Entry 020 - Sense and Stability (Part Two)

The one pony theatre production took a dramatic bow, which drew applause from behind me. As I’d been engrossed by Molasses acting out the roles of both ponies (three if you counted the foal which, of course, she also performed the part of) I hadn’t seen that company had joined up with us.

“Bravo!” Private Joke cheered with an awarding stomp and a whistle through two hooves. “I particularly liked the bit when you struggled with the tie. I really believed you were wearing a tie!”

“Oh, hehe, thanks! That sure was tricky,” giggled Molasses, hopping off of the wall of the fountain to trundle across the street to join us, “I had to imagine I was wearing a tie, and then pretend to pull it off! Crazy, huh?”

“Out of sight,” chortled the guard, and moved around the chair before he reached out a hoof for Mole, “nice to meet you, I’m a friend of Crow.”

“Mole, this is Private Joke. PJ, Mole,” I said, in way of introduction as I gestured between them, as I felt glad I’d not imagined the elusive stallion who’d turned up at the eleventh hour to rescue, and aid, myself and Gypsy. Giving Mole the quick download on who this guy was and how he’d helped us save her, I tittered as she knocked him over with a hug. As he gave his best 'fallen tortoise' impression, I shot him a pleased smile and a quick look over, noticing bandages along his back leg. He caught my concern.

“Nothing to worry about, Cee. Just a couple of scratches,” he assured me, stretching the leg out and giving it a flex.

“Lum got out too though, right? Neither of you got bit, aye?” I asked with some trepidation. He gave his detainer a light pat, really seeming to enjoy the closeness of my little bear, and she replied to it with a nuzzling nicker on his chin. I felt a bubble of jealousy pop inside me but gulped it back down. I had to remember that she was my filly, not my songbird in a cage. I had to remind myself that a lot.

“We both got a few scratches, but nothing too nasty. Tunnel Bugs don’t go down that easy!” he grinned widely, sharing a wink. The mare on top of him lifted her head, her eyes almost as wide as her mouth.

“Oh. My. Squeakiness! You’re a Tunnel Bug? That is so sugars-and-creamy coolio-beanies! Do you do requests?” I immediately wondered why Molasses was requisitioning a pony I assumed was a mercenary, and yet he laughed with a shrug and a nod.

“Sure, what are you wanting to hear?” He said kindly. This sent the hyperactive goofball into an entirely new fit of indecisiveness as she sprung off of him and bounced about, playing a unique game of ‘the floor is lava’ whilst umming and ahhing.

“Oh what about-no, I heard that last week. How about-No! Silly Mole, too over-done. You could-Eeesh, that’s not a thing you can do without percussion instruments…”

“How about I just riff one off for you?” he offered, to an excited squeal from the filly balancing one-hooved on the bench backrest, and a disgusted look from yours truly.

“Och, if this is a clop thing-”

“Whoa, no!” Private scrambled to his hooves, looking between me and Molasses, waving his hooves frantically, “It’s just poetry. Nothing sexual about it!” I gave him a judging look until I was confident that he was being honest, at which point I let out a long sigh, shaking my head and looking down.

“Poetry? Really? Ugh, now I’m wishing it had been a sex thing…” I grunted, too flustered, unintelligible complaints from Mole and an embarrassed laugh from Private Joke.

“Ignore the Captain, PJ,” she advised haughty, “would you really make up a poem on the spot for me?”

“I’ll do better than that,” he genially replied, “I’ll make up one about you guys, even the grumpy Guardian Griffon.” He provided me another wink and a sniggle, that I could only respond to with a sarcastic fleer. It wasn’t enough to cease and desist his improv waxing, and after checking his PipBuck while advising he was just recording the poem for future performances, he began.

Astonished that he’d come up with a sonnet so fast, I found myself staring at him while my counterpart zealously scurried in and wrapped her limbs around him, bringing him floorwards once more. Suppressing the urge to tell him that I didn’t hate the rhyme, I helped him be free of the cling-on filly.

“Aye, okay, that was…” I twiddled my talon at him in a vaguely appreciative manner, and followed it up with a shrug, “did you just show up to give us a wee poetry sesh, or is there some other reason for you appearin’? Don’t tell me,” I produced a grand smirk, “You missed me! Aww, yer too kind, laddie.”

