I want to start over. To just leave the wasteland, and go back in time to a point where I existed in a state of blissful everyday torture. Where my flat feathers, bullies at school, and my taste for fine dresses were the worst of my problems. I wanted to go back to being with Mom and Dad as a family again. But I’d moved on from that, choosing to move forward with my new friends and family. But where had that decision gotten me other than right back to the same damn disaster my life had become?

Staring into the side mirror on Solomon’s Motorwagon, I looked at myself. I wanted to say I didn’t recognize the one eyed, scarred up stallion in the mirror. I was a mess. More than that, really, I was a failure. Even so, there was no use wallowing in… whatever it is that failures wallow in, because with or without me, the wasteland was moving on from my mistakes. And as much as I didn’t want to follow it, my current predicament didn’t leave me with much of a choice.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Rook spoke up, catching my attention. “I don’t know if you are serious about helping Master Solomon or not, but your stubborn refusal to simply die is commendable.” Looking over at him, Solomon’s right hoof stallion seemed completely focused on driving. However, he didn’t look tense or stressed in the least bit, or at least, not on the surface. It must be nice to exist like that.

“You know, if I wasn’t already so sick of being called a survivor, I’d be happy with that as a compliment.” I grunted and pressed myself further back against the plush padding of the driver’s bench. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m only in it for the job.”

“Ah yes, then we agree!” Rook gave a short laugh that made my eye twitch. Seriously? The only reason I wasn’t telling him to shut up right about now is because I had a feeling that if I did, I’d end up dead in a ditch alongside the highway. “Friendship only gets in the way of professionalism. There’s nothing more satisfying than a job well done, which is something I’ve heard most pegasi will heartily agree with.”

“Don’t generalize us.” I gave him the flattest deadpan that I could, which he of course didn’t notice because he was still focused on driving. But seriously, this wasn’t ‘share your thoughts hour’. Couldn’t I just have some goddess damned silence for the rest of this trip? “Besides, with the type of mentally unstable mercenaries that Solomon hires, it’s no wonder you have no friends.” Really, muzzle? Goddess damnit...

“You are correct. However, I have something better with Master Solomon.” Rook took his eyes off the road for just long enough to give me what amounted to probably the most genuinely thoughtful look he could. “I have family.”

“Hah!” Celestia help me, I couldn’t have stifled that laugh even if I had a hellhound sitting on my lungs. Still, my outburst pulled a frown from the stallion, but couldn’t pull his eyes back away from the road. “You can’t be serious, right?”

“I am always serious, especially when it comes to Master Solomon.” He gave a nod to himself as he wiggled back into the bench seat to make himself more comfortable. It was about that point that I’d realized the mistake in asking him a question. It was now storytime, with the only way out being dashing myself against the rocky, degraded pavement of the old highway, or throwing myself under the swiftly moving motorwagon tracks.

“You see, there’s a funny story I was told as a young foal, about how exactly I came to be in Solomon’s care.” He began, “My family has always belonged to the royal Saddle Arabian courts. My father was a humble butler before me, and my mother was one of the royal family’s best midwives. Normally, fraternization between slaves was forbidden, but my mother and father hid their relationship, and my mother’s developing pregnancy, from those who would put them to death over it. Yet, they knew there would come a point that they could hide my forming existence no longer, and they would be put to death.” Looking over to me, he cracked an oddly unsettling smile. “On a side note, I have heard that the Enclave wasn’t much different, was it? However, Violet routinely refused to talk about it with anyone other than Jess, so I am curious if it is at all true.”

“Sort of…?” Honestly, I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. Yes, the Enclave was as brutal at population control as Saddle Arabia? What the fuck did it matter now? The Enclave was gone, Violet was dead, and I could already fucking feel the pain in my eye socket flaring up again.

Almost on cue, I winced and hissed as the pain did in fact hit me, and I pressed my hoof against the socket again. It didn’t relieve as much of it as before, and it definitely didn’t feel as good as that health potion I’d had not too long ago, but it still helped. Fucking seriously, the sooner I get back and get some painkillers in my system, the better. All I have to do is get through this nightmare of a ride.

“Ah, I see. It is probably not so simple.” He gave a few nods before concerning himself with focusing on the road again. “As I was explaining, unfortunately, due to my… unforeseen arrival between my parents, my mother was not able to keep up her duties at the same time as one of the King’s wives was due to give birth. Her absence meant that there were complications in the process, and the mare unfortunately died. However, in the storage closet of a small room, I was born on both the same day, and in the same hour as Master Solomon Sabino was.”

“So… Solomon’s mother is dead?” While I didn’t care at all about any of this shit on a personal level, that was interesting to hear. While my mother wasn’t exactly somepony who took things easy on me as a young colt, I still loved her. I can’t imagine growing up without her around, and it goes a little ways into explaining why Solomon is the asshole he is today.

“Correct.” Rook nodded with more of a shallow tone about his words. “My parents’ lust cost the King and Master Solomon her life. In exchange, my parents gave my life to the King’s new son before they were executed. A selfish, unfair trade if I am to be honest. I should not exist simply for what I represent to the King and his sons.” He shifted his eyes over and glared at me. “Solomon has lived his entire life with me as his servant, with the knowledge that I am the very reason his mother is gone. I see him as not only my master, but as a brother. However, even so, I hide no amount of shame for what I am to him. I understand I would not exist if not for the selfishness of my parents, but I would willingly sacrifice anything in order to bring her back.”

Looking at the shiny metal tubing on his prosthetic leg, I couldn’t hide my own snarky smirk. “What, like a leg?” The words slipped out. Immediately after, I facehooved myself hard. Why, Night?

“This?” Rook to my surprise, laughed as his magic gripped around the cybernetic limb. With a ratcheting click, he twisted the leg off and floated it around in his magic. “Master Solomon was the one who took my original leg from me. He used his mid-afternoon training falchion after a few reassuring words. He is quite the accomplished sword stallion, I’ll have you know. His falchion was not the best of blades for the goal, mind you, but it got the job done well enough.”

“What!?” I nearly spat out. “You mean he just… lopped it off? Just like that? Why!?”

“Because,” Again, Rook gave an oddly comfortable chuckle for talking about lost limbs. “Master Solomon thought the idea of a cyborg butler was ‘cool’.” He let out a relaxed sigh as his magic brought his detached leg back around and secured it in place with a sharp click. “Ah, to be young, idiotic, and full of spunk again.”

“That… that’s just cruel.” Seriously? And he said that Solomon was like family to him!? “How could he just force that on you like that?”

“Force? Hardly.” Rook snorted and cocked an eyebrow at me. “You misunderstand. I was the one who proposed the idea to him in the first place.” Looking back down at the odd brass mechanical leg, he smiled lovingly at it in almost the same way I did when looking into Buck’s beautiful blue eyes. “And it’s turned out to be a most useful asset over the years.”

