Flicker
The air was humid, heavy with the lack of ventilation and numerous bodies enclosed in the narrow pathways. Grunts and groans could be heard in all angles as the workers toiled, no respite or light at the end. This work was involuntary and unpleasant. But to Spike, there was a small reward, and a slight chance of escape.
It had been perhaps three days since Spike was first chained to the cart carrying loads of gems between digging sites and home base. At first he had struggled with the cart, requiring the assistance of a young griffin, also taken prisoner. As the days had progressed however, he had felt more and more resentment towards the dogs, helping him with his strength when he pushed.
Spike recalled that when he would help Rarity with her gems it was a lot more easy going than this. He would work to dig out the gems and pull the cart, but it was the return of gratitude that she gave him that was all he wanted. She would even give him water without his asking and commend his work, something that these dogs didn’t do.
Seeing this young griffin work for nothing all day and every day such as he used to do brought out a feeling inside of him. It was a feeling he couldn’t understand.
“Hate,” Spike heard a voice say quietly beside him.
“What?” Spike asked, turning towards the young griffin.
“I hate this place. I want to go home,” She said.
Her name was Lis, something Spike learned after she was first assigned to the cart. She had been much more cheerful when she was first brought in, and would talk quietly to Spike when there was a break. Recently, she had become mute, speaking only to inform Spike of a problem or to complain.
“We’ll get out of here, eventually,” Spike tried to assure her.
Upon first arriving, Spike had hoped that his friends would come to his rescue, as they had done many times over the years. They always had a way to know when he was in danger. Now, however, as he was staring at the sweat that fell down Lis’ face, he wondered if it was even a possibility. They had no idea he was in trouble.
“How do you know?” Lis asked, as if sensing his uncertainty.
Spike looked away, not wanting to answer her question. “I don’t,” Spike replied, biting his lip in an attempt not to look back at Lis’ face. He was sure he would find tears, and that was something he wouldn’t be able to look away from.
“Push!” Spike heard an unpleasant voice cry at them.
The Diamond Dog swung his whip to the pair, striking Spike in the arm. Lis started pushing against the cart, fearing retaliation from the cruel whip. She had difficulty getting it to budge until Spike pushed as well. The two of them got the cart rolling down the tracks, headed back to home base to be loaded off.
Spike could feel the stinging that the whip had given him. Against his scales it was minimal, but there was force behind the whip to sting. He wanted to rub it, to treat it as best as he could, but if he didn’t push they would never get the cart back. So along the rickety and lengthy railway they struggled. It took about ten minutes to push the cart back, taking longer than normal the longer the day went.
During their trip, Spike looked at where the whip struck and remembered a vague memory of Fluttershy bandaging a similar wound. She had gently cleaned and inspected the wound before wrapping the bandage around it. He remembered her worried face when he showed her, and the stern warning about being careful the next time he helped Rarity with her gems.
“The next one’s ‘ere,” The Diamond Dog at the end of their push cried out. He was in charge of the railway and ensured that it went smoothly.
Spike and Lis were given a brief rest as the cart was derailed and replaced with an empty one. Afterwards, the two of them prepared themselves to push the cart back. They were stopped however, by a deep voice.
“Stop, take with you,” The overseer said, throwing something heavy into the cart.
“Watch it!” The something said, poking her head from the cart. She was wearing a metal muzzle with tiny holes in it. It was the same that Spike had at first had to wear. They eventually took it off when he agreed to cooperate.
“She’s a batty one, watch her,” The overseer said to the Diamond Dog in charge of making sure the prisoners were behaving.
“I might look like a bat, but I’m still a dragon,” Cilia, made obvious by her looks, retorted.
“Shut it, we call you whatever,” The sightseer responded.
“Move!” The other Diamond Dog said to Spike.
After the strike Spike had received, he followed his orders and pushed the cart forward with Lis’ help. Pushing a dragon of Cilia’s size was about as difficult as pushing a cart of gems. After a minute of pushing, Spike noticed that Cilia was watching him as he pushed.
“What?” Spike asked in between grunts.
“I thought for sure you would’ve been dead by now, but I guess slavery is the same thing,” Cilia responded with an icy tone.
“You’re here too,” Spike retorted, focusing his efforts back to pushing.
