“...and that's how I lost my contractor's license.” Rivet, which I'd come to call him since the name Rusty reminded me way, way too much of the stallion from the pit, chuckled weakly as he stirred his food. “Or failed to get it I guess. Never did make it to Friendship city, but I always make that little joke. I guess it got more laughs before I ended up in this radioactive stink heap.”

“Mmhmm.” I was trying to pay attention, honest, but it was hard. I don't think I'd had a quiet moment to myself since I put Railroad Spikes in his place, and I'm not the kind of person who really thrives in a large social circle. Which I absolutely had attained somehow. I guess being a halfway upstanding person who was true to his word about being a guard actually meant something to the more honest slaves, even if it meant jack all to everyone who mattered.

I immediately felt bad for thinking like that the moment I flicked my eyes up, once again, to the small army of ponies in varying degrees of grunge and disarray bunched up along the walls around me. They mattered. Just... only to me I guess. If they didn't matter I wouldn't have stopped Railroad Spikes from taking whatever he wanted, right? Right.

The pony in question was sitting off in his corner, alone, occasionally glancing my way with what he probably thought was a withering glare. Yeah, whatever buddy. You had a chance to be a nice guy, and for once the bad guy was going to lose. One thing that can be said for impressing three quarters of the healthy ponies around you is that if you get jumped by one pony, he wasn't terribly likely to win.

“Hey, something wrong? Need me to get you something? Want some water?”

One of the younger mares to my right, a golden colored unicorn with a mane striped with white, silver and mud, was looking my way with the eagerness of a pet. If I didn't say something she'd be up and searching high and low for some water that wasn't a shade of yellow in a second or two.

“No, no. I'm fine. Thanks.”

Yeah, there was that.

In a sense, I really had formed my own little army here, whether I meant to or not. The slaves here in the crater had almost literally nothing, and that very much included a lack of stability. Even the tiniest glimmer of hope of being protected was something to latch onto and cling to for dear life. Again, maybe even literally...

While it was all well and good that they liked and trusted me, I was going a bit out of my mind. I almost couldn't scratch myself without fear of some pony offering to get it for me. At this rate I wasn't going to be able to even take a restroom break without someone offering to help in a day or two.

“...right, so, as I was saying, I never made it to Friendship city, obviously. I think my fillyfriend and kids did though. Never seen them here anyway.” Rivet licked cautiously at his oatmeal. “I forget, do you have any kids? Any family?”

“Nope.” Uh, okay, let's try that again. “No kids, I mean. No girlfriend and no wife either. I've never been much of the romancing kind I guess.”

He nodded and made affirming noises mixed with obvious attempts to stomach his food. “I get you. Not a great world to be having kids in, let me tell you. Sometimes... things just happen though. So, what about your parents? Talons too?”

“No.”

Rivet's chewing slowed a bit. “Hey... sorry if I'm bugging you. It's just, you know, boring out here.”

I shrugged and started digging in my bag. “It's okay, I'm not mad. Just tired. No, my parents aren't Talons, but my sister is.”

“Oh, a sister, huh? What I'd give to have two of you out here...”

Yeah, just keep thinking that way. At length I grabbed the slick packet of Rad-Away in my claws and pulled it out. To my surprise, nobody, not even Shutter Flash, seemed to bat an eye at me having the bag. Not worth the trouble of possibly incurring the wrath of a Talon probably. They were a bit more curious about the liquid I'd dribbled into my oatmeal though, and in a flash of desperation I just told them all I'd found a packet of mustard out in the crater. It was yellow at least, but had a consistency of water and the flavor of dusty apples and slightly burnt wagon tires. Yummy, delicious, life saving 'mustard.' Ugh.

Nope. It didn't taste any better this time. Either that or the oatmeal got even worse, which seemed improbable. I tried to think about anything other than what I was eating as I sat and looked over my little cult again. I cared about them, but not enough to give away the Rad-Away. I just couldn't. It wouldn't matter anyway. If I split it up among them all it wouldn't do a thing, and how could I choose one or two to help? This wasn't like triage in a hospital. I couldn't just pick the healthiest and give it to them, hoping they'd make it. Some had family with them that were in much worse shape. Some were criminals that got sentenced here like me. How could I possibly pick...

My wandering mind slowly wandered back to reality when I noticed that everyone around me had either gone silent or were frantically jabbing their friends with free hooves while gesturing frantically at the ceiling above me.

