I walked forward with my muzzle held close to the ground. My movement came in short bursts as I moved from hoofprint to hoofprint, pausing to look over each one, then scurrying forward to find the next one in the spot that I hoped it would be. After five or ten… or maybe twenty minutes I stopped to catch my breath and lifted my head to look around me. Mostly brown, a lot of grass that looked half dead, whole bunch of hills… but right in front of me was the most prominent feature along this dusty, old, broken road. A billboard. I started to smile and broke out into a run, as fast as my three little legs could take me.

I rounded the corner of the billboard so fast and tried to cut it so tight that I ended up taking a tumble and doing a couple barrel rolls before somehow ending back up on my hooves. When my world stopped spinning, though, I found my prize. A prize in the shape of a light purple earth pony with a flower on her flank.

I hopped into the air and fluttered for a moment, as long as my wings could keep me in the air. “Found you! Found you! Found you!”

Lily lifted up off the ground and ran over to me, catching me out of the air and hugging me tightly to her. “Yes you did! You’re getting so much better! Do you know how long it took you this time?”

I squirmed as she pulled me to her, my excitement making it so I couldn’t stay still. “Uh, uh, uh… an hour?”

Lily giggled and kissed the top of my head before setting me down in front of her and letting me go. “Thirty minutes! Ten minutes less than last time.”

My eyes lit up and I gasps loudly, my voice cracking, “Really?! Awesome!”

She swung her mane over her other shoulder and laughed. “Yeah! You know what that means, right?”

“Uh… what?”

“You did it fast enough to get the special treat!”

My second gasp sucked in so much air I wasn’t entirely sure how my lungs held it all. “YEEEEEEEEEEEEES! YES YES YES YES!”

As tired as I’d been the last time I’d stayed up past my usual bedtime, I sorta thought it was strange I wasn’t tired at all tonight. It was after midnight. Had to be. We’d started following the group of slavers early in the morning. They’d stopped where they saw the wheel ruts from our buildings for a few minutes, but kept on moving to the north. I was very thankful they didn’t turn to follow those tracks east, but then again, I would’ve liked it if maybe they’d gotten closer and I could’ve gotten some help.

They had walked at least sixty miles, if not more. All morning, all afternoon, they didn’t stop until after dinnertime. They’d found an outcropping of large boulders to set up in. Tents, campfire, all protected by a semi-circle of massive rocks.

We had followed them the whole time, For now, we were sitting half a mile off in the distance, putting the boulders between us and them. We had just been laying there now for about five hours, watching as the smoke from the campfire rose from the boulders up into the sky, all the way towards the clouds, not that we could see it up there with how dark it was.

But I didn’t feel tired. Not in the slightest. Then again, I didn’t feel much of anything. Maybe sad… I felt a little sad. I was doing my best to fight that feeling, though.

“Inky… what’s twenty-four times thr- actually, four. Twenty-four times four?

Inkblot, however, was definitely tired, which was plain to hear in her voice. “What…? I…” She let out a sigh. “I’ll tell you if you eat for me.”

Really I wasn’t hungry as much as I wasn’t tired. “Yeah, sure. Promise.”

She slowly rolled off of her side then curled around to pull a package out of her saddlebags. After spending a moment unwrapping it, she placed a box of cereal oats onto my foreleg. “There you go… And ninety-six.”

I barely acknowledged the food sitting on my leg. “And it’s one in the morning, so… ninety-seven.” I let out a derisive snort and shook my head slowly. “Definitely… not worth a treat…” Giving my foreleg a little kick across the ground was all that was needed to toss the box of cereal a foot away into the dirt.

“Bucky… you promised me…” I let out a slow breath, trying to ignore her. “Bucky… c’mon.”

I pinned my ears back and gritted my teeth, then scooted across the ground to bring myself back to the stupid box of cereal. Using my wings to hold it steady, I opened it with my hoof, then used my wing to pour some of it in my mouth.

“Thank you… Now what was that about a treat?”

I didn’t answer her at first. I wasn’t really sure whether or not I wanted to. So instead I dumped a bit more of the cereal in to my mouth, just to give myself another minute or so to chew and think. Eventually, however, I turned my head to look over at Inkblot. “Back… when Lily was teaching me how to track ponies, she had… a reward system. The quicker I followed the tracks and figured out where she was, the better treat I would get. Usually food… sometimes a toy.” I smacked my lips then lifted up the box of cereal. “One of the special ones was some… sugary cereal, in a bowl, with actual milk, even.”

I sighed then looked back towards the boulders and campfire. “This time it took me fifty hours to even realize she was missing, and ninety-six to actually find her. And now that I found her, I don’t even know how to save her.”

Silence once more filled the air as I stopped speaking. After a few moments Inkblot started to get up, only to walk over and lay back down, settling up against me.

“You’ve got food now. That’s a start… It’ll help you think. You haven’t eaten all day.”

