0200 hours, North/Northeast, MDS-Green, five rounds in primary, six in secondary, twenty-four in tertiary. I'd been waiting so long that I could tell you the readouts on my HUD by heart and then some as Melody took some time to sit in a corner alone. Much as I truly sympathized with her situation and respected her request for some alone-time...I got bored easily. And when I was on a job I also got antsy when I wasn't on the move. Annnnd to top it all off, there was a fuck-load of shit already going on in my head from the experiences of the last two hours. I was a mare in silent distress but unlike Melody, sitting around in quiet contemplation was just too hard for me to do for longer than a few minutes. I needed to move. I could think while on the road, something I was far too proficient in. Sitting still waiting for someone else to resolve their own scrambled brains was torture. Gold...Gold seemed just fine and dandy to examine the spoils of his skills behind that bobby pin and little red screwdriver.

"H-hello??" Came a faint call from outside, the tone frightened and most definitely not a Slaver's.

We all started at the sudden noise, Melody cowering under her tail while Gold drew his revolver and I simply got to my hooves. The EFS was showing nothing but blue friendlies outside and my gut wasn't screaming any misgivings. Waving to Gold to leave it to me, I trotted over to the open door and looked out over the stagnating field of gore still illuminated by the town's shoddy spotlights. The world turned a color palate of reds as the built-in night vision function automatically kicked in with a wave of my thoughts giving me a high contrast view of the dark world outside. There were a few figures wandering around out there, all of whom wore an explosive collar around their necks upon closer viewing. The gunfire from earlier had obviously spooked them all and undoubtedly the silence that followed from our time waiting on Melody had spooked them even more.

Ducking back into the barn, I looked directly at Melody and said as softly as I firmly could, "I'm sorry...but we've got panicked ponies out there wondering what the fuck is going on. They'll know and trust you, I highly doubt they'll treat me with as much leeway looking like I do. For all they know I'm a richie in the market to buy."

She tried her best to smile despite a quivering lip and nodded replying, "Y-yeah...the...the others first. E-everyone has to run."

Offering a hoof, I helped her up and double checked on her recovery progress. While the potions had a quick and potent healing effect, the components of the brew had a very short biological half-life and thus quickly wore themselves out after a few to several seconds. However, with how many she had drunk, there were enough active ingredients left in her stomach to have a slow, progressive healing affect over time. I could see it in her colors in particular, they were noticeably darker and her fur seemed to have grown back in giving a bit of plush to her appearance. Sweet Luna's teats she was a cutie...

"Is it...is it safe out there?" She asked quietly, glancing around me towards the open door.

"Far as my HUD's concerned, yeah." I replied confidently for the sake of her fears. "But, for the sake of safety why don't ya take this. You seem to know how to handle yourself."

Lifting my right foreleg a tad, I pulled out one of two suppressed 10mm pistols I kept in shoulder holsters beneath my duster. While certainly not standard issue for a Ranger, having an option on hoof that was almost as quiet as a knife and could hit reliably up to a hundred yards was just another form of job security. She took the rather large semi-automatic into her red violet aura with trepidation but seemed somewhat comfortable holding it having decent muzzle control and finding the safety on her own. Pulling Gold away from gawking at the energy weapons was difficult but a quick reminder that his talent as a lockpick would be necessary to free everyone else wearing a collar got his small ass into gear right away. All armed with our respective pistols, we set out into Appleloosa proper in search of the lost and the damned.

The town was even uglier up close. Appleloosa was once the largest city South of Las Pegasus home to a thriving agricultural division and served as the headquarters for FillyArms, a subsidiary of Ironshod Firearms since the respective owners were family. Of course, all that was ancient history and the town today was not even a quarter of the size with its maze of shoddy lean-tos and empty rail cars. Looking around the muddy, trash-ridden paths and laughably poor housing, it was hard to imagine this was still technically the place I came through by train once upon a time. Absolutely nothing remained of the old hick town aside from Jangle's barn and there wasn't even a point to wondering if anything remained of FillyArms of any value. Shit was gonna be long gone.

What occupied what was left of the train depot was a field of cages of all sizes stuffed with bodies. They were all as ragged and pathetic looking as Melody had first looked, all huddled close together on the floor of their cages. Wallowing in their own filth and dressed in either tattered rags or simply nothing at all. Most lay chained either to each other or to the bars on the floor by the neck keeping their heads down in a submissive position and I noticed with an angry shock that most of the mares and some of the stallions even had their tails cut off down to the base for ‘easy access’.

