-The Volcano, Middle Tier, Huoshan Hospital, Arizona-
“You might never walk again.” As soon as the doctor finished saying that out loud, I burst out laughing. “I’m serious, you might never fight again.”
That second part is what got Velvet and Paprika started, we were all in tears because it was hilarious that he thought ripping up the muscles in my forelegs would really stop me. Didn’t stop me when I messed up my whole body previously in the same manner.
“Do you remember when I did the first mach attack fluff butt?” I asked Velvet with a smile. “My hoof ignited at the end of the attack when I hit that large Salamander in the face.”
“Only this time you ignited it at the start of your attack and you punched straight through my snowflake barrier. I barely got up my igloo barrier in time.” Velvet was trying to calm down, but she couldn’t stop the fit of giggling fits we were all currently experiencing as she turned to the doctor. “If you don’t think Arizona will ever fight again after a ‘minor’ injury like this, then you really don’t know us very well at all.”
“She tore apart all the muscles throughout her forelegs, are you sure you’re married?” The doctor was completely skeptical, he had little reason to be. Velvet and I fought like a married couple, Paprika preferred openly affectionate gestures. “I thought that as her wives that you would be more worried about her health and would take this information seriously. It’s amazing that she could even hug you as hard as she has managed.”
“Oh we’re taking it seriously alright, with exactly a single grain of salt. Sweetcakes will know what to do with that.” Velvet stated merrily. “Paprika, be a dear and check over Arizona to see if you need to rub her muscles back into order. Our wife has an impressive natural regenerative quirk that makes her quite hard to keep down.”
Paprika ducked down out of sight and came back up at the side of the bed wearing a white hat with a red cross and fake antlers on it. I rolled my eyes as Paprika started to rub at my legs gently, then she began poking and prodding them oddly.
“I didn’t mean dear as in D E E R, I meant D E A R love.” Even as she said it Velvet was giggling a bit, even as she held an ice pack to her head. “Honestly, you’re so silly…”
“Meep?” Queried Paprika flicking her ears in my direction.
“Nah, still numb.” I answered.
“That’s also another thing I’m going take issues with.” The doctor seemed a little high strung, he should relax like what Paprika is doing to my left leg as she gently ran her hooves over it and prodded it a few times until I could start actually feeling it. It was painful, but not ‘Jaded’ levels of ridiculously painful that you’ll just have to tolerate beyond all reason. “All she says is ‘meep’, that is not even a language! It is a single noise, she doesn’t even add variance to how she says it and it is always the same every time! How can you decipher anything from your wife when that is the only thing she does aside from hugging and snuggling everything that moves?!”
“Oh come now, Paprika does not cuddle everything that moves… though she will eventually get around to doing that eventually. She has yet to actually achieve the feat in question and it would be an exaggeration to say that she has and it is the only things she’ll cuddle, she’ll also cuddle things that don’t move and might have seemingly moved at some point. Though hugging a cherufe still covered in lava was not one of her best moments, she still did it and recovered from the incident.” It was things like this that made Velvet worth being married to. “Besides, just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of it. That said… meep.”
Paprika threw a salute as she poked my leg and I jolted and started to move around my left foreleg and even flexed my hoof. She ran off to carry out Velvet’s rather precise orders.
“Okay my left foreleg is working and I can walk out on this.” I said waving said leg at the longma doctor who just stared at it with disbelief. “I can feel it and everything, like a mild case of hypothermia or backlash from my own attacks were going to stop me! Sure it currently feels like its being dipped in boiling water, but that’ll go away in a few days at best.”
“How did she do that?! There is no possible way she could have gotten you’re nervous system back in working order just by prodding your leg!” Almost didn’t have the heart to tell him that Paprika knew what she was doing with us when it came to our health, I think Paprika could even teach Pom a few things and that might go far better than forcing her through combat exercises.
I slowly faded the doctor’s rant out of my mind, he wasn’t saying anything important and Velvet would get my attention if he did.
