I have lived most of my life in the so-called “Wasteland.” The tragedy of Equestria’s new moniker lies in its irony. A plentiful bounty of supplies and wealth can be wrought from the wilds, and a bevy of technology and secrets await every pair of inquisitive eyes that know where to look. Our new world may live within the corpse of the old one, but it is no less magnificent for it.

Everywhere in my travels, I have seen ponies, griffins, and other races squander opportunities that lay directly before their eyes. Of all the races I have come into contact with, only the zebras and buffalo seem to acknowledge the cornucopia of gifts our world has bestowed upon us. A wise mare makes more opportunities than she finds, daughters. One should never be so reliant upon the wonders of the old world that they forget the simple majesty of new growth.

Plucking a berry or harvesting the remains of a dead animal can often mean the difference between life and death. Indeed, most of the battles I have fought in my life were won long before I even encountered my foe. I emerged victorious not by the tip of a blade, but by the stirring of a pot.

Candy dear, you took to alchemy almost as quickly as I did in my youth, and I’m sure that you will become as great, or maybe even better, an alchemist than I am. I know that I am asking much of you with this request, but if little Nohta should wish to learn of our kind’s most celebrated magic, teach her all that you can of alchemy. Please, don’t leave the task to your father. I love the stallion dearly, but for all his smarts he is completely incapable of brewing anything more complicated than coffee.

I’m not sure if the two of you remember any of your father’s ‘experiments,’ but… after witnessing such epic failures I have become quite convinced that ponies simply cannot brew proper potions. Dream Chaser is the smartest pony I have ever met, and he was only just barely able to make a simple sleeping elixir! Ha!

Sometimes when you walk the wastes you realize that the only decision you have to make is which direction to walk in.

“What do you think?” Nohta’s cloak fluttered loudly in the wind as she stood beside me. “I mean, we’ve really only got two options, Sis.”

The steel pole upon which the rusty street-signs hung was bent. It creaked and swayed in the breeze smugly, mocking us like it must have mocked every weary traveler near death that came upon the marker. I wondered how rewarding it must have felt for the lucky pony that reigned in the sign’s haughty bucking to brand it forever with the wooden plank reading “This way to Mareon - 15 miles.”

She hopped on top of the crumbled roadway, “Or… I guess we have three. But I really don’t want to go back into the Stable.”

I shook my head, allowing my mane to caress my cheeks and neck as the wind continued to blow in my face. “The Stable isn’t a viable option anyway, dear. The fires burned everything out. And the refrigeration had failed before we even arrived. Besides, we can go a few days without food if we have to push ourselves. We need water.”

Nohta scratched at the road with a hoof, “So… What do you think?”

I glared at the sign, trying my absolute best to burn holes with my eyes through the dancing box-letters that read “Coltsville - 3.5 miles.” The sign bobbed and weaved merrily, probably loving every moment of my inability to simply pick a path. Goddess, I hated that sign!

Sometimes when you walk the wastes terrible things happen. Sometimes those terrible things come to you. Sometimes you bring them upon yourself. But they are always there. Lurking just beyond the edge of your vision in most cases; staring you in the face in others. Sometimes they are borne upon the wind; like plague, like taint, like death from winged assailants. Sometimes they are carried by hooves; like raiders, or slavers, or bandits. And sometimes… sometimes they are a burden we carry ourselves. Anger has burned its hole through so many hearts, rendering its victims unrecognizable from the beautiful souls they once were. Sorrow has drowned so many pitiable minds in its vast and inescapable current that I often wonder if it would be a mercy to end their pain altogether. Indecision, however, can be the deadliest load you might ever heft upon your back.

After finding my home defiled and desecrated beyond repair, and coming to realize just how very alone that made my sister and I, I could not bring myself to any sort of reasonable decision. My grief and fury battled each other for control of my mind, and I found myself without the ability to choose which of those emotions I found preferable. Was I destined to wallow in despair, bemoaning my fate as the world kicked and lashed at my heart again and again? Would that heart find itself hardened by the atrocities coming for it, and lash out in return? Was there another way? Any other way?

I looked east along the road. “We should attempt to ration our supplies and make the trek to Mareon. Coltsville is an unknown at best, and the den of an untold number of raiders at worst. We’re in no condition to go on a vindictive rampage, sister. We need to rest and replenish our supplies.”

“But that map we found says that Coltsville is their base, Sis. You can’t have a base without having supplies to feed the troops, right? We could just take what they’ve already got. We can raid the raiders!”

I turned to my sister, arching a brow in question, “And exactly how many of those raiders will we be fighting for water and food?”

“That’s the thing, though!” She stomped a hoof on the broken road. “The Pyro’s gang was trying to relocate to our stable, right? How many ponies do you think got left behind? It’s probably just a few slackers trying to pack up gear and get ready for the move! That’s all that’s left of the gang.”

My sister looked me dead in the eyes and asked, “Do you think it’s gonna feel better to walk back into Mareon as the pitiful survivors of a gang attack, or as the two badasses that just wiped out an entire gang?” Ugh… of course she would think of glory. “Sis, I know which one I would think better of. And I bet the folks of Mareon would appreciate us helping them out on this one.”

Well, she had a fair point there. “Mareon probably would enjoy a little good news after the attack on the town… “ Helping ponies in their time of need had always proven a great way to get on their good side, but something was amiss with Nohta’s argument. “Wait. That’s not like you. Why do you care how the town feels about us?”

She rolled her eyes, “Oh come on, Sis… I don’t give two shits about most of them. Margarita was pretty cool and all. I’d like to see her again. But I’m just trying to be practical here. We need to stay cool with Mareon because we don’t even know where the next town is.” She shifted her weight to another leg, “I can act all nice and quiet if I really need to so we don’t get kicked out into the desert to starve. I did it while we were in Mareon the first two times, I’m not that dense.”

I shook my head, “I never said you were, dear sister.” After a quick pause, I continued, “You truly believe that wiping out the rest of the Pyro’s gang in Coltsville is our best option, don’t you?”

“Fuck yes, I do! We’ll even get paid for our revenge when we hoof over a bunch of ears!” She exclaimed.

Was she right? Was this really our best option? To trade a harsh and dull certainty for a gleaming unknown? Mareon may have been the marginally safer route, but the open road beckoned. My inherited wanderlust and the fire that still burned within my chest both sought the same answer. I’d have to be careful, but my mind was made up. I had chosen my path.

Of course, most of the time the direction you choose through this hell will lead to your untimely demise… but hey, it’s called “The Wasteland” for a reason. You can’t really expect to find happiness in the wastes. You just stumble across it sometimes. And in my own case it beat my door down with a battering ram while shouting at the top of its lungs. But that’s beside the point. I just got incredibly lucky… sort of. Well, I’m still alive at least.

What I’m trying (and probably failing) to convey to you at the moment is that life can be hard. It can be terrifying. It can take what little sanity you have left to yourself and rip it into the tiniest of pieces. It can sweep the rug out from underneath your hooves and laugh at you while you lay wriggling comically upon the floor in a vain effort to right yourself so that you can chase her down and levitate her little striped behind straight to Mothe… Sorry… The point is that life can be unfair.

And my life was being exceptionally unfair. Absolutely nothing was going my way! And faced with the daunting prospect of life separate from the Stable, from Father, and from any sort of direction at all… I was quickly finding myself falling down a terrifying spiral of self-doubt and fear. When faced with the enormity of options left before me, indecision had rendered them all moot and myself paralyzed.

Well, alright. it wasn’t quite that bad. Nohta was correct in her assessment of our newfound positions as wastelanders. We were afforded some freedoms on the surface that the two of us had never found in our old home. And the prospect of relying entirely upon ourselves, while extraordinarily intimidating at first, was actually rather refreshing in an oddly liberating sort of way.

But still, the two of us were simply not ready for what lay before us. We were not prepared for the atrocities that the wasteland would unleash upon our souls. We had witnessed only enough of that brutal savagery to embolden our hearts against it, and to embrace the romantic idea of becoming, as Nohta put it, “Big damn heroes.”

“Alright, Nohta. We’ll go to Coltsville.” I looked west along the cracked road, past my sister’s growing smirk, and hoped that I had made the right decision.

She clopped her forehooves together in a menacingly loud display of her excitement, “I knew you wanted revenge! And it’ll help us in the long run too, I promise! The ponies of Mareon aren’t like the jerks that lived in the Stable, they’ll appreciate this! Just imagine their dumbstruck faces when the two of us stroll into town and slap a sack-full of raider ears and the Pyro’s mask on the sheriff's desk! Ha!”

I scratched my chin with a hoof, “Perhaps we might find a clue about the slavers and our stablemates as well. I’m beginning to like this idea of yours, sister.”

Nohta groaned and rolled her eyes, “Let’s just deal with the enemy we can find first, okay?”

I believe that I covered the uselessness of my endeavors regarding the Overmare’s codes for our stablemates, yes? How no matter what I tried, I was only met with a repeated error message from my Pipbuck and a callous response from my sister? I wanted to save as many of our stable as we could manage to locate, and believed that dawdling over other pursuits would only see us wasting valuable opportunities to do exactly that. Nohta, though…

Nohta very nearly wished to abandon our stable to its fate altogether, and allow its newly enslaved residents to be put to work for Goddess knows who doing Goddess knows what. She didn’t seem to harbor any sense of pity for the ponies who had tormented her during her life within the cold metal walls of Stable 76. In many ways, I couldn’t blame her. But her alternative idea regarding what we ought to do next was… questionable.

I understood fully that the wasteland was an abominable place, but was I really ready to wage my own personal war against the raiders, slavers, and mercenaries? How could the two of us, alone, bring all of the various groups that had wronged us to justice? The answer was simple: We couldnt. That’s why I wanted help, and why my sister was diametrically opposed to that idea. I broached the subject once again as we turned towards our new destination of Coltsville.

“Candy!” Her voice whined, “Come on! We can do this by ourselves! We don’t need anypony’s help. They’ll just give us a hard time for being part zebra, anyway.”

I stomped my hoof as we continued walking side by side, “No, Nohta. We do need help! We know next to nothing about life on the surface! How much do we really know about the surrounding area? What do we know of the raiders? Or the slavers? Or the mercenaries? Whom do we know that we can trust? And whom should we avoid? Will the town of Mareon ask too many questions about where we encountered the Pyro? Should we even bother to protect the location of the Stable, now that it is a ruined pit? What about the other raider leaders? Are we going to go right after them, with no plan of-”

“Sheesh! Alright! I get it!” She pulled her hood over her eyes as she shook her head.

The desert lay all around us, bleak and barren, save for the direction we were facing. Part of the spoils of the night before had been the map from The Pyro’s little sycophantic comrade. Lasher’s map had given us only the most foalish of directions, but given our trivial amounts of water, food, and other supplies, we were all but forced to venture towards the nearest point of interest: The Pyro’s base. After leaving our stable’s canyon, we had veered off to the northwest before taking a sharp turn northeast to follow the river that sliced through the region, guaranteeing that we had not taken the same path that we had used our first time leaving our old home. I had hoped to find some clue about the direction the slavers had taken our stablemates, perhaps an old motorwagon charging station or ancient convenience store that had been used as a temporary shelter, but we had only found the road leading east and west across the dirty and wildly irradiated river whose name I still wasn’t sure of.

The crushed rubble of the ancient paved road crunched underneath our hooves as the constant whine of the wind passed through the surrounding hills and valleys. My nose no longer seemed to be working; all I could smell was the heat. Seldom did the odd landmark or interesting rock formation catch my eye. And of those that did, few were able to hold my attention for more than a moment. When we crossed the time-worn bridge spanning the river’s breadth my trembling hooves were grateful for the planks of wood that partially patched the gaps in the concrete. And though my poor hooves were somewhat less grateful for the scorching sheet metal occasionally used in lieu of wooden planks, a moment’s discomfort was infinitely more preferable to accidentally taking a plunge into the roiling waters below. Judging by its appearance the bridge was ready to fall apart at any moment, and I couldn’t have been happier to have found myself safely on the other side of the churning water.

Wind, dust, and stones made up the majority of our surroundings, supplemented by a scant few signs of pre-war civilization such as road signs or rusted motorwagons. The occasional cactus stood tall and erect, dominating its cowering peers in an oddly phallic display of botanical superiority. In the distance, I could see a frenzied bloatsprite dive bombing an agitated radroach; two gladiators locked in an epic struggle for survival in an oppressively sweltering arena.

Nohta and I continued our travels in silence for a moment, ignoring the titanic battle of insects taking place against the backdrop of the jagged and ominous mountain to our north, before she finally asked, “So who are we gonna ask for help? Margarita?”

I levitated one of our last bottles of water to my lips, “That seems like the logical choice, does it not? A mercenary with whom we are on good terms and has lived in Mareon long enough for the locals to recognize her? Surely she could answer our questions. Perhaps point us in the right direction. Maybe even… accompany us?” I drank deeply of the water. Dehydration was a real threat out here.

“Seriously? You want to make this little duo a trio? That’s… huh.” She paused a moment, smiling underneath her hood. “Well, if it’s Margarita… I could try that.”

I would have grinned had I not been fearful of cracking my parched lips, “I thought you might see it my way. I think that after we finish our business in this area we should go back to Mareon, have a nice, long conversation with your friend,” I let the word linger in the air like sweetly burning incense, and hoped that I could butter my sister up enough that she might follow my proposal, “and see what information we might be able to ascertain regarding life on the surface. And then… We’ll see about following the rest of our little plan.”

I continued, as the few blurry shapes just underneath the horizon’s edge coalesced into the dilapidated buildings that made up the pre-war town of Coltsville, “We have a lot to learn, dear sister.”

We stopped just shy of the town’s borders, drinking in our surroundings with wide and cautious eyes. The scene before us was… impressive, actually. Stubborn and impertinent little weeds poked up through the cracked sidewalks and crumbled roadways that divided the few buildings left standing and bisected the town into two neat halves. Homes, stores, and government offices alike had all fallen prey to the ravages of time, and many of their number had collapsed inward upon themselves to form dangerous looking mounds of concrete, wood, and rebar. Ancient and blackened lamp posts, their lights having long since been extinguished, dotted the sidewalks like dutiful sentinels standing guard over a funerary service. Rusted and crumpling motorwagons of every fading color still sat along the edges of the roads, parked like loyal pets that were vigilantly waiting for the day their equine masters would return to see them home. Only the wind moved through the dead streets, and only its occasional low howls rose to meet our ears. This town had not been torn apart by the ravages of war. It had withered on the vine in that war’s wake. Our Pipbucks vibrated and beeped as we entered the ghost town, alerting us to our “discovering” the town of Coltsville.

The town had an odor. It wasn’t a stench, to be precise. Just an unpleasant stillness that pervaded the environment and seemed to seep out of the ground in a steady and slowly-rising, inescapable stream of malodorous calm. Coltsville didn’t bear the fetid reek of decay, but the neutral reek of stagnation. It was as if death itself had fled the town in search of more fertile lands. A crisp, dry odor that felt entirely too fitting for a settlement whose memory was all but forgotten as a quiet stop along the long abandoned highway under the shadow of the mountain to our north.

The illumination provided by the afternoon sun was, as ever, feeble and filtered. The faint light of day lit the ghost town in a washed-out and greying spectrum of depressed light. A pale and sickly green colored rotting bench still stood outside the “Cinna-Fillies Bakery and Cafe,” a smallish structure adorning the southern side of the road with cracked and dirty windows taking up the majority of its storefront. We ambled past it, carefully avoiding the slivered remains of a busted motorwagon window. My rumbling stomach and ravenous sweet-tooth pleaded for me to dive into the building right away but, unfortunately for both of them, my worried mind knew of what might be lurking within the town.

Opposite the cafe stood a simple, but large, brick building whose only defining characteristics were the many bloodstains and burn marks smeared or scorched across the sign above its door. The sign read “Coltsville General Store.” I surmised that this building must have been the home of The Pyro’s gang. And in that case, it was our first target.

“Ready, Sis?” Nohta pulled her hood over her eyes and teased her knife from its scabbard.

I levitated my little laser pistol to my side and, after finding the weapon had more than enough charge left in its energy-cell, nodded to my sister, “As ever, Nohta.”

She whispered underneath the sound of the wind, “Stay here, I’ll see if I can check it out first.” I did as she asked, and took cover behind an old motorwagon, aiming my pistol at the doorway over one of the tiny back wheels and trying hard not to imagine whether all of those exposed and eroding spark batteries had enough charge left in them to detonate.

She crouched low, dashed over to the front of the building, and raised her head just enough to peek through a hazy and broken window. Just long enough to get a quick glance of the inside. She fell to her belly, adjusting knobs and pressing buttons on her Pipbuck, and rose again to rub the excess length of her cloak against the glass, removing years of soot and dust.

She called out to me, her voice more excited than anxious, “Sis! Come here!”

I hurried over to her, “Nohta? What’s wrong?”

Nohta cocked her head, nodding at the building. “This is where the raiders were holed up, alright. But they’re all dead! Somepony got here before us.”

My sister peered through the broken window. “Most of the raiders look like they were killed with knives. That one looks like he just got squished, his guts are everywhere!” The troubling shadow of a sadistic grin passed over my sister’s face before her eyes resumed their travels. “But there are a few piles of ashes too, the kind that your gun leaves sometimes. Maybe whoever did it had one of those laser weapons? I’m not seeing anything else in there.”

