Food! Glorious, wonderful food! Well, it was meat, for the most part. So not all that wonderful and glorious. If I ate too much of it my stomach started to feel all… rumbly and unsettled. But even that was better than being hungry.

The next few days were largely taken up by receiving the various Crusader teams that had come back with food. We had to clean the animals or bugs, cook them, store them, and I had to manage who they went to and the portions they got them in. Normally that was simple enough, if time consuming. But this time I had to answer at least one question about every decision I made or order I gave. The worst part was it wasn’t even the Crusaders questioning my judgement. They all did what I said.

Firestorm was the one asking all the questions. Why cook that meat first? Why does this filly get more food than that colt? Why does one get pork and the other get ant meat? Why is there a lot of meat and not normal food? How come all these other foals have cutie marks if the world is all supposed to go back to be nice and have harmony and stuff?

For three days all I heard were questions. She barely even talked to anyone else. There must’ve been just one tiny little crack in her shell, and that crack was pointed right at me. The only time away from them was when Sunny had managed to drag her off to play with other foals. Not that I didn’t try to get away other times. But somehow she always knew exactly where to go look for me and ask me what I was doing in such a weird place.

Thankfully after four days I didn’t have to make all the rationing decisions and thus she had less to question. On that day Lily returned with the cart Powder and Scout had stolen, notably without Powder and Scout. The decision had been made to not allow them back in with their histories after the theft they’d attempted to pull off. Lily, however, wasn’t willing to just leave them out there alone with nothing, so she gave them each a week’s worth of food and escorted them to within sight of Market, then let them continue on towards it while she turned back and pulled the cart as fast as she could to get back home.

I hadn’t even seen Inkblot except for a bit during lunch time when she came to get food on each of those four days. She was busy leading projects around town, getting this one set up like our last one. The latrine and the playground, among other things.

Lily had been a bit disappointed about my lack of ability to get answers out of Inkblot. But it blew over quickly enough as we got into spending our first day together, just the two of us, in over three weeks. I’d managed to get Sunny to promise to keep Firestorm busy the entire day.

My legs went limp and I dropped straight to the ground, causing Lily to fly right over me and land face-first into the dirt behind me. I gave my wings a quick flap, got back to my hooves, and spun around to face her. She was getting up the same, but an earth pony couldn’t do it as fast as me.

I reached down and grabbed my lasso from its hook on my armor, then started taking steps backwards as I got it spinning above me. As Lily turned and started to rush at me, I sent the rope flying out. She saw it and tried to turn, but I still managed to catch one of her forehooves in the loop as I yanked backwards to tighten it around her limb. I gave a muffled cheer, spread my wings, and took off straight into the sky, holding onto the rope as tightly as I could. As I hit the full length I felt the rope snap, followed by a yell from Lily as her leg was suddenly jerked away from her, which caused her to take another tumble to the ground.

I started to circle around, still holding the rope taut, but Lily got an idea. She reached up and curled her other forehoof around the rope, then gave a solid, sudden yank towards herself. The motion caused me to do a sudden front-flip in the air as it pulled my head down, and the rope got ripped right out of my grasp and fell limply to the ground.

“Hey! Not fair!”

Lily laughed. “Of course it’s fair! Don’t keep the rope tight like that after you do that. Either get slack or get the lasso out of their hooves. What are ya going to do now?!” She rolled over and hopped back to her hooves.

I hovered in place and looked around. We were in an open area just outside of town. Nothing to hide behind. Nothing to improvise with. Or… was there? I reached my hoof up and undid the knot that held my cape around my neck. I climbed up, then turned and dove straight down at Lily, whipping my cape off at the bottom of the dive and swooping past her. She tried to kick me out of the air, but I was too fast for her. As I passed, though, I left behind my cape, draped right over her face over her eyes.

“Gah!” She stumbled a bit and worked on getting my cape off. I took my opening, though, and circled around to do another pass and get my rope back. It was easy since she was preoccupied with my cape. By the time she could see again, I had my rope spinning above me and I was hovering in mid-air.

“Okay, wasn’t expecting that. Good one.” She tossed my cape to the side and looked back up at me. “What now, hotshot?”

I snorted and my tail flicked beneath me. I turned mid-air and dove down again at her, which got her to strike out at me, but I was expecting it this time. Hoping for it. I pulled back, never actually getting in range for her to hit me, and threw the lasso out at the same time. She was mid-strike, so the shot landed, slipping right over her head and around her neck. I yanked my head back and tightened the loop, which made it slide right back up her neck, then get stuck right beneath her head at the smallest part of her neck.

Her eyes went wide as she felt the rope tighten around her throat and she started to pull against the rope, but stopped again just a moment later. A smile started to come up on her face. “You won. Fly up, hang me, you won.”

I gave a hoofpump and dropped the rope as I opened my mouth to yell, “Yes! Gotcha! Ha!” I dropped to the ground, my breathing heavy. “Told ya I’d gotten better with it!”

Lily laughed and worked for a minute on pulling the rope off of her neck. Once it was off, she tossed it back towards me. “You must’ve been practicing a lot. Either that or I’ve gotten slower.”

I caught the rope and quickly coiled it back up and placed it on its hook on my armor. “Practice! I got smaller. I mean, my targets. Usin’ beer bottles now.” Nevermind the black eye I gave myself. That part’s not important. I walked over past Lily to the other side where she’d thrown my cape and tossed it up onto my back.

“Really? Good job. Those things are finicky. Maybe one day use them for shooting practice, too. Here, lemme help.” She caught up with me after I picked up my cape. She situated it on my back, then stepped around in front of me, sat on her haunches, and started working on getting the knot back into place around my neck. That wasn’t exactly something I could do on my own.

I lifted my chin up when lily started tying the knot. “Really? Shooting practice? Yer gonna lemme have a gun?”

Lily snorted softly. “Eventually, yes. I’m still not sure, when, though.”

“Why not now? I woulda had ya a lot easier if I had a gun.”

“Pfft, yes. And you would’ve been dead first if I had been using my gun. If you get into a firefight, you’re already screwed.” She finished tying the knot and gave it a pat before standing back up and giving me a quick hug. “So just stay away from anyone who has a gun that might be apt to shoot you with it.”

I gave a somewhat aggravated grumble as she hugged me. “Yes, sis… still.”

She nodded. “Still.” She then turned and began walking back towards the town. “Word has it that you gave yourself a nasty hit to the face just practicing with your rope. I don’t want to know what kind of trouble you’d get into practicing with a live gun on your own.”

My ears went back and I gave a snort as I started to follow her. Bet it was High… Those two spent too much time together… and worse I couldn’t shut him up by giving him candy.

Lily headed for the tents and turned to go to hers. I stopped short, though, and looked past them towards the town for a moment before following her. “I gotta… like, go see High some time today.”

Lily paused outside her tent and looked back at me. “Oh yeah? What about?”

I wingshrugged. “Ain’t sure, exactly. Just everything’s goin’ back t’ normal an’ he wanted t’ talk t’ me.”

