Samantha put a hoof on Silver's back as she secured straps and buckles that had been torn free moments before. "This is for your safety. We're both perfectly aware you could tear yourself free at any moment."
Silver snorted softly. "If you know that, and with the reputation I seem to have around here, why are you happy to keep working with me instead of running and screaming?"
She raised a brow lightly. "Didn't I say this? I don't hate you. You're absolutely fascinating. I want to learn more." Her magic reached up and snagged a device that seemed designed to hold something open. "Could you open wide for me and say 'ahhh'?"
Silver clenched her teeth. "You can't make me. Why should I?" Her words were muffled by her held jaw as she glared at the scientist.
"No, I suppose I can't." Samantha sighed. A syringe floated beside her. "I could send you to sleep if you prefer, but I'd really rather have your cooperation. I've read your reports." She leaned in, almost nose-to-nose. "You like science. You like curiosity. Well, I'm curious. Let me be curious, for science. I'll tell them you were a perfect angel if you do as I ask."
Silver's jaw relaxed, and she let out a slow sigh as she opened her mouth. "What are you even look--" Her words were cut off as the cold metal was slid in and locked in place, holding her mouth open. She wondered for a moment if she could crush the device if she decided to do so. It was only a few thin sheets of metal...
Samantha peered into the open snout with a soft hmm of curious appreciation. "Besides, your chosen mate is Princess Twilight Sparkle, is she not? You should be quite used to these examinations." Silver felt something tapping at the inside of her chin. "I imagine she has you strapped down like this frequently."
Silver flushed softly. She had invited Twilight to do so, but there was always something keeping one or the both of them distracted. It almost felt like cheating to have another scientist probing at her before Twilight had her chance. "What is this increased temperature for? Is being examined a sexual act?" She raised a brow. "Would that relax you?"
Silver quickly shook her head and Samantha shrugged. "Very well, now as I was saying..." She reached in with her prodding tool and touched the back of Silver's mouth. The gag reflex was intense, if brief. "You may be pleased to know you're depressingly standard in the throat, though this..." She heard a soft rapping of the instrument tapping at her fangs. "You've killed with these, from what I read. Cardiac arrest due entirely to traumatic mental stimulation." She sat down, swaying the tool left and right as she swayed a little with it. "I'd like to see that. Will you show it to me?"
Attempts to speak were muffled at best and Samantha sighed. The holding tool was drawn free of Silver. "There. You were saying?"
"I don't want to kill anyone."
She put a hoof over her chest. "Not even me?"
"No! You're not even bad, I think. A little weird, yes..."
Samantha flashed her flat teeth. "You, calling me strange? How amusing. To answer the question you haven't asked, I'm not human."
"Why the human name?"
She leaned in. "I was hoping you'd say that." She made a scribble on a notepad floating beside her. "So you are aware of humans enough to know their naming conventions. And they said you were uncooperative. You're a perfect specimen." She smiled like a child gazing at a favored toy. "I wish I could keep you forever, or at least until I figured it all out."
Silver licked over her lips and fangs as she tried to figure out her captor. "What are you trying to figure out?"
"Oh? You want to know? More than, say, getting out, or getting your child back?"
Silver shrank back. "Is he safe? Please, he did--"
Samantha put a hoof on Silver's nose. "Answer me this. Why do you care what happens to him?"
Silver's eyes went wide. "Why? He's a foal. My foal! But anyone's foal is worth rescuing. I just want him safe. He doesn't deserve this."
She tapped her chin. "And we should care... why?"
Silver reared up as best she could without tearing the straps on her. "Because you're ponies, and decent people? Whatever crimes I committed, punish me for them, not him."
She moved around Silver slowly and approached a slowly spewing sheet of paper. "I'm not a decent person. I like to think I'm not awful, certainly." She lifted the paper, looking it over critically. "I'm sorry we met this way, but here we are. My mother was a human. They say producing me was the greatest pain she ever experienced, and the last." She brought out a pair of spectacles and draped it over her snout as she leaned in at the paper. "It was her choice to come here. Her choice to breed with my father. Her choice to carry me." She looked up from the notes to Silver. "Your choice to lay here, willing to sacrifice yourself for your own child."
Silver's ears flipped back. "I'm sorry, for your loss."
A little derisive laugh was her answer. "I never met her. I can't miss her. All I've ever had of her is a few photos. She's a fact. A figure..." She rapidly approached Silver and slammed a hoof beside her head. "Why are you a pony?"
Silver flinched back from the sudden violence. "Huh? Several ponies tried to make me one of them before I ended up with Luna, and went in permanently."
Samantha slowly tilted her head. "Just like that?" She slipped back to the ground and turned away. "Father said she... Nevermind that." She took off the glasses and threw them in her magic, just for them to vanish a few inches away. "Your readings are fascinating. Your blood sample's not anything I could recognize. You really are a fine example of... whatever you are." She reared up and reached for a few knobs closer to the top of her blinking machine. "You don't even understand. You fuse so many things together, casually. You don't even start to comprehend the forces at war within you."
