//------------------------------// // Chapter Four, DLC: Defining Loquacious Consciousness. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Sekhet- I find myself curious as to where the rogue sun priest jade was, Lady Kuril had come home without her. I was loathe to involve myself too deeply in the affairs of mortals, mostly since I didn’t want to deal with the emotional pain of them eventually dying. I was actually thinking of seriously becoming a guardian of a place once more, I was a Sphinx after all and I was meant to protect things of precious value. The temple had nothing left of worth except maybe the sleeping mask in the sludge pit. I valued life far more than trinkets, though I wasn’t about to give up my nemes. Celestia tied herself to mortals all the time, only to never marry or fall in love with them for good reason. She had probably lived long enough to know what kind of problems most young immortals face. Very little is permanent in this world aside from those of us with lifespans that can far outstrip that of a dragons. I also didn’t have much reason to seek out war or take part in one for any side, challengers didn’t come to me for I was far too powerful and I couldn’t be challenged. At this point I’m a mostly neutral entity with some bias towards what I’ll loosely call my subjects, of which live in this general area. The serf really hadn’t done much more then clean and maintain the restaurant, the laughably small school building and the train station with no tracks leading anywhere. They may not worship me, but I didn’t care much for praise that was unwarranted. Other gods preferred to live in decadence or extravagance, a trap which Celestia couldn’t escape from as she chose to be a ruler and thus built a gilded cage of her own making. Her people really needed guidance to learn how to fend for themselves instead of relying on fickle contrivances and the magic of harmony itself to protect them. All it would take is Tirek getting free to topple Celestia’s kingdom and she doesn’t properly prepare for the other inevitabilities that will happen eventually, her sister being one of them. It would be hard for anyone as long lived as we were to miss the image on the moon, we remembered what the moon used to look like after all. Celestia likely seeks Jade’s aid in the latter, but doesn’t think of the former and ignores the other possibilities like Discord getting free again. Discord is chaos, chaos can never be held back permanently as it was an intrinsic force that the world needed or else the entire world would stagnate. Try telling Celestia that and she’d likely get upset. I couldn’t and wouldn’t stop Discord if he was freed, but he couldn’t do anything to me or mine in turn unless they did something to him first. If he did something to mine first, he would earn my wrath. Sealing things away does not prevent them from becoming a threat again, it just left them to be forgotten to become an even bigger threat that no one in the future knew how to deal with. Provided that what you sealed away has a long lifespan or eventually changes into a shade, wraith or revenant out of anger. I preferred to be praised or worshipped for doing something of logical merit. If someone was weak, then I could trained them to be strong. If someone was dumb, then I should teach them to be clever. If they were both weak and dumb, then I’d be looking more closely for the true hidden potential. Fools could do more things than even those of vaunted genius or impossible strength, mostly for the fact that fools will achieve things in ignorance that others would hastily claim impossible in cowardice. Never challenge a fool to prove you wrong, they will always try to at the very least. Impossible only exists if you stopped thinking outside the same shape that everyone else thinks within. A fool’s strength is not just ignorance, but also determination to do something deemed impossible physically, mentally or magically with their very being put behind the effort. Fizzle had used all her magic in one burst, but she had controlled it so finely that I could feel the effects from here. Fizzle had been angry. Her rage had felt unquenchable and then, much to my surprise, she unleashed it safely without repercussion to herself and the magic did what she willed it to. It definitely destroyed the object of her ire. I am not stupid enough to think that I know everything or that there is none stronger than me, for one can always learn more and there are beings out there that can rival my raw power. I can be humbled and I shouldn’t get angry when I am, I should learn from the experience so as to avoid being humbled the same way twice. That said, I envied some of what Celestia had. Only I think she would do better without the endless praise and false adulations that were continuously shoved down her throat, which is mostly done by those seeking more than what they already had to work with or even barely deserved at all. “So Lady Kuril, what happened to your daughter?” As far as war goddesses went, I had no war needing my attention at the moment and I wanted to try my paw at leadership without being directly in control. Something more advisory like a vizier to a pharaoh. It is no longer the time of pharaohs, rulers and kings, but I could make it work and would have to make sure that my efforts remained quite contained to one area. “I haven’t a clue, but Fizzle does.” Well Lady Kuril, news like that would certainly make Celestia panic. “We’ll know when she wakes up some time today.” I on the other paw wondered what Jade was getting into this time, fending off a chimera was an interesting feat as much as forging wings with sunlight from a single feather. I could even smell it on Jade that she had bloodied the chimera and then made it leave her be in a rather unusual manner. I wonder if Jade even knows what she truly did to that chimera, if she didn’t then things were going to get interesting around here when the chimera came to terms with its selves. A lost sun priest is like a fool, something to behold with awe…. at a fair distance. Something spectacular was bound to happen when a sun priest, known for being guiding lights, couldn’t find their own way. What did this exactly say about a sun priest who wanted to be a rogue on purpose? Yes, I could plainly see the tapestry of life going quite awry at this. I continued my contemplations as I waited for breakfast, Kuril was making fried eggs in a most unusual manner. I flipped backwards and shrunk down to a more manageable size to feed. Looking at the motherly matron and thinking of family like I was, I was wondering if I should try to help my sister. Nah, she can stew for a few hundred more years. Bastet had led an interesting fight against King Anubis and I would continue to stay out of the age old conflict of cats and jackals. It still hasn’t gone anywhere after a millennia and a war that lasts that long is dumb in my purview. Wars always had