Between the Everfree Forest, Froggy Bottom Bog, and other dangerous wild lands, much of Equestria’s wooden territory remained untouched and largely unexplored. With their evolutionary roots in prey animals, it took a brave and perhaps foolhardy pony indeed to explore such potentially dangerous areas.
The unicorn mare Spinning Compass, and her earth pony husband Trail Mix, fit such a description almost to a tee. The difference being that they at least made sure they got paid for their exploration. They were a week’s hike south from Vanhoover where the trees took on a disconcerting shade of crimson as the pair trudged on in the blistering summer heat.
Compass walked behind Trail with a crude map floating in front of her with a piece of charcoal also held in her magical grip attempting to draw the landscape as she glanced about. While she carried all of the cartography equipment, Trail carried the food and a specially crafted weapon given to him from Princess Luna herself. However, it was not a weapon of pony make. It was a musket straight from the burgeoning industrial complex in Phoenix’s Roost, and ever since leaving Vanhoover, it was always kept ready to fire.
The pair found a shady tree on top of a rocky hill overlooking the coast to rest underneath. The ocean gently crashed upon the cliff side below, giving the couple some enjoyable symphony of nature to relax with. “If you keep that weapon of yours any closer I might think you’re cheating on me.”
Trail set his weapon down to lean against the tree, and stared up at the red leaves above. “After how well it took care of that manticore? I’m surprised you don’t want one of your own. We could double date,” he added with an eyebrow wiggle.
“Right, sure,” she shot back with an ever so subtle touch of sarcasm. She huffed in relief after sitting down to give her poor hooves a chance to relax. It wasn’t long before her charcoal started scribbling away again as she started adding the present coastline onto the map.
“So why do you think the princess was so keen on us mapping out the coastline before we could finish our survey of White Tail Woods?” Trail asked between gulps of amazingly delicious water from his canteen.
“You were in the same meeting I was, she’s had some reports of unidentified ships along the coast, and she wants us to check it out.”
He gave her a disbelieving smirk, but Compass was too focused on her work to notice. “Uh huh. Do you really believe the whole thing with ghost ships and a new big bad evil out here like some of the castle servants were blabbering on about?”
“No, I don’t.” Compass pulled out a spyglass to look out over the distant waters. “But those so called ‘ghost ships’ could be a new sea critter. That alone is worth coming all the way out here.” The massive ocean before her tugged at her romantic side, which was promptly dashed by her husband’s teasing.
“Sea critter? Maybe we should just call it that, and skip the scientific name all together.” Trail’s smirk grew as Compass scowled at him.
Seeing that he was in mood to play with her, Compass snubbed her nose at him. “Why did I marry Gooficus Maximus?”
“Maybe because you mistook me for Studicus Supremiumus.” He started flexing his rather large earth pony muscles at her. As much as Compass tried to hide it, Trail could see she was flustering at his display. “How about we do another test to see which classification I fall under, hmmm?”
Why can he switch me on so damned easily? She was about to cave in when Trail’s face switched from suave mare-killer to one of confusion.
He pointed a hoof out to sea. “That doesn’t look like a sea critter at all.”
Following his gaze and hoof, Spinning Compass saw two shapes floating on the water. Angling her spyglass, she smiled at the sight of sailboats. They had large white sails with an unidentifiable flag flying above a rather large crow’s nest. She could also see that several sailors were airborne while working on a deck with no sails, but as to what they were, it was too difficult to tell from such a distance. “We found our ghost ships. It looks like they’re headed towards shore further south.”
She handed the spyglass over so that Trail could take a long look. As with his wife, the sailors were too far away to identify, as was the vaguely blue flag. “I haven’t heard of any pony expeditions along the Endless Sea. You think they might be griffins?”
Spinning Compass started repacking her equipment and shoveling down a premade hay sandwich. “I don’t think their globe spanning expedition ever received any sponsors so I doubt it’s them, and the minotaurs are not explorers.”
Grabbing his musket, Trail Mix had an unsettling thought. “Think they might be changelings? If Queen Twilight and Cadista’s group have such crazy tech, there could be others out there.”
“That’s a scary thought.” Compass turned her spyglass towards land and saw very distant black smoke coming from behind a large tree covered ridge. “Whoever they are, the princesses will want to know who they’re dealing with.”
