Keckla Pottle (pronounced as it looks) was born in the terrible town of Saddale. The worst of all ponies knew Saddale and Saddle knew them back. The town had managed to get a grey brick wall and a deep dirty moat built around it, protecting it from prying eyes. Offering more protection from publicity were the closed in streets and dimly lit houses that even shadows feared to infest. Each building was as bland and as flat as the last, each pony in the street knew how to fight should somepony give them a bad look or a wrong word. Having double the highest death rate of any other city or town in Equestria, indeed, Saddale was a place that both impossible to ignore, and impossible to attack.
Keckla never liked Saddale, nor the ponies in it. She was had by two well respected thieves who worked perfectly together. They were the most effective duet in all of Saddale, and that's saying something. They didn't love eachother, rather they thought it would be a good idea to have a son or daughter to help them in their schemes. They died when Keckla was 7.
It was a calm night, a normal robbery, but something went wrong, the house caught on fire. The 2 ponies who lived in the house had woken up, and, upon seeing the intruders, grabbed what ever they could grab and attacked. No-one knows exactly what happened next, but all 4 ponies never came out of that room alive. On first hearing the tussle, a young Keckla followed her training by taking whatever was easy to swipe and from the room she was in and make for the exit. She was just about to leave when she heard an ungodly scream. It was a noise of true pain, horror and sadness all at once. Then there was an explosion, Keckla turned in horror to see a blaze roaring at her, it had obviously come from the bedroom. She instinctively turned to run but stopped when she thought she heard a single sound. A sound that only the blackest of hearts can ignore. Keckla turned round to face the fire, hesitated for a moment (as you do when you're about to do something stupid) and charged into the inferno, up the stairs and to where she thought the source of the sound was coming from. She threw herself at the door, already choking in smoke. And there he was. A baby stallion, crying for his mommy. Keckla took the baby and rushed out the house, Coughing and spluttering all the way. When she got out of the house she knew she had very little time to get away and that she couldn't stop running. She went all the way back to Saddale with the young stallion on her back.
Years later, she and the stallion had grew up, her into a fine young filly and him into a small worker, who had slaved for Keckla everyday of his life since the fire. Now, Keckla had no real skill that she stood out at when it came to thieving. She didn't lockpick too well, nor was she a master of creeping through a house. Other than her heritage, Keckla only had one strength that grew greater and greater day after day. Her beauty. Keckla had skin that was a pale purple, and big blue eyes that were all too easy to sink into. Her horn was positioned straight above and between her eyes and her snout was perfect, round holes that weren't too big but weren't too small. Her legs were slightly weedy but still showed signs of having strength in them. Her stomach did not droop for it curved nicely and her body was spotless and pure. Not that Keckla was one of the top 20 beauteous ponies in Equestria, but when compared to the very few fillies the town had to offer (Thieving seemed to be a stallion driven buisness at the time) she was by far the most desirable. Yet she was only beautiful because of her thoughts. instead of the perverse, greedy thoughts other Saddale residents possessed she often thought of what it would be like to live somewhere else, some place cleaner. That's why she was leaving when she became of age.
That morning, she laid out on the table a good meal for Mika, the slave kid. She called him down. The baby stallion she saved years ago had grown into an ideal slave. His body was a darker blue but the darker colour did not hide the bags under his eyes. His mane and tail were both chocolate brown. His legs were not muscular but they were clearly the legs of one who had done much manual labor in his lifetime. His eyes, brown and rejecting, were barriers planted firmly between his emotions and the dark, cruel world. Keckla looked at the kid with a certain degree of sadness, but happiness also. The kid looked blankly back at her and said, "You called?"
"Mika," she said softly,"You may eat this meal, and then you may sneak out of Saddale and start a life elsewhere." The boy's barriers opened, and his face of pure wide-eyed shock was implanted in Keckla's mind forever.
"Thank you for your years of service" Tears were welling up in her eyes. saying good bye to the only pony she ever liked in this town was apparently harder then it seemed. "Goodbye!" With that she ran out the door and kicked it shut behind her. She knew where she had to go. Saddale had to have some legal trades to make it look like it could economically support itself, the main one of which was salt (Don't ask). A cargo of salt was being taken to ponyville that morning, meaning the gates would open and the drawbridge would be down. The perfect chance to escape.
It was dawn. The sun, having just emerged, had already encompassed the cobbled stone pathways ways and roads of Saddale. Ponies were just waking up and ordering their slaves to make breakfast for them. Keckla had one chance. Failure meant loss of all reputation and any chance of freedom. She had been here before at this time, analyzing every action involved in the process, and registering the blind spots. The salt cart had 2 stallions at the front pulling it, and one in the drivers street, choosing where the stallions took them. He shouted to the drawbridge keeper;
"Oy! Prickle! Wake up ya lazy git!" Prickle was not one to care about his job: He often fell asleep at the drawbridge switch. This morning was no different. He drolled:
"Ahhhhh, you bloody salt traders are the bane of my existence" The salt driver mockingly replied;
"Your existence? Ha! Your existence is nothin more than sleepin and eatin!" The 2 stallions chuckled to themselves. All the while Keckla had snuck on board the salt cart, and made herself comfy upon the surrounding filled sacks. Prickle had lowered the drawbridge and turned back to the salt cart.
"Move ya bloody arse and let me go to sleep again." The salt cart driver shook his head and laughed as he rode out of Saddale, unaware of the extra cargo he was carrying...