Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard: The Rising

by King of Beggars

Chapter 8 - A Dog's Day

Basenji sat at his desk, leaning against the backrest of his chair and idly twirling a long feather quill between his ink-stained digits. The wooden chair creaked as he rocked his weight back and forth and stared at the parchment on the desk. He scowled at the symbols written there. They were in his script, but even after six months of research and contemplation, he was no closer to deciphering what they meant than he was the first day he’d seen them.

Had it already been half a year since he’d traveled into the city of the Old Dogs?

He sighed as he tore his eyes from the page, and for a moment his vision went unfocused until he blinked away his disorientation. He’d been staring at the page so intensely that he’d stopped blinking. He placed his quill back in its inkwell and pushed the paperwork aside to clear enough space to lay down his head. The hard, wooden desk wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the mattress in the corner of his den, but it was closer, so it would do.

Wooden furniture wasn’t all that common in diamond dog dens. The average dog was a little more rough-and-tumble than was strictly advised for furniture made of something as easily broken as wood, and while his people churned out masons and smiths by the cartload, carpentry wasn’t something dogs put much stock in.

The desk was something of a family heirloom, having been purchased by his great-grandfather from a traveling pony trader, but without the sort of reverence that usually went along with an actual heirloom. It was simply a piece of furniture that had been in his family and mostly cared for, and somewhere along the way it had ended up in his den. Aside from his bed, and an old bookshelf cobbled together from iron plates and clay bricks, the desk was the only real piece of furniture he owned.

He lifted a paw and traced the edges of a small gouge mark in the desk near his head. Basenji’s father, Saluki, had dug the little furrow years ago, when he was a pup and studying under his own father. As a child, Saluki had been a nervous digger, which was a rather embarrassing tic that was something akin to bed-wetting on the spectrum of shameful puphood quirks. Nervous diggers unconsciously scratched their claws against any hard surface they could find, so severe cases sometimes meant having to wear big, padded gloves.

Basenji had also been a nervous digger – it was a very short phase, of course – and it was somehow comforting to know that his father had also overcome the same embarrassing condition. It was a small, unrelated comfort, but it took a bit of the sting off his continued failure to decipher the chakram’s secrets.

His stomach growled, reminding him that he’d skipped a meal or two during his studies. There was a small clay bowl near the edge of the desk, with a silver spoon peeking up over the side of it. He sniffed the air and caught the scent of porridge and charred cave lizard, indicating that he hadn’t even finished the last meal he’d attempted. He reached for the spoon, lifted it, and the bowl came up with it. He frowned, tilting the bowl enough to see inside without lifting his head. The porridge had dried into a thick, inedible paste, and the meat was frosted with congealed grease. The ground up amethyst he’d added to season the meal glittered prettily through the sticky muck.

Basenji huffed and set the bowl down to pick at the small pieces of meat, prying them free from the bowl with a moist squelch. He skewed them with one of his nails and popped the pieces in his mouth.

It tasted about as bad as he’d expected.

The heavy iron door at the entrance to his den rang with two quick, heavy knocks. Basenji sat up straight, tilting his head curiously at the door. “It’s open.”

The door opened and Shiba, the pack’s alpha dog, stepped in. He was a big dog, with a coat the same light-beige as Basenji’s, and his eyes were perpetually narrowed to slits like he was staring into the sun.

“Basenji,” Shiba said in simple greeting. His voice was deep and grating, as though he formed words by churning rocks together in his chest.

“Hello, Shiba,” Basenji said, returning the greeting. It was a feat of will to keep the suspicion out of his voice, but he managed a straight face as he smiled welcomingly. Basenji and Shiba had grown up together, and neither of them was on very friendly terms with the other. At the very least, their mutual positions of respect in the pack kept their infrequent interactions civil.

Shiba lifted his chin in the direction of the desk. “Still working on learning the trader’s tongue?”

Basenji frowned. “I already speak it. It’s the fine mechanics of the pony language that I am working on. It’s a matter of practice.”

The big alpha made a low, grumbling huff that blew out his jowls. “I don’t know why the horses need so many languages. Why can’t they all just speak zebra? Zebra tongue is easy.”

“Not all equines are the same, Shiba,” Basenji corrected him with a scowl. “Don’t be specist. Equestrians, Zebricans, and Saddle Arabians are all their own peoples with their own cultures, and so have their own languages.”

Shiba shifted his weight off his front paws and crossed his arms over his chest. “But zebra would still be easiest.”

Basenji shook his head and rose out of his chair. The untended lamps hanging from his walls had dimmed considerably since he’d last taken notice of them. He reached under the desk and pulled out the sack of firestones, then went to refill each of the lamps. The stones were prized for their ability to burn similarly to coal, but without smoke, and for longer periods of time. They were also considered a rare resource by most species, but it was common enough if you knew where to look, and there were few secrets the earth kept from dogs.

“What do you want, Shiba?” Basenji asked.

Shiba unfolded his arms and reached into the left pocket of the light blue vest he wore. He withdrew a plain white envelope and a few gems tumbled from his pocket onto the ground with the motion. He stooped to pick the gems off the floor and popped them into his mouth.

“You have a letter,” the big dog said between crunches.

Basenji dusted off his paws and stared at the slip of paper. Shiba was the sort of alpha who put his nose into everydog’s business, but he also had a very high opinion of himself. He wasn’t the kind that would bend his back to do anydog a favor, not unless it better served himself than the other dog.

But perhaps the better question was, what was he even doing in the mailroom? The pack’s mailroom wasn’t even very large for a postal center. It was just a small office connected to the mail carrier’s den. The pack only really used it to order things from catalogs or to communicate with family living in other packs.

“Found a new calling, have you?” Basenji asked. “I fully endorse this decision. Sorting the mail is a noble pursuit.”

Shiba’s lips pulled back in a grin, but the gleam in his eyes made Basenji feel like it wasn’t a friendly gesture. He held his gaze, grinning the whole time, and beckoned Basenji closer with a wave of the letter.

Basenji frowned, still confused as to what the overbearing alpha was doing delivering mail, and accepted the letter.

The letter had started as a plain white envelope, the kind with the flap that seals with a lick, but passing through dog paws had covered the once pristine paper with dirty brown prints. The letter was addressed to him, of course, with the return address missing. Even without that, Basenji knew who it was from. He’d been reading his father’s writing since before he was old enough to start learning his trade.

Basenji’s eyes narrowed as he found that someone had already opened the letter. The adhesive flap was still in tact, but one end of the envelope had been sliced open so the letter could slide out.

“Why is this opened?” Basenji asked, growling as his temper got the better of him.

Shiba just kept grinning. “You’ll have to take that up with Siti,” he said. “She manages the post.”

“And you just deliver it,” Basenji replied.

Shiba shrugged, still grinning.

Basenji narrowed his eyes and swallowed down the vitriol. That was what Shiba wanted – to start a fight over nothing. Basenji wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, not when it would have consequences for the pack.

Truthfully, Shiba was a busybody, but he wasn’t a terrible leader. He treated the majority of the pack with fairness and an even paw, but lately, that courtesy seemed to fall short when dealing with Basenji.

It hadn’t always been that way. They had never been friends, but at the very least they were never openly antagonistic to one another. They’d often been at one another’s throats as pups, but as they’d grown, they’d moved beyond that old rivalry, or so Basenji had thought. Shiba had been amongst the dogs that had tried to dissuade Basenji from following after Dingo when he’d disappeared. The alpha had taken it as a personal slight when Basenji left, and since Basenji’s return, Shiba had gone out of his way to dig up old bones.

Basenji shook his head and let go of the anger he was feeling. His privacy had been invaded by somedog that he disliked, but there was no point in fighting the big idiot. With Saluki gone and Dingo still… as he was… Basenji was the pack’s current lead drummer. It wouldn’t be good for the morale of the dogs in their care to see the pack’s two leaders coming to blows. If Shiba couldn’t see that, it was up to Basenji to be the bigger dog.

Basenji glared back at Shiba, held up the envelope, and blew a puff of air into the open end. He pulled out the letter and began to read.

It wasn’t a very long letter, just a single page written in his father’s tiny, elegant script. The first paragraph was the usual greetings and well-wishes, with a few questions asking how Dingo was doing. The next bit was about how excited he was to be working with the excavation team studying the city of the Old Dogs.

The third paragraph was what caught his eye, as it pertained to the subject he’d just been engrossed in.

I have been studying the rubbings you made of the chakram’s etchings. I’m still no closer to figuring out their meaning, and I hope you’ve been having better luck on that front than I. There are many treasures here, especially in the temple of Great Anubis, but none bear anything similar to the writings on the weapon. I said I approved of your decision to gift it to your friend, Twilight Sparkle, and I stick by that, but I also wish I could have had the chance to examine the artifact in person. This mysterious writing is vexing, and I don’t like being vexed. I consulted a few of the other scholars on the excavation team and roped them into helping, but I don’t think it’ll get us anywhere. They’re just as stumped as I am.

There was more to the letter, mostly academically interesting things about what they were learning of the way the Old Dogs lived, but Basenji’s concentration was shattered by the sound of crunching stones. He looked up from the letter to see Shiba still standing there, chewing another mouthful of gems he’d pulled from his vest pocket.

“It’s from Saluki, right?” Shiba asked, with casually feigned ignorance.

“As if you didn’t know.” Basenji folded the letter and went to place it in one of his desk drawers. The end of an old brass key stuck a few inches out of the lock, and Basenji almost locked it, but decided at the last moment to leave it be. If Shiba decided to invade his privacy a second time, the lock wouldn’t do anything to stop it. He’d just end up with a broken drawer.

“You need to stop staring at that chicken-scratch,” Shiba grumbled, evidently deciding to forego the pretense that he didn’t know what was in the letter. “You’ll never be able to read it. And even if you did figure out what it said, so what? Point is – it’s distracting you from your duties.”

