//------------------------------// // Dream // Story: Farmhand // by MLP-person //------------------------------// He woke up back at the cottage, again. He didn't register any pain right away, or even think about it. It might have been a sweet, beautiful relief had he noticed it right then. Fluttershy was asleep on the other couch, her overly-long tail wrapped around to rest against her muzzle. He sighed softly, then. He liked the cottage, with the animals and sense of homeliness, but at the same time he woke up here in this spot every single time he blacked out. Like in those stories where no matter what you did you didn't move on with your life;you always started the next day exactly where you had the day before. Mumbling something unintelligible, he drifted off back to sleep. He was back in that sunny, winter cafeteria, with green and red. He watched as the adults over on the filly's side of the room got up, herded the fillies together, and herded them out of the eatery into a chilly white hallway, leaving the boys and the staff in charge of them alone, for the moment. Then the adults in charge of them got up, too. "Come on, kids, we're going back to the day room." Red smiled happily at this and got up, seemingly eager to be away from the green colt's weird talks. Quill couldn't say he disagreed terribly, either. He got up, grabbed his garbage in his teeth, and followed green and red with the other colts and stallions towards the double doors, dumping their garbage in the bins as they walked through the doors. This brought them into a wide, wood-floored hallway with stark white walls, fluorescent lights shining down brightly from the ceiling, giving the whole hallway a sanitary shine. "Sheesh, the wood looks decent with the walls, don't ya think?" Green said to them. "White and brown...guess it isn't really hard to pair white up with other colors, is it?" Red and Quill rolled their eyes;Green was at it again. Trying to act like he knew something about everything. "Yep, totally." Red sighed, and if the building wasn't inside a magic dampening field he might have gone ahead and shut green up. Not much of a point behind it now, though, when it was a struggle to even light his horn for more than a moment or two. Green knew it, too;that there was nothing red could do, and he gave a wide smirk, playful green eyes to burning red ones Quill cast his own to the walls they were walking past-there were many doors. These led to meeting rooms for the families of ponies who weren't allowed out of the base unit yet, doctor's and therapist's offices, and a seemingly endless supply of more long hallways. Through a door they went and into a wide reception area, a counter in the dead center of it. There were two options, a door to the colt's wing, and a wide hallway that led down to the filly's wing. Quill walked with the other guys, but a tall brown stallion with a gray beard stopped him. "You've been transferred to B group, kiddo." "I'm not a kid, I'm thirteen." The stallion just laughed and waved him away towards the girl's wing. Why was he being transferred to the group full of girls, though? Sniffing, he walked his way slowly to the hallway, looking down it. The doors to the bedrooms were shut firmly on either side, and at the end the hallway twisted left. Nopony was in sight anywhere now that the boys had returned to their own area, except for the pink mare behind the reception desk. Quill, sighing, walked down the hallway, never having been here before. It was chilly, still-took a lot of money to heat such a massive building-and he ruffled his wings uncomfortably as he reached the end of the hall and turned left. Here, a much narrower hallway led to a wooden door framed with black metal. There was a window on the left of the frame, framed with it's own metal, but Quill could only see wall past it. He wished they were allowed to fly in here so he could look through the window, but if they caught him doing that he ran the risk of having his wings clipped:something that would never heal. So he just rapped his hoof on the door, and waited. It opened after only a few seconds and a blonde mare wearing glasses stood there, her brown eyes looking him over critically. "Can I help you? Why are you out here alone?" "Um..Mr. Shade said I was being transferred to B group. And...this is B group's room, right?" "Yes, but, this is supposed to be an all fillies group." "Mr. Shade sai-" "Yeah I heard you. Come in while I go verify that with them, but don't sit near any of the fillies or you'll be in trouble." "Whatever." He growled in the hall but then composed himself before entering the room, the door clicking shut behind him.It retained the tall windows The boy's had, if not as many. At once the