'Welcome To Harmony'[FINISHED]

Winter looked to the commotion with a frown. It seemed the captain had entered and made a spectacle of himself while embarrassing two of her guests. She looked to Cross apologetically before she broke away from his embrace, "Excuse me a moment" she said politely before she trotted over towards the goings on. It seemed the captain had now passed out and was being prodded by Zestari, while Bake and Scrap seemed uncomfortable. She looked with a slight frown at the captain before looking to Scrap and Bakewell. "I'm so sorry. This wasn't supposed to happen" she said sheepishly before once again glaring at the incapacitated buck. "I think some pony should take him to his quarters" she said and sighed before her horn took on a blue aura as her magic held around the body of the captain. "Does any pony know where his quarters are ?" she asked suddenly realizing she didn't know the entire layout of the ship.

Scrap was about to respond to Bakewell when the captain pushed him and Bakewell together and started to assault them with his alcohol soaked breath.

He started to protest but everytime the word were about to leave his mouth the drunken pony cut off his words. His attempts protest became increasing in urgency as Sparrow continued, but to no avail as before he could object to the question the drunken fool had gone ahead and done it anyway.

And with that Scrap and Bakewell were married. Unfortunatly Scraps brain had no idea how to process this information at this point so all that Scrap managed was a jaw drop and blank look of pure shock.

It wasn't that he didn't love Bakewell, he truly did, it was just the sudden and involuntary lightspeed jump forward in their relationship had taken him so completely by suprise that he was incapable of anything other then standing in place like a brain dead statue.

"............................."

Cross sadly smiled and nodded as Winter left him...he would wait for her nonetheless. But he would take this opportunity to make sure her party was going well.

Cross expected nothing other than the absolute best for a pony like Winter.

Cross quickly realized the commotion was about Sparrow...Winter was trying to help him up....Cross didn't trust Sparrow with Winter one bit....gritting his teeth he subtly brought up his pipbuck and did a quick search for Trails...his 'insurance'

Without alerting anypony, Cross quickly made his way outside and spotted Trails

"Smack, we have a situation, please take of it with as minimal noise as possible..."

Once hearing their response, Cross walked back into the ball room and resumed waiting for Winter.

“What?” Trails grumbled when he heard Cross calling for him. “Oh, OK.” He rose, being careful to chomp his cigar and strode into the ballroom. “Does Happy Trails need to smack a filly?”

Inside he did a quick assessment. Two areas needed his help, he would deal with one on his way to the kitchen. He walked briskly toward the kitchen door, grabbing a pile of napkins and a bottle of beer from a table as he went. He got ready for the toss, executing it at the last possible second.

“Get a room.” was all he growled at the sobbing buck as he opened the kitchen door.

The chef seemed less keen on intervention now Trails was armed to the teeth. Trails set a kettle on to boil, whistling and enjoying his cigar as he did so. The kettle started wailing, time for round two. He grabbed the kettle and stormed out of the kitchen. He ignored the buck he had just sorted and went straight for the drunken captain Zestari was clearly pissed at. He didn't know why she was pissed at Sparrow, nor did he care. He hit the captain over the head as hard as he could with the but of his pistol, knocking him to the floor. He then unceremoniously dumped the boiling kettle onto the captain and kicked him in the side.

“C'mon you drunken little waste, let's get you back to the bridge.” He set the kettle down and flipped the captain onto his back. “Have a nice party everypony.” was Trails last remark before walking out with the drunk, now whining, captain.

Rodeo watched some more as Sawdust suddenly started to pack everything back up. He had seen the whole scene just as she had, but he didn't consider it to be much of a problem. If he tried to marry Rodeo to somepony, he'd throw him overboard! ... But then he might not get a paycheck. Still, Rodeo would throw him. Rodeo wasn't interested in love, let alone marriage.

"Whoa, what's all the fussin' about? Where ya goin' in such uh hurry?" he asked, still watching the mare stow her items away.

As Trails walked by and commented on his sobbing, Blazen looked up, his look an angry expression. "Asshole." He made no attempt to silently say that. The ass didn't even know him, why he was crying. He seen Trails with Zestari, and he bet that in his position, he would either be angry or incredibly sad. Blazen walked out of the tea party room, and walked to the railing outside of the room. His fur near his eyes was slightly wet, and he just looked out to the sea.

He would mourn later.

Starry observed the commotion silently, alongside Shutter. It was both highly inappropriate for the setting, and rather amusing to her. Starry had to try her best not to smile or, goddess forbid, laugh. When the scene had ended, Starry leaned in toward Shutter, whispering in his ear.

