//------------------------------// // Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Close ingredients. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Fizzle- I can’t believe I slept for twelve hours, it was quite comfortable snuggling up to Jade. I nuzzled her fur and she shifted, was she awake? “Can you let me up, I need to go… badly.” I released Jade like she had a plague, she jumped up and ran for the nearest bathroom. I sighed, she waited for me to wake up didn’t she? She’s very sweet like that, I should really apologize to her for pinning her underneath me so that I could get some restful sleep in. I got up and headed downstairs, mom was already awake today. It looked like she was doing cinnamon toast today. I sat down at a table and called out to her. “Hey mom!” I could see the breakfast she was making was huge. “What’s with all the food?” “Do you know what happens when my daughter misses a meal? They’ve been keeping my kitten fed up in Canterlot, but now that she’s home she’s going to be quite voracious given you kept her from eating a meal and I’m just preparing for that.” That sounded like a good idea Kuril, you certainly knew and understood just exactly how Jade worked. “I talked to Maries about what went on up there while you were dragging Jade off to bed… you didn’t do anything to my kitten did you?” “No, I would never do something to hurt Jade like that!” I wondered if Jade had any complaints, she probably didn’t given how often she was ready to do a lot of things for me. “Though I did kind of force her to be a cuddle toy…” “Good, wait until you are both old enough and keep it above the waist. I don’t mind kissing, hugs and snuggles in my house, but you are slowly starting to become a bit inseparable from Jade and as a mother I worry about all my children.” She approached me and started placing food before me. I began to happily eat. “You need to become a little more independent Fizzle, Jade has little problem with wandering off and endangering herself. While I admit that it scares me whenever she goes near Barely Bearable Woods, she needs to learn how to fend for herself and she’s pretty good at that. You need to learn how to survive on your own too, why if anything were to ever happen to me… well I won’t try to let that happen.” “Mom, you took on a ten foot tall boar that was almost made of muscle and knocked him down quite a few pegs.” Despite the dryness in which I spoke, I knew that she could protect us when she needed to. “Yes and I was scared for my life, but I was more scared for your lives than my own.” Kuril rubbed at one of her ears before continuing to cook a large amount of food. “Nobody hurts my kitten, pony or parrot in front of me and gets away with it!” “You are a bit possessive of us.” Not that I mind it, I liked having someone who cared about me so much. “Being independent is not in the cards for me Kuril, remember how I lost my horn? I was more independent then, but thanks to that psychological scarring I’m having problems wanting to go anywhere by myself when I have friends that I can stick next to. I thought I was doing fine on my own, but then I met Sekhet and I found myself lacking” “You stick more to Jade than anyone else. While I know you love each other, maybe you could try sticking to Jacky or Maries for a day or go camping together with Sekhet to chaperone.” That did sound like fun Kuril, but I was not going anywhere near Barely Bearable Woods. I might have had a slight case of Arkoudaphobia and the existence of what Jade calls drop bears didn’t help that fear. “A little bit of wilderness survival wouldn’t hurt Fizzle.” “I guess it might help save my life someday… so I wouldn’t mind learning how to make a camp.” I could actually use wilderness survival training, considering how well I was getting by just by myself before I met these people and started living here. “I apologize for interrupting, but we are currently experiencing a great amount of discomfort and wish to inform you of something important about ourselves.” We both turned to Mara and her fur looked a bit rumpled and Marie looked dried out. “We are currently going through our shedding… it has been a while since we did that. We will be shedding all our skin and the fur on top of it.” -Jade- “Did you just say shedding… like Marie the snake kind of shedding?” Okay I had an interest in this as I walked in on the conversation. “Quick question, do you heal when you shed that skin?” “Yes, our body recovers… why do you ask Jade?” Maria was the one to respond to me and I had an idea. “I was wondering, if it’s not too much to ask of you and it’s not of concern, can we have that shed skin?” It’s about time I decided to start working towards that horn fixing cure for Fizzle and maybe the shedding of a chimera could help with that. “I mean if it’s not too sacred or something.” “No, we never have a use for what we shed because of me.” Marie seemed to be keeping her head lowered in embarrassment at how dry and flaking her skin currently looked. Her appearance was okay for a snake going through a shedding growth period, only this looked more full body shedding and it must have been uncomfortable for the other two sisters. “If it could be of use to you, then we will gladly give it away freely.” “Well don’t shed in here! Go to Sekhet’s pyramid and do it in her home, I’m trying to run a clean establishment here.” Mom just reminded me that there was something that I really needed to do concerning Sekhet. “I’ll go with her, I need to talk to Sekhet about something anyway.” I was about to walk off when mom said something that made me immediately turn around. “Here I thought you were going to sit down and eat a very large breakfast, especially the fried eggs, toast and cheese filled biscuits.” It was much to my mother's surprise that it looked like I teleported across the room to the table, she sighed and started carrying out several plates worth food. “You are always the hungry one my gluttonous kitten. Come on Maries, sit down and have some food.” “Of course matriarch Kuril.” They looked hungry, the Maries could always eat about as much as I could. So I could honestly say that I eat like a chimera. -One hour later- Maries started to lightly scratch at herself and her fur looked like it would peel away at any second. “When your fur peels off are you furless underneath?” This might be embarrassing for the chimera, but I wanted to know and was curious. “No, our fur is already growing underneath the skin and fur that we’re going to shed.” Maria rubbed a tiger paw at her neck the fur seemed to be very loose looking. It was almost disgusting, but I had seen worse things from the hairballs I’ve coughed up. “This is uncomfortable for us, but it is something we do.” “Why do you want our shed fur and skin prospective mate Jade?” Well I should explain