Ch8 Anytime is Party Time [edited]
Jake and the Kid
Chapter Eight
Anytime is Party Time.
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Most ponies, when they thought of it at all, imagined the Everfree forest as a dank forbidden place forever shrouded in gloom; nothing could be further from the truth. There were days when the sun shone down into the forest clearings like liquid gold and brought the normally muted colors to brilliant life. On a day like that, there was really only one thing to do. At least if you were Pinkie Pie.
Curry didn’t know how Pinkie Pie had done it. Using items scrounged from the ruins and forest, along with contents drawn from her saddlebags, the pink party pony had thrown a Birthday picnic for Jake, complete with a cake decorated with five candles. Pretty darn good cake at that.
Curry had been half afraid the cake would be like the specialty horse treats that the stupid rich girls bought when they wanted to throw a party for their spoiled rotten ponies. (*)
Pinkie’s treat had turned out to be a perfectly ordinary, but very delicious, cake.
Five of the ponies were, to a greater and lesser degree, enjoying the impromptu combination Birthday/Welcome Jake, and Curry, Party. With Pinkie being the greater and Rarity the lesser; or at least the more restrained. Curry had a suspicion that Rarity was enjoying herself every bit as much as Pinkie, but was just a lot less inclined to make a public spectacle of herself. All five ponies seemed to enjoy teaching Jake how to eat with his hooves instead of simply sticking his face into his food; they had quickly given up on teaching him how to hold a fork.
Rarity had tried to teach Jake how to use his horn to levitate a slice of cake to his mouth, but that had turned out even worse than the fork incident. Curry had thought she would crack a rib laughing as she watched Rainbow Dash nearly go into hysterics as Jake licked the smashed cake off her side, while holding her firmly, but gently in place with one big hoof. It sort of made Curry think of a momma cat washing a kitten, who had gotten into a batch of food coloring.
While Jake and the five ponies around him were practically sitting flank to flank, Curry had elected to stay on the sidelines of the party. She was leaning back against a tree a few feet away enjoying her slice of cake while resisting the urge to emulate Jake and drop her fork and dive face first into it. It was one heck of a good cake! The ponies had made every effort to include her, but she’d felt like a child at an adult party. Everyone else was so big. The ponies were not that large, as ponies went, eleven to twelve hands, but they out massed her by a large amount, and Jake was a crowd all by himself.
Despite the friendly nature of this particular group Curry had too many previous bad experiences with ponies to be comfortable mingling in such a mob. Almost to a beast she had found the ponies back home spoiled rotten with a nasty temperament to boot. Getting trapped in a crowd of them was just begging to have your foot stepped on, your hair grabbed, or getting nipped by strong pony teeth. As a result, it was hard to be fully comfortable mixing into a melee like the one going on around Jake at the moment.
Jake, being the elephant at the party, so to speak, had no such reservations, despite having suffered far more than Curry at the hooves and teeth of spoiled brat ponies. His attitude seemed warranted given how these particular ponies were treating him. It was good to see him so happy. Sometimes she forgot how lonely it must have been for him up at the old barn. Maybe that was one reason he tried to be so social, despite almost always having it end badly on the occasions when she took him down to the boarding stables.
Twilight Sparkle, unlike her friends, did not seem to be in a party mood. She was pacing back and forth muttering to herself. According to the others, she was waiting to hear back from the princess. Curry wasn’t sure about that. As near as she could tell, all that happened was that Spike had incinerated the letter and picture Twilight had given him to send. Everyone had assured her that it was a magical mail delivery system and that Twilight’s message would go straight to Princess Celestia.
The young Disney fanatic didn’t really care if the whole fire/mail thing worked the way they said it did. It had been beyond cool just seeing Spike breath fire. Almost as cool as finding out that there was a for real princess living in a shiny white castle, and that Curry and Jake were going to meet her, and her sister, another princess. Twilight was just waiting for the details on how that was going to happen. Curry really hoped the princesses would not decide they were too busy or just not interested in meeting a scruffy backwoods girl.
Curry had been happy to hear that there was no Queen, those were bad news, always up to something evil. But she wasn’t sure about this Princess Luna. Ruler of the Night? That just screamed bad stuff ahead. She had tried to feel out Rarity on the topic. The white unicorn seemed pretty dependable, despite being so fussy about the least little bit of dirt on her hide. Rarity had assured her that Princess Luna was a perfectly splendid princess.
Rarity’s attempts to allay Curry’s misgivings had not benefited from Pinkie throwing in an aside about how scary wonderful the princess had been a few weeks previously when Princess Luna had almost caused Pinkie to wet herself in terror.
At that point, Curry pretended to accept Rarity’s words as gospel. The small girl knew that it was useless trying to convince certain adults that another adult was evil incarnate. Look how much luck she had with that when it came to Old Man Sedgwick or that social worker. She made a private vow to keep an eye on this Princess Luna, and at the first indication of evil, bam, she’d lower the boom on her.
Curry didn’t concern herself with just how she was going to accomplish that. Something would come up. All evil bad guys had a weak spot that was revealed if you just kept your eyes and ears open.
Besides, having a discussion with Rarity had proved a mite dangerous. Curry had been the recipient of a five-minute lecture on what a crime against nature it would be for a young mare to hack off such a lovely mane. Just because Curry had asked to borrow a pair of scissors so she could get rid of her unwelcome new hair extensions. Curry hadn’t even asked her to do it for her. She had fully intended to cut it herself, just like she always had at home.