Naturally, that got my attention. I spun around and looked up to see an alicorn perched atop the wall and staring down at us all through a missing maintenance hatch.

The ponies scattered amidst a cacophony of squeals and shrieks, leaving me alone against the wall beneath our newest guest. Liese wasn't kidding. The alicorns really did hang around the crater. What should I do? I eased up onto my feet and backed away... no sudden movements.

The solid blue mare spread her wings and drifted down to the floor. She fixed her eyes on me.

Okay... okay... what now? Liese told me they were here, but nothing else. If she'd gotten close to one and lived they must not be bloodthirsty at least. “Uh...”

She cocked her head and her eyes wandered over me. Once, her wings shuffled. Once, her tail shifted. She said nothing.

“...hi?”

The mare's tail swished again and she tilted her head the other way, but still she said nothing. She stepped forward and circled me at a leisurely pace, and when she was done checking me out, she spread her wings and drifted upward and out of the cargo container. Halfway up she vanished in a crackle of magic.

“Bye...” Okay, I wasn't going to lie. That was very, very, creepy, but she didn't attack me or anything. Why was it that everyone was so scared of them again?

“Holy horse apples... did you all see that? He just stood there! Wasn't scared at all!”

“Yeah! Nothing scares this guy!”

Oh... pinfeathers. My already vastly inflated reputation was now threatening to burst like a balloon. So much for any hopes of having personal space again soon. I'd probably better get ready for help at the restroom after all...

“Three cheers for Longtalons!” Bowls clanked together and ponies went back to eating. I was just confused.

Someone next to me spluttered and stuck his tongue out. Rivet? “Blugh... is the cook peeing in the oatmeal now?” He frowned and stirred some runoff from the ceiling into his-no, my bowl-and tasted it again. “Yuck. When I get out of here I'm filing a formal complaint.”

Ding ding, guess who just won the lottery? If I couldn't make up my mind who to give some Rad-Away to, leave it up to chance to do it for me. Oh well.

I scooped up his bowl and tried to forget that his saliva was mixed into it now. I was hungry enough not to care.

Just had to keep it together until Liese showed up again. That's it. No point in worrying over something that trivial while I still didn't know what was wrong with papa.

It was about two weeks later when I saw Liese again, although without a calendar around it was hard to be entirely certain what day of my sentence I was currently serving. Time really does become amorphous and indeterminate quickly when you're incarcerated. Just like everything else that wasn't tied directly to getting through the day.

On my fourth or fifth trip around the crater's fence line, I decided to stop and once again ponder the fate of the foal whose skull still protruded from the tarry burnt dirt mixed in with last night's light shower of radioactive particulates and rain. I was beginning to wonder if the foal had even died in the balefire blast. Their skull was seemingly alone and, although partially buried, close enough to the surface to be uncovered by the precipitation where no others had. Maybe they'd died in Fillydelphia in the past few years even?

If Red Eye didn't have such a strong policy regarding the ponies' children I might have even been convinced of it. The boredom of wandering around the hole in the ground for weeks had even given me the time I needed to imagine some grand plot where a foal slave escaped captivity long enough to make it this far, only to die of the radiation and magical poisoning. Red Eye then enacted a rule preventing foals from being slaves ever again, because he had a soft enough heart not to let children work themselves to death, but not adults.

None of that really happened of course, but it would make a decent story, maybe. I grumbled and turned away from the fence, making a tiny mental note that maybe if I ever did see the day I left the crater maybe I could even write it in my spare time. Maybe even writing a sad story like that would be therapeutic or something. Yeah. Right.

“Hey Kaz, catch!”

“Huh?” I looked back to see Liese floating in the air, arms pulled back in preparation to throw something. Hey, wait! RadAway bags were fragile! I stumbled and tried to line up with her projected toss, but I wasn't going to make it!

She let out a long string of chuckles and relaxed. “Hah, you didn't really think I was going to throw this, did you? Man, if I dropped and broke it, Vonny would probably make Gunther play that stupid record in our room all night as punishment.”

I relaxed too and sighed. “Nice to see you too...”

“Alright, alright, don't get all grumpy on me.” She floated down and landed next to me. “I'm just trying to lighten the mood a bit. I hear this place is a real dump.” When I refused to acknowledge the real terrible joke, she scoffed and sat. “Anyway, how have you been? Haven't been in any more fights, have you?”

