The first thing that Braeburn noticed when he came to was the sensation of lying down on a cold, hard floor.  When he opened his eyes afterwards, he saw that it was very dark and light only came from two places, a large overhead light that was mostly hidden behind a large stone wall and a pair of smaller, glittering lights that seemed to blink out every once in a while.  Despite the dim light, something was very clear; between Braeburn and the lights were a set of iron bars and a dark-furred unicorn guard with a spear held at his side with magic.  Braeburn lifted a hoof to his head to find his hat and vest were gone.

Braeburn groaned and slowly stood upright; his stomach was still in pain and he felt like he was going to vomit.  Braeburn looked around his cell, hoping he could find a glass of water or at least a sink; he found both, in addition to a small window and a small bed with thin sheets and a small pillow that was just big enough for him to lie on.  Just outside the cell was a clock currently set to just after four o’clock.  Braeburn took up his glass of water and drank the whole thing before settling himself down on the bed, almost immediately feeling his stomach settle.  He felt so weak that he didn’t try to fight against the guard when he came over, unlocked the door, and took the empty glass out of the cell before locking it again.  He soon disappeared somewhere behind the stone wall, but Braeburn could hear him speaking as though over a phone or radio.

“Blueblood, sir, sorry to disturb you so early.  This is Guard number one-seven-six calling to inform you that the prisoner Braeburn has woken up.  Yes, he did drink the whole glass of water.  There’s still about two hours until breakfast is served.  …I understand, sir.  I’ll let the cook know.  And what about the other one?  Do we feed him as well or does he get the minimum?  Yes…  yes…  okay, I’ll let the cook know about him, too.  When are you going to be coming around?  Before breakfast?  Okay.”  Then the guard’s voice stopped and he returned to where Braeburn could see him.

The next hour passed slowly; Braeburn couldn’t tell if it was because of his stomach or the fact that he was restless and should have been doing something.  Even when his stomach did calm down, he soon felt himself gain a violent migraine that racked his head and made it near impossible to stand up.  When he tried standing up, he became dizzy and the urge to wretch was stronger, and so he lay back down on his bed.  The guard ended up bringing him another drink of water, but this one Braeburn didn’t take.

Braeburn felt he must have dozed off eventually as he was later awoken by the sound of tapping against the iron bars of the cell.  The room was a little lighter from light starting to come through the window and Braeburn could easily make out the figure of a tired Blueblood standing at the entrance of the cell.

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” Braeburn said.

“Not quite,” Blueblood replied.  “There are still a few things I need from you.”  A white pony with a nurse’s cap appeared from behind the wall as the guard opened up the cell with his key.  “I can’t have you dying on me.”

The nurse came over and set up a small amount of medical supplies on the rim of the metal sink and started placing something around Braeburn’s forehoof.  Braeburn lay on the bed as the nurse asked him questions about what he last remembered eating (“Root beer laced with moonshine.  Two of them.”), did he feel any pain (“What do you expect after someone takes a revolver handle to the stomach?”), and if he had vomited (“Not yet.  But I have a hell of a migraine and expect to soon.”).  After checking Braeburn’s blood pressure, eyes, heartbeat, and mouth, the nurse pulled out a small syringe and stuck it into Braeburn’s forehoof.

“The nurse is giving you a pain reliever,” Blueblood explained as he walked into the cell.  “You’re beginning to regain strength, as shown by drinking the water, but I’m not going to risk you having a pill and either vomiting or choking quite yet.  This will spread quickly and hopefully you’ll be strong enough when breakfast comes around to eat if only a little.”

“You certainly are taking care of me for me being in prison,” Braeburn said.

“Like I told you, there are certain things I still need from you.  I need you to be strong enough.  I was going to question you today, but I think I will wait a few days until your strength is returning.”

“Sounds like it’s more than just information you want from me.”

