My eyes blinked open slowly. They almost hurt to open. At first everything was blurry… and… decidedly red. I blinked a couple of times and felt the red thing against my nose. It was soft. And fuzzy.

I blew a puff of air out of my nostrils and pulled my head back, giving it a bit of a sha- “Ow!” I let out a grunt and my head fell back down to where it was. My neck was so sore… I blinked my eyes again and finally they cleared up. I glanced around and quickly realized what the red thing in front of my nose was. It was filly tummy. Firestorm was laying in front of me, half curled around my muzzle. While… reading a book?

“St…” I swallowed and cleared my throat. It was like it was clogged up or something. “Stormy? What’re ya doin’?”

Firestorm did a quick double-take before realizing I was speaking to her. “Um… reading.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why are ya readin’ right-” I stuck my tongue out quickly and gave her tummy a lick, “-here?”

She giggled and jerked away from my tongue. As she jerked away, her hindhooves came up and kicked right into my jaw. I bit my lip hard.

Her eyes went wide and she shrunk back a little after kicking me. “S-sorry, Tri…”

I groaned then simply said, “It’s fine…” I closed my eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath. At least she hadn’t hit my neck. “So my question?”

“Oh. Oh uh… ya kept… like… groaning. In pain… I wanted… I wanted t’ make sure you kept breathing. So you didn’t die. From not breathing.”

She might have some of the weirdest methods, but at least her little heart was in the right place. “C’mere.”

“Huh?”

I snorted and smiled a little. “C’mere, Stormy.” She finally worked up the courage to get closer after several seconds. “Closer.”

She slowly started to lean in closer, creeping forward little by little until her muzzle was just an inch away from mine. I snickered softly and blew a puff of air at her nose before lifting my head off of the bed and giving her a gentle nuzzle.

“So whatcha readin’?”

Stormy’s nose wrinkled up, then after I pulled back she lifted her forehoof and wiped at the place I’d nuzzled. She was smiling, though. “Um… It’s a book.”

“I know it’s a book…”

“It’s a… a…” she scooted back across the tip of my mattress and quickly closed the book. “Inkblot let me borrow it.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Well what’s it ‘bout?”

“Stuff…”

“What kinda stuff?”

Firestorm glanced back at me for a moment then looked right back at the book. She stuck a hoof out and pushed it a bit further away.

“Oh c’mon. What could it be?” I lifted my head up far enough to see the cover. Blah blah blah… “Principles of Unicorn Magic. Huh.” I lowered my head back down and looked back to Stormy. “Why hide that?”

She looked down at her hooves sheepishly and shook her head a little. “Because…”

“Aw, ‘cause why? I had t’ learn how t’ fly, ya know. I didn’t jus’ do it. Took awhile t’ figure out an’ get better at it. Sure, got teased ‘bout it… but ya already told me that yer magic wasn’t real good an’ I ain’t teased ya ‘bout it yet. Why’d I start now?”

Firestorm fidgeted some, rubbing her forehooves together before glancing over my way. Not at my face, actually. Behind my head, at my stitches. “I can’t… I can’t do anything.”

It was my turn to be confused. “Huh?”

“I can’t…” she gave her head another shake, “I couldn’t… stop the catbird from hurting you… and I couldn’t do anything to help fix it… and I couldn’t kill any of the ghouls… Can’t use a gun. Can’t-”

“First, griffin. Not catbird.” She blinked at my interruption, her eyes falling down closer to my face. “I mean yeah, they’re catbirds, but they’re called griffins. An’ second… yer totally not useless. Ya helped out… with th’ bandage. And… whatever it is yer doin’ now.”

She gulped and looked back at her book. “I’m uh… I… wanted to make sure… nothing… happened. Something I could do.”

I let out a sigh. “Hey, Stormy?” She sniffed and looked back at me. “Could ya get me a bottle’a water? There’s one in my saddlebags.”

“Oh, oh uh…” She scrambled up to her hooves and walked across the roof to my bags. I heard her open up one of the bags and rummage around, then closed it and opened up the other one. Eventually she found the water and brought it back to me. She sat down on the mattress in front of me and fought with the cap for a minute before getting it off.

I gave her a smile. “Thanks.” I lifted my head up and rolled over onto my belly so that I could pick up the water bottle in my mouth and actually drink out of it instead of all the water spilling out of the side of my mouth. Once I’d gotten a few drinks in me, I set the bottle down beside my mattress and rolled back over onto my left side. “So. Unicorn magic. Tryin’ t’ get it under control?”

Firestorm watched me drink then quickly put the cap back on the bottle after I’d set it down. “Uh… yeah. Sometimes it works… and that could, um, be useful. So… getting it to work would be… good.”

I gave a little nod. “Yeah, it would.” That water hitting my stomach was making me realize how hungry I was. Gosh, how long had I been asleep? Well, it was morning. Inkblot had rushed me home after we got back to town, and I had gone to sleep before it was even close to being dark outside… so… a really long time. And some cereal would be delicious right about now. “You can keep readin’, ya know.”

Firestorm looked between her book and me a few times before asking, “You sure?” I gave her a little nod. She delayed for another bit, but eventually settled back down on the front of my mattress and opened up the book once more.

I closed my eyes as silence came back. I was still tired, but I wasn’t sleepy. But every movement was making my neck ache, and only laying still was making it not hurt as much. But my stomach was telling me really loudly that it needed food. So… the decision for whether to get up or not was still tied.

I opened my eyes again after a few minutes and looked over Stormy. She’d moved over to the side this time, apparently no longer feeling that she needed to use her stomach as a test for whether I was breathing or not. I wasn’t sure whether I should be more focused on appreciating the gesture, or more worried with why she’d wound up so focused on me since we’d rescued her. Probably the first one… “Thanks fer keepin’ an eye on me.”

