A Slave's Freedom

by Soaring

Mississippi Blues

Pop!

Two men sat on a porch. One drank from his trusty canteen, the cork holding on by a string, while the other looked out over the acres of land he owned, sporting a pipe in his mouth.

“Mighty fine property you have here, Mr. Burr.”

The landscape was beautiful: fields of cotton and corn greeted the men, while the sun kissed the backdrop.

“Thank you, Mr. Stockton. I appreciate your company,” Mr. Burr replied before taking a puff from his pipe. The resulting puff of white smoke slowly faded into nothingness.

“As do I,” Mr. Stockon said, lifting his canteen.

Mr. Burr nodded. The two men were farmers in good ole Mississippi. They were neighbors in a booming enterprise of the era.

Unfortunately, the booming enterprise came with a price.

“Ah…” Mr. Stockton returned the canteen to his side and licked his lips. “You know, Mr. Burr, I admire your... tenacity. You’re able to keep a firm eye on your inventory. If you’ll have me, I must ask for some advice.”

“Oh?” Mr. Burr raised a brow. “What might that be?”

Mr. Stockton’s black mustache formed with his smile. “How do you keep these vermin in line?”

A few loud clicks of Mr. Burr’s black boots spurred a man from the farmstead. He was tall, colored, and skinny like a corn stalk. He wore a pair of rugged blue overalls that were fastened tightly against his frame. “Ya called, Master?”

“Bring me a horn of paradise, please.”

“Yes, Master,” the man said, before he bowed to the two gentlemen and walked away.

Mr. Burr looked up at Mr. Stockton. “Does that answer your question?”

“Well,” Mr. Stockton replied, gulping. “You must enforce strict discipline, I see.”

“If that is what you call it.”

Mr. Stockton looked out at the landscape. “Well, I must be off. I need to make sure the kids are in bed, and the wife isn’t screaming at them again.” He rolled his eyes. “May I swing by tomorrow afternoon to see how you conduct your harvest?”

Mr. Burr took another puff from his pipe. “Of course,” he began. He stood up and held out his hand. “You’re welcome anytime, friend.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Stockton said, giving his friend a firm handshake, before tipping his hat and making his way towards the exit. However, just as he was about to turn, he gasped and turned back around. “Oh, by the way, I almost forgot! Will I be seeing you next Wednesday for the meeting at the Crossroads? Mr. Owens heard they’re restocking!”

Mr. Burr gave a hearty laugh and bobbed his head. “Mr. Owens always hears rumors of the Crossroads restocking.”

“He always got tabs on the new shipments.” Mr. Stockton cleared his throat and buttoned up his jacket. “Glad you’re coming. We’ll celebrate on our selections with cheer, my treat!”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“As am I!”

Then, the light faded, and Mr. Stockton took off down the dirt path, leaving Mr. Burr on the porch.

“Master, I got ya your drink and—”

The man took it and sat down in his chair. “Thank you, Dyson. Now go get some shuteye.”

“Thank ya, Master! I be up ‘n ready to work tomorrow!”

Mr. Burr did not respond to Dyson. He was too focused on the sun slowly fizzling out.

---

I wasn’t sure where I was at, but I sure wasn’t at the farm.

I just woke up in this place, laying down in some grey mush, like mud in the fields, but not that dark brown sort of earth. This looked more lifeless: grey and rough to the touch. The only life that came from it were little trickles of water weaving between the grains. When I felt the wetness of the earth, I stood and saw water coming down like buckets. I was a few feet away from the water that fell. I never thought water would just be streaming down from the sky like this.

Wherever this water was coming from, it’s high up there. I could only assume that, since the water was coming through this thick white fog. I’m praying that it didn’t rain, because if it did, then I could be facing a flash flood down here.

I weren’t no stranger to floods back on the farm. Before all this, I slept in an old stable. Master let everybody sleep there since it was empty and got none of those animals no more. They’re all in the new stable, since the guards were complaining that the old one’s roof was leaking fierce. They weren’t lying either. Last week’s rain storm had me floating on hay. My ma was furious, but she knew she couldn’t do nothing about it.

