Not Such A Fairytale Life After All

This isn't the Equestria I Knew

‘Purple get a hold of yourself.’ I berated myself ‘Stop crying and man up. I’ve got to think this through. If I’m a slave, I need to figure out a way to escape which I can’t do because I don’t know jackshit about this world even if it’s Equestria. Everything is just too different from the show to make my decisions based off it. I need to get more info.’ I started pacing back and forth but tripped, not because of my poor skill in the art but because my legs were shackled. 'How did I not notice this before?' I decide that before I do anything I need to get these restraints off. I bashed them against the wall and the ground but they refused to break.

"Fucking chains" I muttered darkly. Giving up on freeing my legs, I looked around the room taking in the cell in more detail. It was like someone made a dent in the cave and put bars at the entrance. The dark and gloomy feel started to affect me since I had been alone for so long. It was an unfriendly feeling. It had been a while now since the geezer and the mute griffin had been taken away and I was wondering if I was just going to be left here. That fear was soon dashed though when the now familiar growls could be heard getting closer.

A couple of Diamond Dogs opened the cell and the larger of the two put a leash around my neck. "You start work now." The one that put the leash on me said while the other unlocked my shackles. This one that unlocked me was considerably smaller than the other. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason behind this size difference or not but it wasn’t the time to think about it right now. As soon as the last cuff clicked open, I slashed the smaller mutt in the face and leapt at the larger one. Instead of swiping his stomach like I planned, I was punched into the wall. Being about the fifth of the Diamond Dogs size didn’t help me either.

"Don't do that again." The one that hit me growled. Without letting me recover, he started to drag me along the ground. As revenge, the dog I hurt kicked me in the side. 'Fuck. That really hurts.' I thought 'Why am I so freaking small?' I tried to stand up since I was still being dragged along the floor, hitting several rocks and debris on the ground, and damaging my body further. I soon found out that it was nearly impossible to stand up while being dragged with such force so I settled for avoiding as much pain as I could.

It was difficult to navigate or even remember what turns we went down but the ground steadily declined. As we got deeper and deeper within the cave or tunnel, whatever it is, the temperature dropped. After a long time of being dragged downhill, we reached the desired destination of my captors and my now shivering body was thrown into a large room.

"Why the fuck did you throw me asshole?" I shouted at said asshole and that said asshole walked up to me and slapped me in the face. Okay. If it was a normal slap it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but when a paw the size of your face with sharp claws at the end of each appendage hits you, then it fucking hurts.

"You will be quiet little birdy." Asshole shouted. His name is now Asshole. The bastard grabbed my leash and dragged me again to a set of shackles, ignoring the fact that I now had a large and deep horizontal cut across my left eye, that were attached to the ground next to a large pile of gems. When I say large, I really mean huge. I stared slightly awed at the 20 metre high pile of precious, glittering stone. I was so distracted that I didn't notice when I was chained next to it.

"You will put gems in colour hole." Asshole said to me, pointing at the different coloured holes in the ground around my station. Each hole had a colour that was similar to the colour of individual gems in the pile. With that less than adequate instruction, Asshole left with his companion.

"Yeah, fuck you too." I shouted at them when they had left. Quite brave of me right? I turned back to look at the pile and sighed. It was now that I noticed I wasn't the only one in the room. There were several other species trapped in the exact same predicament as me and were obviously all children and young teens as well. The thing is, they weren’t all griffins like me. Although the majority of the slaves were griffins, there were nearly just as much ponies. There was also the odd zebra and even Diamond Dog as well. 'Why the hell do they enslave their own king?’ I asked myself.

Some of them were looking at me with shocked looks as if they couldn't believe I would talk back to our captors. Others look like they didn't even care enough to glance at me when I arrived and continue their work instead. The shock soon wore off on and they went back to work. 'They look so sad.' I thought 'Sigh. Might as well do something.'

I grabbed a diamond from the pile, 'Okay. Sapphires are blue so I put them in the blue hole.' With that I flicked into the correct hole and continued. 'Red, blue, blue, purple, blue, green, white, blue, blue, blue.....'

"AGGH, FUCK THIS IS BORING!" I shouted chucking another sapphire into the blue hole.

"Shhh" a voice next to me hissed, "You'll get us all in trouble." I turned to see a griffin shackled to the station next to me. From her voice I could tell she was female. She had pale pink feathers with the same colour in the tips on her hair. I raised an eyebrow at her. "And you are?"

She dropped an amethyst in the purple hole next to her and replied "I'm Stephanie. You?"