“How… could it possibly have been worth it?” Instinctively, I looked down at my own, nubby limb..

“Mr. Solomon's family is... quite large. The King does like his mares, and he has had many Bastards crop up over the years, including Master Solomon.” He grimaced as he spoke, showing the first signs of tenseness since we started on this little trip. “As you have no doubt heard from Miss Delilah, there is a great challenge for the throne from his many brothers. While he is of an admittedly illegitimate mother, Mr. Solomon was one of the eldest, so his claim to the throne is stronger than most. While his elder brothers have since been… knocked out of the running, I have personally fended off many attempts on his life sent by his younger brothers. In fact, I have fended off so many in recent years that they seemed to have stopped trying.” Giving another soft laugh, he relaxed again. “But assassins haven’t been a worry of mine for some time now. It has actually been nice to come out here to Equestria, and spend time far far away from the political charades of the kingdom.”

“So… if he’s the current heir, why the fuck is he here?” Again! Speaking without thinking, Night. How much longer did you want to listen to this shit? Or do you actually think there will be something useful to you in all this? Yeah, didn’t think so, so shut your goddess damned muzzle.

“Master Solomon believes that his father still might pass him over for the throne.” Rook glanced over to me with a passing moment of intrigue. Guess I asked an interesting question? “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but only purebred Saddle Arabians have ever ruled the kingdom, and he believes that his father has no intention to let someone with mixed blood rule. Even if Solomon is mostly pure.”

“Huh,” I spoke, scrunching my muzzle in thought. Hispano had mentioned something about being ‘purebred’ or whatever. “what does that even mean?”

“Master Solomon’s surname is Sabino for a reason, you know.” He smirked and glanced over to me. He must have caught the whole ‘I don’t fucking get it’ look from me, because he cleared his throat and stiffened up again. “Master Solomon has white spotting in his coat. It is not a genetic trait that Saddle Arabians are known to carry. Only ponies do.”

Wait… Solomon has white spots? How the fuck is anypony supposed to know that when his coat is all white. The only distinguishing thing on his coat was that stupid black irregular star marking on his forehead. But no, that’s perfectly normal while he has invisible fucking white spots supposedly. Maybe they’re all just crazy, and that’s part of why he’s an asshole?

“So… he’s part pony? How and why is that bad?” I watched as Rook mulled over just how to answer that, deciding to go with a nod and a shrug at the same time. So his last name means he’s an outcast? Geez, it’s like playing connect the white fucking dots on why Solomon’s such a fantastically fun stallion to know! Seriously, did anyone I’ve run into so far have any sort of normalness to them? Or did the wasteland kill that off under the cloud cover two hundred years ago?

“Ponies are considered inferior to Saddle Arabians. Rightly so, as our own genetics are wildly unpredictable. Our offspring can often vary between races that may have been outside our families for generations. To partly have the lineage of a pony invokes great shame on even those Saddle Arabians outside the royal courts. So much so that Master Solomon prefers the surname of Roan, so you would do well to refer to him in the future as that.” Rook shook off the awkwardness that had filled the motorwagon and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Still, he hadn’t answered my first question… “To answer your previous question,” of course, smartass, “Master Solomon wishes to present the Ark to his father as a ‘gift’, to show the potential he has to grow the kingdom as it’s future king.”

“It’s a bribe.” I said flatly.

You know what, I didn’t even care about how blunt that was. I heard the story, understood the background, and none of it changed the fact that I was still ‘working’ for the biggest bastard in the land. Which… actually works on two levels now that I think about it.

“While it isn’t the most… eloquent way to phrase it, it is an apt description.” He shrugged again before taking his hoof off the accelerator a bit. The motorwagon lurched forward slightly as it slowed itself. I was going to ask him what was going on when I looked ahead and found the words die in my throat. More than that, I was pretty sure I felt my jaw altogether hit the floor...

As the highway pulled out from the dense forests that had lined it for the majority of the trip, it curved slightly northward as it wound along a far running stretch of rocky beach. A placid lake stretched a mile across, reflecting the mid morning light that came off the rusty red mountains that ringed it’s southern, western, and northern banks. Dotted right in the middle of the north side of the lake, sat a lumpy and heavily forested Island that seemed far too untouched to be natural. While all of this was as stunning as the rest of the northern wasteland had been, it was not however, what had silenced me.

Along the northeastern shore, a dozen monolithic structures rose up sharply into the sky, sitting higher than some of the passing clouds, even! It… was just like the old wartime morale posters around Neighvarro depicted them, but so much greater. Like giant sets of scaffolding, the remains of the old world skyscrapers were an awesome sight to behold. Not only could I see ones taller than I’d have thought possible to build with steel, but there were dozens, maybe hundreds of smaller ones huddled around the bases of the massive, cloud touching structures.

It was like a mountain, but made entirely out of steel, concrete, and shattered glass. The further I looked out from the massive buildings, every so often, the ones around it would halve in height. From what must have been nearly a thousand feet for the tallest, to one's five or six hundred, to three hundred, down to buildings that were only five or six stories tall. But by the time they reached that height, I was looking miles away from the center of this place.

Mare’s Lake was big. Really big. In fact, I almost couldn’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it was. I’d thought Neighvarro had been annoying to get across everyday for school, but this was something else entirely! And Neighvarro was one, if not the biggest city in the Enclave! Compared to this, I don’t think Neighvarro could even be called a city. This… this was insane to think anypony could have ever lived in a place like this, let alone built it!

“What… what the hell is this place?” I almost didn’t hear myself as the words tumbled from my muzzle.

“This is Mare’s Lake, or more accurately, what’s left of it after the war.” Rook gave a dejected sigh as he let off the speed again. I looked over to him, confused at just how he acted like he couldn’t see the sheer size of the old world marvel before us. “I know, a dreadful city that I’d truly hoped I’d seen the last of. Then again, unfortunately most cities in the wasteland are that way.”

“What?” I blinked blankly a few times as that sunk in. Then, like an idiot, I opened my muzzle again. “There are more places like this?”

“My word, you didn’t have cities like this above the clouds?” Rook scoffed as he looked over at me expectantly. When I didn’t have an accurate way to tell him we didn’t have mountains of concrete and steel in the clouds, he snirked and covered his muzzle. “Oh my, you really didn’t. How quaint! Now I’m quite curious as to how you will react to a larger city like the Cantercross ruins.” Wait, larger!? I didn’t even care that he was insulting me, my mind was too busy being blown by the fact that there could be even larger cities than this.

