Luckily for me that wasn't my main stratagem, it was a minor ruse and I directed a barrage of stones to crash loudly into the garbage cans.

Lights flipped on in nearby windows, if I could hold out a few moments help would arrive or at least I'd have a witness who saw me taken.

If that's the best I can hope for I'll have to do just that.

I was beyond despair and on the verge of sobbing.

He finally spoke.

"Calm down, Miss. You're Sea Swirl, aren't you?" I neither affirmed nor denied it, I wanted him to go away. It was the whole of my desire and I didn't hear him as he spoke,"You're in danger and I've been sent to secure you before...."

He never finished. I could hear a melodic muttering coming nearer, indecipherable but somehow familiar, comforting. His eyes lit up green, his irises reddened and his horn dripped that dark purple aura, but this time it seemed to be directed inward and a look of fear was drawn on his face.

Then he simply collapsed, a dark puddle forming around his mouth.

"Hey!" A shadowed form hollered to me cheerfully, "I hear you've been looking for me!"

"Mom?" Of course it was and then I heard a bark, "Cappy?"

"Yes and yes my baby!" She stepped closer so I could see her and that black traitor by her side, "Keep in mind, he was my puppy before he was your dog, and he remembered me all this time! Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Incidentally we'll need to run now."

"What?"

"Well you made an awful lot of noise, which is good because I found you, but bad because they will find us momentarily, so grab his back hooves and lets skedaddle!" She snatched up the expired guard's forehooves, held them awkwardly with one hoof to her side and danced with nervous energy, "C'mon. Now's not the time to be gobsmacked, grab his hoofs, hold them like this and let's go!"

I could have said no.

I should have said no.

In the end I hoisted my half of the burden, Mom's entreaty being surprisingly persuasive and we took up the cooling corpse and ran towards the Everfree forest, Cappy swerving between out hooves the whole way, threatening to trip us with his sheer, exuberant joy.

Author's Notes:

It seems that you can't write a good murder mystery fic without killing off a few ponies, but it's my current intention to keep the gore down so much as is practical. Not that I'm against it, mind you. It simply seems out of place, gratuitous-like in a non horror fic, and this isn't meant to end up in the horror realm. Yet.
In the next chapter Sea Swirl and her mom team up with Sombra, form a supervillian crew and just start offing ponies left and right. Total splatterfest.

The Monster Revealed

I've been told that most ponies don't remember much of their foalhood when they get older, only a select few bright sparkling images stay burned into their minds to represent the whole and I have my share of those. It seemed to me, though, that the vast swaths of missing time constituted a pattern of cruelly excised moments, the absence of which made my whole experiential edifice teeter precariously.

There were glimpses, though.

Gnashing of teeth, screamed invectives, magical discharges that made the very air itchy and even brief flashes of bright arterial blood.

Things had happened, very bad things. I knew that much, but had long accepted that I didn't really want to know about them anyway. Now I did want that knowledge and all that remained was an unfocused slideshow of ill defined traumas and feelings of fear and sorrow.

The rest is poorly stitched together moments with my father in the brief periods he was ashore and my vaguely remembered school days. Wave Crest was in there somewhere, my oldest friend, as was Mom bringing home a black puppy only weeks before she dove out of my life.

Maybe that's why he acted so detached from me, he was never really my dog at all, I was just looking after him until he could return to her.

From the moment Mom arrived on the scene there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity to the whole situation. If not the actions themselves, the feelings were certainly an echo of the past. I couldn't say for certain if dragging bodies around had been a foalhood pastime of mine, but it certainly seemed like second nature and I didn't stop to question whether or not I should be doing it.

These are things that worried me later, however, when I had time to ponder.

We galloped through the Ponyville night unnoticed with our gruesome cargo swaying between us. I don't know what we would have done had we been discovered, I do wonder if she had some contingency plan for that that didn't involve violence. We didn't slow down until we were well into the Everfree forest in a large clearing.

My mother ignited a floating orb of magic which dimly lit the immediate area, bobbing just above our heads.

"Won't that attract animals?" I asked nervously. I'd heard the Everfree was home to all manner of ravenous carnivore and malicious magical beast.

"Yes, but it's alright, they won't hurt you, trust me!" She said reassuringly and for a moment I did, but then I thought about it more and realized where we were and why.

"Trust you? You just killed somepony and dragged me off into the woods, why should I trust you?" I demanded.

She grunted, heaving the body up onto a stump, "He wasn't a pony at all, he's a changeling and he was going to replace you to get to me. By replace I mean kill and eat, by the way. For somepony who meant to be sneaking around you sure haven't kept a low profile."

What she was saying in her oblique way is that I endangered myself as well as her with my sloppily executed skulking and I couldn't disagree, really, but a changeling? That's pretty far fetched. "If he's a changeling why didn't he turn back once you killed him?"

She gave me a perplexed look and shook her head, "You have a number of mistaken ideas that I'm going to have to correct. First, changelings only revert to their natural state when they're killed in novels, bad ones at that. See, you're assuming they use an illusion spell when in fact they actually transform themselves. It's fascinating, really, and given enough time I think a unicorn could do it too."

"Now that's an honest mistake to make, I doubt you've ever knowingly seen a real changeling before today. Sneaky is their stock and trade, after all."

"The second fallacy under which you're suffering is that I, in fact, killed him, but no indeed I did not. You did."

I ran carefully through the events that led here in my mind. No version nor interpretation fit with me being a killer and I didn't see how it would fit metaphorically either.

Mom was working busily at the stump, going through motions that I chose not to perceive. They resulted in fresh meat being flung towards the periphery of the circle of light to be snatched away by half seen horrors with glowing eyes. The fact that we arrived with a stallion, somepony's son, and now the flesh craving monsters were having a buffet were facts that my mind vehemently refused to connect. So far as I was concerned the two things were wholly unrelated, we were feeding pigeons.

Eventually mom gave me a sidelong glance, "You really don't remember what happened way back then, do you? I always thought you knew, deep down, but I guess you don't."

The hazy memories replayed, ephemeral, nearly out of reach, "I remember some things, but I can't be too sure. You killed a lot of ponies, didn't you?"

"Wow, oh wow, is that what you've thought all this time?" She shook her head savagely from side to side and flung another neatly trimmed hock to the shadowed horde, "I was just cleaning up the mess, I'm sorry but you're the one who killed all those ponies."

"What? That's not true! That's impossible"

"Possible or not, that's what happened."

"There were shipwrecks even when I was a tiny filly, though, I'm sure of it, how could I be responsible?" I asked incredulously.

"It did start when you were just a little filly, in fact. Your magic was uncontrollable and at first I didn't know it was you doing it, but you were forming whirlpools in the ocean that would suck boats and ships down and grind them to bits against the shore. Foals often have inexplicably powerful and mischievous magic right from infancy, but you were something else."

"I wanted to keep it a secret because ponies died and I didn't want my little filly saddled with such a stigma before she was even aware, so I called in a doctor to help, confidentially. He said your magic was too wild to be contained and we were best off giving you a hornectomy and raising you as an earth pony."

"I disagreed, obviously, but he said that if I didn't let him do it right then and there he'd have the guard down on us like a tidal wave. I couldn't let them take you away so I told him to do it and he tried. Celestia dammit, he did try, but you had a second uncommon talent, when you're scared you twist spells right back on their casters."

"So he cut off his own horn?" I gasped.

"Yes, yes he did. That and the backlash was enough to send him into shock and he died right there." She said with a mix of shame and pride.

"Is that what happened to him?" I pointed to the formless lump that used to be a pony beside her.

"Sure enough. His fault for trying to kill you with some dark magic spell though, don't be ashamed about that, heck, don't be ashamed about the doctor either, he was a bad pony to try and do what he did." She said firmly.

"That doesn't make sense, though. If I'm such a powerful unicorn how come I never knew it?"

"Baby, you've never been all that self aware have you?" She chuckled as she continued to work, "That thing I told you about being a descendant of Star Swirl the Bearded really is true, even if you don't believe it."

This made no sense, I thought and quickly found a flaw in her logic, "What about the cargo? Why did you have all those stolen goods?"

"Well it would have been a shame to let the sea take all those valuable things, regardless of the circumstances, I mean double's the tragedy if we waste the opportunity to profit from it, right?" She said with a sad smile.

"No, that's terrible!" I replied, but she shrugged it off, "Couldn't you have come up with some way to get me help rather than let all those ponies die? At least we could have left the seaside."

"Well...Honestly I thought the solitude might keep you safer. I was scared they'd lock you away and mutilate you if I let anypony know what was going on and it wasn't that many ponies in the grand scheme of things, going to sea is always risky. Thank the goddesses that your father's always made it back in one piece."

"Besides, you're my daughter and I love you no matter what, I'd destroy the world with my own two hooves to keep you safe, and that's just the way it is. That's not hyperbole, either." She smiled warmly at me, the effect being somewhat ruined as she mindlessly flung another cut of meat to the shadows, but I believed her and I maybe understood a bit.

"In your teenage years you outgrew your lack of control and everything calmed down. I thought everything was going to finally be okay until they found that leftover cargo, but even then that was for you. See, once I was gone they just branded me a pirate and pinned all those shipwrecks on me so the cases were closed. I was always afraid they'd figure it out some day. I didn't care about my own reputation because they thought I was dead."

"I missed you, of course, but in the end it was for the best and the best solution I could have come up with besides."

On the one hoof I feel like I should have reacted rather strongly to this revelation, but it was new and didn't feel real yet. My whole identity had been irrevocably altered in the space of a few minutes and from this day on I was a killer and I'd have to live with that on my conscience.

On the other I now knew my mom hadn't abandon me, at least not in spirit, and that made a world of difference.

"So have you been in hiding this whole time?" I asked, guiltily. She'd sacrificed her whole life just for me, it seems, and I've done nothing but squander her gift. I at least hoped she'd found something to keep her happy in the interim.

"I was for a while but actually I got caught up in some stuff many years ago that landed me in front of Celestia herself to be judged." She chuckled, "Let me tell you, you just never know how you're going to react until you're pulled up in front of an immortal alicorn goddess yourself. She hardly even said anything and I admitted to everything I'd ever done wrong. I even wished I'd done more just so I could atone for it that too, she has that effect on ponies. I managed to leave you out of it, so far as was practical, it's hard to think on your hooves with Her staring you down."

"Well it was the damnedest thing, she dismissed the charges and let me off the hook on the condition that I'd agree to work for her. I told her I would, gladly, and I have been ever since."

"Doing what?"

She looked down at what was left of the butchered stallion at her hooves.

One lump remained. She looked to the treeline, one set of eyes towered above the rest and she flung the lump in her magic in a high arc. I looked up just in time to see a manticore snatch a severed head from mid air and devour it in three big chomps. I shivered at the sight.

"Right now I'm dealing with the changeling problem." She said, I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a joke, but she continued, "I suppose you've heard everypony in the know is worried about some theft?"

I nodded, "I've heard, but no one would tell me what was stolen."

"The Elements of Harmony, supposedly, but they weren't." She smirked, "It's all a pretense to give us a chance to investigate the Bearers of the Elements themselves. We think at least one of them has been replaced, and since the changeling detection spells don't seem to work we figure their queen is involved directly."

"So, who has the Elements?" I asked.

She giggled, this was her kind of revelation, "I've had them the whole time! Celestia told me to keep them safe and nopony even suspects me! It makes me feel like a ninja when I get to be all sneaky!"

"Cappy! C'mon!"

I'd forgotten he was even there. He came out from the brush with a shin bone in his mouth, it was too obviously equine for him to keep so I walked over and tried to take it. He growled at me.

"Oh, let him keep it, we just need to pare it down a bit." She said and knocked the ends off with a gory blade, bringing it down to a manageable nine inches long, "There, now it looks like a pig bone or something."

"That's hardly any better."

"Dogs will be dogs, there's little enough point in trying to change their nature and carnivorousness is a big part of that nature. I'm guessing you don't feed him many bones or give him rawhide to play with, so this is like Hearthswarming Eve for him." She trotted back towards town, me and Cappy in tow, when we reached the edge of town she broke off, "Things are hectic right now. In a couple days I'll come find you and explain everything, until then just lay low and try not to let what I told you drive you crazy."

I nodded and she hugged me for the first time in twenty years, give or take. I'll admit I was moved to tears and sniffled a bit, "Love you, Mom."

"Aw, I love you too, baby." She broke off the hug, "Stay safe, keep out of trouble and I'll see you in a few days."

With that she was gone. Cappy looked up at me, white bone in his jaws, then looked to where Mom had just disappeared and took off after her, leaving me alone in the dark.

Fickle damn dog.

Over the next few days the revelations of that night hit me hard. I couldn't really think of myself as a good pony anymore and morally it placed me on a slippery slope, but I also had to question the morals of my mother. It came out in a conversation with Peachy Sweet over a lunch of cucumber sandwiches and ginger peach tea served in her warm and comforting dining room. She'd noticed I seemed rather pensive and questioned me on the subject until I was more or less forced to respond.

"Okay, fine." I conceded to her badgering, "You're a mother so answer me this, let's say that one of your foals was an arsonist."

"Hypothetically?" She asked, a bit startled.

"Yes, hypothetically, so one of them..."

"Which one?" She interrupted.

"None of them, it's hypothetical, let's say a fictional fourth colt, the youngest of the bunch." I fleshed out the story to give it some depth.

"What's his name?"

"Um...Firebug? I think that'll do." I laughed, it would be a mare's own fault for producing an arsonist if she named him that, "Anyway, he started doing it when he was just a toddler and didn't know what he was doing, and let's say, for whatever reason you couldn't stop him, would you turn him in?"

"Did...did he hurt anypony?" She stuttered.

"Let's say he did. Let's say massive casualties every time, then would you turn him in?" I asked.

"I'd have to, there's really no other choice. He needs help and you say I can't give it, so I'd have to." Peachy Sweet said sadly.

"Okay, good. Now let's say you didn't agree with their method of helping." I prodded, "For example they were going to lobotomize him, or geld him, something of that sort, as a method of controlling him."

Peachy Sweet look positively stricken when faced with this choice and I felt so guilty I told her to forget I ever mentioned it and that she didn't need to answer. She did anyway, "No, if I knew all that ahead of time I wouldn't turn him in, even if I had to keep him trussed up and watch him every day to keep him out of trouble I wouldn't turn him in, what mother could?"

I took her hooves in mine and squeezed, "I kind of thought you'd say that, I just needed to hear it from your own lips to believe it."

She eyed me warily, "This really isn't about my colts is it? If it is just tell me, I can take it."

I stood up and kissed her on the forehead, like one might kiss their own mother, "No, no, don't you worry, it's just something that happened a long time ago to a pony I used to know that I've been thinking about the last couple days. I didn't mean to worry you, sorry. I think I better get out of the house for a bit. All this waiting is making me stir crazy."

I gulped down the remainder of my tea and bid her good day, finally resolving to chase down some manner of gainful employment.

"Poor little Firebug, he's always had it so hard." I heard her mutter as I was leaving. It's no secret, I suppose that mothers have a fierce sort of empathy for their foals and would go to some unlikely extremes for their sakes, even if they were meant for mayhem from their very inception as our little protagonist was.

Or yours truly. It was just kind of hard for me to accept as a reality what a mother would give up in service to her young.

In truth I found it vaguely disquieting.

If I were to give birth to a monster such as myself could I be that strong and was it, in truth, an act of nobility or of selfishness? It could be argued either way and thoughts of this nature invaded my mind for the rest of the afternoon.

All my thoughts on the hagiography of mothers were turned on their head when eight days had gone by and my mother still hadn't sought me out and the realization rose from deep inside that she wasn't going to.

The jobs in Ponyville mostly required a special skill to obtain, the manual labor jobs tending to go to stallions and earth ponies, so I had difficulty in obtaining a position and the best I could do was in a boutique pet food factory. The main thing recommending me for the work was my lack of squeamishness around dead fish that needed to be butchered for the various blends.

Ponies are notably touchy about eating meat, but it's a fact that cats, dogs and a variety of other household pets were not and needed such nourishment. At first it made me ponder that shinbone, Cappy and the fact that ponies were not even close to the top of the food chain, but I rapidly got used to the work.

It started early enough that I had some of the afternoon free and paid well enough for me to put some bits aside but it was certainly not a high status position and it left it's mark upon me in the form of a persistent fish stink.

It was, fortunately, a job that could be accomplished while high, or I wouldn't have lasted the day. Even that had become small consolation.

Musicians always have the best connections and Lyra had sent me to a zebra shamaness who lived in the Everfree, and I enjoyed her company as much or more than her product. When I had more time I'd wanted to get to know her a bit better. I get a vibe off her that she's a guru desperately in want of a disciple.

In short I was starting on a path that would build a life for myself and I even had moments when I could forget the things Mom had told me and when I wasn't living only in anticipation of some fictionalized tender reunion with her.

A small and seemingly unrelated occurrence derailed all my plans. I couldn't put a nail in the wall because of the room not being mine and I had my prized painting leaned against the wall on top of the dresser. It managed to fall from it's perch and get a jagged scratch across it's surface, right down to the white canvas.

I will admit, I said less than harmonious words, but it gave me an excuse to do something I wanted to anyway.

"So is the painter who did these," I indicated to Peachy Sweet my own damaged painting as well as the one on her dining room wall, "Still around town? Because I'd like to see if I can convince her to fix the damage for me."

"Oh, yeah. She's easy enough to find, too, but she might be pretty busy just now. She's captain of the reserve guard. I go out there every night to the barracks to see my husband anyway, so I can take you if you want." Peachy Sweet sighed,"I can't wait until his deployment is over and he can come back home. I think what it would be like if he had to go to some far flung country to fight and I can hardly stand it, but the guard's been good to us so far. This is actually the first time he's been away for longer than a week at a time."

"What are they actually doing?" I asked, it seemed like having a bunch of soldiers at the ready didn't especially help a search for the Elements and I'm not sure if the changeling threat was common knowledge.

"They're helping with the search, keeping a lookout and asking questions to make sure everypony is who they say they are." Peachy Sweet replied.

"How do you mean making sure they are who they say they are?"

"Ever since the Canterlot invasion everypony blames the least little occurrence on changelings, so it might be paranoia, but that's what they're on the lookout for. I'll say, though, that another one of the undercover guards from Canterlot went missing a week ago, just disappeared with no trace and when that happens everypony says it's a sign of changeling activity."

She considered it for a time, "Even if it's not it means something suspicious is going on."

I gulped reflexively. Either she didn't notice or just thought I was worried about the situation. She didn't and hopefully never would know about my rather direct involvement with both the killing and the disappearance of the stallion in question. I was left reeling, but she fortunately changed the subject to gentler issues.

At length she told me it was about the time she meant to go visit her husband so I tagged along, intent on getting my painting patched up and praising it's creator.

The reserves encampment was a small compound of temporary buildings that had been in use for periods of time that should have rendered them permanent. They were all worn, but well maintained, perhaps even overly well maintained. It's my guess that grounds maintenance was a standard punishment among the guard. There was a wire fence that wouldn't have kept a foal out, much less a changeling, but that alone implied that there was an unseen magical aspect to it's defense.

Passing through the gate with Peachy Sweet, she directed me to a dimly lit square structure that stood alone on one side of the camp. Nopony stood guard at the door, the whole compound being reliably secured the way it was and I just walked right up to knock. I could hear movement inside so I knew somepony was home.

Imagine my surprise when the placard by the door read, 'Captain Sea Breeze, Commander First Division, Ponyville Reserves' in faded lettering.

Let me emphasize that.

Faded lettering.

Implying duration of tenure.

It threw my whole perception of what Mom had been up to all these years for a loop. It also made me take a second look at the painting. It's no wonder I liked it, I'd seen her painting in an embryonic version of this style when I was a foal and now here was evidence of her mastery.

It throws one's solipsistic worldview into a tizzy when faced with such evidence of lives and progress being made wholly external to yourself. But it wasn't a time for existential navel gazing, so I knocked on the door.

The movement halted and after waiting a full minute I knocked again. I tried the knob, but it was locked. I got suspicious. Either Mom knew it was me and was trying to wait me out or somepony was prowling around her office so I did what anypony in my situation would do and magically picked the lock.

"Captain, It's me, Sea Swirl." I called out as I cautiously walked in.

The office was dimly lit but I could make out my mother's dark mane and glittering eyes, frozen in some task. There on the desk were a few tools, screwdriver, pliers and such along with a pile of glittering gold jewelry. For a moment I couldn't make out what she was doing, then I asked, "Are those the Elements of Harmony?"

"Maybe." She shrugged.

"Are you...prying the stones out of them?" I asked, incredulously, "Because that's what you seem to be doing."

"Well...Maybe that's what it looks like." She admitted, sheepishly, "Get in here, shut the door and lock it."

I did as I was told and was now faced with the other end of the mothers and foals dilemma. Here was the mare who'd done so much for me apparently doing something horrible, treasonous to the highest degree, and now I had to decide in a flash how far I was willing to go for her, how high a price I was willing to pay to protect my flesh and blood.

I took in the situation as Mom stared at me silently. There were four stones left, two had been separated from their mounts, dipped in wax and wrapped in cellophane. These were the pointier two, a lightning bolt and a star. Two were still intact, even though one had signs of it's setting having been brutalized with a screwdriver. Two stones were missing entirely and their mounts carelessly dumped on the floor.

Mom started to speak while I tried to connect the dots in my mind, "This whole Element fiasco has gotten out of hand, so I was just going to replace the stones with copies and 'find' them with a changeling spy. Then whichever bearer was the infiltrator would steal them and disappear, but of course the gold is meaningless, the gems are where the power resides, so I would have eliminated the threat, exposed the changeling and protected the Elements. Clever, right?"

"So why the wax?" I asked.

"I'm making molds to cast the reproduction stones." She answered confidently. I wanted to believe her, it was even vaguely plausible, but sadly having been around ponies who had smuggled various illegal substances I knew what I was looking at.

"No, Mom, I can't do anything to help you if you aren't honest with me. You dipped those pointy ones in wax to round them off so you could swallow them safely." I said, reaching the conclusion at the same moment I spoke it aloud.

"If you knew," She demanded, "Why ask? I just need to keep them safe so they don't get found in the meantime."

That infuriated me. She had to know she was caught and yet she just kept throwing stuff out there in hopes that it would stick, "The only reason you would do that is to smuggle them, and the fact that two are missing means you swallowed them because you were leaving tonight."

"Well, duh." She rolled her eyes, "I have to go straight to Canterlot once the Elements are found..."

"I could believe that story if you hadn't torn up the necklaces so much, but you wrecked them pretty thoroughly." I pointed to the mangled necklaces on the floor, and then eyed the one on the desk along with the the big crown thingy that had had it's delicate filigree mare handled and mangled, "So why don't you tell me the truth, because I just don't believe you."

"Believe what you want. I don't have time for it." She said coldly, and returned to her work, humming as she prized the sparkling gem from another of the priceless artifacts, wrapped it tightly in cellophane and swallowed it, dry. She hummed as she deftly started to work the last stone loose, then broke into a verse of song in some dead language for a few moments before dying back down to the humming.

Mom or not, this had to end. These were the actions of a mad mare I had no choice but to intervene. I crossed the room, intent on stopping her, trying to reason with her, but somehow I never made it.

She looked up to me, the tune dying on her lips and said, "Baby, I love you, but this is the life or death of our entire nation we're talking about now and much as it pains me I just can't give you the help you need right now."

I heard Cappy's gruff bark and as I turned my head to look for him my world went dark.

I awoke in a bright white room, my hooves bound across my chest in a restrictive garment. I tried my magic but it was likewise restrained.

"Is...am I in an asylum?" I asked aloud, though by that time it was obvious that I was, when moments before I had been on the reserve base. It was jarring, to say the least, "What the buck?"

Author's Notes:

Sea Swirl as her archetype before her, does this thing where she pauses in deep thought then comes out with fairly canny statements of fact. In reality it's unsettling, oracle-like.

Every secret agent needs a hobby for their down time.
Sea Breeze paints like Bob Ross and for all the fun that's been made of him that man was a freaking genius and a gentle soul.
A moment of silence for Bob Ross.

Madness

Madness, what can I say? The real trouble with being mad is that you're not convinced that you are, in fact, crazy, but you're also not convinced that you're not. Then again I've lived my whole life that way.

It's a fine line anyway and I had enough various reasons to doubt my mental fitness and wish to escape reality anyway.

Any relatively balanced pony with a good conscience, if admitted to a psych ward and fed a steady stream of mind altering medicines and psychiatric malapropisms will probably be sufficiently convinced of their pathology to play along with the system, and for a short time I did as well. It was all strange, ill defined and unreal so I stopped swallowing the meds and everything sorted itself right out.

Then I was in an even worse fix. Being sane and trapped in an asylum is far worse than if you were truly crazy. I kept asking orderlies how I got there and how I'd get out, but they only had bright innocuous platitudes to share.

Eventually a nurse came in and introduced herself. Nurse Tender Heart. She was not so tender hearted as to release me from my straight jacket nor was she brave enough to talk with me without two burly orderlies in white scrubs leaning menacingly against the wall just behind her.

"Why am I here?" Seemed like a good place to start, so I led with that.

The reply I received from the Nurse was less than satisfactory, "Why do you believe that you've come here into our care?"

I groaned, I couldn't believe we were really going to do this, "Really? Do we have to go through all this instead of talking like grown mares? I just want to know how I got here, why, and how I get out."

She grinned a sad grin that told me that yes, regardless of common sense this is a thing we were going to do.

"Fine." I blurted, "I'm here because you think I'm crazy, obviously. Since I don't have any memory of how I got here I can't say whether I was then or not, but I'm not now, nor have I been in the immediate past, pre-hospitalization. How am I doing so far?"

The nurse nodded, "Do you think it's normal for a pony to have lapses in memory such as the one you've had?"

"No, it decidedly is not." I stated flatly. I wasn't about to admit to the Swiss cheese memory of my earlier years, "Now could you tell me how I got here?"

"You self admitted at ten o'clock, three nights ago, claiming that you were a danger to yourself and others and needed to be locked away." Tenderheart fished a file out of her bag and held the admission form before my face. Sure enough it had my hornwriting and signature. Whatever was going on my Mom was obviously at the root of it. I still had in the back of my mind that maybe she had my best interests at heart, somehow, but this was just too far a leap.

All I had to do was tell them about her, about the Elements of Harmony and they'd see that I'd somehow been tricked into signing myself in to keep me out of the way.

There was one problem, everytime I started to talk about Mom, or the Elements or even the reserve base I got unnaturally tongue tied, "The last thing I remember I was going to the...I was with my...I was looking for...and I found...."

"Go on," The nurse prodded, "You're in a safe place here, you don't have anything to worry about."

Try as I might I just couldn't get any useful words out. I had to out think this thing, maybe I could write it? "Could I get a piece of paper and something to write with?"

They supplied me with paper and a marker which I had to take in my mouth as my magic was still restrained. I skipped right over the preliminaries are tried to write 'reserve base,' 'Elements' and 'Mom'. I couldn't force myself to do it. I even tried sneaking up on it, trying to write the letters out of order or draw them in ways that they weren't quite proper letters. It didn't work.

I even had the brainstorm of writing 'wow' and then turning it upside down, but once I'd written the word I couldn't will myself to rotate it around. That's when the realization hit me, there's something seriously wrong and I don't have any way to tell anypony.

It was so shockingly frustrating and I felt so powerless that tears began to well up in my eyes. Then they ran unchecked after my mouth exceeded the speed of my brain and I asked in a plaintive mewl, "I'm not actually crazy, am I?"

Tears rained down and dotted the scribbled upon paper, with only the word 'wow' recognizable, Tenderheart spoke, "We don't like to use that word here, but we do believe you've had some sort of episode from which you haven't recovered. We can help you if you'll let us."

"Okay." I sniffled. I am so Celestia damned pathetic sometimes, it really disgusts me.

Over the next few days Nurse Tenderheart talked to me for maybe an hour a day, it was monstrously unproductive and not just because I couldn't talk about the real issues at hand. Having been in it's clutches, I don't have a high opinion of the modern psychiatric field.

The rest of the time was my own and I eventually was able to calm myself enough to give some serious thought to what was going on. Through the narrow slot in my cell door I watched the nurses and orderlies come and go from the other cells and I noticed something.

"Why does she have those big beefcake orderlies with her when she visits my cell, and not any of the others?" I wondered aloud. I'd talked to myself off and on the whole time, but this was the first time I got an answer.

From the cell next to me I heard, "You don't know? You're the most dangerous mare in Equestria."

"How's that?" I asked the unseen voice, "I've been nothing but docile the whole time I've been here."

"Maybe the whole time you've been here in you were in your right mind," The voice chuckled, it was definitely a stallion, an old one by the sound of it, "But when they brought you in you attacked nurses and orderlies alike and screamed your fool head off. They eventually had to use the firehose to bring you down. I didn't see it myself, wrong angle, but I heard every bit of it."

"They say I checked myself in, why would I attack anypony?"

"I couldn't say, but I heard through the grapevine that you confessed to a murder spree when you were a foal and two recent murders besides. Gave them all the details, but no proof, so it'd be hard to prove one way or another." He said.

"Who am I supposed to have killed? Can you tell me that?" I demanded. So far as I knew I had only killed one pony and it was an accident, though I'd rather not admit to it at all.

"Um...there was some undercover agent from Canterlot, and just the fact of what he was makes me think he needed killing." This answer gave me pause, but there's many a pony who views the government as antagonists and I'm not in any position to judge one way or the other, "I believe the other was supposed to be the local reserve commander. She disappeared the night you checked yourself in and I heard you chopped them both up and fed them to a manticore."

Buck. It all made sense now. Here I'm wallowing and even considering that I might really be insane and she dumped me in here to cover her escape.

"Did you do it?" He asked gently, "Did you really kill those ponies."

I tried to answer and explain it all away, but I just couldn't get the words out. In the end all I could come up with is, "I can't say." Because that was the simple truth. As soon as I said it I recalled that being Pinkie Pie's response as well and I knew she'd done something to the both of us to keep us silent, "What about you? Are you crazy?"

"Well...as long as I take my meds I'm not. I always thought I made pretty good sense when I was off them, too, but I did some rather eccentric things." He chuckled, "I guess the main one that landed me here was when I went and cut out my cutie marks with a knife."

"That's terrible!"

"Oh yes, I agree. It took a hundred stitches to get that sorted out and my coat never grew back quite right, but it made sense to me at the time. It's really sort of crazy that we're all bound, for the rest of our lives, to do something which is ordained by a magic brand on our posteriors. I mean even if you try not to do what you were destined to it creeps it's way back in, compulsive-like."

"Does it? Couldn't you just not do it if you hated your destiny that much?" I asked. I was very good at not doing things and should it ever come down to a head to head struggle between destiny and my inherent laziness the latter would courageously win the day everytime.

"For instance, I was a banker, had a three quarter view of a gold bar artfully rendered on my flank, but I grew to hate being a banker. Nevermind why, but I retired and bought a farm with the intention of growing a bland and innocuous crop, feed corn. Things went well the first year. In fact they went better for me than with my neighbors, but that was mostly because it was still a play farm for me and they had to make a living at it."

"Come spring the family right beside me didn't have enough seed corn to plant what they needed to and they didn't have the bits to buy it so I loaned them some corn with the promise that they'd give me the same amount back at harvest time, plus twenty percent. Next year they did the same thing and the other neighbors down the way joined in."

"Well by the third year I was loaning seed to everypony and I had far more coming in from that than I could ever grow and I realized that damn cutie mark had turned me into a banker again, only with seed corn."

"So what's wrong with that? It sounds like they needed someone to do what you were doing." It actually sounded like a good deed the way he presented it and I couldn't fault him for it.

"Bah. First, twenty percent is usurious and usury is a sin, Celestia herself will tell you that, but I was compelled by that mark to loan it out at whatever the market would bear. Second and more importantly it wasn't what I wanted to do but only what I was forced to do and I rebel on that principle if no other!" I could hear him pound his cell door with his hooves. It's padded lining only yielding the thumps of a pillow fight for all his fury, "That's when I excised the wretched marks and shortly after they had me in here. I've been in and out ever since."

"Did it work?" I asked, intrigued.

"Are you kidding? Everypony asks me that and they should already know the answer. Those marks are more than skin deep. If that wasn't the case ponies could cut them loose, trade them back and forth and graft them on. Maybe have mismatched ones on either side or a whole slew of them for versatility's sake. I didn't know that then, though, but it's obvious when you think about it a bit." He said and then fell silent, not saying another word for more than an hour despite my entreaties.

I got to know him fairly well, even with his propensity for protracted silences. He was a bit of a nut and prone to fits of rage, incoherence and abrupt instances of extreme depression that would just as rapidly dissipate. I was relieved at on the grounds that I would have lost hope if the ponies in the asylum were sane.

He told me it was fortunate I hadn't been admitted a few weeks earlier because the calm that permeated the ward was a recent thing. Apparently a long time inmate had taken the phrase 'barking mad' seriously and had taken the persona of an aggressive, yapping cur. She had evidently been cured and was in a halfway house now, so that's some minor endorsement for the facilities and faculty.

My sessions with Nurse Tenderheart, however, weren't getting me any closer to going home and she deflected all my inquiries towards that end.

Now I'd like to get all angsty and and recount what emotional torture it was to be trapped in a padded cell, restrained twenty four hours a day, and I'd have to admit it's frustrating, maybe even harrowing for a few minutes at a time. Mostly it was boring, and actually it was calming in that in real life I always felt like there was something I should be doing, even when I was just trying to relax. If I read a book or went for a swim I was just shirking some other thing I was actually meant to be doing. Now I was sedentary with no particular choice in the matter and it let me calm my mind and reflect.

Ten days since Mom had left with the Elements of Harmony, or pieces of them, secreted in her guts. Even if somepony knew where she was headed she had a headstart sufficient to lose herself quite effectively.

In my ponderings I came to realize something obvious that I should have come up with way sooner. Since my mother is a known liar, why should I believe her when she said I killed all those ponies as a little filly? Why should I believe that I killed that guard? I certainly didn't feel any strange magic on my part. At worst the truth was still up for grabs. At best she'd shifted the blame for things she'd done onto me and though it gave no explanation for my holey recollections at least it was something.

I thought it more plausible than her being a secret savior of all Equestria as she'd presented herself.

Reassured in this way I felt confident and started looking for a way to escape. The window was perpetually half open to let the breeze through, but it's grillework was exceedingly stout. The cell door was built just to resist my tampering, so that was right out. With the straight jacket I couldn't peel the padding back to look under it, so the first thing was to get the jacket loose.

It proved to be easier than anticipated. When I used the restroom, under close observation, which does not thrill me (nor will I discuss that humiliation any further), they loosened it and I simply puffed out my chest when they put it back. It gave me enough slack to wriggle out of it. Having no further plan I was forced to wriggle right back into it, but at least I knew how, now, and that's a start.

I asked my blank flanked neighbor for advice, but on this subject he only had hearsay and it was little enough help. If I had either my magic or some piece of steel maybe I could have come up with an ingenious method of escape, but real life isn't the same as prison stories and I didn't have anything stouter than my teeth. Under the padding was cinderblock, and I figured that with enough time and an implement I could scrape the mortar loose and free the blocks, but I wasn't looking forward to it.

Fortunately a minor eclipse changed all my plans. The sunlight flowing through my window was abruptly interrupted. By the time I turned to look the obstruction was gone, but out of the corner of my eye I was certain I'd seen somepony peeking in my window.

I scrambled to my rear hooves and pressed my face against the window bars, but no one was visible. "Hello? Is somepony out there?"

No answer came, but mere minutes later I heard a familiar voice in the hallway, getting closer. "See? I told you she was in here, and so did he, you just weren't listening."

Another familiar voice spoke up, "Sugarcube I did listen, but on account of him bein' a dog all I heard was 'woof!' So I 'spect you'll have to forgive me for doubtin' ya. Aside from that ain't nopony put in here on just a lark, so...don't get your hopes up, just 'cuz she's your friend. Might turn out she needs ta' be in here for a spell, who knows?"

"I know, but we have to find out for ourselves." The first voice, quite obviously Pinkie Pie by this point said, "Plus I'm not just her friend, I'm her super specialest best friend."

"But you're everypony's best friend, so I'm not sure if that can really be counted." Applejack countered just as they reached my door. Bright blue eyes graced the small slot in the door.

"That's her! Oh, open it open it!" Pinkie yelled and the door was unlocked and swung open. The traditional pair of orderlies along with nurse Tenderheart preceded Applejack and Pinkie Pie making the small cell quite crowded.

Behind them I saw Cappy fitted with a leather lead. If what I heard was accurate he'd led these two ponies to me but now that he was here he stared disinterestedly in another direction, yawned, and flopped on the floor.

With a massive grin Pinkie bounced up to me, ignoring the straightjacket and my current environs to tell me, "We found your dog! Ooh, and your dog found you and then we found you! It's like hide and seek crossed with a game of telephone! You're a really good hider too, at first these ponies at the desk didn't want us to come in here at all, but then we told them it was super duper important because we found your dog."

"Then they told us they were two of the Elements of Harmony," Nurse Tenderheart clarified, "So we decided to let them visit even if it is against protocol."

"Visit?" I said in shock, "You mean you're not here to get me out?"

"'Fraid not sugarcube, we don't have any particular authority in this sorta thing and they say you're a dangerous pony." Applejack said sadly.

Pinkie Pie gave Applejack a dirty look and rolled her eyes, "Well you may not have, but I came to spring you. I even made a cake with a hacksaw in it! But then I ate it. Sorry."

"Pinkie, they can't just cut her loose on your say so." Applejack chided, "For all we know she really needs help."

"Huh. I never thought of that." Pinkie advanced instantly and pressed her nose to mine, looking me directly in the eyes, "Have you gone loco in the coco?"

"Er...no?" I answered uncertainly.

"Insane in the membrane? Dumm in the kopf? Just plain cuh-razy?"

"Not especially." I answered.

"Good enough for me!" Pinkie chirped and made to hoist me up by the strap of my straight jacket. She was stopped by the orderlies who nudged her away.

"Miss Pie," Nurse Tenderheart said bemusedly, "It's not as simple as that..."

"Oh, but I think you'll find that it is." Pinkie sat back on her haunches and screwed up her face, "Sea Swirl, how did you come to be here?"

"I...I signed myself in more than a week ago, I guess." I would have said more but my affliction kept me from going further.

"Yes," The nurse stated, "She signed herself in saying she was a danger to herself and others and proceeded to confess to some very serious transgressions."

"Serious enough to inform the authorities?" Pinkie asked.

"Indeed."

"So they filed charges, then?" Pinkie prodded.

"No, they haven't yet. They said that without more evidence they couldn't bring a case yet, even with a full confession. The mentally ill can't testify against themselves, by Equestrian law." Tenderheart admitted.

"So what you're telling me," Pinky got up and paced, hoof to her chin, "Is that since there's no evidence and no case you're holding her solely because you believe she's a danger to herself and others?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Has she done anything...untoward, in her time here?"

"She was ranting and lashing out when she was admitted, but no, she's been quite docile on the whole." Tenderheart said.

"So...She's not a danger anymore? Because that's what it sounds like you're telling me." Pinkie continued to pace, looking deep in thought, then stopped and turned towards the nurse, "Oh, one more thing. If you DO admit she's not a danger and she admitted herself, who is required to sign her out?"

At that I looked to Nurse Tenderheart. I finally knew what Pinkie was getting at, "I can sign myself out, can't I?"

"Yes, but you're still very ill, we would recommend..." I interrupted the nurse as I shuffled to my hooves and danced a silly little jig, which is out of character for me, but I was feeling a burst of pent up joy. I should have been angry that I could have signed myself out this entire time if only somepony had told me, but no use crying over spilt milk. Pinkie joined in right beside me for a few steps until I tripped and collapsed heavily to the ground.

"No, no, I'll have that release form now." I said and wriggled my shoulders until I could get my hooves free and shed the straight jacket right in front of everypony. It visibly irked the orderlies, but buck 'em. I pounded my hooves on the cell wall, "Ya hear that you old blank flanked codger? They're gonna let me loose!"

I heard muffled congratulations from his cell and promised myself I'd come visit from time to time once everything was sorted out. Nurse Tenderheart protested, but Pinkie was insistent that I had my rights and couldn't be detained against my will any longer. Applejack even joined in with a veiled threat that the Princess might find out about this. Tenderheart could see the tide was against her so she resigned herself to releasing me and took the three of us and Cappy up to the admission desk to sort out the paperwork and lose the enchantment that cut off my magic.

Then I stepped back into the bright sunlight and fresh air, a free mare once more.

"You knew tha' whole time they hadta let her go, didn't ya?" Applejack asked as we walked down the path towards Ponyville proper.

"Yuperoo!" Pinkie Beamed, "When I first came to town somepony said I was crazy and they put me in there so I know how it works."

"How'd you get out?" I asked.

"They said I was taking advantage of the padded room and that bouncing off the walls was meant to be a figure of speech. Then they changed the paperwork to say I wasn't crazy at all and threw me out." Pinkie giggled. "I tried to get them to let me keep the jacket, but they wouldn't. It was neat because it was just like you were hugging yourself all day!"

Applejack rolled her eyes, "I was here when you moved to town and ain't a lick of that true."

"Maybe I saw it in a movie?" Pinkie offered, but I don't think there's actually any movie like that in reality so I'm still baffled as to the truth on that one.

"So Cappy led you to me?" I asked and Applejack nodded, "Is that the whole reason you came to find me? So you didn't have to look after the mongrel?"

"Nopey dopey. I was looking for you because Peachy Sweet told me you disappeared and then Twilight was looking for you. Oh, plus what kind of best friend would I be if I let you languish away in there until you shriveled up like a raisin on a radiator?" Pinkie patted Cappy's head affectionately, "It's just lucky that this old boy showed up when he did and led us right to you."

"That is lucky, too. I thought he'd gone off with..." I forgot I still couldn't mention Mom and trailed off.

"Off with who?" Applejack asked, conversationally, not realizing the importance of this slip.

"I can't say." I answered.

Pinkies eyes grew to saucer size and she stopped dead in her tracks, "You can't say? Sea Swirl, do you know who's fault it was that you were in there?"

"I can't say." I answered again, but something occurred to me, "Do you know?"

Her face nearly split with an understanding grin and she replied, "I can't say! Oh we've got to go see Twilight!"

Applejack was confused and turned to glare at us in incomprehension, "What are you two on about, what have you got to see Twilight for?"

"I can't say!" We both answered in unison and broke down laughing, much to Applejack's annoyance. To her it was complete nonsense and we couldn't explain a bit of it to her, she was left out of the joke, lucky for her.

I realized then that Pinkie's manic depressive behavior when I'd first gone to her for help was due to the very spell that afflicted me now. It made me feel a strange sort of bond or kinship with her and I was excited enough that I joyfully nuzzled her as we walked.

She immediately took this as permission to give me a rib cracking bear hug from which I may never recover.

I admit it was stupid, but it was a relief for both of us that we weren't in our plight alone and even if we couldn't outright tell anypony what was going on, maybe we could hint at it loudly enough between the two of us.

Twilight, though irritated at first, caught on quickly that something was off with both Pinkie and I.

She had been wanting to question me as both Sea Breeze and I had disappeared on the same night and I was known to have been looking for her. When the questioning headed that way and I became unaccountably standoffish Pinkie butted into the questioning and made it obvious that neither of us could be made to discuss Mom.

Her natural predilection towards magical solutions was exhausted with nothing more than an admission that she'd never seen anything quite like this before. "I don't even know what I'm dealing with here. I can just barely sense the spell and it seems to be entwined completely with their consciousness from what I can see." She said to Applejack, more as a way of organizing her thoughts than actually to convey information, "It may even be some form of dark magic. Sea Swirl, do you know who cast it?"

"I can't say."

"No, no, of course not." She pondered it for a moment, "I don't suppose this is changeling mind control of some sort? There's rumors of them being behind all this weirdness lately."

"So far as I know it's got nothing to do with the changelings." I was thankfully able to answer the question and eliminate one whole species from the list.

"So it was a pony that cast the spell?" Twilight asked.

"I can't say."

"Which means yes, doesn't it?" Twilight asked, then shook her head, "Don't try to answer that, of course it does. That gives me an idea. Was it somepony we know?"

"I can't say."

"Right, well that's actually inconclusive, isn't it? Was it...no that won't work. Give me a minute. This is like one of those logic puzzles, if I can just think of the right way to phrase my questions..." Twilight trailed off, deep in thought.

"Hey, Twi?" Applejack suggested, "How about we take a page from the ol' librarian handbook and try alphabetizing? Is it some pony who's name starts with A?"

"Negatory morning glory!" Answered Pinkie Pie.

"Nope. That's a good trick, Applejack." I replied. She went down the alphabet and when she got to 'S' Pinkie and I both answered, "I can't say."

Truthfully I was worried that since I knew my mother as Ocean Song that I'd get a hit on the 'O' and screw up the whole thing, but I knew her real name too and it happens to start with an 'S' as well.

"Spike!" Twilight yelled at the top of her lungs without even looking to see where her assistant was, "Bring me down the Ponyville directory, will you?"

Moments later little dragon feet pitter pattered down the stairs and the book in question flopped down on the table. Twilight thanked Spike and flipped the directory to the 'S's and indicated name after name until she got to 'Sea Breeze' and Pinkie answered "I can't say." Obviously I did not, but nopony noticed.

"That's impossible Pinkie! She's Captain o' the reserve, why I've known her for years!" Applejack protested, "I was mighty upset when she went missing the other...oh. Oooh! She wern't took like the other ponies, she skipped town, didn't she?"

