‘So this was morning, huh?’

I sat in the back of a wagon being pulled by some grotesque two-headed cow thing, chewing my pistol’s mouth bit. Morning, apparently, was noticeably brighter than the afternoon or the evening. Gail said something about DJ Pon-3’s channel being more coherent in the mornings when the skies cleared up somewhat.

I looked up to the clouds and winced, swallowing bile down my throat. ‘Yep, they were still there.’ I guess what made mornings in the Frozen North different was that you could see the clouds. When complete, total darkness fell upon the land, then it was night. It was still rather gloomy outside, and likewise, equally as depressing.

My breath fogged up in front of my face as I stared out into the distance. A light snowfall sprinkled us with bits of powder, and for once since I left my stable, I felt like I was going to survive out there. There hadn’t been a whiteout in twelve hours. That was good sign.

Behind us were three other wagons full of supplies and a hooffull of trader ponies that seemed about as apprehensive about traveling through the snow as I was.

Gail’s winged shape hovered over the caravan, her battle rifle scanning the distance. She flew ahead and back, calling out reports to Night Sky as she scouted out the path in the distance. The others kept an eye out for anything coming in from the sides or behind.

Sprinkles nudged me with a hoof and motioned for me to look outside the wagon.

“You see that?” she asked, pointing her hoof out into the distance.

I could barely make out what looked to be a dozen small shapes prowling through the snow.

“What are those things?” I asked, squinting.

“Those’re wolves,” Sprinkles replied, unpleasantly. “Well, they used to be. Now they’re bloodletters. Nasty little critters that hunt in packs and attack anything that moves.”

I narrowed my eyes at the creatures as they disappeared behind an exceptionally large snow drift.

“Well why aren’t they attacking us?”

“Because they’re not stupid.” She gestured to her rifle. “There’s too many guns and too few of them, anyways,” Sprinkles added as the creatures stalked within eyeshot once more.

“Eh, they’re just wolves. Can’t get any worse than that right?” I said with a chuckle.

She looked at me sternly.

“There’s also Snow Devils. Pray to your Goddesses you never see one, because they’re tough, and they don’t go down too easily. Used to be bears, I think. They’ve got claws that can rip through the armor of this wagon.” I remembered seeing those odd looking skeletons at the bottom of the den Amber Fields fell into. Then I remembered the extra pair of jaws that poked out of their mouths. I shivered.

“Okay … so, we've got mutant wolves and bears. Anything else I should know about?”

She gave me that stern look again.

The sound of gunfire in the distance stole the words from her lips. Someone whistled ahead of the caravan before Sprinkles could continue, and Gail’s winged silhouette swooped down to land in front of us as the wagons pulled to a stop.

“Furies ahead; they were in the middle of burying themselves in the snow when they saw me.”

Night Sky swore under her breath.

“How many?”

“I counted about a dozen, maybe more. They’re on their way here, now,” Gail replied, gripping her battle rifle tightly. She took to the skies once more, shouldering the weapon and scanning the drifts.

“Alright everypony, form up! Get those wagons in formation!” Night Sky called out to the others who were coaxing the two-headed bovines to their places. Within a span of twenty seconds, the four wagons formed up into a square, with each of the mercs including myself, and five trader ponies ducked under their heavy metal frames.

I crouched next to a trader unicorn with a shabby looking shotgun held in his magical grip.

“Hey,” I said, leaning against the wagon.

“Howdy.”

I looked over the wagon and didn’t see any furies. I figured that I’d wait for the others to call them out.

“You’re not from around here are you?”

“Nope,” I regarded him expectantly until he continued.

His eyes widened for a moment, and he chuckled, realizing that we were having a conversation. “I stopped by New Appaloosa for a few sales and a couple bargains. Headin’ back up to Poneva to stock up on some agristuff.”

By agristuff he probably meant food. Real food, I hoped. I cringed at the thought of the vat-grown vegetables and gene-modded apples I used to eat at my stable.

“Poneva, huh? Have you been there before?”