Firestorm pulled her head out of her book and glanced back at me, a little surprised at hearing me speak again. After a moment a smile started to spread across her muzzle and she looked back to her book. “You’re welcome.”

I gave a soft chuckle, but it was cut short when I heard something. Wings. Definitely weren’t mine. And judging from Firestorm looking around, she heard them too.

It didn’t take much work to figure out who it was. Even if I didn’t know I was the only one in town with wings, the voice gave it away. “Hey… is he up?”

Firestorm looked off to my side at Kari who was hovering somewhere out of my vision. She stared in that direction for a few seconds, then looked back at me. I took a deep breath then let it back out in a sigh. I rolled over onto my stomach and carefully turned my head towards Kari, trying to not hurt my neck. “Yeah, I’m up.”

“Oh! Good.” He ran a talon through the feathers on top of his head. “Can I…?” He motioned towards the roof.

I gave a slight nod. Kari flew forward and landed on the edge of the roof on my left side. Firestorm quietly looked between us two, but as the griffin landed, she closed her book and simply scooted backwards across the mattress until she was up against my left side, vaguely between him and me.

I watched her for a few moments, then looked back at Kari. I never thought that I’d be the more forgiving one of any given pairing. “So what’s up?”

Kari rubbed at the back of his neck for a bit before answering. “I… wanted to apologize again. For, you know. And, there was some other things I was confused about. But that one filly, uh… green, with a yellow mane-”

“Inkblot,” I said with a nod.

“Yeah! Inkblot. Her. She kept saying that I should go talk to you if I wanted an answer, since it was your call or something, and she couldn’t answer the question for me.”

“Alright… what’s th’ question?”

He cleared his throat and was clearly thinking of the right way to say it. He looked from me to Stormy, out to the town behind him, then back to me. “Am I supposed to be working here… or… what? I only know how to do one thing. A-”

I raised my brow and interrupted, “That one thing being?”

Kari blinked rapidly. “Bloodclaw… remember?”

I wingshrugged. “Never heard it b’fore.” I blinked when I felt a bit of pressure on my side. I turned my head a bit farther to see it, but it was just Firestorm suddenly leaning a bit more heavily into me. What was she- oh. Oh right. Bloodclaw isn’t a very nice thing to hear from a griffin that just tried to murder your friend… two days ago now, was it? I lifted my left wing a little, spread it halfway, and lightly draped it over Firestorm’s back as I looked back up at Kari.

He seemed to be shocked at my words. “Seriously? Never ever?”

I felt Firestorm shift a little under my wing, though I couldn’t tell if she was relaxing or not. “Never ever.”

Kari looked down and ran a talon over his head again. “Right… uh… my whole family are bounty hunters. Me… too. For a few years now. Started when I was twelve. Bloodclaw is one of the biggest names in the business at home… I guess you don’t get a lot of griffins down here, do you?”

I started to shake my head, but stopped when I felt the stitches stretch. “Not a lot, but they’re around. Mostly mercenaries, though. Which, I guess are like bounty hunters. Just less strictly murderous…”

“Hey, it isn’t murder.”

I snorted and laughed. “What? Since when ain’t killin’ ponies murder?”

Kari let out an exasperated sigh. “Because we only go after people with bounties on them. Generally, if there’s a bounty on your head, you’re not some little good guy running around. You’re some… jerk that did something wrong and there’s a completely good reason somebody wants you dead. So it’s fine by law. Plus at least half the bounties don’t actually require a death anyway.”

I snorted again, but before I could say anything, Stormy spoke up from under my wing. “But… but what if I paid you to kill Tri?”

He seemed a bit thrown off guard at her speaking, but recovered quickly. “Who?”

I cleared my throat and raised my right wing a little. “That’d be me.”

Kari’s brow furrowed, then he shook his head. “Well… why would you put a bounty on his head?”

Stormy was quiet for a few moments, then shrugged. “Just ‘cause.”

“That’s not exactly a good reason to put a bou-”

“How would you know why I was paying? I could lie. Or just not say.”

Kari closed his beak and looked at Firestorm for a few seconds. “If you lied, then that’s on you. Not on us. We do try and figure out why the bounties were placed so, like, we don’t accidentally end up working for some slavers or bandits or the Enclave or something. Or killing some goodie two-paws who’s better off being alive.”

Firestorm started to answer, but I gave her a soft squeeze with my wing against my side and cleared my throat to interrupt again. “Back on topic, y’all.”

Stormy nickered and pressed her head against my left shoulder. Kari covered his beak as he coughed then looked back to me. “Sorry. Again. Um… Anyway… I’m a bounty hunter. I can’t… what am I supposed to do here?”

I started to run my wing softly down Firestorm’s back as I answered Kari, “Well… like I said… yer a good fighter. You can stick ‘round an’ help us out that way. Maybe teach some of th’ younger foals, help us fight off anything that might attack us… travel with my team an’ help keep us safe when we go out scavengin’. More than th’ youngin’s contribute, honestly, an’ we still take care’a them.”

Kari let out another sigh, this one sounding a little sad. “I don’t really have much other choice, do I?”

I licked my lips slowly, then looked down a little. “Hey Stormy? Is the ladder still up?” She nodded a little. “Wanna do me a favor?” Her head pulled away from my shoulder and tilted her head up until she was looking at me. “Wanna get me some breakfast? I’m really hungry.”

She gulped, looked at Kari, then looked back at me and nodded. “O-Okay, Tripod. Um, be back soon.” She scurried out from under my wing, turned and trotted across the roof, then hopped down onto the ladder and went out of sight.

“Really? You let her call you Tripod?”

I turned my body to watch Firestorm head down, then turned back to Kari. “Why not?”

“Isn’t it a little… mean?”

