- The next morning, Lambchop residence, Middle Tier Huoshan, Pom-
We were getting plenty of exercise this morning when Tian decided to ask me to do something silly.
“Give me a war cry!” Tianhuo was always so calm and nice, I would have never had known she was once a bully if she had not told me herself.
“Oh um… rrrawwwrr... heh.” A slight smile tugged at my lips as I looked at Tianhuo giving me a faint smile, it soon left her face though.
“Do you not have a better war cry, a howl perhaps?” Well Tianhuo wasn’t wrong, I did technically have the ability to howl like my beasties. Mr. Birch the timber-wolf and some other beasties saved that for nights of full moons where I joined them, but we tried not to disturb our neighbors too much. “That aside, you are ridiculously adorable.”
My cheeks started heating up by quite a lot and I scuffed the floor with my left hoof, Paprika was just watching us with a smile and cuddling one of my poor beasties that probably went to close to her on a dare.
“Well I can do howls like my beasties… There’s also the war cry of my people, but I don’t exactly think I’m actually worthy of using it.” I looked down and tapped my hooves together nervously. "We only do the howl thing during full moons though."
“That certainly explains the noise complaints we get from the fields near Huoshan every full moon. Are you allowed to tell me about it, the war cry I mean?” Like lambkin ever really have any secrets Tianhuo, we’re too paranoid to keep them for longer than a day. Not that we don’t have the ability to keep a secret by not talking about something we thought was already known, that usually happened by accident.
“It’s not that much of a secret, the war cry goes Baa-Ram-Ewe… only it’s shouted out loud. There’s more to the war cry, but that’s the main part of it to be used by the Black Sheep of our generation.” I received a look of curiosity from Tian so I decided to go a bit further in my explanation. “Black Sheep are rare among lambkin kind, they don’t have to be literal in appearance and they tend to grow stronger exponentially… as far we lambkin are concerned when it comes to definitions of ‘stronger’ and ‘exponentially’. Really a Black Sheep is about as half as strong as the strongest earth pony. Close to being an upper percentile in capability, but never quite fully there. The last holder of the lambkin key was a one before it ended up with me… he was a brave and strong ram.”
I looked up to the key of the lambkin and the key of the longma sitting up on the shelf nearby, Tianhuo smiled at hers proudly and bowed her head when she looked to mine. She turned back to me.
“Are you a Black Sheep?” Tianhuo seemed honestly interested in the topic.
“Oh my goodness, no! Black Sheep are always legendarily known for being quite capable of fighting by themselves, my beasties do most of the fighting for me and I just consider myself lucky to even have them looking out for me.” I looked off to the side at the various canines sitting around us, a number of them let out barks of happiness and friendship. The Foo-dog let out a bark of protection, which was nice of my new canid with the lion mane. “I seriously doubt I’m the Black Sheep of my generation of lambkin, but there probably is one. There is a general consensus among the lambkin that I’m the Black Sheep though, but I haven’t even shown any sign of being one aside from my decent leadership skills with my beasties. The actual Black Sheep is likely living a far more peaceful life than I do… and I’m fairly jealous of that…”
“Not all strength is in the body alone Pom, it can be in the heart, the mind and the spirit. I believe your strengths are as great, even if you are not this legendary Black Sheep of the lambkin.” Tianhuo gently wrapped a hoof around me and nuzzled me slowly. She always slowed down for me and would always be gentle when it came to approaching me.
I nuzzled up into her, she was larger than me and yet she saw something in me to be proud of despite my size, weak will and general overall meekness. That she even married me really told me how much she loved me. Lambkin rarely, if ever, have such a wonderful partnership outside of our own kind… mostly because other lambkin do not get out much.
We both heard a loud sigh and turned to Paprika who was watching us cuddle together with smile and formed a heart out of her fluff from her back. We had forgotten that we had company and we were both probably turning red at this moment.
“You said that ‘Baa-Ram-Ewe’ was only a part of the war cry?” Tianhuo was trying to distract us from the fact that we had started to get rather affectionate in front of Paprika. I obliged her as I wanted a quick distraction from the alpaca in the room.
“Yes, the full version is this Tian. Baa-Ram-Ewe, to our fleece, heart, home and family, no matter where we lambkin go, we’ll always hold dear and true.” I received a light squeeze from Tian.
