Chapter 10: The Smallest Hope

It was mid-afternoon by the time some sudden jerk in the chariot brought Sparksawake, and her groggy and deadened senses looked around in half lucid confusion as to what was going on. She panned over to Eagle who she could hear curse under his breath, and she rubbed her eyes with a hoof and full body yawn as she stretched ineffectively in the seat's constrictiveness. “Wha-... what’s wrong?”

He groaned near silently as he held a talon to his face and squeezed his upper beak between his eyes. He had a look like he was fighting a yawn. “Nothing, just... ugh, it’s been a while since I slept.”

Sparks stretched again as she sat up in her seat, and she looked about the truck and beyond with lingering groggy eyes. “Well... if you want to we can stop for the night.”

Eagle shook his head and adjusted himself in the driver’s seat, clearing his throat and swallowing as he did. “I’d rather get behind some sturdy walls then sleep. It’d be better to catch shut eye with some form of security; and far away from The Hoof. The faster we can get back to Crystal City the better anyways”

Sparks shook her head trying to shake her sleepiness. She had gotten some sleep, but it wasn’t nearly enough for her to consider waking. She was used to being able to sleep in the comfort of a freshly made bed for at the least eight hours, depending on the day, and by her PipBuck’s measure she had slept for only four hours as the time read four-forty-five. She yawned again, and wondered how fast they had to be in Crystal City; like a foal refusing to get out of bed wanting only the sweet embrace of a soft blanket and pillow. “Well... well how long until we have to be there?”

Eagle sighed as he mentally counted off the days since he last saw Crystal City, and began to speak after a few seconds of placing dates in his head. “The... mayor gave me two months to get to The Hoof and back, and I got to the drop off in... about twenty five days. With this chariot we could be there in less than three, if the terrain or this engine is agreeable. We’d be shaving the time down from two months to twenty eight days. I’d like to put that on my résumé as efficiency.” He held back a yawn again, and gave a half backward glance as he tilted his head to hear the rest of their passengers. “Besides, we have company remember?”

Sparks turned about in her seat to see the two mares behind them as she suddenly remembered they had guests, and with a genuine smile gracing her lips she half yawned as she gave hellos to the rousing Tato and Green. “Good morning... erm, well... afternoon rather... heh.”

Tato was the first to speak in her slightly accented voice, and Sparks could have sworn it was an actual smile on her face, not just one for show as she rubbed a hoof on her forehead. “Hey...” she shifted up to a half sitting lounge in her seat, and she looked about the chariot in a groggy state before her eyes shot wide of a sudden. “Oh, damn... what time is it? Where are we?”

Eagle looked over to Sparks and motioned a talon at her PipBuck as it played the radio station; an instrumental jazz piece strumming away lazily in the background. “Open your map and answer that, would you? I’d like to know that myself.”

She did so, and with a few button pushes with her magic she saw that they had cleared a surprisingly large space of land since noon with The Hoof far behind them. “About... eighty five miles out of Hoofington due northwestish and... it’s four-fifty-eight in the afternoon.”

The answer got a mixture response from Tato and Green, and the latter sat up somewhat straight in the seat and scanned the brown washed terrain beyond the chariot; the Sun’s light still bathing most in bright enough clarity to see. Tato seemed immensely pleased but worried simultaneously and Green merely sighed below their hearing as her eyes wandered. Green was the one who spoke first, but to herself more than anyone. “Out of TheHoof... after all this time...”

Sparks looked at her with a curious expression, and voiced it in her cute, but sleepy voice. “Have you... been there a long time?”

She didn’t look away from the slated windows, but Green nodded her head as she spoke in a strangely coarse voice, but light in tone. “Longer than yah know, Stable girl. Figured I’d be there ‘til I died. Whenever the fuck that was.”

Eagle piped up in a low and level voice without taking his eyes from the road ahead.“The Stingers?”

Green hung her head a touch, but sighed and gave the answer casually to Sparks’ surprise. “Yeah, and for the record I don’t care what happened in that tunnel. You didn’t kill my gang, those fucking Jocks did. Yer just a traveler.”

Eagle didn’t make any physical gesture, but spoke again. “Thought I recognized you back there. Didn’t know quite for certain.”

“Small fucking world I guess then.” Eagle nodded, and said no more beyond a grunt in response.

Sparks’ confused and squinted eyes looked between Green and Eagle, and her ignorance led to pry on the subject. “Wait... the, Stingers? Wasn’t that what that... that pony had said...? Back in th-”

“Don’t remind me kid, What’s in the past is in the past. With luck I can put all that shit behind me.” As Green finished speaking and continued her distant stare beyond the chariot deep in thought as she mouthed silent words to herself.

Eagle met Sparks’ eyes and shook his head without a word and she clammed up, and lost herself in thought. Eventually realization crossed her face when she remembered that big raider recognized Eagle, and she was lowered into sudden ruminations. She had saved a raider... from raiders, and oddly enough she found no reason to regret it looking at Green as she sat there. Tato had a nervous look, and she shared a worried expression with Sparks, however troubled for different reasons.