I pulled my left wing back up to my side and shrugged. “Got three legs, get called Tripod. It fits. An’ since my real name is Buck, it prevents th’ little ones from mispronouncin’ it an’ makin’ all th’ adults an’ teenagers giggle.”

Kari seemed to start wording things in his head until he had a moment of clarity and realized what I meant. “Okay. Still seems weird. Like calling an idiot Dull Knife.”

“We have a mare addicted to drugs here that we call Junkie.”

His beak fell agape. “Really?!” I nodded. “Wooooow… ponies are cruel.”

I laughed. “Says the bounty hunter.” His look went deadpan and I only laughed harder. “Look, c’mere. Lay down.” I motioned with my wing to a spot on the roof in front of me.

Kari hesitated, but soon enough accepted the offer and laid down. For the first time I noticed that his eyes had almost the same brownish-red color that the feathers on his top half and head did. They almost blended in. As I looked around the rest of his face I realized something else was missing, all of the dust, dirt, and ghoul guts from the previous two days. He’d clearly had a bath. Suddenly I felt a little self-conscious about how dirty I was. There were probably still bloodstains on my right wing.

I spread my wings out to my side, shifted my weight a bit to try and get comfortable again, then pulled them back into my sides. “Why are ya so worried about bounty huntin’? Just cause yer whole family does it?”

Kari looked down for a few moments then looked back at me. “It’s our whole name… it’s what we all live to do. It’s like… okay, ponies have, like, cutiemarks, right? It’s what you’re supposed to do? Griffins don’t have those, but, this is like… my family’s… you know.”

I held up a wing for him to stop. “Right. It sounds weird, but whatever. I ain’t a griffin, so whatever. We have bounty hunting down here, too. Ya jus’ generally haveta go t’ a larger town t’ see any of ‘em. Market occasionally has some, but you’d have better luck in a place that isn’t just fer merchants. Point is… I’d be okay with you going out and… doin’ yer thing, so long as ya still stuck with us th’ rest of th’ time… and… so long as ya didn’t do anything that could possibly hurt anyone here, or anyone in th’ th’ wasteland that actually likes us an’ helps us out.”

He pulled his head back a little. “Really? You’re okay with it?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. But yer ability to tear through ghouls… an’ I’m guessin’ smarter targets like ponies too… is valuable. An’ I ain’t gonna lose it jus’ cause yer normal job unsettles ponies. Don’t get me wrong… I ain’t sure I trust ya either. Yer on a short leash, but I figure it’s worth a shot.”

Kari swallowed and nodded slowly. He fell silent, thinking things over, then spoke again after a couple of minutes, “I’m not going to wear those capes.”

I snorted. “It’s tradition… but it ain’t mandatory, so I guess that’ll be okay too.”

He just shook his head. “Just too dangerous. They could get caught up in anything, get you killed…”

“But they look awesome!”

“Rather be alive than awesome.”

I let out a long ‘pfffft’ noise. “Bein’ alive ain’t much use if ya ain’t awesome.”

Kari lifts his talon up to his face and rubbed, muttering “Ponies,” under his breath. I just snickered and leaned over, taking the cap off of my bottle of water to take another drink of it. After another minute he got tired of the silence again. “So, no butt drawing, huh?”

“That’s what yer callin’ it now?” I looked back over at the griffin, eyeing him up.

“Well, that’s what it is. Cutie mark just sounds dumb, anyway.”

“What, an’ butt drawin’ don’t?”

“It’s more correct. I’ve seen ponies with like… blood and skulls on their butt. Nothing cute about that.”

I paused, my mouth open in the middle of starting a reply. He actually was right about that. Never had thought of it that way. One bright spot of not having a cutie mark, I guess. A blank flank was a whole lot cuter than a knife. “Also, that th’ first thing ya saw? Ain’t that a little weird too? Ya said griffins don’ even have cutie marks, what ya lookin’ there first for?”

“Uh…” Kari glanced again back at my hip then snorted and pointed at my left shoulder. “Saw that first, actually. Just figured pointing it out right after gouging out your neck would be a little rude. Like, ‘Oh! I nearly took off your head. I see your leg is also missing, but I didn’t do that one. How’d that happen?’” He looked back at my face. “See?”

I snickered before letting out a proper laugh. I turned my eyes away and looked off towards the center of town, doing a quick check on the foals that were out there at the moment. “I can see why ya wouldn’t… Then ‘gain, Tripod. So yeah.”

He gave a short chuckle then fell quiet again for several seconds. “So uh… how’d… you lose your leg?”

I pulled my eyes away from the view off the edge of the roof and looked back to Kari. “Well… a dragon bit it off. Whole thing, all in one bite. Was pretty epic. Then my sister drove this massive metal pole through its heart t’ kill it, but it had already swallowed my leg.”

Kari just stared blankly at me. “You’re kidding.”

I smirked a little. “It’s either that, or there was this time we were out onna boat in th’ ocean, an’ a big giant tentacled sea monster rose up an’ grabbed onto me, tried t’ pull me overboard. My sister grabbed th’ other side, an’ there was this massive tug-o-war, an’ in th’ end my leg popped off an’ that was all th’ sea monster got, while my sister pulled th’ rest of me back into th’ ship.”

Kari continued to stare at me.

I just laughed a little and shrugged. “Every time I ask she tells a different story.”

“Who does?”

“My sister.”

“But wouldn’t your sister know how you lost your leg?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she would. But she won’t say. An’ I sure don’t know, cause I don’t ever ‘member havin’ one in th’ first place.”

Kari tilted his head. “How do you not remember having one?”

“Caaaause… it was gone ‘fore I could ‘member stuff? Er maybe I was born with three legs… I’unno.”

He shook his head. “Seems like a weird thing to keep a secret.”

“I know, right? But there we have it… I’ll give her one thing, her stories are always really cool.”