In the end Rarity, herself had cleaned up the ends of Curry’s hair, or mane. That was what all the ponies called it, and it sure felt like one. Besides, she rather liked the idea of having a mane, instead of a, gag me, hairdo. The white unicorn had ended up taking off just three or four inches of what she termed un-salvageable. That was nearly two and a half feet less than Curry had originally wanted. Rarity had then used some ribbons to tie up Curry’s hair in a controlled bundle. That at least was welcome. It stopped it from snagging on every little branch and rock she brushed against, though she still had to be a lot more careful than she was used to. Secretly, Curry rather liked the fact that her trimmed and arranged mane looked a lot like Applejack’s mane style. Too bad it wasn’t the same shade. Her mane was mostly its same old dingy straw color, with bright new threads of red and orange running through it as opposed to Applejack’s beautiful, solid blonde coloring.
‟Not much of a party person?”
The scrawny tomboy started at the unexpected question from someone she hadn’t even know was nearby. She glanced to her side and found the lizard, baby dragon, Spike, standing a couple of feet away, a plate of cake held in one hand while he used a fork to transfer some to his mouth while waiting for her reply. Curry licked her lips. Her cake was a tasty memory, all that was left now was a licked clean plate. She eyed Spike’s share with hungry eyes. He showed he had experience with such behavior by putting his body between her and that slice of heaven.
Curry sighed in resignation at his ‘no cake for you’, attitude and said, ‟I don’t mind them. Just afraid I might get squashed.”
Spike shook his head. ‟You don’t need to worry. Believe me. I’m used to being the small one.”
‟Yeah, but I don’t have scales or breath fire. I wouldn’t want to crowd you either.”
Spike wasn’t looking at her, focusing on the group around Jake. ‟You don’t have to be afraid of me either,” he said.
‟Who the heck said I was afraid of you?” Curry retorted with a bit of heat and then flinched back slightly as he turned to look at her. He quickly turned his eyes away from her and her muscles relaxed slightly. She felt flush and was angry at her reaction. Without thought, her hands curled up into fists. If Spike had been a boy she’d have lunged at him in an instant, intent on salvaging her pride and showing him that she wasn’t afraid of nobody. And, for making her feel stupid. She knew that dragons were not evil like she’d once thought. You just had to understand them and they’d be the best friend you could ask for. If a scrawny runt like Hiccup could do it, she could too.
‟Glad to hear it,” Spike said, ignoring her reaction. ‟It’s a funny thing. Most ponies are terrified of dragons. We’ve had to deal with some other dragons a couple of times. I’m just a kid. If you think Twilight and the others are a bit big, you would not believe how large the other dragons get. But, you know, despite their being afraid of dragons in general. I don’t think I’ve ever met a pony in Ponyville who was afraid of me. Not even after I...” His voice faded and he looked uncomfortable.
Clearly, he’d said more than he’d intended. Curry could sympathize, she was forever spouting off without thinking and saying stuff that she had never wanted anyone to know.
That sympathy didn’t stop her from wanting to know what he was talking about, however. Curiosity piqued, she scooted over a bit closer. ‟After you what?” she asked.
For a moment Curry didn’t think Spike was going to tell her, but then he started talking. ‟Well, Dragons are magical. We can be affected by some things. Like greed for instance. Greed has a really bad effect on dragons. I found that out the hard way. I did a lot of damage. But after Rarity talked me down I recovered and went back to being me. And you know what? All the ponies forgave me. They had every right to be afraid of me. But somehow they weren’t. That’s one reason I like living out here so much, everypony knows me, and everypony trusts me. Not like in the city. I spent most of my time there on the school grounds or at the palace and that was ok, but if I went into the city, even with Twilight, I got a lot of looks, and ponies crossing to the other side of the street. I didn’t have it as bad as the Bats, but it was pretty close.”
‟Bats?” Curry questioned him.
Spike winced slightly and made a shushing noise. ‟Darn, forget I said that. Twilight will make me write a thousand lines, ‘I will not denigrate the Nocturne with a derogatory epithet,’ and then grade me on my penmanship.
Curry sighed. Really, not only did Spike not answer her questions fully, he kept bringing up new things to ask about. ‟Ok, what all are Nocturne when they are at home?” she asked.
‟Night ponies. All of them have dark-grey hides. They also have dragon-wings and big yellow cats-eyes that can see in the dark. They don’t like the sun too much. It hurts their eyes. They sleep in the day and work at night. There are a lot of them in the Royal Guards on the night shift. A lot of day ponies are scared of them. They call them bats, on account of their wings.”
‟They don’t suck blood, do they?” Curry asked in delighted anticipation. Vampire ponies. That would be so cool.
‟No, no,” Spike said frantically, looking around to see if anyone had overheard. ‟For goodness sakes, don’t let Twilight hear you ask that. That’s even worse than using ‘bats’. We’d be in for a half hour lecture, if we’re lucky, on not perpetrating racial stereotypes.”
‟Awww, too bad,” said the girl who had grown up in a culture that had turned blood-sucking fiends into the epitome of cool.
