Winds of color, book 1: Digging up the past

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."

-Henry David Thoreau

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The cage was, in itself, damp and dark. There was a slowly building stinking pile in a corner of the stone floor that was the cage; its bars were made into an iron grid with three sides reinforced by more of the solid stone as well. Whoever had built it clearly hadn’t wanted for its occupants to get out. Signs of wear and tear here and there suggested others had got out before but the previous ways to escape, mainly seen in a few bent bars and what looked like concrete on one of the walls where a hole had probably been dug, had been repaired but not completely erased. Even the floor and ceiling were covered in a sheet of slowly rusting metal under the hay that was provided more for sanitary purposes than anything else. It was this cage, simply named Bob by the occupants; that now housed the Earth pony filly, a Diamond dog, and the currently unconscious unicorn.

Once again the filly poked the unicorn, Irid, quietly with a hoof; unaware of if the unicorn was alive and asleep, dead, or knocked out. An hour earlier when One-eye Pete was approaching she had hid behind the other resident of the cage in terror despite both the filly and Pete knowing that such an action would be futile for her still hiding after Pete had unlocked and open the door to put down the strange unicorn inside and relock the door on the way out. It had taken a long time for the filly to poke her head out to look at the new occupant and even longer to approach. Now for five minutes straight the filly had been poking her seeing if she was okay. With no response coming back the filly rolled the unicorn onto her back and decided to go stand on her and start stomping, doing no significant damage but gradually forcing the unicorn awake with the feeling of the heavy weight of a filly crushing  the air out of her lungs and delivering accidental cheap shots to her stomach. Like countless others before her she let out a low groan.

The filly let out a self-satisfied giggle and jumped off delivering one last breathe taking movement in the process before standing off to the side of her staring directly down into her face with a smile, Intending fully to greet the new cell mate. What would happen, however, would leave both parties involved in pain and awkward first impressions.

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Of course Irid’s mind took the rough treatment of her body and turned the feelings into a nightmare, what was a memory and a dream quickly losing purpose as the poking and prodding was felt and interpreted into feelings. The maze of steel and blue runes was slowly closing in on her, no matter how fast Irid ran in her nightmare of a dream continued.  A constant jab of pressure was appearing and vanishing in her side making her think it was not a dream for dreams her mind recalled couldn’t make you feel pain. But again the pressure hit her side and she nearly fell over from it this time as she rounded a corner. She looked back; behind her a pair of Earth-Shakers was chasing her. But unlike the spell she remembered these ones had maws full of spinning blade like teeth and gullets. They were also made of natural looking flesh rather than the magic runes and black material of contained energy. How she hadn’t noticed them before was beyond her but one let out a mind numbing shriek of a hunter. Their equivalent for a wolf packs howl she realized. The thought had barely reached through her thoughts when she was tackled by one of the beasts erupting from underneath her.

The breathe from her lungs were crushed out as the impact sent her into the ceiling with the thing and she started to fall only to be hit by another’s tail a few seconds later sending her into a desperate gasp for air. As suddenly as they appeared they were gone, presumably back underground before  an series of rocks were thrown impacting on her chest in a counter clockwise pattern making her wince again as she fled. A feeling of fear rising up in her chest as her now unseen assailants was bombarding her with the large hoof sized rocks. She did what her bodily instincts told her to, she ran, as fast as she could her mind plagued with worry and the primal fear that prey often get when they know they are being hunted by something much larger than them. She ran and ran more rocks bouncing off her chest until she was face to face with a large gap between the streets where an Flier would descend to the underground. Nowhere left to go Irid turned around right into the face of death herself and she tripped backwards screaming and falling into the pit…

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Irid's eyes came open with a look of shock on her face. Only to stare into a dark red eye surrounded by a light green coat and a shock of a messy yellow mane that she promptly impacted into as she sat up and fell down as two faces collided and recoiled in pain. Irid clutching her face between her hooves in a fetal position, and the filly now on her back from the force of the impact on her back flailing her back legs while similarly clutching her face between her hooves as well as making a repeating of the word “Ow” that would be calmed down a few minutes later as the pain receded. The filly, surprisingly enough, was the first to recover. When Irid opened her eyes again, she found the filly’s face  hovering over hers, smiling down.

