//------------------------------// // Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin anew. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Kuril- I sat down next to Tempest who was just watching the fire blankly, the fire that hadn’t had a single piece of wood added to it since my daughter started it. Her ability was really quite amazing, but it didn’t really seem to do all that much aside from some protection and constant warmth. Sekhet was off somewhere doing who knows what, the whimsy of the goddess was not for me to guess or judge. “Tempest, I want to ask you something.” This was something I thought that Tempest might need, all she did was lift her left ear and she didn’t look at me. I asked my question anyway without her permission. “What did you want to eventually be when you grew up?” “I… I don’t know… I don’t think I ever did.” Here Tempest looked away from me and she was brooding again. That wasn’t healthy for a girl her age, she was still growing and needed some motherly love. “What did you dream of doing before you… ended up broken?” This would hurt and I knew it would, my question caused her to turn to me in anger and that anger quickly softened at the look on my face. “In more ways than one I mean.” “I… I wanted to go to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns with my friends.” A sudden large amount of resentment showed up on her face. “Some friends they were after my horn was broken… I learned that day that I should just rely on myself. That the best way to survive is on my own.” “Being self-sufficient is all well and good and it can certainly get you far, but no person or pony is an island. Nobody can start anywhere in this world without help Tempest. A baby, or a foal if you will, could not have survived childhood without at least some love and care.” I moved my right hand to caress her behind the ears. I was expecting her to swat my hand away, but she just slumped slightly. The poor dear must have been so lonely. “A foal can’t really rely on themselves, would you leave foal all alone in the world if it was your own? You must have had a mother that loved you or else you wouldn’t even be here. It’s a parents job to protect their foals and yours weren’t around to make sure you were okay, but they at least made sure that you lived to be where you are now right?” “I remember some things… a parent… might have been looking out for me. I… was too young to remember them clearly. I know they at least left me in a safe place, well mostly safe anyway. Anyone can see the end results of that. I was okay with living in my village and for a time I was happy. If only the mares and stallions around the area had been watching us a little more closely or had appointed a more watchful guardian, then maybe I might not have lost my horn.” The way Tempest was staring at the fire sadly was breaking my heart, I think it would break my daughters too if she could see Tempest like this. I looked up from her at the fire and saw Sekhet sitting in the shadow of a tree across from us with a frown on her face and her orange eyes glowing in the shade. “We were being raised communally, I only had my friends and they… they just… abandoned me.” Tears started to fill Tempest’s eyes and I brought her head into my lap to start stroking her head. “It’s all because my broken horn scared them off, it’s like it pours liquid magic whenever I try to use it and I just can’t help but try to. I wanted to be able to do magic again and that’s why I’m wandering around trying to find a way to fix it, so maybe one day I can… I can feel normal again. Maybe… even rekindle what we had. Even though I know it’s long gone.” It was a surprise that Tempest was actually opening up to me, I thought it would be much harder to break her shell. “I… might have had one adult that cared about me back in my village, but I haven’t actually seen them in years. If they’re even still around.” I continued to silently listen to her and stroked her mane softly, she needed to let it all out. This must have been bottled up for a long time. “I don’t know what became of my parents, but I guess I was too young and innocent to understand that they were gone...” I could hear Tempest choking off a sob. “That I was missing something big in my life.” “Do you want me to stop petting you?” It was a concern of mine that Tempest was hitting an emotional breaking point and I was the cause. “No… please… don’t stop.” Tempest wrapped her hooves around my waist and held me tight. “I… I want to feel… like somebody cares. That maybe… maybe I won’t be treated like something that’s about to explode violently.” “That’s funny, because I do care.” I leaned forward and kissed the mare on my lap on her left temple. “Opening yourself up to others can hurt, but it isn’t just you that can be hurt. You can hurt others as well and I don’t just mean physically. Since we’re talking about ourselves I might as well tell you something about myself and my daughter.” Tempest grunted a bit, but she didn’t remove herself from my lap. I got her comfortable with me and I wasn’t about to push her away, she needed all the attention she could get. “When I was a little kitten, I always wanted to do magic and to learn about the world around me. I wanted to travel, to see and do amazing things. Eventually… those dreams died when I couldn’t figure out how to do magic. In fact, I couldn’t get enchanting down at all and that was something Abyssinians could actually do in a limited fashion.” This was my trip down memory lane, as soon as I was done talking about it I would move on to my daughter. Bless her reincarnated soul, I hope she’s okay. No mother should outlive their child. “I put my dreams aside and settled for being a cook in a lazy little coastal town, one where fishing is a pastime that everyone knows. Also fish jerky is consumed daily and in metric tons.” Tempest snorted and her tears slowed a bit, she looked up at me and while there was anger at the world, there was something akin to a small spark of innocence still left in her that hadn’t been stamped out by her bitter lot in life. No child should be like this, not even my daughter, who I was doing my best to raise even if she had a prior history. Why if I were to die right now… my daughter would die the same way she did last time. Alone and completely starved of love, I don’t want that to happen to her again. I want Jade to live a fulfilling life… the life I never got until recently. I pretended to be strong for her, to be the O and O character I always dreamed I could be, but it’s so hard some days. “It shattered me to know that I couldn’t be magical, to know that I couldn’t do amazing things. I didn’t feel special at all.” I suddenly had a captive audience in Tempest, she was staring at