-Rein, Velvet-
“So… outsider’s rules are meant to be incentives for outsiders to take part in the tourneys?” That was about the size of it Arizona.
“Yes, reindeers don’t get the same chances at prizes, though we can still win money. What we get is prestige, acknowledgement and can reach champion status depending on how well we do." I was still technically a champion even if I was kind of retired from it, I would still defend the village in its time of need. Otherwise I was going to stay retired from being a champion. "Provided that you actually want champion status anyway.”
“Why don’t you enter with Paprika and me when we go sign up for this tourney?” Tucking into the food before her, Arizona gave off an appreciative hum of approval for the taste. Did she have to eat so messily? She thankfully swallowed her food before continuing, at least she was learning. “Well I have to run it by Paps first, but I know she’d want to be in on this.”
“Even if I were to win I wouldn’t be able to ask after the key, I’d just win money.” Not that I had much of that at the moment, but we collectively weren’t poor. We still had plenty of Equestrian bits to buy supplies with.
“Why would that stop you from having fun? Things never stopped you before.” She had a good point, what was stopping me from wanting to enter the competition? “Besides I thought you would have jumped at the chance to beat me in a tournament for the bragging rights alone.”
“I might just enter to get the smug smirk off your face.” I smiled at Arizona, she was really cheering me up and our date was going pretty well, though I was having a hard time ignoring all the reindeer that were sending me curious glances. “Then again there is Paprika and we know how she’ll be throughout the whole tournament. I feel sorry for whoever gets paired up with her in their first match.”
Our ice skating escapades had left Arizona particularly sore. She was neither elegant nor graceful, but darn it she was quite determined to make me happy and is succeeding.
“Still worried about whatever these reindeer think of you that has you so down my pompous princess?” Arizona was grinning brightly at me.
“Like I care what others think of our relationship now, you bullish brute!” I grinned right on back as I ate.
Tinsel squeaked something joyful sounding and then bit into the top of a grape, he was eating from a small bowl of grapes and blueberries.
“You know these little guys almost seem too intelligent to become familiars.” Arizona scrutinized our ice sprite wearing the tiny alpaca hat and shirt Paprika made for him.
“Thanks for reminding me Arizona, I have to make sure your wounds didn’t reopen after all that tussling around you did with those other sprites Tinsel.” I received a nod from him and watched as Tinsel winced and clutched at his body. I would have to remember to check on Tinsel’s injuries to make sure they healing well, maybe wrap a fresh bandage over them and add some more disinfectant. Tinsel was my responsibility, I should pay more attention to his health to make sure nothing untoward happens to him on my watch. “As for the intelligence of ice sprites, they built half of this town on their own to attract reindeers. So yes, they are fairly close to being beyond capable of making a familiar bond.”
“Wait… what?!” Arizona was cute when she looked so clueless. “Are you telling me these little guys built half of this town by themselves?”
“Oh my yes, you know how I said they tend to worship reindeers? Well they built half of this town with the expectancy of attracting reindeers to live here, though they didn’t build Rein without help mind you. I think they chose a good locations at the very least, as Rein has been here for a long time.” I patted Tinsel on the head and he squeaked happily. “These darling little creatures weren’t exactly the greatest of carpenters at the time, they only knew how to make simple lean-tos you see. Our ancient ancestors came along and started living near them in the shelters they made, these little guys also knew how to find food in even the coldest of months. This led to both our races coming together tightly. Eventually the reindeer started building better homes and the ice sprites learned from there how to do that themselves, they aren’t actually creative as they could only mimic homes that have already been built. Still, what they lacked in creativity in building homes, they made up for in being quite good at decorating things as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“Explains why a lot of the buildings in town look so similar, I guess if it weren’t for all the cutesy decorations I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the differences between houses around here.” Ah so Arizona did notice that, well that was the most of it. “Did the ice sprites do anything else of note like that?”
“They started caring for our fawns and even like to make or repair toys if you show them how, though the wild ones aren’t geniuses by any stretch of the imagination. The ice sprites that are familiars are a lot smarter thanks to the shared bond.” I stopped to take a bite of food as I thought of my connection with Tinsel, it felt like we shared a two way bond of mutual friendship and respect. “I think there is only one good reason as to why they are just shy of being incapable of forming familiar bonds with. It’s because they always have a childlike whimsy alongside their mentality that never seems to grow out of said state, it doesn’t help that they all always look so tiny and frail.”
“Do you suppose they ever see you as pets and are there reindeer that think of them as pets?” Arizona didn’t know that asking that would have made most reindeer upset with her, but I understood her ignorance.
“It is a completely insanely strong symbiotic based bond, we protect them and they make sure to help and take care of us to the best of their abilities.” There were some no nonsense laws about how we treated ice sprites around here and I for one followed them to the letter. “To imply otherwise is to tarnish the nature of the history between the reindeer and ice sprites. So please don’t imply slavery, servitude, ownership or otherwise, we have that custom about not abusing ice sprites in any way for a reason.”
We continued eating for a bit and a gangly looking reindeer eventually came running on over to our table, the reindeer at the restaurants reception didn’t look too happy that he had run right past them.
“So it is true.” This reindeer buck that I knew particularly well stated while looking at me, he was an old nuisance that I knew of.
“Yes, I’m back.” I waited for him to start hitting on me despite the fact that I was otherwise clearly on a date with Arizona. What would follow is Arizona beating the snot out of him for harassing me like he usually does. “So go ahead and just get it out of your system Branches, tell me what I’m not going to listen to.”
“There’s no reason to be so mean Velvet. I just… I came to apologize about all the um… trouble I’ve caused you in the past.” He seemed somewhat honest in his apology and now I find myself clearly surprised.
