Equestria’s First…Russian?
Chapter Three
Rude Awakening
“T’fu…Gde ya…?(Ugh… Where am I…?)” Solovyov asked quietly under his breath, spitting out a few drops of blood from his mouth. He made his attempts to move, but was stopped by ropes tied around his legs, abdominals, wrists, and ankles to a wooden chair that was just big enough to seat him. He noticed that the room he was in was pitch-black dark, and the only light in the room was the one hanging above his head, shining a dull circle of light around him. They were in what appeared to be an abandoned building on the outskirts of Ponyville.
“You better start making some sense, mister!” Rainbow shouted as she walked from the shadows of the room they were in.
“Vy... (You…)” Solovyov whispered. “Chto chert vozmi s toboii? Vidite li ya ne govoryu na vashem yazyke? (What the hell is wrong with you? Can you see I do not speak your tougne?)”
“That’s the first thing I need to know; what are you even talking about!? All of your babbling doesn’t make sense! Is it a language or some sort of birth defect?” Rainbow yelled.
“Ya dumal chto ya prishel na al’ternativnoi Zemle! Nesmotrya na to pribyvayushchikh v Equestria byl neschastnyi sluchai ya dumal chto eto bylo by gorazdo luchshe chem eto! (I thought I would arrive on an alternate Earth! Although arriving in Equestria was an accident, I thought it would be much better than this!)” Tears were starting to form in his eyes as his voice became more and more shaky with sadness.
“Did I just hear you say… what I think you just said?” Rainbow asked Solovyov with a mixed look of shock and confusion on her face. “Did you just say Equestria?”
“Kakaya chastʹ "YA ne znayu, chto vy govorite Vy ne ponimaete!?" (What part of “I do not know what your are saying” do you not understand?!)” Solovyov shouted at the near top of his lungs, even more tears starting to form in his eyes and starting to flow freely.
“And what is this?” Rainbow asked pulling Solovyov laptop computer out of his shoulder bag.
“Klyanus , yesli vy... (I swear, if you…)” He was cut off by the sound of his laptop turning on, playing the small welcome tune loudly out of the speakers.
“What the… What is this?” Rainbow started pressing random keys on the keyboard as she saw the computer was finished booting. Random windows including task manager, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Word 2022, Notepad, Windows Explorer and the start menu started to appear.
“You stay right here… I think Twilight needs to see this,” Rainbow said mockingly to Solovyov. At this point, his cheeks were stained with tears of sadness and frustration; his face beet red. “Oh, and just for safety measures…” Rainbow trailed off as she pulled out a gag rag and made an attempt to silence Solovyov. He put up a good fight, but he eventually gave in, seeing there was no hope to fight forever.
”How can a pony be this arrogant? Well, I guess I would not blame her too much… she knows English and I know Russian.” As Solovyov finished his thought, Rainbow Dash flew out of the abandoned building towards Twilight’s house.
***
While Solovyov was alone, he decided to take this time to let out all of his frustrations and anger. He took in a large breath through his nose for a duration of seven seconds.
“MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPHHHHHH!!!” He screamed through his gag, hardly making an audible noise to the outside world. As he was finished, he caught his breath.
“There is only one thing that I guess could calm me until she comes back, or if she comes back…” He spoke to himself as he started to hum the base part of Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”. This was a song his parents used to play on their violins. The song used to put him to sleep every night as a child before he outgrew having his parents play for him.
He finished playing through the song in his head; humming the bass aloud and opened his eyes, only to see nothing but the blackness of the room. His heart grew heavy as his occasional bout depression reappeared, and a lone, single tear rolled down his cheek from his right eye.
”I will never forget you...” At this point, Solovyov was freely crying. Not out of frustration, but out of grief. (Sorry for fourth wall breaking, but this is explained later)
* * * * *
Twilight, as usual, had been in her library for the past two days studying advanced magic concepts.
*knock knock knock*
“Spike, can you get that?” Twilight yelled across the library for her assistant.
“Yeah, give me a sec,” The small, purple and green baby dragon named Spike replied. He turned the small, golden door knob, revealing a confused and worried Rainbow Dash on the other side.
“Hey Rainbow, what’s up?” Spike asked.
“Hey uh… Is Twilight around? I kind of need to see het about something very important,” She replied while looking over Spike inside the library for Twilight.
“Yeah, she’s up in her room studying as usual. Come on in, I’ll let her know you’re here.” Spike walked up the steps towards Twilight’s room, grasping her attention.
“Who was at the door?” Twilight asked with a quizzical expression on her face.
“It’s Rainbow. She wanted to talk to you about something important?”
“If it’s about what I think it is, I’ll feel like I need to smack a filly...” She mumbled under her breath. Spike looked at her with a worried expression slapped on his face. “Philly…delphia… cheesecake! Yes, a Phillydelphia cheesecake!” She smiled a toothy grin at him, hoping he would buy it.
“Okay… I’ll just send in Rainbow.” Spike said as he left, Rainbow entering as he did so. She looked at Twilight with eyes filled with worry and total confusion. Twilight took notice of this.
