Author's Note
Please feel free to message me to offer criticism and ask questions or leave both in the comments below. I want to improve this story in any way possible. The title for the story and its chapters is open to change until I find one that fits it more; I am terrible at titling my writings. If you have any recommendations, let me know.
The basis of the universe both this story is set in is that Snowfall Frost's spell that makes everypony forget about Hearth's Warming was cast successfully, and history has been shifted to a version of events where Equestria was never founded. Everyone was still born as they should be (There won't be anything like a character's parents never meeting each other) though some characters might have died earlier or lived longer than than they did in the canon. This story also takes place some years in the future, so younger characters are now adults.
Work Shift C: Day 43
As a row of multi-color Earth ponies walked past several derailed mine carts, they removed their helmets and pickaxes and deposited them in the makeshift bins. A light grey mare stood on a catwalk above them, levitating a small clipboard at her side. Gripping a quill between her teeth, she counted the ponies as they passed below. "49, 50, 51...", nodding in satisfaction when the end of the line came in to sight and all the workers were present.
Looking down at the small crowd holding saddlebags full of useless stones and clumps of dirt, she rose her voice to address them "Deposit what ore you mined before returning to your quarters. Your next shift begins in six and a half hours. Do not tarry, tardiness will result in mandatory punishment. If you happened to find any gems, bring them to me immediately." The mare spoke in vain, as she knew that with the aid of the previous overseer's spell for detecting crystals had long ago robbed this quarry of that resource. During their stint as manager of the western mine the vein of iron had been all but depleted as well.
These two facts her superiors were well aware of. Her assignment as quarrymaster was a punishment, a penitent crusade cast upon her to atone for her lack of good judgement. The workers knew this to be true and many of them were living similar fates. Whether they had disappointed the wrong pony or simply had no one left to grieve for them after their inevitable death in the mine, all those that found themselves in the western quarry where rejects. Outcasts all the same, but none felt closer to one another because of it.
Looking down into the crowd, the mare saw one worker whose bag was nearly empty. He was a strong and resilient stallion that had shown promising gains in the past and held rank as one of the best miners in work shift B. As he stood before her now, his leg had been hastily bandaged and his eye was beginning to swell shut. The overseer knew that desperation paved the way to depravity, and that some other pony in his shift had likely stolen whatever small amount of ore he had found.
While the workers began to file past their peers from work shift C, the overseer trotted along the walkway towards the entrance to the mine. She had other duties to fulfill before handling her investigation of the assaults. Passing a younger unicorn, one of her few subordinates, the mare approached the door which opened to the quarry's equipment maintenance center.
The catwalk was only a few feet above the workers below in this section. The cramped quarters inside of the tunnels forces the workers, guards, and managers closer together. Within the darkly lit stone corridors the boundaries of the castes took form with a razor thin edge, always a just a word or wrong glance from snapping.
Just below the catwalk, one such occurrence was teaching its end. She saw one of the guard jabbing a worker with her wing, a violent blow directed at his throat. The brown stallion collapsed in a coughing fit, whatever slight he had done to the guard corrected or atoned for.
So it seemed, at least until the pegasus rolled him over and struck him in the gut with her hoof. She repeated the motion to his chest, once across his chin, and several times to the forehoof he raised to cover his muzzle. Jostled by her movement, the strap on her helmet had loosened and a strand of her purple mane had fallen out of place. Upon seeing this, the overseer question the mare "Guard, explain yourself."
Glancing over her shoulder, the pegasus spoke "Morale adjustment, Ma'am. I was just about finished."
"Not that you ungulate," the unicorn chastised, "You've allowed your uniform to get sullied. Now fix up your mane and wash that red from your fur." Turning away from the commotion, she added a quick comment "It's an eyesore among the orange."
The guard stood few a few seconds before stepping on and walking over the stallion she'd jostled. Before taking a corner, she chided a "Yes, Ma'am." and went out of sight. The overseer walked a few paces before quietly calling down to the stallion, who still laid on the ground.
"Worker, can you continue your duties?"
