//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Escape From the Slave Market // by Apple Bottoms //------------------------------// Logically, being in a dangerous situation would seem like it would make sleep impossible. First in a slave pen, and then wrapped in the forelegs of a stallion you’d just seen murder a gryphon in cold blood? It seemed like sleep would never come. But bodies need sleep, even more so in dangerous or scary situations. Especially for such a young body, exhaustion came on hard and fast. And so, despite her circumstances, Watermelon Seed slept deeply in Blue Cat’s grip, hardly even stirring when he got up at first light. She didn’t wake up when the train car began to move, either, and was only finally jolted to alertness when they hit high speeds, the jostling of the car banging her head against the slatted floor, poorly cushioned by stray strands of escaped grain. She gasped as she twisted around, trying to get her bearings. It was a terrifying few moments, with the large, hulking shadow of Blue Cat silhouetted against the striped light that filtered in through the wide sliding doors of the grain car. The stripes on the little zebra’s body became a riot of crosshatching in the striped sunlight, resting against Blue Cat’s side as if he was an extra limb. Watermelon Seed shakily got to her feet, rubbing her head with one pale-green hoof as the night’s events slowly came back to her. The slave pens, the bad gryphon - Blue! Scary, and huge, but … soft, sometimes, like Daddy. Maybe not as scary as the gryphon, unless he wanted to be. He got her out of the pen, got everyone else out, too. Blue Cat felt a small pair of eyes on him, and he slowly shifted his gaze towards the newest member of his motley crew, one ear flicking towards her absently. “How’d you sleep?” He rumbled, which caused the little zebra to look up too, his gaze far more excited than his larger companion’s. “I slept okay.” Watermelon Seed responded, hesitantly, uncertain what to say. She slept deeply, dreamlessly; it had felt like five minutes between being cradled to Blue’s chest and when she woke up with her head banging on the ground. She still felt tired, but maybe that was the same sort of tired she’d been feeling ever since the bad gryphon took her. She’d never felt that way before, in her entire life; sadness, day in and day out, until it became sort of a low-key constant in her life. She’d been sad before, but it always went away; not like this sadness. The zebra clambered up onto long, spindly legs, the first growth spurt of many that would transform him into an adult, and happily trotted over to her, his bottlebrush tail whisking back and forth. “Filia crrrat ni ta? Filia - nyamet?” Watermelon Seed cringed backward again, pressing into the bales of grain, eyeing him with open concern. But this time, her neck didn’t pull, and as she looked down, she realized that the rope was no longer tied around Blue’s foreleg, but looped around her neck, instead. She was still bound, but she wasn’t bound to anything; it was freeing, but not as wonderful as being completely free would be, she was sure. “Tilik,” came Blue Cat’s warning voice, and while Watermelon Seed cowered from him, Tilik’s rounded ears slid back, shooting Blue Cat what seemed to be a guilty sort of glance. “Filia crrrat ni ta! Filia nyamet, nyamet!” Tilik repeated insistently, and the words made just as little sense to Watermelon Seed as the first time he’d spoken to her. She thought, perhaps, that he had an accent, like the bad gryphon; but the more she listened, the less sense it made. “What’s ‘nyamet’?” Blue Cat rumbled disagreeably, and when he turned to glower at Tilik, his ears were flat; but while Watermelon Seed tried to make herself as small as possible, Tilik continued chattering, although he seemed a little daunted by the stallion’s angry response, too. “Nyamet! Om - Tilik! Tilik.” Tilik insisted, touching his chest with one solid-colored hoof, then reached up to lightly touch Blue Cat’s chest, too. “Blyuu. Blyuu, Tilik. Tilik - filia?” Tilik repeated the motion, touching his and Blue’s chests in turn, then pointed at Watermelon Seed, clearly trying to get his point across. Blue Cat frowned at him for a moment, following his hoof when it pointed at Watermelon Seed, before the idea seemed to click. “Oh. Um. Tilik, Watermelon Seed. Water-melon Seed.” He enunciated clearly, and slowly, and although she had heard the bad gryphon say mean things in that very slow, mocking way, Watermelon didn’t think Blue Cat was trying to be mean to Tilik. She hoped, anyway. Tilik looked over eagerly at Watermelon Seed, his large, rounded ears swiveling towards her, and he nodded, focusing on her keenly. “Warmar See.” “No - Water. Melon. Seed.” Blue Cat tried again, trying to hide his frustration. “Watml Seek.” Tilik replied confidently, turning his eyes up to Blue Cat as the larger stallion rumbled out a noise of frustration. “Okay, like this: Wat.” “Wat.” “Er?” “Arr.” “Melon.” “Malo. Nnn.” “Seed.” “See!” Blue Cat rumbled out an annoyed sound, but judging by the way Tilik brushed him off and happily bounded away, he’d gotten quite used to dealing with Blue Cat’s attempts at pronunciation. “Warmar See!” Tilik chirped down at Watermelon Seed as he approached, offering her a wide, friendly smile, tilting his head this way and that. He seemed quite curious about her, and his little nostrils flared again, curious about her smell. Watermelon Seed cringed back, but when she realized that Tilik wasn’t getting any closer to