A Cold Day in Frostback Prison
The figure before him was curled up on the cot, shivering despite the blankets that were wrapped tightly around his form and the heavy brown jacket that was covered with a multitude of stains. Sweat clung to the pegasus’ thick brown mane and his eyes were shut tightly. A feeble moan escaped his throat.
Gentle Guide stared at his guest through the bars of the holding cell, his tufted ears twitching in a display of exasperation. “They found him behind the Midnight Oil again?” he asked, not turning away from the inmate.
“Yup,” the ice blue unicorn behind the booking desk grunted, not looking up from the paperwork in front of him. He sucked on the tip of his pen for a moment, then scratched down a note, briefly taking off his peaked cap to scratch his short green mane. The nametag on his black uniform read “Snowdust.”
Gentle Guide shifted his weight slightly; the black uniform of a prison guard—no, correctional officer—itched against his body, the color of the shirt clashing against the dusky purple of his coat. He brushed a strand of his snow-white mane out of his eyes and continued to watch the fitfully sleeping inmate. After a few moments, the sweating pony let out a particularly long groan and slowly opened his charcoal gray eyes. The irides were twitching rapidly, as if the eyeballs were trying to jump out of the pony’s sockets. Groaning and shaking his head, he slowly sat up on the cot.
“Hello, Square Nail,” Gentle said flatly.
Square Nail looked up and tried to focus on him through the bars, blinking rapidly in a futile attempt to control his myokymia. “Guide?” he asked, his voice slurring.
“What was it this time?” Gentle asked, careful to keep his tone even and his appearance detached and professional.
Square Nail looked down at the floor and rubbed the back of his mane. “Just a couple of drinks,” he muttered, the cot creaking beneath him as he shifted his weight.
Gentle said nothing but raised an eyebrow slightly. “...couple dozen,” Square Nail admitted. “And a line or two...or five...of heroin.”
Gentle Guide sighed through his nostrils, forcing his ears to remain still. “Nail, did you attend rehab like I asked you to?”
“Bunch of self-righteous Holy Mother freaks,” Square Nail grumbled bitterly. “I don’t need their help—ow!” he grunted and clutched his forehead.
Without even looking, Gentle Guide retrieved a bottle of pills from the pocket of his uniform shirt, shook a couple out onto his hoof, and held them out through the bars to the inmate.
“Thanks,” Square Nail said, accepting the pills and swallowing them both dry.
“We’ll get you taken care of as soon as we can,” Gentle Guide reassured him.
“Thanks, Guide,” Nail said, laying back down on the cot.
“Nail,” Guide stated, holding out a hoof through the bars and beckoning, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
Nail stared at him for a moment with a look of frustration and loathing, then sighed and reached underneath the mattress of his cot. He plucked out a small plastic baggie filled with a dark green powder and handed it to Guide.
“Thank you, Nail,” Guide said, placing the little baggie into his pocket, but the new inmate was already falling deep asleep again. Sighing, Guide walked over to the desk and placed the bag down on the table next to Snowdust, who was still scribbling down Square Nail’s intake information on a packet of paper.
“Suicide risk,” the unicorn muttered, tapping a paper that contained a checklist of information. “Do we really have to complete these?”
“He’s still a pony, Snowdust,” Gentle Guide explained patiently. “A pony that’s under our care.”
“A pony that we have to pay to feed and clothe with our tax dollars,” Snowdust grumbled, scratching off some check marks. “Honestly, he’d be doing us a service if he got a razor and—”
His mutterings were interrupted by Gentle Guide’s hoof slamming down onto the paper. Snowdust leaped back in surprise, then glared at the thestral.
“Don’t talk like that,” Guide snapped, his blue eyes flashing dangerously. “That uniform stands for something besides being the only thing that separates you from the inmates. You’re a professional; act like it!”
Snowdust stared at Guide for a few moments of stunned silence, then grunted. “You and your fucking bleeding heart, Guide,” he hissed to his comrade and pointedly looked back down at his work.
Sighing, Gentle Guide sat down behind the desk and began to flip through the stack of paperwork that sat on the tabletop, waiting to be sorted and completed. Aside from Square Nail’s intake, there was still the monthly report on the number of ponies in segregation and the reason for their being moved there, the headcount sheets needed to be updated...what was this?
A name on one of the documents caught Guide’s attention. “Pencil Dust.” The name was printed at the top of a set of release papers.
