-Jade-
“Hello… Fizzle? Are you there?” At my words the pony blinked and continued to stare at me. Is it because I wasn’t wearing any clothes? She certainly didn’t act like this around Cheerilee or even Sekhet who wore very little. Tartarus, even The Shapeshifting Siesta were all nude and not a single reaction like this one. “Well here’s breakfast, eat up before it gets cold and get ready for your celebration. Our friends should be coming soon to help set up the party.”
The turtle on my shoulder made an exceptionally happy sounding noise when looking between me and Fizzle. Snickers was pointing at Fizzle and me while smiling brightly, I ignored Snickers and walked away to go quickly put some clothes on.
If Fizzle was going to act like me being nude was weird by being weird herself about it when she was mostly nude all the time, then I was going to let her quietly reboot her brain on her own time. I will admit that her entire body turning red was cute.
Lots of people went nude around here in Equstria, ponies practically form the biggest nudist colony in the world next to the zebras, griffons, sea ponies and hippogriffs. Technically Abyssinian’s were a clothes wearing race, but we didn’t really have a taboo on nudity or a lack of pants like minotaurs did.
-Fizzle-
Where was I just now? Oh food!
Hmm… this wasn’t made by Kuril, was it cooked by Jade? The omelet tastes good and… are those waffles with various bits of fruit? Then there are the bottles that were dropped off with breakfast, maple syrup and…
I just stared at the bottle of honey blankly for the next ten seconds while my mind rewound to something Jade said less than a minute prior while I was… staring.
Now I’m completely embarrassed about it and I don’t know why, I always see Sekhet and Cheerilee naked every day. Fresh Start is naked sometimes, but only to wash her maid uniform.
-Jacky-
I actually woke up on the right side of the bed today, I didn’t see what the joke was in that.
I got up, while straightening out my long black head feathers with my talons. Eventually I cleaned my teeth, polished my beak, braided my head feathers, checked my black and white plumage, straightened out and brushed my tail feathers and stepped out the door to come face to face with Jade leaving her room.
“Can’t talk, still making breakfast.” She was already on her way down the stairs. “Wake mom would you?”
“Aye, aye, Captain La Perm!” I opened the door to Kuril’s room and saw her curled up on her bed like any real cat would be when it came to sleeping. My Captain and her mother were adorable, but they were no less fierce for their friendly appearances. “Oy, Chief Cook, Jade says to get up! She’s got breakfast handled today.”
Lazily Kuril’s ears flicked and she got up on all four limbs and arched her back. It made a pop or two before she got off the bed. She eventually opened her eyes while going to get her robe and hat.
“Jade’s good at breakfast, but she doesn’t have my magical cooking ability.” Kuril lazily threw on her robes and her pirate witch hat before exiting the room in a sleepy daze. I followed to make sure she didn’t get hurt going down the stairs in this state. “I better go make some sandwiches for the changelings then.”
Fortunately she didn’t fall down the stairs, unfortunately I did and I passed by her slightly amused expression as I did.
“You okay there Jacky?” She said while smiling at me as she got to the bottom of the stairs.
“A bit bruised, but I’m fine Chief Cook Kuril.” I sat up and she patted me on the head before continuing on into the restaurant area to sit down next to Fizzle. She was a nice lady and she’s my captain’s mother, the captain of my captain even.
-Kuril-
“Morning Fizzle… waffles and omelets this time?” I received a very shy nod from Fizzle as she tentatively poured some honey onto a bit of fruit filled waffled before eating a bit. “It’s a good thing Sekhet keeps us supplied or else we would be having more problems.”
Like the fact that we lack an income, of which I’m surprised Celestia hasn’t thought about. We weren’t self-sufficient without Sekhet yet and we currently needed the goddess around to survive.
I wondered what was up with Fizzle, she seemed distracted. I was about to ask if she was feeling okay as she ate, but I was soon distracted myself by the clanging noise of Jade using the waffle mallet in the kitchen.
My tom cat shouldn’t swing it so hard, she might damage the mallet. Note to self: Test waffle mallet for sustain effect.
-Several hours later, Clypeus-
It’s been three months and Tarsus is still crying himself to sleep at night, though we can’t blame him for liking pickles or buying that jar. Heck, we don’t even blame him for loving that girl, we even wanted to help him and we really couldn’t do much.
