(Foreign languages are in red text)

My head was f*cking killing me.

My eyes slowly opened to nothing but pitch black. I could feel the weight and what smelt like the scent of an old burlap sack over my head. My backside and legs rubbed against rough and splintered wood with all six of my limbs tied securely for a change. From the feeling, I guessed that I was tied to a rough-hewn beam of some sort, rather than somewhere smoother like a chair or even the floor.

The warmth of the air was the next thing I noticed - I was sure that Gilda and I were supposed to be in Stalliongrad, and the last thing I remembered before waking up was that carriage door opening not to a small group of earth ponies, but an arseload of Zebras. Zebras who were armed to the teeth and ready for a fight. I know that I killed at least one of them - he’d been stupid enough to rear when I charged straight for him, letting my beak near that nice, juicy jugular of his.

Somepony punched me - at least I thought it was a punch to begin with. Then they hit me again and I realised that it was a single rear hoof hitting me in the face. I felt the sting through the bag and guessed that they’d tried to buck me to put me out again after I’d groaned as I came back to the land of the conscious.

“Who are you? Where’s Gilda?” I asked between strikes. There was some hushed mumbling in Zebran before a loud squawk and a screech.

“I’m here, Dorian!” she half-sobbed. Her voice was stressed and It sounded like she was a short distance away - I could hear the scrape of her claws against the wood and assumed she was being restrained.

“We will be taking the daughter. She is ours now” One of them said into my ear. I’d always had a bit of a thing for languages, and some of my best work has been performed whilst my enemy believed that I don’t understand them - so I played stupid.

“Who are you? What’s going on, what are you saying?” I asked in reply, my voice heavy with mock horror. “Where are you taking her?”

“Do not worry, my gryphon friend,” a new speaker said from Gilda’s direction, “We take her home for you, you no worry about her or that big bag of gold.”

“Just you wait until my father hears of this!” I yelled, slipping into the angry and somewhat-adolescent character of Dorian , “If you hurt her, I’ll-”

“You’ll what, my friend? You might not see, but you very outnumbered. Six of us, one of you - very bad news. We do what we want with her and collect the bounty.”

The other bastards laughed. I knew I wouldn’t have gotten anything of real use out of them, but you never know, maybe they’d have given me at least something to go on whilst I’d got their arrogant prick of a leader talking. Whilst they laughed, I checked my bindings - these chaps obviously knew what they were doing and I’d wager that they were professional bounty hunters rather than amateurs; which of course made me wonder where on Equestria Gilda and I had ended up, because it certainly wasn’t Stalliongrad.

“Gilda, can you see anything? Describe them if you can!” I yelled, hoping they’d maybe make that mistake instead. Judging by her muffled and pain-filled screech, they’d decided to gag her and move her out of the room. Honestly, part of me wished I’d thought of gagging the mouthy bird myself, but oh well.

“Punda, watch him until we send the signal, then make sure he doesn’t leave here alive. Get rid of the body in the desert and meet us at Mos Haysley..” The original speaker said - so now I knew what they had planned for me and where they were planning to take Gilda. I swallowed at the name of Mos Haysley, it was a port town on a river running straight through the middle of a massive expanse of desert, separating Equestria’s borders from the mountainous region controlled by the Gryphon Clans. I’d got one or two contacts in Mos Haysley, but it certainly wasn’t pony friendly.

Punda said something back that I don’t particularly want to repeat to you, my darling readers; he then bucked me in the head again, snuffing me out like a light.

To think I’d always thought that Zebras rhymed all the time.

“Thank you. I’ll remember your kindness.”

***

I really, really hate the taste of desert sand. I woke up several times, and was repeatedly beaten back into unconsciousness by Punda. It felt like my face had swollen to probably around three times its original size, and all I could smell from the bag was a mix of my own blood and drool.

When I opened my eyes this time, I was rather surprisingly alive and even more surprisingly unbound. Still surprised, Tearing the bag off, my eyes were flooded with colour and my nostrils filled with that damned dust. I looked around and found myself on a bed of hay, in the middle of bloody nowhere. I glanced around and could see a small town on the horizon from which I had been dragged from, going on the streaks in the sand interspersed with hoof-marks.

“Hello my friend.” Punda’s thick and now familiar Zebran accent said from behind me. Without thinking I turned and pounced, my claws moving for what I thought was his throat. What I actually connected with was yet another kick to the face as the stallion elegantly span on one forehoof before wrapping the other hind-leg around my head and pulling me down into a suspiciously effective hold.