“You don’t even know what my duties are, Shiba,” Basenji replied.

“You’re supposed to be helping me lead this pack,” Shiba snapped angrily. “Instead you waste your time doing pointless research.”

“It’s not pointless. It’s important.”

“Important to that pet pony of yours,” Shiba countered. “You’re more concerned with outsiders than you are with your own people.”

Basenji stiffened at the accusation. His eyes narrowed, but he refused to so much as turn to face Shiba. “If the mail is the only thing you were here to deliver… then thank you for doing so. You will leave now.”

Basenji watched his guest out the corner of his eye, as Shiba’s own gaze slowly drifted towards something at the foot of the desk. Basenji’s drum, the symbol of his power, office, and expertise in the Ways of the Old Dogs, sat there, easily within reach. As a drummer, Basenji was skilled in what other races called magic. The Ways were the method through which their ancestors interacted with the world, both physical and spiritual. Drummers could draw upon this knowledge to perform incredible feats, and only drummers knew the extent of what a drummer could do with that power.

Shiba licked his lips nervously. Something in Basenji’s words must have smelled threatening to the big dog, and his eyes had gone straight for what he perceived in his simple ignorance to be a weapon. The Ways did not lend themselves well towards immediate, explosive violence, but Shiba didn’t know that. And even if Basenji could use his power to directly hurt another dog who had insulted him, he wouldn’t – Shiba apparently didn’t know that, either.

Shiba huffed again, slobber flinging from his jowls, and left the room without another word.

Basenji’s ear flicked, listening for the soft pitter-patter of Shiba’s paws as he walked away. Once he was sure he was alone, he climbed back into the chair with a sigh. “I am not suited to this sort of confrontation,” he muttered.

* * *

As a pup, Basenji’s mother would often take him on shopping trips to Zanzebra, the city nearest to the pack’s burrow. She’d died when he was very young, but the little things – like those shopping trips, or the way she would scratch behind his ears to help him sleep – were the things he remembered most.

She loved shopping, and it was from accompanying her on her trips that he learned Equish – or as it was better known in most parts of the world, the trader’s tongue. The traders from the pony lands always had such interesting things.

One day, he was with his mother, poking around and touching things on tables with signs that clearly read ‘Do Not Touch’ while pretending he couldn’t read what they said. As he rifled through the wares on display, he found a curious thing. It was a small, rectangular box made of two glass panes held in place by a wooden frame, creating a chamber between the two panes. It was like a small aquarium for very skinny fish, but instead of water and fish, it was filled with dirt and ants that skittered about inside, digging tunnels and caring for their nest.

The merchant, an older pegasus stallion with a smile filled with more kindness than teeth, had noticed him and explained that it was an ‘ant farm’. The panes of glass allowed the owner to watch as the ants went about their business – something that would be impossible in the wild without digging out the ants’ home.

The memory had stuck with him since that day because it reminded him so much of the way diamond dogs built their own homes. Burrows were often compared to mines, and that was a fairly accurate comparison, considering most tunnels were initially dug in search of gems. Gems were the major staple of a diamond dog’s diet. Technically, dogs were omnivorous, but for the sake of simplicity they were considered geovores, since most other omnivores failed to live up to title by virtue of their inability to crack precious stones without cracking their precious teeth.

Like the ants, dogs dug their burrows deep into the earth, creating long tunnels and small chambers that served specific purposes. A well made burrow was a beautiful mixture of form and function, of simplicity and complexity. There were exploratory tunnels that existed only for excavating for food, drainage tunnels that led directly to the water table and prevented flooding in the rest of the burrow, and the residential dens where they made their homes. A large pack could easily dig out kilometers of tunnels in every direction, so far and so deep that the creatures above would have no idea what lay beneath their various feet, paws, or hooves.

Basenji’s pack was considered the largest on the continent, and their burrow was a reflection of that. Some dogs lived far enough away from the surface that they never bothered going topside unless it was necessary. Such a dog might go his entire puphood before he’d see the sun for the first time.

Luckily, Basenji’s family was among the oldest in the pack, tracing itself back twelve generations, so the tunnels leading to his family’s dens were close to the surface. His many-times-removed great-grandmother had been one of the dogs helping to dig the very first tunnel, and over the generations his family had stayed in that same general area.

A set of ancient, worn stone steps took him from the tunnels to the surface, and Basenji held a paw over his face to block out the harsh mid-morning sun until his eyes could adjust. He hummed thoughtfully as he processed that thought. He could have sworn that it was mid-morning when he settled in to begin studying.

He yawned, and the mystery was solved. Still, there was business to attend to. He could sleep later.

A stiff breeze kicked up, billowing the forest-green cloak he wore fastened around his neck. Most diamond dogs wore simple vests, if they wore anything, but drummers wore long traveling cloaks as a symbol of their station. The cloak signified their readiness to travel at a moment’s notice to spread their knowledge of the Ways to other packs. Nodog was sure who had founded the practice, but it was something that held to this day. Some dogs took it far too seriously, but Basenji always just thought it was more tradition than religion, and more uniform than vestment.

Basenji shrugged his shoulders, adjusting the cloak back into place, and patted the satchel and his drum where they hung from his side.

The pack’s burrow extended far to the southern savannahs, in the direction of Zanzebra, and to the north right up to a cliff overlooking a valley that stretched off into the verdant rainforest in the distance. Basenji’s den was on the northern side of things, and the surface tunnel he most frequently used put him within walking distance of the cliff overlooking the valley.

As he neared the cliffs he noticed two dogs he had been expecting to see, and a third he hadn’t. One of the expected dogs was standing at the edge of the cliff, as he did every day, staring off into the distance, unmoving as a statue. The other two were a short distance away, taking shelter under the boughs of an acacia tree.

Basenji moved quietly, mimicking the movements of the big cats that roamed the savannahs just before they struck down their prey. He was close enough to hear whispers, but not enough for details. Whatever they were talking about, it was apparently a very intimate conversation.

There was only one thing to do when stumbling upon a pair of lovers in a moment of intimacy.

Basenji gathered his power, lifted a paw, and brought it down on his drum. The thump was loud as a cannon blast and solid enough to shake the grass as the shockwave rolled away from him.

The two lovers leapt up, startled, their limbs tangling together as they scrambled to separate. The commotion knocked a long spear with a steel head from its resting place against the tree. The wooden haft clanked loudly against a rock, startling the dogs a second time.

“Well now,” Basenji drawled out, his lips pulled into a grin, “what do we have here? Surely this isn’t my little cousin Djembe, canoodling with an on-duty sentry.”

As soon as Djembe heard Basenji’s voice, she found her footing and wheeled around to face him, her face scrunched up in anger and red with embarrassment. She hastily adjusted her golden-yellow cloak, which in the struggle to separate from her paramour had somehow ended up on her front, covering her like an apron.

“So what of it?” she barked. “I’m of marrying age! I can… can… canoodle with whomever I want to!”

Basenji sniggered. Djembe was his little cousin, and other than himself and Dingo, she had been the only one in the family to show any talent toward drumming. She was not strong in the Ways, but she had a good head for studying, a beautiful singing voice, and a passion for playing. She’d never be able to create powerful workings, but she’d know as many of their songs as any drummer. She’d shown her talent for the art later than most, and despite her being, as she called it “of marrying age,” she was still just an apprentice. With Saluki gone, Basenji had become her master in his stead. She wasn’t yet allowed to carry her drum in public, but that day wasn’t far off at all.

She was also quite skilled with a sewing needle. His original cloak had been lost during the unpleasantness of the airship crash six months ago, and she’d made him a replacement that was better than the one he’d lost.

Of all Basenji’s cousins, Djembe was likely his favorite. She’d been born right around the time he was old enough to get his first taste of an adult’s responsibility, and a bit of that had translated into a sense of protectiveness for the girl. Her face still had much of the little pup he’d doted on, but she carried herself with an eagerness to prove her worth. He was beginning to see her as an adult by measures, and it struck him that watching her grow up had helped him grow a bit as well. There was a symmetry to that thought that was beautiful, and it was enough to make him want to write a new song whenever it crossed his mind.

“We weren’t doing anything improper!” her sentry lover professed nervously. “I swear it, Talker Basenji!”

Basenji almost began laughing anew at the frightened expression on the enormous dog. He was large enough that he could have held Basenji down with one paw, but he was practically shivering in his steel breastplate. His ears were pinned back in contrition, and his stubby tail was tucked up under his legs.

Chaga was a good dog, just a few years older than Djembe. His grandfather had belonged to a pack from somewhere overseas and his family still had short, club-like tails, which were common in packs outside of zebra lands. Those stubby tails were an outward reminder of that heritage, and it set his family apart from the rest of the pack with their long, whippy tails.

Chaga worked hard, and he always spoke to Basenji, Dingo, and his father respectfully, addressing them by the title of ‘Talker’ – as in, ‘One Who Talks to the Old Dogs’. It was a fairly outmoded title, and nodog used it anymore, but the fact that Chaga both knew it and actively used it was endearing.

“Ease, ease,” Basenji said as he raised a paw. Djembe and Chaga relaxed from their disparate states of tension. “It’s not like there’s anydog in the pack that doesn’t know about you two.”

The pair blushed, turning their heads away and looking at anything except one another. They’d probably thought themselves very sneaky, and to hear otherwise likely stung their youthful egos.

Basenji just ambled over to the tree, to where the branches would keep the heat of the sun off his back. It was winter, but that meant very little in this part of the world. He sat down on the soft, dry grass, and cast a longing glance towards the edge of the cliff, where his brother sat staring off into the distance with eerie stillness.

“How is he today?” Basenji asked.

