Day 9 - The Wobbly-leg Frogger: 6/9
“Why do you keep glancing at my backside?” asks Trestle as he’s setting up an easel and preparing an area where someone of 20100’s size can paint, “Is it related to changeling feeding?”
“Huh?” 20100’s head twitches and he looks the painter in the eyes, “We don’t eat butts, Mister Tressel, we eat love. No, I was wondering what your markie mark means. It looks like three cards with symbols.”
“Those aren’t cards!” huffs Trestle, looking away and resuming preparing the tools, “Those are paintings.”
“But there are only scribbles on them.”
“They symbolize paintings!”
“They’re all rector- rectum- rectangooglar and taller than wider. Like cards.”
“Paintings can be any shape!”
“Aaaand they’re arranged in a way ponies and griffons hold cards.”
“Accident!”
“Are you suuure?” 20100 rubs its head, “Casino ponies don’t really like me. I’ve been kicked out from one on the ship and I had to be veeeery careful in the resort one when getting us shinies to pay Miss Trixie.”
“I do not own a casino! I do not work for a casino. I don’t even visit casinos!” Trestle’s eye twitches.
“Do you like playing cards?” 20100 narrows its eyes, “...Iwonthoseshiniesfairandsquare…”
“No! We’re not here to talk about cards, we’re here to paint.”
“Paint cards-?” Trestle’s head snaps directly towards 20100 with an audible crack, “Nevermind.”
Trestle grumbles something to himself before looking around at his work. The suite is nearly identical to the drones’ one, but this one looks much cleaner and lived-in. Aside from the momentary lapse of reason when the drones bought every kind of food available in the resort to make goop for Scufflestick figures, they haven’t really used any of the suite’s utilities and left everything where it was originally with the exception of dirt trailed everywhere. Cleaning is still something that happens to other creatures, on direct orders, or by accident. Not that the drones have anything against washing themselves, it’s more that grime and dirt doesn’t harm their carapaces in any way and most usually drops off at some point on its own.
Thankfully, 20100’s still covered in specks of paint from yesterday so it fits the theme of the room already, especially the plastic foil spread all over the floor.
“You’ll have to walk around on that. I can’t cover the chairs in foil particularly well and the easel doesn’t go all the way to the floor to fit your size,” says Trestle, pointing to the table, “What kind of paints do you prefer?”
“Anything that leaves a mark is fine with me,” says 20100, “I liked that white, drawy rock they use in the dining room downstairs but that doesn’t work on canvas. I tried. 65536 showed me these thick, colorful paints, and warned me not to let anypony eat them because they’d get sick. We can eat them and they color our goop, but they taste very bleh.”
“Oil-based paints,” says Trestle, turning his head with a furrowed brow, “I think I’ve got a sealed set somewhere around.”
“Then what do you draw with?”
“Paint, I paint,” the earth pony corrects it, “I can use most paints and styles to a degree, but I specialize in watercolors, or aquarelles as they’re called by creatures attempting to sound fancy.”
“Then you can show me those!” 20100 smiles, “I don’t think I’ve seen colored water before. It usually was that the water was see-through and there was something colorful under it. Wait, no! I did drink some orange, fizzy water on the ship. Was it for painting?”
“I’m going to assume that was a soda and not someone failing to poison a changeling, albeit this close to the Empire you can’t be sure,” comments Trestle, “No, these are watercolors,” he points to a tray on which there is a varied set of colored discs. 20100 immediately leans down, licks a yellow one, and makes a face, “Bleh dust.”
Trestle rolls his eyes and continues, somewhat safe in assuming that the changeling didn’t earn itself an express ticket to a stomach pump.
“You use wet brushes to apply these, hence watercolors. Unlike oil paints, you can’t easily layer them and they mix when they touch so you have to be more careful when applying them or trying to make your own shades. Let me show you first, okay?”
20100 stops crossing its eyes in an attempt to look at its own stuck out tongue to see if it’s yellow, and concentrates entirely on Trestle’s demonstration.
“Sure thing!”
