My Little Skoney - Or - Tabu in Scentquestria

Chapters

Scentship is Magic
Scents and Scentsibility
In Scentsational Style

Scentship is Magic

Author's Note

Hope you enjoy this story! and if you want more comments and thumbs are so appreciated

A take on what skonies (Skunk-ponies) look like if that helps one to imagine them as they're reading, along with what we approximate Tabu to look like Art by Bouncybrownbear.

Scentship is Magic

“Most peculiar…” the zebra muttered as he wandered back and forth around a glowing pool of mana in front of him. It currently illustrated the world if it was flat and viewed from above, Zebrican inscriptions floated above various regions.

Tabu shook his dreadlocks from his eyes, a single ring on one of the thicker ones clinking lightly off the golden rims of his glasses. The noise distracted him for a moment, and he shuffled his shoulders, readjusting a poncho done up in red and gold Zebrican designs.

“It can’t be…” he murmured, pacing about. “But If I’m in pacing stages, it must be…” He glanced to a particular shelf on the literal wall of books that surrounded him at all corners. This particular shelf contained his journals on strange multi-dimensional phenomena. This was not unusual in Equestria, simply rare and highly localized. One could find any number of extra-dimensional rejects had fallen down the plug hole of their reality into the pastel world Tabu occupied, but no…one in particular had caught his interest.

A showman researched Biology, or claimed to, all of it at once, and they never got anywhere outside being a mildly pleasant conversationalist. A researcher specified. If he’d wanted to find any extra-dimensional immigrant, he could have done it on an odd Wednesday with a packed lunch. No…he wanted specifics.

One of the journals smelt vaguely of sage.
Tabu blushed at the memory.
There were newsclippings in a lot of the journals, stories of ponies who had run into
creatures with claws on their forehooves, who stood a head higher than any pony they had ever met, with…enormous scented tails.

The table beeped the beep it beeped when Tabu’s mind wandered. He brought it back to the problem at hand. Or…perhaps problem wouldn’t have been the right word. The serendipity at hand.

Tabu turned his mind towards a hat on the nearby rack and a glowing golden choker joined a bowler cap floating jauntily onto his head and around his neck, and he raced out of the door.

“There’s absolutely no way…”

“Mornin’ Ta-” before his neighbor, Unzingweh, could get the last syllable out the zebra had already passed him, the rings on his dreadlocked tail shining in the winter light. “Bu…”

I’ll have to apologize to him later… Tabu thought internally. That is…if I can get ‘There and Back Again…’ The title of a book fallen through some random hole in the universe and, unfortunately, into a puddle, came to mind.

Tabu ran as far and as fast as he had ever run in his natural born life, ignoring neighbors, social workers, and frightening more than one foal. He wasn’t sure how long he ran for, or when he had decided to gallop up a mountain but he strained forwards now, racing towards its peak at high speed, the runner’s-haze clearing from his awareness as he realized that, yes, there was a shimmer in the air there, beyond the precipice…but…

It was up, not straight; he’d have to jump and he was running far too fast to stop now. Several calculations ran behind his eyes, an attempt to stop would mean a high fall. His choker could probably soften it but he’d definitely break a bone, probably a hind leg, it would make sense to fall backwards, but-

No time.

“Okay then, I guess this is where my day is going…” Tabu braced at the edge of the cliff and leapt with as much power as his legs could grant him.

It was more of a loan, and on bad credit. The life of a scholar is unkind in the realms of physicality.

But the shimmer got closer. The triumphant yell Tabu let out turned into more of a hopeful whinny as the air whistled around him.

Elsewhere

“Girls, stop arguing…” came a voice tinged with a bit of nasal bookworm onto a field of flowers in the shadow of a crystalline castle.

“Tell HER to apologize!” another voice broke the ambiance, this one jagged with repute, while somehow also being full of cotton candy.

The sound of fluttering wings. “Why?” A sandpapery brashness slipped into the glen. “I calls’em as I sees’em Stinky Pie!”

The reproach the cotton-candy voice managed to put into a single gasp was admirable.

“COME DOWN HERE MINTY DASH, I’ll make you smell of me till twice Sunday, and we’ll see what compliments you get!”

“Why would I come down there after you said that?” an audible shrug.

“Tarnation, will you two knock it off?”

“You should apologize, Minty…” the newest voice was a strain to hear.

“I concur…” a lace tablecloth of a tone fluttered over the conversation. “To insult another’s scent is tantamount to a slap!- Oh…did I damage a claw?”

“Naw, you’re good, how long do I gotta paint these for, berrybush?”

“Until the second coat’s done at least!”

Finally, the scene settled, but not as one might expect it. Within the glen, were almost-ponies. The purplest of these stood to her full height, twitching a pink-ish nose above a book she left in a nest of flowers.

Her small, but sharp, foreclaws disturbed the grass as she shook out her haunches. Regular, smooth pony hind-hooves lightly shuffled the ground, revealing a cream-colored underbelly as a massive purple-mauve banner of a tail expressed its volume around a shockingly large core beneath. Her brow creased in a frown below a glimmering purple jewel where a unicorn might have a horn. “Alright, that’s enough, I’m never going to get through this interdimensional travel report from the Ibex kingdom at this rate.”

“Jasmine?” an eloquent voice politely chimed in to the purple skoney.

A similar hybrid with luscious white fur and a beautiful deep purple mane of hair falling over one eye, slightly obscuring a blue gem of her own, looked up from where her orange and yellow counterpart attempted to hold a tiny claw-brush between two clumsy foreclaws.

“Yes, Lavender?” Jasmine Rose turned her attention away from the hill where Minty Dash and Pinkie Pie were having a go. The cyan mephequine flapped in circles above the pink puffball beneath her, occasionally dodging where her lightning-rainbow-striped mattress of a tail threatened to buffet her.

“Do you think we should just let them tire each other out? They’ll wander far enough away that we won’t hear them in a moment, and by the time they wander back, they’ll have forgotten what they were fighting about. What do you think, Cattleya?”

The orange Skoney almost dropped the claw-brush in surprise at being addressed. “Wazzatnow?”

“The fight?” Jasmine raised a brow. “You just said insulting Pinkie’s scent was like slapping her, remember?”

“Well yeah, but I’m distracted! Anyway they’re grown skoneys, it shouldn’t be our job to figure it out. If Minty ends up smellin’ like juniper and cake till Christmas it’s her own fault.”

“Well…” a soft voice chimed in as the fourth witness to the display lifted a butter colored foreclaw. “I do think we should intervene…I can’t imagine not smelling of myself for that long, Pinkie’s scent is lovely, but that’s quite the punishment still…”

Jasmine sighed. “Gingershy is right…we should probably break them up.”

Two of them stood, a gentle violet riot of a tail standing at a gentle fold of attention next to a pastel butter-pink plume.

Jasmine and Gingershy turned to look at the pair still sitting.

“What?” asked Lavender earnestly. “The second coat is the most important one!”

“Can’t argue with her…” said Cattleya, not looking up. “She’s right.”

Jasmine’s tail frizzed in slight annoyance as Gingershy chuckled into a foreclaw.

The pair of friends turned to stop their compatriots from buffeting each other into an olfactory riot right when a white disk dilated into existence about thirty feet in the air.

“What in tarnation!” Cattleya’s exclamation bowled over Lavender’s cry of dismay as she got a bit of purple polish on her pristine white fur.

