Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Friend.

-Ponyville Square, Gallus-

“Well the party is in full swing, how you feeling around all the storm creatures Silver Stream?” She looked rather nervous to me so I was trying to be comforting, well about as comforting as I could be.

A few pats on the withers was how you do it right?

“Not particularly safe.” Silver Stream’s voice went a bit shrill, mind you that without their armor the storm creatures kind of looked like fluffy bipedal lions. The resemblance to lions was there, but their attitudes were decidedly friendlier than actual lions.

“Yona think this is like Yona’s fear of spiders. Yona became friends with Spindle, then things were not so bad afterwards… as long as spiders are not poisonous or aggressive.” Common sense was kind of a thing with us and Yona often brings up something when danger is a concern, as does everyone else in our group of six. Ocellus does so more often than the others. “Yona still dislikes flyders.”

To be fair, not many people did when they tended to get into your food and webbed up the general surrounding area.

“There’s something I need to ask about that Yona, whatever happened to the little guy?” Keeping in contact with friends was one of the lessons I was taking to heart, because not much else was going for me aside from my friends really.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my future or life, but living near Ponyville or my friends was a good start to figuring things out. I couldn’t keep coasting forever.

“Oh, that is easy, Spindle is living with Yona and is surprisingly very tough.” Yona stomped the ground creating minor tremor while raising her right leg in the air. “Spindle is best spider!”

A few nearby ponies were unprepared and fell over, the nearby Storm Creatures just shrugged it off.

“So, you can understand this Spindle?” I jumped when I saw Kuril standing among us, as did Silver Stream who was already quite jumpy to begin with.

I looked the direction Kuril came from. I saw her reported daughter Fizzlepop Berrytwist La Perm, her name was a mouthful, tickling the little griffon cub with a hoof.

Pinkie soon bounced on over to them and held out a cupcake to the cub. He took it questioningly and watched as Pinkie bit into a cupcake just like it, the little guy quickly imitated the act and his beak became covered in frosting that was soon wiped away.

I wish I had this many supportive people and family when I was younger.

“Yes, Yona is understanding Spindle very well.” Yona nodded happily her braided hair loops swaying as she did so, I almost think I can understand why Sandbar likes her.

“Well there you have it, he or she must be your familiar. I can understand mine implicitly, mostly because all she ever tends to ask for is food, love and a nice warm place to be lazy.” Kuril chuckled warmly. “When you have a familiar, it doesn’t matter when it comes to size, shape or any other differences between you, they will always make for strong companions in life one way or another. If that bond breaks for whatever reason however… both sides will feel a heavy loss. I personally believe the benefits will always outweigh that.”

“Yona is getting benefits from Spindle?” After listening to this I was going to go over to the little griffon and see if I can get him to flex his wings more. He needed to know how to move them around.

“Yes, Spindle might be getting enhanced durability and an extended life span from being your familiar, but you in turn are getting things from them like perspective or the ability to understand spiders better.” So what Kuril was saying was that Yona made Spindle harder to hurt and will live longer, but in turn Yona didn’t seem to get much aside from understanding and perspective? “I find that when you first bond with a familiar, it’s usually both sides giving the other something they don’t have. For the familiar it’s often time they usually wouldn’t have to enjoy life and maybe a decent intelligence boost.”

“That’s bogus, Spindle gets to live longer, is smarter and gains durability and all Yona gets is the ability to talk to spiders?” The way Kuril turned her head to me sharply made me shiver.

“Trust me when I say this, Yona is getting just as much out of the relationship as Spindle is. Take Gummy and Pinkie for example, what do you think Pinkie gets from Gummy?” That was a bit hard to tell Kuril, because I don’t understand why Pinkie would be getting anything from the little alligator.

“Um… Pinkie is getting something from Gummy?” Right there with you Silver Stream, because I have no idea if she is.