“Ah ha ha, aye, I did miss you, actually,” he began, assuming my accent accidentally, before clearing his throat to correct himself, “but that’s not why I’m here. Gypsy told me that as soon as the ‘Heart of Gold’ was up and about, we needed to give her some hooves-on training.”

“‘Hooves-on’ training?” Molasses asked as I took a seat beside her, curious about this myself. But more importantly…

“Gypsy? You’ve seen her? Where is she?” I asked, hoping he’d point me in the right direction. He disappointed me with a rise and flop of his shoulders.

“Busy is my best guess. She said she had a lot to do now, she felt bad that she’d already been slacking up to this point.” Mystified by this vague explanation, I pressed him for more. What was so crucial that Gypsy needed to leave her odd jobs up to somepony else? Why couldn’t she come and see me in person? None the less, the more I badgered Joke, the more uncooperative his responses became, until he tapped me on the beak.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about that mare in the whole time I’ve known her, it’s that she knows exactly where to be, exactly when she needs to be there. If she needs us, she can find us.” He waggled his PipBuck in my direction. “Until then, let’s get this little cutie a gun.”

“The whole time you’ve known her?” I scoffed, “you’ve known her a week, I’ve- A gun?” My brain didn’t catch up as quickly as it should have, although Private was pleased that I didn’t continue with my original train of thought.

“A gun?” Mole looked like a bar of chocolate that had been left on a shelf and forgotten for a few months. The stallion in the guard’s barding, which I was increasingly suspecting to be nothing but a disguise, nodded sharply.

“Come on. Lumbah’s got you all set up.” Without further ado, PJ turned and led us back through another alley.

The journey had not soothed Molasses Candy's timidness about her next task into the sewers of, what Private Joke affectionately called, the Under Stable. Firstly, he had to spend nearly an hour convincing my adorable filly friend that she could walk through the secret wall into the back passageway without anything awful happening to her. I even had to do several journeys through it myself, then guide her in under my wing, before we were able to move on. Every step, every sound, every movement, had the mare on edge, but I could forgive her for this. She’d not been acclimatized to nastiness the way I had.

The underneath of the Stable did not bear the dignity nor the sophistication of the upper deck and beyond. In fact, I’d seen damaged and pillaged Stables with nicer squalors than this. Pipes ran back and forth, some leaking, some broken completely. In one such case, I saw a note scrawled on it advising, “to be fixed; found-” and a date, which put it back two years ago. I tutted and rose my eyebrow at PJ, giving him a lecture about good settlement management. He agreed and humbly suggested he’d ensure somepony would be sent soon to fix the job.

We followed the wide metal tunnels along a grated concourse that hovered over the streams of sewage water. Every few yards, we passed big circular plates on the walls, with the StableTec logos adorned on them and lettering, proclaiming this to be the “STABLETEC GUTTERING NETWORK,” fancy-schmancy way of saying a literal shit-hole. The stench caused Mole to gag twice and struggle over the side at least once. I was thankful that the wastelands had places that smelled worse, although admittedly not by much.

“How doesn’t this reach the Stable above?” I asked at one point as we passed under a drain that led to one of the streets above.

“Smell spells,” Private started simply, before expanding, “they’re all over, masking the places that could stink like an ogre's armpit and instead of letting you smell something good. In some places, they’ve even made money from it. You go past the bakery and try not smelling fresh bread, or fresh coffee by the cafes…”

“Wow,” I huffed, “is anything in this wee place real?” but then I realized I was saying this in front of Molasses. “I mean, really, really uncool, because so far this Stable, och, it’s too cool for school.” The mare gave me an odd look, but then flip-flopped her ears and kept trotting with us. She was still on edge, and I made sure to land and comfort her with a wing until we reached our destination.

Thankfully, the room Private was leading us into was a fair walk from the sullied streams. Before we walked through the doorway, he paused and looked at a pile of trash in the corner.

“You see that spot right there? Once saw a rat pick up a full bottle of Sparkle Cola, right there. Drank from it, two paws and everything. Crazy, right?” He laughed spritish-like to himself and tapped his hoof on the wood before he stepped on through the door. Mole and I shrugged to one another, but we stepped through the door regardless.

