I squirmed around on whatever hard surface I was currently laying on. I was cold, hungry, my throat felt more dry than I wanted to go into detail to describe, and my chest hurt more than anything I'd ever experienced. I'd completely forgotten about my aching leg and back as I cried and grit my teeth. Wait... pain?

I opened my eyes and saw I was in a dark room of some kind. After my eyes adjusted I could see it was some sort of open warehouse with half of one wall completely toppled over. The pouring rain hitting the tin roof was oddly relaxing as I laid there and tried to remember something, anything about how I got here. I remembered fighting some slavers, then a fourth one shot me. I remembered the raider from earlier helping me before leaving me to bleed to death, but that was it. Wait! There was a cat! Not like a normal cat, a big one! It looked like-

I yelped as loud as my aching chest would let me and scooted as far into the corner as I could go. That wasn't a cat! It was like a pony... cat thing! With cat ears, eyes and a tail! "Leave me alone I really don't want to be eaten right now please!"

It tilted it's head before falling to the floor laughing. "Hahaha... you really.. really thought I was gonna- oh that's a good one!" Well I didn't think the situation was funny. It finally stopped laughing and sat on it's haunches as it swished it's cat tail playfully. "Listen if I wanted to eat you, which is totally gross by the way, I would have done it when you were bleeding to death out in the street."

Now that I wasn't hyperventilating and a little more awake, I could tell it was clearly more pony than cat. No, not it. I'm sure he/she had a name. I found a way to sit up before asking an obvious question. "Okay... so are you the one that brought me here?"

He jumped up and smiled. "Sure am! I fixed you up after that gunshot wound too! I saw you fighting with those slavers, that was so cool! They were all 'You're coming with us' and you were all like 'Buck that noise!' and then you were like woosh and kapow and then you-" He reenacted my fight with the slavers with an enthusiasm I didn't share. After noticing this he sat next to me. "What's wrong?"

I laid back down and covered my face with a hoof. "I killed those ponies. I didn't have to, I could have run or hid from them. Instead I killed them. What's wrong with me?"

To my surprise he laid down next to me and leaned into my side. I blushed a little at how direct he was, but my attention was focused on where he was looking. He was staring at a far corner of the warehouse where a pile of bloody bandages and an empty healing potion bottle sat. "I know what you mean. I was watching you fight those guys, I saw the fourth one aiming at you. Even after he shot and was going to kill you with your knife, all I did was watch because I was too scared to move. I was too scared that if I even showed my face he'd just kill me too. I'm so worthless I can't even find my own parents, how could I ever help anypony?"

"But you helped me." He looked over at me as I sat up and smiled at him. "That's right. If you hadn't fixed me up I would have died back there. So don't going around saying you can't help anypony, and definitely don't ever say that you're worthless." He hugged me with enough force to make my chest burn with renewed pain, but I knew when somepony needed a hug so I returned the favor.

"Thank you. I've been so alone for so long, I just..."

"Needed a friend. Me too... I recently had to leave my home for the first time for as long as I can remember, and I've been feeling pretty lonely too. Say you think maybe I could stick with you for awhile?"

He pawed at the ground sheepishly and folded his ears back. "Does... does this make us friends?"

"Absolutely! My name's Updraft." I stuck a hoof out, which he readily shook.

"And my name's Finder. Because, you know... I find stuff."

I couldn't restrain myself any more. He was just too adorable. I kissed him on the forehead, making him blush. He tasted... minty? Okay then... "I don't think I could ask for a better friend. And not to kill the mood, but where exactly are we anyways? I don't remember seeing this place before I passed out."

He started rummaging through his bag as he answered. "Well I didn't want to stay on that slaver trail for longer than I needed to, so I carried you here to an old abandoned mining town. Most ponies don't come here because of the ghosts, but I don't mind 'em too much."

He carried me all the way here? Wow he's even smaller than me! I'll have to make it up to him. Wait, ghosts? "Like actual ghosts, or just a bunch of stories passed around by crazy ponies?" I was really starting to get tired of this dry throat; every time I talked it burned.

He started pulling a few empty Sparkle Cola~ bottles with their caps still on them out of his bag and setting them on the floor. "Yeah that's exactly what I asked, but trust me they're real. Not sure why or how, but if you see a pony walking around here, they probably aren't as alive as the rest of us. One of the reasons I stay here really. Everpony is too scared to come out this way so I don't have to worry about raiders or anything."