Sitting, listening to Spike talk, Curry felt the strangeness of his very existence fading. If she closed her eyes it was easy to think of him as a regular boy. Not that this was such a positive thing. Boys were a huge pain. But she sure wasn’t afraid of them. She just had to remember that dragons were misunderstood. Well, except for the huge great big evil ones that forced smaller dragons to do bad things. Steeling her courage, she asked, ‟Can I touch you?”
Spike looked a bit startled. He ate the last bit of cake with a thoughtful expression. He put the plate down carefully, then flopped down on his belly beside her. ‟Sure, in fact, I got this itch right between the shoulders I just can’t get at. You mind?”
‟Sure, no problem,” Curry said as she reached out tentatively and touched his skin with the tip of one finger. She was surprised to find him warm, and softer than she would have thought. And not the least bit slimy. Feeling a bit bolder she pressed the tips of all her fingers against his hide and slowly ran them down the middle of his back.
‟Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff. But a bit higher and harder, please,” Spike said with an exhalation of pleasure.
Curry had strong hands from working around the house and barn, and from spending hours combing and grooming Jake, and the ponies at the Boarding stable where she picked up spare change getting some of them ready for shows. She made a whole twenty-five dollars a pony.(1)
A full-on detailing job was a lot of work, but so worth it to see the end results. Not so good when half the time the pony she’d just worked so hard on promptly went and rolled in the dirt the moment they were unharnessed. Even if their owners had no control over the bratty little beasts, it had not mattered, she still got paid. Now she pressed her fingers hard into Spike’s back and began to knead between his shoulders.
Any fear she might have retained in regards to him rapidly disappeared when he started moaning in hedonistic bliss. She couldn’t help but giggle a bit at how over the top his exclamations of delight were. ‟At last,” he groaned. ‟A friend with fingers.”
Curry found she was actually enjoying herself. But, she also knew from her experience with Jake, and other horses and ponies, that the greedy guts could never get enough. They would urge her to continue no matter how long she worked on them. So, after about ten minutes she quit scratching and rubbing and pulled her hands away from Spike, who gave such a heartfelt groan that she had to laugh at how closely he sounded like Jake at just that moment.
Curry was distracted from Spike’s begging for just five more minutes of five finger delight by the sight of Twilight pacing back and forth, muttering to herself while strands of hair seemed to spring out from the body of her mane every few seconds.
‟What’s wrong with Miss Twilight?” she asked with some concern. The purple unicorn looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack.
‟Oh, buck,” Spike exclaimed as soon as he looked over at Twilight. A fraction after the word escaped his mouth he clapped his hands over his mouth and looked at Curry with an expression of horror. ‟Please, please, don’t tell Twilight I said that in front of you. Last time I said it in front of a filly, she washed out my mouth with saddle soap.” He muttered under his breath. ‟Darn, Diamond Tiara. What a tattle tale.”
Curry was confused at first and then horrified as she understood what had Spike so upset. Lord help her. Her favorite vanilla swear word was the real thing in this place. What the heck was she going to do? Old Ben hadn’t washed her mouth out with soap back when she’d used the real thing, but he had threatened to tan her britches good if he heard her use it again. She was not eager to find out what saddle soap tasted like. Hmmm, maybe if she used the words from back home? ‟Fu . . .” she started to say, and could not get it all out. Old Ben’s aversion therapy had been a hell of effective.
‟Darn, darn, darn. We got to do something,” Spike said, his tone near frantic.
Curry saw that Spike was still staring at Twilight, and asked again. ‟What’s the matter with her?”
‟She’s idling at full speed without a governor,” Spike said in a worried tone. ‟Guys, guys,” he called out, hurrying over to the party ponies where Jake was doing his best to pop a bouncing balloon with his horn while Pinkie yelled out encouragement.
‟Whatever is the matter, Spike dear?” Rarity asked, being less enthralled with the current activity than her fellows. Mainly because Jake’s gyrations were kicking up a lot of dirt and dust.
‟Twilight is doing it again,” was Spike’s answer.
‟What do you–, oh, that pony!” Rarity said with some exasperation. ‟She’s totally ruined the lovely mane style I did for her just yesterday, and she’s working herself up into that state again.”
Curry was glancing between Spike, Rarity, and Twilight. She still wasn’t sure what was going on, though she could see that Twilight was looking more than a bit frazzled. Spike’s explanation had been as clear as mud. Curry had seen ponies that had been seriously stressed by something, however, and they behaved a little like what Twilight was doing; minus the talking to themselves and the little sparks jumping off the tip of the unicorn’s horn.
‟Do you think we should ask Pinkie for help?” Spike asked uncertainly.
‟Well, a pie in the face would distract her. But I don’t think things are quite that serious yet,” Rarity said. ‟Something, maybe, a little less drastic?” she asked.
‟How about a good brushing,” Curry suggested. That worked to sooth ponies that were just a bit skittish and not in the middle of a full-blown panic attack.
‟The very thing,” Rarity declared. ‟I know a good grooming session just wipes the stress of the day away like nothing else for me. Now, let us see, what do I have here?” Rarity mused as she began to levitate various grooming devices out of her saddlebags. Some of them were sort of familiar, not quite like what she was used to using on ponies, and not like what the various girls at school used on themselves, but somewhere in between. Still, a good hand brush was a good hand brush. Curry reached out and snagged a handless brush that looked like it would fit her hand. She felt a warm tingling as she did so.
