Dissero was only just beginning to appreciate how wet it got in Harmony City.

It had been hard to realize earlier, between being inside an airship and inside a prison, but now that he and Silver were outside, trudging their way through the limitless mud, their coats drenched under the endless rainclouds that were cast off by the Cloudwall before passing over the city, it was hard to ignore. Harmony was very, very wet.

The two stallions made their way slowly through the city, walking the mud paths with little sense of direction and scanning their surroundings for any sign of a source of food. Other ponies passed by, wearing long cloaks which seemed to be cut out of old airship balloons, their eyes tired and their coats drained of color.

“Not a very happy place, eh?” Silver said, nudging Dissero jokingly.

Dissero eyed him sternly. “This is serious, Silver.”

Silver shrugged, looking away. “Hey, alright. Just tryin’ ta lighten the mood. What’s that over there?”

The pegasus pointed with a wing, indicating a drooping stall constructed of an old table, some wooden posts and a sheet of heavy fabric. A bored looking earth pony sat beneath the fabric, her unkempt coat comfortably dry. She had some scrawny vegetables laid out on the table before her.

“Look’s like exactly what we need,” Dissero said. “C’mon.”

The two stallions approached the stall, dipping their heads in greeting. “How much for some, uh… sweet potato?” Dissero asked, scanning the paltry selection. He levitated a small coinpurse out of his mane, grateful for the laziness of the guards that had searched him.

The mare quirked a brow. “What’ve you got?”

Dissero frowned, exchanging a confused glance with Silver. The pegasus grabbed the coinpurse out of his magic, waving it around. “Aren’t you supposed to… I dunno, give us a price first?”

If the mare was offended by his tone she showed no sign of it, her eyes drifting slowly to the purse. “What’s that?”

“It’s, uh, bits.” Dissero grabbed the bag back, spilling a small pile of bits onto the counter. “To buy things.”

The mare stared at the bits in silence, seeming unimpressed. “What do you expect me to do with these?”

Dissero blinked, taken aback by her response. “Buy… things…?”

The mare snorted, pushing the bits away. “These little coins are worthless to me. Bring me something I can use and then maybe we’ll talk.”

The two stallions exchanged yet another glance, Dissero’s uncertainty meeting Silver’s annoyance.

“Okay, lady, look here,” Silver said, banging a hoof against the table. “We just now got in this joint, not even two hours ago, and me and my friend here are a little lost. Now how can a couple handsome stallions like ourselves get something to eat around here?”

The mare cocked her head, slowly looking up from her freshly scattered wares. “Do you have anything to barter? Something that might of fallen off an airship, or that you’ve crafted or grown yourself?”

Silver faltered briefly before pressing on, even more agitated. “Well, no, but what are we supposed to do? Sit around on our plots all day till something you like falls out of the sky and hits us on the head?”

After a moment the mare’s eyes widened slightly, as if she had just finished interpreting his earlier words. “You’re new?”

Dissero nodded firmly, pulling Silver back as he stepped in front of him. He hardly needed his friend’s impatience getting in the way now. “Yes. Please, can you help us?”

The mare began to slowly sort the vegetables back into order on the table. “Most of us do work for the Baron in exchange for food,” she said. She pointed over Dissero’s shoulder. “There’s the closest place you can find work. Most of the jobs open up in the morning. I’d get there soon if I was you.”

Dissero followed the mare’s pointing hoof, squinting to see through the rain. In the distance he could just make out the rigid, clean lines of a concrete building a few stories tall, rising above the surrounding shacks. It seemed to be separate from the other more traditional buildings, set in the midst of the makeshift shantytown instead of amongst the towers in the center of the city.

“Alright, thanks,” Dissero said. He turned to smile at the mare, but she had already looked away, her focus back on organizing her stall. He tried again, levitating a few bits out of the purse and leaving them on the table, but still she didn’t look at him. His smile faltering uncertainly, Dissero decided to just beckon to Silver and walk away.

Silver waited until they were out of hearing range before speaking. “You really oughta stop trying to be so polite, y’know Dissy?”

“To the contrary, Silver, you need to learn how to talk to ponies,” Dissero responded. “We’re lucky you didn’t offend that mare or we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with her.”

“I think it was pretty obvious we needed to try a more straightforward approach, and y’know what? I was right!”

“Oh, whatever.”