Jasmine and Gingershy leaped to either side as something came screaming out of the glowing void to fall between them with a surprisingly anti-climatic ‘Flumph’ a glowing halo of magic under the quadrupedal body to thank for the lack of a splat or a crack.

A gold necklace around the striped creature’s neck ceased glowing as it fell the last inch to the ground with an ‘Ooof’.

“W-what is it!?” Gingershy somehow managed to make an exclamation point quiet as she hid, mostly concealed, under Jasmine’s drape of a tail.

The purple Skoney looked back at her with slight reproach. “My tail is not a hiding place, Ginger…” She turned her gaze back towards the fallen thing as it got up on its legs. “As for what?”
It was…

Small.

Of the assembled skonies, Minty Dash was the shortest, clocking in at 6’9. Jasmine’s Skalicorn 7’5 absolutely dwarfed the tiny thing. Gingershy herself could have picked it up like a large dog by its scruff at 7’ even.

“I don’t know…”

The thing coughed before croaking, “W-what? D-did I…did I actually…”

“Oh it speaks sense…” Cattleya nodded approvingly. She shuffled forwards, discarding the claw polish, the small striped thing leaned back as she leaned forwards, eyes getting wide as the 7’2 skunk hybrid sniffed at his 4’11 frame. He was tall in Zebrica…quite tall…almost spindly. “Hey there little…” She darted her gaze down and the creature clenched its, no, his thighs. “Feller. Where’d you come from?”

“I…aayyyyyeee uh….” The striped equine’s chest rose and fell as though he were trying to self inflate. “I think I need…uh.”

“THE STRIPES darlings!” Before anyone could stop her Lavender encircled the tiny creature in a circle of her 6’8 body. The creature became very aware that this approximation was from paws to snout, and did not include the massive alabaster and violet cloud that ringed him to her searching eyes. “So many! I’ve never seen a creature with this many! They’re GORGEOUS!”

The equine yelped as Lavender’s tail boofed into his back, the voluminous fluff threatened to swallow him like a poofy liquid as it pulled him towards her. She sat on her haunches and the small thing almost vanished between the fluff of her tail and the plush of her stomach. Somehow, every sense was assaulted with the scent of lavender. There were muffled noises. What little could be seen of his ears were pink. Purple painted claws delved into the marshmallow miasma to retrieve him, then hug him to her chest while her eyes scanned over his form. “Your COAT darling…” She pet at him like a dog. “It's MARVELOUS simply MARVELOUS, I must know your name and you must let me study your design!”

“Uh…Lavender?” Jasmine gently broke into the scene.

Lavender’s eyes cleared as though she’d forgotten where she was. “Oh…” she turned to Jasmine, smiling. “Yes, Darling?”

“I don’t think he can breathe…”

Lavender blinked, before turning to see that the fluffy poof of her chest was submerging the striped equine, whilst her tail had risen up to support his haunches in cashmere fluff. The warm center of the appendage perhaps getting more familiar than was polite.

“Oh…” she pulled him backwards and sat him on the ground. Her fluffy wall of a tail retreated behind her in a prim fold, her stripes a diamond patterned in purple ribboning up in twin trails in a sea of precious white. “Sorry darling…You know how a girl gets…Um…you were about to explain?”

“Izapardongonnafalldownnow.”

There was far more satisfying thud than the first as the creature hit the ground.

“Oh dear…” said Gingershy, peeking out from Jasmine’s tail.

Lavender was thrown to the side as Pinkie Pie raced past, almost trampling the fallen equine as Minty Dash’s voluminous tail trailed behind her backstroking flaps, catching the air and scenting it cold and crisp. She halted to a shockingly sudden stop as she noticed what was going on. “What’s that?” she asked, her rainbow bolt stripes frizzing in confusion.

Pinkie continued to yell until she realized no one was looking at her, she then looked where they were all looking to fit in. One could hear ticking in her head before a small alarm went off.

She shot forwards and bundled up the fainted equine in claws and tail and squeezed haunch alike, as though trying to bury him against her tummy.

Pinkie grinned up at the slightly concerned looking assembled skoneys, before she made a loud, happy declaration.

“NEW FRIEND!”

Scents and Scentsibility

Author's Note

Chapter two! I hope folks are enjoying things so far, the thumbs bar at the top has been a little discouraging, but I'm gonna keep going!

The adventures of Tabu in Scentquestria continue! He finally gets to talk to everyone and we establish a few things.

Bouncybrownbear has been drawing more skonies as well! Here's Gingershy

Thanks for reading! Comments appreciated immensely.

Scents and Scentsibility

Tabu in Scentquestria Ch2: Scents and Scentsibility

“Alert…alert…” An even voice chimed as Tabu felt vibration around his neck.
The zebra was immersed in darkness. As he spread his awareness out from the sound to his body, he found he was quite sore, his legs were screaming at him as if he’d run a mile.
Tabu’s body went stiff. Wait. He had run a mile, probably more, at a steep incline to boot, and at top speed before leaping headlong off a very large cliff.

Was that a memory, or a dream?
The scholar was afraid to open his eyes in case it had been, but his nostrils flared and
he could smell a scent clinging to his fur and mane, a mix of soft lavender and sweet cake.

Tabu’s eyes shot open, and he found himself looking at a crystal ceiling that was far, far above his head, its color a purplish-blue. A glance around the room told him that he was in a bed bigger than most personal pools he’d encountered in his life, a sea green comforter threatening to vanish him.

“It wasn’t a dream…” Tabu’s voice was a low sigh of amazement.
“Alert…alert…”
“Oh!” Tabu glanced down at his choker on instinct, though he could never see it from this
angle. His foreleg screamed at him as he bent it up to touch the sigils etched into the side of the large golden collar. It made a small beeping noise before a slot opened to reveal a red gem at its center, a cone of light twinkled into existence in a swirl of zebrican runes, inside of which hung a translucent mouse with a flower behind one of its large ears. She looked fuzzy and indistinct for some reason.

