//------------------------------// // Communication difficulties // Story: Down into the Deep // by DenyTheWitch //------------------------------// Ryley wasn't sure what to do, the Rainbow haired Pegasus was crying, sobbing right in front of him, head held down, staring at the floor. Now Ryley himself didn't really do emotions, at least not the touchy feely variety, if this had been a human crying in front of him, he would have been equally befuddled. The fact that the aliens actions where so, human, just made this even more confusing. And those eyes, Ryley had never met any Sapient alien before, not really, but he'd always figured if he did, that alien would be very, well alien, not the least bit human. But this Pegasus creature, it's eyes looked to familiar, so human, even despite their freakish size. "Um, there there? Take it easy, I'm not gonna hurt you." He tried in his best comforting voice, as gently put his rifle down and awkwardly held his arms out in what he hoped was a placating manner. "Look, I can tell your upset, but there's no need to cry, okay? Okay? Please stop crying." Then his PDA spoke up. "Pegasus speaks in a unknown language, given this, it is highly unlikely that it understands English, I perhaps try charades instead." "And why don't you just shut up and get to translating its language, little smart-arse." He grumbled quietly, glaring at the PDA on his waist. "More audio data required." Ryley was about to retort again when he noticed that the crying had stopped. Glancing back up, he found himself now staring into the now harsh glare of the Pegasus. It's bright red eyes still moist, but now narrowing at him. Sparing a quick glance at the Stasis rifle now on the floor, he looked back to the Pegasus and slowly waved one of his outstretched hands. "Um, hi again." Rainbow remembered now, staring out into the strange, alien ocean, she remembered how she got here, she didn't remember much, but she remembered enough. Twilight had found some weird portal thing, and she'd said it could allow them to travel to another world. Rainbow had been ecstatic at the idea. She could go exploring, discover strange treasures and ancient civilizations, like Daring Do! It had taken a while for Twilight to get the portal working but once she did, Rainbow Dash was the first pony through. From there, something went wrong, the portal closed behind her stranding Rainbow at it's exit. It had only taken a glance at the night sky, as well as a few face slaps to make sure she wasn't dreaming, before she knew she was at the least on another planet. Last she'd checked Equestria didn't have a giant red moon as well as the regular one, the stars had all been wrong too. At first she had waited, but after a few days of waiting on the small, barren, empty island the portal stood on she heard a faint bang, like an explosion in the distance. By this point Rainbow had tired of waiting, she'd already taken a few short flights around the island, there weren't any other islands nearby that she could see while keeping the island the portal was on in sight. And so when she heard the distant bang, she made up her mind, waiting around for somepony else to save her had never been Rainbow Dash's style, so she picked up her bag, pulled out her compass to remember which direction she had come from, and flew. That flight had taken days, there where only occasionally any clouds low enough to rest on, and she was very quickly eating her way through her food supply. Occasionally she had considered landing in the water for a quick rest, but she always felt this strange sense of dread when she considered it, like if she went into the water, she wouldn't be taking off afterwards, and when one night she saw a large glowing shape seem to move just below the surface, she stayed away fromt he water for the rest of the flight. Finally, after nearly a week of constant flying, where she was sure she'd gotten lost, she saw a flash of green, and then yellow, and finally another bang, much louder this time. She saw the explosion in the sky, and made a beeline straight for it, something that made things explode in the sky probably wasn't friendly, but it had to come from somewhere, and Rainbow was well and truly exhausted by that point. And then at last she saw an island, with greenery and some kind of structure attached to it, she flew in towards it, tried to land, crashed instead, and then woke up in the tunnel- no, in the underwater base. She had forgotten all that, but when she saw the strange ocean on the other side of the glass, she remembered, she remembered just how far from home she was. She would never admit it to her friends