Fallout: New Republic

As Selene slowly returned from the dark abyss the first thing he became aware of was the desperate need to vomit. I was knocked unconscious, I wasn't poised. Not helping, brain. Still, the feeling would not abate, and to top it all off he soon began to feel the horrific headache he was probably going to have for the rest of the day. Or night. Or whenever it is; how the fuck am I supposed to know!?

I'm going to kill somepony. Brutally. Slowly. And then I'm going to shove them down a deep, dark hole where they will never be found. And then I'm going to shit down that hole just to make the point. A shit hole: that's what they're going to be buried in. And then when I establish my great empire, I'm going to build my capital around that shit hole and everyone in the city is going to use that hole as their toilet, until it's nearly overflowing and then we are going to seal it off and call it the shit tomb... I think I may have a concession.

Slowly the rest of Selene's body made itself known, one achy cramp fading in at a time until he was fairly confident he could feel all of himself. He slowly slid his eyes open. There wasn't much he could see besides the dreary tree's surrounding him, knurled and twisted in silent agony, glowing in the flickering light from what must be a small fire burning behind him.

The sky was darkened, either nearing sun-set or just after sun-rise. He didn't know which, but judging by the still rather warm temperature—for this high up a mountain in winter—he was guessing the latter. Guessing from his lack of thirst or hunger he had only been out for a few hours, rather than a few days. So I guess that's how I'm going to know. Yay me...

Now what... He tried to roll onto his knees, possibly to at least reach a sitting position, but his body barely responded at all. Instead he ended up flailing slightly before the sudden body wide flare of pain convinced him it was a wasted effort.

Still, the small movement was enough to rattle his chains. Wait..? What chains!? He wiggled his legs again, doing his best to ignore the searing pain the movement caused. Now that he was focusing on it he could clearly feel the heavy weight of chains around all four of his legs, and a quick test revealed his range of movement to be severely restricted: he would be lucky to reach a standing position, let alone go anywhere.

He could hear the muffled thumps of a good sized ponies hooves on the ground as someone approached him from behind. Selene choked down the quick spike a panic: not only would it do him no good bound as he was, the spike of adrenaline that accompanied the fear nearly made him vomit, and he would really prefer to keep what little he had eaten over the last few days down. I can't imagine I'm going to be eating a lot over these next few days...

The white unicorn mare who had clubbed him in the back of the head trotted around in front of him, without the black cloak she had been wearing earlier, and missing most of whatever had been hidden beneath it. She wasn't even wearing any armor.

"Good morning, darling," she cooed, lowering herself into a sitting position. "How was your nap?"

How to play this... let's try polite: she seems respectable enough. "Cramped. Was that strictly necessary?" Selene half growled. Oops, that didn't come out right...

"Oh? I thought you would like it strict? Was I wrong?" She was looking down her muzzle at him, head cocked sideways and her eyes half lidded. It would have looked like a convincing flirt if Selene was stupid, or if she hadn't nearly killed him earlier.

As it was Selene found himself getting very angry at her flippant attitude, and had to close his eyes and force himself to relax as he felt his headache sharply spike. I swear, if I ever get the opportunity she is going to suffer for this... "No, I'm actually more the type of pegasus who likes room to soar." He tried to raise a hoof to make a fluid flying motion, but the chains didn't let him, and he was rewarded with another sharp spike of pain in both his leg and head. "Ack... but I'd be more than willing to play if you'd like to be chained up," he offered already knowing what her obvious answer would be.

"Hmm... You don't look like the type that can suppress my magic, so it would never be realistic anyway." Selene still had his eyes closed, but he could hear her slowly approaching.

He decided to try again. "Well, I guess neither of us will be happy with this. We should just shake hooves and go our separate ways." Again, he moved his leg and held his hoof as high as he could.

The mare moved closer still, placed her hoof on top of his, and gently pushed it to the ground. "Oh, no, I think one of us is going to be quite happy with this arrangement."

