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Chapter One: The First Night1,484 words
Chapter Two: A Deal with the Devil3,105 words
Chapter Three: The Great Escape2,841 words

Chapter One: The First Night

The Fort was Equestria’s highest security prison. For the twenty-two years in which it had been used since being built, only a few ponies had ever managed to escape from it, and even then there were rumours that the escapees had died shortly after escaping.

The secret to the Fort’s success, and what made it so hard to escape from, was ironically enough, what made its name a misnomer. The Fort was a flying airship powered by magic, constantly surrounded by a force field. Anypony who wished to try to escape was welcome to try – they’d just need to find some way to get past the guards, disable the force field, and somehow survive the fall down to the ground. The only way onto and off the Fort was via a pegasus chariot used for transporting guards and prisoners, which was heavily guarded – not that it stopped prisoners for trying to escape using it.

No pegasi had ever been imprisoned on the Fort for the simple reason that escape would be easier for them. The inmates consisted solely of unicorns –with their use of magic heavily restricted – and Earth ponies. Right now, one of those Earth ponies was feeling horribly depressed.

“I can’t believe we’ve been sent to the Fort,” said Octavia, staring out of the bars of the cell which she and her marefriend Vinyl had been put into earlier that day. “So much for those concerts I was planning on going to after your trial… for going to see you open at that new club…spending time in our home…together…”

“Why so glum, Octavia?” asked Vinyl Scratch, a small smile on her face.

Octavia sighed. “Gee, I don’t know, Vinyl,” she said, downcast. “Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that for the next ten years, this cell is going to be our home, between you getting framed for murder and me unintentionally submitting inadmissible evidence in court.” Her ears drooped. “I didn’t even realise that submitting that evidence would get me sent to jail – I was expecting a fine or something.”

“That’s a silly reason to be down, Octavia!” said Vinyl.

“Oh, really?” Octavia asked. “What makes you say that?”

Vinyl Scratch grinned. “Because I have a plan to get us out of here.”

Octavia’s ears pricked up. “Really? What is it?” she asked, a feeling of hope blooming in her chest.

Vinyl faltered. “I – well, I’m still putting it together, but – I promise you, it’s gonna be awesome! It’s gonna involve explosions, and cool team-ups, and, and, and – skydiving or something!”

“Oh. Sounds awesome,” said Octavia, her tone low and sad.

“H-hey, I swear, I’ll get us out of here, Octavia,” said Vinyl, her voice shaking slightly. “I just need a little bit of time to work something out, okay?”

“I’m sure you will, Vinyl,” said Octavia, turning and walking to the bunk bed Vinyl was currently sitting on the top of. “Sorry for being so down, by the way,” she commented. “It’s just –I’m still processing that this is actually happening. We’ve actually been locked up in the Fort, the highest security prison in Equestria. How did this happen?”

“I blame the Marefia,” said Vinyl Scratch, jumping off the top bed of the bunk. “We know that they were behind my frame and the trial which got you convicted – they probably pulled some further strings behind the scenes to get us locked up in here.”

“Wow. Excellent. We know how we ended up in this hellhole,” said Octavia bitterly. “I’m sure that we’ll be able to convince the guards to let us out now.”

“Ah, cheer up, Octavia,” said Vinyl, stroking the Earth pony’s face softly. “Until we escape, I’m sure that we’ll adapt to this place. I mean, hell, this is just like the old days for me!”

Octavia’s face jerked upwards to look at Vinyl. “You were in prison once?”

“What?” Vinyl asked, frowning. “No! I used to have a bunk bed!”

That made Octavia giggle, at least. “Oh? Who did you share it with?” she asked.

“Nopony!” Vinyl said cheerfully. “I just got it because bunk beds are cool, y’know?”

Octavia laughed, surprising herself. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she asked. She leaned forwards and gave Vinyl a quick kiss on the lips.

“See, you’re already happier!” Vinyl said, grinning both from the kiss and from seeing her marefriend happy. “You just need to look on the positive side of things!”

