Chapters My Little Human Rebellion is Magic
I counted at least eight large cages filled to bursting with humans of all different sizes, shapes and ethnicities the only differentiation made was that four cages were filled with men, whereas the women were divided amongst three separate cages.
"Hey!" The yell came from the front of the slave train.
Turning to face the slaver, whilst preparing an argument that would hopefully prevent me from being forced into the same miserable fate as the rest of these poor sods. The half arsed 'plz no' I had spent the better part of ten seconds preparing died in my throat once I looked upon the (surprisingly) adorable visage of the aforementioned "slaver". What I saw was most definitely not the stereotypical overly muscular African with a whip instead, I was greeted by a stunted electric blue horse with a carrot coloured mane and tail and a hot pink irises which by themselves would have been enough to cause my brain to blow a gasket. The universe however decided that the sight of my brain beating itself bloody against the inside of my skull was far too entertaining.
"Gruuhwhuhh?" Came the guttural noise.
The horse seemed amused at my confusion so much so that it even chuckled at my expense. I snarled in response. The amusement in its eyes died upon hearing this.
"Ooo, tough guy." She (?) said snarling right back.
Opening my mouth to retort I felt two hard points slam into my backside ripping a shout of surprise from my throat and knocking me flat on my face feeling my hands being grabbed roughly and behind my back. I bucked and thrashed like a mad bull attempting remove the weight holding me in place. I was dimly aware of yelling and what sounded like the cries of an enraged animal. My head was yanked back harshly and a metal device was painfully clamped onto my face. Ceasing my pointless struggle, I ascertained that my hands were soundly secured behind my back and that I was unable to open my mouth even slightly. The realization hit me like a bag of bricks.
I just had my arse handed to me on a golden platter studded with diamonds. Whining pathetically, I let my head flop to the ground, wishing I could drown in my self-loathing instead of just wallowing in it. You are an embarrassment to the human race. I berated myself scathingly.
'Yes well you see mister brain, they caught me with my pants down so to speak.'
Only because you were crapping yourself at the sight of a small brightly coloured horse.
'Fine they caught me cause I was being a ponce about a small talking horse. Happy now?'
...
'Oh god I've already started talking to myself.'
A caress along my shoulders pulled me out of my hysteria. Looking around revealed the culprit to be the pink eyes. Using the opportunity to examine the equine more closely. I took note of the bulbous head, animesque eyes and that it's legs didn't narrow at it's ankles unlike the horses I was used to. After several barked orders from blue and a round of complaints from my captors I felt myself become enveloped in a sensation I would describe as being wrapped in warm blankets whilst an uncountable amount of fingers feather across your entire being. Whilst it wasn't unpleasant per say, I most definitely would not recommend it to anyone. Glancing at blue revealed what appeared to be a fascinated look on her face/muzzle.
"Are you even trying sparky?" She bellowed in a scratchy yet feminine voice.
"Buck you Nettie." Replied a more masculine voice before of all things a unicorn walked into view. His horn had grooves running in a spiral fashion along its twenty centimetre length, his hair was non-existent his tail however was fifteen centimetres in length and coloured like spun gold, his coat was the colour of coagulated blood and a glance at his eyes revealed piss yellow irises, finally he had a tattoo of a plume of sparks on his arse.
"Sparky!" Said Nettie who upon closer inspection also had a tattoo of a net on her butt and a scandalized look on her face. "Not in front of the children." Her tone shifted to playful.
The sheer awkwardness of whole situation, plus the shuffling of uncertain hooves and the blushes of my captors that were somehow visible through their fur was almost enough to make me laugh. Almost. The amorous couple was on the verge of making out at this point with their legs wrapped around each other in such a way that you would need a crowbar to even stand a chance of separating the two. A horse whom like myself had tired of the spectacle (albeit for different reasons) cleared its throat and in a stammering falsetto brought the groups attention back to me. Quickly shaking themselves out of their stupor they began to discuss and calmly deliberate the ramifications and effects of my new found "magical" resistance. Long story short, they argued like eight velociraptors in a small tent with only two sleeping bags. After the one guy had FINALLY stopped screaming and passed out from the pain of whatever the hell did to him. They then decided to take me to the "Mines" which judging by the context in which it was used didn't seem like the most pleasant place for a slightly overweight sixteen year old.
"So... how are we going to move him?"
The question was delivered in the same falsetto as earlier except without the nervous stammer. A wave of uncertain murmurs and half hearted suggestions was the response.
"Pfff relax I got this all figured out." Came a voice I instantly recognized as sparky.