"Purple." She looked at me and my purple feathers in disbelief and I clarified it by saying “My parents don’t like me.” She simply nodded, still a bit sceptical but didn’t push it. It became extremely quiet between us as we continued to sort gems to their respective holes. I decided to try to converse again so I asked “Do you know how long we have to do this?”

Stephanie looked back at me and then back at the pile of gems and answered “Until we’ve dropped enough gems down to fill a certain amount of buckets. They won’t even feed us until that is done. That’s why we need to work so we don’t starve to death.”

‘How can they be so cruel?’ I thought disgustedly ‘This feels like a problem that belongs on Earth.’

“So what happens when we do fill up these buckets?” I asked dropping another sapphire. ‘Why am I getting so many sapphires?’ I wondered.

“The Diamond Dogs take us to a room higher up in the tunnels so we can sleep and eat without freezing to death when we aren’t working.” She replied “They have this room so far down so we are motivated to keep working so we don’t freeze.”

‘Hmm. Although despicable, I gotta give those mutts some credit. That’s actually smart.’

“So how long have you been here.” I insensitively asked which was rewarded with a glare from Stephanie. I recoiled from the glare and quickly added “If you don’t mind answering that is.” She continued to stare me down for a few more seconds before she turned back to the pile and restarted her sorting. It didn’t look like she was going to respond and I started to regret asking about such a personal question. ‘What was I thinking? Asking her how long she’s been here. It’s like asking how many years had been ripped from her life that she will never get back. Insensitive idiot.’

After a long and awkward silence and many gems being sorted, I decided to apologise. “Um, Stephanie” She didn’t look at me. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I wasn’t thinking when I asked you that question. I don’t expect you to answer and I don’t want you to if you don’t.” Stephanie turned and looked me in the eye. I could tell that she knew I was sincere because she opened her beak to reply. What she was going to say, however, I would never know because about 50 Diamond Dogs entered the room in pairs. Each pair had a dog holding a leash and the other keys.

I looked at Stephanie with a confused expression and she mouthed “Relax. It’s okay.” Knowing that didn’t help my nerves from being so severely outnumbered. Each pair leashed a slave and led them out of the room. ‘It’s only been a couple of hours since I’ve been here. Did we fill the buckets already? Either that was quicker than I thought it would be or I was kicked in here after the ‘shift’ started.’ Before I could contemplate the situation any more, a abnormally large Diamond Dog stepped into my field of vision. I looked up and realised I recognised the mutt. Why hello Asshole.

He viciously growled when he put the leash around my neck and I think he made it tighter than it needed to be. I glared at him but didn’t give him the satisfaction of complaining. ‘Oh great. Now I’ve made an enemy of a big sadistic dog. My life is starting to look better and better.’

Since I was standing up this time, I didn’t have to endure the pain of being dragged along the ground. Didn’t stop Asshole from trying though. His companion didn’t even mind, at least, that is what I would think if it wasn’t for the terrified glances he shot at Asshole every so often. ‘I could probably use that to my advantage in the future.’ When I was led to a door that all the other slaves had been led to, Asshole picked me up and threw me into the room so hard that I slammed into the wall on the other side. With a deep laugh that sounded between a growl and like he was choking on something, he closed the door and locked us all in.

I staggered to my feet and muttered “That bastard. I think I sprained my right legs. At least my cut on my eye has stopped bleeding.” ‘Bet it scars too’ I thought miserably. I looked around to see some of the slaves looking at me with a little concern in their eyes but didn’t do anything to help. I noticed Stephanie was in the corner of the room and limped over to her as fast as my injured body would let me. When I managed to get to her she asked “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine” I responded “It’ll heal quickly.” She gave me a strange look then lied down on the ground and said “I don’t envy you. If you’ve made an enemy of that Diamond Dog, you’re in trouble.”

“How’d you figure that?” I queried.

“That Diamond Dog is called Rews. He is the son of the Alpha of this pack. He’s pretty much second in charge. It is also why he is larger than the other dogs. He is an evil puppy” she deadpanned.

“Oh,” was all I could say “shit.”

‘Hang on. What’s an Alpha?’ When I asked Stephanie she began to explain.

“An Alpha is a bloodline in mutts. I don’t know exact details about what it actually is but it makes the dog that has it larger, stronger and more vicious than those without. The Alpha’s are leaders because it is hard for an ordinary Diamond Dog to defeat.”

