//------------------------------// // 11. Baa-bbling. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The Valley, Equestrian Campsite, the next morning, Pom- I woke up with less fright this time, though I found myself in the rather awkward position of having Fox snuggled up against my back. What was further confusing the situation was that Rabbit was snuggled against my belly and side with his ears laying on Fox’s side. Skunk and Shanty’s positions looked far more innocent in comparison than me being sandwiched between these two. At least Ocellus and Smolder have an excuse. Smolder is practically all the food Ocellus needs and the commentary that Smolder was absolutely delicious made me somewhat nervous about them getting up to things that they weren’t quite ready for yet. Still the taste of my vegetable soup was appreciated, I hope that the packs of food I got were just as appreciated by baboon and the ninja monkeys. “Excuse me for waking you… but I need to go do something rather private.” I whispered into Rabbit’s ear he twitched and half way woke up. I prodded him with my left hoof a little more insistently when he started falling back to sleep. “Wha… huh?” Was Rabbit’s eloquent response. “Can you please let me go and help me up so I can do my business?” I really needed to go to the bathroom, but I don’t think they had outhouses around here. “Oh… oh right… sure…” Rabbit groggily stood up and helped get Fox’s paws off of me and then he found himself being snuggled against her chest and slowly falling back to sleep with a smile. After said business, which had me paranoid that there could be someone watching me out here. I made my way back into the camp. As I walked up I heard Fox shouting something. “Fox, you’re the one holding onto me!” Rabbit shouted in response to whatever Fox said, Fox looked down and quickly let go of Rabbit as if she were on fire. “Yeah, I know I’m so handsome that you just can’t keep your paws off of me.” “As if.” Fox huffed while putting her paws on her hips, she then turned to see me. She immediately perked up right that second after she just looked fairly embarrassed about snuggling Rabbit. “Oh thanks for inviting us to sleep over at your camp and for making that wonderful soup last night, but we have to get going. Skunk it’s time to get up, you don’t want to be late for Panda’s lessons today do you?” Skunk and Shanty were as cute as I thought they’d be last night. Sure they were a bit rough around the edges, but they were good kids. Fox, Rabbit and Skunk set about getting themselves ready and we eventually saw the trio of warriors off as they set back down the valley. Afterwards I turned to Smolder with a smile. “So… who wants breakfast?” I asked as I watched Smolder, Ocellus and a sleepy looking Shanty respond. Smolder blasted herself with a few times with fire, she was probably the cleanest one of the group. I’m a bit jealous of that. Ocellus set about getting a campfire set up by levitating a few bits of tinder for the fire to cook breakfast on. As for Shanty she was yawning and still trying to wake up, I personally think she needs a bath. I was going to be using makeshift soap, which wasn’t too hard to create, and would be shaking water out of my wool soon enough. I wasn’t going to just bathe myself, I would be bathing Shanty too. “Come on Shanty let’s get you cleaned up, we’ll hopefully be somewhat presentable today.” It was probably mean of me, but Shanty grunting sleepily had me giggling as I dragged her towards the river. That frolic the other day had been fun and little bit frightening, but it helped me loosen up quite a bit. -One messy bath and some carapace scrubbing later, Smolder- “So wait, why do we have to go see this Baboon guy with you?” I scratched lazily at my side and sent another blast of flames at it to make sure nothing was on my scales, being fireproof was awesome. Kind of wish my friends could experience how clean it makes me feel. If only fire wasn’t bad for them on a number of levels. “Isn’t he like… bad news or something like that?” “I want to see the other side of the conflict, because I have a few questions to ask them about all of… well this.” Pom looked fairly undecided about something. “Can we really call what is going on here a war?” “It seems more one sided in the favor of quality than quantity. The ninja monkeys definitely have the quantity, but apparently their quality of warriors is so frighteningly low that Skunk and his friends can hold the Valley with less numbers easily enough that they’ve apparently have been doing it for a few years.” Ocellus tapped her chin looking thoughtful, she was cute when she was thinking. “If the monkeys could gain slightly more quality within even the smaller of their numbers, then they’d be actually be a real force to be reckoned with.” I could guess what Ocellus was comparing this to. “This is like how Canterlot has been successfully invaded about two, three… what is it, four or five times by now?” Ponies were big on the peace and they still got problems with invaders, thousand year old problems and other things. The Storm King was far worse than the changelings, at least the changelings left buildings standing and didn’t damage too much. Speaking of, Ocellus could invade my home all she wanted provided we could get back to where we belong. “Were you thinking about that failed changeling invasion?” “Yes. Surprisingly enough once the surprise attack wore off our forces