Our cute wife needs to do something as personal time instead of focusing all her efforts on us. She’s sweet and all, but I fear Paprika will run herself into the ground eventually. That’s even if doing stuff for us makes her inexorably happy, we should start doing more nice things for her instead of taking too much advantage of her love for us.
Paprika was technically certified as a nursemaid given how many little brothers and sisters she has, that and she knew a few really good shiatsu techniques. Explains why she knew exactly where to hit Velvet in the kidney to do the least amount of damage while stunning her. Paprika was quite talented and special, perhaps a little ‘too’ special sometimes.
Paprika’s parents might only get a week to themselves once a year, but they certainly always made the most of it. Alpacas naturally don’t do the thing while a hembra is pregnant, makes me wonder if Paprika would be less affectionate if we ever find a way to put a cria or two in her.
Judging how Pepper Paca treated her husband and how many children they have, I don’t think we could stop Paprika from loving us any less than she does and giving her children would give her other things to focus on. Otherwise Paprika was going to be insatiable in her absolute need to give us affectionate gestures.
We had some good in-laws that knew how to love, I can accept Kuril if Velvet will accept Grace and I don’t see why she wouldn’t. As for Paprika’s father Tamale, that guy was a legendary Macho. I kind of thought it was cool that the male term for an alpaca was the word macho.
Maybe Ollie and Fred take requests? I didn’t know how she fights, yet, but being one of the key bearers meant Ollie was pretty much guaranteed to be incredibly tough on some scale.
Paprika eventually popped up with two plastics sacks in her mouth and she had three large spoons and one tiny one for Tinsel. Tinsel took his spoon and seemed to vibrate in place as he waited for what was coming.
Like Velvet, Tinsel might incidentally be picking up her well known addiction to certain types of food.
“Really Velvet?” I stated as I watched Paprika produce two tubs of ice cream, one was strawberry cheesecake and the other was rocky road. Velvet immediately had the rocky road in her hooves and started going to town for vacation and an extended stay.
“Well excuse me if I’m running a mild fever after using up so much ice, my body temperature is high and I need to cool it down somehow!” By ingesting massive amounts of ice cream, did Velvet ever stop to consider why I considered fluff butt to be an applicable insult for her? “These ice packs are only working externally, I need to cool down my insides as well!”
“I would say no to this, but you’ve already consumed a quarter of the ice cream.” Yeah, the doctor wasn’t happy about how fast Velvet was going through the ice cream as soon as it was within her hooves.
“Slow down Velvet!” So much for me getting any rocky road with her hogging it all, I liked the strawberry cheesecake flavor anyway. “I know ice cream is one of your vices, basically your major one, but you could at least savor it!”
Only Tinsel had a chance of getting some rocky road at this point, because only he could be adorable enough to get some off of Velvet.
I dug into the ice cream tub that didn’t occupy Velvet’s attention as I waited for Paprika to get the feeling back in my right foreleg. That was going to take a bit of doing for Paprika considering I used my right foreleg far harder than when I did it with my left.
Sure ropes may help prevent me from burning my hooves due to the friction backlash, but it doesn’t help my muscles when I actually hit something or throw out my hoof at thin air hard enough to sprain something.
I could almost practice mach attacks all I like as long as I don’t hit anything, it’s just too bad I can’t shoot fireballs out of my hooves doing this like Tianhuo probably could with half the effort. The pressure waves I fire would have to be powerful enough on their own.
-Different room, Jacky-
“There we go, now can we leave?” I wanted to get into the temple of dark flames as soon as possible, I would certainly need Gene for it. He could be my eyes if I didn’t qualify as an honorable enough fighter in the eyes of the mountain.
“You might want to have Sweetcakes finish healing his chest, but Gene should be good to go otherwise.” The female longma suggested and I knew where our next stop would be.
Sweetcakes was healing most of the fighters and the longma were hiring them for a disaster that’s likely not related to me. Whatever Teatime was going to do, he was going to have problems with all the supplementary elements in the city being hired by the Huoshan Guard.