They lapsed into a companionable silence, Dissero leading the way through the winding mud trails, straining to keep track of the building through the rain and disorienting paths. As they grew closer to their destination the city grew more crowded, though never nearly as populous as it was outside the wall. He saw ponies pulling rickety wooden carts loaded with all sorts of trinkets and supplies, haggling over trades under the cover of their stalls, and even crafting clay pots in the thresholds of their homes. And though the Inner City was predominantly Equestrian, Dissero still managed to pick out a few zebra and a close-knit group of griffons.

Before long they arrived at an open stone courtyard watched over by a rectangular concrete three story building. An iron fence with firm stone posts surrounded the building, the only entrance guarded by a matching iron gate, currently open. Standing in the courtyard were a few ponies who, despite looking just as colorless and exhausted as everyone else Dissero had seen here so far, were noticeably chubbier. They stood with clipboards held or levitated before them and steel in their eyes, their loud voices traveling easily over the crowd gathered before them.

“Ten more ponies for sewer duty!”

“I’ve got thirty positions for the foundry! Foundry work open!”

“Looking for ponies with mechanical skill to work in the shipyards!”

“I need twenty strong backs to haul cargo! Put in some work and earn your meals!”

“Fifty spots in the mines! Extra rations!”

Ponies stepped out of the milling crowd, words were scribbled on clipboards, and the workers marched away in groups towards the center of the city, ready to work another day in exchange for food. Standing on top of the concrete building, partially hidden by the raised edges of the roof, were what looked to be heavily armored guards, their faces blocked by tinted glass visors.

“They look like some mean fuckers, huh?” Silver said, flicking his tail. “So now what?”

Dissero shrugged, looking around. “I guess now we go get a job.”

Silver grimaced, his wings fluttering with irritation. “We’d better get outta here fast, Dissy. I don’t like being made to work for some bastard just to eat.”

“You worked for me just to eat.”

“I don’t think I was really working for you so much as helping you run my ship.”

“Oh yeah?” Dissero allowed a small, mischievous grin on his face. “I guess that’s why I chose where we went, handled all the cargo and finances, decided when we made and left port, and had the only set of keys?”

“Now look here.” Silver put a hoof on Dissero’s shoulder, drawing him closer, his voice a faux mockery of seriousness. “Just because I know how to delegate, doesn’t mean you’re in charge.”

“Right, of course.” Dissero pushed him back playfully before started towards the building. “C’mon. Whatever we do, we’ll at least do it together. How bad could it be?”

They pushed their way towards the front of the crowd, debating along the way which job they were the most interested in or, as Silver put it, the least not interested in. Sewers they immediately agreed to avoid, on the grounds that being in sewers was bad enough without it also being foreign sewers in what was possibly the wettest city east of Canterlot. Hauling didn’t sound like it would be easy and they were hardly qualified as mechanically skilled, so those were out too. Dissero thought it was suspicious that there were so many mining jobs, and that the work paid extra rations, so they discarded that choice. By the time they had made it all the way through the throng of ponies, they agreed to sign up for the foundry. It sounded like it was the least physical of the jobs.

They approached the stocky, faded green unicorn stallion calling for foundry workers, Dissero clearing his throat. “We’d like to take a couple positions in the foundry.”

The stallion didn’t even bother to look at them, simply nodding towards the group gathered behind him as he made some marks on his clipboard. They placed themselves along the edge of the group, Silver’s tail flicking as he scratched at the ground irritably.

It wasn’t long before they were heading out, following the rest of their group towards the center of the city. After roughly twenty minutes of walking the group made it out of the shanty town, entering amongst the clean stone lines of the central core of the city. Despite the rainclouds, it was almost completely dry in this part of the city, so thick were the airships and towers above. They passed warehouses with teams of ponies straining to pull heavily-laden wagons in and out, and shipyards with the partially finished skeletons of airships within, the sounds of hammers and saws leaking into the streets as ponies scuttled around the scaffolding.

More of the armored guards watched from the rooftops, always in pairs, sometimes patrolling through the streets themselves. Now that they were closer, Dissero was able to pick out the details in their equipment. They wore layered plate panels, with chainmail visible through the uncovered areas around the joints. They walked with a strange mechanical stiffness, their tails completely shaved off, and it seemed like they were all earth ponies, as Dissero saw no sign of wings nor horns. Strapped to their sides were unusual instruments which Dissero didn’t recognize: they looked almost like muskets, but were shorter and slimmer than any musket he had ever seen, their smooth grey surfaces covered in strange runes.