“Alright.” She held a forehoof out for another hug and I ignored my annoyance long enough to oblige. She gave me a hard squeeze and kissed the top of my head. “Today was fun. Sorry I was gone so long.” She reached back and ruffled my feathers with her hoof before putting it back down on the ground. “You just need some muscle and you’d be scary in a fight.” She smirked at me, then nodded off in direction of town. “I’ll catch up with you for dinner. Go get High out of the way.”

I unfurled then refurled my wings, getting some of the feathers back in order, then smiled and nodded to Lily. “Alright, yeah. But if I knew how t’ get muscles, I already woulda gotten ‘em. See ya later.” I spread my wings again and took off, this time flying lazily over towards town.

I wasn’t exactly sure where to find High. Probably the Adult’s Building. Or he might be out playing with some foals. Or he might be- oh, found him. I banked and turned towards him, then pulled up short as I saw who he was with. None other than Sunny and Firestorm. They were talking about… something. I gave my lip a thorough chewing. Did I want to go over there? Firestorm was… I gave a long sigh. She was just asking questions. I wasn’t even mad at the questions, they were just exhausting. But I’d gotten today off from questions, all of it.

Oh well. If she asked a question, then she asked a question. I continued flying towards them and set down lightly on the ground nearby. Both the fillies heard me immediately and gave me big smiles.

High followed their turn of attention and nodded. “Hey, Buck. Good to see you.”

“Hey, High. Sunny. Stormy.”

The fillies spoke almost as one, “Hi, Tri!”

As I expected, Firestorm started to slowly shift from where she had been standing over next to me. At least she wasn’t hiding from High Times, now. At least not as visibly. That was an improvement.

High Times looked over the three of us then looked to me. “You came at a good time. I was just finishing up here, was about to head back and start working on some stuff. I can talk to you now if you’re able.”

I nodded to High. “Yeah, was just comin’ t’ look fer ya.”

High smiled and looked to the fillies. “You girls have fun. And Sunny, I’ll be sure to catch your story time tonight before bed. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He turned and started to trot off towards the Adult’s Building.

Sunny beamed and lifted a forehoof to wave. “Bye, High!” She turned to me, “See ya, Tri. I gotta go make up stories!” She turned as well and ran off the opposite direction.

“Later, Sunny.” I watched the two of them run off, then looked down. Firestorm was still right next to me. “You goin’ anywhere?” Firestorm shook her head. “You gonna follow me?” She nodded.

I gave a soft snort then began following High. Sure enough, Firestorm was no more than a few steps behind me the whole way.

High led the way into the Adult’s Building, through the tiny entry area, and over into his small office. The office was actually smaller than one of the residential tents, but it was set up for keeping track of things, not sleeping. He quickly went around behind his desk and flopped onto a cushion, looking over his desk at us as we entered. “Oh, hello, Firestorm.”

I entered the office right behind High and pulled over a cushion for myself to sit on. A moment later I pulled over another one for Firestorm. “She can stay, right?”

High gave a quick shrug. “Fine by me.” He gave Firestorm another smile before reaching into his desk and pulling out a binder with some paper in it.

I nodded then settled down on my cushion. I reached a wing over and patted the other one, after which Firestorm took her place on it. Her eyes were everywhere except for myself and High, though. She was busy taking in every detail of the new room she could, as quickly as she could.

I watched her for a minute, but then shook my head and looked back at High. “So… what’s up?”

High flipped through many pages in the binder until he stopped somewhere in the middle. “Team restructuring, actually. Grassy… has been removed from, well, everything. He’s no longer second colt in command. He’s no longer got seniority for any of the related things being second oldest would get him. He is also no longer a Crusader team leader. Powder and Scout are both no longer with us, meaning their teams are short-hoofed. So, we’re doing just a general re-do of it all to settle it again, and update who is teamed up with who.”

The news wasn’t… surprising, but a full completely new set of Crusader teams in the entire town? That was big. Would take some getting used to. “Alright. So what am I here for?”

High Times opened another drawer and pulled out a pin. “I need the names you want for your team.”

“Wait, wait wait wait. I get t’ pick this time?”

High nodded. “Anybody you want.”

I let out a snort. “Inkblot.”

He let his head sway back and forth, then wrote down my name with an underline followed by Inkblot’s name in the binder. “That would mean giving up leading her own team, but I don’t think she’ll decline. Will have to ask her before confirming, though. Who else?”

“Paper Scroll.”

High shook his head. “Sorry, not exactly anybody you want… Scroll is second in command now that Grassy is out. I can’t have the first and second oldest colts be out of town every time a single team leaves.”

I let out a sigh. “Alright… uh…” My brow furrowed. I knew almost all the foals in town. Was friends with most of them. But… none of them were exactly the type I would like to have along on a trip out into the wasteland. “Um… Lily?”

High chuckled. “That won’t work and you know it.”

“Yeah…” I gave my head a shake. “Sunny?”

“No foals under ten get put on Crusader teams, you know that, too.”

“I’m ten…”

Both me and High turned to look at Firestorm, but I was the first to speak. “You are so not. Can’t be ten.”

Firestorm gulped and nodded at me. “Am… am too.”

I blew out a puff of air. “But yer so small. An’, an’... and…” I blinked rapidly a few times as I realized something. “You’d just follow me anyway… right…” I sighed and looked back at High. “Sure, she’s ten… might as well… put her on the team.”

High gave both of us a rather dubious look, but after a few seconds leaned forward and put Firestorm’s name down below Inkblot’s. “Alright. One more.”

I gave another sigh and rubbed over my face with my wing. “I don’t… I can’t think of anything. Can it… like… wait? Maybe see who is left after all th’ other teams choose?”

High thought about it for a bit before nodding. “Sure. I do want you and your team to head out tomorrow for a run, but you can wait to make your last pick until after you get back. See who all is left.” He put the pen back in the drawer then closed the binder.

I gave a quick nod. “Good…” I looked back over at Firestorm. “Are you really ten?” She nodded. “No, seriously. Be honest. Yer name is already down in th’ book, can’t be taken back. Yer ten?”

She fidgeted a little and nodded again. “I really, really am. I’m just… small. Some… times ponies would call me shorty. ‘Cause I was short.”

I blew a puff of air out through my nostrils. “Well… sorry, then. Didn’t mean t’... like… mention it.”

Firestorm looked down and away for a bit before looking back in my direction. “How come you get to decide everything?”

It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. “Uh… because… I’m th’ oldest…”

“But… what’s that matter? And why are there so many foals and so few adults? Where do all the foals that grow up go?

I blinked a few times. “Uh… that’s… uh… I’ve… always been…” I looked at Firestorm then looked at High. “Uh… High?”