Hearing the crunch of unshod hooves walking over mulch grow steadily louder I felt something soft through the fabric of my shirt only to be rolled over moving at least half a metre. Sparky yelled something to the effect of ' get off your arses and help me damnit '.
I very quickly came to the conclusion that I was rapidly developing a rapidly developing not quite hatred for these talking Technicolor abominations. But after ten whole minutes of being rolled around like a damn ball I would most definitely say it pretty close.
Author's Note
First story. I apologise for it's length in advance as I am merely testing to see if anybody would be willing to read my bullshit.
My Little Human Rebellion is Magic
The rolling while still annoying had given me the chance to get a peek at my surroundings. It was a forest. Forests as a whole are a rather uncommon sight back home, and the few that I was aware of weren't exactly arboreal wonders. They only substantial forest I had ever seen was at hogsback, a backwater that was named after the geological formation it was nestled upon. I had only learnt that particular piece of information when I had started doing geography in grade eleven. Now when I say backwater I mean backwater, in the words of a Swiss chef I encountered when my family dragged me away from finishing my borrowed copy of watch dogs to have tea "I go left there's bugger all, I go right there's bugger all and if I go straight there's a bunch of drunks so I don't go that way I come straight home." I was far more used to the tall, scraggly grasses of the veld and the occasional clump of thorn trees.
After what I assumed to be the five minute mark I had started getting quite nauseous and in an attempt to combat it I initiated a form of time wasting so ancient and so well known that virtually every human being alive has used it at one point or another.
Two hundred and sixty eight bottles of beer on the wall two hundred and sixty eight bottles of BEEEEERRR...
Two hundred and sixty eight bottles of beer later.
By the time we had caught up to the wagon train my captors were panting and stumbling to the point you would swear they had run a marathon, but then again I suppose rolling around a guy who is capable of filling up a doorway would tire out just about anyone.
"HEY, STOP FOR BUCKS SAKE!" Came the ragged cry and I identified it's source as one of the several nameless faceless henchmen under Sparky and Nettie's command.
The wagon train came to an abrupt halt along with a cacophony of startled animalistic shrieks. My curiosity quickly overtook my sense of caution as I began squirming in an attempt to roll myself over so I could see what made such a bizarre racket. My efforts were rewarded with a harsh kick to the gut from a nearby guard. I rolled onto my side from the force of the blow and curled into the foetal position in an attempt to ward off any further blows. The guard in question had a smug look painted on his face but was prevented from continuing his barrage when he was half heartedly scolded by one of his superiors and told to "stop breaking the merchandise".
He looked thoroughly put out that his new game had been shut down before it had even truly began. Sighing, he quickly lost interest and wandered off, presumably to flick staples at his cat. Releasing the breath I was unintentionally holding, I decided it was time to take stock of my somewhat sad situation. My shirt was in good shape albeit rather dirty, ditto on the jeans, wriggling my hands confirmed my suspicions of it having been ripped off during my struggle, thankfully my necklace was still intact and my boots were still fully laced despite the bonds looped almost artfully around my ankles.
But how did I get here?
That was a question I had mulled over whilst mentally drowning myself in beer. I had already considered multiple scenarios: alien invasion, fever dream, overly elaborate prank and coma. The usual reasons why someone would find themselves enslaved by talking, Technicolor horses. Racking my brains for what might have been the cause of the previous events turned up a blank. I couldn't for the life of me recall anything other than sitting in the back of my father's car with my dad driving, my mom in the passenger seat and my sister next to me before being rendered nonsensical and waking up in a forest. Come to think of it though I also recalled a rather queer feeling of being stuffed in a bag. Though as to where the hell someone could even get a sack big enough to fit someone standing at 6,5 I had no idea. Also, how would you justify carrying around a bag that big to a curious passer-by.
"Oh what, you mean this? You see, I'm too cheap to take my son to gold reef city so, I'm just going to stuff him in the bag and swing him around for a bit."
I quickly try to shake away the mental image of my dad swinging around my five year old self. However, try as I might I am unable to remove the aforementioned image my mind. Oh boy! Something to think about whilst I scream myself to sleep tonight. Closing my eyes I released a drawn out sigh from my nose. Despite having done precisely bugger all during the course of the morning (it was still morning as the sun had yet to reach it's zenith) I felt severely fatigued mentally.
Am I crazy?
I examined a lizard that had decided to sun bathe on a nearby rock attempting to distract myself from pursuing that very familiar train of thought. The lizard looked at me briefly before leaping up onto it's hind legs, retrieving a top hat and cane from behind the rock and proclaiming in the voice of George Takei:
"Yes. Yes you are."
