-Fizzle, Airship Mauled, Narwhal-ker Aftermath-
I really didn’t know how to feel about eating the narwhal-ker as Gene kept calling it. Was I supposed to feel kind of bad that it tasted so good? It was delicious and kind of buttery with a nice texture. I think Fluttershy would be upset with us eating the narwhal; we were making sure it wasn’t going to waste at least.
While it was certainly a hit with all the dragon and griffon Vikings, mom still had to make a vegetarian option for all the Viking yaks.
Speaking of the Vikings that had been absent, they all came back horribly roughed up. I’m guessing they hadn’t take the Highland Pukwudgies seriously enough. While they tended to their wounds, the three Vibrant Vikings were willing to share their amazing tale at how the narwhal went down to our combined efforts.
We learned how Gene and Flamberge managed to survive the insides of the monster. It was nice to know what happened when both Fortitude and Maries bravely jumped into its mouth to go help them out. Good thing the narwhal couldn’t chew anything it eats.
Ah eating, every pony’s favorite pastime. I’m pretty sure that almost all ponies had very mild carnivorous leanings, I’d associate that to Pegasus ponies interbreeding with the other two tribes for thousands of year. Also the fact that ponies kind of had building block genetics that worked with most species.
Hippogriffs and, if Jade is to be believed, sea ponies existed for a reason that ponies did things with griffons and a species of sea horse that led to the offshoot of sea pony or hippocampi.
Where thestrals came from was a little more than subject to varying contradicting accounts on how they came into existence from what I read. One thing was certain, they were both said to be blessed and cursed by the moon in equal parts. To this day, not many know how we ended up with ponies that could operate better at night and could consume bugs as a different source of sustenance.
“Hey Jade, you wouldn’t happen to know any odd species that can mix with ponies would you?” Bug eating ponies were rarer as most thestrals kept to their own kind and despite having places in the night guard they weren’t very prominent in the public mind.
Cow’s had the market cornered when it came to making cheese and ponies loved that stuff, as did many other beings and everyone knew Maria specifically had a taste for cottage cheese.
“Odd how? Ponies can almost mix their genetics with just about anything, but if you want the weirdest that would be a dragon and a pony. The combination will end up making a Kirin.” Giving Jade three seconds before she went into her tirade about them. “Kirin, by their very existence, prove that a ponies and dragons are compatible. Kirin however are very rare and are said to be signs of good fortune or long life, they are mystical creatures defined by having two powerful magical horns, dragon scales, pony body and the possible ability to gallop on the very air itself as if they were legendary reindeer. The size may vary, but Kirin don’t lead normal lives like regular dragons and are more emotionally like ponies, but long lived like dragons. One being born into the world is stated to be the passing or arrival of a wise being or illustrious ruler, I don’t know how true that actually is. Seriously though, pony and dragon genetics are really hard to mix and I think the magic of true love is really the only thing that can give or lead to the birth of a Kirin. It’s either that or a full grown dragon shrinks down small enough to be on the ponies level for specific interactions.”
“Thanks for telling me all that, I’ll keep it in mind if I see any scaly two horned ponies.” Called it, and now I’m horrified by the implications of the birds and bees involving dragons and ponies. Does Jade not know how to filter her mouth? I’ve considered this more than once on multiple occasions.
Ponies were still considered to be only three main tribes, with two well-known offshoot species and a third one Jade has yet to actually meet and logically knows exists. These offshoots are like chimera giving birth to a fully herbivorous child or parrots like Jacky being partially descended from harpies. I wondered, how do you distinguish from a parrot like Jacky and a parrot the bird? I should probably ask her about it later and just call her an Ornithinian.
Where was I going with all this thinking? I just shoved another bit of narwhal meat in my mouth and chewed. I guess I was thinking of the fact that hippogriffs have beaks and thestrals have fangs, whereas all other pony types tend to have blunt teeth. Didn’t rightly know what a sea pony had, never met one and wouldn’t know where to find them.