"I left my family behind in that stable, Shutter, and do you really think everypony in that stable is crazy? The drug was a lie. Sure, a lot of ponies died in the confusion and the panic, but there must be survivors, survivors who have calmed down by now. And if there aren't any... well, I at least want to know what happened to all those I loved."

Starry paused briefly, for dramatic effect. "Don't you?"

Things suddenly got hectic as the ship’s captain threw himself over the two, pulling the two together. Friends? Bakewell wasn’t friends with this pony! She didn’t even really know him. Still, she guessed every pony deserved a chance at friendship an- Bakewell’s thoughts froze, nose wrinkling in slight disgust as his rancid breath spilled over her muzzle. A mare-dee-ajj? What was a Mare-de-ajj? She was pretty sure she didn’t want one, whatever it was.

“N-no, I think we’re fi-“ She quickly tried to answer, but her protest was quickly drowned out as the buck continued, his drunk rule not to be concerned with issues such as choice. “buckanmeer? What? What are you-“

And now he was doing strange things to the floor. Bakewell was left staring in total confusion.

“Zestari? Sorry? Why? What happened!?!” She asked with growing anxiety as she stared from the captain to the zebra.

Her erratic gaze quickly swapped to Winter the moment the party host approached. “Sorry? Why? What wasn’t supposed to happen? Scrap, what’s going on?”

No response.

“Scrap? Scrap!” Her terror continued to mount as she noticed her grey friend’s expression. She flung her hoof her hoof in front of the unicorn’s face and waved it around anxiously in his vision, but got little response for her troubles. Something was seriously wrong. She was missing a major piece of information, and nopony was helping. Why wasn’t anypony explaining anything?

When Trails come and poured boiling water on the poor captain the mare’s voice had risen above normal levels.

“No! Stop! Why are you- Happy Trails, you shouldn’t do things like that to innocent ponies.” She called after him as he left. What had the drunk possibly done to deserve a kettle full of scolding water to the face?

“What’s going on? Mare-de-aj? Inowpro ouceyu buckanmeer? What? Wha-“ She paused, eyes slowly shifting from confusion to realization as her voice lowered to a whisper.

“M-mariage? Buck and mare? Did… am I… married?” She whimpered as she gazed at the crowded party of witnesses. She didn’t ask for this, she didn’t ask for any of this. She had simply wanted to go on a boat trip and enjoy a party without saws, or steel rangers, or psychotic hosts, or ponies vomiting on her, or stupid computer bits trying to ruin her life. She hadn’t even been completely sure about dating a pony, and now she was married to one. Tears slowly began to trickle down the earth pony’s face. She hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t wanted any of this. Why did these terrible things always happen to her? She deserved bad things, she knew she deserved them, but it didn’t make accepting them any easier. Now she was trapped. Relationships like this were supposed to be about love and devotion, all of the sappy stable books she had hated said so! Marriage was supposed to be extremely happy and everypony was supposed to cheer and there was supposed to be cake. She certainly wasn’t feeling or seeing anything the books had described at the moment, and judging by Scrap’s face he felt same way! Now they were stuck together and she wasn’t good enough to be in it and he was too good to be in it and she was going to end up messing up and hurting him so badly because she didn’t love him at least she didn’t think she did and now they were married and it was just supposed to be a single simple party and and and

“I-I always expected there to be flowers…” Bakewell choked, her attempt to lighten the mood falling flat as the droplets of water continued down her face at an increasing pace. She sniffed loudly before nudging her apparent new husband.

“Scrap? Can… can we leave?” She sobbed quietly. “I don’t want to be here… The deck, a room, the ocean. Please? Anywhere but here.”

Twisted shrugged, but then noticed a very sad Blazen shield walk outside. "Uhm if you would excuse me... I need to go do something" She said as she suddenly teleported outside. Looking around she saw Blazen. She walked up beside him and looked out at the water for a few moments remaining silent.

"The water is beautiful isn't it" She asked calmly, not looking at him at all. She didn't want to seem confrontational.

He was silent for a minute, before answering. "Y-yes...it is." He said, holding back the tears forming behind his eye. For once, he was not angry at the mare. Of all ponies, she had been one to talk to him first and not calling him an asshole. He put his pipbuck on the speaker option, lowered it just enough for him and her to hear it. He put on the audio log, and he closed his eyes for a moment, a few tears going down around his muzzle.

He made no attempt to wipe them.

