Fo:E Xenophobia

Chapter One: The Zebra Stable
"Oh dear. Is it really that bad?"

Escape.

The floor of the old Stable maintenance closet was cold and slightly damp. Before me were some tools I 'borrowed' earlier from the PipBuck technician's stall. A small electric lantern sat next to them casting the only light in the small enclosure.

Getting away was difficult. Even with an invisibility cloak it is hard to conceal yourself when your every move can be tracked via your PipBuck. I needed to act quickly. I clenched the technician's key in my teeth and hastily unhinged the Pipbuck from my foreleg. That was step one. Once I had removed the device I began working on disabling the internal tagging system.

Disabling this feature was no easy task. However my father had found a way to bypass the tracking device inside thus rendering the user off its prospective radar. Doing so was not only troublesome but it was considered a serious crime to the High Priestess. A twist here, a flick there, and then I carefully tweezed the tiny transmitter out of the console.

I cursed the ponies who designed these things. Multiple tools were necessary needed to manipulate tiny parts. Clearly working on these was intended for the magic of the elitist unicorn ponies who probably designed them. Such obstacles presented no match for the will of a zebra. Once the tagging signal was disconnected I was free for at least a little while longer.

Bypassing the tagging system was not without some loss. It resulted in many of the PipBuck's features not functioning properly or in some cases at all. E.F.S. (Eyes Forward Sparkle) was offline and the map just froze not being able to recalibrate its position. It was also tied into the inventory management spell. This was not much of a loss considering the only items with me were my PipBuck itself, an apple, the technician's tools, the lantern and my cloak. Those and the jug of Humble Bumble honeywine I picked up earlier.

*** *** ***

Previously this morning I slogged out of bed greeted by a hammering migraine. The wailing cries of our two foals echoed in the steel and concrete room escalating the pain in my skull. I buried my ears in the pillows. My eyes winced tightly as I brought a hoof to my brow hoping I could somehow massage the throbbing away. Fatigued and nauseous I sat up on my haunches resenting the night for ending so abruptly.

Xanthe was awake and tending to the morning feeding and changing needs of our foals. Even amidst performing these common domestic chores she was exceedingly beautiful. The pale straw colored hue in the whiteness of her stripes made her shimmer in the dour glow of the Stable lighting. Her tail was smooth, lengthy, and flowing. Her mane was grown out so it hung lazily around her forelocks and crest. Her glyph was a cross whose branches spun into clock-wise spirals. It was elegant and unconventional as she was. Even though she was scolding me her voice rang with a dignified purity.

"You are going to be late Zythus," she spoke forcing a glower. "The High Priestess will not have any more tolerance of your continued work delinquency."

This was going to be a long day.

Without a word my ears drooped and my face seemed to drag across the floor. I made a half hearted attempt to groom myself while standing before the narrow mirror in our austere little living quarters. My coat was in need of a wash. My tail and mane were becoming coarse, tangled, and overgrown. The pale blueness of my eyes listlessly stared back in my reflection.
Soon Xanthe would leave to take Xelous and Quagga to her parent's quarters. Xanthe's mother was kind enough to foalsit for us while we worked for her father at the meadery. Soon she and the children would be on their way. I could forgo another wash for a few more minutes in silent respite back in our bed.

I dozed off.

I was jarred back into the world of the conscious as the alarm on my PipBuck kindly notified me I was once again late for my work assignment. I silenced the ringing only to be reminded that my migraine was still stampeding on in my head.

"M-I-G-R-A-I-N-E?" I heard a voice in my head chortle, "Now that is a funny way to spell hangover."

I groaned forcing myself out of my cocoon of sheets. I staggered wearily onto all four hooves with the chill of the floor to greet them. An apple along with a bit of sweet honeycomb was left plated for my breakfast. I flipped the apple into my saddle bag and scooped up the honey with my teeth. The familiar ceraceous and sweet taste of the honeycomb coated my mouth. Swallowing the honey I spat the left over wax back onto the plate. I tossed my saddlebag over my back and dashed out the door in a burst of provoked adrenaline.

I stumbled clumsily and half asleep through the dull interior of Stable Forty-Seven. I was unable to avoid the several cross glares from my fellow tribe members as I grazed past them in my frantic gallop from the dormitories to the industrial quarter. I narrowly avoided crashing headfirst into one of the older tribe mares who scoffed visibly as I darted around her. I passed through the domed expanse of the atrium I came across a pair of stallions hauling carts full of stone towards the Stable entrance from the mining expansion below. Worn and bedraggled I trotted as swiftly as I could to the former Stable storage room which now housed the Humble Bumble Meadery. The smell of sweet honeywine filtered through the metal door in front of me. The hall was now empty except for me and the expanse of grey that made up the walls.

