After His Fall

There was a cabin in the forest, a mare and stallion lived there, no social connections… they are unimportant here...

There was a heavy knock on the shack door

     “Meridian Army, open up!!” another heavy knock “Need I break this door down? Open up!!” No response.. “Looks like it.” The stallion who had knocked, turned away from the door and walked away… then ran back and charged it, the door slamming off it’s hinges and to the ground upon impact. The small group of Meridians, dressed in their respective, white armour, all holding the standard issue Meridian assault rifle, quickly scattered around the house. Multiple reports came in

     “All clear!”

     “Nothing here, Sir.”

     “This area is clean.”

     “Sir.. You might want to see this.. In the basement..” The leader of the group who had done nothing while the others searched quickly ran to the basement stairwell and slid down the handrail

     “What's the matter cor- Oh..” There was an ash grey pegasus, bearing a light grey mane with a red stripe down the side, the tail matching aside from the blue stripe. He was chained to the wall and asleep. The Meridian higher rank picked up a radio “Uh.. Search unit 3472, precious cargo acquired, over.“

     “Affirmative, bring him in asap.”

     “Copy that, we’ll be back at thirteen hundred hours, over.”

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     Several hours later, the ash pegasus slowly woke, he was laying on the dark, damp, and uninviting floor of a prison cell. The cell only contained the standard three stone walls with the the fourth wall being purely a cage. THe cell contained one window, a bucket, and a wooden board hanging off the wall, held up by a set of chains and a couple hinges. A pillow rested atop the wooden board.

    “Wha… where.. Am.. I?..” He found that his hands were bound in front of himself as he sat, cross legged while he attempted to understand his situation.. Also he was attempting to see correctly, as he’d been under a strict, low-light policy.

     Eventually, the pegasus did regain his sight and looked around again as he did so, his eyes meeting nothing but the ill-maintained cell and corridor. There was the sound of snoring from outside but no visual picture, likely one of the guards “He-hello?..” He slowly crawled to a stand and leaned against the metal bars, looking around only to be met with the clang of metal on metal.. Right next to him. He instantly flinched and stumbled back.

     “Back up, pegasus!” A rough voice practically spat at him from behind the edge of the metal bars’ run into the stone “I’ll break a finger if you do that again, got it?!” He gave no reply.. Aside from continuing to back away and sitting down on the board he assumed was now his bed, simply staring at the wall. Hoofsteps were heard echoing down the hallway as the hollow sound of armor shifting around sounded, the guards had snapped to attention.

     “Which cell is he in?” Winter.. The voice triggered a memory..

There was three figures.. Savina, The pegasus, and a medium-haired zebra, all climbing up the path to the top of a snowy mountain as they held cloaks tightly bound to themselves.

     The Xeron, zebra was in lead, pushing freshly fallen snow out of the path where he paused and turned around. Savina was directly behind him and the pegasus had fallen behind a bit “Faukhorn, you alright!?” The zebra called to the pegasus in the back through the howling winds. Yes.. that was his name.. If you looked closely, Faukhorn and Savina looked shockingly similar… almost exactly the same..

     Faukhorn called back to Xeron up front

     “I’m fine, keep going!!” And continue they did…

     Within minutes, the group had reached their target, a castle, about three quarters the way up to the peak. They made their way inside the structure slowly and carefully. Faukhorn ended up leading in, having to break a thick layer of ice over the door, which finally gave way to the blunt end of an ice pick and clattered noisily to the a cold, stone ground.

     Once inside, Savina made a fire, using a basis of a silver liquid from a vial.. odd.. Either way, she began to do a bit of cooking to help recover from the day’s climb. Faukhorn sat near the fire and started to look over the maps brought with. Xeron headed off with a lantern to look around.

     “Fauk.. are you okay?..” Savina asked, noticing a bit of a saddened expression on Faukhorn’s face as he read over the map.

     “I’m fine, Savi, just thinking about if we ever knew mom and dad..”

