Perspective: Winter Solstice

Walking away from a fight that easily felt like something out of a cartoon, but at least it worked. I wandered back inside from the yard and made my way to the cafeteria. Obviously it wasn't open, but leaning against the wall by the door was where Chloe had decided to make her lookout point. The optimal place for us to grab Burns was just down the hall and around a corner, where he liked to sit every so often to get out of the sun. She had a good view in case he came by.

As I turned the corner, sure enough, she was there. Burgundy coat, long golden mane and tail, cutie mark of a brown glass bottle, watching the empty corridor intently with green eyes that almost matched my own. Like I said before, she certainly wasn't bad looking, but days in a dirty prison weren't doing her many favors. Her mane and tail were full of clingy bits of dirt, and with the bags under her eyes you'd be forgiven for thinking she hadn't slept in days. Granted, I doubted I looked much better, but there weren't a lot of mirrors around to confirm that.

I glanced around as I approached to make sure there weren't any guards or other prisoners within earshot. To my luck, none were even in sight. I sat down beside her with an exaggerated groan, as though I was tired from lots of walking. "Any luck?"

"With the watching or the swiping?" she replied, not even looking my way.

"Swiping. I'm curious to know if we're good to go, or if we'll be scrambling as soon as I'm done with him."

She reached back into her mane, and from it withdrew a keyring with a single key on it. "Just got it half an hour ago."

I chuckled. "Guess some guard wasn't paying attention."

"Or maybe I'm just good at my job." She raised an eyebrow at me, but accompanied the movement with a smirk as she tossed me the key. "Here, you've got a thicker mane."

"If you told me ten years ago I'd be using my hair as an emergency pocket, I'd have called you crazy." I tucked the key into my mane like she had done. "Just make sure to come running to me as soon as you see me give the signal. If the guards find his body, they'll gather the prisoners and all eyes will be on us. We need to get out in the few minutes we have where a distraction is possible."

"Got any plans for that?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I may have found a few guys who are easy to fool into punching each other. If they're far enough away from the gate, and we open the lock subtly enough, we can get a headstart before the guards notice us."

She nodded. "So the only potential problem is you not killing Burns fast enough and he screams or something."

"If I'm quick, that won't be an issue." I tilted my head left and right to crack my neck. "Wish we could've snuck in some weapons, though."

"Boots was right in that they'd search us thoroughly and take absolutely everything we had, so even if we had something small and inconspicuous, we'd lose it anyway." She shook her head. "Besides, you're in a prison. Literally anything not nailed down can be used as a weapon."

I thought back to my earlier use of the brick. "True enough. I'm sure I can grab something or other."

She nodded, before her ears flicked. I looked over at the hall I had come from, and after a moment, one of the guards walked around the corner, presumably on patrol. He didn't even give us a second glance, but the two of us knew it was probably time to stop openly chatting about our plans. Not many of the prisoners spoke Equestrian, but most if not all of the guards at least knew the basics. It wouldn't go against our luck for one of them to know what "kill" and "escape" meant.

I stood up, brushing my back and flanks off from the dirty wall and floor, and stepped around Chloe with just a nod as my goodbye. As the guard wandered off down the halls, I headed back out toward the yard. I had a brick tower to get back to.

Even with my intense focus on my makeshift building blocks, I easily heard the changeling prisoners (and even some guards) start flocking to a corner of the yard. I glanced up in time to see Chloe disappear into the forming crowd. My curiosity as to what exactly went on in that mass of chitin was easily overwhelmed by my desire to finish this job and get out, so I waited a couple more minutes before standing up.

Decently assured no more changelings were in the hallway Burns had wandered to, I casually walked back inside and down the path we had seen him take many times before. I kept my ears perked for any unexpected hoofsteps, but all I heard were my own. That, and a deep exhale from around the corner.

Stepping around into the dead end, I saw him. Hoof Burns; the Psycho Pegasus, some of us had called him. Time on the road and in prison had covered his ostensibly red coat in brown and gray dirt, even worse than any other prisoner in this hole. His stark black mane and tail, both rather long due to lacking the luxury of a barber shop, looked a bit less dirty, but probably only because dirt didn't show up in it as well. His simple flame cutie mark made him stand out even more, and his bright purple eyes opened and closed as he puffed on a cigarette. Probably kicked the crap out of his cellmate for a pack of them.

