Branding to make a friend.

"Mmmm."

Release. It is what we all must do from time to time, no matter the pace of life we choose or are forced to take. From a hard days work in the fields to the wing bruising battle against the thunderclouds high above, there isn't a pony who wouldn't enjoy the moment of release that a relaxing soak in the bath might grant. To lick away the lashes of the day, and soothe the ache of their ambition, they would give anything.

"Ooooh."

But as far as Equestria had come in their age of magic and wonder, they often required the expertise of other cultures for the technological that had to be hand crafted to fit the needs of a hoof. Their trains. The dams. Even the complex water systems that still have many years left to go under Canterlot and other major cities were bought or borrowed from beyond their shores. They were wise, and they were quite powerful, but they were also easy to be satisfied. Outside of magic, creation was just something ponies did not do.

"Ah, yes. There it is." She stretched her neck and then bends to the side, letting the heat of her muscles come to the surface to be soothed and tickled. Turning around, she continues to flex and flaunt all of her form to the one who can satisfy their cry. "Oh! Hehe, new spot."

Having a good old time, she even opens her wings to show the most delicate place, with the softness that no pillow would ever hope to best. It was soft, it was hidden, and to let any come to nestle would be one of the most intimate she could offer. But none has dared try and touch, nor has she allowed any her tolerance for such a thing, until now, as she shudders her breath from the countless nerves catching fire.

"Hmm, if I find out the minotaurs had hidden this from us, I just might have to levy a sanction." Celestia giggles, kicking out like a filly when she twirls to give all of her a turn to enjoy her heated waterfall. With a bathroom the size of a living room, and over a dozen shower heads shooting with all their might down onto her, her mind wanders perhaps a little too far. "But you weren't a minotaur, were you."

Lowering her wings from their high perch in what was a most provocative pose, she uses her magic to turn each and every nob clockwise. Joined for just a few moments in the drip onto gritted tile below, she sighs before giving herself a mighty shake. Rearing up and onto two hooves, her wings unfold once again with a snap that plasters the ceiling and walls with the chill running down her coat.

With no need to uphold image or status, she allows her mane and tail to remain fallen and stilled as the drip of lingering water marks her trail from her shower room to her traditional bathroom. Grabbing a few long fluffy towels, she robs them of their dryness through rubbing and dragging them all over her body from the hooves all the way to her perky ears. Using her magic to lift her tail like a riled canine, she vigorously rubs a towel in the most unladylike fashion to scratch a itch on her rear, thinking nothing else of it in her privacy.

Looking into her mirror as she continues to dry herself, she flings open several draws to pull out a mass of large yellow and pink curlers that she begins to roll into her mane. Routine, but just a little rougher and harsher than normal, she does the same for her tail until even it is but a foot long stub that sticks up more than down. Trying not to look directly onto her own reflection while she tries to tidy up in front of the mirror, a mishaps flashes her back to where her thoughts currently remain trapped and held down.

Over one year prior

"Pardon?" Princess Celestia sits upon her throne, regal and proper, as one of the palace attendants remains knelt down upon the red carpet before her steps. "Why was he in the dungeon? Who ordered him placed there? Why was I not informed sooner?"

"U-uh, uh, I-I'm terribly sorry your highness!" The stallion attendant in a top butler jacket profusely grovels. "I came as soon as I found him, for he had left his room without the guards noticing. If it wasn't for one of the cleaners, we never would have known ourselves."

"While the dungeons are thankfully without a need for a post, this is precisely why I informed the ones ordered to fill one with a need to accompany if he were to wander." Celestia stretches the corner of her mouth. "I know ponies are curious, and harmless pranks are bound to happen, but we know nothing of his culture." She raises a foreleg. "Where is he now? Did you see him back to his room?"

"Um, still in the dungeon?" The attendant lowers his head from his failure. "He won't open the door."

"Door?" Celestia begins to step down the steps before her throne, but not in a threatening manner. "The main door has no lock, only a latch from the outside." Coming to just up before the shamed attendant. "Look upon me. I just wish to understand, not punish."

