//------------------------------// // Chapter Nineteen // Story: Familiar Faces // by GlitchyProductions //------------------------------// Chapter Nineteen: More Exposition! "So what do ya' say?" John explained the deal to Dinky; the poor child turned her head to look back at the horses that were watching her. They all looked so sad, it was like they knew John and his master, and their expressions stabbed her in the stomach. She didn't feel right while the animals were so sad, even the little purple lizard in the corner of the cage looked sad. Dinky turned back to John for a moment, he crossed his arms and waited for the child's answer. "What happens to the horsies when we find the treasure?" Dinky asked the rancher. "We won't need 'em any more after that, ah'd say that ma' master would sell 'em t' some farmer or somethin'." John grumbled; he looked up to stare at the purple mare. She frowned at him with much disgust, and so did the other horses on the other side of the cage, he just grinned a little at the angry group and looked back down at Dinky. "But are the horsies so sad, what if they're a really, really big family and they get separated... what if they get really sad and they start to cry?" Dinky tried to reason with John, he lightly chuckled as he fixed his eyesight on the horses again, they looked even more angry than before. Completely fixing their eyes on him and never moving away, the only ones that didn't fix their eyes on him was Ditzy and the two other fillies that were the same size as Scootaloo. "Ah'm gonna feed th' horses b'fore we go up again t'see th' master, b'fore you passed out he was tryin' t' figure out a map that would take him an' me t' this place were magic exists." John began to walk over to a bunch of crates seen in the corner of the room, he picked up a bucket and a giant plastic container full of what seemed to be water. He held both containers in his hands and walked back over to the front entrance to the giant cage; he placed down the food and water and reached within his trouser pockets. He pulled out a large golden key and inserted it into the lock that served as the door to the inside of the cage; he twisted the key and allowed the door to open by itself. The horses still kept their angered eyes on John, unable to know of what he was going to do next. Dinky observed as the rancher walked into the cage holding the food and water in his hands, he used his feet to kick the door back into its original position so that on one could escape without him. She looked at the horses in the cage and saw that they all shuffled away from John as he got close to them, he stood in between them all still holding the supplies, neither one of them did anything to him. John poured the wheat into a small bowl that was big enough to feed all the animals in the cage; he then opened up the plastic container into another bowl which was adjacent to the food bowl. Instinctively, most of the horses began to rush over to the bowl and began to eat out of it. The purple mare was the only one who wasn't allured by the sweet smelling wheat; John walked over to her and kneeled down in front of her. He leaned his head close to her ear with a grin. "Dun' think about tryin' t' 'scape Twilight, yer' ain't seen th' show yet." John whispered into the mares ears, she shook her head to drive him away, resulting in John letting out a small laugh. Feeling his imminent victory that his master was going to bring, the purple mare glared at the rancher with a frown and then turned to look at Dinky. "Is' okay Dinky, she's jus' a cranky one. Go up an' stroke her mane." John chuckled, he brought the food and water back over to the door and placed it down and looked at the group of horses eating out of the bowl. They all huddled around the bowl taking mouthfuls of wheat and oats, some of them had finished and moved onto the water. Mainly the little ones had trouble eating the food because it was so thick and so different from what they would normally eat, but they didn't care. The red stallion was the only one getting most of the food; Dinky took him as the big boss of the group. She learnt in school that the biggest horse is usually the strongest, and he was the biggest here. "I don't wanna stroke the horsie..." Dinky nodded her head at John. "Is' okay, anythin' else you wanna know?" John leaned down onto his knees and placed his hand down on Dinky's shoulder. "N-No..." She whimpered. "Names of th' horses or anythin'?" John offered. "N-No... I don't think they like me very much..." Dinky replied. "How come?" He asked. "They keep on running away from me... I didn't do anything bad... did I?" Dinky asked. "Nah." John proceeded to open up the cage door, allowing himself and Dinky to leave the cage, the child quickly followed as she looked away from the rest of the horses and