-Queen of Denial, Kuril-
The Queen of Denial was the boat we were on and it was moving slowly down the river, chugging ever forward towards our destination.
I ran my claws over the back of Blade’s ears as she splayed herself out over my lap and she was like a limp pile of mush doing it, I promised her quality time and I’m keeping it even when I knew there danger was near.
Our boat was said to be safe as long as we were on it thanks to the Goddess of Pure Water, Taweret the hippo queen. I had learned she had stopped Fizzle from imbibing a dangerous amount of alcohol.
I profusely thanked the goddess for making sure my daughter didn’t garner a problem and she just told me I was welcome, she even told me I was a pleasant person and a good mother for worrying about it so much.
Taw would happily party with me any day, within reason of course.
“Would you mind if I braided your mane and tail?” If I was going to be sitting there with Blade in my lap and her hair was completely open for me to do anything with, I might as well take the opportunity to play with it while I could.
Blade looked at me with a relaxed and dazed expression. She didn’t mind in the slightest, so I broke out a comb and a brush to start relaxing her even further. I eventually got around to braiding the entirety of her mane and she closed her eyes with a smile on her face as she fell asleep on me as I was braiding her tail.
“So is Perun an evil…” Daring started off as she was watching me playfully rub a sleepy Blade’s belly, we were about an hour or two away from our stopping point where we’d have to hoof it to the west a bit.
“No.” Both Taweret and Sekhet stated at the same time surprising me. Perun sounded pretty insane or evil for a holy god.
“He’s not outright evil, he’s more of a large grey area and is definitely a large jerk as far as the nicer holy gods are concerned. You can readily tell, he’s not one of the nicer gods when it comes to his version of order and harmony.” Muttered a lazy looking Sekhet as she lay out in the sun on the deck with an expression of peace on her face. “Most of the dark gods are even friendlier than him and more so than they sound, that is despite hearing their job descriptions.
“Like poor dear sweet Anubis, the god king of the jackals and usually flat neutral death god.” The large hippo frowned and shook her head. “Never knew why he went insane, but Baast mostly had the right idea and he’s been much nicer since the war of the flail tails and jackals a few hundred thousand years back.”
“Speaking of my sister… are we heading to where she currently resides and still works?” Sekhet seemed fairly interested in hearing that information.
“Yes, she should be at the location you’re going to… probably hasn’t seen the sun in thousands of years. She’s such a darling, you could have probably lent her some help Sekhet.” That sounded like an accusation from Taweret and Sekhet just gave her a blank look.
“No, don’t see a reason to when she ended up like I did. Unfortunately my area was visited by ponies unlike hers, so she’s probably still in the jungle that sprouted out from the sands of time.” From the way Sekhet tells it, it wasn’t always a jungle environment before this. “Besides, we’re going there now. So I might as well see what my mortals can do or get up to too help her out now, while we’re in the area and everything.”
“Gee, don’t we feel used.” Growled Fizzle who was being cuddled by Maries, she looked fairly comfortable between Maria and Mara’s heads.
“Oh I’m sure she doesn’t mean to use us, I just think she’s being quite shy in how much she likes us.” Fluttershy, ever the optimist, was looking around cautiously. She was a bit afraid of us coming under attack at the moment despite Taw’s assurance that we’d be fine while on the river. “It’s so nice that you believe in us Sekhet.”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s see what kind of state my sister is in before we decide to do anything.” Sekhet flicked a paw in Fluttershy’s direction as she rolled onto her back and spread out her wings. “I’m sure she’s been perfectly fine these last few hundred thousand years. She’s always been a bit wild and I’m fairly sure that hasn’t changed at all. However… if she’s wearing a nun’s habit and talking about our lord and savior ‘intercourse’, then I’m definitely walking away from that.”
“Wild enough to date Discord you mean, I remember a time when he was still going by Chaos.” As Taweret said that, I pulled dozing Blade against my chest and nibbled at her left ear. Blade’s face started going red and I smiled. “Bastet was always more geared towards life than most goddesses, being a goddess of felines, fertility and family will do that. I remembered when she used to sit by the river waiting for the sun to rise, she was always happy to see the sun in the morning. She eventually became known for music and dancing too, heard a mortal really got to her on that front and annoyed her to no end about it.”
