-Cheerilee-
“What are you doing for the cultural festival Jacky?” I knew the beaked misfortune generator had some idea as she didn’t look worried. “Hopefully it isn’t looting or pillaging.”
“It’s not, I’m just going to sing a pirate chantey with no cursing in it.” It seemed like Jacky has already thought this through. “Hey, stop looking so surprised! I’m not nearly as bad as Jade is, though I wish she would at least take me plundering. Looting’s okay too, but pillaging is right out for me. Pirates are not unnecessarily violent unless they want to be and I’m not that kind of pirate, no matter how bad my luck is.”
Jacky was almost hit by a random noisy piano tumbling down the stairs into the lobby, we both thankfully dove out of the way in time. Dr. Bones sighed and looked a little relieved to not have to deal with more of Jacky’s unique injuries.
“The lass really needs a protective suit of armor, just like a highlander always needs a kilt!” Dr. Bones paused to watch as a fire poker came from the ceiling and rammed its way into the floor next to Jacky’s head, she grimaced at the sight of a close call. “Though thinking on it, knowing her luck, the armor might be a really bad idea and hard to get off if she were to take a real serious injury.”
-Manehattan Library, Fizzle-
“Look, Maries isn’t going to do anything to you, calm down and get your head on straight.” I poked the curled up mare and she slowly, but surely, uncurled herself while looking at Maries.
“Why were you running through the library Miss Pommel?” The librarian obviously knew this pony, she picked up the book and hoofed it over to Pommel.
“I’m sorry Decimal, but there’s something in the library that scared me, it was toothy and big.” You mean like other ponies Pommel? Maries wasn’t a monster and if you ever implied that she was, I don’t care how cute you are, I will throttle you. She looked at Maries who continued to give her a bored stare. “Um… hello?”
“Hi, how you doing, we’re Maries.” Maries caused the mare to shiver, but she didn’t go running. “I’m Maria, these are my sisters Marie and Mara.”
“I’m Coco Pommel, have you been with Maries the entire time she’s been here Decimal?” Coco turned to the librarian who just nodded at her. “Okay then, it wasn’t you. I’m sorry for being so scared of you Maries, but there’s something monstrous in the library.”
“Eh don’t worry about it, we get that all the time.” Mare wasn’t bothered, Marie followed up. “Especially when we mention we’re lawyers.”
“Wow… that must have taken a lot of work!” Okay some ponies were making a quicker turnaround in being friendlier towards Maries. Coco seemed nice enough, hopefully she doesn’t get dragged into whatever we do in Manehattan over the next few days.
“Yes, it was a long week of mind numbing cramming and our heads still kind of sting when we start thinking about it.” A second after saying that Mara became somewhat alert and began to glance around as if something spooked her. Coco had looked awed to find out what Maries accomplished in under a week, but she was a little panicked when she noticed Mara looking around for something. “What was that?”
“What was what?” I started looking around and moved closer to Maries, surprisingly Coco and the librarian had the same idea. You’d think they’d move further way from her.
Something suddenly popped up in front of me with bright purple eyes and glinting teeth, it squealed loudly. Maries mashed her front two heads together with her paws to stop the ringing in her ears.
Whatever it was, it had disabled us all at the same time all at once, even I had my hooves on my ears as that had been quite loud and rather debilitating. As such I didn’t have time to dodge what it did next.
It kissed me…
I stumbled back going slightly cross eyed, blinking in confusion as it suddenly jumped away from me at Maries. It hugged her two heads to start nuzzling them and it even slipped its tongue into Maria’s mouth, then followed that up by affectionately thrusting it into Mara’s left ear a second later.
Maries stumbled backwards in shock trying to figure out what was currently clamping on to them and Marie couldn’t bite through the thick wall of bright yellowish blonde fur the creature had to poison it.
It was fast, but as it snuggled Maries two heads the wall of fur became more recognizable as a… alpaca? What in the world was an alpaca doing here? Was it here for the cultural festival and why in the world did she kiss me?! Only Maries and Jade could do that!
The alpaca flipped backwards off of Maries, the force of the kick from doing so flipped them onto their back and the alpaca landed softly on top of Coco without hurting her. This nuisance then proceeded to nibble Coco’s left ear lightly while pinning the poor pony down.
