So, I got good news and I got bad news. I'll go ahead and get the bad news out of the way and say that I have officially lost any and all hope for this city. The incident with Adasi was basically the pin drop that started the avalanche, which just kept getting worse after spying in on the dreams of the multitude of individuals calling Iram home. Greed, lust, corruption, even gambling was made up most of the dreams I saw on my search of the dreamscape.
Hell, this place was a freaking City of Angel’s.
Yeah, out of all the things I forgot over the millennium, that’s one of the things that stayed. Not any experiences mind you, but certain terms and phrases stuck through the test of time.
That’s not important though, the point was that this city was in dire need of a reset. I would more than happily level the whole place if it weren’t for people like Amara and Adasi keeping my holy wrath from crashing down on this place like the Abrahamic God with Sodom and Gomorrah (Don’t ask how I remember that, I don’t know either).
This just made me want to get out of this city even more than I already did. Luckily I had more luck on that front, learning quite a bit of information that night, all thanks to a Pegasus sailor that happened to be staying at Amara's inn for the next couple of days.
This gave me plenty of time to discuss my solution to Adasi's problem with the mare, to which she readily agreed with while the colt just went along with whatever I said. This is how I found myself back at Kabo, but this time with far fewer spears in my face.
I stayed in the village for a couple of days, spending plenty of time with the village people that didn’t still see me as a demon, especially the shaman and Obasi. Whenever I wasn’t with them I was helping Adasi settle in to his new home, the villagers all too happy to take him in after I informed them of his situation.
The other foals were happy to have a new playmate while Adasi just looked happy to see other zebra his own age, seeing as the younger population of Iram was scarce at best. In fact he was the only filly/colt I was able to see outside of those that were already in their teens and helping their families with either their business or every day chores.
Kabo was much different in that regard, the children possibly outnumbering the adults and giving the little colt plenty of new friends, along with a new parental figure in the form of Obasi.
Yeah, I was plenty surprised by that.
Turns out those two hit it off pretty quick, Obasi apparently having a deep love of children, which I learned after Oni traded plenty of tales with me over the village campfire with several other villagers and another dozen sleepy foals that traded their attention between their parents or Obasi or I, Adasi choosing to rest himself between my forelegs.
The colt seemed to want to spend plenty of time with the head guard zebra, but he was obviously still inclined to stick near me, even starting to call me Uncle Ash. Little quick on the draw on his part, but I definitely wasn’t complaining.
The colt ended up triggering some old instincts in me that I hadn’t made use of since I created my sons and daughters, making my decision all the more difficult to make, but I knew what I had to do.
It was a painful goodbye on both our parts, my instincts fighting me the entire time while I nuzzled the colt that found himself attached to my neck. I wasn’t worried for him though, I knew the character of the one to be his caretaker, and I could tell I could trust him with this task. That’s what kept me going back towards Iram and back to the Amara's Inn.
It’s not often I partake in alcohol, but I felt that it would be appropriate for the night. Not like I can get drunk, trust me, I tried back in the early third century. How the girls got access to alcohol at that time period, I’m still trying to figure out. I sure as hell never taught them about it, so they were obviously hiding things from me that remain hidden to this very day, partially for lack of me trying to find them.
Let them have their secrets, daddy always find out eventually.
This stuff was a lot weaker though, so I eventually turned myself into quite the spectacle, at least in the eyes of the mortals. After all, it’s not every day you get to see a Thestral knock back enough alcohol to kill a hydra.
I think I was on my twelfth mug before Amara threatened to cut me off, until I challenged her to a drinking contest that ended up with her on the floor, along with another dozen patrons that decided they would have more luck against me.
If this is what happens whenever I decide to drink, my time on this planet was going to be quite interesting. I just wish I actually could get tipsy, but I gave this body the ultimate liver for a reason, which meant I was basically just drinking for the taste.
Luckily that Pegasus sailor decided to stay and watch instead of participating, meaning I could have a halfway decent conversation with the mare, who identified herself as Wind Swept.
Pony naming conventions were strange.
Anyway, the mare agreed to take me to her captain tomorrow to discuss the option of hitching a ride with them to Equestria, which was pretty easy when you show more knowledge about sailing than she could ever hope to have.