High Times cleared his throat. “That is a very good question, Firestorm.” Firestorm looked from me to High Times. “Well, you see, this town isn’t all that old. I suppose it is in terms of the wasteland, maybe, but overall, not really.” He gave a little chuckle. “Thirteen… fourteen years ago, right around there, I stumbled onto a pair of foals. It took awhile… but… I got them to trust me, and I helped nurse them back to health. I set them up at my place, but, as they got older, they wanted to… be included. But they didn’t want to separate. So, in the end, we decided to try and help out more foals who had been like them and just needed some help.

“So technically, we still have our first foal. Only she’s an adult now. We also still have our second foal. And that’s why our second foal,” he nodded to me, “gets to make the decisions, because he has more experience doing this stuff than all the others. Same goes for the other oldest ones.”

Firestorm let out a long, “Oooooooh,” as if everything in the world made sense suddenly.

I blinked rapidly. “Wait, wait what?”

High looked at me and leaned back a little bit. “You never heard that story?”

I shook my head. “No! I thought… I thought we were born… here… I mean… we weren’t?!”

High shook his head slowly. He chewed on his lip before saying, “You should ask your sister.”

I let out a huff. “I do! She never tells me. It’s always some different fake story.”

“I’m sorry, Buck, but she should really be the one to tell that kind of thing to you.”

“Ugh.” I shook my head and started to get up. “Thanks, High, but that ain’t happenin’. Been tryin’ t’ get her t’ tell me the truth fer years.”

“Do you want me to talk to her about it?”

I paused and looked back at High. “Talk t’ her ‘bout what? Tellin’ me?” He nodded. “She’d prob’ly be upset that ya mentioned ya knew th’ truth er something…”

“I can bring it up in a way that won’t get her upset. I’m not saying I can change her mind, but I am saying that I think it’s worth a try. If you really want to know the truth.”

I worked my jaw for a minute. “Yeah, sure, alright.

High gave a final nod. “I’ll let you know what happens, Buck. See you later.”

I gave a half-hearted wingwave to High. “Yeah, see ya. C’mon, Stormy.” Firestorm scrambled up to her hooves and followed after me as I walked out of High’s office.

“Inky! Is her cape done yet!”

“If you yell at me one more time, I’m going to come stick this needle through your ear and hang you from the ceiling by it.”

I snorted at her reply from within her building. I was currently leaning against the front door of her building. Firestorm was next to me, wearing a small set of lightly armored barding and a pair of saddlebags we’d borrowed from another pony for her.

I settled for yelling back to her, halfway back into her building, “Well yellin’ is like th’ only time I can get ya t’ talk t’ me anymore!” I started to feel a bit of a tingle on my ear. “Oh sh-” I yanked myself back from the doorway and flicked at my ear with my wing repeatedly, trying to make sure her magic could get ahold of anything.

About twenty seconds later Inkblot came walking out of her building, fully dressed in her own travelling gear. Behind her was a cape, floating in her magic. It was just like mine, and just like all the other Crusader capes, but smaller. Firestorm sized.

She gave me a nasty look then turned around to the filly. “Here you go, Firestorm.” She floated the cape around, placed it on Stormy’s back, then spent a moment to do up the knot around her neck. “How’s it feel?”

Firestorm got a gigantic smile as the cape got tied to her. “It feels great!”

Inkblot chuckled and ruffled Firestorm’s mane, then turned around and glared at me again. “Now you, young stallion…”

I let out a puff of air. “What?!”

“There you go yelling again. Stop it.”

I set my jaw and took a very deep breath, letting it back out slowly. I licked my lips then attempted to speak softly, “Is this better?”

She gave me a small smile. “Yes, it is. Thank you. Now what was it you were trying to say?”

“I was trying… to say… that two days ago when asked ‘bout th’ teams, ya sorta just answered then disappeared… Then yesterday when I reminded ya ‘bout doin’ up a cape, ya practically pushed me back out th’ door.”

Inkblot snorted and stepped towards me, stopping in front of me and putting a forehoof up against my chest. “Two days ago I was busy working. And yesterday I had five fillies in the back room, and the last thing we needed was a colt barging in on our talk.”

I pulled my head back. “Five fillies in th’- what? What were they doin’ in there?”

“Group counselling.”

“Group… who was it?”

She snorted again, louder this time, and gave my chest a light shove before she took her hoof off and started to walk past me. “I won’t tell you that.”

Firestorm scuffed the ground with her hoof, then quickly followed after Inkblot when she started to walk.

“Why won’t ya tell me?” I turned, not intending to let Inkblot get away again, and followed after her.

“Because it’s none of your business who was there.”

“Well… no. But what’s that matter?”

Inkblot continued to walk, heading first past the buildings, then started to leave the edge of town, heading east. “Because they don’t want anyone to know. I only even told you what it was because I know you won’t tell anyone else.”

“Maybe… maybe I will! Then… then-”

“Then you’ll have ruined at least some of the trust that those fillies put into me, and undermine everything I’m trying to do, plus help screw over everything you and me have got working together.” She glanced back at me over her shoulder as she finished speaking.

My ears drooped back. “Well it sounds bad when ya say it like that…”

She simply nodded. “Yeah.”

I sighed then gave my head a shake. What were we even talking about? And why was I following Inkblot? And why was Firestorm following me now instead of her? Wait, no, that last one was easy to answer. Firestorm always defaulted to me at some point. I lifted my head up and looked around, finally realizing we were actually leaving town. “Wait, where are we going?”

“You couldn’t possibly have forgotten the entire reason we’re all dressed up and gathered.”

“Uh… we’re setting up t’ go out on a scaven- wait a minute!” I spread my wings, hopped, and gave a flap, propelling myself into the air and over the head of Inkblot. I landed again just in front of her and resumed walking the same direction. “My team, I lead.” Inkblot watched as I flew over her, but let out a goofy giggle when I spoke again. I looked back at her. “What?”

She shook her head quickly. “Nothing, Bucky. Nothing at all.” I narrowed my eyes. “Something a squirrel once said.”

“A squirrel…”

“A squirrel.”

I shook my head and looked back ahead of me, content to drop the conversation and hope a round of silence would eventually bring up a topic I could have the upper hoof on.

The silence only lasted a short while, though, as Firestorm spoke up from the back. “What did the squirrel say?”

Inkblot seemed to have been thinking about something else entirely, as her initial response sounded like she was in a daze. “Hmm? Squirrel? Oh, squirrel, right. The squirrel said that leadership is an action, not a position.”

Firestorm let out a long, “Oooooh.” What was she even oh’ing? There’s no way a squirrel actually said that. Squirrels don’t talk. Unless you cast magic on them.

“Do you have a magic spell er somthin’ that makes squirrels talk?”

Inkblot shook her head at me. “Nope, I just speak squirrel.”

I sighed and ran my wing over my face. Impossible.

If we went far enough east, we’d hit the ocean. I knew that much. I also knew there was supposed to be some ruins… somewhere to the east. But we didn’t know exactly where. Which was a good thing, actually. If we didn’t know the exact location, that meant it wasn’t as well known, which meant there was some chance that the entire place hadn’t been entirely looted clean yet.

