//------------------------------//
// Ducking 
// Story: Stroll 
// by re- Yamsmos 
//------------------------------//

	"You've begun to make this quite a habit, young mare."

Octavia found herself groaning, inwardly hoping that doing so would drown out the voice currently rousing her from her sleep. Groggily cracking her eyelids open and finding her vision swimming, the mare caught a breath of air and sucked it in, her back suddenly arching as she fell to the floor in pain. Forelegs outstretched, the mare lifted her chin off the now-realized wooden floor with a throat-gurgling grumble reminiscent of some kind of ghoul. Blinking away the pain now emanating from the back of her head, Octavia found that the wooden ground below made way for an entire room that appeared to be composed like a stereotypical log cabin. Stumbling to all four hooves, the mare looked around the room and found shining silver shelves glimmering at her in the light coming from the lamp sitting atop a barrel to her right. She raised a brow, a heavy frown on her face as she realized what was sitting on the racks lining the walls.

She turned, facing toward where she assumed to be the front door, only finding a rather menacing set of prison bars that kept her from leaving the janitor's store room. Her hooves creaking along the floor, Octavia suddenly remembered that somepony had spoken to her. She leaned forward, eyes squinting to peer through the metallic, padlocked bars. Finding difficulty, the mare took a few cautionary steps forward, reaching the front entrance in a span of two excruciating seconds. Running a hoof along her confinements, she tilted her head and strained her sights, now staring down into what looked to be a short hallway that ended in a cut to the unseen right. A dark green carpet extended down the middle of the corridor, matching the old-looking green dressers that dotted the right wall underneath a line of burning candles.

To the left was a single window that Octavia found herself oddly enthralled by. Crouching to the ground, she craned her neck and tilted her head to the right, gazing past the glass pane to stare at the bright white moon. She paused, clearing her throat quietly as she retreated back into the middle of her makeshift cell. Octavia would have found it quite insulting to be trapped in a janitor's closet if she weren't currently in danger. This thought caused the mare to abruptly flinch, and so she turned back toward her cell door, ran a hoof along the dust-covered ground, and charged. Gritting her teeth and preparing herself, she spun on a fore-hoof and kicked her hindlegs out like springs, intending to break herself out with brute force.

Cringing as she yelped in pain, she decided that doing so may not have been the smartest idea. Though she still had some semblance of her childhood and was used to the feeling of shock in her legs from a great fall, trying to... what was the word... buck open a metal prison cell certainly caused her quite a bit of trouble. Bracing herself against a nearby trash bin, the mare scrunched her nose and cursed under her breath, involuntarily hoping that nopony was in earshot. Casting a glance back at her hindlegs, she moved them up and down to test their vitality. Finding them still ready to go, Octavia let out a sigh of relief, not even noticing the stallion standing behind her escape route until she had fully turned.

Jumping back in surprise, her wide-eyed expression caused the beige Unicorn to chuckle darkly. Regaining her composure, the mare let the corners of her lips fall and lifted her chin, puffing her chest out as she stayed in place. The Unicorn, his horn ablaze, leaned against the wall to his left and smiled silently. Octavia's brow furrowed furiously, and she struggled to maintain her posture as she realized who this pony was a part of. The bump on her head and the events in her brain completely fresh in mind, she spoke, "If you would kindly go away, it would be much appreciated, sir. I'm not really in the mood for idle chit-chat."

The Unicorn's smirk widened. Octavia swallowed a lump down her throat, realizing that this was the same pony who had roused her from her slumber as he replied, "Ah, polite until the end." Straightening himself and pushing off the wall, the Unicorn let out a sigh. "You're her all right." Though confused for a second, the mare's ears relaxed as she realized what he meant. He paused, then stuck a hoof through the bars. "I'm Desert Fruit–"

"I don't believe I asked for your name, sir."

"Hey now," the Unicorn snapped, his gritting teeth betraying his still friendly appearance, "let me finish, Madame." He wiggled his hoof. "I don't believe we've met before," he continued, causing Octavia to roll her eyes in response.

She scoffed, knowing full well that she was being played. She squinted her eyes now, lightly stomping a hoof on the floor and eliciting a raspy knock, "You wouldn't bother capturing me if you did not know who I was. You may think me a fool, but I can tell when you're lying." Her posture straightening once more, she took the time of the stallion's looking away from her to quickly dip her head and adjust her bowtie. Tilting its right side upward, she found herself fixated on it, its bright silky material a stark contrast to what currently surrounded her. A throat cleared itself, and Octavia automatically looked for the source in a long-rehearsed custom. Instantly glaring, her ears flattened against her head as Desert Fruit laughed heartily.

