chains of the heart

       The Stallion With The Chains

Strong Hoof looked out the window next to his cot at the light representing the beginning of another day, the light crept over canterlot castle and touched the tip of the confinement barracks where he currently resided, it had been three and a half years since he had joined the royal guard but it had been four long years since he had known a good nights sleep, this night had been no different, another night of the dreams, another night of tossing and turning, and finally another night that would no doubt end in him waking up in a cold sweat followed by him sitting starring out the window waiting for the inevitable dawn to come. He glared at celestias glorious sun trying to recall a time when it had meant more to him than just a blinding ball of fire a time when he had played as a carefree colt before the events that lead him down the road that had scene him to this dawn. Today did not promise to end well, he had an early meeting with the captan of the royal guard, it wasn't the first time that he had been reprimanded by his superiors but he had never been sent to speak with captan shining armor himself, Strong Hoof had a bit of a short fuse that would more than often end in him exploding into a flurry of rage sending somepony to the medical ward battered and bloody for the medicalponys to patch up. The barracks he found himself in had become his unofficial new homes as he found himself hear more often than his regular barracks room, it was one long room lined with single cots no blankets no pillows one barred window and a locked cell door. he sat on his honchos at the edge of the cot looking with cold eyes as the morning sun shined on the two chains that formed an X for his cutie mark and recalled the events of the day prior that had brought him to his temporary home.

              My Name Is Strong Hoof

The day began like anyother Strong Hoof woke up in his usual pool of ice cold sweat and proceeded to inch his way to the edge of his twin sized bed humbly adorned with a plain white sheet that now was damp, the same could be said of his plain white pillow and proceeded to take long deep breaths trying to slow his racing heart beat. A moment passed then two after a minute more he regained his composure and gazed up at his wall clock, it was early, celestia wouldn't be raising the sun for at least another three more hours but he knew that trying to fall back to sleep would be both pointless and a dread to him, he rose to his hoofs and made his way to the fridge in his common area his throat was dry.

                                     He passed the short wood desk next to his bed the top of which was littered with open bottles of potions and herbs prescribed to him by the local medicalpony to help with his "sleep issues" but as always none of them helped to give him what they promised. Nothing he tried in the passed four years had helped to stop "her" from showing up in his dreams or those sweet words she told him every night. Sometimes he even dared to think that he didn't want the dreams to stop. He retrieved a glass of cold water and downed it in one quick gulp whipping his muzzle with his foreleg he slumped his way to his bathroom depositing the glass into the sink next to the door and flicked on the lantern on the wall illuminating the small latrine with faux fairy light the initial burst of which blinded his eyes which were not quite adjusted to the light in his drowsy state. staring coldly  the reflection of a dark brown earth pony stared just as coldly back at him. His main was cut to a short almost flat cut that resembled a low mohawk his grey eyes looked tired with dark almost black bags under them. splashing his face with cold water from the tap to wake himself up he figured since sleep was out of the question he would get a work out in before breakfast and daily guard duties started. He dried his face with a wash cloth and made his way out the door to his room stoping for a moment to gaze quietly at the framed picture he had laid face down years ago on the simple wood table in his entryway a thought crosed his mind that he may never bring himself to look at its image again.

                             Outside the morning air was crisp and refreshing Strong Hoof liked early morning exercises. it was dark, quiet, and still nopony to make him feel awkward or uncomfortable the other guards would sometimes scoff at his well simple physique. Contrary to his name Strong Hoof did not appear as toned as his name implied he was not scrawny by any means but he also was not as physically toned as his fellow guards but his father hadn't named him Strong Hoof for nothing for what he lacked in physique he made up for in raw power. As a young colt he and the other earth ponies would have tests of strength taking wide planks of wood they would tie them with rope and stack rocks on them, the point of which was to see which colt could pull the most rocks the fastest and the furthest. Each colt would boast that they were the strongest and exert themselves greatly trying to pull the rock sled as fast as they could for the longest distance Strong Hoof had impressed and made some colts insanely jealous at how much he could pull and the speed at which he did so, taking off at almost a full gallop for sometimes a good four minutes straight he seemed to have almost unending stamina while playing with the other little ones in the grass and fields outside canterlot.

