Hot... Why is this place always so damn hot!? The noon's daily sun scorched at my back, making my already dehydrated coat feel dry and sore to the touch. I had been on the move for four days now, flying countless miles with only the sound of the wind and the thoughts of the rest of my team back in Hoofington to keep me company. Time, had taken its toll on me, I was weary, tired and broken down. Even though I had plenty of rations to aid in my travels, they had been left untouched. I had not eaten in days and used very little of my four gallons of water that I had brought with me. I just wanted to sleep, preferably somewhere safe for a change. Anywhere would be better than the last couple of nights of rest that I have had. Sleeping in trees is for the birds! I could only manage a few hours at best before I would roll off of the old, decrepit tree limbs and fall to the ground. Not the best way to wake up, especially when that ground was inhabited by zombies.

Trotting in the sun for the first time in what seemed like years, I made my way through the old town of Silver Shoe towards Peach's Sundries and Ammo. There are so many memories in this old town, haunting it like the ghosts of the past, reminding me of the times when the group and I would spend weeks here at a time. But now, I was seeing them all for the first time once more. The shadows came alive with the renewed knowledge I had found, Boss and his love affair that resulted in Caliber's existence. Secrets, the old man had plenty of them, and I had been standing right in the middle of them all unknowingly. Now however, I was walking the same road he had so long ago, I was even heading in roughly the same area that he would seek out. I guess it is true what they say, you will never truly understand somepony until you trot a mile in their hoofsteps.

I trotted up to the old wares store, inside I could make out the haggard voice of Ms. Peach, informing a customer that he was 'Too poor to afford the dust on the counter' and was insisting that he would leave at once. Exhausted, I leaned my shoulder into the double doors and let myself in.

"I don't care how much money you have 'back in your room', I don't give free rides to strangers!" Peach said to the young, brown unicorn buck.

"As I recall, you don't give free rides... AT ALL." I said as I trotted to the old refrigerator.

"Oh. It's you. I see you're not dead. Where's that miserable old man of yours?" Peach asked.

"I see you're also still alive. What are you now? A hundred and sixty? Seventy maybe? Oh, And he is dead... Like you would care." I said as I slid the door open to the cooler. Warm... Great. Nothing like an old, hot and flat, Sparkle Cola. I now officially have no reason to come here anymore.

"Oh. Sorry to hear that. I was wondering why he skipped out on my order. I always figured that he took my caps and ran." Peach said, leaning into the counter top. Truth is, he didn't skip out on her order, I just didn't want to make the delivery to her.

"Nope. Rad-sickness. Died on the way to Baltimare." I said, too tired to put forth any emotion.

"Well. I suspect you want something."

"HEY! I'm not done talking to you!" The buck said as he slammed a hoof into the counter.

"Oh yes you are! If you don't get the fuck out of my store, I'm going to tell that bounty hunter over there just how many caps I'm willing to pay to have you wake up dead!" Peach said, looking in my direction. Whatever, I don't even care what is going on. At this point, playing along seems like the easiest thing to do.

"Him? He's half my size! I like my chances." The buck said as he turned towards me and squared his stance.

"I'm also twice as armed, can fly and too tired and grumpy to go hoof to hoof with you. I like my odds better than yours." I said as I popped the top off of my lukewarm beverage.

"You wouldn't..."

"Wanna bet?" I said, unclasping the holster on one of my pistols.

"Oh! Fuck you both!" He said as he scooped up his small pile of caps and ran out of the door. Peach whiped her hooves across the old wood counter, seeming to be subconsciously trying to rid it of the buck's presence.

"I appreciate that... Now. What do YOU want?" She said, shooting me a look.

"Just how did you know that I was a 'bounty hunter' and not about Boss's death?" I asked, just a touch offended by the sentiment.

"Word gets around, just not enough of it. I had heard that he went off the map, not that he had died. And I would think you would see it as a badge of honor considering your upbringing. Little Joey, all grown up into a bounty hunter, coming from humble beginnings as a mere trader. Sounds like something you would read from a foal's story."

"I see you haven't lost a single ounce of your charm... And it's TRACKER, not bounty hunter!"

"Tracker... Bounty hunter... Prostitute... They all take money for services rendered." She said leaning back in her seat.

"Bitch..."

"Asshole..."

We both sat there, eyes locked, both wanting to say more, but neither breathing a word. This was the inevitable stare down that Boss would get into when he would have to deal with Ms. Peach when they would trade. Finally, I broke the silence.

"I need five gallons of water, food for a week and all the medical bandages you have."

"And I need 500 caps."

"WHAT!?"

"Oh sorry, I forgot who I was talking to." She said, followed by clearing her throat. "I... Need... Five... Hundred... Caps..." She said drawing out the words like a length of rope.

"Oh, I heard you... I just can't believe you."

"Take it or leave it. But judging by the looks of you, I'd take it."

"Look, I have to fly through the Badlands tomorrow... tonight... whatever. Just as soon as I get some sleep. I'm broke, I'm tired and I just did you a favor by running that customer off. Surely there is something we can work out here."

Peach regarded me in the same manner she would if she was looking at a piece of scrap, trying to assess its value.

"Oh I'm sure we can work something out... What would you take for that piece on your back?" She said, now eyeing my rifle.

"Oh no! Not my rifle! I have had this gun since I was just a little colt. Boss gave it to me for my birthday!"

"Save me the sentiment, it has no value in trade! I only want the damn thing for the scope, looks like a Ironshod Mark Four, I have only seen those in old pre-war magazines."

"It is... It too was a gift, from Ditzy, and all the more reason why I am not giving you this rifle!"

"Oh for Luna's sake kid! Next you will tell me that the bullets were family heirlooms from your mother or something! Look, if you don't want to sell it or trade it, just pawn the damn thing to me and you can pay me when you get back."

"Wait. You would do that? For me?" I asked, positively floored by the concept of her offering to do such a thing. I had heard of her doing something of the like in the past, but never for me. Hell not even Boss!

"Why not. If you make it back, I get my caps, and I really like my caps. If you don't, then I get this rifle, and I really, really like this rifle. Since you are heading towards White Saddle Shores, through the desert... How did you put it? Oh! I like my odds better than yours."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Look, in case you haven't noticed, Pegasi are not exactly known for their fan following. Sure, you have it comfy back where you come from, but out there? Let's just say that they are not high on anyponies 'Do not kill list'. Mix that with those stripes of yours... Either way, I see myself keeping this rifle." She said as she layed out all of the goods to be traded between us.

"Stripes?"

"Don't act like you think that I didn't notice. That barding doesn't cover everything up on you. I don't know how you came by getting them, but I wager them to be your undoing before too long." She said, pointing to my sides. I looked down, and to my horror the stripes that had resided themselves to my back for so long, were starting to peak below my barding. Great! I can't even hide them now! What next? My butt? My face!? Universe! Have you no mercy!?

"It's complicated. Stripes or not, I haven't had any issue since I got them, why would that start now?"

"Oh please, you're Boss's kid! Everypony knows who you are around these parts. Out there however... you're just some striped Pegasus, the combination of everything that ponies hate, a proverbial flying target. You have had it easy most of your life, ponies respected Boss for his resolve to get a job done. So when he took you in as a colt, everypony not only saw you grow up, but saw you being raised by somepony they admired. Face it kid, you got dealt a lucky hoof in life, most Pegasi I have known died knowing how much they were hated."

What was she getting on about with this 'everypony hates Pegasi' talk? In all my time on this planet, I have had at best a hoof-full of times where racism towards those with wings could be denoted. Everywhere I went... were all the same places I had gone with Boss. Wait, that can't be right. I have flown all over Equestria and... I sat down hard. Everywhere I had been for a long enough time to talk to other ponies, were places where the group and I had been to trade throughout the years. Was the friendly attitudes everypony had towards me just a learned habit from exposure? That can't be right, but then again, Boss got me when I was young, that would at the very least show others that I was raised in the same world as them.

Everywhere else that I had gone, I had always kept a low profile, stuck to the skies or been in areas that were void of otherwise intelligent life. I know that racism towards Pegasi is very much so alive and well, I had seen it every time I had gone to Tenpony. Even Boss's charm couldn't win those snooty ponies over. Not to mention, I could imagine that a well armed pony with a set of wings could be an intimidating thing to go up against. Had they just kept their mouths shut and instead spoke about me behind their backs? Of all the times to contemplate whether or not I was secretly being hated, a few hours before I had to fly a few hundred miles across a desert, was not it. I pushed it aside in my head for later pondering when I was more rested and decided to not give Peach the satisfaction.

"I don't plan on dying if that's what you are hoping for. Besides, I have wings. What's to stop me from just flying away?"

"All the more reason to pawn me that rifle and be on your way kid. Unless that is, you are getting all nervous about your safe flight south."

"Damn it... Fine. I had better get it back in the same shape it is now! No fucking with the scope, no shooting it and don't you dare sell it!"

"Sure, sure..." Peach said as I passed off my rifle for her 'safe keeping'. "Now what is it that you will be needing?"

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, still feeling the lack of weight over my shoulder. "I need water and food for four days and nights, any .44 cal ammo that you have, and whatever medical supplies you can spare... Oh and a room for a few hours."

"I'm starting to regret this trade already..." Peach said as she began filling my bags with everything I had asked for. "There goes any profit margin I had in the damn thing, you had better make it back and have caps with you when you do! You owe me at least 600 caps for all of this!"

"600 caps!? What happened to 500?" I asked nearly slack jawed.

"That was before you raided my medical stocks! I only had three healing potions, one medical bandage, half a bottle of Buck and one syringe of Med-X."

My nose crinkled at the thought of even having Med-X in my bag again. I wanted to tell her to keep it and knock the price down further, but at this point if I kept the price high enough, maybe it would ensure that she wouldn't sell my rifle. Much to my distaste, she dropped the syringe into my bags, followed by all of the supplies that I had bargained for and a small, rolled up piece of paper that had everything I had traded for written on it. It wasn't bad enough that I had traded one of my dearest possessions off to her, she just had to give me a receipt to remind me of my own stupidity.

The exchange went without conversation, leaving me to take my things and leave the store feeling considerably lighter than I had gone in. I trotted across the town to the inn, all the while mentally preparing myself for the long road that layed before me. Only a short time had passed by, but as I recounted the events, I felt like I had crammed several lifetimes into the span of only a few days. My thoughts were being cut off by others as my brain scrambled to process everything that had happened and everything that had gone wrong.

In the span of only a few weeks, I had found a new lead that for once was paying off. I had made a best friend out of a buck who until recently I had thought to be nothing more than a bullet magnet for me. I had also been the happiest I had ever been, the most afraid that I had ever been and now, the loneliest I had ever been. All I wanted was to be happy, to find Zuri and put this whole thing behind me. Was it too much to ask for a small break? Before I had always gone with the flow, never stepped in to help without payment and just done what came natural to me.

I kept a griffons loyalty to the caps, held up my end of the deal more often than not and did my best not to die as I carved out a small life for myself. But now that I was chasing something bigger, something grander in design, it felt like the whole world was doing its best to stand in my way. It was as if I had broken some code of the Wasteland, going against everything that it stood for by trying to find something great in a world so horrible. It was a sin, one that would need to be atoned for at my every turn, for as long as I dared to push back against its merciless force of tragedy and disparity.

My head swam with thought as it landed in the middle of the filthy pillow on my rented bed. Try as I might, sleep was not coming easy to me for some reason. Even though my body was exhausted, my emotions taxed to the limit and my will withered away to nothing, my brain refused to turn off. My thoughts went to Shale, then to Valkyrie and finally Caliber. The Buck who had been there for me, even when I had not, seeking out friendship that wasn't there at the time in his attempt to no longer be lonely.

What was he going through? I had seen him weather far worse storms in the past, but now... it was like he had fallen into a pit. Images of him sitting there alone on the steps of Megamart filled my head, even in his posture I could see that he wanted to come with me, but his shattered will forced him to stay. Shale had promised to keep a watchful eye on him in my absence, telling me that she would help him through this whole ordeal.

I don't want to know the feeling he had to be holding onto after hearing the news that a child of his had been aborted out of malice towards him. Something like that would break me to my core, ripping at my every fiber of sanity. It was Ember's way of passing off blame for what she had done and simultaneously hurting Caliber in the process. What she hadn't counted on was his taking it the way he had. It was as if he from then on had to hold himself accountable for her actions, resting the unborn child's death, squarely in his hooves. In a lot of ways it was worse than outright killing him.

