//------------------------------//
// Scents and Scentsibility 
// Story: My Little Skoney - Or - Tabu in Scentquestria 
// by Le Marquis de Carabas 
//------------------------------//

Tabu in Scentquestria Ch2: Scents and Scentsibility 

“Alert…alert…” An even voice chimed as Tabu felt vibration around his neck. 
The zebra was immersed in darkness. As he spread his awareness out from the sound to his body, he found he was quite sore, his legs were screaming at him as if he’d run a mile. 
Tabu’s body went stiff. Wait. He had run a mile, probably more, at a steep incline to boot, and at top speed before leaping headlong off a very large cliff. 
Was that a memory, or a dream?
The scholar was afraid to open his eyes in case it had been, but his nostrils flared and 
he could smell a scent clinging to his fur and mane, a mix of soft lavender and sweet cake.
Tabu’s eyes shot open, and he found himself looking at a crystal ceiling that was far, far above his head, its color a purplish-blue. A glance around the room told him that he was in a bed bigger than most personal pools he’d encountered in his life, a sea green comforter threatening to vanish him. 
“It wasn’t a dream…” Tabu’s voice was a low sigh of amazement. 
“Alert…alert…” 
“Oh!” Tabu glanced down at his choker on instinct, though he could never see it from this
angle. His foreleg screamed at him as he bent it up to touch the sigils etched into the side of the large golden collar. It made a small beeping noise before a slot opened to reveal a red gem at its center, a cone of light twinkled into existence in a swirl of zebrican runes, inside of which hung a translucent mouse with a flower behind one of its large ears. She looked fuzzy and indistinct for some reason.
“Uzuri Alert Protocol activated…” 
“I..uh…” Tabu spoke for the first time, his mouth felt gummy and dry, he shook his head 
to clear it. “I didn’t activate you…what’s the emergency, am I injured?” 
“No sir,” the holographic mouse replied. “Not beyond overly strained muscles and minor blunt force trauma from a high fall.” 
“Then what’s the problem?” Tabu squinted at her, trying to bring her into focus, before realizing the reason he couldn’t see was that his glasses were off. As an afterthought he turned his mind towards the choker. His glasses gave a little beep and he turned his gaze towards a large nightstand where they sat. The gold-rimmed loops floated up and onto his face. 
“Such actions are inadvisable, sir,” the mouse continued. “You are disconnected from the prime materia of the universe.”
Tabu blinked. “Oh…oh dear…” His eyes darted downwards again. “I was afraid of that…” 
“Your choker has reserves, but they are limited. I have been activated in order to monitor and conserve what energy remains. Once you are out of magic, you will be unable to cast until you return to the universe.” 
“Well,” He felt strange addressing the protocol he’d designed. “Uzuri, it’s not really ‘The’ universe so much as ‘A’ universe.” Despite himself, the opportunity to explain had him getting excited, sitting up straighter. “Multiversal field theory is such a fertile ground for discovery I-” 
“Ending protocol to conserve magic.” 
The mouse winked out of existence as the gem was hidden once more. 
“Oh…” Tabu groaned as he rolled over in bed. “Note to self, design interface with better bedside manner…” 
The bed was higher than he was used to, which made sense, it seemed that this universe was simply larger than his in every aspect. A small, curious part of Tabu’s brain wondered if the planet itself was slightly larger as well, as though whatever creator this world could claim to have had simply taken its world and scaled it.
“No…can’t get distracted…” Tabu’s mind turned back towards meeting the strange, fluffy creatures he’d been seeking. Skonies, they were real…
He remembered the journal back home that smelled of sage. It had been so long he’d almost relegated it to a dream…
“It’s plum strange if you ask me…” A twang of a voice came from beyond the large door to the room. 
Tabu stiffened. It was the skonies, they’d probably taken him here after he’d fainted, they seemed friendly, perhaps exceedingly so, though his heart rate still spiked at the thought of engaging with them again. 
