Hello everypony. My name is The Brony Boy. And this is my first fanfiction, here on . I hope you enjoy my first attempt at writing a story. If you're familiar with the story of Les Misérables, then hopefully you'll enjoy seeing some of your favourite My Little Pony characters fill the heart touching roles of this musical masterpiece. Enjoy.
The air stood hot and windless as the rays of the sun beat ferociously against the unforgiving concrete of Appleoosa Prison. The prisoners slaved in the prison courtyard, the endless sounds of hammers and mallets striking hard, unbreaking rock being the only sound that permeated the otherwise ghostly summer atmosphere. Ponies clad in little more than rags and discarded potato sacks lifted the heavy instruments in their hooves, shattering as many chunks of rock as their weary bones could manage. Many of the dishevelled stallions wobbled on their hooves as their barely nourished bodies struggled to keep up with the work demand. Once in a while, a prisoner would tumble, his body aching from being forced to carry too much weight, or break too many boulders, only to be whipped to his hooves again by one of the prison's vile Diamond Dog officers. The looming shadow of the leading officer; Inspector Discord, hovered across the prison courtyard. The draconequus stalked among the prisoner slaves. A white colt watched the inspector stomp by. His face barely twitched as he saw the draconequus whipping the odd stallion into line if they so much as lifted a hoof out of place. The stallion's blue mane and tail hung matted and uncared for along his neck and legs. Three crowns adorned his flank and copious amounts of blue facial hair grew, wild and untrimmed, from his lip and chin.
"Look down! Look down!" The stallion warned his fellows as Discord eyed them eagerly for any excuse to get physical with them. "Don't look them in the eye."
"Look down. Look down. You're here until you die," the rest of the stallions replied. A dark grey Pegasus pony with a storm cloud picture on his hip wiped at his brow as he struck another rock.
"The sun is hot, like Tartarus below." He collapsed in a dehydrated heap, the hammer slipping from his grasp and clattering to the floor beside his head.
"Look down. Look down. There's twenty years to go." The other stallions ignored their comrade's plight, and continued their work. A pair of Diamond Dogs dragged the exhausted and dehydrated pony away. A brown unicorn with three pixelated emeralds on his flank looked at a sizeable rock with resentment.
"I've done no wrong!" the stallion declared, smashing the boulder beneath his hooves in anger. "Sweet Luna, hear my prayer."
"Look down. Look down. Sweet Luna doesn't care." The chorus of damned stallions berated the unicorn, knowing his foolish faith in Luna was wasted within the prison walls.
"I know she'll wait. I know she will be true." An orange Earth pony stallion with three blue horseshoes on his flank testified to himself, as he bucked a row of rocks, abandoning his pickaxe. His eyes misted over as he thought of his special somepony back home.
"Look down. Look down. They've all forgotten you," his fellows admonished. Nopony cared for crooks and scoundrels such as them. And with a standard sentence of twenty years of hard labour, no matter what crime you committed, one could hardly expect a marefriend, wife or even family to sit around twiddling their hooves as they waited for them to be released.
"When I break free, you won't see me here for dust!" a bulky, white Pegasus with a dumbbell mark on his hide shouted in defiance. He had been in this prison for as long as many of his fellow prisoners could remember, only having committed one felony in his life. The length of his sentence was barely spoken of, but there was little hope among the slave ponies that he would ever be let loose from this prison in the prime of his life, if ever.
"Look down. Look down. You'll always be a slave," the pony choir responded. "Look down. Look down. You're standing in your grave." This was a fact that was true for many. Once you went inside, you were forever treated as a dishonourable crook. No matter the crime; big or small, murder or petty theft, you could expect a minimum sentence of twenty years of hard graft in Appleloosa Prison. After your sentence was complete, should you live long enough to see it through, you received a yellow ticket of leave. This was, effectively, your "Go Back To Jail Free" pass back through the doors, should anypony so much as take a disfancy to you. If anypony suspected you of any crime, no matter how petty, it was back to the slave prison with you.