“Oh, I’m glad master Solomon didn’t kill you.” Rook gave a sharp laugh as he pulled us to a complete stop alongside the road. “As you said, he always has an eye out for the odd ones.” Dropping his smile to a more ‘professional’ and disappointingly familiar blank expression, he stared at me. “Now that we’re close, it’s time you take over driving. I will give you directions as we approach, but I will be hidden in the rear seat the whole time.” With a flash of his magic, Rook swapped places with me, and I found that he’d leveled his large rifle right at the back of my head again. “Don’t try anything funny. Follow the plan, and await contact from one of Solomon’s messengers in the future.”

With another flash, Rook disappeared from the driver’s bench, and I heard his hooves moving around in the passenger compartment behind the divider. You know, I already regret even thinking this, but I liked it when the stallion holding me hostage was a bit more friendly. Still, I put my hooves up on the steering wheel and pressed my rear hoof down on the accelerator pedal. The motorwagon lurched as I got us rolling faster, and I found my eyes locked on the massive sprawling city again.

It was time to head home.

From the elevated highways and off-ramps that crisscrossed the decaying old city, I still almost couldn’t comprehend its size. From up close, I could see the complex organization of the steel structures, with entire blocks dedicated to three or four of the massive standing buildings. However, as the two broken off-ramps I nearly drove us off had alluded to, the idea of an organized layout only went as far as the highways themselves.

I’d eventually had to backtrack almost a mile, pulling us down an off-ramp that led through what seemed to have once been a thriving apartment district. The old buildings still stood imposingly tall, like sentries watching over the streets. However, the buildings that had most likely once housed dozens of families, now sat burned out, boarded up, and all but abandoned. Scattered, mountainous debris and collapsed buildings cluttered the trash ridden roads, while gunshots and shouting from somewhere not too far in the distance beat out the rumbling motorwagon engine a few times.

Thank Celestia for motorwagons, because this would have been days worth of walking for anypony without wings. Or for those who had wings, but weren’t ‘blessed’ with fuller feathers than others. Still, for being held at gunpoint, I was at least thankful that I got to ride this far in the first place.

Though, if not for the guiding words of Rook from behind me, I’d have been lost in all but a few minutes. All the streets and buildings around here were different, but blended together to give the feeling of sameness. It wasn’t until Rook navigated us down a street that held a large roundabout that I even knew we weren’t just driving in circles. I don’t know how he knows where we’re going, but I was beginning to feel daunted by the scale of this city, and we hadn’t even made it back toward the towering behemoth skyscrapers yet…

It took us another half hour to get to the outskirts of what Rook had called ‘downtown’., and it was there that I’d finally caught sight of something that could be considered civilization again. A marketplace of tents and merchant ponies had been set up in front of what at one point had been ‘Heartmend Memorial Hospital’, or so the faded sign still hanging from it said. Funny, as bad as Destruction Bay looked, Mare’s Lake as a whole didn’t look like it had been hit all that hard on the last day.

Sure, a lot of the buildings were burned out and decaying, but… none of the skyscrapers had toppled. Past that, none of the streetlamps, motorwagons, or even old iron fencing had been melted or knocked down as I’d seen examples of in the old megaspell test films. It made me uneasy to be honest, and I couldn’t help but feel like this city was somewhat out of place. While I still couldn’t comprehend the sheer size of this place, I felt like the thousands of glass-less windows around me held just as many eyes watching my every move. The actual dozens of eyes staring at us from the Hospital market of course didn’t help either.

“Woah, stop us here.” Rook spoke up sharply. I felt the barrel of his rifle slip from the back of my neck as he leaned forward. However, I did as he asked, and pulled us to as stop. “Turn off the car. Now.”

Rolling my eyes, I twisted the small silver key in the dashboard. The archano engine gave off a whine and a small puff of steam floated out from the exhaust pipes that ended just short of the drivers doors. However, while the whine from the engine trailed off, another sound droned on, pulling not just my ear to it, but the ears of everypony in the market.

It was a soft buzzing noise, like that of a bug buzzing around your head. However, it had to be one hell of a large bug to reverberate it’s sounds through the canyons of steel before us. A sharp ringing from the market struck up as a pony tugged at a copper bell that had been hung on a post. Panic hit the market as the noise grew even louder, and was shortly joined by a the familiar sound of a pair of old flappy sounding vertibuck engines.

As the ponies in the market took cover in various places, the now tremendous buzzing sound pulled my head toward the massive labyrinth of skyscrapers ahead of us. Like an arrow, a bright white object shot out from between the enormous buildings. Black smoke and fire trailed behind a wide winged, bulbous aircraft that buzzed noisily through the air.

Skyraiders.

It was followed by another two similar objects, each of which peeled off in different directions as they hit the open skies away from the mass of buildings. It was a textbook aerial maneuver that I’d seen performed a dozen times at all the Enclave parades, designed to converge two fliers on the tail of whatever was chasing the lead pony. However, I knew that sound, and if it was a Vertibuck following them, there was no way they’d fall for a novice trick like that.

I curled my forehooves around the steering wheels as my heart beat a little bit faster in anticipation. Still… if it was a Vertibuck, it was either going far slower than normal, or it was about ready to give up the chase overall. I held my breath when I saw that the two other buzzing craft had almost maneuvered to cut across the steel canyons. The thumping engines of the pursuing vehicle grew to a roar as the lead buzzing aircraft passed overhead. Looking up, I realized that the odd buzzing vehicle had a crazed pony strapped into a seat just in front of the crude jet engine that sat bolted to the contraption.

An unfathomably thick burst of tracers streaked from between the steel towers ahead, completely perforating the lead vehicle. The spray of yellow and red automatic fire chattered through the air, shaking me even in my seat. The skyraider craft above exploded in a blast that shook the windshield of the motorwagon hard enough that I’d thought it would shatter. But my eyes were glued on the edge of the buildings as what had definitely not been a Vertibuck shot out from them.

It’s size rivaled the Skycaptain’s seaplane from the Inuvik, and it too had a semi-gull winged design to it, though hardly as pronounced. A single heavy radial engine embedded under each of it’s wings hammered the beastly plane through the skies on what sounded like brute force alone. The wide, H shaped tail was an odd choice, but the massive control surfaces gave the pilot unparalleled maneuverability for it’s size as the two other buzzing aircraft closed in.

Streaks of bright tracers spit out from the top, back, and even the sides of the flying machine, eviscerating the two remaining skyraiders before the massive beast shot over our heads and thundered away in a wide banking turn eastward. I’d seen demonstrations of Vertibuck gunships before, but nothing had come close to packing this amount of omni-directional firepower other than a Raptor. Cheers and jubilant celebration erupted from the crowds at the hospital market, many of them jumping and laughing as flaming debris crunched down only blocks away from us all.

“Just what in the hell was that thing?” I found myself asking what should have been a rhetorical question, if not for the fact I had the world's most dangerous dictionary along in the back seat.

