Equestria: Fabrication

Klip awoke with a groan and sat up slowly, her vision completely dark. Even when she opened her eyes she could see very little—or, more accurately, could see very little at first. Sadly, the almost blissful darkness was soon interrupted by a powerful yellow glow which made her yell and turn away with a cry of pain.

"Ow!" she yelled as she rolled over quickly. Before she had chance to stop herself, though, she felt the floor fall away from her side and she gave a yelp when she promptly fell down, landing with a thud on her underbelly. The pain raced through her body and made her cry out again. But she couldn't let herself falter; she leapt to her hooves immediately and snapped her eyes open. She then reared up and pawed at the air while she snorted as loudly as she could. "Get away from me!" She paused before a thought occurred to her and her body slouched slightly in horror whilst her nose scrunched up in disgust at the lightless surroundings. "Are you a Mena?"

The voice which spoke next, as opposed to being loud and angry, was surprisingly soft. "Hey, hey! Calm down already. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"So you are a Mena!" Klip hissed and she raised a hoof, fighting to see past the bright source of light to assess the individual. When she lunged, however, she found her attack halted and she fell to the ground. "Oi!"

The voice returned once more, this time accompanied by a gentle hoof which brushed Klip's forelock from her eyes. The light dimmed, too, so that she could see just who the stranger was when they spoke. "Okay, okay, keep calm. So maybe I'm a Mena, sure—" The speaker pressed their hooves down on Klip's back before she could react, "—but I'm not dangerous. And by the state of you, I'm no different to you either."

Klip gave a forced laugh and slowly pushed her company's hoof from her back so that she could stand. So often ponies underestimated the strength of her race. "If you took your rainbow, then sure! You would be just like me, it's true. But the point is, you're not on your meds... Which cannot be tolerated!"

There was a slight pause before a low sigh sounded and the light began to glare a little less brightly once again. It gave Klip just enough illumination to see without being blinded—but the sight which met her eyes was not worth looking for.

A unicorn stallion stood before her, tall in comparison. His face was marred with scars and cuts and his body was bruised and bloodied, but for all that he still seemed reasonably sane. And, in his bright yellow eyes, Klip could see the dull sparkle of something new, something that she couldn't quite place her hoof on at first, yet something that felt so incredibly familiar...

And then, in a wave of pain and terror, it hit her; this stallion before her, whose body was battered so much that he looked like a piñata, understood what she was going through. And, more than that, he remembered.

And so did she.

"These... these memories!" Klip gasped out as she suddenly collapsed back to the floor. Her chest heaved with each little breath and she quivered as the sounds from before—the screams, the blasts, the roars—all filled her mind once again. She kicked out wildly with her powerful rear legs and snorted and whinnied, biting at the air before her. But for all her struggles, she could not ease the pain which was trapped in those sounds... "What are these memories? They're not mine!"

"Easy there!" the stallion grunted whilst he jumped a little to avoid Klip's flailing limbs. Then, after a moment's cautious hesitation, he stepped forwards and stomped a hoof down on her shoulder.

Klip screamed as the genuine pain was added to her terror and she leapt to her hooves, gnashing her teeth and snorting. The stallion, however, didn't seem too put-out at her threats in the slightest; he merely floated a wooden stick—no, a club—over to his side and held it up warningly as he gave it a little wave. When Klip did not stop in her approach, he then rolled his eyes and prodded her chest with the weapon's dull end, just hard enough to knock her slightly off balance.

"Stop it, for buck's sake," the stallion snarled; his eyes flashed at her as she made a move to continue. When he flared his nostrils and began to paw at the ground, however, Klip's unresponsive mind finally began to interpret his intentions and, as her pupils dilated, she shot backwards. She couldn't fathom why she was so wary of this stallion all of a sudden; those ruthless, scarred eyes of his simply seemed to hold some great power over her. When he spoke again, she found herself suddenly trembling. "Face it, little pony. You're off your meds as well, which makes you a Mena just like me. And I'm betting you just want to run straight back up topside and find some pills and get rid of those screams, right?"

Klip shrunk a little and, to her own disgust, whimpered quietly. "What's so wrong with that?" she whispered with her ears held back and her tail clamped. "A little rainbow never did anyone any harm. And... And with just a few pills, I won't have these awful... thoughts. Hallucinations. Dear Discord, I'm hearing things!"

The stallion snorted. "Dear Discord... I so love that saying. It's his fault that the kingdom's in this mess."

"Mess?" Klip frowned, still far back from the stallion, and scratched her chin with the tip of her hoof as she pondered that statement. "What are you talking about? The world's not a mess... It's beautiful."

"That's just the rainbow's influence," the stallion butted in with a shake of his head. "The world is a bombsite, and living on meds to forget that fact isn't gonna fix anything. Somepony needs to go find Discord, give him a reality check... But only a Mena could do that, and far as I know, I'm the only one 'round these parts."

Klip nodded curtly with a small scowl upon her muzzle. "Good riddance."

"You're infuriating, you know that?" the stallion said, turning tail so that he faced away from Klip. "You passed out by the pill dispensor. It was jammed, but somepony's fixed it up by now I'll bet. But I didn't wanna leave you there for any of your high-as-buck friends to come an' give you a beating for being a Mena, so I brought you down here. And that's that."

Klip narrowed her eyes and stood up slowly before she took a slow step towards the stallion. "Why... Why would they do that to me?"

"You were a Mena, you foal. You skipped your meds an' passed out. You ought to know that's not looked on kindly topside... You were one o' the ones who beat my brother to death the other day, after all."

"But he was off his meds," Klip said with a smile, feeling triumphant for the slightest moment before she realised the weakness of her argument. "Oh. When I... It sounds different said out loud, doesn't it?"

The stallion nodded quickly and then began to walk away. He then clambered onto a bed nestled in the corner of the room—what even was this place?—and lay his head down. "Exactly. Now listen, I'm not gonna stop you going back up topside and taking all the rainbow meds your simple little heart desires, and all the ponies up there'll forgive you. But I'm done talking, so before you skip on out all chirpy, just think about it—because I promise you, fake happiness isn't really being happy."

Klip looked about herself and then smiled a little as she noticed the ledge she had fallen from. It was simple, a mere dresser with a duvet draped on top, but it would do. As she climbed up slowly, though, she couldn't help but wonder about what he had just said. "So, you know what really being happy is?"

"Not in the slightest. But for now, I'm close to being free, and that's good enough for me."

Klip sighed as she nestled under the covers. A moment later, however, a thought occurred to her. "And if I take my meds and come back to kill you?"

There was silence at first, followed up by a disinterested grunt. "Then I'm dead, aren't I? We've all gotta die at some point—and if I'm gonna go, my bed's a nice, warm place to do it."

"Oh."

Klip lay quietly after that, curling into a ball under the thick cover. It was peculiar, really; back in the village, she had not once felt cold—but now, she could feel the chill beginning to creep under her skin. She could smell the dust and the decay and, in the dim light of the torch, could imagine the state of the outside world based solely upon the state of the scavenged materials in the hideout. And the voices and the noises... They were so loud, so crystal clear, that she couldn't help but wonder what horrors had been taken from her mind that she ought to remember.

And so, with her hooves pressed over her ears and her eyes squeezed tightly together, she lay still and prayed for some form of respite.