//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Fish in Yazyakistan 
// Story: Pearlwort, Unintentional Villain 
// by Halira 
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Our preparations were brief. I already had everything I needed in my life pack, and Biblo had all her worldly possessions in her own pack. It was but a brief wait for Hot Sticks to gather what he wished in his life pack, while he also gave detailed instructions to Tulip on what to do in certain circumstances.

Tulip followed us to the end of the canyon. His intention was to set up camp there, and wait for whomever would come from Yazyakistan. He would make occasional trips for an hour at a time to check the progress of the most advanced cases. After those guards came, he would head back into town to monitor it full time. It would leave the town unattended for much of the day, but he was eager to have an excuse to remove his mask for a while. When help finally arrived he had intention to leave town entirely.

Beyond the canyon were the icy passes of the Crystal Mountains. Inhospitable enough to keep any stray wanderers from the south away, if they didn't have a strong desire to reach Starlight's Folly. They were cold, but not as bad as the wastes beyond to the north. There were threats in these mountains as well though. Yeti made their homes here, as well as did snow tigers. They thankfully were rarely a threat if you kept to the winding road through the mountain passes. The nearest actual city was a two day trek on these roads. A good flyer might be able to circumvent the roads and fly straight on, but we were going to have to stick to the roads.

The road was lined with similar crystals as the canyon was. This kept them free of snow. There were occasional points along the road where they opened into large circular plazas. These were for travelers to make camp at if they chose. There were also side roads, from time to time, that branched off leading to mining camps elsewhere.

We walked in silence for some time. It was windy, and it wasn't easy to hear each other over all the wind, so there was little effort to try. It would take until early afternoon of the second day of travel to finally reach Yazyakistan, as we had it figured. The travel time was a stark reminder how isolated from the world Starlight's Folly was in its location.

When the sun was starting to set, we came again upon another plaza. We decided to set up camp for the evening. We hadn't planned to keep walking straight through the night. The roads may be fairly safe, but walking at night along them was foolhardy.

Hot Sticks had brought tent supplies. The plaza had places set in the stone to aid with setting up tents. Along with locations for a few fire pits. I appreciated the road engineers' foresight.

We had just two tents. A stallion’s tent, and a mares tent. It seemed a little unfair that Hot Sticks got a tent to himself, but Biblo and I didn't mind.

She fell asleep fairly quickly after we got the tent set up. She really wasn't in shape for all this travel, and she was far more exhausted than either me or Hot Sticks. She still took time to get a hug from me before going to sleep. This far from town it shouldn't be a concern any longer, but it was habit at this point. Plus, it made her happy.

I went over to Hot Sticks tent. I wasn't tired enough to sleep, and neither was he. The tents were spacious and the two of us sat at its entrance to talk and smoke.

"I still owe you a kick in the flank for getting me hooked on this," I said to him with mock animosity. I then blew out a long plume of smoke. "It isn't even just when I am anxious anymore. Just when I have downtime. I am pretty sure that's a sign that I am addicted to whatever this is," it occurred to me I still didn't know the name of the drug.

Hot Sticks blew out his own plume of smoke and replied. "It is called Cotton Tail's Pipe Weed. Or just pipe weed for short. It grows commonly in swamps and wetlands. It is harvested, dried out, and ground into little bits. There is quite the economy for producing it, in towns and villages near those types of areas."

"It is an interesting way of running a town economy, I guess. Produce something that ponies will get addicted to and come back for more of," I said. "Never ending stream of demand."

He laughed, "That's pretty close to the idea. And we swamp dwellers are pretty tricky about trying to get new customers."

I smacked him hard with one of my wings. "Alright, you deserved that! You just admitted you got me hooked on this pipe weed on purpose! I thought you some sort of hedonistic unicorn in joking before, but you admit it! You better be glad this stuff calms me, or I would give you a good thrashing," and with that I took another draw to produce another plume. He laughed. It was good to hear him laughing. I still wanted to give him a beating, but I could restrain myself.

