//------------------------------//
// What a Time to Be Alive 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: A Raiders Mark 
// by Vocal Sonder 
//------------------------------//

"Holy crap can't you stuff a rag in him!? He's going to make me loose my goddess damned hearing at this rate!"

A guttural feminine groan came from the stallions left, "Mmmmmmm, no let 'em scream. Gives my bits a warm feeling when he does. How could you want it to stop?"

"Ugh, nevermind. Stop diddling yourself for a moment and help me take off the freaking harness?"

There was a grunt and after a few moments Tear could feel a heavy cage lift itself from his head. His breath was flowing out from him in a perpetual wail; a scream sourced entirely from the pain and terror he still felt from deep in his bones. Blood flecked spittle eked from the corners of his mouth to the ground as the lasting howl left him.

Finally his breath ran dry and he immediately seized up in a hoof curling migraine that began to form in the absence of the weight on his head. He tried to clutch at his head but tight metal bands bound his forelegs to the posts of a rickety metal bench. Only a thin strip of wood separated his chin from seat which he would have actually preferred, given how wonderfully cold the metal felt on the blazing skin of his legs.

Gasping, he reached out for air and even though he felt like his throat would slip out of him at any moment another wail tried to build behind his exhausted lungs. But before it rose to the surface he forced it down with a hard, gagging, swallow and let the his chin fall onto the bench with a thunk. The haze over his vision gradually lessened as he managed to funnel into his body what little oxygen there was left to have through his nostrils.

"About freaking time," mumbled the male voice close to his left ear, "You'd think he was going to die or something with all of that hollering."

"Just as well," he heard a chuckle, "who knows though, not too late to find out you know."

With aching neck muscles he tried to tilt his head towards the voice at his ear but the migraine’s pounding stopped his movements before he got far. He resigned his chin to stop and rested. Slowly letting the throbbing world clear. He was staring at dirt again he realized through the haze. The same old dirt he'd always looked at. His eyes rolled in his head as a wave of nausea ran though him. Shuddering, he focused with all of his might on the wall and fought back the bile.

The pounding thundered on and on with the tempo of a stampede. It served as a constant disruption and never allowed a complete thought to coalesce no matter how hard he tried. With a surge of willpower he strained against the binds and bit his lip in concentration. The last thing he could remember. He needed to find it. Darkness. Bags. A home in garbage. Table. It all fit but the throbbing kept the puzzle constantly shifting up and out of his reach.

He winced as another wave of dizziness steadily built into a roaring crescendo and then fell with debilitating strength. Heartbeats thudded in time with the pressure in his ears as his errant thoughts attempted to occupy the same space as the current stampede. He tried desperately to think, he was missing something. Running, explosions, a strip of flesh, thundering applause.

How could- wait. 

Eyes flying wide open, migraine forgotten, his heart stopped.

Slowly, with a practiced grace, a grime covered hoof reached beneath his muzzle and gradually tilted his head skywards off the bench's surface. His pounding mind fizzling cracks of panic that shot off into the recesses of his brain. His vision rose in tortured unwillingness from earth to meet a pair of large, brown, gold flecked eyes. Unbidden, a scream rose to his lips.

The stallions other hoof slapped harshly down onto the colts muzzle before anything could escape from his throat. The frog of the foul smelling thing dug furrows into the sides of his nostrils as it clamped down, effectively cutting off any scream he was forming.

"Ah ah ah, you bucking scream one more time," the voice growled, "and I will reach down there and cut off your bits and feed them to you one by one. You hear me?"

The little colt stared up and over the crusted fetlock fur and into the glinting orbs that calmly looked back into his own. A brown lock of the stallions hair wavered in the air between them, almost like the strands themselves were chiding the colt for his lack of self control.

With a few gulps he managed to work his throat into choking the scream back down to where it had came from. It took an unimaginable level of effort but he managed to drown out the bubbling panic with a few short, gagging breaths from his compressed nose. Shivering silently he stared into the impatient gaze across from his own.

The stallions rancid breath plumed straight into his eyes forcing them to momentarily close as he sighed gratefully and took his hooves away from the colts face. Looking down the length of his muzzle Tear could see little dark smears of something foul mashed into his face. He was almost itching to have a hoof free to wipe at the gunk, but contented himself with not gagging on the thought. Silently, and slowly, he let the head fall back to the bench, never taking his wide eyes from the stallion in front of him.

"So, like I was trying to say over this meats wailing. I've never had one scream so much as he came out! Are you sure you got the parts even close to working right?"

Tear moved his eyes from the brown haired stallion in from of him to a mottled grey mare with a deep red mane who stood across the small room, glaring back at the question.