“No. I think the only ones here who want to start something are scared of me now.”

Liese beamed. “Oh yeah? I hear you, Kaz! Put 'em in their place. Hey, you might really get the hang of this job after all!”

At the risk of her thinking I'd beaten someone into submission I considered telling her the truth, but I didn't want to launch into that story and possibly give her an excuse to hit the road before she told me what I wanted to hear. “Yeah. Right. Maybe. Anyway, you said you'd tell me about papa this time, remember?”

“Yeesh, hang on, hang on. I'll get to that. First, here's your medicine.” She slipped me a worn leather bag, which I emptied into my last one. I didn't imagine she'd be able to produce an infinite supply of those too, so I handed it back. “How's your supply holding up?”

“I'm learning how to ration it. I ran out of RadAway four days ago, but I took a quarter of the Rad-X tablet. I know it wasn't enough to last until now, but that much exposure shouldn't be a problem. Are you going to come this regularly?”

She shrugged. “I just come when Yvonne tells me to. That's been hinging on Alfred being an idiot and getting too drunk so far, but yeah, if she doesn't send for me I'll go bug her until she hands it over.”

I let a tiny, relieved smile form. “Good. Thanks again. Now, about papa?”

She held up a claw. “Alright, alright. Listen... promise you won't get mad?”

Ugh. Dammit. Fine. “I promise. What did you do?”

“Right, so, remember how you told me to tell him you were working for Crimson's Caravan? Well, I got to thinking that it would probably be more convincing if I had something from Crimson's Caravan to show for it, you follow?”

“Yes?”

“Right. So, on my way to Oatsfield I stopped in that little shit hole outside of Neighples for the night. You know? Run by that hilariously fat mare with the weird mole?”

“No?”

She raised any eyebrow. “You've never... oh, never mind. There's this little overnight place there. I hit it up on most of my trips to and from Oatsfield. Anyway, I saw that Crimson's Caravan was heading into Neighples so I decided to go peek in on what they had. I bought a few things from them to give to papa. One of those little red mugs, a blanket... uh, let's see, what else...”

I was getting the picture. “So you spent most of the bits. How much did you give to him?”

She grinned nervously. “Heh, so you said you wouldn't get mad, right?”

The answer was starting to sound an awful lot like zero, but, yes I did promise. “Just tell me.”

“Three bits.”

Oh, good, more than I thought. I couldn't help but growl and dig my talons into the dirt all the same. “Liese, a stupid mug and a blanket don't cost a few hundred bits. What else did you do with my money?”

She held up a claw. “Yeah, see... that's the part I wasn't counting on. I, uh, have kind of run up a tab with Butter Buns over the years, and she decided to call it. Now, see, I'd have told her to go screw herself, except she caught me by surprise. With a shotgun. And three buddies. With shotguns.” She cleared her throat. “So, you know, I figured that it was probably best to give papa three bits rather than to just have my body tossed out into the creek behind her shop, you know?”

Fantastic. Just fantastic. “I guess. You know, whatever. What-the-fuck-ever. I guess if I ever leave this city alive I'll just take it to him personally.”

“Kaz, I know you're pissed, but I really didn't mean for that to happen. I was going to give it all to him and you know that!”

I jabbed a talon back toward my chest. “And I didn't mean to kill Ida, but that doesn't make it any better, now does it?”

An unpleasant silence settled, punctuated only by a startled pony slipping somewhere from deep in the crater.

“You want me to say I'm sorry?” She crossed her arms and snorted. “I am, okay?”

“Fine. Whatever.” It wasn't really, but stoking the fire wasn't going to make the situation any less bad. “How is he? Did you at least hang around long enough to ask?”

She glowered. “Yes, I stayed long enough to talk to him. He didn't launch into a spiel about me running out on all of you and disgracing our family by working for Red Eye, so he's obviously getting pretty sick. He barely got out of bed the whole time I was there.”

“...shit.” In all probability he wasn't going to live long enough for me to even get out of the crater, much less long enough for me to see leave. For that matter I might never see leave anyway after what I'd done.

“Yeah, he's sick, but don't worry. I helped.”

There was that gnawing sensation in my stomach again. “What did you do?”

She started examining her talons casually. “Oh, I just had a little conversation with Dr. High Hopes. I told him that it would be a real shame if the father of a Talon mercenary died because he couldn't get his medicine.”