The two younger dogs took the cue to sit and joined him under the tree. Chaga picked his spear up off the ground and pretended to polish the haft with a rag he’d hung from a branch.

“Same as every day,” Djembe – Dingo’s self-appointed caretaker – answered sadly. “He gets up, he forages for a meal, he comes up here, he stares at nothing, he goes back for another meal, and he goes to bed.”

Basenji grunted in acknowledgment. It was difficult to see his brother like that. Dingo had once been everything Basenji had strived to be, but after what happened to him in desert, he was a shadow of the dog he once was. Whether it was because of his possession by Great Anubis, or the events leading up to it, something had broken in Dingo, and been replaced by some unfathomably heavy burden. You could see it in his eyes. His eyes had always been sharp, filled with a kindness and intelligence, but now… There was something there, something still intelligent, but so sorrowful. When Dingo looked at you, you felt as though he was looking through you, to the very heart of your being.

The rest of the pack gave him a wide berth, and none would meet his unsettling gaze. They were happy to have him home, because he had been much beloved before his madness, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t disturbed by the change in him.

Even still, he never made a burden of himself. Dingo foraged for himself, saw to his own needs, and bothered nodog. For the most part, he seemed content to exist in his own little world – a stranger living amongst his own pack.

They sat in silence for a while. Chaga continued polishing his spear, while Basenji and Djembe stared at Dingo as Dingo stared at nothing.

“I’m going to be going to Zanzebra today,” Basenji said to Djembe. “Do you want me to get you some of that caramel candy that you like?”

Djembe made an annoyed little growl at the back of her throat. “I’m not a pup that needs sweeties every time you go to town.”

“Right, I’ll get two boxes,” Basenji said with a nod.

Djembe made the sound again, but didn’t decline the offer of sweets. Chaga laughed, and then almost choked on that laughter at the reproachful look from Djembe.

“What are you going to Zanzebra for?” she asked.

“I need to speak with the postmaster,” Basenji clarified, stifling another yawn. “All the pack’s mail is routed through the Zanzebra office, and I want them to hold my correspondence there, rather than sending it along with the rest of the pack’s.”

Djembe frowned, tilting her head in confusion. “Why would you do that? That means you’ll have to go all the way to town just to get your mail. That’s an hour-and-a-half each way.”

“It’s inconvenient, yes,” Basenji admitted, “but no one in Zanzebra is likely to open my mail.”

Djembe tilted her head the other way, her frown and her confusion deepening.

Basenji chuckled at the way her ears flopped back when she was confused. That was one of those little things that he hoped she never grew out of – It was just too cute.

“Shiba came by my den earlier,” Basenji said. “He had a letter from my father, and it was already open when he brought it to me.”

Chaga’s head snapped around to look at Basenji. “Alpha Shiba is opening your mail?”

“I know he dislikes you, but he’s taking this too far!” Djembe growled. “And Siti, that sneaky mutt… She's had her eye on Shiba for months, but she should know better than to allow him to snoop around in another dog’s business. I have half a mind to… to…”

“It’s fine,” Basenji said, scratching behind her ears. “He did it to try and tweak my nose. The more I let it bother me, the happier he is, so I choose not to be bothered by it anymore. He pushes my buttons but he won’t ever make a serious move against me. Shiba can go and chew his balls for all I care.”

The two younger dogs sniggered at the off-color comment like a couple of children.

“Why does he dislike you so much?” Chaga asked.

Basenji dipped his head in the direction of the cliff where Dingo sat. “Shiba’s was amongst the loudest voices that wanted my brother to be left out to dry when he disappeared,” he explained. “His sense of self-importance is enough that he believes that my motivation for continuing the search was purely to contradict his expressed wishes.”

“Plus, they’ve been at one another’s throats since they were still at the teat,” Djembe added.

“That too,” Basenji said, rolling his eyes. “We were at peace for a long time, but my perceived defiance of him seems to have broken that. He’s also quite angry that I extended the gift of sisterhood to my unicorn friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

Chaga scratched at his head. “Is that not in your right as a Talker?”

“It is, but Shiba doesn’t have a very high opinion of ponies, for some reason.” Basenji sighed and rested his paw atop his drum. “Plus… he told me once that a dog that doesn’t wear a collar shouldn’t have the right to gift such an honor.”

Chaga’s paw went up to his neck and touched his own collar. The length of black leather, made from lizard skin, was studded with little metal spikes. A small, round tag hung from the collar, right over his throat, and clinked as he brushed it with his claw. He looked down at the two dogs sitting next to him, and to where Dingo sat a bit away from them. All three were drummers, and not a one of them was collared.

“I never occurred to me to ask, but why don’t you wear collars like other dogs?” he asked.

Djembe shot Basenji an eager look, her eyes sparkling with youthful eagerness as her tail thumped against the tree in excitement. Basenji smiled and tilted his head, allowing his apprentice to answer the question.

Djembe cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and held a paw to her chest as she answered. “Drummers do not wear collars like other dogs because collars and tags are a symbol of one’s undying loyalty to the pack. Although we drummers are the guides and advisors to our packs, we must never forget that our skills and knowledge belong to all dogs. We exist within the pack, but also outside it, and must be ready to go where we are needed, even if where we are needed is somewhere other than with our own pack.” She opened her eyes and looked up at Basenji with a proud grin. “Right?”

Basenji laughed as he reached into his satchel and pulled out a large sapphire. He held the tasty stone out and waited for her to take it. “Very well spoken.” He stood and shook his cloak free of dust. “Now, it’s a long walk and I still need to say goodbye to Dingo. I may be home late, but if I return home early enough I will see you later tonight, little cousin. Don’t forget to practice the song I taught you last night.”

Djembe quietly crunched half of her treat, holding the remaining half between two of her digits. She waved the bit of sapphire at him pointedly. “That was two nights ago and I’ve already mastered it.”

“Was it?” Basenji asked, scratching thoughtfully at his neck. “Well, then go to my den and get the songbook with the orange cover off my shelf. Practice the song that goes from page one-thirty-four to one-thirty-seven.”

“You got it!”

Basenji turned to walk away, casting a quick glance over his shoulder to see Djembe and Chaga already in their own little world again. She held out the other half of sapphire and opened her mouth with an “Aaahhhhh,” coaxing the guard dog to do the same, and fed it to him.

Basenji left them to their flirtations, shaking his head and chuckling as he went. He had never had much time for relationships, but he knew a few things, and he was glad that his younger cousin was making the time to experience life outside of her studies. There was much to learn, and young drummers sometimes lost sight of the important things in their eagerness to hone their skills. It was a trap that he himself had fallen into, and it did his heart good to see Djembe being watchful of it.

He went to the edge of the cliff and sat beside his brother. Dingo said nothing, but one of his ears twitched as Basenji settled onto the grass next to him.

Dingo had never been a muscular dog. It was a hazard of their station, that their paws were more accustomed to gently coaxing music from a drum than roughly digging through solid granite. He’d lost a lot of weight since their return from the city of the Old Dogs, making him almost sickly-thin for one of their kind, and his tawny-colored coat had dulled and filled with snow-white hairs.

Basenji sat with him for a moment or two, letting the silence be their greeting. He shielded his eyes with his paw again as he checked the position of the sun in relation to a few landmarks in the distance.

“Hasn’t moved, then?” Basenji asked.

Dingo said nothing. His ear twitched again.

Basenji frowned. Djembe hadn’t seemed to notice, distracted as she was, but there was one thing about Dingo’s daily routine that changed periodically. Dingo had slowly been turning, shifting the direction he was staring, as though he was tracking something very, very far away. Most dogs wouldn’t notice something small like that, not spread out over months, and not in a dog that most considered unhinged. But Basenji was sharper than most dogs.

“I wish you would speak to me,” he said sadly, “that you would tell me what it is you’re seeing that I can’t.”

Dingo’s ear twitched.

A rough grumble and a soft, musical titter floated on the wind from behind them. The pair of brothers ignored it.

“It’s a very strange thing,” Basenji sighed as he stared off in the same general direction as Dingo. He squinted, as though that might help him perceive whatever it was that Dingo was seeing. “I never imagined that I could miss you so much with you sitting right next to me. We’re close enough to touch, but you’re still so far away…”

Basenji suddenly felt a thin arm wrap around his shoulders with wiry strength, pulling him against Dingo’s side. Dingo’s gaze was still fixed straight ahead on whatever he was watching, but a sad, world-weary smile was on the older dog’s face as he hugged his little brother.

Dingo’s ear twitched.

Basenji laughed, blinking away the moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Yes…” he said. “Yes… I suppose you probably miss me from where you are, too.”

* * *

The city of Zanzebra was a bustling hub of commerce for the region. It sat at the intersection of several different roads, and the skies surrounding the city were filled with natural air magic that caused a dozen or more jetstreams to brush against one another. Paths on the land and in the sky brought travelers together from all over the continent, carrying stories and wares from every corner of the globe.

Basenji walked down the unpaved roads, keeping a close eye on his satchel and drum as he went. The locals of Zanzebra were friendly, but you never knew what sort of riff-raff had drifted in on the winds. Pickpockets were an infrequent but present threat to the purse of anyone who wasn’t paying careful attention.

He’d already seen to the issue with the post office, and rented a small lockbox in the office where his mail would be stored to pick up at his convenience. If he had correspondence, a notice would be sent to him to come and retrieve it in person, and the small key strapped to a loop on the inside of his satchel with a bit of twine would open the box.

Basenji reached into his satchel and pulled out a small bit of hard candy. He popped the whole thing in his mouth without unwrapping it. It tasted of watermelon, and the wrapper was some sort of rice-paper that dissolved in his mouth.

