Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Cold Trails.

-Velvet-

I sat there looking into Paprika’s eyes, I looked away slightly upset at what I was seeing.

She loved me unconditionally, after all she’s put me through I was going to end up breaking her heart.

“Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused me? I’m sorry, but I can’t return your feelings…” Paprika drooped, but her weak smile didn’t drop any farther. I was right, even telling her that couldn’t break her perpetual smile. “Yet.”

Why did I add a ‘yet’ to that? Why? I know how Paprika will take that!

A spark of happiness erupted in Paprika’s eyes making me sigh loudly, her smile turned a little bit brighter and her eyes lit up in excitement.

I groaned out sadly, why did I go and do that? Was it because the heart shaped pupils in her eyes looked like they were breaking?

“I don’t believe in love at first sight Paprika, I believe in getting to know someone so that I can learn if I love them or not.” There was a loud crunching noise drawing my attention to Arizona eating some vegetables. “Could you not crunch so loudly when we’re trying to have a moment Arizona! Also could you chew with your mouth closed? You’re being quite impolite to us and rather rude.”

“I eat, how I want to eat.” Arizona snorted loudly and leaned back on the stretched out blanket that used to be the cloth Paprika tended to wear over her back, she continued to chew loudly.

“Ignoring my boorish bovine companion for the moment, let me tell you exactly what you’ve done to me in great detail Paprika.” So I did, I told her about how my parents didn’t like a side of me I discovered because of my interactions with her and how nothing I ever did was good enough for them. Eventually it all boiled down to us meeting today. “We lost a good friend and then we set out on a journey to look for where Arizona’s mother ended up going, we’re also looking for a way to bring said friend back from wherever she went. Do you understand all this Paprika?”

Paprika nodded, hearts in her eyes as she nuzzled me apologetically, I could even feel her strong apology in the simple physical touch she was giving me. I could feel how sorry she was that my flesh and blood parents weren't very nice.

“You know, if she doesn’t talk, then how do you know her name?” Now Arizona was eating strawberries and smacking her lips while doing so. “By the way, thanks for the fresh fruit Paprika. You really know how to fight and picnic.”

Paprika gave off a joyful noise to Arizona as she looked towards her with the same heart shaped pupils she doesn’t look at just anybody with. Every time she visited me in my old home she never looked at any other reindeer other than me that way, despite making an overly affectionate menace of herself.

“She can write. She’s more a creature of emotion, usually mostly endless love, than actual verbal replies.” She would continue to be a highly affectionate menace even if she wasn’t in love with me or Arizona at first sight, which I find to be a ridiculous premise.

Nobody can fall in love at first sight, love takes hard work and time to bear fruit! Speaking of, I popped some grapes into my mouth and chewed.

Paprika moved off the blanket and started to rip up a few blades of grass, she avoided the flowers and still stopped to sniff them. Once she came back she started to arrange the blades of grass on the blanket to spell something.

“I love you five ever? Well of course you do Paprika, but you still have to make it up to me or I will never return any of your affection.” At my words she started to spell something else out and I waited for her to finish.

She’d love me longer than forever, which was kind of sad if I never even returned a scrap of what she would continue to give.

“Don’t care if no love, I want you be happy?” Arizona read out after she swallowed some blueberries. “I think she’s really serious about that.”

“Of course she is, she’s 'Paprika Paca the Fluffmancer'. When she says she loves someone, there’s no room for doubt about how she really feels… I just can’t say I feel the same at this time.” Though whining at my words, Paprika still snuggled up against me as I tossed a raspberry into my mouth. “If you really want me to love you, you have to work for it after everything you’ve already put me through.”

Paprika gave me a determined look, the heart shaped pupils in her eyes grew slightly bigger. Goodness knows she was one to keep trying and would never stop.

“So she’s coming along with us to help me search for what happened to my mother?” Ever so slowly, turning to Arizona with a horrified look, I began to feel a sinking sense of dread. “She looks like she has a strong back and can carry lots of stuff.”

