//------------------------------// // Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Jaded La Perm. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jacky- “You mean… but that’s horrible!” I could hardly contain my feelings about what I just heard. “Do Jade and Kuril know about this?” “It is horrible. So when you say you’ll make your own luck, just don’t do it in exactly that way specifically. Nothing good can come from removing luck magically, good or bad, from anyone's soul. A lucky charm that deafens bad luck is perfectly fine though, just so long as the luck isn’t removed.” Sekhet flew over to her large stone throne and laid down in it. I idly wondered what her feathers would do for Kuril and Jade, probably something incredible at the very least if it was a feather from a goddess. “I think all Abyssinians learned from that sordid bit of history of the Misfortune Malachite, so I’m certain they know. Which is why it's thoroughly sealed away. You may go now, I have no more to discuss with you.” “I guess I have to go hug one of my best friends now. After that I can get back to what I was doing.” I turned to leave, but I stopped. I turned around and climbed up onto the Sphinx sized throne with the alicorn sized Sekhet and she gave me a curious look with a frown. I crouched down and hugged her gently around the neck. “Thank you coach, for making me see things in a different light. And for haunting my nightmares with that horrific story.” “You are welcome… friend.” Sekhet hugged me back hesitantly, it almost felt like she was afraid to hug me back or acknowledge that we were friends. Sekhet had acknowledged Jade as friend and that was about as much as we got out of her all those months ago when we went to Klugetown thanks to her help. Sphinx was cranky at times, a glutton at her worst and a real drill instructor when it came to running us through our paces, but she really cared about us. -Jaded La Perm- “Jacky’s not having a good morning.” I sat down at the fire and Arizona snorted loudly. “What else is new? I’ve only been here for a little more than a month and even I know she’s a walking disaster area.” Says Arizona, the young cow that had anger issues, likes destroying things with her horns and couldn’t be left alone in a shop of full of ceramics. “How are you still friends with her, didn’t you say her luck nearly got you killed several times?” “Her luck, not her personally. She’s a loyal and trustworthy character as they come, for a quasi-pirate parrot anyway.” I kicked back and relaxed. “Jacky’s been getting more skilled at dodging her own luck and eventually she’ll utilize the signs to avoid her bad luck entirely… unless she can figure out how to use it to her advantage.” “I’ll work on that Captain!” Chirped a cheerful Jacky as she approached and gave me a strong hug. “I’ve got some things to ask you and your mother about later. Right now I’ve got to go ask Mr. Permanganate about some combusting oatmeal.” “That and she always bounces back.” I could feel my lips turn upwards in a smile. “Speaking of utilizing unique talents, you got a new use out of your horn, so that means there’s still quite a bit of utility in it.” “Yeah… I guess it’s not as useless as it looks huh?” Watching Fizzle self-consciously put her hoof to her horn made me feel a bit bad about not searching for solutions more actively to help her fix it. I’ve been a bit busy helping the new people settle in. “I still need to exercise it as well as my body.” “You can exercise all you want, but it takes some real gumption and heart to be strong.” Arizona stood up and stared at Fizzle. “You put in the work and I’m sure you’ll eventually get results. I’m going to see how Grace is doing with that strange turtle with wings.” “You better not hurt Snickers!” I was beginning to really like having a flying turtle for a companion. I didn’t treat her like she was special at all and she liked it, plus she could mostly took care of herself anyway. “You do anything to her and you’ll have to answer to me Zone.” “Oh I’m so scared. I’m not going to hurt your little critter friend, not without a good reason anyway.” Snorted out Arizona dryly as she started towards the inn. “I’m just going to make sure that she and Grace aren’t causing any trouble for each other.” “So have you learned anything interesting lately Jade?” At Fizzle’s question I look at the fire and thought about it. There wasn’t much going on today, aside from Pinkie setting up her party stuff. “I’ve learned that sustaining my pack creates more space in it, but I can’t drop the magical sustain without all the stuff safely exploding out of the pack.” I was about to continue when I noticed Fizzle opening her mouth. “How