Blueblood shrugged.  “Now, I’m going to give you a little schedule for your time here.  Breakfast will be served at six-thirty, at which point you will be woken up.  At seven-fifteen, you will be given a chance to relieve yourself, then you will be tasked with chores until lunchtime at one.  When lunch time is over, you’ll be given another chance to relieve yourself, then will be doing chores until dinner at six, after which you will be given a third chance to relieve yourself, then you go back into your cell.  At nine o’clock you will be given a final chance to relieve yourself, then it will be lights out at ten.  This schedule will begin today and will last so long as you’re here.”

“And how long will that be?”

“However long I decide.”

“Have you decided yet?”

“You think that I will tell you?  I won’t even know until I get all the information I need, which will take however long you want to give it to me.  And even then, whatever that conversation reveals will add something new to the situation, namely how severely the punishment is.”

“Punishment?  You act as though I am the only one who has done something wrong.”

Blueblood’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t strike out as Braeburn thought he would.  “It is highly likely that you won’t see me for a few days.  I will be giving out orders as to which chores you are to do, but it will be the guards who give you the orders and oversee your actions.  Do note that any attempt to escape will result in immediate force.”

“Is there going to be anyone else working with me on this?”

“There are three others, one of whom you will be interrogated alongside when the time comes to see if we can’t get the full story out of you.”

Braeburn said nothing, though the glittering lights in the cell across from him seemed to shrink back to within the dark corners until they were almost gone.

Blueblood stepped out of the cell and the guard locked the door.  “Breakfast is in one hour,” Blueblood said once the door was firmly locked.  “I would recommend you get some rest before then.”

Braeburn didn’t have the strength to argue with him anymore.  He simply turned around and faced the stone wall as the guards left the room and the overhead light was turned off.  He heard the sound of a large metal door shutting as he closed his eyes and fell into a light, fitful sleep.

When a pegasus guard came around and tapped on the iron bars to wake him up, Braeburn felt much better and much stronger.  He got himself up and stretched himself out, giving his legs and neck a slight turn and cracking to make sure they were all back to normal.  His stomach had also settled and he no longer had a migraine and was for the first time aware that he was still in the prison cell; the time passed before was almost like a dream to him from the grogginess of the hangover and the pain from being hit in the stomach with the handle of a gun.

The guard seemed to be in no rush; when he saw Braeburn was awake he went and started tapping on the other cell across from Braeburn and didn’t rush him out.  Braeburn quickly went over to the window and hoisted himself up to see outside.  He appeared to be on either the second or third floor of a building inside the compound outside Appleoosa; the town itself could be seen in the distance over a large wall.  Braeburn figured that nopony would be able to tell it was him inside the cell even if they were close and also had the thought that no one had known of the invasion of his farm the previous night.  As for chances of escape, the guards that originally seemed sparse were swarming around the outside of the compound.

“Get down from there!” Braeburn heard a gruff voice shout; he turned and saw the guard was looking at him and immediately settled himself down on the floor again.  The guard unlocked the door and motioned for him to come out.  A unicorn with a cutie mark of a police baton was outside with a metal chain that was looped around into a hole just big enough to fit around Braeburn’s head.  The chain was slipped on him with ease and the unicorn gave the chain a pull as he led Braeburn out of the area with the cells.

From the cells, Braeburn was led to a large dining hall where other members of the guard were eating.  Here, the unicorn escorting Braeburn led the stallion to a place at a table at the back end of the room and had a plate of food set in front of him: eggs, toast, and apple slices with a glass of milk.  Braeburn picked up one of the slices with a hoof and inspected it, smirking as he recognized the cultivar.

“Funny,” he said to no one in particular.  “I’m one of three Apple family farmers who grow the braeburn apple, and the only one to not export them.  This must be one of the ones I grew last season.”

Braeburn felt a hoof smack the side of his muzzle and a sharp sting of pain as he keeled over; he wasn’t as strong as he thought yet.  “No one asked you about where the food came from!” came the equally sharp voice of the unicorn that had escorted him.  “Eat and be done, then it’ll be time for your chores.”

