-Ponyville, Fortitude-
“That Rarity was being quite nice.” We all walked out of the clothiers, I think Skelly appreciated the sling to hold her axe and the new scarf around her neck. She is nodding with a bright smile on her face. “We are still needing to buy some supplies before day is out.”
“How about some food first? Sure there’s going to be plenty at Pinkie’s party, but it’s going to be mostly sugary and I want something a bit more solid than that in my stomach!” Flamberge spread his wings a bit and looked to be trying to ignoring the twinge in his side or the bandages wrapped around some of the damage his wings took. “Hey… I know… let’s go by the Hayburger!”
“Food there is being quite substantial, but it is not necessarily entirely healthy. Also there is being one big problem…” I held up a hoof so he knew how important this was. “We are not having money.”
“Yeah, that would be a major problem and we like everyone here too much to pillage them!” We were still walking in the direction of Hayburger anyway, maybe we can be doing some work for food? “Also I don’t care if the food is a bit unhealthy for other people, but for dragons it helps that there’s a lot of calories in fried foods. We tend to burn through all that really quickly.”
“I do eat a lot too, maybe we can help some pony on the way for money?” There was something to be remembered here, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it. I looked at Skelly and then I am remembering how old she is, she is good looking for very old pony. “Oh… when was the last time you ate something Skelly?”
Skelly looked normal, but she is not having eaten anything for many, many years. Rubbing the side of head with her right hoof, Skelly shrugged at us.
“Better question, can she even eat anymore or does she even needs to!” Brother brings up interesting point, can she still enjoy the consumption that living beings do?
She is technically dead or very close to it that it’s hard to tell the difference between the two, unless she returned to being a walking skeleton again.
We were walking through town many ponies gave us a wide berth, mostly because we were traveling strangers.
“Just why, why did this happen to me?” We are stopping at the sound of despair, turning I walked over to a pony bawling his eyes out next to pink painted house.
“What is being the matter?” I asked the brown pony with a cross between a musical note and a wrench on his flank, my brother and Skelly were curious as well.
“I’m Brown Note, Ponyville plumber, I left my home in charge of Ditzy Doo… I knew I should have just asked Derpy Hooves to watch my house or at least Dinky. Even a foal couldn’t have caused a mess this bad. Ditzy painted my house pink inside and out and I don’t think anyone told her to do that, she just painted it all!” The pony whined pitiably. “It’s going to take hours of hard work just to get all of this off of everything, where in the hay did Ditzy even get thirty cans of neon pink paint in less than three days!”
“What if we could do the job in under an hour, would you pay us thirty bits?” Flamberge asked with a bright smile.
“I’d pay just to see how you’d do that, all the paint is already dry!” The poor pony with the green hair and the indigo eyes moaned. “Why does this world always strike me in the butt like this? Is it because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to fixing plumbing installments?”
He is sounded like Jacky, only less upbeat in personality. We would gladly help him!
“Thirty bits for seeing how we’ll do it and thirty bits upon completion eh… okay!” Flamberge turned a smile to me while clapping his claws together and Skelly looked from him to me and back to him.
-Approximately forty nine minutes later-
The last bit of paint peeled away revealing the garish yellow colors of the house, the ponies jaw just dropped.
“How horrible does your friend smell that he can just walk into the room and peel all the paint off with whatever that green ozone he creates is?” Brown looked horrified by my smell. “I don’t even know your names.”
“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” One of my favorite things to do is introduce myself.
“I am Flamberge, the fiercely flammable!” My brother threw his left claw to the sky, he knew better than to pull out the flame sword at least.
“And this is our friend, she is Skelly, the superbly spirited!” We both then introduced our friend. Skelly seemed to be surprised we introduced her too.
“Okay, here’s the other thirty bits and thanks guys.” Brown turned to go to his house.
“Okay, let’s get out of here, quickly!” My brother started walking away at a brisk pace with a bit of panic in his voice.
“Why brother, what is the matter?” There was a sheepish grin on my brother’s face, it had me worried.
“What do you suppose his reaction will be when he eventually figures out that his house now smells a lot like a particularly ‘fragrant’ yak that peeled off all the pink paint on and in his house?” After brother said that, I too picked up the pace and so did Skelly. “Looks like we have enough money for a quick trip by the Hayburger… I wonder if previous employees still get discounts.”
“Agh now my house smells like…!” We were not going to stick around to hear the rest of Brown Note’s tirade, we helped him and we did a good job of sweeping up the peeled paint.
We are being paid, end of that story!
-???, Skelly-
In front of me was the door to the place I used to call home, opening it I walked inside with a bag slung across my back.
I was in the business of helping ponies and my father with all kinds of things. I had a talent for working with limited resources, I can make the most of any situation with very little to work with.
The white braided hair of an evenly parted mane, that calm humming as a pot of soup was stirred and the scent of vegetables boiling into a fine meal at the end of a long day.
The mare with the sky blue fur turned to me, I was quite sure that this was my mother… and I remembered another reason why we lived away from others when I saw what I was looking at.
The sweat dripped from my brow, my body was aching after a long hard day of working with my father. We come home to supper and my mother was waiting... she was a rather beautiful pegasus. She had hidden her wings fairly well when others were around as far as I can remember, but she loved my father and me enough to stay grounded.
She turned her bright pink eyes to me and her smile brightened as she saw her most favorite ponies in the world, she laid the wood ladle off to the side and came to give me a hug with both hooves and wings. As always, she would nuzzle me tenderly and look upon me with love.
It was sad to say that I always had more in common with colts, but I did take great care of my mane and tail. I knew my mother cherished the few feminine traits that I showed and was proud of me even if I came home sweating and or smelling worse than my father did sometimes.
