//------------------------------// // Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you shouldn't need to know. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Jade, here’s your knife.” My mom had finally found my knife, but she was already in the midst of cooking the meal. Mom was using the plates, bowls and other pots and pans that hadn’t been too badly damaged by the crash, the galley like everywhere below deck had been empty of people. She gave it to me and a tray covered in fish. “Let me guess, I got fishing duty.” I said dryly, mom always made me work with the fish. “What do you want off to the side to play with this time?” “I also want you to chop up the carrots and keep the tops. If the so far unnamed friend there wants to help, then she may. Oh and leave the guts off to the side dear, I’m using everything else.” After saying that my mother kneeled in front of a shy looking Fluttershy and squeezed on her cheeks making her squeak adorably. “Things will be alright sweetie, you’ll see. Do you want to help me cook?” “Um… yes… I would like to help if you don’t mind.” Fluttershy soon found herself in a crushing hug and I found myself getting jealous that mom was snuggling her. After that mom started telling her what to do. “And… sorry for not telling you two, but… my name is Fluttershy.” “I swear you’re treating her better than you ever did me.” A bushel of carrots was tossed on to my tray expertly by the deft hands of the witch I called mom, my knife was a simple short blade and the sheath was just as simple. I sat down on the log by the fire with the tray on my lap and pulled my knife from the sheath to begin working, but first I utilized the sustain ability my knife gave me. “At least I won’t complain about the portions I receive, your cooking is the best magic that the world has ever had.” “I’m not treating her better, she’s just cuter.” My mother preened at the praise as she came over to me and gave me an affectionate pat on the head. “You never did have a cute phase my little tom cat, the only thing feminine about you is your long hair. I swear, when you find a lover, you better be the one to get your partner pregnant. Even if your partner turns out to be male, as a witch’s daughter they should be the one getting pregnant and carrying my grandchildren. Goodness knows no one would survive you if you were the one to be carrying.” “I’ll just get to work mom.” I grunted sourly. The sustain ability of the knife was simple. I was a tom boy and a lay about, but the knife improved my dexterity and made me alert to my surroundings. Not to mention the longer I used it the more exercise I got, so it was good for getting me active. I unfortunately couldn’t sleep a wink while using it as my sustain effect and the self-sustaining effect of giving me plenty of exercise helped quite a bit, thank goodness it was a sustain effect instead of a cast. I can’t imagine being permanently unable to sleep without feeling aware of my surroundings constantly. I wondered what a cast would do with a knife, never tested it before and I don’t want to if it was something that could hurt someone. As long as it was close to me I could do acrobatics with the best of them, had I brought my knife on deck I wouldn’t have fallen off the air ship. The sustain effect helped immensely with muscle memory so I knew how to wield the knife like a sailor, my home town of Palicoast had plenty of salty sea cats to learn from. It made sense that the knife made me dexterous and alert, as the essence of a knife was the weapon of a thief, bandit or a lazy fish scaler like me. I wanted to class as a rogue and a knife was one of the things that helped train my muscles and skills, the more I used it the better I got without needing the sustain effect. The knife sheath had a sustain effect that protected me from being cut by small weapons, the cast for the previous few sheaths I owned had the dubious effect of trapping one thing for a limited time. I’m quite sure a sheath of similar make will always do the same thing, bigger sheaths probably lasted longer. Said limited time doesn’t care how powerful you were, given I stopped a whale shark completely in its tracks for the same amount of time I stopped a little guppy. Long story. I had sat the sheath off to the side of the log as I got to work with the stuff on my tray. Three swipes of the knife and on fish completely missing its scales and the guts were spilling out. I dumped the scale on the ground and pushed the guts off to the side. I placed a carrot before me and carefully chopped it, saving the top of the carrot as asked. I couldn’t cook like mom could, but I could help prepare well enough. After I finished chopping the carrots and fish filets, I shoved the carrots into the pot of slowly heating water and looked to mom as to what to do with the filets and guts. “Throw four filets in for flavor, I’m grilling and spicing the rest. If everything in the galley wasn’t covered in wood we’d be having problems with food right about now.” Turning from me as I set about my duty mom addressed Fluttershy. “Are you alright with fish dear? I know that not all Pegasi eat fish and I wouldn’t want to upset you, Sekhet did say make a meal for everyone and pony fair will be on the menu. Speaking of, can you pass me those metal bars and some of those vegetables? I’m making vegetable skewers.” “I’m okay with fish, though I don’t like the idea of eating something that was alive… then again plants are alive and I eat those…” Fluttershy started to cover her face with her mane and she gathered the various vegetables shyly. “I guess I’m not entirely upset about it, though please don’t ask me to eat anything more intelligent.” “I would never, I’m asking so that I know how much to make and I’m going to be making a lot because of Sekhet. I need to know if you wanted any before we start serving her, it’s so I can save some off to the side for you.” I can see my mother shivering at the idea of Sekhet being displeased with us. “She’s going to get a large portion of what we’re making, she wasn’t exactly happy about me magically redirecting a crashing airship onto her skull. Can you tell me more about that daughter of mine? You seem to know quite a bit about her.” “She’s Sekhet, a sphinx goddess of righteous rage, war and healing apparently. If she fights, which is invoked when you are considered evil, issuing a challenge or have crossed her enough to qualify for a battle where she issues you the challenge, then the chances of surviving her are very slim if she considers it a battle to the death. Unless you set the terms of victory to explicitly exclude her from killing you. If you didn’t issue the challenge, as a sphinx, she has to ask you a riddle if she wants to pursue a form of justice against you. She wouldn’t have left us alone if we didn’t answer her and we would have been seen as guilty if we tried to avoid her, even if said injury