What?
“It appears we broke it.”
Wha- okay, enough of that.
So if Equestria was okay with slavery, I guess I had more to do than I thought I had.
But, more on the situation at hand.
“So, mister yellow-ass, what made you get into slavery?”
The stallion laughed. “First insults, and then asks personal questions? You intrigue me, Dragon. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were stalling.”
Dammit. I needed time to think. Okay, so maybe just charging in willy-nilly was a really, REALLY bad idea, but I’m just not a strategist. I improvise, it’s my specialty. Obviously.
“It just doesn’t seem like a profession that many decent people get into.”
He stared at me with the same emotion as before, but I detected a slight hardening around the eyes. “I provide a service to Equestria, one that is sorely needed in this time of need.”
I snorted, but kept quiet at that otherwise. Slavery is never the answer. Hell, it should never be an option. People who ever consider it in any way okay need to have their minds wiped with bleach. But his comment put something else in my mind – time of need? What the hell was going on in this world? I knew next to nothing about Equestria, and I needed to learn, fast.
“Those who sacrifice liberty for security…”
I tensed, getting ready to spring into action. I was going to knock out the earth pony, blow through the dogs and fight my way into the mine, freeing as many slaves as I could. I just had to be ready.
The stallion seemed curious as to the end of my statement. I wasn’t going to leave him hanging.
“Deserve neither.” I shot forward, instinctively lashing out with my tail.
That is what would have happened, had I been able to move. I started to panic as I realized that I was immobile, and I struggled against some unseen force.
“You’re intelligent, Drake, and I never expected one of you to delve so deeply into philosophy, but you’re dreadfully naïve. Magic restrains – just one or two near a species to which it’s attuned will render you impotent. Guards, take him to the guest room and secure him. I’ll be down to talk with our new guest later.”
Mind reeling, I felt numb as I was lifted into the air by no less than seven Diamond Dogs. Some part of my mind made a joke about gaining some weight. I watched closely as I was hauled into the dark mine. We travelled through several ‘hallways,’ kept lit by torches placed periodically on the walls. I also noted several ventilation shafts cut into the ceiling, or at least that’s what I thought they were.
Eventually, the little procession (the dogs carrying me were sweating up a storm, and it stank really badly) made it to a chamber containing a large bed, some drawers and several nice-looking furnishings. In other words, a guest room. The guards threw me on the bed and placed several strange-looking pillars around me. Three of them then left the room, and the other four stayed near, completely silent.
“So,” I began, glad to still have the ability to talk and to move my eyes. Apparently, while they retrained me, whatever the restraints did allowed me communication and sensory perception. “How’s the food?”
I didn’t get any response. Either they were complete idiots or very well-trained. Though I wanted to deny it, it was likely the latter. I felt monumentally stupid – what the fuck did I do to get here? Shot into a world I barely know, leave the only friends I had, and attack a fortified settlement. That’s what I did. Glad I could remember simple things like that.
Eventually, after a while of waiting (telling time down here is kind of impossible) the stallion entered the room, escorted by two diamond dogs wielding wicked-looking spears. I hoped torture wasn’t on the schedule.
“So, what is a dragon doing attacking my property?”
How to answer the question. Do I answer legitimately? Do I evade it? Nope. Snark time.
“Oh, I was just on my way from a “Everyone is special” party thrown by a Doctor Seapony when I thought ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to go fuck up a slaving operation?’” I know I got the quote wrong, even with the edits. It’s not like I could access the fucking internet.
The stallion laughed. “Oh, a wit on this one! Well, let’s start off civilized and slow then. My name is Spades.” He made a motion toward his flank, upon which a spade was displayed. I assume it had something to do with beating his ‘employees.’
“Well, slaver, the name is Zweilous.”
“Predation? Your accent is hidden awfully well if you’re from Predatalia.”
“Nope. America.”
He looked at me strangely. “Where is America?”
“Somewhere where slavery is treated like it should be.”
“Oh, and how is that?”
“A crime against life itself.”
The stallion sighed and sat down. “Alright, we’re going to get nowhere if you’re going to constantly be at each other’s throats like this. Can we simply have a nice, informative talk here? Being antagonistic will get you nowhere, drake.”
As much as I wanted otherwise, I had to admit he was right. I might as well gather as much information as I could.
“Fine. What’s your question?”
“Where is this ‘America?’ I thought I knew all the lands on Equis.”
Equis. Now I knew the name of this world for sure. “America is quite far off, and you could never hope to reach it.”
“What-“
“Nope. Question for a question. What do you mine here?”
Spades regarded me evenly, as if sizing me up yet again. I had no doubt that he would be – I was certainly in no position to be taking control of a conversation, let alone denying him anything.
“Okay.”
I might never have been in a situation like this, but I’ve read books… and books and books, and I’ve actually managed to translate that to real life. I can read people fairly well, and I was starting to read ponies as well.
“So. What do you mine here?”
“Gems, for the most part. Occasionally we strike a vein of iron or such that we drain. Why did you act so shocked when you found out that this was a slave operation?”
I almost smirked, knowing that question was going to come along sometime.
“Where I come from, slavery is an abomination and hasn’t been an accepted part of life for almost a hundred and fifty years.”
He frowned, and opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by the door opening. A dog poked its head in and growled something to the pony, whose eyes opened wide. “I’ll be there immediately,” he responded to whatever the dog had said to him. Giving me a quick glance, he left the room, bringing about an oppressive quiet as I contemplated my situation.
It’d been quite fast. I went in intending to help and all I’d done was get captured. That’s what I got for not having a plan. Sometimes, the ability to make up ideas on the spot was a great thing, but not when strategizing beforehand could remove the need for improvisation completely. So what could I do? I couldn’t really move, even though I felt like I could. It’s just that when I told my muscles to work, they didn’t respond.
