Being under the purple cloud looked a little like being underwater. The difference being, there was no trouble breathing, but it was impossible for Nancy to move. It didn’t seem to have any weight to it, but if she tried to struggle, it sharply increased pressure on her.
Whatever the purple stuff was, it seemed to shimmer slightly and roughly held its shape while enveloping her. She didn’t think it was gelatin, either.
Panic forced Nancy to put her questions aside as heavy steps started to close in while she was pinned to the ground. She redoubled her efforts to struggle, but couldn’t even move, much less fight.
She was suddenly jerked upright, though still spread-eagle. The horse and the dragon accompanying it had approached. Though, as Nancy’s eyes focused, she realized a horn on the horse’s head was enveloped in a similar purple glow. A unicorn? Sure, why not, she’d already seen dragons. Though, she also belatedly realized it had wings. A pegasus was different than a unicorn, but Nancy wasn’t sure if there was a word for a combination of the two.
The lithe blue dragon next to the winged unicorn seemed smaller of stature than most of the other dragons. Its wings were folded back and its arms - forelegs? - were crossed in front of it.
The unicorn met Nancy’s eyes and said something. It raised a surprisingly articulated hoof and gestured between itself and her. It took her a second, but the meaning was clear.
“I don’t understand,” she said, adding a headshake for emphasis. She tried, “Who are you?” adding, “Como te llamas?”
The unicorn said something out of the side of its mouth to the dragon and then its horn flashed a little brighter. Though she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it, seeing a unicorn opened Nancy up to the idea of magic. That would...not satisfactorily explain what was going on here, but at least gave her something to call it.
It seemed like the unicorn had performed some sort of spell. It spoke again, but this time came across in recognizable English with a light female voice. “Do you understand me now?”
“Yes!” Despite comprehension, Nancy realized the sounds hadn’t exactly matched the unicorn’s lip movements, and if she concentrated, she could still hear the actual horse voice below the translation. Was this magic?
“Good,” the unicorn said. “My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle. I’m the leader of Equestria.” She nodded to the dragon beside her. “This is Princess Ember, the leader of the Dragon Lands.”
“What did you do!?” the dragon named Ember broke in, voice also female but rougher, and definitely angry. She pointed back towards where the dead dragon lay. Nancy found herself turning in place to face that direction.
“It attacked me,” Nancy tried to explain.
“He. His name was Clump.”
“I thought he was going to kill me.” Nancy did her best to gesture downwards with her chin to her torn vest. “Look at these scratches.”
Princess Twilight did, Princess Ember did not. “He wouldn’t do that,” Ember retorted.
“He was a lot bigger and stronger than me. He grabbed me and I was trying to get away.”
“You’re trespassing on our land,” Princess Ember said. “He had every right to do that. What are you, anyway?”
That was a broad question. Nancy fumbled, and eventually went with “Human.”
Princess Twilight seemed to react to that, but Princess Ember went on, her voice, if anything, even angrier. “You came into our land and killed one of our dragons. Why? What could you possibly be doing here?”
“I...don’t know,” Nancy was forced to admit. “I don’t know how I got here.”
The crowd of dragons had been getting tighter around them, and low, angry muttering seemed to be gaining volume.
Princess Twilight, to Ember, said, “We need to establish control of the scene of the incident and-”
“The crime scene’s right there!” Princess Ember pointed. “It seems pretty clear what happened!”
“Not at all,” Princes Twilight replied. “She doesn’t look capable of killing a dragon with her own strength, and I’m not sensing much magical ability. We haven’t examined the body for weapon usage. We haven’t talked to witnesses.”
“She did it!” one of the dragons shouted. The rest started to voice agreement.
“A lynching isn’t justice,” Princess Twilight protested.
“She’s ours to deal with,” Princess Ember argued, pointing at Nancy. “Give her to me.”
Princess Twilight’s tone changed. “Equestria is mine to deal with. Ember, you remember the agreements as part of our confederation. There’s a process that needs to be followed. But, as this occured in the Dragon Lands, I promise that you’ll be involved.”
Nancy only caught about half of that, but took it to mean that apparently this unicorn had a legal system that involved due process. The dragon, Princess Ember, still looked furious, but said, “Fine, but we’ll make sure we get our justice.”
That seemed to be the end of the confrontation, but Nancy was still bound with what she was quickly rationalizing as magic and not thinking too hard about it. Though, that didn’t change her sudden additional spike of fear as she was lifted and carried away.
