“47, 48, 49, 50, 51” There was a sudden pause in the colts mumbling. After a long sigh followed by a colorful vulgarity, the barely audible speech continued.
“1, 2, 3,” The colt said as he started a new count of the squares formed by the thin metal wires crisscrossing inside the glass window on the only door in the cramped interrogation room he was now in. His brown mane shown duly due to the small light hanging above him and the freezing air hung coldly in his lungs. The pony thought for a second if he should be thinking about why he was there, it would be the ‘typical’ thing to do yet came to the conclusion that doing what felt natural was the better thing to do in his situation and continued his counting. The legs of the table in front of him moaned quickly and quietly with age.
“4, 5, 6, 7” The earth pony continued. He suddenly became aware of his thirst and cursed himself for not getting a drink before those pesky guards came bursting through his front door. Then again maybe he had gotten a drink and the thirst was just a consequence of his internment. He really didn’t know how long he had been in that small room. There was no clock but there was an increasingly annoying stream of water dripping in the room’s corner. He had thought about counting the pause between each drip and then keeping a running tally of the drips as a makeshift method of time keeping, he even tried for a while, but quickly lost interest and deemed the idea ‘cinema bullshit’. There was no window either which ruled out the possibility of a sun dial or similar style of time keeping. The pony broke into sporadic chuckles each time he thought of how much time he spent actually thinking of ways to keep time.
“8, 9, 10, 11, 12” The pony, while counting the windows pattern, took a mental note that another pony had passed in the hallway outside his room, making it eight. The ponies varied two mares, four mares, and two ponies he could not tell the gender of. One of mares was a member of the royal guard, her armor shined duly in the hallways similarly dull lighting. The other mare was a worker at the. The colt paused at the fact that he didn’t even know where he was, stupid guards and their functional tactics he thought. The mare must have been a worker at the building he was in, no sane mare would walk around Canterlot in her clothing if they weren’t an employee of something. The colts however where all guards, two with silver armor and two with golden armor, three unicorns and one pegasus or was it pegasusi, pegesusee? The colt wondered quickly. Either way, no earth ponies rested inside those shiny sets of armor. ‘Racist fucks’ he thought to himself. This of course was not counting the ponies that had brought him here; he really couldn’t recollect much of the experience, just a lot of yelling and kicking.
“13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18” The pony now shifted his thoughts to building he was now in. From what he could remember, not wanting to shift too much memory space to the thought search and away from the surprisingly demanding task of counting squares on a window on a door, the building was mostly underground, the basement of a much larger above ground complex. His room must have been the lowest of them all, it had taken forever too get there, so many turns but perhaps they had just done that to confuse him. But what’s the point of confusing him? Honestly, he thought, I’m in the basement of a big-ass building, a building where you most likely can’t take three steps without bumping snouts with a guard, and they really think they have to try to get me confused. Wait, his thoughts continued, perhaps I’m some super ex-badass that can take on a thousand royal guards and they are doing their best to keep me from busting out, those ass-hats must be shitting their armor. But if that’s the case then why don’t I remember some epic last stand before coming here?
“19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24” The pony’s gaze shifted slowly too his hooves. They rested lazily in front of him due to his sitting position. The iron brace on his hooves rattled slightly as he adjusted his position. He examined the rusting metal with pure hatred. Stupid shackles, stupid room, stupid memory, stupid-. The pony stopped in his thoughts abruptly. He looked at his hooves closely and pulled one hoof onto the other, holding the shackle down. He slowly pulled one hoof out of the circular construct and did similar with the other. For a moment he starred at the two metal rings, connected by a rusting excuse for a chain. Realizing the stupidity of the restraint and his own stupidity, the pony broke out into laughter. His stomach slowly began to ach with pain as his laughter increased. He rolled on the cold stone floor as he roared, and soon he was gasping for air in the freezing confines of the room. On aching legs, the pony stood and began to pace the room, slowly though due to his gasping state. Once the need for air was satisfied, he broke into laughter again. Suddenly he stopped. Snapping his eyes back to the little squares on the little window on the cells door he cried out.