Of the fighters hired, Jock Hawk wasn’t one as he was on the watch list for his interactions with Shocking Awe and he disappeared as soon as he could walk. That guy is joining those GODLESS agents, of that I have no doubt. Jock obviously has a big grudge against Arizona and something to prove, not a good combinations for a friendly rivalry.
“Right, come on Gene, let’s get you up and moving.” I put his left foreleg around my left shoulder and lifted him off the bed. I almost dropped him and his weight slammed down on top of me. “Ow…”
“Give me a moment Captain.” I could hear the loving tone in his voice where no one else would be able to.
“Come on Gene, I’ll be your crutch as long as you’ll be mine.” The tiny smile on his beak made me smile as well.
“We’re more than crutches for one another Jacky.” He said softly. “Now we have to get back to the treasure hunting.”
“Music to my hearing holes.” I said as I helped him out of the room.
-Lower Tier, Tavern, Flotsam-
“I… am so… sorry!” After the tavern brawl, I was a little surprised how well I held myself. Not having rear legs was an advantage even if I couldn’t buck people in the face.
I didn’t think this place was enough of a bar that incidentally knocking over a chair would cause such a large fight. At least Tianhuo protected Pom quite viciously, so there was some success there.
As for the friend of Gene’s brothers… Skelly was sitting on a pile of groaning bodies drinking from a bottle of alcohol to no ill effect at all. Given her state of existence, of which I would never wish to experience personally, she was unlikely to be affected by a large number of things.
“I accept your apology fully knowing what I do, now if only I wasn’t so disturbed by the act of a spirit drinking spirits.” You know Tianhuo, I don’t think Skelly could actually get drunk and is probably enjoying the alcohol for the flavor. The bottle was labeled pure honey mead and Vikings in general had a thing for the stuff. “Are you okay Pom?”
If I ever stopped being a pirate, I wanted to be a history teacher. I enjoyed learning all about various cultures and the histories behind their legends.
Skelly’s cutie mark was still working no matter her given appearance, which is strange considering the magical talent had to be tied to her spirit and not her body. The meaning behind her cutie mark was something that I had looked up.
The library… of course! A nice quiet place where Tianhuo and Pom can have a little bit of peace to bond. It was also a place where Tianhuo might not be interrupted by the guards or any local crime.
“I-I-I’m fine…” The cowering Pom squeaked out, she had five knocked out beings around her. One of them was a minotaur. I didn’t see what happened, but I’m beginning to believe that Arizona and Velvet might have a point about her not fully living up to her capabilities. “I’m more worried about my beasties though…”
Pom’s whole slew of familiars were out and about with the Huoshan Guard, they’d be getting treats for doing good work. Big Mama’s puppies were all being watched by Belfry.
I bet it has been a long time since Pom has been on her own like this and we were going to make this evening… evening… oh no!
I turned to Skelly and watched as the sun stopped filtering into the room and Skelly’s flesh disappeared much to the shock of the various patrons who stayed out of the fight. Said patrons were likely betting on the fight and a few of them were Huoshan Guards.
“Nobody panic!” Everyone froze at Tianhuo’s shout when someone was about to scream. “Skelly, as an honored general and guest from Minos, If you would calmly sit down at the table I will gladly take care of this mess before it gets started.”
Hearing Tianhuo’s stressed words, the guards in the room nodded and immediately relaxed while eyeing the other patrons.
Skelly just shrugged, paid for the bottle she was drinking from and then sat down at a table next to Pom.
“I’m sorry about all this Pom, but I have a few things I need to deal with first. Please sit down and enjoy the hospitality of our wondrous home.” Tianhuo was sorrier that she couldn’t spend time with Pom, I could tell, but she was quite thoroughly chained to her duty. At least she had admirable traits for Pom to appreciate.
“I don’t think this is going so well big sis.” Nefer stated from my back, I turned and patted my brother on the head with my right hoof.
“It’ll be okay Nefer, I think things will work out.” We sat down with our new friends and started to eat slightly cooled dumplings.