Catpone Cerberus

@Monotonality While Sparkly was busy looking at herself, Frail collected the stuff she had used so that it would be easier to move away when she eventually would leave the room "You're welcome, I'm glad you like it." She smiled while she said it, but bit of her customer service side slipped in with her tone, she wasn't good with compliments, in part due to the slight perfectionism she had developed due to the ponies she dealt with. "I must say the former, it's getting late soon so it would be pointless to try to find anypony today." it had been late afternoon when she had found Sparkly, so even at that point it would have been unlikely that they would have found Lunar, and now it was pretty much certain they wouldn't find her. "I'll also still need to put few things in place and I'm yet to eat anything today."

@Illiad Easle Ædriga greeted Ditzy in her usual manner, but other than that she was more focused on the house over the conversation between Ditzy and Ætheron, though she did notice Ditzy blushing, getting bit curious since she didn't recognize the emotion, but she didn't ask about it. She stopped to listen when Dinky's steps started, moving again when she could see the source of the hoofsteps, she hadn't realized there was space above them too, but after she looked at the stairs with more care, she started to understand the layout bit better. She greeted Dinky, she could tell this was a young one but was still bit surprised by the enthusiasm, for the questions she didn't really have a chance to answer verbally, but she did nod to both hoping it was answer enough, though she would be willing to answer again if they were asked again, and would answer yes verbally if it seemed like Dinky was still waiting for a reply even if she didn't ask again. She would follow Ætheron so she would go to the table when he did, if there was a chair, she would try to get a good position on it but would end up just moving it away and sitting on the floor, while she was about the same height as a pony, her build made it so that her reach was bit better when she sat down, so reaching the table was no problem. She was unsurprisingly baffled by the plate and silverware, and while she did understand lot of what Ætheron said, she still investigated what they were, looking closely at them. She was clever enough to guess the use for the silverware, as they were pretty obvious when you started to think about what they looked like they were best at, knife was for slicing, fork for stabbing, spoon could hold liquid...but that was about it, she tried to pick one of them up but with them not being designed for use by her kind, she couldn't position it in a way with her 'fingers' that she could actually use it, so instead she just put it back down and ignored the silverware as Ætheron had suggested.

@Blitz Boom Ruby just shrugged, giant bugs as food didn't sound too appealing, roasted or not, but that wasn't the only reason why she didn't necessarily want to live too deep underground, she liked to be able to fly freely, and travelling ridiculous lengths in tunnels to do that sounded annoyingly inconvenient. Having nothing more to say regarding the food conversation, she stayed quiet as Marley spoke about his date, though if she listened was another thing altogether. Charir ignored the conversation since he didn't understand a word that was said, not that there was any indication that they were talking to him anyway. Charir glanced curiously towards the gardener when they passed him, mostly to see what the pony was doing, since gardens and taking care of them wasn't really something to be concerned about in the homelands, the plants either grew or didn't grow, because as an area it was both great and awful for plants since there was lot of nutrients in the ground, but also lot of fire, it had interesting effects for the evolution of things living there. Ruby glanced around while Marley got ready, but other than that she didn't really care to do anything besides wait, and Charir, while curious, stayed near the two dragonesses. "Yes, and if possible, avoid the busiest routes in general, I don't want to have to stop because a pony tries to get too friendly with Charir." "As much as I would enjoy seeing someone getting full dose of dragon fire to their face, that would most likely cause a delay." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scarecrow positioned his head in a way that the ball would go downwards instead of any other direction when it hit his chest, and would again stop it before putting it forward, it didn't really matter where the ball went when it came at him, he didn't feel pain so getting hit didn't matter, and if it looked like he couldn't physically catch it for reason or another, he could always use his magic to stop it. "That is other thing I have wondered about, why do so many ponies like to come in the forest to risk themselves." "There are those who have equipped themselves for the worst case scenario, but that's the minority of those who stroll in." ------------------------------------------------------------- The kobolds didn't comment on the topic of Pinkie's mental stability, but they did make some mental notes for themselves to remember to watch their words around her, it seemed that the mare was well known and liked, so they didn't want to ruin everything by making someone like that upset. They may have not know if they trusted this place yet, but it was good to at least try to stay on their good side for now. They looked around as they followed the pony, both to know what was around and to be aware of any and all escape routes in case things went south. When they arrived to the shop, the difference between the two kobolds showed itself, as while Trox stayed calm and just glanced around him, Sheska's reaction was stronger, you could say she was like a kid in a candy shop, as she went around looking at everything. The labels didn't really do anything for them, since they didn't know what half the ingredients were, luckily they weren't allergic to anything. As Sheska was busy seeing everything, Trox would be the only one speaking "We certainly haven't seen something like this before...." or smelled "...and while I don't know anything about things here, it's clear you have done lot of work." "We can eat anything that's organic, meat, plants, mushrooms....and while we don't eat rocks, it wouldn't be the first time we put one in our mouth to suck it clean from moss and such." desperate times call for desperate means, though it wasn't as bad as it sounded, at least it tasted like something "For the taste, it's bit more challenging to say, we aren't used to having the choice, having always eaten anything that may have been available, so there isn't really any big favorites, there's also likely many flavors here we have never heard of." "But seeing how small most options are, something that doesn't need to be chewed would most likely work the best." they were omnivores, but their teeth were bit closer to that of a carnivore than a herbivore, so while they could chew, it was only down to certain size. While both of them noticed the picture, neither of the kobolds paid much mind to it, sure it wasn't exactly common in their world either that a dragon and a pony got together, but nobody really had the time to judge anyone for such things since it didn't effect them, and most were just glad that someone was happy. The only reaction to the picture was Sheska going "aww" quietly when she saw it from closer.

