Dear Diary,

Like a typical stable overmare’s office, it was a sizeable room with dark wood paneling and hardwood floors, framed portraits on the walls, a large desk and chair in the center, and leather sofas and chairs off to the side. However, since this office was for the overmare of the entire province, it needed to be about 20% more official than a typical overmare’s office. Hence, in addition to the provincial government’s seal on the desk and the province’s flag on the wall behind it, you had actual rugs on the floor instead of rubber mats, more pictures, sculptures, and other trinkets on display throughout the room, better leather on the furniture, more beer cans in the wastebasket, and half of everything had to be either gilded or gem-encrusted. Even the ballpoint pens. The room itself was heated fairly warmly, but it still gave me chills due to how eerily reminiscent of the principal’s office at the school I went to before the war: just add a bunch of trophies, a few layers of dust, and dim the lights, and you’ve got it. I had only been there once, and ever since I had tried my hardest to keep away from that place... and from the demon who claimed the room as its lair.

I'm uncertain of whether or not this was an intended feature, but the overmare in this stable glowed with an air of extreme conceit. Was this typical of stables? I had only been in one, and even her strongest supporters would acknowledge that she was cowardly and weak-willed. On one hoof, it was nice to see a stable with a strong, confident leader for once, but did she really have to be so haughty? Throughout our very brief (but telling!) interaction, she conducted herself with the self-important air befitting an heir to the plucking throne. All of this information was contained in the single glance she gave us upon entering.

The three of us approached the desk, and my companions gave deep bows. I was surprised, as she wasn't part of the nobility or anything, but reluctantly followed suit with a much smaller and less demeaning bow of my own.

"You may rise," the Governor said.

We did. I did so very quickly.

"My guards tell me that Justice Corpus has recently been foal napped," she said, fiddling with the Newton's cradle on her desk as she spoke.

"Yes, your Honor," Day said. "We were there when it happened. We tried to stop it, but--"

"Yes, I know," the Governor replied tersely. "I would send some of my own guards, but we're a bit overextended at the moment. Which is why I have decided to delegate the task to you three. Your task is to track down that thing and kill it without killing the Chief Justice. Don't bother bringing her back here; simply escort her to the nearest Steel Ranger and they'll take it from there. Don't think of yourselves as mercenaries-- it's against my policy to farm out my work to hit mares. Think of yourselves as citizens impressed into service to perform a patriotic duty on behalf of the Princess, your fellow citizens, and justice itself."

"Are we still getting paid?" Grapevine asked. Day glared at her and almost lifted his hoof, (presumably to jam it into her mouth,) but managed to restrain himself.

"Why yes, of course," the Governor replied dismissively. "Adequate compensation will be given, but only after you complete the task and all of its conditions. Discuss the details with the Captain of the Guard."

"Why are you sending us against a monster that five Steel Rangers couldn't kill?" I asked. "Wouldn't it make more sense to have us guard somewhere so you can free up more Rangers?"

Day and the Governor were horrified; Day by my bluntness and supposed impropriety, and the Governor by... who knows what?

“No, of course not!” the Governor said. “Of course not! I-- er… the citizens would never trust some random mercenaries in their settlements. They want soldiers with training and discipline. And would certainly lose faith in us if we resorted to that. As much as you want to help, I cannot let you. You are contractors. You have one assignment. You are to put all of your attention and energy into completing that assignment until Justice Corpus is brought back to us. Any additional work will be given at my discretion. Do I make myself clear?.”

“Yes,” I answered. Then, hesitantly, I added, “...Your Honor.”

“And do I have your word that you will follow my instructions to the letter?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“Good. That’s what I like to hear. You may leave now,” she said with a dismissive hoof gesture.

We quickly bowed and left.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I had been on edge during the entire meeting, fearing that one slight misstep could lead to some sort of reprisal. My companions also seemed to relax a little. Once we were out of the receptionist’s earshot, we began talking.

“Wow, does she really have to be that stuffy?” Grapevine asked.

“No, but she’s kind of entitled to be that way,” Dmitry replied. “She is, after all, the Princess’s representative.”

“Well, she isn’t representing the Princess that well,” said Grapevine. “She may be super formal, but she ain’t haughty.”

“We shouldn’t talk bad about the Governor while we’re here,” Dmitry said. “Let’s eat dinner here before we leave.”

“Wow, it’s been ages since we’ve had food this fresh!”

