//------------------------------// // Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the mountain. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The Volcano, Middle Tier, outside the hospital, Fortitude- “That… was very awkward. Are you okay Skelly?” I received a nod from her, she was looking quite shy about all this. I would choose to believe in Skelly saying she was alright. “Does this mean that Skelly is my mom now?” Nefer asked in a half innocent manner. “No Nefer, Skelly isn’t your mom now.” Many would agree with Flotsam on this, because I certainly did too. -Corner of the square, Savannah- “So, that situation taken care of… what were the casualties before I head off to bed on The Ardent Survivor?” I didn’t do nearly as much fighting, because I was helping out at the palace and keeping people calm. I still took down a few golem ponies personally. I turned away from the awkwardness that was currently surrounding Skelly the living skeleton pony, the air was so thick with embarrassment that you could cut it with a knife. Usually I’m the one embarrassing people or giving vague commentary about what I’ve been up to, as far as interesting goes my life is perfectly fine. “I’m surprised someone from your three groups finally asked, to think that it was you of all people.” Knowing Tianhuo didn’t like me, I held my tongue and just gave her a weak smile. “If you must know Huoshan might become a dormant volcano, maybe even permanently to just become another mountain. The biggest casualty in all this is losing the heat of our home. No citizens were reported missing, many of the Huoshan Guard a severely injured after pushing their bodies roughly all night and I’m being sent away instead of helping in the rebuilding because of this. We don’t know about the number of guests we had when the attack started, but we’re quite sure we got everyone out of the lower tier before it was completely decimated. The infrastructure of the entire city is a total mess though and it’s going to take a lot of time for the homeless to get rooves over their heads. There’s not much to celebrate.” Tianhuo held up the scaly looking key with two flaming wings at the handle and three scales as teeth at the other end, it was an intricate piece of art that’s for sure. That it could save the world left me somewhat skeptical, but Jacky believed it could and she was right about The Volcano being a somewhat living entity. “Well…” I was quickly cut off before I got started. “It doesn’t help that the hospital is entirely flooded with our defenders and there will soon be one less longma to patrol the streets… also I don’t think Dragon Lord Torch is happy that we let his daughter be captured and threatened. He’s currently talking with our emperor and empress and I don’t know what he’ll do, we are under the dragons rule and we can’t turn to Celestia for help unless we want equestrian citizenship and ponies have a mild case of racism to everything that’s not part of their perfect little world.” Yikes, Tianhuo was taking being ordered to help Arizona’s group pretty hard and that was reinforced when Jacky slapped the key into her hoof. “It’s funny that one of my cousins is a Wonder Bolt and it’s hard to tell that she even has a hint of dragon in her. Her hairstyle is a pretty big giveaway as to her heritage even if she can’t ignite being a pegasus, apparently her lineage can be traced back to when the story of Flash Magnus was said to have occurred more than a thousand years ago. My home is a mess and so am I, I can feel the pain in the air.” “You almost got yourself killed at the gates.” I stated bluntly and she cringed. “You held that position long enough for the lower tier to be evacuated almost all by yourself. For a local hero, you sure are being a big downer here. I think someone of your caliber would at least suck it up… and tell Pom that you at least like her.” After suck it up, I started talking faster, her response should be… “I don’t feel like sucking it up, because I’m leaving behind everything that I’ve worked hard… wait, what?!” I’ve confused her good, now to keep her off balance. “You should really think about who are you going to leave in charge while you’re gone, they have to be at least as strong if not stronger than you. I thought you longma were all about discipline given combat training is something all longma go through, though it kind of drops off with civilian life you guys never lose your fighting spirit because even the civilians were out and about aiding the guard with the evacuation.” I was watching the evacuation at the palace, as a last line of defense and everything. Would have likely gotten chewed up by the metal dog-goyles that attacked us back in Saddle Arabia if the situation hadn’t turned around like it did. “That aside, what is your interest in Pom? Come on, sit and talk with me, maybe it’ll help you sort your head out. You really need to take a deep breath and move forward my friend.” Tianhuo shivered as if she had heard the words about taking a deep breath before. She just looked at me blinking with wide unseeing frightened eyes, between a blink they turned red and then back to orange. I flipped her mind and it was so easy to do so, hopefully she’ll get herself back into gear soon and talk to me. “I… didn’t use to be a very good person.” Tianhuo sat down next to me after I patted a spot on the ground. We were in a corner, it was quiet and nobody else was listening. Everyone else was too busy to stop and listen to a tired and bedraggled hero that needed sleep after a long night. I was basically the shrink for our little crew and a number of people that I’ve spent some wonderful nights with. This would be a good talk for Tianhuo. “I was always angry that I couldn’t even ignite a single flicker of flame, suffice it to say I didn’t quite get the spirit of my people at the time and things were … rough. I eventually learned a lesson about being responsible for my actions and not that of others. Now I’ve become one of many responsible for protecting Huoshan.” “There! You said one of many, so you aren’t alone in that and you had a longma and reindeer come rescue you at the gates while you were quickly faltering. You are not an island Tianhuo and you’ve obviously made a lot of friends in the guard given that one went to the effort of rescuing you when you were imperiled and burning out. Though I can see that you try not to impose on anyone too much thanks to your past trauma.” I steeple my claws and leaned closer to her. “Now explain to me what has you so attentive of Pom. You seem attracted to her like she was the flame and you’re the moth. I’d hate to tell you this honey, but shouldn’t you be the flame?” “This is a pep talk isn’t it? Fine, Pom not only reminds me of myself, but she comes off as lonely despite having many around her that want to be friends with her… they all want her to be strong. I think I’m the only one that wants to let her be weak as she wants to be. It remains to be seen whether