“Bhizaaaaa, c’mon, tell me.”
“No!”
“Please?”
“No!”
“Pretty please?”
“Noooooo!”
Applejack huffed. “You’re tearin’ me apart, Bhiza.”
Bhiza grinned. “I know.”
Kulikulu was looming above them, illuminated by its own lights and the rays of the setting sun. Not only did the road continue to slope up the mountainside, but as the city climbed up the mountain, the buildings grew taller. It was like a strange kind of wave. The traffic had gotten dense enough that Applejack standing out had swung back around from “strange” to “quaint”; there were zebras on the street stranger than her and those that stared at her never did so for more than a few seconds. The road was broad, broader than her house, and it would be an understatement to call it “bustling”. If ever she could be said to be in the middle of zebra culture, it was now.
And all she could think of was Bhiza’s kiss, and whether or not Bhiza had meant it like that. Bhiza definitely wasn’t saying anything.
“Seriously, Bhiza. Which is it? Do y’all like me like that or not?”
“No.”
“…Is that to the first one or the second one?”
“Not telling!”
Applejack glowered. Probably the worst part about it was that she didn’t mind one way or another, as long as she knew which it was. She couldn’t react to Bhiza liking her like that if Bhiza actually didn’t, and vice versa. Now, she was just bumbling along, doing her darndest to just figure out what in the hay was going on. “Bhiza, for the last time — and I mean last time, this’s been goin’ on for way too long — did you really mean it? And I swear, if you…”
Bhiza smirked. “I will ne-”
Applejack lightly smacked Bhiza.
Bhiza blinked and recoiled. She rubbed her cheek and stared at Applejack with a hurt look on her face.
“Look,” Applejack said with a sigh, “I don’t know what it’s like over here, but back in Equestria, that’s real personal, and y’all don’t just… go and do that. It’s causin’ all kinds of weird feelin’s in me, and I don’t really know what to make of it.”
Bhiza blinked again and her expression shifted to… something else. “Oh.” She looked away from Applejack for a few moments, then turned back. “It is… not personal very here, but… it is personal, and we have not known each other for long. I am sorry.”
“And…?”
“And I like you, but not like that. It was distraction. Nothing more. Promise.”
“Alright. Apology accepted.” Applejack looked ahead to Kulikulu — not long, now — and chuckled. “It guess it did work in that case. I barely even noticed how far we came.”
“It worked good very.” Bhiza smirked, then flinched and rubbed her cheek again.
“Sorry for smackin’ you,” said Applejack quickly. “It don’t hurt, does it?”
“Not very. I will be good. But…” Bhiza smiled guilelessly. “You could kiss it and make it more good?”
Applejack shoved Bhiza into a roadside ditch.
“It was worth it!” Bhiza yelled as she started clambering out.
The sun was about halfway down by the time they arrived. Kulikulu started a bit abruptly, like there was a line drawn on maps that said, “Don’t build past here.” One minute, they were winding up a semi-bare cliff, the next, they were in a semi-dense neighborhood. Mostly houses, with a few small (what Applejack suspected were) stores here and there. The designs were something like Canterlot crossed with Ponyville; not as refined as the former, not as rough as the latter. The walls were nicely-cut stone, but they lacked the polish that defined Canterlot. The image was broken a little by the proliferation of electric streetlights; even Canterlot mostly used magical ones or oil ones.
The buildings got denser and denser as they went further and further into the city. At one point, they passed through a gate in a wall almost a dozen feet thick. “Kulikulu was protected good in past,” Bhiza explained, “and that wall was its protection main. It became less useful as time passed, but it would cost too much to destroy it.”
Beyond the wall, they entered a more commercial area, and Applejack was reminded of midtown Manehattan. Kulikulu might not have been as busy or colorful as Manehattan, but that was Manehattan; that still meant Kulikulu was pretty busy and colorful. Applejack started getting a sore neck, looking back and forth and back at everything. Some buildings had clear Equestrian counterparts, but with others, Applejack couldn’t guess at what they were for. She almost wanted to stop every few minutes and start asking, “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?”