her, she relaxed, just a little, and stopped trying to scoot away. “Warmar See, Tilik!” he repeated, and touched his own chest, nodding encouragingly. “Tilik?” Watermelon Seed responded after a beat, prompting a wide, relieved smile from the little zebra. “Hello, Tilik. Nice to meet you.” she added, formally, trying to remember the polite way her mother had taught her. “Marrlion kr’K’anta’ki olliola, Warmar See.” Tilik responded warmly, and gave his head a polite little nod. “It’s a K’anta’ki greeting.” Blue Cat cut in from across the train car, and when Watermelon Seed looked over, she realized he was watching them, as nonchalantly as he could. “May the K’anta’ki sun watch over you, or something like that. Sort of like a howdy-do.” “What’s K’anta’ki?” Watermelon Seed asked, her eyes moving between Tilik - thrilled, all but wiggling in excitement - and Blue Cat - definitely not. “You can speak that, too?” “K’anta’ki is what he is - stripey, like that, from a couple oceans away. And no, wish I did. Me and Tilik get by with a lot of sign language, and a couple pidgin words we’ve picked up.” Blue Cat turned his gaze away from her, and Watermelon Seed couldn’t quite identify the emotion in his gaze, this time; it wasn’t angry, like usual. It was … sort of sad, but his eyebrows were puckered, and he suddenly seemed very focused on what was happening to the scenery outside. Watermelon Seed wanted to ask more, but she was afraid to make his emotion change from whatever this was to anger; it seemed like Blue Cat was very easy to anger, and she didn’t want to make that happen. So she returned her attention to Tilik, who still gazed back at her just as eagerly as ever. But this time, when she met his gaze, he twisted away from her, trotting over to the large door that Blue was peeking out from. The wooden slats that made up the door were nailed together rather hastily, and there were thin lines where the sun peeked in, and they could peek out. “Warmar See!” Tilik chirped encouragingly, waving her over before he took a seat a few feet away from Blue. He pressed his nose against the wood and peered out, ears flicking back and forth in excitement. Watermelon Seed hesitated for a few moments, then slowly followed after Tilik, her eyes darting to Blue Cat. When she was certain he wouldn’t grab at her again, she settled down next to the zebra, but backed up a few steps when the door rattled noisily in its hinges. They were going fast, scary fast, and she could see thin strips of the scenery zipping past them from between the slats. There was a thin breeze that snuck in through the slats, and it smelled alien to the small pony’s nose; green, thick and heady, with all sorts of strange, exciting smells in it besides the sharp tang of the train’s smokestack. Abruptly, Watermelon’s belly rumbled, reminding her that she was hungry again. She looked over at Blue Cat instinctively, the old part of her life still telling her that adults were the source of food; but Blue Cat was ignoring her, staring outside, and so Watermelon Seed sadly turned her eyes towards the slats, too. She didn’t like riding on the train, she decided. She’d liked it the first time, but that was when she rode with Mommy and Daddy, and they spent the weekend exploring the Crystal Empire. Now, sitting on the hard, bumpy floor, with the itchy rope around her neck and two strangers at her side, all she could think about was how happy she had been before, and how hollow she felt now. They rode like that for several more hours, and as morning crept into late afternoon, Watermelon Seed curled up against the bales of grain, falling into a sort of half-daze. She wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but she grew tired of staring out the side of the train car and missing her parents. Blue Cat seemed lost in his own thoughts, and after a little while, Tilik curled up on the other side of her, snoozing lightly. She realized she had fallen asleep when the car shuddered and she jolted awake, eyes wild. It only took a moment to remember where she was this time, and she slowly pulled herself to her hooves, shaking the stray strands of grain from her coat with a little wiggle. Blue Cat was on his hooves, and his stance was tense, staring outside. Almost before the train had completely stopped, he was moving to the opposite side of the train car, working on the latches that kept it shut tightly. Watermelon Seed watched, quivering with fear and anticipation, as Tilik slowly woke up next to her. With a mighty heave of his powerful neck, Blue Cat hauled the door open, sending it rattling back on its track and slamming home, revealing the bright green expanse in front of them. There was a forest, far away, but ahead of them stood only a long, wide expanse of green fields, with the occasional buttercup swaying gently in the breeze. The greenery smelled so good, she could almost taste it, and Watermelon took a tiny step towards it, her legs shaky. “C’mon, Tilik. Time to get off.” Blue Cat rumbled, not unkindly, as he bumped his nose against Tilik’s striped shoulder. Tilik yawned widely and shook his head until his ears made a ruffling sound, flashing a small smile up at Blue Cat before he gathered his spindly legs under himself. Blue Cat turned to Watermelon Seed - and found her missing. He twisted sharply just in time to see her perched precariously at the edge of the open door, and with a final, breathtaking leap, she sprung out of the train car. “WATERMELON SEED!” Blue roared, but it was too late; the filly was gone.