Inspector Discord looked at his pocket watch, which featured a caricature of himself in the centre of the face, his mismatched eagle claw and lion paw acting as the hour and minute hands. He lifted his paw and, with a flick of the wrist, signalled to the Diamond Dogs that the prisoners' work day was over. The dogs began rounding up the ponies and herding them out of the courtyard, back to their holding cells. The Equestrian flag, flapping proudly in the breeze, was slowly lowered. The Dogs uprooted the flag pole from its spot in the courtyard, then laid it out respectfully on the dusty soil. Discord watched the crowds of convicts slink past him, searching for one pony in particular. His eyes soon found their mark, as the blue maned stallion with three crowns on his flank walked towards him. The draconequus snapped his clawed fingers and summoned a cane, which he held against the stallion's chest as he came shoulder-to-shoulder with him. The white gentlecolt halted and glared at the draconequus. The officer met his gaze stoically, and without challenge.
"Retrieve the flag." He flicked his head to cast his eyes toward the flag lying on the ground, still attached to its pole. The unicorn turned, lighting his horn to ready his telekinesis to lift the wooden pole. He was stopped, however, when Discord gripped his horn in his eagle talons and snapped it from his forehead, using his chaotic magic to transform it into a bouquet of long stem roses. "Without magic." The inspector smirked as he gave the roses a sniff, taunting the unicorn-now-earth-pony.
The stallion glowered a second longer, but begrudgingly plodded across the sandy courtyard toward the laid out pole. The stallion lifted the flagpole onto his right shoulder, ensuring his jaws were firmly clasped around the rope that held the flag in place. With every burning fibre of muscle, the white pony dragged the towering pillar across the ground, keeping his eyes firmly fixed upon the judgmental glare of the draconequus officer, providing himself with a distraction from the aching protest of his muscles. After a dozen heavy stomps, the pole was dropped at the officer's mismatched feet, and the bouquet of roses was returned to the unicorn's forehead, reshaping itself into his treasured horn.
"Now, Prisoner Two-Four-Six-Oh-One," the draconequus declared, maintaining his air of authority with practiced ease. "Your time is up, and your parole's begun." With a snap of his paw, the police officer summoned a scroll in a puff of pink smoke. He held out the yellow parchment for the unicorn to accept. "You know what that means." The officer watched as the pony lifted the rolled-up document within a shroud of golden aura, unfastening the seal that held the papers in a neatly rolled bundle. He straightened the documents and quickly glanced at the words printed across the parchment.
"Yes. It means I'm free," the stallion declared with a triumphant smile. Nineteen years of servitude, and he was finally free to roam the streets of Equestria once more.
To the draconequus, however, this was not a satisfactory answer.
"No! It means you get your yellow ticket-of-leave." The draconequus snapped his paw, and a yellow ticket on a neck chain appeared around the unicorn's throat with a white pop of magic. "You are thief!" He glared at the pony with disapproval lacing his eyes. The stallion ground his teeth, insulted by the officer's judging gaze.
"I stole a loaf of bread," he retorted, defiantly pointing out the insignificance of his so-called 'crime'.
"You robbed a house!" The draconequus bit back, his eyes sharpening in warning at the stallion for talking back at him.
"I broke a window pane," the stallion remarked, more than irritated at the officer's insistence that the crime he'd committed was a felony worth punishing with death. "Sir, my sister's child was close to death," he tried to reason with the draconequus. "And we were starving-"
"You'll starve again!" The officer interrupted, straightening his back to appear more imposing upon the pony. "Unless you learn the meaning of the law."
"I know the meaning of those nineteen years," the stallion snarled bitterly. "A slave of the law." His eyes fixed themselves aggressively on the draconequus before him, giving the officer a challenging glare that showed no loss of fight.
The officer ground his teeth in agitation at the pony's arrogance. If the law were his to write, he would never let a single pony out of these unforgiving concrete walls. Especially uncooperative petty thieves like this one.