“Uzuri Alert Protocol activated…”
“I..uh…” Tabu spoke for the first time, his mouth felt gummy and dry, he shook his head
to clear it. “I didn’t activate you…what’s the emergency, am I injured?”
“No sir,” the holographic mouse replied. “Not beyond overly strained muscles and minor blunt force trauma from a high fall.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Tabu squinted at her, trying to bring her into focus, before realizing the reason he couldn’t see was that his glasses were off. As an afterthought he turned his mind towards the choker. His glasses gave a little beep and he turned his gaze towards a large nightstand where they sat. The gold-rimmed loops floated up and onto his face.
“Such actions are inadvisable, sir,” the mouse continued. “You are disconnected from the prime materia of the universe.”
Tabu blinked. “Oh…oh dear…” His eyes darted downwards again. “I was afraid of that…”
“Your choker has reserves, but they are limited. I have been activated in order to monitor and conserve what energy remains. Once you are out of magic, you will be unable to cast until you return to the universe.”
“Well,” He felt strange addressing the protocol he’d designed. “Uzuri, it’s not really ‘The’ universe so much as ‘A’ universe.” Despite himself, the opportunity to explain had him getting excited, sitting up straighter. “Multiversal field theory is such a fertile ground for discovery I-”
“Ending protocol to conserve magic.”
The mouse winked out of existence as the gem was hidden once more.
“Oh…” Tabu groaned as he rolled over in bed. “Note to self, design interface with better bedside manner…”
The bed was higher than he was used to, which made sense, it seemed that this universe was simply larger than his in every aspect. A small, curious part of Tabu’s brain wondered if the planet itself was slightly larger as well, as though whatever creator this world could claim to have had simply taken its world and scaled it.
“No…can’t get distracted…” Tabu’s mind turned back towards meeting the strange, fluffy creatures he’d been seeking. Skonies, they were real…
He remembered the journal back home that smelled of sage. It had been so long he’d almost relegated it to a dream…
“It’s plum strange if you ask me…” A twang of a voice came from beyond the large door to the room.
Tabu stiffened. It was the skonies, they’d probably taken him here after he’d fainted, they seemed friendly, perhaps exceedingly so, though his heart rate still spiked at the thought of engaging with them again.
He climbed fully out of bed, ignoring the aches and pains in his body as he looked up at the handle of the door. A lot of doors in Equestria didn’t bother with handles and could be opened with a gentle push of the head, but this door had a mechanism. Tabu had seen such before in his brief time among the griffons, though in those cases, the door handle hadn’t been above his head.
Loath to waste magic, Tabu did a quick calculation. His collar had a storage spell on it, and various notebooks and pens. It would make sense for him to get those out while he had power, and transfer them to his poncho pock-
Tabu realized then that he was naked.
“Eeep!” He stiffened, hinds and fores crossing over one another as he suddenly felt a draft. Most zebras and ponies he’d ever met opted out of wearing anything outside of special occasions, but it always made him feel so…exposed. “N-no pockets…” The words were a horrified whisper.
Still, there was a task at hand, he could deal with his nudity and the loss of his poncho and bowler later. He shook the vulnerable feeling away, the golden rings on his mane and tail clacking lightly. At least those were still there, thank Ashe they hadn’t taken his choker as well.
Tabu turned his mind back to the task at hand. It would make sense to do multiple things at once, getting out his journals and opening the door while the magic was active would be more efficient than doing both tasks separately.
He focused his mind and his choker’s runes glowed, a brown, sturdy journal with matching pen burst into existence in a shower of runes, some of which floated from the book to wrap around the door handle and gently open it. There was a slight creak, but Tabu could clearly hear voices beyond it, and if they’d heard the sound they didn’t pause to acknowledge.
Tabu grabbed the journal before it fell to the floor, and gently sat it down just beyond the open door, taking the pen in his teeth. Normally he would’ve written with magic, but his muzzlescript was legible in a pinch.
Note taking at the ready, Tabu looked out to observe the conversing Skonies.
He was at a low angle in comparison to them, they sat at a large crystal table that seemed to grow out of the floor, the chairs were of similar make, though calling them ‘Chairs’ was not quite correct. They were more like large bowls lined with soft material, in which a skonie could curl in a nest of their own tail.
That makes sense for a qaudroped… Tabu thought, lightly questioning the furniture orientation of his own universe.
The room he was in sat behind Minty and Gingershy’s chairs. Gingershy sat with her foreclaws utterly buried in her honey-pink tail. Dash let hers fall with a sort of scruffy lusciousness over the side hers, more sprawled than sat. With their backs to him, Minty’s tail was surprisingly close, blue and omichrome fluff scenting the air in a slight frost. Her stripes were almost pearlescent in their jagged lines, Tabu never seemed to be able to establish a pattern of which color went where.
“He doesn’t have a scent! That’s strange if you ask me…” Cattleya’s voice wandered into the room. She was sitting to the side of Minty Dash, mostly obscured from Tabu’s view, but he could see the green of her nose poking past Minty’s shoulder.
“He smells of books!” Pinkie chimed in, leaning towards the purple skalicorn who sat at the head of the assembly, directly in front of Tabu’s line of site. He hoped they didn’t notice the cracked door. “Kinda like Jasmine when she makes a booknest!”
Jasmine stiffened. “I don’t do that!” A glance left, a glance right. “Regularly…” She cleared her throat. “In anycase, while he does have a basic odor and lingering trace scents, things are…muted.”
Lavender, who sat on Jasmine’s opposite side, laying like a prim cat on a cashmere bed of her tail, curled the appendage a bit tighter about her form, like nestling into a snowdrift. “While his stripes are fabulous, I do have to say its strange. He has hooves, like our back legs, but no claws to speak of, and not having a scent is like…not having a face really!”
“And he’s so small…” Gingershy chimed. “Almost as little as Cherub…”
“I don’t know what you’re all so worried about…” Tabu stiffened as Minty shuffled, readjusting into a leisurely yawn, her tail curled up in a ponderous arc to lay around her form like a bored panther’s. “We run into strange creatures all the time. He didn’t try to kick our butts, so what’s the problem?”
Tabu took a breath as no one shifted glances his way, his scribbled shorthand through clumsy lips was going to be a task to decipher later.
“Well…” Cattleya shrugged. “Strange as the lack of a scent is, he definitely isn’t from around here. Tail’s way too small…We should make sure he gets back home.”
Well that’s good… Tabu could hardly believe his luck. He’d assumed he’d have to try some diplomacy to garner hospitality, but already there was talk of assistance!
There was a slight pang as he felt bad for spying on them. Though in the presence of fluffy extra-dimensional giants, it only made sense to gather info.
“Not before he settles something!” Pinkie’s affront was obvious in her voice.
“What is it, Pinkie?” Lavender tilted her head.
“He’s an out-of-town-friend! The perfect impartial judge!”
Minty groaned and slapped her forehead with a foreclaw. “Are you still on about that after all this?”
Pinkie narrowed her eyes at the sky-colored skonie, snout taking on serious wrinkles as her blue nose twitched seriously. “You called me Stinky Pie you mint-scented menace…” She said darkly, rising to stand in her bowl, her tail giving a cobra-hood rise as she hiked her hinds slightly. “I. Am. Not. STINKY!” She huffed, before her lip jutted out and her tail wilted like a willow, Tabu could have sworn he heard a party balloon noise. “Plus you still haven’t apologized…”
“Okay fine I’m sor-”
“TOO LATE SISTER!!” Pinky pointed a paw of condemnation. “No one insults my scent…” She huffed and turned in a prim and proper sit on her haunches, tail curling around her side like an admonishing berrystriped cape.
Jasmine gave an exasperated sigh. “Girls…calm down.”
“Yeah!” Cattleya agreed. “We shouldn’t jump him at once, he fell out of the sky and fainted.”
“Indeed, it would be impolite!”
There was a moment’s silence before Minty lifted a forepaw and pulled a face at Pinkie.
“THAT’S IT” The only thing that stopped Pinkie Pie from launching herself at Rainbow Dash was the buffeting tail of Jasmine Rose, who boofed it’s fluffy weight against Pinkie’s tummy and gently, but firmly levered her back into her bowl where she seemed to literally steam.
“Please, be civil..” “ said a voice that could have only been Gingershy’s.
What did she say? Tabu leaned forwards in an attempt to hear as a din of arguing Skonies rose in the meeting room.
One of Tabu’s legs took this opportunity to cramp horrendously. The hind right screamed with pain, radiating up his spine in a shock wave that forced him to clench the limb in on itself in an effort to stop the aching torment. This unbalanced him to the right, his forelegs buckling. He stiffened them to try to right himself but only served to tangle his limbs.
The zebra fell into the door, headbutting the heavy thing with a shock of pain that sent it slowly creeeaaaking open to reveal him sprawled there, poncholess on the meeting room floor.
Six sets of eyes landed on his prone form.
“Hey new friend!” Pinkie prepped, wiggling her hips to spring before being halted by both Jasmine and Cattleya’s tails as she was mostly obscured in fluff outside of a frizzed collum of striped pink above it all. Pinkie’s curious face broke through with a ‘Pofmph’. “Think you could answer a question for me?” Her tail undulated in a wave as she grinned solicitously.