fillies in the room stopped the various things they were doing and turned to stare at the newcomer. Ignoring them gathered around a central table on a rug, he made his way to a table and sat down, looking down at his lap without a word. He could hear a few words muttered among the fillies:"...colt?...what...here...crazy...cute..." He assumed he had heard that last one completely wrong as he looked back up-they aged from around seven to fourteen, it seemed. Only two of them didn't have cutie marks, but they looked right at home with the other fillies. So, no judging went on here-at least not based on age or maturity. Then again age didn't really matter since once you had your cutie mark you were eligible for some work and to participate in the heat weeks, although no foals were allowed and you couldn't live alone yet. He shivered at the thought of heat weeks, it was probably painful sitting in here unable to touch anyone during that time-he thanked Celestia that he had narrowly avoided being here for it. "So. You're part of our group?" It was a small charcoal filly with a curly brown mane, blonde hightlights, and reflective blue eyes. She was a unicorn with a cutie mark similar to his own-hers was a small blue quill scratching words onto a sheet of paper, while his was a regal, stately black quill doing the same.Another writer, he guessed, although it had been ages since he'd written anything. "Yeah, that's what the adults say." Now spoke one of the fillies with no cutie mark. She was a deep red, with dark blue eyes and a mane of black and gray. It was messy and looked like it had been done this way, rather than just being messy. It suited her, he supposed. She looked maybe ten, the charcoal filly looked eleven or twelve. "Well, that's good. We haven't had a single guy and I was kind of hating it." "Yeah, much more of this and we'll all become filly foolers." Most of the fillies giggled, while the charcoal filly frowned. Even the ruby filly seemed to understand, despite not being supposed to know such things yet. "Well anyway, my name's Diamond. But for reasons you can call me Tainted. My friends call me Taints." said the charcoal filly. "I'm Rubyshade! And I go by Rubyshade!" The red filly told him. There were a few other introductions from fillies around the room, but the two that had introduced themselves first did the most talking-not necessarily all to him. He sat and watched them-a few glances were still occasionally thrown his way and he got the distinct feeling that a conversation about him was taking place somewhere around that table. Finally, Tainted and Ruby walked over to him after a few minutes and sat on chairs on either side of his own. "So, why are you in?" Ruby asked. Quill felt his face twist at once into a deep frown. "Reasons." "Okay okay, you can be secretive. But what was it?? I heard there's a colt who's in here for going totally nuts and raping a filly. And one of the fillies in here actually KILLED somepony..you didn't kill anypony did you?" Quill shook his head. "No, I didn't kill anypony. I shouldn't be here." "But don't we all think that?" Tainted tossed out. "I mean, I know Ruby and I belong here. Doesn't mean I like it, but it's true." Ruby shrugged and nodded. "What are you two sisters, or something?" Quill asked to neither one of them in particular. "No, but we stick together in here. I reckon that once we get out we won't ever see each other again." "And we're both okay with that." Ruby spoke after Tainted. "Well, I guess it works, hm?" Quill said, proud of himself for expertly finding a way to turn the topic away from himself but not showing it. If they knew he was proud they might figure out why. And then they might remember why. "Yeah, it works." Tainted nodded, looking up as the door slid open. There stood the blonde mare with the glasses, looking extremely cross. "Well, colt, I don't like it but for now I'm stuck with you. Just don't sit to close to any of the fillies and we'll be good, got it?" Quill nodded, acutely aware or the two fillies on either side of him. The blonde mare sat down behind a desk and yelled:"Free play!!" Tainted and Ruby turned back to Quill curiously. "So why are you in here?" Ruby asked. "Why are you?" Quill shot back calmly. Ruby shrugged. "They'll make you tell us tonight, every night we talk about ourselves and why we're here. For any new ponies who were brought in that day, so they can get an idea of who they'll be spending their time here with. Of course ponies get discharged and new ones get brought in, but it helps." "I just won't." "But then they'll make you stay in longer, guy. Say, what's your name?" Hadn't he said? No? "I'm Quill," he said, "-and apparently I hallucinate. That's why I'm here, they say."