I let out a snort and my wings flared a little out above me. “C’mon, Inky. How is food gonna help? There’s five of them down there. Sure, we saw only one is keepin’ watch. But how do ya even expect us t’ deal with one? Much less th’ other four that’re gonna wake up soon as they hear the slightest thing.”

Silence again reigned for several minutes. The only sounds that occasionally were made were the ones of me slowly emptying the cereal and having my first real meal of the day. I still wasn’t even hungry.

“What if you tied up the guy on watch, or tied his mouth shut so he couldn’t shout or anything?”

I gave me head a shake. “You can still make noise without yer mouth bein’ open. Now if I could stuff somethin’ into it ‘fore he realized we were there… that might work.”

“Your sister is good at kicking people in the face, right?”

“Sure, but she’s in chains.”

“Yeah, but… you could get her out of chains.”

I blinked a couple of times at that suggestion and slowly turned to look at Inkblot. “Does my hoof look like a key to you?”

Inkblot bit at her lip and shook her head. “No… but… I have all my sewing needles. They’re like lockpicks, right? We could go try to pick the lock on the chains, that’d get her out.”

I let out a sigh. “That’s… so very risky… but also th’ only idea we got so far. Why didn’t you say that before?”

Inkblot cleared her throat and looked down at my foreleg. “Last couple of hours it sort of looked like you… were in a trance or something. Was scared of breaking you out of it or something.”

My brow furrowed. “I, well, fine. So we have the idea of pick the lock. Do we have anything else?”

Inkblot lifted a forehoof and rubbed over her face. “No… not rea-” Her forehoof slowly fell down back to the dirt. “Do you remember our last Nightmare Night?”

“How could I forget? Sparkler is still scared’a me. She nearly ran ‘way from me when she saw me in th’ General Store a couple days ago.”

Inkblot nodded vigorously and tapped the ground repeatedly with her forehoof. “Yes! But do you remember what scared her?”

I tilted my head a little bit, trying to remember, then nodded slowly. “Uh… yeah… it was…” I paused and blinked. What she suggesting what I thought she was suggesting? I looked up towards the dark clouds above us, then towards the campfire off in the distance. As I watched the smoke rise, a smile started to slow come across my muzzle. “You really think it’ll work?”

Inkblot nodded. “I think it’s a lot better plan than trying to pick the lock with a sewing needle. You make the foals scream all the time, and they already know it’s coming… I bet waking somebody up with that… I bet you could make a grown stallion pee himself.”

My smile only continued to grow. It would take some time to prepare, but we had hours before the sun rose.

The plan was solid. Which was a good thing, because if it failed I stood a chance of getting us all killed. And that would be bad. It took me about an hour to gather up what I needed. With it being so dark, I had to fly carefully around the bottom of the cloud layer to scoop out chunks of clouds and move them around to form a new cloud, a few dozen feet below the cloud layer.

Usually for Nightmare Night I just used a small cloud, one just a bit bigger than myself I could lay on comfortably and fly around with. It was good for pranks and going around unseen. This time, though, a cloud that small wasn’t going to cut it. It would have to be at least as big as the area of their camp, if not bigger. I wanted it to be right up in their faces and seem like it was engulfing them, not just sorta laughing at them from a corner by the boulders.

By the time I was done gathering, I had a big square of cloud, some twenty or thirty feet wide and the same distance long. The next half hour or so was spent working my way around the cloud, working it up into mini-thunderstorm status. It was a bit harder than I expected on a cloud this size, but I’d done it plenty of times on smaller stuff, so it was just a matter of scaling it up to get it done.

Eventually it was indeed done. I flew back to the edge of the top of the cloud and landed there, then looked down below at the camp a long, long ways down, and off in the direction I knew Inkblot was in. Really, I had to just hope that she would not have fallen asleep in the last hour and a half. Leaving the cloud would risk some of it dissipating or causing it to revert to just a normal, storm-less cloud. If that happened, I’d have to just do all this work again and start pushing really close to sunrise.

I spread my wings and started to flap, angling myself so that I was pushing the cloud down. Down, down, closer to the camp. I could see it clearly, as the campfire was still burning and providing the only real light on the ground for miles. There was still only one awake guard, though this one was a different color than the one we’d seen last time we checked in on them. That was the only bit I could see of him, though.

I continued to slowly push the cloud down further, not wanting to move too quickly and draw attention to myself and the cloud before the proper time. I stopped once I was about one hundred feet above the camp. I stepped back from the edge of the cloud and moved over towards the center, pausing there and taking slow, deep breaths as I did a final check over the cloud. Everything was in order… and really it was now or never…

With a grunt I jumped up and landed down on the top of the cloud, causing a lightning bolt to come out of the bottom and strike down towards the ground. The lightning lit up even the top of the cloud and the surrounding area for half a moment. The deafening crack of thunder that followed it rattled my bones. I didn’t stop there, though. Every time I landed I immediately jumped as high as I could and came down with as much force as possible, working my way around the cloud. I wanted to milk this for all it was worth.