"Five years for what you did," he explained, in a matter-of-fact tone that provoked no questioning. "The rest because you tried to run." The pony shook his head, as if denying himself a much desired retort at what the officer had said. "Yes, Prisoner Two-Four-Six-Oh-One?" The uniformed draconequus challenged the pony, offering him room to speak, since he seemed so eager to talk, if reluctant to talk out of turn.
"My name is Fancy Pants," the stallion hissed irritably, his patience running dangerously thin at the officer's insistence of calling him by a designation, like a wild animal among an innumerable census, rather than addressing him by name.
"And I'm Discord!" The officer took a menacing step forward as he took the liberty to formally introduce himself to the defiant crook. To his silent annoyance, Fancy Pants didn't so much as blink at the intimidation attempt. "Do not forget my name." The draconequus snapped his eagle claws, and a small escort of Diamond Dogs flanked the paroled stallion, slowly leading him away at spear point, moving at a slow enough pace for the colt to hear the end of Discord's rant. "Do not forget me. Two-Four-Six-Oh-One." It was all the draconequus could do not to smirk victoriously as he saw the stallion off with a purely unaffectionate reminder of his, now legally official, title, much to the pony's chagrin.
With Discord's unfriendly farewells imparted, the Diamond Dogs picked up their pace as they led the pony away, and out through the heavy iron gates of the prison.
"Look down! Look down! Always a pony slave," the chorus of prisoners called out as they watched their, supposedly, freed compadre be taken away to the wide outdoors beyond the prison barricades. "Look down. Look down. You're standing in your grave." As he was marched out, Fancy Pants tried to ignore the nagging feeling drilling into the back of his skull that his fellows words were true. The yellow ticket-of-leave was little more than an entrance pass back into prison, no matter how little wrong you did once you were let out from your prison sentence. As the glaring rays of the summer Sun blinded the stallion as he stepped out onto the arid dust of Appleloosa, one of his escorting guards gave him a hard shove on the flank, nearly causing him to tumble face first into the choking dust. He managed to regain his footing, however, pausing long enough to glare toward the departing Diamond Dogs as they guffawed among themselves, as if making a stallion stumble was the greatest achievement they'd ever made in their lives. Deciding better then to dwell on their petulance, the stallion turned his gaze out over the dusty hill that overlooked the Wild West style town of Appleloosa. "Freedom is mine," he mused as his eyes adjusted to the glaring sunlight. "The earth is still. I feel the wind, I breathe again."
He picked up a pair of dog-eared saddlebags in his golden aura that had been thrown to the ground at his hooves at some point during his escort from his living Tartarus. He checked the bags' contents, and found with small relief that they contained what few processions he owned before committing his crime. Gingerly, he picked out a small monocle. Graciously, the glass lens remained unbroken; enchanted many years ago to withstand much rough mistreatment. Slowly, the stallion made his way down the hillside and into the town.
"And the skies are clear. The world awaits." Fancy Pants smiled to himself as he watched what little wisps of cloud that dirtied the skies of Equestria slowly rolled across the vast expanse of blue overhead. He turned to offer one final glance toward the prison that held him captive for the best part of his natural life with a sour expression, directed at those who ran the prison under a reign of tyranny and hypocrisy. "Never forget the years, the waste," he spat to himself, engraving into his mind the faces that haunted him for nineteen long and arduous years, and the horrific torture they subjected him to, without just cause. "Nor forgive them for what they have done. They are the guilty, every one." He turned away from the prison, turning his gaze towards the new horizon. And the new possibilities that awaited him. "The day begins, and now let's see," With a more powerful stride, the stallion made his way to the main town of Appleloosa, determined to make good of his experienced as a convicted colt, and silently vowing he would never live to see another day in that accursed prison. "What this new world will do for me." And with a fire in his eyes, and hope a song in his heart, Fancy Pants strode into Appleloosa, ready to face a brighter, more prosperous, future.
And so begins Les Misérable Ponies: Friendship is Revolution. Any and all critical feedback is much appreciated. Look out for the next update. Stay safe, everypony.