I had been moving for several hours. I was hesitant to convert the time into days, as since I never saw the sun rise or set, it was impossible to tell when night ended and day began, and of course a watch was something I neglected to bring. I had never thought knowing what time it was would hold any relevance when I left the city.

One thing was certain, I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since I left the city, and there was definitely a food deficit out in the remains of Equestria. On top of that, even if I located food, there was little way to ensure that it would still be edible. Sitting out here with exposure to the elements probably would make it difficult to stomach any food that survived. Still, I was at the state where I could eat almost anything, so long as it filled my stomach. I don’t think I’d ever known what it was like to be this hungry. Correcting this problem would have to become a high priority, as the lack of food was starting to affect my ability to travel. Resting became a constant detour; I must have stopped at least eight times or so to take a rest, I even almost passed out once.

With some luck I had come across what appeared to be the remains of a landmark on the map, Fort Stallion; an old military bay left behind years ago. It clearly has suffered during the time of its abandonment, as most of it lay in ruins, but the outer wall was mostly intact, with a few tents and housing areas still standing. It was perfect to take some refuge, and possibly even locate some sustenance.

Cautiously, I peeked within the gates, as I didn’t want another encounter with the “friendly” creatures of the wasteland again. During my travel over the past few days, I must have come across a dozen animals, all of which wanted me in their stomach. It was amazing what intense hunger can do to normally docile creatures; survival always came first I suppose.

Fort Stallion appeared to be still abandoned, I was thankful for that, but I wouldn’t let my guard down until I was entirely sure this camp was deserted. A part of me though wished it wasn’t completely empty, it would be nice to meet another pony out here. Possibly form an alliance to brave the wildlife, maybe even have somepony to talk to.

In the center of the encampment there stood a grand marble statue of Celestia with her sister Luna standing valiantly behind her. It was a rather realistic likeness of the Princess; the only flaws had come with age and the elements buffeting the work of art. A lot of money must have been spent on this; it was probably put here as a morale booster.

Deciding that food was more important than marveling at art right now, I made my way to a small structure marked “supplies” by a rotting wooden sign. Inside was a labyrinth of crates stacked upon more crates. I sighed and began cracking open these aged wooden boxes.

With a fierce back kick I popped the first one open. The crates were dried out and worn with age, so they shattered like glass when struck. A pile of syringes, needles, and gauss tape pooled onto the floor. My deductive skills allowed me to determine that was a medical supply crate, not really anything of much use to me. I tried another as my stomach growled.

This one dropped thousands of small metallic cone-shaped objects. They spilled all over the floor with a loud clatter. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were really, but there were thousands of them all modeled to look the same. They were flat on one end, and came to a point on the other; I couldn’t see much use for such a piece of metal. They were probably produced on some assembly line to be so symmetrical, but why?

Hunger calmed my mind’s questions, and forced me to keep checking the boxes. I kicked the lid clean off of one that hugged the wall. Jackpot. This one was filled with many sealed bags of an orange color. I pulled a bag out, and flipped over the package to read the back.

I wasn’t exactly too thrilled to be eating meat, but I was so hungry I could eat a rock if it had some salt on it probably. Throwing caution to the wind, I tore the package open and started to devour the strips of cow meat. It was salty, and age had worn away some of the “original” flavor (I was guessing, as I had never tasted it before), but it at least tasted like food, just not very good food; I could still eat half a crate though with my hunger.

Munching down all I could from the bag, I torn open another package and began to shred through the bland meat. I had never known what hunger was until now. At Skyvale there was never a time where we went days without food; almost every day we had three square meals, two if you were me. I didn’t eat much, and I usually skipped lunch in favor of dinner.

I used to have a basic routine every day. Waking up, I would have a small breakfast right before going to work. I was employed as a delivery colt for food supplies. My work consisted of taking the food from the farms to the market. In Skyvale they had a large farming section of the city for food production; the city was designed so ponies could live there indefinitely. It was very simple work, and it wasn’t exactly something I enjoyed doing, or had much pride in, but everypony was required to have a job upon reaching adulthood within the city. If you didn’t qualify for a job with your cutie mark, the city gave you one. Naturally it’s easy to see how I acquired my field of work.

I mused myself with the idea of perhaps survival was my special talent, though I knew it to be untrue, and my flank showed no signs of agreeing with me. The loneliness of this empty land was starting to take its toll on me. I could feel a slight wave of depression falling over me, as I started to regret coming down here in the first place. It was clear that Dipper had exaggerated about the world below the city. He never said how the air felt poisonous, or how there wasn’t another pony for miles, or even about how every animal wanted to make you into its next snack. Then again, all Dipper ever did talk about was the war, and the Knights of Celestia. At this point, that’s all that kept me going was the determination to find them.

My eyes opened, awakening me from my long rest. My stomach was still very full and upset from all the jerky I had eaten. Clearly my body didn’t enjoy the idea of putting meat into it, but was willing to keep it down on the account of it wasn’t going to get much else out here.

The fact that I had yet to see any place that wasn’t abandoned made me safely assume that any nutrition I found out here could very well be up to seven years old, and not quite edible. Jerky was probably one of the few things with enough preservatives in it to last this long.

Yawning, I stood upright and decided to explore more of the encampment before taking my leave.

I spent most of the next few hours looking for anything of use or value, besides food of course. I had already tucked away as many packages of jerky as I could into my bag, along with a canteen that I had located and managed to find a working water source to fill it with. The water here tasted rather stale, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

My eyes were charmed by the discovery of a digital sound recorder that lay on a table in what appeared to be an officer’s station of the base. Curiosity sparked as I hit the play button, to my shock it still worked. A rather tomboyish female voice exited the device.

