Dana had recently learned many things.
What things are those you ask? Well first off, apparently pegasuses (pegasi?) are really lightweight. Like, really really lightweight. She hunched over expecting to have to call Alex to help her, then she just lifted the pegasus up as if she weighed only like thirty pounds. Second; if her brother ever tells her something completely unbelievable, she should believe him, because his woefully underdeveloped sense of humor is incapable of being exercised. Third; apparently dislocated joints are easier to fix than she thought.
Yeah, she knew of Houdini and how he would pop his shoulder out of place and pop it back in all the time in his big escape acts, but she had figured that some level of knowledge was required about the joint you were popping.
So what does Alex do? The minute Dana drops the unconscious impossibility (Apparently she passed out. Really, it was amazing she was conscious in the first place.) on the cave floor, Alex just waltzed over and fucking jammed her crooked wing back into place like a fucking terminator. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t fretting over how much he could have fucked up right there.
And what does he do in the middle of her shitfit? He just goes and does the same damn thing to her left foot-hoof-whatever. You could hear an audible cringe worthy POP.
So after Dana was done with her shitfit, Alex calmly explained he knew what he was doing. Which sounded pretty fucking unlikely in her book. Because geneticists know all about dislocated limbs, right? But she accepted it.
So there they stood. Over the unconscious pegasus, wondering if they should do anything about her scrapes and her head wound. It wasn’t like they had disinfectant, and she doubted the head wound needed to be bandaged unless it was copiously bleeding, which it wasn’t.
But Dana doesn’t know shit about medicine, so she could be wrong. She didn’t think it mattered too much. The pegasus didn’t look like she was in critical condition unless she had internal bleeding. If she did, then there wasn’t anything Dana or her brother could do about it.
…She thinks.
I always thought that damn health class elective in high school was pointless. Now I’m paying for ditching. Fuck.
Though I really doubt they had a class on how to treat an injured pegasus.
Dana sighed. “So now what?” She asked, looking to her left towards Alex.
“We wait.” He said simply.
She couldn’t argue with that. Not much else they really could do.
She figured, at least, that the pegasus’s misfortune would end up in their favor. How better to introduce yourself to a populace than helping one of the locals?
Dana looked over her shoulder to the mouth of the cave, just outside where she had dropped Alex’s leather jacket while she looked for him. She glanced back at Alex, and marveled at how different he looked without that damn thing on.
He looked… thinner. Normal. The jacket always bulked up his appearance and made him look menacing. Without it, he just looked like a grumpy teenager. Being twenty-nine years old, he probably wouldn’t appreciate that observation.
The hood still made him look a bit scary, but the effect was severely diminished without the jacket.
Dana hummed with thought, before reaching over and brushing Alex’s hood off of his head. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but she ignored his reaction. She noticed his hair was still short and a little curly, but it seemed a lot darker. It used to be brown, but looked almost black to her. His hair didn’t seem to have grown at all, but she dismissed that thought. Probably cuts his hair with his crazy knife-fingers, she mused. I wonder if he shaves that way too…
“Uh, Dana-“ She interrupted his sentence by reaching towards his upper abdomen, grabbing the (unusually warm) zipper of his hoodie and zipping it all the way up. She then paused before grabbing his white dress shirt collar and folding it the way it was supposed to be.
Dana took a step back from him, and nodded approvingly. Now he looked less like ‘I’m going to mug you’ and more like ‘I might mug you but it’s unlikely’. That was an improvement.
“Why did you-“
“Imagine getting knocked unconscious and waking up to see some creepy dude in a hood staring down at you. Does that scream ‘friendly’ to you?” Dana explained. Alex stood there with a blank expression, before his expression morphed into a grumpy scowl. The kind of scowl that said ‘you’re right but I don’t like that you’re right’. Dana loved that particular facial expression. It usually meant victory.
“Fair enough.” Alex conceded, before walking towards the mouth of the cave. She was going to ask where he was going, before she saw his stride going straight for his discarded jacket. Oh hell no.
“And get rid of the fucking jacket!” She called.