“Leave it, Pinkie…” Cattleya, the other Skonie lacking wings or horns in the room, shoved her gently back with a blonde-orange boof to the front.
Tabu noticed this subtype of skonie seemed to be slightly physically larger than their
more equipped counterparts. Jasmine had struggled to hold the pink wave back, but Cattleya seemed to have a handle on it.

Pinkie crossed her forepaws, but let the matter drop for now.
The assembled skonies padded out of their chairs, looking curiously at the fallen zebra.
Tabu became very aware he was poncholess, though it really didn’t matter. He quickly righted himself and crossed his forelegs. For all his planning and minor spying, when presented with the opportunity to use anything he’d overheard, he’s brain seized. He simply stared as Jasmine came forward, his gaze barely clearing her chest poof if he stared forward. Her underbelly was a creamy sort of color under all the soft purple.
Tabu swallowed and craned his neck up.
“Hello…we speak the same language if I heard you right earlier?” Jasmine asked gently.
Right. Talking.
“YES!” Tabu cringed as he saw the skonies around him frizz at his volume. “I-I mean yes, yes we do…”
Jasmine smiled and shifted her haunches to gently sidle next to Tabu so she could address the zebra and her friends. His breath caught as her tail blanketed the right side of his body, threatening to swallow him in plum-colored poofiness. “Are you alright? You had quite the fall, I was worried when you dropped unconscious, but my examination spells seemed to indicate you fainted from overstimulation rather than injury.”
“I...uh…”
“Don’t mark him!” Minty pointed accusingly. “Just because he doesn’t have a scent doesn’t mean we have to have more flower power around the castle.”
Jasmine turned a frown in Minty’s direction. “My scent is very mellow right now, Minty, I’m just offering comfort. I wouldn’t do that without our guest's permission.” She leveled her gaze at the curious skonies. “If we could give him the space to tell us his name.”
They all looked at him expectantly.
“Tabu!” He managed. “It’s Tabu…” He glanced up at the large mephequine next to him. “Your name is Jasmine? I’m sorry, I heard it from the door…” Honesty struck Tabu as the best policy. “I’m sorry if that was rude.”
“So what are you anyway?” Minty leaned in close, the shortest of the Skonies, he came up to her chin. He noticed then her nose was the same light red as a streak of her mane as she gently snuffed at him.
“Well! Speaking of rude!” Lavender huffed, though, after a moment’s consideration, she lifted a claw to her lip. “Though I do have to say we are curious…”
Tabu felt himself gaining a little more confidence as their curiosity continued to prove benign. He stood a little straighter, it didn’t help how small he felt in comparison.
“I’m a zebra, and I can settle your curiosity if you’ll allow me a second to explain?”
Jasmine nodded apprecively. “That would be lovely, come to the table?”
Jasmine was already standing as Tabu nodded, her tail like the curl of a vaudeville cane curled and tugged him in her wake, immersive fluff crowding around his back. Tabu tried to keep up, the rise and fall her haunches causing a gentle wave his route as he walked.

After successfully not tripping, the purple duvet pushed him softly to the front of the table as the Skonies assembled to watch.
“Ahem.” Tabo started. “If your world is anything like mine, you are aware of occasional objects and beings falling through dimensional rifts and tears?”
“Yeah!” cried Pinkie.
“That makes sense,” Lavender Nodded.
“That was my main theory.” Cattleya agreed.
“Figured.” Minty Shrugged.
Gingershy chuckled and Jasmine rolled her eyes, but a motion of her claw bid Tabu continue.
“I fell through one on purpose.”
This perked their rounded, cookie-shaped ears. Minty’s almost bored expression perked up.
“Why darling, whatever for?” Lavender prompted.
“Well…in my world, I’m a scientist.” Tabu gestured to his choker. He wondered briefly if he should mention he had limited magic, but as much as he immediately trusted these creatures, holding at least one, fairly small card seemed proactive. He turned his mind to the accessory and summoned a scrapbook. He was loath to waste the magic, but in this case, it was worth it.
The ramshackle tome clattered to the crystal table, he opened it gently, displaying pictures and news clippings.
“I am not the first transient between our worlds, there are stories about it going back to the days of Starswirl the Bearded.”
“Who?” Jasmine tilted her head.
Tabu paused, realizing referential conversation would be useless. “Um, a powerful wizard from long ago?”
“Oh!” Jasmine’s eyes lit up. “You mean Swirled Stripe the Fragrant!”
Tabu blinked, then pressed on. “Yes, that is something I encountered in what few stories have made it between our worlds. It seems as though you are on a similar axis to my universe’s causality, but on a slightly different path.”
“Well, what’s it like in your universe?” Minty flapped her wings and hovered to get a look at the journal, buffeting Tabu with cool air.
“Well, I’m not sure how much I can report on that, it seems I’ve been dislocated in space as well as dimension. According to the sorts of trees I saw outside I’m farther from the equator of this planet than I was before, but do you have an equivalent to Zebrica?”
There was a pause as they all thought, Pinkie, in particular, screwing up her face.
“Badgestralia?” Cattleya said unsure.
“What’s That?” Tabu prompted.
“A far off land where the badgerunks live, our friend Rooibos is from there. She lives in a cabin in the Everfresh forest.”
Tabu considered this. “Badgerunks?” He thought back to the badgers of his world, slightly ornery creatures that came up to the knee, and had no skunk to speak of. “Strange difference,” he mumbled to himself. “Though it explains the stripe fascination.”
“About that!” Lavender put her foreclaws up on the table and invited herself into Tabu’s personal bubble at a gentle lean, her muzzle was larger than his by a fair margin, sapphire eyes lidding above it. “Darling, you must come to my boutique…”
Tabu felt a slight flush along his face.
“Let’im finish explain’ first, Lavender…” Cattleya said with gentle reproach.

Lavender pouted, but took her foreclaws from the table and settled herself in a prim upright sit, tail gently shawled about her haunches. “Continue!”

Tabu shook himself, readjusting. “Right, so, if the closest equivalent in your world is Badgerstrailia, that’s where I’m from, but instead of Badgers it’s Zebras…” After a moment he added, “With no skunk tails, though there are myriad other differences I’m sure. If I had to imagine…” He flipped through the book with a hoof as the ponies leaned in. He reached a map and jabbed towards a large land mass far across the sea from Zebrica. “I am now in this universe’s equivalent of Equestria.”

“You mean Scentquestria silly!” Pinkie bounced with a chuckle.

Tabu’s expression quirked at the name, thrown off rhythm, he stared at the pink mephequine. “That’s what this land is called?”

“I don’t see why you look so shocked…” Minty rolled a shrug. “Equestria isn’t better for a world where everybody’s fully horses.”

Tabu opened his mouth to argue but found himself on shaky footing. He opted to press forward.

