//------------------------------// // Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Playing date. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Sekhet- “What was that in effort of?” I looked over to the changelings at the doors to the inn, they looked about ready to bolt. “It is lunch…” Maries started, only to blink as the breeze of my passing slammed into them bodily. “Time.” -Jacky- Sekhet just left behind a confused chimera and a cloud in the shape of herself, one that seemed to look left and right before running towards the door. The Sekhet shaped dust cloud started pawing at it and one could hear the wind as it tried to open the door with its useless paws made of dust. That… I don’t know how Sekhet left behind a sentient dust cloud that wanted food as badly as she did. To think Captain is one of the tamest strange things around here. “Well you guys are in for a treat, Kuril the mayor always cooks good meals.” The Captain’s mother was always good at filling an empty stomach and I wondered what lunch was today. I took note of the cowering changelings sending Maries scared looks. “Don’t worry about them, they wouldn’t hurt you unless you hurt them first. Come on, follow me! It’s perfectly safe.” “Well… if y-you’re sure.” A shivering Clypeus said while pressing himself up against Big McLarge Huge like all the other changelings, at least they had the right idea with using numbers. The execution could use a little work though. A roaring chimera was definitely a unique way to get everyone’s attention and Quartermaster Fizzle was already making her way over to me. I just had to remind myself not to call her that out loud, I didn’t want to be insensitive. “Like Blackcap said, don’t worry about Maries. It’s just an unusual way to call for lunch.” As Fizzle started to walk into the restaurant, Kuril quickly came out and pulled her off to the side. “I need to have a talk with you about something important young mare, everyone else go in and enjoy the buffet before Sekhet devours everything.” It seemed Kuril had something important to say to Fizzle. I walked up to the door and stopped to look at the sentient dust cloud that tilted its head at me, I decided to ignore it and continued on inside. The local goddess being weird was nothing to give a second glance. -Fizzle- The changelings were slowly, but surely, getting over their fright at Mara’s roar as they followed Jacky inside. It had been rather loud and frightening in a bone chilling way, so I could understand their apprehension. I was less apprehensive about it, only for Kuril to pull me off to the side. “How have you been feeling around my daughter lately?” Well that was an odd question for Kuril to ask, but yes I have been feeling rather odd of late. I was certainly happy to have my cutie mark now though. “Has your body been doing anything strange around Jade?” “Well my heart speeds up, I like her touching me, my stomach flutters and for some reason my cheeks clench a lot around her.” It’s almost like how I could understand what a pick up line was, but not the context behind why someone would say one. It’s supposed to be just a pun related joke right? “I don’t know why I’ve been feeling like this, I’m not sick am I?” “Do you know what romantic love is my little Fizzle?” There was a certain tightness to Kuril’s words, I shook my head no. “Not really, but I know how to kiss someone who makes you really exceedingly happy.” There was something going on here and I was missing something big, where was Kuril going with this? I really liked Jade and she really liked me, that’s all there is to it right? “Just like Jade then… come sit down with me for a minute before we go in and eat. It appears I definitely need to lay down the law with you like I did Maries.” Kuril sat down and she patted her lap while looking to me expectantly, I laid down putting the front half of my body in her lap. She started to run her digits comfortingly through my mane. “Okay to start things off, have you ever heard about the birds and the bees?” “I know of birds and bees.” Bees hurt and birds sometimes flew into things dumbly, what more did I really need to know? “Now that you have a cutie mark I think you’re old enough to hear this.” Hear what exactly, what were you going to tell me Kuril? “So a bird flies straight into a bee hive and the honey gets spilled everywhere. The queen bee forces the bird to pay for the damages instilled and eventually gets them under control because she’s so beautiful. This is what eventually leads to the hummingbird mafia working for the bees…” -Jade- “Hey Jacky, where did mom go?” I had all the food set up