Knowing that the mystery beings were airborne, the two ground bound ponies started snaking their way through the densest parts of the coastal trees to reach the ridge. Trail was more careful of his steps than ever before, avoiding several fallen branches along the way. “So do we go up to them and say hello?” he whispered behind him.
“We’re explorers, not diplomats. We just get a figure on what they are and how many there are before we double time it back to Vanhoover. Let the princesses handle it from there.” The sounds of distant chatter and the commotion common to light industries started reaching their ears before the explorers reached the summit.
At this point, the married couple were crawling on their bellies to use the barbed shrubs as cover. Compass had to keep from crying out as a few too many stickers buried themselves under her skin. Stupid short summer coat.
Her irritation gave way to an explorer’s dream upon seeing a completely new civilization. This was no small collection of houses, but a full on harbor town that was taking up residence in a natural deep water harbor built into the steep hills surrounding the docks. The architecture was entirely alien, with the wooden houses sporting flamboyant rooftops of gargoyles and other sculptures of various important figures lining the docks.
Yet all of that took a backseat to the inhabitants themselves. The first, and more readily visible were large winged felines that the ponies first mistook for griffins. Every last one of them wore tight fitting and lightly colored clothing, over their barrels and withers, but the visible heads removed all illusions that these beings were griffins. One of the beings was sun bathing on a house no less than ten meters away from the spying ponies. Using her spyglass, Compass could tell the differences in an instant. Instead of the head and forelegs of a bird, the forelegs matched their feline hind leg counterparts. The head however looked like some sort of nearly hairless monkey who had long flowing hair draped over the lounge chair it was sleeping on.
With the shirt it was wearing, it was impossible to tell where the line between cat and ape began. Perhaps along the lines of where bird and cat meet with griffins? Compass gave her husband the spyglass as quietly as possible. With so many of these creatures in the skies, neither pony wanted to let a slip of the tongue give them away.
Trail studied the sleeping cat-monkey thing in detail, trying to burn it into his memory so he could draw it up later. A few minutes later, a hatch noisily opened up, disturbing the creature from its slumber. Both ponies and awakened creature witnessed a very large lion sized cat-thing step onto the roof. Where the winged one was roughly twice the size of Trail Mix, the newcomer was both larger and wingless. Its girth and stride exuded confidence. Aside from its rather ornate clothing, which would fit right in with Canterlot high society, it carried a large horn tied to its back.
“Rasua, are you going to work, or laze about all day? Your father will not abide such behavior for much longer.”
While its voice was definitively masculine, the ponies couldn’t understand the language. "And what can a blacksmith do without metal to shape, Thaddaeus? The ships will be in port within the hour, and only then will I cease my communion with the sun.” Rasua attempted to nestle back into her cushioned chair, but Thaddaeus had other plans.
Communion my ass. He turned towards the direction of the ponies, only missing them because the explorers were lying prone and completely motionless. With a practiced slicing motion of his fore claw, a chunk of earth was ripped off the hill, carrying Spinning Compass along with it.
Shoving her hooves into her mouth to keep from crying out, Compass tucked her tail in close to keep it from spilling over the side. Trail Mix watched in horror as his wife and the shrub she was hiding under were brought to a standstill just a couple of meters above Rasua’s head. Trail readied his musket and pulled out a long rope now that he was sure the strange beings were distracted.
Thaddaeus waited a few seconds for Rasua to respond. When she was clearly not going to budge on her own initiative, Thaddaeus jostled the clump of earth, making dirt rain down.
Rasua sputtered as clumps of dirt landed in her mouth. She sat up to take stock of the situation before glaring at the tomcat. “I will end your existence if you do that again!”
“Only if you end it down on the docks. Someone has to make Ferlason send the ingots to the smith. You know he won’t do it himself.”
When Rasua didn’t respond, Thaddaeus broke the floating clump of dirt a little more to press his point, only for Spinning Compass’s weight to snap through the weakened roots of the bush and fall on top of Rasua.
Compass sputtered the dirt from her mouth while Rasua flailed to rid herself of earth and pony. “Hey, nice to meet you, sorry, gotta go!” Thaddaeus was stunned by the unicorn’s appearance long enough for her to leap towards the edge of the roof. “Trail, help!”
