Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Beach Diagnosis.

-Six days later in Palicoast, Jacky-

Captain was up and… well she wasn’t moving on her own, but she was up. Being on pain killers almost constantly for several days probably kept her from screaming in pain as we helped her along towards the beach.

I had finally gotten Fizzle to agree to a beach day, don’t honestly know what we’re doing for lunch or in the evening. This morning was going to be so fun and Jade would be lazing about in the sand.

“Are those pain killers effective?” I asked as I helped Captain walk.

“Yes… very.” The captain needed a few more days of rest, but she was looking better already and Kuril said she needed some sun and exercise.

“Are you sure you should be up and moving Jade?” Come on Fizzle, Captain’s perfectly fine for getting out for a little while. We can’t confined her to a bed forever. “You seem uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry about me Fizzy, I’m getting better. Who knew a single punch to the spine could put me down for that long?” Captain smiled at our pony companion and slowly ran her right hand along Fizzle’s head. Fizzle leaned into the touch and smiled at her. “I certainly didn’t and now I know what it’s like to get hit by a carriage full of lead going down a hill would feel like.”

“Actually you would be dead if you were hit by something like that Captain.” I wondered if Captain La Perm has no sense of mortality. “You did see the dent in that shield right? Imagine if you hadn’t put that on your back.”

“Point, you absolutely have one.” The Captain was smiling weakly. “When was your last round of bad luck? I’m trying to work out if I can time it to a clock.”

“It’s been about…” I started to say before fishing spear slammed into the street between my legs, the shaft wobbled upwards smacking me painfully between the legs once. Fizzle managed to catch Captain while I fell to the ground in pain. I took a few seconds to respond. “About fifteen seconds ago.”

“Er… sorry about that!” A sheepish looking fishing cat pried his dangerous multipronged spear out of the ground and then ran off at the sight of our combined glares.

“I’m okay guys, let’s keep going.” I eventually got up, I’m not missing this day. I have been asking for a trip to the beach over the last few days and we were going to enjoy it.

Bad luck or not, I was going to make this a day for my friends to remember!

We continued on our way through town towards the beach, cats stopped to wave or give a greeting and continued on about their day. We had just about everything we needed for a day on the beach, including a blanket and parasol.

I had the parasol and Fizzle had the blanket. We could play and Jade could just relax, all while Kuril could do several things in town.

We made our way down the wooden stairs to the beachfront and looked about, not many people playing out here or even enjoying the beach. You’d think this would be a constantly swarmed location for tourists.

Those who were here, were the younger cats with a few older cats to watch out for them.

“So where’s a good spot to put down the blanket?” Fizzle looked around the beach, she seemed unsure about things. I don’t think she’s ever been to a beach for fun before.

“Right around there, but not too close to the water.” It seemed Captain did have the experience of a beach bum, it looked like a nice location.

Fizzle unfurled the blanket and I placed the parasol, however we both realized we left Jade standing by herself and she was staring at something.

“I’m not going near the water today…” Captain muttered quietly while shivering in fear.

“Why not Captain La Perm?” I looked towards the ocean and saw something diving into the water.

“Just call it a hunch, but I think there’s something out there that is out to get me.” What makes the Captain think that? She was being a bit paranoid.

The sun was shining, there was nothing but calm waters throughout the horizon and waves were gently lapping at the shore.

“Afraid of a little water Jade, how much danger could you possibly be in this far from the it?” Cue something making Fizzle eat her words.

Something quite large and brown leapt out the water on a long arcing trajectory for the Captain, we both just looked at the incoming wide mouthed creatures with dull shock.

Fizzle was the first to make a move. She quickly leapt to wrap her hooves around Jade and rolled out of the way of the large brown speckled creature that slammed into the sand.

It was a whale shark, probably the same one that wouldn’t stop bothering the Captain from Birman’s tales.

The large creature flopped upright in an organized manner, then it managed to turn itself around and got back into the water by bouncing in a controlled manner with its flippers. Its dorsal fin was last seen diving into the water. That thing was really quite intelligent for such a large fish.

-Fizzle-

Jade was whimpering while curling up against me. I started trying to comfort and calm her down. Her ears were firmly pressed back and her tail was between her legs, she was the large frightened mass of cat on top of me.

I don’t know how Kuril could ever complain that Jade never did cute things, I think she was being really adorable right now. Maybe she only did adorable things when Kuril wasn’t around. That would certainly upset mom to no end.