Just to be safe, I checked my E.F.S. After looking in all directions and only finding my sister’s white bar, I breathed a sigh of relief and holstered my weapon. “Well… at least we won’t have to deal with any psychotic brutes while we’re here. But… on the other hoof, the town has probably already been looted. We’ll be lucky if we can find anything useful at all.”

She shrugged, before walking towards the door, “Whatever happened, they didn’t take the ears. We can at least grab those for some more caps once we get back to Mareon.”

Ugh. Mutilation of bodies was not exactly what I had hoped to accomplish by coming here. I couldn’t hide my discomfort from my face or my voice, “If you insist, dear. I’ll be right behind you… providing, ah, moral support.”

Nohta shoved the door open, causing an ancient brass bell atop the doorway to jingle as it announced our entrance, and waltzed into the general store as if this were just another normal day. Part of me wondered just how she was adjusting to life on the surface so easily. And if she was having such an easy time of it, why wasn’t I? Did she really have no problems with killing at all? Were our values really so dissimilar? She was my sister for Luna’s sake! So why was she taking to this new life like a fish to water?

I followed my sister into the reeking cesspit of violence, stepping past the doorway and overtop the busted tiles and debris scattered upon the floor. I paused in the entrance, allowing my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. Diffused and feeble light was filtering through the many yellowed windows of the building, shedding illumination upon the wooden shelves or steel racks still stocked with miscellaneous items and the bodies of the raiders that had once stood guard here. Bloodstained mattresses lay forlornly in a corner, surrounded by piles of bones arranged in odd, matching patterns. The raiders here must have taken to playing games with the remains of the original residents of the town.

I couldn’t comprehend what would drive somepony to collect or arrange body parts. What a barbaric practice! For Luna’s sake! What sort of monster would do that?

Nohta slipped amongst the bodies that had not been atomized by magical energy, sawing off ears and flipping them nonchalantly into her packs. I shook my head in a combination of disbelief and disgust, and stepped further into the store while trying to quiet my own mental discordance for the sake of survival.

My Pipbuck chirped and beeped. Looking down at it, I wondered if I had crossed the threshold to finally receive a radio signal. All these weeks of travel and still no music! Silently I prayed to Luna that whatever station I had picked up might have something worth listening to. Some Tchaitrotski, maybe some Johann Sebastian Buck, perhaps if Luna really would reward her faithful… a little Octavia Philharmonica? Instead, I found a warning message displayed across the interface, simultaneously dashing my hopes and confusing my mind.

[Danger Imminent. Preparing Countermeasures.]

“Nohta? Hold-” Without any further warning, my Pipbuck began to vibrate and beep furiously as the sonic deterrent extension Father had given me spun in place. A nearly inaudible high-pitched whine played from the mechanism as my entire leg felt as if it were about to be shaken from my body. Ugh! The sound was grating! Much more of it and I would be facing a severe headache! After reflexively placing my hooves over my ears, only to have my head jostled silly by the vibrations of my Pipbuck, I abandoned the pursuit altogether, resigning myself to whatever audible atrocity lay in wait for my poor tortured ears. By The Goddess herself! What was going on?

Something massive shuffled in place on the other side of the shelf that Nohta was currently crouched by, knocking into the shelf and jarring boxes and cans in their places as the entire thing nearly collapsed upon my sister. I heard a loud and startled snort, followed by a sharp intake of breath and a grinding, scraping screech as something incredibly sharp raked against the tiled floor.

And then the entire store was filled with the most savage, pained, and feral roar I have ever heard.

Whatever was behind that shelf bolted for the opposite end of the room. I only caught a faint glimpse of red in the gloom before it crashed through a door and out of sight entirely. The sounds of a window breaking cut through the muffled and agonized panting of the creature as it fled from my device.

Nohta asked the question that had already floated to prominence within my mind. “What the FUCK was that?” She was perhaps a little more vulgar than I would have chosen to be.

My chest heaved as I somehow managed to subdue my racing heart. My Pipbuck had stopped vibrating and beeping the moment the creature had left the room, and the sound had died soon after. In my terrified state, I could only choke out a few words. “That… that wasn’t a pony… “

“Fucking hell! That thing was right next to us! I didn’t even hear it until your sonic thing went off!” Nohta had dropped into a fighting stance, warily glaring at every shadow, door, or window within sight as she looked for attackers. With a start, I realized that the room had been bathed in a deep-red glow.

I put my laser pistol back into its holster, deactivating my magic and trying to catch my breath. “Breathe, Candy… breathe… “ I whispered to myself, trying to will my body to calm down as I fought to remember exactly when I had drawn my pistol.

“Candy, you alright?” Nohta had returned to my side, eyes still as wide as plates, checking up on me.

I nodded, swallowing the last bits of fear to clear my throat, “Yes dear, I’m… I’m okay.”

“Son of a bitch! That thing was… Do you think that’s what killed the raiders?” She was eyeing the shelf now, understandably afraid to approach it.

Bless you little sister, you gave me something to occupy myself with! I looked around at the carnage left in the store, and allowed my curiosity to overtake my fear. “I… I’m not sure. I don’t know what that was, but it sounded like a large animal. Perhaps a yao guai? That would account for the slash marks. Possibly even the crushed individual over there…” Did yao guai venture this far into the desert? Father had mentioned them before, as had Mother, but I had thought they inhabited more verdant climes.

I activated my Pipbuck lamp as I strode over to one of the downed raiders, hoping to learn of what befell them. “Subject: Female. Approximate age: Late twenties. Cutie Mark: ...Exsanguinated Foal.” My impromptu autopsy was suddenly a lot easier to perform with a clear and clinical focus. “Bite marks along the victim’s neck suggest large carnivorous predator with pronounced canines and angular jaw.” My gaze fell to her ribs, “Slash marks indicate excessively sharp claws providing relatively clean cuts through barding, flesh, bone, and organs. Dear Luna! This creature’s claws were massive… Ahem. Probable cause of death-”

“Oh come on, Sis… she got torn apart by one of those… bear things! No need to go all ‘Pearl Grey’ on the body.” Nohta was already back to scavenging from the dead raiders. After the reminder of whom she was scavenging from, I found that I had no problem with her practicality.

“Pearl was an excellent mortician, anesthesiologist, and clerical consultant! His autopsies helped to save lives by furthering our-”

“Yeesh, simmer down, Sis.” She gave a rather incensing eye-roll, “I was just saying there’s no need to go solving this little mystery. Big animal finds tasty raiders. Raiders die. We come along and scare off big animal. We get loot. The end. Now come help me with these ears, we need the caps.” Though she was being a bit irritating, I realized that she did have our best interest at heart. I dropped the argument and moved to help her, resigning myself to the eternal struggle of being the big sister.

Though the task was grim, it was also blessedly short. Nohta had stuffed a total of seven ears into her packs in the course of minutes. I just had to keep telling myself that it was either this… or possibly going hungry later on. We were already skirting the boundaries of starvation and dehydration and I didn’t want to be overly concerned with such basic needs as food and water once we were back in the only populated town we had visited thus far. And as I have pointed out before, hunger is a powerful motivator.

After rifling through dirty pockets and near-empty packs, Nohta had procured several inhalers of Dash, a bottle of Buck tablets, two bottles of irradiated water, a syringe of Med-X, an inexplicably skewered and charred squirrel (What horrible obsession with fire had driven these raiders to torture cute little animals?), and a veritable treasure trove of… four and a half bottle caps. Neither of us could figure out the reason for the missing half, so we discarded it along with the poor squirrel. With some small and self-righteous amount of macabre amusement I realized that, given the cornucopia of chems compared to the rest of their belongings, these raiders clearly had their priorities in order.

Those two bottles of water now represented our entire reserve of the precious liquid, but neither of us wanted to take the radiation into our bodies. We knew all too well what it could do to someone.

Desperate times, however… We stuffed the bottles into my packs and gingerly inched further into the general store. The ceiling looked as if it were half-way through the process of caving in completely. Lifeless electrical cables softly swayed above us like vines. None of the lights were working, of course, but open holes in the roof allowed a few impotent beams of light to feebly assault the darkness, tiny pillars of illumination stretching from the dusty and debris-littered floor to a ceiling that threatened to crash down at any moment. At least it wasn’t creaking and moaning as we passed underneath of it. That would have just been creepy…

As we shuffled our way through fallen clutter and detritus, we did eventually find food: A box of Fancy Buck Cakes, somehow left miraculously untouched by the ages. Nohta and I tore into the package, devouring the entirety of its contents in a matter of seconds. By Luna’s grace, nothing had ever tasted so divine!

Further examination of the simple general store revealed a back room with a locked door. Nohta knelt in front of the door, pulling out her screwdriver and bobby pins as I continued to peruse the shelves like a grocery shopper from long ago. I had just stuffed several boxes of Abraxo cleaner into my packs, hoping to find some time in the future when I might be afforded an opportunity to remove the bloodstains from my labcoat, when Nohta opened the door and called for me to follow her inside.

Despite several overturned steel shelves and a few scattered crates, the storage room still looked cleaner than the rest of the building. It didn’t have any holes in the ceiling, and the well-worn tiles hadn’t yet cracked. A small desk sat in the corner, illuminated by the soft green glow of the terminal perched atop its dusty surface.

All around us were shelves and crates of goods, but Nohta made a beeline for the metal containers marked “Equestrian Military - 5.56mm.” I was similarly drawn to the desk, like a moth to verdant light.

Leaving my sister to shuffle through ancient stores of ammunition, I accessed the terminal to find several typed notes left by a series of owners. The first few were from before the war. A simple series of keystrokes opened the files, and I soon found myself lost in the past.

>Hey hey hey! Turns out my little bro really was as smart as we all thought he was! Little guy landed a job working for the M.A.S! Mom and Dad are stoked, of course, I called him up to congratulate him too, and he was just all kinds of excited. ‘Gonna get to work with the top heads in the ministry,’ this. ‘Chance of a lifetime,’ that. Hehe. Little guy can hardly contain himself. I told him to ask Uncle Lex for a good book to give the Ministry Mare, but he just said that she probably has all of the books ever printed anyway, and he didn’t want it to seem like he was trying to smarm up to her. Little guy always was afraid of ponies not thinking he could stand on his own four hooves.

>The town had one hell of a strange visitor today. A zebra! Walked into town like a fucking boss, hauling his little cart full of creepy-ass masks and crazy, snake-oil potions. Like we need that shit around here! He got stopped by the soldiers right outside the store, and I thought they were gonna haul him off for sure, but Uncle Lex showed up and then they were happy enough to just ignore the whole thing. Damned guards are too lazy to do their job! I’m gonna have to go higher up. Contact somepony in the M.o.M. or something. Uncle Lex can’t be sympathizing with the stripes! Not now that Midnight just got in good with the M.A.S.

I skimmed through a few similar entries, all of them revealing equally unimportant information.

>Midnight Oil is still happily employed by the ministry. Says they’ve sent him to a military research outpost or something. Can’t say where, since the stripes are all over the damn place. Can’t give away sensitive info and all that. I get it. I just wish he could come by and visit the family some more. Apparently, he’s working with a couple of the top dogs in the whole shebang. A couple of twins. He says they're cute. I told him to set us up on a double date. Ha! I could hear his blush through the phone! Little bro needs to get out more!

>Things here at the store are looking up, too. I’ve got a whole lot of those Stable-Tec asshats in here lately, buying up all my water, but hey… Bits is bits, I don’t care where they come from. You’d think a company as big as that would have a steady supply of the stuff instead of running off with all my stock. Oh well. Just wish I had a little more to sell to the folks that like to go camping in the desert. Lots of ponies been running out there to get away from the war lately. Go camping underneath Luna’s moon, do a little stargazing, reconnect with nature, all that jazz.

>Ha! More like having wild parties with lots of illegal chems and kinky sex. Can’t wait for the next one.

Much to my relief ownership of the terminal finally changed hooves, and with that change the notes became much more interesting and relevant.

>Fuck ya! Got a whole shitload of stuff in this place! Me and my girls are gonna set up shop here in this shit-hole and pick off the traders coming from the west. Once we get some decent caps and guns, we’re gonna waltz into Mareon all calm and nice-like, buy up all the town’s ammo and hit ‘em from the inside! This plan is fool-proof! Shit, it’s a damn good thing, too. ‘Cause most of these dumb cunts can’t figure out which end of the gun you stick in your mouth. Not exactly the best crew I ever worked with, but these bitches will work out fine for soaking up bullets while I take out the Sheriff. Then, we’ll see who laughs at The Lash! I ain’t nopony’s fucking cronie! That cocksucker can take his “Deputy” offer and shove it up his ass! I’m gonna take the whole damn thing!

Nohta disturbed my local history lesson, tossing a small white box atop the desk next to the terminal. “Sis! I found some ammo, but it’s all the wrong size. There is some food though, you want another snack cake?”

“Oh, thank you! Did you find any water?” I had already opened the box and levitated out a small pastry.

She shook her head and snatched the cake out of the air with her teeth, grinning. Her voice was muffled as she talked through a mouthful of chocolate. “Nod yeb, anyfin on da termal?”

“No, dear. I’m afraid not.” I waited for her to turn back to her scavenging before dumping the conten-, er… daintily taking a lady-like bite out of the remaining confection and continuing my research.

>Got another group of traders today. Me and my girls had fun with this one. Had this huge pink bitch leading the caravan. We showed up and they all just fucking threw their hooves in the air. Fucking priceless! Like we give a shit if you surrender! Ha Ha!

>So I get an awesome idea, right? I mean shit, we could use a little fun out here. So we take this bitch. We tie her up. We let her watch. We started with the parents of the little filly, so she’d be screaming and crying. Nothing gets the blood pumping like the scream of a kid who just lost their folks. Nothing! This pink bitch, though… she’s bawling as bad as the kid. So we figure she needs to be cheered up, right? So we roast the filly with that flamer fuel we found in the back. We ‘gave’ her the best part, too! Ha Ha! You can see it in her eyes… she’s breaking. It’s gonna be fun to watch when she finally loses it. Heh, or maybe… she is still tied up. I think I’ll go have some fun with her right now...

At some point in my reading, my hoof had found its way to my lips. The corners of my vision had become blurry with wetness. How… How could they? Why?

What had possessed these ponies to abandon all that was good and simply harm others for the sake of their own grim satisfaction? How could anyone fall so low?

Nohta was looking at me from across the room, one hoof still in a wooden crate. “Sis, you okay? You look… bad.”

“I… yes, dear. I’m fine.” Images of bloody corridors and bright flames had risen to the surface of my mind, refusing to slink back into the dark waters where they belonged. I wiped the welling tears from my eyes with a hoof, “I just found a stark reminder of what these ponies are capable of. Or rather, what they were capable of.” I peered over the desk at my sister, my voice hardening. “The Wasteland is a better place without them.”

She nodded once, and continued rummaging through crates and boxes. “Damn straight it is. Lemme know if you find anything about water, that cake dried my mouth out pretty bad.”

My hooves clicked and clacked against the keys, downloading the last file on the terminal. Soon a mare’s voice, tired and rough, was creaking slowly through my Pipbuck’s speaker as I moved to help my sister with her scavenging.

“Seventeen days. Seventeen fucking days… That’s how long I’ve been wandering through this blasted desert. Searching. Starting to feel fucking pointless. I mean, I already knew I wasn’t gonna find anything until yesterday, why did I feel the pull telling me to start searching two weeks ago?”

“Fucking sight…”

The voice in my Pipbuck trailed off for a moment as its owner could be heard shuffling through crates and boxes. The background noise blended easily into our own efforts to search for supplies, sounding as if a phantom third party were there scavenging with us.

“Nohta, do be careful with our newly acquired provisions. The last thing we need to do is rip a package and ruin the only food we have left. These old pre-packaged dinners make my stomach queasy enough as they are. I’d rather not eat moldy hay fries, if it can be avoided.”

“Ya, ya. Just hold open your packs so I can dump this stuff in there.” I obliged, as the mare in my Pipbuck cleared her throat and continued her monologue.

“Finally found one of the three. Her name is Trail Blazer. Red mane, pink body, flaming tire tracks for a cutie mark… ya, she looks just like her. This is my girl. Poor mare was a wandering explorer, trader, and scavenger. Used to delve into the old ruins in the hills and use all that strength of hers to haul back the good salvage, ‘til she got caught by raiders. The real raiders. Not what I’m putting together.”

“She was made to watch as they killed her friends. Looks like they force-fed her somepony’s heart. Based on how she’s acting, it was probably her lover, or a family member. But…” The voice in my Pipbuck sighed, “I can’t tell. Hard to see all the details sometimes.”

“Looks like Trail decided that she wanted to survive, even if she was irreparably broken by their torture. Seems she decided to make that choice: Take the Wasteland into herself instead of letting it consume her. She became The Pyro, because her shattered mind couldn’t fathom any alternative means to live.”

An indescribably tired sigh breathed out of my Pipbuck, “I know that feeling, girl.”

I pointed to the wall by the desk, “Nohta, do you think you can get that safe open?”

She popped the lock on the small yellow and pink box in front of me and headed for the painting to which I was pointing. “Sure thing.”

I didn’t spare much time to ruminate over why somepony would place a lock on a first aid box, potentially foiling the attempts of a wounded individual to heal herself. It wasn’t as if ponies before the war had stored hazardous or addictive chemicals in public areas… right? I pushed my questions to the back of my mind and busied myself with collecting the contents of that box, which consisted of some magical healing bandages and a single length of surgical tubing. I had been hoping for a bottle of clean water. I rubbed my temples, massaging away my frustration as the voice continued speaking.