And it was effective, my ears were already ringing from the blasts of thunder caused right beneath me, each one seeming to get louder than the last. After the second, I heard a shout, followed by a shrill scream. I recognized that scream, that was one of a terrified filly. Normally that cued the time for laughter, but right now was definitely not the time for that. The shouts from the slaver guard got angrier after the filly’s scream, but that didn’t last long as the sleeping slavers jolted from their tents with their own yells of shock that I could just barely hear over the constant echoing of thunder.

BLAM! BLAM BLAM BLAM!

Yes! Gunshots! She hadn’t fallen asleep! I was able to make them out between my own cracks of thunder, and I could hear the cries of shock and fear from below me. But I couldn’t stop. I had to keep the lightning up. Make them think the very sky was after them, wanting to punish them for their crimes. You know, like I wanted to do. It was too bad I could make lightning but not exactly control where it went.

Inkblot’s entire magazine fired off and there was a pause as she reloaded, but the gunfire immediately came back again once she had. I could still hear the voices, but they had… moved? Jumping again after landing, I used my wings to take to the air and get all the way to the edge of the cloud to look down at the ground.

They had moved! They were running away from their camp! I quickly jumped back and flew to the other side of the cloud and started to push it so it would be following the fleeing slavers. Every few seconds I stopped and flew to the top of the cloud to unleash a few more lightning bolts before moving back to the side to continue the pursuit.

I followed them for at least ten minutes, making sure they stayed running away from this cloud that really, really badly wanted to see them fry to a crisp, but eventually I stopped. I couldn’t chase them forever, and I had to get back to the camp to make sure Lily was alright. Once it had gone on long enough, I gave a few final bucks to the cloud to give them one last scare before jumping into the air and taking off as fast as I could back for the camp.

Flying full speed, it took a lot less than ten minutes to make it back. I used the light of the campfire in the distance to guide me, and once I came into sight, I could see that they even left their tents behind. They just got up and ran once the gunfire came in on top of the lightning. Or… not?

As I got even closer, I saw a… body. Of one of the slavers. It was just laying on the ground by the campfire. I started to wonder what it was doing there, but my eyes then spotted Inkblot and Lily. Inkblot and Lily!

“Lily! I did it! I did it! Did ya see it?!” I dove down without even the notion of slowing down and plowed into Lily, wrapping my foreleg around her neck in as tight a hug as I could managed as I sent both of us tumbling across the dirt.

Lily let out a yelp of pain at being struck so hard, but seemed to shake it off as she managed to end up atop of me after our tumbling had ended. “Yes! I saw! You idiot! You could’ve gotten hurt!”

I just looked up at her, nothing she could say able to wipe the massive grin off my face. “But I didn’t! An’ I saved you!”

Lily seemed to struggle to find words appropriate to scold me with, but in the end just gave up and held me tightly to her. After several seconds she moved and kissed the top of my head, then got up from on top of me. It was at that point I realized her chains were still on her forelegs, attaching one foreleg to the other.

“Ain’t ya gonna get those off?” I scrambled my way back up to my hooves, using my wings to help push me off of the ground.

Lily looked down then motioned back over towards the body of the slaver. “Ink’s looking for keys.”

Inkblot was indeed looking for keys, rummaging through the pockets and the saddlebags of the apparently dead slaver. “There’s just so much junk in here…”

I looked at the slaver, then Inky, then the slaver, then back to Lily. “How’d she die?”

Lily cleared her throat. “One of Ink’s shots actually landed, hit the mare in the shoulder… I jumped up, wrapped the chain around her neck, choked her to death. Then with gunshots and one of their own dead, the rest ran off.”

I blinked a couple times as I listened to Lily. “Oh, so… you-”

“Got them!” Inkblot levitated a set of keys out of a pocket of the slaver mare and brought them over towards Lily and started to unlock the chains. “Now we can get out of here before they decide to come back.”

I gave my head a shake. She never would’ve had that chance if I hadn’t done my part. I knew that. Stupid to think otherwise. My wings fluttered at my sides as my enthusiasm started to return. “Oh. Oh! Oh uh, filly?”

Lily breathed a sigh of relief as Inkblot unlocked her chains, and she immediately backed off and stretched out her legs. It clearly felt good to her to stretch like that. “Thanks, Ink.” She looked to me after I spoke, then turned and pointed to one of the tents. “You scared the crap outta her, Buck. Pretty sure she broke my ears or something. Anyway, you get her, I’ll get much stuff, then we can bug out. Where’s the town anyway?” She didn’t wait for an answer and started moving towards a different tent than the one she’d already pointed out.

“Um… long story…” I motioned for Inky to give me the keys, which she did, then walked over towards the tent Lily had said the filly was in.

