Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: The start of our home. (We're doomed.)

-Celestia-

Don’t pressure her, don’t pressure her, don’t pressure her, I have to remember that she is still a young and growing incredible magic user… where is she getting her education from? Maybe she could come to my school and… darn it I feel like pressuring her about something!

-Jade-

There’s an uncomfortable look in Celestia’s eyes as she looked back at me from inspecting the damaged airship.

“A town, really, here of all places?” I had my suspicions that Celestia wanted me around, they weren’t exactly suspicions so much as the probability that she really won’t leave me alone until she knows she can come to me for problems that I’m not exactly fit to handle. Twilight and a full grown dragon comes to mind, what was Celestia thinking there? Twilight was not a diplomat and using her as one while not professionally trained was kind of dumb. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to keep me around for the… ‘the stars shall aid in her escape’… thing.”

“No of course not, I… wait… how do you know about… moon priest... of course you know, why wouldn’t you?” She gave me a depressed look, Luna was almost more important to her than her kingdom. “I guess you’re quite clever for your age. Still though, why did you come to Equestria originally?”

“Well I and mom wanted to set up in Manehatten, just start up a small restaurant on the coast and try to get Abyssinians into the mainstream consciousness of ponies and maybe take on a few griffon customers to work up to equality for various species. You know Abyssinia is a trade nation and we Abyssinians, for the most part, are not recognizable around here despite how much trade we have going between us.” I stopped and considered my words carefully. “Also I wanted some friends my age, if you must know my mother and I come from a sleepy little coastal town with not much going on. Around here there’s some excitement, like how I befriended a chimera the same day I ended up in Canterlot.”

“A chimera, well that certainly explains the injury to your shoulder at least. Wait, friends... maybe… that could work.” There was something thoughtful on Celestia’s face and she glanced at me and I gave her a raised brow while tapping a foot impatiently. “Oh sorry, that sounds like a noble goal, but what of your education?”

“I’m pretty well educated already, I can certainly identify most monsters on sight and how to deal with them safely. I’m a fish scaler, a rogue sun priest and a unique magic user. I also know quite some things about history, like Luna for one, so try me.” I made Celestia wince, I’m not apologizing for that. She did seal her sister in the moon and she’s still there to this day. “That and I can ensure the destruction of normally impervious magical artifacts and objects, though the energy released from such destruction has to go somewhere. So I can get rid of dangerous magical items as a side business for AK Yearling.”

“What would you call a two-headed snake with no tail?” Oh, it looks like Celestia went full on teacher mode for me. Also she seemed to flinch when I said AK Yearling, so Celestia did know about Daring Do at least.

“An amphisbaena. If you get swallowed alive by a large enough one, and provided you can survive its insides, then you can possibly come out the other end. Just avoid the fangs.” I shivered at the thought of being swallowed by a gigantic amphisbaena. “I heard it’s not recommended, but there are usually not amphisbaena’s big enough for that. They are quite venomous and a feminine name for said species would be anphivena. They primarily start life eating ants and are said to possibly be from the blood of gorgons.”

“No wonder an outbreak started after me and Luna accidentally… never mind that, old history." The questions would continue it seemed, Celestia wasn’t about to let me off the hook unless I could prove myself educated enough to not need school. "What would you call a lobster or crab made from lava?”

“A cherufe is my guess, you’re not very likely to meet one unless you live in volcanic regions like dragons do. They are quite dangerous to approach especially while they are covered in lava or magma depending on where you meet them.” I leveled a flat look at Celestia. “The kids are said to be a major cause of earthquakes and tectonic problems, the parents cause less volatile situations and are protective of their young. Any more questions?”

“No I think you’ve proved that you are quite educated about two creatures that live quite far off from one another.” She looked at my mother, oh here we go. “Still, hello I’m Princess Celestia. You must be Jade’s mother.”

“Ms. Kurilian La Perm, yes I’m her mother and I happen to be Fizzle’s guardian.” It seemed that mom introduced Fizzle because she was being rather quiet. Fizzle looked a little surprised that mom claimed to be her guardian and seemed happy to accept it. “Call me Kuril and this is the aforementioned Fizzle.”

“Hello, do you know of a way to fix my horn princess?” Of course Fizzle would ask Celestia that, she would likely take every opportunity to ask around to see if anyone can help her.

“No, but I would if I could, no unicorn should go through life like this.” The way Celestia said that made me gaze at her softly. She may be a bit manipulative, but she wasn’t evil and she was still quite sorrowful about her sister.