So I waited. I’m not really sure how long I waited, seeing as the sun wasn’t present underground and there was no clock in the room, but eventually Spades re-entered the room.
“Apologies for the wait, but there was an issue to take care of. Now, I wish to treat you like a guest. If you promise not to cause trouble, and I will take you at your word as much as I can, as you seem like an honorable creature, I will reduce the dampeners so that you can move around as much as you like in this room.”
I gritted my teeth, but I had to agree, or I definitely wouldn’t be able to do anything. “Alright. I won’t cause trouble.”
Spades smiled, something that made me want to hate the situation even more. “Good, I’ll send some of my workers in to make the change.”
The piss-colored stallion left the room, and a short while later a couple dogs entered carrying some odd-colored stones. They went around burying them into the walls at precisely spaced intervals (they were using some instrument I couldn’t figure out). Eventually, they picked up the suppressors on either side of me and left the room.
I lifted a claw experimentally. When it obeyed me, I gave a hesitant grin. This was a small concession. No matter how nice this was, I was still a prisoner. What I had to try next was magic.
I gathered in my will and focused on a small patch of dirt in a corner. In my mind, I pictured the dirt turning purple. When I felt I had brought enough of myself to bear, and breathed out the word “Change.”
Nothing happened. So I supposed that meant that the dampeners worked. I could move and do simple things, but magic was lost to me as long as those things were in the walls. I didn’t know what would happen if I touched one, so I chose not to start digging.
There was really only one thing to do. I laid down on the bed again, and drifted off to sleep.
Over the next several weeks, it became routine. I would waste time in my ‘room,’ and Spades would come in to question me. We learned from each other, but I carefully never revealed my status as an alien. If that was let out, I feared that he would do with me as those bounty hunters had wanted to – sell me, or something like that, and then I would never be able to help.
I learned much more about Equis. It was a land of turmoil and savagery. Though Equestria was mostly tamed (I nearly laughed when he said that – if he called that forest tamed, he had another thing coming), the lands outside of it were pits of despair. Predatalia was in the west(I already knew this), and was a conglomerate of Diamond Dogs, Drakes, who were the minority, and Gryphons, and it was about three-quarters the size of Equestria. Zebrica to the east was mostly filled with Zebras (big surprise there), though the southern portion of it was a large section of rainforest mostly populated by the Panther race.
To the north was an expanse of snow and ice that had always been labeled as the Crystal Empire, though no one knew why. I conjectured to myself that it was likely another thing along the lines of Nightmare Moon or Discord – imprisoned for a long time, only to reappear sometime in the future.
Equestria was at war with the gryphons of Predatalia over some sort of land dispute, and was in desperate need of gems to power their war machines and minerals to create their tools of war.
Though I was shocked to find the land at war (it sounded like some bad fan-fic, honestly), it made the lack of order on the roads make sense, as well as the allowing of slavery.
Don’t get me wrong. Just because it made sense to me didn’t mean I was going to allow it to continue.
Eventually, I learned some pretty interesting things.
During one conversation, I surreptitiously began questioning him about the things I “knew” about, such as the Mane 6 or the princesses.
“So. Who rules Equestria?”
Spades was taken aback by the question. “You don’t know? The whole of Equis should know that question.”
“Call me a hermit. Well?”
“Equestria is a diarchy, ruled by the princesses Luna and Celestia.”
“Princesses? Are they sisters?”
“Gods, no, that would be incredibly awkward. They’ve been married for several thousand years now.”
Well, that definitely got my attention. They weren’t sisters. I wanted to question it, but realized that it was an edit Chaos would likely make to show little girls this world. Though we’re improving, humanity hasn’t opened up enough to outright leave behind its fear of homosexuality.
“Seems like a long time. Surely they’ve had some violent spats.”
He grimaced a moment. “Yes. About five hundred years ago, Luna became angry with the way she was treated by the citizenry, and caused the sun to stay down for several months. It was… ugly. After quite a while of speaking, Celestia was forced to send her wife to the moon. Recently she returned and was subdued by Celestia’s protégé, some unicorn by the name of Twilight Sparkle. She also had some help, but they’re mostly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.”
“You sound like you were there. Five hundred years ago, I mean.”
His left eye twitched. I’m sure I saw it. “No, but I’ve had it described to me by those that were.”
He was lying. I can read people, and he was lying. But how was that possible? Did ponies have a longer lifespan than I thought? Or was this one special? Regardless, that little slip-up put him off, and he left shortly thereafter.
Eventually, though, I gained his trust. I think I’d been there almost three months (I wondered often what had happened to Robin and Geoff, and where Sam and Chrissie were) when he finally walked in holding a pair of bracelet-looking things.
“You’ve been cooped up in here for too long. These cuffs here are made of the dampening material, and will allow you to walk around my mine while reasonably… muzzled, as it were, so long as you behave.”
This was the perfect opportunity to learn the layout of the mine, to meet some of the slaves and plot an escape. He had to know it to, because he had put particular emphasis on the last word.
“What do you mean by behave?”
“Don’t interfere with normal work, don’t bother anyone, and don’t even try to approach one of the exits.”
That made sense. I could still learn things by moving around a hell of a lot more. I could tell I was weak from my muscles not getting any use other than routine stretches.
“Okay.”
I reached my claws out, and he placed the bracelets around them. I immediately felt my body react, and I winced. It was actively painful, like a very dull ache, and I hazarded that I would be hurting a lot more if I actually tried something.
“Could I have a map?”
Spades looked at me a moment, then reached into his saddlebags, bit a roll of paper, and held it out to me. I grabbed it, and looked at it. Without even glancing at the stallion, I said “Thank you.”
He huffed and walked out.
I could move. It was time to do some plotting.