Alex stopped and looked back with a bewildered and almost offended expression. “Why?”
Dana sighed. Wasn’t he supposed to be the genius of the two? “One, because it makes you look fucking scary.” She pointed out. “Two, because horses are vegetarians-“
“Herbivores.” Alex corrected.
“-whatever. Shut up. Listen. Horses are vegetarians,“ Alex frowned with displeasure. “so that means they don’t kill for food. That means that the idea of killing an animal, eating it and making clothing out of its skin might be a little fucked up in the society of midget horse-people. Catching my drift?”
Alex stared at her, looked back at the discarded jacket, and looked back at her with a frankly adorable conflicted expression she doesn’t see on him often. Scratch that; ever.
“I’m…” He ventured. “pretty sure the leather is artificial.”
“They might not even know what that means. Just hide it or something!”
Her brother looked back at the jacket, before sighing dejectedly and walking over to it. He swiftly picked it up, before walking out of Dana’s sight.
“…and tuck in your damn shirt!”
Blacklight stepped behind some foliage just outside of the cave, ensuring that he was out of Dana’s sight. He looked down at the ‘leather jacket’ in his hands. She was right; there’s a good chance that a herbivorous sapient creature might take issue with clothing made from dead animals. He supposed that it could be akin to a human seeing another creature wearing clothing made out of human body parts like an ogre. Not a great first impression. He begrudgingly had to admit that Dana was right on that one; leather was a bad idea. Even if they didn’t care, it was better safe than sorry.
Just because it made sense didn’t mean Blacklight had to be happy about it.
Not long ago he had been certain that he could change forms on a whim and disappear forever. He was certain that the only reason he still held Alex’s form was because of Dana. Really, making a change like taking off his jacket should mean nothing to him.
It wasn’t as if the jacket was valuable or irreplaceable. Even if it wasn’t constructed of his own mass and even if he wasn’t capable of replicating it perfectly as many times as he desired, it shouldn’t matter. He would just break down and consume the jacket, and nothing would technically be missing. Even if he did actually own a jacket like that, it was a fairly generic one found in the back section of an average Manhattan clothing store. The red symbol didn’t even mean anything; just a random tribal symbol so kids could wear the thing and pretend it meant something.
Blacklight couldn’t fathom why he cared about wearing the jacket. Even putting down his hood left him feeling a bit… hollow. It was a strange experience. It didn’t make any sense. Not even the original Alex Mercer cared about the jacket. He bought it and wore it so he would be harder to recognize; it made him look bigger, and more importantly nothing like a scientist.
Blacklight frowned, before the jacket writhed and melted down in his grip and molded into his person as if it never existed. Then the bottom of his white dress shirt then moved as if it had muscles (which it did, in Blacklight’s case) and tucked itself in. There he stood, a simple grey hoodie with the hood down, blue jeans, and a barely visible white dress shirt glimpsed from underneath the neck of his hoodie.
He turned around and started back towards the cave, emerging from the foliage to see Dana waiting for him. He ran a hand through his newly revealed hair, feeling unusually exposed.
“What took you?” She asked. Blacklight hadn’t taken too long, but he supposed he took longer than he should have.
“I covered it in a bit of dirt, just to be sure.” The chances of the locals finding a random leather jacket in the middle of this forest and connecting it to them are slim enough without the jacket being buried, but he supposed it was an alright excuse.
Dana blinked. “…Okay. I doubt they would find it in this place unless they were looking for it, but good job with being thorough I guess.”
Blacklight shrugged. His mind was elsewhere. He couldn’t help but notice that it felt like there was something missing from his head and arms, even though they were fine. Wearing Alex’s form with no the jacket and the hood down just felt… wrong.
There he was. Getting sentimental over a jacket. Not even a real jacket, just some mold of his biomass he could always and did always discard at will.
Blacklight scowled. How… human of him.
The pseudo siblings walked back into the cave together, and Blacklight couldn’t help but frown at the sight of their pegasus guest that frankly shouldn’t be alive. He wasn’t talking about the crash when she shouldn’t be alive. Surviving a crash like that seemed to attribute to the pegasus’s unusual durability. Though how the little creature can fly with such a body shape and such tiny wings was still a mystery to him.