He climbed fully out of bed, ignoring the aches and pains in his body as he looked up at the handle of the door. A lot of doors in Equestria didn’t bother with handles and could be opened with a gentle push of the head, but this door had a mechanism. Tabu had seen such before in his brief time among the griffons, though in those cases, the door handle hadn’t been above his head. 
Loath to waste magic, Tabu did a quick calculation. His collar had a storage spell on it, and various notebooks and pens. It would make sense for him to get those out while he had power, and transfer them to his poncho pock-
Tabu realized then that he was naked. 
“Eeep!” He stiffened, hinds and fores crossing over one another as he suddenly felt a draft. Most zebras and ponies he’d ever met opted out of wearing anything outside of special occasions, but it always made him feel so…exposed. “N-no pockets…” The words were a horrified whisper. 
Still, there was a task at hand, he could deal with his nudity and the loss of his poncho and bowler later. He shook the vulnerable feeling away, the golden rings on his mane and tail clacking lightly. At least those were still there, thank Ashe they hadn’t taken his choker as well. 
Tabu turned his mind back to the task at hand. It would make sense to do multiple things at once, getting out his journals and opening the door while the magic was active would be more efficient than doing both tasks separately. 
He focused his mind and his choker’s runes glowed, a brown, sturdy journal with matching pen burst into existence in a shower of runes, some of which floated from the book to wrap around the door handle and gently open it. There was a slight creak, but Tabu could clearly hear voices beyond it, and if they’d heard the sound they didn’t pause to acknowledge.
Tabu grabbed the journal before it fell to the floor, and gently sat it down just beyond the open door, taking the pen in his teeth. Normally he would’ve written with magic, but his muzzlescript was legible in a pinch. 
Note taking at the ready, Tabu looked out to observe the conversing Skonies. 
He was at a low angle in comparison to them, they sat at a large crystal table that seemed to grow out of the floor, the chairs were of similar make, though calling them ‘Chairs’ was not quite correct. They were more like large bowls lined with soft material, in which a skonie could curl in a nest of their own tail. 
That makes sense for a qaudroped… Tabu thought, lightly questioning the furniture orientation of his own universe. 
The room he was in sat behind Minty and Gingershy’s chairs. Gingershy sat with her foreclaws utterly buried in her honey-pink tail. Dash let hers fall with a sort of scruffy lusciousness over the side hers, more sprawled than sat. With their backs to him, Minty’s tail was surprisingly close, blue and omichrome fluff scenting the air in a slight frost. Her stripes were almost pearlescent in their jagged lines, Tabu never seemed to be able to establish a pattern of which color went where. 
“He doesn’t have a scent! That’s strange if you ask me…” Cattleya’s voice wandered into the room. She was sitting to the side of Minty Dash, mostly obscured from Tabu’s view, but he could see the green of her nose poking past Minty’s shoulder. 
“He smells of books!” Pinkie chimed in, leaning towards the purple skalicorn who sat at the head of the assembly, directly in front of Tabu’s line of site. He hoped they didn’t notice the cracked door. “Kinda like Jasmine when she makes a booknest!” 
Jasmine stiffened. “I don’t do that!” A glance left, a glance right. “Regularly…” She cleared her throat. “In anycase, while he does have a basic odor and lingering trace scents, things are…muted.” 
Lavender, who sat on Jasmine’s opposite side, laying like a prim cat on a cashmere bed of her tail, curled the appendage a bit tighter about her form, like nestling into a snowdrift. “While his stripes are fabulous, I do have to say its strange. He has hooves, like our back legs, but no claws to speak of, and not having a scent is like…not having a face really!” 
“And he’s so small…” Gingershy chimed. “Almost as little as Cherub…”
“I don’t know what you’re all so worried about…” Tabu stiffened as Minty shuffled, readjusting into a leisurely yawn, her tail curled up in a ponderous arc to lay around her form like a bored panther’s. “We run into strange creatures all the time. He didn’t try to kick our butts, so what’s the problem?” 