followed John. "They're jus' scared thas' all, some of 'em don' like me either." John closed the cage, now with Dinky outside, she was free. The horses had finished their oats and wheat, they are turned round to see that Dinky was outside of the cage, the big red one was the first to move up to the edge of the cage. The stallion poked his head through the iron bars to look at Dinky, but she hid behind John once again in fear. "Get away Big Mac, yer' not needed here, stay with the others an' be quiet." John warned the stallion. Big Mac looked up at John, frowned, and then proceeded to blow out air from his nose, this frightened Dinky, the stallion slowly moved away from the cage bars and returned with the rest of the group as they still watched from afar. Curious of what John and Dinky were going to do next. "Les' go see ma' master again, ah' think he's still busy tryin' t' figure out them headbands." John turned and grabbed onto Dinky's hand, they began to make their way towards the other side of the cage; Dinky could see a small staircase on the other side. She turned back to see some of the horses had begun to follow her and John all the way round. The mare with the rainbow colored mane had decided to follow them until the edge of the cage, she stuck her hoof out to try and reach for Dinky. But John was miles ahead; he used his free hand to push away the blue mare through the cage to make sure that she did not grab the child at all. "No Rainbow Dash." He scolded the mare, the horse in return glared at the rancher and slowly trotted away. "Rainbow Dash?" Dinky squeaked. "Yeah, what 'bout her name?" John turned and looked at the child. "I heard that name before... I dunno where though..." Dinky knew that name, but she couldn't lay a finger down on it, Rainbow Dash was one of the many names that John called the horses, she couldn't help but think that something funny was going on. First Derpy, after her mother, now Rainbow Dash. "Probably from a story or somethin', people always call their kids somethin' after a book or somethin'." John tried to explain. "Now come on': through them stairs is ma' masters room, wid' th' TV an' that fancy lookin' couch. Les' go talk t'him." "Mwa ha ha! Celly! Look at that! You're so ugly looking on the picture box, it's unbearable! Ha ha ha!" Discord bounced up and down on the giant red couch, his jumping caused the giant white mare sitting beside him to shake up and down as he did. But the only difference was that the chains wrapped around her were banging and causing overall noise that the monster didn't like. Dinky and John climbed up from the dungeon staircase and saw the Mater jumping up and down on top of the chair with his white friend. "Sir..." John tried to speak, but his masters laughter was unbearably loud. The large chains wrapped around the giant white mare made it much worse; he had to place his hands over his fingers to stop the unbearable noise. Dinky also copied John as her eyes started to slightly ring with pain, she stood behind John's legs and cowered from what the monster was doing. "Ooh! Ha ha ha! Haaaaa.... that was great..." Discord had finally stopped his bouncing on the red couch, the white mare tried to moan through her gag as she was now lying on her backside. Discord leaned over her and wrapped his deformed claws around her long horn and started to pick her up. "What are you doing on your flank? You've got some picture box magic to watch!" As Dinky and John watched this madness, John started to walk over to the red couch as Discord picked up the mare by her horn. The monster turned round and saw his little human servant and the scared little child slowly making their way towards him. "My, my... Is Dinky up for round two?" He leaned over the side of the couch and poked his head at both of them. John stood out of the way and left Dinky to stand all alone against the big scary monster, her heart began to race again, but she didn't want to scream. There was magical treasure involved and she needed to be a big brave girl or else. "H-Hello..." Dinky put her arms behind her back and rocked her hip from side to side, she firstly didn't like that the monster was up in her face. His ugly features were enough to make her scream again, but she held herself back. "Hello little thing." Discord smiled; now that he slowed himself down a little he got the chance to see Dinky up close. And what strange features that Dinky had all over her, she was a little fur less thing that stood up on her two legs. Just like most images of humans that he had seen. "I'm s-sorry f-for s-screaming..." Dinky looked away from the creature and took a good look at the wooden floor; she held her arm feeling bad that she started screaming in the first place. "Heh heh, my little Dinky, you shouldn't worry about that now. We have a lot to do; we