No, the creature was lucky enough to cheat death by avoiding the wrath of Blacklight. That was exceptionally rare. If Blacklight wants something dead, it’s usually dead by the end of the day. Or month, depending on the situation and the person in need of death. But the point was that regardless of the amount of time it takes, if ZEUS wants you dead, you're dead.
The little pegasus had no idea how lucky she was.
The line of thought caused Blacklight to pause. He had been having a large influx of what he had previously dubbed ‘monster thoughts’ recently, many of which pertaining to the pegasus. That wasn’t a good sign. The stress and confusion was getting to him.
He had resolved to kill and devour a sapient rainbow pegasus of unknown age for the sake of information. While this made perfect sense to him, he realized that such thoughts were rather… morally fucked, as Dana would probably put it. He had told himself a while ago to avoid such thoughts so he wouldn’t enact them and have Dana know about it. All it took was one night in whatever whimsical hellhole to come close to breaking that unspoken promise.
That meant the world filled with pony rainbow pegasi and unicorns nearly broke his resolve on the first night. Even if it was only breaking his resolve to not be a psychotic killing machine, it was still privately embarrassing.
He narrowed his eyes. He was supposed to be good at that. Pretending. Hell, his human disguise was so good even he fell for it at one point. Pretending, even privately, to give a shit about whether or not the little equine lives or dies shouldn’t be any trouble.
It was lucky the pegasus decided to crash nearby. Granted, if she had crashed nearly anywhere else in the forest, the odds are Blacklight would have been able to track her down. It wasn’t so much lucky for her as it was lucky for Blacklight. He had been looking for a source of information, and one dropped from the sky. It would be easier if he could simply consume the little bugger and get everything he needed, but that was a monster thought that should be avoided. He’d have to pretend for a moment that devouring the being would not be easier and more convenient for everyone involved (save the pegasus, of course).
When she woke up, Blacklight could ask her questions. Have her tell he and his sister about the civilization she came from, their views on humans, if they have ever seen a human before, and more importantly, if they are hostile. If all goes well then they will have an excellent start with first contact. After all, they will have a citizen vouching for them. Nothing says ‘friendly’ like being healed and protected after being injured in a strange and possibly dangerous forest.
Sure, he may have originally had designs on consuming her head and ripping up her body to make it look like a large predator got her, but what the pegasus didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Probably.
He’d probably have to explain to Dana why he can speak Greek. Amnesia might be as good an excuse as any. Maybe he could suggest that Alex studied Greek in college. He had a hard time thinking of why he would study Greek of all languages when he clearly wasn’t going to a Greek speaking country, but he supposed he could say he didn’t remember why. Amnesia was becoming a more and more convenient excuse. He supposed it was lucky that the original Alex was so distant with his sister after getting into college. She wouldn’t know what he had studied.
The pegasus started shuffling a little. A small pained moan drifted from her lips and she slowly cracked her eyes open.
Rainbow Dash had been having a bad day. Not a bad, bad day. Just a day where everything was despicably normal. The kind of day where the clouds practically cleared themselves. The kind of day where all of her friends are either busy or doing something she has no interest in joining.
The previous day had been somewhat good. Kinda disappointing in the end though. Like, some big exciting flash and some roaring animals usually means that something cool and dangerous is going to happen. Rainbow had been expecting to fight some crazy ‘elderly-rick’ monsters like the ones in those Lovecolt books Twilight always goes on about. She got even more pumped when Fluttershy’s animals got spooked and Twilight released a warning about some two-legged betentacled bug-beast prowling around Everfree.
Ultimately, nothing had happened. Which was not awesome. All that build up and no epic climactic reveal? What’s up with that!? Twilight even said that they weren’t allow to go and trap this weird tentacle monster, because she said they don’t know what it can do or if it’s even hostile or something, which seems stupid to Rainbow. Anything that’s bug-like and has tentacles couldn’t possibly be good.