Moving on to another subject. "So, you are from one those swamp communities originally?"

He nodded. "Called Cat Tail's Corner. It wasn't a big community, about two dozen families. We of course produced pipe weed in our community, but we also harvested several other medicinal plants. I took an interest in all these various medicines at a young age. Read every book on them I could. Meadowbrook had been a healer long ago in our town, long before she had become an Alicorn, or so the legends around town said. Her story inspired me."

I wasn't aware Alicorns became Alicorns. I thought they just were. It didn't seem likely any such legend was true. If normal ponies could become Alicorns wouldn't it actually happen from time to time? We would hear stories about that kind of thing.

I decided to question the former acolyte to see if he had any secret wisdom that would make that kind of story more probable. "So why are there no ponies turning into Alicorns if that kind of thing is possible?"

He paused for a moment and seemed to be considering whether to answer me, rather than considering the question. It is hard to distinguish between these two types of considering, but a sharp eye will note that a pony will look down when thinking about something or trying to remember. They will have instead a small imperceptible tilt of the head if they are wondering something else.

"It used to happen often. A very long time ago. Long enough now that the Alicorns themselves only remember it because they recorded it," he said. "There was a great conflict and most the Alicorns died, or were thrown into Tartarus. The remaining Alicorns sealed the means of becoming an Alicorn away after that."

I had never heard of such a story. I wasn't up on my Alicorn knowledge, but that seemed something that would be commonly told. "Why haven't I ever heard a story about that before? Is it some sort of secret acolyte knowledge?" I asked.

"Not really secret," he said, "more, not something the Alicorns don't enjoy having discussed."

That sounded like secret to me, but I wasn't going to tell Hot Sticks he was committing some form of heresy. I decided to change the subject back to something safer. "So, did you ever marry? Have a wife and foals?"

There was a sad note to his reply, " No, never got around to it. Too caught up in my career. I suppose it isn't too late for that kind of thing though," his eyes took on a mischievous look as he turned to me. "I noticed you might be looking to possibly take a wife in the future. Didn't realize before you are a filly-fooler."

A lot of apprehension, and a tiny hint of excitement came over me. "Can you actually tell something like that? Am I a filly-fooler?"

He broke down laughing. "So, I guess you are still trying to work it out. No, there is no sign you are a filly-fooler. Just an assumption based on your recent bond with miss Biblo. I am actually far more certain with her. I had thought that it was some sort of gratitude, or habit that kept her glued next to you. But I have seen the way she looks at you, when you aren't looking. There is more than gratitude in that look, there is definitely a hint of lust. Then she is still looking for physical affection from you, despite not needing it any more. That mare has a definite infatuation with you."

Well, that cleared up whether she had a crush on me or not. Hot Sticks could be wrong, but I trusted his wisdom on this. I still didn't know for sure how I felt. It did remind me of another question I had been meaning to ask.

"I meant to ask you. How much does she absorb when we hug? I don't mean just magic. She seems like she is getting a taste of my personality. And she seems really aware of how I am feeling. Is that a normal Crystal Pony thing?"

"It's not typical to Crystal Ponies," he said, "but there is a small subset of Crystal Ponies that can do something like that. What do you mean exactly by getting a taste of your personality?"

I recalled one time in particular. 

"At one point I was wondering about her, and feeling a bit uncomfortable, when my thoughts drifted to whether I had those kinds of feelings or not," I blushed. "I really don't feel comfortable with those kinds of thoughts typically. She seemed to notice, which I don't suppose is unusual, but then she hugged me again. After she hugged me she seemed to be focusing on something. Like she was sorting through something, or tasting something. Then she brightened up suddenly, and told me it was a good hug. She has also said that she can tell if a pony is good, or not, when she hugs them."