“Thank you all for coming to the Fizzle’s cuteceanera! We, The Shapeshifting Siesta, will be playing while you get to enjoy the party.” I informed everyone who came to this party for the poor unicorn pony with the broken horn, she was still able to smile at least. Unlike Tarsus who was completely down in the dumps, which surprisingly didn’t affect his playing one bit. “We’ll enjoy ourselves after we’re done, so leave some of whatever Kuril made for us to snack on.”
We started a few warm up songs before we decided to go with the interesting show stopper. The song started with two grunts and me strumming my guitar slightly, repeat and then the song starts for real. Tarsus helping me sing it, one upbeat sad sack song coming right up!
We’d switch out instruments as needed, but Mr. Huge would be on the drums. Not everything we did was mariachi based and ponies weren’t the only ones who can start heart songs. Plus playing instruments make a song from the heart that much stronger.
“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something imbecilic~.” I started with Tarsus singing backup with me. “We’re going to go~!”
“We’re going to, we’re going to go, as we can’t do things that are tame~!” Tarsus sang out with me backing him, before one of the twins went solo with a trombone. Much to the surprise of the audience.
“We know, it’s my fault, that I’m missing my belle friend~.” Tarsus intoned alone sadly. “And you think, I’m alright, but I’m not man~.”
“Maybe, it’s too soon~. Though we don’t think it’s too late… but how can, we reverse Tarsus’s fate~?” The twins alternated singing with me using Tarsus’s voice while blasting their trumpets.
“You know it’s just not right~?” I felt badly for Tarsus and I thought a slightly upbeat depressing song would make him feel better.
“You met your girl man~.” The green Labrum sang.
“I fell in love that night~!” He was singing from the heart, the poor guy.
“She was a shrew and…~” The yellow Labium followed up.
“I just wanted to be with her, but then those thugs started coming in~.” Despite him keeping the tone of the song he was tearing up. “She was the one~, you guys!”
“So we’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something imbecilic~.” I leaned up against Tarsus while singing this. “We’re going to go~!”
“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do some very violent things~!” I wish we could, but singing about it seemed to be helping. We were really bad at combat and we weren’t warrior changelings, we became musicians because it was what we were good at collectively.
A bit of music playing to keep the tune with my guitar, while the trumpet twins did their magic.
“Maybe I’m losing sight~.” Tarsus muttered loudly.
“She is your girl man~!” Sang Labium.
“You know we cannot fight~.” Tarsus wasn’t wrong, we couldn’t bring the same muscle those pigs could.
“Show some backbone and…~” Now it was Labrum following up.
“You know we’ll get slaughtered, before could get too far~. But I’m starting to wonder if~…” Tarsus continued to sing a bit dully, before his mood swiftly turned around. “If we can really do it~, you guys?”
We started to play an encore of the beginning of this song, but Tarsus seemed a little bit cheerier. The audience was cheering us on and the rhythm was good. Tarsus wasn’t going to stop lamenting until he faced his problems.
“Well I certainly know, that going back will definitely be certain death and it’ll be where I’ll meet my end~!” Tarsus seemed a bit braver. Pony land heart songs, you just got to love them even if they allowed you to sing dourly. “But I know, that I know, I don’t care if I can see my belle again~!”
“See her again~.” The twins intoned.
The music continued for a bit.
“Knowing if I fight~.” Tarsus sang serenely.
“You can do it man~!” The twins sang together.
“Even with all my might~.” Tarsus was probably the scrawniest changeling I’ve ever seen.
“We’ll make a plan and~…” The twins continued.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt for my sake, because all of you are my friends~.” Tarsus rubbed his eyes. “You guys are all my best friends~… so we’ll make them see what we’ve got, haha~!”
The rest of us idiots were smiling in Tarsus’s direction, even Kevin looked to be smiling slightly and we played one last round of the song.
“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something absolutely stupid~!” The four of us sang while Mr. Huge smiled towards the back of Tarsus’s head. “We’re going to go~!”
“I got to, I got to go, and find my lovely cupid~!” Among the band hovering above Tarsus’s head and flying small circles was a happy looking Snickers.
“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and get into something stupid~!” The four of us sang together. “We have to go~!”