So with such a tease fraying Rainbow Dash’s nerves, and with nothing to do the next day, she of course decided to wait out the inevitable by doing something productive.
Practice for the Wonderbolts.
Many ponies say she practices too much. She doesn’t, really. She just practices whenever she has free time and isn’t particularly inclined to take a nap or be lazy. Rainbow has a lot of free time, what with being able to do her rounds as a weather pony so quickly. It isn’t her fault everypony else is too slow to have as much free time as she does.
So she had been trying out a new stunt. It was the beginning stages; didn’t even have a name. Nopony appreciates the art of stunt creation. She had to think of what to do, whether or not she can do it and emerge completely intact at the end, and it requires extensive testing. After all, doing barrel rolls (that isn’t just spinning in the air, that’s an aileron roll, something everypony but stunt ponies seem to get confused) while in a dive before breaking off just in time to corkscrew up into the air is difficult stuff, and apparently not ‘aerodynamically possible’, as Twilight put it.
But Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash blurs the lines between possible and impossible. That is to say, she ignored Twilight’s warnings and tried it anyway.
In her defense, Rainbow pulled it off. Mostly. Right up until the last bit. She corkscrewed into the air and thought she was home free.
Until her wing clipped a stray raincloud.
What happened next was a bit of a blur, but Rainbow remembered making creative use of many Equestrian swears. Then there was pain. A lot of it. She didn’t remember exactly where she landed, but she saw trees. So it was either Whitetail Woods, which would be good, Sweet Apple Acres, which would still be good but Applejack would be mad, or Everfree Forest, which would decidedly be not good. The fact that she couldn’t remember which side of town she crashed in was probably a bad sign.
The backstory following with her awaking to darkness, a banging headache, with a tremendously sore wing and hoof wasn’t as exciting as she would probably tell it later. Like a stray Everfree air-twister threw her off rather than a mere raincloud. A raincloud. What a rookie mistake. She’d make sure nopony knew about that particular screw up.
Yeah yeah, dishonest and all that. That’s why she’s the Element of Loyalty, not Honesty.
Rainbow cracked her eyes open a bit, giving out a slight moan at the pain in some of her joints. She had been injured enough previously to know what a dislocated wing felt like. The fact that it wasn’t hurting a lot more meant that somepony had already found her and tended to her, meaning that she probably crashed in Sweet Apple Acres.
She hoped she hadn’t caused any property damage. Last time that happened, Applejack forced her to work as payment for the damages. Not fun. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t do it; it was just that she was much better at kicking butt than she was at kicking trees.
Rainbow opened her eyes wider, seeing that she was in an area which had a single source of light shining in. When she focused her eyes enough to see the smooth stone ceiling, she quickly deduced that she hadn’t, in fact, landed in Sweet Apple Acres.
She tried hastily to get up, but both the twinge in her left forehoof and her disorientation from what was likely a concussion prevented her from doing such. Not to mention the rest of her body felt pretty sore, but not quite as bad as her wing and hoof.
The pegasus lifted her head, attempting to ignore the lightheadedness that came to her when she did such. The entire room swam; she couldn’t tell if her eyes just weren’t working right or if the room was actually swaying the way it was. Cold stone walls surrounded her, illuminated by the light shining in through the mouth of the cave.
Rainbow heard a voice. A mare’s voice, if the pitch was anything to go by. It was speaking in a language she had never heard before. Her eyes quickly flicked back and forth, rapidly scanning the cave before she realized her eyes were too blurry and she was looking too quickly to see anything but vague color. After blinking to clear her vision, she made out two figures in front of her.
Two tall, two-legged creatures staring down at her. Inside a cave. While she’s alone, injured, and concussed.
Just before she could panic (well… as much as she would be able to panic in her state), she heard a somewhat gravelly stallion’s voice speak.
“Are you feeling alright?”
Dana’s eyes widened at the sight of the shifting and moaning pegasus. “Alex, I think she’s waking up.”
Her brother nodded in response, looking calm and focused. Dana, on the other hand, felt excitement bubbling in her chest. She was going to talk to a rainbow-maned pegasus that may or may not be an alien. Was it girly? Yes. But fawning over the idea of a rainbow-maned pegasus and fawning over the real thing were very different. She had a right to be excited like a little girl, dammit.