I had been purposely so far removed from the horrors of slavery that I had chosen to forget just how cruelly and unjustly these wretched lives were treated by their supposed ‘owners’. My own loyalties to the Equestria I had fought and essentially died for were being challenged by the barbarity I was seeing with my own eyes in the remnants of the land I called home. All the ideals I had fought for, freedom and the right to life and peace...this is what became of a world unrestrained by laws that reminded ponies of the concepts of morality. The only good thing that came with this loss of law was the rise of personal law. If somepony wronged you in the Wastes, there was nothing stopping you from killing them but your own conscience and your skills with a weapon. Fuck, what had I become...?

“We’re here to rescue you!” Melody stated happily though with a deep sadness in her eyes. “Everything will be ok. These ponies are here to help you all.”

All but the most beaten down of eyes gazed up at me and Gold like we were some kind of Gods sent from the heavens to release them from their bonds. I couldn't help but shrink inwardly from the amount of repressed hope they had in their eyes, especially the young foals scattered about the cages. Hope was a commodity that was all too rare for them...the burden of bringing and then sustaining that hope was almost too much to bear. What if I failed them? I had little provisions to offer them and most didn’t seem fit enough or keen on the idea of walking back to safety. Gold immediately set to the locks on the cages while Melody took the keyring and made her way through the cages as well emancipating all that could be found. As I had no keyring and lacked the skills of Gold, I really could only do what I was good at.

“I’ll go look for supplies.” I stated simply, the grainy tone of my voice through the mike coming off sounding more detached and unenthusiastic than I intended it to sound to the ponies present. “Scream if there’s a problem.

It was awkward being stared at by so many eyes at once as I silently checked on Melody and Gold's weapons and left them with spare ammo, setting off for the building Melody indicated was where they stored supplies. By the looks of things the shack was once a mercantile store from the sign above the lopsided wooden door that read, ‘Aunt Cherry’s Country Mercantile’. It was only fitting the slavers converted it into their supply depot since the building was probably pre-equipped with everything they’d need to store goods in a nice orderly manner. Least that would have been my first choice were I setting up the community myself.

The second my hoof touched the floor of the interior I knew something was off. The lights were off unlike in the other buildings I had passed by on the way and as a place of beer and drugs, there was no way in hell the place was simply 'closed' for the night. Thus, I was only caught partially off guard when a dusky yellow stallion jumped out from behind the door with a notched combat knife clamped in his mouth. The blade skidded off my bracer as I parried his attack and kicked him square in the jaw, the impact cracking a few of his teeth that were gripping onto the handle of his knife. He naturally howled at the pain and the knife clattered to the floor along with the fractured pieces of his bloody teeth, the distraction giving me enough time to pounce on him, my left hoof crushing his neck as we landed. It was certainly not a quick way to die I realized as I jumped back up to my hooves checking for other hidden dangers in the dimly lit room. I was never one to let my enemies suffer unless I knew for certain they deserved it. A quick gunshot from my Sequoia later and I was once again free to check the room which was much more cheerful to look at after I found the light switch. Great as my low-light vision, there was only so much detail to be garnered from so many shades of just red.

If one was to compare the differences between a slaver and a Raider, aside from the difference in tactics, armament and drugs of choice, the most obvious difference was in their choice of interior decorating. While Raiders preferred to desecrate the bodies of their victims and dangle them from the ceilings with chains or nail them to the walls with railway spikes and piss on everything, Slavers were a bit more homey than that. They instead preferred a bit more of a structured environment since they were in a business of sorts. Couldn't discuss the sale and purchase of living Sentients while sitting in a three-week old corpse now could you? The inside of the Mercantile was no different and though I could see the outside through several obvious holes in the wall between the shelves stocked with food, I had to admit the store was almost redeemable in quality. Well organized, relatively easy to navigate and giving me ideas of my own if I ever owned a larger residence than the small New Pegasus apartment.