Sparks wondered if she was worried simply for being in the same chariot with a raider... or ex-raider as it were, and she remembered Eagle had said that farmers were under constant threat of raider attacks. If she was a farmer, then Sparks figured she would be right to worry, even if only a little for her safety.

In light of it though, Sparks looked Green up and down and had trouble separating her from a raider now. The subconscious hate of raiders, and all she experienced of them in the past day alone was enough to shock her system into tumbles of confliction as she tried to see a pony, and not a monster in pony form.

She shook her head from the waking delirium and sighed with a small frown curling her lips as she shelved the idea, wishing to simply listen to the radio as it strummed along. After a few minutes though, Tato spoke up again. “Where are we going, exactly? I’ve... I’ve never been far... around Equestria myself I mean...”

Eagle answered bluntly with a level voice. “Crystal City, a place north of Canterlot if you’re familiar. It’s safe enough as a settlement I suppose, probably the only safe place in the north if you want to split hairs. It’s close to four hundred miles north past Canterlot though, and the only towns with farms nearby are in hard times. Drought supposedly; heard it up near Rambling Rock.”

“Well... that doesn’t sound too fruitful...” Tato said and frowned a touch, as if embarrassed. “All I know is farming. Do... does that town up north, Crystal City... they got farms there?”

Eagle turned to Sparks with an invisible grin, and stifled a chuckle as she turned to him with astonishment in her eyes as he was right on both accounts with them. He nodded and spoke. “They do, the town itself is in an old world ruin, the main body built into an old Hoofball stadium. They’ve got security, high walls, ponies by the dozen, decent trade and, like anyone out here, a need to eat. You could sign on with the croppers.”

She let out a sigh of relief, and nodded. “Good, good... It’d be nice just to get back to a... a simple life.”

Green breathed deeply, which caught both Tato’s and Sparks’ attention, and she spoke flatly. “What other places are around? Any towns that don’t sound so farmish, posh or... well, clean I suppose.”

Eagle answered in a manner mirroring hers, only his voice paused as he thought of a place that would suit her with her assumed history. “Around the Central Wastes you’ve got Manehattan out east but the only place there with ponies is locked up tighter than most places; too posh and clean though as you said. Maybe Fillydelphia if you want another less dangerous, slaver hub version of Hoofington a ways south of Manehattan. There’s also Baltimare, south of Fillydelphia but I haven’t much of a clue what they’re like. There’s alsoDodge City, maybe a day east of us now, you might like it-”

“Last time I was there, it burned me.” Green interrupted, scoffing. “Ain’t gonna trot back to that dump anytime soon.”

“Well,” Eagle started again, frowning “being honest I’m not planning on making huge detours like that anyways; at least two fifty, maybe three hundred miles worth to the coastal cities. If Dodge City isn’t your place you might have better luck further north. There’s a small prewar town near Galloping Gorge called ‘Good Neighbor’; maybe a rough week’s journey west from Crystal City on hoof. Small time gangs infest that area something fierce but... it’s the closest I know to a ‘rub dirt in it’ type of place up there.”

Green chuckled a little, and a small smirk grew on her lips. “Good neighbor got a bar?”

Eagle stifled a chuckle, and nodded. “Yeah, they’ve got a bar.”

“That’s all I need then, a dive to call home. Can you take me close to Crystal City and drop me off near town? I can hoof it from there to Good Neighbor.”

“Can you manage?”

She nodded in response. “Just a week’s trot west as you said right? I’ll figure it out.”

Eagle shrugged and thought of her chances to make it, unarmed and lacking supplies, but it was her life to throw away if she wished. She was from The Hoof besides, and if any Wastelanders had a solid chance of making such a venture naked as she was it would be Hoofington ponies.

Sparks was listening, perhaps subconsciously as she focused on the radio as it played along, plucking away at her heartstrings. It made her eyes droop at times as slow and steady tunes made her mind drift among thoughtless currents, the only nudges to lucidity from the chariot’s rocking and shifts as it crossed the countryside. She shook her head and tried to get comfortable again, yet unsuccessfully to her displeasure, when suddenly her PipBuck’s speaker blared from the standard fare of divine music to the coarse but suave voice of the radio host, who time after time of hearing his overly energetic voice was proudly named ‘DJ Pon3’.

“Good afternoon rollin’ into evenin’ kiddies! This is Dee-Jay Pon Three, with the latest news bursts from around the Equestrian Wastelands! This just in, I have another report from... The terrible and deadly hole called Hoofington! Of all the places to get news that’s different than ‘x’ gang fought ‘y’ gang for miscellaneous reasons and such... I’ll be the first to admit kiddies that this... this is a surprise just as much as the first one earlier this week.”

Sparks’ eyes squinted as the DJ went on his all too common tangents, but her mind posed an equally sudden curiosity about the place they had just left. She locked eyes and ears with the speaker on her PipBuck, and listened intently.

“Turns out that the standard fare for violence was cut short in one such skirmish, much like the one I told you about two days ago. Big fight near the border of The Hoof that got everypony around here nervous? Yeah, that one! Well another one, practically just like it in all accounts... except for the fact one raider army was replaced with no more than two, I repeat, two characters. One griffon and one unicorn, the latter dressed in the all too popular, classy duds hued blue and gold.”