were easily routed, by a blast of pure love no less. Our current quality of warriors is, aside from Pharynx, highly lacking. Pharynx is working on getting our military to be better than at least the Equestrian Royal Guard. I think he enjoys his position a bit too much.” Fairly certain Ocellus was not one of the changelings involved with that invasion. “The ninja monkeys definitely have swarming tactics down, but their fighting skills… I hate to say it, but I believe they are on par with changelings. Even Shanty can face them one or two at a time and win more often than not.” Yeah, heard that our teachers took down a number of changelings by themselves in that scuffle. Mind you only Rainbow Dash was trained in fighting and our six teachers took down dozens of them with barely any personal injuries to show for it. I had a lot nasty things to say about Chrysalis, but Ocellus assured me that Chrysalis at least didn’t bring any children to that invasion, that she was aware of. Changeling young shape shifting into adults of their species has been known to happen… that seemed like a possible parental nightmare. Not that I actually had parents that actually worried about me to compare it to, but at least my brother Garble counts as he’s been around for most of my life until I went to friendship school. I can only imagine how Gar-Gar must be feeling right now, he must be so worried about me and angry. “You were definitely not part of that attack Ocellus.” I stated flatly, trying to steer my thoughts away from my brother. “Well no, but I was there when the changelings that were blasted away needed medical help… well as much medical help as we could provide from what we stole anyway.” Ocellus looked a bit upset by that. “Becoming allied with the ponies really gave us improved medical practices. There were plenty of other positive effects, but that’s probably the most notable one in my mind.” “Well that’s all nice to be knowing, but why do you be needing us for this Pom?” That’s the question isn’t it Shanty, why does Pom want us to go with her? “Well I don’t want to do this alone and I need some emotional support.” You almost seemed brave enough to go by yourself Pom. “Lambkin usually need an entire intensive care unit before they can even think of going beyond their borders.” Stated Ocellus loudly. “That’s only a… okay I was about to say it was a large exaggeration, but then I remembered whose people we were talking about here. I promise that if anyone is going to be hurt, then it’ll be me first of all.” Pom even shivered when she said that, she was not winning me over here aside from the fact that she was willing to put herself in harm’s way for our sakes. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt the three of you if I can do anything about it. All I want to do is talk, share some information and maybe get a little hospitality out of them.” “Will you actually stop them if they try to attack us?” I trusted Pom to have our backs, it’s the question of how well she can protect them. “I will undoubtedly put myself in their path to stop them from doing so.” Pom nodded to us. “I don’t like fighting, but I hate the idea of letting anyone I care about getting hurt even worse. So are we going to go have a nice, and hopefully peaceful, time?” “Aye, I say they can’t be being that bad.” Shanty was siding with Pom. “Though if we get into a fight, I am knowing that I can be taking on one alone after the battle we had yesterday with some.” “I guess, I’m curious about this dragon they know of.” I stepped forward to join Pom. “Just know that I’m going with you under protest.” Ocellus grumbled grumpily, she had a cute face when she was scowling. She was friends with Shanty already and was dragging her heels on being able to trust Pom despite her being exceedingly helpful to our survival so far. “It just seems like a bad idea to me personally.” “Well I hope it doesn’t turn out badly, because I can share at least some of that sentiment that this could go wrong Ocellus.” At least Pom was trying to meet her halfway constantly. Ocellus was just extending the branch of friendship ever so slowly and would eventually relent on her distaste for lambkin. “Wait a minute… did you just say you fought them yesterday?! Are you okay Shanty? Did they hurt you? Did I hurt you when I washed you earlier? Why didn’t you tell me if you had any bruising? I could have made something to bring down the swelling! Were any of you hurt yesterday? We can’t have any injuries or sicknesses out here, we don’t have the medical supplies to support ourselves if either happened!” There Pom goes breathing rapidly and worrying over Shanty, checking everywhere to make sure the goat was alright. Knowing that Pom cared this much about us was good enough for me to see her as the leader of our group. I would probably make too many aggressive decisions, I knew my faults well enough that I’m not a leader. Ocellus would just go for logical decisions or would be indecisive in a dire situation. While Shanty had some maturity… she didn’t seem to have experience or skills in leadership having been a solo act for most of her life and she seemed to just be following Pom’s lead already. Pom was the adult, a vaguely trained fighter, able to quickly organize and was shown to be diplomatic over the last few days in how she balanced her attention on each of us equally or as needed. She had the necessary leadership skills we needed, even if