“I still don’t get why you wanted me up here,” Depth Charge’s voice called from the aft deck, “There’s an entire ocean out there for me to explore. Couldn’t you just let me swim alongside the ship?”
 
“You can do that the entire way back if you want,” Crash Dive replied between humming to herself as she rooted through the cramped confines of the Wayfarer’s living space, “We can take the long way around if you want. But I’m not about to have you spill half of this bobbing about in the water.”
 
The remainder of their mission had passed largely without incident. While both of them had kept expecting to stumble headlong into another magical trap or even some rival group to come along and take the treasure for themselves, they had returned to the ship without further delays. The thrill of a success – a true success – had sent a constant tingle down Crash Dive’s spine, warming her with a kind of unrepentant joy she had not felt in years; it had even been enough to stave off her nervous stuttering now they were back out of the water. For such a success, there could only be one way to properly celebrate. There was a small tin containing the luxury brew that she had salvaged from the bottom of the Baaston harbour. Crash Dive always rationed it, hiding it from Pressure Cooker and saving it only for her greatest accomplishments.
 
After a few brief minutes of perpetration, Crash Dive trotted back out into the sun, happily carrying a clockwork kettle issuing steam from its spout. Its in-built timer was still counting down, whirring even after its job had been done, but the pegasus tried to write that off as one of the natural quirks which came with creating something from scratch. Floating in his barrel, holding the Codex and examining its cover closely, Depth Charge briefly looked up as she settled down next to him, placing the device onto the fold-out table. He had been trying to read it since they had returned, but the binding spell protecting it had kept the book’s pages clamped shut.
 
“No luck?” she asked, gesturing at the book.
 
“Nope,” Depth Charge said, leaning forward and lounging against the rim of the barrel, running one hoof through his mane, “I can’t even touch it properly, every time I start to get a grip on it, it’s like it pushes me back.”
 
“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a protective spell if just anyone could open it up,” Crash Dive said with a slight sigh, as the sea pony beside her placed the tome back into the water of his barrel. “Given how strong some of these ones are, you’d be lucky to even prize it open for a second. I’m not even sure you’d want to. Princess Luna probably wouldn’t do this, but the last book like this I retrieved had a nasty curse on it; it turned anypony who read its pages without permission… Well, imagine if someone spent a day rolling about in Poison Joke.”
 
“Is it always like this?” he asked after a time, pushing his sopping mane out of his hair to look at the Crash Dive, “I mean, magical treasures, hidden traps, that sort of stuff?”
 
“Not exactly,” Crash Dive admitted with a giggle, “Nothing like being tasked by Luna herself, and there’s a lot of ponies who come asking me to find something dropped in a river, or help pull out a submerged cart. Why?”
 
Depth Charge gave her a strange look for a moment, and then glanced over his shoulder, peering out over the sea. “I just didn’t realise what it was like until now. All those times you talked about recovering lost cargo or braving troubled waters, I knew what you meant but it just never fully connected in my head. The few minutes where we were fleeing from the boulder were more fun than the last few years of living in the lake.”
 
The seapony sounded thoughtful, almost regretful as he spoke. As if he had only just realised what he had been missing until this point. Ironically, while he had made friends with the worst flying pegasus in Equestria, Depth Charge had been obsessed with the sky. Ever asking about its secrets and what it held, it had seemed like the ultimate expression of freedom, or at least somewhere to live without ever being restricted by boundaries. While the diver wasn’t about to pry, it would not have surprised her at all if this small excursion had likely thrown his ambitions into question.
 
“Then you would be open to doing this again?” Crash Dive smiled, setting down a pair of well-used mugs next to the kettle and pouring its contents into each one, “Pressure Cooker won’t join me in actually salvaging anything, and it would be nice to have help the next time somepony needs a temple raided or lost treasures recovered. Perhaps Celestia has a few things of her own she needs help recovering.”
 
“So, partners, then?” Depth Charge said, snatching up the mug and holding it in front of him.
 
“Partners,” Crash Dive agreed, clinking her own mug against his before each of them downed a mouthful of tea.
 
As the sun began to set, the only sounds which accompanied the victorious pair were the slow lapping of waves against the boat’s edge, and the sounds of Depth Charge retching as he spat tea over the side of the boat. This was promptly drowned out by the argument which followed, which carried on long into the night. And yet, even with this affront to her treasured aged tea, Crash Dive took fine solace with one fact in the back of her mind.
 
Her treasure-hunting dives no longer had to be so alone.
 

 
Final page of a commission/collab with Turanic~