“Oh, so sorry!” the filly exclaimed. “Please forgive me. It was not my intention to frighten you.”

Quietly Irid nodded, and the filly continued backing away so that their faces wouldn’t collide again if Irid stood up as the filly declared with a tone of pride, “Anyway I’m glad I was able to wake you up. I am Twig Light by the way; you can just call me Twig.”

“Irid…”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s…my name…”

A look of understanding formed on Twigs face quickly replaced as Twig grinned while exclaiming in her pleasant voice, “Well nice to meet you Irid. Welcome to the Cell fifty one, also known as Bob by those who stay in it.”

“Why is it called Bob?”

“Don’t know, Ask her” replied Twig merrily and she skipped past Irid towards the only other occupant in the cell.

In the corner of the room lying on her side was a Diamond dog of dark grey fur who had long Night black hair that was long enough to pass her waist, she was as tall as Fido but what was strange was, instead of shackles or chains she was wearing a straitjacket covered in large apple thick chain links binding her arms to her side. On her back was a backpack sized pad lock that also served as reinforcement for the muzzle she wore on her face; probably to keep her from biting others. Irid’s face paled slightly at the sight of yet another of the “strange creatures” let alone being locked in with one.

The Diamond dog looked her over in exchange with a slight hint of a sultry look in return, “Like what you see?” to which Irid took the meaning, blushed, and looked hurriedly away.

She laughed at Irid’s embarrassment, “Relax pony, you’re not my type. I am Wolfs Bane, daughter of the lord of silence by the way. Friends call me Baney.”

“Nice… to meet you… too… I am Iridescence T. Wind… nicknamed Irid for short…” was her reply back, blush slowly fading and still avoiding eye contact.

It was a long while before the awkward silence that had devolped was broken. Bane from lack of caring to speak to the pony, and Irid was just fidgeting awkwardly in place not quite sure what to do at this point. Twig was looking between the two with a look of interest that slowly faded to boredom then to that of sleep as nothing continued to happen with the two to engage her interest. Irid felt as though hours have flown by before a dirty grey pegasus who wore an iron around their bodies keeping their wings clamped to their sides and a sign that read P-19 came and pointed at her, "U-119. your with me for today. Master Pete has decided that your to learn your chores for the duration of your... Residence... here."

The pegasus unlocked the door and waited, Irid stood up recongising the name U-119 as the same one on her sign and she stood up and uncertainly followed the pony out of the cage to which it was relocked immediately after. The pegasus turned to leave towards a stone building and Irid felt herself dragged magically by the shackles on her hooves with the pegasus.  Before she knew it she was inside the rough abode. The floors were filled with dirt and brown waste that smelled suspiciously of dung and urine, and somehow even the walls and a few spots of the cieling had the brown spots. In the middle of it all was a table with the largest pile of what looked like Petrified and hardened Dung that was larger then the rest.

The pegasus stopped and turned to Irid a slight look of distaste on his face before speaking in a slightly disgusted tone, "All you have to do is clean the Bathroom, Living room, and the Masters Denn. You needn't worry yourself about the other rooms in the house, I and the other sevants take care of those. A guard will routinely check on you every few minutes, any slacking off on your part will see you punished by Paddling on the first offense, and Lashings of slowly increasing amounts on the next offenses. Any questions?" Irid opened her mouth to speak but was interupted as the pegasus began again, "No? good. Mop and bucket in the door next to the one you came in, Water outside near the well, Manure pile outside to the left.  I am also assuming you know where the floor is. Yes you do it by hoof, no unicorn magic unless your a Personal servant to the Master, even then you shouldnt be able to cast any spells with the brace the master put on your horn. When your done put the cleaning supplies away and report back to me for inspections. I will be outside by the time you finsh this... Mess. Simply Consult the daily guard who shows up when your done with all that."