"I can't say." I answered this time. Applejack caught on quick, too. Mom's spell had been clever enough to buy her some time but we'd cracked it in a round about way. It made me wonder, though, what it was that Pinkie knew that caused her to hex her?

Twilight pondered with a hoof to her chin, then said, "So, does this mean she had something to do with the disappearance of the missing ponies?"

"I can't say." Said Pinkie morosely.

"What about the Elements of Harmony, does she have anything to do with them disappearing?"

"I can't say." I replied and with that Twilight Sparkle gasped and finally knew what I'd been dying to tell her for more than a week.

Now we just needed to figure out what to do about it.

Author's Notes:

I keep thinking there ought to be more to this chapter, the whole asylum thing having the potential to be a story in and of itself, and I rewrote it longer a couple times. In the end I let it revert to a detour and I actually like it pretty well.
Maybe I decided to keep the headgames superficial for the time being.

Flailing

Clues that eluded Twilight Sparkle's systematic and thorough search were turned up by fortuitous but devoted mediocrity as the reservist's search of the reserve base netted the remains of the Elements of Harmony's previous settings. It became known that after the stones were removed they'd been trampled into a flat lump and the twisted, golden remnants were discarded into the latrine.

The soiled mass, when presented to Twilight Sparkle caused a frightful and energetic reaction, the power of which broke several windows and blew the leaves entirely off the library. It wasn't bad enough to steal the Elements, Mom had also managed to desecrate them before disappearing without a trace.

Searching the base for any further clues was a bust.

Since I couldn't bring it up and nopony else either mentioned it or led any inquiry in that direction, I was still in the dark as to who had sent an agent to seek me out and why. With the many other mysteries swirling around I mostly forgot about it, memories of the ill fated pony festering in the dim recesses of my unconscious with their dark brethren.

Letter exchanges with Princess Celestia ensued, their overriding theme seemed to be that she had faith in her student and trusted her to resolve the situation.

Twilight Sparkle, though appreciative of the faith her mentor put in her was practically seething for any manner of regal intervention, but refused to ask for it in any direct manner. In dancing around the issue in missive form the Princess took Twilight to be asking for martial assistance and so gave her supreme jurisdiction over the very reserve division that my mother had commanded.

Decidedly the added responsibility of a military commander heaped on her shoulders was the last possible thing Twilight wanted, needed, or had any capability to handle, but a certain loyal friend of hers stepped up to take on the challenge.

Rainbow Dash had admitted that the Wonderbolts weren't exactly a normal military outfit, but the lessons she'd learned there made her the closest thing to a commander available. She knew the language and protocols she laid it on thick, much to the chagrin of the unit.

It turned out that the Ponyville Reserve had been more of an old colt's club during Sea Breeze's reign than a functional military unit.

"What about the readiness tests? How could you pass the requirements if none of you ever trained like you were supposed to?" Rainbow demanded hotly.

"Some of us did train. But mostly she forged the results and doctored the medical exams, ma'am." One of the supposed soldiers offered, "She told us it would be okay because we were a deterrent, not a real army, and all we had to do was present an image of a ready fighting force to be effective, so we just kind of went along with it."

"None of you saw anything wrong with that?" Rainbow glared at her inherited troops who at least had the decency to look properly ashamed.

"Ma'am, you have to keep in mind that very few of us are holdovers from when she first took command. Only the lieutenants here," The soldier indicated a pair of stallions who wore white dress shirts which held gold braid indicating their superior rank. Neither of them looked like they were grateful for the attention, "were around back then, and they were just privates. We just took for granted that the military was a big show and it was like this all over. We truthfully didn't know any better and it would have been career suicide to try and change it...plus it was a pretty sweet deal for us, all things considered."

Another soldier spoke up, "We're not by any means professional soldiers and I think I speak for most of us when I say that we were mainly in it for the extra bits. I mean it's quite a bit of scratch for a weekend a month training and a month a year on duty. That being said we took an oath when we signed up and we'll stand by it. If you believe we can be worthy of it, we're yours to command."

"Bucking A right you're mine to command." Rainbow snarled, "What's your name soldier?"

"Keen Edge." The stallion replied and I recognized him to be Peachy Sweet's husband. He had a brown coat and tufted green mane which along with his hatchet cutie mark made me believe he was a woodcutter. Peachy Sweet hadn't brought up what he did when the guard didn't need him. He was quite a handsome stallion and looked a good, earnest fit for Peachy Sweet.

"Keen Edge? Alright, you're Lieutenant now, pick another pony you trust to do the job and they'll be one too." Rainbow Dash turned on the two former officers, "You two are demoted to stay-the buck-away-from-me patrol, got it?"

"You can't do that." The left most one said with an arrogant chortle.

"If you mean I don't have the authority you're wrong. I am your new commander, second hoof or not, by Princess Celestia's decree. Now if you mean I won't come right over there and buck you into next Tuesday then you just try me and see where that gets you." Rainbow shuffled her wings in agitation, "See, here's the thing that irks me about this, your fellow soldiers should have known better but they didn't. You did know better and you just played along."

"It's dishonorable, despicable and the crooked commander you covered for all these years skipped out with the Elements of Harmony, so the way I see it you two have got a lot of blame waiting to come down on you like an avalanche. For right now you just need to get away from me before I do something you'll regret, understood?"

The one former lieutenant was an older stallion and evidently used to getting his own way as he was winding up for a snarky reply, I could see it in his eyes, but his partner saw it too and hoofed him hard in the ribs. Muttering, "Understood, ma'am." He dragged his comrade out the door with him, presumably to lay low until this blew over a bit.

"As for the rest of you," Rainbow announced, "Take the Ponyville directory, split it up amongst you and check with everypony in your section to see if they know anything about Sea Breeze. When they last saw her, where she was headed, who she talked to, anything you can get. Be polite, but be thorough. A lot's riding on this. Dismissed."

It did my heart good to see that the newly minted lieutenant partnered up with another likely looking colt and they set about organizing the search and doling out sections of the dismembered directory with alacrity and expediency. His diligence may have simply been credited to a healthy fear of Rainbow Dash, however.

In her element and in command Rainbow Dash was a beautiful and terrible force, truly a wonder to observe and the troops were scrambling over each other to avoid disappointing her. I wondered if she ran the weather patrol in a similar manner.

For my part I was pretty useless since I couldn't even ask anypony about Sea Breeze directly without her spell kicking in. Even with Zecora's help we had yet to lift it and it made it impractical to participate in the search in anything resembling a useful capacity.

This being the case I resolved to go back to the boarding house and maybe write for a while to pass the time. I hadn't been back since my release from the asylum and if nothing else I should check in with Peachy Sweet. I would have loved to give her the gossip about what happened today, but the spell would censor it down to gibberish so it was hardly worth trying. She'd know soon enough anyway, I suppose, so I collected Cappy and headed back.

After a protracted conversation with Peachy Sweet, that was unavoidably full of lapses and omissions on my side, I returned to my room. The first thing I noticed was that somepony had straightened up. The second thing I noticed was that my painting now hung on the wall next to the original one and it had been repaired.

I examined it closely. The scratch had been expertly filled in and reshaded. It looked good as new and the repair could only be seen by it's slightly differing sheen.

Last I remember of it I was in Mother's office, with the initial intention of getting it repaired, but what had happened to it after that and how had it been returned.? Who did this? I wondered, but then noticed down at the corner an initial that hadn't been there before. 'S.S.' it read in neat crimson lettering, which pretty much meant that Mom had repaired the painting and presumably came here and hung it up for me.

"Buck."

Weird thing to do for a daughter you've just relegated to the asylum.

I hadn't hung the painting originally because I didn't want to go punching holes in Peachy Sweet's walls so I took the painting down and checked behind it. A small finish nail was angled into the paneled wall, I could patch it pretty easy with dark wood filler when I left, no problem. I turned to pick the painting back up and set it back in place and I noticed crimson lettering on the back.

All the blood drained from my face when I examined it and instantly recognized it as latitude and longitude, directions to someplace, presumably where Mom was headed if it could be trusted. Yet, how could I tell anypony about it?

I couldn't. It may as well not have been written at all and she had to have known that. Maybe it was just a cruel joke?

How could I believe the coordinates and why would she tell me so blatantly anyway? It was just maddening in every sense of the word. Despite all her failings, and they had to be quite glaring to anypony by now, she had always had a quirky sense of humor that didn't abandon her in even the direst circumstances.

Very funny, Mom.

I scribbled the coordinates down on a slip of paper and started off towards the library. I didn't make it but a few feet before an overwhelming compulsion forced me to go back and rehang the painting.

I guess the spell was worried that somepony would see it if I left it laying around? I was still uncertain about the specific terms of the spell. It surprised me, for instance, that it let me copy down the coordinates while it wouldn't, for instance, let me discuss a hypothetical search for a fictional rogue pony.

I'd tried. It was a condition that managed to make me seem more sullen than I already try to be. This was made more evident when I finally did make it to the library. Twilight Sparkle, Spike and Fluttershy (who I'd really not been properly introduced to yet) saw me enter, nodded to me but made no attempt to speak to me.

In my mind I was a deaf mute already and I was fine with it.

I searched the oak shelves and found a relatively current atlas. Ten years old, I noticed, a bit disgusted. A library really should keep it's reference material up to date.

I could have gone back home and asked Peachy Keen and I bet he'd have a more current one for his schoolwork.

I guess all the latitude lines are likely to have stayed in the same place, though, so I flipped to the index and located the page for a detailed map.

It was of the Western Stirropean countries.

Lining up the coordinates indicated a moderately sized town deep in the Griffon empire.

Celestia damn it. This better be a joke.

"Did you find something?" Came a voice over my shoulder and my magic flared unbidden to snap the book shut. If Twilight had just thought to sneak up on me and read over my shoulder maybe we would have gotten somewhere, "Oh, I see." she said sheepishly, "What are those?"

I looked to where she was pointing and saw the slip of paper I'd written the coordinates on engulfed in a dim magical aura. My aura. The numbers, though they kept their format, alternated like a slot machine and when they stopped were a nonsensical set of digits.

"Coordinates? Were those where you think your mother is?" I made my usual non-answer. Twilight was momentarily stumped for a solution. It was enough of a clue for somepony, though.

"Ooh!" A happy voice chirped, "We get to play the guessing game again!"

Where had Pinkie come from? Had I missed her when I came in?

"I don't think you can," Twilight told the unaccountably materialized pink mare, "Since the spell's on you too, I don't see how that would work."

"Easy cheesy, I'll just guess digits and you write them down." Pinkie said and proceeded to do just that. The trouble was that I didn't remember them all and I got the whole thing muddled somewhere in the middle.

"Well that's disappointing." Twilight grumbled, "But something I've noticed, when I accidentally close a book without marking the page it will usually open back up to the page that I was last one. Let's try that."

Twilight opened to book, seemingly at random. It was a page off but she flipped it, questioned me and through my usual response knew that was the one I was on. She got me to pick a map quadrant and then she started picking off town names in Eagleland.

"Birdingham?"

"Nope." I answered.

"Coveytree?"

"No."

"Griffonsburg...huh, that's sort of like Ponyville isn't it?"

"No and yes." I replied and further responded, "I've never been all that thrilled with all the equine puns, either. It seems a bit forced."

"The way I heard it Luna named some of the earliest towns when she was still a foal and the theme just kind of stuck. Celestia didn't want to stifle her creativity." Twilight grimaced, "I've always discounted that as an old mare's tale, but I've been afraid to ask, really. Doesn't really explain why the griffons did it too."

"Whatever!" Pinkie chimed in, "You two are such stick in the muds! I for one love a good pun. The only thing I like more than a pun is a rhyme!"

"You must get on with Zecora very well." I said snidely. Pinkie just beamed and nodded, my sarcasm wasted.

"How about..." This went on for a while as Twilight picked names only to get a negative response and friendly heckling where it could be given, eventually she made it to, "West Aerie?"

"I can't say." I said and was well pleased to be done with the questioning. Whether Pinkie counted it as a game or not it was nothing but boring and frustrating to me. Not being in control of one's own voice was infuriating.

"Okay, good." Twilight said, non-plussed, then grabbed another book from off the shelf and set it down before us and read aloud, "West Aerie is situated on the slopes of the White Pass range. Originally a resort town frequented by griffon nobles during the summer months it has evolved into a university town with three separate institutions and numerous technical schools. It is well established as the most esteemed center of learning in the Griffon Empire. Population, eighty eight thousand covering some forty five square miles. Huh, well at least I'll get to visit a griffon library, or three."

"So...we're going to Eagleland?" Fluttershy meekly asked. She'd been listening in all this time, almost invisible and only just now reminded everypony of her presence.

"I don't know." Twilight muttered and turned to face me, "We still need to find out how Sea Swirl came by this information."

I dropped my head on the table, "No! No more questions, it's exhausting. Give me a break!"

"But we can't just cross the ocean on a hunch." Twilight said reasonably. I shrugged and did a zip-your-lips spell on myself so as to communicate my intransigence. Important or not I couldn't put up with another minute of tedious questions and as far as I was concerned they'd need further supporting evidence before it would be remotely worthwhile anyway, so I clammed up. I intended to stay that way too, possibly forever, but Rainbow Dash chose that moment to burst through the door.

"You guys! You guys!" She hollered excitedly, "Somepony did see her leave town, Lyra! She knew Sea Swirl was looking for her and was afraid she was going to skip town. When she saw her pass by near the station with her saddlebags stuffed chock full she tailed her. She checked with the agent to see where she was headed so she could tell her later, but it was the day Sea Swirl turned up in the asylum so she didn't have the chance."

Way to go Lyra! I'm going to buy her so many tattered harp cases, I thought.

Spike watched the animated pegasus' tirade then piped up, "The suspense is killing me so just tell us, is she headed to Eagleland or not?"

"Eagleland? By train?" Rainbow asked, puzzled, "She was headed to Manehattan. I've sent a bunch of the reserve after her to try and dig up any trace they can of her. I'll have them check the shipyards and intercontinental blimps with a fine tooth comb if you really think she's headed that way."

"We think it's a possibility." Twilight said, "She's a slippery one, though, we need to know for sure. We have to know it's not just a ruse or a distraction."

Rainbow Dash saluted, "I'm on it! I'll get the word out!" With that she was gone again to send messages ahead to her troops. It seemed to me that she relished having troops at her command and I wondered if it might not be hard for her to give up the reins once this whole debacle came to it's bitter end. If we were headed overseas it might do to have a cohort of our own, but what would the griffons think of that?

I unzipped my lips, "What do you actually know about griffons?"

"I did a little research on the subject after one of Rainbow Dash's friends, a griffon, visited and caused quite a ruckus." Twilight started pedantically, "Interestingly it's a cultural norm for griffons to be rude and sarcastic, they're known for it across the world and some even find it charming. They can be described as haughty as well, but in the big picture they've acted civilly and we have a strict treaty of alliance with them."

"We may even be able to count on some level of cooperation, but I'm not going to be the pony to tell a rival nation that our ultimate deterrent has gone rogue somewhere in their nation. I'll have to write to the Princess to ask how to proceed on that bit."

Pinkie Pie chimed in, "I know they take themselves too seriously, at least the ones that I've met. Maybe if we go clear to Eagleland I'll be able to make friends with some who aren't such party poopers, it would be great to have more griffon friends!"

Fluttershy wrinkled her nose and stepped forward, saying softly, "I know they're carnivores with big sharp claws and huge beaks that eat poor defenseless rodents. They scare me almost as much as dragons, oh please Twilight! I don't want to go to Eagleland, I just know they'll gobble us all right up!"

"Relax." I chuckled, "They don't eat ponies and so long as you can survive their bad manners you'll be fine. Also, they eat a lot of the same stuff we do, minus the hay and flowers. I know they'll eat rabbits and squirrels..." Flutteryshy blanched and made a fearful squeak at that, "But mostly they eat fish. Actually one of them got me to try salmon one time, it's not bad, I guess, but it's pretty greasy and it smells funny."

"Yuck." Twilight and Pinkie said in unison. Fluttershy stared slack jawed and immobile, I think I saw a single tear roll down her cheek.

"Hey! I was young and it was only the one time!" As had become the norm I had more knowledge of the situation that I would say. This time it was my own choice, however, and not the spell.

The truth is that I dated a griffon for half a year. Admittedly he was a loser but he had a bad boy vibe that really turned me on. Also, so as to be clear, by 'dated' I mean drank, smoked and screwed around with, but that's a whole different story. One that I'll not be telling just now, or maybe ever.

He told me all he could think of about his own native land and in the end said that as exotic as it sounded it was a lot more like Equestria than the Zebra's society or even the Saddle Arabians. Second hoof knowledge, all of it, but it made me feel I had the superior understanding.

"I don't see what the big deal is." Spike said as horror bloomed in Twilight's eyes and he failed to heed her signals for him to shut up, "I've eaten fish, it's okay. It smells funny but otherwise it just tastes like chicken."

A pregnant silence hung and with that we dropped the discussion of the Griffon Empire and I took it as a prime opportunity to leave.

"Like chicken?" I heard Fluttershy gasp as the door swung shut. It seemed to really upset her for some reason that I didn't yet comprehend, having just met her myself.

I headed back towards home while they continued their various research and contemplations of remedial dragon training.

I came to know later that the Element Bearers all met together that night at sugarcube corner after closing time. It's likely that they were debating the merits of my further involvement in what was decidedly shaping itself up to be a quest.

As I've mentioned, being enchanted in the way that I was made me useless for research and in many practical situations as well. Also, despite our being on friendly terms at the moment and Pinkie's assertion that she was my best friend, I was an outsider to the little group. More than anypony I felt this and both expected and would have understood if they had left me out of their plans.

What I heard from Applejack when we had a bit of a heart to heart later on, was that Twilight Sparkle was the one who insisted I be let in on the mission. I thought, maybe, that it was guilt over the dismissive way she'd treated me early on, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Sea Breeze had ostensibly been Twilight's friend and a good friend at that. When the disappearances happened she was right there to help and that had brought them together. They worked side by side for weeks and so completely had she fooled Twilight that she had no inkling that Sea Breeze's motives were anything but noble.

She blamed herself for not seeing through her deceptions and the things that could have been prevented if she had.

Applejack told me that she thought Twilight wanted me along so that I might have my revenge on my mother as a surrogate for her own feelings of betrayal. Ignoble as that sounded at least it got me a spot as a tag-along, because logically there wasn't much of a reason besides that for me to be there.

That was my in. The whole of it. I was meant to be Twilight Sparkle's proxy for vengeance.

I got waylaid on the way back home in a good way that night and spent the night drinking and partying with Lyra and Bon Bon. Hanging about with a musician and candy maker beat out their fraught little conclave anyday. Even if it hadn't gone in my favor I wouldn't have regretted it and it was the last chance I got to see those two for some considerable time.

Author's Notes:

A chapter in which I clumsily take the ponies from here to there.
It took a long while to re-edit. There seem to have been a great many good fics put out this week that required my perusal.
In the next chapter Pinkie Pie tries to avoid turning into an air pirate and starts a war with the griffon empire, but not very hard.

In Force

The distinction between a vessel of exploration and one built for war is little but the hoisting of a battle flag and the brandishing of the latter's armaments.

The vessel of exploration, for instance, must be reinforced and armored to survive the travails of the vast unknown, stocked as for a siege and with built in redundancies to account for the unexpected. Armaments can be no more sparse than a genuine ship of the line to defend against encounters of chance. That these are stowed, plugged and retracted is but a matter of moments for a trained crew to remedy.

Exploration, like soldiering, requires a considerable force of warm bodies and facilities to house them at some minimal level of comfort. A garrison or a dormitory depending on whether it's inhabitants take up tools or weapons, equally interchangeable things.

I felt this needed elucidation so that the fact of Princess Celestia sending us a vessel of exploration for our trip to Eagleland's weight is properly understood.

Equestria, it could be said, had no warships.

The Morningstar was a leviathan. Three hundred some yards of gasbag with a frigate sized hull hung pendulously beneath it, it was still surprisingly graceful and elegant. It's paint was of the brightest white enamel and it was all covered in gilt scrolls and flourishes. Numerous square hatches, emblazoned with the sun's image, kept the gundeck's bristling armament benignly sealed away.

Gossamer fins and rudder protruded from the hull to provide guidance and eight magically imbued motors drove the airscrews that would propel it's massive bulk through the sky.

It's enormous gasbag had been some artists grandest canvas and with a serene face, fins and embellishments it had been made up as a placid behemoth, a white whale of mythic proportions saddled with the florid silk sling to which the riggings were anchored.

It hung over Ponyville, casting it's shade across vast swathes of land as it drifted slowly on it's tether, following the gentlest breeze. Outwardly it was imposing and magnificent, humbling even.

As the element bearers gathered to appraise their prospective craft one was not humbled. "It might do, since this is an emergency."

"Might do?" Twilight came back, exasperated, "Rarity, Princess Celestia sent us the flagship of the Equestrian fleet, a cutting edge fusion of magic and engineering and you say it might do?"

"Oh, pish tosh." Rarity considered the gently hovering craft, "I do appreciate the sentiment, and sent by the Princess herself, no less, but it's hardly cutting edge in any real sense, is it? Every scrap of technology on it was well proven centuries ago, excepting for the motors, I suppose. Why from the style of construction and adornment I'd say that this crown jewel of the Equestrian fleet is nothing but a stitched together relic from the sky pirate era."

"Not to denigrate it too harshly, after all, it's impressive enough, but were it not for the expedience with which we must undertake our little junket I'd think a less...obtrusive method of transportation should do much better. A proper liner with the amenities that should, by right, be afforded to a lady of refinement and culture. I rather doubt a craft of this sort even has an onboard spa in which to relax. I certainly do hope that there is, at the very least, a well appointed dining room and we are not made to be served in the galley like common roughnecks."

"Rarity, I think you'd be dern lucky if there's cabins, much less a spa. I expect she's right 'bout it being a might... obtrusive, didja say?" Applejack drawled, head tilted towards the sky, "Treaty with them griffons or not I don't reckon we're going to look all that diplomatic plowin' into their territory with this flyin' fortress. No siree."

"Side from that we ain't gonna have anything like the element of surprise and it seems to me like we might be needin' just that afore this thing's through." She looked sidewise at Twilight, "Y'all sure we shouldn't just hop some freighter and keep all this on the down low?"

"Neither of you have any sense of adventure, do you?" Rainbow teased, "Here we're going to take on a whole nation of carnivorous savages with only ourselves and a crack force of elite super soldiers to steal back the most powerful relics on the face of the planet and you're worried about the element of surprise? We're the underdogs here which gives us the advantage, so don't worry about the element of surprise because the element of awesome is going to see us through!"

Rarity scoffed, but she felt it was insufficient to express her derision and did it again, "Being the underdog, by definition, means you are at a disadvantage no matter what Daring Do might have to say on the matter. Moreover, you should know better than anypony that the griffons are not, in fact, savages, being the one amongst us who has had long dealings with a griffon."

"Also, I don't know where this 'super soldier' nonsense came from. Forty Ponyville reservists, even with a few days of your oh so inarguably 'awesome' training, do not a crack force make."

"No sense of adventure at all." Rainbow Dash repeated. Pinkie Pie nodded her head in sad agreement and rolled her eyes which Rarity chose not to notice.

"I've been in contact with the Princess," Twilight said peevishly, "The griffons already know we're on the way and the ones that need to know already know why. They'll give us any assistance they can once we get there."

"It turns out they're as worried about having something so powerful as the Elements of Harmony in the wrong hooves as we are. They just want them and Sea Breeze out of the country and out of their talons."

"As for the Morningstar, it's the fastest way to get there from here. Simple as that, so we're stuck with it regardless. Looking at the map it seemed like we should be able to moor it on the West coast in with the rugged cliffs and peaks with very little chance of it's arrival being widely known. It'll be good to have it nearby in any case, we can't assume Sea Breeze is alone or unprepared and I for one wouldn't mind the insurance."

"We need to move, though. Standing here debating is just a waste of time and Sea Breeze's trail is already cold enough as it is. It's lucky that we found somepony who'd seen her actually boarding an airship for Eagleland. I for one would prefer not to rely solely on blind luck."

"How do we get up there? I'd like to get a look before I commit to anything." I grumbled. I'd never been on an airship and in truth I wasn't thrilled with the prospect.

"Leave it to me!" Rainbow Dash winked and took off only to return tethered to a rickety two wheeled cart. Fluttershy hitched herself in beside Rainbow Dash and nervously pawed the ground as we boarded. It would only carry two ponies and so took three trips to get all of us up there. I went second, along with Applejack.

I could hear Pinkie call up from the ground as we took flight, "Ooh! I call Captain! Dibs!"

A skeleton crew of six had been provided, Captain included. Pinkie simply chose not to acknowledge this fact and dressed herself in a finely cut blue jacket with over the top gold lame escutcheons and epaulets reminiscent of a marching band uniform. Perched on her head she had a black hat with an odd skull and crossed balloons emblem that, in my opinion, sent mixed signals.

The real captain was a dirty white coated stallion wearing only a blue, visored hat and a pair of binoculars. Compared to Pinkie's ensemble it was a little underwhelming, if somepony were to actually be judging based on such things. His black, square cut beard and hard black eyes gave him all the authority he needed.

Pinkie ignored him and he ignored her while she gave orders and shouted to non-existent ponies with flamboyant names. He nodded to me, and I saluted back, a habit left from my father.

To guide our journey, there were also a pair of navigators, both unicorns with the tools of the trade emblazon on their flanks. A golden brown mare whose bearing told that she was the first officer and a shifty looking yellow mare who was likely the second.

The sixth member of the crew was a carpenter and rigger who was off teaching the arriving reservists the rudimentary skills that they would need so as to serve as an airship's crew. It was a necessity that they be able to serve double duty so as to keep the crew compliment down.

"How soon do we sail?" I asked the Captain, it hadn't been discussed and I still had arrangements to make for Cappy.

"Yarr!" Pinkie exclaimed, "We be weighin' anchor jus' as soon as you scurvy dogs get your sea chests stowed below decks."

The Captain pointed a hoof at her and nodded, indicating that she was correct, "We're ready to go at a moment's notice, I'm just waiting for the rest of your troops to get onboard and get resupplied. Should be several hours if there's not too much dawdling."

"Dammit, I thought we'd have more time than that." I said, saluted and left the bridge to it's two Captains.

Stepping out on deck I was jarringly in the vertiginous open air with only the narrow deck and it's frighteningly short railings keeping me from the long drop to the ground. The deck rolled in the breeze, not unlike an ocean bound ship, but with an irregular rhythm. If it wouldn't require approaching those comically ineffectual looking railings and the certain death that lay just beyond them I would have thrown up. Instead I scrambled and stumbled below decks where the effect was much lessened.

The first deck down was a short one, just barely tall enough to walk in and crammed with cannon, harpoon guns and crossbows.

Rainbow Dash was present, inspecting the artillery and mumbling to her Lieutenant, Keen Edge. The projectiles for the harpoon guns and crossbows were fairly straight forward with a few variants, but the cannon had a whole range of loads available. We were armed with the naval standard of mince pie, which was sticky, durable and kept well, clear up to canister and ball that would tear a ship and crew to shreds should a battle escalate that far.

I climbed down to the next deck, which were the crew quarters and that's where I found the four remaining element bearers. They were arguing about the berthing arrangements.

I could see how it would be a problem. There were enough bunks for half the reservists, the other half, presumably, would be on duty while that half slept.

We, however, had the fortune of having proper berths with thin mattresses at the far aft of the ship, separated by a heavy curtain. It even had it's own head, such as it was, and while that should be the ultimate luxury on a ship, these ponies did not seem used to such spartan trappings.

Let's be honest, I'm not either, but I do not complain about such things, it's against my nature.

By way of redirecting the whining argument I told them what the Captain had said, "We can leave as soon as everypony's on board, a few hours or so. I've got to find someone to take care of my dog while I'm gone, though, so I'm going to take the next troop transport back down and meet you back here as soon as I can."

"We're leaving so soon?" Fluttershy asked, "Oh my, I'll have to make arrangements for my critters right away. Um, excuse me, if that's okay."

With that Fluttershy headed for the stairs and was gone. I wondered that she had some resource to care for, what I've been told, is a considerable number of animals on short notice.

Rarity spoke up, "I'll have to go immediately too, it's hardly enough time to assemble a proper wardrobe and I'll need a few basic necessities besides."

"Rarity, this isn't that sort of trip, you don't need to be all fancied up for this." Applejack grumbled.

"You expect moi to go to Eagleland for the first time, an emissary and a warrior for my nation looking...unkempt? Oh no no no. We may be asked to meet the Queen or a handsome young Duke. I'll need a considerable array of cosmetics and sundries if I am to survive this trip in style. It's bad enough that I have to be stacked like cordwood in this filthy old tub, I simply shall not do so without appropriate attire." Rarity said.

"Rarity, this is an airship, we have to keep the weight down as much as we can." Twilight growled, "You need to keep your baggage down to one trunk." She reconsidered, "A normal size trunk."

"Well I can save some considerable weight then, by not going, because I'm simply not leaving here without a few of my most important accessories and ensembles." Rarity tersely stated. I had a plan, though.

"Twilight's right," I said, "An airship can only carry so much weight and when I come to think of it I can't see why you'd want to bring a bunch of stuff from Equestria that you're just going to have to leave."

Rarity didn't know me well and though she was polite enough it was obvious just how hard she was trying to be so, "Pray tell, why should I have to abandon my essentials?"

"Oh, well I just thought that since you're going to a whole different country, one I've been told is rather cosmopolitan in it's own right, you'd probably want to sample the local fashions, maybe take home some prime examples and fabrics. I hear they're famous for their silks." I set it up.

"I must imagine that's true, but darling, why should it have anything to do with my going in unprepared?"

"Like I said, it's an airship and if you want to bring back the exotic on the way home it'd be best to travel light now." Peachy Sweet had told me about Rarity's desire for all things fashionable and I knew playing up the exotic would bring it home for the kill.

"I suppose." Rarity admitted, "So, one sea chest?"

"One sea chest." Twilight agreed.

"Fine, but I'm going to have Sweetie Belle jump on it and pack it down."

"Agreed." Twilight conceded, clearly happy to get off so easy. Rarity was easily swayed by the visions of new and novel patterns and fabrics and she left to ride the next transport down and begin her preparations.

"Sea Swirl, that was some mighty fine work right there." Applejack slapped me on the back, "I thought we were just keep going around and around about that 'til we all starved to death."

"By the way, why don'tcha just take yer dog to the farm and let my sis and brother look out for 'im?"

"I wouldn't want to put you all out like that, Applejack." I said.

"Shoot, it won't be a bit of trouble on the farm, just a bit of extra chow and Winona can keep him hemmed in if they tell her to."

"That'd be great Applejack, if you're sure you don't mind I'll go get him now." I said and she reiterated that she didn't so I left the ship to collect him and take him out to Sweet Apple Acres for some country hospitality.

After a tearful goodbye, during which Cappy absently watched hogs wallowing in the distance, cows placidly grazing, apples ripening, truthfully anything but me and my histrionics, a little yellow filly took his lead from me. "Don't you worry none Miss Sea Swirl, we'll take good care of old Cappy here."

"Are you sure it's not too much trouble? I could probably get Peachy Sweet to look after him." I sniffed, bringing myself back under control.

"Nope." A large red stallion, who'd been introduced to me as Big Mac, said with a small smile, "Happy to help, won't cause a lick of trouble."

"You don't know Cappy." I chuckled, "Seems like he's nothing but trouble and I never have been able to keep him tied up or in a cage, he just gets loose and wanders off."

"Shucks, that won't be no kinda problem for us, we'll just tell Winona to keep an eye on him and she'll keep him herded in so tight he'll be thinkin' he's a sheep by the time y'all get back." Applebloom bragged on her dog with a confident grin, "I expect she'll enjoy the challenge, maybe even the company."

I couldn't imagine that Winona would find Cappy's company all that stimulating. He's never shown any more interest in dogs than in ponies, but I felt reassured to have him in the Apple family's hooves. They simply oozed reliability and responsibility. Case in point, Applejack had apparently already been and gone in the time it took for me to retrieve Cappy and had headed out to help Fluttershy with her luggage and arrangements.

I thanked them again and left on a similar endeavor.

I have these random fits where I try and pretend I'm a normal pony like everyone else, considerate of others feelings instead of selfishly oblivious. What I generally do to alleviate these feelings is to do a random (usually poorly thought out) good deed and so, taking a cue from Applejack I decided I'd ask if Rarity needed help with her baggage. If she stuffed it in the way she was talking about it could be considerably heavier than she could easily manage by herself and I wouldn't mind grabbing an end.

Many hooves make light work and all.

Walking in I found myself in the middle of a fraught and chaotic situation. Rarity was scrutinizing an identical pair of scarves, hovering them in her magic over an already overstuffed chest. Sweetiebelle, her pastel purple and pink mane flopping, bounced gleefully onto the bulging pile and back to a nearby stool. Her efforts were repeated uncounted times, but the contents of the chest were already compressed as completely as they were likely to go.

Upon my entrance Rarity shifted her gaze to me with a lingering look of desperation. "I was wondering if you might need somepony to lend a hoof getting your baggage onboard."

For a moment she looked confused, "Oh yes, that would be such a dear thing of you to do. But I'm afraid I haven't pared my essentials down to the rather austere level to which I've been relegated. I'm afraid I may have to unpack and start over again."

I knew ponies like Rarity back home and though I knew how fruitless it was and how I would regret asking I asked anyway, "Do you really need all that, then? I mean you've got enough cosmetics to open a spa and truthfully you could just as well go unclothed, couldn't you?"

She gasped, "Oh, but how could I do that? I'm representing my country, my entire race to the griffons. I want to look my most elegant. I'll admit I could probably pick up a considerable number of these items just as well in Eagleland, but who's to say they'll have anything comparable? The griffon physique and sense of style is alien to me and their makeup and toiletries are an utter mystery. I simply must be prepared for any contingency."

She looked disgustedly at the sea chest and the hopping filly, "I don't see how I can refine my wardrobe any further without losing such versatility as to be nearly useless. This may take a while."

I considered the clock on the wall and concluded, "I really don't think that we have anything resembling a while, though. They seemed pretty antsy to get underway."

Rarity flounced herself down on a bench-like couch and held a hoof to her forehead, "Some things simply cannot be done without. What ever am I to do?"

Now it happens I knew what to do and had known from the beginning where this was going.

I had felt myself an interloper and not truly part of the group so I had attempted to minimize my presence and my hoofprint, so to speak. My own supplies were not in a large sea chest, but were instead all contained in my fairly moderate saddlebags. My needs were few and one side was filled with hygiene essentials while the other contained a notebook and pencils along with a generous helping of greenery for the long, dull trip.

That's not to say I wasn't allowed to bring more. Each pony had been allowed one chest and in electing not to bring one I had left room to allow Rarity another, should a pony choose to look at it that way.

It happens she did choose to see it that way. The words explaining this had barely left my lips before Rarity had squealed in delight, produced another chest and proceeded to fill it to capacity. Then she instructed Sweetiebelle to redirect her bouncing, which she joyfully did. Once those ministrations were complete she topped the chest off with some smaller odds and ends, forced it closed and exhaled in satisfaction.

"My, but I'm glad to have that done," Rarity said brightly, "And thank you for volunteering your allotment of space, that was very generous and I'm most grateful."

I mumbled something about how I didn't need it anyway and that she was welcome to it.

"Nonsense," She replied, "I'll have to do something to make it up to you when we return, a trip to the spa perhaps? I can't help but notice that a hooficure wouldn't go much amiss, it never does with me, anyhow."

"A spa trip actually sounds nice." I said. Also I think she was insulting my chipped up hooves, not that I had much I could say in defense of them. They were so rough they snagged bedsheets and I must confess they had gone far too long without care, "Should we head for the ship, then?"

She looked around her shop and sighed, "Yes, I do believe it's about time." She levitated both chests in her magic and ushered Sweetie and I out the door. She gave the shop one final longing look before she shut the door and locked it with an ornate skeleton key which she then tucked away in her saddle bag.

Those chests easily weighed two hundred pounds apiece and she floated them effortlessly. I had mistaken her need for help, she was a considerably stronger magic user than myself. My hypothetical good deeds tend to go this way, then I remember why I mind my own business; It keeps me from feeling foolish in just this way.

She set the chests in a waiting cart manned by two pegasus reservists. I got in with them, Rarity took several moments to bid her sister farewell. It was painfully heartwarming and I had to turn my head and hum to myself to keep my watery eyes from spilling over.

Soon enough we were onboard the Morningstar, luggage and gear stowed and under way.

The engines sent a low throb through the hull and the propellers whooped each time they came around. Within minutes it's steady, white noise nature all but obliterated it from my mind.

I tried to gain my air legs, but it took me a while. I get motion sick and it wasn't until near the end of the first day out that I could get up and wander the deck without feeling queasy.

Up on the deck the wind whipped away most of the sound, but I could hear a faint bleating from far below. Looking over the railing I found that we were over the ocean, land receding fast to our west.

A whale was pacing us, singing out to us and I smiled upon hearing the simple innocence of the whale song. It always made me happy. They sang of fine hunting, brave battles they had fought, family long gone. This one, though, was calling out to the white whale in the sky, emphatically demanding a reply.

"You can understand him." It wasn't a question. Twilight had silently come upon me and must have seen it in my eyes as I concentrated on the whale song.

"Yeah, that's my special talent for what it's worth, I can talk to marine mammals." I admitted solemnly. Not too many ponies knew my special talent, useless as it was it hardly ever came up.

"Fish too?" Twilight wrenched me from thought.

"Bleh!" I scrunched up my nose as if something stank, "Who'd want to talk to fish? Boring, boring creatures."

"Oh, so what's he saying?" She gestured to the whale.

"He's calling up to us, asking how we got clear up here." I chuckled, "He thinks we're a whale too."

"So why don't you tell him what we are?" Twilight asked.

"I could, but it's loud. We'd have to warn the crew." It was loud, too, but that's not why I hadn't returned the whale's queries. It had novelty value, I suppose, but there's usually very little worth communicating across the species gap.

From this high up I'd have to amplify myself considerably to be heard clearly in the water, but Twilight seemed to think it was worthwhile and quickly made the rounds to warn everypony.

As large as it seemed with it's massive gasbag, it was still a small ship.

I cast my amplifying spell and made some guttural noises by way of greeting to the whale beneath us. Amplified, they shook the whole frame of the ship. The whale responded and I started a conversation in moans, whistles, clicks and grunts while the ship reverberated uncomfortably.

I told him that we weren't actually a whale, that this we were in the ship, which is a thing he recognized, of course he wanted to know how that worked.

"Tell him that it's just a big bubble that's buoyant in the air." Twilight said after I'd told her the translation and I responded as much, adding that we were roughly the size of full grown seals.

His reply, which I'm fairly certain was meant to be a joke, compared us to barnacles, but I informed him that the ship itself was not alive and had been built by our kind. That fascinated him and he let force a rapid series of statements and questions that I could scarcely keep track of.

"What did he say?" Twilight sensed it was an atypical response. By this time I'd drawn the attention of the whole crew, the majority of them clustering around me in interest.

"He asked if we're like griffons or seaponies. He's familiar with both species and takes it that our fabrication skills relate us to one or the other." I smirked, "I expect with the two choices we're actually a lot more like griffons."

"Seaponies?" About half the crew asked in unison and began muttering amongst themselves.

"Seaponies." I confirmed. It was just like a landlocked herd of Midwesterners to be unaware of them, I wish I was.

"Those are supposed to be nothing but legends." Twilight gasped.

"Oh, they're real. Really annoying." I rolled my eyes.

"When we have more time you'll have to tell me all you know about them. I'd be fascinated to hear about them!" Twilight said enthusiastically. I chuckled at Twilight's naive request, then replied to the whale that we were much closer to griffons in size and stature but our faces resembled the seaponies more. Then I asked him how he came to be so far out in the ocean.

Honestly it was a ploy to buy time. I'd talked to whales before, their stories were long and repetitive, but they would tell them in great detail with the merest prompting. The whale droned on in clicks and whistles. I turned to Twilight and noticed I had the rest of the crew's rapt attention as well.

"Seaponies," I told them, "Are as real as you or me and they're not so hard to find as to justify their 'legendary' status. If we were home I could take you right to them on a day trip, but I think you have the wrong idea."

"I mean sure, they have a huge undersea kingdom, and from a distance it's impressive as anything, but up close of course it's made of sand, spit and offal, just overblown sandcastles."

Then I looked to Twilight, "There's very little in the way of actual artifacts either. They don't have hooves so they have a tough time making anything finely wrought. Also they lack the written word, all their knowledge is recorded mnemonically in their songs."

"That sounds amazing!" Twilight exclaimed, she still didn't see what I was getting at.

"You would think so, I suppose, but what it means in practice is that they sing. They sing all the time. It's cute for a day, maybe a week, but extended interaction is terribly irritating." I gave a nasty glare over the rail to a section of the sun flecked sea that undoubtedly harbored seaponies, "I think they became legendary because anypony who knows them at all wishes to forget about them and all that singing, so they don't talk about them."

"It's terrible but it gets stuck in your head forever. Seriously, I hate seaponies. I cannot overemphasize how much they get on my nerves."

"How come you know about them at all?" Somepony, Pinkie, maybe, asked.

"Well...." I hesitated. She had me here and I just had to admit to it, "When I was a little filly just learning to surf (I never did learn to very well) I got pulled in a riptide and a school of seaponies happened by and saved me."

"So, they saved you and you still hate them just because they sing? That sounds kind of rotten to me." Pinkie asked quizzically from the crowd of crewmembers.

"Yes, well they didn't just save me. They also showed me their undersea kingdom and sang to me and wanted to be my friend forever and ever. All that jazz, but once they took me home they just kept pestering me all the time, wanting to sing and play, they wouldn't leave me alone."

"It got so bad I stopped going near the ocean for months until they finally gave up on me." It's hard for me to explain aloud without my coming off as an ingrate and a jerk, but I'm an introverted pony and I found their attentions to be creepy, even though I know they were well intended.

It's like knowing your neighbors and having a small yard. You end up being forced into conversation every time you step into your yard when all you wanted was to get the hose from the tool shed. You just end up staying inside, garden all unwatered. Now imagine the whole ocean, that you'd practically been raised in, suddenly rife with overfriendly neighbors.

Oh, and did I mention they sing?

Because they bucking sing.

Pinkie looked at me doubtfully but kept her thoughts to herself. The whale was just coming to his long trek out from the coast and the fishing on the way so I returned my attention there and soon enough his story petered out. Apparently he'd been following us for a while.

I asked him how he knew of the griffons and he told me of their fishing fleet and how he'd seen them swoop in and snatch fish directly from the water. He was clearly impressed by it. His massive bulk made any thought of such maneuvers incredible and unimaginable to him.

The captain came out on deck and gave me a serious look that I knew the meaning of. The deep bass rumblings of my conversation had shaken the ship enough and he wanted me to call it a day. I nodded and told the whale that.

The whale had a surprising response, "He says that it may look big from where we are, but the ocean is crowded and noisy all the time and if he could get a moment of peace like we can he'd cherish it too. Then he asked me a funny thing, he wants to know what it's like living in the air?"

"That's kind of an ambiguous question, but ask him what it's like living in the water, because it must be like that, natural. It's not like we're even aware of it anymore than he must be aware of the water." Twilight prompted and I told him that. It would have taken too long to explain walking about on dry land without making allusions to the bottom feeding creatures of his world.

He replied with an untranslatable phrase that may as well just be, 'Ah. I see.' or somesuch thing. It was unsatisfying for both of us. Then he asked if he could see one of us before we went, so I asked if some pegasus would flit out where he could see them.

"I'll do one better and go down to meet him." Rainbow Dash replied and with that she bound off the ship and dove towards the whale.

He raised his head skyward to get a better vantage. With Rainbow Dash to give perspective I finally realized his true girth. It was amazing. Bigger than the ship, maybe bigger than Canterlot castle. He wasn't just big, he was quite possibly the biggest thing I'd ever seen that didn't qualify as landscape itself.

Rainbow Dash fearlessly landed on his mottled grey skin, just beside his enormous eye. An eye that looked small and beady on him, but would require three ponies sprawled out to span, I noticed. Then she stretched her wings to their full span, flapped them once demonstratively and took off again, headed towards us.

The whale was overjoyed. I could only characterize it as chuckling. He gave us a long look, slapped his fluke in farewell and made to dive but he stopped short. Gesturing with that massive head he indicated that we should look towards the Eastern horizon, then spouted briefly and dove away.

"Did you see me!?" Rainbow Dash laughed.

"You were great! You were all like, zooom!" Pinkie gestured to indicate a dive with a last second pullup, "Then you were all, skree!" She stopped the motion abruptly and took put out her other arm to indicate the whale and landed her hoof on it. "Just when I thought, oh no she isn't, then oh yes you did!"

"I was pretty awesome, wasn't I? I bet noponys ever landed on a whale like that before!" Rainbow finally noticed that Pinkie was the only one paying her any mind, "Um, guys, what are you all looking at?"

"Two griffon airships dead ahead!" The first officer yelled.

"Are we supposed to have an escort?" "Aren't we too far out for them to be meeting us?" "Do you think they're pirates?" "Are they trying to sink us in international waters?" The crew rumbled.

Pinkie had replaced her pirate hat upon her head and was struggling to install a pegleg on one fore hoof. "Avast ye lubbers! Beat to quarters! Load all the cannon with custom load number seven! Keep the hatches battened 'til we can get in close to give 'em a proper broadside! Double time!"

The crew looked to the real captain expectantly. He grimaced but finally nodded his assent, "Do as she says. Don't roll out those guns until you hear the order. My order."