Tabu took a breath as no one shifted glances his way, his scribbled shorthand through clumsy lips was going to be a task to decipher later. 
“Well…” Cattleya shrugged. “Strange as the lack of a scent is, he definitely isn’t from around here. Tail’s way too small…We should make sure he gets back home.” 
Well that’s good… Tabu could hardly believe his luck. He’d assumed he’d have to try some diplomacy to garner hospitality, but already there was talk of assistance! 
There was a slight pang as he felt bad for spying on them. Though in the presence of fluffy extra-dimensional giants, it only made sense to gather info. 
“Not before he settles something!” Pinkie’s affront was obvious in her voice. 
“What is it, Pinkie?” Lavender tilted her head. 
“He’s an out-of-town-friend! The perfect impartial judge!” 
Minty groaned and slapped her forehead with a foreclaw. “Are you still on about that after all this?” 
Pinkie narrowed her eyes at the sky-colored skonie, snout taking on serious wrinkles as her blue nose twitched seriously. “You called me Stinky Pie you mint-scented menace…” She said darkly, rising to stand in her bowl, her tail giving a cobra-hood rise as she hiked her hinds slightly. “I. Am. Not. STINKY!” She huffed, before her lip jutted out and her tail wilted like a willow, Tabu could have sworn he heard a party balloon noise. “Plus you still haven’t apologized…” 
“Okay fine I’m sor-” 
“TOO LATE SISTER!!” Pinky pointed a paw of condemnation. “No one insults my scent…” She huffed and turned in a prim and proper sit on her haunches, tail curling around her side like an admonishing berrystriped cape. 
Jasmine gave an exasperated sigh. “Girls…calm down.” 
“Yeah!” Cattleya agreed. “We shouldn’t jump him at once, he fell out of the sky and fainted.” 
“Indeed, it would be impolite!” 
There was a moment’s silence before Minty lifted a forepaw and pulled a face at Pinkie. 
“THAT’S IT” The only thing that stopped Pinkie Pie from launching herself at Rainbow Dash was the buffeting tail of Jasmine Rose, who boofed it’s fluffy weight against Pinkie’s tummy and gently, but firmly levered her back into her bowl where she seemed to literally steam. 
“Please, be civil..” “ said a voice that could have only been Gingershy’s. 
What did she say? Tabu leaned forwards in an attempt to hear as a din of arguing Skonies rose in the meeting room. 
One of Tabu’s legs took this opportunity to cramp horrendously. The hind right screamed with pain, radiating up his spine in a shock wave that forced him to clench the limb in on itself in an effort to stop the aching torment. This unbalanced him to the right, his forelegs buckling. He stiffened them to try to right himself but only served to tangle his limbs. 
The zebra fell into the door, headbutting the heavy thing with a shock of pain that sent it slowly creeeaaaking open to reveal him sprawled there, poncholess on the meeting room floor. 
Six sets of eyes landed on his prone form. 
“Hey new friend!” Pinkie prepped, wiggling her hips to spring before being halted by both Jasmine and Cattleya’s tails as she was mostly obscured in fluff outside of a frizzed collum of striped pink above it all. Pinkie’s curious face broke through with a ‘Pofmph’. “Think you could answer a question for me?” Her tail undulated in a wave as she grinned solicitously. 
“Leave it, Pinkie…” Cattleya, the other Skonie lacking wings or horns in the room, shoved her gently back with a blonde-orange boof to the front. 
Tabu noticed this subtype of skonie seemed to be slightly physically larger than their 
more equipped counterparts. Jasmine had struggled to hold the pink wave back, but Cattleya seemed to have a handle on it. 
Pinkie crossed her forepaws, but let the matter drop for now. 
The assembled skonies padded out of their chairs, looking curiously at the fallen zebra. 