to Mara and the other parts of them why I was looking forward to this. “It might be one part of what I need to fix Fizzle’s horn. I say 'might', because it is a state magical renewal and that would possibly help renew what is broken. It’s about time I really started knuckling down and searching for ingredients.” Though I was wary of going after hydra scales, they can regrow heads and that meant they had a magical form of renewal all of their own. There were two ways to kill a hydra, stab the heart or cut off enough heads in a short amount of time that the rest of the body couldn’t support itself when it grows too many heads. I didn’t want to kill a hydra, but I did want some of ones scales without being eaten and digested. “I have plenty of ideas of what to look for to help Fizzle, but none of it is a sure thing. If your skin might help in my research, then I’m asking politely if I can use it.” “You may, we would not deny prospective mate Fizzle the chance to be whole once more.” Well that was a relief. Even if Maries shed skin and fur doesn’t help, it was still a good gesture that they were willing to part with something they had no use for. I considered a list of things I could search for to help Fizzy as we approached Sekhet. My ideas included searching for Bennu the deity of rebirth who is likely a phoenix, a god version of a phoenix might have different results from a regular phoenix. I wanted to go retrieve the chunks of Fizzle’s broken off horn from the den of the ursa minor that scarred her, unicorn horn was said to have something related to mystical healing properties in legend. I could possibly use Fizzle’s own horn to fix itself! A few other things that I could think of would be downright dangerous to locate, like say for instance if something like Nanteos’s cup exists in this world, then it would definitely be protected by something extremely lethal. Something that Daring Do might run across in her travels… I had to find her and ask her to help with the search if she was willing to look into it. I already had Eir the Yak Valkyrie working on it from the island of Turtle Toga. New idea, I could also go after antlered beings who could regrow their horns! Darn it, there were just so many places to start! Provided that I didn’t previously exist in the timeline where Tempest Shadow comes into existence, who hopefully never does while I’m here to love and care about Fizzle, then Fizzle would have been searching forever and would never find a way to ever fix the damage done to her horn. If Tempest Shadow still happened, despite me possibly changing Fizzle’s fate, even then I wouldn’t give up on her and I wouldn’t let her give up either. -Sekhet- “Hello Priest Jade, Warrior Maries, to what do I owe the pleasure of you visiting me in my home?” There was something I could feel as being off about Maries, their fur seemed to be sloughing a big and their scaly head seemed to be drying and the skin is ripping. Ah, they are shedding and molting their skin and fur off. “Would you mind if Maries shed off her skin and fur in an empty room? I promise I’ll pick it up, I’m going to study it to see if I can get some healing properties out of it.” Upfront and honest, but with a hint of hidden amusement. What were you planning to do now Jade? You were an amusing mortal, but there is more you wished to do. “Of course she may, go into that room over there and renew yourself in privacy.” I pointed my paw to an unused room off to the side and Maries bowed to us and moved off to do that. Turning back to Jade, I gave her a curious stare. “What is it that you want of me Priest Jade?” Jade reached into her backpack, pulled out a bottle and threw it at my face. It shattered and the pieces covered the floor. “That was in the effort of what exactly?” I knew Priest Jade, she didn’t do things for no reason. Though I am a little perplexed as to why she threw a bottle at me with bits of wood in it, I’m mostly just confused and not angry. I could hardly get angry with those I choose to protect, at least I wasn’t magically stuck here protecting them. “That counts as crashing an airship into you, just freeing you of your word and the freebie you owe me.” Wait… why would Jade do that? Now that I looked at the pieces on the floor, I could see the deflated balloon and pieces of a tiny wooden boat. “I made an airship in a bottle while I was stuck in the Canterlot dungeons, Cadence was nice enough to get a kit for me so I wouldn’t be bored between our sessions of O and O. Nice pony that girl, a bit of a love freak though and she wouldn’t stop talking with me about my special some pony.” “Doesn’t count, it’s not a full sized airship.” I tried only for Jade to shake her head in disagreement. “Nope, it definitely counts, it’s still an airship. A very tine harmless one that I, Rogue Sun Priest Jaded La Perm, intentionally crashed into you.” This was way too nice of Jade, I had her pegged for being a clever jerk. What was clever in freeing me from the boon I gave her? “What do you want?” This could be the only reason why she would free me of an offered free shot to have an airship slam into me without having to answer a riddle. “For Fizzle’s horn to be fixed of course, but you as a goddess of healing, physical education and war can’t do that now can you?” Why yes Jade, please do keep rubbing it in that my healing prowess doesn’t match my ability to fell entire armies or coach you on how to get warrior like physiques. “In truth, I want nothing for this and just wanted to see the look on your face over me doing it this way. Aside from that I wanted to run several ideas past you about objects that may lead to healing the broken horn.” “Interesting….” I lowered my paw over the glass and broken bits of wood and deflated cloth, with a snap of my paw the bottle reverted to its unbroken state in a flash of magic. It was an airship in a bottle, how very interesting and droll… I’m going to cast a spell to make this impervious to destruction. “I thank you for giving me a gift, even if it took some magic to reassemble it.” “You are a very powerful and magical lady Sekhet. First off, do you know where I can find Bennu?” That is going to be a bit troublesome Jade, Bennu hasn’t been around for a long, long time. “You wouldn’t be able to find him, he’s been long since gone Priest Jade and even I’d be hard pressed to locate him if he were still alive.” I think he might have actually died a true death, for a god of rebirth that would be rather ironic. Though I think I understand why you would ask of him first Jade, his power of rebirth ‘might’ have the power to restore Fizzle’s horn without any horrible side effects. “If you wanted to find my sister Bastet. That would be far easier, she’s guarding the tomb of a powerful pharaoh who was said to be the maker of the first cake in existence.”