I laid back down slowly, trying not to make my chest hurt any worse. "S'kinda like my home. The town that I'm from gives clean water to a couple big gangs, and in return they protect us from the raiders, slavers, and other smaller gangs. We had good food from the caravans that came through, shelter, protection, everything you could ask for in the wasteland." I left out the part about my friends I had to leave behind.

He blinked at me before tilting his head. "Sounds like a good deal, so why'd you leave?"

"Didn't really have a choice. I'd rather not talk about it, sorry." I finally started getting over having to leave, I really didn't want to start thinking about it again.

He shrugged his shoulders before he started gathering up the bottles. "Suit yourself. Well I'm going to get some clean-ish water while it's still raining. It's not much, but there's some food in that corner room when your hungry so help yourself." He balanced the bottles on his back (How is he doing that?) before leisurely walking to the collapsed wall and out into the rain.

Food sounded really good, and water sounded even better. But all I could think about as I closed my eyes was how tired I felt.

A week ago if you had caught me eating dog food, there would have had to be a pretty big bet on the line. But I had no shame as I licked everything thing I could out of my second can. It looked and tasted pretty disgusting, but it was food, and I was hungry. I felt bad for drinking nearly all the water Finder collected while it was raining, but he assured me he had plenty more. After I finally felt remotely healthy again, I decided it was time I learned a thing or two about my new friend.

He was leaning against a wall as he looked out at the horizon. He looked… sad. “Hey is everything okay?” It took him awhile to respond, and he never took his eyes from the collapsed hole in the wall.

“Yeah I’m fine. Just miss em you know? My parents. I haven’t seen them since I was little and we got separated in the Everfree.”

“You got separated? How’d that happen? And what’s the Everfree?”

He looked at me as if mentally saying ‘city ponies don’t know nothing’ as he stifled a laugh. “The Everfree forest. It’s pretty much the only plant life left in Equestria, though all the radiation and taint turned that place into a nightmare. Pretty much nopony ever goes in there, and for good reasons. Back before the bombs fell it was one of the most dangerous places ponies went, filled with Manticores and all kinds of things."

"And now?"

His eyes looked hollow as he recalled the distant memories. "It used to be a scary place, but now nopony goes in that place and comes out the same. The animals there are mutated beyond any recognition. The water looks white and moves when it should be sitting still. Even the trees and plants themselves come alive to haunt you. But nothing in the wasteland compares to the Killing Joke."

I gulped as I thought over whether or not I dared to ask him about something like that. He didn't give me the time to wimp out of asking him though.

"That's actually how I got separated from my parents. See we were adventurers: not like your normal scavengers, we went places everypony else was too scared to. Dragon's lairs, prewar buildings loaded with turrets and sentries, so-called haunted mines," he shot me a smirk, and I knew why he felt so comfortable here now. "We went anywhere that had a chance of good loot that no one had found yet. But we also took a lot of jobs from the wealthier ponies to find things for them. So when we were offered a job to find a particular flower in the Everfree for some kind of medicine, of course we thought 'What better place to have an adventure'?"

His story was interrupted by a series of loud bangs coming from outside, followed by a lot of shouting. They sounded like gunshots, coming from something bigger than I wanted to see. Finder pulled me away from the hole in the wall before starting to frantically pack what he could in his bags. After noticing my confusion, he motioned for me to help him pack.

"Steel Rangers, and a lot of them. They come out here every couple of weeks to take what pre-war tech they can. This place is filled with all kinds of old machinery, a lot of it still working. They may seem somewhat friendly at their Headquarters, but trust me they'll toast you on sight if they catch you out here. The ghosts scramble their E.F.S. so they can't see us that way, but the more experienced ones will pick up on us if we sit still."

I started packing up his supply of dog food (it really didn't taste that bad...) and soon we both had everything ready to move. "So where are we going then?"

"Literally anywhere that isn't here. I figured we'd get back to town and go from there." Great, so he didn't have a plan either. Oh well I usually did my best work when I had no idea what I was doing.