"Be not misled me hearties! Would that they were intent on treating with us in a respectful manner a signal would have been given forthwith! Hoist the Jolly Roger!" Pinkie bellowed and then set to doing so herself, pegleg stuck straight out from the knee, flopping crazily and banging against everything including herself as she tied the flag on with deft hooves and hoisted it into position.

I was going to protest. It's a fact that a pirate flag should only be flown if you mean it and it put us in mortal danger should we be seen with the skull and crossbones flying. But when I saw Pinkie's version of the Jolly Roger I just let it go. It was a hot pink background with a slightly menacing looking cupcake over a crossed pair of balloons. Not even a proper skull like her hat. That should do little more than confuse the incoming griffons. Her friends attempted to contain her enthusiastic battle preparations to no avail.

Pinkie installed herself on the prow of the ship, saber in her mouth and her pegleg on a small blue and pink cannon of her own. Around the hilt of her sword she shouted a garbled battlecry, "For the glory of friendship and the Equestrian empire!"

Author's Notes:

In keeping with what is known of Equestrian warfare the Morningstar has mince pie as a projectile for it's cannons. It does not, in fact, contain meat. It's a form of apple pie and if I were using any pie for truly offensive purposes either it or pecan pie would be my choice.

Despite the fact that a previous fic of mine involved the flutterponies I more or less promise that I've no intention of including seaponies, but I thought they needed a mention.
Of course if I were planning to include them I'd probably lie about it anyway.
Maybe Sea Swirl's badmouthing them is foreshadowing for her imprisonment with the sea pony choir?

Aloft

Pinkie Pie was a frenetic ball of energy. One would think it would have waned in the time it took to close the gap between us and the griffon ships, but that was not the case. She was barking orders the entire way.

Disturbingly her orders were heeded and the Captain made little attempt to intercede.

"Helmsman? Helmsman? Do we not have a helmsman? Oh, the navigator does double duty? I see. That's weird, are you all sure that's how you're supposed to fly an airship? Navigator! Flank speed! Put us right between their two hulls! Gunners, be ready to drop the hatches open and fire as she bears!" Pinkie shouted from the bow of the ship, her hoof still planted jauntily on her cannon. She was gesturing wildly with her saber.

The engines hum became a tortured scream as the airscrews pushed us towards the interlopers.

I should say that one can see a long way in the air so we were many miles away from the griffons ships and it would be several minutes before we reached them even at top speed. It's rather anticlimactic in that way.

Pinkie was communicating via the speaking tubes or her voice would not have been heard at all and by this point and everypony but her had gotten off the deck. Rainbow was below, presumably on the gundeck, and the rest of us were crowded on the bridge.

"Captain?" Twilight Sparkle asked the actual Captain, "Shouldn't we have the rest of the troops prepare to repel boarders or something?"

"Ship hull or not, this isn't a sea battle and they're not likely to try and take the ship, it's too risky when they could just sink it instead." The Captain admitted, "No, our best bet, if they really are hostile, is to attack them full force right from the get go, in which case it's just as well for the crew to remain on the gundeck where they may be of some use and are shielded a bit."

"B...but how do we know they're hostile?" Fluttershy asked, I had the same question, they could just as easily be escorts sent to see us safely in.

"Moreover," Rarity interjected, "Are you certain it's wise to let Pinkie Pie play pirate at such a time as this?"

The captain rubbed the bridge of his nose with a hoof and sighed, "Normally I'd say no, it's not wise to trust in your pink friend out there. Ship's captains, contrary to what you might read in trashy novels and see in the movies, tend to be fairly conservative, to put the safety of the ship and crew above everything else. In this case, however, I've been told by Princess Luna herself to defer to you six mares should any situation such as this arise. She was actually quite adamant about it."

"If...no, no, my hooves are tied. There's nothing for it unless you mean to talk her down, but if the griffons were friendly they should have signaled by now, instead they're coming at us just as fast as we're coming at them. I must admit I really haven't dealt with the griffons myself, but they're still bound by trade pacts to follow protocol. Then again, so are we."

He motioned to one of the navigators, the one who wasn't busy piloting, "Give the standard greeting and demand that they make their intentions known immediately. Maybe we can cut this off at the knees before it gets out of hoof."

The door flew open with a gust of air and was quickly forced shut by the combined magic of three unicorns after Spike stumbled through, "You guys! Where's the ballast regulator?"

The navigator was busy with the helm and didn't speak, but kicked a control panel to his left to indicate it. Spike immediately went over to it, studied it's layout and started twisting valves.

"Spike! No!" Twilight slapped his claws away, "What are you doing?"

"Pinkie told me I have to release ten percent of our ballast as soon as our bow passes theirs." Spike pointed to the oncoming griffon airships. They were looming larger ahead of us, holding their course side by side with each other. They weren't as large as our ship, but there were two of them and I figured that put the odds against us.

"She does seem to have a solid grasp of tactics." The Captain said approvingly, "She wants to lift just as we come between their ships so their cannonfire will pass under us while ours will spray their deck and rigging. They may even hit each other. Very bold. Very brutal. Does anypony know what's in that custom load she was talking about?"

No one did, but we were all beginning to feel very apprehensive. None of us were certain whether Pinkie was doing the right thing or had gone insane. The latter seemed the more likely of the two to me, but her friends were surprisingly hesitant to second guess her. Applejack unstoppered a speaking tube to the gundeck, "Rainbow? What in tarnation is this custom load number seven you've got loaded up anyhow?"

"Dunno." Was Rainbow Dash's reply, "Something awesome, I'm sure."

"But..If'n you don't know, are you sure you ought to trust it?" Applejack fretted.

"Look, Pinkie Pie loaded these herself and I'd trust Pinkie Pie with my life any day of the week, even if she is a nut, so that's the way it is." Rainbow was aggravated and it carried through the tinny garbling of her voice, "I think you all need to trust Pinkie too, it'll all be fine. Gundeck, out." Rainbow stoppered the tube on her end, abruptly cutting off the conversation.

The griffon airships were close enough now that they could clearly see we were aiming for them and had started to pull away from each other, though they had yet to return our signals. At this rate we would just fit between their silver gasbags as we passed through.

The first and second officer were frantic with various attitude controls and terse orders over the speaking tubes, trying to keep the chaos at bay.

One of our navigators was giving full concentration to threading the needle with our behemoth airship while the other started a countdown. "Intercept in...fifteen, fourteen, thirteen...they're signaling."

Talk fast, I thought as the navigator continued the countdown. Growing up in a lighthouse I knew semaphore like the back of my hoof and I translated as fast as the signal came, "Escort, do not fire! They're an escort! We've got to...!"

It was far too late. With the gundeck's speaking tube plugged it would take too long to relay the message and Pinkie was steadfast in her perch on the prow. Orders rattled through the bridge as our bows came even. Spike flipped a valve as he'd been ordered, it sprayed out a measure of ballast water from the tanks. We abruptly rose a couple yards bringing our guns level with the two ship's decks. The hatches dropped with a series of clunks, exposing the muzzles of our cannon.

Most of the griffon crew seemed to be on deck in various states of unpreparedness. There was a look of naked horror on every face and I took in each one as time seemed to slow to a crawl. Beaks hung agape, feathers fluffed out in panic, some griffons had hunched down, cowering against the coming onslaught. A tragedy was about to occur and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

Why did they wait so long to signal?

They could have saved themselves if only they had followed the proper protocols, but it was far too late now.

"Fire!" Pinkie Pie's voice echoed over the tubes. Rarity instantly broke down in a ghastly sob as the guns barked in unison sending their barrage of deadly...

"Confetti? Oh and streamers! Good shot too! It's all draped from their rigging and falling on their decks. Boy, those griffons look surprised. I don't know if I'd really go with brutal, but it's pretty good." Spike had propped himself up on the controls and was following the festivities as we passed between the hulls and quickly drew beyond them.

"Pinkie!" An enraged Twilight screamed, but as she looked to the prow where the pink party pony stood she found the muzzle of the pink and blue cannon swiveled around and aimed their way, "Down! Down! Everypony down!"

She swept Spike off the control stand and held him close as the small cannon fired. I was the only one left standing, not by merit bravery but rather by being slow to react and dumbstruck, so got to see the fireworks arc over the wheelhouse and burst past our stern. Looking out the the window I saw that we were trailing a banner from our rudder. It was tough to make out from my position, but it seemed to be in greeting to our griffon escorts.

"Well...That was exciting." I said, and broke down in mad, nervous giggles. That was quite possibly the scariest thing that I've ever been through, which is kind of saying something in my case, and it turned out to be a prank.

"Excitin'? I thought we was all gonna die! Or start up a war with Eagleland!" Applejack fumed, "It just might be that we have, they cain't be too all fired happy about that little stunt."

With a shaking hoof the Captain reached over the navigator's shoulder and brought the engine controls to full stop, "We need to signal our regrets to the griffon Captains and apologize."

"No!" Pinkie exclaimed, bursting through the door, "You can't apologize now! They'll take it as a sign of weakness and all of this will have been for nothing! Just wait for them to catch up and let them fall into formation behind us. Don't let them pass us or try to lead, we're playing the big bad alpha here and we're going to want to sell it!"

"Pinkie!" Applejack yelled, "You've done crossed the line this time! What in blazes were you thinkin'?"

"That was horrid, utterly horrid! How could you put us through such a thing for a mere prank?" Rarity berated Pinkie, backing her into the corner where she crouched down into a ball.

"That was insane! You endangered the whole crew of not only our ship but theirs as well! You could have started an international incident and then where would we be? What got into you?" Twilight piled on and the three of them harried the curled up pony until she was racked with ragged sobbing.

Fluttershy stood stock still, frozen in abject terror and insensate to the world around her. Though I didn't know her well I nuzzled up against her and tried my best to whisper comforting things, "Hey, it's okay now. It's all over, we're all fine, the griffons are fine, it's all okay now..." Still she shied away from me.

Rainbow Dash burst in the door, "Oh man, Pinkie! When they started asking what was in those canisters I got worried it was molasses or something! They would have had to steam clean that out of their feathers, I'm glad it was just streamers and confetti...hey, what's up? Why are you all ganging up on Pinkie like that?"

"Rainbow, really, were you in on this?" Rarity demanded. Twilight and Applejack turned from the blubbering pink mass to glare at Rainbow Dash.

"Well, duh!" Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, "We were ALL supposed to be in on it. When was the last time a pony fired on a griffon in anger? Last century? You didn't think that was real, did you?"

"What are you talking about? Of course we did!" Rarity snarled.

Spike cleared his throat and glared, effectively commanding their attention, "Well it's your own fault if you did. Didn't you read the primer on griffon etiquette that Twilight assigned to all of us?"

"Well...No." Applejack admitted.

"I was going to read it on the way." Rarity said.

"What about you Twilight?" He asked.

"I didn't have time, I just skimmed it." Twilight said sheepishly.

Spike took out a slender blue book and read from it, "Chapter nine, section two and I quote, 'Should a griffon choose to ignore you and you do not rectify this situation at once it will be nearly impossible to have a meaningful interactions in the future as they will undoubtedly treat you disrespectfully from that moment on. The best remedy is a witty insult, practical joke or prank. Outright violence must be avoided as it may be reciprocated.'"

"We were distracted by that whale, but griffons are known for their eyesight so we can take as given if we could see them they could see us. They weren't signaling a greeting, they were purposely ignoring us, so Pinkie Pie did just what she was meant to do, what all of you would have done if you had read the book like you were supposed to've."

Rainbow Dash had leaned down to nuzzle up to Pinkie, "Hey, it's okay, they didn't know, they were just scared you'd gone crazy."

"Even so, I think that was a bit extreme for a prank, but we're sorry, Pinkie, we should have trusted you, we just thought..." Rarity trailed off.

By this time Fluttershy had regained her composure as well and moved to nestle up against Pinkie on the floor. Pinkie stopped her sniffling and relaxed, a broken chortle fought it's way out, "Oh, wow, I'm sorry guys, I thought you knew. If you didn't you really should have stopped me. I mean you should know by now that I'm all about bringing ponies together, not blowing them apart."

"If you want to endear yourself to griffons, though, you have to humiliate them a little first and make friends after."

"Because that worked SO well with Gilda." Rainbow said sarcastically.

"Well...There's that, I guess. Maybe my timing was off with her." Pinkie shrugged.

"That's a possibility, I suppose," Mused Rarity, "Yet I feel it is much more likely that Gilda secretly harbored romantic feelings towards Rainbow Dash and her reaction was one of jealousy."

"What?!" Rainbow Dash choked, "Gilda is my oldest friend, it's not like that, it... just isn't!"

Pinkie ignored her weak defense, "Oh, when you put it like that it totally makes sense! No wonder she was acting so possessive. I didn't even realize Dashie felt that way about me. Normally I'm not one to miss things like that and I feel silly because it's so obvious in retrospect."

"Isn't it though?" Rarity confirmed smugly. The rest of the little clique Twilight and Fluttershy murmured their agreement while Applejack just raised an eyebrow.

Spike chuckled, "That's ridiculous! They're both mares! How would that even work?"

Twilight shared a knowing look with Rarity and one of sympathy from Fluttershy, "We'll, um, talk about that later, when we have more time." Twilight said, "For now let's just drop it and focus on the Griffons, I just hope they're not mad. That was pretty over the top, so far as pranks go."

Dash had long since colored crimson and was well past the point of trying to defend herself, she just growled, "I hate you all."

Pinkie, not one to let an opportunity for awkwardness pass, nuzzled Rainbow Dash and snickered.

Rainbow was relieved when the first officer spoke up, "They're signaling, and apparently your prank was a resounding success. Captain Grizelda says her first officer dropped a clutch of eggs. I think she means figuratively, but who knows. She wants to congratulate the prankster face to face and to meet the Elements of Harmony besides. She extends a supper invitation to you six on her ship in an hour."

Pinkie wasn't one to hold grudges nor to say I told you so, so the whole matter was quickly put behind us.

The lot of us were politely put off the bridge by the Captain who'd had enough of their antics for one day so we headed below to ready ourselves to dine on one of the escort vessels with this Captain Grizelda.

The two ships came alongside, held slightly behind the Morningstar, as Pinkie had prescribed, and we got underway towards Eagleland. Twilight watched the griffon ship out a porthole in fascination as Rarity dug into her densely packed trunks.

"Please do tell me one of you thought to bring formalware for an occasion such as this?" Rarity was greeted with head shaking from all but Pinkie who indicated her gaudy pirate outfit, "It's just as well that I planned ahead and took the liberty of including certain ensembles for just such a contingency. They're not ideal, but they should do in a pinch."

From her trunks, wrapped in tissue paper, she produced six simple but stunning gowns. They were stylized and modern, not at all Rarity's usual fare from what I'd heard, but I must suppose that was to reduce their bulk for transport. Only her own dress was adorned with gemstones, a trio of fine large sapphires at the collar. She distributed the gowns to their intended recipients along with a brief summary of their attributes and influences.

Pinkie balked at first, but was eventually made to replace her buccaneer look for something with a bit more elegance and lace. I preferred the former, myself, but this, I suppose, was not the time.

Then Rarity turned on me, "As for you, darling, I was uncertain of your measurements and personal style, but I have some pieces we may combine into a pleasingly suave little number in a variety of ways."

"Oh no, they invited the Elements of Harmony, saviors of Equestria, not little old dishwater me." I backed away, "Don't get the wrong idea, I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but I'd just be a seventh wheel."

"Eighth." Rainbow Dash pointed to Spike who scowled unappreciatively. She chuckled to show that she meant it as a joke. I'm not sure if Spike bought it.

"Oh, but you simply must come with us! You and Rainbow Dash are the only ones of us who've had long dealings with the griffons." Rarity goaded, but I was having none of it until Fluttershy spoke up.

"If it's all the same to you, I um...I'd rather not go." Fluttershy said, "She can have my place. It's been such a taxing day and I just don't have it in me to have dinner with the griffons after all that."

"But, darling, why ever not? It's not their culinary appetites is it? I've seen you feed fish to animals yourself, so it can't be that disturbing." Rarity was crestfallen.

"She's talonshy." Rainbow Dash clarified, "Always has been ever since flight camp."

"Now... now, that's not true...not exactly..." Fluttershy stammered.

"Oh, I see." Rarity gave her a serious look, "We'll all be right there with you, though and you know we won't let anything bad happen."

"Maybe she's still a little touchy 'cuz a' what happened with Gilda." Applejack ventured.

"Fluttershy," Twilight gently chastised, "I thought you were going to try to be more assertive?"

"Yes, but that's not..."

"Really darling, you mustn't judge a whole race by the boorish actions of one of it's members." Rarity said, "I'm certain this Captain Grizelda is a a good and civilized host prepared to show us a grand welcome."

"It's just that..."

"Yeah! We'll have a great time!" Pinkie exclaimed with a reassuring smile.

Fluttershy stamped her hoof, hard, finally silencing her friends and gaining their undivided attention, "If you must know, I've been airsick since we took off. If you make me go to a dinner party with all those birds snapping up dead, smelly fish I'm going to vomit all over Rarity's beautiful work and put everyone off their dinner. In fact, thinking about it has been a bit much, you'll have to excuse me."

With that Fluttershy whipped off her frock, staggered into the head and promptly expelled her lunch.

"So Fluttershy's not going." Rarity stated flatly and looked to me, "Maybe you could try on her gown?"

Even though Fluttershy's dress didn't suit my color if fit tolerably well and it's a good thing they did force me to go. Their knowledge of griffons was so limited that they didn't even know that it was strictest tradition to bring a gift to such a gathering.

Namely liquor.

It's an all purpose gift, really. I hardly know anyone who it doesn't work for.

Now the truth is that a case of wine or, if I had my way, champagne, would be the first choice. It needs to be enough to share around, but no one had thought to furnish the ship's stores with anything of the sort, so I had to use some ingenuity.

"I asked the ship's carpenter. He has a goodly amount of ethyl alcohol for shellac. That stuff's pretty raw so we'll have to mix in somepony's private stores." I said, "I got a big fancy crystal bottle that'll look the part once we get the dumb little ship model out of it, not that the Captain will be too pleased about that."

"Raiding the private stores is a no go." Rainbow Dash shook her head, "I forbid alcohol to the troops until we were on our way back."

Applejack rolled her eyes, "Yeah, like that means anythin'"

She went into the crew berths and we followed. The troops that were awake eyed her warily. She ignored them and carefully studied the room, then with assured certainty, walked to the bulkhead wall, pulled a loose board and fished behind it. She came up with the dregs of a pint of whiskey. Then she looked to the beams, hooked a hoof over the top of one and came out with a tiny bottle of good rum and some tequila of questionable quality. Lastly she stepped into the head. When she came back out she had some brandy. Where precisely it was hidden I'd rather not know.

"Teetotalers jest force the rest of us ta be sneakier." Applejack said, her haul lined up on a bunk like good little soldiers. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and just shrugged.

"Now we just mix it all up in that fancy bottle, top it off with grain alcohol and put a fancy label on it." I grinned.

"But it's going to taste terrible!" Twilight protested, "You can't pass that swill off as anything fit for a gift on such an important occasion."

"It should be strong enough and with enough variety of flavors as to throw them, so we just say it's some rare and highly sought after spirit and who's to say otherwise?" I said, "What we really need is just a touch of stagnant water to give it that earthy undertone. I'll check the bilge, if this ship even has a proper bilge."

"That's...atrocious." Rarity gasped.

"I'm sorry you think so, I was going to have you make the label." Tempted with a creative art project, Rarity put aside her disdain. With parchment, soot and tea to stain it, she made up a serviceable forgery to paste on the bottle and I acquired a cap full of bilge water which, purposely, nopony saw me dump into the mix. Then the next problem reared it's head.

The only corks we had were broken. Luckily the carpenter liked the challenge of our little project and made a little hardwood knob to stick on the end of the cork and a dowel to fit through the middle. In place it looked the part of an elegant stopper. Then he mixed paraffin and beeswax, along with a red lumber crayon, for color, in a tin cup and melted it together. Dipping the end of the bottle and rolling it around he made a fairly likely looking wax seal. Then he threw dirt in it's still soft surface to simulate years of aging in a cellar somewhere.

The illusion complete, we headed out on deck.

Getting to the griffon ship was simpler than I thought. Twilight simply teleported the whole bunch of us in one go. Seriously, how powerful were these ponies? It boggles the mind when I compare my level of power with hers. Even Rarity outclasses me considerably despite being somewhat younger than myself.

Times like these I mentally berate myself for all the time I've wasted pretending to be a writer. Oh, what I could have accomplished in this same time if I'd done something worthwhile, the type of thing in which excellence is just a matter of discipline over a long period of time. In other words, pretty much any worthwhile undertaking.

Not to harp, but to dematerialize six ponies (and a baby dragon) from one ship's rolling deck and have them each rematerialize, safe and sound, on another deck that's at a different level and rolling at a different rate is astounding in and of itself. The griffon's airship, though, was smaller than ours and the deck was heavily crewed.

We blinked into existence interspersed among them, me and Rarity on the raised prow.

Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were on the main deck, the deck crew continuing their work unencumbered by the visitors. Simply weaving around them they continued in their efforts at some unspecified task that mostly involved bringing ropes taut and tying them off.

I noticed that several were tasked with disposal of streamers and confetti, but they'd almost obliterated all signs of it already.

One lion tail whipped Rainbow Dash across the face in passing and she chomped down on it, eliciting a high pitched screech, "Excuse you!"

The griffon crew chortled at the pain of their comrade. Rarity cringed, but to me it seemed like just the tone prescribed by Twilight's book, or what Spike had said about it. I admit I hadn't actually read it either.

Twilight herself stood on the deck by the tiller, Spike on her back, and was already greeting Captain Grizelda. I couldn't hear them from where I stood but everyone looked jovial and at ease so she must be handling it well enough. Rarity had left to make her way across the deck and join Twilight and the Captain. Upon joining them she made a curtsy and hoofed over our counterfeit spirits with some short spiel of her own devising thrown in.

The ship, much like our own, was a ship's hull, which was the standard in airship design. It's balloon was of some crinkly silver fabric, unembellished with the decorative touches our own had. The whole construction was more spartan, utilitarian, but it was also of a more modern design. Where at first I thought it unarmed, lacking a gundeck, I found that there were steam fittings at regular intervals around the deck, indicating some fair quantity of steam powered gun are meant to be fitted there.

Only one was in place near me at the prow. It held a magazine of inch diameter slugs with copper tips that I assume indicated explosives inside. They were probably as formidable as our own armaments, but they certainly took up less space.

Staring at the weapon garnered me some questioning, though not hostile, stares from the crew and I dropped my eyes to the teakwood deck and headed over to join my party. They were interacting with the griffons while Twilight and Rarity acted as emissaries to the Captain.

As I approached the knot of ponies and griffons Pinkie Pie saw me and made to introduce me to her new friends, "Gregory, Georgia, Gina, Giuseppe...any bird I missed, this is Sea Swirl, I'm her best friend and she's a really neat pony once you get to know her."

"What's she the element of?" One of the griffons asked.

"Contemplative silence." I said dryly. It elicited soft chuckles.

"So like, brooding?" One griffon joked, "Does that mean your power comes from writing bad gothic poetry?"

"Quite." I answered, even though I never write poetry. It was received with roars of boisterous laughter.

"She ain't really one of the Elements." Applejack clarified unnecessarily, which begged the obvious griffon query.

"If she's not one of the Elements what's she along for?"

I stared at the deck and sighed in an exaggeratedly morose manner, "I'm the morale officer. It's not so much, but it beats being the Element of Honesty like Applejack here. It's long been my opinion that honesty is completely overrated anyway. Is there any liquor on this tub?"

This produced further laughter and a glower from Applejack. She really just wasn't one for playing along with this sort of thing. I kill with my dry, self deprecating humor. All I have to do is say the most uncomfortable thing I can think of at any given moment, so long as I keep it short and keep a straight face. If nothing comes to mind I just fall back on the truth and that generally works just as well. It happens that this is just in line with our host's tastes in comedy. Essentially all I have to do is be a slightly exaggerated version of myself to get laughs.

It had been dark when we arrived but by the time we finished the abbreviated tour (it's too cramped a ship for a full one) it was pitch black, even most of the stars blocked out by the dark cloud of a gasbag above us.

For supper we had to part with the deck crew and join the Captain and a few of her officers below decks.

The mess was surreal. Where the rest of the ship was cramped and spartan this was a large hall, equal to a comfortable lodge in size and style. There was even an open hearth on the stern end and I was duly impressed.

In the candlelight I eventually discerned the truth. This was a multipurpose room. Bunks were stored folded against the walls, giving a look of some sort of high class paneling when in fact it was the underside of the bunks themselves. The benches and long table were actually individual pieces, probably every bit of furniture on the ship fit together for this function. Even the hearth turned out to be the orange, flickering maw of the steam boiler's firebox. It was an impressionistic grace and elegance and I felt it was my mistake for looking too close and seeing through the illusion.

Captain Grizelda was clothed where her officers were bare. She wore a blue frock coat with embroidered epaulets on the shoulders and a tri-cornered hat with similarly themed embellishments. Her feathers were a creme white framing a sharp, almond colored beak.

Another consequence of being in close proximity to griffons once again was the smell. Pungent and earthy it reminded me of things from my past which would make me blush should I be forced to acknowledge them.

I was comfortable around griffons and I had a further advantage in that I didn't care very much what they thought of me. Rainbow Dash was comfortable, but trying too hard to impress and Pinkie Pie's humor was like a sledge hammer where a tack hammer was called for, but we all told stories. Rainbow's tales of flight camp led right into Pinkie's story of Gilda coming to Ponyville. For my part I told a trumped up version of my story about meeting Lyra ending with the glitter bombing incident. It went over well enough, I guess.

The fare was moderately fancy thistle soup in distinctly not-fancy pressed tin bowls with a crusty black bread. The griffons had fish soup in place of the thistle and if nopony had been looking I would have tried a bowl of that myself, just for a change of pace.

Finally somebird thought to break out the spirits and our gifted bottle reemerged.

"Moonshine from the Princess of moonshine herself's cellars. It's no Don Peregrine, I'll admit, but I think you'll enjoy it." I heard Rarity saying as the bottle was uncorked and shots were poured into tin cups and passed around. The heart of deception is confidence, even the poorest wine, when tagged with a livery of sufficient note, is much improved so long as no hint is given at it's suspicious characteristics.

I tasted it appraisingly before we clattered our cups together in a toast and gulped down the improvised concoction. I rather liked it and felt we had hit the mark. Rarity grimaced, Twilight sipped it like bad medicine she'd rather not take, Rainbow Dash swigged it, then coughed uncontrollably. Pinkie Pie and Applejack downed it as cheerfully as I had. It might be their earth pony constitutions, or maybe they'd worked up a tolerance the good old fashion way. Hard to tell.

Grizelda had taken a double shot, then a pull straight from the bottle. Tolerance or not, I knew that to be a bad idea. Griffons look large and menacing, but if they were plucked and shaved one would find them to be surprisingly scrawny. Considering the high proof and the lack of mass to absorb it the Captain was going to have considerable trouble shortly.

I made my way to one of the griffon officers, Georgia, I believe, and quietly told her of my concerns. I should have known better.

"Captain! This little pony seems to have some doubt of your abilities." Georgia hollered as I blushed, "Thinks you can't handle your liquor."

"That's not what I said." I stated, but it was too late. Laughing, the officers hauled me over to the bench beside the Captain, roughly sat me down and supplied a tin cup dosed with our offering.

Now I'd gone and done it and here I was in a drinking contest with Captain Grizelda, "I don't want to do this." I stated with irritation.

Grizelda downed her cup of spirits only to have it refilled instantly, "Come, little pony. Drink and be merry!"

No way out of it I suppose.

"Well, as Pinkie Pie says, Candy's dandy but liquor's quicker." I said and slugged down the rough grain alcohol, then they refilled it and I did it again.... and again. I knew it was a mistake but didn't realize how much so until I awoke later, the night past that moment a blur, with a vicious pounding in my head.

Sunlight streamed through the portholes illuminating the wreckage of pony and griffon alike, only Twilight Sparkle, with Spike on her back seemed in a composed position rather than sprawled out where they'd fallen. Grizelda was not present, implying that she beat me after all.

The pounding in my head had taken on an irregular rhythm and I eventually figured out that it was partially external.

The steam engine pounded away with a fast but predictable beat, not the source of the noise. I looked out the porthole and realized what it was, then quickly shook Twilight Sparkle awake, "Twilight, get up. The Morningstar and the other griffon ship are trading fire!"

That woke most of the crew and Elements right there and we all scrambled to the deck, unprepared on either side to act as enemies.

As we watched from the deck the griffon ship's explosive bolts tore through the stern of the Morningstar, glittering splinters of brightly enameled wood tumbling to the sea so far below. The Morningstar turned broadside to the smaller griffon ship and let loose a fusilade which damaged the rigging and left the hull of the griffon ship hanging at an awkward angle.

They broke away from each other, the griffon ship running towards us, and the Morningstar away just long enough to bring their crossbows and harpoons on deck. Once they were mounted they resumed pursuit of the listing vessel and at the earliest opportunity shot several harpoons into the griffon's balloon.

It's a misconception that the gasbags of airships are especially vulnerable. They are massive to the point that any leak must be equally massive to cause a rapid loss in buoyancy. It is also the case that they are self sealing, so any shot that passes straight through will not cause any appreciably damage. If the projectile trails a rope, like a harpoon does, that rope will keep the tear from sealing properly.

"Signal them to abandon ship and regroup here!" Captain Grizelda yelled and a young bird set to work on a beacon to flash out the message. As a small flock of griffons boiled from the doomed airship Grizelda looked to us and harshly demanded, "Explain."

It was not a thing which we were capable of doing.

Author's Notes:

Rainbow Dash read the book because she's interested in griffons, Spike because he was ordered to. Why did Pinkie happen to read it? I expect her failure with Gilda would have weighed on her and she would have had nagging questions and a book about griffon etiquette would probably teach one all about griffon parties, right?
Now, the mock airship charge might seem over the top. I agonized over it for the past couple weeks, actually, but in the end I'm going to choose to invoke the cop out rationale of, "I'm writing about pastel cartoon ponies," which is meant to somehow temper...something. But I figure relations between the griffons and the Equestrians to be like the U.K. and the U.S. It would take a lot to actually start a war between us, it might even prove impossible in practical fact, so if one of our warships charged theirs they would be unlikely to assume it was a proper attack without some pretty extreme actions.
I hope that'll wash because it's what I'm going to have to go with.

Flight

"It seems simple enough, you told Fluttershy to be more assertive so she took Equestria's flagship for her own and decided to go into the privateering racket. I'd think you'd be proud of the dread pirate Fluttershy, she's already taken out one of another kingdom's warships." I said dryly. My little joke was poorly received, the griffons would have appreciated it regardless of the circumstances, but the four mares glared at me.

Rainbow Dash seemed not to have realized that Fluttershy was still onboard the Morningstar until I brought it up, "Hey, shut up! That's not funny!"

"I agree." Rarity said haughtily, "That's in very poor taste given the circumstances."

Applejack stared straight through me, "She's right, sugarcube," When she said 'sugarcube' it managed to hold the sting of some invective, "and this don't concern you so I'd appreciate if'n you'd just butt out."

Pinkie Pie just gave me a disapproving look and shook her head. Et tu Pinkie?

My mouth had betrayed me for the insensitive foal I really was once again and now I was excluded from the clique. It may be a saving grace that Twilight Sparkle was still above decks with the Captain, so at least one pony didn't hate me. Yet.

There had been talk of putting us in fetters when it had become clear that the Morningstar had crippled the other griffon airship. It became apparent that Captain Grizelda was not inclined to imprison us and the ship was ill equipped to restrain unicorns except by the most drastic measures so we were confined below decks in the same bunk room that had served as a banquet hall last night.

We were kept in the dark for long minutes and had begun to speculate on what had happened when I uttered my faux pas about Fluttershy. With such shameful awkwardness hanging over me I retreated to one of the benches and lay my belly down upon it, trying to calm myself before tears betrayed my weakness as they were attempting to do.

Why was I such a jackass who couldn't keep her mouth shut when it mattered? They were, of course, terribly concerned about their friend and my glibness was far out of place. Not only was it an asinine thing to say, it didn't even have the saving grace of being particularly funny, but there I went and just stuck my hoof right in my mouth.

That line of thought was getting me farther away from calm so I tried to focus on something else, I needed to think. I relaxed, stared at the bench and let my eyes unfocus content to spend a little time in my head.

Morningstar turned on us, but of course it's not it's own entity, it was the crew. Not the Captain or his officers, there weren't enough of them to contain the reservists. That implies that, unless they were in it together for some reason, it was the reservists themselves who've taken the ship, yes?

Must have been and since they were mother's unit, maybe they're still loyal to her, or is it some kind of telepathic mind control? Was she capable of that? I wouldn't put anything past her at this point, she was already built up as a legendary figure in my mind, with Celestia's power, Discord's cunning and the changeling's ruthless evil.

She gave me the coordinates, though, she had to expect I'd come. She didn't expect the Elements or an avenging army, though, did she? She was after me, which made me feel a bit validated, I guess. It also made everypony else expendable to her so there was little enough choice but to run.

What about Fluttershy? My insipid, insistent brain reminded me, they still had her as a hostage, not to mention the Captain and his officers. Buck. If not for that we really could just run.

That was the direction my thoughts were taking as I sat motionless on the bench. The four mare's speculations continued unnoticed by me until Twilight and Captain Grizelda came below to address them. I continued to ignore them as best I could, picking up the nuance all the same. It sounded like the griffons were fairly convinced of our innocence or, at the very least, our ignorance.

I was coming abreast to something and I didn't want it to steal away.

Shortly it came to me and I interrupted Twilight in mid sentence, I rose abruptly and spoke softly, ensuring that they'd have to silence themselves to hear me. Their scowls were neither unnoticed or unfelt, but I spoke all the same, "This cannot turn into a hostage situation and that's what it will become if we don't run away immediately."

I held my hooves up to to quash Rainbow Dash's rebuttal, "I know, I know you want to save Fluttershy right away. Certainly they're aware of it too, but out here we have little enough recourse when they want to trade her for something or somepony."

"Probably it's me they want, for reasons that I can't say, but if it is you can't let them have me because then they'll just shoot you all out of the air and kill Fluttershy as expendable, and I'm not just saying that to save my own skin, though it is some consolation."

"The only way to come out ahead in the negotiations is to not have them. They won't hurt their hostages without making any demands first, there'd be no point in it, but as soon as we meet with them there'll be some sort of ultimatum and they're libel...bound even, to make good on it. We have to run, get to Eagleland and find help there, it's the only choice."

Twilight Sparkle and Captain Grizelda shared a frown, then the Captain spoke, "She's got a point, but why do you think they're after you in particular?"

"I...I can't say."

Twilight Sparkle's eyes went wide, "You think it's her then? But how could...no no, I could see that if she was in control of the reservists somehow, but it doesn't even matter, we can't outrun the Morningstar, there's no chance at all. If they weren't still tangled up with the harpoons the griffons shot into their hull and having to cut those loose they'd be on us already. Rarity was right in saying it's not cutting edge, but it is a massively overpowered ship."

Here Georgia, apparently one of the higher ranking officers, joined in, "Captain, our other airship's hull will still float if it doesn't capsize when it hits the ocean. I'll take half the crew down to it and wait for rescue. We've got too many birds roosting here with the whole of the other ship's crew and it's the best way I can think of to lose weight fast."

"No, Georgia. I appreciate your bent towards self sacrifice, but our crews are small and it's little enough weight to make a difference, even if I was willing to abandon half my crew, which I'm not. Without substantial additional motive power it just won't make any difference." Captain Grizelda said.

"This is a steam powered ship, correct?" Twilight asked and received a nod, "What are you burning to make the heat?"

"We aren't burning anything per se." Georgia pointed to the exposed firebox flickering it's amber glow, "We have an alembic of phoenix fire that fuels us. It's the longest lasting, lightest weight heat source available."

"Maybe, but it's not the hottest. Dragonfire's twice as hot and it happens I have a source of that right here if he's willing to volunteer." Twilight gestured to Spike who perked up for a chance to be useful.

"Sure Twilight, I can keep a fire going if it'll help. No sweat." He puffed out his chest, volunteering even though he had to know he'd have to keep a pretty steady blaze going for a taxing period of time.

"It's a great idea, but the boiler won't take the extra pressure, it's got some leeway built in, but dragonfire's sure to burst it.." Georgia said.

This is where I volunteered myself and Rarity for an arduous undertaking that I hoped would put me back in everypony's good graces, "Me and Rarity could magically reinforce the boiler. It wouldn't need but the crudest shielding spell to work, and we could trade off on four hour shifts or so. Then you could burn it hotter than the fires of Tartarus without having to worry."

"That could work." Twilight said, "We'll go through an awful lot of fresh water for the boiler that way, though. Rainbow Dash, do you think you can keep us supplied?"

"You know it! I can just park a fat thunderhead alongside the ship, shouldn't slow us down enough to matter." She said, hovering restlessly.

As Captain Grizelda furrowed her bow in contemplation a scrawny griffon burst below decks skidded to a halt and saluted, "Captian, they're signaling with their bow lights."

Grizelda Blanched, "If they so much as utter the words hostage or demands open fire and take out that light!"

"Aye!" He replied and was just as quickly gone. Within thirty seconds a few shots could be heard, then two staccato volleys followed by silence. We weren't too far away, but the Griffon guns had no proper sights, so it probably took that many rounds to hit it. The griffon returned after a moment, "Captain..."

"Gottfried, Did they?"

"Yes Ma'am." He answered.

"Okay. If one of them gets out there and starts trying to do semaphore, blow his hooves of." Captain Grizelda ordered. It was enough information to validate my prognostications to Captain Grizelda, she gestured to me and Spike, "Do it, we're getting under way."

Then she was off off at a trot towards the bridge. Moments later the ship lurched ahead, it's tactic decided. I moved to the boiler, preparing to cast a shielding spell but Rarity cleared her throat to gain my attention, "Darling, you seem a bit peaked. Perhaps I should take the first shift so that you can recover from last night's festivities?"

My first reaction was to lash out, insist that I was just fine and since I'd volunteered us I should stand the first shift, but as loathe to admit it as I was, she was right. I wanted nothing more than to lay back down so I halfheartedly thanked her and told her to wake me when it was my shift. I pulled down one of the bunks and nestled in, my stomach still queasy and my head throbbing.

It felt like mere moments had passed when my eyes sprung open, but the sun had moved and I felt considerably better so I must have slept for a while. Over the boiler's growl I heard Rarity beckoning.

"I hate to be a bother, but I'm simply famished so if you're ready I'd be grateful for some relief." Rarity smiled politely. I wondered how long I'd been asleep but I didn't want to ask. If it had been too long I'd feel guilty and if it hadn't been long enough it might read as a tacit accusation, so I simply walked over to the boiler, plopped down and cast the spell.

Our magics merged, then Rarity let hers wane as I took the brunt of the spell on my own. She gave me an odd look that I couldn't quite place as her aura receded. I could tell she wanted to say something, but I had no earthly idea what.

"Thanks for covering the first shift," I told her, and I meant it, "The rest did me a lot of good."

"Oh, no trouble darling, I had Spikey Wikey to talk to the whole time so the hours just flew by. Incidentally, if you'd like me to bring you something to read, I'm hoping to scrounge something up from the Captain." She offered.

"No, that's okay, I think." I considered the weight of the spell and the marathon ahead of me, "I'll probably need to just keep my mind on maintaining the spell."

Rarity cocked her head, but still didn't say whatever it was that was on her mind. Instead she just nodded and bid me and Spike good afternoon, "Just call me if you need something or when you want to switch back. Oh, and Spike, the same goes for you."

"Naw, you already told me there's no gemstones on this ship." Spike said between jets of flame, "I'll just wait until the porter comes around with dinner."

"Alright, toodles." She said and climbed the stairway to the main deck.

"There's not really a porter is there?" I asked.

"No, I really wish there was though. Maybe with some ice cream with crushed rubies or something." Spike licked his lips.

The baby dragon was seated in front of the firebox with it's cast iron doors propped open. With every other breath or so he'd loose a gout of green flame with an ease that looked as if it were his normal respiration. He noticed me looking and spoke between flaming breaths, "Mother dragons have to do this for months to incubate their eggs. I've never had to do it for this long, but it's easy enough."

"How do you know how hot to keep it?" I asked.

"Pressure gauge." He pointed to a dial set just beside the door, "I just keep it in the high orange zone and try not to let it into the red too often. They said it'll be fine that way. We outran the Morningstar this morning, but we're not losing them. At least now we're far away enough that they've given up shooting at us with the cannons. They can shoot this far, of course, but it's like they can't even aim when we're this far out. For a bit there they were using crossbows, we've gotten past their range too. They don't do much, but at least they could still hit us with those."

"They were shooting their cannons at us?"

"Yeah, but Twilight's on deck so nothing much is going to be able to get through her shield. They even sent some pegasi after us, but between her and Rainbow Dash they didn't manage to do any damage. They think they'll try again when it gets dark. I still don't think they'll have much luck." Spike said.

"Have they refined the plan further than just running?" I asked. I had to stop looking at Spike, the constant flames were starting to sear my retinas, I rested my eyes on the clusters of valves and gauges that had more readings than I'd think a steam engine should have.

"No. They don't want to get too far ahead and lose sight of the ship since Fluttershy's on it," He paused to spew forth his green flame, "and since we need a lot of water to maintain this speed we can't send Rainbow Dash ahead to get help. It's so far she probably couldn't make it anyway. The griffons don't do that well on long distance flights and they're not as fast as Rainbow Dash so they're not much help. Then again, nobody's as fast as Rainbow Dash."

"What about you? How are you holding up?"

"Like I said, I'll be fine. This is natural for a dragon after all."

"The fire breathing, maybe, but what about sleep? How far out are we?" I asked.

"I don't know, really. Twilight was down for a minute a while ago, but she didn't say either." He sighed, "The griffons are all up on deck in case something happens and the only one who's come down here is the fireman. Every fifteen minutes or so he comes down, makes funny faces at the gauges and adjusts the valves. He doesn't seem too interested in talking, so we're pretty out of the loop down here, but no news is good news."

"As for sleep, I'll be okay as long as I have somepony to talk to."

Since that's what he wanted we talked for the whole first hour. I got up and wandered around the boiler for a bit, keeping the spell and the conversation going at the same time was a bit taxing, but I wanted to see this thing we were enslaved to.

It actually sat just rearward of midship, clearly for balance. There was a bulkhead behind it but I'm not sure what it hid in the far aft of the ship. I would have expected the crew's bunks to be closed off to the engine room, but they were not. The transition from one space to the other was noted only by sheet metal lining the walls.

Pipes and rusty steam lines sprang from manifolds that in turn grew out of the rear of the boiler, which had the look of a giant mailbox, four yards long by three high and wide. There was a door on the front, above the firebox. I knew from the ships I'd seen that the boiler tubes were enclosed behind it.

I still had no particular idea what all the gauges could be reading nor what all the valves were actually for, but just as Spike said a greasy looking griffon would come down every few minutes and tweak things. I tried to engage him in conversation but his replies were terse and irritated. I don't believe he was happy with the things we were doing to his contraption, even if it was to save all of our lives.

By the second hour I couldn't think of anything else to talk to Spike about and I was running out of energy so I resorted to my tactic of asking questions which would prompt him to tell me his own stories. They all involved Twilight Sparkle rather heavily and I was beginning to get a more favorable impression of her than I had previously held, but my strength started to go and shortly I fell silent. By the third hour Spike started to make worried inquiries.

"Sea Swirl? Are you sure you're okay? You, um, you don't look so good."

"I'm...fine. It's just really...hard to keep this spell going for so...lon...long." I was really struggling but if Rarity could make it through the shift I'd volunteered her for, then so could I.

"If you say so." He shrugged and puffed out another burst of emerald flame, "But I mean Rarity was at it for a little more than six hours and..."

"Six hours!?" I interrupted, "Rea..lly?"

"I don't know. About six anyway. She, um didn't seem to be struggling with it quite as much as you though." He gave me a startled look as soon as he realized what he'd said, "No offense, though! I just, um...eh, I got nothin'."

I was too tired to be angry for what he'd said. It was, after all, true. How could I be so weak compared to Rarity? It was undeniable, though, I was failing fast, but I just couldn't admit it, "Celestia dammit! At..At this rate...I may as well be...be an earth pony!"

Spike cocked his head at me, "C'mon, now, that's racist. I think, anyway. Look, I'm just going to call Rarity and she'll have to take over the shift a little early, then you can rest for a minute."

Over my protests he hollered for her and shortly she came down. I think she was surprised to see my wearied state, "Oh, do I need to take over...?" Charitably she stopped before she said 'already,' but I could tell that was what she was going to say and it irked me.

"Yeah, I think Sea Swirl's had it." Spike said and turned back to the firebox, a peel of magical flame spewing forth.

I wanted to deny it, to rebel, at least to say something snippy. I just didn't have it left in me. Rarity's next words doubled that feeling.

"Oh, I rather thought that might happen." She said. My jaw dropped, I couldn't believe she'd say that, "I mean no offense, of course, but you're casting the spell all wrong."

I sputtered, but couldn't mount any coherent defense. She must have realized how it sounded and she backpedaled.

"No, now don't get upset, it's not your fault." She ineffectually tried to soothe me, "Either whomever taught you spellcasting was incredibly strong and didn't need to conserve their energy or you are self taught and didn't know but...no no, now don't get angry. Please do just hear me out."

I was getting angry, but I couldn't let the spell drop lest the boiler blow, so I was, for a large measure, restrained.