“Grab the rope!” Gripping the other end in his jaws, Trail threw the rope over the edge. Compass leapt forward and grabbed the lifeline with her magic to bring it within range of her legs and mouth. The mare was a fast climber, but not quick enough. Thaddaeus reared up on his hindlegs and used both fore claws to make graceful sweeping gestures, causing the whole hill to rumble and begin breaking apart. The shaking dropped Trail Mix off his hooves, and nearly caused Compass to slip off the rope and plummet three stories down.
Thinking quickly, Trail fumbled to grab his nearby musket which had nearly fallen over the side. A shift in the earth bounced the weapon towards him, and Trail barely managed to wrap his hooves around it. With no real hope of hitting his target, he aimed and fired in Thaddaeus’ direction. Whether it was luck, or the musket’s own natural inaccuracy, Trail managed to hit Thaddaeus in the gut, ceasing his attempts to bring down the hill. Thaddaeus roared in pain and fell to the floor in a heap.
Rasua bristled at her stricken oath-brother, and pulled a dagger from under her chair and charged through the air to cut the rope. Compass tightened her grip on the rope, and kicked the hill to spin around and fired off a mana bolt. The shot slammed into Rasua’s chest, and knocked the wind out of her. She would have fallen off the building, but she had enough of her wits to glide to the bottom.
Trail regained his footing and heaved Compass to the top. “We have to get out here!”
Compass was already thundering down the other side of the hill as Trail collected his firearm. “Don’t you think I know that!?”
Trail was a bit slower to get started down, but he caught up with his wife within a minute in the uneven terrain. “That’s some gratitude for you. Save your neck and not even a howdy do.”
Thaddaeus howled in pain at the foreign injury and reached for his horn. Thank the stars whatever that thing did, didn’t get my lungs. Beating the pain down, he took a deep breath and blared his horn as loud as possible for five seconds before giving four short notes. Within moments, a well armored flier descended to his aid. “Majordomo,” the soldier took one fearful look at the gunshot wound and removed her small first aid kit from her flank. “What happened? Where is Madam Rasua?”
Grunting in pain, Thaddaeus waved at the slightly broken hill. “Forget me, Chevalier, I’ll live. There are two… things, out there. Bring them back, I care not how!”
“As you order!” Leaving her first aid kit with Thaddaeus, the chevalier took to the air once more. Blasting through the trees, it didn’t take her predator’s eyes long to find the fleeing ponies along the sandy beach. Leaving her curiosity secondary to her duty, the chevalier charged forth with the wind at her back.
Focusing on her fore-paws, the chevalier reshaped the legs into furless arms and hands, allowing her to unsheathe the long curved sword secured across her barrel. She readied her weapon directly overhead to keep it away from her wings and roared at the unicorn who was barely trailing behind the stallion. “By the will of the Majordomo, and the Sphinx Federation, I claim your lives in retribution!”
Trail glanced backward only to see the blade slice clean through Compass, dropping her to the sands. “No!” Out of grief and rage, he turned to face his wife’s killer only to have the chevalier perform a follow-up swing and end his life within a second’s breadth.
Satisfied that both strikes had been lethal, the chevalier moved into a hover before grabbing a cloth to clean her blade and then sheathing it. With her blade no longer needed, her arms reformed into paws and legs. Off in the direction of town, she saw more of her winged brethren flying over. “Good, then I won’t have to carry these…” She studied the corpses briefly. They looked for all the world to be prey, but she had never expected to see another intelligent species. “Things back myself.”
Shortly thereafter, in the governor’s manor, the chevalier and a few others of her rank brought the dead ponies and their belongings to the imposing figure of Lord Ventras. He was a wingless sphinx with flowing gold and green robes. His carefully groomed hair was done up in a chonmage. Thaddaeus laid in on a cot with a surgeon examining the musket ball she had just extracted from his wound. Rasua was massaging her chest where the kinetic magic bolt had left a sizable welt.
The manor’s receiving hall was adorned with no artwork, save for statuary of various sizes. Each one depicting either an ideal sphinx, or historic figures Ventras wished to honor.
Thaddaeus snarled at the corpses. The servants had the presence of mind to bring forth several heavy rugs to keep the blood from staining the light brown wooden floor. “I thought I told you to bring them back!”
The chevalier bowed low to the majordomo, a meticulously crafted neutral expression never leaving her face. “And so I have, honorable one. You neglected to mention in what state you desired them.”
“Were my innards not in tatters I would punish you myself!” Thaddaeus failed to keep a spike of agony from making him double over. His wound reopened, causing the surgeon to force him back down.