Sparks’ mind seized as if the words were like a giant metaphorical wrench thrown into the gears of her brain's metaphorical engine. She coughed and sat up suddenly, staring at the PipBuck on her foreleg as the DJ went on with the story.

“That’s right kiddies... we had a Stable dweller, along with an admittedly high profile griffon -one ‘Red Eagle’ you kiddies may remember-, go in one side of The Hoof’s northern mountains and out the other with a whole batch of nasties called ‘Jockeys’ dead. If you remember the last report I mentioned, you’ll know the Jockeys all but effortlessly wiped out another gang camped in the underpasses. Well that same gang of butchers got wiped out, as if it were karmic justice!

"How d-... How did two creatures manage to cut their way past a whole gang of those bastards?! I swear, I can’t even begin to make this shit up!”

Green scoffed as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, looking up through the hatch in the chariot’s roof to the machine gun, shaking Sparks from the confusion and shock of the DJ’s words. “Yeah... a big fuckin’ gun is how. Turned their own medicine on the sorry fucks.”

Eagle suppressed a scoff, and silently cursed that even after all this time that DJ Pon3 still remembered him from far older events. That ‘repeat’ he mentioned though worried him above all else however. “Bastard’s got a good fucking memory... Been years since I heard my name on the air.”

Sparks looked at him with clear disbelief etched in her face, and her voice cracked as she nearly shouted her mind’s multitude of questions. “Wait, how did- we just left th- that just happened only a few hours ago!”

“Yeah... the Dee-Jay is strange like that.” Eagle said lowly as he scratched his beak with a talon with a distant, thoughtful stare. “Odd part is the fact his station’s based in Manehattan,Tenpony Tower to be specific. Never been there myself, but the stallion never shut up about it when I used to listen to the radio.”

Green gave a short laugh and whinnied loudly, declaring her own disbelief as the DJ continued on his own tangent in the background. “Never mind the fact that buck seems to know about shit as it happens. Never understood that myself; must be unicorn magic or somethin’ since his reports seem good most of the time." She gave a half laugh as she waved a hoof through the air, shaking her head. "Like now, as it is.”

Tato snickered subtly, and she spoke with a hint of glee in her voice. “Well, I’ll be damned... riding in a chariot -of all things- with a newly made radio celebrity... Two of ‘em actually, would say it’s a pleasure!”

Sparks was too confused with all the new information that slammed into her mind all at once to speak, and gave only bewildered grunts. She screwed her face up trying to understand it, but failing miserably. She thought of any spells that might help a pony know about things in this case, but her own limited repertoire of spells -and knowledge of others- cast a veil of ignorance across her.

Her attempts to understand were especially dashed of course, by the wave of newfound fame of being on a radio airing across The Wasteland. She never had an ounce of special recognition before in her stable, only getting close maybe once or twice, but this? This was a full scale acknowledgement on a signal wide scale that everypony from all across that listened to the radio would hear, and with a sudden blazing blush shooting across her slate cheeks with wide shot eyes she realized her thoughts twice.

Everypony -nay, every creature- would have heard of her, whether it be from the radio directly or from hearsay, and the Stable recluse who spent most of her time buried in books and machines remembered only by a hoofful of ponies was now famous. Perhaps infamously she thought as she trailed to the why.

A whole gang of raiders dead, posed and postured about her hooves as she stood over them, like a blood caked hero of Wastelandic legend, and tears began to form in her eyes. “They will... he makes it sound like I...”

Tato looked around Sparks’ seat as she moved to congratulate her, maybe even shake her hoof if she could, but she saw her trailing tears and her expression turned from ecstatic to concern. “Hey, what’s wrong girl?”

“She doesn’t do violence. Now she’s famous for it.” Eagle said as he sighed, and continued to listen to the broadcast.

“Well... no matter how they managed... thank you two if you’re listening, and keep up the good fight! Should be just a little safer around The Hoof now, and for everypony else in The Wasteland! On to other news though...”

Eagle realized that his earlier comment about people toasting her for what she did being a good thing would indeed happen, and the grim reality of it sank in as he saw another person buried neck deep in confliction about the gratitude they’re showered in from others. The nightly terrors and scars as raw unadulterated brutality plays out from necessity, and creatures from all over thanking them for putting it to the ‘bad guys’ as it were.

It was still a raw nerve for Eagle even after so long, and the pangs of guilt and the old echoing nerve to thank another for walking through Tartarus and back, facing the absolute worst creatures have to offer. Just because they put raiders, or otherwise undesirables, in the dirt; for being killers.

He remembered that night quite clearly like an itchy scar across his mind, when he stared into this small, backwater ramshackle motel’s half destroyed mirror with rivulets of dried blood and gore across his feathers and coat. His face was young then, but his freshly scar crossed face held sullen eyes that betrayed the pain and age of decades as they stared directly into his own. The invisible trembles shot through his body as the reverberations of thanks were repeated by his mind like a silent dirge.

After all his time though, wandering The Wasteland he came to understand that those who would give thanks couldn’t, and sure enough the thanks ended, slowly but surely, leaving him with a cold and empty visage forged by his time.

