Call me crazy but, I love this part of equestria. Sure it's hot, it's humid and from time to time you wake up in the middle of a down pour, but for the most part, I love it. I was born in this part of the country and raised all over it as we traveled from town to town selling wares. Granted I spent most of that time complaining about the heat, but even still this place held a special place in my heart for far longer than anywhere else could.

Not long after leaving Ten Pony we were flagged down by an informant from the Half Hearts. I had been loosely tied to them for a short while not long after becoming estranged from my family through the various tragedies that had complicated my life. So when the word finally broke out that my head was not only on a poster in Megamart, but also over much of Equestria... They thought it best to pass the word along. Even though they all for the most part seemed to glorify death in one aspect or another, they all had a common animosity for loosing some pony.

As it turns out mine and Calibers antics had not gone unnoticed by Red Eye as told by the 'considerably damage' notation on the wanted poster. I had to give it to him, he captured my likeness to a proverbial 'T', except for the new bullet hole in my ear... my stripes... my new vest... AND my new had that Zuri had 'procured' for me in Ten Pony. How on earth she managed to get me a hat there as a Zebra, I will never know. For the moment I have just chalked it up as 'Creepy Zeeb Magic' as she affectionately calls it. Caliber on the other hoof was spot on in his description, but was rather upset at his by comparison low bounty of 5,000 caps.

But even with my new look, there are not many ponies out there with sky blue mane and tail who are grey as a depressed mood. The 20,000 caps wouldn't hurt either, if nothing else it would make other ponies take a closer look at just about every grey pony out there. I honestly can not thank the Half Hearts enough for telling me before we went after Firefly, chances are that she would be posted up and waiting for me. With that much on the line for a Pegasus, I doubt I would have gotten to say a single word to her before she started shooting.

With nowhere else to turn, we turned to nowhere. I flew nearly nonstop for nearly 40 hours at cloud level to get us out of Equestria as fast as I could. If they knew about Caliber and I, what were the chances that they knew about Zuri, Shale, Fetch and Valkyrie too? If it were just me and Cal, we would just lay low and work on a plan to get our names off of every hit wall in site. But with everypony with us, we had to make tracks and fast!

Back in Equestria proper there are ruins, buildings and thick forests with access to encampments of Slavers and Raiders to worry about. But here... Here I can see them coming for miles away. It's hard to hide in an endless stretch of desert on all sides being beaten down by insurmountable heat. If they wanted to find us here, then they deserved to find us. But with one last stop before we pointed to Site 103, the chances of us being snuffed out were growing thinner by the second. It was something I needed right now, my nerves were destroyed in every aspect of the word with worry over the rest of the pack.

We glided from under the cloud cover and into the noon day sun as I steered us towards the tiny one shot town of Silver Shoe. I could nearly smell the nasty dirt below me when flood of 'ohs and ahs' erupted from the cart behind me as many of the cart's occupants gawked at the open sky for the first time. Well... During the day anyway.

"Whoa! It's like... forever!" Fetch shouted as he poked his head out of the cart. the others were soon to follow.

"It's heavenly! Look how blue it is! It's the same color as Joey's mane!" Val exclaimed as she nearly fell out of the cart.

"Damn, Joey... Why haven't you ever talked about this place!? This is where you were raised!?" Caliber said, giving the cables of my harness a tug.

"Why would I? This place is hot, smells bad and the ponies are assholes... Sky's nice though."

"Yeah-yeah! Really blue... So, if you hate it so much, why was this your go-to when we needed to lay low?"

"Well, it's wide open. I like my chances better when I can see them coming... if they come that is. Also, I know a place that I doubt they would check if they did come knocking."

"Yeah? Where's that? Got an old mare friend who can... Hide us all?"

"Do you have to be gross all the time?"

"Hey, you knew the risks when you said I was your friend." Caliber said, slapping me on the flank. "Now, land us so we can pee, trusty stead!"

"CAL! For the last time, I'm a Pegasus! Not a Earth pony!"

"Silence, flappy horse! Your friend needs to take a wiz!"

"That's another thing... You an I need to have a talk when we get somewhere safe."

"Yeah? About what?"

"It's... Complicated." My words were met with a collective sigh from the rest of the group.

"Joy... Just tell him. It is not nice to keep secrets." Zu said from deep within the cart.

"Now? Here!?"

"Yes. You have kept it from him long enough." Shale said, backing her up.

"Fine. Caliber? You and I shared a nut sack at one point. There! happy?" Shouted as I brought us in for a landing.

"Funny, but I don't do threesomes. I have never been that drunk in my life."

"No, dumbass. WE SHARED. Not we touched."

"What are you driving at here, I'm confused."

"Damn it, Cal. Your dad is my dad."

"Joey, your dad died... also Zebras. You suck at jokes." He said, further infuriating me as I landed the cart and undid my straps. I trotted up to him at the back of the cart and grabbed him by the face firmly and spoke slowly.

"Caliber. Boss took me in around the same time he was seeing a mare. That mare was your mother. Boss is your father and my adopted father." I said as i waited for it to sink in.

"My dad was a buck named Camden. Not 'Boss'." He said narrowing his eyes.

"For Celestia's sakes... Shale?" I said as I trotted off in physical pain.

"Caliber... Sweety? Boss's name WAS Camden. Not long after Camden found Joey, he broke things off with your mother because she was not ready to take care of a foal... I guess it was ironic that their last visit together made you. You and Joey are brothers... Well, adopted but, Camden was the only father Joey ever knew. To him that was as good as blood relation."

There was a long pause while Caliber processed the information he was given. We all stared in aw as parts of his brain began to work for the first time in years as he tried to work things out. In a way, it was actually kind of cute to see him confused on such a personal level. It was a side of him I had never seen before, much like when Lavender mind fucked him or when that bar tended back in New Appleloosa showed him how to make beer bottles stick to walls.

"Wait... You are serious... All this time..." Caliber started.

"Yes. Well, I have only known for a few weeks." I said, trotting up to him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He said, looking more hurt than confused.

"Cal... I didn't know how you would take it. You talk about the buck who knocked your mother up like he was Red Eye himself. I guess I just figured that if you found out, you wouldn't want anything to do with me... given the circumstances."

"Why would you think that!? Why would you think I would not want to know!? I know I said I hated the guy, but that was because I had no clue who he was! Do you honestly think I would get all pissy and run off if I found out you and I were brothers!?" He shouted at me.

"Yeah?" I said, shying away.

"JOEY!" He screamed as he ran me down and tackled me. "I have so much bullying to catch up on! So much... 'Brotherly love' to share!" He screamed as he proceeded to destroy my mane.

"Cal! Caliber! Knock it off you loonie! For the love of everything! STOP!" I screamed, but my screams were ignored as everypony sat and laughed at the display of 'love' coming from the two crazed bucks.

"You know what this means, right?" Cal said as he helped me to my hooves.

"No, what?"

"You're stuck with me. No more running off and hiding. If you do, I'll guilt you like a..." Caliber froze and began to back away from me slowly.

"Like a what? Com'on. You can do it little buddy... just spit those words out." I said, teasing him.

"Like... a Mother..." He said as he backed behind the cart. Do you know that feeling you get when somepony is behind you and everypony in front of you see's them... but you don't? No... it couldn't be.

I turned to see a the haggard form of a ghoul blacking out the sun behind me. Her form was narrow but at that moment it might as well have been as wide as a building. Even with nearly no lips left from years of decay and damage, I could clearly see her stern growl coming from either side of her clip board. I narrowed my eyes to look at the piece of paper that was covering her usual chalk board, it was a bounty picture of me... I was busted.

The combination calk and clip board fell across my face with tremendous force over and over again as she lashed at my face with surprising force. I watched as the bounty flier flew off to revel words that she written in anger, by the looks of them, she had used more than one piece of chalk in doing so. I was having a hard time reading them while they were beating me half to death, but one thing was for sure. Ditzy was PISSED.

"Stop...OW! Being...OW! Stupid...OWWW!"

She ended her assault, cleaned the board and began to write again. Soon after, she started hitting me all over again.

"Seriously!? OUCH!" She stopped, pointed at the board and started hitting me again. "Slaver...OW! Bounty!? OW! I had no choice! They were going to kill Fetch! I had to get into Filly!"

She stopped and looked on in horror and scribbled the words 'You went where!?' on her board.

"Please! Just stop hitting me! Caliber and I snuck into Filly and got fetch out, after that we flew here. The Half Hearts told us about the bounty. So we booked it." I said, scooting my butt backwards towards the cart.

Ditzy looked on in disappointment as she scribbled on her calk board and gave 'sniff' if that is what you could call that noise she just made. She then held it up in front of me and sat down in a heap of sadness. 'You didn't say goodbye.' If I was ever heart broken before, it could never match the look on her face. Even as a ghoul, she still had that same old power that all mares had. That damn face.

"D, we flew over New Apple and your cart wasn't there. I swear I would have stopped if I saw it, but the place is crawling with slavers and you were gone!" I said, hugging the old ghoul. Wow, I thought she smelled bad in the cloud cover... out here she was putrid! But smell be damned, I have no idea why she has such a close relationship with me in her head, but outside of nopony else she was the only pony who cared for me like a parent. After we parted, the two of us exchanged words in the sand together for a moment.

'Going back to the place?' She wrote.

"Yeah. I think it could be our only chance to keep safe a lay low out there."

'I'm not happy with you.'

"I know... But just trust me when I say I had to do it. I couldn't let them take him like that. I like the kid."

'Is that her? The Zebra?'

"Oh yeah! Zuri! Come here for a second." I said as I called for her to come from her hiding place. Zu timidly crept up beside me doing her best to hide from Ditzy as best she could. "Zu, This is D... I mean Ditzy Doo. She's Equestria's official mail mare! Without her ponies like me would never have the supplies we need to make it out here. Also she kind of takes care of me... sometimes a little too enthusiastically."

Ditzy offered as much of a grin as she could manage with what was left of her face and a friendly hoof to the shaking Zebra.

"She is safe?" Zuri said in horror.

"Zuri!" I shouted as I shoved her forward.

"Pleasure to meet you." Ditzy barely contained her excitement at the chance to meet the very mare I had spoke so fondly of over the last few years. I guess with her feelings for me being akin to a mother, she took it as meeting her colt's first ever marefriend. Kind of cute, but still awkward as hell.

'Happy to meet you.' She scribbled in the dirt.

"Ahha, yeah." Zu said as she crept back behind me.

"She's a little shy. Look, I promise this is not forever. I'll come back as soon as I can figure out how to calm all this down."

'I can help?'

"No, no. You have enough on your plate with that Light Bringer thing. If anything it seems to be moving in the same direction we need right now. That's more important."

'She is cute. Be careful. Make lots of babies!' She scribbled and with that, she hitched herself up to her wagon and took flight.

"Make lots of babies... That sounds fun, no?" Zu said as she studied the ground.

"Zuri, i'm surprised you are not already pregnant as much as you jump me. Just count your lucky stars that you aren't right now, things would get crazy fast!"

"NO! I do not count stars!"

"Yeah, yeah... Stars, evil freaking stars..." I said as I trotted into town to barter for supplies.

What was with Zebras and the damn stars. I mean I know that stars are symbols for them of pure evil and what not, but what did mentioning them have to do with anything. It was a simple turn of phrase like 'For Luna's Sake' or the like, why did they put so much emphasis on them. It was not like any of it held water, it was just superstition like fairy tales.

The group of us trotted into the small town and divided up the chore list equally for the things we would need. thankfully our stop at Ten Pony had not burned through much of our savings so we did have some caps to work with as far as buying anything. But as far as wears went, just about everything we had already was marked as needed.

"Ok. Caliber, Shale... You two go find us some water. Val, Stitches... Your on food duty. Zu and I will go and track down some Chems for our first aid kit. This place is dirty, nasty and mean. trust nopony and do not be afraid to be an ass to get a good deal. These ponies actually kind of respect that kind of treatment."

"Question..." Caliber started.

"No, no booze."

"Damn it..." He mumbled to himself as everypony broke of into separate groups and began tracking down the various items we needed. Zu and I pointed our noses towards Peach's and trotted out into the town center. I pulled her in close to me as we trotted through the dusty streets. My stripes were coming in to full color in the bright sun, even my snout was starting to darken as the days wore on. It was terrifying, the darker they go the more ponies would stare at them. They were feeling less and less like a heritage and more like targets.

Every trip outside at this point was beginning to feel like a brush with near death, patiently waiting for the bullet impact that would end things for good. Even with armor on, I felt like I was staring down the barrel of a flame thrower all the time. I could only imagine what Zuri was going through, I'm sure in her mind she at least had me to lean on. But if she could only see inside my head at the torment that was going on, she would feel less than comfortable around me.

The two of us stepped onto the porch of the small sundries shack and started for the door. We were both froze by the screaming that was coming from the inside and bleeding into the streets. The two of us peeked through a dusty window to see what was going on. It was normal to hear screaming from ponies at the price gouging that was going on in there, but this screaming was more visceral and it was coming from Peach's herself.

"I don't know where he is! Why won't you listen to me." Peach's screamed as the two slavers held her down atop the counter.

"Yeah... Sure you don't... That's why you have his rifle propped up in that corner over there. Did you think we wouldn't notice?" The slaver said with a perfect edge to his voice. It was cool and calm like a knife that was ready for surgery.

"Look bitch, that little fucker has a huge bounty and we aim to collect it. We know he's here, just tell us where he is and maybe we let you live!" The other slaver cackled in delight.

"I HAVEN'T SEEN HIM IN MONTHS! LET ME GO!" She cried out as one of them began to drag a knife along her face. The resulting trail of blood left behind began to flow down her cheek and onto the counter top. I had to admit, It was pretty hard to conger up remorse for her in this state. I had often thought of doing the very same thing to her, but she doesn't deserve to actually have it happen.