He had fought so hard to make amends for all the wicked that he had done, he even tried to seek this child out before finding out about its grizzly fate. All that must have made him hurt all the more. I felt a wave of guilt rush over me with the thought of leaving him once more to deal with his own troubles while I fled to seek out my own happiness. I should be there right now! Bounty be dammed! Yet here I was, trying to sleep, to get enough rest to fly off and find my old marefriend.

I have to see this through! If nothing else, to pay a penance to my own ego so that it might let me go from this stupid mental bond I have with Zuri. Truth is, as the week's events unfolded, I had felt myself growing resentment towards her for even trying to contact me. Had she just left well enough alone, where would I be now? Would I not be happy given enough time? I would like to think I would be, but that is not how I was raised to go about things. At the very least, I have to try, as to why I have no clue, but if nothing else, I will try. Maybe then, I can put all of this behind me and move on with my life. With or without her.

I forced myself to clear my head and slowly, pushing aside the weary thoughts, and with the sun burning through the windows around me, finally fell asleep.

No matter how many times I wake up when it is still dark outside, I will never get past that initial four or five seconds of thinking that I have gone blind in my sleep. Considering the living conditions I have had the pleasure of dealing with the majority of my life, such a fear would not be too far out of the scope of reality. All the same, even with the sudden rush of fear when I woke up, I still had a strong urge to go back to sleep. My body felt old and decrepit even though I was in my late twenties and been 'working out' by carrying a mildly deranged unicorn on my back for most of my trips across the Wastes. I was still tired even though my Pipbuck said I had been out for over eight hours now, my body felt like it was filled with sludge or something and my abdomen felt tight as though it was bloated.

I worked my covers off of me and slowly guided my hooves to the floor, all the while my joints groaning in protest at the very movements I was subjecting them to. What was wrong with me? It's not like I haven't pushed my body pass the limit before. I have gone days without eating, flown for hundreds of miles and stayed up for a full week in the past, yet a few days of emotional taxing and lack of a decent diet must have taken their toll. Sure the bad habits have their detrimental effects over time, but the night and day difference of when I fell asleep and when I woke are much more worrying than they had been in the past.

I have never felt this bad before, It was like my body was at odds with itself and my wanting to push forward and was doing everything in its power to stop me even trying to stand. Deciding that my physical condition was good enough to keep moving, I set myself to my morning ritual of 'stretch, pee, find food' and go about my day, night, whatever. Throwing my hooves forward on the floor, my ears were met with multiple pops and cracks that, normally would feel great, but this time, sent sharp jolts of pain throughout my back. The sudden stabs of pain sent me sprawled out onto the floor, making my hooves go numb and my leg muscles too weak to support me.

"OW!" I shouted from my new home on the floorboards. "Ok, not going to do that again for a long time..." After several long minutes, I finally found the strength to move forward to phase two of my evil plan to pursue happiness, bathroom time! Thankfully, this place does in fact have a functioning toilet, a gross looking one, but a working one nonetheless. Sure the wastewater and solids were being collected by a ghoul pony who would clean it, and the toilet paper, and resell it as 'Reclaimed Water' and 'Flank Floss', and I'm pretty sure that the cook downstairs was taking the leftovers and making them into a meal, but who cares!? I can do my business in the comfort of my own room without anypony looking at me funny. What? I like privacy! Even if it is a contrived reasoning in a world where everypony goes where they damn well ple... Why is my pee dark brown? Even in the dark lit room, I could see the water had been clear before I started, but unlike in the past when I had finished my business, this time the water had not turned yellow, but instead a sickly looking brown color. This was new... also probably very bad! No matter, nothing a healing potion won't fix! It will also fulfill step three in my morning routine.

Reaching for one of the glowing vials in my bag, I became all too aware of the burning in my upper stomach when I twisted backwards for the dirty old saddlebags. I pulled the cork plug from the top of the vial and turned the bottle up, letting its contents flow down my throat and almost instantly set fire to my stomach. I doubled over in pain, clutching my chest to try and alleviate the horror that was now happening to my insides. This has never happened before. I was so used to healing potions taking pain away from me, not making it worse! What the hell was going on!?

The pain sent me retching, coughing and finally, vomiting up what little of the magical fluid my body had not absorbed, onto the floor. To my absolute terror, I saw blood mixed in with the contents of what I had drank from the vial, creating a rainbow pattern on the floor before me. I felt bad when I arrived in town yesterday, but it feels like my night's rest had made everything worse. Digging again into my bag, I pulled out one of the gallons of water for the trip and drank from it fiercely. Thankfully, water didn't seem to have the same tragic effects, in fact, it seemed to help ease my unsettled stomach.

I spent the next thirty minutes trying to compose myself as I finished off the last of one of my gallon of water, the more I consumed, the better I was starting to feel. To be fair, I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was lack of hunger now that my belly was starting to fill up with anything other than air, but at this point, anything is better than what I just went through. I gathered my things and started for the door, leaving behind me a mess on the floor and some very unsure thoughts of my own health. Once this was all over, I have to find my way back to Tenpony to get checked out. The last thing I wanted right now is to die from some stupid illness, especially if I do end up finding Zuri, it would have all been for nothing if I were to fall over dead the moment I saw her.

I staggered my way down the hall towards the lobby, my body still fighting back dry heaving with my every step. Despite the water's bettering effects, it was starting to feel short lived in its healing ability. Whatever screwed up illness I had picked up, it had to be water dependent for it to reject a healing potion the way it did. Great! I'm sick with something that needs water to cure it, and I'm about to fly through a desert, oh the life I live. Then again, I only possessed a small amount of medical knowledge, only knowing how to treat small wounds and sprained hooves when needed. I hadn't even had the time to hoof my way through the Wonderbolts medical book Ditzy had slipped into my bag before we had set off. What was so bad that it would force me to reject a healing potion? Nevermind that, what was so bad that I could barely think straight and make my world feel more like I was swimming than trotting?

I was stopped in my wobbly tracks by a familiar looking face, that of the unicorn buck I had frightened off back at Peach's earlier today.

"You know, you cost me a lot of caps by butting in where your nose doesn't belong!" He said, leaning into my face close enough for his yellow mane to brush my forehead. Geez! Personal space much!?

"Look, I'm in no mood to deal with this now, hell, I wasn't then either. I'm sick, I have to fly for Goddesses knows how far here soon and you should have known better than to haggle with her. She can be a right bitch when she wants to be."

"All the same, YOU didn't have to make things worse by shoving YOUR muzzle into things! I needed those healing potions for my supplies, do you have any idea how hard it is to work without them!?" Oh how he had no idea how much I knew.

"Healing potions? You need healing potions..." I asked dryly.

"Yeah! And the fact that a buck such as yourself would be willing to kill me over them, while not uncommon, is still fitting the manner of a damned raider." He said, poking a hoof to my already sore chest.

"Look, if you need healing potions, you can have them." I said, opening a wing to retrieve them from my bag. "Just... back up, would you?" Wow his breath was rank! No wait... That was MY breath that was so rank! What did I eat last night? A flipping rad roach turd!?

"Wait! How much do you want for them?" He said, backing away and eyeing me quizzically.

"You can have them... Damn things are setting my guts on fire. I only managed to get half of one of them down before it came right back up again."

He took the half full vial and turned it over in his magic, inspecting it closely before removing the plug and sniffing it. Ew. Gross. My mouth was just on that before I puked.

"Magical properties are intact... Still has a faint glow about it... You said it made you sick?"

"Yeah... Well not exactly. I woke up feeling like hell and tried to take one but as soon as it hit my throat, it felt like I was about melt from the inside out."

"Self medication not paying off... SHOCKING" He said sarcastically, tossing the magical liquid back and forth in his... well... magic.

"Look, do you want them or not? I have one more than I brought with me for the trip. I suspect since it is not doing me any good that you would want it too."

"Why are you just giving me these? I can sense that they are still fresh, something like this would be a great value to somepony about to take off into the wilderness."

"Like I said, I was in a bad mood before. I'm not usually like that. I'm sick, I have a long way to go and they are not helping whatever I have so they are of no use to me, also I know what it is like to deal with Peach when she gets like that. Don't read into it that much, I just..." I tried to say before being overcome by a dizzy spell. The buck reached out to steady my wobbling frame before guiding me to a wall to lean on.

"Sit! Please. You are burning up." He said as he guided me to the floor.

"Wha... I have to go. Times..."

"Of no importance to you right now." He said, cutting me off. I felt his hooves lift my already heavy eyelids.

"Great Goddesses... You have gone jaundice!"

"Jaun... what now?"

"Jaundice, hold still, I'm still new at this exam spell stuff."

"You're a doctor?"

"In training, please remain quiet."

"Why are you helping m... OW!" One of the vials bounced off of my forehead as it fell to the floor. Why is it that ponies have to resort to hitting me in the head instead of just asking me things?

"Recent wing injuries, don't get to say that too often, recent taint contamination, looks to have been purged though.... How many of these healing potions did you say you have had?"

"Only the half vial, why?"

"Because from what I'm seeing, you had to have been slogging the stuff for it to do this level of damage to your renal system."

Seeing my blank stare, he quickly dumbed things down.

"Your liver is infected and swollen and your kidneys are bleeding out from the excess magical fluid in your system. Under normal circumstances, your body would either pass the excess materials out through your normal bodily functions, or it would be expelled while healing any injuries you might have at the time.

"I have been under a lot of stress lately... I may have missed a few meals."

"To do this much damage, you would have had to go days without food or water and worked around the clock and actually tried to stay dehydrated."

"Great..."

"You are sure you haven't taken more than just this half vial? What about in the last week?" My brain went back to that moment in the cave when Ditzy and Caliber were force feeding me potions as if my life depended on it.

"Well, there was this one time back about four days ago I think? I had broken my wings and had to have them reset by a ghoul and a half drunk unicorn. They kind force fed them to me because they thought I was still in pain but... Point is, I may have had a few too many then."

"A few as in... Three or four?" He asked.

"A few as in seven or eight..."

"Luna's giant full moon ass..." He said, rubbing his temples.

"What!? I have had that many in a day before!"

"Yes but I would think it would have been due to a great number of injuries over x amount of time... Not to heal a simple pair of broken wings." He said with a 'you dumb bastard' look across his face.

"It wasn't like I had a choice in the matter! I was crying from emotional trauma and they kept pouring them down my throat!"

"Taking that amount of healing potions in such a short time could have, and should have, killed you. Without any injury for it to treat, it simply built up into your renal system and started to wreak havoc on your internal organs. The liver will heal but I suspect that you will have done long term damage to your kidneys in the form of scarring. You need a lot of water and plenty of rest to move this out of your system before the symptoms get worse. I have eight bottles of water back in my room, that should get your started but you are going to need an IV drip of a mixture of Addictol and Rad-away."

"Wait... Isn't that stuff for curing addiction!?"

"Yes, it is a field drug for purging addiction. But in your case it can be helpful with purging the magical fluids from your system when mixed into the correct proportions with Rad-away. You will also need a steady supply of antibiotics to help fight your infected liver. Honestly, how a buck could find a way to kill himself with damn healing potion is beyond me! Lucky for you, I have the stuff to create such a drip, I would see it as a fair trade considering you making things right about my fraught transaction with..."

"Ms. Peach... I'm Joey by the way."

"Ah yes, Peach, isn't she just that... My name is Blue Vein. Please, Follow me... You need to start the treatment at once if you are wanting to leave soon."

Doing as I was told, I half walked, half staggered my way down the hall behind him. Why was it that every single time I try to seek out Zuri, it had to be like wadding through quicksand? Just once in my life I would like to be given a task to find somepony, turn around and be looking them in the eye. I guess such things would make for a poor show for whatever cosmic being would be looking down on me. Well, if nothing else, at least they have seen fit to let me cross paths with an aspiring doctor, just in the nick of time too! Isn't it funny how those kinds of things happen? One second you are fighting for your life and the next you are standing in a room filled with healing po...

"Joey! What are you doing! You trotted right past the damn door!" I looked up to see that I had trotted a good ways down the hall from Blue Vein.

"Right! Sorry." I said rather sheepishly as I tried to shake off the remainders of my inner-monologue and trotted back to his room.

I have been told my whole life, despite what Peach had said earlier today, that I had a knack for getting ponies to open up to me when I wanted them to. Call it part of my special talent, having to deal with ponies who had lost a loved one or been through some tragic event in their lives that would somehow garner my assistance in setting it back right. Either way, I have never been short on stories to listen to from ponies who had one to tell in my travels around Equestria performing the odd jobs I took. I could probably fill a book with them, both of sorrow and mystery alike.