He nodded, “Eeyup.” Well that pony seemed to be a pony of few words.

I frowned at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Well … I’m not from here, either. Came out of a stable not too long ago,” I said, waving my PipBuck. “What’s it like?

His eyes widened at that. “Yer one of them stable fellers! I don’t suppose yer one of them ponies from Stable 2, huh?”

“What? U-uh, no. I’m not,” I said, awkwardly, remembering DJ Pon-3’s fragmented broadcast.

“Oh,” he harrumphed, sighing.

I snorted, “Hope I didn’t disappoint you too much. I’m from Stable 91.”

“Nah, there’s just all this excitement down south ‘bout somepony clearin’ the routes of raiders over by Ponyville.”

“Yeah. I heard …”

“Sorry, heard ‘stable’ and I got ahead of muhself,” he said, holding his hat to his chest. “Well anyways, I’ve been to Poneva a few times. It’s a purty nice city – if ya don’t mind all the gangs and rampaging hooligans and such.”

‘Well fuck,’ I was hoping something more on the lines of ‘jolly, helpful folk who like to organize community events’, instead. ‘But I’m in the wasteland,’ I thought, rolling my eyes, ‘How much more can I expect?’

“That’s good to know, I guess. I was planning on heading up there too.”

The unicorn nodded. “Well for a first timer, pay the toll at the gates and ya probably won’t have no problems," he added, still nodding.

Probably.

I just sighed.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” I picked up my pistol awkwardly in my mouth, slobbering all over it like a mangy dog. The stallion frowned at me.

“Why’re ya holding it like that?”

“My horn ishn’t working right,” I said, struggling through my mouth bit.

His eyes widened as if a lightbulb just flashed over his head. He pumped his hoof into the air, grinning.

“I might just have what ya need, boy! Talk to me after we tussle with these here raiders. I might have something that can help ya.”

Before I could reply, a bullet whizzed past us and blasted skyward a plume of snow behind me.

“They’re here! Everypony, on your hooves!”

Night Sky shouldered her assault rifle, standing upon her hinds.

I chewed on my mouth bit and peeked over the wagon. My EFS blinked red. I saw them. The ponies – no, the furies poked their heads over the snow drifts.

Their deranged laughter filled the air.

The blizzard howled past my ears.

I was running. The gnarled trees blurred past me.

‘Hahahahaha - HAHAHAHAHA!’

'RUN, RED - RUN!'

...

‘No.’

I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt.

I turned around and my forehooves clopped against the wagon’s steel frame. I stared out into the drifts as the snow furies rose up from the snow, their whooping cries chasing after my pulse as it pounded in my temples.

Those were the monsters that slaughtered my friends.

I wasn’t going to be a victim.

Not again.

Crack!

A shot pinged against the wagon’s hull a few inches away from my head and I ducked back down.

I closed my eyes and panted through my mouth bit. I needed to make it through that. Alive.

Gunfire erupted between both sides as Bone Charm loosed his saddle-mounted light machine gun, sending the furies diving for cover. Gail swooped overhead, lancing the furies with her battle rifle.

I looked over the wagon and saw a fury's head explode. It was like watching someone hurl a melon at a wall. Thought there wasn’t much pony left. Just chunks of wet melon splattered across the snow.

I swallowed bile down my throat.

“Dear Celestia,” I murmured.

Bone Charm’s machine gun clicked empty. A handful of the furies, brandished axes and machetes, and galloped across the snow towards us. I tensed as their unnerving, deranged laughter echoed through my ears.

The furies that stayed behind had the sense to cover them with gunfire. More shrieking bullets ricocheted off the wagon’s frame a few inches from my face. But this time, I didn’t duck. Something caught my eyes.

I narrowed them at a fury who was just watching the ensuing firefight. Without even a giggle or a curse, it just stood there. Observing. A bullet clipped my collar.

‘Fuck!’

“Here they come!” I heard Sprinkles shout.

I poked my head over again and threw on my training wheels. I marked a target and SATS plotted a firing solution.

