//------------------------------// // Chapter fifty two, All in All: Heroes. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Airship Mauled, CL hospital, Kuril- I gasped and woke up in a sweat, I felt myself sustaining something. Why was I in the hospital? “Ah you’re awake, how are you feeling Kuril?” I looked to Dr. Bones, she was giving me a worried look. “You gave us quite a scare there, you did.” “What happened?” For some reason the doctor looked surprised as I took up the glass of water she placed at my bedside and drank from it. “You tell me, your eyes must be hurting something smart right about now or at least your head.” Looking at her, yeah my eyes did sting quite a bit and my head was throbbing in pain. “Also you haven’t been taking care of yourself as well as you could have. You need to eat more and stop working yourself into the ground Kuril, it’s unhealthy. I can understand why you’re like this, but I’m not about to let you continue on with this path of self-destructive behavior without an intervention. I am responsible for your health after all you ninny!” “I’m fine Dr. Bones.” I tried to reassure her. “Oh really, then why do you not realize that your eyes are currently bandaged?” What did she just say?! I reached with my right hand quickly, only to be stopped by Dr. Bones when she grabbed my right wrist. “You can feel them, just don’t remove them and tell me the last thing you remember.” She let go of my wrist and I ran my hand over where my eyes were and felt the bandages, there were actually bandages wrapped around my head. “I… was testing a magical alchemy sustain and… it’s still running.” I took a mirror out of my robes and dropped the sustain, my vision immediately dropped into darkness. “There, now I can’t see anything.” “Whatever that sustain does, it overloaded your head with far too much information. Your eyes are fine, aside from some magical backlash related pain, but I’d personally give it a fair shake before you try taking those bandages off.” I heard her moving around and then I felt her squeeze my right hand with a paw. “You gave us all quite a fright there, your live-in friend Fresh was quite inconsolable. Fresh had Mango and Mr. Permanganate carry you in, didn’t rightly know what was wrong with you aside from not eating enough… at least until I saw your eyes glowing when I checked them.” “They were glowing?” I asked tentatively. “Ay, that they were, but now I can easily assume that they are not.” She tightened and changed her grip to my wrist. “Imagine my surprise when you come in showing signs of sensory overload similar to what happens when a unicorn misuses a spell that affects eyesight. Not only can it cause eye strain, it will also cause your incident where you are given too much information to deal with all at once. The next time you use that bit of magical alchemy, make sure your eyes are covered! Apparently you can handle the strain if you are looking through something that’s blocking your vision instead of seeing things with your bare eyes.” I felt Dr. Bones’s breath on my nose as she leaned forward. “Note, I am ordering you to not leave your eyes exposed while doing that again, your head just cannot handle the strain and this could have been far worse!” She growled out in my face. “Do you understand me Kuril? You have people that love and care about you here!” I hurriedly nodded, mostly because I didn’t feel like verbalizing anything at the moment, she then slowly released my wrist and patted my hand. “Good, I’ll have to notify Fresh that... what the… what are you doing here in my hospital rodent, I am clearly busy with a patient at the moment!” Aside from Zen’s aggressive stance, I heard the chattering of a squirrel. That sounded like Ratatoskr, where has he been for so long? “So you finally got a message from those Vikings that keep sending us people from all over the dang place… about time! What took you so long?” I could hear Ratatoskr explaining himself. It sounded like he’s been all over the place trying to find them. Yeah, Airship Mauled had quite a few people that came here from far and wide to join the town. We had some hippogriff families come in recently and a few of them even joined Bracing Knight’s militia. We even got a few families from some weird place named ‘Anywhere But Here’, literally those three words were the name of a town. I thought Airship Mauled was quirky when my… kitten… wanted... I sniffled and felt my cheeks become wet. “Oh great she’s spewing fats from her eyeholes now!” Zen’s words almost made me giggle… almost. “Give me the letter and go on, I’ll make sure she reads it or at least hears its contents!” I hear some chittering and shaking of an envelope or was that Dr. Bones just grabbing