(Shining Armors POV)
The creature sitting on the throne had finally noticed us. It seemed to be just as confused as we were. Perhaps it wasn’t expecting to see anypony else here? Or maybe it was expecting us, and we had managed to catch it off guard? Regardless of what it may or may not have been planning, Cadance and I were now stuck in a staring contest with the creature, our looks of confusion mirroring its own. I was about to ask Cadence what we should do when the creature once again made noise.
“Um… hi?” It half-asked, half-said, moving one of its appendages in what would be considered a wave, while it used the other to remove the headphones from its ears and place them around its neck.
I couldn’t understand a word of what the creature was saying. It just came out as a series of grunts and moans. But if its… “singing” from earlier was any indication, I would guess that this creature was simply speaking another language. I never learned any language outside of Common Equish, so I turned to the only pony in the room who might have an idea.
“Uh, honey? Any idea what it’s saying?”
My wife shook her head. “No. I’ve never heard anything like it before.” She thought for a moment. “I’m sure Twilight would have an idea. Auntie Celestia did say she and others should be here by the end of the week.” She turned back towards the creature, who seemed to be watching us with a look of intrigue on its face. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
I looked back towards the creature as well. Getting a better look at it, it seemed to me like a cross between a monkey and a minotaur. It had no fur on it, and had a mane at the top of its head which went down to its shoulders and a beard on its chin. With those physical features, as well as the voice, I had no doubt in my mind that it would be considered a male of its species, and an older one at that. I couldn’t see a tail due to the creature sitting down, but I could safely assume that it did have one. Monkeys and Minotaurs had tails, after all. Why would a mix between the two be any different?
Its eyes were a little disturbing. They were so… small. How could any creature see anything with eyes that small. It also made his expressions harder to read, which helped with my newfound sense of growing unease. I also got a look at one of his hands, and counted four fingers a thumb. Another difference from minotaurs. They only have three fingers and a thumb.
Before I could answer my wifes question, I saw the creature reach into his jacket and pull something out of an inner pocket. Then he opened it, revealing it to be a pocket knife. While it was never the most popular weapon, I did know a few members of the guard who had them, just in case they needed some sort of protection while off duty. I charged my horn with an offensive spell, ready for a fight.
“Get behind me, honey. I have no idea what it’s about to do.” I told Cadance while taking a defensive position between her and the creature.
And then the creature did something I didn’t expect. He held both of his hands up in a gesture I recognized. It was one used commonly by both minotaurs and griffins to symbolize surrender. Whether or not it meant the same thing to this creature though, I didn’t know. He stood up and slowly approached us, confirming my suspicions that he was a biped. He stopped halfway between me and the throne before getting down on one knee, placing the pocket knife on the ground. The creature then stood back up and backed away from me and the knife.
“I mean you no harm.” He began in his native tongue. “I am simply a lost traveler. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. Can you help me?” He sounded like he was almost pleading with us. I could also sense a bit of fear in his voice.
Cadance tapped my shoulder and I looked over at her. “Honey, I don’t think it’s going to hurt us. In fact, it seems to be… surrendering.”
“Are you sure, dear?”
“I’m pretty positive. Why else would it give up its weapon?”
She did have a point. I canceled my spell and looked back at the creature, then at the pocket knife. Picking it up in my magic, I got a closer look at it. The handle was a bit different than the designs I had seen before, but that made sense considering how the creature had used his hand to wield it rather than the hooves a pegasus or earth pony would use, or magic if the wielder were a unicorn. I could also see that the blade was old and had been well used over the years.
The detail that struck me the most was the color of the blade. Instead of the usual gray or silver steel one would expect, this blade was a literal rainbow of colors, ranging from purple to green to blue to red and orange. I also found what looked like a logo of sorts.
A logo with writing.
A logo with writing that was written in Unicorn Script.
While I didn’t know what it said, I recognized the characters from a half remembered lecture Twilight gave me years ago when she was doing a research project on old pony writing systems for Princess Celestia. From what I could remember, back before the unification and the first Hearth’s Warming, each pony tribe had developed their own writing systems, despite the fact that all three shared a spoken language. These writing systems would gradually die out over the centuries, being replaced by the Universal Equestrian Writing System that everypony uses today. Only Unicorn Script survived to the modern day, and even then it’s only used by a hooffull of Canterlot’s oldest noble houses and a few scholars, and very rarely at that. If what Twilight said was accurate, then most expect it to die out in the next few decades.