“A toy of those power armored toasters over at Galloway. They like to parade it around now and again to remind the ponies of this city that they’re still around. Skyraider buzzbombers kill themselves anyway, so they didn’t do anything other than waste good caps and ammo with this little show of force.” Rook spoke with a disdain that I hadn’t quite heard from him before. However, before I could ask, he pressed the gun back up against my head. “But it’s nothing you should concern yourself with. Now that we aren’t about to be skyraider buzz-bombed, I’d like to continue on our way. This is already taking longer than I’d like.”

Longer than he’d like? I wasn’t the one who was dragged around for the last three or four days. Granted, I’d been the one who’d gone after and failed to kill Galina. But still, he could stand to have at least as much patience as I’ve had with this shit so far.

Annoyedly, I twisted the key on the dashboard and put the car back into gear. At the very least, I was closer to getting back to the others, and away from the psychopath in the back seat. That is, barring any more pauses for odd aerial battles to play out of course…

Fortunately, there weren’t any more skyraider-themed interruptions as I was back-seat navigated through the rest of the old world city. Funny enough, it didn’t look like I’d expected from the ground. What had seemed like wondrous architectural marvels from afar, now felt like enormous charred and burnt headstones. Even with as much as I wanted to look at them, my eyes were glued to the rubble cluttered streets as we crawled along. It took us another half hour, but we finally pulled up into what looked like a rail yard at the lakeside edge of downtown.

A tremendous wall of concrete filled the gaps between a few of the nearby office buildings, and a large scrap metal door sat open before us. Two different pairs of ponies sat perched atop the walls, one team of which aimed an old rocket launcher at us as we approached. Thoughts of what happened in Leachate clouded my mind as we rolled into the settlement.

What would the others say about what I’d done? Do I even tell them? Could I ever tell Buck that my actions got an innocent colt and his father killed? No, it would be better if they never found out.

“Alright,” Rook spoke softly, finally pulling his gun from my head. “Leave the motorwagon somewhere out of sight from the convoy once they know you’re back. And remember, you work for Master Solomon now. Don’t test his patience.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I waved him off, and was happy to hear the slight pop his magic gave when he teleported away. The moment he was gone, I felt like I could finally breathe again. The muscles in my body relaxed, and a dull throbbing pain took over. Everywhere on me started to hurt again, but I was finally safe.

Looking ahead into the settlement, I found a remarkable amount of ponies walking around carrying things about. From steel beams, to rusted junk, to carts loaded with boxes of old world food, hundreds of ponies worked at loading up different boxcars that were littered around the settlement. Railroad tracks, signals, and electrical wires ran every which way across the whole town. This place looked to be about twice the size of ‘End of the Line’ station, but twice as busy as well.

Hundreds of different kinds of railcars were strewn together on more than just a few of the lines. There were three separate train engines parked inside the separated stalls of a large round garage sort of thing near the back of the whole complex... which was sitting between me and what looked like an old wooden sailing ship at the other end of the settlement, for some reason? Regardless of what a ship was doing in a trainyard, all the way on the opposite end from where I was, sat the enormous parked form of Bertha.

My heart rate jumped, and I pressed down on the accelerator to get myself moving a bit faster again. The clinking of the motorwagon tracks as they climbed up and over the many sets of rails around here made me cringe. More than a few ponies yelled at me and covered their ears as the steel tracks ground against the rails, filling the air with an awful squealing noise. But I wasn’t bothered by it. Between the pain I felt in my body, and the sight of home, I was the most focused pony in the world right now.

Too focused perhaps, as I approached another fanning set of tracks with ponies actively working on fixing it. I almost didn’t stop before rolling right into a few ponies wearing Road Crew outfits. One of them yelled an obscenity that was lost as I put the motorwagon in reverse and maneuvered around the group.

A high pitched whistle filled the air as one of the trains in the round garage-looking place ahead of me sent out a huge burst of steam. The engine was old, and looked more like one of the ones out of my history book, with a long, dark green cylindrical body and a tall smokestack at the front of it. I pulled the Motorwagon over the tracks it was headed for and made sure to keep out of it’s way.

The gruff looking mare hanging her head out of the pilot's window was covered in soot, and her bloodshot brown eyes glared at me as the train chugged past. Following behind it, was a large cart filled with stacks of chopped wood, which another pony was drawing from to feed into the engine.

Again, I hadn’t focused on driving, and almost ended up running into somepony. However, as they jumped onto the hood to avoid getting squished under the steel death machine, I turned and found myself staring at a very familiar pegasus. Salt’s form was just the same as I’d remembered it being in Four Peaks, not having changed a single bit. The angry look he wore disappeared in an instant, and the words caught in his throat died as he looked at me.

It was… odd to see his reactions as he looked over me. It was a flood of emotions, starting with anger again, moving to shock, then horror, before finally landing on disgust. Without a word, he turned and flared his wings. Kicking off, he took flight into the air above before I could even react.

I thought Hardcase said he was going to die here, but it seems like he’s fine to me.

Another slam on the hood startled me. The whole of the motorwagon shook with the hit, as the pristine hood crumpled slightly under the weight of a white coated griffon as it came down. The barrel of a combat pistol was leveled at the windshield, held in the albino talons of Hispano’s father. The flat expression across his face cracked as his eyes met mine, and the grasp on his gun loosened.

“Night…?” His words sounded muffled through the windshield, but even so, his suspicious gaze into the interior of the vehicle didn’t soften. Slowly, he pushed himself off of the motorwagon’s hood, and made his way around to the driver side door. “What the hell happened to you. We all thought you were dead.” He grumbled as he threw the door open and stood with his talon pointed for me to scoot over.

“It’s a long story.” I sighed and did as he asked, scooting myself across the bench. As he climbed inside and took over at the steering wheel, he eyed over the numerous new scars that Galina had given me, including my empty eye socket.

“Yeah, well you’re lucky I’m willing to listen after what you fucking did.” The disdain in his words was thicker than syrup, and more bitter than the beer I’d had a sip of what feels like ages ago now.

“Oh, after what I did?” I laughed as I blurted out shit that should have stayed in my head. “Galina killed Violet, and I’m the one who’s done something wrong. Got it.” Seriously, he doesn’t even know what it took to get back here at all.

“You nearly destroyed my little girl by disappearing like that, so you’re damn right you fucked up!” Cora snapped and held up his quivering, balled up talon. “If you weren’t already in such bad shape, I’d beat some respect into that muzzle of yours.” Throwing the motorwagon into drive, he got us moving again as he fumed in silence. However, as we traveled, I could see him get more and more fidgety in his seat.

A sharp pain in my empty eye socket made me cringe and cup it again. As it had before, the pressure on it seemed to numb the pain a bit, but not by much. My forehooves felt weak, and I gave out a shiver as the spike of pain passed once again. Giving out a few soft breaths, I closed my eyes and pressed back against the plush seat under me.

