Tales of The Wasteland Wanderer

by BlakeCorman

Chapter 1- The Fuel...

Arc 1-Freedom-Start

Chapter 1- The Fuel…

SHINK! The hoe hit ground once more causing the hard earth to split and soften under its blade. The colt holding on to the plow grunted as he pulled the blade from the earth, only to swing it back down into the ground. He shifted his rear left hoof in order to get a better stance with which to swing, but he lurched as the shackle and chain held him in place. He looked back at his imprisoned limb and sighed. Next to him, dozens more just like him whittled away at their own little patch of earth, trying only to get their patch as soft as possible, the thoughts of extra slop on their plates pushing them forwards. The young colt once again sighed at the sight.

“Wat’re you doin’?!?” He was forced to arch his body at the sharp pain of the cracked whip against his back. “We didn’t say you could stop!” The colt quickly got back up on his hooves and began to work overtime as two minotaur made their way towards him. Every pony on the plantation knew them by name, not that they actually used their names in fear of provoking the bullies’ wrath. They stopped behind and to the side of the bright red colt, casting an oppressive shadow over him. “Wat,” asked the dark brown minotaur, Bulk, as he planted a swift kick into the colt’s side, causing him to fall hard on his side, “to good to answer us?”

“N-no, sir,” stumbled the colt, voice rough from disuse and scrambling to his feet to continue his work.

“Well, wat were you doin’ instead of workin’?” asked the dark blue minotaur, Break.

“N-nothing, sir,” the colt replied, trying desperately to ignore the pain of the new lash across his back as he attempted to look hard at work.

“Is dat so?” Break asked, snapping the whip in his hands threateningly, “‘Cause it look’d like you was havin’ a little break.”

“No, sir, of course not!” he replied hastily, almost turning to face the two brutes before remembering to stay busy.

“Well, if you wasn’t takin’ a break, maybe you’d like one…” The colt never stopped his repetitive chore, but his face did contort into a puzzled expression at the seemingly kind words.

“In the pits.” The colt’s eyes shot open in fear, and this time he did turn to face his tormentors, simultaneously dropping the hoe and to his knees.

“N-no, sir, please, not the pits!!!” Bulk only smiled wickedly and slapped the young pony across his dust covered face. His head swam as he hit the ground, only barely aware that Break had undone his shackle and that each minotaur had a hold of one of his front legs, dragging him towards a beaten wood door in the ground. Very few ponies stopped what they were doing to glance at the scene, and only one old stallion watched the entire event unfold. He shook his head as the young unicorn was thrown into the hole and the door was slammed closed behind him, Bulk locking it from the outside. “Poor Pyro,” he muttered as he went back to his own work.

Inside the dark hole in the ground, the unicorn in question, Pyro Mance, slowly came back to his senses. He took one look around, and resigned himself to curling into himself in one corner of the dirt prison. As time went by, his thoughts turned to the only thing that kept him going; his family, or at least, his memories of them. He thought first of his mother, a gentle earth pony by the name of Spring Mint. He remembered snuggling into her warm, mint green coat as she hugged him and rocked him to sleep. He remembered sitting next to her on the floor, feeling her tremble as her fever rose, and not being able to stop it….

His eyes where clouded as he turned his thoughts to his sister, Whistle Wind. He remembered the nights he couldn’t go to sleep without mama, and she would softly sing, putting the entire hut full of ponies at ease. He remembered the day rich griffons had ripped her from their mother’s arms, tears flowing from all their eyes.

He teared up at these memories, and began to shake with quiet sobs. His chest began to burn from the memory of a fractured rib. He rubbed his torso to ease the pain, and, as he did so, his hoof rubbed across his only worldly possession; an ornate silver collar holding a large yellow gem and two smaller blue ones to either side. The only thing that kept the handlers from ripping it off his neck was the fact that they couldn’t. It was magically sealed to his neck, and no one had ever been able to loosen its grip on him. His thoughts slowly drifted to the one that had given him such a gift, the stallion he had no memory of; his father. He wondered what the stallion would have looked like, whether or not they shared the same blue and yellow mane, what he would have taught Pyro about life…all things he would never know. Mama had never told him about his father, tears the only thing she could produce when confronted with the topic, and his sister had been too young to remember him when the owner of the plantation had had him executed. All hope of knowing anything about his father had been lost when his mother died, taking the precious pearls of memory with her.

Tears flowed down his cheeks as he clutched the collar. As he cried, his face changed from an expression of pure grief to one of absolute hatred at the thought of those who had taken his family from him. The handlers, griffons and minotaur like Bulk and Break that had mistreated him, the idiots that had worked his mother to the bone until she dropped from exhaustion, the griffons that had bought his sister for her voice and ripped her away from them, and, above all else, the owner of the plantation, a dark example of what a dragon and griffon could produce, Grimwrik. It was him that had ordered his father executed; him that made the deal that took his sister; HIM that had allowed his mother to be literally worked to death.

The tears stopped flowing as Pyro Mance raised his head to stare into the night that could be seen through a small slit in the door. He clenched his hoof around the collar, ground his teeth together, and scrunched his eyes closed as images of his departed family flashed through his mind. Someday, somehow, he thought, I will avenge you. Someday, his eyes snapped open, I will kill them all!

Author's Note:

Chapter 1! Yay! So anyway, we finally get into the actual story here, and learn a little bit about our protagonist. As always, if you find any mistakes tell me in the comments with the rest of your thoughts. Have a great day!