Wiping his golden eyes with a hoof, he sighed contently and said, "To be quite honest with you ma'am, I haven't really bothered to learn your name. I only really heard about you when one of my stallions brought you up. From what he said, you play some kind of instrument in some big-name band up in Canterlot. Seein' as how you look like some kind of rich snob, I'm willing to bet that you might fetch a pretty good ransom."

Octavia turned her head to the right, looking up at him with what she may have thought as her biggest Excuse Me? face ever. Her mind raced along a highway of mostly good thoughts with a few bad roadbumps along the way. Though she was comfortable knowing that a pack of thieving bandits didn't care to know much about her in favor of money, the very idea that she was being put for ransom for the second time in the span of... two days perhaps... slightly bothered her. She found a split second of time to pout her lower lip out and secretly wonder if she really looked like some stuck-up Canterlot aristocrat.

A thought broke through one of her mind's bustling roadblocks, "Why are you just telling me this? Isn't it a little foalish to act like some cliché movie villain?" She allowed herself a grin as the stallion's sly composure cracked, a wrinkling of his muzzle accompanying an almost unnoticeable groan. She dipped her head, "Ah, I apologize, have you a nerve struck my good stallion–"

"Ya think you're some tough bitch don't'cha?" Octavia flinched with a gasp, eyes wide. Desert snickered like a grade school bully making noises in the middle of his Math class. "You don't look like you could even hold a stick, let alone fight your way through a group of seven armed ponies," he resumed, shaking his body and showing off the Guncast on his side, "I'm just saying, there's no way out of this room." A tray that looked to have come straight out of her middle school floated beside the stallion, what appeared to be a messy helping of salad sitting atop a dirty old plate. Leaning forward, his horn flared slightly, causing the prior vanishing tray to reappear in front of Octavia's nose, clattering on the floor. She stared down at it, as if not knowing what it was. Noting how it just looked to be a bunch of tree leaves with some hastily squirted ranch on top, she suddenly realized that it wasn't entirely untrue.

Desert spoke, his condescending voice beginning to grate on her nerves, "Eat up. It'll be a long walk to Duck's Pond tomorrow." Though she wanted to ask what was at Duck's Pond, Octavia thought that she might not really want to know. "Don't want you collapsing in the mud what with all this rain outside." Oh good. It was even raining outside as well. Octavia grumbled, wondering why she couldn't hear its lovely pitter-pattering overhead. "Think we'll ask for... say.. twenty-five hundred. That sound reasonable to you?"

She turned her head, an unimpressed look on her face. Lifting her chin higher, she extended a gray hoof, placed it on the side of her tray, and promptly slid it away from her body. Blinking in silence, she adjusted her voice box and spat, "You'll have to go lower than that, I'm afraid." The stallion simply laughed in response, turning tail.

"Fine then, starve." He stopped, looking at his side and magicking out a pair of keys. Octavia's eyes darted toward them as he jangled them in front of her cell wall, their accumulative ringing reminding her of all those nights spent scurrying to the mailbox to begin the belated recovery of her mail. Cooing at her, Desert's horn died, the keys falling to the floor with a resounding thud just out of reach of her door. He feigned a gasp, flailing a hoof up to his mouth, "'Oh no, I dropped my keys! Whatever shall I do?'" Rolling his eyes with a chortle, he told her, "Good night," and walked down the hall, disappearing further into the building.

Purple eyes narrowed, landing on the keys just aching to be grabbed. Realizing that she was sitting on her haunches, the mare rose and began to walk over to the cell bars, silently wondering if Desert had made a slight miscalculation and hoping that it was major enough for her to simply snatch them off the floor. Falling to a low crouch, she stuck a hoof out and stretched it as far as it could go, her tongue flopping out in the process. The keys called to her in an admittedly cute fashion in her head, jingling to her excitedly and all but taunting her to retrieve them. Finding no refuge save for a now mussed up rug, Octavia collapsed to her side and pressed herself against the door, her hoof twitching violently in an attempt to retrieve the key to her cell. She gave out a deep sigh, breathing heavily as she slowly retracted her leg and stuck it against her stomach.

The front of her mane now damp with sweat, the mare slowly looked to the ceiling, finding crossbeams that matched her father's old artist cabin. Shutting her eyes and shaking her head, the mare thunked her head with a hoof, prodding her brain for any ideas on her current predicament. Growling as nothing came to her, the mare threw her two forelegs into the ground on either side of her, furiously turning to her right to avoid staring at the door and the taunting keys lying beyond. She stopped, frozen.

Staring at the corner of the room, Octavia's surprised expression melded into a new one as a smile suddenly spread across her face. Humming thoughtfully to herself, the mare nodded lightly, proclaiming, "Oh, there's a way out all right..."

The broom currently gazing lazily back at her remained still in the dimming light of her oil lantern.