‘That gives me some food for thought.’ I thought while looking at all my other fellow slaves. “How old is everyone here? I mean, I’m twelve but I can’t really tell the age of others.”

She looked at me and said “Well I’m thirteen and the others range from eight being the youngest to sixteen being the oldest.”

Another question down but a new one arose just as quickly when my eyes landed on the two Diamond Dogs that were gathered separate from the group. “What about those two?”

“Which two?”

“The two Diamond Dogs.”

“Oh them.” Stephanie said when she figured out who I was talking about. “Apparently they tried to defeat the Alpha together but lost. Since the Alpha was in a good mood at the time they were given gem sorting duty for the rest of their lives instead of being killed.”

“Well at least they can be thankful to be alive.” I put in, then I realised I hadn’t asked an important question. “When do they bring us food?”

“It varies.” She replied “Not only the time but what they bring to. They bring us food whenever they feel like and if they’re pissed off then they’ll only bring us meat to torture the ponies and zebras.”

“That’s just…. I can’t even comprehend…. Why would they…. Those motherfucking,” As I was about to let out a ton of profanities to slander our captors, the door opened and three Diamond Dogs threw in a large box filled with salad. The box landed on its side, spilling the contents all over the floor.

‘They fucking did that on purpose, those bastards.’ I thought darkly. The dogs left after throwing their slave kin a raw leg of meat each. When I realised what it was I nearly puked. On the outside of each blue leg was a cutie mark of a dragonfly that used to belong to a pony. I looked away before they took a bite and I noticed that all the other ponies and zebras were doing the same. ‘That is so wrong on so many levels.’

Trying to keep myself from being sick, I quickly stood from my position and put the salad back into the box before it could be ruined. Letting out a sigh of relief when I noticed it was still edible I grabbed an equal share for Stephanie and I, taking into consideration not how much I wanted but how many others needed to eat as well.

I handed Stephanie her share which she thanked me for and began eating which I was quick to follow. Considering that I never liked veges as a human I was surprised at how much nicer it tasted as a griffin. ‘Maybe my taste buds were improved as well?’ I theorized while I finished off my food. Stephanie was eating her food more scarcely than I was, probably because she has been here longer and knows it is better to make it last longer.

Not wanting to be rude I closed my eyes and rested while she was eating. Even when she had finished we didn’t say anything. I used this pleasant silence to think about my situation. ‘I know that this isn’t where I want to be right know, but I am, so I have to find a way to deal with it. I am going to need to find a way to help the slaves escape is very, very poor excuse for hospitality. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I escape on my own and left these people to their fates.’

While I was thinking through some shoddy plans that would never work in the first place, I didn’t realise an argument had broken out between Stephanie and 3 ponies. I was broken out of my trance when I heard her scream and start struggling.

When I looked over I couldn’t believe what I saw. Two colts about ten or eleven years old from what I could tell, were holding Stephanie down while the third who was slightly older, maybe 12 or 13, was leaning on top of her with his stallionhood was hanging out. My mind blanked. The situation was so ridiculous that my mind shut down from the mere idiocy of it.

But lucky for Stephanie, my mind rebooted and I was angry. I rushed up to the older pony and bucked him right between his legs. He dropped to the ground holding his crotch and the other two charged at me after seeing their leader attacked. As they reached me I grabbed their heads in my claws and smashed them together knocking them out cold.

‘What the hell is wrong with these ponies?’ I thought still thoroughly pissed at them. I grabbed the leader by the throat and whispered into his ear “If you even think about doing that again, I’ll feed you to those two Diamond Dogs.” The pony looked at me with pure fear in his eyes and I tightened my grip on his throat to let him know I was serious and he nodded his head furiously. I let him go and he scampered away to the other side of the room, leaving his unconscious companions behind.

I walked back to Stephanie and noticed that she was obviously traumatised by the assault. She had tears running down her face and she was curled up into a shivering ball. I didn’t know how to make her feel better so I did the only thing that made sense. I laid down next to her and embraced her with my wing. She flinched but didn’t move away. I whispered comforting things to her to help her relax but she continued to whimper and cry throughout the night and she didn’t stop even when she went to sleep.

I stayed awake for as long as I could to watch over her and to make sure nothing happened. This is my first night in Equestria that I was able to go to sleep under my own power instead of being forced and it is also when I realised that,

‘I don’t think I like being in Equestria anymore.’

Wow. Didn't think I could write that many words in a chapter. New personal best. Anyway, as always, tell me what you think and how it can be improved. Input is always appreciated.