Paprika started nodding rapidly with her tongue sticking out.

“Oh no, no, no, she is most certainly not coming with us!” I was putting my hoof down right now.

“How is she ever going to make it up to you, especially for making your parents practically disown you after she helped you discover your sexuality, if she’s not around to try and make things better?” Arizona quirked her head at me and smirked a bit, she is an evil, evil cow.

She was one of the highest sorts of evil even, the logical kind.

We continued eating in silence, all while Paprika kept sending me happy little glances. I sent Paprika only the most scathing stares I could devise.

I just knew that no matter what, she’d follow us to the ends of the world even if I didn’t want her to.

“I’m not sleeping next to you tonight.” I groused out angrily towards Arizona.

“I’ll just have to sleep next to Paprika then, since it wouldn’t bother you to sleep alone.” Arizona seemed to have no problem with it, we’ve been snuggled up every night since we started our journey. “You really like being cold and alone don’t you?”

I winced loudly, Arizona really hit a sore spot for me. I might have been the champion and guardian of my village, but I had been somewhat lonely without Paprika’s constant visits to try and affectionately assault me.

The fact that Paprika kept coming back despite being frozen solid multiple times, that absolutely said something of her dedication to me.

“We still have time to reach the lambkin village sometime today and we can get some actual beds to sleep in this evening.” I got up and waited for Arizona to finish, once she stepped off the blanket Paprika swept up anything left into her picnic basket with a bright pink heart on it and shrunk the blanket back down somehow.

Paprika put the picnic basket behind her back where it seemingly disappeared, like Jacky’s mysterious party cannon, and then she placed the cloth back where it belong over her back. She turned to us with an eager happy grin.

“Fine… she can…” I felt my face get slammed with a wall of warm fluff, Paprika was holding me tenderly. She must have learned at least a single ounce of restraint as she wasn’t currently breaking my ribs… again. Her literal bone crushing and everything else hugs were likely why I was as tough as I was to this day. I seriously doubt that her restraint would last forever. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Paprika’s large tongue slapped me across the cheek and she held me tighter.

Arizona snickered out loud at us and I growled in her direction.

“Don’t know about you Fluff Butt, but she can really fight and she’s friendly to boot. I certainly like her.” Well of course you would Arizona, you just don’t understand how menacing she can be to everyone in her general surroundings.

-A few hours later, Arizona, outside lambkin village-

Paprika hopped along behind us with a perpetual happy smile and humming a cheerful tune, she was sweeter than molasses and just as thick in the curly blonde fur department.

Anyone who can knock me around as well as she could in such a friendly manner was alright to me, she was really quite tough and I liked her already.

Didn’t really care that she loved me, I would return that love at least unlike a certain stingy reindeer. Of course after hearing about how often Paprika had traumatized Velvet, I kind of had to agree that Paprika needed to earn that love from the both of us.

I still thought Velvet was being a little too sour towards Paprika, she was nothing but friendly to my girlfriend and I liked her well enough that I couldn’t be jealous if Paprika’s first love was always going to be Velvet. The alpaca had to be a little bit masochistic to get on this ride we call life with us.

We came upon a small village and it was full of sheep people, did they hate being called sheeple? Eh, we walked into town and we were met by a ram to greet us.

“Oh? Hello there, saw that alpaca here earlier and she slept quite peacefully in our already sleepy little village.” For some reason this old ram’s words made Velvet give him a funny look, he looked like an average ram to me with very little to define him differently from all the other male sheep around him. Aside from being gray and old I mean. “Names Puff, welcome to our humble little settlement. You can rest and eat here, but we really don’t have much else to offer visitors. Unless you want to settle down in a really quiet place with an equally quiet pace.”

“There are actually times where you don’t terrorize everyone in sight?!” Velvet had turned to Paprika to ask that, she seemed a bit shocked about it.

The alpaca tilted her head questioningly and then she shrugged at the persnickety reindeer before continuing to give us her constant sunny smile.