It was almost a full day away. We’d stopped and had lunch, told a few funny stories, then got going again. It was getting into evening when we actually came upon the first signs of… anything at all since we’d left home.

Firestorm was actually the first to spot something. “Is that it?”

Me and Inkblot both looked back at her then followed her hoof off into the distance. “Well it’s somethin’ alright…”

The view wasn’t much. Asylum’s new location was amongst some rolling hills, and we’d just recently come out of them and onto flatter land. Off to the north-east, where Firestorm had pointed, we could all see some bumps in the horizon. Building shaped bumps. That alone was a good sign. I changed course and led us all in the direction of them.

Compared to the rest of the day, it didn’t seem to take us that long to actually get there. The town may have been small, but it was giant compared to home. And it was definitely in ruins. Three out of every four buildings had at least one wall collapsed. The others were fully standing, but looked like they hadn’t been touched in a very long time.

“Be careful. Don’t want nothin’ fallin’ down an’ trappin’ us while we’re here.” I looked back at Inky and Firestorm to make sure they heard me, then continued on. As we passed the first buildings and entered the area that could be called a street, I lifted off and hovered along just above the ground, so that my hooves didn’t hit anything.

The streets didn’t criss-cross here like I’d seen the one time I was in Manehatten. They just zigged and zagged and opened up into… weird open circular spaces with nothing in them seemingly randomly. The buildings were randomly spaced, too. Some sections had them right up against one another, other sections had several or dozens of feet between each building.

I was pulled out of my sight-seeing suddenly when I felt a sharp tug on my tail. I jerked around to see Inkblot pulling her head back away from me.

“I said, let’s go look at that one.” Inkblot looked at me then pointed past me towards a building that looked fairly intact.

“Oops…” I settled back to the ground and coughed. “Sorry, didn’t hear ya th’ first time.”

I turned towards the building. It looked safe enough. There were a set of double glass doors out front, which somehow hadn’t been broken. All the windows were broken, but the doors weren’t. I walked up to the doors and tried to look inside, only to find that they were too dirty and the inside was too dark to actually see. I looked back at Stormy and Inky and waved my wing, motioning for them to get in line behind me.

Once they were, I gently leaned against the door. It didn’t budge. I pulled back and leaned harder, and this time it opened with a loud crack as the hinges moved for the first time in… who knew how long. The inside of the building was… well it was definitely a store. Of some sort. Somepony had been through here at some point, though. There were plenty of things still laying around, but there was less dust in some areas, around places where shelves were empty.

Inkblot and Firestorm hurried into the store past me, and I shut the door after they’d entered.

“Clear it, then check it out.”

Inkblot glanced over her shoulder, her magic coming alive to pull her pistol out of its holster. “Yes sir, Bucky sir.” I rolled my eyes and she let out a quiet giggle as she slipped deeper into the store.

Firestorm started to follow after Inkblot, but suddenly stopped when Inky pulled a gun and went deeper. Her head slowly tilted and she looked back at me. “I don’t have a gun.”

I watched Firestorm stop with a raised eyebrow, then simply nodded. “I know ya don’t. That’s okay. Yer not really here t’ fight anyway. Yer here t’ be with ponies ya know, plus help us look for things an’ help carry stuff back.”

Firestorm didn’t appear to like that answer. “But isn’t that… dangerous? Shouldn’t I have a gun too?”

I snorted softly and stepped towards her. “How would you use it? If you put it in yer mouth, it’d go flyin’ right out when ya tried t’ shoot it. Does yer magic work yet?”

She gulped and looked up towards her horn, then looked back at me. “Kinda…”

“Kinda?”

“Sometimes… it does what I want it to.”

“Only sometimes?”

“Only sometimes…”

I gave her a little smirk and reached down to pat her back with a wing. “All th’ more reason t’ not use a gun with yer magic, then. ‘Sides, we usually try t’ avoid places where other people would be. Don’t usually have much t’ worry ‘bout anyway. Now, you go with Inky, just give a big shout if ya see anything poss’bly threatenin’ that she ain’t already pointed out t’ ya, alright?”

Firestorm gave a nod. “A-alright, Tri.” She darted out from under my wing and trotted off to follow Inkblot.

That left me alone in the front of the store. What kind of store was this, anyways? I walked around for a bit before finding the store’s counter. There were signs on it, though most seemed to be rotted away. There were a couple signs still intact, though. I used my wing to get the dust and dirt off of them. One warned of no smoking and no laser weaponry. Seemed like an odd combination… The other had big fancy lettering, reading, ‘Bed, Bath, & Beyond! Beyond any store of its kind.’

I took a step back and read the sign again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Nope, it was all there. “That… has… gotta be th’ dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” I glanced up and around the store again. What was even beyond a bed and a bath? Sleep? Did they sell sleep back during the war? Or did they just sell baths? Would ponies come here to just take a bath then leave, or maybe take a bath and sleep then leave the next morning? I gave my head a shake “Ponies b’fore th’ war were weird…”

I moved around the back of the counter and opened the register. Some bits and a key. Not completely worthless. I picked them out and dumped them into my saddlebag, making sure to separate them some so they didn’t start clinking against each other every time I took a step. Floor? Dust. Shelves? More dust. No, wait, that’s dirt, actually. I had just turned to leave when something caught my eye.

Hidden in the corner, built into the back wall, was a safe. It was fairly out of the way and hard to see under so many layers of dust and dirt. Which was probably good for a safe. I turned and walked back to it, once more using my wings as a duster to wipe off the safe so I could see it better. I bit my lip and pulled the key back out of my saddlebags. With a little bit of luck…

Turns out I was lucky! The key fit and turned easily, opening up the safe. Perfect. I broke into a smile and put the key back before pulling the safe all the way open and going after what was inside. My smile faded once I actually saw the contents, though. There was just one package in see-through plastic. It was… some sort of blue… robe. That’s what it was, a big blue robe. Worth ten or twenty caps, max. I turned the package over to see if maybe something else was inside, but all I found was a note.

It read, ‘Steamer, you’ve worked hard lately. Hard enough to be employee of the month! Congratulations! Here’s a little gift. Keep it for yourself, or maybe give it to your girlfriend, tell her you saved up for a couple of weeks to get her something nice. Either way, enjoy, and keep up the good work.’

I turned the package back over and looked at the robe again. Gift for a girlfriend, huh? Was this what they gave to each other back then? Robes?

“Bucky! You got to come check this out!”

I lifted my head up and looked towards the back of the store. Inky didn’t sound in danger, she sounded excited. I looked back down at the robe in my wing. Might be worth something after all… I stuffed it into my bags then took off on a trot towards the back of the store.

When I got there I found two giggling fillies both spraying some sort of mist into the air. After they sprayed it, they would both stretch their necks out to stick their noses into the mist and inhale it.

I just stared for a few moments. “Are you guys doin’ dash, er… wh-”

“Tri! Come smell!” Firestorm lifted up her bottle and sprayed a few bursts in my direction.

“Smell? Are ya sure you ain’t high?”