Hot Sticks laughed. "Well, you will have to ask her about her parentage to be sure, but she seems to be that subset of Crystal Pony," he switched over to a more instructional tone, "while ponies typically can't produce offspring with non-ponies there is one exception. Crystal Ponies and Changelings can mate and produce foals. The foals always end up being Crystal Ponies, no different in most ways than the rest of their tribe, but they have one big difference-in the first generation at least. They are much more empathic than other ponies. They can feel another pony's emotions. They can even discern a pony's feelings about a specific thing, if the pony is thinking about it at the time. They have to be physically close to a pony to do this, but I think hugging definitely is more than close enough."

He got a mischievous grin. "I would dare say, she might have a better idea what your feelings about her are than you do. While you are questioning your sexuality still, and doing so while she is hugging you, she might have a clear picture of what it happens to be. She might just be waiting for you to realize how you feel, before opening up about her feelings."

I didn't know how to feel about that. I barely knew this mare. She had been around me for a mere two days. I had a lot of emotional baggage. Maybe I was just reacting overly strong to some pony who seemed to openly to desire to be around me.

Hot Sticks extinguished his pipe and knocked its contents out. "Want my advice? I would open up to her about your past if you haven't already. Crystal Ponies are isolated much like Thestrals, but they are the most open and accepting of the tribes as well. If she is of mixed parentage, as I suspect, she might be more open with you about it if you are open with her. I have met two ponies like that previously, and they weren't the best of circumstances. Ponies, as you know can be cruel, and those two ponies I met because other ponies had violently been cruel to them. So, she might well feel cautious about saying anything about it."

The thought of any pony hurting Biblo made me feel a wave of anger. I had dealt with that constantly growing up. I didn't want Biblo to have to suffer the same way. I wondered if that was why she decided to go out to see the world. To try to go where no pony would know about that kind of thing. It gave me a sense of kinship with her.

"Thanks for the talk," I said as I rose to go back to my tent. "You gave me a lot to think about. I am going to find time to talk with her sometime in the next few days. I think I might be a little more confident about how I think of her too. You're a good friend Hot Sticks."

He smiled. "I try to be."

"Even if you still deserve to get bucked to the moon," I said as I finally exited the tent for the night.


***



I had once again woken before Biblo. She certainly could sleep soundly. She was cuddled up close to me for warmth, with a small smile on her muzzle. I determined that, yes, I could find her attractive. Attractive that way? That I was still uncertain of, it was just something I hadn't ever put thought to with anyone. I was too busy being worried about judgement. I would figure it out sooner or later, I guessed. There wasn't a rush.

I gave her a boop on the nose to wake her up. She scrunched up her muzzle and opened her eyes. Looking up at me she smiled. "Time to get going already? Feels like I just got to sleep. I did this walk before, but I think I took more frequent stops last time."

I smiled back, "You'll get to rest some more when we get to the city. And the trip to Harmony will be by airship, so no walking involved there. Just a few more hours to go."

She pulled herself up to her hooves. "Something to look forward to, I guess," she then wrapped her forehooves around me in her customary hug, which I returned. We kept hugging for a moment and when we broke away she gave me a half-lidded look with a very different smile type on her face. "Your hugs are always great, but that one felt even better."

I blushed, should have realized she would pick up on what I had been thinking. "I had a talk with Hot Sticks about you, after you went to sleep last night. It gave me a new perspective."

She seemed a torn, not knowing if this was a good thing or a bad thing. "What did you talk about?" she asked hesitantly.

I gave her another hug to reassure her. She gratefully accepted and seemed more confident almost immediately. "It wasn't anything bad. We will sit down and talk about it later. For right now, we need to get ready to get packed up and back to moving." And with that said, I got to work on gathering our items together from around the tent.

She seemed like she wanted to continue the conversation, but after she looked around for just a moment and she sighed, and went to work getting her few items put away. After we finished that we both exited the tent and got to work taking it down. I caught her glancing at me regularly throughout.

Hot Sticks was of course already done with his tent and had cleared the fire pit. Being able to just manipulate everything with a horn and stare at the ponies who must take their time doing things, by hoof or wing, must be nice. He didn't indicate any impatience though.