During my time hooked up to the hosepipe of chemicals, I learned quite a bit about Blue Vein and his story of how he came to be in this far-flung shit hole that is Silver Shoe. I also had to take five bathroom breaks to relieve myself of the fluids that were cleansing my system. I was thankful to see that my urine was becoming less brown and more clear, but I was shocked to see it was also becoming more of a shade of pink as the medicine did its work. I was told that it would take some time for the bleeding in my kidneys to stop, but at the most, no more than two or three days.

Blue Vein had traveled to Silver Shoe in hopes of finding fresh medical supplies for his trip that he was also taking towards the southern lands. In a rather tragic case, he had come from a stable that had been raided by the Steel Rangers near the foothills of the mountains southwest of Silver Shoe. At the time, he had been studying to become the stable's doctor, apprenticing under its only current one at the time. When the Steel Rangers broke the door open for the first time in two centuries, they had put an end to his medical teachings and would-be career. In a few moments, he had gone from trying to save patients lives alongside his mentor, to running for his own as he watched his fellow stable dwellers being shot, kicked and hauled away.

"Some of them fought, others ran, a few even tried to hide, but it was no use. They were there to lay claim to anything valuable we had on hoof and were willing to shoot anypony who got in their way. I didn't know what to do. If I tried to escape, they would have shot me, so I instead ran to the closest wounded and did what I could to help them. There were so many that were too far gone or well beyond my help to save. Mothers, fathers, children... It didn't matter to them. They just... Took. Scrap, electronics and if they felt like it, lives."

He spoke with such a broken hearted resentment that it made it hard to tell if he was angry at the Steel Rangers, or if he was still trying to process everything that had happened. I had asked how he managed to get passed them and was quickly told that he did not, but instead played dead until they had ended their assault on the stable.

"I waited until they had finished killing off the last of us, I hid inside one of the freezers in the mortuary for what seemed like an eternity for them to leave. When I came back out, once they had gone, they had stripped everything out that was of any real value and resealed the stable for what I could only assume to be for 'further processing'. I had to fumble my way through a dimly lit stable, functioning on only the backup power supply, all the while tripping over ponies I had known my whole life, who were now lying dead at my hooves."

I said before that I had heard enough stories to fill a book, but sitting here now, listening to his, it felt more like it could be a story all on his own. From his stable being raided, to his escape, finding a home in the Pony Forge valley and finally, trying to barter for medical supplies to help a small settlement that had been ravaged by the effects of inbreeding for over two centuries. It was an overwhelming tale that I could see was taking its toll on him to even bare the mention of. He soon excused himself to the restroom and left me to finish chugging away at what remained of the water he had given me.

"Feeling better?" I asked, seeing his head pop out of the small room.

"That's my line." He said, still a little shaken, but otherwise looking no worse for wear.

"In that case." I said climbing down off the bed. "Much better, thanks to you."

"Well, I suspect that you will be going then."

"Wait... Didn't you say that I should be getting some rest, take things easy? You are just going to let me fly out of here without a lecture."

"Oh please, like you would even listen. I know your type. Pig headed and fearless. Even if I told you that you would die within a few moments of being outside, you would still take your chances."

"Hey! I'm afraid of stuff!"

"Not even going to refute that remark about being pig headed?" He asked sardonically. "I knew a buck like you back in my stable, you couldn't tell him anything either. I once told him to stay off of his wings for a full day and he still flew out of the office. He also flew into a wall in doing so."

"Wait! FLEW!? WINGS!? YOU KNEW ANOTHER PEGASUS!?" I sat stunned halfway to his door. This buck knew of another Pegasus, and he was in a stable?

"Yeah, there were a few of them down there over the years according to the medical logs, all of them coming from the same bloodline from what I could tell. But such as a small stable's population will, over the years the genetic code began to mutate from inbreeding and it began to die out. Hell, I was one of only seventy unicorns of our 250 pony population, leaving 178 earthponies and two Pegasi"

"You knew TWO Pegasi..."

"Yes, and lets just glaze over everything else I said because you also have a set of wings! He was a damn idiot, maybe that is why you remind me of him so much!" He said with more malice than I thought necessary.

"I'm sorry, it's not something that I am used to hearing. How would a Pegasus even end up in a stable at ground level?"

"If I had to take an educated guess, I would say that they had been paired up with somepony who was an earth pony or they had bought their way in. All the same, whatever genetic code that blood line had to possess, it had to be a damn strong one for it to keep popping up over the years the way it did. From what I have read, ponies before the war tended to, generally speaking, be attracted to those of the same race as themselves due to various reasons. As such it would create a very strong bloodline that would keep the genetic code from deteriorating over time, resulting in random blips throughout the generations. Pegasi seem to fall prey to pairing up in like partnerships the most, but then again, I had very limited resources to base my hypothesis on, so consider it a scientific wild ass guess, at best. Honestly, one would think a pony such as yourself would be privy to this information, coming from a stable yourself." Blue Vein said flatly as he packed away the last of his medical equipment, slammed the case closed and slid it under his bed.

"What? No! I didn't come from a stable."

"You have a Pipbuck. If you didn't come from a stable, how did you come by such a thing then?"

"I got this one on trade a long time ago to help with sorting my inventory and to help me get around."

"Curious... A pony with a Pipbuck who is not from a stable."

"Why don't you have a Pipbuck? I thought all stable dwellers had Pipbucks." I said, throwing his flat tone back into his face.

"They do. According to my grandmother who had been overmare before she passed, the only way into a stable was to have a Pipbuck that had been issued to you. It was like your key to the door that would save your flank if the bombs fell and your multi-tool once you were inside. All residence have them, passed down from generation to generation. Mine was being repaired at the time of the assault, so it stands to reason that I never got it back." He said turning back to his case under the bed.

"Look, I'm sorry for asking. Hey, you said you were heading in my direction, if you like, I could give you a lift back there."

"Thank you, but if it is all the same to you, I need to rest before I head back out of town in the morning."

"Ok, I understand." I said as I turned for the door.

"Goddesses!" He said with a grunt. "Look, I'm sorry for the idiot comment. I have just been going through a lot as of late, some of which you were a part of." He said as he reached into his bag and produced a recorder and passed it to me. "Here, I don't suppose it will do me any good without a Pipbuck now. Before I left the stable, I went back to my room for my things, luckily they had not touched my grandmother's personal belongings she had left me. This was in there with it. I tried opening it up but all it did was copy a bunch of files on to the drive and crash my Pipbuck. Turns out when you try to load it on one with nearly an entire collection of medical journals on it, it crashes everything. If you are ever in the Pony Forge area, you can find me there. Just ask for Blue Vein, if they don't try to eat you first, they will point you to my hut." He said, lying down on his bed and using his magic to cover himself with the old blankets. With one pull, the blankets ripped at his hindhooves, leaving him with a small strip of sheets that fluttered down, only covering his shoulders.

"OH, DAMN AND BLAST!" He screamed, throwing the tattered remains across the room in a full on temper tantrum. I had to hold in a snicker at his flailing hooves as he worked out his frustrations on what was left of the bed linens.

"You know..." I said, still holding in my laughter. "I have a room for the rest of the night down the hall, you are more than welcome to it if you want."

"NO! I have all of my things set up just the way I like them here. I will, however, be borrowing your bed sheets from the room seeing as you offered it to me."

"Six feathers of one, a half wing of the other. Makes no difference to me. Thanks again Doc." I said as I closed the door behind me and set out of the hotel. Behind me, I could hear Blue Vein talking to himself in his room, saying something to the tune of 'Fucking Pegasi-isms!'. For such a nice guy when he was working, he could really be temperamental when he wasn't. Maybe it was just his way of letting things out, de-stressing to keep himself sane, kind of how Cal liked to get ripped and knock up mares in his spare time.

Huh... Cal... Zu... Val... Had I always given ponies I knew shortened nicknames like that? I guess I never really noticed before. What would I call Blue Vein if that was the case? Blue? Too generic. Bluey? No, too stupid. Veiny? EW! Just... Ew... I know! BeeVee! Yes! Still got it! I laughed to myself as I trotted out of the door into the stifling night air, why is it always so freaking hot out here! Oh... right... It's a desert.

Cursing the dry heat, I stretched my wings out, and with a cloud of dust, pushed off the ground towards the moonlit skies above me. I oriented myself south and began the long flight to the ocean for the first time in my life. I was still upset at everything that had happened back in Hoofington and I hated the idea of doing this alone, but overall, I was in higher spirits than when I got here. Maybe I had been getting sick this whole time and it was effecting my mood, maybe it was time doing its usual job of eroding away any and all emotions. But for the most part, I could tell a noticeable change in my attitude as I found myself flying higher in the air. Either way, desert, here I come!

Daylight broke over the horizon, with it came the casting of crimson, gold and purple colors as the morning sun began to rise higher into the sky. I was now heading south-southeast according to my Pipbuck, drifting my way towards my final destination on the shores of the far south Equestrian coastline. Despite the pain in my sides and my ever dwindling water supply, the gentle gusts of wind rocking my mane back and forth were a calming reminder of life's simple pleasures. Just yesterday I had been in a critical state of health and now here I am, gliding above the sandy dunes of what I would presume to be the badlands of both new and old Equestria. Even with my fear of heights keeping my altitude rather low in comparison to what I would imagine other Pegasi would want to fly at, one thought gripped my mind as I watched this picture book Celestia sunrise. What a day to be flying!

Even though I had never really enjoyed it in the past, as time has worn on my fears of falling from the skies have been slowly evaporating away the more time I spend aloft. My whole life, I had never seen the appeal of soaring through the clouds, I had always seen it as more of a way to get from place to place in short time frames. Maybe it was a life being tied to the ground, being told not to fly in towns or in areas where it could be dangerous or even just a natural fear of heights. There was a time when I wanted to be an unicorn just so that I could cast magic and make my more trivial tasks from my day to day activities easier. But here, in this moment, I want nothing more than to be flying.

I let my mind wander as the gentle currents of heat began to rise from the ground, nudging me higher and higher as they pushed their way to the heavens. This is what is was to be a Pegasus. Freedom, raw and unbridled freedom to explore and finesse the air around me. Unicorns had their magic and earth ponies could summon a bond to the ground that made them almost as strong as stone, but Pegasi had freedom. Up here nothing could touch my thoughts, my worries could melt away and leave me to take in what little beauty this land had left to offer. Even here in this desolate place with its scorching heat and near barren landscape, it too had its own beauty to behold. Golden sands that seemed to stretch on forever, only impeded by the blue skies that were now being filled with amber light and the hazy cyan glow on the horizon.

I can't imagine that the ponies of the past would have ever placed anything more than a weary thought to this place given its harsh climate and remote location. Even the ones who had made this place their home probably did not see the grandeur of their accomplishments and toiled away in the heat unknowing of the beauty around them. But here in this morning light, I could not picture a more fitting landscape to be flying to The Sunrise with The Sun Can't Hide Forever crackling its way through my Pipbuck to my ears. Well, that is, what little of it I can actually make out. I was now so far south that even Dj Pon3 was having a hard time sending his signals through the airwaves. Despite my high spirits, my Pipbuck's radio fading in and out was all but the last reminder I had of how far I truly was from anypony's help if something were to go wrong. I even tried loading the recorder Blue Vein had gave me in hopes it would have music on it, but it did the same to me as it did with him. It just started copying files and froze half of my Pipbuck's functions at random, leaving me with the radio, the mapping function and glitchy E.F.S. that would flicker in and out at random.

Soon the morning light had faded away into the hazy orange landscape that was the desert's noon day sun. Stifling heat was beating down on my back, drying my sweat before it could even have a chance to bead on my coat. Even the wind that had once cooled my cheeks had taken on something more akin to that of a blowtorch that was now blasting my body with wave after wave of unyielding fire. It was like its own form of radiation that permeated from the sky and from the ground below me. I knew that coming here would mean mild nights and hot days, but this is just too intense! My mouth was dry and the hide on my face was starting to feel as dry as the weathered stones that pop-marked the desert floor.

I reached back to my saddlebag to retrieve what was left of my second to last remaining bottle of water and held it to my face. One quarter full. Damn. I had not planed on this trip taking this much water to complete. Then again, I had not planed on throwing my liver into shut down inadvertently with enough healing potions to save a small army of ponies fighting off Timberwolves. I looked at the pitiful amount of water I had left and downed the bottle's contents in a single gulp.

"Well, that's the last of that... I have to be getting close by now! I have been flying for Goddesses knows how long?"