“Oh just do it, Buck.”

I huffed and stepped forward, reaching my head out towards the mist. I watched the two fillies carefully, making sure they weren’t… playing some sort of trick on me. When I finally sniffed, my eyes shot open. “Woah! That’s… good!”

Inkblot gave an excited hop. “Right?! We need these. We need all of these.” She turned around and started using her magic to get all of the small bottles like that off the shelf and just started dumping them into her saddlebags. Firestorm was close behind her, grabbing the ones off of the bottom shelf that she could reach.

I just watched as they emptied shelves into their saddlebags. “You actually plannin’ on fillin’ up all yer space with that?”

“Yes!”

“But why?”

Inkblot snorted, then turned to me after she finished with the shelf she was on. “Tell me, Buck, what do you smell? Right now?”

My nose wrinkled up a bit. “Kinda… I dunno… kinda smells like a flower.”

Inkblot smirked for a moment, but as soon as it came it was gone again. “I don’t mean the stuff we sprayed. Back up a few feet and tell me what you smell.”

I looked at her like she’d gone crazy, but obeyed, backing up several feet and sniffing the air again. “Uh… I… I don’t smell anything?”

Inkblot shook her head. “Yes, you do. You’re just used to it, so it smells normal. You smell radroaches, and rats, and all the scat they leave around, and rotting wood, and… and… and so much other crap. But this… this smells good, Buck. Do you have any idea how much we could sell this stuff for if we find the right people?”

I had to admit… I hadn’t considered that yet. “Uh… twenty… th… thirty caps per… bottle-thingy?”

She gave a barking laugh. “I’m not talking at Market. I’m talking somewhere richer. Where sheer survival isn’t the biggest issue. We could get fifty to one hundred caps for each one of these.”

“Pfft. No way.”

She just nodded. “Yes. Now…” she picked up six more in her magic and promptly floated them over and stuffed them into my saddlebags. “Can leave your bags open for other stuff, but at least a few.”

I simply watched her work. “Alright, alright.”

As Inkblot went back to filling her bags, Firestorm stopped in front of another section of the shelves. “Should we get these?”

Inkblot stopped again and looked over. Firestorm was pointing to some candles. “Oooh, yes. Good catch, Stormy. Take three or four, I’ll get a few more.”

I sighed and glanced around the store again. “There’s prob’ly more stuff we need t’ grab from here, ya know.”

“Oh, yes. There’s bedding, and blankets, and-

“I can’t carry anymore…”

Inkblot looked to Firestorm again. “That’s okay. I’ll get the rest. We need to make sure we can all carry our packs back.” She looked back to me. “We need to come back down here with a cart. Either us or another team. No way we can carry all the stuff we should take from here. But with a cart we can. So we need to just make sure to tell High when we get back.”

I nodded slowly. “Right… I’ll keep my bags empty in case we find something we really need t’ carry, if y’all’re fillin’ yers up.”

Inkblot went back to work filling her bags up. Meanwhile I decided to just search around the rest of the store. They were right. Our bedding was old, a lot of it had holes in it. We could really use some new stuff. There was a whole section for things called mattress pads, which sounded nice, but someone had already come through and taken all of them. There were a couple pillows left, though, but that was another thing that we couldn’t carry back ourselves. Come to think of it the sleeping pads we brought out on trips like this were pretty well used too, but this store didn’t seem to have any of those.

I stopped in the middle of the store, my ears flicking back and forth as I could’ve swore I’d just heard something. Not the fillies in the back. It was almost like lightning… except… not. What made lightning sounds? I turned around and walked off towards the front of the store, planning on stepping outside and looking up into the sky. Before I got there, though, there was a tremendous crash and the air filled with the sound of something metal impacting the ground. Hard.

I shouted back into the store, “Stay here! I’ll check it!” They had to have heard it too. I darted out the front door of the store and started trotting in the direction I’d heard the noises from. The area was clear near the store.

Roughly a couple hundred feet away from the store is where I found the wreckage, right in the middle of the street. It looked like a big carriage. Or what had at least used to be a big carriage. Now it was a mangled scrap heap. At least the front half of it was. The back half looked mostly untouched. I stopped where I was and looked up into the sky. Nothing… Then what was that first sound?

I looked back to the carriage and started to see if maybe something was in it, but I turned around when I heard hoofsteps behind me. I had already dropped my head to get my rope when I saw it was Inkblot and Firestorm. “Didn’t I tell y’all t’ wait there?”

Inkblot snorted. “I’m not letting you go out by yourself.”

Firestorm shied away a little, but then nodded after Inkblot spoke. “That. Um… yeah, that. Me too.”

I gave my head a shake then turned back around to the wreckage. “Well it don’ look very dangerous anyway. I jus’ can’t figure out how this got here.” I looked back up to the sky again, just trying to make sure nothing had mysteriously appeared up there while I wasn’t looking. There wasn’t. I walked slowly around the wreckage over towards the back of it, the two fillies following me.

After making a complete circle around it I shook my head again. “Well if there’s anything in there, must be dead already.” The carriage had probably been ten or fifteen feet long, but half of that was either missing completely or crushed when it hit the ground. It didn’t hit level, either. It dove in. The front half was crumpled up, and the back half was still poking out of the ground at a slight angle, and still in good shape. I went around to the back and tried to open the door there, and it still worked just fine.

The inside looked… well… like the outside did. There were a few seats in it, but mostly boxes of some sort. There was tarp laying over a few boxes on one side. Further forward, though, the seats ended and you could see the ground through all the twisted metal. Whoever was up front was definitely dead. Assuming they didn’t die and that was the reason this thing fell out of the sky in the first place. Because they certainly hadn’t been going across the ground. Those sounds and this kind of destruction didn’t happen unless something had dropped from really high up. Plus it didn’t have any wheels.

I hopped up the foot gap between the ground and the back of the carriage then slipped inside. There was nobody to check on in the seats, so instead I went for the boxes. The ones closest to the back were easily opened. I just used my wing to undo one of the top flaps and it all went on from there. Nothing particularly valuable were in those boxes. Paper, mostly, actually. I pulled a few sheets out, but I couldn’t understand it. I was pretty sure it was written in Equestrian, I just had no clue what it was saying.

I moved farther down the right side to the boxes covered with the tarp. I reached down, grabbed onto the tarp with my teeth, then gave it a yank to pull it back. I gasped when I saw what was underneath. That wasn’t a box at all. That was a griffin!

The griffin didn’t look nearly as shocked to see me as I did to see him. He pounced out of his curled up spot behind the boxes and lashed out at me with his talons. I managed to dodge the first one, but the second strike caught at the back of my jawline and suddenly my skin felt like it was on fire.

BANG BANG BANG!

I stumbled backwards and tumbled to the ground, pulling my wing and foreleg up to try and make the pain go away. It didn’t go anywhere. My scream was drowned out by the blasts from Inkblot’s pistol, which was followed by yet another scream. I tried to look at myself, but I couldn’t see anything. I pulled my wing away for just a moment and saw it covered it blood. Suppressing another scream, I tried to press my wing back against my neck as hard as I could.