His question did remind me of one thing, though. High mentioned that he’d try to talk to Lily and get her to tell me a bit of the truth. Not today, though. Today I just wanted to rest. And eat. And maybe sleep. But I couldn’t do that yet. There was a griffin on my roof.

“So… yer parents…”

“Anything but that.”

“Sorry.” I cleared my throat, trying to get out that hoof I’d jammed in there. “So uh… how’d ya get yer muscles?”

Kari started to answer, but both of our attentions were broken as we heard steps coming up the ladder at the back of the building. A few seconds later, Firestorm poked her head up and scrambled onto the roof, carrying a small sack in her mouth. Oh good. Now I could remove the hoof from my mouth and stuff food in it.

The three of us ended up eating and chatting over lunch for awhile, and actually continued to talk after finishing the food. Firestorm had somehow found her way back underneath my clean wing at some point, but once I realized it I decided to just leave her there. Stormy eventually settled down and was a bit less hostile towards Kari, which he seemed to appreciate. She’d also started to really slow down after eating, rapidly becoming more and more tired, and then mentioned how she’d not really slept the previous night because she’d spent so much time making sure I wasn’t going to up and die in my sleep.

Turned out Inkblot had already given Kari the introductory tour around town for me. Though much like our capes, he didn’t seem too awfully excited about the other foal activities. He was weird. After a couple of hours, Kari left. Mostly because he was hungry for actual meat, and partially because Stormy had fallen asleep next to me.

After he left, I decided to just sit up in my roost and play living blanket while watching the playing foals off in the half-built playground. If anypony broke anything, they’d probably call me or Inkblot anyway, but it was still fun to watch them all run around together. My alone time didn’t last too long, however.

I slowly turned my head around when I heard steps on the ladder behind me, stretching as far as I could without hurting myself. The first thing I saw was an orangey-reddish mane, and I quickly relaxed and looked back forward. “Quiet, Lily.”

Lily stopped on the ladder. “Quiet?” I lifted up my left wing slowly, exposing Firestorm. Her response came softer, “Oh.” I snorted and lowered my wing back down, curling it up a little around Stormy.

Lily climbed the rest of the way up onto the roof and walked towards me, promptly settling down on my right side and looking at the cut on my neck. “Two things… one, you’re filthy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Skip t’ number two. Unless yer gonna give me a bath.”

Lily snickered and shook her head. “No. I’ve had enough of giving you baths. So not unless I have to. You know how many baths I’ve given you?”

I snorted softly and turned a little to look at her better. “This is gonna be good…”

Lily smiled at me. “One day, sooooooo long ago, you made me really mad. You couldn’t even talk yet. I had to give you a bath because you’d been rolling around in mud, so I took you out to the latrine first,” she pointed in the direction our new latrine was in, “to make sure everything would be good.

“So we go out there, and I’m trying to get you to take care of your business, but you just won’t do it. Half an hour, I guess… nothing. So, I figure you’re empty, and I take you off to give you a bath. And it goes good. Mostly. But right as I’m finishing up, the floodgates open. Just… you make a mess all over yourself, all over me, all over the floor. I was so mad… but all you would do was just giggle. I’d try to get you to stop, giggle. Yell at you? Giggle.” She snorted and pointed at me. “Just like that!”

I snorted and bit my lip as I tried to stop my giggling. The image of ruining Lily’s time was just too funny to not laugh at. “Hehe, sorry… uh… continue.”

She smirked faintly and gave my right shoulder a little nudge with her hoof. “Anyway, I had to clean up the mess on the floor first. While I did that, I made a promise to myself. I’d count every single bath I had to give you, starting with the second one that day because I had to clean you up again, and when you were older I’d make you make all that time up to me.”

“Really?” That seemed a little… “So… what’s th’ number…?”

Lily shrugged. “No clue, actually. I lost count somewhere around five hundred. Back when you were three or four years old. So I just said screw it and didn’t start up another count.”

My brow furrowed. “Why’d ya stop countin’?”

“Because…” She looked away from me and then looked back a few seconds later, “at some point I realized that I wasn’t counting the baths in order to keep track of time you owed me. It was nice to think about when you made things difficult, but I was never actually going to do it.”

“Oh…” My brow furrowed harder. I didn’t know what it was, but something was… weird. It wasn’t the bath thing. Of course she’d never force me to do stuff for her because of something as stupid as a bath. It was something… wait… I looked back in the direction she’d pointed during her story, then looked back at her. “Lily… how much of that story is actually true? I know I wasn’t born in Asylum, so ya didn’t take me t’ th’ latrine…”

Lily cleared her throat and cast her eyes down to the roof. “It uh… Yeah. High came and talked to me yesterday.”

I waited for her to say more, but I eventually got the clue that she wasn’t planning to. “He talked t’ ya and…?”

She let out a sigh and looked up to me again. “I have an offer to make to ya.”

I blew a puff of air out. “This’ll be good too…”

Lily pursed her lips then continued a few moments later, “I was planning on making a shorter run. Manehatten. Leave tonight, try to make it fast and be back in five days instead of the normal seven. Inkblot showed me the stuff you got on your trip after you got back yesterday. She’s right, it’s good stuff, but it won’t sell at Market. I want to go down to Tenpony and Friendship City, see if we can get good prices for it there. Then dump it all there, take the profits, maybe get a few things for the town, maybe go back and invest it at Market.”

I nodded. “An’ th’ offer?”

“While I’m there I’m going to pick up a couple of things for me. If there’s anything you want… tell me, I’ll get it for you. Also… I’m gonna pick up a gun while I’m there for you.”

My eyes went wide and I leaned away from Lily. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Seriously.” She took a breath and looked towards the stitches in my neck again. “I’m sorry. You need range, or at least the option. And I need to learn to deal with it.” She looked back to my face. “Nothing too big. A starter. Something you can control but still has enough power to stop an attacker from rushing straight at you.”

