The Sentence
Red Shade woke up with a long yawn. He stretched as did many of the other colts in the sleeping dorm with him. A few early risers had already gone to do their jobs for the day. The bulk were just waking up, and a couple of late sleepers were still snoring in their bunks. Red Shade grabbed his robe from a small foot locker at the base of his bed and put it on before heading out of the dorm just ahead of the wave of colt that were only seconds behind him. Many were excited to get to the food hall, to meet with their parents before their shifts began. Red Shade grabbed a plate of mushrooms, and some green moss and moved over to sit alone. His small size and shy nature hadn’t made him any friends among his dorm mates. Nor had he any family to sit with. His guardian wouldn’t wake up until lunch so he ate breakfast alone.
After breakfast Red Shade put his plates away and headed to his work station, he stuck to the brightly lit corridors in hope to avoid trouble. Another problem with being small and not having parents was that he became a prime target for bullying. Though even the bigger kids wouldn’t dare bully him at his work station or while he was delivering messages. Anything done against him then was done against the colony and all hell would break loose on anybody going against the colony if they were lucky, they’d be shot, if they weren’t, they’d be exiled. He made it to his small niche in the wall and grabbed his mail bag and big hat. He then sat down and waited. He’d either be grabbed by an older bat and taken to help them do something, or he’d get a bunch of letters to deliver and told where to deliver them.
Today was a deliver day for him. He was given a big pack of messages and then sent on his way. He hurried down halls. While it didn’t matter how quickly the messages were delivered so long as they got to their destination at a reasonable time, he and the other colts in his dorm had a game and the fastest time to beat was one and a half candle marks to get. Red’s best time was one and three fourths candle marks. He was easily in the top ten message deliverers his guardian had told him so, and that was an accomplishment that he took great joy in.
His first delivery took him to the newly built orchard were a large number of adults and older colts and fillies worked. The overseer looked over the letters and nodded taking the ones that were for his workers. How anybody managed to read the weird wiggly things was beyond him. He ran down the halls, foreman to foreman from the mushroom fields to the tunneling crews. It was important to always give the letters only to the foreman. Distracting a bat at work was an attack against the Colony and would be punished based on the reason for the disruption. One of the colts in his dorm had just earned his cutie mark and in an excited fit ran to show his mom and dad at the mushroom fields. He’d been given two lashes for that, only emergencies were allowed to distract a bat from work.
It took him two marks to finish his first round of deliveries and after that he remained in his niche until an older bat took him as a helper to work on smoothing the walls in the new tunnels until lunch. When the announcement was given for lunch every bat stopped their work. Some sat down and ate their sandwiches at their work station while others like Red Shade headed to the cafeteria where his guardian would be waiting for him. He found him sitting at a table talking to a few of the dormitory managers. Red Shade walked over and sat next to him with a plate of mushrooms and green lichen.
“Hello, Red Shade I heard you’re doing well with your work.”
“Yes sir.” He nodded.
“And we’ve been told that some of the older colts are picking on you?” one of the dormitory managers asked. “Do you know their name, or what their cutie mark looks like?”
“No ma’am but I kno-ow.” He rubbed his lip where he’d bitten himself. “There were three of them and they wer-owe.” He bit his tongue.
“Did they have cutie marks Red Shade yes or no?” His guardian sighed.
“No.”
“Then the best we can do is give an announcement that bullying is not acceptable,” The dormitory manager said.
“I understa-owe.” They nodded and left leaving Red Shade alone with his designated guardian. “Sir? About my mommy and daddy can you t-ow!”
“I’ll take you there before bed time Red,” he said. “Say ahhh.” Red opened his mouth. “You’ll be fine. Go ahead and eat lunch.” Red nodded eating his lunch in silence next to his guardian. After that Red Shade returned to the job he was at before the lunch break. Smoothing the stone walls wasn’t a fun job, but it kept him away from his niche so the bullies wouldn’t find him, so he contented himself with the work until the next order came in, it was time for recreation, and in three hours bed time. Red left the new tunnel to wait at the dormitory where his guardian would meet him and take him to the place his parents where.
He was heading down a side tunnel taking a short cut to the dorm, he was alone or so he thought, before something fell on him. Before he could skree for help a hoof hit his head and held his mouth shut.