“It might not be something grand as increased longevity that Fluttershy’s familiar is enjoying quite enthusiastically, given the rising bunny population that threatens to overload the local fauna of the surrounding area and is slowly throwing nature entirely out of balance in a chaotic manner. I don’t think Pinkie is getting what usually comes from a familiar bond, it might be something as simple as enjoying the simpler things in life or having someone who can keep up with her incredible amount of energy. Gummy is far smarter than he looks.” Kuril looked towards Pinkie darting about making sure that everyone was accommodated and that the Storm Creatures were also having fun. At least the Storm Creatures weren’t awkwardly standing around and off to the side, they actually mingled. “Also I’m curious as to what species Gummy is, he is not a normal alligator as they don’t have forked tongues. A very curious thing really.”

“Okay now you’ve got me curious about what Gummy is at least.” Now that I thought of it, an alligator with a long snout and a long forked tongue was rather odd.

“Oh I know what Gummy is, he’s my familiar!” Pinkie shouted as she pranced by us again with Gummy attached to her mane.

“Yeah, you can continue on with the lesson about familiars. I’m going to try to teach that griffon how to move his wings better.” I gave Kuril a flat look as she was sending me the warmest of smiles.

“Why thank you Gallus, just don’t upset my grandson too much or you’ll become a newt for approximately twenty minutes.” What was it with witches and newts? Well at least I’d get better given there was a time limit to it, but still.

“Yeah, yeah… get back to your familiar lessons.” I waved Kuril back to talking with my friends and wandered my way over to the mare that had a griffon cub on her back. “Having trouble with him?”

“Not really, he’s… cute. He doesn’t seem to be as fussy as I thought a child should be.” Fizzle managed to grab the kid from her back and cradled him in her hooves, he seemed so happy even when I noted that he was being tended to everything aside from a griffon. Who was there to teach him how to use his wings or fly? “I’m kind of surprised that my sister Jacky had a child. Gavin here doesn’t seem to have her mother’s horrendous luck, it’s mostly because of her that I know for a fact that bad luck does in fact exist. For example, no one can fall up two flights of stairs by complete accident.”

“I’m not even going to ask how that’s possible, given our teachers at the school of friendship have done some outright weird things that need to be seen to be believed. Can I show the kid how to move his wings? They seem a bit stiff and I think he needs to learn sooner rather than later or else it could become a problem.” Taking my offer into consideration, Fizzle eventually nodded and put Gavin down in front of me. I looked down at the cub and he looked up to me. “Hey kid, can you do this?”

I fanned my wings out wide and swept them forward and back. Tilting his head, Gavin tried to make the same movements with his downy white bits of fluff while chirping in concentration.

“Good, now watch me closely here.” I hopped up and started to flap my wings to hover, griffon cubs and chicks were always so rambunctious when they learned to fly. I was probably the same way, if I could remember that far back. “Can you do this?”

Gavin watched me with wonder for a few seconds, he looked at his own tiny wings and looked up to me with a spark of recognition of what I was doing. He started to flap them and barely managed a flutter, he whined when he flopped on the ground because he couldn’t reach me or get into the air.

“Hey little guy, don’t worry about it, you’ll get up in the air someday… how about you try this instead?” I flew a little higher and then spread my wings out to slowly glide down to the ground. The kid needed to learn the basics of how to glide first and foremost. Learning how to fall was always one of the first things you learn before you can fly higher up in the air. “Just hold you’re wings out like this and let your feathers catch the air.”

Looking about, Gavin eventually settled his eyes on Fizzle. She simply quirked her left brow at him. Gavin quickly clambered up her right rear leg despite her protests, up onto her back and then up her neck to jump off her head to tentatively float to the ground.

He looked up at me with a bright smile on his beak while flapping his tiny wings and he waited…

“Good job kid.” The praise I just gave him, and some pats on the head, made him chirp at me happily. He was so happy to learn how to glide somewhat. I wondered if I would be a good father someday. I started putting him through several wing exercises and he followed them pretty well. “Work on these first and you might be able to fly someday.”

Why was I getting hero worship from the kid? I was just doing something that his… oh… my heart almost fell out my chest for the poor guy. I shot a concerned look to Fizzle.

