Disclaimer: I do not own any of the following characters or places used from either My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or any of the Elder Scrolls series and each belong to © Hasbro and © Bethesda Studios, respectively. And thanks for making both an awesome show and awesome games.

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I always knew my mistake of a life would get me put in here.

The Canterlot City prison was a rather large facility, sitting next to the castle and having the ability to house several hundred prisoners at any given time. In recent years it’s seen a dramatic decrease in population due to things being peaceful for once around Equus. Not to say that there weren’t many inmates, a considerable amount still remained within, but most of those were very long sentences. The occasional petty crook or drunkard still managed to land in here once in a while, though. I had just happened to run a severe case of bad luck and stupidity.

I forcefully shook my head to keep myself from drifting too far into thought again.

I looked out the window and saw that it had started to get much darker, which signaled that it was time for me to try and sleep, one of the few things that hadn’t bored me to no end. As I began to lie down on the meager bench posing as a bed, I saw a faint glow in the now darkened sky that was too weak to be a sunset. I stood up on the bench and tried to stretch up to see if I could make it out better. It became a little less faint but still remained unable to be seen completely. This was too interesting to not try and get a glimpse of; it wasn’t every day that there were strange lights in the night. I jumped up while on the bench and my eyelevel rose to just above the bottom of the window and I made out what looked like the top of a fire coming from the direction of the city on the left side of my window. My guess was validated once I saw a pillar of smoke make its way into my view with a shift in the wind.

I wondered what kind of fire could have caught such a blaze. The response teams to building fires were usually instant. I stared out the window for another fifteen minutes or so, seeing if anything else would happen. The wind had eventually changed direction, removing the smoke from my view entirely. I ultimately gave up on the sight and laid back down to try and get some rest. I could try to get any information about the fire tomorrow from one of the guards tomorrow. I closed my eyes, already beginning to drift asleep. Off in the distance though I could have sworn that I could faintly hear shouts. I simply ignored it though. It was more than likely due to the fire and trying to get it under control. I felt my consciousness slipping away as I fell further into sleep towards another dull day.

WBAAAAM

The instant that I had opened my eyes I found myself to be flying upwards towards my cell door with chunks of rock and debris flying beside me as well. I had barely enough time to register my surroundings before slamming into the cell door bars. I felt myself actually sink into the metal bars and bend them slightly before falling back onto the ground.

When I regained consciousness, once again I slowly lifted my eyelids up before seeing a haze before me. The world spun about me haphazardly. I shifted my legs to stand up but only managed to stagger sideways before falling onto the cell door. I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind. I reopened my eyes to find the majority of the blurring in my vision had ceased. I worked my way back up to a standing position, using the cell door as a support.

I looked around for what could have launched me so hard that I dented metal bars. The only thing abundantly clear was the massive hole in what was once the opposite side of my cell where I was sleeping just a minute ago. Stepping towards the massive opening, I began to wonder if I were dreaming but ended up not bothering because if it was a dream, then it was one of the most exciting dreams I’ve had during the entire time I was in prison. I continued towards the opening until I came upon the threshold to the outside and discovered that I must have been too busy foolishly thinking none of this was real to look out and realize just the full scope of everything actually happening before me.

Canterlot was a war zone.

Reality came crashing down as I realized that it was no dream. A wayward spell or something must have come crashing through my cell. The section of the prison I was in faced Canterlot Castle itself, but, as I looked to my sides, I could see multiple fires coming from inside the city that burned brightly into the night sky. Distant cries of soldiers and metal clashing filled my ears, and I was frozen. I had never thought that a place like Canterlot, capital of Equestria, could have ever come under siege—not in my lifetime anyway. The sight of my home burning struck great fear in me. I may have been a prisoner of that home, but it was still my home and I cared greatly for it. But the question was who the assailants were. There had been almost no conflict in years.

My trance was instantly stopped when another object came up fast on my side and collided with me before I had a chance to really see what it was. It knocked me off my balance and onto my side—just like the wall did but with not nearly as much of an impact. I quickly recovered and looked over to see another pony on the ground beside me. As soon as I had spotted her, she too got up before continuing to run on as if nothing had happened. But before she made it too far away from me she started to yell, “Run you idiot!” It was then that I had realized where she came from. I saw that my cell was not the only one to be struck by something as I looked down the rest of the prison wall to see multiple penetrations in it with prisoners streaming out of them.