“You didn't...” For all the strife that had come between High Hopes and myself, most of it was my fault and he wasn't a bad pony.

“And you'd rather see papa waste away and die like that?”

“No, but that doesn't mean you can just go threatening people! There had to be some other way.” Like not throwing my damned bits away in a bar!

She started poking through another bag at her side. “Yeah, try putting yourself in that situation and see if you can think of something better. Anyway, I don't think hanging around here is the best idea right now, so I'm just going to give you this and go.” She pulled out a small stack of envelopes.

“What's this?” My name was scrawled on the top of the first envelope, and beneath it was written 'Undeliverable.'

“Letters to you. Papa tried sending some to Crimson's Caravan but they got returned. I didn't try explaining that one, so I'll leave it up to you.” She jumped into the air. “Bye Kaz. See you.”

I was so transfixed on the letters that I didn't even think to respond until she was too far to hear me.

There were three of them, unopened and undated. My heart raced a little at the thought of tearing into them. What would he have had to say to me? Was he still upset about me leaving? Would he tell me how bad off he'd gotten?

I carefully slipped them into my bag behind the fresh packet of RadAway. There wasn't time to read them now, but it was getting late and that blasted air raid siren would be going off soon enough. Then I'd have plenty of time.

...I'm not doing very well, but I'm still hanging on. Twenty years of wandering the wastes plus twenty-five years of machining work is finally catching up with me, but it's made me tough too.

I don't know when you'll get these letters, if you ever do. The first one I sent out got returned. The stallion in charge of the caravan said that sometimes it takes a while before the organization straightens things like that out, so I'll keep writing to you. But whenever you do get these letters, I just want you to know that I'm proud of you son. I know you're doing this to help me, and as much as I don't like to admit I need the help I'm not going to undermine how much I appreciate you doing this for me.

Don't let what happened here discourage you, either. You're a fine doctor and I know one day you'll be helping people every day.

Well, I'm not going to dwell on that. Before I go, I want to ask you to be safe out there. Being a caravaner is dangerous work. At least it's not as dangerous as what your sister is doing. I'd ask you to avoid any caravans headed for Fillydelphia, but if you ever see Liese again, tell her I'm not mad at her. I just want to see her again one day.

Just like I want to see you again soon. I know you'll come home whenever you get the chance.

I'll be waiting on you, and I love you son.
-Jakob

It was hard to put the letter down, even after reading it for the third time. It's even harder to describe the slurry of emotions that I felt. Relief because papa maybe wasn't doing so bad after all? Or because he wasn't upset with me and had really come to terms with me leaving? Or even better, that I'd fulfilled his wish of letting him see Liese again? Definitely, to all of the above. But there was no denying that I felt much more guilty than relieved. In a lot of ways I was doing just about the polar opposite of what he thought I was doing, and if I ever thought I could tell him the truth before I couldn't know. It would crush him...

Trying to set it all aside, I folded the letter up and whispered, “Love you too.” It helped when I literally set the letter aside and into my pack.

“Letter from your fillyfriend back home?” Rivet asked between calculated sips of his 'oatmeal.'

Hadn't we had this conversation before? “No, I'm single. It was from my papa.”

“Ah, right. Must be nice to hear from him while you're here.” He sighed and stirred some runoff into his food. How he hadn't noticed me slipping RadAway into his food again I'll never know, but I guess he learned to not care much about anything anymore. “Must be nice being a griffon in general I guess.”

“What do you mean?” Not automatically being a slave was probably a good enough explanation all on its own, but the crater was boring enough for even me to latch onto any opportunity to converse.

He coughed and chuckled weakly. “Aside from the fact you get to hold the guns and can fly around? I dunno, you tell me.” He sampled his food and grumbled. “I mean, none of us ever get letters.”

“It's complicated.” And I sure didn't feel like explaining that my sister was smuggling drugs in for me.

“I know, just pulling your leg. I know you're a Talon too, so of course you're going to get some privileges we don't.”

Privileges? Boy howdy. Wait... 'boy howdy?' When did I pick up Appleoosan slang? Just being here with the slaves this long was already getting to me. “It's... not really under my control.”

He shrugged. “I know, and I'm not blaming you for it. Just, you know, be thankful. Really, you've got a lot to be thankful for.”