Twist was quiet for a moment before sighing "I have a question for you... I know it may be hard to come up with the right answer, and thats why I want you to just say the first answer to come to mind. Was there anything you could have done to stop it" She asked him quietly. Her face was saddened but not mournful. As a figure head, she had met many ponies who had gone through a similar experience, each one reacted differently. Some violently, some just wanting to curl up and die, some just never saying anything, and some in more gruesome manners but it was her job to at least try to help them.

"Yes." He said, his vision blurry due to the tears. "...I could have gone with her, i could have. But instead, i chose to stay here." He said, and looked at the mare. "I stand by my decision, even though i dont even know why i did so. I could have saved her. I could have stopped her death, perhaps at the lives of the town she so dearly protected." He said, breathing heavily. "...I will not do that. My girlfriend died protecting innocents." He said, looking down to the sea. "I think of it as her last wish."

Twist nodded "If you want... I could tell you how my eyes became what they are" She said looking at him "It may make you feel a little less bad about your situation knowing what I did in a similar one" She said simply

Blazen looked at her, and nodded. She was actually being kind to him, and this was not what he expected at all. When he first met her (illusion that is), he thought of her as some sort of evil person. His vision of her was warped.

"A-alright."

Scrap continued to stare off blankly into space completly oblivious of his surroundings untill Bakewell nudged him and snapped him out of shock induced stupor.

"S-sure...we can go out to the deck...I don't think many ponies will be out there..." Scrap said quietly to the now sobbing Bakewell before leading her out of the party and to some chairs in a corner of the deck where nopony was around.

"Bakewell...Im so sorry...I didn't mean for any of this to happen...I-I feel so horrible...you didn't love me the same way and because I was too stubborn to give and up now were stuck and and I'm so sorry..."

"No time to explain." The last thing to be swept up in her hurry was Twilight who she placed inside a pocket. The doll ended up hanging a little bit out, the glass eyes endlessly unblinkingly watching the yellow mare's back. There was no time to explain, she hurried out the door ahead of the Captain and Trails.

Sawdust felt she had to find the wheel house, even though she had no idea where it was or the proper term for it. She needed to make sure at minimum that the ship was being steered or otherwise was manned by somepony.

Dash didn't startle nearly as much as one would have expected a Pegasus pony would have when Twisted teleported away. His mother had performed that type of spell many times before, in fact, even while living for his entire life in Friendship City, he had never seen a Unicorn quite as powerful in magic than her, "My mother is a Unicorn Pony." Dash said to Nova, "She used to pull tricks like that all the time... She would train my little brother pretty well in it, and it seemed hard... I sometimes felt jealous that I couldn't use magic, but hay... I got wings, instead." he said jokingly.

She took a deep breath before sighing "When I was younger, my family was attacked by raiders. instead of going out and helping and hid and listened to the scream and beg for mercy as the raiders did horrible things to them. Afterwards they entered the room where I was hiding , and I just couldn't stop crying. They heard me and started looking for me, and I panicked. I willed that they wouldn't see me, and my horn started to glow, causing them to find me but when they looked, they couldn't see me. after a small argument they decided to leave the place and I crawled out of my hiding spot, but no matter where I looked I couldn't see where my parents were, so I went looking for them. What I didn't know was that my magic was still active, and that I was not strong enough to control it at that time, so it forever made my pupils invisible" She said looking at him. "Sad part is... It was that which earned me my cutie mark as well" She said looking at her covered flank "This, after years taught me that everything happens for a reason, and there is no real control of life. It's not destiny, its randomization... Sometimes bad things happen and you have to let go. Never forget though, because forgetting is foolish." She finally said. She took a deep breath and pressed her side against him comfortingly, her hight making it impossible to nuzzle him. "We all need friends, and friends come in all walks of life. They are to help us realize that no matter what we do, we cannot change reality, and that reality is random." She said finally.

Sky just standing in the ensuing chaos, the captain came in drunk, married Scrap and Bakewell, and trails took the captain sparrow away somewhere. Oh Celestia this ain't going well, seeing Scarp and Bakewelll leave probably isn't a sign of good health as Bake wept. "Parties over i guess?" Sky whispered to herself, leaving the tea party through the way she came.

She walked down the down to her room, to put on her security vest. "Back to work." Sky exclaimed to herself, as she put her dress away in a saddle bag. "Another time i guess?" She said to the dress, leaving the room to go back to patrol.

