“Open 33A!”

A flat, harsh buzzer rang out and the heavy metal gate slid to one side, locking into place with a loud, metallic crash and letting her advance into the interlock.

“Close 33A – Open 33B!”

The guard at her side stamped a rear hoof and flicked her ears impatiently, waiting for the gates to rattle and slam into the correct configuration to let them pass. They took a flight of stairs down to a low, whitewashed corridor lit with harsh white lights that led through solid rock to the old mustering yard by the jetty. When they passed through yet another interlock she felt the sudden change that she always felt coming through here, as the hubbub of close-on 300 Earth ponies and Unicorns – no Pegasi, who were all held over at Foalsom, near Cloudsdale – all talking and singing and shouting and moving around was abruptly cut off like flicking a switch, and the noise she was so used to that she didn't even notice became an absence so big that she couldn't ignore it. Funny that.

The guard led her on again, keys jingling loudly at every pace, and she hurried to keep up with the tiny, mincing steps you always took when you were wearing hobbles. Any movement outside the cell block or the exercise yard always meant hobbles, and years of the monthly trips back to the mainland to see visitors meant that she was accustomed to them. Not long now. Not long now.

The guard stopped at a metal-bound door and thumped on it with her hoof. “Through here, Inmate. They'll return your effects and then I'll take you down to the boat, and you're done here.”

“Thanks, Jingles. You're all right, you know that?”

The first time that she'd met the guard, she'd assumed that the name was a nickname, or slang for the guards whose steps always jangled with the large keyrings they carried, but in fact it was her name. Jingle Belle. Jingles was one of the better guards, and most ponies tried to keep on her good side. Well, the ponies with sense in this place, anyway.

She got a tight, distant smile. “Yeah, well. You want to thank me? Don't let me see you in here again.”

“I sure ain't planning on it,” she chuckled nervously.

The door clanged open, and she stepped through to find herself at one end of a large room filled with shelves. Her side of the room was barely two ponies wide between the wall and a long counter. A mesh screen ran from the counter up to the ceiling, broken only by a window in the middle where a chubby old grey Unicorn stallion sat waiting, drumming his hooves idly on the scarred counter.

Jingles passed him a clipboard. “Hey, Slider.”

“Hey Jingles, lookin' good, kid,” the stallion replied in a thick New Yoke accent. He scribbled messily on the clipboard before peering closely at it. “Inmate 1047? Ya, I got dis somewhere.”

He slid off his stool and slouched away into the maze of shelves which rose to the ceiling, piled high with anonymous cardboard boxes. She tried not to let her impatience show as the minutes ticked by. Patience was something she'd had a lot of practice with over the last few years, so why was it so hard now?

The old stallion wheezed his way back to the counter again, a box clutched in his magic. “Ya, here we go. Lessee... 1047. Ah, okay.

“One hat. Stetson. Worn.

“Saddlebags. One pair. Apple clasps.”

He droned on, listing the few items that she'd brought with her so long ago and the things that she'd acquired during her time on the Rock. Letters, mostly. Her family wrote every week, her friends most weeks, too. It was the thing she'd come to treasure more than anything else, in here.

Finally, the stallion tipped the box over and shook out the last four items. “Shoes. Iron. Four. You want I should get Lump Hammer down here? He'll fix 'em up on ya. Might take a while, though.”

She looked down at her heavily-chipped, flaking hooves and bit her lip. Shoes were dangerous things, sure enough. Dangerous in their own right as well as being something an enterprising inmate could turn into a tool or a weapon, but the lack of them on the concrete floors played havoc on the inmates' hooves. Cellblock Hoof, they called it. It got bad enough on some of the older inmates that the hooves split right up to the frog, could even cripple them if they weren't careful. Maybe she'd wait. Maybe, in a few days, she'd be able to go to the spa with her friends. She used to laugh at them, getting all preened and primped-up like, but a hooficure sounded like heaven right about now. And the company would be indescribable.

“No thanks. I'll take 'em with me,” she mumbled hoarsely.

“Ah, okay.” The stallion dumped the pile of belongings back into the box and pushed it across the counter to her. As she hoisted it onto her back he huffed and added, “Stay outta trouble, kid.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Huh, dat's what they always say,” he muttered, unimpressed.

They left via the door they had come in and followed the corridor to its end where a final, massive gate stood. The Portcullis, they called it, made of magically-grounded iron bars as thick as her hoof. Despite the heavily-pitted surface of flaking, dark red-orange accretions from years of exposure to the elements, they were even stronger than the rock they were mounted in. No inmate had ever passed the Portcullis without a key, try as they might with magic or tools.