Not knowing where else to go, I followed her advice and ran in the same direction that the other prisoners were. The entire situation, being so sudden and confusing, rendered me to a mental state in which I couldn’t think straight, so I just followed everyone else. There were about twenty in total from what I could see. I could still see the castle peeking out just around the side of the mountain to my right, but none of the prisoners seemed to be heading there, as they were all running along the wall in the direction of the city. There they could probably hide out from the battle, at least better than out in the open. I still had little idea of what I was doing, so I just kept running and hoped for the best.

The burning city came into clearer focus as we neared its gates. I could hear most of the fighting coming from either further within or at the castle. Overhead I could see the occasional ballistic spell flying out from inside the city and crash into several areas outside, mostly the prison. The gates were open. The fires inside were much more distinguishable now as well. As the first wave of prisoners neared the entrance, what looked like two guards jumped into view and called out something unintelligible to me from my distance. Before I took another step closer, a squad of soldiers armed to the teeth filled in from either side of the street that lay just beyond the gates, forming a line with their shields raised, blocking the entire street leading into the city.

These must have been the prison guards that were conveniently absent from the prison as we were all escaping. They probably fell back to a choke point when they saw the prisoners heading for the city. Why they would be attempting to keep the prisoners under control at a time like this: I had no idea. The first wave of about four prisoners didn’t slow down as they slammed head first into the blockade of soldiers. The soldiers easily warded off the attackers by smashing their shields into them and knocking most of them out instantly; the rest looked incredibly dazed and no longer posed a threat to them.

The example of what happened to the first group of prisoners appeared to have no effect at all on the rest, as they continued to surge at the soldiers undeterred. The soldiers repelled them all as they pushed the prisoners aside or knocked them out entirely. A small pile of unconscious bodies began to form in front of the soldiers as they further warded off each new attacker while showing no signs of fatigue. The fact that there was another battle going on around them still didn’t seem to bother them either.

Being far behind all of the others and seeing this, I finally pulled myself out of my half-conscious state. I halted my sprint to a dead stop in search of an alternative path. There was clearly no way I could have made it into the city, and the path to my left would have only led to a dead end with the prison, leaving my only alternative to be towards the castle to find a way through and escape.

By the time I had set my destination, the prison guards had finished dealing with the last of the onrush. A few of the guards had apparently noticed me, as I had heard more shouts coming from their direction while I looked over towards the castle in search of an escape route. I turned my head back over to the guards. My heart jumped, two of them were barreling down at me. I contemplated whether I should run or just give up. The sight of the charging guards forced struck a chord though. I fled out of fear the because the whole fast paced and confusing situation since that spell had crashed through my cell left me relying on more base instincts. The instant I began to sprint off, I heard a new mix of shouts from my pursuers, ordering for me to stop. It was too late to stop now though. I had to keep going.

The panic and confusion began to cause a resurgence of energy within me. I could feel the vigor in my legs now driving me forwards, hear the sound of my hooves striking the ground repeatedly, and see only the way that I needed to go. I didn’t know how far back the guards were behind me, but I could still hear the somewhat distant shouts of cease and desist. I was glad that I didn’t have all so much heavy armor weighing me down, though I also wanted nothing more now because I wouldn’t last long if I actually found any of the fighting.

The stone path began to narrow and curve around the side of the mountain towards the castle. To the right of me now were Canterlot’s large pools of water, which flowed freely down the mountain. As I rounded the bend, I could start to see more of the castle being revealed. It became clear that it was also under heavy siege. Several of its towers were burning as brightly as some of the city buildings were. Visible sections of the walls had been damaged or destroyed as well as many other structural damages all over.

The field in front of castle was a raging battle with troops from both sides scattered all across, engaging each other. There must have been hundreds in the field. Whoever was attacking clearly was a force to be reckoned with. The massive gate leading into the field just outside of the castle (much further down) was in near shambles. I had to find a way around them—or at least a way to shake my pursuers amidst the chaos. I knew they were still following me too from the faint shouting that I heard from behind me slowly being drowned out in the din of battle.

