Man, Mare, Machine

"Hup!" Groaned Paul as he lifted Chrysalis above his body yet again so that he could navigate the cliff-face. Walt had quickly sped down the hill, much to his annoyance, and left him in the dust with the lifting.

As he continued to pull, lift, and maneuver, a rather bored Chrysalis began to talk above him. "Tell me, Paul, what do you think of your companion Walt?"

He wasn't sure why she was asking but he decided conversation might help distract him from her weight. "Well, he seems... good at his job." He had to separate his phrases as he descended. "He definitely keeps his eyes on the finish line."

Chrysalis hummed to herself for a second. "You dislike him, don't you?"

He quivered for a second before resuming his walk. "What? No, I wouldn't say that-"

"When I asked you about him you started giving off a large amount of negative emotions, much more than before anyway." She cut him off very matter-of-factly.

"Then... why ask?"

"I was just curious." She responded quickly.

"I dunno, seems kinda... like you're invading my privacy if you do that."

She was quiet a moment, lost in thought. "I'm sorry." She replied in a meek manner which Paul found slightly worrying.

"No need to take it personally, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it."

"I don't get that much outsider interaction apart from my hive and the changelings, bless their multiple hearts, don't really know how to address authority with anything but strict attention. It's just the way I got used to having one-sided conversations with them."

"Well then I guess I can't blame you then, goodness knows I'd go insane if everyone starting talking to me like that. I'd probably order some decree saying that everyone had to relax around me. If I were you, I'd stop doing the whole 'sensing intent' thing if you want them to relax."

"I appreciate your honesty." She responded with a smile that he couldn't see.

"I don't have any reason to lie, what would that get me? The way I see it, that story of yours just told me that you're a lot tougher than most, like I said, that kind of living would drive me insane. Although I have to ask, why do you feel comfortable telling me?"

"I have been trying to... change myself since I landed in the forest. I realized that I was doing things that I couldn't easily make up for and... let's just say that you aren't the only one who would go insane if you had to live like that."

It was quiet for a while yet before either spoke again. "Well," spoke Paul, "I appreciate that you told me, that takes a lot of guts to admit something like that about yourself."

"Thank you, in return I don't think I'll tell Walt about your feelings just yet."

"Not sure how useful information he already knows is. Either way he's going to have a hissy-fit if we don't meet up with him soon."

"Oh how one-sided you are." She quipped at she tapped a hoof against his helmet.

"You want Walt's side, talk to Walt. You want conversation, you talk to me." To stop the rebuttal that he was certain was coming, Paul took a small leap from a rock, falling a few feet before landing.

"Don't do that!" Yelled an irritated Chrysalis, 'tapping' his helmet much harder this time.

Sylvia and the man in red, still nameless due to never actually introducing himself, exited the tree cover. Unsurprisingly, several guards with haphazardly strapped-on armor were waiting for them. Something that was surprising was the fact that they didn't seem particularly startled by their appearance. Wary, but not startled.

"Stop! What are you?" Yelled the smallest of the dogs, mostly hidden inside of his spotty armor.

The man, mostly hidden behind Sylvia after she had stepped in front of him, stepped forward with his hands in the air. "We're humans, we came from far away. We don't mean you any harm, we just want to talk."

"Talking is what ponies and pony lackies do!" Yipped the tiny guard again.

"Well we're talking, aren't we? You aren't a pony, and I'm a human, so no ponies here. If I'm not a pony, then you don't have any reason to not trust me right?"

Despite not being a very difficult concept to wrap you head around it was somehow still enough to throw the little dog off. "Wait, so... neither of us ponies... and not pony either... but human which is..." The guard actually had to take a seat and began rubbing his paws against his helmet, pausing after a few seconds as if reaching an answer before blowing a frustrated huff and trying again.

After rubbing himself for a few seconds without any apparent need to stop, a different guard came forward. this guard was much, much larger and had on a suit of armor that didn't look like it had been pried from five different sets. "Don't worry about Lucky, hit head once. My name is Bowser, sorry for Lucky."

"Well I didn't want to be rude and say anything." Responded the man, putting his hands down. Looking back at the frustrated little guard did reveal a rather nasty-looking indent in his helmet. It looked wider than a baseball and, judging from the bent metal, something with a lot more force than a baseball.

"We know you were coming, watched you with scouts to make sure you not dangerous. No weapons, so you not seem dangerous." He let the rather menacing spear he had been holding slide to the ground as a makeshift walking-stick, clearly showing his point.

"Clever." Nodded the man. "Are you the leader here?"