@Monotonality "I get that but sometimes being alone is a good thing." Frail pointed out "And sometimes a lone outsider may be the solution." "Using your stick example, if somepony lit that bundle of sticks on fire, only those not part of it survive." "I certainly enjoy being alone now and then, and I sometimes wonder what would happen if someday a threat came that couldn't be dealt with friendship, we have ways to dealt with that now, but you don't need to know much about things to realize it'll come back to bite our flank later." "Obsession is a slippery slope." She knew a thing or two about being obsessed with something, that would be pretty clear by just looking around her house, the decorations there were but a fraction of what she had created, she had had times when she had gotten bit too into her work. She was done with the tail, so she backed away from Sparkly and smiled "But that aside, what do you think of your new look? They need to grow a bit more to be more unique, but it should be good enough to not loose the style when they do."

"Actually they threw us at the stuff and not vice versa." Jenna said jokingly, before speaking more seriously again "This would have happened regardless of our actions, and technically we are not yet involved." "Maybe they want to make sure that only those willing to fight get involved?" "Maybe curiosity is essential part of the whole thing for some reason?" "I agree that it would be nice if someone actually told us what's going on, but I also can come up with many explanations for why we are not told."

Jenna waited quietly for Oliver to find what he was looking for on the map, she glanced around in casual manner, though in truth she kept an eye out for anything worrying, she just made it look like she was looking around the mall. Most people here lived their mundane lives without any knowledge on who the strangers they passed were, and most of them never even thought about it, what she wouldn't give to be able to live like that too.

@Illiad Easle Ædriga nodded and would follow Ætheron, it had been pretty clear that Ditzy had wanted her to come too, so she didn't want to disappoint the kind pony. She would also clean herself up, but not with water, instead she put everything she had to the side, moved to a safe spot, and burned herself with smokeless fire, after which she took her stuff back. Getting dirty wasn't really a problem for her, things didn't stick to her scales like they did to fur, and she always smelled like smoke and fire for obvious reasons, so smell wasn't a problem either, but it was always good now and then burn things that may have stuck. Ædriga looked in from the doorway before going in Ditzy's house, partly because he had noticed Ætheron's slight nervousness, and didn't know the difference between different kinds of nervousnesses, and partly because of similar reason to the library, a new place with no obvious escapes, houses for some reason felt more uncomfortable to her than caves she knew were dead ends. She went in after looking from the door for few seconds. The space wasn't a problem, after all, she wasn't that big, but she still moved carefully as she looked around, as this was a new space with unfamiliar smells, even if the cooked fish was the strongest.

