The Bounty Catching, Freedom Dreaming, Winged Wolf Phenomenon
Chapter 20
~{WWP}~
The next morning I had steak for breakfast. Whatever channels Chrysalis sent the letter through worked extremely quickly, and once again Gustave has come through with flying colors. Of course, I didn’t tell him the whole truth in the letter. Just saying I’m staying up at Canterlot Castle and to send a large shipment of meat for me to eat since they don’t normally stock it. For some reason though, they also still sent the veggies.
My morning was filled once again with searching for the entrance. By lunchtime, I had hit every single little stone on every single wall. I had given up and plopped on my bed when the changeling disguised as a guard showed up with some water for my ‘lunch’.
“Hey bug guy, you know where the passage is for this cell?” I inquired. He just looked at me, placed the platter down and left. In exasperation I flopped down onto the bed, which then proceeded to sink about two inches into the ground.
“What the fuck?” I jumped up and down on my bed once more and it sank one more inch before it began to shutter. My ears perked when I heard a grating noise below that sounded like a cheap effect in an Indiana Jones movie.
Looking over the side of my bed, I saw that the four corners of the frame actually formed an archway to a set of dark looking stairs, the stone having been dropped and rearranged to make it accessible to pretty much anyone shorter than Celestia herself.
I quickly grabbed my lunch, the pillow case full of all the vegetables I had, and proceeded down the dark creepy path, assuming that the torches Knightmare told me about would be a little further down. By about the 5th step, the stone realigned and closed the entrance back up.
Instantly the stairwell went pitch black. I couldn’t see the end of my muzzle, let alone where I was going. I figured if I just stood still my night vision would kick in and I could see well. Unfortunately, my night vision is about as strong as a human’s, and in this pitch blackness, it did diddily-squat.
“I’m going to kill that Changeling who said there’d be torches down here when I get the chance,” I grumbled to myself as I descended the stairs. I got down another three and then reached a flat surface at a landing. Not being able to see where I was going I tried to go right and slammed my snout into a wall.
“Maybe flay him. Flaying is more painful,” I grumbled some more as I rubbed the edge of my nose. Cautiously I began feeling around the landing until I found the next flight of stairs. After about an hour or two of stairs and a lot of new bruises on my head, it ended in a big cavern with a large gorge in the middle of it.
To be honest, it was probably one of the more impressive scenes I have laid my eyes on. It was somewhat like those big caves you see in like National Geographic with the hundred foot long crystal spikes, except these ones were purple and violet.
I flew across the gap in the floor, wondering how that was supposed to keep an Alicorn from getting across, while I continued my trek through the cave system. Using my nose, it wasn’t that hard to find the area the Princess was located in. I mean, besides myself, she was the only living thing down here. At least from what I could smell.
Following the trail, I got into a sorta deep introspective mood since there wasn’t anything else to keep me entertained. Being in jail does that to you I guess. I began thinking about how much of a complete lunatic I’ve acted recently. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel much remorse over what I did, but even back when I was on Earth and a drunken angry and hurt young adult I was never exactly violent. I enjoyed a good fight now and then, but the only things I killed were when I had to put a dog down and I cried when I did that.
Do not judge me. There is nothing sadder than a dying dog.
Anyway, I just recently came to terms that I’ve killed countless amounts of creatures, most of them intelligent, while living here the past few months. If TV was anything to judge by this was supposed to be the part where I either have an emotional breakdown and start bawling my eyes out at the audacity of my crimes, or I start laughing maniacally as I do paper mache with dried out entrails and liquefied brain matter.
The strange thing was though; I just couldn’t seem to care. It’s not like I wasn’t thinking about it on my trek through the mines. I relived some of the more vicious killings I performed wondering what possessed me to do them. Regardless of how I thought about them, or the fact the victims probably had a wife and kids depending on them, or countless other ways to force me into feeling guilty about their deaths, I simply couldn’t. Almost like I had a mental block or something, but for some reason I was incapable of feeling empathetic.
That got me somewhat concerned, but before I could let my imagination run wild to see if my empathetic mental block idea was legitimate or not I reached the end of my journey. I had reached a block of crystals with the scent of the Alicorn right behind them. Luckily though, this time the lever was in plain sight and not hidden amongst everywhere else. Otherwise Cadance would probably have died by the time I found the true lever.
