Wicked Bliss

Chapters

X: Ignorant
I: Foolish
II: Bloodless
III: Obstinate
IV: Cruel
V: Low
VI: Angry
VII: Bold
VIII: Comfortable
IX: Fraught

X: Ignorant

Twilight had been trussed up just as Rainbow Dash had. She was splayed out on the very same desk top, on the very same bed frame. The same belts and cords had found use again, locking her in place. The gag was in. The blindfold was on. And now the Master took the latter off, grinning widely at her as she blinked in the yellow light. The room was as it had been at the start. The trolley was back in the left corner, and on it were the wrenches and knives, the needles and the rolling pin. The only difference in fact came from Rainbow Dash herself, who instead of being tied up as well was standing to the right of the Master with her head bowed, her eyes on her hooves as he spoke to Twilight.

‘Your Highness,’ said the Master softly, emphasising the final syllable with a happy hiss. ‘What an honour.’

Twilight’s eyes bulged as they registered Rainbow Dash. She fixed her gaze on her as though imploring her to recognise her, to realise that she was in danger. As the time went by, and Rainbow Dash neither moved nor raised her head, Twilight’s eyes began to grow watery, and the light, the urgency in them, faded fast. She turned them back onto the Master, sadness and pity written inside them. The Master grinned as he undid the gag.

‘Rainbow Dash,’ was Twilight’s first word once she’d coughed and swallowed spit. Rainbow Dash did not acknowledge her. Twilight eyes glistened with tears. ‘Rainbow Dash,’ she whispered urgently, begging her friend to take notice of her, simply to look at her. The Master chuckled.

‘She’s not at liberty just now,’ he said. ‘Not until I say so. Honestly, Princess Twilight, believe me when I say that no pony living has more appreciation for her than I do right now. She’s a special one, that Miss Dash. And it’s all thanks to her that you’re here with me today.’

Rainbow Dash didn’t acknowledge these words any more than she had Twilight’s, eyes still glued on the ground. The Master gave her a little pat on the shoulder.

‘Please,’ breathed Twilight, her wide eyes meeting the Master’s almond slits. ‘Let her go,’ she begged. ‘Keep me and let Rainbow Dash go. There won’t be any trouble. I’ll stay, but only if she goes.’

The Master responded with a vicious kick to her gut. Twilight looked appalled for a second, and then her eyes bulged and wrinkled with tears as she spluttered and wheezed, desperate to draw breath. She eventually found her voice to give a girlish squeak of pain.

‘I’m not making deals with you,’ he laughed. ‘You’re here because I want you here. Because I said to myself one day that I would have you, and now I do. What has transpired has nothing to do with you. You have no power in this place. You have no say in anything.’

‘P—please let Rainbow Dash go—’

A hook to her jaw displaced a tooth, and Twilight gave a squeal of anguish and hung her head, crying loudly like a hurt filly, tears flowing down her face much more readily than they ever had with Rainbow Dash.

‘That hurt, didn’t it, Your Highness,’ cackled the Master. ‘And it must hurt so much more knowing that your best friend, your old ally, helped me to bring you here. Stood by you and deceived you, lied to you! To your face! Knowing intimately, better than anypony, the fate that awaits you here! And still she did it! Now if that doesn’t hurt,’ he said triumphantly, swinging his hoof into her other side and snapping her neck back round. ‘I don’t know what does!’

‘P—please,’ cried Twilight, sobbing, ‘P—please …’

The Master was in his element, laughing with his awful, mocking snickers, stroking Twilight’s cheek, touching the tears he’d forced from her, raising his hoof to the light to admire them glistening. Rainbow Dash hadn’t taken so much as a step, and she hadn’t looked up either. She just stood there, hanging her head as though in a permanent pose of shame, a passive observer in the torment of her old friend.

‘And I’ll tell you why she did it,’ said the Master, smirking. ‘It’s because I’m persuasive, Princess Twilight. I’m a very persuasive pony. By the end of it all you’ll know that, and you’re going to love me for it. You’re going to sit at the end of my bed and feel indescribably fortunate that I allowed you so much as to brush the sheets.’ He grabbed her chin roughly and pulled up her head so that she could see his smile. ‘Welcome to your new life,’ he said gleefully, ‘a life of total subservience to your Master. That’s how it’s going to be. You look like you doubt me. You look as though you don’t believe me.’ He grinned at Twilight’s face, not defiant as Rainbow Dash’s had been but wide-eyed, tear-ridden, submissive. ‘Look,’ he said, dragging her chin upward, forcing her to look at Rainbow Dash. ‘Look!’ he shouted, his voice echoing off the empty walls. ‘Look at your friend! See her? That’s you now! My subject.’ He threw her head backward against the desk top. Twilight hit it with a cry, and her head drooped again, and she wept, shuddering, her face wet with tears.

‘P—please,’ she said. ‘I’m begging you …’

‘Begging doesn’t wash with me,’ said the Master. ‘I don’t care about your begging. You’re nothing to me. Nothing. A decoration on my wall. But I am artist, Twilight. You’ll see that about me. Once I’m through with you, you might actually amount to something. An artist should love his art after all.’

‘R—Rainbow Dash,’ gasped Twilight. For the first time the Master looked annoyed.

‘Don’t bother with her,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t waste your breath. You’re going to need it. Get me a knife,’ he snapped at Rainbow Dash without turning his gaze, filled with hatred, from Twilight. Rainbow Dash lurched into motion, shuffling like a zombie to the trolley. She paused for a moment then selected a long blade, turned on her hoof, and gave it dumbly to the Master, who smirked. Twilight’s eyes filled with new tears. She tried to meet Rainbow Dash’s as she returned to her stance of silent shame, but Rainbow Dash’s mane was covering her face now, as though she’d tossed it out intentionally to shield her from her friend’s pleas. The Master clapped her on the back, smirking. He pulled back her mane so that he could see her eyes. He wiped her sweaty face. He smiled, his eyes filled not with affection but a firm satisfaction.

‘Very soon,’ he breathed to her, ‘you shall have what I promised you. I am merciful,’ he added more loudly so that Twilight could hear too. ‘I am kind.’

Rainbow Dash was shuddering again as though her legs were struggling to hold her weight. Her eyes trembled in her sockets. She pawed at the Master as she always did at the onset of the desperation phase. He cackled at her. ‘Now, now!’ he said, slapping away her hooves. ‘I said soon!’ He turned back to Twilight, knife in hoof, grin stretching from ear to ear. He poked the tip into Twilight’s shoulder, just a centimetre of it, but it was enough that Twilight squealed and writhed.

‘Please!’ she shrieked.

‘If you think that’s anything worth making a fuss about,’ said the Master with a chuckle, ‘you’re going to have a really bad time over the next few days.’

‘P—please …’ sobbed Twilight with a tone of utter desperation. ‘L—let … my friend go …’

The Master was infuriated by that. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, face contorting with fury. He grabbed Twilight’s head by the mane and dragged her up, stuffed his face against hers so that he could scream into her. ‘You are a lying little shit!’ he bellowed. ‘I won’t hear your bullshit! I’m going to cut the cries out of you, going to hear you beg me to stop one way or another!’

He froze. A horrible grin slowly stretched across his face, his eyes flashing with a fresh excitement. ‘No,’ he breathed. ‘No. No, no, no!’ He cackled to himself, the room reverberating with his laugher. ‘I have a much, much better idea!’ He turned to Rainbow Dash, leering, nodding to himself. He beckoned her over, but with her head still facing down, she couldn’t see, so he kicked her, and she gave a jolt of surprise, looking up at him, eyes anguished and questioning. The Master leered at her, holding out the knife.

‘You’re going to do it,’ he breathed, beaming at her. ‘You’re going to cut Twilight into the most miserable pile of snivelling horseflesh, and I’m going to stand here and watch you do it. Oh, this is just perfect!’ he cackled, looking up to the ceiling as though praising the sky for his good fortune. He stood there, grinning, waiting. Rainbow Dash’s eyes twitched from his to Twilight’s hooves and back, wide with shock. The Master’s narrowed.

‘Get over here now,’ he hissed at her. Rainbow Dash lurched forward, standing beside him, head bowed. He thrust the knife toward her. She accepted it with a shaking hoof.

‘Face her,’ commanded the Master. But Rainbow Dash couldn’t bring herself to. The Master glared at her. He grabbed her, slapped her across the face. Rainbow Dash made a tiny noise, still trembling, drenched in sweat from the drug. ‘Face her!’ he roared, raising his hoof again.

Rainbow Dash cringed backward then slowly turned and walked over to Twilight, the knife clutched in her hooves as though she were holding a grenade ready to explode. Twilight, though the gag was out, seemed unable to speak, watching her old friend with a look of intense horror. She gave a sob as Rainbow Dash at last opened her eyes, bloodshot, stricken, and looked at her almost out of focus. The Master’s head was stretched out as though he were being pulled in magnetically by the sight, breathing loudly and quickly in anticipation. A tear formed and fell down Rainbow Dash’s cheek as she raised the knife. Blood had started in Twilight’s nose, her mouth half-open in silent dismay. Rainbow Dash brought the knife close, closer, almost touching Twilight’s mane.

‘Come on!’ squeaked the Master, unable to contain his excitement. ‘Do it!’ he yelped, eyes alight like a colt’s at Hearth’s Warming. Rainbow Dash sighed, a deep, rattling exhale. She swallowed.

The knife, though rather old and tarnished, was sharp enough that when it fizzed across the flesh of the neck, it cut into the windpipe. Blood appeared at once, flowing down the chest, dripping like baubles from the outstretched face. The Master was still half-smiling, but the width of his eyes, already at its maximum, changed subtly from delight to alarm. Before he could do much else, he’d fallen sideward. He hit the wall, smacked his head with a thunk similar to that which had so often come from Rainbow Dash’s head on the desk top, and slid to the floor beside the trolley. Though gurgles were issuing from his mouth, he didn’t seem to be trying to speak. His hooves were instead fumbling at the cut in his throat as though he was trying to scoop back in the blood that was leaking out. When the smile ultimately fell, it was replaced by a look of displeased puzzlement directed first at the opposite wall but ultimately to Rainbow Dash, as though she’d made a point in an argument that he couldn’t quite understand. It was the look his body was left with once his hooves had fallen to the floor, and he was lying like a tramp in the corner.

Twilight’s bonds fell into the spreading pool of blood followed swiftly by Rainbow Dash herself, the knife hitting the floor beside her with a clatter. Twilight reached out to catch her friend, her face taut, shocked, filled with a curious mixture of fear and relief, gratitude and concern. Rainbow Dash’s face was strained, desperate. She was pawing at Twilight, trying to form words as though she had in fact herself been stabbed, and this was her final chance to speak before death took her.

‘H—help me,’ she murmured before the sweat soaked her fur, and her voice resumed what had become its nightly ritual, screaming and screaming.

I: Foolish

The pony was overweight, but he knew how to use it to his advantage. He was straddling her, and she was struggling to draw breath. He pulled a ball gag from a utility belt he had wrapped around his stomach, and he forced it roughly into her mouth and secured it behind her head. There was a foam-grip strap attached to it, and he yanked on it to pull her head around. In his other hoof he had a cattle prod, which he was using to force her to trot with him towards a cart parked about sixty yards away. She was mumbling in pain. The cart had a tarpaulin sheet lying in the back. Presumably he was going to use that to hide her body.

A silhouette zipped into his back, and he cried out and fell into the gutter. A mare was struggling impatiently with the filly, who was now writhing and screaming through her nose as though she was afraid she was being taken away by somepony else. The mare was getting fed up, and she snapped at her, saying, ‘Hold still!’ She was tugging at the ball gag, which detached. As soon as it did, the filly galloped away as fast she could. She was still screaming and crying, and she got away down the street. Nopony else was in the vicinity; it was just the mare and the attacker. The mare muttered, ‘You’re welcome,’ as the filly ran away.

She shifted her focus to the attacker, who was back on his hooves and running as fast as he could in the opposite direction. She flew at him and cut him off, and she dipped onto her front hooves and kicked him strong with her rear hooves, and he fell again, face screwed up with pain. She looked as though she was enjoying it. When he got back up, he was raging. He spat some blood out of his mouth and hissed in a thick voice, ‘Get lost.’