“Okay Rainbow, what’s wrong this time-“ She was cut off by Rainbow interrupting her.
“It isn’t about who you think it is, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Rainbow said with annoyance present in her voice. “I remember you talked with Coal... about things from his world at one point?”
“Yes I did, Rainbow,” Twilight started. “Though some things were more pleasant than others, we did talk.”
“Good, because I think you may want to see this,” Rainbow said as she unfurled her right wing near the ground revealing a shiny, thin and light object that appeared to be a sheet of metal. Upon closer examination, Twilight learned that this wasn’t just any piece of scarp metal, it was a laptop computer.
“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted. “Where in Equestria did you get this?!”
“I... I found it...” She lied through her teeth.
“You do know that this world doesn’t have the technology to manufacture this piece of equipment, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“From what Coal has told all of us, this... is a computer. And can you tell me how it just ‘happened’ to end up in our world without my help?” Twilight asked with high traces of annoyance in her voice.
“Look, I... I can’t explain it very well to you, but do you remember when we were in the Everfree looking for Mr. Snapple?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Remember how I pointed something out in the tree near us, and you didn’t notice anything peculiar?”
“Yeah..?”
“I didn’t know if it was my eyes playing tricks on me again, but I knew I saw something in that tree. I’m actually surprised you didn’t notice him before I did,” Rainbow shoved her left hoof into her mouth, stopper her from speaking.
“What do you mean by him?”
Rainbow sighed heavily. “Look, I’ll just have to show you if want to believe me,” Rainbow said as she started her way out of Twilight’s room.
“Where are you going?” Twilight asked.
“Just follow me, and you’ll see.”
Rainbow and Twilight made their way out of the latter’s home, suspense slowly building in her heart as to what Rainbow was going to reveal to her.
* * * * *
The wait was starting to drive Solovyov mad, as he was starting to believe the fact that Rainbow was never going to return to him. Either that or she plainly forgot about him.
”Damn it! What is taking her so long? I knew she probably wouldn’t come back...” He thought to himself, depression still lingering heavily in his heart from earlier thoughts. Very soon afterwards, he heard the front door of the abandoned building slowly creak open.
”Maybe I’ll be better off pretending I’m asleep...”
* * * * *
Rainbow and Twilight had approached the abandoned building where Rainbow had Solovyov bound and tied to a wooden chair.
“Rainbow, why are we here? Nopony has used this building for years,” Twilight asked.
“Trust me, everything will be explained in time. And by time, I mean a few minutes,” Rainbow replied.
Rainbow ever so slowly pushed open the front door, emitting a loud creak from its dry hinges. Every hallway and every room was lined to the corners with darkness, the only light coming from the windows with shades covering them. The two arrived at the room in which Solovyov was being held captive. Rainbow stopped Twilight before they entered, speaking to her in a voice just below a whisper.
“Twilight, before we walk into this room, I need to have you promise me something,” Rainbow said sounding worried.
“What is it?” She replied.
“Please... Don’t be mad at me when you see what’s behind this door.”
Rainbow proceeded opening the door, and Twilight literally couldn’t believe what her eyes were revealing to her.
* * * * *
After waiting for minutes that felt similar to hours, Solovyov opened his eyes as he heard very faint whispers behind the closed door on the other side of the room.
”She actually came back?” He thought. ”That or the ghosts haunting this building have come to invite me to their home.”
The door slowly creaked opened, revealing two silhouettes. One he assumed was Rainbow, and the other, he had yet to know. He closed his eyes, resuming his sleeping act.
* * * * *
“Rainbow, I’m not mad at you. I promised you that,” Twilight said. “BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO COAL?! WHY IS-“She was cut off by Rainbow raising her hoof to silence her.
“It’s not Coal, Twi’”
“Then who is that?!”
“That’s what I was hoping you could help me find out.” She walked over to Solovyov in his sleeping act, and prodded him in the side with one of her hooves.
“Hey!” She yelled. “Wake up!”
***
”I’m assuming she wants me to ‘awake’ now...” Solovyov thought. Thinking this, he pretended to ‘wake up’ after a ‘short nap’.
“..,Chto vy khotite? (What do you want?)” Solovyov asked in a fake dreary voice with hints of annoyance in it. He started to sweat slightly, noticing a new face was looking directly at him.
“That’s the problem,” Rainbow said. “Can you tell what he’s saying, if he even is saying anything? Because I sure can’t.” Twilight was hardly paying any attention to Rainbow Dash as she was astounded by the fact that another human had somehow made his way to Equestria.
“We may have to get Coal on this one,” Twilight said sounding unsure.
“My thoughts exactly,” Rainbow replied. She said with determination in her voice, “I’ll go get Coal, you try and see exactly what this human is saying, if he is saying anything.”
“We’ll leave that to Coal to decide.” Rainbow nodded to Twilight’s response and was on her way towards Coal’s home.
“Okay, let’s see what I can’t figure out about you...”
* * * * *
Rainbow arrived at Coal’s home, bursting through the front door, as it was her home too.