if- when she got back home, but she had cried then. The stress of the last few days, the pain she still felt from waking up, and the sudden memory of what happened just broke her, and so she cried. She wasn't sure how long she had been crying when she heard the almost-minotaur again. But it shook her out of the melancholy for a moment. "Pull it together girl, can't let this thing see me wussing out." Wiping her leg across her face to clear away the tears, Rainbow took a moment to steel herself, and turned her best glare on the almost-minotaur. Now that she had a better look at it, it was only really a minotaur in its upright stance and arms. It's head was much flatter and thinner, and it had no horns. It's face had no fur, but except on the top of its head head, and frankly looked a bit like a monkey's. The fur on top of its head was black with a small line of green in the middle. Aside from its face only its hands, the same light brown and furless skin as its face, where visible, the rest of it was in some kind of bodysuit, which didn't look very tough. Rainbow narrowed her eyes further, an alien then, okay. She stood up. "Alright buster, I have a few questions right now, and if you don't want wake up feeling worse than me you'd better answer them!" The alien looked at her for a moment, then it shrugged again. Rainbow frowned. "I'm serious, why are we underwater? How did I get here?" The alien kept staring, then it spoke very slowly. "Mi ne povas kompreni vin." Rainbow shook her head. "What?" "Mi ne povas kompreni vin." This time it shrugged and shook its head with that statement. Rainbow sighed, it couldn't speak equish and she definitely couldn't speak whatever gibberish that thing was spouting. This was going to be a long conversation. Ryley frowned when the Pegasus seemed to give up on the conversation, he sympathized with its frustration but as long as it was talking the PDA was translating. Despite knowing what the answer would probably be he he asked the device a question. "How many words have you figured out." "No words of Pegasus subject's language can be confirmed as of now, perhaps you should get it to speak more than three lines." The cool synthetic voice spoke out. Ryley wasn't quite sure if he was ever going to get used to the PDA's sense of humour, or its annoying about of sass. "Veavi isigu?" Ryley looked back to see the Pegasus looking at him curiously. It pointed at his PDA with a hoof. "Veavi gilusi sapuli?" An idea came to him. Ryley picked up the PDA and held it in front of himself, the transparent interface facing the Pegasus. "This, he said pointing at it, "PDA." He tapped it with a finger "PDA." The Pegasus slowly pointed a hoof at the device. "P, D, A." It said slowly. Ryley grinned and nodded. Then he pointed at himself. "Ryley," he said slowly. "Ryley Robinson." "Rii-lae Robensan." Ryley frowned. "Ry-ley. Rob-in-son." He repeated even more slowly. "Ryley. Rob-insom." It repeated. Ryley pondered for a moment. "Eh, close enough." Then he nodded and smiled. He also noted the Pegasus was, if not smiling, at least it wasn't scowling. Now Ryley slowly pointed at the Pegasus. It caught on quick. Pointing a hoof at itself it announced "Rainbow Dash." Tapping its own chest somewhat proudly, then it or said some other stuff way too fast for Ryley to follow before repeating, "Rainbow Dash." "Rainbow Dash." Said Ryley, still pointing at the Pegasus, and it smiled and nodded. Ryley glanced back down at the PDA with a smirk. "How's that for translating you dinner tray." The PDA said nothing, and then Ryley saw the Pegasus- no, Rainbow Dash, staring at him quizzically, its head cocked to the side. Ryley coughed quietly and put the PDA back on his belt. "So we know each others names, great, now what?" He wondered, eyes rolling up as he pondered the thought. Up to see the first sparks of daylight shining on the surface, he grinned. "Rainbow Dash." It hadn't stopped staring at him, it now looked more confused than ever to be frank. Ryley pointed up. It's eyes followed his fingers to the surface. He asked again. "Rainbow Dash, up?" It looked back at him, then at his still pointing fingers, and nodded. Getting to the surface proved to be a challenge, first the window turned out to be a hatch, and Rainbow had panicked quite a bit when the Ryley opened the hatch, rushing back into the corner of the base, but when a torrent of water flooding the base had failed to materialize she managed to calm down. Though it did take Ryley a few more demonstrations of opening and closing the hatch till she actually stepped through said hatch into the ocean. Rainbow Dash didn't know how the