(Present Chapter 55) Bright Eyes and Wonder
"Ugh, what hit me?" Garble complained, rubbing his head. The headache felt like what other dragons jokingly thought he felt by thinking too hard, that is to say, sharp and with an undercurrent of annoyed anger.
"Oh no, here we go," he heard a little squeaky voice say with dawning horror.
Garble opened his eyes, and saw that he was jammed in some tiny room with a bunch of dragons, the distinct sensation of movement rumbling in his earholes as three of the four dragons stared at him with wide eyes, while the last, a scrawny blue one, was silently messing with some weird sciency looking stuff.
"AAAAAAAAAAHH!" Garble screamed, prompting a round of everyone screaming at everyone else.
Spike, Ruby, and Padparadscha each took turns screaming in shock and fright.
As Garble started scrambling and thrashing to get up, Sapphire commented in monotone "Please stop, you're going to make us crash."
Unfortunately, he, like everyone else who had ever uttered that phrase, had sealed their fates, as this only made Garble scream and thrash more, the tiny room shaking and several crystalline and metallic objects running through it cracking as he tried to get up and keep his new stolen pot away from these other dragons who clearly wanted to steal it from him!
"I guess we're crashing," Sapphire acknowledged, as the controls rapidly stopped responding, and the G-Diffusers stopped diffusing the G's.
Spike, Padparadscha and Ruby shared one final look of horrified realization, before screaming all together, right before the Arwing they were all in smashed into the ground, magical shields depleting to keep them from tumbling end-over end.
With a sigh from Sapphire, the ship ground to a halt, and things quickly started catching on fire.
Garble, who smacked his head on a pipe during the landing, had to be dragged out of the flaming wreck by an exasperated Ruby.
He shook his head to clear the dazed fog, pulling free from the larger dragon. "What the heck is this all about!? What is going on here?! Who are you!?" he groused, hugging his pilfered loot close.
"We crashed into you. Then we gave you a ride. Then you screamed, Spike screamed, Ruby and Padparadscha both screamed, we started to crash, and then everyone screamed. We are those people I just named," Sapphire explained, leaning against the flaming ship, trying to see if it could be repaired.
Spike pointed to the Krak Pot "You stole that from Zecora!" he interjected accusingly.
Padparadscha patted the little drake on the back. "Yeah. We couldn't leave you in the middle of nowhere, and we didn't feel like trying to pry it from your cold not-dead claws, so we just dumped you in the ship and figured we'd take it back when you woke up."
Garble looked between all of the ones who spoke, snarling with greed. "Well I'm not going to let you steal this from me, I stole it first!" he said with a huff.
They look at each other, Spike especially feeling somewhat nervous as to the 'how' of actually getting the pot back.
Ruby shrugged. "I guess that's that. Might as well make camp," he said, glancing at his brothers and Spike, silently ordering them to go along with it.
It took them a moment, before their eyes widened at what appeared to be some sort of plan.
Since when did Ruby do subtlety?
Flam slowly guided the ship down, careful not to slosh the cider barrels too roughly as he landed near the crashed ship.
With a hiss, the cockpit opened, and he looked out over the quartet and their shanghai'd cohort.
"I'm not sure I can fly you all in this thing, it's only got the two seats... How are we going to do this?" Flam asked bluntly, concerned over the wasted time.
Ruby waved for him to come down, piling dry desert wood onto the fire they're all hanging out around.
"Might as well unload that cider, Flam. I don't think we'll be making it to the Dragonlands before it goes off at this rate," the dragon shrugged, noting the setting sun.
Flam sighs. "Well, it's your cider. Hopefully the order isn't voided."
Spike felt curious. "Why were you delivering cider for us all the way to the Dragonlands anyway? I don't remember any of us ordering it."
Flam scratched his chin, hopping down from the Great Sacred Treasure. "Well..."
Flim and Flam gaped with shock at the literal cartoonish treasure chest overflowing with gold and jewels.
"I want you to follow my nephews to the Dragonlands. Bring as much cider as the Great Sacred Treasure can carry," Weiss Noir said plainly.
Flam blinked. "Why? They're here in Ponyville right now, I could just carry some barrels it over to them right now," he asked, only for Flim to plug his mouth with a hoof.
"I'm sure our client has very good reasons for paying us a very reasonable sum to make a delivery like this one, brother! Let's not pester the pony so much over trivial little details like that!"
