//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Pitch. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Approaching Buffalo Trading Site, Kuril- “What are the alpacas we’re meeting like?” At least I knew we weren’t that far from home. We took the train from Airship Mauled to Appleloosa, made our way northwest from there to a large campsite full of trading booths. Like the Rainbow Falls Trader’s Exchange, several groups gathered here together in buffalo territory to trade for goods. It was mostly the alpaca tribe who were stopping in to share many things with the buffalo tribe that they picked up in their travels, ponies were recently added to the trading meet going on here. Our guide, whose name was Little Strongheart, was happy to lead us here. In particular she was looking forward to seeing a rather peppy stallion named Braeburn. “Well, all alpacas are exceptionally friendly, with very few exceptions. Their fluffmancers are rather dangerous to make angry, but they will start off with completely nonlethal actions until you start pushing things a bit too far.” The buffalo girl looked to be a sweet, if strong, buffalo that was quite knowledgeable about the region and the nomadic alpacas we were attempting to get into contact with. “If what you’re looking for is either odd, unique or homemade, then you’ll likely find it here. Just know that the alpaca tend to not speak up much unless it is absolutely important or the situation requires them to. If their pupils turn into hearts, then you are doomed to be followed by an alpaca for the rest of your natural life.” “Why?” Asked a curious Daring. Daring had gotten back on her hooves in record time. Dr. Bones gave Daring Do a prescription of pills to take if she ever went or was coerced into deep water diving again. “Mostly since they have the ability to tell when they are looking at someone they can form a strong love with. An alpaca almost never goes wrong when it comes to finding love. It’s actually the other things that are the real problem, some alpacas have quite a personality to them.” It was a little odd that Little Strongheart hadn’t even batted an eye at Maries once and yet she shivers about an alpaca following her around for life. Given Maries came with us and tended to snuggle up to Fizzle a lot, it seemed she certainly didn’t have a problem with interspecies relationships. “We’re here.” Ahead of us were a ton of alpacas, with cute little fluffy cria that were running to and fro playfully with both buffalo calves and pony foals. They were so adorable. The older alpacas were silently bartering with the buffalo who were also, respectfully enough, silently conversing with them through various gestures. The only ones being verbal were the ponies that were included in this gathering as trade deals were being made. “So any suggestions on who we should talk to about some information?” Fizzle looked at the several cria that came over to us, mostly to curiously gaze at Maries. They eventually started nuzzling up against them affectionately. “To be honest, my first impressions of the cria is that they aren’t exactly the brightest beings around.” “Eh, they are safe enough here, somebody would have to be quite desperate to start something. If it’s legends you’re looking for, then you might want to try the Paca family. I think I see them setting up over there.” After pointing out the direction the family vaguely was in, Little Strongheart was distracted by something or should I say someone. “Excuse me, I’ve got something to do. I’m sure you guys can take things from here anyway, hey Braeburn!” The guy looked like a nice enough stallion and Little Strongheart was as far from shy as possible given her manner of directly approaching the guy with no hint of fear or hesitation. We instead chose to head towards the indicated booth that was being run by a pair of adult alpacas, next to their booth was a number of cria plying an older alpaca for snow cones with freshly pulped fruit juice. “Excused me.” I said, trying to get the attention of the alpaca pair looking into each other’s eyes lovingly. “We have a few questions we would like ask.” The female nodded jovially, but she held out her legs in then gestured at us with her head to come get a hug. Apparently they were willing to trade in snuggles and I had nothing against that, given I was already getting drawn into a powerful hug with my daughter. “This is my daughter Fizzle, my name is Kuril La Perm and might I say you are really nice to hug.” The motherly alpaca giggled and eventually released us. “This is Fizzle’s partner Maries, Mara, Maria and Marie. This is a friend of ours named Daring Do that we’re helping.” The male alpaca made a gesture asking about what