“I got here just in time. Surprise, surprise. She only had four of her captors left. The rest of them were all spread a little too thin across the walls. Girl’s got some strength, I’ll give her that. Almost surprised nopony shot her. Almost surprised she hasn’t shot herself.”

“She was easy enough to ‘convince.’ Her mind didn’t even put up a little amount of resistance to the nudge I gave her. Probably because she’s damn-near batshit crazy. I had to get close to her first, inside the range of her flamer, but that was just a simple teleport spell. After she wore herself out trying to hit me, she calmed down enough for me to talk to her. That’s when I let her have it. Just a little shove in the wrong direction. After telling her what I was gonna do, and her part in it, she fell in line real easy. She was happy, even, jumping for joy at the chance to hurt somepony else. She’s like a fucking orthrus on a leash, ready to be set loose as soon as I tell her to bite. I don’t really get it, I only gave her a little push. But, whatever it worked. That’s all that matters.”

“I’m gonna have to put some real work in on getting her a gang. It’s too bad she killed most of the fuckers that broke her, we could’ve used them. But… it’s okay. We’ve still got years before everything needs to be in place. And… I’m glad that she’s so fucked in the head. I need her broken, angry, confused. I need her terrified of being hurt again. I need her to be a monster, so that she…”

“Hell, I’m feeling the pull again…” The audiolog trailed off to the ethereal noise of magic, barely audible over my sister’s scavenging.

So that was The Pyro’s story? I didn’t believe it. There had to be some reason… Some terrifying desire that had lurked within that mare’s heart that had compelled her to commit such awful acts. You don’t just flip a switch and go from being a good pony to being the scourge of the wastes.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and resumed rummaging through crates and overturned shelves. I found an unopened Sparkle-Cola buried underneath several badly burned cookbooks bearing what I could only hope were gravy stains. I had just sat down to enjoy the delicious treat when the mare in my Pipbuck continued in a mockingly light and cheery voice.

“Well hello there, Candy. Been a while since I’ve seen your pretty little face… Looks like you’ll have used up most of your water and won’t have much food. You’re gonna need a good night’s rest and a place where you can catch your breath. Truth is, you need to get back to Mareon as soon as you can. Too bad you can’t go, yet. You still have… bridges to burn.“

My eyes shot wide, staring at Nohta. Her head slowly turned in my direction. Her eyes looked as unbelieving as I felt.

“Combination for the safe is 36-19-24. Take what’s inside, you’re gonna need it to get back to town. Mind the hole outside the library door. Nohta really doesn’t need a broken leg; that would just slow you down. And you’ll need to be fast to make it through the night set before you.“

The nearly-forgotten bottle of soda fell from my magic and clinked to the floor, rolling away from my hooves as the precious liquid drained across the tiles. I whirled in place to scan the room, my ears laying flat against my head as I searched every shadow and crevice for the assault I was sure to come. My pistol was already floating at my side, jumping at every creak produced by the aging building and every shadow that danced along the walls due to my own magic.

She could see us? How? This was a recording! Wasn’t it? Had this pony hacked into my Pipbuck? Was she watching us from afar, sniper rifle at her side and waiting for us to make a mistake? Goddess, she knew our names! By the sun’s unholy burning light, what was going on?

At several points I activated S.A.T.S. only to find that the only target within view was Nohta. Much to my horror, I had queued up several shots to fire in her direction before I realized my mistake and deactivated the spell. I took a deep and calming breath, shaking in fear as I pointed my pistol at the ground and away from my sister. Goddess, I almost…

Nohta called out to the voice, “Who’s there? Show yourself! We’re not afraid of you!”

The only response that came was from my Pipbuck.

“Oh stop looking around like you’re about to get jumped, girl. If I wanted to kill you, I would take a little late-night stroll into Stable 76 right-fucking-now and kill you in your sleep. The only one in this entire region that could’ve stopped me was your mother, and she’s dead now.” The voice in the Pipbuck continued, changing abruptly from haughty annoyance to sincere sympathy. “My condolences for that, by the way. Nadira was a good mare.”

She continued, her voice slowly lowering until her final words were dripping with anger. “You and I need to have a chat, Candy Stripes. And I intend to make sure that we’re both ready for it when the time comes. Don’t bother fighting it, girl. This is going to happen. Even if I have to drag your broken body halfway across Equestria, you will give me what I want.”

The sounds of cans and papers being knocked to the floor accompanied the soft clop of a careless hoof prodding at buttons in an annoyed and haphazard manner. “Fucking sight… I hate this disorienting shi-” The monologue cut off abruptly, leaving Nohta and I shaken, confused, and terrified.

Nohta’s vulgar speech mirrored my own thoughts exactly. “That pony knew Mom? Who was that? What the fuck is going on, Sis?”

I shook my head, trying to concentrate. I wasn’t sure what had just transpired, only that somepony that knew an uncomfortable amount of information had somehow left a message for the two of us. Nohta and I sat in silence in the darkened storage room for a moment. It was a massive effort to fight against my frightened shaking, but the growing silence left me a window to ruminate over the recording. I was content to stare at my Pipbuck and continue pondering the mystery set before us as my heart rate fell to something approaching normal, but my sister was quickly growing impatient.

“Well, whatever. It’s probably just a trick anyway. Somepony fucking with us. I’m gonna check that combination. See if it’s good.” She turned to the safe, and began spinning the dial.

“Nohta, wait! What if the safe is booby-trapped? It could explo-”

Nohta stepped aside, pulling the latch of the safe and opening the door as its rusty hinges creaked in feeble resistance. I fell to the ground, throwing my hooves over my face as my sister scoffed at my trepidation. “Who would bother to trap the inside of a safe? They’d never be able to get to what they stashed in there.”

Peeking around one hoof, I eyed the contents of the safe from my position on the floor. I was only able to spot several bottles before Nohta stepped in front of the safe herself, blocking my view. Her hoof waved over the contents as she hurriedly stashed everything within the safe into her packs.

“Thank Luna… This water’s clean! Here, drink up.” A bottle was tossed nonchalantly in my direction, nearly landing on the floor before my magic grasped it out of the air. My own Pipbuck verified that the water was free from radiation or poison. I tentatively unscrewed the cap to take a sip, as my sister continued to stuff things into her packs and pockets.

“Hell yes, we got caps too! And a bottle of soda.” My ears perked, standing straight up to better hear her. “It’s mostly weird junk in here, though. A couple of tin cans, some dried up plants, and a jar of black powdery-looking stuff… Oh damn. Uh, Sis… Maybe you should take a look at this.”

Nohta stepped aside as I stood and made my way to the safe. She had been so eager to examine its contents before. Why was she so hesitant now? Had my fears been correct?

Inside the safe, nestled amongst a few miscellaneous bits of scrap metal and junk, lay a bundle of thin red sticks held together with duct tape. A small egg timer was attached to some exposed wiring leading to their ends. Our unknown surveillant had given us an unarmed time-bomb.

Nohta and I had exited the general store and were making our way towards the cafe across the street. Several bottles of water and a day’s worth of food jostled happily in our packs as we traversed the cracked road, but I still wanted to check the other buildings for supplies. We had enough rations to make it to Mareon, but I wanted to be sure that we would have enough food and water to last more than a couple of days.

Nohta sidestepped one of the lampposts as we crossed the street, “She said we’re gonna need it. I think we should keep it.”

“Nohta, it’s a time-bomb! What possible use could we have for something with enough explosive power to level the same building in which we found it?” The bundle of dynamite and wiring was sitting between the bottles of water and my alchemy set, seeming to weigh far heavier in my packs than the half-a-pound my Pipbuck claimed it to be.

“Well, let’s hold onto it. Just in case, okay?” Nohta was, of course, arguing from a stance of pragmatism. But I was having a hard time believing that we would need anything so deadly in the lifeless town of Coltsville. The deadliest threats we had come across were rusty nails poking up from rotted floorboards, a few potholes in the pavement, and ornery radroaches scuttling between piles of detritus in a futile attempt to defend their territory.

“Nohta! I already-” I snapped at her, before catching myself.

She turned to me, wide-eyed, clearly as surprised as I was that I had raised my voice in anger.

Guilt and worry overtook me, and I was quick to apologize. “Oh, I’m so sorry dear. I… I’m just… “ I was having a hard time dealing with the weight of our situation and didn’t need any more unnecessary distractions or possible threats breathing down my neck? “I’m just tired, darling.” I lied, hiding my ineptitude at persuasion with a sigh as I rubbed my eyes. “And I can only hope that the message we received was a fluke. I have absolutely no idea what she meant, or why she spoke so strangely."

She nodded, pawing at the broken road as she lowered her gaze. “That makes two of us.” She looked back up at me, underneath her hood. “Did you notice how she was talking like we were still in the Stable, but… not? That didn’t make any sense. I don’t know about you, but I’m just confused.” Her eyes drifted to the side and back to the cafe. “Candy, let’s find a place to take a breather. We’ll be better off if we aren’t running on fumes, okay?” Nohta stepped past the green bench outside the store, and peered into the dirty, cracked windows. “There’s not much in here. I see a couple of radroaches, but nothing else. Let’s check it out.”

The store’s wooden door swung open easily after Nohta had slammed her hoof through the glass pane to unlock it from the inside, and the two of us stepped into the interior of the cafe as the pleasant smell of cinnamon wafted over us. My mind’s eye drifted back to more pleasant times; the scent of the spice thrusting forth memories of Caramel dropping by the clinic to unload trays of freshly baked cinnabons. “Happy mistakes,” she had called them, citing some imperfection so miniscule as to be beyond my powers of perception while she beamed and winked at my surprise.

Reality reasserted itself to show yellowed windows washing a small dining area and counter with a dimming, faintly-golden light. A single radroach had raised its legs and was hissing at our intrusion into its domain. It was a rather short-lived protestation.

Nohta lazily ambled over to the insect and placed a hoof upon its head, crushing it with a sick crunching noise. Its kin paid this casual violence no heed, and continued to aimlessly meander about the store, flitting their diaphanous wings and twitching their segmented antennae as Nohta ended their lives one by one. Only the last roach attempted to defend itself, hissing and biting at Nohta’s cloak before she brushed it to the floor and stomped on its back.

Dull yellow-grey guts sprayed from the creature’s abdomen to coat the floor under her hoof. “Sis, this town is deserted.” She turned in place slowly, twitching her ears to and fro for threats before she opened her mouth in a wide yawn. “I’m not picking up any more red bars on E.F.S. That means it’s safe, right? Let’s get a little sleep. We could both use some rest.”

We laid down between the counter and the tables, spreading our bedroll upon the flattest piece of floor we could find. We were finally able to stop and catch our breath. Resting in the dim light beside my sister, our bellies full for the first time since leaving Stable 76, I finally had time to ponder something beyond the immediate necessities for survival. Finding myself completely unable to puzzle out who had left the message, or why they had bothered to do so in the first place, I allowed myself to take Nohta’s advice and focus on problems that I had a clear understanding of. I tried to enter the Overmare’s codes one more time, hoping that I had simply lacked a signal by the Stable’s canyon. But my endeavour only produced a predictably ineffective result and an equally predictable stony, if still slightly cowed, look from Nohta. After the codes had all ended in error messages, I relented. Perhaps if I tried them again in Mareon? I’d find out later, I told myself, if we made it back there in one… or rather, two pieces.

Sleep came easily to my weary body. I had scarcely lain down and closed my eyes before swirling visions of long-ago were dredged from the pool of my memories to torment my mind.

I was in the Stable again, hurrying to follow Father’s pale-blue form as he nearly cantered through the halls in his urgency. My lab-coat was still a little too big for me, but I had managed to roll the sleeves up at the ends to keep them out of the way as my not-quite-fully-grown self made quick apologies to any ponies Father had shoved aside in his passing.

Why couldn’t Luna grant me a respite from these visions? Was one moment of honest-to-goodness rest from this hell too much to ask for? And it was this dream, of all things! A foreboding sense of dread was already beginning to overwhelm me; I knew exactly where this dream was going to end.

The Overmare’s office. Just past the Temple. My dream-self and I both made quick prayers to Luna as Father rapped on the Overmare’s door.

“Wintergreen! Open up!” Father’s voice echoed through the halls, full of anxiety and poorly concealed anger.

The door opened with a soft whooshing noise a moment later. The Overmare looked up at us from her desk, causing the thin, dark-green stripes in her white mane to bounce past her shoulders as her startled voice addressed Father by name. “Dream Chaser? What’s the meani-”

“I’ll tell you what the matter is! My wife is dying and you won’t let me save her!” Father stomped into the room and straight up to the Overmare’s desk. He promptly began shouting overtop of it, his angry voice reverberating off the walls in the confined space. “I can do this! You should know that I of all ponies in this stable can look after myself in the wastes! I only need one month! Just enough time to travel to New Appleoosa and back! I can find the-”

“Dream Chaser!” The Overmare rose from her chair, slamming her viridian hoof onto her desktop. Several of her personal knick-knacks and family photographs were jostled to the floor or fell over on her cluttered workspace as Father was left silenced “I will not be spoken to that way in my own office! Take a deep breath, calm yourself, and think a little more clearly about what you’re going to say and to whom you’re speaking!”

I cautiously made my way into the room to stand at Father’s side, my glance darting between both sets of furious eyes staring at each other over the desk. My timid voice pleaded with both of them to calm down as they silently glared at each other. “Ma’am, I apologize for Father’s lack of decorum. He’s simply worried about Mother. Surely you can understand our family’s plight and forgive his rudeness?”

Father shifted his weight uncomfortably and ceased scowling at the Overmare, clearly abashed at having his teenaged daughter show more poise than he was capable of. The Overmare sighed and calmed herself as well, but her voice was still firm when she spoke to me, “I can understand, Candy. What’s more, I can sympathize. Losing Peppermint was the worst moment of my life. I know what your family is going through.”

She continued, easing herself back into her chair as the tone of her voice broadcast the troubles weighing on her mind, “But I have an entire stable to think about. After the accident that took Needles and Bandages, and after the horrible incident with last year’s Caravan that took Dr. Patches… We only have two fully-fledged medical professionals and one trainee,” The Overmare nodded her head in my direction, “on staff to care for hundreds of ponies.” Her eyes returned to Father as she explained her reasoning, “I simply cannot risk another doctor, Dream Chaser! Not with the rate of injuries my little ponies suffer from this stable.”

Father had taken his deep breath, and had succeeded in calming himself enough to cease his yelling. His golden-yellow eyes bore into the Overmare’s as he begged. “Wintergreen, please. I only need one month. Nadira’s body is beginning to fail from the radiation. If I can’t find any RadAway or gather the ingredients for one of her potions in that amount of time then I’ll come back, but I have got to try something! I can’t just sit here and wait for her to… to… “ Father couldn’t meet her eyes, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud.

“Dream, I’m sorry. I truly am. But my decision still stands.” The Overmare’s eyes were soft, sympathetic, but her voice bore the notes of finality. The discussion was over. “I’ll be in the Temple later today, if you wish to join me. My prayers are with you and your family.”

Father’s pleading expression slowly sank into a deep glower. He glared daggers at the Overmare for a moment that felt much too long, then turned and walked back into the hall.

I knew it was hopeless, but my dream-self refused to listen to reason. Maybe… Maybe the Overmare had only answered that way because of Father’s outburst? Maybe if I asked nicely? I had to try. “Ma’am, can’t you grant Father’s request? I know that Father is important to the Stable, but… “

“I’m sorry, Candy. Your mother’s fate is in Luna’s hooves now.” She sighed, rubbing the circles underneath her eyes with a hoof. A soft white bubble of magic lifted her photos and little figurines back onto her desktop. “I have a meeting with Dust in fifteen minutes to discuss the plans for our next Caravan trip. It is my hope that our next foray into the wastes will be able to procure the necessary medicines or herbs for Nadira’s recovery, but I cannot divide our resources in the manner that Dream Chaser wants.” She looked at me, and I could see the hurt in her olive eyes, “Tell your father that if he wishes, he is free to volunteer for the Caravan this year. You can finish your studies under Pearl Grey. That way, I can hold Pearl and you back for the Stable while Dream searches for RadAway or whatever herbs your mother needs to cure herself while he is looking after the Caravan.”

“But, Ma’am, please… if you won’t allow Father to go then surely somepony else would volunteer for the trip?” This was all my fault. I had to make this right. There had to be something I could do!

“Candy…” The Overmare’s eyes searched my own; soft comfort lying atop calculating steel, like a cudgel wrapped in wool. Indeed, when the hammer over my head fell, it was quite blunt. “Your mother is a zebra.”

My mouth dropped. The Overmare was quick to continue, speaking slowly and evenly in a manner that implied she was trying to teach me an important lesson. “I have tried, Candy. I have tried so hard, to be accommodating. To smooth tensions. To keep the peace. But the fact remains that only a hoof-full of the ponies in this stable have allowed themselves to get close to Nadira. Your Father, Dust, Moonglow, myself, and just a scant few others. Mostly Caravan regulars. Nopony else has seen what your mother has done for the Caravan. Nopony remembers how her potions have saved lives. All they know is that she bears stripes. And that’s reason enough to fear and despise her.”

“But-”

“It’s not as if your mother made it easy for them to get close, either! Teaching your little sister to pick locks, teaching you to make poisons, always being so quick to end an argument with a petty show of her strength… ” The Overmare shook her head, scowling as her voice lowered to a near hiss. “Do you have any idea how hard it has been to keep the ponies of this stable from fearing an assassin? Or to downplay exactly what she was capable of? Stars and Moon, Candy!”