"We have to do something!" Zu whispered to me.

"How did they find us already!? Did they just throw slavers everywhere!?"

"Joy! They are going to kill her!"

"Ok, ok... Do you think you can sneak in there and cause a distraction for me? Maybe knock over some cans in the back or something?"

"Yes." Zu said without a flinch as she waited for her moment and darted inside without making a sound. Now wait juat one damn minute... Terrified of ghouls, perfectly fine with slavers... Luna she is weird.

I watched through the edge of the double doors as Zuri crept towards the back corner of the store and waited for her move. I guess there was no getting out of this fight, Peach's was the only pony in town with a fresh supply of Med-x and as much as seeing her get her's, I rather not steal from the dead. Zu fallowed through with the impromptu plan knocked over a centuries old display of cans in the back corner before darting into a trash can without a sound. Sneaky ass Zebra. I took the moment while their heads were turned to creep under the double doors, found an apple on a shelf and began eating it as I waited for them to notice me.

"You know, there are easier ways of getting information out of her..." I said with a mouthful.

"What the fuck!?"

"You torturing her mentally will give you nothing but suspect information. I would have set a trap myself." I said as I let one of my wings unsnap one of my pistols.

"You think you are really slick, don't ya?" One of the slavers said as he let go of Peaches and trained his knife towards me.

"Now, now... A knife is slow... Don't you bucks have anything faster than that? I would hate to die slowly. Might have time to say my prayers or come up with a plan to get out of it... maybe even take you with me."

"Dead is dead! Caps are caps! How you die doesn't matter!"

"Well then, I guess you can't teach dogs new tricks. So, you gonna talk or are you gonna close that distance. Careful, you better be fast about it." I said as My right wing wrapped around the grip of my pistol and cocked the hammer back.

"I'm about to make that smartass mouth of your's a bit wider." He growled as he stomped forward.

"Not fast enough." I said as I drew my revolver and sent three rounds into his chest. They hit as aimed, just above the sternum, removing his head from his torso. I moved my sites to the other buck in the room who darted behind a display. I could just barely see his ear as he shouted at me from behind a stack of creamed corn.

"Give it up! I'm going to murder your ass!"

"Do you morons come pre-loaded with stupid catch phrases or do you have to come up with those corny lines." I said as I fumbled around with my Pipbuck in search of that S.A.T.S. thing. The world became a hazy slow blur as it targeted the edge of his cranium with a 91% hit accuracy. I selected it and added a few extra shots for good measure.

As soon as I fell out of the spell, I watches as the three bullets I had sent his way tore through cans of corn and the shelf and right into his head, sending bits of brain and skull over the wall behind him. It was such a good spell, but it did take the fun out of shooting slavers, it was almost like cheating. I'll stick to sites and save this magical targeting stuff for things I had no chance of pulling off on my own.

"Well that was a waste of time. Hi, Peaches." I said as I trotted to the counter. "I need... six rolls of bandages, four healing potions and do you have any aspirin? I have a splitting headache."

"Wha... Where did you? Why were they-" She started.

"Oh them? They want me dead or something, don't mind them."

"How the hell did I get dragged into this!? Joey I just sell thing, I don't harbor fugitives from slavers! Why would they even bother talking me about you." She said angeredly, but still very shaken from her brush with Red Eye's finest morons.

"Honestly, I have no clue why they are here, what would give them the idea to come here or even why they questioned you. Chances are they saw my rifle and thought I was hiding near by."

"You WERE! You were here!"

"Ah, yes! But I wasn't hiding, was I? No, I just stopped off for supplies before I head deeper into the... Guess I shouldn't say actually."

"Holy shit! A Zebra!?"

"Oh her? Nah, don't mind her, she's my marefriend. Don't worry, she don't bite." I said as I started petting her mane like a dog. Zuri stared blankly at Peaches as if she were looking at a fresh picked apple. "So, about that stuff? The things I asked for?"

"Just... Take it! Just get that thing out of here!"

"Now, now... No need to be rude. I did just save your life after all. How would I feel if my marefriend were to be insulted like that to my face?"

Peaches said nothing as we ransacked her store of the things we needed. I had no intention on not paying mind you, I was to proud to just 'take' things from somepony unless I didn't like them. But getting a free pass at Peaches store was unheard of, let alone rare. I couldn't help but help myself to my old rifle and a box of ammo while I was behind the counter as repayment for all the times she had taken her sweet time adding zeros to my total. With a toss of a small bag of caps on the counter, Zuri and I left Peaches to clean up the mess we had made and set off to find the others.

Outside, a small collection of ponies had gathered to see what or who had caused the gunshots inside the small store. It wasn't uncommon to hear gunshots here, but it was uncommon to see a Zoney and a Zebra trotting around in the daylight as if it were normal. I would guess they had put two and two together and came to the logical answer of five, marking us as murderous robbers who came to the town to take what we wanted.

"YOU TWO! WHERE'S PEACH!?" An old buck shouted from the front of the pack.

"Inside, she's fine. Mind the two dead slavers." I said as I trotted off the porch and into the street.

"Slavers? Their dead?" One pony asked.

"They came for me, they found me."

I had guessed that those two bucks had caused quite the stir in the town when they got here because nopony seemed to care about us anymore having said that. As they rushed inside the store, Zu and I took that moment to run back to the cart and get myself hitched back up to leave. No sooner than I was lashed in place, the rest of the group found their way back to the cart and we made ready to fly.

"Did you hear those gunshots?" Stitches shouted from inside the cart.

"What gunshots?" I said, thinking it better to not tell the kid I had just-

"Oh, yes. It was us." Zu blurted out.

"Damn it, Zu." I shouted as I lifted us off the ground.

"They were... how you say... torturing the unpleasant mare at the store. Joy and I shoot them."

"Uh... You mean 'shot' them... Ya'll shot them, right?" Caliber corrected.

"Yes! We Shooted them... yes?" Zu said looking to me. I gave a hoof swing to show her 'no sweat'.

"COOL!" Stitches screamed in his squeaky voice.

"Yes! Cool!" Zuri said in glee.

There are few things in this world as sweet and sleeping in an actual bed. The flight had been long and apart for that one moment in Silver Shoe, uneventful. Even still, I was exhausted when we finally found Site 103's secluded entrance among the rocks and sand. As I had instructed them to do, the restricted entrance to the Stable was less than desired with what little sleep I had had. Thankfully Shoari recognized my voice about twenty or so minutes into the 'screening'. Anything was better than them haphazardly opening the door for anypony or Zebra that came knocking.

As per the usual protocol, I was detained and debriefed about my travels throughout the Wasteland proper. Where I had been, what I had been in contact with and what all I had done since I had departed the Stable all came into question. Shoari said it was for their own safety, but given the fact that most Stables wouldn't so much as speak to you over the intercom system, I would say they had plenty of other problems. I guess they banked on their superior knowledge of medicine and science to protect them from just about anything that came their way.

Even still. I was ordered politely to get plenty of rest for my medical exam in the morning. I had not told the others, hell, I had tried not to acknowledge it myself, but ever since we had left Ten Pony my leg had been killing me. It was a deep burning pain that never seemed to wain until I slept for several hours or took some Med-x. I had been very careful about not taking too much pain killer, limiting myself to just one syringe a day and spacing it out as much as I could, but it barely took the sting out of the pain. I was starting to get a taste for the stuff again after nearly two months clean, I could barely stand until I shot myself up will a little as I could handle every morning.

I couldn't help but think that whatever they had placed in my leg and whatever Life Bloom had done to it was to blame. More so their choice of whatever they put in me. I had hoped when I trotted out of here I had felt the last of the pain from my broken leg, but here I was trotting back in here in nearly as much pain and with a growing drug addiction. I just wanted to be normal again. I would never tell Zu, but I was growing to hate having stripes, I hurt all the time now and thing were just moving too fast. One day we are in Ten Pony, the next we are just a few miles north of Zebrica proper.

The whole point of me even finding Zuri was so that I could settle down, take a few odd jobs and start a family of my own. I just wanted to come home at night and see them waiting for me, I just didn't want to be alone anymore. Now I was flying all over equestria for nothing more than to get my life together and to stop hurting. Top that off with being placed on Red Eye's hit list, hearing my name on the radio every few days if I did anything at all and having to hide from everypony I had never seen before... I was getting too old for this. Honestly, I had no clue how the Light Bringer did it. She must be powered by a damn nuclear reactor or something.

Lying here under the sheet was just about the safest I had felt in weeks. No slavers coming for us, no mutants, no wildlife and no rain! It's sad I had to fly hundreds of miles just to take a damn nap and here I was, spending my first waking hour working myself up into a cold sweat over all the responsibilities I had to fulfill. I clicked on the radio to my pipbuck to catch the tail end of a song that had been playing, a new song at that! Damn it! I would have loved to have heard it, but no! I had to be sitting here in my self pity. It wasn't long after the song ended, the heavy static gave way to Dj Pon3 coming across the airwaves with the news. Oh good!

Did ya'll Like that one? I sure did, can't get enough of it in fact! It's no secret that Ol'Dj don't come across a new tune every day, but when I do, I play the wheels off it! But enough of that, let's take a look at the Wasteland and see what's going on out there everypony!

Finally, after long last, we have an eyewitness account for the events in Filly everypony. Now, the validity of this is a bit suspect, but I happen to have some supporting evidence to back it up. After speaking to the two defected Slavers, and yes, you heard me right, defected slavers... we finally have some light in the darkness of what cause that huge fire. The two former Slavers that go by Key Switch and Padlock had quite the tail to give me, but if their words are correct... They claim that Red Eye himself said it looked like a pack of rabid dogs tore through the place, leaving nothing but fire and reformed slavers in their wake.

Key Switch and Padlock wish to remain nameless informants, so everypony listening, be sure to forget their names as soon as you can. But If I know ponies like my assistant does, then I would say that those dogs were less rabid and bit more wild... Like a pack of coyotes, if the wanted posters are to be believed anyway.

Yes children, it would seem that our old friend Coyote Joe has been a very busy pony lately. His whereabouts are unknown to most but suffice to say that he knows about his new price tag. I wouldn't worry too much about it children, those posters look nothing like him anyhow. That reminds me, with all the happenings in the Hoof and beyond, please don't go taking popshots at everypony or Zebra ya see. It's not polite, some of them are good folk who are just trying to make good in the world like the rest of us. You can't judge a pony by their coat no more than you can a Zebra by their stripes, children.

Stay safe out their everypony and everyzebra, drink plenty of water and if you see a grey buck with some patchy stripes like a zebra... Try not to shoot him and be sure to tell him that the hotel staff was able to get the fire in his room under control before it burnt the place down.

"CALIBER!" I shouted.

"What!?"

"You didn't..."

"I mean, maybe? What are you talking about?"

"The radio! Did you set our room on fire?"

"Why is it that anytime something like this happens you blame me?" He said matter of factly.

"It-was-me!" Fetch shouted from under the bed.

A collective gasp filled the room. Fetch, the sweet little colt had set fire to our room in Ten Pony and did not seem the least bit remorseful about the matter. What was wrong with foals these days, he was just so damn innocent yet he was capable of arson!? If nothing else it just meant that he was that much more of Calibers child than the rest.

"FETCH! BAD PONY!" Shale shouted.

"Wha...? I was just covering our tracks aunt Shale." Fetch said with his sad puppy frown.

"Fetch, I know you want to help us, but setting fire to one of the last bastions of hope in the Wasteland, that ain't it buddy." I said, giving him a gentle yet firm nudge.

"Sorry uncle Joey..." He said retreating to his place under the bed.

"We are batting a thousand, Joey. At this rate there won't be a safe bed in all of Equestria!" Cal said from his bed.

"I'm not sure if that is something we should brag about..."

A loud knock finished my sentence for me. Ah, it was that time already? I was sure that the doctors wouldn't come for me for another hour or two, but this place was on the ball! Despite the comfort of being able to just wait in my room for the doctors to see me, it had done little for my anxiety for what they might find wrong with me. With a whoosh and clang, the door flung itself open and Shoari trotted through the door.

"Joey? We are ready for you."

"You lot try and not burn the place down, ok?" Shoari gave a snicker at the comment. "I'm serious, nothing like Ten Pony... I want to come back here one day." Shoari's face melted into deep concern as I trotted past her into the hallway. As soon as the door close, I collapsed on the floor in pain. I had held it together just long enough for the trot to the door, but that was all I had left in me. I had not had Med-X Since Silver Shoe and the pain was back in full force.

"Joey!? Are you ok?"

"Sh! Keep it down, I don't want the others to know."

"Are you in pain!?"

"No, I'm having an orgasm. Yes I'm in pain! I can't even stand!"

"Oh! I'll call for a stretcher!" She said with glee. "Xymol, send a stretcher to my location please. Joey can't walk." She said in her bubbly tone.

"He can't walk? Or he can't trot?"

"Trot."

"Don't he have wings?"

"Yeah but... We never get to use the stretcher team! I have always wanted to use them."

"Fine. I'll dispatch them to you now. You just don't want to trot through the dark part of the site alone with a wounded pony, do you."

"That has nothing to do with it! Just send the damn team!"

"Dark part of the site? You all went back there!?"

"Yeah, Xymol found an excellent hospital from before the war down there. It turned out to be a M.A.S/M.O.P co-op hospital for magical research. Lots of high level tech! So to say he has basically lived there is a gross understatement." She said as she pulled a syringe from her bag.

"Wait, what's that?"

"Just a little something to keep you calm on the way down. Nothing to worry about, it will be like you never closed your eyes." She said as the needle stung my side and she injected the syrupy looking goo into me. "There! If the new solution we have been working on over the past few days has worked, you should be feeling no pain at all!" She said has she hovered over me with that creepy smile of her's.