we needed. “Does ‘circle of the ancient alpacas’ mean anything?” There was a pause as the two alpacas looked at each other, then they made several quick hard to follow gestures. The female eventually snorted and flicked an ear, the male nodded. The female alpaca proceeded to draw a staff shape that tapered off to a point on the ground. I nodded to her given the shape was quite familiar. A rounded knob top that spiraled outwards and then inwards in a small spiral that went into a being a straight pole that tapered off to a point. “Yes, we have that right here.” I reached over my shoulder and pulled the strange metallic thing out from under my robe and off of my back. “We brought it because it might be important, we don’t exactly know what this is.” The female alpaca gestured to the male in a shooing motion and he went off, then she held her hoof out in a patient waiting manner. I placed the staff thing into her waiting hoof and she gripped it, turned it vertical and planted it in the ground to wait. Eventually, an old smiling gray furred alpaca with thick eyebrows that hid his eyes and a goat like beard slowly came over to us being led by the younger male. The old alpaca was wearing a cloak with a fancy looking clasp and he inspected the staff object with his small spectacles for a bit, he looked to all of us and seemed to silently judge us for a few moment. When the female alpaca wiggled her rump excitedly, the elder nodded and made a sharp downward motion to stomp the ground lightly with his right hoof. The female alpaca raised the metallic staff, then brought it down to smash the top of it against the ground. Bits of the staff like object shattered and scattered across the ground, these sharp bits were quickly swept up in the male alpaca’s extending fur that gathered every single bit of it in an instant. So that’s what a fluffmancer in action looks like. “What the… why did you…” Fizzle was cut off when she saw something among the shards on the ground. There was a strange glittering long crystal that had four branching spikes sticking out of it, the old one picked it up and passed it off to the male alpaca. The next thing the elder alpaca did was remover the clasp and pass it to the female, his fur shifted and now his cloak was held by two braids of grey fur tied in a cute bow. “Let us guess, circle of the ancient alpacas?” The elder nodded to Maries question and took both the crystal and the ring like clasp, he put the crystal into the ring like clasp and twisted it ever so slightly with careful grace. There was a click and his circular clasp now held the elongated crystal, he held it out to us and I looked at the staff like thing that had been eel like or was it eye like? Well it had look vaguely eye like before it was smashed and the crystal was at the center of it. “I kind of wanted to keep the staff thing… I kind of liked it…” I tapped my index claws together looking a bit sheepish as I stood there with my tail and ears wilted. My chin was lifted up by the elder’s left hoof as he stood on stilts of fur and he then patted me on the cheek softly. The elder quickly turned to the male and female alpacas, who were definitely a very loving couple given all the cria around us. He pointed to the less than magical staff and the pieces of the broken top being held by the fatherly alpaca. He motioned to me and made several gestures, the motherly alpaca passed the staff to the adult male and off he went with it. The elder alpaca turned back to me with a bright smile and waved a hoof, he motioned to the nearby pot and smiled towards me with an unspoken challenge on his lips. The mother alpaca brought her hooves together and held them at the side of her head while making a few humming noises of appreciation. “I make enough food that everyone can enjoy and I earn the staff?” At my question, the elder nodded succinctly. I was used to Blade’s inability to talk, so I was quickly picking up their cues and gestures quite quickly. “What about the crystal thing?” He held it out to us and tilted his head, he nodded to us with a warm smile. “We just take it, no jumping through crazy hoops or anything for it?” It seemed a little odd to Fizzle and the rest of us that he was just giving us his clasp and the crystal found in the odd staff thing. The elderly alpaca just simply nodded and pushed it into her hooves. “Are we seriously staying for dinner mom?” “I suppose.” I answered. -Caper Spinosa the Elderly- I have seen much in life, my body has become quite frail with time and my fur is what keeps me supported these days. Finally the circle has been given to some worthy seekers. I can tell they have been quite far and wide, the Pegasus most of all as she is the most traveled