“You’re going to need to come with me,” said the purple Princess Twilight Sparkle. “There’s going to be a lot we need to discuss.” She turned her head. “Spike? Where are you?”
“Right here,” a young-sounding male voice responded, a dragon very short in stature trotting up beside the princess. He glanced over his shoulder at the scene before casting a wary glance at Nancy.
She also noticed other dragons drawing closer, but to her surprise, some of them began to remove costumes, showing that they were actually horses underneath.
“Twilight, did that really just happen?” asked a multicolored one with wings but without a horn. “This is not the kind of excitement and danger I expected from the Combined Costume Convention in the Dragon Lands.”
“Let’s not say too much in front of an accused murderer and possible alien,” Princess Twilight replied.
Everyone looked at Nancy again. They were all various bright colors, and seemed to have about a one-third each distribution of wings and horns, except for Princess Twilight who had both. Maybe that was why she was the Princess. Some had neither.
After the group walked for a few minutes, Nancy floating along like a balloon but still unable to move, they rounded an outcrop of rock and a train came into view. It looked like an old steam engine - and was pink - but it clearly sat on rails. Nancy realized this must have been the lights she saw earlier.
It was slightly jarring to go from magical naked, fur- or scale-covered creatures to a piece of familiar equipment. But if they apparently traveled by steam train, it said something about the technology they might have here. Wait, no, the two princesses had popped out of thin air. More magic?
Nancy was vaguely aware that she was going to have a quiet freakout when she finally got some time to herself. In the last twenty minutes or so, her walk in the desert had changed for the worse-than-she-could-have-imagined.
The princess ordered the train’s baggage car to be cleared and then floated Nancy through the door. Setting her down, finally, the unicorn cast a critical eye over her equipment. “Some of these are weapons, right?”
There was nothing Nancy could do to resist except grit her teeth as the purple light started to remove things from her person. The obvious accessories came off first. However, when the buttons on her camouflage blouse started to undo themselves, she finally protested, “Stop!”
Princess Twilight did, to her credit. Nancy quickly explained, “This is just clothing.”
“How do I know you don’t have something concealed? I have no idea what kind of alien technology you might have.” She turned. “Speaking of that, what are these?”
She picked up both the rifle and pistol with magic. Nancy winced. “That’s not safe.”
The princess faltered, but to her credit cautiously put them down on the floor of the train car and took a step back. “Make them safe.”
Nancy wondered if she should have said anything. But, it seemed like the magic had let her go. She flexed her fingers and measured the distance between her and the princess with her eyes. But no, she was trying her best to appear innocent here. Not to mention, the unicorn’s horn still glowed.
Carefully picking up each firearm, Nancy removed the magazines and extracted the chambered rounds, while doing her best to obscure the actual function and innards of the weapons. They were not complicated, and were both quite old designs in her own world, but that wasn’t the point. She tucked the ammunition back into her vest for safekeeping before stepping back again.
Something prickled at the back of her head and her bun suddenly fell apart. The hairpins that held it together floated away on another wisp of magic.
“You seem to have some modesty issues, but those clothes are going to have to come off before I’ll be convinced that you aren’t a threat,” said Princess Twilight. “Heads of state aren’t supposed to do interrogations themselves, but the Royal Guard is back in Canterlot and-”
She drew up short, shook her head, and then a pair of manacles popped into existence out of thin air. Using magic again, she shackled Nancy to a metal luggage rack. “I’ll be right back. We’re leaving ahead of schedule. I have to say goodbye, and hopefully start smoothing over this diplomatic incident you caused.”
She hopped out the open door of the baggage car. Nancy immediately tried to test the manacles, but they held fast. Slightly ironic the HOLD FAST sailor tattoos on her knuckles.
A few minutes passed and Nancy was already exploring perhaps figuring out a way to dismantle the luggage rack when Princess Twilight returned. She was with another horse who was orange, and wore a cowboy hat. The hat was the least weird thing Nancy had seen in the last few minutes and barely registered in her mind. They closed the door, and Nancy felt the train begin to move.
“This is my friend, Applejack,” Princess Twilight said, but did not elaborate. The two of them lay down, as horses did. With a wave of her hoof, the princess invited Nancy to sit. “Now, let’s get to the bottom of this. Who are you?”