Reaching out with my wing, I peeled open the tent flap and poked my head inside. I immediately regretted it. In the back corner was a small, red filly, seven or eight… maybe a short ten year old at the most. Her forehooves were also chained, but more importantly, she was curled up on herself and quietly sobbing. Her mane was an orange color, a lot like my own coat, but it also had little streaks of yellow in it. At least I was pretty sure it was yellow… it was hard to tell with how filthy the filly was. Lily hadn’t been that dirty… which meant… the filly must’ve been walking with the slavers even longer than Lily had been.

I cleared my throat softly before stepping fully into the tent. “Hey…” I said softly, “Hi.”
The filly seemed to be startled when she heard my voice and her head lifted up to look at me. She looked… terrified. And me being there didn’t really seem to help all that much.

I put on the best smile I could. “What’s your name?”

I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t particularly surprised when she didn’t answer. She just laid there, curled and cowering.

My smile started to fade, but I quickly forced it to stay. “Well, I’m Tripod. See?” I turned my body a bit so she could see all my legs, and the distinct lack of my left foreleg. “Tripod? An’ I’m here t’ set you free.” I held up the keys in my wing to where she could see, then started to slowly walk across the tent to her.

She still looked frightened, but she didn’t actively try to get away from me as I walked closer, which I guess was all I could’ve hoped for, really. Though as I got closer, I could tell her crying had at least stopped. The tear stains were still plainly evident, but no more were being added. That was a plus.

I crouched down as I got to her, then laid down on my belly. I put the key in my mouth then slowly reached out with it and my hoof to pull the lock on her chains towards me. The lock clicked as it unlocked, then I gently used a wing and my forehoof to slide the hoofcuffs off of the filly. She was shaking, but not running. So probably still better than I could’ve hoped for.

Once the chains were off, I scooted back a little and looked the filly over again. She was too dirty to really tell if she was hurt or not, or how she had been treated. “Say, um… th’ purple earth pony, that’s my sister. Came t’ save her… But we can totally take you too… if ya want. I mean, if ya wanna jus’... be free and go wherever you want, that’s cool… but… Where I come from… we take in a lot’a foals. Orphans, mostly, like me. There’s like… at least thirty kids there. Some yer age, too.”

I licked my lips and paused for a bit, letting her mull that over in her mind, as she didn’t seem to give much of a reaction at all to it. “Anyway, um, I think it’d be a nice place for you. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want. There’s some food here we can give ya if you just wanna go off some other place…” I looked over my shoulder towards the exit of the tent, then looked back at the filly and tilted my head. “Kinda gotta decide now, though… the slavers may come back soon. Um… so whaddya say? You wanna come back with us?”

The filly still didn’t give much reaction, other than the occasional wet sniffle. After I finished speaking, though, she gave a very slight nod of her head, so slight I almost missed it.

When I realized it was a nod, I smiled again. “Alright. Now… you can walk, or I can carry you, but uh, we need to get going.” I motioned for her to follow me, then got up to my hooves and walked quickly back to the exit of the tent and held the flap open, waiting for her.

The filly watched me walk away, then ever so slowly got back up to her hooves. She looked very weak and unsure of herself, at best. She managed just fine, though, and silently walked across the tent and out the flap back outside. I walked out after her, just at the same time as Lily stepped out of the other tent with all of her gear back on. The filly’s eyes went a little wide and she shied away from Lily back over towards me. I had no clue what that was all about, but now wasn’t really the time to ask.

“Okay, so, the town moved east… so let’s go.”

This was going to make two all-nighters in four days. Inky was gonna be pissed when she realized that…

The first day of the trip was largely uneventful. We were all pretty tired, with me and Inkblot having not slept at all the previous night, so there wasn’t much talking. We spent most of our combined energy on just trudging forward, trying to make sure we left the slavers in the dust and got as far as we possibly could towards our destination. I did have questions, though, which I finally got a chance to ask during one of our stops for a quick snack.

The filly we’d picked up had needed a latrine break, so she had gone off a few dozen feet to the side. Far enough for her to be out of earshot, anyway. We all alternated between getting little bits of food for ourselves and watching as the filly took care of her business, just making sure she didn’t get swooped up by something. Like a manticore.

“How didja even get caught by slavers, Sis?”

Lily paused in the middle of her chewing and slowly looked back at me. She licked her lips, finished chewing and swallowed, then gave a strong clearing of her throat. “I was on my way back. Found plenty of loot while I was out, too. But, couple nights into the trip back, this… group of ponies wandered by the little nook I’d settled to sleep in. They just went right on past, never even knew I was there… which was the point of sleeping there in the first place. But they made enough noise to wake me up, and I wanted to make sure I was safe. So I went to check on ‘em.

“And that’s when,” she turned to look back at the filly and nodded towards her, “I saw her with ‘em in chains. I… I had thought I’d be able to save her. And… I almost did, too. They made up a camp, one guard… I took him out quietly, then went to get her, but when I grabbed her, she let out this... scream… I woke her up, I guess I never could really blame her. I’m pretty sure she thought I was just another slaver and… who knew what I was going to do, grabbing her and waking her up in the middle of the night?”