of this bunch. A unicorn with a broken horn and a loving chimera that sends her affectionate gestures with each individual head every now and then, it’s nice to see young love is still as weird as it ever is. Still not nearly as weird as our Paprika finding a reindeer and cow as soul mates, she was quite happy to have two to dote on as her love for the world was quite vast and nearly endless. It seems, we were going to have a good meal this day. We have heard much of this ‘witch of good taste’ from Paprika Paca’s loves as they visited our place in the north several years back. The rumors we’ve continued to hear about her had better live up to our expectations and we expected much. This witch seems like such a nice Abyssinian, tonight Pepper Paca will be able to relax and rest for a while and I will share in a meal with their family. We shall see what she does with our tongues. Unfortunately for these poor folks, we tend to get a bit cuddlier given that we are having some rather nice guests to sup with. Given that Pepper’s cria have gathered to see what was going on… heh, heh… Our tribe would continue to flourish with the friends and massive families we make along the way. -Kuril- The female alpaca lunged and gathered Maries up in a cuddle and the gathering of cria started to snuggle us into submission, Fizzle couldn’t fight them as they were quite capable of swamping us with affection. Even Daring was a little caught off guard, but she wasn’t about to get rough with a bunch of cria for being overly affectionate. I got swiftly dragged into this cuddles swiftly by the smugly smiling male alpaca, the cria were just too adorable to not hug back. -Hours later- They emptied the cauldron and all the sides I made for them, how much food does this one family of alpacas go through in a week?! Did cria from other families eat with them? It’s little wonder that they traveled around far and wide, they probably wouldn’t have been able to ship in enough food by sitting in one place and I’m now quite certain that they taught the cria how to forage for food in the wild. Dessert was apparently, and thankfully at that, made by the older son of the two adults we were having an excellent dinner with. He made an entire vat of fruit flavored frozen custard. He apparently had a knack for frozen desserts, that and a magical crown that can create cold temperatures in a localized area. It was quite warm this evening and the cria were starting to huddle up into large balls of fluff to sleep. Every alpaca in this one family was satisfied, including the elderly one that wasn’t part of this family. In fact the elderly alpaca, whose name I learned is Caper, seemed quite pleased with the exceedingly thick stew I made. I still didn’t have the heart to make potato stew, Caper immediately picked up on the fact that I didn’t use any potatoes and gave me a gentle hug. We were all family now, regardless of blood, species or gender. That and they made several gestures to me possibly doing this again… oh my aching paws. How did the cria even have so much room for dessert?! I’ve never fed so many hungry little monsters like this before, Pepper Paca obviously had the patience of every saint in existence. I could only hope a third of them were Pepper’s cria and not all of them, because I’ll darned if she wasn’t mother of the year every year after having her first cria. -Next morning, Maries- We felt a little uncomfortable under the blanket of cria, but at least Fizzle wasn’t cold. We slowly pried the snuggly cria off of ourselves and exited the tent to enter another with more cria and the parents. “Excuse us for asking, but you wouldn’t happen to know anything about something called ‘The leg of true bakers’?” Marie questioned of a happily yawning Pepper who was covered in Cria, she shook her head no. Maria spoke next. “Didn’t think so, thanks anyway. We were wondering why you aren’t scared of us.” Pepper just stuck out her tongue and closed one eye at us, but she kept the gesture friendly enough that we just smiled. -A place called Fœnum- She stared down her greatest enemy in the world, she would not lose and she wouldn’t let them take her wives without a vicious fight to end all fights. This would be a harrowing fight, the importance of it would be remember in the annals of time in the history of Fœnum forever. The world would be shook to its very core. The fight would be brutal and violent beyond reason and in the end there could only be one left standing! For standing across from Paprika… was another Paprika. The two glared at one another and leapt forward, hooves raised. Only one of them had angry hearts in her pupils. Nobody could simply love Paprika's wives more than she could, not even herself!