Cadance was looking at the blade over my shoulder and seemed to notice the logo. “Is that…?”
I nodded my head. “Yup. Its Unicorn Script. Any idea what it says?”
“I might be able to read it. Auntie Celestia did teach me how, but that was years ago. I might be a bit rusty.” I floated the pocket knife over to her so she could get a better look. “Let’s see… it says… ‘Dull-oath’... something… ‘Co.’? What the hay is a ‘Dull-oath’?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not any name I recognize. The ‘Co.’ at the end seems to imply that it’s a company of some kind. We might have to ask the princesses if they know any company by that name.”
“They would.” Cadance replied in the affirmative. “Anypony creating a company that manufactures weaponry needs to have a royal permit to do so. Even if they don’t know it offhoof, I’m sure they would have a copy of the paperwork laying around somewhere.”
“But that doesn’t explain why they would use Unicorn Script to write their company name. Wouldn’t they have used Universal Equestrian?”
“You do have a point.” Cadance seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before shaking her head. “We can figure this out later. Right now, we have a creature to deal with.” She said, pointing a hoof and nodding in the direction of the creature, who had been watching us silently this entire time. “It doesn’t seem to be a threat, at least not to us, but we still don’t know what it is. And then there’s the language barrier…”
“Hopefully Twilight can figure out both when she gets here. For now, we need to focus on figuring out how to stop Sombra from taking back control of the empire. Your protection spell isn’t going to last forever, and we both know what will happen when it falls.” Before I could continue, a pair of loud growls emerged from both of our stomachs. Cadance giggled.
“Perhaps we could find something to eat first? I’m starving, and it sounds like you are too.”
Before I could reply, the creature cleared his throat. When we looked over, he made a motion of rubbing his stomach with his hand, before pointing at us. Figuring out what he meant, we nodded our heads. He smiled and walked past us to the throne room doors, motioning for us to follow.
“He’s trying to lead us somewhere.” I stated. “Should… should we follow him?”
“He’s already proven that he isn’t a threat. Besides, you still have his knife.” My wife pointed out. “I say that this is a risk we take.” With that, she began following the creature, who was now waiting for us by the doors. Not wanting to be left behind, I closed the knife with my magic and followed the two of them. About twenty minutes of walking later, the creature stopped a pair of doors and gestured towards them, giving a sort of bow. Cadance opened the doors to reveal a kitchen. A thousand years out of date, but a kitchen nonetheless.
“I guess following him was a good idea after all, huh Shiny?” Cadance looked over at me with a smug grin. I simply laughed and walked in with her, the creature taking a seat on one of the countertops.
(Jacks POV)
I watched the two unicorns converse with mild amusement. It was clear to me that two were very close, and even with the language barrier I could tell that the pink one was teasing the white one.
“Siblings, perhaps? Maybe lovers? Eh, I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough.”
I was admittedly scared when the white one seemed to be ready to murder me while I was in the throne room. In hindsight, I was very lucky that the gambit with my pocket knife worked. It could’ve ended very poorly for me. These two may be a good two feet shorter than me, but I have a feeling that either one could easily beat the shit out of me if they deemed me a threat. I also noticed that the white one had been occasionally glancing at my ass with a look of surprise on its face while we were walking here, but I didn't mention it. I’m sure I could figure out the reason later.
“Alicorn.” My brain suddenly said, “The pink one is an alicorn.” I had been trying to remember the term ever since I saw the pink ones' wings. It was right there on the tip of my tongue, and now I’ve got it.
Speaking of the pink alicorn, she brought me out of my thoughts by tapping my leg with her hoof. When I looked over, I saw that she was offering an orange. I raised my hand and shook my head in an effort to refuse, since I had just eaten a few hours ago, but she seemed insistent. I finally took it after realizing that she wouldn’t stop using weaponized cuteness against me until I did.
The white one watched this entire interaction with the same mild amusement I watched his interaction with the pink one earlier when we had entered the kitchen. The pink one returned to the white one on the countertop across from mine and the three of us ate in silence. This silence was good for some thinking, which I did.
“I’m proud that I managed to get here in under half an hour. I really didn’t want to lead them on a multi-hour journey to the kitchen. They seemed really interested in my pocket knife… and hearing the pink one try to pronounce ‘Duluth’ was kinda funny.”
I froze with a piece of orange right in front of my mouth. “Wait… she could read what it said. Well, at least the first word. That means we might have a common writing system. Does that mean we also have a common written language?”