Applejack looked up the mountain’s slopes, tried to see the palace, but it was obscured behind skyscrapers. At first she thought it’d only be another hour or so before she’d see Twilight, but then Idube turned them down a street on a completely different route. “Uh,” Applejack said to Bhiza, “what’re-”
“We go this way all times,” said Bhiza. “To bar. Idube’s family owns it.”
“Guess I can’t fault her for that.”
The bar wasn’t much on the outside; it had a very plain sign and very plain siding, and it was that grimy sort of clean where it routinely gets 90% cleaned, and the remaining 10% is always ignored because those stains are incredibly ground in and cleaning them would be more trouble than they’re worth. However, it felt very friendly, a feeling borne out by the inside, which was nothing more than functional and very spacious, perfect for large gatherings of friends (and, surprisingly, lit by electric lights). The chairs and tables were all basic wood, but they were painted with intricate geometric designs that Applejack suspected she’d get lost in if she tried to follow.
The moment the caravan entered the building, Applejack was shoved forward to the bar, where all the zebras who hadn’t seen her before ooo’ed and ahhh’ed over her. Being a zebra, Zecora managed to avoid detection and duck out before anyone captured her. Stuck in the crowd, Applejack forced out an awkward grin as the zebras who’d come with her babbled about something, drawing looks of disbelief, then scorn, then surprise, then awe. Some of them started gesturing towards a table, but Applejack was yanked out of the crowd by Bhiza, who yelled, “Ai! Yeye mahitaji ya baadhi ya nafasi! Nenda zako!”
Bhiza dragged Applejack to a corner table and plonked her down in a chair. “Are yo- Ai!” Some of the crowd was still following them, curiously staring at Applejack. Bhiza made a few gestures to try and wave them away. “Nenda zako!” It took a little while, but after a few angry mutters and ear-flicks, the zebras retreated to their own tables, still staring.
Bhiza snorted and rolled her eyes. “Are you good?”
“Yeah,” Applejack said. “Thanks for that.”
Before she could say anything else, a waitress zipped up and deposited a steaming bowl of soup in front of each of the two. Applejack blinked at her bowl, then at the already departing waitress. “Did… did we order?” she asked Bhiza.
“Idube always buys this for we,” said Bhiza. She stuck her muzzle in the bowl and briefly slurped. “And they know that-” She pointed at the staff behind the bar. “-so they know to make it when she arrives.”
“Ah.” Applejack took a slurp of the soup and twitched; it was hot, almost hot enough to burn her tongue, and very rich. Not to say she disliked it, it was just a surprise. She blew on the soup and slurped again. Better.
The other zebras milled about the room with their own soup. Mostly, the caravan stuck together, but one or two of them were talking with zebras Applejack couldn’t recognize, probably local friends. (Applejack was a bit shocked to realize that she could now tell zebras apart, even the ones she hadn’t been traveling with, in spite of their black-and-white-striped coats.) They made up most of the crowd in the bar; Applejack wondered how much business the place usually did. Well, it wasn’t falling apart, so it probably did alright.
She slurped again and tapped a hoof on the tabletop. “S-so, uh… Now what? I mean, with the trip and all.”
“You will go to… um, palace,” said Bhiza, “find Twilight, and stay with she.” Sluuuurp. “We will stay in hotel until you go back.” She shrugged. “I do not care. I have done it before.”
“Huh. That’s real simple.”
Bhiza nodded. “Yes.” Sluuuurp. “Not much to it.”
Applejack did her own slurp. “Then I guess this is the last time I’ll see y’all.”
“You can visit I in hotel,” Bhiza said. “And we will go back to Bandari Mji together. And I might go to Equestria later. This is not last time.”
“Well, for a while.” Applejack slurped again, then wiped her mouth off. “Bhiza, listen. I just wanna say thanks for travelin’ with me these days. I don’t know what I’da done if you hadn’t been around to just talk with me.”