A smile started to spread across my face. I kept waiting, expecting her to take it back, but after long enough I carefully moved over to the side, put my wing over her back and pressed my head against her neck. It was an awkward hug, but it was the best I could manage at the moment without hurting myself or waking Stormy up.

Lily chuckled softly, and carefully leaned into me. She turned her head around and kissed behind my ear before whispering into it, “The story was true, though. It didn’t happen here, no, but it did happen.” She pulled back a little, “I’d tell you now, but you’ll have questions… and I don’t wanna leave when you have questions. So… I promise I’ll tell you everything when I get back okay?”

I blinked rapidly. She was actually going to tell me? I’d waited fifteen years… another five days wasn’t going to be much of a big deal. I gave her a little nod. “I’m gonna hold ya to that… Yer tellin’ me when ya get back… an’ if ya don’t… I’ll… I’ll… I’ll pee all over yer tent!” I grinned madly, then bit my lip when I felt a shift against my left side. Okay, maybe that had been a bit too loud.

Lily broke back into a smile and laughed. “Only you…” She got back up to her hooves, then kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be back soon, Buck. Love you.”

I flicked my tail and lifted my dirty right wing to wave at Lily as she turned to walk away. “Love ya. See ya.”

As Lily headed back down the ladder, I lifted my left wing a bit and looked under it to find Firestorm still curled up and half asleep. I needed to get her back to her tent and on her own mattress. I had a sleepover tonight and there was not any room for her in it.

Delivering Stormy to her tent had gone fairly smoothly. It was all dead weight, but at least she didn’t weigh as much as Inkblot. She didn’t eat as many snacks. From there I went and tried to figure out a way to give myself a bath, but quickly found that without being able to properly move my neck, there was just no way that was going to happen. As it was I already couldn’t reach my whole body. Without moving my neck, I could get… my chest and head, at most. Maybe Inkblot wouldn’t notice it? Ah, who am I kidding, of course she’d notice it. Maybe she just wouldn’t say anything about it.

My next stop was at the food building. I got into the rations and took a few of the nicer things. A bit of the sorta fresh food that came back from Market during that emergency trip that was made. I didn’t know whether or not she would’ve eaten before coming, but just in case I wanted something there for her. And me. Because either way I’d still need to eat.

The rest of the day passed quickly. The nap I took after getting back to my bed with the food may or may not have had something to do with that. By the time I woke up again the sun was starting to go away and night was rapidly falling. That’s weird. She should’ve been here by now. I rolled back over to my belly and took a drink of water. Before I’d even finished I heard hoofsteps on the ladder behind me. Well, how’s that for timing.

Inkblot came up the ladder, only she had apparently come prepared. Floating alongside her in her magic were two water bottles and a pair of rags. When she got to the top and saw me she grinned widely. “Oh, you’re actually up this time.”

I stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

She snickered and climbed up onto the roof. She used her magic to pull the ladder up behind her, closed it, and laid it down along the edge of the roof. “I came over an hour and a half ago, but you were completely out of it. And while I was here, I saw what state you were in… so…” the bottles and rags lifted in her magic as she said the final word.

I let out a sigh. “Right… dunno why I thought ya wouldn’t notice…”

She smacked her lips and walked towards me, using her magic to toss one of the rags at my head. “Don’t be like that. This isn’t even about being filthy. You didn’t even get the blood off of your wing. Do you know how unsanitary that is? And kind of gross, too. But like, all kinds of bad stuff would be all over that.”

I snorted when my vision cut out due to sudden rag attack. I lifted up my wing and pulled the rag off of my face. “I’m gross to you now?”

Inkblot stopped behind me and slapped my rump with her forehoof. “You’ve always been gross to me, Bucky. Now get off your bed, we don’t need it getting wet.”

“Pfft. Gets wet all th’ time, don’t hurt it.” Nonetheless, I did slowly get up to my hooves, walk a few feet over, then lay back down on my stomach on the rooftop itself.

Inkblot walked over to my saddlebags and started looking through them. “Yes, because you forget to put the tarp over it when it rains, and then you let foals young enough that they still have sleep-peeing issues onto your bed. Oh, oh, I still have to come up with something to compensate for the mud I had to clean off… what, nearly two weeks ago now?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Mud, an’ all that. An’ other stuff. I’m sure you’ll come up with somethin’ truly terrifyin’.”

Inkblot snorted as she pulled the jug of abraxo out of my bags then walked back over to me. “I will. Wait, other stuff? What other st-” She paused for a few moments, “Oh… oh. Right. Well at least you never made me clean that up. … Right?”

I groaned. “No… Inky… No I haven’t.”

The confidence came back to her voice. “Good. Now.” She walked around in front of me, opened a bottle of water, and got one of the rags wet. Without any warning she simply plopped it onto my head and started washing my face.

I closed my eyes in time to avoid getting them poked by her magic. Honestly it did feel good, but I’d enjoy it a lot more if it was for fun rather than a necessity. I never had been able to give myself a full bath. I could reach parts, but not everything, not with just my mouth. “Hey…”

“Yeah?” She finished with the top of my face and started to do my muzzle, cheeks, chin, and throat. As it was getting darker, her horn was starting to produce a gradually growing light to help see by.

“Have ya ever kept count of how many baths ya’ve given me?”

Inky paused to give me a confused look, but then went back to focusing on not missing any spots. “No. Why?”

I grunted softly. “Just… apparently Lily had started keeping count at one point a long time ago, but then stopped again.”

“But… why?”

“T’ keep track’a how much time I owed her, er somethin’.”

She snorted and shook her head, moving now around to the back of my neck and my shoulders. “That’s dumb. It’s her job. She can’t make you pay her back for her doing her job.”

“I gue- wait, if it’s her job, why d’ you do it?”

“Well… it’s my job too.”

“How’s it yer job?”

