Tropical Sorrows

by Microshazm

3. Techno Thunder

3. Techno Thunder

~ It was a society remarkably adverse to feelings that we consider as being natural.

Sounds of composite cables attaching themselves to Dina’s hull protruded through all the gasping and screaming that was taking place inside. While the rest were too worried of their fate to think about much else, Claude was already having nightmares considering Dina’s next repair bill, the paint job alone wasn’t a cheap fix.

The craft had only taken a few metres of freefall before the black cables had caught it, and it was now in steady descent with all electronics still offline. Claude did a quick check on the passengers: Twilight and Fluttershy were both shaking, whereas Rarity had taken refuge in fainting; Applejack was looking casual, as if she’d been expecting the ruckus; Pinkie Pie was certainly surprised but showed no signs of fear or worry; Rainbow Dash was demonstrating symptoms of claustrophobia, trying almost desperately to open the door – firmly stuck in place by the cables – and exit the craft. Then there was Kakara holding Rarity’s precious sunbonnet, which had been rendered unusable by some unfortunate mishap in the middle of things.

“On a des chapeaus, gar. Nous allons trouver un nouveau, peut-être.” It was never tough to make the kid smile after such an incident, and Claude knew that. When Claude settled in Jakarta, Kakara was practically there waiting for him, the first to offer his aid in all the trivial, albeit very much necessary, things. Claude was glad to have the boy around, himself having been a lone wolf type for a good part of his life, it was the most stable relationship he’d ever had with a real person, excluding close relatives. Kakara didn’t seem too unhappy himself, even if the pairing was comically eccentric.

Little by little, as the craft slowly neared the ground, their eyes got used to the evening Sun’s dim rays. Despite the cleared landing spot, the scenery was dominated by trees of varying sizes, which would emphasize the upcoming darkness. Claude cleared Rainbow Dash away from the exit, telling her to wake up Rarity so that they all could step outside, when the cables would let go.

All around the craft was filled by the forest, all but a single stuccoed block approximately three by three by three metres in size. A small, lit window indicated it housed something, but one couldn’t see what was inside. The humid air dripped of ozone created by the net structure that was practically invisible now that it wasn’t active.

Upon disembarking, the group was greeted by two solemn figures, the sight of which had little effect on the ponies, who were focused on having solid earth beneath their hooves. The two dark-skinned men were dressed in long, dark blue felt coats that resembled uniforms used in many naval units around the globe. They both held ceremonial spears with shafts made of wood, and the heads were like opened jackknives welded into a metal gear the size of a large fist. They also wore helmets which bore strong resemblance to the kitchen colanders one might use in one’s home. The only difference in their turnout were the ornamental patterns in their spears made of the white and yellow tail feathers of the lesser bird-of-paradise – one had more yellow in his than the other.

“Meeka sieltae tou lé?” the yellow one began, hiding his anxiety, while the other leaned a little to take a look behind Claude. The yellow one quickly noticed his comrade’s jaw dropping, but it didn’t take long for him to join in, as six pastel colored ponies exited the craft one by one, behaving oddly and speaking a language he couldn’t understand. “Sieltae tou lé maalee! Ti vas varyele!” The duo turned around and sprinted towards the small, cube-shaped building.

“Attendez! Arrêtez!” Claude’s cries were in vain, the men didn’t even slow down, and in a matter of seconds they were inside with the door shut and firmly locked. Claude didn’t chase after them, he just let out a bunch of swears and sat down on the doorstep of the aircraft.

Rarity was plainly prancing around, happy that she was alive, while Applejack was kissing the ground with unmatched ardour. Fluttershy was busy oohing and aahing at the new environment as was Rainbow Dash, but for negative reasons since she didn’t dare to go flying in the dusk. Pinkie Pie had trotted over to the building and was knocking on its door. “Helloo-o? Why did you go inside? You looked like you were scared of us. You sillies, why would you be scared? We haven’t even met, and it’s not like we’re monsters or anything. I’m Pinkie Pie, I’m from Ponyville, and...”

Twilight was the first to reattain normal behaviour. “Claude, what’s the matter?”