The remainder of the journey was as without incident as the night before. The winding cliff road eventually opened to reveal the city of Yazyakistan. The city was built on a plateau overlooking the plains below. Pegasi and griffins, in equal numbers, could be seen flying about the sky. Busy about town on the ground was an eclectic collection of ponies, yaks, griffins, and diamond dogs. Most of the buildings were stone, painted brightly with murals, one or two stories, and block shaped. A massive domed building could be seen off in the center of the city which served as both convention center for the city, as well as its administrative offices. The air dock was not visible from where we stood, though I thought I could almost make out one of its air towers. It would be somewhere on the opposite side of the city, hugging the cliff side. There was no city wall, or city guard, preventing free entrance into the city, like in Starlight's Folly.

We made our way down the streets taking in the sights. I had passed through here briefly on my trip to Starlight's Folly, but never really took the time to take it in. The murals on the buildings indicated what kind of business the building housed. There were general supply stores, clothing stores, book stores, restaurants, banks, schools, and shrines. There wasn't anything offering magical services, and it seemed that the ponies here were all either Pegasi or Earth Ponies. The largest part of the population seemed to be yaks. I noticed that ponies dominated the majority of the businesses though. Yak businesses seemed to be primarily restaurants, and an occasional clothing store. There were guards in the city itself, and they all seemed to be ponies. This was a yak city, but ponies were clearly the ones in control.

We stopped by a restaurant with a mural of a yak holding three plates of food. The plates contained a cake, a plate of fish, and a salad. I guess that indicated it catered to all types of diets. The cake had several beans of some sort surrounding it in the air.

Hot Sticks signaled us to stop. "I will head on to the governor, and see to the arrangements that need to be done. It may take a few hours, and I won't be needing you to available while I do so. Take some time to eat and relax. There is a waiting area in the front lobby of the dome that I will meet you at later. I will either be waiting for you there, or you can wait for me there if I am still not done."

"Will we be spending the night?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. I intend to have us take one of the evening flights tonight. Be sure to be ready to meet me by sundown so we are not delayed. For right now I am going to hurry on to business. Enjoy yourselves," and with that he went off towards the city center, leaving me and Biblo to our own devices.

We looked at each other, then turned to look again at the restaurant. "It seems like we should start with food," Biblo said. "Something fresher than what we have been having sounds great."

"I definitely agree," I replied. "Let's see what the local cuisine happens to be."

She turned to me and gave a smirk. "And you can tell me all about your conversation with Hot Sticks."

I blushed again, which elicited a giggle and a hug from her. She seemed pleased still with the hug, and kept smiling. We headed into the restaurant.

Entering the restaurant, we found it was low lit, darkly colored, and most tables had privacy booths surrounding them on three sides. We were greeted by a female yak who didn't bat an eye at a Crystal Pony and a Thestral walking in.

"Welcome little ponies to the Vanilla Bean! Home of the best authentic vanilla extract cakes in all of Yazyakistan!" She greeted us warmly. "I am Ruth, and I will be serving you today! I take it you are tourists. I hope you are enjoying your visit to the ancient homeland of the yaks!"

"We are just travelling south from Starlight's Folly," I said. "But we did want to take in the sights as we were heading through."

She smiled. "We don't get many visitors from up there. It seems a shame as your town is not that far away. I suppose the trip down isn't the most pleasant one. Most that head up that way don't seem that nice, but you two seem like a nice enough pair of little ponies. Let me get you to a booth, so you may figure out your order."

Ruth escorted us to a booth towards that in the back. It was high backed like the rest and the level of the seating to the table seemed to indicate it was specifically made for ponies, rather than any of the larger races that might be guests. The booths we passed had mainly griffins, with a few yaks scattered about. I am guessed the lure of fish drew a larger griffin customer base.

We were seated, and told that some water would be brought shortly. Our menus were subdivided by race on what kinds of food were available. Biblo apparently didn't seem to understand that.