"Joey? Can you hear me? Nod if you can here me. Joey? Wow, this stuff is potent! OH! Over here! He's ready to move!"

I... I couldn't move! My body lay limp and motionless on the cold floor as though I had been given the most powerful dose of narcotics possible yet, felt completely sober. Even though I had been told this would relax me, even though I could not move a single muscle outside of breathing, even with my body completely still, my mind was racing. I was terrified. It was as though I was a prisoner in my own mind being unable to control my own body. The effects were instant, nearly severing my contact with my physical form... all apart from the pain I was still feeling in my leg.

I watched helplessly as I was loaded onto the stretcher, I panic'd the entire time I was carried through the entire stable towards the Site Access Level and I did everything I could to scream out that what was happening to me was not normal. I wanted nothing more than to feel the sensation of a limb moving or even for my eyes to blink, but it was all in vain. Whatever they had shot me full of had had a very profound effect on me, I was at their mercy now. I did all that I could to slow my heart rate as they layed me out on the hospital bedding and adjusted my body for whatever procedure they had planned next.

I must have layed there for an hour before somepony came into the room with me. I had been left to my own devices once placed here, having little more to do than mentally track my slobber draining from my mouth and down my neck. It was cold. Xymol trotted into the room and took his time looking me over. I was beginning to lose my concept of time and my surroundings. Apart from the soft beeps coming from my heart monitor and the soft handling of my throbbing leg, I had nearly zero awareness of where I was or what was going on. After what felt like an eternity, somepony was finally talking to me.

"Well, Mr. Coyote... I suspect you have been in a great deal of pain. Please. No need to try and speak. If we have done our jobs correctly, you should not be able to respond. We are experimenting with a new drug that can sever the connection of the brain to the central nervous system temporarily while undergoing advanced procedures. You will be totally awake yet fell nothing at all. Given your history of drug abuse and your willingness to avoid them, we thought that you would appreciate this far more than any narcotic." He said with pride.

But I was feeling pain. I was feeling exactly as much pain as I had before I was shot up with this damn drug! I fought with everything I had to speak, blink anything!

"Now... I have given you a good once over and I have to say, I think you have been ignoring our advice to take it easy. It appears you have come into contact with some very powerful magical energy and melted the brace we implanted to help your bones back together. The type of alloy we used is... advanced and without the proper spell binding can send a unicorn to the moon with how well it can amplify spell energy. That being said I would say you had a medical exam at some point."

I winced when I called back to the exam room in Ten Pony when Life Bloom tried to look at my leg. I remember the blinding light and the searing pain. I was as if my bones were melting from the outside in!

"Well, where I would normally promote such things and even applaud your efforts, there was a reason why we wanted you to come back to us for your follow up visit. After the implant melted, your bones continued to regrow, all the while running out of space and creating the pressure you are feeling. I'm afraid what I saw was none to pleasing to the minds eye. I fear that the bone has become not only infected but deformed. I will not know for sure until I get in there and have a look for myself."

This explained so much but instilled even more fear. What did this all mean? Was I going to loose my leg? What was going on!

"Don't worry, had this been a few months ago you would have had few options. but with the wealth of tech we have found here, I can assure you that you will be in good hooves. That being said, I believe that your OR has been prepped and is ready for it's new guest." He said as he got up to begin wheeling me from the room.

I can not even begin to explain the frustration of having so many answers and not being able to come close to voicing them. Where speaking with him had helped with my anxiety, I was still worried about being able to feel when I was told I would not be able to. Maybe they would put me under once I got there. Maybe they would apply a local anesthetic. I had no clue what I was in for or how long it would last.

I was deposited in a bright room filled with ponies, some I knew, other not so much. Ponies and Zonies were running from machine to machine all the while stopping for moments to place sensors all over my body. One Zony mare took great care in placing my leg in a restraint atop a cradle while another mare shaved all the hair from the area they intended to operate on. Forget the pain, being tickled and not being able to move was WAY worse. I watched as they applied various creams and solutions to the skin in preparation for the operation.

I had to say, even through the fear, I was impressed with just how fast this was all happening. They were like a well oiled machine in the way they moved and preformed tasks. Slowly, each pony and Zony found a place among the beeping devices and began calling out their orders.

"Alright Mr.Coyote... This should not take long at all! Baring any surprises, I do not expect this to take more than an hour at most. Alright, lets begin. Nurse, Scalpel." He said as he took a fresh blade from the tray to his right and began to line it up over my leg. It was at they moment I realized that through all their well rehearsed activities, they had done nothing to numb the pain.

Before my heart could begin to race, I felt the cold blade pierce my skin and begin to split it open. It was ghost like in that it just kept going, searing with agony all the while. Just a quickly as it had the first time, the blade returned and dug deeper into the muscle, that pain was anything but ghostly. It was pure and unadulterated. I was screaming in my mind, praying to whoever was listening and going insane. Through the severed muscle I could feel the blade hitting something hard as it bumped along my bone. I wanted to close my eyes, I wanted to run like hell! I wished I had just waited out the pain and had my leg removed, anything but this. I could feel the texture of the blade as it cut! With my every ability to flee gone I was left with nothing more than the pure focus of what was happening.

I watched as he reached for another tool with his magic and brought it into my view. It was a giant looking square with bolts and hooks on it. I was given the grand view and the gut wrenching agony of watch him place it in the open wound and draw the hooks apart with the screws. With every turn of the bolts I felt the muscles being torn from the bone as he spread the wound open for easy access to my bones. I should not be seeing this, no pony should ever have to see their own bones like this. Nopony should ever feel something like this! I was so transfixed on the glittering black metal object in my leg that I had not noticed the tear rolling down my cheek.

Just as he began grinding the metal away from my bones, I started to see the colors of the room begin to first blur then become jagged and vibrating. I was feeling the pain fade away and my vision was becoming brighter by the second. The faint beeping in the background began to grow louder and faster as the symptoms progressed. I was in a horrific state, if I could scream, I would be sobbing and be completely out of control as if I were burning alive.

"DOCTOR! HE'S HAVING A SEIZURE!"

Beyond my control, I felt my body begin to twitch, then flail, then rock uncontrollably. Xymol rush to hold my head as the others found a limb and pressed down. I heard so many thing being shouted back and forth, nothing I could understand beyond the loud ringing in my head. My mind had had enough and was in full panic. I watched helplessly as my body betrayed what I was feeling within. As the vibrations began to slow, Xymol looked into my eyes. I was screaming at him to stop this, to just let me die, but nothing I did would let me speak.

"Nurse..." He said, taking note of the tears that had been pooling on the pillow beside me. "Did you administer an aesthetic?"

"No, Doctor. It was given to him on the way down here."

"YOU DIDN'T CHECK!?" He screamed in her face. "He was given Passfal!"

"Doctor, I don't understand...

"HE'S BEEN AWAKE THIS WHOLE TIME! HE HAS BEEN FEELING EVERYTHING!" He screamed as he slapped the nurse across the face.

"I...I..." She stammered.

"GET OUT! GET OUT OF THE OR, GET OUT OF THE HOSPITAL, GET OUT OF THE SITE!"

I watched as a fight broke out between the nurse and Xymol all while I was listening to the beeps on the machines grow slower and slower. The pain I was in took more than most of my concentration from me, but even as much as I was in even I knew he was being too harsh. But even still I could feel everything growing numb. My heart was doing this weird thing were it would seem to leap over and over again. The thuds I had come to ignore were beginning to feel as though they were slamming into my chest wall. As as quickly as I had noticed it... they were gone. Just a long drawn out beep was replaced from the screaming.

"I'll deal with you later!" He shouted at her as he ran to my side.

"Doctor! Narcotics?"

"YES!"

"Which one's?" A nurse screamed back to him.

"All of them! Give me 2.5 Milliliters of Epinephrine! Clear the paddles! And somepony get him knocked the fuck out!"

I felt at least 10 needles being stabbed into me at the same time, each having it's own effect. One made me feel fuzzy and took the pain away, another made me just not care at all that I was probably dying and one of them brought my heart right back up to a full roar and sent blood flying through my veins. I let out a huge gasp as I sucked in air for the first real time in hours! I bolted up right in the bed and puked over the side.

"WOW! HOLY! GOOD GOD-! WOOOOOOO! HOLY SHIT!" I shouted. I couldn't feel anything, I didn't care that couldn't feel anything and I actually felt kinda good. I look over at the shocked team of nurses and Xymol who were in dis belief. "Sup doc!"

"Ahem... Joey."

"That... totally sucked." I said, lost for words.

"I imagine so."

"I seem to have an erection."

"Yes. It's a side effect of Epinephrine."

"Everypony ok?" I said as I looked down at my arm. I felt the sharp prick of a needle in my neck and began feeling heavy. "We on break? Smoke em' if you got 'em..."

I felt myself fall backwards into the bed but it was like I just kept going. Everything went black and I felt nothing... sweet sweet nothing. If I was dying, I didn't care. I was feeling no pain.

I felt my eyes open to a warm lit world. Everything around me was green and lush, something like I have never seen before. I had come so accustom to my grey and brown world that the very sight of green grass and blue bird skies nearly took my breath away. Was I dreaming? Did... did I die? Is this heaven? I had so many question that my mind pushed them all away and forced me to look around. I wasn't hurting, not a single ache plagued me, how could it in a world this pure?

I looked to the top of the hill I was standing on and saw a familiar coat of a large buck sitting atop it. His sage coat looked more sea foam than green in this sun light that we both seemed to be enjoying. Could it be? I must be dead because there is no way that's-

"Joey... Come sit with me." Camden said as though it were normal for the dead to address the living. I paused, my heart was leaping from my chest with excitement and fear. I stood trembling in the sweet smelling grass at the realization that I was probably actually dead. "Joey? Are you going to stand there looking like a lost puppy all day?"

I bolted. I would love to have just trotted up to him nonchalant, but this as BOSS! My dad! To hell with being smooth, I wanted to see my dad. I ran to his side and began babbling like a complete moron at everything I had seen. I wanted to tell him everything! He was the only one I could truly talk to about that kind of stuff. I wanted him to know about Zuri and how I found her, I wanted to have that father son moment I had been denied all those years ago at the grave. I just wanted to be with him again.

"Whoa now... calm down. I know they call you Coyote, but do you have to yap like one too?" He said, placing a hoof on my shoulder and guiding me to the ground beside him.

"I'm sorry! But how often do you get to talk to your dead father?"

"Lucid as always. Just like your father. I would say that was what saved your skinny hide when you were just a joey yourself."

"I have been meaning to ask you... Why the hell did you name me Joey? It's such a weird name!"

"Joey! You know, like a baby kangaroo. You were all over the place as a colt and you used to try and fight anypony who sad anything about your older sister. Made since at the time, but I guess it is a stupid name."

"HEY!"

"Oh com'on... Your name is Kit, you know that. Everypony just knows you by Joey. Besides... Kit Coyote sounds weird."

"Wait... how do you know what my father is like? You couldn't have known him for more than a few minutes at most."

"He's right over there. Sitting next to your mother." He said pointing down near the pond at the foot of the hill we sat on.

"That's my father?" I said in astonishment. The Pegasus buck stood tall, almost stoic near a crisp white and black Zebra mare at the water's edge. Nearly jet black coat with a white mane, he stood out as menacing if it were not for the smile on his face. I watched him as he looked down to my mother with a gaze I had only seen lovers share, something I had only ever seen from Zuri in all my life.

An instant rush of adrenaline flooded my veins, sending my mane to stand on end and my heart to race. After all these years, after a lifetime of wonder and sadness at the loss of my parents, they were just down the hill from me. I was overcome with emotion near instantly, I wanted to cry, I wanted to run as fast as I could to meet them, but something in me knew that it would only bring more heart ache. I didn't want to miss my chance, not now, not ever again! This was my one chance to feed that longing urge to know what having family was like.

"That's him. And that's you! Right there hiding behind your mother." He said, pointing to the little pegasus who was cowering behind his mothers flank.

"Wait... If I'm here, and I'm there... what the hell?"

"Heh... That's your father's heaven. That is what he wanted more than anything else in this great expance. He wanted his family to share for all eternity. Hard to believe they got the best of him the way they did... I always wondered were you got it from."

"What do you mean?"

"Your father. He's from the Enclave, defected. He was the pony they sent out to hunt down other ponies who went astray. I guess he found your mother and that was that."

"How do you know all this? Are you and him friends here?"

"Us? Nah. I just know. I knew when you got here. I know everything you wanted to tell me when you ran up here. This place... This world that I'm in is very tuned to the pony who is in it. For me, this is the world I always wanted to see. For him it's with you and your mother. But we are all connected, we all share the same knowledge."

"Oh... So you know about Zuri?"

"Yeah... I also know that you need to watch over her."

"But this place... I... I don't want to leave." Just the mention of the world I left behind nearly brought me to tears. How could anypony want to leave this place for anything.

"Joey... let me tell you a story. When I took you and your sister in, I was just a young buck. I wanted nothing more than to run like hell and just go get drunk as a fish. I was scared, I was not sure I could provide for you all. I even cried myself to sleep some nights worrying about you all. I didn't want the resposiblity because I knew it would mean facing death to protect you all. But I stuck it out. Not because it is what any good buck should do, not because I wasn't scared anymore... I stuck it out because what truly scared me was that nopony else would do it.

It was my responsibility to protect you. I made a promise and I never go back on a promise. Every time I looked into your eyes as a colt I saw you Joey. I saw a scared, lost little colt with no family and damn it... I loved you like a son. I knew that I could never leave you all behind, it would kill me to do it. I would worry myself to death. Everypony has a destiny, mine was to protect you all and in most ways I think I did ok."

"You did great." I said, trying to hold my composure. "We never had much, but we had each other. We were a family!"

"Exactly! Joey, I know you want to stay... But ask yourself, what scares you more. Going back there? Or leaving them there alone? You are the glue that is holding your little family together."