“Listen up you little tattle-tale, we know it was you that caused our dorm master to come down on us. And you’re going to regret it.” His ears perked up at the sound of the head bully. “Hold him down you two.” Red Shade tried in vain to squirm his way away from the bullies. “I don’t want him moving and you keep his mouth shut.” The pressure on his muzzle got worse. Though in a second it was all but forgotten as he felt an unbearable pain in his wing as the head bully began pulverizing it starting from the tip to the base. Then he worked over the other wing after half an hour Red Shade had quit moving, and was just crying.
“Do you want your mommy?”
“Do you even have one loser? Did she leave you cause you’re a little crybaby?” They teased after they were finished, before laughing and walking off leaving Red Shade curled up in a small heap on the floor. He was soon found by a wondering couple looking for a place to have a tender moment together.
“Is he okay?”
“Let’s just get him to the medical wing.” Red Shade felt himself picked up softly and put on somebody’s back. As they started moving, he slipped into unconsciousness.
Red Shad slipped back into consciousness, his body felt terribly sore, but not as bad as before, and the bed beneath him he quickly recognized as one of the soft hospital beds. In the background he could hear somebody yelling. Focusing on it he soon recognized the voice it was his guardian, and his guardian’s wife. They were both taking turns screaming at somebody. Their voices sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a well as he tried to focus and hear them. “His parents gave everything to this Colony and this is how their repaid for it?” one said. “Putting a colt in a hospital goes far beyond the normal practice of bullying this needs to be stopped now and it needs to be permanent! I owe his mother that much, as a member of the guard and as my captain, this would never have happened if the situation were reversed!” There was a lull in the yelling and soon he heard their hooves walking into his room.
“I see the colt is awake,” a scratchy elderly voice said. Red Shade kept his eyes closed. His mommy was part of the night guard, a captain. He hoped that if he pretended to be asleep, they’d talk more about his mom and dad. “I know when a colt is playing opossum.” Red Shade softly sighed and opened his eyes. He saw his guardian and his guardian’s wife, and several of the colony elders.
“Red Shade who did this?” his guardian demanded. Red Shade hesitated for a minute, if this was the beating that he got for just saying that he was being picked on, what would they do to him if he said anything about this, that and he still didn’t know the bullies’ names.
“N-nobody, I was excited and flew into a wall,” he said avoiding the ‘owees’ of biting his tongue several times. The adults gave him a sour look, before they sighed, and looked at each other.
“Alright Red Shade, you have the rest of the week off, Angel Bell and I will try and visit you when we can. Do you want anything?”
“Can you show me mommy and daddy?” he asked, Angel Bell gave him a soft smile.
“Of course, It’s on my way to work.” Red Shade shifted and got out of the bed, he was still really sore, but he nearly never got to see the place his mommy and daddy were. She led him down several of the old halls, closer to the entrance of the cave system than he normally would be allowed to go. Eventually the came to a long hall of pictures and squiggly lines. Bell led him to two pictures and patted his head. “Here they are sweety, Captain Obsidian Shadow, and Red Bloom. You can stay here as long as you want.” And with that she headed to her shift on the guards. Red reached out and touched the pictures of the two very proud looking bats. Several guards passed him on their way to shift or off of it but they didn’t say anything to him.
After several hours Red Shade got up and headed to the cafeteria, he knew his way back, he’d head back to be with them after lunch. As he walked down one of the less traveled hallways, he paused. He looked around something not feeling right to him. A moment later somebody fell on him from the ceiling. “Got you cry baby.”
“Get off I didn’t say anything I swear,” Red Shade pleaded as the head bully hit his wing. Red Shade covered his head with two hooves. “Please leave me alo-owe”
“Shut up you stupid loser!” He hit him again and again. Red Shade started crying. “What a stupid little cry baby you are! Is your mommy so ashamed of you is that why she doesn’t sit next to you at meal time or is she just a big cry baby bitch too?” Red Shade’s eyes narrowed and something inside of him snapped. He faded away into nothing, and the bully hit the floor. “What the what was th-“ Red Shade jumped him from behind sinking his fangs into the bully’s neck and started drinking.