“Because.” She lifted up the bottle, poured some water on my back, then got to scrubbing it with the wash rag. “You’d give me a bath if I couldn’t give myself one, right?”

My tail flicked back and forth behind me. “I guess…”

Inky scoffed. “Doesn’t give me much confidence, there.”

I sighed. “Sorry, yeah, yeah I would.”

She snickered softly. “And you wouldn’t expect something from me, right?”

“Well… no.”

“See? Job. There you go. Now…” She finished wiping off my back, rump, and hips, then tossed the rag and got the second one. “You want me to just do your wings and sides, or also your belly and junk?”

I blinked a couple of times, then my ears dropped back sheepishly. “Uh… uh…”

She scoffed again. “No telling when the last time that got washed. Here, roll over and let’s make it quick.”

She put her hoof against my side and gave a little push. I resisted a little, but on her second push I gave into it and rolled all the way over onto my back. She poured water onto my belly and started to scrub. Inkblot started at the top and worked her way down, making sure everything was nice and clean, much to my chagrin, then started working on my my wings. Once she finished, she walked around to my other side and helped push me back over to my belly.

She finally decided to help me out by breaking the awkward silence of the sponge bath as she started finishing off my right wing. “Two things. First, you really need to let me do this more often. It’s a lot quicker to clean something when it’s less dirty. Second, why are your feathers in such bad shape? They look like they got run over by a cart. Broken and pointing every which way, really hard to get all the dirt out of them too.”

I tried to open my mouth to speak, but my voice cracked and clamped my mouth shut again. I finally gave it another try after clearing my throat several times. “Well… uh… two… two things. Um… first… I haven’t… I haven’t been able t’ preen in… at least as long since I’ve taken a bath. Can’t reach my wings without hurtin’ my neck. Last time I did was… ‘fore leaving on that trip… so… four er five days. Second... uh… how come ya talk like my sister?”

“Right, preening, I can do th- what? I talk like your sister?”

I licked my lips and slowly opened my eyes again. My face felt like it was returning to normal somewhat, so I glanced over at Inkblot, who was now using her magic to comb through the feathers on my right wing, the second wash rag having been discarded alongside the first one. “Ya know… all… all proper like. I dunno… just ya both did th’ whole ‘two thing’ thing an’ made me think’a it. Though yours is more proper… she kinda slips outta it now an’ then.”

“Well… I’m still from Tenpony. So I guess I picked it up and never dropped it? Your sister, though… I don’t know. I always thought she talked like you. Or, actually… now that I think about it, she used to talk more like you, but sort of ended up speaking more proper over time.” She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. Does it matter? Why don’t you ask her? What made you even notice?”

I shrugged. My face finally felt like it was back to normal. “She’d prob’ly give me th’ same answer like she gives ‘bout other stuff. I dunno… just, last few days been thinkin’ about stuff that I stopped thinkin’ ‘bout a long time ago. Which… oh yeah! Uh, she’s actually gonna start tellin’ me stuff ‘bout th’ past when she gets back from her little trip. Did you know I wasn’t born here?”

Inkblot gave me a look like she was wondering if I was stupid. “Uh… I figured, yes. Nobody’s born in Asylum, Buck. You and Lily found me and brought me in, and even back then it was only… three foals? Now we’re at thirty-something and still none of them were born here.”

I huffed at her. “Yeah well… I’d… never considered th’ possibility that I was born somewhere else. Just always figured it was here, it’s all I ‘member.”

“Guess you’ll get to learn more when Lily gets back.”

I nodded. “Speaking of tri-”

“How do you even do this preening thing with your mouth? This is hard with magic.”

I blinked and turned a bit more to be able to more easily see Inkblot. She seemed to be halfway through trying to align all my feathers, and pulling out the broken ones. “I’m… used t’ it? Plus th’ oil makes it a lot easier.”

She looked up at me. “Oil?”

Oh crap… Now I was gonna have to tell her. Either that or just let her start searching to find it. Telling her was safer. I let out a sigh and nodded slowly, then lifted my wing up above her head. “Look under my wing joint. See that… slick spot?”

Inkblot scooted closer to me under my wing and stuck her head up by my wing joint. “Yeah?”

“That… is where I get the oil from. I lick it, it gets on my tongue, then I spread it over th’ feathers when I preen. That’s why they’re shiny after I do it but not after you do it.”

“Ooooooh! I saw that before, during baths, I just thought it was from water. Wait, you lick it?”

“Like ya said, I use my mouth. Can’t get it with magic er some other cheaty thing.”

“Huh…” Inkblot leaned a bit closer, and I could feel her breath on my side as she sniffed just under my wing joint. Then I felt something that… I really should’ve expected, but I was hoping she wouldn’t actually do. She licked across the spot to gather some oil up, but immediately pulled backwards and shook her head. “Ew! It’s all… waxy! Greasy!” She started repeatedly licking her foreleg to get it back off of her tongue.

I couldn’t help but snort and break into laughter. “Really? Really? All ya do, an’ what we just did, an’ it’s this that gets ya? Really?”

She left her tongue hanging out then shook her head again, “How do you stand it? It just coats it and… ew!”

“That’s th’ idea! It coats over th’ feathers an’ keeps ‘em nice an’ straight an’ not broken.”

Inky shivered and then reached out and kicked my side with her foreleg. “Why’d you let me do that?”

I grunted from the kick. It didn’t hurt too bad, but she sure wasn’t holding back much strength. “Yer blamin’ me? I ain’t th’ one that told ya t’ lick it. I just said that’s what I do, cause I do.”

Inkblot huffed at me, but didn’t say anything else. I felt her magic pick back up along my wing, and this time I felt her hoof reach out and rub across the spot under my wing joint. She used her hoof to spread the oil along my feathers, then her magic to get it just right from there. A couple times throughout working on my wing, though, I did spy her taking careful little licks at her hoof then making an icky face afterwards, but I didn’t say anything. For the moment, anyway. I still had another idea I needed to run by her.

