When we finished, Doodle and Hops – well, Doodle, really, were ready to go and do whatever annoying little children do.

Summer Smiles rose from her chair. “Candy Cane, I’ll get the dishes. Why don’t you go take the girls upstairs and play for a bit?”

Candy Cane’s ears perked, her smile beaming.

“Alright, come on Hops, let’s go upstairs,” she told the filly, levitating her onto her back as Doodle scampered up the steps. Summer Smiles took our bowls and started toward the kitchen behind the bar.

I watched her for a moment as she walked away, hesitating, briefly. Then I chimed in, “Do you need help?”

Summer Smiles laughed, almost dropping the bowls she had carrying on the tray around her neck. “Do stable ponies even do their own dishes?”

“Well, I …”

Her grin grew wider.

“Uh … that’d be a big fat no,” I said sheepishly, as she shifted on her hooves. “It can’t be hard. It’s not like I’m trying to refuel a flux capacitor or something,” I insisted.

Summer Smiles’ gave me an amused smirk. “Well I’ll be damned … a stallion who wants to do dishes.” Summer Smiles motioned me to follow her.

“What, stallions don’t like doing the dishes around here?”

“Eh, speak for yourself, stable boy,” she laughed. Summer Smiles waved her hoof to and fro, saying, “Most I’ve seen would rather just kill and screw things.” She smirked. “I mean, if we’re talking about the Blood Brothers, that’s all they’re good at.” Summer Smiles tugged at a bucket of melting snow on the counter and poured it into the sink. Some of the slush still remained, and it sunk to the bottom of the chilling water.

I chuckled, darkly. “I ran into a few of them on the road to Poneva. They’re a bunch of pricks.” I remembered the unruly gang of red-clad stallions. Pricks. All of them. Summer Smiles was grinning at me again. I snorted, “What, is that your image of what a stallion’s supposed to be like?”

“Well, I never said that,” she began, hoofing me a rag and a bar of soap. “I did say if we were talking about the Blood Brothers.”

I took the rag and wrapped it around my hoof, before dunking one of the bowls into the slushy water. From the moment I walked into her home, I had a feeling that mare didn’t like stallions too much. “Well, say we’re not talking about the Blood Brothers. What are wasteland stallions like?”

She chuckled. “I don’t know everything about what you stable ponies do, but if I got a cap for every stallion that’s tried to rob me or sleep with me, then I’d be the richest damned pony in all of Equestria,” she said, splashing a bowl in the sink before lathering it with soap.

Well Summer Smiles was a rather pretty mare, to be honest. I could see why that’d be the case.

“All the big merc bands and all the big bad baddies are led by mean, pony killing, pony screwing bad boys.”

“You seem pretty passionate about that, Summer Smiles,” I said, cocking my eyebrow.

She chuckled, bitterly. “Sorry, heh. I just grew up with a lot of girls in the family. Not a single boy where I’m from, except my father. He always wanted a son … poor pony never did get one. He always talked about how he wanted one to keep the family’s name running.”

Rinsing off the bowl she’d been working on, she placed it on the counter on top of another rag. “So Sugar Rum became the boy in the house and left to go do merc work because I was meant to run this inn and make cram sandwiches all day long from one stupid traveler to the next.”

She sighed as she began soaping another bowl. “That’s the wasteland life, I guess.”

“You wanted to be a merc too?”

“Goddesses, no,” she sighed. “I just wanted to be out of the house, doing my own thing.” Summer Smiles sighed again. “The only mares I’ve seen who do anything big are Winter Blossom and Avilign Crème. But then you’ve got Red Eye’s power trip in Fillydelphia, Mister Topaz and Deadeye with their raider army, Sterling and his ultra-advanced pre-war tower, Alder Blaze and his huge plantation, and Captain Foxtrot leading one of the most powerful merc bands in Equestria, and blah, blah, blah.”

Summer Smiles pursed her lips, frowning at the sink. “What are Winter Blossom and Avilign Crème if not blips on the radar compared to those bad boys?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure Winter Blossom could attest. She has her own private army, apparently.”

“Yeah? And Sterling has an army of robots and a tower built to withstand a Goddesses’-damned balefire bomb!” Summer Smiles scoffed, “He’s been around since I was a filly, and nopony’s ever bucked down the World Tree’s doors since – well – ever.”

“Well if it was built by Stable-Tec, it’s bound to be bomb proof.” I dunked another bowl in the water. “Back at the stable we had an Overmare. It was pretty traditional, I guess. For a mare to be in charge, I mean. We’ve always had an overmare.”

“That’s how it should be.” She paused for a moment. “That’s how it was back in the day.”

I gave her a bitter laugh. “Well, like some sour old bastard told me in Dusktown, Equestria’s not the same Equestria it was two centuries ago.” I sighed, “Being out here for two weeks has made me realize it’s in no shape to return to it, ever.”