Soon they arrived at the foundries, a collection of brick buildings each labeled with large numbers painted on in white. Dissero saw several other groups coming in from other parts of the city, scanning them hopefully, but saw no sign of his crew.

“Alright, laborers!” the green stallion began, his voice harsh and loud. “The good Baron’s been ramping up my quota this month, and y’know what that means? Means you’d better not even think of slacking or I’ll have you working twice as hard, and with no pay!”

He levitated his clipboard up to his face, making his way through the crowd, tapping each pony on the shoulder with a quill before assigning them to work either “up top” or “down below.” Dissero and Silver were both assigned to work “down below” and, following the lead of the other ponies, made their way into the foundry.

Inside the only light came from a few open metal shutters near the roof, the damp blue-tinged sunlight illuminating the heavy metal tubs and molds used for melting and shaping metal. “Down below” seemed to refer to the basement level, accessible by the narrow stairway set into a corner near the entrance. The basement ceiling was low, nearly low enough to hit Dissero’s horn, the room largely barren but for ten brick fire pits spaced throughout. Next to each pit was a wooden chute that came down from the level above, the wood stained black with coal dust. There were no windows here, the room dimly lit by a few sparse magelights.

The other ponies began to sort themselves into teams of two, one unicorn and one pegasus each, and taking up a station next to a fire pit. Beckoning to Silver with his head, Dissero led the way to a pit in one of the far corners, the two stallions waiting uncertainly upon arrival.

For a while, nothing seemed to happen. The noise of machinery and heavy objects moving came from above while they sat in silence, until suddenly the chutes began to rattle violently. Dissero was nearly crushed by the torrent of coal that poured out of the closest chute, leaping out of the way just seconds before the pile of coal landed on top of him.

“Woah, fuck!” he said, coughing at the cloud of coal dust kicked up by the fall.

Silver flapped his wings in an attempt to dispel the cloud of dust. He grimaced as more coal fell into the room from the other chutes, filling it with the black substance. “This can’t be healthy.”

Around the room, the unicorns began to levitate coal into the fire pits, igniting them with switches built into their sides. Their pegasi partners fed the burgeoning embers oxygen with their wings, nursing them into fiercely burning flames. The room began to fill with the acrid scent of burning coals, and Dissero could see many of the ponies covering their muzzles with old bandannas and soot-stained rags.

“Guess we’d better get started then,” he said, searching for the switch on their own furnace.

“Hey, woah, what’s the rush?” Silver asked, covering his muzzle with a wing. “Let these guys do the work. That overseer is upstairs.”

“They’re gonna notice if there’s no heat coming from here, Silver.” Finding the switch, Dissero levitated some coal into the pit and turned it on. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not gambling my food on the bid that nobody cares enough to make sure we work. Put your pride aside and flap.”

“Pfft, fine. I guess it couldn’t be that bad…”

As it turned out, it was that bad.

Load after load of coal dropped down the chute, load after load floated into the fire pit as Dissero began to develop the terrible aching head pain of magic fatigue. Silver was flapping near constantly to keep the fire going, the damp coals, sometimes dripping wet, doing little to help. The overseer came down with his clipboard, yelling threats of starvation punctuated with slaps about the head. Time passed by in a hazy twilight as the outside world fell away. There was nothing but the coal, nothing but the fire. Levitate, flap, repeat. The pain rising, building up like his head and horn were about to explode, the ache spreading from his shoulders to his wingtips and down into his very bones until it overcame all other sensation. Eyes stinging from the dust, throat scratchy and parched, coat singed by the fire.

A whistle rang out, and Dissero was vaguely aware of the work day coming to an end. It was hard to think at that point, when the magical fatigue passed on from a mere headache and into a mental haze of grogginess that could only be described as a temporary retardation of thought. He followed the silver mane, the orange wings, felt a bag being given to him and knew it was important.

Dissero didn’t know how long it had been when he was finally capable of coherent thought again. He found himself tucked in a covered alley between two shacks, with Silver Feather sorting through a couple burlap sacks before him. A small fire crackled besides them, providing some light in the night time as it fed hungrily off of some rotting wood. The rain had picked up some, falling in heavy sheets out in the dirt street, but here they were kept relatively dry.