After watching the dramatic secret wall open up, there lying in the middle of the room was the pretty pink pony princess of love. If she was the first princess to be seen in the show instead of Celestia, bronies everywhere would’ve had a much harder time saying how the show wasn’t just for little girls. There is only so much pink a man can explain away, and Cadance not only was on the other side of the line, she lost sight of it.
Glancing and sniffing around the room, noticed some stray objects, like a sleeping pad and a fire pit, plus a small box that smelt of apples. Cadance for her part was just curled into a ball on the other side of the enclosure. With a grating sound, the crystal fell back into place behind me, and I saw one of the smaller ones next to the door move.
“At least I know how I’m getting out of here,” I mumbled out loud. Apparently loud enough for Cadance to hear me, whom turned and faced me for the first time without throwing rubbish bins at my face. Though by the look she began to give me said she’d prefer to be doing otherwise.
The first thing I really noticed, since my view was obstructed before, was the lack of an ethereal mane. It was just like any other pony’s mane and tail, minus the variety of colors. The only other pony I’ve seen with more than one color was Rainbow Dash. I bet someone will call me out on that one, but everything else seemed to match. Regardless, Cadance being an Alicorn, I figured she’d have a fancy mane and tail as well. I was slightly disappointed by that one.
The rest of her was, if I may say so as a citizen of Equis at this point, more attractive than any of the other ponies I’ve seen. She was taller, and more streamlined than anypony else, though not nearly as large as either Princess. Her crystal heart cutie mark was almost the size of her entire flank. Her horn dwarfed any unicorns that I’ve seen, and her wings resting on her side were larger than even Spitfire’s.
Of course the moment she saw me, they flared out and proved the fact that she was destined to be larger than pegasi and unicorns.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, her horn glowing threateningly.
Instead of answering, I simply dumped out the makeshift saddle bags I brought with me. Out dropped all the vegetables I had been saving to give to her once I figured out how to get there. Instead of gasping for joy at the new food source, she just eyed me even more spectacularly.
“What do you want with me? You know I tried to hurt you already and I won’t forgive you for hurting Twilight.”
Her glare made all the near death experiences I’ve had up till this point crap themselves, throw in the white towel, and hide in the nearest fallout shelter waiting for the world to end. “Well that part about hurting Twilight was a lie. See I found it easier to get someone to chase me if they think I hurt someone close to them.” Her confused look made me realize that she was not following my logic. I proceeded to explain to her my entire paw in the events that led to her capture.
“That still doesn’t explain why I should trust you,” Cadance declared, though she no longer had the glow about her horn showing she was ready to zap me into Japony.
“Well I was hired by someone else to ensure you lived through the whole wedding fiasco, so here I am. You may want to eat up though, I’m not sure how long the food will stay well, since I doubt it was ever fresh,” I countered. Just to show another sign of faith, I floated over to a crystal near the roof of the chamber and landed my ass on top of it. “Can’t complete that job if you starve to death now can I?”
Cadance just looked at me suspiciously as she approached the food. After floating each object in a field, that I could only assume would tell her if it was poisoned, did she began to eat. And boy did she eat. I’ve seen pregnant women eat in a more calm demeanor than this mare before me did. Only time I was glad to be faster than anything else on the planet, since I could get away if she decided I looked tasty enough.
“So you all full now?” I inquired as she tossed the last giblet of food down her throat. After a swift nod, I continued on. “Well, then I’ll hopefully see you tomorrow with more food. Don’t want to develop any Stockholm Syndrome symptoms here.”
As I flew over towards the lever that would get me out of the room, Cadance shouted out to me, “I’m the Alicorn of Love you know. I can tell you are full of love, but pain clouds everything you do, why?” I ignored the question and pulled the lever, leaving a questioning pink mare behind me as the crystal that trapped her fell back into place.
After I managed to work my way back to the cell, I saw I had already missed dinner. Luckily Chrysalis had enough Changelings working in the castle that one was always there to deliver my food. After eating, I laid down to fall to sleep, with only one thought on my mind. ‘Jacob.’
The following week happened in much of the same manner. After breakfast I would find my way done to Cadance’s ‘cell’ and make sure she had food and water for the day. I would try my best to deflect personal questions she kept asking that I never shared with anyone else in the world, sans two people who have long since been dead.
Then one day, about a week towards the wedding, she caught me off guard.
