Though the land was painted in dull hues, it was warm—or, perhaps more accurately, it was slightly less cold than before—when Blue awoke. The sun and moon still continued their never-ending struggle in the sky, but the former won by a smidgen; its feeble rays were hardly strong enough to penetrate the cloud cover which had developed overhead.

It was incredible, Blue realised, how quickly one could adapt to the peculiar and disorientating ways of the outside world. In less than a week—six days, to be exact—she had come to recognise the subtle differences between day and night, the tiny changes in temperature and light. But that wasn’t to say that the world was any kinder; it was just as hostile as it had always been, although at least it was quiet—both in terms of noise and insane populace.

Blue rose into a sitting position and winced as her body roared in pain. She collapsed back down without hesitation, her new silver armour clinking, and she glanced up to the slope. She cringed as her mind suddenly spun.

There was blood everywhere, even though the poor bodies of the innocent villagers who had been struck down by Avispa had all been removed. The changeling queen’s corpse, however, still lay out in the open, lifeless in the middle of the village. Her own horrid blood seeped from her eyes and ears and nostril and mouth, pooling around her head. She was completely forgotten about, for now at least, but Blue wasn't surprised; the villagers had been through a lot.

But hadn't the hive, too? She gulped as she thought about her actions—RipEar’s and Coalburst's, too. The changelings, vile little things though they were, had only been protecting their queen and their mother. They had attacked, certainly, but that had only been because the trio had ventured into their territory; it was a perfectly reasonable reaction, if she was being truthful.

By the same logic, she wasn’t to fault for attacking back. Her pained body was evidence enough of the danger the changelings posed—and, she supposed, the reason the village had wanted the tunnel cleared. Nevertheless, whether her actions were excusable or not did not hide the fact that she had killed—no, slaughtered—the changeling grubs.

Though she had been aware of her actions, the truth of the matter hadn’t initially occurred to her. Now that she had time to think and reflect, however, the horrific nature of what she had done settled on her mind like an impenetrable coating of tar.

She had killed creatures. Not ponies, admittedly, but the changelings had still been sentient beings. She had torn them from the world; she had mercilessly ripped the life from their still-breathing bodies.

Blue gasped as her pupils dilated, her mouth wide but incapable of taking in enough air. She had crushed the changelings beyond repair and left them to die in slow agony. She had personally impaled them, attacking with deadly intent and then letting them crumple to the floor in a pool of their own blood. Tartarus, she had merely watched as Coalburst’s flames had devoured the grubs alive—and had been pitying herself and her own injuries, minor in comparison!

"Blue?"

A small voice spoke up and a tiny hoof brushed up against Blue's unarmored neck. The pegasus screeched and snapped out her wings immediately before she shot up into the air with a scream. A moment later she clamped them back to her side and fell back down to the ground heavily.

Blue groaned as she unsteadily stood up again, her body ablaze. She then glanced down at the speaker through pain-narrowed eyes and murmured, "Please don't scare me like that." With a sigh, she hung her head and whimpered, back arched as she took a deep breath in. And then, after a slow exhale, she screamed and began to cry. "Oh Luna, Coalburst! I killed them! I killed them! I attacked them and let them die! In agony, Coal! In sheer agony—they bled to death! At my hooves! I'm a murderer! A cold-blooded, heartless killer!"

Coalburst clamped Blue's muzzle shut quickly, eyes narrowed. "No. You listen to me, Blue. You're not heartless. You're the sweetest pony I know! No-one else would've taken a three-legged kid with them." The filly looked up and waved her hoof around the village. "Look 'round you. Everypony out here's killed—or at least got someone to do it for them. None of us'd be here if we hadn't! I mean, the village has to kill their own foals, but would you call that evil? They're saving everypony else. It's not being mean, Blue. It's survival. And if you hadn't killed them, we'd both be dead. And I really don't wanna die yet.

"If you wanna call yourself cold-blooded, then I'm hurt! I kill ponies with fire, Blue! Fire! There aren't many worse ways to die—but would you call me evil?"

Coalburst released the mare's muzzle and Blue took a deep breath. Her lip began to quiver as she murmured, "Well, no..."

"Exactly. Because I'm not doing it 'cos I like it, Blue. I’m not some… crazy foal who runs ‘round chopping heads off for fun—and there are some like that, sickos. But the thing is, I’m doing it 'cos the ponies I attack are dangerous—and you bet they'd do the same to me if they could!"

Blue frowned and she shuffled back, keeping herself away from the filly. "That's not the point, Coal. I..." Blue took a shuddery breath and then shook her head. Her wounded shoulder grumbled. "It's different. I killed them, not you or somepony else who I can excuse. Me. And I've never had to kill anything before and it's tearing me to pieces because I feel like a monster!"