Glowing teal markers flashed across the closest fury’s torso and legs.

I tongued the trigger.

The fury took the first few bullets to the chest. He staggered, a grin widening across his face - then my shots blew out his legs.

But he didn't stop.

The stallion clambered towards me, screaming through bloody teeth.

He wouldn’t stop.

“Celestia … how do you kill these things?”

“Shoot ‘em till they’re dead, dumbass!” Bone Charm snarled.

‘Fucking …’ I tongued the trigger. The 10mm rounds bucked in my teeth -

And I missed.

“C’mon partner, pony up!” the trader shouted, blasting apart a fury that came too close with his shotgun.

It just wasn’t the same without my magic.

My eyes caught sight of a submachine gun as it levitated around the corner. The trader saw it too. He was closest to it. The stallion turned just as the glowing, magic-wreathed weapon flashed.

I dove into him, throwing him to the snow.

Bullets kicked me in the ribs.

I wheezed as they punched the air out of my lungs. “SHI - ACK!” I crashed into the snow gasping ragged breaths.

The fury poked her grinning face out from around the corner. Then it exploded in a blast of buckshot. The familiar taste of vomit washed into my mouth.

Panting for air, and with tears in my eyes, I staggered out of cover and took aim once more.

A fury’s nose booped into mine.

“BOO!”

I screamed and felt my pistol kick in my teeth. She slumped on top of me, a demented grin still stretched across her face. I whimpered, struggling to heave her off of me when another fury rounded the corner. My tongue twitched and my shots went wide. The fury whooped, cackling as he took a wild leap, machete swinging for my throat.

I shut my eyes and flinched, waiting to feel the cold touch of steel rip across my flesh.

My eyes flew open just as Gail’s shadow swept over me.

CRACK!

The fury’s throat exploded in a splash of gore. He choked and sputtered, wrapping his hooves around the ragged hole in his neck.

I lunged at the dying fury and jammed my pistol in his mouth.

CRACK! I shook my head vigorously, snarling as the blood flicked off my muzzle. A rusty steel helmet jerked into view. The fury that was wearing it – the one that I crippled earlier - scrambled hungrily after me, brandishing a cleaver and threatening to take my kneecaps off because I apparently took his.

SATS plotted a firing solution through his skull. I watched in horror as the bullet ricocheted inside his helmet.

His head fucking exploded.

I exhaled sharply, swallowing the vomit that hiccuped into my throat.

My ears perked. Hooves plodded behind me. I whirled around just in time to get nicked by a unicorn mare’s glowing switchblade. Its icy edge painted my cheek red with my blood. I winced and side stepped. The mare galloped past me and slammed into the wagon’s frame.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU MY LITTLE GELDLING!" she snarled, snapping her teeth at me as she lunged.

I spun around and flung my hindlegs back. My hooves connected with her chest, and she careened into the wagon once more. I leveled my pistol at her and yanked the trigger back.

It clicked empty.

‘Oh.’

“SHIT!”

I patted down my vest for another magazine. But she was up on her hooves before I could ram it home. “Come on – ”

The fury charged.

I clenched my eyes shut and threw my forelegs in front of me. I caught her head between my hooves. With a snarl, she threw me into the snow - and I drove her face through the powder. I stumbled away, hurling myself into the wagon’s frame and hoofing in a fresh magazine.

The mare tore her head out of the powder, spat out bloody snow and came at me again, snarling like a rabid animal.

I slipped into SATS, and the world seemed to slow around me as my PipBuck calculated math faster than she could move. I tagged her head, and for the longest of heartbeats, I somehow found myself staring into her murderous, black-veined eyes.

They were a lovely shade of blue.

‘Goddesses …’

Those were supposed to be the windows to her soul. But gnarled black veins boarded up any glimpse of the equinity within. The equinity that made a pony … a pony.

She might have been beautiful once. Her delicate white cheeks. Her soft muzzle. Her long, slender neck. But I was too distracted to give them more than a passing thought by the caked-up blood splatters that I knew couldn't have been hers.