"I am going to order a fish!" she announced proudly, as Ruth returned to take our orders. I was glad we were the only ponies in the place from what I could tell. That was not something you announced in most areas. Ponies had strange ideas about ponies eating meat. Biblo might insist that a lot of ponies did it, but it was still taboo.

The taboo of ponies eating meat apparently was shared by yaks as well. Ruth seemed unhappy. "You little ponies are aware that fish is meat?"

"Um, yeah," Biblo seemed to be regretting her choice a bit now. She had made our hostess unhappy.

Ruth continued her questioning. "And you are aware little ponies don't eat meat?"

I came to Pearl's rescue. "Well, I am a Thestral, our tribe is omnivorous," I opened my mouth a bit and pointed a hoof at my teeth. "I haven't had fish in a while. I haven't eaten any meat, on purpose, for a year or two. It might be nice to have some again."

Ruth took that information in, and then pushed her point further. "The other little pony is one of the shiny type though. They don't eat meat."

"Well, I had a fish once and I liked it. I thought it would be fun to try again," Biblo said, pleading her case.

Ruth relented with a roll of her eyes. "Alright little pony, you might be crazy, but I will get you some fish. Don't complain to me if you get a stomach ache though. What type of fish?"

Biblo apparently didn't know one fish from another. She looked confused and picked up the menu in her hooves to examine it more closely. I was not sure that would be much help to her.

Thankfully, I had taken a moment to look the menu over. "I'll get a baked trout with a side daisy salad. She'll get the small fried sardine sampler with the rose petal sandwich," I said, coming to her rescue again. "I have my doubts about her eating fish too, but those seem smaller and hopefully won't upset her tummy too much if it can't handle them."

Biblo gave me a grateful look. I had backed her up and looked to her welfare. Ruth seemed to accept this reasoning. She took the menus from the table, and gave Biblo one last curious look before heading off to attend to our orders.

Biblo gave me a puzzled look. "What do you mean on purpose? How do you eat meat on accident?"

I looked down in mild shame. I really didn't want to scare her with me telling her that I had done flat out murder. The bitch deserved it, and it was self-defense, but it was murder all the same. "Starlight's Folly was sometimes a very dangerous place. I had to defend myself at times. It usually involved a lot of behaving like a predator. it also involved biting out chunks of flesh. I wouldn't be surprised if I accidentally swallowed."

Her mouth dropped a bit. And she looked a little pale. Maybe the idea that I was capable of going full predator was sinking in, and it wasn't as comfortable an idea anymore. Way to go Pearl, you are going to make one of the only ponies who likes you afraid of you.

She took a moment to pull herself together. Her ears were lowered a bit. "I feel like such a stupid foal sometimes. I wouldn't have survived in that town," not the response I was expecting, "I went off to have adventures. I can't even walk for a day without getting exhausted."

I tried reassuring her. "You aren't used to all the walking. You would have gotten better at it with time."

She wasn't reassured. 

"It isn't just the walking and me being fat. I wouldn't have had time to get better. Some thing would have likely had me for lunch. I couldn't defend myself like you can." Her ears were at their lowest point. She looked very dejected. I didn't know what to say. She was probably right. She seemed like the type of pony that would be dead after attempting a single scavenging run.

I still tried to reassure her again regardless. "You never know what will happen out in the wastes. I didn't know if I would survive when I would go out myself. A lot of it is luck. And you are a very lucky mare."

She looked at me. "I am lucky to have you. You saved me. You can do all those amazing things. You can defend yourself. I feel safe around you."

"I will do everything in my power to keep you safe," I replied. "I like you and don't want you hurt."

She blushed a bit. She turned shyly and gave a coy smile. “I like you too," she said with a bat of her eyes. There was no denying her intention with that. Her response made me blush as well. Which elicited a giggle from her. Her mood had at least picked up.

We sat in silence for a moment or two, before Ruth returned with our food. Ruth stood there waiting to see if we would really eat the fish. Biblo looked at her plate. She didn't seem as confident about the fish as she had before.