***
Several polite questions later, 10013 finds the Bloodstone delegations’ bungalows. Thankfully, before it has to engage with a duo of armed griffons by the first one, it spots Clara swimming towards the next bungalow and taking the trapdoor inside. Were it not for the changeling ability to share mental images, this search would have taken much longer given that Clara isn’t particularly remarkable and more than half of the resort guests are griffons.
10013 knocks on the correct, guard-lacking door with the duo of griffons guarding the previous bungalow still glaring at it, and immediately hears quick steps approaching from the inside. Not even three seconds later, Clara opens the door, still dripping sea water from head to paws.
“Hi!” she smiles and leans closer to 10013. The drone isn’t good at reading griffon expressions, but her smile does feel somewhat predatory, but she’s gentle as she runs her talon from its muzzle to its neck, “Hmmm, you’re not the changeling I met last night, are you?”
10013 shakes its head.
“No, Miss. 20100 said it promised some painter pony to spend time with him.”
“Hmph, Trestle,” Clara frowns a little, turns around, and tugs at the front of her one-piece swimsuit so that its bottom slides between her cheeks directly in front of 10013’s face, “Come in- umm, what’s your name?”
“10013, Miss,” the drone enters the bungalow and rushes ahead to be in Clara’s field of view, “If you need something painted by 20100 you’ll have to wait, sorry.”
“So you came just to tell me that your friend can’t make it right now?” she tilts her head.
“Yup,” 10013 nods, “But I’d like to ask you something too.”
“Oh?”
“Do you have any idea who might help us get 99526 out of GIL? I heard it scared some visitors last night with explosive sneezing. No one got hurt and it didn’t break anything, I think, but when I visited the GIL they said they wouldn’t let it out.”
To 10013’s surprise, the corner of Clara’s beak curls up and her strange expression turns downright hungry.
“I can help you with that, in fact. Pulling out the Duchess of Bloodstone’s title opens many doors even here,” she lowers her voice and runs her talon under 10013’s chin down its chest, “But it won’t be for free.”
“I can get you some shinies. That shouldn’t be a problem,” 10013’s whole expression perks up, “20100 said you wanted those for a good time the first time you met on the ship.”
Clara chuckles.
“I want something a little different now. I asked around about your kind, and you changelings are interesting. Especially you little ones. So young and full of vigor,” she smirks in a way 10013 would identify as creepy if it had the experience, “I love that.”
“I guess I am little compared to a pony… or a griffon,” ponders 10013, “Young too, you guys live super long!”
“Exactly,” she sits down, spreads her legs, and starts slowly taking her one-piece off, revealing her barrel inch by inch before finally getting it down far enough, standing up, turning around, and sliding the rest off with a swing of her hips. In the end, she stretches like a cat, almost planting her backside on 10013’s face, “Like what you see?” she purrs.
“You are very stretchy,” 10013 nods, staring directly at her to avoid missing any hint regarding what Clara wants. So far, it looks like Miss Cadance’s yoghurt, but 10013 can’t be sure. However, as long as it helps set 99526 free, it’s 10013’s responsibility to do what it can.
“Oh ho ho,” Clara faces 10013 again, “We’ll have to test that properly. Let’s take a shower first, 10013. I hate the sea salt in my fur, and you,” she towers over the drone and runs a talon across its back all the way to its tail stub, leaving behind a mark of scratched off grime, “are a dirty dirty changeling.”
“Sounds neat!” 10013 beams at her.
Getting all clean and freeing 99526? That’s a win-win!
***
Trestle’s suite is dim, only lit by the chandelier as an experiment for 20100 to practice lighting.
“Am done!” announces 20100 with a bright smile.
“That took a lot longer than I expected,” Trestle stands up from the armchair in the back where he’d been studying several canvases he could use to test 20100’s skills, “but let’s see the result.”
“The hard part was figuring out how to mix these runny and blendy paints to get the colors I needed,” 20100 sits down on the table, examining the painting of a chair and a bowl of fruit on it, the most basic of basic painting compositions, “but after that it was just draw- painting,” 20100 shrugs, “I think I like the less runny paints a lot more, though. I had to keep repainting a lot of stuff in the beginning because these paints kept dripping.”
