//------------------------------// // Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you didn't need to know. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Mom, I’m slipping, could you maybe hurry it up with the saving my life here!” My claws were losing grip on the splintering wood of the deck, below me was nothing but solid ground and a fall from this height would either kill me or break my legs. “Hold on, hold on, you know you can’t rush magical alchemy Jade.” Calmly stated my aggravating mother Kuril, the somewhat friendly white and grey cat lady that gave birth to me. She was being way too calm about how everyone, but the two of us at least, were grievously injured or worse. She was crouched up on the very back end of the ship searching through her large brown over the shoulder bag. “Well do something, this cheap wood is coming apart under my claws and if I fall right now then I’m good as dead!” Sure I was panicking a little, I had all my claws, both feet and hands stuck into the deck and was slowly beginning to slide down towards the front end of the vessel pointing at the ground. “What kind of mother are you if I die!?” “Grip tighter then, I thought you were classing as a rogue. Why don’t you ever LARP like it? I mean rogues are supposed to be agile and can do stuff like climb walls and other incredible feats of acrobatics.” My mother continued to search her bag while not looking at me. “You are a Abyssinian, so wouldn’t acrobatics be part of our racial talents?” “I’m technically more of a priest of the sun at the moment than a true rogue and of course you know that. Also wouldn’t racial talents differ by varying species of Abyssinian? I’m technically a genetic half pony mutt if the neighbors were right about how you got pregnant with me.” Yeah my one unique ability would only make this situation worse unless I was able to aim it correctly at the only thing slowing our fall down and maybe give us more lift instead of getting us killed faster. “Look, why don’t you use an alchemy cast to trade places with me and see how well you take to holding on for your life!” “I’ll do you one better… for here I have a raven’s feather!” My mother pulled out a black colored feather, I often wondered why she thought witches needed to rhyme. I knew she was going to do this cast with a rhyme, even when it wasn’t necessary and it would take up precious time in saving my life. “Portents of the darkening last breath, let this feather help me save my precious daughter from death!” The flash signified the destruction of the feather and the magical spell created from that destruction immediately covered my form for a second before fading. “That didn’t seem to…” It was at that point that the chunks of wood, of which I walked on days prior to the rainbow colored sonic boom that destroyed two of the three balloons to the airship we were on, broke. I was soon falling at terminal velocity. “Heeeeeeeelp~!” “…” Kuril didn’t say much and just watched me with worry in her eyes, which is until as my fall suddenly slowed down and then I found myself miraculously falling sideways. There was a relieved look on her face and I glared at her hard as I quickly fell away from her in a different direction, I also flexed what would count as my two middle digits out at her. If I was right I was quickly falling… to the north. What kind of alchemy effect did that Raven’s feather have on me? Was this another one of mom’s untested castings? Please don’t let me die before I get a chance to strangle my mother over this. - “Well… that was unexpected… and quite rude of my daughter no less.” Kuril said slowly as she had lazily watched her daughter’s momentum changed from down to abruptly sideways. She pulled out another raven’s feather and thought about whether or not she should use it on herself after what happened to Jade. “What would happen… if I used it on the ship?” Well it wasn’t like Kuril cared if the ship survived. If it did land intact, then she could probably find her money more easily and get it back from paying for this suddenly ruined voyage. To think that exploding rainbow had been so pretty up until it upended almost everyone overboard. - I crossed my arms and sighed as I kept falling sideways and downwards, then I came to an abrupt stop and fell right on top of someone else. Someone I already knew very well that was just getting her cutie mark right around now. “I, love, everythi…” Fluttershy was cut off by me bodily landing on top of her from twenty feet up, the animals all around her scattered in fright at the sudden interruption. I quickly got off the poor filly and looked at her to see if she was okay, please tell me mom and I didn’t accidentally kill one of the heroes. I don’t think I’d be a very good replacement for her, please oh great sun that gave me the power of that one ridiculous ability. I needed a sign to know that I didn’t just kill one of the most innocent characters ever! Her flank flashed and she received her cutie mark, three butterflies like it was supposed to be. At least there was an acknowledgment that she was still alive and my mother’s spell hadn’t traded my life for another. I looked around and smiled sheepishly at all the animals staring at me. “Sorry about that, I’ll just be taking her. Don’t worry, I’ll get her healed up so she can come back to finish doing her singing princess routine.” The animals just watched as I scooped up the unconscious teenaged filly into a fireman’s carry and started to slowly walk away. “You’ll see her again, I promise! Just don’t let nature take its course until then. You guys wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me right?” One of the rabbits nodded that he wouldn’t, that had to be Angel who was giving me the rabbit version of a thumbs up. Now if only I knew which way I was… a loud crashing noise in the distance, followed with a horribly loud pained feminine screeching noise, scattering of birds in the distance and of course a large plume of smoke even when the airship hadn’t been on fire when it was crashing. That way then, I just hope that scream wasn’t mom as that would be a horribly RPG thing to do to me in arriving in these land alone... and freshly orphaned. She’s catty at times, but she’s still my mother in this world. The smoke was the least logical thing about this, but it helped choose a direction. I better paw it then before the animals get rowdy about me carrying off the rather adorable pony. I also wanted to get to the airship before night fell, because my mom would be in danger without me being there to use my specially ability if she was alright. - Okay, this was not the sight I expected to walk into. I mean I expected my mother to be hurt, instead I find the airship had miraculously landed right side up and ‘mostly’ intact no less and my mother in one piece and not groaning in agony. “Well, you got here in a timely manner.” I watched