She tapped her hoof against her desk with each sentence, her eyes boring into my own. “Every year, I’ve had to personally debrief every member of the Caravan! Every year, they’ve brought me staggering accounts of her prowess in battle. And every year, I’ve had to swear each of my little ponies into secrecy about what she did. All of that just to keep the rest of the Stable ignorant of her abilities. The thing’s she’s done…” The dark green mare trailed off, her brow furrowing in a mixture of exasperation and respect.

“But that’s just it!” I couldn’t hold it any more. I had to speak, even if I was out of line. “She did all of those things to benefit the Stable! She taught Nohta how to pick locks so that she could avoid fighting! She taught me how to make poisons so that I could defend myself on the surface! And she only fell ill because she was trying to save Dr. Patches!” Each explanation was accompanied by a frustrated stomp of my hoof.

“I know that.” She nodded, but stayed firm. “But my hooves are tied, Candy. Of any here who might be willing to venture out to help your mother, all of them are too valuable to the Stable. Or otherwise too incapable in the skills needed to survive on the surface to be of any use scouring the wastes for her cure.” Her horn flared as her eyes apologized in that cruel way that only a leader delivering bad news can. “I’m sorry, but this is what has to be done.”

A picture of a red-and-white stallion floated to her hooves, as my dream-self fought to find the words to change her mind. But of course, persuasion has never been my forte. We remained silent as she gazed down at the photograph while speaking to me, her voice nearly a whisper. “I know what it’s like to lose a loved one, Candy. I’m just hoping that you and Dream don’t have to learn that lesson anytime soon.” She looked back up to me, tears welling in her eyes, “I need to get ready for my meeting. Your father will be needing you.”

I lowered my head, accepting my defeat. “Yes, ma’am.”

I turned to exit her office, dragging my hooves as I went. As I was passing through the door, I was just able to make out the sound of her hushed voice, “Pepper… tell me I’m doing the right thing.” I kept walking as the door slid closed behind me. Of the two ponies that needed comforting right then, Father was more important to me.

I found him bracing himself against the wall next to the entrance of Luna’s Temple. He was shaking, having worked himself up into a near-rage at the Overmare’s decision.

As I approached him, his breath came out in a sharp, vile exhalation, “Dégoûtant putain! Lumière prendre tu, salope!”

“Fa-Father!” I gasped, taken aback by his colorful language.

“Huh?” He turned to see me, quickly shaking his head and apologising, “Je suis désolé, ma chère fille. I shouldn’t speak that way in front of you. But that… she…” He was shaking again, his face worked into a snarl as his eyes shut and his chest heaved.

I laid a calming hoof on his shoulder, “She truly was sorry, Father. She meant every word.”

His eyes opened, staring past his curly brown mess of a mane. “Candy…” I was soon pulled into his embrace, the both of us wrapping our hooves around each other as he slowly let go of his fury. “Sweetheart, never lose your faith in the goodness of the heart’s of others.” He kissed my brow, and pulled away to wipe tears from his eyes. “Come on, we need to go check on your mother and sister.”

“Father, wait!” I wouldn’t have time to talk to him later. I needed to tell him now. “I’m… I’m sor-”

He placed a hoof over my quivering lips, “No, sweetheart. This isn’t your fault. No matter what anyone tells you, this is not your fault. I was there with you. I saw what happened. It was an accident. Sometimes things happen that are just beyond our control.”

He turned to walk down the hall as the Stable’s walls collapsed around us, melting into puddles of grey anguish at my hooves. Beyond our control? What was a doctor good for if she couldn’t help one patient? What did it say about me if my first patient ever was going to die because I made a simple mistake?

My dream-self followed the course set before her with all the stubbornness of a freight train, adamantly refusing to deviate from the tracks leading to the horrors down the seeping hallway. Luna, please… not again.

I struggled futilely against the binds placed over my consciousness; lucidity and dreamfulness melding into a terrible half-nightmare of regret and exultation. Father was with me now! I missed him so much! But… I’d never see him again. My dream-self placed a hoof in front of the others, slowly plodding after him even as my mind fought to reassert itself.

I had the words. Goddess, I had them on the tip of my tongue and at the forefront of my worried mind. But I just couldn’t speak. ‘Father!’ I would have cried out, ‘I’m sorry! All of this is my fault! I’m sorry that I didn’t pay enough attention when I had the chance! I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better doctor! Daddy… I love you… don’t leave me. Don’t leave…’

It was too much. No matter how I fought, I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t change the dream. Luna please, I begged, rid me of this vision!

I followed Father into the darkening, shapeless void as my dream faded to a hazy reality, and crossed through a seamless barrier between sleep and wakefulness to find my sister dozing against my back.

I quietly rolled off of the mat, being careful not to wake Nohta as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and checked our surroundings for threats. Luna had granted my request, but she couldn’t take away the memories. I laid out my alchemy set upon one of the tables, hoping to take the opportunity to clear my head while crafting something useful.

I levitated Mother’s book by my side, following a simple recipe for a medicinal salve. It seemed the most practical concoction to piece together with my meager amounts of herbs. The blaring heat emanating from the fire talisman was quite uncomfortable, but the sweet smell of stewing herbs that mingled with the store’s aroma of cinnamon more than made up for it.

It wasn’t long before that smell carried to Nohta’s sleeping form. She woke, rubbing her eyes and swearing, “Damn it… I didn’t mean to pass out. How long was I asleep?”

I continued setting out additional herbs and roots. “Not long dear, we only lost an hour. Did you sleep well?”

“No I…” She rubbed her eyes again, turning to reacquaint herself with our surroundings, “Not really. This bedroll sucks.”

The liquid in the pot before me was beginning to take on a delightful coloration to match its pleasing aroma. “Well, I’m going to be stirring this salve for a while it seems. You can go back to sleep if you wish, dear. I’ll keep watch.”

“Nah… don’t wanna sleep.” She shook her head vehemently, pushing herself to her hooves and trudging towards our packs. “I’m gonna make sure our stuff is organized.”

We allowed ourselves a brief respite; one hour to finish the salve and take stock of our supplies. We had staved off starvation with the snack cakes, but it wouldn’t be long before we were hungry again. We were in desperate need of food and water.

Nohta was going through our packs, counting ammunition. She shook her head, cursing under her breath. “Shit… I’ve only got twelve rounds left. And you’ve only got two full batteries. We need ammo, Sis.”

“We still have a grenade as well, sister. And I’d rather avoid any fighting if we have the opportunity to do so.” I stirred the thickening goop in the pot as the thin green mist rose to curl lazily above the rim. “Now that we know The Pyro’s gang have been wiped out completely, I’d rather like to finish looking for food and water and make our way straight to Mareon.”

She looked up from her pistol after loading seven of the rounds into its magazine. “Well ya, but we haven’t exactly been able to pick and choose when we get to fight. It would be better to be prepared than just hope that we don’t run into trouble.”

I sighed, depositing the viscous and faintly glowing liquid from the metal pot atop the talisman into a Sparkle-Cola bottle. “Yes, dear. I know. I only meant that our primary concern should be for food and water.” The healthy green aura exuding from the glass cast a thin sheen of vibrant light across my sister’s face before I gently magiced a cap into place on the reused container and laid it within my packs next to my only bottle of water. “I’m beginning to think that I’m thirsty enough to drink the irradiated swill that we scavenged from the raiders.”

“Candy, don’t drink that shit, it’s poison! We’ll find good water soon enough, I promise! We just have to hold out for a little while.” She shuffled her hooves underneath of her, rising to her full height. “We should get moving. Maybe we can get lucky and find what we’re after before night falls.”

“How is your leg, darling?” I pointed to the recently wounded appendage. “Do you want me to take another look at it?”

She pulled the red and gold sleeve of her cloak down over her Pipbuck with her teeth, concealing the raw and sensitive skin that I had mended hours ago. “It’s just a couple scratches, Sis, I’ll make it. Stop worrying, okay?”

“Nohta, telling me to stop worrying about you is tantamount to yelling at the sun to stay underneath the horizon.” My brow rose in annoyance as I wondered if I’d have to use my ‘Big Sister’ voice. “I’ll use my magic If I have to.”

“C’mon Candy, you already took care of it this morning! Stop fussing, I’m fine!” Nohta proved her point by jogging in place for a moment. “See? Let’s go.” My tail swished in combined frustration at her behavior and memory of the wounds I had healed earlier. I could still feel the exertion in my horn from expending so much magical power to heal our bodies, but that fatigue was of little consequence. No matter, I told myself, the important thing was that we were both whole.

I tapped the black edge of my fire talisman twice with my hoof, being careful to not touch the glowing swirl of orange in its middle. The talisman cooled immediately, and I packed it back into the matte case along with the rest of my alchemical tools. My hooves and magic scooped up the small assortment of ingredients arrayed before me and deposited them into my satchel before I rose to stand beside my sister, “Agreed. Let’s be off.”

I stepped over the rotting wooden floor, my hooves producing dull and hollow-sounding thumps, and proceeded to the counter. The ancient cash register sitting atop the serving space was still functional, but its contents had long since been pilfered.

When the two of us had searched the entirety of the front room, and found nothing of use, we both made our way towards the back. The smell of cinnamon was growing stronger, and I was sure that we were moving towards the kitchen and storage rooms. Sure enough, a row of magically sealed jars sat atop shelves lining the halls. One of the jars had been knocked from its perch to shatter atop an unfortunate radroach, coating the dead insect in a sizable pile of glass and cinnamon.

Picking the bones of an ancient town clean was not as appealing when my stomach offered no encouragement. “I wish this didn’t feel so much like we were looters taking advantage of a momentous tragedy.”

My sister paused in her attempts to pick the lock on a closet door to look up at me with a tired expression, “Uh, Sis… We are looters. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

I frowned at my sister, “Well, yes, but… Doesn’t this feel at least a little wrong to you? Breaking into dead pony’s homes and places of business to steal their once treasured belongings?”

She rolled her eyes and readjusted the screwdriver in her hooves, speaking around the tiny bobby pin stuck between her teeth, “Ah’d raffer feel full dan feel raight. Af had ‘nuff esperence beeng made da feel ‘wrong’ ahlreddy. Ah’m used do id.”

The lock clicked open, and Nohta was about to slink through the passageway when my hoof stopped her. Before she could react, my other hoof was around her shoulder, pulling her sideways into my chest. “You don’t have to feel wrong around me, sister.”

“Ugh… Candy! Enough with the mushy stuff, I get it!” She resisted at first, but both of us knew that if she actually wanted to escape my grasp I wouldn’t be able to stop her. Nohta gently tossed her head up and to the side, rolling her eyes as she laid a hoof across my own and relaxed. After a moment, she spoke again in an exasperated whisper, “Are you done, yet? This is kinda embarrassing.”

I couldn’t keep the sly smile from creeping across my lips as I held her tighter. I had so few opportunities to pay her back for her impertinent behavior! “Embarrassing? Why, how could this be embarrassing, Nohta? It’s just you and I here!”

“Now you’re just messing with me!” She squirmed out of the embrace to stare indignantly into my eyes.

I grinned smugly in her direction, “Ahh, yes well, you are the little sister, dear. You’re destined to bear the brunt of my inexpert teachings and poorly conceived wisdoms, as well as the full force of my familial affections. And if the only way for me to wrench you out of your glum demeanor and put you in your proper place is with a well-deserved and extraordinarily sappy hug, then so be it.” I moved past her, chuckling to myself at her frustrated groans as I opened a yellow and pink box hanging on the interior closet wall.

Inside the box I found another bottle of water and several empty syringes. I stuffed them into my bags, reasoning that I might be able to sterilize the needles and re-use them for direct application of a portion of healing potion. An unorthodox practice to be sure, but direct application of potion could save a life so long as the one administering the medicine knew how to avoid the… messy… complications.

Nohta grumbled as she moved to my side and withdrew several tools and a roll of duct tape from a tool box. We had apparently progressed from collecting bare necessities to scavenging for anything that might pull in a couple of caps. The added weight from the miscellaneous scrap was causing the straps of my saddlebags to bite into my coat, but I knew that any unpleasantness now would likely guarantee easier times once we returned to Mareon.

Moving past the closet and through a swinging door, we found ourselves in the kitchen. The metal counters and appliances were so thoroughly deteriorated by rust that I was surprised they hadn’t collapsed under their own weight. As my sister and I continued to scavenge for miscellaneous items the fading light shining through the dirty glass panes of the kitchen’s windows made it abundantly apparent that the day was quickly coming to an end. The two of us had just agreed to leave the town behind and use what little day we had left to begin our trek back to Mareon when the muffled sound of voices trickled through the cracked and broken windows.

Nohta and I froze, neither of us even daring to breathe. My eyes darted to the windows, catching just a glimpse of movement from the other side before Nohta pulled me to the grimy wall and out of sight. My sister and I huddled together on the floor, listening as the voices slowly approached.

“Can’t believe we never took this route before. It’s practically a straight shot to Mareon from here. Lots faster than going ‘round the mountain!” A stallion’s voice called out to his companions in a light-hearted manner. “I told y’all we should do things my way. I can be pretty sharp at times… Eh? Eh?”

“Honey, please, stop making puns.” A mare’s gentle voice chided the stallion. “You’re upsetting Moonster.”

These ponies didn’t sound like raiders. A quick check of my E.F.S. assured me that the ponies weren’t hostile. I eased upwards, towards the window, as Nohta shook her head and hissed at me to stop. Ignoring Nohta’s anxious expression, I cautiously peeked through the window. I was soon staring into a set of wide blue eyes that were every bit as surprised as I was.

“Moo.” I was staring at a cow. She had paused to inspect the window, her body turned to the side. Her brown-and-white-mottled form was laden down with a heaping pile of bulging bags, stretched satchels, creaking crates, and precariously placed pots and pans. Jammed into the center of the mess of supplies that was the burden upon her back was a single rod, jutting out over her head to suspend an unlit oil-lamp as it dangled just above her short horns. Her ears twitched, and the two of us blinked at each other.

“Uh… Moo?” I never really know what to say when I meet someone for the first time. And first impressions can be ever so important.

To my alarm the heifer turned in my direction, revealing a second head! I still think that my response was at least somewhat reasonable.

“AAAHH!” I fell backwards on top of Nohta, screaming in shock even as she grunted underneath the sudden weight. My flailing hooves connected with the lid of a rusted pot, flinging the cookware into an assortment of cutlery and pans, scattering a pile of dishes, forks, and spoons to the floor with a resounding and thunderous clatter. My sister and I lay in a heap; each of us softly groaning as our pains slowly abated.

“The hell was that?” The stallion’s voice wasn’t light-hearted anymore, his jaunty tones replaced by notes of fear and the telltale signs of spiking adrenaline. I heard the unique and unmistakable sound of a shotgun pumping a shell into its chamber.

“Oh! No need to fret now, Cheddar.” An oddly rural accent that I couldn’t quite place answered the stallion from just outside the window. “Moonster and I scared da poor dear right-good, dontcha know!”

“Scared who, Moozzarella?” The mare from earlier piped up as Nohta and I struggled to extricate ourselves from the tangled mess of limbs, loose clothing, and tails that we had become. “String! Stay back!”

“Poor dear looked like a unicorn with just a dreadful case o’ da willies, ya know!”

“Moo.”

“Oh jeepers! Dat’s right, dear! Moonster says dat she’s got stripes on her face, like a zebra, only dey’s pink. I hope da poor dear didn’t bang her head in all dat commotion.”

“Moo.”

“Oh, don’t be like dat, Moonster! We scared her more’n she scared us ya know!”

The back door leading to the cafe’s kitchen burst open, flooding the room with light as a bright-yellow stallion wielding a pump-action shotgun in his telekinetic grasp barged through the opening and leveled the weapon at my head. In a voice full of attempted bravado, he stammered around a sprig of some indiscernible fern hanging from his mouth, “St-Stay right there! Don’t move!”

Nohta ignored the stallion’s request, attempting to wriggle out from under me, “Candy, can you get off of me? You’re kinda heavy.”

“Ah! Heavy! Nohta, I’m shocked that you would say such a thing!” And about her big sis- ah, elder sister, too!

The stallion shook his gun in the air, whining, “Hey, come on! You two are supposed to be quiet and stop moving when I tell you to stop moving! That’s how this works!”

“What for? If you were gonna shoot us, you would have already. Nopony just mugs somepony in the wastes, they just shoot ‘em and loot the body.” Nohta’s reasoning had come too quickly for my liking, and I could only assume that she had picked up that nugget of knowledge from one of her various teachers on the surface. Most likely Dust, but perhaps Margarita as well.

However, I had no time to lament her acclimation to our new, violent lives as she found the leverage to shove me away with a hoof, depositing me messily upon the floor where I landed with a soft grunt. “Oof! Nohta! That hurt!”

“You two… you’re not exactly the smartest bandits around, huh?” The buck grinned behind his shotgun.

My jaw dropped, aghast at the scandalous accusation, and I rolled to right myself upon the floor. “Bandits! Ah! Perish the thought! We’d never dream of attacking somepony simply to take their possessions!” I huffed, feeling insulted, “We’re simply trying to find some food in this cafe!”

“Food, huh?” His eyebrows waggled independently of each other, and his ears found the same lack of synchronization as they flapped about in haphazard directions. “Ya, alright. I guess that makes sense. I got food for sale, if ya’ll want some. But you’re gonna have to come outside and meet the rest of the family before I take my gun off of ya.”

What? “That’s a rather… odd request.”

“And I’m a rather odd pony, so it makes sense now, don’t it?” He waved his gun towards the door, motioning for us to get up and walk outside.