She just smirked and called, ‘Trash.’ He glared at her for a bit. Then he stormed off as though he’d been in an argument, but she followed him. She was flying at this point. ‘You’re the lowest of the low,’ she said.

‘Leave me alone,’ he grunted.

‘Like you left alone that poor filly, huh? We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’

He grabbed something from his belt and threw it at her. It turned out to be a little knife like a vegetable knife. It flew close to her face, but she was high up enough that she had time to dodge. When he saw that the blade had missed, he swore and made a dash for it down the street. She shot after him and barrelled into him. They wrestled for a bit, but the pony, who’d shown before he was good with his weight, managed to get on top of her. He reached for his belt again, and she could tell she’d made a mistake because she was wriggling to get away and cursing. She took the shot in the chest, and she kept struggling, but slowly she passed out. He rolled off her once she’d gone limp, and he dragged her body to his cart. He was looking up and down the street all the while, but nopony else came. Once he’d covered her body with the tarp, he went back to collect the knife, the gag, and the cattle prod from the street.

The mare was Rainbow Dash. She was quite unmistakable.

II: Bloodless

The bulb was on, no lampshade, hanging on a white cord and giving off that cheap, yellow light. The room was reasonably big and nondescript like a spare room that had been emptied of all its furniture and decoration. It didn’t have any windows, and it smelled musty like one of those old, old houses even though the walls looked relatively new, painted a tasteless cream colour. There was nothing in the room except a bed frame that had been leant against the wall opposite the door. Instead of a mattress what looked like the top of a foldable desk from a school or a community centre had been nailed to the slats. On it was Rainbow Dash, tied thrice across the body and with her hooves spread out and fixed to the four posts of the bed frame using thick cord. Because of the angle of the bed frame she was pretty much vertical. Directly below her a mop bucket was sellotaped at an angle to the base. She was blindfolded with a black scarf, and the ball gag from the attack on the filly was in her mouth. She hadn’t been physically harmed; there were no visible wounds or bruises. She looked as though she were asleep, splayed there without moving. But every now and then a sound from above like a bang or hoofsteps would prompt her to shift her head, tilting her chin in the direction of the noise. She’d peed herself. The stain was on her legs and tail and on the desk top where it had run down and into the bucket.

When the pony she’d fought entered the room, he was whistling. He propped open the door with a stopper and rattled in with what looked like a tea trolley, but instead of cups and saucers it had wrenches and knives and screwdrivers, matches and candles, a handsaw, a hacksaw, a drill, a chisel, a box of needles, a rolling pin, all stuff you’d expect a house-owner to have in a cupboard or a shed. He brought the trolley to rest on the left side of the room, picked up the stopper, and dropped it on the floor outside. Then he closed the door and turned the key. Muffled sounds came from Rainbow Dash, at which he stopped whistling. He stood there for about five minutes, just watching her, listening to her breathe, matching his breathing to hers as if trying to convince her there was nopony else in the room. Eventually he went up to her and rubbed her belly, which made her fur stand up, and she twitched and made muffled protests. He grinned at that and kept rubbing, making shushing sounds as though she were a cat that needed calming down. He released the ball gag and hung it up on one of the posts of the bed frame. She spat straight ahead, and it missed him and hit the floor, and he chuckled and jabbed her in the stomach.

‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said.

‘Let me go!’

He snorted and lifted his hoof to the blindfold but seemed to think better of it and let it drop, watching her take quick, nervous breaths through her mouth now that the gag had come off.

‘Let me go,’ she demanded.

‘No.’

‘Let me go!’

He touched her belly. ‘Get away from me!’ she growled. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Rainbow Dash was tensing and trying to writhe free, pulling at the cords, but nothing budged, and she snarled in frustration. The pony watched her give up with a wide smile on his face.

‘You’re stuck tight and going nowhere,’ he said. Rainbow Dash spat at him again, and this time a little caught him on the cheek. He slapped her across the face, and she yelped. ‘You’ll behave,’ he barked, ‘or I’ll hurt you.’

‘You’re sick!’ she hurled at him.

‘We’re going to play a game. In two days’ time I’m going to open the front door. If you want to leave, you leave, and you win. If you want to stay, you stay, and I win.’

Rainbow Dash spat again, but he had stepped out of shot, and he kicked her hard in the stomach, and she retched and spluttered. ‘C—coward,’ she gasped. ‘Relying on … ropes to keep me here …’ He didn’t look happy about that. He went over to the trolley and took a needle out of the box. He went up to her, and she was struggling again, but like before it was nothing doing. He went right up to her and slowly poked the needle through the blindfold, and she must have felt it because she yelped and pulled her head back fast, and it hit the desk top with a bang. The pony let go, leaving the needle half in.

‘Spit once more,’ he said, ‘and I’ll push it right into your eye.’

There was a long pause while he watched her again. She didn’t say anything, just breathed. You could hear she was trying to control herself, slow herself down, to get out of panic mode. ‘Do you accept?’ he asked.

She didn’t spit this time, just snarled, ‘Do I get much choice?’ He grinned at that and nodded appreciatively as though he liked how brave she was being.

‘By the end,’ he said, ‘you’ll want to stay.’

‘I somehow doubt that,’ she snapped back at him. He stepped toward her and carefully pulled the needle out of the blindfold, and Rainbow Dash’s head relaxed a bit.

‘If you want to go, you go, and you win.’

‘I want to go right now!’

He seemed to consider this. ‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘Give me a moment.’

He went back to the door, opened it, dragged in the stopper, set it so that it held the door open again, and came back for the trolley. He left with it. Overhead the hoofsteps were back, and Rainbow Dash was tensing up yet again, trying to find a way loose while he was out of the room. About two or three minutes later he was back, and this time he was carrying a baseball bat. He repeated the business with the stopper, getting it out the room before locking the door. Then he stored the key in his belt and walked slowly over to Rainbow Dash.

‘I’ll let you loose,’ he said.

And then just like that he swung the bat. It caught her square in the stomach, and she had no way of preparing for it, and the breath was knocked clean out of her. He was smiling quietly as she went from shout to choke to heaving and gasping. He didn’t let her find her voice. He swung again even harder, and this blow caught her lower-right leg, and she gave a snivelling cry in the midst of her battle for air. He waited for her, but she didn’t speak, so he swung once more, catching her lower-left leg this time. Rainbow Dash wasn’t screaming or begging, but she’d got enough voice back to make little moans like stifled sobs as though she didn’t want to show him how badly he’d hurt her. Snot covered her nose and chin. Tears were staining her cheeks. He was grinning as though at a job well done, and then with his free hoof he pulled at the knots. They’d been tied in such a way that they could be released easily from the one side.

To her credit Rainbow Dash the moment she felt that two of her hooves had been freed started struggling again, pulling frantically. This got her a whack in the head with the bat. She yowled like a kicked cat, and it slowed her right down as she fumbled at the belts, which he was releasing at that moment anyway. She slid to the floor with a hiss and landed on top of the mop bucket, which detached and tipped, and she ended up lying in a puddle of her own piss. The pony was laughing to himself, little snickers, standing over her and leering. The blindfold had slipped off. Rainbow Dash blinked up at her attacker, getting used to the light, her eyes rigid-hard and determined. He cocked the bat. She scrambled to her hooves, and he swung with a grunt. She couldn’t dodge. She took the blow in the back with another involuntary yelp as the breath was driven from her body on the opposite side. The momentum took her back into the desk top, and she slumped again, still scrabbling to find her balance. The pony gave a great big whoop and kicked her savagely to throw her off balance even more, and he brought down the bat like an executioner. It cracked her head. She looked unconscious for a moment when her legs went limp, but then her hooves crawled up to her face. He spat at her. It hit her near the eye, and she twitched but said nothing, now moving so slowly as though the room were full of molasses. He sniggered and raised the bat again.

III: Obstinate

The bruising was bad, down one side of the face, on the back, chest, and stomach, and on the legs where she’d been hit. She’d struggled to eat initially after the beating, coughing wheezily as chunks of cold potato were spoon-fed to her by her smirking captor. He’d manhandled her back into place and tied her up again before bringing a mop and a second bucket, filled with soapy water. He’d cleaned the mess from the floor and had scrubbed clean the stain from the desk top while Rainbow Dash had tensed as he’d come close in the process to her nethers. She made her muffled protests when he reached them for real. He shushed her with a tut like a mother’s and scrubbed her down with a washcloth, cleaning her dirty thighs and wiping the dried snot and blood from her fur. The tear stains he left alone; they were darker than before, and it was clear from his satisfied smirks when he looked at her that he liked them. The blindfold and the ball gag were back, and so was the first mop bucket, now clean, replaced at the base of the desk top with new tape. He’d come in again to give her water from a double-sized mug. Rainbow Dash didn’t speak once he’d removed the ball gag, which prompted another curling of the mouth from the Master (as he had announced himself while washing her).

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked. She said nothing, simply dragged in those rough breaths she’d been making since. The Master seemed amused by her silence. He slapped her lightly on the cheek as a big brother might hit a sibling. ‘Nothing to say?’ he prompted. ‘Ah, who am I kidding. You’ve never had it that bad, have you? You’re sore—here as well as here.’ He patted the fur above her heart then stroked the bruising on her face. He brought the cup of water to her lips. She tilted forward, and he tipped it carefully to help her. She drained the cup in a few gulps. ‘More?’ he asked. She said nothing. He tutted and refilled the mug from a plastic two-gallon bottle he had with him. She drank deeply as before and even drained a third mug before shaking her head. She swallowed and muttered,

‘Are you going to let me go to use the toilet?’

‘You’re on an angle. It’ll fall into the bucket, numbers one and two.’

A look of anger, disgust, and humiliation flared up on Rainbow Dash’s face. The Master rattled the ball gag, flicking it so that it swayed on the bed post. ‘Ready for this again,’ he asked, ‘or do you have anything to say?’

Rainbow Dash said nothing at first, but when he sighed and reached for the gag, she grunted, ‘Wait.’

‘Yes?’

‘Two days, you said, and you’ll let me out, right?’

‘Yes. If you still want to go, you go.’

Rainbow Dash’s face was a picture of anger and doubt. ‘And I’m supposed to believe that you’d just let me go?’ she snarled. ‘Just because you say you will?’

‘But I will let you go. I promise. Here. Look.’

He took off the blindfold so that she could see his face. She blinked in the yellow light. He hung the blindfold on the free post and looked at Rainbow Dash. He had a podgy face, the kind you see on naturally skinny ponies who’ve been eating too much. His eyes were almond-shaped and pleasantly aligned but glinted with a blemishing mix of amusement and anger. His mouth was ugly and wide with a weak chin. He looked at best unintimidating and at worst unpleasant. Rainbow Dash by contrast, with her sharp features and even now fervent gaze, looked the more impressive of the two. They stared at each other, one pony smirking, the other defiant. ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Rainbow Dash.

‘You don’t have to believe me. I’ll prove it to you. You’ll choose to stay here with me.’

‘And why would I do that?’ sneered Rainbow Dash.

The Master kept on smiling, as though enjoying a private joke. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Rainbow Dash.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Huh. You know who I am, but I don’t have a clue who you are.’

‘There’s plenty of time for that.’

‘What are we doing during these two days then? I presumed you had a better reason for beating me up than just wanting to talk to me!’

He touched her cheek, the bruised side. She shivered. ‘You’re very brave,’ he said. ‘I’ll be honest: it arouses me. Oh, not like that,’ he added in response to her new look of dawning horror. ‘And besides if I wanted that, I’d have taken it by now. I’ve already touched it, remember?’ Embarrassment entered Rainbow Dash’s scowl. She was still glaring at him but rather more nervously. It was clear the beating had had its effect, and although she was still defiant, she wasn’t spitting at or insulting him.

He leapt at her suddenly as though propelled by an electric shock. She flinched and twisted her head, but his snout was next to hers. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling her, exhaling in her face. She clenched her jaw, watching him warily through strained eyes. He pushed her head away and pulled back, reaching for the gag but leaving the blindfold where it was. ‘You don’t have to put that thing back in!’ protested Rainbow Dash. ‘And anyway I thought you wanted to talk!’