“So what’s your daughter’s name?” Cadance asked in an all too innocent sounding voice. Before she could even take another breath, I had covered the space of the cavern, tackled her to the ground, had my claws against her neck and was bearing all of my teeth at her face.
“Who told you that?” I growled the words barely understandable. I was not happy that she knew I had a daughter. That information was restricted to a very harsh degree. I managed to convince Pinkie Pie to carry around a contract for everypony in Ponyville to sign swearing their silence on the matter under fear of retribution of a very pissed predatory parent. Needless to say, the town’s folk grudgingly signed the paper.
The fear I struck in Cadance however was almost as fast as me getting across the room. Her eyes dilated and I could hear how fast her heart was beating as her wings struggled to get her away from me. “Answer the question!”
“I...I figured it out,” Cadance said in a very timid manner in case I would lose control if she said the wrong thing. “I’m the Alicorn of Love and the love I sensed from you was distinctly a father’s love towards a daughter. I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to know.”
I slowly backed off the princess, though I kept my wings and claws prepped and ready to tear into someone. “Well what you figured out is highly sensitive information. You tell a soul and I’ll rip you in half; simple fact,” I growled towards her, my eyes never leaving her.
Cadance shakily got up and hurried back as far away from me as she could get, her wings prepped and ready to rocket her to safety if need be. “I’m sorry, I was just looking something we could talk about and it seemed safe enough of a topic,” she pleadingly explained. “It gets lonely down here, and you are the only company I’ve gotten since I was imprisoned so I just wanted to chat a little bit.”
Her pleading got to me. It was quite dull being in prison with no one to talk to up in my cell. I mean, I had already had that deep retrospective but no way to and when I get a chance to have an actual conversation, I’ve just been ignoring the other conversationalist. I slowly eased the tension in my wings and limbs, and forced myself to take a more relaxed appearance. “Fair enough, though anything said between us is 100% confidential. None of it is spread beyond these walls,” I muttered.
Cadance hastily nodded her head. “So what is her name?”
“Scootaloo.”
Cadance just looked at me, as if expecting me to keep talking. After a couple minutes of awkward silence she asked another question, “So is she a cynogriffin like you? I thought they were extinct?”
My ears perked up after hearing my species’ name. I’ve come to realize that cynogriffins weren’t very well remembered even in scary stories parents tell foals. Besides Gustave and Luna, no one had any idea what a cynogriffin was. Even Twilight had to research them a bit after I told her.
“No, she’s a pegasus filly I’m taking care of. And as for cynogriffins, I’m the last one,” I replied. “Why are you so inquisitive about my daughter?”
Cadance scuffed her hoof on the ground a bit before trying to change the topic a few times. My silent glare just deflected all of those and waited for the actual reply. “Oh fine, I asked cause I could sense the love for your daughter in you. Like I said, parental love has a distinct glow to it that romantic love lacks.”
She looked at me for a little longer with her horn glowing. “But is she your only child? You sorta have a faded glow hidden be- HEY WAIT!”
I never gave her the chance to finish because I stormed out of the room. The trip up was filled with the thoughts of “Just a few more days,” until a clambered into my cell. Dinner was waiting, and I ate and fell asleep.
The next day when I went to visit, Cadance caught me by surprise by levitating me in her magic right as I walked in. Apparently the daily rations did her a load of good. “What the fuck is this all about?”
She gave me her best ‘I’m concerned for your wellbeing so I’ll do what I want to get my way’ look I’ve only seen on girlfriends and teenage babysitters. “You’re hiding something, and you are going to tell me exactly what it is or you won’t be leaving this bubble mister!”
She even had the attitude of a teenage babysitter.
I growled, snapped, attempted to flap my wings, and claw my way out of the barrier, but nothing seemed to work. I resorted to an angry glare and a snort. When I didn’t respond she slowly tightened the holding on my cage.
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” I snarled out. “You don’t have the power to hold me for a long time anyway.”
Cadance just shook her head and spread her wings, “I’m an Alicorn in case you forgot. The only two beings with more magical power than I have are Celestia and Luna. I could hold you here for weeks. You aren’t exactly big.”
“That’s a low blow Cadance, and you know it.” I whined back. I’m somewhat sensitive about my size in this form, since I’m smaller than almost everything I have to kill. It gets upsetting when you have to look up at everything, a fact I shared with her.
