The right hook came hard and fast, catching the jet-black stallion under the ribs and winding him. He staggered back, holding his balled fists up to his face and lowering his head, trying to make his guard as secure as possible. A strained wheeze fell from his mouth, the taste of blood on his tongue and the stinging welts of the injuries now beginning to hurt more and more.

"Just go down, kid," the larger, grey stallion spat. "It'll be easier for both of us."

"Not a fucking chance, Marker," he hissed, narrowing his emerald eyes and launching a jab forward, using it as nothing more than a range-finder at first.

His opponent stumbled backwards in an attempt to dodge the jab, this putting him on the back foot. Seeing this as his opportunity, the black stallion launched forwards with a vicious hook of his own, catching Marker straight in the eye and sending him toppling over backwards. Wasting no time, the smaller stallion pinned the other fighter to the floor, cocking back that powerful right hand of his and proceeding to beat Marker's face to a bloody pulp. His knuckles soon ached and his opponent soon lost consciousness, allowing him to drop backwards onto the floor without fear and needing to continue defending himself.

He sucked in deep breaths, ignoring the pain of his injuries as he lay there, the cold of the night creeping through his clothes and beginning to make him ache even more. He soon sat up, muscular chest heaving with exhaustion as the strain of the bout had tired him, even for a body as trained as his. He didn't bother checking to see if Marker was okay, or even if he was alive. If he survived, the two of them would be at this again tomorrow. If he didn't... he'd be getting a new co-worker at the mines this coming week.

He got up to his feet, grunting in pain slightly as his left leg buckled for a brief moment. He'd taken a rather vicious knee to it earlier on in the scrap and it had put him at quite the disadvantage. He shook his head, running a bloodied hand through his thick, black mane and sighing through gritted teeth. He was going to be home late again, which meant that his mother was going to start dinner late again. If they didn't early enough, the two of them might need to go to bed without food. For his mother, that was a little more tolerable. She worked as a seamstress, stitching clothes for the nobles in the city. But he was a miner. Food wasn't just to stop you from being hungry. It was energy that he needed to make it through his shifts.

And that prick had ended up putting both him and his mother at risk. Again. The black stallion booted Marker in the stomach as he walked past him, a pained grunt from the unconscious man showing that he was at least alive. He turned away from his defeated opponent, picked up his bag full of food he'd bought, something Marker had tried to mug him for, before running back home as fast as he could.

The run home was short, but the poor condition he was in didn't make it any easier. He knew that if he felt this bad with the adrenaline rush going through him, it was only gonna get worse when he woke up in the morning. He unlocked the door and went inside, hearing the fire roaring and the water boiling in the kitchen.

"Albin?" his mother called from upstairs. "Is that you?"

"Yeah... it's me," he called back up in a rough tone, clearing his throat quietly as he began to empty out his bag onto the counter.

He unwrapped the meat from the butcher's paper, cut it into several strips, and placed it carefully into the boiling pan. He made sure not to drop it from high enough that it would splash and scald him. He diced the vegetables, cutting the potatoes in half and tearing the cabbage with his hands, before dropping it all into the water. He began to stir the broth with a wooden spoon when his mother walked into the room. She was an older earth pony, with dark brown hair and a greying black mane, having nearly reached her fifties and living a rather rough life.

Her warm smile was replaced with a worried gaze as she spotted the injuries her son had on his face. She moved over to him, gently turning his head from side to side to get a better look.

"What happened?" she asked, stepping back and clutching her ragged dress in an anxious fashion.

"Same thing that always happens," Albin said in a low, growling tone. "Marker thinks he's allowed to spend his month's wages at the whorehouse and then just steal food from everyone else."

"And was it your turn this month?" she asked, cocking a soft eyebrow.

"Yeah," he nodded, rolling his strong jaw briefly.

"Judging by the fact you've got dinner going..." she said, casting an eye over to the boiling pot before looking back at her son with a proud smile. "You gave him a differing opinion?"

"And one hell of a beating," he nodded with a quiet chuckle. "I'll be honest, though. I didn't handle it as well as I should've."

"Ugh, you sound like your older brother," she said, moving over to the old, rickety table and taking a seat. "Always annoyed about the fact you don't do as well as you want to when fighting for your life. I should consider myself lucky he enlisted, or else the two of you would've battered half the city by now."

A smile touched Albin's lips as he joined his mother at the table, the old wooden chair creaking under the weight of his muscular form.

"You're probably right," he nodded. "Good thing Erik got himself a job where he can batter people and make a hefty profit from it."

"I always wanted the two of you to do something other than just fight people," she sighed, shaking her head in a disappointed manner. "Why don't you try and join one of the merchant's guilds around here?"