“Regaurdless of nomenclature, you have me at a disadvantage, my knowledge of Equestria is a broad but unspecific one, so my knowledge of this place, and how similar it is cannot be completely accurate.” He turned the page, the map flipping away, replaced with a grainy photo of an orange-striped tail retreating into the bushes. “I ran into one of your kind once…many years ago, and I’ve been fascinated ever since. While I know you want to send me home…” Tabu stepped back from the table, bowing his head in askance. “I bid you allow me to stay and study as a scientist and lover of the world.”

“Sss” Pinkie Pie added the plural at a lisp.

Tabu rose his head to find the skonies smiling at him. Jasmine’s soft expression told him he’d be allowed.

“Of course,” She nodded her head in a slight bow to the zebra. “What sort of princess of friendship would I be if I didn’t extend a branch to you?”

Tabu stiffened, rings in his mane clinking off his glasses. “You’re a princess!?”

“Oh yeah…” Cattleya frowned. “I guess we didn’t tell’im that did we?”

“Well, the Castle is kind of a clue.” Minty opined.

“I miss when it was wood…” Gingershy murmured.

“Yes, I am a Princess…” Jasmine shot a shushing gesture at her friends, before returning her gaze to Tabu. “And you’re very lucky Tabu, you’ve landed in a very nice place.”

“New friend, new friend!” Pinkie bounced in the background, tail fluffing in the air, scenting it cake and berries.

Lavender pointed her nose towards the book. “Are you trying to find the Skony from your photo, darling? I could make a few calls if you remember their face…”

Tabu thought back to the memory, a zebra barely entering the academy finding a fluffy giant on a riverbank, mostly hidden in leaves.

“I don’t…the only thing I know is that they were orange and smelled of sage and something else…”

Cattleya sidled up. “Well we’ll keep an eye out, in the meantime do you need anything?”

A draft made Tabu once again aware he was naked. “Oh! My poncho…if you wouldn’t mind…” He looked around at the bare skunks in front of him and felt suddenly sheepish. “I’m not sure of the custom here, but I have a preference you see…”

“That’s fine,” said Jasmine, though her eyes told him she had bad news. “Though I’m sorry to say your poncho got damaged in the fall.

“It was all crispy!” Pinkie chirped. “But no smoke, weeeeirrrrrd”

Tabu’s eyes widened. “I loved that poncho…”

“That decides it!” Lavender was up on the table again paws pat-patting against the crystal surface.

“Decides what?” Cattleya tilted her head.

“Where he’ll be staying of course…” Like looping cursive Lavender flowed past her compatriots, Tabu attempted to shrink back as she swathed past his front only to find himself pressing back into a curl of her larger body, an ivory-purple cloud of a tail crossing over his front like an overbearing lap bar to keep him in place. “Let me design for you, dear…” The slight growl she put into the word ‘design’ made the zebra suddenly feel edible.

“Wait! He still has to judge something!” Pinkie yelled, irate.

Jasmine glanced back at her. “Leave it, Pinkie, we have to make sure he’s comfortable first.” Upon seeing this didn’t mollify the increasingly frizzy pink skonie, she added. “Plus his judging won’t be at its best until he’s settled.”

Pinkie paused, her fur deflated with a pomph, going slightly down into a droopy, more gothic look before bouncing back into its usual springy peachiness. “Good point…” She rubbed her chin before making an ‘I’m Watching You’ gesture at Tabu with her foreclaws. “Tomorrow then.”

The zebra, for his part, stared in confusion. “A-alright…” He shook his mane out. “Well if it gets me a new poncho.” He shrugged. “Plus I have to sleep somewhere, not to say the castle wasn’t lovely.”

The tail across his front pressed its cashmere weight a little more firmly to his chest, the scent of lavender rushing against his face as the air shifted. Lavender curled to look at him more fully.

“Delightful!~” she sing songed before bringing up a foreclaw to trace one of the stripes on Tabu’s cheek, the Zebra’s ears shot up straight, his pale portions pinkening. “I can’t wait to get a look at these stripes.”

Before anyskonie could argue, her tail completed a loop around Tabu’s back and he found himself gently compressed in cushiony fur as it secured a grip. He was hefted above her haunches with ease as she stood.

“Toodaloo dears!” She began to pad out the door with Tabu trailing in the wake of her sauntering haunches. He’d managed to get one hoof free and was pawing at the fluffy ring that encompassed his entire body like a burrito. His hoof vanished into its volume. Sensing he wasn’t going to get out of this he opted to wave with it instead.

“Wait, Lavender!” Jasmine started, standing with surprise.

“Can’t hear yooouuu fashion emergency!”

Tabu watched the shrinking Jasmine start in their direction before Gingershy of all people gently draped her drapey willowbranch of a tail in her way.

“No…” She whispered gently.

Jasmine blinked, raising a brow at her sun-colored friend. “No?”

“It’s best we let her get it out of her system…I’ve been her model before…” Fluttershy said, staring after the pair.

“She’s right.” Cattleya nodded. “Best get it out of the way early.”

“Fine…” Jasmine blew a breath through her lips before calling out. “Just have him to the town square by noon tomorrow!” She paused, then after a moment’s thought continued. “And be gentle!”

“I will darlings!”Lavender sang before she was out through the castle door, and on the way to Carosel boutique.

In Scentsational Style

Author's Note

More Tabu in Scentquestria!

Not gonna lie the lack of commentary and the 50/50 thumb bar has been discouraging, but I'm having fun so onwards! Still commentary is appreciated.

Bouncybrownbear has been busy! Since this is a "Rarity" chapter, have her lovely take on Lavender!

In Scentsational Style

The day started in a very similar way to the last time Tabu had woken up. A fluttered opening of the eyes, abject confusion at a giant, very fancy bedroom -with a terrace bed goodness- and a quick scan over all that had happened to him in the past two days.
He remembered Lavender marching him through Skonieville on a literal cloud. Her tail was stronger than it looked, the fluffy puffball of an appendage hefting him like a doll, his hooves hanging over a lilac loop that gently cinched against his barrel. He hadn’t known what to do with his limbs. She was just…touching him all over in satiny skonie fluff, and the only response to it he could muster was a gentle kind of panic as she took him where she wanted to go.

Lavender ignored the various skonies whose gazes followed in her wake. Tabu was, frankly, mostly hidden from sight, but his striped, poncho-less head cut an odd figure. His impromptu audience seemed to know better than to stop a Lavender on the move, and the fading crowds milling about in the evening light parted around her like a fashionable knife through butter.

Eventually, they reached a building that looked like a beautiful fairground celebration ride. The words ‘Carousel Bouquet’ were spelled on a sign above the door in looping cursive script. Lavender unrolled him from her plush grasp onto the floor.
His orders had been “Get some rest, we start early!”

Swept off into the bedroom like a dust bunny caught up in the world’s purplest, most pleasantly scented broom, the door had been closed, and he’d been left to his own devices.

In the morning Tabu was swept right back out, spring cleaning style, at the crack of dawn.

Now he sat in the center of a dressing room, surrounded by mirrors and feeling incredibly vulnerable. He kept shifting in attempts to casually cross either set of legs. Lavender shuffled through the fabric closet at the other end of the room as he eyed himself.
Tabu did not make an overly large habit of looking in mirrors. Most of the time when he saw his reflection he was half asleep, or looking at a beaker.

He also usually had his poncho. New clothes were the one part of the coming activity he wasn’t nervous about. Sweet, precious coverings.
The zebra’s eyes strayed to his Kusudi, the zebra equivalent of a cutie mark, where his stripes swirled and bent into a sigil. His in particular, with its curving, occasionally jagged lines, looked a bit like lines of text from a book. Roughly It meant ‘Discovery’, and had set him down the path he now found himself on.