As for what I just heard about the Kirin? If they are as rare as Jade says they are, I can definitely consider them an offshoot that’s a once in a blue moon thing. Anyway, back to the land narwhal or narwhal-ker I was currently eating a part of.
Narwhal-ker were a very interesting species of narwhal that walks along rivers and sucks up any life that it happens to finds. It usually ends up causing famine, mostly for fish eating species and it attacks just about anything smaller than it that moves by inhaling it in. It doesn’t suck up fish eggs, but it can incidentally destroy them and they are considered natural ecological disasters in their own right because of this.
They are relentless monsters that, while they don’t breed explosively, had decent enough numbers that hydra never went hungry if they ever ran low on sanity challenged elephants. Jade was certainly fascinated by all this and to be fair I was a more than a little interested too, especially when Gene explained it to us why he kept calling it a narwhal-ker.
So I guess we did a good thing in regards to the local ecosystem around Airship Mauled.
“Excuse me, I have to go talk to mom about something.” I got up and took my plate over to Kuril who was carving up another well-cooked narwhal steak. “Hey mom, the food is really delicious. Thank you for carving me a piece and adding spices to it for extra flavor.”
“You’re welcome Fizzle, do you want some more narwhal or some more vegetables? You need to keep your diet more to your species, too much more meat after this wouldn’t be healthy for you.” Yes mom, I know that. I would still request more narwhal, it’s definitely packing plenty of protein and I was a growing mare. I wouldn’t say no to some more tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and carrots though. “I admit the narwhal tastes fantastic after I started cooking it using Jade’s idea of utilizing a salamander scale cast. The cast is kind of useless if someone has water or can create a shockwave powerful enough to put the fire out. Though judging by your body language… more food is not the only reason you came over to me.”
“Yeah, I did have a few things to ask you, but I would like more narwhal steak and salad please.” We didn’t have to worry about the narwhal’s stomach acid or other more disgusting parts that I was definitely not going to eat. Sekhet had already magically pulled all the innards out of it and teleported it to her pyramid, thankfully without us having to see her eviscerate the narwhal for it.
Jade certainly wouldn’t have been able to scale and gut the narwhal-ker, it was a bit too big for her knife to do that.
“Okay, hold on a second while I fix you another plate Fizzle. Remember you can come to me about anything and I’ll always try to make time for you when you need me.” Mom rubbed my head and eventually put a plate loaded with delicious looking food into my eagerly waiting hooves, she then tapped me on the head and pointed to a sitting spot to sit near the campfire. She then prepared her own plate. “Come on and tell me what you want to discuss, I want to at least eat some of this too before it’s all gone and while it’s warm. Anything that remains can be magically preserved and used for soup stock later, we’ll certainly have an ample supply for that provided Sekhet can resist eating it all now.”
I sat down on the log and mom took a seat next to me, Jade gave us a curious look from where she sat and just continued eating at a sedate pace. She seemed open to the idea of letting us have our conversation without interruption.
“I want to discuss Jade’s birthday, do you have any ideas what I could get for her? How are we going to celebrate Maries’ birthday?” Was that it? No, I definitely had one more! “Also, what are we going to do with the skeleton?”
“For the skeleton, we should test it for magical alchemy properties and maybe give Zecora some chunks of its bones to see if she can do anything with them. Maybe we can even use a part of it for the archway into town.” Mom mused out loud, before she thought of my question. “Don’t know about Maries personally or how her culture celebrates birthdays, we should ask her about that. As for a present you could get Jade… what about a Power Ponies comic book?”
“Really, don’t you think our current relationship deserves a little more effort than that?” Oh sure a comic book, that’s going to be the greatest gift I could ever get Jade and there was not anything possibly better than that mom. “I’m looking more for what would be the best thing I could get her.”
“Not necessarily, the one thing Jade would want more than anything else is to have the solution to fixing your horn. You don’t have that and have no idea how to get it to give to Jade to give to you.” Well when you put it that way mom, it would be hard for me to find a way to fix my broken horn in time for Jade’s birthday.
