Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Here.

-Some time later, ???, Fortitude-

“Where are we now?” The mist disappeared and we found ourselves at the edge of a lake, curiously enough there were giant flowers, vegetables and insects. One in particular seemed to look upset and it was sitting on a giant pinecone.

Looking at my brother we agreed that the upset looking insect was obviously the closest thing to worry about.

Sweetcakes and Skelly looked around at all the splendor that was the nature here, but they stayed in the boat as me and Flamberge got closer to the upset looking butterfly.

Wait… I am realizing something. Where did the pinecone come from? There weren’t any giant trees of Yggdrasil’s make around here!

“What’s the matter big guy, you look depressed?!” Flamberge asked the whining butterfly, it just looked at us with puppy dog eyes and then went back to sulking.

Upon further inspection, the giant pine cone was attached to a fairly large tree that looked to be bent and under a high amount of tension thanks to the unnaturally heavy and large pinecone it grew. The tree was not nearly as big as the surrounding humongous garden plants and the top of it seemed to be a bit stuck against the ground.

“Do you suppose the problem is the top of the tree being stuck in the ground?” I could see the butterfly seemed fairly intelligent, it didn’t exactly seem to care much about my question involving the tree. “I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant and this is my brother Flamberge the fiercely flammable, is there anything we can help you with?”

The butterfly made a soft depressing negative sounding noise.

“Eh, well if you ever wanted to get this tree to stand back up maybe you should cut away the pinecone or the tree top!” Flamberge pulled out his sword and the butterfly clutched onto the looking slightly frightened at the flames the sword was emitting. “Reducing the weight either way should help, just like this!”

Flamberge slashed the tree’s top stuck in the ground and the trees bent form bobbed up and down slightly at its removal, the butterfly blinked in confusion as the tree hadn’t caught fire from my brothers well practiced swing.

My brother can set things on fire whenever he chooses to, it was not always incidental or even accidental.

It was a second later that the tree immediate stood upright with an impressive show of force, it wobbled in place afterwards until it eventually came to a stop in a full standing upright position.

The pinecone, due to the force of the tree moving into a completely upright position with a startling suddenness, disconnected from the tree and went sailing off into the distance with the butterfly clutching to it and squealing in fear.

“Err… whoops!” Flamberge quickly sheathed his sword and turned to the rest of us with a shrug. “Well… out of sight out of mind right?!”

A number of giant insects turned to stare at us after the incident with Flamberge launching the pinecone. The stares were starting to get a bit unnerving after a solid minute of it.

“I am thinking that we shouldn’t stay here.” I quickly and quietly got back into the boat and Flamberge followed looking incredibly sheepish about the incident. “Will the boat take us somewhere else Skelly?”

Skelly threw a lazy salute and then started working the oar, the mists started up around us immediately much to the confusion of Sweetcakes and the rest of us.

“Okay, I’m concerned, why was it so important that I launched a butterfly on a pinecone off into the distance like that?!” Yes, that was a very strange thing to do indeed Flamberge, but it was what Travel On apparently wanted us to do.

“I do not know, but we are being wherever we were for a very short time. Whatever the reason, the impact we have wherever we end up must not always be that important to us specifically. It is just important that we were there to do whatever we did.” Shrugging at my brother, like him I didn’t have a clue as to what that recent event was about. Still, Travel On wanted us there for the time it took Flamberge to do something strange and then we could leave just like that. “It is best that we do not think about it too hard, it was probably not important for us to know the why of it. I am just glad that we were not assaulted by giant insects after that.”

“I am glad as well, though it was quite beautiful, danger of big bugs.” Sweetcakes shuddered and curled up in the boat next to Flamberge.

-???, Flamberge-

So we were arriving at another place and time, I wondered where we were this time. If it had not caused an incident I probably would have liked to explore our previous location a little bit more, but I didn’t like the stares of the giant insects.

“Well this place seems quiet!” I tried to ignore Sweetcakes pressing into my side affectionately.

I was starting to wonder if we should have waited for Blade and Ryu to be done with finding that hippogriff instead of running off like we did. I don’t think Travel On was a taxi service on purpose, but it was close enough with the way it always got us to where we needed to be.