it. “Excuse me, but I have a patient to calm down now.” Zen stated as she turned back towards me. “Shoo, off you go you wee little high speed rat you!” I heard some worried sounding squirrel noises and then the sound of Ratatoskr running out of the room. “Nurse Escargot, we need a nice relaxing massage for the patient.” I’m glad we had a good doctor like Zen to look out for all of us, I’m a little less sure about the Kraken for a nurse. “Go easy on her you hear me, I’ll be busy get her some much needed food!” Dr. Bones was a miracle worker and would get me back on my feet soon, I was glad to have her around. She could identify problems that were mundane, mental and magical so easily. She couldn’t exactly cure or heal all those problems personally, but she could identify them and would even recommend someone that could. Zen was right, I had been burying myself in work and sorely needed to relax. To think I just wanted to test what a mirror would do and it put me in the hospital, the effects are still quite interesting though. I wonder what casting it will do… What exactly did I see with my bare eyes that hurt my head this much? I could feel an iron spike slowly burying itself in my skull. The pain started to die away when I felt at least three tentacles flip me over and began to soothingly work my back. -The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start- “I’ll be right with you in a minute sir!” I turned to Wary Berry. “Thanks again for helping me out Wary, you’re my hero!” “Just don’t make me carry too many plates with fruit on them and things will be just fine, just as I know Kuril will be fine.” She put a hoof on my left shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Our town is still growing and we need to help it all we can, especially when the mayor is currently not up to the task. We’re not going to fail our favorite witch now are we?” “Coo…” I turned to look at Snickers, the poor sea turtle dove was still dilapidated looking, but she was stable. Sugar chittered at me and looked rather worried. “Kuril will be fine, Dr. Bones is a professional Sugar.” I turned back to Wary Berry. “She’s the only witch we know Wary.” “Do you need more help to wait the tables?” I turned to see Mr. Permanganate entering the establishment. “I heard about what happened to Kuril and I don’t want to see her business suffer by the lack of able workers now.” “The fruit plantation doesn’t need me watching it twenty four seven, throw me in too.” Came Mango’s voice as he entered the restaurant following Potassium. “Excuse me, but does this establishment… need any help?” I looked over to see an entirely pale pink male hippogriff come in, he was a bit shy looking and he tapped his talons together while looking away from me. He was a scrawny looking guy. “I heard a lot of great things about this place… and I wanted to…” He’s squeakier than Fluttershy is, so adorable! If I could put him to work, I’d pay him based on how well he does. “Sure, do you know how to cook? If not, then be prepared to write down orders while I do all the cooking!” It always surprises me how Airship Mauled, despite its many problems, has so many people coming out of nowhere that were willing to help. The hippogriff shook his head that he didn’t know how to cook, I tossed a notepad to the hippogriff and he freaked out for a few seconds before catching it. I was going to be Kuril’s hero today even if it killed me, to think I started out as a lowly mild mannered maid. I was still practically a lowly mild mannered maid… one that was willing, but unable to run a restaurant all by myself on top of my cleaning duties and caring for Kuril. I missed all the traveling kids just as badly as Kuril did. Going back into the kitchen, I quickly finished up the next order. The fact that Kuril could keep going for so long was amazing, I was sad that I didn’t notice exactly how stressed she was. She had been doing so much paperwork lately, whether it was for a resident looking for housing, someone wanting her to officiate a marriage, keeping tabs on her restaurant’s income and so much more. I wondered when she found the time to actually cook the food she’s known for when she was always so busy. She did so much, even when she was hurting. To find her laying on the floor like that almost made my heart stop completely. “Thank you for helping me out guys.” I said weakly to my friends and the purple eyed newcomer who offered his assistance as I placed a plate before him. “Order Up! Take this plate of strawberry waffles and doughnuts, filled with blackberry filling, to table ten over there!” The hippogriff cowered slightly and then carefully did as I asked. “It is no problem Fresh. I could be working on a formula on my