The air oozed thickly with scents long ago promoted from odor to stench while driplets of water drummed methodically against naked stone. The yellow-brown liquid seeped over everything, this far underground, damping the floor and crusting the walls.
Rusting the bars.
The unicorn shook himself and stretched in the shadowed recess, dragging his chain in a stilted circle before returning to his decaying bed of straw. Answering clinks and gratings stirred in the darkness, but he did not look up. There was no point.
The shadows pressed around him. Perhaps around the others, too; the clinkings had stopped and now only the familiar dripping of water disturbed the silence. New arrivals screamed and shouted at first, when they were dragged in, or cursed at the orderly hoofsteps that marched through the invisible corridor twice a day, but sooner or later the darkness and silence always won.
The unicorn rested his head on his hooves and stared at nothing, remembering sunlight. This was how he spent his days--planning and dreaming. All in vain, of course. There was no point in planning for the future when your future was a darkened cell. He would never taste sweet sugar again, never feel the caress of magic around him, never gallop in a grassy field, never be able to kick one of his captors square in the--
He sat up. Far down the corridor, something flickered, a bobbing ball of light getting stronger. The unicorn scrambled to his hooves, nearly tripping over his chain as he pressed against the rusted bars to drink in the light. The lantern-bearer was a half-grown colt, tilting his head upward to expand the pool of illumination and casting anxious glances at the adults following him.
One, a white earthling draped in heavily scaled barding, strode between the rows of cells without sparing a glance for the ponies who cowered away from her or threw themselves snarling against their bars. The other, a blue-toned unicorn, walked with more reluctance, grimacing as his hooves sank into the unidentifiable muck layering the floor and shying whenever a prisoner spat at him. But he followed the guard and the colt until he was in the midst of a particular cluster of cells . . . standing close enough that one unicorn, one who neither spat nor cowered, noted that a faint smell of soap wafted from the visitor's glistening coat. Clearly this was not just the monthly straw-changing.
The mare's helmet flashed in the lamplight as she turned to her companion. "These are the ones you'll be interested in, Tidal."
"These are all?" The blue unicorn's eyes darted over the cells. "You're sure?"
"These are the only cells in the dungeons which are magically bound," the earthling said drily. "You would be unlikely to find a unicorn in any other kind."
"It does not leave much of a choice," Tidal muttered.
"How unfortunate that our selection leaves something to be desired." The guard's lips peeled back in something that could've have been a smile, if less teeth had been showing. "Most unicorns have enough sense not to end up here." She did have a smile as she said that, looking the blue unicorn up and down, but her smile wasn't pleasant.
He shot her a scowl and moved towards a cell that contained a white-maned unicorn who rocked back and forth, humming tunelessly. "What about this one?"
"Ah, Tesseract. One of our most powerful unicorns. Also insane. They often get like that after a few decades." Her lips quirked. "It must be the food."
"That's no good. I need one with full command of her faculties. Or his," he added as an afterthought. In a matriarchal society, females always came first. "Someone who will cooperate." The blue stallion snorted, then made a face. "For the love of the Rainbow, how do you stand the smell?"
"You'd be surprised how it grows on you after a while."
"What about one of those?" The sweep of Tidal's hoof took in several consectutive cells.
The guard sauntered over, giving a nod to each cell. "Insane. Violent. Violent. Violent. Insane. Hmm . . . looks like that one's dead. This one . . ." She stared through the bars at the chained unicorn, the one who waited, gazing expressionlessly through his mask of filth. No point in pretending he wasn't interested in them. No telling what they wanted. "This one . . . maybe . . ." The guard sounded uncertain.
"He's violent?" the other unicorn suggested, edging away from the bars a bit.
"No. And he is sane. As far as I know. But . . ." The earth pony gave the captive that sideways look again, measuring him. "He's more dangerous than you know. Choose someone else."
"We're looking for ability, not moral perfection, Verge. We don't need him to guard the treasure vault or help old grundles across the street!" He turned towards the prisoner, whose expression had not wavered an instant during the exchange. He was watching. Waiting.
"Chameleon?" Tidal asked, squinting at a rusted placard nailed precariously over the names of the cell's previous inhabitants. The green-grey unicorn nodded silently.
Tidal stepped closer, blue eyes glittering. "How would you like to be free?"
"Yes." "There is a price," Tidal warned . . . but Chameleon was already laughing.
There was always a price.
Sometimes he set it himself.