has already healed completely. The guiltier we become in her eyes, the more she can act against us.” I was quite calm while explaining this. I continued to slice and gut fish and chop carrots, I wasn’t sugar coating this for the whimpering Fluttershy and I knew the pony wouldn’t upset Sekhet. I think Sekhet would never ask someone innocent a riddle unless she wanted to help them. “If you are considered evil or happen to turn evil in her presence, then she will just attack you outright without setting the terms for victory. Depending on how she feels about the situation she will either try to return you to your senses or more than likely attempt to kill you outright, you’re actually lucky if you’re possessed by something because she’ll only actually attack the malignant spirit to save you. She must knowingly inform you of the consequences of getting a riddle wrong should you decide to take the riddle, we didn’t cross her well enough and she is curious as to why dropping a ship on her head didn’t let her immediately end us as per the rules she follows.” It was our asses that were on the line and I was well aware Sekhet wasn’t just testing my mom’s cooking skills. It was Sekhet that had been out on a hunt and was just in generally enjoying a quiet life, mom was the one that actually perpetrated an evil upon her by accident and I was not as in danger as she was. Despite a thousand years passing Sekhet’s purple Nemes headdress, Usekh necklace and earrings looked perfectly fine so she was definitely a healthy and magically active goddess. I was mixing my knowledge of Sphinxes and Sekhet together for this, as such I believed this meal for everyone was a test of my mother’s character as much as mine. “So yes, she’s quite dangerous if you upset her enough for her to want to mash you into the ground. Beating her would be a long shot even with our magical talents mom and provided that she didn’t use hers as a handicap. Her sister is apparently Bastet a goddess of life, protection and cats, sometimes fertility and she is also just as dangerous in her own ways if crossed or wronged.” I was going to continue my little campfire lore telling as I started up my fourth tray of fish and some other vegetables this time. “Upsetting Bastet would technically be worse as Sekhet will not hurt the weak or already infirmed and if you were either she would technically be honor bound to make you strong again so that you can be worthy of fighting for your life against her. We technically don’t count as weak or infirmed, mom proved her strength by redirecting the galleon and I proved it through my knowledge of the goddess herself. Neither of us is sick. I think the war goddess is misunderstood personally, she can actually be friendly and might even tell riddles if she wants to be helpful beyond a normal sense. She brought this food for us in trade for a meal after all and didn’t complain about it as she was getting a fair trade in return.” “Why should I complain? The company here is quite well informed of who I am by now Priest Jade.” That was Sekhet stomping her way up to the campsite and through the protective effects as if they didn’t exist, if she wanted to kill me she might be able to do it despite the side effect of my sun priest ability protecting me and those I wish to be protected. “You’ve have my attention, you might just be very unlucky for that…” After that was said, Sekhet held out her left wing and placed a slightly confused, if injured, pony upon the ground. Sekhet then moved to quietly sit by the campfire and stared at the burning flickering fire with something approaching intrigue and as for the food my mother was working on, she looked upon it with complete awe. Okay things just got a little more complex for the future if that was really the teenaged Fizzle Pop Berry Twist that Sekhet had just dropped off or as she might be known as in the future, Tempest Shadow. I could avert her fate and maybe even restore her horn through magical alchemy… Celestia had a phoenix right? I had a magical alchemy idea to help her, but I would need to earn her trust. “I hope you don’t mind if I help you, I’m Jade La Perm.” I passed the tray to Fluttershy and mom watched as I went to the blanket that we used to wrap up the unconscious Fluttershy and I dipped some of it into the fresh water and made my way over to Fizzle. “I don’t really need your…” Fizzle started dryly and seemed upset at my approach, but I began to clean her wound with the wet portion of the blanket and she hissed before sending a glare my way. She started to light her broken horn… “Get away from…” “Silence brave one… let her do her job...” The giant claw attached to the equally giant paw of Sekhet touched the glowing broken portion of Fizzle’s horn and it ceased working immediately. That scared Fizzle quite a lot and she didn’t say anything about it. I ignored this interaction and pulled out my knife, which made Fizzle’s eyes widen in my direction as I slashed away the wet blood covered portion of blanket used to wipe her gash clean. I worked the remaining dry portions of the blanket around her barrel and tied it off tightly. “We’re going to need to change this out tomorrow, but for right now a blanket tourniquet works just as well until we can find a medical kit in the wreckage to sew that wound up.” Despite the suspicious look I was getting, I gave her a kind smile and gently rubbed her behind one her ears. She continued to give me an aggravated stare after that. “Don’t worry, you’re in good paws… if you give us enough time we can do more than just heal that wound in your side. We might be able to fix that poor horn of yours as well.” Fizzle gave me a disbelieving stare. Given how long she’s been without a fully working horn, it was to be expected. Fixing the broken horn would be easy or hard depending on what ingredients we needed to perform a magical alchemy to do so, thus the qualifier might. I was thinking phoenix feathers or phoenix tears, both if possible. There were other options like a small hydra’s head or hydra skin, at least something that could regenerate lost limbs would work just as well. “That’ll be quite an interesting feat to see… I’ll be sticking around for that reason alone.” I did not appreciate Sekhet's words or her looking at me as if I were her personal toy to play with. The flicking tail and creepy smile didn’t help my mood much either, there was a certain beauty to her threatening appearance though. “If you could, you’d be the first.” Fizzle muttered with resentment and looked away from me as I went back to helping mom finish preparing the meal as the night got darker. In fact, Tempest didn’t say anything else as we started in on our meals. I and mom told the goddess of what happened to us. I afterwards decided to ask Sekhet about the true history of what happened between her and Somnambula, maybe what riddle she gave Tempest, if she did in fact give her one.