Dusk had a quiet walk home. Physically quiet at least, as his head was spinning with thoughts and memories of the squat mud village. It didn't take long for him to decide that the earth ponies were likely being forced to live there, after seeing the unicorn guards. He just wasn't sure how forced they were; he wanted to believe it was just political coercion, but he was afraid it was less insidious and more overt.

But that led him to wonder where his mentor, Princess Celestia, was. Was she in the tent city of the unicorns, ignoring the world below her as she built her city? How long would she continue to ignore the plight of the earth ponies after the completion of the castle?

And what would he do if she wasn't there? He remembered from his history books that Celestia disappeared from Equestria for a short period after instructing her staff to move the capital to the half-built castle she'd been intending to make a trade center until Nightmare Moon, but none of the books mentioned exactly how long she'd been gone. Fifty years is relatively short in the eyes of history; was she still on her trek?

His thoughts looped and twisted in on themselves, leading to no insights and a tension headache.

In the end, he dismissed his thoughts as he neared the entrance to the Everfree, shaking them vigorously out of his head. Glancing into the sky, he figured it to be about three in the afternoon, leaving him plenty of time to get through the forest before nightfall.

When he reached the bridge, he smiled over and across the gently swaying wooden planks before his hackles raised.

Looking behind himself, he listened for any noise coming from the forest before turning his head back to the castle, ears tilted forward and perked as high as they could go.

Slowly moving over the bridge, he scoured everything all around himself for any source of anything out of place, but there wasn't even a blade of grass out of place. As far as he could see everything was exactly as he'd left it.

"Lily?" he called, his ears trembling as he listened for any return. "Clover?"

No sound returned beyond his echo.

Moving around the castle he put away his wagon, checking over his alarm spell and finding it as he'd left it. Dismissing it, he grabbed some of the crockeries he'd bought as well as some of his food stores before heading into the castle's kitchen.

Throwing some quick dinner together, he sent a quick pulse of magic through the castle and found nothing beyond the spiders and beetles.

Grabbing a bowl of the vegetable soup, he shook his head as he tried to dismiss the nervous pulse running still along his spine as he made his way to the room he'd claimed.

"You're losing it, Dusk," he muttered, shaking his back as he reached his door. "Overstimulated, I'll bet."

He opened his door and peered around the empty room suspiciously, even lifting the mattress, but found nothing out of place. Hrmph-ing to himself, he settled down onto the foot of his bed and pulled his diary from the stone wall, eating as he described his foray into town.

It wasn't until Lily came screaming into his room the following morning that he figured out what had been making him uneasy.

As soon as he heard the news he tore out of the servant's quarters, rebounding off a couple of walls as he galloped down the halls at full speed. He nearly jumped completely over a couple of stairways, hearing only the beating of his heart in his ears as he ran.

He skidded to a halt in front of an open door and glanced around the emptied room, before he said, "She did come back last night! This was her room, she must have emptied it when I wasn't here..."

Dusk turned to the panting Lily and grabbed her, pulling her into a sudden full-body hug.

"She's back," he said, releasing the blushing pegasus and returning her wide grin. "She can start fixing things!"

Lily's smile slipped from her face, her eyes suddenly distant. "Yeah," she said, faintly. "Yeah, I hope so too."

The following week was full of Dusk cheerfully wandering through his routines, chatting animatedly with the siblings while he was farming or tinkering with the stuff he'd bought in town, and even finding it in himself to create a cake from scratch with a bunch of leftover fruits he had for sweetener.

Throughout the week he'd been trying his best to wring news out of Lily, but the pegasus had both been quieter than usual. After a few days, they stopped even appearing, Dusk's mind buzzing too vigorously to wonder why.

Eventually he decided that he'd need to head back into Haysdale to find any real news.

Early in a morning about eleven days after he'd last made the trip, he loaded some of his fresh produce onto his wagon and started the trip into town.

He paused as he exited the Everfree, looking up at a veritable storm of activity around the city on the mountain, a host of pegasus flocking over the stubby stones where walls would be. Smiling to himself, he made up stories of how Celestia had excommunicated the unicorn nobles that had been standing on the others for so long, and how the new pegasus nobles had formed an air guard around her new city.

He reached the outskirts of Haysdale and paused on the trail, looking at a new stretch of brown mud wall erected around the village. Parts of it still looked wet even. He looked both ways along it before shrugging and heading towards the obvious gate.

"She's really concerned about security all of a sudden," he murmured to himself as he walked through the gate and started heading towards the center of town.

As he walked through the empty lanes, his trotting gate slowed as he reached the outskirts of the market and saw it was empty beyond the tent that had sold dried food-stuffs when he was here the first time.

Trotting over, he glanced at the window of the tent to see the same unicorn mare that had insulted his acting. Instead of being nose-deep in a book this time, she was scanning the area with a pair of sharp eyes that widened when Dusk poked his nose around the side of the tent.

"'Lo there," he said, looking around as he moved up to her table. "Is the town out on the field right now?"