I said to myself as I looked around. Sand, sand, pile of stupid rocks and sand... No ocean in sight. Great! I wanted to throw my water bottle in frustration, but in the highly unlikely event I was to find some more water in this pressure cooker of a place, I might need all of them. I was getting agitated by the insane amount of effort it was taking to just stay aloft at this point with the once gentle updrafts becoming more like a hurricane force, and now I had to start rationing out my last bottle of water. I reached back to replace the bottle to my bags and retrieve the last of my surplus water, but before I could get a good grip on it with my hoof, a sudden updraft rocked my body sideways, causing me to drop the last full bottle to the ground below. After flying all night and the majority of the day, and being slowly cooked like a chicken for the last four or five hours, I would like to think I handled the matter with nothing short of Celestia's grace!

"SHIT! NO! WATER BOTTLE! WHY!"

I shouted as I dropped into a dive after the life giving elixir. Shit, it's heading for the rocks! You would think that flying straight down would be easy compared to trying to keep a level altitude and make good time, but after hours of doing just that, it was like swimming in syrup. I reached my hooves out towards the bottle as the ground began approaching faster and faster, but it was no use. At the last second I pulled up just enough not to break all four of my legs on the rock the bottle had just hit, breaking open and spilling its contents.

I collapsed to my belly and put my nose to the wet stone, just a few inches from the remains of the bottle and let out a groan of disappointment. Before I could even soak in any of the enjoyment that the damp surface of the rock could provide, I watched the wet spots fade to light grey as the water evaporated. I timidly poked the now exploded bottle with a hoof as I started to try and plan my next move. Losing any water in a desert was bad, given my current health state, it was probably a death sentence. So, now without any water at all and desert for as far as my eye could see, I was what many ponies would refer to as "screwed, up, down, left, right and center".

I looked to my Pipbuck to switch on my E.F.S. and checked the map, but I couldn't make out the screen in the direct sunlight, oh what I wouldn't give for a pair of sunglasses right now. I looked around the boulder pile I was now standing on, huh, it looked so much smaller from the air. Now that I'm standing right on top of it, it was more like a small mountain. I must have been flying a lot higher than I thought I was to pass something this big off for a small rock. Hopping from rock to rock, I made my way down the smooth worn rocks to the desert floor, maybe if I can find a shaded area, I can look at my map and see if there is a coastline nearby, or even a settlement. Don't ask me who would be living this far out in the desert in this day and age, but if there is one, it would be my last shot at refueling.

As soon as my hooves touched sand, two things became apparent. One, I was standing at the mouth of a small cave and two, there was enough background radiation clicking away on my Pipbuck to kill me in a few weeks. Why was there radiation here? I hadn't seen any indication of it when I was flying, or when I was on top of the mound of rocks. Sure there had been ruins scattered along the way I had flown, but from what I had seen, nothing that would have justified this place getting nuked. I raised my Pipbuck up to eye level and listened to the clicking go from a steady click to nothing at all. Ok, so the ground is contaminated, nothing out of the ordinary, I then held it closer to the rock inside the cave. Nothing.

Well, if the cave was safe then maybe I could hide out here for the day and take off in the night time. Flying at night meant not having to deal with heat, the sun or dehydrating as fast, and at this point, rest was starting to sound pretty good. But going into the cave meant taking the chance on radiation and whatever else was down there seeking salvation from the scorching sun. Sleep for a few hours or take my chances and hope that White Saddle Shores was just over the horizon, how far away was I anyhow? Sure the mapping feature wouldn't show my destination until I actually got there, thank you for that Stable-Tec, but maybe I could make out the coast line. Before I could zoom out on the map, I noticed that according to it, I was standing on a roadway.

"Seriously!? There is no road here! And I'm trusting my life to you of all things!?" I said, waving the Pipbuck around for it to see around. Sure it was stupid to do so, but it made me feel better.

I looked back to the clearly faulty leg apparatus and took notice to the fact that the road seemed to start where I was standing and winded its way in the same direction of the cave. Oh. So that was what that meant. I peered my head into the cave, leaning an ear into the darkness to listen for threats, but all that I could make out was a faint hum that I could not differentiate from the static ringing in my ears. It seemed safe enough to venture into, so I clicked the light on the clearly not broken leg apparatus and made my way into the darkness.

The 'road' was only as wide as I was long and fell away from the terrain behind me, steadily descending into the earth. Thankfully, it was getting cooler as I went down compared to the temperature outside. I slowly worked my way down the cave system, pausing at turns and watching my E.F.S. for possible threats, but I saw nothing, just the odd echo that would set my teeth on edge and the steady growing hum. In certain areas my Pipbuck would start to click rapidly at the presence of radiation near the cave's walls, forcing me to either run or hover above them. I passed by a weathered blue box that had been half buried by sand that produced a considerable amount of clicking and I had no choice but to jump over it and into a dark void ahead of me.

I rounded the corner in mid air and spotted something out of the corner of my vision, eyes. Quickly, I ducked back the way I had came. What was that!? It was yellow and right next to me! I reached to my back to pull one of my pistols and took a defensive stance in the direction of whatever the hell was down here with me. Waiting for it to round the corner, all the while my leg screeching at me and telling me that I was absorbing radiation at an alarming rate, trying to decided if I should take my chances on the thing around the corner, or sit on this little blue radiation factory.

Deciding that it was going to have to be me that made the first move, I took the pistol in my mouth and began side stepping wide around the corner, waiting for something to loom out of the darkness. Something blue and yellow soon came into view, the light of my Pipbuck was just barely illuminating whatever it was. Stepping closer, the words 'Stable-Tec' and the little smiling pony came into view, it was a sign, a Stable-Tec sign. Oh how Caliber would love this! Me standing here, nearly pissing myself over a damn sign... in a cave? Why was this down here?

"Ok, I'm in a cave, in the middle of nowhere, and there is a Stable-Tec sign..." I said in near disbelief.

How is it that they could spend that much time and money on advertising, yet make such amazingly shit products? Pipbucks that work intermittently, Stables that killed its inhabitants, yet their lunch boxed and signage was second to none in terms of reliability! I looked down to my own piece of Stable Tec technology to contemplate further on its flaws, but something on my maps had changed. There was a large gear shape that layed just in front of me on the path I had been walking, and above it, the words 'Stable 103' could be read clearly. Wait, wasn't this the stable that was a death trap or something? My brain fought to sift through the conversation that I had with Bit Scales back at Megamart. If I recall it was a dash something stable, but this one was clearly labeled 103, not 103 dash whatever.

I moved closer to see the large gear shaped door come into view. A corrugated metal walkway opened into something resembling a porch with a still blinking terminal beside the door. I placed a hoof to the walkway, but soon shrieked back when the lights flickered on, illuminating the cave I was standing in. I looked around and felt my heart sink at the sight that layed before me. Ponies, long since decomposed ponies all around me in heaps against the cave walls. They were nothing more than bones now, but I couldn't help but feel as though I was disrupting their resting place by just being here. But taking note of where I was, and what I was standing in front of, it was all too clear why they were here, and it was not for a final resting place.

Two hundred years later and the scratched hoof marks still painted the stone around me and the yellow coating on the large cog that was embossed into the stone. They had been trying to get in when the bomb sirens went off. They had beaten their hooves to near nubs, clawed at the walls and trampled those who were too weak to fight through the crowd. In a desperate attempt to get in, some daft fool had even smashed the keyboard to the terminal and tried to hot-wire the door open. Bucks, mares and even a few small foals littered the room that I was in, untouched for centuries, until I had come here.

I wanted to leave, give the dead the peace that they deserved, but the cave was my only hope for making it to night fall. Down here it was much cooler than it was outside, feeling more like the weather I had left back in Hoofington as apposed to the heat of the desert. Up there, on the surface, I was going to die or be too weak to save myself in a matter of hours, down here though, it felt like I was already dead. My only other option would be to try and get the stable door open and see if it had any source of clean water that I could gather from. If nothing else, it would be worth a shot to try that before attempting sleep in such a creepy place.

Opening stables up after centuries is always, at best, dicey and deadly at the worst. Some of them had perimeter defenses, others were just down right booby traps and some even had functioning populations in them, well, those that had not been raided by Steel Rangers. In my time I had been in a few stables, I had also spoke with a few that had been in stables that had been opened up, I also held to the belief that it was not my place to open them. Boss used to refer to it as the 'open door policy'. If the stable was open, you went in to have a look around, if the door was closed, then it probably had ponies in it and we left it be. Many other traders held that same belief, but the few that I had known who would open them were either dead now or I had lost touch with them.

Even without the foggiest idea of what I was doing, I cautiously stepped closer to the terminal, doing my best to avoid the piles of bones that lay at my hooves. The buck that had been trying to hot-wire the door open was laying prone next to a... Oh Celestia... Had that mare been pregnant? Where her abdomen had been lay a small skeleton on the metal grate, held into the fetal position, too young to be born but old enough to be fully formed into a soon to be baby. By my guess she couldn't have been more than a few weeks away from being a mother, but here she was now, just a shadow of the past of what could have been.

I looked back to the buck whose muzzle was resting on the front hooves of the pregnant mare and it all became crystal clear. That buck who I had called a daft fool, had been trying to save his partner and their unborn child from death, and failed. What had their final moments been, here, huddled together to try and comfort one another from impending devastation? Had they wept for their losses? Made peace with death? Had they even had the time to think of a name for their child? I looked back to the buck and noticed that his hoof under his skull had a dust covered object on it. Taking care not to disturb their slumber, I knelt down and flapped my right wing, blowing the dust away to reveal a pipbuck that he was wearing on his right leg.

"The only way into a stable was to have a Pipbuck that had been issued to you..."

My words felt like they hung in the air around me as I took in the scene before me. The clasp had been clawed at and had bite marks on the edges, he must have been trying to take it off. He not only tried to get the door open, he had been trying to give his Pipbuck to his partner so that she could have had access to shelter. Yet, here he was, laying dead at my hooves next to his mare and unborn child. He had access to survival but he gave it all away so that he could spend his last moments with her. What kind of love was it that could make a pony do such a thing? He stayed full well knowing he would be killed, all so his partner would not have to suffer alone in the darkness.

My heart went out to them both. Even 200 years later, their skeletons had not moved in the slightest from their poses, standing for all time as a testament to their love they once had. The gravity of what I too was doing for the stupid four letter word was not lost on me, but I couldn't help but wonder if my places were switched with his, would I be capable of that? Would I be ready to give my life for somepony, even for such a simple act as to keep them company in their last moments? The very thought sent a chill through my body at the notion of being placed into such insurmountable odds of being completely hopeless and my only last action to be for somepony else.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts from my mind and carefully stepped past them to the far side of the catwalk, taking care not to disturb their final resting place as best I could. The buck had done a real number on the terminal. Wires were hanging out of the side of the monitor, most of the keys were missing and the whole unit was emitting a far amount of heat, probably due to the cooling fans being disconnected. Well... If a pony who was desperate to save not only himself, but his pregnant wife also couldn't make this thing work, what were my chances?

I looked the terminal over, tapped its side a few times and took note of the screen's flickering display. Only about half of the green text was being displayed while the other half had run off of the edge of the monitor's screen. It took me several long minutes to see that this terminal was different from the ones I had seen all over Equestria. To the side of the monitor was a yellow panel with a circular port that had four smaller circular holes in the middle, arranged into a box shape. I had heard that stable monitors were different than others, but I had never paid them any attention in the past due to my lack of being able to work the damn things.

I looked down to my Pipbuck and saw the same yellow looking connector on it as the one on the side of the terminal. Curiously, I gave it a poke with a hoof and the wired connector fell out of its housing, dangling from my hoof a few inches below my leg. I turned it over to see the same style connector as the one on the wall, same circular plug, but with four copper prongs that were in the same configuration as the port. "What do I have to lose." I said to myself as I plugged the jack into the terminal.

I don't know what I was hopping for, but nothing happened on the screen in front of me. The only thing that changed was that my Pipbuck started to glitch out even more that it had earlier today. I tried to scroll through the lines of code on my screen but was met with a frozen screen and a repeating message.

error...system offline...command not sent...access denied

Damnit! I needed Caliber here to deal with this! I hate technology and it hates me back! Ok, calm down... What would Caliber do to make this thing work? Hump it? No, thump it! I raised a hoof up and as hard as I dared, smacked the terminal on the side of the case. Sparks shot out of the hole in the side that the buck had made years ago and the smell of ozone filled the air along with the error code being repeated aloud over the P.A. speaker above me.

"Error...system offline...command not sent...access denied"

"Error...system offline...command not sent...access denied"

"Error...system offline...command not sent...access denied"

It was so loud that most of the words came to me in a static haze, forcing me to grab my ears in protest. The message kept repeating over and over again and something had locked the connector of my Pipbuck to the socket, not letting me run away from the sound. Great! What a way to die this will be, slowly killed by a stupid computer while it screams to me about my own stupidity!