He coughed, cleared his throat and swallowed, then turned to Sparks as she swam in such confliction felt on a deeper level than he could even understand. He wanted to tell her to turn the radio off, shelve the idea and maybe get some more sleep if she could, but the words hung in his throat as his own memories held his voice in a vice grip.

He grumbled subtly as he held his talon to his eyes again. He felt the hours weigh on him he wondered if he could manage to stay awake at least until they got to the FoalMountains in the north. He looked about beyond the slated windshield and grimaced as he knew visibility was going to get worse by the hour. He didn’t trust his driving skills in near pitch blackness through the open wastes, but loathed to stop for the night; especially since they weren’t exactly being inconspicuous riding this loud and cacophonic machine.

He turned to Sparks and spoke lowly, trying to get her attention without startling her. “Would you see what’s nearby on your map? Going to pull over for the night and make camp. Might as well since I can barely see shit out here.”

She looked up, broken from her disheartened state, but only just as she coughed and wiped her eyes, lifting her PipBuck up to her face and pushed buttons and dials until the map displayed vividly before her. She was stricken again by her wonder and curiosity staring at Equestria’s topographical view in dull greens, but now that wonder was bathed in a small fear of all who had heard of her first real exploit in the world at large beyond her home.

She looked from Hoofington, scrolling past Dodge City, Baltimare, Manehattan -wordlessly pleading DJ Pon3 to stop-, then back across to Canterlot and all the way across the interface to Tall Tale and down to Los Pegasus, and she ignorantly feared of how many ponies within these thousands upon thousands of square miles would be speaking about her ‘heroics’.

Her eyes wet again, and she gave silent sobs, held her forehead with a hoof as she hung her head lowly with tightly shut eyes. It was only until Eagle spoke up again that she held her teary face up from her silent anguish. “Sparks...? What have we got?”

She wiped her eyes again and sniffled, scrolling the screen back to the little green arrow signifying their place in the huge open world around her, filled with listening ears. “We’re... uh, twenty miles westish of ‘Dodge City’ and... and what looks like a small town. About a few miles away or so...”

“Which direction?”

“Southeast... uh, that way...”

She gestured with a hoof behind her, and Eagle gave a silent groan as he turned the lumbering chariot around. “Tell me when the arrows pointing to It.”

He said, and after a few seconds she gestured again directly ahead of them. “There, we’re... heading right for it.”

“Alright... let’s hope no creatures home.”

*** *** ***

The group of them stayed quiet for a majority of the duration as little more than coughs or sniffles were heard between the road’s and chariot’s noises. It was Tato who broke the silence, seeing the ensemble of buildings they were headed for beyond, and she tried to comfort Sparks; albeit ineffectually before Eagle turned around a building and drove in slowly.

“It’ll be alright Sparks, you just... you just gotta take it one day at a time, as my pa always said." Sparks looked at her as she wiped away tears between sniffles, and Tato sighed as she looked deep into her eyes. "Life can... get rough out in The Wastes, downright terrible at times but trust me when I say there’s nothin’ wrong with sticking to what you believe. Keep faith in it, and Goddesses willing you’ll see it through.”

Sparks gave a small and sad smile, and nodding her head weakly she tried to show appreciation of what she was trying to do. She didn’t believe it, perhaps only a little as some large, but smothered part of her tried to hold onto her ideals with a maddened fury as The Wasteland gave her reason to cast them aside.

Green scoffed a chuckle, and turned to Tato in berating amusement. “Shit girl, after what you... well, we... went through in that hole you’re still preachin’ like that? Nothin’ but surviving out here, and you know it farm filly. Live or die; nothin’ between.”

Tato screwed her face up, and sighed ceding her point. “Yeah, and I know most ponies would be gibbering messes after that. There’re ponies out here who don’t break so easy. I’d hate to see... see another pony just... give up.”

Sparks’ eyes froze as she tilted her head, the small smile lost as it turned to sympathy. She felt a desire to ask what she meant, and she did after a pause filled with silence as Eagle parked the chariot and cut the engine. The droning chatter of the engine gone and it left a slight buzz in their ears. “What do you... you mean by ‘another’, Tato?”

Sparks met her eyes, and her somber expression promised tears, but found no purchase as her empty sorrowful stare looked down to her hooves. She sighed, and lifted her head back to her eyes speaking sullenly. “Well... it was my pa, years ago... maybe six or seven of ‘em. The year when we had a bad crop after a... terrible winter rolled through. Half our food reserves were gone, and we never had the caps my pa always dreamed about when ‘prospectin’’ as he called it, so we couldn’t really afford to buy food for ourselves.

"Ma got a fever and, well... pa left to hunker down on his searching, swore he’d find somethin’ that could buy medicine from a local doc, maybe find some medicine even." she sighed again as she met her eyes with Sparks’, a deep pain visible in them. "But before he made it back she had passed away from the fever in her sleep...” She sighed as she looked out the slated window in the chariot’s door.