‘I wanted to, and we did,’ said the Master, shrugging. ‘And now talking time is over.’

He stuffed the gag back into her mouth with the same sudden ferocity he’d shown a moment previously. She gave a muffled cry of protest as the gag forced open her jaw. He secured it and without any hesitation walked over to the tea trolley, back in the left corner of the room by the door and still carrying its bits and pieces. This time Rainbow Dash could see everything. Her gaze was fast transforming from scorn to fear. She watched, eyes wide, as he picked up the cattle prod. He came at her slowly, twirling it in his hooves, leering at her, watching her closely, his own eyes glinting with furious excitement. Rainbow Dash was trying to speak, to shout even, but you couldn’t understand a word of it; it was just panicked noise. She was hyperventilating as he raised it to her face. He wanted her to see it happen. He was enjoying every second of her desperate, futile attempt to back away out of range of the tip, already crackling with electricity.

‘And now,’ he said grandly.

He ground the tip savagely into her cheek and watched her thrashing and ‘Mhm!’ing as though she were a cockroach he was struggling to kill.

IV: Cruel

The torture continued on the second day. The Master came in early to empty her bucket. He didn’t speak to her, and she didn’t make a sound when she realised he’d entered other than quick, scared breaths. Any time he stood near her, she flinched, recoiled, or retracted her head. He came with another round of water for her to drink and then washcloths again and scrubbed her down as he had before. She took it docilely enough but trembled and made soft, muffled moans when he treated her face where the fur had been burned away and the skin was seared and raw. He shushed her and patted her reassuringly, chuckling again.

A few hours passed. It could have been around lunchtime because when the Master opened the door and clicked on the yellow light, he was chewing something, and once he’d rattled the trolley back into the room, he was picking at his teeth with a cocktail stick. He was whistling as he selected an assortment of tools, lining them up on the top tray. He hovered a hoof over them when he was ready as though choosing a chocolate from a box. He settled on the wrench and then stooped to collect a bulky blowtorch from the bottom shelf. The hiss of its ignition elicited a tilt of the head from Rainbow Dash. The Master watched her, smiling to himself, placing the tip of the wrench at the head of the flame. Slowly it began to heat up, and finally when it was glowing red, he killed the torch, put it back, and stepped up to Rainbow Dash. He gave her no warning, jabbed the hot metal into her stomach. There was a hiss, and Rainbow Dash gave a great muffled scream and thrashed, banging the back of her head again and again off the desk top.

He came back again later. This time it was a straightforward beating. His kicks and punches weren’t skilful, but with his weight the blows were hard, and she had no way of mitigating them. Blood, drool, and snot all dripped from Rainbow Dash’s head, which hung loose once he’d finished with her. With her patches of raw skin, blackened fur, stains, and swellings, she was starting to look less like Rainbow Dash and more like a prop from a Halloween shop.

The day ended with a change of pace. The Master started by firing a taser at her. She gurgled, rigid as a board as the current passed through her, and he opened the knots and released the belts. She tumbled to the floor. He’d removed the bucket so it wouldn’t spill. Before she could even reach to remove the blindfold, he’d kicked her in the face, and she gave a grunt through the gag and smacked her head on the wall. He zapped her with the cattle prod again and again until she was cringing away with nowhere to go. Then he would just wait, sometimes for over ten minutes, saying nothing, until she’d gathered herself enough to attempt to find a way back up onto her hooves, at which point he would zap her again. After nearly two hours of this she had curled up into a shaking ball, twitching and shuddering. He knelt down beside her and soothed her before dragging her back to the base of the bed frame, pulling her upward, propping her against the desk top, and tying her up again. It was a struggle at first not because Rainbow Dash was resisting but because she could barely stand up by herself.

On the morning of the third day the Master wanted to talk again. He’d pulled the gag out and offered her water. She drank much more slowly than before but still managed two of the double mugs before shaking her head. ‘Anything to eat?’ he asked. Rainbow Dash shuddered and shook her head. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You must be hungry.’

‘Two days,’ she croaked.

‘Mm?’

‘You said …’

‘Oh, that’s right. Two days.’ He leaned in and chuckled, flicking her face. She shrank back; the back of her head once again hit the desk top. ‘Well, let’s see,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go?’ She said nothing. ‘Well?’ He jabbed her in the chest, and she coughed, grimacing. ‘Do you want to go?’

‘Yes,’ she wheezed.

‘What’s that?’

‘Yes! I want to go!’

‘After what we’ve been through together? I’ve cleaned you up. Treated your wounds. Fed and watered you.’

The look she managed to give him in spite of everything, of mingled fury, pride, and contempt, prompted him to cut out the games if only for a moment. ‘Fine,’ he snapped, glaring at her. The smile was back on his face quickly enough. ‘Wait here,’ he said as though she had the choice, and he turned, unlocked the door, and closed it behind himself.

When he came back, he was holding a long, narrow stick of wood; it was a fence post from a field. Coiled around it was a bunch of rope. He had the cattle prod hanging on his belt, so when Rainbow Dash slumped to the floor once again, she blinked, swallowed, and made no attempt to fight. He grabbed her roughly and pushed her over into prone position. She grunted, squeezed her eyes tightly together as they began to tear up again from the pain, but held in her voice. He dragged her forelegs together behind her back, fed the fence post through the gap between them and her shoulders, and started winding the rope around both, tugging everything tightly into place. If she were to stand, she’d have to use only her rear hooves and stoop to counterbalance the weight on her back. Except he turned her over again and pushed her remaining legs close to her body and tied them in place first with the belts from the desk top and then with spare cord. She was stuck firmly in a low squat. She couldn’t roll, because the post prevented it, and she couldn’t take a proper step, because her legs wouldn’t move. He stuffed the gag back into her mouth and rewrapped the blindfold around her head.

‘You want to go,’ he said once he’d risen and opened wide the door. ‘So go. The front door’s open. I won’t stop you.’

It was a near-hopeless situation because it would have been hard enough for her to get out of the room when she couldn’t see and barely move let alone when she was additionally impaired by the injuries she’d sustained. What’s more she had no knowledge of the plan of the building she was in, how many rooms, the locations of staircases or doors. She spent the next few minutes shuffling through positions, gaining ground minutely only to lose it subsequently with her next loss of orientation. When she fell backward, too much weight on the post dug into her back and pulled at her joints. The solution in the end was to move forward by falling onto her face and tossing, moving like a worm, each inch costing the most miserable struggle. But the wounds on her face, which had barely closed, would not permit her to put up with the friction, so she seesawed to her hooves, where she squatted indefinitely. After a while she was snivelling. After a longer while she was squirming, attempting weakly to smack her face on the ground as though to knock herself out, muffled squeals leaking from her snout. As the time crept on, they dissipated into croaks.

The Master had left the room after a few minutes of amused spectating, and when he returned, he found her leaning into a corner, some of the weight of her held up by the ends of the post, which were touching the two walls. The moment he removed the gag she rasped, ‘Please …’

‘I take it you want to stay then?’

‘Please …’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you until you tell me that you’ll stay.’

Rainbow Dash’s pleading devolved into snivels and sobs. The Master waited. ‘Say that you’ll stay,’ he prompted.

‘I—I’ll stay …’

‘And I’ll help you,’ said the Master, grinning.

He took the vegetable knife from his belt, and in a few seconds he’d cut the ropes. The post rolled to the floor with a thunk. Rainbow Dash collapsed into the wall, her limbs flopping like dead fish to rest beside the heap that was her ruined body. ‘I’ve had a change of heart,’ said the Master, kneeling beside her and whispering in her ear. ‘You’ve impressed me, so I’ve decided to help you. You’re going to love me for this.’

He took from his belt an injection like the one he’d paralysed her with on the day he’d taken her, only this one had in it a thick-looking liquid, bright pink. He gave it to her, stroking her scraggly mane. Then he pulled her like a sack of potatoes to the bed frame. If the injection had done anything for her, you couldn’t see it. Apart from her breathing she looked all but dead. He strapped her torso, raised her legs, tied them up one by one. He neglected to replace the gag or the blindfold, as though they wouldn’t be needed any longer, left them hanging on their posts.

It took a while, but then she moaned, a deep, quiet sigh at first, but soon her voice found itself again, and she was giving off croaky, raspy moans. Her eyelids flickered. She moaned again, louder. The Master sniggered and stepped slowly backward out of the room. This time he didn’t lock it.

He left her strapped there, moaning softly, her eyes rolling into the back of her skull.

V: Low

The Master returned the following morning with a tray of freshly prepared fruit and the usual double mug of water. Rainbow Dash was alert, and the change in her was obvious. There had returned a trace of the old defiance. She still looked terrible, covered in the wounds of the ordeal, but it was as though she’d found a touch of her spirit again. But the Master evidently had been expecting this because he grinned widely at the sight of her staring at him and started his snickering laugh.

‘Feeling better, I see. Fruit?’

She eyed the plate for a moment then nodded stiffly. He placed the mug on the ground, skewered a diced piece of melon on a wooden fork, and held it up to her mouth. She bit it from the fork with dignity and chewed in silence. ‘Try the strawberries—fresh from the garden.’ He popped one whole into her mouth, playfully pulling back his hoof as though he expected her to snap at it like a pet. He picked up the mug of water and helped her to drink. Once she’d finished eating, he asked her whether she’d like some cheesecake for dessert. She gritted her teeth, looked at him, and shook her head. ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s very nice. Lemon curd. My favourite.’ She stared at him. He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you, just help you heal.’

Rainbow Dash worked her mouth then muttered, ‘What did you give me?’

The Master grinned. ‘Good stuff, eh? How do you feel? Are you hurting?’

‘I feel OK.’

‘Well, of course you do. Bet you you just had the night of your life.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Only to let you know that I’ve got some business to attend to that’ll take me out of the house. If you’re lucky, you won’t sober up until after I’m back.’

‘But what do you want from me?’ she demanded again.

‘Sit tight. I won’t be long.’

‘What do you want?’ she threw at his retreating back. The Master stopped in his tracks and turned. He was smiling again but carefully as though considering whether to stay. He walked back to her.

‘What do you think?’ he asked quietly.

Rainbow Dash blinked. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do.’

Rainbow Dash swallowed, her jaw tight. The Master’s smile had gone. ‘This is the secret fantasy of every colt at some point in their lives,’ he said quietly to her face. ‘The world is chaotic. Here there’s perfect order. I am the emperor, and you are my subject. You interfered, tried to stop me taking what was rightfully mine, and I have punished you. Now that you have paid the price, I shall be good to you as any good ruler is to the ruled.’

‘I’m not your subject,’ muttered Rainbow Dash.

‘Of course you are. You’re my subject by nature’s law: might makes right. I attacked the filly; you intervened. You prevented me from taking her, but I fought back. I overwhelmed you. I was better than you. Stronger than you. Because I am, we’re here. That’s the way of the world.’

‘That’s not the way of the world.’

‘You can deny it all you want, but the very fact that you’re standing there is evidence against you.’

‘What sort of pony enjoys torture?’

The Master shrugged. ‘What sort of pony doesn’t? That’s the problem with the world these days. Everyone’s so fixated on how they should be feeling rather than on how they do feel.’ A definite note of bitterness had entered his voice. ‘What they should be doing rather than on what they can do. Well, I enjoy this, and I can do it. So I do it. Anyway,’ he added, ‘you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. I’m looking after you now.’

‘You say that,’ grunted Rainbow Dash resentfully, ‘but you already proved to me your word isn’t worth shit.’

He seemed pleasantly taken aback. ‘No, I suppose it isn’t,’ he chuckled. ‘I lie, and I maim, and I revel in it. I am what I am.’

‘Let me go.’

‘There’s no point in going down that road. I’m not going to let you go. Why would I? To let you bring the police?’

‘Ponies will be looking for me.’

‘You’re right. They will be. The filly whose place you took probably told them all about it. And you’re Rainbow Dash after all, a pony ponies care about. Isn’t that funny? It doesn’t matter how special they say you are; we all react the same to a kick in the gut.’

‘They’ll find me,’ went on Rainbow Dash. ‘If you let me go, I can tell them—’

‘What?’ he interrupted, lip curling.