She moved closer again, carefully stepping over the chains holding Selene's legs in place. She moved so close Selene could feel the heat radiating off of her in the cool mountain air. "And I'm sure I'll really enjoy my time too."

Oh... not how I imagined myself spending my first nights in the west, if I'm honest. Whatever she was planing to do it was likely going to be far more pain that it was worth to Selene, but she's doing this for herself, isn't she? Luna, save me...

She suddenly grabbed Selene by the muzzle and pressed his head forward into the ground, exposing the side of his neck. Selene would have struggled, and probably been able to wrest his nose from her grip, but the motion would have caused immense pain and there was nothing he could do to stop her from trying again, so he didn't bother. Luna! Seriously!

She gently pressed the tip of her horn into his neck, lined up with his spine. Selene prepared himself for anything, expecting to end up writhing in some type of pain but not quite sure which. Is she going to electrocute me? Burn me?... what else can Unicorns do?

But none of those things happened. Instead he felt a cold wash out from her horn into his neck, which quickly spread out, numbing the pain in his neck. Huh... She slowly drug her horn up his neck, all the way to the base of his skull, and as she focused there the pain in his skull slowly began to recede as well. The feeling of queasiness even went with it, although it was replaced with dizziness, eventually leaving him very lightheaded.

When she eventually pulled her horn back the pain hadn't completely vanished, but it was just a dull throb rather than debilitating. Selene gave each of his legs a quick shake. Other than the chains still binding them together, which was still a major problem as far as he was concerned, they were just a bit stiff rather than in pain. I guess it was mostly just the concussion.

As he slid his eyes open, the white mares face complete filled his vision, almost touching his nose. He jolted as far back as the chains would allow (not very far) and stared at her for a moment. "Thanks, I guess—"

She stomped a hoof down on his side. His left wing was pressed hard into the ground, sending a sharp hot pain through his side as it was crushed underneath him, while his right wing snapped open purely on instinct. That was the first moment he realized his wings were not bound in any way. "Ah, damn it, what!?"

"I usually treat my slaves well, but you need to understand this: I own you." Her expression had lost all playfulness as she glared down at him, and when he didn't respond she put more weight on his side. "Do you understand?"

When she had laid him on his left side she had left his wing crumpled and wedged awkwardly underneath him, and now that she was putting so much weight on it the joints and delicate tendons where stretched to their limit. "Get off," he growled through clenched teeth as the pain blossomed from a sharp stabbing into a searing hot mess, bringing tears to his eyes.

"Hey, I need you to listen!" she shouted at him, standing with both forelegs on his side now.

He was already dizzy, but the wave of pain that caused pushed him to the edge of consciousness and threatened to bring his breakfast up once again. This needs to stop. "Get the fuck off!" he barked. Selene slid his right wing between her forelegs, up under her belly, and used it to leaver her over his shoulder into the air. The extreme strain this put on his right wing left a dull throbbing, but it was nothing compared to the sharp sting that remained in his left wing.

He heard her land somewhere behind him, hard. It sounded like she hadn't managed to get her legs underneath her and landed on her side. Good. Selene pulled his legs up, pulling himself sideways towards whatever she had him chained to. A small, about 20 cm thick tree, as it turned out.

A bit of struggling and he managed to bring himself to his knees, and twisted his head around to inspect his left wing. She had broken many of his primary feathers, but they would grow back quickly enough and it looked like he still had enough that it wouldn't impair his flight too badly, but carrying any heavy weigh would be impossible for awhile. In fact, he might even have to cut down on the gear.

The real damage was internal; she had stressed many tendons enough that a few were likely torn, and he could feel at least one broken bone. He slowly slid his wing open, moving carefully and praying quite heavily that it wasn't as bad as it felt. It was worse: a good number of secondaries had also been broken and he was actually missing four primaries. Hopefully they were next in his molting cycle, or he was going to be grounded for awhile. Has this idiot Unicorn never met a Pegasus before!

Speaking off... "What the fuck was that!?" the mare shrieked, stalking back towards him.