I shouldn’t laugh about this, because that had surprised the heck out of us and it had certainly terrified Jade.

I continued running my hoof through her hair and she clamped onto me, I then started running my hoof up and down her back.

“Don’t worry, the big scary fish is not going to get you Jade.” I softly intoned before the shark jumped out of the water again. I turned my head and immediately fired a wildly zigzagging bolt of lightning from my horn. I had managed to somehow miraculously hit it and the impact knocked that shark back into the sea. “As I was saying! It’s okay Jade. See, there’s no big scary fish out to get you. Now let’s get you onto the blanket so you can rest while watching us playing in the sand.”

My unaided magic was powerful, unstable and quite draining as all get out, but that had been absolutely worth it. At least I had managed to stay conscious this time.

“Okay…” Her quiet voice tugged at my heart, I held her close and kissed her forehead before releasing her. For someone so brave, incredible and insane, she seemed so fearful right now.

“Come on.” I goaded Jade back onto her feet, she was still a bit jittery and her eyes kept shooting towards the water. I managed to get her on the blanket where I let her cuddle me until she could finally calm down. “I’m sorry for mocking your very clear and quite real fear of the water Jade.”

“It’s okay and… thank you Fizzy.” I was enjoyed the comforting feeling of Jade snuggling me. We spent the next few minutes like that.

“Well now that you’re done protecting Captain from a crazy shark, I believe we can get our beach day started right!” The soonest Jacky said that a large kraken popped up out of the water, I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

I don’t think I had enough magical power in my body to blast another sea creature.

-Thirty minutes later.-

I looked over to Jade and saw her bumping her fist against a curled up bit of tentacle. We had been a bit worried about the monster appearing until Jade talked the kraken into relaxing with her.

That didn’t make sense as she was coming off of being scared of being attacked by a shark jumping out of the water at her. She was scared of the shark, but she was okay with a kraken that just slithered aimlessly onto the beach?

It seems like the kraken was entirely cool with hanging out with Jade under the shade of the parasol, it was just being as lazy as Jade was. I had no words for that, but Jade obviously had things under control.

“One second she’s scared out of her wits and whimpering against me, the next she’s friends with a Kraken… never have I met a more vexing being than her.” I turned back to what I was doing with Jacky. What was sitting before me wasn’t a sand castle, it was more like a sand sculpture of an airship with a paw sticking out from under it. “We’re building an airship out of sand and not a castle, also why am I even sculpting Sekhet’s paw sticking out from under the airship?”

“Maybe because it fits with the theme of our sand sculpture and you’re doing pretty good in detailing the paw... can we make it more of a yak long boat though?” After Jacky said that, I heard Jade giggling quite a bit. “I can’t do a mast made of sand and I think sculpting oars would be much easier.”

“Okay, what exactly is so funny Jade?” Stopping in the middle of my sculpting of the second paw, I turned to the giggling cat on the blanket.

“Can you actually imagine Sekhet being hit by anything other than an airship?” After stopping to consider that, Jade got a very horrified look on her face. “We wouldn’t be able to keep our towns name if something other than an airship ever hit her!”

“Yes, because that would be quite horrible and not at all the real problem of things falling from the sky over Airship Mauled.” Please note my sarcasm Jade, I was using it quite liberally here.

“Look, if getting hit by falling objects was a real problem, then don’t you think Sekhet or Celestia would have taken care of it by now? At least one of them would have thought of precautions.” Just because they are goddesses, it does not mean they are always smart or proactive like that Jade.

“Have you ever thought that maybe they haven’t thought of doing something protective like that yet and probably never will unless absolutely prompted?” I received looks from both Jade and the kraken, they both shrugged and continued relaxing. “Of course they haven’t thought of that. So when do you think mom is… did I just call her… Jade, did I really just…”

“Yeah, you just called my mother mom.” Jade and the kraken both sat up to stare at me and I turned to Jacky who was also staring at me.

“Well if it upsets you…” Jade got up and stumbled on her way over to me, but the following kraken propped her up and she eventually got to me. She crouched down and pulled me against herself with some strength.

“Fizzle, it doesn’t upset me one bit and you’re already family. I’m not upset and I think Jacky will eventually start calling her that too.” She smiled and started to chuckle, her whiskers tickled my face and fur as she nuzzled up to me. “Go ahead Fizzle, call her mom to her face and see what happens. I know for a fact that she’ll love hearing it.”