‘That you were good to me, that you didn’t …’ She trailed off at the look on his face, a look of amusement and scorn but absolutely no pity.

‘Don’t insult my intelligence. The fact is, yes, they’ll be looking for you—and yes, who knows, they might find me. But letting you go won’t help an iota and is far more likely than not to make things worse for me.’

Rainbow Dash’s look of loathing was spoiled somewhat by a reluctant, angry tear dripping slowly down her face. ‘Let me go,’ she half hissed, half sobbed.

‘Shut up!’ he shouted at her with that intense ferocity he’d shown before, as though a reservoir of rage had suddenly been tapped. She flinched. The Master sighed then said quite calmly, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ The corner of his mouth twitched, and he nodded slightly as though congratulating himself for his self-control. ‘I’ll top up your shot when I get back. Don’t go anywhere,’ he added with a smirk.

For a while Rainbow Dash’s main obstacle appeared to be the doldrums. She sighed and tried to make her head comfortable, but she didn’t sleep. The injection he’d given her had conked her out for much of yesterday and most of the night, so she’d caught up largely on the rest she had missed up until then. She spoke to herself in a whisper, positive, self-affirming nothings. But as the time wore on and the drug or potion or concoction or whatever he had given her wore off, she started breathing heavily again, wincing as though pain was returning.

It soon became clear that the pain wasn’t related to her injuries alone. The drug, whatever it was, had side effects. When she’d started on it, the pleasure had looked to be enormous as evidenced by her moans and the juices that had dripped from her nethers. As the drug settled, the euphoria fell and the effect became one of general wellbeing based on how Rainbow Dash had managed to return more or less to her former attitude without regard for the pain she’d been. Now in its final phase there was onsetting desperation. She started panting as though for water. She groaned and looked at the door as though willing it to open. But the Master was nowhere to be seen. The time stretched on and on much like it had when she’d been abandoned in the stress position. As it passed, she began to sweat more and more as though she was fevered, and her groans became sobs, and her sobs became cries, and her cries became calls for help.

‘Please!’ she shrieked fruitlessly at the door again, shaking in her restraints.

When the pleading ran dry, she tried bargaining, shouting half-baked schemes into the room and waiting for replies that never came. Then it seemed the drug had run dry completely because she screamed and screamed. Her voice, already worn to stubs from before, didn’t last long.

When the Master did at last return, Rainbow Dash’s mouth was open, but barely a sound was coming out. Her eyes were popping; her face was drenched. She looked as though she’d been ducked. The Master as before, as usual even, seemed entirely unsurprised by the sight, but he went over to her quickly enough. In his hoof he had a second injection. Her eyes bulged, begging, imploring, her mouth moving but only faint gasps coming out. He gave her the shot and watched her eyes roll, and her breathing grew slow and steady. He stroked her cheek and stayed with her as she passed into temporary bliss.

VI: Angry

Rainbow Dash lapsed out of it sooner this time, by the evening. For the first time the Master was bringing in furniture. He took in a pair of old wooden chairs and with a bit of effort a small, foldable oak table. He opened it up and propped the sides in place. Then he laid out the chairs, one on each side of it, and left the room for a moment, returning with a bouquet of yellow roses in a blue vase.

‘A candle?’ he said, stroking his chin. Without waiting for a response he left again and came back with a box of tea lights, took out a couple, and placed them on the ends, framing the flowers. He fiddled with his belt and emerged with a lighter, clicked it on, and lit the candles in a couple of tries. Then he left once more and returned with a box of chocolates and what looked like a bottle of fancy wine but was actually just sparkling juice. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her.

‘OK,’ was the reply. Her voice had gone, so it came out as a whisper.

‘Good. No aches or pains?’

Rainbow Dash looked at the table and chairs. ‘I could stretch my legs,’ she murmured.

‘I was about to suggest the same thing. Here.’

He stepped over to her and undid the knots and belts. She landed on her hooves this time and keeled forward to catch herself on her forelegs. She wobbled when they hit the floor, but she managed to stand unaided. The Master nodded, mouth curling into his usual smile. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

He ushered her to the nearest chair and pulled it out for her. Rainbow Dash seemed more willing to stand, as though trying to remember how it felt, but after a moment she shuffled toward it and fell to sit rather gracelessly, blinking at the candles.

‘Let’s make the mood proper, shall we?’ said the Master happily. He flicked off the light. The room grew surprisingly dark, lit only by the small, flickering wicks. Rainbow Dash watched him pull out the chair opposite her with a look of illness on her face. The Master made as though to sit then sighed and shook his head. ‘The glasses,’ he said. ‘One moment.’

He swept to his hooves and swung open the door. As he cantered up the stairs, Rainbow Dash eyed the landing beyond. It was dingy and carpeted with the stopper on the floor and the start of a staircase beyond. She was glancing at the door with an odd expression on her face, simultaneously anxious and apprehensive, glancing at the trolley, also on the landing and still with its bits and pieces, as though she knew he was daring her, challenging her to make a move, waiting out of sight to punish her. She stayed put, and when he returned and saw that she hadn’t moved, his smile deepened as it so often did when he saw she was vulnerable. He set down a pair of tall, patterned glasses.

‘Now let’s have a drink together,’ he announced. ‘Here.’

He filled one glass with a heavy pour, nearly all the way up, and passed it to her. She accepted it mutely, placing it shakily in front of herself on the table. He poured a smaller portion for himself and raised it. ‘To your health,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘You’re looking better already.’

That was true. Her face, just about visible in the gloom, had just started to heal, scabs and scars replacing sores and wounds. The singeing to her fur didn’t seem as brutal as it had done when she’d first sustained it, but then perhaps that was due to the effects of the drug he’d administered, keeping the pain at bay, which she looked better for. Her hoof twitched, but she didn’t move to pick up the glass. He stared at her expectantly. She blinked then raised it to her lips.

‘I’ve got some chocolates.’ The Master whipped off the lid. It was a selection box. He offered her the tray, and she gulped her drink hastily and coughed. ‘Relax!’ he said, chuckling. ‘Take your time.’

She took one and bit into it without pleasure. He was watching her as though for a verdict. She gave him a blank look back, chewing as though she wasn’t aware of it. He sniggered but moved on, taking another sip of juice and hovering over the box himself. He read the lid, found a chocolate he liked the look of, wriggled it out of its spot in the tray, and popped it into his mouth. ‘Mm,’ he grunted, nodding appreciatively. ‘Good, aren’t they? Aren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Rainbow Dash.

‘You see? We can get along.’

She finished chewing, swallowed, then nodded. He smiled at that a little suspiciously. ‘So Rainbow Dash,’ he said, suddenly businesslike. ‘Tell me about yourself.’

She seemed to take an awful lot of time to ponder, excusing herself with rather exaggerated sips of juice. But the Master was in no rush, picking another couple of chocolates from the box and pouring himself a little more drink. ‘I like to fly,’ she breathed eventually. He waved this away impatiently.

‘Oh, come now,’ he said. ‘I’m not interested in those kinds of answers. I want some passion, some insight. I know you like flying. You’re a derby-winner for goodness’ sake.’ She looked surprised. He read it in her face and said, grinning, ‘Yes, there’s rather a lot of reading about you. They’re printing it, you see. Your little disappearance. “Search for missing Wonderbolt” and all that,’ he quoted. ‘“Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal plea.” Now there’s a pony I’d like to meet. You couldn’t introduce me, could you?’ He chuckled. ‘Go on. Tell me something interesting.’

‘What’s “interesting?”’ she wheezed.

‘Well, I’ll give you an example. Here’s something interesting about me. Torture’s so much fun, I think, because it teaches you a lot about yourself, shows you who you truly are deep inside—like holding a mirror up to your soul. What have I learned, you might ask? That I’m a neurotic type at the end of the day. Everything has to be thorough, planned, anticipated. I can’t do things spontaneously, not really. They don’t bring me enough joy. But when you put into action a design, a collection of fleshed-out intentions, of predictions about the world … and if and when they come true … well … I can’t tell you how rewarding that is. It’s living the fantasy, and you’ve got to live it to appreciate it truly. To understand.’

Rainbow Dash listened deadpan to this monologue, no sign of a reaction at all, no sign that she’d heard or even understood it. ‘So,’ said the Master more loudly, ‘tell me something interesting about yourself.’

She set down her glass and turned her eyes on his. It was the first time she’d properly looked him in the eye since the cattle prod. He acknowledged the moment, his eyes, crinkled into a smile, against hers, dull and glazed. ‘I think … that ponies get what they deserve,’ she wheezed. The Master’s brow went up as though he was impressed. He snorted and nodded.

‘Well! I didn’t expect to hear that today! Very interesting. Elaborate. Why do you think that?’

‘I would have thought you’d know,’ she breathed, and it was just as well he misunderstood her because he laughed in his snickers.

‘Quite. But you don’t truly think I’d believe you just because you said so. I told you it was the way of the world, and you defied me. Now you agree after only a day and a day of rest, I might add. Why the change of heart?’ Rainbow Dash did not reply. The Master’s lip curled. ‘So you were wrong, you admit, when you told me I was scum?’ he prompted.

‘When?’

‘When I was taking the filly. You didn’t look as though you believed what you just said, hmm? Accosting me. Attacking me. Trash, you called me.’ He smirked, but his eyes were hard. ‘You weren’t happy allowing ponies to get what they deserve back then.’

Rainbow Dash frowned and looked at him as though to make sure he wasn’t messing with her. ‘I was doing the right thing,’ she breathed eventually.

‘No,’ he said with a satisfied smirk. ‘You were playing the hero. I think that’s you all over. How do I know? The evidence is in front of me. You’re here because you couldn’t keep your stupid snout out of other ponies’ business. Because it would have made things better for you to “help” a pony. Except it didn’t. It backfired, and that’s justice for you.’ He grinned at her, leaned forward in his chair so that he could catch her eye. ‘You’re a selfish shit. It’s OK. I am too. We all are. It just amuses me when ponies pretend to have a higher motive. It’s all a front for the real stuff. Greed, glory. All the usual things. I’ve never been fascinated by glory, me. No, I’ve always done things my own way. At heart I think that what I’ve always wanted,’ he went on, ‘is to be left in peace. But that wish was never granted. Why would it be? Why was I so arrogant to expect it ever could be? So instead here I am, being what I must be. Not what I wanted to be, no, but what I choose to be in light of everything. Life can be very strange. But might makes right, yes? The one rule, golden and true, that you can observe in everything. The tallest plant catches the sun. The earliest bird catches the worm.’ He snorted. ‘Depressing? Realistic? What do you think?’

Rainbow Dash was quiet until his silence prompted her answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured.

‘No, neither do I,’ he said. ‘It’s a waste of time attempting to valence things. To try to put a morality on them. They are as they are. We do as we do.’

‘Can I go to the toilet?’ asked Rainbow Dash abruptly.

‘The bucket’s there.’

‘I mean … properly.’

The Master set down his glass. He seemed to consider for a while. Then he nodded.

For the first time she left the room. It took her a while, and crossing the threshold seemed to elicit a bout of wobbly legs. The stairs were hard too. She could only climb them with his help. He pulled her weight over his shoulders and eased her one step at a time all the way to the upper landing. She was sweating again, and winces of pain had come back. The effects of her temporary reprieve were wearing off.

He took her up a second flight. This one they managed better. The bathroom was small and rudimentary with a peeling wall, an old-fashioned hot-and-cold-tap sink, and a toilet with a broken seat. He helped her to sit. She cleared her throat, looked him in the eyes again, and breathed, ‘Could I have privacy?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said graciously as though he would never have dreamed to inconvenience her. He stepped out of the tiny room and smiled as she leaned with a struggle to push more or less closed the door. He listened to the sound of her peeing with a small smile still etched on his face and snickered to himself as she washed in the sink. The door opened after a few minutes, and she emerged, a little shaky, a little sweaty-faced but otherwise OK and capable of standing on her own four hooves. He nodded.

‘I think we can dump the gag,’ he said. ‘And you can sleep on the couch from now on too.’ She blinked then nodded. He smiled. ‘Come. Let’s play a game.’ Her bearing changed rapidly at the word, and he laughed and shook his head and patted her affectionately on the flank. ‘No, no, I meant Scrabble, you see?’