He hadn’t expected Discovery to involve so much nudity and haute couture.

“Ah, perfect, perfect, perfect!” sang Lavender from the fabric closet. She trotted primly out into the dressing room, a large basket pulled behind her in the curl of her tail’s tip, beyond its massive fold. The basket was full to bursting with fabrics of all colors, every roll shimmered with a quality thread count. “It's not every day you get to design for an extra-dimensional client!” She pranced in place, perfectly peti’d foreclaws clicking lightly against the blue and white checkerboard floor.

Lavender’s tail frizzed as she caught herself. “Oop! Dear me, one must control one’s self.” She put one foreclaw in front of the other, striking a lovely figure as her tail plumed behind her. “My apologies.”

Most of Tabu’s meetings with the Skonies had been fast, worried affairs with six of them all vying for his attention. In the rainbow cloud of distraction, taking in their individual fine details had been rather hard now though, in isolation, it was difficult not to be a little shocked at how pretty Lavender was.

Her mane fell into a perfectly quaffed curly Q, a gem like a sapphire in the middle of her head slightly obscured by the flowing hair. Her fur was pristine white and tended to lag when she moved, her fur so light and fluffy it obeyed newton’s law in tandem with her mane. Unlike Pinkie, Lavender’s underbelly was the same color as the rest of her. The pure white was only broken by her diamond cutie mark, and the twin, perfectly combed purple stripes that cut lines down her back. They stayed purple until they got to her tail, which was perhaps the largest, plum-colored object Tabu had ever seen. There, the color scheme inverted, purple becoming the main color as pale streaks, like trails of rich cream, cut through the periwinkle plume, arcing up over its fold.

Where the waterfall of fluff bent into its pristine curl, the diamond patterns of Lavender’s tail appeared between the stripes. Perfect, geometric shapes. At the end of the pattern, her stripes met into a final diamond, the effect was a bit like a quill nib that had just finished writing the most elegant cursive.

“Your mouth’s open darling…” Lavender gently nudged.

Tabu’s jaw flapped shut with a click. “I-I’m sorry!” He bowed his head. “Truly my gawking isn’t lecherous!” He peeked up hopeful she believed him. “It’s just, I’ve been researching skonies since my encounter with your kind before. There’s barely a handful of detailed sketches, never a full picture. To be among you like this is…” He wobbled a bit. “I’d never fainted in my life before yesterday, but I’m afraid the number might double.”

Lavender smiled with a laugh. “It’s quite alright, Tabu…” She waved a foreclaw. “I don’t look this fabulous for people not to take it in.” The slight dewlap of fur that pillowed amid her collarbone puffed noticeably as she preened. “Besides, if anyone cannot throw stones in this glass house it’s me…”

She closed the distance between them at a perfect trot, putting her foreclaws up on the dais in the center of the dressing room. Tabu was reminded once again of how large she was. It was easy to forget, with the silk curtain of her voice and mannerable ways, that she was two heads higher than him standing, and more on her haunches.

Lavender looked down at him with an apologetic smile on a muzzle the width of a small school desk. “I’m sorry for staring at your stripes, and getting a little obsessed last night.” She flipped her curly bang from her eye to look at him fully with both. “You are a scientist?” She went on without him answering, the words more of a gentle reminder she’d been paying attention than a genuine question. “Well perhaps we are similar.”

Tabu blinked. “Are we?” Still awestruck and off balance words tumbled out of the zebra like a badly balanced cereal cupboard. “Because compared to you I think I’m wet garbage.”

Lavender gave a laugh of surprise. “Do not undersell yourself, darling!” Lavender hopped easily onto the dais beside him. Tabu felt the blanket of her tail curl its heat across his front. The fresh scent of lavender made itself softly familiar with his fur as she sat. “Your stripes are fabulous, skonies only get a few, complex stripe designs are lauded and praised for their beauty…” Her eyes lit up. “And your whole body is one!” Her voice teetered on the edge of mania before seeming to fall back onto a couch of etiquette. “Forgive me darling. What I mean to say by similarity is that we are both interested in our topics to an extreme degree, hm?” The light hum at the end of her sentence was a pleasant chirp that gently vibrated against Tabu’s side.

“Hm.” Tabu matched the note without thinking. “O-oh I mean yes! Arts and sciences are more similar than people assume! It’s really a matter of taxonomy…”

“Indeed!” She nodded. “So, I will forgive your staring, if you will forgive a lady’s overzealous nature, yes?”

Tabu found a genuine smile slipping onto his face. “Sounds like a grand proposal.”

Lavender chuckled and gently flowed away from the zebra back to her basket, her tail drew along his side, buffeting to the sway of her haunches. Tabu found himself leaning against it as it left, letting it comb under his chin and stumbling in lavender’s violet wake as the striped landing strip left.

“Now darling, do you have a favorite color?” Lavender asked, eyeing the basket, before turning back to him with a playful bat of her lashes. “I’ll forgive you if you don’t say purple.”

Tabu swalloed. “Well, red…deep red, would burgundy be a better word?”

“Oooh, fabulous choice…” She nodded in approval.

Tabu smiled. “Thank you, how long have you been a seamstress by the way?”

The plum banner at Lavender’s rear frizzed as her face spread into an unreadable expression.

“Oh I’m sorry! Is that not the proper term? Designer?” Tabu lifted a hoof in apology.

The expression on Lavender’s face unfolded into a laugh. “No, no darling it’s fine…” Her smile crinkled her eyes slightly. “It’s just that I’m rather famous in these parts, if I may ‘Toot my own horn’ as Cattleya might say. It’s been a really long time since anyone called me a Seamstress.” She sat back on her haunches. “I must say, it is perhaps a bit refreshing. Hm!” She gave a pleased little shrug before her gem began to glow.

Tabu gasped. “Oh wait!”

The light fizzled. “Pardon?”

The zebra had stopped himself on the edge of the dais before barreling off. “Skunicorn magic!” He looked as though he wanted to hop off the platform, but it was just a bit too high. “I theorized that you might use it slightly less than your full-equine counter parts since you have fairly usable digits on your forlimbs…”

“I…uh…” Lavender blinked.

“Sorry I-” Tabu finally chanced the leap and landed mostly well in front of the dais before scrambling in her direction. “It’s just there’s never been a recorded instance of its use in Equestrian records!” His eyes darted to his choker, then to her gem. “My magic, and your magic are different! I’m extremely curious I just uh-” He froze, before his face screwed up and he said something in a language the Skonie wouldn’t have recognized. “I forgot my notebook in the crystal tree I-”

The torrent of words was stoppered by a single, large padded foredigit. It was incredibly soft.

“You know, Tabu dear, you remind me of a friend of mine.”

“Eh doh?” Tabu muffled.

“Quite…” With a chuckle Lavender removed her claw. “There’s no need for a fuss, you’ll be here for at least a few days. Jasmine or I will be happy to give more demonstrations, just enjoy the show.”

Tabu looked unsure, but saw the sense in her words and nodded.

“Back on to the dais please, my dear subject?” She made a playful shooing motion with a foreclaw.

Tabbu walked, somewhat embarrassed, back to the dais, before realizing that the stairs to get up to it was in a different direction entirely, making up a catwalk like construction, and unlike a skonie, he was too small to jump.