“It sounds like ancient wisdom of your people that you should heed and pay closer attention to. I have given you much of my culture, time and care, I am happy to finally be receiving at least some of your culture and giving back some time and care of my own.” Tianhuo gently let me go and nodded to me. An explosion outside alerted us to move towards the nearest window, we saw several colors in the sky. It wasn’t pink and white, that was mine and it said a lot about how panicky I was that they had a signal specifically designed for me. It was actually rather touching that all the longma in the Huoshan Guard cared about me that much. I was frankly nobody important, the longma still accepted me and my relationship with the captain of their guard readily and without question. “A summons for all available Huoshan Guard, this also includes the head unit of Canine Division.”
“Is it going to be something horrible?” Shivering at the thought of something major happening around here and what happened the last time. I still did well enough with my beasties, but that whole situation was a mess.
“Not likely, it is more than likely that the current Dragon Lord comes to ask an important task of one of us.” Sitting down to rub her chin Tianhuo turned to me with a smile. “Do not worry, I think it will be a mostly benign meeting at best.”
“Do you think it will be Dragon Lord Torch?” I could not keep the stuttering out of my words, Torch was the size of a small mountain and he was really scarily large.
“No… he has for the most part retired and acts as council to the new dragon lord. The current Dragon Lord is Dragon Lord Ember, for it was Torch's daughter that won the Gauntlet of Fire against his wishes.” Tianhuo quickly explained what the Gauntlet of Fire meant for dragons, it was how they decided a strong and wise leader to lead them into a new era. “Many believe that she will grow to be an even greater dragon lord than her father, come let us make haste… will you be coming as well Paprika?”
Ember was currently much smaller than her father and still quite young, I've seen her once before. Never really met Ember personally or ever talked to her though.
Paprika shook her head no and waved us off, ‘The Demon’ alpaca apparently had other things to do. That was her title and many knew of her by it and agreed that Paprika definitely deserved it, among those was Tianhuo after having fought her for several days straight of trying to avoid being cuddled and snuggled into submission.
Paprika just thought Tianhuo was playing and it was terrifying that she walked away with very minimal injury compared to a tired and completely bedraggled Tian. I would eventually be somewhat capable of doing the barest fraction of something similar as a minimal talent fluffmancer myself.
-Huoshan, Upper Tier Noble District, Middle Square-
Tianhuo gathered in the square with many of the main units of the Huoshan Guard.
I too gathered with my various beasties, plus a few of my longma friends from Canine Division who had their own dogs that I have helped trained personally. I was head of the division because I was an expert in communicating with and training partners to help the weaker members in the Huoshan Guard handle bigger problems. My job was mostly mediating problems between the longma and their canine partners. I also help the people of Huoshan with small tasks.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. For those of you who should be patrolling the city today, you can return to your jobs immediately. Those of you who need rest, please go get some and I am sorry to have woken you up for this meeting and I... apologize. I know what it is like to be woken up for nothing and I can get pretty grumpy personally.” Ember was a nice blue dragoness, her appearance was fairly attractive. I think I have a bias for scaled individuals, I was married to one. We waited for the many longma of aerial patrols to fly off, a number of Canine Division guards started moving alongside their partners down the staircase or off to the left or right arms of the noble district to spread out. Once that was done, I was among those that were left that weren’t on patrol today. “Those of you who are left, I have need of a few members from the Huoshan Guard who have plenty of free time for an important diplomatic mission.”
I sadly had a lot of free time, hopefully I could go completely...
“Are you actually member of the Huoshan Guard?” Ember suddenly noticed me, as a lambkin I really stood out among all the longma that were standing at attention. I also stood out when I had an army of beasties with me, I could clearly understand the question and why it was directed at me.
“Yes, Dragon Lord Ember, I am head of the HCD." I approached and bowed, my Canis Minor puppies followed my actions and bowed as well. "Huoshan Canine Division, Pom Lambchop at your service.”
“Hmmm… are you particularly busy this week?” Ember crouched down and started to gently pet Tuft, he gave a growl of contentment as he nuzzled against the palm of Ember’s left claw.
“Aside from catching a notorious pony criminal yesterday, no she mostly acts as a mediator to problems that may be occur among Canine Division and she assists people with minor things. She’s mostly a reserve member when it comes to more active duty ma'am.” A longma answered, he was from my Canine Division and his partner was a large Great Dane. I think his name was Kai Ju… the Ju family of Huoshan was fairly enormous. “She might be a lambkin, but she is an honorable member of our society and has brought much joy to us all.”