She blinked at him, her eyes softening as she looked him over. "You don't know, do you?" she asked softly, before lifting a whistle from a necklace around her neck. Dusk tilted his head as she gave three sharp blows on the glittering silver piece before it dropped limply from her lips. "I'm so sorry," she said, giving him one of the most sorrowful looks he'd ever seen.

"Wha-?" he started to ask before he heard the sizzling sound of magic flying through the air.

Panic widening his eyes, his brain took less than a fraction of a second to tell him it was a stunning spell. His wards absorbed the impact that would have hit the side of his head, and acting on instinct, he dropped limply in the harness, playing at being stunned.

He listened as heavy, metallic shoes approached from behind him.

"Good job, quartermaster," came a strong masculine voice. Dusk felt his head swing limply to the side as a cold horseshoe pressed on his shoulder and shake him gently. "Is this the stallion?"

"Yes colonel, this is the farmer who appeared at the same time as the caravan, but separately," the mare reported. "He proceeded to nearly give away his wares to the town, then spend what money he'd made at the caravan buying seemingly random goods. A few reports from the townsponies also state that he gave away more food to two families, both of which are related to known brigands."

The stallion beside him snorted. "How charitable," he said hollowly, before whistling with his lips and walking away.

Dusk felt his body pull away from the tent, then hooves pulled him from the wagon and started dragging him away, to the north if he hadn't gotten mixed up once he'd closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he felt the sun on his coat disappear, before he heard the swinging of heavy iron hinges and the clang of a door.

He waited for a few breaths before he cracked his eyes, glancing around before sitting up.

He looked around a dirt-floored cell, surrounded on three sides by black metal bars and cobbled stones on the fourth side. He moved to the front of the cell and looked out at the full jail he'd landed in.

He looked to the left and saw the leader of the caravan, staring dully out of his door. He looked to the right and saw Daisy, Flynt and Flicker's dam, laying against the back wall of her own room. The rest of their cells were empty.

Glancing around and seeing that there wasn't a guard stationed inside the place, he moved over to his right. "Pst, Daisy," he whispered, walking back and leaning down to talk to her. "What happened?"

Her ears flicked, and she glanced up at him for a moment, before she turned over and tucked her head between her front legs.

"The Princess happened," he heard from behind him. Perking up, he looked at the caravan leader.

He glanced at Dusk when he trotted over, before returning his gaze to the door. "Celestia, highest of the lords and ladies of Canterlot and ruler of Equestria, has fucked off," he said bitterly. "After a generation without her damned sister, she broke and ran.

Celestia's left Equestria, and the unicorn nobles slaughtered any earth ponies and pegasi who could stand up to them." He chuckled hollowly. "Welcome to the new Equestria, slave."

Dusk's ears fell back, and he felt his head fall forward and come to rest on the bars.

After a moment, he lifted his chin and looked around the jail.

"Are they keeping the colts and fillies separately then?" he asked. "And where's Steel, and Cherry Heart?"

He turned when he heard a dry sob from the mare behind him. The leader snorted, his expression wavering. "Oh aye, they're keeping them all in the same place," he whispered. "They're all in the White Plains now, though I've no doubt they still have the bodies of the ones who fought back still swinging on the gallows they built overnight."

"No," Dusk whispered, shaking his head as he backed away from the bars, slumping on the stone wall he bumped into. "No, they couldn't..."

The caravan pony snorted harshly. "Not until the great white coward fled. It's their country now."

Either out of anything to talk about or just out of energy, the stallion turned away and laid on the dirt floor with his back to Dusk.

Dusk forced himself to ignore the tears that threatened to drown him, coming from all around him, as he shut down everything but his mind, bending himself to what had happened in the span of ten days, and how he could possibly fix his country without showing everypony what he actually was and destroying the flow of time as he knew it.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Wake up, muddy."

Dusk jolted as a wooden haft shoved at his jaw, instinctively rolling himself away as he woke up from an uneasy sleep.

The dark green unicorn on the other side of the bars quickly pulled the stick out of the cell, before snorting at Dusk. "Enjoy that nap? Be your last one for a while, muddy. Now, let me see that cutie mark."

Dusk mutely complied, displaying the mark he'd crafted for Lily; a sheaf of wheat and a shovel, over golden sunburst.

"Laborer," the unicorn said over his shoulder, where the noise of a scratching quill on paper came. "Small, but decently built. C'mere, let me see your teeth," the unicorn said, waving Dusk closer with a hoof.

Dusk looked at him like he was crazy. "Wha—"

The unicorn's horn lit up, and a metal stick lifted off of his back before becoming suffused with his amber aura.

Looking warily at the rod, Dusk moved up to the door and opened his mouth. The unicorn smirked as the metal rod fell onto his back before another small stick whizzed up and moved Dusk's lips out of the way as he inspected Dusk's teeth.

Dusk noted with a shiver that the stick was already damp.

"Stallion's age appears to be just over twenty years," the unicorn said blandly. "Teeth are in great condition, and the gums seem to be healthy as well."