"What you're doing is casting as if you were using a fast, powerful spell. You simply let the magic flow from your horn and it returns to you through the aether, a continuous circuit. That's all well and good, but it expends too much effort to maintain a spell for long periods. You need to use your power more elegantly."

Rarity took over the spell just enough to demonstrate a pulsing sort of magic. I'd felt other unicorns use it before, but I didn't know why it mattered which way it was cast, just so long as it worked, "Now you see how my magic is in little waves, yes? The power is pushed out, then pulled back in by an equal measure, over and over again. Like breathing but many full cycles for every second or so. In this way you have to move much less energy overall and you can keep your casting up for longer periods, you see?"

"There is a downside in that the leylines are static in the middle of the cycle. It doesn't matter on this spell so much, but when it is an issue you have simply to add in another cycle opposite of the first...well it's easier to do than explain, I'm simply dreadful at this sort of thing but Twilight could probably give you some pointers better than I could."

Have you ever had one of those moments where you realized that you'd been making a foal of yourself for years, maybe your entire life and nopony had thought to mention it before, even though several of them had to have known, and when they did you felt like a complete idiot?

I was having one of those moments just then. A shamepiphany, and I handled it precisely as well as I handled all my interactions of that sort.

"It's fine. I'm fine! I just wasn't feeling well and...it's fine! Leave me be!" I protested, anger bolstering my still improperly cast spell.

"Oh, well then, I'm sorry for intruding, I thought maybe you were having troubles. I see now that I was mistaken." Rarity said gracefully, showing no sign of either her annoyance or any hint of smugness for calling out my ineptitude, "I'm just going to make certain Twilight's okay and I'll be back down in a bit for my shift. But darling, do call if you need a hoof, there's no shame in asking for help from your friends."

With that she departed again. As soon as she did, and I mean just as soon, I switched to her method of spellcasting and was immediately relieved of the unbearable strain.

Spike gave looked at me askance, but chose to stay silent for the better part of an hour as he intermittently sent flares into the firebox.

By this point it's a forgone conclusion as to what I was doing, exploring the depths of my own self hatred, mental mewling and self flagellating.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

A cycle interrupted only when Spike finally broke the silence, "Sea Swirl, I'm...I'm sorry I called Rarity down here even though you told me not to."

I looked to him incredulously, "Is that what you've been thinking about all this time?" He nodded, "Spike, don't beat yourself up, you did exactly the right thing!"

"But you told Rarity..."

"That I was fine? Right? Did I look fine?" He shook his head, "That's because I was lying, trying to save face." I slumped down and dropped my head on the flame warmed deck, "Not that there was any point in it. She knew I was casting the spell wrong and she knows I know, too, so who was I trying to save face in front of? Spike, the plain truth is that I'm a pretty lousy unicorn when you compare me to somepony like Rarity. Still I've got to keep up the illusion, haven't I?"

"But Rarity said..." Spike started, only to have me cut him off again.

"Bah. She's the element of generosity, isn't she? Not calling me out when I was so clearly, demonstrably in the wrong, letting me off the hook gracefully while also teaching me the right way to cast, that's an act of true generosity." I talked to Spike with a candor I usually reserved for conversations with myself. His easy demeanor and innocence made him seem like someone I'd like to have as a confidant and I was unusually reckless with my honesty when I was feeling contrite, "When I first met her I thought she was a bit of a stuck up mule. Don't look at me like that, I said 'thought,' like in the past tense."

"All that extra baggage, trunks full of frilly lace kind of reinforced that opinion. But what did she actually put in the trunks? Outfits for herself, sure, and some designs to show off to the griffons I'd wager, but dresses for her friends in case a formal occasion called for it so they wouldn't feel out of place. I bet if you went through all that frou frou silliness you'd find that most of it was for the benefit and comfort of her friends rather than her own, wouldn't you guess?"

"I guess so. That sound like her, but you don't have to go that far to convince me of how great Rarity is." Spike admitted, "I think you're being too hard on yourself, though. Sure Rarity's a pretty good spellcaster, but who was it who knew what to do to get us away from the Morningstar?"

I slumped down further, chin on my crossed hooves, "They would have figured it out in a minute anyway."

"Ugh. Sea Swirl, if it bothers you that much why don't you just talk to Rarity? Apologize if you think you need to, do whatever, but quit with the sad sack act." Spike rolled his eyes.

"It's not an act, I am just one big old sack of sad. Sad and horseapples." I grunted, "Besides, I can't apologize now, she'll know I was lying about the spell."

"Yeah, okay, but you just said she already knows and that she knows you know and...whatever, so why does it matter?"

"Spike, really!" I rose and glared at him, "Even if we all know it's a whole different thing to actually go and admit to it! I have some pride left, haven't I?"

He considered it for a long while, chuffed out a particularly lovely green burst, and said, "You're kind of a screwy pony, Sea Swirl." Then he lapsed into silence for a while, only to continue minutes later, "But I like you anyway. You're not a bad sort of pony, just different. I think the problem is that you're never going to win comparing yourself with others."

"I mean compare Twilight and Rarity, for instance. Twilight has her magic, but no sense of style at all and she's so socially awkward that she had to have a royal proclamation forcing her before she managed to make any friends. Rarity has fashion sense and poise and grace, but she can be over dramatic and she sure doesn't have Twilight's raw power."

Spike looked to me conspiratorialy, "Now don't let on that I admitted anything about Rarity wasn't perfect, but she also gets a bit grabby around gemstones. My point being you can't be good at everything, unless you're the Princess herself there's always somepony somewhere who's better than you at whatever. Even the Princess has to take her lumps every once and a while."

"But even if you're not as good as you want to be, you've got to start somewhere. Do your best and keep trying and you can be as good a spellcaster as Rarity, at least."

"I don't really care about spellcasting." I admitted, "What I'd really like to be is a writer, but a cutie mark for talking to fish doesn't really bode well for that and there's so many writers out there who just blow me away by leaps and bounds, it seems like a pipe dream. More than seems like. It is a pipe dream and a pretty unoriginal one at that."

"Well I don't know, but you're sure not going to get there by giving up, are you?"

"No."

"If it's really what you're meant to do you can't help but do it anyway, so you just have to keep chugging along. Call yourself a writer and stay at it. Maybe something comes of it, maybe it doesn't, but at least you'll have tried and you'll be doing what makes you happy in the meantime."

"Heh, you're right Spike. Sort of a fake it 'til you make it philosophy you've got going there?" I chuckled.

"Well don't tell her I told you, but that's been Twilight's method for years and it always seems to work out for her." He winked, "Say, just out of curiosity, who did teach you spell casting?"

"I can't say."

"Ah, your mother." He understood, "I guess that makes sense. I guess she's pretty powerful, huh?"

"I can't say."

"Can't say, like yes or can't say like you don't know? Eh." He waved off the question, "Don't answer that, it doesn't make any difference. It's just, I knew your mom, she spent a lot of time at the library researching with Twilight. I still can't believe it was a lie. I didn't know her that well myself, she only started coming around recently, when all this weirdness started. She had lots of friends, though. All those years and all those friends and she just sells them all out, I can't understand it at all."

I shrugged. There was literally nothing I could say about it so we remained in shared contemplation for a bit until the silence was broken by a thump, then another, then a brief storm of them. I thought it could be hail.

"What's that?" Spike asked with startled eyes. Just then Rarity trotted below decks.

"Nothing to worry about." Rarity said brightly, "They're just shooting at us again."

"Again?" I demanded, "But now they seem to be hitting us, were they doing that before?"

"Oh, forgive me, I thought you knew. They were shooting at us with their cannon all morning, but Twilight's been shielding us. Now they're back in crossbow range again, but Twilight's not bothering to block any arrows that fall below the deck line, they don't do any real harm." She gestured to the aft of the ship, "I'm afraid they've made a pincushion of the ship's rear end. In different circumstances it would be quite comical."

"They're gaining on us?" Spike asked in alarm, "I can keep the boiler hotter, we can still outrun them!"

"They are gaining on us, yes, but more steam pressure isn't going to help." Rarity said, "We're already at the edge of what the steam lines and engines will take and we simply can't reinforce them all. But we should be within sight of land by within a day or so, then Rainbow Dash can go for help. With luck we'll have reinforcements before quarters become too close and circumstances too desperate."

Without a word her magic flared to life along side my own and took over the shielding spell, announcing that my shift was over. "Thanks, I'm going to head up and get something to eat. Holler when you need me."

She nodded cordially and as I passed her by I saw that she had a tray heaped with a hearty griffon style dinner in tin bowls on it for Spike. There were a few gem stones mixed in with the stew. I recognized them as the stones that were sewn into the collar of her formal gown previously.

Long ago a volcanic island's volcano had become active again after centuries of dormancy. It had forced the many thousands of zebras who'd settled on it's fertile shoulders to abandon their homes and a rag tag fleet of Equestrian merchant vessels had gone to evacuate them. Several of those ships passed by the lighthouse, decks crowded with hollow eyed refugees and their meager possessions.

That's what the deck of the ship reminded me of. It was packed rail to rail with griffons, some working or interacting, just as many sleeping. Even with the stiff breeze the musk of their massed bodies permeated the air. There was a particular scent carnivores seemed to exude and it was densely overpowering here.

I came upon Applejack who had seized a square yard of precious deck where she had one of the griffon's steam powered guns apart and was tinkering with it's innards. "There's nobody below in the berths, why don't a few of these birds go below decks?"

"Heya, Sea Swirl." She greeted me more cheerfully than I had expected, given my joke from the morning and that I'd expected Rarity to have gossiped about my magical shortcomings, "I reckon they're a bit skittish to be down there with the Morningstar on our tail. It makes sense if'n you think about it."

"They're afraid to be trapped below decks in case they manage to sink the ship." I guessed.

"Yep, they kin just fly off so long as they're up here. I don't blame them none, either. Half of 'em already had a ship shot from under 'em and we've been taking fire off and on all day." She pointed back to where Twilight sat on the fantail.

She sat reading a book whilst Pinkie Pie danced around her, intermittently calling out numbers whereupon Twilight Sparkle would create a small shield long enough for the projectile to shatter against it, then let it dissipate. I walked back to see what was going on, "Hey Sea Swirl, ooh, Twilight, nine and seven!"

"Hey Pinkie." I said as two projectiles splintered against a pink shield at the nine and seven o'clock position. Aside from the glow of her horn Twilight Sparkle didn't so much as move. I was uncertain how Pinkie Pie was spotting for her as she wasn't even looking through the binoculars that hung around her neck, "Can I see those?" I asked and she hoofed the binoculars to me.

Despite being a steamship our craft didn't have a proper stack. It vented it's steam from a duct pointed rearward, leaving a contrail that the Morningstar was crashing through with the starboard cheek of it's bow. It's fight with the Griffons must have done some damage to the rigging as the hull was pointed several degrees off the axis of their travel, out of line with the balloon.

Several cannon were on deck but we were being sporadically fired at by a few archers. Either way, having that grinning white leviathan gunning for us was disconcerting. It trailed lines from the griffon harpoons that had been driven into it and the mutilated stern streamed fluttering bits of it's broken structure which occasionally whipped into view.

If not for the few ponies on deck it would seem a ghost ship was on our tail, inexorably gaining on us, intent to drag us down with it to a dire blue grave.

I looked over the railing at the rear of our ship. As Rarity had said, it had collected a good number of crossbow bolts, mostly with their tails raised, indicating they were quite near the limits of their range.

"They're gaining on us?" I asked and Twilight grunted in the affirmative, "Why can't we go any faster?"

"We've reached our aerodynamic limits." Twilight stated, closing her book and giving her full attention to one of her favorite methods of discourse, the lecture full of esoteric tidbits. There was little enough I could do to dissuade her from it, "The airscrews can only turn so fast before the fluid dynamics of the air become a problem. They move the air rearward at a faster rate than it can flow in, meaning that past a certain speed it's churning a partial vacuum."

"Aside from that the forces affecting the blades at that speed are tremendous. It builds up a pressure wave much like a sonic rainboom..."

I handed Pinkie her binoculars back and kept nodding as if I were listening, but I wasn't. I was really just waiting for her to stop talking so I could speak, when she paused for a moment I quickly interjected, "How long before they catch up with us?"

"Just a little ways before we hit land, if we make it that far. I think we'll have lost buoyancy by then the way we're losing helium." Twilight said, "Before you ask, we don't know where the leak is. Several of the crew have been crawling all over the envelope with soap and water and haven't found any holes. It's just inexplicable!"

"Six, seven and center." Pinkie Pie shouted and Twilight again erected several minimal shields which were impacted and then left to dissipate, "I got to climb around the balloon too, since I'm the ship's foremost balloonologist, and I couldn't find anything either. It's very fishy if you ask me."

"These arrows, they're not meant to be effective, are they?" I pondered, "They're just meant to keep you occupied and tire you out, because if they really meant it they'd be firing their cannons."

"That's what I thought too," Twilight admitted, "Keep in mind, they've got the same problem we have. We can't shoot them down because they have Fluttershy and they can't shoot us down because we have something or somepony they want. Aside from that, I'd rather not engage the reservists if we can help it. They might be loyal to Sea Breeze, but they could be under a spell for all we know. It all adds a lot of credibility to the theory that it's you they're after, though."

"Eight, three, five, throw that shield to stay alive!" Pinkie rhymed and Twilight did so.

I blushed, I'll admit. I'm not used to anypony being interested in me enough to back it up with martial force. It felt shameful, but just a bit gratifying. Would I have offered to give myself up in trade for Fluttershy? With Rarity's example to follow, how could I not? Fortunately I was pretty certain that even that wouldn't save the rest of us so I didn't have to make that offer.

Pinkie Pie yelled out another set of numbers, one must have been mistaken because an arrow got through and plunged into the deck barely missing my hoof, "Oopsie! That's my bad!" Pinkie said as I yelped and drew my hoof up towards me in panic.

"Pinkie! This isn't going to work if you start missing your calls!" Twilight called down Pinkie Pie.

"Sorry Twilight, I don't know what happened! I had the right number in my head but it just came out wrong! I'll be more careful, I promise!" Pinkie said, never ceasing her circuitous dancing. I took this minor failure as an omen of things to come.

A new voice joined in, "Don'tcha worry none Pinkie Pie. I got this here pea shooter all rigged up and rarin' to go."

Applejack fitted the steam gun she'd been working on to the rail and hooked it up to the steam line. It's was a longer barreled gun than it's brothers, with it's top feeding magazine discarded for a single shot trapdoor looking mechanism. Across it's top it bore a smallish telescope fitted on a crudely made wooden cradle.

Applejack's first rounds were a simple dowel with a lump of red lead for a tip. She carefully aimed and fired, looked through the scope, then fiddled with the front mount. She fired again, fiddled again and twisted the rear of the telescope sideways. By the third time she seemed satisfied with the aim and wrapped the precarious contraption with plaster impregnated bandages of the sort one might use to set a limb and left it alone to cure.

"So you're going to shoot the archers or the engines or what?" I asked.

"Nah, I ain't a killer and we cain't shoot the engines, they's too tough 'less we used them explosive slugs and if we do that we may just blow Fluttershy and the crew to smithereens. I just mean to lay down a bit of steady fire so they hav'ta go below decks where they cain't shoot at us." Applejack smirked, arraying pressed steel containers full of projectiles for me to see. Rock salt in a paper tube, hundreds of wooden pegs liberated from the rigging supplies and a very few steel slugs.

Soon enough she deemed the plaster to be dry and started to put forth a steady stream of projectiles. It quickly had the desired effect, causing the deck to be abandoned for the safety of the lower decks and bridge. They tried to fire from the bridge, but the sun at their backs shone straight through and silhouetted them all too clearly. Every time they rose a bolt would strike nearby to warn them off. With everypony crouched down below the windows of the bridge all that was visible was the top half of the ship's wheel.

"Watch this." Applejack said, then shot the spindles out of the wheel, one after another. Actually I only know that's what happened because of Pinkie's running commentary, but I was still duly impressed.

They lacked a position to fire from and it looked like Twilight would finally be getting a chance to rest but it wasn't to be.

Their ship lurched in a worrisome manner as all the engines on one side reversed, quickly spinning the whole craft one hundred and eighty degrees and then the other engines reversed as well. The hull and balloon all danced and swung to and fro in dangerous looking arcs but when it steadied they seemed to have only lost a hundred yards or so and were coming at us ass first.

The stern of the ship had been obliterated by the earlier griffon onslaught and left wide open. Now in the gaping chasm of the ruined ship eight cannon set wheel to wheel on the gun deck, another six on the deck below.

In unison they all fired.

"Gah!" Twilight screamed and put up a full dome shield around the ship as their steady salvos burst against the pink energy wall. Their fire was all over the place, I'm not sure if they were even aiming but the volume made up for it's erratic direction, "Think fast, girls! I'm not Shining Armor over here, I can't keep this up for long!"

"Hey look! In the head!" Pinkie pointed and put the binoculars to Twilight's eyes, "See? It's Fluttershy! They didn't capture her at all! She's been on the toilet this whole time! How embarrassing!"

Sure enough, a yellow speck was shivering in the wreckage of a battered lavatory that had been at the rear of the ship. Spun around we could see her clearly enough, but the partition walls kept her hidden from the rest of the ship even with the roaring cannons mere inches away on the other side of a thin lumber wall.

It looked for all the world like a madmare's dollhouse.

"It figgers' that she'd go run and hide in the john as soon as trouble started." Applejack snickered and then yelled for her pegasus friend, "Rainbow Dash! Get up here! Y'all got a rescue mission to fly if'n you can get through all this flak!"

Rainbow angrily streaked over, "Hey, I'm not getting shot to pieces in that mess! What kind of...oh...Is that Fluttershy? No way! Hang on a minute." With that she bounded off the ship. Twilight let her shield flicker for just long enough for her to pass through, allowing a shell to impact our own stern and rip away a small chunk of timber.

Rainbow spiraled through the cannonfire, weaving around the screaming rounds to nearly crash down beside Fluttershy. She hoisted the frightened pegasus and took off before anypony could move to investigate.

It took three times longer for Rainbow Dash to fight her way back with Fluttershy in her arms, but the cannoneers seemed not to have enough time to reorient their guns before Rainbow Dash was safely back aboard.

It was really just as simple as that.

"Hey guys, look who I found!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she lit on the deck with her precious cargo, a cargo who was fawned over by Applejack and Pinkie Pie which seemed to do her a great deal of good.

Once she was coaxed into telling it, her story was as simple as it seemed. When fighting broke out she was in the head, ill from motion sickness, and even with the rear of the ship torn off right beside her she was too scared to move.

By the time she regained her courage she'd already overheard the crew preparing to overtake and capture her friends. On her own she had no confidence that she'd make it from one ship to the other without being spotted and fired upon so she'd just hunkered down and hoped for the best.

"Well, now that we have her back, what do we do?" Rainbow Dash asked over the noise of the barrage that was, as yet, unabated.

An answer came across the deck from Captain Grizelda who'd emerged from the bridge to see our rescued comrade, "Well, ponies, we've already tried flight and they're steadily running us into the ground. Since you've got your friend back our talons are finally unshackled. I believe this is the point where we finally turn and fight."

Author's Notes:

Sea Swirl is casting spells in DC when when should be using AC, but she wasn't well taught and doesn't know the difference.
I'm actually not sure if anyone besides me will think that's funny or sympathize with her, but there it is.
Also I wanted to get the shamepiphany in there. I have a hard time thinking of good examples, but it's like trying to be all erudite and using "thusly" for years and finding out it was the 19th century's "irregardless".

Fight

Captains don't really go down with their ships.

It's an old ponytale. It's implication is one of solidarity between the old man and even his lowliest sailors, a promise that their interests are unified. When the hull's actually stove in and the ship's loss is a foregone conclusion, though, I'd rather be on the bridge than below decks. There are, afterall, a great many more ships lost than skippers drowned. Honor is a bunch of horseapples when suicide by drowning is the other choice. Being beneath the hatches limits one's options regardless of any esprit de corps.

How many brave ponies have lost their lives in battle, confined to noisy engine rooms or trapped below decks, helpless and confined?

I had a premonition I was to be one when Applejack told me, "Why don'tcha trade back with Rarity? We need to have a bit of a confab posty hasty-like."

I might have been insulted in another circumstance, but they wanted their proven friend to stand by their side if they were about to face battle and I needed the element of generosity as an advocate. Not for me, for some ponies who they seemed to be forgetting, the crew Captain and crew of the Morningstar who were, presumably, innocent still and shouldn't be forced to die with their vessel if it could be helped. That's putting aside the reservists and whatever their unique situation was.

In my mind, the axiom that you can't save everypony rang clear and true, my fortitude being somewhat wan, so I gladly chose to trade with somepony who had a bigger heart than I. Somepony who would actually stand up for them like I would have if I had any measure of forthright conviction. Somepony who truly believed that they could and should be saved and I believed Rarity was that pony.

I just hoped that I would not meet my demise trapped down there.

"Fluttershy's back, they need you up there, they're planning on fighting." I said quickly, then added in as if it was but a little matter rather than an overwhelming concern of mine, "I'm not sure what they mean to do about their crew." She nodded at my prompt, though, telegraphing a certain understanding. I took back over the shield spell and cast it improperly out of habit. Rarity pulsed her magic strongly to remind me and I switched over to doing it correctly, "Thanks."

She looked genuinely baffled, though I knew she wasn't and asked, "For what?"

I just shook my head, smiled and said nothing. Again, she knew and I knew. She bid us good evening and sprinted up the steps. I nodded to Spike and couldn't help but notice that he had a simpering grin on his face which I found most suspicious. "She fed you gemstones and then you told her everything I said, didn't you?"

"No!" He said with a start, "I may have just mentioned..."

"No, don't tell me." I interrupted, "I don't think I could take actually knowing what you told her."

"Sorry, but if it makes you feel any better..."

"Eh eh eh! I said don't tell me. Let's just drop it." I interrupted again. If he told me I'd have spent the foreseeable future trying to justify, correct and defend myself both to Spike and in my own mind. It wasn't a mystery worthy of losing sleep over, even if it was certain that I would anyway.

"Okay." He sighed, "So they're going to try and fight, huh? How's that going to work?"

"I don't know." I grumbled, "We flee, I get stuck below decks, we fight, I get stuck below decks. I might take a couple arrows just to see some scenery now and again."

"Tell me about it." Spike groused, "Back home I get stuck in the library during all these amazing adventures. Like this one time they went to talk to a dragon and didn't think to bring me! As if I wouldn't have anything to offer. I was probably dusting shelves or critter sitting that day because we might get banished to the moon if there was an extra weeks worth of dust on the reference section or Angel Bunny didn't get his dinner spoon fed to him."

Some minutes later the engineer came down, adjusted some valves dispassionately, wiped his greasy talons on his feathers and finally spoke to me and Spike, making it seem like an afterthought, "Decided to stop running, cut out that fire and leave off the spell 's soon 's the pressure drops into the yella on this here dial. I'll keep an eye on it from there on."

With that spare communique I was freed from my prospective grisly death amongst the burst plates of a steam boiler, "C'mon, Spike," I laughed, "We're finally busting out of here!" and as soon as the pressure waned me and Spike shuffled back out onto the deck, reprieved!

What with my previous train of thought I had some considerable sympathy for that grease darkened griffon and a feeling of gratitude, as if he'd consciously traded his life for ours. Who's to say, maybe that was his intent?

The bellicose nature of the griffons had, in fact, kept the ponies' participation in the planning to a minimum. They were relegated to hauling up every piece of the ship that could reasonably be discarded. The standard tactics in an airship battle, where the target was required to be intact anyway, were to gain altitude and damage the balloon. The onus on using deadly force took away our advantage. All things being equal, the Morningstar should have us dead to rights, but, where their magics were limited, we had one of the better shield casters in Equestria at out disposal (though by now I imagine she was wishing we'd make some haste in our preparations) and the griffons explosive tipped projectiles were nothing to scoff at, judging by the missing stern of the Equestrian vessel. Between the two we could have decimated our pursuers readily, were their safety not lobbied for as I'd hoped.

"It was the best I could do to steer them away from more drastic tactics." Rarity told me when I complained about the uncertainty of it all, "They, of course, have little enough stake in the continued safety of any of our crew, their job is simply to escort us safely back to Eagleland. I assure you it was the best compromise I could secure despite all of our efforts on their behalf."

We'd been cooperatively wrenching the fold down bunks from the hull of the ship and piling them on deck where they awaited the moment when they would be discarded. With the amount of helium we'd mysteriously lost it was no certain thing that the lift would be sufficient, but we intended to do the best we could without hacking away the already spartan structure of the ship itself. The griffons were readying their steam powered rifles and fitting them with harpoons and ropes to damage the balloon most effectively.

Time was a factor, the Morningstar was gaining, Twilight was already straining and sweating, her horn shooting the fizzling sparks of overexertion as the cannonfire only intensified.

I understood the griffon's reservations about involving us directly. Even though they knew, factually, that these six mares had saved the world on two or more occasions, (There's some debate about that in the third case which posits that despite the changeling queen's ambition her reach far exceeded her actual grasp.) they simply couldn't overlook the fact that we were a herd of warm hearted, soft eyed, pastel ponies. Even Twilight, once her shield inevitably failed, had no place in the already overcrewed griffon's battle plans and she was inarguably the best suited to this undertaking amongst us.

Screaming death's head cutie marks would be insufficient to make us look like the sort of hard flanks who didn't need to be protected by these big bad predators of the sky.

Pinkie Pie told me that it was like they wanted to be our cool big brothers and sisters and that we should be taking it in the loving way in which it was intended.

As a principal I found it condescending. In practice I had mixed feelings. I was certain that ship was coming after me in particular and regardless of my objections I really did feel the need for some protection.

We were to be on deck up until the extra ballast was released, then retreat to the relative safety below decks. Needless to say I was not amenable to that, my phobias about the dying in the dark bowels of a doomed ship now being well known, but I really had little enough use in a proper battle.

I scrutinized the list of spells I could perform to find something useful I could add that would keep me on deck. There was nothing.

I've avoided mentioning it thus far but the plain truth is I only know about a dozen real spells and by about a dozen I actually mean precisely eight.

But I can juggle and I can ride a unicycle, not at the same time mind you, but still with a little more practice I could make it into clown college.

So that's something, right?

Captain Grizelda stood in the center of the deck and carefully surveyed the crew over which she held dominion. A few minor corrections and she conceded the preparations were probably as good as they were likely to get. Delaying any further would just allow the Morningstar more time to prepare. Since both crews were operating in full sight of each other there was no surprise to be had. With her much smaller vessel and limitations on lethality imposed by Rarity's generous goodwill, Captain Grizelda's plans relied quite heavily on the reservist's inexperience with ship to ship combat. Experience she had won the hard way in the turbulent skies of Saddle Arabia where peace was just a time to rearm and dress one's wounds.

She snapped her talons and bellowed, "Come about one eighty, flank speed, make ready to dump ballast..."

Great lumbering airships aren't intended for such drastic maneuvers. Centrifugal force swung the ship's hull outward at an exaggerated angle, pinning us in place until we'd made a full turn, then it swung pendulously, causing us to dance and stagger to keep on our hooves. The balloon turned another thirty degrees before it's momentum gave out and it swung back past center in the other direction.

All and all it had the grace of a marionette newly in the clutches of a toddling foal, which is to say, none whatever.

Crossbow range is a much longer distance than one might expect but when the ship's gyrations petered out we were frighteningly close to the Morningstar and comparatively lower than we should have been.

Considering the limited number of crew and guns that could be trained on us, the fire logically couldn't have intensified to any great degree, but we were closer to the reports and the shockwaves of their cannon's impact upon Twilight's shield shook the ship.

The polyphony of explosions, the wall of fire before us, it really brought it home. Despite my cynical detachment this was real, we were charging into an inferno and I was certain we were all going to die. For all my foalish navel gazing, my self destructive recriminations that should have appeased karma, we were all going to die.

Twilight's shield wouldn't falter and fade, I knew about the spell, it would shatter in an instant and fall away and all those explosive shells that were destined to burst against it would instead fall on us and we would all die in the cold blue skies, out of sight of land.

Broken, we would fall into the sea and be swallowed down forever and we would all die and the broken stern of our enemy was level with our deck and belching grim fire so that we could see nothing else but sparks and flame bursting across our whole world, a newborn universe of expended cordite and white hot metal and we were all going to die, oh Luna please don't take me I don't want to die, Celestia I know I've been worthless and lazy and I'm not worth the trouble to save and I want to be better and I can't promise I'll do better because I'm so weak, Celestia, you know how damn weak I am, but I don't want to die and I'll try as hard as I can to walk the narrow path, just please I don't want to die, don't let me die...

...and then there was silence and there were arms around me. I think they'd been there the whole time. Rarity's voice was saying, "...it's fine, we made it past their guns, we're going to be fine, everything's okay, we're going to be fine, it's all okay..." and I wrapped my arms around her gratefully, abject fear melting into short, hiccuping sobs.

It may be that I am ill suited to battle.

Twilight's shield had held, a corona of energy flaring from her horn flickering and speaking of it's imminent demise, but it had held and we were broadside to the Morningstar.

Their cannons and crew had been at the rear of the ship so the gunports we glided past on their sides were either vacant or uncrewed, for the first time all day, this close to the enemy, we weren't under fire. The sky was unnaturally silent as our two vessels, bent on each other's destruction, slid past each other in the cerulean sky like dancers.

"Drop ballast!" Captain Grizelda squawked. Rarity and I sprung back into action, no more time for emotion now, and quickly cleared the decks of the detritus that had been the crew's effects and comforts. At the same time Georgia blew the ballast tanks and with our weight reduced we rocketed upward.

Twilight's shield finally fell under it's own weight, shards of solidified magical energy tumbling to the sea so far below. The purple unicorn herself collapsed, only to be carried back towards the center of the deck by two of her friends.

Harpoons thumped into the underside of our hull, the cannons and their crews still misplaced for action, but we could deal with that shortly. For now we had the advantage of altitude and with their envelope was vulnerable, it was ours to press.

"Fire!" Bellowed Grizelda with her talon dramatically clenched in the air.

The steam guns unloaded their volley with loud thumps and were rapidly cycled and fired again. Where these should have assured us victory, though, they fell short. Somepony had rigged a series of steel yards across the top of their balloon. As we rose so did the yards, and they hung what appeared to be a fine mesh gill net from them down the entire length of their gasbag. It wasn't a particularly stalwart looking shield, the harpoons penetrated it with ease, but the coarse ropes they trailed from their tails were too large to pass through and were hopelessly ensnared, stopping them fast. The net being hung well proud of the gasbag itself arrested them before they could puncture it with their leak inducing hemp tails. They just hung there like fishing tackle in a hat.

In the confusion our intended banishment from the deck was overlooked to my mixed relief. A dozen griffons, half the crew or thereabouts, armed with their naturally given complement of weapons, made ready to fly over, tear the net away and ravage the white whale manually.

An equal number of pegasi, armed with wing blades and pikes, summited the balloon from the far side, well prepared to put down any such attempts. In truth the pegasi's reach and greater weight gave them the advantage from a fixed position and both sides knew it.

The griffons looked back to their captain for guidance and she gestured for them to back off, "Reload the guns with the high explosive rounds and give them a couple warning shots! Ahead half and we'll see if we can't get around that net!"

She didn't waste rounds on the balloon, it would heal from most punctures without something to keep them open and the volatile rounds wouldn't meet enough resistance to trigger their charges, making them useless.

The pegasi scattered for a moment when fired on directly, then lit back on the top of the balloon as we lumbered ahead towards the bow of their balloon. The crew on the deck of the Morningstar were not left idle. Much as we had they were hastily dumping their excess articles to gain altitude. We made it around the front of their ship as they rose above us. We had no more ballast to lose and so were at an altitude disadvantage. They let fly with their own harpoons and soon had a crippling number of lines fished through the fabric of our envelope.

Unless our gasbag could be patched up immediately the ship would be lost. The situation had just turned desperate for us and the captain knew it. She looked to Rarity and growled, "Deal's off." Then screamed for her gunners to open fire with the explosive rounds, which they expediently did. Captain Grizelda deemed the situation desperate enough to attack in earnest and with her full force, killing and maiming whomever she might.

Rarity still stood close by me. For her part, she was looking at what rips in the fabric she could discern and almost certainly thinking about how she could repair it's gaping wounds, but it looked rather hopeless.

The bow of the Morningstar took all the punishment their steam guns could give, it's white wood splintering and falling away like straw in the wind under the thunderous assault. When the gunners paused momentarily to assess the damage they'd done they were disheartened to find that the entire bow was built up of metal plate underneath the wood, which their explosives did little to harm.

"Don't you have armor piercing rounds?" Rainbow Dash demanded. The captain shook her head, "What kind of warship is this when you haven't got anything worth fighting with!"

"It's not a warship at all!" Countered Georgia, "We're a diplomatic escort vessel, the harpoons are enough to take care of small warships and the explosive rounds are to scare off dragons, we're not equipped to be taking on an Equestrian gunship!"

Our ship backed off so much as it could and came around broadside where out rounds might do some damage, but nary a round was fired before a hiss of steam erupted from the trunk line that supplied the guns. Ever the helpful sort, Pinkie Pie pointed to it, "Your doohickey just went kerblooie."

We were leashed to the Morningstar by thick ropes in the hull and balloon both, a wounded animal trapped and tethered, just waiting for the killing blow. Their cannons finally barked to life, but instead of lethal loads it was mercifully a volley of mince pies with which we were assaulted. It was a way of telling us that we would be dead by now if that had been their desire.

"Cut all the lines, we'll have to set down in the sea and try to fend them off from there!" Captain Grizelda directed and her griffons set to work severing the lines. The ropes, however, had different ideas. They glowed with an orange aura and retied themselves.

Rainbow Dash watched in disgust, then flew up to their bow.

"Clove Hitch!" She yelled, landing on the prow of the Morningstar, "I know that's you! Now you just cut that out!"

All action stopped, both sides waiting for the response in silence. Sitting below the bow at the limits of their tether the once friendly visage of a white whale loomed over us, a passively leering god, waiting to pass judgment on we poor sinners in our battered craft.

"Aw c'mon, Commander, you know I can't do that!" A voice yelled from the Morningstar.

"Says who?" Rainbow Dash demanded, "You cut us loose right now or I'll have you up for insubordination!"

"It...I don't think it works like that. You can't order us around when you've been taken by the enemy! I'll have to ask the Lieutenant about this." The soldier said and called for Keen Edge who saluted his erstwhile commander. They had a heated argument who's words drifted away with the wind. It ended with confused frustration on both faces and he walked to the bow of the ship and yelled to Captain Grizelda.

"Parley?" He asked.

"Parley." She conceded and flew herself over to join Rainbow Dash on the Morningstar.

"Marvelous," Rarity grumbled, "Quickly now, who here is proficient with a needle and thread?"

Hesitantly I raised my hoof.

I can sew with the best of them. I went through a phase where I made my own clothes, I even made my own prom dress though I didn't attend the event itself. That's a whole story in and of itself if you've the time and a pint of whiskey.

With the assistance of six griffons, two of whom could also sew, Rarity, Fluttershy and I patched up the leaky griffon ship as quickly as we could. Fluttershy was unencumbered, but both Rarity and I were in harnesses hoisted by griffons as we worked. My previous fear of heights, thankfully, didn't seem to affect me over the ocean. We were so high that the scale was completely foreign. If I fell it looked as if it would be some modest distance into a deep blue shag rug that swayed in the breeze. I fumbled a needle, it's arcing curve flashed the sunlight with each revolution seemingly forever, trailing thirty yards of coarse beeswaxed thread until it finally shrank away to nothing, an abstract curiosity rather than symbolic of danger.

Our curved needles darted through the gooey backed silver fabric patches and back out. We quilted them in place right over the harpoons, their ropes trimmed off to a more manageable length. They left tall, tented blemishes under each square of added cloth. By the time we were done the balloon was a silver pufferfish and we sat, pleased with a job well done, atop the somewhat flaccid balloon, three ponies and the lazing griffons.

It wasn't shirking, there was little enough to be accomplished until terms had been reached.

"Sea Swirl, darling, can that amplifying spell that you used to talk to fish be redirected to hear the goings on over on the Morningstar?" Rarity inquired. I hadn't ever thought of using it as an ease dropping spell. I considered it and simply couldn't see any reason that it wouldn't work.

"I think so, I'll try." I said and cast it. After some adjusting and focusing I found a balance that let us hear the pertinent going's on.

"...is what you're telling me, and you really expect me to believe that?" Captain Grizelda's amplified voice was saying.

"Believe it or don't, they fired on us first!" Keen Edge insisted. The Morningstar's Captain was nodding in the background.

"But that's..." She looked back to her own ship and called out harshly, "Captain Gale? Get over here!"

A griffon in an outfit much like Grizelda's but tailored much more elegantly flew over to join them on the battlescarred deck, she was curtly introduced around, then Grizelda's scrutiny fell upon her. "How certain are you that the ponies' ship fired upon you first?"

"How certain?" Gale was taken aback, "Quite certain. As a show of trust we didn't have but a paltry few guns mounted, and I didn't feel them fire until well after your cannons fired!"

"I was on the gundeck," Keen Edge observed, "We most certainly did not fire those cannon."

"Perhaps we need to track this back to it's origins, where was the first explosion?" Grizelda asked.

"When their guns struck our hull!" Keen Edge gestured to the ship's starboard.

"No, the first explosion was their cannon firing." Gale adamantly replied.

"What kind of damage did you sustain?" Captain Grizelda demanded of her colleague.

"I've little enough idea about that." Gale replied, "We returned fire promptly, but the ship was dead in the air long before I had a chance to get a proper damage report."

"Perhaps we should inspect the damage on this vessel, then, hmm?" Grizelda arched her eyebrow. Keen edge took them the the starboard side of the ship and pointed down. The two griffon captains and Rainbow Dash flew down to inspect the impact sites. From our perch we were at a poor angle to see them but we could still make out their words.

They were large, star shaped holes with jagged edges tinged black with soot, regularly situated between the gun hatches across the Starboard side of the Morningstar. Grizelda ran a talon over the sooty leavings and rubbed the charred powder away between her fingers. "Do you see a problem with this?"

"I...No. Wait, it's the soot, isn't it?" Gale asked.

"The soot? Of course there's soot, there was an explosion." Rainbow Dash said with an irritation tinged voice.

"Our munitions use smokeless powder, nitrocellulose and the like. The marks it leaves are unlike those when they explode." Gale clarified, "Those marks were made by black powder charges, and to do this sort of damage they would have to have been exploded in contact with the outside of the hull."

"This explosion was intentionally set with pony made explosives and fixed to the outside of the hull. They assumed they were fired upon and you assumed they fired upon you." Grizelda said and the three of them returned to the deck where Keen Edge was considering their revelation, "If it's not some sort of subterfuge, and we will, for now, assume that it isn't, I'd say you have a saboteur on board."

"A very successful one at that." Gale said, "They fooled us both and dealt mortal blows to both griffon airships. Your Morningstar has been made to be rather an eyesore by the skirmish as well. It's lucky noone was badly injured."

"I have an idea how we can find out saboteur." Keen Edge stated, "We just need to know who shot out the signal light, because they had to have known that we would have sorted this out if only we'd been able to communicate."

"Actually that's my fault." Grizelda admitted. Of course it wasn't her fault at all. It was mine. My harebrained theory had run rampant and caused all this destruction.

"Gottfried!" Captain Grizelda yelled back to her ship and the scrawny griffon flew over and presented himself with a smart salute and frightened demeanor, "Just what was the extent of the message that was being sent to us when their light was extinguished?"

Gottfried gulped, he knew now, for certain, that he was the bearer of bad news, "It said, 'These unprovoked hostilities will not be tolerated. As per the treaty of nine eighty 'um...something,' we demand you release your hostages immediately and prepare for...' before we hit it, Captain."

Grizelda clenched her eyes shut, held her beak between her forefingers and sighed, "We shot it out to keep you from making ultimatums. We thought, at the time, that you had one of the Element Bearers and the crew of the ship hostage."

"Where did you get an idea like that?" Keen Edge bristled.

"Paranoia and overactive imaginations." Grizelda replied. I felt all the eyes atop that sagging dirigible upon me as I let the eavesdropping spell collapse.

"Oh, buck me." I got the distinct impression that I was headed for rough seas.

Author's Notes:

Run on sentences are indicative of a right and proper freakout.

Have you ever read a mystery novel or watched a detective novel where the protagonist makes wild assumptions that are later proven to be correct? Humphrey Bogart is pretty bad about it. He goes and beats up some guy on a hunch and, surprise, it's always correct, innit? Well Sea Swirl's like the opposite of that, though she doesn't seem to realize it. Her omens and assumptions don't seem to pan out at a better than average rate. Still she puts them out there as if they matter.

In the next chapter?
Let's say they get fed up, throw her off the ship and she has to SOS for rescue from the you know who's.

Adrift

When the battered griffon airship was cut loose from the taut lines that attached it to the Morningstar it heeled over and bolted seaward, looking for all the world like a skittish pufferfish finally cut loose from a trap line. It was in far better shape than our current crowded vessel, but there was little that could be done to save it with it's loss of buoyancy. Our repairs had been too little, too late, so with Captain Grizelda's grudging consent it was abandoned, set adrift to founder itself in the vast uncaring sea.

It fell softly through the cloud cover and was lost to sight, "I never even knew it's name." I said wistfully.

"The escorts, we name after sea birds," Captain Gale, if she was truly such without her ship beneath her, said, "My own ship was the Cormorant, and a better ship you'll never come across." She gestured to where Grizelda's ship had disappeared, "Her's was a fine enough craft, but built in the yards of the Fowlmouth Docks Company when they were mass producing ships for the naval modernization effort, back when it looked like the Germanes were going to start up a world war. We've Celestia to thank for pacifying that little flare up. What I'm getting at was that my Cormorant was crafted, an artwork, where her Albatross was a standard design, mass produced in the hundreds. It's pointless to mourn the loss of something that was meant to be disposable when it was new, some sixty years back. They built those crates for no other purpose but to choke their harbors with our dead. If it had a soul it would have been some benign, servile thing, pleased and relieved to give it's life in service to it's crew."

That's right, the bucking Albatross, and though I hadn't shot the guns or cut the ropes that sent her to her death, it was my actions that lead directly to it's dire end. Luna take me now. If I wasn't cursed before I'd certainly have to be after this.

Gale's words were meant to assuage my melancholic bent, and though the words themselves did not, the sentiment helped and I came to realize something, the griffons liked me, every bird-jack of them. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

It was a fact that Grizelda had taken what happened on her shoulders, absolving me of any blame. "It's my ship, the bit and the blame stop with me. We were all of us played by a saboteur, it seems. One who couldn't help but to still be amongst us. Atonement is for that scurrying miscreant alone. If you're set on feeling guilty over it, repay it by keeping out a vigilant eye." She'd told me kindly and the erstwhile crew of the two lost ships treated me jovially and as if I were an old friend, speaking freely about all that had happened and speculating on what could be done about it.

The ponies looked at me distrustfully, but at least that seemed sensible. They may have even thought I was the saboteur and under my mother's thrall, I'm uncertain. They gave me a wide berth and steered well clear of any topics that might lead back to discussing how we got into our current situation. Their reticence was an implicit accusation, which is the worst kind. Anything outright I could at least defend myself against, speak out and stand up for myself, but there's no way to defend yourself if nopony will speak against you overtly. Getting angry over a stinkeye just makes you look crazy as well as guilty.

Even so, it was far from certain where the danger came from. To that end it was decided that we should all be made to pair up pony to griffon and never let our partners leave our sight. Our partners were chosen by lots but by the time I drew we'd run out of griffons, their number being about half of our own. I drew Pinkie Pie, which garnered sympathetic snickers, but I liked Pinkie Pie pretty well, really. She was a bit unfocused, but the task to which we were assigned were nothing but busywork anyway.

If you're required to swab the deck for hours a day it's just as well to have a pony who can make a song and dance of it along with you.

Not that I dance.

Or sing.

Not if there's any chance of anypony so much as suspecting that it's what I was doing, much less seeing or hearing me.

When I am assured of my privacy, however, I have a sweet enough voice. My moves, however, are tragic. What the earth ponies always say about unicorns not being able to dance is a stereotype for a reason.

I came to notice that the majority of the crew were set to repairing the ship, timber and shavings littering the deck. Even the unskilled were being put to use caulking and painting the newly refurbished sections of the hull. I was torn between anger that my own skills were not being utilized and being grateful that I wasn't being forced into the more arduous labor around ponies who'd come to distrust me. As is my wont, I chose the path that would lead to me bleatingly making a mule of myself before the greatest number of ponies.

I moved to rise from my stoop over the scrub brush, intent on an impassioned speech and a plea for respect when Pinkie Pie broke off from her treatise on the inner workings of a cotton candy maker, (Which, if true, turn my whole notion of the structure of spun sugar and physics on it's head. Who knew that cotton candy was originally invented as an analog to demonstrate string theory?) reached out a hoof, brought me back down and shushed me.

"Don't go getting the wrong idea and going off half cocked, Sea Swirl," The pink pony told me, hoof still keeping me bent to my work, "They're keeping me out of the way with all this deck swabbing, not you."

I wanted to know how she knew what I was thinking, but she answered before I could ask, "Silly, I can read you like a book, and not a chapter book either. One of those with pictures and just enough words on the page to read along with to a foal. Like, um...Good Night Luna? That's Pound's favorite. Pumpkin likes Everypony Poops, but I think mostly because I can't help but giggle the whole time I'm reading it. Anywho, I was saying that I can read you like that. What kind of best friend would I be if I couldn't?"