My thoughts were interrupted by the white one clearing his throat. Looking over, I could see the two giving me looks mixed with both curiosity and concern. I reached into my jacket to find the piece of paper I took inventory on earlier, as well as my pen. I pointed at them, then at the paper, then made a motion as if I were writing on the paper with the pen, before pointing back at them. The pink one seemed to get what I was trying to say with my game of charades, and she took both in what I assumed to be her magic.
I really wanted to freak out about the fact that magic was a thing here. Really, I did. I already did it internally when the white one used his telekinesis to lift up my knife, but I felt like doing it externally as well.
That could wait for later, though. Right now, I wanna see if this idea works.
(Shinings POV)
Cadance looked over the paper, trying to make out what the creature had written before. There seemed to be two lists right next to each other, each item on them being punctuated by bullet points, with some empty space on the bottom. She also held the pen the creature offered her in her magic.
At first, I didn’t realize what the creature was implying, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out. “He wants to see if we can communicate through writing.” Honestly, I thought it was a good idea. The creature wrote in Unicorn Script, meaning that Cadance at the very least would be able to write messages back and forth with him. My hope, as well the creatures, seemingly died when I saw the look on the Love Princesses face. “Honey,” I started, allowing a bit of worry to creep into my voice, “is something wrong?”
“I… this isn’t Equish.” She said, “It uses the same unicorn alphabet, and there are a few words I recognize, like “knife” and “jacket”, but the rest is just gibberish.” She looked up at the creature with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this will work.”
The creature was obviously disappointed with this result, and even more obviously didn’t understand what Cadence said, but he seemed to get the gist from her tone and body language. The last bits of hope in his eyes died as he seemed to retreat back into his thoughts.
I honestly felt bad for the guy. He was stuck here, with no way to communicate with anypony else outside of vague gestures. I would absolutely hate to be in his shoes. I reached out and put my hoof on the halfway point of his leg, which seemed to bend backwards, and gave him a smile I hoped would be comforting. It seemed to have worked, judging by the small smile he gave me.
Cadance spoke up after a moment of silence. “Well, I figured out what to do about our guest.” She looked over to the creature, who returned the gesture by maintaining eye contact with her. “You’re going to stay here with us for now. We have some friends coming by the end of the week who should be able to help with the language barrier.” She spoke with a hopeful tone with her voice, before she grew more serious. “Once we get past that, you can help us figure out a way to deal with Sombra. Do we have a deal?” Cadance held out her hoof for the creature to shake.
The creature's response was to tilt his head in confusion. Cadance awkwardly chuckled when she remembered that he didn’t speak Equish and thus didn’t understand a single thing she said. After repeating what she said several times with some hoof gestures thrown in, the creature seemed to understand the vague outline of the agreement my wife was proposing: Food, shelter and a way around the language barrier in exchange for help with Sombra. The two shook on it.
The rest of the day was the creature giving us a tour of the castle and leading us to the bedrooms, where Cadence and I claimed the first one we walked into. The creature claimed the one next door.
It had been a long day, and right now, I just wanted some rest.
(Jack’s POV)
So I made a deal with a pink alicorn. From my understanding, they were giving me a roof over my head in exchange for help with someone named “Sombra”, whoever that was.
The three of us didn’t even realize how late it was until I had chanced a look out of a nearby window and saw the sun about to set. They seemed to have realized as well, as they (well, mostly the white one) decided to hit the hay.
So now here I was, sitting in the bedroom right next door. I had taken off both my jacket and hoodie and was currently in the process of taking off my boots when there was a knock on my door. Walking over, I opened it up to see the white one standing in front of me. He said something to me in his language, before telekinetically handing me my pocket knife back. I honestly wasn’t expecting for him to give it back to me this soon, but I wasn’t about to complain. I took it in my hand and thanked him before he went back to his room. I closed the door behind him and smiled.
“I guess it’s nice that the two trust me already. Though that was unreasonably quick.” I chuckled a bit before placing the knife on the nightstand next to my bed and finishing up with taking my boots off.
I laid my head against the pillows and curled up so I could fit in the bed without my legs dangling off the side of or end of it. At that point, I started seriously considering whether or not this was a dream yet again.
“I already disproved that theory twice. If I wake up here, then it’ll be a third.” I closed my eyes and, after a few false starts and interruptions from my headache, I fell asleep.