“Don’t punish him too much,” came the voice of the pegasus guard from the prison block; apparently he had been asked to escort Braeburn and the other prisoners now filing in, approximately eleven of them all sitting at different tables with their backs to Braeburn so that he didn’t recognize any of them.  “Blueblood has specifically asked for this one to be treated with care.”

The unicorn growled and grabbed Braeburn’s hair, pulling it so that the stallion was face-to-face with his.  “Blueblood may want you treated lightly,” he said through gritted teeth, “but don’t expect me to go easy on you.  I’ll treat you like I do any other prisoner here.”

“I’m guessing you must be the warden of this here joint,” Braeburn quipped, trying to act as though his mane being pulled didn’t matter to him.

“You got that right,” the Warden said.  “And that means you follow my orders.  I may have received these orders from Blueblood himself, but around here I interpret what he wants; my word is law and you’d better follow it.”  He released Braeburn’s mane and pushed him back down, causing the stallion to have to pick himself up yet again.  “Now eat.”

The Warden didn’t speak to Braeburn again throughout breakfast, though he did look in his direction often and the pegasus guard made sure he didn’t strike Braeburn again.  It was unusual for Braeburn to receive such special treatment as a prisoner and he knew it; Blueblood likely had something planned for him later on when he did come around to speak with him.  Braeburn ate cautiously and at a relaxed pace, though he finished the food before some of the other prisoners.  His plate was taken away and soon Braeburn’s chain was picked up again by the Warden, though he wasn’t pushed or pulled anywhere.

At seven-fifteen, Braeburn’s chain was yanked and the Warden led him and the others to a bathroom.  Three of the prisoners were allowed in at a time to relieve themselves; Braeburn was among the second group.  Each group of three was escorted by a unicorn guard armed with a small black pistol with a silencer attached to the end.  The three did their business and washed up and the unicorn would lead them back out.  The Warden himself escorted Braeburn’s group of three, and Braeburn found after spending all night in the cell he needed to use the bathroom.

Having to go was not the issue.  The bathroom itself was dirty and filthy, with grime everywhere.  The inmate before Braeburn hadn’t flushed so the stallion needed to flush it himself before he used it, and even then he covered the seat with a layer of toilet paper so as not to get himself dirtier than it had been.  Braeburn finished as quickly as he could and simply rinsed his hooves when told to wash up.  After the last prisoner had finished, The Warden escorted them all out and waited for the other groups to finish.

“Alright,” the Warden said addressing the groups.  “Your first job this morning is to go in and clean up the kitchens.  We’ll be watching your progress and making sure you get everything sparkling clean.  Let’s go!”

Braeburn was led back into the dining hall and through to the kitchens where he was assigned to cleaning the large amount of dishes left over from the morning meal.  Others found themselves cleaning the ovens, while others were taking care of the counters, and still others were cleaning the floors.  Braeburn kept quiet as he went through the stack of plates nearest to him, carefully rinsing, soaping, cleaning, and rinsing again before passing it off to someone else to dry.  The work was long and soon Braeburn found it monotonous, spending hour after hour cleaning what may as well have been the same plate over and over again.

By the time lunch rolled around the job was finished and the group was ushered out into the dining hall once again and fed lunch, a small salad and half a sandwich.  Then came the bathroom break and the prisoners were split into two groups of six.  Braeburn’s group stayed close to the bathrooms with the pegasus guard and the Warden overseeing them, while the other six went and followed a few other guards somewhere else.

“Alright, men, we’re cleaning these bathrooms today,” the Warden shouted.  “Three per bathroom, one for the men and one for the women.  You’re going to scrub the toilets, the stalls, the walls, the floor, and the sinks until not one drop of grime or dirt remains.  Get to work.”

Braeburn and two other ponies started cleaning the same bathroom they had just used.  Braeburn took a mop and started mopping the floor, then when that was done went to work on the toilets.  This work took less time than the kitchen duties, but the Warden was always pointing out mistakes they had made; grime left on the bottom of a seat, water stains left on the side of the sink, the soap they used to clean being left on a wall.  The pegasus guard was much more tolerant and let some of them pass, but the Warden constantly disagreed with him.