Jingles produced such a key and unlocked the wicket gate. The old mustering yard was deserted apart from the occasional seagull, a flat, featureless square of crumbling concrete penned in by high wire-mesh fences that permanently sagged outwards around the posts through the constant force of the easterly wind. That wind was blowing now, scouring around the tall, lighthouse-capped headland away to the right and driving the swell into San Franciscolt. Right where I'll be. Just a little longer.

Her nostrils flared, sucking in the salt-laden air as she gazed hungrily at the city, picking out the familiar landmarks that tantalised the inmates with their lure of freedom and normality. A few had tried to escape over the years – none had ever made it. The current would sweep away any Earth pony who tried to swim for it, and the channel was too wide for anypony excepting the Princesses to teleport. Well, the Princesses and Twilight Sparkle. Ponies still talked about the time Twilight blinked into existence on the loading dock and walked up to a speechless guard to nervously announce, “I'm here to see Applejack. Terribly sorry, but I think I must have missed the boat.”

The thought of the boat jogged her mind, and she said aloud, “I don’t see the boat anywhere?”

Jingles shrugged. “You won’t, not for another hour or so. You’re taking the mail packet; they don’t need the steamer for you on your own.”

“An hour?!” Applejack blurted before she could stop herself.

Jingles raised an eyebrow. “What – you’d rather have been late? C'mon over here, maybe we can get out of this darn wind.”

Jingles let them both through the interlock onto the jetty, which bore a long, low shed and ended with a loading crane. Applejack huddled up beside the building and after a few minutes of boredom, her mind began to wander.

It was hard to believe that she was leaving all this behind. She was so locked into the daily cycle that the thought of breaking that cycle actually scared her a bit. She smiled to herself, thinking back to her first day on the island. They had paired her up with a ‘Trusty’ named Ember, a skinny, pale-yellow Unicorn with sunken, furtive, addict’s eyes, to show her the ropes. There was no sign of her cellmate so after a brief rundown of the routine in the mares’ wing she found herself in the dining hall being introduced to the delights of Alcatrotz’ catering. They had just taken a seat at one of the long rows of benches, Ember muttering sullenly about bran and oats again, when she felt a presence at her shoulder and looked up to see a muscular Unicorn sneering down at her.

“You’re in my spot.”

“N-now, Donna-” Ember began, only to shut up with a tiny squeak when the other mare turned her glare on her. Applejack looked at her for a moment, taking in the scars on mare’s face and the thick metal sleeve over her horn, and decided not to make trouble. Wordlessly, she shoved her tray half-a-dozen places down the table and went to join it. Just as she was taking a seat, she heard the same pony’s voice.

“What do you know? That one’s mine as well.”

There were a few snickers from around her, and she noticed that Ember had somehow managed to vanish. Her fraying nerves put her in no mood for games.

“Oh, come on! What are you, six?” she had burst out in exasperation. “Y’all want to pick a fight? Well, that’s just dandy – go do it someplace else!”

The Unicorn to a quick pace towards her but was forestalled by the voice of a one of the guards. “That’s enough, Inmate. Now take a seat, and don’t let me catch you bothering this inmate again.”

The Unicorn glared at the guard, then turned and stomped off.

“Hey, thanks.”

The guard looked surprised for a moment. “Yeah, well. Stay away from that one; she’d bad news. Ember, get your skinny flank back here before I get your yard privileges revoked. Trusty, my flank!”

Ember slunk back over to the table, her ears flat back. “Yeah, thanks Deadlock. You really-”

“Oh, save it. I got my eye on you.”

Donna – or as she quickly learned from Ember's low, terrified patter, Belladonna Coeur le Pone – was one of a number of toughs who battled to be queen of the pile in Alcatrotz. Alliances between those ponies and their assorted hangers-on, who were either looking for thrills or protection or even just a sense of belonging, were tenuous and mostly short-lived, but Donna was easily the most formidable through force of sheer craziness until she ran into an Earth pony who was very short on talk and long on abrupt, whirlwind violence two years later. She hadn't seen it happen but she'd seen the blood. They'd all seen the blood, and she wasn't the only pony to have nightmares in the following weeks.

In the mean time Applejack trod a very careful path, keeping her head down and avoiding all of the various factions as much as possible while she settled in. She was aided in this by her cellmate, Barley Twist, a broad-hipped, middle-aged, dark-blue Earth pony who seemed to regard the new inmate's naivety with a mixture of bewilderment and cynical amusement.

She came to theorise that there were three general types of prisoner in the maximum-security prison of Alcatrotz. Firstly were the bullies. Loud and brash, they took glee in intimidation and threats, and had a tendency to start fights just for the rush, or even for something to do. Next were the victims; the ponies broken by life to varying degrees. They were the ones who crept around the shadows, who sidled up to the bullies looking for protection, driven by the herd instinct. They could also, on occasion, snap into frothing, howling violence over some trivial thing important only to themselves. The last and smallest group were the relatively normal, who found themselves inside through some sort of momentary aberration. They generally avoided the other two groups and got a fraction more leeway from the guards, who had keenly-developed sixth sense for trouble and tension between their charges.