Tabu became very aware he was poncholess, though it really didn’t matter. He quickly righted himself and crossed his forelegs. For all his planning and minor spying, when presented with the opportunity to use anything he’d overheard, he’s brain seized. He simply stared as Jasmine came forward, his gaze barely clearing her chest poof if he stared forward. Her underbelly was a creamy sort of color under all the soft purple. 
Tabu swallowed and craned his neck up. 
“Hello…we speak the same language if I heard you right earlier?” Jasmine asked gently. 
Right. Talking.
“YES!” Tabu cringed as he saw the skonies around him frizz at his volume. “I-I mean yes, yes we do…”
Jasmine smiled and shifted her haunches to gently sidle next to Tabu so she could address the zebra and her friends. His breath caught as her tail blanketed the right side of his body, threatening to swallow him in plum-colored poofiness. “Are you alright? You had quite the fall, I was worried when you dropped unconscious, but my examination spells seemed to indicate you fainted from overstimulation rather than injury.”
“I...uh…”
“Don’t mark him!” Minty pointed accusingly. “Just because he doesn’t have a scent doesn’t mean we have to have more flower power around the castle.” 
Jasmine turned a frown in Minty’s direction. “My scent is very mellow right now, Minty, I’m just offering comfort. I wouldn’t do that without our guest's permission.” She leveled her gaze at the curious skonies. “If we could give him the space to tell us his name.” 
They all looked at him expectantly. 
“Tabu!” He managed. “It’s Tabu…” He glanced up at the large mephequine next to him. “Your name is Jasmine? I’m sorry, I heard it from the door…” Honesty struck Tabu as the best policy. “I’m sorry if that was rude.” 
“So what are you anyway?” Minty leaned in close, the shortest of the Skonies, he came up to her chin. He noticed then her nose was the same light red as a streak of her mane as she gently snuffed at him. 
“Well! Speaking of rude!” Lavender huffed, though, after a moment’s consideration, she lifted a claw to her lip. “Though I do have to say we are curious…” 
Tabu felt himself gaining a little more confidence as their curiosity continued to prove benign. He stood a little straighter, it didn’t help how small he felt in comparison. 
“I’m a zebra, and I can settle your curiosity if you’ll allow me a second to explain?” 
Jasmine nodded apprecively. “That would be lovely, come to the table?” 
Jasmine was already standing as Tabu nodded, her tail like the curl of a vaudeville cane curled and tugged him in her wake, immersive fluff crowding around his back. Tabu tried to keep up, the rise and fall her haunches causing a gentle wave his route as he walked. 
After successfully not tripping, the purple duvet pushed him softly to the front of the table as the Skonies assembled to watch. 
“Ahem.” Tabo started.  “If your world is anything like mine, you are aware of occasional objects and beings falling through dimensional rifts and tears?” 
“Yeah!” cried Pinkie. 
“That makes sense,” Lavender Nodded. 
“That was my main theory.”  Cattleya agreed. 
“Figured.” Minty Shrugged. 
Gingershy chuckled and Jasmine rolled her eyes, but a motion of her claw bid Tabu continue. 
“I fell through one on purpose.” 
This perked their rounded, cookie-shaped ears. Minty’s almost bored expression perked up. 
“Why darling, whatever for?” Lavender prompted. 
“Well…in my world, I’m a scientist.” Tabu gestured to his choker. He wondered briefly if he should mention he had limited magic, but as much as he immediately trusted these creatures, holding at least one, fairly small card seemed proactive. He turned his mind to the accessory and summoned a scrapbook. He was loath to waste the magic, but in this case, it was worth it. 
The ramshackle tome clattered to the crystal table, he opened it gently, displaying pictures and news clippings. 
“I am not the first transient between our worlds, there are stories about it going back to the days of Starswirl the Bearded.” 
“Who?” Jasmine tilted her head. 
Tabu paused, realizing referential conversation would be useless. “Um, a powerful wizard from long ago?” 
“Oh!” Jasmine’s eyes lit up. “You mean Swirled Stripe the Fragrant!” 
