Prison of the Clouds

“That’s all that happened?” Starswirl asked.

“That’s it. Hailstorm asked about how I nearly freed my herd, made sure I would cooperate, and had me brought back here.”

Apparently, ‘cooperation’ and ‘participating under duress’ were now synonymous. Starswirl had reddened with anger when he viewed the memory of Hailstorm threatening the life of Mute’s foal.

“You know, ‘Muted Hoof’ isn’t that bad of a name.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Silence.

“Would you mind if I saw…”

“You might as well,” Mute said.

Starswirl’s horn lit in overglow yet again.

Mute lay in the shadow of a log, the moonlight illuminating the underbrush enough for her to see the guards nodding off on either side of the mouth of a cave. Inside, she could see the shadows of two more guards dancing across the wall in the flickering firelight.

She waited, trying not to shiver, until the guards were sufficiently out of it. A few years ago the temperature would not have been a problem, but recently everything north of the Crystal Mountains had been getting colder, mirroring the relations between the three races. On some nights, as tonight, frost had begun to cover the ground in the nighttime hours.

She crept along the ground silently, the guards not noticing her near-brown coat approaching in their stupor. Once through the cave’s mouth, she peeked around the corner, seeing the two guards inside watching over the sleeping forms of the earth pony prisoners, and their pegasus captors, with their backs to her. With a single motion, Mute leapt forward, spun around on her forelegs, and delivered a single blow to one’s skull with each of her hind hooves. The crack of their bones dissipated in a moment, failing to echo in the chamber.

She heard one of the guards get up with a start outside, and plod into the cave mouth. As it rounded the corner, she ended it with another blow of her hooves. She slipped back outside and struck the last unconscious with a quick blow to the temple.

Mute grabbed daggers off of two of the guards and slipped back into the cave, where she crept around the sleeping guards to where her herd laid, their legs bound to each other to make a chain of earth ponies.

She put a hoof over the mouth of her mate as she woke him, muffling a confused whinny. She dropped a dagger in front of him and took the other in her mouth, using it to cut his bonds. Together, they began to loose the rest of the herd.

A sudden ringing caught Mute’s attention, and a quick glance revealed that the stallion’s dagger had snapped in two, the blade ringing against the stone floor.

“Arms!”

The pegasus troop was on their hooves with blades in mouth instantly, and a blue-coated pegasus strode towards Mute. 'Maj. Hurricane' was emblazoned on her chest plate.

“You’re new,” the pegasus noted, through clenched teeth.

Mute’s jaw went limp in fear. The dagger clanging against the floor, she backed against the cave wall as the pegasus approached, blade ready.

The pegasus held the sword to Mute’s neck as she looked her over. Seeming to come to a decision, she dropped the sword and turned away.

“Bind them”

They both sat on their stone slabs, silently.

“Now that you’ve seen the last two days of my life, how about you tell me something?”

“Of course.”

“Why haven’t you unicorn cowards tried to free us earth ponies from this place yet? Where are all of you?”

Starswirl sighed and looked about uneasily. “After the pegasi attacked Stonehorn, they broke through the dome of the keep to find that all of the unicorns had been teleported away…”

“I know that. Everypony knows that. I want to know why you haven’t been doing anything since then!”

“But we didn’t teleport away at all.”

Mute squinted at him.

“We built a stronghold under Stonehorn. A huge underground chamber, large enough for farms and with housing built into the walls. It even has a fortified antechamber to defend it if the pegasi ever get in. Luckily, we got everypony inside and the passage in sealed before they broke the dome. The military, including every sorcerer and conjurer fit for battle, have been preparing to fight back, but the king is stalling. Regretfully, at the advisory of my own apprentice. He might never approve of us emerging. He thinks, since the pegasi don’t know we’re there, we’ll be safe as we are forever.”

“How are you surviving? Unicorns don’t farm.”

“The earth ponies that lived in the area around Stonehorn took refuge there before the pegasus army arrived. They’ve been working the fields in the stronghold, under an artificial sun, to grow food for all of us. I don't know how the pegasi think we teleported ourselves and all the earth ponies out during the battle, but I am thankful that they're convinced of it.”

“And you left the rest of us on the surface, to be captured and enslaved by the pegasi.”

“We couldn’t risk opening the passage down until we could defend it, and even if we could, there isn’t room for any more ponies. There was nothing we could do.

“We’ve been preparing to fight back. That’s why I was close enough to this place to get captured; I was scouting. I’m one of the only unicorns that could hold my own against a pegasus troop.

“They found out where I was, and waited until I took shelter for the night. They grabbed me while I was asleep. I don’t know what you know about magic, but you can’t teleport while being physically restrained, you need to know exactly where your body will be when the spell goes off, and it takes time to get ready.

“By the time they got this lead thing over my horn, I saw that it was a chance to get more information. They think it stops me from using magic. Lead stops physical radiation, not magical. You need an alchemically pure metal for that, like silver or gold. Somepony gave them false information, and I could use it to my advantage. I let them bring me up here, and with the information you provided, I know everything we need about this place.”

Mute sat silently for a moment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine.”

Starswirl released the guards from his magic. They opened their eyes, seeming to ignore that they thought they had just been asleep.

The doors opened, grinding against the ground noisily, despite the fact that they were made of cloud.

Hailstorm entered, flanked by her escort. Her shadow ebbed behind her for a moment, and then began to move forward. Into Mute and Starswirl’s view hovered a small, green, winged… insect…

With a horn.

Starswirl nearly backed off of his stone platform. “A changeling?” He spat, “you’re harboring a changeling? Are you mad?”

“No,” Hailstorm replied, “just resourceful.”

The changeling’s horn glowed a sickly green, and Mute’s head was momentarily engulfed in a bubble of energy. As it dissipated, Mute said, flatly, “got it.”

“Restrain him,” Hailstorm commanded, and her entire entourage swarmed around Starswirl, lifting him off the stone slab by all four legs.

“What is going on? Put me down!”

“So that you can teleport away? I don’t think so.” Hailstorm said. “Chrysalis, go with them. Make sure he can’t do anything useful.”

“Fine,” the changeling sighed dramatically.

“You did well, now just make sure he stays put until he can be dealt with.

“Oh, and Starswirl,” Hailstorm said, “Thanks for telling our collaborator here everything we need to know.”

“No! I read her memories! She’s not…”

“Do you know how we control our prey, unicorn boy?” Chrysalis asked, “You can read memories. Do you really think that they can’t be changed? Change ponies’ memories as they happen, in the right way, and you can make anypony do whatever you want. It's called mind control.

"Compared to that, this was simple. What I spliced together from her memories and her foals’, cutting out the parts where we had some little chats, was simply editing it wholesale. It was foals’ play.”

Mute watched as Starswirl was carried out of the room, screaming, followed by a taunting changeling foal, until they were out of view. Then she turned to Hailstorm.

“Don’t look so grim, you and your family will be treated like royalty for this,” Hailstorm assured her, “now let’s go somewhere where you can be comfortable while we talk.”