@Lucid_Nightlight As to be expected, Ruby ignored Quasi's response. She didn't seem to have any reaction on what she heard or the explosion, she knew it had been too easy to take over even for her, too bad she wasn't interested in the actual fort, they may have gotten few scales of her if they would have sacrificed bit more troops to keep her there. Again Quasi's words would be ignored, as Ruby would be already dropping towards the settlement at full speed when the order for the ballistas was given out, considering that she was coming straight from above, there wouldn't be much time to actually aim if they wanted to have time to shoot the ballistas. She landed directly on one of the ballistas, shattering it into pieces due to the combination of her weight and speed, after that there was lot of fire and smoke, and yet again, it was the sticky kind. She was even more merciless than last time, and this time if Quasi ended up in her way, she would go through him too, this time she would make sure nobody made it out, though she would at least attempt to leave one individual alive, only one, but if she didn't succeed on that, she didn't mind, she could always write her message on the walls or something. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Sky and others got on the roof, the crow would be jumping around observing the fallen guards, thinking about if it was hungry or not. As nobody said anything to her, Ember would kinda just follow along, staying little bit behind to keep an eye out for anyone behind them, thus she missed the visual of what happened with the female, though she could tell what exactly happened when she did come in the room, her reaction was hidden behind the cold-professional demeanor. The crow at this point was standing on her horn. Being able to see in the dark naturally, Ember had to just blink few times and wait for a moment to see perfectly fine again, and again she just stayed back making sure nobody came behind them.

@Monotonality "I don't know Twilight personally and I don't know anything about travel between worlds, so I can't really say anything for sure, but I don't necessarily believe that's the case." Frail said thoughtfully regarding Sparkly's theory "Because, if you ending up here had that kind of complexity involved, I don't see why it wouldn't just create a new form for you." though ultimately it wasn't something for her to worry about, this type of things were outside her knowledge. "While I'm glad there's something positive out there, it still sound pretty awful to me." she commented "Or at least lot worse than here, we have beautiful nature and long friendships too, you don't even need to be that lucky." "Sure there's the attacks but they end up being so inconsequential most of the time that they are like rainy days in the summer." "Some are unlucky and aren't that happy, but there usually is somepony who could, and eventually will help." "I mean, one of the most important celebrations we have is about a time in history when friendship saved us from what would most likely been our eventual extinction." she didn't try to insult Earth or otherwise be negative about it, she was just trying to keep a conversation going as she styled the tail "Now that I mention it, I feel we are bit obsessed with friendship."

"That would need a quite a miracle to happen unfortunately." Jenna sighed, to certain extend she envied those believing in Talon's lies, ignorance is bliss was quite true saying, she wasn't sure if she could ever feel perfectly happy even if she somehow managed to get a free life considering the things she knew. She looked around lazily as they passed several shops, it made her kinda miss the time before she went rogue, she never shared the enthusiasm for clothes that her momentary friends had had, but it was nice to act like she did. As it seemed Oliver didn't take the lead regardless of how much Jenna insisted, she spoke "You like video games right? do malls have some place where we can do that?"

Jenna shrugged "It's possible, they seemed to know the exact moment and place for the portals after all." "It could also explain how nobody with powers has gotten revealed during this time, it could be that the same person or group who sent the letters has been keeping an eye on those with powers since however long we have existed." "That or its some kind of time travel, honestly at this point nothing seems too impossible."

@Lucid_Nightlight "If they are so weak and helpless that they have to result to that, that's not my problem now is it?" "In fact, only deaths that are because of me, are the ones I directly cause, you can't guilt me with the actions of others, I didn't start the war." "You are so obsessed with good and evil that you forget to look at reality, this war would have been long over before we even got involved if one of the sides wasn't so afraid to attack because it may kill few civilians." "I offered solutions, I was the solution, yet I was constantly pushed to the side, and then ultimately thrown away when I no longer tolerated it." Ruby shook her head "Every time I have allowed others to have the tiniest amount of control over me, they have used it against me, I'm not falling for that anymore." They had now flown long enough that Ruby was certain that any settlements or other thing with many creatures would be non-fironian, and she chose her target, she had waited long enough. (it's up to you what it is that's around, otherwise I just make something up.) -------------------------------------------------------------------- (I assume one of the guards is talking) Ember landed silently, quite a feat for someone in full-body metal armor, and took down the guards, not really a challenge with surprise in her side, because even in cases they were too big or well protected to kill quickly, she could injure them fast in a way that they couldn't alert help before she could finish them. The crow would just keep doing crow things.

@Monotonality Frail didn't say anything more regarding the topic of controlling nature, as she didn't really have an opinion in either way, it was nice that unlike in somewhere like the Everfree forest, you always knew what the weather would be, but at the same time, it didn't really affect her, since she still looked outside from a window every morning to see the current weather. She also didn't like to bring the conversation to awful things again, and it seemed that very few things weren't awful on 'Earth'. Instead she responded with acknowledging hum. She used the time Sparkly was testing out her magic to finish her mane, getting Sparkly to focus on one thing helped to keep her head in one place, thus making the finishing touches easier and quicker to do. She moved to do the tail next, but stopped for a moment when Sparkly managed to move the pillow , she let out a thoughtful hum "It seems that you may have more in common with Twilight than just your appearance, I know I said levitation is simple to do, but getting hang of it well enough to move the item precisely that quickly, considering you used to be most likely incapable of magic, that is quite impressive."