In a fit of rage of which no computer had ever had the ability to conceive of, I began cussing and smashing the side of my Pipbuck into the the side of the monitor.

"SHUT!" BAM!

"Error...system offline...command not sent...access denied"

"THE FUCK!" BAM!

"Error...system offline...command not sent...access denied"

"UP!" BAM!

"Message received. Access Granted."

I stood slack jawed, my hoof still firmly against the terminal as the cacophony computer screaming halted and I was greeted by the sound of hydraulic pistons coming to life in the walls around me.

"You damn right message received and access granted! That's right, you will do as I say technology, I'm Coyote Jo... AHHHHHH!"

My body went rigid as current began to flow through me and into the metal grate I was standing on. Every muscle tensed at the voltage that was passing through my leg, causing me to lock up on the spot. Even though my brain was telling the rest of my body to get the hell out of there, my body had been transformed into rock, refusing to budge an inch. I couldn't even scream, all I could do was stand here and take whatever punishment this terminal felt was fair for me hitting it.

Out of the corner of my vision I watched as the large metal cog lifted, rotated out of the way and ground its way to a halt on the far side of the room away from me.

"Stable door 103 now open. Please watch your step, and have a nice day."

Oh you sarcastic bitch! I thought as twenty thousand volts coursed through my body. With a final great pop, all the mechanical noises I had been hearing stopped and the terminal shot one last jolt of electricity through my body that stood my mane on end and sent me flying into the air. I landed in a heap next to the bones of the buck that I had been looking at earlier, my vision fuzzy and my head pounding from the abuse I had just received. I tried to let out a whimper as I looked back up to the monitor, but the only sound that came out was more of a series of 'O's' that varied in tone and volume. The socket still had my Pipbuck's connector lodged into it. It must have been torn from my Pipbuck when it sent me airborne.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling with only one eye open as I waited for my body to stop feeling so numb to everything. But the longer I laid there, the more my vision began to grow dark. I was too tired to fight it, I needed a nap after what just happened to me. Nevermind a nap, I needed a vacation, booze and a warm bed to hide in for about a month.

Through my fragile state, I could make out echoed voices that were coming closer to me. Soon I could make out hoofsteps and shadowy figures as the residence began to poke their heads out of the stable door for the first time, probably ever. Sounds of shock and horror filled the room I was in as ponies who had never seen anything but the stable walls were greeted with their first real glimpse of the outside world. The fact that there were 30 some odd skeletons in the room with them probably didn't help either.

I tried to roll to my side but my still smoking body was doing everything it could to keep me pinned firmly to the ground. Finally after much grunting and pushing, I managed to get to my wobbly hooves to greet the ponies who I had just freed into a nightmarish hell of the Wasteland. My vision was swimming but I could just make out two or three white looking ponies (huh, a stable full of white and grey fuzzy ponies...) cautiously approaching me. They were talking to me but the words were as fuzzy sounding as they looked in my impaired visual state. I made out one of them asking me if I was ok and tried my best to respond but my brain was still in full on reboot.

"Oh Celestia! Are you ok!?" A mare's voice came through my clouded mind.

"YEAH! I'M PANCAKE!" I managed to spit out before attempting a step only for my hoof to slip from under me, sending me into a twirl and falling into the railing of the catwalk. It gave way, sending me tumbling down to the ground ten meters below. I landed in another heap on the ground, for the second time in less than an hour, and decided that this was an awesome place to take a nap. As I began to close my eyes, I saw the ponies of Stable 103 rushing down the stairs to my aid. Well, this is as good of a time as any to test the kindness of strangers. This has to give all new meaning to the term 'trust fall'. I thought as I finally closed my eyes and passed out from exhaustion.

I woke up to the sounds of ponies talking in the background, their voices coming to my ears muddied and hollow from the hallways outside of the clinic's door. Above me, lights hummed away as they did their best to light the large room that I was in. Around me lay tables covered with various medical and surgical tools, all neatly arranged atop their tables on blue cloth. I was not alone in here, to my right I could hear the labored breathing of a pony who sounded very ill. She, and she was definitely a she, would let out occasional moans of discomfort as she tossed and turned beneath the sheets of her bed.

I have got to stop passing out like this. Coming to in strange places was really starting to get old. At least this time I remember how I got here, well maybe not to this exact spot, but I remember being electrocuted by that stupid computer and falling off the catwalk. Strangely though, I felt much better than I had before I came in here. I didn't even feel tired anymore, in fact, I feel great in comparison to the last three days. I must have been unconscious for days to feel this good, maybe I got a recharge from that shock that I got back in the cave.

I looked up to see a bag filled with water and... leaves? Were those sticks too? Why was I hooked up to a bag of shrubbery juice? A long tube lead from it to my right leg where the strange looking purple-ish green liquid was flowing into my body. If it was the reason I was feeling better then sign me up for as many bags as I can carry!

"Oh good, you are awake."

Oh how that is getting so old to hear. I looked up to my left to see... a ZEBRA!? No! He had stripes but... he was yellow with a wild looking black mane that flowed down the back of his neck. He leaned over me to help me up, looking me dead in the eyes with a soft, but very nervous look that lead me to believe that he was still unsure if I was rabid or not. I blinked but I could not shake the look of his dark, and I mean DARK blue eyes. Gently, he guided me to sit up on the edge of the bed where he removed the IV of garbage juice and proceeded to place a band-aid over the hole.

"That's better. Now, how are we feeling?" Why do doctors always do that? Why do they feel the need to refer to me as more than one pony?

"Good... I think..." I said leaning back. What was that stuff he gave me!? I have been high before but... never yellow zebra high!

"I suspect that you are aware that after your rather shocking entrance, we have questions for you?" Ha,ha,ha... Oh good, he's a comedian too. I nodded my head once. It was at that point I noticed the two other ponies standing in the room with us. One black and... Ok, not high... That's a zebra, an actual Zebra! She was also very short in comparison to her counterpart who was in fact a pony. Granted he was young, but his orange frame in comparison to the Zebra mare must have been at least a full head higher than hers. Celestia, she looked like a foal in comparison to him.

"Excellent. My name is Xymol, I am the doctor for this level of the stable. My two companions here are Shoari, she is our resident records keeper, and this is Twisty Witt, he is our stable broadcast personality." I looked over Xymol's shoulder and gave a nervous, half hearted wave to the two of them. "Please, forgive my unbecoming formalities, but I am not used to pleasantries with strangers. As you can imagine, new faces are not something we are accustomed to. Please, what is your name?"

"Joey..." I said, still trying to process what I was looking at. Zebras? Zebra hybrids that are short? What kind of stable was this!?

"Joey. What a interesting name for a Zony." Crap. That's right, I have stripes too. But if they can see them, then that must mean...

"HEY! Where is my stuff at!? My barding!? My Pipbuck!?"

"Oh, yes, of course. They are right over there on that table. Your Pipbuck has been sent to the repair technicians on level C. When I tried to access your on-board files to see how banged up you were, I noticed it had stopped working. So I sent to have it repaired. " Xymol said while pointing a hoof to the far corner of the room. I don't like this, I'm unarmed and in a room with stable dwellers and Zebras. I'm not a prejudiced pony or anything, but I have heard the stories enough to keep my guard up around stable dwellers. Seeing my uneasy state, Shoari was the first to try and ease my mind.

"There is no need for fear. I know that in the past, during the war, our kinds were at odds with one another, but please know, that was in the past. Please do not let our appearance be the foundation of your preemptive judgment." She said while stepping closer and propping herself up on the bed with her forehooves. She then reached a hoof to my back and ran it along my stripes that were intruding on my upper flank. Yup, that settles a ten year old burning question I had... Zebras know nothing of personal space.

"But judging by these stripes... I feel as though that will not be an issue? Forgive my curiosity, but... Romani? No wait, don't tell me... Achu?" She asked, now trotting around the table to take in the full breath of my odd markings.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" I said, still trying to wake up. This was too much, too fast and too confusing.

"Your stripes, they tell your story. Although, yours are... inconclusive? NO. Mixed?" She said, now pulling herself onto the bed with me for further inspection.

"I'm not sure what they are. I only recently got them."

"Interesting! You must be in your mid twenties! I have never seen a Zony come into their stripes so late in life. Well, better a late bloomer than not one at all!" She said hopping from the table.

"I'm sorry..." I said shaking my head. "This is just a bit... sudden. I wasn't expecting to be treated like this when I opened the door to this place. I figured I would have been shot at or something, but not taken care of like this."

"Why would we see you as a threat?" Twisty asked.

"Well you see..." I paused and thought about the consequences of what would happen if I were to tell them of all the stables that get raided from time to time in the Wasteland and bit my tongue. "I kinda just barged in here unannounced, I thought you all would be upset about that, I guess."

"Joey, you were not unannounced. We saw you on the monitors when you walked up to the terminal. If we had perceived you as a threat, I can assure you that you would not have be here right now." Xymol said.

"So wait. You're not upset?"

"We have been trying to open the stable door for over fifty years now, but we have been locked out of the terminal that runs the door's mechanics since day one. I suspect that somepony damaged the terminal long ago during the war when the door closed, but I am sure you already knew that." Twisty said.

I was a bit shocked, not just from the terminal shocking me, but from the fact that they actually wanted to open the door. Every stable dweller I had met up until now never wanted to leave the stable, they had always been ok with the fact that they were locked away for all eternity.

"Why did you want the door open? There is nothing left out there but a Wasteland!"

"Why was it that you wanted in? What was it that drove you to attempt to open our door? Was it not curiosity?" Twisty asked.

"No, I needed water and I was hoping that this Stable had a functioning water talisman in it and maybe a safe place to sleep."

"Ah yes. Judging by the state that we found you in, I suspect that you would have not lasted very long without sustenance. When you came in, you were suffering from an acute liver infection and were in the first stages of dehydration. I was able to heal you from the infection and connect you to a intravenous drip of herbal medicines to stave off your dehydration." Xymol said.

"You are very lucky that you found your way to us when you did. Please, If I may, I have a few questions for you about the outside world, if that is, you feel up to entertaining them at this time." Shoari said with a soft smile that was only mirrored in cuteness to her near childlike short form. I thought Zuri had been cute when I was young, but this Zebra mare was the definition of it with her squeaky voice and short stature.

"I don't mind, If anypony knows something about the Wasteland, it would be me I guess. Celestia knows that I have flown all over the damn place."

"How interesting. You call on Celestia's name, yet she is no longer of this world. Why would you do such a thing?" Shoari asked quizzically.

"Oh that's just old pony talk. No need to concern yourself with it 'Shoey'." Twisty said.

"Hold on, I thought your name was Shoari? Why did he call you Shoey?"

"That is my... What do you ponies call it? Oh, yes! Pet-name!" She asked looking to Twisty.

"Nickname. The word you are looking for is Nickname. Pet-name would imply that you and I..." Twisty's words froze in their tracks before they could step on the social land mine. "Sorry, she is still learning pony mannerisms in her advanced classes." He said with a near exhausted look.

"Oh, well alrighty then..." I said, recounting all of the ponies that I subconsciously nicknamed in my life. How many were there? Tens? Hundreds even? My silence must have set Xymol's mind to think that I was contemplating whether or not to answer their questions after the show of accidental comedy because he was now standing at my side.

"Of course if you wish to leave, we completely understand. You are welcome to rest here and refill your provisions before you depart, we will see to it that you are not impeded in any way from the fellow residence."

"No, no. It's ok, I just woke up and I'm not known for my morning charm, or so I have been told. I don't mind to help out. It would only be fair trade for you patching me up and all."

"Interesting, you speak of fair trade..." Shoari started.

"Shush! We can ask that later. Lets just let him wake up first, shall we?" Twist said. The three of them sat and stared at me without saying a word. Oh come on! They are just going to stand here!? Geez.

"I guess I'm ready now." I said shrugging my shoulders.

"Excellent. Would you mind in accompanying us to Twisty's office? We would like to record the meeting to later document and broadcast. My assistant will bring your things along for you. You need to take it easy while you are here as not to provoke a relapse infection." Xymol said as he helped me from the bed.

"Are you sure you want to do that? The Wasteland is a very unforgiving place, wouldn't you want to take sometime to edit things down, maybe get a plan together in order to train them for what they might see out there?" I asked.

"We believe in letting ponies think for themselves, make their own decisions based on what little knowledge we can provide. Who are we to say who can stay or go if the option is open for them to do so." Xymol replied as we made our way down the so named 'Mane Corridor', passing by the security station.

"You speak as though you are in some level of authority, am I right?" I asked.