“And... and it broke my pa. He loved her more than anything, which I... I didn’t mind it, watching the two of them go on the way they did... My pa only lasted for another few months before he got sick himself. Wasn’t too serious either, just a bad cough and... and maybe a low fever but ever since ma passed he lost that... strange sparkle in his eyes. He was always a fun lovin’ go-getter but... he just... gave up.” She sniffled and locked her grieving eyes with Sparks’, who shared in the heart wrenching grief with her. “I... I see that same look in your eyes... Whatever you do Sparks don’t! Don’t you ever lose that sparkle in your eyes. Don’t let this... this, shit hole rob that from you!”

Tato’s outburst as her somber expression turned to a sorrow draped anger shockedSparks slightly, and she bore a frown as her mind fought for dominance between thoughts. Tato and Green seemed to be either half of her mind ponified as the formers’ face demanded to keep her heart battled with the latter’s scoffing broken spirit.

She held her head down in an empty stare, and with a deep sigh some hidden part of her girded against her fracturing, finding the courage to try in Tato’s eyes. A small grin spread across her lips as deep within her she felt as if she owed it to all the ones who had broken to persevere, despite all. Her earlier words with Eagle, about doing her ‘damnedest to try, burns or not’ came back in a slowly building resolve that strengthened her composure, and she spoke in a subtly cracking voice. “O-okay...”

*** *** ***

It was six o’clock in the morning by the time the dawning sun cut through the darkened cloud layer enough for light to bathe the world around their impromptu campsite in a dull, lethargic particle filled glow. Sparks woke from her restless slumber shortly after, woken twice in the night by horrendously vivid terrors that cut through her mind like the flame that once graced the pyre before them; they rendered her sensitive to all intrusions of her sleep.

There, in the small and defensible building, as Eagle had said, tucked away in a corner of the dilapidated, sodden and rotten room with equally decayed furnishings she got up from her crushed, sickeningly squelchy mattress, and brushed off some sweat matted mane from her cheek. She looked about the room with groggy eyes and coughed, breaking the near silence pierced only by the crackling cinders of the ashen pile of burnt, foul smelling garbage and refuse.

Eagle, immediately roused from his own sleep from the noise, half lunged from his own ‘bed’ with his silver gleaming blade at the ready. After a quick scan of the room he found the noise only to be Sparks as she stood shakily to her lethargic limbs, and he sighed a small huff of relief. She looked to him with an apologetic frown, startled by the sudden and frightening spring. “Oh... sorry Eagle... didn’t mean to scare you...”

He grumbled under his breath a hair, sheathed his knife with a similar groggy motion and spoke low and gravelly. “Didn’t mean to keep me up most of the night either I take it...?”

“Oh...! I...”

Eagle just shook his head as she began to apologize, waving a dismissing talon. “Don’t worry about it... Better some sleep than none...” He sat up slightly, stretching out his sleep locked limbs and wings about him as he yawned deeply, and after looking about the room’s dimly lit atmosphere he tilted his head sharply up at her; a sudden awareness in his eyes. “What time is it...?”

She held her PipBuck up to her, and spoke with a yawn of her own. “About... six-fifteen. Why?”

He began to sit up completely, cracked a few vertebrae in his neck with tilts of his head to either side and groaned a response. “We need to get ready to leave... been here too long as it is.” He yawned again deeply and shook his head trying to throw off the waking drowsiness. “Besides, it’s light out. We can get to across the border by... by afternoon. If we’re lucky that is.”

He reached over to his packs laid out beside his bed and opened one, withdrawing a small plastic wrapped bag with worn markings and words on it’s sides. He tore it open the bag and it revealed even smaller plastic packets of several different colors, all uniformly a dull olive or sandy drab. He tore one open taking from it a small, light tan cracker. He held it out toSparks, and spoke with an empty expression. “Breakfast first though.”

She tilted her head slightly, still immersed in waking delirium. She wreathed the cracker in her cyan magic, pulled it to her face and she stared at it turning it this way and that before taking a graceless, but delicate bite from it. She found the stale and brittle food’s flavor -or lack thereof- strangely repulsive as it all but turned to mushy powder in her mouth. “Ugh... how old is this?”

“Probably a century and some change. Prewar rations and all...” He tore another packet open, revealing a mushy, altogether unappetizing brown congealed slop within. He tilted it into his mouth, eating a sizeable amount what the package declared to be ‘potato stew’ and swallowed lazily without a visible reaction in his face.

Even though its taste matched the looks of it, bland and in dire need of seasoning, Eagle had eaten so many of these emergency meal packs before it had become second nature just to simply finish it and not complain. He only wished that more griffon food packs were in Equestria, ones with meat and things he could digest more easily, but he had once mused that loosely termed ‘foodstuffs’ from century old plastic bags and boxes were going to be bad regardless.

Sparks took another bite, albeit with far more reluctance and visible hesitation in her expression as her tongue tried to avoid touched the cracker too much. Without success she took a canteen from her saddlebags and chased the powdery chalk like cracker with water. Eventually she gave up trying to eat the thing, piece by piece, and opted to devour the whole thing at once to get it over with quickly, swallowing more of her water after it as she fought a slight gag in her voice. “Oh buck... that’s... that’s bad.”