He turned sheepishly towards his host to explain his error, only to find Lavender had turned around with a playful roll of her eyes. Her tail gently shoved its fold up under his surprised, fidgeting legs like a soft snow shovel. Lavender slowly hiked her hinds and Tabu fell onto his side at the slow change in elevation. The lush lilac and cream down swallowed half his body before the fold rose and gently rolled him off her tail onto the dais like a blushing hay sausage off a spatula.

After a moment’s surprise laying there, Tabu said, “Thank you…”

“You’re welcome dear, now, magic remember?”

Tabu was on his hooves at the edge of the dais in a moment, watching with rapt attention.

Lavender giggled at his excitement and gently closed her eyes, striking a bit more of a fancy figure than she might have without an audience. The gem on her forehead lit up lightly, and before Tabu’s eyes, a nebulous halo of light began to flow from it.

The light flowed down her purple stripe in a smooth rush until its colors inverted. The glow spread to the streaks of white along her tail where it cast the room in a brilliant, clean, soft light. From Lavender’s stripe, a sparkly purple plume of scent rose, the smell of the fresh flowers increasing in the room as her scent concentrated into the shape of a hand, it reached into the basket with a slight shake of her voluminous tail and retrieved some of the deepest red fabric Tabu had ever seen. Smaller tendrils of scent drifted off from the main stream like splitting smoke, wrapping around a spool of golden thread and a sewing kit.

Tabu watched, fascinated as another tendril of scent undulated from Lavender’s tail, reaching for a large pair of scissors. The skonie seemed to do some internal calculations before some of her scent wrapped around the end of the red spool and pulled, reeling out more than enough fabrice to cover the zebra before the hand construct holding the scissors cut a smooth line along the material to separate it from the spool.
Task done, the scissors were replaced. Lavender’s construct hands, holding the now separated fabric, ran together, fusing until the entire square was covered in an undulating halo of scent, translucent purple gently pouring off anything the magic surrounded.

The red fabric was placed on a work table. Lavender’s scent released it before retrieving a measuring tape.

“Construct magic!” Tabu vibrated on the dias. “Scent constructs to be precise. Tell me, if your scent is altered does it affect your casting ability?” He paused before more queries tumbled from his lips. “Is it considered impolite to use magic on others because it would leave your scent on them?” Lavender opened her mouth, but Tabu kept going. “Do different spells smell different I-”

The scent of purple flowers inundated Tabu’s senses as a construct claw covered most of his face.

“Darling, remember when I said Jasmine and I would give more…” Lavender groped for a word. “Education..focused displays later?”

Tabu nodded, the construct at his lips felt a bit like a ‘Mochi’ desert he had tried in the Kirin kingdoms, but more pillowy.

“Good, then save your questions for after the fitting…” Lavender chuckled.

The scent construct shushing the zebra dissipated, Tabu inhaled on accident and got a slight drag of lavender for his trouble, twin streams of purple exited his nostrils in a small snort of surprise. As Lavender’s chuckle turned into more of a giggle, he scented something else under her usual smell, his face clouded in confusion.

Lavender seemed to pick up on this. “Oh!” She put a claw to her lips in consideration, before rolling her eyes and pressing on. “Well alright, one academic explanation, then we stick to fashion hm?”

Tabu’s confusion vanished as he nodded enthusiastically.

“You smelled something besides my namesake just now?”

Another nod. “Yeah…it was…fuzzy…”

Lavender’s tail gently swayed behind her. “Well, you’ve probably just gotten a sample of my true scent. Everyskonie has one.”

“True scent?” Tabu tilted his head.

“Yes, it comes when we get our cutie marks, a scent under the one you’re most known for, that only comes out either in times of high emotion or when a skonie is being her truest self!” She gave a happy little shake, gathering up her dewlap with her foreclaws. “I must be having fun.”

“That’s fascinating!” Tabu desperately wished for his notes. “What’s your true scent?”

Lavender barked a laugh of surprise, before recovering with a claw at the end of her muzzle. “Dear, that is not the most polite of questions.” She headed off Tabu’s apology by raising the same claw. “It’s alright, you can’t have known, but between skonies, figuring out another’s true scent, and stating it accurately is a mark of closeness.”

“I see…” said Tabu, lightly chastised. “Well thank you for telling me, I won’t ask, but I will try to figure it out!”

Lavender smirked at the challenge. “The game’s afoot then, though in the mean time…”

Two scent constructs stretched a measuring tape between them with a gentle snap.

“Are you ticklish?”

As it turned out Tabu was in fact very ticklish. Measuring his limbs hadn’t been the worst, a gentle mix of the massive fashionista bending forward to get a view of the tape’s reading, and artful use of constructs. Though Tabu squirmed regardless, having such close eyes on his body.

This was nothing compared to the squirming that was generated when Lavender went to measure Tabu’s barrel, the mochi-soft scent constructs drawing silken measuring tape across his striped hide sent the zebra into hysterics.

This was only rectified after Lavender’s patience at clenched and folded limbs had been exhausted. With a huff of frustration, scent had risen from her tail and gently trussed the zebra up in wafting ribbons, tying either leg firmly to the ground, and offering him little option but to wiggle as she walked around him and got the numbers she needed.

“Are you sure you want something so drapey as a replacement?” She asked converastionally, walking around to his hinds, as if she didn’t have him strung to the dias like a pinned butterfly. “You have lovely haunches.”

Though the compliment was almost approvingly academic, pink was introduced to Tabu’s color palet. Once again several things raced to his mouth, the one that escaped was, “You too…”

A momentary silence settled over the pair, before Tabu squeaked. “Sorry…”

Lavender chuckled. “No need to apologize darling…” She flowed back into the process of getting all of Tabu’s measurements, she stood on his right, her tail curled around the back of his entire body to his left to gently tap his chin up with the light curl at its tip. “ There are few bad compliments in good company.”Head up, collar measurements.”

Tabu tried to ignore the warmth of the mauve mass immersing his form and did as he was bid. “But really I-”

“We’ll chalk it up to a healthy interest in science.” Lavender laughed. “Besides, I just brushed them today, they’re very fluffy besides.”
Tabu was unsure what to do with this information, so opted for a change of topic.

“You said you were famous around these parts,” he hazarded. “Jasmine said she was a princess of some sort, are you one as well?”

Lavender positively glowed at the assertation, pausing in wrapping the measuring tape around his neck in an smooth, flat line. “Oh you gentleman.” With a giggle, she fluffed her tail and took a moment to do the same to her dewlap with her claws. “While I wouldn’t turn down the position, no, Jasmine is the only princess in Skonieville, the others live off in Aromalot and the Emerald kingdom.

“Ah!” Tabu’s excitement to learn about Skonie culture was somewhat hampered by the fact a construct was still holding a measuring tape around his neck with just enough pressure to make him very aware of his breathing, his glasses twitched as he wiggled his nose. “So it’s similar to my world then. Two main princesses with auxiliary semi-monarchs! Where I’m from these main bodies are called Celestia and Luna.”

Lavender’s brow quirked. “Well, darling, that’s similar but not quiet. Here their names are Scentlestia and Chamomile.”

Tabu gulped past the measuring tape. “Facinating…I so wish I had my notebook!”

The measuring tape tightened around his neck slightly. “You’ll just have to make do with my company in the meantime.” The fashionably fragrant skonie chuckled demurely before leaning a large pink nose close to Tabu’s throat and taking the reading. She removed the silk from the zebra’s neck with an appraising noise.