Guide felt his heart trembling in his chest. Pencil’s sentence ran out today. How could he have forgotten?
“Guide, we got business,” Snowdust said, looking up. Gentle Guide looked up to see a police cruiser pulling into the lot outside the booking area. The officers exited the cruiser and walked around to the back, opening the back door. A stallion clambered out, the hoofcuffs that secured his front hooves rattling. The officers took him by the forelegs and walked him to the sally port.
Snowdust hit a switch on his control panel that unlocked the outer door. One of the officers wrenched it open and the trio stepped inside. Once the outer door locked behind them, Snowdust unlocked the inner door to allow them to enter the booking room. The same officer wrenched the door open and the two officers carried their charge into the booking room.
Gentle Guide studied the new inmate as he was brought in. He was a pale yellow and brown unicorn with light green hair to include the beginnings of a beard. He clutched his tail in close to himself. His blue eyes twitched everywhere, studying everything with growing apprehension. His cutie mark was a peregrine falcon with its wings spread in flight. The kid couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, and he looked like he was about to wet himself from fear.
Gentle Guide had to fight to push away his pity. It didn’t matter how scared the kid was, how young he was, or if he felt that he deserved to be here instead of safe at home. Right now, the stallion was here to face up to the consequences of his behavior, and it was Guide’s job to make sure that he completed his sentence without any problems.
“Name?” Snowdust asked the stallion, flipping through the intake papers on the desk.
The stallion sucked in a shaky breath and stood up taller. “Falcon Wing,” he declared, deliberately lowering his voice to make himself sound tougher.
Snowdust rummaged through the stack for a minute, then extracted a set of papers. “Ah, yeah. Here on two-year charge for drunken driving resulting in death.”
“It was just an accident!” Falcon Wing started to protest, his eyes suddenly shining. “I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off and cleared his throat, forcing his face to go blank again.
“All right, uncuff him,” Snowdust instructed the police officers. “We’ll take it from here.”
The officers removed the shackles from Falcon Wing’s legs, handed over a bag containing the colt’s property, and exited with a tip of their hats. Snowdust pulled out a bag containing a set of gray coveralls. “Go and change in that room. Officer Guide will accompany you.”
Falcon Wing nodded, still trembling slightly, and followed Guide into a small bathroom next to the holding cells. Guide closed the door behind them but did not latch it. “All right, open your mouth, please,” he instructed.
Falcon looked momentarily confused but then obliged, opening his mouth wide. Guide checked his mouth and gums to make sure that he wasn’t hiding anything in there, then checked underneath his forelegs, all of his hooves, and ran a gloved hoof through his mane and his tail.
“Almost done. Now, turn around,” he then instructed Falcon Wing. Falcon turned around. “Lift up your tail,” Guide said.
“But—” Falcon started to protest.
“The sooner we can get this over with, the better it will be for you,” Guide said patiently. “Lift up your tail, please.”
His face turning bright red, Falcon Wing obligingly lifted his tail up to expose what lay underneath. Gentle Guide regarded it calmly, indifferently. He had to remind himself that even though he had done this a thousand times, for Falcon Wing, it was his first.
“Cough,” Guide said. Falcon Wing let out a couple of loud coughs. As Guide suspected, he was hiding nothing.
“All right, that’s over with. You can go ahead and get changed,” Guide declared, handing Wing the bag with his uniform. Falcon Wing got dressed, his body language displaying his self-consciousness. A minute later, he was dressed in a set of gray coveralls with “FROSTBACK” displayed across the back in black letters. The colors of his coat seemed to dim and his posture slumped beneath the weight of his new clothes.
There was one final touch. Guide pulled a small black metal band out of the bag and placed it on Wing’s foreleg. The bracelet snapped shut with a click and Falcon Wing shuddered.
“My wings feel numb,” he said, extending his wings. The movement was sluggish and slow, the limbs barely responding, as though the connection between his body and his brain and been cut off.
“They should,” Guide nodded. “That bracelet is preventing you from using any magic. It’s for our safety. I should warn you, that is locked on and if you try to take it off or tamper with it, it’ll shock you.”
Falcon Wing stared at the black bracelet for a moment, as though contemplating trying to rip it off, then slowly hung his head in defeat. The transformation from civilian to inmate was complete.