“Any better ideas?” So something simple and heartfelt like what Jade and the rest of you did for me by calling me family and thinking
“How would I know? I’m only Jade’s mother, you’re her best friend next to Jacky.” She gave me a knowing look as I ate my food, she knew and was being coy. “I’m sure if a normal comic book isn’t a good gift to you, then what about an enchanted comic book or maybe even an enchanted O an O board.”
“What are you getting her?” I considered the idea of an enchanted comic book or Ogres and Oubliettes board, I needed to look into this idea as I didn’t know what those were. First I would maybe ask Jade if I could see her comic collection to see what was so interesting about them, then I would have to have Jacky fly me up to Canterlot to have a look around for information.
“Nothing too magical, just a bad day coupon.” Mom must have seen my intensely curious look, because she quickly elaborated. “If Jade is having a bad day, she’ll give me the coupon and I’ll go to just about any lengths to put a smile back on her face the next day. My little kitten has to know how much I love her, given I’ve been feeding her hungry mouth for years. I’m even the baker that produces her birthday cakes every year, so she gives me a free pass on lousy birthday presents as everything else I do makes up for it.”
“Mom… is this what I think it is!” We turned to see Jade with a horned rabbit sitting in her lap, it looked adorable and it was sniffing her. For some reason Jade seemed scared stiff of it.
“Yes kitten, that’s an Al-mi’raj and it’s my familiar.” Mom had quite a happy smile on her face. “I’m officially a witch!”
“Explanation?” I turned to mom.
“That’s Sugar, my familiar. Here Sugar, here girl!” The rabbit turned from Jade and happily ran over to mom and began to rub up against her with affection, then mom started to give her some of the narwhal off her plate and the rabbit ate the meat ravenously. “Al-mi’ raj are really dangerous magical horned rabbits, but I don’t really see it. See she’s an adorable little cutie, yes she is.”
“The abilities they have that make them dangerous are very specific. They can grow to a large size, either at will or when angered. It’s usually far enough to the point that one can ride them or be pierced by their powerful horn easily.” Sounds moderately dangerous there Jade, though I’m quite sure you had more on the subject as per usual. “They are also specialize at creating powerful illusions, usually they create copies of themselves and then violently perforate you. At least until they can eat you safely. With the familiar bond, she’ll probably become smart enough to start getting innovative with her illusions thanks to her bond with mom. That makes her several times more dangerous than an average Al-mi’raj, one that will end up stabbing you with her forehead spear.”
“I’m guessing that these ‘all-mirage’ creatures have a penchant for killing things with their horns?” I looked at the rabbit and then to Jade.
“Oh yes, when they charge their horns with magic, it becomes tougher and can pierce through a lot of things and even miraculously deflects magic. You should treat a charged horn on her head as lethal intent if you were upsetting her. Why if you are a unicorn that relies on magical barriers, then you’re at a… disadvantage.” Jade pauses for a moment, a small smile comes to her face and it slowly turns into a frown. “Nah, can’t do that to the guy. In any case… horn, dangerous, exceedingly!”
“That’s enough Kitten, we get it already! I’ll be sure to keep Sugar from assaulting anyone with her horn.” The pink rabbit in mom’s arms just squeaked and cuddled against her while looking up at mom with her bright blue eyes. “Now let’s finish eating.”
-The next day-
Okay I had several ideas of what to get Jade, but I couldn’t rule out making something for her birthday. I was sitting in the fruit grove alone to think when I heard Jade discussing something with Mr. Permanganate and Refreshment.
“So do you think you could make it?” What was Jade asking of the two stallions?
“It doesn’t sound dangerous.” Potassium said while rubbing his chin with a hoof.
“It’s not supposed to be. It’s a safe drink, no alcohol.” What was a safe not alcoholic drink and why did it sound important to you Jade? “It’s something I thought Fizzy would like to try and make, but I wanted to run it by you two first.”
“As long as we don’t start drinking it in excess. We know the ingredients, but not how they come together to make the drink.” It seemed like Dr. Potassium and I had something to talk about.