The path was coming down right alongside the side of the castle. Straight ahead, I saw a large, round overlook hanging just off of the edge of the mountain. On it, I could see a separate ramp that curved upwards onto another slightly smaller overlook above it. Looking further, I found the bottom overlook to be of no use because the only way off of it was into the castle, and the entrance to it had been blocked by fallen rubble. The only option then was to go up.

I pressed on further, making my way down the rest stone path until I finally reached the first overlook and veered to the left slightly towards the ramp. It gradually curved around the circumference of the first overlook up towards the next one. As I was about to reach the second overlook, I looked down to see guards just reaching the path running along the side of the castle towards the first overlook as well. I hoped that I wasn’t running into a dead end as I finally leveled with the second overlook and was about to emerge onto it only to be halted just as I did due to hearing more shouts again, not from the guards though. It took a lot for me to stop so abruptly while running for my life, but the sight before me was more than enough.

At the opposite side of the overlook beside a set of closed castle doors were four figures—or rather two groups of two—facing off. Of the first two, one was a rather large and menacing looking dark red stallion covered in black and red armor and wielding a double-sided warhammer in his mouth, the other a blue, smaller looking cloaked mare at a ready stance with sparks emanating from her hooves. She was also levitating a very ornate looking box close to her and, from the looks of it, guarding it to the best of her ability. The other two facing them I had instantly recognized as none other than Empresses Luna and Celestia themselves, visibly radiating with energy, as they too were standing ready to react in an instant to anything.

“You’ve nowhere to run now, cultists, surrender the elements and retreat now while you still have a chance,” Celestia shouted, her voice barely audible amidst the chaos.

“You know what we want, and we will not leave here unless we have everything that we came for,” the cloaked mare responded.

“You will never have Luna or the elements. You know not the power that you deal with. And if you truly think that the Daedra care for their mortal worshippers, then you are all fools.”

“We know full well the power that we are dealing with here, only a mere trifle compared to the Daedra’s. And we know that they are on our side and support us, it is you who knows nothing. Nothing will stop us, not even the god’s champions.”

I must have completely lost my senses while I watched this unfold, for now the guards who were chasing me were but a small gap away now down the ramp. I gasped and jumped due to the shock of returning to my senses once more, causing me to fall over again. I must have caused enough of a commotion in falling to get the others attentions, as I heard a deep voice—I’m guessing from the heavy, hammer-wielding stallion—rumble, “Who is that?”

I got back up and saw all eyes pointed towards me now.

“I thought we made sure that we would get them alone,” the cloaked mare said with disdain and annoyance.

I looked over to both empresses to see them staring at me too. Something was different about the way that they looked at me. They too stared at me with surprise, but not in the same way that the others were. It was difficult to tell, but it looked as if they were looking at me as if I was someone they had not seen in a long time. I averted my gaze from them and shifted it back towards the other two. As I did, I saw their eyes panning back over to the empresses before taking advantage of the situation.

“Now!” the cloaked mare yelled out.

The instant that the cloaked mare yelled out, the other stallion charged at the empresses, but something else had happened just as fast. The box that the cloaked mare was levitating suddenly lit up with blinding white light as Celestia broke her stare and began to cast a spell just before the box exploded, sending out a massive shockwave  that, from what I could see, began to knock down all four figures before reaching me. The energy wave slammed into my chest, knocking the wind out of me while also sending me flying back and upwards. So far, in fact, that I eventually cleared over the edge of the overlook.

Time seemed to slow exponentially as I cleared over the edge. I flew upwards a long ways before finally beginning to fall—back first—all the way down. I fell past the first overlook that I was launched off of and saw my pursuing guards standing at the top of the ramp, turning back and watching me with awe as I continued downwards past the next overlook. The only thing that I saw now was the rock of the steep mountain and the night sky before turning over to see the incredibly long distance it was to the ground. Time grew faster now as the ground began to draw nearer and as the cold wind was beginning to singe me while my vision began to black out around the edges the faster I accelerated.

There was no way to escape this.

I was going to die.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 18 Minutes