"We are not a family though?"

"Joey, damn it! Family is not blood! Family are ponies you would lay your own life down to see happy for it! They are ponies that would never hurt you and love you for you, not what you can do for them! Family is what you fight for everyday, down to the last pound of flesh and the last breath. So ask yourself... What's worse? Going back to that hell? Or leaving them there without you?"

I sat there in a literal heaven on Eqquis and just stared off into the blue water. What would my father have done? He wanted his eternity to be with me and my mother. What kind of love was it that made him ask for such a thing? I could only hope to know it, but in a way, if felt like I already did. The very thought of loosing anypony from the little pack we had created tore at my guts in protest. My body was broken, in constant pain from aches and injuries, but even here if I heard anyone of them scream from me, I would come running.

"They need me."

"That's my crazy joey. Always ready for a fight, even when you can't bare to stand."

"How do I get back? I don't know who I even got here."

"It's all planned, Joey... Just go ask your father. He wont say much, but I think he knows what you should do."

"Just... ask him?" I said, but when I looked back to where Camden had been sitting, he was gone. I guess that was all the time I got with him before he went back to whatever his heaven was. With a nervous sigh, I began the short trot to the water's edge to just say hi to my father who I had never met. Every trot was agony, the closer I got the more the pain was returning. My back, my ribs and my leg all hurt just as much as they always had. But the feeling of being ripped away was lost on me as I stood before the massive buck, I wanted to cower but his soft smile all but kept me at bay.

"Uh... hi."

"Hi yourself."

"I'm..."

"Kit."

"I have so much to say... To both of you!" I stammered.

"We know, son. Please, there is no need to tell the tale. We already know it." My mother said in a beautiful harmony of words. I had never heard anypony speak so beautifully, no wonder my father went for her! I guess suckers run in the family.

"Son... I know you are broken. I know you are barely breathing. But don't give up on the ponies you love. You will never know when the clock will strike noon and your time comes, but if you put your trust in them, you will never be alone." My father said with his every emotion in his eyes. "We have always loved you and we always will. We are so proud of the buck you have become!"

"Mom? Dad?" I said with a shaky voice.

"We will be here waiting son... But you need to know that your mother is still out there. She's alive Joey. What you are seeing is her sometime from now, when she comes home. Please... find her. She never got to see you grow up. It would mean the world to me to see her happy one more time."

"Zuri needs you, Joey. Just like I needed your father. She's lost without you." She said in a loving voice.

"I'll find you mom. I promise."

"I know you will sweetie. Now... go. Go to her."

"You are so close, son. Don't give up now. She's not too much further."

I had hung on as long as I could, with my last bit of strength, I lunged forwards and pulled them in close. I didn't want to let go, but I was being pulled away.

"It hurts... so bad!" I cried.

"I know baby... but it will be ok. Be strong! Be the Zebra I know you can be!" My mother whispered sweetly in my ear.

"Pain is temporary, but regret... regret is forever. Be brave! Be the Pegasi I know you are!" My dad said as I let go and fell into the black world that I had come from. I felt their touch right to the end of my journey, all the way back to my body where I finally felt them fade away from me. The pain resided but my heart was broken. No amount of medicine could ever hope to cure it.

A metallic taste filled my mouth as the dim haze of the narcotics began to retreat from my system leaving me in a world a pure migraine fueled confusion. My head was pounding, my eyes and nose were dry and my head... my fucking head! I couldn't think past the constant pounding! This was worse than the time Cal tried to 'drink me well' when I had the flu. At least then If I didn't move I didn't hurt, but this was... visceral. Like... Brain damage kind of pain.

Fear came to the fore front of my mind that maybe when I opened my eyes I wouldn't be able to move again or that the surgery was still going on. But all the fear washed away when I clumsily smacked my nose with my hoof to catch a stray itch. Right, I'm not dead, I just feel that way and I can for sure move. Time to rejoin the world of the living once more. I opened my eyes to see Xymol sitting by my bedside working his way through my medical file. Soft beeps came from the machines all around me in the white lit room I was placed in.

"Ah, you are awake, Joey. How are we feeling?"

"Well... I suspect one of us is great and the other has a hang over." I grumbled.

"Yes, I would expect as much after your ordeal."

"What happened to me?"

"I think you should rest up before we get into all of that."

"I was paralyzed, forced to watch you operate on my leg with no pain killers and puked every where... Yeah, I remember all of that. What happened after that... You owe me as much."

"Very well. You died."

"Ha! OW! Knew it."

"But only briefly. We were able to restart your heart but I'm afraid that the damage to your leg was extensive. Don't worry, we saved it, but I'm afraid the implant is... permanent."

"Do what now?"

"The implant had fused with your bone rather well... Better than we had expected in fact. It has carved out veins and even began restructuring the bone around it. That little shock Caliber told me about was the cause of it's... clamping issue." He jabbered on as I gave a yawn and stretched, my now healed leg smacked into something hard and metallic, but I didn't remember anything being beside my bed.

"Yeah... there is that issue as well."

I looked over and saw that a surgical tray had become firmly affixed to my leg. I tired to swat it away, but my lack of strength and the force required to do the job just made me look ridiculous.

"We had to preform a series of non-unicorn test to ensure that the bone was not going to go back to the way it was and it appears to have had an effect. The device used for imaging uses powerful magnets to excite a solution we put into your blood stream to show pathways of blood vessels and bone. Unfortunately it has seemed to have magnetized the implant."

I looked at my leg and tried to fling the tray away with more force and succeed. I sent it right into a mirror, shattering it into pieces.

"Seriously!? My leg is a magnet now. You have to reverse this!"

"Believe me we have tried. But nothing we have at the moment can rectify the leg. I have a team working on it now, but you had more pressing issues we needed to fix first."

"Pressing issues? What's more pressing than my damn leg being a fridge magnet!?"

"Well for starters, you had 3 tumors growing on your liver from your little stunt with the healing potions... One of your ribs had been healed incorrectly and was causing the formation of a pulmonary edema on your right lung... L5 disk had slipped and was calcified... OH and your heart was severely damaged from the heart attack you had on the OR table. So forgive me if I was less than worried about your leg's new properties..."

"Sorry... How-"

"Bad. But most of it we could correct. The heart and liver issues were reversible with surgery and the addition of a partial heart implantation of a mechanical valve and atrium. But the lung issue will need time to heal."

"You could fix all that... and my lung was the biggest issue?"

"The tissue of the lungs are very fragile. Apart from taking half of your lung out, there was not much that could be done. With a steady dose of the proper meds, you will be as right as rain in a week or two. As for you leg, you will just need to stay away from heavy metal objects until we can find a solution."

"Great... Thanks for everything doc." I said in my lack luster tone.

"I'm sorry you had to endure that agony. Believe me when I say that it was the mother of all screw ups on all our parts. No one creature is to blame for the accident. We all feel terrible for what you went through, but if you wish to level your blame to any of us, please... aim it at me. I was... eager to get to your operation, your's was the first I have preformed in the new OR. I will admit to the oversight on my part. I can only hope that your blame me rather than the others for this." Xymol said as he trotted to my side.

"Hey listen... I'm not dead. Yes, it was unspeakable, the pain I went through. And yes, I am angry about it. But have you seen the ponies I run with? If I got mad at every screw up , I would be alone. Thank you... for everything."

"You are, very welcome... Joey." He said, placing a hoof on my shoulder. "Now, I believe I have told you just about everything... you have some... Zebra here to see you."

"Just about?" I asked as he trotted to the door.

"We are waiting for a finally lab result to come back. Nothing to worry about, nothing to do with your health. Just a little curious mystery I wanted to look into about your genetics. After all, you are the first Zony Pegasi we had ever heard of, let alone encountered."

"Ah... You want to know how much Zeeb is up my rear. Gotcha."

Xymol stopped at the door, removed his glasses and began to rub his forehead. Why do all the doctors around me always do that! It feels insulting.

"No." He said as he trotted out the door. Beyond it I could hear soft mumbling of two ponies talking for a while. But it was not long before the door swung open and I was attacked by a terrifyingly vicious, over sexed Zebra. Zuri did all but try and mate with me in her rush to see me. If had ever had doubts about her ever loving me, they were long gone. I had been out for days! Weeks even! But for me it felt like at best a few hours, for her it must have been agony. I was already feeling guilty for my wanting to stay in heaven a little longer to ask my parents all the questions I had thought up over the years. But now, with her trying to down me in affection and a river of tears of joy, I couldn't imagine going back without her.

It's greatly inevitable that eventually, all good things will come to an end. My time with both of my parents was tragically short by all accounts both in life and death. It felt criminal that you could give somepony a feeling so strong and so pure and then allow it to fade away like smoke rings in the dark. The feeling was melancholic in that on one hoof I got to see them and feel just... one hug from them, but heart breaking in that it may be the only one I will afford to remember. The universe being the cruel place that it can be was quick to establish this for me. I was happy that it happened at all, but inside I was weeping like a foal to the loss I could never recover.

I felt cheated, but in a good way. Even now, lying here with my long lost love I could feel them near me. It was faint, nearly undetectable, but it was a clear as the sky above the clouds. Had they always been there? Watching over me like some divine audience for my life? If so, what had I shown them with the way I had lived the last 10 years of my life? Were they really proud of me? Did they watch over me that night I was pinned down by Slavers and protect me? I had so many questions that would go unanswered, but just the thought that they were out there somewhere gave me some hope for my future.

"ZU! Oh goddesses! I thought I would never see you again!" I screamed in a squeak. My voice was weak but growing ever stronger as the hours slipped by. My hooves wrapped around her and held on for life itself and I felt the tears begin to flow. I had see death and I was mortified to report back that it was preferable to the world I was in. But that word, though having Boss, my mom and dad and near constant sunshine was lacking one thing that it could never hope to have for me... at least not anytime soon. "I missed you!".

"Joy! My Joy! Zuri never let go again!" She squeaked. Her voice had always betrayed her emotions, falling back to her native acts when overcome with them. "I love you! No leave again!" She said softly sobbing into my chest.

"I'm not going anywhere." I said, holding her even tighter.

"Doctor Xymol said you died! I... I no know what Zuri... I mean I would do... without you! I have not slept! I have been waiting for 3 days outside the door! I just wanted to see you!"

"I did die! But it will take a lot more than that to kill me."

"This does not make since! You died, but here you are!"

"Zu. I saw a world, something I don't think I can explain. Camden was there, I saw my father and my mother! I got to hug them and here them say they loved me! Then my father told me my mother wasn't actually there, but she was still somewhere out there! He said I was close and I should keep looking... That WE should keep looking and that she needed us!"

"Joy... I need to talk to you." Zuri said, sitting upright in the bed. I watched as her entire body began to shake and twitch softly. I had seen this before, not in her, but in ponies who were bout to cry or let something out that they had been holding in for too long. "Joy... I- I know where your mother is." Shock does not even begin to describe the feeling I had within me. My eyes widened at the prospect of seeing her one more time, my hear was racing and my head pounding from the sudden increased blood flow.

"What!? Why didn't you-" I began but I was cut off.

"Please! Do not be angry with me! I couldn't tell you!"

"Why the hell not!? If you knew she was out there, I knew you would want to run to her. I couldn't tell you because..." Her voice broke from the tears and she looked down.

"Why!? How could you not tell me!?"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T GO THERE WITH YOU! I knew when you found out that you would leave me, but I wanted to be with you for a little longer! I wanted to feel this... a little longer!"

"Ok... This is not making any sense... Why can't you come with me?" I said in exasperation. Why was it everything in this damn world had to have catches to it!

"Because... The reason I left there in the first place is because they want to kill me. Because I have been hiding from them ever since. I know if I go back there they will take me away from you! I don't want to be without you!"

"Zuri... You are the only one I know that could possibly help me with this. There is nopony else that could take me there, help me speak to them or even survive out there! Why in the world do they want you dead?"

"Because you and I share something in common! Joy, please! Don't go there! If they find out that you are the same as me, then they will want you dead too!"

"DAMN IT! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! Why do they want you dead? Why would they want me dead? Why would they want anypony, or any Zebra dead!?" I shouted in anger. I loved her, but I was at my wits end with this vague speaking routine.

"Many years ago... Back when you were still a foal, our tribe opened up to the idea of allowing ponies to be with Zebras. We were dying out from lack of population and needed new bloodlines to help repopulate. Your mother took to a pony... my grandmother took to a pony. Many others too. Then one day, a new leader was elected. He was a cruel and vile Zebra who preached only pure bloodlines could hold positions of power and that impure blood would have to toil as severance to the throne. Many hated this, but went along with it out of fear. Many more rebelled. They were..." Her voice broke again. Though she was speaking clearly and directly for the first time I had ever heard her, I could tell this was not easy for her.

"It's ok, just keep talking." I said, putting a hoof on her side.

"They were executed. From that point on any Zebra that had impure blood was seen as threat to the tribe. Your mother was a Zebra no? And father a pony? They will want you dead when they find out. My mother and father were... taken from me. They wanted me too, but my mother forced me to run. They will hunt me."

"If you ask me, you did a good job of running. You made it this far." I said trying to console her as best I could.

"No. They know slavers. They know the Red Eye. They know ponies. It has been... Difficult for me. I came back to the ocean because I wanted to seem my mother and father one more time. I wanted to go back but then..."

"I showed up?"

"Yes! You showed up! I was so happy! We were so happy! I don't want to be not happy again!"

"Zuri, you know that place better than everyone else! There is no way that I could ever hop to go there and make it back out again." I said pleading.

"NO! I will not go back there! I don't want you to go either!"

"Zu... I know it's scary. Hell, my whole life has been scary! But it sound like things are all wrong with your tribe. What if we could help them. What if-"

"NO! NO NO NO! They have an army! They are the best fighters! We will be killed!"