Tabu blinked, then pressed on. “Yes, that is something I encountered in what few stories have made it between our worlds. It seems as though you are on a similar axis to my universe’s causality, but on a slightly different path.” 
“Well, what’s it like in your universe?” Minty flapped her wings and hovered to get a look at the journal, buffeting Tabu with cool air. 
“Well, I’m not sure how much I can report on that, it seems I’ve been dislocated in space as well as dimension. According to the sorts of trees I saw outside I’m farther from the equator of this planet than I was before, but do you have an equivalent to Zebrica?” 
There was a pause as they all thought, Pinkie, in particular, screwing up her face. 
“Badgestralia?” Cattleya said unsure. 
“What’s That?” Tabu prompted. 
“A far off land where the badgerunks live, our friend Rooibos is from there. She lives in a cabin in the Everfresh forest.” 
Tabu considered this. “Badgerunks?” He thought back to the badgers of his world, slightly ornery creatures that came up to the knee, and had no skunk to speak of. “Strange difference,” he mumbled to himself. “Though it explains the stripe fascination.” 
“About that!” Lavender put her foreclaws up on the table and invited herself into Tabu’s personal bubble at a gentle lean, her muzzle was larger than his by a fair margin, sapphire eyes lidding above it. “Darling, you must come to my boutique…” 
Tabu felt a slight flush along his face.
“Let’im finish explain’ first, Lavender…” Cattleya said with gentle reproach.
Lavender pouted, but took her foreclaws from the table and settled herself in a prim upright sit, tail gently shawled about her haunches. “Continue!” 
Tabu shook himself, readjusting. “Right, so, if the closest equivalent in your world is Badgerstrailia, that’s where I’m from, but instead of Badgers it’s Zebras…” After a moment he added, “With no skunk tails, though there are myriad other differences I’m sure. If I had to imagine…” He flipped through the book with a hoof as the ponies leaned in. He reached a map and jabbed towards a large land mass far across the sea from Zebrica. “I am now in this universe’s equivalent of Equestria.” 
“You mean Scentquestria silly!” Pinkie bounced with a chuckle. 
Tabu’s expression quirked at the name, thrown off rhythm, he stared at the pink mephequine. “That’s what this land is called?” 
“I don’t see why you look so shocked…” Minty rolled a shrug. “Equestria isn’t better for a world where everybody’s fully horses.” 
Tabu opened his mouth to argue but found himself on shaky footing. He opted to press forward. 
“Regaurdless of nomenclature, you have me at a disadvantage, my knowledge of Equestria is a broad but  unspecific one, so my knowledge of this place, and how similar it is cannot be completely accurate.” He turned the page, the map flipping away, replaced with a grainy photo of an orange-striped tail retreating into the bushes. “I ran into one of your kind once…many years ago, and I’ve been fascinated ever since. While I know you want to send me home…” Tabu stepped back from the table, bowing his head in askance. “I bid you allow me to stay and study as a scientist and lover of the world.”
“Sss” Pinkie Pie added the plural at a lisp. 
Tabu rose his head to find the skonies smiling at him. Jasmine’s soft expression told him he’d be allowed. 
“Of course,” She nodded her head in a slight bow to the zebra. “What sort of princess of friendship would I be if I didn’t extend a branch to you?” 
Tabu stiffened, rings in his mane clinking off his glasses. “You’re a princess!?” 
“Oh yeah…” Cattleya frowned. “I guess we didn’t tell’im that did we?” 
“Well, the Castle is kind of a clue.” Minty opined. 
“I miss when it was wood…” Gingershy murmured. 
“Yes, I am a Princess…” Jasmine shot a shushing gesture at her friends, before returning her gaze to Tabu. “And you’re very lucky Tabu, you’ve landed in a very nice place.” 
“New friend, new friend!” Pinkie bounced in the background, tail fluffing in the air, scenting it cake and berries. 