I was more than pleased to see that Jangle kept her goons well fed since it was going to serve us well and I was even more pleased by the quartermaster’s (or whatever the fuck they called the guy who divvied out their food) attention to detail. Each food and beverage type was stocked together in neat rows with absolutely no pell-mell mixing of boxes and cans, even if they both held the same contents. It was a stupidly small detail but it was something that made me very happy to see since it irked me deeply to see ponies toss their shit about willy-nilly with no thought for order or symmetry. There were enough cans and boxes of fruits, vegetables and desserts to feed everypony in the cages enough to burst and enough bottles of Sparkle-Cola and purified water to fill a small swimming pool for them all to bathe in. I also noticed with interest dozens of hanging carcasses of Radgulls all plucked of their feathers and ready to be roasted by anypony (like myself) who had a thing for meat. Not exactly good for the diet by any doctor’s standards (especially those from before the War) but it did offer some variety to a diet of two hundred year old processed and preserved foods which was nice.

One thing was for sure, we were not short on food supplies but my next question concerned our standing on medical supplies. After a little more digging I finally found the well organized row of about a half dozen or so of the creamy yellow first aid boxes with the Ministry of Peace’s trademark pink butterflies painted in the crook of each arm of the embossed cross that formed the lid. It had been awhile since I had seen one of those cute little things around since most had already been ripped off the walls of the places I visited and were either kept by the thief or sold to a vendor for some caps. Four of the boxes were thankfully unlocked and I pried them open to find a healthy collection of generic lesser healing potions all the way to a hooffull of Extra-Strength types. In the last box I even found one of the rare Super-Restoration potions that could bring almost anypony nearing the brink of death back to their hooves in ‘Ten Seconds Flat’ as the bottle guaranteed. Along with all those wonderful goodies I also found a modest supply of healing bandages, syringes of the uber painkiller Medix and several dozen I.V bags of sickly orange colored RadAway. The other two boxes remained stubbornly closed against any of my efforts to pry them open and so I left them on the counter for Gold to work his magic on before heading back outside to check on he and Melody’s progress.

I was surprised to see roughly forty or so of the poor ex-slaves already standing outside their cage and most of them were busy picking through the carnage for anything of value which overall were weapons and ammunition. Most of the armor was either too shitty to be worth a damn to begin with or was rendered repulsive from the sheer amount of gore on them meaning my next stop would be the armory that I knew had to exist somewhere in this shithole. Wherever there were hungry, rapey Slavers, there was going to be a place with guns. Hopefully lots of them since we had easily over two hundred ponies in need of some form of protection from getting enslaved once again.

“How are things coming?” I asked as I approached Gold who lay on his stomach as he fiddled with the stubborn lock of the second cage.

“S-slow…” He sighed as he looked up at me with a small scowl. “W-wish I h-had some help b-but nopony k-knows how t-to do this s-shit.”

I felt genuinely bad I didn’t know how to lockpick myself and encouraged him to take his time since Melody seemed to have murdered every fucker in town and I could pick off the remnants with relative ease if they were as clumsy in a fight as the guy in the Mercantile had been. Leaving him to work I trotted over to Melody who was kneeling inside the third cage and was speaking gently to the occupants, some of whom she seemed to know personally by the way she would periodically nuzzle their cheeks or hooves.

“...I found a bundle of grenades laying out that Prickly Pear had left lying around after he got drunk and...forgot about me. I saw my chance and I just ran. I tossed them all into the storage room of the Big House where they keep the dynamite and tried to slip out in all the confusion…” Melody said gently to an older mare who was missing both of her hind legs, the stubs of which were loosely wrapped in soiled bandages that screamed infection.

“Oh, hello!” She said happily as I approached, looking up from her supposed friend in the cage. “What did you find?”

I leaned into her ear and whispered, “Enough food to last everypony here a month and hopefully enough medical supplies to treat all the ones who need it the most.”

“Why are you whispering…?” She asked, thankfully whispering back.

“Because I don’t want those who are out to stampede into that place and fight over everything.” I replied, looking to the forty or so who still picked through the bodies for anything of use.

“Why would they do that? There’s plenty to go around isn’t there?” She asked sweetly, looking at those who were still trapped in their cages.

“Why? Because sudden freedom after months or years of oppression can break some ponies and make them go bat shit crazy.” I said in a continued hush, remembering how barbarically some P.O.W’s had reacted when we had busted them from years of forced labor in the Empire. “Just...trust me on this alright? Keep them focused on trying to help each other and on you until I can secure everything. I need to find the armory, where is it?”

She pointed to the building that was thankfully right next to the Mercantile that looked completely built from the ground up with sheet metal and metal roofing panels. I thanked her for her assistance and after tipping my helmet to the two legged mare (who I knew was going to have a hard life even if we could cure the infection) in respect, I galloped to my final destination.