He laughed again and helped her down the stairs. The sitting room had only two windows, both very small, in the style of an old cottage, each with a cross of metal in the centre. A large, old door, the main one, led straight into it without an entryway or corridor. Perhaps it was this particular feature that spurred Rainbow Dash into the attempt. She pulled away from him with far more force than she’d been letting on and stumbled toward it desperately, hooves reaching for the handle, but she missed the door by a mile. She crashed instead into the sofa by the smaller window with a breathy squawk. The Master had tripped her the second she’d tried. He was chuckling softly, shaking his head but still smiling his awful smile.

‘You’re so disappointingly predictable,’ he said quietly, watching her struggle to stand. He grabbed her with sudden force, grinding his teeth together, glaring at her as though ready to kill. He shook her hard again and again. She shrank into herself, jolting cries issuing from her body as she was whipped back and forth. ‘Your life as it was is over!’ he bellowed.

He threw her down, back onto the floor. He kicked her, and she coughed and spluttered, bloody drool falling onto the dusty carpet. ‘How many times do you have to be told?’ he thundered. ‘What more do I have to do to get it through your head? Are you a lost cause?’ he asked, raising his hooves. ‘Is that what you’re telling me? In which case shall I just tie you up and leave you to die? Do you want me to do that?’

‘N—n … n—no …’ She could barely form the word.

‘When I told you that I was done hurting you, I meant it. But still you insist on defying me.’ He sighed, full of self-pity. ‘When the subject defies the emperor,’ he continued, ‘she is punished. But I am merciful.’

He reached for his belt. The dose had already been prepared. He pulled Rainbow Dash up off the floor and laid her, sprawled, on the sofa. He bent over her and gave it to her. ‘Let it never be said that I don’t have a heart,’ he finished with an air of injured pride.

‘Th—thang y—you …’ she spluttered, eyes rolling back into heaven.

VII: Bold

From then on Rainbow Dash had a couch to sleep on. The Master had brought it downstairs to the room he’d been holding her in. He decided he’d leave the table and chairs in there too. They ended up as her meal spot, where he’d sit with her as she ate, making sure she ate everything, that she had enough to drink, that she commented on the taste of his cooking or the sweetness of his homemade tea. She wasn’t tied up anymore, but she wasn’t allowed out of the room either. He didn’t let her take walks in the house or go to the toilet as she had before, upstairs. But the mop bucket had been replaced with two large plastic storage boxes filled with generous portions of cat litter. He’d even marked them with felt tip, ‘1’ for number ones, ‘2’ for number twos. He would come to see her before her allocated bedtime, eight o’clock, when he would administer her primary dose and tidy up her plates and take out the boxes for cleaning. Then he’d return at half-past nine, double-check that in the midst of her initial high she was acceptably arranged on the couch, return the boxes clean and fresh, and fill up a pair of plastic bottles for her to drink in the morning. He’d visit in the mornings between eight and nine just as she was waking up from her induced rest and the wellbeing phase had kicked in. This was when she was at her most acute, and he would use the time to ask her if she had any wants or wishes for the day, a certain book (no newspapers), a certain meal, a certain item for amusement provided she could not use it to harm either him or herself.

The routine went on for well over a week before the Master broke it. He entered one day, sighing, with egg-and-cress sandwiches for their lunch. He’d decided to eat his own meal with her today. He tugged out his chair, the one nearest the door, and swept the stack of crustless sandwiches onto the centre of the table where the flowers had stood initially. He took one without ceremony and bit into it, chewing with a grimace as though the flavour was off. Rainbow Dash picked one from the plate with the timid dignity that had since become her habit and nibbled at it quietly.

‘How’s your day been?’ he asked her, swallowing and grabbing another sandwich. He always asked this question once or twice, afternoon and evening. She rarely answered with more than a shrug, but he didn’t mind. It seemed to gratify him that she had so little to say. Today was no different, the dull pushing of the shoulders as she ate in silence. ‘Well, mine’s been shit,’ he grumbled. He sighed and laid his half-eaten sandwich back onto the plate. He snickered. ‘I walked out of work today.’

It was the first time he’d acknowledged his outer life in her presence. The idea that this pony, who had kidnapped her, beaten her, drugged and tortured her, had an ordinary life outside the house might normally have repulsed Rainbow Dash, but if it did, you couldn’t see a sign of it, just another shrug. He snorted.

‘My job’s on the verge of dying, I think. I’m fed up; I really am. It’s the boredom,’ he mused. ‘So much boredom.’

She was wary at the words. Boredom implied that he would soon turn to his favourite source of amusement. Sure enough he was watching her through those bored almond eyes, angry and pitiless. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, nodding his head as though to encourage himself, ‘that it’s high time I had some real fun. It’s like I said: we must do what we want to do, must act on what we do feel. And you could help me. Give me a second.’

He left the room, door open as though he trusted her not to be foolish enough to get up. When he returned, he had a notebook. He sat and beckoned her. She leaned forward to see.

‘Look.’

It was a hoof-drawn map of streets in Canterlot. He’d put little ‘X’s on the page, which according to his key meant vantage points from which to spy on ponies in their houses. ‘You know what I want to do?’ he said. ‘I want to hit Canterlot and have some fun. I’ve got some special things I need made, and I don’t have the time to do everything. I’m going to bring you some material and some sewing stuff, and I want you to stitch this together.’ He flicked through the book and showed her a page of scribbled specifications and a poor drawing of a black uniform. She looked at him. He sniggered.

‘Criminals are stupid,’ he said. ‘They buy things they need. But if you buy something and then use it, what do they do? They check the records, and they see who bought what, and then they tie you to it. What’s the solution then if you need something to go out in? Well, you make it yourself using bits and pieces that they cannot link back to you. For example a pair of curtains for the legs. A black shirt repurposed into a hood. And the same goes for anything major that you use in a crime. Break a window with a rock not a hammer or a crowbar. If a pony sees or impedes you, give them nothing that they can use against you. Hammers can be tracked. Rocks belong everywhere.’

‘You used a cattle prod and gag on the filly and me,’ muttered Rainbow Dash. Her voice had returned, but with how seldom she used it, it was easy to forget. The Master snorted and nodded.

‘An exception to every rule. But the cattle prod’s been mine for years; no one knows I have it, and I didn’t buy it in the first place. And the gag? I found it in a skip. Although the knife is mine—but again the rule of time. It’s been in this house for years. And the most important thing of course was that no pony saw me.’

‘The filly did.’

He looked momentarily angry. ‘Yes, well. You’re at fault for that. Anyway what could she tell them? That I have dark fur? I’m a nameless, faceless nopony to the world out there. But you’re right of course. Showing anything is a risk. That’s why I need this.’ He tapped the page showing his design for a cowl and uniform.

‘Why?’ she asked, puzzled, looking at him almost with concern. He looked both amused and bemused. It had been a long time since Rainbow Dash had asked a question let alone so directly.

‘Because I’m bored, that’s why,’ he said stubbornly, ‘and this is fun. I’ve been meaning to do something like this for a long time.’

‘Something like?’

‘A spree,’ he said, stretching the word as though savouring the thought. ‘I’ve already been thinking about how to go about it, but it’s early days. There’s nothing like a break-in, let me tell you. When I was a colt, I used to squat in ponies’ gardens. They had no idea I was there, and that feeling …’ He shuddered happily. ‘I want some more of that,’ he said with a grin.

‘So you’ve been like this for a long time,’ murmured Rainbow Dash.

‘My dear little Rainbow Dash, you’re starting to sound quite philosophical! Have you been thinking about me?’

Rainbow Dash paused, breathing slowly. ‘A bit,’ she said.

‘I’m flattered.’

‘Most ponies play games and hang out together,’ she muttered. ‘They don’t get their kicks hiding in gardens. What do you think made you like that?’

The sudden boldness of her questions was too sharp a contrast for the Master to accept her at face value. He smiled, eyes narrower than sincerity, but answered her question all the same. ‘The world makes us who we are.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Lots of things. Mistreatment. We all have a sad story.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No,’ he said, smiling sweetly yet dangerously back at her. Rainbow Dash did not back down.

‘Why not?’ she asked perfectly calmly. ‘Afraid?’ she added. His eyes flashed, and his smile grew.

‘Why would I be afraid?’

Rainbow Dash shrugged. ‘Why would you be? What am I going to do?’ she said almost with a smile of her own to accompany her tone of sad resignation. He was tickled by that, a real smile stretching over his face.

‘This is you trying to make sense of it,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘You’re here, but you want to know why. I can understand that. We always have to know why, don’t we. We always have to feel that there’s a purpose bigger than ourselves, larger than the depressing, soul-crushing fear that the world’s just a big, shit arena of chances.’

‘Who mistreated you?’

‘Huh. My peers. My parents.’

‘How?’

He shrugged. ‘They dismissed me.’

‘How?’

‘By letting me know I wasn’t good enough, right enough, that I didn’t meet the expectations forged beside my name. I wanted to do something, and it was never the right thing or the done thing or the wanted thing.’

‘You aren’t really telling me how you were mistreated.’

The Master snorted. ‘And why would I? What purpose would it serve?’

‘I want to know whether you really were mistreated or if you’re really just bonkers.’

‘Then let me disappoint you,’ he snapped, leaning back in his chair and folding his hooves. ‘You can sit there and pretend to be all tight-lipped and in control, but it’s by my mercy alone that you are even allowed to open your mouth to ask me these questions. Rub me the wrong way, and it’s back to the old method, where you couldn’t even piss without crying.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, you aren’t. You despise me. You think I’m fooled? You think I don’t know that you only put up with me out of fear? You’re entertaining, Miss Dash, but the act is wearing thin. I permit this only out of mild amusement from watching you struggle, so don’t think for a second that I wouldn’t put you down if you continue playing games with me.’

‘So you don’t like it when ponies play games with you.’

‘No, I don’t,’ said the Master bitterly.

An odd flicker of rage and disgust ran across Rainbow Dash’s face just for a moment, but her voice was steady when she spoke. ‘I would have thought that would have given you empathy.’

‘Empathy?’ he sneered. ‘What use is empathy to me? A foolish barrier, a shield for the weak to cower behind.’

‘I have empathy.’

‘Then you’re stupid.’

‘I’d have empathy for you.’

He barked with mirthless, angry laugher. ‘Hah! How could you?’

‘After what you did to me, I’ve never had more empathy for ponies who’ve suffered in my life,’ said Rainbow Dash, and it was clear that there was no act amidst the words. Rather than assuage the Master, this seemed to make him more disconcerted than ever. He was trying to sneer, but her words appeared to have reached him rather deeply.

‘Huh. Well, good for you then, little miss perfect,’ he spat. It was as though he was shocked that she could say something like that after having been so ill-treated. It was as though she were souring a moment of victory he’d been banking on.

‘In my experience,’ said Rainbow Dash meekly, ‘it’s when you’re left alone that it gets hard to feel good about ponies. You feel abandoned—even if the isolation is self-imposed.’

‘Spare me your theories,’ he said, but he was struggling to keep the emotion from his voice.

‘You need to speak to the ponies you care about,’ she told him slowly. ‘They can help you.’

‘Well, I don’t care about any ponies.’

‘You’ve got no one?’

‘I care about no one.’

‘You’ve got me.’

His eyes flicked to hers. His folded legs looked as though he were wrapping himself up against the cold. He rallied quickly enough, snickering with laugher. ‘What makes you think I care about you?’

‘I thought you said you were looking after me,’ said Rainbow Dash, and she couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. He noticed because he gave a sniff and said nothing for a moment. Then he narrowed his eyes, watching Rainbow Dash as though her indignation had infuriated him.

‘I’m not a fool,’ he growled. ‘Finish what you’re going to eat.’