“I’m not leaving Dina alone with the locals. Their village isn’t very far, you can go there. Je doit attendre un peu ici.” Claude pointed at a spot in the forest, where Twilight instantly spotted some tribesmen and -women, though they were remarkably different from the two greeters they’d just met. These ones looked normal, or as normal as one expects tribespeople to look like.

All men wore a piece of cotton cloth around their waists that was held up by a belt of weaved straw, while the women wore simple, blond, cotton dresses. Their hairstyles were quite uniform as well: long hair tied to a type of topknot with strands of weeds or colourful feathers. Certainly more intriguing than their clothes were the colours in the men’s skins. Deep shades of blue and green in a chequerboard pattern that changed into complex ornaments from the neck up. The women bore nothing but their natural dark brown.

There was one last thing Twilight noticed: every single one carried a knife of some kind in their belts. Many kinds of blades were present – all of them carefully sheathed; she could spot cleavers, bowie knives, small pocket knives – clearly a symbol of status for the tribespeople.

“I’m not sure I want to go anywhere,” she said, “you know these people, Claude, you should come with us.” She briefly checked if the others had similar thoughts and picked up iffy murmuring about the knives from all of them. Turning back to Claude she saw the man was rolling his eyes.

“Madame, I’m not your chasseur blanc. I’m a victim of circumstance, mais I want to find Madame ‘Emsy like you do. Alors, you ‘ave my support, n’est-ce pas?” Claude formed a makeshift megaphone around his mouth. “Klapi! C’est Claude! Viens-ici!” The spectating tribespeople repeated Claude’s call like a distorted echo. For a short while nothing happened, until an adolescent boy about fifteen years of age appeared from the bushes and walked up to Claude and the ponies.

“Valcoyné py rou!” the boy shouted at Claude, who nodded back. The boy, Klapi, was dressed like the other men but wasn’t painted due to his young age. The knife in his belt looked more like a letter opener than a proper blade. “Ya, ya, ya, yx, k’ax, kous. Kestit koudel.” Klapi held up six fingers as he goggled at Claude, while slowly turning his face around that made his hairdo flip over from one side of his head to the other. Both men smiled, though Claude a bit more profoundly.

“Oui, c’est parfait,” he answered. Klapi ran back to the edge of the clearing and yelled out something to make most of the other tribespeople leave, only two men and himself staying put. Claude watched as they took positions by the trail that led away into the dark forest.

”Ecoutez, les poneys! Pack your things, and Klapi will take you to the village. Who knows, maybe they 'old you a feast.” Claude barely had time to draw his mouth shut before Pinkie surprised him from behind the aircraft:

”Did you say feast! That's just super, I love feasting almost as much as I love partying!”

”That's jus' great, Pinkie,” Applejack chimed in, though she didn't share the fellow earthpony's enthusiasm, ”we jus' gotta remember not to get feasted on ourselves.”

“Oh, how can you even think of such thing?” said Rarity, who was browsing through everypony’s saddle bags for her hat. Out of the six, Rainbow Dash was the only one without any equipment at all – though it was debatable whether items like cupcakes, birdseed, and a parasol could be considered equipment in the current locale. “Now, has anypony seen my sunbonnet? I’m positive I had it with me in the airplane.”

The ponies milled about for a few more minutes, during which the sky got darker and darker as night fell, star- and moonlight being completely absorbed into a thick layer of clouds. Like the sky was weaving together a dress to prepare itself for a great spectacle; only to tear it apart in favor of the audience. Soon, it was bound to pour.

It wasn’t hard to tell that Klapi and his comrades were anxious of the ponies. Even though they were cracking jokes and having seemingly light-hearted conversation, there was always at least one pair of eyes keeping firm watch on the ponies.

“Now hold on a minute everypony!” Applejack yelled, when the others decided that everything was quite set to go. She turned back to the aircraft and shot an incredulous glare at Claude. ”I think I know what you’re plannin’. You’re gonna leave us as soon as we get outta your sight.”

“Que!? I’m not leaving. Kakara flies Dina to Jakarta, not me.”