"Yeah, well... What if they didn't know who we were? You have been gone for years! They have never seen me, as far as they know I'm just some weird Zony with wings! We just have to assume identities!"

"Maybe, but what if they find out? Then what?" She said with a glimmer of hope in her tear soaked eyes. "Joy, I want to see them again, but I'm just too scared! What if they kill me, or worse, kill you?"

"Zuzu... You dying would be far worse hun. I don't know what I would do without you. But if you are really worried about it, you are forgetting our secret weapon..." Zuri looked up to me with wonder and fear that I was about to say something that would inevitably lead to me taking her right to her worst nightmare. "I know how to fly!"

Days had passed. literal days! I had spent my time resting and going for short trots around the stable in order to recover. It was later revealed to me that drinking nearly ten healing potions back to back so quickly had had far greater effects on me than before imagined. I had grown an allergy to them. Not the kind that makes you all itchy, but the kind that causes bloating and lessen effects than previous potions had had. It was just another blow that I had to absorb if I wanted to push forward with my recovery. The up shot to this rather debilitating allergy was that my system had absorbed so much of the stuff that it would actually heal small cuts and bruises within a days time.

I lamented the idea of not having a saving grace nearby at any given time, but remarked greatly to Xymol that I basically had a super power. He was less than enthusiastic about the matter. Given his proficient knowledge of medical treatments, I gathered that this too was a bad thing, but that did not stop me from telling Fetch that I was basically immortal and could heal over night! He on the other hoof, thought it was amazing and started calling me Super Coyote. Everypony else just thought I was crazy, par for the course I would suppose.

My little plan to invade my mother's and Zuri's tribe had not go over quite as well as I had hoped with the rest of the group. Caliber, though willing to go with us needed surgery on his hoof before he could go anywhere. Tenpony medicine is great! In fact it's the best in the desert, but without some kind of purpose or loads of bits you were getting the patch and pray method of repair. After all, my name isn't the Light Bringer or that security mare... Who was she again? Backfat? Blacktac? BLACKJACK! Yeah, my name isn't Blackjack. Also I'm cheap, wanting to resort to time heals all wounds rather than be broke. Heh, I guess you can't get the trader out of me, no matter how much Zebra you try and squeeze in!

Speaking of Zebras... I was now in full zeeb mod with my stripes. It seemed like they grew darker by the day, covering patches of hide in there bars and black splotches the more time march on. My muzzle was now black as if I had been rooting around in a pile of coal, my right shoulder was striped in a manner more fitting scars with their jagged pattern they shown, my back was turning black in the center fading out to stripes that seemed to stop at my rib cage mid way and grow shorter the further back they went. My right front leg was fully striped like Zuri's, but that was were our similarities ended, hers ran horizontally across her neck, my vertical and just on the side. Even where the stripes met my mane's line they had turned it black, giving me just a small flick of jet black hair at the nape of my neck.

I found it worrying, as though I had a target on my back, but she... Oh she just freaking loved them! She said I looked cute. I'm not cute! I'm not cute at all! Oh yeah, look at Joey with his weird hodge-podged stripes and puckered scars from a lifetime of fighting slavers and his ripped up tail! He's just a damn dream boat! Next she will say she loves my bullet holed up ear too! Though I will say it came in useful for holding the odd pencil when it needed to. But besides that, I looked like a tatted up raider who had been malnourished.

"Joy, you are starring again. Are you ok, love?"

"Huh! Nah, I'm fine." I said as I resumed my trot. I did it again, I got lost looking in a mirror trying to make since of everything that had happened to me. I was doing that more and more often it seemed. I didn't know if it was just me coming to grips with my appearance or if it was something else... Something more, deep within me that was showing distaste for my new look. It seemed like every mirror I passed drew my attention, I was looking to other ponies and Zebras trying to read their faces and gauge their reactions as they saw me. What was wrong with the old Joey? Why did this have to be me. "I just look so... different." I said hanging my head.

"Ah! To you, you are different, but to me, you are Joy. And I think you look cute!" Zuri said, giving me a nuzzle to my nose. She was that one force in my life that could make it all go away, albeit temporarily, but even still. Post surgery had taken it's toll on me leaving me nothing more than a sack of worry and emotions. Near death can do that to a pony I'm told. But I was also nervous about our next mission. My looks gave me a 50/50 shot at success at getting into the tribe, our plan was solid enough, but Zuri had expressed just how judgmental they were toward ponies. But that wasn't what was worrying me at all.

"Zu... Do you think she'll... Remember me?" I asked, my every word drenched in worry and fear. I was a far cry from that little grey colt with the sky blue mane after all. What were the chances she would even remember me at all? What if I got there and she cast me out, telling me I was nothing to her now that I was grown? Storms of questions flooded my brain like that. Would she be as sweet as she was in my NDE, or would she be completely different? "I'm scared... she won't want me."

"Joy... A mother's love... is a mother's love. There is nothing stronger in this world."

"You are being rather accepting of all this... What changed?"

"Hmm? Oh! Silly! I'm terrified!" She said in a bubbly voice. "But them I remember our tradition!"

"Wait..." I said stopping her outside of Shoari's office. "What tradition?"

"Oh yes! Executions of dirty blood are done in mass! We will die together!" She said as if she had not even mentioned the fact that she was perfectly fine if we both died at the same time. "Zebra's die with their mate, no? Then we die together!" She said as she pushed the meta door open.

"AH! So good to see you again Joey!" Shoari said in excitement. I had to cover Zuri's mouth with a hoof to hide her growl when she came in for a hug, but otherwise things were going well enough. "I have the information you had requested! This is everything you need to know about the Romani Tribe, the Carnilian Tribe and a book on tribal genetics! Hold still, I will upload them to your Pipbuck!" She said with glee. Her enthusiasm was not lost on me one bit at the prospect of potential new and exciting data about tribes that had formed based off of need for survival of genetics. "There! All set! When are you leaving out?"

"In about twenty minutes. We still have to say goodbye to everypony back in the dorm." I said, hoofing through the files she had loaded. She was kind enough to provide the audio version for me as I was not the most astute reader and lack simple comprehension. Having to read the same sentence multiple times because you were bored was one thing, but having to do it because you honestly forgot what you were doing was murder! I'm a very... hooves on kind of buck. I like things I can see and touch rather than things I have to speculate or imagine.

"Oh? They are not joining you?" She asked as she escorted us out.

"No, Caliber needs hoof surgery, Shale wants to make sure he actually goes through with it, Valkyrie want's to not die and I don't want Fetch to die... So that just leaves us." I said with a smile.

"Oh! Well, better off then. If I know tribes the way Zuri here described, then I would venture a guess they would not last long. The Romani have a complex history of 'kill on site' of anypony they see, even before the war. This whole location sought to put an end to that but I'm afraid that has since gone up in smoke. You two take care!" She said as she locked her door and trotted off down one of the corridors.

"I still do not like the short fat one..." Zuri growled.

"Zu, for the last time... Stop calling her 'the short fat one'! You are going to keep this up and start some shit that I can't shovel you out of! There is nothing between us at all!"

"I am... not sorry. I do not like her!"

"Whatever... We best get a move on if we want to make the tribe before night time." I said as I trotted off. Geeze, and I thought I had a complex...

The trot was rather short back to the dorm room. The Stable was very efficiently layed out like that in a since that you could get anywhere you wanted from the center in a matter of minutes yet was expansive enough to house nearly 500 equine at a time. I was still blown away at just how well equipped most of the rooms were as well. It was truly was one of the nicest stable I had ever been to.

The group had all lined up for our departure, each having their own words of wisdom for our trip. Shale was scared for us while Caliber gave me the usual 'Don't die, or i'll take all your stuff and sell it' remark. Out of everypony, the only one that was truly upset about my leaving was Fetch who had begged to go but was denied near instantly. Apart from the usual weapons and gear, the only thing we were not taking was my rifle. I wanted to, I really did, but Zu insisted that it stay behind if I truly loved it as it would be confiscated at the gate for being 'an excessive show of force'.

"Stay frosty, little brother!" Shale said, giving me a peck on the cheek.

"Bring me something cool back!" Val shouted from the toilet.

"Don't die, or I will hock all your stuff and replace you with a hot mare!" Caliber said and was promptly thumped in the head by shale.

"I WANA GO TOO!!!" Fetch begged.

"I already told you! You are too small, they will eat you. Do you want to be eaten by Zebras?" I asked sweetly. Fetch, reluctantly released my leg back into my possession and melted into a sadness pile at my hooves.

"Do Zebwas wiwwy eat colts awive?" He asked looking at his hooves.

"No, no..." Zuri started as she put a hoof to his chin and raised it. I watched as a glimmer of hope flooded the colts face before being completely obliterated. "We cook them first."

With Fetch now hiding under the bed in fear of becoming Fetch Stew and the rest of the group milling about the place, Zuri and I loaded our gear and said our final goodbyes. It felt so wrong leaving them behind, but I had no other choice in the matter. Every moment I spent here was one more I had to spend away from my mother. I felt naked without my rifle and I felt worse without Caliber at hoof to watch my back, but a herd of ponies showing up unannounced was a terrible idea. The last thing I wanted to to was put them all in danger when I was working so hard to keep them out of it.

We trotted to the entrance of the Stable where we requested our right of passage back to the bombed out world above. The sun outside was just peaking over the horizon as we stepped out into the sand at the cave entrance. It's warm glow foreshadowing the intense heat that was to come the further it rose in the sky. Zuri climbed on my back and harnessed herself in for the long flight to find the Damu tribe south of us. This was uncharted land according to my Pipbuck and my memory. Chances were that this would have been where I came from so long ago as a foal.

With a push from my wings, we were airborne with my nose aimed towards the closest cloud I could still see. With a glance at my Pipbuck, I flipped on the first of many audio files to listen to as I leaned myself into the steady updrafts to orient myself south, south-west as I had been told to fly. I was to find an old road bed and follow it until I saw a tree line, from there we would be proceeding on hoof for another half an hour to the tribal borders.

Despite the protest from my mate on my back, I refused to change the station on the radio as she had asked. Even if she hated Shoari's voice, this was valuable information that I needed to hear about where we were going. I hoofed through the files and was shocked to find that she had even included a condensed version of all the information she had given me. She really did think of everything and left nothing to chance! I guess it was just her wanting me to come back safe with stories for her to analyse and pick apart.

This is the abridged version of the total contents of the audio files given. I have provided the details as needed in the listed files, but this is the 'to long, will not listen' version of them. The tribe you are going to is a new tribe, one that has not been documented by any of our outlines so much of this will be speculation...

Her voice sounded tired and weak from sleep deprivation, no doubt from being up all night translating scripts for me. Even if Zuri hated her, there was no denying her sweetness and willingness to go above and beyond the call to see a project through. Even if it meant missing sleep.

The tribe name, Damu, translates directly to Blood. No doubt for their intense desire and worship for pure blood lines. They are a mix of Romani, a warring tribe of some of the best fighters and Carnilian, largely farmers by trait, but more well known for their... ahem... Sexual practices... I would wager your concubine would fall into that category.

"HOW DARE..." Zuri growled.

"Seriously? You wouldn't let me stop when the shack was on fire. The whole place burned down."

"Yes... This happened." She said easing back down my my back.

They will be very tight on security, so it would be best to be forthcoming with any questions you have rehearsed the answers to already. It is especially important that you do not offend them in any manner. Any transgression you find yourself in will inevitably be held against you. You may be asked to preform a right of passage if you wear out your welcome. Your status as a Zony will gather questions from many of them. Stick to your script because the Romani are notorious for trying to find holes in your story. Your only saving grace will be the fact that your mother will be considered elderly by Carnilian standards by now. They see caring for them or helping them as a great sacrifice and it will earn you praise as you hunt for her. Good luck you two... Transmission ended.

Lots of information, all of it good stuff. Zuri was more accustom to the ins and outs of the tribe, but I was green as fresh grass! Our plan had been to show up looking for work, something in the fields perhaps, but now I am thinking that work as caregivers would be more fitting. Zuri had come up with the rather clever idea to be travelers trying to find their roots from Southern Equestria, offering our services in trade for time in the village. She would be something of a gatherer and my job would be to document the tribe to model our own tribe back home that we had formed.

All of this was under the guise of infiltrating Equestria with a Zebra presence and eventually taking the place over with re-population. I had been told in the audio files that some Zebras have blotched stripes and that I might be able to pass myself off as a 'Dappled Zebra' but that was the riskiest plan we had. As for the moment, I was to own being a Zony and be forthcoming with that information as to not piss them off. My only real hope was that one of our plans worked long enough to get in and get back out with my mother. But I was secretly praying for another angle to play.

"This is... how do you say? A bore..." Zuri said giving a long stretch. "Does the radio work?"

"Maybe, they set up the repeater tower as I asked back at the site. Maybe we can get DJ-Pon3 on here." I said as I hoofed around at the switch. With a pop and crackle, the hazy sounds of Sapphire Shores came to life just in time for us to catch the tail end of the song.

Never gets old! Nope, never! How can it when I only have a few songs to play up here. But enough of that children, time for the news or what little I have today! Things have been kicking off pretty hard in Filly this week, It would seem that ol' Red Eye might not have quite the hoof he thought he was dealt after all. Suck on that you egotistical maniac!

News from the hoof claims that several Raiders and Gangers have turned over a new leaf in regard to their wicked ways after running into our resident part time physiologist, The Security Mare. It's said that she has a way of forcing a pony to relive their most traumatic life events and turn over that new leaf. If you don't she's pretty skilled with a sword I hear too. Best not cross paths with her, Raiders, you will either leave mentally scared or completely dead.

The five pony band that set fire to a room in Tenpony have yet to be heard from in weeks. But just today I got a letter delivered from that most loved of delivery ponies, Ditzy Doo herself! So for those of you wondering about the Coyote Pack, buckle up, I have an update!