“Oh, but I’m here for a much better reason. One that more suits my… talents,” Cilia responded.
When Spike and Lis had reached the area where the cave continued, Cilia was taken out of the cart and put to work with the others. Collectively they were digging into the rock to expand the cave system and put any found gems into the cart. Strife and Cilia would use their claws to scrape into the rock like sifting through sand. Their claws were so sharp that they were constantly watched by the Diamond Dogs, carrying whips and spears.
“Who is she?” Lis asked Spike while no one was listening.
“Cilia, she’s a dragon,” Spike responded.
“I knew that, but how do you know her?” Lis asked.
“I don’t,” Spike considered, wondering just what Cilia was planning.
The rest of the day went by smoothly, with three more trips of gem hauling before they were released from the day’s struggles. Strife was having short bursts of conversation with Cilia, but other than that he remained quiet. Cilia would speak to nobody else, not even Spike, and slept without a sound in her cell.
Spike and Lis were sharing the same cell, due to the lack of space from the recent ‘recruits’. When their dinner of stale bread and mushroom soup came in, Lis decided to take an early shuteye. Spike kept the worms and smaller bugs away from her share in case she changed her mind.
She snored softly, and it reminded Spike of when Twilight had once confronted him of his snoring. Twilight was being nice one day and let him sleep through his chores. She was rewarded by loud snoring around the time that Rainbow Dash had come to talk about Daring Doo. By the end of the day, Spike was covered in marker drawings and was left with a sticky note telling him to stop snoring so loud. As he watched Lis sleep, he didn’t find it annoying in the least, it actually felt comforting to see Lis smile for once.
Spike stared up at the ceiling, feeling the exhaustion of the day and the yearnings for rest drag him deeper into a need for sleep himself. His eyes had become heavy and he let them fall. Just as they were closing, he heard a whimper on the only bed in their cell.
Spike looked up to Lis’ bed, feeling a pain inside him as he remembered the small, yet meaningful, whimper he had heard. Something had to change. Perhaps he could make it through this slavery, but Spike had noticed that Lis was getting thinner, not eating, and was getting tired easily. Even in her young and small griffin state, it was concerning.
After promising to himself and Lis in his mind that he would find a way out, he laid his head down, preparing for a daring and heroic attempt at escape. He did not sleep well that night, and was pulled into an array of nightmares ranging from death to being abandoned by his friends. The final nightmare was the face of Twilight, disappointed in him, before fading from his view.
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Spike was awoken by Lis, her face only illuminated by the light glow of the gems on the walls. The lanterns had been turned off for the night, and he could barely make out a tear on her cheek. Spike wanted to ask if she was okay, but she spoke first.
“It’s okay, we’ll get through this,” Lis said, attempting to reassure Spike of his nightmares.
Spike remembered her whimper, the promise he made for the both of them, and the nightmares. There was nopony to save him now, and if he was ever going to stop being a ‘baby dragon’, then he’d need to act like it.
“Yeah, we will,” Spike said, pulling her into a warm embrace. He could feel the wet spot on her neck, the area where her tears had sunk into the feathers.
When they had separated and gone back to their separate sleeping areas, Spike had Cilia on his mind. If there was a way out of here, she would be the one to go to.
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The next morning, Spike and Lis were put on food duty, scooping spoonfuls of goop for the Diamond Dogs and Griffins. Apparently the Diamond Dogs enjoyed the goop as just a meal, and that the other races were just ungrateful of their hospitality.
“Hey, you in?” Spike heard a voice ask him. He looked up from the plate he was serving.
Cilia was looking at him with knowing eyes, purple and black knowing eyes that knew the question Spike would ask before he asked it.
“When?” Spike asked, already confident that this was her plan since she first arrived.
“Tomorrow, first thing,” Cilia responded, her cold voice and piercing gaze telling Spike that this was no small plan. Things were going to get rough.
“We’re in,” Spike said, just as Cilia stepped away from Spike’s reach.
The next to be served was Strife. His eye had a black mark around it, as well as both his wings. One of his scales was missing, taken to show dominance from one top of the food chain to another. Still, that did not take away his grin as Spike served him some food.
“Tomorrow,” Strife repeated quietly.
Spike nodded and served his food.
