Keeping up with the Carcharodons by Lopoddity on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Once upon a time, there lived a fiery young mare by the name of Coral Carcharodon. Bored by her peaceful seaside village, as well as the friendly chumps that resided within it, Coral decided to pack a bag and set sail from home. She wanted to be a seafarer, like in the stories her grandmother old! Battling sea monsters, searching for treasure- and best of all, no horde of little sisters to pester her, nothing but the wind on her back, and adventure in her heart!

What actually ended up happening was Coral falling into a gang of pirates, a rotten, cantankerous crew of the very worst scum and villainy....and she ended up liking it just fine. She especially liked the captain, a wicked and cunning stallion by the name of Morgan Maelstrom. Their story was a fantastic tale of grand romance, robbery, and riches beyond belief.

.....Right up until Coral violently double-crossed him, then fled to retire comfortably by the seaside. In tow with her was a heavy chest of gold, her young son Ishmael, and the foal growing in her belly (her main reason for leaving, really. Turns out the pirate life doesn't lend itself well to raising children.)

For a while, life was good. Coral hid away her wealth, and lovingly raised her two sons. Ishmael in particular found a best friend in his new little brother, Buck.

Unfortunately, one night, during a howling thunderstorm, dear old daddy comes knocking.

Little Ishmael and teeny Buck answer the door. Morgan greets them with a warm, fatherly embrace.....that could become a lot tighter, should Coral refuse to come with him.

On the condition her children remain unharmed, Coral begrudgingly accompanies the captain. She kisses both her boys and tells them to be brave.

A few days later, Morgan reappears to his sons, sadly reporting that their mother had been lost to a storm.

The children barely have time to process what this means- little Buck fearfully asks his brother what'll happen to them now- when Morgan merrily bundles them up and says they'll be coming to work for him, of course! It's really the least he can do, lads.

What followed was a very lonely few years out at sea, performing endless, back-breaking labor, cleaning up after a crew of drunken criminals, forever under the watchful, unsettling eye of the captain. But the brothers have each other, and that makes it bearable. At the very least, they have each other to hide away bits of food, to help weasel the other out of punishments, to cry quietly against when the thoughts of Mum can't be squashed down. At the very least, they have each other.

You can imagine, then, Ishmael's terror when he hears Morgan playing poker with another captain- and Morgan, unwillingly to part with his gold, bets Buck. Morgan is a clever gambler, but this captain is more clever still- and he wins.

Buck will be given away in the morning. Ishmael has to act tonight.

Buck never did find out what happened that night. He only remembers his big brother shaking him awake that morning, and the two of them making their escape. If he strains his mind hard enough, he can remember Ishmael's wild eyes and trembling hooves, and a very faint smell of blood.

Ishmael vows to leave the past behind him, and the boys somehow make their way back home, among Coral's old family. Ishmael is determined to find a safer, quieter life for him and his brother both- something traditional, and sensible. Boring, if need be. To keep himself and his little brother out of trouble forever. Something like.....fishing.

random family facts (mostly supplied by the lovely :

-Cutthroat's emphasis on toughness stems from moments when he wasn't tough enough.

-The Carcharodons get their family name from Coral, not Morgan. As previously established, it’s tradition for Carcharodon stallions to give their sons strange, human-y names (Buck, Ishmael, Bruce, Butch). However, after Coral's father sired a whooping thirteen daughters and no sons, he finally waves the white flag and gives his oldest daughter Coral his last name to carry on. Coral happily continued this tradition with her sons.

Buck broke tradition though, when he was the one to name his daughter, Eliza (though to be fair, he and Radhi did think they were going to have a son) :

-Fey originally named Bruce "Ripple", because of his small size at birth. As Cutthroat was out to sea, Fey gave birth alone in their gloomy little home, but she did have a wonderful few days to fall in love with her teeny, meek foal. When Cutthroat returned, he abruptly changed the name to something tougher and more no-nonsense.

-Bruce was officially disowned by his father when he chose to marry Stormy. Cutthroat says Bruce is a disgrace, and has no right to call himself a Carcharodon. For a time, Bruce did consider letting go of the family name that'd given him so much grief, and adopting Stormy's instead....before he decided that he didn't feel like discarding such an important piece of himself, and hey, more importantly, fuck you old man. He continues using it in defiance, and has passed it on to his own son, hoping for a better future for the family legacy.

-Bruce is about fifteen years older than Eliza. She is still a teenager when Wave and Finn are small foals.

-Someday, after Cutthroat dies and Fey begins her timid rehabilitation, she and Radhi will become the very best of friends~

When Wave Rider was in her young teens (when she briefly experimented with “girlier stuff” while she was figuring herself out), she obsessively tweezed her family’s trademark eyebrows (passed on for GENERATIONS) and was quite embarrassed by them. She eventually grows out of this little bit of self consciousness and now they don’t bother her at all. She may really enjoy using them as a favorite insult to asshole guys “mate, my eyebrows are thicker then your dick”. (Also Wave’s short lived girly phase may be part of the reason Finn is so comfortable cross-dressing. Wavey miiiiiight have used her lil bro to test make up on before applying it to herself to make sure she was doing it right. Not that Finnie minded. It remains as some of his favorite memories with his sister) -Someday, young Finn will happen upon an dusty old map, drawn by great-grandmother Coral herself, supposedly leading to her secret treasure. Or, possibly, certain death. It's a coin Finnie's all too willing to flip!

- Poor Finnie thought growing out a beard-mane would make him look as imposing and majestic as those legendary sea stallions before him...considering the fact that even ODDBALL had a snorted laugh escape the first time he saw Finn after he grew it out, it failed rather epically.