I wondered if the dreariness of our Stable was some kind of cruel joke the ponies who constructed it were playing on us. Combine the black and the white of our striped manes and you make grey. Did they think that because of the style of our coats we would just simply be accustomed to the blandness of it? Either way I felt sure that the pony Stables were far more diverse, brightly colored, and considerably more inviting than our own. Feeling slightly burned by this thought my foreleg lifted to open the door.

Xanthe, her father, and the other two mares who worked for the brewery would already be inside. I cringed at the sharp pain still lingering in my head after another night of solitary inebriation. I knew I was about to be greeted by another chastising from Xanthe's father. He would tell me again how I was not even fit to brew his meads, let alone be a mate for his daughter, and the father of her two foals.

I breathed a heavy sigh. He was right...

"No." I whispered as I pulled my foreleg away from the door. "Not today." I decided in shame.

Peering down both halls to be sure the no others were around I tugged the invisibility cloak from my saddlebag. I slung it about my body and was shrouded in its enchanted aura. Quietly I slid the door to the Humble Bumble open. The sounds of hissing steam, the sloshing honey, and water combined with the ambient hum of the lighting was enough to divert any attention from my entrance. I inched towards the closest jug of honeywine then slipped my muzzle out for just a moment to grasp it in my teeth. I pulled it inside the veil of my cloak and began to backpedal out the door. I slid it closed wholly unnoticed.

I could not deal with my work assignment today. I loved Xanthe and it hurt me knowing I would be disappointing her again. It was too much stress. I did not even enjoy brewing mead anymore. I used to but now I only seemed to enjoy losing myself in it. The feeling of confinement got to everyone in the Stable from time to time. Some just handled it better than others. I was not sure when or why I started drinking. I imagine sometime after the birth of our first son. My parents never drank, that I knew of. I imagined them as the kind of uptight folks that would act as though they were above such petty indulgences.

A few weeks ago I was summoned to my parents suite for a brief period of simulated family togetherness. The whole time they were preoccupied. I could not imagine the nerve of them since they had called me in to begin with. I could have stepped out at any time and I doubt either would have noticed I had gone. Instead I downloaded some audio recordings from my father.

I broke into his personal terminal in their relatively plush living quarters. He had carelessly left the green monitor running and I managed to copy several files to my PipBuck while they were discussing some 'new development' to which I was not privy to in the next room. Sometimes brilliant minds like theirs lacked simple common sense like locking your terminal when you were not in use of it. Or perhaps they just assumed I would never have had enough interest to give it a second thought.

Mother was the finest alchemist in our tribe. Father was a doctor and a scientist and when he was not doing either of those things he loved toying with PipBucks. I had developed an interest in them too, well at least insofar as using them to escape my increasingly monotonous life. Many of the audio logs contained all the information he collected while dismantling and researching them. It was lucky for me one of the first chapters I listened to contained instructions for deactivating the tag emitter.

Under the concealment of my cloak I hastened my pace from the Humble Bumble to the nearby PipBuck technician's stall. The technician's apprentice fortunately was out of the office more than likely on some unrelated chore. The technician himself sat eyes fixated on some centuries old periodical. The magazine he was ogling featured lewd pictures of now hundreds of years deceased exotic pony mares. How any self respecting zebra could be driven to such depravity was simply disturbing. Despite this his distraction made even my mediocre thieving skills a mere trifle. I slid a set of tools silently into my saddlebag and crept out the door. A small electric lamp sat near the entrance of the stall. I wrapped my tail around its handle and snapped it up on my way out.