Silver licked over her lips. She wanted to reply, but she wasn't sure what to say. Samantha sounded impassioned, and curious. "Is this bad?"
"Bad?" She turned to Silver. "Is a fire bad, simply for being there? No, we need fire, as much as ponies try to avoid it in their little towns. A flame that escapes an oven doesn't suddenly become 'evil'." She strode up towards Silver. "But make no mistake. You are a fire, Silver Stars. You are burning. I want to know what you will ignite, and what you will become when the flames are gone. What sort of ash will you make, Silver Stars? I want to know." She pulled down a new syringe. It looked empty, and its needle was horrifically long. "This will hurt."
Silver skipped back, or tried. The attempted spell created a nasty backlog of magic against the ring on her horn and filled her with a savage headache for a moment. It was long enough for Samantha to press the needle in at the base of her horn and angle it upwards, piercing further and further into it. Silver wanted it gone, to break free, but was equally terrified that thrashing around would cause even more harm as the metal slid into her inch after painful inch. "Shhhh. Be still and it'll be done shortly." Samantha was a mare of her word, at least, and drew the syringe clear of Silver's new ache, filled with fluid that glowed the soft silver of Silver's magic. "There we are."
Samantha moved to her machine and inserted the syringe into it. "You reall--"
The angry stallion from before burst in. "Your time is up! He wants her, now!"
Samantha scowled at the stallion. "Tell him to be patient. She's being very reasonable, and I'm getting all the research data I want."
He stomped firmly. "Time. Is. Up." He stormed to Silver's side with a snort. "Trying to sweeten up your captor? Too bad! She's not it." He kicked a lever to undo the straps. "Get up, and get moving. You so much as look at me funny, you get punished, and your little brat dies in front of you."
~I'll inform him of your reactions.~
Silver looked up towards Samantha, who gave the faintest of nods, but didn't try to talk.
"Move it!"
Silver stepped away from the table, going where she was directed down a new hallway. She wondered as she walked how she could feel sadness for leaving behind Samantha. Was the cold torture of the scientist better than the unknown before her? She ventured to speak. "Sir?"
He kicked her in the flank for daring it. "Keep your mouth shut! If he wants to talk to you, he'll say so. I'll have none of your silver-tongued lies."
Leading her up to a stately pine door, he reached past her and knocked on it with several clops of a hoof. "Come in," came a soft voice from beyond.
He pushed the door open. "Silver's here, inquisitor."
A white stallion swiveled in a very comfortable-looking chair. His long blond hair hung about his face in a finely-groomed fashion as he gazed at Silver with blue eyes that stared at her with far more intensity than she ever would have expected of the pony she once knew as a cartoon. "Leave us. I will speak with the heretic directly. May destiny have mercy on us."
"Have mercy on us." The angry stallion left without further word, but spared a moment to glare at Silver before closing the door.
"Blueblood?" Silver was stunned. Of all the ponies it could be...
"Prince Blueblood." He slid from the chair. "It is a rare... pleasure... to greet a fellow prince, and a mare? I might have never assumed this day would arrive. Was she rough on you?"
A fine white linen napkin floated to her and draped over her face, blocking her view for a moment before she could raise a hoof and brush it off, only to see blood had specked over it. She paled lightly and cleaned the injury as best she could.
"She is... overeager at times. Put her out of your thoughts, for now. We have things to discuss, Prince Silver Stars." He gazed at her evenly. She couldn't tell if he was being friendly, or simply prying for information.
Silver nodded softly. "Please, let him go. You have me."
"Auntie may think little of me, but I have not entirely wasted my education." He raised a finely groomed brow lightly. "If there is no collateral, you will bring about your revenge quite swiftly. He is safe, and will continue to be so, and not here."
No threat? "As long as I continue to cooperate?"
Blueblood smiled gently. "I'm not so barbaric. I have no intention of harming your foal. Mind you, should I go... missing, the others that hold him may act on their own initiative. Let us not come to such an unfortunate circumstance, yes?"
Silver gave a stiff nod. "I understand. I didn't come here for revenge or violence. Tell me what I did wrong." She tapped the ground with a hoof. "Tell me how to make it right. I'm not a monster."
He shook his head at her. "I believe you. At least, I am certain you have no desire to be a beast. You simply are one. Poor lady. I can see that rejection burning in your eyes. You so desperately want to hide beneath the blanket of pony flesh. Hide away from the horror, both that you've made, and seen."
Silver raised her head. "Stop that. Being a pony is no excuse... Some of the things your people have said, and done to and around me. They are not befitting 'ponies', as we would idealize. Being a monster is a choice. I want peace."
He smiled slowly. "We shall see. Sit. It is impolite to have this conversation on our hooves."