47 - Home Rest
Maud awoke to a mild surprise. Surrounding her were a variety of small round stones. She moved to rise to find that she was still quite sore and beaten from the battle. Burned, pummeled, but... victorious?
"Is that you, Maud?" Tabitha came in, wearing an apron over her usual clothes. "I sent the others to sleep. Did it work?"
"Did what work?" She slowly sat up on her haunches, breathing slowly and a bit roughly. "What happened?"
Tabitha gestured to the rocks. "I thought some rocks might help you."
Maud looked around at the circle of stones again. Her nose danced lightly. "Not my favorite. Not bad though." She reached for one and chewed into it as one would a loaf a bread, chewing softly. "Thanks."
Tabitha smiled brightly at the acceptance and sat in front of Maud, hands in her lap. "Are you feeling alright? You took a bit of a beating for us today. Thank you for that, by the way. You were amazing!"
Maud regarded Tabitha a moment. "You must be amazing too."
Tabitha blinked at that. "Not that I doubt you, but what makes you think that? I'm not a pony, or a princess."
Maud reached out and put a hoof dead center to Tabitha's chest. "You remind me of somepony. You can be whatever you want to be." She crunched softly on the remainder of her rock, swallowing it with a mildly content expression. "Even a pony. Nothing could stop her from being whatever she wanted." She glanced away, then back at Tabitha. "May I tell you a secret?"
Tabitha was almost vibrating with excitement. "Oh, please. I won't tell a soul."
"Just don't tell our friends." She tilted her head. "Can you talk to souls?"
"Oh, no, just a saying." Tabitha coughed softly. "Sorry. You were saying?"
Maud looked Tabitha over for a silent moment. "I'm jealous."
"You?" Tabitha leaned forward. "What could you be jealous of? You're amazing, and I'm not even exaggerating. I could never even hope to be half the warrior you are."
Maud touched her forehooves together. "I'm strong." She went quiet again.
Tabitha rolled a hand. "Go on." Maud was still silent. "I can wait." Silence was the reply. Tabitha picked up one of the rocks surrounding Maud and brushed it gently before sniffing at it. "Talking isn't easy for you, is it?"
Maud looked to Tabitha and tilted her head, but said nothing still.
"That's alright. We can talk about whatever you like to talk about, or nothing at all." She smiled brightly. "That's what friends are for."
Maud felt her lips quiver and a small smile formed. "That is what friends are for. Do you want to hear about my sister?" She glanced towards the stairs leading upwards. "My real sister."
"Please." Tabitha set the rock down back in its place and leaned forward, ready to listen.
"I have three of them. Marble, Lime, and Pinkie. Each is special in their own way."
Maud described her sisters for what felt like a long time, until Tabitha reached forward and brushed her cheek, startling her out of her telling. "Sorry, you're just... Please, go on."
Maud saw her fingers were dampened. Was she crying again? She didn't like being weak. She didn't like being away from her sisters either. She snapped at a rock instead of talking, chewing loudly and vigorously a moment. "I'm probably boring you."
"No!" Tabitha rolled both her hands together. "Please. Tell me more." She smiled at Maud. "But only if you want to. We can talk about something else. Would you like to hear my dream?"
Maud tilted her head. "You have one?" She paused a moment before nodding. "Go ahead."
"Well..." She tapped her chin. "At first it was the usual kinda thing. Rich husband, whisked away from hard labor, be treated like a princess, you know the deal."
Maud didn't, but simply stayed quiet.
"That didn't happen." Tabitha sighed a little. "First husband died not a year after we tied the knot. Second thought wrestling a bear was a viable thing t'do..." Maud sat up at that, surprise showing on her features. "The last, well, he slowed down the orcs long enough for me to run away. I'll... miss him..."
It was her turn to loose some tears, and Maud reached for her instead, brushing them away as Tabitha had done in return. "We don't have to talk about it."
Tabitha laughed at that. "Let's not be a pair of sad sacks. Look, they're dead. They aren't coming back. You, on the other hand, have your sisters still. Sure they're far away, but you'll get to them."
Maud considered silently a moment. "Is that your dream?"
"Oh! No, I was giving background." She sat up straight. "So, yeah, the husband dream? I'm done with that. I don't want to wait for another man to kill himself being my husband." She put a hand on her chest. "I'm ready to be a princess, the powerful kind. The kind that can defend her friends and family. Being suddenly surrounded by fey? This can't just be happenstance. Just looking at the three of you... I feel something."
"What would that be?" Maud peered at Tabitha intently.
"I don't know, but something." She tapped her heart. "Right here. My place is with you all. I feel like I can become the princess I want to be, with you. Does that sound too weird?"