Looking around we were in a small lake, one that was in the middle of a large forest area. The entire place was a bit frozen over, but this didn’t seem like Soar Way to me.

It was safe to say that while Sweetcakes may have seen snow before, she has probably never seen so much of it. She was seeing so many knew sights, but Skelly lived in snowy climates so this was just like home for her and the rest of us.

“Yes, if we are to know where we are maybe we should ask that deer?” Fortitude pointed to a deer curled up on a bench and shivering as he got out of the boat. “Excuse me, I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant! I would like to know, where are we?”

“Huh… oh… er… you’re in Rein, welcome to Rein however you got here. Home of the reindeer… yes… reindeer… not alpacas… nope, no alpacas here! I’m not paranoid, you’re the paranoid ones, haven’t seen the alpaca in a long time… maybe she’s gone for good? I’m not the one seeing walls of fluff everywhere, you’re the one seeing walls of fluff everywhere!” There was something off about this reindeer and she was quite twitchy, a few small blue creatures started to rub at her back soothingly and seemed to be trying to calm her down. They were probably her tiny therapists given how quickly she did calm down. “Enjoy your visit and the adorable welcoming committee of ice sprites will soon be around to follow you with musical instruments. Don’t mind them, they enjoy being overly cheerful.”

“Thank you, we will be staying for a while.” At least until we figured out why we were here in the first place Fortitude.

“She seems quite disturbed. Hopefully she gets better. Do the good times reign?” Sweetcakes snuggled up against me and smiled at her pun, I just gently pushed her away and looked around.

“They likely do around here given the cheerful atmosphere and that music!” We all looked behind us and saw a bunch of those tiny ice sprites as they started playing music. “Okay, so what are we going to find to do around here, also should Skelly be wandering around?”

Skelly looked curious about that thought too, she tried to stay out of sight when it was dark at Mount Aris and she succeeded in keeping her more skeletal appearance hidden. Here that was going to be a bit of a problem, it certainly was a festive place and I didn’t want her to be left out of the ‘fun’ we could find here.

Why couldn’t I think of the word ‘fun’ without it sounding sarcastic?

Anyway we all made our way into town and something drew Skelly’s attention away from us.

“The waterwheel is frozen over again.” That reindeer had Skelly’s full attention, but why would she… oh right, her cutie mark. She kind of has a special talent in solving problems with very few resources and it all started with waterwheels somehow. “If only I knew a way to keep it from freezing up, then we wouldn’t be having these issues every few days.”

It took me a moment to realize it, but when Skelly started to drag Fortitude over in that direction they had left me alone with Sweetcakes. She immediately wrapped fake dragon claws around my right bicep as she took on that yellow dragon form again and smiled brightly at me.

“No… wait… don’t leave me with… ugh… why do I bother trying to avoid you!” I slapped my left claws over my face and shook my head while Sweetcakes giggled at me.

“We’ll find things to do, I will do them all with you, friendship grows stronger!” I didn’t look into the eyes of madness that was Sweetcakes Crumble Tail.

“You know you’re not a real dragon right?” I told Sweetcakes who looked at me innocently with the face of a yellow dragon that had too many of her teeth showing. “Fine, let’s go see what we can find to do, the waterwheel thing might take a while if everything Skelly wants to talk about needs to be translated through Fortitude.”

I silently noted dragons and innocent looks do not go too well together. No wonder I couldn’t get away with anything related to the cookie jar when I was still a little whelp. While I could quickly deal with the frozen over waterwheel, it wouldn’t have been a permanent solution to the problem given that this place was cold enough to freeze one up again after I was done thawing it out.

That was a problem for Skelly to figure out at the nearby mill or whatever it was that used waterwheels around here. Also I should probably warn Sweetcakes about showing teeth when we were actually around other dragons. It’s kind of a threatening display thing and would be taken as a… better yet, I should actually stay quiet on that and let her find out for herself.

Kitsune are supposed to be smart right?

“So what exactly do you expect us to be doing Sweetcakes?” My being blunt with Sweetcakes here and now with her would help in the long run. “I don’t exactly like you like you want me too and any attempt at coercion is not going to work at this rate. Plus you’re being a bit naïve about how quickly things will go or even begin to form. We’re basically still at the acquaintance phase here and you’re expecting a little bit much from me if you think it’ll ever go beyond us being friends.”