That was when she struck, as he reached for his half-eaten sandwich. He’d trusted her not to move, but he’d made his first misjudgement. In the short time it had taken him to return with the notebook, Rainbow Dash had plucked up the courage to stumble over to the landing. The trolley was still there, tucked to the wall beside the stopper. She’d moved as quickly as she could have, desperate to be back in her chair by the time he returned so as not to arouse suspicion, so she’d had to snatch the first thing, which happened to have been the rolling pin. Throughout their discussion she’d sat on top of it in her chair, diverting attention from it by leading them through her questions. Perhaps she’d realised that the Master, although clearly not as in control of her as he wished to believe, wasn’t going to present any blatant opportunities for escape, and that had prompted her to strike at the half-chance, wielding the rolling pin and bringing it down onto his head similar to how he’d hit her with the bat. His face crashed into the desk beside the plate of sandwiches, and he groaned and rubbed his head. She didn’t let him recover, hitting him again and again over the head with the pin. None of the blows were especially heavy, but the frantic combination of them was enough to reduce him, grovelling, to the floor, and when she finally finished, panting and staggering, he was as incapacitated as she could make him, jerking around on the ground.

The effort it had taken, the energy it had cost her, became clear when she dropped the pin and fell to her knees, gasping for breath. But she couldn’t delay; the Master’s eyes were already flickering, consciousness returning to the now-bloodied face. She fumbled him over and raked through the compartments in his belt, searching desperately for the one in which he kept his keys. She found them and ripped them out and for good measure detached the cattle prod, which he habitually kept hanging on his belt, a favourite utensil never far from reach. With the two things in her hooves she staggered, panting, to the stairs.

‘Come on, wings,’ she coughed to herself, unsheathing them and preparing to fly for the first time since the capture. The Master had not actually addressed her wings; they had remained unmolested and were in good enough condition despite their lack of use to take her airborne. What wasn’t in condition was the rest of her, all the little muscles she normally took for granted that guided and stabilised her flight. Her first attempt did more harm than good, crashing into the wall halfway up with a squawk and sliding back down to the landing on her injured stomach. With tears in her eyes, which were nonetheless creased with new determination, she flew again. This time she made it over the lip, landing on her chest once more, but she’d made it to the ground floor and was now only a few metres from the big old door, the last obstacle to her freedom. She staggered to her hooves like a drunk and fell forward, up and down, all the way to the door. She rattled the handle, eyes darting back to the landing every few seconds as though expecting with horrible anticipation the sight of his furious figure any moment now. She stuffed the first key into the lock. It was too small. She jammed in the second; it fit but wouldn’t turn. The lock was one of those old-fashioned ones that you could see the light through, outdated and considered unsafe. But Rainbow Dash didn’t have anything to pick it with, and she didn’t know how to anyway. She rammed the third key in, whimpering. It wouldn’t turn. The Master did not keep the key to the main door in his belt.

She threw herself at the bigger of the two windows, but you could see in her face that she knew it was pointless. The window looked as though it hadn’t opened in years, and it was small and high-up enough that she with her injuries would take too long to climb through it if she could even break it open in the first place. She cast her eyes around the room, looking for something to do just that with. She grabbed the now-empty vase he’d stored the flowers in and threw it in desperation. It hit the metal cross with a crash and smashed into little pieces.

‘You little shit!’

She span around. Her worst fear had come true, the Master, staggering to the top of the stairs, furious, the rolling pin she’d hit him with in his hoof. She backed into the door, sticking the cattle prod out in front of her like a sword, igniting the tip. The Master watched it warily. He flicked his eyes between the windows and door. He knew there was nowhere for either of them to run. It was a standoff, him against her. The winner took the house.

‘Never keep your eggs in one basket!’ he snarled at her. ‘Very wise advice! Now be sensible and put it down. I’ll be merciful.’

He came at her from an angle, using the sofa as cover to avoid the tip of the cattle prod. She came forward, jabbing, and then retreated, and he retreated and then came forward again. He raised the rolling pin then threw it hard right at her face. She ducked, and it hit the door, and then he was on her, jumping, victory painted in his eyes. Rainbow Dash yelled with anguish and jabbed for all she was worth. The cattle prod caught him in the chest, and his eyes bulged, and his breath was knocked from him, and he fell back onto the floor with a yelp. She tried to seize the chance, tried to shock him unconscious, but the prod was meant for pain, and all it did in the end was put distance between him and her as he scrabbled to get away from the merciless current. He was panting and cursing, rubbing at singe marks in his own fur, spitting out bloody phlegm from his mouth where she’d hit him earlier. Rainbow Dash had recovered the rolling pin. She’d abandoned the keys by the door; they were no use to her. With the prod she’d corner him; with the pin she’d hit him. The Master watched her advance and retreated to the second staircase. His lip curled slightly as he quickly climbed the steps, knowing she’d struggle to catch him on the first floor.

‘Now what?’ he called down to her. ‘You’ve bought time, is all. You’ve made it so much worse for yourself. The severer the crime, the harsher the punishment! You should have learned that by now.’

She didn’t let it get to her, advancing very slowly and carefully up the stairs, using the wall for support, staring at him, warning him silently, making sure that if he tried to rush her, to push her down and overpower her, he’d eat a mouthful of electricity before he got near. The traces of a smile were slipping fast from his face. The prod’s advantage was such that without a weapon he would lose control of the floor should she reach it. He made up his mind and entered the bathroom. The broken toilet seat took a couple of kicks and tugs to come loose. Rainbow Dash, realising what he was doing, slowed. He emerged, seat in hoof, one pony halfway up the staircase, the other at the top. With his new reach he was equal to her except now he had the high ground. Rainbow Dash glared at him with undisguised hatred. That seemed to encourage him, eyes filled with rage, on his slow, purposeful descent. Every other step he took was coupled with a swing of the toilet seat, which would collide with the jab of the cattle prod. He clenched his jaw as he tried to take her by surprise, tried to catch it right so that the stick was pulled from her hoof by the weight. But Rainbow Dash was clutching it tightly, fully aware that it was her only real weapon right now. It was a bizarre fencing match, the electric stick versus the ceramic ring. He backed her down the stairs with it. He was relaxing a little, convinced it would only be a matter of time.

‘All that chatter about empathy,’ he spat, ‘and yet look at you now. What better way for you to learn,’ he said, eyes flashing, ‘that might … makes … right!’ he grunted, swinging the seat round, trying to knock her hooves to the wall. She dodged the last swing and jabbed through the gap, catching him in the side, and he squealed and kicked out, stumbling. She leapt at the chance, bringing the rolling pin down on his head, but in the shift to regain his balance he caught it with the base of the seat, swinging the other way, and growling with anger, now facing her exposed inside, he lashed out with a hoof to her knee, which buckled. She hadn’t been expecting her leg to cave so easily, and it was with a look of shock evolving quickly into fear that Rainbow Dash fell down the last few steps. He didn’t squander the advantage, ripping the prod out of her hoof, kicking her again and again so that she would drop the pin. She was trying to scramble away, trying to pick up the prod, but he still had the toilet seat, and he brought it down like a club across her chest. She was knocked into the wall. He gave a ‘Hah!’ of triumph as she slumped. It was as though all her fight had vanished in the blink of an eye. Tears were forming in her eyes once again, pain combined with the bitter unfairness of yet another foiled attempt for freedom crushing her heart, so recently inflated by hopes of escape.

He snatched up the prod and jabbed her with it. She cried, pulled away, raised her hooves. ‘Get up,’ he hissed at her, jabbing her again in a vengeful fury. He jabbed her twice more to get the message across, and she raised her hooves again in surrender. He recovered his keys and jabbed her viciously to the stairs in a shambles and walked down with her, walked into her so that she tripped and fell forward face first. She crashed into the trolley. Wrenches and knives rattled, but before she could think to grab anything, he’d grabbed her, lifted her by the mane, lifted her off her hooves, and thrown her back into the room, where all she had for company was the table, the chairs, the makeshift litter trays, the sandwiches, the bed frame, and the desk top. He slammed shut the door and locked it and moved the trolley into position against the door, where he had been leaving it in case Rainbow Dash somehow managed to escape, in which case the trolley would tip over and make noise to alert him. He stood there, glaring at the metal as though he could see the pony behind it.

‘You’re a tougher nut than I gave you credit for,’ he hissed, a grin returning to his face, ‘but there are still things we haven’t tried!’ He picked up the fallen spanners, tossed them onto the trays, and walked up the stairs, rubbing his head and muttering curses.

When he returned, two days later, it was to a room without the light on. Once he flicked the switch, his eyes narrowed. The tables and chairs hadn’t moved. The sandwiches were untouched; the boxes were unused. On the floor by the threshold a heap was touching his hooves, and he jolted and stepped backward, alarmed.

‘What th—?’

‘Potion …’ croaked the heap. ‘Potion …’

He knelt down beside the heap, presented it with the double-mug of water he’d denied Rainbow Dash for two days. He held it to its lips.

‘Potion …’ the heap croaked again, ignoring the water, poking feebly at his hooves. ‘Potion …’

‘Drink,’ he commanded, looking at it with disgust, at the piss-stained outline, the shit-daubed fur, wrinkling his snout. The heap kept nudging him gently.

‘Potion … potion …’

With a look of mingled shock, disgust, and fear, the Master reached into his belt, emerging with the shot. The heap rustled like a nest, prodding faster and harder. He gave it what it wanted, stood, watched it lapse into stillness, then sniffed and recovered the plate of old sandwiches, backed out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

VIII: Comfortable

Life with the Master became straightforward: Rainbow Dash became a pet in the corner. He would regale himself by telling aloud tales of old exploits, anecdotes about his previous victims, musings about life, as though she were a dog who could not understand but would nonetheless respond to his emotion. He would hit her sometimes even if she hadn’t done anything, always with a smile on his face. He would let the drug wear off into the desperation phase, hear her scream. He made a habit of this. Every night he’d wait for her screaming to begin, and he’d let her stew in anguish for ten minutes before administering the dose again. It was his way of telling Rainbow Dash what awaited her if she ever displeased or betrayed him again.

‘I got the recipe from an old friend I met at the lab,’ he said happily as he prepared ingredients for lunch, Rainbow Dash lying tamely in her basket. ‘He was big and handsome … and big,’ he added with a suggestive smile, ‘although not so big once I finished with him. Cooking is chemistry of course and some of the most satisfying to perform and to indulge in. Did you know there’s a perfect way to fry everything? And the variables. There are more than you think! Temperature, thickness, density, cooking surface, surface area, quantity. Yes, it all comes into it. It’s art really, cooking, as is chemistry. Art is variable control, and the more you can control the more of an artist you truly are.’

He took pleasure in feeding her. Almost every day he’d bake seeded rolls for afternoon tea. He had quit his job so spent all of his time at home barring the occasional jaunt outside to purchase supplies. Rainbow Dash was allowed to go by and large where she wanted indoors, but he trusted her with nothing. Every cupboard had locks. Every tool he’d stacked on the trolley had vanished, stored away. Every door that could be locked was kept locked, and she had to ask him for permission to have things. He kept her busy, giving her odd jobs such as washing potatoes and carrots or sewing together his uniform or cleaning the fireplace or sprucing up the living room. He would call her Miss Dash or Radish now after complaining her name was too much of a mouthful to say. ‘Radish!’ he’d shout at her if she was in another room and he wanted to check on her. Most of the time she spent draped on a couch, rolling her eyes in the rapture of the latest high. She had become in a certain way the closest thing to a house-cat that a pony was capable of being, spending more than half her life asleep.

The Master would pat her head, brush her tail, cut her mane. He bought her special shampoos so that she could smell the way he liked. Sometimes he’d wash her himself even though she was capable of bathing alone in the tub upstairs. The pleasure he took from treating her like a lesser being, a dependent, a docile companion, seemed to equal the pleasure he’d taken in torturing her initially. He’d chuckle to himself in the evenings when he saw her shuffle wordlessly across the room to sit closer to the fire and watch the flames.

‘Mares are interesting,’ he mused one night, looking up from his newspaper. ‘I’ve had stallions here, but they’re boring on the whole. Brittle. They resist and resist until they break, and then that’s it. The fun’s over. Mares are more flexible. You can bend them. Shape them.’ He cackled. ‘Only look who I am telling! But you’re a special one, Miss Dash. There’s something about you that I really enjoy,’ he finished, grinning. She watched him through her wide, blank eyes. It was rare to see an expression on her face these days during the wellbeing phase. She was almost completely apathetic except when he would bring out a top-up dose as the equivalent to a treat. Then her eyes would bulge, and she would go to him and show affection, pawing, hugging, rubbing against him. He would grin as though it was exactly the behaviour he’d intended to cultivate all along, and he would give her her shot with a snicker, patting her on the cheek as she slid off into another round of bliss, ‘wicked bliss’ as he called it. The potion was not his invention but an appropriation from his previous victim, the not-so-big-anymore stallion from the lab. But he had perfected it, or so he told her again and again when he felt like boasting.