I didn’t fuck around like I had at the Mercantile and kicked the door down with my Sequoia out and ready to pop a cap in any shithead who thought pissing me off was a jolly good idea. This time around, there was nopony lurking in the shadows which were nonexistent since the lights in the room were already lit casting cheerful white light on the respectable armory of weapons the slavers had at their disposal.

Sadly, unlike the guy who ran the Mercantile store, the asshat put in charge of the armory had no sense of organization or even basic cleanliness. The room leading up to the caged back area where the guns and ammunition were stored was riddled with bullet holes, rotting garbage and hundreds of empty bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla and Sparkle-Cola that made walking a nightmare. Eventually I just got pissed and angrily started tossing dozens of bottles at once against the walls with my magic clearing a path to the cell door that was of course locked against prying hooves like mine. In this case I didn’t need a lockpicking master like Gold to fiddle his way in since I had a clear line of sight at what lay behind and with two shots from my revolver, the lock on the door was pulverized. All that remained was the simple task of flinging the sliding door to the right and strolling right into the toy shop for adults. Well, the destructive type of toy shop, not the sexy fun toy shop though I wouldn’t have been too displeased with walking into one of those either.

This was the kind of place I felt more at home in. The intoxicating smell of gunpowder and oiled gun metal wafted over me like the finest perfumes and I found myself removing my helmet to get a much deeper whiff of the wondrous aroma. When I had finished my orgasm of the nose, I noticed with amusement there on the wall above and on the gun cabinets were numerous messages warning the requisitions officer (or I guess the ‘Gun Giver Guy’ since these ponies were far from military) to NOT give out ammunition for target practice until the new shipment of ammo came in from their trade with New Appleloosa and Shattered Hoof. After laughing at it a few times I came to the understanding that for all the guns surrounding me, there might not be enough ammo to go around. Wonderful.

With a little digging I found to my continued amusement the amount of shotguns in the armory far exceeded that of any other weapon type to be found. I then understood why there were so many Radgulls in the Mercantile. The guys probably got bored with raping innocent ponies and not being able to take shots at them for loss of profit and so turned their barrels to the sky in search of a more colorful diet. Not soon after tossing the sixth combat shotgun onto the pile of lever action and double barreled shotguns did I discover the very empty ammo canisters of shotshells. Either the dumbasses didn’t listen to the rules (which was admittedly very probable) or they had just recently implemented the new rule on ammunition use. Either way, every single green metal canister of ammunition was or nearly was empty of every ammo type you could think of. 9 and 10mm, .45 Automag, .357 Magnus, .44 Magnus, .308 Winchestnut...there was hardly anything to be found. I was unsurprised to not find any .45-70 or 25mm Phoenix since those calibers were far rarer a sight in the Wastes than say a .38 or a 10mm but I was devastated that for all their gun filled barking, the Slavers had very little actual bite to go around.

With a sigh, I threw open my mag pouches and set down every single bullet I had on my person on a metal desk that lay within the cage with the weapons. Out of habit, I had brought along with me a modest supply of various ammo types that didn’t match any of the weapons I carried on my person just in case I found myself running on empty in the field and needing to use a weapon I had picked off the ground. What I had, coupled with what I had scavenged from the ammo boxes, was roughly enough to fill every magazine in the room with at least half a mag’s worth of rounds. Certainly not a pleasing situation but I couldn’t be held too much to blame since I hadn’t gone into this knowing I would be jailbreaking a few hundred ponies. Hell I had only gone into it with rather limited equipment because I had expected this job to go down a hell of a lot different than it actually had. There was just no anticipating what had all happened so fast...

Thankfully there were more pistols than anything else in the room (save for the shotguns of course) and pistols were honestly what I loved most and thus carried the most ammo for. Most of the guns were rusty and likely prone to jamming without some serious maintenance on a gunsmith's workbench. As I was without both my tools and the materials needed to patch them up, the best I could do was a few drops of gun oil from one of the cabinets and a couple tugs on the action to try and spread the lube evenly over the slides and bolts. Pisspoor patchwork but again goddamnit, how was I to know back in New Pegasus I would need to bring along my bag of field-work tools and lubricants?

“Hey guys! She found the weapons!” Came an unfamiliar call from the doorway.

“Huh?” I grunted, looking up from the semi-deconstructed .45 Automag pistol I was busy giving a once over to see a line of ponies trying to force their way into the room.

‘Oh Goddesses it’s gonna be another Sahara fuckup…’ I groaned inwardly to myself as I stood and barred the door to the weapon’s cache with as much of my body as I could, trying to look big and imposing to scare them off enough to let me speak.