Rarity was a bit startled by Curry’s action, but not so startled that she didn’t reach out and pull the brush away before the small girl could take more than a couple of steps toward the frazzled Twilight who was now drawing equations in the dirt while mumbling about superstring theory under her breath. (2)
‟Thank you, dear, I do appreciate the offer, but perhaps it best if you leave this to me,” Rarity said to Curry.
‟Hey, I’m good at grooming. I’ll have Miss Twilight purring like a kitten in ten minutes if you give me a chance.”
Rarity, who had been ‘aided’ by her little sister, Sweetie Belle, on more than one occasion was not about to surrender on this issue, not with Twilight heading for another mental meltdown. Before she could speak up, however, Spike got his two cents in first.
‟Want to bet?” he asked, with a sly expression.
While Rarity was looking in annoyance at Spike, Curry took the chance to snatch the brush back out of the unicorn’s magical aura and hugged it to her chest. ‟What all you got in mind, short, purple and fire breathing?” she fired back at Spike, well up on the playground rule and regulations regarding bets and dares.”
‟You say you can have Twilight purring in ten minutes. I say fat chance. I win, I get a week of back scratching,”
‟Spike, dear, I don’t really think this is the–‟ Rarity started to say but was cut off by Curry.
‟Fine, if I win, you have to talk one of your friends into taking me flying,” Curry said, visions of soaring through the air on the back of a dragon dancing in her head.”
‟You’ve got a deal,” Spike said, feeling pretty sure that if he had to he could talk Rainbow Dash into giving the little mare the ride of her life.
Curry instantly headed for Twilight, who had moved onto discussing quantum tunneling and how it might relate to a dimensional wormhole, with herself.
‟Spike, dear. I really don’t think this is wise,” Rarity said.
‟Relax, she’ll at least distract Twilight, and that’s the important thing. All we really need is for Twilight to get broken out of that mental loop she’s in. She's not going to lose it and hurt a little filly.”
The small girl sidled carefully toward the oblivious purple unicorn. ‟Ok, first thing. Don’t startle the pony who can snap your leg like a matchstick,” Curry mumbled to herself. She was a lot less sure of herself than she had let on. There had always been stable hands around to secure bad-tempered or skittish ponies before she went to work on them. Not that she thought Twilight was bad-tempered, but, well, she was sort of scary looking at the moment. What with those wide eyes, and a rather manic expression. The way strands of her hair were springing out from her mane at irregular intervals was particularly disquieting. The ponies back home never did that.
‟Miss Twilight,” Curry said in a hesitant voice, well out of kicking range.
The purple unicorn gave no indication of knowing Curry was there. Twilight was busy rubbing out some funny looking numbers on the ground while muttering, ‟No, no, idiot, how could you forget to take into account the differing quantum signatures. Of course, the numbers don’t add up. Idiot, idiot, idiot. You need to get a reading and compare it to the natural background before you can even make a start on figuring this out.”
Twilight’s head lifted and turned. Curry suddenly found herself caught like a deer in the headlights as Twilight’s manic gaze fell on her. Suddenly this did not feel like a very good idea at all. ‟Curry! Just what I need. Hold still. This will only take a minute.”
The hair on the back of Curry’s neck stood on end, and that was a lot more than fluff now. Her new hairdo arched backward in a long arc as she started to back away. She had barely made it two steps when Twilight’s horn glowed and she found herself frozen in her tracks. Twilight trotted forward, and sweat started to bead on Curry’s forehead. Only stubborn pride kept her from letting out a frightened squeal when Twilight pushed her head forward. The purple unicorn’s horn thrust in-between the skinny girl’s side and arm.
‟Now just hold still until I can get a proper reading,” Twilight ordered as she began to run her horn around Curry’s body, down her left side, up between her legs, causing Curry to try and rise up on tiptoes, and to heave a sigh of relief when things didn’t go quite that high, down the inside of her right leg and then up her right side. Curry would have fallen to her knees as Twilight released the magic that had been holding her in place. Except for a familiar warm yellow pony with a flowing light pink mane beside her. Curry draped an arm over Fluttershy’s back as the gentle pegasus nuzzled her in concern.
‟Oh, dear, Curry, are you alright,” Fluttershy said in her soft gentle voice.
‟Oh, my poor dear. Are you quite well?” Rarity exclaimed in concern as she rushed over and nuzzled the shaken girl herself.
‟Really, Rarity, how could you let her get that close to Twilight while she is having one of her... .episodes?” Fluttershy scolded the white unicorn, in a soft disappointed tone.
Curry drew a deep breath, and pressed down on the arm over Fluttershy’s neck for support and steadied herself. ‟I’m fine, Miss Rarity, Miss Fluttershy. Just give me a moment,” she said.
‟You are quite right, Fluttershy. I was terribly remiss. I can only say in my defense that I was led astray by somepony who shall remain nameless,” Rarity said, directing a quelling gaze toward Spike, who was having a good belly laugh.
Spike wiped his eyes with a foreleg and smirked at Curry while addressing Rarity. ‟Oh, come on, Rarity. There was no chance that Twilight would hurt her. Scare the heck out of her, maybe, but not hurt her.
‟I ain’t scared,” Curry retorted glaring at the small dragon.
Spike merely lifted an interrogative eyebrow and asked,” So, that’s one week of back scratching?”
