A Slave's Freedom

I thought these grey grains would bore me. They're dry, dull little objects that roughen my feet to the worse of conditions and break the perfect mold my mother made me. Yet they also grab me and pull me closer to the ground, but they don't do it tightly. It's gentle. It's not what I'm used to. Being tossed to the ground on the farm and whipped by him is what I'm used. The Master watching, maybe--is he in the corner?--he'll watch me suffer. It's what a slave is right? We suffer for the white man: their crops, their desires, and in return, they feed us and give us work. Work that we want? No, not at all. It's work. At least one of us got to miss it sometimes.

Then I fought for freedom. I guess I can say I walked into a different path. I'm not at Sweet Acres anymore, that's for sure. Yet, it's sneaking up on me. The Master tells me things, wants me to do something else. Yet he tells me she'll be gone, like my sister, dead. I didn't know she was dead, in fact, the news is new to me. Unlike the other slaves, who died in the fields, from punishments they gained, or from the rough treatment of a stray bullet scattering the ashes, she must have died differently. Rainbow Dash, who my sister decided to echo through, isn't dead, but she's been beat up like those slaves. That must be the proof that she didn't die like them. Rainbow Dash is like my sister. She's strong, reliable, and definitely not someone who backs down.

She's not like the white man.

I look down at her body. She's snoring softly in my arms, her good wing flapping slightly against my chest while the remains of her once beautiful wing lay dried against my arm. Of course, my injuries are like hers: torn and battered. I am a slave, after all, we're used to this sort of treatment. Yet, I guess we're all alike. Whether we're a talking clown horse, an escaped slave, or a white slave owner does not matter. We all hurt, we all think, and we all... exist.

Except those white man who murmur to each other near that large oak tree. I remember Mr. Stockton, how he stood with Mr. R——*. They leaned against that oak tree talking about him, but back then, I forgot that they also mentioned the other white man. They were nice, or well, they sounded nice to me. However, Mr. Stockton didn't like them. They were the Union.

I imagine them coming down and storming Sweet Acres with water. Not normal water, but it spilled red. It was comforting, yet it was there, spilled on the grass while the house burned plentifully, was where the anguish and suffering of us would end. Charred black wood fell from above, before smashing to the grounds in one collective pile of ash. Bodies of the cold-hearted become warm, burning to a crisp in the prison while the ones with me watch as the agony that has tainted our lives for years comes to a bitter end. In the backdrop, colorful grey smoke floats towards the sky, merging with the overcast weather. The smoke emerges from the large blue cannons, those ones I thought I heard. We all heard them.

Maybe they're real, maybe they're fake. Maybe the Master wants me to hear them, so I get a sense of freedom for a moment so that later, he'll paint me red too. A different colored man, just red. Yet, being here, restless, holding a colorful horse that involves every color I know expect white--maybe she's the one I was supposed to meet. She's the exception to the rule; she's every color. She represents everything and anything: an equal amount. I guess that's why we're so close. Friends, of course, I told her that already. Something else though, a relation, something like that, binds us. I remember, as I hobble along the path up to the heavenly darkness above, where I hope the grey grains don't be, when we collided in color.

I guess we're equal that way too. We like to crash. We like to suffer, even if it isn't because of us. We like to suffer because we do suffer, equally.

Holding her gently in my arms, I hobble up the incline. It's getting harder to walk since my leg that was scratched open by the pointy rock is numb, and the incline itself is getting steeper and steeper. Each step I take feels like one step back, but I continue moving forward in hopes of getting her to safety. She needs help, she needs to survive. It's not my fault. It's not.

Stopping momentarily, I look at Rainbow Dash again. Her body is stained in a mixture of grey and brown. Those brown fragments floated around me too, but they didn't stay. The grey, however, stays on me for this entire journey. Grey grains stuck there due to the water's pull. Yet, that isn't what I only see and feel. She is cold to the touch, yet her heart, her pulse, they still race and beat in my arms. She's alive, but I don't know how long. Her good wing flitters sometimes, but I'm not sure if she can even move her torn one. I haven't seen it move once. Lastly, her brows are at a slant. She must've remembered something, maybe from when we are together in this land. Either that, or she's remembering something about those ponies she mentioned. Twilight? Fluttershy? I think that's what their names were. I'm not sure, my brain is thinking of twenty different things at the same time, and I haven't had to think of that many things at once. People? Maybe, but things? Ponies, where we're heading, why everything hurts, what burns, those cannons; they're firing--it's all in my head.

Brother!

Maybe it isn't, maybe it is.

Please!

I hear her voice. Maybe I should listen.

Get to the top of this incline, boy. Get up 'er!