"He locked himself in a cell." The attendant finally looks up, somewhat relieved but still upset to having caused his princess anything but happiness. "We opened it, but he just shuts it again. We tried several times, but he simply refuses to leave."

"Did..." Celestia looks around the throne room when she hangs upon the word. "Did something else happen?"

"No. Not that I am aware of. He doesn't seem afraid or angry, and when one of us tried to get inside the cell he was careful to hold us back before shutting the cell bar door." The attendant seems just as confused as Celestia. "He's just sitting there."

Celestia closes her eyes and nods down towards the attendant to show her gratitude for his honesty, holding her eyes shut for a few lingering seconds before opening them with a snap. Trotting forward and up past alongside the attendant, she approaches the door that begins to open for many whom have come up behind her to follow. As appreciative as she is, she stomps a hoof instead.

Wasting little time once she moves past the large throne room doors, she just teleports away to just outside the much smaller dungeon door. Wooden, with only a few anchored metal slabs to grant the farce of something more sturdy, the dungeon door had no handle to speak of. Instead, there is a small thin metal hook that holds inside a round metal loop embedded in the wall.

She thought it looked pitifully weak and all around non threatening for a dungeon. But she designed it to be that way.

Using her magic to grab the tiny hook, she pulls the door open as quiet as can be even as a conversation she could not understand fills her ears the moment the first crack allows it. Unable to just turn back, she resides herself to playing an audience in the dark.

"Jack! Holy shit man, you're still alive!" A male voice emits from the closed fist of another who sits inside the most amusingly comfortable and lavish dungeon he'd ever mused. "Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you got all of us into?!"

"I guess that depends on how it looked on your end." Jack holds his fist to his lips while in whisper. "But before that, mind toning it down a little? Last thing I need is for anything to here to flip out on me and get stuck here any longer."

"W-wait... you found something?" The other male voice quiets down, mostly.

"Actually, it found me." Jack sighs. "It was like all the other times. Little orbs of different color lights everywhere, and I was pushing it farther than I should have. I should have turned back when the drag behind me got that heavy, but then one came right up and acted funny."

"Funny?" The other male voice seems to rise with impatience. "It tried to interact with you?"

"Interact? The damn thing came up and touched me. At first it was just another orb but as it got closer it started to take form, and when it was right in front of my face I could make out the eyes." Jack rubs the back of his neck to soothe the skin clenching up. "Big eyes, teal. Just staring at me." Rubbing even harder than before, to which he still doesn't understand why. "So I waved."

"You waved?"

"What the hell else did you want me to do? Say hello and sound like I was foaming at the mouth? I did the only thing I could, and then she just grabbed me!" Jack finally begins to feel at ease. "She avoids me like the plague now. I guess I wasn't what she thought I was."

Jack laughs softly, hoping to hear the same from the other side, but goes silent when all he can hear is heavy breathing. Knowing well who the voice belongs to, even something as plain as a heavy breath cannot hide the context between good friends.

"Anthony." Jack tries again, starting to feel the heat spread across his chest. "Starting to worry me, man."

"Are they nice?" Anthony voice flat lines.

"Does that really matter, now?" Jack cannot help but raise his voice. "All you gotta do is-!"

"We got shut down, because of what happened." Anthony seems to grunt and blow air as if to hush a few blips of background noise. "There was a nasty feedback when your brainwaves went flat. Janet and Donald were both trying to keep your body from breaking itself from the seizures when it hit our end." Anthony takes one heavy breath. "Donald is okay, but Janet... Jack? Jack, calm down!"

Having clenched his fist so tight his fingernails started to dig down into his skin, Jack's mind had already jumped ahead on what would have happened when his tether was cut. Walking in circles, he would count his graces to having been where he was when the first clank of metal echoed out. Followed by an even louder impact, the noise echoes out several more times until a hollow snap brings it to an abrupt end.

"Fucking... Son of a bitch!" Jack's free hand spasms with fingers spread wide apart, the light in the room catching a reflection from the blood dripping down between the index and middle finger to the floor. "W-where... Then how the hell are we even speaking?"

