Radahn allowed what he judged to be a small caravan to approach him as he maintained his position at the water’s edge, and while the stallion could’ve taken the initiative, he figured it would keep them at ease.

He looked upon the caravan with a smile as they drew closer and closer. At this range, he could now properly make out equines much like himself donned in desert-dwelling attire, primarily silks that obscured most of their body and features, save for their eyes, with metal plates located at the shoulders and chest region. And thanks to Philomena’s information, he could easily decipher that these were saddle arabians.

‘Height, roughly six to seven feet between every individual. Too tall to be ponies.’ He notes internally as his eyes survey each encroaching saddle arabian.

‘There’s six of them by my count… All stallions… And with the tallest member in the lead. Hmmm. Can’t help but notice those sheathed scimitars, too.’

Deep-rooted suspicion is hidden behind his mask of pleasantry.

‘Better not let my guard down.’

The over-sized earth pony then spots four light-brown camels a small distance behind the saddle arabians, each with one to two humps and pulling a sizable wooden wagon with a white tarp going overhead.

‘Camels, huh? Interesting. Well, I suppose that’s to be expected, but I wonder if they can talk, too. Such an interesting nation of beast folk.’

The wagon’s tarp is abruptly lifted from the front as a seventh saddle arabian stallion exits the vehicle and sits at the coach. At that moment, Radahn immediately noticed a familiar and curled-up length of cord fastened to a handle resting on the equine’s right side.

‘A whip, hmm?’ He then glanced over each camel. ‘Judging by those scars going along their humps and backs… It seems someone enjoys their toy a little too much.’

“Atsur!” The lead saddle arabian barks in a language unknown to Radahn, causing the camels pulling the wagon to stop in a panic. The lead stallion continued his approach, his fellow saddle arabians, excluding the one sitting on the wagon and glaring at the camels, falling into formation behind him.

“Hello there, gentlemen,” Radahn greets with a waving forehoof. “It’s high noon. Quite the scorcher today, wouldn’t you say? Come,” he gestures back to his makeshift shelter, a series of leaves and logs conjoined together, “Why don’t we talk in the shade? The water’s fine, too. Let us-”

“What do we have here?” The lead saddle arabian, tallest of the bunch, interjects with a somewhat higher pitched and raspy voice, grinning. “Gentlemen… Well, I don’t know what a ‘men’ is, but I can only assume you mean ‘colts’ or, better yet, ‘sirs.’” His orange eyes began to survey the area, looking over to Radahn’s shelter.

“My. Creative thing, aren’t we?”

“Bahahaha!” Radahn laughed joyously but internally made out the arabian’s appearance—a dark-red coat with the faintest presence of a black mane hidden beneath red cloth to go with the fully-exposed ebony tail. “I appreciate that. But even a child could put my skills to shame. Ah, but where are my manners? I am General Radahn Carian. And who might I have the pleasure of speaking with?”

“General, you say?” The saddle arabian and his companions step closer, blatantly ignoring the large earth pony’s last inquiry, “And where is your army, general?”

Radahn awkwardly brings a hoof to the back of his neck, rubbing it with sheepish laughter. “Y-yes… I, uh, seem to have been…displaced recently. I sadly do not have an army to command at the moment. But I assure you, gentle- uh, colts, my forces can be found in the Lands Between.”

“Mmyes, quite. I figured you’d have come from Equus. You are a pony, after all. Or ‘it,’ as we like to call you.” The saddle arabian shared a look with his allies, which didn’t go unnoticed by Radahn.

‘Not very good at hiding their intentions, hmm?’ The general mocked inwardly while the equines before him chuckled darkly together. ‘Seriously, the bandits and raiders back in my homeland would have a field day with these poor fools.’

The lead arabian sets his sights on Radahn. “And you’re a very large pony, at that.”

“Hah! Well, my mother always did tell me never to be a picky eater.”

The group of arabians simply stare at him, unamused. “Tsayyr kharvot,” the lead stallion dropped monotonously, and a series of drawn blades sounded off following the order as the stallion drew his own, pointing it at Radahn.