me… if not in understanding then at least she could feel as I do. “But you know what? I think I gave up way too soon… It wasn’t until Jade came along that I learned that every single person, pony or even every intelligent being in existence can’t be replaced so easily. You can’t be replaced either Tempest… and… I want you to stick around. If not for me, then for my daughter’s sake. If something were to happen to me… well I’m all that she has at the moment.” Tempest just stared at me with wonder, as if she’s never been offered a place with a family before. She lifted her left hoof and slowly gripped my right hand with it. I gripped the hoof back and gave her determined look as I felt tears filling my eyes, but I continued the tale of my life. “I grew into a bitter and rather jaded adult, it’s kind of why I named my daughter Jaded.” I couldn’t live my dreams and then I get pregnant, which was a miracle to me considering my partner. I didn’t think I could carry a child to term or even raise one, I didn’t believe in myself. If it hadn’t been for the people of Palicoast… all of them had banded together just for me. A little tight knit community filled to the brim with compassion. “It took me getting pregnant with Jade to know that I had some magic in me, that I could bring life into the world. The one bit of magic I could perform and it was a bittersweet event, Jade came into the world with only one parent.” I noticed Sekhet just staring at us thoughtfully, she was still sitting in the shade and not joining us in our conversation. It made me consider how goddesses are born and the circumstances under which they are raised. They live for so long and must be so lonely, seeing us like this just might be rekindling something in her or its making her feel more and more like an outsider. “I wouldn’t have been able to make it if the people of Palicoast hadn’t been there for me. I wouldn’t have made it and Jade wouldn’t have been given a chance to be brought into this world, to do the things I never could.” I pulled Tempest into a tight hug, she hugged me back. Shared pain is halved, when shared the same. “There are just some things you can’t do alone Tempest, it’s something I want you to learn from someone who knows what’s it like. I… I even know how you feel.” We just sat in silence for a minute to let that sink in as we held one another, an Abyssinian that’s growing older and a growing young mare who still had her entire life ahead of her. One of which Tempest seemed determined to waste getting back what was lost, she direly needed a family. “My daughter was… interesting… for the first few years of her life. I already knew she was magical with that green hair of hers, she only got more interesting when she started talking. She didn’t exactly have too many friends growing up as there weren’t many Abyssinians born around the time that she was.” Oh the memories, how they made me smile. My best friend is my daughter and I hers, which was sad as Jade had been born between generations and had no friends her age to relate to in her second life. A life I won’t let her squander. “She was what kept me going in a dreary world, then we both discovered that we could do our own form of magic and it reignited a dream in me I had thought long since dead. It’s why I want to call myself the ‘Witch of Good Taste’ now, I will keep doing magic to my dying days and I will not stop trying to live the dreams I once had. My daughter needs more people in her life to keep pushing her to follow a dream, I hope that you will be one of them.” It’s why I shut down the canteen in Palicoast and decided to try my hand at living in the future Equestria that Jade had talked about fondly. A future world where many creatures can come together in friendship. I want my daughter to be happy and I’ll work towards such a future my own way. We might not have been part of the original plot, but darn it if we weren’t going to mess it up so badly that it still happened anyway in spite of the changes we’re making. I will make that bright future shine with everything I have! I looked at Tempest curiously and she looked away, she seemed to be thinking about things. I now had something to tell her and she needed to hear this like yesterday. I noticed her probing her broken horn with her right hoof. “If you can’t use your horn to do magic, then why don’t you try doing other forms of magic or try doing magic in a different way?” This would strike her like lighting, but it had to be said and I was going to be the one to say it. “I learned to do magic when I thought I couldn’t, then why can’t you do the same? Just because you have a broken horn doesn’t mean you should give up on your dreams or even try making new ones, it doesn’t mean you need to get it fixed to do magic. Fixing your horn shouldn’t define everything you are, but you shouldn’t give up on that either! If you can’t do something, then find a new way to do it. Break the mold! You’re a magical pony aren’t you? Show some creativity then. Also… don’t give up on having friends, my daughter is awkward enough as it is and she needs as many as she can get.” Tempest looked at me with wide eyes, we stared at each other and I smiled at her. Slowly she leaned her head against my belly and curled up against me. “Thank you…” A few minutes of holding me and sobbing, she slowly calmed down and she finally spoke to me while flicking an ear. “Could you…” I started petting her again and she sighed happily, probably the first time she’s been happy in a long time. “When it seems like the world isn’t fair, when your life’s a mess and no one seems to care.” It is said that when you do a great good deed, an angel gets their wings. Pegasi were like angels right? I wouldn’t know, I was just trying to cheer up Tempest. “Just tell someone and a real friend might appear there, to help you pick up the pieces and will help make things square.” I looked up at Sekhet and she had her back to me, but I could see the upturned corner of her mouth. A goddess that enjoys watching others heal… interesting. “My name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist.” My attention returned to Tempest and I was a little honored that she was willing to tell me who she really was. “Can we… can we be friends?” “We already are Fizzle. You, me and my daughter.” I glanced in the direction of the retreating giant lion tailed goddess. “Even Sekhet, which is if she wants to be friends with us.” -Jade- I was falling, the air whipping by as my velocity started increasing to its maximum. I clutched desperately at the white feather in my left hand. I believed I would survive, I was afraid of being wrong. I clenched my eyes shut and cast, a bright blinding light and tinkling noise followed. I was... flying? I had wings!