‘And it’s a mystery of course because of the colour. That’s what I’m really proud of! Oh, ponies would say, “Well, what does the colour matter?” But it does; of course it does! An effective creation is one thing, but a beautiful effective creation is another level of control. And the trick is to change the appearance without sullying the effects. Look at it, that beautiful, shocking pink, invitation and warning as one. You worry about trying it until you have, and then you can’t get enough of it!’

And then he would go out in his new uniform to reconnoitre. She would always be left restrained when he went outside. It seemed that still, even after all the evidence of her total submission, he did not want to risk the chance, however minute, that she could undermine his rule while she had the kingdom to herself.

One night he returned in an excellent mood. He’d even brought back a takeaway. He tossed the bag with his uniform aside for washing and brought out the plates. He served them both a large helping each of curry and rice.

‘I love this place,’ he said as he sniffed his plate and sighed with pleasure. ‘They really know how to do a base sauce.’

They ate in silence, the fire crackling in the corner. It would have been rather nice and quaint if it weren’t for the circumstances. As he ate, the Master commented, ‘She still hasn’t given up on you, you know, that Twilight Sparkle.’ Rainbow Dash didn’t react at all to the name and ate her food as though she hadn’t understood a word. ‘I saw her today,’ he added, smiling as he studied Rainbow Dash’s face like a hunter, searching for a physical response, for a sign that the pet still had a fragment of the pony left inside her.

‘H—how?’ came the reply. Rainbow Dash very rarely replied to anything. She very rarely opened her mouth. The Master took this as the sign he’d been after, but rather than irk him, it placed a purposeful little smile on his face.

‘I’ve been watching her,’ he said softly, scraping up rice with his fork and chewing. ‘I’ve been studying her. She looks very sad.’

‘Wh—why?’

‘Why, because she’s next! That’s why. I’ve decided. I want her. I want to have her here. You do too; I can see it. Think how nice that would be, for you to have another friend. And Twilight Sparkle … Princess Twilight Sparkle … What an accomplishment. What an achievement that would be, eh?’ He laughed and bit into his naan.

‘N—no, I meant …’ Rainbow Dash coughed a little then continued. ‘Wh—why is she sad?’

The Master blinked then grinned. ‘Well, I couldn’t honestly say. Maybe it has nothing to do with you at all. But that won’t do, you see, my dear little Radish, because I’ll be counting on her feelings for you to help me get to her. And counting on you too of course. Oh yes,’ he added, grinning even more widely. ‘You’ll be expected to do your part.’

Insofar as she was still capable of showing surprise, Rainbow Dash blinked, her food forgotten. ‘Wh—what would I do?’

‘I’m thinking about that,’ he said, scooping up the leftover curry with his bread. ‘One step at a time, Miss Dash.’

The plan in the end was simple in essence. The two main objectives as identified by the Master were these: one, Twilight Sparkle had to be successfully kidnapped, and two, the whole world had to believe that she was beyond saving, or in other words dead, which would prevent the unwanted search.

‘You have to be convincing,’ he would tell her again and again and again. ‘You have to make sure she believes you. If she doesn’t believe you, she won’t leave with you. You have to be absolutely convincing.’

If he had any qualms about Rainbow Dash’s loyalty to him (or to Twilight), he certainly made her position clear to her: ‘Remember how you feel every night,’ he would breathe into her ear as she laid at his hooves. ‘Remember the pain. Know that only I have the key to your salvation.’

Coupled with her nightly sessions of agony, the words certainly seemed substantial. In fact you would be hard pressed to say Rainbow Dash showed any signs of conflict at all. She did as she was bade by the Master, helped him fine tune the details of how exactly she would convince Twilight to accompany her to the hit site. The solution to the first objective was that Rainbow Dash would reappear on Twilight’s door, confess to having been kidnapped by a lunatic and tortured to the brink of madness, and say that due to lucky chance she had managed to escape him, but he had pursued her, and in the ensuing struggle she had killed him. Now terrified that she would be branded a murderess, she would beg Twilight for clemency and lead her to his body so that they could move it together. ‘Remember to stress that it has to be just you two. It has to be. The way you do that is through sheer, unadulterated terror. You have to make her feel so afraid for you, for your sanity. She has to feel that if she were to do the sensible thing and have her people deal with the problem, she would in fact be risking your immediate wellbeing. You must be convincing.’

‘Yes,’ Rainbow Dash would say, wide-eyed, nodding. ‘Yes.’

At the hit site would come into play the solution to the second objective. The Master had been constructing a bomb, which they would detonate and in so doing blow up their transport. The Master was sure Twilight would acquiesce to taking a transport as Rainbow Dash would appear too physically incapacitated as a result of her ordeal to fly. Before the bomb went off, Rainbow Dash would inject Twilight with a paralytic, at which point the Master, waiting in position, would transport them all to safety and then eventually back to the house for imprisonment. To complete the deception, a quantity of fur and feathers from each of them would be left on the transport at the time of its destruction. Rainbow Dash would surrender hers on the morning of the attack. Twilight’s they would take together by force.

The Master was fully aware of how entirely the scheme depended on Rainbow Dash, so he doubled her time in agony before the evening doses and increased the dosage of the drug too. The gag found use again, used to stifle her screams so that he could tell her again and again that this horrible fate awaited her eternally should she fail him.

‘If I lose,’ he would finish before leaning over to make the injection, ‘you lose. If we succeed, I shall be eternally grateful to you, and you will never feel pain like this ever again. I promise.’

The pressure of the prospect of failure had gotten to Rainbow Dash because she was now experiencing regular panic attacks, which the Master had to assuage through even further injections.

‘But wh—what if I’m not convincing enough?’ Rainbow Dash would pant, lying on her back in his hooves, tears pouring down her face.

The Master would grin down at her and say, ‘You will be absolutely convincing. Your fear shall be real, terrifying, because you know what awaits you if you can’t get her to follow you alone.’

On the eve of the penultimate day the Master gave Rainbow Dash a new dose. ‘I made it even more special,’ he told her. ‘This is the best there is. Savour it. Remember it. Treasure it. This is what I have in store for you when you succeed.’

By five PM the following night Rainbow Dash found herself on the streets of Canterlot, gazing up at the distant castle, her eyes wide, her lips trembling, her brow drenched in sweat.

IX: Fraught

The Master had been right: Twilight Sparkle did look sad, although she’d become very good at hiding it. Any meeting or audience, any public speech or outing, she could bring the smile to her face with practised ease now. It was the quiet moments in evenings or early mornings that gave it all away. She’d walk out onto the courtyard at the top of the castle, look out into the valley below, look up at the mountain itself, where no doubt one of the Master’s vantage points was concealed. There was no pretence then. Tear stains like those the Master had so often seen on Rainbow Dash were visible, as were bags under the eyes from losing sleep. It was hard to tell whether this was because one of her best friends had been missing for two months. Perhaps the job was impossible, and Princess Celestia, when she’d had the role, had been equally miserable in her quiet moments.

But their faith that Twilight still nursed a wound for her old friend was vindicated when as Twilight stared wistfully out into the clouds, a guard appeared at the balcony and cleared his throat.

‘Your Highness,’ he said portentously, ‘Rainbow Dash is here to see you.’

Twilight span round, her face aghast, as though she was appalled that he would play such a cruel trick on her. ‘What did you say?’ she demanded.

‘Rainbow Dash, Your Highness. She’s here.’

Twilight didn’t need any further encouragement. She swept over the threshold into the palace and straight for the hallway to the stairs. The guard was trotting to keep up with her. His mouth was open as though he expected Twilight to question him, but she asked him nothing, rattling down the staircase as quickly as her robe would permit her.

The guard hadn’t lied. Rainbow Dash it was indeed, standing lopsidedly at the gate, looking down at her hooves as though she were a filly who’d been caught playing truant. Twilight stopped completely, didn’t even draw in a breath, staring agape. She trotted toward her, her hoofsteps echoing loudly through the lower courtyard. The gate guard, who would under normal circumstances perform a formal announcement, licked his lips and said nothing. The hoofsteps accelerated as she began to believe the evidence of her senses.

‘Rainbow Dash!’ squealed Twilight, charging toward the pony like a mother running to embrace her long-lost child. She threw her hooves around her, pulling her close, tears pouring from her eyes, and she sobbed happily into her coat. ‘We were looking everywhere for you! What happened? Where were you? You look so drawn! Your beautiful coat …’ she said, rubbing the tufts beside patches of baldness, from which the Master had earlier that very day torn an ample quantity.

Rainbow Dash looked about ready to cry herself, eyes shining and fixed rigidly on the floor, as though if she were to look up at Twilight, she would burst into tears. ‘H—hello, Twilight,’ she managed in a dusty voice.

‘You sound terrible,’ said Twilight, trying to catch her eye. ‘Like you’ve been sick …’

‘I h—have been,’ croaked Rainbow Dash.

‘But where were you?’

‘I was … I—I …’ The tears came this time, and Rainbow Dash slumped nearly to the floor, held up by Twilight’s hug. They were low, snivelling, animal sobs. The sound was so alien to Twilight in association with her normally proud and courageous friend that she too fell to her knees, embracing her, holding her, swaying with her, as though to assuage not only the pony who was sobbing but also herself. It was as if the two mares were completely alone, not surrounded by guards in full view, professionally maintaining a respectful silence.

‘What happened, Rainbow Dash?’ she asked again, voice quaking. ‘What could have possibly happened to make you so …?’ She didn’t finished the question. For the first time their eyes met. Tears dripped silently from Twilight’s as she glimpsed the depth of Rainbow Dash’s suffering. To her credit Rainbow Dash hugged her back but pulled away quickly, flinching, shuddering, eyes tightly shut, as though touching her old friend were like imbibing poison.

‘I … I was kidnapped …’ she breathed, still with her eyes shut. ‘I … I …’

‘Kidnapped? Oh, Rainbow Dash! Who by? When? Twilight tried to pull her back into a hug, but Rainbow Dash shrank back, sniffling, covering her face with a hoof.

‘Th—the M—Master!’ she choked.

‘Who? Oh, Rainbow Dash! What did they do to you?’ cried Twilight. She helped Rainbow Dash, snivelling, to her hooves and ushered her friend toward the castle, to a private room. They had to move very slowly as Rainbow Dash seemed to be struggling to walk, and Twilight, with her robe of office, was endeavouring not to trip as she helped her friend along. They reached a small room on the ground floor, once a study. There was a shelf of books here, a window, and a desk with a chair. Twilight eased Rainbow Dash into the seat and stood over her, stroking her mane, rubbing her gently on the back. Rainbow Dash folded her face into her forelegs and slumped over the desk, crying into her hooves.

‘It’s OK,’ whispered Twilight reassuringly, taking slow, calming breaths. ‘You’re safe now.’

Eventually the sobs dissolved into snivels. Eventually the snivels lapsed into long, unsteady breaths. Rainbow Dash was regaining control of herself. When she was sure that she had calmed down enough to be questioned, Twilight touched her on the side of her head and said, ‘Now please will you tell me what happened to you?’

Rainbow Dash lifted her head from her hooves and gave a deep, rattling sigh. She opened her eyes.

‘I was kidnapped by the Master,’ she said thickly in a monotone. ‘He took me to his house, a cottage on the outskirts.’ She took another deep breath, face screwed up. ‘H—he hurt me.’

‘What did he do?’ breathed Twilight, her eyes wide with fear and concern.

‘T—tortured me … abused me …’

Twilight’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. She pulled Rainbow Dash’s head close to her chest and stared up at the ceiling, eyes brimming with tears, as though asking the world how it could possibly have been so cruel.

‘I … I …’ Rainbow Dash was struggling to form her words. Twilight shushed her, but Rainbow Dash shook her off desperately, pulling herself back so that Twilight could see the anguish on her face. ‘I killed him!’ she spluttered, eyes wide with fear and panic. ‘Twilight, I k—killed him! I murdered him, Twilight!’ she gasped, eyes popping as though the enormity of the deed was such that her mind could not comprehend it.