does you’re pack count as a singular object when it has stitching, flaps and other things on it?” She was looking at me with curiosity now. “I’ve never thought about it before, but the cloak you gave me is like that too right?” “As long as everything is tightly bound enough together to count as a singular object, then it can be sustained as such. There’s all kind of rules to it that mom and I have yet to work out, like how a slider for a zipper is still considered separate from the sustain since it’s considered its own thing.” Which gets confusing because the rules for magical alchemy were like an ancient dead language to us, but we were doing pretty well at making new discoveries. “The self-sustain for the pack is really quite interesting.” “Really? Since when were self-sustains interesting.” My lovely and wonderful pony friend Fizzle, you had little faith and you could use some more. “They are both rare and are hardly very useful for anything, they are mostly just minor and quirky side effects of sustaining an object. A cloaks effect of improving stealth being the exception.” “True, self-sustains are rare and are equally rarely useful like that, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be incredible.” That made her quirk and eye at me, so I elaborated with a friendly cat smile on my face. “Like say for instance my packs self-sustain perfectly preserves food, water any anything else put into it, said objects will always come back out the same as they were going in.” “Tell me, because quite frankly that sounds a bit absurd for a self-sustain, how in the world did you figure this one out?” I’ll sate your curiosity Fizzle, I've nothing better to do. “I accidentally left a bushel of strawberries in there for a few days.” I looked away from Fizzle feeling really sheepish about the incredulous stare those bright beautiful eyes were sending my way. I could feel the blush on my cheeks as I went to go get my pack and I came back with it, I sat down and pulled a strawberry out and tossed it to her. No mold, no fuzz and definitely as fresh as the day it was picked and washed. “Try it, it’s been in my pack for the past week. I put it in after I washed it, it’s still in the same state as when I put it in.” She just looked at the strawberry and then to me, she then turned back to the strawberry. After shrugging, she popped the entire thing into her mouth and chewed. She hummed loudly at the sweet taste in her mouth and eventually swallowed. Ponies could easily consume the leaves of a strawberry, but I didn’t personally like the leaves even if they had some health benefits. “Got anything else of interest in the world of magical alchemy to hear about Jade?” Fizzle sidled up next to me and leaned her head towards me. I instinctively started petting her and she sighed. “Just out of curiosity. There’s not really much else going on around here at the moment other than Pinkie and she is really going.” I turned to look at Pinkie as she zipped around in a blur and party supplies were appearing out of nowhere, even Maud was slowly watching Pinkie zip around setting up for the one year anniversary of Airship Mauled. “Well I do have one other thing…” Here I had a pony leaning in close to me with a beatific smile as my fingers traced one of her ears. Her eyes were closed and she looked happy, I was glad to be the one putting a smile on her face. “Well what is it Jade?” Fizzle rested her head in my lap and my fingers moved to gently fondle her mane. “Don’t keep me in suspense here.” “Well that tricorne I kept for myself from my pirate adventure has a sustain that allows me to find things of monetary worth more easily. As for the self-sustain it can…” My voice slowly dropped off as she gave me an exceedingly lazy look. “Well it’s really annoying, I’ll say that much.” “Annoying how?” She muttered with a lilt in her voice at my caressing her neck. “It makes you entirely capable of whistling enjoyable jaunty tunes, which can lead to a heart song. I’m not even capable of whistling normally, take it off my head if you feel a musical number coming on.” I pulled the hat out of my pack and put it on my head. “It’s much easier to show you what I mean than it is to explain it.” I started whistling a bit and then a tune started to build from what I was whistling. The tune was one I was quite familiar with and then music started playing out of nowhere, yep the innate ability to whistle while I was wearing the hat tended to do this. I didn’t need to whistle while wearing the hat, that I could control, but once I got it going however… “I am the very modern model of a friendly Abyssinian, with my sharp claws, loving friends and incredible wits there’s all kinds of