"Got a smoke?" I asked casually as I strolled up. I'd never smoked before and didn't plan on it now, but if I wanted him to let his guard down, I had to act at least a little friendly.

He glanced at me, and the look in his eyes made me wonder if he was planning on complying, ignoring me, or pulling out a shiv and stabbing me in the side. Thankfully, he eventually went with the first option, pulling a second cigarette from under his wing. He lit a match on his hoof, touched it to the tip, and offered it to me. "Who are you?"

"Algid. Probably in for the same reasons as you." I had already decided not to give him my real name, on the off chance he knew me from somewhere. I took the cigarette in my hoof. "Trespassing on parasite property?"

He nodded and went back to his smoking. "Could be worse. I did a lot of crazy stuff before I hopped the border."

"Like what? Punch a cop in the face?" I stuck the cigarette in my mouth, making sure to inhale strictly through my nose.

"Pfft, think bigger, Al. Try 'almost killed the fake princess of the night'." He laughed, which quickly changed to coughing. "And that's just one thing."

"And you're proud of this?"

He shook his head. "Nah. If I succeeded, I'd be proud. As far as I'm concerned, what happened was about as big as just not winning a science fair in high school."

It felt like my eye twitched. I had encountered many criminals in the past. Some felt remorse for their actions, some didn't. But very few thought of a failed assassination attempt as equivalent to just a bad day at school. "Is that so..."

"It is." He smirked. "How about you? You do anything awesome that the cops tried to bust you on?"

I removed the cigarette from my mouth so I could take a deep breath and let it out. "Well... I did track down a fellow prisoner and strangle him to death."

"Really?" He tilted his head. "Sounds like he didn't fight back much, if you were able to do that. No offense."

"I'm stronger than I look. As for him fighting back... he tried, but it didn't work well." I shrugged.

"Gotcha. And when was this?"

I bit my lip and thought. "I think it was... July fourteenth."

He nodded, but slowly stopped. "...isn't that today? Is it your one year anniversary?"

"...not quite. But you're close." I smirked. "Very close."

I suddenly leapt at him, shoving him against the wall with my body weight and holding my hoof over his mouth to prevent any screams or yelps of surprise. He tried to bite me, but pony teeth are rarely tougher than pony hooves, so I just dealt with it as I pummeled him in the side of the face with my other foreleg. He tried to push me off with his forelegs, then his wings, but I kept my hind legs firmly in place and didn't give.

"You've hurt a lot of ponies," I quietly growled at him. "Stallions, mares, seniors, foals. Some are still walking, some are traumatized, some are six feet underground. And you don't even care." I took my hoof off his mouth and quickly moved it to his throat, the other one soon joining, as I applied all possible pressure. "Remember when you blew up that apartment complex in Manehatten? Twelve fillies, sixteen colts, twenty-eight mares, thirty-one stallions. Consider yourself lucky we got them evacuated, because if even one of them died, I'd be making this a lot more painful for you."

His eyes bulged a bit as he tried to keep pushing me, and now he was starting to make progress. Apparently the threat of impending death was giving his strength a huge boost. I glanced down briefly and noticed the two cigarettes we had dropped to the floor as the scuffle began. Grabbing the still-lit smokes in my magic, I jabbed the lit ends against his cheek, hearing a quiet sizzling and his struggles to scream in pain. His body tensed up more than it already had, and suddenly his attempts to push me off were a lot less fruitful.

I kept my hooves right where they were, pushing as hard as I could, glaring right into his purple eyes as the life slowly left them. He gradually stopped pushing, his forelegs falling limply to the side. His unfolded wings began to droop. His mouth, previously set firmly with teeth grit, fell slackly open. I gave it another couple minutes before I lowered him to the ground, his chest unmoving and his eyes staring off at nothing.

My glare remained for a minute or so as I stared at his body, making sure he wasn't faking it. Once I was convinced, I relaxed a bit and kneeled down, running my hoof over his eyes to close them. Sighing, I stepped away from his body, turning to head out of the corridor. I only gave his corpse one final glance just before I exited into the yard.

The urge to mutter a dumb one-liner like "Smoking kills, buddy" was admittedly difficult to ignore.