Coalburst recoiled slightly at Blue's outburst before she hung her head. "Okay, look. Everypony out here—well, us sane lot—feels bad about what we've had to do. But we can't pretend nothing’s wrong all the time; we have to kill, and that's life. But it's not being a monster, it's about saving yourself and the ones you love. And I kinda think that's a pretty noble thing to do. Y’know, to have so much guilt for saving other ponies.” Coalburst paused for a second. “In fact, having guilt at all out here’s kinda sweet. ‘Cos, y’know, most ponies don’t hurt like that anymore.”

Blue glanced up slowly and rubbed a hoof over her eyes. "You think?"

Coalburst nodded. "Oh, for sure! Guilt's horrible to deal with, make’s you selfless. Kinda.” As she trailed off, the filly glanced up to the sky and then sighed, her previous bubbly grin falling from her delicate little muzzle. "I should know. My mum's death was my fault, and I felt rubbish for ages. I still do, actually, 'cos it was only a few weeks ago. But that counts as ages out here, ‘cos it’s so easy to die. It's the first thing foals learn out here really. I mean, let's face it; everywhere you go there's gonna be something that's died. But hey, you've gotta learn to pick yourself up and dust yourself off out here—that was what Mum always told me, anyway. And it's true, really; if you spend all your time worrying, you're gonna die." Coalburst paused for a moment and gave a very weak grin. "You might want to learn that, actually. You're kinda whiny sometimes."

Blue sat a little straighter and rustled her feathers as she scowled. After a moment, she then opened a stiff wing and pulled the filly closer. She did her best to ignore the pain which came with doing so and got away with just a small moan. “What happened to your mum?”

Coalburst scrunched her eyes up for just a moment before she fixed them on Blue. After than, she didn’t once let her gaze trail. “Mutants got her. See, we’d just got to the Vanhoover ruins, and we’d walked a long way. A real long way. In the rain as well, and mum wasn’t feeling too good, and I was almost collapsing, so we holed up in an old factory, out in the outskirts. Bottom floor, ‘cos we weren’t gonna make it up the stairs—higher levels normally have some weird things living in ‘em, and we couldn’t fight.

“Anyway, we curled up in the corner. It’s normally safest that way, but it’s good to keep watch still. So we normally took shifts and all that, but mum took longer ones. But she fell asleep and then—bam—the things were on us. A swarm of burrowbugs.” Though she paused as she saw Blue’s frown, Coalburst quickly continued with a roll of the eyes. “Mutant horseflies, about… I dunno, ten times as big as the normal ones. But instead of just biting, they lay eggs in skin. It’s… horrid. If the bites don’t kill you, the babies will. But they’re normally super easy to kill, which is good ‘cos there’s thousands of the things in each ruin!

“But, that’s the thing. Mum didn’t wake up until the things had already landed on her. And I… I couldn’t do anything. I was too tired to use my magic, I suppose, and they kept attacking, and mum couldn’t kill every one. If we’d had a gun, she could’ve. But I couldn’t do anything, so I just ran. I ran and ran and ran, and didn’t look back. Not until later on, and mum hadn’t come out—so I went back and… And she was dead. Nothing but a skeleton and a few b-bits of flesh.”

Coalburst sniffled a little. Blue’s eyes widened, the emotion unexpected, and hastened to hold her closer. She nuzzled behind the filly’s ear gently, wishing there was something she could say to soothe the poor thing—but Coal quickly brushed the tears away and smiled as best as she could.

“I’m sorry I freaked out earlier. I just… It was too much, too soon. Not being able to use my magic…”

Blue nodded and placed her hoof on Coalburst’s lips ever so gently. “I get it, sweetie,” she whispered before she pushed the filly down. She lay next to her and rested her head down, smiling as she focused on Coalburst’s turquoise eyes. “Go on, go to sleep again. I’ll watch out for you, promise, and I’ll see if I can get Rip to get us some supplies too.”

Coalburst smiled as she nodded slowly. Her eyes drifted shut without much encouragement as her breathing slowed. “Thanks, Blue.” The filly curled up and wrapped her tail around herself as her muzzle morphed into a gentle smile. “I love you, you know that?”

Blue stiffened for a moment before she let out a breath. “Go to sleep, minx,” she whispered, then resting her head over Coalburst’s scarred back. As she did so, she couldn’t help wondering just how much the poor filly had been through; she’d lost her mother, sported a severely injured rear leg, had awful claw-scars across her back, and displayed a deep but scabbed-over wound on her neck which she had gotten around the time the trio had met. Added to that were the numerous scrapes and punctures from last night’s excursions.

She was a tough little thing to be sure, and Blue’s heart sank at the thought. She was young—she deserved a proper foalhood.

Complete safety… That was never going to happen outside. But there was one thing that Blue knew was possible to give the filly, even in Plague Equestria, and it was free; friendship.