“Now look here,” I stated firmly, glaring at all of them and realizing I had left my helmet on the desk inside the cage which reduced my level of protection if things got ugly. “Let’s all be fucking civil about this alright? I don’t want anypony stampeding in here to get all the guns they can and then shooting everypony so they get more shit, k? I’ve seen it happen before and I sure as hell don’t want to get shot by the ponies I just risked my neck and my supplies to rescue, ok?”

There was silence from the gaunt, bony forms before me until one of the more frail looking stallions asked, “Why would we do that…?”

I was taken a little aback by that and I stood there staring at them for a few moments in confusion. Was...was Melody actually right about these ponies? Was I wrong?

“Why would we shoot our rescuer…? That seems...well...the opposite of friendly or smart.” An emaciated mare stated weakly from nearby.

I slowly got back down onto all fours and looked over all of them with mixed feelings. Putting my misgivings to the side, I decided I would try and at least be somewhat regulated about this. Without another word I fit the metal desk into the doorway of the cage and scooped all the ammunition into the drawer next to me, sitting down in a chair I pulled from the corner before addressing them all.

“Alright, this is how it’s gonna go down. Those of you who will be traveling alone form one line and those traveling in pairs or groups form another. Come forward when it’s your turn and I’ll do my best to get everypony a weapon of some sort. I cannot guarantee everypony will get the kind they want since its first-come, first-serve and not to be a dick but it’s not like you get to complain much alright? That sound fair to everypony?”

Those who could speak chanted in the affirmative while the rest simply nodded before forming the lines I asked them to. It was interesting to note that the line of those going solo was far shorter than the line with groups in them and I had to admit it did make sense. These poor ponies had probably known each other for at least some time and I could speak from personal experience that life in the shithole tends to form bonds with those who are sharing your fate. After all...it was in the trenches of the Empire where I first became friends with Buck Beak and Rain Dancer, two of the closest friends I had ever had in my entire life. I...guess there was still some hope left in the new world horror.

The arming of everypony went almost as smoothly as the process of getting weapons from the requisitions officer at Camp Macintosh. Some ponies I was surprised to find only wanted a simple combat knife or one of the many .38 or 9mm pistols which resulted in me having a few shotguns and a dozen or so pistols left over. As an added bonus some extra ammo remained as well, fine by me since the only calibers I actually had in ‘abundance’ were for my two favorite toys. The surplus ammo (save for a dozen 10mm rounds which I kept for myself) was divvied out amongst anypony who wanted it and like that, my job was done. I stuffed my head back into my helmet once more and dug around in some of the other cabinets finding a collection of rudimentary holsters, saddlebags and a few tactical rigs for everypony to share. All the while...I couldn't deny that I was having the time of my life using what I knew to give these people a second chance at an existence that I came by easily.

After ensuring everypony was properly armed, I led them out to the square once more and found Melody already busy administering healing potions, bandages and painkillers to a line of ponies with various maladies of the flesh that needed immediate attention. Not that there was anypony among the ex-slaves that didn’t need attention but some were worse off than others, something I was sad to note consisted of way more mares than stallions. Was common knowledge that despite the 2:1 gender ratio ensuring mares abounded in this world, stallions had learned to topple the matriarchy of the past. While mares could still experience a broad bevvy of lifestyles, there were definitely more stallions populating certain...professions in the Wasteland. The overwhelming majority of them were horny too meaning the slaves to snag were of the female persuasion since they were more appealing product.

“Now, don’t be greedy please…” Melody said gently to the mare who was resting her head on her lap while taking a small sip from one of the few bottles of Extra-Strength potion. “We need to think of everypony who needs some too.”

A measly little sip of potion wasn’t going to heal much but I was amazed at Melody’s frugalness with our meager supply of medicine and even more so that no one seemed to say ‘fuck that’ and guzzle down the whole bottle. The impressive strength of the potion did have an effect though and the many cuts and bruises on the mare’s body seemed to fade slightly, the smaller ones barely closing up while the larger ones coagulated and scabbed over. Hardly a full-recovery but it was something. Probably the largest show of compassion any of them had experienced in a long time.