Finder sat next to the crumbled wall, his head barely poking over the rubble. After he knew for sure where the Steel Rangers where, he led me out of the warehouse and down a nearby alley. I couldn't help but admire how good he was at this. He moved completely without a sound, somehow managing that even when walking on broken glass. He also checked every corner and window we passed without missing a single step, never slowing down for-

He suddenly leaped through a broken window without a sound or warning, and I panicked as I rushed follow him. I hid under the window sill with him for mere moments before three Steel Rangers clambered by with their heavy armor, shaking dust from the buildings ceiling as they marched past. One of them said something in a harsh tone before they rounded a corner and kept walking.

We waited for nearly a minute before we climbed back through the window and continued stalking our way down the alley. After we were a long distance away I had to ask him a question. "That was incredible! How did you know they were coming?"

He flashed me a smile, but never stopped his vigilance at checking every hiding place we passed. "Ever wonder why cat's are so good at being predators? It's because they're so good at being prey." Well that didn't answer my question at all.

After nearly an hour and several more close encounters (We hid in cabinets once! Cabinets!), we finally left the creepy mining town behind and made our way back to the small town we were at before. Before long we came to the house that I fought the slavers at, there bodies still sitting in the street. I stopped and stared at the large bloodstain where I'd been shot and the two empty healing potion bottles dropped nearby. Finder must have used everything he had to save me.

I picked up a nearby broken pipe (it tasted awful!) and started digging a hole on the side of the road. Finder watched me and tilted his head. "What are you doing that for?"

I spit the pipe out and wiped some sweat from my forehead. "I killed these ponies, least I can do is bury them." And with that I went back to digging. It didn't take long for Finder to join me, and after what felt like an hour we had all four graves finished. I checked them to make sure they didn't have any valuables (I'm not that stupid...) before we buried them all. I couldn't find much to use as headstones, but I used a couple of big rocks I found nearby.

After about an hour we made our way out of the town without any real destination in mind. We just kept walking under that boring grey sky, with nothing to look at but the boring brown desert. Needless to say, I quickly became bored.

"So you never did get to finish your story, about your parents."

"Oh right, now where was I..." We spotted a crashed sky carriage and started to look for any loot. "See Killing Joke is some pretty mean stuff. With just a touch it can instantly kill you, but usually it tries to play some kind of sick joke on you that kills you really slowly instead. Like say somepony is really clumsy and they fall all the time. One day they say that they hate the downy-pull stuff... uhh gravita or whatever it's called. Then one day, maybe even years later, Killing Joke get's to em, and the next thing they know they're flying away without anything to hold them down. True story by the way, totally saw it happen."

That was... unsettling to say the least. I'm pretty sure that stuff was the absolute last thing I ever wanted to see. "So what's it have to do with you?"

He laughed a small, sad laugh. "See that's the funny thing, I always used to say I was sneaky enough that I could even steal a cat's tail without them knowing. Ironic huh? Never even saw it coming. One minute I was listening to my mom and dad talk about settling down in Friendship city after we finished that last job, and the next I was laying on the ground in too much pain to hear anything. I passed out for a couple days after it got me. And when I did wake up, I was alone in a small shack on the south side of the Everfree. I still don't know what happened to my parents."

We got a small fortune from the sky carriage: two Sparkle Cola's~, a healing potion, and some nasty looking canned vegetables. Somepony was probably stashing them there hoping nopony would find them.I felt too bad to take it all, so I just took one Sparkle Cola~ and the healing potion, and left some water. Finder just laughed and walked off, but I wasn't going to take everything this pony had when we still had plenty to get by with.

We walked in silence after the carriage, and I used the time to think about my new friend. He was clearly younger than me, but not by much. Despite this he definitely knew more about the Wasteland than I did, so I was really lucky to be with him. Well that and he did kinda save my life, so I guess I owe him quite a lot by now. Plus he was such a good friend! He would do anything for me, I just couldn't think of how to repay him though... I got it!

"Hey Finder?"

"Yeah?"

"You said you still don't know where your parents are, right? Are you still looking for them?"

He nodded and still somehow maintained his astounding observance of our surroundings. "Well it's not like I have anything else to do. And I'd really like to see them again. I never even got to say goodbye or anything."

"Then it's decided! Since I don't have anywhere else to go at the moment, and I definitely owe you big time for saving me back there, I'm going to stop at nothing to help you find your parents." He stopped dead on his hooves and his jaw fought to play tag with the ground.