Still, Celestia was a bit focused on unicorns. I think it’s mostly because they had a penchant for going evil more often than the pegasi or earth ponies.

“Well thanks for not getting my hopes up at least.” Fizzle mumbled sarcastically and I wanted to hug her. Darn it Tempest Shadow, you’re ridiculously adorable when you aren’t evil for reasons of promised horn fixing.

“Still, I’ll try to look into it. Just know that nothing might come of it.” Thank you Celestia, it’s not like I and mom were already going to do that ourselves with magical alchemy. “You still need an education though and I suggest you continue the same with your daughter’s education Kuril.”

My first idea was a dud and I wasn’t sure that wrestling with monsters like a cragadile would do me any favors or help Fizzle. It was going to take some research to find something that could heal Fizzle, in fact me and mom haven’t exactly got into mixing magical alchemy ingredients for casts yet and a combination of ingredients would make for a very powerful cast. We were taking it slow and learning to do things one item at a time.

“I would like it if you were to live somewhere nearby, would you be opposed to living in a town if I got some ponies started on building it here?” Really Celestia, who were you fooling? Not my mother, or me for that matter. You were staring at my fire in the same way Sekhet did, you knew what it was and so did Sekhet. Also where is Sekhet? You’d think she’d be around to meet Celestia and get into an action packed battle that would inevitably destroy the entire area, which would be useful for land development now that I think of it. “There’s a nearby river that has plenty of fish and clean water in it, this would be a nice place to settle down right?”

“You just want us around because my daughter is a sun priest, a rogue one at that. She’s obviously quite different from what you would expect and don’t you dare try and force her to be something she’s not!” Sure I may joke about mom not caring about me, but you if tried to hurt me she will respond with a viciousness that most in Palicoast would say is a true mother’s love. The salty sea cats around there can tell you how fierce she can get when pushed. “Would you take a daughter away from her mother?”

“I, no… I wouldn’t do that.” Okay now Celestia was wilting and looking pathetic, was she a powerful and benevolent goddess level ruler or not?

“Then you may want to instill that family is important in whatever student you have at the moment.” The flowing hair stopped flowing and went straight as I got Celestia’s attention, I just stared at her coolly and she nibbled at her bottom lip a bit. I rolled my eyes. “If you can get a sturdy house with a theme restaurant constructed, alongside a school and a train station sometime today or tomorrow I may consider sticking around. Also you’d have to give us the land to live on if you want us to stay here. Of course foreigners having land in the middle of Equestrian soil will definitely upset all your nobles considering how close to home we’ll be.”

“Does your daughter usually do the negotiations for you?” The princess said turning to my mother, her mane started up again and she seemed somewhat happy. “She’s quite sharp.”

“Like her claws, she’s my bright little tom cat and she should definitely get some say in it. I would suggest using the remains of the crashed airship in the creation of our house. We used to have a good sturdy restaurant back in the port town of Palicoast with a similar ship based theme.” I flicked an ear at mom, she got the signal that I wouldn’t mind this option. It would be what we were going to do anyway, but Manhattan would have been more expensive than starting fresh out here on Celestia’s funding. “You’d need to clean up the wood, get the belongings of the other passengers back to them and then make it resistant to weather, but I think the crashed airship would make a good home. Provided that we can buy the remains from the captain. He’ll sell for cheap as some of the keel is a bit busted and it can no longer make emergency water landings, it’s definitely unsafe for use as an airship. We’ll also need something like a larder around here.”

I hadn’t even thought of that, my mom did run a restaurant and was business savvy. It sounded like a good deal if Celestia could set all of that up. Mom turned to Fizzle.

“What would you like to be a part of this imaginary town Celestia proposes that we live in Fizzle?” My mom was sweet to ask the suddenly flummoxed Fizzle who didn’t have an answer and looked thoughtful for a while.

“Well I wouldn’t mind a place that welcomed everyone, no matter the species or… disabilities.” I could see where Fizzle was going with it and I nodded to Celestia.

“We can’t very well have a place of our own, especially if ponies are just going to move in and kick us out for being different.” As soon as I said that Celestia got rather defensive.

“I wouldn’t let that happen!” If it were up to Celestia or if she were informed of it happening anyway.

