Catpone Cerberus

@Blitz Boom If Vaz noticed the difference in temperature, he didn't show it, or at least not visibly enough to be noticeable from under the skull "Ah, I have visited some of those places, but it has been so awfully long since I last traversed these lands." "My kind does not tend to name their habitats; most never leave our homes, nor do we actively interact with other creatures, so such would be pointless." "In the rare cases where a name is needed, it is the community that is named, rather than the place; which is determined by common cultural or physical aspects of the specific community" "For myself, I'm but a lone wanderer from far beyond Equestria, the lands which I come from did not have a name when I departed, and I have not returned since." "Could be there is a settlement now, even a full nation, or it could be barren as it was, I simply do not know." "I am from a place far forgotten, a family long lost." Solar didn't say anything, because he really only had questions he didn't want to necessarily ask with the other ponies around just in case, but Vaz seemed to notice his interest on the skull, as he then addressed the guard "That is my father." "Death isn't a taboo for my kin, we use our fallen where appropriate, mine was symbolic." "I hatched with a defect, I never grew horns, so it was only fitting, that when my father fell, along his work, I inherited his horns." His voice and tone did not change at all while he spoke, meaning that either he was good at masking his emotions, or there wasn't anything to mask. "Today, it's simply a reminder, for my memory, is not what it used to be." -------- Hearing Leviathan's words, Ruby did actually back down a bit, she did still glare at Voltaick though, who did the same to her, there was clear tension of distrust between the two, though, could one really blame either of them, Ruby was a species of dragon known as 'Death-bringers' to Voltaick, so there were certain, partly justified prejudice towards her, and for Ruby's part, she had just defended them against several dragons very much intent on killing them, so she wasn't going to just drop her guard because this one knew more words than threats and insults. Charir meanwhile got broken out of his own tension by the fact that he understood what Leviathan had just said, he didn't make this known yet, besides looking at Leviathan surprised and bit confused, partly because he also wanted to know the answer to what Leviathan had asked, thus not wanting to accidentally interrupt, and partly because the situation in general was still bit too tense for his liking. Voltaick blinked at Leviathan "I won't even start to speculate how someone like you have ended up with two of them, it's already rare enough that a Death-bringer grows enough of a sense to get through the barrier, but to travel with someone who isn't..." he stopped himself "My apologies." "It's nice to meet you Leviathan, you too..." he looked at Ruby "Ruby." Ruby then gestured towards Charir "Charir" "...I again welcome you all to this side of the barrier, you can rest assured that no harm comes to you as long as you are here." "For your question, I don't know for certain, but I have an idea who it could be for him." Voltaick pointed at Charir "It is very obvious what kind of dragon his father was, since just my mere presence caused him to charge up." "I didn't know him personally, but a dragon of my kin left a long while ago, he was...unique character, couple millennia in age yet never had had any offspring. Wasn't very popular among the females." "I heard that when he left, he believed that he'd be better appreciated among our more violent relatives." he looked at Charir "The timeline matches, though we can't be certain, he never came back." he then looked at Ruby "For you, no idea. Assuming we are similar age, whoever it is, if he isn't one of your own, left before my egg was ever fertilized." "But Werodex or Nelithral Dask may know." Ruby suddenly tensed up again, Charir too looking bit worried again "Nelithral Dask? That is our language, why does someone here call themselves Death Mother?" this question revealed another part about whatever allowed them to understand each other, there seemed to be some kind of consideration for intent, as none of the names were 'translated', until Ruby specifically put emphasis on the meaning of the name "Usually she prefers being called just Elder Dask, but to answer your question, you are not the first ones of your kind here, it is rare, but it does happen; although you are the youngest." "In fact, I'm sure Elder Dask would be delighted to meet you both." "But I'm the wrong dragon to explain everything, I'm just someone who happened to be free to show you around, Werodex is your source for information." --------------------------------- "I am planning on writing some guidance based on my own knowledge as a healer, but I need to do some study myself first as my information doesn't directly translate as useful for you, due to several reasons, one of which being for example that the names for various substances are likely very different for me and you." "As for my worry, first, the sudden appearance of several of us has been a result of very unique circumstances, and is unlikely to repeat any time soon, so that is not the reason." "There is some personal reasoning behind it yes, myself and my brother are planning to settle down nearby, so I'd prefer that there's someone who knows what to do if something happens to me, the healer." "It's also matter of probability, while my kin mostly stays underground, the fraction that does walk the surface, is more likely to end up in one of your hospitals, than to find a kobold healer." "And that's really where my worry comes from, not from there being lot of us, but from there not being lot of us; healers like myself are already a fraction of the population, so on the surface we are practically non-existent." "It is also just in general in the interest of my species that the dominant species knows how to keep us alive, and as a healer, my main concern is the well being of my species." -_ (Harpoon) Sheska instinctively dodged out of the way when the door opened, and looked the pony through with her eyes to estimate threat, it was automatic to her, and it didn't show outside, though seeing who it was, she relaxed, but didn't entirely drop her guard, because again, her distrust of guards went deeper than just opinion. She stayed quiet as the interaction went on, until she was addressed, at which point she'd offer her hand for a shake "Nice to meet you Shell Tooth, your mother has spoken positively about you." she once again spoke in her usual, professional yet friendly manner