Yeah, the joy of me freaking out and doing a ton of silly or embarrassing things. Thankfully, as a lambkin, I would easily be passed over for doing anything too imp…
“Okay, we have one volunteer for the diplomatic mission then!” Wait… what?! I looked at Ember as she smiled at Tuft as he licked her face. After playfully toying with him for a bit, Ember eventually put him down shooed him off so he could go stand at attention with his brothers.
“Um… why me… if you don’t mind me asking that is Dragon Lord Ember?” Really, I shouldn’t be questioning a superior like this, but I had to know. “You do realize how lambkin can get with high stress situations right?”
“I don’t mind the question. I’m well aware of the stigma surrounding lambkin like yourself, it’s like how there’s a stigma surrounding dragons as well. If anyone could understand that, you definitely would.” Ember crossed her arms and nodded sagely at me. I guess dragons were known for being brutish idiots, the stereotype wasn’t entirely wrong nor was it entirely right. Ember for one seems like a well-educated dragon and she did handle herself fairly well during the shadow monster invasion. “Since this is a diplomacy mission, a lambkin wouldn’t be a very threatening protective force to send with the team and this ‘should be’ a low stress mission. I say ‘should be’, because you’ll be heading to Ponyville and it is quite a hot spot for weird things to happen at least once a week. I’ve personally seen how things get around there a few times myself, but I’m quite sure that you can handle it.”
I didn't like that vote of confidence. I’ve never been to Ponyville… though I’ve heard some things about how out of control things get around there. Arizona, Paprika and Velvet lived closer to the place than I ever did.
“Um, is there any limit on to the number of beasties I can take with me?” I looked over my shoulder at my canine entourage.
“Are all of those canines behind you yours?” Ember asked with a little surprise.
“Yes.” I answered meekly.
“I can certainly see why you’re the head of the Huoshan Canine Division, you may only take two Canis Minor with you.” Ember actually seemed concerned about my beasties. “Will the rest of them be alright without you?”
“They can take care of themselves as much as they take care of me.” Some would say they could take care of themselves better because I existed in their lives to teach them how things worked.
“Good, I need one more volunteer. Someone outside of Canine Division.” A longma eventually came forward and bowed to Ember and told her about himself. It was a purple scaled longma named Gai Jin, he was born in Neighpon and came to live here in the home of his ancestors. “Right then, you two will set out tomorrow to meet with the diplomacy team at the train station we’re having built leading to nearby here in the dragon lands. We’re not letting the trains move into the dragons lands themselves though. You two, along with the puppies I guess, are going to be a part of the team to discuss things with Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville. You are to keep the diplomatic team safe, you are not to be aggressive in any way and you are to be ‘friendly’. Do you understand this mission I’m giving you? Do not interfere in the diplomats jobs and things should proceed accordingly.”
“Yes Dragon Lord Ember!” I intoned alongside Gai Jin and thought about which of my four puppies to take with me.
-The next day, a fair distance from Huoshan, Train Station-
I really didn’t like trouble, but it always seems to find me somehow. Tianhuo was quite reassuring when she said Ponyville was said to be mostly peaceful like Huoshan was and that everything would be fine.
Ember had said otherwise and she’s actually been there.
“Bwwarr!” A red dragon loudly shouted in my face, he started laughing immediately afterwards as I reacted poorly to the sudden fright.
I of course squeaked, fell over, curled up and locked up into a shivering mess of fluff.
Woof and Ruff didn’t like that and started twirling their tails and growling. They sped up to him to slam into his belly, thus doubling him over, and then right into his thick skull to leave him on his back with a painful looking concussion. No injury to either of my puppies. You don’t mess with Canis, Major or Minor.
Once they came back to my side, I whined out ‘good puppies’, in canine. Nobody would ever know the difference between me whining in fright and giving my puppies pats on their lovable heads.
“Really Garble, already causing trouble? I can see that, despite Pom’s personal nature, that the puppies are more than enough security for this mission if they can take you down.” Ember muttered angrily as she stalked forward towards the train. “I came here to see off my diplomacy team and that’s what you do? I order you, as Dragon Lord, to be on your best behavior Garble! I am letting you go with the team so you can visit your sister, please do not make me regret this.”