I noted with some slight apprehension there were still a good hundred or so ponies who had yet to be properly armed and nearly half of them were still awaiting medical care. With a quick nod to Melody I took half of the remaining supplies and put my combat medic training to good use doing as she had. A few complained as to why they had to share the potions with those who ‘weren’t going to make it anyway’ and I responded by bopping them on the muzzle and moving onto the next pony in line leaving them to glare and cuss me out. I could give a fuck less about their complaints since I had six definite arguments that would give them something worth bitching about and each of them were snuggled safely in my holster. I had only just rediscovered I had something of a heart, I wasn't going to be delivering the moon and I was still happy to shoot whoever asked for it.

The further along I went down the line of the needy, the more I witnessed the horrors of the all but thriving slave trade happening in the Wasteland. I had become calloused to them by simple avoidance and learning to simply shut them out of my mind as other ponies’ problems to deal with. With the veil covering my feigned ignorance wrenched away in the light of the poor ponies clamoring for relief...I could feign no longer. As the last of the truly needy was rudimentarily sated, I found myself sitting alone by the open door of one of the cages, staring at my hooves as I painfully recognized I had been squandering my life and talents for my own selfish gains. What happened in Splendid Valley, though immensely excruciating to experience, was a blessing. I was free like no other pony could ever be in the Wasteland. A Ghoul was immune to radiation and aging but hardly immune from racism and segregation from smoothfurs. Normal ponies have an automatic ‘in’ with others that fosters a certain level of trust that opens so many more doors than Ghouls would ever be afforded. And here I was, a mare with a hoof in both worlds. Immune to radiation but able to walk freely amongst others without hatred due to the fact I still retained my looks. Such a tremendous blessing and I had been wasting all of that on killing random people for money and having a damn good time doing it. If my mother could only have seen what had become of the daughter she thought she had raised…

“Hey…”

I looked up to see the beautiful youthful face of Melody who seemed to have finished patching up her end of the ponies in need, looking down at me with a small if pained smile.

“You...you look troubled.” She said simply, further amazing me that even amidst her own suffering and that of the other ex-slaves, she still was taking the time to try and tend to me.

I gave a short chuckle in an attempt to feign confidence but came off sounding pained myself causing her to sit down beside me and gently nuzzle my neck with her cheek.

“Thank you...for getting me out of here...and for helping these other ponies when you hardly have a need to…” She said gently, continuing to nuzzle into the crook of my neck in an almost loving manner.

“I...you’re welcome, Melody.” I replied softly, turning to look once more into her beautiful red and green eyes, the colors reminding me of Hearth’s Warming Eve decorations back when snow was actually a more common thing. “And...I disagree with you on one point.”

“O-oh…?” She gasped softly, the expression on her face a little fearful as if she had said something to offend me.

“You say I hardly had a need to help you or these poor ponies…” I said softly, looking up at the group of ex-slaves all try to help feed each other and hug their friends and loved ones while we watched on. “But...I disagree with that...because I did have a need to do so. It’s...it’s a basic right to be free, especially against being owned and treated worse than a fucking animal. So no...I may not have had to do it and only do what I came here to do which was to kill Jangle...but then again I had to help you and everypony because...it’s just the right thing to do. I...I can’t stand idly by while Tyrants still live on around me."

Her earlier muted apprehension was replaced with small tears of happiness which she began to shed freely, snuggling into my side as if instinctually and wiping her eyes on the lapels of my duster. I held her tightly once more against me, memories of my own fillyhood nights spent with my own mother in much the same position as we were and I noticed with surprise she smelled...familiar. A scent I had all but forgotten the taste of...this filly smelled exactly of huckleberries. The fruit had long ago died off in Balefire removing even the scent and flavor of my old lover from my life much as it had my lover herself. And yet, in my hooves there lay a filly who smelled exactly like her. Two centuries may have dimmed my memories but it couldn’t destroy them. Not by a long shot.

“I’m sorry...I forgot my manners.” I said gently as she pulled away slightly to look at me in the eyes once more. “My name is Athena...Athena Crete. It’s such a wonderful pleasure to meet you Melody Shine.”

I could see her rolling my strange name around her mouth but the taste of it seemed to be agreeable as she beamed and hugged me again saying, “Good to meet you too, Athena.”

As I pet the back of her head, the memories of my own childhood unceasing in their efforts to bring me to tears, I felt a warmth blossom in my breast that I knew from half forgotten memory was what they called love. Of all the memories and feelings inspired by the day’s events...that feeling of love was something I needed the most in my life.

Next Chapter: Chapter Ten: Silence on the Front Estimated time remaining: 27 Hours, 56 Minutes