After Spike and Lis finished serving the food, they received their own portions and ate quickly. The first cart was always filled faster than the rest, and it was always the most packed. They managed to push it to the station and back with ease, but Spike could feel a tension among the Diamond Dogs. They were whispering and pointing at the prisoners, almost as if they were scheming.
“Get moving!” The guard said as he sent his whip to the pair at the cart.
Spike didn’t react fast enough before the whip hit Lis on the side. Blood leaked from the wound as she cried out in pain. Time slowed to a crawl as Spike watched Lis’ face turn to pain and then sadness. Spike felt his heartbeat in the back of his mind. It raced as the blood slowly trailed past her talon holding the wound and down the arm. Spike’s mouth opened, his eyes a blazing fire that he didn’t know he could muster.
“Stop.”
Spike couldn’t speak as the cold and demanding voice cut through the fog of the moment. The Diamond Dogs turned their attention to Cilia, who was facing Spike and squinting her eyes at him. Her eyes were like cold daggers that threatened to cut down his rage.
“Get back to work,” Cilia continued, surprising the Diamond Dogs that were about to say the same to her.
Spike was shaking, his body unwilling to comply with her words. His eyes drifted to the Diamond Dog that had struck Lis. Anger had filled his eyes, and his claws were digging into his sides. Cilia’s gaze was digging even deeper, a cruel gaze to match his own. His mouth was hot, a fire that leaked out of his mouth like saliva.
“Work!” The guard demanded, pulling his whip up for another strike.
Spike fell back in pain as he was pinned down to the ground. His body was convulsing, fire emptying from his mouth and striking the air above him. He was forced to stop moving by piercing eyes that looked down at him. Cilia was standing on him, her broken chains adding to her weight.
“I said stop,” Cilia said in a whisper.
Spike stopped struggling, his pain making itself known in every limb that Cilia held down. He took a discomforted breath but Cilia remained on top. Her eyes never left Spike’s.
“Off!” One of the Diamond Dogs ordered.
The Diamond Dog with the whip was confused. He took a look at his whip, which he was sure that he had lashed at Spike. The end of it was singed by what he presumed was fire, but he had not seen any. When he had collected his thoughts, he realized something else. Cilia had broken from her chains.
“You!” He ordered to Cilia. “Back to work!” He said, pointing to the line of workers that had stopped to witness the event.
Cilia returned to the line, this time attaching two chains to her. Supposedly this was to help keep her chained up.
“You two! Back to work!” The Diamond Dog ordered, whipping Spike as he leaned on the cart. He didn’t feel the whip on his side, his scales helping with that. However, he did feel the blood that trickled from the cuts on his limbs. The scales were cracked and some had broken off. He took a quick glance to Cilia before looking back to the cart.
Spike didn’t look at Lis, not wanting to see the griffin’s pain. Instead of bubbling the fire he held inside of him, he threw himself at the cart and pushed with his remaining rage. Lis made it look like she was helping, but Spike’s efforts were more than enough. It was during one of these rage filled pushes that Spike remembered one of the few times he had felt angry.
Rainbow Dash had used him as a weight while she flew, supposedly to help her get faster. At first it was smooth sailing, and Spike enjoyed the view and the wind on his face. During one of these weighted trips, however, she lost control of her movements and crashed into Rarity’s Boutique, scattering all of her work from the past week. Her anger was directed at the both of them, but to Spike it was like a dagger that she twisted into his heart. It didn’t help that she had to cancel their plans to finish what had been ruined.
Spike later became angry with Rainbow Dash, who replied that it was an accident, but Spike didn’t listen. He didn’t speak to her for a whole week after that, until Twilight forced them to make up and had Spike apologize for getting upset. Even during the apology he still hadn’t forgiven Rainbow Dash, but that was changed after she managed to get Rarity to go with them to a Wonderbolts show.
By the time nighttime came, Spike had exhausted every resource he had. His muscles ached from the work and pain, and his mind ached from the repression of anger. Lis was quiet, but she glanced to Spike’s wounds, as if she blamed herself for what happened. When the lights went out for them all to sleep, Spike was still awake, digging deep in his mind to remember the last time he felt this angry. He couldn’t think of anything. Spike realized something as he remembered his friend’s departing happy faces.
If you don't watch it, the fire you carry will burn.
And it will blaze.