She nodded, regretfully. “It’s the sad truth. We’ve got monsters wandering the streets, pony or not, and no sun or moon or sky. This place is fucked … and everypony knows it. That’s ‘cus everypony’s been fucked by the wasteland in one way or another ... ”

The mare noticed that I’d stopped scrubbing. I let out a breath I was keeping in with a sigh. She was right about that.

Summer Smiles nodded at me, knowingly. She didn’t even have to ask about what I was thinking. Grunting, she dunked the large cauldron she used to make the applesauce and started scrubbing. “What was it like in your stable?”

I thought for a moment. “It was ... different … better. It was good there. We had it good at ’91.”

“Had?” she asked me. I nodded, solemnly. “I’m sorry about your stable,” Summer Smiles said, softly, “It must’ve been better beneath the earth than up here getting picked off by carrion.”

I told her about daily life in the stable, how we had an orchard and hydroponic gardens, schools, and all the good things you’d never find above ground.

Summer Smiles gazed hopelessly at the freezing water that sloshed around her hooves.

“I wish I could give Doodle and Hops a better life. Better than … this,” she said, looking around her. “When Doodle called this place a dump … she was right. This place is a dump. This entire wasteland is a dump. It’s a miracle my sister and I’ve been able to keep them from swimming in shit for so long. Usually kids their age lose their innocence earlier than that. They don’t know how to shoot a gun, they don’t know how to fight to kill - hell, they don’t even know how to fight …” Summer Smiles shook her head, swearing under her breath as she flipped the cauldron over and began lathering its outer surface with soap.

“My father was a stable-dweller. He came from Stable 95, a few hundred miles or so out of Poneva. He told me the same things you told me. You didn’t know how to fight or kill in places like those … there just wasn’t any need for such horrible things. Me? I’ve always wanted to live in one. Sugar Rum has always wanted to live in one.” Summer Smiles gazed at me earnestly. “I know Doodle wants to live in one too.”

I finished with the smaller dishes and placed them on the counter. “Ah, Doodle and her questions ...”

“She wasn’t joking when she asked you if you’d take us with you back to your Stable, Red Dawn,” Summer Smiles giggled.

I snorted, chuckling softly. “There aren’t that many ponies I’ve seen out here that want something better. Everyone else I’ve ran into in Poneva was just completely fine freezing out in the shit-stained snow.”

“She’s an adventurous little filly,” Summer Smiles giggled.

I snorted, an amused look stretching across my face. “She’s definitely something else. She nearly stomped in my rib cage this morning.” We both laughed as we finished the last of the dishes.

Summer Smiles sighed, rinsing a pot clean, her smile fading away. “I just wish I could make it happen … those girls deserve better than this.” She looked at me with troubled eyes. “A lot of ponies do.”

“There just aren’t that many ponies who want to do something about it,” I said, leaning against the counter as she finished in the sink.

There was a long, silent pause. She pulled the plug at the bottom of the sink and the dirty water began to swirl down the drain.

“Candy Cane …” she murmured. My ears perked. “Tell me again ... why are you traveling with Candy Cane?”

“I need her. I need her help. She knows this city and how to survive in this wasteland better than I do,” I replied. “I wouldn’t last a few days out in the snow by myself.”

Summer Smiles nodded, resting her hooves on the counter as she stared contemplatively at the tiled wall above the sink. “You sure about that? You look like a pony who can take care of himself.”

“No … I made it here by chance, by pure luck. I’ve nearly died four times now. I can’t do this alone.”

“Neither can she,” the mare said. “She needs you as much as you need her.” Summer Smiles turned her eyes low. “When she came here two days ago, she looked at me differently. I was a stranger to her again … the things she’s been through, Red Dawn … they’ve changed her. She isn’t the same mare I saw so many years ago. She’s changed so much.”

“How long have you known her?” I asked.

“Sugar Rum picked her up half dead in the snow five years ago. Brought her back here and we nursed her back to health. Cane lived with us for almost a year. The fillies loved her, Sugar Rum loved her … I … loved her. Then she disappeared and never came back.

“We had a long talk yesterday, to catch up on the time we lost. She’s changed, Red Dawn. She’s harder, more calloused … more scarred. This wasteland … it ruins people. It ruined Candy Cane. She needs help. And you and me? We’re all she’s got, whether you know her as well as I do or not.”

I gulped and hung my head. When my friends stepped out the stable doors, we too were responsible for each other. But I let Amber Fields down. I let Star Glint down. I was afraid to lose another pony I cared about to that nightmare, let alone Candy Cane who’d already lost so much.