Seeing no other option before us, I gathered myself up off of the floor and led the way into the alleyway behind the store. As I had assumed earlier, these ponies were not raiders. They were a traveling trade caravan complete with a wagon being pulled by two mares and a cart being hauled by the strange cow creature. One other mare, unburdened save for the formidable rifles balanced at her sides in a battle-saddle, was trying to keep her weapons trained on me while positioning herself between the wagon and myself. A small colt, almost a foal, could just barely be seen peeking past the cloth covering of the wagon. Everyone present, save for one of the cow’s heads, bore a frightful and wary look. I had done a wonderful job of startling an entire family.

I was immediately beset with an intense feeling of guilt, “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

The stallion called to one of his companions, cutting me off, “Brie! Might need your help with this other one. She’s lookin’ a mite ornery!”

One of the ponies pulling the wagon, the one with the creamy white coat and shortly cropped dull-yellow mane, sloughed off her harness binding her to the wagon. Her deeply red partner gave her a look of worry, but she shrugged it off and trotted to the back portion of the wagon. She procured a sledgehammer with a head the size of a small foal, and continued to trot casually in my direction as if the massive weapon held between her jaws was no burden at all. Did I mention how intimidating an earth pony can look when they wield a hammer in their teeth and their eyes stare menacingly in your direction?

Nohta stepped out of the cafe a moment later, huffing and making a decent show of her agitation at our predicament. Apparently one pony with a shotgun was not something she believed we needed to worry about any longer. “I said I was coming! Sheesh! You don’t have to rub in the fact that you’ve got us at gunpoint!”

The white mare, presumably the pony named Brie, let her weapon slide out of her mouth so that the heavy metal head thudded against the gravel lining the alley as she balanced the long shaft against her shoulder. Tapping the hammer with a hoof, she smoothly stated, “Better safe than sorry, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Nohta grumbled underneath her hood, sitting beside me on the uncomfortably pointy rocks and crossing her forelegs in front of herself.

“Please,” I interjected, raising a hoof tentatively in a pleading fashion. “If we can all settle down and simply talk about this, I’m sure we’d all come to agree that this is a simple and unfortunate misunderstanding!”

The yellow buck moved up beside his backup, ears flapping wildly. He lowered his weapon to point at the ground even as his eyebrow rose in question. In a rather civil voice, he spoke directly to me, “Okay. So talk. What are ya’ll doing skulking around like yer gonna ambush us the moment we have our backs turned?”

Nohta exhibited a wonderful example of why so many ponies found her hard to get along with, slamming one of her free hooves into the gravel and shouting. “The hell are you talking about? We weren’t skulking! We were hiding! What are you doing waltzing through raider territory like it’s no big deal?”

The burgundy mare wearing the battle-saddle ambled towards us carefully. “Raider territory? Cheddar, I thought you said that this route was safe?”

The shotgun wielding stallion stammered, “I uh… I thought it was? Nopony ever comes this way to get to Mareon, I thought it was deserted.”

Ms. Battle Saddle was becoming agitated now as well, something that didn’t bode well for our immediate future. I could only draw solace from the fact that she was becoming incensed at the stallion instead of my sister and myself. “You said this was going to be an easy trip, Cheddar! We can’t be taking String through raider territory!”

“Arrgh! Calm down, Cabby! My ears are a-tingling enough as is without you shouting ‘em off!”

Brie lifted her hammer just enough to bring it down on the rocks with an attention-gathering smack, effectively silencing the argument before it began, and glowered at Nohta, “What do you mean about raider territory? If it’s so dangerous out here, why are you here?”

Nohta answered plainly, nearly speaking over me as I attempted to answer as well. “We’re here for the raiders.”

“We’re here for supplies.” I looked to my sister, both of us realizing that we now had to backtrack in order to make our answers less suspicious. What came next was as confusing for me as it was for anyone else within earshot.

I threw a hoof in the air and blurted out the most sensible thing I could think of, attempting to draw attention to myself lest my sister say something foolish before I could speak. “Were here to raid supplies!”

“We’re here to supply raiders!” Nohta spouted off before groaning and drawing her hood even further down her face in confusion and frustration. She never has been any good at talking her way out of a problem…

I waved my hooves frantically in front of myself, “Oh my goodness! Wait! We need to start over!” This was becoming ridiculous and I needed to put a stop to it. “We came here out of a necessity to scavenge for supplies-”

“And to get revenge on the bastards that destroyed our home and tried to eat us.” Nohta finished, her voice a low growl as she ground her hoof into the gravel before her..

We both sat in silence as I covered my face with my hooves and shook my head, waiting for a response from the ponies arrayed before us. Finally, after a pregnant moment filled with wary stares, Cheddar sighed and adjusted the fern stalk to the other side of his mouth before declaring his opinion, “Yep. They’re crazy. Looks like we’re just gonna have to-”

“Dad?” A sickly looking yellow colt with an icy blue mane peeked out from behind the cloth covering of the wagon. “Did you… find any more medicine? I think I’m… gonna be sick again.”

No… That look… I had seen it before in a beautiful striped face. The sunken eyes, the thinning mane. The pale and weakening frailty of form as the sickness robbed the body and soul of strength and resolve. I didn’t need to use my spell to feel that pain. I knew it all too well. It was something I would never forget.

“RadAway!” I stomped my hoof on the gravel, eliciting a gasp from the pinkish-red mare and surprised stares from Brie and Cheddar. “That colt needs RadAway this instant!”

Ignoring the shouted warnings of the ponies and my sister, I dashed towards the wagon, activating my magic to ‘feel’ his weakened body. There was a commotion behind me; a small scuffle, the sound of gravel crunching underhoof, shouts. None of it mattered. I wasn’t going to let this happen again. Goddess, not to a life so young…

The familiar, creeping, insurmountable wall of pain and nausea overtook my body as the phantom presence of opening sores, aching joints, and feeble muscles assaulted my senses. Everything hurt. It was as if the world itself were slowly crushing me under its weight, squeezing every fiber of my being with an impending sense of doom as I futilely struggled to amass some meager resistance and simply live. I wanted nothing more than for the pain to end. I cut the spell, before I could be overtaken completely by unpleasant memories of my own bedraggled reflection in exhausted emerald eyes.

As my focus was drawn back to my own body, I finally recognized the presence of hard, cold steel against my temple. The barrel of Cheddar’s shotgun was pressing lightly against my skull. His eyes were hard and dangerous, staring intently at me from the other end of his gun.

“I said,” He began, his voice deadly-sharp, “Not. Another. Spell.” The trigger of his weapon glowed brightly with the pressure of his telekinesis. I was a moment from death.

I was as still as Luna’s statue had once been, only daring to move my eyes and mouth. Ignoring the threat to my own life, I pleaded with the stallion, “This colt has a severe case of radiation sickness. He needs RadAway.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His voice was a low whisper. Behind me, I could hear the distinct shuffling sounds of the other two ponies wrestling my sister to the ground.

“She’s a doctor, you stupid fummph!” Nohta’s voice was muffled, her head having been shoved into the ground by the remaining red pony from the wagon.

Cheddar’s ears were flapping again. In a less severe and dramatic situation I might have thought that they looked as if he were trying to fly away upon them. As my situation warranted however, I kept my observations to myself.

He whispered to me, still staring down the length of the barrel of his weapon, “Is that true? You a doctor?”

In the space of one breath, I spared a moment for Father, now that he was gone… “I’m the best healer my tribe has left.”

His stare was still cold, but I could see the wheels turning behind his deep-blue eyes. I could practically feel the desperation he was exuding as he cautiously asked,. “Can you help my son?”

I spoke slowly, carefully. “I have no spells to cleanse his body of radiation. I’ll do what I can, but I already told you that he needs RadAway.”

“We’re out. Already gave him all we had. Wasn’t enough.” He adjusted the stalk that he was chewing on again, bringing it around the shotgun and into plain view where I finally had a chance to get a good look at the fern. I recognized that plant…

A series of quick mental calculations later and I found myself blessing Mother’s memory. “In that case, have you got any more witchweed?”

His gun inched to the side and away from my head as he stared at me in confusion, chewing slowly on the fern dangling from his lips. His ears never ceased their wild flapping. “Tell me what we need to do.”

“Dang, girl! What you got cooking over here?” The yellow buck slid into the chair next to me, inhaling deeply as the sweet scent of fermenting herbs rose from the cookpot sitting upon the decaying tabletop. “Smells like you actually know your way around a kitchen! Think you can teach my wife a thing or two?”

My lips pursed as I fought back the grin, and I was able to cover my laughter by pretending to cough. “I only know a few simple recipes my mother passed on to me. But this…” I added another sprig of dried witchweed into the simmering concoction atop the table. The magical energies released from the plant caused the shimmering verdant water to bubble and churn, releasing more of the wonderfully sweet fragrance into the air. “...this isn’t for eating. This is for your son’s illness.”

The introduction of Nohta and myself to the Cheese family had been a little strained at first. Understandable, given the circumstances under which we had met. But after Cheddar had announced that his “senses” were “going absolutely schizoid” he released me from gunpoint, and after my medical expertise had been proven by my mending of Nohta’s new cut upon her face (while giving the deeply red mare I came to know as Merlot a scathing glower), our two families came to regard each other with a quiet if moderately strained respect. Of course, my promise of medical aid for the youngest member of their family, little String Cheese, had produced significant results in smoothing tensions over between the Cheese family and Nohta and I.

Cheddar was the leader of this small band. Or as he liked to call himself, “The Big Cheese.” I soon discovered his love of puns and general good-humored nature to be quite at odds with the display in the alley. His wife, Cabernet, likewise calmed down and stopped snapping her rifles in my direction once she learned that I could help her son; an attitude that was quickly adopted by the rest of the family. The two ponies pulling the wagon, Brie and Merlot, mostly kept to themselves, but Brie was kind enough to offer to clean Nohta’s pistol while I worked on the potion. It was only later that I realized the likely possibility that she had only done so to ensure that my sister wouldn’t be able to use her weapon for the next few hours.

“You’re… making medicine? Do ponies even do that anymore?” His eyebrows were cocked quizzically as his eyes roved between the brew, my little pile of herbs and roots, and myself. “I thought we just healed everything with spells or potions left from before the war.”

“Well, I make medicine. I’m sure that somepony out there is doing the same thing somewhere. A healing potion is relatively simple to make, provided you can gather the necessary ingredients.” I lifted one of the sprigs of witchweed between the two of us, gazing through the scarlet bubble to meet his eyes. “You’ve been chewing on one of the most versatile and prodigious species of magical flora known to all of equinity since antiquity. Witchweed is an important base for many elixirs, and lends magical power to nearly any potion or philter. But it can’t grow in the desert. The soil is too rocky.” I grinned as his hoof met his face. The trader had clearly possessed no knowledge of how valuable the herb actually was.

“Dang it. You mean I been chewing this damn weed when I could’ve used it to help my boy?” He sighed and glowered at the wall, then shrugged, “I guess it’s just a good thing I started picking it wherever I found it. Never figured it woulda’ been useful for somethin’ like this. And I never would have started chewing on that plant if I hadn’t been trying to quit smoking.” He grinned apologetically, and I assumed he was joking to make amends for earlier.

I floated the fern closer to my eyes, relishing how the bitter aroma of the dried stalk cut through the saccharine miasma of potion brewing upon the tabletop. “Well to be honest, without the required acumen of magical herbs you would be hard pressed to utilize witchweed in any sort of fashion beyond rudimentary wortcraft. The euphoric feeling that you likely experienced was an influx of arcane energy being released into your circulatory system where it coalesced into-”

“Uh… “ His blank expression let me know that I had gone beyond his vocabulary.

“Oh, um…” Now it was my turn to feel sheepish. I hadn’t intended to make him feel uncomfortable with my knowledge. “You would need some understanding of proper alchemy to get any effects from the plant beyond the trivial benefits gained from chewing it. The… good feeling you had when you chewed it was the extra magic of the fern building itself up in your body.”

His eyebrows wriggled freely, like bushy little caterpillars fighting to flee his face. “Oh, I… I guess that makes sense.” With a touch of honest resolve in his voice, he laid a hoof upon the table, “Tell you what, if this can help String I’ll give you the rest of my stash for free. Seems like you could get a lot more use out of it than me.” His tired exhalation caused a few of the dried leaves on the table to flutter gently. I laid the sprig of the fern upon the broader leaves to weigh them down as his voice went quiet and low. “I’m serious. My boy means the world to me. I’d do anything for him. And one good turn deserves another.”

Cheddar was a father caring for his son. It was easy to see the similarities. Easy to understand why I wanted so desperately to help him. Perhaps the souls of my parents would rest easier if they knew I wasn’t about to abandon my calling to simple rage. Perhaps Luna would show them that I was still making others whole. I certainly hoped so.

The wooden ladle held in my magical grasp slowly drifted through the curls of steam to stir the potion. My eyes lifted over the pot to land upon Nohta in the other room, crouched low to scrutinize the various disassembled pieces of her pistol laid atop an oily white cloth as Brie cleaned and reassembled them. My sister, practical as ever, was trying to learn everything she could about how to use her weapon.

I tapped the side of the fire talisman once with my hoof, reducing the heat as my mortar and pestle floated over to the pot and dumped the finely ground roots into the mix. A brief flash of deep purple light was followed by a quick puff of indigo smoke, and the brew turned an alarming shade of red. I placed the remainder of my alchemical ingredients back in my little herb satchel, “Believe me, Cheddar, I understand. I feel the same way about my sister.”

“She’s your sister, huh?” Cheddar rocked back in his chair, lifting two of the legs from the floor to teeter precariously as he nodded with a knowing expression. “I was wondering about that. She looks a little… exotic.”

With a deliberate slowness, I diverted my attention from the potion to his stern face. “Oh? Is that a problem for you?” The brief magical flash that unclasped my pistol was lost amidst the scarlet light already stirring the potion. If this buck was only playing us to help his son…

Goddess, why was I becoming so quick to assume the worst? When had my pistol become my go-to option instead of a last resort?

He sighed, landing the chair back on all four legs as his hoof rubbed his lips in contemplation. “If you had asked me that question a couple years back… I’d have given you a different answer.” Shaking his head, he continued, “But now… I guess it doesn’t really matter. Fighting each other over a centuries-old war seems a little pointless when we have more important things to fight over, like centuries-old food.”

I reached over with my hoof to secure the latch back around my pistol, purposely letting him see the action. “Good.” I failed spectacularly to keep my frustration out of my voice, but I was just so tired of ponies judging Nohta before they knew her! “I’d rather we not engage in a pointless conflict when we should be helping each other.”

He raised his hooves in front of himself defensively, wearing an embarrassed smile as he apologized. “Right, message received. Touchy subject. Shouldn’t have brought it up. I was just curious is all. Most ponies don’t walk around all dressed up like a zebra if they can avoid it.” He leaned forward, pressing his chest against the table’s edge. “So, uh… is that how’s come you’re able to make potions?”

“It’s not as if ponies are completely incapable of creating simple potions. They’re just usually not very good at it.“ I winced, realizing that I had all but given myself away. Acting quickly in a last-ditch effort to cover my tracks, I raised my eyebrow dangerously and questioned him in an annoyed tone, “And I was under the impression that you didn’t want to exacerbate your social faux-pas.”

“Ya, well… Momma Mascarpone didn’t raise a cautious fool, just a curious one.” I found his personal assessment of his own intellectual acuity to be rather accurate, but his playful wink disarmed me completely. “Hell, just ask Cabs. I’m the idiot that likes to poke through ruins and go on adventures. She’d prefer to settle in a town to raise String and read her books. The only way I was able to convince her to try this new route was because I heard that this town still has a mostly intact library.” He chuckled to himself as I filed away the information he had just given me, “‘Course, after all this excitement, I think she’d rather we just hightail it on outta here as quick as can be.”

The potion was nearly done, the red liquid beginning to thicken and bubble angrily. I tapped the side of the fire talisman once to lower its heat once more. “You’re planning on travelling to Mareon, aren’t you?”

“Yep, that’s the plan. Gonna see if we can offload some of our scrap there and maybe see about heading up towards Tenpony afterwards.” He waited for a second, staring off into space with an expectant look on his face. After nothing happened, he shrugged, “Or I guess we’ll just stay in Mareon for a bit. Two bits if I can help it. Caps would be better.”

Pressing past my confusion at his odd behavior, I pleaded for a favor. “Cheddar, my sister and I have quite a lot of problems on our hooves already. I would truly be thankful if you stayed quiet about our heritage.”

His eyebrows gave a weak wiggle, and one of his ears twitched as he nodded solemnly. “You got it, kid. We all got our little secrets we don’t want folks to know about. Not really sure how you’re planning on keeping something like that under wraps when it’s written all over your face, but if you can cure my son’s condition with a potion I promise I won’t say another word about you and your sister and whoever your parents were.”

I sighed, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders as I breathed out in a tired voice, “I’d appreciate that. I would rather not enflame old hatreds and vendettas originating from a conflict that neither my sister nor I had anything to do with.” I had forgotten what this was like. In the Stable, I had been… well, almost accepted. Certainly tolerated without anypony questioning whether they were safe around me. But on the surface nopony knew me. Nopony understood that I was just like the rest of them; trying to survive and hopefully benefit the world in my own small way. How many times would I be forced to convince somepony that my sister and I weren’t evil?

