Aela set a punishing pace, moving along at a swift lope through Skyrim’s forests. She ran like a deer among the trees, ignoring both roads and trails. Her speed completely unaffected by either the terrain or the burden she carried over her shoulders. Under usual circumstances I’d be impressed by her skill and speed.

These weren’t normal conditions, considering I was the bound and trussed burden on her shoulders. I’d squirmed a couple of times as I tried to get used to the jouncing ride, only to be threatened with being knocked over the head. Considering how my head was still reeling from the blunt Aela had shot me with, I decided to lay as still as I could.

It wasn’t until the sun began to set that Aela started to slow down and hunt for a place to stop for the night. She dumped me without ceremony onto the ground and a dagger was shoved into the dirt next to my throat. Edge just touching my skin. I began to try to move away when I felt a second dagger slide against the back of my neck.

“Don’t move and you won’t get cut,” Aela said, in brief warning.

I’m not a complete idiot and so held myself very still while the huntress set up a small camp. She was mercifully quick, but my instinctive need to move away from danger had me jerking my neck back and forth in about a half inch worth of space. The cuts my movement caused had my blood wetting the ground by the time she came back.

“Idiot,” Aela muttered, jerking her knife out of the rocky soil with a curse. A quick slash of the blade later and the bonds on my hooves parted. I began to get up only to be slammed back to the ground as Aela sat herself on top of me. I heard a clinking sound and felt her wrapping leather hobbles around my fetlocks. Another moment later and the huntress had expertly flipped our positions so that she was now under me, with my back against her chest.

A quick squeeze at the points of my jaw had my mouth opening and I felt a liquid being poured in before my mouth was clamped closed again. One hand kept its grip there while the other worked at my heavily nicked throat, trying to get me to swallow the overly sweet liquid in my mouth. It was all I could do to stop myself from gulping down what was likely a poison of some sort.

“Swallow, pony,” Aela said, holding on as I began to thrash reflexively from lack of air. “Stop being stubborn. I’ve handled more than one problem horse, and you’re barely foal sized.”

Lungs burning, I gave in and swallowed. The honeyed warmth of the potion hit my stomach and its fire radiated out to my limbs. It felt like the time I’d tried some of Dad’s moonshine, only without the burning or the vomiting afterwards. Almost immediately the stinging feeling on my neck went away, and I felt very hungry.

“Eat,” Aela said, taking her hand off my muzzle and holding an apple in front of me. I lunged my head forward and nearly took her fingers off in my sudden need for sustenance. Two more apples later and the gnawing in my belly began to ease off.

Able to think rationally again, I took stock of my situation. I was lying at the feet of one of the more formidable hunters in Skyrim. My hooves had been hobbled in a strange diagonal fashion which would allow me to walk, but only just. Aela had also taken advantage of my mindless eating to loop a rope around my neck several times and tying it off to a high up tree branch as a sort of crude collar and leash. In a nutshell, I was screwed and making a break for it wasn't an option.

“I gave my word not to try to escape,” I said, jerking my hooves with deliberate emphasis.

“Not everyone is a Companion,” Aela said, gnawing on some trail bread. “This way, your word is kept whether you want to or not.”

“Speaking of Companions,” I said, getting to my hooves and very slowly moving over to the base of the tree my leash was tied to. “I saw your reaction when you found out who me and Faendal were working for. She’s one of you, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Aelinna’s a Companion,” Aela confirmed, “and I will cross that bridge when I next meet my shield sister. No more talking, unless you want to be muzzled.”

Muzzles were permanently on my top ten list of things I did not want. So, I shook my head, finished making my way to the tree and plopped myself down in a hollow at its base. Aela nodded in approval and put a rough blanket over me. I fell asleep thinking of how that strange hunger I’d had must have been connected to the healing potion somehow. Maybe that’s why you can eat all those damn wheels of cheese in the game.

The next day was almost a carbon copy of the previous.

Aela bound my hooves together, threw me onto her shoulders and began moving at that odd lope that was a cross between walking and jogging that ate up miles very quickly. With my head no longer reeling, and boredom setting in, I tried to strike up a conversation again. Only to have my efforts halted by a leather strap that Aela wrapped around my muzzle to keep me quiet.