Down the length of her coat, through her mangled trousers, I saw that her cutiemark was that of a colorful bird. I wondered, for a moment – ‘Who was she? What was she before she became … that? Was she a bird-keeper? Or maybe she had a marvelous voice?’

I gulped, struggling to queue my shots. Instead I studied her face - her cracked, bloody lips curled with an uneven, demented smile.

I wondered ... was there still a pony beneath that madness? Was there any sense – any reason for – for the carnage around me?

Those maniacs, those degenerates – those were the creatures that skinned Star Glint alive. They blew up Amber in our faces when they could have just killed her and been done with it. They hacked Twirl to pieces like a piece of meat.

They tore Dew Drops apart before my very eyes.

‘Hahahahaha - HAHAHAHAHA –’

I tagged her legs.

The bullets ripped through her and she tumbled from her useless legs into the snow at my hooves. The pale mare let out a tortured moan, thrashing her bloody limbs through the drifts.

“Stop!” I shouted, hoarsely. But she wouldn’t listen. I threw myself over her, pinning her bloodied legs to the snow. Tears streamed down the pony’s grimy cheeks.

“Why are you doing this!?”

The black veins in her sclera receded for the briefest of moments. I heard her murmur something incomprehensible.

“ANSWER ME!”

“I … I …” she whimpered. The pony grinded her teeth and clenched her eyes shut. Her face contorted into an agonizing grimace as if something was ripping her apart from the inside out.

Then her eyelids flew open.

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” she shrieked, a web of throbbing, black tendrils raking across her eyes. She drove her switchblade into me and I screamed through my mouth bit.

My pistol flashed in her eyes.

Her head flopped back into the snow. Blood and brains pooled out the hole in the back of her skull, her lifeless blue eyes gazing blankly back at me. I watched, ripping the switchblade out of me as the black veins receded once more.

“What the fuck are these things…” I murmured, touching the fury’s pale face.

I heard someone scream behind me and turned just in time to see Sprinkles get gutted by a rusty machete. He twisted it, and ripped it out of her with a brutal squelch.

I entered SATS and snapped a shot at his head. My holographic footlights stuttered - and I missed.

“Shit!” I gawked at my depleted SATS charges. I clenched my jaw, watching the fury raise the machete to cleave Sprinkles’ head off. It fell, and in the time it took for me to scream, the fury’s torso blew apart in a hail of machine gun fire.

His carcass danced with the storm of lead, ragged holes tearing across his flesh until he crumbled into the snow like a mangled ragdoll. Bone Charm, his machine gun smoking, screamed for me to duck, and I heard the stomach-churning sound of bloody meat being ripped apart behind me.

I turned and a perforated fury mare splattered next to me, nicking me with a hatchet. I cried out - stumbled back - and collapsed next to a writhing, gory Sprinkles.

“R-Red Dawn!” she spat through a mouthful of blood, clutching her chest with both her forehooves in an attempt to make the bleeding stop.

It didn’t.

The blood was draining from her face.

“My bags … health … potion …”

I bit my lower lip, hoofing through her belongings and pulling out the reddest looking health potion I could find. I tipped it into her open mouth and she gulped it down and all the blood in her throat without another word.

Being injured like that seemed like second nature to her.

I exhaled with relief as her flesh stitched together before my very eyes.

“It’s not over yet,” she growled and spat blood into the snow. Sprinkles reared up on her hinds and shouldered her assault rifle. I frowned as her rifle’s flashing muzzle rewarded her with a distant scream.

An unsettling grin stretched across her face.

I hurried away back to the trader and stumbled into him just as he was cramming his shotgun into a fury's snapping teeth. Blood splattered all over my chest.

I closed my eyes and let out a trembling breath.

“They’re feisty ‘lil shits ain’t they?” I heard him shout over the gunfire, pumping his shotgun. “Ain’t nothin’ like the raiders back at home!”

“That’s because they ain’t,” Bone Charm snarled, feeding a fresh belt into his machine gun’s chamber.

