I had no idea how long I had sat in that cell, but it had been long enough for me to actually start getting a bit bored.

For the longest time I had been worried about Rarity and whether or not she had killed herself or merely knocked herself out by slamming her head against the wall.

Another thought I hadn't consider that may have been a real possibility was that she was actually actively trying to kill herself by way of collapsing her head against the wall. The thought made me sick, but made a lot of sense given what had happened and how utterly broken she sounded over the whole thing.

I worried about her and about my situation for a good while, but eventually, I did what I always do when it came to dealing with stressful things beyond my control to do anything about.

I stopped worrying about it.

By no means was it an easy feat, and it took another long while before I managed it, but eventually I pulled it off. I had finally reached a state of mind where I could think about other things.

That had lasted all of a few minutes before my thoughts strayed back to getting me and Rarity -- who I chose to believe was still alive for the moment -- out of here before the supposed slavers arrived and did horrible things to us.

"Dammit..." I muttered rising to my feet and moving towards the bars, "I don't even have any guards to steal keys from or anything," I wrapped my hands around the bars and did a quick scan of the area outside my cell, "nope, still can't see much of anything."

My extremely poor vision continued to screw me out of finding anything useful from my surroundings and I sighed in frustration as I stepped back from the bars and looked around my little cell.

I found nothing of note other than a small bucket I hadn't noticed until now placed in a corner. I grimaced at the thing and looked inside. Nothing was held within, not even water.

"Didn't even have the decency to leave me something to drink..."

This of course, was a ridiculous thought given that whoever these slavers were, probably didn't know I was even here. It was only as I thought about what else I could use that I suddenly realized I didn't have anything to use.

More specifically, I didn't have anything already on me that I could use. For whatever reason, my smartphone, my headphones, and everything I had in my pockets -- both coat and pants -- were gone.

I was so preoccupied with all the insane things that had happened to me that I didn't even notice my things were missing. The only things I had left were my glasses and the clothes on my back.

At the very least I managed to keep my favorite faux fur coat even though I had used it along with my plain white tee as makeshift bandages back in Hell Treequestria -- not that that had done me a lot of good in the end.

It was little comfort in the face of my impossible situation and I resented Discord all the more for not throwing me a single bone. If I had asked, he probably would've just given me some bullshit about not wanting to make it too easy.

"Asshole could've at least fixed my eyesight," I groused as I sat back down against the back wall, "but nope, the intrepid hero gets to brave the cold, cruel multiverse alone and helpless without even music to pass the time."

I sighed and took off my glasses to rub my eyes wearily.

I abruptly stopped rubbing my eyes when I heard the sound of a door unlatching and swinging open with a creak somewhere far outside my cell to the right.

My eyes widened and my heart started beating a whole lot faster.

Fuck!

I slammed my glasses back on my face and quickly but quietly scrambled to find and sit in the darkest corner of my cell hoping who or whatever had just entered wouldn't see me.

This was another problem with having night blindness my whole life.

When everything looked about a few shades darker than they probably were, my brain assumed everyone else saw about as well as I did in the dark, even though intellectually I knew that wasn't the case usually.

"...put the majority of them for the duration of the trip, Captain."

God dammit!

I had only caught the tail end of that sentence, but what I focused on was the fact that the Captain of this ship had just arrived with some oily voiced... assistant?

"And how many are we expected to procure for the trip to Katzkandi?" came a deep, slow, and imperious voice, "this is our first voyage and if we fail to make quota, it will reflect badly upon us, and if it reflects badly upon us..."

I heard the footfalls stop and there was a tense silence before the deep voice spoke again in a threatening whisper.

"...I will make certain that you are held responsible, swine."

"Y-yes of course, Captain," the oily voice said, letting out a high pitched squeal, "e-everything is going as it should, a-and... and we have sixty-five in all, ready and waiting to be shipped at your command."

Wait... is that actually a...

"Excellent," said the deep voice, "and what of the mare and her friends? I hear one of them is a princess of some sort."

"Oh, yes," replied the toady with an enthusiastic snort, "Twilight Sparkle, apparently the Princess of Friendship. My sources say she was here on a diplomatic mission to meet with the new king."

The other voice scoffed in disdain.

