“Hello, traveler. Welcome to Equestria.” The winged unicorn said with a warm smile.
Clarín’s breath hitched slightly. He glanced all around him, as if expecting everything to become unfamiliar to his gaze. He turned to the winged unicorn, and asked, “Is Equestria near Dosaidi?” He doubted she would answer yes, but he needed to make sure.
The winged unicorn pondered her answer for a moment, before answering, “I can’t say that I’ve heard of Do-setti.” She slowly enunciated each syllable of the foreign word. “I assume this is where you are from?”
Clarín stiffly nodded.
“Well, as you’ve gathered, you are in Equestria, and I am Princess Celestia, Goddess of the Sun.” After her introduction, she gazed pointedly at her guest, waiting for him to reply.
After several heartbeats, he replied, “I am Clarín Marnier.”
Celestia waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. So she asked, “And where are you from, Clarín?”
Again there was a pause, before Clarín opened his mouth. Instead of answering, he brought his hand to his mouth, and let out a rasping cough. The fit lasted for nearly a minute, and by the end blood was seeping from between his fingers. Clarín cleared his throat, wiped his hand on the bed, and answered, “I was from Yona, a small town in the south of Dosaidi.”
Filing away his usage of the word ‘was,’ Celestia asked in a serious tone, “I must ask why you are here, Clarín.”
For the first time in their short conversation, Clarín didn’t hesitate. He calmly answered, “Well, that would be my business.”
Celestia gave him a warm smile. “I wasn’t overstating my abilities when I introduced myself as the Goddess of the Sun. Don’t make me invade your mind. I would rather we be friends; and whenever I do invade somepony’s mind, there’s always the chance of complications.” But if you don’t answer, then I won’t hesitate to do it. was implied.
Clarín seemed to wrestle with the implications of her threat, before his shoulders slumped. He could feel the power rolling off Celestia in waves, he was no threat to her. “I’ll start with why my partner and I were on a ship, is that acceptable?”
With a nod from Celestia, he began his tale.
I was with Søren. We were at Khalif’s docks, and we were trying to sneak onto the ship The Urgent Fury. The Urgent Fury belonged to the Baham Consortium, and was used to transport VIPs. Once we were aboard, we would kill our target and steal the ship to escape pursuers.
We stowed away inside the cargo hold, and waited several hours for the ship to leave port. Once we were sure the ship was in open waters, we confronted our target--
Celestia interrupted, “Who was your target?”
Clarín answered her, “A man named Akira. He was a lieutenant in the Baham Consortium, which is led by a man named Llednar of the Light. Akira was a very dangerous man, and a sadist as well. He is responsible for over thirty murders, and the defeat of countless mercenaries.”
Celestia nodded slowly. “Why was Akira your target? And what made him so dangerous?”
“Akira had a peculiar ability. He fought completely bare handed, and he was extremely talented with his fists. But his true strength was his ability to create barriers around his hands, allowing him to block any attack. As for why he was our target, well he killed several people close to me.”
Satisfied with his answers, Celestia motioned for him to continue.
We confronted Akira in his quarters after defeating his bodyguards and the crew and dumping their unconscious forms into the lifeboats. I purposely spared their lives; they were mere sellswords not responsible for their employer’s sins. Somehow, he was prepared for us. He had defeated Søren and myself once before, and he was cocky. He expected an easy victory.
He wouldn’t get it. Søren and myself had trained everyday, with our singular goal his defeat. We memorized his patterns, the limits of his abilities. I was a completely different person from our last encounter. But even so, the battle was not quick. We fought for hours, all of us getting severe injuries.
As we fought, the ship drifted further and further off course. But the three of us were too preoccupied to notice. Finally, Akira lay in a pool of his own blood. Myself and Søren were exhausted and injured. Søren barely had the energy to heal us. We staggered into the captains quarters just as it started to rain.
I pulled out the maps and assorted navigation tools; I am a trained navigator. I was able to divine our current location, but was shocked to find us over one hundred miles from Khalif. That shouldn’t have been possible, but we were. We set the sails, and attempted to sail back the way we came.
That was when we discovered we were in the midst of a massive current pulling us away from the continent. Try as we might, there was no way to escape the current. We resigned ourselves to a death at sea. We’d finally avenged Silas and Rin, but we were going to die of exposure.
Fortunately, though it didn’t seem fortunate at the time, the rain turned into a storm. The storm turned into a gale, and the gale into a hurricane. Eventually, we were in the midst of a cataclysm the likes of which we had never seen before. The ship started to break apart. Suddenly we were in the water, gasping for air. The last thing I remember before everything went numb was clinging to a piece of the mast, and seeing Søren do the same to a chunk of the keel.
Some time later, how long I do not know, I awoke on a beach. Searching the immediate area, I found large amounts of wooden wreckage. In order to search a wider area, I took flight with a technique I developed called Fallen Angel. After some searching, I found Søren. We created a small shelter, and decided to rest up after our battle. I’m sure you know the rest.
Celestia nodded. From the point Clarín ended his story is where Shining Armor’s report picked up. He had answered most of his questions, he had even let slip the names of two of his friends.
The pair lapsed into silence, broken only by another coughing fit from Clarín., with Clarín looking at Celestia who appeared lost in thought. Eventually, she asked, “So, what do you plan to do now?”
Clarín considered the question. He brought up a gloved hand to wipe his hair out of his eyes, and realized somehow his hair had come out of its ponytail and was hanging loosely around his head. After a few moments, he responded, “Well, it would be nice to stay here.”
Celestia raised a brow. “Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have any friends or family to return to?”
Clarín shrugged. “I have a few friends who might miss me, but they’ll be fine. But if I return, Llednar will be out for blood. In fact, he probably already know we killed Akira.”
“Well, I could let you stay, I’ll even let you carry your weapons. Just one thing...” Smiling sweetly, Celestia let loose a fraction of her strength. The room was saturated with energy, and Clarín’s vision was swimming. If he hadn’t been sitting on the bed, he would have fallen to his knees from the pressure. His breath came out in short gasps, as if it was a labor just to breath.
Just as soon as it started, the pressure ended. The warm smile never left Celestia’s face.
Author's note: Sorry for the short chapter, but I promised some guy I'd update by today. I may not be as fast of a writer as I'd like, but at least I keep my promises. Yeah, and I had massive writer's block while writing this, so I'm not sure how it turned out.