Weiss waved the two off. "A few reasons. They'll make better friends with drinks to share once they get there, and I also want to see how well your modifications work on my Weapon of Light. You need merely zip over with them, drop off the goods, and zip back. It'll be a good test," he said.
The brothers accepted this explanation, but something about the way the sage said it...
Garble, who was sitting away from the others, making sure they didn't steal his treasure, scoffed. "Well, you better hope no real dragons find out that flying thing belongs to the Dragon Mouse. They'll try to steal it for sure," he sneered.
Sapphire raised an eyebrow, pulling out several metal ingots and roasting them over the flaming wreckage of their ship. "Explain."
Garble sighed, rolling his eyes. "Figures. Nobody ever listens to the elder dragons do they? Stealing stuff from the Dragon Mouse is a tradition as old as they are! Up until he bit it, dragons were going in there to rob him all the time! You steal something from the Dragon Mouse, and you prove without a shadow of a doubt that you're more dragon than the 'dragonest' pony there is," he said, puffing up with pride.
"I can't believe you scalebrains don't know that," he retorted defensively, when the four other dragons just stared at him with curiosity. In the back, Flam's eyes widened as he realized what Weiss Noir likely meant by wanting to "test" the treasure... He probably wanted dragons to try to steal it from him!
"Is that why you stole Zecora's pot?" Spike asked, crossing his arms.
"Who? Nevermind, I don't care, yeah! If the Dragon Mouse made this pot, then me bringing it back is going to be the coolest thing a dragon has done in centuries! I'll be the top dog for sure once I get this thing back to my hoard! So don't get any ideas, runt!" he said, turning to the side with the pot held protectively.
Spike held his hands up. "Hey, unlike you, I don't steal things!"
Garble hmph'd. "Good. More for the rest of us," he said, reaching behind his back to pull out some gems he brought along for a snack. Holding onto the pot, and trying to grab something at the same time, however, proved tricky, and with a strangled curse, the sapphire and ruby he pulled out tumbled from his claws, and into the pot.
"Dang it!" he said, reaching in to pull them out. As he did, he noted with surprise that blue and red were flying out of the lip of the vessel!
Pulling his claw back out quickly, he noted a thick, purple taffy-like blue substance coating his clawtips.
The others watched as he blinked, then, licked the blue stuff.
He blinked again, and looked into the pot, where the sapphire and ruby had melted down into a deep violet goop.
"That's weird," he said, chewing the now solidified corundum off like rock candy, leaving his claws clean once more.
Despite this, he was suddenly extremely interested. What sort of pot was this?!
He tipped it over, pouring out the liquid gemstone fluid inside out into his open claw, and the others watched with detached interest as the fluid morphed into a single purple gemstone, complete with facets.
Garble had a look of wonder, before he covered it up with embarrassed aggression when he remembered he was surrounded by dragons.
"Ha! This thing is awesome!" he said, pulling out more gems and throwing them inside, until the pot was filled with a rainbow mishmash of Garble's prismatic travel mix.
"Well, can we use it, or are you just going to hog the thing?" Ruby asked, drawing looks from the others, Spike especially looking a bit betrayed by his request to use the stolen vessel. The red dragon simply shot a quick conspiratorial wink to the purple drake.
Garble sneered. "No way! You'll just try and steal it!" he responded, scooping out a rainbow gem from the Krak Pot and chowing down on it.
Ruby shrugged. "Well, then I guess that's that. Flam, got any mugs?" the dragon asked, going over to one of the cider barrels and cracking it open.
Garble blinked at the smell of succulent succulent apple cider, and suddenly his own rainbow gem medley seemed sorely lacking...
He huffed, trying to ignore the smell of warm cider, but before he could properly devote some brainpower to doing so, a mug was shoved firmly into his claws.
"Wh-Hey, I didn't want any of your pansy pony drink!" he growled, holding the mug with a standoffish set to his expression.
Ruby just shrugged with a smirk. "But a pansy pony pot is fine, right?" he responded.
Garble's eyes narrowed, before he took a sip, not breaking eye contact with the other, bulkier red dragon.
"That's different."
Ruby just shrugged. "Sounds like that's that," he responded.
By now, Spike was totally confused by how calmly the red drake was speaking, a major contrast to the screaming posing bodybuilder that he met just a little while ago. It was clear that this Ruby had some kind of plan, or at least, he seemed incredibly confident with the things he was saying.