It was in this internal excitement did she remember something her brother had said the previous day. He said something about them speaking Greek. How the fuck would he even know it was Greek they were speaking? It’s not as if he knows the language well enough to recogni-
“Eísai kalá?” Alex asked the pegasus once she seemed aware of them.
…What the fuck?
“What the fuck?” Dana voiced her thoughts. Her brother merely looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Were you just speaking Greek?” She asked.
Alex glanced back down to the pegasus, who seemed to still be attempting to work through her daze, before he looked back at Dana. “Yes.” He answered simply.
“When. The fuck. Did you learn Greek?” She asked. Oh God, is this what he meant with that whole creepy conversation about people being in hi-
“I don’t know. I just do.” Alex shrugged.
Dana blinked. “You just do.” She repeated.
“I have amnesia, remember? I probably studied Greek in college.” He tried.
Dana shook her head. “So you remember how to speak Greek, but not how you learned to speak Greek?”
Alex’s brow furrowed. “…Yes?”
“That seems like some pretty fucking laser-precise amnesia, right there. I thought it only worked like that in the movies.” Dana stated flatly.
Her brother blinked. “Apparently-“
“Who the fuck studies Greek in college anyway? I didn’t even know you can study Greek in college.”
“Well-“
“I mean, Latin I can understand. Sure it’s a dead language, but you can use it to look deep and I’m pretty sure it’s the base of most languages these days. But what the fuck is the point of studying Greek? Who the fuck even speaks Greek anymore besides people in Greece?”
Alex frowned. “A surprising number of Manhattanites, apparently.” He mumbled.
“Uh… geiá sou?” They heard a scratchy, female voice say.
The siblings quickly turned to look at the pegasus, who was staring at the two.
The first thing Dana really noticed was how huge her eyes were. Like, really fucking huge. She had to wonder how a brain can even fit in the head if her eyes were so damn big. If the pegasus was a normal, non-talking animal, she would assume its brain was the size of a fucking peanut. As it stood, she assumed her eyes were flat or something.
The color of her eyes was striking. A clear, bright rose color. She seemed to have trouble focusing, and if her expression was anything to go by, she was afraid.
Dana flushed in embarrassment at having ignored the talking mythical creature in favor of questioning the relevancy of the Greek language in modern society. Seemed pretty fucking lucky that her brother just so happened to have taken classes in Greek at some point so they can communicate with a bunch of Greek mythological creatures. Convenient. Maybe fate is finally giving them a break after providing the two with shit luck for the past weeks and pretty much their entire childhood.
Alex knelt down, an action that caused the pegasus to flinch. “Emeís den prókeitai na sas vlápsei.” He spoke.
“What did you say?”
“I told her we mean no harm.”
The pegasus didn’t look very reassured.
“Poios eísai esý? Ti ékanes gia ména?” The pegasus spoke.
“To ónomá mou eínai o Alex, kai af̱tí̱ eínai i̱ Dana.” Alex spoke, gesturing to himself and his sister as the names were spoken. “Échete synetrívi̱ kontá, gi 'af̱tó sas pí̱re sto katafýgio.”
While Dana could get the gist of what was being said, she felt pretty fucking left out.
“Oh…” The pegasus said, seeming to let her guard down. “Ef̱charistó̱, ypothéto̱. To ónomá mou eínai Irida Ormí̱.” The pegasus said, gesturing at herself looking unusually proud for someone lying on the floor. She winced when she twitched her left forehoof, however.
Alex arched an eyebrow, before glancing back in Dana’s direction. “She says her name is Irida Ormí̱, which translates to…” He sighed through his nostrils. “…’Rainbow Dash’.”
Dana blinked, then giggled a bit. “’Rainbow Dash’? You can’t say it doesn’t fit.”
‘Rainbow Dash’ looked offended. “Gelás to ónomá mou? Ta onómatá sas eínai pio períerga apó to dikó mou!”