When the work was done, Braeburn was shuffled off to the outside of the building and into the hot afternoon sun, where he was given more cleaning supplies and he and the other five ponies in his group were instructed to clean the windows on the first floor of the building.  This was done for a longer time than the bathrooms until an announcement came around that dinner was starting in five minutes, after which Braeburn and the others were taken into the dining hall for dinner, then to the newly cleaned bathrooms for a chance to relieve themselves again.  Afterwards, Braeburn and the others were taken back to the prison block and placed in their respective cells.  Only then did the Warden leave and Braeburn was left alone.

Alone except for the glittering pair of lights in the cell across from him.  The lights came up to the bars and actually revealed themselves to be another pony, one with a dark brown coat and a black mane and a dagger covered in barbs for a cutie mark.  “Braeburn…?” he called out to the stallion in a rough baritone.  “Braeburn?  Is… is that you?”

It took a moment for Braeburn to recognize the stallion.  “Cold Steel?”

Steel nodded.  “I didn’t think they’d get you so quick after what happened.  Who found you?”

“Blueblood,” Braeburn said.  “Surprised me in my own home one night after I returned from the bar.  I probably could have fought them off if I hadn’t been drinking.  I woke up here with a massive headache feeling sick.  What about you?”

“That bastard Captain Lancer found me,” Steel said.  “I don’t know what happened; all they knew was that I worked on helping dig the trenches around the trees; no one seems to know of the involvement of your princess friend.”

“Someone must have tipped them off about the work above the dam,” Braeburn replied.

“But who?” Steel asked.  “That princess didn’t seem like the type to go squealing if she was in a job whole-heartedly, and her friend is your cousin and she wouldn’t do anything to family.  Then there’s that youngster and his family whose father was thrown out the window.  And Coal Dust didn’t even know about the dam.”

“That doesn’t give us much to go on,” Braeburn said.  “But whoever it is, they must be the reason why Blueblood’s guards all have guns now.  Haven’t you seen them?  They’ve ditched all their spears and started going after guns.  That, or the sight of the revolver has sent a few of them into a panic.”

“But again, who could have thought up the idea?”

“Blueblood himself could have done that.  I pointed the revolver at him.”

Steel looked shocked, but then he became stern and nodded.  “Bastard deserves it with what he’s done to my home.  If you had pulled the trigger, I bet none of us would be in this situation right now.”

“Yes, but we’d be answering to Princess Celestia,” Braeburn replied darkly.

Steel nodded.  “Yeah, I suppose this is better.  Hey, do you think that princess friend of yours is going to get us out of here?”

“I don’t think she knows about the imprisonment.  My house isn’t exactly in Appleoosa’s main part, and it happened at night, so she might not have gotten word.”

Steel groaned and stretched himself out.  “Well, I suppose I’m going to sleep.  Damn guards are slave-drivers; my joints hurt like hell from having to lift a bunch of stupid pieces of heavy metal this afternoon.  Don’t worry, Braeburn.  I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Braeburn nodded and went to sleep himself, though it seemed like only minutes before the guard was once again tapping on the iron bars of his cell.

The schedule lasted for three months before Braeburn got a call to see Blueblood.  During that time, the stallion had become thinner and his eyes were starting to sink in.  His face around his eyes was wrinkled from multiple restless nights and his muscles didn’t seem to be able to hold as much as they could anymore.  His coat and mane were dirtied with the grime he had cleaned off of other things and from his own cell.

He was called to see Blueblood at lunchtime.  The Warden brought him over to a pure white room with a large table in the center.  Braeburn was told to lie on his back on the table, and wasn’t surprised when they buckled him so that his hooves couldn’t move from the table.  It was only when he was secured in this position that Blueblood himself came in, pulling up a chair next to Braeburn’s head so that the stallion could see him.

“It is most unfortunate that we should be seeing each other like this,” Blueblood said.

