A small ship with half sails raised drifted along a river in a speed that barely caused any ripples to disturbe the surface. Six stalllions stood at the rails of the ship. One leaned his body on the rails at the sternof the ship while peering into the water, another was standing at the bow, holding a hoof over his eyes to cover from the sun, two were standing a bit from eachother at at the port of the ship, also scanning the water, and the last two stallion were also on lookout duty was they stood by the railing on the starboard side of the ship.
One of these stallion on the starbaord side of the ship, the one near the stern of the ship, inched closer to the other. As he got close, the other stallion noticed his approach and smiled.
”Have you seen that guy,” the stallion who had gotten closer whispered.
The other stallion moved up next to him.
”No. What? What do you mean?” he mumbled back.
The other stallion nodded towards the back of the boat so that his brown mane bounced up and down from his forehead.
”The guy wiht a black and yellow cloak. Look at the top of his head, his horn,” the red stallion said quietly.
He turned his blue head and looked at the back at the ship.
A couple of meters away, were four ponies sitting on a wooden box placed on the stern of the ship. The blue stallion could see a pegasi mare was sprawled out on the box. A bit infornt of her laid a slingshot with an extra loop next to the holder of projectiles, for the ponies hooves, and a bag with rope loop attach to it that was clearly filled with rocks the sizes of hooves and they seemed to have rather sharp edges.
She was partly covered from view for the blue stallion as there was a brown earth pony stallion sitting on his haunches on the edge of the box. He had grey hairs in his backlicked brown and black striped mane and his face was crinkled. He didn't have much fat and it showed as his muscled were well defined if not huge in size. Since he was sitting on his haunches the stallion could see that he wore horseshoes on his backlegs.
To the port side of him sat another earth pony stallion. He was grey with a white mane, however, he looked young. This stallion was larger than the previous one. The grey stallion had almost twice as big hooves as the other. He had a bbit of belly though. He had his front hooves crossed which revealed that he was wearing horseshoes that were much thicker than the what the other erath pony had worn.
In front of these ponies laid the three differnent pairs of armor: One was light leather armor that had holds for wings, one a was a chainmail armor with a few plates, and hte last one was this huge metal monstrosity.
The last pony on the box sat on deck and leaned his back on the box while staring out into the water on the starboard side. He wore a black cloak with a yellow lightning bolt comming from his hood onto the cloak's back before splitting off into many smaller onces towards the hems of the cloak. He had the hoodie on his head so that it rested on the base of his blue horn. Yellow threads were attached to the hem of his hood that dangled from it like the threads at the end of a rug.
While wasn't as strong as the other two stallions, he didn't look look boney.
The blue stallion looked about the stallion's horn but he couldn't see anything strange about it until the unicorn shifted on his head and bang of his black mane that previously covered the based ofhis horn from the blue stallion's view fell out of place. Behind it, was a flat, black ring around the horn with metallic buds attach to the ring and circling the horn.
”Hehe,” the blue stallion panted out. ”What is that?”
”I don't know. It looks ridiculous and you know what the best par-”
A green stallion head wearing a purple hat that was a loose as beanie but which top became to a point which rested behind his head popped up in between them with scowl on its features.
”Don't you have better things to do?” the green stallion asked.
The two of them gasped as they veered their heads around to find green crinkled-forehead stallion with a pipe in his mouth that let off a trail off of smoke from its end.
”Captain,” shouted the red one.
This caused the green stallion to growl at him.
”If you don't check for swamp serpents, I'll use you as bait if one appears. Now, Harvest, get back to your station,” he said in low tone
They both nodded and mumbled out, ”Yes, captain.” Then the red sallion walked back to his station.
The captain, who stilled looked crossed began to take careful steps towards the four ponies at back of the ship. When he passed te boom he by habit ducked under it but realised afterwards that it was silly of him to do so since they were moved forward by half-sail.
He passed a large barrel of small boulders and a circular leather lifebouy that was hanging on a hook nailed to the boom.
As he stepped over a plank on deck that he knew creaked terribly, he arrived at the four passengers at the back.
He walked up to the brown earth pony stallion and made a gesture towards the two crewponies that he had talked to.
”Sorry about those two. They can be a bit much to deal with sometimes,” he said quietly while he grinned and scratched the back of his neck.
”I'm sorry, what?” the brown stallion whispered back.