//------------------------------// // Sleepover Night // Story: Kiwe's Journey // by Mocha Star //------------------------------// Kiwe and a dozen of his friends from class were all talking animatedly in the living room of his apartment. Various forms of bedding, sleeping bags mostly, were present and sat upon by their owners, waiting to be used for their purpose. “So, then she says, ‘I’m not a turkey, I’m a mommy!’” The room burst into infectious childish laughter while several parents mingled between the kitchen and dining room. The joy was all around as both children and adults shared each other’s company. “Mrs. Nangila? I never imagined, no offense, that you’d be, well, you,” a mare gestured at the zebra mare and in the moment of merriment the slight was ignored. The zebra laughed. “Who else would I be if I were not me? I take no offense as you simply didn’t know that I had more to show.” A gruff stallion with a very Manehattan accent chortled. “I like yer rhymin’, makes me wanna get back inta singin’.” “Oh, don’t get Muddy started,” a smaller stallion with a softer rural voice nuzzled him, “once he starts singing it’s all over. Mares and stallions flock to him like fruit flies to an anana.” The majority of the adults who were mares who giggled at the cute display of affection and blush on the gruff stallion’s cheeks. One mare took it as a silent challenge as others nodded almost imperceptibly. “Is that why you’re off the market? Because he sang to you,” she closed her eyes until they were seductively narrowed and she walked toward the gruff stallion. “Y-yeah, m-maybe. What of it?” “Oh, Muddy, you charmer. I’m a lover of all things artistic, haven’t you seen my,” she licked her top lip from right to left, “cutie mark?” she turned to show him a blue pot of flowers with a single red tulip inside it. “And you could sing your way into his life, maybe-” “Woah, back off my colt, you silly filly!” Muddy gasped and looked aside at the smaller stallion beside him. “Davenport, what are you talking about?” “Oh, well… You know, that maybe we should give it another go, if you’re, oof!” Davenport managed as the larger stallion lunged and weighed him down onto the floor in a large hug. The adults shared various tones of joy, approval, and agreement while Davenport simply whimpered from the weight pressed on him. The stallion’s voice changed to a much more feminine tone as he got off Davenport. “Oh, honey, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear that. I swear, when we get back to Ponyville,” he leaned down and whispered softly enough so the children wouldn’t hear but many adults gasped, giggled, or simply blushed. A sharp poke to his ribs snapped his attention back to the party around him and he smiled, rejoining a conversation with Jade and a colt beside him. “Oh, I heard Kiwe can fight!” A filly, Purple Velvet. The children looked at him and after a quarter second of falling noise they exploded into questions all overlapping. Kiwe backed up as soon as he could get on his hooves from the encroaching herd, anxiety making its resurgence as a battle of ‘be cool versus be humble’ played in his mind. “Back it up! Quiet,” Jade waved his hooves from beside Kiwe, “he doesn’t fight. He meditates and it’s kinda boring, so can we-” The voices quieted and they looked between the two. “No, Jade my friend. I do not fight but I am not helpless if I must defend myself or others. There are many ways to meditate and the one I showed you was kukaa kutafakari, there are others but,” he looked over the heads and manes of his classmates to see his mother looking at him. Unsure of what she wanted of him he gulped mostly air into his body as what little spit he had prepared his drying throat to continue. “There is kusimama kutafakari, kutafakari msalaba, and kutafakari kwa kucheza, to name a couple.” “What’s that mean? I don’t know what you said,” a colt asked then several others gasped, “was that Zebra?! I’ve never heard it before, and you said it so easy like… like something easy!” “Say something else!” “Yeah.” “How about my name!” “No, my name!” “Celestia, or Luna!” “How about flowers, those are nice!” “What about the alphabet in Zebra?” Questions flowed and overlapped for a few seconds before the sight of black and white stripes got their attention. “Mother, are you upset that I-” “Not at all my son,” she stood beside him and looked over the children, “it is always good to have an audience when you practice a skill. Who would like to learn to meditate in the ways of Maiti Hayana Ubaya, my tribe?” “What’s that mean?” a blushing Davenport asked as the adults joined the children in forming a phalanx of little soldiers, questions as their weapons, ready to strike down any new topic at a moments notice. Nangila held a forehoof to them and brought it to her chest. “The dead are not evil, more or less.” “Uhhh, I don’t-” Crunch cleared his throat. “You see, in Zebra culture life and death are seen differently and my lovely wife was a shaman, a person that helps the living pass in a peaceful way.” There was a chorus of oh’s. “So, like, she kills ponies?” “No! Not at all,” Crunch interjected the filly’s question as it ended. “All creatures die, right? From little bugs to the strongest mommies and daddies, her herd simply helped to make the time that they’d go to sleep better and, uhm.” “Husband, I will explain then I will train, does that sound fun?” There were nods and Nangila continued, “When I was young my uncle had died while we were migrating. He died from a cut on his leg from a thorny bush and none of us could save him and he fell one day, and we didn’t stop walking.” “I came across the Maiti Hayana Ubaya two years later and watched as they healed a wound, the same type of wound that brought my uncle to his end. I chose to learn their ways and stayed with them to become a healer. A doctor of sorts, only my specialty,” she turned to show her mark, “is taking care of the ill that cannot be saved. “It is my glyph that tells others that I am a steward for the ill and comforter until they pass.” A mare’s foreleg rose. “So, you’re like a hospice nurse?” Nangila’s head tilted and she looked at her husband who rolled his eyes. “Sure, that’s one way to put it. She’s a Zebra nurse.” “Ohhhhh,” the final understanding clicked and Nangila moved on. “The styles Azikiwe spoke of are sitting, standing, upside down, and dancing. There are also balancing, tolerance, focus, resistance, fasting, mindfulness, harmonic, and