“Ah, get her off of me!” Open invitation to take down a problem like this nuisance for a pony I just met Coco? Gladly!
I ran forward and thrust my right hoof towards her head, which gently swayed out of the way. She immediately let go of Coco’s ear to grab my hoof in hers hooves and began nuzzling my leg while holding onto it with an impossible strength.
I tried to shake her off. It was not working, so I tried hitting her with my other hoof. Her curly thick fur softened my blows and I couldn’t do a single thing to get her to stop hugging my leg!
“Let her go!” Three voices shouted out in a loud growl as Maries charged this overly affectionate alpaca.
The alpaca did let me go, I unceremoniously fell over at the sudden loss of balance from having my hoof held. The alpaca then somehow detached a mass of her fur and Maries slammed into the wall made of the fluff. What followed is said fluff magically reattaching itself to the alpaca.
Maries’ body dropped to the floor and the two heads looked dazed, also about as confused as we all were to be ambushed by this crazy alpaca. Said fluffy menace was currently pecking the librarian Decimal on the cheek.
The fluffy monster then proceeded to bounce around to Marie and then grappled onto her head and kissed her deeply, much to Marie’s distaste as she tried to snap at the tongue that had just simply thrust its way into her mouth.
The alpaca managed to get her tongue out in time and yet she was smiling brightly as if she didn’t think Marie was a threat. She nuzzled the top of Marie’s head and then bounced back just out of Marie’s range.
Marie’s head shot forward and came within an inch of the alpaca’s face as her mouth snapped shut, her poisonous fangs didn’t reach their target.
The alpaca kissed the tip of Marie’s nose in a friendly manner, causing Marie to growl at her as if she were Mara herself.
That’s when the alpaca did something curious, she sniffed the air and then turned to me with a bright grin on her face. Why did I suddenly have her attention again? I tried to stand up, but she bowled me over and… back into a standing position?
She invaded my personally space sniffing the fur on my chest while wildly waggling her tail, she shoved her nose into my ear and then sniffed my mane and then moved on to my back.
What was she smelling me for? Then her nose started to go towards my rear and before she could do anything untoward, someone called out stopping her. I really didn’t like where the alpaca was going with her affection.
“Hey you, stop forcing your love on everyone in the name of the law!” A mare with a blue cap that had a badge on it and matching clothes rushed the seemingly spooked alpaca.
The wall of fluff bounded off down the aisle with the police mare hot on her hooved heels. They turned the corner and I thought that was it.
I turned my head to the right ever so slightly when I felt something tug my tail. I saw that the alpaca was still here and was sniffing my tail. How did she… when did she even… just how fast is she?!
The alpaca lifted up a hoof and then gently stroked my tail and when her hoof came away, it was holding a single strand of hair that was most decidedly not mine.
Looked cream colored like one of the hairs from Velvet’s floof, Velvet had been resting her head on my tail on the train when we all took a nap on our way to Manehattan. I didn’t mind at the time, because there was nothing to it. Only now there’s this weird alpaca plucking the single strand of hair out of my tail.
The alpaca took one long whiff of it, then she happily jumped high up in the air with a loud squeal thrusting her legs wide open in excitement.
Said jump made Maries miss her attempted tackle that knocked over the bookshelf, which promptly fell on top of her. That had to hurt, but Maries was a sturdy chimera.
Seconds later the alpaca was hopping away humming a merry tune and seemed overly excited about something.
“What just happened?” That Coco, is a very good question.
“Help me get this bookcase off of my girlfriends, then we might discuss it.” I grabbed the edge of the bookcase while Coco and Decimal came over to help me lift it off of my girlfriends.
With the help of Decimal and Coco, we managed to get the bookcase off of Maries. They were groaning in pain.
“Did someone get the number of that donkey cart that hit us?” That was almost lucid of Maria, Mara was better off. “Did we get her and why is the room upside down or is it spinning, does the world taste of strawberries to you?”
“Yes actually… I think that alpaca had strawberry scented lip gloss on.” Coco hugged herself while hiding her eyes behind her blunt bangs, her bobbed mane bounced slightly as she lowered her head and shivered. “I feel so violated.”