Garble was drawn back to his new treasure, the weird magic pot. With a shrug, he poured the last half of his mug of cider into the pot with the gems, and once again, sparks and sparkles flew from it like fireworks.
"Whoa," he muttered, looking at the amber iridescent liquid in it.
After several minutes of quiet drinking and eating, Ruby refilled his mug with cider from the barrel, while Garble scooped out the weird rainbow liquid that the tool of alchemy produced. Taking a sip, the dragon was clearly immensely pleased by the result.
"Hey, you going to share, or what?" Padparadscha said. He seemed to have picked up some of what Ruby was planning, and waggled the mug at the rude thief.
Garble sneered. 'A dragon asking another dragon to share! Who even does that?!' he thought.
Ruby paused. There was still another barrel of cider left to drink, and the conclusion Garble came to upon after several moments in thought was left unspoken.
He wanted more of that cider.
"Fine, give me that," Garble said, reaching over and snatching the mug. He fumbled with the now-two mugs in his claws, emptying the pot into them with a clumsy motion, before passing one of them back to the little pink dragon.
"Thank you," Paddy said, more firmly than perhaps needed to be.
Sapphire and Spike looked at the mugs of rainbow gem cider with unrestrained hunger as their owners drank it down greedily.
Ruby, however, wasn't one to let that stand as it was. "I'm going to go get the food," he said, plodding over to the flaming wreckage of their Arwing and pulling out the crate of food they brought with them.
Cracking it open, he passed around ingots of grilled gold to Spike and Sapphire, before grabbing one of his own.
Garble's eyes widened. "Are you just going to eat straight gold?"
Ruby took a single slow bite, staring the other drake in the eyes as he did. "It's good though."
The smaller of the two dragons blinked. "That's metal," he said with some small amount of respect. It wasn't entirely clear if he was being literal or not.
Slowly, the tense vibe in the air began to ease. Without a word, Garble stood up and walked over to the crate, grabbing a bunch of the food.
"What are you doing?" Sapphire questioned, eyeing him as he grabbed an armful of grilled gold, toasted tin, and sous vide'd silver.
"Don't worry about it, blue boy," Garble barked back, stuffing the food into the Krak Pot piece by piece. He didn't react as the other dragons started to gather around to watch the sparks fly.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Sapphire continued, trying to study the pot, and the reactions occurring therein.
Garble rolled his eyes. "Nope. But it looks cool, and I bet it'll taste good too," he said arrogantly, reaching in and scooping out a glob that seemed to morph and change, the group watching with wide-eyed interest as it turned into a metal sandwich.
Of course, Garble was once again surprised and pleased by the result. He shoved the sandwich into Spike's claws, reaching in to grab several more out of the magically fusing pot. "There, now get off my tail about sharing," he groused, but it was clear some camaraderie had emerged due to the shared foodstuffs and drinks.
It didn't take long for conversation to begin in earnest, comprised mostly of Garble, bragging and explaining with sheer investment and barely restrained excitement at all the old dragon stories he knew, and the more his audience seemed to drink the tales in with rapt attention, the bigger his ego swelled and the grander his fairytales became.
"-And then, Big Snaptooth took a huge bite out of the crown, and tossed it at the pony princess, saying 'needs more salt'!" he exclaimed, getting some laughter.
Spike giggled. "I think I remember that story!" he said, tactfully leaving out the part of who told it to him, namely, the "pony princess" herself.
Garble smirked. "Good. Figures a runt like you is the only one still listening to old dragon stories. A dragon who doesn't know why we're the best is no dragon at all, I say," he grunts.
Ruby got a look in his eyes, and it was clear that the moment he was waiting for had come.
"It's funny you should say that. We're on our way to the Dragon Lands to learn exactly that. We've never been there before. None of us."
Garble blinked. "Not a one of you, huh? Well that explains all the 'sharing' and 'not stealing' junk. You came to the right dragon then! Or I guess you ran him over. Now that I stole this weird food-pot thing that the Dragon Mouse made, I'm more dragon than any of those other punks back home!" he said proudly, puffing out his chest.
"Where are you dweebs from, anyway? I don't know any dragons dumb enough to hang out with a pony-" he began, looking at Flam, who seemed vaguely offended, pulling his head out of the innards of the Great Sacred Treasure long enough to glare, before returning to his work maintaining it.
"-but I guess if there was any, they sure wouldn't be living in the Dragon Lands," he finished considerately.