It's him. I don't like him.

Listen to him, my beautiful little son. I'll be waitin'.

Mother? Momma...

I grit my teeth and rush forward with my only companion in my arms. Those voices, I love and hate them. I don't hate them equally, but I do love them equally. There's something about them, in my head, voicing their words to me that I just can't shake without listening to them wholeheartedly. My Master's voice appears often, but.. I hear my sister and mother too. They... want me to move on. Listen to him. I guess... I'll take the bait.

I look above me to see the outline of a ledge. I'll have to hop on one leg just to get to it. My other one isn't useable in the slightest. For the longest time, the leg has simply lagged behind me, carrying a handful of soot in its track. It isn't smeared red, though, that I am glad. However, the cut looks... wrong. It's really pussing out; the clear juices flowing out of the large wound. I hope it does not get worse. If it does, then I am in trouble. A leg lost? Many white man who come home from war never see them again. They hobble like me. They hobble.

Then, I realize something. I can't just hop up there with her in my arms. If I do, I'd surely fall on my back. I don't want break any more ribs. Please, my painful reminder likes to remind me often. It aches and shocks me every single chance it gets. However, I can't just leave her up there, can I? If there's a monster up there waiting for me to give it it's lunch, I wouldn't know. It's too dark, I don't hear any deep breathing, and I don't hear any footsteps.

Maybe I'll have to give it a try though. I don't have any other options. It's either up we go, or we become two starving skeletons who decompose with the grey grains below my worn feet.

So I go with option one, and with one, final, caring look, I hoist Rainbow Dash's sleeping form onto the ledge. She slides onto those grey grains again, and I sigh, knowing that nothing is up there. Nothing has moved, a flitter of her wing maybe, but nothing of another form. She's fine. Now it's my turn to get up there.

With all the strength I have left, I hop and reach for the ledge, hoping to snatch it with ease. I do snatch the edge and thankfully with my good hand. My other hand, which was wrapped in my shirt from the damage it received, still aches. However, it isn't infected. That's good. That's all that matters for that little issue.

Pulling myself up, I take a breather, and snatch her in my arms again. It's still hard to see, but judging by how steep the incline was, I think we're getting closer to the exit. Maybe, just maybe, we're getting out of here. Maybe we're getting out of the gorge. Maybe we can go get some food: some rations that this pony has? I'm not sure. They don't eat like I do. Mostly hay?

I'm not sure, but whatever this horse eats, I'll have to stomach it. I need something in my stomach. Whatever food she has is going to be mine too, I hope. I'll ask first. Just like I ask my mother for food.

Hobbling through the cave's darkness makes me wonder. Are we just stuck here because we didn't obey my Master? Was it just something he used to make me try and see something? What am I supposed to be seeing in this... tragedy? That maybe I am not free after all? I didn't escape?

What happened?

I look down at her again. Her eyes are slowly opening. The pupils, those magenta hues, flicker. She's gazing up at me. And then I hear her.

"Dyson?" Her voice is worn, tired, and without much life. "Did... we make it?"

I smile and ruffle her mane. "We're fine, Dash."

She struggles to smile, but those lips curve right into a bright, beautiful grin. "I'm glad." Her eyes flicker, but not because she's losing herself. Straight ahead, bright in all of its glory, is a light. A very bright one. It's bright like the sun's color, but still as white as those bolts that passed us by, shattering the rocks near us. We dodged them then, but now, there's no need to run, hide, or take cover from these white bolts of light. They won't hurt us. It's bright, it's really bright.

Please be the way out.

"Is... it done?"

I raise a brow at the curled pony in my arms. "It? What do you mean?"

She cranes her neck out from underneath my arms, and sees the white glow ahead. Seeing it must've affected her, as I hear her let out a hoarse chuckle. "We did it. I told you I'd get you out of here alive, Dyson." She brings her gaze to mine. "I'll... take you to meet my friends when I--" Her wing, the one she hasn't noticed, brings her to reality. The shock, the pain, I think, brings her gaze to it immediately. It's airy. And suddenly, I hear her shriek.

"Dyson! What happened to my--"

I quickly cut her off. "It be okay, Dash," I reassure her.

To my dismay, her whimpers echo in the cave, and soon, she lets herself go. Weakly, she lays her head on my arm and shuts her eyes. "This isn't happening," she murmurs. "This isn't happening."

She quakes in my possession, and as I walk towards the light, I realize that maybe this isn't the end. This is the first step.

And I am right. Outside the cave is that gorge. That rock I found her body the first time she crashed. Those grey grains that first covered my rough feet. We're back at square one.

We're back where we started.

Another long road home.