purpose and an eventual end goal, whether that goal was uniting the world or conquering it. What my sister started wasn’t a war, it was just the continuation of an endless petty squabble between two factions with no end in sight and I washed my paws of it. My sister sometimes flirted with chaos too much, which would explain why I heard hearsay of her licking Discord one thousand years ago and that he ran like a bat out of hell. I think Discord had the right idea in that situation, which is why I’m better off where I am today. For today, I am contemplating becoming the guardian of Airship Mauled and maybe I’ll eventually tell Kuril that her cooking can do more than just taste like divinity. -Jade- Come on… come on… why won’t my big toe wiggle? They made it look so easy in the movie! Then again that was a movie and it was in a more comfortable position than I was currently in. Wait… I was uncomfortable? I could actually feel a part of myself, thank goodness for that! The poison must either be wearing off or I might be becoming more resilient to it. I tried twitching every muscle in my body until I found a response, my eyes went to my right hand and a single claw popped out. Yay, I can still be the Abyssinian equivalent of rude! Now if only I can get my arms working. “The cat in the brig is a quiet one, I don’t like it when they’re quiet.” My right ear twitched as I heard the tall tell sound of a thug talking near my cell, I’ll call him thug one. “She’s been too roughed up, she’s no threat to us and can hardly move in the condition she’s in. It’s a miracle she’s even breathing with how long she had to have been in the water.” Not really a miracle, more of a useful ability me and my mom gave ourselves. Permanent water breathing, it’ll keep you from drowning thug two. “What can that lass even do with a bum shoulder and that wound to her chest? Maybe she can bleed on us perhaps?” “I don’t like it, there was no sign of her being on the ship before we raided it and we just happen to find her on the deck coughing up water after we raised it from the depths?” Thug one grumbled something unintelligible. “There’s something fishy about that cat mark my words, she doesn’t look like a normal Abyssinian and she doesn’t have the markings of a noble birth.” “You’re just being paranoid. It’s not like she’s a murderous kelpie and besides, Captain Gash has already decided her fate.” Thank you for underestimating me, I’ll make sure you get your comeuppance forthwith when I can finally move more than a single claw on my right arm. “See, the lass hasn’t moved from her… it seems there’s enough life in her to make unseemly gestures at least and not much else.” Oh hey, I can flex my digits now! They were in front of the cell staring at me and they even noticed my rude gesture. Aw, thanks you guys, you’re the best captors I’ve ever had! You’re also the only ones I’ve ever had and I don’t count Canterlot as having held me captive. “I still don’t like it, someone who can hold their breath underwater for more than ten minutes has to be a legendary pirate that no one has ever caught in the act. I will agree that she looks too pathetic to put up any fight... at the moment.” The two griffons turned away from me and walked away from my cell. It appears thug one was one of the more instinctive intelligent guards. Well this would be tricky then, I wonder how crazy I can drive everyone? “Don’t underestimate a prisoner just because she’s waterlogged, injured and possibly even poisoned. Cats be dangerous creatures when rubbed the wrong way. She certainly didn’t get this way through malnutrition and she had a knife on her, she’s someone who know how to fight and that’s dangerous.” “She’s in the brig, just let it go already. She’s not going anywhere as she is.” As thug two said that, my eyes lowered to the big toe on my left foot. It didn’t wiggle, but all my claws popped out on my left foot and I retreated them just as quickly. “We’ll be in Turtle Toga soon enough and then she won’t be our problem anymore.” Give me one good hour and I’ll at least get my dried fruit back from you. Also Turtle Toga? If that’s the kind of place I think it is, then I was going to be in a place filled with cantankerous pirates, brigands, thieves and rogues of the worst sort. Sounds fun, but I probably wouldn’t want to live there. The property values must be a steal at least. These guys weren’t exactly my kind of people. No honor among pirates unless you were part of a tightly knit crew, then popularity and notoriety also came into it. I had neither. Some pirates just wanted to prove themselves better than the rest by waving the bigger stick around and would go to great lengths to show that they could get away with more than any other. I preferred noble rogue’s or pirates with at least some code of ethics, Captain Gash looked like a griffon that liked to get his claws dirty and I didn’t think we’d ever be friends. Oh hey, I can put weight on my leg now! Only a little more bodily control and then I can start planning to get some food for myself. If I could spook the pirates enough and maybe grab a few griffon feathers before I jumped ship… then they’ll want to leave me alone. Silent antagonist mode engaged! I don’t say a word and I can infer that I’m not the one causing all the trouble on the ship. If I’m good enough at it, then maybe I can convince them that it’s a Changeling causing trouble. If we’re over sea, I’ll just have to wait until we get to this Turtle Toga place to make my escape. I’m sure there’s a small airship I can ransack for my own purposes, in what I hope to be a mostly lawless place that won’t care if one goes missing. -About thirty minutes later- I prodded the bars that I was weakly standing next to, one of the rules of magical alchemy is that there is a limit to the size, weight and mass of an object that can be used in a cast. It was, kind of, proportional to the user’s size. As such I couldn’t use the whole planet, all the air, the entire sea or anything as large as an entire airship in a cast. I couldn’t threaten to destroy the entire world using magical alchemy if I ever got the idea to go megalomaniacal, but I could use it for a bluff at least once. The door on my cell? No problem, as it wasn’t entirely connected to the ship and was its own separate object. -Minutes later- “Oy, cat, if you can move then this will be your… where did you get that?” I just simply looked up at thug two and raised a silent brow at him and continued eating my dried fruit. He absentmindedly shoved the gruel he was holding through the slot. On today’s menu was the sweet and sugary dried pear chunks with a side of banana chips, which will be washed down with the water from my canteen. I just looked at him as if he were an idiot and shrugged, if a griffon ate my snacks in front of me then I was going to get testy about it. I started putting my fruit in the gruel after I tasted it, it was so much better with the fruit.