The unicorn stepped back and withdrew the stick, seeming to mull over his thoughts for a long moment.

"Congratulations muddy," he almost drawled, smirking. "I'm going to give you a choice. You can either go to the fields and work there until Her Majesty's larders are using you for fertilizer, or you can join the ground pounders being sent up north to guard us against the filthy carnivorous Griffins. What's your choice, muddy?"

"I already served, what are you talking ab—"

Dusk's question was almost literally bit off as the metal rod from before whipped around, lighting up as the unicorn prodded him with the end.

Every muscle in his chest tensed, his legs and jaw following suit as the unicorn watched on as magical electricity was pumped into Dusk for what felt like a lifetime.

The unicorn pulled the rod away and Dusk collapsed in a heap onto the dirt floor, his vision white with black dots spinning through the void.

Panting, he barely heard the unicorn above him click his tongue. "This one sure does want to chatter. Send him north." And then the sound of iron horseshoes moving away became silence.

Dusk eventually got his heart under control and forced his right foreleg underneath his barrel. Pushing and grinding his hoof into the dirt, he forced himself upright and spit a mouthful of blood out of his mouth, his tongue stinging from where his teeth had been forced to clench around it.

"Congratulations, altruist," said a hollow voice to his side. "You're coming up north with the rest of the able-bodied stallions."

Dusk glanced to his left, unable to control the bloody drool leaking from his mouth.

The caravan leader gazed at him from the floor where he laid on his side. Dusk's eyes widened as he saw several burnt circles on his chest, and the unnatural angle half of his left rear leg laid at.

"What a joke," the stallion said, glancing down at his rear. "He told me that I wouldn't be any use here and that I should be healed up by the time we get to Fort Trotting. Your choice was exactly as much of one as mine was."

He snorted. "Ah well. I'll be bait, and then I'll see Sand Hollow and our baby again." He smirked, before closing his eyes and laying still.

Dusk watched him for a bit, absently listening to the plop of blood at his forehooves, before achingly turning and looking at Daisy's cell. He couldn't decide whether he should be glad that she wasn't in there or not.

He heard a noise from the other direction and glanced to his left to see the unicorn in front of his cell again.

"Catch your breath yet?" he asked before a ring of keys floated up from inside his uniform. Levitating the lightning rod again, he unlocked the cell before nodding his head to Dusk's left. "C'mon then. You get to drag his sorry carcass to the transport wagon."

Dusk gazed at the unicorn for a moment before forcing his back legs underneath him, staggering to a stand and clipping one of the bars with his head. He leaned against it, waiting for the spots to vanish before he slowly walked out of the cell and into the one to his left. He nudged the stallion's nose gently before he pushed a leg beneath his neck and pulled him up into a stand.

The stallion grit his teeth and let out a harsh breath as his leg jostled before he leaned against Dusk and let himself be led out of the jail.

The unicorn lifted a hoof and pointed at a large wagon, drawn by four large earth pony stallions. Dusk's heart sank as he recognized one, though his long mane and chin hair had been roughly shorn and a large metal band had been secured around his neck.

Seeing the glint of metal, Dusk realized that all four of the ponies had been collared. Glancing into the back of the wagon, he saw more stallions and more collars.

As he got nearer to the wagon he heard a whistle beside him. Looking to the right, he paused as he looked at the unicorn escorting them. The unicorn nodded to the pony following behind him with a scroll levitating in their magic. Nodding back, they pulled two long bands out of their saddlebags and approached Dusk.

"Not bucking likely," the caravaneer whispered into Dusk's shoulder, before roughly pushing him away.

Not expecting the shove, Dusk rolled onto his back, flailing for a moment before righting himself and reaching out a hoof. "No!"

But it was too late. As soon as he'd moved, the unicorn had levitated the bar of metal up from his back. But instead of prodding the stallion with it, he brought it through the air with an almost thoughtful expression.

Dusk winced at the noise of the bar meeting the stallion's skull, a dull cracking thud that sounded like someone breaking wet bark on a tree.

The stallion fell limply, his legs twitching as his spine contracted and jittered.

The unicorn moved over, looking down at the earth pony stallion twitching in the dirt before the bar swung again through the air.

It only took one swing, but as Dusk looked away and gagged up bile, he heard another, and another, and another.

After the last wet, smacking thud, he heard a sigh before the unicorn said lightly, "Collar the other muddy and get him on the wagon. He'll be the last, now."

Dusk barely felt the cold steel choker wrap itself around his throat before he was pulled to his hooves by it. A hoof placed on his croup shoved him forward, and he stumbled his way to the wagon and up its steps. His neck tingled as he passed the low walls surrounding the flatbed he collapsed onto.

He heard a dull chuckling behind and now below him before a few shouted commands rang through the air and he felt the wheels below him began to turn.

Author's Note

And so the shit hits the fan. The next few chapters don't get any sunnier, so if you don't have the will to read about death and brutalization then it may be best to skip over the next one, maybe two.

See you when we meet again