‟I ain’t finished yet,” Curry said.
‟You most certainly are young mare. I do not know why I ever went along with this in the first place– ooohhhh,” Rarity cut off, her eyes going wide at the soft moan Fluttershy let out as Curry used the brush that was still in her hand to make a long slow stroke down the middle of the yellow Pegasus' back.
Curry hadn’t meant to do it, but, leaning up against Fluttershy’s soft flank, a brush in her hand, her body had simply acted out of habit. But once she was aware, Fluttershy’s reaction and her own need for something familiar, caused her to continue the measured gentle strokes of the brush. After all the comfort and care that Fluttershy had shown her Curry was ready to do anything for the shy yellow mare. Giving her travel-stained hide a good brushing out seemed the very least she could do.
‟Oooh, ahhhh,” Fluttershy almost purred as Curry ran the brush down her back and across her flanks, taking special care to press firmly at the spot between her wings where her muscles tended to get knotted up. The yellow pony was finding Curry’s efforts every bit as therapeutic as any massage she’d gotten at the spa.
Curry made a mental note of the spots that seemed to elicit the strongest reactions from the pegasus pony. You never knew when such knowledge might come in handy.
The pleasant tableau was interrupted when Twilight, a short distance away, stamped her hooves on the ground in frustration. ‟No, no, she still has too much Alicorn residue from the transference to get an accurate reading on her quantum signature. I need to bleed that off first.” The obsessed unicorn turned back toward Curry. The small girl let out a weak little squeak and ducked down behind Fluttershy, who covered her with a protective wing.
Before either Fluttershy or Rarity, could say anything, another pony barged in between them and Twilight. ‟Now that all is just about enough, Twilight Sparkle. Can’t y’all see you're scaring the bejeebers out of the poor little filly? Y’all ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Twilight stopped in her tracks as Applejack got right in her face, glaring straight into her eyes. The manic gleam in her eyes suddenly shut off, and a look of chagrin replaced it. ‟Oh no,” she exclaimed in dismay. ‟I did it again, didn’t I? Oh, Curry, Fluttershy, I’m so, so, sorry.”
‟Well, it was very bad of you, scaring a poor little filly like that, Twilight,” Fluttershy chided her while sounding apologetic for doing so at the same time.
‟I ain’t scared!” Curry repeated, loudly. Her words were belied by the way she hesitantly poked her head out from under Fluttershy’s wing and looked over the mare’s back at Twilight. Seeing what looked like genuine regret on the Unicorn’s expressive face, she stood all the way up and asked. ‟So, Y'all okay now?”
‟Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I got so involved in trying to work out the math on how you got here. And all I had were baby books for reference material and of course, those were useless, so I tried to work it out without, and I kept neglecting to take factors into account and having to start over again,” Twilight’s voice started to edge back toward the manic. Applejack took off her hat and gave her friend a good hard swat across the flank.
‟Ouch! That hurt, Applejack,” Twilight said, rubbing the sore spot.
‟And it’ll hurt again if you don’t all settle down. Look, sweetpea, I realize Y'all are going frantic trying to understand this stuff that’s done gone down here while having to wait here for the Princess to get back to all of us, but you need to take a deep breath and calm down. Okay?”
Twilight nodded her head and took a deep breath before letting it droop a bit in remorse. ‟Okay,” she said in a soft voice.
‟That’s okay, Miss Twilight. I know ponies get a bit frantic when they all get stuck in the mud or pinned between things. I guess it’s sort of the same thing for Y'all, trying to figure out what all I’m doing here,” Curry said. She’d come out from behind Fluttershy and was approaching Twilight, hesitantly it was true, but steadily.
‟Thank you, Curry. I’m so, so, sorry I scared you.”
‟Shucks, I’ve been scared worse than that. Like the time Jess dared me to run across the Old man Parson’s cow pasture, and he didn’t tell me that they’d let the bull in with the cows. Let me tell you, that big old bull was not happy I interrupted his quality time with his lady friends.”
By this time Curry had worked her way all the way up to Twilight and placed a tentative hand on her flank, spreading out her fingers and laying her palm flat against the purple unicorn’s soft hide. ‟Does it hurt much?” she asked.
‟What? Oh, no. well, not really.” Twilight winced a bit as Curry pressed down. ‟Maybe a little.” She admitted. The young girl started to gently rub the spot Applejack had whopped with her Stetson. Twilight shied a bit, but then leaned into the soft massage. ‟Ohhh, that feels nice. Fluttershy is right, you do have good hands. Mmmmm, a little to the left,” she purred.
Curry threw a triumphant look over her shoulder at Spike, who merely smirked back. *More than ten minutes,* he mouthed. Curry scowled but did not stop gently massaging Twilight’s sore flank. She started using the other hand, which still held the brush, to start grooming Twilight’s plush hide.
Slowly the other ponies went back to the party, only Rarity staying nearby, just in case. She and Fluttershy having held a silent communion to decide who would stay and who would go. Their long friendship making a few glances worth a hundred words. As Curry worked on Twilight, the white unicorn produced a long bristle brush of her own and started straightening out Twilight’s mane, standing opposite Curry with the magical pony between them.
Curry bent over and ran the brush down Twilight’s flank, brushing over the curious mark that decorated it. She was intrigued to see that the mark was integral to the hair in that area. ‟That’s the fanciest bit of dye work I’ve ever seen,” Curry commented.