I might not have had my mother’s dainty side, but she still loved me all the same. My parents were loving and kind, even if one of them hid the fact that they had wings and would have been lynched for it.
We soon sat down to a wonderful meal, I could almost remember the taste and smell of warmly cooked food.
The two of them were curious about whether or not I had my eyes on any of the local colts, me being attracted to a stallion wasn’t likely to ever happen then… and it was even less likely to happen now.
I could never be a good wife and I would never bear children…. who would ever love the skeletal monster that I’ve become?
-Flamberge-
“Okay, got the food and I even said hello to a friend!” My words and the slap of the tray against the table made Skelly jolt and fall out of her chair to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Skelly had been zoning out a lot since we defeated that unicorn statue spirit guy thing… Still, I should at least make that offer before diving into the food. I just had to remember that trays are not meant to be eaten this time. “Would you like some food?”
Skelly looked at the tray, the multiple Hayburgers and the fries, she even took a look at the sweet smelling apple turnovers. Methinks she was a little unsure about whether or not she should bother trying to eat.
“Go ahead and try one of the ‘From Tartarus, with love’ hayburgers, I bet you’ll actually taste it even in your state of existence!” I saw that it became a special menu item after Jade named it and I had three of them, two would be enough for me. My brother had two triple hayburgers with cheese and Fry Hard gave us a mountain of potato fries to work through. “Here, let me show you how eating a hayburger is done!”
I unwrapped my hayburger and held it by the wrapper, I bit into it and tore out a hunk with pleasure and started to chew through my mouthful. I slide one of my hayburgers over to her as I thoroughly worked the food over in my mouth, the bean patty inside was charred to perfection.
Oh yeah… the stuff of legends!
-Skelly-
What a strange food, nothing like the soups or salads of days long past, modifiable in the extreme using bread as a serving conduit. Things have advanced greatly since those days of old when villages and communities can grow to such a size as Ponyville.
I saw Fortitude eating his food the same way that Flamberge was and it had different stuff on it.
I wasn’t sure if eating the one Hayburger offered to me was a good idea, but I might as well try.
“You know… it’ll be interesting!” Quirking a white furred ear at the loud dragon, I gave him a curious glance. “If you do eat that and turn back into a skeleton, what do you think will happen to it?! Does it immediately convert into energy or does it fall onto the ground?! Wait, can you even turn back into a skeleton?”
I nodded yes at that last question before picking up and unwrapping the thick mountainous thing before me. It looked so very odd… yet I was willing to try it. If I could feel my heart beat at least once in the past hour or so, then I could at least try to taste something and hope that it didn’t turn to tasteless ashes in my mouth.
I held it up before mouth, closed my eyes and then took a bite… I froze.
“You can’t taste it can you?” I couldn’t answer Flamberge… I was too busy with the cornucopia of flavors spilling into my mouth as if from a mighty waterfall, I could even hear Valkyries singing!
Did the world just get bright or is my mouth full of happy between two slices of bread? I guess that in this state my tongue works somewhat, the flavors were all sharply piercing into my skull and I tried not to let it overwhelm me and then I did something foolish.
I actually chewed the first bite.
As you can imagine the bite was full of flavors, chewing it didn’t make it any better and I was able to taste things. I didn’t know if it would actually do anything for me if I swallowed it.
I guess the only thing that doesn’t work is my sense of smell, which is the one and only thing that was completely dead to me. Flamberge would likely consider me lucky, I couldn’t smell how bad Fortitude was and he changed walls by standing next to them with his smell alone.
“It is being long time since she has had eaten anything. Like with nice pony Rarity and the lovely little blue scarf, you should be giving her time to...” The yak would never finish that sentence as I started chewing vigorously, I swallowed and then took another bite… and another… The Hayburger was quickly disappearing into me and yet I could not feel the weight of it in my stomach. “I am guessing she likes it.”
I glared at him and continued eating it in a ravenous manner. I didn’t care if it didn’t fulfill a need for me, I wanted to eat this! Any taste at all was better than nothingness, I at least wanted to know what it was like to feel alive again and this day was getting pretty good about that!
“Excuse me for a second.” Flamberge got up and went to the counter and started to talk to the pony.
My ravenous devouring of the Hayburger had ceased, mostly because there was no long a hayburger to eat. I started to scrape the wrappings for the flavor of it with the spiritual existence of my tongue, I would not take food from the mouths of my Viking companions or anyone else unless offered.
It didn’t feel filling, but it sure tasted divine at the very least. I’ve missed the idea of eating more than I can ever realize.
“Here you go, I got an extra apple turnover just for you!” Thank you Flamberge. If there was one thing most ponies liked, it was fruit. “Eat it slowly and by that I mean nibble at it, because you’re only getting the one! We’re not made of money you know!”
I nibbled at the thing, it was a decadent dessert and I felt something forming at the corners of my eyes.
“Is she… crying tears of pure magic?” Blinking at Flamberge’s words, I wiped away a bit of blue energy leaking from my eyes and it quickly dissipated into the air. “That’s kind of weird.”
“She is already crying all her tears out, it is making sense as she is not drinking anything for a long time either.” This time Fortitude got up to go get something and he came back with a cup of water. “I think she is crying with her soul… I’d rather she didn’t cry her soul out. Here, drink this Skelly!”
I slowly sipped it down, as if to slake my nonexistent thirst. I didn’t hunger, I didn’t need to breathe and I didn’t need to drink the waters of life.
“Well… all that stuff seems to be going somewhere, let’s hope it’s doing something wherever it ends up!” Flamberge was sweet, as was Fortitude.
They are good friends to meet at the end of a long arduous path.