Standing up, he briskly nodded. His mane, a burnt amber with intermittent red streaks, fell over his face. As he raised a hoof to pull his bangs from his eyes, he remarked "I'll be fine, overseer," and scooped up his pickaxe as he added "That guard has a terribly weak punch."
"Then get back to mining," she ordered, adding a light stomp for emphasis "And keep those comments to yourself. I've ignored this lull in your work for now. Further interruption will result in mandatory punishment."
Without further comment, both stallion and mare went back to their tasks concerning them before the scuffle. Upon hearing the sound of stones being struck with full force, not at all affected by his injuries, the mare thought on what the miner had said.
"As weak in her strikes as she is in her conviction to performing the tasks I give her," the mare muttered to herself, thinking of the guard "how did I get assigned the poorest escort of the city guard?" She had ordered the pegasus to personally patrol work shift B to try and find the pony mugging their peers. Instead of sticking to her duties, she had resolved to spend her time attacking the workers herself. Knowing her, she'd have learned nothing of the bludgeonings.
Similar acts of aggression had been performed on several other workers in the few weeks since the mare had been appointed to supervise the work shifts. She had slowly been piecing together a series of clues to pinpoint the culprit. Later this night during the weekly dinner she would attempt to locate the pony in question and correct their errors with fatal vindication.
Upon finally reached the doorway to the repair center, she opened the door and walked inside. The smell of oil and coal dust hit her about the same time as she realized that the sole worker assigned to equipment maintenance and the resident guard were still in the room. She'd hoped to catch them on break during the transition between work shifts. Both were highly... eccentric ponies to say the least. While the western mine was full of outcasts and rejects, these two were ostracized by their own peers.
Across the room, the guard appointed to the repair center waved her hoof and flapped her wings. As her uniform twisted the normally hidden gaps revealed themselves, through which the bubbles that comprised her talent sign could be seen. She seemed happy to see the overseer, a reaction not normally shown from a Pegasus to a unicorn.
The ecstatic pony raised her voice and shouted to the mare, whatever she yelled lost in the din created by the sound of a drill. She punctuated her statement with a smile, before turning to say something to the earth stallion near her post. Disregarding the guard's introduction, the overseer once again levitated her checklist to her side and proceeded to cross the catwalk to the guard's post.
Her mind turned back to pondering who might have attacked their fellow workers. She had to find them and put an end to the behavior. Of course, her concern did not rest on the well-being of the earth pony workers, but rather on how such injuries have and would continue to inhibit the productivity of her allotted workforce.
There was no desire to protect them upon her conscious.
Trotting up the overseer, the guard cheerfully greeted her "Good morning, Miss Belle." before canting her head with a large grin.
Sweetie Belle looked at the mare, Ditzy Doo, with a quiet contempt for the pony's carefree disregard for common etiquette when addressing those of a separate caste. Her predecessor's vain acts of generosity had created this dangerous sense of informality that could be felt among what remained of the older workers. Such mindsets would bring ruin to the Empire. All Sweetie Belle knew is that while she was in charge of this mine, she would not allow such an event to occur.
She would not repeat Rarity's mistake.
Maintenance Center: Day 43
"Just give me your report, Ditzy."
The pegasi kept the cheap grin on her face as she spoke. The sight sickened Sweetie Belle, but over the course of this past month, she was learning to stomach the mare's nauseous joy. Ditzy's voice remained as high pitched as her greeting while she answered "Well, the Doctor has bee-"
"Worker 509, Miss Doo." Sweetie Belle corrected her. The lines between the castes must be kept clear and enforced. Names created sympathy, and that led to informality.
"Yes, the Doctor has been trying to finish a number of different projects. This morning, he completed repairs on a drill brought in by some colt." for a moment, the smile was gone as Ditzy tried to remember the name of the worker, "Oh well. I think they were from shift A."
"Worker 509!" Sweetie Belle called down from the catwalk, hoping to catch his ear over the din raised by his assortment of tools. He seemed unaware of her, still working on whatever broken machine was before him. "I'll have to go down there to talk to him. Do you have anything else to report?"