Bloody Zed-I-f*cking-A and their f*cking stupid dance-fighting bollocks; I’d know it anywhere.

The Zebran Government had always had their own interests in this part of the world, and last I’d heard they’d been thankful that I’d snuffed out one of their more corrupt politicians. The Zebran Intelligence Agency were the Zebran equivalent of Equestrian Intelligence Six, a group that I intend to tell you about some other time, and were responsible for “managing” Zebran foreign affairs.

Now, because “Punda” had caught me unaware, I quickly found myself restrained in the damned desert dust again.

“Agent Milia Punda, ZIA. You have no reason to try to harm me.” he said, somehow twisting my arm further than it’s meant to go without dislocating it.

“No reason? You’ve been hitting me in the face for the last... what, day and a half?” I growled, trying to flick my tail around to grab a hold of at least something.

“I had to maintain cover.”

“Then why the raspberry scented f*ck am I still alive?” I asked, my temper slowly beginning to unravel and the desire to hurt the idiot becoming more and more unmanageable.

Punda looked at me as if he were reminiscing over an old lover - a painful memory arisen with a slight joy or bizarre thankfulness to it.

“If you try to kiss me, I will cut your throat.” I told him, half expecting the zebra to declare some sort of undying love, hopefully not for me.

Snapping out of his distraction, Punda snorted and his face distorted to an expression of scorn.

“You are very lucky. I was told to spare you.” he replied, his voice starting to rise. He let me out of the hold he was using, and allowed me to get back to my hooves, claws, feet... whatever.

“By who?” I enquired, brushing myself off, annoyed by the amount of dust that had lodged in my feathers, adding weight to one side of my head. A good shake dislodged most of it, although swelling in my head and neck made it particularly painful. As I continued ruffling my feathers and preening, Punda looked off into the distance again.

“When I was a foal, in my village there was a great plague. Mares and stallions would fade, until they became like stone and would not move whilst the sun was in the sky. A stallion came one day, arriving from thin air with the most beautiful mare of Equestria that I have ever seen. Our name for him was Geneesheer - he cured the sick when none of our medicine would work, he said it was an illness from the sky.”

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked, working the last of the sand out of my feathers.

“He told me that one day, I would have the chance to kill a gryphon. Our nation was at war with one of the clans and it was considered the mark of a true warrior to be able to kill an enemy in unarmed combat. I was thrilled and honoured to be in line for such a great opportunity; but you know what he told me? He told me, ‘Punda, when the gryphon is at your mercy, he will give the appearance of fear but will fight with the heart of a lion.’ I knew it was you the moment you cut the throat of a Zebra who I have seen take down several gryphons on his own.”

“So some magical witch doctor told you not to kill me? That sure sounds plausible. Sounds more like someone with a bad idea for a story needed a deus ex machina.” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“Believe what you will. I am letting you go to save the daughter too - the zebras I was with, they were bad, very bad, the worst - they will probably kill her eventually.”

“So she’s still alive?” I said, my mood brightening considerably.

“For now, yes. You will need to catch up fast. The bounty board specified that she was wanted dead.”

“Then why do you think she’s still alive?” I asked, although It was a pretty stupid question, now that I think about it.

“They travel light, and Gryphons are heavy.” Punda replied, with a clear look of disgust on his black and white striped face, his tail flicking from agitation.

“Are they ZIA, like you?”

“No.” he blurted out defensively, looking horrified that I’d even suggest such an awful thing.

“Then I promise you, they won’t leave Mos Haysley alive.”

“I need one of them - the leader. He’s running an operation from within Equestria’s borders.” Punda replied, turning away from the bright mid-day sun.

“Doing what?” I asked, hoping that it’d be some information that I’d be able to beat out of the bastard and save Punda a job.

“That’s classified, but I need him alive.” Punda said, which was f*cking typical of government agents. It could be something as ‘secret’ as what their national leader put in their salad and they’d still wave around the classified card like it was a winning lottery ticket.

“Fine. I’ll spare him, but if he’s hurt her, he won’t be in one piece.” I growled, before taking to the sky, flapping in the direction of Mos Haysley.

As I travelled towards the north-west, I started to recognise the terrain; the train had obviously continued straight through Stalliongrad, and even up past Appleloosa. At a guess, I’d say that the town I’d been held in was probably the frontier town of New Mustang - somewhere I honestly hope that I’ll never visit again...