"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."~Aristotle~Aurora Lorem
The rain patted lightly against the roof of the carriage, it on rout to Ponyville from Manehattan, its cargo was dozens of fairly young earth ponies. They had all been assigned duty on the fields as their overlords deemed them useless at any other task other than labour.
The rain was beginning to pick up slightly, the weather started to develop a mind of its own after the Emperor tightened flying regulations on the local pegasi. Limiting them to set airways for travel. This resulted in much rioting, and many pegasi being made "redundant".
A hooded pony clad in grey shuffled their way through the ponies towards a small opening at the side of the carriage, the landscape, once jolly and bright had taken a turn for the worst. The rapid industrialization of the area had led to a much different Ponyville, the birds were no longer singing, the various streams and lakes had lost that sparkle that had made them so, magical. The practical every day use of magic had also been banned forcing unicorns to wear special enchantments restricting their magical capabilities to the bear minimum, such as basic levitation. The mysterious figure sighed in what appeared to be remembrance of the occupation. Slowly the pony remove their hood to reveal a horn and a unkempt purple mane. Rarity had an unsettled look on her face, it was the first time that she had gone on a run to the city for supplies, Rainbow tended to go on runs but had injured herself running from the civil protection officers of Manehattan, although the current cargo was of much lower risk.
The carriage slowed as the western Ponyville Checkpoint was in sight. Rarity dawned her hood and slowly sank back into the crowd of ponies. The carriage came to a complete stop as it neared the fence and the pilots of the craft readied themselves for the inspection. The pilots in questions were two unicorns. Our "benefactors" were far too big to pilot the vessel so they gave the task of relocation to those they deemed fit, unicorns are usually picked for administrative tasks, like ones that would require a lot of paperwork. The ponies pulling the craft were of course earth ponies. A strange assortment of noises came from outside, and then shouting.
*ZAP*
"Heh heh heh, stupid mud horse" Came a deep gravely voice of General MacTusk, the highest ranking officer and governor of the district of Greater Equestria, a large area consuming Ponyville and its surrounding areas all the way up to the New Republic of Canterlott.
Canterlott had managed to retain its independence during the Great Equestrian Succession War after the princesses mysteriously vanished on the night of the coronation of the would be Princess Twilight Sparkle making her legitimacy to the throne completely obsolete.
"Are these the new mud workers we were to be expecting, hmm?" he asked one of the pilots whilst using his Walrus Magic to levitate a fan for him to cool himself down with.
"Y-Yes em general- sir, straight from Manehattan to serve on the eastern farming development for our great leader and Emperor Waliver the Great 1st of his name, erm- sir!" The young sky blue unicorn with pale teal eyes had replied obviously nervous at the sheer majesty of the walrus in front of her. The general was barely impressed although he decided to let it go, he was in a rather good mood, this shipment of slaves is just what he needed to make this great town thrive.
"Very well, you may proceed to the town square and await further instructions." The unicorn pilot visually relax at the thought that she had not messed up too badly. They were about to start moving until...
"May I have the pleasure of knowing your name miss?" The blue pony was startled by the question at first but smiled, at least it was a friendly one.
"Oh- um Star Charmer s-sir" the timid pony stammered.
"Thank you for allowing me to make your acquaintance, miss Charmer" The General said with a nod, motioning for his guards to open the gate. The carriage entered the town and headed down the narrow roads carefully. Wally MacTusk looked at the carriage and thought of the cargo, the town up until now has been heavily subsidized by the much richer core provinces up north. But no longer!
The General flopped up to one of his higher ranking officers.
"Please would you acquire that miss Charmer some time during her stay? I would like to get... further acquainted with her..."
The captain smiled slightly and gave the General a curt nod before returning to his duties. The general sighed and relaxed he had no further duties and his evenings... entertainment sorted, he could tell that today was going to be a good day.
Rarity had been looking through the small opening at the side, the carriage that the walruses used to transport slaves was a slightly modified version of a common design used by nobility with larger parties, in which Rarity knew well, there was always an emergence escape hatch located at the bottom of the craft just in case of it capsizing or any other incident that made the main doors unusable.
Rarity saw her target fast approaching and readied her self to drop out. With the carriage as close to the library as it was going to get. She quickly opened the hatch and leaped out, hitting the ground and keeping her head as close to the floor as possible waiting for the carriage to pass she looked up surprised to see that there was nopony(or walrus) in sight she merely brushed this aside and headed for the door she gave a sequence of knocks signaling that it was her. The sound of many looks being unlocked and undone came from behind the door before it opened and a mare with a multi-coloured mane peaked her head around, her eyes widened in surprise she almost shouted but realized the circumstances and quickly pulled her inside. Rainbow had put Rarity in a tight embrace before letting her go.
"So, how'd ya get along?" Rainbow asked.
"Oh I did alright, a few close calls but nothing I couldn't handle, oh! And I got just what we needed!" She reached for a saddlebag on her left hoof side and pulled out a body brace.
"Oh that's great, um, what did we need it for again?" Dumbfounded as to how this could help with the current situation.
"Oh well you see Twilight, the poor dear, couldn't leave the house because of her wings, even the walruses know that 's a sign of high nobility, nobility that could probably cause an uprising of sorts. In fact where is she now?"
"She's up the stairs, still trying to figure what went wrong."
"It's a shame for the poor dear" Rarity took a second to look around. "Um, where are the others then?"
"Spike, Pinkie and Applejack went out to try and get as many rations as they can."
"And Fluttershy?" She asked quizzically.
"Well.." Rainbow awkwardly began "Remember last week when we said we might have to start doing... things, that we might not want to do if money remained tight..."