I actually was given quite a bit of authority over the crew, much to their apparent displeasure, which I later solved with another series of drinking contests. After all, if it’s one thing sailor’s respect, it’s a stallion that can hold his drink.
All in all, it was actually shaping up to be quite a pleasant journey, with everyone on board in high spirits and the ones who weren’t sorted themselves out with the near limitless supply of rum they carried on board. Every one of the ponies on the crew were actually very respectful individuals, nothing like how they were stereotyped since the first ships set sail.
I was actually having a lovely conversation with the captain Deep Coast about the goings on across the planet, as well as gauging the current state of Equestria. Course it probably wasn’t a great idea to ask a ship captain employing every tribe of pony as part of their crew to answer questions I planned to reserve for the hardcore tribalist's.
It was during one of the more heated conversation topics of the evening that our chat was put on hold by the cabin boy bashing the door open and all but hauling the captain out of her chair while the winds coming through the open door turned this place from organized chaos to displaced clean, seeing as how literally everything not nailed to the floor was thrown against the back wall or out the now open window.
Meanwhile, I just sat there in my perfectly stationary chair and sipped a bit more of my tea, watching the chaos through the still wide open door of the captain’s cabin.
“Seems we hit the storm cell,” I said, pouring myself another cup of tea while leaning back in my chair. “How fun.”
Ten minutes, that’s how long it took for everything to go FUBAR. Seriously, you would think they’d be able to make the trip both ways no problem, but it seems even the most experienced crew on the five seas panic at the sight of a hurricane mixed with the granddaddy of all thunderstorms. It was actually kind of sad seeing a somewhat seasoned crew on their knees praying to me while the rest run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
And trust me; it was as funny as it was sad.
Deep Coast did not share in my amusement, her eye twitching so subtlety that I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t standing right next to her.
“So, does this happen often?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the storm, seeing the Unicorn’s ear twitch while her look of disbelief turned into pure anger as her teeth came together so fast I think she cracked a tooth.
“Try and keep us on course, I have to get these sorry lads organized.” She ordered, jumping down the stairs of the helm and running across the deck while slapping anyone she came across. I just chuckled and took hold of the wheel while watching the show unfold.
“OY, YER SEASONED SAILORS, STOP PANICKEN LIKE A BUNCH OF HAPLESS FOALS!” I heard the crimson mare shout from somewhere on the deck, having lost sight of her due to the heavy rainfall. Thankfully, the crew was pretty easy to get organized thanks to her timely and violent intervention, meaning we likely wouldn’t sink in the next ten minutes.
Not that I really blamed them for their panic, seeing as how the chances of them dealing with a storm of this intensity was pretty low. Only reason it was this strong was because of the overabundance of magic I bled off, which mixed with the ambient magic in the air to create what amounted to a category three hurricane.
“COME ON YE WEE BASTARDS, ALL OF YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH WORSE THAN THIS!” She yelled before kicking a sail line, triggering the enchanted crystal inside and making it rise on its own.
That’s another thing she had going for her. Her crew was pretty useless in a crisis, but this mare could probably sail the ship on her own if she wanted to since half of the enchantments keeping this thing sailing were her doing, meaning she was likely powerful enough to do everything this sorry lot was doing and more.
It was actually pretty impressive to watch, the now very frantic mare moving around the ship like a squirrel, grabbing the ropes and letting herself be pulled up to the riggings to help the rigging monkey ponies, or whatever it is they call themselves.
That’s right, this mare went full Assassins Creed, and I could not have been more proud.
Ropes were cut, knots were tied, and several ponies fell from the riggings and into the arms of their pegasi crewmates. Now when I say fell, I actually meant that the captain yelled they were taking too long and promptly chucked them from the riggings like a shot put.
Kind of wish I had some popcorn, it was just too funny, which led to me getting the stink eye from several crew members after I made my amusement known.
“GET OFF YOUR PLOTS YOU LAZY BASTARDS, LAST TIME I CHECKED, AIN’T SINGLE ONE OF YOU FAT ENOUGH TO FLOAT!” I yelled through my chuckles, making all of the ponies watching the spectacle leap to their hooves and move to adjust, pull up, or just straight cut away the sails.
