Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Woolgathering nonsense.

-Fizzle-

So, what to do? Our group is suddenly spread out and all over the place, I’m still in the hotel lobby. Jade already had her idea and looking over to mom, they were currently discussing it.

“You need to practice it for tomorrow Jade, so no going to the comic convention today.” Kuril had her arms crossed and was staring Jade down. “I promise that we’ll get one day at the comic convention, but until then we’re here for the cultural festival. Also don’t think I haven’t noticed your plans to rob the museum, please do that near the end of the week.”

“You choose now of all days to start being a stuffy mom?” Were Jade’s rather sour words as she pouted at mom.

“I’m evil like that kitten.” Kuril’s tail flicked in an agitated manner and her ears stood straight up, this caused Jade’s ears to wilt.

“Fine, I’ll practice, stop giving me that look.” After a moment of staring at Jade a little bit harder, Kuril smiled and pulled Jade into a big hug.

“Oh my little tom cat is being so responsible!” Eventually mom let go of her, but not before licking her behind the ears making her mewl in an annoyed manner.

“Are you doing a mystery dumpling booth or is it made to order?” As Jade asked her mother that, I felt Maries lean up against me and nuzzled me with their front heads. I snuggled into them and continued to watch the conversation.

“Mystery dumplings with random fruit, sweet beans or cream filling. Made to order is boring, I’ll let some ponies have a little adventure with every dumpling they bite into.” It seems like Kuril was all in on this cultural festival and she was going to run a mystery dumplings stand for passing ponies to try. It will also be Jade’s cultural feature for Cheerilee when she does whatever it is she’s going to do. “Never know what you’ll get, but it’ll always be good or I’m not living up to being ‘the witch of good taste’! I’ll need your help with getting a good spot to sell them from Jade.”

Thinking of cultural projects I needed to think of mine, Velvet already had ice shaping and the Vibrant Vikings were going to do a sparring match between themselves.

I turned to Mara only to get a tongue slapped against my cheek making me blush, Maries were being pretty affectionate right now and I had my suspicions as to why. They were nervous about doing a cultural project.

They wanted to do something. Like Arizona, they were running into problems with thinking about what to actually do. The culture Maries are from isn’t exactly pony friendly and this is why she wanted my attention right now.

“Can I help you with something Maries?” I could see that nervous look on Maria and Mara’s faces, Marie just kept her head low to the floor.

“Well… we want to do something cultural, but does it necessarily have to be our culture?” Mara started off.

“We want to help you with a project!” Marie blurted out and Maria turned to glare at her, the snake slowly lowered her head back down with a weak smile.

“Well okay then.” That didn’t sound too bad, though there was a single problem. “Although I have no idea what I’m doing yet and I have plenty of options, but I can’t do anything relating to unicorn culture specifically.”

“We understand why you wouldn’t.” Mara stated while tilting her head at me. “Though continuing to pass yourself off as an earth pony is getting a little weird. You’re a very strong unicorn and you impressed our mother well enough physically, which is surprising as most unicorns aren’t physically capable as you are.”

“Better physical health is almost a fair tradeoff for having a broken horn I suppose, I’m still quite self-conscious about what ponies think of it and I don’t like it being stared at. Yet… I also crave to be acknowledged…. it’s complicated with me.” It’s always the same for me. Ponies always asking questions, being horrified by it, some get suspicious of why my horn is broken, many just stare at it and plenty of other things. I prefer to keep it hidden away, even if it makes me look like I’m an earth pony. I can’t truly match an earth pony directly in physical strength and endurance, but I could come close through grit and stubbornness. This is why what I said next is of no surprised to Maries. “I’m thinking the cultural thing I want to do is help some ponies with good clean hard work, get out there and show others what I can do by putting my back into it.”

“Helping others is a part of pony culture…” There’s a ‘but’ there Mara, just get it over with. “But it seems too simplified a cultural project for you, we would have expected something bigger or flashier given our shared love of Jade.”

“Jade might always go for things like that, but I’m not exactly Jade now am I? I don’t need to do something big or crazy, just fun and educational.” There were still things about chimera culture that none of us have ever bothered to ask about and I was doing that right now. “Chimera do things together as a pack right?”