Eagle stifled a small chuckle, and picked up another of the sealed packed and tossed it to her. She caught it in her magical grasp and hesitantly read the description on its side. ‘Peanut Butter’ is what it said.

“Just so happens it’s all we’ve got." Eagle tore open another packet, one with 'potato stew', in his talon before looking at the packet more intently. "This stuff’s got a good side though. Packed with enough preservatives to keep it... ‘fresh’, for a long time and nutrients to match three regular meals. As many as they made before the war they’re useful.”

He wolfed down the packet of the stew, and tossed the pack after emptying it of all the chunks he could. Tearing open another one labeled ‘Chocolate Fudge Brownie’ he tore a piece out of the hard as rock cake and ate the crumbling pieces in chunks with an agitated expression. “Even if they’re effectively dog food.”

It took Sparks a few tries to tear open the packet before finding success, and stared at the oddly creamy yet solid sludge like mass of bright sand hued paste inside it. She sniffed it, and found the scent to be... oddly pleasant.

She had never smelled anything like it before, as her Stable had mostly hydroponic based foodstuffs, a small orchard of ‘apples’, and whatever the Enclave shipped to them in crates, which in the end was more of the same. ‘Cloud-crop’ they called it, and it was nearly tasteless and bland to a point where a Stable grown old ear of maize was more appetizing to her in both appearance and taste.

She dared a small dollop of the peanut butter and, upon tasting its strangely overloading flavor a surprised look of shock shot across her face. “Sweet Celestia...”

Eagle shook his head and grinned as he spoke sympathetically, too absorbed with trying to eat the chocolate brick to notice her expression. “Terrible, isn’t it?”

She shot Eagle a befuddled expression, and after turning back to the peanut butter she all but devoured the creamy delight within like a ravenous beast. It was the most pleasant and delicious thing that had ever graced her taste buds.

Ever.

Eagle looked up and watched her destroy the peanut butter pack with a voracious, insatiable tenacity and wore a somewhat shocked expression as he had been surprised for the first time in years. He watched her lick the inside of the wrapper dry as she hunted for any sliver of the peanut butter that remained inside it, going as far as tearing the packet open further to ensure none of it remained within the creases. He shook his head and gave a low and amused chuckle. “Well I’ll be damned... that’s a first.”

She looked up from the two packet halves that floated before her, licked clean of all the seemingly golden substance within as the dull sandy drab colors were inspected in minute detail for more. She had a rapturous grin across her face, eyes wide with pleasure as the aftertaste still clung to her tongue and cheeks, and she spoke ecstatically. “This stuff is... is... great! Great merciful Goddesses please, please, please tell me you have more of this!”

She waved around the sheets of clean plastic about with an energetic glee that Eagle hadn’t seen in practically forever. It set him uneasy at first, but after a quick recollection of his thoughts he was... glad to see it again. Sighing he dug around the scattered packets, searching for another that wouldn’t likely be present.

“Usually these things only have one of those terrible packs.” ‘Luckily’ he silently thanked whoever deigned only one of those vile things for each meal. “We’ve only got... a juice and instant coffee mix, a... cheese paste pack... aaand, nope. No more peanut butter. Sorry kid.”

The look of delight ebbed in her face in disappointment only slightly as she remembered the blissful taste as she wriggled her tongue around her mouth. She moaned, practically sensually with tightly shut eyes. Movement stirred the campsite, and behindSparks spoke the groggy voice of Green. “The fuck you doing kid, riding your clit to nirvana or something?”

Caught unawares she turned about-face and eyed Green’s lumbering form and agitated expression. Eagle spoke up, interrupting the confusion before it began speaking matter of factly. “No, just her trying out ration peanut butter for the first time.”

Green’s expression went from agitation to confusion faster than one could think possible, and her face held fast for a few seconds before she voiced it in blatant disbelief. “Wait... ration peanut butter?”

“Yep.” Was all Eagle said in a blunt manner, and Green screwed her face up trying to understand it as she lifted herself off her mattress with stiff leaden limbs.

“So you mean to tell me you’re getting off that fuckin’ hard on shitty peanut butter?”Sparks’ expression contorted with confusion as to what she referred, then as realization dawned upon her red hot blushes shot across her slate cheeks as Green continued. “I mean, damn girl if that’s what peanut butter does to you I’ll need earplugs for when you find out about chocolate or blueberries!”

A nearly inaudible chuckle came from Tato, followed by a groan of subtly anguished words as she remained curled up on her own sodden mattress with a wide grin. “Or a buckfriend...”

“Alright...” Eagle said aloud, piercing the silence with a frown. “No need to keep digging.”

Sparks tucked her legs close to her body, now immensely aware of what it must have seemed like. She looked at the two halves of the shining clean packet with terrible embarrassment following every thought, and she was interrupted in her withdrawal by Eagle as he dug into his pack again taking another of the ration packs out and holding it out to her. “Here, the three of you need to eat something.”

Sparks took the bag into her magical grasp and pulled it toward her, one that read as a ‘Veggie Burger and Spaghetti’ meal combo. She didn’t know what it was supposed to mean with either term unrecognized, and she tore the bag open to reveal, much like the first; six or seven of those little drab packets lay within.