She would have put her cellmate firmly into the last category during the three and a half years they spent together. Right up until last night, in fact, when a casual comment left her wondering just how naïve – and how lucky – she had been. It had been nothing, really, just a promise to send a Hearth's Warming card.

“Huh, maybe ya can drop by the farm sometime when ya get outta here.”

Barley had given her a long, long look. “You never asked me what I was in for, did you?” she asked eventually.

Applejack had frowned. “Nope. One of the first things they told me; never ask. If somepony wants ya to know, they'll tell ya.”

Barley had laughed humourlessly. “True enough. Well, they won't ever be letting me out. You wanna know why?”

Her smile had become an ugly thing, but Applejack couldn't resist nodding.

“I killed somepony in Reino.”

“What?!"

“Ha! I knew you wouldn't believe me. You're still greener 'n grass!. Wasn't worth it, 'cause they threw me in here, but what can you do, right?”

“But why? I mean, it musta been some sort o' accident, right?”

Barley shrugged. “He annoyed me.”

It wasn't the words that shocked her, it was the utter indifference in Barley' voice – and the cold, pitiless gleam in her eyes.

“I've done a fifteen-stretch so far. The Parole Board ain't interested in me 'less I 'show some remorse', give 'em the usual sob-stories. Well, let me tell you – I beat that worthless son-of-a-mule's head in with my bare hooves, and I sleep just fine at night. Just fine.”

Back in the present, she felt a shiver which had nothing to do with the biting wind. Even now, part of her wanted to believe it was all a lie, the sort of game that inmates tended to play for many reasons, but she knew the ring of honesty when she heard it. Barley hadn't been lying, but was it the whole truth? She mulled the question over in her mind for a while, before the rasp of a hoof on concrete gave her an idea.

“Hey Jingles – can I ask you a question?”

Leaning against the shed at the landward end and idly kicking fragments of grit into the sea, the guard looked over at her warily. “Go on.”

“What's Barley Twist in for?”

Jingles' brows narrowed further. “Your cellmate? Huh, what did she tell you?”

“She said she killed somepony.”

“Really? That's new. Usually it changes on a weekly basis. I guess she musta liked you.”

She felt a tiny seed of hope. “So she didn't?”

“Oh, she did, all right.”

With that, Jingles turned her head to look back out to sea. After a minute, Applejack cracked.

“Come on, Jingles, don't leave a gal hanging like this!”

The guard's face twitched in annoyance. “You don't get it, do you? You never have. All right then, sure. Your good buddy Barley Twist killed somepony, all right. She made an excuse to her work colleagues one afternoon, walked back to the place she was staying, and beat the tar out of her landlady's father. A harmless old coot who could barely get out of his wheelchair. When the cops turned up, she was standing in the kitchen covered in blood and drinking carrot juice from a carton – and all she said was, 'What took you so long?'”

Applejack simply stared at her, her jaw hanging slack. Jingles smirked and turned away. After a moment, Applejack found her voice.

“An' nopony thought to warn me?!”

“You're on Alcatrotz – who did you think you'd be bunking with, Marey Poppins?” Jingles let her splutter incoherently for a moment, then continued. “You were probably safer with her than anypony else, to be honest. She's got a lot of previous but it was all violence against stallions. And seeing as you and all her other cellmates have come out in one piece, I'd say we were right.”

Jingles squinted over towards San Franciscolt. “Huh, that looks like the boat. Either way, ain't your problem no more. I reckon the best thing you could do once you get off this rock is to forget all about it. Go back to Hicksville and stick to saving the world with your buddies.”

Applejack's head reeled with protests and rebuttals, but the guard's words struck a chord with her hard-learned sense of self-preservation and the incoherent mass of words died in her mouth. Don't make trouble for yourself! Another hour and you'll be off this rock.

She forced herself to turn away and instead watched the mail packet's tortuously-slow approach, circled by hopeful seagulls whose shrill cries carried clearly to her and were answered by the island's own birds. Why do those things come here? They could go anywhere – anywhere – yet this place draws then back. Is it the island? Is that what will happen to me?

Another chill danced down the nape of her neck. I ain't ever comin' back here! I'll make sure of it! she told herself fiercely, but she couldn't help the traitorous counterpoint that wormed into her head despite her vehemence. This place changes ponies. It must do. Just how much has it changed me?