Lily sighed and looked back at me. “Anyway, her scream woke up all the rest, and I couldn’t outrun them… so I got locked up too. That was… three… or four days ago. We’d been walking north ever since. They were going somewhere specific, but I never managed to figure out where. They never said where I could hear it, at least.”

I nodded here and there, then moved over to Lily as she finished. I stretched up to nuzzle at her neck. “Well, we got ya. An’ her too. So… in th’ end ya still saved her. Right?”

Lily smirked a little, then lifted a forehoof and put it around my body and gave me a hug before tilting her head down and kissing the top of my muzzle. “Yeah, something like that.” She paused for a few moments, just looking down at me. “That was dangerous, you know. You could’ve gotten killed… could’ve gotten your fillyfriend killed too.”

Inkblot’s suddenly joined the conversation with a loud, “No! Ew! No, no, ew! Don’t go spreading lies!”

I blinked a couple times at Inky’s outburst and glanced her direction. I honestly couldn’t tell if her reaction hurt my feelings or not. “Really, Inky? Three ‘no’s and two ‘ew’s?”

Inkblot snorted, speaking before taking another bite of food, “You’re worth at least a couple more, Bucky.” She popped the food into her mouth and started to chew, a slight smirk forming as she did so.

I opened my mouth to reply, figuring it would come up with something witty before my brain caught up to it, but I was interrupted by Lily’s hoof reaching up to physically turn my head so I was looking back at her.

“Lemme finish before you two start bickering.” I huffed softly and nodded a little. Lily smiled. “Thanks. Now, it could’ve gotten you both killed… it was dangerous, and you shouldn’t have come after me with just the two of you… But… You did. So, thank you.” She gave a little chuckle and nudged my muzzle with her hoof. “I’m proud of you.”

I started to beam. Blah blah reckless, blah blah danger, blah blah near death. She was proud of me. She was proud of me. I jumped up on my hindlegs and wrapped my foreleg around her withers, then nuzzled into Lily’s neck. “Yer welcome, Sis.” She gave me a quick hug back, but then I stepped backwards and went back down on all threes. “Now um…” I glanced back at Inky. “What were we bickerin’ ‘bout?”

Inkblot shoved the rest of the food into her mouth then waved me off with a hoof. She then, for the first time in recent memory, mumbled something out with her mouth full, “Something, something, I have to talk to Sunny when we get back, yadda yadda.” She paused then looked at Lily. “Three days south, did you see any bloodwings?”

Lily thought for a moment then shook her head at Inkblot. “No, no bloodwings, why?”

Inkblot waved Lily off as she had just done to me. “No reason.”

My brow furrowed and I tilted my head. What did Sunny have to do with anything? Whatever. Lily was proud of me.

Our total trip back lasted two full days, with us getting back to our new town location on the evening of the second day. We’d really been pushing it. Travelling longer than we should’ve, faster than we should’ve… I’d actually had to carry the filly for some hours each day when she was just too tired to continue on. She still hadn’t given us her name. Really she didn’t talk at all, except to tell us when she was hungry and when she had to poop. And for that matter, she actively avoided Lily, always staying near me on the opposite side of me from Lily. She didn’t have much positive or negative reaction to Inkblot.

As we neared the town, though, all our paces started to pick up. We didn’t seem nearly as tired, now that our goal was so close to our reach. The three ground-bound ponies were all walking while I flew just a few inches off of the ground. I wanted to shoot ahead and settle on my rooftop bed, but we had things we had to do before I could think about resting.

The last stretch seemed to go on forever, but eventually we made it. The town here was set up almost identically to the last location. Only it was less muddy… the ground seemed to be a lot firmer here. Pretty much all but the youngest would be thankful for that. Nopony was out playing right now in the big central area, however. After dinner, they were likely all still being lazy and waiting off the sleepiness that came after eating, off in their tents, or in the General Store, or elsewhere.

It didn’t take long for me to spot who I was looking for, though. And apparently he was looking for us, too. High Times stepped out of the Adult’s Building and broke into a canter to meet us. I fluttered down and landed on the ground, all smiles. If he knew we were here, that meant the watch had been set up and was working properly. Second in Command Grassy Knoll was apparently good for something, at least. Nice to know not everything fell apart in my absence.

High Times called to us as he ran, “Welcome back guys! We were starting to get worried there! No, we were worried already, we were starting to consider a rescue mission!”

Lily gave a bit of a laugh, half genuine, half nervous, but her nerves seemed to disappear a little as High Times rushed over and gave Lily a massive hug, which she readily returned. After many seconds their embrace broke and High Times took several steps back to look us all over.

“Good work, you two. You were gone long enough, I’m sure you have a story or two to tell, I’m going to love hearing th-” he did a double-take as he finally noticed the red filly just to my right. “Oh? And who is this, that look like they need a bath?”