"I think that if they were an enemy, we would know already." Jenna pointed out "My guess is that, if they didn't just run away from the whole situation, they probably went after those things that came from here."

"Even a human hospital wouldn't help...much." Jenna stated "One more downside of becoming a...rogue." "We really are...on our own, when it comes to things like this." it was a risk she took, and she was going to live with it "Part of the reason why...I insist on hiding instead of fighting."

"Swiggity Swooty" "What does that even mean!"

"The layers of this palace are not for your kind. Turn back, or you will be crossing the Will of GOD... Your choice is made. As the righteous hand of the Father, I shall REND YOU APART, and you will become inanimate once more."

I don't drink as much coffee as average Finn, but I do love me some coffee.

I faintly remember a dream where Hideo Kojima was my mentor for bunch of things, and at some point he held a political speech. I was a long long time ago, so the details have been lost to time, but I remember being confused because I don't particularly care about what he does, and I have no idea why he from all people was in my dream. Nowadays I have a weird re-occurrence in my dreams, for some reason, every so often, I have a dream where I own two apartments, one is either the one I live in now, or the one I used to live 10 or so years ago, while the other is always this massive, house sized apartment. The dreams themselves always involve me travelling between these apartments and having trouble finding them. There was also this one dream from when I was a kid, where I used logic to figure out it was a dream. I was playing with a classmate in a specific camping site's building, we were in a trough for some reason, and I just suddenly went (in Finnish of course) "Hey [name], you know why I know this is a dream?" "We aren't friends in real life" and then the dream ended

Remember to punch your bullets This time i'm being killed by...being lit on fire while parachuting Youtube may not traditionally "on-screen" but it does have the oddest things I was going to give context, but nah

On-screen often points to movie or something, but as I can't remember the last death from such media, gotta be a youtube video instead, and for that.. Getting obliterated by a railcannon bouncing off three coins before hitting me. This is such a specific thing that either you have no idea what I'm on about, or you know exactly what I'm talking about

While good suggestions, in my case, the cause is quite simple, I'm sick And for sake of staying in topic.. 10 min ago, I was googling if I can combine another medicine with what I already took, the answer was no

Lately yes, this year has been something.

Assuming that it's a situation where death cannot be avoided entirely, yes, my cat. I'm not even kidding, if somebody tried to harm him, I'd be there even at the risk of my own health and life. And in another context, yes, bunch of strangers in form of my nation. I've sworn an oath, and I am willing to do my duty, because ultimately, I rather die, than live in what will follow if my nation falls.

I don't know if there was a worst teacher per say, but lot of them were...bit weird. I lived in a relatively small place, so there were only so many teachers to hire I guess. Some of them were awful in that they were just way too mean to be teachers, be it through having very...old school views, or through just being mean people. There were at least two who had anger issues of some sort. Two that when I almost permanently injured myself, didn't even ask if I was fine, one being more worried about the equipment that I hurt myself with, and other just laughing. Then there were those teachers that just didn't know how to teach, with is bad in its own way. But there isn't one that I would name worst by my own experiences; however, there is someone who is probably objectively the worst. I will not specify much about him, to avoid even the tiniest chance that somebody stumbles upon this and can connect some dots but... Allegedly, (I specify that because police was never involved and will not be because the dude is dead already) One of the teachers I had during my elementary school years, was bit too interested in children, I myself didn't have any experiences of such, but as an adult, when thinking back to certain things relating to said teacher, it was bit odd to say the least; but more so, when my friend (two years younger than myself) was in the same school, apparently said teacher was caught taking pictures in the boys' changing room (when I was there, camera-phones weren't really a thing quite yet here). I can't confirm or deny since I wasn't there anymore then, however, I can say that he did tend to kinda just stand there to make sure everybody went to shower.

I was standing in a shower, waiting for a headache medicine to kick in

That's lot of text hope what I wrote is clear enough, I have bit of brain fog today.