‘And here we go...’

“Did your mother also tell you what we do to ponies who venture too far from their lands?”

“Hmm… I don’t suppose trotting through open pastures with sunshine and rainbows would be an option?”

“Heh. A comedian, I see. Take him, boys. He’ll sell for quite a lot at the slave market, no doubt.”

With a raised brow, Radahn stares at the blade, looks over to each saddle arabian present, and back to the one in the lead. He then lets out a long sigh after a moment’s pause.

“You could’ve just done this from the start instead of wasting both of our time.”

“True,” the dark-red arabian in the lead retorts, taking a cautious step closer with his cohorts as a unit. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Is this really the best you have?” Radahn asked, garnering condescending looks from them all, despite their clothed features. “Your best response to finding a lone stranger at an oasis—a welcoming stranger, at that. Calling him ‘it’ and drawing up plans to sell him.”

The lead antagonist chuckled. “You don’t matter. You don’t deserve my best. You’re just some oversized clump of shit I discovered in the middle of nowhere, and I’ll do with you as I wish.”

The other arabians began maneuvering around their tallest member as he spoke, planting themselves all around Radahn and surrounding him in every direction. But the large earth pony never takes his eyes off of the saddle arabian before him.

“Only I and my friends here matter. You are simply meat.”

Radahn narrows his eyes. “I’m not a sapient being?” He asked while tilting his head playfully.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re sapient, Sir. Philosopher of the Watering Hole,” the stallion abruptly breathed sharp and deeply. “I simply don’t care.”

“In that case…” Sir. Philosopher of the Watering Hole grinned as a familiar rune flashed in his eyes. “I don’t, either.”

---

---

Within the carriage and hidden beneath the tarp, a caged white pegasus mare with red-tipped ears and feathers scans her surroundings with light-blue eyes peering through the gray steel bars. She throws her elongated mane over her shoulder, tied in a high ponytail, which glides over her cutie mark depicting three crystals with flowing water in the back as she looks toward the front of the wagon.

“E-excuse me, sir!” She cried out, high-pitched. “W-why did we stop?!”

“Shut up, back there!” A deep voice roars back, followed by a dark-yellow hoof that pulls back the tarp as the saddle arabian coachcolt looks in with a snarl. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, cum bucket. You'll soon have some company back there once the boss and the others get that sorry feller up ahead. Quite a big guy, too.”

He looks over her form, licking his lips as she backs away and falls over in her cage fearfully. “Hohoho~ I’m going to have so much fun with that body of yours later. Might have to break those wings, though. Can’t have you flying off on us.”

“P-please…!” She pleads on the wooden floor, fresh tears going down her face. “Let me go! I-I won’t tell anyone!”

The stallion cackled. “Since when has that line ever worked?” He continued to laugh as he pulled away, letting the tarp fall back into place. And once he did so…

A sinister look forms on the pegasus mare’s face as she wipes away her tears. “Thank goodness for the acting classes back in Neighpon.” She lifts herself up from the floor, collected, serious, and ominously calculative.

“A ninja has to sell the part, after all.” She unfurls a wing and plucks off one of its feathers closer to the base, only for it to be revealed as a multipurpose tool while turning it in place.

She makes her way over to the cell door and sticks both forelimbs through the bars, “Idiots,” she mutters, maneuvering the tool over the lock. “Who even makes a cell with gaps large enough to slip a hoof through it? Hmmph. Rookies~.”

The pegasus continues to fiddle with the locking mechanism until her ears twitch in response to a click. She pulls her limbs back and gently pushes the cell door open, reattaching the ‘tool feather’ onto her wing as she casually strolls out of the cell.

She moans as she stretches her limbs one by one, joints cracking as she then does the same to her neck. With a shift of her head, she focuses her attention on a series of weapons and equipment lining the walls, letting out a whispered and delighted ‘Ah’ as she spots her own gear.