"Wait! What!?" I shouted as I turned up the volume. How the hell did we get a letter out to the DJ!?

"Oh yes! Caliber sent an 'I'm sorry I burned the room down' letter. We all signed it." Zuri said, beaming with enthusiasm.

The letter reads as follows... Dear Dj-Pon3 and the staff at the Tenpony Tower. I'm sorry for the mess we caused. It was never our intention to burn down the hotel room, but we had muffins in the oven and forgot about them when we left... Well, who hasn't done that before, am I right children? You should know that we have since left Equestria and are in an undisclosed location. Joey has been injured and requires surgery, the rest of us are fine. Safe as houses. Well that's not good children, it sounds like we have a sick pup on our hooves... Know that we are sorry about the fire, drinking everything in the mini bar and forgetting to leave a tip. Oh, and forgetting to checkout on time. Please find in closed an IOU for the damages. Love, The Coyote Pack... I won't read their names on the air as to not further the ease of finding them, but everypony knows Coyote Joe already... P.S. Can we please come back sometime?

Well now, that's a tall order! You make good on the IOU and we will talk... I'm starting to think you all are cursed or something. After talking with you and your pack, have you ever slept somewhere that hasn't been destroyed? Better yet, maybe you could bring Ol' Dj something new and exciting to listen to. That could be well enough. And Joey, if you are out there, we all wish you a speedy recovery! Don't spend too long down in that base of your's, the Wasteland needs all the help it can get, even if you do destroy rooms. Bringing you the news, no matter how bad it hurts, I'm Dj-Pon3.

"You gave them an IOU..."

"Yes, Caliber said it was as good as money! I never new it was that easy to get something..."

"Zu, that's not how money works..." I said, but froze when I saw a treeline poking out of the horizon. This must have been it! The road was right beneath me and it lead right to the tree line. We had been flying for so long I had gone on autopilot and forgot what I was doing. I dove for the ground, coming in nice and soft among the bright green trees and beaten down gravels of the road way. This was it, no turning back now!

I took a moment to look around and listen for any signs of life at all, but there was nothing. The two of us didn't say a word as we cautiously trotted down the narrow road way. Every passing moment lead to further my anticipation as we trotted down the narrower growing road. Zuri was glued to my side and though the steps I could tell her fear had returned once more as show by her shaking hide. It wasn't long before we came to a bend in the road that began to lead down hill into a valley. I froze. My hooves stopped as I looked around.

"Joy! Is everything ok? Are we in danger?" Zuri asked, pulling herself close to me.

"This was it. I can feel it." I looked up into the sky and tried to imagine it a dark and rainy one. I had no memories of what happened, but something deep inside me just... knew. "This is where my father died. This is where Camden found me." I said, pawing at the dirt.

"Joy, you couldn't know that. It was long ago!" She said, begging me to move.

"Over there." I pointed without looking. "A row of bushes, right?"

"Yes."

"That's where my mother watched it all happen. They killed him right here, Zuri. They took my family from me." I didn't know for sure, there was no way I could. But I could feel that ghostly chill come over me the moment I set hoof in that spot. I could just... feel it. It was like somepony from beyond putting a hoof on my shoulder and reminding me what happened, why I was even here in the first place. But the meaning for, that I could not find anywhere in my mind. There was only heartache.

"Joy... I know it hurts. But we must pull it together to do this! I don't want to die too!" Zuri said, trembling in fear.

"Ok... Lets do this..." I said with a sigh as we trotted froward.

It wasn't much further that we had to go before the cobbled together wooden fence came into view. Comprised of long thing shoots of trees they had been woven together artfully into a massive wall that encompassed the tribal boundary. Before us stood a massive gate way into the Zebra lands and everything beyond. Two guards stood watch, but did not move as we approached them, instead tracking us with their eyes. They were massive! Big by pony standards but huge by mine! They were easily a head taller than Zuri and I.

"Acha! Wewe ni nani?" One guard shouted to us as he stepped forward.

"Wasafiri. Kutafuta kazi" Zuri barked back with an equal tone.

"What did you say?" I whispered to her.

"He wants to know who we are. I told them we are travelers looking for work."

"You... What are you doing here?" The other guard asked me point blank. Oh thank Luna, he speaks pony.

"I'm just a traveler, sir. I'm looking for work and to study tribes to model our own after back home." I barked out with as much authority as I could muster.

"There is no work here." The one guard who had been speaking Zeeb shouted back.

"Then how about trade? We are low on supplies an-"

"There is nothing for your kind here, filth!" One of them shouted.

"Filth!?" I retorted.

"Joey, lets leave! I don't like this." But it was too late. I had already locked eyes with the guard and was pissed. The two of us grew increasingly tense before a softer, kinder voice from over the fence rang out.

"Open the gates." It was a mare. Her voice strict but smooth as a sheet of glass. I watched as the guard I had been trying to stare down reluctantly opened the gate just far enough to allow us in. I took the first step with Zuri close by. This reeked of a trap, but what choice did we have at this point. We were in.

"Terribly sorry, those two can be a real pain in the ass. Admittance is strict here." She was... in a word, hot! Short mane and tail, thin athletic body and near glowing green eyes. I was... about to be killed by a angry, growling Zebra to my right side. "My name is Barika. What is your business here?"

"Oh! Right. We are looking for a place to stay for a few days. Perhaps do some trading? Perhaps work, if you have any?" I squeaked out, never taking my eyes off Zuri.

"I see. Sifa?" She asked.

"Huh?" I stammered. The fuck was 'SEEFA?"

"She means Attributes. I am a skilled farmer. He does well with taking notes on the tribe and mlezi."

"Very well. Know that your presence here is temporary until further notice." She said, giving a motion for us to follow her. "We are currently in dire need of supplies. Medical to be exact, both chemical and physical expertise to help care for some of our wazee."

"She means elders..." Zuri corrected quietly as we were lead to the makeshift hut beside the entrance. This was going far easier than I was accustom to, if they were in need after everything Zu had told me about them, then they had to be near collapse to just let us in like that. Gauging the guard's attitude at the door, it was not without reluctance either.

"Names?" She asked, picking up a quill with her teeth.

"Shoari! Carnilian." Zuri blurted out. Oh she was going with the fake names, odd for her to use that one.

"Coyote." I replied.

"Typical Zony name..." She remarked, spinning in her chair.

"What is that supposed-" I started.

"Here are your rights of passage. They are good for seven moons, after that you will need to resubmit for approval of temporary residence. The market is at the end of the camp and you will find work near there. As for a place to sleep, see Usiku in the market. Questions?"

"Yeah... What the hell?" I said, screwing up my face. I looked to Zuri who was regarding her with a similar look of complete confusion. We were told this would be nearly impossible. I was told we would be killed! But this was like a trip to the admittance office at Tenpony, but way more snotty.

"Excuse me?"

"I thought the Damu tribe was a strict bunch of warriors, this is just needless bureaucracy! And what gives with your accent? It sounds like Hoofington!"

"Times are tough, Mr. Coyote. The leaders are getting desperate. We are open to the idea of visitors and traders, but your coat makes things complicated for you. Therefore precautions must be taken. As for myself, I studied abroad in Equestria during my time as a fadhila. Make no mistake, cross this tribe and you will get all the Zebra heritage your little butt can handle! But we are not completely native that we can not speak several tongues and conduct ourselves befitting civilized society. Now... Any real questions?"

The two of us shook our heads no and proceeded into town. What the fuck was that!? This is all wrong! Did we circle the globe and find ourselves in a weird bizarre Zebrica? I was expecting at the very least, a fight or having to sneak in. My heart actually sank a little at the idea that perhaps this was going to go far easier than expected. I was ready for... for... something! Adventure maybe! But not this...

We trotted in silence towards the far end of the town they had put in place. Both wooden huts and stone buildings lined the pathways with nearly no rhyme or reason to their placement. Ironically, the older buildings seemed to be the nicest throughout, having been made of large stone carved by hoof no doubt. The smaller stick huts seemed to be fairly new but wore the signs of poverty and ruin from neglect. Even still, they were all empty. Were they working or had they left all together?

The Zebras that traveled to a from the stone buildings seemed to be wearing some forms of ceremonial vestments of some type. Long thick robes of red with golden gilded edges draped at their sides all being held together with golden clasps around the neck. They were beautiful if not for the faces they all wore. Stern, directed glaces were all they afforded us as we trotted by as if to all say the same thing... Unclean. Mercifully we seemed to be entering the older part of town where the Zebras all looked far too tired to even bother second chancing us as we trotted along in the heat.

On mare nearly collided with my chest as she trotted along staring at the ground. Skinny, her ribs showing and boring the signs of over work and neglect, she was nearly as ruined as her surroundings. If not for my sudden squeak, she would have hit me head on in her trudge. She looked up at me with wide eyes as if she had seen a ghost, though I suspect I was as near to one as she had ever seen. She was older, mid forties maybe? But I never got a chance to speak a word or ask a question, because she ran.

I noticed that Zuri who had been shaking this entire time and fallen oddly still and quiet. Her usually mumbling to herself had stopped and so had she. I looked back to her and saw her biting the corner of her lip with massive eyes beginning to water. This had to be hard for her, seeing all of this, what it had become, how her tribe... our tribe had been reduced to nothing more than slaves in an insane hierarchy of some sort. I would cry too if I had seen this place in it's heyday.

"Zu... What's wrong?" I whispered to her. She said nothing, but began pulling herself together to keep trotting. I put a hoof up to stop her. Given the circumstances, I felt they we could relax a little, but her crying about something would for sure bring up questions.

"It... It was her?"

"Her, who?" I asked confused.

"That was my mother..." She said with a squeak. I watch her heart break right before my eyes and silent tears began running down her face. I moved in closer for her to fall into me, but she stood tall before me, seemingly trying to will herself back to natural. But her eyes told the entire story. She had seen what her mother had been reduced to and it was not a pretty sight. I could only imagine just how bad what she had seen had hurt her. I wanted nothing more than to hold her close and tell her that there was room in the stable for her too, but not here. We had to push forward for now. We could deal with the emotion later.

The two of us began to trot once more. Muffled sobs at my side were the only inclination I had that she was even there with me. What she had seen leveled her to the core, I had never seen her like this and I can't do a damn thing about it! Thinking quickly, I tucked my wing under me and leaned into her. I wanted her to feel something, anything, just so long as it was from me. I whipped what little tail I had left over to hers and did my best to curl it around hers behind us. It was as close as I was going to get to holding her right now and it... worked? I felt her lean back into me as though she was about to fall over if I were not there.

I felt her wet muzzle slide under my chin and nuzzle me softly to dry her eyes. There she is, there's my strong mare I know so well. Her face lingered near my cheek for just a little longer than it normally would as if to say 'thank you' before the two of us continued onward into the market, tail in tail. It wasn't long before we found Usiku leaning on an old stand he had erected out of scrap among the other vendors. I used my nose to help Zuri meet his gaze, she was getting better but I doubted she would be anywhere near ok without seeing her mother first hoof.

"Chumba kimoja tafadhali." Gibbered in a flat tone.

"Biashara au raha?" He replied.

"Biashara, wilaya ya zamani." She said.

The haggard old buck hoofed over a key and pointed us to a shabby looking part of town behind us where her mother had trotted off towards. He jabbered something in Zeeber and ushered us along. Zuri lead the way, but I was doing all of the trotting. It was like she was growing weaker by the second the closer we got. It felt like we trotted for hours through a maze of what I could only describe as low income housing for Zebras before we came to a row of huts that look more like houses made out of trees than anything. Even without the context I could tell by the population near us that we were on the edge of a residential district.

The key opened the lock to our door and the two of us trotted inside the small, but actually quite nice little hut. I could live in something like this, it was quaint! Everything you need and nothing extra at all! It even appeared to have running water! I was broken from my surroundings by the ever growing vibration that was my mare counterpart. Right! Later, Joey... You have a mare to console and you're the only buck that can do it !

I released our tails and guided her to the bed and laid her down gently atop the sheets. Quickly, I curled up behind her and wrapped my hooves around her and pulled her in close. That was all the signal she needed. Zuri rolled over, buried her head in my chest and screamed. Her cries were muffled, but they were there all the same. I felt her screams of sorrow rock through me like a tidal wave, shaking my very core and making me hold on even tighter. I had never heard a pony cry like that, I had never seen anypony that sad before and I had seen a lot of mothers with lost foals in my life.

It was visceral as though somepony was trying to preform surgery on her with no anesthetic. She pawed at my coat in search of anything to hold onto to brace herself. If she had been holding this in back in town, how strong was she that when she finally did break, this was what she was feeling? I felt her curl into a ball in my hooves, making herself as small as she could before finally falling into a deep crying spell. I had few weaknesses in life. Fire, drowning, radiation... Healing potions... But one that I was helpless against was a mare crying. Her being one I love made it all the worse.

My heart was breaking for her, I was feeling her pain and I just wanted it to end. If she asked me to pull the moon from the sky right now, I would give it to her. If she asked me to leave and never come back here, I would. I would give up that one thing I had wanted this whole time forever just to see her not hurt anymore. But I wasn't ready for what she was going to ask me next.

"I-I... I want to die..."

"WHAT!?" I shouted.

"It's my fault! It's all my fault!"

"Zuri no! It's not hunny."

"They had a choice, Joey... They could have kill me and they would be... given anything they want! They could be happy! But they chose to abandon me and suffer the punishment! If they had just killed me... They would have proved their allegiance! She wouldn't be broken! She wouldn't be broken Joey!" She wailed into my chest. I held on ever tighter than I ever had.