"Little pony, who should not be eating fish, is something wrong with your food?" Ruth asked with a hint of smug satisfaction.

Biblo poked at the sardines with her hooves. "It just looks different from the last fish I ate," she replied, “I guess I had part of a bigger fish before. I didn't get to see the full body." I could see where that might be upsetting to some pony who was supposed to not eat other creatures.

Biblo poked them a few more times and looked at me. I was eating my trout with no problem, I never had properly cooked meat before, it was pretty good.

She looked down at her plate again. Then Ruth asked her, “Would the little pony prefer something else?"

Biblo took a deep breath then picked up one of the little fish, and then put it in her mouth. Ruth and I looked on expectantly. She closed her mouth and started chewing. You could tell she was considering the taste. Then her eyes widened a bit and she swallowed. She gave us a smile and promptly picked up another sardine without hesitation and bit into that as well. "Nope! I'm good, and this is really good! My compliments to the chef."

Ruth shook her head. "Little pony is going to get a stomach ache, but it is little pony's business. I will tell the chef that you liked the fish," and with that she left us to eat.

"So, what did you and Hot Sticks talk about last night?" Biblo asked me while chewing.

I had finished the trout and was picking through the salad. I knew this had been coming. Start on the safer side. "Biblo, are you half changeling?"

She paused in her eating. She looked a little worried again. "I am a Crystal Pony, but yeah, my mom is a changeling," she said. She looked at me. "Does that bother you?"

I shook my head. "No, I have mixed parents as well. My dad was a Pegasus."

She looked relieved at my answer. Then twisted up her muzzle in thought and asked, "Why do you ask? Did I do something changeling-ish?"

"We were talking about your hugs. I was wondering if how much you felt, other than besides my magic. Hot Sticks, had said Crystal Ponies with a changeling parent could pick up more detailed information about a pony's thoughts and feelings."

"I didn't know that was because I had a changeling mom," she said, “but yeah I can do that. Just feelings. A bit of an impression of your personality. If you are nice or mean. I can't tell exactly what you are thinking. Just how you are feeling, and what your feeling is directed at."

She looked worried again. "If you want me to stop hugging you so much I will. I need to be in close contact to really get a good impression. I don't want you to feel like I am invading your thoughts or anything. I don't want you uncomfortable around me. It just happens when I touch any pony, I can't help it."

"You don't have to worry about that. It doesn't bother me," I replied. "I trust you. I just wanted to know for sure if that was what was happening." I reached over and touched her hoof, she smiled back at me.

Now for the more uncomfortable part. "Um, since you can tell how I am feeling about things," I really had no idea how to ask this so I just blurted, “am I a filly-fooler?"

Her eyes went wide, and then she tried to bite back a laugh. She had to put both forehooves up to her muzzle to cover her laughter. I blushed as she did so. She finally got herself calmed down enough to ask with a smile, "Do you really need me to tell you? I had to feel around for it, but I know if you are, but would rather have you tell me."

Did I already know for sure? I looked at her, she was definitely attractive, and she made me happy. I also realized that I definitely wanted to get a chance to kiss her. Okay, I guess I did know for sure.

She decided to push while I was considering her. She gave me a look that was unabashed lust. "I really like what I feel when I hug you, and I am talking about your personality. I think the tufts on your ears are really cute. Plus you are kind of my hero." She extended a hoof out to me to touch. I obliged, extending a hoof back. She could tell then exactly what I was feeling. It made her smile broadly. She knew she had me.

"So, is this a date?" I asked, blushing as I did so.

She giggled. "Do you want to consider it a date?" She blushed a little as she replied.

I decided to be bold and damn the consequences. I got up from my side of the table and hopped up on her bench next to her. I gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the muzzle.

She wanted a bit more though. She pulled me into a tighter embrace and planted her muzzle firmly against mine, and we had a much bigger kiss.

When we broke off the kiss she laughed. "You have fishy breath!"

I smiled at my marefriend. "You do too."