The clinic was thankfully devoid of patients when Rainbow arrived. Doctor Preston was the only person around, sitting in his chair and hastily typing things out on his terminal. He turned, smiled when he saw who it was, and gestured for her to join him at a different terminal on a nearby desk. The doctor quickly typed out a simple question, ‘How are you feeling?’

“Meh, could be better,” Rainbow replied. She had seen plenty of instances in movies where hearing impaired people spoke really loudly after losing their hearing, and she was trying to carefully regulate her voice so she didn’t accidentally do the same thing. “I was kinda hoping to talk to you about this operation for my ears.”

Doctor Preston nodded sagely and said something, typing his response on the terminal for Rainbow’s benefit. ‘Of course. Undergoing surgery can be intimidating at the best of times. Take as much time as you need to come to terms with things and psyche yourself up.’

“Actually, I was kinda hoping that we could get this over and done with as soon as possible,” Rainbow cut in, interrupting him just as he started typing another question. “Is there any way I could have the operation today? Now, even?”

The doctor let out a silent exclamation, followed by some equally silent talking, then realized what he was doing and turned to the terminal. ‘This will be a significant operation. It won’t involve any of your major organs, but there are always risks with surgery, and you’ll have to be under anesthetic for several hours at least. Are you sure you want to jump straight in?’

“Absolutely. One hundred percent,” Rainbow said flatly. She had had enough of dealing with all of the crazy shit that this world had thrown at her. Adding the arrival of Luna, Trixie, and a Dazzling to the mix was just too much. A few hours of oblivion sounded like absolute heaven right then, and the chance of being able to hear again afterwards was the icing on the cake. “How soon do you think we’ll be able to do it?”

Doctor Preston frowned and went back to his main terminal. Peeking surreptitiously over his shoulder, Rainbow saw that he was checking his inventory of medicines, equipment and, to her surprise, a short list of new nurses and assistants that he had clearly picked up since the last time she had seen him.

Finally, the doctor got up and went back to his backup terminal to type out a simple question, ‘When did you last eat?’

“Uh… I had breakfast about four hours ago, I think,” Rainbow replied.

Doctor Preston crossed his arms and pursed his lips as he thought. Rainbow held her breath, forcing herself not to try and pester him into doing it, when finally he sighed silently and typed out his answer, ‘Go and sit in the waiting room opposite here, and don’t eat or drink anything else at all until I say so. I’ll gather my assistants and prepare the operating room. We should have everything ready within the hour.’

Applejack kept her head down as she strode to the lab, partly to try and keep people from trying to talk to her, and partly to try and hide her angry expression from everyone. It seemed to work either way, as hardly anyone dared to try and get her attention as she walked.

Things were bad. In truth, things were always bad in the Capital Wasteland, but the last week had been especially awful. Unity had taken everything that Applejack valued and either corrupted or crushed it entirely. Independence, family, friendship, honesty, consent, all of it was tarnished. Even the feelings she had for Rarity, hidden desires that she could barely even admit to herself, had been poisoned, perhaps fatally.

The last thought brought a bitter grimace to Applejack’s face. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the pace through the last few corridors, then wrenched open the door to the lab with enough force that the hinges squealed in protest. A bunch of people inside turned to see who had caused the noise, and immediately turned back to whatever they were doing when they saw the expression on her face.

Applejack took a deep breath to try and get her temper under control, adjusted her hat, and headed over to one of the engineers that she recognised. As she approached, she saw that he was tinkering with what looked like a valve from a water pump. “Hey, Isaac, what’re you workin’ on?”

Isaac glanced over his shoulder and gave her a small smile. “Welcome back, AJ.” He held the valve up to show her. “We’ve been having an issue recently with condensation from these trees evaporating in here, forming tiny magical clouds up on the ceiling, then dropping multicolored rain down on us. We’re trying to put together a new system to collect the rain, but most of the parts need a bit of fixing up before we can put them in.”

“Wait, you’ve had indoor rain?!” Applejack exclaimed, distracted from her dark thoughts by the bizarre revelation.