she learned said skills by tending to huge variety of canines. I'd declare Pom the leader if brought up. -An hour and an explanation later, Ocellus- Pom was upset about Shanty getting into a fight with the some of the ninja monkeys, I think Smolder handled it pretty well considering how intimidating she was to them. They were under the leadership of a dragon named 'Dragon' that apparently had all kinds of magical powers, so it stands to reason they’d be nervous around Smolder. I think they were equally as nervous around me because I was an unknown to them, so they really never attacked us at all. I have magic and shape shifting for a time limited battle form. Shanty, however, did attract some attention to herself by challenging the monkeys head on when they started ganging up on Skunk. It took us a while to convince Pom that we were okay and that Fox took care of the situation readily once she arrived. This might make peaceful relations with Baboon and the ninja monkeys go poorly, but we can at least give this a shot I guess. I don't think we were capable of making something approaching peaceful coexistence throughout The Valley with friendship, the enmity seemed quite ingrained here. Hopefully Pom is as good as Smolder keeps suggesting. She’s keeps telling me that the Huoshan Guard were not like the Equestrian Royal Guard and that they wouldn’t take on Pom if she wasn’t competent. This is why we were currently meeting with a pack of ninja monkeys and I was fairly nervous as Pom stepped forward. I wouldn’t mind if Smolder were the leader of our group, but apparently she’s keen on leaving it up to the lambkin. Sure Pom is older than us, married, has a job and a lot of other things, but that doesn’t exactly make her leadership material. I know bad leaders, I've worked under Chrysalis after all. -Shanty- I am wanting to be a leader, but I can be learning how to be one by following Pom's example! -Monkey Shrine and pagoda tower, Pom- “So can we meet with Baboon?” The ninja monkeys spoke amongst themselves and eventually gave us a gesture of acceptance, I released a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. We didn’t go through the shrine or the many floors of training, baboon instead came to us and we took a side entrance around all the training floors and stopped at the entrance to the upper floors. “So you’re the one called Pom, it’s nice to meet you properly and who are these… is that a dragon?!” Baboon was large, covered in white fur and he looked like he had quite a bit of muscles on him. He had a nice voice and seemed very tough despite his pleasant sounding demeanor. “Yo, right here, you can ask me personally if I’m a dragon or not.” Smolder said while idly waving a claw in Baboon’s direction as she leaned against Ocellus. “I breathe fire, fly and have scales, how many more clues do you need dude?” “Hrmm… not the same kind of dragon that we’re used to. Curious… uh I... er… we never actually really have had guests before.” Baboon looked a bit flustered. “I really don’t know how to take your group showing up so suddenly.” “I just want to discuss a few things with you if that’s alright.” He was being friendly at least, I was a little more relaxed about that. “We can even sit down together for tea and snacks.” “I am sorry to inform you that Dragon wants to see you, what’s it going to take to get you to agree to that?” At least Baboon was telling me this upfront before we’ve even sat down. “That’s one of the things I want to do, these are my friends. That’s Smolder and yes she’s a different kind of dragon. That’s Ocellus a Changeling. This here is Shanty.” I patted Shanty on the back affectionately. “I’m Pom the lambkin and we’re not from around here.” “I’ve gathered that, but do you really actually want to see Dragon?” Baboon seemed surprised that I wanted to meet him. “I was going to request that I be given the chance to do so anyway… possibly alone at least. I’ve heard some… things… about Dragon.” Stay polite and don’t be insulting Pom, that’s what I told the others to do and I should do the same. “May we come in?” “Of course you may. Ahem, go get some snacks and tea ready for our guest so we can show them some actual hospitality!” Baboon bellowed out and the monkeys started running about. “Sorry about that, but they take orders better when they are being yelled at.” “Well this is off to a good start.” Smolder sarcastically stated. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a neutral party to talk to, so excuse us for being a bit rusty!” Despite being a bit angry Baboon didn’t raise a paw to us. “Are we really neutral?” Ocellus queried while tilting her head. “Despite some minor setbacks in our relations yesterday. I would like to say yes, Pom did send us some nice packages of food and I have to say she has a good talent for finding fresh fruit and vegetables.” He smiled at me. “That made a rather decent meal for me and a portion of my army.” “Why thank you, for confirming that they arrived and for the compliment to my foraging skills.” Okay, don’t forget that he was a war leader Pom. He was nice enough right now, but that could quickly change. “So were you ordered by Dragon to bring me to him by any means necessary?” “Yes.” At least Baboon was an honest person, which was nice to know. “Things didn't exactly go to plan the other day, they never really do with our lot.” “Huh… well you really won’t have to worry about that this time. I’ll see to