Selene didn't have the energy, or the words, to try and explain what the stupid mare had done by laying him on his side and crushing his wing into the ground. He tried to raise his wing enough to show her, but the tendons she had torn shrieked far louder than she ever could and his wing fell back to his side. Selene could do nothing but clench his eyes and jaw closed and concentrate on not passing out.

"What did you do that for?" the mare asked again, this time a bit more restrained, but Selene didn't hear her lost in his spinning world of agony as he tried not to barf for what felt like the tenth time tonight.

The first sign he had that she had approached was when the warm sensation of her telekinesis enveloped his injured wing, followed by the fresh spike of pain as she raised it out level to inspect. As he forced his eyes open and turned to face her, she was slowly scanning his wing with her eyes, with both her horn and eyes glowing a deep purple.

After a few moments, without even glancing at Selene's face, she leaned forward and pressed her horn into his wing, and began knitting the broken bone, what felt like his Radius or maybe his Ulna, back together. She then moved on to the tendons most badly shredded, these taking longer and by the time she had finished she had visibly tired. "I think that's all I can do," she said, dropping his wing. "You birds are horridly fragile."

If he wasn't chained to a tree, he would have broken her nose. Since he couldn't find anything to say that didn't risk her killing him, or at least putting him in excruciating agony for the third time tonight, he instead twisted his head around to inspect the condition his left wing was now in. She had done a good enough job knitting the bone and tendons back together, and while they might not be up to taking his wight in flight immediately that wasn't going to be a problem, because he was missing four primaries, one more was broken so badly it was likely to fall out, and all of the remaining five were torn or broken at various lengths. Nope, not flying again anytime soon.

"Hey, I hope I didn't break you too badly. I'm going to need my slave in good condition over the next few days." She had moved closer again, although was staying just out of reach.

"If you'd let me go long enough to take a piss, that would be nice," Selene mumbled doing everything he could to keep his raging fury from leaking into his voice.

As the mare looked up and thought about it, Selene took the time to contemplate which of her bones he was going to break first if she was stupid enough to let him go. As it turns out, she was. "Only because I know you'll be a dear, and not get yourself hurt any further," she said with a wink, and backed a little further away.

I think I'll start by snapping her horn off, then maybe her hind legs and let her crawl for help. The unicorns horn flared blindingly bright in the dusk gloom, and the metal chains around Selene's legs shrieked as they were ripped and twisted to fragments in an instant by the colossal force the mare had put them under, being scattered in every direction.

Or not... Selene thought, suddenly becoming quite apprehensive at the thought of being placed under that kind of absurd force if his attack failed. Besides, unless she's going to waste half an hour knitting those pieces back together, I guess she's not planing on chaining me up again.

He was wrong, or at least partially. Her horn flared again, and a thick strip of metal hovered over from her pile of equipment wrapped in her telekinesis. "Hold still," she purred, not waiting for a response. The strip of metal quickly bent, shrieking slightly at the sudden force, and wrapped itself around Selene's neck. He tried to jerk back, but it moved far too quickly and was already holding him in place before he could move. It was thicker than the strip that had killed the small mare earlier today, and he was able to get a good hold on it, but he doubted that would matter if it decided to kill him.

"It's nothing special, just a mark that you're my property... Oh, and I'm placing an enchantment on it. If you stray too far away from me, it'll trigger and kill you, but don't worry, I don't plan on letting that happen. Strong, attractive slaves are expensive! I don't think there is a pony in the Wastes that can afford you, so it's best you get used to me." She turned to return to her campfire, leaving Selene both happy to be free—from the chains—furious—he likely wasn't going to get to kill her tonight, and sad that he wasn't going to be flying for a few days, and maybe even a few months seeing how many feathers he was missing. ...But maybe I can—

"Oh," and the mare said, turning around, almost perfectly reading Selene's mind, "and I need to be alive to keep that from triggering. Let me know if you want it adjusted; it's not supposed to be uncomfortable."

Fucking... Unicorn... Bitch...