“You must not break the stitching, unless you want infection to set in.”
“Calm yourself, Thaddaeus,” Ventras stated wisely, if only to keep him from arguing with his doctor. “Our warrior was simply performing her duty.” He gave a dismissive nod, prompting the chevaliers to salute with their right wings before departing. He spoke once the warriors departed. “You should have expected the warrior caste to strike first and leave civil grace to others more suited.”
“…Yes, ma’lord.” Thaddaeus hissed in pain as the doctor closed his wound.
With curiosity written all over her face, Rasua bounded forward to inspect the dead ponies. She did not shy from the gore, as it only allowed her to see some of their internal anatomy. One point of great interest was the compass on the mare. With its owner dead, the cutie mark was beginning to fade right before Rasua‘s eyes. She turned to Trail Mix to discover his mark of a collection of nuts was nearly gone as well. What sort of mad sorcery is this? “What exactly are these things, father? Could we really have found an intelligent species beyond our own?”
With a slight gesture of his paw, the four servants around the room swarmed the ponies and started laying out each of their belongings for Ventras' inspection, but largely left the corpses alone as Rasua was not done with them yet. Seeing that the surgeon was done for the moment, Ventras waved at his majordomo forward. Two servants lifted Thaddaeus’ cot and carried him over so that the three sphinxes encircled the equestrians. “That, is an excellent question, my Little Huntress. For all intents and purposes, they appear to be simple prey animals.”
“If you ignore these items of theirs.” Rasua started picking through Compass’ cartography equipment. The objects’ intent were easily decipherable, but the high quality of their craftsmanship troubled her. “I think it was this one who struck me with some sort of attack, but I was too focused on its companion to see what it was.”
Thaddaeus centered on the musket and reshaped a claw into a hand before picking it up. Now that he could inspect it more closely, he saw the weapon was as alien as he expected. The metal tube had been decorated in exquisite silver lined engravings that had been meticulously cared for. The wooden parts were decorated with a crescent moon in such a way that it would not detract from its utilitarian nature. In his ignorance, he didn’t notice the short inscription on the butt was of Vespid and a different language of the Equestrian script on the maps. I’ve seen all manner of swords and crossbows, but nothing like this. “Well it was most certainly not with one of these.” He struggled to prop himself up on three legs, so he could examine the weapon more closely. He batted away at the hovering surgeon, who grumbled but stayed nearby. “If it pleases you, ma’lord, I would like to discover the secrets of this device.”
“That is the weapon which has left you in such miserable shape?”
Blushing in profound shame, Thaddaeus averted his gaze. His oath-bound sister, Rasua looked on with concern, but held her peace. “You know of my prowess in combat, ma’lord. It would take far more than a dozen arrows to bring me low. Even more so had I been wearing my armor. This weapon must be studied.”
“Very well.” Ventras studied the other tools carefully. Each one fascinated him more than the last. “We are quite fortunate. The resupply ships are pulling into the harbor as we speak. Rasua, send a message to the flotilla commander. Tell him I will be writing a letter for the Council informing them we have made contact with an intelligent species.”
The hairs on Rasua’s neck stood up. “Father. This is the first intelligent life we’ve ever seen besides ourselves. The Council will think us mad, and the cults will call us unfit to lead this colony.”
“Then send the bodies and belongings as proof.” He replied as if it was the obvious choice. “We must have the council’s authority to act any further with these barbarians.”
“These, barbarians planted a lead ball in my stomach, ma’lord,” Thaddaeus warned as he waved his new musket. “I have seen much in my years, as you full well know, and not even our best forge-smiths or chemists could concoct such a device. Even prey will turn and fight if you give them enough reason to. And with weapons like these…”
Ventras held a paw up for silence. “We have dangerous prey back on the home continent. Here will be no different, except perhaps…” Ventras started rubbing his thin beard in contemplation. “Well, we shall see what the Council decides. For now, if anyone sees another one of these things, capture it alive at all costs.”
“As you say, father.”
As Rasua left to obey her orders, Ventras placed a paw over the musket before Thaddaeus could put it down. “Hold onto that. I want to know its secrets.”
“As wise a hunter as you are ruler. By your will, ma’lord.” Bowing as much as he was able, Thaddaeus barked to the servants to carry him to his chambers. Thoughts of a civilization capable of constructing such an implement of the hunt darkened his thoughts.