“Speaking of Chief Cook Kuril, what is she doing right now?” Jacky poked her head up from her side of the now more long boat styled airship made of sand.

“I remember mom saying something about getting an idea of how we should build Airship Mauled up without crashing more airships into Sekhet before we left.” Jade let go of me, I most certainly didn’t whine out loud about that because of how much I was enjoying her hug. “Speaking of crashes, Captain Grit’s ship left us with a bit of farm land dug out using Sekhet’s face, so we should grab some fruit seeds while we’re here. I want to grow some lemon trees, Jacky will probably want bananas and that leaves an idea for what trees you want Fizzle.”

“I’d actually prefer a strawberry patch.” It was something I knew we could do easily at Airship Mauled.

“I’m sure we can find some Abyssinian strawberry seeds around here and we can cross pollinate them with Equestrian strawberries for a better crop.” That sounds just fine Jade, though it’ll take a while for the lemon trees to really start producing and banana trees also take a while. Unless we were to get trees that were already producing.

Strawberries were a quick and easy fruit to grow and I knew how much of a fruit lover you were Jade. Maybe we can talk to a few cows without a home into moving in so we can make fruit smoothies and ice cream.

“That sounds great Jade, now get back on the blanket and continue resting!” The cheeky pained smile being sent my way by Jade made my realize soemthing. “Wait... did you even take those pain killers this morning?!”

“Nope, I don’t need them as badly anymore.” I saw Jade sit down and I notice that she twitched and winced a bit.

How much pain was she tolerating by being out here with us and exactly how high was her pain tolerance?

-Jade-

Even with that little bit of activity my body felt like it was on fire. Another week around here would be better now that I could move around. Being stuck in bed for more than six days straight is no fun, even with mom taking good care of me for most of that.

“Say, do you do massages?” I addressed the kraken and it tilted its cone shaped head at me questioningly while shrugging with its tentacles. “Right, here’s what I want you to do…”

-Kuril-

I was thankful that I could convince Mayor Manx to agree with me that building a town wide hidden bunker over the next few years would be a good idea. Hopefully it’ll actually save lives, unless the mayor just kept it all to himself.

I didn’t think the mayor of Palicoast was evil, just a politician with an overly inflated sense of self-worth. Like most politicians really… except I have my insane daughter to keep me grounded in reality.

I also had two other children to care for as well and they may as well be mine with how close we’re all getting to one another. Jacky was always so clumsy, it was either that or her horrible luck getting the better of her. Fizzle always seems so quiet and sweet, she was the one in need of the most attention.

As I made my way onto the beach I saw a really weird scene before me, an airship shaped long boat with oars made of sand with a pair of well sculpted paws sticking out from under it. I giggled and looked to the kraken that was giving my daughter a massage… wait… what?!

How in the world did Jade… you know what? I’m not going to bother trying to figure out how she taught a kraken to give massages, or even ask what a kraken was doing on the beach.

Author's Note:

Sekhet under an airship meter: *Ding!* 4.

Unexplained authors note embed!

Comments

[Darkonshadows]

8938503

I would like to think that I'm thinking of the things you aren't hearing when you're stuck with one characters perspective.

[Jaro45]

8938567
Please tell me the Mayor has an undead sky pirate in a red airship gunning for him!

[Velvet-Fresh]

Kuril, you should have talked to Deputy Mayor Briggs not that big lard.

[Darkonshadows]

8938860

Sorry, but this story isn't a crossover, I'm only allowed to make vague references or cameos to beings that may or may not exist in this world eventually.

I could very well even throw in a Don Karnage reference and he'd be a Diamond Dog with a blimp named The Steel Buzzard, but for all intents and purposes it can't be the actual Don Karnage even if it would be fun to do.

8939731

Yes, the competent (Read: 'Real'.) mayor of the town, the one who will not just sit idly by and be a damsel in distress! The one who also threw money at a problem literally to save the day doing it. What a memorable moment that was.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

"Mayor Manx."

Don't worry mayor. The ENFORCERS will handle the Storm King!

*Enforcers are ptomptly shot down.*

[Okamiluver]

How in the world did Jade… you know what? I’m not going to bother trying to figure out how she taught a kraken to give massages, or even ask what a kraken was doing on the beach.

Best response ever!