'No. I don't. Aren't you supposed to know how this thing works? she haughtily proffered.  I just find the bucking parts and replace them," she moved to point a hoof at her forehead, "Not a unicorn. You're the one with that freaking carrot stick here its not even my job to do that anyways, it's yours."

The stallion sneered back, "Well, maybe the part you brought in was broken. Just like the last one was! Did you even make sure it was salvageable before you brought your stupid flank back here!?"

The mare looked him directly in the eyes and returned the sneer.

"Oh go call your mom and lick'er you drag. Why don't you go hoof your own asshole to Manehatten next time. Get some work into those stringy legs Twig."

She made a rude gestures at him while the stallion grunted dismissively in her direction and turned around from the both of them to place something on a rickety shelf. With a pale yellow glow he levitated a glistening orb into place next to a few others that all looked identical. Each glinted eerily in the meager light with an otherworldly sheen even though the shadows surrounding them should never have let them.

Turning back he interrupted as the mare was almost about to speak again, "I'll have to review it for later. You take him to the pit."

She looked and then grunted in Tears direction, "Why don't you do it, I was the one who just dragged him here."  

"Because," he glared at her and pointed to a dark corner where a small bundle lay next to a shelf, "I've got another one to split. Now take him out of here before I call Garum and he goes to waste."

Wiggling in his restraints the small colt shied away as the clearly annoyed mare as she huffed and moved towards him on heavy hooves. With a flick of her tail she launched a moth eaten sack from a nearby corner to her teeth and began to push and pull it on over his head. He got only a quick second glance at her face close up before his vision was obscured with the dark brown fibers. He knew deep down that he could have sworn he had seen her before.

With a few clinks the binding metal around his hooves came undone. A flood of relief washed over him as blood once again was properly able to reach his ankles. He had almost gasped into the stale air as tingling sensation rushed back into the tips of hooves. Without even thinking he attempted to slump off the bench and onto the floor, but before he could do so a strong hoof steadied his limp form against the cold metal and slipped the large burlap bag past his shoulders.

His head swam as he tried to push away from the musty smelling cloth but with a practiced grace he was upended head over tail into the yawning mouth of the bag and landed on the hard floor with a thud. The world spun for a moment as he reoriented up from down in the bag. The bottom of it had been reinforced with a large square of leather that looked original to the construction.

Looking up to the opening he briefly saw the mares face before it disappeared and the opening was cinched off with rope. Her ruby and gold flecked eyes had looked at him hungrily. He shivered as he was laid flat down on the rough wooden floor.

Feeling her tighten his prison with an extra rope or two, she bound the sack tightly around his frame. Soon, the cloth had been all been pressed tightly against his body and nose forcing him to breath through the old, moldy cloth. Gulping down a lasting gag, he instead tried to focus on a small hole in the leather instead of the sticky film that was gradually lining the roof of his mouth.

Through the tiny puncture he was able to see the room twirl as the mare hoisted the bundle of colt and sack onto her back with a huff. Her sturdy flanks dipped and bobbed as she measured his weight and got him into a stable position before turning to march out a door he hadn't been able to see from his place on the bench.

Without warning she carelessly, or purposefully he couldn't tell, whanged his head on the door frame as she stepped through. His yelp of pain went entirely ignored as her path lead out of the room and further down into the hallway and the encapsulating gloom. He could only see brief glimpses of the walls and ceiling from being bounced up and down by her motions as she hurriedly made her way down the cramped passage. It was almost entirely unlit from what he could see. Other than a smoldering torch here and there it was totally bereft of any light source, only adding to the foreboding sense of claustrophobia the passage entertained.

The walls looked considerably dirtier then the ones he had seen before this point. Each was slick with old torch oil and heat marks from absent sconces ran up the walls to the low boarded ceiling above. Dirt and mud had piled up in tremendous globs along the bottom halves of the passage walls leaving it almost indistinguishable from the floor.

-

It took a while , but after what seemed like an eternity trapped in the foul smelling sack and staring at the same walls the mare turned one last corner and came to a set of earthen stairs topped with planks. From his pinhole he craned his neck to watch her open a trapdoor overhead and then clamber upwards to another dirt floor. Almost immediately he felt the stifling torrent of heat begin to seep in through thick burlap weave.

While he lay and struggled even harder to breath the mare turned without much pause and closed the hatch with a thump.

After that was more trotting. He managed to roll over a bit on her back as she bounced and soon he had a good view of the ceiling which trailed off into the distance above. Even with the meager sunlight that could be see bleeding through the overhead canopy he could tell immediately that he was once again under the sprawling leather expanse of a tent. The Bigtop.

Without warning the mare he was riding turned left and opened a door. Stepping out into what could only be described as organized bedlam.