She plucks off a chest piece from the wall and holds it in her hooves, sighing lovingly.

“Time to get dressed. It’s showtime.”

Outside the wagon, the coach stallion observed his allies in the distance with a satisfied grin as they began to surround the large earth pony. “There ya go, boys. Surround that dumb fuckah.”

Strapped to the wagon’s forefront, two of the four camels, both with two humps, whisper frightfully amongst themselves.

“D-do you think our son managed to escape, husband?” The female camel muttered.

“I’m sure he did, dear,” her husband responds. “Maker knows that he-”

[WHPASHCK]

“AHHHH!” The male camel suddenly twitches and cries out in pain as the coach stallion cracks the whip, forming a bleeding lash alongside the camel’s back hump, the furthest back of the two.

“Herbert!” His wife screamed as the other two single-humped camels behind them cowered, bodies shaking, eyes downcasted to the sands.

“Got something to say, huh?!” The saddle arabian bellows, drawing his hoof back to strike again with the whip if necessary.

Herbert grits his teeth in pain while his wife tends to him. “Why?!” She suddenly roared in frustration, looking back over her shoulder as tears fell freely.

"Sh-Shirley, d-don't-"

“Why does the Maker allow us to be treated this way?!" Shirley continued, despite her husband's protective protest. "Why do monsters like you always go unpunished?!”

A sinful grin forms beneath the cloth of the whip-wielding stallion’s covered face. “It’s simple, you filthy camel,” he raises the whip, preparing to strike, “You were placed on this world to serve-!”

A white presence emerges from the wagon with incredible speed, grabbing onto the whip and wrapping it around the arabian’s neck tightly in one smooth motion, choking him in the process as the camels all shot their gaze back in shock.

“GA-HAUCK!”

“What’s that?” The unveiled pegasus asked, leaning in as the arabian looked back at her with widened eyes. “I couldn’t quite catch it; you sound a little,” she pulls and tightens the whip, “choked up.”

“Aaack,” the choking stallion managed, eyes starting to roll up into his skull.

“You see, plothole, I like to believe that the Maker works in mysterious ways,” the pegasus said, making sure to speak loud enough for the camels to hear. “For example, smiting specist bastards like you. I mean, with me just so happening to be here, just before you were about to whip these poor souls as one cried out for mercy, one can’t help but wonder if I’m performing the Maker’s miracles with my timing.”

She pulls the stallion back into the wagon, the tarp falling into place and concealing what transpires within from the outside world as she continues to choke the saddle arabian against the floor, whose hind legs kick against it in a struggle.

The pegasus leaned her muzzle closer to his ears, her words being the last he’d hear as the world closed around him, red eyes going up to the ceiling.

“Well, If I'm the Maker’s agent, then I’d best introduce myself to you. Hi. I’m Hangaku. I'm your angel of death.” She channels all of her strength into another pull of the whip. “Now sleep.”

The stallion’s struggles slowly die down until, at last, his whole body goes limp. She was about to whisper something else until a loud commotion erupted from outside, causing a surge of wind to blow and flutter the tarp.

“Nani?” Hangaku questioned in her native tongue, turning her head as she tossed the deceased stallion off of her and sprung up to investigate.

---

---

The pegasus pulls the tarp aside and lunges out of the wagon’s inner portion, standing over the coach's bench.

“What’s going on out here?” Hangaku asked the camels, but their complete and utter attention was long since drawn to the skies above. And as she followed, her eyes widened in shock; pupils reduced to pinpricks from what she saw.

A large purple-coated earth pony stallion was floating in the sky, his crimson mane and tail dancing in the wind as his body was surrounded by strange lavender energy that seemed to hold him up.

The strange stallion glared at the group of saddle arabians’ leader while floating the rest of them around him in a circle, the mysterious prowess locking them all in place as they looked at him in pure shock and horror.

The scenario brought only one word to Hangaku's mind.

“N-nani?!”

Next Chapter: Chapter 11~ Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 19 Minutes