“What’s this guy apologizing about?” That is a very good question Arizona.
“Arizona say hello to Branches Brick’Load of the Brick’Load Brick Layers clan, his clan is full of lumberjacks and wood workers. Branches this is my traveling companion Arizona.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I too want to know, what exactly are you apologizing for specifically Branches? Is it all the harassment or was it those ice sprites you almost got hurt that one time?”
He winced quite audibly. He wasn’t a very handsome buck, but at least he tried to be nice. He had tried a little too hard to be sweet with me really, especially when I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t like him.
Even when I looked at what the other does think are handsome bucks around here, I felt nothing for any of them and I even held contempt for Branches here because he was so annoying about taking ‘no’ for an answer.
“Did the room temperature just drop twenty degrees in this general area?” Of course it did Arizona, sometimes a reindeer could make the temperature turn cold just by mood alone. Cold fury can be quite literal here after all.
“Yeah, that sounds about right Ms. Arizona. That ice sprite thing most certainly didn’t go as I intended and now I know it wouldn’t have worked even if it did go correctly. I’m thankful that you didn’t report that Velvet…” Branches rubbed at his face looking sheepish, his voice was rather nasally and was one of reasons I didn’t like him among other things. His horns were relatively large for his frame and, contrary to his name, his horns were almost one solid mass with barely any splits in them. I would even say he looked more like a moose to me sometimes. “I’m sorry about harassing you so much.”
“Why are you apologizing now of all times?” It was hard to keep my contempt for him out of my voice.
“Well... I was hoping we could at least be friends. I’m really sorry about all those attempts to woo you and doing it all while in public, private and otherwise.” Say what I will about Branches, he was actually a nice guy even if he wasn’t all too bright. He did have something of a chivalrous nature to him, but I didn’t need his protection.
If anything, Branches needed protection from me after the last time we faced off in a Tundra Tourney. I remember how I got close enough to slam a pillar of ice up between his legs in a manner most foul and left him quite blue in more ways than one. What a good memory that was!
“What, pray tell, brought on this apology? For I’m not about to take it at face value if you have some ulterior reasons for it.” I asked clearly. He never gave up so easily previously, so why was he doing so now? I took a sip of my fruit juice as I glared at him, he looked away rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’ve actually come to learn to respect your feelings on the matter of you not liking me, very understandable really. Also I didn’t know what grandma meant when she said you were likely a carpet muncher and that she wasn’t talking about you being a naturalist that likes to eat fresh grass.” Branches stopped to blush here, he tapped his hooves together. “I apologize for what my grandma said, I didn’t know you were attracted to does… or… maybe this cow?”
“I’d like to say that I’m fairly attracted to her Branches.” Said the cow to the now slightly smiling reindeer.
“… how long and does everyone know that I’m gay?” My tone was flat as can be.
“About a day or so after you announced that you were going to disappear with that magical flying turtle and its old news by now. So I guess everyone knows now, your parents are in denial and are trying to set up an arranged marriage.” Branches wilted a bit. “I doubt that’ll work and your parents are absolutely going to fail. In your own way you tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen when you told me you just weren’t interested in a relationship.”
“Apology accepted, but explain to me how everyone found out that I was gay and what was the general reaction to it?” Nobody had treated me all too differently, but I guess I hadn’t really talked to anyone to find out either.
“Well… the alpaca that terrorizes us kind of went nuts when she heard you were gone. We kind of figured that she was looking for you after she turned the entire town on its head almost literally. I did not need to know she can flip an entire house upside without disrupting any of the objects inside said house in way that makes everything inside defy the of the laws of gravity without even being nailed down.” He paused for a bit and looked at the ice sprite eating with us blankly as if he had just noticed Tinsel, he shook his head and got back on track. “That and she kept doing that silent alpaca communication thing, that I think is kind of creepy, to ask where you went. I told her you were last seen heading towards some mountains and then she started running straight south much to everyone’s confusion. It was then that it started to come out that you had a wandering eye for does and things kind of went from there with everyone kind of guessing that you punted for the fairer team. Who’s this little guy?”
“My familiar Tinsel, rescued him from a snow owl with sharp talons recently. Wave to the friendly buck Tinsel.” The ice sprite did as I asked and started to gnaw at a blueberry. “Towns reactions… now! I haven’t been around long enough to hear the hearsay yet or get blindsided by anyone.”
“Right, well… surprisingly a lot of reindeer who thought ill of you for your family flipped gears entirely once they found out. They see you in a better light now, while your parents are still bottoming out in the popularity polls with middle to lower class reindeer.” Branches let out a sigh. “Some would say that they can now see why you acted like you did and getting away from them could have only made your disposition better.”
“Can I ask a question, are you all seriously that frightened of Paprika Paca?” Arizona received a quizzical confused look from Branches. “You know, the alpaca that you just said terrorizes you.”
“That horrible thing pretending to be an alpaca actually has name!” Due in part to Branches reaction, I realized that I have never exactly told anyone Paprika’s name and no one had bothered ask.
In fact, I felt a little touched that I was the only one that Paprika gave her name to. To think that I alone was the only one that needed to know.
“She does and she’s standing right behind you.” Arizona was chuckling as she said that.
Branches froze, he went wide eyed and slowly turned his head to see the bouncy alpaca. All the other reindeers in the restaurant cowering were beneath their tables.
Paprika moved forward and grabbed Branches gently, she lifted him up and moved him off to the side. She then went back to standing where she had been and then she lunged for me.
My world was fluff, I was blinded by it and... why was I currently enjoying it?!
After a moment she settled down next to me and looked to my food.
“You can have some Paprika.” I couldn’t believe the surprisingly good table manners Paprika showed.