“Come with me, please,” Guide instructed, opening the door. Falcon Wing followed him obediently as they walked out of booking and down the hallway towards a set of doors. Set above the door was a representation of the city of Ponyville’s coat of arms: a shield with an apple tree, the sky above it half day and half night, flanked by a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. Beneath the shield was a scroll with the motto “Domus Pro Omnibus,” “A home for all.”
Guide pushed through the double doors and they walked down a short hallway that curved around a room with tinted windows. Guide could faintly see the control room officer inside, just barely illuminated by the lights of the door controls and the projected images from the surveillance crystal network. They walked past two steel doors and stopped at a third, pausing just long enough for the door to buzz open.
Behind this door was a long, dead-end hallway featuring three steel doors with windows, one on each of the walls and one at the end. Guide walked to the door on the right, which was labeled with a large B, and knocked. A few moments later, there was the sound of the door unlatching and it swung open to reveal a tall red unicorn with sandy brown hair, this one also adorned in a correctional officer’s uniform. The nametag read “Sunburn.”
“New guy, huh?” Sunburn said, looking at Wing. Wing nodded, looking faintly queasy. “Well, welcome to your new home. Step inside and we’ll get you settled.”
Wing looked at the black painted line on the floor that separated the cellblock from the hallway and slowly stepped over it, entering the cellblock. Guide followed behind him.
The cellblock featured an open area with a few tables and seats, all of them bolted down securely to the floor. Inmates sat around the tables, playing cards and board games and talking amongst themselves, creating a low buzz of constant noise. The three walls of the room featured doors with steel bars, through which Guide could see some of the inmates sitting on their bunks, sleeping, reading books, and writing letters. A set of stairs led to a second-floor tier that provided access to another set of cells.
Sunburn led Wing over to cell B09 on the first floor, the keys hooked to his belt jingling as he walked. Wing’s eyes cast themselves nervously over the other inmates. Most of the other ponies in their gray coveralls simply gave him a quick glance, then proceeded to ignore him. A few, however, focused their gazes upon him, watching him with predatory gazes. Wing cringed, clutching his tail close between his legs.
Sunburn unlocked the barred door and opened it with a squeaking. The cell was small and sparse: there were only two bunks bolted to the wall, a toilet-sink combination with a small mirror screwed tightly to the wall, a plastic trash can, two plastic bins for personal items, and a desk with a chair. Only the top bunk was occupied: the green pegasus with greasy, coal black hair and beard tossed the covers aside and looked up at the intruders. “What?” he grunted.
“Autumn Flight, meet your new roommate,” Sunburn said, standing aside and allowing Falcon Wing to enter. Wing stepped inside the cell, trying and failing to hide his trembling.
“I didn’t want a roommate,” Autumn Flight growled, glaring at the newcomer.
“Well, sorry, but it ain’t up to you,” Sunburn shrugged.
Flight glared at Wing. “Listen, boy, just stay out of my way and we’ll get along fine.” And with that, he flopped back down on the bed and pulled the covers over his head.
“Real charmer, that one,” Sunburst muttered. To Guide’s silent gratitude, he didn’t mention to Wing what his roommate was in for: a twenty-year sentence for aggravated assault that put his zebra neighbor in the hospital for two weeks. He was just entering year nine of his sentence this moon.
Sunburst started to explain to Wing the basic rules of the facility while Guide stood outside, watching the other inmates. Most of them had returned to their own activities, markedly disinterested in the newcomer. But over the buzz of conversations, Guide’s sensitive thestral hearing picked up a voice.
“Kid looked like he was gonna wet himself,” a white earth pony with long, untidy red hair sitting at the farthest table from them was saying to his companions, grinning at the open door.
“Bet he’ll be crying for his mama by the end of the week,” a skinny, shaggy-maned zebra smirked.
“You see the ass on that piece?” the third pony, a blue unicorn with a thin layer of brown hair said, his tail swishing back and forth as he studied Wing. “Bet I could fit myself real nice in there.”
“Balls deep,” the zebra agreed. “Bet he’d squeal like the little bitch he is, too.”
“Unless he was choking on me!” the earth pony laughed.
With a sudden movement, Guide’s eyes focused directly on the group and narrowed. Letting out a brief huff through his nostrils, Guide began to march towards the group, bypassing the other tables. The inmates’ heads turned to follow his progress as he stalked towards the trio, all of whom regarded him completely calmly.