others. I will show you, with Azikiwe, the ones we favor. Kiwe, are you ready?” He nodded and they moved a step apart, sat their haunches on the floor, and lifted their forelegs from the floor while crossing their hind legs and moving their tails around the left side of their flanks. There was silent awe as the crowd watched both practitioners take a meditative posture with straight backs and partly outstretched forelegs, hooves frogs up. “You may try, if you wish,” Nangila said with a knowing smirk, “but do not feel bad if you look like a fish.” Everypony spread out and tried to sit up, each failing spectacularly with nearly all rolling backward and flopping on their sides. Kiwe, Nangila, and Crunch watched with restrained laughter as the group tried. “Enough, enough. Please, you will hurt yourselves at this rate and that is not what I wish for your fate. Kiwe, let us move to the next pose.” They both moved fluidly as though they were mirroring each other. With hind leg strength, they lifted themselves up onto their rear hooves, took a step back with their right legs and held their tails out behind them. Moving their forelegs front and back they turned the foreleg in front frog up and the other frog down. With a slight tremble, Kiwe turned his head to look at his classmates and he grinned, snapping his attention back to his mother who was standing better than he was. “Yes, this is the pose called standing. Did you think it would be easy?” Nangila said through her smile. “Do you wish to try, or look like a bird that cannot fly?” With determination, the room was quickly filled with foals and adults rearing up, waving their forelegs for balance, then falling over, backward, or back to their four hooves. They quickly stopped their efforts and sat down, grumbling about how easy it looked when Kiwe did it. “Next, then, is upside down. Are you ready, Kiwe?” He nodded curtly and moved his hindleg back so his underbelly was facing his classmates. Several fillies giggled and sent a blush to his cheeks as he bent backward and placed his forehooves on the carpet then seemingly without trouble lifted his hind legs over his head while arching his body to maintain balance. His mother clapped her forehooves together. “Very well done, our son. You are like a snake ready to strike. Your friends may try if they’d like?” She looked at the room that looked back at her still standing on her hind legs. “Very well, I will not tell,” she winked and with an even quicker motion, she slipped into the upside down position, only facing the other way so she could look at the group while inverted. “Next, is the one most cannot wait to see. This is the moment Kiwe will dance with me.” “Dance? That’s not meditation,” some mare said dismissively that got a snort from a couple other adults. “What about any of this seems like normal meditation to you? Hush and watch!” A raspberry was given as Kiwe simply cartwheeled to his hind legs and stood balanced while his mother did the same. There were several ‘ooo’s’ at the display and Kiwe’s gulp was audible. “Move back, everypony,” Crunch said stepping between the crowd and family, “they need their space, even if this is just a little demonstration of meditation.” The room was filled with scuffing hooves for a few seconds before silence returned. “Please, keep quiet as you can, this is very special.” Crunch took a seat to the side and watched the crowd while Kiwe returned to his standing meditative pose. Several seconds passed while tension in the group relaxed and questions started to bubble in foals and adult’s minds, alike. Kiwe was the first to move, his hind legs leading him by a fraction before the rest of him caught up, maintaining balance while he swung his forelegs around his body, changing their positions and using the momentum he’d built to hop into the air and twist into a corkscrew that had his hind hooves cutting through the air where his mother was. She simply sidestepped his creative lunge and brought her foreleg down onto his side, sending him plummeting to the floor and bouncing once, landing on all fours. There were gasps in the crowd but before anyone could object or cheer Kiwe was making a short gallop toward his mother, who used her favorite technique and cartwheeled over him, planting a kiss on his head, just above his horn by pressing her lips through his mane. He skidded to a stop and grumbled, wiping his head off with his forehoof. “Mother! That’s not fair.” “My son, who wants to dance, would you rather I teach you to prance?” Kiwe sucked in a short breath and puffed his cheeks as a light blush formed, barely visible but still there. He leapt at her and with a half strike forward he curled mid-leap, snapping out a kick to the side blindly. He lost his balance and twisted, tumbled to the floor, rolled once and ended on all four hooves again. His eyes widened as his father clapped his hooves. “Whoo! Great work, Kiwe! Whoo!” There were scattered stomps in uncertain approval as well. Kiwe stared at his mother, a foreleg across her barrel and a grin plastered on her face. “You struck me,” she said proudly. She returned to her quadrupedal stance, save the one leg on her chest. “Our son, you have grown so much and you have a magical touch, I must take my leave everypony, I will return shortly.” Kiwe let a smirk turn into a smile then into a grin as his father scooped him into a hug and set him on his neck. “All hail Kiwe, the best dancer in the house! Who wants to dance with the champion?” The children hopped up and crowded Crunch calling praise and asking for a lesson of some sort. Kiwe climbed down and spent the moment in the spotlight to talk all his classmates into going to his room while his father quickly went after his wife. “This is my room, it is where I spend my free time and practice my magic,” he said leading them in. The children scattered around his room and looked at nearly everything before returning to Kiwe a few seconds later. “I can’t teach you how to dance meditate, but I can teach you other simpler ones like sitting or lying.” Most of his friends took the offered lesson while others went to his toys and board games, occupying themselves. Ten minutes later the entire group had moved past the interesting methods of meditation that didn’t include fighting and were grouped in the center of his room talking amongst each other again. It was, without a doubt, the most fun and fulfilling day in Kiwe’s young life.