“Yeah, this magic is throwing more and more random crap at us the more it grows.” Isaac sighed and ran a hand over his near-shaven head. “It’s giving us more pros than cons though, so I can’t complain all that much. What about you? I heard about the Citadel being destroyed, but most of the rumors about how it happened are completely insane. What really happened out there?”

Applejack grunted and shook her head tightly. “Ah’d rather not talk about it.”

Her tone clearly registered, as Isaac just nodded and said, “Fair enough.” He looked over at something in the corner of the room. “Well, if you want to avoid crazy, you might want to leave before that guy spots you.” Applejack followed his gaze and did a double-take at what she saw.

There was a man sitting cross-legged on a large exposed root right in the corner of the room. His bare torso was covered in orange stripes and whorls that stood out sharply against his dark brown skin, and he had leaf-shaped shoulder guards made out of a dull reddish metal. On a closer look, Applejack saw that the simple shorts he was wearing appeared to be made out of a similar material. “Who the heck is that guy and what is he doin’?” She asked.

“He calls himself Malus, he’s one of your 'Disciples' from the new Shrine of Harmony in the upper decks,” Isaac replied simply. “He comes here every day to meditate and try to commune with some ‘Great One’ that he can sense through the trees or something.”

“Sounds like he’s a few bushels short of a tree,” Applejack said bluntly.

Isaac grinned. “Oh, he’s completely nuts, but he keeps to himself, and him and the other Disciples did manage to come up with the magical armorweave that he’s wearing using steel from these trees. That stuff is seriously fucking useful, so I’m not going to complain if he wants to sit quietly in here and dream about trees.”

Applejack had to admit that the idea of getting her hands on some magical armor was pretty tempting, but she wasn’t in any mood to deal with another Disciple of Harmony right at that moment. She was still more than a little thrown off that the fanatics had built another temple of sorts in Rivet City. “Ah wouldn’ mind havin’ a word with him later, but right now Ah just want some peace and quiet.”

“Good luck. The city is buzzing with speculation about what really happened at the Citadel,” Isaac told her.

The prospect of hundreds of people pestering her, or gossiping and pointing behind her back, was enough to get Applejack’s back up once again. She was looking around the lab, wondering where she could go on the ship that would guarantee some privacy, when her eyes fell on the Cutie Mark-encrusted door that led to the rooms where Doctor Li performed her original tests on the Rainbooms’ magic. “Has anyone been in those rooms since they started spewin’ magic?” Applejack asked, nodding towards the door.

Isaac gave her a curious look. “No, Pia won’t let anyone in because there’s so much mag-”

“Perfect.” Ignoring his protests, Applejack strode confidently over to the door and wrenched it open. Clouds of multicolored magic billowed out of the door, making Applejack pony up instantly, but she stepped through and slammed the door shut before anyone else could be affected or try to stop her.

The corridor inside looked like something out of a fantasy movie. Vines and apple-laden branches covered the walls and ceiling, while knee-high grass carpeted the floor and thousands of butterflies flapped lackadaisically through the air. Everything in the corridor, from the tiny specks of dust each butterfly left in its wake to the largest and thickest branches arching across the ceiling, was glittering and sparkling in every color imaginable.

“Whoah, Nelly.” Applejack tilted her hat back and stared at the sight in slack-jawed astonishment.

After a few minutes, she shook herself and carefully set off down the corridor. The butterflies casually floated out of Applejack’s way as she walked, until she found the room where her own magic had been tested. The tree that had first formed from her magic, the one she had affectionately named Little Mac, had grown so much that its trunk was now over a meter thick and reached from the floor to the ceiling. There was no sign of the old computer terminal it had once sprouted from.

“Not bad, Little Mac.” Applejack stepped over to the tree and sat between two thick roots with a sigh. “You don’ mind me restin’ down here for a spell, do you? Things have been crazier than a cockerel in a crate lately.” She shifted a little to nestle herself in a little more comfortably, then pulled her hat down over her eyes and tried to put everything else out of her mind.