Quite a few times, apparently…

I lifted the spoon out of the pot, tapping the talisman twice more to deactivate it completely, and poured the concoction into a nearby half-empty bottle of vodka. Placing the cap back upon the bottle, I shook it vigorously to diffuse the potion into the alcohol until the bright red liquid had taken on a softer hue that only spoke of a quiet malevolence as opposed to outright fury. “This is called Dragon’s Breath.” I elucidated, “Mother said that it was capable of purging the body of poisons, radiation, and the contents of a stomach. All at once, I’m afraid. We’ll need to do this outside.”

“Got ya. I’ll go get String.” He slid out of his chair, and turned to leave, but paused at the doorway of the kitchen, “Candy… thanks.”

“Mother called me a healer.” My eyes left his own to stare at the tiny pot upon the table, and the remnants of the potion still clinging to its sides. ”She said that I would ‘make others whole.’ The truth is that no matter what you may think of her people, I am a doctor.” My voice was harder than I had intended, but I found that I needed to stress this point to him. I needed him to understand. “I can’t sit idly by while your son suffers from an affliction I can cure.” I got up from the table, levitating the rest of my belongings into my packs and satchel in a great flurry of scarlet magic. I approached Cheddar and nodded my head in the direction of my sister. “I would avoid mentioning this to Nohta, if I were you. She’s dealt with bigotry for far longer than anyone should, and it has only made her more stubborn and proud of how closely she resembles Mother.” My voice finally softened as I remembered the pains Nohta had suffered at the hooves of our stablemates. “She would likely take great offense should you say anything regarding Mother’s people.”

“Right. I read ya loud and clear. Rest o’ the family’s smart enough to avoid saying anythin’ for now. I’ll explain all the pertinent details to ‘em once we hit the road again, so nopony says anythin’ about it once we get to Mareon.” He opened the door, bowing graciously, “Ladies first.”

The two of us stepped outside into the cool evening air. Moozzarella was standing nearby, leaning against the wagon that she had been pulling previously and engaged in a seemingly very one-sided conversation with Moonster about the worth of the family’s wares. From what I could make out, Moonster was rather displeased with life in general. Perhaps not an altogether unlikely opinion to be had from the second head of a two-headed cow.

When Cheddar and I reached the wagon, he turned back to me. “Candy, can you wait back here a second while I go get String?” I nodded, and he climbed up the small ladder to disappear behind the hanging cloth. I was left alone with Moozzarella and Moonster.

The pair ambled towards me as Moozzarella spoke, “Oh, dearie, we’re awful sorry ‘bout earlier, dontchaknow? Didn’t mean to scare ya none. Ain’t ya never seen a brahmin before?”

I sat on my haunches, clutching the bottle of medicine to my chest as I answered, “Ah… no.”

A nonplussed response from the other head answered back, “Moo.”

Moozzarella, at least, seemed genuine. “Oh, hush up Moonster! Dat’s no way to speak to our new friend here. Cheddar said she was gonna heal up String.”

Moonster rustled her eyebrows together in a strained grimace, then spoke directly to me in broken Equestrian, “Hep Moo-Moo hep String?”

I had time to blink twice before grasping her meaning, “Er… yes, I mean to heal little String.” I held up the softly glowing bottle of red liquid, “I’ve just made this medicine for him.”

She nodded, and her usual, dull expression overtook her face once more. “Moo.”

“Moonster says ‘Thank you,’ dearie. It’s such a relief to know that somepony could help String. He hasn’t been da same since he and Cheddar got back from dat trip into Manehattan a few weeks ago.”

My curiosity was overwhelming my social graces, “Um, please forgive my ignorance of this matter, but… How do you understand her?”

Moozzrella’s ears perked up as her face brightened, “Oh! Well, I speak Cowhili, dontchaknow!”

“Cowhili?” I had never heard of this language. “That’s not exactly what I expected. Is that where you’re from? I must admit that I’m not terribly familiar with your accent.”

“Ah haha! Ya, hey! Whenever you grow up in da brahmin herd you never really lose the twang! Moonster and I are ‘Questrian natives, ya know. Grew up in da wild herd west of Canterlot. We came across Cheddar and Cabernet long before little String was even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye! Been traveling with the two of ‘em ever since!” Moozzarella was overwhelmingly polite and good natured. I suspected that she really was genuinely sorry for frightening me earlier.

“Say now! Is dat a magical laser pistol? Uses dem funny little energy cells to feed itself?” Moozzarella was gawping at the gun strapped to my hoof.

“Oh! Why yes, it is.” I raised my hoof to indicate the holstered weapon.

“Can ya give me a look at it? Just levitate it on over here real quick, once.” With a bemused expression upon my face as I pondered why exactly a two-hea… brahmin would be interested in a weapon designed to fit into a smaller mouth, I floated the small armament between the two of us. Moozzarella nodded in appreciation. “Dat’s a fine weapon if I ever did see one, sweetie. But I bet ya find dat ammo for it’s pretty scarce, huh?”

“Ah, well. I do find myself running rather low on my supply of ammunition for it, yes.” I admitted sheepishly.

Moozzarella smiled warmly, “I’ll tell ya what, dearie. You help make little String right as rain and I’ll show ya a little trick I picked up from one o’ dem pegasi with da sparklin’ armor last time I was roundabout New Appleoosa. You’ll need to know how to take da gun and da cells apart and put ‘em together again, but it’ll help ya scrounge as much use out of yer weapon as ya can by stretching yer ammo out a bit further.”

“Oh! That would be lovely, thank you!” Luna was smiling upon me!

“And if dat ain’t enough, we have a few of dem cells stashed away back here somewhere. Just ask Cheddar aboot it. I’m sure he’d like to barter a bit before we get to Mareon, or my name isn’t MoooOOOOoozzarella!” She dragged out her name with a joyous smile on her face, counterbalanced by the completely flaccid expression borne by Moonster.

“Ask me about what?” Cheddar descended from the back of the wagon, gently holding his son against his own body as he stepped down the ladder, and sat String Cheese down on the ground in front of me. String stood on shaky legs, pale of pallor and with the beginning signs of severe dehydration and radiation poisoning.

I shook my head, still grinning. “Nevermind, Cheddar, I’ll ask you later.” My eyes fixed String with the kindest smile I could muster, “After making sure that our little patient here is doing okay.”

“Alright, that’s fine.” Cheddar spoke to his son, “This nice mare has some medicine for you, String. It’s gonna make you feel better, okay?”

String nodded, but I felt the need to correct his father. “Well, technically, this medicine is going to make you feel a lot worse, and then much, much better than you do now.” Cheddar and String eyed me dubiously, and I hurried to make myself clear. “...But it will all be worth it, I swear! Mother’s potions were legendary in the… back home.” If only we had been able to acquire Witchweed when Mother had been ill…

String looked to his father, who gave him an encouraging smile, “Go ahead, son. She knows what she’s talking about.”

String’s eyes turned to my own, full of a pleading worry, “Is this gonna hurt?”

“No dear. Or at least, I don’t believe it will. I’ve never used this myself, though from its description I believe it should be quite an experience for all of us.” Bedside manner was never my strong suit, but I was not going to lie to the poor thing. He needed to know that his caregiver could be trusted. And a little honesty would go a long way in that regard.

I levitated the bottle over to String so that he could take it between his hooves. I must admit that my own curiosity at that point was rivalling my desire to heal the young colt; I desperately wanted to know if I had made the potion correctly, and exactly why Mother had left the warning in her book regarding how to administer it. I levitated the cap off of the bottle for him, and urged the sick colt onward, “Okay dear, be sure to face the road. That’s critical. And then drink as much as you can in one go. It’s okay if you can’t get it all down at once, just try to drink as much as you can.”

He sniffed at the contents, and a weak smile spread across his pallid face. “This smells spicy!”

“Mmhmm. Cinnamon: courtesy of the cafe in town. A crucial ingredient for this concoction, and luckily it lends a heavy portion of its piquant aroma to an otherwise atrocious bouquet,” I explained, twirling a hoof in the air to accentuate my words before I noticed String’s confused blinking.

Cheddar’s sly grin caught my attention, “You’re goin’ on about that medicine the way my wife talks about wine.” His words came out between his chuckles, “ O’ course, she don’t make those funny little faces like you just did.”

“My face isn’t-” I stopped myself before I could say anything further, but not before my tail swished angrily of its own accord. I’d had enough experience with Nohta’s teasing to recognize when someone was trying to get my hackles up. Cheddar, however, was completely undeterred by my refusal to stoop to his foalish behavior.

His eyes squinted into an ecstatic smile as he chortled and waggled a limp hoof in the air, his voice an annoyingly good impression of my own. “Piquant aromas!” Those same eyes bulged as he pantomimed gagging, his hooves now clutching at his throat and nose. “Atrocious bouquets!” He finished his charade by leaning precariously to the side and mimicking an overexcited mare about to faint, complete with a dainty hoof placed prominently upon his brow. “Notes of cinnamon, vanilla, and vodka! Oh my!”

Self composure is all well and good, but occasionally one must refuse to be a doormat and stand up for herself. I was just about to do so when I realized the reason Cheddar was verbally assaulting my character. Despite the severe pain that I knew him to be in, little String Cheese was chuckling with genuine amusement. His laughter a gentle trill in the stillness of the night.

I shoved my pride deeper into the recesses of my mind as a chagrinned smile slipped across my face. “Ahem. Yes, well…” Gently nudging the colt with my hoof, I urged him onward. “Go on, dear! It’s not going to do you any good to smell it! You need to drink!”

String nodded and turned away from all of us, facing the street as I waved my hoof at his father to stay back. String upended the bottle between his hooves, guzzling the liquid with surprising alacrity and gusto as his eyes closed tight against the assuredly horrid taste. I stayed behind String to steady the poor colt while the potion purged his body of radiation. I was lucky to have been standing beside him. And I was lucky that he hadn’t turned in my direction after chugging nearly half the bottle in one go. The results were every bit as impressive as Mother had made them out to be.

String’s eyes bulged in their sockets as he felt the potion take effect, doubling over and dropping the glass container to the ground where it smacked against the earth with a dull thud. His body spasmed, and before any of us could react he threw his body forward to vomit an intense gout of searing green flame. The heat sent my thoughts drifting momentarily to the laundry room in the Stable, and the orange flames that had pursued my sister and I just a scant few hours ago, but the sight of the young colt belching magical fire out of his mouth proved quite effective at banishing any wayward memories.

String Cheese shuddered, closing his mouth and dropping to his knees as his body convulsed. I rubbed a hoof against his back as another wave of nausea overtook him and he spat more flames across the cracked roads. Beads of sweat had broken out along his forehead, glistening in the flickering, verdant illumination provided by his sickness. Minute particles of vibrant green light swam up out of the flames, dancing on the chaotic columns of rising heat from the fire before blinking out of existence as easily as they appeared. One of the motes flew backwards, lighting upon my Pipbuck as the device clicked angrily at the received radiation.

I activated my spell, reaching out with my consciousness to test his body for radiation poisoning. With each wave of vomited fire that left him, his body felt stronger, purer, cleaner. By The Goddess, Mother had been a genius in her own right! To piece together the alchemical ingredients necessary to produce a remedy for radiation sickness was astounding!

It was over in a few moments, with String letting out one final burp that produced a tiny wisp of smoke and a single playful mote of green light. The tiny dot of light swirled and floated and danced in front of the colt’s wide and curious eyes before silently exploding into nonexistence. It was surely my imagination, but it almost seemed to be apologizing to the boy, and saying goodbye.

“I… wow! Dad! I feel better!” The young colt was all smiles and joy now, nearly jumping in place. “Did you see what I did? That was awesome!”

“Be sure to thank your doctor, String.” Cheddar chuckled at his son’s display, winking in my direction.

I was nearly thrown off balance by String’s sudden and unrestrained hug as he vehemently thanked me. Deactivating my spell, I simply allowed myself to revel in the joy of helping another overcome their hardship, and ruffled his mane as he held me in a vice-like grip. “There. All better. You be sure to get plenty of rest and good, clean water for the next few days, “ I pointedly looked back to his father, who seemed to take the hint, “and after that you have my permission to do… whatever it is that young colts do these days.” Hopefully just not running off the top of a building and breaking his legs…

The rest of the night was rather uneventful. Moozzarella had made good on her promise to show me how to perform basic maintenance on my pistol, mostly how to clean the interior parts and make sure that the focusing lense was free of errant debris, and had also shown me how to open up the little energy cells to collect the dregs of powdered gems that weren’t entirely used by the weapon. I marveled at both how inefficient the weapon’s design was, and how knowledgeable she had proven about the weapon’s systems. Knowledge has a habit of finding its way into the oddest of places at times.

Cheddar had likewise hoofed over his entire collection of witchweed, for which I was exceptionally grateful. I now possessed an ample supply of one of the more important ingredients for a multitude of Mother’s potions, possibly even enough to begin my own experimentation. For the moment, however, I was content to brew recipes which I knew would yield reliable results.

Nohta and I shared a house with the Cheese family that night, partially out of their desire for a safe place to rest for the evening and partially out of our desire to barter for supplies. By selling nearly all of the weapons we had scavenged from the raiders and some of the miscellaneous junk acquired in Coltsville to Cheddar, we had amassed enough wealth to afford ammunition for our two pistols and the battered twelve-gauge shotgun that had delivered the coup de grâce to The Pyro. Nohta was rather dismayed when Cheddar had informed her that the caliber of ammunition used by The Worm was exceptionally rare, and quite expensive, but she still bought his entire meager stock of the gargantuan bullets. Almost equally as rare were extra cells for my pistol. Though after the recycling trick shown to me by Moozarella, and after my own short stint of bartering with “The Big Cheese,” I was feeling confident that I had collected more than enough ammunition for my own weapons. Cheddar had relieved us entirely of our small cap collection, but I was sure that he had offered us a generous discount.

Nohta had taken our last grenade out of her packs, but despite my initial intent to sell the thing off to Cheddar and be done with it, I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. I certainly couldn’t argue with how effective its twin had been in the Stable. I took the grenade for myself, rolling my eyes at Nohta’s cocky expression and muttering something about “keeping our options open.”

I told Cheddar all I knew and some of what I suspected, leaving out the details regarding Stable 76, of the situation in Mareon. Despite my warnings, his opportunistic side shone through when he realized that demand for his wares would most certainly be up, driving prices through the roof. I only hoped that the family would find the town safely, and that no further attacks would be visited upon the settlement while they stayed there.

When the morning found us, Cheddar, Brie, and Merlot set out to scavenge what they could from the remains of Coltsville before the family would leave for Mareon. The family was ready to move on, and Nohta and I found ourselves likewise ready for another day.

Cabernet softly closed the door behind us, “Do you like to read?” String’s mother had stayed behind to watch after the sleeping colt, and was whispering over his muffled snores as the two of us exited the room he had slept in. I blessed whomever had decided to install the lime-green shag carpet in this home. The tacky color was an eyesore, but the carpet deadened our hoof-falls completely; String would get his rest so long as we stayed quiet.

My face broke out in a broad smile, “Oh, of course! Who doesn’t?” My scarlet light danced off the peeling wallpaper and frayed sofas as I brought out several of the books I had been carrying across the desert. I tried to keep my voice down as I gushed about my small collection of literature, books shuffling from their places in my packs to flash between us as I hurried to describe each in turn. “I got these from my mother and father! This one is about ancient Equestrian history and the nation’s relations with the bordering kingdoms! This is a thorough biography of Starswirl the Bearded! And this one details the great scientific and cultural advancements that took place just after the unification of the three tribes under Luna’s-”

She cut me off before I could build up too much steam, gently prodding the book between us to the side and replacing it with her amused face. “Candy, not to be rude or anything, but do you read anything a little more, er, relevant to our time and place?”

“I…” I hesitated a moment, then brought out my science book. “Well, I have this. The arcane technologies that make up the majority of this tome’s contents were only invented within the last couple hundred years…” Was that relevant enough? I didn’t really want to share Mother’s book with her, but it had been a while since I had found somepony to discuss literature with; I desperately wanted our conversation to go well!

“Oh, that one’s a little… lengthy. And the words are a little… ”

“Sesquipedalian?” I offered, instantly wincing at the irony.

She chuckled behind her hoof. “Well, I was going to say… big. But yes, that works too.” She glanced in the direction of the kitchen, and the two of us plodded into the room to sit at the small wooden table.

“The Big Book of Arcane Sciences’ seems like it would be right up your alley, but I didn’t much care for it myself. I’m more a fan of books like this one.” She reached into her packs, producing a thick book covered with numbers and geometric shapes before laying it upon the table.

I eyed the blue and red cover, reading aloud. “Bean’s Electronics: Everything you’ve bean dying to know about repair, from sky-chariots to radios!” I couldn’t help but groan and roll my eyes at the word choice in the subtitle.

A sly smile crept across my face as I looked back to the red mare sitting next to me, “Between this and Cheddar, it would appear that you have a weakness for bad puns.”

She laughed, and winked one of her lilac eyes in my direction. “Ha! Yes well, we all have our guilty pleasures.” She returned my grin with her own full-force smirk as her voice took on an oddly warm quality. “And I find it’s often the simple pleasures that are the best ones.”

My gaze fell to my hooves atop the table as I recited the third truth of my faith in a cheerless voice. “Take pleasure in simple things. For Laughter is forever important.”

“Candy?” I looked back up to her, and saw the concern in her face. “Are you alright?” She reached out and placed her burgundy hoof over my own.

