Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Acquired ingredients.
-Fizzle-
“Thank you Mr. Refreshment.” A nice cool fruit smoothie made things better for my slow day. Well at least it felt slow to me. Jade was spending time with her mother or chasing after the jackalope, whichever it was.
“Mention it to everyone you know. I’m not just a fruit grower, I’m a specialist in make tasty drinks as well!” Look Mango, I would, but all my friends already know about you. Even Pinkie knows and she hardly visits that often since she’s usually very busy in Ponyville. “My name is Mango Liquid Refreshment after all, humble fruit farmer and juice maker.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” Please understand sarcasm the first time, I did not want to keep using it on you.
I finished my drink gave the cup back to Mango and went to see what Jade was up to, it was getting to the point that mom would start working on dinner soon. The best course of action to find Jade was two sources when I’m not the one being asked where she is, one is Jacky and the other would be Snickers the sea turtle dove that seems to know where we always are.
Jacky was the most obvious one to talk with, I saw her practicing with her bow. She wasn’t bad at using it, but the arrows tended to defy reality in how they worked and even Jade was wary of approaching her. She was about to fire an arrow and I stayed well away from her until she finally released her shot.
Much like the other times Jacky loosed an arrow it shot into the tree above me and a reddish purple mango dropped right onto my face. I quickly reached out a hoof and caught the mango with the arrow lodged in it. It was safe enough to be around Jacky when she’s firing a bow, she’s never hit anyone or anything in a lethal manner with those blunted arrows.
“Is this yours?” I state calmly holding the arrow in the mango out to her, she looked a little sheepish and plucked the arrow out of the mango. Rolling my eyes I took a bite out of the mango. It tasted pretty good, but not overly sweet. “Do you know where Jade is or the direction she was last seen going?”
“She went to her bedroom to rest off being battered by a wolpertinger, that jackalope outsmarted her forty or so minutes ago and tricked her into attacking it. It must be upsetting for Captain to lose a battle of wits to a jackalope more than once.” Thank you Jacky, that was very informative. I gave her a nod and she nodded back, then I was on my way as she nocks the arrow again.
Seconds later I ducked my head while moving forward, the spinning arrow that soared over my head made me roll my eyes. I stopped to pick up the arrow, I flicked it backwards and then lightly bucked it in Jacky’s direction.
“Thank you!” Being thanked by Jacky made me smile, it felt good to be appreciated.
As I walked up to the restaurant I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. Like Sekhet, this was a goddess I knew that couldn’t do anything for me and I felt a little miffed that Celestia had both a horn and wings.
“Excuse me, but do you know where Jade is at the moment? I need to talk with her.” Vaguely lending Celestia an ear as I went inside, she followed me and then made a comment on the first thing she saw in the room. “Is that a tied up thestral sitting in a chair on top of a bedpan?”
“Yes, I know where Jade is, she’s up in her room. Also that’s one of the assassins that attacked Jade, don’t rightfully know what we’re going to do with her aside from take care of her like we have been.” As I spoke the thestral turned to look at us and seemed a little bit intimidated by Celestia’s presence. “She hasn’t really been much trouble for us and we’ve been feeding her quite well, we don’t have it in our hearts to torture her. Mom babies her a lot, despite the fact that she’s tried to kill Jade twice over already and is a full grown mare.”
“Have you been able to get anything out of her?” Celestia didn’t seem overly curious about the assassin, to be fair the bat pony didn’t really do anything interesting tied up like she is.
“We can’t, she literally can’t talk at all.” I was still quite angry that she was interrupting my date with Jade. Not that her inability to talk means she’s bad at what she does, I just happened to be able to beat her up before she got too far.
The unnamed draconic winged pony wasn’t able to fight off Maries either, but at least Maries had the advantage of surprise, size and muscle on her.
I’m a lightweight young unicorn pony, a pony race not exactly known for its physical prowess, who beat her to near unconsciousness. That’s when I almost got stabbed in the back by her, I think I’ve learned my lesson from that and the pukwudgies. Never feel safe until you are absolutely sure it is.