“What happened to them?” Both his parents were notably absent and I’m quite sure that Fizzle would know. I continued to flick my wings every which way to stretch them out and Gavin followed them with his own little wings, I was showing him the right method to stretch them out and he was a good learner on that front.

“I have an idea as to what happened to them, given I was there that night when it happened.” I turned to Grubber and stared at him blankly, he didn’t look too happy and was quite upset.

“I had a feeling you would know, but I’ve never wanted to ask you about the pirate that stalled out the Storm King long enough for at least Palicoast to take shelter.” Fizzle picked the cub up after I folded my wings and he did the same thing. She carried him over to Kuril and passed him off before coming back over to me. “They certainly didn’t give the Storm King any supplies on his way towards the capital of Panthera. I actually want to know, how did it end for my sister? Pirate parrot, black feathers, white down around her eyes and a spirit that her cursed luck could never crack.”

“Well your sister was really something else, she was shooting through the sky by herself on a ball of fire erupting from her back and she forced all of the Storm King’s airships into the stormy weather following them. That caused a whole slew of problems all its own.” Grubber started, leaving me wondering if I should really be here to hear this. “She personally knocked quite a number of ships out of the air, managed to fight off a few Storm Creatures with her first landing, scared them all into inaction with on her second or third by yelling at them and the last was when she challenged the Storm King himself.”

“Let me guess, something odd happened to her.” Odd how, it sounded like Fizzle expected something to have happened to her sister before the fight even started. “If you’re wondering Gallus, I came to be the Storm King’s commander a short time after the invasion of Abyssinia.”

“She was struck directly by lightning. It was strangest thing too, she still went on to challenge and even fight the Storm King himself. It was as if the lightning bolt hadn’t been painful enough and it looked like she even tasted it given how she moved her beak afterwards.” Even if Grubber was correct and that parrot had some form of weather resilience, a parrot’s resilience would be nowhere close the level of what a pegasus or griffon could take and she was in the sky at the time and far closer to the source of energy. “She had a bleeding wound in her side too, it wasn’t caused by the storm creatures or the Storm King give it was soaking through her clothing before she landed. She hadn’t been hurt too much before that point.”

“I take it that this is the point where she gets run through?” Was Fizzle always such a downer?

“No, she actually fights the Storm King on even ground. Say what you will about him, but the Storm King was quite unnaturally strong.” Grubber shuddered and started to rub the back of his head. “So the fight goes on and eventually the Storm King starts throwing obsidian orbs at her, the first few missed and it was shortly after that point that the parrot turned away from the Storm King to see that the balloon of her ship was harpooned by three ships and our guys were closing in. That’s when the Storm King finally got her, she almost managed to dodge out of the way and the tips of a foot got caught up in the magic of the obsidian orb. You’ve experienced what it does to people boss.”

“Yeah, I’m an outsider on this, what do these obsidian orbs do exactly? I’ve only heard rumors about this.” I received two glances and then Grubber made a gesture to Fizzle.

“It will painfully turn someone into obsidian glass quickly and entirely.” Fizzle shivered and wrapped her hooves around herself.

“Yeah, but it’s not always quick… that parrot only got a small portion of the magic and was likely in excessive amounts of pain given how slowly her body was turning. She even seemed to be resisting it, barely.” Here Grubber looked to the ground and Pinkie swiftly put a frowning sack in his waiting hands and he reached for a snack. “Last I saw of her, she made it back to her airship and her crew that were busy fending off many other ships. Someone actually blew the balloon and the airship fell straight into the raging sea below. If the shock of ship hitting the water while turning into obsidian didn’t immediately shatter her, then she’d have to be the luckiest thing alive to even have the barest chance of surviving that.”

Author's Note:

Grubber's view on Jacky's survival odds.

Next page: I'll be home on Hearth's Warming.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

Of course, the best way to say that someone is alive is to have a character point to the situation they were left in and say that they're clearly dead. I give even odds they end up having to rendezvous with the Lost Vikings to get back home, but they're definitely returning somehow.

[Booster Spice]

All her bad luck was storing up to break reality in one totally illegal manner?

[Shadowshame]

Well I guess her luck got so bad that it became good luck