"Princess of Friendship of all things... such a ridiculous title," the deep voice spat, before seeming to regain his composure, "that bit of nonsense aside, what is the status of the mare and her friends?"

I heard more footfalls as the two began walking once more.

"We managed to capture four of them in total," the lackey replied, "one of them is aboard this ship in this very room, and the other three are on board the other ship that's getting ready to set sail as we speak."

My heartbeat began to pick up again as they came closer to my cell. Just before they were about to pass into my line of sight however, they both stopped.

There was another moment of tense silence, and the oily voice spoke again, nervous and unsure.

"We... ah... lost two of the ponies during the chase."

"You let them escape?" the deep voice nearly growled, "You know we can't afford to have anyone finding out about our little operation, Napoleon."

"I-I'm well aware, Captain, believe me," the other voice -- Napoleon -- said quickly, "w-what I meant to say is that they had become too much to handle, so we... er... had to put them down. Apparently there was a baby dragon traveling with the white mare, but it was already dead by the time we found the others."

I grimaced at Napolean's words and my gut twisted into knots, adding to my rapidly failing nerves. Two of the Mane Six were already dead and the rest were captured and on another ship.

Why was Rarity separated?

Did she even know that two of her friends were dead?

From the sound of it, I didn't think that was the case, and my heart fell at the thought of her finding out. If she had been this broken up about Spike's death...

I made a mental note to try and keep an eye on the mare... assuming she was still alive, of course.

Dammit! How the hell am I supposed to fucking save anything when I keep showing up late to the goddamn party?!

There had been a long pause before the deep voice spoke again.

"...a pity," he finally said in a matter-of-fact voice that obviously held no pity whatsoever, "you did at least manage to capture the 'princess', yes?"

"Of course, Captain," Napoleon replied as one of the two walked forward and into view, "after she saw what we were willing to do to her friends, she came willingly. I'd say we can make quite a mint for..."

A pig.

It actually was a pig that had been talking this whole time. Not only was he talking, but he was sharply dressed -- wearing a black suit and tie complete with a too small looking bowler atop his fat head.

His beady black eyes widened as he caught sight of me trying -- and apparently failing -- to hide myself in the darkness.

"W-What in the king's name is that?" the well dressed pig squeal in alarm, "how did that... thing get in here?"

Shit...

I didn't even have time to give a response before the Captain stepped in front of the cell. Judging by the deep imperious voice, I was expecting some sort of tall, lanky guy with oily black hair and a perma-sneer.

Snape basically.

What I got was the biggest, meanest looking cat I had ever seen. The Abyssinian feline had to have been at least seven or eight feet tall and was all muscle.

Over his mottled black and tan fur, he wore a long white captain's coat, pressed white slacks that allowed his bushy tail to hang behind him, and a dark brown button up shirt covered with all sorts of belts and buckles. He completed the look with a white captain's hat and an intrigued look as he stared down at me.

"Well now.... what do we have here?" he leaned down to get a better look at me -- his slitted lime green eyes boring into me, "such a strange creature," he mused, putting a hand to his chin, "given how you look and your odd clothing, you're obviously sapient to some degree -- though I've never seen one of your race before..."

I wasn't exactly shaking with fear yet, but I was certainly nervous enough to keep my mouth shut. He hummed in thought as he continued to stare at me with clear interest.

"From Napoleon's reaction, it's clear you weren't one of the ones we had intended to bring aboard," he paused a second before raising an eyebrow, "can you speak?"

"I... uh... yeah," I replied weakly, stepping out of the shadows, "y-yeah, I can talk."

The large cat flashed me a toothy grin and stood back up, clapping his hands together once.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed before turning to the still shocked pig next to him, "Napoleon!"

The pig in question jumped and whipped his head in the Captain's direction.

"Y-yes, Captain?"

"You said one of the ponies was in here, correct?"

"That I did, Captain," Napoleon replied with a quick nod, "right in the next cell in fact."

"Good," the Captain replied, "go check on her, will you?"

He turned back to me with a wicked smile that showed every single one of his sharp teeth, and that was when I started shaking with fear.

"I'm going to find out a little more about our new friend here."

Next Chapter: Equus II -- Some Things Happen, both Expected and Unexpected Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 37 Minutes