My eyes snapped open as I jolted awake. To an outside observer it would look as though I had woken up from a nightmare. Slowly exhaling I spared a cursory glance at my surroundings, revealing that no more than a few minutes had passed and that my captors were too engrossed in their own problems to have noticed my shock. I sat upright before crossing my legs and attempted to roll my shoulders so as to loosen the tension from being restrained for so long then I began to scan my surroundings in the hopes of finding a conveniently placed escape route, but alas I was surrounded. While my guards most definitely were not going to be signing up for MENSA any time soon, they were far from stupid. However it seemed that the man upstairs was piss drunk mad at me as my captors chose that very moment to get their shit together, as Sparky and an entourage of several other horses appeared seemingly out of nowhere and began barking orders like drill sergeants.
"And would somepony load this freak onto the train? 'Cuz I did not chip a tooth just so we could leave his stupid flank behind!"
I cringed at the butchered pronoun but managed to identify the source as a lilac mare (?) that I hadn't spotted before who was clearly peeved that her hard work might be for nothing. The entire group of horses which now numbered over forty strong immediately looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. There was a chorus of "Oh right" and "My bad" before they were silenced by the bellowing of an older stallion with a pristine white coat and a greying orange mane.
"YOU SHIT STAIN'S MEAN TO TELL ME, YOU MANAGED TO CATCH A SIX HOOFER AND THAT YOU FORGOT ABOUT HIM? HOW BUCKIN' STUPID ARE YOU? NOW SHUT UP AND GET THE CRANE."
My ears were ringing from the display of pulmonary fortitude doubly so for the horses with their keen sense of hearing. The tinnitus cut out after several seconds and the horses seemed to be apathetic however and immediately began fulfilling the Screamers demands. A rumbling grinding screech alerted me to the presence of what I assumed to be the aforementioned crane. Pushing myself up onto my haunches and shuffling my legs in order to turn so as to be able to see what was creating such a grating cacophony confirmed my assumption of it being the crane. After a shouted order I was knocked on my back before being picked up by what looked like an oversized claw machine, the only key difference being that it wasn't designed to drop things the moment you pick them up. The muzzle was removed I immediately opened my mouth in the hopes of clarifying this as being nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding but all that came out was an inhuman braying that degenerated into a hacking cough which caused the attendant to pause just long enough to slap me upside the head before removing the bindings on my hands and feet. The claw lifted me high above the pen before stopping. I estimated that it was at least a five meter drop to the holding pen where several other humans were gawping at the spectacle before them.
I barely even noticed that the claw had released me before I started screaming.
Author's Note
My wifi finally came back on today so I decided to get off my arse and type up another chapter.
My Little Human Rebellion is Magic
There were spots dancing within the hazy, red ripples of my vision. My head felt like it was in a vice and was being torn apart at the same damn time. My vision began to steadily clear, attempting to stand caused my migraine to intensify to ridiculous levels and cause entire patches of my vision to become black. Flopping back down and onto my side eased the pain but my vision continued to spin unabated. Looking straight ahead revealed a vaguely human shaped coppery lump. I attempted to call for help but was rewarded with only a series of slurred, unintelligible yowls and whimpers.
Come ooonn. Give me hand here!
My second attempt at standing went even worse than my first attempt. Assuming that such a thing is even possible in the first place. I fell flat on my face bashing my head against the floor further worsening my condition, once again assuming that such a thing is possible. Why won't it all stop spinning? I felt warm, wetness on my pants. I did not have to look to know that I had lost control of my bladder. Letting loose more slurred yowls, I was hit by the heaves moments later. Swallowing it down and shutting my eyes to the eternally spinning world allowed a respite from my skewed senses. I felt tired -a foreign feeling to say the least- to the point where I felt like I could pass out on the spot but thanks to the fact that I had been concussed in the past and my sister's first aid training I knew that it was a bad idea... Apparently.
Time had no meaning as I lay there staring at nothing, fading in and out of consciousness. Before long my vision cleared to the point where I could make out small formless blobs flitting to and fro. I dismissed them as birds or more symptoms of my condition but occasionally one of them would get larger and would sometimes even get close enough to touch me and would babble in garbled, girlish static filled voices hurting my ears. Once two of them had a full blown conversation poking and prodding me all the while. I assumed they were discussing my condition and from the few words I picked up that weren't too garbled that a full day had passed since they picked me up and that I had barely moved. Concerned with their bottom line no doubt. The crimson tinge of my vision had faded I assumed that it was a good thing. I tried to sit up again, freezing half way I braced expecting myself to black out once more. I swallowed causing my ears to pop the static was isolated to only one of my ears and seemed to be affected by the noise level of my surroundings. Pushing myself to my feet caused the world to flip making me lose my balance and stumble like a sleepy three year old. It ended quickly and stood upright again having fallen on to my rear during my dizzy spell. I tried to call out but was seized by a hacking cough reminding me that I had not eaten or drank anything for a day.