*** *** ***

I spent the next several hours locked in the maintenance closet fiddling with my PipBuck. I had placed its earbloom over my ear, and was listening to my fathers audio logs. I had eaten my apple breakfast and consumed nearly half the jug of the honeywine. I was smiling through the screwdriver in my teeth. My hooves moved fluidly filled with sense of purpose. A rerouted wire here an adjusted a spell matrix there. Each new discovery led me to even more new inquiries. My thoughts moved so fast that they struggled to keep pace. I was hardly able to focus on one task at a time. My hind legs shook with energized anxiety. I was lost in an exhilaration that the voice in my head lacked the words to define. I felt the guidance of my father wrap around me as if he were right here. He was sitting over my shoulder teaching me how to unlock the hidden potential of this wondrous arcano-tech device. His logs spoke of overcharging the lamp's spell matrix to emit a bright flash of light. In another he discussed an add-on he built that could be used to pick conventional locks. He even had notes on a project that he was working on that allowed a PipBuck to interface directly with its users nervous system. The swell information was overwhelming. It was impossible to keep from becoming distracted. I was straining just retain any amount of what he was saying. I know it seems foalish of me but in a peculiar way it felt like my father and I were actually spending quality time together. I was happy.

I had the tools but regrettably with no spare parts there was little I could do in the way of constructing any of the modifications my father's research yielded. I had managed to tweak the PipBuck's external lamp spell to emit the blinding flash of bright light if for only an instant. Using this did cause the light to burn out temporarily. The lamp would go dark for several seconds while its spell matrix recharged. It was a small victory but I was more than satisfied that I was gaining a grasp of the technology.

THUD THUD THUD!!!

My time was up...

I heard the slamming of hooves on the exterior of the closet door. I knew a security detail would eventually find me. I scrambled with an inebriated clarity (or in a drunken stupor) to reassemble and reattach my PipBuck before the guards were able to open the door. Luckily there were several keys for them to go through buying me a little time.

"Zythus!" a mares voice hollered from beyond the locked door. "We know you are in there. You are ordered to come out peaceably. It would not be wise to anger the High Priestess more than you have already."

Click.

I had barely managed to snap the PipBuck into place when the light crept through the opening door. In a final act I wrapped the tools in my invisibility cloak and tossed them into the farthest corner of the closet. The advanced stealth cloak concealed the sound of the instruments hitting the floor.

I could scarcely make out the silhouettes of two tribal guards in security barding against the glaring brightness of the Stable lighting behind them. I felt the rush of hyperactivity I enjoyed while playing with my PipBuck sink under a new tide of despair. I slumped against the closet wall and took the last bit of sweet mead to my lips. I do not even remember hitting the ground before the guards had to drag me away.

*** *** ***

"Zythus! Have you gone mad?" I heard my Xanthe in a worried shout from beyond the bars of my detention cell. My muzzle hung over the rim of its ceramic waste receptacle. The rampaging stampede in my skull was now worse than it had been this morning (assuming it was the same day). I glanced at the chronometer on my PipBuck. Apparently I had been here for a quite some time.

Not many of the tribesmares have experienced being locked away here. The High Priestess and her council had little patience for disobedience in the tribe. Not many were bold or foalish enough act against her will. I was however becoming more accustomed the ascetic scenery of the detention cells. The irony was that the design of these holding cells were not all that dissimilar from that of the dormitories. They were just much smaller, had fewer amenities, and offered even less privacy.

I groaned feeling another bout of sickness beckoning from my gullet. I stretched my neck over the edge of the bowl and heaved whatever remaining honeysweet foulness I had left into it.

"Honestly I do not know what has gotten into you as of late." she said masking a whimper with her steadfast poise, "You have been ignoring your work, ignoring me, and worst of all ignoring our foals. I want to help you Zythus but I fear I do not know how."

The sincerity in her voice pierced me hard and deep. I wanted Xanthe to hate me I wanted her to tell me she was giving up on me. She did not deserve the heartbreak I was causing her. I was not worthy of the concern she gave me. My eye peered out from bowl I was hunched over and saw my lovely Xanthe quivering. It took all the composure she could muster to hold back her tears. Do not cry Xanthe - I did not merit your tears.

I am sorry...

It was a pathetic response. It was unworthy of her. I was attempting an apology but the truth was I simply stating a fact. I was sorry. A sorry excuse for a husband. A sorry excuse for a father. I was even a sorry excuse for a damn zebra. The High Priestess should just leave me in here, let me die, and rot away in this prison. Everyone in the tribe, Xanthe, Xelous, and Quagga would all be better off if I was never allowed to leave this cell.

My ears hung down as I fell back on my haunches. The world of my little grey cell began spinning wildly around me. My eyes grew heavy and my mind blanked. I barely made out the muffled shriek my Xanthe cried out as I fell unconscious again. My body crashed down onto the cold stony floor.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Tail Trick -- Allows you to use your tail as prehensile limb, capable of handling or throwing small items (much like a hand).