“There are techniques and styles to avoid that but mostly it’s about practice and knowing how much water to use and with what kind of brush-” Trestle stops behind the table and looks over 20100 at the painting, stopping mid-word, “Huh, so the Duchess’ painting wasn’t a fluke…”
The painting of a bowl of fruit would put a tear into a master’s eye. The shading is a near-perfect replica of the real world, with gradients and everything, explaining why it took 20100 so long to finish a simple painting like this.
“Hmmm…” Trestle hums to himself. Something feels off about the picture but he can’t put a hoof on what.
“Is it bad?” asks 20100, “I did my best to make it look like the bowl.”
“No no no,” Trestle shakes his head, “It’s perfect, I just…”
Then it hits the earth pony. Every painting he’d ever seen had its style, visible brush strokes, anything betraying it is, in fact, a painting. This one doesn’t. It is almost a photograph painted by a hoof.
“Hmmm,” he just hums again, unable to voice why what he’s seeing is bothering him. Maybe a different approach would work, “Tell me, 20100, is there anything specific you’d like to learn about painting? I’ve been travelling around Equestria for a long time, exploring the works of old masters from styles to used pigments, and these days I’ve had the opportunity to study old Imperial griffon art on the invitation of the Duchess of Bloodstone, so I think I could teach you some theory because, after seeing this, I’m not sure I could teach you anything about painting itself. You’ve just copied reality so perfectly I don’t know anypony who could do it better.”
20100 ponders it, scratches its head, and absolutely stuns Trestle with:
“Mister Trestle, how do you draw something that you’ve never seen?”
***
387 watches Chrysalis and 99 sitting across each other at the central table of the bungalow with an amused smirk.
“I’m calling bullshit!” Chrysalis bursts out after the dice she’s just rolled show too many ones and twos for her liking.
If it wasn’t clear, the table is covered in Scufflestick miniatures, namely the Empire of Ling facing off against the Equestri but, unlike last night, Chrysalis is going even using the powerful Equestri units with 99 outmaneuvering her using superior numbers of Lings. Granted, Chrysalis has had fairly bad luck regarding her rolls but 99 is playing her heart out and 387 is making a mental tally of tactical mistakes both sides are making which is certainly unfavorable to Chrysalis.
“One emerging idea seems to be that splitting your fire is really, really bad,” comments the warrior.
“Would be fine without this level of shit luck,” Chrysalis shoots him a glare, “Besides, this entire faction must do that or it’ll get swarmed- stop smirking, you smarmy bastard.”
“Told you so las-”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!”
“Fine,” 387 rolls his eyes, “I do admit you’ve been somewhat on the unfortunate side in this match so far, but it’s not as if 99 has been rolling particularly well either.”
“It has been a bit of a wet noodle fight,” 99 nods.
*Knock knock knock!*
The trio look at the door before instinctively checking their mental connections and realizing that with the suppressors on and them being so engrossed in the match they’ve been neglecting all their non-standard senses.
Currently, said senses relay a message that makes 99 jump up from the table with a terrified expression and slam the door open. Behind it, 10013 gives them an exhausted smile which makes green foam drip from its mouth on the ground, and it stumbles forward.
“Your Maj-”
The ground shakes, making the Scufflestick figurines tremble, the glass windows rattle, and 10013 collapse on the carpet. However, while the weak tremor passes, 10013 remains lying on its side, foam dripping from its mouth and its eyes blankly staring ahead.
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Seems 10013 got too much love?
11540014
It seems more like 10013 got poisoned by something. Then again, I don't think Drones are used to encountering raw Lust. This might be a lactose intolerance kind of thing.
Uhoh, either its dragon breeding season, or Celestia just got seriously cheesed off about something?
11540014
Tanked up on lust is more like it
Got a bit too much catbirb 10013?
The housekeepers are just going to love that. And I'd know--I work as one.
Oh hey! I love watercolor painting, having tried it a couple of times myself! I'm by no means an expert at it, but I can definitely appreciate this forthcoming painting lesson nonetheless.
Further, watercolors probably makes more sense for the drones anyway, as it'd be the type of paint that'd be easiest to recreate from scratch (at least passably) if necessary.
Lending a small bit of credence to my pet theory that the cruise's woes are partly to blame on the griffons trying to deliberately sabotage things just so to take out the changelings or at least frame them for it, as a sort of political/speciesist vengeance upon them. Still have to see if it actually pans out that way though.
