Trial and Error: Second Edition

Chapter the Ninth: The Bitter Beginning

When Fluttershy returned to the workshop, she was surprised to find that Kai was not waiting for her there. She had expressed her agreement to let him grope at her wing after she was done cleaning up from dinner, thus she had expected him to be here and at the ready. She wondered where he could be. She didn't wait very long for an answer, as he presently walked through the door.

"Are you ready to begin?" She asked, spreading her wings for him.

"Actually, I have something that I wanted to do before we begin. Stand against the wall for me?"

She did as he asked, keeping her wings spread for him. He walked up to her and raised her chin with his hoof. She shut her eyes tightly as his hoof gently brushed her hair away from her neck. She wanted to shrink down, as she felt very vulnerable with his hoof so close to her throat. She swallowed hard as she felt his breath gently push her hair through the air above her shoulder.

"That should do just fine."

Fluttershy opened her eyes. He had backed away from her.

"I needed to make an adjustment to your collar. I found a problem with the barrier keeping you in, and I fixed it."

"What was the problem with it?"

"Come with me, I'll show you."

The two stepped out into the hall. As Kai made his way to the stairs, Fluttershy stopped.

"Is something the matter?" Kai said, turning to face her.

"It's just, I tried going further up the stairs earlier. This was as far as I could go before I started feeling sick. I tested several times just to be sure. This is where the barrier is." She was sure of the position, as it lined up perfectly with the third candle sconce from the bottom of the stairs.

"You mean, that's where it was. As thanks for that wonderful meal, I have decided to grant you a small liberty. I was going to wait until it was time to test my wings, but I wasn't expecting such a kind gift from you tonight."

Fluttershy took a few tentative steps forward. She wasn't feeling lightheaded or dizzy this time. When her hoof found the stone stairway, she began confidently climbing, with Kai following close behind her. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was outside. The warm evening breeze felt wonderful through her feathers and smelled faintly of autumn. The auburn sky called to her, a far cry from the dusty, stagnant darkness of the dungeon.

She darted to the top of the nearest wall and looked around. She could see over enough of the trees to catch a trace of the tallest spires in Ponyville peaking just over the canopy. In another direction, she could see Canterlot. As she noted their locations, she looked around at the stone ruins that made up her prison. She knew this place, as she had been here before. This was the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.

"Enjoying the view?" Kai had taken the long way up, having to enter a tower and climb two flights of stairs.

"Just some memories." Fluttershy wiped a tear from her eye.

"Watching the sunset with a loved one?"

"No. These are from the last time I was here."

"From when you were a child?"

"No, it was just two years ago."

"You came out here on your own?"

"No. Twilight, Pinkie and three other ponies were with me."

Kai thought back to two years prior. He was sure he would remember six ponies cavorting about his home.

"That was on the summer solstice, though. Usually, the sun rises earliest and sets latest on that day, but due to the return of Nightmare Moon, the night seemed not to end."

That sounded familiar. He had been out that night, and the bridge had collapsed when he left. He had descended into the ravine and slept in a cave. To his shock, the bridge had been repaired the next day. He had dismissed that all as a strangely realistic dream, but it would make sense that a pegasus could fly across the ravine and tie the bridge back together.

"I remember that night, as well. I wasn't here. I mean, I was living here, but I was out of the castle that night."

"How long have you been living here?"

"Almost twenty years. I was seven or eight when I moved in."

"Wait a second..." Something wasn't adding up in Fluttershy's head. His story didn't quite make sense. "If you've been here for twenty years, and you moved in when you were eight, when were you in prison?"

"I was six at that time."

"And then you came here. On your own."

"I did. I had spent the last several months living on the street, so I wasn't quite as vulnerable as one might imagine."

"How did you ever manage that?"

"It's quite a long story."

"I'm not going anywhere." Fluttershy tugged at her collar.

"I suppose you're not."

"The day I was released from prison, my parents were supposed to pick me up. The guard who was watching me at the time claimed that they might have forgotten. At the time, I believed him, but not so much anymore. They abandoned me there. I had to have the guard escort me back to my house, and he was quite angry about that. As if the situation was my fault, or something. When we arrived, my dad told him that I didn't live there, and that I wasn't his kid. The second time we came to the door, my mom was there, and she let me in, claiming that she didn't know I had been released yet.

"That night, I heard them fighting. About whether or not they would keep me around. My mom was of the opinion that I was still her son, and I deserved to stay there as family. My dad called me a disgrace, and argued that I might turn my brother into a criminal, too."