She wasn't just sad about seeing her mother like that... She thought she was the cause. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was putting herself through. To think that way was unimaginable to me, but she was doing it right in front of me. I swear to Celestia, I will lay waste to anypony or Zebra that is responsible for this, if it's the last thing I do, I will see this place burn like the house of cards I'm sure it is. I will do that for her.

"It's not your fault." I cried back to her.

"How!? I'm the reason they have to live like this!"

"BECAUSE... Because... A mother's love, is a mother's love... If you asked her she would do it again and never give you the chance to stop her. She loves you. That's why." I whisper in her ear. I felt her frame relax into a mass of half hitched breaths and wet sobs.

My mother gave me up to protect me. Her's had resorted to a lifetime of labor and poverty to save her. We were both orphans in this world, but we were loved so deeply that other had gave their lives to protect us. That was our binding spell that brought us together. I now know exactly what my mother had meant when she said 'She needs you, just like I needed your father'. Zuri needed me to be strong for her, she needed me to love her through it. She needed me to be that shoulder to cry on and the one to carry her when she had nothing left.

She was my soul mate and right now, she needed me and I wasn't going anywhere. We lay there holding one another all night, sharing moments of sleep and intimacy that only we could have together as we both worked our way through the pain. There was nothing more we could do for the night, we just needed to recover, for however long it takes.

We woke to the stiffing heat of a new morning. We had given up on sleeping beneath the sheets and resorted to draping the bug netting over us to protect our skin from the countless biting flys and blood suckers. We had hardly slept at all, instead resting in fitful bouts of slumber befitting a slave in the worst parts of Filly. Zuri took far longer to console that I had imagined, the once strong and powerful Zebra who was ready to fight at the drop of a hoof have been reduced to foal in the wake of seeing her mother in such a poor state.

Suffice it to say she had been traumatized by the events. Even still she insisted we stay and see this through. I wondered if part of her secretly held on to the notion that possibly we could get both of her parents out of here along with my mother as well. All things considered, I had actually been planning that very thing since the moment I watched her break. Where this place was a far cry from anything I had been told it was, It was still overly authoritarian. They made no effort to conceal the harsh realities of what was going on or how they viewed the outside world.

If anything, this made things far worse than I had previously imagined. With things being the way I had conceived them, It was no small feat to just fly everypony over the fence and make a break for it. But now... that was beginning to look neigh impossible . They had round the clock guards patrolling the wall, and hoof guards who wandered the area at night looking for subservience wondering the grounds. I know this because I could hear them all night long.

One particular encounter happened just outside of our window. The harsh screams of the mare bellow being repeated caned over and over for not being in her place when she was supposed to be was a faithful reminder that this place was not as it seemed. The hierarchy dictated slavery, but they seemed to have no set schedule. Every Zebra here had one job... Work the fields for as long as deemed needed or until they dropped from heat exhaustion. Zuri had filled me in on the finer details between naps last night, proving to be far more fruitful than Shoari had been in her audio books.

The morning was bittersweet, one with shared looks of sorrow and uncertainty as we waited for the other one to get out of bed first. It was looking more and more like I was going to be the one leading the way today. Not because I was already getting over last night's cry fest. No, It was because despite the heat and the constant sweating, I really had to pee! For the life of me I could not understand the fact that they had running water in these huts but no were to take a dump. This was by far the worlds biggest inconvenience, I had to go, but had no clue where it was socially acceptable.

"Zu... Zuzu... Babe!" I whispered.

"Huh... wha?" She chirped out, her voice horse from the screaming.

"Babe! I gotta pee!"

"Well... go pee then." She said, rolling over and pressing her rump into my crotch. Oh good! Rebound sex, with a full bladder! Fuck me with a cactus that sounds like a blast!

"Zu! I don't know where to go and I'm scared!" Quiet snickering faded into full blown laughter as she rolled herself out of the bed in her own hilarity. Great, I'm about to wet myself AND she is not going to be any help at all. "Zuri! This is not funny! I gotta GO!" I exclaimed.

"Just... Pee... Outside like a normal Zebra!" She shouted through the laughter.

"UGH!" I sighed as I rolled out of bed and trotted to the doorway. "You are a rotten little stripped up turd! You know that right!?" I said, clearly upset with her. She just laughed even harder and started pounding the floor.

"Poor baby! Doesn't know how to pee in Zebrica!" That's it! The next time she want's touchy touchy time, I'm going to hilariously slip in the wrong hole and pretend to be death... Oh who was I kidding, she would probably love it. I trotted outside, all the while listening to the manic laughter the whole way. I trotted around the shack and found a bush... THE BUSH... To be exact. I could tell this is where I needed to do the deed just from the smell alone.

It was repugnant, stinging my eyes and nostrils from the ammonia that was off gassing from the ground. I trotted behind the bush and proceeded to pop a squat and ease the pain in my very full bladder. I looked to my right and saw a Zebra behind a similar bush, doing the same thing. We locked eyes for a moment. Well, this was awkward... What was the proper edict in Zebra bathrooms? I raised a hoof and waved gently while mouthing 'hi' to him as friendly as I could muster. It was not met with approval at all. Instead I was rewarded with a huff and him trotting off. Weirdo...

Oh Celestia... How were we going to find them in this place? Even back in our secluded hut I could hear the roar from the market place some 10 minutes trot away from here. There was easily thousands of Zebras in this place and as proactive of a pony I was, I couldn't tell the subtle differences between them all. Short mane, long mane, cropped tail, long tail... Apart from eye color and male from female... I was lost. Couple that to a dialect I could neither understand or comprehend, I was the mother of all lost puppies, I just had find a way to find my mother.

Having finished my business with the foul foliage, I trotted to the front of our hut where I was surprised to see the door standing wide open. I thought I had closed that damn thing... I cautiously approached, listening for anything out of the ordinary. I slowly approached the opening and leaned my ear into the frame being careful to not be seen or heard in my investigation. I didn't want to leave anything to chance if we had been found out, I would have to have the element of surprise if I had to kill somepony.

I could defiantly hear something going on inside, but it was far from something I would presume to be bad. If anything, I swore I could hear giggling. I chanced a glance round the door frame and saw Zuri talking to another Zebra mare who was setting on the edge of the bed. They were smiling and carrying on as if they had known each other their whole lives, was this another freaky Zebra thing? Did they all just know each other or something?

"It is good to see you!" The mare said, leaning in to hug Zuri.

"Ahem... Zuri?" I said, finally trotting through the door.

"OH! Joy! I want you to meet my old friend!" Zuri said bolting from the bed. An old friend? Was this mare somepony she knew from when they were just fillies? Once I recovered from my shock of seeing Zuri as so calm around another mare in my presence, I thought it better to not act like a total creep and introduce myself.

"Hi, I'm-"

"Joy? No? Zuri has told me a great deal about you!"

"Y-yeah... That's me." I said blushing. I was never used to being bragged on, but it coming from Zuri for some reason made it all the more meaningful, sending my ashy cheeks to blush bright red.

"Oh! He is cute when he blushes! Zuri, you were right!" She said giving her a gentle nudge."I am, Kichanga... Oh! I believe it means... How do you say.. Sunny! Like the sun, no?" She said as she rose from the bed and gave me a hug. She then began fiddling with my wings.

"Heh... Yeah that would be like the sun." I replied nervously as an ages old question was finally answered after ten years of wondering... Yup, they have no sense of personal space at all. "Pleased to meet... GAH! Easy those are very sensitive!" I half squeak, half moaned out. Everything in my brain screamed danger, but my heart nearly leaped when she ran her hoof over my primaries. I wanted nothing more than for her to not stop, but even with the erotic feeling of my wings being stroked, I was a one mare buck.

"Oh! I am so sorry! Am I hurting you?" She said as her hoof recoiled in fear.

"NO! Ahem... No. They are just... SENSITIVE... That's all." I said, looking to Zuri for affirmation that I was not in trouble or about to cause a social scene. I was being quietly and manically laughed at. After several moments of hushed snickering, a light flickered to life in Sunny's eyes and she grew bright red.

"OH! Oh no! I did not mean to... I am so sorry! I did not mean to make the sexy feelings with you!" She stammered nervously. Ok that was adorable. She was so well spoken before, but after an accidental wing job she was all flustered. Zuri erupted in laughter much the same as she had she was trying to give me 'the sexy feelings' when I had to pee.

"It's ok. I would guess that I am the only Pegasi you have met before, no?" I said, pressing my nose to her's. Oh two can play at this game. The laughter stopped instantly as I gave her a soft smile and a small nuzzle. Oh wow, I had no clue a Zebra could get that red. Zuri was fuming but didn't move an inch. "Careful, we have little control over our... emotions when you do that to us." I said as I passed her by and allowed a wing to drape under her chin and trace a line back to her shoulder as I trotted off to the sink to wash my hooves.

I paid Zuri a 'Oh you think your funny' glance and was rewarded with the saddest 'com'on!' look I had ever gotten. Part of me felt bad... A very small part that was completely over shadowed by revenge, sexual frustration and complete validation that even with stripes... I still had 'it'.

"N-n-no... I not have... I MEAN! No, I have not." Sunny said as I tried to make since of the wash basin. "Oh! Yes! I mean, I remember seeing one! Long ago!" She correcting in excitement.

"Let me guess... Tall. Black Coat. White feathers..." I said almost sarcastically.

"YES! You know this buck too?" I nearly ripped the lever right off the faucet. There is no way, no how, that I just decribed my father to this random Zebra and they remember him... "Oh... It was so so long ago. I was just a filly."

"You're serious... You have seen this buck before? Do you know if he had a mare too?" I said hoping for the best possible out come. There was no way this was going to happen. There was no way it was going to be this easy!

"YES! She was... oh! Kimandizi..." She mumbled as she seemed to be trying to find the words to express what she wanted to say. "OH! Filly... Sitter. Yes, that is it." She said feeling rather proud of her mastery of the pony language.

"You know this mare... Do you know where I could perhaps find her?" I said closing the distance between us. "It's kind of important..."

"Important? I she in the trouble?" Sunny said, Trotting away from my advancement. I had not even noticed that I had backed the poor mare into a wall. "Is she in danger?" I watched as her ears folded to the side and her eye brows furrowed up in worry. Her blue eyes were massive in fear as her pupils shrank to pin pricks... She didn't just know her... she was close to her! No pony or Zebra would act this way if they were not close to them. She wasn't lying.

"Sunny... She's my mother." I said pleading. I watch fear over come the poor mare at the sudden realization that the mare in question may in deed be in, not just trouble, but grave danger that I was even here.

"She is... Is...U-U-Uch-"

"Don't you dare say that word... Don't even think of it! If you think we are passionate when we are horny... Piss me off." I dared with a razor's edge of a tone in my voice. I might not have the relationship with her the same as most colts do with their mothers, but I would be damned if anypony was going to say that about her. Not after what she had gone through.

"N-NO! I would never! I did not know! She is in terrible danger! You need to leave at once!" She said trying to push me out of the door. "She is special to me! I will not see her hurt!"

"Stop! Just stop... We need to clear some thing up here... I don't want to hurt her... I want to meet her. At least just once in my miserable life. I don't want her to get hurt because of it, but I'm not going to back down. I don't get it, this place seems so controlled, so... Machine like! I keep getting told that this place is impossible to get into, they kill mixed blood on site and they genocide newborns. I have yet to see any of this!" I shouted in frustration. Enough with the damn mind games, some Zebra was going to give me a straight answer or I was going to scare what I wanted out of her.

Sunny stood frightened for a moment, closed the door and motioned for us to go deeper inside the hut. We all took a seat in the center of the room, sitting in a circle on the floor and lowered our heads as she motioned for us too. She held her hoof up in a call for silence as we listened to a guard to trot past on the wall behind us. Finally, she spoke, slowly, quietly and directly.

"It is that bad here. What you are seeing is not real at all. It's all a show!"

"A show!? What do you mean a show?"

"A show! They are putting on an act! The only thing that can not hide is the slavery! This place is hell. Hell for Zebras! The only reason you were allowed in was because the Tribal leaders are here visiting for the next five days! They have to show they are open to the idea of trade for the outside or they will not get the option to vote in the elections. No voting, no support from the other tribes! No support and... we all fall down." Sunny said tapping her hoof to the floor. "I do not clean rooms... I work in the kuchimba mawe field . The only reason I'm here is put on a show that we entertain tourist. No pony or Zebra comes here! Why do you thing you were let in so easily! That is why it is not safe here for you!" She said beckoning for us to see reason.

"You mean to tell us that the whole reason things have been going so well is because they have to? Because they have no choice at all?" I asked quietly.

"YES! I mean... yes... But the clock is ticking! Once the elders are gone, they will come for you both!"

"Stop me here, but why not just tell the elders what's really going on here? Wouldn't they step in?"

"No! It is forbidden for a servant to speak to an elder! I would be take to the Mashamba Ya Mauaji! I would be killed! Such an act is seen as self serving!"

"So what, you just slave your life away then? That's horrible! For what? Somepony else's gain?"

"We are forced to farm for food for other Tribes. They make us dig for gems with no tools. There is even a place to trade off Zebras as personal slaves! Such a life is the best that we can hope for! Disobey them, we are killed. If we have babies, they are killed in front of us and we are worked to death! If they find out that you have pony blood, you are seen as cursed! They force you to submit to them and then you are killed!"

"Dear Luna..." I mumbled. Sunny pressed her hooves to her head in protest. "What?"

"You must not say that name here! It is forbidden!"

"He says this name... the bad one, often." Zuri said, trying to help Sunny to understand that I had no idea what I was doing.

"Sorry, Sunny. I'm from a different place." I said, lifting her chin with a hoof. Hey, charm worked the first time, why not now? "Sunny, can you tell me about what happened? About twenty three years ago to be precise? What happened to force mixed blood foals to be killed or cast out?" I asked gently. I didn't want to risk bringing up bad memories, but what choice did I have? I wanted to know what happened, I wanted to know how this all started and if maybe... just maybe I could figure out a way to help these poor Zebras. What was happening was just wrong, so much so I doubt any pony could help. But what about a Well connected Zony? Maybe one with friends who have a pre-war site filled with next level tech?