"Er..."

"Silly! It's a equatorial question!"

"You mean rhetorical." I stated.

"Potato, pah-tah-toe." She replied and I wanted to protest that equatorial was not remotely another pronunciation of rhetorical, but it was so stupid an it caught me off guard and I accidentally started to grin against my will.

"So why wouldn't they want you helping in a somewhat more useful way?" I cocked my head and arched an eyebrow, "You seem to be more talented than you let on and you'd certainly be put to better use than scrubbing up the deck."

"I guess, maybe, but then it depends on how you look at it." She swept a hoof to indicate the myriad of activity going on around us, "They're fixing up the ship, they even slowed down so we'd have it looking ship shape for when we get to Eagleland. Heh, it's a ship shape ship we shall sail. But what's it matter what a ship that's going to sneak in at night and get hidden away where no one can see it loots like? It still flew fine and I thought it was more interesting with a few holes blown in it, all post apoplectic-ey. Plus, most of the crew's not going to have anything to do while we're searching, so wouldn't it be better to save the work 'til then so they'd have some task to keep them happy?"

"The way it is they're just going to be waiting anxiously on the ship, playing cards or checkers or something. I wish I had something for them, but they dumped my chest of party supplies to save weight and all I've got is my emergency backup pin the tail on the pony set and a jump rope. I'm trying to arrange for something better, though."

"Anywhat, all this work isn't about patching up the ship, it's about about patching up their spirits so they can cross the border with their heads held high, even though they don't know it. But you know it, and I know it, and once you know then you see that it's ALL busy work so it doesn't matter what you're actually doing, just so long as we're all working together. Plus, the deck DOES need scrubbed, which is your part, and waxed and polished, which is mine."

"Is that what you're doing? I wondered how you were getting it so nice and shiny." I considered it for a bit, "Isn't it going to be a bit slick, though? Is that really a good idea?"

"Well it has to be slick. I've got some cans of water chestnuts from the back of the pantry and some ramrods to use as sticks, but none of that matters if we can't get the deck slick enough to slide across." Pinkie chirped, hopped up and demonstrated sliding back and forth on the freshly waxed deck.

"Why's that now?" I thought I missed something somewhere.

"Because we don't want to take the hard work away from anyone. Cooperating and accomplishing something makes them happy, so we're stuck doing the important work and making a hockey rink for when they're bored later." Pinkie smiled and I finally understood, "Since repairing the ship doesn't actually matter it's easily the most useful thing we could be doing right now."

"That's like, subversive happiness right there. You're good." I admitted.

"I know, right? Sometimes my friends just can't see what really matters and I have to be all sneaky." Pinkie beamed.

"But you didn't say why they were trying to keep you from the other work." I said and instantly regretted it as Pinkie scowled. Fortunately it passed as quickly as it had come.

"I may have read the plans backwards and put the bowsprit on the stern and been in the process of taking the rudder up front. Then it's possible that they asked me if I wouldn't do better with a job where I didn't have to read blueprints and here I am." Pinkie giggled.

I didn't think she was really that scatterbrained, I called her on it, "It was a schtick, wasn't it?"

She grinned wide and scrunched her eyes, "Silly! A Pinkie never tells and a gentlemare never asks! You're just lucky you got paired up with me!"

"Yeah," I sighed, "That way you can keep an eye on me and make sure I'm not the saboteur."

She shook her head and said kindly, if a bit sadly, "I already know you're not the saboteur."

I nodded in gratitude, it was good to know somepony had faith in me. Pinkie's chatter was the white noise that kept my mind sedated. It wasn't until after dinner, when I'd had a moment to think that I scrutinized her words. I invited her to come out on the deck with me, ostensibly to check on the hockey rink, "It's pretty slick, but I'm not sure it'll really work."

"It'll work, the players will just have to wear socks. Luckily I had some stashed in case of sock emergency, so we should be good." Pinkie Pie said with a grin.

"It's...it's not really what I brought you up here for, I just wanted a little privacy to ask you..."

"Oh, Sea Swirl!" She enthusiastically interrupted, "I didn't know you felt that way about me! I'm flattered, of course, but I'll have to think about it. Just the other day I found out Dashie's had a crush on me this whole time and I don't want to hurt her feelings..."

"What? No, that's not what I..." I cocked my head, "But you knew that wasn't what I meant, didn't you? You always do seem to know just a little more than you let on, like when you said you knew I wasn't the saboteur, you didn't mean it like you had faith and trusted me, did you? I think you actually did know, so tell me, how did you know?"

"I can't say." She said without thinking and it could have been a fluke, but she guiltily covered her mouth.

"Buck." I looked around, there were ponies and griffons around, but none of them close enough to overhear and none were looking our direction, "So it was you and you've known what was going on this whole time."

Pinkie Pie looked guiltily conflicted and stammered, unable to form a rebuttal. I was torn between covering up her secret and exposing her immediately.

"I still don't get it, what was the point of picking a fight with the griffons when we were onboard their ship?" I asked and surprisingly she answered.

"Well, the charges were fused to go off in the middle of the night, we just didn't get back in time, I didn't know how strong that liquor was. We aren't supposed to be too chummy with the griffons, having them around brings their government and their army into things that I don't know and can't say if I did. We needed to have them angry at us and we should have distrusted them too, but since I bucked it all up with us being on their ship, I thought I could force the Griffons to surrender by dumping their helium, then everybody would be mad and they wouldn't work together. It didn't come out that way, exactly and now I don't know what to do so I made a hockey rink because above all I'm supposed to act like everything's normal and nothing's wrong and...I can't say...and...shoot...I can't say that either. It's getting to be pretty hard, though, but I don't think anypony can tell, so it's probably okay." Pinkie Pie revealed in one rushed statement, as if she wanted to get it all out before the spell realized what she was doing. She looked as shocked as me that she'd been able to reveal as much as she had.

"Okay, I'll get Twilight and we'll tell her, she'll be able to do something." I said quietly, not daring to raise my voice and effect the metaphorical and literal spell that Pinkie was under.

"Nuh-uh." Pinkie Pie shook her head, "What'll you tell her? Unless you've thought of anything tricky? No? Well we're still in the same boat, besides it might not just be...oh, I can't say."

I knew what she was implying, though. It could just as well be me, too, who was a sleeper agent and I might not even know it. At least that's what I thought she meant at the time, "Okay. Point taken. Can you tell me anything else?"

"I can't say. But let me think about it." She replied and fell silent.

We stood on that moonlight drenched deck, riding high above a deck of thunderheads strobing with lightning. I leaned on the rail in circuitous contemplation of our plight and it's implications. When I looked back I'd found that Pinkie had lain down and fallen asleep on the deck, a grin on her face even in sleep and in spite of what she was being forced to do.

I thought I must have fallen asleep too, because when I looked back to check on Pinkie she was silently standing directly beside me, half a yard away.

In a lightning flash I saw her clearly and I started.

It was Pinkie, but it also wasn't. Her mane lay flat, her coat had lost it's glow, looking lifeless and gray, her left eye twitched and her lips were visibly fighting a constant battle to keep from curling into a snarl. I stepped back in fright, pressed up against the rail with wide eyes.

Heavy thunder crashed below us and she spoke in an unearthly whisper, "I thought of something else I could tell you. Something important, but you're not going to like it."

"Tell me." I whispered back breathlessly, I still wasn't sure I was awake, everything seemed a bit off, but maybe it was the pink presence in my face that skewed my perspective.

"You were a last minute substitution, a cataclysm used for a catalyst. This game isn't one you were supposed to play in past the first round. Come daylight we should be over Eagleland and that accident will cost you...but maybe, maybe there's nothing stopping me and I can shoulder it on my own and take you out of play and if you make it and stay hidden maybe you can stay free of it, even though you can't help. Seriously, don't try to help, you can't. I'm not even sure you can run, but at least you have a shot...if you make it." Pinkie said, her eyes darting and wild, one second boring into me, the next scanning the deck. I didn't understand what point she was trying to make, her speech and demeanor all seemed so surreal.

"Pinkie, you're scaring me..." I said, then she bowed her head for a moment. Her eyes flashed blue steel, she charged the scant distance between us and flung me flank over teakettle over the rail.

I screamed a shrill and hopeless scream. I was flailing as I burst through the cloud layer and was instantly drenched as I fell into it. In the darkness the demarcation between the cloud and sky was pretty hard to pinpoint, but the lightning flashes revealed that I'd fallen through the thunderheads and was plowing a comet's path through the falling rain drops. I flipped towards the ocean, though I couldn't see it in the darkness and the rain.

I ran through my limited options. If you fall and are going to hit the ground your best option is to relax and hit back first. Really it's your only option. I don't think that will work if you have to swim immediately after impact so that's right out.

I could streamline my body to cut through the water, but that had barely worked at thirty yards so it wasn't a good option either. If only I could soften my landing.

That's when I had a panic induced brainstorm. Mom hadn't been lying about my being able to do my eponymous whirlpool spell and that gave some credibility to her assertions of my being a shipwrecker. I can't even remember learning it, I just always knew it. What's it good for? I can make whirlpools that fling the water away and leave the ocean floor bare, though I've only tried it in fairly shallow depths, it's allowed me to walk on the ocean floor. Disregarding any offensive uses, which I don't remember, I've never really gone any farther with that spell and explored it's limits. Now would be a good time, though.

I sent my magic downward, straining to locate the ocean and form a vortex, to create a whirlpool that started out no bigger than I am and gradually tapered away over the greatest depth possible, a tube of water reaching into the depths. That way I would contact the sides of the funnel instead of a flat, hard surface and scrub off speed.

If it worked, and it felt like it was working, even though I couldn't see it, I'd still be at too great a depth to survive the pressure, but I figured I could solve that problem if the whole falling from the sky thing sorted itself out.

By the time I felt confident it was working my magic was on the wane but I remembered my recent lesson and switched to pulsing the energy.

It was the wrong move, it doesn't work on that spell. The vortex failed and collapsed in on itself and there wasn't enough time to create another. I tried anyway, my horn blazing with a desperate purple aura as I grit my teeth and concentrated.

No chance, my horn sputtered and popped.

Buck.

My lightshow, however, had been a beacon for somebody and I was roughly lifted by my hind limbs, a lazy arc killing my downward momentum. Looking back a pair of eagle talons had a firm grip on hocks, claws digging in ever so slightly.

I couldn't tell who it was, griffons kind of look alike to me and doubly so in the dark and rain. All I knew is that she had her eyes clenched tightly against the rain and was straining to keep me aloft in the downpour. She couldn't do it for long and shortly my forelimbs skimmed the water and I was unceremoniously dropped in after them with a plop.

"Can you swim?" She asked and I recognized the voice as Georgia's. She hovered just above me as I bobbed in the waves, treading water.

"Yeah," I understated it a bit, "I can swim. Thanks for saving me."

"Don't thank me yet, I can't get you clear back to the ship myself, I'm going to try and get back up there and recruit some more lifting power." She looked to the storm darkened sky, "They may be on their way already. If they get here before I get back tell them to light a signal and wait. I don't want to be searching all night for somepony that's already been rescued, right?" She hovered anxiously, itching to get back above the clouds.

"Right. Go on then, I'll be fine, and thanks again." She nodded to me and shot away and out of view. Then I was alone in the cold dark sea with rain pouring down on me.

It could be worse, though, I'd survived the fall. Maybe it was being so close to death so many times lately, or the fact that I'd been half asleep but the whole falling to certain doom thing hadn't had the sort of effect on me one might expect. Aside from that, the waves were pretty moderate and the seas weren't frigid by any means and, most importantly, help was on the way.

When I was a filly I tread water all day one time, must have been sixteen hours, just because I wanted to see if I could. I only quit because I was hungry and sleepy. Later, when I applied as a lifeguard at a local beach, one of the questions was 'how long can you tread water?' I didn't get that job and I attribute it to the fact that my answer, 'until I get hungry,' was probably viewed as a weird bit of smart assery. Even so, when hours ground by and no one came for me I started to consider whether I ought to start some less energy intensive techniques. The dead mare's float and such.

The storm died, the sun's Easterly glow finally painted the horizon and gave me direction. Even though it went against everything I'd been taught, or the 'stay in one place so that you'll be easier to find' part of it, I struck off towards the sunrise. I'm not sure how far it was to Eagleland but I had a pretty good idea it was farther than I could swim. Still, the alternatives were few. Either wait for rescue, swim for it or give up. A big, dark part of myself was goading me to do the latter, but these hopeless situations are where I really excel. It's part of being a fatalist, I think, that I find stuff like this morbidly funny and it does a considerable amount towards stoking my survival instinct. A mad glee sort of takes over and spurs me on.

That glee was considerably shaken an hour to the East when I first spotted a lone griffon circling, then momentarily settling on the water before taking off again. She did it many times. I know because it took at least half an hour to finally get within shouting distance of the poor bedraggled creature. I couldn't figure out what she was doing, circling and touching down over and over again.

"Georgia? Is that you?" I called out. Her head flicked up towards me, "What have you got there?"

"It'sa...s'a board. I's tryin' to land on...but it sinks." She answered in a slurred monotone, but I got closer and I finally saw what she was doing. She was trying to land on a waterlogged bit of timber, but it would sink away everytime she tried. I could guess she hadn't made it back to the ship and had spent the whole night lost in the storm. Her erratic actions kind of indicated that her fatigue had reached a critical point.

"You can't swim, can you?" I asked. Maybe that was the cat half of her asserting itself. She shook her head, a look of utter despair blooming in her eyes, "It's fine, land on my back. I'll still be able to tread water and you can rest for a bit."

I didn't need to ask twice. Her extra weight settled me slightly deeper into the sea, but her added buoyancy went a long way towards keeping her afloat. In the end I couldn't tell that it was any harder carrying her than not. I couldn't swim very fast with her back there, though.

Her claws and talons dug into my shoulders and I turned to tell her to knock it off, but when I looked back I saw she'd fallen asleep standing on her front legs with her rear settled down, so I figured it wasn't worth waking her for. If she could nap half submerged in the lapping waves, precariously perched on a swimmers back, who was I to interrupt her?

It was many hours before Georgia stirred again. I'd grown used to her weight there and even the intrusive barbs of her claws had lost their sting when she retracted them and stretched with a yawn, "Damn, I was hoping that was a nightmare."

"You sound a lot better." I observed.

"Yeah, I'm glad you happened along, I was pretty loopy towards the end, wasn't I?" Georgia laughed sheepishly, "How long was I out?"

"Half the day." I gestured upwards towards the sun with the little of my muzzle that still broke the surface, "I've been swimming East, not making great time at it. Now with the sun right overhead I'm not dead sure I'm headed the right way anymore. I was thinking of just treading water here until I could be sure."

"No, you're fine. Maybe fifteen degrees off due East, to the North, but there's bound to be some drift." She said and before I could ask about it she told me that griffons have an innate sense of direction, like a built in compass, I was later informed that that's an old pony tale.

"Do you know how far from land we are?" I asked hopefully,

"A ways yet. Farther than I can fly in one go, I think." She stretched her wings appraisingly, "Can't you, y'know, call some dolphins? I hear they help swimmers all the time."

"I would have, but I haven't heard them or any other creature I can talk to all night. We're in a pretty deep part of the ocean, so there's a lot less activity of that sort out here. I can try anyway, but it'll work better if I'm under water so the sound carries right. You'll have to get off my back for a minute." When she lifted off it was an immense relief. Forget what I said about it not being any harder swimming with her than without. Suddenly I was light and free again.

I dove under, cast my time tested amplifying spell and chirped and grunted out a call for help to any dolphins nearby. I got no response, rose for a breath, dove back under and tried the same thing for every species I could think of from manatees to narwhals. Killer whales to sea serpents. I even tried what little I knew of the shark's language. Contrary to popular belief they weren't all likely to kill you. I called it quits, there just wasn't anyone this far out.

"I'm sure we'll hear something when we get closer in." I called up to Georgia, trying to reassure her.

"You tired?" She asked. In truth I was, but it didn't seem like it mattered much since I had to keep swimming, so I just made non-committal grunts, "I can carry you for a while, let you rest for a bit if you want to try."

I did want to try and told her so. I couldn't sleep as she flew like she could when I swam, but it was something. She hugged me to her chest with her talons, gently for once and without those sharp damn claws. My legs dangled, the warm noon air gusted over me, burning away the moisture, leaving me covered in an itchy, salty rime. Georgia started to tell me how she came to be down here. I think it was a catharsis for her more than anything. It was clear what we were going to have to do to survive, but complaining, up to a point, is a good balm. "I'm not sure why the ship hasn't come after us. That pink friend of yours saw you falling and I took off after you just figuring she'd tell somebody else and they'd come help."

"Where was your buddy?" I asked, since we'd all been paired up so as to keep tabs on each other.

"Asleep. But I was on watch so I couldn't leave yet. I should have made him stay up, it was against the rules, he was supposed to be watching me." She spit in disgust, managing to get a bit of overspray on me, "But why wouldn't your Captain come back for us? Does he just count us as expendable or something?"

"I can't say." I said, by which I meant that Pinkie hadn't told anyone and if no one had seen her go there was little hope of rescue on that front. I don't really know why she sent Georgia to save me, that seemed risky for her.

"I can't figure it either." Then she gave me a scrutinizing look, "How did you manage to fall off the ship anyway?"

"I can't say."

"Accident, huh? Well, I guess it happens to the best of us. They really should put higher railings on those ships. They say it's not necessary since the whole crew can fly, but I tell you, we lose more stuff over the sides than I'd like to admit and it's jarring when you do trip over the stupid knee high things." She groused, wholly misinterpreting my reply, "I guess you're wondering why I don't just fly us to land?"

"It had occurred to me." I said, "I've seen pegasi carry ponies quite a long way and their wings are quite a bit smaller than griffon wings."

I winced as I said it, expecting that it would be a sore spot, but it had quite the opposite reaction, she was suddenly enthusiastic to elucidate the differences, "See, that, that right there is the whole thing. Pegasi have smaller wings, but for sheer body density they average a third heavier than a griffon, so you wouldn't think it'd work at all would you? But it turns out we fly completely differently. The pegasi, being ponies, are connected with the magic of the world much closer than we griffons. I mean ponies seem to be the chosen race, somehow, I never got that, really."

"My point is that pegasi couldn't fly if they were just pushing against the air, their wings are just too small, but they're pushing against the inherent magic in the air. It's brilliant when you think of it, but it turns out we do too, just to a much lesser degree, so the pegasi are generally a bit stronger fliers than us even though we have bigger wings. They don't get tired as quick with the smaller wings either so they can fly longer distances. I'd be jealous, I guess, but I get to be an apex predator, I could peck their intestines out if I felt like it, so I think I've still got the upper talon."

I gave her a horrified look and she backpedaled on that last bit, "Well, I mean, not that I ever would, but it does make you feel sort of superior when your rival's a prey animal."

"This sort of thing is why ponies are still afraid of griffons." I told her.

"Well, I think we secretly like when you're afraid, at least a little bit. It's close to respect only you haven't got to earn it." She shook her head, "You though, you weren't afraid of us, trying to impress us and kiss up like those other ponies. For that, you've got my respect."

"Leave it to a griffon to only respect ponies who're as rude as they are." I said and we both chuckled, it was certainly true enough to be funny.

Shortly we were forced from the air and Georgia roosted on my back again as I swam. We kept this pattern up for hours, then a day. I learned to nap hanging in the air. We gave up talking for lack of water to lubricate our throats and with no land in sight it was pretty certain one of us would give out pretty soon. I was determined it would not be me.

I made my mind a machine, a steadily thrumming taskmaster whose only concern was to keep those dead, heavy hooves churning. They tried to give out, but I wouldn't let them, in my mind I was unstoppable, a mindless, industrial thing made of great hunks of recalcitrant muscle that needed to be coerced by sheer mental force. I gladly let my underlying flecks of madness fester into a grinning pandemonium and channeled it all into continued forward motion. By the time Georgia missed her turn flying and looked unlikely to recuperate I'd left all semblance of sanity in the waves. Aside from the twitches and the brief fits of dry laughter there was no particular sign. I kept moving and kept moving... until I didn't.

I rolled over on my back, floating. Georgia tried to lift me, but she couldn't. She hovered sloppily above me.

"Leave me," I croaked, "Fly on, maybe you can still make it. I'm already dead."

"I'm not leaving you." She said in a harsh, hoarse whisper, "I'm not. I'll drown, and I won't leave you besides, not after all this. We'll die together, it'll be fine."

That was not remotely my idea of fine but I just didn't have it in me to argue. I was dehydrated, possibly insane and hallucinating lightly. I was trying to figure out if the alicorn goddess with fish tail before us was real when I realized something. I could hear someone. A pod of dolphins playing not far off and I called to them. A desperate plea for help and in moments they had surrounded us.

I spoke to them in hurried, clipped squeaks. Then I pleaded with them but they shook their heads, not wanting anything to do with us.

"Bucking dolphins," I managed, then bellowed with a cracking voice, "I'll kill you all!"

They just laughed in their dolphin way and sped off. Apparently the griffons had caught some dolphins in their fishing nets and let them die, a tragedy they were intent upon doubling. When they saw Georgia they thought it would be a good lesson if they just let us die for her race's transgressions. Then they said they were going to warn any creature who'd listen to stay away from us, telling them that we were killers setting a trap.

"No go." Was all I told Georgia. Then I rolled back over, rage made me a locomotive again and I started swimming, I didn't really have any choice, "Hop on."

Georgia managed one more flight later on, but I was soon back in the water. Dusk came and with it fog. My mechanized dreams were giving way to a grandiose, sobbing despair that was threatening to break free. I had to keep gulping down my cries to keep them from escaping because as soon as the did, that would be the end.

I thought I must have slipped into the land of the dead still swimming because a twisted black prow peeked out from the fog and headed towards us. I nudged the sleeping griffon on my back, but she didn't move so I figured she was dead too. The brief hope that it was a regular ship, not a ghost ship was dashed as it drew closer, headed straight for us and then stopped, dead in the water but a yard before us.

Real ships didn't move in that manner, it was just impossible. No voices rose and no lights shone from the battered hulk. I recognized it though, and then I knew it was a phantom as surely as if it'd been tied around my neck, following me.

I nudged the dead gryphon again to tell her the news, "It's come for us. It's the bucking Albatross."

Then I made for the ship's ladder and trudged up it with my cadaverous companion in tow. Buck this, I thought as I crashed to the deck, I've had enough, I know when I'm licked, I'm calling the damned seaponies.

Author's Notes:

It's not altogether clear that the ponies are mad at Sea Swirl so much as she's assuming, she has a tendency towards paranoia and a sense of persecution. I can't imagine they're too well pleased, however.

Our narrator seems to have died and been scooped up by a ghost ship, which presents certain problems.

Alternate Modes of Transportation

I awoke to water being drizzled on my lips from a rag. In the glaring light I couldn't see who was doing it, but I assumed correctly that it was Georgia. I greedily lapped up the water, then said the first thing that came to mind and croaked, "That rag is bucking filthy."

I was alive. Then the rag splatted over my eyes. I giggled with joy and swiped it away. I located the bucket of precious water that it'd been soaked in and made to dunk my muzzle in it. Strong talons forced me back, "No, you can't do that. You have to go easy or you'll get sick!"

I nodded, marshaled all my restraint and sipped at the water that I so longed to guzzle down.

The deck on which I lay was heeled over twenty degrees to starboard and even without it's engines or a sail it was moving forward at a good clip. It didn't roll in the waves as one would expect, but then I'm not sure what one is meant to expect from a ghost ship.

It was strange, but it appeared like it had been stylized once it became a phantom to impart a certain gothic dread. Gone but a short time, the decks were washed a deep black. The pallid railings had grown ornate carvings and all the fittings were from an earlier era. Cast gargoyle's heads guarded the wheelhouse, surrounding it's door frame full of carved lilies. The anchor points that once held the riggings had been transformed from simple wooden cleats into ornate brass rings. It put the Morningstar to shame for maritime elegance.

Now this stately ship was surely one I'd ride to Tartarus with pride. I smiled, "Look what's become of the Albatross, it's so beautiful now!"

But Georgia just cackled and kept it up for a long while. When it was clear I didn't get the joke it just set her off even more and I had to endure her laughing fit for a full minute and a half, "Albatross? Wouldn't that just be poetic?" She chortled once more and calmed down, "But no, I'm afraid the world doesn't work that way and if it did we'd both be dead. Albatross dropped all her supplies and all her ballast water, which is what we're drinking just now. We're on the Cormorant."

That blew my mind. I had to think on that for a while before I thought to ask, "How's that even possible?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask your friend." She grew stone faced and pointed over the railing.

I staggered down the slope and it finally made sense, or as much sense as could be made when you're a passenger on a hulk of a gryphon airship carried atop a massive whale.

I jumped down and landed on the whale's broad, dark back, mottled with scars and marine growth. I fell to my belly and hugged and kissed the enormous beast, even though I wasn't sure if he could feel it. Then without preamble I thanked him and showered him with gratitude in his own language.

I think it surprised him as he let out what might be translated as a startled laugh, were the scale different, before he spoke, "Your friends seem to have lost this. It's bubble came off on the way, but I could not slow down for it and keep up. I heard you call out for help but your ship outpaces me and I had almost given up on seeing any of you again when I heard a pod of mischievous dolphins warning about a dangerous griffon and pony waiting to prey on the unwary. I knew that could not be the case so I sought you out. You are the same pony to whom I had the pleasure of speaking before, are you not?"

"Would you have left us to drown if I wasn't?" I asked.

"No, I do not suppose I would have, but I have never met another pony who would bother to converse with me, so it must be you." He replied.

"It is, and we're most grateful that you've rescued us." He made a noise that I interpreted as an 'it was nothing' shrugging off of any praise, "But, why were you hauling around this ship, and why did you sneak up on us with it like that?"

"I do not know. I was interested in the fight your people were having in the sky. Once this one fell I chose to follow so that I might see it's resolution. It was something different and I was just dragging it around by a rope for a while until it sank. Then I lifted it up on my back and the water drained out and it floated for a while again. I guess I was just playing with it." The whale admitted, "As to sneaking up on you, I thought it would be funny to surprise you. It is difficult for me to actually sneak, in most situations, so I took the opportunity."

"It was funny, if we hadn't been swimming for so long we would have thought so too. I just can't believe you found us." I told him.

"You are not hard to find. You make quite a lot of noise for such a small thing." He kidded me.

I tried to make some reply, but my lips and throat were too parched to continue, I coughed and conveyed that I would talk more later. Georgia brought the water bucket down, my jelly legs not up to climbing back onto the ship.

The whale began telling stories to which I need not reply to, whales often tell stories just to be telling them, even when no one's around to hear them. The whalesong, up close, was a whole different thing. It was akin to being assaulted by the bass of a really good, loud concert, without the ear damaging trebles. The whale's voice reverberated through my whole body, infiltrated my mind and made me feel safe and protected even in the cold salty air untallied leagues from land.

I joyously clung to the sunwarmed expanse of his dark flesh. He had been telling a story when I'd drifted off and though I woke in the middle and wasn't wholly certain for a moment, I think he was singing when I awoke. If his voice could be raised in pitch and sped up I swear it would be a lullaby, but he felt me stir and trailed off. I stretched and tested my weary body. It seemed up to the task so I climbed up the ship's ladder, though it was now oddly angled due to the resting position of the ship.

Georgia had flipped over a metal hatch cover and lit a fire right on the deck using broken shivers of the hull for firewood. She was roasting some fish on a spit, but it looked like her primary purpose was the making of coffee. She gave me a smile as I walked over and she returned it.

"Can I have some?" I asked, gesturing to the coffee pot.

"Who do you think I made it for?" She asked and poured some into a dented tin bowl of the same pattern as the Albatross carried, "We're pretty well set for food and water, maybe a little light on the herbaceous front, but I expect there's enough biscuits and condensed milk to tide you over, until...well I guess until we get to land. The whale's been traveling sort of Northeast, I'm hoping he's making for land."

"My savior." I said to her facetiously as I took the bowl and sipped at the cowboy coffee she'd boiled up. I then greedily gobbled down a number of bland biscuits and half a gallon of water, her earlier warnings unheeded and indeed I felt rather bloated and unwell. I was alive, well fed and for the first time in a while I was somewhere safe. Odd that said safe place was the back of a mammoth whale in the vast ocean that had tried to kill me on several occasions.

"You were amazing back there." Georgia said hesitantly, "I'd already given up a hundred times, but you just kept right on trundling along. I'm just so in awe of that, you're really something."

I scoffed and laughed, "That's my special talent, after all, keeping at a thing long after it's been established as pointless. It's my fault you're stuck out here with me in the first place. I'm afraid I can't really take credit for anything when I'm the pony who put you in danger in the first place, besides, if it wasn't for tiny here, we'd have been fish food."

Georgia shrugged, "You worry too much about fault and take it on yourself too readily. It could be said just as truthfully that all this was my fault for not being able to get back to the ship for help like I should have been able to."

"Ok, fine. From now on we'll just consider this all your fault. Happy?" I asked and she flung a slimy fish head at me. I started as if it were a spider and threw the icky tidbit aside, sticking out my tongue in disgust. She grinned, but then fell into a contemplative silence.

"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, but how come the whale's helping us? What's in it for him?" She asked and, truth be told, I'd wondered the same thing myself.

"Any liquor on this wreck?" I asked.

"It is a griffon ship, after all." She replied.

"Good, then, gather up some and I'll go ask him." I said and she headed off to do just that. Now it wasn't strictly necessary to be standing on his back to communicate with him, but to me it seemed to lend some manner of intimacy to the conversation so that's what I did. I settled down on his back just forward of the geyser-like blowhole and asked bluntly, "Why are you helping us? We're grateful like you wouldn't believe, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot we can do for you in return."

He grumbled in thought, then told me a story in grunts and whistles by way of answering my question, "When I was a calf I would flit along the coral reefs of the tropics, explore the inlets and bays of the Northern latitudes and even play amongst the crystal causeways of the Southern dragonlands. Being small it was no trouble and I got to see all the colorful fish and beautiful animals that populated these places. I even got to see all manner of land dweller and the structures in which they made their homes."

"During these times my mother stayed as close by as she could, but she was confined to the deep water. Being young and thoughtless I just figured that grown ups were not interested in having fun like calves were. I even had friends my age to talk to, our mothers ran in a pod while we were still under their care. We had so much to talk about, so many things to tell each other, but the older we got the fewer shallows we could visit, their treasures forever lost to us."

"Soon our mothers had taught us all they knew and we friends knew each other's stories as surely as if we had lived them ourselves. We ranged farther and farther until we finally stopped coming back. Over time we grew to know the ocean so completely that it's deeps held no further surprises for us and it's shallows were but memories."

"The mothers still come together when their calves are birthed and share the duties of motherhood between them. Aside from them, we hunt alone. We share a few chance encounters here and again or there would be no more calves, but our company grates on each other and we shortly part ways. We have nothing to convey to each other, a consequence of being long lived in a largely featureless abyss."

By this time Georgia had joined me and so had her liquor. I'd already made a dent in what was once quite an expensive bottle of Champagne, "How old are you?"

"Old, but not so old for one of my kind."

"But how old?" I asked again.

"It is hard to say but I have been alive a long time. In fact I've been alive as long as I can remember." He replied. I blinked in incomprehension, then burst out laughing. It was a dumb joke, but who'd expect even that? A whale, even with a bad sense of humor was hilarious to me, "I have been around since before creatures crossed the oceans in their sky ships."

"Oh, so that's at least a couple hundred years, I think."

"It is difficult to keep a tally, I could ask my mother, she tends to be good with such trivialities." The whale said.

"Is she nearby?" I asked.

"No, but she need not be. Our hearing is exceptional and our voices carry across the vast oceans if one has the time to listen for them. Truly I am never alone, exactly, but neither do I feel as close to my kin as I did as a calf. Those days in the reefs and aimlessly exploring, when there were still so many things to learn, those are the things that I've remembered, that have kept me going all these years." He told me and it clicked.

"You rescued us because you were lonely?"

"It sounds so very pathetic when you say it that way," He replied, "and overly sentimental besides. Could we not just say that I rescued you because it was a more interesting thing to do than not rescuing you? Perhaps you are both nothing but colorful reef fish to me."

"As if I believe that." I chuckled, "You saved us because you're a great big sweetheart who just wanted some friends. If it's stories you want, I know more than a few."

"I would treasure a few new stories. Your friend, I notice, does not understand me." He said, changing the subject a bit.

"Yeah, and I really should catch her up on what we've been saying, she looks pretty bored." Georgia was sprawled out just behind me, close to the whale's blowhole, idly taking pulls off a bottle of red wine. Suddenly the whale spouted a great gout of water high into the air. It crashed down and soaked poor Georgia who rose trailing dripping, matted feathers and a befuddled expression. The bottle of wine was washed, wasted, into the sea.

"Does she still look bored?" Asked the whale gleefully.

"No, but now I really am going to have to tell her what we've been saying, especially the part where you apologized for splashing her like that." I laughed and went to comfort the soaked and swearing griffon, then I gave her the short version of our conversation, not excising the whale's sense of humor.

"So he's lonely, bored and likes practical jokes. Makes as much sense as anything else, I guess." Georgia admitted, "Did you ask where he was headed?"

"It hadn't come up." I said and then asked him, "He said he's headed towards a bay that's deep enough for him to swim into so he can get us pretty close to land. Won't even have to get our hooves...talons...feet, whatever, wet."

Georgia was relieved. I was too, a bit. It wouldn't do if he were set on keeping us with him, though I could see the desire for it. Then he asked me again how I could communicate with him and my friend could not, so I explained cutie marks as best I could.

There's a lot of ancillary information needed to frame that tidbit, though. Like division of labor, pony societal structures, walking on dry land, the oddities of magic. Hours later I'd outlined the known world and covered everything from Fresnel lenses to begonias. Goshawks to gunpowder. Manifest destiny to cast iron manifolds. I'd still only just scratched the surface, but it's impractical to try to impart a lifetime's worth of knowledge in a few hours. I even gave hints as to my own anchoritic leanings, though I wasn't able to tell him much about it due to mother's spell. I'd given Georgia a running translation as I talked, mostly so she wouldn't feel left out, but also so she could help add in pertinent information that I'd missed.

Then I told him about the dolphins and the jerky thing they'd done. When I got to the why of it Georgia was appalled. She confided that she'd always thought of dolphins as gentle and beautiful creatures, incapable of such malevolence.

"I never trusted dolphins anyway, those squeaky voices just sound so deceitful and grating. If I see that bunch I will chase them down and put the fear of Neptunia in them, you can count on that." He murmured, "I still do not understand this cutie mark thing, though. It tells you what you are talented in and then you simply pursue that for the rest of your life? Can your talents change and how come you do not talk to whales all the time?"

"There's no money in it." I said, and promptly spent another half an hour explaining our monetary system along with considerable commentary on it's inequalities. Georgia listened raptly as well. Griffon economics were similar, but had a few key differences which she later elucidated. It may have degraded into a bit of a diatribe for a moment until the whale interrupted.

"If you do not do what this cutie mark says you are destined to do, then how do you earn your bits?" He asked, an innocent enough question, I suppose.

"Really I don't. My father gives me some bits and I've been doing odd jobs and trying to be a writer...oh, now I have to explain writing, haven't I? The sounds of language are translated into little lines and squiggles so that a story can be recorded and many ponies can read it later without it's originator having to tell it over and over again." I told him and he not only understood but seemed quite taken with the idea.

"So you wish to be a story teller? That sounds a most noble goal. Have you lived a great many stories worth telling?"

"A few, but mostly no. I mean to write fiction so they aren't things that actually happened, they're things that could have happened, maybe even should have happened, but didn't." I answered hoping he would understand.

"You mean to lie?"

"Well...The stories will be made up. That's the way it's done, though. It's a pretty standard thing, but yeah, in short it's a lie." I admitted.

"Then ponies will give you bits for your lies?" He asked, incredulous.

"As long as they're good enough to sound like they're true."

"If you do not live these stories, how do you construct them?"

"Well, I read a lot, I guess," I said, "Then the rest comes from my imagination."

"You construct fibs inspired by other ponies' lies and then, if they sound true enough you are given bits for them? Bits which you say are also a false approximation of the value of the portion of life expended in some pursuit? Correct?" I answered in the affirmative, though I really didn't much like where he was headed with this, "I am certain it is just my lack of experience with such matters, but this fiction writing does not sound like a wholly noble pursuit after all."

When I translated that bit, Georgia broke out laughing, "He's got you dead to rights hasn't he?"

When he phrased it that way it did sound a bit silly, "Okay, you've got me there and I'll have a hard time defending it, but that's still what I want to do. I'm just not very good at it. So yes, I am worthless at doing a job that is also, arguably, worthless, making me doubly worthless and I thank you for pointing it out."

So I'm not conveying the wrong idea, I should like to point out that I am capable of anything. I am a gifted pony, adaptable, bloody minded and earnest in my pursuits and I approach each of them yearning to be, if not the best, then at least in the top tier. I have a recklessly one track mind that serves to feed back on my obsessions until it excludes all other minutiae in a wailing scream of focused passion.

My passions have a tendency to be short lived, though, as I always think that I'll never be good enough and am wasting my time. So shortly after becoming proficient in any given thing I self sabotage until I can justify cutting my losses and moving to the next obsession.

That is also the prime reason that I am as ultimately worthless as I am.

It's a lack of limitations that's plagued me.

Okay, I know how it sounds, hear me out.

Picture it like you're a foal in a candy store, an old trope, sure, but fitting. You can only have one thing, a couple at most, to be your raison d'etre, but you have time to chose. Your whole life is ahead of you so you sample a bit, dabble, become a dilettante in any number of flash in the pan endeavors, reject the sourest confections and the ones that looked sweeter in their bins than they are in your mouth. The gimmicky and experimental ones likewise get spit into the wastebin. That's good and normal, that's what you're meant to do. Not in a real candy store, but let's not nitpick, it's the best analogy I've got just now, even if it is a bit piecemeal.

Now the normal pony, they'd get a cutie mark that gave them a hint. I've complained about them before, but to me it seems one of the ultimate kindnesses of our society that we're given some direction, a kick in the plot.

Where a griffon or a mule might wander from one job to the next for their whole life, never being able or forced to be claimed irrevocably by a specific trade, we have clarity of purpose branded upon us. We can rebel against it, sure, but even that's direction, is it not?

An exception to this are those of us who have ambiguous or useless cutie marks. Most of them seem to occur in high society where the vocation is presupposed from birth to being a member of high society, making remunerative vocations wholly superfluous, a gilding of the lily.

Mother had aspirations to high society and with her penchant for spinning yarns she could have firmly installed herself in the seats of power, dragging me along and I could have been one of the idle elites rather than just an idler. Sometimes I wish she had done just that and sometimes I curse the very desire to be part of the oligarchy.

Sorry, bit of a rabbit trail there, maybe even a rabbit trail within a rabbit trail.

So our proverbial foal is staring at the candies with all the time in the world and any of them would do, each having merit and pitfalls in their selection. The other foals, those who do not pick carelessly, mostly have the width of choice narrowed by the destiny foretold by their cutie marks and their station.

Without some direction it's hard to choose, the selection of life's possibilities being so vast. Even getting knocked up might winnow things nicely. When one is careful to avoid forming attachments that might hinder their future choices, the choices evaporate anyway and so does any direction such attachments may have given.

When our foal looks around she see's she's still in good company, hesitant gems and stars and abstract patterned flanks that are less certain in their prognostication, but sooner or later she is left alone and every time she samples a new flavor she finds it to be stale and undesirable. Now our poor protagonist is just searching for any offering that's remotely palatable and she finds not a thing that's suitable and she's wracked with doubt everytime she's about to make the leap, the time that can be allowed to false starts waning. She talks herself out of every one with well reasoned, unassailable criticisms that ring true no matter their real merit.

A decade gets by in a blink, I mean to tell you.

It's a long time to go, metaphorically, hungry.

It does things to a pony's psyche.
So on the one hoof you've no idea what you've got to do to a foal to end up with a mare like me and I could rightly blame all manner of things for my current state.

On the other hoof... oh, on the other hoof if things had been tighter, if I'd actually had to support myself, if I'd been forced to pick, doesn't matter what, wouldn't I have put my foalish bent behind me and put put my nose to the wheel?

Any wheel?

Wouldn't I have found some place to belong by now?

Wave Crest might be a prime example of what I'm talking about. There's something wrong with her eyes, there had been since she was a foal but it's not really noticeable. Ten years from now, barring some miracle, she'll be effectively blind and it's a deadline she's long been aware of. To that end she married a loyal stallion and raised up a family early, saving up bits to put towards her care in the long darkness of her future to which she's become resigned. In this way her limitation became her prime motivation, arguably a net positive when weighed on the got-your-horseapples-together scale.

Too much time, too many choices and by the time I'd wanted to make one, they'd long since staled and discolored. Sticky blobs at the bottom of the bin fit only for ants and roaches and maybe I belong with them.

Maybe that's all a justification and it's just my cowardice that's kept me static all my life. It sounds like a more likely explanation than that my limitless options baffled me into inaction.

Even the rabbit trails, which I am inexplicably cursed to follow, are indicative of my fear of commitment, my inability to follow one narrative path and forever prune away the other likely branches.

There's an axiom that I heard the reservists repeat on several occasions, an old chestnut meant to be a joke for when you're uncertain how to proceed and the Lieutenant's headed your way.

Do something, even if it's wrong.

It's a far wiser statement than it's generally given credit for.

Say it three times aloud so that you don't forget it.

My point being, so far as there actually is one in this sticky briarpatch, that just because I played it for laughs when the whale called me out on choice, destiny and the value of fiction, I take these philosophical discussions quite seriously and it put me in a funk for the rest of the day. One might think recent events of the life or death variety would have shown me how trivial these concerns are, that's one of those inspirational standards. Doesn't seem to have been the case. If anything it brought them even more to the forefront.

We talked the rest of the day, me serving as intermediary between Georgia and the whale at times as we both learned more about her culture. When we retired to the defunct airship, it's value lessened to that of a windbreak, Georgia could tell I was inclined to slip into despondency. She playfully served me from the ship's store of spirits and talked loudly about all her brothers and sisters and their far flung lives. Then she danced and forced me to join her as she screeched and sang what she said was the griffon's national anthem, but it had more swear words in it than you might expect and I giggled at every one. I am irritatingly immature when it comes to swear words.

When we finally did settle in to sleep she was right there beside me and even in my inebriated state I thought I could feel her concerned stare watching over me protectively. It was painfully evident to me not only that she was watching out for me, but that she thought I needed watching out for.

I was grateful, but it wasn't enough to keep the nightmares at bay. Flashing crimson eyes, overpowering waves of magical energy. Pinkie and Twilight turned to mindless zombies, inexorably shambling towards me as I stumblingly tried to flee.

When I awoke, I was hyperventilating with tears streaming down my cheeks, but that all burned away shortly, forgotten. A griffon cuddled up like a life size teddy bear makes waking up a much more pleasant experience. I had forgotten about it, but griffons are by far the greatest sleeping companions one could imagine. Now I'm not talking about anything sordid here, not that I'm entirely opposed, I'm just saying that you've got almost a whole cuddly cat body and then the softest, fluffiest feathers to nuzzle up to, so that's what I did, and she purred! It was so cute!

All that dumb angst and apparently all I needed was a good cuddle with a griffon. Then I had to go and wake her. Her eyes sprung open, golden irises focusing in on the smiling pony whose face was lodged in her neck feathers with a glare, "Come on now, stop that!"

I didn't, I wriggled my face in even tighter and blew a hot breath on her neck, ruffling a big patch of feathers and setting one adrift, "I can't, you're just so soft and fluffy!"

She bolted upright, "Quit! You're just messing up my feathers now! Sheesh, bipolar much?" Then she pecked me and pulled on my mane, "There, see how you like it!"

"Ow! Ow! Quit! I was just playing, stop!" I sniveled and she eventually did. She was muttering something disparaging that I knew she didn't mean. Griffons take themselves over seriously, I'm afraid and I guess she was actually a little annoyed so I offered to make breakfast, which consisted of opening a couple tins, putting some coffee on the galley's little stove and unpacking some biscuits which she broke apart and gobbled down quickly.

I was still grinning as I picked apart my own biscuits and dipped them idly into my coffee. As I am prone to fits of melancholy I also have passing moments of boundless joy, often right after the former. Georgia was quick to notice it, but took a long while before she saw fit to mention it.

"You seem to be doing a fair bit better than you were last night." She observed.

"Yeah, yeah I am at that. A good nip and a good night's sleep do wonders." In truth I was still pretty lit from last night, having a trove of free booze that's otherwise just going to waste will do that to you.

"You, um, seemed to have some trouble sleeping," Georgia hesitated, "Like you were having nightmares. Really you seemed to be having a pretty rough time of it."

My smile fell away, replaced for a moment with a snarling grimace before my previous grin won out again, slightly diminished, "Yeah, I have pretty bad dreams sometimes, I...thanks for looking out for me."

"You were thrashing and mumbling and you really had me worried for a while there. Are you okay? Like really okay?" A look of concern darkened her brow, all this just when I'd been on a little upswing I could have ridden all day.

"Oh, no. I haven't been really okay in...well maybe ever. My memory's not what it should be, so I don't really know," I answered brightly, incongruously. It's not something that's worth worrying about, it's just the way it is. I wish I hadn't answered honestly, but she caught me off guard. It's always such a pain when someone wants to 'help,' "I have something I take for it, usually, but it was in my saddlebag and they dumped them along with everything else during the battle."

