"Rise, my love. Open your eyes and see me." A voice from somewhere calls.
How long have I been here? Weeks? Months? The visitors won't tell me. They only bring food to my cell, and water. Sometimes they show up just to talk, or rather, to interrogate. Usually they are dressed up in shiny golden or silver armor, that is when they give me what I need to live: a little food, mostly indistinguishable gray mush and some piss-dirty water. Other times, they wear nothing or at most a tiara and necking, that is when they come to chat.
I dislike it when they come to chat. The two... ponies... that come just to speak, scare me. The first one, and one of the first ponies I had met since I have been here, is that White, horned pegasus, the one with the suns on her flanks, the one that towers over me, the one who goes by the name Celestia. I remember the first time I had spoken with her. I found her voice very calming. I felt like all my worries would just go away, like she would take care of everything for me... maybe it was the tone of her voice. It was probably her mother-like voice, yes. But that's not how I feel now. Her voice hasn't changed, rather, I think I finally have begun to see through her guise. Every time she visits, which is usually once every four meals, she seems less genuine, almost like part of me is seeing that she isn't who she claims to be. But what does she really claim to be? A Goddess? A Princess? She seems to think that I should know all about her, because, apparently all my brethren know exactly who she is. She will not tell me who or what my brethren are. Only that they are like me: Jet-black insectoid abominations. (Oh the trouble I have, every time I look at my own hooves.) And then she would gesture to one of the rooms across the tunnel, implying the existence if my supposed brethren.
The other one I have only seen twice. And it was because, as she told me, Celestia was busy and couldn't show up. I guess they have a strict schedule to stick to. This one goes by the name of Luna, and she is much more formal when we talk. I actually like her more, she seems much more real. Her voice is quieter, shyer, but more strictly business. The first time she came, it was really only a formality. I needed to get to know my Night Princess. The second time she merely came with a few questions written down on some paper. I would dare to guess they were given to her to ask me by Celestia. She came, asked the questions then left.
She, her... it is in my head. "Look at me, my love."
Yes, I will, and when I do, I will see you, standing there, in the corner of the cell. As if nothing happened, as if she never died. And every time I see her, it is the same song and dance. Look at me, don't you see, I'm right here, Turncoat. And then gone, like the ghost of Hearth's past.
"Get away from me," I say to Sunflower, her silhouette traced in the corner of the room "I am not in the mood for your headaches." Every time I see her, I have a pounding headache. I don't know why, maybe it is because she is a figment of my scrambled imagination, my deteriorating mind. Or is my mind deteriorating? Maybe I am not going crazy, maybe... maybe I'm just dead, stuck in some dull limbo.
"But Turncoat..." she says, mouth still stuck in a wretchedly innocent smile, "I miss you, come be with me. And come home, your mother is waiting for you."
My mother? This is new. What does she know about my family? For that matter, how can she know anything about my mother when I don't even know anything about my mother. As far as I know, she is only a projection of my mind.
For once, I humor her, "My mother?"
"Your mother misses you, she wants you to come home. Come be with us." She says.
What...
I walk over to her, but before I get any sort of response, she fizzles away in a flurry of White light.
Just like usual, gone before I can ever get any answers. I sigh and walk to the far end of the cell. Maybe I just need some rest.
"Okay, would you like to start from the beginning?" Luna asks calmly. This is her third time visiting me. She comes across as more casual this time. I think she may be getting used to talking to me.
I'd rather not share my story again. But... it is Luna, I guess she hasn't heard my story yet.
So I tell her everything I can remember, even about the White room, though she will probably think I'm crazy.
"Crazy?" she says shaking her head, "No, that doesn't make you crazy." and I continue my story, watching her eyes grow. Not once does she interrupt me.
When I finish, she brushes a strand of her etherial mane out of her face and says to me, "Thank you for sharing."
"Luna?" I ask, "will I ever get to leave?"
She stares at me for a moment, thinking of what to say. Her expression doesn't change from stoic. Eventually, she gives me an answer. "Well, maybe, I don't know."
"But Celestia said I wasn't like the others... I'm not evil..." I interrupt.
"Indeed, but that doesn't mean we can just release you." She says. "Look, I know you don't like it here, but with things the way they are in Equestria..."
A bit of frustration and curiosity bubble in my head and I cut her off. "How are things in Equestria or what ever it's called? No one tells me anything about what is happening."