The sweet shop was one of Basenji’s favorite places in Zanzebra. It was one of those out-in-the-open secrets in their family that he was fonder of sugary treats than was probably good for him. But more than the candy, he enjoyed the smiles of the children as they ran about the store peeking into every bin and asking constant questions about the sweets as they tried to convert their allowances into as much sugar as possible. Sometimes children would stand in front of a display, looking sad in the hopes that someone would offer to buy a treat for them. That always made him laugh, and today he’d bought one of the beggars – a young zebra girl – a jawbreaker the size of her hoof.

In addition to his little hard candies and the caramel for Djembe, he’d bought a few boxes of cocoa mix to share with Dingo. The shop always had a fresh supply of it around this time of year, coinciding with some sort of holiday the Equestrian ponies celebrated. The little pegasus girl working the register was new, and had asked him if he was sure that was what he wanted, pointing out the fact that cocoa was basically chocolate. The store’s owner – an elderly griffon that Basenji had known since he was a pup – had overheard her and laughed, explaining that diamond dogs weren’t quite the same as the small dogs that ponies kept as pets. There was some sort of chemical in chocolate that domesticated dogs could not metabolize very well, and so was toxic to them. Diamond dogs had no such frailty, and most actually quite enjoyed chocolate.

His tasks completed and his snacks secured, Basenji headed for home. He took a shortcut through the food stalls at the heart of the market, where vendors sat behind grills and in front of enchanted ice boxes peddling their wares. Basenji’s powerful sense of smell had caught the scent of the food court almost as soon as he’d entered the city, and now that he stood in the heart of it, his stomach began rumbling, demanding he stop to sample something.

Basenji scanned the stalls, unsure of what he could have that would be quick and wouldn’t disagree with the long walk home. He passed by a stand selling grilled corn, and another selling a traditional Zebrican stew. He sniffed the air carefully and plucked a scent out from among the rest. He followed it to a kebab stall run by a griffon wearing a tightly wrapped turban. A sooty kerchief was tied over his beak, protecting his lungs from the smoke of the grill he was fanning vigorously with a folded newspaper. Ponies and zebras tended to dislike the smell of cooked meat, but no one who traveled this far was the type to have an overly sensitive stomach.

Basenji rubbed his chin in thought and picked out a skewer that was mostly vegetables, with just enough meat to be filling, and paid him with a few coins from his satchel.

Just as he was walking away from the stand, something bumped into him with a grunt and a jingle of small, metallic objects. It wasn’t enough to knock him over, but it did jostle his arm, making him drop his kebab on the filthy ground.

“Oh, so sorry, so sorry!” the assailant apologized to him in Equish.

Basenji frowned at his ruined meal and looked down at the zebra that had bumped into him. He was comfortably fat, and old enough that the black stripes in his frizzy mane now matched the white ones. The metallic tinkle in the air had come from the ring of keys hanging from a chain around the stallion’s neck. A small bowl of cornmeal porridge had fallen to the ground next to the old zebra, but luckily for him most of the thick paste it had stayed in the bowl.

“Hello, Adisa,” Basenji greeted as he reached down and helped the old stallion slip his glasses back on. “Has time come again to renew your prescription?”

Adisa squinted as he adjusted his glasses, and his eyes opened with apparent recognition. “Ah, Basenji! What fate is it that has brought you to me today?”

Basenji sighed as he stooped to pick up his dusty kebab. He twirled it between his digits. “A poor one, it seems,” he commented dryly.

“Oh, very sorry,” Adisa said as he balanced his still mostly filled bowl atop his head. “But… you can still eat it, yes? You do eat rocks, don’t you?”

“Gems, more so than rocks, old stallion,” Basenji huffed. He casually tossed the dirty food item into one of the old wooden barrels that served as trash cans around the bazaar. “And we do make certain to wash them free of dirt, just as you would wash vegetables fresh from your garden. Nodog enjoys the sensation of muddy insides.”

“Fair enough,” Adisa said with a laugh. “I would say, though, that while our meeting may have been bad luck for you, it was quite fortunate for me.”

Basenji fished some coins out of his satchel and purchased another skewer. “Oh? How so?”

“Come to my shop,” the old zebra urged him, a note of excitement in his voice, “there are things I require your eyes for. I had planned to send for you later, but the stars have been kind and brought you practically to my door.”

Basenji pulled half the skewer clean in a single bite, not willing to risk anything else happening to his lunch. Adisa was a friend of the family, and when Dingo had gone missing, Adisa’s was one of the doors his family had knocked on in their search for information on his whereabouts. Basenji had not visited with the old stallion in some time, and it was no great hardship to do him a favor. It was still early in the afternoon, so there was plenty of time for the distraction and perhaps some tea.

Basenji quickly cleaned the other half of the meal and did away with the skewer. He dipped his head respectfully and gestured for Adisa to lead the way.

“As it comes to mind,” Adisa commented as he took them in the direction of his shop, “your Equish seems to have improved. You speak it with a great deal more confidence.”

“I have been studying!” Basenji replied with a grin. His tail wagged happily at the compliment.

Adisa’s shop wasn’t far from the food stalls. He moved briskly through the crowded streets, presumably eager to show off whatever he’d acquired. They stepped up to the front of the shop and Adisa took a moment to fumble with his keys to unlock the door.

Adisa has been doing business as a dealer of curios and antiques in Zanzebra since Saluki was a pup, and it showed in the dense clutter of the shop. The place was equal parts showroom and warehouse, easily twice the size of the surrounding buildings, and not an inch of space was wasted. Tribal masks from every village in the Zebra Nation hung along the walls next to cardboard cutouts for stage productions featuring famous actors, and wooden sculptures that had been carved by artisans before the mastery of bronze sat on shelves next to complicated little toys made of tin and clockwork. At first blush, the shop seemed like it was in a state of orderly disorder, but if you a stepped back and took the thing in as a whole… you realized that it actually was complete and indecipherable chaos, without rhyme or reason.

Still, the old zebra somehow managed to know where every single item in his shop was without even looking. Perhaps it was some inborn sense of mastery over his domain that gave him his preternatural awareness of everything in his shop, perhaps it was a powerful memory, or maybe it was owed to years of experience in his line of business – whatever it was, his internal catalog of his shop was very impressive.

Adisa shut the front door behind them and kept the sign in the window flipped to Closed, presumably to give them some privacy.

“Normally I would ask Saluki or Dingo for this sort of thing,” Adisa said as he wound his way through the cramped shop, avoiding the delicate displays with far more agility than he had shown in the bazaar when he’d bumped into Basenji, “but, well… neither of them is very available, eh?”

“Your faith in my skills warms my heart, Old Adisa,” Basenji grumbled as he tried to replicate Adisa’s feat of agility. He made a poor showing of it, as he was at least twice the size of the stallion and nowhere near as familiar with the layout of the shop.

“Hush, pup,” Adisa chastised him. He settled his bowl on the counter next to the old cash register and lapped up some of his porridge without bothering with a utensil. “You know what I mean. I wouldn’t have considered you if I didn’t know you to be a dog of learning.”

The strap of Basenji’s satchel hooked onto the handle of an old wicker basket that was being used as a stand to display an assortment of walking-sticks. The canes began to teeter, clacking together loudly as Basenji’s reached out in a panic and frantically tried to keep the display upright. A few seconds of floundering and he was able to keep anything from falling over. He stood frozen, his arms wrapped around the walking-sticks and his eyes wide. He slowly released his grip on the bundle and backed away cautiously.

Adisa quirked an eyebrow as he licked a dollop of porridge from the end of his snout.

Basenji smiled sheepishly, feeling the heat of his embarrassment in his face. “So what is it you wanted to show me?”

Adisa slowly lowered his eyebrow and clucked his tongue a few times before disappearing beneath the counter. “I had a customer come in with some odd acquisitions,” he said over the sound of wooden boxes being shoved around. He appeared a moment later with his forehead pressed against a large wooden crate, pushing it around the counter. “Minotaur, he was. Treasure hunter, I think, but smarter than your average grave robber.”

Basenji helped Adisa by pulling the box the rest of the way. He held up his paw, flexing his claws pointedly, and nodded towards the box. “May I?”

“Thank you, and be free,” Adisa said, standing upright and cracking his spine with the kind of loud pops that only came from very old bones.

Adisa had secured the lid with only a few nails. It wasn’t enough to keep the contents safe during shipping, but it was enough to keep it on tight if you set something atop it. Basenji easily pried it free and set it aside. He brushed aside the dried straw used as packing material and blinked at what he found.

The objects didn’t seem like much at first glance. They were small trinkets and statuettes, some made of wood, some stone, others carved from gems. There were even a few made of some kind of brittle-looking yellow material that could only have been bone. None of them were much bigger than his paws curled up into fists. He carefully picked up one of the smaller pieces, holding it gingerly as he examined it. It was a small diamond dog, sitting down, a drum held in the space between his crossed legs. He reached into the crate and brushed aside the straw, revealing more figures and shards of broken earthenware.

“Are they genuine?” Adisa asked. “I know your kind well enough to recognize your craft, but I’ve never seen this sort of imagery before.”

“These are…” Basenji blinked again, as he uncovered another layer, revealing a small emblem made from bone. It was a depiction of a dog’s head made with viciously angular features and tall, pointed ears that sat high on the head.

It was the symbol of the First Dog, of Great Anubis, the Jackal.

The last time he’d seen items such as these, they’d been inside of a burial house in the city of the Old Dogs. The team of scholars and archaeologists that his father had joined with were no doubt pulling similar objects out of the city by the cartload. Every item pulled from the site would be documented and studied before being returned to the tombs. Very few of the precious relics were meant to stay above ground, and they were all already claimed by the various museums and universities that were funding the dig.

And some minotaur treasure hunter had wandered into a shop in Zanzebra with an entire crate of them.