That disturbing thought left her staring pensively out across the heaving water, but the shimmering horizon brought her no answers. She was only dragged from her melancholy by a mare's loud voice hailing the island, and she looked up to see the mail packet carefully nosing its way alongside the jetty. Jingles caught a line thrown by a stallion on the deck and hooked its looped end over a thick iron bollard before repeating the trick at the back of the boat. It wasn't clear if it was wind or tide or waves or even the brawny deckhoofs, but in short order the weathered little boat was bowsed up tight alongside the jetty and a gangplank slung across.

“Mail for ye,” grunted a squint-eyed green unicorn as she stepped ashore. “This the inmate for release?”

“That's her.”

Applejack tuned out the inevitable paperwork as she was signed over like one of the letters in the heavy canvas bag which one of the deckhoofs was hoisting aboard using the jetty crane. The task was completed remarkably swiftly and after exchanging it for one from the bowels of the boat, the deckhoof was trotting back past her onto the boat again when she heard Jingles say, “No offence, but I hope I never see you back here again. Stay outta trouble, Applejack.”

Almost... almost. “Thanks, Jingles.”

She wobbled her way down the tiny gangplank, trying not to think of what might happen if she fell between the lurching boat and the concrete jetty, and braced herself against the now-familiar sickening disorientation as the boat was freed to make its return journey. One of the deckhoofs was watching her with amusement.

“Remember; throw up to leeward, and try not to fall in, 'less you're part Seapony, cause them hobbles are heavy and it ain't easy to turn this tub around.”

“Gee, thanks a bunch,” Applejack groaned, trying to ignore the sudden flutter in her stomach that his words had set off.

She had made this trip many times before, as once a month the prisoners who had visitors – and who hadn't lost their privileges through some misdemeanour – were shuttled back to the mainland in groups to meet their anxious friends or relatives in a heavily- secured bunker on dockside. Being so far from Ponyville it had been almost impossible for her family to get away from the farm to visit her, but her friends had done their best. Rarity and Fluttershy had made it quarterly and written weekly, although Pinkie Pie's exuberance had managed to get the party pony banned after her first visit had nearly caused a riot. Rainbow Dash was her most regular visitor; no matter that it was a little easier for her to make the trip, having wings, she had ignored distance, money, and the demands of her increasingly-busy and high-profile life to ensure that her best friend wasn't left hanging. Applejack wondered if she'd ever be able to tell her just how much she'd come to treasure that absolute, unflinching loyalty.

After her infamous first visit, Twilight had made it only very intermittently since. Rarity's letters confided that their purple friend had become rather erratic in her habits, spending long periods in Canterlot or shut away in her library interspersed with abrupt disappearances which resulted in her dejected reappearance a week or more later. All enquiries had been gently rebuffed with a promise to explain 'later' – and both Rarity and Applejack drew the same conclusions about their friend's unexplained excursions.

The journey this time seemed utterly interminable, and she found her patience severely tested before she was led up onto solid land again where she was able mutter a brief, heart-felt vow never to set hoof on such a contraption ever again. That patience was strained even further by the agonisingly slow progress through the processing facility where she was identified, examined, and reminded at length about the conditions of her parole, restrictions on travel, and all the other minutiae which served only to delay her as much as possible. The only thing that kept her temper in check was the terrifying fear that any protest or complaint could land her back on that accursed rock again. Finally – finally – after one last admonishment to observe all the conditions of her parole, she was allowed to sling her saddlebags over her back, pull her old hat down over her ears, and was passed a bag containing a hundred bits and a train ticket to Ponyville. The rasping thump of the stamper as it marked “Released” across her file was one of the sweetest sounds she'd ever heard.

She stepped gingerly through a heavy iron door and passed through one final checkpoint in the high, barbed wire-topped fences. As the gate clattered shut behind her, she closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath full of the smells of smoke, and toasted barley from the cereal factory nearby, and bread from a bakery, and a thousand others all commingling, the scents she had caught once or twice on the island when the wind was in the right quarter. It had been enough to make some of the old timers cry, and she knew why. It was the smell of freedom.

To her left lay the jetty bearing the rail depot on which she had arrived three and a half years earlier. To her right lay the glittering downtown San Franciscolt waterfront. And in front of her...

In front of her was a small cluster of ponies at the jetty's end. The massive red stallion she'd know anywhere, his normally-placid face split with a wide grin. The filly – halfway to becoming a mare, now, a right pretty one if the photos did her any justice – all long, awkward legs and flowing red hair. Time hadn't been kind to the wizened green mare but she was there all the same – and was that who she thought it was, pushing the wheelchair?

She set off towards them with an eager shuffle, but the awkward, jolting impact of the hobbles on her legs didn't come. She was free. She was free. Her strides lengthened into a full, joyous gallop, tears streaming back from her eyes as she raced towards freedom and her beloved family.