“Is she missing her tongue, are her vocal chords weak or does she not simply have them?” Out of all those things Celestia. The most valid would be the vocal chords, but in the opposite direction.
“None of those, the problem is that her vocal chords are too strong. I’ve heard rumors of the royal voice, well that’s her natural state of existence and it hurts her ears and those are quite important to her as a thestral.” There was another thing about her that I really should inform Celestia about. “We know she can write, but we don’t trust her with a quill, pencil or even any other writing implement you can think of.”
“Okay then, so what room is Jade’s?” Celestia could either be left to figure that out on her own or I could ask a question before leading her there.
“Before I show you, what do you honestly think we should do with Ms. Stabby?” I couldn’t care less if the assassin got angry with me for calling her that, the only one trying to build trust with her was 'Kuril The Motherly'.
“In my opinion, you could try to befriend her. At the very least try to find out what she’s being paid to attack Jade and why she needs that money.” That didn’t sound like too bad an answer Celestia. “You then show her a better path and that it’s not a good idea to continue attacking Jade, with force if necessary.”
“Has anyone ever attempted to assassinate you?” Just something I needed to know to sate my curiosity.
“Oh plenty of times. Assassination attempts on me happen at least once or twice a year, sometimes five if someone is feeling particularly vindictive.” From the looks of it, Celestia had never really seriously been hurt. Her fur, feathers, hair and everything about her looked completely unblemished by the harsh life she is supposedly leading as the current leader of Equestria. “Think of that and add to the fact that I’ve been alive for over a thousand years. If someone were to successfully assassinate me, then moving the sun will get a lot harder and whoever managed it would practically doom the world. We don’t exactly have the top tier unicorns that we did in the past, there are a few I can find that could aid in moving the sun and I can certainly tell you that none of them are nobles.”
“Okay then, I’m particularly satiated in questions.” I motioned to the princess lazily with a hoof. “Come along, I’ll show you Jade’s room.”
As we made our way up the stairs, Kuril was on her way down.
“Hello there Celestia, here to see Jade? She’s a bit down in the dumps at the moment thanks to meeting a particularly gifted jackalope, maybe you could help cheer her up.” Mom stopped and swept me up into a tight hug and rubbed her face and whiskers against my cheek. “You were just about scheduled for a quick hug anyway my little Fizzle.”
I squirmed a bit and Celestia smiled at the affection I was receiving from mom. I was giving back just as much by hugging mom with my hooves that I wrapped around her. She eventually released me and continued on down the stairs. We made it to Jade’s room I opened the door to see Jade’s tail sticking out of the cardboard box.
“Jade, Celestia needs to talk to you about something.” I heard Jade groan, before she sat up to lean against the edge of her cardboard box to stare at us. “Also I heard you were bummed out about how the jackalope has managed to outsmart you a few times.”
“He’ll get his in due time, no one can outsmart me forever… except at many subjects with the most prominent being complicated math.” At least you knew you weren’t perfect Jade, but you were definitely cuddly and made sleeping easier for me. I still can’t believe I forgave you for forcing me to attack you. “Does this need to be private session Celestia or can Fizzle stay?”
“She can stay, it’s not of grave importance… and you probably would have told her about this anyway.” Sighing Celestia sat down and looked slightly amused to see Jade go back to relaxing in the cardboard box. “It’s about Discord. I worry that your chaotic actions might have caused the seal to loosen on him.”
“He’ll get free eventually anyway, no matter what you do really. You can’t keep chaos locked away forever. Chaos, it happens every day in small or big ways.” From the sound of it Jade knew what she was talking about and I looked to see Celestia had a slightly upset look on her face. “It’s a necessary part of the world Celestia. Without chaos both positive and negative, there is only stagnation. Discord will eventually break free, but it will not be me who causes that to happen and I will admit that he causes too much chaos that goes well beyond his job parameters. It's still his job though.”
“Do you have any suggestions for what I should do if he gets free?” It sounded like Celestia wasn’t about to get into a philosophical debate with Jade about this, because it sounded like Jade was holding back a very long tirade about something related to ponies in general. I just had a feeling about that, I should ask after Celestia leaves. “I ask because you seem to know of the situation already.”
