Applejack Gets Lost

by MagicS

Undying Greed VII

Applejack sat with her three unicorn “friends” in a warm but dark cell. Only a single lantern was lit in the whole room, giving her barely enough light to see more than a few feet in front of her. It was the first of five identical cells built against one wall of the dungeon, big enough to comfortably fit maybe ten ponies in it. She could only see their vague outlines but she knew two guards stood by the heavy wooden door to the right of the cell that was the only way in or out of the dungeon.

The four of them were chained up with iron shackles around their hooves that were nailed into the back wall of the cell. None of them were sure where exactly they were in the volcano now, being out of it after their fight and dragged through one of the tunnels that started in the room with the spiked door. Applejack couldn’t remember which of the gates they had gone through but it hardly mattered since the guards took them up and down a bunch of other tunnels and stairs before finally getting to this dungeon. Her memory and knowledge of the volcano wasn’t good enough for her to know how far away from either the entrance or King Avarice’s throne room they were anymore.

Either way they were stuck here for now until the guards decided what to do with them. Seems King Avarice didn’t bother with personally watching over them even after they fought. Applejack wondered just how much he was even aware of what went on. Like Daylight said his mind hardly seemed to be in the best condition.

“So now we sit here until they come to separate us and force us into whatever job they think we’ll be best at?” Star Blaze complained, unhappily lying on the stone floor.

“Yep. I hope I don’t have to work in the mines.” Sugar Spirit whined as she tugged at her messy hair.

“Eh, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Unicorns are probably for making something out of the stuff that comes out of the mines. Or working as guards.” Star Blaze answered. “Applejack on the other hoof...”

He was right about that, she was definitely going to the mines and would have to deal with whatever horribleness that included. From what they had heard it seemed by far the most dangerous thing to be forced into doing in this city. She was plenty used to hard work and dangerous situations but being slave labor for a crazy unicorn king was not something she was looking forward to doing.

So it was good that she had no intention of actually going into the mines.

“You can all relax. Nothing’s going to happen to you, we won’t be separated and I’m not letting the guards or King Avarice himself make us do anything.” She said to the three unicorns, sitting up straight and unworried by their situation.

“Uh, what are you talking about Applejack?” Star Blaze asked skeptically. “We’re caught, it’s over.”

“It aint over at all.” Applejack said, smiling at him. “Yeah, we got in a bad spot and that King’s a real doozy but the four of us are fine aren’t we?” Applejack glanced at Daylight, who had stayed curled up facing away from them the whole time they were in the cell. “And if Daylight here decides to stop sulking I’ll tell you exactly why we’re all going to be fine.”

Daylight shifted slightly, not getting up but moving her head so she could lazily look at Applejack as she kept her head lying on the ground. Her eyes were filled with disinterest, clearly she didn’t believe in Applejack.

“First of all how’s your magic doing?” She asked them.

“I can feel it weakly coming back, but it’ll be a long time before it’s back to normal. Like a day or two probably?” Star Blaze answered while Sugar Spirit nodded with him, Daylight didn’t acknowledge the question at all but Applejack figured it was the same for her.

“See? It’s not like anything permanent happened to any of us. Daylight still knows how to destroy the crystal that’s running this barrier spell and putting these bands on us. We just need a little more time.” Applejack smiled at them.

“The second reason we’re gonna be fine is that we’re not really caught in the first place.”

Sugar Spirit looked at her in puzzlement. “What are you talking about?”

“Well I’ll show you if I need to but I want to talk to our guards first. They’ve probably been listening to me jabber on this whole time anyways.” Applejack said and stuck her head against the bars of the cell, peering at the two guards by the door. “Hey y’all, can I ask you a question?”

The two guards didn’t react at all from what Applejack could see, no surprise there, she’d just ask them anyways.

“Can you let us go?”

“What.” Daylight Gleam said, rising from her position on the floor. “I knew you were thinking something stupid again.” Applejack turned to face her and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Why would they just let us go because you asked them?” Daylight started poking her in the chest. “Do you have any idea just how bad of a situation we’re in.”