He didn’t stop till the bully was on the ground. When he snapped out of the haze, he looked at what he had done and he started shaking. In a panic he bolted back to his bed in the dormitory and hid under the blankets mouth still covered in blood. The hall way that he had left the bully’s body in was one that was not traveled often, but was still traveled, and news in the colony spread fast that Red Shade had run to his dormitory face still covered in blood. In two hours, Angel Bell and several other of the night guard were in the dormitory. When she pulled back the covers, they found him curled up into a tight ball sobbing, mouth and hooves still covered in blood.
“I’m sorry, Red.” Angel Bell picked him up, you three get a private room ready for him, she flew off still carrying him. Red didn’t register anything until he was put down on a small cot in one of the colony’s few holding cells. “He-he beat me up, even though I d-didn’t tatt-tle, he called mommy a cry b-baby bat. Said she didn’t eat with me ‘cause she wasn’t proud of me.” He cried.
“Shhhh, it’s okay Red, it’s okay.” Angel Bell stroked his head, Nightshade and I will do everything we can to help. You just get some sleep.” She walked out. “Nobody not a soul goes in there.”
“You don’t have the authori-“
“I out rank everybody today! Especially in regards to him, Obsidian and Bloom both cruse you if, so much as a mouse steps into that cell without my permission!” The cell door was shut. Three guards stood post. The judgement room was right next to the holding cell area, and Red Shade watched in fear as the entirety of the elder council walked past him. Not far after them the mommy and daddy of the bully came by.
“You fucking Rat!” The bat mare charged at the cell Red Shade in terror fled to a corner hiding behind a blanket. “You killed my son! My son! Damn you to Tarturus!” She screamed shaking a hoof at him as the three guards pushed her and her husband back. “Why are you defending the little vermin!” The guards didn’t answer, but leveled their spears at her and the stallion next to her.
“Move along, we will carry out the sentence but until then he’s not to be touched. That is final.” The two adults moved on after them the other bullies were brought in by a night guard escort. They tried to ignore Red Shade casting him looks of ranging from pity to contempt but always mixed with fear. He waited in his cell for hours, before seeing somebody else run by it was the doctor that had treated him earlier that day, it felt so long ago, and then nobody came through the halls. Anxiety and trauma at what he had done had kept him awake to this point but it had been nearly a day since he had been asleep and finally sleepiness one out and he drifted away.
The opening of the cell door jerked him awake he got up and yawned stretching and rubbing his eyes. Without thinking he reached for the small chest that was at the foot of his bed. Not finding it he started looking around. His eyes went wide realizing that what had happened hadn’t been just a bad dream. Angel Bell gave him a sad look.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Red Shade asked fearfully. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to. It’s not fair.” He started crying. Angel Bell walked in and poured some water on a rag washing off his face and rocked him softly.
“You’re not going to die Red Shade,” she said softly as she rocked him like her own colt. “There are a lot of factors that the elder took into account, and they’ve given their verdict. I’m sorry but you’ve been banished from the Colony.” Red Shade froze.
“But th-that worse. I’d rather die.”
“Never say that.” She grabbed him by the ears and forced him to look at her. “You will survive you will live do you understand me.” He gave her a little nod. “Normally you wouldn’t even be allowed to trade with us but the council made an exception in your case. So, if you ever see any of our caravans go to them. I’ll always make sure they have supplies for you. Okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The world isn’t as bad as it once was, go around Canterlot and veer near Ponyville there’s a small tribe of zebra’s in the area that seem friendly enough. Trade what you can with them.” The guards came in and started pulling him away from her. “Find friends. Find a new home. You have to live, Red Shade!” She started crying as they pulled him away from her. Despite his own struggles they quickly got him out of his cell and started carrying him toward the main gate of the Colony. At the gates to the Colony. His guardian was there with the supplies. The bag looked a lot heavier than they normally would be, he sadly put the saddle bags onto Red Shade.
“Be careful, they use bottle caps to trade so I got you a couple of caps in there. Try to stay hidden okay?” He then leaned in a bit more and fastened a strange devise onto Red Shade. “That’s an Auto Doc it should help keep you safe, it has three charges, keep it filled okay?” he asked, Red nodded. “You’re a brave colt just like your parents; they’d be proud of you.” He leaned in and gave Red a hug. Red returned the hug. “Good luck Red Shade. May the Night Mother guide your steps.”
“Thank you.” Red Shade nodded and wiped his eyes before heading out of the gates and into the Equestrian Wasteland.