“It was nothing,” Bhiza said with a hoof wave. “Just talking.”
“Still, thanks.”
“Welcome.” Sluuuuurp. “And thank you for sharing Equestria with I. I cannot wait to see it in time.”
“It’ll be a long time. Many moons, maybe.”
Bhiza shrugged. “Time will come. I can wa-”
The door to the bar banged open, a sound loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room and silence most conversations, and eight or nine zebras strode inside. The one in front, a mare bigger even than most of the other zebras, looked over the crowd and her gaze locked on Applejack. Her eyes narrowed, and Applejack immediately knew nothing good would come out of this.
“You know them?” Applejack whispered to Bhiza. She didn’t know why she was whispering; the zebras wouldn’t understand Equestrian. Habit, probably.
“No,” Bhiza responded quietly. “No idea.”
The leader pointed at Applejack. She had flip-out knife, currently stowed, strapped to her foreleg. The other one, too, Applejack realized when she looked. “Tunataka pony,” the leader growled.
“They say they want you,” Bhiza whispered.
“Kwa nini?” asked Idube. She pushed out her chair, marched up to the leader, and, in spite of several inches’ height difference, looked her in the eye. “Yeye ni chini ya ulinzi wangu.”
“Hiyo ni hakuna wa biashara yako,” the leader said, glaring down at Idube. “Kutoa wake kwetu.”
“Idube does not want to let you go,” Bhiza whispered, “but they still want you.”
“Au nini?” challenged Idube.
With a flick of her hoof, the leader locked her knife into the ready position and had the tip under Idube’s chin. Behind her, the other zebras started baring weapons of their own, and anyone still talking quieted down immediately. Idube lifted her head a little to remove the pressure on the knifepoint, and the leader grinned. “Je, unataka kujua?”
“Threats,” whispered Bhiza.
To the crowd at large, the leader said, “Kama huna unataka kulinda pony, unaweza kwenda.” She nodded to the door, and the zebras blocking it stood aside. Immediately, every zebra did one of two things: they either bolted for the door and left or bolted for Applejack’s corner and stood in front of her. Of the zebras in the caravan, not a single one took the door.
The leader raised an eyebrow at the wall around Applejack and Bhiza, then turned back to Idube. “Kufanya uchaguzi wako.”
Idube blinked and visibly swallowed, then gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Sawa.” She backed away from the leader and gently pushed her way through to Applejack, drawing looks from the other caravanners. “Applejack,” she said mournfully, “play along.”
Applejack blinked. “Wha…? What’re y’all-”
“They do not understand Equestria,” Idube said, still sounding like she was at a funeral, “but I need to sound like I am giving you up. We outnumber them. We can beat them. But we need to surprise them.”
“That… that sounds like y’all’re gonna try to attack them.”
Idube nodded.
“What?” Applejack asked incredulously. “You… Y’all can’t be serious, right? It’s… I mean…”
“We were hired to get you to the palace,” Idube said. “We will get you to the palace.” Murmurs of assent ran through the zebras who understood Equestrian, and Bhiza nodded vigorously. “But now… what else can we do?”
“Tunasubiiiiriiii…” said the leader, tapping a hoof on the ground.
“Go,” said Idube. “We will figure it out.”
“…Alright,” Applejack muttered. Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. But there weren’t a whole lot of options. Reluctantly, she started walking towards the new group, the caravaners parting to let her pass. She could hear them muttering in Equestrian under her breath, some of them asking themselves just what they were supposed to do. Applejack sympathized; everything was happening just too fast.
Once she was away from the caravaners, Applejack decided she definitely didn’t like the looks of the new group. Even if you didn’t count their weapons, they felt too aggressive for her liking. Most of them had at least one prominent scar, and the few that still had their weapons out were displaying them menacingly. The leader had flipped her knife back to the stowed position, but she still smirked with a sort of malicious glee as she gestured Applejack over. Applejack sighed and started walking towards the group, wondering just what Idube was going to do. Once she was halfway there, she stopped and looked over her shoulder, at the zebras she knew.