Technically, this wasn’t true; in several of the towns we’ve visited we had some vegetables that were harvested pretty recently. What Grapevine meant was that the fruit and vegetables sold in the stable’s cafeteria were much bigger and a lot greener than the dry and bitter crops grown on the surface.

“And how long do you mean by ‘ages?’” asked a mare sitting across the table.

“Two months,” Dmitry replied.

“And even longer for apples!” Grapevine chimed in.

Coincidentally, I was biting into an apple just as she said this. Unlike most ponies, I never really liked apples all that much, but this one was the tastiest and juciest one I’d had since last October.

“The hell?” gawked a gruff-voiced stallion wearing one of those weird orange utility jumpsuits that Steel Rangers wear under their suits… or astronauts wear under theirs. “I thought 76 was close by. A few days walk at most. Ya got lost in the wastes or something?”

“We did a few loops around Roseport, then we came straight here,” Grapevine said. “We’ve been out for about two and a half weeks.”

“You guys seem kind of...” the mare across the table began, lost for words. “...emaciated.”

“Grapevine looked down to her body, then at the bodies of her companions, then at the ponies across the table, then at ours.”

“Huh,” she said. “I don’t feel emaciated.”

“How much food did they give you at mealtimes?” the mare asked.

“As much as we wanted,” Grapevine said. “Though most ponies just took as much as you did.”

The mare was getting visibly frustrated.

“Then how--?”

“Our food supply was cut off,” Dmitry said. “There was a… hmmmm, how do I put this? Um… there was a revolt--”

“A revolution!” Grapevine exclaimed.

“There was a civil war,” I said, my first contribution to the discussion.

“That’s a much better way of describing it,” said Dmitry. “A civil war slash rebellion. That was instigated by--”

“There was this mad scientist guy who called himself ‘Doctor Balefire,’” Grapevine began, “...and he liked to go on these long rants about how there wasn’t enough racial purity in the stable or whatever and claimed there were a bunch of changelings an’ zebras an’ bat ponies and shit ‘hiding among us’ and all the pegasi were traitors to Equestria or whatever an’ that the overmare was incompetent for some reason and he formed this gang that went around randomly murdering ponies… come to think of it, was he actually a real scientist? ‘Cause I’ve never actually seen him do any research or anything.”

“No, he was a real scientist,” Dmitry said. “He was brought on as the stable’s ‘resident radiation expert,’ I think. Honestly, I think he did a pretty good job explaining what he thought was going on outside, and his rants were tolerable until he decided to inject himself into stable politics.”

“‘Tolerable?’” asked the sympathetic mare. “What’s tolerable about racism? Especially when it’s vile enough to cause murders?”

“By ‘tolerable,’ I meant ‘avoidable,’” Dmitry said. “We didn’t always have to deal with that guy, then all of a sudden everything became about him.”

…

There were a few minutes of heated silence. Then, just as the mare was about to ask another question, I intervened, desperate to change the subject.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I suggested, desperate to change the topic. “Can anypony tell me about that giant wolf thing downtown?”

“Oh, you mean Attila?” the Steel Ranger asked. “Yeah, he’s been a thorn in our side fer several months now. He’s mostly just harassed us and stole supplies, never doin’ anything aggressive until now... ”

He trailed off in thought for a few seconds, then added,

“...Come to think of it, I think he’s been gettin’ more adventurous by the week. I think he’s testin’ us.”

“He used to be one of those Diamond Dogs before the war,” said the mare. “He was a common criminal, constantly going in and out of jail. The day the bombs fell, they were escorting him and some other prisoners to the county courthouse for trial. When the air raid sirens went off, the guards panicked and locked them in the prison bus and fled to shelter. They eventually broke free.”

“Then he mutated into… well… whatever he is now,” the Steel Ranger said. “Don’t know if it was the initial exposure or the fallout. We started getting reports of a werewolf about a month or two later.”

“Great….” I said sarcastically. “...How do we kill him?”

“Well, I’m guessing you’ve seen what he’s capable of,” said the Steel Ranger. “His hide’s awfully strong, since normal bullets just seem like papercuts to him.”

“So we know what doesn’t work on him,” I said, “But can you tell me anything that does?”

“I know something that works,” said a second Steel Ranger who had just walked in with a squad clad in nearly spotless chrome armor. His helmet was off, revealing a silvery-grey stallion with a mane as white as ice. His amber eyes seemed to light up as he spoke.

“A twelve gauge shotgun filled with explosive rounds,” he said. “That got my squad out of a pinch once.”

“Explosive rounds?” Grapevine asked, eyes growing wide. “You mean… rounds that explode?”