Big Lum was waiting for us, stood at the head of a pop up shooting range, made especially for us. A wall of sandbags was built to be stood behind, while there were already targets at various lengths of the room to be aimed and shot at, blank-faced so as not to freak the mare out on her first day with a weapon. I still argued over that, walking over to Lumbah and whispering to him.

“This is a good idea, but if she doesn't know now that she might have to shoot at something without three circles for a coupon, will this just be another kiddie’s game for her?”

“Hello to you too, Crow,” he grunted irritatedly at me, and I found myself apologizing to him.

“Och, sorry, Lum, how are ye?”

“Grouchy,” he replied, “little hungry. Left shoulder’s a wee bit sore…” He found himself with the same problem as Joke when it came to parroting my accent, and he made sure it didn’t become a habit, “I think the filly’s having enough problems picking up a gun, nevermind who she’s going to be shooting it at, don’t you?” He encouraged me to turn around, where Molasses Candy was stood directly in front of the wall, her head bent down to look at the set of guns in front of her.

“I don’t know if I can do this…” I caught her muttering, as Private Joke trotted over to sit and pat her back reassuringly. He went on to explain each weapon they’ve placed on the sandbags, from a 10mm pistol to an IF-9 Shotgun.

“How’d you get these?” I asked nervously, “I thought we couldnae get a hold of any guns without the big bad security chief knowing, on account of them all being bugged. What’s to stop Crusty following us all the way back here?” I glanced back to the exit. There was only the one, and that was usually not my style. Wasteland etiquette included knowing you’ve got a second way out in case the shit hits the fan and splatters you and your friends in excrement, but it was a rule I'd forgotten to follow at the time. I could foresee this Stable turning me soft, and I was hating the feeling.

“I’ve had a bit of time since then to rejig the tracking system,” Big Lum looked incredibly proud of himself, “I can’t get us access to the full inventory yet, but I decommissioned these from the list for ‘faulty reasons’. The revolver? Barrel keeps falling out. Pistol? Loose clip and the IF-9? Infested with mites.” He pointed out the signed off gear, then gave us a very pleased grin. Private followed this up with a fling of his hooves and a cry of, “Tunnel Bugs Rule!” The pair bounced up and crashed chests.

“Ach, you two. Adorable,” I sniggered, yet recalled the primary objective here and positioned myself by the blanching equine staring at the selection of toys she didn’t want to play with. I slipped my wing around her shoulders and embraced her into my side, which seemed to mollify her.

“Why do I have to-? I don’t want to, Captain,” she said, with a voice as though I’d told her to go to bed early. The wing squeezed fervently.

“I know it wasn’t what we expected to be doing today, Fuzzball,” I offered, beak rubbing her cheek, “but it makes sense. Once mole rats find a way into a place, they’ll keep finding a way in. You want to be prepared. Listen, let me give ye a wee bit of an incentive. Get a head-” I paused. A headshot wouldn’t have been the impetus Mole would need to learn to shoot. “Get one in the center of the target, just one, and I’ll take ye to Glad Rags, aye? I’ll even go on every ride you want me to.” She sniffled without tears, rubbed her nose, leafy eyes dew-dropped for me.

“Even the whoopie-swoopy rolly-coaster?” she enquired, foal-like.

“Even that,” I smiled.

“Even what, Captain?” She murmured, grinning.

“Don’t make me say it,” I groaned, rolling my eyes, really not wanting to have to lower myself in front of the gawfawing Tunnel Bugs.

“I don’t know what I’m getting if you don’t say what you’re giving!” She purred playfully, her naiveness shimmering through her nerves. I clucked indignantly.

“I will go on the … ugh. Whoopy… Swoopy… Rolly-coaster with you. Okay, yeh Spaz?” I murmured, crossing my forelegs. Her smile almost burst off of her cheeks, she lifted off with one kick to the ground and was instantly squealing around my waist in joy. I threatened with my eyes to do terrible things to the stallions if they breathed a word of this. They looked away diffidently.

“You ken what you need to do, hen.” I picked up the 10mm with care and turned it around to show her the grip, made for oral use. She took it with a slither of telekinesis and held it away in a manner that suggested it was going to explode if she so much as moved an inch. When it didn’t, she floated it slowly across to her lips and slipped it into her mouth.

“Oh, you don’t need to-“ started PJ, but I stopped him quickly. I believed I knew exactly what the right advice was here.