“My name is Nancy Rodriguez, Petty Officer Second Class, United States Navy.” Not remembering her service number, she dug out her wallet which wasn’t easy with shackled hands. After reading the number off her ID card, she also stated her date of birth.
“I don’t know what any of that means,” Applejack stated flatly. Her voice had come through the translation with a trace of country.
“Is that some kind of prisoner-of-war ritual?” Princess Twilight asked Nancy.
“Am I a prisoner?”
“Well...yes.” The princess changed the subject. “But that’s just for now. Nancy, was it? We’re trying to make sure we understand the facts of this case. We have an all-night ride back to our capital city. Please tell me what happened.”
“Can I have a lawyer?”
“Why do you need that?”
“You’re accusing me of a crime.”
“But why do you need a lawyer?” Princess Twilight frowned. “Hmm, maybe you have a different kind of legal system.”
Now that she was fairly confident that she wasn’t going to be killed on the spot, Nancy clammed up. It was easy to put on a brave face to colorful talking horses, even if one of them did have some kind of superpower.
She’d already told her side of the story once, but even in this more relaxed setting there was not much additional detail to add.
When it became clear that she wasn’t going to talk about that line of questions, the princess started branching out into other topics.
“Where did you come from? What kind of world is it? What is all that equipment? What’s your special talent?”
Some of the questions Nancy knew the answer to, some of them she didn’t. She didn’t answer any of them and tried to impersonate a statue.
While Nancy wasn’t exactly a military prisoner here, she also had no idea what a magic horse would do with anything she said. Whenever she got home, she’d be incredibly AWOL, but at least she could say she had resisted interrogation.
At least thinking about the situation she was in and how she could possibly get out of it helped distract her from the one-sided conversation, even as it worried her.
After a few minutes of all questions and no answers, Applejack interrupted. She grumbled and got up. “My skills aren’t bein’ real helpful here. If she ain’t talkin’, she ain’t lyin’.” Turning, she headed into the next train car.
Princess Twilight let out a long sigh and looked at Nancy. “I really wish you would be more helpful. Why don’t you trust me?”
Nancy didn’t answer that, either. The princess shook her head. “I’ll be right back, and then we’ll begin again.” She got up and went into the other car.
Nancy had no idea what the princess might have meant by that. Enhanced interrogation? Was there a magic spell that might make her talk? Would the stripping continue?
A moment later, however, the baggage car’s window slid open and a slim dragon with black scales and a green underbelly slithered in. Nancy jumped up.
“They were here long enough,” he said. He interlaced his fingers - or whatever the correct anatomical term was - and Nancy heard what were apparently knuckles cracking. Every one of his digits had a long claw on it.
He started towards her. “Now, I’m going to make you pay for Clump.”
Chained as she was, there was no way she could run. Using the manacles on her wrists as an anchor, she threw her body into a kick, her steel-toed boots aimed at the dragon’s head.
He avoided it, but not by much. Juking a step backwards, he started towards her again, seemingly angrier than before. Nancy backed off this time, trying to use the luggage rack to distance herself, but aware that she was running out of room. He lunged at her again, jaws opening, but Nancy managed to get her chains in the way.
Though, she should have expected the dragon to breathe fire. He bit down harder on the steel in his teeth and lit it up with blue flames. The chain instantly started to glow and stretch in his bite, even if Nancy had manged to avoid getting her face in the line of fire, so to speak.
She fell backwards, pulling him down, and managed to get a kick to his gut that interrupted the fire briefly. However, now that she was on the floor, there was nowhere else to go. She was at least further away from the ceiling, which was now on fire.
The door slammed open and a now-familiar purple glow pulled the two of them apart.
“What is the meaning of this!?” Princess Twilight’s voice had gone up an octave, and several magnitudes of intensity. While separating both Nancy and the dragon, she simultaneously did some sort of spell to extinguish the fire and opened windows to vent the train car.
The dragon spat, “I’m paying her back for what she did.”
“You realize you just admitted intent to the highest authority in the land?” The princess shook her head. She looked at Nancy. “There, do you trust me now? I just saved your life.”
“Whose life did you save?” Nancy said. She sat back against the wall. Her arms were splayed on the floor. The chain was broken, though the ends still glowed red-hot. Nancy’s hands were within a few feet of her guns.
In retrospect, maybe she shouldn’t have said that.