hatch prevented water form getting inside when it opened, she wasn't an egghead but she was pretty sure an open hole into the ocean usually leads to a flooded ship, or base in this case. She ended up just chalking it to magic, Twilight had done crazier things before. Getting to the surface also proved to be a little challenge, Rainbow Dash had never been a bad swimmer per-se, but she usually relied on her wings when underwater swimming, and with her wings still aching from fatigue, that option was out. Instead the Ryley had to grab Rainbow Dash and drag her to surface, degrading as it was. Fortunately it was a strong swimmer, Rainbow noticed some fins seem to sprout from its feet when it entered the water, maybe the rest of the suit did that? When they breached the surface of the water, the very first thing to catch Rainbow Dash's eye was, well, she wasn't sure what it had been before, but right now it was definitely a wreck, a very, very big wreck. She remembered seeing it in the distance just before she crashed, but even then, she didn't think it was this big. "That thing is huge, it's bigger than Canterlot castle! Is that a spaceship? Is that what Ryley came from?" It was mostly white with some orange patterns, though she could see many rents and gashes all along it that ruined the paint job a bit and some much larger holes that exposed the black metal superstructure. She turned to stare at the Ryley, pointing at the wreck. "Did you crash here in that?" It looked at her for a moment. "Right, can't speak." But it seemed to get the message, it nodded slowly, then pointed at the wreck. "Aurora. Crash." Rainbow stared at the wreck again for a few more seconds, before finally tearing her gaze away from the wreckage and looked around. There where tiny little things flying around, they looked a bit like Birds, except their wings where less, well winglike, they looked more like flaps attached onto the flyers than actual wings, but whatever they where, they seemed to work well enough. Rainbow decided to look for something else before she got jealous. But aside from the wreck, there wasn't much, there was a small metal ball thing floating nearby, it seemed very similar to the giant wreck in colour, except, well it wasn't a wreck. "Maybe a lifeboat?" Nothing else was nearby aside form the raft, looking to the right away from the wreck Rainbow could see what might have been an island, it was too far to tell, but looking directly opposite the wreckage, she could see another Island, one that looked a bit more familiar. "That's where I crashed, its not too far from here." Then Rainbow Dash remembered something, something very important. "My bags! They weren't with me when I woke up!" Glancing back at the Ryley, she saw it was just looking at her, probably seeing how she would react, it was a bit creepy honestly with its mask and everything but right now Rainbow had other things to worry about. "My saddle bags, did you bring those back with me?" It blinked at her, she growled. "If only Twilight where here, she could cast some magic to make this so much easier." "Rainbow Dash, carrying something, you see?" It blinked again, then shrugged. "Mi ne povas kompre-" She shoved her hoof in its face. "Yeah yeah, you don't understand me, I get it." She though for a moment, then remembered the PDA thing, looking down she saw it still had it and some other things attached to its waist. She pointed at them. "Ryley Robinson, carry." It looked down at its own waist, then it slowly picked up, something, it wasn't the PDA but that didn't matter to Rainbow. "Ryley carry?" It pointed at the thing in its hand, then at its waist. Rainbow Dash nodded rapidly. "Yeah yeah, now. Rainbow Dash, carry." She pointed at her own back as she said so. Ryley looked thoughtful at this, eyes down, at least, Rainbow thought that was thoughtful, it could well be hungry for all she knew. Whatever it did it took its sweet time doing it before looking back up at her. It pointed at her back, "Rainbow Dash, carry." Rainbow nodded, then it shook its head. Rainbow frowned. "Assuming it understood me, then my bags must still be on the Island." She looked back at the tall Island, its mountain jutting into the sky. "If I could still fly that would be a breeze, but right now." She looked back at her wings, then at Ryley. "Rainbow Dash, up." She pointed at the mountain island in the distance. Ryley looked that way, then chuckled. "Rainbow Dash, iru, sed," it held up its hands as Rainbow started to glare at it. "Ryley Robinson, iru ankaŭ." It pointed at the Island. Rainbow looked at Ryley for a moment, then she smirked and nodded. "Okay then, lets go."