I took in my little accidental cult of little ponies and sighed internally. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“'Guess so?'” He set his bowl aside and crossed his hind legs, leaning against the wall beside me. “I don't think you really understand. I'm talking about the fact that you're actually going to live to walk out of this place. It's three months, you know. I've talked with a lot of ponies here and none of them have seen anypony live that long. Heck, I can already tell that I'm getting sick. I'm... not going to last that long.”

“And you think I am?” I still wasn't convinced, but it was hard to deny I had a massive edge.

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, big, strong griffons like you can take a lot more of this than we can. Even if you were down in the hole digging up radioactive crap for Master Red Eye, you'd make it. Just look at yourself. You're holding up a lot better than the rest of us.”

Again, I swept my eyes over the ponies clustered with me. I hadn't exactly gotten to know most of them and sure didn't know all of their names, but even so I was pretty sure there was a face or two missing. Some of the others were gravely ill and didn't even eat anything that night.

A tense silence grew as a few of them realized what we were talking about and began to murmur to each other. Crap... were they going to call me out on the RadAway?

“Hey, big guy... mind if I ask you something?”

Dang it, here it came. “...go ahead.”

“I know I'm not going to walk out of here, but you are. I don't have anything to write with so I can't give you a letter, but, uh... if you ever go to Friendship City, do you mind giving a message to my family? I know they made it.”

...oh. Oh.. “Sure, what is it?”

Rivet looked over and locked eyes with me. “Tell them that I love them, and I'm sorry it came to this. Can you do that for me? My fillyfriend's name is Rolling Meadow. She's a beautiful green earthpony with a golden mane, the color of those yellow flowers you see in all the old pictures. Can you tell her that?”

Swallowing an unexpected knot in my throat, I nodded. “Of course. I'd be happy to.”

He smiled and set his hoof on my claw. “Thanks. You know, I almost don't care what happens to me here. Just... just knowing that someone decent like you is going to make it out and maybe do something good? That's good enough for me.” A couple of other ponies nodded or hummed agreement.

There's no way to describe how wrong it feels to have someone tell you that, but I tried to keep the mood from turning as sour as the food. “Uh... thanks. But don't count yourself out yet.”

Rivet laughed and nodded. “And that. You're a real optimist. You don't know how refreshing that is.”

And he didn't know how pessimistic I was, but it was all relative I guess. Either way, I wasn't giving up on him yet, even if he was.

If it was even remotely possible, I was going to see to it that he got to deliver that message in person. If Red Eye tried to go back on his promise of letting slaves go after three months of this hell, then I was going to go back on my contract by putting a bullet in his skull.

Pfft. Right. Maybe I was an optimist after all...

The next morning got off to a great start. I guess my mind was too tired to fight me up until then, since I'd slept shockingly well since I got to the crater, but that night wasn't so kind to me. Every time I thought I was drifting off something would resurface to knock me back to reality. Was Rivet going to survive long enough to see freedom? Would Red Eye give it to him like he was supposed to? If he didn't survive, would I ever see Friendship City myself? How would I ever find his family if I did?

It also didn't help that the shipping container we slept in got pretty sweltering when everyone was inside, much less when two thirds of them were sleeping as close to you as possible. That hadn't gotten in the way of sleeping earlier, so I couldn't blame it too much.

Did it really matter? Hadn't I given up on trying to figure out why I couldn't sleep on any particular night?

Regardless, it was almost a relief when the siren sounded and told me I could stop worrying about it and get on with my life. One day closer to the end of my sentence and all that. I carefully extracted myself from the pony pile that had formed around me the previous night and picked my way out to the relatively clear space beyond.

Moans and whimpers followed behind me, but no movement at first. It wasn't even remotely possible to sleep through the siren, but every morning it took longer and longer for them to hoist themselves up. More needed help this morning than the one before, but at least this time it looked like they all made it through the night. As the biggest and strongest one there, it had generally fallen to me to help move their bodies to the gate for retrieval...

Not today at least, and unlike the days where I was going to go on patrol and have to 'maintain the image of Talon Company,' nobody would care if I stumbled around the crater all day and yawned every fifteen minutes. I'd probably be fine after getting something to eat anyway.

As was becoming common, I was the first up and moving around in the entire 'building,' so I decided to keep up with the charade of trying to maintain peace among the workers by being the first at the food pot. If there was anywhere that arguments tended to break out, it was there. I also hated to be selfish, but if I waited very long to get any food then I usually didn't get much at all. Griffons needed more food than ponies, so it wasn't like I had a lot of choice in the matter. You just did what you had to.

