Somewhere along your travel to the lower level of the crystal castle, Bonbon let you down from Lyra’s back, unbound your arms and legs, and let you walk with your own two feet like a sucker. Despite how soft the pony fur coats are, their lumpy backs were not meant to comfortably carry the weight of a human body. It’s also the premium spot where evaporative cooling happens on the equine species, so your little pony ride had become unusually damp with sweat. And Lyra was a punk of a unicorn with no stamina, much unlike your favourite apple farm pony. So you now you were walking alongside the beige one, about to launch into your brilliant plan.
“Did you know that a single spaghetti noodle is called a spaghetto?”
It is a very clever plan, indeed! You are currently trying to distract your clip-clop captors by starting a complex conversation. It is a well know tactic that super spies like James Bond use it to throw off the concentration of his captors. This will grant you a small window of opportunity to escåpé. It’s a plan so brilliant that it can’t possibly fail.
“Not interested.” Secret agent Sweetie Drops was having none of it.
Blast and drats. Your plan immediately failed. Who would have thought? You chose to discard that plan because you’re clearly bad a plans that depend on copying tactics used by government trained super spies. You’re much better at nearly everything else, anyway. It’s a shame, really. You have so much distracting trivia you want to share. Some of it even transcended across universes to be applicable to things here in tiny pony world! Like how a beam of light is a stream of free photons that have momentum but no mass. They move through space in oscillating waves and when they hit a surface they refract and the color it gives off depends on the crystalline structure of atoms they hit. But now Bonbon will never get to know that because she is lame and boring.
In very little time at all the grumpy boring pony and her sweaty marefriend had escorted you to the lower level of Twilight’s Irish-sunburn colored castle.
“Here you go, Anon. Cell number one, just like Princess Sparkle directed. You know the drill. Snacks are every two hours and meals every four. Lights out at eight.”
It’s a sad fact that you did, indeed, know the drill. Being a totally normal human transplanted from a different universe had landed you behind bars just for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The most recent time before this time was a short time ago. And now semantic satiation just killed the word time for you.
Anyway, some racist yak guard saw you tumbling a golden bit back and forth across the backs of your knuckles and she thought you could have been an allomancer on the loose and wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with you. Thankfully you didn’t actually know how to perform allomancy, so when a battle unicorn from the mage tower finally showed up to test you for magical signatures you were set free with an apology. Unfortunately for you, it took the unicorn mage several days to show up to actually perform the magic scan. The worst part of the ordeal was that you didn’t even get your bit back because they kept it as evidence. You want that bit back and you will take it by force in any way that you can, even if it means just wasting the time of other guards, like for example, Bonbon.
“In there?” You ask.
“Yes, Anon. Cell number one. Just walk on in.” Bonbon replied.
“But it’s occupied.” You retort.
Normally inmates would get their own private jail cell. Large penitentiaries weren’t really a thing in Equestria because crime in general hardly existed when the really bad criminals were simply turned into garden statues. Owning acreage is much less expensive when it’s owns by the government, then you factor in the other running costs of things like guards, indoor lights, food, laundry, and walls. You understand the financial reasoning but actually seeing a field with thousands of statues of previously living creatures arranged in orderly rows and columns creeps you the fuck out. You prefer a large cell such like this one to the alternative of becoming a lawn ornament. You may hate walking but you would hate not being able to move at all even more.
In the occupied cell was a changeling. You knew that for sure because nothing else would have the deepest of iridescent green shell covering its back. But that is where the similarities ended. You were clearly looking at a creature that had a pony body but it was lacking the signature holes that the classic flavoured changelings had in their legs, which were covered, head to pastern, in patchwork splotches of pink and light blue fur, with white dapples across its barrel and butter yellow hooves.
If you didn’t know any better you could have been looking at inferior copy of Twilight Sparkle. It’s head was topped with a purple unicorn horn and a similarly styled mane but with the signature colored streaks of Rainbow Dash. The usual changeling tail fin was also gone but in it’s place it looked to be your favorite farm pony’s tail, complete with a red ribbon tying the end, but with the tail color of your least favorite pony: light purple.
It was like some ass-hat made a random pony generator and did their absolute best at doing their worst at making an original character. They fucked it up like it was their day job and their boss had asked them to work unpaid overtime on a Saturday night. It broke your gigantic, super strong granite, manly-in-every-way, heart into pea-sized fish tank gravel chunks.
What was left of the changeling had collapsed into a heap in the center of the room. It looked to be either asleep or unconscious. It didn’t even flick an ear as your group approached the cell door.
“Don’t put me in with that thing. It looks sick and not in a good way.” You tell your captors.
“Princess Twilight said to put you in cell one so that’s where we’re going to put you.” Was Bonbon’s reply. “And I’m sure they won’t mind. Just hurry it up, Lyra and I have other plans for tonight.”
“We sure do! My marefriend and I have plans. I’m going to eat h..”
Bonbon cut her off. “Hush, you. Anon doesn’t need to hear about how much tossed salad you can eat.”
“Heh. You know me. I love to toss your salad, Bonnie.”
“Inappropriate, Lyra! Anon, get in the cage. We’ll check on you you in the morning.” Bonbon nudges you from behind with her forehead. You’re immediately thankful she is not a unicorn because you really don’t hate your kidneys all that much. They’re your fourth favorite body organ.
“Or you could stay the night with us!” The mint colored idiot suggested.
“Oh god no!” Was your reply.
You gladly stepped all the way into the cell and closed the door behind you, locking your arch nemesis and her secret agent marefriend behind a row of magic-proof steel bars. You are not locked in, they are locked out. The two ponies finally take the hint and leave which gives you time to reflect on your current location.
The jail cell you’re currently in is much larger than any other bedroom you have slept in since your arrival in Equestria. Directly across the room from the door was window that is too high up to see out of. It's most likely a foot or two above ground level to prevent ingress of snow and water. To your immediate left, just beyond the threshold of the door is the changeling laying in a crumpled heap. It was probably dragged down here then tossed in with unicorn magic. You can still see drag marks from where its hooves scraped the floor, or from many hooves over the years and the guards just happen to keep dragging bodies to the same location every time. It doesn't look like it has moved since it was thrown in here, however long ago that was. Along the wall directly to your right is a single bench that looked long enough that you could lay on it without your feet dangling off the end. A pile of thin, flimsy blankets flopped haphazardly in the middle, threatening to slide off onto the floor. There was no pillow. So, just like your average Holiday Inn, complete with your very own dead body.
But the most amazing feature in the room, in your mind, is the ceiling. For whatever reason it was painted to look like a bright, sunny day complete with fluffy clouds and a small flock of birds. Maybe it was there to remind prisoners of how this will be the only sky they will see so long as they are in here. It’s almost clever. You immediately hate it.
Like a cheap, first time prostitute, you haul your lanky frame to the right and immediately make a beeline for the bench. You sit your lazy self down and stare at the body across the room. That heap could have just as easily had been you were it not for your superior human fortitude.
It took you less than five seconds to make up your mind. You take the two top sheets off the stack and wring them together in your hands out of frustration. These fucking ponies, man. No decency for anything that’s not a pony. It just ain’t right. You can do better. You will show compassion where they have shown none. Against the protest of your leg muscles, you stand back up and walk over to the changeling laying on the floor.