“Alright, hold on. I may want to smack you, but you look like you’ve been through the wringer already.” Cora grumbled before rummaging around in the messenger bag he wore around him. With a nod, he drew out a syringe and looked at me. “I know that you probably went through a lot of shit with Solomon to get back here, but Buck’s going to want to look over you the moment he gets back. But, seeing as you’re driving Solomon’s ride, I’m going to assume that you’re going to want to talk to Delilah first.” He eyed me as I nodded, wincing as the stinging in my head peaked sharply. “For now though, some Med-X will help with the pain until he can fix whatever the fuck is wrong with you, alright?”

“Alright.” I sighed. Well, at least the pain I’d been stuck with was one worry that I wouldn’t have on my mind for the moment. Now if only there was a way to inject away the pain of actually explaining myself to Buck, Hispano, and worst of all, Delilah. The small prick that I felt on my shoulder made me wince, but as I had when Rook had finally left, I felt myself relax again. This time, the world spun away, and I fell into a painless, restful nap.

Unfortunately for me, that nap didn’t last all too long. The dull feeling of a prick in my hoof brought back the world after what felt like only a moment. Immediately I found my nose assaulted by the thick perfume that coated Delilah’s bed. Wait, how did I get here? The feeling of it’s comfortable plush surface under me, along with the flickering buzz that came from the light in her room, filled me with a conflicting sense of relief and dread.

“Thank you, Cora.” Delilah’s voice was sharper than I’d expected it to be. “Please, do me a favor and keep the others from coming up for now if they return from their errands. I would like some time to sort things out first without distractions. In fact, wait until we’re finished here. Then I want you to go find Happy, who’s probably drunk at the bar again, or at whatever whorehouse is in this dump.” She was angry, but she had every right to be. I know I would be if I’d thought Hispano had died, only to show up days later looking how I did. Still, I had to hope that she could forgive me.

I perked my ear as Cora left the container, and Delilah moved to lock the door behind him. Part of me wanted to sneak a peek to see just how angry she looked. However, my mind conjured the image of a steaming mad Delilah pointing a gun to my head, but as much as I deserved that, I knew that wasn’t going to be the case. Still, I laid as motionless as I could, waiting for her to speak up first. I felt as her forehoof reached out to the bed, and I could feel her as she snorted at me.

“Get up.” Delilah snapped only a moment before the world began to tumble. I only managed a whimper as I crashed down onto her floor. Finally opening my one eye, I was met with a fuzzy, but clear enough image of her stoic gaze set on me, and the bedsheets currently curled around her forehoof. Even though my vision was still a bit unfocused, I could see just how stressed Delilah was. Her mane was beyond a frazzled mess, and her smudged glasses sat slightly canted on the end of her muzzle. “I’m not going to tell you how much you fucked up this time, Night. No, we’re way past that.”

As I sat there on the floor, she cast the end of the sheets from her forehoof. She kept her gaze on me, letting the air fall into a dead silence between us again. But still, even as I didn’t answer as the quiet sunk in, she kept her look trained on me, watching, waiting for an answer. But I knew Delilah well enough to know that speaking out would only bury what little trust I had left with her. So more than anything, I bit my tongue, and waited in silence.

“To be completely fucking honest,” She finally continued, “the only reason you’re here right now, is that with Violet dead, I still need all the fliers I can get on my crew. And as much as you betrayed every bit of trust I put into you, Night, I can’t afford to go vetting any other Enclave children to take on this trip.” Again, she paused to gauge my response.

She was right. This may not be the unrealistic images of hatred that my mind had thought up before, but it was still everything I deserved to hear. So I simply kept my ears perked and listened to her.

“Fucking damnit. It was bad enough we lost Violet, but you too? Not even the full might of the ministry could have saved the morale of this fucking crew.” She sighed as she collapsed onto her haunches. Her frizzy mane drooped as she hung her head, and she gave out a slight tremble along her body. “Cora’s been unfocused because Hispano had a mental breakdown. Hardcase has gone missing, and I’m worried that we just won’t ever hear from him again. The Doc’s been working himself to the bone at the local clinic just to keep his mind off of losing you. Lucky’s still too injured to be of any use, and he’s kept Gearbox from focusing on any of his tasks. Boiler and Howitzer are about the only two to have kept level heads with everything, but that’s just how they deal with shit like these last few days.”

“And I’m tired, Night.” Slowly, she gazed back up at me, and I swear that I’d never seen Delilah look this way. There wasn’t any tenseness about her anymore, nor was there any anger. All that she displayed was exhaustion and sorrow. “I didn’t want any more bullshit. No more complications on this fucking trip. But you’re still alive, which means that maybe you’ve learned something from all this. So you know what? You’re going to fix things by going out and getting this crew back together. Before you do that though, I just want to know two simple things, and then you can go. What happened, and how did you get back.”

“I went after Galina, fought her, and lost.” I looked over the scars on my chest, and the stitched gash up my leg and cutie mark. “She took me back to Solomon. I offered to work for him, telling him I could get the book. I lied to him and said what I had to so that I could get back here.” Hoofing up at my mother’s dog tags, I pressed their cold metal against my fur, barely feeling it through the numbing medicine that Cora had given me. “He’ll attempt to reach out and contact me with instructions, like he was doing with Violet.”

“Alright.” She said with a slow nod before getting up to her hooves slowly. “With your return, I’m extending our stay here by a day. You have until then to get the crew morale back into shape, and to procure yourself new weapons. But you’ll be paying for them yourself this time.” With labored steps, Delilah walked slowly across her room, and slumped into the chair behind her desk. “Leave me, now.” She grunted. “I will send for you if I need you.”

Getting to my hooves, I wobbled for a moment, unsteady as I became a bit light headed. Hobbling toward the door, I avoided any eye contact with her. That… could have gone better. But then again, it could have been a whole lot worse. I unlatched the lock on the door and swung it open.

“And Night?” She called out, forcing me to stop midstep. “Don’t cause any more trouble.”

Closing the door as I hobbled out, I took a moment to just breathe and press the dog tags against my neck again.

Delilah has no idea what I’d sacrificed to get back, what I could have done if I’d only hoofed these over to Solomon. But that wouldn’t help anypony. No, I deserved all of that, and then some. And if anything, it proved the point that I needed to be forward with everypony else on the crew when I saw them again.

I know I’d just thought it would be better to hide what I did to get back here, but... I needed to be straight, at least with with Buck. I both wanted and needed to tell him everything. How I was selfish to go after Violet, how I blew up the doctor and got the sheriff and his son killed. Most of all, I needed to tell him how sorry I was for putting him through the hell he’s currently still in.