I opened my eyes when I felt something land between my hooves. It started to smoke.

I opened my mouth to scream -

But Sprinkles just snatched it up with a hoof and flung it back the way it came.

“Give a raider what she wants, and she’ll leave you alone,” she said, as a bone jarring explosion sent a cascading shower of gravel and snow over our heads. “Give a fury what she wants, and she’ll eat your face.”

“I’LL FUCKING EAT YOUR FACE!” some insane bitch screamed at us in the distance.

Bone Charm yanked his bolt back.

“You gotta kill ‘em or they won’t stop.”

I peeked over the wagon and saw a plume of gore fountain into the air – the result of Gail’s terrifyingly exceptional aim. The gunfire dwindled for a moment as the furies ducked under the snow drifts.

One fury stood up, and galloped out into the open, screaming like a mad mare. Gail flew circles over us like a hawk, waiting for the right moment to stop, shoulder her rifle, and –

CRACK!

A ragged hole exploded out the fury mare’s chest. The furies laughed as her lifeless corpse collapsed into the bloody snow.

I narrowed my eyes as another snow fury galloped into the open. I could see the yellow, broken teeth of his demented smile.

Gail’s shadow swept over him.

She took aim, and I saw his grin widen.

Furies rose up from the drifts and shouldered their rifles.

Night Sky screamed:

“Shit – SHIT - cover her! GAIL!”

Bone Charm and Sprinkles sprang to their hooves. But it was already too late.

Bullets punched through her in a burst of feathers and blood.

She spun out of the air and careened into the drifts, painting a red arc across the snow as she tried to scramble to her feet. The furies cheered madly, bursting out from behind the pale dunes and galloping after her.

I blinked and saw Lightning Twirl plummet into a mob of giggling psychopaths. I watched her disappear beneath their falling blades.

My jaw clenched.

And I leaped out of cover.

“GAIL!” I cried, galloping towards her.

She clutched her bleeding chest, wheezing ragged gasps as she tried to crawl away from those murderous animals.

For a second I wondered what the fuck I was doing as I pounded through the snow downwind a hail of gunfire.

I barely knew those mercs. I shouldn’t have cared about whether they lived or died. All that mattered was surviving so that my stable could live. I’d sacrifice all those poor, surface dwelling scum if it meant that everyone in my stable survived.

I’d sacrifice them all if it could bring my friends back.

If I died right then and there, all the hope my stable had for survival would have died with me.

But I kept going.

I wasn’t going to let Gail become a victim. Not like my friends. Not like me.

My pulse hammered inside my temples faster than I could put one hoof in front of the other. Pounding straight for me was a fury with a vicious, spiked club.

SATS flashed across my eyes. I blasted apart her chest. She collapsed - screaming past me. I didn’t even lose a single step. I galloped harder - I closed the distance.

Gail cried out as one of the ponies tried to drag her away. I swore under my breath, and snapped into SATS. My shots blew out the fury’s legs from under him. He opened his mouth to scream as I spun around and hurled my hindhooves into his face.

I overextended. Bones broke against my hooves. There was a disgusting snap as I severed his spine.

“HOLY SHIT!” Gail squawked.

That’s exactly what I thought when I fell on my ass wide-eyed and panting.

“Red Dawn - head down!” I heard Bone Charm roar.

A bullet struck me in the back, pancaking against my vest and slamming me face first into the powder. That was painfully convenient because Bone Charm laid down a wide arc of machine gun fire over my mane that sent the furies ducking for cover.

Those that didn’t were torn apart in the stream of lead, laughing in dying ecstasy. I forced myself to my hooves, sputtering through a mouthful of snow before stuffing my face with Gail’s feathers. I groaned, dragging her away from the carnage with my head bowed low as bullets shrieked over me.

Hollow bones or not, she was heavier than I thought.

Night Sky and Sprinkles leaned out of the wagons and kept the furies’ heads down when Bone Charm’s machine gun ran dry.

I was almost there - until someone tackled me into the snow.