“Kakara? But he’s just a lil’ kid!” Claude glanced at Kakara in the cockpit and chuckled a bit.

“Chére Applejack, anyone can fly cet avion. I could teach a chicken to fly it. You are the exception.” For the second time that day, Applejack was unable to join the Frenchman’s merriment. But now they were finally ready to go.

The triple shade of trees, clouds, and the horizon itself was enough to render eyesight rather trivial in the forest trail. The ponies could barely make out each other’s outlines, however, other observations could be made. It was apparent that some other path had been used to move about materials for the concrete cabin, the composite cable reels – they must have situated in the vicinity – and the net structure that had caught Dina, for this was too narrow, uneven, and twisting. Secondly, Klapi and the two companions, who introduced themselves as Noki and Savu, though curious especially about the pegasi, avoided actually touching the ponies by any means. Even when a particularly nasty tree root almost tripped Twilight, Noki and Savu just jumped away from her, letting her stumble on her own. In the other end of the little caravan, Klapi did the same, as he constantly made sure there was at least one diagonal step between him and Rainbow Dash’s back.

With help from the infallible step of the tribesmen they cleared the distance in less than twenty minutes. The group arrived in a small plateau mostly clear, or cleared, of trees. The increase in light was most welcome, but its source was no campfires or torches, it was light-emitting diodes in the form of colorful party lights, which decorated the few tree trunks and huts.

”Brown boxes,” Twilight retorted as Rainbow shot a question concerning the lights. “Why PAC didn’t spare, say, normal streetlights is something I can’t fathom. At least not yet.” They had to wait for Klapi to run some errand before going any further into the village. They could spot a few round huts, which consisted of low walls made of pretty small log pillars that in turn supported longer but thinner pieces that connected in the middle and were covered with leaves from the local palm tree, smoke rising from the summit of the roof. All huts were built in this way, but some were smaller and some bigger than the other; for example, the hut towards which Klapi ran was very large, almost a dozen metres in diameter.

Now with the improved lighting situation, Rainbow Dash got the courage to fly a small survey loop around the premises, which caused some shake-ups with Noki and Savu, who couldn’t close their mouths for a good while. As obvious as it was that the village had seen no pegasi before, was the relative lack of true boldness in Rainbow Dash. Houses were always tall, the air always had dangerous traffic, and the weather was always as unpredictable as a master player’s poker hand. Earth was never subtle about the mistakes of the pilot – or rather the one mistake that ends him. She longed for the good old days, when such worries were yet to present themselves.

”I saw more huts, another one of those concrete booths from where we landed, and someway towards the mountain there's a huge flat-roofed building with steam rising off it, and really, it's gigantic.” She landed softly in the middle of the others and folded her wings, which stirred further bemusement in the two men, who briefly mimed the folding motion with their arms. ”I didn't see any humans, though, but I think they've just gone away from the – CRACK-OOM! – rain.”

The thunderbolt gave them a second head start before large drops of tropical rain filled the air, all ready to soak everything in their paths. The ponies hurried under the closest tree that looked like it could hold out some rain, though everyone still got a little wet. ”So could this place have something that could be almost considered as civilization? Or were some brown boxes just bigger than others?” said Rarity to nopony in particular as she dried herself with a towel from her saddle bags.

”Could they really do that?” Fluttershy asked.

”Like drop buildings out of planes? No, way,” Rainbow blurted back. Twilight nodded, adding that she wanted to go check out the big building, when it would be appropriate.

”Lesponeys!” This time it was Klapi talking French – or at least using a French word – though the pronunciation was quite close to Claude's. Noki and Savu called over the continuous thunder to guide the young man to the tree. After getting in their sight, Klapi gestured towards himself and yelled some more: ”Noupsah'n Lesponeys!”

Klapi led everyone through the storm to the cover of the largest hut, the inside of which was lit by same bundles of party lights but also a large fire in the middle. Cupboards protruding from the walls gave the hut some sense of functionality. It seemed to be a place for gatherings, as the ponies faced maybe twenty more tribesmen, no women or children, most sitting in the ground with low, wooden tables in front of them, all curiously eyeballing the visitors and having keen discussion about them with their comrades. Klapi sat down behind a table and pointed at the empty space, no table or anything, next to him. “Munat tourpéséen,” he said, and the ponies took seats on the floor that looked like just trampled ground, but had some sort of coating that made it feel a bit like warm plastic.