He started to move towards her, but the filly was having none of that. She had been fine, but as soon as High Times put his attention on her, she got nervous, and as he started to move, she immediately bolted for shelter. Except… the shelter she chose was that of the area beneath my belly. I blinked and look down, then reflexively dropped one of my wings down to the side. Any good shelter needed a roof and walls, after all… right?

High Times looked a bit surprised, but immediately stepped backwards again, not wanting to scare the filly. “Okay, that’s fine.” He looked at the rest of us, running things over in his head. “Well, first off, who is she?”

All three of us shrug, but I answered first. “She ain’t told us yet.”

High Times nodded slowly, then lifted a forehoof slightly and pointed at me. “Alright, first things first. We can welcome her here if she wants to stay. Free food and a free bath up for offer either way,” he occasionally glanced down beneath me as he spoke, but didn’t want to put too much attention on her and scare her further. Which was probably a good thing, because as it was she was busy using my hindlegs, tail, and the wing I’d put down there as a sort of curtain to block off her view of High Times and Lily.

Inkblot cleared her throat and spoke up, “She’s a filly, I’ll deal with the food and bath.”

High Times shook his head. “Sorry, Ink. I need you to come with me back to the Adult’s Building… like… now.”

Inkblot sounded as confused as she looked. “What? Why?”

“It’s… well it’s something we need you for.”

“All… right…” She looked over at me and Lily. “I’ll, uh, see you two later.” She looked back at High Times then started to trot off towards the Adult’s Building.

High Times gave her an apologetic smile, then gave me and Lily the same one. “Lily, your tent’s been set up already, I made sure of it. All your stuff is in it just how you left it.”

Lily blinked. “All of it?”

High Times bit his lip for a moment then nodded. “Yes, all of it.”

Lily started to blush. What was embarrassing about that, I had no clue. Did she not like him touching her pillow or what? Lily, however, let out a huff and started to trot off towards the tents. “I’ll go, uh, make sure. Yeah.”

I watched her trot off, my head slowly tilting further and further as she moved away, but then my attention was drawn back to High Times.

“Buck, could you…” he motioned back towards me and the filly that continued to hide underneath me, “handle welcoming her to our home for me? It appears I won’t be able to, and our lead filly is occupied.”

I raised an eyebrow at High Times then waved him off with my other wing. “Whatever. I’ll do it. Jus’ go off an’ do… whatever.”

High Times chuckled softly, then nodded and turned to trot back to the Adult’s Building, following in Inkblot’s hoofsteps.

I let out a long sigh. I was now standing alone in the middle of town with a scared filly underneath me. I knew I had things to take care of before I rested, but this was definitely not part of the plan. I gave my head a shake, then slowly lifted my wing out from below me and dipped my head down so I could see the filly.

“They’re gone now… It’s just us.” I waited as she looked around, confirming with her own eyes what I’d just told her. Once she’d looked all around I asked, “You wanna take a bath?”

I see could her settle down a little, and eventually she gave me a small nod. I smiled back at her, then slowly started to step around her and walk off towards the storage buildings. “Let’s get you a bath then.”

I had picked the most private spot I could think of in the area around town. The work room in Inkblot’s building. The only time anyone ever came in here was if they were Inkblot or if they had business with Inkblot. And right now Inky was off with High Times. Plus night was falling, so not only did nopony have business here, but that meant that I got to also take advantage of the fact that this building was one of the only three that actually had lighting inside that could be used when it was dark.

"It's sorta weak fer a bath, I know, but it does the job, gets ya clean, and, well that feels kinda nice sometimes." We didn't exactly have a bathtub, and even if we did, we didn't have the water to waste in filling up a whole bathtub. So our form of bath was simply a bottle or two full of warm water and a washcloth.

I had guided the filly in, let her pick the room, pick the spot, then started to get the washcloth ready. I was just about to start rubbing her face off with it when I got a little surprise of my own. She spoke.

"W-... why... why don't... why don't you have your cutie mark?"

I pulled the washcloth away and blinked at her a few times, first working on registering the fact that she asked a question, then working on an answer. I could only say the first thing that came to mind. “Well, why don’t you have yer cutie mark?”

She glanced at me for half a moment before looking back in front of herself at the wall. “B- because… I’m not old enough yet. But you’re… you’re old enough…”

I licked my lips then snorted softly. “Yes…” I reached back out with my wings. One of them had the washcloth in it. Slipping the other gently under her muzzle to steady her head, I used my washing wing to lay the washcloth over her face and rub off the grime. After I’d cleaned off her face, cheeks, and horn, I switched wings and slowly cleaned off her muzzle.

Once that I was done I pulled back again and started to re-wet the washcloth. “I shoulda gotten my cutie mark a long time ago… But you see… I’m jus’ not special. So no cutie mark.”

The filly hadn’t moved at all while I washed her face. Which surprised me, I expected her to shy away or something. But she didn’t. “But… but… everypony is… everypony is special, somehow…”

I tilted my head a little bit. She wasn’t stuttering. No… this was different. She didn’t sound scared of talking, either. It didn’t have that… soft, shy quality. She was just hesitating. This… this was like… she was scared of saying the wrong thing.