“Welcome to how we feel, also we’re sorry about the bookcase.” At Maries’ apology the librarian known as Decimal sighed.
“Don’t worry about it, though if you’ll help me clean it up?” We would be spending the next ten minutes or so cleaning up the mess, then the next few hours reading up on interesting topics.
Marie got to learn about the information she wanted. We also had a project to put on a play at a small stage that Coco knows about.
-Evening-
Maries and I were on our way back to the hotel when we came across Velvet and Arizona. Something was off with Velvet, she looked way too content standing next to Arizona.
“What happened to you two, did you lose a fight?” Arizona was the first to pick up on our still slightly sour moods.
“Yes, in fact we did, it was this crazy alpaca that jumped us from out of nowhere.” My words immediately snapped Velvet out of the happy daze she’d been in, she rapidly shook her head and started to look around wildly in a panic.
“Did this alpaca happen to be really bouncy and did she kiss, hug and or affectionately assault everyone in the vicinity?” Surprisingly, the usually strong willed reindeer started cowering behind Arizona.
“What’s got you so suddenly spooked prissy fluff butt?” For some reason Arizona looked upset that Velvet was cowering, probably because Velvet was able to keep up with her in a fight and didn’t like the idea of something managing to scare her. “You were so happy after eating all that ice cream and now you’re more frightened than a long tailed cat in a rocking chair store!”
“Um, yes, that’s generally what the purple eyed, blonde furred nightmare did. She even invaded my personal space and seemed happy to have caught your scent.” Okay, I could now witness what Velvet was like when she was going into a full on blind panic.
“Oh no, she’s after me again, it’s only a matter of time!” The reindeer just ran in random circles until Arizona held up her hoof while standing in place. Leading Velvet to eventually clothesline herself on the leg, she was up within a second. “We have to get back to the hotel now, I don’t want her to get me!”
“Oh come on Velvet, how hard can fighting an alpaca be?” The apathetic attitude Arizona had would be the correct one, if you hadn’t already seen said alpaca in action.
“She knocked Miss Maries on their back, by the way… does she even have a name?” Our friends blinked and turned to Coco. “Oh right, sorry for interrupting, my name is Coco Pommel. My home in Bronclyn is in this direction and I kind of didn’t want to be alone right now.”
“Her name is Paprika Paca the fluff-mancer.” Hearing a snort from the cow, Velvet turned to glare at her as she started walking quickly in the direction of the hotel. “Don’t take her lightly, she can snuggle, cuddle, kiss and hug anyone into the ground without seriously injuring them! She’s hugged a lava covered cherufe before. That didn’t even phase her and she didn’t lose much of her fluff doing it either, there is no such thing as personal space with her!”
“What’s a fluff-mancer?” I needed to know so I could even begin to guess how to deal with this Paprika the next time I ran into her.
“It basically means she can grow and control her hair near infinitely as long as she enough energy to burn doing so, she even has a lot of energy in spades. Fluff-mancers can easily suffocate or choke someone, but Paprika was always pretty good about not being too dangerous with her abilities. Don’t get me wrong, she’s extremely dangerous if you get caught in one of her literal bone crushing hugs.” We were almost running with the brisk pace Velvet was starting to set as she saw the hotel. “You think the Mane-iac from those Power Ponies comics is a somewhat capable? She’s got nothing on what Paprika can do with her fluff-mancer powers. Excuse me while I go to my hotel room and nail the door shut with boards!”
She bolted straight into the hotel ignoring everything in her path and looked to almost be flying by the time she disappeared through the doors leaving us behind, that was the speed of fear if I ever saw it.
“Well now we know she’s also been sneaking into Jade’s comic collection. Still, how dangerous can one alpaca really be?” Hopefully none of us would find out, but maybe Arizona might. “Velvet’s probably overestimating this Paprika.”
All I know is that I wouldn’t see hide nor hair of the alpaca in the coming days.
-Paprika-
Oh where, oh where is my cuddly reindeer~? Oh where can she ever be~? Her fluff is nice, her body feels cold like ice, but she'll always deserve a happy warm cuddle from me~!