“Sorry,” Cadance replied with the sincerity of a whore who got caught stealing from a client after drugging them asleep. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you aren’t getting out until you tell me the truth. I want to know what you are hiding behind!”
Her face took a much gentler look as she continued “We already swore nothing would leave this cave. I told you some of my most precious secrets to gain some trust. I just want to help you out as a friend.”
My glare let up as I thought of everything that’s happened these past weeks. I do recall that I had to comfort her after a few of her stories. THAT had been awkward, especially since I couldn’t remember much of the details. What I do recall though is that she laid out almost her entire life story to me, and I’ve barely told her about my life down here in this shiny hell hole.
“Fine,” I sighed in defeat. “It’s really tough story for me to tell, so I hope you have some tissues ready.” Cadance just shook her head but kept me in the bubble.
It all started when I got a phone call from my good friend Rebecca. The moment I answered it I knew something was wrong. She was in tears and it took me almost fifteen minutes of waiting and telling her to take her time and let it out before she told me what happened. Apparently she and her boyfriend, after having dated for almost a year, had decided to have sex. After a weekend of ‘passionate love’ he dumped her, having finally gotten what he wanted.
And the kicker of it all, was she just found out she was pregnant.
Now, Rebecca was probably one of the few people who I knew for my entire life. She was the one friend I had retained as I lost my baby sister, and continued with me through the whole thing.
So I did what I thought was necessary. I was on a plane back home the next day to make sure check up on her and make sure she wasn’t alone. The two of us had a very long talk about her past history and the choices she had. Her parents died when she was much younger, and was raised by her grandparents, who were both nearing the end of their lives too. I didn’t think she would be able to handle the loss of them and have an abortion so close together. Her arguments involved not being to afford the child and it having a bad home because of lack of funds.
I looked at her in the eyes, and told her how I would drop out of college and start working to support the baby if I had to, but I couldn’t stand by and watch her dispose of the baby. It took about three days of arguing, but eventually she agreed with me. The fact I called in her grandparents and getting them on my side helped as well.
The next nine months flew by. Before I knew it, I was holding a newborn boy in my arms. I have never been as happy as I was on that day, and the look of tired joy on Rebecca’s face showed she was in the same state of mind. That was by far the happiest moment in my life. The next year I spent slaving away at my office, doing pointless things to bring in a paycheck to help Rebecca and Jacob, whom she decided I was the father of now, financial support. I didn’t drive a car, having bought a van for the two of them. Pretty much all of the money I made went straight to taking care of my family.
And I didn’t care at all. I had never been happier in my life. While not a personally rewarding life, it was a good one.
So as all good stories would go; twas not to last. Every day I would take the train back from my job to my home town, and walk the ten or so blocks to get home. It really sucked on rainy days, and that day was no exception. A hurricane seemed to have blown through that evening. As I was walking up from the train stop, a bright red sports car blew past me, spraying me with water.
‘I hope that person crashes and burns,’ was the first thought that crossed my mind. Within a minute of that thought I heard a huge crash of metal up ahead of me. I instantly started jogging to the scene of the accident, in case my lackluster experience in medical training that I got in my only year of college could be of any help.
What I saw at the scene has forever chilled my soul.
The bright green mini-van like one I had had bought for Rebecca was in the middle of the street split clean in half. The red sports car that splashed me was perpendicular to it, with chunks of the van’s side paneling imbedded in the windshield. The copious amounts of blood swirling about the pavement dying the puddles red told me I shouldn’t waste time checking on the driver.
Instead, I was surveyed the rest of the wreck, hoping against hope that it was another car. Another mini-van that had the same stupid bumper sticker I had bought Rebecca that said ‘Baby on Board’ and one that also had Octavia’s (Rebecca’s favorite pony) cutie mark. I prayed to every god I knew of that the car seat I found in the middle of the wreckage face down was just a copy of the one I saw Rebecca paint. I prayed that the baby blanket soaked in blood that had rain pounding on it wasn’t the same I had purchased for Jacob as I reached done lift the car seat from the blood soaked pavement.
It was at that moment I lost all hope in gods of any kind.
I saw the ravages of the accident on the body of my son that day. He was long since dead, if the amount of blood was any given, or the multiple shards of glass in his abdomen.
