Chapter one
Darkness.
Darkness and damp.
This is all she knows from the dungeon. The darkness, the damp, and her mother’s eyes. Even in the dark she could always spot her mother’s eyes. Those beautiful yellow eyes always looking into hers. Whenever she looked into those eyes she knew she'd be safe. Nothing could harm her, not while those eyes were there. Her mother’s gaze was ever watchful. Making sure Ditzy stayed safe. Stayed asleep when the guards came for them. Whenever the guards came to the dungeon sneering and staring lecherously at them Ditzy's mother stood firm. Protecting her and allowing them to take her away. Away from Ditzy. Ditzy didn't know where her mother went at these times. Just that when she returned her yellow eyes were puffy from tears and a hitch in her voice betrayed her emotions she desperately hid from Ditzy. At these times Ditzy's mother was grateful for the darkness. That her daughter didn’t have to see the marks they left on her. This time something else was wrong. Staring into Ditzy’s eyes, she walked over to Ditzy to hold her and began to sing.
There is no other
Love like a mother's love for her child
And it hurts so
That something so strong
Someday will be gone, must say goodbye
Goodbye's the saddest word I'll ever hear
Goodbye's the last time I will hold you near
Someday you'll say that word and I will cry
It'll break my heart to hear you say goodbye
But the love you gave me will always live
You'll always be there every time I fall
You offered me the greatest love of all
You take my weakness and you make me strong
And I will always love you 'til forever comes
And when you need me
I'll be there for you always
I'll be there your whole life through
I'll be there this I promise you,
At this her mother broke into sobs holding Ditzy tight. They sat their holding each other tight as Ditzy fell asleep. Dreaming of her mother.
The next morning Ditzy felt cold. Colder than usual at least. Looking around for those eyes, those two bright points in the dark she shuddered. They weren’t there.
"Momma?" young Ditzy shakily asked.
"Momma?" again Ditzy called this time her voice cracking halfway through.
She wasn’t there.
-----
--(8 years later)--
Ditzy hasn’t talked in three years.
There’d been nothing to say. She cries most nights. Silent shuddering sobs that wrack her entire body. It doesn’t help to cry. She found that out after her mother was....
She didn’t finish that thought. Her mother was still alive. She had to believe that. She was her mother. She was strong, at least stronger than Ditzy ever was. She found out what the guards did to her mother during those times she was taken. Ditzy didn’t know how she coped with it. With those animals staring at her, doing those.....
No, she wouldn’t think about that either. It doesn’t help.
Her belly growled. She was hungry. She hadn’t eaten in how long? Two days? Three? The guards were withholding food from her. She'd get her gruel if she did...favours. Ugh, she felt sick. She didn’t know how long she could last.
Clink*
The sound of keys rattling in the door. Were they back for her again? Ditzy barely looked to the door, resigned to whatever was happening. She had finally given up. They had broken her. Looking towards the light she saw something she didn’t expect to see. Bright eyes. Not the dull brown of the guards but bright purple. They were frightened. The pony whose eyes they belonged to was shoved into the darkness as the door swung shut behind her. The purple eyed pony ran back to the door banging it with her hooves.
"Let me out, let me out!" The pony screamed in vain "I’m not a musician, I'm not. I want my mother. My mother…" she broke down in tears, cowering in on herself unable to finish her sentence through all her crying.
Ditzy just stared at the filly. Her memories of her mother returned all at once. How she comforted her when she was sad, how she protected her from harm and how she always knew what to say. She was gone now, though. Ditzy’s mother was gone and wasn’t coming back. And neither was this filly’s mother.
Ditzy made up her mind then. If her mother was gone then she'd just have to be a mother. Someone had to be. Someone needed to protect this new filly.
She walked over to the filly lying by the door and stopped.
"Hello," Ditzy hedged.
Sniffling, the filly looked up with her purple eyes. Ditzy looked back, her eyes filled with warmth and love.
"Its going to be ok, you know? I’ll protect you." as she cooed reassurances she leaned down and picked the filly up into her hooves, holding her in a motherly embrace.
The stayed that way for hours, it seemed to Ditzy. She was the first to break the silence.
"You’re quite safe here with me... Um, what’s your name?" Ditzy asked worriedly, hoping not to have upset the filly.
To her surprise the little filly simply giggled sleepily.
"Sparkler, momma. You know that." And with that Sparkler fell asleep in her new mother’s arms.