She spread them out on the floor between her, Tato, and Green, and they perused them looking for any packets that pleased. Tato spoke up as she held one up with her hooves, turning the writing on it to Green. “Can you... read this? I can’t...”

Green looked up after tearing open a packet and eating indiscriminately whatever was within. It looked like flat patty of beige-brown and pale green... matter of sorts that seemed oddly disgusting, and she chewed with slight displeasure as she spoke. “It reads ‘food’, means ‘eat it or I will’.”

Tato rolled her eyes and showed the packet to Sparks, who narrowed her eyes to read the discolored text. “Uh... ‘Spaghetti’?” She tilted her head in confusion as she raised a brow,curious to see what it was supposed to be with Tato matching her expression eyeing the package, yet hesitance edged her words. “Whatever that is...”

She tore the packet open, and recoiled a little to see the mushy mixture of what looked like worms in a red hued, half congealed sauce of sorts. She smiled shakily, the distrust of the food blatant in her eyes, and hoofed it over to Sparks who was boundlessly confused by its form as she stared into the packet with raised brows. “Eehhh... wanna try it?”

Sparks shrugged, as the scent was vaguely like the tomatoes she had eaten before. Those weren’t bad exactly, but she wondered if this was to be another piece of culinary delight like the peanut butter she so fervently consumed. She levitated out a small portion of the noodles and sauce and, with a test taste, was smacked again in the mouth by the intense flavors of vividly extreme tomato sauce unlike any she had tasted that wreathed the mushy pasta. She smacked her lips and, after a short debate, concluded it wasn’t... bad.

By devouring the entire bag’s contents.

“Good grief girl, slow down or you’ll get hiccups like that!” Tato said as she laughed, with small reservations about Sparks’ tastes showing in her smile. Sparks once again licked clean the packet of the seemingly divine food, moaning again as she ate some of the most tasty fare in existence to her.

Eagle stifled a laugh of his own, and merely shook his head as he swallowed down the rest of his own open food and wished he had her taste buds as she seemed to be in heaven eating what was dirt to him. Sparks coughed as she ate too viciously, and after a moment to catch her breath she breathed deeply to ensure she wasn’t choking. “Oh... oh good Goddesses -ahem-... hmm... This, this stuff is great!”

She looked about within the drab packet and licked what remaining sauce was inside it, and after tossing the empty packet she searched about the rest for one labeled ‘peanut butter’ as the rest of the group took mixed pleasure in watching traditional Stable dweller weirdness in action. Eagle and Green shook their heads, with the former wearing a small grin, and Tato laughed with side splitting mirth as she enjoyed a moment of relative normalcy for the first time in weeks.

When she had found one such packet she pressed the mundane thing to her face with boundless affection before tearing it open and deciding to enjoy the contents for far longer than previously. She wanted to take pleasure in the marvelous paste for some time longer with each dollop that graced her.

Eagle stretched out and stood up to his fours after finishing the last of his own meal, and looked about the campsite and into the window beyond. It was early morning of course, close to six thirty perhaps, and with a subtle displeasure of breaking the euphoria he spoke up in his gravelly voice. “Alright ladies, we need to get a move on. Finish eating while I check around. Afterwards we pack up camp and leave. Got a long road ahead of us.”

Sparks watched him as he packed up his bags with a practiced pattern, and as he lifted them up to his body fastening the belts across his chest and harness; adjusting the fit until it was comfortable enough to be passable. He left the room after donning his hat, pulling his revolver out and gaining a wary and calculating stare as he passed the doorframe moving slowly and methodically. Her eyes trailed from Eagle to the mares who followed Eagle's directions, with Tato reluctantly eating the preserved food with sparing bites and Green chewing hers down hastily with absolutely no reservations visible like it might be her last meal.

She looked around the room for a few minutes and sighed, eyeing the filthy beds and peeled wallpaper that left bare most of the water stained drywall and concrete around them. She lost herself in the almost depressing reality she had blissfully forgotten for a time. Tato saw her let out the breath, and an expression of worry grew on her face; voicing it in her lightly accented farmer’s voice. “You alright Sparks?”

She nodded her head slowly, and her eyes returned to the peanut butter pack in her magical grip sighing again as she spoke melancholically. “Yeah, it’s just... I forgot for a moment that we were out here, in the... The Wasteland, for a moment.”

Green coughed a little as she wolfed down the rest of her meal before standing to her fours and shook her head. She spoke bluntly with no hint of compassion in her voice. “Get used to it Stable girl, odds are you’ve got your whole life left out here in the dirt.”

Sparks’ eyes sank to her hooves as she wondered how at all she would try to acclimate to this kind of life, and she gave a short and dull laugh as she lifted her eyes back to Green. “How am I supposed to get used to it? It’s just... a polar opposite really to what I know, what I’ve done all my life... Wake up, go to breakfast, go to wo-” Tato interrupted her before Green could speak again, trying to actually help instead of leaving her high and dry in the wind with nothing to guide her.