"The Dragon Mouse... You know, it's funny you should say that," Ruby responded.
Paddy and Sapphire both looked at Ruby nervously. This was clearly going somewhere.
"He's our uncle, actually, he practically helped raise us from hatchlings," Ruby finally admitted with a smile.
Garble laughed. "You chumps? No way! You're too young or too old, he only just showed back up a little while back, so you'd have to be either a bunch of babies, or like a gajillion years old!"
Ruby just shrugged. "It's a long story."
Garble's eyes narrowed. "Prove it."
"How?" Ruby responded instantly.
Garble thought to himself. "The Dragon Mouse had this thing he figured out. Dragon Lightning, not a single dragon ever managed to steal it from him. If you're his nephews, then surely-"
Ruby, Sapphire, Padparadscha, and even Spike, (Though he didn't consider himself Weiss's nephew) all snapped their claws, making lightning arc around their arms frantically.
The boorish drake's jaw dropped. "No freaking way..."
Ruby grinned, and some of his hotheaded personality started to bleed through. "Yes freaking way!" he said, flexing with another burst of lightning.
"So, do you want to hear a story?!" he said to the stunned dragon, who rapidly nodded with an expression of intrigue.
The three dragons (and Spike, to a much lesser degree) explained themselves to Garble, talking about their origins as clones, their life in the Shadow Realm, the curse that threw them out of time, and their new lives here, in the present.
Garble didn't interrupt or speak, sitting crosslegged on the ground as the trio offered up their story, and only when they were finished did he finally say something.
"No freaking way..." he muttered, awed by the literal walking history.
Padparadscha finally interjected. "So yeah, none of us really like the idea of stealing from innocent ponies. Our honorary bro Spike here really doesn't like it, either. We just weren't raised that way," he explained.
Garble clamped his mouth shut. "Well, I can't exactly give it back, being the first dragon to steal from the Dragon Mouse in almost a thousand years is going to make me the coolest dang dragon ever, up there with the elder dragons!" he said, once more refusing to relinquish the pot.
Ruby nodded. "Yeah, I figured that a while ago. Garble, will you give that pot back to that lady Zecora, if we help you steal something even better? Something that'll totally freak out even those Elder Dragons?"
He chewed over the idea for almost a minute, but a full stomach and a full head of new stories had a way of swaying a dragon's thoughts.
"...I'm listening," Garble said noncommittally.
The trip back was a bit anticlimactic, as Sapphire, Garble and Ruby flew alongside a disgruntled Flam, who had to share seat room with Spike and Padparadscha. The Arwing was a total write-off, and it left them with nothing but wingpower to make up the slack.
Soon, though, they were all dropped off at Star Road, and with a snap of his fingers, Ruby opened a portal directly to Weiss, who was busy holding up some businesspony by the neck.
"Hey! Lord Uncle! Can we see your arms for just a second? We made a friend who doesn't think they come off!" Ruby shouted, posing dramatically as he pointed to his uncle. In the background, his cohort all nodded, Garble most of all.
Weiss grimaced. "I'm in the middle of something... " Ruby's face became pitiful, and Weiss winced. "Okay, look, just hurry it up," he said, switching to shaky telekinesis to hold Chancellor Golden Apple in the air by his neck, before popping the six arms off and letting Ruby gather them up into a big load in his arms, smiling through the portal.
"Thanks Lord Uncle!" he said, closing the portal with no further adieu.
"Wh- You little bastards!" Weiss shouted, turning to glare at the closed portal. Did that cheeky brat just steal his arms?
'Damn. They grow up so fast, already stealing shit from me to impress their friends...' he couldn't help but grin, shaking his head good-naturedly.
Golden Apple dropped to the ground gasping and scooting away, only for Weiss to return his gaze to the Chancellor.
"Ah ah ah, you were telling me about Chancellor Bitter Pill? I'd like to run that back one more time," he said, trailing into a lower and lower turn as he stalked towards the fearful earth pony.
He'll let his nephews have their fun. He only hoped that they were having as much fun exploring their heritage as he was stomping out his own ill-intentioned legacy.
"So, where were we?" he asked, igniting his horn to wrap telekinetic force around the Chancellors neck again. A portal opened, and Weiss extracted his spare arms from the stash.
He was beginning to run low on those, without an industry to supply him personal sundries like limbs.
Garble blinked as the portal slammed shut. "I can't believe that worked."