“Cut the small talk,” Braeburn said.  “It’s about time we get to the bottom of this.”

Blueblood clicked his tongue disapprovingly.  “I was going to try and be nice to you, but it seems you would rather I go straight to the point.  So… where are the deeds to Appleoosa and Dodge Junction?”

Braeburn smirked.  “What took you so long to ask?”

“I’ve sent multiple groups of guards out to the farmhouse to see about what happened to those documents.  Now, I’ve had some insider information from a pony in Appleoosa that said he had seen you with the documents at some point and thought he might know where they were based on your goings on before you arrived here.  However, despite all that occurred and all that he told us, we were unable to find the deeds.  As you are in prison, I could let you out early and lighten your sentence to a mere year if you were to tell me immediately where the deeds are.”

Braeburn snorted.  “Tell me who gave you the information and I’ll tell you where the deeds are.”

Blueblood lifted up a black police baton, standing out against the white of the room.  With a flash the baton had descended across Braeburn’s forehooves and caused the stallion to wince in pain.  “I don’t believe you are in a position to bargain,” Blueblood said.  “And given your past promises to date, I don’t believe you for one second.”

“If you don’t believe me for one second, then why has your insider not told you that Twilight Sparkle was the one who dropped the dirt and the boxes into the ravine to create the dam that flooded the orchard and your shaft?”

Blueblood blinked and opened his mouth as though to respond but no words came out.  Instead of offering a response, he merely slammed the baton down across Braeburn’s forehooves again.

Braeburn gave a cry of pain before turning it into laughter.  “Is it because you knew that prosecuting Twilight for such a thing would get you in trouble with Princess Celestia?  Is it because you knew that if anything happened to her favorite student, she would come down here and investigate and find out about the deeds and Dodge Junction?”

Braeburn cried out in pain three more times as Blueblood hit him again and again with the baton, only to keep on laughing once the final cry had subsided.  “That’s it, isn’t it?  You’re afraid of losing your position and your power so you cut off the escape route of the one that could expose you, then didn’t prosecute her because someone would get word to Celestia.”

Blueblood growled.  Braeburn kept laughing and Blueblood’s growl turned into a roar as he took the baton in one of his hooves and slammed it down on Braeburn’s hooves, then his sides, then his stomach, and once even on his head.  “Stop it!  Stop talking like that!”

Braeburn’s laughs turned into coughs as he sat on the table.  For a moment, he was barely able to breathe after Blueblood’s baton had caught him in the chest and stomach and it took every ounce of strength he could muster to keep from vomiting.  “So… who was the one who supposedly ratted me out?”

Blueblood was panting, though whether it was from anger or exertion Braeburn could not tell.  “A pony from Dodge Junction named Silversmith, a light grey pony with a silver mane.  He confessed everything he learned from his friend Cold Steel and told me he was the second accomplice in the act of constructing the dam, in addition to telling me to switch to guns to counter your own revolver.”

Braeburn laughed again, but went back to coughing when he found it too painful.  “Steel hardly did anything,” he said.  “The whole thing with the trenches was normal routine around here, and he helped dig them.  It would have stayed there if three trees didn’t go floating down the river due to a lack of attention and care.”

Blueblood kept panting for a little while, then coughed himself.  He turned away from Braeburn and faced the door.  When he did turn back around, Braeburn noticed he never made eye contact with him.

“You said you would reveal to me the location of the deeds,” he said.  “Where are they?”

Braeburn coughed and noticed he was coughing up blood.  “You want me to tell you in this condition?”

Blueblood looked him over.  “I believe we had an agreement.”

Braeburn smirked at Blueblood.  “You know how ponies in these towns can get.  We look like we’re weak and defenseless, but the moment you turn your back on us, we will stab you in the back then kick you while you’re down.  So here’s the kick: I’m not going to tell you, no matter how long I’m in here.”  And he coughed on Blueblood, streaks of red coating the unicorn’s otherwise pristine white coat.