Lavender pointed her nose towards the book. “Are you trying to find the Skony from your photo, darling? I could make a few calls if you remember their face…” 
Tabu thought back to the memory, a zebra barely entering the academy finding a fluffy giant on a riverbank, mostly hidden in leaves. 
“I don’t…the only thing I know is that they were orange and smelled of sage and something else…” 
Cattleya sidled up. “Well we’ll keep an eye out, in the meantime do you need anything?” 
A draft made Tabu once again aware he was naked. “Oh! My poncho…if you wouldn’t  mind…” He looked around at the bare skunks in front of him and felt suddenly sheepish. “I’m not sure of the custom here, but I have a preference you see…”  
“That’s fine,” said Jasmine, though her eyes told him she had bad news. “Though I’m sorry to say your poncho got damaged in the fall. 
“It was all crispy!” Pinkie chirped. “But no smoke, weeeeirrrrrd”
Tabu’s eyes widened. “I loved that poncho…” 
“That decides it!” Lavender was up on the table again paws pat-patting against the crystal surface. 
“Decides what?” Cattleya tilted her head. 
“Where he’ll be staying of course…” Like looping cursive Lavender flowed past her compatriots, Tabu attempted to shrink back as she swathed past his front only to find himself pressing back into a curl of her larger body, an ivory-purple cloud of a tail crossing over his front like an overbearing lap bar to keep him in place. “Let me design for you, dear…” The slight growl she put into the word ‘design’ made the zebra suddenly feel edible. 
“Wait! He still has to judge something!” Pinkie yelled, irate. 
Jasmine glanced back at her. “Leave it, Pinkie, we have to make sure he’s comfortable first.” Upon seeing this didn’t mollify the increasingly frizzy pink skonie, she added. “Plus his judging won’t be at its best until he’s settled.” 
Pinkie paused, her fur deflated with a pomph, going slightly down into a droopy, more gothic look before bouncing back into its usual springy peachiness. “Good point…” She rubbed her chin before making an ‘I’m Watching You’ gesture at Tabu with her foreclaws. “Tomorrow then.” 
The zebra, for his part, stared in confusion. “A-alright…” He shook his mane out. “Well if it gets me a new poncho.” He shrugged. “Plus I have to sleep somewhere, not to say the castle wasn’t lovely.” 
The tail across his front pressed its cashmere weight a little more firmly to his chest, the scent of lavender rushing against his face as the air shifted. Lavender curled to look at him more fully. 
“Delightful!~” she sing songed before bringing up a foreclaw to trace one of the stripes on Tabu’s cheek, the Zebra’s ears shot up straight, his pale portions pinkening. “I can’t wait to get a look at these stripes.” 
Before anyskonie could argue, her tail completed a loop around Tabu’s back and he found himself gently compressed in cushiony fur as it secured a grip. He was hefted above her haunches with ease as she stood. 
“Toodaloo dears!” She began to pad out the door with Tabu trailing in the wake of her sauntering haunches. He’d managed to get one hoof free and was pawing at the fluffy ring that encompassed his entire body like a burrito. His hoof vanished into its volume. Sensing he wasn’t going to get out of this he opted to wave with it instead. 
“Wait, Lavender!” Jasmine started, standing with surprise. 
“Can’t hear yooouuu fashion emergency!” 
Tabu watched the shrinking Jasmine start in their direction before Gingershy of all people gently draped her drapey willowbranch of a tail in her way. 
“No…” She whispered gently. 
Jasmine blinked, raising a brow at her sun-colored friend. “No?” 
“It’s best we let her get it out of her system…I’ve been her model before…” Fluttershy said, staring after the pair. 
“She’s right.” Cattleya nodded. “Best get it out of the way early.” 
“Fine…” Jasmine blew a breath through her lips before calling out. “Just have him to the town square by noon tomorrow!” She paused, then after a moment’s thought continued. “And be gentle!” 
“I will darlings!”Lavender sang before she was out through the castle door, and on the way to Carosel boutique.