Basenji took a deep breath and set the objects down. “They are real… and that concerns me.”

Adisa tilted his head curiously. “Oh? Why would that concern you?”

“Because I have seen this sort of imagery before,” Basenji said with a shake of his head. “They are funerary objects. Used in traditions so old that even drummers had forgotten them.”

Adisa’s vision may have gone bad, but they were still shone with the razor-sharp intellect behind them. There was very little that got by him, and it only took a moment before he began putting things together.

“That place they say you found in the desert?” Adisa asked. “These came from that ancient burrow that has every curio dealer from here to Manehattan salivating? The one that Saluki went off to poke around in?”

“It would seem so,” Basenji said with a nod.

“Stolen then,” Adisa growled in a tone that indicated that he probably would have spit in distaste if he weren’t standing in his own shop. “Perhaps I was too quick to accuse him of intelligence. He is not a very clever smuggler if he didn’t even bother taking his wares out of the country. What’s more, he didn’t even get a good price for them.”

“What did he tell you about where he made this acquisition?” Basenji asked as he dug through the box.

“Bah, he had some tale about finding them in the jungle lands overseas,” Adisa said. “San Mulelito, or maybe Cartaneighna…”

Basenji frowned. Something about the situation didn’t feel right. These were almost certainly objects crafted in the tradition of the Old Dogs. But if they were from the city of Old Dogs, then it didn’t make sense for them to be here. The dig site was crawling with security and scholars of the highest caliber. The academics that had been chosen for the dig team were the sort that wouldn’t ever dream of risking their careers by stealing relics. Especially not to sell them to a smuggler who would let them go cheaply to someone like Adisa. The old zebra was well-known in the antiques community, but he wasn’t the black market sort that could, or even would, spin illicit goods into piles of gold.

The other option – which was just as unlikely – was that this treasure hunter was on the level.

“We should report this to the authorities,” Adisa sighed. “Shame, though. I could have made quite a profit here, but I won’t deal in stolen goods. I believe he may still be in town, so I should at least be able to recover what I paid to him if he hasn’t already poured it all into his liver.”

Basenji leaned against the crate, tapping his claw softly against the side as he considered what options they had.

“Perhaps hold off on this thing,” he advised. “There may yet be chance to save your profit. You say he is still in town, yes? I should speak with him first, find what he knows.”

“Are you certain? If he is a smuggler – and a stupid one at that – he may not be above attempting to harm you if he believes you suspect him of wrongdoing.”

“Then I shall be mindful of this,” Basenji said with even a hint of hesitation. “Regardless of the dangers, I have my duty to my people, and must see to this myself.”

Adisa turned his head owlishly, staring at Basenji as though he were looking at a new acquisition that had suddenly appeared in his shop. “You’ve changed, pup. Grown, I think – perhaps grown stupid, but grown.” The old zebra squinted through his thick spectacles and waved a hoof over his face. “The eyes are where it shows. You’ve seen things since we last met, my young friend.”

Basenji lowered his gaze to the emblem bearing Great Anubis’ visage. The truth of what had happened beneath the desert sands was known to very few, even amongst the pack. Shiba knew, as did Saluki, but the songs that Basenji had written about that dreadful day would never be played for the rest of the pack. Even Djembe was not yet ready to learn those songs.

Basenji lifted a paw and flexed the digits, grasping at the air as he examined them. They were a bit dusty, and stained with little black splotches of ink from the many hours he sat in his den, working on songs and trying to solve the mysteries of the writing they’d found on the ancient weapon Dingo had carried out of the city. It was faint, but his sense of smell caught traces of the oils he used to keep the skin of his drum supple, and to preserve the wood.

But only six months ago his paws had been stained red, covered in his own blood, and Twilight’s, and that of the dogs that had willing laid down to die in the courtyard outside Great Anubis’ temple. It hadn’t occurred to him until later, but many of those dogs had likely been drummers like himself and Dingo, if the tattered remains of their travelling cloaks were any indication. They were dogs sensitive to the Ways, vulnerable to whatever had lured them to their fates, and perhaps it was only luck that had spared Basenji and Saluki and other drummers from sharing that vulnerability. The Saddle Arabians that had escorted him home had given him a place to bathe, and he’d cried as he watched the rose-tinted water drain away in the shower.

Were his eyes really that different? Had they’d taken on some small measure of the unsettling depth that Dingo’s had? It made sense if they had. One does not experience such things without coming away changed. What those changes were and how they would affect him moving forward, there was no telling.

“As you say…”

And he left it at that.

* * *

Airships were a common thing in Zanzebra. A small landing field for the things was situated at the edge of town, and a variety of shops had sprung up surrounding it that catered to the needs of travelers. Restaurants, fuel depots, mechanics, and other services made it a popular stop. That popularity also meant that storing your vessel on the field came with some rather heavy fees. Anyone wishing to have their ship moored in one of the airfield’s storage areas had to pay a rental fee, which was unavoidable if your ship needed repairs.

Still, some travelers decided to forego the security and convenience of the airfield and park in the savannah. There was no law against this, but the fact that the grasslands were home to a number of creatures that would gladly make a meal of unsuspecting travelers meant that most just paid the parking fees.

Basenji pushed his way through the grass as he approached the airship of the minotaur who had sold Adisa the possibly stolen goods. He sniffed the air and swiveled his ears, cautiously scanning his surroundings for venomous snakes or ambush predators. Such creatures tended to avoid roads, but this minotaur, whoever he was, had chosen to moor his ship in a clearing that wasn’t readily accessible by roads.

The minotaur’s ship was fairly large, somewhere between a passenger ship and a cargo ship in size. It was unpainted, but the wooden boat gleamed with some sort of protective shellac. The balloon floated and bobbed above it, straining against the mooring lines that held it to the ground, and the plain beige canvas was also treated with some sort of coating that made it reflect light with an almost metallic sheen.

A camp was set up outside the ship. A large canopy tent shielded a few tables on which large pieces of oily machinery sat. The minotaur was there, humming to himself as he held some tools and fiddled with the mechanisms of one of the machines.

Basenji hunched down and watched from a distance as the minotaur tinkered around. After a few minutes, he frowned as he realized he wasn’t sure what he was watching for. It wasn’t as if the minotaur would suddenly throw back his head and begin dancing about, singing a song about how wonderful it was to live the life of a smuggler.

That would have been too easy.

There was nothing for it but to do it, so he stood from the grass and made a point of making some noise to signal his approach. The minotaur looked up from his work as he finally sensed Basenji’s approach. The minotaur had been wearing a pair of complicated looking goggles that magnified his eyes into enormous discs. He reached up to fiddle with a knob on the side of the apparatus, which caused the glasses to click mechanically as little arms swiveled around and swapped out the lenses.

Basenji stepped into the clearing and sat on his haunches as he lifted one paw in greeting. “Greetings!” he shouted across the field. He knew a bit of the minotaur language, but he decided to try Equish first. “I am Basenji! May we speak?”

The minotaur stood silently for a moment, as though considering the answer, before dipping his head in a polite little nod and waving his guest closer. “My name is Laughing Bison!” he replied. “Please, join me!”

Basenji approached, and the minotaur stepped out from behind the tables to meet him at the edge of the camp.

Laughing Bison was average size for a minotaur, though maybe a little broader in the shoulders than most of his kind, with a dark blue fur that was noticeably mottled with brown hairs. He wore a long, open coat that must have once been white, but had been irreversibly stained with dirt and grease.

The minotaur lifted his goggles, letting them rest against his forehead, and cleaned up with an oily rag. “Not to be rude,” Laughing Bison began, “but I am very busy, so how can I help you?”

“Ah, yes, I will try not to take much of your time,” Basenji said. “I am a friend of old Adisa, and it was he who told me where I could find you.”

“Ah, the antique dealer sent you?”

“No, I am here out of my own curiosity,” Basenji clarified. “Adisa asked for my opinion on a number of artifacts that came into his possession. I wished to ask you some questions about those pieces.”

Laughing Bison scratched at the spot where the goggle strap crossed over his temple. “Hm, I suppose you would be the proper dog to consult on appraising diamond dog artifacts.” He gestured towards the drum hanging at Basenji’s side.

Basenji’s eyebrows raised slightly. “You know of my profession?”

“I know a bit about dogs,” Laughing Bison answered with a shrug. “I met a drummer once in Baahram. Not many of your kind – drummers, that is – outside of the Zebrican continent.”

“As you say,” Basenji said with a dip of his head.

Laughing Bison turned and went to a small unlit fire pit that had been dug a short distance from the tent, and took a seat on a folding camping chair. He reached into a dented metallic ice chest next to the chair and produced a bottle of cloudy yellow liquid. He gave the bottle a hard shake, twisted off the cap, and took a long sip. “So what do you want to know?”

Basenji took a seat at the opposite end of the fire pit, noting that the minotaur hadn’t offered him any of what he was drinking. The faint scent of citrus and sugar told him it was some sort of lemonade. “I was wondering where you obtained these pieces. What can you tell of where they were found?”

“I found them outside of Cartaneighna,” Laughing Bison said as he took another long pull from the bottle. “The weather patrol there doesn’t go very far outside the city, so there were some pretty heavy wild rains out there towards the end of last summer. Sinkhole opened up a few miles outside of town and some of the locals said they’d seen some bits of pottery and such at the bottom of the pit. I figured it was worth a look-see. Near as I can tell the sinkhole was just an old diamond dog burrow that finally gave out. You guys make some impressive earthworks, but nothing lasts forever.”

Basenji smoothed the hairs under his chin thoughtfully. Laughing Bison was rather relaxed, and there wasn’t anything in his posture or voice so far that made Basenji think he was lying.

“Was there anything else odd in this place you found?” Basenji asked.