A fury howled into my face, spraying my muzzle with fetid ropes of spittle. I tried shoving her away, but she had me pinned down as she levitated a metal apple before my eyes. She cackled, biting off the pin and releasing the lever with a metallic chink!

It began to puff smoke. Horror drained the blood from my face.

Bullets slammed into her, but she didn’t drop. The crazed mare stabbed her hooves into my throat, squeezing the life out of me, even as her blood dribbled out through her yellowed teeth and onto my face.

I choked, my eyes rolling to the back of my head as I battered her face with my hooves in vain. She didn’t relent.

Black veins began rooting their dark tendrils in the shrinking tunnels of my eyes.

“HAHAHAHAHA –”

‘No.’

Something snapped inside of me.

“I ... won’t ... be ... A VICTIM!” I screamed, and swung a foreleg into her horn. The fury yelped. Her magic flickered - and winked out.

The smoking metal apple dropped to the snow.

I heaved her over it.

There was a skull-splitting CRACK - then nothing. In a flash, the world around me exploded in a roiling plume of shrapnel and gore. The blast jarred my insides. It rattled my bones. It hurled me a foot off the ground - and I landed in the unrecognizable remains of the mare’s chest cavity.

I forced myself to my wobbly hooves and stumbled away in a hazy daze, trailing gore and viscera between my rickety legs. My hoof slipped in the mare’s steaming innards and I squelched into the bloody snow next to Gail’s writhing body.

I found one of her wings and proceeded to haul her back to the wagon. The adrenaline in my veins was abating and I could feel my jaw slackening, my legs tiring, my lungs struggling to fill with air through Gail’s feathers and my teeth. I dragged her through the blurriness of my eyes, refusing to give in, refusing to die so easily.

Those snow furies made my friends and I victims before – and I wasn’t about to let them make me one again.

With a final, exhausted cry, I heaved her behind the wagon formation and spat out a mouthful of her feathers before collapsing next to her, gasping for air. Gail’s talons raked at my barding as she writhed and kicked her legs, choking on her own blood. I didn’t even seem to notice as my head spun and I tried to blink away the shock of being blown up for the second time in the last few days. I couldn’t even make out the plume of feathers that was supposed to be on her head through the fog that clouded my eyes.

I did all I could for her. So I rolled over and heaved the contents of my stomach underneath Night Sky’s wagon.

The gunfire had died down by the time I regained the strength to sit on my haunches. When clarity did return, I found that the others were already attending to Gail’s wounds. She hacked up splotches of scarlet that melted through the snow, clawing at her ribcage in a vain attempt to slow the bleeding as her lungs filled with blood.

“H-how - how bad is it?” I sputtered in between breaths.

Sprinkles knelt next to me, resting against her assault rifle. “As long as it went through her, she should be fine.”

“Look for an exit wound,” Night Sky said to Bone Charm, jostling the wheezing griffon. He rolled her over, and Bone Charm let out a breath of relief when he saw the bloody splotch on the other side.

Flopping her onto her back, Bone Charm wrenched her mouth open and levitated a potion to her beak. Gail clenched the potion in her talons and gulped it down. She moaned, curling up into a ball and heaving her chest violently to fill her regenerating lungs.

The steel-faced stallion just stared. I met his eyes and pursed my lips as we looked at each other for too many seconds. I expected him to berate me; I probably would have too, risking my life like that.

But he nodded once, and attended to his adoptive daughter.

“You ain’t so bad,” he muttered, "Not so bad for a stable pony.”

A thin smile stretched across my lips.

I knelt next to the convulsing griffon. Gail tipped her head up to see me and smiled painfully through her bloody beak, reddish spittle dribbling down her neck.

“Thanks –” she gasped raggedly for a breath of air, “– Red… can I call you that?”

A narrow smile reached across the corners of my lips, my heart warming.

“That’s my name.”

She looked overjoyed. “I owe you one, Red,” Gail rasped, laying down flat on her back, her breaths stabilizing.