Brushing it off as a side effect of my parched throat I began searching for water.
I was empty handed. I had looked in every nook and cranny that I could find and/or reach. Resigned I examined my cell. It was an enclosed cube bolted straight into the wooden flooring and was small enough that I had to hunch over. I had a view of my surroundings as the section of the slave train I was on only had an array of ten cages including mine. This section in particular was larger than the others and had been positioned all the way at the back of the train being wrapped in a secondary cage encasing the entire section leaving the occupants exposed to the elements and allowing them to peek out at their surroundings. The cells had been laid out in such a manner as to allow a large passage down the middle leaving anyone standing in the middle out of reach and where placed to make contact between occupants limited to touching fingers. Additionally I had learnt that the sudden stumble was as a result of my head hitting the ceiling of my cell and that evidently I had been moved away from the others due to my aggressive actions and thinking that I was an incubator for some manner of unknown disease believing that was the cause my mumbling in my bizarre way and fearing that I would spread it amongst the others. Understandable that they wouldn't want their product damaged. I'm still freaked out by the whole small colourful horse slavers bit.
Naturally I was stumped by the presence of sentient quadrupeds and unless I was very much mistaken the reason humans became intelligent was because we had hands and needed a way to compensate for our somewhat lacking physical capabilities. I simply chalked it up to the whole infinite universe infinite possibilities shtick and left it at that. Mentally debating evolution with myself always gives me a headache. I needed a clear head for this situation regardless of the insight it might give me. I returned to scrutinising my cell, the bars were set in an interlacing pattern creating numerous squares leaving me without privacy. The squares themselves were large enough that I estimated I could fit my head in them, but my near irrational fear of decapitation and my associating the scenario where I could get stuck with a guillotine ended such ponderings not to mention that they were utterly disgusting being covered in all manner of filth, the floors somehow managed to be even worse. If such a thing was even possible. I then began searching for a lock, all the while praying for it to be a simple latch or bolt that I could break or damage. My luck which was usually quite abundant come to think of it had completely deserted me as I was completely unable to find one. Upon closer inspection the cage was not bolted to the wooden floor but was instead fused with it. I was stunned, the ability let alone the mere thought that somehow an individual was capable of fusing organic and inorganic matter was firmly within the realm of science fiction. Yet there it was right in front of me the impossible made real.
My mind went wild with the implications that a society of pastel coloured horses had managed to develop the kind of technology that could flip who knows how many branches of science and learning on their respective heads or even possibly cause several to combine. It was incredible, the idea that instead of having to go to a hospital to get an organ transplant you could just dial up a mechanic and have them make you a new one. My ever present sense of pragmatism won out over my inner idealist, reminding me that such a development would put countless surgeons and numerous other medical specialists out of a job. I huffed before rising from my squatting position and having to physically stop myself from pacing as my cage was small enough that I could stand in the middle and be able to touch both sides not that would ever want to. Thus I had to make do with sitting on my haunches something I had done since my mostly forgotten days of... well shit I forgot the name of whatever those grappling techniques were called. Regardless the position was as uncomfortable then as it is now but I digress it was better than risking sitting in whatever wretched offal the previous resident had left behind. My mind was churning with the sudden intake of information, I had been forced into slavery that much was obvious but the technology which they might very well posses posed another question. Why would they freely engage in what is an incredibly demeaning and outright cruel practice?
I hunched over further, resting my elbows on my thighs and letting my hands dangle limply by my knees. I immediately chastised myself for my previous thought, these creatures for all their expressiveness and familiarity were not human. I would always tell myself not to apply the logic of a rich man onto a beggar. My mind spun in circles, quickly finding several possible explanations. Slave labour? No it was clear that the unicorn- fucks sake listen to me - attempted to use a form of telekinesis on me, granted I presented some unique form of resistance to it but the fact that he was capable of such a thing implied that a single worker was capable of performing several tasks at once reducing the necessity for labour. Sacrifice? No they don't seem the type not... zealous enough they treated me as something more akin to a product than anything else a foregone conclusion in all reality leaving only one real possibility, profit. The simple ideal of greed was an understandable trait that I could admittedly identify with. The situation that I could possibly be sold into is unlikely to be favourable and could very well end in my death, an outcome I would prefer to avoid if at all possible. However my options at this point were limited to 'cross your fingers and wait' an unappealing prospect at best but I was completely out of options.
Well shit.