"No, Alpha is chief, Bowser is just guard."

"Well Bowser, are we allowed to meet with your chief or are outsiders not allowed?"

"No, you allowed, not dangerous. Supposed to take you to chief."

"Well then I guess we'll follow you Bowser."

"What names?" Asked their lumbering companion.

"My name is Dominic, my companion's name is Valkyrie." He shot a small look in Sylvia's direction, apparently hoping to find a response to his lie. Finding none, he gave a slightly disappointed frown before turning back to Bowser.

As they progressed through the village, more and more dogs could be seen moving about. Many regarded the duo with odd looks and whispers, whispers that could only be half deciphered by the translators. Although there was clearly a certain level of unease at their arrival, the villagers still seemed to be trying to avoid ogling their guests too much. Sylvia had to admit, they seemed a lot more considerate than that card she saw would have suggested. More and more homes could be seen covering a large expanse of cleared forest. Despite the large portion of land, most of the houses were built mostly or completely under the tree canopy growing on the edges of the town. It took Sylvia a few seconds to hazard a guess as to the reason for this design choice.

"Are your homes close to the trees so that you don't get seen from above?" She asked.

Bowser looked back at her with a close look, apparently matching her voice to her face after not getting a particularly good look before. "Yes, ponies like to think they own the forest, even though they never use it. Sometimes they look for dog camps after a dog attack, see a stray house sticking out of the canopy, and try to scare us away. No pony has been able to take Home Den though, always fail. They like to think that they scare us but they don't. Dogs raised being taught 'nothing taken from ponies ever worth it, you take their gems, they take your home, you take pony slave, pony takes your family.'" He growled lowly before finishing. "Ponies have no need to keep dogs though."

After they had traveled a few more yards, Dominic leaned over toward Bowser. "So uh, what happened with Lucky?"

Bowser wore a small frown at the question, not one of annoyance, more of a sad frown. "Kicked in the head by red pony, big, Bowser-sized. Not the same Lucky after."

"What was he like before?"

"Violent, stupid, liked to attack lone ponies without order to, same reason he ran into red pony, chief would never send him, at least not alone."

"What changed?" Dominic asked, not really seeing a difference between present Lucky and past Lucky.

"Became easier to make him stop, tell him to do small task and he takes all day, no trouble. Still, not by his choice. Lucky was stupid, but he was still Lucky, he always shared what he took after getting punished, pony had no right to change that." He gripped the spear a little more tightly as he walked now, apparently the story still had some effect on him.

"I'm sorry to hear that, that pony probably thought it hadn't hit him too hard if he left Lucky alive. At best he probably thought he had just knocked him unconscious."

"That was what chief said when people wanted to get back at pony, said we were acting like banished dogs."

"And what did you think?"

"Bowser knows that Chief is right. Still, hard to forget when have to see Lucky and all Lucky sees is a big dog, no Bowser anymore." His tone let-on that he and Lucky had been a little more than just neutral coworkers in the past, perhaps friends. They continued a little further before reaching a cave covered with a wooden wall. "Chief inside, fine to go in alone, have things to do."

Before he left, Dominic patted a hand to the dogs shoulder. "You're a good dog, Bowser, Lucky really is lucky if he has a friend like you."

"Bowser isn't Lucky's friend, Bowser is Lucky's brother. Know what you mean though." The hairy leviathan gave a small smile and wag before walking off, disappearing behind the first set of houses he came to pass.

Dominic turned to Sylvia. "Nothing more for us to do after this, let's get this done with and go back to the ship." He said it without any notes of sarcasm or boredom in his voice for once. "I don't want to stay on this planet right now." He reached for another cigarette and, finding that none were left, sighed heavily, as if that evenly summarized his mood right now.

"How are things coming with the two in the central country?"

"Well sir, it looks like the dogs have been very receptive so far and the changeling is getting very warm and cozy with Jeremiah's man, Walt was almost not needed."

"That's good to hear, try to see if we can work the kinks out of the dog language before the day is over, I want the translations sent to our men before any big movements."

"Yes sir, and the changelings?"

"Keep a second staff on hand for when she starts talking, I feel like she will try to stay native while with Walt's group but just in case I want whatever we can get decrypted in my hand."

"How much should we send to the council?"

"Everything for now but keep the languages held tight. Anything else?"

"Sir... if I may, what are the exact goals for this operation?"

"All great relationships start with trust, to keep gaining trust, you have to know how to use the trust you already have effectively. Think of it as infrastructure. That's our plan."