“Mmm… where… where am I?” You, Fluttershy were at a campsite using a pillow and a blanket scavenged from the wreckage of The Predestined Paradox, the blanket that was keeping you warm slipped off of you. I did my thing as soon as Sekhet left to go get the food, I didn’t want the sphinx to watch me do my thing after all. “What’s going on?”
“Hello there cutie, finally awake I see, sorry about ruining your moment with all those adorable animals.” My first action was to apologize to Fluttershy which made her blush and then I give her the whammy that her friend might have just endangered a lot of lives or ended them by mistake. It was like ripping off a bandage that got stuck in your fur, while painful, it had to be done. Our ship to Manehatten was never going to arrive and I don’t know what was happening with all of the passengers. All I knew was that we were completely safe right where we were. “I accidentally fell on top of you while you were singing after our airship started crashing thanks to an exploding rainbow.”
Fluttershy just silently looked at me and how odd I was, she then turned her head to see the ship I was staring at and whimpered.
“It's okay, I wasn't seriously hurt. I'm very sorry about what my friend did though, she didn’t mean for that... to happen… uh… what are you?” Gosh darn it Fluttershy was adorable as she took in my full stature. “Who are you?”
“Never seen an Abyssinian before huh? Well I’m not exactly the standard for what one looks like, but I’m close enough.” I gave her a friendly cat smile and started rubbing the poor shivering dear behind the ears while pulling the blanket up and around her. “I’m Jade La Perm and that over there is my mother scavenging the remnants of our crashed ship for a pot to boil water in and a goddess is off collecting some fresh food for us. The food on the ship is not very safe for consumption thanks to the crash.”
Kuril was coming back on deck with more stuff in her arms, she had a list of things she was going to scavenge and she started it by getting a blanket and a pillow for Fluttershy. Mom knew this was the pony of kindness I told her about.
“P-p-p-princess Celestia is here?!” The filly seemed worried about that. She should be, because Celestia probably would never be notified about the crashing of a foreign airship, mostly because there was nobody important on board. In fact the ponies in charge of international travel would probably just keep it hidden from her unless we made the journey to bring the crash to light.
“There are more goddesses, and gods, than Celestia or the mare in the moon… they are also not always alicorns my friend.” I said looking up at the visage of Nightmare Moon slowly rising as the evening set in, well she’d be dealt with in five years and it was no skin off my nose whether or not I was around to help with it. If I was going to be there, then I was going to be there. “By the way, be respectful of the goddess Sekhet when she comes back. She seems like a very lonely lady and I can tell we’re the first group she’s had a chance to interact with in a long time. Can you do that for me?”
“Uh… okay.” Said an unsure Fluttershy learning that her friend caused an airship to crash probably wasn’t much to smile about, but I had to get her feeling better as she looked so down about it. I had a soft spot for the filly even if this was going to be vastly different from the show, even if it wasn’t so vastly different too.
“I wouldn’t worry, most of the passenger fell off while we were still over the sea. It’s only me and my mom that ended up over land.” I was not mentioning the jagged rocky shoals or the likelihood of survivors surviving, not to this young filly who’s probably lived a happy life free of consequences up to this point. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news after all, but my honest words weren’t really helping much here. I wasn’t about to lie to Fluttershy and say that they all had parachutes and will be living in a land of sunshine and rainbows. Technically this was that land, but it wasn’t all sunshine though Celestia could technically do that. “You broke my fall, so you did a good thing and I owe you for that. My mom kind of helped the airship drop on top of the goddess, so the goddess might be a bit cranky. Don’t worry the goddess is actually quite friendly and I’m sure she won’t do anything to you because you had nothing to do with the airship or its many passengers miss…”
I looked at her and waited as she pulled the blanket tight around herself hiding her face in it, she was starting to cry.
“What’s wrong cutie?” Of things I didn’t want to be responsible for, it’s making Fluttershy cry.
“I can’t get home… I’m not a very good flyer and my friend Rainbow Dash… she… she caused this crash.” Yes and I would be blaming Rainbow Dash for that more if it wasn’t for the ships name being The Predestined Paradox. I didn’t think the ships name to be coincidental in the slightest.
“It’s alright, I’m sure someone will come looking for you eventually. Until then you can stick with us, we did kind of have a trip planned for Canterlot to tell Celestia about this if she hasn’t already heard of what happened. While we do that, we can alert a Pegasus or two to your situation.” Giving it some thought I decided to be a bit more soothing. “I’m quite sure that your friend didn’t mean for the airship to crash on purpose and I know for a fact that she wasn’t the reason it landed on a goddess… that one was my mom’s fault. My mother's name is Kurilian La Perm, just call her Kuril. I was falling off the ship and she had to cast a spell on me before doing it to the ship. I’m quite sorry that her spell made me land on you, in fact that’s why the ship landed on the goddess in the first place. For you see the spell lets you land safely, but it also makes you land on someone in the course of landing safely.”
“Who would make a spell like that?” Fluttershy asked a bit more interested now as she sat up and looked down at the pillow leaning against the bench log of the campsite.
“Well the way I and my mother casts our spells is very unique compared to unicorns, so she didn't actually create it. We're still learning how to do magic and I would assume that the spell will always work in that way, if you’re falling that is. If you’re standing on the ground when that spell is cast, we’re assuming it’ll launch whatever we target into the air and it’ll make the target land on someone at random or by choice of the caster.” I had Fluttershy’s attention, I just needed her to tell me her name so I can start using it. “If you ever needed the ability to breathe underwater then just ask for Kuril, she can set you up with that ability innately. I’m completely incapable of drowning thanks to that.”