I cried. I couldn’t tell if the rain or the tears made got me more soaked, but I bawled like I have never done before, even at my little sister’s funeral. Eventually the police showed up, and had to forcibly drag me away from the wreck as they started to gather evidence. The next memory I had was in Rebecca’s room at the hospital, explaining to her that her child was dead. She lost it just as I had, but seemingly worse. She became horribly depressed.
The next year was one of the roughest I had to endure. We managed to bury Jacob, with very few guests, like my friend Rick Walters, at the ceremony. The only reason I remember him there was because he drove Rebecca and me home. Within a month, Rebecca’s grandparents had succumbed to their old-age as well. I had to check her into a psych-ward two days later after finding her with ‘Fuck-Up’ carved into her arm.
Not even a week after I had checked her in did I get a letter in the mail from lawyers of the sports car owner. Apparently her parents were suing my ass for everything by placing the blame on Rebecca for the accident and their daughter’s death. The following months were hell as I tried to find a lawyer I could afford after the funeral costs and hospital fees.
And not even a year to my son’s death, I went to visit Rebecca and found her hanging from the ceiling of her psych ward.
That was when I fled to alcohol. I swiftly lost my job, had the banks going after my house after the botched court-case where the wealthy and privileged took everything from me, and had to let the state take care of Rebecca’s funeral. It was a month or so after this happened that the fateful night of me getting punched to Equestria occurred.
“And that’s the abridged version of what happened,” I muttered. I had long ago broken down into tears and ended up sobbing the second half of the story. Cadance had let me out of the bubble shortly after the first tears. Now the two of us were sitting in the prison crying.
For her part, Cadance looked like she was going to be sick. “I’m so sorry for having you relive that. If I knew,” she began.
“If you knew, you wouldn’t have asked. Now you do, so never ask again,” was my response. After taking a couple minutes, or more like an hour or two, to compose myself again, I growled out, “I hope you don’t mind if I cut our time early. I’d prefer to sleep in a bit before the wedding.” I didn’t give her a chance to respond before leaving for my cell.
I wish I could say I cried myself to sleep, but that’d be a lie. I just laid there on the bed thinking about the past, and everything I had done since. Wondering if I had just continually fucked up my life with every breath I took. My restless night filled with these thoughts before I finally was overcome with exhaustion and slipped into sleep.
The next day I stayed in my bed. Breakfast guard came and went, with me ignoring the meal, my thoughts being too wrapped up with the story I had explained to Cadance. It didn’t take long for me to reach the point of self-pity that nothing else mattered, not even food or freedom.
That is, until the bottom of by bed started glowing a purple hue. Before I could roll off the mattress, a purple beam of energy exploded through the floor and obliterated half of my cell and sending me and the bed slamming into the other side of the room and getting buried in some of the rubble.
“Twilight, was that necessary? I mean, I just found the chain to open the door,” I heard the Alicorn of Love mutter.
Attempting to get my head to stop spinning, I just closed my eyes and listened and smelled who the other person was. After a moment I figured out that while one was the aforementioned pink Alicorn, the other appeared to be Ponyville’s local librarian and Element of Magic wielder Twilight Sparkle.
“Sorry Cadance, I just can’t wait. We have to make sure Shining doesn’t marry that bug queen,” Twilight exclaimed. I could hear her start to pace back and forth on the floor with her hooves clip-clopping away. “If we don’t move fast enough than Canterlot will be in a lot of trouble, so we don’t have time to waste in finding levers.”
“Oh, what a shame that a city would be in trouble, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before,” I growled out from beneath the rubble. “Now will one of you get this shit off of me?”
“Zeta?!” Twilight yelped. She quickly moved all the debris she caused to crush me as she kept asking questions. “What are you doing here? Did you get arrested by the changelings? What do you mean hasn’t happened before?”
As I shook out the bits of rock and dust from my wings and coat, I began to formulate a witty remark, but Cadance cut me off by asking her own question. “Zeta, if I were to offer you both a Royal Favor and a large sum of bits, would you help in defending Canterlot from the onslaught it will soon face?”
I looked between Twilight’s confused face and Cadance’s pleading one as I thought over the request. If I timed it right, I’d have finished the job for Chrysalis and Knightmare before taking Cadance’s job, so there’d be no repercussions for switching sides so quickly. That and the possibility of a Royal Favor was just a bit to tantalizing of a prize.
“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” I began, taking a little too much joy from watching Cadance wince at her full name, “You have got yourself a deal.”
~{WWP}~