“Just like a grenade,” the silvery ranger answered. “And you can’t find these rounds just anywhere-- they’re strictly for military use. But… I have a personal collection I’d be willing to part with in exchange for some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.”

“Really, Rhodium?” asked the mare. “You’re asking them to smuggle in junk food?”

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” the silvery ranger replied. “Besides, it’s just a treat for special occasions. Like when we finally kill Attila.”

“Sounds more like you’re trying to bribe Platinum again,” said the first Steel Ranger.

“Hey, It isn’t a bribe!” Rhodium answered sternly. “She’ll be asking-- no, begging me for them. Everypony knows she has a huge sweet tooth beneath that stoic facade.”

The three descended into an argument over Rhodium’s intentions. Dmitry took the opportunity to ask me about our strategy.

“Do we really need these rounds? If they act like grenades, why don’t we just use grenades instead?”

“That’s a good point,” I answered. “Let’s ask our resident explosives expert. Hey Grapevine, what do you think?”

She was busied herself with playing with her fork, which she held between her teeth. When I asked her, she stopped and stared blankly at me.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think we need explosive rounds to kill that monster, or could we just use grenades?”

She spat the fork out and started pondering.

“Hmmm… I reckon we could use grenades or mines, but I’d need to do some tests in the field to know for sure. But an explosive round would probably have a better chance of piercing its hide or shell or whatever and actually causing injury. If it’s as thick as they say, then our options may be limited to explosive shells, cleverly placed mines, or Celestia forbid, a Balefire egg.”

“Let’s go with a kitchen sink strategy then,” I said. “We’ll get those shells, then throw everything we’ve got until we know what works.”

When we returned to the surface, the sky was pitch black and the air seemed… cold. A lot colder than usual.

“It feels like it’s late October,” I said. “Winter’s coming early this year.”

“Considering we’ve seen snow this early, we should expect the worst,” Dmitry said.

Right after he said this, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, immediately followed by a thunderclap.

“Damnit, ya jinxed us,” Grapevine said.

“We should find a place to sleep tonight,” I said. “That castle-house seems like a good fit.”

We went back a few blocks to where we saw the manor-like house, navigating through the darkness by the glow of our pipbucks. After sweeping the house to ensure that nothing had taken up residence there already, we set about boarding up some of the windows on the second floor with tools and boards from a small garden shed behind the manor. This had gotten our blood running, so even though it was late at night none of us felt like going to bed yet, so we hung out in the living room for a while and waited, as if exhaustion was a houseguest who was on his way and would knock on the door at any minute. I kept pacing around anxiously because I had something on my mind but couldn’t find the right words to express it. Eventually the others took notice.

“Is something wrong, Silver?” Dmitry asked.

“I’m having second thoughts about this ‘mission’ of ours,” I said. “Why are we wasting our time fighting some invincible monster that even the Steel Rangers can’t defeat? We already have a mission to complete, and we don’t have time for useless sidequests like this. At this rate, it might take us until November to finish it, and it’ll probably be the dead of winter by then. Unless we find nothing and have to travel to Seaddle or San Flankcisco instead. Then by the time we return it’ll be too late and everypony will be dead.”

“But this might be the key to saving the Stable,” Dmitry responded. “If we help them, maybe they’ll help us. If we can bring just a squad of Steel Rangers back with us, we can stop the bloodshed and start rebuilding again.”

“They’re already overstretched,” I replied. “If they can’t even handle one monster, how can they handle a dozen?”

“Maybe they’re just testing us,” Dmitry said. “Sometimes police will hire PI’s to take on cases that are too dangerous for themselves.”

“That’s even worse!” I exclaimed. “If they have the resources to do it but won’t, then that just shows how little they care.”

“Well, we can’t back out now,” Dmitry replied. “Regardless of the government’s motives, this Attila guy is clearly a threat to civilians.”

“And what about the Stable?” I asked. “There are civilians there too!”

“The stable can wait,” Dmitry said. “We have a more pressing mission here. We can’t just quit now.”

“Earlier today you said we should get out of this town as soon as possible,” I said. “What gives!?”

“It’s because we found civilians here,” Dmitry said. “They need protection against that big monster. If the government can’t provide it, then it falls to those of us willing and able.”

There was a pause. Then he added,

“Besides, we gave our word. You gave your word. YOU said ‘of course!’”

“We didn’t sign a contract or anything,” I replied. “We didn’t take any payment, so we have no obligation to do it. They probably half-expect us to bail anyway, so why don’t we?”