“Good; you could use your magic but-no, no.” I quickly stopped her from spitting it back out, “you’ve got to have an edge on anything that wants to hurt you. They’ll expect you to use your magic, Mole. So learn how to use your mouth, your hooves, your tail… heck, I think you could even use your ears.” I reached up and rubbed them between my claws, causing her eyes to go doe-like at me. I didn’t tease her for too long, nudging her up to the barrier before the first painted pony target on stretched white paper, hung between the ceiling and floor with poles, nails, and string.

“It’sh heafy,” she grumbled, trying to keep it in her muzzle, nearly losing her grip. I helped her straighten up and accustom herself to the extra weight, talons holding up her shoulders. I tapped the underside of the gun to encourage her to aim it at the target, and briefly caught the broad worry in her eyes. That fear was not of the gun anymore; it was concern that she might fail us, fail me.

“Aim for the head-“ Private started to step in, but I waved him back, tapping my lips with a feather.

“Top target. Squeeze the trigger carefully but don’t-“ BLAM! SQUEAK! Clatter.

Mole had squeezed the trigger too far and sent the bullet ripping past the edge of the paper, nowhere near the center of the target as intended. Startled by the sound, she dropped the gun and cowered, hooves over her ears. I hadn’t considered how loud it would be on her poor radar dishes, so I collected the weapon from the ground and reached out to cuddle her. Hush sounds left my beak, and they soothed the shaken whimpers that she gave.

“I know, loud, aye? Spooked me the same time I had to shoot one, lass. It gets easier.” The three of us were patient with her as we let her acclimatize again. Her jade saucers stared at me.

“H-How did you-?”

“Get used to it?” I asked, thoughtfully, “I got shouted at, a lot. But that’s not how I want you to get used to it, Fussball.” I felt Mole’s lobes try to move at my admission as I stroked them. She rose back up before my forelegs had released her and moved her mouth back towards the gun handle, but I moved it out of her way by just a little bit.

“Are you sure you’re ready, hen?”

“Mhmm…” she smiled anxiously, “for you.” My beak was in jeopardy of giving a beam stronger than even Mole was capable off, and I let the grip slip into her maw.

“This time; squeeze the trigger only seventy percent of the way as I cover your ears, and pull it the rest of the way when I press down on them, lass.” Together, we turned to face her adversary. She rose her gun and looked uneasily along the sights when I told her to, pulled on the lever apprehensively with her tongue.

“Take a deep breath, and hold it,” encouraged Lumbah, as my palms moved over her ears. She took the breath, her cheeks puffing until one of us suggested she swallow the air.

“Don’t lock your neck up, bring it back a little to take the recoil.” I gave her ears a press. Her tongue tugged timidly, enough for me to assume she wasn’t going to take the shot. I looked to PJ for more advice- Blam! Eeee!

I had the lads laughing at the fact my wings sprung out in surprise, but Mole had done superbly; the gun was not dropped this time, and a smoking hole had created a window near to the target’s cheek.

“Not bad,” I chirped, glad the filly hadn’t seen the big bad bitch griffon jump like a pussy. “You okay?”

“My mawff hurds,” she remonstrated, pulling out the puppy eyes for me. Luckily, I was partially immune to that particular attack. Partially. “I don’th likef iff.”

“Just think about the whoopie-loopy rolly-thingy,” I suggested, wheeling her back to her task. Descending my eyes to look just safely enough over her shoulder, I had her adjust her aim, which was sloping down and to the left. I held her jumbo tabs and pushed on them.

“Whooo! Way to go, Candy-Girl!” Private Joke pranced on the spot in celebration as the second blackened circle in the line-pony’s jugular. That wasn’t a head shot, but it would still have been a killing blow. Her head started to come back around, my fore-feet stopped her and encouraged her to face forward.

“You were so wee close that time, let’s go for one more.” Head up a little more, more bracing, less tightening. Pull, breath, hold, tug-

The static baddie had a new spacer in their ear. Down, more to the right.

One through the chin.

“This is a good wee grouping. Now you just have to-” Yet, as I was talking, she was going through the steps without my encouragement. She found the aim, prepared for it with a lungful of oxygen…

The gun crashed on the wet and black stone, but the shock was different this time. In the center of the paper-pony’s painted circle for a face was a perfect smoldering ring, showing the wall behind through it.