I thought back to when we were praying earlier, and the brooding look she had on her face. It was as if she couldn’t stand the mere mentioning of the Princesses, let alone pray to them.

Summer Smiles stared at me, a sliver of hope glowing in her eyes.

“You know how to use a gun?”

I nodded. Well, sort of. I was a terrible shot without SATS. I couldn’t lead moving targets for shit.

“Good. She’s like family to me, Red Dawn. With my sister dead, she and the girls are all I have left. You’re traveling with her now, so keep her safe. She doesn’t have that many friends anymore. You and I are the closest she’ll probably get … and I think you’re a good pony.” I looked down at my hooves, wanting quite badly to disagree with her. “I don’t think I’ve seen any since I met Candy Cane,” she murmured.

The mare pushed my chin up with a hoof so that we could see eye to eye. “You keep her safe,” Summer Smiles repeated, “Or she’ll disappear like she did two years ago.”

When we finished, I was left to my own devices. I sat in my room, inspecting my gear, my clean sets of jumpsuits and my security barding, my pistol, and whatever ammunition I had left. As I studied my pistol, trying to remember how to take it apart to clean it, I heard giggling in the room down the hall.

I stuck my head outside, and looked through the cracked open door at the end of the hall. I saw the pirouetting shadows of Candy Cane and the two fillies as they laughed and danced and enjoyed the innocence Candy Cane had lost.

Those two fillies were the only joy she had left in her life. Because everything else had been wrenched away from her and replaced with terror and suffering. But that was the wasteland. And the wasteland was everything but a better life, or a happy place, or a place to call home.

I returned to inspecting my pistol, but I left the door open, their warm laughter echoing down the hall, and into the room, and through my ears.

After dinner, I tried sleeping, but found that I couldn’t. I guess those forty-eight hours of beauty sleep rejuvenated everything but my horn. I rolled around in bed, staring at the ceiling, and listening to the wind howl outside my window. Everyone else was asleep. Summer Smiles, the girls, and Candy Cane. Or so I thought.

Among the lonely, frozen wind that moaned outside, I could hear, faintly, the sounds of pots banging downstairs. I closed my eyes once more and tried to get some shuteye.

'Wait.'

My eyes shot open. There was someone downstairs, my body trembled with a cold sweat.

I cracked my door open and squinted through the darkness; everyone’s doors were closed. Everyone else was asleep.

Someone was downstairs. Someone was inside the inn.

I stumbled to my bedside dresser in almost complete darkness and pulled out my pistol and its holster, wrapping it around my neck. I stepped a hoof out the door and I saw that the lights were off downstairs. I gulped, flipping the safety and chambering a round. Gun drawn, I started down the steps, my mouthbit clenched between my teeth.

My eyes darted to my EFS. For good measure, I entered SATS and scanned the area in front of me. I bit my lower lip. Negative hostiles. The only blips on my EFS were the four ponies upstairs. But then again, my EFS couldn’t tell me who was at what elevation …

'But … who?' I wondered, 'Who the hell was down here with me?'

Frowning, I reached the dining area and beamed the bar with my PipBuck’s teal glow. At the far end of the room, yellow shafts of light spilled out of the kitchen’s doorway and into the darkness of the empty bar. With my mouth bit still clenched, I approached cautiously as the person inside the kitchen continued to rummage through the cabinets.

I stacked up around the corner, my heart pounding in my chest, ready to pump someone with lead. I gulped. And spun into the doorway.

“Candy Cane?” I gasped, narrowing my eyes at the mare whose head was jammed into the innards of the cabinet under the sink.

She eeped, jumped, and banged her head beneath the sink with a heavy thump. Candy Cane moaned and wrenched her head out of the cabinet and fell flat on her flank, rubbing her head painfully as her eyes darted toward me.

“Red Dawn? What … what are you doing down here?” she asked, eyeing the pistol clenched between my teeth.

“I - uh, I was about to ask you the same thing,” I stuttered, relieved that I hadn’t stitched her up with bullets.

Candy Cane groaned, wincing as she rubbed her aching head.

“Shit … sorry about that ... I thought someone broke in or something,” I said under breath, holstering my pistol.

The mare thought me crazy.

“That door’s got a three inch metal bar over it, a chain, and a deadbolt. Not even I can pick through that. Well, maybe the deadbolt, but the rest …” she trailed off. “You’d need a minotaur or a bomb to take that door down.”

I chuckled sheepishly. “Well that’s reassuring. I can sleep at night without being afraid someone’d rob or put a knife through me.”

I flipped my pistol’s safety and holstered it, and held out to her a hoof. She stared at me for a moment, a thin smile creasing her lips before she took my hoof with hers and I pulled her to her fours.

“Thanks,” she breathed.

“You going to be okay?” I cocked my head at her as she rubbed what I hoped wasn't a bump on her head. “I’m sorry I scared you, I didn’t know you were down here.”