Thinking about my lost stash I realized that the Morningstar's supplies would have to be pretty tight. There wouldn't have been much water left and probably a minimal amount of food, but then they would have had to have made landfall by now, and then what? Pinkie Pie shoved me overboard and though she was acting crazy at the time she seemed to be trying to exclude me from the fray. She was working for my mother, so that implied...what? That mother had designs on the Morningstar itself? The whole ship and crew? I'd thought that she was after me before. It seemed less likely now, so what was of any value on that ship? If she didn't show any sentimental attachment to her own daughter I rather doubted that her former battalion was of any great interest, so that only left...the Element Bearers!

In fact, wasn't it pretty likely that the coordinates she'd given me were a trap meant for them? If she'd just given them the coordinates they'd know it was a trap, she had to be sly. She must have known I'd get out of the looney bin one way or another and pass the information to the Elements, so that gave her the time she needed to get to Eagleland and prepare things. I was a time delayed fuse meant to set off her trap, and what they were doing? Odds are it's just what she expected they'd do.

She already had the Elements themselves, but obviously she wasn't in a position to use them. So far as I knew they'd be useless without their Bearers which must be why she wanted them. She could, conceivably, want them for her own use but that was a far grander plan than her past endeavors would imply.

If she was still up to her old tricks I had to assume that she was planning to auction them off to the highest bidder, there had to be any number of nefarious villains out there who'd either have a use for them or their disposal.

Pinkie herself had said I wasn't meant to be a part of the plan and if I simply hid I could likely keep myself safe. She'd taken a considerable risk for me and both Georgia and I had suffered a great deal for the chance to be free from this web, all I had to do was disappear and we'd be safe.

Far from going to ground and hiding, however, I was determined to undermine her scheme and put a stop to this once and for all. If only I could tell somebird about it.

Author's Notes:

A childish whale, an emotionally stunted pony.
I smell shipping!
Well, okay, maybe not really.

Now...
The whole candy store "rabbit trail" thing?
I apologize for that, somewhat and feel I should give an explanation.
Sure, it's completely off topic. My editor's was mad that I hadn't cut it 'cuz she told me to, but then I said I did and she doesn't go on fimfiction proper.
So...
Then why didn't I?
Well...Sea Swirl's in a real life or death type situation and she's worried and talking about something completely pointless, off base and unsolvable in at the present moment instead of dealing with what's right in her face that might make an actual difference.
Plus the digressions are part of the way she (the real one) writes and it's both annoying and something I like, somewhat like footnotes and random parenthetical meanderings that go on way too long.
So, hope you like it anyway.

Also, the next chapter skips ahead and then fills in the missing bit later.

Cloister

My name is Sea Swirl, I love to go swimming in the ocean. Immersed in the waves I feel a sense of communion with Holy Neptunia. It is most fortuitous that the monastery in which I've passed the whole of my life stands above Whitebeak Bay that I might contemplate her divinity so embraced in her cardinal element.

My name is Sea Swirl and I've lost my mind and more importantly my faith.

Maybe.

Maybe now that tells you more than is outright proper, but I feel I've no other choice but to lay out the whole of my perceptions that I, or some interested party in the future, might parse them for meaning.

I can pinpoint with an uncanny accuracy the very instant my soul began to fall into crisis. The night of the new moon when I stood within the Westerly tower of cloister overlooking the darkly sparkling bay under a jeweled ceiling of Luna's night, I started from rapt contemplation of the head nun's instructions, wholly uncertain as to what they had been and I requested her to repeat herself. She studied me for a time, her sharp crimson eyes peering into mine own as might a physician. At length she replied, "I asked what you were doing up here so late at night wearing that getup."

"In truth I have no answer," I tugged at the coarsely woven peasant's garb in consternation as if it were some foolish costume in which I'd been discovered in the midst of an ill advised prank. I disrobed and heaped the garment aside. Beneath, I found a pair of binoculars slung 'round my neck and I discarded them as well, "My recollection of what purpose I meant to serve in coming here is somewhat hazy. I admit I am quite vexed."

"Quite vexed, huh?" Mother Sacred Song asked rhetorically, "What is this, your half flanked version of a dark ages nun? You know, forget it. It's close enough, why don't you head back down to your chambers, Sister Sea Swirl? Get some rest and we'll talk about it later."

I nodded and turned to exit the tower, kicking aside a number of rolled parchment scrolls that were piled not just around my hooves but the whole tower floor at large. I hesitated a long moment. Mother Sacred Song scrutinized me, her countenance finally softening when I asked, "Might you escort me? I seem to have lost the way."

"Yeah, no problem my baby, you're just a little confused, it'll all be better in the morning." She said and led me through the dark and winding corridors whilst humming a gentle tune. I am well and truly blessed that such a kind and noble creature as Mother Sacred Song has seen fit to take such an interest in me and guide me in my time of need, literally and figuratively, and yet, there is something of the rebel spirit of chaos within me. My heart sought to reject her kindness, screaming entreaties for me to abandon reason and to lash out and strike her. The destructive desire was most painful and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I quashed it.

Upon the morn I awoke from vivid dreams, dreams that I could not reconcile as they conflicted most harshly with the realities of my life.

Mother Sacred Song must have been mindful of my distress as she sent a sister to attend me with fresh garments and an escort to the dining hall.

Around me were seated the most glorious variety of brothers and sisters, all but a scant few clothed in a like way to mine own self, dull gray cassocks with tunnel-like cowls that allowed only the tip of the muzzle or beak to be seen. Though I knew that I'd dwelt in this monastery for the whole of my days every sight within was as novel as if I were seeing it for the first time. Forgetting my own hunger for the gruel provided, I made note of our numbers. Two dozen griffons and forty six ponies clad as I was. Six further ponies wore black cloaks with veils over their eyes as well. I attempted to spy their faces whilst they ate in mechanical synchronicity, but was interrupted in the act as Mother Sacred Song entered the hall accompanied by a singularly odd donkey of whom I will speak momentarily.

Where we wore robes to cover ourselves the old nun's humility must have been so great she required no such things for she stood bare in her turquoise coat and flowing, seaweed green mane. She looked over her silent charges, each bent to their meals save for myself and in her grace and compassion came over to see to my welfare with that odd donkey. She looked me up and down, finally asking, "Okay, so why aren't you eating?"

"I'm afraid I've little enough appetite and find my self much befuddled." I replied, "I have spent all my days in your charge and service and yet I cannot so much as remember to whose honor we are so piously dedicated."

She laughed, "Why we're the order of Neptunia, of course." Then she set before me a thick tome, instructing me to study it. Opening it I found the pages to be blank throughout and though I tried most earnestly, thinking it to be a test of faith, hoping that the Word would present itself if I were sufficiently faithful, I could do no other thing than point out it's absence of text or markings of any sort. Were I not certain it was otherwise I would have said it was a ship's log book with a quarter of it's pages torn out rather than a proper sacred text. She snickered at me, "Alright, you've been here your whole life so you should know the sacred texts like the back of your hoof, right? You should be able to write them yourself by now. Just write about Neptunia. Write everything you can remember. That'll be your task," She raised her voice dramatically, "The whole of your being until you've completed it."

"Of course Mother Sacred Song." I replied and she had the donkey fetch me a quill and ink. Setting them down before he peeked beneath the hood of my cowl, then pushed it back revealing my countenance which he seemed displeased by for he struck me most violently.

"This one!" He yelled, flexing his stunted wings, "This is the one that was snooping around with that damned griffon!" Then he struck me once more and I toppled to the stone floor. The sisters of the order scarcely reacted, perhaps not at all. I, myself, was strangely impassive, having a task and knowing that this would pass and that I was protected in the meantime by Neptunia. The donkey was in turn struck by the old nun.

"Listen you bucked up half bred jackass! That's my Celestia-damned daughter there and I damned well know about her skulking around and I've taken care of her and the bucking griffon. Now pick her back up and don't even think about laying another hoof on her. If I didn't hate having to train underlings I'd kill you for what you've done already so you best be walking on bucking egg shells around me or so help me I'll send you to Tartarus choking on your own balls, you bucking capiche?" Mother Sacred Song kindly said in my defense and the donkey picked me up and stood me on my feet like a toppled toy. Immediately I sat down, dipped my quill and tried to write. My mind was blank and my pen lingered so long as to create and inkblot an inch in diameter before I lifted it in defeat.

I overheard, whilst scrutinizing the page for the secrets it may reveal, further conversation between the donkey and the old nun in which she chastised his shriveled wings, long ears and horrid stench. I found it passing strange that a donkey did indeed have pegasus wings, functional or not and I think that I have never seen it's like before. Then again my worldly experience ends at the monastery walls, though my dreams say elsewise.

"She knows more than she ought to. Daughter or no, you really should dispose of her or at least keep her confined for the duration." The donkey encouraged and I felt some small glint of fear for this unnamed daughter, whosoever she may be. I scowled at my bespotted page, concentrating for all I was to tell what is known of Neptunia.

"Idiot, she's in a whole different world. We can say whatever we want and she won't remember any of it." Mother Sacred Song told him, "If it comes to it I'll do a more thorough job on her like I did on the rest, but I'm interested to see what she comes up with. Look at her scowling at that page, struggling to do what I told her."

"It's cruel and pointless." The donkey replied, "Not that I care, I guess. She's your daughter, you can do as you like."

"Yup, and you can get back to the preparations. We haven't got that much time left and this is the bigtime. I need it to go smooth as buttercream and it's your ass on the line if it's bucked up, ass." She kicked him in the shin and went on her way as he winced, gasped in pain, then hurried off himself.

Lunchtime came and passed me by as I sat rooted in place, eyes seeking to bore through the page I was to sanctify with Neptunia's sacred word. From the deep depths of my mind I finally drew forth the sole bit of knowledge I could unerringly state about Neptunia.

Nep•tun•ia (Nep'tōōn'ē ə) [ME. <Pgs. Neptuna] 1. Eqst. Myth. Goddess of the sea. Derived from the fictional Pegasi 'Odyssey of Commander Hurricane,' 1323 BLe. Neptunia is the stylized Goddess of the sea modeled as an aquatic counterpart to Princess Celestia she is often derisively termed an ichthycorn, combin. ichthyoid (a fish) and Alicorn. She has often been used as a satirical stand in for Princess Celestia in critical as well as comical works. Reputed to be the "Queen of the (Mythical) Sea Ponies" as well as the ruling deity of all standing bodies of water greater than 660,000 gallons. 2. A ponification of the sea itself.

I pridefully beamed over the spare paragraph as supper likewise came and went without my notice. Once the few candles had burned low and the other clergy had silently retired for the night I was approached by the old nun, "The buck are you doing out here this time of night, grinning like a foal?"

"Mother Sacred Song! Is it not grand? I have written all that I know of blessed Neptunia that I might reflect upon her words and know them all the better." I presented the book to her in a glow of magic. She took it in her own hooves and flipped through the pages, settled on my opus, the sole contents of the book, and looked to me incredulously.

"Ugh. First, call me mother from now on. All this Sacred Song horseapples is for the nosy neighbors." She slammed the book down before me, causing the three untouched bowls of gruel to clatter, "I suppose it's my fault for not being more exact in my instructions. You need to eat, drink and erm...potty, like a normal mare, okay? Sleep on the same schedule as the rest of these buck ups too, okay? I don't usually have to tell ponies these things so I don't know what your deal is."

"Yes Mother."

"Now, as for your bible. My time's a bit short, so I figure you've got just over a week. I want prose and pathos, not this dictionary drivel. If that's all you can come up with for Neptunia, how 'bout you just write whatever you remember and we'll call it an allegory, eh?" She chuckled, "That should keep you busy and out of my mane. For now, go to bed, start fresh tomorrow."

"Yes Mother."

The morning light sprang upon me and drew me from fitful dreams. Scarce had my hooves hit the floor before I took up the quill and began recounting them. I had no understanding of what I was writing, only that it was presaged by my dreams. I imagined that enlightenment might be attained once the narrative was more completely inked. I simply let the words flow so fast as I could lay it down, stopping only for restless, dream laden sleep. On the fifth day my magic failed me and my efforts were hindered by my unpracticed mouth writing.

The morning after that I collapsed on my way to the dining hall and remained splayed out on the floor for some considerable time, but I did not falter. For the glory of Neptunia I kept writing. Should my final breath be in her service I should die most fulfilled. It was not to be as I was eventually noticed by Mother and the winged donkey.

"Baby, get up off the floor." Mother said, and though I should like no thing better than to follow her directive I could not, "Why are you writing with your mouth anyway?"

"She won't eat, I think her magic gave out on her." The donkey grunted in disgust, mother said something beneath her breath, her normal humming blossomed into a full throated melody whose words I transcribed phonetically in the margins of a page towards the back of the book and then his grunts became more indicative of choking though he was not being attacked. Mother seemed unconcerned as she stood nearby, The donkey's eyes bugged and he fell in a heap at her hooves. She silenced herself for a time as he twitched and grabbed at his throat to no avail. Just as it seemed his life were to expire Mother sang out again, a few words whose beauty so affected him as to restart his breathing. I dutifully transcribed them as well for these must indeed be the words of Neptunia herself.

It was odd, however, for as the donkey regained his senses it seemed that my own were coalescing back into the forefront of my mind, screaming at me to flee whilst I could, but from what I knew not. Dutiful to these entreaties I sought to drag myself away as best I could. "Where are you going my baby?"

"Away from you, you Luna damned bucking monster!" I replied to kind Mother Sacred Song who pinned me in place like a specimen with a well placed hoof upon my spine, "Let me go! I'll bucking kill you, I swear I will bucking kill you!"

In her wisdom mother must have realized that a song would calm me as well for she sang to me a reprise of the first tune I'd transcribed and indeed it quelled my ravings. "As you were, Sister Sea Swirl, but you have to eat this time or I'll force feed you." She pointed at the donkey, "You see to it this time like I told you or I'll let the griffons peck you apart. If I hear you hurt her in any way I'll have them do it very slowly."

I was indeed force fed, but it was found that I could keep nothing down for I invariably expelled it to the last drop.

"Now what?" The donkey asked Mother, "She ain't sick, I had her checked out. I think it's psycho...psyci...all in her head."

"What's the matter my baby? Gruel don't suit you?" Mother asked and sloshed a bowl before me. I would have done well enough on gruel, I was extraordinarily hungry and I longed for any sustenance, yet when I attempted to swallow I was assaulted by imagery most similar to that which roiled my sleep.

"I fear I have not been sleeping overly well." I offered, weak an explanation as it was, I could think of no other. She took up the sacred text to which I had devoted myself. I was in the middle of the parable of the griffon and the whale and I believe it is precisely that story that she looked over before returning the book to me.

"Alright, so you're lonely. We can fix that. Georgia? Sister Georgia?" She called out and a robed griffon trotted up from the benches and presented herself to Mother, "You belong to her now. Stay by her side, comfort her, make sure she eats. Both of you head back to your room and rest. I'll have some food sent up after a while. Seriously my baby, if you don't eat soon you're gonna die and Plutonia doesn't look kindly on suicide."

"Neptunia." I corrected, which elicited a snicker from the donkey.

Whether it was Sister Georgia by my side or Mother's entreaties to save my soul I finally managed a peaceful sleep and indeed I made my way through five bowls of gruel when I awoke. Praise be to Neptunia that my magic even returned that I might finish my holy work before it's deadline.

Mother was most pleased with my recovery and talked at length about visitors who were to be coming the next day. The donkey swore that all preparations had been made to greet them in most opulent luxury and the security of the items, whatsoever they might be, was all but assured.

I must admit, I listened little and understood less. My work had reached it's climax and the exaltation of it's conclusion distracted me greatly, though my quill worked but slowly.

There was a moment of confrontation, a blazing green fire kindled and extinguished before it's task was accomplished and a song rose up, setting the world on it's ear. After that the narrative lost it's cohesion, focus shifting, details oddly truncated. I would compare it to a drug trip were it not disingenuous of a cloistered nun such as myself to claim such knowledge.

The longer I thought the tighter my focus was around that transitional moment. The song I recognized. I had transcribed it first among the pair and I sang it over and over to myself to no effect, it did not jar my memory further. I tried to feel the sacred magic in the hymn and though I could feel some exultant something, I could discern no reclaimed insights.

Late that night as I slept, the mandated griffon nestled close to me on the narrow mattress, I had a brief flash of inspiration so trenchant that I sprang from a dead sleep and, haltingly, I sang the second tune. I felt nothing, but I knew my execution was poor so I sang out once more as sweetly and accurately as I could. I let the tune flow through me and lift me with a feeling of freedom.

Still no clarity, I could not pass through that moment in the story without descending into a haze. It was as if I were looking up at my own visage from the bottom of a well.

"What the bloody buck?" Sister Georgia growled, kneading her temples with taloned hands.

"Sister! You've renounced your vow of silence?" I asked the stirring griffon.

"Yeah, sure, why not. I'm still a soldier so I've still got poverty working for me. If I knew what I was doing here I might be able to give you a better guess on chastity as well." She replied and I embraced her. As much a comfort as she had been, she was, in actuality no better than a stuffed animal in her previous, seemingly insensate state. She rose, removed her cloak and tossed it aside, grumbling that it was itchy and she didn't know why we were wearing them.

"It's mandated by the order, to show our humility I believe." I answered and plucked at my own robe.

"Order, huh? I've got no idea what you're on about." Sister Georgia paced the stone bolthole of a room in a nervous state.

"The Order of the Neptunia, of course, and it's good that you've finally seen fit to speak, I've need of another who knows the holy scriptures. I've failed in my attempts to recreate them, but perhaps with your knowledge I can complete the task Mother has set me to." She had started when I mentioned Mother Sacred Song, I am uncertain as to why. Perhaps she does not wish it known that her vow has been discarded. With hope in my heart I handed her the open book, turned to the page where I'd been forced to leave off, but she flipped back to the start of the scripture, my first proud paragraph.

"So, you start out your holy scripture by stating that your god is false, which by the way she is. She's a classic comic standard, a strawpony used to editorialize against Celestia," Sister Georgia stated, "But since you don't seem upset about it and you mentioned your mother..."

"Mother Sacred Song, our head nun." I interrupted to correct her misconception. Dearly as I should like it to be so, the old nun wasn't my mother.

"...Your mother, who it seems, brainwashes ponies? I'm going out on a limb and saying you're brainwashed, and since I have no idea what's going on I've got to assume I was too."

I could form no lasting impression of her statement. It flitted right out of my head, but she seemed quite troubled, "In troubled times we may take solace in the Holy Word of Neptunia. Perhaps you should study the scriptures and find solace therein."

Her shoulders rose and fell in a frustrated show of indifference but she did indeed investigate the Holy work. I smiled at her, hoping she would find comfort in it, "This is just a story about you jumping off a cliff when you were thirty four."

"It is a metaphor for the leap of faith we all must take, sister."

"Whatever. Seems to me like you're just prone to falling off of things. You should have been a pegasus or something." She replied to me and it stirred within my mind a question that had been lurking in the dark corners of my mind.

"Sister, have you seen before this day, a donkey, with wings as a pegasus might be equipped with?" Perhaps it was a common occurrence beyond our secluded home, but it seemed most noteworthy to me for some reason.

"So he's still here? I guess that confirms things. Hold on to that thought though and let me read this for a minute. You can go to sleep if you want, though, 'cuz you're creeping me out staring like that." Sister Georgia directed and I feigned restfulness when in truth I found no peace until she sat on the bed and leaned her back against my prone form whereupon I drifted off.

She must have been divinely inspired for she roused me but a short time later claiming to have made her way through the whole of the Holy Book, "Skimmed it anyway. So this whole first part, I kind of see what's going on now, but it's not any more than I knew before, well excepting for all the asides and general weirdness where you worry about what ponies think of you and philosophize, but that's a conversation for a less troubled bit of time, really."

Then Sister Georgia went on to explain the end of the allegory of the cloister and the madmare. While it was less muddled than my own version I worried about it's purity so I headed it with 'Apocryphal' after it had been transcribed, but then charitably I ended that with a question mark. I copied it down just as she spoke it, should there be some miracle hidden in the semantics.

"So what you were doing up in that tower was looking for Twilight's pet dragon, Spike. You said that he could send messages to the Princess, so you were going to tell her where we were. It sounds like you got caught after you found him. I don't know. I was supposed to be keeping a look out for you, but you heading up the stairs is the last thing I remember until now." She snorted, "I expect that's when your mom got me but I can't remember it at all. It's so strange, but I guess it's no stranger than being caught and hypnotized into a nun."

I laughed aloud, how is it that I could be caught? I've been here for the entirety of my life, what need have I to sneak around? I tried to correct her on this point, "No, no, Mother found me wandering in a daze and helped direct me back to safety. She came to me and asked how I'd come to be in the tower and I could offer no answer..."

"Yeah, yeah. I read that part too. You've got some big gaps and you still don't tell just how your mother's brainwashing everybody, but most of it's there. I guess it doesn't make too much difference at this point, so long as you realize that she did. You do realize that that's what happened, right?" Georgia ventured.

"Yes, sister."

"Can you unbrainwash the others like you did for me?" She inquired. I only stared at her blankly, "Sea Swirl, don't you know how you undid the brainwashing, and why do you still think you're a nun?"

"Of course I'm a nun!" I countered, taken aback, "...and with your help the scripture is, on balance, complete. Perhaps Mother may help in refining these verses?"

"No, Sea Swirl, she's the bad guy, remember? You can't just go showing her the book."

"I could think of no other besides yourself who I should prefer to show it before!"

"No, she killed ponies, brainwashed you, stole the Elements of Harmony, all that. I mean you know this, you wrote it down right here." She vehemently pounded the cover of Book of the Holy Word of Neptunia.

"It is good to see you showing your true zeal, Sister Georgia." I joyously exclaimed.

Georgia grabbed me up by the scruff of the neck, threw open my room's tiny sash and forced my head through it. "Look down. What do you see?"

"Naught but the churchyard, sister, the industry of the wharves to the East, the sad metaphor of the shipbreaker's yard to the West, and beyond that lay Neptunia's sea where we will all rest some kind day." I answered. It was providence's design that the boundless sea should, one day, overtake the land that we may all be together in a watery paradise.

"The church...graveyard. Look at it." She harshly demanded and I did as bidden, "Notice the fresh graves?"

"Indeed, it's most peculiar to have such a number at one time." Considering the matter for a long while I found a suitable theory which fit the particulars, "I must imagine there was some manner of pestilence?"

"Not unless you count your mother as a pestilence, which at this point I kind of do." She blasphemed, "Think about it harder. There's thirty two rooms in this dump and there's thirty two fresh graves in the churchyard there. Now there's a lot of ponies in Eagleland, but so far as I know, none of them are in the churches, and do you know why?"

"I am a nun these thirty some years, surely..." I began, only to be abruptly silenced.

"It's redundant for ponies to belong to the church, they have living, breathing gods of their very own and if they desire they can see and converse with them directly while the Gods of my people have passed on from these lands long ago. That's why we have the churches and the cloisters, to keep their memories and the traditions of the old ways alive. In truth ponies would not be welcome within these walls. Their presence would seem disingenuous, condescending. You're not a nun, you're mother is not Mother Sacred Song. She's just a wretch who killed the clergy who lived here so she'd have a safe place to hide out." She pointed once more to the field of broken green speckled by the white stones and mounds of fresh turned earth, "She took the lives of pacifists and scholars and stuck them in the ground right below your own window. She's a bad pony and we have to stop her."

I nodded my head, "Surely there is much wisdom in your words, Sister Georgia, we must tell Mother of this travesty without delay that she might help to seek redress on their behalf."

"So...you wrote it, but you don't understand it? Everything I say against your mother just rolls off your back, doesn't it? Okay, I gotcha." She leafed through the pages slowly, looking for what I could not venture to guess. Finally she came to rest on the two holy hymns scrawled sideways in the margins, "What are these, some kind of incantation?"

"No Sister, they are most sacred songs that I had been studying before you awoke. It is the second one that I was singing just before you renounced your vow." Georgia was much excited by this revelation and entreated me to regale her once more, but after I did so she seemed much disappointed. I sang it once more and she joined in, singing it back to me, and though it was a splendid and harmonious rendition she still seemed much displeased.

"Still feel the same?" She queried, though I did not know how to answer, "Alright, I'm going to sneak out and see if I can grab someone else and try it on them."

She returned with another griffon and directed me to sing the hymn to her. I complied and she too renounced her vows, a lively sheen gracing her eyes once more, "Georgia? What am I doing here in this ridiculous sack cloth?"

"Captain!" Georgia embraced her comrade, a breach of protocol if she were truly a Captain rather than a nun, but I kept my silence, "It's hard to explain and morning's coming soon, but here it is in a nutshell. Sea Swirl here's mom hypnotized us by some singing spell. Sea Swirl knows the counterspell and accidentally woke me up with it, but she still thinks she's a nun. Really she's about half worthless to talk to, but she's the best weapon we've got if we can keep the element of surprise on our side."

"Certainly that makes some amount of sense," The griffon 'captain' screwed up her face in thought, "Our balloon was sabotaged and we had to set down in the ocean, but we were near enough the shore that a pilot boat came out with somepony to guide us into a nearby bay for repairs. I do believe it was this same pony of which you speak because by the time we made port we were all apparently under her thrall. Instead of repairs she surreptitiously took us to the shipbreaker's yard, run by that foul donkey and we were set to the task of dismantling the Morningstar and sorting it's component parts for resale. It's a good a way of hiding a ship near shore as one might ever come across. I have no memories past that."

"Right, if you sank it the ship could still be found. If you burned it, the fire would be seen. If she'd seen to hiding the detritus away better we would never have known." Georgia restated a part of the gospel, telling a version of the winged donkey's parable, "See, we were sneaking around in case she had agents in the military on the lookout for us. We even had disguises. Sea Swirl had this cloth wrap to hide her cutie mark and a floppy hat that made her look like some snooty pony from Prance. I had a badflank Mexicolt blanket poncho and sombrero that made me look like some outlaw."

"Anyway, we spent a couple weeks looking into the records and papers to see if an Equestrian ship had turned up somewhere, but since it hadn't I figured it was still on the coast somewhere, even though Sea Swirl kept hinting that she thought they'd all gone inland somewhere. We needed bits to search and I couldn't withdraw from my bank account without blowing my cover. The only thing we had was what was left of the Cormorant beached a few miles North where the whale left it, which is a whole other story. Normally it'd be tough to do much with it but I knew about a shady donkey who runs a salvage operation, so we patched it up, jury rigged a sail and brought it in under the new moon when we wouldn't be seen."

"That damn donkey knew we were in a bind and we haggled for nearly an hour before we came to terms. Sea Swirl wandered off and I didn't think much of it until she came back in with a busted ship's wheel she found in the burn pile."

"I should venture to guess that it had half it's spokes shot away?"

"That and the engraved brass plate that said 'Morningstar' on it. She tried to play it off like she wanted it to hang on a wall or something but she wasn't fooling that old donkey. He knew as soon as he saw that thing what was going on and he bolted. I was on him before he made it through the door and I gave him a pretty good once over. He squirmed and begged and finally said he'd tell us what we wanted to know. Of course he lied, gave us this whole cock and bull story that would have sent us to West Aerie or some damn place, but Sea Swirl acted like she believed him and we made like we were setting out. Only we didn't. We followed him to this monastery and snuck in. He told... Sacred Song, was it now? Sea Swirl's mother's newest alias. She's playing the head nun around here. He told her we'd been looking for her but that he'd sent us on a wild goose chase."

"I assume she didn't believe you'd gone so simply as that?" Sister 'Captain' Grizelda had taken to poking around the cubbies and niches of the room, producing from them various items which seemed ill suited to my use. Odd that I should retain in my room talon shears and files as well as feather clippers, or that my tiny armoire was filled with cassocks endowed with wing cutouts.

"Of course she didn't. She swore a blue streak at that donkey and beat on him 'til he just cowered in a little heap on the stone floor. He sniveled and sniffled and begged to be forgiven and he followed her into the main hall. She told him to stay there and then she came back with six black clad ponies carrying gemstones. They must have been the Elements of Harmony themselves because they all started glowing, the Elements and their Bearers both, and they blasted that donkey with a swirling rainbow beam." Georgia told us.

"The scriptures relate that Brother Bray received his wings in just such a manner." I said, awed that she'd seen such a miracle as that with her own eyes.

Georgia spoke to Sister Grizelda directly, "See, this is what I mean. Not only was she there, hiding in the shadows, but she wrote it in the 'scripture' as she calls it and she just fails to remember it as such. Anyway, yeah, you'd think a mean old cuss like that would have been incinerated by the light of harmony, but he wasn't. Instead he just ended up knocked on his plot and saddled with a pair of screwed up wings. Actually, though they look awful, I think if they were preened and cared for they might turn out to be serviceable enough. That's neither here nor there. The important bit is that the Element Bearers seem to have been freed from her influence just after that because they started to mumble and she sang to them again, said 'Be still sisters,' and they calmed back down."

"That's all I know. Once they left I came down from the rafters where I was perched and Sea Swirl signaled to me from the shadows, told me she thought she saw a green flash from the top of the stairs behind her and that she was going to see if Spike was up there. I tried to stand guard but you know how that went."

She went on to detail the layout of the cloister, so far as she knew it, "The trouble is that I'm afraid to try too many rooms. I found you on the second try, but wherever Sacred Song is, she's bound to have some guards."

"Couldn't we just have her sing the counterspell to get them all back to our side again?" Sister Grizelda hooked a taloned thumb at me.

"Maybe, but Sacred Song's crafty and I don't think we'll catch her with such a blunt attack. According to her book here they all eat in the mess hall together, so what we could do is free about a dozen griffons. We need enough still under her influence that we can copy them and use them for cover. One little slip out of character and she'll be onto us and if she puts us back under we'll be right back where we started. I doubt she counts her captives, though, so we could send somebody for backup, maybe try to get to Spike again besides. I bet the flash was somepony sending letters looking for all of them. We should probably just wake twelve or so, explain the plan to 'em, then just plain jump her in the mess. Then Sea Swirl can set the rest of them free."

"Could we use the counterspell ourselves?" Sister Grizelda asked.

"I tried. It doesn't work for me so it's probably a unicorn thing. I'm not sure we could teach it even if we woke one." Sister

Sister Grizelda eyed me most warily, "You'll sing when we tell you to, will you not?"

"Oh most joyously!"

"You've no intention of turning traitor on us?" She asked, "This whole plan relies on your talents exclusively. Odds are that even if we kill Sacred Song the other brainwashed members of our crew will come after us."

I gasped, "You cannot kill Mother! You mustn't! That would be the ultimate smear against Nuptunia and her laws!"

Sister Georgia held up the Book and flipped through it's pages, "It says no such thing anywhere in here."

I took up the book and searched it's pages with frantic energy but could find no commandment that was applicable. Sister Georgia flipped to the last page, commandeered my quill and ink and scribbled furiously and said, "Look there, right at the end there's a bit that says 'Mother Sacred Song is evil. You should do whatever Georgia and Grizelda tell you and fight against her. So saith Holy Goddess Neptunia, almighty ruler of the seas, Esquire' See? It's in your holy book so you can't go against it."

"There's no way..." Sister Grizelda started, only to be cut short by Georgia's shushing.

"If it's in the book it's the holy word even if I wrote it. That's infallibility for you, y'know, what can you do?" Georgia shrugged.

I sought to find the flaw in her argument, but there in fresh ink lay an incontrovertible commandment and I was bound by my tenuous faith to follow it, "So be it." I said through misty eyes. My faith had been faltering in recent days, but I still could not renounce it just because it went against beloved Mother Sacred Song who'd watched over me for so long. I took back the quill and ink and continued my work by recording this exchange as well, Neptunia help me should I give up my task as well.

"Good, then let us awaken our friends." Sister Grizelda slipped out, skirted the wall and lead us to the nearest chamber. The door's soft creak was the only sound to be heard as we entered. A candle's flame was kindled and in it's flickering light we found the room occupied only by robes puddled on the floor. Quickly we moved to the next room and the next only to find identical conditions.

"They've been raptured away!" I sobbed, the inopportune timing of my lapse in faith had left me firmly bound upon this earth rather than safely tucked away in the bosom of the sea.

"Shush! There's no such thing, don't make me write it in your book so as to prove it either." Georgia chastised, "But something odd's going on. It's an hour yet 'til sunrise and they've gone and without their robes besides. We can't just wander around or we'll be found out."

Sister Grizelda was deep in thought, watching as I wrote in the sacred book the parable of resurrection and revelation, "We'll just have to be exceedingly careful. We're going to have a hard time of it though, if they catch us and everything we've said and done is written down for anyone to see. Sea Swirl? Be a good pony and give us that book so we can put it somewhere safe 'til all this is over, eh?"

"I should prefer not to relinquish the Good Book just in my hour of need." I stated, but to no avail. She reached out a taloned hand and

Author's Notes:

"So she just clacked her hooves, said "I'm Mother Sacred Song and you're a nun, go!" and made her improv it from there?"
"Spot on."
"Then she told her to write the bible, just to see what would happen? Then she wrote this story, but with the missing part from the whale 'til she ended up here filled in?"
"Yeah, that's the gist of it."
"I don't know how I feel about the recursive stuff. I like that she writes dialog that's directly conflicting with her narration, though. Also, it seems her need for a teddy bear saved everyone."

Actions at the Auction

Dear Princess Celestia,

Attached you will find both the Griffon and Ponyville guard's after action reports, the former describes how we came to be in such a fix as we found ourselves and the latter details the rather awkward, but somewhat less urgent one we find ourselves in now. I'm including my own account on the grounds that neither of them adequately capture the nuance of the situation and I require counsel on how to proceed with such unusual prisoners as we've taken and ambiguous leads we have to follow.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

My awareness coalesced in the middle of a sentence. Was I speaking? I wasn't sure. There were crimson eyes bordered by a turquoise coat in my face so close that I saw the pores beneath her fur and felt her breath on my skin. A chlorophyll green mane came into view as Sea Breeze retreated to assess my appearance with a discerning eye and I realized it was her voice I was hearing.

"...the crown jewel all tarted up and ready to go." She smirked, "One last thing." She draped my Element around my neck. Rather than a glorious crown it was instead suspended by a crude leather strap crisscrossed about it's middle.

When she moved away I was able to take in the full vista, a cathedral of fairly moderate proportions, feverishly decorated with haphazard smatterings of disjointedly opulent luxury. The grey stone and timber underpinnings were of the ancient griffon style, artfully and humbly carved. Each embellishment organically placed in a logical manner. It spoke of dedication, humility and discipline. Overall it was a warm embracing of the griffon's cardinal virtues in carved stone.

More recent additions were gilt gold idols, strings of gaudy pearls and swags of silk all held in place by hard cut nails driven carelessly into the ancient masonry. Gold candelabras stood head high on Corinthian marble columns illuminating the space with a flickering, overbearing light. Absurdly delicate rugs from the far East were arrayed on the floor, though mismatched they provided a red carpet to the silk cushioned benches that stood where the pews ought to be. Sideboards that would have looked at home in a mansion but were woefully underscaled for a cathedral were heaped with all manner of exotic fruits and delicacies.

A roast pig, apple in his mouth, stood atop one of these and I'll say little more about that.

Along the walls were lined up the Ponyville reserves all in brand new dress uniforms with a touch of gleaming plate armor to play up their martial attributes. They were armed with matching halberds, pole arms not well suited to use in modern warfare but very pleasing to the eye. They stood at attention with inequine rigidity, a score along each wall. Several more were dressed as officers, though the distribution seemed to be at random based on who would look most picturesque in their striking raiment rather than by merit of rank. It was just as well. The mock officers seemed to be poised for duty as butlers more than anything, arrayed around the buffets as they were.

Four griffons stood nakedly unarmed at the head of the room and a further eight at the rear. Even without armament it was clear that they, and not the tin soldiers along the walls, were the true deterrent force present here.

All this I took in in a moment. The donkey behind Sea Breeze hadn't escaped my notice either. It was the same miserable creature who'd overseen us disassembling our own ship days before. Somehow he'd been given wings between then and now, their feathers were set askew and, on the whole, poorly formed.

"Sacred Song, I'm not one for playing dress up," The donkey wheezed, struggling with an uncooperative gilt edged garment, "Help me into this thing!"

Sea Breeze rolled her eyes and turned to him, "Ass! Sort it out for yourself. I wouldn't touch you with somepony else's magic!"

That proved to be untrue because she told me to help him and I levitated the heavy velvet garment, draped it over him and tied it's gold cord at his throat. It was then that I realized that my mind and body were not working in tandem. I tried to move and found it impossible, but Sacred Song ('til but a moment ago, Sea Breeze to me) turned me right around, marched me over to the other Element Bearers and stood me in line with them, which I took to placidly and obediently.

The girls, like the cathedral itself, had been dolled up with fine frocks and golden brocades in their manes. Their hooves were polished and trimmed with silver shoes and around each neck hung the Elemental gems from incongruously shoddy looking strings. As if cued by me the donkey, now clad in gold trimmed velvet himself, shabby wings and coat concealed, thought to comment on the poor state of the Elements.

"Those gems look stupid." He said flatly, "We may as well just have them rubberbanded onto their forehooves or something. It just looks unprofessional. You wanted all this hoity toity business so the clients would take you seriously, but then the main attraction, the whole point of the thing and you cop out and act like it doesn't even matter."

Sacred Song shrugged. I'd expected a violent outburst as a petulant villain usually acts towards a lackey, but she seemed to agree, "According to the papers they turned into gems and made their own mountings the first time these mares used them. I was hoping they'd do it again. It's kind of why I tested them out, but whatever. They'll still buy them whether they're hung from gold or kite string."

"What is it you expected them to do to me anyway?" The donkey demanded, "I'm pretty sure you didn't expect these bloody wings?"

"I don't know exactly, since they're the epitome of harmony I was hoping they'd make you less of an ass or something, who cares? It's not like there was any chance they'd kill you." She said.

"Just turn me to stone or banish me to the moon?" He replied angrily.

"Oh, quit whining, you got wings out of the deal, you should be happy." She grinned. He snorted and turned away. She looked us all over and finally drew a veil curtain in front of us. We could see out clearly, but we would only be shadows unless one was right up against the curtain looking in, "It's almost time, but I think everything's ready."

*************

A Brief footnote regarding the donkey's wings if you will indulge me. When we were at liberty to speak again I brought up the matter to the girls in an off handed way and they all just passed it off as an oddity of the Elements of Harmony's workings except for Pinkie Pie. It seems to be the case that she was somewhat more aware during that little episode and she takes responsibility for the wings saying that the donkey, Bray by name, was a former slave from a long line of slaves and lackeys stretching back through history. She wanted him to come out of this happier and freer if such a thing were possible, "What says freedom more than a pair of wings?" She asked and so she apparently influenced the Elements in this way. How she knew his history and how precisely she managed that, when I and the others report a lack of awareness when they have been brought to bear previously, merits some study. As to their grotesque and deformed appearance, Pinkie Pie explained that I should "Cut me some slack, I've never made wings before. I'll try to practice up before the next time, I swear." I tried to get her to expand on that somewhat, but it just resulted in a headache and more questions. Rainbow Dash seems to think they'll look better once the donkey molts and new feathers grow in.

I find the whole matter to be astounding.

***************

When I had seen them, the girls had all been dull eyed with the same stiff posture with which I seemed afflicted. We stood on a raised platform, a stage where a pulpit had once been set, but walled off with a filmy curtain. Beyond it the sun had just begun to stream through the stained glass windows, casting their shafts through the physically depicted tenets of the griffon faith. Mixed with the candlelight, the dawning morning through colored glass gave an oddly hopeful effect considering how obvious it had become that we were to be sold off to some presumably horrible fate.

As soon as the morning light was fully evident through the windows the doors were thrown open wide and various agents of evil began to trickle in. I do quite literally mean agents of evil, too. First there was a tall, sleek, undisguised changeling, a shrewd look behind the blue orbs of his eyes. Behind him came a dappled grey Saddlearabian wearing simple but expensive looking linens, a jewel encrusted ceremonial dagger winked wickedly from where it hung on his sash. It was eyed disgustedly by a camel who pushed by him, sharing heated words for a moment. That's to be expected, one must suppose, as they are on opposite sides of a centuries old conflict and set to be bidding against each other. The wary eye might detect some anomalies beneath the camel's own brightly colored silks which were indicative of light weaponry.

A grey feathered griffon, coat and plumage adorned with crisscrossed battle scars and nothing else stepped in, obviously feeling out of place in the gathering crowd he went straight to the buffet and started grazing nervously and picking bits of meat from the roast pig.

With a broad brimmed, snakeskin banded hat the zebra was easy to pick out as a prospective buyer himself. Some small time warlord, it was unrealistic of him to expect to be on par with the rest of the crowd, but the butt of a combat knife peeking from under his tooled leather saddlebags and his nervous demeanor labeled him as someone to watch out for.

The balance of the crowd were a bland mix of creatures, but the kind of bland that was clearly intentional. They all milled around the buffet and even mingled to a degree. Just before the doors were shut a rather unique personage winged his way in. At first I thought it was kin to Discord himself, some sort of dragoneques, but that wasn't the case. It was a lithe, green, snakelike dragon, the size of a teenager but with a look of ageless wisdom behind his azure eyes. If a dragon's horde were financing this bidder then the sky was the limit.

The churchbell chimed and the doors were sealed shut. From a side entrance entered Sacred Song, Bray in tow close behind her. Even with all the shady deals he'd done in his life he appeared nervous before this crowd. It made little difference, he was just the auctioneer, Sacred Song would do all the talking.

"Mares, gentlecolts, esteemed and reviled creatures of various dark enclaves, welcome to what is certain to be the auction of a lifetime." She began, having hopped up on a low bench placed for just such a purpose. She had put on a patterned skirt and loose blouse which were surprisingly inelegant, but it hid her cutie mark, tail and enough of her back that she could have had wings for all you could tell. Her mane was contained under a stylish scarf and she was wearing glasses which seemed to shift her eye color to a purple shade. There was even a poof in her scarf that disguised her horn. It was all subtle, but should be effective camouflage should someone choose to track her down later. "I'm sure you all want to get to the main event, but I would hate to have you miss an opportunity to own your very own slave army. Take a look around. These guards aren't just for your protection, they're for sale too. Each and every one ready to follow any command, march against insurmountable odds, put their very lives on the line without so much as a second thought. Buy one and they'll be released to you, to follow only your command, totally compliant, after the main event's concluded."

"Who'll start the bidding for this fine, fit Ponyvillian mare, all fitted out for battle? Which discriminating connoisseur of military might will add this fine specimen to their battalion today?" Bray started and the whole crowd collectively groaned. This wasn't what they came for, they were set to bid on the Elements of Harmony, not these peons. Regardless there were a quick smattering of bids and the donkey eventually proclaimed her sold for a mere eight thousand bits. Money changed hooves, Sacred Song spoke to the auctioned soldier who nodded once in understanding and they moved on to the next one.

In just a short while all the soldiers had been accounted for, most of them going to the zebra warlord. The griffons were likewise sold off. Then even the Griffons not present, numbering another dozen, were sold as a lot. They were described as the elite of the group who'd been set to guarding the perimeter, not being present for inspection their price was considerably discounted in the bidding, but Sacred Song didn't seem one to leave any bits on the table, even though it was obvious that the Elements would draw a fortune to put the sale of the small army to shame. Towards that end she announced one final lot before the star attraction.

"We have an odd lot to settle the disposition of before we move on to the last item of the day." Sacred Song announced and gestured towards a nearby passage. From it emerged a lavender and green dragon, "He might be a baby, but if you know anything about dragonfire you'll find him useful for communication. He's been a slave all his life even before my unique conditioning so he's quite obedient. Lastly it's a fact that he's currently magically anchored to Princess Celestia herself, so if you ever wanted to send a little something her way, this is a fine opportunity. Mind you it's a two way link so it might do well to sever it quickly thereafter. Your dragon, your lookout."

"Who'll start the bidding at a paltry hundred thousand?" Bray asked, but had to drop it to fifty before anyone spoke up but then it skyrocket to well over two hundred thousand before the bidding plateaued. The current high bidder was the grey griffon, the second highest being the green dragon.

"What do you even want him for?" The dragon hissed and rose, pointing a hostile claw at the griffon.

"Maybe I want to make boots out of his hide, what's it to you?" The griffon replied with a snarl.

"I want to bring him back to the dragonlands, back to his people where he belongs. It's most shameful to treat a noble creature this way!" The dragon spit on the ground, flicked his tongue and paced in nervous agitation. His large stature didn't seem to bother the griffon overmuch.

"The bid for two thirty five, going once..." Started the donkey, but the dragon wheeled around to face him and stuck a claw in his face.

"Your two high bidders are talking. Do not interrupt." Bray gulped and waited as they argued the merits of dragon ownership with each other in vehement mutterings which involved considerable scowling and chest poking. The gallery of eligible bidders grumbled, but given the stature of the dragon in particular they let the delay slide. I did, however, hear several mumbles about how auctions generally did not work in just this manner.

Then I felt a taloned hand on my flank which startled me considerably, but there was little enough I could do to express it, "Relax," Captain Grizelda's voice said from behind me, "We intend to free you, but it's taking longer than we'd initially planned and we've only got eleven griffons...and one mad mare. We've sent for reinforcements but the closest real garrison is many miles distant. Just hold on a moment..."

"Captain!" Another griffon harshly whispered, "That donkey's coming up here!"

With a curse and an assurance that she'd return for us shortly Captain Grizelda retreated before the donkey surmounted the platform. The argument on the floor just then reached it's final conclusion.

"Look, if you buy the dragon I'm just going to hunt you down, kill you, and take him from you so it's in your best interest not to." The dragon concluded dispassionately, "Two thirty five and one bit." he bid and his opposition ceded Spike to him.