“I’m just guessing, while I’m not asking you to confirm this, that you don’t want me doing any more weird things around Canterlot. Mind you he gets power from any chaos, even the chaos that ponies themselves create.” That sounded pretty dire Jade, were you going to say something helpful to Celestia at least? “So really, it is quite inevitable that he will break free. Destroying the statue won’t stop him from breaking free and would make it all that much harder to contain him. When he breaks free… not if… just do what you can and your best. Things will work themselves out, mark my coming words. Discord can’t break the balance of harmony, he can only upset it drastically. A few special reminders at the right time will help you immensely in tipping the balance back to normal.”
Celestia gave Jade an odd stare and titled head, she looked towards the ceiling and then back to Jade and nibbled at her bottom lip.
“What did you need from that jackalope?” As soon as Celestia had asked that, Jade perked up immensely.
“Well I don’t want to hurt him for starters, I just want his antlers for some important magical research I’m doing.” Getting out of the box, Jade pointed to the antlers that were sitting upon the desk in her room. “I heard that their antlers grow back really fast and instead I ended up with wolpertinger antlers, which grow back at considerably slower speeds. Doesn’t make the wolpertinger any less dangerous to face head on, note my roughed up appearance.”
“I will assist you in retrieving the jackalope antlers.” We both looked at her as if Celestia had a screw loose. “It’s about time I did something a little bit unusual personally, where is the jackalope?”
-Thirty minutes later, Jade-
Wow, that jackalope has got to be one of the smartest animals I’ve ever met. Five pitfall traps, two more fire wasp hives, a smashing logs trap and even a normal hunter’s tree snare. Celestia was currently hanging from said tree snare. Fizzle was getting pretty good at seeing the traps before I walked into them, mostly because she cared about my safety more than Celestia’s health.
“Excuse me for what I’m about to do if I see that jackalope again.” Celestia mane was a bit unkempt with bits of leaves and twigs in it, her fur was a bit matted and her horn was covered in tree sap and her body had green splats of spit poultices chewed and applied by Fizzle. She was hanging by her rear hooves and the look in her glowing eyes was murderous.
“Why, what are you going to do?” In answer to my question the jackalope hopped out and started to shake his butt at us, Celestia lit her horn and her throat suddenly became incased in a magical glow for a few seconds. I slowly turned to Fizzle.
“Cover your ears, I think I know what she’s about to do.” I crouched behind a tree and covered my ears, Fizzle immediately followed my lead by crouching next to me with hooves on her head.
“YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY THIS TIME, BECAUSE I’M GOING TO ROYAL VOICE YOU INTO SUBMISSION!” The ground shook and quaked, the skies immediately became cloud and the shockwaves of Celestia’s voice had stunned the annoying little antlered rabbit stiff. “THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW TIMES I WANT TO HAVE FUN AND YOU ARE RUINING IT! CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE MORE ANNOYING TO DEAL WITH, I ASK OF YOU!”
I calmly got up and walked over to crouch down next to the jackalope who almost looked like he was dying from a heart attack, either that or Celestia’s voice had successfully overloaded his brain and he could no longer run, fight or react to anything properly. This goes to show that I should never make Celestia yell at me.
“Thank you Celestia, you’ve been a great help!” I kneeled down and pulled out my knife to start sawing away at the first antler.
-Five minutes later-
“Well that was an eventful way to end an afternoon, so are you staying for dinner Celestia?” The lovely pony goddess nodded and looked like she got her appearance completely in order.
“Well I don’t know if I should… depends on what your mother is making.” It sounded like Celestia was staying for dinner to me, she was only trying to act like she was uninterested.
“Jade needs more vegetables, to that end tonight is a night I made coconut cake.” Mom’s most unique way to get me to eat more vegetables, because I hated coconut cake.
Stats
Page generated in 0.055 seconds
Total duration
660 users online
974,209 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
why do i get the feeling that Jackalope's friend with Angel or is related to that demon in rabbit form?
8996966
Because it's the true. I dont remember the episode but we can see a jackalope at fluttershy's cottage.
Well that jackalope got full on purrsecuted into submission