“FUCK!”
Almost on cue, the door rattled with movement and two forms could be seen outside the door. The colt rushed back to his previous station, shoving his hooves back into the crappy excuse for ‘restraints’. During his rush, the colt was reminded of students in a class room rushing back to their desks the second the teacher was seen at the door. After a few clicks signaled the activation of the locking mechanisms in the door, the portal opened. The wooden panel opened and two ponies stepped forward, both of average height, both mares, and one standing behind the other. The closest one was blue, a pegesus, her hair a pretty collection of colors, similar to a rainbow, and her cutie mark was a cloud with a rainbow like lightning bolt. She wore an expression of pure hatred and malice towards him. The pony behind her was light yellow, her hair pink and long. She huddled behind the blue one in a whimpering collection, the sight, although quite adorable was rather pathetic the colt thought to himself. Her cutie mark could not be seen. The blue one demanded that the yellow one shut the door and the yellow one quickly complied. Some of the rooms being seemed to be sucked out as the door closed. The room felt smaller and dense to the colt.
For a long period of time the trio simply stood there in opposition to each other. After losing interest in counting the total number of stripes on the blue ponies’ hair, the colt rested his head on the wooden table and closed his eyes. He was brought out of his rest by the violent shaking of the table. Evidently the blue pony had brought her hoof down upon the table in a rude attempt to wake him. The pair was now standing at the table’s edge, much like the colt. Tired of the room’s stagnant nature the colt spoke first.
“Glad to see they brought me company, I do hate being alone.” He said with a broad smile. The blue pony brought her hoof onto the table again in obvious anger. She spoke quickly and loudly.
“Cut the shit, why’d you do it?” Her voice cracked slightly with the last word, bringing a sly grin to the colt’s expression.
“You really shouldn’t do that, this table looks about a thousand years old and I hate seeing an antique destroyed when I can stop it.” Was this annoying? Yes, he thought, but then again, they brought him here, fuck them. His statement brought the expected reaction. “I said cut the shit you piece of crap, why the fuck did you do it!” The pony chuckled and continued his tactic. “You know, cursing loses its impact when you do it all the time, here, fuck, ass, bitch, cunt, dick, shit, crap. Now does that really impact you emotionally, of course not because you’ve been saying them all the fucking time.” The blue pony looked as if she would burst with hatred and anger; she started on a long speech on the colt’s stupidity, genital shortcomings, and general ugliness. All the while, her yellow partner stood silently at her side, eyes flicking from the colt to the floor and her friend. The colt sighed deeply closed his eyes. He momentarily thought of why the blue pony had stopped but his mental process was slowed by the sudden impact of his head and the table. The blue pony returned to her previous place and stared at the prone colt with a cruel grin on her face. The colt opened his eyes, he didn’t register the throbbing pain, the mares, the freezing temperature, or the cell, all he registered was the sudden influx of memories. Last night, the crime, or crimes he should say, the fighting and running, the capture. It all came back like water rushing through a shattered damn.
He rose slowly, relishing his reclaimed memory. He twisted his neck to one side, releasing a loud crack. He knew why he was there, he knew who he had hurt and who he had helped, he knew everything. They would be at his mercy now. “Ok, enough shit, tell me friend.” He took extra care to stress the word ‘friend’. “Why am I here?” The blue pony smirked again.
“Arson,” images of a guard post shrouded in flames flashed through the colts mind.
“Assault,” Images of a bloody and broken royal guard appeared in his head.
“Resisting arrest,” Images of vaulting over benches, turning corners, and weaving through crowds resonated in his mind.
“Take your pick, and those are just the ones I remember, now why’d you do it fucker.” The colt, for the first time, spoke quietly, yet with a voice that commanded power and wrath.
“For starters, my name is Franz.” The room grew colder.