“Yeah, my sister has a love of mortals a mile long, it would certainly take a lot to annoy her or at least one being geared towards specifically annoying her. Given She was in love with the most annoying being in the world and she was the one that got under ‘his’ skin, it would certainly take someone special to make my patient sister completely mad.” Getting up and stretching out, Sekhet looked at vast sea of dunes from beyond the boat. “Don’t honestly know what my sister saw in Discord, aside from him helping her with advice on how to start the rebellion against Anubis when he went nuts and everything.”
“Discord is not actually that bad, he’s… quirky.” Those listening rolled our eyes at Fluttershy. “Also I’ve met Baast, she seemed really nice even if she didn’t seem to like me very much. Discord took me on a field trip throughout time, I even got to see giant butterflies and moths!”
“It’s because you probably represented competition to Baast, were a mortal and she pretty much learned that she wasn’t in Discord’s life after a certain point knowing that Discord has a tendency to play with time as much as he does space. He brought you back into the past and she found out about it, so of course she would be upset.” Here Sekhet looked a little angry. “I should probably a plow a field with Discord’s face for hurting my sister’s feelings. She probably wasn’t very happy about you or the fact that Discord likes you a lot.”
“Um…” Fluttershy held up a hoof and looked like she was about to deny it. “We’re just good friends, but I will admit to knowing he likes me a lot.”
“Yes, but my sister has spent the last few hundred thousand years stuck in one location knowing that Discord would eventually befriend a mortal he’s become really quite sweet on. If said mortal was responsible for helping her become free of her obligations… she might become a bit resentful.” Lowering herself to stare Fluttershy in the eyes, Sekhet continued. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s quite upset to see you again, she won’t do anything aside from try to scratch to you lightly. My sister isn’t a really aggressive goddess unless absolutely pushed, when she’s pushed she can and will take down a war gods of even my mighty stature. She’s taken on five war gods and goddesses all at once before, and won. To give you a small reminder, my sister is not primarily a goddess of war.”
“To be fair, I didn’t know Baast was a goddess when we first met. She looked like all the other anugyptian felines that helped us get away from Anubis and his jackals.” Fluttershy poked her hooves together looking a little down. “Do you think we could be friends?”
“Feasible, but don’t count on it happening without an extreme amount of effort on your part.” It looked like she was ready to give that effort Sekhet.
“Change of topic, who wants to drink some magically enhanced water from the River of Denial?” For a hippo goddess, Taw was bizarrely perky, energetic and quite quick for her size.
“What does it do?” I asked trying not to jostle Blade as she curled up on my lap and snoozing happily.
“Well it’ll make you at admit something that you’re heavily in denial about, people tend to make a drinking game of it when I give some out.” So Taweret was feeling generous today. “It’ll make you feel better afterwards after your done talking about what you’re in denial about.”
Okay, I’ll bite.
“I’ll take some.” As soon as I said that Fizzle, Maries, Sekhet, Daring and Taweret had their attention on me. Taw passed me a small clay cup filled with fresh water, I looked at it for a second shrugged and drank it.
“Huh… I guess I am still in denial about never telling anyone about Jade’s father being for the best. He was a unicorn stallion named ‘Long Odds’ that had a terminal illness and he was happy that he’d leave at least one last mark on the world when he got me pregnant with a spell he made that worked across species, it was only meant for the rare occasions that ponies were not compatible with the person they fell in love with and ponies are already compatible with a lot of races. Abyssinians are unfortunately not one of those races that should be compatible… so my Jaded is actually half pony. He wasn’t a rich stallion, but he was a wonderful and sweet pony. The last thing he said to me was that he wished me the best with… raising our child… I had to watch the light leave his eyes.” Okay, I’m sad now and I held Blade tenderly against myself. I was choking up quite a bit and trying to hold my tears in. “I feel like I’m throwing our love in his face by falling in love with Blade here. Though I finally feel like I can finally confront my Jaded with this if I ever see her again. That was rough for me, excuse me if I’m quiet for the next hour or so...”