‟Hmmm, what’s that, Dear?” Rarity mumbled around a mouthful of hairpins as she tried to restore Twilight’s mane to some semblance of style.
‟These marks, Y'all, have on your flanks. It must have taken hours to get the colors right. Don’t know how you kept it from bleeding from one area to another. Looks almost like a tattoo. Only, how can you tattoo pony hair?”
Rarity reared up a bit so she could hook her forelegs over Twilight’s back, which earned an annoyed grunt from the purple unicorn, which the white unicorn ignored. Rarity looked down at where Curry was stroking Twilight’s cutie mark, trying to see if the pattern went all the way to the skin. ‟Oh, goodness me, no. That’s not some crass bit of fakery. Twilight Sparkle earned her cutie mark I can assure you. She has no need to resort to trickery to pass herself off as something she is not.”
‟I don’t think that’s what she was implying, Rarity,” Twilight said, joining the conversation as she twisted her head around to look at her own flank. She sounded a lot calmer than she had a few minutes before. ‟I noticed Jake doesn’t have a cutie mark. I thought at first it was just because he was so young, but none of the ponies where you come from have them. Isn’t that right?”
‟Well, I’ve heard that racehorses get a tattoo under their lip, but I’ve seen nothing like this.”
Twilight entered lecture mode and started to expound on the topic, finding that every bit as soothing as Curry and Rarity’s grooming, which the two continued as she talked.
‟A cutie mark is a magical sign that everypony gains when they find their purpose in life. The special thing that makes them, them.” Twilight was not about to leave it at that. She’d done up an entire lecture series for the Cutie Mark Crusaders and had never been able to get them to sit still long enough to listen to it. This would be the perfect chance to try it out on somepony who knew nothing at all about Cutie marks. A chance like this didn’t come along very often and she was not about to waste it.
Curry listened to Twilight go on and on about cutie marks, giving examples of how she and her friends had gotten theirs. All the while she continued to brush out Twilight’s coat, taking great comfort in the familiar task. It was a bit strange grooming a pony who could talk. Even more disconcerting was when Twilight would occasionally break off her monologue to ask Curry to shift the brush a little bit to the left or right, or go a little harder, or softer. Curry didn’t mind. It was rather ego stroking because the one thing Twilight never asked was for her to--”
‟Stop!” Twilight cried out.
Curry snapped out of her half-aware status to see a Spike coughing like a cat with a hairball. A flair of green fire emerged from his mouth and resolved into a scroll similar to the one he had sent off a few hours before.
‟Now we’ll get some answers,” Twilight all but chortled as Spike undid the ribbon holding the scroll shut.
Dear Jake and Curry. Please allow my sister and me to welcome you most...
Spike trailed off and his eyes scanned down the scroll. ‟Oh, I see. It’s not for you, Twilight. It’s for our new arrivals.” Spike shifted so he was facing toward the picnic area instead of toward Twilight. He lifted the message in order to resume reading and then blinked when he noticed something large was missing from the picture. ‟Hey, where’s Jake?”
Pinkie Pie looked up from where she was licking the cake platter and said. ‟He went to visit the little stallion’s bush a couple of minutes ago.”
‟Oh, I hope he’s ok,” Twilight said, looking at the dark forest that ran along the old road.
‟Sure he is. What could possibly go wrong?” Pinkie asked, scrounging around the picnic blanket to see if any cupcake crumbs had slipped the other ponies attention.
********************
For a creature with the head, and beak, of a chicken, the Everfree Cockatrice was doing a pretty good impression of an evil smirk. Driven by the laughter it seemed to hear behind every bush, it had crept back to the area around the castle with some vague notion of regaining its reputation. Luck had been with it. Before it had even reached the old royal road it had stumbled across the hit-and-run pony with the bladder problem that had so badly humiliated it.
Not even the fact that the enormous black pony now sported a horn and wings was enough to discourage it. Its tiny chicken brain only had room for one thought. Vengeance!
The Cockatrice had worked its way around to just the right position and with a loud, ‘Bwaaccckk,’ it leaped out right under the nose of the clumsy equine. Glowing red eyes met startled brown ones as Jake reared up in surprise at seeing the creature jump out at him.
*********************
Curry felt a sudden sense of absolute terror while at the same time feeling a tug in her chest as if something had taken hold of her heart and yanked. She didn’t even have to think. With a cry of, ‟Jake!” She turned and ran straight into the bushes.
‟Hey, wait up, kid,” Rainbow Dash yelled, flying after her, only to be forced to pull up when she could not find an opening big enough for her wings.
Applejack was having the same trouble at ground level. The hole in the bushes Curry had jumped through was too small to allow her entry into the forest proper. In fact, she couldn't figure out how Curry, even as skinny as she was, had managed to fit through the mesh of tangled branches.
‟Let me!” Twilight cried out, her horn glowing as she bodily ripped out several large bushes by their roots. All the ponies raced through the new opening, all but Fluttershy.
Fluttershy had seen Jake leave, and instead of trying to follow after Curry, had headed for the same opening the stallion had used to enter the forest, some twenty feet away from where the small filly had made her exit. Curry was heading for Jake, Fluttershy just knew it. Find Jake and she’d find the little filly.