"Yes... I will tell." Sunny steadied herself while Zuri and I scooted closer to one another and braced for the story I had been waiting to here. "Long ago, our tribe was on the verge of collapse. Many Zebras were leaving for other tribes to save themselves and their families. Many left, even our Leader. We had to fix this quickly and elected in a young, sweet buck. One who understood how the times had changed and what needed to happen to make things right. The elders were furious, but they had no choice but to let him preside over the throne. They wanted one of their politicians to preside over the role of Chief. But we... We wanted things to change.

Zuberi was his name. He ruled with a strong hoof for the population! He fought for change that could save us all! One day he opened our gates and allowed for trade with ponies. It was... a hard beginning, but soon we came around to the ponies. It was not long before even ponies with wings began coming to our tribe. But the population was still getting smaller. It was then that our Chief, Zuberi asked us to open our hearts to the ponies. He wanted us to know them, to love them as though they were our own family. This also took time for us to accept. But eventually, a Zebra mare fell in love with a pony with wings. They grew together and even had a baby! Soon others were doing the same, it was crucial for our survival to change!

The elders were furious about this! They preached that only pure blood may hold positions of power and that if we continued down our path, it would lead to our destruction! Soon Zebras began to turn back to their old ways and began shunning those who layed with ponies. It was not long until the elder had the support they needed to cast out Zuberi and set things back the way they were. It was a dark time.

They killed Zuberi in front of us all to set an example to every Zebra in the land that their word was law. But what they did next... What they did next was horror! Mixed couples were forced apart, their babies taken from them if they did not agree to kill them as a sacrifice for their sins! Those who killed their babies were allowed to live as a normal Zebra. Those who refused were forced to cast their babies out into the Wastes, they were forced to abandon them for fate to decide theirs. They would then have to work the fields until they died as punishment for their sins. It was atonement. Many fought, but none were allowed to leave once the rule was set.

The buck who first took heart with a Zebra mare, he was the first to be set to death. He was seen as a demon, sent to change our ways and lead us away from salvation. He was called Malaika Mweusi. The Dark Angel."

I sat there... not looking at anything. Just beside myself in horror and discuss over what I had heard. If I had not wanted to set fire to this place before over what it made Zuri's mother into, I was going to nuke it now. I didn't care about names, I did't care about reasoning, I wanted whoever was responsible to die. I now truly knew what Zuri had meant when she said she wanted to die, she wanted to take her mother's place... In a lot of ways, so did I.

"Thank you, Sunny. I know that must have been hard for you." I said, offering a hoof to her's for comfort.

"No... It is hard for you. I am sorry. You are one of the kutelekezwa. The abandoned."

"Yeah but I have had a life no where near as hard as your's. How can you say that you are sorry for me?"

"Because... Your father... He was Malaika Mweusi. The Dark Angel." She said tearfully.

"Joy... I am sorry I did not tell you. I did not know how." Zuri said, wrapping her hooves around me.

"He was a brave buck. Strong, loving. That is how we remember him." Sunny said softly... but I wasn't listening.

All this time... My father was the one who was trying to save this place by taking the first step. Some fucking Zebra wanted to stick to the old ways and hundreds died for it in return and for what!? Some pure blood line bullshit? What was this place! How could any... THING be so cruel! How can you be so swallowed whole in your belief that you let it lead you to abandoning foals to the wilderness!? What good would it all do if they all died out because of it in a few years anyway? It was needless, careless murder, MASS MURDER!

This place... I though I had been lied to, when in reality this place was lying to me. I had not even been here a full day and I have already seen the true colors of their stripes. They weren't black, they were red, stained with the blood of the innocent for an unjust cause. My family bloodline was at the root of it all. The catalyst that was meant for nothing but good and later turned into bloodshed.

"He was... my father? He was the first to die?" I meeked out somehow through the various emotions.

"He was. He was the first to take lead in the revolt against the law. He was willing to fight along side pony or Zebra to protect those who were of mix blood. He was the example that the new Chief made that set things into motion for what happened next." She said with a cool tone.

We sat silent for several moments while I processed the information in my head. But no matter what I tried to figure out, one thing was on my mind and one thing only.

"I want to see my mother." I said with all the intent I could muster after the blow I was dealt.

"No. You can not. If you are seen with her, she will be killed." Sunny said insistently.

"There has to be a way. Someway I can see her. I will do anything to make it happen. Please! I'm begging you!" I said, tear welling up in my eyes. I would have done anything in that moment to make what I wanted to happen, happen. I would have killed any Zebra in front of me, I would have set fire to the land and salt the earth. I would have done anything. It was like a higher calling that I had to answer, as if I was fated to see her.

"There might be one way..."

"Name it, your price or what I have to do... Anything." I begged.

"When you leave this place... I wish to go too." Sunny said, lunging forwards. "I hate my life here! I wish every night for death but it never comes! I have been beaten and forced to work until I could not any longer! I am... forced to... Lay with..." I put a hoof to her muzzle. There was no need to say it, I already knew what she was going to say. But for some reason, just the thought of such a sweet mare having to tell me she was raped at will felt like a 'burn it all down' kind of moment.

"I don't know how we are going to do it. But if that is what the price is, consider it paid." I said with a smile.

"Oh! Thank you! Thank you Joy!" She screeched as she lunged forward and wrapped her hooves around me.

"Easy now... I would have done that anyway. All you had to do was ask." I whispered to her. I looked to Zuri who was decidedly proud looking in this moment we were sharing. Almost as to say 'that's the buck I fell in love with' or 'I would expect you to do nothing less'.

"I will be here tonight. Be ready. I will take you to Kamaria." She said as she stood and trotted for the door.

"Wait! I have just... two more questions. They will be quick." I said, following her to the door. "My name... my mothers name... What do they mean?" I just had to know. How often do I get this chance to verify something as important as my own name. "My name... My real name is Kit."

"Ah... yes. Your name means Gem. You mother... her name mean Bright... Like the moon. It is, not the best name."

"It is to me..." I said feeling a little let down that this mare I barely knew, new more about me and my family than I did. Her not liking my mother's name... well that just stung all the more. Sunny departed for her faux day job and left Zuri and I to wait for night fall. Oh whatever were we to do with the time.

"Bright like the moon... Huh, doesn't sound bad to me. Oh well, at least I got a Gem of a name." I said trying to crack a joke.

"Joy... I have told you this... I told you this many times. Why did you ask her that?" Zuri asked sound just a touch hurt that I wouldn't take her word for it.

"Well... I had to verify with a Zebra who lives her. You never know, maybe they changed the meaning to something terrible later on like Turd Bush or something. Besides... I like hearing her talk. She has a soothing voice." I said as I threw myself at the bed.

"I have a soothing voice too! I can be soothing!" Zuri said as though I was about to abandon her.

"Oh really? Last I saw you liked to laugh at bucks who needed to pee and set your friends up to play with their feathers..." I said giving her a cheeky grin.

"So the flirting... You did not mean it? The feather thing? It was all just to?"

"Make you jealous?" I said with a grin.

"You are a rotten pony!" She shouted, beating me with my own pillow. I waited for an opening in the blows and reached for her and pulled her on top of me as quickly as I could.

"Now... about that comment about you being soothing..."

"This is never going to work..." I said beneath the thick canvas sheeting. Sunny can come through just as promised, showing up not long after Zuri and I were finishing up with round five between the sheets. I loved her, I really did... but she was going to have to learn that though I love making love, I don't love making love for that long! There was also the problem with just how adventurous she was beginning to get in the bed room. I know ponies have nerves back there and it feels great to be licked there, but the last thing I want after that is a big sloppy kiss on the lips. That being said, I was almost embarrassed by just how much I had enjoyed it.

Poor Sunny never say it coming when she opened the door either. We were right at the moment too! This lead to another more awkward moment that was going to lead to an even more awkward conversation later with Zuri. She has to understand that just because we are having sex and somepony walks in on us, that does not mean that they too want to join. The scary reality of it all was that Sunny, though rather shy and timid, really looked like she wanted to. As fun as it sounded, I don't think I'm quite ready for that level of creativity in the bed room just yet.

"Sush! We are nearing the guards. They both said as they pulled the cart from the residential district across the street to the slave quarters. It was pure luck that the river where the laundry was done was located right behind them. I had been told on the ride over that I would be on my own getting back and that I would have to wait for a break in the guards to make a dash for it. With every Zebra asleep, there would be no stopping them from trying to kill me if they decided to. Even still, it would be the early morning hours before the slaves got up for the morning before I could make a dash for our hut.

There was no chance of just hanging out either and playing the dumb tourist routine. If I was found there, far from the city center just milling about, I was as good as dead. I wasn't just taking my own life into my hooves by doing this, I was taking every... sigh... Zebra's life in them too. I had to be quick, quiet and not seen. Just the kind of thing a Pegasi is good for.
After all, when nopony you know flies, you rarely look up.

We came to a stop just as I felt the road begin to fall off to the other side. I heard the voices of the guards ahead, saying something in stripy talk to Zuri and Sunny in a curt, coarse tone. I had preciousness few weapons with me, but one I rarely left home without, was strapped to my foreleg and ready to draw blood if needed. I slowly worked my hoof into position and undid the clasp on the long hunting knife and... Aww... When did it rust? I had always taken such good care of it over the years! The once gleaming blade had since turned orange with corrosion and oxidation. I felt my heart sink as I tried to place the last time I had cleaned it and... I hadn't. It still wore the blood of a buck who tried to touch my wang with his hoof.

Oh well, hope their vaccinated, if not well... they would die anyways so who cares. The cart lurched forward once more and I took a deep breath. In retrospect this was a terrible idea because the cart was filled with sweat solid sheets and Celestia knows what else... Some of them were from our own hut and wore the musty aroma of sex, tears and musk... at least I hoped that was coming from our sheets. If not I was going to need to be vaccinated.

I felt the cart turn, Then turn again, and again, and again... How far off was this place, we had been traveling for nearly twenty minutes now. Turn after turn I became more and more disoriented as I waited for the warning that we were outside her door. I had been told that when I heard three taps on the cart to prepare myself and be ready for my signal. Sunny was designated some of the slave huts to change the sheets out in and had worked out a trade to get the route my mother was on. This was something I felt was common place between the slaves who had a reason to go to another hut.

Finally, after my entire life being left to wonder, after ten years of curious questions and risking everypony's lives around me... I was outside her door. I heard the three taps, I heard the knock at her door and the soft, angelic reply from with in. Just the sound of her voice resonated with me, it was the same as I had heard in my dream like state. Same tone, albeit tired and weary, all the same there was no mistaking it. I heard the door open and the cart being pulled into the hut, moonlight faded to candle light and the smell of lavender filled my nostrils. All that was left to do, was wait.

"Kamaria? I'm here to deliver something for you." Sunny said sweetly. Bless her, she was trying so hard not to cry. She really was a sweet mare.

"Kichanga. Why are you speaking in pony? Are you brushing up?" I heard my mother say sweetly.

"It is... a request..."

"A request? From who?" Her voice filled with wonder and confusion... Oh Luna, please don't let me give her a heart attack! Please let her like me! I hope she doesn't hate me or is mad that I came.

"A request from a visitor." Zuri said as she tapped the cart again. This is it. No turning back now! I wanted nothing more than to run like hell and get out of here. I was terrified she wouldn't want me at all after what all she had been through... But I had to know, I had to see her. Just once. with a shaky hoof, I climbed out of the old cart and dusted myself off. I was looking at the ground, the room was dead silent, I was too afraid to make eye contact until...

"K-kit?" I heard her voice break and that was all it took.

"Mom?" I pushed out through the ever growing tears in my eyes. I looked up to see the mare I had seen in my dream, same mane, same tail and the same loving eyes I remember. Even though this was the first time I could remember seeing them, they looked so familiar to me, so inviting and filled with care and love!

"Is it really you?" She said taking a shaky step forward. Thinking quickly, I reached a wing into my saddle bags and retrieved my necklace, the same one I had carried all these years and that I had to fight to earn by from a thief. It was proof that I, was me. I held it up for her to see and watched her fall to the ground in tears. I ran to her and put my hooves around her and held on for dear life. This wasn't a dream, this was real. It was really real! I could feel her in my hooves sobbing, I could feel... her!

"I made it, mom. I made it!" I cried. I felt her hooves over come mine and hold me close. It was a feeling I could never begin to describe, something I could faintly remember feeling long ago but was all too new and real to me now. She held me close to her, close enough that I could hear her heart beating. The soft thumps growing faster with each passing second, each beat stronger than the next. She pulled my face close to her's so she could see me better.

"I had a dream about you! About what had become of my colt!" She said, trying to dry the tears fro her tired eyes.

"I had one about you too!" I said giving a sniff.

"You... You have stripes! You have stripes like me! You have your father's wings and... and..." I gave a smile. I couldn't help it, I had never heard anypony talk about me the way she was in this moment. It was sweetness that Zuri herself could never hope to match. I had never heard a voice more beautiful that hearing her's for the first time. "And... it's really you! After all these years! I never wanted to-"

"I know... I know everything. I know what happened, it's not your fault."

More tears from the mare who had ushered me into this world as she pulled me in close to her and refused to let go. I didn't mind it at all, this was something I had been denied my whole life. To know who my parents are, to feel a hug from them and to know what it was like to be loved so deeply that you would work you life away just to see them live a happy life... even if it meant giving your's up in return. After all these years I could tell, she never gave up hope, not for one day that I had somehow made it and found a life for myself. I would bet that never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that I would show up here at her door... The again, love will make you do some crazy things and after all, a mother's love, is a mother's love. It can't be matched.