“It’s not half as bad as you think.” Applejack replied. “But I didn’t think they’d let us go just because I asked, I just wanted to ask nicely before resorting to force.” At that the formerly stoic guards did glance at each other, wondering just what the orange earth pony was up to.

There was a creaking sound and Daylight Gleam felt a tiny vibration crawl up her hooves, in the next second the shackles around all four of the captives hooves shattered, freeing them.

The guards gasped in shock and turned to either yell or run out and tell any other guards around but a sudden shaking beneath their hooves caused them to tumble and clunk their heads against the hard stone wall of the dungeon. Their helmets kept them from being knocked out but they were still hurt and seeing stars.

“Right. Time to go.” Applejack placed a hoof against the lock of the cell and sent a tremor through it, the metal screeched and twisted until the lock snapped and fell to the ground. She casually pushed the door open and held it for the unicorns.

The three of them just looked at her with their mouths hanging wide open.

“Are you going to explain how you did that?” Star Blaze finally asked.

“Naw, we gotta hurry things up. Come on.” She let them out and then trotted over to the disoriented guards.

“Hey fellas, sorry about that, I know you’re in just as bad a situation as any other pony in this city.” She said down to them. “But we’re here to help you and fix that. I know that might’ve hurt a bit but it’s nothing serious.”

“So we’re getting out of here now?” Sugar Spirit wondered.

“Nope!” Applejack cheerily replied. “We’re getting these guards to take us to wherever the rest of them are.”

“WHAT! Applejack, have you-” Daylight Gleam yelled but Applejack quickly paced forwards and put her hoof over her mouth.

“Sugarcube, you need to calm down and trust me.” She turned back and spoke to the two guards again who were nervously sitting there, a little bit afraid of her now. “I want you two to take us to wherever you guards stay when you aren’t doing something in here. We’re gonna have a talk. Do you have a leader or captain of the guards or anything?”

The two shared a look and one of them decided to speak up. “Not officially, but King Avarice doesn’t hardly ever give us any real direction, so we set up our own system. We do have a leader, I guess.”

“Alright, what’s his name? Can you take us to him?”

They shook their heads, both responding at once. “King Avarice owns our names.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Right, forgot about that. But you can still take us to him and the rest of you, right?”

“But we’d be disobeying King Avarice.” The other one of them said, terrified of the thought. “We can’t do that.”

“Okay, that’s fair enough.” Applejack nodded and started to rub her chin. “Now though you’ve put me in a predicament. Ya see, I don’t want to have to hurt or threaten you, cause you aint bad ponies. But we really need to do this. So you can either take the possibility of King Avarice doing something to you. Or right now I could do to you what I did to those shackles and lock.” She glared down at them, putting on her most intimidating face.

The two guards gulped and nodded.

Shortly later the six of them had left the dungeon and were walking through one of the many tunnels of the volcano.

“I don’t even get what we’re doing anymore.” Daylight whined, head hung low and staring at the ground as she walked along. “We couldn’t do anything to King Avarice or the crystal and then you just give up to those guards and let them throw us in the dungeon. But now you’re all chipper and optimistic and acting like you have some grand plan. I don’t get this at all.”

“There’s just a few things I realized back when we were in that throne room.” Applejack said to her, not bothering to turn back and try and look her in the eyes. “Why do you think we’re still alive right now?”

“Huh?” Daylight looked up at Applejack with a questioning look on her face, not that Applejack could see it.

“Think about it. Why didn’t King Avarice kill us? He easily could have.”

“Cause he wanted to put us to work?” Daylight ventured.

“Exactly.” Applejack responded, finally turning her head back to meet Daylight’s eyes. “We’re his slaves, we belong to him, you heard him keep saying all that right? He doesn’t want to kill his citizens. He wants to keep us forever. He doesn’t get anything out of killing us, he only loses some of his belongings. In fact I’m willing to take a guess,” She turned to the two guards walking with them. “King Avarice has never executed anypony has he?”

Their eyebrows shot up and they looked at each other in realization before turning back to Applejack.

“Now that you mention it, no, he hasn’t.” One of them answered.

“Yep, I bet he does stuff like has ponies thrown in the dungeons or terrorizes them in some other way, but he’d never kill what he thinks belongs to him.” Applejack got a hard look on her face as she thought about the king’s tyrannical ways.