Oh, you poor girl. You're in for such a disappointment.
But maybe that's a good thing, because now I'm starting to get questions about just what it was that interested Clara about them in the first place...
You're lucky you're so innocent, 10013. Well, at least in this particular regard. Get to talking about drone life in the hive, and then I'd imagine it'll be Clara who'll be the "innocent" one, so to speak.
Well then you better get comfortable, 20100, because this is gonna take awhile.
Well, that definitely wasn't the outcome I was expecting. I'm guessing the meeting with Clara didn't at all go as we were initially led to believe it would.
Either that or Clara really did figure out a way to fulfill that promise of "a good time." Although who exactly it was "good" for remains to be seen...
11540014 11540078 11540158 11540371
Well okay then! This happened to be a lot less dramatic than I thought.
11540096
She got angry at not being invited to the dragon mating season. Technically, Dragon Lands would be not too far to the south from the resort.
11540678
- It would be easy with drones. Just explain what to do, give them a mop or two and some detergent that makes enough bubbles and you'd be golden.
- The only times I drew anything IRL was in 'ye olden days' at elementary school but I remember preferring oil paints. No matter now, I'm impressively incompetent at painting, both digital and normal, so I wouldn't expect relevant tips from the next chapter/s. I'll try to sound like I know what I'm talking about at best.
- It's suspicious how it all stopped after the crash, unless 10013's current situation is the next step.
- Well, maybe 10013 will surprise everyone with its competence again. Also, this can't be anything other than a Jeffrey Epstein situation.
- It's always important to be positive about something, just not HIV positive.
- It was supposed to be tense but everyone got it immediately. Note to self - never write a detective mystery.
11541016
I read the thing where you said that drones can do it given direction to do so. From there its easy enough to assume what the griffoness would have happen, and the consequences thereof. I appreciate the drama tho, of a cliffhanger cutoff with a drone in distress and even the higherups in a rush.
11540678
The first step in creativity, could be said to be, take a drawing of an apple, and a drawing of a banana, then draw lines between the top, bottom and middle of the drawings, then use those to make new drawings between the two, stretching some dots, squashing others, blending the colours.
The next step in creativity is extending those lines past each end, to draw what would be banana minus apple and apple minus banana.
The third step is then taking any of those new images, and repeating with new objects, like trees, griffons, casinos, water, etc?
11541016
Good words to live by if I ever heard 'em
To be honest, the whole pedophile angle for some reason didn't even hit me until this chapter, even after you practically spelled it out to me in a previous comment (I guess I thought you weren't being serious? I dunno).
I guess it's because Clara was just so obviously up front about her intentions from the start, I was more focused on that than what her underlying reasons why might've been.
11541170
Seems like a good starting point to me, and I think it'd be as good a starting point to try for 20100 as any.
11540096
SoS, ling cannot find the hole for its Celestia and dragon shaped puzzle pieces. Where do they fit into this and/or what did I miss?
11541377
Something about a heavy impact and rage right at the end of the chapter. I have trouble with squirrels and shinies, so Im stuffed in Pokemon.
11541097
I guess I just didn't think that someone would pay attention...
Yeah, we had all that in Boss' story. From lust overdose to Three banging Eight/One.
11541170
THAT'S STILL BETTER THAN WHAT I WROTE ABOUT DRAWING! You should devour my heart and take my place. KA-LI-MA!
11541244
- Also, the hardest words to live by, But I keep trying with only a minimal level of drinking!
- I try to be 50% troll and potato% real in the answers so I guess I win. And it's not the wine talking!
Drones are kinda of a weird mix of an innocent kid and Friedrich Nietzsche,
11541377
The tremor be Sunbutt banging a dragon nearby!
11541465
Drones need to catch bad animals in big goop balls and make them fight. "I wanna be the High Score-est. Like no one ever was!"
11541528
SSA Super Smooth Animation and Keyframe Animation Morphing.
Thats something I havent seen in a long, long time.
Time to play.
Usura:Open Your Mind.
This cliff, it looks steep. To jump or not to jump.
11542061
Drone squad, install a drop dampening goop pile!