Winter Bell was about to trot on with the captain before she felt her magic implode. She snapped her head around to see Trails knock the captain down, kick him then pour boiling water on the pour buck. Winter was immediately stunned and looked to Trails with wide eyes, "Trails !" she gasped, utterly shocked. Her expression then turned to a stern one as she moved to a more assertive tone... which wasn't very good as far as Winter's verbal pallet goes.. "Trails there was no need for that... he's just had a little too much to drink" she said before looking down at the buck who undoubtedly would have some nasty burns from this. She sighed, now unsure what to do.

Rodeo sat silently, trying to figure out what had just happened, and where she was going. Well, he was an undercover guard... Guess he should try to make sure she didn't go off to do anything bad.

Rodeo stood slowly and started after her, keeping his distance and crouching to sneak.

Blazen found her words comforting, believe it or not. She had been through the same thing as he had, and he looked at her. Although he might not believe every certain thing is random, he believed every other word she had said. "I have nearly the same past." He said, looking down. "And i believe you. When i was a colt, i got handed this recipe. I don't remember much...but i remember being taken away by raiders and sold to Slavers that were mining gems. The slavers, i don't know if they're dead or not, forced me and a few other captures of theirs to work and mine for gems. For those few days...we...they planned carefully to escape. When i was told, i was ecstatic, thinking that the plan was perfect. They never told me the hard part, that people had to be sacrificed to get other ponies out like myself. After a few months, i escaped, and i got a family, a father. He and me made this one single frame for a 44." He grabbed the 44 Magnum frame and showed it to her. "Im still trying to find the right parts, but its called Noblesse." He put it back into his suits pocket. "...I...Thank you so much for talking about this." He said. "I really appreciate it."

Kes grunted out an affirmative and kept working out, still cracking out pullup after pullup.

"Fifty one, Fifty two, Fifty three"

Only when he had finished his hundred pullups did he drop down and relax for a bit. His muscled burned and his body ached...but it was a good ache. The kind he had not felt in days. It was...relaxing.

Lightning watched in surprise as the captain came in drunk. And married Bakewell and Scrap. Judging by their looks, they didn't look happy about this at all. "This can't be good..." he murmured to himself. The next thing that happened just reinforced his earlier thought. Trails coming over and pouring boiling water on the poor stallion. He winced a little at the sight but he simply just shook his head at the whole thing. The captain deserved it anyways. Lightning would just watch helplessly as Bakewell and Scrap decided to take their leave away from the others and the others left with the confusion of what just happened.

Bakewell was more than ready to leave as she followed Scrap. The noise of the party muffled slightly as they gained distance from it, the silence between the two newlyweds as they walked broken only by the occasional snotty sniff.

“Scrap, it’s not your fault…” She muttered as Scrap apologized. But it was, wasn’t it? If he had just been content to stay friends. If he hadn’t made the dumb suggestion of being colt and marefriends. If he had just left well enough alone. He was terrible. Nothing but trouble. What had he done for her besides cause issues? His wounds had made her skip the Stableton battle, his stupid brain had invaded her privacy in the Mahoofe. His stupid face had been part of the horrible nightmare of Harmony Lane. His emotions had ruined the party. He had done nothing for her. She should have never helped him. She should have left him to die.

No… No, she shouldn’t have. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t who she wanted to be. This was the stable talking, It wasn’t a part of her anymore. Bakewell Tart didn’t hurt ponies who were only trying to help. But was she really Bakewell? Did Bakewell even exist at this point? Whatever. She promised she would try and Celestia-damn-it-all she was going to.

“It’s not your fault!” She repeated forcefully, gritting her teeth and suddenly shoving herself onto Scrap in a tight hug. She was shaking, though judging by the tone of her voice and the force of her squeeze it could be just as much from anger as from sorrow “It’s not your fault. You didn’t want to break all of your fragile bones. You didn’t want a marriage to end up this way, if you even wanted a marriage. You didn’t ask to like me for whatever stupid reason you do. You’re sweet. You’re kind. You wouldn’t do anything you thought would hurt me. You’re a Dolt, Scrap Parts, and now I guess you’re my Dolt. Whether I like it or not."

The stronger earth pony finally released the unicorn and backed away, sizing him up with angry eyes. “You’re my responsibility now. We’ll live in my house in Stableton. If Zestari doesn’t like it then she’ll just have to deal with it.” She paused to sniff and wipe her eyes. “Ugh. I’m such a crybaby. Ponies used to be terrified of me, you know. Ponies used to change routes just to avoid having to see such a monster! Look at me now. I can just hear them laughing their puny little flanks off.”