“Move one muscle and I’ll put another in your face!” I heard hoofsteps on the metal floor of the carriage. “Bucky! Bucky, you’re fine, it’s okay!” I felt Inkblot’s magic form around me as she used that and her hoof to roll me over. It was pretty easy for her to do, given that I was doing my best to keep myself from crying out again. She pulled my wing from over my neck to take a look at my wound. “Oh Goddesses… uh, I mean, you’re gonna be fine.”

I still couldn’t see a thing, only now it was because my eyes were squeezed shut as tightly as I could manage. The next thing I felt was something soft being pressed against my neck over the gash, followed by Inkblot’s voice again. “Firestorm, come here.” Another set of hoofsteps, lighter and quicker. “Hold this here, okay? Press it on him. Firm. It hurts him, but this is how he’ll get better, okay? Okay.” Inkblot removed her hooves, and a second letter they were replaced by much smaller ones.

The bigger filly moved away from me, and I heard her voice call out again, further towards the front of the carriage. “Now. You. Explain.”

I was honestly a little surprised the griffin was still alive enough to talk to. Though I was also assuming all of Inky’s shots had hit. After a moment the griffin croaked out a response to her, “Please, just, don’t kill me. I’ll explain… explain everything.”

“Yes, do that. I like the answer, I’ll fix you.”

“I-I-I’m sorry. I saw wings… I thought… We were trying to go home. And we got shot down by the Enclave. And I thought they were coming down here to finish the job.” The griffin was definitely a boy, and he wasn’t all that old, either. Maybe my age… and in a lot of pain.

“Who in Luna’s name is the Enclave?”

“What?”

“It’s a simple question, really.”

My attention was separated from their interrogation by a sudden shift of pressure on my neck. No longer were Firestorm’s hooves there. No, instead, she’d changed position, and I could feel over half her body laying down on top of my neck. The immediate sting of my injury was gone, but a very powerful ache and burn was still there. Not to mention the feel of little knives stabbing me every time Firestorm shifted her weight. I started to open my mouth a little, but then I felt a small nose prodding my cheek. She nuzzled there, then worked her way up the side of my head to my ear.
I flicked my ear a bit, trying to get her nose away from it. “Stormy, you’re hurting me.”

Stormy’s muzzle drew back when I flicked my ear, but then she simply laid her head down directly on top of mine. “I know.”

“Can ya stop?”

“No. I don’t want you to die.”

I gave a long sigh. “I ain’t gonna die, Stormy… Can ya please get off?”

“No. Inkblot said it’d hurt but you need it.”

I grumbled softly and totally would’ve shaken my head, but there was a filly on it. Plus doing so would’ve really hurt. Instead I lifted my wing up a little and gently patted Firestorm’s rump. At the very least she listened extremely well.

I let my wing fall limp again and tried to turn my attention back to Inkblot and the griffin. Inkblot was speaking. “-bleeding is stopped, now. So the Enclave is all pegasi. Up in the clouds.”

“Y-yeah. They… they shot us down. They were after my mom and dad.”

“Really? Why were they after them?”

“Because… well… becau-”

The griffin was interrupted by a sound none of us wanted to hear. A loud shriek from outside echoed through the air, followed by a group of answering calls. My eyes shot open for the first time since I pulled that tarp back. We did not need ghouls right now.

Inkblot looked around frantically, then turned back to the reddish griffin. She pulled out a healing potion and held it in her magic in front of him. “Let’s make a deal. You help us fight these ghouls instead of flying away, we’ll show you where you can get food down here, since I don’t think you’ll be going back up above the clouds any time soon.”

The griffin perked up a bit when he saw the healing potion. “Deal.” He reached out and quickly grabbed it, then downed the potion. A few seconds later he was up on his paws and moving past Inkblot towards the exit.

Once he was out, Inkblot rushed back over towards me. “Off, Storm, off.” She used her magic to help Firestorm get off me quickly, which helped ease the pain that caused a little bit. “Buck, I need to stitch you up. But I’ve got to boil my stuff before I can do that.” She lifted my head up in her magic, then took out another pair of bandages and wrapped them around my neck in a way that would keep the bandage directly over my cut in place. “Now, let’s go fight. And do try to not get hurt, Bucky?” She turned and darted away to stand at the exit of the carriage.

“Yeah, yeah.” After Inkblot turned I slowly started to work my way up to my hooves. I slipped up a couple of times, but then Firestorm moved around behind me and helped push me up to my hooves. “Thanks. An’ see? Didn’t die.” I chuckled and turned my head to look back at her, which stretched my skin, and caused me to quickly jerk my head back and bite my lip to keep from yelping. Okay, that still hurt. It was like every little move of my neck sent a whole new wave of knife-stabbings through me. I didn’t exactly have much of a choice, though. If I wanted to do anything, I’d have to just deal with it. And try not to end up crying.

I grabbed onto the end of my rope, then went for the door, taking off into the air as I moved past Inkblot. The scene outside isn’t quite what I had expected. By the time I was out there, the griffin had already cut down three of the ghouls, leaving only three left. I saw him going for another one, so I just decided to pick the next closest one. I started to spin the lasso, got it going, then let the loop fly through the air at the ghoul, grunting a curse at the same time from how much that action alone still hurt.

Ghouls were still pones, right? Like, they had to breath and everything, surely. My heart soared as the lasso landed around the ghoul’s head, and I gave it a yank back, tightening the loop as it fell down on the zombie’s neck. I instantly flew straight up, intending to choke the thing to death. But right as I hit where the rope would snap tight, it immediately went loose again.

No! I spun around, thinking I’d see a break in my rope. But instead I saw something a whole lot worse. Or better. Or both. The ghoul’s head had simply popped off, and was now laying on the ground next to the body. The body was still standing upright, motionless. That was… disgusting. But I couldn’t look away. I just stared at it for I don’t know how long until I heard a sudden cheer below me.

I peeled my eyes away from the grossly dead ghoul and looked down to see the griffin surrounded by the last two ghouls, both already dead, and their guts all over his talons.

It was also now that I actually got my first good look at the griffin. His top half was a reddish-brown color, and he looked a lot like some hawks that I’d seen before. His back half, though, was a deep orange. A lot deeper than my coat. And it had stripes. Like a zebra, but they looked different than zebra stripes. And only the top of his back half was orange, the bottom portions were white. Not to mention the griffin looked really… buff. He was definitely only my age, and only a little bit bigger than me, but he had a lot of muscle. He looked… good.

I stopped staring at the griffin when Inkblot stepped out of the carriage and called to both of us. “Good work!”

I cleared my throat and called back, “Yeah! Now let’s get outta here! We can make camp on th’ way back.”

Inkblot nodded, got Firestorm to follow her, then stepped out of the carriage and walked over towards the griffin. I worked quickly to get my lasso coiled back up and put back on its hook on my armor, then flew down there to meet them.