“Chalaró̱ste. To ónomá sas eínai akrivó̱s paráxeno gia mas. Polý kyriolektikí̱ schési̱ me ta onómatá mas.” Alex placated. He turned to see Dana’s confused look, before clarifying. “She thought we were making fun of her.”
“Ah.” She nodded. Dana sighed when Alex turned back to Rainbow and seemed to ask a question. She had a feeling she would be left out of a lot of conversations in the near future.
After initial greetings, ‘Rainbow Dash’ appeared remarkably calm about the situation. Blacklight could only assume she had seen humans or some close equivalent before, as appearing calm despite her injuries in front of two larger unknown creatures would be rather unlikely.
He had already deduced her species herbivorous in nature after he got a look at her teeth, though her massive forward-facing eyes send mixed messages. Forward-facing eyes were an attribute of a predator, and she was clearly a prey.
Overall, things were going better than he expected. She had introduced herself, he had introduced himself and his sister, and misunderstandings of any nature were unlikely with his understanding of her language.
“So what are you?” Rainbow asked bluntly.
…So there goes the theory of her having seen humans before.
How strangely calm she was in the mercy of unknown beings.
Blacklight couldn’t help but wonder if she had some kind of mental disability.
“We’re humans.” Blacklight answered. Well, one of us is human.
Rainbow scrunched her face. “Hyew-maans. Never heard of those before. Where’d you come from?”
Blacklight figured that if she had never heard of humans, then she had probably never heard of the United States. It was safe to say at this point that he and his sister had somehow been teleported to a planet designed by a ten-year-old. He resigned not to think about the sheer stupidity of his predicament for the sake of his sanity.
“We’re from the United States.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Nope, never heard of it. But I was never good at geometry…”
“Geography.” He corrected.
“Yeah, I was never good at that either.” She shrugged to the best of her ability.
The facepalm Blacklight repressed would have held enough power to shatter bulletproof glass.
“Ask her where we are.” Dana said behind him in English. The knowledge of where they are probably won’t help them considering that the United States doesn’t appear to exist wherever they are. He did figure, at least, that knowing the name of what country they’re in would be helpful.
“Do you know where we are?” He asked Rainbow.
“Uhh, my eyes are a bit funny so I can’t really see outside…” Rainbow said, squinting in the direction of the cave mouth. Her vision issues (as well as her oblivious behavior) was probably due to a concussion. At least he hoped so. Someone who was this stupid all the time would be a massive pain in the ass.
“I mean what is the name of that town we’re near.” Blacklight clarified.
Rainbow looked back at him. “Oh. That’s Ponyville.”
Ponyville. He takes back his assumption that whatever planet they were on was designed by a ten-year-old. It was designed by a five-year-old. There’s a town named Humansville in the United States, but that was named after someone whose last name was Human, not the species of the founders.
Blacklight resigned to keep his feelings on the absolute stupidity of the town’s name to himself. He almost chuckled at the thought that people who can’t speak Greek would probably never know how dumb the name is. Though ‘Pónypóli̱’ still isn’t the most flattering name.
“What’s the name of the country?” Blacklight asked, almost fearing the answer.
She looked at his quizzically. “You don’t know?”
Why would I be asking if I-
“We’re… not from around here.” He interrupted his annoyed line of thought.
“Well you’re in Equestria,” Equestria. Equestrian without the N. Very funny. “you know, biggest country in the world, home of the Princesses? I don’t know how you don’t-“ She cut herself off, eyes widening as if just remembering something important. “Oh! Oh! Did you have something to do with that big flash in Everfree?”
Blacklight had a feeling that he did.
“Probably. There was a flash right before we arrived here. Is Everfree the name of the forest we’re in?” Everfree. What a mouthful. Not the English translation, but the Greek translation. If it was spelled with the English alphabet, it would have fifteen letters.
“So do you know about the tentacle bug monst-“ She paused. Tentacle bug monster? Shit. Someone must have seen him kill that infected man… though he wasn’t in armored form. Where did the bug thing come from? “We’re in Everfree?” She asked.