Curry pushed through the thick brush, unmindful of anything but the urgent need to get to Jake. The pull in her chest was like a ski tow, yanking her straight toward her friend. Her hat was the first to go, left dangling on a bare tree branch, followed by the ribbons in her mane. Brambles snagged on her skirt and tore the fabric. Twigs snatched at her black leggings and ripped rents in them. Scratches appeared on her legs and slowly leaked blood. She had her arms up in front of her face, protecting it, but they, in turn, collected their own collection of scraps and scratches. She could hear the sound of crashing behind her as the ponies ripped and tore their way after her, but it was mere background noise against the sound of her own blood pulsing in her ears as her fear and panic set her heart to racing.
The small girl burst through one last barrier and into a small clearing. She stumbled to stop and stared in horror at the rearing statue of a huge Alicorn Stallion, his wings spread wide and his horn pointing toward the sky. Jake, for it, could be no other, had a look of shocked surprise on his face.
‟Oh, Jake,” Curry moaned, falling to her knees with her mane cascading down around her head. She stared at her statuesque best friend through the veil of her own hair. Tears flooded down her cheeks and she choked as her chest seemed to lock up in pain. A strange clucking sound drew her attention, and she looked over to see the Chicken eating lizard she’d spotted the evening before. Only it wasn’t a chicken eating lizard, it was a lizard with the head of a chicken. It was looking up at Jake in what could only be described as a gloating expression. Curry stared at the creature in painful befuddlement until its head swiveled around to look at her with huge glowing red eyes and a gaping beak that contained far too many sharp teeth. Curry reared back and found herself held in place as her body refused to move. She looked down and saw with horror that her legs had turned the same shade of grey as Jake’s body.
The Cockatrice scowled. The strange creature was only half converted. It should not have been able to pull its eyes away. No doubt the ungainly mass of hair that topped its body had provided some partial shading. Well, that wouldn’t save it. It was trapped, it could not move. All the Cockatrice had to do was get up close and force it to meet its gaze.
Some instinct caused Curry to wrench her eyes away from her petrified legs and stared across the clearing at the yellow pegasus pony who had just stepped out of the surrounding bushes. ‟Run, Miss Fluttershy, Run. Don’t let it get you too,” she cried out.
Fluttershy looked at Curry, her expression full of compassion and reassurance, and then she looked at the Cockatrice and her entire demeanor changed radically. The lizard thing quailed, shrinking back as it tried to make itself as small as possible.
It was afraid of Fluttershy, the small girl realized in surprise. No, not just afraid, terrified. Fluttershy herself was trembling, but looking at her expression Curry saw that it wasn’t from fear, but from a fit of anger so strong that her body wasn’t large enough to contain it. ‟How dare you!” Fluttershy said, her voice, like her body, trembling with a rage that was far too huge for her normally gentle tones to express. ‟How! Dare! You!” she repeated, leaning down till her nose was inches from the monster’s fanged beak as it gave the impression that it would like nothing more than to burrow into the ground to escape her.
‟I warned you! I told you I never wanted to catch you doing this again! Now I want you to change Jake and Curry back. Right. This. Instant!” The small monster seemed to shrink even further away as it twisted its head to look at Curry. There was a sensation of freedom as her stone legs puffed into dust, leaving her normal legs behind unharmed, except for the scratches she’d picked up rushing to Jake’s side.
Next, the small chicken/lizard directed its eyes toward Jake, and the same thing happened, only this time to the stallion’s entire body. The big horse thumped down on his legs from his rearing posture and blinked as he looked around in puzzlement. He flushed as he spotted Fluttershy and Curry. ‟Curry! Don’t peek,” he said in an annoyed voice, and before his friend could do anything, he turned on his heels and went looking for a more private bush to take care of business. An enormous sense of relief filled Curry as she realized he’d been turned to stone so fast that he hadn’t had time to be terrified, or even to understand what was happening.
‟I am so, so, so, angry! I just don’t know what to do with you!” Curry heard Fluttershy tell the chicken monster, her voice still choked up in anger. The girl turned her attention from the departing Jake, who had just rushed by Twilight and the rest of the Ponies on his way to some mare-free bushes. Applejack peeled off and followed him, at a discrete distance, while the rest came to circle around Fluttershy and Curry.
The yellow pegasus paid them no notice. All her attention was on the Cockatrice, who was attempting to shield itself from her glare with its wings and not having much success. ‟I want you to leave! Now!” she said leaning down till her nose actually touched the creature.
The Cockatrice wanted nothing more than to run, and to never stop running, but its legs seemed paralyzed by the force of Fluttershy’s stare. It huddled into an even smaller mass while finding itself unable to pull its eyes away from the yellow pony's gaze. In the end, it looked too hard. Deep down in Fluttershy’s eyes, it saw a reflection of its own gleaming red eyes. There was a slight flash, and Fluttershy was looking down at a rather ugly bit of stonework. She reared back slightly. ‟Oh my. I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said with dismay in her voice.
‟It is probably for the best,” Twilight came up and nuzzled her.
A second later a tattered blonde blur dashed by the purple unicorn and latched onto Fluttershy. Curry wrapped her arms around the Pegasus' neck, her small body trembling. The yellow mare enveloped the small filly in her wings once again and just held her till her body stopped shaking.
Notwithstanding the instance in the castle, Curry was not a crier. She didn’t cry now, but there was a distinct tremor in her voice when at last she pushed away from Fluttershy and said, ‟I thought we were goners! You saved us!”