“Here.” Cora’s voice came from the open door to Buck and I’s container. With a lob, he tossed my prosthetic leg over to me. “Put it on. We’ve got work to do.”

“Right.” I nodded and sighed, looking at the metal leg in my hooves. There was a good amount of scuffing on the white cup, and the leg had been bent slightly where it had been struck by something from the junk cannon. However, as I slipped it onto my stump, it was the only part of me that felt like nothing in the last few days had changed about my life. “Okay, let’s go find Happy.”

Climbing to my hooves, I watched as Cora shook his head and walked over to me. Grabbing me by the scruff of my neck, he dragged me across the rec area. Before I could ask what the fuck he was doing, he shot me a glare as stern as any of Delilah’s could be.

“Yeah, that little fucker can wait for now.” He grumbled as he used a single talon to ‘persuade’ me to climb up onto the railing over the crumpled remains of Laika’s capsule. “You and I? First, we’re going to go fix what you did to my daughter.” Taking his talon off me, I was left for a moment to balance precariously on the thin railing. His talons ran along my sides and forced my wings out. “Wings open, eyes up, and don’t lag behind.” With a jump and a stiff beat of his wings, he took off onto the air.

Looking up, I took a deep breath and jumped as well. Time to get back to work.

I followed Cora across the railyard settlement, coming down from the air in front of an old multi-story house. The scraps of wood and steel it had been built out of looked to be the same size and shape that most of the train tracks themselves were made of, which made sense at least. However, rather than a sensible coat of paint, colorful graffiti art had been scrawled across almost every single inch of the fair sized building. Some of it, while vulgar and lewd, did seem to have a good sense of anatomy and proportion at least…

Cora wasted no time once we’d landed in stomping up to the door and throwing it open. The sounds of socializing ponies inside escaped through the entrance, as well as a hefty cloud of smoke. A horrifically unsettling and pungent stench followed it, and had to pinch my nose shut as we approached. A bloodshot-eyed pony stumbled past Cora with a grin plastered across his face, and I’d begun to wonder just what Hispano was doing here. Still, I trotted through the door, following Cora as he approached what looked to be a pony with a multitude of horns growing from their head.

However, as my eyes adjusted to the dim, smoky interior, I found that I was staring at a very relaxed looking deer. His yellow stained antlers sprouted into a multitude of different tips, each one with a different sort of ornament hanging from it. A small bottle of pills, a wax wrapped packet, an inhaler with a rainbow substance inside of it, and a mesh bag full of caps, were just a few of the odd bits and bobs on his horns.

“Hey, like, welcome to the smokehouse.” The deer gave a stiff laugh before pointing to a few of the doors across the open common area.

The inside of this place was fairly sparsely decorated, but the majority of the center area of the main room was taken up by a mound of pillows not unlike Madame Mystic’s room had been. However, instead of a creepy zebra ghoul, a dozen ponies were laid out across the pillows, looking as relaxed as I wished I was right now. Other than that, a set of rickety looking stairs sat in the back corner, leading upwards to what I could only assume were more rooms.

“If you brought your own chems, Dash is on the left,” He continued, “Buck is on the right, high strength relaxants like med-x and chill are straight across, while Mint-al’s are in the basement.” He paused for a moment, looking confused before going wide eyed. “Oh yeah, and the main room here is for if you want to do Wave with us. Just hop on in, the surf’s fiiiiine...” He stretched out his speech, merging it with the overly relaxed sigh and look he gave. Somehow he started to look even more relaxed than he had before, and that was really starting to bug me. “And of course, if you didn’t bring your own, I’ve got plenty of chems to choose from.”

While I couldn’t quite be sure because I’d never followed Gearbox into any of the places he’d visited while in a settlement, I was getting the distinct impression that this was a drug den. Seriously, what the fuck would Hispano be doing here? She never really seemed interested in drugs at all, and even had once remarked on patrol about how Gearbox could better spend his caps on other things. Maybe… she’s working a job? I mean, with me gone, she’d probably want to find another employer...

Squinting for a moment at Cora’s unphased expression, the deer gave another short laugh.

“Woah, you totally look like this bird I sold some shit to earlier.” Reaching back behind him, he produced a small packet of white looking tabs wrapped in wax paper. “Maybe you want to buy some chill too? I get my shit straight from Mr. Wizard’s runners, so you know it’s gotta be good.”

“No.” Cora remarked flatly. “I’m not here for more drugs, I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Oh, wait here and I’ll see if my manager knows if she’s in one of the rooms.” The deer gave a slight smile before bounding off into the central pillow pile with a lazy flop.

“Why the hell do places like this even exist?” I muttered under my breath as I looked over to Cora. I didn’t understand what enjoyment Gearbox found in all the drugs he took, but from what I understood of his life before joining Delilah, I could sort of excuse it. However from the look of all of them, I was hard pressed to believe that all of these ponies even held any job at all.

“While they are filled with a bunch of useless lowlifes,” Cora grumbled, keeping his attention to scanning his gaze across the open room. “These places sell quality medical chems, and generally for a better price than you can find at an actual clinic or market. They also have the benefit of being a safe space for anypony. These places are places of healing, and everypony knows that you don’t start trouble here. Those who run these establishments welcome anypony who comes here to recover or have ‘fun’.”

“Really?” I cocked my eyebrow at him, getting him to finally give a glance over at me. Well, there goes my ‘she was hired by somepony here’ theory. “Then what the hell is Hispano even doing here?”

“Recovering from the pain of losing you.” His sharp words cut deep, and I gave out an annoyed huff.

“Look, I’m sorry I went after Galina.” I closed my eye and took a few deep breaths. “If I had known how it would have affected everyone, maybe I would have had a bit more restraint.” Opening my eye again, I turned my gaze back to the pillow pile and found the deer wriggling his way out of it.

“It’s not me who you have to convince of that.” Cora sighed as he fidgeted his wings on his back and took a deep breath.

“So like, my manager totally remembers seeing a bird heading upstairs.” The deer spouted as he cantered back over towards us. Taking a seat in front of us, the ornaments tied to him clacked against his rack of horns. “She’s probably with the rest of the fliers getting hiiiigh on the top floor doing Loft.” He leaned back sharply as he focused on stretching out his enunciation once again. I was beginning to question if this guy was really ‘all there’, and I was becoming incredibly glad I’d never visited one of these places before...

Without even giving him another moment, Cora trotted across the room toward the stairs. However, when I moved to follow, I was stopped as the deer pressed his forehoof on my chest for a moment. He canted his head at me as his relaxed smile widened.

“Yo, girl, you look like you’ve been through some nasty shit.” He had the subtlety of a crashing vertibuck when he was speaking, glaring at my empty eye socket. “Get this, I’ve got some shit to help with the pain,” Flicking his forehoof, he produced a small white pill between the cloves of his hoof. “Have this, on the house. Guaranteed to take all of the pain away.”