@Blitz Boom Solar's suggestion for alternative perspectives came from his own experiences, not because he had used any of them, but because they had been used against him. In a world like his, where conventional science and magic were practically perfected by one side, those fighting against it often sought out less conventional means that the empire ignored as pointless or nonsense, and while none of it had been enough for victory yet, he had been impressed by their effectiveness. Sometimes, even if something originally had been objectively absolute nonsense, it had lead those believing it to find something real. Solar had also taken interest in the kobold, but for quite the different reasons, he was an odd sight in the context yes, and the symbol on his armor didn't match anything in Solar's database, but what pulled his attention, was...something, quite literally, his systems detected something from the kobold, but the analysis failed to determine what it was, it couldn't properly even determine if it was magic, some kind of energy, or if it was the kobold himself. "Vaz" the kobold responded, offering his hand for a shake "It is nice to meet you Magma, often ponies just stare at me and whisper among themselves." he spoke in calm and friendly manner, the skull limited the readability of his face, but based on his eyes and the lower half of his mouth, the friendliness was genuine "I assume that your travel companion is the one known as Solar Silver?" Having followed bit behind Magma, Solar heard this, so he addressed it himself "Do we know each other?" he had no memory of a kobold like this one "No, but a dragon I met mentioned you, Scorch and her companions were fascinating to converse with." Vaz looked at Solar through the skull "I was told there is couple of my kin here too, sharing your origin, is that true?" Solar nodded "They are somewhere in ponyville." "Ah, Ponyville, so that is what it is called, how...creative." Getting closer hadn't helped Solar to analyze whatever his systems were detecting, but he did notice something else, he scanned the skull to see if it was a real skull, and it was, but there was something else that caught his eye so to speak, the skull was old, ancient even, it didn't necessarily mean anything by itself, but it was odd if nothing else. ------ While calling the land alive was bit of an overstatement, the Homelands itself was as unpredictable as were its inhabitants, magma, collapses and various other things constantly shifted the land, making falling and getting crushed, or getting trapped in a magma filled cave were risks that existed, not common necessarily, but not out of the question either. Charir broke out of his own feelings when he noticed Leviathan's reaction, he of course didn't fully understand it, but he could connect some dots to have some idea, and concern overpowered his own negative emotions, after all, he may have despised this place, but Leviathan came from what to him in the short time he had been there was basically a paradise, so this probably terrified her even more than him. So, Charir gave himself a quick mental beating for being such a weakling, the one who had shown him kindness was suffering, and he was self-pitying himself? He moved next to Leviathan, and while he had no real idea how to comfort someone, nor did he know for sure the exact problem here, he tried his best, and wrapped his legs around Leviathan into a hug, and tried to speak, his pronunciation was mostly still kinda bad, but it could be understood what he tried to say, Leviathan's name he did say almost flawlessly though, as he had been practicing that specifically based on hearing it "Don't, be, sad." "Leviathan, is, safe." naturally, since this was the norm to Charir, he didn't correctly understand where Leviathan's upset came from, and assumed it came from fear, sure Leviathan didn't smell like fear, but as far as Charir knew, this is how it showed for Leviathan's type of dragon, after all, Leviathan hadn't shown fear in front of him yet, at least not in a situation where he had any time to pay attention to it. Ruby only agreed with "Pointless indeed." before the whole Charir comforting Leviathan thing, and besides that just stayed quiet, staring down towards the Homelands, as a dragon, about third of Ruby's size, had noticed her red-self standing on the mountain, and the two were now locked staring at each other. After some moments, regardless of the exact interaction between Charir and Leviathan, Ruby would speak again. "My offer to carry you is still an option; We will stay on this side, you two will stay between me and the mountains." "We will travel on ground level, because flying high will make us more visible targets." it was only half of the reason, while not being seen was a big part, there was also something Ruby didn't want to see herself, a certain ravine that would have been visible if they took flight high enough. She then said couple of words to Charir, it was short and included Leviathan's name, so it was probably something along the lines of 'stay with Leviathan' After that, depending on Leviathan's answer, if she was able to muster an answer at all in the first place, Ruby would either start leading, or pick Leviathan up to ride on her back and then start leading, them first down the mountain and then east, keeping herself as a shield between the two smaller dragons and rest of the land. Ruby's body language and general demeanor were different from her usual self, as she was lot more focused, and seemed lot more colder than her usual coldness; she wasn't anxious, there was no signs of such, but it was clear that she was ready to fight at moment's notice. This would also be apparent if Leviathan tried to talk to her, as she would only respond with sounds and short matter of fact statements, as if not interested in talking at the moment. The first situation happened pretty quickly, as