“You did it!”

Mole stared at what she’d done. Her jaw gaped, her eyes locked on that little impressive hole, and they remained that way long after we stopped hugging and adulating her.

“Oh my SQUEAKNESS!”

The pair of us should have been exhausted.

After the newly-established sharpshooter got her bearings with one gun, Big Lumbah insisted she became acquainted with the others, in both mouth and magical firing. She didn’t have to spend as long on the others as she had on her first, and she got through learning how to load, maintain and fire each piece relatively quickly.

Following this, he took her through a full S.A.T.S. tutoring, which I also asked to sit in on “to refresh my memory.” There were features I found I hadn’t been aware of during my previous couple of attempts with the system, such as its ability to estimate how much health or strength my target might have left, and even a suggestion of what weapon on my bird-some might have a better chance of wiping out the scumbag coming for me. I might have hated the cuff on my arm at first, but I was finding myself getting more indebted to it as I learned more and more about Bucky and his never-ending box of tricks.

Eventually, Private Joke had one last task for us. He’d located some radroaches in a deeper half of the sewer maze, and he led us there for some live practice. I showed Molasses I few techniques on ducking out of sight and sneaking towards an opponent without being noticed, she proved to be a fast learner. And yet, when it came to shooting the creatures, she hesitated.

The gun shook in her mouth, her eyes stared at the ugly, clicking insect approaching her, it’s thin, banded legs and smooth belly sliding easily through the murky sludge. She was stuck fast, she couldn’t even bring her gun up to face as it grew closer, and closer, and closer…

I took action, blasting away the fluttering, hissing pest as it passed the steps and was a few strides away from Mole. It exploded in grey-green gore and splashed back into the muddy mire.

At the sound, more rose from the muck, and our shots blasted out to meet them. All except for Molasses, who stuck like a statue and stayed that way. Being roaches, it did not take long for us to remove the menace from our midst. As the last one was blown to dust, I removed the weapon from Mole’s mouth, encouraged her to face me and promised that it was all okay, it was over and that she was safe again.

“I let you down, Captain,” she finally mumbled, after we had thanked and bid farewell to our Tunnel Bug friends. A firm exclamation stopped her from facing the music, and I flapped up to land down before her.

“Bullshit-”

“Swear.”

“Bulleggs, then. Big, fat, stinkin’ bulleggs. Ye ken why I’m happy ye didn’t blast that bugs’ ugly fuckin’ face off? D’ye really want to know?” I tilted my head, looking her deep in those viridian windows.

“Sw-”

“Because you recognized they had lives. Aye, their lives then consisted of wanting to suck the wee juices outta yer head, and we’ll look t’ fix that, but you thought about it.” I wriggled my wings uncomfortably, “to a griffon who hasn’t seen that very often, that’s a beautiful thing, darlin’. Jus’ need to remember your life matters too, aye?” I smiled at her, gazing fondly with a warmth encasing my heart.

I had never felt so safe about this feeling before; I’d always expected to lose Periwinkle to the clutches of my mother, even after we’d escaped her, and loving Gypsy was something I knew as a game rigged from the start. Mole was somepony I could call my own, and I was fast feeling myself become vulnerable for her.

Later, I would say that her eyes sparkled at that moment. We were back in the light of the main Stable, perched on a walkway with the mirage of the sun beaming down on us. It caught her in a light I had not seen her wear before, yet it suited her like a radiating ball-gown. Her grass pools rolled from the ground to my line of sight and held it. There was a power to those eyes, they seemed to inflate and draw me in, encourage me to go whether she told me to go and do whatever she told me to do, but how could that be? I was her Captain! I was meant to be in charge of this relationship.

“You, er…” Very few times, I’d been this lost for words. Now, I was struggling to clean the fog from the part of my brain that dealt with the ability to speak. “Oh! That’s right, come on, Spaz. We should head on down to Glad Rags, aye? Ye wanna beat the queue to that loopy-swoopy-shizzle, aye?” I managed to tumble my tongue through the proposition, only to receive a very tiny head-shake and an even tinier voice.

“I don’t want to go to Glad Rags today, Captain,” The impromptu hypnotist informed me, not allowing me to leave her glistening peepers. I blinked and licked the lip of my beak, clicking it a couple of times.

