Chapter two

Regarding irrational thinking.

To my utmost surprise, the purple monstrosity did not try to devour me on the spot, the fact I was quite pleased about. On the other hand, it wasn't shutting up either, continuing it's interrogation and completely unfazed by the lack of answers.

"What's this metal thingie for? Why won't you talk? What's your name?" The horned daemon went quiet and stared at me, obviously expecting an answer.

Still holding my gun in panic, I tried to come up with a way to reach my ammo bag without being devoured. Nothing would come to mind, I couldn't just teleport away.

The horse continued to stare at me curiously, shifting it's glance back and forth between me and the 'metal thing'. Why the hell did I take off he ammo pouch?! Soon this thing will realize that I'm defenseless, and brigade commander alone knows what it'll do. There, it's looking at me!

The mutant obviously became tired of waiting. Taking a step back, it carefully began to examine me from head to toe.

Unable to take the silence any longer, the horse rattled again:

"Are you sick? Or wounded? Is it hard for you to speak?" The horned creature looked me in the eyes. For some reason, it seemed concerned. Yeah, of course it's concerned, if I'm sick I might be dangerous to eat, or might not be so tasty. What an insolent horse.

The staring contest continued. Finally, I gave up. Go ahead and eat me. "You can choke on my stars, bitch. Whatever it is you usually get right before the execution, a cigarette? I need a smoke." With that in mind I reached into my pocket. My fingers grasped something metallic.

"Motherfucker!" I yelled. The purple abomination anxiously froze in place and glared at me again, this time one could clearly see fear in it's eyes.

"Are you allright?" The monster inquired with concern.

That didn't bother me, however, I was saved! Now, all my fears seemed trivial and mostly made up. It was as if my pistol gave it's strength and metal resilience to me. How could I possibly forget about the holster? Yet, it doesn't matter. I jumped to my feet, pulled out the sidearm with my numb fingers and with a triumphant roar dramatically pointed it at the horned horse.

"Your word, Comrade Makarov!" I taunted. I don't get to shoot small horned purple monster-horses every day, after all!

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The purple unicorn calmly trotted through the meadow drenched in the afternoon sun. The sky was a deep shade of blue, with light strokes of Pegasus-feather-like white clouds. The world seemed bright and airy. She felt like like bursting into a song.

‘What a pleasant day’ She thought as she was returning from her striped friend’s hut. This morning she decided to come visit Zecora. No reason this time, she didn’t need an important advice or some special potion. Things were so quiet in Ponyville, she was bored out of her mind.

This day the little pony decided to pay her old friend a visit and have a little chat over a cup of herbal tea. Twilight was simply in awe of this tea, she could drink it forever. Today, to Zecora’s amusement, she managed to gulp down seven cups of it.

‘Well, can’t do anything about it.’ she chuckled. ‘Everybody has a weakness and that tea is incredibly good, it invigorates and gives this feeling of lightness, I feel like I’m gonna fly!’

Pondering about the benefits of herbal tea before the usual one, Twilight re-adjusted the cloak on her back. She ‘fought’ Rarity for two days because of this cloak - the unicorn had trouble convincing her friend that the forest cloak shouldn’t be covered in gold and jewelry, on the contrary - it should be as practical and unnoticeable as possible.

Finished with the cloak, she turned her head forward and her nose ended up in a rather large pile of mud.

“Ew, how gross! Ugh!” Spitting and snorting, the mare stepped back and looked at the obstacle.

‘I’m pretty sure, this wasn’t here a second ago, I need to pay more attention.’ She grumbled.
However her discontent, was quickly replaced with curiosity: as she looked around, Twilight has found some more mounds just like this one, a bunch of twigs piled on some logs right in between them.

After some indecisive trampling in one place, the lilac pony curiously approached the strange ‘structure’. Getting closer, she noticed that all these logs and twigs actually act as a ‘roof’ of a rather large and deep pit. Unable to resist temptation, the unicorn stuck her head into the impressive gap between earth and logs.

It was too dark inside the pit, and the mare decided to to wait a little bit for her eyes to get used to the dark.

“What a pose, ms. Sparkle” She grinned to herself. “I hope no one will sneak on me from behind.”
Getting used to the darkness, Twilight noticed a weird long sac lying next to one if the walls of the pit. She almost decided that somebody uses this pit to dump garbage, when, surprisingly, the ‘sac’ abruptly stood up and allegedly began to sniff the air. Frightened, the unicorn hastily pulled her head out of the hole and ran away a little. What if this ‘sac’ noticed her?

“Should I run? Or hide? Or maybe I should go say ‘hello’?” Thoughts whirled in her head. With an effort mare forced herself to calm down.

"I think it is best if I quietly observe the creature for now, and then we’ll see. "With that in mind, Twilight quickly covered herself with a cloak and laid down on the ground.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Her horn lit up, and her cloak was quickly covered in chunks of dirt from a nearby mound. Disguised, Twilight froze. The ‘sac’ got out of the pit with a strange metal thing hanging on it’s shoulder, and began to look around.

Twilight examined the creature with interest. It was so tall, even Celestia herself would reach no further than it’s shoulder, and generally looked like a diamond dog. Slender and shapely diamond dog. ‘The Crosstie’, as the mare called him, was all wrapped up in green-colored oddly patterned clothes. It was even wearing something that looked very similar to a cap on it’s head. The stranger’s hooves were very strange as well, tall and sticking out forward. Just like manticore’s paws, except no fingers or claws.

To her relief, the creature did not notice her, and having finished looking around, yelled so loud that the unicorn almost jumped.

“Fuuk!!!”

Twilight was surprised. Fuuk was the name of the eldest son of nomadic steppe ponies Khan. They met a couple of times at Princess Celestia’s diplomatic receptions. The young stallion was an interesting, albeit very peculiar pony to talk to. The mare had no idea what he could possibly do in the middle of the forest, in company of such strange creature.

The ‘Crosstie’ was very angry, Twilight could feel it with her skin. “Because Fuuk did not answer, apparently.” she mused.

In the meantime, the creature did not even think of calming down, almost blowing steam from his nostrils. It kicked the nearest rock, and it flew directly at young filly-scout’s horn. It was as if someone set of a firecracker inside her skull, filling the world with ringing and pain.

Twilight bit her hoof, trying not to cry and give herself away. It didn’t help. She shrieked, more from fear than actual pain. The creature clearly heard her and stopped abruptly. “What the hay?!” the unicorn panicked “I just had to let my curiosity get the better of me!”

Suddenly the creature began to spew profanities, screaming something about some Shepilov’s glasses, quickly moving towards her.

“Alright Twily, calm down, just calm down.” The mare tried to stop panicking, but her efforts were in vain. The stranger, being already quite close to her, clutched the edge of her cloak, and forcibly yanked it off.

Twilight shrank in fear, but noticed how the creature fell on it’s it's flank and tried to pull the piece of metal from it’s shoulder upon seeing her.

“You see, it didn’t want to eat you, the ‘Crosstie’ is just as scared of you as you are of it.” The mare thought to herself. “Now, the main thing is to be friendly!”

“Uh… Hello!” - She barely managed to squeeze the words out, attempting to make a good first impression.

Author's Note

If you find any errors, or if you have any suggestions about the translation, please tell me.