The genuineness of her worried inquiry took me off guard. I couldn’t help but answer truthfully as I felt her hoof rub over my own. “I… no. No, I’m not.” My free hoof left the table, rubbing my eyes while I thought aloud. “My sister and I are just aren’t prepared for this. She wants to find and kill raiders, but I know we should be more focused on finding-” I caught myself, sighed, and opened my eyes to find Cabernet listening intently. “I know that time is of the essence, but I haven’t the faintest notion of what to do in our situation. I can’t fix our problem if I can’t even find it.” I shook my head, a wry smile twisting my lips, “I suppose I should just be happy that Nohta and I are still alive, but I can’t help but think we should be doing more. I just wish that I knew where to start.”

She pulled her hoof away from mine, “Well, it sounds you have a lot of things on your plate already, sweetheart.” Was that disappointment in her voice? She smiled wanly at me, “But you know what I do when I can’t figure something out?” I shook my head, and she nodded at the book upon the table. “I read.”

“Really? How is learning how to repair… “ My magic flipped the book open to a random page, “...toasters of all things going to help my sister and I?”

“You might be surprised at how helpful it can be to try something new.” Her smirk returned, and she inched closer. “Something you never thought you’d do?” I swear, she was starting to remind me of Caramel… Just not as… bubbly.

My eyes drifted to the wall, looking at nothing in particular as I thought aloud. “So I just have to do things that I normally wouldn’t do?” My mind was piecing her advice together, adding its own bits of wisdom along the way. “Just start taking small, safe chances so that I might be able to gauge myself and learn along the way?” My eyes found hers again. “That… actually makes a lot of sense.”

“It’s the only way any of us ever figure ourselves out, sweetie.” Her hoof returned to my own.

“Well, in that case, I need to ask you a question.” Okay Candy, you can do this! It doesn’t matter how unladylike it is! This is a test!

Her voice was a breathy whisper, “Anything.” She batted her pretty lashes, but my eyes were already focusing on my target.

“Can I have that book?” My free hoof pointed to the repair book.

She stammered slightly, probably taken aback at the rudeness of my solicitation. “O-Of course. I’ve already read it several times through anyway.” My goodness, she was right! That small and very impolite request had actually proven rather beneficial!

She gripped my hoof in her own and resumed speaking in her dusky voice, “Is there anything else you want?”

I levitated the book into my saddlebags, “Well, there is one thing…”

“Yes?” Her half-lidded eyes smouldered in my direction as she leaned closer.

I opened my mouth to proffer my second request, but was abruptly cut off when Nohta’s voice called out from behind us. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Cabernet snapped back, her hoof leaving my own as she sat straight up in her chair. We both turned our heads to see the questioning glare upon my sister’s uncovered face.

I didn’t want Nohta to scare off my new literary companion, so I attempted to ease over the tensions with some honesty. “Nohta! I was just about to ask Cabernet where we might find the library that Cheddar mentioned last night.”

They both raised their eyebrows at that, which I found to be exceptionally odd, and they both voiced their disbelief with the same word. “Really?”

“Mmhmm. I thought that since we were already in Coltsville, we might as well make a stop at the library that Cheddar spoke of. Perhaps we could find a book or two that might fetch a decent price once we return to Mareon.” A small smile spread across my face as I nearly giggled at my own cleverness. “Of course, that will be after I’ve had the chance to read them.” Oh, taking risks was fun!

“You know as well as I do that we could use the caps, dear sister.” I winked at Nohta, who blinked twice, then shook her head and chuckled. I had no idea why she would find that funny, but at least she was in a good mood.

“Ya… ya I do.” My sister walked around the table and sat opposite of Cabernet and I. “So, Cabs…” Her face was set in a near-scowl as her eyes narrowed at the red mare. “How do we get to the library?” Her voice was oddly rigid, sounding forced and terse as she held her brass-shod hooves together on top of the table and stared intently at our friend. My brow wrinkled in confusion. Nohta was being positively rude! Er… relatively speaking, of course.

Cabernet lightly shook her head, muttering under her breath imperceptibly and rolling her eyes. After her confusing show of frustration, she looked to Nohta and spoke in an equally terse voice. “I think it’s on Elm Street, off that way.” She waved a hoof towards the general direction of the center of Coltsville. “We passed it on the way into town. Merlot had said something about finding a spot to rest in town and Cheddar’s ears started flapping, so we kept moving.” She got up from the table, sighing. “Thanks again for helping my son, Candy. If you find any good books in the library that I don’t already own, then I’ll buy them from you when you get back to Mareon.” She hooked a hoof in the bedroom’s direction, “I think I’m going to go make sure String is sleeping well.”

My sister and I watched her go, and after the last flash of her scarlet tail had disappeared behind the closing door I turned to my sister and whispered plainly. “I think you scared her away, Nohta.” My eyebrows were set in a scowl as my lips pursed from frustration.

She leaned back in her chair, inspecting her brass shoes nonchalantly, “Ya, probably.”

“Moon and stars, you did that on purpose!” I kept my voice low, trying to keep from waking String as I hissed through my teeth.

Her voice was flat, “Maybe.” She brushed some miniscule fleck of dust from her shoulder and stared at me from across the table.

“It’s not exactly as if we have an overabundance of ponies lining up to be our friends, Nohta. Are you going to attempt to drive them all away?”

She stared evenly at me from across the table. “No. Just the one’s I don’t like.” Her voice was calm and relaxed, as if she was completely justified in her actions. I snorted, crossing my hooves in front of myself and shaking my head.

She leaned forward against the table, her eyebrows furrowing to betray her curiosity. “So what’s the deal? Why do you really want to go to the library?”

“I… I just told you.” The abrupt subject change took me off guard. I was forced to abandon my frustration with my little sister to answer her questions. “We might be able to scavenge intact books to bolster our bartering supplies. Surely the library must hold something of value that could be of use to us.” I had no idea just how right I was.

“Ya, about that.” She jabbed her hoof in my direction as she bore a cautious expression. “You’re not really the one that thinks of the practical things, Candy. You’re more like the one that gets wrapped up in daydreams and her own imagination. What’s with you and thinking about caps all of a sudden?”

My muzzle rose indignantly, “I’m free to change my mind about things, dear sister. I’m trying something new!”

A note of melancholy tinged her voice, “Don’t change too much, Sis.” I didn’t really know how to respond to that, and so the two of us sat in silence.

After a moment, my little sister fidgeted in her seat and resumed conversation. “So, uh. This library. It’s probably got like, old newspapers and stuff, right?” Nohta was beginning to work out her own plan.

I followed along as best I could. “This town looks as if housed only slightly more ponies than were in our… home, Nohta. I doubt that a small settlement like this would keep an archive of newspaper articles spanning back for very long, if at all.” Wheels in my mind turned of their own accord. “But there might be a digital archive of data stored within a terminal.”

She continued in a slightly hopeful tone, rubbing her hooves together and scrunching her eyebrows in thought. “So, we might be able to get some info there? Stuff like the local school’s hoofball game?”

“I hardly see why you of all people would be interested in the affairs of ponies who died over two centuries ago, but… yes, perhaps.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Where are you going with this, Nohta?”

She held a hoof before her in a cautious manner. “I’m saying that there might, and I mean might, be a reason to go to the library after all.” My brow raised sharply, and she took that as an opportunity to continue. “That map we got from the Pyro’s little bitch wasn’t really all that great. I mean, seriously, we’re pretty fucking lucky that he could even spell. There’s next to no information on it that’s useful.” She tapped the table with her hoof, staring at me with her amethyst eyes. “But maybe there’s something in the library about the local towns in this area. The Pyro decided to make Coltsville her base. What if the other raider bosses did the same? Maybe there’s a couple other towns out here just a little ways away where the raiders are holed up and waiting on… what's-her-face’s orders.”

I scratched my chin with a hoof, allowing my sister’s idea to sink in. I nodded, “Mareon was originally a small settlement in this region; Coltsville another. It stands to reason that there may be other small towns in the area. And if they are in comparable condition to Mareon or even Coltsville, then it is likely that ponies might seek shelter within them.” That was it! “Any group larger than one of our caravans traveling through the area would most likely have to stop and rest in one of those towns. It’s very likely that by finding the local settlements, we might find a clue as to the whereabouts of our stable!”

Her face scrunched in disgust as she quickly reversed her opinion, “Eh… shit. I knew this was a bad idea. We should just get back to Mareon, where it’s safer.”

“Nohta!”

She nodded, ignoring me. “We could probably just ask somepony where all the nearby towns are anyway.”

“Nohta!” I was hissing, trying to get her attention. It didn’t work.

She looked back to me, her face pleading. “I mean, come on… this is a dumb idea, Sis. Let’s not take unnecessary risks.” Goddess, the irony…

“Nohta! That might work, but what if the ponies of Mareon have forgotten the location of an abandoned town? Time may have robbed them of that knowledge. But not enough time has passed to wipe the digital memory of an archive.” My outstretched hoof pointed to the east, “Luna only knows how much desert is out there, Nohta! And how many signs have we seen that haven’t been rusted over completely? How likely would it really be for us to stumble across the answer from chatting up the ponies in Mareon? What if somepony only took that as an opportunity to send us to the middle of the desert where they might ambush us? I don’t want a repeat of our Caravan’s fate, Nohta!” I tapped the tabletop with a hoof, my voice carrying the finality of my decision. “We need to go the library, sister.”

Her eyes regarded me for a long moment as she slumped her shoulders, defeated. Finally, she spoke in a tired whisper. “Fine. But only if we can scrounge up enough supplies today to still be okay after we waste our time poking through this damned library. I don’t want to have to watch you scarf down all the snack cakes and Sparkle-Cola only for us to go hungry while we lug a bunch of books back to Mareon.”

She glanced at the bedroom door which separated us from Cabernet and String. “I’m still kinda tired, I’m gonna take a nap so we aren’t leaving at noon.” I nodded, beginning any venture at all during the most unholy hour of day was widely regarded in the Stable as bad luck. If nothing else, it would allow us to stay indoors and out of the excessive heat. She stifled a yawn and continued, “I’d like to mess with my gun before we leave too. Try to remember how to clean it and whatnot.”

My pistol floated to the tabletop as I inspected the grooves, lights, and numbers on its frame. “I’ll join you. For both. A little beauty sleep might do us both some good. And I’m still a little unsure of how to disassemble and reassemble my little laser pistol; the practice would be welcome before we depart.”

“Feel free,” She began, hopping out of her chair and stepping towards the room she had claimed last night, “just don’t snore too loud. I’m wanting to sleep, not listen to you saw logs.”

“I do not snore!”

“Right, and I don’t have stripes.”

After spending a good deal of time allowing ourselves to rest, and an equally fair amount of time reviewing the skills that we had picked up regarding weapon maintenance, Nohta and I walked back into the town. Cabernet and String were nowhere to be seen as we left the small house, and we surmised that they had left with the rest of their family. It was well past midday when Nohta finally announced that our scavenging had yielded enough food and water that we could make the return trip to Mareon, and it was getting close to night when the two of us trotted to the library.

We followed the town’s deteriorated streets deeper inside its boundaries, weaving between rusted motorwagons and overturned vending machines. We passed boarded storefront windows and graffitied walls along the way, sparing them only cursory glances as I ushered Nohta towards our destination. Before long, the two and three-story buildings to our sides gave way to a wide-open lot underneath the cloudy sky.

The library was colossal. From the outside, it appeared to be every bit as large as the Stable had been. And above ground, at that. Greying brick walls towered over the immediate area, dwarfing the dead husks of nearby trees in the expansive lawn in front of the building. Rows and rows of cracked windows stretched along the three storied structure.

The sun’s light, dimmed by the blanket of clouds in the sky, was slowly disappearing behind the ravaged northeast corner of the building. It was one of many breaches torn through the outer wall; brick and mortar giving way to exposed wire, insulation, and planks of rotted wood. Deeper inside the wounds I could make out the shapes of desks and cubicles, and the lovely telltale glow of terminals promising a bevy of local information to sate my curiosity.

“You sure this is a good idea, Sis? I mean… We don’t really need anything from here. We could just hit the road right now, maybe make it back to the bridge we crossed getting here, and camp out for the night before we head to Mareon tomorrow.”

“We’ve already tarried too long in this town, dear. We will most certainly have to end up spending the night in one of the abandoned homes later on. So, with that in mind, what’s the harm in spending just a little more time to learn of history?” Nohta huffed at my answer, but I knew my little sister well enough to understand which strings to pull.

I let my voice take on a dreamy longing for days gone past, “This is the sort of thing that Mother and Father used to talk about, you know. Finding an abandoned relic, discovering past intrigues, learning little bits and pieces of puzzles that you only seem to understand much later.” A small smirk crept up the side of my face as I dropped the last little bomb on my sister’s fortress of resistance, “Hacking into terminals and cracking safes to find tiny treasures…” I sighed theatrically, utterly failing to conceal my enjoyment at Nohta’s expense. “Of course, if you don’t want to go exploring like Mother and Father did… “ I turned and began slowly walking back to the town.

Nohta caved mere moments later, “Okay! Fine, fine. We’ll go into the boring old library and poke around for a while. But when we start to get tired, we gotta get back out here and find a bed, okay?”

I was practically giggling with excitement as I raced back to my sister and hugged her. “Agreed, let’s go!”

We followed the walkway leading up to the stone stairs of the library, sidestepping ancient fissures and potholes as we trotted along. Nohta and I both skirted past a small pit that had been lazily concealed with old newspapers and twigs. It looked rather out of place, conspicuously cut into the concrete and earth before the facility’s entrance. The two of us ignored it and continued onward up the steps as our Pipbucks buzzed and indicated we had discovered “The Coltsville Library.” A moment’s hesitation was all I spared for my Pipbuck before the promise of literature shoved all other thoughts aside and I kept moving forward.

Large revolving glass doors, still surprisingly smooth in their motions, gave way to an interior vestibule decorated by a single receiving desk with about half of a broken terminal sitting atop its surface. A fading picture in an elegant golden frame adorned the wall behind the desk, allowing the image of a dapper young gentlecolt in marvelous business attire to welcome all who should enter his domain. Several short ficus trees, clearly artificial as evidenced by their still-green leaves, sat within pots along the walls next to uncomfortable looking wooden chairs with threadbare upholstered seats. On either side of the desk a doorway leading deeper into the facility could be found, but the portal on our left had been blocked by chunks of fallen concrete debris.

The tattered and fraying rug upon the marble floor muffled our hoofsteps as we moved past the desk and towards the open entranceway. It was exceedingly quiet, just the way a library should be. I was beginning to have trouble containing my enthusiasm, and the grin on my face had long since broken free of its bonds.

As we entered the massive chamber that was the library proper, my heart melted. Even if the shelves were dirty, dusty, and falling apart… Even if quite a few of the books had been destroyed by time, eaten by radroaches, or simply pilfered from their shelves by wandering passersby… Even if the fading light of day was poking through the rebar that stretched between the gargantuan holes in the ceiling… This was a palace of literature. A bastion of learning and creativity. An oasis of wisdom in a desert of dull thoughts. A quiet temple erected to honor a goddess every bit as wonderful as Luna herself: Knowledge.

The floor of the library dipped in a low curve, as if somepony had built the facility within the bowl of a crater. Concentric circles of bookshelves, divided into quarters by walking paths, expanded from the middle of the room, eventually reaching the walls on the lowest level. New shelves ringed each ascending circle as the terraced floors rose from the center of the bowl. In the middle of the room, a monolithic support column climbed out of the interior space of a service desk, and as with nearly every other surface in the chamber, it was covered in racks of time-worn literature.

So lost was I in my pleasant fantasies about snuggling into a comfortable chair with a cup of tea and becoming enraptured in the bliss of quilled words that I hardly noticed either the bulky black or thin red shapes scattered amongst every level of the terrace. My sister’s hurried words were lost amongst pleasant memories of my favorite pastime. Even as she tugged on my labcoat, I simply waved her off dismissively, revelling in the joy of finally finding something truly good in the wasteland.

A synthetic voice, rumbling in an electric bass some ten feet from my side, startled me from my daydream, “Alert! Noncombatants are advised to leave the area. Security sweep in progress. Lethal force may be used without warning!”

I turned to face a robotic nightmare. A jet black steel monstrosity of armor and weapons rolled on four metal spheres attached to the ends of outstretched legs. The mechanical clank and clatter of bullets and machinery loading into place accompanied the sight of three armaments mounted on a swiveling torso that were far and away more dangerous than anything else I had yet encountered. Two massive, six barreled guns adorned its sides, while a red-tipped rocket was sliding into place in a turret mounted along its left shoulder.

A series of smaller turrets, fixed to the floor and ceiling in front of us by bolted plates of shiny steel, beeped ominously as their metal gears whirred to spin multi-barreled weapons in our direction. I understood the necessity for a quiet place in which to read, but enforcing that silence through such extravagant means seemed like blatant overkill. Surely nopony had been that tardy when returning their borrowed books.

My sister’s anxious voice finally found my ear, “Sis… I think we need to go.”

Shouting from the center of the room cut through the noise of robots advancing on our position, “No! I said shut them down! Now!”

The large robot to my right rumbled in a voice comprised of synthetic thunder, “Vacate the premises immediately. You have fifteen seconds to comply.”

“Right… ah, we’ll just be going then.” I began to backpedal towards the door, when another metallic giant rolled into the doorway, cutting off our escape. I nearly backed into the enormous construct before I realized it was there and turned to face it.

The newcomer belted out another perilous warning in a digital bass identical to the voice of the first, “Your presence is interfering with military operations. You have ten seconds to leave the area. Lethal force has been authorized.”

