A Slave's Freedom

It's been a while since I have seen some hope in our midst. That hope lies within the stream of water that had been trickling down the side of the gorge. As we have been following the twists and turns the gorge, I've kept myself focused on the water gushing from the stream. It's to the point that I might as well dab my tongue in it and get the water I need.

But I'll wait, I have this feeling that maybe there's a bigger, better place to drink from. I think Rainbow Dash knows this too, as we hobble our way around another tight bend. She flicks her tail, probably wondering if the thing still exists, and then gasps. "D-Dyson... look."

I look at what she's looking at and gasp too. Around the bend is a giant crater of water. Its capacity of water is so much, that the water overflows onto the stream that we have followed for this entire journey. The sight of sparkling water in the sun's rays makes me rush to it in a mad hopping dash. As I come to its edge, I dunk my head into it and begin to drink. I stay there for a few moments to savor the taste of something that I haven't had in days.

Water drives us slaves mad.

Unlike me, I hear the slow hoofsteps of Rainbow Dash before she clambers up and dunks her head in too. Together we sip from the spring of life and take a much needed rest by the side of the gorge. Collectively we sigh together, our bodies leaning on the left side of the gorge.

"You went a bit stir-crazy back there," Rainbow Dash says after a moments worth of peaceful silence. I glare at her. "Is that normal?"

I nod. "Slaves be that way sometimes." I look at the sun and see its golden hue. "Especially when it be gettin' close to dark." It is fading in the distance. "Do ya know why?"

Dumb question to ask her, I know, and she gives me the response I want, her head shaking to and fro while her head tilts slightly to the left.

"Because bein' alone in the dark isn't the best time of ya life."

Voices grab her, they laugh maliciously, and the lifeless body is drug from one end of the floor to the next.

"Aren't we friends, Dyson?"

Her voice fades in the distance, while the sounds of bones breaking become the new music of life.

She frowns. "Yeah... I know how that feels."

I look at her in shock. "Really?"

A brow raise from her made me feel uneasy. "Are you thinking that I'm lying to you?"

I shake my head promptly in response. Even though I drank plenty of water, the unsettling gaze made my lips turn bone-dry.

"It happened when I was young." My ears perk up at the sound of her voice. She had looked away since my gaze had shifted to the grey walls of the gorge to dodge her deathly glare. "I didn't know that my mother was set on working her hardest to join the Wonderbolts." She frowns. "I didn't get to see her often."

"She be the motivation of you to work for the Wonderbolts?"

She chokes out a laugh, before giving me a smile, one that felt empty. "Mostly. She didn't make it though." Rainbow Dash sighs. "Maybe that's why I want to try so that I can be better than her. More awesome..." She returns back to her somber tone. "While she was fishing for the spotlight, I was always with my father. He took me places all around Cloudsdale. He said he wanted me to see the world and look at how awesome it was." She turns to me, her smile waning. "I can't tell you how right he was..." Her good wing twitches. "It was beautiful." She shakes as she continues to speak, "My dad told me I was like the world: beautiful, awesome, and moving towards something great." A smile flickers on and off like the candle which falters every time my Master walked passed it, his boots click-clacking on the rickety floorboards. "Every day he would remind me to go outside and see what we have at our little hooves. Use it too, but be loyal to the world. If you be loyal to it, it will be loyal to you."

While she spoke, my mind was taking in the world as she saw it. Yet my eyes were struck with grey.

The world was grey to me.

"Then, one night, while my father was working at the Cloudsdale Weather Factory and my mother was out practicing for the next tryouts," Her voice begins to falter, "I went outside, alone. The area was dark. There were no lights to be seen from any place, except from one lamp that hung over a bench in the park. I walked over to it and watched as a filly was sitting there, alone like me. She was twirling her mane and waiting for... something." She flicks her mane back with her hoof. "I wish I went over there."

"Why?" I ask.

Rainbow Dash gulps before saying the words that made my heart stop.

"Two masked ponies took her," she says. "I ran back home after that."

I frown. "So she...?"

"She died the next day when they took the filly to the hospital. My mother told me that after seeing in the paper that a filly died from being choked to death."

"The paper?"

She rolls her eyes. "Newspaper? Y'know? Ponies write about things happening in the world and tell us about them." She smiles while a tear slowly slips down her cheek. She brings a hoof to her cheek and wipes that tear away. "I never thought talking about this would..." She chokes on her own words. A slight grimace appears on her face, and her floppy ears twitch to the words that she never said. I saw them, I hear them, and the rest of the words she says makes me want to end the conversation. "Can you please not tell anypony? I--"

"Ya have a reputation to keep, I know," I say in response, my mind rushing of scenes of her cute hair, her little hands...

She looks away. "Y-Yeah... I do."

There was nothing else to say as the sun dips into the backdrop, making us all alone in the dark.

Together.