Under normal circumstances, Rarity had no problem with being the center of attention. Unfortunately, these were far from ordinary circumstances.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but as she hurried away from the meeting room, Rarity realized that almost everyone she passed was staring and whispering to their neighbors. Some of them were being more subtle than others, but they were all easy to spot. Luckily for Rarity, Tabitha’s boutique was only a short walk from the meeting room, so she just kept her head down and walked faster. A couple of minutes later she found herself outside the boutique. Glancing once at the railsign on the door, Rarity rapped sharply on the door.

“Just a moment!” Came a familiar voice from inside. A minute or so passed, during which Rarity tried to ignore the handful of people walking past, until finally the door opened. “Welcome to the Seaborne Boutique! Where every gar- Rarity!” Rarity choked as she was pulled into a rib-cracking hug. “Oh, you poor darling! I heard about what happened to the Citadel, that must have been just awful!” Tabitha let go suddenly and practically pulled Rarity into the boutique. “Come in, come in! Let’s get you sitting down and find you a drink!”

Rarity allowed herself to be swept inside. She was mildly surprised to see Claire, Tabitha’s little sister, and Victoria, one of the Railroad agents in the Capital Wasteland, both peeking out from the back room.

“Come on through, we were just having a quiet chat!” Tabitha pulled Rarity into the back room and guided her to a chair. “There you go, you just get some rest and try to relax. Claire, fetch her some water!”

“Um, thank you,” Rarity said as Claire handed her a bottle of pleasantly chilled pure water.

Victoria coughed quietly and said in a slightly too casual tone, “I should probably get back to work, I’ll come back once my shift is finished.”

Rarity couldn’t help feeling a little guilty as Tabitha and Claire waved their colleague out of the shop. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt-”

“Nonsense, you didn’t interrupt,” Tabitha assured her. “Victoria just has to report to our superiors. The presence of the Rainbooms here will stir things up a little, so we’ll have to tread carefully for a bit, but that’s not important right now.” She slipped into a chair opposite. “How are you feeling? Are you alright?”

Rarity let out a humorless chuckle. She tried to make a casual joke about the continuous clusterfuck of the last week, but her throat closed up before she could say a word. Tabitha saw her hesitation and glanced back at Claire. “Fetch the good wine for us, Sweetie, then lock the door. We’re taking the afternoon off.”

Snow crunched as Fluttershy landed roughly on the very edge of Rivet City’s broken off bow. She kicked more of the fluffy white stuff away, then sat on the very edge of the ship and folded her feathery wings, letting her legs dangle off the edge.

Fluttershy had been intending to head towards the clinic and see if she could purchase any spare blood packs, but the residents she passed were paying a lot more attention than usual. That, coupled with the unmistakable sound of Rainbow following shortly after, made Fluttershy change her mind. Excess attention wasn’t something that she liked at the best of times, and she was certainly in no mood to discuss the wasteland’s latest delivery of awful bullshit.

And so, Fluttershy had hurried to the nearest exit, ponied up, and flown over to the bow. It was probably a bit of an extreme measure just to get some peace and quiet, but she didn’t particularly care. Pinkie had gone in search of Mister Lopez, Applejack was looking for apples, Rarity had gone to see her counterpart, Rainbow was at the clinic, and Twilight was heading to the ship’s bowels for some reason, so the other Rainbooms were all accounted for. No-one else would bother coming over to this derelict section.

Fluttershy breathed in deeply and allowed herself to relax. Various scents wafted up to her through the still air; the musty odor of rust, the tang of metal and magic, even the faint reek of the mirelurks lurking in the water below. If she strained her ears, Fluttershy could even just make out the sound of someone in power armor pushing through the snow up by Rivet City’s entrance bridge. Probably someone from the Brotherhood of Steel or the Enclave.

Alone with her thoughts, Fluttershy curled up and looked out over the horizon like an angelic sentinel.

Next Chapter: Chapter 157 - Waffling Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 26 Minutes