at a table with Fresh’s help. “I think she had to talk with Fizzle outside about something.” Nodding to Jacky, I moved to get everyone’s attention. “Hello everyone, today we have special guests in the form of The Shapeshifting Siesta and Kevin the friendly changeling.” Looking at me, Kevin just gave me a lazy wave. The five more colorful changelings stood up to bow together before sitting back down. “For today’s lunch, mom went for simple. We have sushi rolls over there stacked three high and twelve by twelve to a tray, raw fish rolls are on the right and vegetable sushi rolls are on the left for those of whom meat doesn’t agree with. Note the sea turtle that randomly pops up in odd places around here, it is currently eating a vegetable sushi roll. You can try it with soy sauce and we have clearly provided the cups for holding said sauce.” The sea turtle just looked up at me innocently with a small portion of its face covered in rice. It dunked the bit of its sushi roll into some soy sauce and just went back to nibbling at the sushi roll, we still needed a name for her. “Next on the menu, we have a huge pot of gazpacho soup. I assure you that it’s supposed to be served cold and mom is apparently on a bit of a multicultural kick today. It goes really good with the grilled and sliced garlic bread or the crackers we’ve set out.” Lazily I moved on to the next item, one that I was going to partake quite a bit of. “For the final main meal item, we have a warm pile of linguini smothered in a delectable and decadent cheese sauce. We’ll bring out dessert after we’re done eating the main course, so save room for it. Now everyone dig in, except for you Sekhet. At the very least leave some for the rest of us you gluttonous goddess.” “I’m not gluttonous, I’m just big!” Thus I and Sekhet entered a staring contest, it was getting much easier to stare down the alicorn sized form of the war goddess. “Fine, I’ll eat normal sized portions this time! It’s only because we have guests though.” The changelings took up their plates and started grabbing food, I started to shovel fish sushi onto a plate, grabbed some gazpacho and a small mound of flat noodles. Alfredo was a creamy sauce I could get behind, the only thing here that filled my dairy loving passion. It was an odd mix of foods, but it wasn’t bad. -Clypeus- I was the lead singer and guitarist of our band, but those weren’t the only instruments I played. I took my first bite of the gazpacho soup and froze, love… there was so much of it in that one spoonful alone. We who shared love didn’t require it nearly as much, but it still tasted good. Mayor Kuril could fill up an army of changelings full of love on one pot of this alone. Looking over to Kevin, I watched as he slurped up a single cheese covered noodle. He didn’t get much to eat, but when he ate that one noodle his mood changed to shock and his stomach swelled slightly. We seriously needed more changelings around that understood how to share the love, or at the very least are less cruel in their methods like Kevin who walks around and asks for love instead of pretending to be someone he’s not. -Kevin- Did I just find the holy grail of my race? I thought a grail would be less edible than this food. Now I know for certain that I should never inform Chrysalis of this. She’d absolutely find a way to ruin it. So much love in a single swallow, is this food made purely out of love? -Labium and Labrum- “We are of a shared mind like you…” I started to say to the chimera, before my sister butted in. She even took a sushi roll from my plate and popped it into her mouth. “We know what it’s like to share everything…” I didn’t want to be mean to my sister, but we’ve been doing this since forever. I let her take a sushi roll from my plate to make up for it. “It can be a huge hassle.” We stated at the same time, our minds worked quite well together when it came to us the trumpet twins of The Shapeshifting Siesta. “Yeah, it bothers us at times too.” As the goat head said this, we watched the one called Mara going to town face first in the gazpacho and after she swallowed the snake headed one let out a loud belch. “Ugh, Mara don’t eat too fast, your making me snot!” The snake head looked like she needed some help and we decided to offer a napkin to rub her nose against. She did so and gave us a smile. “Thanks for that, when she eats too fast it causes me problems back here.” “It’s so delicious with this fish sue-she stuff in it though.” We didn’t find a problem with the tiger head’s candor and we figured we could be friends through shared interest of being able to combine our minds. -Big McLarge