Eventually she finished with my right wing and moved around to do my left wing, once again using her hoof to get the oil from my left side and spread it over the feathers.

“So… whaddya think ‘bout uh… me takin’ Kari down t’ Market t’ show him ‘round a bit?”

“Hang on.” Inkblot sped up the work on my wing some, and finished after a couple more minutes. She gently pushed my wing back up to my side, then gathered up the dozen or two orange feathers she’d pulled out of my wings. “Just the two of you?”

“Well… yeah.”

Inky picked up all the feathers in her magic, then walked back across the roof and laid down on my mattress with them. “Why just you two? The fillies aren’t invited?”

I cleared my throat and got back to my hooves, followed her back to my mattress, then laid down next to her on it. “Well I guess you can come if ya want. But jus’ th’ two’a us flyin’ would make it a lot quicker trip. Firestorm, though… I don’t think she should-” I paused and did a quick double-take, looking at Inky. She was putting a couple of the pulled feathers into her muzzle and running her mouth up and down them. “What th’ hell’re ya doin’?”

Inkblot pulled the feathers back out of her mouth quickly. “I’ve always done it with my magic, it’s about time I learned the right way to do it.”

I just stared at her. “But… but why?”

“Everything’s better if it’s done the right way.” She said it quite matter-of-factly.

“I… I…” I pulled my own wing up and ran it down my face. “Whatever. Anyway, Stormy ain’t happy ‘bout him bein’ a bounty hunter, an’ I’d be showin’ him that we got bounty huntin’ down here too, so he ain’t completely outta place.”

Inky put my feathers down and gave me a look. “What, are you going to go grab a bounty or something?”

“Well…” I shook my head, “No… jus’ go show him where they get posted, like… I told him that we wouldn’t stop him from goin’ an’ doin’ it so long as he stuck ‘round here an’ helped out when it was needed. He wants t’ live up t’ his family name er somethin’.”

“Right…” She let out a sigh, then shifted and leaned against my right side. “Promise me you won’t let him talk you into something stupid.”

My brow furrowed when she leaned against me. “Promise you?”

“Yes.”

“What you consider stupid ‘r what I consider stupid?”

“Me.”

I sighed. I gave a slow shake of my head, then wiggled my right wing out from between us and laid it out over her back. “I promise I won’t let him talk me inta something you consider stupid.”

“Good.” She pressed her head into my neck, but then pulled away again and started inspecting the wound on that side. “I can probably take these out in a couple more days. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. I think… tomorrow you should be good and not have to worry about splitting it open again or breaking the stitches.”

“Is it gonna scar up?”

Inkblot clicked her tongue a few times. “Yeah, but I don’t think it’ll be too bad. Plus when your coat grows back over it properly, it’ll cover it up and make it real hard to see unless you’re looking for it.”

“Well I’ve got that at least.”

“It’ll make you look tough. Godesses know you need that.” She leaned forward a bit, let the light from her horn fade away, then grabbed one of the apples I’d brought from the storage building in her magic and took a bite out of it.

All I could do was roll my eyes. “Thanks, Inky.” She simply gave a muffled giggle, then held the apple in front of my muzzle to offer me a bite. I thought about telling her where she could shove that apple, but I was hungry.

After I took a bite she pulled the apple back. “If you looked tougher, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten attacked like that in the first place.”

I simply snorted and shook my head. Useless to try to argue, really. After swallowing the apple I asked, “Why am I friends with you again?”

She snickered. “Because.”

I sighed. “That helps, thanks…”

“What was your first kill?”

My head tilted and I looked over at Kari. That… was an odd question. And five minutes before we were gonna land at Market seemed like an odd time to ask that odd question. “Uh… it was… a ghoul, I think. Was tryin’ t’-”

Kari shook his head, “No, no, I mean pony or griffin or whatever. Not ghouls and animals and junk.”

I chewed on my tongue for a moment, then looked back ahead of me, making sure I didn’t drift off course while we flew. “Uh… I… I ain’t never killed a pony. Or a griffin. Or, ya know, anything like that.”

“Really?”

“Uh… really. You have?”

“Bounty hunter family, remember?”

“Right…” I blinked a few times before squinting to try and keep the wind out of my eyes. I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to know, but it was polite… “So uh… what was yer first kill?”

“A thief. Griffin. She’d stolen some… I don’t even remember what, but she’d stolen it, and the owner wanted it back. Actually he wanted her alive, wanted to question her. He didn’t think she was working alone or something. It was my… second contract.”

I glanced back over at Kari, “Wait, if he wanted her alive, why’d ya kill ‘er?”

Kari used his talons and forelimbs to shrug. “I tried. But she heard me coming, and she was real trigger happy. That was also the first time I got shot… We shot at like the same time, but mine killed and hers just hit here,” he patted his right shoulder.

“Didn’t ya say you were twelve when you started bounty huntin’?”

“Yeah.”

“An’ ya survived gettin’ shot?!”

“I’m tough? I don’t know. Well… my mom was outside and she fixed me up real quick after.”

“Guess that ‘splains a few things…”

“Huh?”

I gave my head a slight shake. I’d been thinking that Inkblot must not have really hit him hard with her pistol back in the carriage, but… maybe she had. Wasn’t about to actually bring that up again, though. I stuck my foreleg out in front of me and pointed at the settlement that was appearing in the distance in front of us. “That’s Market.”

Kari continued to look at me for a bit but then followed my gesture and looked down at the town. “Kinda… small, isn’t it?”

“Small means it draws less attention from somepony who’d wanna rob it. Not a lotta room t’ hide, an’ good guard… means it’d be hard t’ get ‘round in an’ get ‘way with stuff.”