Laughing Bison paused mid-drink and slowly lowered the bottle. One corner of his mouth turned down into a thoughtful half-frown. “Yeah… Yeah there was. There were bones scattered around. They’d been crushed by the collapse, but they were clearly diamond dog bones. They’d been mummified and wrapped, I think. It struck me as curious, because from what I know your people traditionally practice cremation. I’d just assumed that it was something they’d picked up from the local tribes. Mulemecs were still practicing ritual mummification in that area until just a few hundred years ago.”

Basenji raised an eyebrow. “You are quite knowledgeable for a treasure hunter,” he said.

A flash of anger crossed the minotaur’s features, but it was gone almost immediately. He sighed and drained what was left of his drink in a single pull.

“I’m no treasure hunter,” Laughing Bison corrected as he tossed bottle into a wooden crate filled with other empties. “I’m a scholar. I have a doctorate in history from the University of Minos.”

The University of Minos was a well-respected institution, and was among the several educational bodies that was funding the excavation his father was at. If he had connections to that place, then it would certainly give him contacts that could assist in removing objects from site.

But Laughing Bison’s body language still wasn’t telegraphing anything that bespoke of criminality, and if he did have connections with the university through which he was embezzling the artifacts, it would be foolish to reveal them so easily. Basenji decided that if he was going to get anywhere, he would have to try a more direct line of questioning.

“I know of this school,” he said. “My father, Saluki, is working with scholars from that place. Surely you know of the excavation of the ancient city to the north of here.”

Laughing Bison showed surprisingly little reaction. He merely nodded and sighed. “I know it. I would’ve liked to have looked around a bit, but they wouldn’t let me within a mile of the place. I burned a lot of bridges when I quit teaching there. I’m persona non grata at anything the university is involved in.”

Basenji blinked. “Truly?”

“Yup.” Laughing Bison reached into the cooler and pulled out another bottle. He twisted the cap off and paused. He held up the bottle and shook it gently. “Want one?”

“Oh, um, please,” Basenji said as he reached his long arms across the fire pit to take the bottle. The bottle was cool and damp with condensation. It felt good in his paws. “So you have never been to the dig, then?”

“Nope,” Laughing Bison said as he got another bottle for himself. “It’s just as well. I don’t mean offense, here, but interesting as diamond dog culture is, it’s not really the focus of my current research. That’s why I didn’t mind unloading the stuff I pulled out of that sinkhole. I don’t get funding from the university anymore, so I have to make money where I can.”

Basenji sighed and decided to just lay his cards on the table. “If I may be candid,” he began cautiously, “and please do not take this harshly, I came here because I thought you to perhaps be a thief.”

Laughing Bison’s face settled into a neutral mask as he leaned back in his chair, the canvas squeaking loudly as it rubbed against the wooden frame. If he had taken offense at the presumption, he hid it well. “Alright,” he said, his voice tightly restrained. “I’ll bite. Why?”

“Because the artifacts you found are ancient, more so than you may have suspected,” Basenji said. “I have seen the like of them only in one place before.”

Laughing Bison’s eyes shone with recognition. “You’re talking about that ancient city to the north? The one we were just talking about?”

Basenji nodded. “Have you not kept up with the scholarly publications on the excavation? It is my understanding that the project has been greatly publicized.”

“I’ve been in the field that last few months,” Laughing Bison said with a shrug. “I read one of the first articles about the place but nothing since then. It was just some puff piece about one of the Equestrian princesses getting credit for the discovery, and some publicity for the universities and museums providing funding.”

“Then you have not heard that it has been officially named the Necropolis,” Basenji said.

The minotaur sat up and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs. “A City of the Dead?”

“A city where the Old Dogs were entombed after death,” Basenji answered gravely. “Thousands of homes, filled with the remains of dogs and the possessions they were interred with.”

“Well,” Laughing Bison said as he slowly nodded his head up and down. “Well, well, well… That’s interesting.”

“Very,” Basenji said in agreement. “This burrow you found, how large was it?”

Laughing Bison took a drink and pursed his lips. “Not very. A few small chambers, and not many tunnels. I dug around, but I couldn’t find much else – though, honestly, I wasn’t very thorough. I just took what I could salvage from the collapsed burrow and left.”

“That is odd… packs do not live in such small burrows, and families do not often live outside of packs.” Basenji rapped his claws against the side of his drum. “According to our songs, when the Old Dogs left the first city, they spread throughout the world. Perhaps this place you found was one of the places which they attempted to settle.”

“That makes sense,” Laughing Bison agreed. “Too bad the burrow was destroyed. I got everything that could be saved. The rest is dust, and probably worse by now, after a few months of the rain getting to it.”

“A shame,” Basenji said with a shake of his head. “Regardless, I shall send word of it to my father. It is still good knowledge, even if the site is no more. It, at the very least, tells us that the Old Dogs set paw upon the Amarezonian continent at some point in the distant past.”

Laughing Bison leaned back again, sliding down a bit and slumping in his chair as he idly tapped a one of his cloven hooves on the ground. He balanced the bottle on its edge atop the arm rest and rolled the bottle between his digits – fingers, minotaurs called them.

“So this site I found…” the minotaur began slowly, “you really think that it might date contemporarily with this Necropolis of yours?”

“So it would seem,” Basenji replied. “I have studied much of my people’s traditions, and the imagery and practices found in the Necropolis were long forgotten until its rediscovery.”

Laughing Bison tilted his bottle forward pointedly. “Seems a little coincidental, don’t you think? No one knew anything about diamond dog mummies, then suddenly two places with just that thing, on almost opposite ends of the globe, reveal themselves within a few weeks of one another?”

“It is… very much as you say…” Basenji admitted, shifting uncomfortably on the ground. “It also perhaps may be that such things have been found before, but none have recognized the significance before the Necropolis was rediscovered.”

Laughing Bison lifted his eyebrows and dipped his head in a little half-shrug. “True enough. It certainly didn’t pop out as anything special to me at the time, and I’ve got enough book-learning to know better. All the same, strange coincidence… It warrants further investigation. I think I might swing back that way, spend some time doing a serious excavation. See if I can’t uncover an intact burrow in the same area.”

“Did you not say your academic interests lay elsewhere?” Basenji asked.

“A big find is a big find,” Laughing Bison explained. “My own research is kind of at an impasse at the moment, so I’d be stupid to not pursue something that might draw some funding my way.” A wicked grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, and for just a moment there was a glimmer of pure, unspoiled amusement in his eyes. “Plus, it’d really piss off the university if I put my flag on a project that so closely paralleled something they were backing.”

Basenji chuckled. “Those burned bridges?”

“Oh yeah,” Laughing Bison laughed. “You quit the way I quit, they don’t let you come back. They don’t even let you onto the lawn.”

Basenji shook his head in amused disbelief. He took a sip of his lemonade and swished it in his mouth. He would need to have his father make some inquiries with his colleagues on the dig, but it seemed for the moment that Laughing Bison was on the level, which was good, because Basenji was starting to like him. The minotaur scholar was easy to speak to and he had very good tastes in beverages.

“If it is no great imposition on our new acquaintance,” Basenji said, “may I ask the reason for your departure from such a prestigious academy?”

“Difference of opinion,” Laughing Bison stated simply. “I thought they were idiots and they didn’t agree.”

Basenji coughed as a spasm of laughter forced lemonade to reverse its course halfway down his throat. He hacked for a few beats, slapping his chest as he tried to clear his throat.

“Seriously, though,” Laughing Bison continued, obviously pleased with the reaction, “difference of opinion. I’ve been researching something that my colleagues think is an academic snipe-hunt. I got tired of being ridiculed for it, and let them know what I thought of a bunch of close-minded simpletons who care more about their reputations than good academics.”

“This research is so greatly…” Basenji shifted his gaze upwards, rolling his head from side to side as he consulted his vocabulary for the proper word. “Controversial?”

“A bit,” the big minotaur sighed. “Most believe that minotaurs were isolationist only until about two thousand or so years ago. That, before that point of expansion, there were only two major settlements: the one in our homeland on the island of Minos, and the tribe that founded the city of Oxlo in the frozen north.”

Basenji found himself trying to drink from an empty bottle as he listened. He considered eating it, but eating glass was never a good idea. It wasn’t nearly as hard as gemstones, but had a tendency to break into little slivers and chips, which would end up stuck between his teeth for weeks like the kernel shells from the popcorn they sometimes sold at the market stalls.

Laughing Bison noticed Basenji’s empty drink and pulled another bottle from the cooler. They traded bottles and Laughing Bison tossed the empty into the crate before continuing.

“There are, however, stories of a third group of minotaurs,” Laughing Bison continued. “They’re mentioned in several old legends, and even pop up in the stories of other cultures. But they disappeared at some point in history, and tales of this third tribe are considered simple apocrypha. Admittedly, there are fantastic elements to the stories that sometimes contradict one another, but the one thing that they all agree on is this: those minotaurs had magic.”

“Is this such a tremendous thing?” Basenji asked. “We dogs have our Ways, ponies have their various magics, zebras have their mysticism and brews, and so forth.”

“Minotaurs have none of those things,” Laughing Bison said seriously. “Of all the intelligent species in our world, only minotaurs do not naturally have an abundance of magic. We make out alright, though. What we lack in magic, we make up for in natural inclination towards engineering.” He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers like graceful little eels. “A high level of manual dexterity helps, too, when you’re working with machinery. There’s not a modern convenience that wasn’t invented, or at least improved, by minotaur ingenuity.”

Basenji looked at the tables behind Laughing Bison, to the complex machines sitting beneath the tent. Some of them looked like they’d already been partly disassembled, and a number of little pieces of hardware – nuts and screws and the like – were organized in empty tins amidst the greasy mess.

