-Jade-
I was frolicking through a field with a pony and a chimera, the sun was shining and… Fizzle was covered in potatoes and butter sauce while walking towards me.
“Jade wake up and stop suffocating Maria in your sleep!” At Fizzle’s voice my eyes snapped open and then I just continued kissing Maria while awake and more aware of what I was doing. So instead of suffocating the poor goat head, I eased back a little. “Yeah, saw that coming a mile away.”
“Don’t be jealous Fizzle, you can kiss me too if you want to!” Maria let out a chuckle as Fizzle blushed a bit.
We were both sleeping on top of Maries in the same bed, the chimera was a pretty comfortable pillow.
“Yeah, but do any of you see the bed collapsing out from beneath us?” We all just stared at Marie. For five minutes after saying that, no one said anything and just listened to Mara snoring out loud. Of the three heads only Maria and Marie were awake.
“Funny I thought causality would see fit to collapse the bed out from…” I started to say when we heard a crash and a familiar scream from next door. “Jacky?”
“Jacky.” Everyone else agreed immediately, then Marie proceeded to try and wake up Mara gently.
“Nobody mention we said anything about beds collapsing!” I had a pretty good fear of Jacky blaming that on us or at least Marie for bringing it up, but would we really throw the cute snake head under a bus like that? Yes, I kind of would in this situation.
“You know… we can get something out of this situation by suing the hotel for faulty equipment.” We all turned to Maria and slow grins started to spread on our faces.
That was a pretty good idea and now the hotel owed us even more aside from mom’s high class morning and evening cooking getting them more business. First come and first served are always family and friends!
-One hour later, breakfast-
“And my beak was pressed up against my… forget what I was about to say. It took them bringing out the ‘Jaws of Life’ to get me out of bed this morning.” We were all giggling at Jacky’s misfortune, mostly because we kind of knew the cause of it. Nothing was provable, though we were pretty sure Marie mentioning it was the cause knowing Jacky’s luck. “At least I had a good night’s sleep for once.”
“What are the plans for our date while we have the time to discuss them?” Fizzle turned to me and I smiled at her, I had a long day planned out.
“Hopefully Maries’ metabolism can forgive me, but we might have to skip lunch. Double helping for Maries’ mom!” My mother, beloved and dear as she was, nodded and went to work on a second round of magical cooking for all three heads of Bloody Maries’. “An hour of exploring to walk off the food. A visit to the local museum, whatever you want to do until dinner at a restaurant I found yesterday and finally the short play you two were working on for late this evening.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a full day ahead of us.” Slowly turning to Arizona, I gave her an odd look. “Velvet and I are going to follow you.”
“As to be expected, we need someone to spy on us to keep us from doing anything lewd.” Which was something we generally didn’t do anyway, I silently thought.
“What the udder idiot is trying to say is… we’re going on a date as well and will be at the same locations you just happen to be at.” Looking at Velvet, I had to wonder if she was being honest about dating Arizona. “As such, I’m going to milk this opportunity today for all that its worth.”
“Now if only my deer friend would stop with the cow puns.” As soon as Arizona said that the two attempted to glare each other down. “Doe you believe the nerve of her?”
“I can already tell this is going to end in violence, at least one way or another.” Dryly spoke Fizzle who was shaking her head sadly.
“Hey, if anything violent happens it’ll be just my luck, but I’m also coming along with Gene.” All our heads snapped to Jacky, who looked a little shocked that we were so shocked. “I blame my recent head injury on my ability to ask him out. Should really stop taking blows to the head, but Dr. Bones cleared me for good health… relatively speaking.”
“She always has to plant her feet near the graves, but she better not be stepping in them halfway personally!” Dr. Bones was getting tired of examining Jacky it seemed. She raised a paw up to her chest. “I’m almost up to here, with having to deal with this constant walking medical problem.”
“It might have been the head injury talking, but I’m alright with going out on a date with you.” The ever soft spoken Gene answered, he was a very brave Viking griffon to want to be around someone like Jacky. More power to him if he can survive a year of being closer to her than the rest of us.