With that the pegasus trotted out with a look of worrying distaste on his face, Slamming the door shut behind him and leaving Irid alone to clean up the mess of Dried dung and urine. Irid forced herself to breathe as a waft of the disgusting scent hit her nose, "friendly sorts... wasnt he..." she spoke to herself and partialy to a dirty sign that read "livE nO eviL" which was slightly comforting as well as another sign that read a bit less sensical, "eniviD si hcraeseR ruO"

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A third of the way through, her mop, had broken from how thick and hard a lot of the dung was so she was forced to use a rather well kept shovel to hack and break it up. The dung was almost like stone a few inches in. what looked to be a simple task at first had now proven to her to be hours of back straining work, She tired quickly but became used to picking up speed as a guard poked his head in every few minutes to watch her work before leaving her back on her own. It was now, hours later that all that was left was the finally cleaned table. Her nose had started to bug her for a while though about the smell, it was rancid, sure; but the smell was slightly off her mind told her again and again but then again. she didnt recall what it was supposed to smell like for these Dog like creatures. As she finally began cleaning up the last portion of the room, under the big central table she noticed that while the top of the table had been dirty to the point where it was stained brown on the top and sides the bottom was still a grey metal, the only waste on it was what seemed to be a message of letters arranged in a mess of badly written words with a short handed scrawl of what was written in a scrawl completed with an arrow pointing from right to left.

.lla slaever dna sedih cigam, eil a si ecalp sihT

The message made her pause with wonder and thought, It was the same type of writing style as the sign that was on the wall. The writing was almost like a puzzle, Irid thought. She dipped a tip of her already dirty hoof into the bucket for some of the sludge and wrote as the arrow had depicted backwards while reading aloud to herself, "This... place is a lie...."

She smiled to herself, "well so far so good..." then redipped her hoof into the bucket to refresh it and continued, "Magic hides and reveals all." Curiously she read it to herself once more and double checked remembering it. Something about that line had made her mind suddenly curious about trying the restraint on her horn. Theoreticly, she supposed, that The clamp halfway up her horn wouldnt actualy halt her magic, since it formed along the base and outward. Another, recently formed part of her mind awnsered internaly, But Master said we werent supposed to use magic.

One little spell couldnt hurt right? her curiosity spoke, afterall nopony is here and the guard isnt due for another few minutes...

No means no. the currently clouded part of her mind awnsered back.

Oh come on! somethings fishy here! Irid's curiosity spoke out with a note of plea.

wait... am I... Aruging with myself? Thats it im doing it. Irid closed her eyes and focused.

Magic  began to flow from Irids tired hooves and mind and up into her horn breifly flowing up the horn before splitting off into the air halfway, the air was tinted less than normal due to being cut off before full Dispersion but slowly it began to tint to her normal magical energy as more splashed off the brace into the air. With the feeling of magic running through her head and out of her horn Irids mind, previously clouded unbeknownst to her and probably the untold countless others who had doned the shackles pete had made; began  to clear rapidly, the voice that had been rejecting and ordering her to obey the master faded as well as the smell of grim and dung fading. Instead a new smell filled her nose, the smell of Dried blood and rotting flesh filled her nose and Irid was forced to open her eyes.

The brown in the room had faded, in its place there was a dark red tint of blood stains along the walls and floors. Where flies had previously been landing on dung were now landing on small remains of rotting flesh and bones. her eyes widdened. The tables words were now reversed, hers was backwards and the blood scrawled words repeating the message she had just written down with the arrow facing instead of right to left now facing the other way. the proper way to read. She looked at the blood covered signs a feeling of revulsion slowly creeping up her stomache. Instead of the words she had saw previously she read aloud quietly to herself in shock, "Live On Evil... Our Research Is Divine".