“Not really, most chimera do things solo… well as solo as a three headed being can be anyway. The only time chimera do something together is when we’re all at our dens, teaching the new generation, when we have something of a problem concerning our territory and when a chimera is sick we leave someone to protect them. If you don’t already know, Flame Geyser Swamp is kind of inhospitable to most but the hardiest of beings.” Marie looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you think ponies would even let us help them? We’re kind of scary to look at.”

“I’m sure there’s a pony out there that wouldn’t mind our help, even if you are a chimera.” Hugging Maries around their large chest as much as I could made them all smile at me. Ponies had been pretty wary around them since we got into the city, especially after they had helped set up the wyvern for me to hit between the eyes. “Jade’s going to be busy practicing ‘the dance of her people’, so we’re not going to get much snuggle time with her today. So… why don’t we go out into the city and find someone to help together?”

“We could also go by the museum Jade wants to rob and scope it out for…” Cutting off Maria before she could get too far with a hoof, I had something to tell them.

“Jade wants us both to go to the museum with her together as a date and she’s also paying for dinner afterwards, probably nothing too fancy that would bar you on the principle of what you are. Maybe she’ll find a griffon owned establishment?” Thinking about it, I had to admit that Jade never did over the top fancy when dating. It was always something affordable or even simple. Aside from that ball that is, but we were invited to that by Celestia based on the idea that Jade would eventually ruin it out of natural inclinations. “So no, we’re not scoping out the museum without her. Anything else you want to look at while we’re out trying to find someone to assist?”

“I’m interested in Madisoat Square Garden.” Mara stated in a calm tone at the same time as her sister’s answers, they themselves had different ideas. Mara’s idea was of seeing competition and fierce wrestling, she really liked her athletics.

“I want to see Manehattan’s public library!” No surprise coming from Marie, though she was quite vocal about it. She always the intellectual compared to her two sisters, though you wouldn’t know it with how she was also getting into Power Ponies and how deeply she’s already dug into Jade’s comic collection.

Ten bits says Marie ends up going full geek at the comic convention with Jade when we go.

“Would it be weird if I said I wanted to see Saddle Row?” Out of the three of them, that was the oddest request. We all slowly turned to Maria and stared at her. “What… why are all of you staring at me like that?”

“Why would you ever want to go to Saddle Row Maria? There’s not exactly anything fashionable that you three could really pull off given your body shape… well except maybe a fur tight stealth suit or body armor.” When I mentioned body armor, Mara perked up immediately. “You could buy some saddle bags and a saddle so we can… nope… cutting that thought off before I go there.”

“I wouldn’t mind wearing some body armor, I personally think we’d make for a dashing chimera knight for you and Jade!” Trying to imagine Mara’s idea of body armor left me smiling a little.

“Veto.” Both Maria and Marie stated blandly, then Marie added. “Unless circumstances would need or require us to wear body armor like what you are currently thinking of Mara. As long as we’re your sisters and are a part of this collective body… we’d rather not.”

“You do realize that Jade could eventually make that happen by accident or on purpose right?” At Mara’s smirk, both her sisters shuddered violently.

“Do you always decide things by a majority?” Didn’t I learn from the last time? I asked them a question once that got them arguing with one another for hours on end, that was possibly the world’s longest argument over pizza toppings.

“There’s three of us, ties only happen when one of us abstains and in that case we drop the subject until later after thinking it over a bit. It’s completely fair for all three of us.” Well that was somewhat informative Maria. “Marie abstains the most out of us when she can’t come to a conclusion, but she’s pretty wise about it. We can even agree when voting isn’t fair to any of us if the situation is within reason.”

“What about now? You have three differing opinions on where we should go, how do you vote?” Why did I ask that?! There was a long pause and all three heads looked to be going through something thought provoking.

“We tend to have problems when we want to do three different things at the same time, we either ask for outside help or one of us agrees to do one of the two suggested things that we didn’t suggest personally. We get to experience more things that way, like how we met Jade at the edge of what was our hunting territory, Marie and I made the decision to explore a little further that day.” Mara looked to be thinking hard about something. She eventually turned to Maria. “Library?”