@Illiad Easle Ædriga followed Ætheron but not before taking few of the loose coins with her, it wasn't like anyone would miss them, and she liked the idea of having bit of shinies with her trophy in the self-made necklace, though she would look into that later, for now she just took them with her without doing anything else to them. On the way down Ædriga stayed near Ætheron, even though her natural instinct was to just open her wings and drop down, her kind may have been rather ground based in their ways, but wings were still useful tool when it came to moving, and keeping pace with ground-bound creature felt a bit limiting. Again she examined the cave before stating any opinions "More good." she would need to make few changes to make it better for herself, but that would be true for most caves, especially considering the fate of her last cave "I try cave." ultimately the only way to know what fit her was to try it, she could always go somewhere else if a problem showed itself.

@Blitz Boom "In the case of me not staying in the homelands, I don't believe I would come back here either, living among prey you're not allowed to hunt is frustrating." Ruby stated, it was especially annoying when the prey acted annoyingly, anywhere else that wouldn't have been a problem, not that it had stopped her from getting a taste of pony, she just had to be careful who to take "Maybe I'll find a small community somewhere that starts worshiping me as their god and sacrifices things in my name." she was joking, but at the same time the idea of being seen as a god was interesting, it could be worth a try for few centuries or so at some point. Ruby didn't question Marley about the pools of blood, in fact, from look of her, it had as much effect on her as Marley stating that he was a bird would have, or in other word, she was as uncaring as always. "Yes, let's go." she said before saying something to Charir, from his reaction one could gather that she most likely told him they would be leaving, as he quickly finished what he had taken and got ready to move. "He's a predator grown to hunt and eat raw meat, anything unnecessary mixed in just ruins the taste." the sense of taste of their kind was weaker than many other creatures, that was because their natural resistance against poisons, illness and such was high, making the need to taste them unnecessary, their sense of smell also worked fine in warning about the few things that were dangerous. Because of that, spices, marinading and other such things only worked to cover the taste of blood and meat under the less enjoyable taste. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scarecrow waited for the ball to lessen in bouncing before putting it forward to make sure it went where he wanted "I have mainly observed the town from outside in, this being the closest to being in the town, so I have not yet been able to form a solid opinion." "But I find few details curious, mainly regarding the forest and its dangers." "The forest is well known for its creatures and plants, yet the town's edge is not only very close to it, but unprotected, lacking a wall or even a fence to keep creatures at bay." --------------------------------------------------------------- "Can't say we have heard of places with such names, but our home was quite rural." that went for the whole empire, because besides the capital there wasn't really any settlements that were big enough to be called cities "And we did escape technically speaking, it was by accident and without really trying to do so, but I'm not complaining." "And I wouldn't say parties and laughter were unnatural necessarily, it was more that the reasoning behind them was usually....less positive." Parties were for the successful, or in other word for those in military or those who were otherwise heavily helping with the war, like weapon manufacturers, and laughter....genuine laughter usually meant one of two things, someone had lost their mind, or one of the more brutal soldiers or commanders were around...though one could argue that they weren't fully sane either. "But it's better leave the details untold for now at least, we have lot to think about." "But we can come to check your store out, though can't buy anything, we don't even know what currency you use here, so we don't exactly have anything to pay with." More they learned about changelings, more they believed what the guard had said about their fate in their Equestria, their illusions, feeding on emotions, jelly capable of storing emotions, all of those were familiar things to them, just in quite different form than a living creature.

"Life isn't fair." Jenna said shrugging, looking around as she truly didn't know what there was to do at a mall, she was still waiting for Oliver to suggest something "At least I don't have to be an egg factory for rest of my life." "You have already given me better life than many others will ever have."

"It could also be related to age." Jenna suggested "If we assume that whoever sent those letters knows a lot, they would know that we are relatively young, maybe they wanted us to have as much experience and control with our powers as possible." "Or maybe they needed the right individuals to meet first before they could reveal things, we for example just met before it, yet the picture seemed to be quite fitting for us two specifically."