"Listen," she says, voice still calm and serious, "ponies still aren't over the attempted take over. Even if we let you out, you would have no where to go, not looking like that, ponies would, well, probably try to kill you..."
Looking like this, like a damned monster! But how can I argue her.
"What did I do to deserve this..." I mutter. Stuck in some prison, with little memory, looking like a hoofing freak.
"Hey, cheer up." Luna says to me, dropping the serious tone to sound more hopeful. "I know things look bad now, but they will get better. I promise."
Yeah, for what ever that is worth.
Then she goes even more lax and familiar and says, "Hey, I actually got you a little something." She looks about her, as if to see if any ponies near by could see then she lights up her horn. After a second and a little crackling noise, a small White box pops into existence in front of me. "I thought you might be getting a little tired of the prison food..." she says, her voice trailing. She looks away from me and nudges the box closer with a hoof. "Go ahead, open it."
I put my black plated hoof on the solid White box and lift the lid. I stare at what's inside. I don't know what I'm looking at, so I look back up at Luna.
"It is cake, or, well, what is left of one. Try it, I... I think you will like it." Luna says. Her face grows a little red. "Oh... and it's probably best you don't tell anypony I brought you this."
"Oh, okay..." I say back, my frustration dissipating. "I, uh, thank you." I reach a hoof in and scoop out a piece of the cake and stuff it greedily into my mouth.
It has the same taste as the gray mush, which is to say, little taste at all, although there is a hint of something... something indescribable. But it is barely there. Mostly I am just as repulsed by this food as I am with the regular rations I am given.
I look up at Luna to see her looking intently at me, a slight smile and slightly lidded eyes. "So...?" she asks.
"It's, umm... good." I lie. Kinda wish I could taste it. Though I guess it did have a nice texture, or at least much nicer than gooey slop.
"Great!" she says rather loudly, then looks about her to make sure nopony overheard her excited reaction.
"Hey..." I say, after hastily finishing, "really, thank you."
The first nice thing anypony has done for me...
More time passes. The only way to keep track of any sort of time is to count my meals. So far, since the last time Luna visited, I have been served five meals. Counting my meals is really the only thing I have to do. It is either that, or sleep. Or pace around the cave-room.
I might be asleep now, if it not for the loud yelling coming from somewhere else in this tunnel. It sounds like yells of agony, perhaps in another cell in this prison. I walk over to the iron gate that keeps me trapped. The bars aren't quite wide enough apart for me to squeeze my head through, but I try anyway, forcing my head against the metal. I can feel the tingling sensation of what I assume is magic running through the bars. It feels like ants crawling up and down. It must be the extra measures they put forth to make sure I don't somehow escape. Not that I can really know for sure.
After about a minute of trying to stick my head through the bars, I give up. I can still hear the screaming pony. I think it may be another prisoner. Actually, it sounds much like one of my own kind. In my own thoughts, I've been referring to my brothers as abominations. And that's what the sound must be coming from, an abomination, like me. I knew that there were others here in this prison with me, though I never knew how close they might have been. All I can really see outside of my cell is the stone wall in front of the door, and a little bit to the left and right. Just endless, stone in both directions, as if I were in the only room for miles in a long, dimly lit cave tunnel. But now, for the first time I am hearing someone outside my cell, other than the occasional guard that walks by mumbling to himself.
The scream itself echoes about the hallway filling my head with the noise of pain. I try not to think of what may be causing the abomination distress, but thoughts of torture flood into my head. Could they really be torturing whomever it is? Maybe they are, I don't know.
I eventually sit down by the door and stare into the wall on the other side, listening, waiting for something to happen.
After a bit, I see a guard walk by my door from right to left. He looks irritated and grumbles to himself as he walks. He isn't coming from the screaming sound, rather, he is walking towards it. Yet another moment later, the screaming stops and I hear the guard yell, "Dammit!" followed by more words that I can't quite understand. Then, I watch as the guard comes back in sight, moving from left to right slowly. He is dragging something in his mouth and moves backwards.
I press my head against the tingly metal bars again, trying to get a better look at what the guard is dragging. It is an abomination. The guard inches the body of an abomination along the floor by its tail. As they pass by my iron gate, my eyes follow the face of the black insectoid pony. Its eyes are wide open. Its forehead is smeared with greenish blood and is severely misshaped as if it had been cracked open or beaten in. It was almost as if somepony had bashed its head in.