“This is Vinyl Scratch, first lieutenant of The Rainbow Raiders, under the command of Field Commander Rainbow Dash, serving directly under the Knights of Celestia. I’m making this data log because one: they haven’t given me orders for the past three days, and I’m going nuts sitting here doing nothing; and two: in case we don’t win this war, I think it would be wise to leave behind some kind of record so ponies can know of my exploits, after all I am quite amazing.

Anyway, this camp isn’t exactly the worst place I’ve been stationed, though I am a little concerned as to what exactly the Commander is planning. She hasn’t issued a single order since we got here, and frankly it bothers me. All she’s done is tell us to enjoy ourselves while we can, but really how can I possibly do that when there’s a battlefield calling my name? Well I suppose this isn’t entirely unlike her, as she is always going on about appreciating everything, sometimes she sounds like Fluttershy really.

Me though? I just want to go back out there where the fighting is. My spirit burns for the rush of the battle! I want to get a stab at the bastards who dared challenge Celestia.”

I was a little surprised at the contents. This person knew Rainbow Dash, and served under the Knights. I pressed the button to allow the next recording to play.

“This is day four at this place, and I’m sooooooo bored. My talents are being wasted just sitting around doing nothing. Dashy means well, but really she has to understand that I’m just no good at sitting around and waiting. She spends most of her time taking a nap, but that’s not my style.

She’s been very determined to win this war since we both first enlisted really; she’s totally a true badass! I considered once throwing away my music career and starting an assassin group with her when the war is over the other day, but she didn’t like the sound of It; told me to stop joking around.

She got really serious though the other night when I brought up the last fight we were in. I was trying to tell her that we should have taken out the remaining forces while they were retreating, but she got really stern with me. Went on about how there’s enough bloodshed as it is, and she didn’t attack also because they had foals with them, and she refuses to kill children. This isn’t the first time either; she’s spoken against opening fire on foals before, even if they are armed. The girl needs to snap out of her fantasy sometimes and realize this is war; if there’s anything I learned out here, it’s that the enemy doesn’t like to play by the rules.

I don’t see why Dashy is so stressed; after all she’s got me, Vinyl Scratch, the greatest soldier who ever lived by her side.”

This pony was very egotistical, but in a playful way. The way she spoke insinuated that she had known her commanding officer prior to joining the Knights. I was still fascinated by this information; it actually lifted my hopes of finding the Knights.

There was only one recording left, I was almost sad that they were almost over. It almost felt like there was someone else in the room with me, I sort of felt like I was getting to know Vinyl Scratch just a little bit from listening to these, even if she might be long dead since the time these messages were recorded.

“Day Twelve, we’re finally moving out; took long enough. Some kind of emergency summon by Celestia was issued to our unit, and we have to leave right away. They didn’t give us any details except that they want Rainbow’s Raiders on the front line. Dashy seems a bit excited about this one, we may actually get a stab at Trixie she’s saying. How I would love to sink my horn into that traitor, unfortunately it’s saying things like that which have them all worried I’m going to go postal or something. Thus they put me on chopper duty for the time being, something about needing further mental evaluation before I’m put back on the front lines, all a bunch of medical jargon to me.

Rarity is making a fuss about how we shouldn’t be so sure that we’re going to be able to get Trixie, but she forgets that we have the best unit in the Knights. We’re lead by Rainbow freakin’ Dash for Celestia’s sake. Not to mention we have the best damn equipment money can buy, and of course, yours truly.

I am not exactly looking forward to pretty much babysitting patrol, but I guess I can stick it out until Dashy decides otherwise. Besides, I don’t want to steal the glory of getting that devious Trixie from her. That’s all she’s talked about for a while now was bringing Trixie to justice, and I’m all for justice. I just want one piece, that’s all; something to hang on my mantle.

I’m not exactly sure what kind of grudge Dashy has against Trixie, besides of course her totally fucking us over and killing thousands of course, but everyone hates her for that. Dashy’s hate for her seems deeper, like something personal between the two. Dashy has always been pretty quiet about her personal life, but a lot of us would like to know what’s her deal with Trixie.

Anyway, I am heading out now. I’m going to leave this recording behind for anypony to find it.”

I couldn’t recognize half of the ponies that she mentioned in the recording, however I made a mental note of them, as according to Vinyl, that was Rainbow Dash’s team right there. Perhaps that information would prove useful at some point.

Who was Trixie though? Obviously I could assume she worked for the enemy, but I really wanted to know why Rainbow Dash had such a vendetta against her. She made it sound like there was a personal grudge between the two, and not just that of opposing officers in war.

A part of me was overly excited. The thought of the Knights in battle had my heart racing with joy and anxiety. I was more eager to meet them now than I was before. Everything I heard about the Knights only made me admire them more and more it seemed. They had to still exist; there was no way that they could have been destroyed. They’re probably out there rebuilding now that the war was over.

The Knights really did sound as great as Dipper described them. Vinyl Scratch spoke with the same pride that he did to be a part of them. Come to think of it, since he was a Knight that served under Rainbow Dash, he might have been here in this camp when Vinyl made those recordings. My mind focused on that thought. I then silently remembered that they would have had to be at least four or five years old for him to be here. It was possible that they were that old, but I wasn’t putting money on it. Chances are they were dated long before he even joined, or long after he had left.

I decided to take the recorder with me. I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason instinct was telling me I should take it.

Leaving the encampment I continued towards the destination set to me by the flyer I had discovered moments after leaving the city. I wasn’t even sure why I was going there anymore really, as the odds of anypony still being there were low, but I just wanted to try regardless. I was willing to accept that this could be a fruitless venture. I couldn’t go home, so there was only the option of moving forward.

With that, I took another step out into the vast wastes. It was as bleak and deserted as I had left it, but some reason a spark of hope was about me.