@Monotonality "I'm not sure how I feel about the implication that you are somehow outside nature." Frail admitted "Ponies are part of nature, magic is part of nature, anything that's alive is part of nature. Somepony like Discord could be considered outside nature, but he's outside reality in general so..." while ponies, dragons and such were generally considered to be above animals, they were still part of nature like everything else. "It's hard to explain levitation, because like I said, it comes naturally to me, it's like trying to explain in detail how to move your head side to side." She had to think for a moment how to word things "You kinda just, decide to pick something up, choose an item, for example one of the pillows on the bed, and just focus on it." "Then think about picking it up, don't think about how you are going to do it, just decide that you will pick up that pillow, if your magic works like it would for somepony who has always been a pony, it should eventually start working without you thinking about it."

@Lucid_Nightlight "You either don't know the meaning of words or you're trying to get under my scales, but what you are right about is that I don't care if few creatures die." Ruby said, not seemingly bothered by Quasi's momentary rage "And that's what you all fail to realize, you caring is your weakness, it makes you predictable, it's what Gladia counts on." "Same with your fear of death, part of the reason why I'm so dangerous is me not having anything to lose, only way to stop me is to kill me." She exhaled smoke "I find it curious how stuck all of you are in your old ways, especially with the prophecy, I don't believe in such nonsense, but it is clear that you do, so ask yourself this, if the pony way is the solution, and the prophecy is real, why am I in it?`" ---------------------------------------------------------- Ember would move out and the crow joined her once more, it had followed the helicopter from outside most of the trip as it didn't care to be trapped inside a metal box. She would do her part, the crow working as a distraction again, Ember would have been quite terrifying enemy for anyone with superstition relating to crows, though the murder of crows that seemed to follow her everywhere was quite terrifying sight even if you didn't believe in superstition, if you lived long enough to see it that was, since they were smart enough to not give Ember away.

@Illiad Easle Ædriga looked around, the entrance may have been narrow when compared to the previous owner, but her being as small as she was, it was rather big for her, and the cave was on quite visible place, but at the same time, she too would have lot more visibility, and it would be lot harder for anyone to surprise attack her. "Maybe" she said after thinking for a moment "no all good." she started scratching a picture on the ground, showing a bit just how hard her claws were, being able to scrach pictures in solid rock, it was a picture of the cave as seen from outside "Need more small" she stated, drawing what looked like rocks blocking part of the entrance "And maybe trees." she then drew trees blocking the entrance even more. She then walked to the entrance and looked at the walls of the cave, hitting them with her head few times to see how easy they would be to collapse, there was potential, but it would take work.

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby was not surprised. "I have no interest in joining the plans of ponies." she stated coldly "And that's exactly why I am here, I will make sure this fact is clear even to the simple minded equines." "Though I will inform Gladia after I go back that you are scheming with the other side, if nothing else, that stops you from constantly interrupting me with everything." "I don't care how many times you invade my mind or how many visions you flood my head with, I have made my decision, and it won't change." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Anything more? Or can I move out? I'm faster and quieter using my own wings instead of this loud machine we are in." if she was supposed to get there unnoticed, it was better for her to fly there herself, and she wanted to start doing something instead of sitting there for no real reason.

@Monotonality (the ones you posted) "It wouldn't be that big of deal, I'm far from professional so everything I suggested is relatively easy to make, though some of them wouldn't look exact since your mane needs to grow a bit more for that." Frail said as she started styling the mane. "From what I have understood based on what you have said, wouldn't any and all magic be considered impossible where you're from?" "I can only imagine what it would be like to live with things like random weather." "Meanwhile here something like levitation is rather basic thing, it's one of the first things an unicorn learns, though only object levitation, levitating creatures takes more practice and levitating magical creature takes even more." "It comes to me so naturally that I sometimes forget that most creatures don't use or can't use it."

@Monotonality With OOC I meant the ones you posted (though they are colorless/in Twilight's colors since they haven't chosen any colors IC yet)

@Monotonality "Well isn't that quite a list of long names I'll forget." Frail said, pausing her doing for a while and drawing something on a paper "And don't worry about laws of physics, we have so many reality breaking beings around that mere physics mean nothing." she was joking, but it was also true, with those like Discord and Pinkie pie existing, nothing was set in stone, not that setting something in stone would do anything either for same, reason. She showed the paper to Sparkly, there was rough but quite well made drawings of different mane styles(including but not limited to the ones in the OOC) "Does any of these look like something you'd like, or should I just make them one by one and show you a mirror?" she'd act based on the answer, but regardless of it, she would continue speaking after getting one "For levitation and writing, I'll do my best to help, but like with things like walking, it's matter of practice."