"Because I'm thick as mince and couldn't count to twenty one unless I was naked?" Albin asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Oh hush, you're more intelligent than you give yourself credit for," she said, shaking her head. "You just don't apply yourself properly."

"Yeah..." he sighed, running a hand through his mane and sighing, looking at a dark spot on the murky wall. "You're right..."

"Then why not change that?" she asked. "Whether its organising scrolls or mopping the floors, I'm sure there's got to be something that pays more and is safer for you than risking your life in the mines for a few pennies."

Albin was quite for a long moment, continuing to stare at the wall without blinking. His eyes moved down to the table when his mother's gentle hand touched his.

"Just look around tomorrow, after you've finished at the mines," she said in a pleading tone. "If only to take away my ability to complain at you for never doing it."

"Right..." Albin nodded. "I'll give it a shot... though I don't think I was born to be the kind of person that works in a records office."

"Nobody's born any type of person," she said, waving the suggestion away with her hand. "You make yourself into who you want to be. Look, you've just left your boyhood behind you. You're young, strong, and smarter than you think you are. Why not get out there and make something of yourself before the chance passes you by?"

Albin didn't answer, instead continued to look at his mother. There was a sadness behind her eyes as she spoke, giving away that she was not only speaking from experience, but from a place of anger and bitterness. She'd been left by the wayside as life passed her by and couldn't bear to see it happen to someone else, especially not her son.

The black stallion nodded, a feeling of resolution in his stomach as he decided that tomorrow was going to be the day that things changed. After that, they ate in near silence before wishing each other a good night and heading to bed.

Albin awoke the next morning at dawn, stiff as a board and in pure pain. His body was bruised and aching, his ribs almost definitely bruised, his eye blackened, and his leg throbbing in pain. Still, he pushed himself out of bed, determined to get to work and see his promise to his mother through.

"Today's the day..." he grunted to himself as he got out of bed.

He washed himself with a soaked cloth, rinsed his hair as best he could, and dressed himself in his rough-hemp clothing. He pulled his worn leather boots on and headed off to the mines. He made his way through the stone city, nodding and smiling at those he walked past. He made it to the mines, where two of the usual Umbral Guards were standing outside of, hands clutching spears and shields.

"Morning, ladies," Albin said in a cheery tone.

"Morning, big guy," one of them said in a warm tone. "On Site F today, right?"

"Sadly, yeah," he nodded.

"Be careful," the second one said as he walked past her. "Big mudslide last night. Nearly buried about eight workers."

"I'll be careful," he said, rolling his neck as he walked into the mining site, the gates closing behind him and leaving him without proper conversation for most of the day.

Albin may not have been the most academic stallion, but his common sense was finely tuned enough to notice when something was wrong. As he made his way through the mines to get to his assigned post, he spotted about ten or eleven other stallions stop talking as he moved past them, feeling their eyes burn into his back as he walked past, before going back to whispering. Something was going to happen today, whether it was on their break or as they were going home, so he needed to be on guard.

He worked his shift with his ears and eyes open, using a pick axe to mine through the wall he'd been assigned, collecting fragments of gold that were inside the rocks, and putting them into a large, well-worn bucket. The hours ticked by as he continued the gruelling work, his muscles tired and sweating by the time his break rolled around. He set his pick axe down and went to carry the bucket he was carrying to the depository, a large area where the smaller buckets of gold were poured into one, singular container and then transported off-site by members of the Umbral Guard.

Though as he came to the small walkway area, a series of roundabout mud hills that you'd walk down to get to the area, he was cornered by Marker and several other of his friends. There was no denying what was about to happen here and the story behind it was obvious. Marker had run to his cronies after Albin had knocked his lights out, so here they all were to teach him a lesson.

Marker violently shoved Albin backwards as he tried to move past him and a second, shorter stallion snatched the gold bucket from his hands and tossed it aside, spilling its contents all over the ground.

"You made a big fucking mistake, kid," Marker spat, his face mere inches away from Albin's.

"Really?" he asked. "And what's that?"

"You should've just given me the food and gone home," he snarled. "Now look where you've ended up."

"The only place I've ended up is in the middle of a gang of pricks who are all gonna lose their teeth if they don't wise up and fuck off," Albin said in a low, growling tone.

There was a murmur of laughter and insults from the crowd gathered around him before one of them launched a punch. It caught Albin off-guard and in the chin, sending his head lashing to the side and opening up a wound in his mouth.

"Where's the tough talk now, big boy?" Marker asked in a cocky manner.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Albin snarled, lashing out with his elbow, slamming it into the face of the stallion who'd punched him beforehand.