“Oh? Well pray tell, what are some of the positives to this situation?” Octavia asked. “Aside from sharing a confined space with the sexiest mare in Equestria, of course.”

Vinyl’s grin grew. “Now we have all of the time in the world to play the greatest game in existence -”

“Is this another of your roleplay things? Because we can probably get some handcuffs-”

“- Vinylball!” declared Vinyl.

Octavia stopped speaking, and instead gave Vinyl a strange look. “…Vinylball?” she asked.

“It’s simple!” said Vinyl enthusiastically. “We each start out with thirty points. The first pony to ten Vinylpoints wins. You gain one Vinylpoint for each time you cheat, and since getting four aces counts as cheating, you lose for breaking the rules if that happens. Are you following so far?”

“…What?” asked Octavia, not paying attention as Vinyl continued rambling.

“…and then when you get the ball in the ring, pick up from your deck until you’ve got five Vinylpoints,” finished Vinyl. “So, shall we play?”

In response, all that Octavia could do was burst out laughing. “Vinyl Scratch, you are honestly the silliest mare I know. But that’s why I love you.” Reaching out with her hooves, she grabbed Vinyl and pulled her in for a lengthy kiss.

“I have no idea what I said to get that, but I’m not complaining!” said Vinyl cheerfully as Octavia pulled away.

Octavia smiled. After her and Vinyl’s sentence in court had been declared, Octavia had spent the remaining few days before being sent to jail sinking further and further into a pool of misery and self-loathing. And now, for the first time since before the trial, Octavia was smiling, something which Vinyl had thought wouldn’t be happening any time soon. To her, it looked absolutely beautiful.

“You’re too good for this place,” Vinyl whispered, brushing a hoof through Octavia’s mane. “I swear, I’ll find a way to get you – to get us both out of here. Mark my words.”

“That would be nice,” Octavia replied softly. Without speaking, the two ponies lay down onto the bottom bed, their hooves wrapped around each other. For several minutes, they were completely silent, content to lay there with the warmth of the other around them. While they were like this, together, they could be content to just lie there and pretend that they weren’t in this terrible place, to pretend that they were still back home where everything was fine and they were safe and happy.

In the darkness, Vinyl leaned forwards and kissed Octavia softly on the lips. Although in the back of her mind she knew it wasn’t true, Vinyl felt like she was to blame for the two of them being in jail – after all, if she hadn’t been framed for murder, or if she could have found her own way out of the situation, then neither of them would be in this situation. And so as she kissed Octavia, she tried to use the kiss to apologise – to tell Octavia that she knew how badly she’d screwed up, how much she wished she could take back her mistake, and how much she was going to make up for it. After she was done kissing Octavia, who kissed her back equally as passionately, Vinyl could only say three words.

“I love you.”

For the rest of the night, the two ponies stayed the way they were, wrapped in each other’s hooves on the bottom bed. From time to time, one of them would shift slightly, and the other would adjust, but for the most part they just lay there, shunning the outside world in favour of each other. Finally, several hours after they had crawled into bed together, one of the ponies spoke.

“Vinyl? Are you awake?”

“Yeah, Octavia. What is it?”

“This- thanks to you, I feel good. I feel good after this first day of prison,” Octavia said quietly. She swallowed. “But this was just our first day, and we’ve still got a long time in here. What do we do next?”

Octavia couldn’t see Vinyl properly in the darkness, but she knew that the unicorn was grinning. “Next,” Vinyl whispered, “we start planning the great escape.”

Author's Note:

Hey kids! Hot writing tip #1 - when you need to pad out your first chapter further, put in some quickly-written fluff!

Anyway, in all seriousness, this is obviously going to be more of an ongoing fic than my usual lazy one-shots. (It'll still be short - I'm picturing less than 10,000 words, but still). I think that I have a bad tendency to rush my one-shots and that they could usually use better breaks in the story, so here we are with this. Hope everyone is pleased with it!

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