Dmitry raised his voice a little, which startled me because it’s something I’ve rarely seen him do.

“We still gave our word. We promised. It’s not honorable to break a promise.”

“It’s amusing that we’re talking about honor when this is the Governor we’re talking about,” I retorted. “The fucking Governor. Since when does Governor Hayes keep her word? She probably won’t even pay us.”

“Look, I don’t like her any better than you do, but we still have to follow through on our commitment,” Dmitry said. “If we don’t, then we’re no better than she is. And besides, we still have to respect her authority. She is our Governor, after all.”

“Well, she’s not my governor,” I said. “I didn’t vote for her. What basis does her authority rest on? Having an army?”

“None of us voted for her,” Dmitry replied. “She was appointed. Her authority comes from Princess Luna deciding she was the best fit for the job.”

“Why would Princess Luna appoint such a terrible governor?” I asked. “Did she even consider it? Or did she follow the recommendation of some advisor since our little corner of Equestria is so insignificant to those ponies?”

“Like it or not, she is a duly appointed representative of the Crown,” Dmitry said. “It’s our duty to obey her.”

“Well, I don’t think her authority is legitimate,” I said. “She doesn’t act like a leader, so she deserve it. Her own guards say she hasn’t left that bunker once, even though they’ve proven that it’s completely safe. What kind of a leader leads from behind and won’t visit her subjects in their time of need? A fucking coward, that’s who!”

“Her legitimacy is not up for debate,” Dmitry said. “She’s probably the highest ranking royal official left. Do you think Luna or any of the other Princesses would want us to subvert the chain of command?”

I gave a deep sigh.

“No, I don’t think they would,” I said. “But who cares? Princess Luna isn’t here to tell us what to do. And even if she was, that still doesn’t give me an obligation to obey her if her own fucking army won’t. There’s nothing special about ‘The Crown,’ or any other country’s Crown, for that matter. The rest of your species realized that years ago!”

Dmitry was horrified. In retrospect, my words probably constituted treason, and maybe blasphemy to some extent.

“Hey, don’t bring Queen Chrysalis into this!” Dmitry exclaimed. “Her authority was 100% legitimate, and the usurpation does not change that!”

Throughout this, Grapevine had remained silent and watched from the sidelines, becoming more and more concerned as the argument heated up, but until now she had nothing to contribute and no reason to intervene. The mention of Queen Chrysalis changed all that. Now, armed with a list of atrocities and equine rights abuses supposedly committed by the deposed monarch and her regime, she went full frontal into the argument. Now, I admittedly know very little about changeling history, but I think I know enough to hold my own in an argument against a laypony. I felt bad for Dmitry having to face an ignorant tirade against his country and people, but since we had just come out of a heated argument, I felt no particular need to defend him, so I simply walked out of the room and let the two duke it out.

In contrast to the living room, which exploded with light and noise like the interior of a combustion engine, the night was cold, quiet, and dead. It also stretched all around me, enveloping my surroundings in a shroud of darkness, or unlight. It felt like I had left the safety of a spaceship and now wandered through the infinite void of space. As the realization of my own vulnerability dawned on me, I began to feel naked and afraid.

‘I would kill for one of those power armor suits,’ I thought. ‘And those metal helmets with lamps on top.’

I thought so much about space that I started to believe I actually was in space, and began to choke on the thin air and feel weightless. Then, realizing what I was doing, I stopped and took a deep breath. Then another. And then another. The extra oxygen helped my brain snap out of it, and now I was fully aware of my surroundings. It no longer felt as cold or looked so dark. It now merely seemed like I was out for a walk on a cold winter night, something I would often do before the war. I also recognized the invisible tether which kept me from straying far from the spaceship of the house. I whipped out my pipbuck and tuned it to the ‘local map’ feature. Between that and my own senses, I was confident I could navigate on my own. I mentally severed the tether and ventured out into the night.

Then, hiding between some trees, I spotted a pair of red bloodshot eyes glowing faintly in the night behind a bush. I blinked, then stepped closer to get a better look and confirmed that yes, I did see a pair of eyes. They seemed to be staring at me. I slowly backed away until I was on the other side of the street, then slid behind a tree. I then activated my invisibility spell and crept out from behind the tree so I could move into a nearby bush, moving slowly and deliberately to avoid making any noise. Once was crouched behind the bush, I brought out my hunting rifle, took aim, and fired.

