Rarity's Rescue

Hours, many hours later, Rarity opened her eyes slowly.  The world around her was blurry and she felt so groggy, but that started to change as she blinked her eyes a few times and allowed her vision to focus.  “Mhmm…” she let out a little whimper as she sat up and tried to ease the aching in her body.  Her whole body felt like she had just fallen down a mountain, but it was perhaps her head and neck that hurt the most.  She moved her head just slightly but then stopped as fast as she could when a searing pain shot through her.  She yelped in pain and placed her hoof on the back of her head where the pain was.  When she brought it back around to her front though, her eyes grew wide as she noticed the blood on it.  It seemed to be dry for the most part, but it was apparent that she was still bleeding a little.

Rarity looked up to observe her surroundings and saw that she was in quite an unfamiliar place.  There were lit torches all around the stone walls, and as Rarity looked around she saw that there were two narrow passageways which led into the small chamber that she was in.  As Rarity glanced all around her and took notice of her surroundings, it didn’t take her long to realize that she was in a cave.  It was rather cold and dank here, and the air was heavy, so Rarity knew that she had to be a considerable depth underground.  She slowly sat up on the damp mattress that she was laying atop and rubbed her neck, careful to avoid the spot on her head.  As she did so, Rarity took note of the torches one more time and realized that the cave must be inhabited.  But then she remembered how she had come to be here in the first place.  Somepony, or something, had attacked her.  She had to be cautious and she had to find her way out of there.

She flung the even damper sheets off of her body.  “I’ve gotta get help,” she said weakly to herself, “I’ve gotta get help,” she repeated just as weakly.  She went to bound off of the mattress and take off into as quiet of a run as she could down one of the corridors, but as she did so, she heard the clanking of metal and was thrown to the ground.  As she collected her wits, Rarity glanced back towards her flank and saw that there was a single, metal chain that had her held to a carved stalactite pedestal, one of four that surrounded her mattress.  “Wh… what?” Rarity said in a whisper as she could only stare back at it.  She tugged her leg over and over again as hard as she could, but she just couldn’t break free.

Tears began to well in Rarity’s eyes as they shot all around the room.  She was scared, confused, cold, and all alone.  “H…Help!” Rarity called out with a weak voice, not thinking of who might come to her call.  She only called out once though, and when nopony came, laid her head down into the mattress and sobbed.  She sobbed and she sobbed, but then she brought her head up and dried her eyes.  She knew that crying wasn’t going to solve anything.  “Just… just laying here and moping about isn’t going to solve anything,” she said to herself, “I… I’ve got to find a way out of here.

Rarity dried the tears from her eyes and stood up on the mattress.  All of her senses were about her now, and all she had to do was figure out a plan.  She looked about the room and saw that there wasn’t much to it, a rather dangerous characteristic for this situation.  Rarity observed the chain and the pedestal that it was tied to, and saw that at the very, very tip top of it, it was narrow.  A slight smile crossed her face as it looked as if it was all going to be OK after all.  All I need to do is drag the chain up and over the top so it’ll slide off.  After that, and after I’m out of here, I can figure out how to get this thing off of me.  Rarity looked down at the chain around her hind ankle with a look of both despair and anger.  OK, here we go.  Rarity went to muster her energy and placed all of her focus on the chain, but she frowned when nothing happened.  She tried over and over again, but nothing happened.  “What?” she said aloud as she reached up towards her head, fearing the worst.  She sighed in relief though when she felt the outline of her horn there.  Only, there was something off about it, something cold and metal-like.  She moved her hoof all around the outline of her horn, but was shocked to find that there was a metal cover over it.  Her eyes grew wide and her heart began to beat faster as she tried to get the thing off of her horn.  She struggled so hard even that she eventually fell down onto the mattress onto her back as she tried to push it off.

In the end, Rarity only succeeded in tiring herself out.  She dropped to the mattress, her breath escalating.  That was it, there was no hope.  She was out of ideas, the physical pain was returning to her, and her emotions were starting to get the best of her.  The tears welled up in her eyes once more and then they began to flow freely.  Rarity knew that she should try to be strong, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t.  She could hear Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who had to be two of the strongest ponies ever, telling her, demanding her to be strong and to dry her tears up.  Thoughts like that though, they only made Rarity cry harder.  For some reason, she just couldn’t help but feel like she might never see her friends again.  Nopony knew she was out there and with a storm blowing in, probably already in full swing, it was highly unlikely that anypony was out looking for her even if they did know she was missing.

Rarity sniffled as mental images of Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie flashed in her head; images of Spike too.  “Oh my… Spike…” she said through her tears, “I’m so sorry that I never paid any attention to you.  You were one of my closest friends.  I… I’ll miss you most Fluttershy.”  Rarity laid her head down flat on the mattress and closed her eyes.  She had to face the music and accept that she was at the mercy of her unknown captors.