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"I do. Or, I did. If my parents disowned me, It's fair to assume he might have, too. I haven't seen or talked to any of them since I left Canterlot.

"I guess my dad must have won the argument, as the next morning, he told me to remove myself from his sight. My mother was nowhere to be seen. She wasn't in the house, I looked all over. When my dad found me in my mother's bedroom, he grabbed me by the back of my neck and literally threw me out of the house. He yelled after me that I was no longer welcome in his residence. As evidence of this, when I came back a few days later, hoping he'd calmed down, I found all of my belongings in the street, waiting to be picked up with the trash. Seeing my bed smashed to wooden chunks is what made me realize that I would never be able to come back.

"After that, I took to the streets. I wandered from corner to corner, begging passersby for aid, but I seemed to be invisible. Most nights, I went to bed hungry. I'd have starved to death, but I ran into another homeless stallion. At first, he was angry at me. He claimed that I was encroaching on his territory. I went to fight him off with what I thought might have been broken furniture, and he just laughed at me. He made up for that by teaching me how to find food in the dumpsters.

"Scruffy, he called himself. I don't know if that was his name, or just an alias. Regardless, he took me in. We slept in a cardboard box when the weather was dry. During rain, we broke into the public gardens and slept under the bushes. Part of me thought we'd be together forever. Hoped, even. Then one day, he just... didn't wake up. His body was stiff and cold, like ice. He smelled even worse than usual. I took it as a sign that it was time to leave Canterlot. There was nothing left for me there.

"Scruffy had come from Ponyville. He had been a farmer, and he had come to Canterlot to make it big in the city. He fell in love, but didn't have the respectable income her father required in order to give his daughter away, so he fell into a depression and drank his savings away. The only reason he hadn't returned to Ponyville was because he had fought with his family for quite awhile before he left. I had no such baggage, so I decided to come to Ponyville myself. I was going to work on a farm, and save enough money to pursue my dream of having wings."

"Sounds like a fine plan. Why didn't you follow through with it? I'm sure somepony in Ponyville would have taken you in. Especially if you were offering to work for your room and board."

"I'm sure they would have. However, I never made it to Ponyville. On the road, I ran into some travelling minstrels. Bards, they called themselves. They offered me a place to sleep for the night. When I woke up the next morning, they had bound my legs, stolen what few belongings I had left, and left a bunch of their junk next to me. Some guards showed up to untie me, and they arrested me on the spot for possession of stolen property. There was also a sack of coins that was labelled as taxes collected. It had gone missing a week prior. To make matters worse, when they opened the bag, all of the coins were counterfeit. So I was also charged with grand larceny and counterfeiting. My biggest mistake was telling the guards they could keep the items, because that came back to bite me with a bribery charge.

"They shoved me in a wagon and started carting me back to Canterlot. I didn't want to go back to prison, but I had no way to prove my innocence. However, in a rare stroke of luck, I found out that one of the floor boards of the wagon they were carting me away in was loose. I managed to squeeze my way out and escape. They realized pretty quickly that I wasn't there anymore, so they chased after me. I knew they'd catch up in no time if I stayed on the road, so I ran into the forest instead. They may have been bigger, stronger and faster, but I was small and lightweight. After awhile, I guess they wore themselves out in their heavy armor, because I had lost them by the time I stopped running.

"I wandered aimlessly through the forest for a few days, and eventually found this place. I was tired, starving, and my hooves were so sore that I just collapsed as soon as I stepped inside. Nopony lived here, so I looked around when I awoke. There were some books, including one called 'The Emergency Survival Guide: All Things One Must Know in a Life or Death Situation.' I read that book cover to cover several times over.

"By the time I had explored enough of the area to find Ponyville, I had already set up everything I would need to live out here. I also guessed that the charges I was assigned that day were still active. That's my big reason for wanting to avoid the guards. They had enough to put me back in that cell for the rest of my days. Now they can add resisting arrest and kidnapping to my charges. As well as theft, if they bring you in for questioning."

"Why would I tell them you committed theft? What did you steal from me?"

"I was not authorized to purchase those saddlebags with your money. Even though I planned to give them to you at the end of your stay here, I don't suspect you'll want them, or any memory of your time with me."

"That's not entirely true. It hasn't all been bad. Tonight was okay. If I weren't your prisoner, I might have even--"

"Hold on... Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Listen to the sound of the owls."

"I don't hear any owls."

"Exactly. Something's spooked them. There's something out there. Whatever it is, it's nearby. I'm pretty sure it's headed straight for us."