Blueblood ended up being so repulsed by the fact that Braeburn had coughed on him and by the fact that he had blood on him that he didn’t even bother to hit Braeburn again.  Instead, two guards came in and set Braeburn on a stretcher and took him to the hospital wing, where he was treated for his coughing up blood and wrapped in a bandage.  He was monitored for two days and was sent back to his cell with orders not to work for two weeks.

Braeburn was happy for the break.  Over the next week, he stayed mostly in his bed and took pills whenever the guards came around with them.  Most of all, he was happy not to see the Warden again, though Cold Steel seemed to take most of the abuse now.  One night while he was still recovering, Braeburn told him of Blueblood’s confession of Silversmith’s part.

“That double-crossing bastard,” Steel said.  “He was on board to leave Dodge Junction when things started going bad.  I suppose he found Blueblood’s money more important than loyalty or his friends.”

“Yeah,” Braeburn said.  “I should have known something was up when he stopped associating with you before I left for Dodge Junction.”

There was suddenly a small sphere of light in between Cold Steel’s and Braeburn’s cells.  The light grew and grew until suddenly it exploded.  The two guards in the prison block were blown backwards as the light revealed itself to be a purple pony with a unicorn’s horn and a pair of small purple wings.

“Twilight!?” Braeburn exclaimed.

The guards started to recover, but Twilight lowered her horn and set it alight, soon firing two quick blasts at the guards, each hitting their prospective target and causing them to fall right where they stood.  Twilight went over to one of the guards and sorted through his pockets until she found his keys, then came over and started fiddling with the keys and locks.  It wasn’t long before both Braeburn’s and Cold Steel’s cells were open.

“What are you doing here?” Braeburn asked.

“Getting you out,” Twilight said.  “Quick, both of you grab on.”

Braeburn and Cold Steel wasted no time and soon both had clung to Twilight’s neck.  Before another guard could enter the room, Twilight’s horn had started glowing again and Braeburn watched the world around him melt away until he was no longer in the prison block but standing just outside Appleoosa.

“I feel I could kiss you right now,” Braeburn said as he looked at Twilight.

The unicorn responded with a slap to his face with a hoof.

“What the hell was that for!?” Braeburn exclaimed.

“You idiot!” Twilight said.  “You’ve been gone for three months now.  Applejack was getting worried about you ever since she felt bad for telling you off and you didn’t have enough sense to just stay with Applejack and me until you weren’t drunk anymore.  Not to mention the town is going crazy ever since you disappeared, with guards getting more and more aggressive and searching through your house like mad, though nothing seems like it was stolen; just upset.  Whatever you told Applejack about Blueblood getting his hooves on the land is mostly being proven true.”

“He still doesn’t have the deeds.”

Twilight stopped ranting and looked at Braeburn in confusion.  “Where did you put them?”

“In a place he’d never find them.  He said he had looked everywhere, but the time after he came around with the proposition for the mine shaft, I made a few adjustments and hid them away so that he could search the farm and never even see them.”

Cold Steel looked eagerly at Braeburn.  “Where exactly did you put them?”

Braeburn turned to Cold Steel with a smirk.  “I buried them under an apple tree in a wooden box.  Digging the trenches allowed me to hide the deeds away, then when the floodwaters came and deposited sediment over the land and filling the trenches, the box would be hidden.”

This time, Twilight brought her hooves around Braeburn.  “I think I’ll let you do more than kiss me,” she said suggestively.

Braeburn turned to Cold Steel, who simply gave him a wink and nodded before leaving back for Appleoosa.  Meanwhile, Braeburn walked Twilight back through Appleoosa and back to his farmhouse which was in almost the exact same condition as he had left it.  He took Twilight into the house and into his bedroom, laying down on the bed and allowing Twilight to climb on top of him before pulling the covers over them with her magic.  As the night grew later, Braeburn could hear Twilight moan as he kissed the base of her neck.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 - Appleoosa Settlement Estimated time remaining: 52 Minutes