The miles flowed by, and we only stopped twice during the entire day. Once at midday for a drink and to allow me to empty my bladder, with a second stop at the end of the day. Once again, Aela made camp in the middle of nowhere. Once again, I was leashed to a tree, and once again I was fed as the sun began to go down over a much colder part of the landscape than yesterday.

I tried reaching out to either Luna or Derpy through my dreams, but nothing seemed to respond. Everything was filled with an odd sort of blankness and without any sort of stimuli, my lucid dreaming soon fell into full dreaming and a deep slumber. A slumber that was broken by Aela rousing me as dawn broke over the mountains.

“We will meet the man who is paying for you in a couple of hours,” Aela said, and I hear regret in her voice. “For whatever it is worth, I’m sorry, but the price on your head was just too high to resist.”

“It is a lot of gold,” I replied. “I just didn’t think the Companions were involved in the slave trade.”

“We aren’t,” Aela shot back with a grimace of distaste. “There are things more valuable than gold. Worth enough for me to do... well, this.”

“Justify it however you like,” I replied, angrily as Aela stepped towards me, strap in hand. “You’re still selling someone who has done nothing wrong.”

“I know,” Aela said, wrapping the strap around my muzzle again. “I know.”

We set off again, through the increasingly snowy forests and Aela barely slowed down at all. Even a pair of wolves jumping out from behind a group of trees scarcely made her pause as she killed them with a couple of almost lazy swipes of her sword. The predicted two hours of travel found us at the base of a snowy cliff face into which there was set a broad cave opening. There was a small brass bell which Aela rang after setting me down on a cold stone slab.

A minute or two later a middle-aged man with greying hair came out of the cave flanked by a couple of undead. At least I hoped they were, because no one should look like they did and still be alive. Overall, the man looked like the classic Skyrim wizard. Robe, sparky bits and so forth. The only really odd things were that his belt had multiple potion bottles hanging from it and that he even wore a bandolier with several vials strung along its length.

“Well, is this it?” he asked, gesturing to me.

“It’s him,” Aela confirmed. “Now hand over what you promised me.”

“There is a test I need to perform first,” the wizard said, walking over to me and undoing the strap around my muzzle.

“You better fucking let me go right damn now, you piece of shit!” I yelled, the split second I could open my mouth. “Otherwise you’re going to have a horseshoe shoved so far up your ass you’ll be tasting horsehide for the next decade. You festering piece of rotting cow cock.” What can I say? You pick things up when you’re around the Dragonborn.

“So, not some mere brute, but a thinking animal,” said the man, with a chuckle. “Yes, yes. He’s everything I’d hoped for.”

“Give me what you promised in exchange,” Aela growled, hand on her sword. “Or I’m talking him back.”

“No need to be so hasty, Companion,” the wizard said, motioning one of his minions forward. “Or should I say, Daughter of Hircine?” Aela sucked in a breath and drew her sword.

“I should gut you where you stand for that!” she declared.

“Ah yes,” the wizard said, utterly calm as his minion reached him carrying a small chest. “You could kill me, or you could have this.”

“Is that...” Aela said, lowering her sword.

“Yesss,” replied the wizard, drawing out the word and patting the chest for a moment. “The locations of every known encampment of the group called ‘Silver Hand,’ plus a complete list of their known members. As well as everything the College of Winterhold has on the locations of the fragments of Wuuthrad. Does this payment satisfy your precious ‘honor’?”

Aela’s eyes glowed as she took the box from the risen dead. “No, it does not,” she said, looking me in the eye, “but it does make what I have done justifiable. The pony is yours. I never want to hear of you again.”

“You bitch!” I screamed at Aela. “You fucking bitch! You’re going to regret this!”

“I already do,” Aela said, walking away, and I had the feeling she never expected to see me again.

“That will be enough out of you,” the wizard said, pulling out something that looked like a bridle out of his robes. “Hold him.”