Maud stood up despite the sharp pains of doing so and began to trot for the door. Tabitha followed, as Maud was sure she would. Outside, the moon shone down on them, giving dim light to see by. Maud turned back to her friend, breath puffing out small bits of steam in the cooler night air. "This world is magic. If you want to be a princess, you must be magic too, or you aren't one."
Tabitha looked baffled. "W-what?"
"Show me your magic."
"But I never learned magic!"
Maud put a hoof to her chest. "I never learned to fight." She thrust that hoof towards the second floor. "Tree Hugger never learned to cast spells. You want to be one of us? Show me your magic." She walked a few steps away, put something down, then backed away from it, revealing it to be the soap that was wagered on the first game of silence. "Here."
Tabitha glared at the bar, then at Maud. "Are you trying to tell me to go away?"
"Show me your magic." Her voice was even and calm. She watched Tabitha, seemingly patient, and as stoic as was her norm.
With a soft grunt, she turned in place then thrust her hands at the bar. "Ha!" Nothing happened. "Ho!" She wiggled her fingers at it, but nothing happened.
"Stop trying to figure it out."
"What?" Tabitha tilted her head. "How am I going to show you magic if I don't figure it out?"
"You either have it, or you don't. Show me your magic."
She placed a hand over her eyes a moment, then smiled. "Right, show you my magic. I said I'm a princess. I should do it like one." She took the most formal stance she could think of, enough to make any true aristocrat weep. "It's time to go away, bar. Shoo!" She dismissed it and looked away. She felt something in her fingers, and heard something strike the ground, but she was looking in the wrong direction to know what happened.
Maud had seen it, and nodded lightly. "Now do it better."
"B-better?" Tabitha looked back and saw a small little furrow in the ground. "I did it!"
"You showed me your magic. Now do it better."
"Shoo!" Tabitha called out as she pointed at the bar, knocking it over with a sudden bolt of arcane force.
Maud winced faintly. It was the same kind of bolt that saw to her defeat earlier that day, but that wasn't Tabitha's fault. "Keep practicing. I got better that way, so did Tree Hugger, so does Paul and Fast. Being part of our party means working."
"Right, working." She put her hands on her hips. "I will work. A princess, a good princess anyway, is not idle! I will earn the respect of my people, and when I take a new husband, I'll be the one protecting him." She suddenly rushed at Maud, grabbing her in a hug. "Thank you!"
Pain seared through her, but she returned the hug with a single leg. In a moment of silence, they didn't need to speak to know one another.
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Called it! This is just delightful!
Tabitha is a Level 0 witch, or sorceress? At least she doesnt have to wiggle her nose.
What was the arguments on the forums the other day? I cant remember the actual system used, but it was one where even an all 3 Ability Sorcerer would eventually climb into total power nutcase levels.
Path/Ponyfinder has the Feat where the abilities of the Familiar apply to the Sorcerer, givng a caster boost if the sorcerer is a lower level?
They just resting up for the night, or for a couple days for Tree to work through all her healing and recover?
Jeez, three husbands already? She's apparently already numb enough that the death of her latest husband has barely any effect at all. It's sad but, y'know, there are way more husbands than this. He died. Heroically, unheroically? Whatever, time to move on!
Also, rather convenient that she has undiscovered magic powers.
6738411 I get the idea you're irritated at her, or me for making her?
hand at her chest - hand to her chest
hands at her hips - hands on her hips
*****
Oh Tabitha.... you've come such a long, long way...
I think I see what Maud sees in her now, and while Princess Pinkie might be a little scary to consider, Princess Tabitha seems to naturally fit that role. If she makes it past her first few challenges and tempers that eagerness and bravery with a little wisdom. Adventuring has a pretty steep learning curve.
On a positive note, the party is now pretty well balanced, or it will be once Tabitha has a few more spells under her belt.
6738516 Typos fixed. How did you know her wisdom was low? Are you peeking at her sheet?!
6738466
I'm definitely annoyed at her... She has three dead husbands. This last one literally sacrificed himself for her. But... instead of being reverent, or torn up... he's just another dead schmuck to her. She admits he made a sacrifice, so she has a basic level of respect for him, but his passing seems to have basically no impact on her emotions. She's too enamored with ponies and being a magical princess to care.
I guess the idea is that she's marrying not for what we would call love, but just because she has to marry to have a life... and that this is the third dead husband it's become business as usual for her... but you'd think she'd be a bit more reverent to the man who sacrificed his life for hers. Instead she seems kinda self-centered by focusing on how she's going to be happier now, and discounting that this man died for her well-being. She's gonna go on and be an adventurer! And marry another better husband!
As to annoyed at you...