"Sold." Bray said with his hoof on the curtain, ready to let it fall away at a moments notice.

"Our last item of the day," Sacred Song said brightly, "are the Elements of Harmony themselves. The complete set in all their glory. You've read about them, quaked in fear of them, now you can own them for whatever great or ignoble purpose you see fit to put them to."

Bray dropped the curtain and we were all exposed to the leering eyes of that hateful crowd. One of them spoke up from the back, voicing the concerns they all must have been feeling, "How do we know they're the real deal?"

Sacred Song sighed theatrically, "If you win the bidding you may test them on premises before you hand over your bits. It's troublesome in that using the Elements negates the control they're under, but I can recast it for you. You'll have to come up with your own spell for future uses, however."

"What if one of these other fools ambushes us once we leave with them?" The same stallion asked. The dragon's method of winning the bidding on Spike rather begged the question.

"I will take precautions to ensure your safety from your immediate company. Beyond that it's your own lookout. You're playing with the big colts now, so you're just going to have to cowpony up and deal with it. If you can't then you shouldn't be bidding." She said.

"What sort of precautions?"

"Since you'll all want to leave under the cover of darkness anyway, just as you arrived, and it's quite a wait, I'll let the winning bidder depart an hour before and detain everyone else..." Sacred Song started.

"What makes you think you can keep any of us here?"

"I'd rather not play the part of an impolite hostess, but the fact is that I have in my hooves the Elements of Harmony who defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord and Chrysalis. You'll have to take that as emblematic of my power. If you force me to start making threats I will make good on them." She rolled her eyes, clacked her right hoof against her left and widened her stance aggressively, "Let's be honest. There are six of you who are serious bidders, three more who think they are and a few dilettantes. With the power I posses it would be the simplest thing in the world to rob you all and force you to fight each other to the death." She paused for effect, letting the audacity of her threat sink in, "But then your bosses would get word and I'd have to kill literally everyone involved in even the remotest way when all I want to do is have a fun little auction so I can buck off and retire, alright? So let's just take it as read that I'm as badflank as rumored and y'all are going to be polite and do as I ask because I just don't have the patience for anything else. If you really need me to prove it, how 'bout I off someone?" She scanned the crowd, "You!" She pointed to a nondescript tan coated stallion. The assembled bidders moved away, stumbling over benches and backpedaling. Sacred Song screwed up her face in concentration and held a hoof to her temple. The stallion shut his eyes tight and trembled. She dropped her hoof, relaxed and laughed, "Naw, I'm just bucking with you, seriously, you're great!" There was a murmur of nervous laughter that evolved into stamping applause as the crowd filled back in.

Satisfied and more than a little cowed, the crowd settled down and got back to creepily staring at us with lustful looks. I'm less than convinced that they were lusting after only the power we represented. I was desperately hoping for a griffon army to burst through the door and free us, but it didn't happen and the bidding just went on and on. I admit I'd never given any thought to the value of the elements, given the impracticality of cashing them in, but when they got to five hundred million bits even I started to feel a tinge of greed. I'll write it again so you don't think I miswrote it. Five. Hundred. Million.

The six high rollers seemed prepared for it, all the way up to two fifty, but after that half of them dropped out. Then after four fifty there were only two left to maintain the spectacle. One was the Saddlearabian who must have had an endless supply of bits. He didn't flinch or hesitate before raising his bid. In fact he seemed fairly bored by the whole thing. The opposing bidder was a charcoal grey unicorn stallion and it was clearly evident that he'd reached his bidding limit at five fifty.

He jokingly asked, "Could I perhaps have a discount as my employer only requires the crystals and has little enough interest in the mares themselves? Slaves are pretty easy to come by, after all."

Though there were chuckles there was also, disturbingly, an answer as the zebra warlord spoke up, "I could put twenty five million in on those terms."

The Saddlearabian, scoffed and upped the bid to six hundred. Now I had the debatable distinction of saying that my friends and I were worth a hundred million each. I started making plans. When we used the Elements as a test we'd be free for a second at least. Sacred Song, having lived along side us in Ponyville, knew of my magic, but since I rarely used it in public she likely underestimated the raw speed at which I could teleport. My very first move would be to snatch up Spike and send him to safety, I'm not likely to let some random dragon take him away from me. It would take too long to teleport all of the girls, though, so I'd have to work up a tactic to contain Sacred Song before we could be rehypnotized.

My friends were behind me, the soldiers were around the perimeter. Though it went against absolutely everything I believed in I quickly decided that I would cast a fire spell and burn everyone in the center of the room, including Sacred Song and Bray in an infernal blaze of magic. I'm not proud of that decision but I almost certainly would have gone through with it had the opportunity arisen, and that's a thing I'll have to reconcile with myself at some point. It wasn't to be, however, so we are fortunate in that.

To my right a deafening crash erupted from the stained glass window exploding inward under the weight of gargoyle swung from a length of stout cord. Bright jewels of shattered glass peppered the ground at my hooves as the midday light shone in effectively blinding everyone who'd turned to look. Had I been able to turn my head I would have looked too and so not seen the griffon emerge from the shadows and wrap a pair of strong talons around Sacred Song's muzzle. She bucked that griffon off but he was immediately replaced by three more of his compatriots, one of which was Georgia who screamed towards us, "Sing damn it, sing now!"

Behind me and to my left a voice was risen bright an clear, a lilting snippet of song in an ancient tongue and I turned my head to find Sea Swirl there beside me, anguish plain on her face. Behind her Rarity looked at me and blinked while Rainbow Dash's snarled and coiled to spring into a fight that hadn't even properly broken out yet. It registered that I had turned my head and thus was free so I turned back to face the advancing mob who seemed intent on retaking us. I tilted my head down and made ready to let loose a torrent of raw, reckless magic.

None came. It turns out I was wearing an inhibitor ring and couldn't see it perched on the base of my horn. Without a removal spell panic overtook me for a moment before I charged horn first into the fray anyway. Rainbow Dash beat me to it and even though the hundred or so bidders consisted of desperate criminals, scarred veterans and vicious killers they fell back from her numerous fast, brutal charges. The reservists had recovered themselves, though they were quite slow for my liking in actually taking up the fight.

They quickly realized the weapons they'd been holding were for show only and so they invariably chose to break off the heads and use their hafts as truncheons, beating the chaotic but largely unarmed mob into cowering submission. For my part I spun and bucked and lashed out with my horn goring several combatants. In my zeal I may have accidentally gelded a certain zebra warlord, though I don't feel overly sympathetic about my mistake.

The press of bodies soon became too much and were it not for Applejack having joined by my side I would have been overwhelmed. The element of surprise had worn off and the crowd, having little stake in the battle, was attempting to make for the exits, trampling anyone in their way.

I looked back. Rainbow Dash was holding her own or better, Pinkie Pie had acquired some sort of large headed wooden hammer of the sort used to drive tent stakes and she was bopping combatants on the head seemingly at random. Rarity stood by Fluttershy's side and between her dressing down any that approached her and using a military grade version of the stare and Rarity's intermittent physical attacks they seemed to be relatively safe.

I couldn't find Spike in the crowd, it's half to be expected, he's short. But I also noticed that the green dragon's tail was just visible as he slipped through the shattered window and realized the obvious, that he'd stolen away with Spike. No matter what the reason it wouldn't stand and I took off after him at a gallop, bursting through the window frame with a heedless leap.

Outside the sky was swarming with griffons, a couple hundred at least, who were picking off those who escaped the fracas inside. The dragon hovered in midair with Spike squirming and shouting in his grasp, surrounded by a sphere of well armed griffons. Even an old and wily dragon wouldn't make it out of that unscathed, at least not with his captive, so he threw Spike in the air flailing and hollering while he bolted. He flew fast and low to the ground and quickly outpaced the griffons, packing on one final burst of speed as he broke over the open ocean.

Spike was easily caught and brought back down to me and he explained to me that the dragon was just trying to keep him safe. He was quite conflicted by the idea that he'd been there to buy my friends and I as slaves but I think he was still grateful that he was one of the few who escaped. The only one of the bidders who did, in fact.

By the time I made my way back inside it was all over. The griffons had stormed in and violently detained everyone involved, including several of the scruffier looking reservists, but that was soon sorted out. There were numerous injuries, including a matching pair of black eyes for both Rainbow Dash and Applejack, but no one was killed, which is a minor miracle. As they were binding and hauling the captives away I noticed ones conspicuous absence.

"Where's Sacred Song?" I demanded, but no one knew.

"Sea Swirl's missing too." A worried griffon, I believe it was Georgia, told me.

The interrogations that went on throughout the afternoon yielded underworld connections, criminal cartels, age old conspiracies, account numbers and directions to stashes of bits that would have made a king of dragons blush. What they did not provide was any knowledge on the whereabouts of Sacred Song or her daughter.

Bray, the hundred and third in his family line to bear that same name, according to him, was our most interesting find, even disregarding the wings. He had known Sacred Song for more than a decade and had not been under any sort of mind control, though he was deathly afraid of her. Beyond deathly. I think he would have gladly accepted death rather than face her ire again.

Given the sheer number of arrestees and the difficulty in temporarily housing them we'd had to relocate to an unused naval barracks nearby. Containment was provided by shields created by high level unicorn spell casters who were brought in for the purpose. It's a little mentioned fact that there are just as many ponies as griffons in Eagleland, and though they're not likely to ascend into the royalty too awfully soon, they are pretty heavily represented in all levels of government and the public service sector (Excepting the armed forces, which are still about ninety percent griffon.). Because of this there's a higher reliance on unicorn magic than one might guess. It's just as well as it took an expert to get the inhibitor off of my and Rarity's horns.

The barracks were even equipped with an interview room that was the classic interrogation room with it's bolted down furniture and one way mirror. Ostensibly they were for debriefings and training exercises. I was allowed in to talk to Bray and managed to take over the whole interview myself, the griffon officer sitting off to himself with a disinterested look. Captain Grizelda joined me a short while in, but likewise stayed mostly silent.

It quickly became obvious that this had elements that were well planned and others that were last second additions. Notably, Bray and his salvage operation had been scouted more than fifteen years ago. Sacred Song, as she's long been known on this side of the ocean, is a brigand. That much is clear by now and she wanted to use Bray to get rid of the purloined vessels she intended to possess in the future. She wanted his yard to warehouse her stolen goods while she shopped them around to fence. How precisely she intended to waylay these unfortunate vessels and crews in number and avoid scrutiny he was not clear on, but supposed she already had something worked out. She had intended to use the monastery as a residence, it's tall tower being a long disused lighthouse she'd simply have to install herself as the keeper and thus have cover for her presence and a cohort of brainwashed monks as well, one suspects.

Clearly she had things arranged for this to be her next stop after Ponyville. Bray says that the theft of the Elements of Harmony was a spur of the moment thing, even though she said to him that it wasn't and that kidnapping the Element Bearers was very much an afterthought as well. Having her own private army, as the Ponyville reserves had become, had long been a dream of hers and he concedes that she may have planned to install them in the monk's place since the very beginning.

He hadn't heard from her in as much as five years before he was informed by letter of her expected arrival. It arrived only a day before she did.

A lot of what he knew was pieced together from assumptions but he said that, yes, Pinkie Pie was brainwashed to sabotage the ship and do her best to get us here. She apologized loudly from the next room, largely dispelling the illusion that the one way mirror provided. He also verified that the coordinates on the painting were a trap made to look like she was trying to entice Sea Swirl to come find her but that it was really meant for us. She apparently thought it was quite clever and I suppose it was at that.

She was indifferent to Sea Swirl's involvement, but in the end, her daughter was all she came out of this debacle with. When news of what she's done hits the papers tomorrow it's going to be a national tragedy. Neither of them will be able to walk the streets of Eagleland undisguised for years after this, which leads me to believe she will have skipped the country.

Each one of the prisoners represents some villainous plot against you, excluding the Saddlearabian and the camel who are only plotting against each other. I'm not sure how serious to take any of these because I'm sure that every year of your long life has been filled with petty, failed plots and yet you're still around, strong as ever. I would be interested in knowing what methods they intended to use to weaponize the magic of friendship, but I find I have little taste for the interview process itself. It's best left to the experts and I can read the reports later, I suppose.

Rainbow Dash is flying acrobatic drills with the griffons, moments ago she did a sonic rainboom for them, the first that Eagleland's ever seen, so I'm sure they're impressed.

Fluttershy was invited for a walk in a nearby woods by a sweet young griffon. She's thrilled at the chance to see the indigenous animals. I'm not sure she realizes that he's trying to flirt with her, but then maybe I give her too little credit in such matters.

Applejack's touring a local apple orchard, no surprise. What is a surprise is that it is indeed a long lost branch of the Apple family tree, though they are tenant farmers for a griffon landlord.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity have put together a shopping trip into town for tomorrow and mean to drag me along. One wants to see the fashions, the other the pastries, I'll send some of that jasmine tea I know you like if I happen across it, but really I'll go along because I have things to think about and I know stewing over them while sitting here won't bring me any closer to any kind of solution.

These things I have to think about fall quite squarely into the 'Friendship Studies' category when I come to think of it. You know I'd gladly cross the globe to help my friends, but what about friends of friends? Acquaintances? Ponies I want to like but secretly annoy me? How far do I go for them? I'm not Pinkie Pie and I can't just make a blanket pronouncement that everyone is my friend. According to your mindset it's either a foalish idea on it's face or I've just not achieved an enlightenment sufficient to see the world that way yet.

Barring some unanticipated break in this case we've lost Sacred Song's trail and that may render the argument moot. Since we've gotten the Elements back and my closest friends are safe I could well see us cutting our losses and heading home. This is a murder investigation now and I'm not sure we can even help in it.

But then there's Sea Swirl. I'm the one who dragged her into this mess. At the time I think I wanted her as a proxy to revenge me against Sacred Song né Sea Breeze's betrayal. After the fiasco with the griffon airships and now her disappearing with Sacred Song, I have a hard time divorcing her from the sins of her mother, even though, intellectually I know that's not even fair. It's safe to say that if we don't go out of our way to try and save her, nobody else is libel to either. In short I feel obligated but I'm not sure, philosophically where a pony draws the line and just says it's not something I can help with this time.

Anyway, even though I sent a letter earlier so you'd know we were alright I'm sure you've been wondering precisely what happened so I'll conclude my report with that so I can send it off before it gets too late. You'll have to excuse any errors, for time savings I've only double checked this so there's bound to be a few.

My Faithful Student,

I'm relieved to hear that you came through this ordeal none the worse for wear and I'm proud of how you've acquitted yourself in dealing with this tragic mystery. Now that the facts have been brought out into the light it should be a much simpler matter to locate Sea Swirl and her mother. It happens that the information you've uncovered reveals to me her true identity, but more on that in a moment.

First I would like to address the question you've posed, though I think you already know the answer. You can't do everything yourself, nor is it healthy to try. If you've done your best and still cannot help Sea Swirl then there's no shame in leaving it to the professional soldiers.

I understand it's often hard to know how far to go, because in any matter there's always more you could have done and it's nigh impossible to find the demarcation between earnestly reasonable actions and obsessing.

My advice? Discuss it with your friends openly and honestly. You're never going to feel good about leaving somepony behind, but the harsh reality is that these things do happen and you can't blame yourself. I love all my little ponies and I particularly wish no harm to come to Sea Swirl as she is, presumably, an innocent. To this end my forces will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of those two.

Her mother is particularly troublesome. The whole family has been for several centuries back. Though much diluted with time her bloodline on the maternal side is descended from the pairing of a changeling queen and Star Swirl the Bearded himself, or so the rumor has it. It's more difficult than one might suspect to prove such a thing, but it's resulted in a unique bloodline trait, the hypnotic singing that's caused so much havoc. It's for just that reason that the eldest mare of their line is invariably dubbed with the name....

Author's Notes:

From Twilight Sparkle's perspective.

Back to Sea Swirl, normal mode, in the next one and we get to actually know something about Siren Song.
Turns out she didn't want to be a mean mare, she wanted to be a Broadneigh dancer.
Or was that Mr. T?
Eh, whichever.

Siren Song

"Siren Song." She ignored me.

Dancing nimbly around me with a silver tea service balanced on her back, I tried again, "Siren Song? Hey! Don't ignore me. Siren Song!" She gave no indication whatever that she'd heard me and slid the tray onto the rustic oak table, it's metallic swish accenting her constantly hummed melody, "Yo! Old lady! I'm talking to you." She brushed by me, swept up a pair of teacups from the army of them on the counter and clutched them to her chest as she walked to the table on three legs. Brushing a partially completed jigsaw puzzle off the table to let it's thousand pieces patter against the floor she sat down and placed the cups before her. With a quilted pot holder between the teapot's handle and her thin lipped mouth she poured both cups full to the brim, set the pot back on the tray and shoved one cup across the table from her. The tea sloshed and overtopped the cup, dripping messily down the sides and pooling beneath it. I switched from glaring at her to glaring at the offending cup which would most certainly leave a ring on the previously unspoiled oak.

"Sugar?" She inquired as if she'd not spent the previous minutes pointedly ignoring me.

"Why've you always got to make such a mess?" I asked in response before levitating both cups, as she should have done, wiping the table beneath them with a rag and sliding saucers beneath them before resettling them.

"Why do you think I need you to clean up after me?" She dropped a pair of sugarcubes with a plop, "It's like when you were a little filly and you saw all my record albums on the floor, remember? You picked them all up and put them in milk crates organized by genre and in alphabetical order and everything and just assumed that it was a good thing, the way it should be. It never occurred to you that they were fine how I had them and imposing your sense of order on others is completely self serving, not helpful at all. I'd hoped to teach you better than that, but I can see you haven't changed that much from when you were a foal."

"You were a slob." I said evenly, "You can't try and pass slovenliness off for the 'controlled chaos of a genius mind' or whatever you used to say."

"Well who made you the absolute arbiter of the chaos and order? If I piled everything I own in a big mound and slept in center of it which would you call that?" She asked, stirring milk into her once again overflowing teacup with a spoon handle held in her mouth.

"What kind of question is that? That's pure chaos, like crazy cat mare levels of hoarderdom." I replied, even though I sensed that it was some rhetorical trap.

"Dragons do it, and no one faults them for it." She rejoined.

"But they're on piles of gold and gems in a cave..."

"Which, because you're used to the idea, you find more aesthetically acceptable than a pile of blankets and furniture and whatnot, but it's just as strange, if not stranger, to heap precious metals and gems up in such a manner and way less comfortable to sleep on." She sipped her tea with a smug expression. I'd forgotten in so many years apart but it's a pain to argue with her, she always had some incisive little tidbits that may not have held up to the scrutiny of a true debater but always left me flummoxed.

"Yeah, less comfortable for ponies, not dragons. Just because something's okay for a dragon, arguably a wild animal, doesn't mean it's okay for ponies. You can't just live in a heap of your own filth and act like it's okay." I remained standing, not prepared yet to have a friendly tea with her. This pointless argument, I knew, was just an outlet for the deeper rage I felt beneath it, struggling to rise up and consume me.

"Because only this fictional..." She gestured, searching for a word, "Meta-society can judge between a heap of filth and a nest? Who gave them the authority? I never voted on that and I never agreed to it. Just because everypony decided that we all had to follow this set of rules to be good, upstanding members of society doesn't mean it's true or that it's actually binding. Most of the ones who'd argue it the loudest are secretly the kinds of freaks and weirdos they're accusing everypony else of being, right? So what they're actually saying is that we all must give the appearance of being good and upstanding members of society, and should you be found out for the deviant you really are we'll turn our backs on you and deny the lot."

I couldn't believe it, but I guess it came from our ways being parted when I was still in my teens. In all that time she'd never actually acknowledged the horrible things she'd done or offered any honest explanation, and while I was quite dubious, I felt this was shaping up to be progress towards that end and I searched for the question to ask to further it, "So you feel abandoned by society?"

She scrunched up her face in confusion, "What? No, I'm talking about you, my baby. I read the first half of your little writing assignment, see. I'm trying to explain that just because you think society's judged you a failure, it doesn't mean anything because buck society anyway. All this fussiness and introspection, it's kinda pointless and you're just letting others define you by getting bogged down in this petty...."

I stopped listening though she spoke unabated for minutes, enumerating the ways in which I was not the failure I knew I was and the ways in which I should alter my perceptions and quit comparing myself to others. Self esteemy piles of horseapples where I'd thought she was going to talk about herself.

As she spoke, unheard, I realized what I was doing and the utter absurdity of it. After the monastery I'd ended up with her, on the run. That was weeks ago and since then she'd relinquished her hold on my mind, save that I still seemed to be in the dark about my early years, and yet I stayed with her. Inexplicably, I stayed. At first I chalked it up to the remoteness of the locale and fear of trying to make it to any sort of civilization on my own, but that's not the whole truth.

But then as she listed out the things I should do and books I should read to become a better pony I couldn't resist the simmering fury and righteous indignation of her, of all ponies, telling me how to improve myself! To an outside observer it would have looked unprovoked, maybe it was, but I stepped to the table, took up my teacup and threw it's steaming contents in her face. El-splat-o! It was much restrained over what I really wanted to do.

She snorted in annoyance, flicked her tail, otherwise still as a portrait, then grabbed up the cream pitcher in her magic and flung it at me trailing it's milky tail. I dodged, but she grabbed the teapot by it's spout as she bounded over the table. She reared back and smashed it across my face, splattering us both with scalding hot liquid. In her unchecked aggression she managed to hurt herself as much as me as she pounded me with the thin metal pot. When it burst all it's solder joints and was little more than a twisted sheet she discarded it and expended the rest of her immediate wrath with bare hooves.

Breathing heavily still, she grabbed me by the mane and ferociously pulled me to my hooves, then shoved me to the stool pulled up to the table. Forcibly seated me on it before relinquishing her grip on my hair. She refilled the kettle and lit the stove, pulling down an old tin coffee pot from the cabin's shelves and dropped some tea into it. Then she retrieved a fresh teacup, walked to the table and slammed it down so hard on the saucer that they both chipped. That revitalized her anger for a brief moment. She flung the cup and saucer both against the wall to form wet starbursts against the bare wood paneling. Apparently that was insufficient because she then grabbed up the silver tray and sent it pinwheeling against the cabinets where it crumpled itself against a now scarred door and fell to the floor with a clatter.

I was too timid to venture any kind of speech or action. The kettle whistled, she dumped it's contents in the coffee pot and brought both it and another fresh tea cup to the table. She set them down gingerly amidst the spilled cream and overturned sugarbowl trailing it's contents lazily across the table. Then she settled back down, topped off her tea and sipped.

"If you can't be civil I don't see how this is going to work out, and for Celestia's sake, call me mom." She said calmly.

Even though I knew better and even though I fought against it my mouth said, "Damn, Siren Song, anger issues much?"

What did she do? She calmly threw her cup of hot tea in my face. I simply took a napkin and wiped it away, then archly refilled her cup from the battered coffee pot. A grin bloomed on her face, followed by tittering laughter and soon she was having a full on laughing fit and I couldn't help but join it, aches, bruises, dripping tea and crimson smears across my coat forgotten.

In spite of everything she was still my mom.

We were hiding in the Western Stirropean mountains in a spot so insanely, ridiculously perfect that I could scarcely believe it existed at all. Two ridgelines came down towards the sea, framing the jagged, snow topped peaks above. A scant three hundred yards above the beach sat an acre of land nestled between the rocky spines. Between two dark and twisted pines rose a cabin, and though it was intentionally rustic, it was built in the ski-lodge style, with a sharp, angular roof and a broad expanse of glass facing the sea. It was larger than practical if heating issues were a concern (It had a gas fireplace, stove and furnace, so there was either a line or storage tank somewhere, though I saw no evidence of it in my stay.) and impractical to access. It was the sort of fairytale get away that only very rich ponies could justify. The beach below was accessible by means of an overly steep stairway and though there was a boat dock there the waves had beat it so thoroughly as to make it practically useless for it's purpose. It was perfect to climb up and dive off of, though, and I spent almost a whole day in the sunlight and salt spray, jumping from the little platform into the invigoratingly cold sea.

Mother watched from the shore, reading and placidly sipping some sort of mulled wine. She had a jug of the stuff half in and half out of a small fire that had died away to embers and was drinking it from a cracked mug that was stamped '#1 Dad' in black lettering.

She'd been delighted when she'd found it, explaining to me the irony of the thing. "First," She'd told me, "There's the blatant fact that anypony who could afford to own a place like this is automatically a subjectively bad pony. You just don't get this kind of rich without busting a few skulls and stabbing a few backs. Honest work comes with humble rewards, after all, but in his kid's eyes? Sure, he could still be number one dad, I guess. But if you were the one receiving such a thing, would it fill you with pride that your foal thinks you're the best father in the world or would you see it as an indictment of all your little failings, like it was a little sarcastic?"

"I don't know," I'd told her neutrally, "I've seen those things all over people's offices and workshops. I don't think anypony thinks about it all that deeply." I had, though. I had precisely the same thought when I'd seen one for the first time and actually paid attention to it, not that I was going to admit it. It was disturbing to me that she seemed to think like I did when she'd had a few. Further the fact that it was cracked rather badly seemed to make it almost an art piece, especially fitting if she'd killed the former owner of this little bit of paradise.

I wondered if she had, but I wasn't planning on asking.

When I crawled up the beach, my legs weary from swimming and suddenly unaccustomed to a world where buoyancy didn't counteract gravity. I shook off my mane, splattering Mom and causing the glowing embers to spit and pop dramatically. She raised her eyes from the book and scowled at me. I took that as a cue and asked, "So what is it we're doing here, anyway? Not that I mind it, but I can hardly imagine that this is a permanent solution."

"We're waiting for the mail." She replied simply and went back to reading.

"Yeah, you said that before, and it's all kinds of cryptic and such, but since the mail doesn't get delivered here...?" I trailed off, leaving the question implied. I didn't know the right one to ask so I figured I'd just let her fill in the missing bit.

She sighed and set the book face down on the coarse sand. It was a stiff paperback and tried to close up so she shoved a mound of dirt and pebbles on top of it. It hurt me, spiritually, to see a book treated so. I could imagine the moisture from the sediment leaching into the edges of the rag paper, leaving irrevocable streaks and stains. At least she didn't dog ear it, I guess. Ponies who do that are the worst.

At length she asked, "Why do you care?"

Knowing it was the wrong thing to say but having no other likely reply at hoof I asked, "Why wouldn't I?"

"Aren't you enjoying yourself here?"

"Yes, except that I'm worried..."

"Don't be. It's not yours to worry about at any rate." She cut in, "In a few days the package I'm waiting for will arrive and you won't have to worry ever again."

"You're...You're going to kill me?" I gasped.

Her jaw dropped open and she shook her head in bewilderment, "Sea Swirl, I swear sometimes you're just so stupid I can't even believe you're my daughter. Why would you even think that?"

"Well...you do tend to...kind of...leave a few bodies in your wake." I stammered.

She waved it off, "Eh, that's different. I've only killed changelings and ponies who deserved it, you know I was working for Celestia herself. I wouldn't hurt you for all the world my baby."

"Okay, no. You can't claim to have been working for Princess Celestia and then steal the Elements of Harmony themselves, that's as opposite of working for the Princess as you can get and I'm not convinced that agent tailing me was a changeling at all, I think he was a royal guard looking for you and nothing more." I railed, "More than that you brainwashed me twice and threw me in a damned asylum, and that's not even getting into my childhood!"

"I may have eradicated a couple memories that weren't age appropriate, but the asylum was for your own good." She looked at me conspiratorially, "You've got a couple issues they could help you with, I think. You're kind of a bucked up pony Sea Swirl."

"I had kind of a bucked up mom." I said, and she giggled, but I hadn't meant it as a joke.

"Okay, but the whole Elements of Harmony thing? I may have gone a bit overboard, but in the end it will be a net positive for Celestia. She'll have all the criminal elements who were plotting against her neatly gathered and I knew the Element Bearers would get free in the end." She said.

"That's not even true."

"Oh yeah, who do you think arranged to have a Griffon garrison waiting to free them? That's not just luck that they were on maneuvers near there because the nearest base is hours away. Admittedly it was somewhat more chaotic than I'd planned, but when the stakes are as high as they were it's worth the risk." She refilled her mug with wine and offered it to me but I declined, "You just wait 'til I get the package, then you'll have all the proof you need that what I'm saying is true."

I knew it wasn't worth arguing. She lied so well because she could always remember her lies, square them with reality in a convincing way and never ever admit that she'd lied. So once she said something, even if you knew it wasn't true and you had proof she'd almost never back down. Even if her whole edifice was a house of cards you couldn't knock it down because the 'facts' she piled on top of the lies made you forget what they were based on. I switched to a new line of attack, "What about the monks?"

The candidness of her answer surprised me, "Buck the monks. Bunch of superstitious wackos with their beaks up their asses. Not even they believe what they're preaching anymore because this isn't the fifth century, is it? Their time had come and they should have been ashamed for pushing such drek on impressionable young minds. Besides, if they believe what they're selling I did them all a favor and sent them to their reward a little quicker."

In my mind's eye I pictured the field of fresh dug graves, they were burned into my brain. Each grave was shaped a little differently and the edges were ragged as if they hadn't been dug by shovels but by talons. With her power she'd made those griffons dig their own graves and probably pull the soil in on top of themselves I realized. I thought, remember this. This is the kind of vicious your mom is. Regardless of her justifying and redirecting, this is the truth of things. "That's really bucking terrible. You can't just kill anyone you think is wrong. Being wrong is not a capital offense."

"Yeah, well, it bucking well should be." She said, then got up and climbed up the stairs back to the cabin. Her gait was unsteady, not just from drink but from age. It was the first time I really realized it. For all my fear and the inglorious pedestal I'd placed her on, she was getting old.

To give her some time to cool off I went back into the sea, alternately swimming sprints and diving down to touch the bottom. In the cool depths the water was still and it shouldn't have surprised me that I heard a snippet of my whale friend talking.

He himself said his voice carried, but my hearing was vastly inferior to his and my vocal range, even with the amplification spell, was very much limited. I thought, though, that if he was close enough, maybe he could hear me, so I called out a greeting to him. It took several minutes for the reply to come.

At first I thought that meant he was quite close, dividing the speed of sound in miles per hour by sixty gave me a rough guess, but then I remembered that sound moved faster in water. Then I had no idea because I'd forgotten it was a round trip and I don't remember how much faster anyway, though given my abilities you'd think I should be better at that.

In the meantime I asked him how he'd been and what he was doing. It was all whale stuff, hunting, swimming to the richer waters of the moment, then he asked how I got clear down to where I was, so I told him. It was a shortened version and it had a lot of detours to explain things I didn't think he'd understand, but he got enough of it to see the uncertainty of my situation.

"I do not know what I could do, but I would do anything I can to help you." He replied sweetly, "Do you need help?"

"I...I probably do. But even if my options were unlimited I don't know what I would do." I admitted.

"It sounds to me like you want to kill her and I cannot say that you would not be justified in doing so." He said gently. It had occurred to me in brief flashes and half formed ideas that I should end her life and bring this travesty to a close, but I had discarded that outright as unthinkable.

There were too many unknowns and what ifs. For instance, did the fact I still couldn't remember my childhood mean I was still under her control? What if I tried to kill her and found I was incapable because of that? What if some of her seemingly wacko opinions were better founded than I gave them credit? What if it turned out I was incapable because I'm not a killer, but then what if it turned out that I was and I am?

Now I know anypony who's read this is shouting right now, 'For buck's sake, just kill the monster in her sleep and have done with it!' That's all well and good. Well and good indeed, but there are things that need to be taken into account.

A prime point is that I'm a coward. Anypony who read my writings has been apprised of the width and depth of my yellow streak. It's a point to be made that anyone who knew me in real life wouldn't realize this, it doesn't show. I'm bombastic with my friends, terse in a way that's usually considered humorous and somewhat aloof. Wave Crest used to jokingly call me 'The last hard mare.'

It's hard to say that the whale thought any differently of me than my less aquatic friends and there's less of an onus on killing in the seas. Anyone who's causing problems usually gets eaten, but it's of no particular note because so do a lot of innocents. Even then it's a whole different thing to kill your mother.

"You have much to think about, I suppose." The whale said when I had not made a reply after a substantial period of time, and indeed I did. He further said that he would like to talk to me again sometime, but that he had to keep moving North for the time being. After much triangulation from undersea landmarks and known waypoints we agreed that on the longest day of the year, some time distant yet, he'd be in the sea beyond the old lighthouse and if I was able I would meet him.

I wondered if I would make it.

We all know about the various genocides and holocausts that have occurred from time to time in foreign lands and we come to wonder how they were perpetrated at all. A charismatic leader is one thing, but death is dealt and atrocities committed by his henchmen and we all wonder, what sort of sick freaks were they that they could do these heinous things? When they're brought up for trial there's a few psychos, but most of them are common as milk curd, so how could they go along with it?

In short, how could I go along and act like everything was fine living side by side with an unrepentant killer. It's not loyalty, exactly, though that's a good disguise. Complacency maybe. It's hard to hold in one's mind that someone who is outwardly intelligent, interesting and normal isn't. Brief bouts of violence aside, (There were numerous occasions of that, but the cabin suffered worse than I for them. Keep in mind that, for all the terror she caused in me, I am an athlete and fairly young yet, well able to weather her tempests.) we were getting along fairly well and it's easy to maintain the status quo, you're probably doing it right now.

That's how atrocities occur and I was giving it a lot of thought. It dovetailed with Mom's own societal arguments, but in the end philosophy is worthless, I needed to act. Though it kept me up two nights in a row with the planning and the justifying, I realized I just couldn't kill her, it was still just too repugnant.

Also, I still wanted to ask her so many things, but she'd already put forth her answers and I knew she wasn't one to go back on what she'd said.

According to her I was born a killer, just like her. My whole childhood a wicked season of carnage. If it was true, and there tended to be grains of truth in all she said, did that mean I could never change? Was I destined to always be so defined? I shared her power, I could have anything I wanted. If I was around her long enough, would I take up her mantle?

Ever since we'd gotten to the cabin, when she'd gotten bored with reading she'd tell me about her friends in Ponyville. I thought at the time it was simple nostalgia. She told me long rambling stories that about the various small adventures she'd been involved in. It was indicative of her duplicity that she really was friends with everypony in town. She told of taste testing Bonbon's more experimental candies, marching in a harvest festival parade, all the ponies she knew from the bowling league she'd been a part of and she was even there when Princess Luna showed up for Nightmare night. "I tried to get Rarity to make me a costume, see, but she was so busy that I'd ended up coming up with my own. I got old Blacky to hammer a helmet out of sheet metal and Dropstich made me a mace shaped pillow for my tail. I looked like some kind of ridiculous knight and while I was dancing I'd keep spinning around and whacking ponies with the mace and pretending it was an accident. It was great! Well until the Princess showed up, then it was kind of a mess, but even that's funny in retrospect."

She was a playful extrovert at heart and seemed to get along with everypony in public if her stories were true, and I had little reason to doubt them. It lulled me into a false sense of security and I'd think she was just normal old Mom until I remembered things like how she must have hypnotized the clerk from Sofas and Quills into confessing to a crime he didn't commit to cover her tracks.

I paced the floors in thought, chasing ideas in endless, intertwined loops. I need to act, I'd reminded myself over and over again, but I just couldn't. I was driving Mother and myself insane. She's not stupid, she had to know what I was thinking about, but as with the monastery she wanted to see what I would do about it. It's a cruel form of torture, crueler still was that I seemed forever at loggerheads with myself. Neither acting to better things or coming to terms with a fractured future, tidally locked in a killer's orbit.

"If you don't stop pacing I'm going to make you stop pacing." She said, threatening me overtly for the first time with her unique power, which led me to question it aloud.

"What I've been trying to figure out is, why can't I remember my childhood?" I demanded, "If everything you've said is true, then what is it you're trying to hide? What did you do that you don't want me to know about?"

"Ha! What did you do that you don't want to know about? That's a better question." She waved off my query, "I'm not hiding anything and it's natural that you've forgotten most of that. Some because you don't want to remember and some just fades with age. It's got nothing to do with me."

"Okay, prove it." I thought I was onto something clever, "Sing that song that releases your mind control, then I'll know for sure you're telling the truth."

"Oh, sing it yourself! You've been free ever since you got here." She spat.

"That doesn't work and you know it." I said.

"How would I know that? You think I can hypnotize myself to find out?" She said and I hit on an inspiring idea. I started singing the first song, I'd use it on her then make her sing to be sure I was free. If I could find one solid fact I hoped I could build my whole world around it, but it wasn't to be. As soon as she realized what I was doing she got up from her bench, wheeled around and bucked me hard in the chest. I hit the ground but didn't stop. A few more words and it would be done.

"Desist." She said quietly and I immediately fell silent. For a long while she just glared at me, then she shook her head, sat back down and returned to her reading.

"Ha! I knew it, you never released the spell!" I said triumphantly.

"Well it's like Santa Clydesdale, isn't it? You couldn't just leave it be and now the illusion's spoilt and we can never go back. I mean I could tell you to forget, I guess, but I don't think I'm going to. You had to have realized that I couldn't just let you roam free without safeguarding myself somehow, right?" She exhaled sharply, "I know you think I'm crazy, but do I strike you as stupid too? Is knowing really so important that you'll destroy everything for it?"

"Yeah, sometimes." I said and she shooed me away with a wave of her hoof. Throughout the night I tossed and turned thinking about it. Yes I was a coward, but my desire just to know was insatiable. I rose from my bed and crept into her room. I stood and stared at her sleeping form for an eternity, fear nearly forcing me away. It couldn't really be this easy, could it? She couldn't really have left herself unprotected at night, could she have? If I tried this and it failed what would she do? She wasn't about punishment for it's own sake, once her immediate anger had dissipated she'd probably just constrict her control over me, but that was torturous in and of itself, I remembered. I had all but convinced myself to give up before I did anything irrevocable, but my lips parted of their own accord and for the first time I used the cursed siren song on another pony.

I sang it loud and strong with all it's intricacies and I could feel it's subtle power flowing through me.

"Wake up." I told her and her eyes sprang open with a start. They were alert and mobile, she knew what was happening but, though I hadn't expressly ordered it, she was incapable of moving without my consent. There's stories of genies and wishes perverted by semantics, the siren song seemed to bind it's victims to their master's intent as well as their specific orders, which is apparently how it had been so thorough in forbidding communication when used on Pinkie Pie and myself. I still didn't know how Pinkie Pie had been allowed the latitude to communicate with me or throw me off the ship. "Sing the song." I said, and I didn't have to specify which one, she just did it and for the first time since I was an infant my mind was my own.

There was no rush of images or some grand batch of revelations and flashbacks, I just knew things again and if I explored my thoughts these things would be there, but that wasn't work to be done tonight. I was too keyed up by this point to be doing any soul searching so I gave her some very specific instructions and sent her back to sleep.

I told her to forget this had happened and that she was never, ever to use the siren song on me again. Did I tell her to quit flying off the handle and attacking me? No. Did I tell her to stop killing everypony all the bucking time? It happens I did not. I reasoned that she was still under my thrall and I could sort it all out later. I was still uncertain what I wanted, much less what I wanted from and for her, but conflicted can only last until you're forced to act.

"The package should have arrived today." She said as she roughly shook me awake. I grunted for her to go away but she dragged me by a hoof until I fell to the floor, half on and half off the bed, then assuming her mission had been accomplished she left. Grudgingly I admitted defeat, dragged my plot off the bed to fall in a heap with my forelimbs. Then I quickly I rose and prepared myself for the day.

The back bedrooms of the cabin kept out the sunlight until halfway through the morning and so encouraged sleeping in. I hadn't run since I'd left Ponyville. It had a way of making me feel lazy and pathetic, but now the dynamic had changed. At breakfast Mom made clear that she didn't remember last night and had no inkling that our positions had been reversed. If anything the recent revelation that I was, supposedly, still in her power had cooled her towards me, she certainly wasn't treating me as almost an equal as she had before.

"What are you grinning about?" She sharply demanded.

"It's a nice day, breakfast smells great and we're finally going to get out of this place. Not that it's not a lovely place, but I'm starting to feel pretty cooped up. Say, how are we getting out of here anyway?" I asked. We'd arrived by boat, but she'd sunk it in the shallows saying we shouldn't need it anymore.

"Over the pass." She said simply.

"Pass? What pass? That ridgeline looks pretty solid from what I've seen and we have to be a good couple days from any kind of civilization." I said skeptically.

"You really can't just believe me about these things?" She barked, "There's a pass and there's another cabin where we're going to meet somepony and pick up our mail, then we'll be on our way back to the real world. We'll need some coats, I think there's some in the closet."

I went back to the closet, opened it and poked around. I thought I felt a heap of clothes but it was too dark to see so I lit my horn. Staring me in the face was a horrified, freeze dried husk of a pony. I started in fright, turned and threw up on the floor, "Oh, Luna dammit."

"Ah, not that closet," Mother said helpfully, "The one by the door."

"Is that the owner of this place?"

"If you mean was he the owner of this place, then yes. An ex-husband so in actuality I own this place now." She chuckled, "Also, no I didn't have a foal with him. That mug was from a previous marriage, so don't even get started on that."

"Why's he in the closet?" Seemed like a decent question, I was trying to act unruffled though in fact I was decidedly ruffled.

"When he died the ground was frozen solid and I just kind of put it off." She shrugged, "I do tend to procrastinate about that sort of thing I'm afraid."

"Whatever," I said holding a coat up to her, "He had a nice coat, though. Here, smell it and see if it seems too corpsey." She gave me an incredulous look, "No? Alright, then, be that way."

I dropped it and collected a pair from the coat closet by the door instead and we headed out.

It was a hard day's hike and it was near dark by the time we got there. We should have started earlier. In truth I was encumbered by mother's poor pace over the rocky ground and I had taken a considerable lead on her just to keep from having to hear about her ankles hurting. The terrain was just challenging enough that I had to concentrate on it rather than letting my mind freewheel.

Yeah, I was putting off the revelations that were already nipping at the edges of my mind. I also tend to procrastinate.

The cabin we found was of the old school variety. Between it's higher elevation and it's position in the lee of the mountain it still had snow drifted down across it. It's chimney had melted a circle clear around itself and the doorway and one window had been shoveled clear. There was a set of tracks headed in and the same set had tromped around clearing snow before marching away and trailing off. Clearly a pegasus. Mom seemed nervous at that. I think because he was supposed to have stayed.

Inside there was a stack of dry firewood set by the cast iron stove so I kindled it to get the place heated up. By the light of the fire mother sat at the table, sifting through papers that had been in a pair of saddlebags on the table. I couldn't make head or tail of them, they were all sets of numbers and figures. It meant something to her, though. She smiled with a mad glee as she went through them.

Once the stove heated I set about making goulash from the dried and preserved vegetables that had been left in the cabin, "I thought that was supposed to be some sort of proof and vindication, not a block of spreadsheets."

"Bah. You have no sense of beauty is all. This, this right here," She smacked the sheaf of paper with her hoof, "Is probably the most valuable singular thing that exists in the entirety of the world."

"Good good." I said, feigning disinterest, "So what is it? Picture of the Princess' plot?"

She chuckled, her good mood far from being a fragile thing at this point, "I'll tell you all about it when we're back in the world, safe. For right now we have a lot of work to do if we don't want to get clipped as soon as we make it back."

From another saddle bag she produced some bottles of colored liquid, shears and a set of stencil paper. I caught onto it right away. We were going to dye ourselves, put on some fake cutie marks and waltz right back into public.

Well...

At least this part seemed like a good mother daughter bonding activity, I thought wryly.

She couldn't leave that cabin fast enough. As soon as dawn hinted that it might possibly break sometime in the very near future we were out the door and gone. We were both blue now. Not quite matching but only because we were different shades to begin with. Her mane was black and mine was a deep blue. On my flank lay a crescent moon and a single star where my circling dolphins had been. If you looked close they could still be made out, but they just looked like part of the moon's design. The workmareship was sub par.

On hers I had done a fine job if I do say so myself, but the design was not my own so I was limited. It was a witches hat with white stars and a pair of music notes outlined in white, one note over her original mark and the witches hat over the breaking wave. She was Sorceress' Song, now, a name I thought was just asking to be discovered.

I was, "Who gives a buck? Just make something up or pretend to be mute or something." So I decided Moonbuck was as good a name as any, should I be forced to give a name.

We walked into town fresh dyed and groomed and I was afraid we'd be making a scene in some backwoods mining town, but it was Ski Resort town so our confused out of placeness fit right in. Mom still seemed ill at ease.

"What's up?" I asked.

"There was supposed to be somepony waiting for us at the cabin. It doesn't really matter, but the fact he didn't stick around makes me think he was compromised, somehow." She said, carefully surveying the town for anypony who seemed out of place.

I didn't see anything out of place except for the big black dog headed towards us, "Wait, is that...? Cappy! Oh, buck, what's Cappy doing here?"

His happy lolling tongue bounced as he bounded towards us, towards me for once. It was surprisingly gratifying not to be ignored for once by that dumb animal. I reached to pet him but mother grabbed his big trusting head and twisted it roughly until a pop could be heard.

Then he flopped to the ground dead, a big slobbery smile still on his face...

Instantly but half heartedly I struck her in the throat and as she gasped and panted I cried.

I cried because she'd killed my dog. I cried because she'd taken herself out of my life, left me alone for so many years. I cried for the lives she'd taken and I cried because even though I'd been holding it off I finally remembered how she'd let her baby become a killer too and now I had to choose a path and either fork I took seemed to start with me killing again. I cried because even now I was strongly drawn to choose the path of evil, my mother's path.

Author's Notes:

Oh my god, she killed Cappy!
You bastard!

