"I'll pulverize your skull into dust, mix it with your blood, and use it to jack myself off!" the rather crude Pegasus bellowed at his opponent, who was visibly shaking with fear.
"And when I'm done, I'll squirt down your headless, gaping throat!"
The other pegasus was sweating now, but still holding his own with the little gladius he called his own.
Sgt. Scar, however, weilded his massive spiked warhammer with terrifying speed and power, bellowing vulgar curses and threats all the while while his matted beard flopped and his blind eyes bulged.
Who knew a blind Pegasus could be so utterly terrifying and capable?
Not Iron Clad.
Iron made the mistake of trying to fool Scar with a feint, and that lead to a dent in his armor and a minor concussion. Training, for now, was over, and Iron went off to the nearest Inn outside the fortress walls to try and drown the headache in liquor; the harshest possible.
He stumbled inside and ignored the laughter of some of the other Pegasi and sat at the bar. Wordlessley, Iron pointed with his hoof and received a pint of the inkeeper's homemade Crater Mud. Really a vile mixture, but damn was it strong. It took three pints, but soon Iron, almost dead, went out into a nearbye alley and fell into a sleep. Safe, he knew; Pegasi do not rob one another. Simple fact.
"Riadgh iadgar biadkiadt, riadk gokar ri!" came a hushed voice. The sheer gutteral, rough, hideous nature of whatever that was could wake even the sleepiest of Northern Giants.
"Dak, sheeah bgokarsruthánt tléirkiad; ik vill chgokulsr uthánb ib!"
But as ugly as the tongue was . . . it seemed vaugly familiar to Rainbow Dash.
"Jee, jee, jee; rléirk glak chléirk gogihn!"
"Bléirgarléirgh."
"Vléirtho'sruthángh!"
"Dak."
Ah. Her great granfather Vista. He was a linguistics expert at Cloudsdale College. He spoke thirty-one different languages. His absolute favorite, was Old Pegasus.
"Tsruthánghaalléirr tho'sruthánvléirch tho'gok; jee."
Once, Rainbow had been interested in it, but when Vista had spent the entirety of one day trying to teach her, the sheer complexity and harshness of it hurt her brain. Every word had a hundred variants, each longer and more complex to pronounce. The Equish tongue normally utilized the front of the mouth, but the Pegasus Old Tongue used front, middle, and back of the mouth, as well as several clicks and ticks and grunts. It was absolutely ridiculous, and Rainbow went home with a migrane.
Her eyes bolted open.
Above her, was the yellow cloth of canvas. She was in a bag.
"Hey!" she cried, and immiately began thrashing again.
"Braster; braster, braster, braster—vsekh!"
"Let me outta here!" Rainbow cried, tearing the thick canvas at last. But not before two sets of hooves got to her. Rainbow cried out in pain as her mane was yanked from the top of the bag, her head coming with it.
She got a very up-close and personal look at an angry brown stallion, spittle dripping from his nasty teeth and his large eyebrows furrowed, a sivler helm with a yellow plume on his head.
"Lladd töte léir sie!?" he threatened through his grit teeth.
"Oi, oi, oi," said the other stallion, whom Rainbow could not turn her head to see.
"Lawr veshk, lawr veshk."
The stallion hurting Rainbow curled his lip and threw her back into the solid wooden wagon.
Rainbow, despite herself, felt tears of pain, fright, and utter confusion trickle down her cheeks.
She was very obviously going to die, or worse.
Suddenly, the other staillion, gray and blue, this time but with the same armor, floated into the wagon with her, and she saw that he was a pegasus.
Rainbow shrunk away.
"Oi," said the blue stallion, "Oi—Heye, yov speake onlli Equish?"
Rainbow's eyes widened, and she nodded, feeling a blossom of hope in her breast.
"Do naght be afrayed; you wille bicome safe."
The blue stallion spoke his Equish very airily, with an accent, and prounced every syllable like he was very insistent that the big Bouncer let him inside the club, as he was very rich and very important.
"Where am I?" Rainbow rasped.
The blue stallion frowned. "Wee are neare SkyClad, the capitol of the Pegasus Tribe."
Rainbow sat and processed. It was like she had been transported back to the Medieval times long before Celestia or Luna ever came to be. Not impossible, given the world she lived in, but if that were true, she was completey screwed; and it happened for no reason.
No, she decided that, instead, these stallions were crazy.
"Waddaya need me for?"
"Wee are takinge yov too Commander Hurricane. Wee shalle be inn a grande felaweshipe, eh?"
Rainbow let herself sink. She was far too weak and in pain to try and deal with this now. She decided, quite irrationally, that she would go back to sleep and deal with everything when she woke up. Or perhaps this was all a nightmare brought on by Twilight's potion, and she would wake up in her cloud home in a few hours.
She was wrong.