haven't even sat down and watched the picture box..." Discord grew a slimy grin across his face and pointed at the picture box; Dinky took a look at what he was pointing at and saw a large expensive TV that was much bigger than hers. "We're going to watch TV?" Dinky asked him, Discord leaned his head back and looked at the picture box. "Is that what you call it? Interesting..." Discord chuckled. "Celestia! Did you hear that my dear? It's called a TV! Magnificent!" Dinky leaned over a little to see past Discord and saw that the giant white mare was still sitting down on the chair, she didn't understand who it was but since she was sitting on the chair she looked very important. Jewels and crowns were sitting atop of the mares head as if she was some sort of fancy horse, Dinky was curious to why she was bounded up in chains. Was she going to run away is she was let go? Did she have something that Discord wanted? It was just too confusing. "Uhm... did you play dress up with the big white horsey?" Dinky pointed at the white mare, Discord turned and face the mare and then soon turned to look back at Dinky, with a small smile he nodded and chuckled. "Yes, she isn't anyone important Dinky. We should ignore her as much as we can; she doesn't like being spoken to. Honest." Discord laughed, the white mare thought otherwise, she squirmed around in her heavy chains and tried to make noise through her gag, but it was no use. She couldn't form a single word and it resulted in Discord laughing even harder. "But she doesn't look so happy..." Dinky spoke in between his laughter, this caused Discord to die down and stop for a moment to hear out the child. "What if she wants a big hug or some really nice food? I know my mommy would give me some." "My dear Dinky, you shouldn't be worried about my friend Celestia here. Has my little friend called John told you about the magical treasure that we have been looking for?" He lowered his neck and eyed up the child, slightly whispering as he got close to her. "Yeah! He said it'd make you famous!" Dinky cheered. "Heh heh, Dinky. What if I told you that the treasure that we're looking for would make you rich beyond your wildest dreams?" Discord grinned as he saw Dinky's face light up with excitement. "Really? You mean I could buy lots and lots of toys for my bedroom?" Dinky squeaked. "Yes, and with this treasure..." He looked around as if he had a terrible secret to tell, Dinky was now curious. " What if I told you that you could teleport to another world? " "Tee hee that sounds so silly!" Dinky giggled; there was no way treasure like the tiara would do anything like that. "But it isn't Dinky, it's real." Discord tried to reassure the child. "How can treasure make you go to another world? What's on the other side? Candy?" Dinky couldn't take this anymore; she just began to laugh out loud, tears streamed down her face in pure happiness. But the monster she was sitting next to didn't look too pleased. "If I told you I came from another world would that spark a bit of your interest? I'm sure that you would like to meet some aliens or scary space monsters wouldn't you?" Discord was now getting irritated, the childs laughter was starting to tingle his ears and this conversation was going on for too long. "You can't come from another world Mr. Discord! I've seen it on TV; aliens are just people in costumes pretending to look scary!" Dinky explained. "Oh? And who told you that?" Discord rolled his deformed eyes and crossed his arms impatiently. "Me and my mommy’s care-taker Carrot Top! She told us that aliens aren't real, and she's our care-taker so she knows everything in the whole wide world!" Dinky continued to giggle; Discord looked even more impatient than ever. "But don't you want to know where these ugly horses come from? Or why me and John are trying to figure out the magic inside the tiara?" Dinky closed her mouth for a second and thought for a second, the horses weren't ugly, they were cute. But she then peeked around Discord and saw the giant white mare eying her up at the same time; it was definitely a big horse. Giant white wings and a large horn to make her look so different, she started to ignore Discords offer and moved across the couch closer towards the giant white mare with a strange curiosity. "What do you think Misses Celestia? Should we go treasure hunting today?" Dinky placed her hands on her hips and looked directly at the mare. "Don't bother with Celestia; she doesn't like to talk much. I guess you could say she's been bound up for now... heh, she doesn't like it when normal people are near her." Discord looked at Dinky and then eyed up Celestia, the white mare looked at Discord as they were slightly connected in eye-contact. She looked away and focused back onto the child while Discord chuckled to himself. To be continued...