“Yikes… I want to try some of that.” We all turned to Fizzle, she took a cup and drank it down hastily. “Huh… I’m still denying a few things that I have a few issues with in how my life has gone, like my actions leading to the death of the Storm King and how satisfying it felt to learn he shattered on the ground. I’m denying the fact that I actually enjoyed him being brought down, that I hate myself for it and I have some nasty survivor’s guilt. I’m also still highly terrified of bears of any kind and still have many hang ups from my time as Commander Tempest despite my best efforts.”
“There, there…” I heard Fluttershy moving over to Fizzle, she then eventually announced. “I’ll drink some of it next.”
After hearing a gulping sound, Fluttershy gasped.
“Oh… oh my… I’m in denial about my feelings for Rarity, Discord and jealousy that Rainbow Dash was friends with Gilda... I’m only slightly in denial about my fetish for griffons and the fact that it’s a fairly open secret that everyone knows about. I might actually be bisexual even if my leanings are primarily towards mares.” Fluttershy blushed vibrantly. “Also I’m constantly in denial about how strong I am and how far I’ve come since I first met Twilight and all of my other friends. I love to sing out loud in front of a crowd, but mostly animals as I don’t think I like attention from ponies all that much. I just cannot revel attention like Rainbow does…. It does feel nice to get all of that out of the way, thank you Taweret!”
“You’re welcome.” Stated Taw pleasantly.
“I’ll try some… bet it’s going to be a Pinkie Pie doozy.” Looking to Daring as she took up a cup of water from Taw, I watched as she drank it down. “Is there a thing called instant regret? That’s what the water tasted like. I’m in denial about who I am because people might get hurt if I didn’t have a disguise, that my disguise as AK Yearling probably no longer actually works at all and I have problems believing that I’ve done any amount of good in the world despite all the dangerous artifacts I’ve stopped from being used for nefarious purposes. At best, I at least made things even for all the destructive tendencies and trouble I’ve caused others throughout the years. I sometimes try to deny how smart I am, because I don’t think using my intelligence will be as cool as winging things is.”
“You’re still books inspire thousands of little fillies and colts Daring, though they might not be entirely as accurate as you tend to portray yourself.” Fluttershy started to comfort her now.
“We’ll try it.” All three of Maries heads looked between each other, Taweret produced three cups and they all tried it.
“I’m in denial that I actually like being able to be a separate entity from my sisters whenever I want to be now.” Maria looked visibly upset to admit that. “Also I’m fairly terrified of chupacrabras and that’s the main reason why I’m still with Mara and Marie… aside from them being my sisters that I love dearly.”
“I’m in denial that I’m horribly codependent, despite being a well read and intelligent individual part of this body.” Marie was frowning. “I absolutely hate the idea of being able to split up like we can and have a hard time admitting that becoming cold blooded when we do feels horrifyingly bad on a multitude of levels.”
“I’m in denial that I’m upset that both my sisters are far more talented than me and all I bring to the body is size, strength, intimidation and an acumen for athletics.” Both of Mara’s sisters stared at her. “I’m upset that combat seems to be my only purpose in life, but I would defend my sisters and those we love to the death. While I like being a lawyer, my sisters tend to do most of the work and I’m just there to pick up on the things they miss.”
“Mara, you need a hobby.” Fizzle stated as she kissed the tiger on the cheek.
“I’ll try some.” Sekhet stated serenely.
-Three hours later, deep jungle-
“Give up?” When I thought we’d make it to our destination without being waylaid, we were surrounded by pony golems, Perun's Paladins, their apparent leader Dispel Grace and the duo that assaulted us in Cow-ro. Addressing us through a golem was mechanical mastermind, Teatime Clockwork. “There's nothing you can do, we have you surrounded!”
A rip suddenly opened in the air showing stars… also an alpaca.