She focused on Bhiza, who had gotten up and taken a few steps to follow her before stopping. She was biting her lip and shuffling her hooves. She raised one, like she was going to take another step, then lowered it. She flicked her ears, flicked her tail, looked away. Fakery or not, Applejack was still walking towards a bunch of potentially murderous zebras. If anything went wrong, it would go very, very wrong.
Then she focused on Idube, who hadn’t moved. One word was written across her face: sorry. Even though they weren’t really giving Applejack over, she was going to be right in the middle of it all when everything went south. However it went south. Applejack nodded briefly to let her know she got the message, and Idube relaxed very, very slightly.
Then she focused on Zecora, still sitting at one of the tables. Zecora was staring at her with a weird intensity. The instant they looked each other in the eye, Zecora’s eyes flicked down towards the table. Applejack followed it, but at first, she couldn’t see what Zecora meant. Then she noticed that Zecora was casually resting one of her hooves on the table. And that hoof was right behind one of those very hot bowls of soup.
Oh…
Applejack turned away, trying to look hurt. She had to keep up appearances. She took another few steps towards the leader.
The leader definitely wasn’t the patient type. “Kuja juu!” she snapped, gesturing at Applejack. “Harakisha!”
Applejack took another step and hung her head. If she dragged it out as long as she could, maybe Idube co-
“Sasa!” By now, all the new zebras were looking at Applejack.
Applejack took another, even slower step.
The leader groaned and rolled her eyes. She took a step forward-
-and a steaming bowl of soup hit her in the face, splattering everywhere. She screamed and recoiled, pawing at the hot liquid with her hooves. Two of her allies jumped forward and pulled her away from Applejack.
In that moment, the crowd exploded.
Every single one the caravaners was out of their seats in an instant, charging the attackers, and everything devolved into a swirling, dusty mass of black and white, a cacophony of yells and groans and impacts. Applejack ducked and pulled her hat down as brawls broke out and crawled along the dusty floor towards the edge. Already, fights were breaking furniture; one zebra was thrown down onto a chair as Applejack passed it, shattering it and throwing splinters at her face. Applejack stood up the moment she had a clear space to get her bearings.
One zebra toppled out from the crowd. Not one of the caravaners; he had weapons, although they weren’t deployed. Noticing Applejack, he lunged at her, making a wild swing at her face. Applejack ducked and the zebra missed by a mile. He quickly recovered and tried to stomp her head. She pushed to one side and rolled under a nearby table; the stomp missed by an inch, shattering the floor where she had been.
Underneath the table, lying on her back, Applejack panted and tried to get her thoughts together. Not very well; it was loud and the room shook. But she tried. Okay. Bar fight. Big bar fight. Was there really a goal besides “survive”? Probably not. And it wasn’t li-
“Ai!” her attacker yelled. Applejack snapped to look at him and awkwardly shuffled to the side to avoid another swipe. With a snarl, he jumped across the table to get to her on the other side.
That was the plan, anyway. The moment his hooves left the ground, Applejack’s mind clicked; she planted all four hooves on the underside of the table and pushed up with all her might. The table flew upwards, catching the zebra mid-jump, and slammed him into the ceiling. He smashed a lightbulb; sparks flew, tiny shards of glass raining down on the floor below. Applejack rolled to one side as the mass dropped; the table snapped in two and the zebra barely stirred when he hit the ground.
Applejack took a few steps back, shaking a little. There was really only one way out, now: take out all the attackers. Not a way she liked. She could fight, sure, but she wasn’t the violent type. Rainbow Dash, maybe, b-
Another zebra dive-tackled her from the side, and they rolled across the floor together, bumping through other scuffles. Her legs flailed, trying to find something to brace on, but she found nothing as the room turned over and over and her head bumped against the floor. Before she knew it, the zebra had her by the mane and was driving her down through a table.