“If that’s where the ‘big flash’ happened, then yes.” He confirmed.
Rainbow Dash blinked. She twitched her recently dislocated wing as if testing it, and cringed in pain. “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh?” Dana sounded behind him, while Blacklight looked back at her. “What did she mean by ‘uh oh’? That kind of thing crosses language barriers, you know.”
“Why ‘uh oh’?” Blacklight asked in Greek as he turned back to the pegasus.
“Well…” Rainbow shuffled in place. “The Everfree Forest is kind of… the most dangerous place in Equestria.”
That made Blacklight pause for thought. He had figured that the forest was dangerous just by its appearance, but it didn’t seem like the most dangerous place in an entire country. He hadn’t seen any evidence of such.
Regardless, he was certain nothing the forest had to offer was more dangerous than himself.
“She says this forest is dangerous.” He said as he turned back to Dana.
Dana blinked. “No shit. Just look at it.” She said, gesturing out the mouth of the cave. “Could it be any more ominous? Tell me something I don’t know.”
“The nearby town is named Pónypóli̱, which translates to Ponyville,” Dana snorted, using a hand to cover her smile. “and we’re in a country named Ippikóstriá, which translates to Equestria.”
“Because they’re equine.”
“Essentially.”
Dana shook her head. “I have a feeling that none of this is real and I really just got knocked into another coma.”
Blacklight didn’t blame her. His suspension of disbelief was already nearing its breaking point, and he’s a sapient virus that eats people.
“Hey, how come she’s not talking?” Rainbow asked. Blacklight turned back to her.
“She doesn’t know Greek.”
Rainbow’s expression turned quizzical. “What’s ‘Greek’?”
“The language we’re speaking.” Blacklight wondered if the crash caused some form of brain damage.
“Dude, we’re speaking Equish.”
The facepalm that Blacklight repressed would have held enough power to punch through three inch thick tempered steel. That’s the second time since he had been in contact with the little equine did he repress the urge to slam his own face with excessive force. Not good.
“Apparently it’s called something different where I come from.” Equish. What the fuck. Is everything here horse-themed?
“Anyway,” Blacklight said, ready to move on to what he had originally been intending to ask. “if Dana and I were to walk into Ponyville,” To his credit, he only hesitated for a split second when saying the town’s name. “would the town panic at the sight of us and attack?”
Rainbow looked pensive for a moment, before answering. “They wouldn’t attack you, but Ponyville’s always been a bit, aah-” She chuckled nervously whilst trying to think of a word. “skittish. Especially with that big flash and Twilight warning everypony about a two-legged tentacle monster. And you guys do walk on two legs… and you would be coming out of the Everfree forest…” She thought for a bit more. “I know I would probably try to buck you on sight when I think about it, but I think everypony else would be too scared.” She caught Blacklight’s look and hastily amended. “But I’m sure they’ll be cool if you come into town with me.”
“So they won’t form a mob.” He clarified.
“A mob? Where do you think we are? Chaíti̱kapélo?” Blacklight blinked, bewildered. That almost sounded like an attempt to make a horse pun about Manhattan. Chaíti̱kapélo roughly translates to ‘mane hat on’.
But that wouldn’t make any sense. A pun that hinges on the translation of another language based on a city that apparently doesn’t exist is just too improbable. Stupid, even. Blacklight chalked it up as coincidence.
Blacklight got his thoughts back to what Rainbow had said. They would be more afraid than aggressive, and they had one of their own to vouch for them. He supposed that was as good a situation he was going to get. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t defend Dana with extreme prejudice should the population turn hostile.
Though seeing him rip apart a crowd of cute multicolored ponies would probably be very traumatizing for her.
“Can you walk?” He asked.
“I can walk. I’ve had worse.” Rainbow confirmed, shakily standing up. “Can’t fly though…” She grumbled, throwing a dirty look at her recently damaged wing.
Blacklight nodded, before standing up himself and walking towards the supplies he had taken in the back of the cave.
“Hey what? Where we going?” Dana asked, surprised by the sudden movements.
Blacklight looked back at her and smirked.
“To town.”