“We’ll stay for the night, but we heard about a giant snake skeleton nearby being something of a tourist attraction?” I asked to get us all back on track.

“Why would that interest you? There’s nothing much out there except for the bravest sheep among us all.” Okay, call me interested Puff. What does a brave sheep look like? I heard you don’t actually see many of those, because there were most likely none. “She’s actually kind of an outcast because of her little… problem. Or would it be problems? What do you want to know about the skeleton? Maybe I can save you a trip.”

“Did somebody named Minnesota Maggie or a large cow have something to do with the giant snakes defeat?” Oh I was absolutely going to see it, it sounded kind of awesome and I wanted to see what kind of trouble my mother dealt with. “I still think it would be something I would want to look at.”

“Hmmm… yes, I believe there was a cow by that name that dealt with our giant snake problem. Don’t know what happened to her, but she wanted our key to the seal.” Well that was kind of informative Mr. Puff.

“Key? What seal?” I wanted to know more, I only heard that it vaguely had to do with the world ending from my Aunt Grace. The only reason my mom would come out this far without me, would be because she sought out something outrageously dangerous.

I heard a shout off to the side and saw that Velvet was trying to keep Paprika from snuggling one of the little adorable looking lambs nearby. I ignored their struggle and heard Velvet yelp as soon as Paprika turned her attention onto the ice shaping reindeer.

“Why one of the six keys to strengthen the seal on the Shadow Horde. There is a legend that the six keys will always brought together to keep the shadows sealed in whenever the seal starts to wear down, the seal is at the base of a darkness enshrouded mountain inside the back of a large cave. The shadow monsters would do nothing more than devastate the whole world wherever they appear were they to get free. To no one’s surprise they usually take on the form of predators that will begin hunt down anything living.” The old ram chuckled somewhat, then sighed. “In a few years that seal will be weakened enough for them to get free again. We were given one of those keys for safekeeping, mostly because nobody would suspect us of having one of them and the obscurity of our quiet lives as simple farmers has kept us safe for quite a long time. After a time we started having problems with that giant snake, until that cow came to us asking after the key. Don’t rightly know how she knew we had it and just a reminder this happened many years ago. She saved us from the monster that had been plaguing our gentle rolling lands of green grass and colorful flowers. She seemed quite strong to have dealt with the monster as big as it was, we figured that she was at least strong enough to safeguard the key and so we gave it to her as a reward for saving us from the snake, things have been peaceful since. I think she set out to look for the other keys. She was of a bold and brazen sort, quite unusual for a cow. ”

“Do you know where that cow went exactly?” I asked eagerly.

“No, can’t say that I do, never told us where she was heading. The snake’s remains are to the southeast if you want to take a look. You can’t miss the bones really, they have a lot of plants growing on them and still seem to be quite unbreakable whenever we get brave enough to go out and check. You can head out there tomorrow, maybe you can even deliver some food to the bravest sheep that lives in the bones of the snake for us. I feel kind of bad that we are forcing her to live out there.” Puff hummed and hawed for a bit before deciding on what to say next. “I do have an idea of where one of the other five keys might be. If you’re looking for that cow, it might be a good idea to look for all the other keys. Might even end up coming to you if someone hasn’t already taken that specific key. I doubt anyone would be able to steal the key from a strong cow like that, not without having a vicious fight on their hooves.”

“Say I’m interested in the location of this other key you know about. Where is it?” If going after them would lead me to finding my mother, then I would.

“With the ice reindeer to the far north, I think your companion would know the place I’m talking about.” Wait, so Velvet’s home had one of the keys? Sounded like a good start.

“Thanks, now where’s a place to rest until tomorrow?” Now I had a clear objective.

Author's Note:

How big a snake was it? It was 'this' big! Maybe a lot longer too...

Also Velvet will have 'fun' times when she gets to possibly have a family reunion.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Shy, the sheep, the ewe dont see sheep?

The trouble with keys and seals, is when someone intelligent in the evil side of things manages to spread the myth round that the keys are needed to Seal the evil in. That way they get the heros to do all the work every time.