"Perceptive, a trait that I fear is very rare these days. Where as we are the leaders at this current time, we do our best to not allow for our leadership to influence rule over others. Since the beginning, this stable's purpose has been to strengthen Pony and Zebra relations and encourage cohabitation between both races. It is our belief that the creators of our stable wished for us to overcome the racism that had led to the events preceding the war." Shoari said.

"Has it worked? I mean the steaming out of racism?"

"I can not give an exact answer I am afraid, I do not know to what level of resentment Equines of the past harbored, therefore I have nothing to compare our current state to. But I do have records showing the stable's population from day one, until now. Up until 151 years ago, the stable race population stayed the steady 50/50 ratio that it had been when the door first closed with only minor fluctuations." She said.

"What changed things? If it had stayed so steady for that amount of time, what happened?"

"The first Zony was born." Xymol said rather proudly, looking back to me for affirmation. Ok, just because I have had stripes for a few weeks now, automatically I'm a Zony now? I had been a pony my entire life until I had gotten that taint infection, how could I just erase all that time and start being a Zony?

"Yes, around that time the population ratio changed rather dramatically. Before long, we reached a near perfect 1/3rd population of all three races. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, it has been falling more and more back to the way the numbers had shown back before the birth of Zawashi. But regardless of the inevitable outcome, we still encourage those of different coats to enjoy the love that they see fit. Some prefer love of the same coats as they have, others allow their heart to roam freely to love who it so chooses. But nevertheless, we make it a point to not interfere with matters of the heart. All are to love who they see fit without fear of ridicule." Shoari said proudly.

"There are a few exceptions. Some still feel that it would be best for things to go back the way that they were. Stripes with stripes, ponies with ponies and allow for nature to take its course. They do not seem to have anything against mixed race relationships, but they will make their opinions known if you ask."

"Wow, this place sounds great. Why would you want to leave? You have clean water, medical facilities, air conditioning and warm beds. Call me feather brained, but why would you want to take your chances with the radiated hell outside?" I asked as we rounded a corner into the to the 'Workers of level 1' sleeping quarters. Before I turned with the rest of the group, I took note of a large set of doors at the end of the Mane Corridor with a sign above it that read "Science and Research Wing. Authorized Equines Only!"

I had been standing still in my tracks but was quickly knocked off my hooves by somepony. I fell flat on my face. I looked up in a panic, still on high alert from trying to learn if I was truly safe here or not, to see the questioning looking face of a Zebra buck looking down at me. He wore a blank, yet strangely happy expression across his face. Big blue eyes with a black ring around his right eye, left ear drooping out to the side and a mess striped mane looked back at me. He didn't say anything, but the look on his face looked to be say 'Why did you fall down silly pony?'

"Spot! How many times have I told you to watch where you are going? You are going to hurt somepony one of these days if you are not more careful." Xymol said, while gently guiding him into the hallway that lead to the level one residences. Even though he was clearly scolding him, Xymol's voice held a very parenting tone about it while doing so. Much the same a parent would tell their foal not to climb trees or drink expired pond water.

"I am so sorry. Spot is... Special. He has trouble paying attention sometimes. Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. Wait... His name is Spot?" I asked, getting back to my hooves.

"Well, no. His name is..." He stopped to think for a moment. "Honestly, I have only known him as Spot for as long as I can remember. His mother died early on in his life and for as long as I can remember, we have always called him Spot."

As much as I wanted to know how it was that the Zony population was dying off, or what these 'consequences' are of Zebras and Ponies entering relationships together, I had to find a way to ask it in a way that would not offend them. They had been very forthcoming with any and all information so far, but that didn't mean that there were not answers that I was not allowed to know, or questions that I could not ask. The last thing that I wanted to do was offend them when I was about to barter for resources and maybe a bed for the night.

We took the second of the two alleyways in the large room that was the stable dweller's living quarters and trotted to the back of the hallway, stopping in front of a door labeled "Overmare Suite". The words had looked to of been scratched at and had a sign taped to the door that read "Twisty Witt's Broadcasting". Twisty, making good on his ownership of the room, opened the door and guided us into his rather large living quarters for the interview.

As much as everything in here looked to be in their natural places, the unmistakable feel of retrofitting did take a considerable over note to the overall appearance. Everything was an open floor plan with beds, showering facilities, a small kitchen and his work station that had been placed where I would think the sitting area had been. Boxes of old mementos lay about the floor in front of the work table that had been nearly covered with audio equipment. Stacks of recorders sat haphazardly in small towers on his desk forming little towers in seemingly random locations across its wooden surface.

Spot had taken his place in the corner of the room and taken to occupying his time with some foal's blocks and a few toy cars. He had already started arranging the blocks into small buildings and was pretending to race the small toy car throughout his imaginary city when we sat down in front of the control panel. Twisty retrieved one of the recorders from one of the various piles and inserted it into one of his blinking control panels. With a loud 'hiss' and a 'click', he tapped his microphone and began to recite his now almost robotic voice into it.

"Twisty Witt. Audio log number 1. Outsider interview. Take 1." He then clicked another button and addressed us directly.

"Ok, we are good to go. Why don't we start with some simple questions first." He said, motioning for Shoari to speak freely. I sat in place between Shoari and Xymol on the floor, shifting in my spot. Of all of the things that I expected when the door to this Stable opened, them taking me in as one of their own was not even on the list of probable events. I had never been interviewed before, I had never even done anything more than give some light survival advice in the past. So to say that this all was a bit new to me, would be an understatement.

"Ok, Joey. What is it like on the outside. More specifically, could you give us an example of an average day for you." Shoari asked.

"An average day in my life. Well, that would be complicated, up until a few weeks ago, everyday was mostly the same for me. I would wake up, make my way into whatever town I was camping nearby and see if there were any jobs to be done. Outside of that, really it was finding food, clean water and anything of value to sell."

"Interesting. You said you would go looking for jobs? Did you not have steady work?" Twisty asked.

"Yes and no. In my line of work, the job itself is comprised of a lot of other jobs. So my work flow is dependent on anypony's need for me to do it at any given time. Sure I can make something like five hundred caps in a day, but that might be the only day that I get to work for over a month! It can be tiring."

"Oh. This may take longer than we had planned." Twisty said, now looking for more recorders.

"You said your job is many jobs, how best would you explain that to somepony who has no idea what you are talking about?" Xymol asked.

"Well, I am a Tracker. I get paid to hunt down ponies that have gone missing, have bounties on their heads and sometimes find an odd item that is wanted. It involves a lot of travel, living in the wilderness and sometimes some shooting if needed to get the job done. Being as the nature of the business is largely commission driven, no one job is ever the same. At the end of the day, I am my own boss and set my own pace, therefore, lots of different jobs over a lot of time."

"Oh I see. Are you sure that you are not from the Romani tribe?" Shoari asked.

"Please, one question per Equine." Twisty said, clearly playing the part of moderator.

"How is the Zony population on the outside? Is it thriving, starving or non-existent?" Xymol asked. Figures he would ask such a question.

"Non-existent. As far as I have seen, I am the only one."

"Interesting..." he said while scribbling in a notebook.

"Joey. Please, if you don't mind telling us. Can you recount the events that lead you to our stable. We have maps that show us that we are in the far reaches of the Equestrian south, nearly in the center of the Lunaterrabiphian Desert. How does a pony find themselves is such a remote location?" Twisty asked in a way that I had only heard Dj Pon3 use on his broadcast.

"It's... complicated..." I said dropping my head low.

And just like that, I spilled the caps. I told them everything, starting from when I was just a colt who found a young zebra in the hooves of slavers that would lead to me getting my cutiemark. I went through event after event, even resorting to using my notes from the past as reference to be sure to get everything right, all the way up until a few weeks ago when I found Zuri's note. Shoari was positively encapsulated by my story, finding it very fascinating that Zebras had managed to find their way in this bleak world. I managed to interlace as much as I could about life in the Wasteland using certain events in my life as examples for them. Finally, I got to the part about me going solo from the group to find Zuri in White Saddle Shores and my subsequent finding of their home. I must have gone on for quite some time as I was stopped by Twisty for him to load a new recorder into his small base station he called a broadcasting center.

"So all of this time, you have been holding onto the hope that you two would be reunited?" Twisty asked after inserting a new recorder.

"It's... what has kept me going all these years. I guess when you have something to look forward to, tomorrow never looks as dark as today. But if I am honest, I really just want to see her again."

"True love is often hard to find. I can only imagine it being fleeting in a place such as you described. Do you think that she will be there?" Xymol asked.

"I honestly don't know. But I know if she were me and felt the way that I do, she would move the stars to see me again."

"You say that she would move the Stars. How fitting an expression for a Zebra's love. Are you sure you do not know of your tribe heritage?" Shoari asked.

"I'm sorry." Celestia... I'm starting sentences with 'I'm sorry' now? Wow is that a heck of a addictive pitfall or what. "Shoari, I have not even the faintest clue as to where I came from apart from what I was told as a colt." I said.

"It is ok, Joey." Xymol said.

"You say that all you know of your past is a story? Would you mind sharing it with us?" Shoari asked.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying my best to recall what Boss had said to me at Lue's grave so long ago. Even though the conversation felt like it had been a lifetime ago, I managed to pull it from the back of my mind. I had gone so long without thinking about it that even I had to be ashamed of forgetting such an important talk between the two of us. Even though it was a short story to tell, I could see that I had at least two of the... Equines in the room very interested in what I have to say.

"... and after that, Boss took me under his hoof and ran. He said he could hear screaming behind him, but he never looked back. That's all he ever told me." I said ending my origin story.

"A Zony born into the wild, yet cast out from a tribe that had been experimenting with pony and Zebra interbreeding. Fascinating." Xymol said in an astonished tone as he returned to his notebook to write more notes.

"You say that you were given a gift for your efforts? Would you mind allowing me the pleasure of seeing it please?" Shoari asked rather accusingly. Throughout the five and some odd minutes I had been talking, she had kept to herself more than usual. I had gotten so used to her placing a hoof on my foreleg when she would ask me a question that I was almost shocked by the lack of contact when she spoke. I opened my saddlebags and retrieved the necklace that had been taken off me when I arrived in the clinic.

"Here, I don't know what it says on the back, it's from my mother and father." I said, passing it off to her for her inspection. She gently took it into her black hooves and held it close as though she were holding something valuable.

"May this guide you in times of dark, when in doubt you follow your heart." She then rotated the pendant to the other side and I watched as an enormous grin covered her face. "Roughly translated to pony... it says 'Blessed be the love of your heart, may its strength bring others from apart'." She said, never once breaking her smile.

"All these years, I have never known what was written on the back of this pendant. Thank you, you will never know how much that meant to me to know." I said, casting her a soft smile. She didn't say anything, but instead sat there nodding her head up and down feverishly, nearly vibrating with enthusiasm.

"Shoari? Are you ok?" Twisty asked. She replied with that same wide grinned expression and more ridiculous head shaking.

"Ok, you can not be this excited over just some artifact from the Wasteland that just so happens to be Zebra related. What is it?" Xymol asked. Shoari's expression broke, she calmly stood and placed the necklace around my neck and closed her eyes to clear her throat. With a deep breath she let it all out.

"I WAS RIGHT! JOEY IS ROMANI, JOEY IS ROMANI, JOEY IS ROMANI!" She screamed while bouncing all four hooves around me, crashing into the small city Spot had built.

"HEY! Why Shoari bweak city!? Dis is wace twuck city! Not munsta Zebwa city!" He said in a foal's tone.

"I am sorry. But I have never been wrong about stripes! I was unsure about yours because of the broken lines, but, here it is! Written in the same manner as all of my Romani textbooks show!" She said, wrapping her small frame around my back. "I knew you were Romani..." She said letting out an exhausted breath and burying her head into my right wing. No... Personal... Space... AT ALL!

"Please forgive Shoari's outburst. But I believe that the last of the Romani Zebras in our stable died out over 150 years ago. I would think her getting to see Romani stripes for the first time would be something akin to you finding your long lost love. Excuse the gross comparison." Xymol said.

"Why do you do that?" I asked, still being clutched by the pint sized Zebra.

"Why do I do what, exactly?"

"Why do you start a question by apologizing? And why does Shoari start her's with repeating what I already said?"

"I'm sorry, it is just the prerequisite of my nature. I would not want to offend somepony with my question or statement if it were to sound curt. Shoari on the other hoof... I feel as though it may be part of her culture to ensure that the question be answered directly towards what it is that she may want more information on." Xymol said, falling into the very thing I was asking him about. Shoari's only acknowledgment was a small nod and something that sounded like 'mmhmm' from her face full of feathers.