Pinkie Pie shook away the water from her coat, mane, and tail, and the few remaining flat hairs sprung immediately back to suit Pinkie's trademark style. ”Finally some action. I've been waiting for ever!” The others quickly found out the source for Pinkie Pie's excitement: a couple of men had taken two large aluminium bowls and trays from the cupboards, while a few others had unsheathed their blades and struck them hard into the wooden tables so that they stuck. ”I have a feeling there's a big number coming on soon.” The looks the other ponies told they weren't quite as positively excited as their pink friend.

The men laid down the bowls and trays in front of another cupboard and opened it as well. They were clearly doing something but had their backs turned at the ponies. Faint bubbling sounds barely reached Twilight's ears – she was the only one with any notable interest that way. But before she could make any conclusions, the predicted ”big number” began, drowning the sounds.

Someone started singing. It was the kind of tune everyone at first seems to recognize from a melody they've heard a million times before, only to be surprised as it turns out all different. Somebody else took it to accompany his comrade, but instead of singing along he pulled his cleaver from the table and started knocking the dull end against the wood, creating a beat of sorts. A third one joined in scratching together two cooking knives much like a celebrity chef does, when preparing for his next culinary challenge.

The show went on; the tribesmen taking turns singing, playing their knives, and some even danced. Everything was so fluid, so natural that it couldn't have been a special occasion set up for the visitors – it was just the way of life in the Papuan Highlands.

”C-can you feel that?” Fluttershy called over the ritualistic merriment and thunder.

”Yeah, I think. There's... rumble,” added Applejack, ”but it could jus' be my stomach. I'm starvin'.”

”Even your stomach has enough decency not to be this savage, dear Applejack. This is something else.” Rarity's statement was backed up by the dust particles jumping up and down on the floor in front of them. The rumble grew stronger and stronger until all six ponies felt it clearly.

”Go easy, everypony. Klapi and everyone else are still acting the same, so it can't be anything upsetting.” Twilight's expression contradicted her words, which barely made herself feel any more secure.

”Maybe for them!” Rarity cried, ”but this tremor will give a new set of colours to my next yawn very soon, if you know what I mean.” The others promptly shifted further away from Rarity, Pinkie Pie being the exception as her mind was focused on the rumble's source that, supposedly, was located somewhere in the ground.

Pinkie, ear firmly against the floor, raised a hoof to attract everypony's attention. “I know what it is! It’s a bassline, and it’s getting louder.” After a second or two the others were able to confirm Pinkie’s claim. The speakers were obviously somewhere underground. “Ooh, I wonder if there’ll be even more music.”

When Fluttershy heard Pinkie’s words, her gaze grew wide, and she began murmuring to herself and staring blankly at the hut’s opposite end: “Please don’t be dubstep, please don’t be dubstep, please don’t be...”

“Err... what’s she babblin’ about?” Applejack asked. She was getting a little annoyed of herself being in a constant state of ignorance.

“Dubstep is an old type of riot control invented in London during some bad riots they had very long ago. The dubstep sounds are very effective against normal, thinking humans and ponies too, but they gave up using dubstep, when some poor Londoners mistook it for actual music.” Twilight concluded with a smug smile, proud that she’d googled the information the instant she’d heard about the term for the first time.

“So, it’s sound meant to hurt, but people listen to it anyway? For fun?” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes before letting her gaze wander as far into the horizon as possible. “I’ll never understand these humans.”

“Yep, and looks like our Fluttershy’s had the worst of it,” Twilight stated, while Fluttershy continued her monologue.

“South London... Why did I go there... What has been heard cannot be unheard... Please don’t be dubstep...”

Pinkie was sitting on the floor with her forelegs crossed and looking unlikely grim. “Hmph, haters...” The others paid little attention to her comment.

Comments

[Krass McWriter]

Lol first bitch