//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Home // by Northguard //------------------------------// The gales howled as the snow hit the ground like bullets. A blizzard like this hadn't been seen for some time and being out there unprepared could end your life, but who was Lightning Dust to complain? It was either this or the "sauna". She pulled the wagon with all her might as sweat rolled down her face. The stinging pain of sweat drops turning to ice and getting stuck in her fur was constant as she squeezed her bloodshot eyes shut as a powerful gust of wind hit her with snow that hit her face so hard that it felt like hail. When the gust had passed, she opened her eyes again as she continued pulling the wagon full of heavy cargo. She looked up at the trail she was all too familiar with to see faint lights in the distance. "Almost there..." she murmured to herself as she continued down the snow-filled trail. Her hooves felt like anvils as just taking one step was a hard task alone. She couldn't remember having a single day off despite all her efforts. No matter how many tasks she did, no matter how hard she worked. It was never good enough for him and she knew exactly why. He didn't care about them, not in a million years. The only time he went "easy" on them was when he let them have a few minutes to catch their breath when they had been mining for six hours straight. All he cared about was money and instead of getting it by doing something for the better of everypony in the land, he got it by taking children away from their families and turning them into slaves, who have to work day and night to get food and warmth enough to barely survive the harsh environment. He specifically took religious children as he shunned their beliefs and wanted to crush their faith in order to wipe their religion off the face of Equus. He believed money was everything and that you could buy anything with it and if parents accused him of a crime, he would bribe the judge before he could be found guilty. Lightning Dust highly disliked him in every way for this as she had lost several friends because of him. Luckily for her, the results of his actions had only made her faith stronger as she would never give up her hopes and dreams. Each night she prayed for a chance to be free again. Even after fifteen years of hard labour and poor treatment she still believed. She continued down the trail as she thought. Thinking was her way to ignore the pain of the freezing temperatures and bad weather and it had never failed her. Not even at the whipping post. She stopped her train of thought as she began to close in on her destination. It had taken her almost the entire night with the raging blizzard, but she never gave up and was the most hardworking slave in the constantly shrinking and expanding group. She gave the large door in front of her the hardest knock she could muster and waited for the guards to open it. After a few minutes, she could hear the lock being removed as the large double door of the barn slowly opened with a deep groan. She pulled the wagon a few meters inside before the guards took off the saddle that was connected to the wagon. "You've done well. Here's your reward." one of the guards said as he gave her half a bread. Lightning Dust only nodded thanks and took the dry bread before heading to the other side of the barn where she and all the other slaves slept. The place was a wide room that once was a storage room for grain had thin walls, no windows and a bunch of poorly made beds spread across the room. The beds had no mattresses and only had a single blanket (which were actually cheap paper-thin curtains). Lightning Dust slept in the bottom right-hand corner of the room which was the warmest place in the building, because she had figured out that a warm storage room was on the other side of one of the walls and she had then in secret created a hole at the bottom of it to let the warm air in. She sat down at the edge of her bed and began to slowly eat the dry piece of bread she had received. A small squeak beside her bed reached her ears and she looked in the direction to see a small mouse looking at her. "Hey there little buddy." Lightning Dust said and leaned over and reached a hoof down to the little critter. It let out a small squeak before jumping onto her hoof and climbing up to her shoulder. It then climbed down the hoof that held the bread and began to sniff on it hopefully. "Hungry, aren't you?" Lightning said before she ripped off a small chunk of the bread and gave it to the mouse, who happily ate it. Lightning only chuckled as she continued eating. The mouse had appeared a few weeks prior and after being fed by Lightning Dust for some time it had begun to grow attached to her. Lightning Dust didn't mind this as she missed having a friend. Throughout the years she had learned to keep to herself as making friends with the other slaves would only make things worse for yourself, but that didn't mean that she missed the feeling of running in the snow with her fillyhood friends. The memories came back to her as she sat there for herself in the empty room. She could still see them in front of her. Her three best fillyhood friends. She had forgotten their names over time, but their faces were still there. She had made a promise to herself never to forget them and her family, and it was a promise she was determined to keep. A few minutes later the rest of the slaves came in covered in frozen sweat as they had been in the scorching hot sauna, which was evident by some of them suffering 2nd degree burns. None of them said anything as they walked to their beds and lay down. Groans of pain filled the silent air as Lightning Dust stood up from her bed and quietly shoved it to the side. The floor beneath looked normal to the naked to the naked eye, but it was anything else than that. She tapped the floor carefully until she heard a hollow sound. When she added pressure to that point a "trapdoor" lifted slightly up. She grabbed the edge and pulled it away, revealing a tunnel just big enough for a pony to crawl through. She shot a quick glance around as she crawled down into the tunnel and pulled the lid over the hole again. She had worked on this tunnel every night for two years now and she knew that it was nearly finished. This tunnel was her key to freedom, and she would never give up on it. She just had one or two meters to go now, of course, she couldn't be sure, but she knew that she was close now as she could hear things more clearly underground. Stuart (the mouse) had been a massive help to her. He had guided her to dig in the right direction in the pitch-black darkness of the tunnel as she had no source of light. He knew the right way as he would look around the place during the day in order to find a place where the tunnel exit could be. Even though they couldn't understand each other Stuart had managed to show her what he meant through gestures. She squeezed herself through the narrow, wet and cold darkness as she followed Stuart's squeaks and chirps and after some time she reached a wall, which she immediately began digging into. She was already exhausted and battered from the heavy labour, but she wouldn't give up now that she was so close to freedom. Minutes turned to hours as the dirt began to get loose and light above her. Then suddenly she heard sounds echo through the tunnel and a voice shouted at the other end of it. "SHE'S ESCAPING!!!" Shit Lightning Dust thought as she began to punch the dirt above her in an effort to make it go faster. Adrenaline began to rush through her veins as she felt the ground above her beginning to give out. She sent one more punch at the dirt and felt her hoof go through it as the feeling of cold snow touched her hoof. She then pushed herself through the opening she had created and felt the snow and wind against her face. Freedom at last she thought as she pulled her hind hooves out of the hole. After a few moments to get her bearings, she went into a full gallop towards the forest she had spotted nearby as Stuart clung to her mane. She began to hear guards shouting after her as she ran through branches and sticks, which scratched up her face as she went. The sounds of the guards became more audible as she could also hear branches and sticks cracking beneath their and her own hooves. The state of panic she was in distracted her from focusing on the direction she was going and without warning the ground went from a rough forest ground to a steep cliff side. She had no time to stop as she found herself tumbling down the steep cliff. The last thing she saw was the dark grey sky of dawn as she hit her head on a boulder and fell unconscious.