"Wait! But... I mean.. I didn't help you just so you'd owe me a favor or something! I mean don't feel like you have to do this or something. I can't ask you to-"

His incoherent ramblings were silenced by my hoof in his mouth. "Shh. Listen I'm not doing this just because you saved me, and I'm not doing this because I owe you something. I'm doing it because you're my friend, and that's what friends do."

He was still for a moment as he looked at the ground. If I wasn't watching him so closely I would have missed the tear that hit the hard desert floor. "Thank you. That's all I can say, is thank you." And another bone crushing hug later, we were on our way to wherever it was we were going.

"So do you have any idea where they might be?"

"I'm not sure, but I have some ideas. We always found good loot in Las Pegasus, and we went there often, so that's a good start. It's a pretty long walk, but there's an old house near here we can stay the night at."

"Sounds like a plan boss." He blushed a little at his new title, but I thought it was adorable. We walked for another hour or two before reaching the house just as night fell. It wasn't much more than a shack really, with just one room and no windows. There wasn't any furniture left that was remotely usable, and all the cabinets had been pilfered through multiple times.

My chest was really starting to ache after all that walking, so I dropped to the floor as soon as we were inside. Finder continued his habit of checking every single nook and cranny in the house until he was completely sure not even a rad roach or spider was inside. After he walked around the room a couple of times, much to my amusement, he plopped down next to me with a sigh.

I unfurled my wings and got as comfortable as I could get on the cold wooden floor. Despite my body aches I really wasn't very sleepy, so I opened out my saddlebags and pulled out one of my trusty old books. Finder laughed when I pulled out a candle, but I shut him up after what I did next.

I closed my eyes and focused, feeling the magic flowing through my body. After a moment I slowly moved my wing over the candle, and when I pulled it away the candle was lit with a bright little flame. Haha now it was my turn to look like the cool pony. "How did you...when did... I don't even... I thought only unicorns could do magic you cheater!"

I laughed and nearly blew out the candle. "You know why us Pegasi are such good fighters? Because we're good at keeping secrets."

"That is so not cool."

"Tell you what, I learned how to do that from this very book actually, and since we're friends I'll even let you read it with me." His eyes lit up and he tried to reach for the book like a foal would reach for a jar of cookies. I even had to slap his hoof away, which he highly disapproved of. "However! We have to be extremely careful. This book is made of some really strong stuff, but it's still way older than either of us can imagine and I don't want to take any chances."

I reached back and plucked a feather from one of my wings, using it to open the book to the front page. I quickly noticed the confusion on Finder's face as he tried to read it. "What is this, some kind of weird picture book? Those don't look like letters at all!"

I made myself more comfortable as I explained it. "That's because this is written in another language. One that probably hasn't been spoken for over a thousand years. It's called Cirran, the ancient language of the Cirran Empire. Long before Equestria was even formed, when the Pegasi were much more war-like and before they even knew of the other pony tribes. I don't know much about it really, but I have another book that taught me how to read it pretty well."

"Well that's nice and all, but how am I supposed to read it?"

"Don't worry I can read it out loud. I've been meaning to practice that anyways. Though I may have to go kinda slow, this stuff is hard to read in some places since it was mouth-written."

The wind outside howled, and the dust blew. But in the quiet stillness of that abandoned house, we peacefully read the story of a pony long since dead.

"14th of First Seed, 401 After Empire

Writing was never something that I took a profound interest in. There are things I consider more important for a pegasus to know; how to plow a field, how to navigate stormy currents, how to handle a sword and wing blades. Above all, however, I believe that a pegasus must learn how to remember, and maybe it is through this belief that I feel the need to write..."

No Level Up.

Character Updates

Name: Finder
Gender: Male
Race: Earth Pony
Age: 17
Appearance: Black coat; sage green mane/tail/eyes; has cat ears, eyes, and tail.
Size: much smaller than average
Occupation: Scavenger
Weapons of choice: Uses a dagger made from a Manticore claw.
Skillset: The name says it all, he can find almost anything given the time. Extremely stealthy; very agile and fast; never had to fight other ponies before.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to KKat for creating such a wonderful world for us to build upon, and a special thanks to The 24th Pegasus for giving me permission to use some of his/LoyalLiar's ideas in this story. I highly recommend checking out his amazing writing!
As always thank you for reading, and feel free to comment and give any criticism! >(^_^)<