I had been locked inside a small shack. It was dark; the holes and cracks in the walls through which small rays of sunlight filtered in were my only sources of light. Not that there was anything to see. It did at least give me a sense for the space of my confinement, though.
I was left alone in there all day. I didn't bother trying to escape; the wood looked flimsy, and I probably could have simply kicked the door open and made a run for it, but there was nothing for me out there—it could be no better than where I was. So I stayed. I huddled in the back corner and waited quietly. What I waited for, I didn't really know. I only waited.
When night came, my cell became pitch black. It was as though that inky abyss that I had seen in the sky the night before had returned to come down and embraced me with its cold, amorphous emptiness.
I tried to sleep, but only tossed and turned and shivered all through the night.
***
The morning came, and with it the first rays of light pierced through the darkness I had been wrapped in. The light hurt my eyes, and I turned to face the corner to hide from it. But I couldn't escape the light.
The door opened and the sun came flooding in. I turned my head to look. Squinting against the blinding glare, I could make out only the silhouette of a pony.
The figure entered and closed the door behind itself. Everything went dark again until my eyes readjusted to it. My visitor was an older stallion. His mane was thinning, and he had a gaunt face with sunken eyes.
"I ain't never seen two raiders all by their lonesome," he said at length. His voice was raspy and guttural, and he slurred a little as his tongue and lips slipped against gaps in his teeth. "You boys come here to scout us out, hmm? You got friends waiting for ya? Speak up, boy."
"I'm not a raider," I wheezed. My throat was dry. I bowed my head and splayed my ears. "There's nobody else. I'm alone. I'm sorry we tried to attack you. I didn't want to, but we were hungry and thirsty. So thirsty . . ." I looked up at him pleadingly. "Water . . . please . . ."
"You think I got water to spare? Certainly not for no damn raider who'd just as soon kill me an' mine to take it. If you wanna keep breathing, you'd best start telling the truth."
"I am! Please, I swear! I'm not here to hurt anyone!"
He snorted and turned back to the door. Again the light blinded me, and I raised my foreleg to shield my eyes from it as he stood in the doorway, looking back in at me.
"We'll get what we need out of you. You just sit tight, little bird."
And then the door closed, and I was alone in the dark.
***
The door opened, and I was again blinded by the light from outside, which had only grown in intensity since I had first been visited. The door then closed with a loud slam, and while my eyes were still readjusting to the darkness, I rose to meet my captor. But before I could even see, I was shoved bodily back down to the ground.
"Don't you look me in the eye, you raider filth!" The voice was different—a mare's. Her tone was gruff and teeming with contempt.
"I'm sorry!" I whimpered hoarsely as I kept my eyes down and put my forelegs up to guard my head.
"You ain't sorry enough!" she bellowed. "Stand up. I said stand up!" She punctuated her demand with a kick to my ribs when I didn't get up fast enough for her.
I had barely gotten to my feet when she charged me. She pinned me up against the wall and pressed her face close to mine. I struggled weakly, gasping for breath as she choked me with a foreleg pressed against my throat.
"How many of your raider friends are out there, roaming around looking for an easy target?" she asked, showering my face in her rotten breath and spittle.
"I don't . . . I'm not a . . . can't . . . breathe," I choked out.
I began to feel dizzy, and was near to passing out when the mare released me. I collapsed to the ground, coughing as I took in deep breaths of the stale air. As I tried to hold myself upright, I felt aware of her presence looming over me. And just as I began to catch my breath, she pulled me up by my foreleg and hurled me against the far wall, where I crashed against it and crumpled back down to the floor. I didn't try to get up again. I only lay there, breathing as steadily as I could manage, and waited for the next blow to come.
But it didn't. I shielded my eyes once more against the blinding glare as the door opened again.
"You think about that for a while, little bird," the mare said as she closed the door.
***
While waiting for the next round of interrogation, I could only lie on the cold, hard-packed dirt floor and watch the small rays of light that filtered in through the cracks in the wood as they slowly moved from one side of the shack to the other over the course of the day.
It was late in the evening, almost when those rays of light would vanish and leave me in complete darkness until morning, when I heard hoofsteps. Then one of the rays of light flickered. I sat up and faced the door, and I waited.
And nothing happened.
I saw one of the rays from along the side of the shack go dark, as though obstructed. It was from one of the larger gaps where the corner of a wooden plank was missing. When I turned to look at it, I heard a small gasp and the obstruction moved away.
"H—hello?" I whispered cautiously. "Is somepony there?"
There was silence for a moment, and then the ray went dark again. "You don't look like a raider," came a voice. It was a young voice—a colt's—filled with the insatiable curiosity of youth and the calm absence of fear that accompanies such innocence.
"I'm not a raider," I said as I moved closer to the wall.
"Ms. Grift says you are. Says you and another was fixin' to raid us 'fore she killed the other and caught you." He paused. "Papa says raiders have teeth like knives, and they got ugly scars all over, and they got mean things for cutie marks, like skulls and blood and stuff."
I put on a big, toothy smile. "My teeth aren't sharp. See? And I hardly have any scars. And look at my cutie mark"—I turned to the side—"only a puzzle piece."
A soft humming came from through the wall as the boy apparently took some time to consider the evidence presented to him before declaring, "Okay. You're not a raider."
I breathed a sigh of relief that someone finally believed me. I told him my name, and he told me his. "Do you have your cutie mark yet, Slate?" I asked.
"Not yet." His answer didn't sound embarrassed, nor was it tainted by impatient anxiety. He was still quite young, and with plenty of time to figure out what he would be. "Papa says he'll let Ms. Grift teach me to shoot to see if I have any talent for it. Says he'll be real proud if I get a bullseye or crosshair or something for a cutie mark."
I reached up and put a hoof against the wall that separated us. That was no way for a little foal to be growing up. I felt my heart sink down into the pit of my stomach. I wasn't in a place I could do anything about it, though.
With my jaw trembling, I said the only thing I could bear to say in way of encouragement to the curious little boy, "I'm sure you'll find what's right for you."
There was a pause, and then he said, "I have to go now. Bye." Dim light shone through the small hole again.
"Wait!" I cried out, and the boy's shadow returned. "I . . . I'm so lonely here. Please don't go."
He hesitated. "Momma's calling. She'll hit me if I don't come home right away."
Cringing, I pressed my face against the wall and sighed. "Go. Go on then. If she gets mad, tell her it was my fault. Tell her to punish me instead for keeping you."
He didn't say anything more. I heard only the rapid beat of his hooves as he scampered off home.
***
It was later that night when the mare from earlier stormed into the shack, nearly knocking the door off its hinges as she flung it open. I stood up in alarm, but before I could say anything I felt her hoof against the side of my face. My head wrenched to the side, and I stumbled over onto the ground. Instinctively, I curled into a ball, and she started kicking me, mostly in the back, which was already bruised and sore. She rolled me over and stomped on my gut once before she finished. I nearly passed out, choking for breath with the wind knocked out of me. I would have thrown up if my stomach hadn't been empty. As it was, though, the dry heaving only made it harder to breathe.
The whole time she never said anything. And neither did I. We both knew why she was there. And after she left me, coughing and gasping, spitting blood from a split lip, I slowly drifted off to sleep.
It was the most restful sleep I'd had since leaving the stable.