The move was fast enough to distract and open up the rest of them, allowing Albin to boot Marker straight in the chest and send him tumbling down the hill. Another one of them jumped on him, attempting to tackle him to the ground, but Albin's stronger form and better footing allowed him to throw the stallion off and into two of the other attackers. After that, he launched a fist straight into the jaw of yet another one of them before booting the one he'd thrown straight in the face.

Lights flashed in his eyes and the wind was knocked from him briefly as someone's shoulder met his back, tackling him into the ground and punching him in the back of the neck several times. With a roar of exertion, Albin rolled over, knocking the stallion, one with white fur and purple hair, into the dirt beside him and allowed him to climb back to his feet. He stomped on his face twice, breaking his nose and knocking him out, before two more of them tackled him to the floor. He barely had enough time to bring up his arms to block the onslaught of punches, several of them getting through and leaving painful welts on his face and mouth.

He rocketed his knee up into the right side of one of them, causing him to roar in pain and cease his assault for a brief moment. Albin seized this opportunity to launch a vicious hook, catching him in the temple and knocking him out instantly. With one of them out of the way, he grabbed hold of the second stallion's head and began to head-butt him repeatedly, shattering his nose and dazing him something fierce. Albin threw the attacker off him and rolled sideways, getting back up to his feet just as another, mud-soaked stallion came rushing at him.

"Fuck, how many of you guys are there?" he asked in an exhausted tone, his fresh injuries mixing and heightening the pain from his old ones as he sucked in a pained breath and forced himself to continue.

He brought his knee up straight into the face of the stallion that was charging towards him, sending him screaming and sprawling to the floor. Someone took the time to pick up the bucket they'd stolen from him and swing it at him. Albin brought his arms up and caught the attack on his forearms, hissing in pain as the old, weather metal banged into and scraped across his arms. Once the stallion with the bucket wound up for a second swing, Albin stepped forward and stamped on the side of his knee joint, snapping the bone inwards and causing the stallion to drop the bucket and scream in pure agony.

Albin silence him by uppercutting him in the mouth, cutting his knuckles open, knocking several teeth out, and sending him screaming to the floor, hunched up, and clutching at his leg. Albin looked over his shoulder, hoping to get his bearings back and see how far away the others were, only to have Marker's fist slam into his face for the second time in two days. The attack sent Albin careening to the floor, soaking himself with mud and whatever other shite was mixed in with it.

Marker didn't let up, launching his leg forwards and kicking Albin in his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him yet again. Albin struggled to get his hands up to block the attacks, mostly because Marker kept switching up from kicks to stomps, and the black stallion's arms were already numb and clumsy from the hit with the bucket.

Eventually, Albin decided it would simply be a better idea to just grab hold of Marker's leg. He wrapped both arms around Marker's shin and rolled over sideways, pulling Marker over with him and slamming him into the mud, splattering both of them with the dirt and knocking Marker's head off a rock buried in it. Albin took this moment and used it to his advantage, grabbing hold of Marker's stunned form and turning him over, pinning him down with a knee to his throat and proceeding to hammer him in the face with punch after punch.

He managed to catch the glint of a shiny object in the corner of his eyes, but wasn't fast enough to react to it. Before he could even turn his head, agony exploded through his cheek as a steel boot slammed into it, knocking him off Marker and back into the dirt. He could tell from the warm feeling that the boot had cut him open, but he was a little too preoccupied with his current situation to worry about getting an infection.

"Enough!" a member of the Umbral guard yelled as they grabbed hold of him, needing their partner to help out as he was dragged to his feet.

"Don't bother coming back to work tomorrow!" one of the mine operators barked as they looked over Marker's bloody face.

"Why the fuck am I being fired?" he demanded. "They started it!"

"For protection!" he answered, waving his hand in front of Marker's eyes to make sure he was still responsive.

"I don't need protection!" Albin barked as he was dragged away from the mines.

"Not for you!" he yelled in response, turning around and pointing at the groaning, broken, and bleeding stallions lying in the mud. "For them!"

Albin was turned around and dragged facing forwards, this allowing him to spot a mare that definitely didn't belong in this kind of place. She was a dark-coloured pegasus, with a smokey-grey body and a black twin-tailled mane. She wore a long, fur-collared cloak with a large insignia of a red-eyed unicorn on the back of it. She had to have been someone connected to Queen Umbra...

And she was staring right at him.

He could see that she was talking to what looked like a guard captain, judging by the different helmet, and pointing right at him. The guard captain nodded and barked orders to the two guards carrying him. They paused for a moment and changed direction, taking him to somewhere called the 'Luxury Suite'.