The pony at the pot caught me by surprise. Railroad Spikes wasn't usually very close to me at night, so I must have missed him waking up and ambling over. The once hefty pony was starting to look a bit drawn and weak, but he shot me a glare all the same.

“You're not taking more than your share, are you?” I asked while searching for the least dirty bowl available.

His thinning tail whipped as he snorted. “No. Want to check it yourself, tough guy?”

Oh boy, here we go. I plucked the top bowl from a stack and wiped the rim. “Maybe. What's your problem anyway? Do you think acting like that is going to help you in any way whatsoever?”

He swept his ears back. “Better question is what's your problem. You started it.”

...fair enough. Today maybe. “As I recall you're the one that threw the first punch a while back.”

“Yeah? Well, you didn't give me a lot of choice.” He bit the rim of his bowl and started easing away.

“Funny, that's not how I remember it. I'm pretty sure I gave you a couple of warnings and plenty of chances to not start a fight.”

Railroad Spikes stopped and swished his tail again. “I donf gef you.” He set his bowl down and pulled it close for protection. “I'd think you of all people here would get it.” He pointed a hoof over to the army of ponies limping from 'my' side of the container toward the food. “You sure took it away from me fast enough.”

Huh? “I don't think any of them liked you very much before I got here...”

“They didn't have to like me. They just respected me.” He stamped a hoof and immediately winced. “And you took that, ate it up and shit it all over me.”

I picked a stray hair from the oatmeal in the pot and grunted. “Maybe if you tried being a bit nicer they'd have respected you anyway.”

“...that's easy for you to say.”

Yeah, right. Try working for Talon company for a few months and see how hard it was to be nice to people. “You think so, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He stamped a hoof again, lighter this time. “You get to live.”

The gray oatmeal bespeckled with unidentified black spots was a bit less interesting now. “And how are you so sure I will and you won't?”

He locked eyes with me. “I'm not dumb, okay? You're a Talon. The weirdest, strangest... I don't know what, Talon. They aren't going to let you die in here. I don't know how... but I know you've been getting something to protect you from the rads. You have, but we haven't.” He bumped a hoof against his chest. “We're going to die here, and you aren't. So... yeah. Yeah, it's easy for you to say...”

This was taking a completely different turn than I expected, and sure enough, he had me figured out. I couldn't admit to it though, especially with so many ponies around now.

He nodded. “That's what I thought. You're going to live through this and when you walk out of those gates you're not going to give two shits about any of us, no matter what nice guy act you're pulling here.” He grabbed his bowl and mumbled, “It donf madder to you waf happenf to uf.” With is head low, he turned and shuffled off. “I donf wanna die...”

I released the ladle and let it clank back against the side of the pot. I wasn't hungry anymore.

“What's his problem?” Rivet asked from beside me.

“Having a bad day I guess.” A really, really bad day.

Railroad Spikes' words rattled back and forth in my head for the rest of the day as I moped and stumbled around the fence line. I was tired, sleepy and hungry, but my body and brain were having even more disagreements about how to make me feel about that than usual. Each step felt like I was walking through loose sand, but the sensation was numb and distant. It was almost as if I was too tired to be tired.

Of course, the images of dead and dying ponies flashing before my eyes was the real problem. Every time I pictured Railroad Spikes' body being dumped into the furnace I felt absolutely awful. Of course he'd be scared of what was coming. I couldn't blame him for feeling scared, nor could I blame him for having a frighteningly realistic expectation of his life expectancy. But I also couldn't stop feeling so guilty for keeping the RadAway and Rad-X for myself, minus the little bit I was sneaking to Rusty Rivet. Did he really deserve it more than the other ponies? I couldn't possibly answer that question, but it was just as hard to just leave it all up to chance and justify it that way.

Whether it was the tenth or twentieth lap around I can't remember, but one accusation of his really jumped out at me as the foal's skull caught my eyes again. 'It doesn't matter to you what happens to us.' It wasn't true. I did care, but I couldn't do anything about it. Did he think I could snap my talons when I got out of here and suddenly they'd all be free? Or did he think I could even get them medicine or even more food? Even Red Eye probably couldn't. There probably really wasn't enough.