“How about we eat, a meal with a tasty treat, tell you about me.” Sweetcakes looked at me with a grin and seemed to take my denial of a relationship forming as a reason to continue her efforts. “I know you quite well, a brave dragon of great strength, loves his family. You are quite giving, greed will never find purchase, with the gold hearted.”

“Fine, we’ll go somewhere to eat while Fortitude helps Skelly with whatever waterwheel problem is going on nearby. It can’t take all day right?” Because when night fell a bunch of reindeer were going to have problems with a skeleton and probably sing songs about ‘what’s that’. We’d hopefully find a restaurant fast, but I’d have to ask a nearby reindeer. That one should do. “Excuse me, but do you know where we can find a restaurant? One that doesn’t mind serving fish.”

“Sure thing eh, it’s the next street over and take a right. You’ll just aboot run into it without a problem, very noticeable, the grub ain’t too bad either eh.” This male reindeer seemed really cool. “If you’re interested you can watch a hockey match later, it’s kind of a blood sport for some around here and we always make a good show of it eh. You look like someone who’d be interested in it, have a nice date with your lady friend and my name is Cracks if you need a free in to the match dude. In fact, bring your all your friends too, the nachos have gotten really good thanks to the efforts of the local cows eh!”

We set out to find the restaurant, but not before I filled a pouch with some money. Equestrian currency was good in most places, even if some places had their own.

The reindeer trotted off with a positive mood and I considered actually watching the hockey match, it’s just too bad Soar Way didn’t have an international team. You’d think we would have one with how cold the weather generally is around there. If I see Ratatoskr anytime soon, then I’m sending a message to Soar Way about getting one started.

Now that I thought about it… did we need travel visas and passports? It’s never really come up, did we technically count as Equestrian citizens, Soar Way citizens or was it a dual thing like what Jade and Kuril had?

In my deliberations we had almost walked past the restaurant, much to my embarrassment.

“Lucky you are cute, thinking is not your strong suit, feed me I’m hungry.” I just gave her a flat glare.

-Hours later, hockey rink-

“Ooh… that has to hurt.” The four of us sat among the crowd watching a vicious hockey match as the announcer gave a really colorful commentary. Violence was not considered acceptable in the sport, but it wasn’t denied as to be an existing thing. The fact that the does also watch the sport and were even playing it was not lost on me. These reindeer were rather inclusive about who could play, but they had to sign waivers about injuries obtained while playing. “Number nine, Rude Dolph scores another goal and let’s hear it from the crowd, because you know you love Rudy and his bright red nostrils!”

Now there was a reindeer who knew how to play hockey, I was cheering quite loudly with my friends. That little guy was an acrobat on the ice and he could give as much as he took from the other larger reindeer. I even watched as Cracks and Rude high hoofed as they passed one another.

So I learned a bit about Sweetcakes.

I already knew she had multiple sisters, but now I knew more about them.

She had a big sweet tooth.

Her father was overbearing and apparently was kept up to date about things going on around Neighpon by the fishing goddess Inari who sounded vaguely familiar to me.

Sweetcakes loved flute music and disco dancing.

The horrible things she causes to happen were entirely incidental according to her, I didn’t believe her of course, and I jsut learned that she liked nachos a little too much given her seventh round cheese eating grin right now.

Despite Skelly currently being a skeleton and sitting among a number of reindeer, most of them were hopped up on maple malts and the rest thought they were simply hallucinating when Skelly’s fur and skin seemed to disappear as soon as it got dark.

Author's Note:

Mind you with how fast Travel On gets them around, they can appear in a number of places within seconds anywhere on the planet of Equus depending on how fast they can figure out why they ended up there in the first place.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Travel On is a certain Doctors Niece? Because that poor Giant Moth riding the Giant Pinecone landed about a year ago?

Unsure how to stop the wheel freezing up except to stick it inside like several local mills did, and they dont even have anywhere near the cold weather. Maybe theyre there to stop the Maple Syrup Tsunami?

[talontitanbane]

9776511
You realize that the different character arcs are happening at the same time?