"Well, that was a lot more direct of an answer than I was expecting. I'm so used to other ponies replying with 'it's just the way I am' or 'it's an Equstriaism, get over it', I guess I never thought of it that way." I said, trying to gently, yet firmly, urge Shoari to let me have my body back by opening my wings to stretch.

"Wow, we have been at this for hours now. Perhaps this would be a good place to end things for today." Twisty said.

"It may take more time to grasp the full breath of what you feel would be acquitted knowledge for us to safely leave this Stable. If only there was some sort of manual for operating outside of our natural environment, I feel it would make things much easier." Xymol said, but before he could finish, I was already digging into my saddlebags.

"You mean something like this?" I asked, holding out nine tattered copies of 'The Wasteland Survival Guide'.

"Is this..."

"A complete guide to the Equestrian Wasteland and how to survive within it? Yes." I said.

"Next time lead off with that. We could have talked more about you if we had known about this guide. That heartwarming stuff really helps the listeners out when they get depressed." Twisty said, taking one of the books.

"With this, we can teach classes on how to survive out there and even test those who want to take the chance! This is perfect! Though, I feel that after hearing your tale, you may wish to make a list of places to avoid, yes?" Xymol asked.

"Absolutely. Never go to a place called 'Hoofington' or 'Silver Sheen' or anywhere near Filly, although, I think the book says that about the last one. That place is just hell on Equis... They hate Zebras from what I have been told and from what little I have seen... Well, truth be told, Slavers hate just about everypony, especially me for some reason." I said, passing the books around to all of them.

"You say that they hate Zebras and that they especially hate you. Could it be because you have stripes too?" Shoari asked from the safety of my back.

"Oh I'm sure they would love to get a hoof on me now that I'm a Zony, I bet they would have a field day with me after all the trouble I have caused them. Not to mention, thanks to that insane leader of theirs, they have a chip on their shoulders for anypony with wings now." I said.

"How could anypony hate another Equine for having wings!?" Shoari said, now nuzzling my right wing. "They are so soft and pretty!"

"That's a long and very complicated story that needs time to be told the right way. It's hard to explain it and not seem biased, me being a Pegasi and all." I said, once more stretching out my wings in hopes Shoari would TAKE THE HINT!

"Perhaps that story would be best told after a night's rest to gather your thoughts. Twisty and I need to confer over these field guides about what would be the best course of action from this point forward. I feel as though I am speaking for the group when I say that you have been a great help to us and I feel that we must compensate your for your efforts." Xymol said.

"No, no. It's ok, there is no need to pay me. I just need a place to sleep and some water for my trip to the coastline." I said. She is going to make me tell her to get off my back isn't she?

"Please, we insist! The Stable is under populous at the moment. I know that we have free living quarters that can accommodate you, just for tonight, or permanently even, if you so wish." Twisty said.

"I would have to think on something like that. I appreciate the offer, really I do, but I rarely find myself this far south. But, then again, you can never have too many places to crash at for the night..." I said.

"Take the night and think it over. There is no pressure to stay if you wish not to. Though it would be nice having an experienced Tracker in our midst if something were to happen." Xymol said, guiding me out of the door, Shoari still attached.

"Is she...?" I said motioning to my back. He leaned in and whispered to me as for her not to hear.

"She gets like this sometimes, you just will have to let it run its course for now." He leaned back from me and opened the door, raising his voice. "I'm sure that Shoari can show you to your room?"

"I can and I will!" She said from my back as I trotted through the door.

"To your right, Joey from the Romani tribe." She said in a giddy tone. Oh please don't let that be one of those 'prerequisite' thingies she is going to do from now on when I'm around her...

Shoari lead me more on a tour of the Stable than directly to my room as I had requested she had. Even though I was ready for sleep after the crash course in Wasteland survival I had just given, I couldn't help but be interested in this place and everything she had to say. Giving me the lay of the land from the comfort of my back, she steered me all over the Stable, showing me various facilities and places that she had known her entire life.

This place was amazing, a true testament of what could be when Zebras and ponies worked together in harmony for the sake of survival and a peaceful life. I had been in a few Stables in the past, never one that had been operational, let alone one that still had a functioning population, nor one with facilities like this one. They did not only have clean water, food and beds, they also had functioning gardens filled with exotic plants I had never even seen! Half the trees in their orchard room were of various types and sizes, each more different than the last, bearing colorful and sometimes even delicious smelling fruits. Every floor seemed to have its own gardens and smaller orchards like the one on Level A as well as separated water supplies to keep them well nourished, green and lush.

The living quarters however were much the same as ones I had found in the past, all apart from the exception of the 'family' rooms being separated from the joint or single living rooms. Shoari was quick to inform me that family was very important to them and that the single rooms were left to those who were either on their own or bunking with a partner. But the family rooms were reserved for bucks and mares who were either expecting or already with foal, allowing them more space to raise their foals in peace and comfort. They had gone so far as to alot special areas that were just for colts and fillies to play in, having sand floors and equipment to play on, all under the watchful eyes of designated foal sitters.

They even had their own schools, daycares and libraries to facilitate growth and understanding of their fellow Equines whom they shared the Stable with. Nothing here was done segregated, ponies worked, studied, lived and died alongside Zebras their entire lives without a care in the world apart from who was to do what on a given day. I had expected a begrudged relationship between Zebras and ponies when I found out that the entire Stable was, as they referred to it, 'co-ed', but I had been wrong. Everypony treated everypony and Zebra with respect, some even passing off as friends as we trotted past.

The only thing in this entire Stable that seemed out of place, was me. Everywhere Shoari and I went, I felt out of place, put off even, by the smiling faces around me and her. I was not used to such a place where everypony was just... happy. Even though this was a Stable, and I knew that its residence had a tendency to be much different from other places in the Wasteland, I couldn't help but wonder if this place was what old Equestria was like. If that were the case, why did the war even happen?

Was it that they had become satiated in their lifestyle and allowed the little things to get to them? Had they been much different than this place with its smiling faces and helpful community that was willing to take in anypony regardless of preference? Everything I had read had told of a place much like this one as far as attitude and personality. In fact, all you would have to do is remove the setting of gray walls and low ceilings and you could have what I had always pictured to be Ponyville from my books. My brain kept trying to find the flaws with this place, but try as it might, nothing it could produce would hold even a modicum of factuality to it.

Soon, Shoari and I came to room 7 in the 'Family and Foals' wing of Level C where she FINALLY climbed down from my back and opened the door with a key. She then dropped the key into my saddlebags and pushed the door open.

"Here you are, room 7. This room is all yours for the night or if you decide to stay with us here for longer term."

"Thank you, but like I said before, something like that will take me sometime to think about. I have a lot of ponies out there that are counting on me to come back... Well, ok, maybe just one drunk Unicorn, but still, the goofball means a lot to me and I'm worried he might be upset."

"You said that you have a lot of ponies counting on you. But I did not hear mention of this Zebra mare you are seeking."

"Trust me, she is at the top of my list. I just hope she is there, I have flown all over Equestria to find her."

"Forgive me, but where was it you said you had come from? I remember you saying something about a place that... how do ponies say... rings bells?"

"Well, I flew here from Hoofington."

"AH! Yes, Hoofington. I have seen such a place on the maps I have. But, I can not recall what it was that I wanted to say."

"You have maps? You wouldn't happen to know how far we are from the coastline, would you?"

"Yes, if the map that I have is accurate, we are 19 miles west from the ocean. I'm sorry to say that I do not know of this place called 'White Saddle Shores' however."

"Maybe that was it, what you meant to tell me, I mean."

"Perhaps, but I am still unsure. Please, If you do not mind me asking. What is your lover's name again?"

"Well I wouldn't call us lovers... We were just kids at the time, but to answer your question, her name is Zuri."

"Beautiful." She said with a smile.

"Yeah she is. Why would you ask?"

"No. Her name, it means 'Beautiful' in my tribe's native tongue. But I believe it holds the same meaning across all tribes. Fitting that her name mean that considering the meaning of yours."

"I meant to ask you that, what does my name mean?"

"The name Kit can mean many different things depending on the circumstance it was given. To many Kit can mean 'Bearer of on high' if it is shortened from Kito, once again, fitting that you have wings. But to some it can mean gem, also fitting given your necklace that your name is glyphed into."

"So what's the symbolism?"

"If your name is to mean gem, that would make you two 'Beautiful Gem'." She said as she trotted off behind me for the exit.

"Thank you Shoari."

"Thank you, Joey. If you find your love, please come see me again. I would love to ask her of the Zebras of the Wasteland." She said as she turned and trotted out of sight.

I fell back into the bed, feeling for the first time in my entire life something I had never felt in my entire life. Never had I have had a moment like this in all the years I had traveled nor a feeling like the one I was holding on to dear life to. Even with everything that had just happened today, all the information I had obtained, not only about myself, the area I was in, the fact that I was only 19 miles from the coast of Equestria or the fact that I had possibly found the proverbial unspoiled acre of ponies in Equestria. No, none of those things even came close to the elation that I was feeling at this very moment for what was grasping every fiber of my being. I could not contain myself, I stood up and threw myself back at the bed and screamed.

"CLEAN SHEETS! OH CELESTIA! A CLEAN BED!!!"

I can not even begin to describe the feeling of waking up in a clean bed and being greeted at the door with a fresh and hot breakfast first thing in the morning. I woke up to the sound of hooves pounding at the door to the rather large room that they had given me for the night, they had not been lying about the family units being quite a bit larger than the average resident's room. This room was nearly as big as Twisty's place, all with the exception of the sitting area and kitchen that both seemed to be missing from the place. If I were to guess, it would be due to the fact that his room is the old Overmare's room and such a place would require better facilities compared to the rest of the stable.

Shoari had brought me pancakes, a food I had only read about in books of the past, but according to her, when I had passed out from electroshock, I had screamed "I'm Pancake!". She was one of the few that had originally found me when the door first opened, coming to my aid far faster than the others. She recounted me of my very much so awake period of unconsciousness, I had thought I merely passed out but according to her, I had been awake for over an hour after blacking out. The whole time I had apparently been talking about how, had I been a stable dweller, everyday would be pancake day!

Given the circumstances, she had taken it upon herself to not only stay up all night researching what pancakes were, but also woken up early to perfect the recipe. I had to admit, even though I had no clue what they were suppose to taste like, these little flat sugar disks of pure heaven were the most delicious thing I had even placed in my mouth! How could old equestria have descended into war if these things existed!? They were so tasty that if a fight ever broke out, you could just make a few of them and it would end instantly! Why didn't we just send pancakes to the zebras? Nopony could fight over pancakes!

"Joey, I know that you will be leaving soon. I was interested if you had considered our offer to make our home perhaps your own?" She asked.

"MMHMM!" I said through a full mouth of sugar. "I thought it over and I just can't settle down here right this moment." I said through my syrup covered muzzle. how were you supposed to eat these things!? I had resorted to rolling them into little tubes and dipping them into the sweet brown liquid syrup, the process was making a huge mess.

"Oh, I see. I understand." She said, hanging her head.

"But I was wondering if It would be ok for me to keep this room? I would like to come back here from time to time, just to say hi and all that."

"Really!? That's great! But, I thought you said that you are not ready to settle down just yet?" She asked quizzically.

"Really I'm not, but like I said the day before, you can never have to many places to sleep. Especially one in a place this remote." I said, trying to cram my face with three of the cakes at once.

"Oh, I must have misunderstood. I am used to direct answers with either yes or no's, I think this is what you ponies call, an alternative?"

"I guess." I said, finishing off the last of my breakfast. Wow was I sticky! I had syrup on my muzzle, hooves and even some in my mane. They had been so good that I had not even stopped to think, let alone plan out how to eat them.

"I am happy that you will be returning to us once more. I will see to it that your room be left off of the availability list to ensure your ownership." Shoari said, stifling a giggle as I took in my sticky hooves and mane. I was such a mess that I couldn't even figure out how to walk without making things worse, the last thing I wanted to do was dirty up my new home away from home with her sitting right here.

"If you don't mind me saying, you could use a shower. I know that you are eager to meet this Zu that you keep speaking off, but there is no need to make yourself sticky so that she can not escape your grasp." She said, clearly amused by her own joke.

"For the love of everything, how do I even get to the shower!? Where is it?" I said, trying not to touch anything.

"It is right behind you. Do you require my assistance?"

"NO! I mean, no thank you. You have been such a great host, I wouldn't want to put you out. I just have too..." I trailed off, tying to figure out how in the hell I was going to make it the ten or twelve steps to the shower behind me without being able to stand or walk. The ceilings are so low in here that, if I were to try and hover, they would just smack into the concrete roof above me.