But just before the bullet hit its target, a claw emerged from the bush where the eyes were and swiped the bullet away, sending it flying down the street where it hit the side mirror of a parked car. My jaw dropped in awe. But as I marveled at the precision, the beast jumped out of the bush, dashed across the road, and before I knew it, its face was inches away from mine. Unmistakably, it was Attila, the werewolf I had seen earlier and heard so much about.

“Leave,” it said in a deep, gruff, husky voice that you’d only hear from a dark lord in a fantasy movie, spoken through a mouth teeming with sharp pointy teeth. As it spoke, it let out a warm, soggy breath-- that of a dog’s, but somehow even worse.

“You can talk?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m insulted you would think otherwise.”

“Well, I just thought that maybe--”

“I may be a mutant, but I still have more sense than any of the ponies in this town. If you had any sense, you would leave.”

“But I have a job to do,” I replied. “I can’t leave until--”

“I have no quarrel with you, pony. This is between me and the Governor. Stay out of it.”

“First, release the innocent bystander you foalnapped,” I said as firmly as I could. “Then I’ll leave.”

“As long as she works for the government, she is not a bystander.”

He paused for a moment, then smiled with a monstrous grin and asked,

“And how do you know she’s still alive? For all you know, I may have eaten her already.”

“Then give me the body,” I retorted sternly. “My orders are to return her, dead or alive.”

“So you saw through my trick,” he said bemusedly. “You are clever, pony, but you are stubborn. I will tell you again: leave this place. Abandon your mission. Continue on your merry way. You are not the first mercenary that hag has sent for me, and you will not be the last. The smarter ones understood that and live to tell the tale. The fools I keep as trophies.”

“I won’t let your threats deter me,” I said. “Why don’t you just kill me then, since I’m clearly one of the fools?”

“I don’t want to kill you. As I said, this is between me and the Governor. I am giving you a choice. If you and your friends pack up and leave at the break of dawn, I will not pursue you, and it shall be as if we had never met. If you linger, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt for three days. If you remain past the third day, I will consider you a threat and will not hesitate to kill you. If you attempt to pursue me, I will consider you an employee of the Governor, and I will act in self-defense. Choose wisely.”

He stood up on his hind legs, his towering body casting a long shadow in the pale moonlight. Although I guessed he was about seven hooves tall, from my position on the ground he appeared to be at least twenty hooves. He looked around and, upon seeing nothing, crouched down on all fours again, turned around, and scampered off into the night.

Only when he was gone did I begin to slowly get up on my hooves. I looked around for any signs of the beast, but he had left. The only trace was a large footprint he had left in the ground. It was about three inches deep and seemed to resemble a dinosaur’s foot. I placed my own hoof inside for comparison. It was about an eighth of the size.

I kept walking down the road, feeling very confined between the houses and towering trees surrounding me. I pondered my choices: either hunt him down or vacate the city. With my Stable collapsing in on itself, sightseeing was off the table. Although the Stable was in dire straits, the fact that my fellow Stable-dwellers had survived this long against all odds gave us a bit of hope and some leeway. The main limiting factor was winter. If this year would be anything like last year, travel would become nearly impossible and we’d have to hunker down until February at the earliest. I doubt the Stable can survive that long. Therefore, we would have to find our solution by mid or late October and return by mid-November at the latest. Black Friday would be stretching it, but it’s a good mental deadline. According to my Pipbuck’s calendar feature, that would be the 28th of November.

Knowing this, we have two options: spend time fighting this werewolf thing for a chance that the government might spare some troops to help us fix our stable, or continue south to the Stable-Tec facility in Deer Creek, where there, although far from a guarantee, there’s a much better chance we could get help. Barring that, we might have to go up to Seaddle or down to San Flankcisco. Staying here seems like a waste of time, especially since the target we’ve been asked to kill seems near-invincible. It’s not something I want to do, but I may not have a choice: Dmitry seems pretty set on finishing this, so I’m kind of stuck here. There’s also the fact that this monster just threatened to kill me. Though his terms were pretty generous, allowing us a few days to sightsee. But I’m not here to sightsee, and it wouldn’t be very enjoyable anyway if we have some beast constantly watching us.

I had reached a park, an open space where the trees and houses parted allowing a clear view of the sky. In the sky, a gaping circular hole had appeared in the clouds as if somepony had punched through it. Through the hole I could see the bejeweled night sky, and with it, the crescent of a waning moon.

Moon.