as mom snuffed the smoke coming off of her hand with but a flick of her wrist. “Apparently the sustained effect of using sunlight as an alchemy ingredient is to cause smoke as if something was burning.” “You used that cast on me untested didn’t you?” There was a bit of guilt on moms face as she looked away. “Yes, but I did know some of what it would do. Flight from death was the most obvious outcome, instead it seems that using a raven’s feather in a cast form of usage is to make the target land on someone safely.” She pointed at the large near burgundy paw sticking out from under the boat. “Incidentally I might have broken her spine by accident.” “I’m okay… and nothing is broken… I’m just in a lot of pain.” Muttered a voice from under the boat. It belonged to a particular Sphinx that tricked Somnambula into freeing her from having to be stuck guarding a temple or at least that's what I believed anyway. “Well that’s a lot off my… where did you get that filly?” The only response that I could dignify my mother with was a glare at her. “Oh right… the cast usage of the raven feather. The effect must be landed on someone safely, right then. What shall we do now?” “Should I do the thing?” I wondered if we even had enough fish for the poor Sphinx my mom made the airship crash land on top of, we really needed a peace offering for when she eventually got out from under there. “Yes, you should probably do the thing.” My mother smiled at me quaintly as she got up, walked over to me and brought me into a tight hug. “I’m sorry I made you land on someone sweetie. I may not be a medic, but the filly looks perfectly fine at least.” “I’m going to riddle you with riddles when I get out from under here…” The suddenly struggling and angry form beneath the crashed airship groused out. “Should we be worried about that?” Mom asked me in while pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the squashed Sphinx. “No, she’ll be fine, she’s not evil at all and I’m sure she’ll be willing to talk to us after you dropped an airship on her skull.” Sarcasm aside, I always thought that there was something about the Sphinx that Somnambula met and I was hopefully not wrong about my supposition. I was going to need to confirm it sometime after she finished getting out from under our damaged and pretty broken airship. “Well now, I really guess I should apologize for that as it was my magic that made it happen. I’m also sorry for doing an untested cast on you my lovely, graciously forgiving and loving daughter.” Pausing mom pulled away from me and dusted off her whitish robes before sitting down to pull out yet another raven’s feather, an ink pot and a small journal. Having recently eaten proverbial crow, she had plenty of feathers to spare in her alchemy bag. Said bag needed sorting pouches for the ease of acquiring magical alchemy supplies quickly. She dipped the feather into the pot and I watched as she started writing down what she learned from using two feathers. She spoke out loud as she did with her tail flicking back and forth excitedly. “A raven’s feather when used in the cast form of magical alchemy has the unusual effects of causing one to safely land on a nearby living being without injury or damage to the target the cast is used upon. The living being, which the target of the cast landed on, might not be so forgiving. Will test if cast still works on object that is not already falling, if so, might be able to direct object magically in the form of an offensive alchemic spell to land on aggressive problems. Note: discover sustained magical alchemy effects of what raven feathers are.” “Seriously mom…” I groaned out, did she need to talk out loud while writing? I sat down in the grass in the clearing looking over at the Sphinx slowly pulling herself free from the mass on her back. “Yes, seriously Jade. You’re my daughter and you might inherit some of my legacy someday… that or my grandchildren will inherit the La Perm family tradition of the magical Abyssinian witches.” I gave her a look that said that that will never happen, especially not now that there aren’t any Abyssinians around to possibly date. Probably wouldn’t stop mom from pestering me about getting a boyfriend… or a girlfriend which is more likely at this rate concerning my past life having colored this one. “Now do your thing dear and I’ll just step away to about ten feet and test the sustained effect of this raven feather.” “You mean the same raven feather that now has the additive of ink?” I just had to point that out in case Kuril forgot that magical alchemy does have additive effects depending on how many objects are used together in conjunction. The ink would certainly throw off her mission to accurately learn all she could about alchemy, it wouldn’t do for her to have a horrible misfire. “Mom, I’ve told you several times to be careful about magical alchemy and how it worked from my past life.” “Yes, but what did you know about it working here exactly? It worked and now I’m the expert in the field of continuing to make it work.” She wasn’t wrong there, but mom’s experimenting was dangerous and I worried about the crazy cat lady when she was testing new objects with this form of magic. “Aside from cooking, you know I’ve always wanted to do magic and didn’t we decide to bring it up to Celestia when we got a chance to go to Canterlot?” “You mean if we can get to Canterlot alive at this rate. Judging by the map I had on me before the ship sent everyone else falling, we were still flying north along the coast towards Manehatten before we were slammed with the sonic rainbow blast and turned more westward.” I pulled the map from my pocket, I was wearing yellow shorts, panties and a simple green shirt. I wasn’t one for extravagance or dresses, I will absolutely destroy any dress Rarity tries to put on me should we meet by using it in a magical alchemy cast. I won’t care what happens when I do. “At this time Cloudsdale should be floating directly south of Ponyville and we crash landed… further south and more to the west of that." I wasn’t exactly good at judging where we were. "We'll need to go east to find the train tracks or shore so we can follow either of them to civilization.” We had fallen pretty far inland, but I’d think we’re in a forest in the vast expanse somewhere between Appleoosa and Ponyville. Cloudsdale tended to revolve around Ponyville and depending on the time of year it was always in a different spot, it’s why it’s called the ‘drifty city’. I could see it from here and get my bearings. “Sounds like a plan, but I think we have bigger problems to worry about.” It seems the Sphinx the airship crash landed on was now out and angry at us. I still hadn’t done my thing yet and I wasn’t worried about the upcoming fight. We still had to get my stuff from the airship, but both I and mom could handle a mystically all powerful Sphinx of legend. Maybe…