“Can I help you, officer Guide?” the unicorn asked as he approached.
“I heard what you were saying,” Guide said, his voice stern and calm. “Let me make it clear; you lay a hoof on him, and you will answer to me.”
The unicorn laughed. “‘Answer to me,’ he says,” he chuckled to his companions. “For what? Talking about the new neighbor?”
“This is not amusing, Blue Sky,” Guide retorted. “Any acts of violence in this prison will not be tolerated.”
“Is it violence if I can get him to want it, just like any other bitch?” the unicorn smirked. His two friends both laughed.
Guide frowned at him and took a deep breath, stifling the growl that was growing in his lungs. “That’s it. Go to your cell. You’re locked in for an hour.”
“Hey, fuck you, pig!” Blue Sky snapped, his eyes suddenly narrowing as he got up off the table. He loomed over Guide, who took a single step backward, his hoof grasping the holster for the pepper spray on his belt. “Just cause I’m talking—”
“SKY!”
Every head turned to see Sunburn storming towards the group. His every hoofstep thudded disproportionately loudly in the suddenly silent dayroom. His narrowed yellow eyes seemed to glow faintly red and his horn was alight with a dangerous red-orange glow. Blue Sky backed down immediately, his eyes widening with fear.
“Your cell. Two hours. Now,” Sunburn growled. “And you can forget about commissary this week.”
Blue Sky stared at the elder guard for a moment, then growled and stalked up the stairs to his cell. He walked inside and pulled the bars shut with a loud clanging.
“You two as well. Go,” Sunburn ordered the others. Both ponies grumbled, but got to their hooves and walked to their cells, closing the doors behind them. Normal activity in the dayroom quickly resumed, the volume of the other inmates’ conversation rising to its regular level.
Sunburn and Guide both walked back to Wing, who had watched the sequence with an expression of mild shock. “Do yourself a favor, son,” Sunburn instructed him. “Stay away from those guys, especially Sky. They’ll bring you nothing but trouble in here.”
“And listen, if there’s anything you’re concerned or worried about, you can talk to us,” Guide added. “We’re here to keep you safe. Remember that.”
Falcon Wing looked up at them, but Guide had seen that look in his eyes before. He was looking at them, but he wasn't seeing the ponies. All he could see was the uniforms, the badges. All he saw were the officers that had put him in here and were keeping him in here.
“R-right,” Wing nodded. “Um, thanks.” He turned to his bunk and started to arrange the sheets, his hooves pulling the thin sheets back and forth in the same manner.
Gentle Guide watched him in silence for a few moments, unarticulated feelings tumbling around in his gut. He pondered the decisions that had guided this young stallion here, the bad choices, the excuses. Where was the turning point? Had it become inevitable somewhere along that line that he had to come here and have two years of his young life stolen from him?
“Guide,” Sunburn said, calling him back from his thoughts. Guide turned to see the senior officer tilt his head away from the door, and followed reluctantly.
“Not all of them can be saved,” Sunburn said softly as they walked back into the dayroom.
“I know,” Guide nodded glumly. “But I just…” He sighed, unable to give voice to the crushing weight on his back.
Sunburn frowned at his junior for a moment, then looked up at the clock mounted on the wall over the officer’s desk. “I gotta do my next tour. You head out and see if there’s anything control needs you to do.”
Guide looked up at the clock and paused, staring. Was it really two-thirteen already?
It was time.
He followed Sunburn to the unit doorway and nodded his thanks as he opened the steel door for him. He exited the door into the hallway and started to hurry back towards the booking room, moving as fast as he could without running, resisting the urge to fly. He passed by the control room and waved for the door. After a couple moments, the door buzzed open and he pushed through. Rushing down the hallway, he buzzed the door into booking. The doors unlocked and he re-entered the booking room.
Pencil Dust was standing in front of the booking desk, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof nervously. He was a light brown unicorn with a dusty mane of gray hair; only a few stripes of the original yellow remained. His lightly wrinkled brown eyes squinted out through a thick pair of glasses. His cutie mark was a pencil sitting on top of a trio of papers covered in scrawls. He was dressed in the same clothes that he’d been wearing when he was brought into the prison thirty years ago on a charge of ponyslaughter: a light red suit that was now almost a full size too big for him and a tie that he had evidently only barely remembered how to tie.