-----
--(4 months later)--
Ditzy was being escorted back to her dungeon. The guards still disgusted her. What they did to her nopony should have to suffer. Not even for the little food they gave her to survive. But she wasn’t doing it just for her. She was doing it so they’d leave Sparkler alone. So that they’d leave her daughter alone.
‘That’s what mother do, protect their children,’ Ditzy thought determinedly. ‘She needs this food, and she’s not going to suffer for it.’
Returning back to the dark she found Sparkler’s eyes easy enough. The bright eyes always made it easy to find her. In truth, Ditzy didn’t know why they were hated, the bright eyes. Something about music, she assumed, but she always dismissed that.
‘I can’t sing, and Sparkler has never even so much as hummed.’
She set the measly gruel on the floor in front of Sparkler. It was barely enough for one pony, let alone two.
"Sparkler, sweetie, it’s dinner time." She called lightly trying not to let her voice betray the sickness she felt.
Sparkler slowly walked over to the food and began to eat. Ditzy never ate, pretending to Sparkler that she had her own food when really she ate only the scraps the guards gave her during their "fun".
"Thanks, mom." Sparkler said with a mouth full of gruel.
Ditzy smiled at this; watching her daughter eat she could pretend that they weren’t in a dungeon. That they were in their own house and she had made food for them. Some baked goods, like she remembered from when she was a foal. Before....
The new line of thought snapped her from her daydream as she heard a clinking noise coming from the door.
It creakily opened to reveal a brown earth pony with brown eyes. Though, they looked wrong somehow. They shouldn’t though. They were the same animal eyes that the rest of them had. The dark eyed animals that hurt her.
"Just do your job, doc, and get ‘outta my mane." The lead guard shouted at the brown pony.
"Yes, well, I’ll do that my, good colt. Now if you excuse me, I’d like to examine them and make sure they haven’t been treated to harshly" The 'doc' pony said.
At this the guard broke into raucous laughter.
"Ehehe, yeah, harshly. I got it doc. You patch ‘em up, then and I’ll break ‘em again."
"You will not touch a hair on these ponies’ heads without a proper reason, or else you may find you join them in these cells."
The guard fumed at the brown colt. It looked to Ditzy as he was going to attack him. She shifted subconsciously in front of Sparkler, protecting her from whatever was to come next.
To her surprise the guard merely turned away grumbling under his breath about "bloody equine rights inspection, if I get my hooves on him I'll...."
The 'doc' watched the guards leave before turning to Ditzy and Sparkler.
"Right, well, follow me, if you please." He stated trotting off down the corridor.
Ditzy followed him cautiously and Sparkler trailed after her mother as well.
He led them to a big white room with a bed in the middle. Ditzy shuddered. He was just like the rest of them. Despite those seemingly defensive words at her cell he still only wanted one thing. She was resigned to this now.
"Okay, hop on to the bed, my dear," The colt asked oh so politely.
Ditzy did as he asked then she remembered her daughter was still here. She didn’t want her to see her like this. She had to protect her.
Staring at the stallion she put on her best seductive voice. The voice the guards told her to do.
"Hey big boy, she doesn’t need to see this, does she? Can't she wait in the other room?" She finished with a suggestive flick of her tail. She felt sick.
"Um... yes, well, alright," he answered, rather confused. The colt led Sparkler to the next room and presented her with a bag of sweets.
"Here you are my dear. Some jelly babies. Now wait here while I make sure your mother is okay," he said kindly.
Sparkler looked at the sweets hungrily and started tearing into them before the door was even closed. The 'doc' just chuckled good naturedly.
‘At least she got some more food out of this,’ Ditzy thought morosely.
"Now what I’m going to do now is ascertain your current health. Make sure you’re alright. Is that okay? Are you okay with that?" he asked sympathetically.
She simply nodded. She knew what he was going to do to her. No matter what he called it.
The colt fiddled at a machine for some time as Ditzy sat there.
After a while he suddenly stopped.
"Right, you seem perfectly healthy. A little malnourished, but nothing a little more food won’t help. Some extra oats and a muffin or two and you’ll be right as rain."
Ditzy just stared at him.
He was just a doctor.
"My dear? Are you alright?" The doctor asked getting worried now.
Ditzy broke into sobs with her head in her hooves. He wasn’t like the others. Great wracking sobs shook her all over as the doctor looked on. She finally controlled herself enough to talk.
"That’s it?" she asked through her sobs
"Is what it? That was your check up."