“Sure, we need to do more nice things for Marie.” Maria nuzzled her sister Mara and then looked to me. “Our sister is always a bit lonely being at the back of our body.”

“I’m not lonely, I have you two!” Stretching her neck forward she cuddled up between Maria and Mara, while their body hugged themselves. It was always rather sweet to see the three getting along.

“So on the way to the library, could you tell me the story of how Maria got her ears pierced?” They looked quite bashful all of the sudden and I gave them a curious glance as I started for the door to the hotel.

“Well it’s quite a tale really… though it’s a tad embarrassing.” Clearing her throat as we walked out, Marie went into a particularly goofy tone that I suppose was her trying to make this sound more epic than it was. “Well it all started with this griffon…”

-Thirty minutes later-

“The piercing wasn’t really a problem, it was getting the earrings which is a different story entirely.” Marie almost finished. “So yeah, that’s why we don’t appreciate regular bran muffins even if Matriarch Kuril is baking them.”

I burst out laughing in front of the library. Eventually I managed to calm myself down and tug my horn covering hat down a bit. I just removed the Hayburger logo from my hat and now I wore it when I wasn’t willing to alter my mane just to hide what I was from the world.

I still continued to giggle though.

“Yeah, yeah, get it all out of your system Fizzle.” Maria turned her chin towards the sky and huffed. “Let it be known that I’m completely happy with how things turned out.”

“Excuse me, but um… the chimera?” The pony librarian that was sitting beyond the door to the library at a desk and was shivering in fright upon seeing Maries, who wasn’t even showing a single bit of aggression.

“She’s with me.” Sternly stating this while glaring the librarian down, I didn’t like how she was already profiling Maries as dangerous.

“Oh of course…” She swallowed and seemed rather nervous about Maries’ presence. “Do you want the cookbooks section?”

“We find that stereotype offensive and we have never eaten a pony, not for the lack of trying mind you.” Started off Marie conversationally and the librarian gulped. “Now, however, we will absolutely refuse to. Mostly for the fact that we’re currently dating one. What I actually wanted to see is biology books on frogs and snakes, I want to compare my biology to that of a regular snakes as I’m curious about some of the things our other girlfriend mentioned in knowing how to deal with a chimera.”

“Well you certainly know how to elucidate.” The Librarian stopped shivering a moment to stare at Marie in surprise.

“Thank you, we happen to be a lawyer and knowing how to elucidate helps in the courtroom.” Now with but a single statement from Maria, the librarian was shivering in fear for a completely different reason now and seemed clearly horrified at the prospect. “Don’t worry we’ve study the law and follow it as Equestrian citizens.”

“Right, well, you want nonfiction section up on… you know what… let me show you personally.” That was a surprisingly kind offer from the librarian, what’s the catch? “I… actually want to know some things about chimera and if they are true or not, if you don’t mind filling me in that is.”

Ah, she was more curious about Maries than afraid. That was unlike many other ponies on the street despite the fact that Maries didn’t even look at them funny.

“No problem at all, we’re pretty tame.” It seems like Maries would make a friend here, and without any kind of prodding from Jade or me. “Go ahead and ask about a few things.”

“Is it true that all chimera can learn to breathe fire?” The librarian’s first question was a usual one asked by visiting ponies to Maries back home.

“Depends, do we have dragon in our genetics? If so then there’s a strong possibility of it, hasn’t happened to us yet though.” While Mara was explaining that, I happened to collide painfully with some pony.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was uh… eep!” The poor cream furred pony with the cyan hair cowered and curled up on herself when she saw Maries.

She reminded me of Fluttershy somewhat and there was a book on fashion next to her.

Author's Note:

Insert Coco Pommel. After befriending Charity Kindheart, before she has met Suri Polomare.

A friendly pony to most, but she is about to have a very special encounter, for she has accidentally wandered into the dimension known as... 'The Absurd Limits'!

Comments

[Mystic Chicken]

“Oh I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was uh… eep!” The poor cream furred pony with the cyan hair cowered and curled up on herself when she saw Maries.

Hello Coco