“Well, ya ain’t wrong… You wanna hear a little… theory?” The filly shifted her weight then actually turned her head to look at me and nodded, continuing to look at me after doing so instead of looking back at the wall. No, she wasn’t shy… Not deep down, beneath… whatever this was.

“It ain’t so much my theory as it is… uh… High Times’.” I decided now wasn’t the best time to associate that name with the guy she’d been so afraid of just ten minutes earlier. “Anyway, it goes… that a long time ago, there were no raiders, no slavers, grass grew from all th’ dirt, pegasi controlled the clouds an’ weather, earth ponies made plants grow, and unicorns did… magicy things.” I motioned with a wing to the filly’s horn. “An’ this time was all nice an’ wonderful an’ everyone got along, even if some bad stuff happened now an’ then.

“Theory says ponies thrived in that time, an’ that’s what we’re really all truly made for, all th’... harmony or some crap that went on back then. But that’s not here now, an’ it wasn’t always there ‘fore that time, either. An’ in the time ‘fore that time and now… not all ponies get their cutie marks. ‘Cause if all ponies got cutie marks in the wasteland, then that’d be th’ world sayin’ that ponies are made fer the wasteland, an’ we all belong here, an’ that so long as we belong here we’re gonna keep on continuin’ th’ wasteland, fer good or bad. But there’s really kinda a whole lot more bad than any little good…

“Point is, theory says that as long as some ponies don’ get their cutie marks, it’s a sign that th’ old times are still possible, an’ if we can work on gettin’ back to it, we can get back to a point where everypony gets their cutie marks. Cause like, what if my special talent was… I dunno… museum stuff? I ain’t ever even set hoof in a musuem. Or uh… playin’ some… instrument er something. I ain’t ever heard an orchestra in the wasteland… ‘cept when the DJ plays one, anyway. Anyway… so, idea is, jus’ some ponies won’t ever get their cutie marks ‘cause their special talent just ain’t something the wasteland actually has t’ offer.”

I cleared my throat softly as I finished speaking. The filly had been listening intently the whole time, even her ears had turned towards me to help catch every word. She gave a little nod, then looked back in front of her. “I… I… don’t… I don’t like it.”

I blinked and tilted my head. Instead of waiting, though, I went ahead and continued cleaning her, starting with her ears, mane, and neck, moving and massaging the washcloth over her to get all the dust and dirt off. “Don’t like what?”

“The… the idea…”

“Why’s that?”

“It… it doesn’t seem fair. That some ponies just wouldn’t get cutie marks.”

I let out a soft snort, then slid the washcloth further down and started to clean her left forehoof. With a small amount of prodding, she shifted her weight and let me control her leg without any fuss. “There ain’t a whole lot that really is fair, ya know? Like… Do ya know where you are now?”

She shook her head.

“Well, where ya are now is a town called Asylum. It uh… basically means a place of safety from like… the wasteland. An’ all th’ bad stuff in it. Which… is one of the reasons there’s so many orphans here. We find them, an’ we bring ‘em back so that they don’t have t’ fend fer themselves anymore. They can get… ya know… asylum. But it’s th’ same thing fer adults, too. We got one adult here, her name is Junkie.” I paused as I switched sides and began cleaning her other foreleg. “Talk about unfair…

“Junkie’s mom kept doin’ a whole bunch’a drugs when she was pregnant with Junkie. When she gave birth, th’ baby was already all kinds of addicted an’ screwed up… Junkie still ain’t all right in the head, and she’s like… twenty-five or thirty now, I dunno.” I gave another soft snort. “She got her cutie mark, though. So it’s like… five kinds of unfair goin’ both directions on that one. We don’t usually call this place Asylum, though. We usually just say ‘Town’ or ‘Home’.”

The filly listened quietly as I spoke, still letting me clean her just fine. She didn’t seem to want to say much yet, and I was happy to let her mull things over in her mind. It sure had to be a lot to take in, going from being a slave to being offered a place among orphans. I worked my way back from her forelegs onto her belly, sides, and back. There were whip marks, that much I could tell. Scars, I could only guess. But there didn’t seem to be any more serious injuries or scars. Whips were bad, especially from slavers, but at least they weren’t life-threatening at this point.

I then re-wet the washcloth and move a bit further back, being more careful now. If she flinched away I’d stop, but if she didn’t, I’d keep going. And she didn’t flinch away. She wasn’t nervous, wasn’t scared… As the cleaning had gone on, she actually started to look like she’d been enjoying it. I finally allowed myself a breath of relief, though, after I finished cleaning her rear legs and moved onto gently scrubbing her hindquarters. Again she didn’t flinch away. She may have been a slave, but at least they didn’t horribly mistreat her.

I blinked and looked up towards her head when she decided to speak again, though I continued to scrub her hindquarters as it was the last bit left to clean.