I stopped at the fence and stared out at the unmoving skull. Its empty eye sockets stared back. 'It doesn't matter what happened to me,' I imagined a little foal saying in my ear.

Yes. Yes, it did, little pony. You mattered. Sometimes people just mess up and they can't fix the things they break, but you mattered.

My claw raised up and brushed against the decaying bomb collar around my neck. It wasn't really a bomb collar anymore so much as an image to keep me in line. Even so, I hadn't had the strength or heart to try my luck by flying anywhere in the crater, but... you know what? That little pony mattered. I don't know who they were or what they'd done, but no foal could have done something to deserve dying like that and having part of their corpse laid bare out on the ground for everyone to walk past and ignore.

I couldn't help Railroad Spikes or the other ponies here, but I could do something. Something.

Before I even realized it, I was up in the air and past the fence. My heart skipped a beat when my brain caught up and realized I'd passed the threshold. The collar didn't explode. Nobody was shooting at me. Heidi wasn't there to scream at me for doing something wrong. Not even Shutter Flash was around to say anything. It was just me and the skull.

“Hold on just a minute more, okay?”

The ground was hard and crusty at the top, flash burnt into a thin sheet of glass by the balefire bomb centuries ago, but nothing I couldn't break through. I dug with both claws, scooping out a deep hole more than enough to contain the little skull. Gingerly I pried it free of its glassy resting place, set it inside, and brushed the dirt and glass particulates back over it.

“Better?”

With a shaky claw I patted the dirt down and examined my handiwork. It wasn't the prettiest grave, but it was better than nothing. That's what I told myself anyway. Between moments of trying to forget that I was just talking to a skull.

Back inside the fence, I looked out at the recently disturbed patch of dirt once more before turning back to resume my patrol-

-and almost walked right into a pony. I started and raised a claw instinctively before my senses returned to me. Crap! Had she seen me go outside? Was she going to tell Shutter Flash? What would happen if she did?

The dingy yellow mare took a half step back and raised a cracked and splitting hoof of her own. “I-I'm sorry, Mr. Longtalons. I didn't mean to disturb you...”

Calming down, I took a deep breath. “It's fine. Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and sending her straggly mane into a messy set of knots. “I... um, I just wanted to give you something. I found it a few minutes ago.” She reached into a tattered prewar purse at her side and pulled out a little yellow packet of something.

“Huh?” I extended a claw and she dropped it into my palm. Beneath the smeared dirt and grime, I could tell it was some kind of yellow liquid that had almost entirely dried up. The label had faded beyond all recognition.

Her ears flattened out as she explained, “I, uh, I know you like mustard a lot, so I wanted to give that to you. I... I think you can probably mix it with some water and it might even be edible.”

Mustard? But wh... oh. Oh. She really believed that story.

She frowned and backed up another step. “You don't like it? I-I'm sorry. I wish I could have found some that-that was, um... um... b-but...”

I smoothed the little packet out and dropped it into my bag. “No, no... I do. Thank you. You didn't have to do that for me.”

The mare smiled sheepishly and brushed her forehooves together. “You're welcome. I just had to say thank you somehow. You... uh, you've given me some hope that I'll get out of here and see my family again one day. You're such a nice guy... you don't know how much that means to me.”

My heart couldn't take much more of this. I couldn't think about it without risking messing things up, so I just stepped forward and gave her a little hug. Pinfeathers, I must have looked stupid, but she looked like she needed that. ...I guess I did too.

She squirmed and tensed up at first, but eventually returned a weak squeeze. “Thank you...”

“No, thank you,” I repeated, letting her go. “You, uh... you should probably be getting back to work, right?”

She nodded and almost beamed back at me. “Okay, Mr. Longtalons.” And without another word, she was off back into the hole to dig for radioactive things for Red Eye again.

I retrieved the gift and held it in my claw. It wasn't much to look at and I sure wasn't going to try to eat it, but you know what? It was my packet of mustard and Red Eye couldn't have it. Maybe if he was a nicer guy he could have had it, but no, it was mine.

An amused snort passed my nostrils as I reflected on the absurdity of it all and stuck the mustard back into my bag.

But absurd or not, I went back to my patrol with my head just a little higher and my steps just a little surer.

Level Up - Level 6!

Lack of Bucks – You've seen the worst of the worst, and just don't give a buck anymore. You ignore 10% of all skill penalties per level of this perk, and you can lack as many bucks as you care to spend perks on.