“Uh, you kind of already have princess.” Now entering Fresh Start as part of the conversation, I wonder what she had to say about this proposal Celestia started. “Do you remember when Appleoosa was built? It’s in the middle of the Buffalo stampeding trails. So… you… technically already did let it happen princess. Just with someone else and the buffaloes have been causing problems ever since because of it. They were truly there first, before our settlers built a town down in the middle of their nomadic territories. Appleoosa is always in trouble when they stampede through the apple orchards and they also cause a lot of damage to the town in retaliation.”

“Do you mean that you wouldn’t let it happen now specifically or at a much later date?” There was a very strong and long silence after my snarky comeback, I looked to mom and Fizzle who looked back at me. Mom was okay with it and Fizzle snorted slightly in amusement.

We all turned to Celestia to see what she had to say about this, she looked to still be in shock from what our personal maid had told her. Said maid had yet to really do anything around here, but we’re giving her plenty of leeway on that.

“I… I need to consider some things, but I will agree to the fact that you can’t be removed from these lands by any pony.” I would say that’s nice, but could you actually actively enforce that Celestia? I don’t tend to trust the general pony population for their negative tendencies towards xenophobia and things that are too different from them. Like what happened to Fizzle in becoming a lost outcast. “Within reason at the very least.”

“Agreed, but there’s one last thing to be considered. I get to the name town if you’re going to help fund the start of one here.” A town with a name that nobody would want to visit because of how ridiculous it would be.

“Okay, tell me what you would like to name it then.” To think you seemed so sure of yourself upon arrival princess, but now you were flagging and you probably won’t like my name for the town. If you actually went along with this, then I’ll be thoroughly surprised. “I’m quite willing to do all that other stuff and will get to work on it immediately, plus I have a few other things I need to look into now.”

“I want to name the town Airship Mauled!” It would always remind me that the Predestined Paradox had landed on Sekhet, plus it was pure gold for a name as far as I was concerned. I bowed my head solemnly while clasping my hands in prayer. “It’s in memory of a fortress I know about that was named Ship Killed, one that was sadly crushed under a pack of rabid pachyderms, goblins, the rampant ensuing madness and a unfortunately placed lava based kill switch that would bring the whole fortress, built at the base of a volcano, down. Sitting on it was bound to happen eventually and it took hundreds of years, but someone eventually forgot what that switch did!”

“Your… joking… you have to be.” Started Celestia as she stared flatly at me, only for my mother to bow her head solemnly and put her hands up in prayer.

“The poor people of Ship Killed. We’ll always remember, the fifth of November, when that store of gunpowder blew the fortress in half as it was being buried under lava. Thankfully none of the goblins survived, but the killer elephants certainly did.” Thank you mom for joining me in this endeavor. Ship Killed was quite fun, especially when I based that O and O scenario on something else. We had to get our characters out of the fortress and away from the carnage before it blew up, fun times were had that day. “It was a sad day indeed and I think it would be perfectly nice if we named this place Airship Mauled in memory of the fallen fortress.”

Fizzle stared at Celestia wondering if she would really give in to these two jokers.

“Fine, the town will be Airship Mauled.” Muttered a tired Celestia.

Author's Note:

The allusion here is something called 'Boat Murdered'.

Comments

[Darkonshadows]

8869198

Funny you should call Murphy to attention... do you know anything about Boat Murdered?

[Sigmacipher]

ROLL CREDITS!!!

[madSQUIRELL]

Now I really wish that Jade will publish rulebook for "Changeling Fortress"
!!SCIENCE!! will fit right in there :) (Changeling Space Program, anyone?)

Also, this is criminally undervoted right now - you have my like for that reference alone, dear Author

[madSQUIRELL]

“Fine, the town will be Airship Mauled.” Muttered a tired Celestia.

All we need now is a herd of murderous elephants hydras elephants as town defenders (for a change), ocassional Pukwidgies raids, Sekhet freshly discovered obsession with stone carving (or whatever other craft flows her boat) and Kurillian being capable of setting herself on fire at will
If only Jaded also knew how to vaporise EVERYTHING around Airshipmauled using her Soul Fire...

11/SCIENCE for this SunnyPuffs - somehow I imagine her being just like that

[FridayPie]

Reference to Dwarf Fortress?

[dargonax]

Was there a v for vendetta reference?

[Hipparcos]

Oh good Lord, Boatmurdered.

[ThatBadGuy]

What do you call a cat that likes to read?

Litter-ate.

[Shadowshame]

9426283
Its time for your PUNishment it won't be so funny when the yarn is in the other paw