                                         The earth pony games would go on like this until the sun threatened to bed down for the night at which time the young colts would gallop home for supper, a small smile crept across Strong Hoofs muzzle as he remembered it was at the end of one such day that his mother and father told him they had "good news". His smile faded, "That was a long time ago" he muttered to himself flatly bringing himself back to equestria, its was time to sweat. He started out with his regiment of hoof-ups starting at one he started the motions a repetitive up and down cycle, forty minutes later he was up to four hundred and eight, next he moved onto sit-ups placing his hoofs behind his head he started in a brisk pace tell he had reached another four hundred and eight his abdomen muscles burning from lactic acid telling him it was time to stop. Next he decided to do some stretching, rotating his shoulder he listened for the various pops and cracks in his joints, he moved onto the other shoulder repeating the motion he then moved into an extended flex arching his back and bowing low feeling the muscles in his abdomen stretch he winced in slight pain at the pulling and soon returned to his upright position. He was nice and limber now and ready for a good long gallop around the castle grounds, workouts did help in a small way to clear Strong Hoofs mind and the quiet helped him to feel somewhat calm in the stillness of the early morning dark it seemed as though all of canterlot were still asleep leaving the royal city to Strong Hoof as his private city, he made his way around the long curving bend of the castles outer wall going now at full speed Strong Hoof imagined himself flying up into the sky and thought this is what a Pegasus must feel like.

                             The freedom of an open sky and no ground obstructions to stop you from going wherever you want as fast as your wings could take you, Strong Hoof let his eyes close for an instant when a sharp jolt struck the muscle in his right leg he jolted his eyes open in time to catch himself from crashing face first into the path in front of him. He corrected himself and trotted on, limping slightly from the slightly pulled leg muscle, coming to a halt he panted slightly whipping away the hefty amount of moisture that had gathered on his brow. Gazing up he now could make out the glow of the sun goddess's burning orb as it began its daily trek across the sky, canterlot castles top spires sparkled as light reflected off of their golden surfaces sending a mosaic of twinkling lights onto the shaded grass and dirt path he stood on. Trotting on the pain in Strong Hoofs leg subsided and he began to take in his surroundings to his right he beheld the titan that was the mountains that supported all of canterlot stretching up to the heavens like fingers of a massive hand, he shifted his gaze to the left to see the outer wall of canterlot castle as it stretched long and wide and tall as if to say that inside it housed the most important ponies in all of equestria, bringing his gaze along the length of the wall his eyes caught sight of a large domed gate that he didn't recall seeing in his past gallops around the castle he walked slowly up to the gate, partly out of curiosity.

                            From the path he peered into the opening to reveal one of the castles many gardens used no doubt in one of the cities frequent garden parties, the guardian had a wide variety of multi colored flowers and one or two short slender trees abundant in green leafs, sudenly something caught Strong Hoofs attention, and in the instant he caught sight of it he was frozen with shock, in that instant he swore to celestia he was seeing a ghost, on a plain stone bench sat an all white mare gazing blankly up at the morning sky. Strong Hoof felt his legs get weak and  tears, yes tears threatened to come spilling out for the first time in years, he slowly moved in the direction of the ivory mare mouthing silently a name he hadn't spoken for a long time now afraid that breaking the silence of the early dawn would cause the apparition before him to disappear like a snowflake in a breath. but all at once he just as quickly snapped himself out of his own daze sniffing hard to choke back the tears that loomed, he realized that this mare was a unicorn obvious from her sparkling white horn.

                              The mare snapped out of whatever daze she was in and caught sight of the stallion that stood a few ponies lengths away from where she sat in the garden, the first thing that struck her was how fierce he looked in the creeping morning light, cold eyes that seemed angry and sad all at once he was slimmer than most colts she had seen but that hadn't been many in her life and he was covered in what she could only guess was sweat from some sort of physical exertion. For some time they held this silent moment tell slowly the white mare began a shy smile and raised her hoof slowly in a sign of greeting. Strong Hoof mentally told himself that he never wanted to see this mare again and quickly spat the taste of iron from inside his mouth before galloping at a quick pace on down the path and back to the barracks wanting to put as much distance between himself and the ghostly mare as he could.

                                         The white mare sat in a perplexed daze as the mysterious stallion spat on the ground and galloped off without a word of goodbye, why had he spat before departing? maybe it was some earthpony custom she was unaware of. Before he galloped off she had caught a brief glimpse of his cutie mark, it resembled two chains forming an X on his flank, she made a mental note of the mark and told herself that if the next time she got away, she were to run into this mysterious stallion she would ask him about his strange custom and maybe even inquire about his interesting cutie mark, this trip to canterlot was turning out to be more interesting than she had originally thought