Like Luna, that quasi-goddess who used to lead our country. I always liked her a bit more than her sister, and always believed she was doing the right thing for our country, no matter what her critics said. And she had a lot of critics. They say that before the war, she knew some kind of spell that let her ‘walk’ through the dream realm and visit ponies’ dreams like rooms in a house. They say that she would seek out those who were troubled and talk to them about their problems, earning her the nickname ‘Equestria’s Guidance Counselor.’ Then during the war, additional duties were thrust upon her so she did that less and less. Eventually, these dream appearances became so rare that somepony set up a website to track them. Last time I went there, there had been four months without a sighting. I used to hope she might come to me, but I lost hope after realizing that I had better odds of winning the Cascadia Lottery. With that, I’d only be competing against the rest of my province.

“Where are you, Luna?” I asked.

Then, after getting no response, I shouted,

“Damnit, Luna! You’re less reliable than a lottery ticket!”

More silence.

“Fine, ‘Princess’ Luna. There, I used your title. Not that you care, anyway. You’re too humble for that… unlike the bitch who runs this place. Why couldn’t you switch places with our Governor and run this place instead?”

Still no response.

“Alright, I take that back. I’m asking for too much, aren’t I? Can you at least give me a sign that you’re still there?”

I stared at the moon for a bit and waited for some sort of response, but there was only an eerie silence. Even the sound of wind blowing through leaves would have been welcome, but there were no leaves, only the empty whistling of the wind as it swept through the barren streets.

“Fine then, be that way!” I shouted. “Abandoning us just like you always do. I don’t even remember why I liked you.”

Of course, I did remember why I liked her. It was because, between Equestria’s Princesses, I had always found her to be the most relatable. After all, we only had two: the happy-go-lucky perfect one and the dark, brooding one (we actually had more, but most of them were essentially just variations on each other, with the former of the two coming in white, pink, or purple varieties while the latter was unique and unreplicable). I don’t particularly hate any of them, but I just can’t bring myself to sympathize with flawless and popular. But a dark, brooding, introverted princess who’s made some big mistakes and been ignored for most of her life? That sounds exactly like me… minus the princess part.

And where was she now? Probably dead, as I’d expect Canterlot was bombed pretty hard. Though there would probably be bunkers in the city, so maybe not. Maybe she got consumed with guilt over not being able to stop all this and committed suicide. That’s probably what I’d do in her situation.

A few blocks away I encountered a large concrete river with shops and offices lining its banks. On the other side stood a former donut shop where a grey pegasus sat on a bench facing a small fire inside of a ceramic pot. Off to the side, a small pile of dirt and a shriveled up shrub confirmed that the pot had once housed a potted plant. The plant had died at some point during the past year, either from a lack of sunlight caused by the perpetual clouds above, or from a lack of water caused by the roof overhang and an absence of ponies to water it.

I approached the pile of dirt and studied it, wondering whether its removal from the pot left it feeling like a paroled convict or a laid-off millworker. I suppose it depends on what it thought its purpose was and whether or not it had a sense of belonging or a feeling of confinement within the pot.

The pegasus, who I recognized as Gaggleskein, greeted me with a quiet ‘hello,’ but I was too fixated on the dirt to respond. Finally, I turned to him and asked,

“Do you ever find yourself yelling at the sky?”

Without looking up from the fire, he responded,

“When I was your age, I often did. But over time, I learned to accept the world as it is.”

I looked down at the fire. In one hoof, Gaggleskein held a small pot over the fire. The contents were concealed by a lid, but I recognized the smell of oatmeal. Suddenly I began to feel hungry, but I was craving meat.

I could feel Gaggleskein staring at me as I thrust my head into a nearby trash can and began sifting through a nearby garbage can and chucking things behind me, taking care to avoid throwing anything in his direction (though even a slight gust of wind could change that). At last, I found what I was looking for at the very bottom: as ill-fitting as Sparkle Cola and Donuts may seem, they still sold it here, and there quite a few bottlecaps left in the trash to prove it.

“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed as I finished digging. I counted the caps, put them in a paper bag I had also found in the trash, then quickly wiped the dirt and grime off my clothes and face before turning around and returning to the fire.

“I left my stuff with my friends, so I didn’t have any bits on me,” I explained.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, it looks like you’ve been following my advice,” he said. “I remember you balked when I told you that.”

“Well, they’re not really friends,” I said. “More like… acquaintances who travel together.”

“These days, anypony who can tolerate your presence for more than fifteen minutes is a friend,” he said, then quickly added, “I don’t mean that as a knock against you, but as a general statement.”