Therapy is Violence

"Cappy," I pled, "Cappy, get up, it'll be okay, just, please be okay....you bucking hateful, selfish, death mongering..." I lashed out blindly, but mother sidestepped the blow.

"My Baby, we're in public, don't draw attention..." She warned, but I interrupted.

"It's your fault we're in public," My voice fell to a growling whisper, "Look, it'll be okay, just fix it with your magic, you're strong enough aren't you? Just fix this and I'll do whatever you tell me, please, just, you have to make him okay again." I said, knowing full well how foalish I sounded, how pathetic, I broke back down into a series of deep, wracking sobs.

Then I was over it.

I've been around and my cyclic rate through the stages of grief have been accelerated through practice. "Dammit, you didn't have to do that, Mom." I said coldly, the wavering in my voice evening out.

"That's twice that damned dog found me, there was nothing for it." She said dispassionately, still rubbing her neck and keeping lookout for anypony watching us. I looked sadly to Cappy's body, tears still hung on my face. She was probably right at that. He was just a dog, I told myself, though I didn't believe that for a moment. From his collar trailed a lead rope that had been chewed through. The spit on it was still fresh and wet.

"He's run off from somepony, just like when he ran off from me. This town's no Ponyville though, so they've got to be pretty close by, regardless. We need to get out of here, now, but I don't know the area." I said, but she ignored me, eyeing the sky, I kicked her, "Hey! I said now! If you want to get out of this we've got to run. I'm fine either way, in fact if you give me long enough to think about how you just killed my Celestia damned dog I might turn you in myself." I kicked her again, right in the plot. She turned and scowled at me then took off at a slow trot towards a nearby bar but I stopped her, "Nope, whoever this is knows about you, you're not going to be able to do this hiding in plain sight schtick. We've got to skip out, like now."

For the first time I could remember she looked frazzled and confused, "Who the buck put you in charge?"

"You did when you froze just then. Do you know how to get out of this town without being spotted or not?" I demanded. She grumbled that she thought she did, but it'd been a long time since she'd been here.

"Why are you helping me anyway?" She asked as we passed through the sparsely inhabited main drag on the shadowed side of the street. With our new coats and confident steady gates we were the picture of nondescript. It was all glass storefronts and plank boardwalks clear to the end of town. It was the tail end of the season which accounted for the lack of business, all in all I wish we'd had a bit of a crowd to hide in, but at least there wasn't snow on the ground at this elevation.

"Why?" I replied at length, "I...Dunno. Momentum?" It wasn't a good answer. Did I have time to think of a better one? Did I want to think of a better one? She was my Mom and so I was helping her, it's the natural thing to do, isn't it? It was clear, though, that she needed help of the mental variety, was I planning to get her that help? I hadn't really thought about it, but I probably wasn't.

There was no barricade at the edge of town, no ponies milling around out of place. I took that as a good sign. Our pursuer's numbers were limited, they'd probably have to search the whole town before they knew for certain that we'd fled. I wasn't sure how they realized Cappy could track mother or how they got him here so fast but it did imply they were resourceful. They must have gotten to the pegasus who was supposed to deliver the package and replaced him. If they'd waited in or near the cabin odds are that we would have seen them and it would be tough to have backup close enough to be effective yet hidden. That implied more than one pony was tracking us if they wanted to be in town where they'd be less conspicuous.

But why was I on her side? It was instinctual, primal, but did it make sense? Whoever was after us was an unknown factor. They might kill her, or both of us, or send us both to prison. Was I exposed yet, was I culpable? Something told me I was, but it may have been the burst of guilt my newly restored memories foisted on me, but that was my own fault too. Now I was free, I knew, but had I been wrong? Was there really such a great value in knowing?

We were on the narrow winding path out of town. It was full of switchbacks and blind turns, I couldn't decide whether that was beneficial to us or not and I broke into a gallop which Mom tried to keep up with but was having difficulty. She reluctantly gave me her saddle bags to lighten her burden.

It doesn't make sense. The things she's done to me, if you listed them out, would read like a list of warcrimes. She hadn't beat me as a child, that much was true, but she used me as a living weapon.

All of a sudden I remembered a spell she'd taught me that I'd forgotten all about. It was useless in normal circumstances, all it did was make one's irises glow. I could give myself glowing scarlet eyes, just like my mother's, it was the perfect thing to strike fear in the hearts of a bunch of defenseless ponies as your mother sang to them, told them to kill themselves and each other before I ground the ship to splinters with my whirlpool.

Was I to blame for that? In my heart I always would be, now that I knew, but legally? I was a little filly, she was a bucking monster and I remember she'd stand on deck and laugh as her puppets fought each other to the death after politely removing their most valuable cargo to her waiting skiff. Moreover, remembering it this way left out something key. I had no idea if she'd compelled me to my actions or I'd done it of my own free will. In short, I wasn't sure if I was a monster too. I've always known I was a bucked up pony, but that's a whole different level of bucked up right there.

We'd slowed to a trot but I wouldn't let her go any slower, goading her on that we'd have to run again if we had any hope of getting to safety. She was wheezing raggedly, trying her hardest to keep up the pace though it was already clear she couldn't, but it was miles yet to the next town and I wasn't going to let her stop.

Give a kid a weapon and tell them it's okay, right even, to use it and they'll do it. They'll be the purest, cruelest soldiers the world has ever seen and when you turn their imaginations to unspeakable acts their initiative and innovation will startle the coldest blooded amongst us. The whirlpool was a weapon given to me. Granted I was predisposed to it's particular brand of magic but I clearly recall being schooled in it's use at a very early age. First in a bowl, then a pond, then in the bay until it became second nature. It was about the time I was being potty trained, the two things inexorably linked in my newly restored memories.

We'd slowed to a fast walk, it was all that Mom could manage now. The town was in view, maybe a mile distant as the crow flies. More than that on hoof, but what I could see of it gave me hope. Plumes of smoke lazily drifted up from a train that had just arrived. I urged her on. If we could just make the train we could disappear, but she was going to have to move like Nightmare Moon was on her tail to reach it in time.

The only way the interspersed memories of normal life fit was if I was under her power during the raids, I realized and it all finally fit. So why was I still helping her even after all of this and all of that? "Stockyard Syndrome." I said in reply to the question she'd asked hours ago now.

"Yeah, that's what I figured too." She said, gasping for breath but not missing a beat, "You going to stop now?"

No, I wasn't. Maybe you don't cure Stockyard Syndrome just by realizing you have it? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist. In case it's too obscure I should say that this comes from meat eating species who used to imprison animals in pens and fatten them up for the slaughter. Invariably the imprisoned animal would come to identify with their captors, even going so far as to help them against their own best interests. In modern usage it's been applied to abductees identifying with their kidnappers.

If we could make the train I'd just have time to think, a chance to decide. But then my whole life that's what I've had, time to think and it had never got me anywhere had it? When I'd been forced to act, that's when things happened, I guess that's right in the definition isn't it? Maybe thinking was overrated and it was time to act, and yet...

Here I was doing the wrong thing again and I knew it and every part of me wanted to stop running and turn her into the authorities, to give up this whole stupid chase. But I wouldn't, I seemed stubbornly bound to the path to perdition when even she would see the sense in giving her over. What if that's my single, defining personality trait?

...and this is just how bucked up I am without mind control I thought with a stifled snort. I'd managed to get a weak jog out of her, pushing and urging on the sweaty, gasping old mare and we'd made it into town. We were scrutinized under suspicious stares by the Germane tourists on the balconies of their A-frame cafes and condos, but we had a train to make so there was little to be done about it. A foreboding shadow cut through the bright, cold mountain sunshine and slid across us, then left. I looked up too late to see it's source. I can't say just what it was that made me notice that one in particular when so many ponies were flitting around, but somewhere inside I knew that brief flicker spelled doom for us.

The train station lay just ahead and the engine was still taking water. I couldn't believe our luck, "We made it!" I said enthusiastically as Mom wheezed and gasped, still being driven forward, but then she screamed in startled pain and collapsed to the ground, "C'mon, get up, we're almost there!" I said desperately but with pain and desperation in her eyes she rolled slightly to show me a short arrow that had embedded itself in her shoulder. I hadn't heard it, but I could hear the "Thock!" of a bowstring being drawn back over the pawl for another shot.

I turned and faced the shadowed corner of the cute timber framed station that hid our assassin. I cast the newly remembered spell and my eyes lit bloody and bright. I took a defensive stance, widening out as if to hold an assault by force of muscle but I cast my pitiful shield spell instead. I raised up a wind and blew a small dust storm into the shadow. I must have looked properly intimidating because ponies ran screaming from the immediate area.

The pegasus was not intimidated. His powerful wings negated the wind and sent it right back at me to buffet my shield twice as strong. In the lee of my shield Mother, gasping and grunting in pain, sang out the first few notes of the siren song, but couldn't go any further. I had forbidden her to use the spell on me and though I wasn't her target I would have been collateral damage so her hooves were tied. I would have reversed it but a tiny vindictive streak in me liked that she was helpless for once and I was the pony in charge. I wondered if she actually knew what was happening to her since she'd apparently never been afflicted with her own spell.

I stood my ground and waited for the pegasus to make his move. He advanced with his crossbow leveled. It was one of the one hooved variety that was held up on a shoulder strap. I'd done archery long enough to recognize the broadheaded arrow. Certainly not a field point, this was serious business here.

"Bucking hay!" Mother hoarsely cried, "It's a damn reunion!"

It took me a several seconds longer than it should have to realize what she meant. I was focused on the weapon. Without the uniform and hat, with his mane cut short and his coat filthy I hadn't recognized him at first, but when I did I came to attention, let my shield fall and saluted him, "Cap'm." As soon as I did he let the shot fly from his crossbow and I had to bring my shield back to deflect it. It was a close call, "Daddy! What the buck!?"

"Swirly? Wow, I thought you were your mother when you called me Cap'm! Damn, I'm sorry Swirly, you sound just like her." My father said, "I should have known when you put up a proper shield spell, but don't blame me, you're both the wrong color."

I'd forgotten about the dye. It amazed me that even after all these years Mother had recognized him right off. He was over sixty now and his charcoal mane had acquired more than a little grey. His light grey coat hadn't changed much but his age showed clearly in the wrinkles around his sapphire eyes. He was all in a lather, having undoubtedly searched that ski town, at least in part, before chasing us here. I couldn't help but notice he'd cocked and reloaded his crossbow and was advancing towards us. Shield still in place I moved to put myself firmly between him and mother who was still groaning and fussing with the arrow. She had it in her teeth and was trying to pull it painfully loose. He gave me a puzzled look, "Swirly, it's over, I know what she's done to you but it's over now. Are you...okay? Has she got the spell on you?"

"I'm fine, she doesn't and it isn't over yet." I answered, "One way or the other we'll be getting on that train."

"Huh. Really? You know she's nuts, right?" He incredulously asked, dropping the crossbow to point at the ground.

"Yeah, she really is and the horseapples she pulled ought to be punished, but she's still my mom and at least she was always there for me instead of staying for a couple months then running off to the sea for years at a time!" I screamed at him and he took a big step back, "I mean weren't we worth sticking around for? Wasn't I? I mean, what, did we smell? If you'd been there you could have stopped her and it wouldn't have all had to end this way!"

"Wow, just wow. Listen to yourself Sea Swirl. You're justifying protecting her by blaming me for not protecting you from her and you say you're not under her spell?" He huffed, "Why don't you ask me again why I wasn't there for you for more than a few months at a time?"

I paused, but not knowing what he was getting at I asked, "Why were you at sea so bucking much?"

"I can't say." He said simply and it took a moment to sink in. I dropped the shield, turned to glare at mother but she simply wasn't the aloof and mighty monster she'd been before. She was an exhausted and pitiful thing, tears of pain streaming down her face as she weakly worried the arrow that had spilt a yard's diameter worth of her blood beneath her. Celestia knows why she sent him away. Maybe she didn't want him prying into her own ventures or maybe she just couldn't abide his company for too long at a time. Any way around it she'd simply come up with another selfish way of stealing a little bit of my foalhood away from me and the reason really didn't matter all that much.

But he was right. It was over. He'd spent thirty some years wandering the sea but I could finally free him so I sang out the second song and released him.

He smiled a huge grin, his old eyes sparkling for a second before Mother was on him with that gory crossbow bolt in her hooves. She struck him three times in the chest and leg before I started singing the siren song to quell her.

She turned on me and bucked me full force in the mouth, knocking me sprawling on the ground, mind all in disarray. There was a crowd gathering around, spectating, not raising a hoof to help. I rose to a kneel and tried to sing again through my numb, blood slicked mouth. The two clicks I heard turned out, when I looked down to the cobbles, to be teeth.

They can be fixed, I reasoned madly, but there's a kind of permanence to loosing teeth as an adult. Crimson eyes and a crush of magical power only go so far towards scaring a full grown mare. The most disturbing nightmares I've ever had all start the same. I prod a tooth with my tongue and find it to be wobbly and instead of leaving it alone I keep poking at it until it falls out. Then I usually check others and find them poorly rooted as well and by the time I wake up I'm in a blind panic and usually can't get back to sleep without checking them over and giving them a good midnight re-brush. Lost teeth are a reminder of lost vitality, of mortality and impending death.

I rose swiftly, my ears ringing and my vision blurred. I had a concussion, too, I thought, I needed to end this now. The time to think was done and now I simply acted.

Do something, even if it's wrong.

Mother had harried my father with her meager weapon so effectively as to put him on the ground, hooves before him to protect himself from her vicious slashes. He was groping for a weapon of his own but having been freed once more she began the siren song.

I ripped the street apart with my magic, a swarm of rounded cobbles orbiting me I began to pelt her with them. She shied from the hail for only a moment, then grabbed up the discarded crossbow and fired it at me. I tried to block it but she was too fast. The bolt hit me in the throat, a searing pain such as I'd never imagined, but I seemed to still be breathing so I pressed the attack, putting as much force as I could behind each five pound lump of stone. She fell quickly and once more tried to sing. I would have called her a one trick pony had there not been an arrow preventing easy speech.

I bombarded her but she wouldn't stop, she was but a second away when I thought to cut the magic off at it's source and battered her horn directly with a stony lump. That stopped her dead, but it wasn't enough. My own time to wrap this up was running short. I trotted up to her, twisted her head so that her horn was against the cobbles and with a sharp blow I snapped it off.

Then in an act of purest cruelty I powdered it between two stones.

She screamed out in a rage and I right along side her. Taking a pegasus' wings or a unicorn's horn were the most taboo things that could be done by a pony. It would have been better to kill her, it would have been more honorable for us both. Celestia knows I'd tried to help her, tried to see it her way and she'd betrayed me every step of the way.

I wanted to kill her.

I've wanted few things in this world as much.

I held a big hunk of jagged rock above her head, rage building inside me. I pictured the splatter. I pictured it finally being over and done with.

For Dad.

For Cappy.

For myself.

I frustratedly sighed and shunted the rock aside.

In the end, regardless of what I've done or what I have been, I am not a killer.

The Germanes were not happy with us. From their perspective we'd appeared out of nowhere in a peaceful mountain town, terrorized the population and left them to sort out the mess as well as our medical care and imprisonment. For all the bluster and sabre rattling of a half century ago the country had become even more pastoral than Equestria and they really weren't equipped to deal with us properly, especially since the farther they looked into Mom's trail the more corpses they turned up. Even so they balked and stalled so that it took a month and a half for the Princess to secure our extradition.

Father was alternately thrilled that he was free of the song and depressed that it had come to this.

I felt freer than I'd been in years. I paced my cell in agitation, but not in circuitous self flagellating thought. I felt a great many of my issues to have been resolved, though in a more tactile way than therapists generally employ.

Mom was catatonic. That's fine, I didn't have a lot left to say to somepony who only answered in lies.

Georgia visited often. It turns out she had been searching with my father, but she'd stayed to finish searching the town and so had missed out on the action. It was good to have her near, but my conversational skills weren't the greatest as I was still healing from a nasty arrow wound. (Germane dentistry, however, seemed to be superb and I'd had a full set of teeth restored before the swelling went down from their loss and it was just as well, I most earnestly planned to do more smiling in the future than I had in the past and had made a good start on it with both Georgia and my Father present.) When they finally shipped us off I invited her and she promised she'd visit Ponyville as soon as she could. This adventure had taken up all her leave for the year or she would have tagged along having already been there once.

It turned out that Father (Guiding Light by name with a lighthouse cutie mark) had turned up in Ponyville after Wave Crest had told him where I'd gone. He spoke with half the town and was about to just come over to Eagleland and start searching, but a certain griffon showed up looking for a dog that knew the killer's scent. That would be Georgia and Cappy, respectively and the gospel I'd written had given her the idea.

She met my father while he was booking an airship for Eagleland and they got to talking and found their goals to be the same one. Once they were here they tracked down Mother's accomplice just before he was to drop off the bags. With a game of 'I can't say' they parsed his motives and relieved him of his burden. Odds are that he was quite happy about it. He would have ended up dead had he made his rendezvous. The details of her scheme were lost as he couldn't tell them about it very directly.

There was meant to be a trial, but apparently Siren Song pled guilty to everything and even enumerated a whole host of crimes she'd never even been suspected of. The harshest penalty available was given to her, imprisonment in stone for an indefinite term. In the history of Equestria only six creatures had been sentenced so. One had been sentenced in absentia and never been turned up and one had been Discord.

She looked so small and so frail standing on the platform, squinting at the sun directly overhead, legs shackled. Her look of defiance appeared weak and petulant as she glared out over the assembled crowd. The Princesses stood on either side of her and Twilight Sparkle, freshly crowned an alicorn herself, stood by her teacher's side.

All of Ponyville showed up to see the sentence passed. I do actually mean quite literally all of Ponyville. Most of Cloudsdale and some of Canterlot besides. At first I cursed them for gawking at the spectacle that was to be my Mother's demise, but I realized something. They crying, they were all so sad. All the things she'd done were public knowledge but all of Ponyville had counted her as a friend and had simply come to see her off and mourn her loss together. Their love and forgiveness is the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

The Princesses spoke to her sternly, but then Princess Celestia nuzzled her and whispered something in her ear. Then she must have asked if she had anything to say because she shambled to the edge of the stage.

I craned neck to hear.
She'd refused all visitors since she got back and it was said she barely spoke at all.

I hadn't had a chance to say goodbye.
She scanned the crowd, found me and looked me right in the eyes, shattered horn between her crimson irises, with a genuine smile she made her final utterances.

I didn't hear her last words or see the sentence passed upon her. I broke down weeping, the clock chimed once for the hour and I turned to leave. The Cap'm was in the crowd somewhere, but this was not a thing we wished to share, reunions aside we were still both intensely private ponies and wished to be alone with our grief for a time. The Ponyvillians I passed each gave me their condolences and offered their shoulders to cry on and their helping hooves in my time of need and I was glad for all my old friends.

It was a month on and for the time being I had resumed my pet food career so as to keep Peachy Sweet's rent paid up. Father was staying in town for my sake but had plans to retire as soon as he figured out what circumstances he would most enjoy. "Something by the sea. That's as far as I ever seem to get planning it." He kept telling me.

I told myself that I was coasting until the longest day of the year when I'd meet up with the whale near my old lighthouse, then I'd start a new life in earnest. It wasn't procrastination this time, either. I had an idea and several things to sort out still.

I had ended up with Mother's pile of exceedingly valuable kindling and had just started to try to figure out what it was. Apparently she owned some property and held various accounts in other countries. The way she was I just hoped I wouldn't end up getting sued over unpaid taxes or fraud or some such thing. That's what I expected given her history. I was deeply engrossed in researching it when somepony knocked on the door.

It was the little yellow and red filly from Sweet Apple Acres, Applebloom. She had a basket with her, "Selling fillyscout cookies?" I ventured.

"No Ma'am. It's a puppy." She said brightly.

"Well...I don't really need a puppy, I'm leaving for the coast soon and I like to travel light." She wilted a bit, then perked back up.

"Well this ain't just any puppy. We gave the others away but Granny said to save this'un for you." She uncovered the fuzzy little bugger, he was a big pawed black mutt with a white streak up his nose and floppy ears, "He was the biggest of the litter. Turns out Winona thought more've Cappy's company than y'all expected." She said with an embarrassed chuckle.

My first thought, they learn early on the farm, don't they? Second, it was Cappy's son and they saved the biggest and probably dumbest one for me. I poked him gently in the belly and he yowled at me, then proceeded to lick my hoof and melt my heart. "Well, I guess it wouldn't be so bad to have another dog."

Applebloom smiled a big sweet smile, set down the basket and took off at a clip. I was stuck with him now. I yelled my thanks after her and she turned to wave her hoof, then continued on home, I smiled, thinking how neighborly that had been of her, but then I'd known their family for years and Ponyville was such a friendly little town things of that sort were not uncommon. It was the whole acting like a decent pony thing that a large part of the East coast lacked.

Thinking about it, I guess I knew nearly everypony in town and was friends with most of them, I'd been here long enough, I supposed.

But also I hadn't, and that struck me as quite odd, but I didn't think much about it just then, I had a brand new puppy to show around so I went to find Lyra. She wasn't home, but Bonbon promised to send her my way when she got back from running errands after she cooed over the cuddly fuzzball herself.

Walking around town with a new puppy on your back is a good way to get stopped by absolutely every single pony in the vicinity. He got fondled and petted by every hoof within a half mile, but he seemed content enough for it. I was doing a sort of 'I've got a new puppy' prance as I happily greeted all my friends. My smile faltered when the proprietor of the antique shop trotted up to me to admire my new puppy.

"What's the little guy's name?" He asked and stroked his ruffled fur gently.

"I hadn't really thought of one yet, I just got him an hour ago." Internally I debated but finally chose to apologize, "Hey, about that little incident with the glitter, I'm real sorry about that. I hope it wasn't too much trouble..."

"Oh, don't worry about that." He interrupted, brushing my concerns off with a good natured chuckle, "It forced me to give the shop a long needed tidy and I can't really hold you responsible for things your mother did, can I? Besides, I still owe you for finding that colonial wash basin for the Rich's manner, it tied their whole project together, gave it a sense of authenticity."

I was going to say that I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I remembered that it had been one of mom's stories about her time in Ponyville. She'd found this washbasin in the janitor's closet of a hotel that was being demolished and she'd pointed it out to Dusty Treasures who in turn sold it to Filthy Rich for an exorbitant sum. Filthy gave it a place of honor in the period correct restoration of one of his mansion's guest rooms, which is a step up from being a mop sink as it had been for the past hundred years. It was funny that I remembered it as if I'd lived it myself and it was only with direct scrutiny that I realized it wasn't something I'd done.

Maybe that was understandable, having heard the story before, but why would he confuse my mom and I? I would have asked, but I sure didn't want to correct him and start a fight. We said our goodbyes and I went back to the boarding house.

The new puppy was eagerly engaged by Peachy Sweet's foals. They romped around the parlor laughing while the adults sat at the kitchen table. Keen Edge and Peachy Sweet were seated side by side, holding hooves like teenagers. He'd recounted his part in our recent adventure when the reserves had discharged him and she'd been clingy ever since, having realized how close she actually may have come to losing him.

He'd gone back to blacksmithing (I'd thought him a woodcutter this whole time from the axe cutie mark.) and was thinking of taking over the business as Old Blacky had been making noises about retiring. There were several thriving shops in town already but someplace like Ponyville could never have too many blacksmiths. Those prospects are what we were discussing when Lyra showed up.

"Bonbon said you were looking for me, and something about a dog?" I called for Peachy Keen to bring in the puppy. The little guy was worn out from all the attention he'd been getting. He yawned and fell asleep as soon as Lyra cradled him to her chest. "Oh he's adorable! Does he have a name yet?"

"No, not yet but I kind of have one in mind." The question brought up another that'd been bothering me so I mentioned the antique store owner and the odd feelings I'd had surrounding him mixing me up for my mother, "How long have I been in Ponyville, how long have we been friends?"

"Oh, for years and years." Peachy said, "Why I was just a little filly when you moved to town and you stayed right in the same room you're...Oh, but then you only came here half a year ago, didn't you? Huh, I could swear..."

"No, now she was here when I joined the reserves. You recommended me and she took me on even though I was actually too young and the extra bits are how we paid for the wedding, remember? She was one of the bridesmaids." Keen Edge recounted.

"I remember that," I said with a grin, it was a happy memory, "But I was still living in the lighthouse then. I wouldn't be old enough to be a military commander anyway and if I was then why am I not now?" I reminded them reasonably.

"Huh. That's weird," Lyra joined in, "I was a bridesmaid right beside you, but we only just met when you smashed my Lyre case, too. It's like both things are true."

"Okay, who framed that clerk who works at Sofas and Quills and made him confess to being a pimp and killing that guard?" A terrible foreboding rising.

"Siren Song did that. It was in all the papers and everyone rallied around him when they exonerated him. You're not trying to say you had something to do with that, are you?" Keen Edge asked.

"No, no. Nothing like that, I just wanted to make sure that's the way you remembered it." I sighed, "I thought this was over but I'm going to have to do some more work to sort it out. In the meantime it's probably best not to tell anypony, it just raises questions. I'll head to the library and start researching it tomorrow."

"Sea Swirl! It's been a while." Twilight Sparkle greeted me. I was still a little peeved that she and the other Elements of Harmony had skipped out on the search after Mom left with me from the Monastery, but I can understand why they'd done it.

"Hey Twilight, I have an experiment I've been meaning to do, but I need some help with it." She nodded enthusiastically. Twilight Sparkle was a mare as obsessed with knowing as I used to be, but while I'd scrutinized myself to learn about the world she learned about the world as an analog for understanding herself, "I need to have my magic suppressed so I can sing the siren song without it effecting anypony. If you're willing then you can transcribe the words?"

She gave me a strange look, but shrugged, seeing no harm in it, "Sure. I've got an inhibitor ring around here somewhere. Let me find it and we'll get started."

After a protracted and chaotic search the ring was turned up and installed upon my horn. I tried to cast a spell so as to verify it's function and found it to be properly nullified. "Ready?"

"Ready." Twilight replied and I sang the song. She wrote the words out, as I had, phonetically, then she stared at me in a mindless stupor.

"Oh, hay. Twilight, are you hypnotized?" She didn't answer so I asked her to tell me her most embarrassing secret.

Without hesitation she replied, "Sometimes I fantasize about Princess Celestia. I know it's wrong, she's been like a second mother to me but I just can't help but think about that beautiful white flank and how I'd like..."

"Stop! Oh, Luna stop!" That kind of thing's perfectly natural but for modesty's sake I'd rather pretend not to know about it. I told her to forget we'd had this conversation, sang the releasing spell and she came back, "Did you feel anything?"

"No. Was I supposed to?" She looked worried.

"Oh, um, no, but I just wanted to make sure." I said and she came over to take the suppressor ring off my horn. She scrutinized my horn after she'd removed it and I couldn't tell why.

"What is that? An inscription?" She asked, turning her head sideways to get a better look at my horn, "It says 'Siren Song was Here!' Well that's a pretty bucked up thing for her to have done, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it really is." I agreed, I didn't know she'd done that, but I knew instantly when she'd done it. I looked over her transcription and copied it down for authenticity's sake, "Well that's all I needed, thanks for your help!"

"Hey, there is one thing I've been meaning to take care of, the Princess asked me to, but honestly I've been putting it off." I braced myself for bad news, "It's about your Mom. She'd been living out of the reserve base office but she actually owned a house and since she named you in her will it's yours if you want it. She owed back taxes on it, quite a bit, but if nothing else you should check it out because her effects have been moved there." She hoofed me a document which turned out to be the deed to the house with a key taped on, "Also there's a bank account she had her paychecks from the reserve deposited into, so you'll want to look into that, though I doubt there's much in it."

In the afternoon my Father and I looked through the house. Though it had a key it wasn't locked but had survived it's abandonment unmolested in spite of that. The roof was good and though it was old, the furniture was serviceable. The taxes and penalties amounted to a full fifth of the houses value so it was no small thing to take on. There was little of Siren Song herself in the house. Heaped in the living room were boxes that contained her uniforms, name plate and small library from the reserve office. There were paints, bushes and a blank canvas, but no paintings, I was disappointed to see. The other bits and pieces had clearly come with the house, they didn't fit her, and I wondered how she'd come by it.

I didn't want to leave Peachy Sweet's yet and didn't have the cash to pay the taxes so I told my Dad that he could have it if he wanted it. Even with the tax bill he'd come out better than paying rent because he'd recoup his loss and more when he sold it. He agreed and promptly moved into the house.

When I came to visit a week later he was taking papers directly from one of Mom's file boxes and wadding them up with the intent of using them for kindling in the fireplace, "Hey, now those are tax receipts, you've got to save those for three years in case there's an audit, and that one's insurance on the house, if you burn that and the house burns down you'll just be out on the street with nothing."

"Bah, you know I can't stand all this bureaucratic scribbledy gook." He said and when I told him he had to save them anyway, he stuffed the papers back in the box and shoved it towards me, "You want it, you keep it." Then I had even more of my Mother's papers to look through, but I put the whole mess aside, Mom's tangled legacy would be there when I got back. I had a date on the coast with a griffon and a whale.

Author's Notes:

Guys, guys. I'm sorry about Cappy, alright? Have a puppy. Puppies make it all better.

Neptune, Dog of the Sea

My overseas adventures had changed me somewhat. I was mellowed considerably, partook of that most holy of plants only occasionally and was altogether happier. At least part of it was the change of circumstance to one in which I was surrounded by friends and vibrant small town life. Aside from that I had a couple things I hadn't had for some time. I had a goal that I was working towards and something to look forward to and that makes a considerable difference.

When I was still in the Germane prison I'd written a non-fiction book proposal based on the whale's life and it had been accepted. I'd overpromised a bit, I didn't have enough material to make a whole book yet but I hoped to glean enough when we met with the whale to flesh it out, assuming that he'd agree to let me profit by his story. In large measure it was his opinion that turned me against fiction writing, he'd caused me to believe that writing fiction is an exceedingly ungrateful act. Here we're giving this beautiful world, rife with the most glorious happenings and we arrogantly believe that we can improve upon it.

I'd been exchanging letters with Georgia and she met me in Ponyville just in time for a trip to the coast. I introduced her around and even though she's always very well mannered there was some trepidation on the part of the ponies. The last griffon who'd come through town had soured them to the whole race, which is a shame because if I had my way they'd be seeing more of Georgia in the future.

We took an uneventful train ride out to the coast and I introduced her to Wave Crest. Then we three walked out to the lighthouse only to be disappointed. It had finally given up it's fight and the whole cliffside had crumbled into the ocean leaving nothing but a picturesque ruin sprawled seaward. Wave Crest said it must have happened in that last week because it'd still been there last time she walked by it. She said we'd just have to stay with her and that was fine. Her family was happy enough to see me but they were thrilled to have a real live Griffon under their roof. Having a puppy besides didn't hurt anything. He joyously chased my former cats, which was fine by me. They seem to have forgotten me entirely our time apart and wouldn't so much as approach me, the ingrates.

Georgia was fine with the attention and told all the old stories of her race. It was several days yet before the Solstice so, even though she didn't want to learn, we taught Georgia to swim as a way of amusing ourselves. Then we taught her to surf. She was a natural but complained endlessly about the sticky salt water in her feathers and spent most of our evening preening sulkily. There's something hopelessly endearing about a sulking griffon.

The next day we three and the puppy took out a small sloop that Wave Crest was meant to be repairing. The puppy stood on the prow like a figurehead, stoically greeting the wind. Once we made it to the deep, open water I dove in and sunk just deep enough to hear my surroundings clearly. There was a lot of chatter of various creatures headed to some particular spot. I assumed the hunting was especially good there as the ocean is rife with occasional feeding frenzies of all sorts. If not for the deep overriding bass thrum of his voice I wouldn't have been able to make out the whale. I called to him and all the chatter mysteriously died. I told him I was here and gave him a meeting point that would be easy to find. He said that it would be a day yet before he was there but we headed there anyway.

The rendezvous point I'd chosen was an annoyance in many regards but it was one of the few spots in deep water that were easily found from both above and below the sea. It was the spire of an undersea castle that breached the surface with it's congealed offal and detritus pinnacle. It was a good six yards around where we tied off to it and it rose another fifty yards above. It's inhabitants were present, but kept at bay by fear of my griffon friend, which is another fine attribute of Georgia's.

No sooner had we arrived than we were accosted by a pod of dolphins eagerly jabbering about some storyteller. Then a killer whale made his presence known, asking if I was the pony in charge. By the time a second pod of dolphins had arrived I'd figured out what had happened. Since the sea afforded no privacy all the marine mammals in the area had overheard my plans way back when I made them and spread the story, a number of them had come here to meet me. Not because I was so interesting, but for stories of life on dry land and a chance to tell their own stories.

It's impossible to pay a dolphin or whale to work for you, I've come to realize. Money means nothing to him and you can't pay him in fish either. If he's free then fish are abundant and he'll gladly take them if they're given, but they don't mean much. If he's in a tank, as I've seen on occasion, then it's not payment but a from of slavery. Likewise with all the marine mammals but I'd found a currency they would trade in, stories. Before the whale even arrived I'd gotten tales enough for several volumes and talked long enough to make myself a little hoarse.

When he finally did arrive the sun was setting but I still had every creature's rapt attention so I told them the tale of Siren Song. The whale was much pleased with my presence and my story, but he asked if that was all, was the story over?

"No." I admitted, "There's still a little more to it as it turns out, but I don't know just how much. If you want I'll come back next year and I'll tell you all how it went, but it's not likely to be all that interesting, really."

They all said that they'd be here and they'd have more stories to tell if I did and I agreed. We spent another few days at sea in the whale and his brethren's company before they had to move on to feed. The puppy resumed his place majestically on the prow as we sailed back.

"Sea Swirl, I've got a bit of a present for you, maybe. I'm not sure if you really want it but I thought you should have it." Georgia said as I contemplated the sea. In her talon, wrapped in cellophane was an old Ship's log that had a quarter of it's pages ripped out. Written in it was this story in it's unedited form. The exceptions, of course, being anything after the cloister, which I wrote up after the fact as well as Twilight Sparkle's report, which I got from the archives, and Princess Celestia's reply, which I may have borrowed without asking from Twilight's papers.

I was unaccountably moved to tears holding the book in my hooves once more. I thanked Georgia who tactfully looked away but I was having none of it. I jumped up and hugged her and she calmly received my affection and embraced me back. At length and by way of changing to a fresh subject she indicated the puppy with a pointed talon and asked his name.

"He's going to be big, just like his father so I've got to name him something big. He's Neptune, for the god of the sea." I told her and she rolled her eyes.

"I like it, I guess. Not sure about the gender swap, but since she's fictional I guess it works well enough."

We kept in touch by letter, Georgia and I, and though we kept trying to come up with some venture to go into together we couldn't swing it. She was still in the service and I'd gotten my book published and was touring in support of it. Six months later I put out the second volume of 'A Whale's Tale' which was a compilation of the various stories I'd been told. It made it high enough on the best seller's list that I finally didn't have to worry about where my next month's rent was coming from.

Me and Neptune were living high on the hog by the next time we went out to the spire of the Seapony keep. Georgia and Wave Crest were both with us. The meeting went just the same with joyful greetings and stories swapped. The whale, though, pointedly kept himself below the waves and I got suspicious and called him on it.

Sheepishly he admitted that my story had been spread and some dolphins had found something that might be interesting, even if I didn't want to keep it so he'd dragged it here on his back. When he rose, there lay the Albatross as had the Cormorant, on his back.

Now I'd like to talk it up, tell how great it was and all but it wasn't. That old ship was seriously bucked up. It had clearly been submerged and then beached and part of it had been burned, but it had something the more soulful Cormorant never would, a poetic name. With an appraising glance Wave Crest waved it off and said, "Yeah, we can fix all that, no problem."

Anypony who's ever restored a house or a ship, assuming they did it well, can attest that it's usually cheaper, faster and easier to build a new one than to piece together some old junk, so why do we delight in these restoration projects instead of scratchbuilding? The shape, it's flaws and it's damage give us constraints and direction. They limit the potential, maybe, but the direct the ambition as well, and by now it's well known how poorly I do when my options are limitless. Still I had doubts about taking it on as a project at all.

"How about it Georgia, you want in on this?" I asked. She arched her eyebrows and gave me a look that asked if I was serious.

"It's a moot point. I have student loans to pay off even if I can get a leave of absence." She kept staring at the ship, "An extended leave of absence from the look of it."

"What if I paid off your student loans and paid you a salary?" I asked.

She scoffed, "I know writing's been good to you, but it hasn't been as good as all that. Besides that, even if you could afford to pay me I don't like boats unless they're airships. I figure you mean to add a mast and sail it as a boat? Nopony can afford to have their own airship without a small fortune to squander on it."

"Oh, it's just as well I've got one of those, then, because I did rather intend to build it back up as an airship." I informed her smugly.

When I'd gotten back to Ponyville a year back I'd buckled down to get through Mom's paperwork. Most of it was worthless, but I found a form that had her bank account number and routing number listed on it. Next to it she'd written her pin number. I closed the account out and managed to wind up with twelve hundred bits, which is a nice bonus, but not as exciting as all that. Twilight Sparkle had been right, not much in that account. What I'd noticed was that the format matched Mom's supposedly valuable papers but with an additional figure at the tail end which I took to be the balance at some arbitrary point in time. The third one from the top read five hundred and fifty million bits, the two above that were considerably more, but it was the five fifty that I'd recognized. That's where the grey unicorn had stopped the bidding.

Now I didn't know about money laundering or numbered accounts or what to do with them if you stumble upon them as I had, but I had an old friend of Mom's who did, never mind how, and after considerable research he told me what I had and what to do with it. With my initial hint he determined that half the list were sums confiscated by the government of Eagleland when they swept up all those bidders and coerced their various accounts and hidey holes out of them. The funds had subsequently gone missing but were known to have been shuffled around various accounts to make them impractical to trace. He did the same for me and then helped me to setup a series of corporations that I could entrust the money to who would follow my directives.

Mostly they were dedicated to doing good works. Fighting malaria, digging wells, educating the masses, providing pro-bono legal services, keeping the plutocrats in check and generally making the world better any way they could.

There was also a good contingent looking out for malevolent sorts with magical powers like Mom. By 'like' Mom, I also mean Mom in particular because she's still out there somewhere. The test with the inhibitor ring proved that the siren song was something other than a unicorn power.

I'd traced back my family tree and found that for generations back there had been an inordinate number of shipwrecks where ever the mares of the family went, but some of my ancestors, though it turned out we may have actually been Star Swirl's descendants, were not unicorns at all.

What that means is that both Princesses and the whole of Ponyville had been standing on a stage in front of a Siren Song who had not been defanged at all, even with her horn shattered.

Her magical powers were, in fact, nothing to brag about. She mostly acted like an earth pony though she could levitate things and do other minimal tasks if she needed to. That's why she'd trained her magically gifted daughter to be a living weapon in the first place. That swell of magical powers in my nightmares? Turns out it was my own. I'm not like a Twilight Sparkle over here, but I imagine I could take Rarity on and now I know a baker's dozen of spells with the flashy eye thing included. I'm sure she thought it was okay so long as she erased all the memories, but she'd gotten sloppy and all the meddling with my mind had strange, possibly subliminal consequences. The siren song, though, simply didn't need a horn at all, just the innate talent inherited down the maternal line and a voice.

So what did she do when she had Equestria's citizenry and very Godhead right in her grasp?

Nothing much and I have some ideas why. She stole money from criminals, they were evil and she could justify it as such. She stole the accounts of every bidder, but if she stole from criminals directly on the scale she did she'd be found out and hunted down. So she arranged to let them all be captured so she could steal it secondhoof from a big bloated bureaucracy that wasn't agile or inventive enough to catch her. I just think it wasn't enough of a challenge to have such easy and direct access to the very seat of power, no thrill in it.

The biggest and the oldest account had been in the same spot for a very long time and had never been withdrawn from. Mother hardly owned anything and wasn't interested in what she did own, so what good were bits to her? As far as I can tell she was just running up a score with no intention of ever using them, even though countries could be had for the balance she had at hoof. If she cared about bits she could have robbed the lot of us, taken over the country and gotten her accounts log back too. She plain didn't care about that because it was all just a game to her. Even the killings didn't seem to mean much. Because I knew her it's hard to see this clearly, but she was a sociopath. Completely mad and not in the smirk when you say it kind of way. Really very deeply disturbed and insane.

It's funny how the mind of a pony can hold two conflicting views at the same time. Normal Mom, Crazy Mom, same mare. That was an attribute of the siren song too. It would let you hold two conflicting ideas without a problem, so like everyone else I saw that Siren Song had been turned to stone to be hauled away to the Canterlot sculpture garden, but I also heard her last words, they were a song, some instructions and then she walked off the stage.

As the song died away she'd said, "Alright ponies, when the clock chimes one you're all going to know that I've been executed and taken away. 'Til then just stay still, except you, Sea Swirl, c'mon up here. Everypony see her? This is my daughter. I kind of bucked up her whole life so I mean to give her mine. The good parts anyway and that's you lot. All the good memories you have of me, it was her instead of me, alright? The stuff I did that you see as bad was still me and if she caused you all any trouble or owes you any money, that sort of thing, that was me too, okay? Now, Sea Swirl, all those stories I told you, it was you there instead of me, you should remember them clearly, I mean don't forget your real life but just...I don't know, figure it out and don't worry about it too much. Everyone in Ponyville's your friend now, so maybe things'll work out better for you. This is my way of saying I'm sorry. Now stand still for a minute." She grabbed my horn, took a sharp engraving blade and carefully and deeply scribed a message into the underside where I was sure to see it eventually, "...And that's for breaking off my bucking horn." Then she hugged me, nuzzled my face and sent me back to my spot in the crowd. She waved goodbye to Ponyville, kissed Princess Celestia on the lips and walked away.

One would be justified in wondering why I'm admitting to any of this and I guess it's time to fess up. All that money's out of my hooves and doing good works in the world. It had to be that way. I was scared of it and not decisive enough to have it for my own. I can't get it back and even if somepony decided they had a right to it the number of lawyers, accountants and mercenaries retained on staff would make that impractical. It would be hard to sue me for anything, I still have access to that stable of lawyers and all my personal dealings are wholly legal and above board.

Also Princess Celestia herself gave me a full pardon once I told her the entire story before the failed execution, though in truth I should have told her that Siren Song escaped so she didn't have to read it here. (Think of it, the Princess herself reading my book? I hope she's not too mad.) I did keep some money back, enough to buy a house, but I blew every bit of it on airship parts, paying Georgia, and getting us both to and from Ponyville and the Canterlot airship yards everyday while we were working on the refit. Wave Crest did a lot of the structural hull repair but Georgia and I took the balance as our own project.

Old Bray was set free, it being decided that he'd been under considerable duress and not wholly responsible for his actions. His plumage came in much better the second time around and when I saw him he appeared to be much happier and was engaged to a donkey half his age. Wings will do that for a fellow, they're pretty sexy, even on a donkey. I bought the carved doorframe and two gargoyles from the Cormorant, a pair of the engines from the Morningstar, none of which I managed a substantial discount on. Then, with Rarity's advisement on the fabrics and construction techniques, we had an appropriately sized white whale gasbag made up before I ran out of money.

Then I spent my book advance as well and while I should have been writing my next book about whales I was working on my airship and carousing (and canoodling) with a certain griffon. Bucking worth it, but I had to get a book out there, my publisher was hounding me so I figured what the hay. It's either this or sell the cabin in the mountains and I don't want to part with it before I finish the ship and fly it there at least once. If my machinations come to fruition I'm hoping to make a honeymoon trip of it. Don't tell, it's meant to be a surprise.

The thing is, though, that someday the Elements of Harmony are going to be used around Ponyville again, it's a fairly regular occurrence at this point, and everypony will be free from the siren song. I'd rather they find out now, from me that I'm not the mare they think I am. I haven't been here from the very start, at every party and in every crowd. I wasn't there when Twilight Sparkle first arrived or during Nightmare night. Neither did I try to trade my services for Grand Galloping Gala tickets or ride to the Crystal Empire along side the Cutie Mark Crusaders and all their animals (I would have done something more responsible than just watch that going on.) I'm being remembered in place of my Mom and in some cases, places where neither of us were, memories being so fallible as they are.

Oddly, even though I know I don't really, I remember being there too and I fondly remember all of you and I'm sorry that I wasn't. I've said a lot about being an introvert and enjoying my solitude, but I've found that a large measure of it was just denial, a cover for my loneliness.

Look, I like swimming in the ocean and I'll go back to visit it often, but I like Ponyville more and I'd like to stay here and even though I'm far from it, I'd like to play at being a normal pony for as long as I can.

I love you all and, if we could all just knowingly embrace a little lie that doesn't really hurt anyone, maybe you could love me too?

Truth for it's own sake is overrated. If anypony read this far I must hope that they understand and...

Maybe we could just go on pretending?

Author's Notes:

Well...that was sort of a happy ending, wasn't it?
'Course the killer's still on the loose, so maybe it's a bit ambiguous.

The rasping voice of a killer said, "I have no plans to call on you, the world's more interesting with you in it. So you take care now to extend me the same courtesy."

"Um, yeah, I got guys for that anyway ya old biddy." Replied her daughter.

"Seriously? That's how you're going to blow my cash?" Siren song fumed, "You need to take that stick out of your plot and have some fun once in a while."

So, thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it! If you did, tell your friends.

Updated the cover art, now it's a photoshopped over lighthouse pic I Googled up with a little bitty pony in the foreground.
I liked the one with Siren Song knifing her way through the canvas, but it was a bit busy...and cruddy, so this is better.