battles I can win~.” I started singing, of course it would be to that rapid back and forth tune. “Ever since I came here I knowingly fell in love with a certain Equestrian~.” “She fell in love with a certain equestrian, she fell in love with a certain equestrian, she fell in love with a certain equestrian~!” Oh good Maries was my backup three part singer, this can only end well when the song was over with and she gets angry at me for singing about Fizzle and not her. Maybe a I could swing it neutrally? “She has bright and beautiful eyes, a wonderful spirit that just never dies, and if she ever asked I would date her with no lies~.” I paused for a second, nope couldn’t neutral the song. I better think of something quick. “Because that may very well lead to own my demise~.” Fizzle just stared at me with a concerned expression and a small smile playing on her lips. “She’s likes snuggles, hugs and The Witch’s Fare. I really hate the music that’s now in the air, because there’s not really much that could quite compare… to the finery of the soft mane that belongs to such a lovely mare~.” While the song wouldn’t crack, I still managed to get in my distaste for it while still praising Fizzle. “Now would be a very good time, to stop me from singing in a metronomic rhyme, especially before I make the Maries cause a violent crime~!” There was now a blush permeating Fizzle’s face. “Oh we wouldn’t really hurt her she’s our friend too mate, we really wouldn’t hurt her she’s our friend too mate, we really wouldn’t hurt her she’s our friend too mate~!” All of Maries was giving me sad and upset looks. “I swear to you that you are the best of friends to me Maries, I might be able to love you too and here I am stuck with quandaries~. So please don’t kill me if I say I love Fizzle… please~? I swear to you my heart might have room for four so if you can just put my mind at ease~!” The music paused as the Maries walked over to me scrutinizing me with angry looks and I was soon slapped across the face by three separate tongues, they walked away smiling back at me. Did chimeras do herds? Oh goddesses I involved fizzle, what did I just do? The music started up again. “Well it’s a relief that I’m not dead, for another day I guess I’ll keep my head, if there’s one thing about all this that could be said~… Fizzle you ridiculously beautiful pony blow this freaking, damned and blasted hat off instead~!” The hat was swiftly blasted off my head by the cute and completely red faced Fizzle, yet the musical number didn’t end. The music kept going and it just dragged me along with it. “Apparently that really didn’t stop the song, so unfortunately for me I’m still going be singing along~. I seriously swear that I’ll avoid whistling with this hat again in a manner that is wrong~.” I grouched out loud as the Maries sang their three verses of my last few words. “Mara your strong with equally nice and really fierce eyes, Maria you always got tough sharp horns and can always with insights surprise, Marie you’re the smartest one here which probably means you likely know how to make rubber vulcanize~. Maries you’re a wonderful being, and ‘that’… no one here has ever really said or denies~.” “So this song is coming to end and with my claws, wits and wonderful friends I can bear it~.” One last verse and I could finally stop this embarrassing mass of magical torment. “I’m the very model of a friendly Abyssinian, I’m at least quite thankful that I wasn’t born a ferret~!” I heard laughter and turned to Arizona, she wasn’t the only one around that was laughing. “Sure, laugh at my expense because of the magic here in Equestria forced me through that Zone, see if I care.” I suddenly received a pair of lips to my cheek from Fizzle and she hugged me affectionately. Okay that felt a bit better… then Maries hugged us… which felt a bit worse because she was getting really quite strong. Eh, I’ll call it even in the end. “Maries… you’re… crushing us…” As soon as she heard my choked words, Maries let us go and we received three sheepish looks. “That was amazing… I want to try it!” Pinkie put the mostly undamaged hat on her head and began whistling the same tune, much to everyone’s horror. “No!” Everyone dove for Pinkie, even a wide eyed Maud as Boulder leapt from her hoof for Pinkie. -Twenty minutes and several rounds of a highly show tune filled noodle incident later- “You were right Jade, that is a really quite annoying thing for a self-sustain to do.” Well at least Fizzle agreed that we shouldn’t whistle while wearing the hat, but I wasn’t going to destroy it. It was my personal souvenir from my lovely time with Captain Gash. “There’s quite a few things I really liked about that song though.”