What Albin expected was some blood-stained torture room when the Luxury Suite was mentioned. He definitely didn't expect it to be a well-furnished, warm and welcoming, wine-on-tap resort room in the wing of the mayor's mansion. He'd been cleaned up by posh maids, had his long mane trimmed into something more 'fashionable', and had been clothed in an extremely-expensive looking doublet.

"Not to sound rude, Ma'am," Albin said to the mare with the twin-tails. "But... what exactly am I doing here?"

"Well, dear boy, my Most Gracious Queen Umbra has tasked many of her most loyal and intelligent followers to scour the lands for a stallion worthy of fulfilling a very honourable duty," she said, a piece of expensive parchment in her hand that she kept looking back and forth between as she spoke. "And since I happened to be in the mines looking for such an example of stallionhood, I came across you, young man."

"Right..." Albin said, still not sure of where this was going. "So... am I going to be posing for an artist to sculpt a statue of me? Or am I going to be putting on some kind of show of masculinity for an audience?"

"Depends how Umby likes it in the bedroom..." she said in a low tone, bouncing her eyebrows up and down as she scrawled something down on the parchment.

"What about the bedroom?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Are you hiring me as a rent boy?"

"I'll answer that once we've run through a series of questions, okay?" she asked, smiling widely.

"A-Alright," he nodded, shifting awkwardly in the doublet.

"Now, it has been over three weeks since Her Ladyship has announced these prerequisites for her search, and I have yet to find a stallion that has not lied for at least one of them. So because of that, I will remind you of this: should you be found to be lying about any of your answers, I cannot guarantee your safety nor your survival. I encourage you to tell the truth for all of these, and if you find that you cannot answer to a satisfactory level, please be honest and admit it, to save us all a lot of pain and a lot of paperwork."

"O-Okay..." he said, scratching his much shorter mane.

"Shall we begin?"

"I guess..."

"Good, we'll start with the basic questions and then move onto the, uh, racier ones, shall I say," she said, dabbing her quill in her ink pot and beginning from the top. "Are any of your current colours unnatural, either as a result of magic or dyeing?"

"No, all black, all natural," he said with a shake of his head.

"How tall are you? Be as precise as you possible can, please."

"Six feet and two inches."

"Are you known to have or have a family history of any physical or mental diseases or disorders?"

"Not that I'm aware of..."

"Have to look into the House of Records for that one..." she mumbled, making a note of it on the side of the page. "What is your usual body weight?"

"I... around one hundred and ninety pounds, I think?" he said, not entirely sure about that. "It's pretty much all muscle, though."

"If the seams on that doublet are anything to go by, you're not lying about that," she said. "Right, now this is the one that a lot of people tend to lie on, so if you want to live to see the next year, please don't let your pride get in the way of answering truthfully," she warned, looking at me dead in the eyes. "When fully erect, what is the length of your penis?"

Albin opened his mouth to answer the question, only to realise what had been asked, freeze momentarily, and proceed to blink in an extremely surprised fashion.

"Ex... Excuse me?" he asked in disbelief.

"It's a really simple question, friend," she said, crossing her legs over and giving a wide smile. "How big's your cock?"

"Why do you want to know that?" he asked.

"To see if you fit the bill or not," she said.

"The bill for what exactly?" he inquired.

"Royal duties," she said in a simple tone.

"Right, but what duty?" he demanded.

"I legally can't answer that until we've completed this question sheet, so please answer the question and let us continue," she said. "We really don't have all day."

"Alright," Albin said, his cheeks flushing red slightly as he gave an honest answer. "About... fourteen or fifteen inches long. It's about as thick as my last marefriend's forearm, too. I know that's not very precise... but it's a scale, I guess."

The twin-tail mare proceeded to stare at Albin for a solid second, her eyes blinking in her own display of disbelief, before she proceeded to scrawl down an answer on the sheet.

"Must... inquire... if... cock... requires... license... for... bludgeoning... tool..." she said, drawing a rather large smiley face on the page next to the answer before looking back up at Albin.

"Right, those are the basic questions to get you through the preliminaries, kid," she said, folding the parchment and tucking it into her pocket. "Once you're back in the capital, our girls will provide a thorough examination of you and your, uh, equipment, to make sure everything's up to snuff on the scientific and safety side of things. After that, it's up to Her Graciousness to decide whether or not you're worthy."

"Worthy for what?" he asked in a rather annoyed tone.

"Worthy of being the father to the heir of Umbra's throne," she said in a giddy tone. "Please, don't scream. It's unfitting of a stallion with a cock large enough to smash rocks with."

Today was the day things changed, alright. But not in the way that Albin could have ever dreamed of.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: The Queen's Prisoner Estimated time remaining: 60 Minutes