Caribou Raiders: First Contact

Grass, grass and more grass. Daring Do sighed. Sometimes, she really hated her job. No, it wasn't when she was tied up and an over-elaborate death trap was just split seconds away form slicing her to ribbons. Nor was it the times when she had to fight off Dr. Caballeron's henchmen in an active volcano during an earthquake. It was the times when absolutely nothing was going on. Just an endless, already weeks long, boring walk through the Equestrian grasslands to the coordinates of the Black Tongue, a magical artifact from another world. If the tales of it were true, it could translate any language.

She had at many points considered just giving up on the whole ordeal. The Black Tongue would hardly be any use to Equestria, a land that had long ago adopted a universal language. But each step she set towards the coordinates where the artifact would allegedly appear was another reason not to turn around. She had walked so far, turning back now would just mean she wasted all that effort and she knew she'd spend countless restless nights wondering what adventure she missed out on.

"Adventure? There isn't anypony as far as far as the eye can see. What are you going to do? Fight rogue blades of grass?"

"Great, you're talking to yourself again, Daring. And that negative attitude isn't going to make this adventure any more fun."

"I'm just telling you the truth, Do. This was just wasted effort."

"And now you're arguing with yourself. Good going!"

Suddenly a bright white light flashed and lit up the sky right before her. Something big had happened over the horizon. Or was she seeing thing? She quickly rumbled in her travel bag to take out her sextant.

"You're almost there, Daring. You might get a real adventure after all!"

"Well, almost there in coordinates is still quite the walk. Move that fat plot of yours."

Filled with a new vigor, she marched on towards the source of the flash. After half an hour she could swear she saw something.

"Are those horns? Where did they go? Is that grass... moving? No, I must be seeing things."

Just as suddenly as these strange visions had appeared they disappeared.

"Come on! A little well deserved adventure is just what you need right now."

For another boring half hour, nothing happened. And then over the horizon a brown and grey smudge appeared. The smudge got bigger and bigger, until Daring Do could make out that the brown and grey smudge was made up out of many little brown and grey smudges.

"There must be thousands of them. I better hide and wait this out until I know what they want."

Daring Do laid prone in the tall grass, covered herself with it and waited. Between the strands of the grass, she could still spy on what was approaching. The smudge got closer and closer. It wasn't just an enormous crowd. They were riding things. Big gray beasts she couldn't quite place. They most closely resembled wild boars, but were much larger. The riders as well were also unlike anything she had seen before. All of them were brown and much larger than the average mare or stallion, their heads adorned with impressive pairs of horns that branched out to slightly resemble trees in fall.

They kept getting closer, but her trick seemed to work. They surrounded her, the hooves of the beast they were riding all around her. Yet they didn't seem to notice her and none of the beast ever stepped on her. Daring could see some had bloated udders leaking drops of milk. Disturbingly, the others had huge cocks just hanging out semi-erect, leaking precum. Disgusted, she gagged but thankfully stopped herself from making a snarky comment to herself. She could now clearly hear the riders talking to each other but she couldn't understand a word. It sounded unmelodic, with sharp consonants and sounds Daring Do was completely unfamiliar with.

"You can come out now. We've known all this time that you're here, cow." a metallic voice spoke.

Stunned, she got up. Before her were two of these riders looking straight at her. Unlike the rest of the riders, those two were covered in armor. Metallic scales covered their chests and chainmail covered parts of their heads. One of them was holding a black, shiny, almost oily cube.

"Who are you people?"

The black object made a similar metallic noise, this time in the langue of the riders.

One of the armored figures started moving his arms and speaking with passion in a way that would have been very impressive had the black object not translated his words in metallic monotone before Daring Do could understand them.

"Kneel, cow. Before you rides Khagan Dainn the Great of the Caribou. The one true heir of Url the Blessed. Victor of the Campaign of the Lost Fawns and the Battle of the Bloodied Yurt. And by the Two Faced God, get those clothes of. You're not a buck, display your body proudly like He meant you to."

"First of all, I'm not kneeling before any "Khagan". Princess Celestia and Princess Luna rule Equestria, not your Dainn. Second of all, I'm not a cow, I'm a mare. Thirdly, I'm not getting naked in front of you perverts no matter what your god thing says."

The riders surrounding her didn't appreciate the words one bit. They start mumbling between each other.

"A heretic!" "No, a heathen!" "May the Two Faced God have mercy on her soul!"

Daring Do stood her ground however. She knew she had one trump card over them and this Khagan Dainn was holding the Black Tongue. Before her however appeared a rider much taller and wider than the rest, his mount clearly strained to lift him up. His face was red in anger and he was holding a leather club.

"What are you going to do, big guy?" she taunted.

"I'm going to stun you and rape you straight, cunt!" the giant answered in a furious voice clearly meant to be scare Daring.

The fact that the message still had to be repeated in the Black Tongue's tinny monotone voice first made it a lot less intimidating that the Caribou intended it to be.

He gave the back of the head of his mount a slap and it charged forward. As he got close he clumsily tried to hit Daring Do with the club. She easily dodged and let the rider pass her by. He turned around and swung again at her but with just as little a result. Then he tensed up and collapsed from his mount on the grass. Khagan Dainn was behind him and he was holding his own leather club with smoke coming off it.

"I swear to the Two Faced God, Ivangir. If you weren't my sworn shield I would have switched an idiot like you long ago."

Said Ivangir just grumbled angrily face down on the grass but made no attempt to get up.

"My apologies for this incident, mare. Who is this "Princess" Celestia you speak of?"

"She rules Equestria along with her sister Luna."

"Did you say "She rules"?" Dainn reacted stunned.

"Yes of course."

The entire crowd broke out in a cacophony of outraged shouts and screams the Black Tongue could only translate as "Rabble rabble rabble."

The Khagan lifted his arms.

"Quiet! Remember the third aspect of the Two Faced God, brothers!"

And just like that, the crowd calmed down, shamed looks appearing on their faces.

"Climb on my warbeast. You must be very tired of walking by now."

"Is that what those things are called?"

Dainn nodded. Despite a gut feeling of suspicion, Daring Do obliged.

"Tell me of this Celestia and Luna, mare."