that’s a bad thing.” Nobody could be strong forever Tianhuo and you clearly gazed into my eyes knowing that fact. “She’s soft, cute, sweet and cuddly. A lambkin is not exactly made for combat and if she is the key bearer for the lambkin, then it’s a pretty bad sign that she might not survive the sealing of the shadow horde. Female lambkin are not supposed to be as strong as she is naturally without any training, I think she’s also supernaturally tough from having so many familiars bonded to her. If someone were to rip those familiars bonds from her whether by taking her or her familiars out well… I don’t want her to get hurt. It doesn’t help that she looks so innocent.” “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you made a promise to yourself to protect the weak and Pom is both weak and strong at the same time. As confusing as that is for you, you like Pom because she can stand to keep going every day despite all her protests with saying that she’d rather be leading a nice, quiet and ultimately comfortable life. That she would be doing anything other than fighting, yet she has shown that she’s far more courageous than anyone is likely giving her credit for.” I shook my head and smiled at the thought. “She’s not subtle about it, but she likes having friends and she absolutely loves what she calls her beasties. That dog sheep might not have a quiet and comfortable life like she wants, but she’d do anything to help her friends even if it is dangerous. She’s quite far outside her comfort zone and away from her quite idyllic grassy homeland. She takes comfort where she can get it as she’s a square peg hoping that a round hole will eventually widen large enough for her to go through it and find herself.” “Yes, I can see that much.” Tianhuo mumbled. “Any other words of wisdom oh wise one?” The sounds of crying and despair were there, but everyone was quickly finding their feet or hooves on the unsteady ground as kind words were given and the people of this city started coming together like Palicoast came together for Kuril. They were all actually going to do something about what happened to their home and hopefully no one would go hungry tonight, a few were attempting to roughly lighten the mood and there certainly wasn’t enough Paprika to go around here at the moment. Goodness knows that affectionate alpaca was trying though, she had a smile on her face and a hug in her heart for everyone. Now if only Velvet and Arizona would let me teach her the ropes, both literal and figurative. Time to drop something I’ve recently figured out on Tianhuo. “So are you ever going to tell Pom you were a bully?” There was a dead silence and we could hear the meandering of the local citizenry being fed by quickly made soup kitchens for those that are now homeless in the distance. “If you talk with Pom, the first thing you should tell her is your story. Maybe it’ll be an inspiration to her, maybe she’ll tell you hers and you’ll find some common ground. You could probably get Pom some medical books and teach her how to become a combat medic, get her interested in helping and healing more than her beasties whenever they get hurt or scratched up. Look over there and tell me she wouldn’t be a good nurse.” I pointed a claw and Tianhuo turned to look at Pom discussing something with Sweetcakes and pointing to her menagerie, the fox passed her a medical kit and keeled over from being near a literal form of dead tired. She had expended a massive amounts of energy and couldn’t heal anything. Pom then went about cleaning, bandaging and helping the wounds of her many canine companions that got injured protecting her, the city and the four puppies she had gotten through the mess without many injuries to speak of. She got the Canis Major she called Big Mama to lift a paw and she tended to it so calmly, she looked quite happy to see that all of her beasties were alright as she wrapped the injured leg with a bandage. She kept sending glances at Mr. Birch as if expecting him to explode into a conflagration. Given that he was a wolf made of wood, it was quite a surprise to see that he hadn’t burnt up from the heat yet. His leaves were wilted and his many branches didn’t look so good, but he seemed to be staying strong just for the lambkin’s sake, he probably needed water. Nefer went over to Mr. Birch with a bucket of water and presented it to him, the wolf licked Nefer’s face and then ducked its entire face in the bucket to absorb the water out of it. “I think I will go over there and assist Pom and maybe open up a little.” Tianhuo bowed deeply to me. “Savannah… I thank you for your time.” She then slowly walked over to the lambkin currently tending to her flock. I decided to go pick up some extra supplies for The Ardent Survivor, couldn’t have nearly enough with Jacky’s luck and we were heading out for Moss Cow soon. First we had to quickly pillage Teatime’s ship and then come back here to pick up Tianhuo once we were done. -Middle tier, destroyed airship docks, Gene- “Jacky, how long do you think we’ve delayed him for?” I wanted to get my proposal back into Jacky’s talons after all. “Long enough, depending on how the ship destroyer part of my luck went.” She was leaning against some railing as she looked at the massive piles of rubble that was the lower tier. Then the railing decided to break off, but I was expecting that and pulled Jacky against my beating heart. “Saw that coming did you? Even I could have.” Yet Jacky still did it, I wondered if she wanted me to pull her close like this. “We’ll take a few hours to nap and then we’ll set out. If we do this fast enough we can get Arizona’s group to Moss Cow and be in Turtle Toga before it moves too far away from the position it’ll be in over the course of this next week.” -Airship Mauled, Kuril- “I wonder if Fortitude and Flamberge made more friends, those boys are always doing good work out there. I know we’re going to hear an interesting story from this one.” I hadn’t unwrapped my eyes, but I was saving doing that for one special occasion I only glimpsed in the myriad of things I saw within the painful looking glass. “My heart is still heavy, but the people here need me… and my food, can’t come here without me giving a grand meal as that would be rude. It will all come from this lovely witch, I have enough in me to smile today with the barest twitch.” “Fresh Start, leave the kitchen to me today for I’m not sleeping, I’m actually in the mood to cook and I tire of weeping.” I couldn’t let myself get rusty, plus I needed to keep up with my paperwork. I wasn’t about to let it pile up, our town was still growing. “Of course Kuril!” I could tell she was smiling in my direction. I tried to perk up and be hopeful, there was still chance of a bright future. It wouldn't be long after this day that some of the dots started to travel together in a big clump, they eventually ended up in Moss Cow. From there they fully split. I could only imagine the amazing adventures they were having.