“That does actually sound useful.” Mumbled Fluttershy who still looked quite down.
“Why are you still so glum, you got your cutie mark today didn’t you?” Well that caused Fluttershy to freeze up and I could only hope that she cheered up a little. “Cheer up a little, today is still a good day for you cutie from what I’ve heard about the importance of those symbols. Even if today was a slightly lousy one for me and my mother.”
Fluttershy quickly threw off the blanket and looked at the three little sweet butterflies on her flank, for a moment she forgot that her friend unintentionally knocked her off a cloud, almost to her doom, and caused an airship to crash, almost to our doom. There was also all the other passengers, but I didn’t know them all well enough to care about what happened to them.
I heard a thundering steps as something heavy came towards us, it had to be Sekhet carrying the food back. Fluttershy cowered next to me bringing the thin blanket back over her head in a frightened manner, despite how safe we were with my ability active. The filly was looking up at the large imposing Sekhet Sphinx who stared at the campsite with a critical eye, but mostly she was looking at the roaring fire keeping us warm from the chilly evening air.
“It seems you are indeed a sun priest, an interesting one at that. Here are bags of fish, fruit and vegetables. I did harm to no one to claim them... if you were worried about that.” After she set the one wet and two dry bags down, she also put a barrel sloshing with fresh water down next to those. Celestia was just the closest representation of a sun controlling god that I knew existed, now it had me wondering who moved the sun on the other side of the planet after Celestia makes it set and if it was related to a being named Ra. “I also brought fresh water for drinking and soup, I hope your mother’s skills are as good as you say they are Priest Jade.”
A roar sounded off in the distance and one of Sekhet’s ears twitched, she turned and started running towards the noise without a word to us about staying here or keeping safe.
“W-w-w-what was that?” Poor Fluttershy, I had almost forgotten that you spent most of your life in the clouds and hardly any of it on the ground, sounded like a bear. A really huge bear… wait… weren’t Ursa Minors and Majors a thing here in Equestria?
“It was just a massive bear, don’t worry about it. The goddess, remember her name is pronounced Sekhet, probably went to see what was causing a disturbance and will make sure it doesn’t disturb us.” Not that anything could get into the campsite with my ability running, praise the sun for it gives protection to a true believer… well technically the protection came as a side effect of the ability I had.
Sekhet obviously wanted a good fight and it was likely to make her less cranky. We still needed to tell her of how we came to be here after all and she’ll be in a much better mood to hear it, though I did feel quite sorry for the Ursa that got her attention.
Mom eventually came to the campfire with the pot and I pointed out the barrel of water and the food so graciously gathered by Sekhet. Which is unusual considering Sekhet spent a lot of her time forcing ponies to give her food and now she was willingly helping us?
I was now almost quite certain that the whole Somnambula thing was a set up to free herself from the temple she was supposed to be guarding. She failed to guard it square and a little too fair in my opinion, plus Somnambula only told her to leave the kingdom and never return. In this day and age it was no longer a kingdom, even then the temple itself counted as a kingdom on it's own while Sekhet was trapped there.
Once Sekhet left the area it was no longer a kingdom as it no longer had any people left in it and she could have freely gone back to kill Somnambula, but why would she when Somnambula did her a big favor by literally ordering her to be free of her job.
It was well within Sekhet’s abilities to have destroyed the ponies settling near the temple as Somnambula never said anything to protect it or the kingdom she was a part of. Somnambula luckily didn't have to.
I was going to bring it up when Sekhet eventually came back to the campfire.
-
She never thought her life would end this way, apparently the thing that gave her this scar and took her horn from her came chasing after her. She thought she could make it on her own to find a way to restore her horn, she was now on her back with a gushing wound in her side. She could still run, but keeping ahead of that beast was going to be quite hard.
Just when the large creature from her nightmares was set to strike her again or continue giving chase, it met a rather unfortunate fate with an exceptionally large cat like creature she had never seen the likes of before. The bloody battle only lasted for about three minutes in total before the nightmare that haunted her died perilously at the jaws of the large cat digging into it’s now lifeless throat. It was then, seconds after her victory and a mild bit of preening, that the clearly intelligent creature turned their slit orange eyes upon her.
“Answer my riddle and I will help you survive the night and you get to eat a wondrous meal, get it wrong and I will leave you to your fate to go to said wondrous meal.” The creature told her, it had her wondering whether or not this being was benevolent. “Whatever that fate may be should you choose to go on your own as injured as you are.”
The cat creature gave her a toothy grin, it was then that she recognized it for what it was. It was a Sphinx, a legendary beast and it didn’t seem to want her dead. For once in her life, she was not going to rely on herself as she seriously needed the help. She could survive the night on her own, but she needed to eat something substantial as it’s been a while since her last meal.
Wait a minute… even if she failed to answer the riddle correctly, she could just follow the great beast that just saved her life to the food anyway. The riddle was just a formality because she was a Sphinx.
“Answering the riddle is pointless isn’t it?” She stated while staring at the beast.
“It’s the difference between you walking there and me carrying you, I would be faster and you’d get help much sooner and you wouldn’t lose nearly as much of your strength.” The Sphinx smiled a bit. “I know a fighter when I see one and you need not fight for your life alone, you earned my attention as much as you did the bears.”
“I’ll take your riddle.” She had little strength to spare following such an incredible being, but she didn’t want to lose that strength and then be eaten by her. She had all to gain and nothing to lose by trying to at least show this being some trust. After having long since lost her childhood innocence, she once again felt something akin to hope.