“Yeah, you saw Escargot there the day before yesterday, how is the cool kraken doing?” We’d discuss the expert masseuse with tentacles while Maries finished a second large helping.
Escargot scared almost every person he’s rescued as a sea pony SOS responder, which made sense given he’s a fairly large kraken and being grabbed by tentacles usually freaked people out. He was really quite a nice and friendly dude, he was not scary at all and I could use another back massage to get some of the kinks out of my spine.
Wondered why Escargot was in Manehattan anyway, I mean aside from possibly being Dr. Bones familiar which is a distractingly odd combination to ponder on. How was I going to get him back to Airship Mauled if that was the case? Familiars had a tendency to live where their bond partners do.
“What’s with that look on your face Jade?” Turning to Mara, I answered her with a hint of humor in my voice.
“I’m imagining a kraken wearing a giant nurse’s hat now and I can’t get the image out of my head.” It wouldn’t be long before we set out into the city to take in more of the cultural festival for a while, before we all headed to the museum where I could begin planning my strategy for how to tackle it.
-Museum-
“So everyone’s on a date today?” I asked as I stared at Flamberge and Fortitude.
“We’re not on a date, we’re just protecting our brother from the forces of darkness that more than likely plague your yonder sister Jacky!” Right, whatever helps you sleep at night Flamberge. It still looked like you were dating Fortitude when everyone compares how we’re all grouping up here.
“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” If you think he’s annoying because he's always saying that, actually you’d be wrong. It’s kind of charming that the yak introduces himself the same way every time without fail. “We always help our brother without needing to be asked, for he would do the same for us!”
“We’re also not on a date kitten, we’re chaperoning the rest of you nutcases.” So you weren’t interested in our teacher mom? Well now I feel warm and fuzzy to have you watching me like a hawk to make sure I don’t do anything crazy while we’re here.
“Speaking of our teacher. Hey, Cheerful Glee, did you know we’ve been seeing your sister Cherry around here? She seems pretty cool to me!” Every group seems to nod in agreement with that statement coming from me, Cheerilee didn’t seem as happy. “She seems like a well-adjusted mare to me, she even managed to keep up with a squabbling Arizona and Velvet in a fight!”
“Well of course all of you would like her, I’m glad I haven’t run into her at all!” Cheerilee grated out somewhat bitterly, she quickly sighed and then cheered up a bit. Having all our attentions she continued. “While I have your attentions, Jacky no going near or touching anything. Jade whatever you’re planning can’t happen while we’re visiting the place now. Fizzle, Maries, keep Jade in line. Gene and Dr. Bones you will be busy keeping Jacky from getting injured again. I want this trip to be a successful one without any shenanigans from all of you!”
“Be fair Cheerilee, I know we’re horrible about not causing trouble, but we’re not exactly overly horrible at avoiding it.” I crossed my arms and then a crashing sound was heard behind me, we all turned to a large chunk of stone impaling the floor and Gene on top of Jacky. He had pushed her out of the way without either of them getting injured. He just earned some brownie points from me. “Jacky’s horrible luck being the exception of course.”
“Of course.” Blandly came back Cheerilee.
“We all think Jacky needs the most supervision to avoid the calamities of being in a museum of easily broken stuff my little tom cat.” Nobody would dare counter that mom, we certainly knew that. “We may need to give her a griffon mask so she can stay a respectable distance from the displays.”
“Oh my goodness, is everyone all right!” We saw a doddering old pony come up to us, white mane, tail and a bushy mustache, blue grey fur. Seems like a friendly fellow to me.
“Yeah, we’re okay Mister….” I dragged it out in the hopes of getting a name.
“Old Time, my dear Abyssinian filly, current curator of this Manehattan Museum.” Ah, so he’s the one I should talk to about the security of this place. “Is this the weird field trip group I’ve heard about?”
“Yes it is, we’re trying to get organized and we will be sticking together for the duration of our visit.” Cheerilee turned to us, but she was specifically looking at me. I wasn’t going to break away suddenly so I can scout out a room, I was actually going to spend time with Maries and Fizzle.
You’d think Cheerilee would be more worried about Arizona and Velvet starting a fight, given how often they glared at one another with affectionate looking smiles.