pretty much the moment they got down, the before mentioned dragon came growling towards the trio, but after what could best be described as a screaming match, it backed down enough for them to continue, though it did still follow them until what was presumably the end of its territory. As they traveled, they weren't alone at any point, as there was always a dragon observing them nearby, sometimes growling, roaring or otherwise warning them to stay back, but since most of them were quite small, everything from Charir's size to less than half of Ruby's size, they kept their distance as it was clear that the trio was not there to pick a fight, after all, violent or not, they knew Ruby could kill them with ease, and they didn't have a death wish. Things changed again as they stumbled upon the aftermath of a fight, two male dragons, both bit over half of Ruby's size, one on top of another, the other dead, and as the victor noticed Ruby, he quickly readied himself for another fight. Ruby tried to convince the male to just bug off, as among all the roaring, growling, flames and smoke, the word 'leave' was used, if Leviathan could remember it from their language session, or if she even paid attention to things like that at the moment. This however didn't seem to work, as the male got closer and kept threatening Ruby, so Ruby charged him; it happened too quick to see what exactly went on, but the male was thrown back and was holding one of legs against his throat; and after regaining his balance, he looked at said leg to see if he was bleeding, he was, but only slightly, Ruby had gone for the throat, the scales protecting the males throat were gone, and there were small cuts there, but she had barely missed the vital parts. The other dragon suddenly didn't seem so certain of himself anymore, realizing just how close his end was, and Ruby rose her head high, stared the dragon into his eyes, and with a terrifyingly cold voice said something, which caused the male to take off. She then returned to the two smaller dragons "Let's keep going." After this they were left alone for a while again, as another row of mountains came to view and soon towered over them, this one going in the north-south direction, they were smaller than the one's surrounding the land, but still high enough that it wasn't reasonable to fly over them, not that they needed to, as there seemed to be a massive pass between them and the one's they had been following, it looked quite unnatural, as if carved into the mountains, though before they would reach it, they had one more encounter. a female dragon, about 2/3 of Ruby's size was eating one of the local animals, when she spotted the trio, and instantly jumped into a defensive position; Ruby at first did her usual, but then she saw something, from behind the carcass, a tiny head popped up, a dragon small enough for even Charir to tower over it, a hatchling. To add to that, another dragon made an appearance, a slightly smaller male landed near the female, a family, a rare sight in these lands. At this point Ruby opened her wings to cover Leviathan and Charir, as the two, understandably hostile dragons moved to protect the young dragon hiding behind the carcass, the tension was high, as Ruby presumably tried to assure that they are merely travelling through, as she also moved backwards, pushing Charir and Leviathan with her wing towards the direction they were going, while also taking a more defensive pose to signal that she wasn't planning to attack. Unlike the male before, neither of the assumed parents actively got closer to the trio, so it seemed that there was some kind of understanding, and soon enough the female backed away while the male kept following them from a distance, at which point Ruby turned around back towards the way they were going "It is rare to see dragons taking care of offspring together here, and even when it happens, it's usually two females rather than with a male." "It is a viable survival tactic." They then reached the pass. and at closer look, it was clear that it hadn't formed naturally, and it sharply turned to form a kind of S-shape through the mountains, suspicious, but it was their direction, so Ruby lead them in. the travel up to this point had taken few hours or so. Suddenly, the air got cleaner, the smell was still faintly there, but it was almost fresh, though what was probably more noticeable, was the sudden increase in the air's electricity levels, which, if Leviathan couldn't sense through her magic, was obvious by the fact that Charir's scales started to once more gather electricity. But before any questions could be risen, a male voice was heard, it spoke in unknown language, some kind of variation of dragonic no doubt, yet, even while all three would be able to tell that it was a language they didn't know, they all could understand it like it was their own. "Two Death-bringers and Equestrian walk through the barrier, that sounds like a start of an awful, violent joke." A blue male dragon landed in front of them, it had similar build to Ruby's kind, be it with thinner scales, and size-wise he was about 1/4 smaller than Ruby, notably, he also had feathered wings, and had feathers growing out of his head, and probably most importantly, electricity was arching on his scales, not too different from how it was for Charir. Speaking of Charir, the newcomer seemed to take interest of him "And what do we have here, that maniac actually did it, and with a Black-Horn from all things." he then looked at Ruby "You are a sister I assume, too young to have gotten together with somebody like him." Ruby, not too amused by the sudden appearance, growled while taking an aggressive posture, while Charir hid slightly behind her "Stay back! Whoever you are", Ruby said it in her native language, but Leviathan would find that while it was clearly in said language, for some reason, she would be