//------------------------------// // Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old home. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Rein, Velvet’s Cabin, Velvet- The door creaked open and I looked on inside and expected dust on all surfaces of my cabin. I was about to step in when Tinsel grabbed my leg and I looked down at him, he motioned me off to the side and wandered in. He started to slowly use a minor amount of magic to blow some dust out the front door with small gusts of cold air. This was going to take a while if he planned to dust the whole cabin for me. “Excuse me Tinsel, but allow me to do the cleaning, just clear a path to the center of the room and I’ll take care of the rest.” The curious look I received Tinsel made me smile, he wanted to clean for me and make sure I didn’t dirty myself. Such a sweetie my little ice sprite. “I’ll take care of the room and you can take care of me afterwards, because I’m sure that I’ll be covered in dust after this. Paprika, Arizona, get clear of the doorway please. This may cause a mess.” “You going to do that snow-nado thing?” Nodding to Arizona, I wanted her to get to the point as I walked into my slightly derelict cabin. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that. Do you always use a backwind to launch it?” “It’s a condition!” I shouted at her smug smiling face. “Whatever you say icy farts.” Grumbling angrily at Arizona and her pointing out my condition again. Once Tinsel was finished, I made my way to the center of the room carefully got balanced on my hind legs. I started to twirl, whipping up a tornado of icy wind and the suction of the localized tornado started to suck all the dust in the cabin towards me. Once I’ve collected enough of the dust I planted my front hooves and kicked out with one leg, posing with my nose in the air as the dust blasted out the door explosively away from my back. I was a bit dusty afterwards, but little Tinsel started to comb through my fur immediately. Such a darling little companion he is and will always be, I shall never mistreat his apparent love and devotion for me. “So you see Paprika, Velvet’s farts are really quite powerful!” Ugh, what was Arizona telling Paprika now? It’s so embarrassing that she knows the secret to one of my greatest attacks. Paprika made several strange gestures to Arizona and my cowgirl answered. “She never uses water magic, but she’s definitely has gotten wind and ice down. Speaking of, why don’t you use water magic? Ice magic is just a combination of wind, water and magic right? Have you been holding out on me Velvet?” “No of course not, I would never hold back against a bovine brute like you! It’s just that… well…” I mumbled out an answer to Arizona and Paprika, I think Tinsel could at least could hear me as he was blasting small amounts of dust off of my body. Paprika moved forward and lifted a hoof to her ears while leaning close to me. “I’m not good with water magic...” It was one of the things that I wasn’t good at, I always used wind magic to fudge things a bit so I could do ice magic. Wind gathers the moisture and freezes it, instead of magically gathering the moisture then using the wind to freeze it. “Really? Could have fooled me, with how good you are forming ice within a seconds notice and dissipating it just as quickly.” At Arizona’s questioning look, I flicked my head while holding up a hoof and threw the conjured snowballs into Paprika’s face as she was starting to slowly encroach on my personal space. “Yes, well… come on in and make yourselves at home, I’d rather we stay here than in the mansion…” It was hard to believe that I even came back here, I didn’t want to and I left a place I could call home behind to do so. I seriously missed Airship Mauled, the weather was pretty temperate there and it wasn’t harsh for me. Paprika bounced happily into the cabin and started to look all over the place, it has been a while since she’s been here. Going into Rein proper they’d probably kick her out on the principle of the trouble she’s caused every time she was around. Arizona would be allowed to walk around freely without much notice, though some reindeer would see her as beneath them thanks to their magical abilities. When an ice shaper reindeer could balance water and wind perfectly, they were really quite powerful and able to switch what to focus on at a moment’s notice to do what they needed. If you focused on wind you were often quicker with attacks and had better control, it offered flexibility but doesn’t have much in the way of defense or stopping power unless you want to get up close and personal with your opponent like I tended to do with Arizona. When you focused on water you got more powerful offensive and defensive abilities, but it was always predictable what the form of said attacks and defenses would always take. Those who worked with water were less about shape and more solid force of will. The only reason why I had been a champion guardian of the village is because I worked hard to get my magic to a finely honed edge with my heavy wind focus. I could beat any reindeer with a heavy water focus, but those with a balanced focus could beat me if I wasn’t paying well enough attention to them. I sat down on nearby chair with Tinsel continuing to attend to me and Paprika pounced into the chair with me to start snuggling me, I sighed and just let her. Paprika stopped snuggling me, to give me a confused smile. “Oh no, please do keep going Paprika.” It didn’t take much from me to get her to do so. “Mansion?” Arizona finally said from the couch nearby with her head resting on the leg rest. “My parent’s own one of course, being nobles and all.” I might have unintentionally started nuzzling Paprika back, because she made an exceedingly happy noise and tightened her grip on me. “Didn’t you say you were going to tell us their names?” Arizona asked and Tinsel perked up. “Paprika already knows their names and she’s met them once or twice, it’s kind of hard to remember how many times Paprika has been frozen solid and it’s been done at least once by just about every adult reindeer in town… it all kind of started to blur together after a while.” Sighing, I put a dainty hoof to my head to rub away the oncoming migraine. This did nothing to stop Paprika from dragging her large tongue across my cheek and face affectionately, I let Paprika get away with this without a single word of anger about it. “To start things off. Tinsel, I don’t like my progenitors and I just want you to be aware of that.” The ice sprite nodded in understanding, Arizona had heard a few things about my parents and didn’t know the full scope of things. I was far more willing to take Kuril as a mother over my actual biological mother. If that wasn’t quite telling, then I don’t know what was. “Okay then, my parents go by the name of Clause and Prancer. They are well known around here and not everyone likes them, you’ll see why when we meet them.” There was no ‘if’ to be had there, when we were going to