“Stuff from my engines,” Laughing Bison explained as he noted where Basenji’s gaze had wandered. “Anyway, I believe that this third group of minotaurs did exist. I doubt that they actually had magic, but if they developed some sort of technology that was sufficiently advanced, it’s easy to imagine that their neighbors might assume it was some kind of magic. It’s not an easy theory to prove, though, because when I say they disappeared from history, I mean disappeared. There’s no physical trace of them anywhere, despite the fact that almost every culture with a storytelling tradition at least mentions them. It’s led to some pretty outrageous legends.”

“Legends of what sort?”

Laughing Bison chuckled. “Ridiculous things like them living in a forgotten, mystical land – the Lost Continent of Moo.”

Basenji’s brows lifted skeptically. “How does one ‘lose’ a continent?”

“You don’t,” Laughing Bison snickered. “A few of the stories say it sunk into the ocean, which is pure, concentrated hogwash of the highest quality – that just doesn’t happen. It’s silly things like that that make it an unpopular theory amongst my supposed peers, but our duty as scholars is to investigate every possibility, and to discern truth from tall-tale. That’s what I was doing in Cartaneighna. They have a great library there, so I was doing research into the local stories to see what they could tell me. Not an easy job, but someone’s got to do it.”

“A noble pursuit,” Basenji said, dipping his head to add a respectful bow to the compliment.

“Nobility does a poor job of filling your belly if it’s not the kind that comes with a crown,” Laughing Bison quipped, “but at least it lets you sleep at night.”

“True enough,” Basenji said. He looked up to the sky and found that it was quite a bit later than he’d expected. He’d spent far longer than he’d meant to examining the artifacts in Adisa’s shop. “Ah, the hour grows late. I may not be home before the sun has left us.”

Laughing Bison tapped his bottle against the armrest a few times, his features screwed up in thought. “Why don’t you stop by again tomorrow? It’s going to be a few days before I’m done working on the engines, and it’s been a damned long time since I’ve had someone interesting to talk to.”

Basenji stood and shook the dust from his cloak. “I believe I shall, Laughing Bison. Thank you for the beverage. You are certainly the most hospitable thief I have ever met.”

Laughing Bison laughed. “Laughing Bison, Gentlebull Thief. I like the ring of it.”

A flash of inspiration came to Basenji. He opened the flap on his satchel and dug around until he found a sheet of paper he’d folded into fours.

“If I might be so bold,” Basenji began as he unfolded the paper and made sure it was what he thought it was. “Might I have your learned opinion on this?”

Laughing Bison set down his drink and accepted the paper. He narrowed his eyes at the symbols written there, staring for a few moments before slowly rotating the paper as though he’d been looking at it upside-down.

“What is this?” he asked, slapping the back of his hand against the paper. “I’ve never seen writing like this.”

“Ah, I suppose it would have been much too convenient for you to have seen it before,” Basenji muttered with a sigh. “This writing was found inscribed upon a weapon found amongst the treasures of the Necropolis.”

Laughing Bison blinked, and the confusion in his eyes was replaced by something hungry. “Mysterious writing, you say?” he said in a drawl, his voice tinged with excitement. “They find any more of this in that place?”

“No,” Basenji replied with a shake of his head. “It has only been found on the one weapon.”

“And where is this weapon now?” Laughing Bison asked.

“It is in Equestria, in the possession of a mare named Twilight Sparkle. She is a great friend to my people.”

Laughing Bison frowned at the paper some more. “She a scholar?”

“No, but if you met her you might believe it so,” Basenji chuckled. “She is a Guard of Royalty, retainer to Princess Cadance.”

“Why does she have it, then?”

“She has proven herself worthy to hold it,” Basenji said simply.

Laughing Bison stared for a few long moments, as though he were unsure if Basenji was being serious or not. He shrugged and went back to examining the symbols. “Well, like I said, I’ve never seen writing like this.”

“Yes, but you are going somewhere that may yet yield more samples of such writing,” Basenji said pointedly.

“Ah, I get you now,” Laughing Bison said in recognition. “You want me to keep my eyes open while I’m poking around in Cartaneighna.”

Basenji nodded. “As you say.”

“I can do that,” Laughing Bison said. He folded the paper and waved the square. “Mind if I keep this?”

“Please do,” Basenji told him, “I know these symbols by heart. Their meaning has eluded me for months, and sometimes I think I shall never be able to think of anything else. I welcome anything you can add in collaboration.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Laughing Bison said as he held out his hand. “It’s been nice talking to you. Hope to see you tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” Basenji said as he held out a paw. “Good day.”

They traded grips and Basenji made his way through the grass again, back in the direction of Zanzebra. He had to report to Adisa how the meeting went, and he still had to write a letter to his father inquiring about Laughing Bison’s story. He seemed very nice, but it never hurt to be cautious. All the same, he was very much hopeful that he’d just made a new friend.

He yawned as he walked, again feeling the loss of the hours of sleep he’d skipped the night before. Eager as he was to sleep, there was still work to do. He had his business in Zanzebra, and once he returned to the burrow he had to check up on Djembe’s studies.

Basenji hummed quietly to himself as he made his way across the plains, lightening his steps with a few bars of a happy traveler’s song. The day had not started so well, but it had taken a turn for the better soon enough. The day’s events may not have given him any new answers, but they had given him new questions, and those were often just as valuable.

His wandering thoughts turned to his friend back in Equestria, the unicorn warrior that he considered a sister, and thoughts of Twilight led him to thoughts of Cadance, the young princess who had so bravely stood at their side. He chuckled to himself, wondering if his friends had ever worked out whatever it was that they’d had between them. He was certain they had. Cadance did not seem the type to let things like that remain unspoken.

“I hope things are going well for you, my friends,” he said to the air, in the hopes that his words would carry on the wind.

* * *

Author's Note:

There we go, Basenji's chapter down. I was really looking forward to this one, and I almost feel like if I wanted to, I could've totally just made a Basenji spinoff and had him going on drummer adventures battling crazy Zebrican monsters and lion ghosts. Hell, maybe I'll do that with Djembe and Chaga. That'd be fun.

We'll likely see another Basenji chapter before he joins up with the main storyline, so if you liked this, look forward to that!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll all join me next time!

Please be excited!

Comments

[PersonalGamer]

Just when I was about finish the available chapters you post new ones a minute before I do.

[buboniczarz]

... two chapters in one day

...AWSOME

[Grtgfbll]

Calling it now: Twilight's Chakram was made by the "Lost" group of Minotaurs!

[Bloody_Tofu]

Oh wow.. that ending in Twilight chapter... :D:D:D:D You KNOW Celestia's gonna razzle Twilight for deflowering her niece.

That aside though it was very well written and I loved reading how that one moment caused her to fall more in love with Cadance and deepened there relationship. The entirety of both stories it's flowed Feeling natural like a couple falling in love.

The interaction between her and the three princesses will be a great read!

[SilentMech]

This was a fun bit of story. Laughing Bison and Twilight will probably meet soon. Then interesting questions shall arise about a certain minotaurs location six months ago. Then questions about the site in Cartaneighma. Then offering him tea and discussing possibilities of what that means.

[raw666]

Personally love a few more of the in between adventures but otherwise, glad to see another chapter and really happy you gave two chapters.
Though what are exactly are they classifying the Corpse Stealer? I would be happy if you gave it the name I gave it until we get's its official name.

Also another question, did Discord find it odd Shinning Armor and Twilight Sparkle switch places and even makes comments to suggest something is off?

[heirofaniu]

6428791 It may even be more complicated than that. Diamond dogs typically cremate their dead in the modern day, yet the old dogs mummified theirs. It's fully possible that the shadow creature that is stalking Twilight is some kind of deathless, or spirit with a strong attatchment to death. Now, because the diamond dogs are descended from and worship Anubis, who is a death god, the creature could have been attracted to the city and used the body of the dead as a bridge between itself and the mortal realm, in order to consolidate its power in this world. If the First Dogs fled the Necropolis and went elsewhere, yet continued to mummify their dead, the creature may have been able to follow them, thus perpetuating the cycle. Over time the dogs begin to cremate their dead, the creature can't follow them, millennia pass, and everyone forgets about it. But the creature is still there, waiting, the return of Nightmare Moon allows some kind of rift in the aether, or temporary weakness in the barrier and the creature casts its siren song to the drummers, and then the first story in the series takes place.

Or maybe I'm looking WAY too deeply into this.

Also, Dingo can see the shadow creature's true form, that's what he's watching. Calling it now.

[Dramon Creator]

Basenji and Twilight got a strong friendship from their experiences in the first TwiGuard, something I really liked from the story. It'll be nice to see them hang out together again. Laughing Bison will definitely have an important role in The Rising, what with his fun personality, cunning intellect, and how his topic of study is foreshadowing what is no doubt to be an important part of the Myth Arc. King of Beggars, thank you for the double update. I know that it'll only get better.

6429184 Your ideas are interesting, and while I doubt they're completely right, they have a great deal of merit. I especially like the idea that Dingo's watching the Corpse Taker, since it's clear he's seeing something....unearthly.

[02010]

6428791 and that lost group lived in Necropolis

[Crystal Moose]

Woooo! More Basenji.

I'm not normally one to enjoy OC's, but hell, if there was a Basenji and Laughing Bison travel the world spinoff, I'd read the shit out of that.

[Posted]

Great job on this Basenji chapter. Quite often secondary characters or even supporting characters that haven't had any screen time for a long while do not make for an interesting point of view. They often break immersion as well when you have to adjust your perspective to new motivations, locals, and other even more backgroundish characters. I am quite happy to say that none of that happened here. This was a fantastic chapter and slotted right in without any fandangling at all.

[ArchAngelGundam]

That was fun, may I have another? Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.