The last were reserved to the Pegasi for obvious reasons, can’t have any ground pounders flying off into the horizon with a makeshift drag-chute.
“DUMP THE WATER OUT OF THE SHIP YOU IDIOT’S!”
“AYE, AYE, CAPTAIN!”
I watched this go on for several minutes, the captain running around the ship like a demented hamster while the crew tried to keep up with her, failing miserably. It was definitely entertaining but after awhile, it was just plain painful to watch.
I heard my mortal given name again, my ears twitching and swiveling to the side, hearing more prayers directed my way, making me role my eyes and reaffirm my hold on the wheel. Then my eyes widened in recognition when I heard the voice again, realizing that this wasn’t just another .crew member praying for their safety.
I turned around to make sure I was hearing right, and low and behold, Deep Coast herself was on her knees, her forehooves held together in the classic prayer pose, meaning even she wasn’t use to storms of this caliber, just my luck.
‘Gotta do everything myself’ I sighed again and looked up at the storm, my eyes flashing for but a second, and then the rain lightened to a small drizzle, the waves calmed, and the clouds faded to a simple overcast with a little bit of sun shining through.
Yeah, can’t make the storm go away entirely, but I can still mess with it on a smaller scale without messing up operations this planet has that even I don’t understand. Even the demons can get their last laughs sometimes, even when power like mine was involved.
“You can stop pissing yourself captain” I calmly stated, seeing that the mare still hadn’t risen from her kneeling position, even when a few of her crew slowed and looked to the sky in confusion and awe.
I snorted and dragged one of the helmsman over and planted him in front of the wheel so I could head over towards the frozen equine, my hooves clopping noisily from right in front of her, making her flinch before she actually realized what was happening, her whole body perking up and she looked past me and to the sky with her jaws open wide.
I just raised a brow and closed it for her. She slowly turned to me, her confusion still quite clear.
“Start doing your thing captain, we still have a few hours left before landfall.” Those were my parting words to her before I leapt from the deck and flew up to the unoccupied crow’s-nest content with meditating for the few remaining hours while the crew tries to either figure out if this was truly divine intervention, or if they would just ignore it altogether.
We reached landfall after another three hours of sailing, the winds working in our favor and shortening the trip by almost two hours. Thankfully none of the important stuff was lost in the storm, at least anything that couldn’t be easily replaced. The crew was tired and weary when we pulled into the port of Mannulus Bay, eagerly shambling off of the ship on shaky legs while the dockworkers started unloading cargo and filling out the necessary paperwork to log in the ships arrival.
I just stayed up in the crows-nest, looking around at the port town with intrigue, seeing a multitude of species running around and none trying to kill the other, seeing as how this little section of the Pony lands wasn’t connected to the main kingdoms, meaning they truly were forced to work together to survive.
Don’t get me wrong. They weren’t on good terms by any extent, but at least they weren’t throwing racial slurs around like they were going out of style. They seemed to mostly just ignore each other while keeping their conversations short and to the point, all business and nothing else.
At least they didn’t have rallies like the griffons back in the days of the Shiba, or their god queen as she liked to be called. Now that was an interesting twenty years, especially when she actually tried to summon me so she could attempt to kill me and take her “rightful place” as the ruler of the universe, stupid twat.
Let me tell you though, this little port town was a testament of what the ponies can achieve when they were together, albeit reluctantly. It was far smaller than Iram, but the architecture put the sand city to shame, what with their actually being building that still had paint on them, as well as a multitude of wares around the markets that were actually priced at a reasonable amount. Heck, I got a few free samples from the food vendors just by letting their foals, who were there to assisting with sales and advertisement, get a good look at me. One even offered me a mango.
Yes, the rumors of Thestral’s and mangos were very true, and I probably fueled a few stereotypes while I was there.
Aside from that though, it was nothing like Zebrica, that’s for sure. No one looked at me with suspicion or hatred, no that was reserved strictly for the other pony subspecies but not towards the other creatures walking around, still progress.
Now I can only hope I can find a hotel here at as good a price as before, might even indulge in one of my rarely practiced pleasures.
And yes, you know exactly what I’m talking about.