     “They were gone before we would have comprehension.. There was no way we could have known them..”

     “I get the feeling.. Every once in a while they’re reaching out to us.. Perhaps with a warning, or advice.. But I don’t seem to understand it..”

     “I get it too.. Try to get some rest for now, alright? We explore in eight hours.”

     “Yeah.. Guess you’re right..” Faukhorn laid down on his side, rolling up the map as he did so.

     Faukhorn snapped back to the present, shaking his head as he recognised he was being yelled at

     “Hey!! You damned worthless pegasus!! Acknowledge me!” Winter was standing in front of the pegasus’s- Faukhorn’s -cell, enraged that he hadn’t been listening the whole time.

     “What do you need?..” Fauk replied, clearly irritated.

     “I merely wished to speak with you, dammit!”

     “And?.. Your point is?...”

     “I wanted to have a calm conversation, but noo, you must be too good for that!”

     “Cool…”

     “Do what you want to him for now, i’ll be back later.”

     “Yessir.” The guards mumbled before unlocking the cell and advancing into the three-walled cage. Winter walked away in the meantime.

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     “Faukhorn Friendric, the only undercover equestrian law enforcer…”

Winter was speaking, standing in front of Faukhorn’s cell again. “... Fell to just two of my guards? My military power is better than I expected… either that, or you're just pathetic.

     “SHUT. UP!” Faukhorn slowly staggered to his hooves and pointed a finger to Winter “What the fuck is your problem anyway?! We release you from a near-eternal prison and this is how you treat us?! Fuck yourself!”

     “You really don’t have the position to be making insults, my friend. If you haven't forgotten have you? You are in MY prison.” Winter retorted.

     “Count the grains in the wooden floorboards above us, and that’s how much I care.” Winter looked up.. The ceiling was concrete with marble patches spread around.

     “I really hate you right now…”

     “Should I repeat myself?” Winter sighed and shook his head “Very well.” He turned and left, leaving Faukhorn alone with the guards that dotted the floors.

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     A Meridian guard opened up Faukhorn’s cell door as an indication. Faukhorn got up and slowly walked over, setting his hands behind his back and turning around, but before the guard could bind his wrists, he pivoted on a hoof and punched the guard in the throat, forcing him to grab at his throat, attempting to breathe. Faukhorn then grabbed the side of his head and jaw, snapping his neck forcefully, and with a deathly stare.

     Faukhorn began stripping the guard of his equipment, armor, and weapons, applying them to his own self. He dragged the guard back into the cell and walked out, locking it before headed down the rugged, concrete corridor. The walls quickly smoothed out into a pure white quartz as he walked and the floor under him had a rug now, and guards lined the hallway.

     He continued down the hall uninterrupted and unbothered, right up until a guard with several medals hanging off his breastplate and a stripe down the middle of his helmet suddenly yelled at him to stop, and he didn’t. Gunshots rang out from seeming everywhere and Faukhorn took off running toward a window. A guard suddenly was blocking his way. Faukhorn surged forward, sprinting at the guard as he set up. Faukhorn swatted the rifle off to the side and grabbed the midsection of the rifle, flipping over him and ripping the rifle from his hands with the aid of the guard’s shoulders.

      Faukhorn fired a short burst out of the automatic rifle into the guard’s back and kept running toward the window approaching swiftly. The small hail of bullets tore through the guard’s armor, ripping apart his abdomen as the bullets shattered inside of him, leaving debris scattered throughout. The guard sputtered and coughed up several mouthfuls of his own blood, the moderately thick fluids dripping from his mouth and chin as he fell to the ground.

The peagaus smashed through the window, shoulder first, turning, back to the ground and firing the rest of what was in the rifle into the guards attempting to fire upon him from the window. He dropped into some shrubbery below, receiving many scratches along his ash grey fur, and sticks stuck into his nearly white mane. The guards fired out of the window frantically, hoping to strike him, but to no avail.