health products, I could be helping Mango with the fruit fields or I could even be teaching some wonderful science lessons to anyone who would listen.” He closed his eyes and chuckled before he looked to me. “Though I currently find myself with a lot of free time and this restaurant is quite important to not only our mayor, but to the many wonderful visitors that come through here now. That fire may have been the heart of our town, but it wasn’t the heart of the people like our Mayor Kuril!” Quite a few of our customers cheered in agreement, though that ever burning fire was still sorely missed. The signs Kuril placed around the circle, to prevent anyone from bothering that particular spot outside, were fairly effective. Those that came to live here learned the story and wouldn’t dare light a fire there. Only Jaded was allowed to do that and we supported Kuril in making sure nobody else tried. I sent Potassium to place an order at table seven. “I agree with Potassium, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing right now than helping out here Ms. Start.” Mango came back into the kitchen with me. “What do you need me to do? You know I’m good with drinks.” “Get me some peach flavored coffee, three sugars.” As I worked, Mr. Liquid Refreshment immediately got to work on making me my requested coffee. “I’m really going to need it today.” “That was a long trip…” A roughed up Bracing Knight stumbled in looking quite battered. “Are you okay Bracing?” Bracing took up a seat and slapped her head to the nearby counter, her ears flicked toward me telling me that I still had her attention. “You look a little roughed up, why your mane and tail are practically all over the place!” “You should see the other guys…” The mare mumbled into the wood. “We made sure no giant monsters are going to bother us anytime soon. We routed some myrmekes, then bear ants, the owl bears afterwards were just horrific and the Ursa Minor didn’t help us at all while we were fighting back to back against the owl bears! Not only that, there were also bashing bull bears and of course the most famous creatures of all in those woods… THOSE… DARN… DROP BEARS! It is quite sufficient to say I hate the Barely Bearable Woods with the passion of a thousand moons, blessed be Luna! Anyway the mutant hogs are still plain unstoppable and vicious little beasts, there’s nothing we can do about them aside from not talking about them. I want…” “You can’t say those woods don’t live up to their name though. Another coffee, as strong as you can make it… double…” I interrupted. Looking at Bracing, I could see the cracked veins in her eyes. “Triple… no… quadruple shot it Mango, she’s had a really rough time and deserves a decent boost!” “On it!” Mango set about the kitchen to get that coffee for our slightly mangled militia mare of the moon priests that swore to protect our town. “Thank… you…” Bracing, after a moment of calm, eventually sat up quickly. She looked highly alert about something. “Where’s Kuril?!” “She’s fine, but she needs a relaxing stay at the hospital, Dr. Bones is already on it and her staff will likely be on top of all the other patients coming in.” I turned to the new help. “Fried eggs, large hash brown and a side of ketchup table three!” The hippogriff was immediately off with the order and serving it to our customers. I notice them giving the guy a few bits. “You can keep the tips if you get any!” I seemed to have surprised the hippogriff, he smiled faintly and nodded to me with his beak pressed into his chest. -Helping Hoof, Grace- “Hello Grace, can I bother you for another bottle of milk?” I looked up at Mr. Veles, he wasn’t really a bad guy despite wanting to kidnap cows and steal their milk. I certainly didn’t mind giving him my milk freely. “Yours is probably the sweetest by far.” “Why thank you! I’ll give you some more, please remember to return the bottle Mr. Veles. I am not made of glass you know!” I said pleasantly and a bit sternly. “Why are you disguised as a scaled pony with fire for a mane and tail, but the mane is where the tail is and vice versa, also are your eyes fused together? That’s a rather unique look.” “Why indeed… you’re also not made of money grace, but I still appreciate you. Let’s just say I’ve just been watching your niece. I might even help push her in the right direction when she needs a clue and she’s actually becoming a real super cow… one with the power of invisible udders! So… very… miniscule…” He shudders a bit while sticking out his tongue, then smiles at me in a friendly manner. “Unfortunately for her, Perun has someone under his patronage running around that given area. I’m staying well enough away for now, oh and thanks for noticing my glitching pony look!”