Almost as if he’d dared it to, the pain in my socket flared up again, and I reflexively gasped out and pressed my hoof against it again. As I gasped however, he gave a swift flick and amazingly tossed the small tab straight down my throat. I gave a choking cough for a moment before I reflexively swallowed it.

“What the hell.” I growled at him as I managed to take a few deep breaths again. A static feeling ran through me befor a dulling ebb washed over me, and completely took away all the aches and pains in my body. Was… that the drug kicking in? Wow, that works fucking quick.

“Just enjoy it! Chill is great stuff.” The deer laughed, giving me a pat on the side. “And if you do like it, or maybe want something a little softer like some wave, swing around again later and I’ll totally hook you up, babe.” He gave a lazy wink before turning off and prancing back into the pillow pile.

“Night.” Cora snapped from across the room. “Quit dawdling and get over here.” Looking over, I found him sharply pointing his talon up the stairs.

With a roll of my eye, I trotted around the pile of zonked out druggies. The old wooden steps creaked and bowed under the combined weight of Cora and I as we climbed them. The second floor didn’t look to be anything other than a simple hallway with four doors in it. However, Cora pressed onward down the hall, heading straight for the stairwell at the end of it that lead even further up.

I’d made sure to mind the step that had a board missing entirely from it halfway up the next set of stairs. Even moreso, I’d made sure to glance away from the odd scene of a pair of ponies making out from through the hole where the missing step had once been. Reaching the top, Cora and I found ourselves confronted by a large, rusted steel door with the words ‘Loft Room’ poorly spray painted across it. It was a far cry from the graffiti outside, and instantly shot my mind back to standing outside the ‘wreck room’ back on the Inuvik.

And just like that, I felt numb again. I don’t know if it was the meds that had been literally forced down my throat, or the crushing fear that bubbled up inside me. Much like I had now a dozen times over in the past few weeks, I was standing outside a door with no idea what I’d find inside, what to do when I went in. Or more importantly, what to even say to Hispano about what I’d done.

But just like every time before, I reached out ahead of me, took the handle in my hoof, and opened up the door.

Pulling the old rusted door open, an avalanche of fluffy white clouds pressed out and enveloped both Cora and I. Unlike the wafty drug smoke from downstairs, this was actual, substantial, thick-enough-to-stand-on cloud, pouring out of the third story room. Soft, white, and cool to the touch, I blinked a few times before I smiled a bit. It’d been forever since I’d felt clouds this thick and comforting, at least… the last time I could remember them was when we lived back in Neighvarro.

“Like, in or out.” A relaxed voice called out ahead of us through the room. “You’re letting all the best clouds escape.”

Cora stepped forward, or at least who I was pretty sure was Cora as I couldn’t see a damn thing. I followed, pressing myself forward as the door swung closed on it’s own behind us. The bungee cord that pulled it shut gave a soft twang as it smacked me in the flank a bit, coaxing me to step forward even further. The difference in air pressure the door caused curled the clouds out from around me, carving a hole into the open room ahead.

The room ahead wasn’t all that big, but it was lined almost floor to ceiling, and wall to wall with more of the luxurious white clouds. However, only where Cora and I stood seemed to have the thinnest layer. No furniture or furnishings lay around us at all, and odder than that, no ponies even seemed to be in here at all. As the air in the room calmed down again, some of the clouds above us thinned and bowed down towards us, and after a moment, I could look up and sort of see through them.

“Well, would ya’ look at that…” A neon green coated mare laughed as she sat in a chair… that was upside down on the clouded ceiling itself. She took a long puff on what looked like some sort of hose that was attached to a hub of a jar with a dozen similar hoses snaking out into the clouds around it. The mare took in a shorter breath before exhaling again, producing a small fluffy cloud that floated about of it’s own free will. “Always good to see some new faces in here.” She smiled and leaned back, er… up into her chair.

My mind was still trying to process just how she was sitting upside down when another hoof moved next to her. This one belonged to a charcoal colored mare with a bright yellow mane who wasn’t even in a chair, but still somehow pinned up to the ceiling. She grabbed at the hose and put it to her muzzle, taking a draw off it as well before pointing the brass tapered tip of it to Cora and I.

“Welco...” The mare began to say before she nearly choked on the cloud in her throat. Giving a few hacks, she laughed as a deformed cloud shot from her muzzle and landed wetly on the floor next to us. “Sorry.” She wiped at her smiling muzzle before hoofing the hose at us again. “You two come to get high with us, or what?”

I was still too confused to know if that was supposed to be a pun or not, but Cora responded for the both of us.

“No. I’m here for my Daughter.” Cora groaned and smacked his face. Dragging his tallon across his beak, he glanced at me as a question came up in my mind.

“What the hell is even going on here, Cora?” I asked, again getting a deadpan from my question. He gave a dismissive shake of his head and looked to the mares, opening his beak to speak to them again, but my muzzle beat him to it. “I know what you’d said, but I’m just trying to understand why there are ponies on the fucking ceiling before I screw something up, alright?”

“Woah,” The first mare gave an astonished gasp. “Like, you’ve never had Loft before?”

“What the fuck is ‘Loft’?” Now it was my question that made Cora smack himself again.

“What the fuck did I do to deserve you?” He sighed before sitting himself down hard. “Look, it was a wartime drug meant to help injured ponies who didn’t have the strength to walk again. It’s magically amplified helium, and makes the user’s body lighter than air. There, happy?” He raised his talon, pointing up. “If this craptastic roof breaks here? All these assholes are going to go floating high enough into the sky to freeze to death. That, or the drug wears off and they fall like a rock.”

Right. Don’t destroy the ceiling or you kill a whole room filled with ponies. I’d say that’s easy enough to avoid, but knowing my curse...

“No need to be a total bummer, dude.” The charcoal mare rolled her eyes before going back to sucking on the end of the hose. “You just need to chill out and get high with us, that’ll clear your worries about it.”

“Again, looking for my Daughter, that’s all. She’s a griffon, like me, so that should give you enough of a hint.” He went back to addressing the mares on the ceiling. "I know she’s here, so there’s no use covering for her." From the corner of the cloud lined room, a particularly large lump of cloud started to shift. There was a sharp squeak as the sound of a scuffle was followed by annoyed whispers. But after a moment, the commotion died down again. “Fine, here’s some incentive. Ten caps to the pony who pushes her out into the open.”

