//------------------------------//
// La Plan 
// Story: Quete 
// by Comrade Bagel Muffin 
//------------------------------//

The three of them made there way down the hall. The sapphire's glow lighting the way for Escutcheon. They trotted out of the tunnel into a gigantic cavernous space. The glow only covering a few meters into the pitch black unknown of the cave's grand hall. Escutcheon looked around, it felt like just beyond the glow of the sapphire were hundreds of eyes, watching his every step.
"Dusk, are they all watching me?" he whispered leaning in hoping only she could hear him. His eyes wondering around the edges of the gentle blue light.
"Yeah, they're all watching," she whispered back her slitted yellow eyes piercing into the darkness of the cavern.
"Oh good for a moment I thought I was just being paranoid." He picked up his pace walking closed to Nightingale. Hoping that nothing was going to happen. The three of the them pushed further and further into the grand hall of the cave. "How large is this cave?"
"It's huge. There's hundreds of thestrals here." Dusk looked around. It's amazing." She trotted up to his side.
"There are hundreds of ponies here? How large was your colony Dusk. Is this most of them?" Dusk shook her head.
"No this is maybe ten percent." The two of them veered to the right and headed into a small tunnel. Every couple dozen steps there was a tarp or tattered cloth that separated rooms or homes from the communal walk way. Nightingale lead them past one such tarp into a large room the sapphire's light only able to reach the side walls leaving the back wall still shrouded in darkness. "Whoa. This cave is huge."
"Yes it is. If only the neighbors weren't an evil slaver driving society. I think this spot would be a prefect spot for our colony." Nightingale trotted into the darkness of her room. "Escutcheon I assume that you haven't had anything to eat or drink yet, have you?" He shook his head. "Come over here and get something."
"Wait." Dusk stepped between him and the area where he heard Nightingale setting a plate down. "Counselor, Escutcheon, well he doesn't do good with meat." Escutcheon's white face went pale at the thought.
"He's a vegetarian?" Both he and Dusk nodded. "Well I guess he can have plain cave berries, more mice for the two of us then." Escutcheon swallowed down the bile in his throat. 
"That's very kind of you. Would you be kind enough to push my plate over here please?" The tried to push the thought of them eating mice as far out of his conscious mind as he could.
"He's one of those kinds of vegetarians? You wouldn't hurt a fly would you."
"No he wouldn't." Nightingale sat a plate full of delicious blue cave berries down on the ground for him, as well as a small bowl of water.
"Thank you." He picked the bowl up with his hooves and drank every drop. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until he had the ability to try and quench it. "Can I have some more water, please?" Nightingale smile took the bowl back into the darkness and brought it back filled to the brim. "Thank you."
"We have plenty of water. Here if you need more just ask." He nodded as she and Dusk headed over and started eating. The room filled with crunching. He tried to pretend that it was just lettuce and celery. Escutcheon swallowed down a hoofful of berries.
"I have a question." He looked into the darkness where Nightingale and he friend were. "Where is this unicorn city? How much further is it?"
"Why do you want to know?" Nightingale's voice was gentle, but he couldn't help hearing something on the edges of it. He felt like he did back in the main section of the cave with all those eyes on him.
"There are hundreds of you here, and they don't know where your at we could break out the others and they would never find you."
"That's because they don't think to look for us."
"Then we just have to beat them. If you take me there I can slip in and find out why their doing what their doing, and I can stop it. I know I can."
"And if you can't, or worse if your caught trying to help the slaves. Don't think for a second that they'll be gentle. It wasn't common, but it did happen, that there were unicorn slaves. They'll cut off your horn, and you'll tell them were we're at."
"Not if you drug me and take me out into the desert just a days walk from where they're city. Then I wouldn't know. Would I?" Escutcheon stood up. "And I'm not going to get caught I'm going to get Dusk to her father I Pinkie Pie Promised."
"Once your in you'll have to deal with the Choler. A cult of vicious priest that run the society." Escutcheon smiled.
"Then I'll have someone to stirrup trouble against. Besides their probably the ones causing all of this trouble in the first place, and once their out of the way. Then bang no more slaves and Everypony's safe and happy. And it will all be sunshine and rainbows. Mother and Father said ponies are inherently good, so there must be something making them bad."
"And if it turns out that these ponies are just bad. What then Escutcheon?" Nightingale asked trotting into the light of the sapphire. Her face was devoid of it's former warmth. "What will you do then?" She repeated as she circled around him like an predator would its prey.
"Then I'll topple it down. I'll help fix it." Nightingale smiled.
"I told you." Dusk said from the corner of the room. There were three taps and a glow crystal came to life illuminating the room and the five guards that stood along the back wall where the sapphire's light couldn't reach. It also unfortunately lit the two plates of meat. causing him to loss his appetite and the few berries he had eaten. They didn't taste as good coming back up as they did going down. "Sorry." Dusk squeaked.