I have a tendency to be loud about things that irk me. I try not to hold it against the people responsible for it unless there is some evidence this is some kind of deeper callousness or opinion I find outrageous. I don't always succeed, but I know there are a lot of reasons it might be written this way. Maybe this was just something you thought up this chapter (realizing there was no way she probably wasn't going to be married, and if she didn't have multiple husbands she would probably treat his death very seriously), or intended to be culture shock to us, or some other more neutral reason than essentially saying she is right for not caring about him now, despite him sacrificing his life for her.
(Relevant RPG story: was playing an RPG where my character was an alien from a primitive world spirited away. He had a lot of culture shock, but otherwise rarely thought about it... until they returned, and, upon fleshing out the backstory, the GM and I realized there was no way he wasn't married at the age he was spirited away at... so a marriage that was strictly "business" was created, to help explain why my character never mentioned it. Doesn't explain the lack of his precious daughter in his thoughts... but there were some rescues and she became part of the NPCs, while the old wife, after my character's presumed death, went on to have a new husband and a new life. So it's not like I don't, on a basic level, understand that marriage in ancient cultures was for very different reasons than they are now.)
6738591 I think you may be confusing callousness for defensive reactions. She's had it rough, and her life was upheaved again, only to run into literal magic beings on an epic quest of epicness, willing to come help her. She's clinging. It's not healthy, but she is clinging to this chance with everything she has and smiling despite the pain.
She won't be caught again. Does she feel anything for this man? Yes. She is sorry she was busy being a 'bad' princess. She should have been protecting him, not letting him die for her. Too many people died for her.
Enough.
6738616
While her being unhealthy and clinging is an interesting character, it still doesn't really feel like she has much feeling for her now-dead husband. She appears to see her husbands as phases in her life, or like... jobs to be discarded and replaced when they don't work out, when they are generally intended to be lifelong partners. Family members.
I actually think likening her husbands to jobs is a really good metaphor. It's a big part of your life. But once it's gone you could just feel a melancholy sense of loss, but the feeling that you can do better in the next job. When... that job is a person. A person who died for you. Whose life ended and you're only focusing on the next person you could get.
I don't disagree with her choice to leave, I really don't. Getting stronger to prevent this in the future is fine.
But having a defense mechanism and being callous are not mutually exclusive...
6738803 I'm not sure what she should be doing?
She talks about all three, so this should be "sisters".
She's been acting so happy, when she lost her husband just a couple days ago? I guess it's a defense mechanism.
I think I see where this is going, but I'm not sure I like it. Tabitha is fun, she makes friends easily and she likes ponies. However, she is also irresponsible and motivated by selfishness at her core. She is fully qualified to be a valued party member, but she will need to have a drastic and permanent personality shift if you mean for her to be a leader. A big enough shift that some of us will probably accuse her of being out-of-character if it happens too fast. You could always have her be changed by a traumatic event, but it seems that she has already had plenty of those, to little effect. As things currently stand, the next queen still has to be Fast. I am not saying that because I love Fast; being queen would destroy her. It's just that Fast has the attitude the ponies need their leader to have, and any magical queen-choosing artifact would know that.
6739226 I was tempted for all of a minute, tops.
6739251 When I think about it, becoming queen is the worst thing that could happen to Fast; she'll probably die of old age at 40. But the ponies need someone who cares like that.
6738806
I've been going over this in my head all day because I don't want to get too harsh about this. If I start to get er... too critical, or frustratingly stubborn about it, go ahead and tell me so...
As to what she "should" do... I dunno... mourn him, maybe? He couldn't have died less than a week ago. He might not even be dead a couple days, and she's already talking about her next potential husband.
However, if she is numb to his passing because of the multiple dead husbands, or if she's in denial mode, or if she saw her husbands as sources of protection and shelter/food, rather than loving them as family or romantically, or any combination of these three, then she "should" do nothing different. What she is doing now is accurate to her character.
But I still don't like her attitude because I read a disrespect (and a lack of love) for her husbands in it. This... actually doesn't necessarily mean I hate the character, because I can be compelled by selfish or flawed characters, but it is an attitude I find rather awful.
6739549 Maud noticed she was sad. Maud. Maybe I was too subtle this time.
People react to death in diffenert ways, she could be very much hiding away from the pain and all its going to take is something to make her think of her dead husband and it all comes flooding out.
I think she's just a character that is also just going to take time to grow us but I do pray to the sun Queen and for the ponies in everglow he doesn't turn out to be the new queen. Fast is a good leader but I don't quite think she will be able to cope with being a queen. As there is a very big difference between being a leader and being a ruler
All hail Princess Tabitha, She Who Wields the Zappy Fingers!
Pinkie...
7664676
Hey! Ho! Huazzah!