Finally, I gave up and pushed myself up to my hind hooves and with a wobbly motion, I began to try and balance myself without using my forehooves. Despite the clumsy nature of what I was doing, it was coming to me much easier than I had expected it to. With one shaky hoof in front of the other, I slowly managed to work my way to the showers glass door. On my last step, I lunged for the door when I felt my hind legs giving out from under me.

"Are you hurt!?" Shoari asked, seeing me panting.

"No, I'm fine. Walking on my hindhooves is harder than I thought!"

"Interesting. Have you never done so before?"

"No... Well, a few times in the past, but never for more than a few steps. Why?" Without saying a word, Shoari stood up on her hindhooves and began to trot towards me. The jealousy I had towards her sure and confident steps as she rounded the table, grabbed a clean towel from the rack behind me and sat it on the small table to my right, with almost effortless grace, was eminence!

"How..."

"It comes natural to Zebras. Zonies can also walk as us, but with practice." She said, dropping back to all fours.

"So, Zebras can trot upright and so can Zonies?"

"Yes. That is why I was so surprised that you were unable to do so."

"Well, I guess I just need to add that to my list of things to work on bettering about myself." I said, waiting for her to leave so that I could shower.

"So! I bet that you have a busy day ahead of you! Lots of stuff to do, I take it?"

"No. Today is my free day." She said, sitting on the floor.

"Wouldn't you feel better if you had some breakfast too? Those pancakes sure were great!"

"I have already eaten. The pancakes are far to sweet for my taste."

Oh for the love of Luna! She is going to watch me shower now!? The only pony I feel comfortable with watching me shower would be Cal, mostly due to the fact that we have had to in the past when we had no choice... Well, come to think of it, I wouldn't mind Zuri watching I think. Then again, I would hope that she would be in the shower with me... Stop it! None of that now left brain! The last thing I would want is for Shoari to see me getting all worked up and excited over the thought of Zuri covered in soap suds and... FUCKING STOP IT!

I turned to hide my growing shame from Shoari and scrambled into the shower, falling face first into the wall and sliding down the frosted glass in front of her. I could just make out her still sitting there, was she laughing at me!? I can't make out much through the almost white looking glass, but I could swear that she was actually laughing at me!

"Jo... Joey. Would you like some help in bathing?" She said, clearly trying not to humiliate me, but failing miserably.

"NO! For the LOVE of ALL that is Equestria. DO NOT, come in here right now." I said, trying to stand once more, but certain thing were making my life rather difficult at the moment.

"Ok. We have taken the liberty of supplying the room with some of our more exotic treatments. I hope that you will find them enjoyable, they are made from the herbs that are grown on level B and make your mane and tail as soft as a feather. Something I feel as thought you would know much about." She said, tapping the glass. This is beyond awkward, I am used to privacy when I do my morning routine.

To her credit, Shoari had undersold the shampoo and this thing that they called 'Mane and Tail Rebirth'. The scent reminded me of flowers I had smelled back in Hoofington at a hydroponics lab I had stumbled across when I was younger. I remember bartering for a small hoof full of them to take to my sister as a birthday gift, as luck would have it however, it turned out that she was allergic to them. She was grateful all the same, but she did break out into hives and spend the next two days sniffling her brains out and sneezing all night.

Once I had finally finished, I gave myself a brisk shake and made my way out of the shower to see that Shoari had not moved an inch. I ran a hoof through my now very soft mane and let the once messy stands fall back into their usually place. This is the best I have ever felt, it is offical. Well rested, full belly and now, CLEAN! I had even used the MTR on my feathers, and much to my surprise, they actually seemed to glisten in the flourescent lighting of my small room.

I looked around the room to take everything in one last time, I wanted to remember this place in case I were to never make it back here. This had to be the last of what old Equestria once was and somehow, against all odds, it was still thriving well. Even if this was an old stable with its strange sounds, smells, devoid of sunlight and weather, they had made the place a home worth being proud of. Finally my eyes landed on Shoari who was watching me intently as I put on my now clean (had they even cleaned my barding!?) armor and saddle bags. I had never noticed the three small, now heavily distressed looking, blue gems on the side of them before, but now the cyan colored gems shown vividly without the layer of grim on them.

Shoari, who had been uncommonly silent, stood and trotted for the door, pausing only briefly to turn back to me wearing a smile across her muzzle.

"What?" I said, checking my face for any syrup that I might have missed.

"She waited." Was all she said as she turned and trotted down the hall. What was that all about!? I shook my head, feeling my soft mane brush my ears, trying to rid my head the weird mannerisms of Zebras. Once I had gathered my things, I made one last stop to say goodbye to everypony before I made my way to the Pipbuck repair stall. Out of all the ponies that I thought Would have been sad to see me go, Spot was not very high on the list. But with nothing more than a glace, he made his reasoning why very clear to me.

"Awww... I wanted him to take me fo ah wide!"

Even I had to admit that it was cute, even if he was almost my age. I made a mental note that if I were to ever return here that I would in fact make good by his wishes and possibly fly him to the coastline so that he could see the ocean. After I had gotten my Pipbuck returned to its rightful place on my foreleg, I trotted to the guards on level Zero. The two Zebra bucks had stood watch all night to keep anypony from wondering into the cave or anywhere near the blue box of radioactive death.

Outside, I was surprised to see that all of the skeletons had been removed from the caves large expanse, leaving behind only dark patches of ground behind them. As I made my way out of the cave, I saw that somepony hand covered the blue box that had once sent my Pipbuck to clicking with another dull metal box. I guess they had taken the time to try and contain the threat of background radiation before they had removed the remains of the long since dead ponies that once had been here.

Trotting out into the dark morning air, I took notice that they had even gone so far as to start digging holes to bury the remains in. A small grave was being constructed not far from the mouth of the cave to my right, fit with wooden head stones made from the trees in the orchard. They had taken great care in respecting the dead, going so far as to even keep the buck and his mare, with their foal, together to be buried as a family. I felt myself fill with pride at the thought of my simple action of opening the door, may have afforded them a proper burial after all of these years.

With one last look back, and a small promise to return soon to myself, I took to the skies once more into the calm morning winds. I oriented myself due west towards the coastline, full well knowing that it may take weeks of searching before I would find White Saddle Shores. As I rose higher into the skies, I let my mind wander free, filling my heart with assurance that I would find Zuri. Maybe not today, but what Shoari said back in the room felt almost finite to me. 'She waited.' I had no clue what deeper meaning she had behind that statement, but it felt as sure as stone in the way she had said it. If she waited, then I was going to make her wait worth every moment of loneliness she had felt for the last ten years.

Camden's Journal.

Entry Number 53.

...What is it that drives us to seek out the light in the dark? Is it fear? Loneliness? The thought of being happy on the other side of the fence? We all have something that we are chasing after, something that we once had that we are trying desperately to get back. We try and dull the pain with whiskey, forget it with chems and ignore it with the company of others. But deep down, the darkness burns everything it touches, driving us to get back to that place, that one moment of true happiness. It is impossible to shiver in the dark when you have felt the warmth of the sun...

~Camden

Boss had said those very words to me when he was fading out from this world in the back of our trading cart. I never truly knew what he had meant for me to take from that conversation we had all those years ago. He had said it with such conviction that it had lead me to believe that he had a true understanding of what he was saying to me and Shale, just moments before we both lost him.

I had always thought that the darkness he spoke of was loneliness, that all encompassing pain and worry that we would be alone for the rest of our lives. Where that may have been true, it was only partly so. It wasn't until many years later that I truly knew what he had meant by it. The darkness is not loneliness, it's heartache. Loneliness, pain, suffering and misery all have the same effect, heartache. It's the basis, conclusion and effect from everything that pains us in the roads we trot in life.

It wasn't until somepony stepped into my dark world and lit it vividly with the light or her heart that I could truly see the colors that were around me. Feeling the warmth of love's brightness is akin to standing in the sun for the first time. It is a drug that you can't quit, it will push you to the ends of the world to seek it. If you ever lose it, there is nothing that you won't do to get it back. You will have faith in the faithless, hope when you are hopeless and drive yourself to reckless abandon, just to feel it one more time.

Even though I had been seeking out a fever dream, never did I truly imagine that it would become reality, yet I pushed forward. The darkness in my life was love once lost, and the light, was love itself.

~Joey

Daylight was breaking over the waves that gently lapped at my hooves. The sand beneath them feeling firm, only giving under the weight of my stride as I trotted in the amber glow of the sunrise. The ocean's melody caressed my ears as I made my way down the shoreline following the smooth path that the water had carved out for me. Broken umbrellas stood strong against the wind, long since rendered useless with nopony around to cast their shade upon. Old stands that once sold frozen treats to foals, still held on to the last remaining shades of bright paint that they had been decorated with, only being dulled by my shadow as I trotted past.

I cast my gaze down the shoreline at the old town of White Saddle as I felt my heart pound in my chest when I saw what laid before me. A single hoof-track was all that it took for me to feel that all too familiar feeling of hope once more as I nervously shook in my path. Placing my own hoof over it, I felt as though I could feel her all around me. Even the wind seemed to guide me further forward as though to show me the way to where I needed to go to be with her once more. Each gust rocking my mane back and forth as though to calm my fractured nerves, trying to tell me softly that the long wait was over.

I looked up from the wave washed tracks that I had been following to see something glint on ahead of me, shining ever so slightly in the morning sun. Her silhouette casting a shadow across the sands around her as she sat quietly at the ocean's edge. Eyes closed and her nose to the same wind that had guided me to her, she wore a smile across her face, as though she knew that I was near. Tenderly, I trotted closer to her, my heart feeling like it was going to leap from my chest with excitement. Could it be? Was it really her? Was the wait really over?

Coming closer, we locked eyes. A moment of fear, followed by another of disbelief fell between us as we both stood still, merely a few paces between us. She was the first to step forward, then I, both meeting each other halfway in the sands between us. With nothing more than a breath's width between us, we simply gazed into each other's eyes, for the first time in forever. With a shaky hoof, I took her's into mine, feeling her soft coat on mine.

"Is... Is it really you?" She asked, in a broken voice.

"Soon... wasn't soon enough..." I said trembling.

She moved closer to me, brushing her muzzle against mine, testing my presence as though to see if I were real. The feeling of her soft nose on my cheek, gently brushing away all the years of heartache, simply melting it away in her presence, placed just as much distance between me and it as I had spent from her. Even in the most beautiful place I had ever seen, her words cut through the crashing waves around us to find me entranced by her eyes.

"I've missed you so much." She said as our lips met and we both fell back into the soft white sands around us. With the ocean's waves soaking us both in its cool waters, we both paid it no mind as we share this moment together. The two of us, together, rolling in the sand, together, we were finally... together. In her embrace I felt all the pain in my world fade, my sorrow burn away and my hope soar. My dark world being lit brightly by the light of her heart once more, I lost all sense of time when I was holding her.

When we allowed ourselves the moment to speak, no words came to either of us. We simple held each other and wept for this moment that we had both been waiting for and all of the lost years between us. All the time that we had lost of each other's embrace hurt, but soon meant nothing as we held one another close, squeezing tighter as though if we didn't, we would be lost once more. Here in the waves of the far south of Equestria, one Pegasus and one Zebra had found what they had been searching out for so long. The universe seemed to stand still and allow us this reunion, looking down on us with a smile as we shared something that was once thought to be impossible. Happiness.

I looked into her deep purple eyes, only mirrored in beauty by the world around us and felt the last ten years of my life finally find purpose. She gave me something I had missed for so long, something that I could not ever hope to have without her. She gave me the love I could never have with anypony else, filling a hole that had long since been empty without her near me. Here, in this sapphire and cyan backdrop, we dared to open our hearts to one another, each holding the other's key.

Looking down to her, lying in the the white foam of the sea, I saw my entire world unfold before me. It wasn't one of traveling alone, it was with her. I can not describe what it is to fall in love at first sight, the words simply do not exist. I can only imagine that this feeling that I was immersed into was enough to push me to walk through fire. Knowing this feeling, I felt that I could do anything, face any adversity or fly any distance, just so long as she was there on the other side, waiting with open hooves.

Suddenly, I knew what had drove me forward all of this time. It was her love.

Link to artist!: https://www.deviantart.com/pridark/art/Comm-Reunion-819474100?ga_submit_new=10%3A1573106653

Author's Notes:

My apologizes for any errors that may have fallen through the cracks towards the end of this chapter. My power went out last night mid edit and I had yet to save anything. Mike and I were steaming right along and the stupid storm murdered a transformer below my house, plunging me into darkness for over an hour. AAAAAnd I kinda forgot to go back and check... Mah bawd...