The griffin looked ready to say something to Inkblot, but then looked up at me instead when I got down low and close. “Look, I’m really sorry. I thought you were gonna try to kill me.”

I simply snorted. “An’ why shouldn’t I think ya’d try t’ do it again?”

The griffin sniffed a little. “Well, do you have a thing against bounty hunters?”

Inkblot blinked. “Bounty wha-?”

I furrowed my brow, still hovering just above the ground. “I guess not… depends on who they’re… bounty...ing…”

The griffin looked back at Inkblot and started to speak, but he paused and his happy demeanor instantly deflated. “Uh… Bloodclaws. One of the best bounty hunting families in all the griffin lands…” He gulped then coughed. “Except now my mom and dad are dead. So that’s…” he gave a short, dry chuckle, “that’s the end of that.”

I narrowed my eyes a bit. “So y’all were bounty hunters… an’ th’... Enclave? Shot ya down… an’ killed ‘em?”

The griffin took a deep breath, steadying himself, then lifted a messy talon and pointed towards the carriage. “They were both up front. We were supposed to be given safe travel… but the Enclave screwed us over… shot this massive… thing… it just… it made the front part where they were just... disappear.” He sniffled. “They’d told me to hide in the back before that… so I did. And then it crashed, but… I was fine. Then you pulled the tarp off, I saw wings…”

I blinked and shook my head. “Hold up, how did ya possibly survive that entire fall in th’ back’a that thing?”

The griffin looked over at me. His eyes were watery, but for the moment he seemed to be a bit upset at me questioning his story. “Sky wagons are designed to have magic in them to make it so falls don’t really do very much damage.”

I looked off at the carriage again, then shrugged. “Alright… Anyway… let’s get goin’... What’s yer name, anyway?” I didn’t wait for him to answer, and instead started flying off back to the west. Inkblot and Firestorm didn’t wait, either, and quickly started trotting behind me. Last thing we needed was more ghouls showing up. Almost like they could smell dead ones and would rush to them.

The griffin watched me fly, but didn’t move. “Kari. Kari Bloodclaw.”

After I got a ways away, I turned in the air to avoid stretching my neck to look back. Kari hadn’t moved. I called back to him, “Ya comin’?!”

Kari blinked a couple of times. “What, with you?”

“Yer an orphan, right?”

Kari’s beak opened, but nothing came out. He did a slow circle, looked back at the carriage, then up at the sky, then looked back at me. “Yeah…”

I flew back a short distance towards him. “Then I am contractually obligated to offer you a new home.”

He looked stunned. “Wait… huh? Home? Contract?”

I snorted. “Th’ contract part was a joke. Th’ other part was real.”

“But I tried to kill you… and… she tried to kill me,” he pointed a talon at Inkblot.

I glanced back at Inky then looked to Kari again. “I’m willin’ t’ believe yer story… even if a whole group’a pegasi livin’ somewhere sounds completely absurd. I’ve seen like… four. Ever.”

Inkblot let out a sigh even I could hear a few feet away from her, then added, “And I only tried to kill you because you tried to kill him.”

Kari still seemed to not know what to do. “But… you actually want me to come with you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ya fight good. We could use a good fighter. An’ if ya do something stupid an’ don’t get along, we’ll send ya on yer way, or if ya really hurt anypony on purpose, Inkblot’ll shoot ya or I’ll choke ya. Now. Yes, we want ya t’ come along.” Kari continued to just stand there. I waited for about a full minute before snorting again. “Fine, if ya wanna stay on yer own, with nothin’ at all, in a weird place, no food, no clothes, nowhere t’ sleep, with nobody ‘round t’ help ya… be my guest.” I turned and started to fly west again.

Inkblot spoke quietly as I flew back past her, so that Kari couldn’t hear, “Bucky? That was…”

I shook my head. “Jus’ follow me. Watch. You’ll see.”

Inkblot gave me a weird look, but did turn to follow me again, following after Firestorm who turned to follow first. I led them off at a slower pace.

For a few minutes, there was silence. The fillies walking while I slowly flew just above the ground. Slowly, however, we started to hear the quiet sound of flapping wings behind us, and then they stopped when we heard a soft impact on the ground. All three of us looked back, and Kari had caught up with us, and was now walking at the back of the pack, trying his hardest to not make eye contact.

I simply smirked and picked up the pace a bit. Night was falling, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near those ruins when it hit.

I cringed and tried to jerk away, but Inkblot’s magic was holding my head and neck down so firmly that there was no chance I was going anywhere. “Is this really necessary,” I strained out. I was doing my best not to yell out in pain. Firestorm and Kari were both down on sleeping pads and either close to sleep or already sleeping.

“Yes, it is, Bucky. If I stitch it up before cleaning it out, who knows what could happen. It’s just a little alcohol.” She leaned over a bit and started to run a hoof through my mane. “It’ll sting for another minute or so, then it’ll go away and I can stitch you up proper.”

Sure, mane petting was nice and all, but it didn’t exactly counteract the fresh pain in the six inch open wound on my neck. After leaving the ruins, we travelled for a few miles before it got too dark to really see where we were going. We then settled down and made a campfire, sharing a bit of the meat we’d brought along from home with Kari and eating the vegetarian stuff ourselves. Inkblot also got out a bit of water and boiled it over the fire, needing it to sterilize her needles and thread. That took awhile, since the fire wasn’t very big. There was mostly just various types of grass around to make a fire out of, no real logs or trees in this exact area.

Firestorm was exhausted after walking so far in one day, so she went out quickly after dinner. Kari lasted a bit longer, but he seemed more emotionally exhausted. He didn’t talk much, other than to thank us for the food. He mostly just either stared at the dirt, the fire, or up into the sky. Eventually, though, he also rolled over on my sleeping pad I was letting him use to go to sleep.

Inkblot and I took that opportunity to head off away from them, so that I wouldn’t wake them if I didn’t take the pain of stitching up the wound too well, though I was still laying so that I could easily keep an eye on Kari and Firestorm in the campsite. She was using her own horn to light up the area around us.

I let out a long sigh and flicked my tail behind me. “I think it’s stopped now.”

“Hmm? Oh.” Inkblot pulled her hoof back from my mane and put it on my neck, slowly pulling a little on my skin in various spots as she got a closer look at my neck. “Just a bit further down and he would’ve hit the artery…”

“I didn’ need t’ know that.”

“Still. You said he was a good fighter. He nearly killed you with one swipe. Though I might’ve been able to save you with a potion and a bit of creativity.”

“Ya coulda jus’ said he really was a good fighter, Ink.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t, so nyeh.” She stuck her tongue out at me, then used her magic to pull out her needle and thread. “This isn’t exactly proper, but it’ll do. Try not to yell, Bucky. I’m trying to make this hurt as little as I possible can.”

“Yeah…” I can’t say that getting my flesh punctured by a needle repeatedly and then getting thread pulled through the tiny little hole was a good feeling, but compared to the initial hit and then the alcohol, it was barely anything.