“S-somehow I’ll manage…” Tabu fidgeted, glancing down at his scent-bound limbs, ropes of slowly undulating, smoke-in-sunbeam scent trails connecting him to her voluminous perfume puff with slightly worrying ease. “How many more measurements do you need?”

The measuring tape, held at her side in a magical grasp, rolled into a perfect circle with a soft snap, though she did not remove herself from the small equine’s bubble. “That’s all of them!”

Tabu wiggled in her hold. “Oh! Well then…” He made a polite gesture with his head towards his bound hooves. “Can I move now?”

“If you want…” Lavender’s voice held a solicitous question like a bouquet of flowers in a pretty basket. “However…” She leaned in a little closer still and Tabu pinkened as he felt her eyes combing over the stripes on his neck. Her muzzle was very close to him as her breath panned over the side of his jaw to his ear. “I wouldn’t mind a little examination…”

The squeak this assertation wrung from the zebrican scientist was hardly audible. Lavender ignored this and pressed on, walking past him on the dias and beginning to examine his back patterns along with his curly, close-spun dreadlocks.

“As I said, we are similar, you are the first ‘Pony’ I have encountered and I’m very curious.” Her tail curled in a close C in her wake, its fluffy bulk covering Tabu from chin to hooves in a living plum duvet. Lavender’s scent was still magically visible, holding his hooves to the ground. It began to curl and break around his muzzle as Lavender’s fresh laundry fragrance filled his senses. Were it not for her tail’s zebra swallowing volume Tabu might have fallen over. “Head straight darling, I want to see your patterns.” Tabu’s makeshift shawl flowed upwards until it buried his chin amid its cream-colored stripe enough to actually move it, correcting his posture. Curious lavender scent trails were pushed from its volume in twin puffs from the pressure, before it split and curled about his dreadlocks, just magical enough to be felt as a wispy touch.

“I-I uh well…I-I mean I…uh….I-I’m glad you have such an interest!” He peeped.

“Quite…Darling?” She prompted. “Would you mind if I shared a Skonie custom?”

Tabu felt the familiar pressure of too many words crowding around the exit door of his mouth. He really needed to get that particular method of egress up to fire code. Several words had to fuse to get past. “Notatall.”

A prim giggle, the curly cue tip of Lavender’s tail curled until it almost met her nose, Tabu caught in its crook as the luscious fur luxuriously pressed into every surface it met like a liquid. “When two skonies become friends in our culture, they snuffle…” Her tail pressed insistantly against his nose. If it weren’t for the zebra’s glasses he would have been utterly blinded in mauve, as it stood it simply dominated most of his vision. “How would you appraise my scent?”

Lavender’s voice fished for compliments with the quiet surety of someone who regularly won prizes at the bass weigh in.

“I uh…w-well I…” Adjectives, verbs, nouns, and more scrabbled for superposition on Tabu’s tongue. “It’s…” One won out, and it was the word that had crossed his mind whenever he looked at her in a quiet moment. “Exquisite…” The word chased puffs of purple out around his mouth and nostrils as they humidified Lavender’s fluff.”

He felt the pluming appendage puff out with pride at the compliment, it’s volume doubling in a way that vanished him from sight beyond a few stray duochrom dreadlocks.

“Eehe~ Oh you sweetheart…” She said, mostly to her own fluff, before her cashmere curl relaxed a bit and let him slump forwards, almost tripping as his hooves were still pinned. She completed her circle around him and Tabu squeak-choked as a pink nose the size of a tea saucer pressed into the side of his jaw just under his ear. “I’ll have to work a bit harder to get your scent, pardon my proximity.”

He felt her nostrils flair against his neck and suddenly Tabu was extremely self conscious of his scent. He was a cleanly zebra, bit what if he smelled of dimensional portals, or alchemical ingredients. There were more than a few unpleasant scents in the latter category and half his mind whirred off listing the possible trace elements on his coat, while the other half sputtered and smoked.

“HFfdbufzarbadu!” The words queuing at his mouth gave up and decided to revolt in a jumble of letters.

“Let me know if I’m being overbearing…” Her breath was warm against his ear. “Skonie culture is very close and affectionate. “She was casual in her occupation of the grand majority of his faculties. “You are hard to smell, particularly in a room of excited skonies. I need your scent to truely capture you in fabric and thread.”

She took a deep inhale, the air rushing into her nose froze the back of Tabu’s neck for a moment before an exhale soothed it with slow warmth. “Jasmine was right, you do smell like books…and something…” A short series of snuffles. “Medicinal…”

“I-I’m sorry Iworkwithchemicalsan-”

Lavender’s foreclaws draping over Tabu’s back clamped his mouth shut with a welding torch.

“It’s fine darling…” She hugged him to the fluff of her chest, it had a slightly more cottony texture than the luxurious, long strands of her tail. He was reminded of being tossed into a pile of freshly lauded blankets. Her scent surrounded him, he could feel it gently clinging to his mane and tail. “You smell how you smell, if you didn’t smell like yourself, it wouldn’t be right. The whole bouquet must be appreciated.” She gave him a gentle hug. “Thank you for letting me help to welcome you to our etiquette.”

“O-ohnothankyouI-” A prepared paragraph fell out of Tabu’s mouth as he managed to loosen the rivets. The effect was like a burst dam.
She shushed him with a little squeeze before letting her foreclaws slumph from his shoulders to pad over to her work table, climbing off the dias like a high-fashion snow leopard as her tail buffeted his side gently, her scent finally loosened from his hooves, forming diamond and jewel patterns as it dissipated in her wake, the curled tip flicked one of Tabu’s dreadlocks.

“Mutual thanks then, my dear Tabu.” She eyed the fabric on the work table. “It’ll take me a day to make your new cloak. I noticed some runes on your old one. If you can get me some reference material by the end of today I can work them into the new one too.”

Tabu stopped staring at his now freed legs, the golden rings in his mane and on his tail clinking as he came to attention. “That would be wonderful!”

Lavender gave an approving nod at his excitement. “So it shall be then!” She declared as some scent trailed off her tail, gem glowing, it grabbed a pen and a sketch book. “I’ll begin post haste.”

“Fantastic!” Tabu felt like jumping, his excursion into another dimension was going swimmingly. In his wildest dreams he’d never expected to be so welcomed. The lack of hiccups over the course of events was startling.

There was a knock at the door.

Lavender stiffened with a slight hum of annoyance. “Now who could that be?” She mused aloud, before recalling yesterday. “Oh, probably Jasmine here to make sure I don’t keep you too long…” She rose from the corner table and flowed towards the main room. Tabu eyed the jump from the dias, making it at a clumsy leap before following behind as she opened the door.

The guess was correct, Jasmine stood in the door, but instead of the lilac skony’s usual demeanor, her face was lined with worry.
“Jasmine?” Lavender’s voice was weighted with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Jasmine glanced towards Tabu, then back to her friend. “I don’t think Tabu was the only thing to come through that gate yesterday…”

There was a distant sound like a horrible engine failing to start, all three gathered creatures stiffened.

“Follow me…” Jasmine said seriously, before turning and sprinting out the door.

“Oh dear…” Lavender pouted. “I guess designing will have to wait…” She lifted a foreclaw, turning to Tabu. “Come, this concerns you too.”
She trailed out the door, Tabu only hesitated for a second or two, before following behind, hoping against hope that whatever was making the sound in the town square was benign.