Twilight’s mouth was ajar, her eyes, which before had contained only sympathy for her friend, changing subtly to shock and fear. ‘What?’ she breathed. Rainbow Dash gave her a tortured look.

‘I h—had no choice,’ she stammered. ‘I had to, Twilight, I had to. I …’ She gasped, eyes bulging again. ‘I ran away,’ she breathed. ‘He chased me. We fought up there,’ she murmured, tossing her head in the direction of the mountain. ‘I took a rock … hit him …’ She turned away, showing Twilight her back, facing the window.

Twilight was lost for words. Her face read of shock, horror, fear, and pity all at once. Rainbow Dash turned around again, weeping, begging. ‘Don’t make me go to prison for it, Twilight,’ she rattled off like a dog barking tricks. ‘Don’t make me go! Don’t punish me—please! I’ve suffered enough.’

Twilight bit her lip, eyes wide, swallowing. ‘Rainbow Dash …’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s not … I can’t just …’ She sighed and a definite note of hesitation had entered her voice, gentle and understanding though it still was. ‘Of course I’m not going to punish you. Don’t talk like that, please,’ she said, patting Rainbow Dash’s shoulder encouragingly. ‘Right now, what we need to do is make sure you’re OK. We need to—’

‘No!’ Rainbow Dash rose to her hooves with some of her old speed, shaking her head frantically, violently, eyes filled with emotion. ‘No!’ she yelped.

Twilight flinched, alarmed by the behaviour. Rainbow Dash regained control of herself, panting, falling slowly back into her seat. ‘Twilight, please …’ She took another deep, steadying breath and said quickly, ‘We have to move the body. We have to go now, together, Twilight, and move the body—’

‘Rainbow Dash?’

‘—before anypony else can find out that I—’

‘Rainbow Dash …’

‘—Twilight, now, we have to go, have to leave now, right now, and—’

‘Rainbow Dash!’

The urgency with which Rainbow Dash had made the suggestion, the nature of the suggestion itself, and the keenness and the desperation, were so far out of her given character that Twilight, for the first time, was growing uneasy. A slight frown had creased her forehead. She was looking at Rainbow Dash as she he never looked at her before, not with suspicion or with alarm, but with a very particular, slightly disdainful pity, the kind reserved particularly for those in mental institutions, which says, ‘I like you and trust you, but I probably shouldn’t set much store by what you say anymore.’

Rainbow Dash could see the traces of it on Twilight’s face, and she adjusted accordingly, forcing herself to breathe again, to slow down, to take her time. Her eyes were twitching. Her breaths were all erratic. Her legs were trembling. Her body was shaking. It was fear. It was so plain, so unmistakable, so infectious, that Twilight seemed to find her understanding again. She sighed too, a long exhale, and hugged Rainbow Dash once more.

‘It’s been an ordeal,’ she said softly, ‘but you’re safe now. You’ll be OK, Rainbow Dash; you’ll be OK. I’m going to take care of you myself.’ She said it so earnestly that it would have made up for any prejudgements she’d had about her friend’s state of mind. But Rainbow Dash didn’t see it that way. She was getting angry now, stamping, hitting the table with her hoof.

‘No!’ she said loudly, her eyes narrowing. ‘Now!’ she shouted. ‘Now! Now! We have to go now!’

Twilight stared, incredulous. What could she do? The options were these: refuse to acknowledge her friend’s emotions and try to handle her, like a carer handling a child who couldn’t know what was best for her, or accept her friend’s judgement on the matter and support her as best she could. Twilight swallowed her doubts. She loved Rainbow Dash, and the idea that after all she’d suffered, she had to come back to a friend who wouldn’t even listen to her chafed so severely that she felt a lump in her throat just thinking about it. She swallowed, nodded, and said, ‘OK. Let’s go.’

The guards outside looked puzzled to see Twilight following in the wake of the stumbling gait of the pony who’d come to her for help. Rainbow Dash was walking as though with a singular purpose, and Twilight, looking worried and a little harried, was following along, pausing when Rainbow Dash paused to catch her breath, following suit when Rainbow Dash upped the pace.

‘Flash,’ said Twilight as they passed the gate, ‘Could you come with us, please?’

The guard, Flash Sentry, saluted. ‘Of course, Your—’

‘No!’ Rainbow Dash was glaring at Flash with loathing, as though the very fact of his existence was an affront to her. Flash Sentry looked taken aback. Twilight was dumbfounded. Rainbow Dash rallied well.

‘Twilight,’ she begged quietly, moving closer to her old friend, placing her snout to her ear. ‘Please,’ she breathed. ‘I’m begging you. We have to be alone. I can’t … not with other ponies … for them to see …’

Twilight seemed to understand, and it was with an iron effort that she sighed and nodded stiffly before turning back to Flash and saying, ‘Stay here. Rainbow Dash and I have something we must do. Alone.’

Flash Sentry looked as though he had other ideas. He’d known Rainbow Dash before, of course, but not as well as Twilight, and he’d only ever seen the bravado of her. The contrast for him, to see this mare who’d once been the most self-confident, self-aggrandising pony in Equestria and to compare her to this shivering, cringing, fearful, angry shadow, was too severe. His gut told him it would be improper to allow their sovereign to go alone with her, whatever she thought about the matter herself. ‘Your Highness,’ he began, ‘I insist—’

‘No!’ Rainbow Dash actually stepped in and took a shot at him, a wild, swinging flap. It wasn’t designed to connect, the sort of move you see ponies make when beating away a particularly annoying fly, but the sight of it, the intensity of it, was enough to deepen Flash’s misgivings even further, to say nothing of Twilight’s, who was once again fighting the look of disfavourable pity she’d managed to throw off before. Rainbow Dash broke again into the sobs that she’d started with, leaning on Twilight, crying into her wings, begging her quietly. Twilight looked miserable; she shook her head at Flash, and said to Rainbow Dash in a strangled voice, ‘Lead the way.’

Rainbow Dash took them to the end of the courtyard, to the royal convenience. ‘We’ll have to fly there,’ said Rainbow Dash, soldiering on toward the smallest single-pony vehicle.

‘Then we should have somepony take us,’ protested Twilight.

‘No,’ said Rainbow Dash. ‘You’ll have to take us. I’m sorry, Twilight. You don’t understand.’

‘You’re right,’ replied Twilight in the quietest voice. ‘I don’t at all. But if this is what you want …’

‘It has to be like this,’ muttered Rainbow Dash more to herself than anypony else. ‘Just the two of us.’

Twilight helped Rainbow Dash climb onto the upholstered seat. She swallowed then shrugged off her robe. It wound itself into a pile on the floor. She walked over to the front of the royal rickshaw, placed herself between the shafts and strapped herself to the harness. With a swift beating of her powerful wings, she took off, Rainbow Dash and the cart lifted easily into the air by the strength of the Alicorn. It must have been a very strange sight for the citizens below, to see their sovereign pulling along the slumped, thin figure of the formerly missing Wonderbolt.

‘Where to now?’ shouted Twilight once they were high in the air and above the peak of the mountain. Rainbow Dash pointed so that Twilight could see.

‘Do you see the cleft in the rock down there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Aim for that.’

Twilight did just that, pulling the cart gracefully in to land. There was a long, reasonably wide natural platform, and, from here, a pony who had managed either to fly or to climb up to it could see down straight into the castle courtyards and even through a few of the windows. The advantage was that, if you wanted not to be seen, three or four steps back from the lip and you’d be invisible, blocked by the rock. The mountain here was like a quarry, big, smooth rocks standing straight, as though they’d been bitten into. It was the perfect place for a cabin or hideout. Once Twilight had detached herself from the harness, she helped Rainbow Dash down from the seat. Rainbow Dash was sweating, blinking nervously, avoiding eye contact.

‘Right,’ said Twilight, sighing, puffing out of exertion. She swallowed, looking solemnly at her friend. ‘Where to now?’

Rainbow Dash raised a quaking hoof. ‘A little over there …’ she choked, turning away.

Twilight strained her eyes, scanning the stone. ‘I don’t see anyth— ih … ihh …’

She frowned down at the syringe in her shoulder. She looked at Rainbow Dash and blinked slowly. Her eyes weren’t shocked or scared. They were astonished, filled with complete confusion. ‘Wh—?’ she mumbled before her gaze rolled back into her skull and her muscles relaxed. Rainbow Dash whimpered as she struggled to catch her, struggled to keep her from rolling towards the lip of the rock.

‘Excellent!’ The Master was there in his uniform, the black blending well with the dark stone, the mask Rainbow Dash had made for him covering his face completely except for the eyes and mouth, the latter of which was twisted in a triumphant sneer. ‘Well done indeed!’ he said, leering, placing his hooves around Rainbow Dash and giving her a tight squeeze. ‘You really are a special one, Miss Dash!’ he crowed, grinning down at Twilight’s motionless body. Rainbow Dash couldn’t bring herself to look, her eyes fixed firmly on the stone wall opposite the others. The Master snapped his hooves.

‘The bags,’ he said sharply.

Rainbow Dash recovered them for him one by one. They had stored them in a recess. Inside the smallest was a razor, a pair of pliers, and a hammer and chisel. The Master took the latter, aligned the chisel with Twilight’s horn, and brought the hammer down hard. The bone snapped cleanly in two near the base. There was hiss and faint magical discharge, which dissipated, leaving her powerless. The Master worked quickly, cutting bits of fur from across Twilight’s body, from her back, from her legs, from her neck and face. He turned her over and used the pliers like heavy-duty tweezers, plucking purple feathers randomly from her wings. He gave them all to Rainbow Dash, who was stuffing them into the paper bag that already contained her own, cyan contributions. The Master opened the largest bag to reveal a fuse attached to explosives propped up in sand. He snatched the other bag from Rainbow Dash’s hooves, carrying both the feathers and the bomb to the rickshaw. He heaved them into the passenger seat. He struck a match from the rock and held it to the fuse, muttering, ‘Three minutes. One hundred and eighty seconds.’ The fuse hissed into life. ‘Take the back hooves,’ he commanded through the bag clutched between his teeth.

Together he and Rainbow Dash dragged Twilight to the rear of the platform where the cleft was, the Master with the bulk of the weight, Rainbow Dash stabilising. At close quarters it was large enough to walk through unimpeded, with enough space for a pony to sit. It widened out quickly enough, and as they wrestled Twilight to the other side, the bomb exploded. The blast was loud and clear. Shrapnel rained down the mountainside once the fire had faded. The Master grinned.

‘We’re in business,’ he laughed.

They emerged onto a mountain trail. They placed Twilight’s body into a waiting wheelbarrow and covered it with a sheet of tarpaulin. The Master whipped off his uniform and gave it to Rainbow Dash to store and carry in another bag. Then the Master rolled the barrow clumsily down the path. Rainbow Dash followed, stumbling alongside him, her head down. This side of the mountain, though relatively steep, was easily accessible by hoof, and the cart he’d kidnapped Rainbow Dash in was parked at the start of the manageable incline, ten minutes away. It was a trekking site, as the Master well knew, but in his reconnoitring he’d learned how frequently and infrequently ponies used it. He’d chosen the date and time by calculating the average number of ponies per day, per time of day, per weather, per season, per route, and so on. It had rained all morning, and the wet grass and muddy track on the verdant side wasn’t appealing for hill-walkers. At the very worst the chances as he made them expected a lone couple, and even then it wasn’t a crime to wheel a wheelbarrow. On the off-chance that anypony challenged them, however, the Master had his utility belt: a pair of tasers, a knife, the cattle prod, even some homemade explosives. Still it was tiring work, and he was puffing and sweating as he tried to guide the heavy, rattling barrow down the muddy, bumpy road. When they reached the cart, they hauled Twilight’s body from the barrow, covered it with the tarp in the back. The cart had been decked out with knapsacks and assorted climbing equipment. There was even an outfit for Rainbow Dash, with a special safety helmet that could hide her mane. To anyone passing below, it would seem that a pair of enthusiasts had been enjoying themselves.

They arrived at the cottage shortly after nightfall.