//------------------------------//
// Taketo 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"I could try talking to it."
Everyone conscious enough to be able to turn, that being all but two of the ponies there, turned towards the soldier. "You what?" one of the guards asked.
"Talking to it," the stallion repeated. He walked forward, and had a look out past the pile of rubble they were hiding behind. "It might still think we're on the same side. I'm still wearing my armour. If I go out there alone, maybe it won't attack me. I don't think I can talk to it properly, but maybe it will still be able to understand me. Maybe I can keep it distracted."
"How do we know you won't sell us out?" asked the other guard.
"If I wanted to betray you, I would have done so already," the stallion replied. "I had plenty of chances to do so. I could do it right now. I could yell out to that thing to come here and you'd be forced to choose between killing me for having done so or immediately running in the hopes of getting away, if I knew that thing would spare me." He had turned while speaking, and he stepped towards the guard who'd questioned him. "But I don't know that. Whether or not I actually wish to side with you does not change the fact that I do not know whether that thing would actually treat me any differently. If I walked out there and tried to talk to it, I have no way of knowing it wouldn't kill me on the spot. Is that clear?"
The guard held his gaze from up close, but his expression wasn't angry or bothered. "It is," he said calmly, in a serious, respectful tone. Then he turned towards Pinkie, sitting over a chunk of wall she'd rolled off the pile and looking at the ground as she poked it with a crystal stick, deep in thought. "What do you think?"
"Too risky," Pinkie replied, without even looking up. "We can't afford to lose a pony like that."
The soldier looked towards her. "What alternatives do we have? It's not moving. If it mauls me to death that might at least give you time to run away in some other direction."
"We are not sending you to die or get hurt out there," Pinkie said.
"I was supposed to end up like that thing," said the soldier. "What difference does it make? You wouldn't have stopped while I was still fighting for the other side."
"We had orders to incapacitate, not to kill," Pinkie said. In a softer tone, she added, "Besides, we need someone to carry Applejack along."
The stallion rolled his eyes, but didn't protest further. Instead he walked up to Pinkie, and looked down to the ground where she was poking around with her stick.
The two guards looked at each other and shrugged, then the stallion went to look out past the rubble pile, while the mare joined Pinkie and the soldier.