“Oh… well. Just seems weird.”

“Welcome to the wasteland!” I laughed and tilted downwards, picking up some speed as I descended down towards Market with Kari right behind me. I pulled up short and landed at a fast canter, then slowed down to a walk as I pulled my wings in.

Market even had a token wall built around it with a large gate at the front. A couple of caravans were entering in front of us while yet another was in the middle of leaving. Mostly ponies, but a couple of the mercs guarding the carts were griffins. I glanced back at Kari to see if he saw them, but he didn’t seem to give any sort of reaction at all. Honestly I didn’t know if that was weird or not.

As we got closer, the other caravans got cleared to enter or exit, leaving the gate area empty except for a few travellers who were still coming or going. When we got to the gate itself, one of the guards, an earth pony mare, came out and held up a hoof to stop us. I slowed to a stop, but Kari stopped right in his tracks. I glanced back at him to see him eyeing the guard mare and sizing her up carefully.

She looked us over, looked at my cloak, then looks to me, “You guys are back already?”

I looked back at the mare, tilted my head, then remembered we’d just had a cart come through here like just over a week ago. “Nah, we’re jus’ visitin’.”

The guard mare shrugged then stepped back and waved us in. I gave her a nod then continued walking on. Kari hesitated for a moment, but followed after me a few seconds later.

Once we were well inside and away from the wall I slowed and looked back at him. “Dude. Relax. What was that about?”

Kari caught up to me quickly and shook his head. “Just… nothing.”

“I seen nothin’, an’ that ain’t nothin’...”

That ruffled his feathers. Literally. “Look, it was nothing, okay? Can we go where we’re going?”

I leaned away from him a little then shrugged with my wings. “Alright, if ya say so… An’ we’re headin’ this way.”

More griffin weirdness could be dealt with later. When we weren’t in a miniature sea of strange ponies. Would that be a pond? A lake. No, pond. Not big enough for a lake. There were big aisles set up with little stands on each side of the aisle. The travellers walked through the middle and could see and purchase or trade… or even sell goods on either the left or the right. There were a good four or five aisles that took up just over half of Market. The other half was an inn, a bar, a little government building, some other buildings that I didn’t actually know what they were for, and the spot where they kept all the carts for purchase or rent.

I lead him on past the aisles and to the far side of Market, back where all those buildings were. The largest chore was just getting past all the travellers and merchants without getting stepped on. They didn’t really tend to look down, so anypony shorter than them was liable to get a hoof somewhere they didn’t want one.

The area actually past the main market area was much less busy, though. I took a deep breath once we got out of the crowd and gave my body a shake.

Kari stepped up next to me and tapped my shoulder with a talon. “Why didn’t we just fly over all that?”

I blinked a couple of times. “Uh… Flyin’s… totally… off limits… er somethin’...” I coughed into my wing. Yeah, totally. “This way!” I broke into a trot and ran for the government building.

It wasn’t so much that building we were after, but rather the side of it. The entire length was made up into one giant bulletin board that pretty much anyone could put up notices on. Jobs, items for sale, items somepony wanted to buy, missing ponies, even bounties. There were a few other equines looking at the board as me and Kari trotted up. Two ponies and a zebra. They all definitely looked the mercenary type.

“And here’s th’ big board, Kari. It’s just general purpose, but chances are ya can find what yer lookin’ for.”

Kari stepped past me after I spoke, getting up closer to the board to start reading some of the papers. I started to look around, but my eyes got pulled down. To Kari’s tail, actually. It was long and skinny, and just the normal layer of fuzzy coat all along its length. Orange at the base, but it faded towards white at the middle and end, and all along it were black stripes ringing around it.

It was so different from a pony tail. I mean, Kari wasn’t the first griffin I’d seen, but he was the first one I’d spent more than five minutes in the same general area with. It was just flicking back… and forth… and back… and forth… the end curling up more than the rest as it swung. It was kinda mesmeri-

“Are you staring at my butt?”

I jumped backwards, my ears flattening and a blush instantly forming at hearing that question. I shook my head. “No! No no. I was just… yer… yer tail, it was-”

Kari snorted, “It was what?”

“It was… was… it was doin’ tail things!” I heard snickering from off to the side. One of the other ponies who’d been there at the board. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to think about that.

“Right. I’m just going to choose to believe you.”

I felt a piece of paper flick against my nose and I opened my eyes. Kari had torn off one of the notices and was holding it for me to read.

‘Wanted: Female unicorn, tan, olive tail, green eyes. Thief responsible for stealing food from hungry family. Reward: Up to 500 caps for capture and return.’

I blinked, my blush fading a bit as my mind now had something else to think about. “If they have five hundred caps, what’re they so hungry for? An’ how could anyone find th’ pony off’a that?”

Kari simply snorted again. “You really have no idea how this whole thing works, do you?”

My brow furrowed, I looked up at him, and I shook my head. “No…”

He grinned wide at me. “Then come watch and learn.” He turned and started to head around for the front of the building.

I bit my lip hard, then slowly started after him. Was he really planning on taking up a bounty and doing it right now? I’d just been planning to show him where he could find them…

We rounded the corner and he opened the door. “First step, answer your first question. Five hundred cap bounty most likely means it’s not put out by the same people who got stolen from.”

Oh, good… so now even more ponies were thrown into the mix… that always made things simpler. I bit my lip again, then hurried in after Kari before the door shut behind him. I was really hoping this wasn’t something Inky would consider stupid.

“And keep your eyes off my butt. That’s the last thing we need when talking to them about this stuff.”

There’s the blush again! “I-I wasn’t staring, I… I’m not, I’m not even g- not even…” I let out a groan and rubbed my face with my wing. This was going to be a long day.

Author's Notes:

Big thanks to Kibu, No One, and Scrap Metal for grammar, plot, spelling, and stuff.