“Coal? You here?” She called throughout the house.
“Upstairs!” He yelled. Rainbow immediately flew upstairs in the house, went into his bedroom and saw he was lying peacefully on the bed. Coal was 36 years of age. Though Coal had been the first human to ever visit Equestria, some were not far behind him.
“What’s the matter?” He asked in a calm voice, eyes still closed.
“Um... I’ll fill you in on the details later, but we got another one.”
“Another what?”
"Another human. He doesn’t speak English this time.”
“Do you know what he sound like?” Coal asked.
“I literally don’t even know where to begin with what he sounds like!” She said with a slightly aggravated tone. “It’s all this mumbo jumbo, random little splotches of speech not even Twilight knows! Look, Twilight wanted me to come get you because she said you’d most likely know where he came from. Just follow me, I won’t fly.”
“I really need to write a book about different races of human...” Coal whispered under his breath. After he got up out of bed, he grabbed his dagger for a possible ‘just in case’ situation and they proceeded to the abandoned building where Solovyov was being held.
* * * * *
“Can you speak for me, please?” Twilight asked slowly and clearly.
“Shto? (What?)” Solovyov said. After he spoke, Twilight began her written list of the human’s phonetics.
"Do you speak English?” She asked following his response. She noticed his head perked upwards after she said ‘English’.
“Yedinstvenoe slovo ya uznal bylo ‘angliiskii yazyk’. (The only word I recognized was ‘English’.)” He responded looking at Twilight.
“Rainbow was right... You do speak gibberish...” Twilight said to herself. “This is very strange. We’ve seen similar languages from your world as we have ours, but this is entirely... new.” The process of Twilight asking Solovyov questions and him responding with incoherent gibberish continued for about twenty more minutes. Soon afterwards, she could head the front door of the abandoned building squeak open very loudly.
“Good, that must be them. Stay right here,” she said to Solovyov. “Oh- uh, never mind,” she replied with a sheepish smile, noticing he was still bound and tied to a wooden chair. She left the room and proceeded to wait just outside. Coal and Rainbow soon saw Twilight, standing outside a closed door.
“You get anything, Twi’?” Rainbow asked.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. All I did was record phonetics of what I heard him say, which wasn’t much to be honest.”
“That’s okay,” Coal started. “Since I know more about humans than you two combined do, I’ll see what I can do.” All three of them walked into the room in which Solovyov was alone, and waited for Coal to speak.
”Oh God... There’s another human here? I thought Russia would have been the first...” He thought as sweat started to drip down his forehead because of Coal staring at him.
Coal sighed. “I’ll probably need a few moments. Go wait outside, I’ll yell for you if anything goes wrong,” He said with a soft but serious voice. Rainbow and Twilight followed his order and left the room immediately.
Coal stared at Solovyov’s eyes and looked into them deeply. Solovyov couldn’t make direct eye contact, seeing he was now alone in a room with a total stranger. Solovyov looked into Coal’s eyes for a very brief moment and Coal saw all sadness in his eyes in that one moment.
Coal sighed. “Here, let’s cut you free first; I don’t know why they would tie you up like this in the first place,” Coal said as he pulled out his dagger from its holster on his pants.
Solovyov’s eyes shot wide open and started to whimper and sweat with no control, seeing a person who didn’t speak his language was approaching him with a sharp blade. He tightly closed his eyes preparing for what he thought would be the inevitable. His eyes opened immediately as he heard the sound of metal cutting rope, and soon was untied from his chair.
Solovyov looked to Coal with eyes of relief and gratitude. “Blagodaryu vas, ser, (Thank you, sir,)” He said in a quiet voice as he continued to sit it the chair in which he was restrained.
“Can you tell me your name?” Coal asked.
Solovyov paused for a moment, deciding that making attempts to speak here with others was futile. ”Oh, I know!” He thought. I am a fool: simple sign language!”
Solovyov preceded by standing up quickly and facing Coal. He held up his hands slowly to show that he was peaceful. Next, he pointed to himself.
“Sign language...” Coal said. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?"
Solovyov pointed to himself.
“Oh, ‘I’,” Coal said. He pointed to one of his own eyes, and gave him a thumbs-up, showing Solovyov he understood what he was trying to say.
Next, Solovyov held out both arms and swung them back and forth across his chest, much like how a baseball umpire showing a runner was safe.
“Cannot?” Coal repeated.
Afterwards, Solovyov made a mouth-like formation with his fingers straightened outwards, and started to move them up and down; making it look like his hand was speaking.
“Speak...”
Solovyov continued by making thumbs-up formation with his right hand, while making a very happy expression on his face.
“Like...?”
Finally, he pointed to Coal.
“You...” He said, nodding his head telling Solovyov he understood. “Twilight, come in here.” Twilight entered the room and waited for Coal to speak.
“He can’t speak like us; he doesn’t know English."
“Well we know that!” Twilight said with sarcasm. “But were you able to learn what nationality he came from?”
“That I was, Twilight,” Coal said. “From what I've heard, he’s Russian.”