“Okay, just need to sign for that,” Snowdust said, handing Dust a clipboard. Pencil Dust squinted at a pen on the desk, his horn flickering on, then he grabbed the pen in an aura of pale yellow magic. The pen shuddered in midair as he struggled to keep ahold of it, thirty years of no practice in magic made clear. It took him almost a minute to sign his name on the indicated line.
“All righty, just hang tight while I get the last of your stuff,” Snowdust nodded, taking the clipboard back and turning to a small closet behind the booking desk.
Pencil Dust turned and saw Guide standing there. “Guide,” he said, managing a smile.
“Today’s the day, Dust,” Gentle Guide said. “You excited?”
The smile fled from Pencil Dust’s face. “Has it really been thirty years?” he asked.
“It has,” Guide nodded.
“Who’s the mayor now?” Pencil Dust asked. “It’s not Busy Beaver anymore, is it?”
“Beaver died nine years ago,” Guide explained. “Margaret Mare’s the mayor now.”
“And those cars,” Pencil Dust added. “I’ve heard they’re everywhere now, right?”
“They are,” Guide nodded. “And they’re a lot faster than they used to be.”
Dust let out a slow, nervous breath, turning to look out the double doors. “The ponies at the halfway home...they’re friendly?”
“They are,” Guide said. “They’ll take care of you.”
“But it won’t be my old home,” Pencil Dust fretted, licking his lips. “And...and do you think I could get a job writing again?”
“I sure hope so,” Guide said.
“Wonder what happened to all my old friends and neighbors,” Dust mused. “D’you think they’d remember me? If they ever saw me again?”
Before Gentle Guide could answer, Snowdust came back out of the closet, carrying a plastic box in his magic. He placed the box down on the desk and opened it up. “Okay, that’s all your stuff,” he said. “Just sign the receipt and you’re free to go.”
Pencil Dust examined the contents of the box: a tarnished gold pocketwatch, a set of reading glasses, and an old-fashioned wallet with only three gold bits inside. Pencil Dust examined his items, glumly studying the three bits he had left to his name, then pocketed all of them. It took him another minute to sign the receipt.
Snowdust took the receipt back and tucked it into a folder. “All right, that’s that. You’re a free pony, Pencil Dust.”
Pencil Dust stared at him for a moment as though in incomprehension, then turned and looked at Gentle Guide, uncertainty in his eyes. Guide tilted his head towards the sally port doors.
Pencil Dust walked over to the door, which buzzed open for him. “Good luck, Pencil,” Gentle Guide called after him as the elder unicorn stepped into the sally port. The door slammed shut, then the exterior door opened.
For a moment, Pencil Dust hesitated. He looked at the exterior door, blinking at the sunlight streaming in through the opening, then turned and looked back at the interior door. Confusion, uncertainty, and fear shone in his eyes. Frostback had been more than his home for thirty years; the brick walls and steel bars had been his entire world. Freedom was an alien planet.
But he had no other choice. Pencil Dust turned and slowly walked through the exterior doors, moving like he was wearing a ball and chain. Guide caught a glimpse of him walking down the concrete pathway lined on both sides by chain link fences towards the outer doors, then the exterior doors closed behind him.
“Hey, Guide, you’re wanted in control,” Snowdust said, his tone flat.
Gentle Guide stared at the sally port doors for a moment, then sighed and turned around. As he passed underneath the double doors, he looked up at the coat of arms over his head, the symbol of the city that he worked for.
Domus Pro Omnibus. A home for all.
Even if that home had to be made of steel bars and barbed wire fences.
Author's Note
This was a project that was sitting on my back burner for a very, very long time.
Ever since I first introduced Guide in Chapter One of Ponyville Noire, I always wanted to do more with him, and my own experience as a correctional officer gave me quite a few ideas.
This was intended to give something of a glimpse of not just the day to day for a corrections officer (trust me, there's really no such thing as a "typical day" for a CO), but also some of the realities of prison and what life is like for the inmates from start to beginning: you're scared going in, you're scared on the inside, and you're scared going out.
That's part of the reason why I briefly introduced prison rape. I don't mean to sound preachy or anything, but it seriously is not funny. It's a traumatic, painful, and terrifying experience that no one deserves to go through, no matter what they've done. And like most violent crimes, the weak and afraid are the typical victims.
I hope that you enjoyed this little short story, and that it's opened your eyes a bit as to what prison can be like, not just for the inmates, but for those who work there.