[TheStratovarian]

I loved this chapter, you manage to capture such a vibrant picture you can picture it with not even having to try. The characters leap to the front, quirks and oddness abound. I love it! And very worth the wait!

6429184 The fact that in that when you mummify a body, you remove, and preserve certain, rather vital organs for various reasons as a spiritual tie in those upon the earth, however, the heart was left alone, believed to be where the soul was kept. Or in the diamond dogs case, the tie from death to the earth itself it looks like. In a way, basenji's brother here is acting as one for anubis now I fully believe. The eyes past the threshold from where the great dog stands. I really wonder when twilight will seek anubis out from the realm of the living.

[nocara]

Wow great chapter. I like how have you dig in the diamonds dog culture. And the minotaur sure is a goos addition ^^

[tvo770]

Why is this so good? Why did I decide to read this before it was complete? The worst part is i know i have to wait around a month to two months for the next chapter.

[GuestD579]

Yes! Yes! Yes! Two chapters at once and right after my birthday. I love it. I reread the story thus far and I am thinking that the changling killer is not the main threat but rather just another pawn on the board. The plot continues to thicken as more pieces fall into place

[Alex Prior]

Color me intrigued.

[Bones_]

Goddammit, we'd be stupid NOT to be excited! Twenty-five thousand words in one day? This story only has a total of 100k! Grrr...

[SolarDianthimum]

These chapters were great, as always. Stayed up far later than I should have to read them and I don't regret a thing.

[Grtgfbll]

6429184 I wouldn't be too suprised, but what does that have to do with Twilight's Chakram?

6429389 If they did, they left before Anubis went mad and took their dead with them. All their dead.

[Fourpony]

“Important to that pet pony of yours,” Shiba countered.

We now know what happened to those letters.

Laughing Bison frowned at the paper some more. “She a scholar?”

Not officially.

Hmmm, so the mystery of the disk deepens. I wonder just what that dark creature in Chrysalis' body has anything to do with it.

[Disguised]

Seriously, what is with fimfiction and not letting you like something more than once?

[PhycoKrusk]

Oh...

Oh man...

Oh geez...

This is picking at all my favorites stories and legends!

[Fourpony]

6432261
I thought she was in the class but couldn't get the 'oomph' to burst Shining's shield from the inside till the rainboom happened. Though I am not finding it while looking back, so you might be right. Might be easier to find my comment though... I probably quoted it back then as well.

[TheStratovarian]

6432879 Sorry about that then. I looked more at it in a different way. My bad there.

But yeah, I hadn't left on the good note with either dad, or my mom. I keep hearing from so many friends whom had truly ****** parents on things growing up. Still, I hope you have a good day/night, and thanks for a reply.

[John Tannius]

It is truly a great writer that can make you care for original characters as much as the original cast.

[AyanamiRei]

Man I am getting chills from this. What shocks me is how Basenji doesn't think that perhaps this 2nd Necropolis and Dingo's Tracking are related. That there would even be a CHANCE that something else terrible may have been unearthed!

Also I am really liking this Minotaur character!!

Plus I can totally see that mischief/teasing side of myself in Cadence & Twilight's Mom!! <3

[predatornc]

I loved reading in Basenji perspective. Please make more

[bebs]

I think you should marry the muse of yours.

[Satto Kez]

I'm always excited for new chapter of this, and if you did make a story with Djembe I would read it!
It's hard to wait for new chapters... But I'll try...

[Dire Wolf]

Great updates, looking forward to the next chapter. So....., will Twilight get her promotion to "Captain of The Royal Guard" by the time she and Cadance get married?

[Brinn]

I got to admit I groaned a bit when I saw that this was going to be a Basenji chapter. Not that I disliked the character or anything but it wasn't what I wanted to see after finishing the last chapter. However after reading it I was pleasantly surprised by how wrong I was. I've got to say that you've crafted a very interesting character who I really enjoyed reading about. Hes got so much going on; from the thing with his brother, the fact that he has an apprentice in his cousin, the politics of his pack, his research and the new mystery of another site that looks to be linked to the Necropolis. There's a lot of great stuff to explore there and I'm really looking forwards to it.

6435989
I think it is perhaps unlikely that Twilight would become the Captain of the Guard at this point. My main reason for thinking that is because it sounds like we are quickly approaching Crystal Empire territory and it seems unlikely that she would be made Captain then immediately move to the Empire, assuming things turn out in any way like they did in the show. Also I was just rereading the first story and I think it's important to remember that Shining is several years older than Twilight, four maybe five. He would have been in the guard for several years by the time Nightmare Moon returns, perhaps he would have even been Captain by this point, while Twilight enters the guard only two weeks before the return. While there could be extraordinary circumstances that force her into the Captaincy I have trouble believing, even with the reputation she is building for herself, that she would be considered for Captain only a year or two after she finished her basic training. Again, I'm not saying it won't happen but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.

[Lunar Justice]

I really like Basenji as a character and adding onto that Drummers all have cloaks on them is a very interesting thing in the lore of this story and it's workings. And i am very happy we'll see more chapters starring him.

[khatre]

Dang It!
Basenji never found out if he had other mail in town (that and finding out who was opening his mail) .. the reason (along with candy for his niece) that he even made the trip to town in the first place ... <insert facehoof picture here>
never mind here is one ...

[RC]

Oh my god, that damn alpha is keeping twilights letters from benjie!
Atleast thats my conection.
anyway, waiting on the updates. Great so far.

[Nali]

Laughing Bison chuckled. “Ridiculous things like them living in a forgotten, mystical land – the Lost Continent of Moo.”

This is the best awful location pun.

[Distaff Pope]

6443873 Thanks, forgot about that. So Sining's still unattached?

[Seether00]

This really opens up the world. And the creeping horror under the surface grows.

Could use some yaks or camels

[Brutydude]

I greatly enjoyed this chapter, hearing about what Basenji has been doing was quite nice.

I'm a new comer to this series (started day before yesterday), and I would just like to say that the quality of writing found here is quite refreshing. Keep it up, I'm looking forward to future chapters

[LawnPygmy]

>The Lost Continent of Moo.

*flips you*

[Winter Quill]

Saw this pic and it made me think of your version of Shining Armor.

pre15.deviantart.net/2e8b/th/pre/i/2013/049/9/d/everything_s_gonna_be_just_fine_by_dm29-d5vd0zu.png

[Kitcat36]

This chapter was so interesting! I was itching to find out more about Twilight and Cadance, but this chapter was just as good and a pleasure to read. I love how deep the mythos of this world is going and how so many pieces are being introduced. Reading as they come together will be quite a joy. Thank you so much for writing such an amazing story!

[FLUTTERxxDASH]

I would let you slap me if you could, as soon as I read that this would be a basenji chapter only I got pissed off after the proposal in the last chapter, but I really can't argue with the substantial amount of epic this chapter brought. I loved it and all of the extra world building it brought along. Especially Djembe and Chaga, they were too adorable and I fully support a spin off of those two with all means and ends. So yeah, ever see me, just go, "SLAP" should have read before you judged! heheh

MASSIVE SPOILER!!!!! DO NOT LOOK AT THE BLACKED OUT BIT IF YOU ARE JUST ABOUT TO START READING, OR HAVE BEEN READING UP UNTIL TWO CHAPTERS AGO! SERIOUSLY, JUST DON'T LOOK AT IT! but you know, if you did, sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~

[Greatazuredragon]

the Lost Continent of Moo

So... Minotaur Atlantis?
Nice chapter, good work.

[Dire Wolf]

6436304

I agree that Twilight is probably still too young and inexperienced for such high rank, what I mean is an honorary promotion to reflect her future status as a princess,(remember Shinning Armor became a Prince after marrying Cadence) since it would be considered scandalous for a princess to marry such a low-ranking soldier(granted not that Cadence cares about such things, nevertheless it would placate the Canterlot nobility...mostly). I did a check on Roman style military ranks on Wikipedia, a decurion is roughly equivalent to a sergeant in modern military ranks.

[Brinn]

6489883
My issue with that would be would Twilight want a promotion like that? Especially after the talk of nepotism in the beginning of the first story.

[Mitch H]

6429389 The thing about archeology is that artifacts cluster and travel. A minotaur population in the Necropolis would have left lots of artifacts, few as notable as a magical steel disc blade (seriously, with the Necropolis being an ancient Egyptian stand in, steel is wildly out of place in a mile where worked bronze was high tech), but still, should be other stuff with the symbols and iconography. A single trinket in a hoard - that's standard trade network tracing. Thing is, there should be similar trade remnants in other sites, pottery, jewelry and so forth. (Although one wonders how resilient jewelry artifacts might be in a world with geovores.) You can lose continents in a world where the Crystal Empire and (maybe) Tambelon are things, but losing the far flung physical traces of a gone minotauran civilization (Linear C)? Now that is hard to believe.

[TerranceJet]

They traded grips

I've never heard that one before, I like it!

Also, the first connection that my brain made in regards to Laughing Bison's quest
(as embarrassed as I am to say it)
is that he's searching for the secret cow level.

[Metall Kant]

6582317
Considering how they said 'lost'; I must say, as someone currently studying geology, it is absolutely possible for a continent to disappear below the sea; it takes a long-ass time, sure, but it does happen (look at the Galapagos Islands); any area where a subduction zone occurs can drop that section of crust several hundreds of meter... rare, but I'm saying it does, or well, can happen.

And to respond to your statement on losing every physical trace like objects and such: heavily sheltered civilizations do exist, There have been some in history, but I don't know enough to provide an actual example, so I'll just use Atlantis; it's myth, I know, but entertaining the possibility that it exist, would entail that it was so protective of its culture that the inhabitants really didn't like sharing with others, which kinda sucks for historians...

This is just my point of view, it doesn't really follow on from your comment, but I felt the need to write it