Huge- The food is very good, wish I could tell them that. “So… mute huh?” The suddenness of someone talking to me made me jump, it was the one known as Sekhet and she was consuming a lot of sushi rolls both fish and vegetable. I simply nodded to her sadly. “You’ve got some really good friends.” I smiled at her words of praise, her visage grew serious. “Take good care of them. Who knows when you’ll ever find something like what you have with them again if you lose them.” I looked to Clypeus, he was my leader and something special to me. I would protect them as I was an unusually tough changeling who could play music just as well as the rest of the group. I showed the goddess my determination. “Heh, that’s the spirit big guy.” She then continued eating without another word towards me. -Tarsus- “Do you guys have any alcohol around here?” I’m a blue changeling that look as I felt, a bit sad. At least I have my friends, even if I couldn’t be with my belle. Being a part of the band was all I had these days. I could still play good happy music, but I shined with more sorrowful sounding tones. “I want to drown my memories.” “Not unless we have smugglers that I don’t know about, the town is clean of the stuff.” I believe she was the one called Jacky, why did I get pirate vibes from her. Maybe it’s the skull cap with the parrot skull and crossed bones on it. “It figures.” I stated lethargically, it was just another day without her in my life. Even if the food is filled to the brim with love, all it is doing is reminding me of her. “What I wouldn’t do for some help, I can’t just sneak into Klugetown and try to ride off into the sunset with my belle.” “Want to talk about it, I know a thing or two about bad luck.” How unlucky could this Jacky be compared to my hardships? “Sure, why not… it all started with me buying a jar of pickles in that rat hole of a town. Though some rats are not nearly as ugly as some of the people who live there.” This is how I started weaving my sordid tale of how changelings got banned from Klugetown. “That’s an action that led me to meeting the belle of my life, the most beautiful shrew around...” -Jade- I had to stop eating to save room for dessert, I couldn’t miss that. It seemed like the changelings were actually enjoying the food, mom’s magical cooking did have unusual properties. Though simple stuff like this wasn’t exactly cooking, but it seemed to be having an effect all the same. I had at least gotten mom to make sushi, so that was a win in my book even if I was the one that had to cut up the fish. Mom did chop up the vegetables for that, but the most cooking she did was for the linguini and the homemade soy sauce. We were all enjoying the food together as friends, family and strangers, this is exactly the kind of thing I and mom wanted to build in Manehatten. A place for all walks of life, no matter how strange. It wasn’t a minute later that a wide eyed Fizzle walked in and she took one look at me and turned straight red. This took up her entire face, neck and most of the front half of her body. She shyly looked away from me and went to get her fill of food before Sekhet would be allowed to unleash her full rampage. We hardly ever had leftovers around here thanks to our garbage disposal unit named Sekhet. I wondered what was up with Fizzle, she seemed very embarrassed about something. She eventually came over to me looking less red and nuzzled against me slightly. “I'm sorry about almost suffocating you with our first kiss…” Fizzle's cheeks turned straight pink. “It’s not a problem Fizzy.” I shrugged, I didn’t see it as a problem. -Ten minutes later, Clypeus- “Guys get your instruments, we're showing Mayor Kuril what we can do before they bring out dessert. Also we have a set date for our gig here!” My companions cheered gleefully, this actually might be a gig that didn’t go explosively wrong. We’re keeping it stupidly simple! Once we got our stuff together, I pointed out to the twins to start playing and sent them a hoof signal for which music to start. “Hello, we’re definitely glad to be here~. We’re certainly making a lot of new friends~!” I sang from my heart. “I’m glad that you invited us in without fear~. We’re The Shapeshifting Siesta of all lands~!” “We’re certainly glad to meet you~. Even if some of you are really quite scary~!” The twins sang. “We’re quite sure this fact is true~. It’s that you’re all lovely and hairy~!” “I don’t think I can sing~. About all that my friendships do bring~.” Sang Tarsus. “But if there’s one thing about that I’m quite sure~. It’s that we will never really get quite bored~!” They played for a while.