‟Oh, I didn't really do anything. Anypony would have done the same thing.”
Curry shook her head in denial. ‟No. Not like that. You were amazing!” she looked at the shy yellow pony with eyes that gleamed with awe.
‟Oh, dear, your lovely hair is such a mess, and the rest of you is no better,” Rarity interjected as she took in the damage Curry had suffered during her headlong rush to Jake. ‟Twilight. We simply can not delay any longer. We must get these two home.”
‟You’re sending us back down the mountain?” Curry asked, her voice laced with a hurt that she tried to not to let show.
‟That terrible place? I should say not,” Rarity said, ignoring the entire, ‘down the mountain’ remark. ‟We’re taking you home. With us. Now.”
The tight band that had wrapped around Curry’s heart with Rarity’s first words disappeared. ‟Really?” she asked, hardly daring to let herself believe it.
‟Really, really,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering over top of the small girl and ruffling her mane with her hoof. ‟Spike tells me you want to go flying. How about I give you a lift back to the castle?”
Curry’s eyes gleamed at the thought, but then she turned her gaze toward Fluttershy, and she shook her head no. ‟Thanks, but I think I want to walk with the coolest pony I know. Umm, if that’s okay?”
‟Pffft, of course,” Rainbow said, brushing off her question, though to those who knew her it was obvious she was a bit chagrined. Curry didn’t notice, she placed herself firmly by Fluttershy’s side and didn’t give any indication she was going anywhere else in the foreseeable future.
*****************************
An hour later all the picnic things had been gathered up. Jake’s sledge and harness, with the exception of the horse collar, which he was now wearing, had been placed in the old castle for storage. Curry hadn’t really understood the whole not-appropriate-wear-for-a-colt business, but as Applejack had assured her that Jack would not need the harness, she had made no real objection to it being put away like that. As the last step, the ponies had tossed the picnic blanket over Jake’s body, covering his wings and securing it in place. They had been a bit vague on the why, but Curry had gotten the gist. There would be a huge commotion if other ponies saw that Jake had both a horn and wings. Apparently, that was something pretty special.
They were now well on their way home. Spike was perched on Twilight’s back. Curry had originally tried to walk alongside Fluttershy but found herself tiring very quickly as she tried to keep pace with the ponies. She had been dismayed at how weak she was compared to the ponies who surrounded her. That dismay had changed to total joy when Rarity had lifted her magically into the air and set her astride Fluttershy. She had been riding the yellow mare ever since.
‟Say, Spike. You never did finish reading that letter from Princess Celestia,” Applejack said.
‟Say, that’s right,” the small dragon said. ‟Completely slipped my mind. And another one showed up while you were rushing to save the foals.”
‟What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Twilight demanded, coming to a sudden stop and almost unseating the small dragon until she magically caught him and pushed him back up onto her back.
‟I told you, I forgot. Anyway, it just said to look after Jake and Curry until Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can arrange things for the long term. You were going to do that anyway, so no big deal.”
‟Ooh, ooh, but what about the one addressed to Jake and Curry? You need to finish reading that one,” Pinky said, bouncing along beside him and Twilight, who had started to walk again, with a slightly disgruntled look on her face.
‟Right you are,” Spike said, leaning over to rummage in Twilight’s saddle bag. ‟Here we go,” he said as he extracted the scroll in question. He unfurled it and after clearing his throat, started to read.
Dear Jake and Curry. Please allow my sister and me to welcome you most sincerely to Equestria...
The message ran on from there, but neither Jake nor Curry were paying any attention. They and the ponies stepped out of the gloomy forest into bright sunshine with an incredible vista spread out in front of them. Miles of lush green grass, just begging to be run on, perfectly shaped trees, just asking to be climbed, and far in the distance, a magical white castle hanging off the side of a mountain. The magical land of Equestria needed no formal letter to welcome them. The sight that spread out in front of them could not be condensed and expressed in mere words. It had to be seen to be appreciated. Jake and Curry looked and knew, down to their very core, that they were home.
********************
(*)Curry was good enough to gussy up their ponies for such events, but not to be invited. Not that she would have wanted to attend such a stupid thing.
(1)Which worked out to about four dollars an hour. The local clique of pony mad girls really needed to be reported to the workplace and standards agency. As well as being charged under the Child labor act.
(2) Rarity’s experience with the Cutie Mark Crusaders had left her with hair-trigger reflexes when around impulsive fillies.
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Ok, that was adorable. I especially liked the little cultural references, like how Spike is treated in the big cities, and attitudes toward Nocturne ponies. It'll be interesting to see the link between Curry and Jake explained later on. It's obviously more than coincidence.
I. Love. This. STORY!
Jack
Was supposed to be jake I believe
2829568 you don't say?
Some more
but as Applejack had assured her that Jack would not need the harness,
Mass
Bah. Vampires suck.
Except Alucard because he's so comically overpowered it's hilariously entertaining.
This story is awesome so far, I love how you portray Curry's interactions with the ponies, and her childish wonder at finding herself in a real fairytale land with talking ponies and magical princesses.
Those greedy guts.
Would this by chance be stared?
9780916
the greedy guts was how I wanted to express it.
But started should have been stared. Good catch, thanks.
Did the cocatrix commit suicide ?