be asking everyone about the key and if they’ve seen a large cow going by Minnesota or Maggie. “It won’t take my biological progenitors even a second to start insulting you Arizona, of that I can be sure. I’ll give you an idea of what they’ll likely say about you, mostly so you don’t react to them later when you meet them.” “All right, I’ll bite, hit me with your worst shot Velvet!” My lovely cow girlfriend might be in for a shock, because I was going to drop into full noble for this. I was still quite hesitant to call Paprika a girlfriend, but I completely understood the fact that she just wanted me to smile more and be happier. It’s just that Paprika antics had been a major pain in my flanks previously before I left the village with Snickers. I’m a little horrified that I see something in Paprika that I can’t help but love, but that was quite deep down inside of me thanks to the years of being tormented by her constant, never wavering, affectionate attitude towards me. “Oh a cow? What is a grass muncher like you doing here? You belong back in those unsightly mud lands you ugly misbegotten beast.” That was something I hoped would make Arizona sit up and take notice, because that would be something my father could say. “Is that your face or did a wolf maul you? I doubt the beast would have touched you with that horrid stench of yours, did the milk spoil inside your udders? Why don’t you go back to being the useless livestock that you are?” Arizona just sat still for a moment, Paprika just gave us both a confused look. After a moment Arizona’s muzzle crinkled and she put both her hooves over her mouth and then, not being able to hold it in any longer, she burst out laughing. “Oh wow, I’m so going to take apart whichever of your… what did you call them, progenitors? Well I’m going to take them down a few pegs when I meet them!” Continuing to laugh, Arizona rolled onto her back on the couch and then a few second later to the side and off the couch. “There’s no way that’s real Velvet, it’s too silly!” “Oh it’s very much real, you should hear what the reindeer say about Paprika.” I had an inkling that Arizona didn’t appreciate anyone badmouthing Paprika, because she immediately sat up and took notice. “What do they say about her?” Arizona climbed back onto the couch looking more focused. “Also can we get a fire going in here?” “You sure you want me to tell you Arizona?” I was up and getting a log to start a fire. The very moment I lit the fireplace, it would be the first sign that I’ve returned to Rein. Someone would inevitably come to talk to me about being back in a permanent fashion, but I wasn’t going to stay here. While I did love Rein and it was a beautiful place, I left my real mother figure back in Airship Mauled who didn’t care if I was gay. With Grace being a close second option to being someone I respected a lot, mostly for having raised someone as rambunctious as Arizona. Nobody came to clean my cabin while I was gone, obviously I was hardly cared about here. Well I wouldn’t say hardly, Arizona and Paprika cared about me. I started work the wood over and eventually it lit ablaze and I backed up, fire and heat were not things reindeers liked. Arizona and Paprika were all guests here and it’s the only reason why fireplaces existed in Rein. “You might as well tell me a few of the more pertinent bits of information.” Arizona stretched out and I watched as her muscles flexed and tightened. Yes, I was very much attracted to that action and I wasn’t the only one staring. Paprika was also staring and she seemed enamored with the sight, then again it was hard to find a time when she wasn’t enamored with something or other. “This is a nice place you got here Velvet, it’s rather cozy.” “Thank you, I took part in the construction myself.” I cleared my throat as Paprika pounced on Arizona who just smiled, better her than me. She insane enough to actually like Paprika’s back breaking hugs. “As for the pertinent information about Paprika. Well they says she’s completely braindead, a walking natural disaster that may eventually kill us all. That she’s too stupid to get the message the first time and just won’t stay away no matter how much they despise her existence. There are quite a few reindeer that are logically afraid of her as freezing her solid doesn’t work very well.” Paprika smiled to me and stuck out her tongue in a goofy manner. She went back to resting her head on Arizona’s. I just decided to join them on the couch, by sitting down in front of Paprika’s hind legs. “So about Rein, any customs we should know about? Paprika’s nomadic tribe didn’t have any problems with us.” Before Arizona could receive my answer, she held up a hoof to stall me and turned her eyes to Paprika. “Now that I think about it, what did your brother end up doing with that blizzard crown thing?” Paprika gained a thoughtful look and I just leaned back into her fluff, Tinsel crawled up and curled against my side. We were like a cozy, loving family already. -Alpaca Accretion, Rattle- Yes, the power was mine and mine alone now that I had the crown! I would use this power to finally achieve my goals, the grandness of my efforts would soon be realized by everyone around me! Picking up a piece of wood and placing it down in front of where I was, I waited for my plans to come to fruition as I started to lazily play my instrument. A bunch of cria ran up to me looking excited and I smiled gently as a small cloud started snowing from above my recently built snow cone stand. I thought it was pretty cool at least, I think snow cones would sell pretty well when we got around to visiting the cows. Not only would I play my musical instrument softly for the cria, but I would also simply become the snow cone king of the alpaca tribe. My snow cones would only use the freshest of snow, fallen directly into the cone from small magically formed snow clouds. Smash some select fruit, pour the juice into the cones and the cria would be eating it up for free, they only get one freebie a day though and the adults would still have to pay for them. This may be undercutting the reindeer on their frozen delights, but I wasn’t about to use this crown for anything else. I wasn’t that ambitious and this thing was going to be used to wipe out our tribe, so why shouldn’t I use it for something entirely mundane? -Rein, Velvet’s cabin, Arizona- I could feel Paprika shrugging as if she didn’t know what her brother could possibly be doing with it, hopefully he wasn’t going mad with power. I don’t think any of the alpaca could do full on evil really, they were all highly affectionate families that loved one another implicitly. “To start off there are a few customs you should be aware of. First off, never raise a hoof to the wild ice sprites living around here." Well that was a given Velvet, I would never want to hurt one of those cute critters. "If they do something you don’t like, then tell them what’s wrong clearly and or get a friendly reindeer involved to help settle them down.”