"Believe it. There's this pony, Glitter Miss Priss, she once pranked him for three weeks straight making things dump snow on him. If he doesn't hate your guts, it's pretty easy to get one past him," Paddy admitted.
"The pot?" Spike asked, trying not to seem impatient.
Garble nodded. "Fine. Fine, I admit it, bringing back the Dragon Mouse's own dang arms... That's so cool! It's insane!" he shouted.
He looked at the others "You know we're going to be legends, right? Dragons are going to be talking about those-" he pointed at the armful of arms. "-for the next millennia, at least!" he explained, growing more excited by the minute.
When he looked at the Krak Pot, though, his expression dimmed slightly.
The others shared a look, following him as he flew back to the hut where he first stole it from.
As he did, he saw the hut's owner, a zebra humming merrily as she tidied up the humble abode.
Garble looked nervous. "Hey, you!" he shouted awkwardly, holding the pot.
Zecora looked back, and saw the five dragons.
"The dragon brothers, and little Spike ~ I hope you all have been alright," she greets them, before looking to the final one.
"So you're the one who took the pot ~ Had you not come, you'd not be caught.
"Admittedly, I thought it lost ~ Off my list, a thief was crossed," she rhymed.
Garble scratched his head. "Yeah, well, here you go," he held it out.
Zecora reached out to take it, but with a tug, it remained firmly in Garble's claws, and he stared down at the Krak Pot with a hint of longing.
"You may not have done this before, ~ Is returning it such a chore?
"You seem torn, what make you halt? ~ I sense not mere greed at fault," she asked, and Garble groaned.
"Ugh, this sucks, that pot was so cool, too," he muttered, finally letting go and turning away with a grouse.
"It was 'cool'? What do you mean? ~ Tell me, drake, what have you seen?"
Garble scoffed, and only once he saw the others encouraging him with their open, totally sympathetic pony-like expressions, he finally loosened up, and, with a hint of vulnerability in his brash hide, explained.
His voice seemed filled with whimsical exuberance as he explained that "the cool pot" was turning whatever he put in it into other cool stuff, like snacks and drinks made from other, lesser snacks and drinks.
Zecora blinked. It was clear that the dragon was thick in the head, he didn't have even the slightest hint of alchemical talent, and yet, his tone was filled with wonder, heaps and heaps of it. Each of the very minor things he did with the pot of Almighty Alchemy seemed to stun and bewilder the dragon with the sheer fantasy of it. Turning gems into drinks, metals into sandwiches!
The zebra pursed her lips, and she had the oddest sense of intuition, itching at the edges of her clever mind. Was the Krak Pot guiding her?
"I must admit that now I see ~ You wish to use it? Then feel free.
"I only ask that you refrain ~ From taking it from here again.
"In Ponyville, or Everfree, ~ Leave it here, with it don't flee.
"I see your passion, this pot does too, ~ So whatever you may wish to brew-
"-Do what you will, it's yours to use, ~ This trust I give, please don't abuse."
Garble's eyes were wide. If he wanted to keep using the pot, he'd have to hang around here? Ugh! So lame!
"Hmph. Maybe. I'll see you when I see you!" he finally retorted, stomping off into the forest.
Spike smiled awkwardly. "I'm really sorry about all this, Ma'am, he's a bit rough around the edges," the little purple drake responded.
Zecora smiled. "For dragons, dear, that is common ~ You're unique, kind to this shaman," she said, patting him on the head.
He thanked her, before waddling off after the dragon trio, who were following Garble as he standoffishly walked away to not seem like some kind of gooshy pansy.
Because he absolutely was feeling awfully gooshy after that zebra said he could use the pot whenever he wanted.
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I want that pot! *_*
10964487
Well, I've always wanted it after playing dragon quest 10 in ps2
Garble is such a tsundere.
10965085
Good. I was concerned he was more of an "Asshole" than "Ice Queen (King?)", and of course, was trying to write him as at least somewhat sympathetic, if not exactly nice.
I wonder what would happen when mixing objects of conflicting properties… I assume it would take the users intention into factor for what it does, like making frozen fire or burning ice. Most likely it works best when boosting the properties of one material instead of changing attributes altogether, like compounding crystals, instead of meshing Oil and Stone.
Let me just say that this was without a doubt the BEST THING I've ever bingeread in this website, definitely made my past 2 weeks exponentially more enjoyable. Props for creating such an incredible, engaging and addictive story and I can't wait to see more.