visiting Dragon personally once we get our discussion out of the way.” First order of business secure my friends safety. “I will willingly meet with Dragon, provided you don’t hurt my friend on purpose and or hold them against their wills.” “I can live with that, this might actually be the first full out truly successful thing I’ve ever done for Dragon.” It seemed to make Baboon happy to think about that as he led us inside. We were eventually seated and I noted that Kiki, Skunk's friend, was here. She was the only monkey wearing that kind of eyeshadow. At least she made herself identifiable enough, but she still looked almost exactly like every other male or female monkey around. It’s rather amazing that ninja monkeys were so good at looking similar to one another, it really confused what you knew about their capabilities at any given time. “So what did you want to know?” Thinking of the questions Baboon could answer, I wanted him to answer a particular one first. “Are there any questions I shouldn’t or can’t ask about?” The most pertinent question I could ask was for clarifications on what I could and couldn't. “Well I certainly wouldn’t want you asking about my love life… or the lack thereof.” He started grumbling about that. He gave me a curious look. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be…” “I’m already taken and I seriously doubt you could wrestle my heart from them.” I stated quickly. “Don’t look at us, I’m already seeing someone.” Coolly stated Smolder. “Likewise, and Smolder better keep seeing them too.” Ocellus was specifically looking away from Smolder with a blush on her face as Smolder smirked towards her. “I be thinking I’m too young for you.” Shanty gave a mature answer at least. “Oh… well… go on about your questions then.” Baboon seemed a bit sad, then again there were probably no other baboons in The Valley so he had reason to be. I better not ask about it like he suggested. “What’s Dragon like?” Honestly that would help me get an idea of him and whether or not I should fear him or fear for him. “I want your impression of him before I meet him.” “Well he’s big, he’s powerful, he inspires awe and he’s quite grumpy almost every time I see him.” Well wouldn’t you be grumpy too Baboon, his body must be in constant agony from his self inflicted burns. “He has plenty of reasons for it, so don’t take it personally if he doesn’t like you. He doesn’t like much these days and getting a laugh out of him is as rare as a blue moon.” “What does he intend to do with me when we meet, does he even want anything in particular?” I am going to meet him, but mostly to see what he became. “You know, I don’t have the foggiest idea why he even wants to meet you.” He rubbed his chin looking thoughtful. “I think he’s mostly just curious about you… didn’t know about the other outsiders until yesterday. Still, I think he’d want to talk you into doing something for him at the very least.” “Do I have to go alone or can I take someone with me?” I was thinking about having Smolder meet Dragon, but I didn’t know what his reaction to that would be. Maybe he would think that he’s being replaced by another dragon? He was once the protector of The Valley, so his mind might jump straight to that at seeing Smolder. “I’ll be accompanying you at all times while in Dragon’s chamber, whether or not you bring one of your companions is up to you.” It sounded like Baboon was taking this seriously and was going for an honorable approach with me since I was doing him a favor. “I swear and give you my word of it that I will only leave you alone with him if Dragon really wants me to do so.” “You be trusting what he’s saying Pom?” Shanty seemed cautious of Baboon and all the monkeys around us. “Yes, he’s been upfront with everything so far.” Turning back from addressing the young goat, I looked Baboon in the eyes as I ask my next question. “Why do all of you follow Dragon?” “Now that’s a rather loaded question, but I will answer it as I did say that questions about my love life were the only ones off limits.” While Baboon seemed reluctant, he was still going to tell us. “One reason to support him is that we’re all his friends even when he’s at his darkest and we hope he’ll remember that much for our sakes if we ever do eventually get him out of the mountain successfully.” “So you’re with him because you don’t want him pointed at you, but he can’t actually get free without you in the first place.” Call me puzzled, but that didn’t make sense. “Sure we could just abandon Dragon and he wouldn’t be able to do much about it, he’s really quite stuck where he is and without us he wouldn’t have much of a connection to the outside world aside from his magic.” Baboon seemed fairly quiet and contemplative. “The animals of The Valley have a valid reason to fear Dragon escaping. If he ever gets out, he’s going to cause a lot of destruction.” They could just leave Dragon to stew in the mountain by himself…. all alone… in a dark place. I now just felt sorry for this dragon that basically lost everything. I don't even think the valley dwellers were even in the wrong to defend themselves from his wrath. If he’s as aggressive as the dwellers in The Valley say he is, then the monkeys and Baboon owe Dragon little to no loyalty whatsoever if he’s harming them for trying to help him as much as they can. “As for the other reasons we support Dragon..." Baboon had our attentions. "Well... let me tell you a story.”