“Okay so what?” Daylight said, still frustrated. “Even if he won’t kill us we still can’t do anything to him!”

“It’s important for later, trust me. Another thing I realized while we were fighting him is that even though he’s got these magic bands around all our necks they still don’t do anything else but keep us from leaving the city.” Applejack explained. “They don’t let him stop us or sense us or anything. If they did he would’ve done it back there. That means we can still fight back.”

Daylight rubbed at the band on her neck, still uncomfortable to have it on her. “Okay...”

“And now the last thing. When’s the next tribute day? When everypony is supposed to give the stuff they’ve made or mined to King Avarice?” Applejack asked the guards.

“Um, it’s in three days I think?” The same guard told her.

“Perfect!” Applejack’s face lit up. “I was worried we were gonna have to wait for like a month.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Daylight Gleam’s annoyance was rising by the second as Applejack just continued to confuse her.

Applejack smiled back at the unicorn. “You know, no one would ever say I was that smart of a pony or anything. Sure, got plenty of common sense I’d like to think, but I aint no genius or smartypants like some ponies I know. But even I still come up with a good idea every now and then.” She winked at Daylight. “Trust me.”

Daylight Gleam rolled her eyes. “Fine, you know what? Fine. I’m exhausted, I’m scared, I can barely feel my magic, and I’m sweating like crazy because I’m in the middle of a stupid volcano. I’m just gonna stop complaining and take your word for it. It’s the only way I might get out of this with my sanity.”

“I gave up on questioning things after our shackles exploded.” Star Blaze unhelpfully said from beside her.

“For me it was when she started talking to the guards.” Sugar Spirit added in.

Applejack meanwhile was taking all their comments in stride. For once she was coming off as the weird one in the group. It definitely felt different.

For a while longer they continued in silence, the guards leading them down the hot tunnels of the volcano. It would’ve been an impossible to navigate labyrinth without them as guides so it was good in hindsight that Applejack didn’t just have them knock out the guards and run off. Unlike the more decorative and expansive rooms that led directly to King Avarice’s chamber all the hallways and rooms in this section of the volcano were the same. Tunnels dug and carved as simply and practically from the stone as possible without putting any extra work or furnishings in them. They fulfilled their duty as passages for ponies to get around in and nothing else.

“We getting close?” Sugar Spirit asked, clearly tired from the heat and walking. “I haven’t felt like myself in ages. I wanna get out of this heat.”

“It’s close, the barracks are just up ahead.” The guards said to them.

“Huh, no wonder we thought there weren’t any guards in the volcano, you’re all way far away from the main part.” Applejack mused.

“Well King Avarice doesn’t like his slaves to be close to him or his treasure.” One of the guards responded. “And as you saw back in his throne room he can just call us to him whenever he wants anyways.”

The blue armored guards led them around one more corner and the tunnel finally widened up a bit into a larger room. The ceiling went high enough for three or four ponies to stand on each others shoulders now and at the end of the room a large wooden door stood.

“Here we are.” One of the guards nervously walked up to the door before stopping. “Uh… you know they might attack you right?”

“It’ll be fine.” Applejack said. “I can handle it if it comes to that, even though I’d prefer not to. You go in first so they can see you’re okay.”

The two guards nodded and put their hooves on the door. With a final gulp they opened it together as Applejack and the unicorns prepared for however this next confrontation went. Applejack had a smile on her face, optimistic and confident that it would be okay. Daylight, Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit had nervous frowns. Not quite as confident.

Comments

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

“Yep, I bet he does stuff like has ponies thrown in the dungeons or terrorizes them in some other way, but he’d never kill what he....(thinks) …..belongs to him.” Applejack got a hard look on her face as she thought about the king’s tyrannical ways.

The two guards nodded and put their hands (hooves) on the door. With a final gulp they opened it together as Applejack and the unicorns prepared for however this next confrontation went. Applejack had a smile on her face, optimistic and confident that it would be okay. Daylight, Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit had nervous frowns. Not quite as confident.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

AJ's awesome in this. Wonder what she's planning?