Heat radiated off the walls and high ceiling in waves down onto the ponies below as they moved about in the large passage before them. Nearly the size of a hoofball field it was chock full of bodies writhing to and fro. Yells and shouts rang out in blithering detail about all manners of things as he fought to stay conscious in the din.

The mare unfazed by the commotion moved further into the hall and started to budge her way towards the center with a determined march. Steady hooves led her on as she wove between ponies, parcel in tow, managing to find her way forwards in the throng of thousands. He could only see glimpses of the chaos that they moved through in the bedlam but he could already tell one thing for sure. He was terrified more now than he had ever been in his entire life.

Sunlight radiated down through the slightly transparent leather above and gave the entire scene an ethereal quality as equines of all shapes, sizes, and creeds worked their way past each other in the head of midday. He stared out into the crowd, transfixed.

Tongues and ears and neck and tails, all studded with bits and bobs of leather jewelry swished in front of his limited vision. Tattoos of all shapes sizes and colors could be seen on nearly everypony he saw in the crowd. Some looked far more complex than others, but all had a similar motif of a rising star over a building sprawl. Studded barding could be seen here and there in the crowd as well, but it seemed much less common.

Ponies strode this way and that with obvious purpose. Each weaving through each other in a choreographed dance as they made their way to wherever it was they were headed. He could hear the general din steadily increase as the mare hauled him deeper and deeper into the maze of crowded stalls and pathways. Stallions voices could be heard shouting out into the crowd, each one welcoming the passerby's to look at their wares. Mares coo'd and awwed from shaded stalls as ponies meandered by with enraptured gazes.

The chaos steadily grew in size and scope further in as he heard bartering calls for weapons and the staccato crack as a patron tried out his purchase. A scream or two managed to rise over the growing cacophony and laughs followed soon after. Double decker huts made of thin planking and leather rose up to the distant ceiling 4 stories overhead.

Passerby's were regularly bumping into each other here with either a shoulder or a hip as they wormed past each other and as he was swung wide in a tight turn he was whacked inadvertently by 
a rifle butt to his temple. His cry was lost to the crowd as he slipped and almost fell from his captor.

The mare thankfully managed to steady him from falling to the floor to be trampled and heaved him up to a better position on her haunches. He couldn't see anything but the floor at that point but even still he could imagine them all as the roar of the throng in his ears accompanied the dirt and spend casings that slipped by underneath him.

It thankfully didn't last much longer as his ride turned into a smaller hallway that led off from the main artery shortly after.

With a layer of leather close overhead the general din died substantially as she moved into the dim hallways beyond. Soon he could only make out the distant clatter of activity if he really strained his ears to pick it out.

Suddenly he found himself painfully thrown to the dirt through an open door. His head had recovered somewhat on the trip but now it was thrown back into a haze of pain as his skull collided against a large stone embedded in the floor. Rolling helplessly to a stop he hit the far wall with a thump. Though the pain that welled from his temple was fierce he could still feel a bit of slick blood start to leech into the burlap right above where he had been hit.

He waited for the next impact to come. Her hoof to contact his stomach or worse. Or his spine, he couldn't tell which was was up anymore. His eyes finally teared up as he imagined what was to come. She was going to kick him around this tiny room until he couldn't move anymore and only a lumpy bag of meat was left. Oh, goddess she was going to pulp him to death and he would have to lay here in this hellish prison and take it. 

But to his surprise, the next blow never came.

Instead he heard her grunt as she slammed the door shut with a tinkling of brass. The bang dissipated into the near pitch black gloom as he wearily stretched in vein against the ropes and cloth binding him. He wanted desperately to bite into the sack to tear a hole but the thought of even getting his tongue near the fetid cloth made him want to vomit. On a whim he started to wriggle his way forwards through the dirt towards the place he had heard the door slam. Maybe there was a loose nail or something that he could get to... to-

He stopped moving. Over the thumping of his heart he could faintly hear a scraping noise arise from back the way he had been tossed. Staying completely still he heard the scraping noise slowly morph into a steady hiss of something slithering along on the dirt. Terror plated itself into his chest as he listened. He realized he wasn't going to get beaten to a pulp now. He was going to get eaten alive!

With a sudden burst of speed he scratched and inched himself further and further along from the encroaching noise. Head and heart pounding his mind raced as he tried to think. Straining at the bonds he soon was forced to give up his forward momentum as exhaustion took hold. Panting through the woven fibers he shivered and cried. Tears blotted the surface of the burlap as he sobbed into the stale air.

Something pressed down on his lower back as a sharp pain lanced up his leg. He emptied his lungs in a scream that left him wilted.

With a flourish the bag was ripped from his body and he stared upwards into the gloom at a fiery set of gold flecked hazel eyes.