“None taken,” I said, moving towards the bench next to sit next to him.

Then he blocked the spot with a forehoof.

“Hey, hey, pick up your trash first!” he scolded.

I looked back at the trash, grabbed it all telekinetically, then put it back into the bin.

“There you go,” he said as I sat down. “You know, you could have just dumped it out on the ground instead of diving into it.”

I stopped and stared at him for a second, before saying, “I knew that!”

He chuckled, then turned back to his cooking. He removed the lid from the pot, inserted a spoon, and stirred it around a little. He decided it was good enough and placed the pot on the table behind him to let it cool. Then he turned to me and asked,

“Do you want some?”

“Actually, no, I was wondering if you happened to have any meat on you,” I replied.

“A few bags of jerky, but nothing fresh.”

“Jerky will do. I just really want meat right now for some reason… how much?”

He brought out a small packet wrapped in wax paper.

“Ten caps per bag. Each is about ten ounces, the same size as the packets you’d find at the store.”

“I’m not sure if I’m hungry enough for ten ounces, but I’ll take one.”

We made the trade, and he set the bottlecaps down on the table beside him. Upon opening the package, I found myself with several pieces of very hard meat that I could only eat in tiny nibbles. Sometimes it would take multiple bites just to tear a piece off. As I struggled, Gaggleskein laughed softly.

“Just like in the olden days, ain’t it?” he said. “Long before there were roads and shops out here, this is what ponies ate.”

I stopped eating for a bit. In addition to the slow-burning fire raging in my mouth from the pepper liberally infused into the meat, some of my teeth were starting to hurt.

“Was it really this hard?” I asked.

“Yup. Nothin’ to look forward to but aching teeth, aching hooves, and aching spines. Makes you wonder why anypony would even come here, doesn’t it?”

“I know why they came here. They came for land.”

“Well, some did. But not all of them. Certainly not the ones who came first.”

“Of course. They followed the animal migrations.”

“No, I’m not talking about the tribes. I’m talking about the first ponies. What did they come for?”

“For the ani--”

“No,” he interrupted, mostly calm but with a little hint of impatience. “They did not come for the animals.”

“But they were trappers,” I replied. “Trappers collect fur.”

“But why would a pony become a trapper?” he asked. I furrowed my brow and began to think, but he supplied the thought for me.

“Freedom. Absolute total freedom. Hundreds of miles away from civilization, no bosses or contracts or laws. No relying on others for food or shelter or protection or whatever. Money only matters if you let it matter. That was the life that existed out here not too long ago. And who did this life appeal to? Who answered the call? All kinds of ponies: explorers, artists, convicts, religious and political dissidents, the poor and downtrodden fleeing from destitution and misery. Scions of wealth and power fleeing from duties and obligations they never asked for. And, I like to think, here and there a pony from the middle who got bored with his day job, wanted a taste of fresh air, and liked it so much he never returned. Those were the ponies who roamed this province and built it up to where other ponies wanted to move here. If you want luxuries, you have to work for them.”

“And which kind are you? The latter?”

“I embody each of them to some extent. But yes, I am primarily the last type. Although I suppose I straddle the line of another class which I forgot to mention...”

“And what would that be?”

He smiled as he slid the bottlecaps over the edge of the table and into a small brown pouch made from the skin of some kind of animal. “The merchant. As it turns out, there are some luxuries that even hermits and vagabonds can’t live without. It’s less lucrative and far more risky than many conventional forms of business, but it’s highly rewarding in some other aspects.”

“Like what?”

“Shhhhh… listen,” he said softly.

We sat in silence for a while as nature slowly overtook us. Again I could hear and feel the howling wind, which blew even harder and louder here as the large roadway and the buildings around it created a wind tunnel of sorts. But unlike in the park, there was another sound, the soft crackling of the fire, whose flames danced playfully in the face of the relentless stream of wind. And then, after several minutes of listening and decluttering my mind, there came a third sound. Very softly, through the broken windows of the beauty salon directly adjacent to the donut shop, came a soft noise which I had not seen in nearly a year. Somewhere inside that shop, lodged snugly into some crevice in a dark place, I thought I heard the slow and steady chirping of a cricket.

This revelation seemed to kindle a fire of sorts inside me.

“Crickets,” I said calmly, so as not to disturb them.

“Exactly,” Gaggleskein replied in an equally hushed tone. “Even in a Celestia-forsaken place such as this, we still have treasures such as these.”