"Nothing of note, Miss Belle." The mare smiled once again, a strange feat as she had already been grinning nearly the entire time the overseer had been in the room. After a brief nod she added to her answer "However, it seems like some components for various equipment are still missing, the Doctor has been trying to find them or fashion replacements, but it seems like the resources required are also gone."
"I'll look into the possible thefts, now get back in the guard post. Your shift lasts until the end of the day." Sweetie Belle commanded the mare as she brushed past her on her walk towards the stairs that led to the main floor of the room. Opening the gate with the spell linked to the locking mechanism, she walked through and shut it behind her.
More than likely the old fool Time Turner, called Dr. Whooves by some of the other workers, had simply dropped whatever parts were missing. Equally as likely was that his peers had taken the parts to keep him locked away in the repair center, trying to fix machines that could not be. Either way, their use was unneeded without more workers being assigned to the mine, so the overseer was turning a blind eye to the happenings. It kept worker 509 and the guard assigned to him out of her mane. She walked over to near where the stallion was. "Worker 509!" she shouted, hoping to catch his attention without getting closer. The powered tools he used scared her.
She had always harbored a slight phobia of such things. One day when she was a filly, she had accidentally stuck the need of a sewing machine through the edge of her hoof. She could remember Rarity comforting her, and-
"Worker 509!" She walked up to the stallion and perhaps a little too aggressively tapped his shoulder. Fear is weakness, she thought, all can do without. As he turned to face her, she reached out and turned off the tool he had been using. It sputtered and slowly ground to a halt as he finally acknowledged her presence.
"Oh, hello Miss Belle. Can I help you?" He ended his greeting with the same smile Miss Doo had.
"I am your overseer, address me as such. What was the manner of the damage on the drill earlier? The guard said that it was brought in during shift A." She would not see one of the common workers treat her in such a casual manner.
His vision turned upwards as he stroked his chin. "Well, I believe that the colt said he had dropped it. But given how the case was cracked, he likely landed on top of it. He was working on quite the bruise at the time. I'd say that a fight broke out"
Intrigued, Sweetie Belle pressed him for details "What was his designation?"
"I didn't ask, Overseer," the Doctor said as he began to look back to his work "His coat was blue, go ask for him."
Satisfied, Sweetie Belle walked a bit to the stairwell. Walking through the gate, she pondered on the maintenance pony's behavior for the day. As she approached the door to leave, she realized that she was surprised by their rather tame actions. Normally they were much more... random.
Brushing off her brief encounter with them, she walked over to her subordinate assigned to this wing of the mine. She still stood in nearly the same place the brawl had started at earlier. Hardly a mare, the unicorn stood a few inches below her in height. There were some years of difference in their age, but she had proven herself to Sweetie Belle as a competent worker despite her youth. "Anything to report?" Sweetie Belle asked kindly, knowing that a response was guaranteed to be detailed.
"Yes Ma'am. There was an altercation between a worker and a guard, but you resolved it before I could address her behavior. The correction was unprovoked. Also, workers 14A, 33A, 17A, 36B, 27B, and just now 43C have requested entrance to the maintenance center today."
Glad to finally receive some actual details, Sweetie Belle extended her questioning "Did any of those workers have a blue coat?"
The mare nodded, her orange locks fell out of place over the side of her face. Brushing her mane behind her ear, she continued "Worker 17A, brought a drill in for inspection. He was limping and had the start of a bruise, Ma'am. Also, I have rebuked a guard assigned to the south wing and will be filing a report for mandatory punishment later. I caught him abandoning his post."
"Very well, I look forward to reading it. Carry on." With that, Sweetie Belle walked away. That mare would make for an outstanding overseer in a few years' time. The guard in question was likely Pumpkin's own brother. Twins of a separate race born into a lower caste. It's only natural they'd wind up here in the western mine. Where all ponies of ill repute wound up to be forgotten. Pumpkin Cake would never truly rise out of this obscurity, but at least she may be able to replace Sweetie when, when...
Such things were not worth the thought. She had matters to tend to. With a trot, she kept on the path down the scaffolding.