Much like how I couldn’t do anything about being in this very narrow place. It was grey, mucky, and full of stones. I knew for sure that I needed to find a way out, because there’s no sign of any life here, but I was not sure if I should follow where the water’s heading. There could be something else down there, something that could want to hurt me. I ain’t wanting trouble.

My momma once told me though that there’s this thing called a risk. Every single thing that we say, that we do; all that boiled down to the chance of dying. But that didn’t matter none, that’s because we were expendable. That’s what Mr. Stockton said, but my momma and papa didn’t like him none. He just that black hat tipper, or that mustache twirler neighbor from down the road.

So I guess I needed to take a risk, like momma said. After all, my momma wanted me to try and be the freest slave there ever be. She didn’t want me leaving, though. She didn’t want another… Leo.

I took a head start and followed the stream. It led me into this… dip, like the ground just fell off. And the place got worse. It was all jagged and uneven, to the point where I gotta be careful where I walked. If I climbed down on it wrong, I could get some stones stuck in my feet. Luckily, there weren’t no big leaps I needed to take. I only needed to risk just a bit.

I hopped down a couple parts before getting to this huge wide open space. All that’s there was this huge boulder, surrounded in an orange glow. I wiped my brow, and I took a few steps toward it, hoping to take a breather and to get a better view up ahead.

And then, I heard a voice.

“Look out!”

Crash!

My head was spinning. My vision saw two grey blurs in front of me. And I’m much farther away from that boulder than I should be, I think. Yet again, I couldn’t tell if it’s because I was seeing it right or not. My hearing though was just fine. I could hear my feet shuffling against the dry grains.

“Oof…”

That pained groan wasn’t mine. It sounded like a lady’s voice for sure. I weren’t sure how she wound up here. Last time I checked, I was the only one here.. I tried to stand up to see who it was, but my eyes weren’t used to seeing two’s, so I stumbled to the ground again in a thicket of dust, sliding just shy of the two boulders. My body thanked me for doing that, coughing up a bit of the lifeless grain.

Once I was done coughing, I staggered to my feet and tried to walk towards the boulder. While I struggled to gather myself, I kept hearing her pained groans. They came from behind the boulder. Curious, I pulled myself around the boulder to get a better look.

What I saw wasn’t what I expected.

She were no lady. She was a small horse, but not one I had seen before. Most horses back home weren’t very colorful like her, but her fur’s a bright blue color, and her mane’s the colors of the rainbow. I couldn’t see her eyes since they were tightly shut, but her muzzle was a lot shorter than most horses. Plus she had wings, and they didn’t look too good. One of them was folded to her side, while the other was twitching in the opposite direction.

I stopped moving, frozen, as if I heard my Master hollering at me. There were many things I could do or say to the unconscious horse in front of me, but the only words that wanted to come out were of the realization that—

“I really ain’t in Mississippi no more.”

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

I could have sworn I've seen this before...

[The Blue EM2]

Good start. That first section had something of the feel of Uncle Tom's Cabin to it.

[River Babble]

10150236
They mentioned in the opening description that they had to repost it because of an accident with the original account getting deleted, so maybe you saw it there.

[River Babble]

Mr. Stockton is a horrible man and I'm glad our dude got away from him. Mr. Burr seems as good as you could hope for in a slave owner, treating his slaves like respected hired servants instead of property. It wasn't perfect because they were still slaves, but it was a big step in the right direction; that's the kind of slave owner who was more likely to come around to freeing their slaves.

This is interesting! I find I really like historical human/pony crossovers better than modern-day ones, gives it an extra dimension. Maybe because fantasy and historical fiction are so commonly crossed, it feels more natural to me. I'm interested to see where this goes!

[redandready45]

I felt it was fitting for the somber world that was the slaveholding South.

[Element of Power]

I don't think we're in kans- mississippi anymore!

[Eternal Samson]

10150842
I do love that extra dimension history brings to a crossover. Me being a history person i fell sometimes tho i get those times more than my own