“If crickets survived, there must be other insects out there too!” I exclaimed. “That means there’s hope for the future. Equestria can rebuild.”

“Not so fast,” Gaggleskein admonished. “That’s just one cricket. Perhaps it’s just a lucky one. I don’t imagine there’s much food in that store, and if it runs out it will likely die. Its life could end at any moment due to predators or disease. And if it can’t find a mate, then after a while there’s no more cricket. This may be the last cricket you’ll ever hear.”

I felt a large frown overtake my face.

“Are you always this pessimistic?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s pessimism. In my family, we simply consider the worst and prepare for it. For instance, consider that perhaps the bombs irrevocably destroyed the ecosystem, and that the survivors have simply been cannibalizing each other. At some not-too-distant point, the last animal will run out of food and die. Then the microbes will consume that animal, run out of food, and die as well, leaving the world a sterile, lifeless husk wandering aimlessly through space until it is devoured by the sun, which--”

“That’s extremely pessimistic!” I exclaimed. Then, afraid I had disturbed the cricket, I lowered my voice and tone. “I mean, you can’t really prepare for that since there’s no way to survive.”

“Of course you can prepare for that. You temper your expectations and accept your fate. Death comes easiest when you accept your fate, and hardest when it catches you off guard.”

I pondered this for a moment and decided to accept this as wisdom, but I still had some objections.

“You don’t actually believe that all life will end, do you?”

“No I don’t. I was simply trying to get you to think. But who knows? In this fallen world of ours, anything could happen.”

I took a minute to think about that. Was he anticipating that I was going to die soon? It certainly was a possibility. Just minutes ago I had seen death face-to-face. I wondered if he could somehow predict things, so I asked him another question.

“Does Luna still travel through dreams? Is she still alive even?”

“I have met ponies who claim to have seen her in dreams…” he said, staring out into the sky. “... But they always describe the dreams as blurry and garbled. Very unlike her fabled dreamwalks. It suggests that these were merely normal dreams, which take items from their memories and order them randomly. I highly doubt the Princess survived. From what I’ve heard, Canterlot was hit hard.”

“Bullshit, they had to have built tons of bunkers under Canterlot,” I argued. “She had to have survived.”

“If the Princess survived in any capacity, the news would have spread rapidly across the continent. Everypony would have known by now, even the Stables.”

He stood up and trotted towards a bucket of brackish water sitting off to the side.

“I’ll give you that there are many bunkers below Canterlot though,” he continued, lifting the bucket in his hooves and gently fluttering above the ground as he returned. “Enough that several government officials, nobles, and at least one of the Ministry Mares probably survived. But as you can clearly see...”

He gently thrust the bucket forward, sending a wave splashing onto the fire, instantly dousing it.

“... Canterlot has abandoned us.”

“What about the Governor?” I asked. “She’s the Princess’s representative. She’s still alive, and--”

“Don’t be fooled,” he retorted sternly. “You know as well as I that the Governor only cares about herself. Even if she had a working line to Canterlot, she would sooner cut it than follow an order she doesn’t like. Besides, her power is stretched thin. She only controls a hoofful of small camps scattered across four or five counties. Everywhere else is completely free.”

Noticing the time and my own drowsiness, I decided it was time to go back to the house. It was unlikely that my companions’ argument was still going on, and I hoped they had the sense to end it in a somewhat amicable ‘agreement to disagree’ rather than a mutual cold shoulder (though personally I wouldn’t mind the quiet that the latter would bring to our travels). Or at least, regardless of how it ended, hopefully they’d sleep it off and be on at least semi-amicable terms in the morning. I anticipate that we’ll probably have to work together to complete the task ahead.

"I have to go," I said, getting up and walking away from the fire. "Thank you for the food... and your company."

"My pleasure," he said, chuckling. "I didn't expect to make a sale this late at night."

"Speaking of money... can you tell me what the price of silver is right now?"

"Hmmm..." He couldn't remember off the top of his head, so he fished a small notebook out of a pocket and flipped through it. Then his eyes lit up.

"Well, would you look at that!" He looked back at me. "One hundred and eight! Bits per ounce, that is. Still nowhere near prewar levels, but it's made massive gains over the past three weeks. It's gone from essentially worthless to the nominal price of a candy bar."

Then he stared right into my eyes.

"Keep up the good work and it might become a worthwhile investment."

Level up!

Level 9: Student of the Wastes

Next Perk at Level 10.

Stats:
Ponies Led: 2
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 3
Price of Silver: 108 bits per Troy Ounce