"What're you lookin' at?" growls the guard dragging the abomination through clenched teeth.
I back away from the door and whimper out a "sorry."
What happened, did... did it do that to itself?
I have lost track of how many meals I've had. If I had to take a guess, it would probably be anywhere from forty to fifty, maybe more.
I sit here, silence around me, meditating. The only thing I have to look forward to is my next visitation from either Celestia, or, hopefully, Luna. I haven't seen her in a long time. Either of them.
The sound of hoof steps... it always grabs my attention. And now I hear a set of them, the sound of heavy hoof falls making there way closer to my cell. I walk up next to the door to get the best view that I can. After a moment I back away and see a familiar guardpony walk by. It is a light gray Pegasus, strong and bulky, clad in golden armor. Following him is Celestia.
Both of them stop front and center before the iron gate. Celestia's horn glows gold and the gate opens by itself, both step inside, and Celestia greets me.
"Hello, Turncoat." She says. "It has been a little while, hasn't it?"
I do my best to shrug, "I guess so."
The guardpony, I think his name is Brassback, looks at me warily. I sense distrust from him.
Celestia sighs and quickly says, "I have... some good news for you." Then she looks at me to see how I respond.
I simply look at her. What good news could she bring me?
After I fail to speak back she again speaks up, "How would you like to leave this dungeon?"
Leave? I get to leave?
The only word I am able to mutter, "R-really?"
I follow them as they lead me out of the cell and into the stone hallway. For the first time, I am able to see this cave from a place other than my little room. I hadn't imagined how incredibly long the tunnel was. It seems to go on forever in both directions and it slightly curves, as if it is semicircular. We take off in one direction with Celestia at the front and Brassback trailing just behind me. Like the other guardponies he mumbles to himself bitterly. It's like it has become an infectious habit of the ponies staffed here to be angry with their jobs. I look over my shoulder at Brassback and he catches me looking at him. He gives me a wicked look.
"Eyes back up front." He snaps in a hissing whisper just loud enough for me to hear. Immediately I comply and turn my head forward.
I finally have a sense of how far away the other cells are. With how long the tunnel is, they are able to be spread out pretty far. I am almost surprised that I was able to hear that one abomination's screams. The first cell, the first one that isn't mine, that we pass is empty. I turn my head to look into it as we pass and I see what looks like a large green blood-spatter on one of the inner walls. The green is dried almost to a flakey black.
The second cell we pass has one of my brethren in it. Yet another first for me... this is the first time I have had a chance to get a good look at what I might look like. Inside, immediately behind the door, stands a waspy, black abomination, blue bug eyes and everything. He stands with his bloodied head against the iron door, staring at me as I pass.
Our eyes lock for a moment, and I hear him whisper at me, "farewell brother."
I have no idea how to respond, so I nod back at him and continue walking.
The rest of the trip through the tunnel looks much like this, with the waspy little bug-ponies all whispering similar phrases at me. "Farewell." "Good luck." "Don't be afraid." There was one that did catch my attention, sending a chill down my back: "Do not worry, brother, we will be with mother soon."
Not the first time I had heard mother...
The trip came to an abrupt end when we reached the mouth of the tunnel, which gave way to an expansive cavern. At the end of the cave there was an opening to the outside world.
Finally, outside, fresh air.
The sun is setting... or rising, I'm not sure which, over a large expanse of green trees. As we reach the entrance, I realize that this whole cave system actually runs deep within a mountain, or perhaps an entire range of mountains. The mouth of the cave looks over an endless forest.
We stop in the mouth of the cave and Celestia sighs, "Ah, the beautiful Everfree forest." She then turns to me and says, "Turncoat, I know these past few months have been tough for you..." She pauses.
Months, huh, okay, that's how long it was... I look her in the eyes to let her know I'm listening and I nod. Then she continues.
"But, you must remain strong, tougher times are ahead of you." She says sullenly.
"Tougher times." I mirror mindlessly.
She then looks back out at the forest, "Yes, now begins the next stage of your life with us. But... at least you will not be stuck up here in this dreaded dungeon."
And so, I will begin the next stage of my life with royalty, what ever that means... but, Celestia is right, no more prison cell... and that's a good thing.
I hope.