able to understand it fine. The blue dragon took a step back, not from fear, but caution "No need to be so hostile Death-freak." "You can call me Voltaick, we knew we were going to get visitors, so I was sent to welcome you, so welcome, weirdo." his tone was slightly contemptuous, as he challenged Ruby's stare "Brave words towards someone you call 'Death-bringer'." Voltaick let out a spark out of his nostril, similar to how Ruby let out smoke when she was annoyed "I wouldn't in my wildest dreams trust one of your kin to not senselessly end my life, but I do trust the barrier, so you can drop the act, you are not going to attack me." Again, everything that was said, was spoken in languages that Leviathan didn't know or understand, yet, somehow, she would still be able to understand everything just fine. ------------------------------ "I don't blame my brothers and sisters for their reluctance, even without a specific historical justification for it, your species', and the other surface dwellers' individualistic nature goes in direct opposition to our own, we also have some...moral disagreements." Sheska stated, there would always be certain distrust between kobolds and others, simply because they don't share the connection that allows them to trust their own. "But to my point." "You may or may not be aware, that due to our kinds diet of whatever is available, we are lot more resistant to poisons and other natural toxins, that most creatures, especially when consumed." "This can be used to cure bigger problems." "A specific example comes from history, in which, while proper study wasn't possible, lot was learned. " "Long and complicated story short, a parasite started spreading through our food source, a parasite, that was relatively harmless to most creatures, causing a period of digestion issues before dying and coming out with rest of the waste." "However, to kobolds, it was deadly, something it produced, maybe its own waste product, shut down our bodies in matter of days, like I mentioned, proper study couldn't be done." "None of the known anti-parasite treatments worked, so something else needed to be done." "In the end, the solution was poison, it spread through food, so we poisoned our food with a nerve-toxin, it killed the parasite, without killing us, even if some symptoms did show up from the toxin." "Now, it should be mentioned that this epidemic specifically was highly dependent on the conditions of where it took place, even the toxin used grew in such specific conditions that i don't know if it even exists here, so an exact duplicate is unlikely to happen, especially one where ponies are in any way involved." "But what I worry about is those individual cases, you get one or two kobolds, and thus don't see a reason to study it further, while something like that spreads through your population, only taking down my kind." "Do you have any means to diagnose such things? and if you do, would your code of morality let you provide such treatment?" "And do you in general know how much of what kind of toxin is a deadly to a kobold?" This was partly planning to the journal(s) she was going to write some day, she wanted to know the baseline of what ponies actually knew about her kind. (harpoon) Sheska was frankly surprised to see Harpoon alone, it had been long enough that she had kinda assumed that her daughter would be there if nobody else, but well, none of her concern really. "Was visiting Onache so I figured I should visit you too, least I can do." "We are doing fine, there was some other complications after the whole thing, but now things seemed to have calmed down a bit." "If it makes you feel any better, we weren't much use either besides keeping the thing busy until the real help arrived." "It was an Oni, in case nobody mentioned that." she found it surprisingly hard to be as dismissive of Harpoon as she had been, it was hard to keep up her hatred when there was no armor, especially since they both knew it had nothing to do with the individuals here. "I- Thanks, for at least trying to help." "I can't imagine it feels nice to be possessed like that." she decided to not mention that she would have probably killed her if the Oni didn't flee. "The weapons you brought us are here at the hospital, the staff knows where." "How are you feeling, you aren't bleeding anymore, so that's good, is there any permanent damage?" possession injuries was one of the things she didn't really know anything about, so she was curious if the possession alone had done something more serious.

@Blitz Boom Just a little thing, "Well, I know some. ... Sheska is the one asking the question too, not Trox. It's not really a problem of any kind, since I can respond to it perfectly fine, but I figured I should mention it so that there isn't any confusion I'll also use this chance to ask if it's fine if in the Ruby's part I write basically the whole travel to the eastern part of the land? Because spoiler alert, I haven't planned anything that Ruby can't handle relatively easily, yet

"The second question I can answer halfway." Jenna stated "We were obviously chose because we have powers, but the question there is why us specifically." "Would it have been us if we hadn't met?" "It could also be convenience, maybe we were the only ones around? besides that one who appeared before we entered, we don't really know if they got a invite."

"Burn wounds tend to look bad." Jenna said "The scars will likely be visible... even in my human form." she glanced towards her shoulder, it would certainly be visible, because even with dragon's healing abilities, you couldn't grow back a missing chunk. "But at least in this form my scales will... cover them, eventually." "I'm more concerned about whatever happened inside." she held her leg against her chest as she said it "Since I have no real way... to know for sure." "But since I'm still alive,.. it can't be that bad."