“This is it?” Silver asked incredulously, pulling a pitiful apple out of one of the bags. “Stale bread, an overripe apple, and a few strings of hay each. Awesome.” He looked up to see Dissero looking at him. “Are you back yet?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m back,” Dissero said, shaking the cobwebs out of his mind.

“Finally, that zombie thing you unicorns do when you’re drained is creepy as hell. Here’s your share.” Silver pushed one of the bags over to him with a wing.

“Thanks.” Dissero went to levitate the bag closer, only to be interrupted a harsh spike of pain in his horn. There’d be no magic until he recovered some more, he’d have to use his hooves.

The two stallions settled down on their bellies, huddled together for warmth as they began to eat.

“That was pretty shitty,” Silver said, taking a cautious bite out of his apple.

“Yeah.” Dissero opted to go for the bread. He’d save the apple for dessert.

“Took all day, too.” Satisfied by the taste, Silver took another, far larger bite.

“Yeah.” The bread was pretty stale. But then he was hungry as a pony that hadn’t eaten in two days, so it would do.

“If we do this every day, we’ll have no time to look for the others.” The apple was nearly gone already, only the core left to be on.

Dissero paused, looking at his bread. It was half-eaten already. “We should save some, to eat tomorrow.”

Silver nodded, rolling the apple core in his hooves forlornly. “Yeah.”

“Hey, you two!”

The stallions looked up at the voice, squinting to see into the darkness beyond their fire. A trio of mares stepped into the light, each outfitted in layers of dirtied rags.

The largest of the mares, a pegasus with a coat that might once have been blue, eyed them greedily. “Looks like you haven’t paid your taxes yet.”

“Uh, what?” Silver grunted with exertion as he climbed to his hooves, even exhaustion unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Sorry, I thought one of the perks of slavery was no taxes.”

The big mare exchanged a few condescending glances with her comrades. “You must be new here, let me explain.” She sat down, speaking as if to a childish foal. “You are slaves, you work for the Baron to eat. We are rebels, we don’t do that, we’re independent. And since you want to be free, I’m assuming, you should support your local rebels, and give them food so they can fight and eat at the same time.”

“Go beg someone else for donations,” Silver said, swaying on his hooves. “We need this food, all of it.”

“I don’t think you quite heard her right,” the washed out white earth pony to the big mare’s left said. “If you don’t give us food, we can’t fight. Ya’d might as well be supporting the Baron acting like that.”

“And we don’t much like Baron supporters around here,” the third mare finished, brushing a wing against the pipe metal strapped to her side.

Dissero narrowed his eyes, tensing. “Are you threatening us?”

Silver snorted, flaring his wings out. “Like these cheeky fuckers could threaten us. Leave us alone, we aren’t giving you anything.”

“Well aren’t you a regular circus? Alright… have it your way.”

The lead mare flapped her wings, picking herself up off the ground to kick at Silver with her hind legs. He tried to dodge, but as tired as he was he only really managed to fall to the side. The second pegasus was on him in an instant, pushing down on his neck with one hoof while another stomped on his side.

“Hey!” Dissero clambered to his hooves, clenching his teeth as he tried in vain to push the mare off with a wave of magic. The third mare knocked him over with a single hoof, pinning him down beneath it.

“Well, now that we’ve captured you traitors, why don’t we confiscate these invaluable supplies?” The lead mare said. She picked up the two bags of food with a wing, ignoring the stallions strained protests, and tucked them into the satchel strapped to her back. “And how about a little justice for the feisty one?”

The pegasus mare atop Silver grinned, nodding eagerly. Grabbing one of his wings in her mouth, she stretched it to its full length. Silver kicked out viciously, his wings trying to flap in vain. The mare twisted her mouth, and a sickening pop echoed into the night. Silver bit back a scream, gritting his teeth even as she jabbed a hoof into the dislocated wing, snapping the bone in two.

“Alright, then. Let’s go.” The mares stepped back, the leader heading back out into the rain. She paused, reaching into her bag, and tossed something into the dirt before Dissero. His half-eaten loaf of stale bread. “Here,” she said. “A gift from Cell Spade.”

They disappeared into the night, leaving Dissero to scramble to his old friend’s side.

Author's Notes:

Introducing another Secret Origin of Scootaloo.