“You don’t owe me anything,” I murmured. I didn’t think I would've been able to survive that had the other mercs not jumped in. A darker corner of my mind told me I shouldn’t have risked my life for that griffon, let alone for a bastard like Bone Charm.

But the gratefulness that widened across her beak and the relief in the grizzled unicorn’s eyes trickled white paint down the narrow black walls of my conscience. I stuck my tongue out and hoofed a rogue feather out of my mouth. Then I spat out a few down feathers too.

“That was probably the closest I’ve ever had to tasting chicken,” I smirked.

Gail’s struggle to contain her laughter resulted in a fit of ragged, wet coughs.

“You’ve still got a few feathers on your back,” I said, folding my legs across my chest. “That’s all that matters.”

She just sighed, unfurled her wing and preened at her bloody spots. “I guess you’re right. You sticking around for some more?”

I looked out into the snow and around us. Dead ponies lay strewn about across the snow drifts, probably doomed to freeze where they fell. Not too far from our wagon formation, I frowned at a crater with half a pony lying in it.

“I ah …” I didn’t have enough in my stomach to hurl again. I’ve had the urge to do that too many times that day. It seemed too easy for those mercs.

I shivered. It shouldn’t have been that easy for me.

My frown turned to a glare as my eyes panned over the pale coat of the fury I tried talking to earlier. Those weren’t ponies. Those were monsters. Furies. And I wasn’t going to be another one of their victims. Not while so many lives rested on my hooves.

I figured that if I was going to survive, I couldn’t hesitate. Hesitation was going to get me killed.

I rubbed my hooves together in the snow, trying to clean the blood off my legs.

“Whatever gets me to Poneva,” I said, softly.

The sound of hooves crunching through the snow behind me made me jump. I clenched my mouth bit and almost shot the trader in the face as he approached.

“Whoa nelly, you’re a jumpy one, ain’t ya?” he said with a wry grin.

I exhaled heavily. “Sorry, thought you were one of those…” I glanced at their mangled corpses, spitting out my mouth bit “… those psychos.”

He nodded and levitated out a strange blue bottle out of his saddle bags.

“Listen here, kid, ya saved my ass earlier - and I ain’t the ungrateful bastard.”

I shook my head, waving it off with a forehoof.

“I’m sure whatever you’re paying Night Sky will cover it –“

“I never said that Night Sky mare saved my ass –” He tipped his hat at me. “I said you.”

I frowned.

“Well, I suppose it’d be rude,” I muttered, pursing my lips. The blue liquid swirled gently inside the shot glass sized bottle. “What is it?”

He pointed a forehoof at my horn, “It’s called Sparkle. Makes your magic stronger. Should boost you up good – might even bring yer magic back for a bit. Ain’t as helpful as a week of rest, but it might do ya good if ya use it in a pinch.” The unicorn floated it to me, balancing it on my nose. “But I said, use it in a pinch. This ain’t no potion ya just drink and forget.”

I scrunched my muzzle and tossed my head back, catching it in my mouth. I snorted, amused with myself. I wondered if I could live as a glorified earth pony with a horn for the rest of my life. I squinted at the bottle in between my teeth, sloshing around its contents.

‘Nah.’

“Then ... what is it?” I asked.

He leaned against the wagon, giving me a stern look. “I just told you. It might bring your magic back. For a bit. And not much longer.”

“Sure,” I said, nodding my head slowly. Craning my head over my shoulder, I dropped it in my saddle bag. “Thanks!” I said with a nervous smile.

“No problemo,” he drawled, starting back to his wagon. “I’ll leave it to ya mercs, then.” He paused. “I didn’t even get yer name, boy?”

I zipped my bag closed, and turned to trot back to the caravan’s lead wagon.

“Red Dawn," I said, glancing over my shoulder.

“Name’s Duster, and nice to meet ya, Red Dawn. Might see ya again one day after this,” he said, plodding through the powder. He glanced over his shoulder. “Might not.”

I paused for a moment.

‘Huh?’

I waved at him as we mounted up on our wagons, trying furtively to suppress the apprehensive look on my face.