“We don’t have a problem there, we’ve all been sticking together since this morning!” Gave my best friendly cat smile to a suspicious Cheerilee.
I waited for Cheerilee to say something different because we had all been walking around Manehattan as one big and fairly odd group of varying species.
Our clump was becoming well known throughout Manehattan for a number of things we’ve been doing. From taking down wyverns, Velvet and Arizona’s bar fight and all the way up to Jacky collapsing a part of the pier and having a literal head to head collision with a ‘Blue Belle’ pirate.
Cheerilee didn’t say anything, but she did keep eyeing me suspiciously. It was like Cheerilee didn’t trust me or something!
“Why that’s just splendid, let me give you a tour of the museum while the janitor takes care of the unfortunate piece of the ceiling that almost collapsed onto your Ornithinian friend.” We’d gladly accept that from Old Time, whose cutie mark of an ancient vase was as interesting as his bushy mustache.
I had the urge to paw at the bristles on his nose, I clamped down on my cat instincts and followed him while wrapping an arm around Mara’s head and Fizzle’s neck.
The museum had a few floors, we saw many interesting exhibits here. There were plenty things to look at, eventually I spotted a particular exhibit that I would like to target. It mostly had little to no value to me and it was quite a familiar bit of nostalgia.
Now I only needed a distraction to keep Cheerilee away from me while I talked to Old Time… or… I could just talk to him anyway.
“Excuse me, I have something to discuss with Old Time.” My explanation was accepted by both Maries and Fizzle, so I stopped cuddling and rubbing up against them to move forward. “Excuse me Mr. Old Time, but can we talk about something?”
“Why of course young one, what would you like to talk about?” This old guy has been giving us quite the tour of the museum, he even showed us a real life Gordian Knot on display. I was amazed by the overly complicated structure and that it was made of a sword proof material made it even more amazing, since you just couldn’t cut it apart.
“Do you have a security consultant?” The rest they say was history, which is actually part of this museum’s crowd drawing attractions. “And would you mind having one look into the security of the place in an unusual fashion?”
-Evening-
“So I talked to the griffon who runs this restaurant and well… they’ll cater to a chimera provided that one shows up. I told them to keep a lot of space open for a private party… didn’t think we’d need all the room and I just wanted a big empty space with Fizzle and Maries.”
“Hello and welcome to the… you!” Oh look, that griffon that I heard Jacky got into a fight with, what are the odds? Pretty good with Jacky around.
“When were you going to tell us this was a legitimate business that just happens to be run by pirates?” Jacky received a bright grin from me and she smiled back. “You’re one in a million Captain.”
“Your captain’s a cat and she’s dating a pony and a chimera?” The griffon behind the counter just sighed. “Not going to bother getting angry, so private group for the large room?”
“Yep, group under the name of 'Captain Kitty, scourge of Captain Gash'. Also if the reindeer and cow start fighting, don’t interfere, they get quite ornery if anyone interrupts their mating dances.” The way I stated that had both Arizona and Velvet glaring at me with blushes on their faces, they didn’t deny it though.
“You’re the one that put that stick all the way up Captain Gash’s tail a few years back?!” The griffon’s slightly sour mood did a one eighty, kick flipped, into a nose grind and finished with an Ollie for good measure. She looked that happy. “You’re getting half off just for that, poor guy just can’t catch a break since a certain green haired Abyssinian wrecked his ship and sent it to the locker.”
The meal was great for all involved, we paid our bill and were on our way. Blue Belle was a nice pegasus pirate pony.
-Late evening-
“Ahem, this is the story of hearths warming eve…” Fizzle started off, with each of Maries’ heads wearing a different hat. “Sure you’ve heard it all before, but with a chimera as the primary actor?”
The audience laughed, the draw for this was that a chimera was acting out six different parts. All of the six who were involved in the defeat of the wendigoes.
Mara was wearing a Commander Hurricane helmet, Maria had Chancellor Pudding Head’s hat and Marie looking noble with the Princess Platinum’s crown.
“Not the right time of year for it, but it’s definitely cultural.” Muttered Cheerilee who looked interested in how this will turn out.