“You’re blocking our only way out, you giant tin fuck!” Nohta, even if vulgar, always did have a way of cutting right to the heart of the issue.

More shouting from the service desk, “I don’t care! Activate the codes! That’s an order!”

A quick glance towards the center of the room revealed more robots, only pony-shaped and moving upon four legs with natural and powerful strides as opposed to rolling about on treaded balls attached to stiff limbs. What I first imagined to be the robots’ red-coat-wearing masters were bustling amongst each other, shouting and jabbing their hooves wildly in a frenzy of motion as they crowded together near a terminal on top of a great wooden desk. The ominous sound of spinning weapon-barrels regained my attention as a thin red beam snaked its way towards my forehead.

My jaw dropped, my ears went limp against my head, and I froze in fear. The metallic brute was aiming weapons that could reduce my body to a fine red mist directly underneath my horn. I had no option against such an opponent. There was no way to win this fight. I was powerless here.

I should have run. I should have drawn my weapon. I should have… taken much more thorough precautions when I decided to go poking around old ruins, especially when I had all but dragged my sister along with me. As I found myself then, still largely ignorant of the danger lurking around every corner and ill-prepared for the proverbial hornet’s nest which I had stirred, I saw no other option than to pray.

I wrapped my hooves around Nohta, pulling her to my chest and whispering to The Goddess, “Luna save us…”

“This is your final warning. Trespassers will be executed. You have five secoooonnndssss… “ The final rumbling word emitted from the giant robot drug on as its form slumped and its weapons slowed to a crawl, then stopped completely. Its dialogue faded to a low hiss before ending with an abrupt *Pop.*

I was shaking. Nohta had already fished an inhaler of Dash from her cloak and was attempting to bite down on the tiny plastic mouthpiece when we realized that the robots had deactivated. She spat the little thing back into one of her pockets and held onto me a moment longer, then slid out of the embrace to face our new assailants.

Two of the pony-shaped robots lumbered in our direction. Massive weapons, every bit as extravagant and demoralizing as the bulkier models, were hanging at their sides and trained on our position. Much to my surprise, one of them spoke to us.

“Hey! What the hell are you two doing in here?” I jerked back, startled to hear such natural speech from a robot. “Keep your weapons holstered and come with us, Star-Paladin Sandalwood wants a word with you.” It took me a moment, but I soon realized that these weren’t robots. They were ponies. Ponies in massive suits of heavy steel armor that encased their entire bodies in thick protective shells.

Nohta and I glanced at each other, sharing a wary look of desperation, but neither of us saw any way out of the predicament. The doorway was still blocked, and we had no way of escape. We had stumbled into a den of… well, not raiders, but we were utterly at their mercy all the same. I whispered to my sister, “We should do as they say for now. Let’s try to find a peaceful way out of this situation.”

“Shit, Sis, are you sure? I’m getting a bad feeling here.” The tinge of fear in my sister’s eyes broadcast precisely how much trouble we were in, but I couldn’t think of a way to assuage her worries.

I continued whispering, desperately hoping that my own warning would stick with her. “What other option do we have, Nohta? Let’s just be careful of what we say, alright?”

Her simple and inelegant response was a perfect prelude to how the rest of our night would proceed. “Fuck.”

Nohta clearly didn’t approve of following their orders, but the two of us had no choice. We followed one of the armored ponies as the other stepped behind us, and the pair escorted us down into the terraced pit of the library towards the central desk. The hurried forms of nearly two dozen ponies, all wearing either the long and flowing crimson robes or the bulky metal armor, rushed to and fro between bookcases and shelves. By The Goddess, how had I missed all of them?

A brusque voice, clearly a mare’s, was belting out commands that were only slightly distorted by the helmet she wore. “Two tribals! TWO tribals! Why are the sentinel’s threat-level recognition software suites still prepping missiles for every minor threat? I don’t want them bringing this whole building down on our heads when they expend ordinance on TWO wasteland savages! And those firing vectors! They were RIGHT in each other’s line of fire! Five more seconds and they would have been perforated heaps of scrap! Scribe Cypher, fix that programming! Knight Rain, police the perimeter! Paladin Able, seal up that door and make sure these are the only two idiots to barge in here!” Her armor bore several scratches and indentations indicative of past battles, but was still polished to a shiny-black sheen save for the silver filigree upon her helmet and matching six-pointed star upon her breast. A long rifle adorned her left side, while one of the multi-barreled guns hung at her right. Her presence and demeanor demanded respect, and I was sure that we had been brought before the leader of this band.

A flurry of salutes, hurried apologies, and acknowledgements of orders accompanied a rush of activity as the armor-clad pony regarded us, flanked on either side by two more ponies in nearly identical barding. Their armor, I noted, lacked the shiny silver star upon the breast, but possessed broader shoulders and more robust frames to presumably fit their male occupants. A unicorn mare with a bright green mane and a dusty-yellow coat, arrayed in one of the long red garments that all of the unicorns wore, stayed behind the trio to eye Nohta and I with her curious expression that somehow managed to come off as extraordinarily arrogant. It was the sort of look one might give a particularly interesting insect before deciding that the bug needed to be squished. I had an instant dislike of her.

The leader stepped forward, raising an armored hoof to poke and prod at the base of her helmet. A tiny hiss escaped the armor as her helmet was lifted from her head, revealing the tan face and short, burnt-sienna mane of the earth pony that held our fate in her hooves.

She placed her helmet upon her shoulder where it hung like a war-trophy and regarded us for a moment with cold cinnamon eyes, then asked in a voice as rigid as steel, “Do you two have any idea where you are?”

Before I could puzzle out exactly how to respond to the not-so-nice pony who had begrudgingly saved our lives, and was now asking infuriatingly condescending questions, Nohta answered for me. “What?”

The armored mare sighed, shook her head lightly in agitation and whispered under her breath, “Luna save me from the ignorants in the wastes…“ Then pointed to herself with an armored hoof and continued in a mocking tone, “Me Sandalwood. Me big big boss lady in Steel Rangers. We make short home here. You tribals not welcome! Why you come?”

Now that was just insulting! I clopped a hoof on the marble floor, “While your timely intervention with the robots was most appreciated, I would enjoy the opportunity to beseech you for a cessation of this mockery you call communication. It behooves nopony to belittle our intelligence in such a foalish manner!”

Her face lit up, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Ah! Good! You know Equestrian! I was afraid that I might be reduced to pointing and grunting… “

Where was all of this hostility coming from? “Whatever did we do to upset you so?”

“You’re tribals.” She stated as if the answer should have been obvious. “Ignorant, backwater savages who utterly destroy any useful technology that you get your grubby little hooves on. You’re only good for getting in the way, breeding at an alarming rate, and soaking up bullets that might wound a ranger.”

Her eyes traveled over me as I glared at her. Without turning, she addressed the unicorn behind her. “Senior Scribe Meadow, what do you make of them?”

The unicorn that had stayed behind the armored ponies to silently judge us came up beside Sandalwood, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses and squinting in our direction as her nasal voice rattled off descriptive details in quick succession, “Two tribals. One a unicorn, one an earth pony… possibly. Unicorn bears primitive tribal markings presumably designed to bear resemblance to zebra stripes. Unicorn wearing badly damaged Stable-Tec labcoat and a Model 3000A Pipbuck, along with what appears to be a magical energy pistol.”

Her brow furrowed in concentration as she adjusted her thick frames and peered at my hoof. “While Enclave technology is well beyond my realm of expertise, this appears to be a military-grade sidearm.” I felt the urge to cover myself, feeling exposed and vulnerable under her scrutinizing eyes. I had to settle for shrinking back as my tail instinctively curled itself around my flank. She continued, heedless of my discomfort as she jabbed her hoof at my weapon. “Note the position of the serial numbers. That alone sets it apart from a civilian model, though it is plainly obvious that this weapon has undergone extensive improvised modification. Somepony in the Wasteland has thoroughly customized it to their preference. Admittedly, somepony who knew far more about energy weapons than I.” She sighed, as if simply admitting her ignorance pained her.

I, on the other hoof, couldn’t help but think of Father. He had never spoken of how he had acquired the pistol. But if what this unicorn was saying was true, he had put quite a lot of work into making it his own weapon. Certainly, it had served him well in his travels. And he had chosen to give his best weapon to me, in the hope that I would learn to protect myself…

The unicorn coughed, clearing her throat and dragging me back from my thoughts. “Moving on,” She stated in a clear and academic voice.

I was more than a little disgusted to have the entirety of my worth summed up by my possessions, but she continued before I could get a word in. “Second individual is harder to assess. Though clearly a young mare, this individual is wearing an age-worn Zebra assassin cloak. The stealth talisman is clearly nonfunctional, possibly due to the magical energies being exhausted.” Stealth talisman? Mother had never said anything about that.

Meadow continued in that same grating voice, “Small bulge along her right foreleg suggests that she too is wearing a Pipbuck. Curious, though not altogether unexpected given that her companion wears one as well. Of course, being a mare of science, I’d have to see it for myself to be absolutely sure. You never really know what these filthy tribals might have stuffed up their sleeves.” Nohta squirmed at being regarded and visually dissected like a common radroach, but kept quiet save for the barely audible and near-feral growl rumbling from her throat. Instead of responding verbally, she inched closer to me, subtly attempting to place herself between me and the ponies.

“Conclusion,” Meadow adjusted her glasses with a hoof and continued, “Two individuals, possibly stable dwellers though just as likely to be simple wasteland scavengers, who pose minimal threat. Code requires confiscation of their Stable-Tec property, zebra relic, and class one energy weapon, but otherwise I can see of no reason to waste ammunition or any further time upon them.”

“Confi- confiscation of what?” I stammered, hoping that Meadow hadn’t meant what I thought she had.

Sandalwood answered, locking her cold eyes with my own anxious stare. “Your Pipbucks, her cloak, and your pistol.”

Nohta bristled, offering her own suggestion in a voice of cold fury, “I have a better idea. Go fuck yourselves, this cloak is mine.”

Meadow perked up, “Second individual’s vocal patterns suggests that she may, in fact, be a zebra. Star-Paladin, may I?”

Sandalwood’s eyes squinted, her rifle pointing directly at my face. “Yes.”

Before either of us could figure out what was going on, a magenta glow enveloped my sister. We both gasped, and she was lifted off the floor by the reddish-purple haze while her legs kicked and jabbed uselessly in the air underneath her. I looked back to the unicorn in front of us. Meadow’s horn was glowing with the same light surrounding Nohta.

“Let me go!” My sister was screaming, thrashing wildly while the unicorn’s magic held her. I knew we needed to keep from aggravating the situation, but my ire was quickly rising. How dare they? They had no right! How dare they!?

Stay calm, Candy… I had to tell myself. Stay calm or you’ll both end up dead. She’s just lifting her hood back. The unicorn won’t hurt her…

“Fuck! What are you doing?” The red and gold sleeve that Nohta had pulled over her Pipbuck was peeled away, exposing both the device and her striped hoof.

Stay calm… Control your breathing… I closed my eyes. Nohta was tough, and this was nothing. I had levitated her many times when we were both fillies.

A nasal voice. “Pipbuck, like I suspected. Stripes too, but I’ll have to unveil her face to be certain, ma’am.”

A gruff and concise answer. “Do it.”

Calm Candy! Stop grinding your teeth! Nohta used to enjoy levitating. She liked flying around the room… She liked it because she could imagine she was the win-

“Shit! Candy, help!” That simple cry for assistance in a pained and frightened voice was like a hammer through glass.

When I opened my eyes everything that I saw was bathed in a blood-red glow. I was expending far more magical power than was needed to lift my pistol from its holster, but the shadow cast over the unicorn’s startled features by the weapon I was levitating inches from her nose was worth it. Goddess, the weapon had practically teleported!

I spared no attention to the flickering orb of energy floating over Meadow’s head. And I only noticed the half-dozen or so orbs that quickly joined it when they streaked through my vision to coalesce into a pulsating sphere of swirling electric hues above her horn. For reasons unknown to me at the time, her confusion gave way to a wry smile.

“Release her.” I ordered slowly, my face as rigid as my voice. My sister had endured quite enough torment at the hooves of our captors and I was ready to be done with this entire debacle, no matter the consequences. Unfortunately, the ponies had other ideas.

Meadow smirked behind my pistol; one eye hidden by the short barrel of my weapon, the other boring into my own. “Apprehension at first, while she judges her surroundings and likely forms a plan. All thrown to the wayside in favor of protecting her comrade. Or rather,” My sister’s hood was thrown back as she was dumped unceremoniously at my hooves. “...in favor of protecting her sister.”

“Nohta!” I moved to aid my sister as she struggled to right herself on the library floor. My pistol slowly floated back to its holster on my leg while I held Nohta’s shaking form. Knowing my sister, I was sure that it wasn’t fear, but rage that was robbing her of control. Our position, impotent in the face of such opposition, had the potential to grow wildly out of hoof if I couldn’t find a peaceful solution soon. I was lucky that my emotional outburst hadn’t ended up killing us both.

“Sisters? Are you sure?” Sandalwood’s cold eyes regarded us on the floor at her hooves.

Meadow adjusted her glasses, “Note the stripes on their faces, underneath the eyes. Nearly identical. Combined with the level of familiarity they exhibit towards each other and the intel ascertained by our scout, I’m almost positive.”

Sandalwood snorted, “Maybe this can work after all.”

The armored mare stared coldly at me for a moment, before breaking her silence and posing a question to the unicorn named Meadow. Regarding me with calculating eyes, she nodded in my direction, “The unicorn is wearing a labcoat, and your scribe said that she was a capable doctor. If they came from a stable she might have a little skill with terminals. Do you think she can do it?”

Meadow balked at her armored comrade, “Star-Paladin Sandalwood! With all due respect, ma'am, surely you don’t mean to entrust them with such-”

“If it keeps our scribes and knights out of harm’s way, then yes. I would like to throw the cannon fodder at the problem first. Besides, you know as well as I do that it’s probably just another replica.” Sandalwood let out a long exhalation before continuing, “The knights could use the rest after marching through the desert with all of our gear. Even more so after all the recent surprises we’ve been through. If nothing else, our volunteer will be there to make sure things go smoothly.”

Volunteer? What? Of whom was she speaking? I didn’t want to help these savages!

Meadow rubbed her chin in thought, before slowly nodding, “Yes ma’am. If they are, in fact, from a stable, then it stands to reason that the unicorn may have some skill in manipulating Stable-Tec technologies. If nothing else, they might be able to provide cover for our scribe. Provided they are as amicable as our scout has described them.”

One of their number knew us? That was preposterous! Surely I would have remembered meeting somepony in that heavy armor!

Throughout the conversation, Sandalwood’s eyes had never left me, and the massive weapons at her side had never pointed away from the kneeling forms of my sister and I. I was left surprised when Sandalwood addressed me directly., “You. What’s your name?”

Was she trying to be polite now? “I… My name is Candy.”

“Can you hack a terminal?” Or maybe she was just being very to-the-point.

I finally regained my composure, and with it my ability to question her as well. I glared at her for a moment before replying, “I don’t suppose why I shouldn’t be able to, given enough time. But why would I want do anything to help you? You’re nearly as bad as raiders! You’re threatening to rob us; possibly worse!”

Sandalwood chuckled, finally turning to Meadow as she gestured in my direction with a hoof, “See what I mean? This is a problem. Your scribe understands that.”

Meadow’s eyes narrowed. Whatever was being communicated between the two of them was clearly not to her liking. “With all due respect, ma’am, there is very little room for ‘personal interpretation’ of our laws and traditions.”

“That’s true. But there is a precedent for this situation. Remember Foxfire Company and the assault on X-16?”

Meadow scoffed, “Ancient history? Ma’am, please tell me you’re joking! That occurred so long ago that anypony would be hard-pressed to argue that it’s even tangentially relevant to our current situation.”

Sandalwood smirked at me, ignoring Meadow’s protests completely. “Here’s the deal. You have three possible courses of action. One: You hoof over your belongings and get the hell out of my sight, where the wastes will deal with you soon enough. Two: Resist. And I will kill you.” She paused, having lost her smirk as her reddish-brown eyes promised a quick and merciless death. “Or you can take the third route, and do me a favor. If you help me out, I’ll return the kindness and let you keep your gear.”

I gulped back my fear, meeting her cold eyes with my own “It appears that we find ourselves with a dearth of appropriate options.”

She placed her helmet back upon her head, and after the sounds of latches and clasps fastening into place mingled with the hiss of the pressure in her suit being equalized, she spoke in a voice only slightly muffled and distorted by her layer of steel skin, “Good. I knew you’d see it my way.”

Footnote: The Party Levels Up!
Welcome to Level 5!
New Perk!

Bookworm: Books! You’ve read several on the subject! Which subject? All the subjects! You pay much closer attention to the smaller details when reading. This nets you an extra skill point when reading skill-books, more potent spells from spell-books, and your temporary bonus to skills from magazines is now doubled! Better stretch those eye-muscles, Doctor!

Skills Note: Medicine 75

Nohta gains a Perk:

Iron Hoof (Rank 1 of 3): Nohta’s gotten used to hitting things. She’s gotten pretty good at it, too. With each rank of Iron Hoof, Nohta gains +5 unarmed damage per strike.

Author's Notes:

Huge thanks to my pre-reader and editor, Wr3nch. Without his help, this story just wouldn’t be the same.

Thanks for all the covering fire, buddy!

Another big thank you to KKat, for giving all of us this amazing sandbox for our imaginations. And of course, thanks to all the folks who have worked on MLP or Fallout.