One of the undead grabbed me in their cold, bony grip and I tried to thrash and fight back, but I was both bound and pinned in place. As a final act of defiance I closed my mouth in an attempt to keep the bridle’s weirdly shaped bit out of my mouth. The wizard got around that by punching me in the gut and shoving the bit into place as I gasped for breath.

“Hgck… glth,” I sputtered, as the wizard finished buckling the bridle into place. The bit both held my tongue down and my mouth open, making sure I couldn’t make anything that sounded like words. Straps around my muzzle forced my jaws down against the bit, keeping me from getting some slack to get rid of the damned thing.

“My work will cause you enough discomfort as it is,” the wizard said, motioning to what looked like a draugr to pick me up. “Cooperate and I will ease as much of it as possible.”

My response was to move all my hooves together in a single motion to boot the undead carrying me, right in the face. I had the satisfaction of seeing the draugr’s jawbone go spiraling off into the distance. The wizard’s response was more effective than mine. The son of a bitch hit me with a paralysis spell that froze me solid.

My resistance dealt with, the wizard had me carried into the cave and strapped me to a padded metal frame. I say “strapped” but it was more a case of “immobilized.” There were straps cinched down tight above and below every joint in my body. There was even a clamp holding my tail in place. I could barely even fidget, never mind move.

“Now that the subject has been rendered unable to block our purposes,” the wizard said, to an undead that was taking notes, of all things, “we shall conduct a thorough baseline examination.”

Then every part of me was examined, measured, described and categorized. Samples were taken of my saliva, urine, sweat, and even cum. I cursed and swore during my violation, bucking against the steel and leather that held me captive, but my best efforts merely made the straps creak a bit. I should have saved my strength for the real horror to come.

“An excellent amount,” the wizard said, holding a beaker filled with my sexual fluid up to a light. “You should be proud of being able to produce such a prodigious quantity. With luck, I’ll be able to inseminate three or four mares to produce more of your kind.”

I sort of lost it that point. Growling, screaming, and throwing my body around so that even strapped down as I was, I managed to shift the metal frame holding me a few inches to one side. This fucker was about to create a race of half-breed ponies from me. I didn’t know why he wanted to, but it was certain he was going to view them as his property. I should have stayed quiet.

“Easy there, pony,” the wizard said, laying his hand on the back of my neck in an attempt to calm me. “What’s this?” My blood froze as I realized that by complete chance the wizard had put his hand directly onto my collar. The collar that held my humanity safe for me.

“You’re wearing a collar,” he said, his voice intent. “How could I have missed seeing this before? Wait, there is some sort of enchantment on it, isn’t there? Yes, now that I concentrate I can see the collar clearly, but only if I focus on it. This must be how you hid from the huntress for so long. Clever.”

“Hurk grcka,” I protested eloquently.

“Yes, and the clasp is enchanted as well,” the wizard said, drawing out a knife. “No matter.”

“Oooo,” I howled in protest, feeling the blade slide between my neck and the collar. A quick flick of his wrist, and the collar parted a second later. Followed by a burst of energies as Discord’s magic was let loose from the sundered leather. The wave of plaid power picked the wizard up and threw him against the nearby wall of the cave with a resounding thud.

Even if I hadn’t been immobilized, the shock of what had just happened would have frozen me. My humanity, the stuff that made me James Allens, human of Earth, was gone. Just like that. Gone. Destroyed by an asshole who saw me as nothing but some kind of science experiment. What was I now?

My anger and sadness was broken into by the sound of the wizard climbing out of a pile of broken furniture and pottery shards. I felt grim satisfaction as I noticed that he was definitely worse for wear. He had several cuts across his face and he moved with the stiffness of someone who had pulled a back muscle or two.

“The course of progress is difficult at times,” he opined, before gesturing to a pair of his undead minions. “You there, feed the pony using the method I’ve shown you, then make sure he is secured in his cage for the night. I need to use a few healing potions.”

The reason behind the strange bit in my mouth became clear as one of the draugr slowly fed a rubber like hose down my throat through a gap in the bit, and poured a watery mass of ground oats down into my gullet. I would be fed and watered whether I wanted to eat or not, it seemed. After that I was finally released from the holding frame and dragged into a small steel cage.