"Dad, what the hell are you doing here?” Hispano groaned almost lazily from inside the clouded corner. She sounded... off. Different than she had just a few days ago. Hispano was always so cheery, she always had so much energy to her. However, this… hardly sounded like the griffon I’d grown to know, even though I knew it was her voice. “I told you, you're such a buzzkill and to just leave me alone." Hispano sighed before there was the sound of a scuffle. "Hey, what are you doing! Just... chill... ah!" With a jiggle, one of the sides of the cloud bulged out for a moment before Hispano's upside down form was tossed out of it. She amazingly floated up and smacked against the clouded roof with a meaty thump.

"Ten caps. Pay up, old man." The soft chuckle and relaxed tone of the pony speaking reminded me of Gearbox, even using that odd word again. But as Cora moved to do as he asked, my mind stopped paying attention to anything other than Hispano.

She looked thinner than she had before. Her feathers were in need of a major preening, and the matting on her furred lower half was caked with dirt and grime. She looked exactly like I felt, battered and in dire need of some TLC. Reaching over, she took a deep draw off of one of the hoses connected to the jar thing next to the first mare we saw. The relaxed, coughing giggle that came out of her as she crawled amongst the clouded ceiling just sat so wrong with me. Her tail flicked, and she used her talons to draw hearts in the side of the cloud, ignoring both Cora and I entirely.

“Come here, Hispano.” Cora sharply barked, making Hispano lock up, even if only momentarily. “We're going back to the convoy.”

"Fuck off dad. You don't get me, so just leave me alone so I can finally have some fun." Looking over at the two of us, Hispano's bloodshot eyes twitched as she tried to focus on me. However, she gave a huff that spilled out a tiny cloud before turning around and disappearing inside the corner cloudmass again.

She... looked right at me, and didn't even hesitate to go back in there? I think it was about then that I truly understood the scope of how things had affected the whole crew. This… was a lot worse than I’d expected. Sure it wasn’t the same thing I’d imagined hearing from the others, but to be treated like I wasn’t even here anymore? How far gone had Hispano gotten?

"See what you did to her?" Cora sighed and pinched the bridge of his beak with his talons. "You're going to fix this right fucking now. Understand?"

“Hispano?” I sighed, sitting myself down as well. “I need you to come talk to me. I need to apologize. For chasing Galina, for disappearing… for everything.”

"Ugh!" She gave out a muffled, aggravated groan. "I told the last hallucination to fuck off. Why don't any of you get it? Just leave me alone!"

"I told you there was too much Nitro in this batch.” The muffled voice of a mare came through the corner cloud next to Hispanos. “Should have kept in more Helium when the talismans did their thing."

"Shut up, Flake. Nobody cares about your stupid..." There was another scuffling sound before Hispano was pushed back outside the cloud and onto the ceiling again. "The hell was that for!?"

“Well.” The mare cleared her throat for a moment as Hispano rubbed at her flank a bit. "Cloudburst and I have decided that until you chill out a bit, we're just going to have some fun alone."

With a quick tug of her bright orange hooves, the mare inside sealed the hole Hispano had made in the cloud, leaving the distraught looking griffon drearily sprawled out on the fluffy ceiling. However, that defeated look didn't last for long as she pushed herself up stiffly. Turning around, she stomped her way upside down across the ceiling towards me, and came to a stop just inches from my face. The focus of her bloodshot eyes strained to resolve as she wobbled uneasily on her legs.

Again, I felt pain resonate through me, but not from my eye. No, this time I hurt because of how much Hispano hurt. Her eyes were watering as she looked at me, and she trembled slightly as she studied over me. I wanted nothing more than to just reach out and hug her, but before all that, I needed to apologize.

"Hispano... I..." I began to say.

However, before I could get any further, I found her beak dart forward and press against my muzzle in a surprisingly forceful kiss. Reflexively, my wings shot straight out, with my left wing giving Cora a good brush in the face. As my mind locked up and I blinked a few times, she broke it off with an utterly confused look across her face.

"How... how are you real?" She squinted at me, studying over me before shaking her head. "Maybe... it was a bad batch..."

"Hispano, it's really me." My already unsteady legs strained to hold myself up as my eyes watered. How could I have broken her this badly? How does a fool like me earn forgiveness for something like this? "I'm so sorry, about what I put you through, about disappearing like that. Things weren't supposed to be this..."

Again I was cut off by her. But instead of another kiss, the fonts of rending pain that erupted from my cheek as her talons tore across it made me cry out. Stumbling back, I felt as the warm, trickling blood started to flow down the healed marks that Galina had given me. Okay… I definitely deserved that, but a little warning would have been nice. Looking up at her in shock, I watched again as another flood of confusion washed over her. Slowly, she raised her talon, looking at the rivulets of blood that adorned each talon-tip.

"Wha... I don't..." She scrunched up her beak a bit as she wiped her talon off on the cloud above me. "How is that even possible? Unless..." Her eyelids flew open like her brain had flicked on a lightswitch, and she gave out a horrified gasp as she locked her gaze on mine. "Oh goddesses, I didn't... Night, you're alive! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to..."

This time, I interrupted her as I reached up and grabbed around her. Softly, I pulled her against my chest into a warm hug, fighting back the tears that started to drip down into the cuts she’d opened.

“I’m so sorry, Hispano. I never meant to do this to you.” I cried against her plumage, struggling to offer a smile from just the non-bleeding side of my muzzle.

“Night…” She whimpered, pushing herself back from me. As she stepped back, her watering eyes dripped her tears down onto the floor at my hooves, but the most joy filled smile laid across her beak. “I… I’m just glad you’re even alive.”

“Yes, we all are.” Cora flatly mumbled as he reached up and raised his talons up around the underside of Hispano. Passing the end of a thick rope from talon to talon, he wrapped it around Hispano a few times before stepping back. “Now, let’s get back to the convoy where we can all have a very happy reunion.” He gave a grunt as he tied the other end of the rope around himself. Giving it a firm tug, he nodded to himself before turning back for the door. “Alright, let’s go.”

“I’m sorry, Hispano.” I spoke as I looked back to find her tired, bloodshot gaze no longer held as much pain to it as before. "It's been a hell of a few days, and I have a lot of explaining and apologizing to do. And I promise I will, but... let's just go back home for now."

Before he moved out of range with the rope, I felt Hispano’s talons drag my face back closer towards her again. She pulled us into another forceful kiss before being ripped away towards the door. My bleeding, tear stained cheeks added a bright blush as my mind rebooted for the hundredth time today. And as my racing heart once again peaked from the event and started to wind down, I thanked the goddesses that Hispano would be alright. It may take time for her to come down from the drug use, and I’m sure it would be a long time before she could trust me again, but it was time I had with her at all. For that, I was more than grateful.

Now, if only things could go as smoothly with an apology to Buck…

Author's Notes:

As always, I'd like to give many many thanks to TheFurryRailFan for his help in going over this chapter!

And many thanks to Kkat for letting us all use this wonderful apocalyptic world.