{Cadences Journal, Entry 3}

Seeing those two dead bodies at the end of the bridge left me feeling depressed. This world was filled with death and was unforgiving, something that would be hard to get used to. I always believed love was the answer when I was growing up, and I my belief in the power of love was only strengthened when I had met Shining Armour. Although, now that I'm in the wasteland, it seems as if violence is the answer. I wasn't eager to kill anyone, human or pony, but I knew it's what I would have to do to survive and find my foal.

It seemed that Symbol was unaffected by the sight of the corpses. My guess is that he's from another area of the wasteland and was forced into the vault some time after Shining was killed. I'm not sure, neither is he. We're both out here looking for something. He wants answers, I want my son.

The first step was Concord, the place that Codsworth had told me about. I had been there many times before the bombs fell, but I knew it was going to be a very different place. Over 200 years, things will have really changed there. However, it seemed we'd be making a short stop on our way there. As we walked further down the road, we came across one of the Red Rocket gas stations, which was still standing. How it didn't explode when the bombs hit I don't know, but Symbol seemed glad that there was somewhere we could potentially find supplies in.

Before we could enter the building though, we stopped in our tracks as we heard the bark of a dog. We turned to see a full grown German Shepard sitting behind us waging it's tail as it looked to Symbol. What followed was simply adorable, and brought a genuine smile to my face. Symbol knelt down to greet the dog, only to be pounced on and have his face repeatedly licked instead. Symbol tried to escape but that only excited the dog more, making him more playful.

Thinking that Symbol had been tortured enough, I lifted the dog off of him with my telekinesis, resulting in his ears foldin back in protest. Symbol got to his feet and did what he could to wipe the dog spit off of his face and dusting down his new drifter outfit. After the dog calmed down, I let him go and he sat down in front of Symbol, looking at him expectedly. Symbol pat his head and scratched under his chin, electing happy barks from the dog.

Symbol asked him where his owner was, then he realised that he was sniffing the outfit a lot, resulting in a few whimpers of sadness. We both put two and two together, the drifters we had found dead were his owners. It seemed that love was the answer in this situation as Symbol offered to take him with us, saying something about the benefits of having a dog like this one in the wasteland. I just smiled and let him take him along with us, he seemed more than eager to follow us anyway.

After that was settled, we began to search the gas station, with the dog, now named Dogmeat, sniffing about trying to find anything useful. Symbol yet again went about collecting junk to tinker with later while I looked for other supplies. I managed to find a duffle bag with some ammo for Symbols pipe pistol and a few carrots we could either eat or use to grow food if we settled down somewhere.

As Symbol walked out the back, he spotted a Nuka-Cola machine and rushed towards it. As he rummaged through it, he took out a few Nula-Colas, which were in rocket shaped bottles before looking disappointed and closing the machine. He gave me two of the four colas he had found and we put them in our inventories. I asked why he was so disappointed, but he said it didn't matter and that's it was best we get back on the road.

As we were about to leave, we heard Dogmeat growling. When we rushed over to him, we saw him just growing at the parking lot. I figured he just spotted a bird and had panicked, so I stroked his back and told him it was ok, but when I felt Symbol place a hand on my withers and saw him pull out his pistol I knew something was wrong. I took out my new tire iron and looked out in caution. Suddenly, a group of strange, furless rats burst out of the ground and screeched at us.

As one charged me I swung my tire iron at it and knocked it's head off. Two others ran towards up, one being shot in the side by Symbol and the other being bitten by Dogmeat who shook it about before slamming it into the ground. I knew the little guy would be helpful.

A few more burst out of the ground, but they were easily dealt with. Symbol told me they were mixtures of moles and rats, appropriately named Molerats. First giant radioactive roaches now mutant hybrids? This wasteland just kept getting scarier and scarier. When I made a comment like that Symbol just chuckled, patted my back and told me to be glad it wasn't a Deathclaw. The name alone made me think twice about ever trying to fight one, at least without a suit of power armour.

Symbol scratched Dogmeats ear and told him he was a good boy before we got back out on the road. It was nice having a third in the group, not to mention one that walked on four legs like me. With my human and canine friends at my side I pressed on, feeling confident that we could overcome anything as lomg as we worked together. I tried to lighten the mood by giving us a nickname, like "The Triumphant Trio" or "The Troublesome Three" only for Symbol to laugh and shake his head, Dogmeat barking happily as his new master laughed.

One thing Symbol says interested me though. "Cadence, if we ever get a nickname its gotta come from the locals or at least someone with more wisdom than us."

Oh how right he was.

Author's Notes:

It's back! After playing a load of Fallout 4 I got motivated to write this again, with much better writing to boot. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, if you spot any mistakes please let me know and I'll get right on it.

Also, if you'd like to see Symbol and Cadence do a certain quest, let me know. Know that they will be doing the Automatron quest sometime in the future.

Also, since I suck at describing things, here's what the drifter outfit looks like