The dark streets of the lower levels of Canterlot were quite empty for such a warm summer night, but being in the shadow of the higher city, most ponies that lived the nightlife preferred to spend their time where Luna’s bright full moon could shine upon them.
It was just those kind of fashionable moonlight parties that the velvet cloak covered pony was escaping as she wandered through the dark lanes. Weeks of nights spent among the Canterlot social elite and their particular leanings left the mare wanting for different company. In fact, she desired as opposite the company as she could find.
Rarity was very good at keeping up appearances; the fashionable elite never saw her hesitation regarding their ‘sexy’ parties. She was able to pretend to enjoy the company of the other elite mares; they never realized that she preferred stallions.
And all for the better, in this city it was career suicide for a fashionista to be a bit… traditional, in her sexual orientation.
Tonight, however, she had excused herself from yet again rounds of finding herself under another aristocratic mare’s tail.
Tonight she would not have to act as if she didn’t even notice the pair of rutting males in the corner.
She had claimed fatigue and a need to catch up on her “beauty sleep” but sleep was the farthest thing from her mind.
She stopped in her tracks at the edge of one of the many alleyways in the lower city. Looking down its dark corridor she did her best to try and make out shapes, or anything at all, but the darkness held anything beyond the threshold in jealous confidence.
She took a few moments to compose herself, shuffling her feet at the edge of the shadows, and for a brief moment she rethought what she was about to do. She could always go back to the upper city and claim that she couldn’t sleep and join the party. The thought of how many of the mares would demand her talented tongue sent a shudder through her and hardened her resolve.
The soft glowing hue from her horn lit a bit of the entry of the alley as a similar aura surrounded the exquisitely hoof-stitched velvet cloak and lifted it off her flawlessly groomed form. Her magic floated it into a neatly folded pile discreetly hidden behind some barrels near the entry to the alley. She would just have to trust that it would be waiting for her when she left.
As she walked into the dark alley with her horn’s glow her only guiding light, the sound of her own solitary hoof-steps began to unsettle her. She began to wonder if she had not gone down the wrong alley; an act that, in this part of the city, was the last thing a pony wished to do.
It wasn’t long before her steps began to falter and she considered turning back and recounting her steps again. She was just about to do just that when her horn’s glow fell upon a mat near the left wall. It was black, but when the magical glow hit it a silver shimmer of several runes glowed back.
This was the place.
Rarity walked up to the matt, which exposed the red door along the wall. She took a deep breath and stood upright and proud as she lifted a hoof and knocked on the door three times.
Silence.
Long moments passed as she waited, hoping she had knocked the requisite number of times. She knew better than to try again and just stood in the silent darkness of the alley waiting.
Long after her worry had passed into an annoyed choice to stand there and wait for something to happen, a small click sounded somewhere inside the door and, from what she had first assumed was a letter box, as small ring fell out and onto the mat.
She levitated the ring up and examined it, and when she got a close look at the ring she gasped. She knew of these, and the idea of putting one on…
A band of pure gold, shaped into a pair of serpents, coiling in opposite directions, made the band, their heads came together in the center point of the piece and held, half in the open mouth of one and half in the open mouth of the other was a small stone. The stone was black, but it shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow in the dim light. She was sure if she touched the stone she would find it ice cold, a Mangus Stone.
It was a magic trap pendant.
The magical suppressant properties of the ring’s stone would make her nothing more than an earth pony with a pointy-head once she slid it onto her horn. Not only that, but she would not be able to remove it herself; she would have to have another pony remove it for her.
The moment she slid the ring on her horn there would literally be no turning back.
Her lip trembled and for a moment and she felt as if her knees might give out. A red hue also began to burn across her face as she realized that the sight of the ring and what it signified also… excited her.
She held her head up high and made sure her horn was pointed straight upward as she levitated the ring over it. She held the ring just a fraction of an inch above where its charm would take hold of her magic and lock it away where she would not be able to reach it.
Her mind raced at a full gallop thinking about what might away her inside, how long she would be stuck here and what would be done to her.
But then she thought about what already had been done to her in the upper city, and the things she had been forced to do for her position among the Canterlot elite. That thought solidified her resolve.
“If I am to be a slave, then for tonight I will be one on my own terms.” She said sternly to herself.
The ring dropped that fraction of an inch and suddenly the aura around the ring and her horn vanished. The alley and Rarity herself were plunged into pitch darkness and the ring fell down all the ridges to her head where it tightened around the base of her horn.
Rarity felt a sudden pinch in her temples; nausea flooded her and in that place where darkness had already taken her sight, thought departed from her.
The white unicorn fell in a heap on the black mat.