“Of course Ember.” This Garble stated meekly as I was forced into standing up on wobbly legs by Woof. Ruff stood next to Woof and glared at Garble menacingly.
“Hopefully Pinkie Pie doesn’t cause another diplomatic incident, then again dragons are rarely ever allergic to dragon fruit. Nobody could have seriously known about that until it came up.” Having no idea what Ember was talking about, I tried to stay at attention and be brave… or at least braver than I was acting a second ago. “Now apologize to one of the guards for this diplomacy mission.”
“Her?!?” Garble seemed to be disbelieving that I was a Huoshan Guard. I didn’t fault him for it at all, even I didn't believe it at times. Ember gave him a stern glare. “Fine… I’m sorry I scared you like that, I’ve been trying to do better about being… ‘nice’.”
He says ‘nice’ like it should always be in air quotes.
We boarded the train and were soon our way for Ponyville, apparently there were diplomatic talks involving the train station being built leading towards dragon territory, the possibility of sending more dragons to the school of friendship and a few other things like airship commodity trade routes and such to that effect.
My job was to stay near the diplomats and prevent anything from happening to them with Gai Jin, shouldn’t be too difficult right?
- A day earlier, Ponyville, ???-
I be tracking down a pony that has taken my treasure from me, they are getting pretty far and this is where I last heard of them. They came here to be selling the treasure to some weird kook and something about bringing someone to a powerful demon.
None of that be mattering to me, I am only here for what is mine.
I am not being a great fighter or even a truly great pirate yet, but I will eventually get my treasure back and will be seen as being a real pirate. A pirate needs land legs as much as those for the sea, I at least was being good with a boat before coming here.
Being as I am going to be here for a while yet, I will seek out some food and shelter. Not that I have the money to pay for either, but I am being quite crafty for my age.
“Oh, do you want a cupcake new completely welcome person to Ponyville I’ve never met before this day that’s going to go on a great adventure as part of someone else’s story?” To be fair, the earth pony was fast and a blur of pink. It is being understandable that I be bleating my head off in fright as soon as she appeared. “Ooh nice beard, don’t see those often on girls. Here you go… you seem like you need this! Hi I’m Pinkie Pie by the way, sorry for the scare, I get that reaction a lot. I honestly don’t know why though…”
A she devil as fast as you not understanding why you spook people… I am thinking we are going to be good friends in the future. Even if I may be stealing stuff from you on the principle of this first meeting.
I blinked when she is hoofing over a sack to me with a frowning face sticker on it and a cupcake was placed in my other hoof, I be giving her a queer eye as she smiled at me.
“Hope you like my sad sack for sad sacks, don’t forget to come to the party for you later in your honor! You look like someone who appreciates free food, I mean urchins like free food right? I made sure to put some healthy things in there for you too, growing goats like you need your nutrition!” A party for me and being in my honor? There is much oddness to this Pinkie and I nary likely to be seeing it anywhere else. "The invitation at the bottom of the bag has a map so you don't get lost, bye!"
The mare be zipping away at speeds my eyes just couldn't follow, and to think I thought I was a quick one. I looked around curiously. Nobody around us reacted to that or that odd mare at all.
"Wait... how is she knowing that I am being a street urchin?" I open the sack and looked inside, it is filled to the brim with delicious snacks, some sugary and others looked healthy.
I might not be stealing or doing anything harmful towards the pink one after all, since my stomach will actually have something in it this day. I am not being one to look a gift pony in the mouth when I didn't even know where I would be sleeping tonight.
I can surely find shelter in an alley around here or maybe be finding someone willing to house the likes of me, I be hearing ponies were nice like that.
I, Shanty, will take this boon for what it is while I search for the one who is going to sell ‘MY’ rightfully earned treasure here and if it's sold, then I will only need to find the one who bought it and will just have to take it back!
I pulled a tin can from out of the sad sack and bit a chunk out of it. Tastes almost just like the ones back at home, only a little bit more flavorful and it actually had stuff inside too...
-Ponville, ???-
"Soon Princess Twilight, I will be the one to bring you to Tambelon and this will usher in the age of Grogar!" The cloaked figure cackled as she held up the artifact she just purchased from a rather dubious source.
It glinted ominously as the figure waited for Princess Twilight to meet with the dragon diplomats, they were just biding their time.