“Okay, that’s fine, hen. Where do ye wannae-”

“Nuh-uh,” for the first time in a while, she hushed me bravely, pressing my beak shut with her hooves. She was closer, and I could feel my heart drumming with anticipation as if it knew what was coming and it wanted to send the signals out to the rest of my body. “What do you want to do?”

It was a dangerous question, but after the day Molasses Candy had, I felt she might have built up an ounce more confidence than she was aware she had. I gulped, I looked about - I had to be careful, there were still ponies walking past, even if they were invisible to Mole’s mesmerizing goggles. I mumbled through my forced shut bill, and she released it so that I could talk.

“The… Bath-house?” I suggested lamely, my feathers growing puffier by the second. She repeated my option with a croon, her eyes starting to grow lidded. She should have been sleepy; she was anything but. “The bath-house, aye. We’re…” I chose my words carefully, once more, “we’re both a little filthy. We both need to … clean up? Besides, I love a nice, hot-”

“The bath-house!” Her eyelids sprang up, her hooves pulled at me and she started with a spring as she hooted back to me, “great idea, Captain! Last one there gets a cupcake in the eye!” I watched her bounce, and while everypony else saw her as an overactive little grasshopper, only I saw her then as a beautiful, bounding deer, springing along the causeway with the promise of leading me to springs of clean water and halls of trees, built by nature. And only I saw the tail flag up to deliberately entice me.

Soul sold to the mare with sugar in the brain, I raced after her, although I can honestly say I deliberately let her win…

Miraculously, the water that was still in the bathtub had a comfortable warmth to it when my built-in curtains rose. The last of us to fall into slumber was also the first to awaken as something sang within the room. It was a jingling message from one of our PipBucks.

“Psst, Mole?” I gave her nude form a few tender nudges with the beak and a very compassionate shake which had her head rock from side to side like a comical foal’s toy. Eventually, she allowed her nearest eye to creep open, and a content smile spread her lips.

“Five more minutes, Captain. I was having the bestest dream…” She turned in the water, reaching for me and snuggling her chin over my suddy chest, which had never been able to decide if it was made of feathers or fur. I stroked her mane and rolled my eyes, giving her ear a sharp nip.

“Owwwie! Heeeeey,” she whined grouchily, snorting horsily as both eyes bleared at me.

“Sorry, spaz, but Mama Crow needs to see what Bucky’s whinging about now.” I pointed to the cuff as it grew close to pulsating itself off of the ledge into the water. With a small “oh,” Molasses stretched out her lasso of power as it tipped, and swung it into the air, gliding it into my waiting claws.

“Thank you, Fuzzball,” I turned her head up to give her a short kiss empowered with fidelity, then logged into my messages to see what was so important, it couldn’t wait until we’d maybe made love one more time and then dried up.

“Oh, no,” Molasses lamented, “I got my bandages wet! I’m going to have to-”

“OH BUCK!” I yelped, sitting up straight.

“What? Swear! What?” whinnied my lover, trying to see the screen for herself.

“Gypsy’s about to do her song for the ascension, and we’re missing it!”

FOOTNOTE: Quest Begun: Lead A Horse To Water...

Quest Completed - Lead A Horse To Water...
Quest Perk added – Lover’s Embrace - You get a +15% experience boost for 8 hours, after sleeping for any amount of time in an unowned bed with Molasses Candy

Quest Begun: All Night Song

Author's Notes:

Want to discuss the story? Follow me to the Scoundrel’s Settlement on Discord...

Song for this chapter; Dizzy - Tommy Roe Because, well, snu snu... FINALLY!!!!

This chapter came to be, mostly because of rewrites. I originally wrote this chapter and the following chapter fifteen as one chapter, with less Mole. However, without this chapter, it felt dark and depressing. Chapter fifteen will be pepped up a little more too, so won't feel as bleak. The intention of the story and where it's going will remain.

Also; FINALLY! Got that Pinkie Sales-pony in, I've wanted to write that for a while. Obvs, she's not REALLY a salespony from StableTec; I've read the story guys.

Thank you to Blazie, and Synesisbassist, who helped me with advice on writing snu snu! Aannnnd not forgetting Doomande, thanks for picking the nits <3.

If this is when you stop reading, goodbye and safe travels.

If you're still strapped in for the ride, see you in the next chapter.

All good things,
Duskhoof