“Listen Sparks, I... I don’t know how I’d help you ‘get used to it’, being born out here I guess makes it all we know. So living out here is second nature for us, I can’t imagine how... hectic it seems to a Stable dweller.” She took another nibble from the strange mash in front of her, and visible recoil was etched plainly in her face. She swallowed, wincing and smiled despite it. “In the end, all I can give as advice is take it one hoof at a time. You gotta learn to walk before you can run and all that. Get your bearings, and go from there.”

Green chuckled grimly as she moved around their camp collecting odd scraps of cloth as she seemed to search for something. “Can’t take it too slow kid, The Wastes chews up ponies right fast who aren’t quick learners. Best way to learn how to swim is getting thrown in the water.”

Her eyes seemed to light up when she found a large patch-work quilted blanket of sorts that wasn’t too destroyed by the years and elements, and she threw it over her back like a sort of cloak as she sized it up and seemed to work something out in her mind. She shook her head and cast off the blanket and looked around for anything else of value she could grab, but found nothing and just scoffed and turned to leave the room. Tato shook her head and fixed her with an accusing look. “And if she drowns? Come on Green, try to care a little.”

Green laughed at her words grimly, and shook her head as she passed them. “This isn’t about sympathy farm filly, it’s about survival. If you can’t find food to eat, you starve. If you can’t find water to drink, you die -slow and terrible. If you can’t fight off a group of raiders...” She fixed a cold and merciless stare with Tato who, despite the desire to retort kept her piece. “...You get killed, or worse....”

The jab sent a short shiver through Tato’s body, yet she kept her stalwart and accusing expression as she spoke shakily. “It so happens I wasn’t talking about eating, if you can’t keep sane there’s no point to surviving. A living lunatic is just as bad as a dead sane pony. Sparks here, she’s getting hammered by the cruel and hateful world trying to keep her marbles.”

Before Green could retort, Eagle stepped through the door as he holstered his revolver with a flat and almost annoyed look on his face as he glanced between Tato and Green, then to Sparks as he let out a short sigh. “Chariots fine, no sign of anything else around either. Time to hit the road.”

Tato stood up to her fours after nodding, and Green passed Eagle by as she gave a short huff, cutting the talk from her mind. Sparks however just hung her head again and sighed before she made moves to stand. Eagle watched her sling her saddlebags across her back with her shining cyan magic, and he watched as Tato left the room, eager for a change of scenery by the haste she had.

He shook his head and looked Sparks in the eyes when she moseyed over to the door with a distant stare and a bothered expression, holding the remains of the peanut butter pack in her magic. He spoke low and warmly to her, trying to help get her mind off the conversation he heard in minute detail. “Why don’t you turn on the radio? Could use the music.”

Sparks looked from him to her PipBuck with a certain subconscious wariness. She was worried the DJ would spout more of her exploits again, or other pieces of news that would shake her the way he did yesterday, but in the end a smile grew across her lips as she remembered the blissful music that he played.

She nodded, and with a few button pushes of her magic the sonorous jazz styled music emanated from the device’s speaker. They stood there for a moment, taking in the richly baritone notes and the smooth, low and easy tunes of brass horns, all topped by the familiar suavity of ‘Mic Domino’.

“When somepony loves you, it’s no good unless they love you...”

“Heart and soul”

“Happy to be with you, when you need somepony to cheer you...”

“Heart and soul...”

“Taller than the most alpine peak is, that’s how it’s got to feel...”

“Deeper than the deepest ocean trench is, that’s how deep it goes...”

“If it’s real...”

“When somepony needs you, it’s no good unless they need you...”

“Heart and soul...”

“Through the good or lean times and through all the in-between times...”

“Come what may...”

“Who knows where the road will lead us, only a fool would say...”

“But if you let me love you, it’s absolute I’m gonna love you...”

“Heart and soul...”

“Heart and soul...”

“So if you let me love you, it’s absolute I’m gonna love you...”

“Heart and soul...”

“Heart and soul!”

With the ending crescendo the song ebbed into silence, and the music’s passing left a conflicted feeling in Sparks. The song was... wonderful, to her. Beautiful, even more so than the rest she had heard already after all the songs that had played over the radio, but it left a certain empty feeling in her chest. A wrenching and tugging feeling inside her blossomed from the song, and she couldn’t place the reason.

Before she delved further into her thoughts Eagle sighed as the radio just began to play another song, an instrumental piece of a jazz band, and shook his head speaking tohimself in half grumbles as he turned to leave that Sparks could hear just barely. “Ever since I went there... bad idea...”

She tilted her head slightly before following him out of the room and into the large expanse of the ruined building beyond their camp, and she spoke to him in a whisper. “What do you mean Eagle? What was a bad idea?”

He looked at her with a sudden turn of his head with a surprised expression before he faced back ahead of him. A tense look grew on his features as he realized he said it aloud. “Nothing, it’s... it’s nothing.”

She didn’t press further, despite wanting to as she saw the distant and melancholic stare he wore, but merely followed him past the inner ruins and into the outside air, immersed in a humid yet lukewarm air beyond.

Footnote: Red Eagle level 21

Sparks level 3

Next Chapter: Chapter 11: I'll Fall Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 12 Minutes