Overall the last part of the process went fairly quickly. Other than the painful prick every twenty or so seconds, she was able to stitch it up in just a few minutes. It felt weirdly tight, like something was tugging on my neck there, but it felt… better.

Inkblot pulled back a little and smiled when she finished. “There. See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I gave my wings a little shrug. “Guess not.”

Inkblot laughed softly then put her gear away. “Now don’t tear these out, or I’ll just have to stitch it up again. You need to not do anything too… busy for a couple days.”

I snerked. “Did you just give me doctor’s orders to nap for two days straight?”

She seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “Yes. Which… you can probably start right now. I’ll take the first watch if you want.”

Now that seemed like a good offer. I started to say as much, but I stopped myself. I took my eyes off of the campsite and looked up at Inkblot, bathed in the light from her own horn. It was late at night… it was about the time she’d normally go to bed… and I finally had her where she could use some excuse to get away. “Inky?”

Her head tilted slightly. “Yeah?”

“How come… ya never answered my question?”

Her brow furrowed. “What question?”

I took a breath and let it out in a huff. “”Bout th’ stuff Grassy said.”

She blinked rapidly. “You’re still caught up on that?”

“Whaddya mean I’m still caught up on that? Ya didn’ answer, then ya kissed me outta nowhere, then ya avoid me fer like five days, and I-” I was interrupted by Inkblot’s hoof pressing up against my mouth.

She gave her head a little shake, let the light on her horn die out, then slowly slipped down and laid next to me. “I didn’t mean to not talk to you for so long, you know. First we were both busy dealing with the aftermath of all that stuff. Then I had some orders to fill… then you decided to come by at literally the worst possible time. It just happened, not what I meant for.”

I let out a slow sigh. “Then talk t’ me now?”

She gave a quick nod. “Let’s talk now.”

“Finally…” I closed my eyes for a few moments then opened them again. “So what’s with th’ kiss?”

Inkblot looked down and kicked a bit of dirt on the ground. “I wanted to shut you up, but I didn’t want you to feel hurt. So-”

“Shut me up? You agree with him, don’t-”

“No!” She shrunk back a little when she realized how loudly she’d spoken. We both looked over at Kari and Firestorm, but neither of them seemed to stir. Slowly Inkblot turned to look back at me. “I mean…” She groaned quietly. “He’s… he’s not right. But he’s… He’s half right.” I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want to interrupt her again. “You are… dangerous. Like, you use lightning for fun. That’s dangerous and you shouldn’t be doing it. Especially around little foals. Which… makes you not a great role model… for that. And… and you do pick fights. But you don’t just pick random fights. You only pick the fights that mean something. Like last week you weren’t going to fight Powder, then he insulted Lily and it changed everything.

“You’re not unreliable. You’re… completely reliable. And you do care about others, obviously. And those parts make you a good role model. So, no, I don’t agree with him, but he is partially right. But he’s also wrong too…”

Well it wasn’t great, but it was better than I’d feared. But that still left a glaring problem. “So why kiss me? Why not jus’ say that stuff?”

She pursed her lips then smacked them softly. “Why not kiss you?”

I just looked at her, dumbfounded at that answer. “Because… it’s confusin’? Like, what does it mean? Does she agree? Does she disagree? Does she like me? Does she wanna sleep over? Is she jus’ messin’ with me?”

Inkblot was listening silently for the first half, but as I got into the second half she started giggling. “You really thought I wanted to sleep over?”

“I-I-I didn’t know what to think!”

She snickered again then shook her head. “How long have we known each other, Bucky?”

“I dunno… ten years?”

She nodded. “Now do you really think I would kiss you… or ask… Or would I just find a ladder and come sleep over?”

I blinked a few times. “Well ya have done th’ ladder one before…”

“Exactly.” She leaned over slowly and gave my cheek a gentle nuzzle, not disturbing the edge of the switched up gash on the back of my jawline.

I turned my head a little bit to return the nuzzle, wincing slightly at the pain. “Do you like fillies or colts?”

She pulled back quickly. “What kind of question is that?”

I snorted. “A relevant one.”

Unfortunately it was too dark to really see if she was blushing, but I was pretty sure she was. “Colts. I think. Maybe. All my dreams are about colts at least.”

“Really? All of them.” She nodded. “Weird… mine are mostly about fillies, but there’s some colts in there too…”

She gave a little shrug. “How is this relevant at all, anyway?”

“Well-”

“No, wait, are you wanting to ask me to sleep over?

“Uh…” Was I? I didn’t actually know. Did I want her to? Maybe, I wasn’t even sure about that. If I didn’t even know if I wanted her to, how was I supposed to know if I was asking her or not? “Um… n… no…”

She snickered again and reached out with a hoof to gently shove my chest. “Words, Bucky.” Yes, words. How did those things work again? There were sounds, and they had an order, and they meant different things… Now if only I could get them from my brain to my mouth. After a few more tries and me not being able to really come up with anything, Inky shook her head. “Stop trying so hard, would you? What’s the worst that could happen if you say something.”

Now that I had an answer to. “You’d hate me ferever an’ never wanna see me again, an’ yer more popular ‘round town so they’d pick yer side an’ I’d get kicked out an’-” Once again her hoof was against my mouth, making it impossible for me to speak.

Her head was tilted down and moved closer to mine. “Buck. You are. An idiot. Got that?” I nodded slowly. “The worst that happens is I say no, and we go on being best friends, and I keep stitching you up, and you keep making me laugh, and we keep telling each other our weird dreams.”

“Why are you so much more sure ‘bout that than me?”

“Because I read books.”

“Books? They’re borin’...”

“Some. But some also give lots of good information on how stuff like that works.”

I sighed then shrugged. “I guess so.”

All was quiet for a few minutes as we simply laid there next to each other. Inkblot was the first to move, getting slowly up to her hooves. “I’ll come for a sleepover… not tomorrow night after we get back home, but the next night.” She leaned her head down and nosed at my cheek. “As your best friend, because I feel bad for making you feel bad the last week. Now, sleep well.” She turned, flicking her tail against my side, and walked back over towards the campfire.

I was a little uncertain about that, but I couldn’t keep myself from smiling some. Lily had been right. It wasn’t the answers I wanted, but… they were still good answers. Even if I didn’t understand half of them.

The next morning we all woke up and continued heading back home. I had taken the second watch while Inkblot took my spot on her sleeping mat. The trip home was fairly uneventful, but as we came into town, High Times was actually out and about right on the edge of town.

“Hey, High!”

He paused what he was doing and turned to look at us, first smiling, then with a bit of curiosity. “Hey, Buck! Back already?”

I nodded, then glanced behind me at Inkblot, Firestorm, and Kari. I smiled then looked back at High. “I think I found the fourth for my team!”

Author's Notes:

Big thanks to Scrap Metal, Kibu, and No One for helping with spelling, grammar, and plot thus far. And chapter titles!