"The brain of the machine you were hooked up to was so badly damaged it was going to be scrapped, and since they wanted me to sign a non disclosure it worked out. The official report was that a direct strike from the lightning that night caused the feedback." Anthony's voice distorts when he turns around halfway through his last sentence. "I'm supposed to be teaching quantum field theory, not ghost hunters."

Jack widens his eyes when a few screams start loud until they shimmer into nothingness.

"I'm pretty sure I'll at least get a few better offers after this, and at least a few lawsuits." Anthony laughs. "I'm surprised this thing even turned back on." Anthony's voice becomes more clear, as if he turned back around. "Are they nice?"

"They've fed me, given me a place to sleep, and have tried to watch over me even if I've made it difficult for them." Jack grimaces towards his hand, still unaware of an audience on his side of the conversation. "Communication issues and all."

Hearing a growing commotion on the other side, Jack gives Anthony no time to take a turn.

"Are you in trouble because of me?"

"I think I'll finally get a good nights rest, actually." Anthony speaks louder from having stepped back. "What about you?"

"I don't know."

Jack looks down to his closed hand, opening it up to notice the bright light on his palm flickering rapidly in short bursts.

"Been giving them the run around since I didn't want to give them a reason not to let me go home."

"Jack." Anthony's voice distorts, but not enough to overpower the words. "Do you remember Jared?"

"You shouldn't have to ask me that." Jack almost yells. "I was the one there, remember?"

"The anomaly in the brainwaves just before... Same was starting to happen to you." The other voice sounds sympathetic, even as the choppiness gives them a more harrowing context. "We had been trying to pull you back, that's why you felt so heavy and-!"

Jumping when the last word pops and echoes, the light in his hand wanes to almost nothing.

"And what?!" Jack can only watch as the light fades away, leaving only his bare palm. "Anthony?!"

Celestia continues to stand as silent and still as a statue where the light cannot cut through, waiting through all that would normally bring her a rise in concern. But there was no sense of happiness or cunning mischief in his voice, or even the one which had just echoed out of existence. For she had heard such sounds before, and she knew her realm would never hear this new one ever again.

"I have seen many creatures in my time, many far more strange than yourself." Celestia speaks from the darkest part of the dungeon, causing her guest to jump back in surprise. "It would be easy if we all spoke the same, but then we wouldn't know how to listen."

Stepping forward, she keeps it nice and slow as to not alarm or give a false impression of her mood.

"I may not have been able to understand the words, but I could feel them all the same." Celestia looks down upon both hands, but puts her focus mostly on the one still flowing with red blood. Using her magic to slide the jail bar door open, she widens her eyes when the creature grabs the door with his injured hand to stop her. "You are injured, and you do not belong down here."

Finding herself the one who decides, she remains perplexed when the more she puts into opening the door, the more blood runs down the bars from him trying to keep it closed. Relaxing her hold to let the door almost slam entirely shut, she cannot help but stop him at the last second, hearing the ear twitching grind of a bone grinding against another. Just enough, to sap any strength left in her magical grip.

"Do not make me teleport in there, young one." Celestia chastises, her own frustrations growing from the creature's one risen eyebrow to her lowered tone. "I know well that look, and I shall not be deterred, even if I must push a little harder."

Back to present time

"Maybe I pushed too hard, too soon." Celestia continues to stare into the mirror, unaware of just how much time had passed her by. Looking down to the partially dried puddle, she sighs when she finally realizes just how much. "If only you could still remember, too."

Shivering from a draft under her bathroom door, she sighs again to having left open her balcony doors. Bracing herself before fighting the chill night breeze attacking her from her bathroom to the balcony, she reaches them just in time to hear something else upon the breeze.

"Laughter?"

Celestia turns her head to let one ear hone in on the noise and it's source. Surprised when she realizes from whom, she treads carefully as to not end what happens so seldom, that it may as well not have happened ever. Ignoring the chill riding up where a unbound tail would normally curtain, she becomes so rigid the blood in her cheeks rise into a light pink. But for what she wishes to hear, she didn't really care.