Despite everything that had happened to me, I found myself getting sleepy very quickly. The sudden tiredness overriding my desire to check my prison for any flaws I might exploit. As my nose touched the ground, two thoughts echoed in my head. First, my food had been drugged to make me easy to manage. Second, no one had all this kind of stuff ready to go, and was this good with it, if they haven’t already done it a few times to someone.

Day two found me again strapped to the frame, and this time the wizard had pulled up what I recognized as an alchemy table. He started light. A shaving of hairs here, a sliver of a hoof there, some scraping from various parts. Each bit was meticulously prepared and then tested for its alchemical properties.

After lunch came… pain. He cut into the delicate frog of one of my hooves, and proceeded to cut off the entire sole of one hoof. It hurt even more than it did when he cut my tail off by the dock in a single, clean motion. I gritted my teeth as best I could and kept myself to small whimpers. It wasn’t until he gelded me that I finally broke into screams of agony.

Through it all the wizard never flinched or showed an ounce of compassion towards me. I was a whimpering, blubbering, bloody mess by the time he had finished preparing and sampling all the bits. Then he poured a pair of healing potions down the tube into my stomach and barely a minute later I was restored. Everything back where it was, and the pain merely a fading memory.

The physical pain was gone, but mentally I was a broken wreck. It wasn’t the pain that had broken my will. It wasn’t the mutilations or the cavalier method in which he had cut parts of my body off. It was the realization that with healing potions at his disposal he could do this over, and over, and over again. I distantly felt the bridle and bit being removed for the first time in two days.

“Eat,” the wizard said. “Magic needs material to work with. Eat.”

“Just kill me already,” I begged him. I could only imagine what tomorrow was going to bring, and my imagination terrified me. “Please, I’ll do anything you ask. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”

“Then eat,” the wizard said. “If it’s any consolation, I can only test parts of you once. After that, they are contaminated with residue from the healing potion.”

“Just don’t hurt me anymore, please,” I begged again. I’d do just about anything to escape that level of pain.

“I regret that you must be the one to pay the price of progress,” the wizard said, before grabbing the back of my head and aiming at the bowl in front of me that was filled with vegetables of various sorts. “I will do my best to be as efficient as possible in the future. Now eat, or I will have your food poured down your throat again.”

I ate mechanically with a mind numbed from the horror of knowing what was coming. The wizard didn’t say it, but I knew that tomorrow he was going into me for parts to test, and I likely wasn’t going to survive it. This was it. I was going to die a horrible death by vivisection, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. I finished the food in front of me and was promptly re-bridled and locked back into my tiny cage. As the lights were put out, a blanket was thrown over the cage, further enshrouding me in darkness.

Luna, I called out in my mind, praying for a response. Luna, Derpy, please. I need help! Silence reigned.

Mara? I asked, into the silence. You said you would help in my hour of greatest need. I need you!

I am here, young pony, said the welcome voice of the goddess. But I did try to warn you that once this had begun I could not stop it. I cannot prevent what is to happen to you, but I will be with you through it all.

If you can’t save me, then I want a promise from you, I said, fear icing my gut but something like my old determination coming back to me. Tell Derpy and Luna what happened to me. Tell them I’m gone, an.. And that I love them both. Okay?

On my honor, it will be done, Mara said, and I could “feel” her hand on my metaphorical neck. Your mares shall know of your fate and that your thoughts were of your love for them. Now, let me give you the one gift I can give you. A night without nightmares, free of fear and terror. Sleep James. Sleep, my little pony.

A pulse of warmth spread over me from Mara’s hand and in moments I was asleep. Assured that those I cared for would at least know what had happened to me.

Author's Note

One chapter to go. This was a very hard chapter to write and I made the deliberate choice to avoid getting overly detailed about what has been done to James.

Also, the formatting may be a little... odd, in this chapter. Winter storms took down my power more than once during the writing of this and I had to transfer the document between Google Docs and LibreOffice a few times.

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