“You said there was food?”

“Lotsa food… Most of the time, all ya can eat. We don’t have t’ do rations much, except fer in an emergency. See, we have groups of foals that stick together an’ go out an’ scavenge around. We call them Crusaders. They bring back all th’ food they find, as well as anything else of value they can carry… an’ all the food goes into our storage to help feed everypony.”

I finished my scrubbing and leaned back, tossing the filthy washcloth onto the mostly empty water bottle. She looked like an entirely different pony. Still red with an orange and yellow mane, but so many shades brighter. “Alright… that’s a bath… How was it?” I stepped back around towards her head then slowly laid down on my belly next to her. My head was now about level with her head. “An’ do ya think you can tell me your name now?”

The filly turned in a circle as she bent back to look at herself. She ended up pointing her original direction, then turned to look at me. At first she just gave a nod, then slowly after it came a soft, “Thank you…” Several seconds later she added, “Firestorm.”

A small smile cracked across my lips. “Yer very welcome, Firestorm… You ‘member my name?”

She gave another nod. “You’re Tripod… or Buck… or Bucky…”

I gave a soft snicker and nodded. “You can call me Tripod, or Buck, or Tri.”

“Okay… Um… food?”

“Oh, yeah. Here,” I reached back into my saddlebag and pulled out a can of cram. I opened it, then held it out for Firestorm. “There ya go, Stormy. Have the whole thing.”

Firestorm looked a little surprised by the sudden appearance of a nickname, but the surprise was apparently overridden by her hunger, as she immediately went for the cram, going silent until it was all gone. I simply sat there in silence with her, watching her eat and making sure she didn’t choke or anything.

When she finished, I broke the silence once again. “So, Firestorm, tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll ask again if ya wanna stay with us… like, permanently. But you don’t haveta decide right now… um… A thing you do haveta decide, though… is… It’s dark out now. And, that means sleep soon… You could sleep in here… or you could go sleep in one of our living tents we have set up… or… uh… You could go sleep with me. My bed is on top of one of these buildings.”

Firestorm didn’t seem to keen on her options, but her ears perked up a bit when I said my bed was on top of one of the buildings. “You mean… you mean your bed is… you have to fly to get there? Up to a building?” I gave her a firm nod. “Um… can… can I do that one?”

I smirked and nodded. “Sure ya can… We can head up there right now, if ya want. Jus’ hop on my back.”

Firestorm looked around, then stepped over and grabbed ahold of the washcloth before walking back and carefully climbing up onto my back.

“What’s the washcloth for?”

“It’s… um… it’s um, for a pillow…”

I laughed as I slowly got to my hooves, careful not to throw off her balance. “Well, you can use it fer that if ya want, but, I do got a pillow, so you’ll have a proper one to put your head on. If ya want.”

I walked on out of Inkblot’s building, shutting and locking the door behind me. I then spread my wings and slowly took off. I could hear another soft gasp as we left the ground, but unlike the one from Inkblot a few days ago, this one didn’t have much fear in it, it was more just the gut reaction to lifting off the ground for the first time. I flew on over to the General Store, and, well… unlike Lily’s, my stuff hadn’t been laid out for me. Given that I was the only one that could actually reach the roof.

I settled onto the roof and laid down, letting Firestorm get off. “Just gimme a minute.” Once she was off, I got back up and quickly started to unpack my things. Not everything, just the relevant stuff. The tarp, the mattress, the pillow, and a couple of blankets.

After getting it all out and situated, I quickly stripped off all my gear and flopped onto my nice, soft mattress and let my head hit the pillow. “You can sleep anywhere you want up here, Stormy. On the roof, on the mattress, either one, it’s fine. Jus’ take a blanket if you want it, an’ you can use th’ pillow too.”

Firestorm nodded and looked around, but after a few moments she proceeded to just lay down where she was on the roof and curled up. I let out a little sigh, but… it was her choice to make. Even if it was the uncomfortable one.

I rolled over and shifted a bit as I worked my way into a comfortable position on the mattress. It was so much nicer than dirt, or rocks, or anything, really. Everything except a cloud… but a cloud required maintenance to keep around all night, and I didn’t quite wanna bother with that, really.

Tomorrow I needed to bug Lily. I also needed to find out what was so urgent that High Times had to pull Inky away right then and there to take care of. Plus I had to figure out what had gone wrong and what had gone right in the move while I was gone, so I knew what to do now that I was in charge of stuff again…

My eyes blinked open, interrupting my train of thought. I felt some movement, and soon after I felt a warm, damp presence pushing up against my back. After a few seconds it settled down and curled up again, firmly against my back, but definitely on the mattress. I started to smile as I shut my eyes again.

“Goodnight, Firestorm…”

Silence, followed by a quiet, “Goodnight, Tri…”

Author's Notes:

Big thanks to Scrap Metal, No One, and Kibu for helping me with grammar, spelling, and plot thus far.