"You aren’t going to hurt me or my daughter, are you? You’re not going to make me beg for food o-or ruh, ruh rap..." Ditzy burst into tears again.
The stallion was shocked.
"They did what to you? Oh, Celestia, no. This is worse than I feared. That’s going to alter our plans somewhat." He hurriedly ran around the room doing something Ditzy could not see.
"Listen, my dear. You, me, and your daughter are getting out of here right now. I belong to a group, the Rhythm Underground. We are all ponies like you and her. Bright eyes, see?" He said removing brown contacts with from his shockingly blue irises.
‘These weren’t the eyes of an animal,’ Ditzy thought. ‘They’re the eyes of an angel.’ Her angel. Her Doctor.
The Doctor continued talking. "I was meant just to see if there was any of us here and bust you out at a later date, but that really isn’t very heroic, now is it? Anyway, you and her are escaping from this nightmare now. Take this." Ditzy felt an object being thrust into her hooves. It was a pocket watch.
"This has an enchantment on it that will help my friends locate you. They’ll take you in where you’ll be safe. You won’t be hurt anymore." His face grew serious as he stared into her eyes. There was an odd feeling of familiarity about them. It was the feeling of being safe. She trusted him for some strange reason.
"Grab your daughter and follow me." he spoke with a calm comforting authority.
Ditzy moved to the other room and found Sparkler asleep with an empty bag beside her hooves. Lifting her on to her back, careful not to wake her, she followed the Doctor.
He moved quick and carefully through the corridors gesturing for Ditzy to keep following. They came across a set of stairs and the rushed up them. It was then that alarm bells began ringing. The guards must have checked in the empty doctor’s room.
They quickened their pace now, running because they’re lives depended on it.
Up and up they ran as the sound of ponies following them quickly grew louder.
At the top of the stairs was a door. The doctor put all his might into a charge yelling "Allonsy!" as he bashed into the door bursting out the other side.
When Ditzy made it past the door he shoved it closed and braced it with his body.
She looked around and discovered they were on the roof. She hadn’t been outside since she was a 6 years old. Almost 14 years ago. She simply smiled in joy at the light. She was no longer in the dark anymore.
Looked over to the Doctor she saw him braced against the door.
"Now what, Doctor? How are we going to get off this roof?" She asked, her voice quavering.
"We aren’t, you and her are." He curtly answered.
Ditzy stared at him confused.
"You aren’t coming with us? W-we need you, Doctor. How else are we going to get of this roof?"
"Fly, of course. You're a pegasus, my dear. Take your daughter and fly over to the woods. You won’t make it further than that; you're too malnourished and not used to flying to manage anything else."
"Come with us. I… I can carry you as well. I w-won’t leave you. Not after all you’ve done f-for me and her."
"You won’t be able to support my weight. I’m staying here. I have to protect ponies. I have to protect your daughter. I have to protect you."
Those words of dedication. The words the Ditzy thought ever since Sparkler came into her life. Words of sacrifice and protection of what you love moved her. She knew she had to go.
A banging started at the door, threatening to bust open.
"Go now," the Doctor shouted, "Ill be along as soon as I can!"
Ditzy heard the unsure tone in his voice.
She stared into his eyes as he gazed back. He was doing this to protect her.
She darted towards him kissing him full on the muzzle. A goodbye and a return soon wrapped into one passionate moment.
With one last look into his blue eyes she picked Sparkler off her back and into her forehooves and bounded off the building.
Opening her wings fully for the first time in over a decade she glided towards the woods the Doctor had mentioned. She continued on towards the tree line before her wings began to give out. She was going to crash.
Bracing herself and holding Sparkler tightly to her chest, she struck head first into an oak tree and tumbled from its branches to the soft ground below.
Feeling groggy she looked down into her hooves to make sure her daughter was alright, but… but her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes.
She couldn’t focus on anything.
Concentrating hard on the purple shape in her hooves, things came more into focus, though at great pain to herself.
She checked the filly over and found she was fine. Not a single injury. She was even still asleep.
The relief Ditzy felt was palpable. Hugging tightly to Sparkler the little filly stirred in her arms.
"Mom? Why is it so bright now?" Sparkler asked sleepily
"Were safe now sweetie. The Doctor saved us" Ditzy replied ecstatically. He had saved them. They only had to wait for his friends to come rescue them. To Protect them.
As this was occurring a purple mare approached them, her horn glowing with a locator spell that would lead her to the Doctor's watch.
"Were safe now, sweetie."