“It’s okay … I didn’t think anypony would still be awake at this time,” she confessed, tapping her forehooves together.

I glanced at my PipBuck’s screen. 0221 hours. I narrowed my eyes at her once more.

“Seriously, what are you doing down here by yourself?”

The mare fixed her gaze at the cabinets around her, avoiding mine.

“I was just organizing the pots, the dishes, and the silverware,” she replied in an even, casual tone.

I wasn’t sure how much narrower my eyes could get.

“At … at this time of the night?”

She shrugged, staring at the tiled floor.

“I don’t see why not,” Candy Cane replied, tersely, not meeting my eyes. In quite a hurry, she trotted to a cabinet and the sounds of pots being dragged across wood and tile returned to invade my eardrums. “I thought the blizzard would drown out the noise.” She glanced over her shoulder and smirked. “Guess I was wrong.”

I snorted, “Heh, well, I’m usually just a light sleeper.”

Candy Cane grunted as she pulled something heavy beneath the sink. Exhaling and wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead, she sat up once more.

“You and I both,” she sighed, languidly. Candy Cane gave me another thin smirk. “Though you were sleeping like a baby when I was checking on you these last two days.”

I gave her an awkward chuckle, rubbing my leg absent-mindedly. She snickered, softly, “I even had to flip you over onto your back to put a towel on your head, because you’d rolled onto your belly.”

I frowned at her. I couldn’t remember that. But then again, she’d apparently washed me from head to hoof … and I couldn’t remember that either.

“Well, so much for being a light sleeper then,” I grinned, rolling eyes. “Was my fever really that bad?”

Her expression turned serious.

“Unfortunately, it was. I’ve never seen anypony with this bad of a burnout before … usually unicorns know when to stop.” She sighed. “But you? You don’t seem like the kind of pony who’d give up so easily.”

“Giving up is never an option for me.”

“That much is evident,” she murmured, looking away for a moment. “You wouldn’t give up on my collar, either.” Candy Cane sighed and turned towards me, leaning against the counter. “You pulled through it, for the most part.” She cocked her head and me, noticing the way I teetered back and forth as I stood idle. “For the most part. You still need to get some more rest.”

She was right. That whole ‘someone broke into the inn’ thing made me lightheaded and somewhat out of breath.

“I’m completely fine,” I claimed, holding my chin up high. But I too noticed the way she teetered back and forth on her own hooves. She looked about as worn out as I did when we first got there. If not … worse. “What about you? It’s two in the morning. Shouldn’t you be getting rest too?”

Candy Cane went silent, her expression overtaken by an intangible desolateness that haunted her steel gray eyes.

“Rest. No. I don’t …” She snapped, “I’m not sleepy.” Her eyelids fluttered closed as she rubbed at the bags under her eyes. “Not sleepy. Yet.”

I pursed my lips. ‘You sure look like it,’ I wanted to say.

I stared at her for a long while, and she did the same at me. But a yawn forced its way out of my lips and broke our eye contact. Somehow, she looked relieved. But when I blinked, any indication of that relief was no longer there, replaced by a blank-faced, far-away-from-here look that made the hairs on my coat stand on end.

Something was bothering her. Though I didn’t understand what. She was a free mare, she had her friends back, the fillies, hell, she had a bed to sleep in. But … there wasn’t there. She was someplace else. That kitchen was a whole ‘nother world to her.

I took a few baby steps towards her, close enough to touch the mare with my hoof. I reached out, and she flinched.

Biting my lower lip, I asked her, “Candy Cane … are you okay?”

She nodded absent mindedly. Candy Cane lurched away from me like an unoiled machine, and returned to her lonesome busywork.

“I’m okay,” she muttered, her voice as cold as the frozen earth outside. “I’m … okay.”

I watched her work. She shuffled around on her hinds as she rummaged through the cabinets above the counter, levitating out dishes and replacing them inside in organized stacks.

“Do you … do you need help?” I tried, nervously.

Her busy hooves paused, but she didn’t even spare me a glance.

“I’m okay.”

A few seconds passed as I watched her in silence.

'Alrighty then,' I thought to myself. I started out the door, but stopped to look over my shoulder one last time. She was still doing her thing, organizing the cabinets as the blizzard shook, rattled, and moaned outside. Candy Cane didn’t turn around once to see if I was still there.

I returned upstairs to my bed and closed my eyes. I drifted off into sleep for a few minutes, but something was chipping at the walls of my half lucid consciousness. I rolled over and found out that those few minutes had actually been a few hours.

Four o’clock in the morning.

My ears perked.

Drowning beneath the howling wind, and the clamor of the banging kitchenware, I could hear, distantly, the sounds of someone sobbing downstairs.