Reaching the very edge, but not enough to even look down below, she remains only in audience Princess Luna who seems enthusiastically entertained by something so far away no eye can see. Causing Celestia to be quite perplexed by the situation, the eruption of laughter and cackles is enough for her to bite her tongue and curiosity for the time being.

Far away, to where the moon has the best view.

"Dang it!" Applejack holds her muzzle pointing straight up towards the full moon as she trots on the tip of her hooves in a circle, sucking in air through her clenched teeth with her tail lifted higher than usual. "Dang it! Dang it! Confounded thing is booby trapped!"

Rainbow seems to ignore her friend and her stinging red rump, instead focused on the plank she had kicked from the top edge while in hover flight. Perched on the tips of those right next to it, she bats the top of the fence plank, causing it to twirls like a windmill.

"Dude is getting creative."

"Naw!" Applejack spits like a viper, rubbing her rump with a hoof. "Ya think?"

"Hey not my fault he's finally stepping up to the plate." Rainbow hovers on their side of the fence, front forelegs crossed over while she lightly flaps her wings. "Trying to tell me this entire time he never once changed how he did things?"

Growling, Applejack grits her teeth. Scanning the entire fence line, she narrows in on the plank just behind Rainbow.

"Yeah, he did." Applejack dashes forward with enough speed to get to the fence plank before Rainbow can react, sliding her tail forward before a resounding crack from one hind hoof splits the wood in two. Broken free, the bottom falls to the ground while the top half, anchored by a metal rod near the top, swings up and bashes Rainbow right across both cheeks.

Confused herself, Rainbow's face slowly distorts as nerves knocked unconscious come back alive screaming.

"Mmmmmaaaaahhhhhhh!!!"

"Oh stop your crying. I didn't even-!" Applejack never finished her sentence from the blue haze tackling her. "Gah!"

"That hurt you crazy horse!" Rainbow seethes and whimpers, her hind legs trembling. "I can't even feel all of it yet!"

Applejack grins, regardless of how infuriated Rainbow remains over top of her. Acting like she was bored, Applejack smacks her lips and glances to either side which only angers Rainbow more. Reaching up to try and move away the nostrils pelting her in the face with heated steam, she pushes left and slides right just as her eye catches something off the fence.

"Hey Rainbow. Mind letting me up so I can go and check you out?"

"You're not getting out until I figure out how I'm going to get you back!"

"Think it out later." Applejack rolls her eyes. "I think he got you good."

"No shit!"

"I reckon, if he did, that'll be the time you know for sure. But just to give you a heads up, let me up?" Noticing Rainbow slowly losing her anger in place of growing worry, Applejack tries to be supportive. "It's as good or bad as you wanna take it, so it's all up to you."

Growling loud, Rainbow Dash jumps back for Applejack to roll over and get back up, wincing and sucking air in through her teeth. Still angry, she eyes Applejack extra hard when she twirls a hoof pointing down for her to turn around. Unsure, and ready for any tricks, she takes her time with each step of ache until she faces the fence from Tartarus.

"Whoa Nellie!"

"Will you just tell me already?!" Rainbow feels a hoof swing her tail out of the way, grazing just enough to cause her to clench up and groan. Baring her teeth, she watches Applejack walk up alongside her and back towards the fence. "You suck."

Applejack just ignores her irritated best friend in order to do what she had been asked to. Moseying on up to the half split eight inch wide plank, she raises up on two hind legs to take the bottom of the board into her mouth, having to fight like Winona to break it loose. Turning and dragging the plank back with her, she lets it fall in front of Rainbow, Double Down's side up.

"He done branded ya right on the keister." Applejack casually mentions, pointing her hoof to the normally upside down smiley face cut deep into the board. Turning the board like a clock hand so Rainbow can clearly see right side up what everypony else will, Applejack just nods.

With her muzzle agape and eyes darkened through downward tilt from the moon's light, Rainbow remains deathly silent.

"Wanna know something funny?" Applejack leads off, and continues without any encouragement. "I don't think he understands."