The impact with the floor sent shocks through her whole body and her vision swam. She blinked to clear out the stars and vaguely tried to brush large splinters off of her face. It didn’t work so well; she could barely feel her limbs. She could see, though, and what she mainly saw was the zebra standing over her, staring her in the face. The zebra smirked, raised her head, and yelled, “Nadhani yeye n-”
Applejack bucked out blindly and hit something, probably a leg. The zebra yelped, staggered, and was immediately bucked across the room by Bhiza. “You good?” she asked Applejack over the din. With a hefty nudge, she turned Applejack over and onto her hooves.
“I ain’t good!” said Applejack. She shakily stood up. “We’re in the mid-” Something twitched in the corner of her eye and she reflexively dove forward, tackling Bhiza down into the remains of the table. Good thing, too, because otherwise Bhiza would’ve received a knife in the back from another attacker.
The two of them jumped up. Their attacker was slowly approaching in a three-legged gait, the last leg pointing a knife at the two of them. With a snarl, he said, “Kutoa wake kw-”
Whatever else he said was cut off as two zebras staggered between them, exchanging blows. Applejack twitched when she recognized Zecora, a broken bottle held between her teeth as a long, unbroken string of what were probably Zebran invectives streamed out of her mouth. But before Applejack could do anything, the zebras toppled away, leaving their attacker staring at the fighters with mild surprise.
As he was distracted, Bhiza flicked one of the broken table legs into his face. When he shied back and shielded his face, Applejack closed the distance between them, spun around, and smashed both her rear hooves into his face. He flew until he hit a table and somersaulted backwards over it.
Applejack turned back, but another zebra had jumped Bhiza and forced her to the ground, pressing a hoof down on her throat. As she raised her head to avoid strikes from Bhiza’s front hooves, she happened to look at Applejack. The two of them locked gazes. The two of them blinked. Before Applejack could react, the zebra whirled around and bucked her in the chest.
Any zebra, and the buck might’ve broken a few ribs. Being an earth pony, Applejack was just going to get some bruises and, once the adrenaline wore off, an awful lot of soreness. That said, a buck to the chest was a buck to the chest, and it was a powerful buck, besides. It hit Applejack hard enough to send her sailing across the bar and clean through the window.
She landed on the street and slid, getting a few light cuts across her back from the cobblestones. She bumped into two small zebras, both staring down at her as if they’d seen a ghost. She smiled up at them, wondering just what was going through their heads. Her ingrained politeness told her to say something, even though they wouldn’t understand Equestrian. “Hey,” her brain spat out. “Sorry ‘bout that.” She stood up and bolted back through the window, yelling like a madmare.
Dust swirled through the room, throwing up a dim haze, but Applejack knew who she was looking for, and soon found her. The zebra that had thrown her out was on the other side of the room, still standing over Bhiza, but the buck had at least given Bhiza enough wiggle room to get out of the choke. The zebra was trying to stomp on Bhiza, constantly bringing her front hooves up and down, but Bhiza somehow kept managing to wriggle away. Applejack charged, ducked around other fights, dove; she broadsided the zebra with enough force to send them both rolling over the bar and into the shelves behind.
They smashed into the shelves hard in a tangle of limbs, then fell and smashed into the ground hard in a tangle of limbs. Bottles knocked from the shelves rained down on them, some shattering, some not. Applejack was on her hooves first, her footing easy in spite of the drinks coating the floor; she scooped the zebra up and slammed her down on her back on the bar. The zebra was still dazed and unable to fight back. Seizing the opportunity, Applejack drew her hoof back in preparation for a knockout blow to the jaw.
Something squeaked.
That was really the only way to describe it: a high-pitched sound that pierced through the melee like nails on a blackboard. Somehow, it was the kind of sound you had to see the source of. Applejack reflexively looked up.
The door to the bar was open. A zebra, not one of Idube’s, was cowering in front of it. And there, encased in a magenta shield, was Twilight.