“For us, we all kno-o-o-w, that it’s our fate~!” The band ceased playing and bowed at the stomping hooves and clapping appendages.
-A minute later-
“Were we singing that ironically or…” Tarsus started before I shoved my hoof in his mouth.
“Even if we die, at least we know we did it helping you.” I stated calmly, before I started shouting. “Most changelings don’t do that often enough for one another!”
“We can help you survive it.” We all turned to the one called Jade with her arms crossed and her tail flicking back and forth agitatedly. “We’re going to need an airship though.”
“Where would we find one around here, It’s not like one will just fall out of the sky here!” That was a little dramatic Tarsus, but… why is everyone suddenly scrambling to get away from the local goddess?
“Oh lovely queens, every changeling scramble!” I quickly yelled, we grabbed all our instruments.
The goddess just looked over her shoulder at the incoming shadow.
-Sekhet-
“I’m not moving from this spot, I’m just going to take it like the goddess of war I am.” I stated loudly just before the airship crushed the back half of my body. I unleashed an agonized yowl from my throat.
-Jade-
I offered to help because I wanted to see Tarsus fight for his love, but I also wanted to see Klugetown and learn a bit about the culture.
Wondering why this airship was crashing, I watched as it dug a furrow in the ground using Sekhet’s body as a plow. It was going more horizontal than down and that looked exceedingly painful for Sekhet. From what I could see the balloon was losing lots of air.
Hey, we have farm lands now! Good thing we held our cuteceanera away from the other buildings.
I calmly followed the trail of destruction until I saw the front half of Sekhet sticking out from under the airship and she looked quite moody.
“So… riddling whoever did this?" I received a flat stare from Sekhet as she spat out a mound of dirt and nodded, she was quite angry. "Because I and mom had absolutely nothing to do with this one and you know it!”
“See I managed to land it safely and nobody around here got hurt!” That scratchy voice sounded similar to Rainbow Dash’s, only older. It couldn’t be anyone else other than…
A pith helmet wearing pony with rose colored eyes poked her head over the side of the ship to look down at Sekhet’s visage glaring back up at her. Her monochrome colored mane told me immediately who this was.
“Are you okay Ms. Sphinx?” Fluttershy came over with Pinkie hopping along behind her, Rainbow didn’t get an invite and was doing other things with a griffon anyway.
"Just PEACHY." Was Sekhet's succinct reply.
“Correction, I just landed on a Sphinx and made her absolutely angry with me.” Well don’t look so sheepish about it, you managed to land the airship intact without breaking the keel on Sekhet’s spine. That takes some real talent I’ll have you know.
“Eh, it’s a common occurrence around here in Airship Mauled.” It was becoming one anyway, only this time the airship looked like it could take off again. The balloon losing air needed to be patched up a lot though. “Our goddess is practically airship magnet at this point.”
“Yes, make fun of my current misfortune why don’t you?” Sekhet started to dig her paws into the dirt, she was getting really good at digging herself out from under airships.
“Excuse me, but you owe our favorite local goddess an apology and to be asked at least one scathingly hard riddle.” The pony dropped down to meet us all on the ground and walked up to me with a curious gaze.
“Yeah… there’s no escaping an angry Sphinx until you let them give you a riddle. I know, I’ve tried. Can I just start of by saying that I’m completely sorry and that it was an accident?” The mare that had yet to introduce herself asked of Sekhet who finished pulling her body out from under the ship.
“You can, but you’re going to get two riddles, tough ones. If you can’t answer either of them, then we’ll take the airship.” I give Sekhet a look and she smiled at me, she was making the most of this situation it seems.
“Ugh... the Equestrian Artifact Association and Celestia are going to kill me if I get either one wrong.” Did we really need to ask if she borrowed the airship without permission?
“They won’t, there are worse things than death A.K. Yearling.” I whispered to her, she goggled at me.
“You know who…” The mares started.
“Yes, you’re Daring Do. Your accident is actually kind of helpful for us, we kind of need an airship that can still fly right now.” Please pick up on our need for this airship Daring, I silently beg of you. “Celestia hasn’t mentioned me yet has she?”
“No and since I hate winging it, I’ll take those riddles." Daring seemed to be as boisterous and proud as I thought she’d be. "I'm on my merry way to Mare-Akech afterwards.”